While it sounds great in practice, I find it suspicious that they never mention the the final bill.

Personally, I’ve been compiling a cache of datacentric interpolations of real-world metrics used to synergistically integrate human intelligence with the intersection of science, technology, mathematics, arts, and philosophy since the moment I was born, and let me tell you, this is what I was born for.

Getting vaccinated for COVID last year was such a ridiculous experience for me. I think it took like 4 attempts.

First time I tried, there was a shortage and I was told it wasn’t available in our area. Second time I went to a walk-in place, and they turned me away because it was going to be about an hour wait and they’d be closed by then. Third time, I got turned away because I said said “kind of” when they asked me if I’d been around anybody in the past two weeks who tested positive, even though I explained that it was a brief outdoor exchange of hellos from a distance and the neighbor didn’t test positive until a couple days later.

I ended up getting it at Walmart of all places, and they didn’t even ask any of those qualifying questions (i.e. exposure in the past 2 weeks). They just wanted to know my insurance info and which arm to give the shot in.

Now that I’m a caretaker for a medically fragile adult who has never fully recovered from their prior COVID infection, I’m hoping that my situation is covered. But if not, I’ve already been trained on what to say to “qualify”.

This is a dream job!

I mean, nightmares are dreams, too.

Hit and miss is probably a bit simplistic, but to some degree, yes, that’s how things are.

I don’t grow in your climate or even the same part of the world as you, but I live in an area of the USA (southeast) where warm season conditions from year to year are quite variable. You never really know what you’re going to get, could be drought, could be exceptionally wet all summer, might be reasonably comfortable temps, might have extreme heat starting in April. Same with bugs and disease, good years with little issue, then a decade where each year brings one or more new scourge that had previously not been an issue.

This year was super weird for me as well. Much wetter, much cloudier than normal, but also repressively extreme heat for a good part of that. Even with raised beds, lots of things struggled to dry out. Things like tomatoes are showing signs of getting too much water, water-born diseases are rampant. And because all the plants are weakened, now the pests have moved in and are insatiable, unstoppable nightmares.

Professional farmers handle this with chemicals, so they’re mostly all quite happy that we finally had a summer without a drought, first time in 5+ years. I would not be surprised to hear of near record crop yields locally this year.

But us random back yard hobby growers seem to all be unimpressed. Even the ones who were generally known for being exceptionally skilled seem to have given up on this year’s crop. Having said that, not everything has suffered. A few things, like herbs and okra, did exceptionally well this year.

Couple of things to mention: Find out what tends to grow best in your climate and try to stick with that (at least until you get some experience under your belt). Find out what growing techniques work best in your climate and try to do that as best you can, but know that it won’t always work out. Go for variety. Try a few different techniques, like do some things in pots, others in a raised bed. Plant a few things in a bit more shade (or a bit more sun) than normal, hedge against extreme heat and long dreary spells. Grow many different things with slightly different needs, shot gun approach, because some years are better than others for different things.