Earth Day 2011

A chilly, overcast day that seems to be perpetually threatening to do something but just can't make up its mind as to what. At 42 degrees it's just plain raw outside.

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I celebrated Earth Day by planting my onions today. About a pound of whites, half a pound of Spanish reds, and one bundle (forty to fifty plants) of sweet whites. We had good success last year with our onion sets. They grew all by themselves over the course of our long absence and supplied us with lots of good eating once harvested in October. I've never tried growing onions from little plants but there was a gentleman at Agway who told me these were sweet enough to eat like an apple and get about the size of a baseball (or larger) if you pull the earth off them as they grow.

I also spread the top soil around the larger bed. It's amazing how wet that stuff is when it comes out of a bag. Perhaps because it was sitting out in the rain for a week or more. I certainly hope they weigh it dry when they package it up. Regardless, even though it probably costs more than having a dump truck of the stuff delivered, the 40-lb. bags are easier to carry and there's no heaping mound sitting int he yard that has to be spread out. And at $2.50 a bag, it's not going to break me.

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And now for something a little different:


First we have a faux retro flick from Weird Al Yankovic: Our Friend Dirt




And then there's George Carlin on Earth Day and Environmentalism:(WARNING: Some bad language is involved. But you probably figured that out as this IS George Carlin.) Listening to Carlin's take on many things, I find I agree with him an awful lot. Especially on this topic. Which is kinda weird for someone who has a BS in Environmental Science and MS in Ecology.