How does this work? Europe has forecast a "mild" recession. The euro, though, is up against the dollar. I guess that could be due to the Greek deal. It just seems odd with Greece's forced debt re-issue being labeled a default by the rating agencies and their bonds declared all but worthless. Crude is bouncing around $106 -- last I checked. But that's because of Iran cutting off European supplies. Right? The equity markets are running pretty strong. Metals are up, too -- although copper, the recession indicator, is not showing much movement.
My guess is that the money the Fed has pumped in for the last couple of years is starting to have an effect. Crude is up because the dollar is down, and Iran is a good excuse. The euro maybe dying, but everything is relative, and, compared to the dollar, the euro doesn't look all that bad. Equities and precious metals are rising on inflation. All those extra dollars have to go somewhere. People are afraid to put them under the mattress.
Good news, my 45-mpg motorcycle with all that storage capacity is starting to look like a prudent investment (even if it does prefer premium). This is $3.50 in FEBRUARY, not exactly the peak of the driving season. Crude is up despite world-wide demand being down and the threat of new or continued recessionary trends. I am not impressed with the fact that there were only 351,000 new UI claims this week.
We have to go to town anyway this afternoon, and I need to buy more coffee. We might as well pick up a few cans of this or that while we are at it. I'll be planting potatoes on St. Pat's, weather permitting. We started going through the seed bins and notes yesterday to see if there is anything we need to order. I haven't planted field corn in a while. I am thinking about a three-sisters planting outside the garden, perhaps over by the pond where it will be easy to water. I might try an something like Inca Blue corn, heirloom red beans, and acorn squash. My neighborhood deer will love it if nothing else.
Vegetarians are the best eatin'.
I can't figure out the potatoes by St. Paddy's day. They are not frost hardy in the least and we will get a damaging frost around here up until mid-May. I must be doing something wrong. So, you are going to do some caloric production with the corn/beans/squash? Good. There are gardeners that grow veg, which really don't produce many calories, and there are GARDENERS who try to grow a significant portion of their calories. I'd like to be the latter, some day. I've been dreaming of a wheat patch for years but I have to finish that pasture fence first.
ReplyDeleteYou make a very good point that a lot of people don't get. Gardens can be a lot of fun and give you good variety in your diet, freshness, and taste, but it is really easy to put in more than you get out.
ReplyDeletePotatoes will stand a pretty hard freeze. I have seen them sprout and the tops be bitten back without much harm to production. St. Patrick's day is mostly a convenient superstition. Any time mid-to-late March through mid-April gives them a good cool growing season. Most of the time, it also happens they will be ready when it's easy to get a few dry days to dig them. It also allows you to follow with a planting of bush beans or something else that grows quickly and likes heat.
And if you use St. Pat's, you get your taters in before you get too busy with other stuff.
Speaking of superstition, my mother had been raised to pay attention the signs in the Zodiac and base certain necessary farming activities on where the "sign" was. If the sign was in the heart, you would want to avoid castrating calves. It would be better to do it when the sign was in the feet. Similarly, root crops should be planted in "dark of the moon" while corn and similar crops should be planted in the "light of the moon".
Dad never paid any attention to the signs. Whenever he saw a new calf in the field, if we could catch it, and if it needed cutting, he cut it. By the way, there is no worse sound in the world than the shrieking of a piglet being castrated. He always just used the "flesh-cutting" blade on a three-blade stockman for calves. He used a razor blade on pigs.
Anyway, we had caught a calf and cut it, and came back to the house. Dad mentioned it to Mom as he was making note of it. She started hunting for the almanac. "You shouldn't have done that," she said, "I think sign's the heart."
Dad replied, "No. It's all right. I looked already. The sign's in the knife." Mom was between a quarter and a half Indian. I think she considered scalping him.
Even more famously, some of the relatives had come by and they were talking. Somebody pronounced, "I always plant my taters in the dark of the moon."
Dad said, "I kinda like to plant mine in the ground."