White House Garden

As promised, a post about the new White House garden. First, a bit of nitpicking: What are they doing?!?!


They are raking the grass. Couldn't the White House come up with a system for removing the grass, you know, like normal gardeners?

Now to the meat: Hooray! This is the kind of thing that our country needs. So often people ask, "What can I do?" Bush once said, "Shop." Obama is saying, "Volunteer." I'm saying, "Grow a garden. Ride a bike. Walk. Turn off the lights. Turn up/down the thermostat. Use less water." For some reason, and it's terribly disappointing, our leaders aren't emphasizing the real, tangible, doable actions that would make a big difference. Simply replacing some of the tomatoes you eat from Chile with tomatoes you grow in your back yard will reduce your carbon footprint significantly.

Good for the Obamas for stepping up and leading by example.

NPD 3.21.09

*President Obama sent a message to the Iranian people, welcoming in Nowruz which, to my understanding, is a "Helllllllllo spring!" ceremony.

*Multiple Republican governors are saying they will not accept federal dollars to improve their economies. Add Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons to the list that includes Sarah Palin, Mark Sanford, and Bobby Jindal. What makes Gibbons different is that he is not a 2012 presidential hopeful. Perhaps, then, he's at least not politically motivated like the other three.

*The House of Representatives passed a bill that will tax AIG bonus-getters at 90%. There seem to be lots of holes in the proposal, one of which is that many of the bonuses went to non-Americans. Whoops. The things that gets me about his whole mess is that they were "retention bonuses." Who wants to retain these folks who ran the company into the ground!?

*A longer post about this will come, but how about the White House Garden!?!? Hooray!

Bambi

I just ran out side at 12:05am, in my underwear, bb gun a-blazing to defend the homestead from a pillaging bandito... by the name Bambi.


This year in the middle of the summer, for one reason or another, the dear have descended upon the gardens of La Grande. Normally they are up in the mountains all summer, enjoying the great human-less expanse. Unfortunately, this year they've decided the glitz and glamour of the big city is preferable to rural living, which has been bad news for the beans, squash, and tomato plants.

Now time for some shuteye so I can stay awake for tomorrow's "Deer Be Scurred" stakeout.

Gardening

The weather has finally turned (yes, I knocked on wood) here in La Grande which has ignited an itch to build. The past few days our backyard/garden has been a construction site with the sounds of the hammer, saw, and shovel mixed with singing birds happy to see spring. The goal: completely closing in the garden with raised beds and filling them with new topsoil. Today I drove the final nail. Now the unveiling of the finished product:



Note the handsome University of Oregon "O" while taking the picture. Shadows rarely lie.