Good morning, Everyone.  A bit frosty this morning but the wind kept the frost away.  Tonight, the weather people tell us, will be colder with a freeze warning.  I plan to do what I did last week--put five gallon vinegar jugs filled with hot water in the greenhouse.  So far everything out on the patio, in the greenhouse or outside, have done very well.  We visited our favorite farm market.  We get our eggs there and we checked out the greenhouses because they have the best selection of herbs.  They didn't have much out yet but I did get some sage and oregano.  I did plant some oregano but haven't had much success with it.  Quite a contrast to last year when the oregano grew like the weed it once was.  The basil hasn't done all that well either.

I decided to transplant my tomatoes into larger containers.  They were getting too lanky and tall for the ones I started them in.  They are all looking happy to be in new pots.  I noticed that the garnet rose lettuce has produced well and my lemon squash, dragon's egg cucumber, and vine peach all emerged.  I still have to start the corn, dragon's tongue beans, and marjoram.  I am rather glad we had this stretch of more normal (or slightly below normal) temperatures.  It reminds us that we still have a bit more than a month till our average last frost date.

We are lucky, Kay.  We have two year-round farm markets.  Our seasonal ones don't open till May and June.  We look forward to it every year.  I agree about the restaurants.  We don't go out to eat often either and we prefer local as well.  Your observation about jobs is exactly what we have noticed for some time.  About 8 years ago I worked for about 18 months as an inventory counter where I started at $9/hour.  A year after I left I saw an ad for the same job at the same company which started off at $8/hour.  We have had wage deflation while the inflation rate has been jiggered to show lower inflation that we ordinary Americans actually experience.  And you are absolutely right--there are fewer good jobs with benefits and a livable wage, and more dead end, low-wage jobs.  If one can find even those jobs.  I saw a blog yesterday where the blogger described the local free job guide for his area: 8 pages with 39 ads for schools drumming up business and some probable scams.  That is exactly what I saw the last time I went to the on-line job boards.  The unemployment numbers have supposedly gone down but I think they did only because a large number of the unemployed fell off the rolls or stopped looking.

Now this is a worrisome development.  But I guess something like this should be expected given how dependent we are on computers and wireless communication.  There are a lot of advantages to technology but the downsides can be a b----.

Good Monday morning to everyone out there.  In spite of the wind yesterday, which made the temperatures feel significantly colder than the mid 60s, I got a good look at all of the plants on the patio.  I am getting the best growth ever for lettuce and spinach in the little greenhouse.  The new stands of lettuce inside hare sprouting.  Got the lemon balm transplanted into bigger pots.  Would you believe they were already pot bound?  Everything else is doing very nicely.  I should start pinching the mums soon to make them bush out more.  The morning news yesterday had a segment from the Lurie Gardens in Chicago which was very nice.  They noted that the tulips and other bulbs are about five weeks ahead of where they should be.  My plants are also much farther along than normal.

Your comments, Kay, reflect some that we have made fairly often over the last few years.  We also recall when eating out, especially eating at Pizza Hut or McDonalds, was an occasional treat not a daily routine.  But no one thought anything about it either.  Now taking the kids has become the nutritional sin akin to denying the trinity in Christianity.  And, unfortunately, we have all too many Nosy Parkers all too willing to intrude.

News story after news story for a good while  now have been telling us that the 'real' problem with the long term unemployed is a mis-match between workers and the skills the employers need.  Business spokesmen and political idiots have hammered this message home.  Given that does this story make sense?  And for anyone over 40, going into debt for job training is a losing proposition.  It is a crap shoot whether the jobs they train for will be there when they finish and they will probably never recoup the costs if they have to pay the full cost themselves.  This is yet another example of how out of touch the politicians, especially the Repthuglicans, are.  We are seeing the true impact of the so-called 'ownership society' the Shrub pushed: we are all on our own as the heartless bastards funnel government funds to their friends while cutting funds for the less well off.

I was surprised by this story--not the notion that American farmers are getting older as a group.  After all, the fastest growing segments of the population, generally, are the over 60s.  But the extent of the 'graying' of the farmers and ranchers was a surprise.  However, it will take more than pep talks from a Deputy Agriculture secretary to change this trend.  After all, the cost of an ag degree coupled with the cost of land, equipment, seed or livestock (or both), equipment, fertilizer, pesticides, fuel represent a massive investment which is not readily available to most.  That level of investment makes it very hard to make a profit in an economy when even established farmers are finding it hard to stay in business.  The most promising trend I have read about lately involves young people going into farming but doing so with more limited technology, and using organic and more sustainable methods.

While we did our grocery shopping this morning, we stopped by the fish displays.  We are trying to add a bit of fish to our diet which for some time has been pretty well limited to canned tuna and salmon.  Since we are limiting the salt in our diet and Mom has taken thyroid medication for years, we figured that fish would be a good way to make sure we got a sufficient supply of iodine.  This morning we saw 'basa' fish displayed but because we had never heard of that variety we didn't buy.  I am rather glad.  I found this article researching the topic this morning.  We will stick with American catfish and leave basa (and the related swai) alone.

I have been reading about the problem of Round-up resistant 'super-weeds' for a while now.  Dow is scrambling to introduce new varieties of genetically engineered crops that are resistant to Round-up and other herbicides so that the spraying can continue unabated.  This article describes exactly why that is the wrong strategy.  And I think the author is exactly right when he attributes the whole process to the desire of big agribusiness for uniformity.  They want uniform procedures that will produce a uniform product and more of that product.  They selected for varieties that have a uniform size, shape, and that matures all at the same time so that it can all be harvested at once and processed immediately into a final uniform merchandisable product.  The final result: vegetables and fruits that look good, travel well, and ripen all at the same time but are tasteless and have significantly lower levels of nutrients than older varieties.

Good morning to you all.  We have frost on the roofs of the houses and on the cars.  But all my outside plants appear to have come through the cold night.  Most of the temps across the region stayed above, often just above, freezing.  Our own thermometer registered about 33F.  I will check more closely after it gets a bit warmer.  I am glad I restrained my gardening enthusiasm during our string of 70s and 80s.  The temperatures are more normal now.

I am sure everyone remembers poor Anne Romney's comment that she didn't 'feel rich.'  Well, this article provides a contrast that shows exactly how out of touch the Repthuglican leadership is.

At last!! A little bit of sanity in the food wars.  I don't necessarily like McDonalds (or any other fast food chain) and haven't eaten at one for over five years.  But I also absolutely despise the 'food police.'  They are quite free to patronize or not--their choice.  They don't have the right to make that choice for others.

Good Thursday morning, Everyone.  It looks like we will start out sunny today but the temps won't go out of the 50sF.  I got some seeds started yesterday including the yard long beens, vine peach, winter squash.  It was too cool to do much else.  I have had a problem with my peppers this year.  They simply haven't thrived and I am not sure why.  The tomatoes on the other hand (except for the big rainbow) have done so well I have to transplant them into another container.  Can't put them outside just yet.  The weather people predict frost for overnight tonight.  I'm not too worried.  The plants outside are either very hardy or are in the mini-greenhouse.  All I will do is take the plants off the fence and put them on the large containers for the night.  And I will fill several of the empty vinegar containers with hot water and put them in the greenhouse.  That should provide enough warmth for that space.

Welcome, Accidental Housewife.  I, also, hope 'pink slime' doesn't get a foothold in Australia.  However, the way our modern food production industry works they will make and sell anything they can convince consumers to buy.  And they assert their right to not tell customers what is in the mess.

As I read this article this morning an interesting thought came to me.  If you were on the board of an international bank searching for a new president which of the following candidates would you choose: a finance minister who was also a former international bank director, a person with experience in international development and the U.N., or an expert on public health and college president?  Now guess which one is the candidate the U.S. has proposed to lead the World Bank.  If you said the college president you are absolutely right.

I hope we aren't headed for this, or this.  Unfortunately, all too many Repthuglican and Teapublican politicians would probably consider these 'collateral damage'--after they finished blaming the victims, of course.

Good morning, Everyone.  Our thermal roller coaster is in full operation.  Had low 80s here yesterday and today we won't get out of the 50s.  Couldn't take full advantage of the good weather because Mom had an appointment with one of her doctors and we had to fill a new prescription so that took a chunk of time out of the day.  And the temperature didn't stay high long.  It dropped 20 degrees between 2pm and 4.  I did get another tray of spinach started along with some of the garnet rose lettuce and lemon squash.  Later I will throw on my sweater and get some more done.

I noticed something a bit strange between the news last night an this morning.  The CBS national news noted that the producer of 'pink slime' had petitioned the USDA to allow venders to label the products containing their product.  They mentioned several wordings that a consumer could look for to clue them into the presence of 'finely textured lean beef.'  But I haven't seen any mention of the move this morning.  I have to amend that.  I have found one summarizing article on MSNBC but I had to search for it.  It hasn't been given the same coverage as the original controversy.  We'll have to see how extensive such labeling will be and how long producers will continue to label the product.  After all labeling is voluntary.

Hello, Kay.  Glad you are getting around on the internet at least.  I agree that independence cannot be over-rated.  I am glad you have people who can and will help out.  Take things a bit easy for a while and recover.  I am enjoying the spring even though it has settled into what I have called the pneumonia roller coaster.  I also agree on the food contamination issue.  I have a couple of Google alerts geared toward the news of food recalls and we pay attention to that news.  Some years ago, when we had several recalls of the mixed, ready-to-serve salad greens contaminated with e. coli and salmonella, we simply stopped buying the product.  We have gradually eliminated most of the canned goods because of the salt load and the BPA.  We buy fresh and process it ourselves.  And so it goes.  The only way to protect ourselves it to be aware of the risk, weigh it carefully, and take our own steps to mitigate it.  As I wrote before--the agencies of government that are supposed to protect the health and welfare of the public are more concerned with protecting corporate profits.

Good morning, Everyone.  We are supposed to have warm and sunny weather today.  I have a bunch of seeds to start or,  in the case of the lipstick pepper, restart.  The pepper seedlings aren't looking all that healthy.

Nancy Huehnergarth posted this opinion on Huffington Post this morning that pretty accurately assesses the problem with 'lean finely textured beef' (a.k.a. pink slime).  We have resented for some time paying meat prices for fillers--of any kind.  That is one reason why we bought a meat grinder and ground our own.  Then we knew that the product was ground round or ground chuck and not some generic 'beef' of unspecified origin.  And we knew the product came from one or two identifiable pieces of meat not from a hundred different cows of unidentified origin.  We did that before we first heard about 'pink slime.'  Though we now patronize a local butcher shop whose product is antibiotic and hormone free, and the ground beef is labeled as to the cut from which it was made.  We haven't got rid of our grinder because, if necessary, we can always grind our own again.  With the 'pink slime' episode we have developed another resentment--against a food industry who thinks that they should be allowed to put any kind of junk in the food and not have to tell the customers.  As Huehnergarth wrote there is not free market without free access to information--when the industry can, with impunity, withhold information from the customer.  And, as she also wrote, we should turn our attention to the FDA (and other agencies) which now assumes its job is to protect the profits of industry over the health and wellbeing of citizens.  And we should apply Reagan's old Cold War dictum broadly and consistently: trust, but verify.

Good morning to you all.  I did start a blog yesterday but didn't get very far.  Just didn't see anything I wanted to comment on or link to.  Welcome to April.  The weather people said that if the March temps had occurred in April we would have had one of the warmest Aprils on record.  As it happens,  it was the warmest March--ever.  I finally cut the milk jugs and juice cartons for plant starting containers and checked out my outside plants.  The only one that worries me is the rosemary.  I moved it to a place in the mini-greenhouse and will see how it does.  I also noticed the lemon balm is already close to being pot bound so I plan to transplant them again.  I didn't expect that.  I have to watch the mints and the lavender --they both are doing very well.  I think I saw flower buds on the blueberries.  I don't expect much fruit this year.  I transplanted them last fall and, though they have grown well, they are only half their expected full size.  I think it is about time to plant the rest of my seeds.  And get the rest of my containers refilled with remixed soil.

We just came back from our weekly grocery and other shopping run.  We had to get some light machine oil so Mom could oil her sewing machine so we stopped by our local Ace Hardware.  They just finished putting up their garden quonset hut/greenhouse but it isn't stocked yet.  But the seeds are on full display.  I was rather restrained and only picked up a packet of beautiful red lettuce and marjoram.  Then I broke down and got a hot water bath canner.  I plan to put it to good use over the summer.  We were somewhat bemused by one sign this morning at the gas station: the least expensive pack of cigarettes costs the same price as gallon of gas.  It is sad to not that gas has caught up to cigarettes.  I wonder when it will catch up to steak.

Triplehelix has a post this morning which makes a point we have thought about frequently over the last couple of years: the consolidation in the food industry makes a serious (as in widespread and lethal) contamination event very likely.  When the beef industry, the example the author gives early in the article, is dominated by 22 slaughterhouses (79%) and 4 producers a single contamination issue can reach coast to coast and involve a huge amount of product.