Thursday, October 06, 2011

Finally, Fall!

No chance of uploading a photo tonight. (Bad internet!!) Just imagine those great mutant giant orange cosmos, more than six feet tall, blooming! They rise above the Mexican petunias and the fuscia vinca below them. What a marvel.

The vegetables are a mixed bag so far. Lettuce and greens are doing well and now produce wonderful salads every night, but something eats the swiss chard each night. Many fire ants infest the garden so I suck it up and actually apply some poison to the hills. It doesn't seem to discourage them much. They just move on to the next garden box. The castor oil pellets seem to have discouraged the armadillos, and we have trapped a whole bunch of them. Armadillos, not pellets. Deer eat the roses every night.

Mornings, I walk around the yard to check out everything, look at the traps, think about what needs to be watered or fertilized, pick out some weeds, see if the oranges are anywhere near ready. When I look up and regard the woods line I see deer and turkeys. Red shouldered hawks cry and there is always the loud trumpeting of the sand hill cranes coming in and the hooting of the owls just finishing their business. The summer birds have left, except for the chimney swifts who will leave soon. So we now hear those loud calls of the big birds, especially the woodpeckers, jays and cardinals who will be here all winter. There are so many squirrels, those cute and busy rodents working the property (and the vegetable garden!)

There is indeed a great deal of physical work to be done here. We mow, weed, water, prune and tend. And not think about what is happening to our larger venue.

Just this week each of us paid $100 to get our teeth cleaned and we do this twice a year. I wonder what reality it is that Monano,  Pinellas County commissioner, could have said, as he voted against fluoridation (!), that anyone could just go to the dentist and get a cleaning, eat well, take care of dental health.. No need for fluoride and big government intervention. What planet is he on?

Such an embarrassment!

I am glad not to live in Alabama, a low hurdle. We are very interested in the 99% demonstations happening everywhere. What does it all mean?








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