After spending a fair amount of time writing posts to this little blog during the winter and early spring, I’ve spent the last three months dealing with the realities of gainful employment and weeds. (Someday I’ll do a post that explains the subtle differences between the two.)
Since the seasonal blast of teaching responsibilities isn’t over yet, (and the grass outside is eighteen inches tall), I’ll still have limited time to post over the next two weeks. But I would like to ease back in. I’ve spent the last fifteen minutes realizing that 3500 spammers have ‘visited’ in my absence, and my sitemap has crashed (again). But more importantly, for whatever reason, real people have stopped by my blog. I know. Probably the same reason they slow down at roadside carnage. But, whatever. I’ll try to get back into the habit.
So, tonight, two items. One from the world of politics. The other, a whirlwind summary of March-June here in the country.
After a weekend away, I took a few minutes to check the political wires and came across this item from Pat Buchanan’s sister, a conservative political commentator, who’s generally easier to take than her brother, but who probably has less credentials. However, although I disagree with much of her post, I think that she has a point. John McCain is in large measure irrelevant. This election is all about how people view having Barack Obama as the next President.
As for life in the country. Well, we’re apparently all done with spring. We drove to the coast on Friday, and it was 104 in the shade at 4:00 when my wife ran into a Subway to grab us a late lunch. This evening on the drive home, the van thermometer read 107 at 7:00. At this rate, late July will be unbearable.
The garden is in; with the snow peas and shaded greens just about played out from the heat, but the gourds, okra and beans are coming along. Most of our efforts however, have gone into about fifty tomato plants and fifty pepper plants, most of which looked pretty good this evening. The grapes and blackberries also look pretty good, heading into their second summer, and this spring’s strawberries have held up through the triple digit temps thanks to lots of mulch and water.
Speaking of water, we completely switched over to rainwater for all our water needs. That followed a couple of months where we used the system for garden water, but were still connected to the well for household water. Last weekend I switched over completely, and as a result, all rain has vanished from the forecast for the foreseeable future. No big deal. I figure we’re good for 100 days without any rain…..but I’d just as soon not test that presumption.
As for the chickens, the four new pullets are almost as tall as the older hens and the young cockerel, Reginald (after all, he is a Speckled Sussex…..) is starting to act the part. We’re also letting a broody Australorp set several fertile eggs from a friend’s hens.
Patti has settled in with the family, having earned points for keeping deer from the flowerbeds, and for treeing possums, a coon and a feral cat that routinely causes headaches. She also behaved nicely on her first out-of-town excursion. I credit this to her sterling pedigree (determined thanks to my wife’s insistence that we submit a blood sample from this roadside acquisition in order to determine her parentage), which I’ll detail in a later post - it’ll take a while….
Pictures to come. Time to quit since I do have two lectures to give tomorrow.
Posted on June 8th, 2008 by jack-of-all-thumbs
Filed under: Gardening, Meat, Eggs, etc., Rainwater Collection, Rants and Musings | 1 Comment »