Dahlias and Political Turbulence

Our dahlias are coming to the end of the line. One of the "Bishop's Children" plants still has flowers (above), but the others had grown shaggy with dead leaves and practically white from powdery mildew. So I took a radical step yesterday and cut all but one down to the ground, and pruned the mildewy parts out of two other plants. My theory is that they might sprout from the base enough to keep photosynthesizing until frosty weather arrives, when they all go back in the shed.

The newer dahlias that we purchased a couple of months ago, like the "Dalaya Dark Aruna" variety above, are looking healthier, but they are also suffering from powdery mildew on the leaves.

Here's "Iron in the Fire," looking pretty good.

And here's "Poodle Skirt," with a little fly on the petals.

I did some other trimming in the garden yesterday morning and quickly accumulated a full bag of yard waste. It may look like we allow our garden to run wild, but the truth is I'm out there pruning all the time. That garden generates an incredible quantity of biomass!

Given some of the comments on yesterday's post, I want to make clear that I am not agreeing with or supporting Charlie Kirk's political message at all. As I said, he and I held opposing opinions on most subjects and I found the extremity of some of his remarks appalling. All I'm saying, and I'll reiterate it here, is that we should not let a person's most extreme views represent the whole person, and we can't hate each other. We have got to focus on our commonality. It is the only thing that will save us. Our adversaries, like Russia, thrill to the widening divisions in our western societies (and work to widen them further). Let's not allow that to happen. We gotta work together, people.

There are a lot of rumors swirling around the suspect in Charlie Kirk's shooting -- some of which were referenced in yesterday's comments -- and the truth is, we don't know exactly what motivated him. I'm curious about that, but at the end of the day it really doesn't matter. He went too far and his actions cannot be justified.

I say all this the day after a massive right-wing anti-immigrant march, called the "largest nationalist event in decades" and attracting more than 110,000 people, was held in London. People who lament living in America and being subjected to the rightward movement of the US government should keep in mind that it's happening here too. It's happening everywhere. The wholesale global movement of displaced people has rocked all of our free societies. It's not the migrants' fault -- they're just going where there's opportunity. The ongoing question is, how can we all handle these pressures compassionately and with humanity?

Dave and I responded in the only sensible way possible. We went to the movies.

I haven't been to a cinema in months -- I can't tell you the last time, maybe to see "Dune: Part Two" back in March 2024. Dave, however, is a massive "Downton Abbey" fan -- he's watched the entire series multiple times. So we went to see the new "Downton Abbey" film, allegedly the grand finale, and we both enjoyed it. Frankly, it was much better than I expected, if a little rushed in its mission to bring every story to some type of conclusion.

Our movie was at 1:45, and we got to the cinema practically an hour early.

"I timed it like we were going to the airport," said an obviously excited Dave.

To kill time, we had a coffee in a downstairs cafe at the shopping center that houses the cinema. We were deluged with music from at least three competing sound systems, which was incredibly annoying and forced us upstairs to sit in the cinema lobby. Dave consumed half of his popcorn before we even got into the theater. Maybe next time we shouldn't be quite so prompt.