Purple Coneflowers

On the right is a group of Purple Coneflowers I picked from the front planting area in my yard. These were grown by me from seed two seasons ago and just flowered this year. I started with something like twelve seeds and did not see much the first year in the way of plants. Then, during the winter, they all but disappeared only to come back very strong this spring. Wow.

An Experimental Chili Recipe

I decided to go on a chili recipe development craze and came up with this first . It was not too bad. Click anywhere on this text to expand the notes. Experiment number two will be coming shortly.

Recent Salmonella Scare

In the news, recently, there has been some talk about tomatoes being removed from shelves due to contamination with a rod-shaped bacterium called Salmonella, that is too small to be seen without the aid of a microscope. I think there have been a number of well-known fast food enterprises (you know who they are) that have removed just about all tomatoes from their foods in response to these reports.

My feeling is that, while a few people my get sick and suffer from abdominal craps and diarrhea, the published stories may have been just a little bit overblown by the media. (Gee. When has that ever happened before?) If you are really concerned, just make it a point to boycott fast food venues for a while (not a bad idea anyway) and frequent local vegetable stands for some good old American, I-grew-it-right-here, organic produce. I’m not saying that even farmer John’s produce might not also be contaminated from time to time, but if you always practice good hygiene when you handle your food, you will probably not have that much to worry about.

Fall Flowers in Spring?

It may just be me but it seems that everything is coming up a little earlier than it used to. While driving around today, I reflected that we are only just into the second week in June and with the official start of summer another ten days off and already I’m seeing roadside flowers like Queen Ann’s lace, purple coneflower and even orange milkweed. I could have sworn these are early fall plants. Perhaps there is something to say for global warming after all.