to the "girl" who left an unsigned comment
Haloscan let me know that you left a comment on an old post (which I can't locate), asking me to delete all of your previous comments. You didn't leave an email address or a name. In your comment, you said that when you Google your name, your old comments come up, and you'd like me to delete them. Without knowing how to contact you for more specifics, and without knowing your name so that I can Google it, I can't do what you request.
On the other hand, if you click on the first words of my sidebar and scroll all the way down to what is my "about" info, you will find my email address. Email me and give me your name so that I can Google it and find your comments as well. Then, I will be happy to delete them.
Sorry, ol' "girl."
Categories:
"where have all the leaders gone?"
Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, "Stay the course."
Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I'll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out!
So begins the first chapter in legendary leader Lee Iococca's just-published book Where Have All the Leaders Gone?
A good deal of the chapter is devoted to his "Nine Cs of Leadership." My four and a half year old grandson has more of those Characteristics than any of our government's current leaders.
But when you look around, you've got to ask: "Where have all the leaders gone?" Where are the curious, creative communicators? Where are the people of character, courage, conviction, competence, and common sense? I may be a sucker for alliteration, but I think you get the point.
The end of the chapter is Iococca's calling for action He says:
I'm trying to light a fire. I'm speaking out because I have hope. I believe in America. In my lifetime I've had the privilege of living through some of America's greatest moments. I've also experienced some of our worst crises—the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean War, the Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam War, the 1970s oil crisis, and the struggles of recent years culminating with 9/11. If I've learned one thing, it's this: You don't get anywhere by standing on the sidelines waiting for somebody else to take action. Whether it's building a better car or building a better future for our children, we all have a role to play. That's the challenge I'm raising in this book. It's a call to action for people who, like me, believe in America. It's not too late, but it's getting pretty close. So let's shake off the horseshit and go to work. Let's tell 'em all we've had enough.
Even if you don't read the whole book, be sure to read this chapter.
Categories:
it's impeach day
IMPEACH
Cheney
Categories:
tomorrow is IMPEACH Day
Promoted at http://www.a28.org/, a movement will officially begin on April 28 (and extend all summer) to support Kucinich's efforts to impeach Cheney. From that site:
George Bush and Dick Cheney have lied the nation into a war of aggression, are spying in open violation of the law, and have sanctioned the use of torture. These are high crimes and misdemeanors that demand accountability. Since Congress doesn't seem to get it, on April 28 Americans from Miami, Florida to North Pole, Alaska are going to spell it out for them: IMPEACH!
So, on April 28, tomorrow, people all over the country will be spelling out the word "IMPEACH" in some very creative ways.
It can be as small as writing IMPEACH on the sidewalk in chalk or as large as organizing 2,000 people on a beach to make a human mural. Be creative! Some of the ways that people are talking about spelling it out include: signs, gigantic lasers, toy soldiers, stencils, LED throwies, freewayblogging, banner drops, light projections, t-shirts, rocks, skydivers, skywriters, peaches, christmas lights, flags and balloons.
There are more than 100 actions and events planned across the country. Me? I'll act right here.
Thanks to r@d@r at ex-liontamer for pointing me to the A28 site.
Categories:
presidential material
The most interesting thing for me about the Democratic debate among presidential contenders was how their personalities shaped their responses to the material.
It was obvious what strong and assertive personalities both Obama and Hillary are. They also are well-trained politicians, careful not to go too far over on one side or the other.
Gravel from Alaska, the gadfly, played a great counterpoint to the careful balance-beaming of the aforementioned two. He obviously is not a serious contender, but he spoke brazen truths that others are afraid to voice.
Biden, with his silver hair and elder-attractive features is a slick politician as well. He just looks so approachable, kindly, like someone's educated and wordly grandfather. You kind of want to believe that he probably knows best.
I like Edwards, but I don't think he came across as well as some of the others. And I got pretty tired of Richardson's numbering every point he tried to make.
So, it was Kucinich who impressed me the most. He seemed the most human, the most humane, the most able to address the complexities of the various big pictures. I think he'd stand a better chance if he looked more like Biden.
Categories:
green teatime 1
I drink a lot of green tea, flavored and unflavored, caffeinated and non.
The following is from the side of my Celestrial Seasonings Honey Lemon Ginseng green tea box:
I have often thought the best way to define a man's character would be to seek out the particular mental or moral attitude in which, when it comes upon him, he felt himself most deeply and intensely active and alive. At such moment there is a voice inside which speaks and says: "This is the real me." -- William James
I used to have many moments like that when I was active and alive. At least I'm sure I did -- doing a racy Salsa, putting the finishing touches on a poem, sitting on the porch of a vacation rental with my women friends. But these are things I don't do anymore. That's what full-time caregiving of a demanding, narcissistic parent does: robs you of the real you.
"Deeply and instensely active and alive." I wonder if I will live long enough to be that again.
I did spend today planting flowers in between my mother's calls for attention. Mother Earth vs earth mother. No wonder I no longer hear that voice inside me.
Categories:
sprung
yes it has, although not one single robin. but the parking lot at the greenhouse was packed today, and the roadways were peppered with cute young guys in baseball caps and convertibles with the tops down. of course, my tree-pollinated sneezes have begun, and three more squirrels are eating what's left of my budding bulbs. or maybe three of the ones we caught and let loose three miles down the road came back. it's hard to tell. all those squirrels look alike. at least all of ours seem to.
"I wish I had a friend," she said yesterday. Today she said, "I want to go to heaven."
I try to sit and talk with her, as a friend would. But she can no longer carry on a conversation. Each of her sentences ends before she gets to the object of the verb.
I wish I could get sprung.
Categories:
Bill Clinton on Supreme Court anti-choice ruling
In a 5-to-4 decision announ-ced Wednesday, the high court upheld the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. The move comes nearly seven years after the Supreme Court declared a similar Nebraska law unconstitutional because it lacked an exception to protect a woman's health.
On Larry King Live tonight, ex-pres Bill Clinton offered some excellent observations on the issue and recalled his vetoing the same bill for good reasons. The following is verbatim from the interview transcript:
KING: The Supreme Court has said partial-birth abortion is wrong. The woman will not be blamed, but the doctor can get up to two years.
Thoughts?
B. CLINTON: Well, you know, I vetoed that bill twice. And I think it's a great victory for the political strategy of the anti- abortion movement. But I do not believe it's a pro-life decision.
KING: No?
B. CLINTON: I do not. Not a pro-life decision, because, let me remind you, when I vetoed that bill, I had standing in the White House with me an Evangelical Christian who had had the procedure who was pro-life, an Orthodox Jew who had had the provision who was pro-life, and another Christian who had been pro-choice.
All three women and their husbands and physicians -- but two of the three who had had the provision were pro-life. They did it because their children were -- I mean, their unborn children were severely hydrocephalic. They were certain to die either before, during or immediately after childbirth. And the doctors told them that if they did not reduce the size of these babies' heads -- which were swollen very high, very large -- that delivering them, even by cesarean section, might so damage the women that they might not be able to bear other children.
And they told me that they would otherwise never want to use this procedure, that no one would want to do this unless there was some medical necessity for it.
But it sounded gruesome. You could use -- you can label it and no one ever knew the facts. It was a perfect political strategy.
Who can be for partial-birth abortion?
It's a great line.
But the truth is, the doctors who did it and the women who agreed to have it -- as I said, I talked to two of them who were pro-life, anti-abortion. They did it because they thought it was a pro-life position. They thought it was the only way they could go on and have further children.
KING: So you don't see "Roe v. Wade" in danger?
B. CLINTON: No, I do think it's in danger. But all I'm saying is I don't believe that this was a victory for the pro-life forces. I think -- you know, I think abortion is a difficult decision. I agree with the "Roe v. Wade" decision because I don't think we ought to criminalize this. I think it's somewhat hypocritical, frankly, to make the doctors criminals and leave the mothers off.
KING: It's two parts to the crime.
B. CLINTON: You can't go around saying, well, this is killing and then you have an essential accomplice here, the mother. The mother can't do this -- I mean, the doc can't do it without the mother. But we're not going to charge them, we're only going to charge the doctor.
So they know how hard this is. This is -- but as a political strategy for the anti-abortion movement, it's a great triumph. And they do -- they have put "Roe vote. Wade" at risk. I just don't agree with the decision. And I don't think it's pro-life.
I think that the -- I vetoed those bills because I thought that if they passed it would make it harder for women with problem pregnancies to have other children.
The Fundies continue to impose their will on the rest of us, moving us closer and closer to a theocracy. All we can hope is that whoever is elected our next president will insist on following the intent of our Constitutional Democracy.
Categories:
where there are mountains...
....there are valleys. And often there's also a river.
There's one bridge across the Wallkill River that I can cross to get into town. The road to that bridge is still closed because of flooding. Of course, it's nowhere near as bad as other parts of New York State..
This is the first week since I started that I won't have done my three weekly sessions at Curves. And I needed to get to Rite Aid to pick up a prescription. So,, today I decided to drive all around in a circle to get to a bridge that was not closed and take care of all of those things. I put more than 40 milies on my car for a trip that usually is less than ten.
I shouldn't complain. There's a definite advantage to living on higher ground.
There are also advantages to living on a higher plain; unfortunately, our current government leaders have no idea where that is.
As I continue to find out about Cho, his background, and his frustrations, I can only believe that there are more balancing-on-the-edge young people out there in this counry. After all:
....the social gap in America has widened in the past decade. By 2005 the top one-tenth of 1 percent of the US population earned nearly as much income as the bottom 150 million Americans. Those 300,000 wealthy individuals each received 440 times as much income as the average person in the poorest half of the population, nearly doubling the divide from 1980. The rich lord it over everyone else, piling up fortunes that come directly at the expense of wide layers of working people. Society is divided starkly into “winners” and “losers.” For the latter, the future is bleak.
[snip]
More generally, the past twenty-five years have witnessed a sharp lurch to the right by the American political and media establishment, driven by its relative economic decline, and an accompanying coarsening and degeneration of the social atmosphere. Brutality in language and action is now the preferred policy of the powers that be.
The proliferation of violence, the continuous appeals to fear, the incitement of paranoia—all of this has consequences, it creates a certain type of climate. American society has for so long tried to cover up or ignore its most pressing problems. What are the official responses? Punishment first, then the invocation of the deity. The suppression of contradictions, however, doesn’t make them disappear.
The culture as a whole has suffered. Without giving any ground to the right-wing morality police, the prevalence of video games, popular music and films that celebrate rape and killing can hardly be taken as a sign of social well-being. Every effort has been made to atomize people, to render them callous and inured to the suffering of others. Human life has been devalued and often held in contempt.
Clearly, there have been consequences. The ability to kill one’s fellow students methodically in cold blood reveals a terrible level of social anomie. A doctor at Montgomery Regional Hospital, where the injured were treated, commented: “The injuries were amazing. This man was brutal. There wasn’t a shooting victim that didn’t have less than three bullet wounds in him.”
We need economic, social, and moral systems that operate on a higher plain.
Categories:
wrong times
He says they were in the wrong place at the wrong time
The appearance of George W. Bush at the convocation held on the Virginia Tech campus Tuesday afternoon was especially inappropriate. Here is a man who embodies the worst in America, its wealthy and corrupt ruling elite. As governor of Texas, Bush presided over the executions of 152 human beings; as president, he has the blood of thousands of Americans, tens of thousands of Afghans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis on his hands. His administration has made unrelenting violence the foundation of its global policies, justifying assassination, secret imprisonment and torture.
The rest of that piece from the San Francisco Bay Indie Media says it all and puts it all in painfully clear perspective.
For some reason today, I can't help thinking about the parents of the young student who went on that bloody rampage. How do they reconcile the image of that angry, deluded , and troubled young man with their memories of the baby boy they rocked to sleep, the toddler whose hand they held walking down the street, the boy they hugged and held and loved and sent out into a world beset by violence?
I think about my grandson and the America in which he is growing up.
Today there were 6 car bombings in Baghdad; the latest numbers cite 160 killed, at least as many or more wounded.
It seems to me that Bush has purposely placed our American troops in the wrong place at the wrong time. Not a single tactic he's proposed has come near to working, but it's everyone else who's wrong.
Categories:
squirrely
Yes, well, this weather is making us all a little squirrely, but this post is about actual squirrels.
I purposely bought bird feeders that are squirrel proof because any weight more than birds on the feeder closes down the food openings. One of the feeders hangs from a bracket right outside a window.
The squirrels figured out that if they scale the side of the house and crawl up the screen, they can get to the feeder. Of course, they couldn't get to the seeds. With incredible ingenuity, at least one of them figured out that she had to keep her weight off the feeder in order to keep the food accesses open. (I really don't know if it was a "she" but I'm choosing to call it that.) So, she hooked the claws of her back legs into the screen, held onto the bracket with one paw, and used the other to scrape out the seeds. When I tapped on the window to scare her, not only did she rip the screen, she peed on the window.
It wasn't bad enough that the squirrels had eaten every budding bulb I planted last fall, but now one has torn the screen. Enough.
My brother has a "have-a-heart" trap, and, so far, he managed to trap four squirrels and take them to a field about three miles from us. To get back here, they'd have to go across several roads, around a small lake, and through some pretty thick woods.
Today, there was one squirrel climbing up the screen again. We don't know if it was one of those he trapped or if there's some kind of weird "hundredth monkey" squirrel thing going on.
Whatever it is, we are not giving up. I told my brother, the next time he catches one, take it to the other side of the mountain and let it loose there. Of course, the world is full of squirrels, and I'm sure others will take their places.
I have tried every spray on the market to keep those critters off my budding plants. Nothing seems to deter them.
Of course, there are deer around as well. Three of them were sauntering across our septic field just this afternoon. I bought some packs of coyote urine that's supposed to keep them away from the garden. We'll see.
I might have to accept the fact that, unless I invest in very expensive fencing, my garden will feed everyone but us all summer.
Categories:
some runcible yarn
See, this is just one more reason why I love the Net, and why blogging keeps me going.
Andrea James of Runcible Spoon is a young woman I met (virtually), more than six years ago, when she lived in the U.S. and posted comments on my son's original weblog (long since defunct). Now she lives in, and recently became a citizen of, Australia. She is also learning how to spin and dye wool.
Andrea knew that I've been contemplating a new http://www.freeformcrochet.com/ project, and I told her I would love to have some hand spun and died yarn to use as a main ingredient. And so she whipped up a skein for me and wrapped it in the label, the image of which is above.
You can see the color of the yarn on her site.
Of course, I can't get going on any new project until I take care of the dozens of sprouting seedlings that are going to need a better home until this blustery Northeast weather calms down. Feh.
Categories:
I'm a hedonistic existentialist
Sounds like a strange combination to me, but that's how I tested.
I was doing a little blog hopping last night, and I wound up at Deep Thoughts, where there was a link to a test to determine what philosophy you follow. Here are my results:
| You scored as Existentialism. Your life is guided by the concept of Existentialism: You choose the meaning and purpose of your life.
“Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does. It is up to you to give [life] a meaning.” --Jean-Paul Sartre
“It is man's natural sickness to believe that he possesses the Truth.” --Blaise Pascal
More info at Arocoun's Wikipedia User Page...
Existentialism | | 100% | Hedonism | | 65% | Kantianism | | 50% | Justice (Fairness) | | 45% | Utilitarianism | | 45% | Strong Egoism | | 40% | Nihilism | | 5% | Divine Command | | 0% | Apathy | | 0% |
What philosophy do you follow? (v1.03)
created with QuizFarm.com |
What really bothers me is that my sense of justice came out at 45%. Something's wrong here. But then, again, it's all relative.
Categories:
"so it goes"
Kurt Vonnegut has gone.
And, in Vonnegut's honor, b!X posted the best quote of all from God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater:
| Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies -- 'God damn it, you've got to be kind. |
And speaking of having to be kind, not everyone is being unkind to unkind Imus. As I indicated in my previous post, there's a lot more sexism and racism going on around us every day, both in words and deeds.
Personally, I have conflicting opinions about the Imus thing. I don't think he should have been fired. Rather, he should have been put on probation so that he could figure out how to put his wit to work without using words that hurt. Maybe he would have served as a good example of how you don't have to be cruel to be a successful satirist.
Categories:
censorship vs civility
Imus is unplugged by MSNBC. I purposely have never listed to Imus. Or Howard Stern, for that matter. But the truth is, there is worse miscogeny out there in rap music and MTV and in any number of other venues that are based in a destructive culture.
Some bloggers are calling for "rules of conduct" for those who communicate publicy over the Internet. Since its inception, the Internet has been rife with wordy evidences of the worst of human nature. It also carries an awful lot of good stuff along its mind-boggling byways.
While it's coincidental that these two media-shaking occurrences happened at the same time, it shouldn't surprise anyone. There always have been those in the communications media, mainstream and otherwise, who have worked very hard to skirt both censorship and civility.
The challenge has always been to find that free speech place in the middle -- to avoid the suppression that is censorship while also avoiding the repression that shadows civility.
That line, I believe, will always be a fine one.
ADDENDUM: As I post this, I begin watching Countdown, during which NBC President Steve Capus explained why they fired Imus. One point comes out that makes Imus' "abominable" comments so bad. It's one thing to satirize, criticize -- even demonize -- adults who are public and powerful figures involved in politics and other activities with which we disagree. It's another to do those things to unknown young women struggling to get an education and win a basketball game.
Categories:
"who died?"
It wasn't funny. And yet it was. It reminded us of the old "Who's on first?" bit that Abbot and Costello make famous.
She got a phone call from someone she knew back in her home town. It was Janey, calling to see how my mom was doing and to let us know that her husband had died. Their non-sequitur conversation ended with mom handing the phone back to my brother, who explained that my mom was feeling a little disoriented.
And then it began, with mom:
Who died?
Janey's husband.
Who's Janey?
You remember, Mom, She's Uncle John's sister.
Uncle John?
Yes, remember he was married to your sister Susie, and when she died, he married Emma?
Susie died?
Yes, mom, a long time ago. Remember her husband John?
Did he die?
Yes, he died a couple of years ago.
Who died?
Janey's husband.
Who's Janey?
And that went on until my brother and I were laughing so hard that even my mother started giggling.
And so seem to more frequently go the conversations on this mountain -- absurd comedy sketches that make you laugh so that you don't cry.
Categories:
where the hell is spring
That's what my piles of seeded pots are asking as they begin to sprout under my hopeful tending.
I also have a little greenhouse set up next to that mass of pots. With all of the money I spent on seed starter mix, sphagnum moss, grow lights,seed starter pots, seeds, etc. etc., it would have been cheaper to wait and buy decent sized plants from the greenhouse down the road.
I seem always compelled to have new projects starting. That's why my living space looks like it does right now, with various yarns and needles and fabrics and clothes-in-need-of-alteration scattered all over. And then, of course, there are those seedy things.
I've never been this bad, but I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I never have a sustained amount of time to really immerse myself in any one thing. I get these ideas that I begin to implement and then there's my mom needing me.
These days, she has bouts of incoherence; bouts of ice cold hands, nose and feet; bouts of stubborness, of paranoia, of total despair. "I'm dying, I'm dying," she pants. And then she has a bout of seeming just fine.
And I have bouts of despair as well. At least I'm getting out to exercise (even though, I have been told, Curves donates money to the Repubilican Party). The local Curves for Women place is close and do-able for me. OK. So, I'm compromising my integrity -- or at least that what some might say. As far as I'm concerned, I'm just struggling to keep my sanity and my health.
And so I start projects. Like planting more seeds for more growing things than I will ever be able to replant outside. I've warned my daughter that in a month or so, I will arrive bearing budding gifts.
That is if there's ever going to be another spring.
Categories:
a premier elderblogger's birthday
Happy Birthday Ronni
Despite the snow and stitches, I hope that your birthday is warm and relaxing and that you have many more years of making eldgerblogger history. And truly decent margaritas.
Categories:
it's a weird, weird, weird, weird, weird,
weird world.
Word for word from Harper's Weekly. To read all of the words and get the citations, go here.
Michael Jackson was planning to create a fifty-foot-tall robotic replica of himself that would roam the Las Vegas desert while firing laser beams.
In Spearsville, Louisiana, two fifth-graders had sex on a classroom floor during an assembly about murder.
In the Indian state of Gujarat, an unemployed man from Tooting, England, had found new work as Bahucharaji, the patron goddess of eunuchs.
At the Gaza–Egypt border a woman with three baby crocodiles strapped to her waist was detained after guards noticed that she looked “strangely fat."
At least four Palestinians in Gaza were killed by what authorities called a “sewage tsunami.”
Members of a Michigan college fraternity called the police after a woman disrobed and started masturbating in their living room and refused to leave; the fraternity now plans to throw away two sofas.
A 15,000-mile-wide hexagon was seen on Saturn.
A Nepalese teenager believed to be a reincarnation of the Buddha began a three-year meditation in a concrete bunker.
Categories:
dirty is good
At least that's what a new research report says, according to here:
Victims of depression could benefit from a down-to-earth approach ... getting dirty.
Apparently the 'friendly' bacteria in soil can be as uplifting as anti-depressant drugs.
Mice treated with the bacteria appeared more relaxed. It stimulated the immune system and activated brain neurons producing the mood-enhancing chemical seratonin, a study has shown.
One expert said research involving mycobacterium vaccae 'leaves us wondering if we shouldn't all spend more time playing in the dirt'.
No wonder kids love playing in the dirt. No wonder I love to mix potting soil and plant seeds.
This time of year you can start to smell the dirt. Spring mudluscious dirt.
This poem, by Marge Piercy
The Common Living Dirt
Marge Piercy
The small ears prick on the bushes,
furry buds, shoots tender and pale.
The swamp maples blow scarlet.
Color teases the corner of the eye,
delicate gold, chartreuse, crimson,
mauve speckled, just dashed on.
The soil stretches naked. All winter
hidden under the down comforter of snow,
delicious now, rich in the hand
as chocolate cake: the fragrant busy
soil the worm passes through her gut
and the beetle swims in like a lake.
As I kneel to put the seeds in,
careful as stitching, I am in love.
You are the bed we all sleep on.
You are the food we eat, the food
we are, the food we will become.
We are walking trees rooted in you.
You can live thousands of years
undressing in the spring your black
body, your red body, your brown body
penetrated by the rain. Here
is the goddess unveiled,
the earth opening her strong thighs.
Yet you grow exhausted with bearing
too much, too soon, too often, just
as a woman wears through like an old rug.
We have contempt for what we spring
from. Dirt, we say, you’re dirt
as if we were not all your children.
We have lost the simplest gratitude.
We lack the knowledge we sowed ten
thousand years past, that you live
a goddess but mortal, that what we take
must be returned; that the poison we drop
in you will stunt our children’s growth.
Tending a plot of your flesh binds
me as nothing ever could to the seasons,
to the will of the plants, clamorous
in their green tenderness. What
calls louder than the cry of a field
of corn ready, or trees of ripe peaches?
I worship on my knees, laying
the seeds in you, that worship rooted
in need, in hunger, in kinship,
flesh of the planet with my own flesh,
a ritual of compost, a litany of manure.
My garden’s a chapel, but a meadow
gone wild in grass and flower
is a cathedral. How you seethe
with little quick ones, vole, field
mouse, shrew and mole in their thousands,
rabbit and woodchuck. In you rest
the jewels of the genes wrapped in seed.
Power warps because it involves joy
in domination; also because it means
forgetting how we too starve, break,
like a corn stalk in the wind, how we
die like the spinach of drought,
how what slays the vole slays us.
Because you can die of overwork, because
you can die of the fire that melts
rock, because you can die of the poison
that kills the beetle and the slug,
we must come again to worship you
on our knees, the common living dirt.
Categories:
seeding is believing
I know it's early in the season, but there's something in me that needs to plant seeds. Seeds mean hope -- hope for beauty, hope for nourishment, hope for miracles.
During the winter, I ordered dozens of packages of seeds -- flowers I've never seen before, Monkey Flowers, Balloon Flowers, also Chinese Lanterns, exotic lilies....-- and tomatoes and herbs and yellow cauliflower and...
Three days ago, I stayed up late and mixed the seed-starter soil. Over the past two days I spent my mother's nap times planting the seeds in little peat pots. Tonight, they are all warm and moist in the grow-lit confines of a portable greenhouse that I have wedged in a space near my bathroom -- the only space available.
I harvested hundreds of marigold seeds and dozens of decorative hot pepper seeds from last year's plants. When it's warmer, I wiil plant them in pots that can sit indoors under the windows until outdoor planting time.
Today, I noticed that the squirrels had again chewed off the buds from the newly sprouted daffodils. I dumped a whole bottle of cayenne pepper over the ones that had survived. Supposedly squirrels don't like hot peppers. Mixing them in the bird food didn't stop them from getting into the feeders, however.
I did buy packs of coyote urine to keep the deer away. I put one by the budding flowers, but somehow I don't think squirrels are afraid of coyotes.
My tiny lilac bushes that I planted last year have buds. Little miracles.
Every time I look at my grandson, I am struck by that miracle. That little seed that is now growing like a weed.
Oh, I don't believe in miracles in the religious sense. Nature is the miracle.
Of course, now there's the nun who says that the previous Pope should be canonized a saint because praying to him cured her of Parkinson's disease. Her story is compelling. Nature works in mysterious ways.
Seeds. Seeds of thought. Seeds of hope. Seeds of belief.
So much depends upon seeds.
Categories:
Don't put all of your eggs in one basket.
