Saturday.  Another sunny day predicted for today with temperatures around 80.  The weather we have had makes me feel like I am trapped in some weird time machine that takes me from late March to July and skips everything in between.  Yesterday we barely made it into the low 70s.  This next  coming week--the 80s.  Most of my plants look like they are a month behind.  I plan to finish sweeping up on the patio and trim my older rosemary.  All of the tomatoes have either buds or fully open blossoms as do two of the peppers.  The beans are climbing the trellis nicely and I need to train the vines along the cross bars.  The melons are doing nicely and will soon be long enough to train along the trellis as well.  I just put some yellow crook-neck squash seeds in my last 5 gallon bucket so they haven't had time to sprout yet.

Mom read me an interesting factoid she found this morning.  It seems the zone 5 we live in has experienced a zone 4 winter.  Yeah!!  Which is why any perennial plant I put in has a zone 4 hardiness rating.  Doesn't guarantee survival but it helps.

I was amused, sardonically amused, at a headline on NBC.com this morning.  Obama, it proclaimed, is asking Iraq's neighbors to help contain terrorism.  Really!!!  Which neighbors?  Syria is in no condition to do anything anywhere.  Iran might be happy to send help but you know it would be to support the Shi'its and might fight both ISIS and the Kurds in northern Iraq.  Turkey might send help but they have a refugee problem thanks to the Syrian civil war, a problem of civil unrest within its own border, and would just as likely to move against the Kurds as against ISIS.  The Saudis??  Maybe, but they might try to find Sunnis they can work with against both ISIS (ISIL) and against the Shi'it central government.

"In a government of the people, by the people, for the people---don't tell the people."  Lazarus Long in Time Enough for Love (by Robert Heinlein).  Somebody read at least part of the book.  As did other somebodies.

I like to do needlework and I have become increasingly frustrated with Michaels because they have reduced or eliminated the materials I like to work with.  Like so many others in our economy, if they can't sell a bazillion of the same item they don't want to carry it.  I had been happy when Hobby Lobby arrived to give them some competition.  However, I have become increasingly unhappy with some of their politics.  First, they wanted to be exempt from the requirements of Obama because they didn't want their employees to get contraceptives through company mediated health care policies.  But this has persuaded me I don't need to do business with them.  I am not easily offended but the statement by a company representative quoted at the end is very offensive.