Sunny Wednesday. Hibiscus. Peppermint. Lavender. Rosemary. Fukushima. Funding higher education. American Dream.

We didn't get any more rain yesterday.  We don't expect any today--the weather people say maybe a 10% chance.  I have a full dehydrator to empty and three different kinds of mints to grind.  Yesterday I pulled out the peppermint and will cut it back to dry.  I found one of the Amish paste tomatoes blushing nicely.  It will be ready to pick soon.  No others yet.  But several bullnose peppers are definitely ready to pick and freeze.  We looked out on the patio and saw two dinner plate sized hibiscus blossoms.  They are really pretty.  We visited the farm market yesterday.  Mom wanted a couple of turnips to supplement what Brother gave us and needed a couple of onions.  I found a couple of new lavender plants.  Mine simply decided to die and did.  I have no idea why.  The attendant said she heard the same thing from several other customers.  I plant to transplant them into other pots and bring them inside.  Although lavender, generally, is hardy in my zone, their survival is chancy.  They may survive a mild winter but die during a severe one--as my original plant did.  So I think the best plan is to put them in pots that can be moved inside when necessary.  My newest rosemary needs to be trimmed also. I got it as insurance when my older plant looked a bit unhappy.  It has since perked up and looks really nice.  I think I need some new pictures.

Two years on and the disaster continues.  I have always been skeptical of nuclear power.  I consider it an example of human hubris.  The notion that our society today could dispose of waste that would be dangerous for thousands of years in the future seemed to me the hight of arrogance.  After all, it is only a bit more than 1500 years since the "fall" of the western Roman Empire; two thousand years since the birth of Christ; 2300 years since the founding of the city of Rome.  And somehow our leaders think they can secure nuclear waste for 10000+years!!??  But Fukushima should underline a lesson we should have learned with Three Mile Island and Chernobyl: some technologies are simply too dangerous to use on any scale.

Katrina vanden Heuvel has some good thoughts on higher education but I think she, like most of our pundits, start too far along the chain of thought.  We do definitely need to have a different way of funding education at all levels.  The system of funding primary and secondary education with property taxes primarily isn't working any more.  But the system of funding higher education on student debt is a catastrophe.  Encouraging students to incur debt they may never be able to pay off considering the labor markets today and into the likely future for an education that appears less and less useful in finding jobs that will pay for both the loan debt and any kind of a life is, to my way of thinking, criminally deceitful.  But, as I said, her arguments start from the premise that higher education, as it is now, is desirable.  All our pundits and politicos are pushing college for everyone.  Not all jobs need such education and not all people are suited to it.  We have a long history of pushing square pegs into round holes and for continuing policies that are no longer working.  We do need better ways of funding higher education but we also need to think seriously about what higher education we fund.

This article expresses a sentiment I can thoroughly endorse.  As I said above we have a habit of pushing square pegs into round holes or endorsing a one-size-fit-all programs.  Once upon a time I bought this idiocy without thinking about it.  Married to a man who desperately wanted to own a home (until he actually was buying one), I was cured of the whole notion.  I much prefer renting.  We need new "American Dreams" that don't rest on the notion of accumulating more things, getting a high-paying job that involves pay increases every year or so and has health and pension benefits attached, and everything else about the current social/economic system that is rapidly disappearing.  And I did intend to make that plural.  We need a multitude of dreams that fit a multitude of different people.  What we have had over the last sixty or so years is an American Straitjacket that has become an American Nightmare for all too many.

Where there is a roof, here is a way.

Cloudy Tuesday. Grapefruit mint. Peach peels. Hummingbirds.

We had some rain over night.  I will have to check the containers later because often the rain we get doesn't get to the soil.  The foliage is much too dense.  I will empty the dehydrator later.  I have three trays of peach peels and three of grapefruit mint to grind.  I hope it will stay dry long enough for me to refill the dehydrator with more herbs.  All of them need cutting.  I also should cut some of the peppers for freezing.

The last few days we have watched three or four hummingbirds at our flowers and feeder.  They have been much more active.  We do like watching them.  The bees have also been very active.  Both are later than normal--by about a month.  The little female appeared about a month ago.  Last year we first saw her (or one like her) in June.  When we were driving through southwestern Michigan looking for our peaches Sister-in-law noticed trees changing color--again about a month early.  But then the overnight temps have been lower than normal throughout the area.  However, Brother thought the change might be a response to the dry conditions that broke (sort of) with that heavy rain we had last week.

Lazy, changeable Monday. Peaches. Peppers. Another derailment!

We aren't going to be very busy today.  Mom wants to get the peaches, cucumbers, and turnips processed.  The last two were presents from Brother and Sister-in-Law (from their garden).  I won't harvest any herbs for drying today because I plan to dry the peach peels.  We have sunshine now but the weather people say that won't last long and more rain is due in by about noon.  Brother said everything in his garden is slow this year so I am not the only one feeling that.  But I noticed some nice bullnose peppers about ready to pick.  The lipstick peppers are producing actual peppers--just a month late.

This story was also on our morning TV news and our first comment is "Isn't this happening all too often lately?"

Fascinating story about recent multidisciplinary studies piecing together the history of dairy in human agriculture.

Thought I would take you on one of my journeys through the net.  Often I read something on a site I usually follow and then follow the links to find out more or confirm the information.  This morning I started out on Natural News where I saw this article.  Natural News has definite biases which color their reporting and they often hype the "dangers" of what ever they report so I always check out what they say by looking for other less biased reports.  The first link went to the original U.K. Mail concerning fluoride in tea bags.  Since we do drink tea daily I want to see what other information is out there especially on this side of Atlantic.  Doing a quick search on Google leads to other articles including this one from Tea Guardian that shows how complex the issue really is.  And thinking back to the Natural News and Mail stories leads me to ask the question of whether the problem is the tea bag or if the tea itself had the fluoride to begin with.  And the information here confirms the notion that the tea itself may contain varying levels of fluoride depending on how mature the leaves are, how much of the older leaves, stems or twigs are in the mix, and the level of fluoride in the soil.  Rule of thumb--use high quality white or green teas (made from younger leaves without twigs or stems).  I usually make tea with less regular tea and a good bit of herbal teas, much of which I grow here.

Update: peaches done.  Two pie fillings in the freezer and a small cobbler fixed.  Tasted great.

Lazy Sunday. Herbs. Peppers. Hibiscus.

I got a good bit of the clean up done in the garden yesterday.  I still have a bit of trimming to do.  The peppermint, oregano, and chocolate mint all need to be cut.  I am not sure what to do with the very tall and leggy purple cayenne.  I had the hibiscus in front of them so they tried to grow to the sun.  The hibiscus in its pot was nearly six feet tall and some three feet or more wide.  It provided a lot of shade.  As I noted a couple of days ago I moved it over to the west corner in its own very large container.  It is doing very nicely--so far.  I found one of the stems of the albino bullnose pepper laying down so I tied it back up to the stake.  I didn't think the wind was that strong.  I had to pull one strawberry and both of the lavender plants.  The lavender had done so nicely--until it didn't.  I will make a trip to the garden shops and see if they still have some herbs.  If I can find replacements I will get a couple.  I said before that I would make a decision on whether to continue planting borage later.  Well, the bees have make the decision for me.  They like it--a lot.  It is a perennial that self sows easily and I have a place for it.

I hadn't intended to comment on this post from David Kaiser at History Unfolding.  However, it struck a chord here.  Ten years ago we went to the movie theater six or seven times a year.  Five years ago we saw movies--maybe--once a year.  The movies just didn't interest us (we aren't under 24 and male nor are we Russian or Chinese.)  Then as the ticket prices went up (we didn't buy snacks or sodas) and we found that for the same price (even the matinee prices) for the two of us we could buy the DVD when it came out.  We want to see the Hobbit but are waiting not only for the DVD but for the extended version.

We are back now having spent the afternoon with brother and sister-in-law.  We drove up to southern Michigan in search of, as brother said, the "Perfect Peach."  The Michigan peaches are ripe now.  Brother has been sorely disappointed in the fruit he has had already this year.  Like us he found what he got hard and tasteless.  He did note that several of the produce stands he remembered are gone.  We did find a nice one where we got enough peaches for three pies--two to freeze and one for now.  I told Mom to save the peels because I intend to dry them and grind them to add to our teas.

Still wet Saturday. Grand theft. Insanity.

Still wet and cloudy though they say the skies are clearing just west of us.  If it dries out I hope to get a bit of gardening done.  We'll see.  In the interim let's see what is on the 'net.

This story takes the notion of theft on a grand scale to a new high, or low depending on your perspective.  I have seen several stories of similar thefts from Russia and eastern Europe.

The definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.  I would amend that slightly: doing the same thing over and over knowing the result will be the same.  Our Repthuglican legislators all exhibit signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder.  They are compelled to repeat the same non-productive actions over and over and over..... .

It seems that Big Brother can't be bothered to be accurate about the information it gathers.

The clouds have gone and it is sunny--getting warm.  I cut back the tansy.  It had reached about six feet  above the container it is in.  I am going to have to devise a more sturdy cage for it.  The branches were bending over the cage I have and getting entwined with the purple cayenne on the right and the tomato on the left.  It wasn't very spectacular and the individual buds aren't now but the mass of yellow balls on the top are colorful.  I was sorry to have to cut them.  I also got the sulfur and fertilizer applied on the blueberry.  We got a nice handful of berries for our breakfast a couple of days ago

I have written frequently on this blog that certain functions of government should never be run by for profit corporations.  This gives only a few examples of how badly taxpayers get screwed in such arrangements.

Rain--much needed. Hidden inflation. Big Brother.

We have rain today.  It started last night with a couple of brief but heavy episodes.  That is supposed to continue today but should move out to give us a sunny and seasonal weekend.  The hibiscus seems to have taken the transplanting well.  I am thinking about taking the squash and cucumbers out.  They are not producing much if anything.  Those are also on my "do not plant" list for next year.

Update:  we are getting heavy rain right now and have had several waves of rain since I wrote the previous paragraph.  Obviously no gardening today.  Also have had some thunder out there--some of it a bit too close for comfort.

We have talked about this all too often over the last decade.  The only question I had is why did the advice columnist bother with simply extending the cake mix with bulk ingredients from her pantry.  We dispensed with the cake mixes when we found that they no longer made a good 8 inch cake much less the 9 inch we used to make.  Our from-scratch recipes still make a real cake without all of the sweeteners and preservatives.

I have often wondered how little it would take to get law enforcement interested in someone's internet search history.  Evidently not all that much.  A nervous nelly of a former boss, a curious news junkie son, searches for common commodities (backpacks and pressure cookers.)

Welcome to August. Hibiscus moved.

Nice sunny morning today.  Yesterday was miserable and we got very little rain for the misery.  Neither of us really had much energy so we didn't get much done.  The cable TV and internet were down for about two hours so we did other things: another six inches of crochet on a table scarf, moved the hibiscus, got the rosemary plants watered.  I put the lavender plants out on the patio along with the lemon verbena.  They had been doing so well--until they didn't.  Then they went down hill very fast.  They may come back so I will leave them alone for now.  I have more clean-up and pruning to do but the big job is done.

This has been on the agenda for a while.  Uruguay is not the only country trying to get out of the "war on drugs."  It has been expensive, has disrupted societies, strained law enforcement, and the results have been totally unimpressive given the costs.  We definitely need to think outside the box on this.