I don't take my hostas and liriope for granted. This is the first year in many, many years that we still have foliage in Aug. The fence worked!

Summer lettuce.

I like this take on the health care/health insurance/health delivery debate. Last 3 paragraphs are the essential take-home message.

Tchotchke Challenge, Letter O: Outhouses, miniature.

Hand-made by Geo. W. Winters.

The Tchotchke Challenge is evolving. Some might say dying, but I prefer "evolving."

Mystery flower. Found growing in Gormania, WV, by my sister. A type of bellflower??

9/2/09: I'm pretty sure that it's American bellflower (Campanulastrum americanum).

A Kellogg Breakfast tomato. I love them as much for the color as the taste, which is excellent.

Probably dreaming of mice.

Tonight I'm cooking chicken and nasturiums in my new thrift store pot.

I like to buy at thrift stores. When I realized that I had to get a new bread-baking oven-pot I hoped I could find one for under $10. I found what I needed, for $5.99. But I also bought this cast-iron enamel-coated baby even though it was $24. Not what I consider a thrift-store price although I just knew that a new one would cost more than that. (Terrible buying ethic: buy it because it's a good price even though you don't need it.) After doing a little online research I think I've discovered that it shouldn't go in an oven that's over 400 degrees. And my daily bread must go in a 450 degree oven. So. I'll make myself use it for other dishes. And I'll probably use it at least once for a loaf of bread at only 400 degrees just to see how it turns out. Maybe 450 isn't necessary. Am I babbling? Don't you think that I should clean my stove top before I do anything else? Should. Won't today.

My brainy (volunteer) tomato. Dee-licious. Made me smarter just to eat it.

4 o'clocks with black seeds popping out. In theory, they will fall to the ground and produce plants next year.

And I know people who have seen that happen in their yards. But last year I had 12 plants with lots of these little black seeds but only one plant came back. Big gip (gyp?)

From somewhere on the Internet:
Gyp (Jip, Gip, Gypsy, Gippo, Gypper, Gypster)
A British college student called his servant a gyp because the servant preyed upon him like a vulture to obtain tips.A person who cheats or swindles people. A trickster. A person who is not quite honest. Gyp is the Greek word for vulture. In the 19th century, the Universities of Cambridge and Durham in England provided servants, who attended one or more undergraduates. Students called the servants “gyps” because the gyps found many ways of obtaining ale and tips from them and preyed upon the students like vultures. Gyps made beds, ran errands, helped their young masters over the college walls late at night, and provided other services. Sometimes they ran away with everything they could lay their hands on.
Jordan Almond, Dictionary of Word Origins: A History of the Words, Expressions, and Clichés We Use, Citadel Press, New York, 1985, page 113.

A visit to the Patuxent Wildlife Refuge in Laurel, MD

This place is just too amazing for me to sum up in a few sentences. They helped save the whooping crane, pictured at the top. I'm going back many times for the indoor exhibits. I'm determined to get a better fix on the way-too-big-to-really-understand subject of climate change. Yeah, yeah, I read books, I listen to discussions, I know the subject is politically charged, which adds a layer of gauze to the whole thing. I don't expect to understand it; I just want to have an opinion other than the one I have now, which is "who the hell really knows?"

A single grape tomato plant. A slow but steady supply of bite-sized fruit.

Spotted at Home Depot.

One plant, two colors.

Harvest.

Like a million or two (or three) others I'll spend this weekend with Jimi et al in the background. [Update 8/16: didn't happen. Outdoors instead]

And no, I wasn't there.

Wake me when it's over, in approximately 20 years.

An outline of an earlier health care debate. From this website.

1945 - Harry Truman sends a message to Congress asking for legislation establishing a national health insurance plan.

Two decades of debate ensue, with opponents warning of the dangers of "socialized medicine."

By the end of Truman's administration, he had backed off from a plan for universal coverage, but administrators in the Social Security system and others had begun to focus on the idea of a program aimed at insuring Social Security beneficiaries.

July 30, 1965 - Medicare and its companion program Medicaid, which insures indigent recipients, are signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson as part of his "Great Society."

Annoying things.

Some years ago my friend SEC started a list of things that annoyed her. I've watched this list, now listS, grow over the years, and now SEC has graciously allowed me to put her lists on a blog. So here they are. Two of them. More to follow. I'll make no deletions, although I may add an item or two.

My first Utilikilt sighting! It was on the beach but it still counts. What DO those guys wear under the kilt???

More fungi.

I think I just learned (at http://gaiagarden.blogspot.com/) that the mushroom on the bottom is a false parasol (or Chlorophyllum molybdites) and it will cause "severe abdominal cramps, bloody diarrhea, and projectile vomiting" if eaten. Ewwww. The orange and yellow 'shrooms are the top and bottom of one fungi.

Blue jean circles and miscellaneous cotton squares. It will be a coverlet, which is not exactly a quilt but sort of.

It's all rough edges and primitive hand-sewing but it will keep someone warm. I got the idea here.

Sunrise at Bethany Beach, DE. Saturday morning.

Mystery plant, growing next to NIH on Cedar Lane. Isn't it beautiful?

Not even close to a Tchotchke, but I'm late and it starts with an N. Navaho rug, at least 90 years old, maybe older.

I'm pretty sure this rug wasn't used much before I inherited it a few years ago, but it gets plenty of foot traffic now and seems like a brand-new rug. Made by Navahoes who probably only thought in terms of "made-to-last." Maybe we're returning to that kind of society---slowly but surely. Such a problem: made-to-throw-away made us "rich." What happens to all those people who will lose their jobs if we return to made-to-last?
Origins of the Tchotchke Challenge.

The deer came right up to the bottom of my front steps last night for a treat. Bastards.

Before:

After: