Feedlot Garden Report

Summer Squash

The feedlot garden took a beating during the Big Blow we had on June 27th. I couldn't feel too badly about the damage; it was small potatoes compared to the widespread suffering and expense caused by that ill wind. The squash pictured above grew new leaves to cover up the ones riddled with hail holes. I'm eating these little yellow delicacies every day now.

Green Tomatoes

The tomatoes didn't look very good after the storm. I hadn't staked them up yet, and it looked like they might not recover. After giving them a few days to heal, I propped them up and put some wire mesh around them. All the tomato plants but one recovered nicely and have set lots of fruit. The one that didn't survive was replaced by a volunteer from last year's detritus.

The hot pepper plants are tough as nails. All of them are doing well. The jalapenos and cayennes (which I love to eat green, like a cajun) are producing enough to keep my eats as hot as I want. It looks like there will be plenty for pickling and drying. The traditional chilis and the red habaneros are always slower to mature. My banana peppers had fruit set, but the storm knocked them off. Now they are laden with fast growing replacement fruits.

I have faith that there will be a bountiful harvest.
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I could never understand why folks insist on reading Jesus' parable of the sower as if it were an allegory. It isn't, unless you believe the disciples interpretation. I've never trusted Jesus' disciples very far; one reason is their explanation of many parables as allegories.

A parable touches upon truth at one point only. The parabola in geometry is a curve drawn equidistant from a point and a straight line. Only at one single point on the parabola does it come the closest to the point and the straight line. In an allegory, each aspect of the story has a corresponding point of truth which it represents.

The disciples allegorize the parable of the sower by making the seeds be the "word", the different soils into the "hearers of the word", etc. In my understanding of the message of Jesus, this is a grotesque corruption of Jesus' message. Read as a parable, the story of the sower promises a bountiful harvest, punto final. I find this reassurance in keeping with the main "don't worry, be happy' line of Christian faith as expressed in many of the parables of Jesus.
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BTW: As these pictures I took today show, the corn is all silks and tassels here.