Another week--the last of June. This year is half over. OMG!!! how times has flown.

We had a very nice weekend. I cut spearmint, chocolate mint and lavender which has been dried, ground and put up in jars. Trimmed some of the tomato fronds which were threatening to take over a couple of areas. Tied a couple of the cucumbers into place and redirected a couple of the bean vines that wanted to meander over the fence. Tomorrow, if it remains sunny and cool I think a second cutting of catnip and first cutting of sage is due. I snipped three small stalks of lemon verbena. The plant is still small but I hope to prevent it from becoming a straggly monster. I hope to treat it like my rosemary plants to keep it small and suitable for inside.

Really cruel but so true cartoon sums up the effects of the GOP HealthDeath Care bill. DeathCare for any one not in the upper 1%. I have said for some time that the debate isn't really about health care or access to health care. It is about access to health insurance: how much it should cost the purchaser, how much it should of the health costs it should cover and for which conditions. Lee Camp at Naked Capitalism maintains that there really is no debate. To call it a debate implies that there exists two legitimate arguments. There is only one side with two factions quibbling over how much the insurance companies should be allowed to charge us for the privilege of shafting us when we try to use the insurance.

When I saw this I thought it had to be a satiric piece. Evidently it isn't because other U.K. papers are reporting the same info: Major supermarkets are looking at implementing "surge" pricing. Heat wave getting you down? Be prepared to pay more for ice cream or cold drinks. High demand for certain items can result in much higher prices than the customer would expect. They predict the tradition of fixed prices (and probably shelf tags displaying those prices) will be gone within the next five years.