Do we live, or do we die...

Honor
Reverence
Behold

This is the mother ship. All life depends on its survival. If the mother ship dies, everything else dies with it.

We have the power to sustain our mother ship, and we have the power to destroy it. We hold the keys.

Man alone can bring about the success or failure of our own planet.

Do we kill it, thereby killing ourselves?

Or do we come to honor it, and respect it, and behold its ability to sustain a whole host of life, a true web intricately weaved.

Today is Earth Day. Oh how nice that we celebrate one day as Earth Day. Considering everything that Earth does for us.

Like give us life.

Someday, and maybe someday soon, every day will be Earth Day.

And we will no longer kill our mother ship.

Happy Earth Day...

Happy Tax Day...

Well, today is the big day.

Tax deadline day.

And if you have waited until today to file, there is a very very good chance that you are not getting a refund. After all, why delay getting a refund? Those of us who wait for today owe. We owe, and owe, and owe.

However, there was some good news about taxes that happened just two days ago.

Tax Freedom Day came eight full days earlier than in 2008 because of several things, but mostly the stimulus act deduced (temporarily at least) the tax rates for 2009 and 2010.

Tax Freedom Day is the day that you have earned enough to pay your annual tax debt. After that day, you are putting money in your pocket, so to speak. So April 13th was Tax Freedom Day in 2009. Much better than the May 3rd date in 2000, which is the latest date so far. See more information at The Tax Foundation web site.

So see, for the last two days you have been working for you.

Now that's good news, is it not...

Random musing...

Snow!

As I write this I can look out the window in my office and see that it is snowing. Yes, the 28th of March, and it is snowing. Snow now covers the roofs and is sticking to the grass areas. The streets and sidewalks are too warm still even after having rain falling on them all day long for the snow to cumulate. So even though I have mowed once already, and we have had nice sunny day's that reached temperatures into the low 70's, right now it is snowing. And we still have a chance at freezing rain tonight. Will not that be fun.

O_O

I found my cell phone today. I misplace it all the time. It is very odd in how we all relate to certain technologies. Me- I am always forgetting my cell phone at home, or at work, or in the wife's car that is now at her work... while my daughter and her husband seem to have their phones either Velcro'ed to their body or within a five step reach. And they can hear their phone ringing inside the house, under a pile of clothes, while they are in the back yard... at the back fence... mowing. I guess it is because for several years now my job requires me to answer and talk on the phone that I am so laxed about my cell phone. After spending the day answering about 30 phone calls, the last thing you really want to hear is a ringing phone. So anyway, I found my phone today, and that little symbol a few lines up is in the display window. That means I have voice mail. It says I have two missed called from my son-in-law, the last one being 3/25 @ 9am, and one from a (no number) on 3/25 @ 1:15pm. And further checking, I have three new voice mails. I need to see who and what here in just a minute.

Mrs. Cherty Rock Farmer to graduate!

Yes, it is true. Mrs. Cherty Rock Farmer is actually seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, and it is not a train coming at her this time. She will graduate this May from Drury University with a full blown bachelors degree. She has been an RN for the last 35 years, and wants a career change. So she is taking up Legal Nurse consulting. She has been studying paralegal in college and will apply that to her new career. She is president of her own company, and will soon officially hang out her shingle in hopes of drawing in paying clientèle. It is exciting.

Political (gallows) humor

This one just about says it all. When things like this happen, you wonder just how they (Congress) can be so sanctimonious about these things. But then you have to remember, it is us, the American voter, who keeps sending these aholes back to Washington.

As always clicking on the image gives you a bigger version

Now, that said, I do have to add this. Republicans, it is time for you, as a party, to either come up with a working budget and economic recovery plan for the American's you collectively represent, complete with dollar amounts, funding plans and areas where you will be saving dollars and the whole deal, and submit it for review and critique, or SHUT THE HELL UP.

The times they are a-changin'...

Great quote from Bob Dylan.

And it is true, times and things do change.

Such is the case here at Cherty Rock.

After several months of thought, and investigation, I have decided to make some changes to this weblog.

Right now everything is going on in the background.

But stay tuned, more news to follow.

And here is a small hint of what is coming...

First mowing...

Today was the first mowing of the season.

It was a great day outside. The sun was shinning, the temperature was warm, redbuds and Bradford pears and a few crabapples are in bloom. Robins hopped here and there looking for food and picking up twigs and bits of litter to build nests with.

And I fired up the lawnmower to mow the yard.

First I had to go to the gas station and purchase a fresh allotment of gasoline. I added exactly one gallon to the oil mix can to get the right ratio. Three gallons in the big can. That should last me at least half the season.

I should have sharpened the mower blade but I did not. I will do that this weekend. I wanted to get the yard mowed in case it rained tomorrow or Friday.

So I poured some fresh gas in the mower, checked the oil, pulled the rope and brought the beast to life.

Soon the area filled with the sweet smell of fresh mowed grass. There is no other smell like that. I would buy a bottle of cologne of that smell if they could bottle it.

It felt good pushing the mower and trimming up the lawn. I enjoyed the outside and the exercise. But of course this is the first mowing.

Ask me again in 26 weeks and I will probably ask you, “Who's dumbass idea is it to have a lawn to mow anyway...?”

In honor of my father...

Happy Saint Patrick's Day.
Not being Irish it doesn't really mean that much to me.
Not being Catholic does not help either.
Corn beef and cabbage is pretty good. I like it better when they do not turn the cabbage green though. Love corn beef in a ruben.
But even though I am not Catholic, and not Irish I wore green today anyway! More to celebrate spring than anything else. It is finally greening up here.

So to celebrate the warm days and the coming of spring today I repotted the front step pots. These are the pots that last summer had the New Guinea Impatiens planted in them that the Japanese beetles were eating up. That fun can be read here.

I planted a host of Pansies because the pansy is my father's favorite flower. I cannot remember now how I came to know this bit of information. I do remember however it was just kind of given one day by dad. He said that he always thought that they looked like they had a happy face in them. So I thought that I would honor my father and help kick spring into gear today by planting up some.

They look nice in the pots that line the steps to our front door. And as they fill in people who walk down the street will be able to see their blooms as they rise up and over the pot edge. And soon it will be as if a whole host of happy faces are looking out from our front door, welcoming people in our neighborhood.

The Redbuds are blooming... The Redbuds are blooming...

Yes, the redbuds, umm, well, the white buds, errr, I mean the White Redbud's are blooming. Oh hell, I do not know what I mean.

What have we done?

We took a wonderful, small early spring blooming tree, the Cercis canadensis, also known as the Eastern Redbud, and crossed this thing so that it now blooms white. So we now call that tree Cercis canadensis f. alba. Here in these parts, it has become known simply as a White bud. Sounds kind of silly calling it an Eastern Redbud white, or Redbud alba, or any other combination of names people have tried to give it.

Early on in its development, the alba cultivar of the Eastern Redbud did not do well here. Probably 90% of all container grown specimens purchased and planted in the heavy clay soils of Southwest Missouri died within two years. Very high mortality rate.

However over the years now the white flowered cultivar has gotten stronger and its genetic makeup has improved to where you see a lot more of them in the urban landscape.

But we still do not know what to call them.

Spectacular is what I call them when you plant a traditional red flowered cultivar with a white flowered cultivar in the same hole, and let them grow up together so that in three to five years it looks like they are just one multi-stemmed tree.

I would show you a picture of what I was talking about, but the ice storm of 2007 wiped out the specimen that I was familiar with. It was planted on the campus of Missouri State University and every spring it was used to mess with freshman horticulture students. Most thought it was some special graft or natural deviation. It was not. Just two red flowering and one white flowering planted and growing in the same hole. Sure wish I had a picture of it in bloom.

Oh well.

Let us go to the...

Library!

As I write this I am sitting at the Library Center branch of the Springfield–Greene County Library District. Since Mrs. Cherty Rock Farmer has been enrolled in college to get her Paralegal degree, we have been spending many a Saturday and if needed Sunday afternoon here at our beautiful library.



We are very blessed with the library system we have in place. The Library Center branch is the flagship of all the branches (10 total located throughout the county) with 82,000 square feet of beautiful appointments which include a Friends of the Library gift shop; the Mudhouse cafe´ where you can get 4 kinds of fresh brewed coffee, a host of lattes and speciality drinks, salads, sandwiches and sweet treats; private study rooms; 185-seat auditorium; 134-seat public meeting room; five additional meeting rooms; free wireless WIFI, over 50 computer stations with free access to the internet; thousands of music CD's for checkout; hundreds of DVD movies for checkout; genealogy reference library; digital photocopies which accept USB flash drives and no charge for making a digital image; local artist displays and a really cool cloud ceiling in the main hallway.



Did I mention that it is also beautiful?


We love our library. You want to add a Beatles album to your iTunes library? Go to the libraries electronic card catalog, find the album, place a hold on it, and wait. The library staff finds the CD for you, sends you an email when it is ready to be picked up, and holds it for you. What a deal! Add it to your iTunes library, and drop it back in the return cart. How cool is that!



Come visit my library here.


Makes you jealous, huh!



The best tax dollars at work in all of Greene county.

Thank you, Mrs. Cherty Rock Farmer...

This morning has been a bit hectic, for you see, today is the annual event of my birth. It is also the day that I have my annual physical. I mean really, what better way to celebrate such an event than to go to a doctor, and in my case a woman doctor even, and have them prod, poke and inspect places on your person that really should be, well, left un-prodded, un-poked and un-inspected. And the appointment was at 8am. So after doing my thing on the fear motivator, I showered and bolted out of the house.

When I returned home in a much more leisurely pace, I found a wonderful card and a gift-wrapped package waiting for me on the counter, that I honestly did not see as I rushed for the car earlier. And inside the wrapping paper was a wonderful gift. This Calvin and Hobbes Collection to add to my collection!


Thank you Mrs. Cherty Rock Farmer. I love it.

Almost spring...

The weather is toying with us here in Southwest Missouri.

One day it is gray and cloudy, like a typical winter day, till you stick your head out, and it is in the 70's. Wild warm day, just looks ugly out.

Next day it is sunny and bright, but the wind is howling with 25 mph steady winds, and gusts of 40 mph. And it is in the low 60's, so with the wind it feels much cooler.

Winter just does not want to give up its grip here. I keep getting the urge to go dig in the dirt, start some transplanting, get things going, but the weather just isn't cooperating. And of course, on a work day, it is sunny and bright. But it was windy again today.

Won't be long now...