I spent my Wednesday outdoor time repairing pallets and re-building my garden compost bin. I’m not sure how many more years these boards will last. In many cases, they are so deteriorated they wouldn’t take a nail. It is literally held together with bailing wire rescued from hay bales used to mulch garlic. Anyway it is back up and will quickly fill up with weeds and vegetation from the garden. I won’t harvest compost from this bin for two years. As regular readers may recall, I’m running way behind in the garden. I usually put this bin together in mid April.
Ambient temperatures were at 86 degrees by 11 a.m. when it was too hot to continue working outdoors. A younger me would have persisted all day. I am able to recognize the signs that heat is affecting me and can call it quits.
Soil around garden plants was still wet at 11 a.m. Once the worst of the heat is over, I’ll shut off the soft water and water them again. I encountered the small rabbit that has been dining on the garden. The cayenne pepper deterred it somewhat, yet not enough. Something broke into the covered row and ate a head of lettuce. It looks like the work of a deer. I had another piece of fabric and did a make shift repair. It held over night.
I’m having doubts about attending the state Democratic convention on Saturday. I’m receiving the usual emails regarding the convention, including one from someone wanting to be elected as a delegate to the national convention, and one from the rural caucus. The rural caucus made this request:
There are three amendments we’d like to share our thoughts on; we encourage delegates to vote with us in support of rural Democrats:
- We support the amendment requiring a 3 delegate minimum per county.
- We oppose the amendment removing term limits for members of the State Central Committee.
- We oppose the amendment adding the State Central Committee Steering Committee to the constitution, making the Committee a permanent decision-making body of the Iowa Democratic Party.
If these are things most important to Democrats who live in rural areas, then it is a sign the state party has lost its way. While these three issues may be important to some, they indicate a kind of tinkering around the edges of party structure that will hobble us from regaining control of the legislature and statewide offices. This is not a strong case to attend the convention.
I’m undecided. If they were having the convention in downtown Des Moines, I would have used it as an opportunity to drop off my spouse to visit her sister while I was at the convention. Instead, we are in Altoona, which while not a terrible distance, would add another hour of driving to my day should we do a sister-in-law visit. Another check mark in the no column of decision-making.
Thing is, there weren’t enough people to fill the state convention slots at the county convention. The pool of alternates to pass on these responsibilities is pretty shallow. Democrats can likely do good on this without me. There remain two days to decide.
There are better things to do than get moody about politics. I think I’ll schedule this post and get after them. Thanks for reading!
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