“Mother Nature's in charge; we're just along for the ride™.”

the four seasons


Friday, April 6, 2007

as Winter ('Season of Sleep') reluctantly gives-way to Spring ('Season of Rebirth'), I personally marvel at what's coming, next. I am very partial to Antonio Vivaldi's, ♫ The Four Seasons ♫, and virtually everything he wrote during his prodigious lifetime. I've spent entire days in front of a fireplace, listening to Vivaldi on my Bang & Olufsen System, sipping 30yr-cognac, and enjoying a Monte Cristo or two. Vivaldi is real music; not the filthy, stinking, putrid noise we've been subjected to, for the past 35 years, after True Rock 'n Roll died in the mid-60s. But I digress. The four movements of "The Four Seasons" — Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter (duh) — are a rare auditory treat, for those who appreciates the finer things in life, as I do. You?



Around The Garden Center™.
My sister, Becky, arrived from San Francisco at Harrisburg Int'l Airport, on Friday, and I picked her up, and brought her to Mom & Dad's home, so she could begin caring for Mom, for the next three weeks. The traffic was moderately-heavy, and the PA State Police were out-in-force, with plenty of radar traps and DUI checkpoints on the interstates. I was glad to see them out checking speeds and enforcing the laws; I always am.
Mom came through the knee replacement surgery on Thursday, just fine. She was 'groggy' from the laudanum painkiller, when I talked to her on Friday. At 1pm on Saturday afternoon, I drove to York (PA) Hospital, to visit Mom. Becky and Dad were there, taking care of her. She's coming home on Monday, and will have the PT (physical therapy) people brought-in, instead of going to and from a PT facility, which would be hard on her, physically. I went down to work on Saturday afternoon, around 2:30pm, since there were crews working on getting the hundreds of B&B trees put into rows, under drip irrigation, before the rains come, this week.
It's back: bin Laden's Liquors shoot-fest! I posted this site back in November, 2001, and then it was taken-down indefinitely, as their servers were overwhelmed by my readers. Now, three years later, it's back up-and-running. I had 76,500 for my 4th score. Can you beat that? Go for it!
Gas prices at the pump, have risen another 4˘/gal, in under a week. Unleaded Regular is now at $2.69/gal; Unleaded Plus is at $2.79/gal, and Unleaded Premium is now at $2.98/gal. Diesel is around $2.99/gal, and the many truckers who are bringing loads of nursery stock from the Left Coast, are all complaining bigtime, as usual. Heh.
It's so dry here, that I decided to fire-up the nursery irrigation system — something I usually don't do for another 2-3 weeks, since Spring rains normally take care of watering everything — and wet the B&B and container material down, nightly. We're just not getting any moisture, and it portends to be another "drought year". Less than 16" of total Winter snowfall, has left zero moisture in the ground, and the rains just aren't happening for this region, so far. Sunday was a rainy, drizzly day, so the moisture heled, some.
Okay, as of next week, we're on Spring-Summer-Fall Hours of Operation: Monday - Saturday, 8am - 5pm; Sunday, 12noon-5pm. Winter Hours are over, and I'm back to 7 days/week, until December. (((sigh))) I can't physically do this crap anymore, after 17 years. I need to take 2 days off during the week, and have Jennifer/Bob/Alan run the place, if I'm to come-in on weekends. Even though we're going to be closed on Sundays in July and August (and possibly June), I'm thinking about closing on Sundays, alltogether. 17 years ago, I set the standard for being open on Sundays, against several local churches' wishes, and I'm now thinking I should be closed on Sundays, go to Church, and respect the Sabbath Day. That would force people to come in on Saturday, and consolidate weekend sales on that one day. I'm 'mulling it over', and will decide in a few weeks about it.
For Easter Dinner, which we're having on Sunday afternoon, Becky and I decided to prepare and serve Mom & Dad, this Easter Dinner. There should be some delicious ham leftovers for sandwiches, for the following week, IMO. Mmmmmm, ham and swiss on rye!
Yes, I do believe. Happy Easter.
Are you familar with the hazards of microwave cooking? Yikes! I'm taking a real close look at this information, right now.
I was rummaging through www.gdnctr.com over the weekend, changing several pages from Winter to Spring Hours, and noticed how "long in the tooth" my corporate website, is getting and looking, especially to me. I built it back in 1996, have done some serious modifications, expanded it exponentially over the ensuing years, but have basically patched-it-up and kept it afloat, despite it needing a complete and total overhaul. I've shunned most of the recent web technologies — RSS, CSS, XML, Java etc — in favor of simple, basic HTML, which all browsers can now understand and quickly-render. Maybe it's time for a "major re-do"? That could consume hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours of time, which I just don't have, these days. Starting from scratch would be a monumental effort, and to pay a commercial firm to do it all, would cost $75,000, at least. Time to seriously think about what I'm going to do with the "great-grandaddy of all horticultural/garden center/nursery sites". (((sigh)))
As the tornadoes and blizzards raked the Midwest, and an epidemic of pollen plagued the South, we had it pretty darned easy, comparatively speaking. With temps in the 60s and 70s until Wednesday, when a massive cold front pushed through and dropped 30°Fs into the low-40s, with mid-20s at night. Damn; Winter returned, with a minor vengence. We saw it coming on www.weather.com and moved the most tender plants into greenhouses and equipment storage bldgs, so they wouldn't be damaged by frost and cold. Since there are tens-of-thousands of plants in containers, we can't possibly move all of it under protection, so what happens, happens. They'll suffer some damage, and rebound later in the Spring. Happens almost every year, BTW. As I've said on innumerable occasions: "Mother Nature's in charge; we're just along for the ride™."
It was a rainy, cold Wednesday, and my wireless broadband was out-of-service, all day. The 15ft direct-line-of-sight, radio tower went down in an ice storm last month, and our new ISP, MTWirefree repaired it, but the old 512k service is antiquated, and we're scheduled to be upgraded to 1.5 MBPS service, at no charge, starting next week, with all-new hardware. Woooooo-hoooooo! (Meanwhile, life at work, without the Net, truly sucks.) At least it was a gentle rain, and had a chance to soak-into the ground and give the plants some much-needed moisture.
With gas prices up 59˘ over the past 6 weeks, Unleaded Regular is now at $2.69/gal, Unleaded Plus is at $2.79/gal, and Unleaded Premium is now at $2.99/gal, and Bio-Mass Diesel Fuel (junk) is at $2.39/gal. Both diesel and kerosene (K-1) are 'hovering' around $2.99/gal. When TSHTF in Iran, look for $4.00-5.00/gal gas, very quickly.
With another 5 tractor-trailer loads of nursery stock arriving this week, we're almost finished with the 10-11 shipments from Oregon, Tennessee, New York State, Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. And with the 17th Open House, just 8 days away, it's a relief to get everything inventoried, tagged and displayed for retail sale. One of our new stone product suppliers, in Northern Pennsylvania, delivered 19 pallets on an oversized tractor-trailer, on Wednesday morning, and we're anxious to do business with them and their very extensive product line of stone, on behalf of our customers.
33°:F and snowing, coming to work on Thursday morning, and I keep reminding myself that Winter isn't over, just yet. Still, every year, hundreds of locals buy tender/non-hardy bedding plants, annuals, vegetables and put them out way too early, get them all killed by frost, and they have to buy them all over again. No, I don't sell any of that aforementioned crap, but I do counsel people to wait until we get closer to May, to risk it. They don't. No sympathy from me; sorry.



Things Which Make Your Head Explode™.
Okay, let me see if I'm reading this article, correctly. A private, sorority (Delta Zeta of DePauw University) kicks-out 22 fat, ugly, slovenly pigs of 34 members, and gets thrown off campus, and subjected to negative publicity? Yes; that's 100% correct. FTS (F*ck that shit): they can do what they want to, and screw the shithole PC-assholes at DePauw University, an "institution of lower learning™". take it into court, and win, DZ! Sue the living asshole out of DePauw University, and bankrupt them, dammit. own the damned palce, and fire everyone of the lib-dem filth, shit, trash and garbage profs and admins, IMO!
Remember the "Amish School Murders", less-than a year (October 2nd 2006) ago, next door in Lancaster County (PA)? That bloodstained schoolhouse was taken-down, and a new schoolhouse built, to replace it. I have a lot of respect and admiration for those Amish People, for their Faith in God, and their Will and Determination in adhering to Their Faith in God. I'm not sure I could have done what they did — forgive the murderer of 5 baby girls, and destroyer of 5 other girls' normal lives — but I take heart in their Strength From God. I just wish I had their Strength of Faith. I'm trying.
The History Channel's weekend presentation of "The True History of Che Guevera" was a laffer of a pathetic TV show. That dumbass, murderous, commie, socialist spic was a subhuman piece of shit, and he should have been killed many years earlier, as should have the turd-sucking lowlife, Castro. The US Gov't is criminally-remiss in not killing them all in the early-50s, IMO.
Smith's death caused by overdose? WTF cares? The subhuman, alcoholic, drug-addicted, lowlife bitch is dead, and that's all that counts, IMO. She should have died many years earlier, so that she didn't spawn any degenerate offspring filth. Good riddance and rot in hell, Anna Nicole Smith, whorebag skank!
A White House plan, devised in weeks of closed-door meetings with Republican RINO senators, would grant work visas to undocumented immigrants but require them to return home and pay hefty fines to become legal US residents. Bullshit: it's ***amnesty***, plain and simple. To hell with you, Mr Bush! Your position is treason, IMO!
Newt "The Adulterer/Philanderer" Gingrich, making sense, for a change? Gee whiz; that's one-in-a-row, for Newt.
AlGoreBore vs GW Bush. Read it and decide for yourself, whose home is more 'eco-friendly'. As if I give a crap.
Did you see PBS' "Boomer Century: 1946-2046" replay, on Sunday at 4-6pm? Some of the nostalgia was great, but the 2hr show was liberally-biased and stunk from the hate-America, treasonous, seditious saboteurs from PBS, defaming us "Baby Boomers" and America, from the first minute of the show. It was pathetic, and the forced-smiling, Botox®-riddled, Viagara®-addicted, dirtbag "host", was a total asshole, IMO. He should be in an "old folks' home", as he could hardly make it through the scenes, without keeling-over, without a Viagara® boost in his IV tube. Watch it, and tell me what you think.
Baseball's "Opening Day"? WTF cares? Y-a-w-n.
"American Idol"? Are you freaking kidding me? Mindless, idiotic bullshit, geared to the lowest-level of subhuman, piece-of-garbage/trash/filth/shit/scum/jun, in America, and there are apparently, a LOT of them. No wonder America is in such trouble, in Her short, 300yrs of existence. "The Enemey Within™ is running rampant, and needs to be ID'd, rounded-up, duly-tried and executed, IMO. If we don't, as a nation, we're dead and gone. The treasonous, cut-and-run, hate-US Military, liberal-demokkkRATs will have destroyed America, from within. And I, for one lone American Patriot, WON'T let that happen. No way, no how, dammit.



Some People Just Need Killing™.
In every culture, in every population, in every people, there are some lowlife, subhuman filth, "Who Just Need Killing". This is a short compendium of some recent subhumans, who truly do need killing.
In 2006, there were 142 attacks and 20 murders, several involving teenagers seeking a vicious thrill, according to the Washington, DC-based "National Coalition for the Homeless", a socialist-commie-nazi-fascist group of lowlife, homo-sodomite dirtbags, IMO. Total BS: two 10-year-old boys joined in the attack of a homeless man, leaving him bruised and bloody Tuesday, Daytona Beach Police said. BS, IMO.
Thanks you, Texas, for making my week: Roy Lee Pippin, 51, was executed by lethal injection for the deaths of two Florida men gunned down in a dispute about missing drug money. Good riddance and rot in hell, scumbag.
The subhuman, piece of camel-humping, homo-sodomite-faggot, muslim-islamist-arab shitfilth, Australian Davie "Butt Boy" Hicks, 31, needs a bullet through his hate-filled, empty liberal-demokkkRAT sympathizing, head, IMO. A 9-month sentence? KILL HIM! I'd volunteer to kill him, BTW, at my expense, and absolutely no cost to anyone else. He's subhuman, terrorist filth and needs killing, IMO.
IMO, the fat, hate-filled asshole, bloated sweathog pig, is treasonous, seditious, a saboteur, hates-America, hates-US Military, Rosie O'Donnell, is mentally-ill and should be put to death. I'd volunteer to headshoot the subhuman pig, after due trial and conviction, thus sparing US Taxpayers the high costs of execution. The O'Donnell pig needs killing, IMO. If I "could get the shot", I'd take it, IMO.
Brian Nichols, a subhuman piece-of-lowlife-murderous-shitfilth, needs killing, IMO. Ooooooooooo, he converted to the camel-shit cult, which is islam? F*ck that pig-shit, sambo; you need to die for what you did, asshole! I'd volunteer to put a .45cal bullet through your hate-filled head, boy.
IMO, kill the subhuman piece-of-shit, muslim-islamist-arab filth, treasonous, seditious SA's "King" Abdullah trash/garbage/camel-shit asshole! KILL HIM! He's a pedophile, murderer, lowlife dirtbag, subhuman garbage/trash/shit/junk/filth/traitor, and needs killing. America needs to go in and take-over the SA oilfields, which WE built, developed and currently-administer, and control the workld's oil flow, and get rid of the camel-f*cking muslim-islamist-arabs. They all need killing, IMO. The mentally-ill, murderous, subhuman Wahhabi scumbag filth, all need killing, worldwide, IMO.
The homo-sodomite-faggot, piece-of-subhuman-shit, John "Abdul Hamid" Walker Lindh, 26, a Marin County native, was captured in Afghanistan in November 2001 by American forces sent to topple the Taliban after the Sept 11th terrorist attacks. He was charged with conspiring to kill Americans and support terrorists but pleaded guilty in 2002 to lesser offenses, including carrying weapons against US forces. He's doesn't deserve any sentence reduction, from the 20 years. He should be raped daily, and beaten to death in prison, IMO. Kill Lindh; he's subhuman filth!
An inmate undergoing a psychiatric evaluation at Bridgewater State Hospital hung himself in a shower stall — the 10th suicide in the state prison system in the past 15 months — the MA Department of Correction said Saturday. At that rate, the prisons will be cleaned-out in 50-60 years. Bravo!



Now and Then.
Shutterbugs from around the world have flooded this Flickr photo pool with images of locations past and present. I know structures and sky lines change over time. Yet, the evidence of their development or decay—or both—still provokes a thrill. Some of the portraits capture city avenues blitzed with natural disaster in one year, and blissfully serene decades later. In others, the earlier days reveal evidence of human habitation, while the latter ones expose a surprising ebb away from it. I liked many of the threesome shots, like the building that went from school (1910) to garage (1981) to private residence (2007). Rest easy, dear home. After all that change, it's also lovely to see parts of the world where the hands of time have yet to work any change whatsoever.


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