The Pond

Hi,
For 4½ years I have scrubbed, slaved, sweat-ed & sworen over "The Pond". It hates me, I'm sure of it.

In my last episode I ended up killing off all the fish: eight assorted size goldfish and two small koi. It broke me heart since I only had well wishes for the fishies. Oh dear.

Now we have new Koi. These are not just any Koi. These are monster Koi. They deserve a capitol "K". 

Hard to tell from the photo, but they really are big. The white one is about 12" long, nose to tail and the mottled one on the bottom is a size up from that. The group came to live in the pond through circumstance that I'd rather not relate. Let us just say they were immigrants from another local, needing a good home. I hope I don't kill them.

The funniest thing is that one (maybe more than one) of them has laid eggs. We have Koi caviar in the water. Unfortunately I have found that Koi like to eat their own eggs so I'm not expecting any offspring to survive. I tried distracting the Koi with pellet koi food and they will have nothing to do with it. Sure, I would rather eat caviar than stale crackers any day too. We have Koi with discerning tastes. Who knew?

They are beautiful to watch... and they certainly love their new home. There is major exploration that has gone on all week. They seem to like the shallow shelf at one end of the pond and the large rocks on it to swim around. On the bottom are two large tubs with water lily plants and that is an endless source of entertainment for Koi. Playing "catch me" or "tag" or "hide-and-go-seek" keeps them busy all day. Life is good if your a fish with no one above you in the food chain looking to turn you into a meal.

It's time to clean the pond again. This round will be more gentle and I hope the new tenants appreciate my efforts.... and don't die on me.

Fish Fund

Hi,
I goofed. I killed all the fish in our pond. I feel terrible. I've never had a massacre of fish before.

Last weekend we drained most of the pond (maybe too much of it) and scooped out all the muck. Rinsed the filter, scrubbed the side walls and refilled the pond. Hours later the fish started doing the back stroke. Oh no! They looked like they were molting, with this fine, white film flaking off them. Eerie, and rather sickly in appearance.

I took water samples into our Petsmart and they tested the water, finding nothing wrong with it. Their fish guru decided that I may have disturbed a bacteria on the bottom of the pond, causing the fish to loose their natural slimy coating, and killing them off, or I shocked them too much. What ever the reason, they are all gone. It's very lonely looking in the water without their little fishy tails flipping about.

The fish guru at the store suggested I wait a week, buy a few 'feeder' fish @ 27 cents each and see if they survive. If they do, then I will start restocking the pond. Here is where I'm asking for help. What should we get this time? Cheap little feeder fish? Larger goldfish? Exotic koi? Sushi? Everyone gets a vote. We will also need a raft of new names for the fish. Send in your suggestions and any and all donations to the fish fund will be acknowledged with a thank you letter and colour photo of your adopted fish-friend. Only you can help restore our pond to it's previous greatness.... well, I can ask can't I?

Next time we tackle the pond I will leave more water for the fish. Refill in smaller stages. Not try to scrub it too clean and leave them some muck to play around in.
Lesson learned.

xox
m

The Garden

Hi,
Why do the weeds grow faster than the plants?
How is it that the deer know what's good to eat and what's not in our yard?
When is it appropriate to tell your neighbour to cut his grass?
Where do all the little grass clippings hide and then sneak into the house at night?
What does it mean when your loosing your mind in the plant and garden section of Home Depot?

I spend too much time on these questions and in our yard. It's all now in full bloom and I really mean full. It's been so hot and wet that it's looking tropical already and it's only the beginning of May. My schedual for weeding is getting thrown out of whack with all this rain. It also means the weeds are going to take over if I don't get to them in the next day or two. I have 'weed nightmares' where I wake up worried that they are growing around the house and engulfing it. Do I need counseling for this? Maybe.

I love our garden, most of the time. When I get to just sit on the back porch and look out I am so proud of the way it looks... and the fact that I can name almost all the plants in it. It is beautiful to watch the sun rise in the backyard. I can observe the bird feeder with all my feathered buddies for hours on end. The part I'm not so crazy about is the daily maintenance that it requires to look this nice. The constant weeding and picking and pruning and primping can make me nuts. Mostly it just makes me exhausted.

This year we have raspberry bushes and they are already starting to show little tiny berries. I'm hoping I get to pick some of them before the squirrels and deer have a feast. It's an experiment, as the whole garden is. I never know what's going to work and what isn't. For the most part it's a perennial  selection of flora & fauna. That means every year I have a little less to do and it all comes up on cue. I can't figure out why people waste money on annuals that die every fall and the investment is gone. I love that with perennials the money spent is good almost forever as the plants come out of the ground every year once they are established. I like good investments like perennials. Yearly return is what it's all about.

The way I look at it, the garden is my little ray of hope. It's dormant time is depressing, but the blooming season is glorious. It reminds me that I too can grow a little every day and look better for it.

xox
m 

Jail or school?

Hi,
which would you rather spend $70,000 a year on:
sending two students to an Ivy League university or incarcerating one criminal?

In our travels last week, Marshall & I met a couple from Utah who had been on the cruise ship with us. They both worked in a correctional facility in Salt Lake City, Donovan is captain and Jennifer is a case worker. They were lovely to chat with and very interesting. I'd never met a prison guard before, and not just "a guard" but one with a masters degree in administration. Nice guy too. We had an hour to kill before our train pulled out, we started chatting.

It was interesting to get their take on the penal system in the USA. Their state holds about 6,000 inmates and their facilities are always 'full', plus another couple of thousand who are scattered in minor security or half-way house situations. It is tiny in comparison to Los Angeles which holds over 10,000 prisoners just in the city of LA, California has about 140,000 incarcerated on any given day. Are these numbers outrageous? You bet they are, but then there is the cost. That is what really struck home with me.

Donovan said it costs the states an average of $70,000 per year, per person to keep these people in prisons in the USA. That works out to $9,800,000,000 in California alone and $420,000,000 in Utah.... and that is just two states, start adding in the other 48 and the dollar value gets out of sight. Plus, what do we get for this tax dollar expenditure? Not much. Jennifer's job lets her see the cases up close and personal, and after 18 years in the position, she has little to no faith in the rehabilitation of hardened criminals. For $70,000 a year we could be enriching two brilliant minds at a top notch school or keep one low-life clothed and fed in prison. Is this really the smart choice for the money in our society? Pouring billions of dollars away, every year, on the dregs of our environment, without any measured success rate of rehabilitation or criminal culture reduction is such a waste I can't even begin to expound on it.... but I do have another approach to consider. Baffin Island.

Canada has a huge (about 200,000sq.miles) frozen island up in Frobisher Bay... way up there near the North Pole and Santa's house. My plan is to take all of the violent offenders, the sex offenders and the repeat offenders and drop lift them to the bright, snowy, freezing cold northern exposure of Canada. They get one can of Campbell's Soup, a pack of matches to heat it up and "have a nice life". I consider this more human than execution, no one has to plunge in the needle or flip the switch, and the polar bears will be well fed. A 'win-win' situation. England had the right idea with shipping their criminals and mentally insane to Australia, but it turned out to be too warm and pretty. Baffin Island has much less promise of colonizing in the near future, even with global warming.... and think of the savings! A one-way ticket to Iqaluit on Baffin Island would cost about $5,000 (or less with enough air mile points), $1 for the can of soup and 25cents for the pack of matches. I might even throw in an extra pair of warm socks at $1.50 bringing the total to $5,002.75 per person, once, not $70,000 yearly. You do the math.

This plan works two-fold. We save almost a million dollars per inmate over a ten year period and with that financial gain we improve our educational system.... maybe even start raising a society that is not only educated, but has some better moral standards, reducing the criminal activity. Do you see my circle of logic here? Plus we get well fed polar bears, it's all Eco-friendly. I think if you can't play nice in the school yard then you need to get shipped off for to major time out to some place in space. Outer space is too expensive but Baffin Island fits perfectly in the budget. We would still need jails for the Martha Stewart's and Bernie Madoff's... or would we? White collar criminals aren't hurt by incarceration, I think their punishment should be where they would really feel the pain, in their wallet. The rest, the petty crime offenders and general low life, okay, jail time but they have to work for their keep. We have roads that need garbage picked up, potholes to fill, graffiti to remove from public spaces. I have a list of dirty jobs that would keep Mike Rowe busy for the rest of his life. Who better to assign these nasty tasks than the people who didn't appreciate what they had to begin with. Their freedom.

Is there a perfect answer to the question of dealing with our criminal population? Probably not, but I wish we would reconsider wasting all this money on people who are a blight on society and put it back to good use for the ones who will really make a difference some day. Jail or school? Is this truly a tough choice?

xox
m

Back in the USA

Hi,
we're home from our cruise. It was great. Better than great. I didn't have to cook, clean, make a bed or worry about a thing for 16 days. Reality has set back in already and I'm not even in this time zone yet.

Formal Night

Cruising the Atlantic was the best part. Six days at sea with nothing but water no matter where you looked off the deck. I was so tempted to dive in and just keep swimming but you never want to hear the announcement "bravo, bravo, bravo" over the P.A. system on a ship. That means someone has gone overboard and they don't think of that as a favorable event on cruise ships. They just want you to eat until your burst. Death by chocolate is preferable to drowning in their books.

Holding up the ship

We met fun people from all over the world. The ship was a mix of Americans, Canadians, Europeans, Aussies, Brits... I think almost every country was represented. A floating United Nations. It's amazing to sit and chat with people and find you have something n common no matter where they are from. Maybe it is because cruising seems to attract like minded souls who love exploring, seek adventure and require 24 hour food availability. Who knew so many people could eat 8 meals a day? It's a wonder that the boat can float with all that food aboard.

Our destination ports on the Caribbean side of the trip were San Juan, St. Thomas and St. Maartin. Nothing we haven't already seen and been to but we got off the ship to walk around and stretch our legs. The Caribbean all looks the same to me. Tacky souvenirs, over priced watches & jewelry, alcohol that you can't fly with any more, beaches that they charge admittance to.... Niagara Falls with less foaming water and no "Maid of the Mist", only a banana boat ride for $85. Pass, thanks.

Larzarote vineyard

Once we crossed the Atlantic the island were a lot more interesting to us, the Europeans were now the board passengers. Tenerife was quaint, Lanzarote was exotic and Funchal was just delicious. The cobble stone streets of Tenerife and 17th century architecture were charming. I walked for several hours around town. Lanzarote is a volcanic island, covered in ash from the eruptions that lasted 6 years from 1730 to 1736. They have figured out that if they dig down to the soil and plant grape vines, the volcanic ash top soil provides an excellent fertile growing spot and produces lovely wines. It is the weirdest landscape I have ever seen, almost looks like you're on the moon. We took a bus tour of the National Park where the volcanoes are not active but the ash is still hot and they use pits in the ground to cook food with. Very funky.

Scabbard Fish..... UGLY!!!

In Funchal we went to a fresh produce market and tasted the most interesting passion fruits like nothing I've ever tried before and certainly nothing we get in Yardley, PA. The fish market has one of the ugliest sea creatures, a Scabbard Fish. Prehistoric and nasty looking but delicious, we tried it for lunch. It tasted better than it looked. Lunch was a 2 hour affair in a charming outdoor side street café. We were five people and tried 9 different dishes & local beer. After all that food we walked through the downtown area and found a flower market with orchids for 1 Euro each. It pained me to know that I couldn't get any of them back on the ship or to the USA... bummer! To sooth my spirit I tried an egg tart for dessert (amazing) and we tasted the best coffee ever made. All three coffees cost 1.5 Euros. What a bargain!

Emanuelle & Me in Madrid

We ended the trip in Malaga, Spain, catching a high-speed train up to Madrid. Two nights in Madrid, more food and more walking around with our friend, Emanuelle as our tour guide. It was all so much fun and beautiful. Coming home is such a let down.... but I have the memories and the moments to remember.... now if I could only figure out how to swing a trip like this every month. HA!