We passed 90 yesterday and I think we'll hit it again today. I got up early but other than a brief walk around in the cool of the morning the garden didn't capture my attention. It's Friends of the Library's annual Whale of a book sale this morning. My focus was of course on the CDs. I'm proud to say I kept my obsession below the divorce threshold and still caught a few good finds.
Among the finds is Eric Clapton's - ME and MR JOHNSON https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENbUS87wZys&list=PLVvg4t71YncxcWh5sMpHpBF8OJRMrxVHG which I've stacked up on the stereo with a progression of sorts of Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Blues Brothers, & Blues Traveler.
In June it gets complicated. While walking the dogs this morning I had a bit of a deep gardening discussion with my neighbor Matt. He was watering his raised beds in the front yard and had his young son strapped to his back in a backpack type arrangement. I don't know the term or if one exists so I'll just have to say he looked every bit the Millennial suburban homesteader. He was happy as a clam. Me I was working on a personal crisis of conscience or perhaps just a damned good case of the blues (thus the music?).
Like any passion it's nice to get into a conversation with someone that does more than scratch the surface. We talked about his experiments with cover cropping on a small scale and his theories on keeping a living root in the ground. He's no-till, I'm trying to get there but there are times when I just gotta dig.
In late winter and early spring the soul of a gardener welcomes any bit of green. While your waiting for the sun to warm the soil enough to plant those tomatoes it's hard not to say "sure why not" to some calendula and lupine sprouts. A little row of mustard while I'm waiting for the winter squash to sprout - sure why not. Those tomato seeds that you thought wouldn't sprout so you seeded the pots a little heavy - and they all came up - you could double up with two growing in each pot. If you remember one of the final scenes from Schindler's list, he's lamenting "I could have done more!". Most gardeners I know have a similar dilemma in early spring. The hard hearted among us might be able to stick to the plan and have a neat ordered garden come June. I try, and I honestly don't know who planted those beans right in the middle of the tomatoes. Perhaps I'll see how it goes and call it an experiment 'cause Lord knows I've got tomatoes enough planted everywhere. The difficulty with theories like "keeping a living root in the ground" is it too easily edges over into a thousand 'experiments' and before you know it you're the equivalent of the lady with 32 cats. In June it gets complicated.
My peas are finally flowering and that seems late but a look back in past years shows it's about right. My salads have been a bit boring lately. The lettuce did well with no help from me but other greens, especially spinach, were virtual no grows. Arugula was just the opposite and threatened to crowd out the lupine and calendula! I still have hope for some Pak Choi but it's tiny and starting to bolt so I'll likely have to think of it as a fall item this year. Last year it did great and changed Deb's mind about cabbage in salads. The garlic is chugging along and barring a late hail the nectarine trees look like they'll have a banner year. The story of this last week has to be every bean in the garden popping. Nothing - nothing - boom beans! Their biggest threat is Copper who in chasing off squirrels and rabbits believes sometimes in order to save the beans you have to destroy the beans.
Beans might have been the story of this last week in my garden but in the world of politics it was all comedy, Roseanne Barr & Samantha Bee. I do think each is a deeply messed up person with perhaps more than a touch of a self destructive streak - who also does comedy. I recall hearing a comedian doing a very personal routine about growing up with a clinically diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic mother. It was actually quite funny while making me realize the litany of comedians who stood on stages with a headlock on some personal demon. George Lopez does material about his mother that makes you cringe, laugh - but cringe. Michael Richard's racist tirade on stage might not directly tie back to his father's dying when he was 2. And who knows what 'caused' Bill Cosby to be a serial rapist while haranguing other comedians to not use foul language on stage. The point for me is not the particular pathology of this or that comedian. Comedians stick their fingers in the fresh wounds of a society and twist. For this generation politics is one of the more obvious wounds to poke at. Politics shouldn't be that important a part of life but it is. Beware your heroes! And I still like a good laugh.
This week also I've noticed that Colorado is not a 'purple' state. The TV ads for the primary candidates for Governor have hit the airwaves. There are no soft tones of conciliation there are deep red and deep blue - ain't no purple. Now I'm not a middle of the road kinda guy myself, strong beliefs are good. My Libertarian beliefs aren't about half measures and compromising. To grab the metaphor of roads my beliefs are about making sure the road we're walking down, left, right, or middle is a little country lane not a six lane highway.
My logic is that politicians and leaders are not too far from comedians in twisted pathologies (stages seem to have a draw!). Better we should be very careful in what power over our lives we give such people.
I have to talk about weeding both because I've just been doing some and the metaphor with government is blinding. Or perhaps pulling 10 bazillion little maple tree sprouts will cause your mind to wander till it sees a metaphor.
My maple tree has two habits that make me fantasize about turning it into firewood. It sprouts suckers from the base and up each trunk. It would happily become a giant bush if I didn't regularly snip them off. It's other life plan is to produce little Pinocchio nose seeds in a rather male reproductive strategy. It drops those seeds into the wood chip borders of my front yard and a good spring rain or two causes 'em all to sprout. Now most of them would never grow more than an inch or two high but I'm barely exaggerating when I say 10 bazillion. Left, some of them will grow and throw down a deep root. At that point the survivors are impossible to pull and have to be snipped down multiple times to finally get the message. As Deb would rather turn me into firewood than the tree, I've decided over the years the easiest route is to pluck 'em while they are small.
I've been to a few great gardens in my life. If you have a botanic garden near you it's always an inspirational trip. On my last visit to Denver's Botanic Garden my little brain clicked on a truth - maintenance. There next to a spectacular bed highlighting some decorative peppers sat a fellow weeding. Not thinking I asked him about the peppers. The response wasn't the response of the 'weeding guy' but the response of a guy who 'knew' peppers. I realized heck, he probably had a PhD in biology and perhaps a minor in landscape design.
It's not just botanic gardens that understand maintenance. If you've ever been on vacation to an upscale resort in what our President correctly called some shithole country. You've probably driven or been driven to the resort along a road that resembles a botanic garden. Your mind probably even slumped into a happy thought of 'my what a beautiful country'. The gardener might not have the PhD or the paycheck but he knows how to pull a weed.
The history of agriculture is the history of dealing with weeds. Plows, Hoes, cover cropping, no till mulching with straw of Ruth Stout or Back to Eden deep mulching with wood chips, heck even the poisons like Round -Up or GMOs, it's all about weeds.
Now for the metaphor. Most politicians and leaders find great pride in snipping the ribbon at some new something or seeing their name on a plaque. If there is a campaign the incumbent will talk about the new things they did and the challenger will talk about the new things they are going to do (while having some 'independent' group mention the other one is evil because they believe in x). But really most quality of life comes from maintenance. Yet, did you ever vote for a candidate 'cause the roads were just fine. Imagine a highway with light traffic, no potholes, maintenance that was virtually invisible, guardrails that looked pristine, no weeds - heck maybe even some flowers, no graffiti. You might think that would earn your vote but even great maintenance is simply looked upon as a given. I mean I'd vote for him but I can't agree with his policy on x.
A very few governments do the basics well enough to earn a C-, and if we're not grading on a curve the A students are truly rare. Our local TV station is holding fundraisers to get police body armor. If you think policing is a basic government function you would figure equipping officers would be, well basic - but... When my City of Lakewood was started the police were expected to wear a sports jacket. Naiveté, different times, perhaps but to earn an A in life you have to try to go beyond pulling weeds. The 1st time I saw the TV show COPS it was an episode on our near neighbor and suburb Aurora. Yeah now there's proof your government has earned a failing grade.
The difficult part of being a Libertarian is that at any level of government I do see basic functions - that, I do expect. I'd also like to see excellence - true A levels of fulfilling those basic functions. But if I point out the failing on the basics I'm inevitable told "Ah that costs more". I think it costs more because the money I already 'gave' was spent on other things I don't want. Perhaps if I saw true A level providing of basics I might trust adding to what responsibilities a government could be trusted with. But I'm a realist and I'm expecting I'll be a small government guy for sometime.
Gotta go time to get back to weeding and hoping for that gentleman's C from my neighbors judging my yard. Doug a.
Among the finds is Eric Clapton's - ME and MR JOHNSON https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENbUS87wZys&list=PLVvg4t71YncxcWh5sMpHpBF8OJRMrxVHG which I've stacked up on the stereo with a progression of sorts of Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Blues Brothers, & Blues Traveler.
In June it gets complicated. While walking the dogs this morning I had a bit of a deep gardening discussion with my neighbor Matt. He was watering his raised beds in the front yard and had his young son strapped to his back in a backpack type arrangement. I don't know the term or if one exists so I'll just have to say he looked every bit the Millennial suburban homesteader. He was happy as a clam. Me I was working on a personal crisis of conscience or perhaps just a damned good case of the blues (thus the music?).
Like any passion it's nice to get into a conversation with someone that does more than scratch the surface. We talked about his experiments with cover cropping on a small scale and his theories on keeping a living root in the ground. He's no-till, I'm trying to get there but there are times when I just gotta dig.
In late winter and early spring the soul of a gardener welcomes any bit of green. While your waiting for the sun to warm the soil enough to plant those tomatoes it's hard not to say "sure why not" to some calendula and lupine sprouts. A little row of mustard while I'm waiting for the winter squash to sprout - sure why not. Those tomato seeds that you thought wouldn't sprout so you seeded the pots a little heavy - and they all came up - you could double up with two growing in each pot. If you remember one of the final scenes from Schindler's list, he's lamenting "I could have done more!". Most gardeners I know have a similar dilemma in early spring. The hard hearted among us might be able to stick to the plan and have a neat ordered garden come June. I try, and I honestly don't know who planted those beans right in the middle of the tomatoes. Perhaps I'll see how it goes and call it an experiment 'cause Lord knows I've got tomatoes enough planted everywhere. The difficulty with theories like "keeping a living root in the ground" is it too easily edges over into a thousand 'experiments' and before you know it you're the equivalent of the lady with 32 cats. In June it gets complicated.
My peas are finally flowering and that seems late but a look back in past years shows it's about right. My salads have been a bit boring lately. The lettuce did well with no help from me but other greens, especially spinach, were virtual no grows. Arugula was just the opposite and threatened to crowd out the lupine and calendula! I still have hope for some Pak Choi but it's tiny and starting to bolt so I'll likely have to think of it as a fall item this year. Last year it did great and changed Deb's mind about cabbage in salads. The garlic is chugging along and barring a late hail the nectarine trees look like they'll have a banner year. The story of this last week has to be every bean in the garden popping. Nothing - nothing - boom beans! Their biggest threat is Copper who in chasing off squirrels and rabbits believes sometimes in order to save the beans you have to destroy the beans.
Beans might have been the story of this last week in my garden but in the world of politics it was all comedy, Roseanne Barr & Samantha Bee. I do think each is a deeply messed up person with perhaps more than a touch of a self destructive streak - who also does comedy. I recall hearing a comedian doing a very personal routine about growing up with a clinically diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic mother. It was actually quite funny while making me realize the litany of comedians who stood on stages with a headlock on some personal demon. George Lopez does material about his mother that makes you cringe, laugh - but cringe. Michael Richard's racist tirade on stage might not directly tie back to his father's dying when he was 2. And who knows what 'caused' Bill Cosby to be a serial rapist while haranguing other comedians to not use foul language on stage. The point for me is not the particular pathology of this or that comedian. Comedians stick their fingers in the fresh wounds of a society and twist. For this generation politics is one of the more obvious wounds to poke at. Politics shouldn't be that important a part of life but it is. Beware your heroes! And I still like a good laugh.
This week also I've noticed that Colorado is not a 'purple' state. The TV ads for the primary candidates for Governor have hit the airwaves. There are no soft tones of conciliation there are deep red and deep blue - ain't no purple. Now I'm not a middle of the road kinda guy myself, strong beliefs are good. My Libertarian beliefs aren't about half measures and compromising. To grab the metaphor of roads my beliefs are about making sure the road we're walking down, left, right, or middle is a little country lane not a six lane highway.
My logic is that politicians and leaders are not too far from comedians in twisted pathologies (stages seem to have a draw!). Better we should be very careful in what power over our lives we give such people.
I have to talk about weeding both because I've just been doing some and the metaphor with government is blinding. Or perhaps pulling 10 bazillion little maple tree sprouts will cause your mind to wander till it sees a metaphor.
My maple tree has two habits that make me fantasize about turning it into firewood. It sprouts suckers from the base and up each trunk. It would happily become a giant bush if I didn't regularly snip them off. It's other life plan is to produce little Pinocchio nose seeds in a rather male reproductive strategy. It drops those seeds into the wood chip borders of my front yard and a good spring rain or two causes 'em all to sprout. Now most of them would never grow more than an inch or two high but I'm barely exaggerating when I say 10 bazillion. Left, some of them will grow and throw down a deep root. At that point the survivors are impossible to pull and have to be snipped down multiple times to finally get the message. As Deb would rather turn me into firewood than the tree, I've decided over the years the easiest route is to pluck 'em while they are small.
I've been to a few great gardens in my life. If you have a botanic garden near you it's always an inspirational trip. On my last visit to Denver's Botanic Garden my little brain clicked on a truth - maintenance. There next to a spectacular bed highlighting some decorative peppers sat a fellow weeding. Not thinking I asked him about the peppers. The response wasn't the response of the 'weeding guy' but the response of a guy who 'knew' peppers. I realized heck, he probably had a PhD in biology and perhaps a minor in landscape design.
It's not just botanic gardens that understand maintenance. If you've ever been on vacation to an upscale resort in what our President correctly called some shithole country. You've probably driven or been driven to the resort along a road that resembles a botanic garden. Your mind probably even slumped into a happy thought of 'my what a beautiful country'. The gardener might not have the PhD or the paycheck but he knows how to pull a weed.
The history of agriculture is the history of dealing with weeds. Plows, Hoes, cover cropping, no till mulching with straw of Ruth Stout or Back to Eden deep mulching with wood chips, heck even the poisons like Round -Up or GMOs, it's all about weeds.
Now for the metaphor. Most politicians and leaders find great pride in snipping the ribbon at some new something or seeing their name on a plaque. If there is a campaign the incumbent will talk about the new things they did and the challenger will talk about the new things they are going to do (while having some 'independent' group mention the other one is evil because they believe in x). But really most quality of life comes from maintenance. Yet, did you ever vote for a candidate 'cause the roads were just fine. Imagine a highway with light traffic, no potholes, maintenance that was virtually invisible, guardrails that looked pristine, no weeds - heck maybe even some flowers, no graffiti. You might think that would earn your vote but even great maintenance is simply looked upon as a given. I mean I'd vote for him but I can't agree with his policy on x.
A very few governments do the basics well enough to earn a C-, and if we're not grading on a curve the A students are truly rare. Our local TV station is holding fundraisers to get police body armor. If you think policing is a basic government function you would figure equipping officers would be, well basic - but... When my City of Lakewood was started the police were expected to wear a sports jacket. Naiveté, different times, perhaps but to earn an A in life you have to try to go beyond pulling weeds. The 1st time I saw the TV show COPS it was an episode on our near neighbor and suburb Aurora. Yeah now there's proof your government has earned a failing grade.
The difficult part of being a Libertarian is that at any level of government I do see basic functions - that, I do expect. I'd also like to see excellence - true A levels of fulfilling those basic functions. But if I point out the failing on the basics I'm inevitable told "Ah that costs more". I think it costs more because the money I already 'gave' was spent on other things I don't want. Perhaps if I saw true A level providing of basics I might trust adding to what responsibilities a government could be trusted with. But I'm a realist and I'm expecting I'll be a small government guy for sometime.
Gotta go time to get back to weeding and hoping for that gentleman's C from my neighbors judging my yard. Doug a.
* Moore is in deference to Mary Tyler Moore. On one of her show's episodes Ted had heard there was extra money in the budget and was trying to convince Lou that it should go to him/Ted. Sorry no YouTube link I looked but ya get what ya pay for;~) Doug A.
ReplyDeleteI classify myself a Libertarian, but I have some strong socialist views here and there. One of them is road infrastructure. Having driven the Autobahns of Germany a couple of different times, and having lived in Germany for a couple of years, I have this strong interest in comparing the virtues of small government with the virtues of socialistic governments. Germany, at least, does Socialism very well in many things. In fact, it does a lot of socialistic things MUCH better than capitalistic (verging on fascistic) USA. And one of those things is roads. Roads (except for the cobblestone ones) are glass-smooth. Never a pot hole. The unlimited speeds of the Autobahn are possible because of that glass-smooth surface. Not here is USA - roads that are quite new and still pot hole-free are still quite bumpy, especially over bridge abutments and intersections. Paint striping is yet another story. Very deficient in USA, yet very bold and easily seen in Germany. I had a great discussion about this with a retired UDOT engineer (Utah Dept of Transportation). He enlightened me on the difference between American roads and German roads. His experience was thus: American roads are built by awarding the contract to the lowest bidder. Therefore we get the lowest quality roads that deteriorate in short order, needing on-going maintenance shortly after construction. But the only winner was the politician who proclaims that HE built the road with the least amount of taxpayer funding. But the taxpayers, in the end of the road's ten year life span have paid for the road three times over due to the on-going maintenance and decreased life of the suspensions of their cars and wear on their tires. My engineer friend claims the cheapest way to build a ten year (heck, even a 20 year) road is to build it to the highest standard in the beginning thus decreasing maintenance costs and increasing the usable life of the road. He claims this is the way the German engineers operate, and he claims the German infrastructure is the standard against which all other roads are judged upon. So, a social system of providing the little people with their humble cars the very best roads is actually the cheapest, cheaper than our "free-market capitalism."
ReplyDeleteA likeness to gardens is here appropriate - time and money invested in better hoes, tillers, mulches, and correct bed preparations pays off with easier and less maintenance in the long run. Heck, that investment before-hand will not only equate and pay off later in easier maintenance, it will pay off with better yield and better taste! It will most likely equate to better health in the long run.
So, you gotta love Libertarians, because I classify myself as one. But, politically, you gotta love the diversity and recognize that there is no one correct political aversion. There are some bad ones, though!
My two cents.
Kelly you are brilliant as always!
Delete