Good weather is bad for blog traffic. If you haven’t been over to Open Left yet, you should check it out. They’re doing some very highbrow, interesting stuff. Paul Rosenberg’s piece today is outstanding.
What are you doing outdoors these days?
Update [2007-7-15 1:7:37 by BooMan]: You can catch Larry Johnson and SusanHu at their new home: No Quarter USA. Update your bookmarks and blogrolls.
Right now, sitting at the veranda of an old friend – there is a light summer drizzle, it’s 11 pm – we have been making ti’ punches – all is well.
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Too bad the weather is not Caribbean like … being with old friends compensates a lot.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."We can always pretend…
Yes, Bastille Day.
What are you doing outdoors these days?
Watering the garden.
No drought here (yet!), and no municipal water restrictions, but it sure feels funny to be using up drinking water just like a real agro-business!
Potatos, swiss chard, carrots, green beans, eggplants, broccoli, tomatos, and peppers (hot and sweet) are all coming in great! Radishes now long gone; peas are almost finished out after a nice harvest.
The onions do not look happy. Don’t know why.
The plot is tiny so the quantities are small: It is really just a front-lawn demonstration project.
Without watering, all would be dead in two weeks. The lawn grass has been left to fend for itself. It looks like hell.
On the weather-summary maps my region is fine. I am starting to wonder if they are lying. I suppose it is time to get (or make?) a rain gage.
Obviously, this approach is not sustainable–though it is organic: That part we have down.
I am thinking about non-drinking-water irrigation. (For next year).
Also, turning the compost.
It is mostly leaves (and some kitchen waste and as much coffee grounds as I can get my hands on) so it is composting slow. But it is coming along nicely, is warm, and smells–not rotten–but toasty. Leaves normally take about five years. I am hoping to do them in one. (That’s the reason for the coffee grounds.) I don’t know yet if this is realistic.
It needs water too. Never would have believed it! Watering DEAD LEAVES AND GARBAGE! Some things you don’t find out till you actually do them.
Picking raspberries.
A pair of friends have let their yard go to brambles. No order; no paths between plants. Fun! Like an affectionate cat!
But the black raspberries have been peaking, and really were perfect–very tasty. I helped a second friend to harvest–he is making fruit mead.
Compost needs water? No wonder my giant pile of leaves, grass clippings and kitchen waste is just sitting there doing nothing after 2 years of drought conditions in the southeast. Our lawn has been brown since late May but I can’t in good conscience water it like my neighbors do.
If you catch the water from the faucet while you’re waiting for it to heat up for a shower or a bath, you can in good conscience pour it on your compost heap as it would have gone down the drain otherwise. Dishwater, if it isn’t too greasy, is another source of water for either the heap or your garden. We seem to be in a dry swath with the last three or four storms going either to the north or the south. Even the creeping Charlie in the yard – a miserable weed – is turning brown and dying. We water the garden, but with a pail and pour the water around the roots so there isn’t as much waste as with a sprinkler. Now if the deer would just quit munching on my tomato plants, I might even get a harvest.
The creatures that do the composition need both air and water to live. Without air, the pile goes anaerobic, which certainly works–there is a different set of organisms that love a lack of air–but they smell TERRIBLE. So air is important, and turning the pile helps by fluffing it up.
As to water, the pile needs to be moist, but not soaking. If you can “squeeze water out with your hands” it is too wet. It should feel damp through though. And warm–or even hot. Not to let it catch fire–add more water before that happens.
Leaves are mostly cellulose–“carbon,” or “brown.” A leaf pile is usually short of nitrogen compounds–“green.” Anything leafy green–such as fresh grass clippings–will have some nitrogen, also coffee grounds, which is why I am using them. Earthworms are especial fans of coffee.
The water for the pile need not be drinking water. That is just a defect of my system, which I hope to correct. Usually we have enough rain that water takes care of itself. But not this year.
Lately, I’ve been enjoying exposing myself.
to our world’s natural beauty, that is. What did you think I meant?
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Edwards says, “We should try to have a more serious and a smaller group.”
Clinton agrees, saying, “We’ve got to cut the number” and “They’re not serious.” She also says that she thought their campaigns had already tried to limit the debates and “we’ve got to get back to it.”
Clinton, Edwards Caught On Open Mic"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."What do you think Oui? You think the debates should be open to this many or do you agree with Edwards and Sen. Clinton?
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keep most candidates in the debates. Later it’s the MSM and corporate money that usually decides the frontrunner anyway.
In Search Of New Debate Formats
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Just saw that My Left Wing is celebrating its second anniversary. You can swing by and offer your congratulations here
http://www.myleftwing.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=17813
Open thread- OK- try this on for comments- LAT reporter – today- less that 135 prisoners being held in Iraq are considered Al-Q! Largest group of foreigners supporting anti-US presence is SAUDI!!!!!!!
Go chew on this tidbit!
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(LA Times) – About 45% of all foreign militants targeting U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians and security forces are from Saudi Arabia; 15% are from Syria and Lebanon; and 10% are from North Africa, according to a U.S. military official. Nearly half of the 135 foreigners in U.S. detention facilities in Iraq are Saudis.
Fighters from Saudi Arabia are thought to have carried out more suicide bombings than those of any other nationality, said the senior U.S. officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the subject’s sensitivity. It is apparently the first time a U.S. official has given such a breakdown on the role played by Saudi nationals in Iraq’s Sunni Arab insurgency.
He said 50% of all Saudi fighters in Iraq come here as suicide bombers. In the last six months, such bombings have killed or injured 4,000 Iraqis.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."