Opinion

At this time of year, gardening is on people’s minds. People are starved to see green growing things, not food, mind you; there is the grocery store for that. Racks have been appearing in all sorts of stores for some time now, filled with small packets of flowers and vegetable seeds. When it comes to my garden, my mind takes flights of fancy. What shall we plant this year: shrubs, trees, bulbs, seeds? I find myself walking around the yard trying to visualize how different plants would look in a certain spot. Thinking about just how beautiful it will all be one day when everything is in and starts to grow. One of us thinks the yard is already too full, while the other believes there is always room for more of everything. We do realize there is a need for more sunlight on our small plot of good earth! A small fortune was spent last year; there were watermelons, tomatoes, yellow crooked neck squash, green beans, chard (which had been a total failure), and okra. It was a bit like Jack’s beanstalks. It grew so tall Red had to stretch up as high as he could reach, and then bend it over carefully so as not to break the stalk to cut the pods off; you might call it an overproducer. There were bell peppers, and still more. My pride and joy had been several rows of sunflowers, planted in a huge variety of different seeds. Then, I did a bit of an artistic spin on planting them. I planted them all across the backyard and then curved them around and up toward the house. Planted so many different varieties of sunflower seeds, they came up at staggered intervals. They were hardy plants, and some had grown tall quickly. Then one day I was shocked to see that the ones just coming up had been eaten off at the ground. Later, some larger hardier ones had been ridden over and chewed off, leaving about 10 inches of the stalks still standing. The rest, already with big leaves, was withering in the sun. Talk about sick, I felt like a farmer that lost his crop. We waged a losing battle,

Mike had a light bulb moment and stated that prostitution is probably the only profession that you DON’T make more money the longer you are in the business. We really gotta start watching something other than Cops...

I essentially quit tuning in to national TV news some time ago; it’s all horrendous. Most every day, I’ll have a quick look at the internet news to see if the world is still revolving. Every single day, there are multiple reports of acts of animal cruelty from all parts of the U.S. and occasionally the UK and Australia too. I’ll not elaborate on these acts as I don’t want to cause “copycat” behavior. Many of them are horrendous and unconscionable and are beyond how “normal” human beings would act. What possesses anyone to behave this way? Indeed, some of the terrible behavior can only be characterized as “demonic.” Here are some thoughts about causes.

I recently had dinner with a family friend who grew up here but had lived in central Arkansas for many years since. As we drove around town so he could view sites both familiar and new, we headed down Pyburn Street westerly toward Masonic Cemetery. He remarked how people’s sense of pride here in their property seemed to have declined since his youth spent here.

Recently I saw a news segment on AETN News Hour that spoke to the need of lithium-gathering factories to acquire lithium to make batteries. China has the most lithium- gathering factories for recovering it for batteries.

The Food Bank of Northeast Arkansas was awarded a $25,000 grant by the Arkansas Community Foundation Disaster Recovery Fund for disaster relief in Cross County. The grant funds will be used to provide disaster food boxes and personal hygiene items for victims of the March 2023 tornado that ravaged the city of Wynne.

Walking through a pasture the other afternoon when we discover a bull between us and the gate. I get very nervous and my client calmly says “I’m not worried. I don’t have to outrun the bull, I just have to outrun you.” Well... There’s that.