Mom

My mom would have been 94 tomorrow, July 20.... I would give everything I have for ten more minutes with her. I miss her more than any other ... more than I ever thought I could miss anyone. None of the fights or arguments are remembered, only the laughter, the good sound advice she gave, never heavy-handed, always tempered with reason...don't do drugs. With the exception of MJ in the 70's when I was an adult, I never did. Never touched a beer in high school when "everyone else was doing it." And when I entered my teenage years... "don't fall for boys who say they love you, or tell you how beautiful you are...teenage boys have one thing on their minds. One thing." I was a virgin when I got married... at least the first time 😁 My mom was flawed, all moms are, we fought at times, made each other cry... but she never lied to me, even when the news was bad. I didn't cherish her enough when she was here... I hope she hears me now. Take heed.

Have always loved fresh squeezed orange juice

When I was a kid my mom would  make fresh squeezed orange juice... yeah it didn't come out of a can, bottle, or freezer section of the grocery store....  she bought oranges, squeezed them by hand, blended them... delicious!

Did the same thing for my kids when they were little... by then they were already used to the store-bought orange juice.... didn't like the stuff I squeezed and blended !   Pathetic.

Homemade orange juice is labor and time intensive... people get used to a little less than quality to save time.... examine that for a bit.... "saving time" is not possible. It can only be used, but that's how we get indoctrinated to accept less.

Well that didn't last long

The cross-stitch project is over.... now have so much arthritis pain in my hands and neck that I can barely move.... can probably give the kit away on Freecycle, but will do that later... now I have to stay down with the heating pad.  Didn't realize it would affect the neck and shoulders so much but no doubt from the head bent forward position taken when cross stitching.  Neck and shoulders are the only other place I have arthritis besides the thumbs and wrists. 

Looks like it's going to be difficult to find something to do that won't end up with me being immobile with pain.  Did take a 500 mg Naproxen but that's as far as I'll go with the meds... too hard on the tummy.

Guess I'll start cleaning up the garden tomorrow.... a bit early but as there are no pollinators my squash hasn't set any fruit, the tomato plants have produced very little fruit, and the flowering plants are thin and shabby.  Sunflowers did okay - at least the Goldfinches got something to eat.  As I have been gardening for over sixty years this is a huge blow.... thinking next year I'll do nothing....

I can't be the only one who writes and calls congress about the disaster that  Monsanto, Dow, Bayer and Syngenta are bringing to our planet. Can I?  People are still using Roundup in their yards... unfathomable to me.  Even if they don't bother with research, surely they can't have missed the several hundred million dollars in fines Monsanto has had to pay so far for lying about the dangers of Roundup... people working in the fields are coming down with cancer. How oblivious does a person have to be to just not KNOW that pouring poison on the earth, filling the air with it, poisoning all our waterways is sheer idiocy? I mean, is it that fucking important to have "perfect" produce?? The planet is dying. 

Have Started What Appears to be a Lifelong Project

Have started my first very large cross-stitch.... it has taken me two hours to NOT quite complete one square... there are 506 squares. One square is approximately one inch by one inch.

Ah well.  Not quite as painful for the hands as crocheting/knitting, but close. If I complete it, WHEN I complete the project will be quite beautiful.

It has been close to six and a half years since I have done anything I considered purposeful on this earth..... that was my work with Old Dog Haven.

Ah, science has discovered what many parents already knew!

"Science"  has has long known that homes with pets in them produce children with stronger immune systems.

I could have told them that years ago.  Want to vastly increase your children's chance of not having allergies?  Fill your house with pets, plants, and stop sweeping up every speck of dust.

Early exposure to allergens produces defenses against them.  No exposure to allergens weakens the immune system.

But hey, I'm not a scientist.... none of four kids ever had allergies.  I have been around dogs and cats since birth - I've never had allergies and I have a very strong immune system. Ditto my parents and their parents.


One study (and there are more):  http://healthland.time.com/2012/07/09/study-why-dogs-and-cats-make-babies-healthier/

A Bit of a Corollary to Previous Post

What might be viewed as a plus by many is that there appear to be way fewer wasps this summer, I've seen maybe two so far. Wasps have always come to drink from the buckets of water I put out, and no doubt consume any mosquito larvae they find...  Well, I have seen one mosquito so far this summer.  And Lancaster in the summer, particularly in yards like mine full of vegetation and many sources of still water is a paradise for mosquitoes.  None this year, no mosquitoes and no larvae in any of the six containers of water outside, three in front, three in back for any creature who needs a drink. I do not use pesticides of any kind, never have, never will. Where are the wasps, where are the spiders?

No spiders, not one this year, though there must be some as I have walked through a long strand of web on more than one occasion. But no spun webs. Not one spider, indoors or out.

What I do have in abundance, far greater abundance than any other year, are flies and ants. Both are a natural prey of both wasps and spiders.

There is only my own front and back yards to measure by, both of which are full of vegetation tall and short, vegetables, flowers, small trees so I don't know what others may be observing.  This lack of insect life is alarming to me, almost scary.

Nature has the ability to keep itself in balance. Man has the ability to upset that balance, even destroy it.  I wonder why he is allowed to do so.

"Pull one thing in Nature..."

Every day in summer I search my garden looking for signs of caterpillars, bees, butterflies, Lady Bugs, Praying Mantis, Lacewings, any small creature put on earth to do a job, a job for which they are eminently qualified. This year there are none, not one.

In massive fields growing our food they spray millions of tons of insecticides and herbicides every single year, and the dust continues on to cities, towns, rivers, lakes. That poison kills not only "bad" bugs, it kills the good ones. It kills not only bugs, it kills birds, bats, and every beneficial insect and animal life that depends on them for food - all vital, all necessary, all magical parts of an ecosystem designed by Nature to be perfect.

And to add to that insult,  Roundup and other poisons are sold for home owners who are too lazy or too stupid to pull weeds or encourage natural predators - aka birds, snakes, lizards, bats to their yards, instead preferring to kill those small beasts lest they be drawn for a moment away from their cell phones, video games, "reality" TV, game shows, sporting events.  Science has taken a back seat, and believe me, it is intentional by our government and major corporations... keep the people entertained and anything can be done to them with little opposition. And those who do protest will be labeled as "radicals,"  "enemies of the people," "crackpots."

""When we try to pick out anything by itself we find that it is bound fast by a thousand invisible cords that cannot be broken, to everything in the universe."  ~John Muir