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

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.

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?

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"

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:

Can we just fast forward a few years, and I can watch the Oliver Stone mockudrama about this trash fire? #ImpeachTrump #OhAndTheRestToo

— Ariel Phifer (@akjak) May 18, 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.

Found the parks highway. which way is south?

— meadowlakespython (@meadowlakesnake) May 2, 2017

Can somebody tell me what all these fireworks shacks are for?

— meadowlakespython (@meadowlakesnake) May 2, 2017

You'd think something with fire in the name would be warm, but noooooo.

— meadowlakespython (@meadowlakesnake) May 2, 2017

How am I supposed to hitchhike without any thumbs? @tjonesak

— meadowlakespython (@meadowlakesnake) May 2, 2017

Just realized I was heading the wrong way. Warmer already.

— meadowlakespython (@meadowlakesnake) May 2, 2017

There's a little dog yapping at me. Come a little closer sweetie. @tjonesak

— meadowlakespython (@meadowlakesnake) May 2, 2017

Rumors of my death are #fakenews

— meadowlakespython (@meadowlakesnake) May 2, 2017

Somebody just asked how fast I am. See that shrew over there? Want to see that again?

— meadowlakespython (@meadowlakesnake) May 2, 2017

a lot of coffee shoppes along here. Hey! Down here. Super mocha cream latte if you don't mind.

— meadowlakespython (@meadowlakesnake) May 2, 2017

I wonder if any of these cars are heading for Southeast Asia. Wait. THERE'S AN OCEAN?

— meadowlakespython (@meadowlakesnake) May 2, 2017

The Warriors are playing? Great! Now I need heat and a TV. Is there a 24-hr Walmart around here?

— meadowlakespython (@meadowlakesnake) May 3, 2017

One word: Florida!

— meadowlakespython (@meadowlakesnake) May 3, 2017

Airplanes! I've heard of that. None of these looks like it could hold more than one of me. Prolly couldn't make it to Florida either.

— meadowlakespython (@meadowlakesnake) May 3, 2017