h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, it has certainly been an interesting day. Seems like the world is going up in a huge conflagration. I hate the news from the Middle East. The problem is the huge toll of human suffering that is being paid, and when I look at our news here in the States all that anybody seems to be concerned about is what the activities in Israel, Syria, Lebanon and the Gaza strip are doing to the price of oil.

Yes, let's look at every event in terms of our own pocketbooks, why don't we. Meanwhile, we don't bother to do anything differently. Who gave us a god given right to drive Hummers and 1 ton pickup trucks to the supermarket and to take our kids to their ball practice? We keep the demand high and then complain when the price goes up and make sure we blame it on somebody else: OPEC, the war in the middle east, Exxon's greed. Don't worry about all those ice caps melting; it is all just a little passing blip in the Earth's climate history.

I bought some clematis vines on sale a few days ago, and today I got them planted. They should climb the privacy fence over behind the day lilies on the north side of the inner yard. I also got my little shade garden addition completed. The view out the bathroom window is splendid now, the hostas and coral bells out there are beautiful now and will be really spectacular in about 2 years.

The tomatoes are finally ripening. We got our first ripe one today, some sort of deep purple beefsteak style. Mmm, it was good. Made tomato sandwiches out of it, and then the left overs went into our salad for dinner. In addition to the wonderful salad, which also had carrots and greens and peppers from the garden, we had steamed zucchini and pork chops baked on a bed of scalloped potatoes.

We got the onions pulled and they are drying in the wood shed. We took the garlic inside after pulling all the dried tops off of it. It is sitting here in the dining room waiting to be peeled and chopped and frozen or peeled and roasted. I also have a batch of basil that is ready to be made into pesto. Plus the lug of peaches I bought is waiting to be processed. It will be okay for a couple of days. A lot of those peaches are not quite ripe. The ones that are ripe are delicious, however, I already have one lug in the freezer, the ones I bought last week. If we are lucky, the little birds will let us have our apples this year. I really ought to buy some net to throw over them. Maybe Monday.

My arms are tired. I did 27 massages this week, and I guess I have not stretched sufficiently. There is a sore place on my left elbow, and I am really hoping that I am not developing tendonitis there. I need to take care of that spot better.

My arms are tired too...when fishing for Halibut they use 4 pound weights so reeling them up 200 feet is work without the fish...with a 60 pound fish both my elbow joints are fried...hope you're not a vegetarian...

Oh, no, far from it. We love fish. And halibut is one of my favorites. When I lived in Juneau we had an amazing dinner one night at a friends to celebrate the successful halibut catch of one of them. Filets cut into strips about 1/2" thick, 1" wide, 5" long. Soak them about 30 secs in teriyaki sauce and then throw them on the grill for about a minute aside. Yum.
Salmon is good too. Also a nice ribeye. . .