respublica

Such a storm-It was defined as "training"

The St. Louis area had huge storms last night beginning around dinner time. I'm not remembering that local weather people predicted such violent weather, but that is what we got. I was driving over to my daughter's house around 6 and was on Jamison when all of a sudden a light rain turned to torrents of water, wind and hail.  When I started out the light was like every night an hour before dusk, but on Jamison the evening turned dark as midnight. Stop signs were bending in the wind and the rain was coming down in opaque white sheets, hard and blowing low across the roads in such a way that it was impossible to see. It took only minutes before storm drains on Chippewa were gushing water and the driving lanes were ponding. Then the crack crack click on the car. Hail. Not only was it hard to see, hard to drive but now my new truck was getting hit with hail. 

Never have I driven in anything like this. When I finally pulled up in front of Lizzie's, there was most her neighbor's big tree laying in the middle of the street. I have to hand it to the neighbors, by 9 they had the mess cut and moved off the road.

In any event we didn't have the tornado Okawville had. Okawville is the area of Dale's first church in Venedy. If you lived in Venedy your kids went to school in Okawville and you shopped in Okawville. So the fact that a tornado landed there worried me. Luckily no one was hurt and the damage was fixable.

We're actually lucky to be living in the age of iphones and hand held video devices because Okawville drivers and residents got some great photos of the tornado. My favorite is this taken by Annette Eade.

Had to laugh over a St Louis news twitter during the night which reported "Storm dumps rain, hail in metro area, possible tornadoes further east."

Ha, 'possible tornado". Indeed. So many local people submitted photos and video of this 'possible tornado" you have to wonder what this reporter was doing all evening.

The new weather term for this week has been coined as "training". All the local weather people used the word and means, one front after another coming at you in a straight line. Like cars on a train. It began out in Kansas and will come here just like a train. But without all the stops.

Advice for coaches

Sometimes it's better to stay quiet. Last night's football game between the Packers and Seahawks ended with Seattle winning do to a final second end zone play. Problem was, and why it seems the entire country is up in arms today, is that the replacement refs totally got the call wrong. I mean it was such a bad call and the refs even reviewed it. 

Anyway, Seattle's coach, Pete Carroll must not know when the better part of valor is to remain quiet. He went on Twitter after the game and said, "WOW!!! What a game! Loving our guys for battling all the way to the end and never giving up!"

Not good.

What happened to the Japanese Beetles?

In normal summers our Harry Lauder's Walking Stick shrub gets eaten up by Japanese Beetles, but this year we noticed it did not. Not a beetle to be seen. Why was this?

Most experts say it was because of the drought conditions which made vegetation bitter and tough. Then grass which dried up was not amenable for the laying of eggs. Japanese Beetles love a nice moist green lawn in which to lay eggs and if this is not available they go elsewhere.

Advice to homeowners is to not water their lawns in summer if they want to cut down on the beetle population. But if you do have them, or had them, some advice to getting rid of them which is kind of amusing.

"Plug a vacuum cleaner (preferably a shop vac) into the nearest grounded outlet and hose the little nasties up like they was dust bunnies under a couch." And yes, the grammar is an exact quote from the article.

"Make beetle-repelling “bug juice” with your catch! Whiz a handful of the sucked-up beasts in an old garage-sale blender with a pint of water (this alone should make you feel much better!), strain the resulting slurry and spray it on your plants. Old time farmers swear that pests won’t go near plants that have been sprayed with the remains of their relatives."

Would you not think using a shop vac in the garden would take the plant leaves as well as beetles?

Grammar rules

If you get the jokes, you do know your grammar click to enlarge

Best beer cities in the world

Top ten world beer hubs selected by Smarter Traveler.

1. Munich

2. Denver

3. Montreal

4. Amsterdam

5. Milwaukee

6. Dublin

7. Boston

8. Portland, Or

9.  Brussels

10. Prague

Explanations of why each city is tops found at the link

Concordia Seminary's 2012 vegetables

Now that the vegetable plants are near the end of their production I thought it would be nice to take a look back at everything we grew on the campus this year. Even with the unrelenting heat and drought, most everything did well thanks to our grounds staff hauling hoses and sprinklers around everyday.

We began in the spring with cool weather crops like cabbages, onions and lettuces.

Onions
We planted lettuce in various places and have planted more for a fall crop.

Last October we planted garlic which was harvested in June.

When the bottom half of garlic stems turn brown they're ready. We got nice big heads this year and will probably do many more this fall since this is a very popular item.

The asparagus was amazing, it kept coming and coming as many times as the stalks were cut.

When the plants are finished for the year we let them grow tall and leafy to gain strength for next spring's cuttings.

They like sun and it seems they thrived in the heat of this summer. 

In March we planted red potatoes in two ways. We filled about 15 black planting bags with compost and eyes of potatoes. As the plants grew we added more soil. 

The idea of the bags was a good one. When it was time to harvest all we'd need to do is dump them over and scoop up the potatoes, no sticking a potato fork or shovel into the ground and guess at where they were. No stabbing. But. Sadly. Someone came through our potato area, dumped out all the dirt and potatoes and took them. Left the bags neatly folded. We never got to see a one. Next year we'll try again but put them in a more isolated place, the location of which I am not saying.

But one of our students also built an inground potato bed which did well although again...potatoes must be prized...that's all I can say.

We have lots of basil which is very well received and used.

And sweet potatoes which we will dig up pretty soon.

Green peppers, banana peppers, tabasco peppers, habanero peppers, chili peppers.

Anyone know how to make tobasco sauce?

Maybe we can have a hot pepper eating contest among our Texas guys.

Cherry tomatoes do very well.

And regular tomato which do only so so.

Then there was the squash, honeydew and cantelope.

The several varities of squash was amazing, they kept coming and coming.

Next year we need to plant melons in a much bigger spot to reap a bigger harvest.

Okra! Yes we had okra and it did very well.

This okra variety is red skinned, tastes the same as the green but looks much prettier.

And beans on various fences.

And Kale. Boy do we have kale, it's turned into a year round vegetable, it never sleeps for a season.

Our food service staff has made endless bowls of fried kale and the students demolish it. Healthy eating!

We planted fruit trees last fall and the young trees put out fruit this summer but of course not nearly enough to feed more than a few birds. But we're optimistic that this will end up being a bountiful thing.

We also have cilantro growing in various places as well as sage, chives, thyme, oregano, parsely, rosemary and on and on.  

If you have space, it's darn fun to add edibles to your flower pots and flower beds. 

 

Thought to live by

A private bathroom is always cleaner than a public bathroom.

 

A look at the 2012 Collinsville Italian Fest

That's our booth

And Joe our president with Italian fest committee member, Missy Pomatot

Italian garlic chicken wings. These were so good.

Dale showed up at our stand just before it started to rain. Luckily we had cover.

Then it stopped as quickly as it came. There's Linda

There's Linda selling toasted Ravioli

And Dorothy dishing up Lasagna

Wine and Italian beer garden

Joe Ashman giving everyone who comes into his pharmacy/Hallmark shop slices of Italian cheese, a glass of wine, bread and salami.

This little girl was attending her 3rd Italian Fest and was so proud.

Good Shepherd Lutheran Church grilling up their famous Italian chicken breast sandwiches.

Spedini is always good.

A lot of everything being cooked up and served.

Open til 10 tonight and tomorrow from 11-10 with the parade at 4.

Chow

Snickers number one

My daily fix, a Snickers bar which I can make last most of the day, is just as popular with millions of other people.

Snickers will pass M&M's as the top international confectionery brand by the end of the year, giving the 82-year-old candy bar a satisfying victory in the global chocolate wars, according to a projection by Euromonitor International.

That's a lot of words to say that Snickers is the top candy of choice worldwide. I mean really, it has almost all the food groups-nuts, caramel which is milk, and chocolate.

The I-64/40 mess got real

Last night was a nightmare for drivers heading eastbound on 64/40 as MoDOT had only one lane open through downtown. Cars were backed up in all lanes to 170 making a trip home to the metro east take over two hours. MoDOT's explanation for this nightmare was that the bolts holding down steel plates which cover unfinished work were coming loose...because drivers have been going too fast over them.

Well this is nonsense. First of all as many times as we've had to travel this area traffic does not speed through the open lanes in the construction site. The speed limit is 45 mph and most of the time speeds are much lower than that.  It's MoDOT's job as highway construction people to know how to do things like secure steel plates and it's their job to predict varying conditions. This was unacceptable and a cruel thing to have happened to 1000's of drivers last night. My observation is that there are many more tractor trailers heading through that construction site and on 64/40 than in years past which puts a lot of added weight on those steel plates. But again, it's MoDOT's job to know what could happen and be prepared for it.

KMOV did the best job of covering this, they had video and interviews with both drivers and MoDOT. Their Facebook page updated and took comments from drivers who were sitting in the miles long stoppage. The other local news outlets hardly bothered which surprised me since Fox2 is usually quick with local stories. The warning to St. Louis is that the same thing could well happen again tonight. I doubt it, though. St. Louis drivers will be on 44 or 70 or not even go to Missouri today.

Local news could do a better job of warning people before they even get on the roads, that way they could choose an alternate. Too many people found out too late that MoDOT would not reopen eastbound lanes during rush hour and were not able to get off 64/40. The news comes when the traffic is jammed which is too late.