Looking Forward to Spring - 11 December 2024

I'm already hard at work on enhancing our harvest with some new hybrid crops for our 2025 garden.

This should go well, as I have the help of my Garden G(e)nome!

Heirloom hybrids, here we come!

Coinage du Jour - 03 December 2024

mal de merde (n.)

Illness due to consumption of food or beverage containing e. coli bacteria.

Example:

After eating the contaminated lettuce at the ship's salad bar, John felt quite ill, suffering from mal de merde.

Life Imitates Art ... Again - 26 Jul 2024

 It's amazing how well films used to predict their futures (back before they all became vehicles for berating their audiences, anyway) - especially comedies.

I've been thinking of the 1996 film, "My Fellow Americans" recently, especially this scene with the sitting Vice President addressing two former Presidents. Uncanny.

The Results Are In! - 03 January 2024

 As you can imagine (just look at these pictures if you have trouble), I get a lot of comments and questions about our dog, Billie, when we're walking around town. "What a beautiful dog!" "What a strange looking dog!" "What kind of dog is that?" "Is that a dog or a goat?" and on and on they go.

Well, after telling folks (pretty much at random) that she's a mutt, or a rescue, or a Canardly (as in you canaradly tell what kind of dog she is), or a Flemish Pointing Griffon, we decided it was time to get her DNA checked. 

We were really hoping there was no fainting goat in her background, and we were overjoyed to find out she came back 100% pure canis familiaris. That should put the questions to rest, I think.

From Coast to Coast - 16 November 2023

Today is the anniversary of the 1885 execution of Louis Riel, the Métis "father of Canadian confederation."

It's not unusual in many towns across the country to find "a piece of the rope" used to hang Riel. In fact, these rope pieces are so common that it's said that if they were laid end to end, they would reach from Atlantic Canada to British Columbia.

A fitting, if somewhat grisly remembrance of one who has come to be seen as a patriot, despite having been convicted of and executed for treason.

Democrats Surrender Michigan - 07 June 2023

It's becoming more and more obvious that the Democrat Party are no fans of the US Constitution, nor of federalism in general.

As the latest case in point, Michigan Democrats are trying to surrender the votes of Michiganders to the whims of those living in other states.
Bills currently under consideration in the Michigan State legislature would turn voting on its head. Rather than awarding our Electoral votes to the candidate who wins the popular vote in Michigan, they want to award them to the national popular vote winner. In essence, they are disenfranchising Michiganders in favor of the other forty nine States.
 

We've long known that they are desperate to dismantle the Electoral College - the only remaining protector of federalism, really - because "it's not fair" or other such inanity. Now we see how they plan to do just that, one State at a time.

Frankly, there is no justification for this, other than the fear that a Republican (as did Trump) might win in Michigan, but not overall, and they can't stomach the idea of allowing the citizens of Michigan to express their will, should it not be to elect a Democrat.

Good grief. This State is being run by Idiots and Traitors.

18 April 2023 - Hardly a Man

 Looking at the two "today in history" kinds of sites I frequent, I'm struck that it seems hardly a man is now alive who remembers that famous day and year. 

On the 18th of April in 1775, Paul Revere made his famous ride to warn that the British were coming; and yet, neither of my sites mention this event. The one goes from the San Francisco earthquake in 1906 directly back to the starting of construction on St. Peter's Basilica in 1506. Those 400 years apparently had nothing of historical note that happened on 18 April.

Ah, but we know better, do we not?

Listen, my children, and you shall hear of the midnight ride of Paul Revere!