Archive for the ‘Journal’ Category
I know it’s a little early in the year but with the garden filling up with cucumbers it was time to get busy. Last night I gathered all of the equipment together in preparation for canning. I cleaned jars, gathered lids and rings, pots and pans, and updated my experimental pickle recipe. We normally make hot Bread & Butter pickles and a lot of them. I’ve made dill pickles in the past but never was really happy with the results. My approach to things has always been to identify a problem and then fix it and this new recipe for Hot Mustard Dill Pickles is the fix.
I took my normal kosher dill recipe and jacked it up with a number of additional ingredients and spices. The end result will be pickles that are extremely hot, canned in a liquid containing dry mustard, curry, habanero powder, and a handful of other minor ingredients. I soaked the cukes in canning Lime overnight which should help keep them crispy once their canned.
Yesterday afternoon we picked the cucumbers, zucchini’s, and jalapeño’s from the garden along with some herbs. I’d be making my mustard pickles and my better-half would be making her new experimental recipe for hot pickled zucchini or as she calls it Hot Zucchini Pickles. She’s trying to come up with a few solutions for processing and storing of the large number of zucchini’s we’re expecting. She’s always made a lot of zucchini breads but we can only eat so much of that.
We work well as a team and set up an assembly line in the kitchen. I sliced the cukes, the habaneros, and a few jalapeños and set them aside. She prepared her zucchini, and jalapeños, and we were ready to rock and roll. She was responsible for packing the jars and I then added the brine, capped the jars and placed them into the water bath. It took a couple of hours of work but we rolled along like a well oiled machine.
After all was said and done we had ten pint jars of the mustard pickles and six additional pints of pickled zucchini. The jars sealed properly and will be ready for labeling tomorrow. Unfortunately we have to wait a month or so before we can taste the finished product. The veggies need time to absorb the flavor from the brine and the heat from the hot peppers. We can’t wait to try them and will keep our fingers crossed for the anticipated good results.
“The Finished Product”
On many occasions I’ve mentioned having a whole beach day or just walking the beach to relax for an hour or so. I’ve also received a few emails from people asking whether we ever actually go in the water way up here in Maine. Everyone assumes that the water is so cold here that we can’t really do much actual swimming. I admit that during most of the year the last place you’d want to find yourself is in the ocean. But, there are a few weeks of the year when we can and it’s well worth the wait. Today was one of those times.
My better-half, her daughter, the grandson, and I decided we needed some beach time. The weathers been sunny and hot for a few days which we hoped had warmed the water up a little. You’d have thought there was ten of us from the amount of gear we had to wrestle into the car. It was like watching the Beverly Hillbillies loading their truck before their trip to California. Beach chairs, extra towels, cameras, sun tan lotion, diapers, a huge umbrella, and two plastic buckets and a couple of shovels. Unbelievable…
I for one was exhausted before we even got there. We made our way to a small beach in Scarborough, Maine which is just up the coast from the always over-crowded Old Orchard Beach. The town was on top of things as usual and immediately extorted $10.00 out of us to park the damn car. After unloading all of the essentials we made our way the waters edge. When we arrived the place was busy but not too overcrowded. We found a spot and proceeded to set up camp. I’m guessing there were a few hundred people there with only four I could see in the water swimming. They were young kids and seemed to be having a ball and even if the water was freezing cold they wouldn’t have noticed. I walked to the water, stuck in my toe, and immediately discovered why no adults had taken the plunge. It was a bit nippy to say the least.
People watching is always fun and beach people watching is even better. I saw a few attractive beach bunnies romping around in their bikini’s and that was great as always. There were many more folks in skimpy outfits that really caught my attention. Have you ever seen a big beautiful woman in a two piece swim suit that had been lost in all of her immense beautifulness. I did and it was more than a little scary.
In a short period of time the number of people easily doubled. It was an endless line of families dragging their kids and tons of beach gear to stake out their little plot of sand. The temperature of the water rose a few degrees and all of a sudden everyone was in the water. It was cold at first but once your body adjusted it was fine. I was in and out a number of times throughout the day and it was heaven.
The one thing you can rely on is that if more than a few people congregate anywhere the merchants and their endless advertisements will follow. The nice quiet beach was strafed by a continuous line of small planes dragging their messages behind them. They were just loud enough to be annoying and it continued all day. Where’s an anti-aircraft gun or a Stinger missile when you need one?
The grandson had a ball and easily exhausted all of us adults rather quickly. He was covered in sand and yogurt pops, smiling and flirting with everyone in the vicinity. He eventually tired himself out completely which was our clue to head home. He was asleep in the car seat before we were even able to get the car packed up.
We had a great day
It’s raining like hell this morning so I decided to spend this time in bed enjoying the sounds and smells of the day. I like walking in the rain almost as much as I enjoy listening to it but not today. Today is going to be a computer day for me because I have a number of things that need to be accomplished.
In my last posting I made an attempt to create some discussion with my list of ten questions. While a good number of people visited and read the posting the response to my request for their answers apparently fell on deaf ears. Not one single response was disappointing as hell but not totally unexpected. At least I tried to wake up a few brain cells out there and just so you know, I will try again.
Today is the day I begin learning how to use the new software package I recently purchased. Adobe Photoshop Elements 12 & Adobe Premiere Elements 12 has been purchased and installed and await my full attention for the next six hours or so. I’m also awaiting the arrival from Amazon of a 400 page User’s Manual I was forced to buy because those cheap bastards at Adobe don’t feel that including a Users Manual is cost effective. Both of the programs are massive and without a manual you might never ever know all of the bells and whistles they contains. I’m praying that the manual arrives today or tomorrow so I can spend the next few days experimenting with the software. I need to get up to speed as quickly as possible because I have projects that will be much easier to complete once I’ve gotten a little hands-on experience.
This week another of my goals is to begin preparations for my first canning class of 2014. A number of my better-half’s friends are interested in learning how the process works so they can eventually can their own pickles. With so many requests I decided to do a class that would take care of them all at once. I’m just a week or so away from canning my first batch of pickles this year so I’ve invited a group of them to get together, watch me do a batch, take appropriate notes, and return home to attempt to do some of their own. I’ve tried to convince them that canning is a simple process but they appear very skeptical. I also make myself available 24/7 for emergency telephone calls when the occasional mishap arises. I’ve done a few one-on-ones in the past which were very successful so this should be a breeze.
I’ve been cleaning and preparing jars for a few weeks because it’s going to get very busy very quickly and I need to keep ahead of things. I’m estimating we’ll be canning 40-60 pints of hot Bread & Butter pickles, 20 pints of hot Mustard Dills, and 15-20 pints of hot Kosher Dills. Add in another 30-50 half pints of assorted jellies, jams, and relishes and you can see that we’ll be canning our asses off for six weeks or so. If I do say so myself, we make some damn good pickles, a truly excellent variety of jams, and the relishes can speak for themselves. Many of the folks who request our pickles return the jars for a refill and as you can see I have them everywhere.
Fun, fun, and more fun.
For months now I’ve been telling you about the attempts by my better-half to convince me to buy a few goats, a dog, chickens, and even a few boxes for raising bees. As you also know I not really crazy about any of those ideas and have been more than clear about it.
In the last few months I thought we’d finally settled those desires with a big fat NO WAY. This story continues forty-eight hours ago when the better-half left for work after telling me she’d be working a little later than usual. I had a handful of stupid little chores that needed done and was sure this extra time would allow me to complete them.
Let me give you some background information to make this story a little easier to understand. A few years ago we had our house resided. New house wrap was installed and once and for all we thought our home would be sealed from intrusion by Mother Nature’s millions of little friends. From that point on the assault by bees, wasps, yellow jackets, and lady bugs continued but with little success on their part. Since wasps and yellow jackets love to build their nests on wood surfaces under the eaves of houses I thought we were finally safe because the siding was vinyl and they couldn’t attach their nests to it.
My better-half told me in passing that a wasp nest was being built under the deck above one of her flower gardens. Could I take care of it please? I really didn’t listen to her at the time and just went about completing my other chores.
The second fact you need to understand is that we have a room that opens to the back yard at the rear of the house. This is used for storage of garden supplies, shovels, weed-whackers and other yard implements. It’s always locked when not in use and I hadn’t been in there for a week or so. I was intending to get the weed-whacker and start my yard work but as I stood near the door I heard an odd buzzing sound. As I unlocked the door the buzzing got much louder and when I stuck my head into the room I saw hanging just above my head a wasp’s nest the size of an NFL football.
As you should remember I broke my leg last fall and damn near destroyed my right knee. I’ve healed up rather well but not completely. I have a slight limp and can’t run too fast anymore, or so I thought.
A cloud of about a thousand bees decided I was trespassing in their territory and to my surprise I discovered that I really was completely healed. I took off like an Olympic sprinter running across the yard with thousand of those little bastards hot on my trail. I managed to outrun them and then slowly returned to the house by a circuitous route to plan my revenge.
A long sleeved shirt, long pants, a baseball hat, and leather gloves completed my ensemble. Along the way I picked up a shovel and a huge can of deadly bug spray. I approached the nest and was able to see a second nest right next to it. Shit! I entered spraying my heart out, dodging hoards of bees which were bouncing off my head. I was able to knock both nests down and spray them heavily and then I got the hell out of there. I waited a few minutes, returned and finished off another thousand bees. That spray was a real killer and it did the job and then some. How I was able to escape being stung I’ll never know. Later in the day I cleaned up the debris and considered the matter closed, or so I thought.
My day continued and the other chores were finally finished. I was walking across the yard and I saw what looked like a lot of bees flying around under the front deck near the flower garden. It dawned on me then that this was probably the one my better-half had warned me about. What did I find but another huge nest of wasps. What the hell right. I was on a roll and decided to wipe this nest out once and for all, or so I thought.
Since the deck is eight feet high I retrieved a step ladder, my bee killing outfit, the long stick, and the bug spray. Easy peasy, right? The only problem was climbing the ladder quickly before they could attack and to not fall off the ladder in the process. I had a stick in one hand, bug spray in the other, and began climbing the ladder with no hands. The bees immediately saw the error of my ways and attacked. They knocked me off the ladder which then fell on top of me. I scrambled to my feet and took off running again. I made it about three feet before one of those buggers stung me on top of my head. They may be small but OMG the pain from that sting was unbelievable. I fled again and took a little time to rethink my strategy while putting an ice pack on my head.
I returned pissed off with nothing but revenge on my mind. I knocked the nest down and killed everything in it. There were hundred still swarming but they had been sprayed and were slowly dying. I turned and walked away very proud of myself when one last little SOB came out of nowhere and stung me on the head in the same exact spot as the first one. That shot dropped me to my knees and required a steam of curse words to make me feel better.
My question is this. Did my better-half know about the nests in that back room? She says she didn’t but I don’t believe her entirely. She seemed a little too smug and insincere when I was looking for some sympathy for my wounds. She finally got her wish that we have bees but unfortunately these little killers don’t make any honey. Maybe now she’ll attempt to bring some killer goats home to surprise me or maybe some chickens trained to attack. She’s a lot sneaker than she looks.
One last time darling, no bees, no goats, no chickens but maybe sometime in the future we can get a dog.
That’s my compromise.
Every once in a while I find something that catches my eye. This photograph is of a entry gate that leads to an old and extremely run down house located next door to nowhere important. I saw it a few months ago as we were driving around looking for anything interesting. I didn’t stop for the shot then but I did a few days ago when we happened upon it once again. I found it simple and fascinating.
It’s been an interesting few days. Shortly after posting earlier in the week I came down with a truly nasty 24 hour stomach virus. I won’t get into the stinky and smelly details but that virus targeted areas of my body that shouldn’t be messed with. All of my activities ceased immediately except for staying within running distance of any bathroom facilities. I was on the mend within twenty-four hours and regained my appetite and my antagonistic attitude rather quickly.
Just when I thought things were improving my better-half said those infamous words you never want to hear, “I think I’m getting a sore throat and my stomach hurts.” It’s only this morning that she was able to get out bed and go to work. She’s one of those women who seems more macho that most men when it comes to missing work. She gets some sort of rush by being able to make it to work regardless of the circumstances. I was like that once but times for me have changed, thank God.
Since I’ve been staying close to home these last few days I thought I’d spend a little time photo documenting every type and color of flower in our gardens that we’ve been blessed with this season. I was more than a little surprised at the variety myself. Here are a few samples of some of those flowers with more to follow as they begin blooming.
Believe me when I tell you there’s no better way to spend an hour or two each week by walking through the garden and photographing everything. It’s a really tough life I have but you know someone’s gotta do it.
This has been a week of rain then sunshine then rain and on and on and on. The humidity is constantly high and sleeping is a real challenge. It certainly limits my activities to hanging around the house and driving my better-half over the edge. It must be true because she tells me that at least twice a day. What to do, what to do. My only solution is to take my camera and go forth to play in the woods. Maybe it was time for a quick check of my favorite swamps to look in on the dragonfly situation. With this much humidity and heat there should be a large increase in their numbers (I hope). It’s a reasonably short drive so I loaded up my gear and took off.
I arrived at the sanctuary, parked the car, and stepped into the world of sweat bees, gnats, and those little mites that congregate around your head by the thousands. I used half a can of the strongest bug spray I could find and it was of little help.
It’s common practice here in Maine for the horse farmers to cover the eyes of their horses with netting to keep the bugs from driving the horses crazy. If it works for horses then why can’t it work for me. I reached into my bag of goodies and found some netting made specifically to be worn over a baseball cap and then tied tightly at the neck. It’s not a perfect solution but it will keep the gnats in the swamp out of my eyes and ears. The rest of my body is up for grabs but even those damn mosquitos and ticks have to eat too. Without a doubt I’ll be their lunch entrée.
On my way to the swamp I have to pass through a few acres of milkweed plants. They’re just coming into bloom and in a few short weeks will be covered with visiting Monarch butterflies. They love laying their eggs on the milkweed plants which contain a chemical that keeps predators from eating their eggs. I’ll be back in a few weeks for their arrival which promises a gang of excellent macro photographs.
I arrived in the swamp covered with swarms of bugs and discovered to my delight a reasonable number of dragonflies flitting around. I’ve found if you stand still in one place for a few minutes they tend to approach to check you out. These pictures were of a few that seemed to be purposely posing for me.
I lasted almost an hour but the bugs made staying any longer impossible. I’ll be better prepared on my next visit and hope to obtain more photos of dragonflies and damselflies. The variety of colors is absolutely amazing.
***WILDLIFE ALERT ***
(Sarcasm On) This Wildlife Alert arrived on my desk today from my better-half and I promised her I’d put out A BOTA (Be On the Lookout) alert for a herd of those terribly dangerous and ruthless gourd eating deer. She plans on hanging some sort of crazy noise-maker in the garden to scare them off. Truthfully we’ve had deer eat almost everything in the garden at one time or another but not a single one has ever munched on a gourd. She has a strange attraction for gourds which I still don’t understand. Maybe I’ll build a blind for her to sit in near the garden and she can jump out in the middle of the night to scare the crap out of them. I promise to get lots of pictures if she actually does it. (Sarcasm Off)
This summer is passing quickly and the time seems to be flying by like never before. It’s amazing to me how our sense of time changes as a person ages. As a young child the days seemed long and the summers seemed to last forever. That summer school break always felt like a year to me. During my working lifetime things seemed to drag on and on endlessly except when I was vacationing. Work was always a definite time slower.
“How did it get so late so soon? Its night before its afternoon. December is here before its June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?” ~ Dr. Seuss
After retirement I discovered something I never expected. Time has virtually ceased to be a part of my life. Shortly after retiring I discarded that timepiece I’d worn on my arm in many variations for five and half decades. That damn device that I looked at and worried over a thousand times a day. Most of us never realize what a hold the watch has over us and how obsessed we’ve become in wearing them. Not only do humans require a watch they won’t hesitate to spend thirty of forty thousand dollars for that extra special Rolex.
I’ve been a rather clumsy person since a very young age and that clumsiness made my ownership of hundreds of watches my curse and Rolex ownership a joke. It seemed that the more expensive the device I wore the quicker it became damaged or destroyed once it was strapped to my arm. In my twenties I became a Timex owner only because it made wearing a timepiece affordable.
“At the end of your life, you will never regret not having passed one more test, not winning one more verdict or not closing one more deal. You will regret time not spent with a husband, a friend, a child, or a parent.” ~ Barbara Bush
I can also remember that feeling I had when I was without a watch. It caused me a great deal of stress and concern and on those days when I wasn’t wearing one I was almost panicky. We were raised to know the time and to live by it in all circumstances. The words "Don’t be late!" and "Be on time!" were the mantra for an entire society. We were raised to always be aware of the time and to live our lives by that watch on our wrist. I remember many occasions when I became pissed off with a partner or spouse who continued to be late for appointments which in turn caused some really nasty arguments.
“Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.” ~Carl Sandburg
It’s been six years since I stopped wearing a watch but you can never really escape this obsession. I do relish those weeks that go by and I’m forced to ask my better-half over and over again, “Honey, what day is it?”. That’s a real form of freedom and a dash of mental health I’ve never had before. Unfortunately for the rest of you the ever vigilant manufacturers of this world continue to create a myriad of products that almost always include a digital clock. The coffee maker, the stove, the TV, the stereo, the VCR, a ball point pen, the computer, the IPad, IPod’s of all sizes, and even on a reproduction of a 1930’s classic radio. It’s apparent we can’t live without timing ourselves. A clock in every room, next to our beds, and everywhere else. Even my favorite digital camera insists on getting involved by telling me the time on each and every photograph I take.
The more I think about our societies obsession with time the more I realize that my obsession that causes me to fret over that problem is just a time obsession of another sort. As a last thought on Time I refer you to Mr. Steven Wright who puts it all into perspective for me:
“I went to a restaurant that serves ‘breakfast at any time’. So I ordered French Toast during the Renaissance.”
TIME TO GO!
The monsoons of Arthur have finally left this area and are on their way to Nova Scotia. Three and a half days of rain were badly needed but OMG. My nice little garden and the better-half’s flower gardens look like the jungles of Vietnam. It’s hard to believe that they can grow so quickly when doused with copious amounts of water. You’ll see with today’s photo’s that I may need a machete to get around in there.
I planted a variety of kale plants this year that a week ago were four inches high. Today they measuring almost 14 inches. I’ll be harvesting them sooner than expected and the freezer will be filled very quickly.
The herbs are out of control as well and it’s obvious I’ll be able to restock a large part of my dried herb collection and be more prepared than ever for the coming Winter.
I harvested almost three pounds of rhubarb seeds yesterday which I’m slowly drying in one of the cold frames. After a few days of direct sunlight they should be ready for storage until next Spring. I plan on planting as many as possible around the property because my goal is to have a huge patch of rhubarb within the next two years.
The better-half’s flowers are beginning to bloom everywhere. The assorted colors of these day lilies makes picture taking a real pleasure. I especially love the dark red ones.
I normally plant three zucchini plants each year and harvest probably 5 or 6 zucchini’s per plant. This year I was given a great deal on plants and ended up buying a few extra. As you can see I’ll be knee deep in zucchini in just a few weeks.
I’d like to keep posting but I’ve got three hours of weeding and general maintenance in that garden. The better-half returns tomorrow morning from her trip and I’d like to get these tasks out of the way before then.
My week of freedom is almost over and in a another two days things will be back to what we call normal with the arrival of my better-half from LA. My week of loafing is ending and thankfully so has the rain and wind of Arthur. It wasn’t until the third day of rain I even knew about Arthur because I was ignoring the television as much as possible. My only connection to the outside world was my phone and I was desperately trying to ignore that as well. I spent a lot of time on the Internet trying to resolve issues with the Adobe Corporation and a purchase I made. Here’s my sad story which should be a warning to you all about their company and it’s approach to customer service.
Last week I made the mistake of attempting to buy software on-line and to download it direct to my computer. I’ve been using Adobe’s Photoshop Elements for years to catalogue and store my photographs. I decided that maybe it was time to convert from Photoshop Elements 7 to the new version Photoshop Elements 12. That was my first mistake.
I checked a few retailers on-line and found the price to be hovering around $100.00. I told my better-half that I wasn’t comfortable with downloading the program directly and I drove to Best Buy to see if they had it in stock. I found Adobe’s Premiere Elements 12 and made the purchase for $75.00. I headed home very proud of the money I’d saved. I got home, installed the software and surprise, surprise, it was the wrong product. Adobe in it’s typical retailer wisdom named two products in a similar fashion and I was I unobservant enough to fall for it.
Premiere Elements 12 is a program for cataloging and editing videos and not still photographs. I felt stupid and a bit embarrassed by my mistake and decided to let it go and take the loss. But Adobe suckered me a second time with a pop-up add during the install to download the product I was actually looking for a price of an additional $99.00. Being frustrated and pissed off I gave them my credit card number and began the download. I’d now spent $180.00 dollars.
That was the beginning of three days of BS in trying to deal with a company that has turned over the majority of it’s customer service duties to a live on-line chat only. It’s almost impossible to talk to a human being except in chat mode. I was at my wits end because the download wasn’t working as advertised and their method of copy protection was pure insanity. After hours of frustration and waiting on the telephone for forty-five minutes I finally connected with some company representative who’s grasp of the English language was almost non-existent but was to expected when you live in the suburbs of New Delhi, India. I became a bit rude and belligerent and demanded an effing refund since my credit card had been immediately charged $105.00 for that second product.
It took two days for their investigation to verify I didn’t have a working copy of their damn Photoshop software and my refund was finally posted 48 hours later. By then I was feeling highly agitated, used, and abused. The biggest problem in this whole scenario is that their product is the best on the market and I still wanted it. I tried not to think about it anymore because it was sending my blood pressure through the roof.
Another week passed and I was still looking around for a solution to my problem when I found a site that would permit me to upgrade my existing copy of the Adobe Elements 7 at a cost of only $69.99 as a direct download from Adobe. At no time during this fiasco was that option every mentioned to me by Adobe which pissed me off all over again. I refused to be baited a second time with another download and let it go once again.
Two days later I happened upon a deal I couldn’t refuse. eBay came to my rescue when I found a vendor in the Midwest selling a package deal of photo editing software. They offered Adobe Photoshop Elements 12, a Roxio editing program, and a Font package, for $49.00. I made that purchase and it’s now on it’s way to me as we speak.
I have only two things to say to end this rant. Adobe Photoshop software is the best around but the Adobe company and it’s employees suck. That is my humble opinion and I’m positive they could care less. Their approach to business is to make as much money as possible as fast as possible and the hell with the customer. My second comment is a warning for anyone buying on-line. Many companies use the Internet as a device where they can disconnect from their customers. Shop around for the product your wanting to purchase but don’t buy directly from the manufacturer. It’s similar to going to a car dealer to get your car repaired. The only certainty is that you will be overcharged and treated as a second class citizen.
In all my years of Internet crawling and making purchases this was my absolute worst experience. I’m stuck using Adobe software but I won’t buy any new products from them in the future. Just an awful few days that could have been handled easily by a company that actually cared about their customers.
Thanks for nothing Adobe.
I’m sitting here quietly writing this blog on the 4th of July as I try to do every year. I’m thinking about my late grandfather (born on the Fourth of July) and whose birthday we always celebrated along with the country’s. All too often in the past I’ve fallen into the flag waving routine as many others do. I love this country and as always I’m proud to be an American (95% of the time) even though Democrats and Liberals make 100% an unreachable goal. I can accept that because the alternative is unacceptable.
I think on this day we should all be flying the flag and celebrating our independence. As screwed up as we seem to be at times I still wouldn’t want to be living anywhere else. If you do, then your dumber than I imagined. I’ve traveled inside and outside the country enough to know the majority of our people don’t realize just how good they have it. Move to the Middle East, maybe try Africa, how about Indonesia, or even Europe. Count me out. We may have some issues here but compared to the rest of this miserable planet we’ve got it made. Period, end of discussion.
I decided to forego photographs and heart rendering monologues about the United States because they’ve become a bit trite over the years. And secondly no one really gives a damn about what I think anyway. I’d rather hear directly from our forefathers and a few others who seem to have understood things a lot better than most. Listen to them…..
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The American Revolution was a beginning, not a consummation. ~Woodrow Wilson
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Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed – else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die. ~Dwight D. Eisenhower
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In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved. ~Franklin D. Roosevelt
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This, then, is the state of the union: free and restless, growing and full of hope. So it was in the beginning. So it shall always be, while God is willing, and we are strong enough to keep the faith. ~Lyndon B. Johnson
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America is much more than a geographical fact. It is a political and moral fact – the first community in which men set out in principle to institutionalize freedom, responsible government, and human equality. ~Adlai Stevenson
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May the sun in his course visit no land more free, more happy, more lovely, than this our own country! ~Daniel Webster
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Where liberty dwells, there is my country. ~Benjamin Franklin
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The winds that blow through the wide sky in these mounts, the winds that sweep from Canada to Mexico, from the Pacific to the Atlantic – have always blown on free men. ~Franklin D. Roosevelt
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My God! How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy! ~Thomas Jefferson
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We need an America with the wisdom of experience. But we must not let America grow old in spirit. ~Hubert H. Humphrey
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Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves. ~Abraham Lincoln
I never thought I’d see the day when Bill Clinton was quoted on this blog because I wasn’t a big fan when he was in office and for the most part I’m still not. My grandfather always told that “Even a blind man can find a pearl once in a while”. Here’s Slick Willy’s one and only pearl:
There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America. ~William J. Clinton
And finally a quote from my all time favorite quoter who frequently offers up a taste of good old American common sense:
“I prefer liberty with danger to peace with slavery.” ~Anonymous
HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA & YOU TOO GRAMPS
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