Veggies all year round

It seems with the start of the semester (and a batch of essays to grade) plus a new, enclosed vegetable garden, that it has been hard to blog. The picture will show where I have been spending my "outdoors" time.

With vigilance, we can (usually) keep the deer away from the area around the house. Of course it helps right now that there is a bountiful supply of acorns. With acorns, they don't need to bother my hibiscus or impatiens.

The "back 40" is another story. Our long, deep lot has plenty of trails with tell tale cloven hoof marks. The deer march back and forth across the back of the yard with impunity. The only way to have a vegetable garden is to enclose it--and that is just what we have done. The fence is over eight feet high, as locals tell me that deer can make it over a six foot fence. I am told that eight feet is high enough. Time will tell.

In the meantime, fall, winter, and spring are ideal times to grow a lot of vegetables. Summers like the one we just experienced are too hot for many crops and certainly too hot for this gardener. The other three seasons, on the other hand, are promising.

The raised beds are an admission that the shallow soil here is not conducive to a lot of vegetable varieties, so we have been making compost ever since we arrived in Central Texas--enough now, when mixed with topsoil, to fill these two eight foot beds. There are tomatoes and peppers growing, and beet, carrot, and basil seeds sprouting. When the weather gets cooler we will switch to lettuce and spinach.

We will continue to construct some raised beds and add fruit trees in the spring. Now, if there were only a closer source for water....

Is Civility Dead?

To quote a famous phrase from American history: have you no shame? Indeed. Are shame and embarrassment a thing of the past? Is civility dead?

First we have the embarrassment of a Congressman calling the President of the United States a liar on the floor of the House of Representatives! And immediately people start sending him money for his re-election campaign. What was he thinking? What is the American public thinking?

Then we have the spectacle of Serena Williams' meltdown at the US Open. Tennis is one of the last really civil sports left--in spite of Illie Nastase and John McEnroe back in their bad-boy days. Even McEnroe--a notorious hothead--never said what Williams said to the line judge. And never threatened anyone physically. What was she thinking?

And then there is the example of the small-time entertainer Kanye West, giving an award at the VMA awards ceremony to a very young Taylor Swift. As she is starting to make an acceptance speech, West grabs the microphone back and tells her that she really was not the best, and someone else should have been the winner. West might not have been embarrassed by his own rudeness, but judging by the audience's reaction, a lot of others were. The only good thing about the last example is that few people watch the VMA awards. Of course today almost everyone looks at youtube.

Once a nation starts down this path of incivility, I don't know how the course can be reversed.

Texas Football

Let's see, it has been--how many years since I last saw a University of Texas football game? A lot of years! So I jumped at the chance to attend the home opener on Saturday. Things have changed, and that is an understatement. Texas football was always over the top (can you picture a stadium with everyone wearing burnt orange?) but now it is way over the top. When I last attended a Texas football game, the coach was Darrell Royal. Now Memorial Stadium is named after Darrel Royal. The stadium was big before (and always filled). Now it is gargantuan, and I believe I heard that the attendance at the game on Saturday was the largest crowd ever to attend a football game in the Southwest (101,000). The pageantry starts before the game and just keeps on coming. And Colt McCoy, the Heisman candidate, already looks to be in mid-season form. What an experience--to return to the campus where I did research in the rare books library and see a spectacle like this. Oh yes--a victory: 59-20.

The Times, They Are A'Changing

Gasoline at $2.39 per gallon today.

And--high temperature today? 86 degrees Fahrenheit!

All the indicators are leading in the right direction!

A new Academic Year

It's a new academic year--which prompts me to wonder how long have I been doing this? Do we go back to the first teaching job after my MA or do we start with the first teaching job after the Ph.D.? Or should we start earlier? First grade?

Regardless, I've been experiencing this feeling for a long time--some excitement, some nervousness, and some dread. Some disappointment that summer is over (regardless what the thermometer says) and some excitement about the coming of fall. Some anticipation and some sense that there is a lot of work ahead.

Two courses this semester--half time! Some retirement!

News Flash! Julia is Number 1!

Almost 50 years after its publication, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, the weighty compendium of French recipes with its recommendation of butter, butter, more butter! will be Number 1 on the New York Times bestseller list. Have Americans just discovered Julia Child? No, in fact, Americans of my generation have had a love affair with Julia ever since her first cooking show (in black and white) on public television. A new generation, however, have discovered Julia, thanks to the new film "Julie and Julia." It seems that people leaving the theater make a detour to the bookstore to get a copy of the book for themselves so they can have their own experiment with Julia's recipes.

The question is--do they know what they are getting into? This is the age of 20 minute meals and wacko diets--with everyone weighing in on the harmful effects of butter. Julia Childs never met a pound of butter that she could not find some use for. Take for example this direction in the recipe for Navets à la Champenoise: "sauté the bacon in the butter for several minutes...." Bacon sautéed in butter--now that is a dish from another age.

Regardless, it is very satisfying to see Julia Childs get the recognition she deserves. And it is further testimony to the abilities of Meryl Streep--she can not only fit into any role that she performs, but she can sell cookbooks as well!

Hello! And who are you?

This is a real-time post. It is Wednesday, 26 August 2009. Currently it is 102 degrees Fahrenheit at 4:00 pm. This is the kind of heat that makes it rather difficult to breathe as the sizzling air comes into you lungs.

For some time now we have been able to water our lawns only once each week, and that for only a short amount of time. One watering a week is not enough to keep the grass green, so the brown spots on the lawn increase daily.

I just returned from taking Sammie the dog outside (at his request--I had no interest in going outdoors in this heat. ) And what do I see bravely standing erect in the grass? This tiny white flower. I placed the Marks-a-lot in the picture so you would have some idea of the size of the plant and its blossom. What is it? Where did it come from? Why are there not more of them? How could it have the courage to bloom now on this miserable day? But since it did, the day is no longer so miserable!

Last night while watching television I was going through the catalogs of spring bulbs, wondering what I could order that would bloom in this zone (zone 8) and not be consumed by deer. This little flower looks like so many of the spring bulbs I was looking at! One thing I know for sure: it is not a spring bulb, blooming out of season. Not in this heat!