Monday, April 27, 2020

Hot! and a Broken Supply Chain

Aaaaaaarrrrrrrgggggggggggghhhhhh.  It's hot.  It's hot early in the hot season.  I think I've whined about about this before, but what else do I have to do?  We were up and out of the house at 7:50 this morning to go ride the bikes.  It is so hard to get up early!  I laugh at us a lot because when we were working we were up at 5:30 in the morning to be at work at 7:30.  My standard statement was that I would not hate working so much if I didn't have to get up so early.

Here we have a blooming Palo Verde tree, producing much pollen.  I'm really happy about disposable contacts, they're so much more comfortable than monthlies.  I'm also happy about Flonase nose spray, and Ketotifen which is an antihistamine for the eyes.  Alaway makes a knock off of the name brand (Zatador) which is less expensive if you get it on Amazon.  It's very effective.  Flonase does have the potential to exacerbate one's cataracts, so it should only be used in allergy season.  


More blooming yellow cholla.



Cat Mountain this morning, with the steenking yellow Palo Verdes foreground.


Here we have the Hubble's photo of the Mystic Mountain space something.  I can't remember.  Hubble photos are always so cool, no matter what the subject matter.


Yesterday, Tyson took out ads saying the food chain is broken and that there will be shortages due to plant closures.  I wonder why they bothered to spend the money on the ads.  Are they hinting that we should run out and panic shop and hoard meat?  Should we run out and buy mass quantities of rice and beans?  There are many cheaper ways to spread this message than through paid advertising.  I wonder if they want to re-open the plants without supplying the employees PPE, more distancing and safer working conditions.  They say they're doing these things so they can safely reopen but I wonder.  Full disclosure, my bias tends to view most large corporations with a jaundiced eye when it comes to how they treat line employees.  The Hill had an article about it.
In a full-page ad published in The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, board chairman John Tyson wrote that “the food supply chain is breaking," saying farmers will be left without anywhere to sell livestock and "millions of animals — chickens, pigs and cattle — will be depopulated because of the closure of our processing facilities."
I am guessing depopulated translates to being slaughtered without the means to do something with the carcasses.  The beef farmer W. Kamau Bell interviewed said he was going to turn his cows out to pasture and hope for better times.  

Today's entertainment has been cleaning javelina snot off the sliding glass door that goes out to the patio.  Apparently the little dears have been in the yard again looking at the geranium and gerbera daisy through the glass.  Go here and scroll to the bottom. Then we wandered out into the yard and discovered the Little John Bottlebrush we planted a year ago literally went from being a gorgeous green to a sickly yellowish color over night.  I do not know what these plants want.  Perhaps the plant whisperer from London can make a house call.

Other than that, our major excitement today will be a grocery pickup at 5:00 pm at the local Safeway.  I'm hoping to get the things Fry's didn't have.  It'll be something.

6 comments:

  1. Line employees were not well treated back in my day (ending in 88). We built a new plant, with a huge factory, and air conditioned it, as well as the front offices. We were acquired not too many years later by Maytag, and all they said "Why?"

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  2. oh, hot here too. it's April and soon May and in a few days we are expecting temps in of 90 and 91. this is not usual!

    I don't think I'd care for javelina snot on my glass doors.

    and they will let it break rather than protect their employees. I just don't get that kind of greed and selfishness. as if we aren't all connected.

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  3. "Depopulated" -- that's an interesting euphemism. I'm sure given a choice, the cows would rather be turned out to pasture than sent to Tyson! It sounds like in that case, at least, the cows are the winners.

    "Javelina snot" -- LOL! That's a LOT of nature.

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  4. Sadly, it's not really hot yet. Wait till next month!! I have to say the allergy problems are not as bad in California, although I'm sure I brought lots of palo verde pollen with me. You may be right about Tyson wanting a run on meat. Frito Lay's big plant closed here while they cleaned up their act, but they are back in business less than two weeks later. I wonder why Tyson can't do the same?

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  5. I've forgotten; Does Arizona consider "Javelina Snot Cleaning" to be an essential service?

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  6. I remember hating to see triple digits in April when I lived in Tempe. We're having hot - cool; hot - cool here in TX but very soon we'll be having HOT and humid all the time. Oh goodie.

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