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"There Is Definitely Something Strange Going On" In Sweden
Submitted by Erico Matias Tavares via Sinclair & Co.,
Dr. Tino Sanandaji is an economics researcher at the Stockholm
School of Economics, Sweden. He holds a PhD from the University of
Chicago. A Kurd from Iran who moved to Sweden at the age of 9, he has
written extensively about immigration policy as a researcher and
contributor to prominent Swedish journals such as the National Review
and Real tid.
E. Tavares: Thanks for being with us today. We would like to
talk about a very sensitive topic at the moment – mass immigration in
Sweden, something that you have researched extensively. You have
publicly expressed some pretty serious concerns about current trends and
what might unfold as a result.
We studied in your country back in the mid-1990s and it was a
great experience. There was already a sizeable immigrant population but
for the most part everyone seemed to get along fine. Middle Eastern
girls dressed like any native origin Swedish girl and were very open and
friendly. The only place where we ever witnessed any major tension
between communities was in a nightclub. What has changed since then?
T. Sanandaji: I don’ think that anything has happened in the
relationship between migrants and native Swedes. On the contrary, there
has been even a slight improvement.
However, in 1990 non-European immigrants accounted for only 3% of the
population and any problems could be isolated and managed within the
bigger framework of society. That figure has increased to some 13-14%
now, and is growing at perhaps 1-2 percentage points from last year,
with persistent gaps in income, unemployment and education. It’s really a question of scale rather than degree of divisions.
You still have a sizeable number of Iranians, Iraqis, Bosnians and
the like who are well integrated, dress like any westerner, speak
fluent Swedish and openly talk to anyone. That group is even bigger
than in 1990. But there is another group which is living in a ghetto and
who does not speak Swedish all that well, does not feel a part of
society, is unemployed and so on. And that group has increased rapidly.
When it reaches a certain size it starts to influence everything around
it – like schools, social spaces and so forth.
At a theoretical level there is an idea proposed by Professor Edward
Lazear from the Stanford Business School where integration is a function
of group size. If you have small immigration most people around the new
arrivals are going to be natives, and so finding your place in society
is just a gradual social process: interacting with your neighbors,
working with other people, absorbing their values and learning the
language. Once that group becomes very large then you have an issue
of critical mass where if you don’t want to integrate you can just live
in the immigrant community, working and interacting mostly with other
immigrants, not having to learn the language and so on. And you don’t
integrate as easily.
ET: What you are saying is that any integration issues are
not so much due to a lack of effort by the Swedish authorities, but
rather driven by the sheer scale and size increase of the immigration
population in recent decades.
TS: That’s exactly right. Any society is going to have an
absorption capacity given the size of the labor market, schools,
economic prospects, housing and so on. With a smaller number this is
quite doable, but with many more immigrants it becomes much more
difficult. And this is a cumulative process. It has been going on for three decades now.
I like to look at things like gaps in employment, income and school
results. If we start with the first one, in the age group 20-64 82% of
native born Swedes are employed compared to only 58% of immigrants. That
is a huge gap right there. It has remained constant going back to 2000,
and even slightly increased compared to 1990.
We see the same thing happening with income, in that immigrants on
average earn 40% less than the natives, which is also worse than in
1990. And if you look at school results, you find a massive gap yet
again: 9% of the natives don’t qualify to go to high-school after 9th
grade, compared to around 30% for those of immigrant origin.
So you have these major gaps that have been very persistent over
time and rank among the highest in the developed world. If you look at
the employment gap, it is the highest in the OECD, and because the group
keeps growing as a percentage of total the problem for society becomes
bigger and bigger.
ET: Do you have a projection for the immigrant population as a percentage of total in a generation, say by 2050?
TS: That’s a very good question. It strongly depends on immigration
policy. Even if the rate of immigration has accelerated, as everyone
knows, basically to levels never experienced by any modern welfare state
– ever – the government has recently done a huge U-turn and all but
closed the borders. So that makes it very difficult to forecast what
will happen going forward.
Let me make an attempt nevertheless. I think we will go back to
medium rates of immigration that we used to have 10 years ago. They were
high but nowhere near as high as right now. The non-ethnic Swedish
group is about 22% of the population right now, including second
generation, and it might perhaps reach 35-40% within 30 years.
ET: But in major cities they will become the majority right?
TS: In Malmo, Sweden’s third largest city, it’s already almost 50% of
the total. So that’s where Sweden could be going to be in a generation
because Malmo started to take immigrants earlier.
Stockholm, the capital, is a bit of a segregated city as it’s
difficult for immigrants to move there given the higher cost of living.
The ones who do tend to be the well integrated immigrants. Actually it
could even go the other way because you could see a very strong “white flight” from towns that are becoming dominated by immigrants.
Research shows that the tipping point for that flight to occur is
very low: after 4% of non-European immigrants the native Swedes start to
move out. This is arguably an even worse segregation problem than in the US.
At the same time, there is a fascinating study that shows that if you
ask the average Swede if it is important to live in a multicultural
neighborhood most of them say yes. Actually, the ones who moved away
from those neighborhoods are even more likely to respond positively.
ET: It seems that there is some type of cognitive dissonance
going on there. Now, any good Keynesian economist will tell you that
because the native population is declining, bringing in migrants is a
great idea because it boosts aggregate demand, so the economy should
benefit as a result. In fact the Swedish economy has been doing rather
well on a GDP growth basis in recent years. Doesn’t that counter the
shortcomings you outlined?
TS: If what you described was true that would counter my argument but
let me give you the actual numbers. These are the perceptions that most
people have but they are not accurate.
First, Sweden does not have a shrinking population even excluding the
immigrants. Sweden is not Italy, it has much higher birth rates. Over
the last 200 years we had a birth surplus in all but four years even
excluding immigration. The number of native origin Swedes has never been
higher than now. Of course a lot of the population growth is immigrants
but Sweden would still be ok without it.
Second, as you know you have to measure GDP on a per capita basis to
get a real sense of prosperity, not overall GDP growth. We have a very
high rate of GDP growth that is almost entirely driven by population
growth.
Actually, Sweden has bizarre population growth figures, more than
twice in percentage terms of Bangladesh for instance. In recent years
the total size of the Bangladeshi economy has grown faster than
Switzerland, creating 30 million jobs versus 1 million in the latter.
But that does not mean that Bangladesh has become a more prosperous
society because its GDP per capita remained far lower. The size of the
pie grew due to population growth but so did the number of people
sharing it.
Last quarter we had 3.9% GDP growth on an annualized basis. That’s
not particularly impressive when you consider that we had 1.4% official
population growth and we probably had another 1.4% from refugees that
have not been accounted for yet. If you look at these numbers since
2006, Sweden has had close to zero GDP growth in per capita terms, maybe
0.6% per year on average. That’s not at all impressive when compared to
the historical average.
At the same time we have seen a massive increase in household debt
which has to be paid back at some point. To give you a sense people say
that we have the second most indebted households in the OECD. That’s a
big number.
Sweden used to have very strong state finances. In fact we had the
opposite of Keynesianism after the huge economic crisis in the early
1990s, as you may recall. The Swedes have this puritan Lutheran
tradition and both political sides agreed to cut spending and
implemented an impressive budget reform – which is quite unique as I
often talk about, capping total spending and letting all the ministers
decide how it would be allocated amongst them – which really reduced the
size of government. As a result we created a very strong fiscal surplus
and paid back a huge portion of the public debt. This is why Sweden was
so admired abroad, not because of our GDP per capita growth which was
actually not all that impressive during that period. It’s in the
recovery of the public and banking sector finances where we excelled,
while most developed countries were going the other way.
With that in mind, let me give you another statistic that is actually
fascinating: we went from having fiscal surpluses during recessions to a
deficit now during a robust business cycle recovery.
If you look at GDP and population growth figures projected by the
government, we are seeing something that I had never seen before:
projected negative GDP per capita growth rates in a period of economic
cycle recovery . The only reason for that is immigration; Sweden is
bringing in a lot of people who consume but do not produce much.
Lastly, even a sophisticated Keynesian would admit that the question
really is demand per capita, not just absolute demand. The good
economists adjust for the population size. It’s only the political hacks
who don’t have a good argument to defend immigration who look at the
absolute figures.
Before historically when we had low 0.5% population growth GDP per
capita and total GDP growth were similar numbers. Now with the high
population growth we have of more than 2% per year, we need more than 4%
GDP growth in total to achieve that historical per capita growth of
around 2% per capita.
ET: The situation is similar in the US. We believe that US
GDP per capita crawled back to pre-2008 crisis levels only in 2014,
as immigration remained quite robust under the Obama administration.
This is a very interesting point that is seldom discussed.
On government spending, Jan Tullberg, a university colleague
of yours, just did a calculation where he showed that the 2015 migrant
crisis will cost the equivalent of 14x the Swedish defense budget (even assuming that a third of the migrants would be deported). What are your comments on that?
TS: I looked at this calculation and it is a bit speculative. First
it is important to understand that Tullberg is talking about lifetime
costs of the people we are taking in now, not the annual costs. Let’s
say we took 100,000 people this year and they will live in Sweden for
another 30-50 years. What is that going to cost? I don’t think you
should compare that to the defense budget because it’s a bit apples to
oranges. Tullberg’s estimates are not outside the realm of possibility
but I would say that they are too high. If I had to guess I would say
that half of that figure is the right answer.
There have been studies done for Denmark and Norway and if you for
the sake of the argument take the average of these two countries as the
right number for Sweden: US$300,000 discounted net lifetime cost per
migrant (although this is an inexact guess since we lack Swedish
estimates). That comes out at US$30 billion, which is not an
insignificant number for a country with 10 million people.
Let me give you a different number which is easier to compare. Just
the initial cost for those asylum seekers is 1.5% of our GDP,
significantly higher than our defense budget at around 1%. And that does
not count the net costs associated with housing, health, welfare
spending and so forth that arise later.
But much more meaningful than the defense budget is the UNHCR
budget for the 60 million refugees displaced around the world. And just
those initial costs that Sweden spent in 2015 were twice the UN’s
funding! The left likes to talk about the privileged 1%, but the 0.3% of
refugees that made it to Sweden got twice as much resources as the
99.7% displaced around the world.
ET: Uau! We believe that because of the housing shortage in
Sweden those migrants are placed in tents that cost 20x more than tents
in the refugee camps in the Middle East, because it is much colder
there.
TS: There are different estimates on this. I would say that 20x is optimistic; it’s probably 50 or 100 times more expensive in Sweden.
You should see a picture of these weatherized tents, although in
fairness there aren’t that many. Eventually the government had to close
the borders because they ran out of space.
I wrote about this recently, and the 3,000 people housed in these
tents are going to cost more than the biggest refugee camp they built in
Jordan, for perhaps 100,000 Syrian refugees. It’s a surreal figure!
ET: Apparently the latest strategy is to house thousands of migrants in a docked luxury cruise ships.
TS: They are doing that, and you couldn’t make this stuff up. The
waste of resources compared to dealing with the problem at the source is
staggering.
Another mind blowing number – and you might think it is impossible
but I have all the official figures to back this up – is the cost to
house all these unaccompanied minors we have coming in, mostly from
Afghanistan. By any indication most are not even minors, but in Sweden
you get special treatment if you qualify as such. And their age claim is
seldom challenged by the authorities so they usually get asylum even if
they are much older than a minor.
Now, this is very expensive because they are treated like children and get a lot of resources. We
are approaching the point where the 20-30,000 or so minors under this
category are going to get more money than the entire budget of
Afghanistan including foreign aid - a country with 30 million people! It’s almost impossible to deny this because it’s simple budget calculations.
At the same time, we are cutting our foreign aid budget to meet all
these expenses, by something like 30%. I personally think that
catastrophe aid, refugee aid, food aid works…
ET: … And it helps to prevent this huge migratory influx.
TS: This is a point worth emphasizing. Development aid to help
countries build factories does not work. What works is food programs,
medical aid to refugees, water, things like that. We had a massive
reduction in deaths from starvation in the post war era because of these
programs. Same for the prevention of AIDS in Africa, which saved
countless lives. Now some of these programs are being cut back to take
in refugees.
Of course the Swedish AID-workers are protesting this. There was a
recent calculation by an AID-organization that argued that we are
cutting programs to children in third world countries, and an estimated
20,000 people might die just from cutting the Swedish foreign aid, if
the estimate is accurate.
In return, we are probably not saving a single life because none of those migrants are coming directly from war zones; almost all that come to Sweden were already in safe countries like Turkey, Iran or Germany.
ET: There is a huge number of male migrants that went to
Sweden last year, vastly more than women. We read that the demographic
imbalance in Sweden is now even worse than China. Is this correct?
TS: Maybe in some age group, but not in overall terms of course. Some 92% of those unaccompanied migrants were male last year…
ET: … Wait a minute, 92% of them are male?
TS: Yes, there is definitely something strange going on. More than
half of the world’s refugees are women. In World War II, when Sweden
took refugees from Finland, they were children and 90% were below the
age of 10. But now almost all of them are late teenagers – supposedly;
we know many are older for a fact. When other countries age test it
turns out that the majority are not children. And when there are crimes
committed and the age is investigated, often we get these absurd reports
where some of these guys are older than 30 and yet the government puts
them with other real minors in schools or housing, and this is creating a
lot of anger now. The media created this taboo where because they are
officially supposed to be children we can’t question it, and you are
fascist if you do. Yet most people can see that many are adults.
Now I’m not moralizing this. If you have an open door policy and you are incentivizing Afghans to take advantage of the system, can you really blame them? But it is an idiocy to equate anyone who questions the claim of being a minor with being a fascist.
You know, it’s really funny that the tale about the emperor having no clothes is a Scandinavian tale. Everybody
can see many are not children, but then the political and media
consensus will fire or at the very least censor the people who point out
this plainly obvious fact. Because how can you question children
running from war, using circular reasoning that anyone who claims to be a
child escaping war is one and cannot be questioned. You know, a
self-reported 70% are not even coming from Afghanistan but safer
countries like Iran, seeking a better life.
ET: On a related point to children, Sweden has always been
recognized as a country with very high education standards. It was
always at the top of the rankings across many fields. What has been the
impact of immigration on this? This is obviously a critical issue for
Swedish multinationals right?
TS: When you lived in Sweden in the mid-1990s we had one of the
highest performances in international test scores. I’ve been keeping up
with the latest developments because things are moving very fast. Since
the OECD started with Pisa tests no other country has crashed in the
scores as much as Sweden. In Western Europe we are already second last
after Greece. Swedish policies played the major role here, but
immigration may explain about 30% of that decline.
The oldest generation is still one of the strongest skill levels in
the world. But again the gap in adult skills is one of the highest in
the OECD and the increase in that gap is the highest (out of only 14-15
countries where there is data over time it should be noted).
So we had a crash in Swedish education standards. One reason it
hasn’t crashed even more is because immigrants are still a minority of
the population. You need a sense of proportion here, and the older
Swedes are still very skilled. This is a gradual process, but the trend
is worrying.
The top technical universities in Sweden, like Chalmers and KTH, have
done an interesting test. They have looked at the diagnostic results in
math for new engineering students over the last twenty years and these
have plunged by more than half! Professors who are aware of this are
alarmed. The government and the population in general really don’t know
how to deal with it.
The biggest concern we have is skills. That is the main source of
competitiveness for Swedish multinationals. You can’t have low skill
levels and compete against Chinese workers, or for that matter
Americans.
ET: This is critical for a small country like Sweden, which relies so much on technology and innovation…
TS: We can afford really high taxes and so on because Sweden is a
very productive and technologically advanced society that can compensate
for it. It’s not the best business environment but we have a highly
educated workforce that can make up for the difference. Companies come
here anyway because of our productivity, despite the higher costs.
It’s devastating if we lose this advantage. For countries like Denmark and Germany this is equally dangerous.
ET: So why is all this happening? We have seen this dire
situation unfold over many years, and yet the government seems intent in
doubling down, bringing in even more immigration in recent years. The
majority of the Swedish population even seems to be supportive of this
policy.
TS: That’s actually not true. We have a biased media here that
likes to portray the situation as you described, but we have serious
scientific polls that clearly state that the majority or plurality of
Swedes support reducing refugee immigration, even going back as far as
the 1980s. There has always been more saying that Sweden should take
in less refugees and this number has probably skyrocketed in recent
months.
One recent poll I have seen, and it excludes the past months, shows
very high opposition: only 8% said we are not taking enough immigrants,
where 58% said we are taking too many. It’s the elite opinion that forms
the consensus that Sweden should take many more immigrants – it’s
almost like a religion, but it is not the popular view.
ET: But that consensus correlates with election voting right?
There is only one party that is openly against immigration and they
scored very low in the last election.
TS: Yes, it’s because that party has its roots in racism and it was
taboo to vote for them. Despite that they went from 3% around ten years
ago to perhaps 20% now. What’s also happening in the last few months is
that the right wing moderate party, the Swedish “Tories” if you like,
has shifted to the right on immigration very rapidly. You know in Sweden
things shift very rapidly, it’s a consensus society. Now they are
saying close the borders, deport a large number of migrants, very
vociferously. The Liberals and the Christian Democrats are following
suit. And even the Social Democrats, the ruling party, closed the
borders in the end.
In a very short period we went from one extreme to the other. The
number of asylum seekers per week has come down by over 90% because they
introduced border controls and ID requirements.
So the elite consensus was in favor of migration to the point of the
media severely censoring critics, which created a lot of tension.
However, people could see what was going on and the elite just couldn’t
lie about it anymore. And now the mood has changed completely.
This is because this issue is tearing the country apart. And it’s
just not me saying it, international newspapers are reporting on this as
well.
ET: There’s a sense of a paradise lost.
TS: Yes. The control of the elite over this issue broke down last
winter. They dug in their heels and the Prime Minister even said that
there was no upper limit to the number of people we would take in. At
the same time popular opinion turned against them and parts of the
system simply stopped functioning – housing for refugees, runaway
deficits and so forth.
And then they backtracked. Sweden has abandoned its open door policy – officially and unofficially. What we have now is a state of shock and chaos and we don’t know what to do.
I actually think that the big inflow is over. Even the social
democratic government is now saying that if immigration goes up again
they will tighten the borders even more.
ET: But this is going in the opposite direction of what’s
happening in the rest of Europe. We know that there are millions of
people on the march, perhaps double or even quadruple the number of
migrants last year. If the Swedes are pushing back, this will put even
more pressure on Germany.
TS: What you are saying is correct. This will be an interesting
summer. It is very hard to predict what is going to happen, but if you
ask me there was never an externally driven migration crisis here in
Sweden. All of it comes down to border controls and the political will
to re-impose them. Once that political will is there it is very easy to
regulate immigration, at least in a very isolated country like Sweden.
So I think we are going to have another huge ideological battle in Europe. As
you say we are going to have a huge influx this summer. We don’t know
if Greece and Turkey will close those borders. But if they don’t and
this happens again here it’s an open question if the elite will win
again or if the public and parts of the elite that have defected – in
particular the Swedish traditional right – will prevail.
You know the Social Democrats are now polling at the lowest level
ever, going back to the start of polling in the 1960s, as a result of
these policies. They are just bleeding public opinion support and the
right is leading in the polls again.
So the government might fall if they go back to last year’s
immigration policy because people are fed up with the situation. The
sheer pressure of reality may break it.
ET: All that being said, even if they are able to control the
borders you already have a large immigration population which is
projected to steadily grow as a percentage of total, with all the gaps
and demographic imbalances we talked about. So is Sweden close to the
brink?
TS: No, I don’t think we are close to the brink yet. Adam Smith, the
famous economist, replied to a concerned British friend after the
breakaway of the American colonies that there’s a great deal of ruin in a
nation. This means that well organized nations can quickly recover. You
can do a lot of damage but you can recuperate.
Sweden’s future is in the hands of the Swedes. Yes, there has
been a huge mismanagement and we are going to have an ethnic class
society to some extent. That’s inevitable. I hope somebody solves it but
it’s extremely unlikely and to my knowledge when this poverty problem
established itself no country has been able to eradicate it.
The question though is about degree. We’re economists, we like to
measure things. You know, we had 160,000 refugees, some will be sent
back but on the other hand some will bring their families so net based
on historical experience you are talking about maybe 160-170,000 in
total once the dust settles. So that 160,000 is a big problem but it
will not break the back of the country. But if you have this number each
year then we will be in trouble. And in that sense it’s the Swedes who
will decide on this.
Given all the immigration we have taken in recent years there’s a
strong argument to have somewhat of a pause to absorb all the problems
that have been created. In the long run if Sweden regulates immigration
and returns to reality and sanity, then it will not become a failed
state.
Anyhow, in the short run you will continue to see shocking headlines from Sweden.
The recent inflow has overloaded the system to a point where we are
experiencing a crime wave. And absurd things are happening, things
nobody has almost seen before: mass assaults on women by large gangs of
men, lots of fighting with knifes or scolding water, murders, acid
thrown in faces of women, rapes, abuse of minors, rapes of young boys...
Headline after headline of horrific stuff.
Swedes always like to say that “we don’t want it like the United
States”; I joked it’s almost becoming too late for that, now the best
Sweden can hope for is “we don’t want it like the Game of Thrones”. The
inability of the European leadership to deal with the crisis is at once
surreal and fascinating, almost like witnessing a Donald Duck version
of the fall of the Roman Empire in real time.
ET: That’s an insightful remark to end our conversation.
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts on such a sensitive yet
critically important subject. Keep up the great work, all the best to
you.
TS: Thank you.
(18 votes)
In the Garden: A Welcome Sign of Spring
By Charles Kidder
Perhaps
the first plant I could recognize and name as a child was the daffodil,
a welcome sight and fragrance after a long New York winter. And
although native to the Mediterranean, daffodils (Narcissus species) have
been in Virginia since at least the middle of the seventeenth century.
Beginning in the 1890s, Gloucester County became a
center of daffodil production for much of the eastern United States.
Much of this revolved around “wild” or naturalized daffodils that were
cut and shipped north. By the middle of the twentieth century, this
industry was rapidly dying off for a variety of reasons. But Gloucester
County still has one daffodil breeder of note and continues to celebrate
its floral heritage with the Daffodil Festival on the last weekend of
March. More on that later.
The various Narcissus species, hybrids and
cultivars are commonly referred to as either daffodils, jonquils or even
simply narcissus, the latter especially when referring to the paper
whites commonly forced indoors. The term jonquil is commonly used in
certain regions for any daffodil, but technically refers only to one
group that has narrow reed-like foliage. The various daffodils are
divided into 13 divisions—or 12, if you believe some sources—that are
based on flower shape and heritage. For example, Division 1 daffodils
are called Trumpets, since the central portion or trumpet is quite long.
Regardless of division, colors range from yellow to white, perhaps with
some pink or orange in the trumpets. If you seek out specialty
nurseries, hundreds of cultivars are available.
All daffodils have similar cultural requirements.
As for the amount of sun they want, the more the better. Part sun, or
about six hours per day, is sufficient, but less sun than that will lead
to reduced blooming, even though the plants may soldier on for a long
time. And sunlight in a deciduous woodland does not really count as full
sunlight. As for soil, good drainage is important to avoid bulb rot. If
your soil is unusually sodden, either amend it with gravel or put
daffodils in a raised bed.
Daffodil bulbs should be planted at a depth equal
to about three times their diameter, so a two-inch bulb should be six
inches deep. Six inches is also a good distance between bulbs. Farther
apart and they lose visual impact; closer, and they will require
division sooner. Bulbs will look funny planted like soldiers in a
straight line, so if you have ten bulbs, better to either plant them in
two groups of five, or in a staggered double row. If you are planting a
very large number, you can avoid an overly orderly appearance by picking
up a handful and tossing them to the general area in which you wish to
plant.
There are any number of “new, improved,
back-saving!!” bulb planters out there. Use whatever works best for you,
which might just be an ordinary trowel or even a garden shovel. And
remember: nothing says you have to plant one bulb at a time. You can
take a spade and dig up a good-sized hole with one or two punches, and
then throw in three to five bulbs. For even larger areas, a rototiller
might be the quickest option. And do the bulbs have to be pointy-side
up? That’s the ideal, but the shoot will always get turned around and
pointed toward the sky anyway. If you’re in a hurry, ensuring that the
bulbs are at least on their side would be a good compromise.
Amending your soil with compost will definitely
give your daffodils a boost, but there’s no need to fertilize when
planting—which of course is not now, but in mid-to-late fall. In very
early spring, a balanced fertilizer—about 5-5-5 or 10-10-10 is
best—should be sprinkled around the plants just as their foliage
emerges. (You can also do this in the fall, but that assumes you’ll
remember where your daffodils are!) And speaking of feeding your
daffodils, we all know what to do with their foliage, which is there to
provide nutrients for the bulb, right? Doing nothing is perfectly okay.
Or when the foliage turns yellow and lies on the ground, you can throw
some mulch on it if the sight offends you. Do not cut the foliage off
while it’s still green or tie it up in cutesy knots! That prevents
movement of nutrients down to the bulb; plus, it takes a lot of valuable
gardening time.
But back to Gloucester County. The annual Daffodil
Festival takes place on the last weekend of March and includes the usual
attractions: a parade, a queen, entertainers, a race, a car show, and
of course, daffodils. (A full schedule is available on the county’s
website. There’s also a link to the history of daffodil farming in this
corner of Virginia.) On Saturday they will be running frequent buses
over to Brent and Becky’s Bulbs for tours and shopping. Brent and Becky
Heath own a business that has been in the family for several
generations, at one time operating as the Daffodil Mart. Although they
now sell many other types of bulbs, daffodils are still a specialty,
with over 200 varieties available.
Once planted, daffodils tend to naturalize, meaning
they spread slowly, but never seem to become invasive. Part of their
secret to longevity might be their poisonous nature: deer and other
critters don’t bother them, so you can enjoy your host of daffodils for
many years.
1 Comment
When we saw the daffodils pop in our neighborhood, it reminded us that Spring is just about here!
We love this time of year!
Betty MacDonald Fan Club proudly presents:
The amazing, very witty, charming, intelligent story written by our brilliant Betty MacDonald Fan Club Honor Member - artist and writer Letizia Mancino.
WHEN YOU DREAM, DREAM BIG
Copyright 2011/2016 by Letizia Mancino
All rights reserved
Translated by D. Tsiaprakas
Betty, I love you! Your books „Anybody can do anything“ and „Onions in the Stew“ are really outstanding! I take them into my hand, and at a stone's throw I am right away in America ! Columbus and the egg: The great discovery!
Your bestseller „The Egg and I“ the greatest discovery. And you and I! I know America: It's true what you are writing: That's America: Absolutely right! No, even to the least detail! The landscape and the passion: Do you know the country where pistols blossom? Brava, Betty, you are describing the Americans vividly, genuinely, insufferably, brushed upon paper. If I like to read your works? To read doesn't even express it! I can even hear and see everything: Nature, culture, subculture.
America has almost remained unchanged! O those cool Americans! Calculating, stockmarket, Wall Street, the financial crisis (even back in 1930), the gamblers, the bankruptcy of companies! The swarming of dodgers and cheaters. People left without money. Dispair und hunger! A terrible „Worst Case“ (when I knew but little English I thought it is sausage with cheese).
Still how impressive is the ability to adaptone self of the Americans: They know how to enjoy life, acrobats of survival! In the twinkle of an eye they achieved to adapt themselves and effect the work of pioneers: In the morning you are a cleaningwoman, in the evening a brothel woman! No problem!
„The insufficient, here it's becoming an event; The indescribable, here it's done;“ Mary Bard Jensen, your sister, was the treasure trove of procuring work: My word, what a power woman with unlimited imagination! She has recommended you everywhere: Betty can do everything, also write novels! Go ahead, sister, hurry up! The editor wants to see your manuscripts! Up to that point you had not written a single line! Wow! And if still everything goes wrong? No problem: When you dream, dream big!
Just look, you have become famous.The Egg and I You know that, Betty? I'll slip into „The Egg and I“ and come and be your guest! I want to get to know your chickens. I hate chickens! I'm a chickens slave from North America! O Betty, without these damned animals, no chance of you becoming famous! „The Egg and I“ you would never have written! How many readers you have made happy!
Your book is so amusing! Your witty fine (almost nasty) remarks about your family members and roundabout neighbours made me laugh so much! You have been born into a special family: Comfort was not desired: I can't but be amazed: What did your father say to your mother? After tomorrow I am going to work elsewhere: Thousands of miles away...He sent her a telegram: LEAVING FOR TWO YEARS ON THURSDAY FOR MEXICO CITY STOP GET READY IF YOU WANT TO COME ALONG – That was on Monday. Mother wired back: SHALL BE READY, and so she was.That's America! Improvisation, change, adventure. You show no weakness: Let's go! Your descriptions, Betty, about the tremendous happenings in nature have deeply frightened me.
Continent America, I'm terrified by you! I feel so small and threatened like a tiny fly before an enormous flyswatter! Your novel is very many-sided! The reader may use it even as a cook book! „The Egg and I“ starts straight away with a recipe: „Next to the wisdom that lamb meat doesn't taste good unless it has been roasted with garlic“. Do you enjoy the American food?
O Betty, it's too fatty for me and I hate garlic! (Betty is presently cooking lunch for Bob. She's continually talking to „STOVE“: STOVE is Bob's rival; in the beginning I thought it was being himself). She turns round and says: Well, so no garlic for you. No lamb either, Betty. I don't eat any meat! I'd actually prefer only fried eggs. Betty, let me make them myself. Then you try it!
Blow! „STOVE“ out of order! I don't succeed in turning it on! Damned! It's got more of a mind of its own than „STOVE“ of my friend, Hilde Domin! Bob's coming! He must eat directly! „Men eat anything, the swines! Says your grandmother Gammy“. Is it true? Do you like my chickens? Bob asked me without introducing himself. Yes, Bob (rude) I love them! I'm vegetarian. Do you want to clean the henhouse with me tomorrow? A, you're always getting up so early at four o'clock! Bob, that's not a job for me! He looked at me disdainfully! A Roman cissy! You need a reeducation at once! Help, Bob's attacking me! I rather change the novel immediately and move to the „Island“!
