Here’s the Reality of How Smoking Affects Your Lungs… and It’s Not Pretty

Smoking Kills (The Bryan Curtis story)

YES A GARDENER

Google Images, 2017

So here's the thing, despite all the political conversations(which are merely insights I have had ), I find peace and contentment in gardening.  However, this is not an ordinary garden. and this is not really my actual garden. I have a Coastal Garden.
After years of failure I decided that I was doing something wrong.  I had tried everything.  Community gardening, detailed literature about varieties and the best heirloom seeds, and composting. I did climate studies, bought plants, germinated seeds, fertilized and fertilized.

Then I moved to Florida and began to really garden.  Good lord everything I put in the ground grew. After less than 6 months I had an avocado forest! I designed and grew from seed planter pots full of dollar store flower seeds! The plants I brought with me took off becoming something other than a house plant.  I nurtured Mimosa babies I found all over the lawn and they also grew  into huge trees! My neighbors who spent most of their days in the air conditioning smoking pot gave me seeds, which I sprouted and gave back, as nice little seedlings to do with what they pleased.( as Marijuana is still illegal in the sunshine state. )

Oh the joy I felt every time I looked out the back door at my Bismark,Christmas ,and Pineapple Palm trees, Avocados and my Mimosa . Mango and Papaya trees, I even grew Cacti, cutting off an arm of a friends and just putting it into the soil!
 The air was filled with the smell of a Plumeria I brought back from dehydration and  my "white "Bird of Paradise grew 5 feet in one year!It wasn't just I that was amazed with  my green thumb skills as the neighbors began to stop and admire my yard.   My cup runneth over  as I made rhubarb, strawberry jam,  fresh salads and drank my coffee looking at my greenhouse spilling over onto the patio  floor.

However, I will admit some things did not grow and despite my efforts it was just too hot for some of my endeavors. The watermelon could not take the hot midday sun that towered overhead for at least 4 hours.Reaching temps in the 90s.   I had to admit my failure , drag them into the shade more than once as they just would not thrive.
I planted Boxwood's along the property line, Gardenias on the North and had a Tomato trellis on the South side of the house.  I surprised myself at my success and soaked in all the praises.

On one occasion the park manager snuck up on me,(it was a over 50 gated community) and she accused me of sending the parks water bill soaring due to my watering. I showed her my timed soaker hoses and she told me,"I'll be watching you."💪  Later I  learned the pot smokers  had turned me in for what they called excessive watering. I had to write that off as my druggie neighbors tripping.  Later I  reminded them that Marijuana was still illegal in Florida.

Then I relocated due to a transfer to the Pacific Coast again, where the nights are cold and the days are often foggy and gray. Rain in the winter until it seems that we would have to really use our boat to  get outta  here. I thank God for being a Mental Health professional to  cope with my on again, off again mood swings in the dark winters.  I stay grounded throughout and  look forward to the sunny days of summer.
Then it dawned on me when I saw the local college flyer of courses offerings, "Coastal Gardening." that I had so much failure because I'd  been doing it all wrong."
I took the course and basically didn't learn anything new as she covered planting techniques and square foot gardening  answering the novices questions.However, , I did get a list of plants and seeds that would thrive in this micro-climate.

"THE LIST" is worth the price of the class and I have used it and given it away to others who garden in this climate.  So far so good as in the above pictured garden, except the tomatoes are still small.
THE SECRET #1 keep the pests out, #2 plant climate appropriate seeds, Nothing that wont grow to maturity in 90 days, #3 Start in the house things that need more time.  #4 Positioning for maximum sunshine, #5 don't forget hardening off ,dead heading , and fertilizing and last but not least realize that the natural plants for the area are going  to thrive if you let them, nurture what won't kill everything  and thrives.
Yesterday I was out with my new hoe I received for my birthday.  my mother came to the window and sang to me," "Paisley, Paisley , quite contrary how does you garden grow?" I answered her with Oyster shells and slug bait , and all  the plants in a square footed row" we laughed,  the fountain gurgled, I cut some wild flowers for a vase, filled the bird feeders and sat down with my coffee as the smell of lilacs filled the air.

The Bullies

Google Images, 2017

First we had the woes attributed to the us as having a spineless government.  Now  consequently the rush to put an end to that introduced the opposite.
     Have you also begun to lose interest in Politics?  Lately, when the President of the United States comes on with his over the top comments about the personal attacks he feels he has to deal with from the media or even wayward comments that  Congressmen have made you head for the remote and the off button?  I myself have grown weary of it all.  How must our president feel? Do we care?  I'd like it all to just end, the tweets, the coverage of the tweets the inward examination of how the son-in- law shaves and if his beautiful wife went under the knife, or the First Ladies wardrobe and makeup.  I myself am a tolerant and forgiving type of person  but  it seems to be something someone might see at the grocery check-out  printed on the front page of the "STAR, or the Enquirer"next to Brad and Angelina's latest exploits or George Clooneys' desire to have or not have children with his lawyer wife.? I just think ,Thank God he finally got married, putting and end to his dating of sweet, half his age women. Right?  And at that very grocery check out I have queried many about the topic of our President and his behaviors.  Doesn't it feel like a fantasy land?  it lacks legitimacy to me. It doesn't feel real.
A friend of mine recently said to me, you have to consider the fact that he is a New Yorker."I say why? Why should a New Yorker behave differently? Because they are used to fighting for the very space they occupy?  Because they are often rude and way too opinionated thinking that their tiny city is all there is?  OK, I think one would have to say that many of the great and driven come from New York but isn't it merely because the biggest Ant has to climb to the top of the Ant Hill?
 No offense New Yorkers, but I have an axe to grind.  I lived in Florida and it was those from New York that  were the ones that were the worst behaved.  Yak , yak, yak the loudest about the dumbest self centered flotsam.  Sending back their food and wanting everyone to know it, honking their horns, screaming out windows, chewing with their mouths open and talking with them full.  At the beach; speedo's on men way over 30, sporting their little gold chains.  Emblazoned in my mind.. Women who are terribly over-tanned, out there all day without cover in 95+ blazing heat.  The beach empty except for them and their spray bottles.
One day I was waiting to turn into a condo estate, There were lines of oncoming traffic and I began to hear a blast of a horn which made me look up. I saw in the rear-view my neighbor, a New Yorker laying on the horn behind me.  I thought lady! there is oncoming traffic, I cant go!  and suppressed the inclination to flip her the middle finger.  She blasted past me after the gate in her caddy.  I slowly pulled into my slot to observe her rushing to get out of the car, cell phone crushed to her face, her hair obviously a wig, kind of crooked on her head, doors flying open and packages falling out. It was then I realized they deserve our pity not our disdain.

Now we have them in the White House.  I overheard a conversation that was recorded in President Trumps Land Rover as he tooled around his  golf course in Scotland. He was defaming a Scottish farmer he had purchase land  adjacent to for the golf course.   The conversation was extremely debasing and cruel. The President was obviously ignorant to the reasoning's why the farmers land was so messy! Could it be:  the landscape had changed due to the development of the golf course and everything altered!

A better man would have gone in and made changes by offering to clean up the mess he created by pushing all the soil up in heaps during construction and cleaning up the tree debris.   But no, that Scottish farmer which was obviously in shock to see his beautiful farm and surrounding areas laid bare was a scumbag, according to Donald Trump, (minus the Mr. President then), He also made comments about the wind generators out in the ocean which he felt were blocking his golf courses view.    My God man, Its a country!!! They are making Power!!!  However, that main point was obviously overlooked by our now Air Force #1 passenger and naturalized New Yorker.
A smarter man would have not created a war and caused the people of Scotland to snub him as famous personalities come to play golf in Scotland, wow!  Think of that, our worst behaved and most selfish out and about in a nation that fosters personalities like "William Wallace"!  Tongue in cheek.... Somebodies gonna get punched.  that makes for a story on the tube I wouldn't turn off.