Tuesday.

Good morning, all.  Cool today with clouds and a bit of wind.  The weather report this morning predicted a roller coaster between comfortable and cool with rain on Thursday.  I have peppermint drying and will grind it later today.  I dumped the root ball as I did the spearmint root ball.  As usual the pot was packed with roots.  Separating the soil from the roots would yield too little for too much work.  I will start those pots off next spring with a new batch of soil.  Tomorrow, if it remains dry as the weather people predict I will start on the hyssop.  Two weeks ago I harvested four flower cones and set them to dry on a small plate on the top of the refrigerator.  Today I shook out about a half-teaspoon of seeds for next year.  I like hyssop for tea (it adds a licorice-like flavor) and the bees love it.  Since we like honey and use a lot of it instead of sugar (we eliminated artificial sweeteners as much as possible a good while ago) I feed the bees as much as I can.

I found this article this morning and it started a conversation here.  We don't live in an area particularly susceptible to drought.  We had a moderate drought a couple of years ago and our politicians and utility experts issued mild urgings to conserve water.  I notice that most homeowners around here don't bother watering their lawns much.  During dry stretches the grass dies back and then comes back when the rains return.  Why would the drought in California start a conversation here?  Well, we always ask ourselves what would we do if... .  We don't expect a drought like they have in California but what changes would we make if something happened leading to the kind of water rationing authorities in California are debating.  Often it makes us examine how we do things and come up with a change that would benefit us beyond reducing the amount of water we use.  The time to think about such things is before the situation becomes critical.

The only reason these jerks got away with their boorish behavior was that they were on an El Al plane.  They should have been removed by police and charged with disorderly conduct and disrupting airline activities.

It is an old truth that once you spend money on one thing you can't spend it on something else.  Hence the "guns vs. butter" argument.  While I do recognize that sometimes we do have to spend on war and war-by-other-names but we seem to have been engaged in these activities for aims that are far too nebulous and ill-defined and have gotten far too little benefit from them.