Good News

Recently I've bemoaned the news as being all too depressing. I even suggested to my coworker that there ought to be an outlet for good news, since all the major news outlets seem so heavily tilted toward bad news.

It seems that idea was conceived of already, 12 years ago. You can find the result at 

http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/

Update: in a slight bit of irony, it turns out that goodnewsnetwork is a pay service. While it is only 2 dollars per month, and undoubtedly worth every penny, I thought I'd better provide a free equivalent so as not to be foiled by a whiff of bad news:

http://www.happynews.com/index.aspx

Cactus About to Flower

I have a cactus that I found in Las Animas county Colorado and have had for about five years. 

Right now, and for the first (or maybe second) time, it is beginning to flower. It's not a very showy flower, but I think it may be the only non-christmas cactus I've gotten to flower at all.

 

Not that I've really gotten it to do anything. My only achievement is just that I haven't let it die. 

I think it is cool that a transplant from Colorado is doing so well on my windowsill. 

Meanwhile, my other cactus is now 6 spine-clusters long on the new segment it grew and which I mentioned on this blog in April of 2007.

Cool Snow Pleats

This morning, as we headed out for Coffee at Battle Grounds, we found pleats of snow folded up on the bumper of the Saturn:

Frontal View of Snow Pleats

Side View

I leave it to the reader to ponder what type of conditions lead to snow formations of this nature.

Garlic Going Great Guns

I have a mnemonic device for remembering when to plant garlic. Just think vampires. What day of the year are you most likely to encounter a vampire? Halloween, of course. So, just remember, on Halloween get out all your garlic, brandish it at the vampires you meet and when they've gone off to find less well defended necks, go plant your garlic, so you'll be ready to defend yourself next year.In all actuality I read a book called Growing Great Garlic wherein the author suggested planting garlic in the northwest between Oct. 15th and Nov 15th (if memory serves).

Halloween makes it really easy to remember.

For the second year in a row, I remembered to plant garlic in the fall (Nov. 1st this year), but this year things are looking so much better, it almost feels like this is the first time.

Supposedly, garlic that is exposed to cold temperatures gets a sharper bite to it. This winter should have provided that sufficiently. 

Believing that the garlic has already weathered enough cold to imbue it with all the flavor it could need, I have erected a (ramshackle) hoop greenhouse over it, so that it can grow with wild abandon. 

As I write this, we are getting our umpteenth snowfall this winter, but under my hoops, the garlic looks like this:

Also, there are a few cilantro plants and a spinach that have survived the winter in there. 

Speaking of Cilantro, I need to write about the delicious avocado salsa I made for our breakfast today. That might be in the next post or so.