February 5

It was a very pleasant day yesterday--sun and a balmy 50+. But the interlude is ending. Temperatures are falling and we will be under a winter weather alert for an ice storm due to come in over night. We did our shopping yesterday so we aren't worried about running out of anything. I was surprised, after the snow melted, to see my strawberry plants seem to be green yet. They might yet make it through. One of our stops is a regional big box where we get almost everything (except meat and a few special items) and we took a walk through the seasonal space to see how the gardening section is doing. They had seeds in: a nice selection of Burpee seeds. I plan to visit the local Menards later this month because they have a more extensive section. However, I still plan to use transplants for most of my gardening.

Speaking of shopping this piece at the Organic Prepper caused a bit of discussion--mainly about how much it reflects our own experience here.We have gotten far more picky about what we buy and now expect to visit at least two stores each time we go shopping. For the last half dozen years we have noticed sections of foods shrinking and more frequent episodes when even finding what we want is more difficult. Sometimes whole shelves were empty and we weren't shopping just before a weather event. Usually when a storm is coming we do a quick mental inventory and we find we don't really need to go out and so don't. Yesterday we had to visit five stores to get everything on our list.

This story from the Netherlands is only one of several about mass animal die-offs I have seen from various places around the world.

Andrew Bacevich on living in TrumpWorld.