Team USA

[VCheng]

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[Gomig-21]

Well this year I have been too busy to do anything. So the wife is doing everything. I think it is mostly some Chinese cabbage. I did buy her some tomato plants and you'd think I'd at least peer over at them when I'm cutting the lawn to see how they are doing. But no it has always been eyes forward.

In past years I usually concentrate on kale, spinach, a little swissChard, and tomatoes. I had a big strawberry patch but I think I need to plant a new one as it has thinned out.

So this year I can only report on my non-seed stuff.
I probably have about 100 thornless raspberry plants. They are truly the best thing to grow. Very dependable. Zero maintenance and delicious fruit year after year. Had a whole bunch of blueberry bushes too but the winter seems to have gotten to them.

I have 3 varieties of grapes growing wildly. We'll see if the tons of little grapes actually turn into big grapes. A cherry tree that seems to have lost its graft. Will probably replace it with an apple tree (hmm or maybe an apricot or plum)

A peach tree (excellent tasting), thornless blackberries, a monster sized mulberry, and a grafted cherry tree that does nothing. I had a 5 in 1 grafted pear tree that didn't work out.

Impressive list. I'm nowhere near that much variety. I do the basics but they make a great salad with deck barbecues on summer afternoons. I have a berry tree, but the cardinals, robins and black-capped chickadees raid it in about a week before I can even get to it lol. Hey, as long as they enjoy it and it feeds them I'm ok with it. I'd like to eventually see some hummingbirds at the feeders sometime.

I actually prefer the strawberry topping smothered in blueberry syrup poured fresh on a nicely cooled home made cheesecake:
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That looks delicious.

 

[VCheng]

That looks delicious.

It was.

 

[LA se Karachi]

 

[VCheng]

A candid look at poverty in the Mississippi Delata regio:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4766686/Struggling-survive-Mississippi-Delta.html

Struggling to survive on the Mississippi Delta: Inside the lives of some of America's poorest people

• Persistent poverty has plagued the Mississippi Delta for decades
• In most Delta counties the poverty rate is 40 per cent, while nationally it's 15
• Most residents, like Otibehia Allen, barely make ends meet even with two jobs
• Mississippi is also one of 19 states that rejected Medicare expansion
• Medicare is government health insurance given to the poorest Americans
• Republican governor Phil Bryant says he doesn't want people taking government handouts

By AP REPORTER

PUBLISHED: 21:54 EDT, 6 August 2017 | UPDATED: 09:23 EDT, 7 August 2017

Otibehia Allen is a single mother who lives in a rented mobile home in the same isolated, poor community where she grew up among the cotton and soybean fields of the Mississippi Delta.

During a summer that feels like a sauna, the trailer's air conditioner has conked out.

Some nights, Allen and her five children find cooler accommodations with friends and relatives.

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Otibehia Allen (Pictured) struggles to raise her five children as a single mother in one of the poorest communities in the nation

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Allen works 30 hours a week to make ends meet as a data entry clerk and transportation dispatcher for a medical clinic

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Barely making over minimum wage, Allen, 32 doesn't own a car, and public transportation is not widely available in the Delta

Other nights, they sleep in the trailer with box fans circulating the stuffy air.

Allen works 30 hours a week as a data entry clerk and transportation dispatcher for a medical clinic, pulling in barely over minimum wage.

SHOCKING STATISTICS OF DELTA LIFE
-The Mississippi Delta sits in Sunflower County, ranked 34th poorest county in America

-Sunflower county has a population of 26,407

-Mississippi state has a population of nearly three million people, 35 per cent of which are black

-Of the state's black population, 34 per cent reside in the Delta

-The Mississippi Delta has 30 to 40 per cent unemployment

-Years of discriminatory policies enacted before and during the Jim Crow era decimated black social mobility in the Delta

-The majority of Mississippi Delta residents make slightly above minimum wage

 

[LA se Karachi]

 

[LA se Karachi]

Appalachia:

​

 

[Vergennes]

 

[Gomig-21]

A coyote ran in front of my car today. 3PM in the afternoon. Didn't hit it but quite shocking to see one in Cambridge.

Did you catch that pair of F-16's roaring over the city at around 2;30 3;00 pm and around 3000ft? lol
I was sitting in my truck in Brookline and I hear that faint, unmistakable military roar and so I jumped out and ran to the middle of the street to get a clear view of the sky from the trees and timing was perfect. First one I could even see the smokey grey color of the belly and the pair of fuel tanks clear as day and a millisecond later the second one was perfectly sideways turning to catch up with the first one. They were so low I could clearly see the canopy and the sun reflecting off the 2nd one. 5 seconds they were gone. Some of the landscapers up the street were freaking out because we weren't sure why they were that low. The Pats game was much later that night and first preseason game they don't do fly-overs so it was a bit unusual. Not sure there was any other activity that warranted those Vermont birds to do a fly-over.

We see jets all the time, but that low over the city was very different.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Did you catch that pair of F-16's roaring over the city at around 2;30 3;00 pm and around 3000ft? lol
I was sitting in my truck in Brookline and I hear that faint, unmistakable military roar and so I jumped out and ran to the middle of the street to get a clear view of the sky from the trees and timing was perfect. First one I could even see the smokey grey color of the belly and the pair of fuel tanks clear as day and a millisecond later the second one was perfectly sideways turning to catch up with the first one. They were so low I could clearly see the canopy and the sun reflecting off the 2nd one. 5 seconds they were gone. Some of the landscapers up the street were freaking out because we weren't sure why they were that low. The Pats game was much later that night and first preseason game they don't do fly-overs so it was a bit unusual. Not sure there was any other activity that warranted those Vermont birds to do a fly-over.

We see jets all the time, but that low over the city was very different.

No, I missed it. I heard plenty of construction noises and fire engines.

 

[Gomig-21]

No, I missed it. I heard plenty of construction noises and fire engines.

Fire engines. Reminds me of the great Andrew Dice Clay - "I'm with my kids at the park, all of a sudden there's 5 firetrucks flying by! I said to myself ey, you got a fire, go put it out do you have to let everyone know about it?!"

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Fire engines. Reminds me of the great Andrew Dice Clay - "I'm with my kids at the park, all of a sudden there's 5 firetrucks flying by! I said to myself ey, you got a fire, go put it out do you have to let everyone know about it?!"

Even when somebody trips on the sidewalk you still get 3 fire trucks, 3 police cars, and an ambulance. Luckily no helicopters.

 

[Gomig-21]

Who's going to be in the predicted pathway of the solar eclipse? Antidote, too bad we're no where near it. We might have to wait another 100 years.

 

[Vergennes]

Damn,I didn't know Texas was that big. @Hamartia Antidote @LA se Karachi

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Damn,I didn't know Texas was that big. @Hamartia Antidote @LA se Karachi


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