keep to the Fen Causeway

150 Years of Great American Trains

How to Save the Economy, the Environment, the Internet, Democracy, Our Communities, and Everything Else That Belongs to All of Us

How you see the world is about to change. All That We Share is a wake-up call that will inspire you to see the world in a new way. As soon as you realize that some things belong to everyone--water, for instance, or the Internet or human knowledge--you become a commoner, part of a movement that's reshaping how we will solve the problems facing us in the twenty-first century.

After lunch I went to Home Depot to get more 3.5 mil plastic sheeting and some 1"x2"x8' wood furring. I put up existing 2x4s around the side on the two sides of my garden where the peppers, broccoli, onions and potatoes grow, but it was getting late, so I started putting the 10'x25' plastic sheets over the tomatoes in the center of the garden. Fortunately, the wind was light. I got two sheets up, held in place by loose 2x4s on top of the frame over the garden but they only covered the north side and the top and it was 5:00 PM. So I went in to recruit my wife to help.

Together we took the remaining two rolls of sheeting up, wrapping it around the poles supporting the cover above the tomatoes. This we held in place with the 1x2s, which I screwed into the sides of the 2x4 top frame. Finished all of that after 7:00 PM, the last bit by moonlight. The bottom of the sheeting all around is held in place by the numerous 4 - 6" dia. rocks which I have removed from the soil. (Finally realized what I had been saving them for!).

But I was now out of plastic sheeting and didn't have the peppers, etc covered. So I ate a piece of roast beef, fresh from the oven, with bread, took a naproxin, etc. and returned to Home Depot before 8:00. I got another 10x25 plastic sheet and a 3x50 sheet, wrapped the 3'h sheet around the outside of the garden fence, drove some 4' stakes at the inner perimeter of the beds and together we put the 10 by 25 sheet over the top of the plants, stapled the outside to the horizontal 2x4s, draped the inside over the stakes and secured the edges with rocks. All done by 11 PM!

I was especially pleased that my back, which had been bothering me through the spring, held up fine. (Thanks to extensive therapy at Baxter Regional Medical Center, starting with spinal decompression, progressing to hydrotherapy and then to core strengthening - a gem of a department.)My knees were sore, but nothing I could not handle. I will probably leave the covers in place for the next few weeks, unless a serious rain storm is predicted. After the next two days a week of good weather is forecast.

Of course this all cost far more than it would cost to buy the vegetables I am saving, but, with any luck, I can reuse the plastic sheets for several years if I only have them up for two to three months total per year in spring and fall. And the homegrown vegies are tastier and have had no chemicals sprayed on them.

I had an inner rail system assembled ready to attach to the stakes around the pepper and onion beds, but lost my battery operated drill in the dark, (I was working by car headlights), and it was about 5 C when we finished and I was so tired I couldn't think straight, so I aborted that part of the project for the night. Now I will go see if I can find the drill. :-)

Today is a day of rest and I will sorta keep the Sabbath for a change.      

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

Do Messrs Eastwood and Loaf represent typical Republican voters, or am I now in a parallel universe?

You can't be me, I'm taken

OK, caffeinated? Here we go.

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And to anyone who's done empirical research, it's a myth.

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How's the coffee?

Hope this makes it into Germany.  Best version I've heard.

Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias I've started seeing it everywhere

Even as many people along Hawaii's coast rushed to higher ground, officials downgraded a tsunami warning to an advisory for southern Alaska and British Columbia. They also issued an advisory for areas of northern California and southern Oregon.

A small tsunami created by the magnitude 7.7 quake was barely noticeable in Craig, Alaska, where the first wave or surge was recorded Saturday night.

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"This isn't that big of an earthquake on tsunami scales," [Lucy Jones, a USGS seismologist] said. "The really big tsunamis are usually up in the high 8s and 9s."

Smart says that, with a lack of government funding and commitment to long-term rehabilitation, the challenges are immense, particularly in the current economic climate. "I try to engage a young person who has been earning £300 a week through illegal methods. It was hard before, to try to convince him. But with unemployment high and cuts to benefits, it makes things tougher."

That said, his project, which has well over 1,000 clients, is delivering results. Fewer than 20% of those who come in for help reoffend. From personal experience, Smart refuses to write off a single individual as beyond redemption and that is what drives him on. "I don't think that about anybody," he says.

Sam Lee: 'There is a difference in the songs Gypsies sing' | Music | The Observer

Sam Lee is one of Britain's finest singers and the most cogent force of his generation in British folk music; an heir to the great revival during the 1950s and 60s led by Martin Carthy and the Watersons, and Fairport Convention in their wake. Lee brings contemporary folk music back to whence much of it came: Roma, Gypsies and Scottish and Irish Travellers, who have passed these songs from generation to generation, over centuries. He scours Britain for those whom many avoid or despise - travellers in camps or housed - to learn their lore and songs. And a first collection makes up his debut album: Ground of Its Own, nominated for a Mercury award last month. When Freda Black talks to him about "your music" on the album, he replies: "Not my music, Freda, it's yours."

• Cabardès (Château Sesquières 2010, 7€) What I like about Cabardès is the equilibrium between the varieties of Bordeaux (Merlot, Cabernet) and of the Rhône valley (Grenache, Syrah). This would be dismissed as new-world fiddling, except that they've been doing it for centuries.

• Pouilly Fumé (Marc Deschamps, 2011, 9.50€) For me, the most noble expression of the Sauvignon Blanc grape on its native (Loire Valley) soil; without prejudice to its incarnation in New Zealand, in many respects superior. You can taste the flint.

• Gaillac : apparently one of the oldest wine areas of France, attested in Roman times. I discovered it 20 years ago, riding through on a bicycle on the way to Toulouse. It was completely forgotten then, now rather better known. Domaine Vaysette : three each of Blanc Perlé (5€) (perlé meaning spritzig or frizzante) and Rouge Cuvée Léa (9.6€) - the dominant Fer Servadou variety is an acquired taste, delicious.

• Côtes de Bourg (9,5€), Blaye (7€), 3 each : Chateau les Donats. The whole Bordeaux thing remains a bit of a mystery to me, possibly because I am cost-conscious and they tend to be over-priced. A pair of right-bank Merlot-dominated blends, pleasant because they don't over-egg the wood.

• Côteaux de Languedoc (7€) and Faugères (10€), 3 each, La Tour Penedesses. Both are dominated by the Mourvèdre variety, something of a personal obsession.

• Bandol, 23€, 3 bottles. Château Sainte Anne. Out of my price range. What was I thinking. Marvellous. Mourvèdre again.

• Pacherenc de Vic Bilh sec, 11€, 12 bottles, and Madiran, 10€, 12 bottles, Château d'Aydie. Melenchthon introduced me to these wines from the Pyrenees, an extraordinarily aromatic white and a powerful red, and now I buy more every year.