Seeds in and ordered!!

Okay, ordered a few seeds including chicory witloof, for homegrown endive.....let's hope that works with a very small learning curve.

Perennial-type stuff growing here regularly:
Meyer lemon tree
rhubarb
horseradish
oregano
rosemary (like a small tree!)
peach tree
raspberries
blackberries
blueberries (so far 3 years, nonproducing, hmmm)
strawberries
grape vine
hardy kiwi
carrots
spinach (from seeds last fall!)
leeks (huge, I think they are 2 years old? Also delicious)
basil (big and small)
parsley, small
garlic, hard and soft neck
elephant garlic
onions that for some reason refuse to BULB OUT. In since LAST FALL.
An unidentified green flourishing bunch of...parsley? cilantro? maybe even celery? I cut it to use while cooking, regardless. At least it's organic, eh?

Planted or seeded out or seeded inside, this week:
tomatoes - yellow, roma, grape, and meaty, and one from Beka's work. Italian?
potatoes, red of some kind
garbanzo beans
adzuki beans
purple podded pole beans
blue lake pole beans
yellow squash
Florence fennel
Japanese bunching onions
kale
kohlrabi
lots of peppers
lots of lettuce (for indoor growing)
bok choy
swiss chard
eggplant
herbs

And I bought some cress. For indoors, of course.

I'm Satisfied

A rousing cheer to the matron of husbandry for her frugal, almost wasteless use of an entire chicken. The best part is I have now duplicated that feat!

So, yesterday I cooked a whole chicken and after processing, this is what I have left after feeding us (probably at least 8 meals total), the dogs (4 meals or more), and a tasty cooked-carrot snack for dogs and chickens:

Yay! Now those old chickens in the pen who aren't laying any more better watch out...

Just for the Record:

This poignant essay exemplifies how I feel about it, also. I hope my family will honor those wishes if the situation arises for me.

Considering

If one assumes this is true:


Look beneath the colorful differences in cultural expression and you find at the core everyone wants to breathe clean air and drink clean water. They want tasty, nutritious food uncontaminated with toxins. They want meaningful work, a living wage, success and happiness for their children, and security in their old age. They want a say in the decisions their governments make and they want to live in peace.— David Korten
Then one must assume those who deny climate change or finite resources, the causes of poverty or the ravages of inequality, or insist that opportunity for all is available (in the developed countries, at least) are only uneducated, illogical, or afraid to clearly see and comprehend.  So which is it, and how do you change that? 
Let's look at things in a more narrow view - say, those who live in the United States. The media pap fed to the masses - is it a consequence or cause of the disinterest and ignorance routinely displayed by the general US population? This article demonstrates the actuality of American disjunction with the rest of the world, but I want to know the reason why US markets don't respond to the same offerings that attract knowledge-seeking, globally informed citizens from anywhere else. Are the majority of us too stupid to care about anybody else? Or too egocentric to consider the views and events of other people or countries worth our time? Or are we so stuffed with inanities from popular culture and the mass marketing tricks used to brainwash us into consuming without thought of consequence that we have developed a mind-numbing complacency about the true state of our global crises? 
To reduce even further, I quite seriously wonder about people I know personally, let's just say friends or family, who I believe are good people and also well-intentioned people, who even have a rudimentary grasp of the value of ecological awareness in small ways such as recycling or using less poisonous chemicals for cleaning or feeding their family, yet still won't or can't realize the bigger picture of resource scarcity, either on a personal or global scale.  I'm not sure how emphatic  I should be to try to share my knowledge about global issues that quite likely will sooner or late become personal issues for all of us. Just sharing that frightening information (which I do believe I have tried to do on a very minor scale, and it has never been taken seriously or well received) could very well create rifts between them and I...not what I want to accomplish at all. Is there a way to bring enlightenment without alienating those whom you basically need to scare silly?  

Get With the Program!

Why do so many people hand out Almond Joy candy bars for Halloween? I don't even know anybody who actually likes those. Especially kids. And this holiday is for the kids, isn't it? Hello?

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.