The redneck version of drinks and dinner...

From Neal Boortz's Redneck Scrapbook
     

Are you ready for the Thought Police?

Your very thoughts could be a crime. Do you understand what you need to know to avoid punishment for your thoughts? Take this quiz and find out:

'Hate Crimes' And Double Standards
     

Changing Tyres Can Be Dangerous

My dad sent me this video in my email. It's three good examples of what NOT to do when changing a tire. Kids, don't try this at home. Yikes.

These are ads for the new Goodyear tires, that allow you to continue driving for a considerable distance when the tire goes flat, so you don't have to stop and change it in a dangerous place. They're a great idea, we have them on our Ford Focus.

The URL shown on the video goes to Goodyear's European website. Perhaps that explains the spelling of "Tyre" (British).

Hugo Chavez revokes license of popular Caracas TV station; response is protests and violence

The Socialist Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez decided to silence his political opposition by revoking the broadcast license of Radio Caracas TV, which has been critical of his totalitarian policies. More from Tammy Bruce:

Caracas TV station employees, after being forced off the air.

Has Chavez Finally Gone Too Far?

Let's hope so. The Venezuelan people deserve better. But really, what did they expect--that he would be the one tyrannical Marxist on Earth to leave television alone? Mass communication is the biggest threat to fascists. Why do you think Hillary and the American left are obsessed with shutting down talk radio and "regulating" the internet? Why do you think the Democrat party want to demonize Fox News? Because they know information and a free discussion is the antidote to...them.

[...]

Chavez, like every other depraved leftist in history, simply bought his way into power with money and entitlements for the poor. And as always, the people are shocked, just shocked, to find out that the man who had no ideas but lots of goodies to give away, suddenly wants something in return--their freedom and the future.

Now they understand the convenient Marxism they embraced comes with a price. Let's hope the Venezuelans understand they can refuse to pay and reverse their mistake. [...]

(bold emphasis mine) See Tammy's post for links and more.




Neal Boortz also comments on the Caracas TV station closure:

HUGO CHAVEZ AND THE FAIRNESS DOCTRINE

Jealousy is an ugly thing. And jealousy is especially ugly when you have freely elected leaders from a country that prides itself on a dedication to freedom and individual liberty being openly jealous of a dictator.

Such is the case with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.

Hugo the Horrible has now accomplished in Venezuela what Democrats only wish they could accomplish here at home. He has silenced a broadcast outlet that was critical of his regime. Sunday night Venezuela's most popular television station went off the air. Why? Because Chavez decided that their broadcast license would not be renewed. Radio Caracas Television was the only TV station in Venezuela that was broadcast nationwide ... and Radio Caracas Television was critical of Hugo Chavez.

Are you starting to get the picture here?

Chavez says he is "democratizing" the public's airways. He also said that this TV station was a threat to his country. Wow! Now doesn't that sound very much like the things that the left is saying about talk radio in the U.S.?

What Chavez accomplished by edict the left in this country hopes to accomplish through legislation and regulation. [...]

(bold emphasis mine) The methods may be different, but the goals are the same. And so it goes. What do you suppose comes next? For Venezuela and for us?


     

Remembering Our Heros...

Cox and Forkum have a brief History of Memorial Day.

Maynard at the Tammy Bruce Blog comments on the holiday:

Memorial Day is not a "Happy" Holiday

     

Sunday Funnies 05/27/07

(click on image to see larger version)

Multiculturalism: it isn't your grandfather's Communism

Multiculturalism is supposed to be about tolerance for cultural differences. But too often, its used as a social engineering tool. Tolerance for different cultures isn't itself necessarily a bad thing. I'm not against every aspect of Multiculturalism; what I object to, is the sneaky way it is being used to advance agendas that have nothing to do with tolerance.

Leftists who have failed to bring about their goals through political means have found better methods; accusations of racism, enforced political correctness, immigration issues and the abolishing of borders. Having failed to sufficiently sway the proletariat in Western societies, the left wishes to replace it with a new one, an under-class they can manipulate. Fjordman at the Brussels Journal addresses these ideas and more in detail in his latest article. Some excerpts:

A Communism for the 21st Century

[...] On one hand, we’re supposed to “celebrate” our differences at the same time as it is racist and taboo to recognize that any differences between groups of people exist at all. This is hardly logically coherent, which is why Multiculturalism can only be enforced by totalitarian means. Perhaps it boils down to the fact there are no major differences, just minor quirks, all cute, which should be celebrated at the same time as we gradually eradicate them.

We are told to treat cultural and historical identities as fashion accessories, shirts we can wear and change at will. The Multicultural society is “colorful,” an adjective normally attached to furniture or curtains. Cultures are window decorations of little or no consequence, and one might as well have one as the other.

[...]

We should remember that this view of culture as largely unimportant is essentially a Marxist view of the world, which has now even been adopted by segments of the political Right, united with Leftists in the belief that man is homo economicus, the economic man, the sum of his functions as worker and consumer, nothing more. Marxism doesn’t say that cultures or ideas are of absolutely no consequence, but that they are of minor or secondary importance next to structural and economic conditions.

[...]

Imagine you have two such houses next to each other. In House A, the inhabitants have over a period of generations created a tidy and functioning household. They have limited their number of children because they wanted to give all of them a proper education. In House B, the inhabitants live in a dysfunctional household with too many children who have received little higher education. One day they decide to move to their neighbors’. Many of the inhabitants of House A are protesting, but some of them think this might be a good idea. There is room for more people in House A, they say. In addition to this, Amnesty International, the United Nations and others claim that it is “racist” and “against international law” for the inhabitants of House A to expel the intruders. Pretty soon, House A has been turned into an overpopulated and dysfunctional household just like House B.

This is what is happening to the West today. Europe itself could become a failed continent by importing the problems of Africa and the Islamic world. The notion that everybody should be free to move anywhere they want to, and that preventing them from moving into your country is “racism, xenophobia and bigotry,” is the Communism of the 21st century. And it will probably lead to immense human suffering.

One of the really big mistakes we made after the Cold War ended was to declare that Socialism was now dead, and thus no longer anything to worry about. Here we are, nearly a generation later, discovering that Marxist thinking has penetrated every single stratum of our society, from the universities to the media. While the “hard” Marxism of the Soviet Union may have collapsed, at least for now, the “soft” Marxism of the Western Left has actually grown stronger, in part because we mistakenly deemed it to be less threatening.

Ideas about Multiculturalism and de-facto open borders have achieved a virtual hegemony in public discourse. By hiding behind labels such as “anti-racism” and “tolerance,” Leftists have achieved a degree of censorship they could never have achieved had they openly stated that their intention was to radically transform Western civilization and destroy its foundations.

According to the French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut, “the lofty idea of ‘the war on racism’ is gradually turning into a hideously false ideology. And this anti-racism will be for the 21st century what Communism was for the 20th century: A source of violence.”

Alexander Boot, a Russian by birth, left for the West in the 1970s, only to discover that the West he was seeking was no longer there. This led him to write the book How the West Was Lost. Boot believes that democracy, or in the words of Abraham Lincoln, the government of the people, by the people and for the people, has been replaced by glossocracy, the government of the word, by the word and for the word.

In a culture where language is power and words are used as weapons, those who control the most fearsome of these weapons control society. In the West, where equality in all walks of life is the highest virtue and “discrimination” is a mortal sin, the “racist” is the worst of creatures. Those who control the definition of “racist,” the nuclear bomb of glossocracy, have a powerful weapon they can utilize to intimidate opponents. The mere utterance of the word can destroy careers and ruin lives, with no trial and no possibility of appeal.

Currently, the power of definition largely rests in the hands of a cartel of anti-racist organizations dominated by the extreme Left, often in cooperation with Muslims. By silencing all opposition to mass immigration as “racism,” they can stage a transformation of society every bit as massive as that of Communism, yet virtually shut down debate about it.

[...]

Ideas matter. Individuals matter. Cultures matter. Truth matters, and truth exists. We used to know that. It’s time we get to know it again, and reject false ideas about the irrelevance of culture. We are not racists for desiring to pass on our heritage to future generations, nor are we evil for resisting to be treated as lab rats in social experiments on a horrific scale. We must nip the ideology of transnational Multiculturalism and unlimited mass migration in the bud by exposing it for what it is: A Communism for the 21st century.

(bold emphasis mine) There's more; how Europe is becoming a laboratory, treating it's citizens like lab rats. Many of the trends that the Multiculturalist elites of Europe have established there are also catching on here, and I fear the same motives are behind them. Let's not let it continue.


Related Link:

Political Correctness and Multiculturalism:
The New Tools of "Stealth" Socialism?
     

Fred Thompson: Run Fred Run!

I've been wanting to post about Fred for a while now. Pat at Born Again Redneck Yogi has been doing many great posts about Fred.

The latest post today was from Pat's Fred Roundup, which was excellent. Here is a portion of Fred's speech he gave recently in Connecticut:

In his speech, Thompson criticized Democrats as he discussed terrorism, Iraq and national security. "Our choice is not whether or not we're going to fight. Our choice is where we're going to fight," Thompson said. "And the only debate going on right now with regard to this most important issue facing our country on the Democratic side of the aisle is the date of our surrender."

He added, "My friends, I don't think that the American people are going to turn the keys of this country over to a party that invests their political capital in defeat."

But Thompson also stressed his own party returning to their key issues and warned his fellow Republicans to "get nervous if they go the wrong way."

"Someone once said that a cat won't sit on a hot stove twice, but he won't sit on a cold stove ever," Thompson said. "Here we had an election that was traumatic for some people, and the media blamed it on Iraq. I think it had more to do with pork barrel spending and corruption than it did Iraq." [...]

(bold emphasis mine) In that speech he also criticized "Open Border" immigration policies. Then regarding Memorial Day... well follow the links, it's worth it. Pat's posted a good video there by Fred, called "The Soldier".
     

Rosie O'Donnell can't take being contradicted

Rosie's cheap emotional antics didn't work in a spar with Elizabeth Hasselbeck, so she's going to take her marbles and go home 3 weeks earlier than planned:

ABC: Rosie O'Donnell Won't Be Back on 'The View'

[...] A political discussion over the war in Iraq became heated when an angry O'Donnell decried Hasselbeck for not standing up for her when media outlets suggested that she'd called U.S. troops "terrorists" during a previous debate.

The argument with Hasselbeck began over O'Donnell's statement last week about the war: "655,000 Iraqi civilians have died. Who are the terrorists?"

Talk show critics accused O'Donnell of calling U.S. troops terrorists. She called Hasselbeck "cowardly" for not saying anything in response to the critics.

"What you did was not defend me. ... I asked you if you believed what the Republican pundits were saying — you said nothing, and that's cowardly," O'Donnell said.

"Do not call me a coward, because No. 1, I sit here every single day, open my heart and tell people what I believe," Hasselbeck retorted, and their riveting exchange continued despite failed attempts by their co-hosts to cut to a commercial.

O'Donnell and Hasselbeck were shown on a split screen as the argument progressed without commercial interruption.

"Do you believe that I think our troops are terrorists? And you would not even look me in the face, Elisabeth, and say, 'No, Rosie,'" O'Donnell said.

Responded Hasselbeck: "Because you are an adult, and I am certainly not going to be the person for you to explain your thoughts. They're your thoughts! Defend your own insinuations!"

O'Donnell said she wasn't going to fight anymore. "So for three weeks, you can say all the Republican crap you want." [...]

You can see the video here: War of the Rosie. I thought Elizabeth handled herself with restraint, but without backing down. Rosie did what most libs do when they are contradicted - over emotionalize, cry foul, claim THEY are the victim... anything to avoid a calm debate about facts. And when they can't get their way, they snatch up their marbles and go home. Like so many libs, Rosie can only tolerate a milieu where she's not contradicted.

And speaking about emotions out of control, there's more:

[...] According to a New York Post report, O'Donnell's chief writer, Janette Barber, was allegedly led out of the building on Wednesday after she was caught drawing mustaches on photographs of Hasselbeck in "The View" studios. [...]

Well there is a mature response from a rational adult. But since she writes for Rosie, I guess we are supposed to lower our expectations of civility?

Interestingly enough, O'Donnell's nemesis Donald Trump weighed in on the squabble and defended O'Donnell, claiming that anyone who supported the war in Iraq was an imbecile, among other things. You can read the article for the details. All I can say is, The O'Donnell and The Donald deserve each other. Do either of them have a sensible alternative on how to deal with this?:




Until they do, I can't take either one of them seriously. Thank you, Elizabeth.
     

Only in Marin... I wish!

Al Gore made an appearance at the Marin Civic Center to promote his book. The ZombieTime Blog has plenty of photos:

Al Gore Appearance at the Marin Civic Center


Al is starting to look more and more like Chairman Mao these days.



The Marinites came in droves, in there SUVs and sports cars, to hear Al preach about global warming.





Click the link to see more pics of what 2,000 hypocrites look like. And their car bumper stickers and Che bags too.

When I moved to California nearly 26 years ago, people would often say "Only in Marin" about this sort of thing. Actually, I wish it was only in Marin County that this type of hypocrisy goes on. Now it's not limited to there, but it IS still typical for Marin. Unfortunately it also would seem it's becoming increasingly mainstream among Democrats.     

Dell Finally Offers Linux Pre-installed

From DesktopLinux.com:
Ubuntu-powered Dell desktops and notebook arrive

On May 24, the rumors and speculation came to an end. Dell officially unveiled its three consumer systems -- the XPS 410n and Dimension E520n desktops, and the Inspiron E1505n notebook -- that come with the Ubuntu 7.04 Linux distribution factory installed.

DesktopLinux.com predicted that Dell would release Ubuntu-powered computers from these lines. We did not see, however, that rather than offering a variety of models, albeit not the full range from each line, that Dell would be offering a single system from each line. [...]

There was speculation for a while about if it would ever happen. This is the first time that one of the Big computer manufacturers has offered to ship their machines with Desktop Linux already installed.

Choice is always a good thing! We all benefit. See the full article for details.

Also from DesktopLinux.com:
These are Dell's Ubuntu PCs
More details about the actual machines Dell is shipping with Ubuntu Linux.
     

Are Americans too stupid to understand basic economics?

There seems to be a lot of evidence that the answer could be yes. And there seems to be no end to the politicians who would pander to that ignorance.

From Jeff at Jeff's Garage and Alehouse blog:

How About a Windfall Ignorance Tax?

[...] # As we continually remind people here at JG&AH, the oil companies profits average about 10 cents on the dollar. Other such industries average much more than that. When I worked in Automotive retail, a manager that I came up under would always say to me "Jeff, we need to make 20% profit on everything, just to turn the lights on." Profit is the necessity and motif of EVERYONE who is in business. As the above links demonstrate FTC investigation has already demonstrated that there is no corporate price gouging. The Gouging is from the government tax at all levels - more than twice the Big Oil Profit. Where's the outrage over that?

How many people have money in mutual funds or their 401Ks tied up in Oil Company Stock? Further, how many do and don't even realize it while they gripe about oil profits? Sad fact of the matter is, a windfall profits tax that the Populists and their leaching power whore buddies in office seem to threaten will do nothing but further hamper supply and damage many average citizen's investment portfolios. Way to stick it to yourself. [...]

(bold emphasis mine) Too many people don't understand the difference between "profit" and "profit margin". The profit is how much money you take in. The profit margin is how much money you have left to keep as income, AFTER you have paid all your related business expenses to keep the business running.

Time and time again it has been proven that the oil companies are not price gouging. But that doesn't sit well with people too ignorant to understand what a profit margin is, or to understand basic economics like supply and demand. What ARE they teaching in government schools these days? Nothing practical, apparently.

Pat at Born Again Redneck Yogi has more, with some great excerpts from Jon Markman:

What a gas!

[...] Higher prices at the pump today are a matter of simple economics. U.S. refiners have the ability to churn out 17 million barrels of gasoline per day. Demand is around 22 million barrels per day. To make up the difference, we bring in gasoline from foreign refiners, which means that, at the margins, pump prices are set by import prices.

Total U.S. demand for oil products is up 2.7% year to date, boosted in part by the surge in cold weather in February. But since we are far from the only country importing gasoline and other key refined products, we don't have a lot of say in what those prices are.

Gasoline, like crude oil, is auctioned worldwide to the highest bidder, and with the dollar weak and overseas economic growth strong because of our fantastic appetite for iPods made in China and T-shirts made in Costa Rica, we have to pay up to keep our supply coming in. And that's all there is to it. [...]

It's not hard to understand. Too many people are not paying attention, and are thus becoming part of the problem instead of the solution, which requires understanding what's actually happening. The links I've provided here discuss the realities involved, and what we realistically can do about it. Knowlege is Power.
     

Ethanol Nonsense is wasting taxpayers money

I can't believe we are going forward with subsidizing Ethanol. The evidence against this as a practical solution is overwhelming. From John Stossel:

The Many Myths of Ethanol

[...] If ethanol's so good, why does it need government subsidies? Shouldn't producers be eager to make it, knowing that thrilled consumers will reward them with profits?

But consumers won't reward them, because without subsidies, ethanol would cost much more than gasoline.

The claim that using ethanol will save energy is another myth. Studies show that the amount of energy ethanol produces and the amount needed to make it are roughly the same. "It takes a lot of fossil fuels to make the fertilizer, to run the tractor, to build the silo, to get that corn to a processing plant, to run the processing plant," Taylor says.

And because ethanol degrades, it can't be moved in pipelines the way that gasoline is. So many more big, polluting trucks will be needed to haul it.

More bad news: The increased push for ethanol has already led to a sharp increase in corn growing -- which means much more land must be plowed. That means much more fertilizer, more water used on farms and more pesticides.

This makes ethanol the "solution"?

But won't it at least get us unhooked from Middle East oil? Wouldn't that be worth the other costs? Another myth. [...]

Read the whole article for the rest of the myths, and for a possible reason why Ethanol is being pushed anyway. Hint: it has to do with Iowa and elections.



Once again, government is doing something just for the sake of making it look like they are doing something to solve a problem, even though it really isn't. Isn't it time to put an end to this useless and wasteful posturing?
     

Slaves to Fashion or Fascism?

If only this were a joke. The Cox & Forkum blog has many links to articles and more pictures and videos of the harassment and arrests that have been happing in Iran as the Islamic Dress Code Crackdown continues. Here are just a few samples:









Men are not exempt from harassment or arrest. Their crime? Wearing short sleeves, tight pants, or western hairstyles?







Here is a woman being arrested for not dressing correctly. The policeman KICKS her into the car:

Hejab in Iran new
Uploaded by siamakold

Sometimes it's more than just harassment or a kick. Blood can flow, as these poor women discovered:

Iranian Fashion Police Publicly Bludgeon Women

The cartoon is not exaggerating about the violence. And they call this the religion of peace?
     

Iranian Fashion Police Publicly Bludgeon Women

Police, Improperly Clad Women Clash In Tehran

Male and female police officers clashed with women who were not dressed according to the Islamic dress code.

The clashes, which took place at Haft Tir Square in Tehran, came during the current Iranian security forces campaign to enforce the dress code.

One girl who refused to get into the police car was beaten by police, and removed from the area by civilians who were called to the scene.

Source: Rooz, Iran, May 21, 2007

My God!!! They're Beating Their Women to a Bloody Pulp!

[...] The Iranian blogosphere is all over this...
Will America ignore this brutality?????????? [...]

Iran Religious Police Now Beating Women in Public

[...] today's leftists are neither feminist nor progressive as they seethe and fume and argue for a complete abandonment of the women who are beaten, imprisoned, murdered and disappeared not only in Iran, but throughout the barbaric Islamist world.

I suppose when the world, even the United States, gives you a pass for murdering innocent civilians worldwide, beating up and murdering your own women becomes that much easier. [...]

Disgusting, but unfortunately not surprising. If they do this in public, imagine what they do behind closed doors?


Related Link:

Iranian Fashion Police at work... literally
     

Competition for OLPC: shameful, or good?

The CBS program "60 Minutes" recently did a feature on their show about the OLPC Project (One Laptop Per Child). OLPC is a non-profit organization devoted to developing a $100 laptop that could replace textbooks for children in developing nations, and greatly improve educational standards and opportunities.

The video is 13 minutes long, and is available on the CBS website:


What If Every Child Had A Laptop?
Lesley Stahl Reports On The Dream And The Difficulties Of Getting A Computer To Every Child

The page has a transcript of the story, as well as link to the video that was aired. I strongly recommend watching the video; it's a fascinating story, and a look at the vision OLPC is working to create.

During the course of the interview, the head of the OLPC Program, and it's inspiration, Nicholas Negroponte, blasts Intel, which has a competing product, The Classmate PC. He claims Intel is selling their laptop at reduced cost, to undermine the OLPC project. Says Negroponte:

[...] For Nicholas Negroponte it’s not just business – it’s personal. It’s about his dream, his baby.

"Has Intel hurt you and the mission?" Stahl asks.

"Yes, Intel has hurt the mission enormously," Negroponte says.

These laptops are prototypes. To get them into mass production, Negroponte needs at least 3 million orders which he thought he’d have by now. But so far he has lots of promises but no definite orders.

And he blames Intel. He spends almost all his time – about 330 days a year he says – lobbying government officials, going from one country to the next. [...]

(bold emphasis mine) What the program isn't telling you, is why governments are hesitating to place orders.

Negroponte is fond of saying that OLPC isn't a laptop program, it's an EDUCATION program. That's debatable. But there is no doubt that Negroponte has particular educational uses in mind with his laptop. Apparently he does not believe in structured curriculum or testing; teachers are supposed to be "co-learners" rather than leaders; he has some very free-thinking ideas about learning. One Laptop Per Child has based their project on a teaching method called Constructionism.

I have no objection to that; it's fine to try new things. If it works, fine. If it doesn't, then we still can learn from that. But the government education ministries and departments who are interested in purchasing these laptops don't necessarily want to spend millions to experiment on their kids: they want a solid curriculum. Some have said they want the option to run Windows and more conventional software on the laptops. The OLPC laptop, at present, can't run Windows. It uses a customized version of Linux.

Other companies, like Intel, are offering more options. Intel's Classmate PC can use Windows or Linux. If Negroponte wants to be the only game in town, so he can push his "Constructionist" education agenda, then he's not being realistic, or fair. Having multiple choices is better for everyone.

Wayan Vota at OLPC News makes the case that the competition between OLPC and Intel is a GOOD thing:

OLPC XO vs. Intel Classmate PC, a Beneficial Competition

[...] In his 60 Minutes interview, Negroponte says that "Yes, Intel has hurt the mission enormously," while in a recent lecture at MIT he accused Intel of trying to sell Classmates below cost just to dissuade governments from committing to OLPC. Professor Negroponte's summation of all this?:

"Intel should be ashamed of itself. It’s just – it’s just shameless."

Actually, no, Dr. Negroponte, its not shameless at all, its competition. Beneficial competition for everyone involved: OLPC, Intel, and the developing world.

First off, the pressure from Intel has made OLPC more responsive to government realities. Gone is Negroponte' arrogance around only dealing with heads of state and only for one million unit orders. He is now more open to different stakeholders and more manageable laptop lots. Gone is a Constructionist focus from the OLPC mission statement, replaced by a new-found focus on educational content.

Next, Intel is engaging in the All-American game of catch-up to the OLPC thought leadership. Intel is increasing its focus on the developing world as a real market, by developing new computing products like the Classmate PC. It is also centering the World Ahead program on the developing world outside of India and China. Last but not least, OLPC has broken Intel from its Microsoft myopia, spurring a Linux Classmate PC.

Now the real winners in this competition are the people in the developing world. [...]

Bravo! Wayan nails it down! See the full article for the embedded links, and further examples of why this competition is all for the good.

And Bravo to the OLPC team, for thinking outside of the box and creating an incredible machine that many people thought could not be done. Now, instead of whining about competition, think outside the box again and start marketing what you created, in order to finance the mission's vision.

OLPC's XO laptop can revolutionize the laptop industry, not just in developing countries, but worldwide. Many people, adult individuals as well as students in the developed and prosperous nations, would gladly pay for a commercial version, which could subsidize the OLPC Project. Some capitalistic savy and know-how can even help the dreams of a non-profit organization come true. Let's hope the OLPC project decides to take the best of both worlds and run with it.
     

$100 laptop: what it's about, what they have done

Here is a video, about 6 minutes long, about the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project. The project team members talk about their work on the project, about what they have done and what they are attempting to do.

Source URL: Awesome Tech Podcast!!! OLPC $100 Laptop

Monday Funnies 05/21/07

Farm Report 05/20/07

The "ladies" on bug patrol. They quite enjoy being free-range, but unfortunately have taken to laying half their eggs in the coup, and the other half outside in the brush. So practically every day there is an Easter Egg hunt at Robin's Wood.

In the background, the tall stick structure is a frame we've put around the cherry tree, to support netting to keep the Bluejays off. The squarish structure further back to the left is a pergola that Andy built for our Golden Kiwi vines.



Apple blossom time. This is the latest blooming branch of our Frankenstein apple tree (it has several different apple tree grafts on it, which bloom at different times, with different blooms).



Here are our Guinea fowl keets. We got them when they were just a few days old. I was going to take a picture of them when they were cute little chicks, but they grew up too fast. Here they are about 8 weeks old.



In the foreground, the blue flowering shrub is our Ceanothos, the blooms are already fading, I should have taken the picture a week earlier. In the background is our pergola. The vines are still too short to see.



All the leaves have unfolded by now; spring is sliding into summer.



The Calla lillies are adapting well to their new home on slope of our lawn. They don't seem to mind the clay soil.



Here is our blooming Columbine. The garden is singing, with the promise of many more blooms to come.



A Springtime cloud drama unfolding over the ocean as the sun sets. Another day at Robin's Wood comes to a close.