March 29

Way, Way, Way too early but we have a couple of furry pests one of whom is being especially pestiferous. Much too early to tell what the weather looks like though we do have a bright moon showing so the skies are at least partly clear. The temperatures have been on their seasonal roller coaster between spring warmth and winter hanging on. We have seen some signs of impending spring: the pale green aura on the willow trees that indicate leaves are about to open up, the leaf buds on the maples are swelling and some of the early flowers blooming. But it is still too cold to do more than clean out the dead foliage in my gardens which depends on things drying out. We had rain a good part of the weekend just past.

March 30

As you can guess I didn't get much reading done yesterday. I did get some embroidery and crocheting done, and did a little weaving on my Kayu and Zoom looms. 

It was fairly warm this morning so I may get out to clear out some of the dead plants. So far everything that survived the winter has survived the recent cold snap. I hope it will survive the rest of the week because we expect below freezing overnight temperatures for a couple of nights. Did you all see the amazing temperatures on the east coast over last weekend? Eighties this early is mind blowing. And those tornado swarms down south are frightening. It may be winding up for another strange weather year.

We have been turning off the news for most of the time. We don't really need a blow-by-blow description and dissection of the Chauvin trial and the Republican theater on the southern border is both predictable and boring. We have spent more time on the BBC channel. At least they give us more information and less emotion.

Tomdispatch.com has a piece by Aviva Chomsky about the history of our involvement in Central America and migration from there to the U.S. I had known some of this history but I hadn't realized how stuck in a destructive groove our foreign policy has been. I have thought since 9/11 that we needed to shake out the mental cobwebs and get creative. But somehow I don't think we will.

In a bit of good news the Ever Given (the container ship stuck for nearly a weed in the Suez Canal) is finally free and shipping can continue. I haven's seen anything that says how expensive the delay has been although the N.Y. Times claims Egypt lost $95 million in transit fees. Also it will take days to a few weeks to clear the backlog of ships awaiting transit through the canal. Update: Another blog cited Lloyds of London figures indicating that losses to world economy reached $9.6Billion/day. The canal carries about 10% of world's commerce.

 Good Morning on this March 26

Cold today but not cold enough to make me take my winter coat out of the closet. Things are looking nice in the gardens--at least those showing signs of life. I finally identified the mystery plant: valerian. So far my survivals include two roses, the valerian, woad, chamomile, two mums, three chives, and lavender. Although the peppermint, spearmint, and dianthus have also come back, I am going to take those out and put other plants in their places.

I found this piece at Crooks&Liars and you just know it is going to go on to the Supreme Court. If you are interested in more details this article in Courthouse News should be informative.

And for a good laugh look at Crooks&Liars account of a certain Texas representative making a complete ass of himself in hearings. Satire anyone?

March 27

It has been two weeks since we got our J&J COVID vaccinations so we are considered fully vaccinated. J&J is the single shot vaccine. Just in time this item landed in my e-mail. Every one so wants things to be normal by which they mean normal in the way things were before the pandemic. But every once in a while something comes up that reminds us that there are ways we won't be going back to that normal. We used to go out to eat five or six times a week and haven't been inside a restaurant once since January of 2020. But we aren't anxious to go back to eating out. We can't handle the portions any more and bringing half of our meals home doesn't appeal. We used to go up to a shop that sold bulk tea, coffee, grains, and spices every couple of months. But we don't use any of that the same way any more. We simply aren't cooking or eating the way we did B(before)C(Covid).

We watched a bit of the BBC news this morning. The news readers reported that their vaccine manufacturers are gearing up to produce "booster" shots by September. Parts of France and Germany are locking down with a third wave rising and they have had some violent "protests" against lockdowns. I have read that significant numbers of the EU population are very vaccine skeptic. Mom was reading this morning that QAnon has shifted from charging that the election was rigged to sowing doubts about the vaccines. 

 24 March

I think some more rain is moving in. But I have the patio pretty well situated now. After getting the trash tote and skeleton of the mini-greenhouse out for pickup I took a trellis apart and moved it to serve a different function. I kept the wire racks from the greenhouse and have other racks that I can put up as trellises. I moved some of the 5-gallon buckets and cleared some of the dead material. In the process I found another plant coming up that is a mystery to me. Even if I had a schematic of the gardens last year it wouldn't help me identify my mystery plant because I have moved the containers. I haven't yet found a truly weatherproof method of labeling plants. Before fall has arrived the labeling has faded. Oh well. I will let the plants grow a bit, take a picture, and use one of the "What Plant Is This?" programs on-line. I used on last year to identify a Malabar spinach which suddenly appeared a year after I gave up on it.

Carolee at Herbalblessings is as anxious as I am to get some gardening done. I noticed that she is working on a lot of cool weather early plants. But she uses a trick I have: cutting the bottom out of a gallon milk or vinegar jug and using it as a cloche. I need to take out my seeds and see what I will put and think about when. It is almost April but April can be a treacherous month. Hard freezes and heavy, deep snow are not unknown events. Last year May was unusual because of a late freeze. I didn't get my garden fully planted til late June.

 March 22

I can't see how what the weather is like because it is still dark. The prediction is another sunny day and a bit warmer than yesterday. If so I will get the rest of my containers on the patio arranged for the season. I should also get out front and see if I can cut out some more of the clumps of ornamental grass that has plagued us for last few years. They were so overgrown they actually interfered with anyone going in and out from the front door and they attracted all kinds of bugs that found their way inside as we came in. I have some planters for that area.

To continue--we had bright sun until just a bit ago. Right now clouds are moving in and we are supposed to have about four days of rain. We did our major grocery shopping this morning and made a trip over to Michaels so I could get the thread I need to finish a table topper. It features penguins and I wouldn't have enough black and white thread to finish. Hard to do penguins without black and white. We have reduced our grocery trip to twice a month. We will go to our local dairy Thursday or Friday.

23 March

Clouds are building--we do expect rain. Don't mind that since I won't have to water anything. Not planning on any outdoor work today. I didn't do anything after we finished putting everything away we bought yesterday.

Axios headline pretty much said everything: America mourns--again. The story covered what (little) is known about the nation's second mass shooting incident in a week. This is getting way too "normal". I desperately wish it wasn't.

 During the coverage of the Atlanta crime spree a thought came into my head that has often occurred in various horrific stories: the notion of "hate crime" is pretty much a neutered concept. I remember the elation when Georgia (yes, Georgia) adopted an apparently sweeping hate crime law that covered race, gender, religion, ethnicity (and maybe even more) but the discussion of the investigation made clear that it may be toothless. If the investigators don't find some expression of animosity toward Asian Americans or women generally they might not have the evidence to charge a hate crime. Perhaps it would be better to include hateful attitudes as a reason to impose harsher sentences rather than as a stand alone charge. 

Chatter on the news/talk shows have moved on to President Biden's "Build Back Better" infrastructure plans which have a $3TRILLION price tag--at least in the full package. They say it might be passed piecemeal if it is passed at all. What was interesting was the breathlessness which accompanied the story. Joe Scarborough quoted Everett Dirksen's "a billion here and a billion there and pretty soon you are talking about real money. He noted that the phrase needs updating: the billion has become a trillion. But what went through my head was what I have been reading for some years now on what we really need to update our infrastructure. The estimates have ranged from $1 to $3 Trillion for the last several years. The problem is we, as a nation, have kicked this can so far down the road that catching up is a pipe dream.

I went out on the patio since it hasn't started raining yet to look at a couple of the pots that showed some promise of winter survivors. I trimmed back the sage and the two mums all of which are showing some new growth. I noticed some small leaf buds on the two roses and nice green plants of woad and chamomile. The biggest surprise was the lavender. It is showing some new growth also. I didn't completely clear the old stalks of lavender but there is definitely new leaves underneath. It may be time to start clearing all the dead plants out. I left a lot of the growth to act as ground cover to prevent hard rains splattering dirt out of the container.

 March 2

Lovely sunny day though still a bit cool. I got a few of my containers rearranged and some more of the patio swept up. I don't yet know what plants will still survive through the season. The mums new leaves are looking a bit stressed. My sage surprised me by putting out some new leaves from the base. I hope both will survive. I am pretty sure the peppermint and spearmint will survive but I am thinking of pulling them up for other plants this season. I started growing a number of herbs for tea but we have changed our preparation of both coffee and tea over the last 2 years. Now we do a pour-over coffee in the mornings and use tea bags in the afternoon. I used to use the coffee pots for both coffee and tea but what we do now works. All of the varieties of tea I use don't use any metal, and the bags and tags are biodegradable. If I were still composting I would put that to a test.

Some of you may remember a couple of months or so ago I completely unraveled a crochet table cloth I had nearly half done (40+ rounds of about 73). I realized that somewhere I had made a serious mistake and couldn't find a place to go back to where I could make progress. Well, a couple of weeks ago I started it again and have just about reached the round where I had difficulties. I found the problem. The author of the pattern, I think, tried to save her time and possible mistakes by simply referring back to rows that seemed to match the next section. So the patten said to repeat a specific row. Actually, it did that several times. But the first instruction I was told to repeat said to repeat the row 3 times and that is what I did. But that last part (the 3 times repeat of the round) is what threw the later part of the pattern off. Instead, the row should have been repeated only once. I found a couple of other instructions that should have been changed to fit the pattern. Well, it is now progressing well. I hope to finish in a couple of months. Right now each round takes me a little more than an hour and that time will increase as the rounds get longer. 

 Happy Vernal Equinox💕💕💕

The shadow of the house has retreated to just below the top of our fence. From now until the Summer Solstice that shadow will retreat further and further until only a small strip nearest the house will be shaded. The patio planters will warm up quickly now barring any sudden freeze--which may happen though I hope not. I am getting the area cleaned up and rearranged.

Found this item just now. After the drought years broke and they had a couple of wet years with bumper crops, the people of New South Wales has a plague of mice.

 Good day on this nice sunny, dry March 19

I might get back into the patio gardens tomorrow--after things dry out a bit after a very rainy yesterday. I finished house cleaning for a while. I think the spirit has moved on--thank goodness.

I found this on Naked Capitalism a bit ago. I have been a skeptic when it comes to any expectations of either the pandemic (as in it will be over by what ever your favorite date) or the notion that the economy will go back to whatever anyone considers normal. First, we (in the U.S.) won't get all adults vaccinated, without the problem of the vaccine refuseniks, before fall. Yes, we might have the vaccine but distribution has been the bottleneck. Second, we won't have data on child vaccinations before the end of the year and the vaccinations won't be accomplished before sometime next year. Third, the economy has been pushed and pulled out of the pre-Covid grooves. Many of the jobs and businesses won't ever come back and many more will come back slowly. And that is without the possibility of another wave of Covid infections. We'll see what we see and somehow adapt.

 16 March

We didn't get much snow. It is still cloudy and we may get some rain. The warm up should start tomorrow. Like most of the gardeners whose blogs I read I am restraining my self. No planting--absolutely not. However, looking at the arrangement of various pots and other items on the patio, we are looking at taking out the remains of the last small "greenhouse." The bones are still there but the cover disintegrated a good while ago. I never replaced it because it never really functioned well as a greenhouse. I have said before that the patio, with its white fence and cement pad, is a hot box. The greenhouses could be as much as 20 degrees above the ambient temperature in the spring and summer though it did not hold any heat in the early spring or autumn. I have tried putting it in different places but nothing seems to work. Taking it out gives me more space which is badly needed. I will keep the wire racks--they will make nice trellises.

Kevin Tillman, writing on Tomdispatch.com, wonders why we were so shocked by the events of January 6.

Honestly, it could only seem that way (shocking) if you imagined our domestic politics as completely separate from our foreign policy. But if we’re to learn anything from that maladroit attempt at a government-toppling coup, it should be that they are anything but separate. The question isn’t whether then-President Donald Trump incited the assault on the Capitol — of course he did. It is rather: Since when have we cared if an American president lies to incite an illegal insurrection? In all honesty, our commanders-in-chief have been doing so abroad for generations with complete impunity. It was only a matter of time before the moral rot finally made its way home.

That is a very good observation. Our government, at the highest levels, have repeatedly lied to topple governments we didn't like. Remember the "WMD" (weapons of mass destruction) claims that led us into Iraq? Tillman covers that in the article along with other U.S. interventions based on lies.

💚🍀Happy St. Patrick's Day🍀💚

It is still dark so I can't see whether it is cloudy. The temperature is supposed to go into the 50s--may even reach 60. We have had a busy day vacuuming and cleaning up a bit on the patio. We do general housekeeping when the spirit moves and we are thankful it doesn't move frequently. But at a point, after we have noted several times that something like vacuuming or dusting needs doing, we finally decide to do it. Today was that day for the upstairs and stairs. Tomorrow we will do the downstairs. It is simply too exhausting to do it all at once. I got the former mini-greenhouse emptied, retrieved the wire shelves, and moved it out of the space. Then I swept the leaves out. I also got the bird feeder changed out with feed for the smaller birds. I will get some more done tomorrow.

 Good 15th of March to you all.

Well, here it is--another Monday and in the middle of another month. It is gray and cold. The sky looks like it wants to dump something on us but with the temperature about 35* whether it will be slushy snow or rain is a question. With a brisk wind it feels colder. We did our shopping this morning so we don't have to go out any more this week. I hope we don't get anything like what Denver and Cheyenne are getting.

I just found this item on Axios which had me scratching my head. I had read something about EU countries suspending AstraZeneca's vaccine but forgot the details. Then this morning on the early talk/news shows one segment talked about pressure on the U.S. government to share the vaccine stockpile we had with other countries--specifically EU countries. I was perplexed because I thought some spokesperson or other had said we were shipping some of the AstraZeneca vaccines to some other country because we hadn't approved it yet while that country had. We are making some great headway in vaccinating our population but have only about 11% (last I heard) having at least one dose. And, if I am remembering what the administration has published, we won't have enough doses to complete the job until the end of May. By the way-- Italy and France are in lock downs again. Germany be joining them if it hasn't done so already.

Talking about vaccines--Mom and I got ours last Friday. For a while now we have been looking at where the shots might be available near us. A mass vaccination site has opened on the fair grounds but we weren't too keen on getting into that kind of line. Since we don't have much exposure and always wear our masks, we decided to wait until something closer to us--like, maybe, the local Walgreens where we got our flu vaccine last fall. She found a notice that the local Healthlinc clinic was taking appointments and we decided to fill out their on-line application. The state recently opened the eligibility to those over 60 which describes both of us. (Actually we could have got in line when they opened it to those over 70.) We weren't sure how that would work because of the stories we have seen and read. But we signed up a week ago last Saturday, got a call on Thursday asking if we still needed the appointment and if we could come in for the time they had open on Friday. We could and did. They told us that they were giving the Johnson&Johnson shots and asked if that was all right. We were fine with that. All three are really good when it comes to preventing severe illness, hospitalization, and death. No reason to be picky. So long story short--we got our jab and full immunity should be in place in about two weeks.

During the Former Guy's tenure "infrastructure week" became a recurring joke. Since he had the attention span of a flea his focus shifted almost immediately to something that would rouse the adulation of his rally-goers--like those dirty immigrants, or the wall Mexico was going to pay for. But this piece by Nomi Prins at Tomdispatch.com goes into some detail about how badly investment in infrastructure is needed. The question is whether our political class can muster the will to work together on it. Given the response of the COVID relief legislation, you'll excuse me if I am a skeptic. Even though no Republicans voted for it most are now trying to get some credit for it. One Republican female in Florida had the gall to gush about how the Biden Administration implemented her Covid relief compromise. Which she, of course, voted against. Pfui!!!

March 10--one third gone--oh my!

Good gods how time does fly. We have had nice, warmer weather since March came in. As I took the trash tote out to the curb I noticed that my chamomile and woad are green. They may have survived so far. The rose looks good also. The weather forecast is for temperatures in the 40s to 60s for the next ten days and a few bouts of rain. We might have snow one morning but the temp is supposed to be about 31* which means it won't last long. We might be snow free by the end of the month.

I am resisting the urge to get out and dig something. One of the gardeners whose blog I read regularly is doing the same. She remembers last March 10 when she had a lot of early, cool season veggies already planted only to loose the lot to late March snows and an unusual April freeze. I didn't really start planting until the last week of May and into June. It is always an adventure.

This has been a week of rememberance--sometimes comic, sometimes mourning, sometimes analytical. This piece by Wolf Richter posted on Naked Capitalism makes a point I have been thinking: business has changed and the world of business and employment will not go back to the pre-COVID normal afterward. For those of us who can afford the products and services, we will find fewer human contacts and, perhaps, more streamlined, efficient, and satisfying processes. For those who need jobs there will be a few more high-tech but a lot fewer lower tech jobs. Unemployment will remain high and only go down when the government data erases the "discouraged workers" from the statistics. I said the experience for consumers would "perhaps" be more satisfying but I telemedicine might have a hard time selling its services. My mother, as a patient, and her doctor, as a provider, both find the process deeply unsatisfying.

Rebecca Gordon has a piece on work that is worth a read. It is timely considering the argument over the extension of unemployment benefits in the COVID relief bill that is back in the House for its second passage (hopefully). The current fairly low unemployment rate is low only because a lot of people are no longer in the labor market. I have been totally bummed for a long time that so much work doesn't register as work in our economy because, though necessary, it is unpaid. During the last recession Dmitri Orlov wrote that people might not have jobs but they still had to work and things have not changed. I can relate to her opening about her love affair with a floor loom and weaving. I embroider, cross stitch, crochet and have two small hand looms along with four spindles I am slowly learning to work. I find a sense of accomplishment I finish a new piece or an experimental piece works out.

 6 March

Another sunny day and the forecast says no precipitation til next Wednesday. And the temperatures should be in the 50s and 60s. Nice.

Interesting little note from this morning's news: last month the economy "generated" 379K jobs. I put that in quotes because the economy, of course, doesn't create jobs; it is the individuals and companies who open up jobs. I find it fascinating how human agency is taken out of such statements. However, the economic news reporters are all atwitter about those fantastic numbers and see them as indicating the economy is coming back fast. I seem to remember, though, that the economy lost (there we go again with the erasure of humans) 700+K jobs per week. It seems to me the hole is getting deeper and we are still digging.

Axios has a nice piece on the jobs numbers, both good and bad. 

On the COVID vaccination front in our area: the eligibility for the vaccine has been lowered to 50. Mom and I have been eligible for a while now since we are both over 70 but we haven't tried to negotiate the process for getting an appointment yet. We have explored sites where the vaccine is available. So far the local Meijer's pharmacy, Walgreens, and a local doctor's office are taking appointments. So is a center set up at the local fair grounds and run by the city. We are still going to wait a bit--until the rush is over. We don't have a lot of exposure and we have our masks. On a very nice note the news last night said that this year's flu epidemic didn't appear. Cases and deaths are well below normal. I wonder how many people decided to get the flu shot when they might not have--like us. But then I also wonder how much the lockdowns, distancing and mask mandates had to do with the low numbers. I speculated a while back that perhaps mask wearing should become a standard of everyday life.

 March 3

Another sunny day. Cold mornings but mid 40s and low 50s mid day. The patio is clear enough for me to get the trash tote out for pickup. After about a month the tote was quite heavy and it took a bit of effort to get the container free of the ice underneath. I do look forward to  Spring and planting things.

President Biden announced the joint effort between Merck and J&J to produce the J&J one shot vaccine. And that he thinks we will have enough of all vaccines to immunize every adult in the country. Almost on cue several governors (Texas and Mississippi for example) have decided that we don't have to mask, distance or keep businesses to limited crowds. What is scary is Texas has all five of the variants epidemiologist are most worried about and they still have a high positivity rate. Well, if things go bad and their COVID numbers go up, they have six weeks to think up a way to evade responsibility.

March 4

Sunny and colder today but still not bad for early March. We went out for a brief shopping trip to get what wasn't on the shelf when we shopped earlier in the week. They are still having difficulty keeping some items in stock because of manufacturers' delays. These last two years are the first time I have seen that though about 10 years ago I started noticing that some of the stores weren't filling their shelves to the max. I was an inventory counter a couple of times in my varied work life and remember how it used to be with product so tightly packed one could hardly get an accurate count. I remember when not finding what I wanted would put me out of sorts but that has changed. We deal with a number of smaller shops whose supply chains have been strained even before the pandemic and with the pandemic we simply have become used to putting the items on the list for the next trip. We have also gotten in the habit of buying multiples when we find certain items or find it on a good sale. We found packages of pork chops and pork loin roasts on a two-for-one sale and scarfed up a couple of each.

William Astore has another good piece on Tomdispatch.com on the problem the military has with its pricey high tech weapons systems which never nowadays seem to work as planned (or at all in some cases.) I won't comment further since I have frequently linked to similar posts over the last dozen or so years. But last night several commentators on the news/talk shows had high praise for one aspect of our military which has performed fantastically: the mass vaccination sites set up in cooperation between the Federal government and the States. A couple of the reporters were finally able to line up for their shots, went to one of those sites and found it fast, efficient and convenient. One of the pundits noted whereas our governments (at all levels) have starved public health networks (passing off most of that work to for-profit corporations which quickly became over burdened) we have generously funded the military. Note the last so-called budget ran something like $750 BILLION. It makes me wonder what we might have if we invested a part of that money into public education, public health, public roads, public utilities.

 March 1--Yeah!!

I am amazed at how much my mood improves as I see how much of that snow has disappeared. I still have a huge pile on my patio and almost all my gardens are buried. But it does feel like Spring might be peaking around the corner.

David Kaiser has an interesting post today which echoes some thoughts I have been having over the last few years. Way back when I was studying history at Colorado State one of my professors introduced the concept of a "modal personality." He defined it as the type of personality best suited to the culture of the time. Each modal personality expressed certain virtues and those changed as the culture changed. In the late medieval through the early modern times the modal personality centered on honor which changed with the enlightenment through the Victorian age where the focus was on character, especially as expressed in self-control. Finally, with the 20th century the modal personality focused on personality. Those ideas track very neatly what Kaiser talks about in his essay. The rise of the victimhood personality signals another shift which will be interesting to both trace and follow. I look forward to Kaiser's promised future essays on this topic. I did look up the authors and books he cited but couldn't justify spending that much on them.

Andrea Mazzarino has a thought provoking piece  on Tomdispatch.com today. Wars of any kind tend to change the shape of a society and our has been changing in alarming and unpredictable ways. Unfortunately, getting into our "forever wars" was far easier than getting out of them will be.

March 2

Lovely sunny day with more of the snow melting. We did our grocery shopping yesterday though we didn't have much to get--unlike last week because we were replenishing after 2 weeks of not shopping because of the snow and digging out. It is nice enough that I am thinking about the gardens again. If the patio was clear of snow I might be tempted to go out and dig something. Last year I didn't get the last seeds in until June 1 because of cold temperatures in May. One of the gardening bloggers I look in on frequently mentioned having snow in mid may last year and she is south of me.

Mandy Smithberger has a post at Tomdispatch.com this morning that says a lot about our current situation with special reference to the military. I won't comment much because I have said here and elsewhere often that we need to rethink our spending priorities and philosophy. The military is a (or was) a good hammer but not all our problems in the world are nails. In fact most of our problems are diplomatic and economic for which the military hammer is definitely the wrong tool.