Good morning, everyone. We had a very nice, if cool, day yesterday. But the mini-greenhouse and the tents are working very nicely. After nearly cooking my seed tray on our 80 degree day I have figured out how to keep the temp in the greenhouse in a more tolerable range and the seedlings seem to like it. The peppers, tomatoes, and bay tree have done very nicely under the tents. We got a hose reel and I managed to put it together. It is doing fairly well but I have to take our hose off and check the o-ring because I had a leak there. As soon as we do that it should work nicely. We could have purchased an already put together reel and saved some frustration, but we saved $15. After I rested a bit, I decided the bother was worth the savings.

Jan Schakowsky has proposed increasing the marginal tax rates on the wealthy. Go, Jan!!! Wish I could vote for her but I don't live in her district (or state).

As the old saying goes "The more things change the more they stay the same."

I guess all that talk about transparency is just talk. I am so glad I have a small local bank that has no ambitions to play with the big boys. They tell us that we, as consumers, have a duty to be informed but they have no reciprocal duty to inform us, even when we ask.

Job Jones has an on point post this morning. How screwed up can this country get? I have a nasty feeling that over the next two years we will find out. This item, also by Job Jones, is wonderful. I love the term retromingent as applied to our unfriendly neighborhood Repthuglicans.

Christina at Whats New In My Kitchen has an interesting story. The eldest of my two brothers and I both had allergies as kids. We both outgrew them. But Mom and I have often wondered while listening to various stories of kids trying to cope with food allergies what the hell is going on. Over the last couple of days the local news carried the story detailing how all the kids and teachers who share the class room with one child with a severe peanut allergy have to wash their hands and rinse their mouths before entering. And, as Christina says, our food world is dominated by highly processed foods that incorporate incomprehensibly processed parts of other foods. Product X doesn't have whole milk but does have 'milk solids' or 'milk proteins.' Product Y doesn't have peanuts but was prepared with peanut oil. Recently the salmon industry lobbied for the right to market GMO Atlantic salmon without noting that it was a genetically modified fish. How many canaries are there in this coal mine?