July Temperatures in September

Still hot and humid here in the pet eating state. I am going to a high school football game tomorrow night and I am not sure what you wear to a football game with temps in the high 80's at kickoff.  My youngest granddaughter is a "mini cheerleader" with my oldest granddaughter, a true high school cheerleader, so it is a game I cannot miss. And the icing on the cake is that my oldest grandson will be marching in the band. Three grandchildren/one activity. Cha ching.  

Tonight's harvest. The peppers are starting to outnumber the tomatoes. The tomatoes are getting smaller. I froze the tomatoes for spaghetti sauce and sliced all the peppers into strips and put those in the freezer, too.  I made freezer salsa out of the last picking.  We only have two tomato plants and two pepper plants. And we are officially in a drought here. I can't explain it. 

I should not even joke about the pets. It is a horrible racial rumor that keeps getting traced back to friend's neighbor's sister-in-law's niece's neighbor who heard that.  We are not from Springfield but the stories I have heard is how the Haitians who are here permanently and have become citizens are buying abandoned houses and rehabbing them to live in and how much better the community is looking. The rest of the immigrants are all here on the same visa's as the men in my town working at the greenhouses. I can't remember the numbers on the permit, but the company applies for the work visas with proof of need, the men apply in their country and, if accepted, come here for 10 months a year, 3 years in a row. After that they are no longer eligible for that visa. 

The men in our town (the dorm-apartments are male only) are mostly younger guys, mid-20's. They are easy to identify because they are so clean cut and wearing brand new clothes they purchase at the Walmart near the housing. They wear those short sleeved sports jersey things and athletic shorts and very clean tennis shoes. And they are so polite. I was talking to our mayor and he was told they make $5 a day in their country vs $17 an hour here. They pay federal and state taxes, somehow our state legislature has outlawed paying local taxes - even though the company and the workers are both willing. They do not want to do ANYTHING to jeopardize this opportunity. My son is in law enforcement and there have been very few calls to the complex.  I really think two overall, and they were for very minor infractions of the rules of the complex. 

Our town had lots of rumors on facebook about how people's "friends and family" who worked at small businesses in the area experiencing lots of shoplifting and theft. The store owners got together and issued a statement that this is untrue. And our local police department issued a statement that they have not received any complaints from store owners. 

Anyway.  The saddest part is that the immigrants in Springfield are now afraid to send their children to school. Families who are legal tax paying citizens are living in fear. Certainly we can do better than this.