Oh man! I finally bought this album from Amazon MP3 store. It has been many years since I have had a chance to listen to the whole thing--my first copy was a cassette tape. I forgot how much I love this album. "The Reality Of My Surroundings" and "truth and Soul" are two albums that really stretched my idea of what a band could do. They truly pressed outside of the strictly ska background, reaching into Soul, Funk, R&B and Thrash.

Finally! This year we had a great turnout for Trick-or-Treat. There have been many new families moving into the neighborhood. Maybe next year I will decorate the lawn with tombstones and other Halloween stuff.

I have seen the "classroom" explaination of Socialism posted on Facebook and sent to me directly be email.
The summary of the story is that students are all given an average rating acording to how the class did as a whole--this is Socialism. The example contains false logic and does not represent Socialism or social programs.

Just added some new color to the Backyard. Pink Lace azalea, Santa Margarita Penstamon, and Astromeria Peruvian Lily.

Plant List

Since the year has not provided much in the way of rain and the days have been warm, we decided to buy some plants at Regan's Nursery. We bought a couple of plants and some ground cover. The roses were fed, because there is so much new growth during these warm months.

Aquilegia 'Northern Lights' - grows to 2', perennial and deciduous, hardy to 0deg.

Rose - Iceberg

Alyssum - for around the maple

Soleirolii 'Baby Tears' - ground cover between the flag stones.

List of plants and notes

I live in an area with poor soil. I grew up with rich alluvial soil under my feet. The soil I have my plants in happens to be very clayey. My wife and I have started a yearly addition of organic matter soil amendment. I have outlined here the simple soil tests used to determine soil type and drainage rate.

I have so many plants in the backyard, I needed a place to keep my notes. I have compiled this list from the internet and book sources.

The day before Father's Day I took my dad to the Blackhawk Automotive Museum in Danville. This was a fun day for the whole family. The museum had a few outstanding cars on display. The black marble floor and overhead lighting made the car's paint jobs shine like jewels.

These are some of the recipes I have gathered from different sources for Bloody Mary Mix.

Single Glass mix from Randi
Bloody Mary mix: pepper, dash of Worcestershire, horse radish (to taste) celery salt a dash, hot sauce to taste, oyster sauce to taste (or none), all in about 3-4oz tomato juice...put in glass with celery stalk and enjoy...very basic but really good fresh.

Randi's Mix
tomato juice
lime juice
ground horseradish
Worcestershire
minced garlic
celery salt
whole black pepper corns

Refrigerate over night

We went to our local nursery to purchase a few more plants for the backyard. At the end of our shopping spread, we had purchased a Camelia, a few annuals, a trellis and a bag of azalea potting mix. My job, as per usual, was to prepare the ground and plant the Camelia. I had a half-bag of perlite which I worked into the ground. I created a nice low mound to plant the Camelia on and support the trellis.

My other jobs during the planting was to cut down (remove large diameter branches) from the photinia. The plant is a hazard to the yard and the cars parked nearby. This cut-down has been two years in the process. Two years ago during a rain storm, I was outside at 10:30pm trimming the long branches off the tree that kept hitting our house. A year ago, I was so fed up with the gargantuan mess that I trimmed the tree (normally a bush) from its 30 foot height to 15 feet. That did not kill the resilient "weed", so finally yesterday I brought it down to four feet. I will remove the trunk and grind out the stump when I have a chainsaw. The benefit to removing the "weed" is improved sunlight for the maple and all plants on the side of the house.