Good morning to you all. We are still in a slightly cooler pattern here. The temperatures got to the high 80s after starting at about 60. Yes, it is nice Rebecca. I would love to see the extreme heat break though I am not ready for winter yet. Finished collecting the ginger mint and drying it yesterday. Hope to get the lemon balm today. We were surprised by a little hummingbird checking out the flowering catnip yesterday. First one we have ever seen here. I hope I see the goldfinches that stopped by last fall. I have marigolds on the fence which they really liked. Next year I plant to put all flowers in the nine fence pot holders. I will have to find some nice small plants both bees and hummingbirds would like.

Good morning, everyone. It is clear and cool this morning. The temperature was a nice 60 and the humidity is comfortably low. I need to check out the garden and get a bunch of the herbs cut--again. But first I will have to empty and clean up the dehydrator. Drying blueberries makes a mess.

The other major mess--our dysfunctional legislature in Washington--prompted a thought. During Obama's first two years the then-minority party, our not so well-loved Repthuglicans, blocked nearly everything the administration proposed (even those proposals they originally supported) using exactly the same tactics the Tea Party faction of their own party is using now. The shoe is on the other foot and they don't like the fit. If it weren't for the damage the impasse is causing, with worse damage likely, I would enjoy their discomfort and frustration.

I hadn't read anything about Agenda 21, Lois. From what I skimmed it sounds like a lot of high flown pretty rhetoric with few, if any, teeth. And I don't expect it to get any soon. The U.S. Senate has so far not ratified the program and has, at least according to a couple of web sites (whose accuracy I can't attest to), has been rejected. Both Clinton and Obama put a small part into action with an Executive Order. Considering how the Kyoto Protocols and the Copenhagen meetings on the environment went--I won't worry for now.

Hello, again, and this time it really is Friday. This has been one of those weeks we have had a hard time remembering what day it is because our schedule has been blasted six ways to Sunday. We had errands and appointments all week. We had heavy rain over night with a lot of lightning and thunder. It is still wet and a new round of rain going to the south may clip up. They said we in our area got almost 2 inches in a one hour period. In spite of the winds everything in the gardens is fine--no damage at all. I have a whole bunch of cherry and plum tomatoes to pick. Should also pick a couple of the herbs.

I just turned off the news on TV. Pandora is much more soothing. The talking head announced they were going to have a 'Tea Party Republican' to explain his position on the debt ceiling matter. I have heard it so many times I am beginning to tune the noise out. I am seriously thinking of resigning my status as a news junkie. The last couple of years have pretty much cured me.

Good morning to you all on this wet and final Friday of July. The weather people say that this month ranks number one on the all time wettest list. Actually July 2011 has a double distinction--wettest and hottest. We have had (and are still having) on and off showers so I probably won't get anything done in the gardens--unless I sneak out between the raindrops. But I have the blueberries to process this morning. Mom will be doing the first of the corn after her bone scan this afternoon. All of the corn this year will be cut off the cob for freezing. We still have corn-on-the-cob in the freezer. The first of the ground cherries fell off the plants yesterday--four of them. I tried one and, though it wasn't bad, I don't think it is good enough to keep in the gardens permanently. It has a faint strawberry flavor but, if I want strawberry flavor, I can buy strawberries or even grow my own. The seeds were a freebee so it was worth trying them out.

Well, that break was longer than I intended. I have all of the blueberries taken care of. Six pint bags though not a full or packed pint. I spread the berries in a single layer in the bag so they would freeze quickly. And I have three trays in the dehydrator. Those I will put into snack sized bags. Then I filled another three trays with stevia--it was ready to be cut.

I agree, Lois. I love this country but despise our dysfunctional government. Lead characters in one of my favorite mystery novels, Gaudy Night, make the point that the first thing a principle does is kill someone. Too many of those idiots in Washington feel so righteous clinging to their principles while killing our political and economic systems. What makes me very sad is that Obama has been willing to negotiate and to put aside some of the Damnocrats' long held principles only to be despised for it by the Repthuglican ideologues. He might as well have told them to go to hell and stuck by his principles for all the good his willingness to compromise has done him (or us). Now they are putting their pedal to the metal headed for the cliff while firmly believing that he will cave in and save them. I find my self more hoping he doesn't because that will only encourage them to extort more. It is rather like paying the $50 the local gang demands not to break your windows. Next time they hike the demand to $100. And so on and on. Glad you like the pictures. The garden is doing quite well although I do see a few signs of heat stress.

I hear you, Kay. Like you I tried to balance a marriage that was all too much give on my part and too much take on his. His Navy career took precedence over everything and later his preferences took precedence over anything and everything else. Thankfully, I was able to get Social Security based on his earnings intend of my own. That puts me $30 above the poverty level instead of $700 below it. Save for retirement?? Not when your 'partner' never found a penny he didn't want to immediately spend. Put my foot down and insist on some discipline?? Not when the dear boy stole some of the so-called courtesy checks from my gas credit card, cashed them, and then hid the bill from me while I was out of town. When I got back I found the utilities, water, and cable had not been paid and my credit card was threatening me with a collection agency. I left three weeks later. And they tell me my Social Security is an all-too-generous entitlement?? I wonder how they would like to be castrated since Nature was all-too-generous with the balls she gave them.

Reformed Broker has a very good suggestion of where we can find a cool $1 billion (almost) to held reduce the deficit. And that is on the Senate side of the government alone. We might find another $1 billion from the House.

Good morning, again, and on to my usual trip through the news and blogs.

I understand exactly where you are coming from, Kay. I look at the mess in Washington and worry. I am one of the majority of Social Security recipients who depends entirely on that check every month. My mother is 95% dependent on hers. The only reason we are reasonably comfortable is because we share the expenses. Neither of us would be at all comfortable if we were doing this alone. We have seen the cost of her medicines quadruple in the last four years, thanks in large part to that little piece of corporate welfare--the Affordable Care Act. And every year the Medicare premium has increased although the COLAs have been negligible or non-existent. If the past hasn't been kind, the future looks worse. It looks very likely that the government will implement that damned 'chained-CPI' as the measure of inflation that will determine how much, if any, cost of living increases we will get. Many of us have noted that the current CPI measures are exercises in statistical lying that allows the Fed to pretend they are meeting their legal responsibility to control inflation. For our siblings who are just behind us, the picture looks worse yet. I have a brother and a sister who are just under 55 and, if the age for full social security and Medicare is raised, they are screwed. Neither one has the time or the flexibility to recoup what they will lose.

I just came back to this after one of the idiot Tea Party Congresscritters drove me away from the news with his inanity. He claimed that raising the taxes on the rich would cost jobs. Oh, my!! How horrible. But the estimate for job losses if they fail to raise the debt ceiling--640k. Why don't those losses register on that guy's radar. I am trying real hard here not to swear and call him obscene names.

The early local news had a segment that illustrates very clearly why we have the impasse. We have seen national polls which say that a sizable majority want a combination of tax hikes and spending cuts with no cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. But outside the local (Chicago) Congressman's office--dueling demonstrations with one group supporting a hardline of deep unspecified spending cuts and no revenue increases while the other insisted on unspecified compromise. Each legislator can listen to the side he most wants to hear and tune out the other. And as far as claiming that the American People want this or that--they essentially decide those whose opinions they don't want respect aren't Real American People.

Well, I guess I didn't lose out on the blueberries after all. We just got back from our favorite year-round farmer's market where they still had the 5 pound box for 13.99 and sweet corn for 3.99 the dozen. The prices most places have been jaw-dropping to be kind.

Good morning, Everyone. We are supposed to get back into the low 90s for the next week with good chances for thunder storms at any time. I am back to watering early and doing some small jobs in the gardens until it gets uncomfortably warm. It is time for another garden update.

The peppers have been absolutely beautiful this year. These are the red bells. Bought these as seedlings and my put them on my list for next year. If they are heirlooms I may try to save the seeds.

I decided to try these melons, the Tigger. It is an heirloom European variety that only grows to about 1 pound. When ripe it will turn red with white zip-zag stripes. The blurb in the catalog says they are very sweet and fragrant. Started these from seed and the vines have been very vigorous. I found a number of small developing melons so they might produce well.

This is the Brandywine. It is an heirloom variety I started from seeds. This year all my tomatoes and peppers are producing well after last years disappointment with the small and sparse harvest with the slicers. I am trying several new varieties just to see what they will do.

This is the dragon's egg cucumber--a small white heirloom that I started from seed. As I said a few days ago, we took the first one for a salad and were very pleased with it. Sweet, no bitterness at all and thin skinned. Mom doesn't like cucumbers much but she really liked this one. She even suggested they would be good sliced with a bit of salt--and nothing else. I see a lot of flowers and hope they will produce enough for a few jars of pickles.

Some of the first ground cherries are turning yellow and papery which means they should start falling soon. What you see here is the wrapper. The fruit is inside. We are really looking forward to trying these. Started these from seed.

And here is the Vietnamese multicolor pepper. So far I have found only green and purple but I am watching for the other colors. It is a beautiful plant and we will keep one for the show but the fruits are smaller than I thought and a bit hotter (as I described a couple of days ago) than we wanted. The seed company substituted (with my permission) this variety for the one I had ordered because they were out of my first choice and I had no real idea of what it would be like.

This is the Big Beef tomato--one of the odd ones I thought to try out since I still had room in the containers. Normally we would have taken the couple of larger green ones for frying but the heat really killed our appetites.

So far the only plants that haven't even begun producing are the blue lake beans. A lot of foliage but no beans yet.

Good morning, All. I wondered yesterday morning if we were going to get the sun, lower humidity and temps the weather people promised. Finally, a bit after noon, the sun came out and the clouds burned off. I did get two of my tomatoes caged. But the others are going to stay as they are for the season because getting to them would be a real struggle. I have to catch up on some of the herbs. They grow like the weeds they once were. But I also have a couple of errands to run. Our weekly shopping and errands were a mixed bag. Mom had an appointment for a bone scan but that had to be rescheduled because who ever it was she talked to in setting the appointment told her she didn't have to worry about the calcium supplement she takes daily. Well she should have suspended them for at least three days before the scan and eliminate foods (like milk, cheese, and some juices) that have high or added calcium. So we have to repeat the whole thing again on Thursday. Needless to say, she was not happy. Then we stopped at the farmer's market we have been anticipating for the last month and which finally opened up last Monday. The corn wasn't up to what we have come to expect--a bit small and underdeveloped. And the blueberries were $4/lb. I may have missed the window for blueberries because the last ad for our year-round market didn't list blueberries. They had a sale of 5 lbs for $13.99. That would have been a bit more than $1/lb less. Blast!!

Burning Platform has a good post this morning. What the authors of the study cited call 'The American Peacock Syndrome' Thorstein Veblen (a century ago) called 'conspicuous consumption.' I rather think the full expression of the syndrome is a cyclical feature of human nature. After all the conspicuous consumption that triggered Veblen's work were the 'Gay 90s'--1890s, that is.

Yves Smith at Naked Capitalist provides this analysis, by David Apgar, of Speaker Boehner's response to President Obama's remarks concerning the debt limit impasse. It seems that lying has become the Repthuglican sport of choice in the 21st century.