Shhh, it's a secret

If ever there was a secret, it's with regards to gardening. When you look at all the things they want to sell you it can become overwhelming in a hurry. Has there been a better industry to reinvent? Just how many implements are needed? This is a big racket for sure, and every year the newcomers feed this bottomless pit.
How so? Well every grocery store and hardware outlet have a section for gardening. The big food stores close off a section of their lot just to get in on the action. And the books, my goodness not many bargains here. It would seem everyone has a secret to share with you, for a price of coarse. It's all in a day I suppose, the economy has to chug along, and we really do love blowing money on something, might as well be this.
I'm entering my 2nd year in full tilt gardening, and already I feel like I too could write a book. It would be about what not to buy, and how little it takes to grow some food. No green thumb needed. It's hard to be cynical though, working the soil in the spring is simply the best thing there is to do, well maybe the 2nd best thing lol.

More Snow

Sorry, but no amount of extra winter can get me down today. Trays are set up, lights are hung, heating pads turned on, tomorrow I start my garden seeds! And I just can't wait to get my hands dirty and start growing my "Garden 2013 Edition". This for sure will affect my blog for the rest of the season, I'm thinking of making the title,"The Ironic Gardener" as I have gone crazy with planning this years garden.
Not sure why it took me this long to grow one. I farmed when I was a teenager for a few years. Loved it, but hated the 24x7 care of animals. Growing the crops, making hay, putting in silage, that part I loved. Driving the tractor all day, getting a great tan. No, there is nothing quite like it.
Shoot ahead 40 plus years and I'm growing crops again. Becoming vegan made growing my own food all the better, it becomes such a passion, and rewarding. The "blues" just float away.
I will be posting pictures and sharing my experience with anyone willing to read up. Because growing food, well it's just about the coolest thing you can do for yourself, your family, and the environment. Getting together with neighbours and sharing food with each other, imagine many different gardens, all growing something different, sharing the chores, rotating crops and doing organic gardening. I'm very lucky to have had the time to research and do the work necessary to plant this, and want to share it with everyone I know. Spring, it can't come fast enough.
7 billion, learning to garden, and counting!

Blondes, are they really having fun?

The ironic opposite is always front and centre. Case in point, does having blonde hair make life more fun? Having spent years in the hairdressing world I'm inclined to think, it better be as the pain and price of being blonde is high. And it always seemed that the darker ones hair was, the more they wanted to be blonde. This is not just white people, African Americans are equal to this in their pursuit of straight hair. They of coarse have the worlds most curly hair. We just hate the way we are and are always looking for "a fix" to make something we are born with different.
Is this trend something that has always been? Or has it come out only in the last 100 years or so. Do we have so much time and money now that pursuing these changes is all we have to do? The professionals will tell us it's all in our heads, and then book you for next weeks session.
It is always the pursuit of that one thing, whatever it is, that drives us to try to be different. Yet leaves us more or less the same.

Sport Brawls

I think that I'm missing something, I for some reason do not like seeing sports players fighting. I understand it, at least the competitive side of fighting where someone just "looses it" and needs to push someone around, but bare knuckle brawls do nothing for me. I fail to see the "sportsmanship" in this activity. It seems not only senseless, but primitive. Maybe all those beer commercials depicting how dumb males are is true.

The one great thing about the NFL is this kind of behaviour is not tolerated. I have many times cited this as being because these players all have gone to college or university and are a little more civilized then Hockey. Yet what they do is "but heads" and tackle opponents with as much force as possible. 

The real problem as I see it is that the professional players and franchise owners have all gotten bigger then the game. This is why I'm having trouble watching them anymore. The money is getting out of hand and the pressure too great for "good sportsmanship" to survive. 

But why are so many players so dirty? If they are "growing the game" then respect for their fellow players should be present. But somehow this is viewed as weak, and not doing what ever you can to "win". In both football and hockey hit's to the head is becoming an epidemic. But this is learned from minor leagues, coaches that feel they "must win" at all costs to keep their positions. They train the players to"finnish their hits" and to follow through, never back down. If you want to make sports safer, this is where you need to start. 

I loved hockey growing up, and football and baseball. But I was shown the door when I refused to be unsportsmanlike, I would not or could not throw at someone, or hit someone from behind. I just can't see how that was fun, and today I can't watch hockey as that is what is shown, the fights. Was it fun watching that player get knocked out the other day? Guess I'm just not mean (or man) enough.

7 billion "beating each other senseless" and counting.

The opposites are digging in

Have you noticed how hard people are digging in of late? Not unlike Republicans and Democrats. The faster our world gets the more these apposing worlds stay apart. The more we know about how the environment is in trouble, the more we abuse it. It's like quitting smoking, just thinking about it makes you smoke more, well it sure did for me!
We have the technology to do away with many of these things, but this technology is coming at us so fast we can barley grasp it before it changes again. Is there any way we can slow down?
I find the online university courses as a good start, at least after you graduate you don't become redundant, you can continue to keep up with the latest. But all our vices are what's wrecking the planet. Flying in an airplane for example, how can this be good for the air we breath? Anyone with any amount of intelligence can see this, yet fly more we do! I put it to you that this is the same as the smoking analogy, the thought of not flying somewhere makes us want to do it more. And I firmly believe price is not the problem. If you make it more expensive then inflation kicks in because no one will stop it. I'm always wondering why sport teams are only playing one game and then flying to the next. Wouldn't it make more sense to play 2 or 3 games then move on?
I read today that a campaign to stop windmills in Australia has taken the stance that you get sick from being close to them. And as it turns out just by suggesting this people got sick, but only where the campaign was highly publicized.
You can see the point I'm making. It will take a gigantic initiative to undo the problems we have, yep, I think we're fucked!
7 billion, smoking like mad, and counting

Are you kidding me?

It was a sad and frustrating day to read the news, you have to wonder how we have survived this long when some countries do the things they do.
There is no scientific proof of any kind that "shark fin soup" is good for us in any way, yet both Japan and China almost defeated a UN ban on the killing of 3 of these endangered predators. Have any of you seen how they kill them? I mean these animals have nothing for us to eat, so they cut the fins off and dump the rest in the water. Just like the ivory trade, take the tusks and leave the dead animals to rot.
I just cannot wrap my head around the fact that educated people still think it's okay to do this to our environment. Then in China local farmers were pumping dead pigs in the river, and this river was a source of drinking water for millions. The reason? China has stopped these dead animals from entering the food chain. It was apparently okay to butcher and sell this meat even though the animals had died of some disease before going to the butcher. Yikes!! Another great reason to be a vegan for sure!
The final bit today is about the hacking that is going on. The most amazing thing that has happened to this world was the birth of the internet, the free access to information world wide for all. Yet this will become a thing of the past as hacking by, well almost everyone, will bring an end to this incredible achievement. It is so ironic that there are so many willing to wreck havoc on this planet for nothing more then giggles and a few dollars. You may say that I cannot comment on another culture, that these people have a right to do these things. Maybe when our planet only had 1 or 2 billion people on it did it not matter so much, but we have the knowledge and there are 7 billion of us that brings this up for scrutiny. They all have to give their heads a shake. Wake up people.

Being a Bully

I follow the tech industry every day, and the more I follow it the more it becomes the same. There is so few "new" ideas out there one wonders how it became the industry it is. There is always a leader, and everyone who wants to be a leader. And they pull no punches when it comes to bashing them.
Then it's country's, like Korea. Here is this tiny speck of a nation that screams and shouts threats to the world, their leader reminds me of Carmen from the TV show South Park. He is young and has way too much time on his hands, so he tries to be a bully. I have a bomb, I have a bomb and you can't stop me, na na na naaaaaa na.
So the courts in New York struck down Mayor Bloomberg's effort to ban the sale of these huge soft drinks. This was the first real effort at attacking obesity, and what happens? Already another state has enacted a law that would make this kind of thing never happen. Look into my eyes, drink more sugar, eat more fat, have bigger servings, yep a real bully response to someone doing something right.
Then there is the Catholic Church. How can this religion stand up to all the abuse it bestows on it's people? Priests that pray on young boys, no women allowed, all they do it seems is pay off the law suits as they come. It just stays business as usual! Yet all I see is all this new reporting on their election of a new leader? The bad stuff, they just sweep it under the rug. That women are not eligible? No one will notice. In my view they are anything but representative of what God or Jesus is!
Do we as humans really want to be better? Do we really want to be "civilized? No we are just too "ironic". If it's good, bash it. If someone has a good idea, hate it. It seems to be our nature, stand up for everything except what is good.
7 billion "ironic humans" and counting.