Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Fait accompli


At 6:30 this morning the thermometer showed 32 degrees and there was ice on the two bird baths. By noon it had risen 30 degrees eventually topping out at 70 for a little while in the afternoon. After what seems like weeks of overcast skies and chilly weather, the sun came out, invigorating everything and everybody, or at least me.
     So, after putting all the plants out to enjoy the sunshine I went after the nagging chore of finishing tilling and leveling the big garden space in front of the house and for once in recent days finished something I started in the same day.
     I've been putting the plants out every day except a couple when the wind was just too strong, hardening them for the day I can plant. I really want to see an overnight low of 50 before I do that but if this weather holds and the temps stay in the 40s I will give it a try. I have lost a few plants to the weather particularly the wind and to keeping them in pots too long. Principal among them are the potatoes which are the tall potted plants in the foreground of this picture. They are crowded in those planters and I think with way too much leaf growth that should have been going into potato growth.
     One pot has only one plant and it's particularly heavy and I figure that one is full of young potatoes. The other two have up to four plants and are light and I think they are crowding each other. We'll see when they come out for planting. If all fails I have other potatoes planted in one of the squares.
     I have lost maybe half my zucchini plants and also half the corn. Oddly the toughest plants are the sunflowers grown from bird seed.
     It wouldn't be my garden if things didn't go haywire so the experiments continue. A bunch of the growers around here are holding a sale of starter plants Saturday so I am going to pick some up there to fill out the garden. Maybe plant what I have by Thursday.
    Oh yeah, that plant in the lower right hand corner is a lilac that looks to be ready to bloom and grow beyond recent years.
     And then there's that pile of firewood in the background that needs to be split. Soon. I backed over a stump next to it with my new truck the other night and it came up and dented the rocker panel. That didn't take long.

Past garden stories

Sunday, May 28, 2017

Another nightmare night



As if there aren't enough of these, now I get to see a video of driving over one. Help, Mr. Wizard.

Here's the rest of that story: A bridge too far  – up

Here's the story about this particular bridge.

Monday, May 22, 2017

It could be a 'manning' Monday

Sailors man the rigging on a formal occasion.
     I wrote this tonight to explain something to a friend who is facing the first day of the work week and then I decided it might be fun reading for others as well.
     I am up way late, a little wine and a lot of music and I thought I would tell you the story about manning the rigging. Several years ago I had the opportunity to spend a week on a boat with the head of British Petroleum’s shipping worldwide. Ha, now that I write that it sounds like Faber shipping world wide (If you have read any of the Bloody Jack books, you will get that reference). Anyway he told this story one night. He grew up an orphan in London but through some twists of fate he ended up in a maritime school that trained most of the great British sailors through the years, By his last year there, he had advanced to captain of the corps of cadets. 
     This coincided with the year Queen Elizabeth was crowned. After the coronation (which incidentally was one of the first things I ever saw on television) she took a trip around the world on the royal yacht Britannia. As the boat was approaching London on its return, the head of the school thought it would honor the queen properly if the corps of cadets manned the rigging on the tall ship the school used for training and at the time was berthed along the Thames River. 
     The picture shows a formal “manning”  of the rigging with the sailors standing on the spars. 
     Anyway, as captain of the corps this man had to go to the top of the mainmast, the highest point on the ship. Notice in the picture no one is standing at the absolute top of the mainmast.
      So the queen’s yacht is coming up the Thames and the cadets manned the rigging with the future head of BP shipping worldwide at the top of the mainmast, clinging to the tallest part of the ship with his knees. Unknown to the cadets, someone had the bright idea to fire a Beaufort gun as the queen approached. I can’t find a picture of one, but it looks like an old time cannon but with a really short barrel. It was made for close combat between sailing ships, firing a canon ball upward to come down from an arc onto a deck of an enemy ship close by.
     So the cadets are all set, the Britannia is approaching and someone fired the gun.
     Then the captain of the corps of cadets said from his perspective the ship heeled over so far the ends of the yardarms on one side hit the dock. Then it rolled way out over the water, all the time raining cadets out of the rigging onto the deck, onto the dock and then into the water with each roll back and forth. He said his knees were white from clinging to the top of the mainmast but he managed to hold on until the vessel settled down and the queen had passed by.
     I have to tell you our eyes were wet with tears from laughing so hard at hearing him describe this scene of total chaos at a most ceremonial moment. I am giggling now envisioning it. I still find manning the rigging majestic and hilarious at the same time.
    Just think on this Monday: Those guys fell out of the rigging into the water and onto the dock in front of the Queen of England! How awful could your Monday be?

Saturday, May 20, 2017

Taking it outdoors

   
Hardening cart: I can drive it around to keep plants in the sunlight all day.
The Solo cup garden is outgrowing the indoor space so outdoors we go. First day of hardening today with the sun shining and a healthy breeze blowing
     Some of the corn plants have grown past two feet and buds adorned the tips of stems on the zucchini. Strange height to potato plants started indoors and today I planted one of the four-by-fours with other seed potatoes.
     Sunflowers grown from the same seeds I feed the birds have reached above a foot, too.
     Meanwhile two new specimens of a fragrant type geranium are hardening near the doorway in an effort to keep the mosquitoes away if possible. One already has buds on it. The lilac
Solo cup garden indoors.
does too. It usually greens up around the same time as Green Day which happened some time last week.
     The ground temperature has been higher than 50 for more than a week now and it's getting close enough to Memorial Day, if the weather holds I might not wait for the weekend and plant maybe Wednesday or so.
     It's not the most ambitious garden I've tried, mostly potatoes and zucchini but it has some interesting experiments too, including the corn and sunflowers grown from bird seed.
New garden edging. Funny story about those timbers. Three Lowe's employees stood about 20 feet away watching me load nine of those timbers onto a cart by myself. This was after one came by and stood there watching me try to wrestle them around a fork lift that was blocking the pile and never thought to move it until I asked him to. I let the three slackers know I wasn't too happy with them. Loaded the truck by myself too. I'm a bad man! lol

In response to that last sentence in the caption, a friend sent me this link to the song, "I'm a bad man"

Tuesday, May 16, 2017

The noose is slowly tightening

A whole lot of us have almost been something of an old-time lynch mob, yelling for impeachment, criticizing the president's every move, not that it's not deserved, doing anything we can to raise the flag to get rid of the criminal. Perhaps at this point it is time to take a step back and let the drama play out.
     Last night (May 15) Rachel Maddow posted a graphic showing nine separate investigations under way looking into the serious charges that have come up regarding the administration. A couple of them are maybes at this point but that leaves at least seven active investigations going on at this moment.
     Legal investigations take time. Rushing to judgment at this point before they are complete could have a detrimental effect on the outcome most of us want. The process needs to be methodical, unemotional, nailing down every eventuality because the danger exists if any opening is left, Trump could walk through it and remain in office.
 
To remove a president is going to take, if you will forgive a cliche (or two or three), every i dotted, every t crossed, no stone left unturned. Before any legal charges are leveled the case for removal must be absolutely solid and that is going to take some time.
     Of course that interim is going to leave the door open for that serious mistake we think this man is capable of, where one of his tantrums ends with a big red button. We can only hope if it gets there, calmer heads will prevail.
     The point is let's not do things in a rush that could leave an opening. Let's take it through due process with methodical certitude. Leave no way out. Chances are as with Nixon the noose will tighten enough during the investigations with their inevitable revelations that the man will see no way out and quit before he ends up in court, impeached before the Senate, and/or sent to prison.
     It doesn't end with him, either. There is Pence who is almost as dangerous, Republican leadership in Congress and all the work to undo the damage already done. Also we have to keep pressure on the investigators; make sure they are doing their jobs and the efforts progress at a reasonable pace.
    The press has awakened and is doing its job now and as former President Carter pointed out the other day: In every instance where the press and government have come into conflict, the press has been right. Let's hope that continues, too.
     Trump is too much of a threat to our country and our very way of life to be allowed to escape and somehow remain in office.

     Of course there's always another point of view. This from my daughter on Twitter:

Tuesday, May 2, 2017

Snakes on the tundra

There's some fun going on in Alaska tonight. It started this way. A pet snake was reported missing from a home in Meadow Lakes area north of Wasills.

Then someone, perhaps inspired by the Bronx Zoo's Cobra went on Twitter with the Meadow Lakes Python.

Best headlines ever

Naked pair fed LSD gummy worm to dog

Owners of a Noah's Ark replica file a lawsuit over rain damage

In Southcentral Alaska earthquake, damage originated in the ground, engineers say

A headline that could only be written in Alaska: At state cross country, Glacier Bears and Grizzlies sweep, Lynx repeat, Wolverines make history — and a black bear crosses the trail

Man kills self before shooting wife and daughter

Alabama governor candidate caught in lesbian sperm donation scandal

Sister hits moose on way to visit sister who hit moose.

Man caught driving stolen car filled with radioactive uranium, rattlesnake, whiskey

Man loses his testicles after attempting to smoke weed through a SCUBA tank

Church Mutual Insurance won't cover Church's flood damage because it's 'an act of God'

Homicide victims rarely talk to police

Meerkat Expert Attacked Monkey Handler Over Love Affair with Llama Keeper

GOP congressman opposes gun control because gay marriage leads to bestiality

Owner of killer bear chokes to death on sex toy

Support for legalizing pot hits all-time high

Give me all your money or my penguin will explode

How zombie worms have sex in whale bones

Crocodile steals zoo worker's lawn mower

Woman shot by oven while trying to cook waffles

Nude beach blowjob jet ski fight leads to wife's death

Woman stabs husband with squirrel for not buying beer Christmas Eve

GOPer files complaint against Democrat for telling the truth about Big Lie social posts

Man shot dead on Syracuse Street for 2nd time in 2 days

Alaska woman punches bear in face, saves dog

Johnny Rotten suffers flea bite on his penis after rescuing squirrel

Memorable quotations

The best way to know you are having an adventure is when you wish you were home talking about it." — a mechanic on the Alaska State Ferry System. Or as in my own case planning how I will be writing it on this blog.

"You can't promote principled anti-corruption without pissing off corrupt people." — George Kent

"If only the British had held on to the airports, the whole thing might have gone differently for us." — Mick Jagger

"You can do anything as long as you don't scare the horses." — a mother's favorite saying recalled by a friend

A poem is an egg with a horse inside” — anonymous fourth grader

“My children will likely turn my picture to the wall but what the hell, you only get old once." — Joe May

“Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.” — Ernest Hemingway

When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth. Kurt Vonnegut

“If you wrote something for which someone sent you a cheque, if you cashed the cheque and it didn't bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented.”Stephen King

The thing about ignorance is, you don't have to remain ignorant. — me again"

"It was like the aftermath of an orgasm with the wrong partner." – David Lagercrants “The Girl in the Spider’s Web.”

Why worry about dying, you aren't going to live to regret it.

Never debate with someone who gets ink by the barrel" — George Hayes, former Alaska Attorney General who died recently

My dear Mr. Frost: two roads never diverge in a yellow wood. Three roads meet there. — @Shakespeare on Twitter

Normal is how somebody else thinks you should act.

"The mark of a great shiphandler is never getting into situations that require great shiphandling," Adm. Ernest King, USN

Me: Does the restaurant have cute waitresses?

My friend Gail: All waitresses are cute when you're hungry.

I'm not a writer, but sometimes I push around words to see what happens. – Scott Berry

I realized today how many of my stories start out "years ago." What's next? Once upon a time?"

“The rivers of Alaska are strewn with the bones of men who made but one mistake” - Fred McGarry, a Nushagak Trapper

Many people hear voices when no one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stared at walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing. – Meg Chittenden

A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity. – Franz Kafka

We are all immortal until the one day we are not. – me again

If the muse is late, start without her – Peter S. Beagle

Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. ~Mark Twain Actually you could do the same thing with the word "really" as in "really cold."

If you are looking for an experience that will temper your vanity, this is it. There's no one to impress when you're alone on the trap line. – Michael Carey quoting his father's journal

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. – Benjamin Franklin

It’s nervous work. The state you need to write in is the state that others are paying large sums of money to get rid of. – Shirley Hazzard

So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence -- Bertrand Russell

You know that I always just wanted to have a small ship to take stuff from a place that had a lot of that stuff to a place that did not have a lot of that stuff and so prosper.—Jackie Faber, “The Wake of the Lorelei Lee”

If you attack the arguer instead of the argument, you lose both

If an insurance company won’t pay for damages caused by an “act of God,” shouldn’t it then have to prove the existence of God? – I said that

I used to think getting old was about vanity—but actually it’s about losing people you love. Getting wrinkles is trivial. – Eugene O’Neill

German General to Swiss General: “You have only 500,000 men in your army; what would you do if I invaded with 1 million men?”

Swiss General: “Well, I suppose every one of my soldiers would need to fire twice.”

Writing is the only thing that when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.—Gloria Steinem

Exceed your bandwidth—sign on the wall of the maintenance shop at the West Coast/Alaska Tsunami Warning Center

One thing I do know, if you keep at it, you usually wind up getting something done.—Patricia Monaghan

Do you want to know what kind of person makes the best reporter? I’ll tell you. A borderline sociopath. Someone smart, inquisitive, stubborn, disorganized, chaotic, and in a perpetual state of simmering rage at the failings of the world.—Brett Arends

It is a very simple mind that only knows how to spell a word one way.—Andrew Jackson

3:30 is too late or too early to do anything—Rene Descartes

Everything is okay when it’s 50-below as long as everything is okay. – an Alaskan in Tom Walker’s “The Seventymile Kid”

You can have your own opinion but you can’t have your own science.—commenter arguing on a story about polar bears and global warming

He looks at three ex wives as a good start—TV police drama

Talkeetna: A friendly little drinking town with a climbing problem.—a handmade bumper sticker

“You’re either into the wall or into the show”—Marco Andretti on giving it all to qualify last at the 2011 Indy 500

Makeup is not for the faint of heart—the makeup guerrilla

“I’m going to relax in a very adult manner.”—Danica Patrick after sweating it out and qualifying half an hour before Andretti

“Asking Congress to come back is like asking a mugger to come back because he forgot your wallet.”—a roundtable participant on Fox of all places

As Republicans go further back in the conception process to define when life actually begins, I am beginning to think the eventual definition will be life begins in the beer I was drinking when I met her.—me again

Hunting is a “critical element for the long-term conservation of wood bison.”—a state department of Fish and Game official explaining why the state would not go along with a federal plan to reintroduce wood bison in Alaska because the agreement did not specifically allow hunting

Each day do something that won’t compute – anon

I can’t belive I still have to protest this shit – a sign carriend by an elderly woman at an Occupy demonstration

Life should be a little nuts or else it’s just a bunch of Thursdays strung together—Kevin Costner as Beau Burroughs in “Rumor has it”

You’re just a wanker whipping up fear —Irish President Michael D. Higgins to a tea party radio announcer

Being president doesn’t change who you are; it reveals who you are—Michelle Obama

Sports malaprops

Naked pair fed LSD gummy worm to dog

Owners of a Noah's Ark replica file a lawsuit over rain damage

In Southcentral Alaska earthquake, damage originated in the ground, engineers say

A headline that could only be written in Alaska: At state cross country, Glacier Bears and Grizzlies sweep, Lynx repeat, Wolverines make history — and a black bear crosses the trail

Man kills self before shooting wife and daughter

Alabama governor candidate caught in lesbian sperm donation scandal

Sister hits moose on way to visit sister who hit moose.

Man caught driving stolen car filled with radioactive uranium, rattlesnake, whiskey

Man loses his testicles after attempting to smoke weed through a SCUBA tank

Church Mutual Insurance won't cover Church's flood damage because it's 'an act of God'

Homicide victims rarely talk to police

Meerkat Expert Attacked Monkey Handler Over Love Affair with Llama Keeper

GOP congressman opposes gun control because gay marriage leads to bestiality

Owner of killer bear chokes to death on sex toy

Support for legalizing pot hits all-time high

Give me all your money or my penguin will explode

How zombie worms have sex in whale bones

Crocodile steals zoo worker's lawn mower

Woman shot by oven while trying to cook waffles

Nude beach blowjob jet ski fight leads to wife's death

Woman stabs husband with squirrel for not buying beer Christmas Eve

GOPer files complaint against Democrat for telling the truth about Big Lie social posts

Man shot dead on Syracuse Street for 2nd time in 2 days

Alaska woman punches bear in face, saves dog

Johnny Rotten suffers flea bite on his penis after rescuing squirrel