random

Reverse that innocence claim

More recent DNA analysis demonstrates clearly that the Black Death was, indeed, due to Y. pestis and its associated flea/rat vectors. Ah, well. Sorry, black rat.

Mage Wisdom

My favorite quote of the week (er, last week) courtesy of John Michael Greer:

Thus we’ve arrived as a society, and at a very late stage in the game, at the same point that classical philosophy reached after the execution of Socrates, when it became uncomfortably clear that having a small minority of people passionately interested in asking and answering the right questions was no guarantee against catastrophic levels of collective stupidity.

I think he may be a medievalist...castastrophic levels of collective stupidity. Such prose!

The Men in White Coats Are Not Coming For Me After All

Today my biology professor lectured - with a straight face - about global warming and the nearness of depleted oil resources. In our lifetime, he said, oil would be so expensive it would be unthinkable to use it for something so inefficient as transportation. It was incredibly gratifying.

Did the mostly freshman students comprehend or believe? Doubtful, for the most part, I think. Regardless, it's refreshing to know that I'm not insane, after all, along with all the rest of the peak oil community. Now if only the rest of the world would listen to all these students graduating from universities...

I think I know how the Christians felt when the Roman emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan.

INNOCENT!

Apparently the black rats have been exonerated in the Case of the Black Plague (1348-49), at least in the view of these interviewed archeologists. Do all agree? I don't know but would like to. I'm sure the rats would like to know, too.

10 years ago, this book suggested the Black Plague was actually a virus.....now THAT is what I call pandemic. Let's hope the authors are wrong that it will probably happen again, and soon.

Just a little cheer for Saturday!!

MY FAVORITE GARDENING BED UPDATE

That cucumber on the right wants not only to grow up the gate, but has another runner creeping around the fence enclosure behind this bed, on the other side of the fence.

The prettiest beans ever! Very quick to flower and wildly prolific. Also open pollinated, so I'm saving seeds this year. If I'm not careful these beans may take over the world....

I can't remember the name, but these are Asian long beans. I cooked some REALLY long ones last night and now I see that I need to pick these before they reach this length, they were a bit tough. The ones you see here are now in my fridge, awaiting ingestion.

Finally! The newbies found a friend within the Old Guard (the black hen).

Big row of tomato plants, setting fruit but no sign of red yet. Sigh.

An odd assortment of beets, gourmet white turnips, kohlrabi, corn, basil, carrots, and to be honest I'm not sure what else. Gardening by surprise is the BEST WAY!

I'm definitely planting more Zinnia seeds next year. They are beautiful and just want to grow and grow and grow and grow...

My favorite bed this year -

the wall of beans (3 kinds), 2 tomatoes, 2 cucumber, and 1 watermelon, along with the few asparagus plants that I didn't kill this spring.

This pix is from June, I'll throw a July pix of this space later, it's amazing.

Want to see the beans, too? You won't be sorry!