You know spring is officially here when the dewberries start ripening. When I first moved here, I made the mistake of thinking they were blackberries until someone in the know clarified things for me. Then I discovered that I have both dewberries and blackberries on our property. I don't cultivate them or fertilize them, they just grow where they want to and some years I have more than other years. This year will be a banner one. Unless the birds beat me to it. Reminds me of what a berry farmer told me some years ago, "I share crop. Half for the birds and half for me."

Also had my first spinach salad out of my garden today. It was so good, it made me wish I'd planted four rows of spinach instead of two.

There's something so satisfying in "living off the land", although we don't strictly do that. Not only does the food taste better than what had to be trucked to a supermarket, there's the matter of the money saved. Nowadays, that is no small amount when you factor in gas to drive to the store, as well as rising food costs. If I had known back in January how bad things would be in May, I would have doubled the size of my garden.

In his column reprinted in the Dallas Morning News today New York Times columnist Paul Krugman predicted that the worst of the financial crisis is over and the economy should stabilize. The problem is, it is stabilizing at a much higher level than even a few weeks ago. So is that to be the norm? And the next time there is a crisis that drives the price of everything up, we will stabilize again at a much higher rate?

The way I see it, nobody is addressing one basic component of the financial mess we are in, and that is greed. Corporate and individual greed and self absorption that rationalizes waste because someone can afford it, or takes what is theirs off the top without regard to the impact on others. For instance, the CEOs of many corporations who make annual salaries as high as $45 million, while employees go bankrupt trying to keep enough gas in their cars to get to work.

Some people have told me that my whining about high salaries stems from resentment that we live on an income level so far below the corporate CEO or the highest paid athlete's it can't even be compared. But that is not it. Honest. I would not want to make $44 million dollars a year. Having that much money would take a lot of work just in managing it, and I'd rather be outside picking dewberries.

 

 

Until next time....