CRT... JUST WHAT IS Critical Race Theory?

Basically it is the reformation  of everything WE were taught in the local schools and universities:  from the time of Horace Mann right up until now! It all pretty much started in the already very liberal Colleges and Universities around the country. For some damned reason all these "woke" folks apparently have never been much for studying history of any sort! They deny the facts in front of them, and that is, that ANY socialist  government has always failed, failed, and doubly failed, miserably!

Now for some reason, a huge conglomeration  of them has gotten together years ago, about 40-45, and decided that they are going to reshape the face of the earth, but more importantly, the government of the United States!  

They will take away from you, all of the Bill of Rights, The Constitution as it is written now, and every one of the Amendments that they don't agree with," and think that all we "flyover people" have no business concerning ourselves with all of that useless, stuff! 

They will be very glad to tell us what we  can do, what we can say, what we should be able to own; including how much money we can have in our possession! This last condition has already had a bill introduced by the Biden clique, that will do away with paper money as we know it! You will have a bank account foist on you, that  delineates just how much worth you can have in it! And at anytime some beaurecrat  can empty that at will if they have deemed you to be incompetent in the use of their money!

This CRT, Critical Race Theory, is a whole program that has been drawn up by these people to be taught in our schools! It is being done as we speak as it has already be implemented in 25 of our States! They teach this crap now, beginning with the fifth grade and continuing all the way through to graduation in any of these States schools! They are doing it right now in the good old Block Island school system!

Just what is they are teaching you may well ask? How about pure communist in it's most egregious form? Marxism, with all its attendant horrors, midnight arrests with no-knock entry allowed? They will stop you on the street for any reason, as in for a search and seizure of anything you may be carrying?  And to make sure you are carrying your Vaccination Passport? Absolutely! Imagine the worst case of Communism you have ever heard of,  and that is what we will have! It  is happening right this minute, right now!

They are actively teaching in these 25 State school systems, that it is okay for the Blackman to hate the White man, for all the ills that have been inflicted on them in the last 200 years! They allseed  to have conveniently  forgotten how the Black man got to this country in the first place! It wasn't  a bunch of white men, sailing over to Africa and going around, rounding them up out of the bushes! It was their own, rival black tribes, that went around and  got them all together and sold them to the white man!  Who , undoubtedly thought it was a great idea to buy these human beings, load them on their ships, and  transport them to America and other countries along the African and European coast!

So here we are, deep into the changing of America to a completely Communistic one. If  you want to stop this, you are going to have to get involved in your local School Boards and Committees . That is where it started and that is where it will have to end.  And it is up to you, the parents of the below school aged  children, to see that this horror show is done away with, and the values that our ancestors brought to this country are reinstated!

You want to have the hell scared out of you? Do some online research about this CRT, and then start worrying about the future your kids or grandkids are likely to have to face in their lifetimes! 

I just turned on my 'puter a few minutes ago and the first headline that popped up was about parent groups, and school boards that are rising up in alarm, at what is just coming to see the light of day, after being hidden in the shadows and deep dark hollows of the perverted minds of the groups who would take all the gains  of the last two hundred forty  some odd years, and stuff them down the drains of history! 

All just because they believe wholeheartedly that Marxism, Leninism, Communisum, etc., to be the "be all end all" in governance of we poor besotted "mongers of Capitalism! Get all the crooked politicians, lawyers, judges (from the top down) right down to the very bottom and let's  start with a nice clean new slate to restore this country to it's former glory!!!!

TIFN-ELittle

Awaiting any comments on previous post

Been trying to figure out how I could let the general public know that I have resurrected the blog again ! I don't "DO" any of the Social Media thingies after  having had a 'Facebook account for about 6-8 years .

Too much personal sniping going for my tastes, to much heavy handed censoring, and what looks like a concerted effort by many in this government to turn our country into a pure Communistic state.

Anybody have any idea how I  can alert the local populace of my return to the blogging arena ?

TIFN

Copy of the letter sent to BIT

Re: Melanie Wilk’s letter in last weeks paper

Fri, 05/14/2021 - 2:30pm 

Category: 

Letters

To the Editor
Dear Sir, It was with great consternation that I read that letter from Melanie Wilk! She stated clearly, and with heartfelt feeling, just exactly how I have felt for many years after I came back to the island after spending twenty years away in the USN. I also come from a long line of island folk about three hundred sixty four years. When I came back in 1975, the island had barely changed at all. Granted there were a few more houses than when I left in 1962, but the businesses that were here, were the same ones. Different owners in some cases, but virtually unchanged as far as new construction was concerned. It started slow and wasn’t really noticeable, but over the years the school committee was the one I watched, and I began to see things that were being forced on us by the State, but more troubling was the teachers’ union was demanding more and more but giving back less and less. Then I began to pay attention to what was going on the other boards and commissions.
I spent a couple of years on the planning board and on the council for two years.
Every time I saw something that I didn’t think was kosher or just plain wrong for this town, I was consistently voted down because of the good old ‘party lines’ that existed here. A lot of the items that showed up on the docket were put there by some of these ‘newcomers’ to the island and again were not always to the benefit of the town.
Well, I guess you could say I abrogated my duty to the voters that put me there in order to stop the outrageous amounts of money being spent like there was no tomorrow! That mindset that had infiltrated all the boards and commissions was, “that we could do whatever we damned well please because we are the majority and do not much care for the opponents thoughts on any subject.”
I continually wondered where all this “ready cash” was going to come from, and if I was going to be able to meet my tax burden when they came for their pound of flesh! For the first 10 to 15 years, my income level was right on a par with the poverty level decided by more bureaucrats in D.C.
Melanie’s letter to you folks came at almost the right time, maybe one week earlier would have been fortuitous. Or maybe not! Look at how much attention was paid to Martha Ball’s concise, coherent and absolutely right on the mark in every respect letter. She all but called out all the special interest groups who spend these millions of dollars and put future generations deep in debt. They don’t care about future generations! All they care about is their status among all their peers. Let’s see, Joe Jones just built a $2.5 million house so now, I have to build a bigger monstrosity on top of the highest hill that isn’t already sporting a giant edifice for two or three people. There was something that smells of dead fish in that whole affair, as it appears it was done under the table leaving two councilors completely out of the decision making process!
I sent a version of this rant to the BIBB, with notification to them that I was sending a version of it to you folks. I’m still waiting for it to be posted. Oops! 1904hrs  /11/21 I just got notified that my community service message is considered political pandering so they won’t post it. It had none of the political stuff in it that is in this one.
Back to the present, reading Melanie’s letter just makes me feel so melancholy for what the descendants of mine will have to say about what we did to absolutely destroy, “One of the Last Great Places in the World!” I’m afraid that we have reached the point of no return for us here on this Jewel in the Atlantic. It also appears to be happening on the National level too.
Respectfully,
Everett R Littlefield ADCM, AC,
FE, NO, USN, Ret. 

So feel free to comment in the comment section! Have a good night, and be sure and wake up in the morning!

TIFN

Back for a fourth try at this blogging!

  Well now, here I am again looking for a place to vent as it were.  This is just a trial run. I don't have any idea how to induce anyone to come here and read my drivel. Maybe someone would put out the word on one of these other social media devices like tweeter,  or one of those others.

If one was so inclined to come take a look, just go to your browser and type in using the 'case' used here, WWW.IslandVoiceII.blogspot.com and that should get you to my door!

I'm going to wait a few days before I put up anything of  consequence on this thing. If after reading  it you may wish to make a comment.  You don't have to agree with  my views to post here. Just keep it halfway civil if possible.

What precipitated this resurrection of and older blog was the reaction to the letter I sent to the editor of the Block Island Times! I have had about 30-35 people speak face to face about it and at least a couple dozen emails. Not one of them was of a derogatory nature!

So I am going to post this little missive  and see what happens!

PS. If this addy doesn't seem to work, change the two capitals I's to lower case and that may do it. 

If you want direct access, my email is elittle1938@google.com. As soon as I discover there is a message, I'll answer it. Sometimes I only check my email once a day in the evening!

TIFN ( That's It For Now)

$2M For Cleaning up the DUMP?

 I realize that the dump leaking and giving up its treasures is a problem for the town, but just building a revetment that will only last twenty years and then need replacing again is not to my mind, a very fiduciarily responsible way to spend that kind of money on a temporary fix!

Just what are we going to do with all that junk that is worming its way out of the ground? Well apparently we are not going to get it off the Island! If I read that article in the local paper correctly, we are just going to dig it up and move it to another location on the same piece of property. How dumb is that? So now all my grandchildren are going to be looking at subsidizing  another move of the same junk in the future!

Just what are the priorities of this town council when it comes to saving the dunes on the east beach and the keeping of the junk from crawling out of the ground and getting into the ocean  Which one takes precedence ? Which is the most likely to to happen first, to the huge determent of the town?

I have  mentioned this before in another forum, that if the town really wants to do something to forestall the disaster to the this burg that would occur if we were to get another Storm Sandy or one or two of even worse destructive power, I think the following would be the best course of action to follow. It would last for at least one hundred years. It is this:

Take all the stones, rocks, boulders, etc. that the State put put up against the dunes and roll them all out onto the beach. Bring in a company that would drive into the sand, pieces of thick steel bulkhead material of at least sixty foot length and pound them into the ground leaving about ten feet sticking out. Then roll back all those boulders along with however many more were needed to provide a good solid eight to ten foot thick buffer in front of those steel bulkhead plates. Fill-in behind them with rocks and clean fill. Leave a space of about ten to twelve feet from the edge of the road to the bulkhead and fill it with concrete to create a promenade along side the road for walkers and bicyclists.  Start as close to the Surf Hotel as would be deemed necessary and continue to the north to at least just past the State/Town beach.

I would think that $2M would advance the bulkhead  project to get pretty close to there! Going past the Beach House would entail leaving a small gap where the windmill turbine cable comes ashore.

When we get to that point, then would be the time to go pissing up a rope trying to mitigate the whole dump farce!  Bringing in a bunch of granite boulders and dropping them in front of the oozing junk would soon see them falling into the undermined sand from wind and tide, and the ooze would continue on it's  way into the ocean. You have to have something to stop the undermining of what ever you put in front of your bulkhead, and undermining to a depth of forty feet is going to probably take a few hundred years at least.

Anybody got another solution that is reasonable? Anyone?

TIFN

  

IS IT SPRING YET?

I can't really remember the last time we had such a cold Spring for so long into April. But with my memory being what it is, it was probably just last year! Anyway I am sick to death of the damned cold weather.

Still getting all the plots tuned up and ready for the planting, which I hope to commence shortly. I have quite a few things going on in the High Tunnel.  I have 16 Bell pepper plants up about a foot and 18 leaves. Swiss chard is about a foot high and being eaten already. Spinach, Rhubarb Chard, Kohlrabi, and Romain lettuce are all up and doing well.

My 20' row of high yielding eating peas are about a foot up the large long trellis. Hope they will climb up to about head high. Have a bunch of basil plants in the House Green House That will be planted in front of the peas. I also have about sixty Marigold and sixty Nasturtiums plants to be interspersed among the different vegetables to help keep the damned bugs away.  I also plant Mustard plants among some others to help with the bug chasing.

We have eight Snow Crown Cauliflower. This early bunch are for summer eating, and about twenty five cabbage plants for making Sauerkraut later on, as well as a few just to eat over the summer, and a few to store for the winter in the root cellar.

Now I mean to tell you, keeping those GD cabbage loopers out of them is a chore and a never ending job! I don't use chemical pesticides on my plants. Mostly Bt and pyrethrin dust. But the absolute surest way to get rid of those loopers is to take a badminton racket and turn them into a white cloud of dust with one stroke, IF you can hit them!!!   My granddaughter Dakota does an admirable  job of disposing of them. I suppose the fifty cent bounty on them helps to incentivize  her too!

I noticed again today that there a couple of more of the accursed signs up along the roads. I would like to know just who the hell it was that initiated this, "supposed study", who was it done by and just who paid for it? All unanswered questions. Was this done by one of our local boards/commissions? Or was it some State entity. What I think we need is for the 'sign vigilantes' to ride again!


I am posting these things on my Facebook page, but am not sure how many folks see it so I am going to put the address of this blog right here so you may log in directly if you wish to make a comment! And it is: IslandVoiceII@blogspot.com.

SO I will be very happy to hear from you, and we can talk about any subject that interest you as related to BI and it's environs! Anyone who is interested in gardening and has seen what I am doing at my place, please come on over and we can talk about it. The one thing I WON"T be doing anymore is tilling up the ground to plant! Come on over or write a note right here, and I'll start bending your ear!

TIFN

A Blight on the Landscape!

Went out for a Sunday afternoon ride around the Island  about three weeks ago. Not an unusual thing, but this time we noticed that there were a few new traffic signs having been put up. It was a cause of some wonderment as to why in these places, and we thought no more about it till the ensuing Sunday arrived.

As we progressed around the Island we discovered a plethora of new sign sproutings! All over the damned place!  Not just one or two,  but on one curve/corner alone there were nine individual  signs to tell the unwary driver just how to negotiate this bend in the road! Well we began to have a few discussions as to why all of a sudden the influx of obtrusive signs.

We kept on talking about them as we started our third subsequent Sunday trip around the Island, only to find that there had been even more of these obnoxious yellow beacons of portending doom sprouting up like unwanted dandelions of toad stools! We are now totally infested with the damned things1

I would like to know WHO decided all these signs had to be put up on virtually every corner or curve and every hill, up an down the length of the Island. Was this just on the whim of some single person or group in the town? Or was it all at the behest of  the infamous DOT?

It looks like some traffic engineer came out here for a weekend and saw all these totally dangerous curves,  bends, and steep inclines and was aghast that they were not "signed up"!

I would also like to know just how in the hell all we local inhabitants managed to survive out here all these years, traveling at the maximum allowed speed of 25 MPH,  and have not all wound up in the ditches and bushes! Traveling at 40-50 MPH or more, might  cause one to inhabit those said bushes and ditches, and it has happened on occasion.

So were these signs then inflicted on us solely to warn tourists of the dangers of rounding these bends? If you are driving at 25 MPH on these roads, around all these sharp curves and mountainous inclines, and you don't have the mental processes that would allow you the reaction time to navigate said curves, YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE A DRIVERS LICENSE!  You could probably have a cat nap from the time you saw the curve coming to the time you had to start turning the wheel!

So I  would like to start a letter writing campaign to our Town Council to get the damned, ugly, and way too numerous things removed from the roads! Hell you can't see the weeds along the road for the big yellow signs blocking the view!

TIFN

Cheese and Garden stuff

Well since the last wheel of cheese back there in early Feb. I have gotten the two devices to regulate the water temp and the latest attempt at a traditional Cheddar went a lot easier1 Not much faster because there are long waiting periods between each phase of the process. But this one came out really well although a little lopsided because I didn't have the press follower centered very well. But it is in the cave and waiting for at least 6 months before eating it!

Been making many more Minibed on plastic frames as I have a lot of ground to get covered with them. I have 46 done and need another36!

Have ordered and received five more of the billboard tarps. These are 11 mil thick and should last a good long time. Up to ten years so I am told. When I get through getting the tarps anchored in the dirt and the frames on them and secured, I'll be ready to go. There will be NO MORE WEEDING for me in any of the gardens! Some small ones may sprout before the actual seeds I planted germinate and take hold.

Inside the High Tunnel all is in readiness and I have planted three MBOP,(mini beds on plastic) already. I put Swiss chard in one, Kale in another, and some mixed lettuce in the last of the three. That particular;ar batch of seed was 6 years old so I don't think it is going too sprout! So in a couple of days I'll be planting some '18 seed of the same type.

Nice to have the root cellar all done and working! Have plenty of potatoes left and none of the white taters have even started to sprout! Usually have had to rub off the eyes a couple of times in past years.
The Pontiac Reds and the Red Norlands, being early taters HAVE started to sprout a couple of times and I don't think they will last till the middle of next month or so. Going to rub them off again tomorrow and see what happens.

Got 22 RIR chickens and one rooster  and am getting 23 eggs a day! Either one of them is laying two a day or that rooster has the wrong internal plumbing!!

Well I guess that is it for this time. If anyone has questions or comments would love to hear them!    TIFN

Cheese

I have gotten myself involved in the art of making cheese. Thought I'd try doing just a simple one like cottage cheese for the first outing and it worked out pretty well.

Next up was one called Quark. No not those ones flying around out in space. or going through my house at light speed. This is an old original one developed about 5-6 hundred years ago. It is also a soft one and ready to eat just as soon as you are done with the making it part. Goes good spread on hot toast with made just a touch of homemade blackberry jam smeared on it.

Now it is time to try one that actually set me on this  course in the first place. Cheddar, the King of cheeses as far as I am concerned. I guess the Queen award would have to go to Rogurfort,(sp). But back to the King. This one takes a little longer to age before you can eat it. It is called Farmhouse Cheddar, but it is kind of bland and pure white when first out of the press. It tastes like a cheddar but with overtones of feta slipped in there somehow. I let it age in a cool environment for about 30 days and just had to try it. It is a little crumbly but has started to develop a bit of a tang on the tongue. So I am eating the third quarter of that one. After rewaxing the last quarter piece, put it back in the storage place for another month or two to see what develops.

For the fourth  attempt I went for doing a Traditional Cheddar. This one is a lot more involved than the Farmhouse one. There are a few more steps to this process that eventually gives you my favorite  tasting cheese. "Cheddaring" is the actual process of cutting and stacking the cheese curds into strips, and turning them every fifteen minutes or so, all the while holding them at a constant temperature in a pot surrounded with hot water at a very specific temp.

Because of difficulty of getting the water to an exact temperature, I'm not sure how my latest attempt is going to turn out. But won't know for sure till 6-9 months down the road. Since that last time I have bought a device to immerse in the water to keep it heated and also a device that automatically regulates the water heater to maintain that oh so critical temp!

So tomorrow morning I am going to put all my new found information and gadgets to the test and will begin the second of what I hope will be a bi-weekly affair of starting a new cheese to feed to the masses, Well at least to my family. If it is eatable, I may pass out a few tastes albeit grudgingly!

TIFN

Calling a Spade a Spade

Well “The Donald” is at it again! Calling a spade a spade and Not a Heart or a Diamond. And it is just driving all the poor little snowflakes into hissy fits of unimagined proportions! Oh my God! How can he possibly say that about those countries? Well let me tell you something, In my 20 years in the US Navy I was in quite a few of those shitholes. Not up in the hills and mountain tops where all the rich or well to do’s abide, but down in the towns/cities in the poor sections. Around the docks, and the slums. Have any of you folks who are world travelers with pockets full of money, ever been down in the nitty-gritty parts of the cities you visit? Have you been down there where the “sewer system” is  a trench that runs the length of the Main Street and into the local river or harbor? Where people just walk out to the middle of the street and lift their clothes a mite, do their business and walk off right through the latest deposits in their open topped sandals? Well have you? Go too Karachi Pakistan, Mombasa or Assab,Ethiopia, go over to Cochin, India. How about into Angola to the capital city? Mozambique has a whole row of shitholes running from north to south that they call home.

These are the places that feed us all those chain migration folks! Can’t blame them for wanting to run from their abject poverty, but there is no good reason why we should accept them all when they become a drain on all of our resources, to the detriment of our own tax paying citizens.

They have migrated to enclaves here in the the US and are speedily turning large tracts of our country into the selfsame shitholes they came from. Go to Baltimore, Chicago, Places in Minnesota, and others all over this country and see for yourself just what is happening!

Go to the library and check out Toynbee’s Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire and you can see right where we are headed if all the policies of the previous four or five Administrations are not reversed. Especially the last one where he/it was going to ,”fundamentally change the face of the US of A!

TIFN

Repair of a Linguini (inguinal) hernia!

When I first went to see a doc about the pain in the gut way down low and to the right, after he checked  it all out he turns to me and says I have a "Linguini" hernia down there. Well it kind of made sense to me cause the pasta stuff looks a lot like a plate full of guts when it comes right down to it! But it t'was an inguinal  hernia, DUH!

So off I went to the South County hospital yesterday morning. In at 0730, into the OR at 0950, and in recovery by 1030, and not one piece of spaghetti leaked out on the floor!

Now comes the fun part for the next few days till the pain goes away and then six to eight weeks of picking up nothing heavier than a gallon of milk. Kind of puts the kibosh on outside work involving raking, shoveling etc. I guess I can go ahead and screw a bunch of the pieces of precut 2x4x27.5" stock into 52 more of the minibeds for my next springs garden.

Going to actually finish a Piper Cub R/C kit that I started two winters ago. Just got the servos, receiver and a couple other small items needed to finish it.

Then on to the reloading bench to turn some of my components into real live ammo. Got to be ready when that Zombie Apocalypse arrives. Or at least a few of the gone awry snowflakes !




TIFN

Be Scared! Big Storm coming!

Well as usual in this screwy state just because Mother Nature decides to dampen us a bit, all the Weather Guessers on the tube are claiming that we are going to be in dire straits because we MAY get UP TO eight inches of snow sometime in the next 36 hours!

So I guess I'll go right out and buy a generator, a truck load of bottled water, and another of batteries. OOOH, I must not forget to go by the bakery and buy all they have!

See you later after I get all dug out next spring!


TIFN

The BIBB and Me!

I have been trying to get a post up on the BBIB as to how the folks of the Island could access this blog. All I asked was to post the Internet address for this Blog! IslandVoiceII@blogspot.com.

Well for some reason they have declined to do so on the pretext that this is a commercial site, and I assume, they think I am making money off of it! NOT TRUE! Have never solicited a dime, nor received one from all the years I ran this previously!

Have corresponded with the Aministrators twice trying to reconcile the so-called problem. I see commercial ventures being put up every single day! So I wonder just what is going on. Is this one more instance of some organization trying to stifle a dissenting voice from being heard? Maybe I should link myself with BLM, LGBTALPHABET, or others and see what happens.

Still waiting for a cogent response other than the dogmatic one I have received so far .

TIFN

Pecadillo's at the Power Plant!

Well the people of the Island get screwed to the wall again! Instead of $550,000.00 for the Substation, the price magically inflates to $1.8 Million! Somebody, somewhere in this whole  affair did not have their eyes on the ball. Hell they were not even in the same stadium where the game was afoot! How could so many people who were supposedly watching all  aspects of this whole fiasco apparently be sound asleep?

What about the cost of the friggin' cable? How could ALL the WHEEL'S who negotiated the price for this thing have gotten it so wrong. Or did the manufacturer in "Wherever", put one over on our vaunted intellectual, business people? I believe all the folks  involved with the whole project knew just what they were up to from day one. I find it very hard to believe that a multi million dollar endeavor like this, would've had so many incompetent people.                                                          

All that bull about how much our electric bills were going to go down and now we find that it will go up 2-3 cents a KWH! And I'll bet it will get nothing but more expensive before it ever gets paid off.

One other thing, what is happening with the large piles of "Non-contaminated" dirt piled up there by the Town Garage? Can we redistribute it  to folks who want to put in a garden? M-M-M- diesel flavored tomatoes! Wonder just how much that is going to cost to get it hauled off island and to the Superfund reclamation site? Free I expect.

How about that Broadband Internet thingy? Do most of, or even a bare majority of the folks living here year round really want or NEED that? Doubtful from all the people I talk to about it. If you really need that high speed access to facilitate the running of your business, then by all means get it! How? I hear Hughes Net can can do that for you! But YOU have to pay the exorbitant fees, not use  the rest of us to underwrite your money making endeavors of which WE receive no recompense! Pay for it yourself or marry a billionaire!

That $1.5 to 1.8 Million bucks should go toward building a seawall along the Neck road to preserve it for as long as possible. Roll all those rocks the State put there out on the beach, and the drive a lot of 60' steel bulkhead down in the sand about 52 feet, roll back all the rocks and add to them substantially. Pour a concrete cap along it's entirety about 10-12 feet wide and and viola! A Promenade for all those summer visitors to partake of the  beauty of the Island.

Of course this should all happen before the ocean all freezes over and we wouldn't need
 the bulkhead or the ferries anymore. A scenario just about as liable to happen as the one where we all should stock up on snorkels and fins to get to the floating Grocery store located somewhere around Beacon Hill.

In case you haven't been listening to Rational people instead of all the doomsayers and nuts like the estimable Mr.       , There is an event in the making that will put us back in the 1700's as far as electricity usage is concerned. Google 'The Carrington Event, and see what turns up! That is if  Ding Dong _Un from North Korea does get too us first!

TIFN

Things are starting to take shape

Moving right along---
I finally got the upper plot all tilled for the potatoes. Cut them all today and letting a scab form on them before planting so they have some protection for any lurking germs in the soil. I am going to wait till Friday around noon to do the deed, for a very specific reason. That being so that my youngest granddaughter, Dakota, can assist again for her third year in a row in the planting of the 'taters. She finds it amazing to dig into the side of a hill in the middle of the summer and pull out a potato! She also gets a kick out of coming down to the house and going out in the attached room greenhouse and giving the tubs of lettuces a haircut with a pair of scissors in the middle of the winter. I think I have a budding gardener!

Back to the spuds, we put them in rows 36" apart and space them in the row 12-16" depending on the variety. Put them in the 2-3" deep trench  till all are in the ground. Then we walk along each row and deposit a small handful of 19-19-19 fertilizer of the organic kind, between each cut spud. Her hand, full of said stuff, is just the right amount.
Then we will pull the dirt back over them and wait for them to start turning into next winters dinners.
When they get to be about 6-8" tall we will keep pulling dirt up and around the bottom leaves until we have plants growing in the middle of a hill of soil about 8-10" across the top and about 8-12 tall. Therein shall the amazing transformation take place!

Planted 24 Mary Washington Asparagus plants about a week ago, and then 75 strawberry plants the next day. Asparagus has yet to make an appearance but every one of the strawberry plants have put out good growth in that time period.

In the HT, the 3 different types of lettuces have all appeared and gotten to be about 2" tall. Peas are up about 4". Got two Kale volunteer plants up about 6" and a few more planted in a different mini-bed.

Brought 4 Homestead tomatoes down and planted along the trellis designed just for them. These are an Heirloom plant and were very prolific for us last year. Also brought down and planted 4 Roma's along another trellis. They were about 8" tall to start then and I buried each one up to the first true leaves.  In the bottom of each hole is an equal parts blend of blood meal, Epsom salts, and pulverized dried eggshells. Cover with about an inch of soil before dropping in the plant so it doesn't burn the roots! That takes care of the nitrogen, magnesium, and calcium requirements for getting them off to a good start. They have already regained the 2 " I buried them!

Got four Broccoli and 4 cauliflower in two other mini beds, and they are holding their own. These are for fresh eating. I will start another four beds of cabbage, two of broccoli, and two more of cauliflower for preserving and making Kraut. We put up 54 quarts of tomato sauce last fall and made about 25 pints of kraut. Middle son likes my sauerkraut! I don't tell him that I stomp down the cabbage and salt barefoot in a big washtub before canning it! Toe-jam gives it just that right tang!

Took a chance and planted a bunch of Cilantro in one tire bed stack and fennel in another one. If they come up great, if not I'll just do it again in a couple of weeks or so.

All five of the Elderberries are doing very well! As are the three Red Currants, and the three Goosberries.

Four 20' x 4' raised beds are all hand tilled, fertilized, and covered with. plastic waiting for it to get warm enough to plant two beds of beets, and two full beds of different green beans for shelling and for summertime eating.

Had some folks over a few days ago to take a look at how I do this gardening stuff. Have to say they were most impressed! So much so that they were going right home and get a HT ordered for themselves.  Gave them the online addresses for all three of Herrick Kimball blogs so that they will the advantage of his vast knowledge and Whizbang ideas!

Well I guess I am all up to date on the goings on around here so, TIFN.

Retraction from a previous post

Just was re-reading a post from last April 16th and realized what an ass I am! I knew back in high school just what the Electoral College was for, and why it was included in our voting mechanism, but had forgotten it in the intervening myriad years!

They are the ONLY reason that we are not now in the total grip of the Clinton political mob!! I can't believe there are more idiots out there than non-idiots, but that is the truth! Shrillary did win the popular vote from all the big city "din do nuffin's", and every single person who is a non producer but has their hand out waiting for it too e filled by Uncle Sammy for sitting on their asses at home all day every day!

 

Those framers of the constitution were some really smart, critical thinking,  forward thinking, seer's of the highest order, to see just what was in the future as regards the population of the big cities and population centers and how they could come to dominate and dictate to the rest of we deplorables out here in flyover country. Yeah Yeah I know, flyover country is to the middle west, but we out here live to the east of the dividing line! And you still have to fly over here to get to us! OR take a boat

Im done doing my Obama imitation, bowing and scraping, kowtowing and kissing ass!

TIFN!

First High Tunnel plantings of this year

Well on a nice rainy day I spent an hour or so in the High Tunnel, hereafter called the HT, putting in the ground, the first seeds of the year. Planted Bibb, Caesar, Black seeded Simpson, Mesclun lettuces. They each have one half of four of the mini beds in there.

Have a lot of plants already started in the House GreenHouse, hereafter called the HGH. Lots of Patterson onions, Broccoli, Cauliflower, and cabbage. They will all be put in the HT as soon as I think we are done with any hard frosts of any length. These are only the the first round of each that we will be eating thru the summer and early fall. In about 4 -6 weeks I'll start another batch right in the mini beds for storage and canning etc.

I also have 75 strawberry plants on the way to. Was going to put them in the ground but have decided to put them in the HT too. Only they will now be in 6"x 6"x10' trays made out of ledger board. They will be filled with compost, planted , and lifted up to the purlin/bow junctions in the HT to just above head high. Then, the berries  will just cascade over the edges and hang there waiting to be inhaled by workers below, ME!

Got all four of the Raised Beds next to the HT all broad forked and fertilized. Now they will be covered with the various pieces of woven black plastic  with the holes all cut in them. The hole spacing is all set from when I grew things in them inside the HT last year.  These pieces of plastic are to be anchored with ground cloth pins to hold them in place. That should take care one any weeds that should dare to try growing in  the vicinity!!

Have the plot by the well all smoothed out and raked flat, waiting for me to get the BP laid down for what is to be the Squash patch this year. Rotation of crops you may remember from Gardens 101, is the epitome of a good producing garden! In this same plot I will be planting 24 Mary Washington
 Asparagus plants along the west edge of the same. And another 24 each year for two more years. By then there should be a good amount for munching. Hopefully I'll still be around to partake of the  yummies!

Putting this out there again if anyone is interested in coming on over to look at the setup in and around the grounds please feel free. This Mini-Beds on Plastic is the brainchild of one Herrick Kimball who I have been conversing with for the last 3-4 years on the 'puter. He has more  ideas than Edison the light bulb man, on how to make gardening a lot easier and more fun.  If you have a few minutes google him at these two addresses, all lowercase; uplandgardner.blogspot.com and the other one, minibedsonplastic.blogspot.com. As you read thru his articles, click on all the links that are imbedded in there. Lots of good stuff, and he has a home operated online business where he sells items that he has invented. Try googling, Planetwhizbang.com and see what comes up! That is his business address and is just filled with great things.

Guess TIFN so adios, ciao, etc.

Picture update for the previous post

Going to try again with the pictures. Well there they are. If anyone here on BI is interested in taking a look at the whole setup, come on over and we can talk about it. This entails a whole new concept in gardening. You can do this with the whole garden or just parts of it. What this all boils down to is that if you have a decent spot you will never have to till the ground again. In fact tilling destroys all the previous years work of the roots making holes and tunnels in the subsoil that allows air and water to move thru the soil. There is a whole lot to this idea and I'll see if I can put up a couple of links that explain it all. Standby!Okay, here is the first one. Uplandgardener@blogspot.com and the next one is , Planetwhizbang@blogspot.com. They are both run by a man named Herrick Kimball who lives up in the Fingerlakes region of NY State. He is full of ideas for the garden and I have implemented many of them in mine. This Mini-beds-on-plastic is his idea after years of reading others ideas and coelescing them all into this new method and it all makes sense. Google the links and do some reading. If you are an avid gardener, you will come away impressed!

This is one mini bed with the plastic cut on three sides

When first moved into High Tunnel

This one goes to the right of the below left one.

All 56 mini beds on the plastic

First plants are WALKING Onions I had in there before covering. Had to dig them up and then replant.

Getting the High Tunnel ready for planting

Well I dismantled the whole setup I had in there last year as it just did not work. Oh the plants grew very well and we got a lot of food out of it, but it was labor intensive and a constant battle with the weeds!
SO this year, about early January, after getting every thing out I gave it a good deep tilling. Back and forth both ways four different times. Got it mostly level with a construction rake. Then about a week ago we dragged in a piece of plastic called a "bunker cover" This is what farmers use to cover the silage, animal feed, that they have stored in outside, three sided bunkers. It is black on one side and white on the other. Seeing as I want the heat to be transmitted to the ground, we put the black side up. It was cut before we brought it in so that there was about two feet extra on all sides.

Before bringing it in I had dug a six inch deep by six inch wide trench all the way around the inside perimeter of the HT. The  plastic was pulled snug and anchored all around with those things called soil staples.

Then I brought in 56, 30" x 30" frames made out of 2x4 lumber. They were placed in six precise rows, front to back and labeled A thru F.  Spacing is two feet between each mini-bed each way, and two feet in from the outside walls. There is one area just inside the man door to the left that is nine foot square where I stow all the tools and stuff needed to do the work in there.

After lining them all up, I drove three, one foot long pieces of 3/4" re-rod in three corners of each mini-bed.This was just to keep them from moving around due to accidental kicks or being run into by a wheel barrow. Then I proceeded to cut the plastic, 3/4" inside the 2 x 4"s on three of the sides. I left it attached to one side so that in the event  it wasn't being used, I could recover it without having to chase around after a piece of plastic. Also keeps the wind from blowing them away!

Now I am just waiting for the ground in there to heat up to about 60 degrees and I can start dropping in some of the plants I already have growing in the greenhouse on the front of my house.

In each one of these mini-beds there will be intensive planting. There may be as many as three or four different types of plants growing in any one depending on their growth habit and symbiotic relationship with their close neighbors! Lots of plants DO NOT like every other one in the patch so you have to keep them at arms length so to speak.

My weeding between rows and beds is now non-exitistant, and the ones growing inside the bed will be minimal once the good guys get growing and shading them out!!

So now, I am going to try to upload a few pics here so you can see what I'm babbling about:

Well been trying for an hour and cannot figure it out so---- No Pics till I get a lot smarter!

TIFN