My grandpa always considered March 1 the first day of spring. It was the day he gave his yard its first pruning. I'm not as lucky to live in a place where I can start my gardening quite so early.  But heck, there's no reason not to think about spring.

I look forward to tilling the ground, planting vegetables and fertilizing my herbs. Like many of you, I enjoy watching seedlings grow and can't wait for the first harvest.  There's something special about food that you grow on your own land.  Call me silly, but one of my greatest pleasures is serving a meal that came, at least in part, from right outside my back door.

Four weeks ago I came here and asked my fellow Kossacks to open their hearts and wallets so Blogging for Michigan could send care packages to Michigan soldiers stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

You responded generously and I want to say thank you. And as promised that evening, I have pictures too.

Good evening everyone and welcome to the What's for Dinner Cafe. Our featured recipe today is a traditional French Canadian meat pie, tourtiere, which is served on Christmas Eve.

Many years ago in the early days of Mr. Lear's business, we would invite his employees and their spouses to our home for a holiday meal on one of the weekends leading up to Christmas. My dilemma, of course, was what to serve while not spending a lot of time in the kitchen, and still make something different than the year before.

Years later, I'll finally admit that I spent too much time fussing with menus and recipes. I asked everyone for ideas and spent a lot of time looking through cook books and testing dishes.  Fortunately a colleague and her mother answered my call for help and introduced me to a French Canadian family tradition called Reveillon. Like many others cultures, including my own Polish heritage, French Canadians serve a large multi-course feast after Mass on Christmas Eve.

I'm here to ask for your help.

On Veteran's Day my colleagues and I at Blogging for Michigan kicked off a project named Blogging for Michigan Troop Care. We're taking up a collection so we can send care packages to troops currently stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The effort continues through tomorrow night.

Can you make a donation? If you have an extra $5, $10, or $20 in your wallet tonight, please help us buy more goods for troops. We have a PayPal account set up to accept your donation. (Link updated now. Thanks to Christine.) Our goal is $5000. As of now, we have raised about $3400.

Good evening everyone and welcome to the What's for Dinner Cafe on the first Saturday of fall. Our recipes today feature truly indigenous American foods: squash.

So, pour yourself a favorite beverage. Go ahead. I'll wait.

Now put your feet up and relax. We have an appetizer, a soup and cookies to sample. If thoughts of your mother's bland over-cooked mush are beginning to dance in your head, please push them away.

I've got plenty of texture, tang, spice and even a little bit of sweetness for your palates. First though, a little bit of history...

Mother Nature dealt Michiganders a cold hand this week. The thermometer is seeing a range of 40-60 today. That's unusually chilly for Ann Arbor and I'm scrambling trying to finish some last minute canning. Almost there - the last pints of corn relish are cooling...

Sigh.

Fall weather makes me think about soul warming, hearty dishes. For years Mr. Lear and I have tried to spend our weekends making food that makes us happy. But, all of our culinary adventures have not exactly been paradise. Getting the other half to realize that food can be a wonderful experience took a lot of work, a lot of improvement of both our culinary skills, and lots of gentle convincing that trying new things was goodness.

The convincing went both ways.

It's H.R. 508.

Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), Maxine Waters (D-CA), and Barbara Lee (D-CA) introduced the Bring Our Troops Home and Sovereignty of Iraq Restoration Act of 2007.  There's a six-month time frame for withdrawing all US military forces from Iraq, a framework for bringing stability back to Iraq, and it fully funds the VA health care system.

Last Saturday in his radio address Bush challenged those who disagreed with him to offer their own plan. Don't get me started on the idiocy and arrogance of such a demand, but I what's important is three Gentlewomen from California have given our nation another vehicle to move forward.

For those of you who may not have seen GOTV's dairy over the weekend, consider this your call to gather.  Yes, this is another chapter in our Occasional MichiKos Gatherings.

Come one.  Come all.  Everyone is welcome.

Meet your fellow bloggers and activists and toss down a cold one, or two. Enjoy insightful opinions and political discourse.  You never know what you'll find, or who you'll meet.  National, state, or local politics - we're a group that will talk about anything.  Feel free to bring a friend.  We'll talk to them too.

Day: Friday December 29
Time: 7:30 pm
Place: The Corner Brewery, 720 Norris Street, Ypsilanti, 734-480-2739

It's crunch time.

If you live in the area please get out your walking shoes.  The  campaign wants to get an additional 25,000 pieces of literature out this weekend.  It's just a lit drop - no knocking, no canvassing.

This race is close and 25,000 extra homes can very well be the difference.

Tony Trupiano's campaign (MI-11) is getting a huge boost. He needs your help to give it a bigger one. Howie Klien and the folks at Blue America have got a TV ad they want to help Tony run. The whole story is here at the Huffington Post.

They had an ad ready to run for Webb in Virginia titled Rubber Stamp. Long story short, Webb's not using it and they've decided to modify it for Tony. Go watch. I'll wait.

As Howie tells the story...

We got Markos to go over all the races with us and figure out which race would be most likely to benefit from this particular ad and where our limited budget would actually do enough... not just enough to send a message, but enough to swing a few points and win an election. In the end the four of us all came to the same conclusion: Tony Trupiano.

Long gone are the days of gathering signatures from neighbors on petitions. A prospective candidate only has to fill out an affidavit at their municipal clerks office and offer proof of identity, such as a drivers license. The clerk's office will notarize the affidavit and send it to the county.

Some of you have scoffed at my earlier diaries on the subject of the '06 ballot initiative about the definition of life and how it will effect the gubernatorial campaign in Michigan. I predicted the necessary signatures would easily be collected to get it on the ballot, and this would happen with the assistance of local clergy. I also predicted that the catholic church would use the initiative to squeeze Granholm and wedge women voters who crossed over in '02 because she was a woman.

Your complacency led you to put stock in statements such as this one.

"This group has not approached us. And, quite frankly, we have our agenda set for next year and an expensive ballot initiative is not part of it."--Ed Rivet, lobbyist for Right to Life of Michigan.

Not so fast.

From a Progressive Democrats of America release

Planned Parenthood makes the following comment on their website

Not so fast.

Here's a list of participating breweries. Oh hell, recommend a brewery even if it's not on the list. I'm always on the look out for a good beer.

Please tell me why do you like this beer, or brewery?

And lest you think this diary doesn't have a political angle, read on.

Their letter began:

Michigan is home to the largest Arab American population in the U.S.