Seeds and Such
Hi Friends! I wanted to have a huge political rant, but I know many of you are being extremely careful about how and when you take in certain subjects these days, so I put my rants and links under the “Reading” heading at the end of the post and labeled it “politics” so you can skip it if you need to. I can’t promise I will always do this, but I will try to remain cognizant of how folks are trying to protect their mental health. Onward!
The weather continues its wild swinging. Friday it was 74F/23C and yesterday is 39F/4C with rain and a little sleet. We got a lot of rain overnight and into this morning and currently it’s a gorgeous 31F/-1C and snowing. Most of the week looks just as crappy. Of course the beautiful warm sunny day happened when I had to spend it indoors at work. Spring really sucks this year.
So I soothed my sorrows by dreaming over the newly released Friends School Plant Sale catalog. Because I don’t have to face reality yet, I went through and marked all sorts of plants that seemed interesting. Fig tree? Sure! I’ll totally grow it in a huge pot I can drag indoors to overwinter. Wonderberries? Bring ’em. Russian Sage, definitely and this time I will protect it from the squirrels digging it up. Then of course there are all the perennial medicinal herbs, not to mention the serviceberry tree and jostaberry. I don’t need to get real about any of this until the end of April around Easter time and I am determined to enjoy the dreaming while I can.
I got surprise seeds in the mail Thursday. Two seed packets I ordered from Fedco back in January were on backorder and I didn’t even know it. One of them, spilanthes, is an annual medicinal herb that has arrived just in time for me to sow indoors next weekend. The other, snakeroot, is a native perennial that needs cold stratification for which it is too late in spite of the wild temperature swings we’re having. That will have to wait until fall/winter. A bit disappointed about that, but there’s nothing I can do about it.
I did notice the other day that one of my cold stratification pots has a lupine sprout in it! So excited. The trick will be keeping the rabbits out of the garden so they don’t eat it. While I am outdoors, the tulips are poking up, a couple of crocus leaves are reaching out through the leaf mulch, and Silver Maple is flowering. If Silver Maple is flowering that means other trees are, or will be, flowering which means my seasonal allergies are about to kick into high gear. Yay.
In terms of the indoor seed starting operation, I’ve given up on the jalapeños sprouting and planted tithonia (Mexican sunflower) and white sage in the empty pots. Now watch, the peppers will sprout. Heh. Also planted indoors this weekend, German chamomile and zaatar oregano. From here on out the indoor seed sowing slows down with only a few things left to sow each week. This is a good thing because my seed starting shelves are crowded.
From the seeds I sowed last week, the fennel, basil, and tulsi are all up. The tarragon is being stubborn. The celosia is also sprouting teeny tiny sprouts that make me wonder how they could ever grow into foot tall flowering plants. Meanwhile the tomatoes and peppers have gotten true leaves and the onions are to the point when I need to start trimming their tops. It feels like everything is growing so fast and not fast enough.
I’m extra concerned about growing a garden this year after grocery shopping yesterday. Organic Broccoli from California is $3.99 a pound. Fair trade vegan dark chocolate chips are $15.99 a pound. And organic fair trade coffee? The really good stuff was “on sale” for $18 a pound. Needless to say we did not get the good stuff, but even the not good stuff was expensive. We also got some loose leaf English Breakfast tea to try out at breakfast some morning instead of coffee. Climate change and global collapse at the grocery store. It’s not going to get better, so I need to get better at growing and preserving.
On the side of joy, the redwing blackbirds are back. Ever since a noticeable contingent of robins began overwintering several years ago, the redwing blackbirds have become the harbingers of spring. I pass by a water retention pond to and from my way to work everyday. The pond is fenced off and more than half of it is surrounded by cattails. There are redwings who nest here every year. I was so happy to hear them singing on my way to work in the dark a few days ago, and then see and hear them on my way home in the afternoon. Also in the pond is a pair of Canadian geese. There was a pair who raised four goslings there last year, I wonder of these are the same pair? Joining the geese this year is a pair of ducks, mallards I think, but I’ve not been able to confirm since I’ve only heard them quacking in the dark morning and seen their silhouettes. Maybe there will be goslings and ducklings to admire and watch grow up this year!
Reading
- Essay: London Review of Books: This is Wrong by Judith Butler. Butler, philosopher and author perhaps most famous for their book Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, takes on Trump’s Executive Order 14168, Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government. They pick it apart piece by piece and expose it for the authoritarian piece of shit it is.
- Article: Laughing Squid: 18th Century Portuguese Library Employs Bats to Protect Their Priceless Manuscripts From Insects. There’s video of the gorgeous library and I zipped through it looking for bats, but alas, didn’t see any flying around. The library staff apparently has to cover tables and things at night to protect them from bat guano and then clean up the floors in the morning after the bats are done “working.” I wonder if that falls under “other duties as assigned?”
- Politics: Biglaw firm Paul Weiss is getting loads of bad press for caving in to Trump’s demands. They allegedly have some billions in revenue that they could have used to fight the good fight. Since Associates do the majority of work at Biglaw firms, there are rumblings that there is a movement afoot to organize and possibly strike if firms continue to cave in. This is a good thing because we are going to need lawyers willing to fight the good fight. U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has already floated the idea Congress can eliminate entire district courts in order to get rid of “activist” judges who are blocking Trump’s agenda. This is classic fascism folks. Meanwhile Jeff Bezos has filed a lawsuit arguing the Consumer Protection Safety Commission is unconstitutional (scroll down past the top headline articles). The CPSC’s job is to identify and recall dangerous products like kid’s pajamas that catch on fire or hair dryers that electrocute people. Under current law, because Amazon sold the goods, they are liable for issuing the recalls and refunding the people who purchased them. They already tried to say they had no responsibility in a previous failed suit. Now they are aiming to abolish the entire regulatory agency. But why not? I mean, the Florida legislature is currently debating state labor laws. With all the rounding up or immigrants there are so many jobs that need to be filled, so why not get rid of some pesky child labor laws? If the bill passes, children as young as 14 will be permitted to work overnight jobs even on school days. Since at the rate we’re going there won’t be anything left of public education anyway and all those kids need something to do so they might as well be put to work. And if all that isn’t appalling enough, there is the Executive Order signed March 27th, Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History. This order claims the “objective facts” of our nation’s history have been distorted by an ideologically driven revisionist movement that has been trying to undermine this country by arguing that this Perfect Union is flawed with racism, sexism, and oppression. To whit: A Smithsonian exhibit “The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture” that had the temerity to promote the view “that race is not a biological reality but a social construct, stating ‘Race is a human invention.'” Yes, you read that right, the U.S. government now proclaims that race is biological. Don’t be surprised when we get an Executive Order establishing the new governmental department of eugenics.
Quote
“Then again, that word, ‘efficiency,’ has no meaning anymore. In fact, I believe the definition is now ‘the state or quality of having been ruined by self-assured men who were not loved properly as children and who have not received nearly enough elbows to their faces as adults.’
Kenny Blumenfeld, Minnesota Meteorologist in his Weather and BS newsletter
Listening
- Podcast: Slow Burn: Season 8: Becoming Justice Thomas. This is a new to me podcast and season 8 is from a couple of years ago, but I’ve been wondering for ages how the heck Justice Thomas got to be the way he is. There are four episodes and I’ve listened to the first two, wow, he went from memorizing Malcom X speeches to deciding that racial preferences, from which he has been a beneficiary, are degrading. Fascinating.
- Podcast: How to Survive the End of the World: Is This the Rapture? with Roan Boucher. Another new to me podcast. This one is hosted by sisters adrienne marie brown and Autumn Brown. I discovered that Autumn currently resides in Minneapolis! This particular episode is about Christian Nationalism, what is it and what are their goals. The discussion also touches on Christian Zionism and the New Apostolic Reformation.
James’s Kitchen Wizardy
James made a dinner earlier in the week that was so delicious I thought, dang I have to be sure to include this wizardry on my blog. Unfortunately I no longer remember what the meal was! I do, however remember the treat James made yesterday: oatmeal raisin ice cream sandwiches. The fact that I can’t remember a delicious, healthy dinner but can remember ice cream sandwiches clearly reveals where my priorities lie.
#FriendsSchoolPlantSale #redwingBlackbirds #seedStarting #spring #weather
