2020 Blight Continues

      “And the beat goes on.”  I apologize.  It’s human nature to focus on the negative, and ignore the positive. 

     Something positive must have happened in 2020.  The negative jumps out and kidnaps the attention.

      Valentine cards inviting folks to celebrate our 50^th wedding anniversary on March 21 went out.  Plans rolled along.  About March 14, the great Covid-19 shutdown began.  March 21 was our first casualty.  Cancellation notices went out.

      From July of 2019 to July of 2020, we had about 3 inches of moisture from snow skiffs and scattered showers. The dearth not only affected crops. It has been a struggle to keep trees alive.  I lost nearly a dozen, including four about 10 years old. 

 

    

  I have hauled water to the surviving trees on a weekly basis.  Usually, I would have planted replacements, but not this year.  It would be a horrible year to try to start a tree.

     A good year for millers.

 

        I don’t think the hedge enjoyed 2020, but I can’t exactly blame that on 2020.  It could have been worse.  I could have had a forest fire at the farm, instead of in the Rockies.

             Ash from forest fires deposited on the sidewalk by the breeze.

     The relief from heat, smoke, and drought came as a mixed blessing.  It rained, yay! And snowed, and temperatures plunged.  My poor garden!  I was “out of town” on Tuesday, the day it got below freezing.

 I covered it on Wednesday to protect what was left from promised freezing temperatures.  I’m not sure I saved anything.

 

 

      We will have some tomatoes, a pumpkin or two, and maybe a cantaloupe!

 

    2020 is only three quarters done,  We still have the fall season, Thanksgiving and Christmas to deal with, not to mention a national election.

     Hibernation, anyone?

 

 

     

 

Letter to the Editor

  Headline:  “Vote to retire mascots passes

                  Decision calls for removal of all logos* by Aug. 1, 2021”

*Logos:  Indians and Warriors

Dear Editor:

      In an era when everyone finds themself a victim and when everyone looks for a reason to be righteously indignant, I too, find myself severely offended.

      How insensitive of the Minnesotans to name a football team after my ancestors, as if they were pagan savages.  Or worse, animals like lions, tigers, bears, or broncos.

     Won’t some do-gooders band together and help us of Norse descent rid ourselves of this embarrassing and humiliating reminder that our ancestors weren’t always very nice people?

      Maybe it’s p-c because the Vikings were, after all, white guys.

      As soon as we get Minnesota to change its offensive mascot, we can go after Dallas.  If you can’t have Indians, you can’t have Cowboys.

      Mark Twain said, “In the first place, God made idiots.  That was for practice.  Then he made school boards.”

      What can you expect from an unpaid, totally thankless job?