Lola at the Coffee House

Leo Carillo may have been a little fat **** but he was (1) as an actor, quite superior to Duncan Reynaldo who played 'the Kid'; (2) quite erudite and articulate. I heard him interviewed on the radio one time and he sounded like he might have been an Eton graduate. Reynaldo, on the other hand, sounded like he just snuck across the border a couple of nights ago. (Carillo did not have even a trace of a Mexican accent.)

You talkin' horses?

This was a horse of a horse.

bump or the cook gets it

bumper crop

I nearly lived in the UCLA research library stacks. A kind of heaven.

True, he da man. But his kids didn't do much. It was his daddy, Bold Ruler, that made him and many others.

My favorite place was the old stacks. The books that could be found there, and still can. Maybe I need to make a visit to the library.....

I didn't know all that -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Carrillo

I did used to sometimes hang out at a beach named for him (he was on the parks commission).

It's because they are not well adapted to the environment they have vanished from. I should have thought that was obvious to an evolutionist.

I should think they are thriving in other places. At least for now.

Oh, Ceeesco. Es true, amigo, but I loco enoff to do eet and get mucho dolares.

I saw Leo Carrillo in '58, I think it was. He was in a cherry festival parade in California; Beaumont or somewhere near San Bernardino. He was on the biggest palomino I've ever seen. It was at least the size of Hoss Cartwright's mount which I understand was mostly draft horse. The palomino was decked out in silver trinkets and Carrillo in a sombrero. He actually looked quite good in the saddle, grinning like a possum in a pawpaw tree.

I reckon Carrillo was a decent dude, but most likely dumber than Otto Schmidlap. (Now, there's a name for you, Andy.)

Doesn't sound dumb at all to me - see that wiki article.

Bees are getting a helping hand here in the Sandwich Isles.

You can read about it here.

(emphasis added)

Summat to do wif Life of Riley, warn't it?

I mighta knowed you'd know! You old geezer.

I notice that the decrease in the neonicotinoid herbicides is NOT even mentioned on the bill. The hive collapse problem is getting serious stateside and the other pollinators hve not stepped up in sufficient numbers to halt the shrinking population of the Italian bee.

Honey is actually a by-product of the domesticated bee industry its not the main thing, whereas pollination of our major fruits is.

veroa mites are like the bark beetle, they will only kill hives that are already weakened by decimation resulting from neonicotinoid poisoning.

For three Springs running, our neighbor back of us has been furiously planting such stuff as he thinks will attract bees. For the past three summers his tomato crop has been dismal. He used to have to use a 12-foot step ladder to harvest his crop of what I believe were Big Boys or Beefsteaks. Now he's lucky to get two middling tomatoes from 12 plants. He attributes the decline to the lack of bees.

However, we've had a bumper tomato crop every year; cherry, grape and pink ladies. Our plot is only 25 feet from the neighbors. We give away ten times as many as we use. Last year was the sole exception, when nobody had tomatoes, or much of anything else. We were in the worst area of the worst drought since the Dust Bowl. Not a drop of rain from May 2nd until the 2nd week of October, and record heat (108 - 111º for 13 out of 14 consecutive days. And the remaining days of July-Aug. ranged from 99 to 106º.)

Anyway, despite my neighbor's bee-havior, I haven't seen a bee around here in a dozen years or more, except in late Sept.-early Oct., when our ice plants bloom. Then the bees (and monarchs) are as thick as fleas.

much pollination takes place by ground bees and non bees(like carrion flies) etc. As far as tomatoes, Ive tried hand pollinating with a large fuzzy makeup brush that I liberated from my wife. I hand pollinated one tomato bush last year, kept em all well fed with Epsom salts and we hd a huge crop from that one bush and a mediocre crop from the others . SO your lack of pollinators observation is bearing fruit (so to speak).
Im looking into importing Russian bees through Penn States Apiary research center .It seems that the Russian bees are immune . The only things are whether there are any collateral damages they can cause.

I don't think the Dows and Monsantos will even bat an eye to their participation in this bee collapse . Statistiaclly the losses of hives hd begun when those neonicotinoids were mixed in with bladex and other herbicides.

The fruit crops are huuge in states like Cal/Mich/west P and several other states, appples, peaches, cherries, etc ALL depend on importing large numbers of hives during flowering and pre fruit set.

I must retract one thing I wrote previously. I "have" seen two large swarms of ground bees, but didn't realize they are pollinators. In different years there were two nests of them at the base of the sassafras trees at the bottom of my backyard, about 8 feet from my neighbor's tomato plants. Guess those were what he was on about, eh? He just said 'bees' so I didn't think of those rascals.

The first time I saw the buggers was when I inadvertently ran the mower over their nest. Damned if they didn't chase me to the house, stinging me the whole way. They were inside my clothes even, and as I stripped to the buff, the blighters were swarming around the backdoor staring in at me and flipping me the bird. Had at least 40 stings.

Sassafras trees aren't anything but trouble. I have eleven of them in a row along the back; natural grown, I'm sure; can't imagine anyone wanting to plant them. The roots spread underground and send up saplings every six inches or so for 25 feet or more from the tree. During last year's drought, with no mowing to do, there were so many shoots my backyard looked like a reforestation project. Plus, there's nothing that'll dull a chainsaw quicker than sassafras. And topping it all, I haven't had a single drop of sassafras tea in the 35 years I've had the place.

Thanks for the advice about the bees. Do you plant, or have, any buckwheat about your place?

And, BTW, how much of our hive decimation is owing to killer bees from Mexico or South America? Do they remain an ongoing problem?

1Ive heqrd that interbreeding between the Itlin and the Killer bees has gone on and the killer bees have passed on their immunity to the new variety (we calls em MAFIA bees).

I watch out for those ground bees as I step out along tree lines along my patures. We had a calf get stung almost to death several years ago. The poor thing spent the night after the stinging in a it of shivering nd foaming. It was purely anaphalaxis and it was ugly as hell.

Sassafras tea is good and you can get slightly high on saffrole from the roots. BUT... you can rid yourself of the trees by cutting some thicker branches off a tree and IMMEDIATELY paint full stremgth ROUNDUP on the cut face of the tree branch stem that's still a stump on thentree (You must do this immediately before the tree has a chance to make a cuticle of natural wax which acts as a seal. You should cut as many of the small ones too because many of these propogate by a few runners (Pawlonia trees are the same way). I fyou hit the right ones, the little trees can carry the Roundup into the roots of the bigger trees and kill the "parent" sassafras

Also, no, I don't grow buckwheat at all, I don't have any use or market for it . We raise sheep mostly and we have fields of hay and alfalfa and clover mostly (some trefoil too) but no buckwheat. I am growing a few plots of hops and already have a market to a craft brewer in Delaware
.

PS buckwheat is used as a cover crop in short season areas. Itd be used as a second or thrd crop. WELL, weve alwys had at lest 4 cuttings of alfalfa that buckwheat would actually be a waste of space when we intensively rotate crops. In one year I can get a final yer (first cutting of alfalfa) then prep a field with a short season corn nd then a short season of beans or rye or oats (Grin nd straw for bedding)