Mark's Post Cards: August 2011

Sunday, August 28, 2011

My Small Tomato Rebellion

OK... this is not a very pretty tomato. It's small and scarred, but it will taste good. More important, we grew it her at home. It's organic (mostly). And it wasn't a product of some big corporation worried about its supply chain and profits.

Friday on NPR's science program they talked about how in Florida agricultural laborers tending and picking the tomatoes, are kept as slaves, actually chained in sheds to prevent escape. This news angered me. I will never buy a Florida tomato. I will never have their tomatoes on my hamburgers anymore.

This little tomato (and the bigger ones we grow) is the symbol of my rebellion from the tyranny of the huge food industry corporations. I will not eat your tomatoes! I grow my own!

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Afternoon Thunder Storms

It's late August and summer just keeps going on! We are getting some much needed rain in the afternoons... monsoon weather. The mornings are hot and summer-like, and the afternoons are dramatic, wet, and cool.

We have been picking peas, beans, summer squash, beets, broccoli, carrots, cucumbers, and of course a few tomatoes. We have traded peas and squash for eggs. Our yard is full of flowers... and I am watching our two apples as they grow toward ripening.

Hummingbirds duel over the feeder while sparrows squabble over the seed. Summer is just full this year.

Kevin starts school Monday... and August draws to a close.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Shaye and Braxton went home.

We had a lot of fun going swimming and going to the fair with our grandkids. I got up and made french toast or pancakes every morning. Last night I got two birthday cakes, one from each of them... and we stayed up and looked at the moon, watched the ISS sail by, and meteors flare across the night sky. They left this morning and Jean and I felt sad all day. We miss them.

We love you both!