Mid-November... and the first shoots of the garlic crop appear...

... on the Meadhouse farmland...

What if you support a political candidate and his campaign — without your permission — sticks its yard sign in your yard?

Oh, how painful it was for Adam Schabow when — twice! — Tom Barrett's people stuck their sign in his yard! He hates Scott Walker, but the presumption and the intrusion was just very horrible for him.

"I wanted a 'Recall Walker' sign. 'Cause mine got stolen a couple of weeks earlier. The whole thing was very convenient for me. But they didn't know that. So they shouldn't've been messin' around on my lawn."

Even liberals say get off my lawn.

IN THE COMMENTS: Pogo wrote:

His lawn?
"His" lawn??

There is nobody in this country who got a lawn on his own — nobody.
You grew some grass out there? Good for you.

But I want to be clear. You moved your grass seed on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired lawn care workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your house because of police-forces and fire-forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything on your lawn — and hire someone to protect against this — because of the work the rest of us did.

Your lawn?
Hardly!!

The new diet idea: breakfast with dessert.

"During an initial 16-week period, the average weight loss in each group was identical — about 32 pounds. But over a 16-week follow-up, people on the dessert-with-breakfast diet lost an additional 13 pounds on average, while the others gained back all but 3.5 of the pounds they had lost."

Ah! It's about ghrelin. How strange to run into that immediately after getting my attention directed, once again, to the subject of first sleep, second sleep, which I originally captivated me in 2006. I had just read this other blog post of mine from the last day of 2006, "The two most useful health stories of the year." The second one was first sleep, second sleep, and the first one was ghrelin:

This one, explaining why your brain will be sharper if you stay a bit hungry. Maybe you've been trying to lose weight, but feeling that it's always important to stave off any feeling of hunger, for fear you might become weak or dim-witted. No! The opposite is true. We evolved to perform especially well when we feel the need for food. Sate yourself, and you'll be duller. Using this information, invent a better weight-loss diet.

Now, that's the diet idea of staying hungry, not topping off breakfast with cookies or ice cream. But I like the freaky coincidence of 2 old topics popping up today in succession, like twin comets on a 6 year orbit.

Another funny thing is that, back when I first learned about first sleep, second sleep, I wrote a post at 2:27 a.m., talking about how I was between sleeps and worrying about raking my leaves before the snows came and ruined my lawn and imagining how if the lawn were ruined it would give me reason to hire people next year to "make it thickly plush, satisfyingly level, and shockingly green." And then there's Meade, in the first comment, at 3:32 a.m., also between sleeps, advising me about how to re-green the lawn. How nice that these days, when I'm caught between sleeps, Meade is here in the flesh.

The article I'd read back in 2006 said:

This time after the first sleep was praised as uniquely suited for sexual intimacy; rested couples have "more enjoyment" and "do it better," as one 16th-century French doctor wrote.

The time after second sleep is also good for many things, including breakfast alone or with your true love, with or without dessert.

At the Floating Althouse Café...

... you can talk all night.

(And thanks to Chip Ahoy for animating that picture Meade took today. And thanks to Meade for taking that picture... and for making the lawn so lush and green.)

The break's over.

... time to get to work.

At the Green Grass Café...

... I need a break!

At the Fresh Grass Café...

... you can lounge around.

Frontyard, backyard.

In front, we've got a "fence" of alliums where the hedge used to be. Photo — enlarged — by me:



In back, after 25 years of my back-to-nature approach, it's been a lot of work getting to blank-slate level, and Meade has drawn a semi-circle on the slate. Meade took this picture too. (Enlarge.)

At the White Tree Café...

... you can talk all night.

On the battlefield of protest, so many (snow)men have melted.

(Enlarge.)

"Please Keep off the Mud."

Moonrise on the prairie.

(Enlarge.)

What are you doing down there?

Me, up here, I'm using the binoculars to check out the new semi-circular backyard lawn...

The end of the love grass...

Meade had to cut it down...



... to get to the places where he's planting allium bulbs. And look! In the love grass stubble: an acorn stuck right in:



A squirrel must have thought that would keep it for the winter. And I had Googled for solutions to the problem of the squirrels digging all those little acorn-holes in the new lawn. I was sitting on the stoop at the time, but I relocated to the incredibly soft — spongy! — new turf grass:

"How do I stop a squirrel ruining my lawn?... I’m in the u.k so i do not have access to guns or explosives before I get tons of killing suggestions."

... "The problem is not the squirrels. It is your attitude. I’m not trying to be mean.
Squirrels have just as much right to your yard as you do. Maybe more. The
animals of the world do not see property lines. They are doing what they need
to do in order to survive. The fact that you are upset by their behaviour only
makes you look self absorbed and petty. Please leave them alone. Take a
different approach and laugh at their antics. They are funny once you can let
it go. Chili powder might blind them. Do not use it."

Oh, I'm just out here on the front stoop, helping Meade with the gardening, by doing the part of the gardening that you can do on Google. Squirrels keep burying acorns in the otherwise lovely new lawn.

After all of this politics...

... don't you feel you need a bath?

UPDATE: I'm back. Not from a bath. From a long bike ride. Over 20 miles. Glad to see the Badgers crushed Minnesota.

At the Green Glass Café...

... we revel in distortions.

At the New Lawn Café...

... you can get your bare feet all wet.

The Garden Angel Meets Jesus.

You remember the garden angel. Chip Ahoy bears witness to laters doings in the garden:

The new lawn guardian angel.

At the New Lawn Café....

... it's very green around here.