More Real Gardener Viewer Stuff
 

For almost a full year now The Real Garden has been
the television program we don't fail to see each week.
 We even bought a new vcr capable of recording channel
77, so that we could manage the conflict of scheduled
events.  I've missed the program just once.
Fortunately,  my partner took notes for me. I
know that others out there are just as hooked on the
show as we are. I see traffic to a web page I created
as a ReaL Garden viewer.

It is not necessary to be a gardener to enjoy and
learn from the program.  Jason's interest in gardening
is something that the viewer is very likely to share
vicariously.  Even though we may not understand the
science involved as well as an accomplished gardener,
we may still appreciate the experimentation.  The
camera work never fails to thrill.  We see small seeds
and insects, not just there and gone, but as though we
were really in the garden and able to peer into its
lushness.

The shared interest of The Real Garden is really a
celebration of life's generous nature.  Jason brings a
host of viewers into his basement laboratory where
each of us gets a good look at what is
being built, the seeds that are sprouting, the twigs
that are taking root.  And in various ways the program
encourages us to each share something that is of
particular interest to us.  Jason's rants enlarge the
scope from the garden to the planet and invite the
viewer to do a little digging of their own for
something that may be discovered, examined and shared.

The Real Garden stars; Prudence, Miss Kitty, Natasha,
and Cleopatra thrill us every week as they open the
program feeding and producing the most credible
sounds of interest and contentment.  The lovely quiet,
simplicity, and dignity is priceless. The Real Garden
is gentle, energetic, generous, honest, and bountiful.
 Make it prime time on scantv, please.

Tom Wolfsehr
West Seattle
 
 
 
 

The names of the chickens on The Real Garden program

Miss Kitty (Big paisly blond)

Prudence (Rhode Island Red)
http://www.the-coop.org/redsquare/redsqr1.html

Cleopatra (little blond with the beard and muff)
http://www.backyardchickens.com/breeds/americaunas.html

Nastasha (Black/Beetle Green sheen)
http://www.backyardchickens.com/breeds/australorps.html

The program is airing Thursdays at 6:30 p.m.

Some e-mails and notes relating to TRG:

Jell-O :What's in it these days?
email to libertarian
Rumsfeld's Rules Amusement
times ten revisited
new chicken trail
Jerry takes notes so as to fill me in on program I missed
initial praise of TRG
Mother Duck
Compost tea percolator
times ten
TRG as inspiration for Saville garden

Last week (May 20) Jason showed a contraption he made
with various discard parts, which brews compost tea. A blower
sends air into the system at the bottom, where it mixes with
the cycling tea, which bubbles up a tube to the funnel, where
it percolates through the compost and flows down a pipe to
the resevoir where it is again mixed with air and bubbled up
again.

The chickens tore up the fava bean plants

Jason,

Thinking of the viewer you referenced, the one who
suggested you have a beer and relax rather than rant
and judging by the peppers and mention of salsa as an
eventual product of TRG, how about a Margarita before
the next rant?  That may not be the way it works for
you, but I have been so nicked by this crap-ass sock puppet
crew excuse for a government that now on my
second gin and tonic, with lime, now isn't that nice,
I am ready to address the senate with Schumer
regarding:
 

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_10-8-2004_pg7_49
   Daily Times - Site Edition

This is another in a series of outrageous lapses in
which political advantage is taken at the expense of
national interest. Chalabi got secret info about our
having broken the Iranian code. And of course he blabs
it to the Iranians. Sheesh - what could that loss cost
us and for how long?  What a time to lose an
intelligence source like that!  And the Wilson-Plame
leak was really much much more than the exposure of
Plame.  When her cover was blown, so was a vital
intelligence source in Saudi Arabia.  Yikes! Now this
Khan thing.  I think George Senior would completely
understand my harangue on this subject. Is Dubya's
administration's reasoning that since we didn't have
great intelligence on WMD in Iraq, intelligence
sources don't really matter?

Just had to get that off my chest.

Your comparison of the hens to Roman senators is apt,
especially if it suggests the high period before the
civil wars. The Romans valued the abilities of birds.
Taking the auspices, is but the most obvious example.
The dignity you observe in the senate of four is
magnificent. That is the glory, according to Cicero,
or perhaps I should say Varro, might well be better
exemplified by Prudence, Cleopatra, Miss Kitty, and
Natasha, than by any four members of our Senate.

All the best,

Tom

Was thinking today about your comcast question - but
the crap-ass sock puppet excuses and their outrages
got me going.  I'll get back to it. 

Jason & Christine;

Thank you for letting us know what it was you would
have said about Cheney. I read your e-mail to Jerry
just before watching Thursday's program. (Jerry was
particularly amused by the suggestion that powdered
wigs might reappear.) And what a program it was.

Hearing that there were viewers who had a completely
different response was good. The primary election rant
was right on. The new chicken run was so much fun.
Just love those hens. And isn't it true that with
chickens comes the opportunity to see that there are
qualities of intelligence so varied that one may have
great respect for the quality of the kind of
intelligence Miss Kitty may have that makes her such
an important member of the garden community?

The thinning or pruning for air circulation in the
dense lower portion of the tomato plants (or were
those pepper plants? - no the pepper plants are not
that tall), complete with the precaution of
sterilizing the blade between plants, was impressive.
Clearly that is a chore that takes a good deal of time
and effort. Yet, as you say, it is important as
preventative of the infections that can set in where a
dankness is allowed to develop.

Loved the pollenation of peppers and the protective
paper coverings. These things are all of interest for
a variety of reasons. For one, I've been working on a
story that I had long ago decided would be set in a
garden. Since we found TRG, my idea about that garden
setting has changed and improved a good deal. It seems
to me that much of what you do in The Real Garden
could also have been done in the summer of 1798 in
England. I've been thinking Sussex.

The garden of Hector and Margaret Saville, with its
lushness and application of science, is much improved
by TRG as the source of inspiration. It helps a good
deal, and every bit helps, as I am not a writer.
Sometimes there is something a reader wants so much to
read that hasn't been written that it is necessary to
attempt to write it.

When I see the wealth of science - search and
discovery - in TRG, I see the perfect counterpart that
the Savilles need to be.  They cannot fail to
recognize the irresistible impulse to try to discover
the answers to the inexhaustible questions which
Margaret's brother, Robert Walton, has gone to explore
where the sun never sets.  You see, Jason, you
mentioned that Barrow sunset for the first time since
sometime in May in the program Thursday, something
that I think about so much.

I like the idea for a movie or a play, but will have
to create it as a story for now. To some the idea may
have real value as a way of revisiting something
familiar in a novel way. As imagination is essential
to science, it is no less essential to religion.
Thomas Paine's sense of what religion is, that is a
system of respect for and appreciation of life, that
it tests.  So the Savilles' garden, with all its
science, is the setting for the exploration of the
possibilities of the barren arctic. Questions
regarding what Walton attests to having happened, so
long ignored, will make sense here.
Robert Owen ususally referred to religion as
"so-called religion" as a way of speaking of the
shell, as it were, which is taken for the living
thing. So, if the need for a system of restoring
sanity is discussed, what Thomas Paine described as
the true religion may assume its place in conversation
and not be confused with superstition.

And the rants - how fitting.  1798 French invasion of
England or at least a Welsh village. A visit to the
Godwin home 1811 would find Aaron Burr living there!
Hail Mary Shelley! With a bit more umph, I may triumph
yet.

Every comedy, as every tragedy, is the result of
things that are most important being ruled by things
of lesser importance. It is a common and often
unnoticed disorder. The purpose of religion (the Latin
language alone made the distinction between religion
and superstition) is to assist us in recovering our
sanity -liberating the things of greatest importance
from the tyranny of things of lesser importance. That
is consistent with, if not the sense of, the preface
to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, or the Modern
Prometheus.

I hope in some way you will gather from this, if
nothing else, that your willingness to share your
garden with us viewers has benefits beyond measure.
I'm not saying that I am certain to succeed at this
venture, but if not, it will not be for the first
time.

Christine, I will try to do for the Savilles' garden
what you do for The Real Garden. It is good to have
your success to study and learn from.

Tom

Dear Jason,

Very interesting planting program with focus on soil
structure this week. Chickens and camera work are also
much appreciated. Wow, the root loosening on that
second tomato plant was outstanding. I've wondered,
since the beetles on the asperagus, if a special lense
is used for use on such small subjects. And, although
we had to miss the last five minutes of the previous
week's program, the machine you built to percolate the
tea was a big hit.

We wonder about the use of bone meal. At the site
below I saw alfalfa meal is mentioned as a substitute.
(Not to be scary, but we have dispensed with jelly
beans and other confections that contain gelatin,
though it is hard to remember at times and we have
slipped.) Processing is so slap dash, although bone
meal should be free of the prions, contamination is a
danger. I've meant to ask some gardening friends about
this, but keep forgetting. One is particularly careful
not to use toxic stuff. Another doesn't have cable so
can't see your program. It is so regrettable that we
can't record your program, not only for our own
rewatching, but for sharing with the uncabled as well.

The tax matters you mentioned reminded me of
"Perfectly Legal" (can't recall the author) which
describes how shifted burden has been.  Author was
recently on radio with Enron example of tax break
essentially paid for by the poorest most in need
residents of Oregon.
 

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/prof/msg0114263518709.html

Several years ago we took the train from Prague to
Budapest and along the way saw many small gardens and
garden homes between the river and the tracks. I often
think of them in connection with your program. In The
Real Garden we witness a wealth of interest,
understanding and appreciation for the greater garden
our world is through the part of it covered by the
program. It is such a happy and interesting place to
visit. The political element reminds us that the
larger world also needs our care.
 

Peanuts to Natasha, Prudence, Miss Kitty, and
Cleopatra,

Tom
 

Defense of the special laws that allow the majority of major corporations to avoid paying any income tax at all often has presented the reasoning I quoted:  "If corporations are taxed, we will have to pay more for the the products and services, because those corporations will have to add their "cost" (the tax) to the priceof the product or service.  This "truth" is supposed to end the discussion of whether the direction we been going for decades is the right one. Less and less of the income tax burden is borne by corporations.  But, hey, prices are low.

What is wrong with being responsible for our choices?  Wouldn't a Libertarian would prefer that? Why should an organic vegetarian pay part of the cost of a hamburger and fries, when the processes used to produce them poison land, air and water? The organic vegetarian should pay for part of the cost of the happy meals she doesn't eat? She should do that so as to help keep the happy meal cost down and the meat eating folk happy? And then she should pay her share of cleaning up the land air and water that were spoiled to make happy meals she didn't eat?

Those systems that tend to conceal the real costs and consequences of choices are inferior to those systems that do not conceal the real costs and consequences of choices.

The war with Iraq and all the consequences that come with it might have been avoided, if the public had been informed of all the relevant facts in advance.  Here's another bit, not much, but the pile is getting high with little bits. Newsweek magazine now has emails showing that Cheney lied when he said he had nothing to do with Halliburton getting the contracts for moving all the saiboat fuel about the desert.  Halliburton may not be a real corporation in your book, but it is costing real  money, lives and adding to real debt and real problems.

Re insurance & FEMA - the story I read recently involved federal funds expended to add sand to a beach when expensive homes had been built. In some cases beaches are lost because natural flooding that carries the beach building particles is stopped by dams or other controls deem an advantage upstream. We took a course in "Waves and Beaches" years ago.

Tom

Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 06:10:17 -0700 (PDT) From: "Tom Wolfsehr"
Subject: Rumsfeld's Rules Amusement
To: therealgarden@yahoo.com

Jason & Christine
We are so glad trg will continue in the event Bush loses the election. We both commented about the restraint of last week's rant. Jerry's comment was that it was not fair to mention another item concerning Cheney and then censor the item. Jerry prefaced his comment with the strongest qualification possible. "I teach third grade," he said. Not using the word 'scab' in a rant, suggests that our sponsors are the likes of Darigold and Safeway. We say let them withdraw their support if they find the word offensive. We had an Indian Rope plant, but a few years ago it got infected with something that rhymed with blab.

Jerry called the following to my notice and I thought of sending it on to you with the idea that you be emboldened in the rant department.
                                 *************
The Atlantic Monthly - September page 40 Rumsfeld's Rules Revisited Shortly after Donald Rumsfeld was appointed Secretary of Defense, the Department of Defense Web site posted a list of "Rumsfeld's Rules of "government, business and life." The rules which, the new Secretary had begun touting in the mid-1970s, while serving as chief of staff for President Gerald Ford, were frequently cited as a blueprint for Rumsfeld's managerial style. "Establish good relations between the departments of Defense and State, the National Security Council, CIA and the Office of Management and Budget." Don't divide the world into 'them' and 'us.' Avoid infatuation with or resentment of the press, the Congress, rivals, or opponents. Accept them as facts. They have their jobs and you have yours. "Don't do or say things you would not like to see on the front page of the Washington Post." "If you fould up, tell the president and correct it fast. Delay only compounds mistakes." Be able to resign. It will improve you value to the president and do wonders for your performance." "Your performance depends on your people depends on your people. Select the best, train them, andback them. When errors occur, give sharper guidance. Iff errors persist or if the fit feels wrong, help them move on." "It is easier to get into something thant to get out of it."                             ****************
We love The Real Garden! Long live The Real Garden! The Real Garden has real fans.
By the way, when I googled "the real garden" and "jason" I got my own page "chickens".

All the best,

Tom

Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 18:14:40 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Tom Wolfsehr"
Subject: times ten revisited
To: therealgarden@yahoo.com

Dear Jason and Christine,

ãToo many make the mistake of thinking Dick Cheney is the real power in the Bush administration,ä says one senior Homeland Security aide. ãTheyâre wrong. Itâs Ashcroft and that is reason enough for all of us to be very, very afraid.ä

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/printer_4930.shtml

If Bush gets a second term, I predict he will appoint Ashcroft to the Supreme Court. My Libertarian friend says that Ashcroft could not be confirmed. Tell that to Nader. And how else could there be an active Dubya legacy? I hope not to be proven right about this. But it was a year ago that I was telling Lou Pate that Bush was at times delusional. Now Capitol Hill Blue is close to saying as much.

All the best,

Tom