Steve and Judy's Travels!

If the airplane cabin we’re in is pressurized, why do our ears still pop as the plane gains and loses altitude? 

Early indications are that the palm is not to be so easily deterred.

Let’s imagine that there is an issue in the national news that could possibly benefit from legislation.  The issue gets brought to a vote in an equally divided House or Senate, and it is defeated by a tie vote exactly 50% to 50%.  Democrats vote one way, republicans vote the other.  (Of course, the impasse is more severe in the Senate because many issues require a 60-40 supermajority to move forward.)

Is that how people really are?  Is that how they really think?  Every politician agrees exactly with their party’s position?  I don’t think so.  I imagine that individual positions, without the benefit of party politics, would be more like bell curves; the center of the bell curve being at least slightly off-center one way or the other for each party; and there would be some overlap.  Some republicans would agree with the democratic position and some democrats would agree with the republican position.  Each person left to their own conscience, a majority of the votes would fall one way or the other.  If something needed to get done, or undone, it could happen.

What a marvel of politics is the two-party system!  Absolute adherence to the party line stalling any change, even when the general public, the public these politicians purport to represent, would applaud a particular change.  How thrilled, or horrified, would the framers of our constitution be if they could see us now?

We had this amaryllis bulb.  It was only supposed to last for one blooming: one season.  Here is a shot from then.

We weren’t ready to throw it away when it was done, so we kept it in a pot and took care of it over the summer.  It repaid us by flowering great for a couple more seasons.  Then it languished over this last summer and fall.  The old leaves fell off.  No new shoots.  We waited until the end of February, then gave up and tossed it.  We didn’t throw it in the trash, we threw it in the compost tumbler.

When that batch of compost was done, I dumped it into a tub to spread around plants in the yard and lo and behold, the amaryllis had come back to life!  With admiration and respect, we stuck it in a pot and put it back on the deck. 

It’s pretty pale from growing in the dark, so we’ll leave it out of the direct sun for a few days.  Don’t know what it’s going to do next.  Looks like it means to bloom.  Whatever that little plant ends up doing now is fine with us though.  We’ll be very cautious about giving up on it again.

It was a giant palm tree masquerading as a little Mediterranean Fan Palm.  It gave itself away by growing up big and fast.  I took care of it by cutting it back and lopping off the center spike so it couldn’t make any more leaves.

Well, the lesson wasn’t learned.  It quickly recovered and got big and bushy again.

You can see the squared-off tops of the new leaves from when I whacked them three weeks ago.

Today, more drastic measures were required.

No more central spike on that invasive stalk now!