Archive for April 2016

4-30-2026 Journal–Cuss’in & Swear’in!   Leave a comment

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Now that I have grandchildren running through the house occasionally I’ve been forced to curb my use of all cusswords.  I’ve always loved cursing and swearing but stopping cold-turkey has been tough.  I have no doubt they’ll be picking up a few dozen new cuss words at home and especially at daycare. We can only hope they don’t pick up too many of the really good ones for a while yet.

I decided to do a little research into cussing as it applies to what will be their daily lives soon enough.  Before I do that I thought I’d give you a short history lesson too.  Here’s a few retro cusswords from back in the good old days.

 Old School Cussing

Heavens to Betsy

Jumpin’ Jahosafat

Yikes

Gadzooks

Holy cow

Sugar

Dagnabit

flippin’

Geez Louise

Jeez oh man,

Fudge

Eat it … RAW

Hell’s bells

Oh Shoot

Great Caesar’s Ghost

Jiminy Cricket

Holy Mary-Mother of God

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They sound so lame to us now but back in the day they got the job done with us kids.  My Mom knew all of these and a few more modern words as well.  Now lets take a look at cusswords in use in the USA today. Some fool took the time to do a study to determine what states used certain cusswords  the most. Here are the results.

Asshole – New England, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Arizona

Bitch – Texas through the Carolinas – Along the coast.

Darn – Most of the Great Plains states.

Shit – Texas to Delaware along the coast.

Fuck – All coastal states, East, West, and South.

Motherfucker – Southwestern states and Maine’s

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Before too long our grandchildren will on the Web and getting introduced to Facebook and Twitter and all of the associated idiots who roam there. Here is some information and usage on both of those sites.

Twitter

Detailed work by researchers at Wright State University in Ohio has found that 34.7% of all the swearwords in their sample of 51m tweets were "fuck" or one of its long list of cognates.

In comparison, the second and third most popular swearwords – "shit" and "ass" – accounted for 15.0% and 14.5% respectively, while other highlights included "bitch" (10.3%), "hell" (4.5%), "whore" (1.8%), "dick" (1.7%), "piss" (1.5%) and "pussy" (1.2%). Between them, the top seven make up 90.6% of all the swearing on Twitter.

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Facebook

Someday, when aliens are sifting through Facebook data to find out what 21st-century humans thought and cared about, they’re going to see a lot of shit. That’s the most popular swear word on Facebook, according to an analysis by Slate. In the three-day period queried, shit appeared in 10.5 million U.S. Facebook interactions, fuck in 9.5 million, damn in 6.3 million, bitch in 4.5 million, and crap in 2 million.

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This next section applies directly to Rap Music. It’s always been known for bad language and we find out now that criticism was totally justified.  I feel bad for the fool that had to sit through this terrible music to complete this study.  It must have been brutal.

Rap Music

  • 217.7 cuss words-per-album average.
  • One song from the study had, on average, 13.76 instances of profanity.
  • Too $hort’s 1985 album Raw, Uncut & X-Rated was the most profane album, clocking 49.8 curse words per song.
  • The most profane artists per song were The Geto Boys, as they uttered cuss words on average 46.4 times per song. The second-most vulgar artist? Geto Boys’ Scarface, with 33.3 cuss words per song.
  • Bun B’s song “Some Hoes” had the most instances of profanity in its lyrics with over 113 cuss words. The words “nigga” (51 times) and “ho” (46) make up the majority. However, the study qualifies that Lil Jon’s “Roll Call” is perhaps the most vulgar with 329 cuss words but it was not used in the study.
  • The most profane year in Hip-Hop from the study was 2001 with 22.66 cuss words per song.

If both grandson’s can last more than fifteen minutes in this cuss filled society without becoming cussing experts it will be nothing short of a miracle.  Since I believe that “turn-about is fair play” I’ll just wait until they start cussing on their own then I’ll step in and add a few of mine.

SHIT ! ! !

IF IT’S GOOD ENOUGH FOR FACEBOOK, IT’S GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME.

04-28-2016 Journal–Do You Exist? Where’s the Paperwork!   Leave a comment

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It’s April 28th and two days ago we had two inches of snow here in Maine. The temperatures remain in the twenties at night and I’m sick and tired of sleeping with an electric blanket.  I actually think that April has been colder than March which is bizarre and sucky at the same time.  Also that sunburn I had from a week on the deck in March has slowly faded away. I’m back to being my old self . . . pasty white . . . and that’s just sad. Enough of my weather rant, I’m boring myself.

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Now for my rant of the day.

I haven’t been looking forward to today because I’m getting dragged back into civilization kicking and screaming all the way. I’m required to run errands for some dentist I’ve never visited, for an effing insurance company that I don’t like.  For five years I’ve had this dental insurance but all of a sudden they’re requiring me to prove I’m in a relationship with a women that I’ve been living with for seven years. All of a sudden the "politically correct" police have found me and are making demands on me once again.

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I’ve been forced recently into opening a joint savings account at my bank with my better-half, then transferring money into that account, just to prove to any concerned insurance idiots that I’m still eligible for their dental insurance. This is the same damn insurance carrier I’ve been with for five years. Nothing has changed but they still have that urge to cause me to jump through a few hoops. I’m not a happy camper right now and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it.  It just goes to show that getting off the grid in any fashion whatsoever is a gigantic effing NO-NO!  If they can’t control you in some fashion they think they’re not doing their job.

So I’m off to my appointment with a bank finance officer who can finally convince these morons that I actually exist.  Once that paperwork is forwarded to the insurance carrier and they are happy . . . TA DA . . . I’ll return to the bank immediately and close the damn account, thumb my nose to all of them, and go about what’s left of my life or until someone else gets in line to screw with me.

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Just so you know, this crap will never end until you’re dead and buried. But God forbid you don’t die properly or THEY may require your family to dig you up to prove your still in the casket.  Make sure your family knows to fill out the required exhumation forms in triplicate or THEY might raise their insurance rates or cancel them altogether.

LAND OF THE FREE, HOME OF THE (Politically Correct) SLAVES.

04-26-2016 Journal – Rainy Day Sexual Trivia!   Leave a comment

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It’s another gray and rainy day here in Maine. While I dislike these kinds of days they do serve a useful purpose.  They force me to stay inside out of the weather and to find other interesting things to do.  One thing that remains interesting regardless of the weather is SEX.  Sex is almost never boring (unless you know the girls from my high school class) who made sex not just boring but difficult to obtain.  It’s with them in mind that I offer up a collection of sexual facts and trivia to amuse you. Let’s get started . . .

  • The condom is said to be named after the Earl of Condom, a British physician at the court of Charles II who was asked by the king to design him something to keep him from developing syphilis. The oiled sheep intestine was a big hit.
  • Humans aren’t the only species that partake in oral sex; cheetahs, hyenas, and goats all go down too.
  • In 2000, the Mississippi state legislature introduced a bill to make it illegal for a male customer to have an erection at a strip club even if he is fully dressed.
  • The sperm of a mouse is longer than the sperm of an elephant.
  • Slang for “prostitute” in Victorian times was “blowsy” and slang for “ejaculation” was “blow,” leading to the current phrase “blow job.” In ancient Greece, a blow job was called “playing the flute.”

Oiled sheep intestines . . . YUCK. I’ll bet the donating sheep weren’t too happy either.

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  • Of all the primates, man has the largest penis. The gorilla has a two-inch penis, while the chimpanzee’s is three inches. The blue whale has the largest penis in the animal kingdom: 11 feet.
  • In 2003, a Texas man woke up from bladder surgery to discover that doctors had removed his penis without his permission.
  • For most men, the left testicle hangs lower—but in some men, most commonly left-handed men, the right one hangs lower.
  • Married people are more likely to masturbate than people living alone, according to the National Health and Social Life Survey (NHSLS).
  • President Lyndon B. Johnson referred to his penis as “Jumbo.”

He may have been President but even “Jumbo” Johnson can’t hold a candle to that blue whale’s eleven foot penis.

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‘Head to Toe’

  • Exhaustive research published by Johnson & Johnson found that the average time between penetration and male orgasm is 7.3 minutes – this involved 1,587 couples having stopwatch-timed sex.
  • The penalty for masturbation in Indonesia is decapitation.
  • When men of Australia’s Walibri tribe greet each other, they shake penises instead of hands.
  • Upper Paleolithic art dating back 30,000 years depicts people using dildos to pleasure themselves and others. That means mankind invented sex toys long before the wheel.
  • The average number of times a healthy male will ejaculate in a lifetime is 7,200. Of this number, approximately 2,000 times will result from masturbation.

Thirty thousand year old dildoes.  No wonder the women of that time are pictured with huge muscular arms . . . no batteries available . . . So Sad!

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  • A teaspoon of semen contains 5 calories. A sperm takes one hour to swim seven inches.
  • Men do not need to be sexually aroused to have an erection. Erections can occur if a man is frightened, nervous, or has a full bladder. It’s normal for a man to have several erections during the dream phrase of sleep.
  • Women who went to college are more likely to enjoy receiving and giving oral sex.
  • The average man has 11 erections per day and 9 erections a night.

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And here’s an interesting theory on everyone’s favorite word.  The big F-Bomb. It’s been around almost as long as those thirty thousand year old dildoes.

  • Contrary to popular opinion, the word “fuck” is not an acronym for the phrase “Fornication Under Command of the King.” It is a very old word that is hard to trace because the editors of the initial Oxford English Dictionary considered the word taboo in 1893. It may have a Scandinavian origin, similar to the Norwegian word fukka, meaning to “copulate,” or the Swedish foka, meaning “to copulate, strike, push,” orfock, meaning “penis.”

SEX . . . YEAH !!!

04-24-2016 Journal – Around the Campfire!   2 comments

I’ve been complaining for months about wanting warmer temperatures and yesterday I got my wish. We had a gorgeous day in the mid-sixties and it was sunny without a cloud in the sky.  The cat and I even managed an hour on the deck to work on our tans a bit.  It was incredible.

How do you end the perfect day?  Always a good question I suppose. After my better-half arrived home from work we discussed just that. It was the perfect night for a bonfire to start our Spring and Summer seasons off properly. Before dark I spent a few minutes preparing.

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A  bonfire while being really great also gives me a chance to rid myself of wood scraps collected during the winter months in my workshop and from the garden repairs and upgrades.  The wood was cut and we were ready to go. Next I built the fire and lit it up.

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The darker it got the better it became. We sat quietly enjoying the warm night and the good company.  The sky was showing some light from Portland a few miles away which offered up a photo or two work keeping.

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As we fed the fire it became really cozy and intimate. No vehicles noises, no kids playing and screaming, just peace and quiet.

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The smell of burning firewood took us both back to past years around similar fires with family and friends who are no longer with us.  The heat of the fire on my face was just the best.  After a few hours we shuffled off to bed feeling good about each other and life in general.  We left the fire with some regret.

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SPRING HAS OFFICIALLY ARRIVED

04-22-2016 Journal – Creativity!   Leave a comment

I spent the first two hours of my day today in bed drinking coffee and watching a dozen or so TED speeches. If your not familiar with TED I’d recommend it to you whole heartedly. It’s a series of speeches from experts around the world on  a diverse collection of topics. The anagram of TED stands for, “Technology, Education, & Design”.

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‘It sure isn’t the Sistine Chapel!’’

My main topics for today concerned Creativity and the Arts.  Listening to people from Bali who design green homes from bamboo or others from Europe who specialize in the creation of designs and art is exciting. It’s nice to know that Creativity is alive and well on this planet and not getting lost in the technological hustle and bustle of our societies.

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I’ve always been a proponent and supporter of anyone or anything that creates something.  The best times of my life are those spent where I’m relaxed, alone with my thoughts, and putting paper to pencil. Either writing, drawing, painting, or sculpting, it’s all good.  With that in mind I thought I’d share a quick look at my lair. It’s my oasis filled with my things and represents my life in one small room.  

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For twenty years I saved every little doodad, birthday card, and memento from places I’ve been and people I’ve known.  Then I began making a series of collages or “life panels” of those years. It started out as two  small panels but grew  to more than nine with some of them measuring 4’X4’. 

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‘This is what I call a workspace.’

I never had a sufficient amount of wall space and I had them in storage for twenty years. I moved them from place to place until I finally settled down here in Maine.  I still didn’t have the wall space for them and finally decided to make them the ceiling of my so-called man-cave.

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Now I can sit at my desk surrounded by things that make me happy. I can lean back in my chair and look up at the ceiling and see the people, places, and things that I’ve experienced in my life.  The photos in this posting are a quick peek into the craziness of that  space that I’ve had the pleasure of creating.

EVERYONE NEEDS A HAPPY PLACE

04-20-2016 Journal – Back to the Garden!   Leave a comment

It’s been a beautiful and almost warm morning today which allowed me to get busy in the garden for a couple of hours.  I’ve been doing my best to get all of the preliminary chores out of the way as soon as possible.  Today was the day.

I was worried about my old rototiller as always.  It’s been used hard for six years and I’m always concerned that it won’t start.  To my surprise the little sweetheart started right up without any hesitation. Say what you want, those Sears Craftsmen tools are hard to kill.  That was the best $150.00 I ever spent.

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It took about 45 minutes to finish and now the soil is well mixed and loose down to about 14 inches.  All of the root vegetables this year will be loving life.  Here’s the finished product.

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As you can see I finished rototilling and immediately began installing the fabric. I’m reusing most of the fabric from last year which will save me a few bucks.  Thanks to this fabric 2016 will be a weed free year.

Next on my list was installing the sprinklers.  I ran the hoses through the frames and fencing and attached the sprinklers. They should give me more than enough coverage for the entire garden.

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Right in the middle of my workday the grand kids arrived to take their grandmother on a walk.  I took a few minutes to chase the oldest one around the yard and to wrestle a little.  A short time later they left for their walk and I returned to my final task for the day.  The compost pile.

A few days ago I found a product in a garden center which when added to a compost pile promotes decomposition.  I took the rototiller to the compost pile and stirred things up a bit. I sprinkled the product liberally through the piles, mixed them in, and covered everything with a tarp.  It should make the compost I use later this year and next much richer.

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With my list for today completed I can relax for a while.  A nice hot shower will feel great and give me enough energy to get out and run a few errands. Since the better-half is working this evening my time is my own. Here’s a shot of the garden, end-to-end.

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ALL I NEED NOW IS WARM TEMPERATURES

04-18-2016 Journal–Garden Fence & Humor!   Leave a comment

More aches and pains as the garden begins to take shape.  I’m trying to do as much work on it as I possibly can as early as I can. Last years efforts were almost ruined because I waited until the last minute to do much of the small things that are necessary.  Learning from my mistakes is absolutely essential if I’m to have the garden I want.

Yesterday was another chilly morning but I was up and at it earlier than usual. I picked up my supplies the day before from Home Depot, the only store in the area that carried the type of fencing I needed.  Here is the before photo on the newly completed frame without the fencing.

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The fencing is made for controlling small animals such as rabbits and skunks which are my main problem. We have larger game in the area but they’ve never ben a problem for me. Fortunately I have a nearby neighbor with fruit trees and the deer love their fruit.  The insist on visiting him on a regular basis and leaving me alone.

After an hour or so of cursing and swearing my job was completed.  That should keep the little buggers out of the garden this year. I really dislike killing any animals so the cost of the fence is worth it to keep me guilt free.  Here’s the photo of the completed fence.

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If the weather warms up a little in the coming days I can drag out my rototiller to loosen up the soil. Then I can lay down the fabric into the frames which eliminates weeding completely because I hate weeding.

How about a little garden humor to start your day . . .

A woman’s garden is growing beautifully but the darn tomatoes won’t ripen.  There’s a limit to the number of uses for green tomatoes and she’s getting tired of it.  So she goes to her neighbor and says, "Your tomatoes are ripe, mine are green. What can I do about it?”  Her neighbor replies, "Well, it may sound absurd but here’s what to do. Tonight there’s no moon. After dark go out into your garden and take all your clothes off.  Tomatoes can see in the dark and they’ll be embarrassed and blush. In the morning they’ll all be red, you’ll see.”  Well, what the heck?   She does it.  The next day her neighbor asks how it worked.  "So-so,” she answers,  "The tomatoes are still green but the cucumbers are all four inches longer.”

Here’s a salute to everyone’s favorite redneck gardener, Jeff Foxworthy . . .

You Might be a Redneck Gardener If:

 
You mow your lawn and find a wheelbarrow.
You think a chain saw is a musical instrument.
You move your refrigerator and the grass underneath it is yellow.
You don’t water your front yard rather than mow it.
You know how many bags of fertilizer your car can hold.
You’ve even cleaned your house with a leaf blower.
You empty the trash when you have enough to fill up the pickup. 
You can amuse yourself for more that an hour with a hose.
You’ve been cited for reckless driving on a riding lawn mower. 
You move your weed-eater to take a bath.

And finally here is a cute limerick which any Maine gardener will appreciate . . .

I ordered some new bulbs by mail

and tried to grow orchids large scale

exotics won’t grow

under three feet of snow

or battered with blizzards and hail!

C’MON WARM WEATHER

04-16-2016 Journal–Garden Day #2 & Chicken Wings!   Leave a comment

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I spent an hour this morning working in the garden and freezing my ass off. Another night in the mid-twenties and the fourth hard frost in as many nights.  Gardening with a heavy coat, hat, and gloves is cumbersome to say the least. The garden frames have been upgraded and extra soil added to all of the areas.  There’s nothing more left to do except add some fencing then relax on the deck until Spring decided to actually show up.  This cold weather has got to go.

My better-half and I spent the last two weeks being good little dieters. No alcohol, no sugar, and no carbs. In other words we’ve been miserable. This morning’s weigh-in showed me down 5 pounds and her down 3.  It’s a slow start but we have a long way to go to meet our final goals. So far, so good.

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Our celebrating of our two week diet brought us to the Great Lost Bear tavern in Portland.  It’s known for it’s excellent chicken wings and draws my better-half to it like a giant magnet. Her obsession for wings is beyond belief.  She wolfed down a platter of the super hot variety while I had a chicken sandwich soaked in what they call their Hellfire sauce.  The name is no joke, believe me.  My mouth, throat and lips were burning for an hour after we left the  establishment but it was so damn good. I remained alcohol free and settled for some rather good ice tea to help put out the fire in my mouth.

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Tomorrow we sit down to discuss what will eventually be planted in our garden for this year.  We’re hoping to change things up a little to have a more diverse selection of crops.  The discussion should be interesting since we have totally different tastes in food.  Every year it’s the same process but we’ve had much in the past with our decision making and who can argue with that.

Tonight will require another lengthy hot shower to work out all of the kinks, aches, and pains resulting from this mornings work.  I’ve been looking  forward to that shower all day.

WHAT’S BETTER THAN HOT WATER ON SORE MUSCLES?

04-14-2016 Journal – Garden Day #1   Leave a comment

Today is  fast becoming  a day of anticipated frustration for me.  I’ve been waiting for almost two weeks and today is the day of my delivery of garden items from Lowe’s.  Dealing with any big box store immediately becomes overly complicated as soon as you say the magic word, "Delivery".  All of a sudden a simple purchase becomes a major project involving a dozen so-called experts who never fail to make things difficult for themselves and in turn, for me as well.  Multiple telephone calls to verify the order, where to deliver it, and at what time of the day they might arrive.  Much like cable TV companies they give you that oh-so convenient four hour window.

I’ve been assured by my better-half that things will go as planned but I’m skeptical.   We’ll be leaving the house for a few hours to run errands and I can only pray that things go as ordered and get delivered.  I’ve decided to wait to finish this post until  later today once the delivery has been completed.

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‘Day #1 – Start’

It’s a few hours later and I’m very happy with Lowes. Everything for the garden was delivered, on time, and in one piece.  I guess my skepticism was unwarranted, sorry Lowes.

We both got right to work unloading almost 2 1/2 tons of bagged top soil and the lumber to rebuild one of the frames.

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‘Old Frame Out – New Frame In’

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“New Soil In’

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I’m sitting on the deck as I write this post knowing ahead of time just how stiff and sore I’m sure to be tomorrow morning.  Regardless, it’s a good stiff and sore. Gardening and working in the yard is like therapy for us and we actually look forward to and relish all of the aches and pains. Crazy, I know.

This day ended when we ran out of energy.  Tomorrows another day and what wasn’t finished today will be taken care of then. Here’s the garden as we left it at the end of the day.

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On to Day #2.

04-12-2016 Journal – The Garden & So It Begins!   Leave a comment

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I’m being as lazy as I possibly can this morning and looking ahead to the beginning of a labor intensive Spring which is scheduled to begin on Thursday. Regardless of the cooler temperatures and crappy weather Lowe’s will be making a delivery which means much more work and a few aching muscles for me.  It’s confusing for me to be so eager to get started with a project that will hurt so much but I’m forced to deal with the realities of the situation.

The garden is only moments away from becoming my main focus for at least the next three months. During that time I’ll be adding additional loam to all of the frames, fertilizing, and rototilling everything in sight to help loosen the soil.  Then it’s just a matter of setting the fabric in place in all of the large frames to eliminate the need to weed this summer. Completing a general cleanup will then allow me to sit back and relaxing  until the warmer temperatures decide to arrive.

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Then comes the numerous trips to a selection of nurseries to purchase plants, plants, and more plants. Building and installing a few new trellises for the beans and snap peas as well as a box of .22 caliber ammunition for the assassination of the damn skunk. There are indications he’s already been visiting the property this year and I really have to get serious about ridding myself of him. With my luck he’ll have three or four relatives who’ll show up after his demise to make me even more crazy. It’s a wait and see situation for me, for him, and for them.

Welcoming the end of a rather lackluster winter season is something I’ve been looking forward to for months.  In another month or two I’m sure to be complaining about the garden, the heat, the humidity,  and wishing for Fall to arrive as soon on as possible. It’s a vicious cycle that we all seem to get  caught up in every year.

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Here’s my all time favorite garden quote. If it isn’t a little off-color then how can it be one of my favorites?

"A dirty hoe is a happy hoe."