Sick

I've caught a summer cold, and had a bad Sunday, and woke up at 2AM this morning, maybe a little feverish, thinking it was 6AM. I was starting my morning routine when I realized it was too dark, and even the cat wasn't up yet. I'm staying home and consciously limiting what I do. I felt better after breakfast and need to go food shopping, cause I spent the whole Sunday only eating a few strange leftovers. Regardless of how I feel, I have to take care of the cat, and this morning I watered the tomatoes and squash, and had to tie up the tomatoes. The brandywines are vine like indeterminate plants, and the have to be forced to grow up. They tend to collapse on the ground as they get heavier, so this morning I mustered the strength to tie up a whole mass that had collapsed against the avocado tree. I should pick squash and tomatoes later today.

It's Current Events Time.

Here's a piece in the WSJ that refutes all the media hoopla about "blood diamonds".
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703589404575417460834079500.html

and here's an article from The Atlantic, that reports details the robot stock
trading uncovered in an investigation of that recent stock market Flash Crash.
http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2010/08/market-data-firm-spots-the-tracks-of-bizarre-robot-traders/60829/

Excelsior

I felt well enough to mow the lawn tonight, even though my cold is migrating to my chest. I'm so glad that I sodded the lawn this spring, rather than leaving it blasted all summer and seeding it in the fall. My house was a foreclosure and the lawn had gone though a 100+ degree summer with no water and had nothing but chest high weeds by the winter. After I cut down the weeds I did some exploratory digging to trace and repair the sprinkler system. Sodding the whole mess quickly was absolutely the right thing to do.
Last Saturday, I did rip out the nasty red kale and most of the arugula that had gone to seed. I've read up on arugula, and it was a favorite of the ancient Romans, and is famous for flowering quickly and going to seed. They would eat the flowers and made oil from the seeds. I saved a bunch of seed pods when I cleared out that corner of the garden. I still have nine lettuce plants of various types growing, and pretty quickly I'll sow another mix of leaf lettuce seeds to carry me through to when the freezing weather starts.