Picking blackcurrants

Just spent nearly an hour out in the sun with my wife and grandson picking blackcurrants. We have two bushes: one was chock full of fruit, the other was obviously having a sabbatical. Almost nothing on it, and the bush itself was looking a bit peaky.

One year both bushes went on strike, and there wasn't even a sign of fruit. That was definitely an anomaly, and the only time it had happened in the thirty-five plus years we've been in the house.

We used to make blackcurrant jam, but often it would get wasted, as jam isn't so popular as it used to be. The last few years we've made blackcurrant juice. It comes as a not too thick syrup which needs watering down to make it into a drink. This is very popular.

We've had various fruit trees around the house over the years, one or two self-sown - in the wrong places, of course. The fruit has varied on these, sometimes edible, sometimes not, and sometimes the birds have got in first.

When I was a child we had a great big gooseberry bush in one back corner of the section. I would gorge myself on it, year after year. The gooseberries were always sweet and enticing. I've tried to grow gooseberries here too, but the bushes we've had have always done very little in the way of fruit, and usually have died off long before they've reached anything like their prime. However, at the moment we have two relatively new bushes flourishing in a different part of the garden. They obviously need more sun than the old ones were getting. I'm expecting to be able to go out and pick gooseberries some time soon. I've had one, and I'm hoping that's the 'first fruit(s)' of a bumper crop. The weather has certainly been hot enough, and there's been plenty of rain.

Meanwhile, my wife's making tomato chutney....so we smell of a combination of chutney and blackcurrant bush: one of the nicest smells around, I think.

The end of the Iraq War?

Some extracts from Jim Wallis' article (an article that's worth reading in full) on the end of the Iraqi War - as far as the US's involvement in it is concerned.

The war in Iraq was fundamentally a war of choice, and it was the wrong choice.

From the outset, this war was fought on false pretenses, with false information, and for false purposes. And the official decisions to argue for this war and then carry it out were made at the height of political and moral irresponsibility — especially when we see the failed results and consider both the human and financial costs.

This week, U.S. Rep. Walter Jones, a nine-term Republican from eastern North Carolina and long-time member of the House Armed Services Committee....called his decision to give President George W. Bush the authority to go to war in Iraq “a sin.”   

Jones has had a change of heart towards the War through having personal encounters with families who lost their precious loved ones, and by the convictions of his own Christian faith.  He says 'we were lied to and “misled” into war by the “previous administration.”

Wallis lists some of the costs of this unjust war:
* 4,499 U.S. military killed
* 32,200 wounded
* 110,000 estimated Iraqi civilian deaths
* 2.5 million internally displaced Iraqis
* $800 billion in federal funding for the Iraq War through FY2011
* An estimated $3-5 trillion total economic cost to the United States of the war in Iraq.
* As many as 300,000 U.S. troops returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with post-traumatic stress disorder.
* 320,000 troops returning from Afghanistan and Iraq with traumatic brain injuries
* The number of suicide attempts by veterans could exceed an earlier official estimate of 1,000 a month.

Wallis adds: Such a list takes my breath away and should drive each of us to pray for lives that have been so painfully and irreparably changed.

And note that for every US soldier killed, nearly 25 Iraqi civilians were killed.   Admittedly, there has been much internal bloodshed, not entirely related to the War.  

More Dunedin quirky places

A dog is an anti aging product that works, by which I mean that one of the great advantages of having a dog is that he/she forces you to get out in the open air. Even though our dog is small, and can race back and forth through the house at lightning speed - and thus get some exercise - he still needs to get out into real world where there are endless smells and interesting things to follow up on (don't ask) and grass under his feet, and a ball to chase across a field...and much more.

Maori Rd runs through an extensive area of bush. For years I've walked and driven this road, and quite often I've gone down the main (bitumised) track that leads from Maori Rd to MacLaggen St, but it's only since we had the dog that I've discovered that there are multitudinous other tracks in this bit of bush, and sudden open spaces with grass, and even an Oak Grove with a cairn dedicated to Queen Victoria on the occasion of her diamond jubilee.

No doubt many other Dunedinites know these places well, although so far we haven't seen another soul when we've walked on these tracks. But I've lived in the city for more than fifty years, and never realised just how walkable this place was.

It's great to discover something new about your own city after all this time. (By the way, the link up above for Maori Rd takes you to a very short video encouraging some change to the two laybys on Maori Rd, so that they don't get further damaged by hoons driving their cars over the grass. If you don't know the road, this will give a small idea of it, and the encompassing bush.)

Silver threads amongst...

Every so often I come back to the topic of silver bars. I find it intriguing that gold and silver are still being touted as the best investments around, even in these climate change/global warming days, when you might think the old traditions would have begun to go out the window. But no, our fascination with gold and silver remains a constant, as it has done since the first man (or woman?) discovered a chunk of gold/silver and decided it was special. Precious.

I'm told that since the end of the Second World War, the U.S. Government – which used to be the largest holder of silver anywhere (globally and probably cosmically as well, I suspect!) has successively got rid of its holdings and in the process has managed to depress the world market. Whoever made this decision (probably George Bush, because he needed money to fund his Iraqi war) is anybody's guess, but now the very same Government wants its silver back. Talk about inconsistent. For that reason, silver represents a very good investment opportunity - if you have the money to buy it in the first place. And we're not talking your old silver ring that your grandma gave you either.

The strange uses of language

I don’t normally put stuff on here that might regarded by anyone as bawdy, but occasionally something cries out to be mentioned. In fact there are two things. One is a link to an absolutely hilarious list: 20 Ways To Tell A Man His Fly Is Unzipped, which also has a picture that has to be seen to be believed. How does Mr George Bush get himself into such situations?
The second thing is something I came across at work, and which has intrigued me for several days. It’s apparently a tool which is used in the engineering shop, and it’s called a maiden threading and screwing tool, as far as I can make out. The only connection I can find with maidens and tools is a maiden bar, which is something used on a spinning wheel. But I’m not even sure what it is in that context. I quote from the NZ's Ashford Company's ad: Larger 24"/61cm drive wheel mounted on ball bearings makes for smooth effortless spinning. Horizontal adjustment of maiden bar allows perfect adjustment with all 3 whorls. Maiden bar clamps to base to eliminate vibration. Double drive with scotch tension.
Maybe an engineer or a spinner can help me.

Dear George...

In Gwynne Dyer's World View column today, (in the ODT) he quotes George Bush as saying: 'We support democracy, but that doesn't mean we have to support governments elected as a result of democracy.'

Isn't this rather like having your cake and eating it?

I must say I enjoy reading Dyer's columns:he seems one of the most inherently sensible world politics columnists around. He's balanced, very informative, has an enormous background knowledge (or some good researchers) and is clear.