Plans

For some reason, the broccoli I planted last spring, produced florets this spring! I just harvested some. I'm happy about that.

I am planting other things this year. I saw a salad table idea on Martha Stewart. With cats, I could not have it inside, as was suggested, but I could have it outside my window. It is simply a square frame box with hardware cloth wire mesh for a bottom. Fill with dirt and plant lettuce or herbs in rows. The frame is made from 1/2" by 3 1/2" pine boards screwed together with 2x4 legs. Very simple. You harvest fresh lettuce and herbs as you use them.

I am also going to begin re-using cat litter after screening out the poop. Cat urine is mostly ammonia. Ammonia is nitrogen. The litter I use, wood pellet fuel, has no additives, and simply turns to sawdust when the cats urinate. This can be worked into soil.

I am going to also make a stand for sun drying fruits. I don't know if we will have a warm enough summer or not. Look what one sunny day, our first day that has reached 70 degrees out, according to a Portland news station, since October. Can you imagine the drear we've been in, to live without a sunny day since last October?

And suddenly, today-----SUN! Picks up the spirits for sure! Makes a person want to stop stagnating and grow, like the plants!

I saw an interesting show last night on either Discovery Channel or OPB, can't remember which. Must have been Discovery because OPB has the British comedies running on Saturday night.

It was about sex and sex drive origins and experiments to discover the biology of sex. One interesting comment made was that monogamous species of male have small testicles that house fewer sperm, since monogamy needs fewer sperm. The males of Species that are not monogamous have larger testicles, holding far more sperm. Human males are in between in size of testicles, in relation to body size.

I wonder, then, if the variation in human size testicles to body size might determine whether a man is suited to a monogamous life. Smaller testicles to body size maybe means they are likely to remain monogamous while larger testicle to body size ratio might mean genetically it would be harder for that male to remain monogamous. Just wondering, just a thought I had, after seeing that show. It was very interesting.

With the new machines out there, it is not surprising the last frontier of the human body, the brain and even sexual behavior, would be of great interest in scientific experiment now. In that show last night, they even had two people have sex inside an MRI machine. Boy, they would have to be very highly turned on to ignore those extreme magnet noises!

They put a young woman into the MRI also, who was highly in love. They showed her pictures of a friend, then of her boyfriend. The same area of the brain lit up when she saw her boyfriend that lights up when addict is about to satisfy their urge. Love is a sort of an addiction to one certain person, was the conclusion.

They showed some of the changes that occur right before sex. I thought them interesting. Like, when men have a "limp" penis, it's actually not limp at all, because bands of muscles hold it tightly and only relax, creating an erection, when the mind is stimulated, and causes a release of nitric oxide into the bloodstream, which causes those muscle bands to relax, and even infiltrate the muscle bands to make them spongy. Every other species of male mammal has a bone in their penis, but not humans.

Talked about why monogamy is important to humans and that is because the human infants brain is soft and small, as necessity to exit the birth canal and this creates a much longer time of infant vulnerability, requiring a great deal of protection and nurture from the mother. For the mother to be freed to care for the infant, a mate must be secured to provide for and protect mother and young.

The fact a females mate must be adequate to provide for and protect a family, the female human is generally more picky than the male human in choosing a mate. Or was once, as humans evolved. The male human generally wants a mate so they can mate. The urge in males to mate (have sex) is very strong.

I thought the show was very interesting. I understand some folks are queasy about such subjects.