In my many years, I have known a lot of gardens from flowers to vegetables. It seemed one of those things you just do as I grew up with parents who grew gorgeous flower gardens-- each with their own favorite section and type of flowers. I do not think I have ever appreciated one so much as this year after not having any vegetable garden last year due to poor conditions for getting the soil ready for planting. We let it rest and we are totally reaping the benefit this year.
We added a new garden space with room for corn (which the sheep temporarily derailed but is once again looking promising). The weather has been perfect for vegetables and everything is going gangbusters. We have yet to reap the first green beans, tomatoes or zucchini but it's close-- real close. And I am so enjoying our new space for the picnic table with new shrubs. It's a good year for being outside and with family.
I'd like to say that when I look at the outside world, I feel equally positive but it's a tough season for some reason and that appears to be not just our nation. Violence and meanness seem to be growing and with little excuse most of the time.
I do not know how it'll go with Egypt but any nation that looks the other way when women are raped and sexually abused, who uses religion as an excuse for meanness and cruelty, sorry but I have to think it's not going to end well.
Some want to defend religions as doing more good than harm. I'm not one of the 'some'. I am disgusted with those who use their fundamentalist faith as an excuse to browbeat others-- and that happens around the world.
I also don't think all religions are equal. If a religion leads people to ignore science, to justify whatever it wants based on faith, that's a lousy system no matter what name it is called by.
Here's the thing-- plant in good soil. Tend the garden. You reap what you sow-- and trying to ignore that based on some divine god overlooking the wrong doing, that doesn't work in a vegetable garden or life. Failure of a system is just more obvious in the vegetable garden-- or maybe comes quicker. It can be fixed though-- sometimes requires starting over but someone has to admit it didn't and doesn't work for that to happen...
10 comments:
I could take up gardening as a religion. It seems so much more sensible and useful than anything else humans do.
Everything you said is so true, Rain....A Garden is a smaller microcosm of what a world can be, if tended properly. Your Veggie Garden sounds quite wonderful this year!
I have a couple of political questions if you are interested in posting on them. One, how do you feel about the immigration bill. I have listened to lots of talking but have not really researched it. I know you feel differently about the issue than most democrats.
Two, what do you think about Obama violating the Healthcare affordability act by delaying the employer mandate? It is his and Pelosi's law and now he is voiding a big part of it until he is done with his term.
political is fine, ingineer.
On the immigration bill, I don't think it makes sense as most of the illegals I see can't possibly pay the penalties they talk about. They are barely getting by. Doubling the money for the border support doesn't make much sense to me either and not sure fences work (drones are very costly but make a lot of money for some defense contractors so I can see why they wanted them).
I can see protecting our border more because of the drugs and who knows what else that can come through. The illegal drug traffickers have turned northern Mexico into their private fiefdom with murdering sheriffs and individuals as they please. We don't want them moving freely up here and if we ended their drug profits (legalizing pot would be a good first step), maybe they'd get taken down eventually as they are mean mean people.
On Obama on the health care, it seems like it has a lot of things going wrong including people not signing up for it even where they have affordable insurance offered. They say a lot who could get Medicaid don't sign up for it either. But to be honest I've read very little about it all (last week was also grandkid week) as so many other things seemed to matter more to me like environment/global climate change; what they did to college loan costs; abortion rights where many state legislatures and governors are doing all they can to take a woman's right to choose away; this Christian nation movement who would undo the gay marriage rights of states to determine as well as end all abortion and make the Bible our Constitution; etc. etc.
So on those two issues, what do you think about them?
I like the garden as a metaphor. I avoid politics.
Glad that you are getting family time. That is important and a summertime treat.
I have not thoroughly researched the bill but it seems to me that if it is too difficult to follow the new rules they will be ignored just like the rules we have now. And we already have a law that requires 700 miles of new fence but only a small part of it has been built. we need to build the entire fence. I like the idea of more officers on the border but we do not need more drones or high tech junk. We can see plenty of people crossing on the tower cameras now and don't have enough officers to catch them. Watching more people on video with no means to stop them is just window dressing.
To me Obamacare just seems like a disaster. Premiums are going through the roof even though the President promised the average person would save $600 a year. The plans that were offered to people with pre-existing conditions are kicking those people off and not offering new coverage. And now the President himself is violating the law by giving exemptions to some groups and delaying implementation of some sections. It seems equal protection under the law is a thing of the past in this country.
Obama took over the student loan program shortly after he took office and now the program is a mess. He wants to Federalize everything and most of the time it makes things worse not better.
I am not too worried about climate change. I think the earth has cycles and we need to prepare for sea level changes if they are truly rising but punishing power producers is a mistake. And look at the oil train fire in Canada. Clearly the XL pipeline would be a safer way to transport oil than trains through towns. And it would reduce our dependence on oil from the Middle East.
I do not understand this sudden assault on reproductive rights in some states. We have many conservatives saying the Republican Party needs to focus less on social issues and pay more attention to fiscal issues because that is what is going to take down this nation. And instead of doing that we have a few people doubling down on social issues. I wish they would give it a rest.
You do know that the oil is intended for South America, not the US. It goes to refineries in Texas and is shipped off. We are pretty close to energy self sufficiency with fracking which might be destroying our water supply and other damages but then what's the environment, right?
The experts say it is us and this is not going to be a normal cycle because we are making what would have been one far worse-- methane in the air is another issue like CO2. We are not hurting energy producers now as they still get subsidies even with all their profits-- which are mega. They are trying to block solar unless they can figure out a way to get money from it. The idea that you can use solar to run your home is not okay with them as you then take your dollars away from them... And for those like the Koch brothers or that guy who runs the coal mines with no care about safety-- there's never enough money.
On health care. Our rates haven't gone up for our supplemental; and the ones who did have rate increases (that i know about) they came before health care changes. My kids' small business has been better for the program as they were paying for their small business' employees to have insurance. This was a boon to them. Watch what you read because a lot is right now intended to keep profits high (which they still are) for health insurers and hospitals while the average people find they are ruined if they have a huge health problem. Imagine losing your job over a big health problem, then finding Cobra costs too much and you can't buy insurance because of that big health problem while you lose your group policy after losing your job-- that's what is at stake with fixing health care. IF people don't like Obamacare, the idea is figure out something that helps people. Republicans just want to kill it and leave the guy above with no help at all.
And I don't know what it's about either on the assault but there is a movement called Christian Nation and it might be behind a lot of it. It's not biblical. It's political and corporate. I think some tea partiers are beginning to get the message on who is on their side-- and it's not corporations.
My son said the other day that he thinks big corporations are our real problem and we fight with each other while they rake in the chips and gain more and more power.
The energy companies own most of the solar companies. That is why they call them energy companies now and not oil companies, so I don't really buy into this evil oil companies are trying to kill solar mantra. $4.00 gas pisses me off just as much as the next person, but I do not think government is necessarily the answer. In Mexico the oil company is the government and they pay was much for gas as we do.
What they want is to sell it to you, not to let you produce it for yourself on your own roof. That's the difference. They want the profits and not allow you to use less of the energy they produce.
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