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  The page is blank and staring at me! At two O clock this morning the thoughts were tightly woven into a compelling piece you'da been thrilled to read. Sadly, I chose to not go the route of divorce - waking my wife up to transcribe my brilliance for you. You just can't get good help anymore, one of the tragedies of our times!

 My brother tells me he found the last piece lacking without a musical link. I've got Santana's Abraxas playing softly as, I recall quite distinctly, part of that tightly woven dreampiece was Carlos' mystical sound track. I guess the hope was hearing it would elicit the thoughts if not the brilliance from my night writing. The rhythm is helping at least with the typing - brilliance, well, we'll see. I have incomprehensibly pair Santana with Stan Getz. That makes about as much sense as the ingredients in this mornings breakfast burrito. No indigestion yet but the morning is still young and the page is not yet screaming delete.

It was a mixed year for the garden. I've pulled out the graphic plan of what I planted and planned to plant like most plans it's incomplete when I reflect on what I actually did. It is however a good starting point for planning for next year. If there is a next year, no one is guaranteed tomorrow. The seed catalogs seem to disagree on that point as I'm getting notices and reminders of the "coming soon" variety but sales is a profession of eternal optimism.

 Short segue on salesmen. Joe a natural salesman who has super-added practice and polish tells me I should write a book. 1) he'd have to take it under his wing to get even two copies sold. and B) what the hell would I write it about! The day he last suggested this endevour to me I happened to visit the local library. I stood in awe and shame before titles and titles. Dear God, the cumulative effort and work! All with the humbling knowledge that I was there to use my little plastic library card to read their brilliance for free after walking past stacks and stacks without more than a glace at the title and cover art. I think Joe wants me to be overworked and poor so I quit giving him grief and telling him he needs to put his talents back to work or risk finding his tool is rusted beyond restoration. Heck, I've offered him the honorary position of night scribe for me but he's too proud to share the dog's bed and Deb won't move a little to the right!

 .... but seriously a book! This little blog is titled Small Gardens & Small Government but the world is awash in gardening books and YouTube videos from authors who actually know things. Pontificate on politics, yeah no books in that section of the library collecting dust and I recall something about opinions and a certain body part. Perhaps a work of fiction. I don't read fiction myself but perhaps that is not a prerequisite? Maybe a sci fi thriller with sentient vegetables discussing the politics of the space station with their minion gardener. Dang that could work! '2084 - Machiavelli's Garden' coming soon - preorders available with a small deposit call Joe;~)!

 Getz is on with some nice horn. He's beige or tan to Santanas dark and black. I've walked the dog and the cold morning is giving way to the bright sunshine. I even met a neighbor and chatted a bit about being happy to get back to writing. It might not be the brilliance of last night but the garden is under a thin layer of snow and thus the virginal white at least gives the illusion of hope. Last nights blog was from the zombie apocalypse side of my mind clear and vivid as it was harsh and dark. Each side, hope and worry, is part of me. Mind you not a useful part of me. Stoicism and Buddhism would encourage me to stay in the moment but I think it's OK to take them each out for a little exercise or perhaps that's exorcism. 

 Ah to the garden. It's winter tomatoes from a cardboard box in my office (a dearth of storage space), spinach without that spring tenderness and kindly butternut squash aging to it's late winter sweetness.  Not the growing season but the season of reflection and acceptance and perhaps a bit of early planning. Them seed catalogs is coming after all!

 The potato onions actually, genuinely, no fooling did good. I'll give them a bit more spacing next year on the theory that like goldfish they grow to the environment. I've got some 'just in case' red ones planted out now as they tend to not store well and spring is a long way away. I'm pursuing a few lines of thought to improve their storability. Last year I mostly removed the flower stalk early that may (we'll see!) help with size but not storage. It still left a vestigial stalk which I think is the problem on storage. As the stalk is a hollow tube and allows whatever might begin rot to gain entrance to the center of the bulb. A spring planting tends to not send up a flower stalk at all. So good for the Green Mountain whites which winter over fine but haven't got the size. I'll push for a few large reds to make it till spring. I also noticed while chopping up some pretty reds for dinner a bulb with the stalk not in the center but on the side. I hadn't thought to screen for that before but realized that a hole not into the center of the bulb might help storage. The bulb wasn't a large one but it joined the early planted ones in the winter garden bed, we'll see. As I write this I realize it might be worth allowing a few reds and whites to cross with some hope for seeds showing some strengths from each parent. That however requires space always a tough ask of my small garden. I'll try interplanting the onions next year with mustard greens and broccoli. They should be able to be planted before and after the onions need the space and I'm told they share a bit of help with pests and such. Hopefully the planting of these will be in a more controlled pattern than this year but life do interfere with plans so we'll see.

 The herbs all did great with the exception of cilantro/coriander which continues to humble me. Anise seed was a nice surprise as I've tried for years to grow the bulb and failed miserably. Having a partial package of seeds and no interest in trying yet again I tossed the seeds in a spot out front. Mind you the spot was barely watered shaded by the nectarine tree and essentially just a place to not feel bad about tossing out some seeds. They grew spread and grew some more. While building an arbor for roses to commemorate my father in law Joe the smell from the anise intoxicated me. They'll share the arbor and a jar of the seeds sit in my spice cabinet and spiced the 'meat'balls in last night's spaghetti. The winner in the herbs has to be the sage. The previously planted ones all caught their roots this year and before they did so I added a couple of fresh starts from seed. The growth was enough that I felt comfortable trimming the plants twice. The leaves were dried and fill a medium paper bag which I'm enjoying incorporating into my cooking. It was the stems that made me proud. In the waste not want not vein after plucking the leaves I bundled the stems with some waste garden twine bits and made fire starters. My Mom is right now dosing next to our wood stove started with some of that sage.

 Mom is 97. She likes Irish music so the tunes have changed yet again with the Chieftains adding a bit of green to a winter's day. If the music is leading the thoughts I'm keying this is going to be one confusing buffet.  Only thing I can think to do is jump to the shreds of last nights midnight blog.

 If the hard times, I've long expected, are all but here what makes me think they are somehow going to passover me and mine. I have long thought that both Democrats and Republicans have led us to a tipping point of ever increasing government and the accompanying spending. Spending is always popular, taxing is not thus the solution is to inflate the currency. The particulars and methodology really don't matter. If you have a dollar and I have a cookie that you want we can likely come to a deal. Let's conveniently say at a dollar. If you tear your dollar into two halves and tell me you now have two dollars, oddly, I'm now going to raise my price or break my cookie into two pieces and tell you I also now have two. That is why when I was a child gasoline was 30 cents and is now over 3 bucks. One politician after another has spent more than we were taxed and we the taxed got to not feel the full burden in what we had to produce for what government provided. Bit by bit that dollar bill was nibbled away. The economic zombie apocalypse begins when nobody will sell you a cookie for a wheelbarrow of dollar's now shredded value

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