Now I don’t know where all my food comes from, but I know were some of it comes from.
It starts here:
yeah, that’s the garden.
Then the food arrives in the kitchen:
And, then it gets turned into pickles, canned hot pepper rings, and relish:
I also make my own Salsa and sweet peppers as well as freezing beans, okra, squash, tomatoes, and zucchini.
Most people don’t think it’s worth the effort. But, I don’t mind the work one bit. It’s nice knowing where at least some of your food comes from.
A federal judge (U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit) has ruled that the NSA’s wiretapping program is warrantless and must stop immediately. But that’s not what I’m commenting on. See, if you read the full opinion, Judge Taylor states:
We must first note that the Office of the Chief Executive has itself been created, with its powers, by the Constitution. There are no hereditary Kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution. So all ‘inherent powers’ must derive from that Constitution.
A judge in the United States of America telling the President that he may not exercise any power not explicitly stated in the Constitution? A judge that is part of the judiciary that has legislated countless “laws” into being from the bench?
You know what? The pot/kettle analogy doesn’t even go far enough in my mind. Maybe Jesus’ speck/plank analogy would be more appropriate. To me, all this legislation from the bench in the past 20 years or so has done a lot to destroy the greatness of this country and that the ripple effects from it will continue to erode it for the next 20 or more years. A judge talking about restriction of powers is just ludicrous.
In fairness, I know nothing of Judge Taylor. She may be the country’s most strict interpreter of the Constitution and may never have legislated from the bench. I hope she is. I hope there are more judges like that out there. Actually, I pray for more judges like that out there.
If you care to get up just before dawn, there’s an interesting sight in the sky. The moon, Mercury, Venus, and Saturn all appearing to be close together in the sky. Almost worth waking up for, huh?
As I pondered last week, the hummingbird turf war has begun. If you’ve never seen this, it is quite interesting. These birds are so cute, it’s hard to imagine them fighting with each other, yet they do. It’s getting late in the season for them and they’re trying to “fatten up” for their migration (they head to Mexico or Central America) and get really defensive of their food sources.
There is one male hummingbird that swoops down out of a tree any time another hummingbird tries to get near the feeder in my back yard. Their normally tender little chirp (more like a squeak at times) is replaced by coarse, shrill noise.
Last night as I was working on a flowerbed in the front yard, two hummingbirds got into a
little battle. One gave up his efforts to get to the feeder and took off right toward me with other chasing him. They buzzed no more than a foot from my head on the way by. My first thought was, “Aren’t you guys scared of me here?” If I had stuck my hand up quickly I might have been able to end their little battle–permanently.
So, now the life lesson. These two hummingbirds flew right by me last night, totally oblivious to the fact that I was the person that cleans and fills these feeders for them. I am the source of this food for them which they are currently fighting for control of. Yet they had no idea that I’m the person supplying that for them.
How often am I like that with God? Sure, I don’t walk right by Him in a physical sense. But how often do I ignore Him as the source of my blessings? How often do I ignore His mighty handiwork in this world? How often am I close to “the least of these” and fail to recognize it? And, as I described last week, how often am I in my own little turf war defending some source of blessing when there’s more than enough food to go around.
Sometimes, I just don’t get it, do I?
Do you know how many planets there are in our solar system? Well, you may know that answer now (hint: it’s somewhere between 8 and 10), but there’s no way to be sure what that number is going to be in the near future.
The members of the International Astronomical Union are meeting in Prague to propose upping that number to 12. The current proposal maintains Pluto as a planet and adds three other objects to the “family.”
If the resolution is approved, the 12 planets in our solar system listed in order of their proximity to the sun would be Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Charon, and the provisionally named 2003 UB313. Its discoverer, Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology, nicknamed it Xena after the warrior princess of TV fame, but it likely would be rechristened something else later, the panel said.
The galactic shift would force publishers to update encyclopedias and school textbooks, and elementary school teachers to rejigger the planet mobiles hanging from classroom ceilings. Far outside the realm of science, astrologers accustomed to making predictions based on the classic nine might have to tweak their formulas.
Of course, that could all change. I hope you’re not in business of selling models, stickers, or other stuff that has to do with the solar system. Oh, and apparently rejigger is our vocabulary word for the day.
It appears that NASA has somehow misplaced the original video tape of the first moon landing. This from the organization that has insanely detailed written processes for just about everything they do. Yet, they somehow seem to have a tiny problem with keeping track of things. Not that the tape of the first humans to land on the moon was like, oh, important or anything…
I’m all for planning ahead, but a posting on the local Freecycle community today takes that a bit far. It’s August 14, mind you.
WANTED - CHAIN SAW DOESN'T HAVE TO WORK - WILL PICK UP
I am looking for a chain saw for my friend to complete his Halloween costume. Any size or condition chain saw would be great. Thanks.
This must be some Halloween costume…
What’s the most foolish place for a guy to stop and relieve himself? Sounds like a great ice-breaker conversation topic, huh? Okay, maybe not. Here’s one that certainly has to rank highly on the doofus scale. Great story of a guy taking a leak at the West Virginia State Police headquarters. The best part? His friend in the truck was charged with posession of controlled substances.
In San Antonio, there’s a Red Oak tree that has been “gurgling” out water for three months–particularly interesting given the dry conditions there. The world is a mighty interesting place.
Have you seen this email? My lovely, supportive, and intelligent wife came home from work all excited, telling me that tonight that Mars was going to appear as big as the Moon. Wow. Sounds incredible, huh?
The Red Planet is about to be spectacular! This month and next, Earth is catching up with Mars in an encounter that will culminate in the closest approach between the two planets in recorded history. The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287. Due to the way Jupiter's gravity tugs on Mars and perturbs its orbit, astronomers can only be certain that Mars has not come this close to Earth in the Last 5,000 years, but it may be as long as 60,000 years before it happens again.
The encounter will culminate on August 27th when Mars comes to within 34,649,589 miles of Earth and will be (next to the moon) the brightest object in the night sky. It will attain a magnitude of -2.9 and will appear 25.11 arc seconds wide. At a modest 75-power magnification Mars will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye. Mars will be easy to spot. At the beginning of August it will rise in the east at 10p.m. and reach its azimuth at about 3 a.m.
By the end of August when the two planets are closest, Mars will rise at nightfall and reach its highest point in the sky at 12:30 a.m. That's pretty convenient to see something that no human being has seen in recorded history. So, mark your calendar at the beginning of August to see Mars grow progressively brighter and brighter throughout the month. Share this with your children and grandchildren. NO ONE ALIVE TODAY WILL EVER SEE THIS AGAIN
Problem #1: this is from 2003. Problem #2: People can’t read the sentence correctly. Look again:
At a modest 75-power magnification Mars will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye. [emphasis mine]
Do we get it now? If you were looking at the Moon without a telescope, then look through a telescope at 75x at Mars, they would appear the same size. It does not come close to implying that Mars will appear the same size as the Moon. I just don’t see how people keep ignoring the first part of that sentence.
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