remember the fifth of november

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_Transfer_Day  image used by means of creative commons

Remember to close your account with a big bank that is.

Kristen Christiansen, a gallery owner in LA, has organized tens of thousands of people on Facebook to close their accounts with Too Big To Fail banks  and open accounts with credit unions or small banks on what has been named bank transfer day.

make me laugh & get a free birch tree

yes _you_ could win this fabulous new birch tree.  see below for details.

I have this beautiful little birch tree in a 10 gallon pot sitting in my back yard.  It's about 12 feet tall and maybe an inch and a half across at the base.  I planted it three growing seasons ago, as a little 3-foot twig with some roots at the bottom.  It has been the focal point of the western side of the rain garden for a few years now, just starting to get some white bark, turning from the coppery color that the new bark usually is, starting to get some character.  Everything was going fine until...

ides of october

Leaves are falling, wind is blowing, our compost pile is overflowing.

We raked leaves today, piling all of them up, from our front and back yards into one huge pile, taller than either of the kids, and let them jump into it, slide into it from their play slide, bury themselves in leaves.  I forget how much I loved jumping into leaves and getting lost in leaf piles that seemed so so big when I was so little.

getting fleeced at the apple orchard

the little guy insisted that i put him up in the tree so he could pick his own apples

It seems like my wish for the global economic system to collapse already is coming true this week.  Europe is coming apart at the seams, and at home Americans are occupying Wall Street.  The mass media is even covering it now, so it must really be happening.