On this 4th of July and the 250th birthday of the United States, I wonder how my American friends and relatives are celebrating this Independence Day. I read the words spoken by Donald J. Trump on this day.

“Yet, as we approach this magnificent anniversary,” he said, “we see our American identity under a renewed attack a generation after we fought and won the Cold War against the menace of communism. There is now a resurgence of the communist menace in our land, including from newcomers to our country who embrace ideas totally opposed to our way of life and our great success.”

It is hard to feel that all lives matter in the States, no matter how many people echo that sentiment. I wonder why this fear of communism by the West here. Where is this fear coming from and for what purpose. Truth and morality are hard to find. So much false news everywhere. I found this definition of communism.

“Communism is a political and economic ideology that advocates for a classless, stateless society based on the public or communal ownership of all property and major industries. It aims to eliminate private ownership entirely, ensuring wealth is distributed among citizens equally or strictly based on individual need. “

To me it sounds like a good thing. By definition, I don’t think there’s any country that has achieved that state. The wealth is certainly not equally distributed in any country. So much poverty and homelessness. I wonder how many shelters and mouths could be fed by the cost of the Iran war.

Enough of wondering the whys and wherefores. I am having a busy day in the garden growing food. I spent a good hour, checking, cleaning and pruning my cabbages and broccoli. I found a few more white cabbage butterfly eggs and two caterpillars. The plants are looking much better with a haircut. There was too much foliage and the leaves were so big. I went on to trim the bed of tomatoes. Now everybody has room to breathe.

It’s hard to stop once I got started in the garden. I went on to harvest some snow peas and haspkap berries. Seeing how big the rhubarb and sprawly the goji berry bush were, I harvested them, too. Now I am sipping on tea made from the goji berry leaves.

There’s more work yet. I better end this post. My next stop is at the community garden to weed, stake up the snow peas and water. I had thought the thunderstorm missed us. I was wrong. No storm right here but our allotment garden got hit. The news is good. It looks recoverable.