Violets

Nature 2 Minutes

Appearing first in early spring, sweet violets are known for their everlasting beauty. When you grow violets, they attract all kinds of pollinators, including bees and hummingbirds, and some kinds of violets appear again in the late summer or early fall. 

Violets are one of the cheeriest little flowers to grace the landscape. True violets are different from African violets, which are natives of East Africa. Our native violets are indigenous to the temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere and may bloom from spring well into summer, depending upon the species. There are around 400 types of violet plants in the genus Viola. The many violet plant varieties guarantee there is a sweet little Viola perfect for almost any gardening need.

Violet Plant Varieties

True violets have been cultivated since at least 500 B.C. Their uses were more than ornamental, with flavoring and medicinal applications high on the list. Today, we are fortunate to have a plethora of different types of violets readily available at most nurseries and garden centers. Violas encompass the dog violets (scentless blooms), wild pansies, and sweet violets, which are descended from wild sweet violets from Europe. With so many choices, it can be hard to decide which of these endlessly charming flowers to choose for your landscape. We’ll break down the basic different types of violets so you can pick the best fit for your garden.

Both pansies and violets are in the genus Viola. Some are perennials and some are annuals but all sport the sunny, uplifted, face-like flowers characteristic of the family Violaceae. While both are technically violets, each has a slightly different characteristic and genesis. Pansies are a cross between the wild violets, Viola lutea and Viola tricolor, and are often called Johnny-jump-ups for their ability to crop up readily anywhere. Sweet violets are descended from Viola odorata, while bedding violets are deliberate hybrids of Viola cornuta and pansies. The mounding form and leaves are the same, but pansies have more distinctive “faces” than bedding violets, which feature more streaking. Any of the types of violet flowers are equally as appealing and easy to grow.

Colorful Combinations

Violets come in a whole rainbow of colors. They are most often found in bright jewel tones, but there are softer pastel varieties that make a perfect accent for spring decor. Many types also feature multicolor blooms with intricate patterns on their faces that seem to have been hand-painted. As an added bonus, violets are a fragrant annual on top of their charming appearance.

This diminutive plant can stand up well as a cut flower in a small bud vase. Plus, edible violet petals can be used to garnish cakes and pastries or tossed in a salad for a bright pop of color. A caution: Only eat flowers known to come from a pesticide-free source.

Violet Care Must-Knows

Many forms of violets are best grown in a woodland-type setting using rich, organic soils. While violets do ok in the cold, they are neither drought-tolerant nor heat-tolerant. Make sure violets have consistent moisture, especially in warmer months. When growing annual-type violets in containers, choose a well-drained potting mix. Using a slow-release fertilizer will help encourage continuous blooms.

Although violets tolerate of a variety of light conditions, most will grow best in full sun to partial shade. Some woodland species tolerate more shade; in fact, they can be planted in areas considered to be full shade. In warmer climates plant violets in areas that receive afternoon shade to help keep plants cool in hot summer months. Even this approach may not be enough to pull violets through because they are cool season plants). For this reason, violets often are treated as cool-season annuals and torn out once summer begins.

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Published by pat frederick

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217 thoughts on “Violets”

  1. About Violets!

    I have always loved to hunt wild violets. When I was in the first grade, I got into trouble for walking home from school instead of getting on the bus, just so I could hunt the white and yellow violets that grew along the road to our neighborhood in central Louisiana.

    Wherever I live, I look for wild violets and try to remember to to visit them in the early Spring when they are blooming.

    So far, I have found 4 kinds – 2 types of wild violets grow wild in our area.
    – Miniature violets with a 1/4 inch pale bicolor flower branching stems and small leaves also called ‘field pansies’.
    – The Florida native light lavender violet with 1/2 inch flower with a typical rounded heart shape leaf.
    – Bird foot violets with larger purple flowers that grow near the live oak shaded lime sink ponds in N FL and S GA. The flowers are not quite as big as the Pine Mountain GA native bird foot violet. I have collected a few plants in a pot, that have survived nearly 2 decades.
    – Lance leaf marsh violets with tiny white flowers also grow along some lowland back roads with deep wet ditches.

    Liked by 2 people

        2. That looks very similar to my Vinca blooms – I counted yesterday – in one of the pots, one plant has 10 blooms/buds on it! Can’t wait to see them on the trellis this summer! Somewhat similar coloration but mine are more lavender.

          Liked by 2 people

    2. wow!
      I used to grow African violets at our old house–we had the perfect windowsills for them. they got bright but not direct sunlight and they flourished.
      I cannot find any African violets here at all

      Liked by 2 people

      3. I once grew African violets – even bought a lighted tiered growing stand – but wasn’t very good at it.

        Went with a friend to the African Violet show in the city where I’m now living – and it was a hoot.

        The winners were displayed on pedestals with various elaborate tiaras and crowns over them to denote the Queen and her Court.

        But the worst part was the bitchiness of the competition amongst the blue haired senior ladies. They were not good losers to say the least. You could see them gathered in groups with sneering unpleasant faces, muttering about who should have won.

        That was when I decided to go no further in the violet world.

        When I was married to Sally’s Dad, he grew Daylilies (hemerocallis) and I became a judge along with him…he also grew native azaleas, so I learned all about those too.

        I do love to work in the yard, and have one little flower bed. I also like to keep pots of Rosemary, Italian Parsley and Green Onions for my cooking.

        Liked by 1 person

  2. Issue: February 25, 2023
    “Researchers develop AI for monitoring real-time behavior of citizens in cities — Monitoring behaviors.”
    By Ken Macon, ReclaimTheNet
    Posted 2:32 pm

    ENTIRE ARTICLE: “Researchers at the Alan Turing Institute have developed an AI tool that can analyze people’s behaviors in cities 400 times faster than current methods. Lead researcher Prof. Mark Girolami said that the system combines machine learning and classical numerical models to allow large-scale behavior analysis at city, regional, and national level.

    The research has been published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. It has examples like how traffic congestion measures can affect retail behavior in London. “Analyzing how groups of people behave and move around in a city using observed data, such as traffic cameras, is a big challenge. But AI gives us the ability to simulate urban environments and study the behavior and movement of people more easily,” Girolami said.

    “Our research describes one of the first ways to solve this problem using artificial neural networks and we hope that this method offers a powerful tool to understand the behavior of people in cities.”

    Liked by 1 person

  4. Alrighty then – that wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected. Enough sun had hit the area that it didn’t take long, altho there is still some ice. Nothing that would be an impediment to getting out of the garage tho. I didn’t even LOOK in the direction of my front walkway. Nope, nope and nope! LOL

    Liked by 1 person

  5. LOL – of course, Mom’s BD card is a funny one…..

    “10 Ways to Tell When You’re Over the Hill”

    10. When people ask you what your favorite food is, you tell them “soft.”
    9. You keep repeating yourself.
    8. It takes a couple of tries to get over a speed bump.
    7. You think “libido” is an Italian pasta.
    6. You keep repeating yourself.
    5. Conversations with people your age often turn into “dueling ailments.”
    4. Your eye doctor asks you to read the chart on the wall and you say “What wall?”
    3. You think bowel movements are a stimulating topic of conversation.
    2. You keep repeating yourself.

    And the number 1 way to tell when you’re over the hill….

    1. You find cards like this tasteless and insensitive!

    Oh, well, try not to think about it and have a happy birthday!”

    Liked by 1 person

      1. We compete on which of us can find the funniest BD card…..while we were talking, it really kind of hit me – I’m fricking 70 years old!!! It doesn’t sound so bad saying “I’m 69” but “I’m 70” puts it into an entirely different realm! ROFL

        Liked by 1 person

  6. Checked the mailbox and got another letter from the VA – this time for another mammogram….I don’t see how or why – it would be like putting a couple of pimples into their danged vise!!! I’ll take care of that on Friday. But this was interesting….for the first time ever (I suppose it’s a group affiliated with “Breast Cancer Awareness” since it’s about a mammo), there was a cute little Valentine’s Day card with it:

    Liked by 1 person

  9. “All by herself! Plucky Nebraska cheerleader competes in contest ALONE after her three teammates quit at last minute ‘for personal reasons’ – and she landed a better score than her squad has in three years”
    By RUTH BASHINSKY FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
    PUBLISHED: 06:00 EST, 24 February 2023 | UPDATED: 06:00 EST, 24 February 2023

    (A Nebraska high school cheerleader was forced to compete in a state tournament alone as her teammates all quit at the last minute ‘for personal reasons.’ Katrina Kohel (pictured left), a senior at Morrill High School was determined to cheer solo despite the three other members of her cheer team bailing on her late last month. Coach April Ott told Kohel that she could still attend the three-day event even if she didn’t compete, but Kohel told her, ‘I want to go to state, and I will cheer by myself.’)

    (With only less than two weeks to the competition, Kohel learned a new routine and performed her one-girl show at the Nebraska State High School Cheer & Dance Championships on February 17. Kohel’s rivals were so moved by her grit and determination that they showed up to support her, and she ended up receiving the biggest cheers of any competitor. She also performed well with the judges, who gave her a higher score than her team has managed to attain during its prior three appearances at the tournament.)

    (As she threw her pom poms from side to side and jumped in the air, her overjoyed fans — including fans from other teams, her competitors, and her grandparents — as the rest of the family were in Omaha watching her twin brother compete in the state wrestling tournament — clapped and cheered in support. Kohel appeared ecstatic with her performance saying, ‘I probably had the loudest crowd involvement there … everybody was cheering with me, and it was an amazing feeling.’ After her competition, the MHS Lions posted on their Facebook how proud they were of her on a ‘job well done,’ and how she represented the team with ‘pride.’)

    (‘She did it! What an amazing routine! Thank you to each one of our cheer friends, family and fans far and near who packed the stands and cheered with Katrina!,’ they wrote. ‘The crowd was booming with callbacks on her chants and cheers! Her jumps were soaring through the air and her school spirit was contagious.’ The competition was held at the Heartland Event Center and Kohel performed solo in the Game Day Class D competition. There were 115 teams in the cheer competition that ranged from four team members to 20 or more. Pictured: Kohel with her Morrill Lions coach, April Ott.)

    (And, even gave herself a talking too, saying: ‘Even if I mess this whole thing up, I will be OK. I’m doing this by myself and no matter what, it’s going to be OK.’ Kohel ended up eighth out of the twelve cheerleading squads in her division. The highest the Lions had placed in the past three years. Many shared how courageous the young woman was to do such a daring act. ‘Katrina, you have won the hearts of so many. Thank you for stepping up and becoming a courageous leader this past year!’ someone wrote. ‘You have learned so much and you ended your senior year on such a rewarding experience! You are a true champion!’ Pictured: Kohel (second to left) stands with her three other teammates and her coach.)

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/galleries/article-11786635/Nebraska-cheerleader-competes-contest-teammates-quit.html

    Liked by 1 person

  10. yup, keep importing that cheap, indentured child labor for businesses and take jobs from americans
    FTA
    While H.H.S. checks on all minors by calling them a month after they begin living with their sponsors, data obtained by The Times showed that over the last two years, the agency could not reach more than 85,000 children. Overall, the agency lost immediate contact with a third of migrant children.

    An H.H.S. spokeswoman said the agency wanted to release children swiftly, for the sake of their well-being, but had not compromised safety. “There are numerous places along the process to continually ensure that a placement is in the best interest of the child,” said the spokeswoman, Kamara Jones.

    Far from home, many of these children are under intense pressure to earn money. They send cash back to their families while often being in debt to their sponsors for smuggling fees, rent and living expenses.

    “It’s getting to be a business for some of these sponsors,” said Annette Passalacqua, who left her job as a caseworker in Central Florida last year. Ms. Passalacqua said she saw so many children put to work, and found law enforcement officials so unwilling to investigate these cases, that she largely stopped reporting them. Instead, she settled for explaining to the children that they were entitled to lunch breaks and overtime.

    Sponsors are required to send migrant children to school, and some students juggle classes and heavy workloads. Other children arrive to find that they have been misled by their sponsors and will not be enrolled in school.

    The federal government hires child welfare agencies to track some minors who are deemed to be at high risk. But caseworkers at those agencies said that H.H.S. regularly ignored obvious signs of labor exploitation, a characterization the agency disputed.

    In interviews with more than 60 caseworkers, most independently estimated that about two-thirds of all unaccompanied migrant children ended up working full time.

    A representative for Hearthside said the company relied on a staffing agency to supply some workers for its plants in Grand Rapids, but conceded that it had not required the agency to verify ages through a national system that checks Social Security numbers. Unaccompanied migrant children often obtain false identification to secure work.

    “We are immediately implementing additional controls to reinforce all agencies’ strict compliance with our longstanding requirement that all workers must be 18 or over,” the company said in a statement.

    At Union High School in Grand Rapids, Carolina’s ninth-grade social studies teacher, Rick Angstman, has seen the toll that long shifts take on his students. One, who was working nights at a commercial laundry, began passing out in class from fatigue and was hospitalized twice, he said. Unable to stop working, she dropped out of school.

    “She disappeared into oblivion,” Mr. Angstman said. “It’s the new child labor. You’re taking children from another country and putting them in almost indentured servitude.”

    Like

  13. “What must happen in and around E. Palestine: split sampling & analysis for dioxins and furans. The dioxin issue is not going away. It comes up at every community meeting, U.S. senators Vance and Brown have demanded testing, and the EPA is dodging the issue. Something has to give.”

    Eric F Coppolino
    35 min ago

    (E. Palestine, OH in happier times. Photo: Wikimedia.)

    EXCERPT: “The Precautionary Principle Must Be Applied — THE DIOXIN ISSUE associated with the East Palestine train derailment of Feb. 3, 2023 is not going away. It is officially in play. Everyone who needs to knows about it. The local region and the reading/viewing public is informed, as long as they look somewhere besides major corporate media — which is doing a great job playing it down.

    However, the word dioxin comes up at every town hall meeting. U.S. Sens. Brown and Vance from Ohio have written to the EPA calling for dioxin testing, which made the AP wire on Friday. This, in turn, pushed it into the Cincinnati Enquirer. Every chemical expert anywhere knows that dioxins are created when chlorinated compounds burn.

    The precautionary principle must be applied in this case: get the people out before the dioxin results come back. In order of who is evacuated: pregnant and nursing women; children; women who plan to have babies; and everyone else. Dioxin is toxic to everyone. There is no safe level of exposure to anyone. It is extremely toxic to dogs and cats, and any creature with a low body weight. Get them all out.

    Go to Dioxin Resources for Citizens and Journalists

    EPA is Resisting for a Good Reason — The reason that EPA is resisting testing for dioxin is that once the first positive test result comes back, the next question is about evacuation. Other communities have been permanently evacuated for dioxin contamination, including Times Beach, MO, and Love Canal in western New York. Once there is a single positive result, the discussion also goes to how far the dioxin has spread. More people will want testing. This is likely to have devastating effects, as one cannot sell a home or business in a dioxin-contaminated area.

    From the government’s point of view, admitting to the presence of dioxin must be avoided at all costs. The way to avoid that is to not test. Therefore, Gov. Mike DeWine and EPA chief Michael Regan do things like visit residents in their homes, and toast drinking tap water. This is a typical PR maneuver to “show that it’s safe” without actually producing data.

    Having covered many of these incidents, I want to offer two things in this article: what I think must happen for there to be an honest assessment of the dioxin levels, and how the game with state and federal authorities may play out.”

    https://planetwavesfm.substack.com/p/what-must-happen-in-and-around-e

    Liked by 1 person

  15. Like

  18. “Rationing” Is the New Globalist Buzzword as They Normalize Scarcity Ahead of Manufactured Collapses — The powers-that-be continue using the same play from their psyop playbook. Why? Because it keeps working.”

    JD Rucker
    5 hr ago

    EXCERPT: “The memo went out. The puppet masters among the globalist elite cabal are planting the seeds for the plebeians to accept what’s coming: massive shortages. Some might think this is just the powers-that-be getting ahead of what they perceive as a likelihood. But as many have been warning about for a long time, these puppet masters aren’t predicting it. They’re manufacturing it.

    We have the poultry industries in western nations being decimated by a bird flu that has acted unlike any bird flu in history. Food plants continue to burn down. Crops are failing. It’s all (or at least mostly) manufactured and being intentionally spread to be blamed on climate change.

    We have energy decisions being made by pretty much every nation that isn’t part of BRICS+ that keep us on the verge of collapse without pushing us all the way over the edge. This is so they can be ready for the big shove off the cliff when the appropriate time comes. It’s like Nancy Pelosi pre-tearing Donald Trump’s State of the Union Speech a little so when she’s ready to let it rip, it plays cleanly for the television audience. They want us to think it’s spontaneous (again, so they can blame climate change) even though it’s all being plotted with precision.

    We have nearly every nation in the world at some stage of preparation and adoption of Central Bank Digital Currencies that will change actual capitalism into “stakeholder capitalism” before it’s blasted into a full-blown worldwide socialist “solution” to the problems they’re creating. Economic collapse will be used for economic control. If you want access to the ability to buy or sell, you’ll need to line up with whatever they say.

    If all of this sounds too linked to be coincidence, that’s because it’s all part of their machinations. If it sounds familiar, that’s because the godfather of modern globalism laid out the framework decades ago. “Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world.” – Henry Kissinger

    This is why we’re hearing the word “rationing” coming from corporate media and government officials. It’s all part of the plan. As with any long-term psyop, it will be easier to get people to accept and even embrace rationing if they let us know it’s coming through subtle repetition that will slowly morph into a constant drumbeat. The old “Russia, Russia, Russia” will become “ration, ration, ration.”

    As Graham J Noble noted at Liberty Nation, this is all part of The Great Reset. In 2020, a team of academics from the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom produced a paper, “Rationing and Climate Change Mitigation,” which argued, as the title suggests, that rationing fuel, food, and even clothes could be an effective way to reduce carbon emissions. The paper was accepted by the journal Ethics, Policy and Environment in January of 2023 and published on Feb. 19. This would seem a pretty extreme proposal, even if it came from the most zealous of adherents to the cult of climate change, but perhaps it’s another nudge in the direction of the Great Reset. It certainly does align with a strategy championed since 2020 at the World Economic Forum (WEF).

    GB News truthteller Neil Oliver used this week’s monologue to warn about this evil plan.

    https://jdrucker.substack.com/p/rationing-is-the-new-globalist-buzzword

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Here’s the transcript:

      They’re rationing tomatoes in the supermarkets. We’re told it’s about supply chains, bad weather and the price of heating, but right now, in terms of the messaging, I suspect it’s more about pushing the word – rationing. Less about any believable shortage of food and more about getting us used to hearing the word.

      No doubt, if experience is anything to go by, the rest will come later. My money says the rationing app for our smartphones is already sitting on a hard drive somewhere, ready when we are. For now, it’s more of a familiar process of psychological manipulation. Get us acquainted with the general idea of food scarcity so that we’re well-primed when the planned reality is unrolled.

      We were given the same treatment with words like “lockdown” and “pandemic”, “mandate” and “denier”. Nudge, nudge. Rationing is a word from our parents’ and grandparents’ generation, a bit like “War in Europe” and “Fascist” and now they’re back in fashion once more. Rationing, I ask you, while the landfills swell with fresh food dumped every day.

      The manipulation is invariably about an iron hand in a velvet glove, softly, softly catchy monkey. Much of the messaging in the MSM is, and has been for years, redolent of World War II and the fabled Blitz Spirit, “We’re all in it together”, “making do”, “mustn’t grumble”, “doing our bit”, “standing up for democracy”, “defending the free world”, “sacrifice”, “keep calm and carry on”. Someone somewhere must think our heads zip up the back.

      Since I’ve mentioned the “D” word, which is democracy, why not pause for a moment to consider whether any of us has had a chance to vote, voting being that part of democracy we’re invited to think matters most, on any of this. Do you remember ever voting to give the government the power to lock us in our homes, to shut our children’s schools, our pubs and restaurants, shops and businesses, to tell us whom we could visit or have in our homes, whether we could go for a walk, travel within our own country, far less beyond these shores? Do you remember voting to empower employers to mandate medical procedures for their staff?

      And while we’re on the subject of propaganda, who thought to convince us it was ok to demonise and exclude healthy fellow citizens on the grounds they might be carrying an invisible disease? If you don’t remember whether or not you were invited to get involved in a conversation or a debate about all of this, perhaps it’s because you were, quite understandably, distracted most of the time by the bombardment of state-sanctioned messaging by politicians and the MSM. Or maybe you were just afraid of the guaranteed ridicule or losing your job.

      It’s not just us here in the UK either. I wonder how many US citizens ask themselves when they voted to have their government send well over 100 billion dollars to Ukraine at a time of critical hardship for millions of Americans unable to afford food or heating.

      Rather than ask questions, or, in the case of the tax-paying citizens of East Palestine, Ohio, liberally dusted as they are with fallout from a vinyl chloride mushroom cloud ignited with the go-ahead of their own elected officials after a train derailment, perhaps querying why their predicament is not the stuff of a national emergency while fish die in their rivers and their pet and animals die in the fields, they are apparently expected to be reassured by the sight of Joe Biden posing for photos thousands of miles away in Ukraine, while air raid sirens provide sound effects and President Zelensky turns out once more in his freshly laundered combats.

      So many times over the past few years, I have thought to myself: “Who do these people think they are”, all of them, once elected to office, herding us towards World War, taking away our natural freedoms? Who do these people think they are that feel empowered to disregard our liberty, our very existence as independent individuals, and spend their time posturing and politicking? Fiddling while Rome burns.

      Who do these people think they are blatantly creating and then ignoring hardship, enacting policies to wreck livelihoods, economies and the wellbeing of millions and then standing by while real people suffer the consequences of their vainglorious, self-serving nonsense disguised by propaganda shaped only to distract? And by God do they need to distract us.

      Let’s stop for a moment and think what the reality of the situation is – the undeniable reality – which is that we already have the potential for more than enough food, energy and everything else, courtesy of existing technology, and therefore any alleged shortages in the West are only fraudulent fiction. I said at the top we were being familiarised with rationing and making do. There’s a glaring paradox in all this. At the same time as being nudged into thinking we must do without we are simultaneously drowning in surplus of every sort.

      We have centuries of affordable energy under our feet and yet we are bullied into a false reality in which fewer and fewer people can afford to heat their homes or put fuel in their cars and vans. Every year we bulldoze billions of pounds worth of food into landfills while now being told to do without erstwhile familiar foodstuffs.

      We do much the same with clothes made in sweatshops and worn once before discarding into those same landfills. We upgrade our phones and other tech and put last year’s offering in the bin, disregarding the lithium and cobalt and the rest of the precious metals mined by child slaves out of sight and out of mind. We will soon be ordered to junk our gas boilers and our petrol and diesel cars. Our governments siphon our taxes into subsidies for wind turbines and solar panels that will themselves be yet more toxic landfill in 20 years’ time.

      It’s not just about consumables that we can touch. Every moment of every day we are deluged with information as well, data, and so-called news, but made increasingly incapable of discerning how much, if any of it, is worth knowing in the first place. So much chaff in which to hide the wheat. We are drowning in words but struggling desperately to find so much as a sentence worth reading.

      Instead of being educated at school, learning objectively and meaningfully about our shared history, heritage and culture, about how to understand the world and contributing to its betterment, our children are too often indoctrinated with propaganda, drilled with ideologies predicated upon obsession not with the content of people’s characters but with the colour of their skins and the nature of their sexual preferences real or imagined.

      A television series that has been the work of hundreds, if not thousands of people spread over a year or more – an effort that was once the stuff of a shared experience keeping us engaged and talking together as communities for months on end – is binge-watched in a single night. In every way imaginable our dopamine receptors – especially those of our children – are being bludgeoned into numbness.

      An eight-year-old boy with a smartphone and an internet connection can help himself, in a week, to more naked women in more positions and predicaments than Genghis Khan saw in a lifetime of murderous conquest. Sickening surplus and overload all around and, yet, here we are, rationing food in our supermarkets? Pardon my French, but What the Hell?

      Rationing tomatoes is just a symptom of how corrupted and bent out of shape our food industry has become at the mercy of greedy corporations committed only to profit for the few at the expense of the health of the many. Let me stress, not one jot of this is the fault of farmers – those out there in a government-made maze of regulations and obstacles to the job of producing healthy food for healthy populations. EU regulations make it legal to label as “milk” the white liquid obtained from processing almonds and oats. There are to be ground-up crickets in the bread and hundreds of other food products besides.

      Industrially processed vegetables are labelled chicken, fish and mince. They make oil from sunflowers and rape seeds, process away its rancid, toxic nature, and sell it in food, and as salad dressing and as an ingredient in soap powder for getting stubborn stains out of clothes. It’s in baby food as well. Tomatoes aren’t in season in the UK in February, as you might have noticed. Why should they be? Why aren’t we concentrating our attention on what food is in season, and local, and good for us, and teaching people how to cook it?

      I travel a fair part of the length of this country every week between my home in Scotland and this studio in London. Aside from the odd moment or two of built-up area, the vast majority of the landscape is green fields. Why aren’t we making the most of the fertile land with which we are blessed instead of lofty talk of handing a third of it back to the beavers?

      If food is at a premium, reaching a point where rationing might be required, why are we paying farmers to get out of the business altogether and sell off their hand to transnational corporations for God alone knows what purpose? Why are planes and ships burning fuel to transport avocados for thousands of miles around the world from places where the mass cultivation of the product causes catastrophic damage to local water supply?

      What do you think is the answer to these questions? Are our leaders so inexperienced, so clueless about the practicalities of the world that they just don’t know how to run the country for the benefit of the people they’re supposed to serve? Or are they knowingly in the service not of the people they are elected to represent but of transnational corporations, the markets and the Bank for International Settlements? Which of the two options do you think it might be? Or is it simpler and more depressing still? Have our leaders, in fact, simply persuaded themselves that distraction is the only game they need to play?

      Are we simply to be fed a diet of propaganda and downright lies about health, food, the climate, war, biology, and race … until we are so unwell, confused, exhausted and anxious we won’t notice when they pick the last penny out of our pockets and lock us down in a digital ghetto watched round the clock by cameras and listening devices we pay through the nose to carry in our own pockets? And they’re rationing tomatoes.

      Here’s the thing: the world has been run off the rails. No wonder it’s all about distraction – because distraction is all they have. Greed and unrestrained power have brought us to the only destination that was ever in view. Which is right here, right now. They won’t fix the mess because the mess suits them. I don’t have all the answers – but I do know the solution starts with ignoring any more of their nonsense. The problem is not with the tomatoes they’re rationing. The problem is the surplus of lies they keep selling. Stop buying them.”

      Liked by 1 person



  20. “Biden Judicial Nom Argued for Outlawing Offensive Speech, Suggested ‘Microaggressions’ Can ‘Kill You’ Meet Maria Araujo Kahn, Biden’s nominee for the Second Circuit Court of Appeals”

    “Biden Pentagon Orders Military Chaplains To Bless Putting Male Soldiers In Female Showers And Bedrooms” — Why should a tank commander at Fort Hood have to deal with pronouns instead of training his troops to fight an enemy force? The nation is worried about serious national security threats, including Chinese spy aircraft, but the U.S. Department of Defense seems pre-occupied with misplaced priorities. “Woke” policies are taking leftist ideologies to extremes with enforced compliance, even if it hurts the institution.

    Since January 2021, Defense Department officials have expanded woke transgender mandates in significant ways. A comprehensive policy analysis titled “Biden Pentagon Quietly Expands Woke Transgender Policies in the Military,” summarized here, compares Joe Biden and Lloyd Austin directives to the 2016 transgender policies of Barack Obama and Ashton Carter.”

    ***https://cmrlink.org/data/sites/85/CMRDocuments/DoDTransgender4-pager_020623.pdf***

    Liked by 3 people

  22. Just got back from an hour’s walk on the paved trail at the wooded edge of our neighborhood along a canopy road – – – and saw two kinds of violets in full bloom – purple and white!

    The azaleas are also blooming along with the plum trees and Japanese magnolias.

    Spring is here in N FL.

    Liked by 2 people

    3. I can’t even say I’m jealous…..I am not ready to face all that work I’m going to have to do. If I get my sinus and teeth issues squared away, I’ll be able to plant all my favorites again: kohlrabi, radishes, carrots, tomatoes, cukes, etc., etc. My 2 garden beds need some serious work, what with all the seeds that have dropped in there and the poor nutrition after several years w/o adding any nutrients….sigh…no, spring can wait a bit! LOL

      Liked by 3 people

  23. Oh, nice! Just finished watching Highway to Heaven – finally, an episode I hadn’t seen before. Jonathan does a bang-up job while he is being evaluated, with a good job likely leading to being moved “upstairs.” In the end, God’s representative decided he was too good at what he does and he is needed on earth. Really cute one! About BB Hall and her daughter’s faulty memories of her childhood. IDR which channel it’s on but there are no commercials, which is really sweet.

    Liked by 1 person

  24. sync
    February 26, 2023 5:19 pm

    This week, U.S. Congressman Matt Gaetz (FL-01) introduced a War Powers Resolution to direct President Joe Biden to remove the United States Armed Forces from Syria. Since War Powers Resolutions are privileged, the House of Representatives will be forced to vote on Rep. Gaetz’s resolution within 18 days of its introduction.

    The U.S. Constitution gives Congress the sole power to declare war. To date, Congress has never authorized kinetic participation of U.S. Armed Forces in Syria. Additionally, pursuant to section 5(c) of the War Powers Resolution, Rep. Gaetz’s War Powers Resolution mandates the removal of U.S. Armed Forces from Syria no later than 15 days after the date of the resolution’s adoption.

    https://gaetz.house.gov/media/press-releases/congressman-matt-gaetz-introduces-war-powers-resolution-force-house-vote

    Liked by 2 people

  25. kudos to Chic Fila
    entire article
    A Chick-fil-A restaurant in Pennsylvania says that unaccompanied minors are no longer allowed to dine in their establishment after unruly “children and teenagers” continued to cause disruptions.

    A Royersford, Pennsylvania, Chick-fil-A said the new policy was prompted by rowdy minors disrespecting employees and vandalizing their establishment after being dropped off by parents on the weekend.

    “While we love being a community restaurant and serving guests of all ages, some issues need to be addressed,” the FaceBook post explained before giving specific “unacceptable behaviors” employees had to deal with.

    Some children and teens engaged in loud conversations with “a lot of explicit language,” cursed at and mocked staff, vandalized property, stole decor and walked through the drive-thru lanes, the post claimed.

    “We are a family-friendly restaurant where this is not tolerated,” the Chick-fil-A branch warned.
    A Chick-fil-A restaurant in Pennsylvania warns that unaccompanied minors are no longer allowed to dine in their establishment after unruly “children and teenagers” continued to cause disruptions.

    “As you can imagine, this is not a pleasant experience,” the post went on. “We want to provide a comfortable and safe environment for our guests and our staff, and also to protect our building. Therefore, we cannot allow this to continue. As a result, to dine in our restaurant, anyone under the age of 16 is required to be accompanied by an adult.”

    Unaccompanied minors can still purchase food, the branch said, but have to take it to go.

    The store went on to apologize to well-behaved teens who are being affected by the new rule and said that it is not blaming parents for their kids’ behavior but can no longer tolerate it in their establishment.

    “Parents, we are not blaming you. Children and teens are learning to navigate the world free from supervision and often push the boundaries. We simply can’t let them push those boundaries anymore at our restaurant. We encourage you to talk to your children and ask about behaviors they have seen and perhaps participated in,” it went on.

    The post was shared on Twitter by user Megan Brock.
    A local Chick-fil-A allegedly barred unaccompanied minors from dining in their store after rowdy behavior, according to a Facebook post.

    She commented on the post, “[You] know a culture is in serious decline when a local Chick-Fil-A has to beg parents to require their children to act in a way that is compatible with the basic decency required in a functioning society. This reads like a homily on the fall of Western civilization.”

    Fox News Digital reached out to Chick-fil-A corporate for comment on the store’s post and policy but did not hear back by time of publication.

    https://www.foxnews.com/media/pennsylvania-chick-fil-creates-new-rule-after-rowdy-teens-cause-chaos-were-a-family-friendly-restaurant

    Liked by 1 person

  26. I am adding a short daily prayer to the board. I would invite each of you, if you wish, to also add one or maybe two of your own liking. I do not want to stifle anyone but please limit yourself to one or two religious postings. here’s one I found that I liked.

    Like

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