The Garden 2014

Amigos, I'd like to write something to you every day but my life is deep and wide with activities, responsibilities and various chores that consume my time. Take my garden for instance. Here's the first peek at the early blooming foliage in a late blooming year delayed by unusually cold global warming this year thus far.

The pots above contain blueberry bushes that got hammered by the freezing cold global warming winter we just had. Behind them is my strawberry walls that take the garden verticle.

 

Here's a close up of the strawberry walls.

 

Notice how the back strawberry wall also is the side of the fish pond.

 

Here's the peaches almost ready to harvest. So laden with fruit I must prop them up or branches will snap.

In addition to my gardening duties I restored this blown engine 1995 Eclipse for my wife to drive. It too took a good bit of time rebuilding and installing the engine, new suspension and steering as well as all the incidentals like nicer seats, a stereo that worked etc. This is the car the Inspection station neglected to tighten the drive-side front lug nut fortunately not killing my wife. It runs pretty sweet.

This is the brick path I put down a few weeks ago because the creek reforms to the right and it was muddy to walk past. To the left are grapes.

 

Here's the back patio I built with the herb garden to the right. Remember to put that herb garden of yours as close to the kitchen as possible.

Here's the lower side pond I built a couple weeks ago.

 

I still need to cap these bricks with stone. I'll get to it but I've got another granddaughter on the way.

 

I'm not sure what that prickly plant to the right is but it blooms nice doesn't it.

 

Here's the wife's front pond she built. Pretty good aye? For a girl.

 

My $1500 Chevy truck to the right with the two cherry trees next to them in the yard. Don't the roses look lovely? Close ups to come with more  stuff too.

 

The first peaches harvested! Sweet! Free!

 

Front pond close up.

Government Oversight Very Dangerous

Government schemes to make us safe that remove responsibilities for such duties from the individual  aptly demonstrate the knave thinking of bureaucrats.

Take Maryland's requirement to get a vehicle on the road for example. True, once you pass the mandatory state safety inspection your car is able to stay on the road forever with no further inspections. Now Maryland doesn't foolishly think cars last forever. Instead, the Maryland politicos realize people wish to live and will repair their cars when needed. A very small number of accidents are due to mechanical failures. Still, Maryland thinks we Free State drivers are too stupid to have the car in good mechanical shape right from the start. Hence, the required inspection.

The way it's designed legally sets in motion a system that generates profits for private repair stations that do the inspections and forces poorer people into buying newer cars with the accompanying taxes to the state. Safety in the last thing on the mind of these inspections stations or the state of Maryland.

Take for example my wife's 1995 Eclipse. I rebuilt a replacement engine, installed it, replaced all the suspension and steering components, the bucket seats, radio and basically everything necessary to make the car like new for my wife without the car payment. So do you really think a guy like me needs some young fluoridated, vaccinated, aspartamed want to be grease monkey zombie to okay my car? Come on!

So the inspection station went over the Eclipse with a fine tooth comb motivated by a need to find something, ANYTHING, that they could legally replace. Aside from the tinted glass that Maryland outlaws because we all must live in glass houses and cars with clear valises to carry our belongings, the car passed with flying colors. They had to take off every wheel, inspect all the brakes, suspension, steering, etc. all for fifty bucks. They didn't even make the money to remove the tinting as Jack the Greek did it for me. They were so hurried to get that damn great running Eclipse out of their bays to get a real sucker in there that they neglected to tighten the driver side front lug nuts - all of them were finger tight. That's because what motivates them is money while I'm motivated by a need for safety.

Then my wife starts saying she hears a knocking sound which terrifies me. I'm thinking something is wrong with the main crank bearings on the rebuilt engine. So I fire it up and take it for a spin around the block really listening for the engine and never really going faster than 40 mph. Nada! Whew!

So I go back inside relieved that the engine is fine and tell my wife to relax. She does, then the following evening drives the 30 mile to DC going down Route 50 and God knows what speed then back home in the morning. She comes in and says she really hears the noise now and I need to take a test drive. She comes with me and as fate would have it I needed an alignment tool to put a clutch in the Celica. Nothing at first as I'm a bit deaf but on the return from Auto Zone boy on boy do I hear it! Naturally when I go to bust the lug nuts loose I discovered they were already loose.

Heck a week had gone by since the Inspection Station had looked at my wife's car so if she'd have been killed on Route 50 I'd of had a hard time getting them to take responsibility for their grave error. I'll never trust any grease monkeys again and always double check their work. I'd suggest you always do likewise in the fluoridate, aspartamed zombie world created by this criminal band of scum know as the government. Of course I'll still be paying to have the zombies okay future cars on orders from the state.