The Veggie Garden

Things are going well with the veggies this year.  The garden enclosure has made a real difference!  No squirrel or groundhog as gotten at the garden, and few insect pest.  Interestingly, bees and other good bugs have had no problem. 

This is a Kohlrabi.  It is a member of the cole family (broccoli, cabbage, etc).  But it grows a swollen part in the bottom of the plant.  Here, you can see the swelling that will grow.  It will become about the size of a tennis ball.  Cole crops were bred in various locations to produce large heads (cabbage, cauliflower), open heads (broccoli), small side heads (Brussels Sprouts), and middle swollen stems (kohlrabi). 

Sometimes I try to imagine why someone decided to grow a swollen stem plant.  I can't.  But it is both "broccolish" and a bit sweet, so I try it every few years. 

These are some of the heirloom tomatoes.   This year, I have Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, Pruden's Purple, Ponderosa Pink, and Striped German.  I also have 2 hybrids of Brandywine (Garden Treasure and Garden Gem) and will see if they have the "heirloom flavor" they claim to have.  All the  plants are thriving; no signs of disease.

My first successful planting of Spinach.  I could have Spinach every night and as much as I like it, that's too much.  Next year, I will plant half the row.

The regular cole crops are doing well.  I found caterpillars on 2 plants and killed them all.  They are usually a BIG problem here, but with the garden enclosure, the cabbage moths don't find them as well.  Yay!

I have high hopes for the corn.  I'm growing 2 kinds of bi-color corn this year.  One early type and one late.  The further back 2 rows are the late ones and the 2 front are the early ones.  I will plant 2 more rows of early ones next week for succession harvesting.  At the very back are cucumbers.  They will grow faster than the corn, so they won't be shaded much.  And corn doesn't make much shade anyway.  You can't see, but there are cantaloupe melons at each end.  They will grow along the ground and shade out weeds around the corn. 

Here I have Italian flat pole beans.  The 1st planting only had 3 beans grow.  A 2nd planting got 100% germination.  I LOVE Italian flat beans.  And you can see carrots growing in the corner.

I took pictures of the Zucchini  and Bell Peppers and Honeydew melon seedlings, but they didn't come out well.  But they are there and growing.

Believe it or not, next week starts the Fall plantings!  I have left a few empty spaces for Brussels Sprouts and Garlic.  And I will continue to plant lettuces and radishes to the end of September as I harvest them in their squares. 

Varmint Wars

I was dismayed to step out on the deck yesterday and see a brown shape near my garden.  I initially thought I had left a log out there, but I gave a shrill whistle and it turned to look.  A groundhog!  And it was checking out my garden enclosure.

Well, I sort of trust the garden enclosure.  Its chicken wire around all the sides and top, and there is even 2' of chicken wire off the sides and onto the lawn to discourage exactly that varmint digging under the enclosure.

But I'd rather not have a groundhog beat my defenses one day when my melons are ALMOST ripe.  So I set my live have-a-hart cage baited with a melon slice and strawberry trimmings.  Caught it that night!

I dispatched it humanely and swiftly as possible.  It is now returned to the environment...  I found the burrow and dumped a load of cat poop in there.  There is probably another opening to the burrow, but it seems to have pulled the boards off around the bottom of my raised toolshed and I can't get at anything under the toolshed easily.

So this time I will place cinderblocks against the boards and hope that discourages any new groundhog visitors looking for new homes.

I guard my garden zealously!

Garden Harvest

I got my first garden harvest of the year today.  Radishes, Spinach, and Snow Peas!  I ate the radishes before I thought to take a picture.  They were outstandingly good.  Both spicy and slighty sweet.

The spinach was great.  I had never grown it before, reading that it was hard to grow.  But I planted 6 square feet of it and nearly every seed germinated.  I harvested the largest leaves recently.

Spinach is an odd crop.  You cook it and it wilts away into almost nothing.  A basketful of spinach is a small bowlful when cooked.  But oh goodness it is tastier than anything I have bought in the bags in the grocery store!

A bit of olive oil or bacon fat in a large pot, heated moderately, spinach tossed in, covered 1 minute, tossed and cooked 2 minutes, served with a dab of butter and a dash of lemon juice and it is wonderous!

Here is the raw stuff...

And my late-planted snow peas are fruiting!  Picked while small and slim, they are so sweet and tasty!  The grocery store ones are too mature; tough and with strings on the sides.  Yeah, I know how to peel of the strings of mature ones (grab the lower end in one hand and press a thumbnail into it, pulling gently up toward the front).  But my new ones don't have strings and taste better.  

My chinese cabbage is next to harvest.  Plus more radishes.

My garden enclosure is working perfectly.  No squirrel or groundhog attacks.  The corn is growing great, I have tomatoes undisturbed, melons and squashes doing well, cole crops (broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage) of many kinds, and many small crops like carrots, chard, beets, carrots, etc.  This is going to be a GREAT harvesting season!

I have high hopes for the tomatoes.  I plant heirloom varieties because they just taste so good.  So far they seem healthier than in past years.  And I have 3 plants of 2 Brandywine hybrids developed by the University of Florida that were bred for flavor and disease resistance instead of shipping durability.  One is a large main season tomato called Garden Treasure and one is a "salad" tomato called Garden Gem.

"Supposedly", they have an heirloom taste with good disease resistance.  We'll see.  This is a hard area for heirloom tomatoes.  The humidity is very high in Summer, which encourages fungal diseases, and the Winters don't get cold enough to kill off soil parasites (nematodes, etc).

Meanwhile, I have the heirlooms Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, Prudens Purple, Striped German, and Ponderosa Pink.  And for backup, I have a hybrid called Big Beef which is the best-tasting hybrid I know of.

And I also have my upside-down growing cherry tomato plant.  I grow it out the bottom of a 5 gallon pot hanging 10" above ground.  More about that some other day.  I just hung it yesterday, so there isn't much to show other than a scrawny seedling confused about which way is up.

Yet Another Mass Shooting

I want to recognize the shooting tragedy in Orlando Florida US.  50 people died and 53 others were wounded.  Some of them may not live.  There is some uncertainty (as I write this) about the motive.  It was at a popular evening club for members of the LBGT community.  I haven't seen evidence yet about whether the club was a target because of the LBGT  audience of just the large audience.  Regardless, my thoughts go out to all the friends, family, and residents.

This level of hatred just astounds me.  I assume it is good that I can't comprehend the level of anger that drives some people to such violence.  But comprehending it might help to find ways to reduce the prevalence of such terrible acts.  We need to capture, not kill, such shooters in order to understand their motives through prolonged psychiatric evaluation.

Part of the problem is the gun culture in the US.  We have way too many guns.  Something like 350 million of them; more than one person man/woman/child.  I heard one commentator say that stopping all gun sales today would not have much effect because the existing guns (and available parts for repairs) would would last 500 years.  I suspect that person was correct.

I know the National Rifle Association claims that "if more people were armed, the shooter would have been killed".  That is quite possibly correct.  The problem is that if that many people were carrying arms around with them everyday, more people than the 50 would be killed around the US for other reasons of personal passion or suicide.

Too many people want easy solutions.  One side says "arm everyone".  The other side says "confiscate all weapons".  Neither would work. 

The first would have us all carrying handguns.  Handguns are notoriously inaccurate.  There are videos of trained police shooting at criminals only yards away and not hitting them.  Or maybe we should all carry AK-47s.  So we would shoot the shooters; and everyone to the sides of them.  Too many people couldn't shoot a barn wall from inside the barn.

The second would have us ban and confiscate all guns.  A wonderful idea that will not work.  You would never find most of them.  If I wanted to, I could buy a dozen serious guns this week and hide them all for decades.  And as the non-NRA guy said, they last for centuries.

One solution is obviously identifying the potential shooters.  But that won't work either.  What are you going to do?  Identify all angry people and lock them up "pre-crime"?  That's science fiction dystopia. 

The real solution is to solve the causes of such virulent anger.  But that will probably not happen because it is too difficult, would require massive governmental interference in our personal lives, and create a Police State that would be the envy of dictators everywhere.

So what do we do?  Well, we try to solve the causes of hatred and anger.  That's hard, and we aren't used to that KIND of massive effort.  It could be done.  And there is some comfort in the fact that we (worldwide) have been learning to avoid mass war for scores of years. 

We used to just routinely kill each other in wars over local politics, power, and greed (medieval Europe for example.  Then we "advanced" to  wars for international influence and territory (exploration and colonialism).  That culminated in WWII and faded slowly as colonial empires collapsed and subjugated population freed themselves (Vietnam, Africa, Former Soviet Union territories).

Today, we are facing the leftover hatreds of religious differences.  And they are numerous.  No religion is free of the guilt.  The primary murderous contention today is between Moslems and Jews and Moslems and Christians, but there is mass murder between Hindus and Moslems and Buddhists in Asia and minority religions are attacked by other majority religions all over the world.

The majority of mass murders are religiously-oriented these days.  And someday, that will pass too.  As standards of living slowly rise (an assumption I accept), economic and political reasons to commit mass murder will decline.  Hopefully religious causes will will also diminish. 

As tragic as the Orlando and other mass murders are, it is worth putting the numbers into perspective.  103 killed and wounded is serious and terrible.  But so many more people die every day.

The US population was 324 million in 2013.  Of that, 2.6 million people died.  Of those, the vast majority died from diseases.   136.000 died from accidents.  43,000 committed suicide.  15,000 people were murdered.  137 were killed in mass murders.

Mass murders are horrific.  They are cruel, terrible, evil, and unnecessary.  They do not accomplish the goals of the mass murderers.  But they are also a negligible minor footnote on the world population.  We can survive this insane strategy until the impetus wears out.

Meanwhile, we will properly mourn the accidental victims, try to discover the causes, and move on.

And, BTW, it is not a "War On Terrorism", it is a "War On TerrorISTS"...

Politics

After the last post, I want to make it clear that I do not think Hillary Clinton is perfect.  I know, "DUH"!  But thinking one candidate is essentially unfit to be President does not automatically make the other major party candidate better.

There are concerns about Hillary Clinton, as well.  Some go back a long way.  None of the buckets of charges against Hillary Clinton appear to hold water, though.

1.  Whitewater -  One of the earliest charges against the Clintons involved the Whitewater Development Company.  The Clintons lost money in a real estate deal.  The Whitewater Development company hired the law firm at which Hillary Clinton worked at the time for a separate failed investment.

Republicans claimed a conflict of interest and possible payback to the Clintons.  8 years of Republican-led investigation and millions of taxpayer dollars spent resulted in no finding of any wrongdoing by the Clintons.

2.  WalMart - In 1986, Walmart (based in Arkansas) was under pressure to name women to their Board of Directors.  Hillary Clinton, then merely a talented lawyer (from Arkansas) , was chosen.  As a Board Member, she championed ethnic and gender management diversity and supported corporate environmental responsibility.

Republicans claim this proves she doesn't understand business priorities and that she supported low worker wages..

Today, these are recognized as legitimate business concerns.  Her 6 years on the Walmart Board of Directors gave her considerable experience about how major business operate.  And while there, she never supported the WalMart "low wages" strategy.

3.  Monsanto -  Republicans sometimes like to claim that Hillary Clinton once sat on the Monsanto (multinational agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation) Board of Directors.  This is a false claim designed to undermine her reputation for environmental concerns.  There is no evidence for the claim.

4.  Vince Foster -  Republicans claim that the Clintons arranged to have Vince Foster (Deputy White House Counsel for Bill Clinton for a few months) killed to protect unspecified secrets.  Mr Foster sufferred from depression exacerbated by the stress of some political failures (Kimba Wood and Lani Guinier recommendations were unsuccessful).  There were several suicide notes, and there is evidence he spent some time organizing "end of life" concerns.   The Clintons were cleared of involvement by the FBI and several independent investigations.

5.  Wall Street And Bank Donations - Not all wall street investors and bankers are Republicans.  But Republicans like to think they are.   So they get really annoyed when VERY rich people Wall Street people support Democrats.  They attack Hillary Clinton for being supported by some very wealthy people as some sort of flaw, when they glory in the very wealthy people who support THEM!  It makes no sense that all wealthy people have to support Republicans.  Some wealthy people support Democratic Party values too.  And they like to hear from the Clintons.

6.  Citizens United - Speaking of the false claim that Hillary Clinton favors the Wall Street Investors (above), she doesn't support the Citizens United Supreme Court decision.  However, it being the current law, she has to operate within it's guidelines in order to run a viable campaign.  She desires this Supreme Court ruling to be overturned in the interest of fairer campaigns in the future.

And I will add something here.  MONEY is not "speech".  One person, one vote does NOT mean "one dollar one vote"!

7.   Benghazi - Diplomatic service is dangerous in some nations.  There were 13 attacks on US Embassies during the George W Bush years, resulting in at least 60 deaths.  4 people died in Benghazi.  All were tragic.  The Benghazi situation was confusing of initial cause, and seems to have changed from a minor protest about religious images to an opportunistic attack for more political/religious/insurgent reasons by more violent elements.

The deaths at Benghazi have now been misused as attacks on Hillary Clinton while Secretary Of State.  This is wrong.  Several investigations have found no evidence that Scretary Of Stae Clinton, either allowed the attacks or refused to send military aid.

As best I can tell, the main Republican attack is that she did not call the incident a "terrorist attack"  early enough publicly AND that she called it one to family and friends before the facts were certain.  Public officials SHOULD be circumspect publicly.

In any case, there was no willful failure of duty.  The idea that any Secretary Of State would willfully allow fellow officials to die is reprehensible.   Numerous Republican investigations have failed to find any failure by Secretary Clinton.  And they wasted $7 million of our taxes trying to do so.

8.  Email server - It was an agency regulation, not a law.  And every Secretary Of State since email was created ignored it.  They are in charge of the rules and get to define them.  And Clinton's server was never hacked.  I wish more companies could claim that...  That being said, it wasn't the smartest decision she ever made.  But like my first boss told me, "everyone gets one minor screw-up".  And this one is minor.

9.  Dollars To Iran - Well, the dollars to Iran were Iran's money that we managed to lock away from them for years.  We didn't GIVE them a dime.  We (the international community) unlocked their international assets after negotiating a cessation of their nuclear research program.  It wasn't Clinton's decision; it wasn't even Obama's decision.  It was an international agreement. 

Politics

During the Political Season, I engage in political comments.  And with the conventions and general elections coming, I'll start seriously.

Hillary Clinton delivered a serious speech castigating Trump yesterday, and made what I consider to be some serious points.  I'm taking them from from MSNBC, but I listened to the speech and they are all in there...  Clinton's quotes are in italics:

1. “I believe the person GOP nominated for president cannot do the job.”
 That's an opinion (and stated as such), but I agree that Trump is not actually able to do the job of President.   Conversely, one can hardly say that Clinton, a Senator from a large state and Secretary of State, is not generally qualified to be President.

2. “This is not someone who should ever have the nuclear codes.”
 Yes, no essentially thoughtless person ever should.  And Trump has demonstrated that he does not think much.  Asked what he had read lately, he couldn't even come up with a newspaper.  He finally allowed "All's Quiet On The Western Front" which is something he might have read in high school.

3. “They’re not even really ideas, just a series of bizarre rants, personal feuds, and outright lies.”
 True.  Trump never says anything specific.  He just makes unsupported claims to "do things".

4. After calling out Trump’s “nasty” tweets, Clinton said: “I’m willing to bet he’s writing a few right now.”
Trump did in fact tweet during the speech.

5. “I’ll leave it to the psychiatrists to explain [Trump’s] affection for tyrants.”
I have to agree.  I've read enough about abnormal psychiatry to judge that.  Trump loves dictators.  He is one himself in his pond.

6. “There’s no risk of people losing their lives if you blow up a golf course deal, but it doesn’t work like that in world affairs.”
Clinton makes the very good point that failure is a constant among real estate developers that is not permissible on the world stage of international relations.
 
7. “Making Donald Trump our commander-in-chief would be a historic mistake.”
An opinion, but a valid one.  Trump has said he would encourage more nations to build nuclear weapons (Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Japan).  He actually does not understand what nuclear weapons can do today.  A serious exchange of nuclear weapons would end human life.

8. “This isn’t reality television – this is actual reality.”
Trump does not see reality as you or I do.  It is all about him.  He thinks he can change the world after events occur.  Well, that's how it works on TV or in Real Estate.

9. “[Trump’s} ideas aren’t just different – they are dangerously incoherent.”
Trump changes his mind daily.  He denies what he says on video.  He might not even KNOW he changes his mind daily.  Such people are very very dangerous.

10. “Letting ISIS run wild, launching a nuclear attack, starting a ground war; these are all distinct possibilities” with Trump “in charge.”
Trump as variously said that ISIS is dangerous, that it is not, that they are a serious threat, that he could kill them easily, that we spend too much on our military and that we do not spend enough.  Such daily changes in thinking is a sign of lunacy.

11. “It’s not hard to imagine Donald Trump leading us into a war just because somebody got under his very thin skin.”
Trump really is thin-skinned.  He can't stand criticism.  He is surrounded by "yes-men" and if they don't yell "YES" loud or fast enough, he fires them.  He goes well, "Trumpish" about it.  Children are like that.  Teenagers are like that.   Some adults are too, but most adults learn to control their emotions enough to maintain working relations with people who annoy them.  Trump doesn't.  He sues everyone who annoys him.  He is involved in about 3500 lawsuits right now.  What is he going to do with Putin, sue him?  Threaten to cancel a casino project?

12. “I wonder if he even realizes he’s talking about nuclear war.”
Trump probably can't even imagine nuclear war.  To him, it's just a "big bomb".

13. “If Donald gets his way, they’ll be celebrating in the Kremlin.”
Putin would eat Trump for lunch and still feel hungry.   Trump depends on his lawyers to get his way.  Putin doesn't care about lawyers.  Neither does any other world leader, friendly or not.
 

Bathtub Area Replacement 4

Finally, the "after" pictures...  It all looks great.

Higher tiles, better showerhead.

I have to repaint though. I can do that part.

They tiled all the way down the sides.  Better than it was before.

 I'm really tired of that pale gold color anyway.  30 years...

But the new bathtub looks great!

I figure white fixtures work with any color wall paint.

I chose a very very light mossy green to paint the bathroom.  It matches the (and I'm almost ashamed to say this as a guy) towels and bathroom mats.  Well, I didn't want bright white paint...

Bathtub Area Replacement 3

I was expecting to show the finished bathtub area, but I discovered I had pictures between the start of the tiling and the completion.  So I'll show those today.

I left off with the start of the tiling...

So then they added the towel bar and completed it.  You can see tile spacers and the tape holding the towel bar in place as the adhesive dried.  I made a mistake when asked about the placement of the towel bar.  I reached up to where I would want to grab the face towel and they drew a line on the wall there.  I meant that that was where I wanted the towel to be, not the bar.  I should have had them put the towel bar itself 2 rows higher.  But I agreed with their marked position, so I have to live with it.

Here is the pipe for the tub faucet and the combination on/off  and hot-cold valve.

And the showerhead pipe (It gets covered - or replaced, I'm not sure which they did)...  The tiles are 2 rows higher than before and a row further  sideways.  And they installed bullnose tiles (rounded over edges) along the top and sides.  That helps avoid wall wetness.

The tiles were well-placed.  There are some tiny imperfections at a corner or two...

But grout hides many slight imperfections.   The grout sealant helps too (and waterproofs the grout as well of course).

Next time, I WILL show the finished look!

Thankful Thursday

1.  The bathroom remodelers completed the work today.  But there are some places where tape is holding trim tight for another whole day, so I will post the "after" pictures next time.

2.  The cats don't have to be locked into the bedroom anymore (well until the next project).

3.  I won't have to set my alarms for 6:30 am tomorrow.  That will be a relief because I kept worrying during the nights that I would sleep through them.  6:30 may not seem early to you,  but I had mine set for 5 am for 35 years, and after 10 years retired, I'm out of the alarm habit.

BTW, I don't actually use alarm clocks anymore.  I use digital kitchen timers.  Since I keep irregular hours these days, I can just push the hour button 9 times, press start, and not worry about what time of day that gets me up.  SO much easier than a real alarm clock.

4.  I have my car back in the garage again (the remodelers were using it for a work area).

5.  With the 6 weeks of nearly constant daily drizzle done, I was able to mow the lawn today.

6.  I felt free to work in the garden again.  I planted my last 4 tomato seedlings, 14' of italian pole beans, 8' of cucumbers, 4 cantaloupe melons, 2 honeydew melons, 2 squash, 6 leeks, 18 corns (10 early and 8 late season).  Harvested my first 6 radishes of the season (wow, even home grown radishes taste better than the grocery store stuff - spicier, firmer).  My snow peas are starting to produce...

7.  To celebrate the remodeling completion, I made a nice dinner.  Delmonico steak, fried potatoes, asparagus with mushrooms, tossed salad, SEVERAL glasses of wine!  And fresh fruit for dessert (plum, peach, apple, grapes, and cantaloupe).

8.  I'm setting the timers tonight for 12 hours.  If I wake up refreshed before that, fine.  If not, well, I have some catching up to do.

9.  After dinner, all the cats were on my chair with me.  They shifted positions a few times, but there was always one on the back and one on each arm.  They were happy to get time outside this afternoon, but they really wanted closeness.  And they got plenty of attention this evening.  And I bet they will almost be surprised not to be locked into the bedroom tomorrow morning!

And, yes, I shared my steak with them...

Bathtub Area Replacement 2

Well, we've gone through 2 more 6 hour visits from the remodels.  Things are going well.  It it easy to think work should go faster, but I hang around enough to see that there is more involved that I thought (or that I thought I was getting in this project).

I'm a relatively good homeowner to work for.  I stay out of the way (but reachable).  I peek in only when the 2 workers are out of the area doing other stuff elsewhere in the house.  The workers are comfortable enough to complain about "SOME" people they have worked around.  I've even provided a couple of tools they didn't have with them.

When they complain about having worked too many days in a row or have some unexpected problem, I commiserate appropriately with personal experiences in D-I-Y (without comparing those to their professional experiences.  When they want to gripe about something (personal or project-related) I listen well and let them talk.

When they ask where the soap dish or towel rack should go, I ask a couple questions about the options and then give them an answer quickly.

So things are going along well.

Friday was demolition and tub replacement/new plumbing day.   The existing tub was the cheapest the builder would provide (surprise, surprise), the tile backer board was the cheapest available, some of the wall studs were misaligned, and the tiles didn't extend as far as the should have.  And the edge tiles were just regular tiles, not the rounded-over tiles (again, no surprise).

One thing remodelers are notorious for is exposing the studs and subfloor and finding "rot and mold", increasing the work (and cost) of the project.  These guys said that all looked fine.  I felt a LOT better about them after that, because I was prepared to fight about it.  I don't know tiling, but I do know wood.

Monday was the installation of new concrete backer boards for the new tiles, and starting new tiles.  They did 80% of that.   There was an issue about the in-tub towel holder.  The manager said he hadn't installed one of those in 10 years ("no one wants them").  But I did, and pointed out that he was supposed to replace what was there.  So he found one.  He had to drive 30 miles to a supplier, but he did.

The tiler was extending the tiles to an edge of the wall, and discovered the wall was bowed inwards slightly.  Not a functional problem, but something that could be noticed.  So he said he could remove and replace the metal corner former (the technical term escapes me).  I asked him to find out the cost.  I was expecting several hundred dollars, it was $75.  Cool...

And they may have regretted the estimate.  The corner form has ~100 holes for nailing in the form, and (according to the tile guy) "some crazed lunatic used every single one".

Today, they finished the tile.  That last 20% was a lot of detailed tile-cutting work as they installed the towel bar and the couple rows of tiles above it, bullnose (rounded) tiles along the edges, and even down the outside edges of the tub down to the floor.

Tomorrow is the grouting between the tiles.  Thursday is the application of a grout sealer, inspection, and final payment.  I can hardly wait.  The cats will be thrilled, too.