Interesting…
Trump administration admits grants for clean energy were canceled based on politics:
The administration has acknowledged in court documents that it canceled $7.6 billion in grants for hundreds of clean energy projects “based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient’s state” — in this case, 16 states that voted for Democrat Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.
…Projects that were cut were located in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington state.
Americans rewire their grocery shopping routines while digesting the biggest price jump in 50 years:
Buying food to eat at home has gotten 33% more expensive in U.S. cities since the beginning of 2019, according to government figures. In the 7 1/2 years before that, prices rose 6.4%.
Between the heat and the remains of Canada’s forests floating through the air, we stayed indoors Saturday and convinced Finn to binge the first season of Stranger Things with us. As a Child of the Device, she would much rather watch TikTok shorts than television, but we convinced her the series was good, and within the first fifteen minutes she was hooked.
While that was on, I sat my laptop on my knees and updated my new storefront with products—a tedious process of updating each design with an updated URL, uploading it, setting it up with colors that complement the design, and making it live. I’ve got all of the Scout grille designs up, a couple of different silhouette designs, and added two new Scout 800 designs. As it turned out, I made a sale while I was updating the site, making double the amount of money in profit than I did on the old storefront. Now I have to go through each of my YouTube videos and figure out how to swap in a new URL at the end of each.
It’s been pretty quiet around here for the past couple of weeks. I’ve had my head down, working on projects for the 9-5 gig, and it’s been too goddamn hot to be outside doing much of anything. The dog is going mental because for various reasons she didn’t get a morning walk for most of last week. Friday morning we did go out for coffee, and when we left the house it was cool and slightly breezy, but Canada was thick in the air and the acrid taste of it was thick in the back of my throat. By the time we turned for home it was already hot, and we made it in the door just as the humidity really ramped up.
Jen and I did spend some time after dinner looking over the tomato situation by the greenhouse. Finley spent a couple of days weeding and cleaning it out last week, and apart from the usual clutter of pots and garden stuff, it’s really nice to be in there with thriving plants again. (Full disclosure: I’m also using it to store truck parts). Jen has four plants in the planters outside, where the day lilies used to be, and I’ve got six in containers inside. My plants all grew and fruited quickly, but my heirlooms developed blossom end rot from uneven watering. Her plants outside have gone bonkers—she has a cherry plant that is absolutely covered in fruit, and her heirlooms are heavy with big healthy, meaty tomatoes. We spent some time trimming, fastening branches to cages and poles, and fertilizing. As I was pulling dead leaves off my group, I noticed a strange object high on one of the plants—and realized it was a tomato hornworm, busily munching away. I pulled three more off, and Jen found one—her plants are also being nibbled on by deer, so we have to keep an eye on things daily to make sure we’re on top of the pests.
We bought and planted a peach tree on the other side of the yard last fall, and it seems to be very happy there. In the spring it blossomed and fruited very quickly, but Jen read that we should pull them off and trim the tree back in the first year to help it get stronger, so regretfully we pulled all but about four off the branches. They got pink and fuzzy, and Jen was getting excited to harvest—until they disappeared one morning. When we planted the tree, I installed six-foot deer netting around it to prevent them from eating the leaves, but somehow something got in there and stole the fruit. Our yard is a rest stop on the highway the deer use to get to and from the park, so I’m not surprised, but we’re going to have to step up our game.