Spring has sprung, the rains have come, and now it’s time to get seed in the ground. But before planting those precious seeds into the warming earth, we want to be sure we have prepared for them a safe and healthy home.
One of the advantages of using a raised bed garden is that you can individually tailor the soil in each box to the needs of the plants you will put there. A pH meter or test kit is a handy tool to have. Sulfur and lime can be used to adjust pH up or down as needed. Compost adds organic matter and nutrients. Sand increases drainage; vermiculite retains the water. Straw, wood chips, newspaper, cardboard, and grass clippings can all be used as a mulch to retain moisture and deter weeds.
In addition to the soil they grow in, some plants do better with some structure to their lives.
Here I’ve put a trellis panel in the center of a garden box. In the far front is the last of my winter spinach; a new crop has been seeded and will soon be taking the place of the current plants as they lose their vitality. Just in front of the trellis I’m planting cucumbers. Behind the trellis is lettuce. Right now the sun shines through the trellis to encourage the lettuce to grow in our cool spring days. As spring turns to the heat of summer, cucumber vines will climb up the trellis and provide shade for the lettuce and extend its growing season into the summer.
There was a church in a mid-western farming community that had not received rain in a long while. The crops were withering and the farmers feared economic disaster.
The Pastor of this church announced, “Next Sunday we will have a special prayer service where anyone who wants to can offer a prayer for rain. Be sure you come prepared.”
The following Sunday, most of the service was given over to allowing members to lead the congregation in prayers for rain. When all who wanted to had taken a turn, the pastor stood again before them and said, “Those were some mighty fine prayers. Most were heart-felt, a couple were down right eloquent. Now, by show of hands, how many of you brought an umbrella to church today?”
No one raised their hand. Most looked at one another in astonishment over the Pastor’s question.
“That, my friends, is why we don’t have rain. I told you to come prepared. If you believed your prayers would be heard and answered, you’d have brought an umbrella to get you home in the rain.”
His abbreviated sermon was about acting in faith and asking in faith. If we do not believe it will be granted, what’s the point in praying? The Holy Spirit, which is the power of God in this world, does amazing things when we ask with a pure heart and an expectant spirit.
If you’re opening this post before you’ve gotten pranked – this is a reminder that today is April Fool’s Day! How did this “holiday” come about? I was curious, so I did some research and this is what I found out.
The history of April Fool’s Day or All Fool’s Day is uncertain, but the current thinking is that it began around 1582 in France with the reform of the calendar under Charles IX. The Gregorian Calendar was introduced, and New Year’s Day was moved from March 25 – April 1 (new year’s week) to January 1.
Communication traveled slowly in those days and some people were only informed of the change several years later. Still others, who were more rebellious, refused to acknowledge the change and continued to celebrate on the last day of the former celebration, April 1.
These people were labeled “fools” by the general populace, were subject to ridicule and sent on “fool errands,” sent invitations to nonexistent parties and had other practical jokes played upon them. The butts of these pranks became known as a “poisson d’avril” or “April fish” because a young naive fish is easily caught. In addition, one common practice was to hook a paper fish on the back of someone as a joke.
This harassment evolved over time and a custom of prank-playing continue on the first day of April. This tradition eventually spread elsewhere like to Britain and Scotland in the 18th century and was introduced to the American colonies by the English and the French. Because of this spread to other countries, April Fool’s Day has taken on an international flavor with each country celebrating the holiday in its own way.
In Scotland April Fool’s Day is devoted to spoofs involving the buttocks and as such is called Taily Day. The butts of these jokes are known as April ‘Gowk’, another name for cuckoo bird. The origins of the “Kick Me” sign can be traced back to the Scottish observance.
In Ireland, a popular traditional joke is to entrust the victim with an “important letter” to be given to a named person. That person would then ask the victim to take it to someone else, and so on. The letter when finally opened contains the words “send the fool further.”
In England, jokes are played only in the morning. Fools are called ‘gobs’ or ‘gobby’ and the victim of a joke is called a ‘noodle.’ It was considered back luck to play a practical joke on someone after noon.
Norwegians, Danes and Swedes celebrate April Fools’ Day (aprilsnar in Danish) as well. Most news media outlets will publish exactly one false story on 1 April; for newspapers this will typically be a first-page article but not the top headline.
In Rome, the holiday is known as Festival of Hilaria, celebrating the resurrection of the god Attis, is on March 25 and is also referred to as “Roman Laughing Day.”
In Portugal, April Fool’s Day falls on the Sunday and Monday before lent. In this celebration, many people throw flour at their friends.
The Holi Festival is celebrated on March 31 in India. People play jokes on one another and smear colors on one another celebrating the arrival of Spring. ———————-
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I use Facebook to help the dogs we foster find their forever homes. Or at least that’s my hope. But sometimes I wonder if the effort I put into them is well spent or wasted.
I’ve tried building a separate page for each dog. That has the advantage of making it easy for interested parties to find a whole collection of pictures, videos, and descriptions that help them learn about that dog’s personality and temperament. The drawback is that each time I launch a new page I start from scratch in trying to build traffic to that page. That can take time.
I also have a Facebook account for Cochise: our 95 pound American Bulldog who was our very first foster dog. We adopted him and he has become a mentor to the other fosters. I’ve also hired him to be the spokesdog for Piney Mountain Foster Care. The advantage of posting doggie adventures on Cochise’s page is that he has a steadily growing audience to which all new dogs are easily introduced. The drawback is that someone going to Cochise’s page may have to scroll through many screens of posts to find all the posts about one particular dog.
The ongoing debate over toilet paper orientation seems to have been answered more than a century ago.
According to an 1891 patent by New York businessman Seth Wheeler, the end of a toilet paper roll should be on the front, or in the “over” position. Advocates of the “off-the-back” position, please take note and flip that roll over when you get home. The science has been settled, the guy who invented the stuff says so.
Mr. Wheeler, the man behind the Albany Perforated Wrapping Paper Company, is also the reason we’re able to tear off perfect squares in the first place: Albany Perforated originally patented the idea for perforated “wrapping” paper (a more modest name for toilet paper) in 1871.
“My invention … consists in a roll of wrapping paper with perforations on the line of the division between one sheet and the next, so as to be easily torn apart, such roll of wrapping paper forming a new article of manufacture,” Wheeler’s 1871 parent read.
Yes, I admit it: I am sometimes gullible (aka: stupid). Maybe “over-trusting” but I should know better by now.
An acquaintance of mine on Twitter posted an article explaining a utility he uses called FreeMind. It’s an organizer, database, note-taker thing that seems really impressive and useful. His computer runs on Linux exclusively. I wondered if FreeMind had a windows version. I did a search and found it on a number of software sites I did not recognize, so I avoided those. I found FreeMind.com: (I think: or something similar) thought that should be the safest. Downloaded the installer. Ran the installer.
Icons started popping up all over my desktop and task bar.
Mom e-mailed me this morning to say that something had been tapping against the side of her house last night. Of course it was on the outside of her bedroom wall: that makes it kind of hard to sleep.
It was windy last night. Still is. I pruned the pear trees yesterday (I found no partridges) to get the branches away from her house and help the trees grow safely. These trees bear heavily and the branches break under the load if I let them get too long and spindly. Those should not be the problem, but her Satellite TV and power wires are on that corner of the house.
Using the Guys Guidebook to Home Repairs adage of “If it moves and shouldn’t: use duct tape, if it should move and doesn’t: use WD40” I grabbed a roll of duct tape from the closet and went out the front door to head down the hill to Mom’s house. Continue reading “Things That Go “Tink, Tink, Tink” in the Night”
March is here. My buddy, Mike, who lives in Alabama, is already planting in his garden. Here in Tennessee, I’ve been spending time (now that the snow has melted off) digging out weeds and inventorying my supplies in preparation of setting up the garden for another summer.
Normally, at this time of year, I’d be closing down last year’s winter garden so I’d have space to get the early crops in for spring. But the last couple of years have been particularly cold and snowy and little has survived in my winter gardens.
This year I have a row of spinach that went dormant but is now perking up, and I see a few spikes of garlic leaves poking up through the straw at long last. My rosemary, oregano and thyme look to have survived as well. Everything else was killed. I’ll look to the bright side and say, “Setting up for spring will be easier.”
Let me tell you about the things I do in setting up the garden, as far as soil preparation, seed and equipment inventory, and lay-out planning. Read more…
A few days ago some old feller called and wanted to talk me into upgrading my service with Comcast by bundling telephone in with our TV and internet. I reminded him (as politely as ever I could) that he was talking to me on the telephone, therefore I HAD telephone service. For the service we were using, I pay $30 a year. If I went with Comcast phone I’d be paying $30 a MONTH and get no better service on a device I rarely use anyway. He objected to that, and I told him that I am not at all impressed by Comcast’s internet service. It was quite good once, but lately it just crawls along and we can’t do much of what we expect to be able to do much of the time — things we were able to do before Comcast developed faster services. Yesterday it was so bad it was like being back on dial-up: it took me 27 minutes to upload a 35 SECOND video clip. I am looking for an alternative because their prices keep going up and my service keeps degrading.
“Oh, well if you upgrade to a faster package, I’m sure you will be pleased with the internet service…”
“So you want me to pay more money (about double what I’m paying now, as I recall) to restore the service that I’m supposed to be getting? And how long will it be before you decide you want MORE money from me and throttle back my service again so you can “encourage” me to upgrade again?”
“Well, I don’t know about the internet services.”
He went on with his sales pitch for the phone service and I ended up telling him, ”I appreciate that it is your job to try to convince me to buy more services from Comcast. You have made the call and tried. I am NOT going to be giving Comcast any more money as long as I am displeased with the service I’m already getting. Pursuing your attempt will only waste your time and mine. Have a nice day and good by.” And I hung up.
I really wanted to yell at him because I’m not happy with Comcast: but that’s (probably) not HIS fault. He is (probably) just some poor shlep who took the job of telemarketer trying to sell people more services. But I wasn’t going to let him waste a lot of my time either. Polite, but firm. If that had not worked, I was going to turn him over to Cochise and let THEM discuss it.
We often enjoy having breakfast for dinner. Not cold cereal, but eggs or biscuits and gravy, or sometimes even pancakes. During a particularly cold week I wanted something warming and comforting for the family dinner, but not the usual fare. I decided on a biscuits and gravy casserole. It turned out to be a great choice: a satisfying meal that warmed us up after a session of recovering a stuck truck from a long, icy driveway.
Biscuits and Gravy Casserole
1 pound ground pork sausage.
5 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup flour
3 cups milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 cup chopped green onions divided in half
1 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese
8 jumbo refrigerator biscuits
Preheat the oven to 350 F and grease an 11-by-7-inch baking dish and place it on a baking tray larger than the dish (in case any casserole spills over during baking).
You may want to make your own biscuits instead of using the store-bought. That’s fine, just cook your sausage before you make the biscuits and roll the biscuits out to 1/4-inch thickness. Read more…
