Today in Gardening

Back to work, but not before doing a little watering.  I will have to do a bit more tomorrow morning.

I had lost another yellow squash plant by the time I came home.  I dissected it and there were no vine borers, so I can only conclude that it was too hot, too dry and too windy for it.  One is left, but I have two zucchini plants, one of which has three good fruits on it, and I will plant that tolerant squash that I good seeds for but can’t remember the name of in a couple of weeks.

I picked tomatoes, beans and jalapeños tonight.  I boiled that mess of beans along with a couple of banana peppers, and the tomatoes will ripen on the dresser.   I will can them as they ripen more.  The jalapeños I will eat fresh in egg and refried tacos for lunch and dinner and lunch and dinner.

I’m trying to eat some fresh, but also store up a bit for the fall.  Right now I have carrots, beets and beans in the freezer to eat up in the winter.

Oh and, the last thing I collected today was lettuce seeds from the bolted bed.  This first bed caught me by surprise.  I had nothing to eat with the lettuce.  From now on, I will plant a lettuce or two in pots and then enjoy them all year ’round with tomatoes, cilantro, parsley, cucumbers, radishes and carrots.   I just had no idea.

Next up: okra, Red October tomatoes, and more moon plants.

And hopefully some rain!

Advertisement

Still no rain

I will cross my paws that we get a little this weekend, but I won’t hold out hope.  While everything got a good drink over this weekend, I can’t help but notice that all but the tomatoes are a little slow in coming around.

Perhaps it is me.  I thought I was early this year, but everything is so slow in making anything.  The strong winds don’t help either.

Perhaps I will only get tomatoes and cayenne peppers this year.

At any rate, I am off to dig into the second Dexter book.  I finished the first a bit confused since we are watching the first season at the same time.  It’s my understanding that the two diverge at this point, so I shouldn’t have the same trouble again.

Just as I Suspected: Houston PBS Red, White and Blue is just another Dan Patrick Media Outlet

This is depressing.  There’s a public affairs show on the local PBS station and it looks like Texas Senator Dan Patrick has successfully taken it over.  That makes two local media outlets that can politic for him.  And now he’s going to run for U.S. Senate.

So I guess this is how it works in Red states like Texas:  wingnuts take over local programming of  the PBS station, it turns into wingnut propaganda, it sucks, local PBS sucks, it gets defunded for sucking.  Win?  Dan Patrick.

Question for the local PBS station:  How many times to you have to turn over your programming to Dan Patrick or his stand-ins to understand that you are being used?

Rain

We got a little bit last night.  Had I been awake when it finally came, I would have danced in it.

The garden is struggling with the utter lack of it.  We’ve enjoyed two squash casseroles, finally some tomatoes and some peppers, banana, jalapeño and cayenne.  I watered everything but the second bed, the garage bed and the sweet potato.  I’ll water them in the morning.

There’s a slight chance for rain this weekend, but I will water everything in the front Saturday morning.  The grass looks ok and the Pom has about 10 fruit on it.   The poor orchid tree may not make it back from two freezes.  I will try to save it.

Rick Perry’s God ignored him and brought no rain.  I have no god to appeal to.  Only politicians and the hope that some will see the error of their ways.

When I was a girl, I moved irrigation pipe three times a day for my grandfather — with my older sister.  We would get up in the morning and move the pipe from the evening before.  It was full of water from the well and my sister had to lift her end up to empty out the water so we could carry it, without stomping on  cotton plants, the eight rows up to then set it down and lock it into the pipe we had just laid.

It was hard work and I did it from when I was a child strong enough to pick up a twenty foot long irrigation pipe until The Western Company poisoned my grandfather’s well water when I was a teenager.

West Texas — where my parents and grandparents are from — as am I in the end — has always depended on ground water.  Here in Houston, I’ve always depended on rain.  We really need some rain.  Prayer is not going to do it.  It may even be too late.

While so many worry over the debt that two unfunded wars and an unfunded pharma give away created, the country suffers from lack of rain or the torrential onslaught of torrential storms.  And some think that a helping hand for our own people must be paid for, having voted for the certain death of so many foreigners.  The most vulnerable in our country must pay for the millions given away to Dick Cheney and his friends, who worship at the feet of a man who is a simpleton, much like George W. Bush.

For all of those people who cheered Netanyahu, Cheney and Bush robbed you.  And you don’t even care.  Just keep following this guy and his gnat brigade:

I Know it’s Pointless to Ask Rick Perry to Quit Embarrassing Us

But a person can try, no?

This is seriously embarrassing:

“Obviously, it’s flattering to have everybody, Rush Limbaugh and all these other conservative, right-of-center leaders, talk about you, urging you to think about it, urging you to run, saying they support you. But I don’t see any difference in terms of the governor’s thinking,” Carney said.

“I’m sure he’s thinking about it because it’s just human nature when you have Rush Limbaugh spend 20 minutes talking about you and have all these other people mention you, that you don’t sort of think that’s flattering and think about it. But I don’t see any change in his direction, what he’s planning to do.”

The above was said after a signing ceremony.  Get a load of this picture:

(Image from the article at the link.)

That guy on the left is Dan Patrick.  He’s the talk radio host and unfortunately state senator who pushed this crazy story about Abby Johnson seeing a fetus “run” from an abortion.

Wingnuts are still whining to this day about President Obama not meeting Perry and not proclaiming a national disaster in Texas due to wildfires that the knew could happen (the same thing had happened 6 years ago).  I even heard one wingnut today claim that a federal employee had started the fires in Texas.  Please.

Please wingnuts, stop embarrassing us.

I’ll Just Post this with NO COMMENT (or not)

The new Israeli-American President said today:

So if Israel simply walked out of the territories, the flow of weapons into a future Palestinian state would be unchecked. And missiles fired from it could reach virtually every home in Israel in less than a minute.

I want you to think about that, too. Imagine there’s a siren going on now, and we have less than 60 seconds to find shelter from an incoming rocket.

Would you live that way? Do you think anybody can live that way?

Well, we’re not going to live that way, either.

Our New Israeli-American President doesn’t understand what is happening in the country right now.  More Americans have died in the current turbulent weather and in Iraq and Afghanistan than have Israelis from anything, what ever the source.  And yet, ALL, I repeat ALL of our politicians, except for President Obama, applauded this bully.  I can’t understand it.  At all.  I am so disappointed I can’t even express it.

More?  You want more?  Our new Israeli President had this to say:

So it’s therefore vital, absolutely vital, that a Palestinian state be fully demilitarized.

And it’s vital, absolutely vital, that Israel maintain a long-term military presence along the Jordan River.

Ah yes, President Bibi, you have nuclear weapons, and other nations cannot have those same nuclear weapons.  NOT A SINGLE ONE.  They have lived with your having the bomb and selling it to your friends — the apartheid South Africans  — and outside of the regulation regimes — for many many years now.

The Palestinians must be demilitarized?  Why?  So you can crush them all with your bulldozers and heavy equipment and your nukes paid for with my tax dollars?

I think not.

I am with the president (Obama) on this.  I don’t really care about the plight of American Jews going to Israel and calling our president a nigger.

Sorry.

Michael Berry: Political Genius or Idiot?

You decide:

(click to see the image larger)

Earlier he had a picture of a black woman’s hand with a nice nail job holding a Lone Star Card associated with this call for help.

So, Berry is rolling this out on Memorial Day?  A day when his audience is likely at its lowest?

Genius or idiot?  Your call.

Random Post with Other Things

I fell asleep last night with the radio on, as I always do, but last night, I tuned it to t he most popular radio station in Houston, and no it’s not KTRH or KPRC, which is where Michael Barry broadcasts.

I was struck the the dominance of female voices.  Some I recognized, others I didn’t, but it made me smile.  It’s not a station I listen to much, but that may change.

It’s easy to follow Michael Berry without listening to him.  He’s got other media:  Facebook, Twitter, and his “blog.”  We saw one of his billboards driving back from the vet.  Berry is still, to this day, hoping that Chuck Schumer will paay attention to him.  Clue bat for Michael Berry:  HE WON’T.

Not wishing my life away, but next weekend in the best in my category:  Memorial Day.  Since my dad hated every day he served in the military, and since I know from a friend (an MP) that the military has its fair share of criminals, I feel free to enjoy a three day weekend.  Call me up when the military doesn’t include criminals and it pays homage to those who were forced to serve and got treated like shit, then I might consider celebrating Memorial Day in some other way.

Oh and, President Obama set the record straight again today and is off to Europe to solidify the Bibi is an idiot tour.  I can’t wait to heat Bibi’s speech to Congress and how dissing our democracy is AOK now that Bush is out of office, or that Obama is in.  Israeli support of apartheid have a ring to it for anyone?

My Hope

Israel has nuclear weapons.  One of President Obama’s big policy points is reducing nukes.

I hope that what Obama jump started this past week will lead to Israel admitting that is has nukes and signing on to the nonproliferation pact.  If Israel would just admit and agree to the pact, then it could be inspected and regulated.  For now, Israel is just as bad as North Korea or Syria.

My only regret would be that in exposing that Israel has the bomb, their source would also be exposed.  South Africa has enough trouble on its hands without having to account for that happening during apartheid.

Better people than me have made petter arguments.  But there must be a way.  I think the response from responsible media has been about right.  Obama stated what has been policy for years.  Netanyahu embarrassed himself and his nation by acting like our stated position was somehow outrageous — people who know and have followed this know that what he said is a pile of crap.  So, while lesser Americans cheer on Bibi, I’m proud to have a president who used to be called Barry.

On the Up Side .. . . .

My summer squash plants are dying.  I really like summer squash.  Perhaps the remaining plants will hang in there.  I don’t know.  I’ll probably plant the resistant species soon.

The peppers and beans are doing well.  I pulled some beets and picked some tomatoes today.

On another continent, there is an Israeli plowing under olive trees in the name of settling.

Now that Obama is in charge, Israel is being shown as the most pariah nation in the world.

They have had nukes for years and have prosecuted people for saying so.  They are not, not I repeat, good actors in peace talks.

When you have had nukes for years and claim the victim in all those years . . . you are NOT an honest actor.