After I finished working on the lower 40 yesterday, I dropped everything in the hall. I am still working on those giant weeds that are blocking my view of the surrounding woods in the way back. For the past week I have been pulling them up by hand and have a HUGE pile. I am using the hand tools for the ones that are too stubborn or too deep rooted.
Maybe you remember a previous post about these insidious weeds called Giant Ragweed. I don't ever remember seeing them until very recently. I think they must have something to do with global warming. I am determined to get rid of them so I am killing myself. Thank goodness for leather work gloves.
I actually don't mind hard outside work. Especially when the end result is so rewarding.
Purchase toaster. Bring home and plug it in. Open a box of highly nutritious Pop Tarts and throw wrapper away in an environmentally correct manner. Insert Pop Tart into slot at top of toaster. Turn on toaster according to the manufacturer's instructions. Enjoy the incomparable aroma of a culinary masterpiece as it browns to your exact specifications. When toasting cycle is complete, remove Pop Tart from slot of toaster and insert into your face's bottom slot. Chew thoroughly, swallow, and pat tummy. Repeat until full.
Seems like the perfect breakfast to kick off a long holiday weekend. Enjoy!
Heroes of the Environment by Joel Stein ~ It has been a slow 30 years of progress for all environmentalists, but Alice Waters has more right than most to be frustrated. She wasn't asking anyone to install solar panels or convert their engines to run on biofuels — she just wanted people to eat stuff that tastes better. And it wasn't like she was simply making claims that local, organic food tastes great. She was proving it every day at Chez Panisse, the Berkeley, California, restaurant she opened in 1971 — a restaurant so good (the James Beard Foundation named Waters America's best chef in 1992 and Gourmet named Chez Panisse America's best restaurant in 2001) that it doesn't even have a menu. You eat what Waters found at the markets that day, and you like it. You really like it.
Waters says she's thrilled that her cooking theories — fresh, local ingredients, simply prepared — have gone mainstream, thanks to health studies and the farmers' market movement. It's much easier to grasp this philosophy of food when you're at the farmers' market, she says. "When people become real and you learn about your compost and how easy it is to make, you feel like you're empowered to do an everyday act that's good for your family and friends and the environment."
While Waters' restaurant and cook-books are credited with launching the locavore movement in the U.S., her Edible Schoolyard project goes one step further. Started in 1994, it encourages students in Berkeley to help grow and shop for their lunches, and it has shown results not just in environmental awareness, but in tackling obesity. Now it's being tried in other cities. "Remember when Kennedy put physical fitness in schools?" Waters asks. "We had to exercise four times a week, and we all went for it. We need that kind of passion. Going into public schools and teaching [children] about the consequences of the food that they eat can have remarkable results."
Waters, 64, is generally hopeful, especially about Barack Obama. "We need a President to speak about the issues of food, nourishment and stewardship," she says, "and I have great hope that will happen." She is also optimistic about the Slow Food movement, which she says is banding nations together to find the best heirloom varieties of fruits and vegetables to plant for sustainability and nutrition — and, of course, taste. Because that's how Waters wins any debate about the environment. Source: Time Magazine (article and photograph)
OK guys...I am really getting scared now. Ever since this thing was voted in the economy has continued to dive big time. We are going into a long holiday weekend that will further delay any chance for green arrows pointing up. Hopefully things will improve or at least stabilize today (Friday) and there will be an upward swing on Tuesday. I am keeping my fingers crossed.
We all really need some good news! And I need to get back to taking pretty pictures.
"Keating Economics: the Making of a Financial Crisis" is a documentary that shows why John McCain's failed philosophy and poor judgment are a recipe for deepening the economic crisis.
If you are still on the fence, you won't be if you will take 13 minutes to watch this informative documentary.
After I finished working on the lower 40 yesterday, I dropped everything in the hall. I am still working on those giant weeds that are blocking my view of the surrounding woods in the way back. For the past week I have been pulling them up by hand and have a HUGE pile. I am using the hand tools for the ones that are too stubborn or too deep rooted. 
