I wouldn't have thought you would have that this time of year! How long can you expect to get temps in the 70s? We will be like this until May. This was a bit early for such a hard freeze. It got down to the teens in some spots. We got down into the 20's. So as wacky as our weather is, 86 to 18 in 36 hours is always a surprise.

I am getting some horse manure from the barn where my dd rides on Wednesday. We have so many leaves. I would like to do much more composting than I have been. It will hopefully all be ready for spring planting. Our weather is being its typical crazy self. Early last week we were in the mid 80s. Then our first serious cold front came through at the end of the week, and we had two nights with a hard freeze. Now we are back up in the upper 70's. I covered by tomatoes because they have a good many green tomatoes on them. The plants were damaged but not dead, so I am hopeful. I was hoping the ground being so warm would help if I covered them. It did help with the plants I was able to lay on the ground. But some I wasn't able to extricate from their cages. They had the most damage. I am letting a couple of pods of okra mature for seed. I planted turnips and cabbage (seed) right before the freeze. I have seedlings as of yesterday. 🙂 I need to plant my carrots asap. I have been working on amending the beds, so I'm late planting. We are still in a severe drought. I don't have to water as much though because the temps have dropped. We are supposed to get rain mid month.

I am praying.

I loved Fashion Plates! 😭

I have discovered that I prefer hard white to hard red, too.

I get mine from Azure. They are not local, but they have a "drop" in my community. Also in the southeast--there is Bread Beckers. They have a co-op.

Can you pm it to me? I'd defintely be interested.

Interesting that I just learned of nixtamalization when placing this order with Azure. I kept seeing the term in the reviews. Many people buy their corn and nixtamalize it themselves. Learn something new everyday. @lewelma I am so grateful for the work you are doing!

Yes--I am familiar with Palouse. I figure Azure is more affordable factoring in shipping etc. but I will definitely revisit that.

A bit of levity to the discussion... My dd just ask me if I'm going to bed, and I said no I'm discussing the dangers of GMO and glyphosate in our crops on the WTM forum. She responded, "Sounds like you'd be better off going to bed." lol

really stupid question...what does GE stand for? Genetically engineered?

Wait...So does this mean that the organic label means nothing? Because it is not technically a pesticide?

Thanks. Just today I added organic whole corn to my Azure Standard order for this month. I am so glad now. I will be milling my own corn meal and grits. I thought I was doing it for the nutrients (and avoiding pesticides of course). Never even thought about glyphosate. How depressing.

What about canned beans? Same thing? I am so glad legumes came up. I knew about the wheat and only buy organic wheatberries. But I hadn't even thought about beans. 😞I think I worry more about my kids now. Round Up wasn't being used widely when I was growing up. My own kids grew up eating this crap.

My wedding anniversary is this month. 31 years. 💕

Muscle, joint and bone pain are a part of life for me with Sjogren's. Did your bloodwork include an ANA? I missed your OP, so maybe this has been ruled out.

This is what I was going to say. Add emulsifiers (carageenan??) to the list of problematic ingredients for some people. Sometimes I wonder if people who go gluten free and feel better are responding to eliminating processed foods. Although there are now tons of gluten free processed foods on the market, so...

@Frances @Pawz4me thanks for sharing that. I do see that opinion piece on the homepage--as of last night. Either I missed it before or it was added later. So it looks like it is the same for everyone, and I am glad to see it. I only recently resubscribed to NYT, so I forget to check it. I don't really like the NYT, but I will keep it around until my $1/week trial ends in a couple of months.

That is so frustrating. WSJ is doing that to me now.

Now I'm curious what comes up for y'all if you go to the news outlets' homepages. Are they all the same for everyone? Am I seeing different headlines than you are?

That is interesting. The NYT may have articles, but nothing on the homepage. At least not the homepage that ((I'm)) seeing. Same for AP, CNN, Rueters... nothing about about Acapulco. Not even in the small print headlines at the bottom of the page. I can find tons of articles if I put "Acapulco" in the search bar on Google and click on the "news" tab. I think the issue is that it is not making headlines. Unless you do actually search it out, you wouldn't see anything. I think that is what is meant by "it isn't being covered." I haven't see anything about it on social media, but I don't follow news accounts or journalists.

Agree! I was never active on the boards before the pandemic. But this was the best source of info I could find.

Most people still care deeply. I personally think there is a problem in the way most people get their news and the shift from print and network television to internet. The news is out there being covered, but if it doesn't get enough clicks, then it isn't going to be seen by the majority. Think about how newspapers are/were organized--in actual print on paper. You were exposed to stuff that you might not otherwise see because you had to flip pages to finish the front page articles. No algorithms had control over what popped up on those back pages kwim? I get what you are saying. It is disturbing. I wish I still subscribed to the Economist. I need to figure out a way to budget for that again.

I don’t know of any either. I would like to contribute in some way, but I didn’t have time to look into that before leaving the house earlier. It seems like the government there wants to be ((the)) one source of aid and clearly it’s not enough. If anyone hears of anything, please share.

The situation in Acapulco, Mexico is really bad. The pictures are unbelievable. I am trying to find out the status of electricity and water. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/mexico-sends-aid-acapulco-hurricane-otis-death-toll-rises-rcna122739 This is heartbreaking. https://apnews.com/article/hurricane-otis-acapulco-climate-change-mexico-amlo-42841e8c9ef6a1e448f27a72dfc39c60 A good explanation on the rapid intensification and why more didn't evacuate (one for my fellow weather geeks) https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2023/10/nightmare-scenario-category-5-hurricane-otis-devastates-acapulco/