Blueberry Festival

To be honest, I don't go to festivals anymore but I feel I have a duty to let you know when I hear about one, so here we go:

Fri, Jun 23, 2023 at 5:00 PM

Trinity Episcopal Church, 207 W Main St, Moorestown, NJ, 08057 Our Blueberry Festival is back! Join the fun.

Blueberry Desserts, grilled sausage, hot dogs and salad. Kids games, music, dancing, bouncy house, Blueberries and blueberry jam for sale. p/> I will tell you my favorite blueberry place, though, it is WHITESBOG! And they have a blueberry festival as well but the parking is difficult there at festivals. You should go visit someday when it isn't crowded. Elizabeth White cultivated the blueberry from the native high bush berry and she was also a famed specialist in Holly growing and her family had cranberry bogs and a big business in cranberries. Her home, Suningive, is still at Historic Whitesbog Village and you can visit there. Hiking the bogs in summer is delightful and gorgeous!

Enjoy blueberry season - one of New Jersey's products! Remember those state products maps?

Happy trails - Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

The World on Fire June 8, 2023

Last night, for the first time, I could really smell it - the smoke from the wildfires in Canada. Of course it could have been mixed with the wildfires in the Pines around Medford, and also, there was a construction site fire in Philadelpia.

Short sighted people. I read some comments after a red alert e-mail news item, and one of the coments was insulting and scornful against people calling this air disaster "Climate Crisis" The commenter emphasized, "It's Wildfires, not Climate Crisis" and added some insults to push his point home. What he didn't realize was that the Climate problem, the drying world, is pusshing the rest of the trouble, the wildfires, the drying up of rivers, water shortages. One of his insults was against "Woke Greennie Weenies" and I reflected on how so much of the current culture war is about manifestations of gender. Macho male dominance has been challenged by sensitive people who care about the environment, about animals, about the big world. That intimidation begins all the way back in the school yard with bully boys picking on sensitive ones and on anyone else they perceive as weaker.

It is interesting to me that Ron DeSantis in his latest ad against Trump, portrayed him hugging Dr. Fauci, whom the radical right wing have demonized, the man who led us through the pandemic. They hate him. The image was manufactured because Trump didn't embrace Dr. Fauci, of course.

I looked up 'Woke' once and it described people who believe in equality for LGBTQ citizens, environmentalism, animal rights, and women's rights.

The "unwoke" want to return to discrimination against all these groups. They want the rich to be spared paying their fair share of taxes. They want to reduce the power of the federal government, push women back into the house, take away birth control so women will be forced to reproduce and hence noat free to get an education or make a career, and be independent financially. That's what they mean when they say Make American Great Again - they mean take it back to the 1940's and 50's, reverse progress.

Air Quality - I called my vet to see what he would say about walking Uma. He advised that I wear a mask, of course, and that I walk her no more than around the block, just so she can get a leg stretcher but not breathe too much bad air.

bad air, bad water, we have more and more of these environmental disasters!

Well, at least it is still cook which I am enjoying so much!

Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com Happy trails friends!

Red Bank Battlefield Event

Worries and Politics

As you well know if you have visited this blog, I rarely talk about politics, but this time, I was a little worried. If, like me, you rely a lot on social security, this stand-off over raising the debt ceiling was frightening. Fortunately for me, I was a teacher and my career was during the period of the strong unions, so I have pension which is enough for me to survive, if not exactly thrive. Also fortunately for me, my mortgage is paid.

Yesterday in one of my news feeds on e-mail, it could have been npr, cnn or nytimes, I read about homeless senior citizens living in tents while using walkers and canes and struggling with big medical issues. The article said they had lost their homes to taxes or other issues and some have dementia and no family members nearby to help them maintain.

Also fortunately for me, I lived a life fairly free of bad habits so my brain is still in good shape, and I don't have a family history of dementia or alzheimers diseases for which no amount of healthy living can help. I stopped smoking 40 years ago, NEVER took up drinking, and always abided by the rules for maintaining good sleep habits - no blue screens in the bedroom, steady bedtime, and getting up early in the morning. Also no caffeine.

But people fall into all kinds of troubles including not having proper medical coverage and falling into debt for medical services. Also, not preparing for quarterly taxes can be a big one. Anyhow, however it happened I was surprised to read that there are so many elderly people in tents in homeless shelters.

To the point - all the concessions demanded by the right wing were to deprive the poor. There is never any move on their part to make the rich pay a fair share of their taxes. It is absolutely shocking to me that multi-millionaires and billionaires shirk their duty to pay a fair share of the financial burden to keep this country functioning. They use every trick available to avoid paying their share - like a wealthy friend who refuses to chip on the tip after a dinner out with friends. Selfishness and Greed rule the Right, along with bigotry and a deepd desire to dominate and control women's bodies. They don't get that taking care of everyone makes the country a better place. Who wants to live where the poor die in squalor on the sidewalks? Only vastly wealthy people who hide in gated communities and on giants yachts.

Our country is in deep danger because the Right Wing Republican party plays on the bigotry of so many against peope of different color or different sexuality to allow the rich to hide their money and rob the country.

Peope worry about Joe Biden's age, but the thing to worry about is a leaders character and morality and dedication to the good of the population. Franklin Delano Roosevelt got us through World War II and he was disabled! Winston Chruchill was ill and overweight and he got Britain through the worst crisis of the modern age, the Nazi Blitzkrieg!

Let us all keep in mind these facts about President Biden's performance:

"Biden has shown time and again his ability to work with whomever is across the table from him.

He did it in 2011 with Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell on the debt ceiling. And despite GOP intransigence only deepening, Biden has been able to pull off multiple bipartisan pieces of legislation since taking office, including:

the $1 trillion infrastructure bill; the CHIPS Act, which aims to build more semiconductors in the United States; the bill that provided health care and benefits for millions of veterans injured by exposure to toxins like Agent Orange in Vietnam and burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan; and the $1.7 trillion federal government funding bill that got 68 votes in the Senate and included a revised Electoral Count Act." One of the things the McCarthy contingent did successfully strip away was funding for the IRS so that it could function adequately to catch tax cheats!

OK, I have said my piece. I am of the WWII generation nd I know we faced the Greed and Self-interest rise of domination politics in fascism before and defeated it, and we may have to do that again. I have hope that there is enough in humanity of compassion, courage, honor and justice to rise to the challenge and defeat it again.

Time to get outside and walk my dog, isten to the birds sing, watch the new leaves sway in the gorgeous Spring breeze, and put all the political worry behind me - Enjoy your day! For at least two more years my social security check will arrive and let me say one more time - it is NOT an ENTITLEMENT - It was an investment that all of us who receive it paid into throughout our decades of working lives. Jo Ann