Gleanings from the Editor

     As I sit here writing this the week before Christmas, we're having a lovely spell of Spring weather. Temperatures in the 70s, sun, breeze - just like March. Of course, it may be Spring. You can never tell about Texas weather. We may just move into Summer in a month or so and go on.

    On the other hand, it may drop 50 degrees during the night and freeze everything in sight.

    Right now my roses are blooming like crazy; calendula and pansies look so cheerful you just want to dance and the broccoli, lettuce, and other winter veggies are crisp and delicious. It is the kind of weather that makes you glad to be a gardener in Texas.

    On the other hand, this is the last piece I have to finish for this issue of Homegrown - for the second time. I had just about finished the issue and was getting ready to prepare it for the printer when my computer simply lost its mind. I could not open the file. I could not print the file. I could not do anything with the file.

    I had to start over from scratch and recreate the issue again. So I hope it is better this time than it was going to be before.

    I had printed out some of the articles. Others were lost and gone forever. All of this was highly irritating, but not unfixable. It got me to thinking about the wonders of technology as opposed to the wonders of nature.

    If I screw up a file on the computer, I may lose that file, but I can create a new one. If I screw up and lose something in nature, it is lost. I can't create a new Dodo bird or plant that has gone extinct just because no one was paying attention. Valuable genetic material is gone because no one cared.

    I think this year I'm going to grow more heirlooms and natives. Just to be sure someone is paying attention.