We dodged a bullet. Or, perhaps I should say the storm dodged us. Even the lake effect snow was anticlimactic. One of those glad/sad situations. Looking at the weather predictions on Monday we decided to miss a monthly breakfast we normally attend. As it turns out we had blue skies and sun for most of Tuesday and could have gone. Oh, well. As I said when I e-mailed our regrets: better safe than sorry. Just thirty miles west of us received a foot plus. They are still digging out. And what missed us is hitting the east coast hard.
Last Wednesday (or Thursday) I ordered my seeds and plants. I was totally surprised to get the first of the orders--seeds from Territorial Seed and Baker Creek. Yesterday I got the Burpee seeds. Sometime in the next couple of days I should get the replacement cover for my mini-greenhouse from Jung. I am simply amazed by how fast everything has come. All that remains are plants that won't be shipped until close to the safe date for planting: two roses and a scented geranium.
So what did I order? From Burpee: Patio Princess tomato and the Ms. Mars sunflower. From Territorial Seed: epazote, lemon balm, and Elegance Purple lavender. From Baker Creek: purple shiso, Corno di Toro Rosso pepper, albino bullnose pepper, lemon basil, and summer savory. The only plants of totally unfamiliar types are the shiso and epazote. They should be very interesting.
I seem to be shifting my gardens toward herbs. I plant to put in sage, lemon thyme, spearmint, peppermint, basil, purple hyssop, borage, pineapple sage, in addition to what I listed above. We'll see what else as the season goes on.
A couple amusing things on the the TV news: A snow plow operator actually said, in an interview, he was ready for spring. Those guys usually complain that there has been too little snow. Good Morning America noted the story I linked to yesterday about doctors warning women that their "shareware" might be causing serious physical problems. I never did like girdles by what ever name you call them. One of the news stories last night acknowledge a trend I saw (and, I think, linked a couple of weeks ago) that indicates Americans are switching from margarine and such to butter. I told Mom that we are ahead of that curve. We switched months ago.
This is hardly a surprise. The Governor of W. Virginia tells people that if they don't trust the water, after being ordered for about a week not to use it because of a chemical spill, to buy bottled water instead. He cites the U.S. Environmental Protection standards to claim it is safe while covering his ass by not declaring it "100% safe" since is no firm evidence of what levels are safe for the chemical in question. I guess it really depends on your definition of "safe." If they mean you won't fall down dead in the next ten minutes, they might be right.
Isn't globalization wonderful? And the writer makes one of the few connections between our demand for Chinese manufactured goods and their air pollution--which is now reaching our shores in significant amounts. The quote toward the end which insists that measures to limit trans-border pollution must confront how much responsibility for that pollution rests with the countries consuming the end product of pollution-producing process. Reminds me of the drug-producing countries in Central and South America telling our government that curbing production in their countries must be accompanied with equally stringent measures to curb consumption in ours. Interesting note: the TV news story concerning that only mentioned the arrival of the pollution over here with no link to the arrival of the manufactured gadgets.
So this is why I don't care much about Obama. I find commercials more irritating as I get older whether they are political or retail.
No comments:
Post a Comment