Things are growing well except for the Black Pearl peppers. I guess they couldn't stand the heat. There are two tomatoes on one of the plants, so I'm hoping this is a sign of more to come. Jalapenoes are blooming as are the christmas colored peppers and squash is still going strong. The corn is starting to tassel but the strawberry plants looked stepped on. Oh well.
I added a new link on the bottom for a local radio host that also writes for several national magazines. His specialty is automobiles but his knowledge goes much further. I encourage everyone to read his BusinessWeek articles as well as listen to his show online on Saturday mornings KLIF.
Hope everyone is having a good summer.
I haven't made an entry lately because things continue as normal. I'm still harvesting a couple of pounds of squash a day and it's still hot. I get up at dawn and do what I need to before the sun breaks over the trees. Buddy (my stray puppy ) is growing fast. He went from skin and bones to chubby pretty quick and is almost 100 % housebroken.
Thanks to Ron and his advice about the newspapers under straw mulch, I think I've finally defeated the grass and weeds.
There are three baseball sized cantaloupe on the vines and my lone watermelon plant is beginning to flower. My tomato plants are full of blooms but still refuse to set fruit. The bell peppers will be ready to start picking next week (finally).
Now that I look back on this after I've written it I guess plenty of new things have happened.
After the tainted peanut butter last year (which I had a jar I had eaten half of ) I decided to start buying one of the natural (non-hydrogenated oil) brands. Anyone who has purchased this type knows that when opening it there is a layer of peanut oil on top that you have to stir into the peanut butter itself , not just to mix the oil but also the salt. Sometimes this can get very messy so I decided to purchase Grandpa Witmer's Old Fashioned Peanut Butter Mixer from Lehman's.
I am very pleased with it. All you have to do is screw the included lid on to the jar, insert the crank and turn for about a minute. The lid has a built in rubber grommet so when you remove the crank it comes out clean as a whistle. It is advised to return the original lid so you can clean and store the mixer pieces.
The mixer set's lid from Lehman's fits small jars but you can order larger diameter lids from the manufacturer, Witmer's.
I don't have much other else going on. The corn is about knee high, the first cantaloupe is growing, green peppers are finally producing and I'm getting about 5 pounds of squash a day. Hope everyone else is having a bountiful harvest and staying safe.
Jerry
P. S. I tried to upload some pictures but once again something screwed up!
I'll preface this piece by saying I'm not writing this to start a debate or discussion. I have to vent the frustrations I have building up somehow and this seems to be the easiest way to do so. I'm not trying to piss anyone off!
The earth does not need saving. This is a fact. It was here a VERY long time before us and will continue to be when man has ceased to exist. It is the height of arrogance to believe that we can destroy the planet. Man is no more significant than any other living thing. Countless creatures have become extinct and millions more have taken their place. Yes, we can and have wiped out whole species of animals,the Carolina Parakeet for example, and that happened not because they made them money but because people believed they are more important than anything else. I do believe in conservation probably more than any asshole that lives in the Hollywood hills in their 10,000 square foot ego pad. I actually go into the woods and enjoy the animals and plants and yes I even sometimes kill them for food. If it were possible to NOT eat I'd be fine with it but unfortunately it is not.
Man made global warming does NOT exist. Global warming DOES. The air has become exponentially cleaner in the last 100 years. This is also true of water. The people that have fought for this change haven't been believers in some doomsday prophecy scare tactic. Change has been caused by simple people who were tired of smelling a sewage laden river or grew tired of leaving sooty fingerprints in their bread. Yes,its hot. I live in Texas and 100 degrees is common in the summer. In fact it's 91 right now. That being said I could go 100 miles east to the Piney Woods area to a hunting camp and it'll be as much as 10 degrees cooler and that's because there's not concrete to radiate the sun's heat. Every inch of pavement laid makes the ambient air tempature higher, not my air conditioner. It is an astronomical fact that we get closer to the sun every day and the moon gets farther away. The moon will some day release it's hold on the earth and it will crash into the sun. That being said a volcano could erupt today and cause a new ice age by blocking out the sun.
I personally conserve and reuse things to save money and I once being a garbage man I've seen the ridiculous amount of waste in this country. I grow my own food (as much as I can considering I can't have chickens in town)because I like the taste of a REAL tomato grown in healthy soil. I'm organic(I prefer natural) because using poison and salt heavy explosives are expensive and contradictory to having fertile soil. I don't list all these things to get a pat on the back, only to show that you don't have to live your life like Chicken Little screaming about "green this" or the end of oil. There is still plenty of oil in this country. There are many who have become rich for NOT running their pumps.
I'm sure there's more I could rant about I've grown tired of complaining. I do feel a little better. I think I'll go use my flush toilet then turn down the a/c a notch and lie down and watch my cable television because I didn't work 13+ hours day in all weather 6 days a week and sacrifice a vertebral disc for nothing.
I've been busy helping my new buddy get used to life here. He is the most well behaved puppy I've ever seen. He still does the little things like biting with his little needle like teeth and digging in the compost pile but other than that he's been great. There was an accident his first morning but he walked into the bathroom to do it. Since then he let's me know when he has to go outside.
Other than hanging with the puppy I stay inside due to the heat. It has yet to hit 100 but walking outside is like standing in front of a pizza oven. I work the garden in the morning and stare at the corn and wait for it to grow. My single watermelon plant is doing well.
I received my stimulus check today and plan to take part of it and buy a Foodsaver and a used, in good shape, freezer.
