Fish Fear Me

Bless Us, O Lord, And These Thy Gifts...

Kind of a crummy cell phone pic, the beans and peas are a brighter and healthier looking green, but so it goes. It's a little hard to tell, but that's a couple of big handfuls each of green beans and sugar snow peas. I gave about another half of that amount of each, plus more cukes, to Mom and have one or two more rounds of picking to go, at least. Some of the bean and pea plants are still blooming and may get at least some more small veggies before the first frost. The two cucumber plants look like they will keep going until Mother Nature shuts them down.

The bell peppers have been oh so slow to come around this year, but I'm finally seeing some close to being pickable. the rest will be a race against the frost.

Not one bit of insecticide on the garden this year and yet there was almost no insect damage. I credit the birds that have been hanging out this year because of the bird feeder. That feeder definitely stays from here on out.

 

 

Monday Stuff

We have a bit of a cool down in the weather up here, which puts us closer to average temps for this time of year. Close, but not all the way there. It looks like the much above average temps will bounce back and if so, Friday will mark three weeks since the last time we saw temps below freezing. I didn't get as much done outside during this past weekend as I had hoped, but I'm going to try to plant at least some vegetable seeds by the end of this coming weekend. I'm still going to wait on the flowers and tomatoes a few more weeks.

This past Saturday night was the end of season FFL party, which is the major reason I didn't get much done on Sunday. I wisely stopped with the beers well before I had to drive home, but we continued to play cards and I didn't get home until a little before 2:00 A.M. Since I was disgustingly sober and not really tired, I naturally had to have a beer and a bump. Yeah, I was basically worthless yesterday.

Another shoe dropped today in the Trayvon Martin shooting with a partial leak of information from the official investigation that supposedly was never done by the Sanford PD. It is part of Zimmerman's account of what happened that night and seems to match what one witness saw, which was Zimmerman lying on his back and Martin on top him, punching him or slamming his head on the ground before the shot was fired. I think we need to continue to wait for the report to be released or presented as part of a trial before coming to conclusions, but I will point out a couple more things.

There was an initial investigation, contrary to what many have said. I've seen an awful lot of people call it shoddy or some such, and perhaps it was, but how can anybody tell if it has not been released in full to the public? It's not hard to predict that there will be more shoes dropping and I stand by my prediction that the full details of the case will be far more ambiguous than the narrative we were initially presented. I would not be surprised if one of those shoes to drop will be that Trayvon Martin's parents have known all along these details that are dribbling out. And how those details formed the legal basis for the Sanford PD to release Zimmerman that night and why the local DA has been so careful about pressing any charges. 

I have no idea how the Supreme Court will rule on Obamacare. I should be paying attention to it, I know, but I can't seem to muster up much energy. Maybe that's because my reading of the Commerce Clause is historically so dated as to make me a crank in most people's view. I'll still quietly assert though, that many of our current and future massive problems are due to our failure to maintain the constitutional boundaries between local, state, and federal governments.

I forgot to mention it last week, but congratulations to the University of Minnesota Women's hockey team for winning the national championship this year. The U of M Men's team qualified for the Frozen Four yesterday by beating arch rival North Dakota 5-2. They will face a very tough Boston College team in Tampa(Tampa?) on April 5.

To Plant, Or Not To Plant...

...that is the question.

Last night we ushered in spring here with our first round of thunderstorms for the year. There was some wind damage south of the Twin Cities, but mostly it was a good rain that we really needed. I guess we may see up to another inch of rain tonight. I don't think too many people will object as we've been down quite a bit in precipitation lately. Besides, there's nothing like the first few rains of the year to wash away the winter grime.

This is easily the warmest spring in my memory and the number of temperature records that have been broken in the last week just confirms that. The long range forecast shows unseasonably warm temps continuing, which has me pondering the previously unthinkable:

Should I plant some of my vegetable garden nearly two months early?

Normally around here we don't plant until early to mid-May because that's around the last average frost date. Now I'm wondering if I should get the first group of seeds in the ground and see what happens. If I'm talking green beans, peas, radishes and such, all grown from seed in the ground and not bought as plants, what's the risk? So we get a hard frost and I have to start over. All it cost me was a little time and some seeds.

Tomato and pepper plants, which I normally buy and transplant, are probably not available yet anyway. Though I suppose I could start those from seed right now too.

Hmmm. The more I think about it the more I like the idea of just going for it. This may be a once in a lifetime shot to add almost eight weeks to the growing season. It would be a shame to not take advantage of it.