Oil Billy…oil. That is why I thought the post was appropriate…sad really.
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Billy, I don’t think my oil field will dry up in my lifetime. Poplar grows like weeds here.
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Took pictures of spring plants(ramps) yesterday, woke up this morning to 3 in of snow??? I miss the good old days of global warming!
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Robert, Thanks for suggesting reviving the hangout Friday night. It was very interesting talking to you, Bill Shiller and Calvin Rader. I learned a lot about your job as a cargo plane mechanic. I never before realized that cargo plane mechanics flew with the plane for 20 days straight all over the world and had to be able to repair everything from engines to instruments.
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Thanks Don. I always enjoy talking to you guys as well. I am posting this from Amsterdam at the moment. Looks like it might be place that DOW be done…
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We had some visitors here last night and today. I suppose they are headed north at the moment. Robin Redmond and his wife Cindy passed through and spent some time with us on their way from Florida to Maine. They said they won’t make Argos this year. We enjoyed having them. And they brought all kinds of goodies made from Maine seaweed. 
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Al sad to say but the new unstable climate with more extreme weather will be the norm for the rest of our lives and probably our grandchildren lives as well.
I read an interesting article about a month ago about how the warmer weather in Alaska is causing more late winter early spring snow storms in the east coast of the United States, England and parts of Europe. It is one of those unpredictable trends with climate change but all that melting in Alaska has to result in rain or snow fall somewhere. Anyway I don’t miss the ice storms we got tons of in the 90s here in NH I will take the return of snow any day. But I have noticed a shift of about 6 weeks in the seasons winter started with snow that would stay at thanksgiving when I was a kid in the 80s. Now if we are lucky we have a white Christmas and the snow will stay in January. But it keeps comming in the spring not allowing me to get out on the fields and start the spring work… I guess that is nature where you gain on one end you loose on the other. Anyway I did find the study linking the late season snow to attic warming interesting.
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Here is a photo of our garden in Lytton Springs, TX (29.9°N). Onions, Garlic, Potatoes, Chard, Spinach, Cilantro, Tomatoes, Peppers and Kale. Asparagus almost done til Fall, lettuce plants fed to the chickens.
Fertilizer is compost containing charcoal fines. The clump of green in the upper-right corner is three varieties of Bamboo. The LaSoda Red Potatoes are loaded with blossoms. Arugula in foreground.
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Hi Ray,
You say asparagus is done until fall. Do you get a second harvest? If so, how do you initiate the second growth to start?
I don’t think there’s time here in the north for the roots to renew the shoots for a spring harvest.
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We just keep picking it in the Spring until the shoots get thin, and then we let them grow. The whole bed gets about three feet high, and eventually turns brown, so I mow it with the rotary lawn mower, sprinkle it with compost and forget about it. If we get some really good rain, the shoots appear again in the Fall. We planted Jersey Giant and Purple Passion. There are very few female plants (the ones that produce the red seeds) but some seed blew into the chicken pen and sprouted in a protected (from chickens) area around the fig tree. Those clumps were moved into the asparagus bed to fill in a blank spot, probably where the Purple Passion roots used to be. The Purple Passion plants are dead. Our neighbor, who recently retired from farming, has 3 acres of asparagus and invited us to pick all we want, so wife is making the 20 mile trip this morning to see if she can find some for our freezer.
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Ray it looks like you will need a big crowd to eat that garden. It must feed a few people. Looks good I still have dirt I can’t plant for about 6 weeks here.
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Ray, is that your “winter” garden there?
We had some excitement last night. My oldest son Luke won the Senior level County 4H Public SPeaking competition and now will go to Regional competition. He wrote and delivered a speech called Our SIlent Gaurdians, about the need for legislation to potect beekeepers from being sued by people who get stung by bees. Right now, in 49 of 50 states, a person walking down the road can sue the nearest beekeeper for damages if they get stung by a honeybee. West Virginia just passed an immunity law. Anyway, he did very well even though he was ridiculously nervous. Which is something I fnd hard to understand. He has been teaching graduate and post graduate level universty students since he was 11 years old. But somehoh this was much more formal and intimidating I guess. 400 people you don’t know all staring at you.
Anyway, we’re real proud of him for taking on the project even though it scared him. Not to mention winning the thing…
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Congratulations Luke 
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The Swiss Chard, Spinach, Lettuce, Kale, Cilantro & Parsley (all at the far right of the photo) were from the Winter garden. All the rest was planted in the last six weeks or so, except the garlic (8 weeks). There are a couple of dozen tomato plants that were started from a seed packet that need to be planted in the ground. Wife has mentioned (twice) that it needs to be done soon. We have a Spring garden and a Fall garden because during the Summer it is very hot and difficult (expensive) to keep enough water on the garden. Our drinking water is sold by the gallon and is piped in from ten miles away.
@ Dan Allard: We are very generous with our excess. Visitors leave here with bags of good food. Our freezer is stuffed, and the dehydrators run for days at a time. The kids live far away but when they visit, they leave with a couple of weeks supply of greens, onions, garlic, and Jalapeños. The chickens eat well, too.
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A 6 year old neighbour girl jumped off her bike and helped me clean out my wood shed today. We loaded a dussin wheelbarrows of dry firewood into the basement. Into the room next to the boiler room I have a hole cut into the foundation where I throw wood in from the outside. She called it the sinkhole and wondered where all the wood went. I asked how much wood they burned and she said: -None! I pretended surpriced and asked how they keep warm in wintertime. The answer was: -Blankets! 
She had a million questions about everything (worse than TomC) Finally her pants where all dirty and she hurt her tumb on a piece of wood. She went home to her mother but was back five minutes later with new pants and a band aid on her tumb only to tell me she was no longer allowed to stay
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Too bad…She might have actually learned something…
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My granddaughter’s ol
d bike is still buried in the snow. Sounds like by morning it could be back over the seat again.
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Its a small world. What you are looking at is Sahara desert sand on my wind sheald. No, Slovenia is not located in Africa but rather far away from it yet we still get a occasional sandy rain. Hapens àbout every 2 years.
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It always blows my mind how far sand travels. When I spent over a year in Taiwan installing some manufacturing equipment we had sand storms blowing over from mainland China and that is nothing compared to the distance your talking about. It reminds me of the acid rain problem we have here on the east coast of the United States and how it is caused by pollution outside our region. In the end it makes me feel we all have to be better citizens of this world if we are going to survive because it is one small world.
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Hi,
in Germany, we also have Sahara Dust from time to time, just like Kristijan.
Dan, I totally agree! Pollution doesn’t stop at borders, nor does storms, weather changes, diseases etc. It is hard to reflect ones everyday routine in this respect, but in the end we all have to.
Some people say we have to change either by design or by disaster. I would prefer the design-way. However, humanity in the whole picture seems to be rather stupid. So little learned from history in terms of using nature’s resources and also regarding the threat of wars.
But no need to be pessimistic. Think of how great live is everyday and how wonderful nature is. And interestingly, individuals are often much more reasonable and responsible than “the mass”.
So don’t wait for authorities to solve the problems, listen to your mind (and heart), reflect on your actions and do something good.
Sometimes it is good to stay “under the radar” with actions like this. However, if you are not alone this can be a grass root movement which can’t be ignored.
Enough philosophy for a Monday, have a nice week!
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