The Gardeners Anonymous Blog

Men In Make-Up, Mountain Lions And Marijuana

A few days ago I received two phone calls from my neighbors then ran into a third neighbor who mentioned the same thing: A mile up the road from my house were two Game Warden vehicles and out of the vehicles came 8 or more men dressed in camo from head to toe.

These men were even wearing camouflage face paint and were carrying very large assault rifles. 

They unloaded from the trucks and disappeared into the bushes and down a steep trail where I have never seen a human go before. 

I’d seen a coyote and two rattlesnakes go down that trail, but never a human. 

All three neighbors asked the same thing: What do you think these camouflaged, gun-toting guys are doing running down a trail where people usually don’t go? 

Well, I thought to myself, you have come to the right person because I have my figure on the pulse of this mountain. I am “in the know.” 

To each and everyone my reply was the same. I told them that I heard there had been a pot farm bust the week before at a different location on the mountain and that this was probably a continuation of the same operation.

All three of my neighbors reply was the same. “Are you sure they’re not going to shoot the lions? They were in Game Warden trucks?” 

“Nay-nay” said I.

They wouldn’t go to all the trouble to shoot a couple of lions that hadn’t hurt anyone.

My neighbors breathed sighs of relief and went about their day. Except one. I’m not going to mention her name because she is a friend and I wouldn’t want to make her look bad.

She called a few minutes later and said that she’d been told that the game warden and his posse were there to shoot the lions. 

What! 

My mind was spinning. I was angry. How could they? 

The lions hadn’t hurt anyone.

I needed to do something and I needed to do it fast. I had to stop eight burly guys with semi-automatic weapons from shooting my beloved lions.

So I looked down at the fluffy white poodle I was dog sitting and sprang into action. I threw little Chloe along with Moondoggie in my car and drove up the mountain.

Chloe on my lap

The Game warden trucks were parked along the road at the hairpin turn, a turn I call The Bay Tunnel. I was shaking with anger when I parked my Volvo station wagon behind one of the extended cab, Eddie Bauer green 4wd trucks and jumped out of my car in to the dirt shoulder.

I started around the trucks to the narrow path. The path I had never seen any human go down. But I was going down it wearing my Cole Hahn strappy sandals and my yoga pants.

“Excuse me, Excuse me, Hey, is there is anyone one there? Don’t shoot me.”

“Is anyone around, hello?” I yelled to the camo game warden and his crew. 

I had relocated two rattlesnakes to this very path and the last time was hiking in yoga pants near rattlesnakes well, all I can say is—Sixty-Six Vials Of Antivenin.

I started to get stickers in the bottom of my yoga pants and I looked down to see a fine layer of dust over my Boca Raton Pedicure and my Cole Hahns. 

I had visions in my head or stripping down to my undies and swinging through the trees holding a spear, a la Avatar.

I could hear the Door’s song, “The End,” playing in my head as I saw myself slowly ascending from the bottom of a pond in front of the Game Warden and his team of killers dressed in my own, more fashionable camo make-up, with a knife between my teeth.

Then… 

A wild berry vine looped over my foot and scratched my ankle so I turned back.

Blue Zones, Longevity, and Gardening

Although I don’t watch Oprah very much, I do like to watch Oprah when Dr. Oz is on—and that cute interior designer, Nate.

I did watch part of a segment about “Blue Zones.”

Blue Zones is a project of a longevity researcher named Dan Buettner, who studies the regions of the world where people commonly live active lives—past the age of 100 years.

These longevity hot-spots include Sardinia, Italy; Loma Linda, California; and Okinawa, Japan.

In each of these communities, people have certain routines and peculiarities. Here are some of their lifestyle details:

In Sardinia, the indigenous people are culturally isolated, and they get constant moderate physical exercise. They eat fava beans, whole grain bread, they drink goat’s milk, and they also drink a special dark red wine that is high in polyphenol.

The people who live in Loma Linda have very active social lives—a lot of which are centered on faith. And they eat locally grown fresh nuts.

In Okinawa, they have no sense of time urgency. They consume a lot of soy. They don’t drink alcohol, and they eat a lot of tumeric.

Besides a common emphasis on family and eating a plant-based diet, guess what else they all share?

Yes. They all spend time in the sun and enjoy gardening.

Gardeners live longer!

We are so smart.

Please Help Me Change Blogger Back

Sorry that I haven’t been leaving comments on a lot of your blogs.
I really wanted to, but Blogger has not been making it easy lately.

All of a sudden, Blogger has changed their comment section enough to make it impossible for anyone who doesn’t have a Blogger account to link back to their blog when they leave a comment. So the only way to leave a comment is to leave it anonymously—unless you have the owner of the blog set up special options for the non-Blogger bloggers.

Mr. Brown Thumb was one of these: a Blogger member who was so kind as to change his comment section to accommodate other blog hosts. Thank you.

Even if the comment section is modified to include other blog hosts you still cannot leave a live link back to your own blog. I was wondering if Google had let their customers know that this change was going to occur.

It was really frustrating to type a comment for someone and then go to leave it—and realize that I can’t. At first I thought that something was wrong with Blogger and their system was down. After all how stupid to make a change to something that works fine all ready, unless you were going to improve upon it.

Instead they inconvenienced everyone.

And made it worse.

Annie in Austin left a comment on my blog telling me that the “Cultivated” blog had a paste in fix that I could try. I tried it. It works but your site shows up in the comment window.

Why does Google/Blogger want to make this so difficult?

Hey I’m a child of the sixties. Well, I was 12 when the sixties became the seventies but I remember not giving into “The Establishment”. I remember fighting “The System”. I remember the summer of love. I remember Woodstock.

I smell a conspiracy. I smell a merging monopoly. You remember the game Monopoly don’t you? Only one person wins and it is always, always…my eleven-year-old son.

Some people seem to be upset about this but for the most part life goes on in the blogosphere. Some of my blogging friends have even talked about switching to Blogger or getting an account just to leave a comment.

Don’t do it.

Save Darfur

I went to a fundraiser Sunday. It was film and lecture about the continuing genocide in Darfur Sudan.

The name of the film was God Grew Tired of Us. Directed by Christopher Dillon Quinn, co-directed by Tom Walker.

The subject of the film was the Lost Boys of Sudan. The film focuses on three of the Lost Boys of Sudan who were forced to leave their war-torn country of Sudan. Along with 25,000 other boys they were forced to leave their families and homes, and flee on foot from Sudan to Ethiopia and then to Kenya to keep from being slaughtered by the Sudanese Arab rebels and Radical Islamic factions.

The boys ranged in age from four years old to teenagers. They made a five-year Journey with hardly any food or water. Many died from starvation and dehydration. Many were murdered. Only 12,000 survived.

Most of the film takes place in the United States when these three boys are given the opportunity to leave their camp in Kenya—leaving behind the surviving boys who have now become their extended family.

The film follows the boys to the U.S. through their culture shock of having nothing to having more than they ever bargained for. They struggle with understanding modern conveniences, holding down jobs and the prejudice and isolation that comes from being dropped like fish out of water into the fast pace of a first-world country. They deal with the haunting memories of their incredibly difficult journey and of the family and friends they left behind.

The purpose of the fundraiser was to raise money to purchase solar cookers for the boys as well as for families. They have a hard time finding fuel to burn. This has created a huge problem with deforestation in the area. And searching for fuel exposes them to danger and violence.

The one thing these people have in abundance is sunshine. The solar cookers cost about $20.00 apiece, are lightweight, easy to use, and easy to ship.

For information on how you can help, please go to savedarfur.org.

I took my two boys to see the movie because sometimes they don't know how lucky they are.