I have a garden update for you today. The tomatoes (Better Boy and Celebrity) have nearly topped their cages and have little green maters on them. Everything is showing promise, even the zucchini, which up until a few days ago only had male flowers. We had been getting regular thundershowers with enough rain to keep things going with out watering. Cue the arrival of a major heat wave with plenty of sunshine and temperatures in the mid to upper 90s. I had to put shade cloth over the poor cukes yesterday, and 15 minutes later they were in the shade. Don't worry, it's not climate change, just summer.
I'm not a real morning person, so watering happens later than I'd like, but I do try to keep most of it off the foliage. My straw was not what I normally get and it molded, so some of my plants do not have mulch yet. Lesson learned...don't get that again. Only got it because it was all they had and I needed straw. Argh, still need more straw or something. Never use the colored mulch in the garden. I haven't looked for data on that, but the dye stains clothing, so I can't think it is good for plants.
I have been enjoying my expanded herb garden, and hubby has been getting some in his nightly salad. Maybe I need to do a post on just herbs and include a favorite recipe. You will be surprised.
At this moment in time, the temperature in our neck of the woods is 94° with a heat index of 109 reported from a nearby weather station.
Wherever you are, I hope you are staying cool and hydrated. Until next time, stay safe and stay sane.
Update, I noticed after putting this post together that I had gotten my finger in two of the pics. Too hot to do a retake!
Here we find ourselves once again in the month of June. It is a new year and a new era. Times they are a changing, and for the better in my humble opinion.
It seems that more people and more companies are turning away from "pride month" (intentionally not capitalized). If you have been reading here for any length of time, you know where I stand on this subject.
We'll start with Target as our first example. There are videos and articles saying that Target is pulling back from pride month, and their displays are patriotic, American themed and family oriented. You know, like a regular summer display. Okay, that's great, right? Well, I went to their corporate website and guess what I found? They DO have a pride collection, although they have largely scaled back since the major outrage from consumers in 2023 when they featured LGBT and trans clothing for children, not to mention the Satanist designs. Oh my word. Decent people will only take so much then look out.
Mostly what I saw online was items with rainbow colors and "sayings". So it would seem that they not turned away as much as toned down. Perhaps this is only on their website. Maybe stores in more conservative areas have less, and the more liberal areas have more. I don't know. I haven't been in Target in years, and I used to shop there before the woke virus overtook them.
Here are some of the companies who are NOT sponsoring pride month this year.
Among these are Anheuser-Busch, Disney, DoorDash, UPS, PepsiCo and Capital One. It seems a number of companies are doing a complete about face when it comes to pride. Maybe they figured out that when you go woke you go broke.
Now let's have a look at pride in the NFL and the MLB. I have no love for football to begin with, but even if I did, this would certainly change my viewing habits. They are obviously not listening to the fans.
This is so disgusting, but I had to include it to show the full scope of their wokeness.
Major League Baseball is right up there with the NFL, but there is one outstanding exception and that is the Texas Rangers. No Pride in Texas, Rangers Lone Team Without Pride Night.
I hope this post finds you well today, and gives you some hope that things are indeed changing for the better. Maybe someone will find a cure for the woke mind virus plaguing so many.
I hope you take some time to step back from the craziness of the world to enjoy the summer and spend time getting back to nature. We can all benefit from fresh air, sunshine and connecting with the earth.
Fitting right in with pride month (no I don't capitalize it), here is a bit of good news for the sane among us. It seems the Supreme Court has ruled against gender-affirming care, i.e. child mutilation, and upheld the ban in Tennessee. The vote was 6-3.
Now, I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me like this could set a precedent for other states to follow. I certainly hope so! I have seen too many stories from both males and females who have DE-transitioned because they realized it didn't fix anything, and they regretted making the transition.
Many of these individuals come from a background of abuse, neglect, addiction, autism and, mental health issues. Some began taking hormone treatments in their teens. If these young people had gotten the medical and mental health care and therapy they needed, instead of being told they can change their gender, likely they wouldn't have ended up transitioning in the first place. I've said it before and I'll say it again. You cannot change your gender. All the hormones, and surgeries will not make a man into a woman or a woman into a man, and once you have had those surgeries your life is changed forever, even after you detransition.
Those who are pushing this mutilation of children make it sound appealing as if it will magically make all their problems go away. You know what, problems and figuring things out are part of what it means to grow up. But first, they just need to be kids, to run and jump and play, to ride bikes and learn to fish, cook or do chores for an allowance. They don't need LGBT books in their schools, and pride displays in stores. They need love and discipline. They need guidance and to be taught critical thinking and reasoning skills as they navigate the path from child to teen to adult.
No matter what your political views are, the world's children are the future. We can ensure the future by doing our best to protect the children, not from bumps and scrapes, but from evil.
Your thoughts are welcome in the comments. Until next time, stay safe and stay sane.
It's been a few days so I thought I'd check in and give the first garden update of the year. Since it rained a lot during the time I would be putting the garden in, I had to wait. I only managed to get it tilled once and had to spread the amendments on the top and dig them in by hand as needed. Ugh!
Finally I bought plants and slowly introduced them to the garden with all the usual things like fertilizer and for the three tomato plants, a bit of epsom salts in the hole and some baking soda sprinkled around. Straw was applied liberally.
Then came one zucchini, one sweet banana pepper, one jalapeno, and two cucumbers. All got their own bed of straw as well. Now we wait. Well we had some nice warm, sunny days, and then the rains and cool temps
came back. The garden appeared to be at a standstill for what seems like forever, but I am seeing runners on the cukes and buds on them and the squash. I even have blooms and one small pepper on the itty bitty jalapeno. Now I have heard people say that they pluck off the early fruit so the plant will put more energy into growth. I've never done that and still had success.
The last time I planted jalapenos, they got eaten off and what grew back didn't produce well. So now we have our garden fenced in against at least the larger critters.
What a difference a couple weeks make. The first picture above was taken May 20 and the second was taken June 2.
