I was a bit busier than usual yesterday, so I missed my afternoon nap. I hate it when that happens! Consequently, I started to get somewhat heavy-lidded by 10:30 last night, which is unusual for me. I normally stay up until around 1:00 AM, watching late night talk shows, reading late email and listening to soft jazz.
Getting sleepy before midnight got me started thinking back a ways to the days before television and the Internet. I remember that the old folks back then went to bed early, about the time the chickens did, and normally used the rooster’s crowing as their alarm clock. I suppose some still do, but a few people must be watching the late shows besides me. Times sure have changed. Anyhow, missing my afternoon nap explains why I went to bed just after 11:00 last night and was up before 7:00 this morning.
I started a fresh pot of coffee, stuck a cup of yesterday’s coffee in the microwave for about a minute — we didn’t have microwaves back in the Dark Ages, either — and took my yesterday’s coffee out to a comfortable chair on the porch to watch the fish jumping in the bayou. I didn’t get much of the old coffee down before the new pot was ready. Just as well; bayou water would have tasted about as good as the warmed-over stuff.
So I relaxed with my cup of fresh coffee, watched the fish jump, kept track of the squirrels that were running round-and-round several big oak trees in the back lot and watched a couple of pelicans cruising back and forth, looking for breakfast. Then I noticed how the early sunlight made leaves and tree-trunks across the bayou look red, instead of brown. I figured you might like to see it too. It’s interesting to compare it to the photo at the top.
Related articles
- Let’s raise a fair-trade toast to National Coffee Day! (coolmompicks.com)
- Wake up and smell the coffee (newstalk.ie)
- I can’t quit you – ♥ Coffee (pulpsushi.typepad.com)
Eat Well Now, ‘Cause There’s Hard Times A’comin’!
I promised — well, sorta promised — my co-editor last week that I would stay away from politics, and I intend to stick to that promise. Once in a while I might put a phrase or sentence in a post that refers to politics, but no specifics or names. (I hope Bill lets this caveat get past him.)
Where balmy breezes blow, to and fro…
What I was thinking about, while sitting her on the porch under a ceiling fan, is how unusually hot it is here in the Deep South this year. Then I recalled either reading or seeing on the TV that folks living in the Midwest are taking vacations in Arizona to get away from the heat! I lived in the Southeast Arizona high desert for a couple summers, so I wish ‘em luck on that one. So far Tucson has had its hottest Spring and early Summer in eight years, and it’s only reached 107 degrees. Some spots in the Midwest hit temperatures above 110 degrees several times in May and June, with far higher humidity (and thus heat index) than they have in the Southwest, even in the current monsoon season.
Now I that with most of the folks living in air-conditioned homes and working in air-conditioned places it has been bearable — if you ignore the electric bills — but think about the farmers and ranchers having to work outside in that heat. And that’s not the half of it, either. Corn, wheat, soybean and hay fields are drying up. There is plenty of food on grocery shelves and prices haven’t gone up a whole lot so far, but what happens later? Farmers are plowing under fields of corn and soybeans that have shriveled in the hot sun without water. Ranchers are selling off their cows and calves because the ponds are drying up or are already dry. There is no corn for silage, and not enough grass for hay.
Feed lots have enough feed for the cattle right now, but when the new fall supplies don’t arrive, they’ll be selling beef and hogs real cheap. Expect meat prices to begin to fall in November and December when the feedlots and the ranchers and hog and chicken growers are getting rid of animals they won’t be able to feed, and there won’t be enough freezer space to store all of it. The butcher houses will be pumping out a whole lot more to the distributors than usual. Prices will have to fall and stores will lower prices in order to sell more.
But stock up on meat and eat well this coming holiday season. Fatten up, because what will happened to the supply and prices of meat and staple foods that rely on corn, wheat and soybeans will certainly make a tight spot in your food budget for next year!
Share this:
Like this: