Thankful thankgiving

Just getting over a nasty head cold or allergy or something. Still sneezing though. Whatever it is, it's making me fall behind in my work.

I've got a lot to be thankful for, not gonna make a list though.

Gotta go, y'all be as much as you can be.

Yes, we can. On our own.

A very good article here, by Paul Ibrahim, about the independence of the American Dream upon government and politicians.

Rainy slow day

With fall firmly holding court we have cut down our open days to Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. So I spent most of the day at the stand waiting for a half dozen people to wonder in. It poured and it rained and it blew and cold was omnipresent. But I got a lot of web page work done so that made the day productive.

We're still harvesting some nice tomatoes from the greenhouse and the yams dad dug a couple weeks back have been selling good. And of course winter squash are a mainstay especially in this weather. Nothing makes the belly happy like some warm baking squash on a cold, rainy day.

I've been reading a book called "The universal history of the destruction of books" which I got from the Jackson county library. Sounds kinda dull but it is actually really interesting. Never realized how many libraries have burned over the centuries. Weird that so many books from so many authors have vanished forever. Gives me a seething curiosity, wondering what was lost.

Hope y'all stay dry and warm and happy.

Social superposition

Right now American society is entering a period of absolute uncertainty as the populace rolls the cultural dice to decide who will be our next president. For the next 48 hours we will remain in a state of being with 2 potentials unrealized. Will America enter the McCain or Obama era? Just like an electron being given 2 paths to travel but both remain potential until measured. So too is America in a superposition. No amount of polls or calculations, speculation or manipulation is going to change this. The fact is that the electorate will make up its own mind and only counting the votes will determine the outcome. Well, I suppose Acorn's attempt at manipulation might have some affect but then again it might back-fire too. Constructive or destructive reinforcement can be like that.

Hmmmm... Blogger's spell checker flags Obama's name as a misspelling but not McCain's. An infomatic omen? Or just more gigo? Time will tell.

disenfranchized no more

Finally got my ballot in the mail yesterday after having been dis'd from the last 2 voting cycles. Just gotta review the initiatives and candidates and then I'll vote. One thing's for sure: every Oregonian should join me in writing in Patrick Deardon for State Treasurer. He knows how to use Excel and we can all be sure he hasn't been bought by a special-interest-group.

As for the big 2 candidates, you could split a penny on the difference between them. I'd vote for Bob Barr if I thought he had a chance in heck of winning. But that'd just give one less vote to the opponent of the candidate I dislike most.

It's 34 degrees and fogggggy at the farm this morning. Apple picking is the job for today; precarious monkey action on a 12 foot aluminum ladder.

Everyone be well or happy or, preferably, both.

This is freakin hilarious

Look, I love cats. But this page is freakin' hilarious: BlenderDefender.

redirect warnings

Been seeing a lot of malicious redirects exploiting the recently described security hole in internet servers. I click on a link to Lifehacker, Make or some other webzine or service and will get an odd looking page, poorly formatted, which is clearly not the page I'm looking for. It's a good idea for everyone to be alert for this right now.

Signs of the times

Been working on (painting) new signs for the produce stand. Apples, new hours and next I'll refurb the big baking squash sign. Mom's been working with the dryer and dad made corn bundles. Other than that it's been a pretty easy Sunday. Some bright sunshine, a few passing clouds.

Fall has begun transforming the landscape colors, so pretty.

The tomatoes in the greenhouse are holding their own against mildew and dampness. A couple more days and they should be safe as dryness spreads. Especially if I can give dad the spare time to fix-up the fan he bought in White City.

Few more Sunday evening tasks to do, y'all be happy.

Now! is when you have a gas boycott

According to Reuter's gasoline has just taken its biggest drop ever. So I am reminded of a previous post scorning the ever present chain-email letter encouraging a gas boycott ( link here ) and I would like to point out that logistically speaking, NOW would be a really good time for all of us to start working together to dramatically reduce our usage. Not for global warming reasons, simply to put serious downward pressure on the pricing structure.

So everyone use your cell phones more, arrange mutual trips with neighbors in to town and buy large amounts of storable food to reduce additional trips. Carpool, for god's sake it's the 21st century you can find someone on the net to carpool with you.

Anyways, gotta go sleep now.

cantaloupe gone

Ol' Jack Frost ate his fill of my melons last night. Pretty much everything else too except the tomatoes we covered. 600+ glorious tomato plants under clear plastic, gorgeous. Gotta set my alarm for 3am to check and see if we need to turn on the burners in the greenhouse; another cold night.

Dad and I were scramble busy this afternoon pinning the rest of the plastic down for the greenhouse. What we had up was good enough for one night but we had to put a bunch more slats and staples on if it was to survive wind and rain. Plus we were up at 3:30am to put water on the corn (a frost preventer of limited success) and that just eats a lot of one's sleep.

So it's been a long, busy, tiring day with another likely tomorrow. I'm gonna shuffle off to clean up and go to bed.

Y'all be well.

Greenhouse up

Thank goodness. Heater is in place too. 500,000 b.t.u.s of thermal power. Only have to keep the frost off. I also took the time to hook up the sprinklers over on Pete's ground so we can wet down the corn if frost thinks of taking hold there. Hopefully temps will stay high enough otherwise we get up at like 3 or 4 am, sneak over there and turn the water on.

Gotta go. Sleepy-sleep time.

Y'all be happy.

Greenhouse tomatoes

Today dad and I will finish covering the late tomatoes with a plastic greenhouse. 660 plants in three 300 foot rows.

Yesterday our good friend Gary stopped by in the afternoon and the three of us finished building the rafters. Then, while I was picking corn, dad and Gary covered the first third. So that only leaves the last 200 feet to cover.

Now our tomatoes will be protected from the frost and we can keep selling them, maybe all the way until thanksgiving.

Wishing y'all a hopeful and prosperous day.

Rain Uncertainty

The rain is mostly past now. 2 days of it and you'd think that would've given me time to write at least 1 or 2 more blog entries but no, still busy.

The first morning of rain was sort of intense, loaded with smoke and ash from recent forest fires it made a mess of everything. Yesterday's heavier showers washed most of that away and this morning the air was clear and sweet smelling. Those fresh Oregon mornings always take me back to my childhood at Yew Creek road which the county misspelled "Ewe Creek", bunch a numbskulls. It was called Yew Creek because of the Yew trees growing in the creek basin. Here's hoping that the rains have diminished the fires along with restoring the air and my memories.

The uncertainty is exactly how much damage was caused by the rain. The early tomatoes especially the large ones will be heavily damaged and the grapes will too. Cantaloupe were extremely dry before this so they might not have split too bad and we may see some good harvest tomorrow morning. If I can keep them picked off a little on the pre-ripe side we can probably avoid rot too.

Tomorrow will be morning harvesting of cants, squash, and cukes. Then pumpkins and squash in the afternoon. My good buddy Alice will stop by for a visit and some fresh veggies a little after lunch, or so she is planning. It's always a blast to see my classmates.

Getting tired, gotta go snooze it. Y'all be well and smart.

They call it a bailout

To paraphrase Boromir, "This is no bailout, this is a tomb!"

A recent study has shown that the vast majority of failed mortgages are in the hands of speculators and risk taking real estate dealers.

The media and congress keep insisting this isn't a bailout, it is an investment opportunity. But if the assets remain worthless even this "new and improved" bailout bill will end up having little or no effect with the exception of weakening the dollar and causing the turmoil on Wall Street to stretch on and on. According to Bloomberg we lost over a trillion dollars in a single day ("Hey Joe, where'd we leave that box with a trillion dollars in it?") Is anyone stupid enough to believe 700 billion will last even one day in such a climate?

Seeing the Senate try to foist this off on the American people again is like finding a five year old playing with cat feces: revolting.

Weird day

Really slow this morning then pounding busy this afternoon. Business died around 5:20 so I got out right at 6.

Had some really great customers come in today, everyone was in a good mood and the product was looking great so the business ran smooth. So seldom, very enjoyable.

Cantaloupes, ogen melons, ananas and Juan Canary melons are all coming in great. Sooo sweet. Everyone who has tried one comes back and gets 2. Corn in the second-to-last field is peaking for ripeness, quality, sweetness etc. our little experiment to control the ear worm without pesticides seems to be working and that's not even in the target field. Can't wait to see how the last field fairs.

Dad has the plastic ordered to put on the late planting of 650 tomatoes which are just starting to pink up. Should run us well into November.

I'm praying that the upcoming threat of showers will pass to the north and miss us. Otherwise the first tomato field, the cantaloupes and the grapes will all likely be ruined. Oh yeah, grapes have been selling real good too. Maybe if it rains I can get a bailout ??

Hope y'all are doing well and happy.

Correctness

Or the upright path as they might say in the I-Ching.

Today my country, through the god given wisdom of our founding fathers, chose to do the correct thing. I am so proud, like a father at his kids first baseball game when they catch a fly.

The House did their job, they saw the upright path and they followed it. Now my country can face the consequences of its decisions and be responsible for its behavior.

And it's about time. No more putting it off, no more hand wringing. Roll up the sleeves and get back to work.

Plus, now we're 700 billion dollars richer. And we aren't in debt to some foreign entities for 700 billion dollars. Best of all, tyranny got kicked square in the nutsack.

I'm gonna be chuckling all the way to bed.

Health and happiness to you all.

Wrongness

Economics and politics make a crappy stew.

I simply can't believe the amount of "wrongness" in this current so-called economic catastrophe. It was wrong for housing prices to go so high, it was wrong for banks to loan such outrageous amounts to people with little or no ability to repay, it was wrong for the construction industry to oversupply the market, it was wrong for those people with loans to default on the loans and it was wrong for Chuck Schumer and the media to start a run on the banks by conflating the circumstances beyond their true scope.

But the wrongest thing of all is for the US government to take the taxpayer's hard earned money and give it to those same bankers and wall street lobbyists. And don't kid yourself, that is exactly what will happen to much if not all of this near trillion dollar "bail-out".

None of the rest of us get bailed out. I could never hope to get a $20,000 check from the government to cover my losses from our June 28th hailstorm. And that wasn't even caused by bad business decision making. I have no culpability in that hailstorm. Wall street and the banks are and should remain culpable, especially those CEOs and investment strategists whose decisions led to this. Congress shouldn't be bailing them out, it should be arresting them for fraud.

Ultimately the right and honest thing would be to let the chips fall where they may. But instead the craven and the greedy will lead us down another path towards oligarchy. Tyranny truly is a universal human constant.

Update: here's an article at Bloomberg about what is going to happen to the dollar when the Fed creates a trillion in international debt. Of course it is too much to hope that our legislature would understand the law of conservation of energy. Also the old Newton saw: for every action there is a disastrous unintended consequence.

Sunday serendipity

Dad and I spent most of today doing some odd jobs on our selling location. Glued down some rugs that were peeling up, tied wire across the front shade tarp to keep it from huffing and puffing and put up those colored flags that car lots seem to love. That last dad and I didn't want to do, but we get so many complaints from new customers about not knowing where to go that we felt it was necessary.

Not really sure if I want customers who can't find their way to the front of the building. They might get confused and be unable to find their way out.

So of course a bunch of people had to stop by and bug us while we worked. I'll tell you it didn't raise my estimation of the intelligence of my fellow American, or human for that matter. No open signs, never been open on Sunday in all our twenty years and people still just strolled in like they owned the place. Then we had to go into long winded explanations to get them to leave, or else just forget the whole thing and sell them something. Made enough that way for a trip out to dinner I suppose. But it was still a pain in the butt. Especially the people who stopped by looking for corn, they always have to say "we've got our own tomatoes in the garden." Too bad they didn't plant corn too 'cause they didn't get any from us today.

The very first lady set the tone. I told her we weren't open, didn't have any change. She said she just wanted some peaches and tomatoes. I said ok, so long as she had exact change or at least didn't ask me to break a twenty. She says "I'd never do that." Her bill was $8.25; she hands me a twenty. Arrrg! as Charley Brown would say. I figure I've got two fives in my pocket and tell her so and she gets a couple more peaches, stiffs me for the 10 cents over. Won't even look in her car for the change. Then she and her fat daughter eat peaches and smoke outside our stand while we try getting work done. When they leave there is a peach pit and a cigarette butt in our driveway. Yet another reason we're never open on Sundays: that crowd is a bunch of arrogant so-and-sos.

Anyways we just got through having steak, salad and corn on the cob for dinner. Delicious! Followed by mom's low-fat, no-sugar ice cream with peach topping and chocolate sauce. Yum!!!!!

Gonna do just a couple more chores and then kick back for the evening. Wishing you all happiness and a full belly.

Sell, sell, sell

We had a good day at the stand today. Not our best ever but probably in the top ten. The melons and corn were doing good traffic but it's the tomatoes that are really rockin'. Seems lots of people haven't had a good 'mater in a while. It was windy and our stupid canning tomato sign fell over or we would've sold more cases of canning tomatoes too.

Just got through eating some delicious Abby's pizza paid for by our good friends Charley and June Smith as an appreciation for me taking care of their cats.

Today is dad's birthday. 71! Still tough and cantankerous as ever. My sister and mom conspired to get him an ice cream birthday cake from Dairy Queen (where sis works) and neither dad nor I suspected a thing. So when the pizza settles we'll have a delightful treat to enjoy for dessert.

I started picking this morning around 6:45 and have been running ever since so I'm pretty tired now, gonna go rest a bit.

Y'all be happy and well.

Hailstorm subsequence

Bad news.

The main field of tomatoes finally began ripening and we are facing a huge press of sunburned and yellow-shouldered tomatoes.

Everything was going fine, all looked well while the fruit was green. However, it turns out that the hailstorm pounded down and opened up our plants too much so we are seeing a huge incidence of basically ruined fruit. It isn't that it's inedible, just unmarketable. I'm afraid our dealings with Ray's Food Place are now going to be a mute issue. Nothing sadder than 15,000 pounds of useless fruit.

We'll still have enough for our stand, just barely but picking will suck. Gonna have to spend a lot of time searching and hunting for usable fruit.

Well, this too shall pass. Hope y'all are being happy and well.