Now that we’re approaching April, I hope all you wanna-be gardeners are readying your seeds and plants for the coming growing season. When young on the farm, we used to have several large cold frames which were used to start nearly every vegetable we grew from seed. We always had very good luck with the growth of those seedlings because they were being grown in the same soil they would later transplanted into. Believe it or not, there was one year I purposely counted all the tomato plants that had survived their transplants, and if my memory serves me, there were 575 of them. Now just think, a healthy tomato plant can usually produce a bushel of tomatoes during its growing season. Now you’ve got the picture of how many bushels went to market that year.
Another bottle of ground hot peppers went to an associate who received one from me the last time I was giving them out. I causally asked if he needed any more, and discovered that he’d used all of what I’d given him, while praising the ability of it to enhance the flavor of food. He also mentioned how the color of this year’s bottle had changed to a bright orange. I did read somewhere a number of years ago that it’s heart healthy. I think the main reason there are those who refuse to eat anything containing chili peppers, is that they’d likely eaten something with too much in it. For beginners, a very little goes a long way. It’s always better to be warmed than burned. I’ll never forget the time when working in our garden and deciding to eat a raw, and very ripe jalapeno pepper while out there working. Oh Mercy! I couldn’t get the fire to stop to where I felt as though my whole insides were in flames. Like I said, one has to build up tolerance before jumping head first into a possible sea of fire.
Only one home showing is scheduled for me tomorrow, and it happens to be at 21 – 11th St. NE here in Mason City. I guess we couldn’t have picked a worse day, but when people have time off from work, we have to schedule accordingly. I do hope the buyers decide to purchase it because structurally, it’s about as rock-solid as you can get, but there’s a whole lot of cosmetics and upgrades to be done. I’m convinced whomever does purchase it, will likely six months later be all the happier they decided to buy it.
One of my duties after work was to go and get a sympathy card purchased for a person with whom I worked with a number of years ago. Several days ago, I was informed by a relative that the end will come in a few days. Now that they’ve closed the Hallmark stores in Mason City, I had to think for a bit, and then headed in the direction of a drugstore. I always feel sad for those whose barely functioning bodies are still trapped in beds while they’re forced to listen to the whisperings of death until their final moments arrive. It always saddens me whenever thinking about it while wishing there was some sort of invisible switch they could mentally flip when they’ve decided it’s time to leave this earth. No one has ever been able to convince me there’s a purpose in suffering.
