Helping Hands --- Grill Hambergers

Don't they look adorable in their aprons!

Don't worry - all events were carefully supervised ... and aprons washed after making mud pies for desert.

More Garden

Cucumber - now attaching itself to our entire window screen.

The leaves on this zucchini are bigger than my hand ... now if only it would make Zucchini!

This 1 watermelon plant is approx 4 feet x 6 feet - and growing. We found 1 watermelon. And a HUGE ant bed. UGH. Weeding is very hard because of the ants.

We still have 8 of the 9 cantelopes - but they are not looking very well. Next time we will put them in containers too.

The Garden

Carrots have really taken off!

We only trim enough for the meals we want green onion and it just keeps growing.

Banana Peppers

Maybe by the end of summer - we'll have enough extra to put up some tomatoe sauce for our spaghetti dinners.

Highlights of our Heat Wave

These were just the ones that came out alright - remember the clock is 2 hours off, so add up.

Later it did hit 105.6 in the shade and was 86.4 in the house - but I was too hot to hunt down the camera and take a picture.

It's been hot again the last couple of days - but the house is not getting much over 83 by the end of the day!

Thank Goodness!

And the car's AC is dead yet again. Something bigger than the AC must be wrong for it to quit so often - works fine in the fall and spring, just not in the summer! And it's so expensive to fix it, especially with no income.

Tim's taking it for a second opinion on Monday, and he's borrowing my Dad's big car when he's got Marriana with him this week - not often, but they are doing VBS this week, so he drives them down for that. I don't drive at all.

I do try to get out of the house in the early hours of the morning - before 10am - when the weather is still "cool" enough to sit outside and watch the little ones and get a little Vit. D.

Which Antibiotics are More Dangerous and Should be Avoided at All Costs?

Which Antibiotics are More Dangerous and Should be Avoided at All Costs?: "Which Antibiotics are More Dangerous and Should be Avoided at All Costs?"

Excerpt from an open letter to Congressman Holt from Jay S. Cohen, M.D. about severe, disabling reactions linked to Cipro, Levaquin, and other fluoroquinolone antibiotics:
Dear Congressman Holt,
Thank you for taking the time to speak with people concerned about, or injured from, reactions associated with fluoroquinolone antibiotics (e.g. Levaquin, Cipro, Floxin, Tequin). I am the author of a study about severe, long-term fluoroquinolone reactions published in the December 2001 issue of the Annals of Pharmacotherapy.
These severe reactions are occurring in patients who are usually healthy, active, and young. Most often, the antibiotics are prescribed for mild infections such as sinusitis, urinary or prostate infections. Most reactions occur very quickly, sometimes with just a few doses of the fluoroquinolone antibiotic. Reactions are acute, severe, frightening, and often disabling.
Since the publication of my article with its 45 cases two and a half years ago, I have received e-mails from more than 100 people seeking help for their reactions. In most cases, their doctors have dismissed their complaints or outright denied that the reactions could occur with fluoroquinolones.
Yet extensive medical workups do not find any other cause. Worse, there are no known effective treatments. Thus, these people suffer pain and disability for weeks, months, and years.
I hope you will look seriously at this problem and respond accordingly. These people need your help. This is a largely preventable problem.
Thank you.
Jay S. Cohen, M.D.
Associate Professor
Departments of Family and Preventive Medicine and of Psychiatry

University of California, San Diegohttp://www.MedicationSense.com





............... click on the title for the full article

Making a monkey out of Darwin

Making a monkey out of Darwin: "Making a monkey out of Darwin


Posted: June 29, 2009
8:48 pm Eastern

© 2009
'You have no notion of the intrigue that goes on in this blessed world of science,' wrote Thomas Huxley. 'Science is, I fear, no purer than any other region of human activity; though it should be.'
As 'Darwin's bulldog,' Huxley would himself engage in intrigue, deceit and intellectual property theft to make his master's theory gospel truth in Great Britain.
He is quoted above for two reasons.
First is House passage of a 'cap and trade' climate-change bill. Depending on which scientists you believe, the dire consequences of global warming are inconvenient truths – or a fear-mongering scheme to siphon off the wealth of individuals and empower bureaucrats.
The second is publication of 'The End of Darwinism: And How a Flawed and Disastrous Theory Was Stolen and Sold,' by Eugene G. Windchy, a splendid little book that begins with Huxley's lament."


............ read the full article by clicking on the title.

Shocking Facts of GM’s History and Current Bankruptcy

Shocking Facts of GM’s History and Current Bankruptcy: "Shocking Facts of GM’s History and Current Bankruptcy



The automobile did not end up dominating American transportation by chance -- or by public choice. There was a plan by automakers to buy up and destroy mass transit companies. General Motors led the way.

In the 1920s, many American cities and towns were connected by a network of electric railroads and interurban trolleys. Within cities, electric street railways, trolleys, and elevated trains moved large numbers of people easily and cheaply.

But between 1920 and 1955, General Motors bought up more than 100 electric mass transit systems in 45 cities, allowed them to deteriorate, and then replaced them with rubber-tired, diesel-powered buses. Buses are more expensive, less efficient, and much dirtier than electric/rail systems -- and of course automobiles are even less efficient than buses."


.............. sounds interesting and want more? click on the title to go to the full article.

Personally - we live in the country, and public transportation is not an option. But having a car is a huge chunk of our budget between gas and upkeep, the car is paid for, but now the AC is again not working, added to a long list of "not working" electronic items, like rolling the window up and down, or popping the trunk.

When we lived in Colorado, we had just the one car, but I was able to ride the buses and get where I needed to go when I really wanted to do so. I had 3 different bus lines withing easy walking distance and could pick and choose depended on where I wanted to go - it wasn't perfect - one transfer was a 50 minute wait on a shadeless corner without a bench. I chose instead to walk the 2 miles home and usully was within site of the house when the bus I would have taken overtook me. Then I discovered the trails connecting a series of elementery and Jr. high school and parks - and made a game of walking the trails and getting home before the bus! It was fun - but that was before children too.