Jeremy Herndon

I think someone has dumped an unwanted dog by the road near where we live. I have seen this strange stray dog wandering around the neighborhood for about the past week. I’ve checked with all of my neighbors, and they say they’ve seen it too, but don’t know who it belongs to. I’ve checked the animal shelter for reports of a missing dog, and looked around for “lost” posters, and they have no reports at all of the dog being reported as missing, so I really think that they dog was abandoned. The dog is a very good looking dog,

I have to expect that perhaps there were some kind of behavior issues that resulted in it being dumped. I’m going to try to get the dog’s trust and see if I can coax it to come to me at some point so it doesn’t get into trouble. I know one of my neighbors raises chickens and they said if they catch the dog in their chicken yard they will shoot it, and I really don’t want that to happen!

I was watching the news last night on CNN before hitting the sack.  There was a story about how unemployment is rising, and that there is a city in California where the unemployment and housing crisis have created a “Tent City.”  The homeless shelters in the area are filled to capacity, so the people who have lost their jobs and their homes are now living in tents.

After that news story the Larry King Live show came on, and he was interviewing several people who are considered experts in the field of employment. They were talking with people who have lost their jobs, and their experts were giving them advice on how to look for new jobs.  To be perfectly honest I felt that the advice being given was too generic, and sounded rather lame to me.

That makes me think that it would be a really good idea fo everyone to start looking for jobs, whether they have jobs or not.  Signing up for a career recruiting service that will try to match employers with employees would help keep the unemployment rate at a minimum.

Tonight is the night that we put our clocks ahead one hour when we go to bed.  I like having extra daylight in the evening, but I don’t like having the extra darkness in the morning.  I was hearing on the news that there is a significant increase in heart attacks in the general population when we change the clocks back and forth.  I think we ought to just pick one time and stick to it.  I don’t like trying to get my body to adjust to a new sleeping and eating schedule.

Last summer I was disheartened to find Japanese beetles on our crape myrtle shrubs that we had just planted the year before.  I knew Japanese beetles were problematic with roses, but I did not know that they liked crape myrtles too!  There were only a few beetles on the shrubs, so I left them alone but I am thinking that might have been a mistake.  Leave a few alone now, and you are likely to have hundreds the next year!

I really don’t like those Japanese beetle traps that you see in people’s yards.  To be honest I have used them in the past and they work okay, but I think they are a pain in the neck to use.  I’d rather use an organic pest spray.  I went on the Internet this morning to look for some organic pest control info and found a website that sells organic pest spray that is supposed to kill on contact, and it kills a variety of garden pests, including aphids, cinch bugs and beetles.

I think that this year I am going to give it a try this year.  If it works well, I might even buy a couple of rose bushes for the next year!

Well, it is March 1st, and it certainly is coming in like a lion around here!  We are getting what appears to be the worst snowstorm of the winter so far.  Since winter is almost over, it is a bit of a surprise!  We haven’t even had a full inch of snow around here so far, and now the weather man is predicting about six to nine inches.  It has snowed off and on most of the day; it will be interesting to see what the ground looks like in the morning!  I imagine that the schools will be closed tomorrow, and the kids will have a great time making snowmen; it is a good wet snow – perfect for snowmen and snowball fights!