Tuesday has arrived. It’s the first day this week I have to take this weather-beaten body to the senior fitness class. It doesn’t officially begin until 8 o’clock, but this will be completed before I leave today so that Gator Wife and I get a couple errands completed when I get home. So, your guess that today’s exercise session was tough for a body in pain would probably be accurate. If it turns out any differently, I’ll edit this to provide some much better news.
If you think this weather has been rather lousy, your thinking would be correct. Although not a record, yet, the rainfall for this month is way above normal and the temperature average for the month is 18 degrees below normal, just two degrees above the average low.
I really don’t like all this rain we’re having. It certainly isn’t doing GW’s flowers any good. Most all of her tall plants are literally bent right over with the blooms, what’s left of them, just about touching the ground. The lower plants are also showing evidence of what I might best describe as drowning. The new month, which begins tomorrow, will have to take a very sharp turn for many of this year’s flowers to be saved.
Her vegetable gardens are also not getting enough warmth and sunshine. She did create rows that are raised above the ground level with the seeds and seedlings within those mounds so they’ve had just a wee bit of protection from the flowing rivulets of water, but they will have no chance at all for survival if the sun doesn’t come out soon.
And then there’s the lawn.
I realize that the problems we’re facing are not unique. Just about everyone who has flowers or vegetables is facing the same wetness and lack of sunshine and warmth. I saw a TV news program the other day that had a story about farmers. Standing water was present between and among the rows of crops.
On the WCSH news last night, I saw the story of terrible storm destruction in parts of Maine. Many roads and bridges have washed out. One picture showed a pickup truck that was just in the wrong spot at the wrong time. As it crossed a bridge, the bridge collapsed. The truck dropped nose first into the resulting culvert.
I guess I’m guilty. I’m lamenting about my own conditions and, if one really looks around, my conditions pale by what is happening elsewhere.
A couple of news items last night caught my attention. President Obama is on the CFL bandwagon and Sen. Olympia Snowe is on the health care bandwagon.
I’ve written at great length about the mercury in those CFL bulbs and what the major steps, sometimes even costly when a cleanup company must be called, must be taken to clean up a broken bulb. Also users will have to take those bulbs, again a health hazard, to a designated recycling place. I call it health hazard because if one breaks during transfer, the mercury could cause health issues.
Maine has banned thermostats that contain mercury, but for some unexplained reason, that mercury in those light bulbs isn’t as dangerous.
President Obama is now encouraging the usage of the CFL and other energy saving bulbs. According to the news last night, he has ordered all the light bulbs in the White House to be changed to energy efficient bulbs. I hope none of those CFL bulbs break in the living quarters.
The other story concerned a national health care initiative. Senator Snowe sounded like she supported some form of national health care, including having a standby government public plan. This country has already tripled its deficit since Jan. 20th and has spent more dollars than all other administrations since the nation’s beginning combined.
We simply cannot afford government health care. It is not, contrary to public opinion and belief, free. It will have to be paid for with your tax dollars. Our great grandkids are already in deep debt to the government. We don’t need to add more to that debt.
I’ll bet the Congress critters supporting this health care initiative won’t lead the way and give up their Cadillac health coverage, paid for, incidentally by us, to have their health controlled by bureaucrats.
Remember Bob Stanley? He was a great relief pitcher from Red Sox history. Up until last night, he had recorded more saves than any other Sox pitcher. Jonathan Papalbon tied his record last night, and with his next save, probably not today, he will become the all-time Sox leader.
GiM
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