Try it!

Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Breaker Morant would totally get it

My last post inspires this unemployment haiku, which requires video accompaniment. First, the haiku:

Does Rule Number 1
Kicking in require the use
of Rule Three-Oh-Three?

And now, the only short video I could find that refers to Rule 303:


Rule 303, of course, refers to the caliber of the Enfield rifle used by British Commonwealth forces in the Boer War. "Breaker Morant" is one of the finest movies ever made and is well worth your time. Naturally, I am not advocating the use of Rule 303 against agency personnel. No matter how much they might seem to deserve it.

Rule No. 1 kicks in yet again

After my project plotzed last week, I applied for a bunch of stuff and sent emails to various agencies I am registered with. Standard unemployed temp behavior, really. Throw a bunch of shit at the wall and pray something sticks.

As luck would have it, a couple things stuck. I was informed that I was "pre-selected" a project starting tomorrow, pending clearing conflicts. The conflicts form was stupid-simple, so I didn't see a problem there when I sent it back Sunday.

Not having heard anything by today for a project that was supposed to start tomorrow, I wrote back to the agency and asked if we were still on for Wednesday. I got the following response: the firm decided they wanted to go only with people who are DC-barred.

Naturally, I wrote back: But I am DC-barred. Gave them my bar number, which also is on my resume and was on my conflicts form. No, whether I had DC Bar membership was not an issue. Rule No. 1 kicked in.

The agency person could have stopped with "you were not selected." I don't care why -- not everyone can be selected for every project, and there are about a billion reasons to choose someone else. But don't tell me that I wasn't selected for a reason that I know to be a lie. Because then everything you say to me is suspect, and I know that you follow Rule No. 1 with a vengeance. Lying when there is no reason to lie just lets me know that you will lie, reflexively, simply because you can. Naturally, I got no response to my email letting the agency person know that I knew she was lying. Not likely to work for them in the future, I guess.

Monday, May 30, 2016

Happy Memorial Day

It sounds strange to say "happy," but it is. Yes, the day honors those who gave their lives to defend our freedom, but, for the moment at least, we still have that freedom, so "happy" remains appropriate. Don't piss it away, people.


The Carribbean is my very own pond

Turks and Caicos, bitches. I know fuck-all about Turks or Caicos, but somebody from there came by, so it's time to learn.

For the truly uninitiated, Turks and Caicos are
a British Overseas Territory consisting of the larger Caicos Islandsand smaller Turks Islands, two groups of tropical islands in the Lucayan Archipelago of the Caribbean Sea and northern Caribbean region.
They are known primarily for tourism and as an offshore financial centre. The resident population is about 49,000,[2] of whom 23,769 live on Providenciales in the Caicos Islands.
The Turks and Caicos Islands lie southeast of Mayaguana in the Bahamas island chain and north of the island of Hispaniola and the other Antilles archipelago islands.Cockburn Town, the capital since 1766, is situated on Grand Turk Island about 1,042 kilometres (647 mi) east-southeast of Miami, United States. The islands have a total land area of 430 square kilometres (170 sq mi)
Tropical paradise are us, apparently. And a financial Switzerland, but warm. In the early days of European settlement, salt was the major export product. That hardly matters, because year-round, the temperature rarely goes above 90 or below 65. This is what we like to refer to as "perfect." So, yeah, I'm going. And why wouldn't I?


Like I said, why wouldn't I:

Are we done here? So give a big Eff You welcome to Turks and Caicos. Come back soon, and bring your friends.

Sunday, May 29, 2016

Nicaragua, where the wind comes sweeping down the plains, or something like that

Got a first-time visit from Nicaragua this week. Yeah, I get it, there's a lot of that going on lately. You have no idea. But you will. I might have more first-time visitor posts in the next few days than kit-tay pictures. Think about that.

Anyway, this one is Nicaragua, which is
officially the Republic of Nicaragua, is the largest country in the Central American isthmus. The population of Nicaragua is slightly over 6 million. Nicaragua's capital, Managua, is the third-largest city in Central America. The multi-ethnic population includes indigenous peoples, Europeans, Africans, Asians. The main language is Spanish. Native tribes on the eastern coast speak their own languages.
The Spanish Empire conquered the region in the 16th century. Nicaragua gained independence from Spain in 1821. Since its independence, Nicaragua has undergone periods of political unrest, dictatorship, and fiscal crisis—the most notable causes that led to the Nicaraguan Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. Nicaragua is a representative democratic republic.
I'm not even going to get into Nicaragua's political history. Like many southern-hemisphere countries, it is a long litany of revolution, dictatorships and democracies that really aren't. Suffice to say that the current president is the guy who led the communist revolution of the 1980s, and that the legislature amended the constitution to let him run for a third consecutive term. Whatevs.

Nicaragua is pretty damn tropical, which means it's hot, pretty much everywhere:
Nicaragua occupies a landmass of 130,967 km2 (50,567 sq mi). Nicaragua has three distinct geographical regions: the Pacific lowlands - fertile valleys which the Spanish colonists settled, the Amerrisque Mountains (North-central highlands), and the Mosquito Coast (Atlantic lowlands/Caribbean lowlands).
The low plains of the Atlantic Coast are 97 km (60 mi) wide in areas. They have long been exploited for their natural resources.
On the Pacific side of Nicaragua are the two largest fresh water lakes in Central America—Lake Managua and Lake Nicaragua. Surrounding these lakes and extending to their northwest along the rift valley of the Gulf of Fonseca are fertile lowland plains, with soil highly enriched by ash from nearby volcanoes of the central highlands. Nicaragua's abundance of biologically significant and unique ecosystems contribute to Mesoamerica's designation as a biodiversity hotspot.
The population of roughly 6 million is largely Mestizo, meaning a mix of European and indigenous peoples (Indians, y'all). They're pretty Catholic, but the government really runs the church. All in all, the country is pretty but poor -- nearly half the population lives below the poverty line, and almost 80 percent live on $2 per day, which makes you wonder what the fuck the poverty line is. It also makes you want to tell "poor" people in this country to shut the fuck up, but that is a different conversation.

In any event, welcome to Eff You nation, Nicaragua. I'm sure you recognize this:


Welcome, y'all.

Saturday, May 28, 2016

Nepal came by. Really?

 That's not even a country I think about as having the interwebs. Apparently, though, Nepal is totes connected to the net. So, welcome to Eff You nation, right?

Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is "the world's 93rd largest country by area[11] and the41st most populous country. It is a landlocked country located along the Himalayas and bordered to the north by China and to the south, east, and west by India. Nepal is separated from Bangladesh by the narrow Indian Siliguri Corridor and from Bhutan by the Indian state of Sikkim. Kathmandu is the nation's capital city and largest metropolis."

Eight of the world's ten tallest mountains are in Nepal, including the big boy, Mount Everest. The people there are mostly Buddhist. The country used to be a monarchy until 1990. A lot of changes since then, including a Maoist government. Go figure.

Nepal's economy basically sucks, partly because it has a Maoist government, partly because things are actually pretty unsettled as to who is in charge, and partly because they really have nothing going for them, economically.

In 2010, agriculture accounted for 36.1%, services comprised 48.5%, and industry 15.4% of Nepal's GDP.[89] While agriculture and industry are contracting, the contribution by the service sector is increasing.[89][90]Agriculture employs 76% of the workforce, services 18% and manufacturing and craft-based industry 6%.[citation needed] Agricultural produce – mostly grown in the Terai region bordering India – includes tea, rice, corn, wheat, sugarcane, root crops, milk, and water buffalo meat. Industry mainly involves the processing of agricultural produce, including jute, sugarcane, tobacco, and grain. Its workforce of about 10 million suffers from a severe shortage of skilled labor.[citation needed]
I don't know where you go from there. Let's face it, this is your ace in the hole:


In any event, yo, Nepal, welcome to Eff You nation. Thanks for coming by, come back soon, and bring your friends.

I know you've been missing the food porn

I made something the other night that it turned out has not been featured in food porn. So, here it is. It is a pot roast recipe of the stove-top variety. Not that complicated, but pretty tasty. You will start with olive oil, a chunk of beef (preferably a round tip roast, preferably 3 pounds, although neither is mandatory), some flour, 3 medium onions, at least 3 large carrots, at least 3 stalks of celery, about 4 cloves of minced garlic, some salt and pepper to taste, 2 12-ounce cans of beef broth,v 1 cup of red wine (that is one of those little airplane bottles), 2 tablespoons of corn starch and a little water:


So, put some flour in a baking dish, and add pepper and salt:


Put 1/4 cup of olive oil into a large pot and turn it up to medium heat. :


Dredge the roast in the flour/salt/pepper mix:


Brown on all sides in the hot oil:


Chop the celery, onions and carrots:


Toss those bad boys into the pan with the roast:


Add the garlic, and cook until lightly browned. Then add the red wine:


Bring that sucker to a simmer, then add the two cans of beef broth:


Cover, put that sucker on low heat and let it go for 2 or 3 hours, until the meat is tender. Then pull the meat out. Look, I know you don't want to hear that. Just do it:


While the meat rests -- you know this has to happen, even if you want to deny it -- mix the corn starch with a little water, add it to the liquid in the cooking pan:


Stir that over medium heat until it thickens into gravy. Slop that gravy over everything you want gravy on and enjoy:


Bon appetit, bitches.

Look, they're just cute, OK?

It's not my fault that cats do cute things. I'm a dog guy, but Mrs. Wolves sends me pictures, and I have to agree that the kit-tays are cute. Deal with it:


And you know there will be more. Kit-tays rule the interwebs.

Thursday, May 26, 2016

Spam. No, really. Spam.

Having gone to high school in Hawaii, I know full well that Hawaii loves Spam. Trust me, it's well documented. Recently, though, a reader in Hawaii, who I suspect knows me from my high school days, sent me a series of photographs of the varieties of Spam available in Hawaii. I'd be willing to bet that most Mainland residents were not even aware that there are different flavors of Spam available. Well, behold:


And behold:


And behold::


Jesus, this is getting tedious. Behold:


Yeah, behold again:


This is my favorite, though, combining two Hawaiian favorites, macadamia nuts and, yeah, Spam:


Which brings this to mind:


Mrs. Wolves runs her first 5K

This past weekend, Mrs. Wolves, who runs every day with Jeb the Wonder Dog (which means she has to stop at least once so he can take a dump) ran her first 5K. It was in the neighborhood, which meant it was quite hilly. I also was raining quite a bit. Still, nearly 500 people took part, and Mrs. Wolves did well. She was happy to be there:


And determined:


Quite a crowd at the starting line:


Off she went:


Got a picture of her early:


After that, I just waited. Somehow, I missed her coming in to finish. It was the longest distance she had ever run, and she was right in the middle of the pack. She was really pleased with her outing, and is looking forward to her next 5K. We will not speak of my imminent exercise plans.

Ho. Lee. Crap.

This might be the best 15 minutes you will spend this week.


I think we all know who comes first around here

The other day, I heard Mrs. Wolves calling my name, asking for assistance with something. When I got upstairs to her study, before I even walked in the door, I heard her say, "Hand me my drink. And my gum." I was getting ready to tell her where to put her drink and her gum when I stepped into the doorway to the study and saw this:


Mrs. Wolves was clearly immobilized by kit-tays who could not be disturbed. I was left with no choice but to do as she asked. Then she asked for her phone so she could take this picture:


And this one, once the kit-tays had shifted around a bit to maximize their comfort:


I'm not sure how long Mrs. Wolves was held captive by the kit-tays' need for a comfy resting place, but it was quite a while.

Goodbye UK, hello Poland

Poland has been busting it in recent months as a source of Eff You visitors. Last night, Poland kicked the United Kingdom out of the all-time Eff You Top 10 list, nailing down the No. 10 spot that the U.K. and Latvia have been playing takeaway with. The U.K. retook the 10 spot a couple months ago, but no more. I guess the U.K. needs to up its count of internet searches for "porn" and "hot naked babes." Eff You doesn't actually feature these topics. but we sure get a kick out of using the words. Traffic is traffic, kids.

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

I don't think Ray Mabus has to worry about getting a ship named after him

Mabus, who is the secretary of the Navy, has been hell-bent ever since he took office to turn his part of the military into a lovely social experiment, with all combat jobs open to all genders -- and you thought there were only two -- apparently without regard for the person's actual physical ability to do the job. I think it is possible he as finally gone too far:
One of the most time-honored phrases in the Marine Corps — "every Marine a rifleman" — could get an update as the service's top leaders consider new gender-neutral job titles for all positions.
The Marine Corps is conducting a sweeping review of its military occupational specialty titles, Capt. Philip Kulczewski, a Marine spokesman at the Pentagon, told Marine Corps Times. The move follows a January directive from Navy Secretary Ray Mabus that Navy and Marine leaders ensure all job titles are gender neutral as ground combat jobs opened to women.
Because Mabus is a Social Justice Warrior, there apparently are no restrictions on changes he is willing to make. SJWs feel the need to control the language as well as the actions of other people, regardless of how stupid the result is. Mabus clearly falls in that camp:
Initially, a Navy official told Marine Corps Times that Mabus didn't intend to change iconic titles like infantryman, rifleman or midshipman. Instead, the official said, he only wanted titles to change the titles if "man" stood alone as a separate word, as in reconnaissance man or field artillery sensor support man.
But a Marine official with knowledge of the review said "every single" title, billet and job description is being looked at.
I will leave you to your own conclusions as to why the SJWs want to enact these kinds of changes. But I think we can rest assured that future generations, looking back on the de-militarization of our military, will not look kindly upon people like Ray Mabus.  His efforts to turn the Marines into some kind of social club will not be appreciated in the future when we need a military organization that is proud to be "first to fight" rather than proud to be "gender-inclusive."

Paraguay!

I know there's a bunch of countries in South America, but I feel like I am closing in on unanimity. We recently got our first visitor from Paraguay. and without checking a map, I'm not sure how many South American countries are yet to visit. That sounds like too much work to me, but I know it can't be too many.

In any event, we have Paraguay which, like Argentina, was a favorite post-war haven for Nazis on the run. That doesn't make them bad people. It just is.

Anyway, the Republic of Paraguay is:
a landlocked country in central South America, bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. Paraguay lies on both banks of the Paraguay River, which runs through the center of the country from north to south. Due to its central location in South America, it is sometimes referred to as Corazón de Sudamérica ("Heart of South America").
About 6.5 million people live in Paraguay, which has a long history of military dictatorships and isolationism. They apparently have some serious episodes of stupid in their history, as well:
Solano López led the nation into the Paraguayan War in 1864 against Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, and was overwhelmingly defeated in 1870 after five years of the bloodiest war in South America. William D. Rubinstein wrote: "The normal estimate is that of a Paraguayan population of somewhere between 450,000 and 900,000, only 220,000 survived the war, of whom only 28,000 were adult males."[19] Paraguay also suffered extensive territorial losses to Brazil and Argentina.

During the pillaging of Asunción in 1869, the Brazilian Imperial Army packed up and transported the Paraguayan National Archives to Rio de Janeiro.[citation needed] Brazil's records from the war have remained classified.[20] This has made Paraguayan history in the Colonial and early National periods difficult to research and study.
OK, Paraguay is pretty small. Argentina and Brazil are pretty big. Uruguay is a whole bunch bigger than Paraguay, too, and not just in size but in population. Paraguay was asking for it. No wonder they got their asses kicked. But I digress.

Paraguay has a fairly healthy economy, one of the best in South America, based on manufacturing and minerals. On the other hand, about a third of the country's population is pretty damn poor. So there's that.

Paraguay, apparently, is largely unspoiled, which I guess comes from being poor as shit. They have great jungles and stuff, including impressive waterfalls, such as the Iguassu Falls, here:


Sounds like a beautiful country. So give a big Eff You welcome to Paraguay.

Update: Not sure how I forgot about this:






Kitty in a box

You know I'm going to post this shit. We have kit-tay, they do cute things, and Mrs. Wolves takes pictures of them if you had a spouse and s/he sent you pictures for your blog and said, hey, these would be good for your blog, what would you do? If you claim you would ignore the pictures, you are a lying sack of poo. So I put them up. Mischief, apparently very comfortable in a box:


She stayed there a while:


No doubt there will be more kit-tay pictures. get used to it.

This shit is getting old

Once again, I had a project drop dead beneath me unexpectedly. This could chap my ass real quick if it continues. And it will. I think this is a result of predictive coding, where the firm lets a computer program code most of the documents. We only see the ones the computer can't make a decision on, or the ones that the computer thinks are privileged. The problem, of course, is that predictive coding programs really aren't very good yet, and might not ever be. But courts accept the results, so that doesn't really matter. What you get, then, is bad computer coding replaces bad human coding -- come on, you're read this blog before and know my opinion of most temps -- and does so much faster.

What happened here is the number of documents left that needed human eyes on them were actually far fewer than the firm originally believed would be true. Naturally, the firm's reaction was to cut most of those human eyes. The criteria for getting cut are, as always, random. Good people I know on this project got cut, and shitty reviewers I know on this project did not. C'est la guerre. Once again looking for work. Unemployment haikus coming.

Are we comfy? Do we need a pillow?

I swear the cats run this household, or at least you would think that based on the pictures Mrs. Wolves takes. If a kitty takes over a chair for sleep person, woe betide the person who attempts to oust the kitty so he can sit in that chair. That, of course, means me. Here is Mayhem sleeping in my chair one evening recently:


We were about to watch a "Game of Thrones" episode. I was forced to sit elsewhere because Mrs. Wolves refused to let me evict Mayhem. I love my kit-tays as much as the next guy, but this is ridiculous.

Saturday, May 21, 2016

Yeah, that ineffective solar-power plant you're paying more than a billion dollars for is even worse than you thought

The world's largest solar power plant, which has miserably failed to produce the amounts of power it claimed it could, has added to its aura of failure. Not content with killing thousands of birds or falling so short of production goals that if faces shutdown, the plant upped its fail quotient by setting itself on fire:
The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, a concentrated solar thermal in California and the world's largest solar thermal power station, suffered a small fire on one of its three boiler towers Thursday, according to the Associated Press. The fire caused the boiler tower to be shut down while firefighters ascended 300 feet to deal with the blaze, leaving the plant at one third power since another tower is already down for maintenance.

The Ivanpah plant works by using its massive fields of mirrors to direct sunlight towards the top of the three 459-foot boiler towers, which then creates the steam to drive turbines that create the actual electricity. But several misaligned mirrors directed some of this sunlight to the wrong place, starting a fire amidst some electrical cables, San Bernardino County, California fire Capt. Mike McClintock told the AP. Plant personnel had the fire out by the time firefighters on site.
You had one job: generate power. You failed. Did you have to make things worse by setting yourself on fire? Did you have to take a situation where you were figuratively setting fire to $1.6 billion in taxpayer subsidies and make it literal? Apparently, yeah. Still think it's a good idea for government to use your money as venture capital on jackass schemes?

Wow. Who could have seen this coming? Part II

Starting before the Democrats jammed Obamacare down our throats despite polls showing most folks didn't want it, opponents predicted that the law would drive up costs and force insurers out of the market. Emperor Barry I and his minions insisted this was poppycock, and by the way don't you love the emperor's new clothes? Well, many of us thought it might not work out well by changing insurance from covering risk by charging premiums appropriate to that person's risk into just covering every possible event without regard to anything except that the government just told companies to cover those risk events. We predicted that insurers would not want to play that game. Further, we predicted that charging older, sicker people less and trying to put the costs onto the backs of younger, healthier people also would not work. Hey, guess what?:
 Consumers have their plans cut out from underneath them each year as insurers have either pared back plans or exited exchanges altogether as Obamacare’s economic model continues to fail. At the same time, premiums and deductibles have continued to skyrocket, and tax subsidies cannot hide the impact on families.
What was promised as more “choice” is becoming fewer choices as UnitedHealthcare and now Humana begin to pull out of certain regions. An AP story in 2014 reported that of the 19 nationally recognized cancer centers that responded to a survey, only 4 reported access through all Obamacare insurers. Last month, Blue Cross Blue Shield released a report warning that costs under the president’s plan are unsustainable – fully 22 percent higher than people covered by employers. And The Hill reported that Obamacare insurers lost money in 41 states in 2014, which could determine whether big companies like Aetna stick with it.
Insurance companies are bailing out, because they aren't selling insurance anymore. If a sick person can wait until he actually has to incur health care costs to buy insurance, and the insurance company then has to sell him the insurance, that isn't insurance. It's insanity. It might make libtards feel good because people with poor planning skills or no money can get someone else to pay for their healthcare, but it is a really good way to get companies to stop paying for anyone's health care, including those folks who bought insurance the old-fashioned way, based on the risk that they would need it.

A post at Hot Air pulls together a number of stories that make it clear that Obamacare is not only failing to reduce costs but is failing to provide care. If you go 0-fer on your promises, why should anyone believe you?

The Fiscal Times story sums it up nicely:
Remember the now-infamous promise made by President Barack Obama when pushing the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare? “If you like your plan,” the president repeated on dozens of occasions, “you can keep your plan.”
When millions of Americans got thrown off of their existing health-insurance plans in the fall of 2013, PolitiFact called it the Lie of the Year. Obama ended upapologizing for the lie in an interview with NBC News’ Chuck Todd in November 2013, even if he couldn’t quite bring himself to admit that it was a lie. “We weren’t as clear as we needed to be in terms of the changes that were taking place,” was as far as Obama’s contrition went.

Almost three years later, there is little evidence of any more contrition on that failure, or others in Obamacare for that matter. Earlier this week , Charlie Rose interviewed three former Obama speechwriters on a variety of topics. After discussing their work on lighter-topic speeches, Rose asked whether they felt they had an impact on Obama’s more serious addresses. Jon Lovett replied that he felt most proud of his impact on “the most serious speeches – health care, economic speeches.”
That prompted his colleague, Jon Favreau, to interject. “Lovett wrote the line about ‘if you like your insurance, you can keep it,” he said, as the panel erupted in laughter. “How dare you!” Lovett shot back in mock indignation. “And you know what?” he asked as the laughter continued. “It’s still true … no.”
Are incompetence and deceit humorous? Perhaps in the Obama administration, the answer might be yes. For the rest of us, especially those who find themselves stuck between a federal tax mandate and an insurance market that has narrowed as significantly as its costs have skyrocketed, no is the correct answer.
The people behind Obamacare joke about what a lie it was. Think it's funny?  Gee, I wonder who could have seen this coming?

Window kitty

She looks as happy as a pig in shit, lounging on the window sill:


Thank God she's not a pig. Not sure I could handle the amount of shit it would take to make her that happy.

Thursday, May 19, 2016

Close encounters of the blogger kind

I went for a couple beers with some friends on Tuesday. Hadn't seen them in about a year, but recently started working on a project with one of them, and he is the "let's grab a couple beers" organizer, so I also saw a couple guys I haven't seen in a year or so who are not on this project.

The real kicker, though, was a woman who is working with a couple of the friends who are not on my project that I haven't seen in a while. With me so far? Anyway, this woman says to me, "You're the guy with the blog, aren't you?" I hemmed and hawed, said something about I have a blog, but I don't know about the blog, but she stuck to it. "You're the guy with the blog. That's how people talk about you."

Well, all righty then. I guess it's good to be known for something, right? Even if most people don't know who you are.

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

Well, at least it will be entertaining

This is a week old now, and presumptive Republican nominee Donald F. Trump* has made one or two moves since to attempt to mollify his non-supporters in the party, but I'm not convinced The Donald really plans to do anything except what he's been doing -- be a crass, boorish, offensive jackass with no discernible policy positions that he isn't willing to change at the drop of a hat. Weird that I should think that:
Donald J. Trump’s behavior in recent days — the political threats to the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan; the name-calling on Twitter; the attacks on Hillary Clinton’s marriage — has deeply puzzled Republicans who expected him to move to unite the party, start acting presidential and begin courting the female voters he will need in the general election.
Why would he act like this? Well, of course, it's because he won slightly more than a third of the votes cast during Republican primaries and caucuses, and what's that mean? Mandate!:
But Mr. Trump’s choices reflect an unusual conviction: He said he had a “mandate” from his supporters to run as a fiery populist outsider and to rely on his raucous rallies to build support through “word of mouth,” rather than to embrace a traditional, mellower and more inclusive approach that congressional Republicans will advocate in meetings with him on Thursday.
It seems to me to be likely that if his jackhole approach failed to win a majority of votes from Republicans, it won't win a majority of votes from the general voting population. Get ready for six months of the latest Trump reality show -- great ratings on TV, but totally devoid of intellectual content.

Hat tip to Hot Air.


* Sorry, I got changing Trump's middle initial to F from Ace.

Farming in the deluge

There have been only two or three days without rain in the area in the last three weeks or so, including 15 straight days with rain, so Saturday when I went to The Farm, I wasn't surprised to see this through my windshield:



Thunderstorms, on the way. Needless to say, Jeb the Wonder Dog didn't care:


When I got there, I took a quick survey of the state of affairs. The bed in which the peppers were to do was weedy and not ready:


The spinach and radishes were finally doing well, and radishes were ready to harvest:


The second spinach bed, having been reseeded, was at about 100 percent germination:


The cauliflower looked really good:


As did the broccoli:


and the brussells sprouts:


All three of those crops depend upon a cool spring, which we are having. As long as it stays cool-ish until the broccoli and cauliflower form heads, we should be good. The peas are doing well since their reseeding:


Both beds:


I thinned the peas some, since this time we had 100 percent germination. I also hoed and weeded the crap out of the peppers bed:


Then I planted some peppers. Two sweet bell pepper plants, five hot pepper plants:


Got another seeding of carrots in, since we had near-total failure on the first planting because of the late freezes:


And we harvested some massive radishes (this was nowhere near all of them):


All in all, The Farm is falling into line. Twice on Saturday, torrential downpours forced me into the garage to wait things out. Fortunately, I got done most of  what I had on my urgent list. Still need to build a string trellis for the peas, prepare and plant the squash bed, and figure out where to put the cucumbers. All in good time.