The nopale pads we planted along the driveway, filling in a gap between the fig tree and the horseradish.  It was a dream fulfilled for Diana, who loved the large plant and drooled over it every time we went past it.  

The fruit I am planning to singe with a Sterno campsite burner we bought after the big ice storm.  I am pretty sure you need the prickles off before you stick it in your mouth.  

Originally we had planned to dig some holes for the coming shipment from Starks, so I set out to dig another hole for an Sharpblue blueberry on the southwest side of the house.  This is a boggy spot where the other blueberries grow the best.  

Then after that I drilled out a good size (4 gallons maybe) hole behind the the propane tank where a Issai hardy kiwi will go.  What I am thinking as the kiwi grows out I can clear the hedgerow for a trellis, running east to west.  I expect the plant, if it survives our strange winter weather, to range maybe 20-30 feet. 

I started clearing out a good-sized spot behind the tank, and whacked out a good bit of forsythia and honeysuckle, the twin demons of American gardens gone wild.  Machetes and mattocks were the order of the day.  I also moved a stake from a failed red raspberry planting to where one had come up again after getting squished under the falling pine tree.  

The ice storm of last January set the planting back, since all the clearing we had to do was multiplied by an order of magnitude. I had wanted to have the hawthorne pruned down to a sane 20 fet and have the hedgerow cleared by the end of the season, but here it is going on Thanksgiving week and the work is undone.  Everyone was set back by that disaster.

Diana mentioned that our hawthorne tree had fizzled out this year.  The fruit set, and then mostly all of it was immediately blasted.  I  resolved to do at least something on the hawthorne.  It looked like a
sad bundle of twigs with a few dead leaves pinwheeling in the wind.  So
I grabbed the loppers, a folding saw, and a ladder, ready to tame the thorny thicket of leaders, wild stems, and suckers.

There is only one way to prune a hawthorne: slowly and carefully.  The young branches sport mighty thorns - one left a hole in my knee last year and I have great respect for them.  I managed to cut down or lop out  four rogue stems and hundreds of suckers.  And I even found a few stray fruit clinging desperately to the branche, rock-hard unripe yet nicely intact.  They will have to blett or cure indoors for a good long time until they soften and release their sweetness and flavor.

It was dark when Diana came to drag me in.  I hung in as long as I could to the fading light from the sky, wrapped around thorny branches as I stood on top of the aluminum ladder.  There are still a couple stray leaders to come out, and plenty more suckers, for another day.  Now is the time to lick my scratches.

If it is a "Movement," then it is probably wrong.  Movements should be limited to plate tectonics and bowels.

If it is something that most people view as crazy and impractical, then it is probably right.  Most folks see the right thing as unpleasant and tiresome.

If it is something  radically new and different, then it is probably not a good idea.  Finding the value of new ideas takes time, and like asbestos and bloodletting, may take longer than you have to discover the drawbacks.

It is always easier to make better the good than remedy the evil.  Let natural selection be your judge.

As a member of a rural farm community, please support the small farmers.  We need more fresh fruits and vegetables, not more cattle ranches. Please push for parity for the fresh market with animal agriculture.

Respectfully,

Jim Wiegand

-- George Bernard Shaw

It makes me shudder to think of where half these kids will end up in thirty or thirty-five years.  Already I am seeing the middle-age gap, where on one side you have folks dying in their forties and fifties, and on the other side you have old folks in their late seventies and eighties who had no choice but to eat their vegetables growing up.

Soon, a decent lifespan will  come to mean making it past 50.  Again.

I am writing today to express my disappointment with your vote today on the public options to health care reform.  This does not reflect well on America, that we can spend more per capita on direct public care and care for public sector employees than Canada and still not get medical care right.

It is even more discouraging to consider that health care is getting worse for us. This year we rank 37th among nations, down from 32nd. We are clearly in a bad place and are still heading in the _wrong_ direction.

It does not appear that your position is representative of the popular will or the common need.  I would encourage you to make some creative contribution to a solution, rather than appear as a roadblock.

This vote is certainly a disappointment, and one that I will remember every time I write out a check for my health care.  I work for a company too small for group coverage, and so end up paying directly for public coverage, without the benefits which you enjoy as a member of the most senior legislature in the land.

Sincerely,

Jim Wiegand

> The IETF has recently passed draft-iana-rfc3330bis-08. This draft
> documents the fact that the following address ranges have been reserved
> for documentation:

> - 192.0.2.0/24 (TEST-NET-1)
> - 198.51.100.0/24 (TEST-NET-2)
> - 203.0.113.0/24 (TEST-NET-3)

This seems like the perfect set of networks when you run out of other options, or need to get that latest wireless config tested! I haven't been this excited since my first NAT implementation.

 "This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of
their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see
that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased."--- Dickens,
A Christmas Carol

Dear Senator Lincoln,

Congratulations on your appointment as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry.  I am writing you because I am interested in joining my Arkansas Nutrition Advisory Committee.

I have battled weight problems all my life, and am a member of the Miriam Hospital Weight Control Registry.  As an involved and informed constituent, I wish to encourage you to consider the needs and best interests of the public.  Too often, I find that agricultural marketing decisions are made with out consideration of the ultimate cost to the public.  Today, we have more obesity and malnutrition than ever before, a disparity that is growing despite the abundance of food.  Too many times in the past, we have considered profit over public good, leading us to the current health care crisis.
This view is a minority amongst the proponents of strong market benefits, and I respectfully submit that the representation of such views has to be included.  I would gladly speak to the shrinking role of fresh fruits and vegetables in the American diet, how whole grains and unprocessed foods are vanishing, and how every step up the production value chain leaves another layer of American society stranded in a food desert, rural or urban, where they suffer from excess weight and lifestyle disease.
Please at least consider lessening the suffering of your fellow Americans by subsidizing the delivery of fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains and legumes, in accordance with existing subsidies for other commodities.  The science has moved beyond the marketing rules of the 1960's, and it is in your hands to help stem the coming health crisis of the next generation.

Respectfully yours,
James Wiegand