Iran’s Threat for February 11th.
Posted by forsythkid on February 9, 2010
Posted in Political, Politics | Tagged: Danomanno, Forsythkid, Iran, threats | Leave a Comment »
Growing garlic in a pot!
Posted by forsythkid on February 9, 2010
After doing some research on the internet, I came to the conclusion that planting garlic is not a very success prone venture unless you know exactly what you’re doing. Which I don’t. But, that’s never stopped me before and it won’t this time.
Now according to people who know about garlic, in Missouri Zone 6 you are supposed to plant garlic in mid October. Outside that is as in the garden. I elected to plant mine on February the 6th inside in a plastic 12” pot.
Next, according to those who know, you cut off the growing tips on about Memorial Day (late May) and then harvest them in July. By doing the cutting, the plant will supposedly put all its energy into making bulbs. OK? That sounds reasonable to me. I know for sure that if someone came around with scissors and cut my growing point off, I would immediately (after the pain subsided) focus on developing larger cojones. Right you are Fred!
So, with all the pomp and circumstance I could muster on short notice, I took two cloves that were growing all by themselves in the cupboard and plunked them down into a pot filled with fertilized potting mix (another no-no? Who knows)? These were then relegated to a spot that is sort of sunny in a window where they will suffer the occasional watering whenever I get to it care regime. A regime that, I will admit, is notorious for killing most everything that came before.
Stay tuned to this blog for updates. I do hope to get something for my five minutes of effort. This is America isn’t it?
Stay tuned for updates!
Posted in Gardening, Herbs | Tagged: Danomanno, Forsythkid, garlic cloves, pot growing, Southwest Missouri | Leave a Comment »
On the subject of corners.
Posted by forsythkid on February 9, 2010
Corners are a subject I find most interesting. The word has a plethora of meanings depending on the context the word happens to find itself in. For instance, you might easily ‘paint yourself into a corner’ or a corner might be a place you might have someone as in ‘the candidate is in my corner now’! Sometimes a really good thing might be ‘just round the corner’ like the coming springtime. When I was young, I spent many a time standing in a corner. Corners can also be locations, as in the ‘corner of fifth and main. When I was young I had a girlfriend who liked to get me ‘cornered with nowhere to run’. Prize fighters are often announced as being ‘in this corner’ and there is always the corner drug store in every small town.
On the mathematical side of things, a corner often describes a coming together of three flat planes that, at the point they intersect form….well, a corner! If you take a simple corner and place it into a circle, you have the peace symbol which makes no sense whatsoever. I decided to through that one in for free.
How is it that I am such an authority on corners? I’ve spent most of my life trying to get out of one!
Posted in Humor | Tagged: corners, Danomanno, Forsythkid | Leave a Comment »
Now’s the time to plan your spring garden!
Posted by forsythkid on February 8, 2010
Plan Your Spring Raised Bed Garden Now!
Sure, winter is in full spring. As I write this it’s snowing outside and the temperatures are expected to drop into the teens over the next few days. So why even talk about gardening?
Well, I’m not actually talking about planting a garden. I’m referring to planning a garden! Now’s the time to begin thinking about your own objectives for the coming 2010 season. Let’s face it there’s not much else going on so what better time than now? Come March and you’ll be way too busy outside. So what are the things you can do right now?
One of the most important items on the garden checklist should be a Master Garden Plan. I generally keep mine on the computer, but in years past I would just buy a cheap calendar and make my notes on it. Just about now in December, you’ll begin to see the seed catalogs for the 2010 growing season and there’s a reason why the send them out now. That’s because a lot of experienced gardeners know that in order to have success in July, you must do a lot of thinking in February and March!
I like to break my plans into four categories; 1) Soil improvement schemes and raised bed expansion, 2) ordering the plants I want to grow 3) figuring when they should be started and 4) getting my seed starting area in the basement ready for operation.
Soil Improvement
Most soil improvement should actually be done at the end of the prior season while the soil was still workable. Last August, I made sure to take the compost pile I had created during the course of the summer and applied it to my two main raised beds. These measure about four feet by eight feet each and easily integrate any compost I am able to generate. (My third and smaller raised bed was built just last year and was constructed with store bought blended soil that still has time release nutrients in it. So, that one I’m not really worried about). I also made sure to test the pH of the soil and found I was OK there. You want to see a reading of about 6.7 to 6.9 or slightly acidic. Otherwise I would have added lime of sulfur depending on how much to soil was either too much acidic or alkaline. Another thing to make sure of is to keep the soil in each bed damp. We’ve had plenty of rain so far so there are no problems on that score. But, if the rain or snow doesn’t fall for any reason, make sure to water down the beds just enough to keep them on the damp side. Even though there are no plants growing at this time of years, you still have microbes in the soil that need some moisture to survive. A soil with lots of microbes is a soil that will produce a lot of crops.
I currently have about 64 square feet devoted to vegetables and have found this is plenty for two people. I practice the Square Foot method of gardening because I don’t like to have to work very hard. So on a good year, 64 square feet produces about 60 to 70 pounds of produce with not a lot of work. If you have a larger family or if you simply want to produce more veggies just go ahead and expand the number of raised beds you have. I like to keep mine at four by eight feet as that size is easy to erect and maintain. One last note concerning the care of the soil in a raised bed. Never work it when it’s damp and never, ever walk on it. Doing so will destroy its ability to grow anything other than weeds!
Planning and Ordering Seeds
I think that planning for what to grow is one of the best things you can do during the cold winter months. It’s a lot of fun to sit in the easy chair and dream about future harvests as you thumb through the seed catalogs. It’s also a great temptation to order everything in sight! But, please be careful. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve bit off way more than I could chew in the seed ordering department. Some years, I’ve had packages of seed that never even got opened! Stick with just a couple of varieties of any one plant. If you do have extra seed, check with the neighbors who also have gardens to see if they would like to trade some. This is one of the best ways to obtain seed that can cost an arm and a leg if you order them from commercial growers like Park Seed or Burpee. My personal plan includes anything that is expensive to buy at the store. Like romaine lettuce, bell peppers and tomatoes. I also like to grow green beans because they are prolific and actually improve the nitrogen content of the soil. Another good bet are fast growing seeds that can be grown close to other plants that take a little longer to mature. I will often use the radish as ‘markers’ also by planting them among carrot seeds. When the radish begin to show I know also where the other seeds were sown. Then the radishes are up and harvested long before they interfere with the carrots. Also, techniques like square foot, succession and inter-planting can dramatically improve your yield per square foot. With some practice, good planning and a little luck, you can get one to two pounds of produce per square foot in the course of a season!
Seed Planting Schedule
I think one of the most demanding aspects to a successful garden plan is knowing when and how much to plant. If you are starting everything from seed it can be quite a challenge indeed. You also have to able to ascertain just how much you can start at any given time. In my basement, I have a large table over which are grow lights. The total setup will accommodate about 100 seedlings and that’s all! Since some seedlings need up to a month or more on the grow table before they can go out, I have to really be able to plan well.
Seed Starting
Whenever possible I try and start all my plants from seeds. The reason for this is very simple. I’m a rather cheap bastard. I know that if I go to a nursery and get starter plants I will be really paying a high premium for my vegetables. If, on the other hand I grow seeds from seed, they are vastly cheaper. Also, I make it a point to trade unwanted seed for seed I can use to further reduce costs. The one area I do not scrimp on is the potting mix I use to get the seeds germinated and growing in. I always use fresh bags of sterile potting mix that has a little bit of fertilizer already in it. By doing that and by using larger than ordinary cells to start my seeds in, I can get them going early on (as early as February for lettuce) and then hold them until the weather stabilizes enough to plant them outside. You can also get a jump start by building and using a cold frame. Because I spent an afternoon a couple of years ago building two simple frames, I’m enjoying fresh romaine lettuce even now in the middle of winter. I’ve even made a number of You Tube videos to show how this is done along with updates!
So, can the excuses and start your dream garden today!
Posted in Cold Frame, Danomanno, Editorial, Gardening, Health, Raised beds, Seed Starting, Spring gardening, Square foot gardening, Vegetables, Video | Tagged: Danomanno, Forsythkid, Gardening, spring garden, Vegetable production | Leave a Comment »
Hindsight is the Best Sight!
Posted by forsythkid on February 8, 2010
Posted in Humor, Political, Politics | Tagged: Democratic party | Leave a Comment »
Coal Town – My Beginning
Posted by forsythkid on February 7, 2010
Coal Town, Pennsylvania is just a small nothing place in an otherwise very large world. Coal Town residents reflect the heritage of a mining town that had it roots solidly planted in the Industrial Age of early America. A pervasive lifestyle of hard work starting at an early age with no such thing as an early retirement. You worked, and you worked very hard until the day came to lie down and die. And, that’s pretty much just what happens to men who sweat there daily in cramped, claustrophobic spaces that turns skin black with a grime that won’t scrub off and which ultimately invades a miner’s lungs with deadly persistence.
Yeah, Coal Town is a hard place to live and work. It’s always been that way and probably always will be. I should know! Before I left (escaped) in ’01’ I was just like the rest of the blokes there. Men who worked all day and then drank for much of the night. After the bar money runs out, they stumble home to a meager supper and an early bed. Just to do it all over again the next day. My name is Buddy O’Brian and yes, I’m of Irish decent and proud as hell of it. My folks emigrated into the States in the late eighteen hundreds as part of a massive wave of farmers fleeing from the potato famine. They were poor then and most are poor now. Just like I’m poor now with fewer and fewer prospects as I creep into old age. But, they were of a hardy stock, I’ll tell you that! Watching an Irish man work always brought to my mind the saying, ‘it takes a lickin and keeps on tickin’. We Irish are just as hard as the coal we mine and when the dust gets too thick in our throats we know of only one way to get right with the world. A stout beer and a soft woman. When I drank, I always ordered a Murphy’s stout. A beer of solid Irish decent that goes down smooth and then builds a nice warm fire down below. When I needed a woman (which was pretty durn often) I had a preference there too. Her name is Annie and she had a head of flaming red hair that was kept primly in a bun during the day, but which fell loosely over her shoulders when the sun went down.
Annie came from a rundown farmhouse just down the road run that was by her father, a man named Sean Gallagher. I liked Annie. Liked her a lot actually. Wish I could say the same for her old man. He was squat and heavily muscled with most of the really hard muscles in his head. That was my take on him anyway. Sean died just a year ago and surprise surprise, it wasn’t in a mine shaft. No, Sean got hit by a coal train while crossing the tracks on his way home one winter night when the snow was so thick you couldn’t see you hand in front of your face. He’d been drinking a local pub called the Dell when a storm blew in from the south and made travel by car impossible. I was at the bar too that night and we had just had some bad words concerning his daughter. I wanted her hand and he knew it. A discussion became an argument and then a shouting match. When he stormed out of the bar, he was mad enough to kill, or as it turned out, be killed. Sometime a person can get so enraged that they just tune out everything and one around them. This combined with the near blizzard conditions that night proved to be his undoing. One minute you’re here and the next you’re scattered like so much packaged hamburger all up and down the tracks.
Sean’s death was a turning point for me. I’d had enough! The night after the funeral, I loaded up my pickup and drove away leaving the town, the stout and the girl in my wake. I drove until I ran out of gas in a small town further west. Turned out to be a puissant place called Forsyth Missouri. Now, after many years, I’m known as the Forsythkid. The place has gotten much better over the years. It shed it’s low status like an old unwanted coat. I picked it up an wore it. Been wearing it ever since. I write blogs now that no one wants to read. And, I wonder what happened to Annie all those long years ago. Think I’ll go have a beer.
Posted in Humor | Tagged: Coal, Danomanno, Forsythkid | Leave a Comment »
Jan 2010 Unemployment Figure – No Light Yet!
Posted by forsythkid on February 6, 2010
It now looks to me like the days of 5% unemployment will fade into the mists of history along with Hula Hoops and Walt Disney. Just yesterday, I learned that while the unemployment rate had dropped from ten to 9.7%, the number of jobless claims actually rose by 20,000. Now how could that be I wondered? How do they arrive at these figures anyway?
The way in which the unemployment is figured is complex and done as part of a periodic survey conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The figures they publish concern themselves only will people who have recently been laid off and are collecting unemployment compensation. It does not account for those who have run through their unemployment and are still jobless, the discouraged workers who have given up or the ‘marginally attached’ workers who occasionally go out to look for work. The bottom line is that the ‘actual’ unemployment figure may be closer to 17% as of January 2010 and could be still rising.
Add this troubling statistic to a gloomy outlook for business in the coming year and you have a recipe for more problems to be laid at the doorstep of Congress as we proceed towards mid-term elections in the fall.
Posted in Editorial, Humor, Political, Politics | Tagged: Danomanno, Forsythkid, Unemployment | Leave a Comment »
Kristiina Brask – Nyt Mä Meen with English Translation
Posted by forsythkid on February 5, 2010
Posted in Finnish | Tagged: Danomanno, Forsythkid, Kristiina Brask, Suomi | Leave a Comment »
Red Wine and Your Heart
Posted by forsythkid on February 4, 2010
All kidding aside, wine when consumed in moderation, can be very heart healthy. Some studies that investigated the benefits of red wine have suggested that moderate amount of red wine (one drink a day for women and two drinks a day for men) lowers the risk of heart attack for people in middle age by ~ 30 to 50 percent. It is also suggested that alcohol such as red wine may prevent additional heart attacks if you have already suffered from one. Other studies also indicated that red wine can raise HDL cholesterol (the Good cholesterol) and prevent LDL cholesterol (the Bad cholesterol) from forming. Red wine may help prevent blood clots and reduce the blood vessel damage caused by fat deposits. Indeed, studies showed that people from the Mediterranean region who regularly drank red wine have lower risks of heart disease.
What’s in Red Wine that is good for heart?
Red wine is a particularly rich source of antioxidants flavonoid phenolics, so many studies to uncover a cause for red wine’s effects have focused on its phenolic constituents, particularly resveratrol and the flavonoids. Resveratrol, found in grape skins and seeds, increases HDL cholesterol and prevent blood clotting. Flavonoids, on the other hand, exhibit antioxidant properties helping prevent blood clots and plaques formation in arteries.
Should I start drinking more red wine now?
The answer is No. Studies showed that alcohol drinking may increase triglycerides (another Bad blood lipids) and result in weight gain due to its empty calories. Other studies also suggested that alcohol consumption is associated with cancer risk. The American Heart Association cautions people NOT to start drinking if they do not already drink alcohol. If you already drink alcohol, do so in moderation. AHA recommends one to two drinks per day for men and one drink per day for women. A drink would be considered 4 ounces that will contribute about 50 calories if you are on a diet.
Posted in Health, Nutrition | Tagged: Danomanno, flavonoids, Forsythkid, HDL, LDL, Red wine, resveratrol | 2 Comments »
Hamburger and Fries can work in a diet!
Posted by forsythkid on February 3, 2010
Posted in Health, Meals, Nutrition, Restaurants | Tagged: Danomanno, Dieting, Forsythkid, Hamburger and Fries | Leave a Comment »
