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November 2, 2008 Newsletter
Greenhouse-In-A-Bag! PLus: A Whole Lotta Whatever
Brought to you by: the "Plain of Jars" Lady--"Greenhouse in a bag"! Hi, Billy Mays here... Just kidding! And don't get me started on the "Sham-Wow" guy! Anyway, with winter knocking on the garden gate--and not a javelina in sight so I don't have to secure the gate with the old mattress bed spring apparatus we used last fall--and our collards, bok choy, and chard still doing just fine except for the remaining remnants of grasshoppers still a threat because they refuse to get killed off by nights that hover in the upper 20s and lower 30s (because they like to hide out in nooks and crannies of rocks to keep out of the cold singing, I imagine, that old song "The World Owes Me A Livin'"). They were especially attacking the luscious bok choy and the hearty collards (less so the chard, which is a bit more bitter...who said grasshoppers have half a brain?). In fact, the collards were, two months ago, on the verge of getting destroyed by these critters...and the bok choy wasn't being infested with hoppers because the aphids wouldn't share with them! Well, it didn't take much to wipe out the aphids. A few sprays of soapy water (a capfull of dish soap to about 32 ounces of water, or the least amount of soap necessary to do the job) did the trick, but the leaves began to take on that limp yellowish look (either from the aphids or from the soap, but that is a small price to pay for preserving your plants which can revive quickly, and cool enough night will prevent recurring attacks). So that, after the aphids got theirs, the grasshoppers came back and what was happening with the collards was now happening with the bok choy (aphids do not attack chard for some reason).
In September I put clear, thin, tall plastic bags (from packing material, not food storage bags) over the collards, held in place with rocks at the points of entry on the ground to keep grasshoppers out and moisture in, watering them with water from bottles or removing the bags temporarily to water the collards, once a day, anywhere from 11 am to 2 pm at the heat of the day. The bags do indeed keep out the grasshoppers as long as rock block all points of entry, and, further, the warmth of the day combined with condensation from cooler night temps do keep the plants watered as would a greenhouse. And, as with a greenhouse, nightly temps down in the 20s, these bags DO KEEP PLANTS FROM FREEZING provided these plants are viable in winter anyway (our one bell pepper plant did not make it out alive over the past couple of low-20 degree nights, and it looks like the okra is going to bite the dust as well. I got our last okra in three days ago and put it in home-made turkey soup left over from a birthday) and provided afternoon temperatures stay in the 40-60 or above range (in other words, I wouldn't try this in Minnesota!). As of now, the bok choy is similarly held, only in gallon jars after my husband took care of the older leaves that had the aphids on them, leaving us with young leaves in great condition. There are no bags on the chard as no bags or jars are needed.
So, before it gets too cold--single digits at night along with cold, cloudy days and a good snow covering killing off anything that might still be surviving--we have everything we need veggie-wise to make our "famous" green "gumbo" of collards, chard, and either turnip greens or bok choy along with ham hock or sausage. Unfortunately, however, the aphids were too much for our remaining turnips and they never recovered from the attacks. The recipe for our green gumbo (loosely based on Emeril Logasse's recipe on the Food Network site) can be found here.
I found an unusual "remedy" for back pain/sacri-iliac/lumbago and similar arthritis and/or osteoporosis-like back problems: take a trail ride on a horse! Our local (20 miles away) riding stables was having a benefit for a local young person who had no insurance for chemotherapy treatments for cancer with food, kiddie rides, carriage rides and trail rides along the very scenic Limpia Creek-Canyon area in the Davis Mountains where the cottonwoods are showing their yellow-golden leaves, with a few reddish maples thrown in. Our daughter has spent the last seven or so summers at Mitre Peak Girl Scout Camp in their Equine Programs and has become quite the horse-back rider. I, on the other hand, am allergic to horses (and most other fur-bearing animals...our cats are NOT allowed in the house!) and am considerably less adept at horsemanship. So after taking two anti-hitamine tablets, I was ready to deal with the gentle giant who, I was assured, would not buck me (plus I wore a helmet...very unusual, since I despise hats and only wear them when fishing to keep out of the sun). So, over hill and dale and creek on a very narrow path we went and at some point I found my body just going with the flow and comfortable on the horse who knew what he was doing--and completely unaware until later that about a mile away up in the rocks lurked a mountain lion, I found out at the end of the ride. I just can't imagine what that horse would have done had that cougar come upon us...lions do love horse meat, it has been said! (Would the two ranglers who guided us have created a diversion? Well, I did sign a waiver...) So, after an hour and getting myself off the horse, a short while later I realized that the sometimes excruciating lower back pain I had had for the past ten days or so was gone! Turns out that the gentle rocking up and down on the horse (according to a lay person who sees a chiropractor every now and then) "lengthens" the spine and "works" the "kinks" out. (WARNING: I AM NOT GIVING MEDICAL ADVICE HERE! Consult a doctor or chiropractor.)
Change We Can Believe In That It Might Get Interesting (to borrow a stupid campaign slogan)
First let me say that the election of Barack Obama to be the next US President will be a postitive thing in one respect only: now blacks, so-called "African-Americans" to the politically correct among us (hopefully, none of the readers here fall into that category!), have no reason left to claim "victimhood." "We're all Americans now!" Now, idiots and tools like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton can stop blaming "whitey" for everything. Good grief, us white folks might actually start feeling less guilty over being white! Not only that, but Michelle Obama, her two daughters and even the "first dog" can "feel good about America again." Just think, if it's good enough for the rest of us, it'll be good enough for Michelle...aren't we lucky!
Now on to the point of this. We have gone through eight years of neocon-supported rule by Bush, when the "progressives" on the left did most of the complaining (as did liberty-lovers, perhaps even readers of this site, who I hope did more than just complain by preparing to "escape the matrix" as much as is possible), along with their sometimes neo-liberal soulmates. Now we are about to go through at least four years of neolib-supported rule by Obama and his Clintonista handlers. Good grief! Now I would really like to think Obama chose the likes of Rahm "my father was a Zionist terrorist killer of Palestinian women and children and I was a Clintonista enforcer" Emmanuel for Chief of Staff, which leaves no doubt now that all Obama's BS about peace in the Middle East is just that--BS; Hillary "bag lady for stolen Wanta funds" Clinton for Secretary of State, which leaves no doubt that Obama is just another corrupt politican "scratching" the back of those who scratched his back; Robert "a shame to Aggies everywhere" Gates to remain as Secretary of Defense, which means Obama's "anti-war" credentials were--as I expected--just more BS (The best I can say about Gates is that he did behave more reasonably than a Rumsfeld when it came to warmaking, but Gates is no more realist than Rumsfeld was...and no Aggie deserves more condemnation than Gates, except for maybe this year's "1-7 in the Big 12" Aggie coaching staff!); and more appointments to come...these are the only ones I remember... Let me correct now this run-on sentence: I would really like to think that Obama is choosing whom he is choosing under the old tried and true rubric of "keep your friends close and your enemies closer." I have my doubts, but just because it is not Christian in the least to judge what hasn't even happened yet I'll take a wait-and-see position and, as usual, hope for the best and prepare for the worst.
Anyway, we already know that us liberty lovers (Christian libertarians, anti-war libertarians, Ron Paulians, libertarian anarchists, true patriots, and other non-conformists) will do what it takes to secure our own liberties and liberties of the community (at large or at small). During the years of neocon-supported rule it was up to those who had denounced the neo-liberal third way of the Clintonista-Blairista branch of THEM during Clinton's presidency to choose: liberty or corruption from power. Most of these people who had any fairly large audience, whether on right wing radio, in evangelical-fundamentalist-charismatic churches and televangelist radio and television, newspapers/internet news/blogs (for instance, the once wonderful WorldNetDaily, home of true patriots like Claire Wolf, before 9-11 when editor Joseph Farah was a voice of true freedom, before he became just a self-hating Arab-American Zionist tool), became tools of neocon power, a threat to liberty and a tool of fascist Brownshirtism, and enemies of freedom and true pro-Christ
Christianity. They enabled Bush to rip up the Constitution, institute torture as public national policy, privatize the prison industry so that now in Texas, Cheney and others are being indicted for prisoner abuse (in places such as the facility for youth less than 100 miles northeast of here in Pyote, where guards and administrators physically and sexually abused these troubled kids), rob the country of its treasury, both in money and in human lives in stupid wars only meant to enrich THEM, and enabled Bush to enable Israel to commit genocide against the true descendants of Jesus Christ and His followers. I say that whatever Obama and his neo-lib international socialist buddies in that branch of THEM do to these traitors to liberty and true pro-Christ Christianity, using the totally eviscerated and corrupted Constitution and anti-justice Supreme Court as tools to do it, will be well deserved and just desserts for these traitors. You sickos destroyed the Constitution and now I will have NO SYMPATHY when Obama and cohorts use it against you the way you used it against his branch of THEM and the rest of us! Whiners! All of you! Just like the idiots over at MoveOn.org, you will get what you deserve! Because I guarantee it, you will not come over to the side of true freedom and will remain on the side of true corruption through power, and NEVER LEARN! So what we, lovers of liberty and Jesus Christ, will have to put
up with, instead of Rachel Maddow and her ilk complaining about Bush, is Michael "shoot the 9-11 truther" Reagan, Mike "nuke the Arabs" Savage, and Rush "Democrats are satanic" Limbaugh and their ilk complaining about Obama! With the added proviso that they are going to have to do it at the same time without stirring up the race hatred that they wish they could stir up. It'll be funny to see how Mark Levin, who used to call everyone anti-Semitic if they didn't agree with him, gets away with calling Obama a Muslim lover now that he has Rahm Emmanuel running his staff! And it'll be funny hearing Laura Ingraham saying Obama is soft on Islamic terrorism when "the one" continues on with the man she loves, Gates, as Secretary of Defense. Folks and readers, lovers of liberty: DO NOT GET SUCKERED IN BY THESE TRAITORS TO FREEDOM SUDDENLY WHINING ABOUT the flip side of THEM. THEM is THEM, and THEY will never stand for freedom and true pro-Christ Christianity.
But to end this post on a more positive note, voters in California struck a blow for more humane treatment of farm animals by passing Proposition 2, which will alleviate some of the worst factory farm conditions for pigs, cattle, and especially chickens! Good for California! Death to factory farming! (Raise your fist when you say that...this sort of thing brings me back...)
My next post will be right after Thanksgiving.
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