After more than a decade of writing weekly essays, it’s difficult to avoid becoming slightly self-conscious. Some weeks the inspiration is vaporous and difficult to grasp, yet other weeks, the essays write themselves. Looking across the Pacific Ocean at our allies recent election results, it was hard to ignore a certain underlying theme. The reality is though, nobody reading this forum wants to hear me banging on about politics. It’s true too. And Australians are notoriously apathetic about such matters, that is, until we aren’t.
At heart I’m a deeply practical kind of guy. The questions which bother me run along the sort of lines: Does this here thing you’re talking about work and/or make much sense? Chances are, that it might not. Often it’s a case of lot’s of talk and no reality. So when I read economic statistics suggesting that the US national debt is increasing at a rate of one thousand billion dollars every three months or so, my brain is stupefied for a moment at the audacious scale. What did you just say? It takes a moment or two for the grey matter to process the astounding information before the next question floats into the consciousness: So are y’all getting value for money there?
We’re no better down under. Last I checked the federal government was one thousand billion dollars in debt. The state government was something like two hundred billion dollars in debt. The numbers are crazy, mostly because I’m not seeing any earnest efforts to pay them off, as is expected of the general population to do so with debt.
The numbers are just so humongous, that they’ve developed this kind of academic and remote vibe. It’s not until you start having to deal with the folks who work in bureaucracy, that you begin to ask the hard questions. After all, you’d hope that there was at least some accountability to the general public given their salaries in part derive from those same debts. Puts a whole new spin on the story, yeah.
The other day Sandra ventured into the roads office in a nearby township. The $800-ish annual vehicle registration bill, never arrived in the mail as it usually does. There was no email about the bill either. No phone call. No text message. Nothing! Dead silence.
Most people reading by now might be saying to themselves, yeah big deal. Except, if the bill isn’t paid on or before the due date, the police can, and will fine you something crazy like a $1,000 for driving an un-registered vehicle. Then if three months lapses beyond the due date with no payment, the vehicle will have to go through the entire re-registration process all over again. There are more costs for that process too! And I’d reckon the insurer would use the non-payment as an excuse to weasel out of any claims. So yeah, it is a bit of a problem.
Imagine Sandra standing in the office being lectured at by the bloke behind the counter. He spent a few minutes explaining to her in detail, that paying the bill on time was her responsibility, all other considerations to the side. It’s kind of ironic really, because it makes me wonder what the bloke thought she was doing there in the office in the first place. Hmm. Anyway, the kicker in the entire conversation, was that the guy described the bill as a ‘courtesy reminder’. That was a truly impressive use of the English language, whilst flipping the culture on its head. Sandra kept a cool tool, politely got lectured at, and paid the bill (fortunately a few days before the due date). In such situations it is wisdom to refrain from providing some pointed home truths, which can save the truth teller the embarrassment of being physically evicted from the office.
Back in the recession of the early 1990’s, unemployment was 10%. I had to take any work so as to keep a roof over my head and food upon the table. That’s how I ended up working in commercial debt collection for four years. There perhaps, I gained my deepest insight into the human condition. During that period it became obvious to me, that if you wished to collect upon a bill, the other party to the transaction must be aware of the intention. Clearly, since those days the culture has changed and it has now become more lucrative to collect using the fines and penalties approach – possibly one cunning strategy to pay down the stupendous government debt.
We’ve kept a record of all bills paid over the past fifteen years. Observing that the bill had not been received or paid, was how we picked up the error. As an interesting side story, over that period of time, the bills have increased at a compounding 4.5% each year – which is far above the official inflation numbers. Anyway, after the visit to the roads office, we still don’t know if the bill will even be sent next year. What we do know, is that the culture has changed. We will adapt to this change.
As part of adaption, all of the regular bills were reviewed. It was discovered then, that the annual water bill had also never been received or paid. It’s outrageous that we even receive a water bill given that we have supplied and paid for all of our own infrastructure relating to water, sewage and drainage on the property. But that is another story. Half an hour on the phone, and the nice person at the water authority refused to take payment over the phone, but promised to send an emailed bill. It’s never turned up, and is now very late. We’ll have to call again because we can’t register online – they’ve changed everyone’s customer number. An impressive achievement.
And around, and around we go, where it stops, nobody knows. What I’m observing though, is for all the massive expense and debt, those folks aren’t good value for money. The bloke at the roads office got paid for lecturing Sandra. The bloke at the water authority got paid for basically not doing what he said he would. I dunno about you, it’s either ineptitude or contempt, take your pick. Either way, it ain’t working. When I look across the ocean to our allies and hear the talk about taking a big economic stick to petty bureaucrats, it sounds like a plan to me.
The past couple of weeks have been occasionally hot, and mostly dry. The grass is now beginning to turn yellow, as happens every summer. The plants however are enjoying the suns warmth, and as much as hot days are uncomfortable, the plants do need the heat to grow. Some of the paths are beginning to disappear!
A couple of hours spent with the hedge trimmer machines, and the jungle gets hacked back nicely.
As part of the ongoing Rabbit WarsTM, a large wormwood shrub was removed from a garden bed. Interestingly, no burrows were discovered this time, but the large apple and tree ferns will probably appreciate the reduced competition.
All of the leaves, sticks and other organic matter were thrown onto various garden beds where they will form a useful mulch. The larger branches were burnt off in the brazier. It was a good night for the burn off because the air temperature was cool. The ash and charcoal makes for an excellent fertiliser.
It’s been a busy week around the farm, as is usual for this time of year. A day was spent splitting, hauling, then stacking firewood in the old shed.
We’d run short of metal tomato vine supports. Looking at the various types available for purchase, a cunning plan formed! Why not use scrap materials to construct some sturdy long lasting structures. We made three of these:
Even the metal screws were recycled. The plan is to let the structures sit out in the weather for a bit so as to wash away the steel cutting oil, then paint them with metal paint which we’ve got spare. They even fold flat and so won’t take up much storage space during the winter season.
Saturday was warm at 31’C / 88’F in the shade. Do I do this job? That was the question. There was a need to install a garden tap (spigot in US parlance) in the large citrus, potato and vegetable enclosure. To date I’d been hauling buckets and watering cans down into the enclosure for the vegetables. Yeah let’s do this job!
The hardest part about the job was digging the trench for the water pipe. That’s hard work on a hot day, and I was thankful for the cranking tunes from the national youth music broadcaster – Triple J. An excellent use of government mad cash if I may say so. The music made the job easier.
Lot’s of breaks in the shade. Plenty of water. Music. Eventually the trench was dug. It was surprising to see how dry the soil was.
Plumbed up all of the connections to the existing shed water system. That’s the long line of water tanks. Tested the system and inspected all of the joins and pipes. Discovered that the tap had a leak which I could not fix, even with a brand new valve and o-ring. Regular readers will note that the curse of the faulty o-ring strikes yet again! Replaced the tap, tested the system for leaks, then backfilled the trench. It’s handy to have a source of water closer to those plants.
In a breaking produce news update: The globe artichokes are seriously pumping out their tasty chokes. We strip the outer leaves, then boil the chokes in water with bay leaves. They are one tasty vegetable, and for a thistle, they demand to be grown in very fertile soil.
Historically, after the mountain range was logged, the soils were used to grow potatoes and berries. The climate suits those plants. The soils on the other hand had limited fertility, and it’s hardly surprising that they were eventually farmed out. The forests then returned. My thinking with the soils is to always add back more than I take, and so berries grow really well here. Alpine strawberries are the first to produce, then the raspberries, currants, and finally blackberries. Those plants provide a long and mostly continuous harvest throughout the growing season.
It’s been many years since I’ve planted new fruit trees, but this year a bare-rooted seedling chestnut was purchased. The tree was very slow to break dormancy and I was concerned that it had died. At that point, the size of the tree was reduced by half and then fed each day for a couple of weeks. The feed is a bucket water mixed in with a seaweed concentrate. A few weeks ago, the tree sprang into life.
The warmer weather has assisted the insect population, and the air hums with life. The sounds remind me how quiet the city is on that front.
This weeks brief video also touches upon the story of inflation:
Onto the flowers:
The temperature outside now at about 10am is 11’C (52’F). So far for last year there has been 783.2mm (30.8 inches) which is up from last weeks total of 780.8mm (30.7 inches)