Another day in paradise, another crazy week of summer weather. 127mm, or in the old school talk, 5 inches of rain fell during the week. That’s rather a lot of water to deal with. About a third of the rain descended in 20 minutes on Wednesday afternoon. It was utter mayhem out there at the time, and trust me, umbrellas barely work in those conditions. At such wild moments, a bloke has to dodge lightning, run around keeping drains working, and clear out the water tank inlet filters. We experienced a landslide many years ago, and know what needs to be done to avoid that awfulness recurring. A person can always dry off afterwards…
Ordinarily, at this time of year we’d be bringing in the firewood supply for the next twelve months of use. Firewood gets cut and split at other cooler times of the year. It’s then left in a big pile to season and dry out for at least two years in the summer sun. In past summers, all we’ve had to do is haul the stuff back up the hill, then stack the stuff (neatly) in a shed where it will stay dry during the wet winter months. Using wet firewood is a cardinal sin here. That lead to the destruction of the previous wood heater. An expensive lesson to learn.
Firewood should be around 14% moisture content before use, lest the steam produced in the combustion process destroy the steel plate used in wood heaters. The extreme UV radiation from the summer sun is the absolute best way to dry firewood. But with all this rain, it sure is hard to keep the seasoning firewood dry this year, let alone anywhere near the optimal 14% moisture content.
Eventually, the weather gods smiled upon the mountain range, and provided a four day break from the rain. Ah, nice warm-ish summer weather. A day of sunshine was required to dry the ground out. The paddocks were wet enough that using the machines would rip up the paddocks. As of today, we began hauling the firewood back up the hill. Two more days to go before the next bout of rain.
The largest power wheelbarrow and a low centre of gravity mower towing a trailer are both used to haul firewood back up the hill. The logs get stacked neatly in the firewood shed ready to be used in the winter. Or used last night when the thermometer recorded 6’C / 42’F outside. Brr! After a day of hauling and stacking, the shed is about a quarter full. Might have to get up earlier tomorrow morning, and also the day after that, before the next rainstorm arrives.
All this mucking around with firewood, started me thinking about the possibilities of a small portable timber mill. Some time over the next year, we plan to construct a larger firewood shed, and who can forget the endless possibilities a second greenhouse would supply? This is the fourth summer of crazy wet weather, so either project looks like a good idea. But yeah, we need some milled timber for those projects. There are thousands of trees, a couple of hard workers, and some dogs. What could possibly go wrong?
With the idea floating around my mind, and a night with nothing better to do, I began watching YouTube videos on people’s actual experiences with portable timber mills. It’s a red flag for sure when video titles begin with the words: “What I wish I knew”, “Before buying”, or “Why I quit”. Many of the videos even included appealing looking ladies, whom surely aren’t part of the potential purchase.
One of the best set ups for a portable timber mill, had the machine sitting in it’s own shed on a flat and level base. The Canadian bloke had another shed to stack and store the milled timber whilst keeping it out of the weather so that the timber could further dry. And cleverly, he’d made a custom log trailer for his all terrain vehicle which kept the logs off the ground when he moved them to the shed. The logs need to be kept clean, otherwise the bandsaw blades used in the mill will go blunt just like a chainsaw chain does when it hits dirt.
The results were in. Half a brain of economics, a bit of quick maths, and the back of an envelope list including: Mill machine; Spare blades; Two sheds; custom trailer; and vehicle that can tow logs. The results were in – just go and buy the timber for the future projects, it’ll be cheaper. So many of the systems here at the farm are like that, none of them make any economic sense.
Even sourcing our own firewood from here, makes only marginally more economic sense, mostly because the equipment is cheaper and there is a lot less waste. It’s not all bad news, but some systems are less economic than others. Spare a thought for Sandra who reminds me of the economics with the off grid solar power system by recounting my now infamous line: “All we need is a couple of more panels to make the thing work” Well that didn’t work out. The general principle is that sometimes you have to do something, and when the mains power grid goes out for five days after an epic wind storm (which it did about three years ago) at least we’ve still got power. And when people are burning firewood for heating only a week following on from the summer solstice, it’s possible there will be a massive strain on commercial firewood supplies come next winter. The thing is, you have to pick and choose what you want to do. Just don’t expect for it to make any economic sense.
Speaking of not making any sense, two days before Christmas, Ruby ran off into the surrounding forest. The dog had a few opinions which differed from ours. There was a bit of cabin fever due to the wet and cold summer. And also she’s young and dumb. So, she headed off. We couldn’t find her, and she hid from us. However, Ruby came back the following morning on Christmas eve. She was cold, hungry and tired. Clearly it’d been a miserable night. There was no point punishing her because she came back. We can’t do much about the weather, but we’ve listened to her complaints and will now allow her more responsibility. We’ll see how it goes.
During the crazy wet weather, there was a brief break in the rain of a few hours. Those hours were used to bring rocks back up the hill for use in steel gabion cages. Over the winter months, smaller rocks are removed from the soil, and placed in various small piles about the farm. Rocks are a handy resource, and we certainly don’t have as many as we could possibly use. Peak Rocks is a real bummer.
The rocks were used to almost fill two rock gabion cages.
The cold and wet summer weather wiped out the apricot crop here. Fortunately, there is an orchard about an hours drive north of here (further inland), which grows fruit for taste. They supplied 20kg / 44 pounds of sun-ripened apricots which we bottled (canned). That’s about half a years supply.
The preserving system is old, with the newest glass bottles being last made in the 1970’s. Fortunately, the supplier (Fowlers Vacola) still makes stainless steel lids and rubber seals.
After bottling, there were still 3kg / 6.6 pounds of fruit left over. Some was kept aside for breakfast, and the rest was used to make a very tasty apricot jam. Yum!
In other jam news, the alpine strawberries and raspberries are continuing to produce fruit. The berries get chucked into the freezer, and when there is enough, we’ll cook them up in a batch of jam. In a week or two, depending on the weather, the blackberries will begin to ripen.
One of the hardiest and most reliable vegetables are the zucchini’s. If you’ve ever grown them, you’ll know what I mean.
Last summer was also wet, and the zucchini skins split because the fruit took up so much water. With that possibility in mind, we’ll keep a closer eye on them this year.
Every year we try our hand at growing new varieties of vegetables. You never know how they’ll respond to the climate here, whether they’ll taste any good, or even whether we will use them. This year we’ve trialled pink lady slipper radishes, and they’re awesome.
We randomly chose a smaller golden round squash variety to grow this year. Surprisingly it appears to be one of the earlier varieties which has produced some small fruits. You can only hope that they taste good.
Of the three hazelnut (filbert) trees, there are two nuts. Hope the parrots haven’t noticed them and better luck next year. The stone fruit trees are struggling this year, but the apples, pears, kiwi fruit vines and citrus are all doing well.
The award for the plant which is enjoying the wet summer the most, has to go to the tree fern which was planted in a drainage basin under a year ago. The bloke at the fern nursery said: Don’t be afraid to water the tree fern! He wasn’t joking.
Onto the flowers:
The temperature outside now at about 7am is 10’C (50’F). So far for last year there has been 1,114.0mm (43.9 inches) which is up from last weeks total of 986.8mm (38.9 inches)
Hi Inge,
The rain has been crazy here, but worse elsewhere in the country: Flooding in Coffs Harbour on New Year’s Eve with severe weather warnings still in place for northern NSW. Hope they’re doing OK?
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – “…crazy, heavy, rainfall.” Yup. Looks like our part of the world, some of the time. 42F? Woolen jumper? That’s shorts and sandal weather, here. 🙂 Interesting fact: balmy (warm) and balmy (crazy), are spelled the same way! Who knew? Hmmm. There may be a connection … 🙂
About that timber mill. There’s also the time considerations. You were talking about getting the infrastructure nailed down, so you can pay more attention to the plants. And once you get the greenhouse and larger firewood shed built, what are you going to do with the timber mill? Oh, I don’t know. Read the fine print. Maybe the appealing looking ladies are part of the package. At least for the set up. Probably, at a “small additional fee.” 🙂
Well, at least with all the solar tinkering you do, it keeps you off the streets and out of trouble. 🙂
I’m happy that Ruby is back, and apparently, none the worse for wear. It’s always a fraught time, when an animal disappears, and you have to contemplate, even briefly, they’re maybe not being in your life. More responsibility for Ruby? One shudders to think of the possibilities. Chain her to a rock, and have her haul it back up the hill?
The filling gabion cages, and woodshed bear witness to your industry.
The apricots look yummy. So, you’ve got bottling, bottles. Treated right, and no small disasters, and they last a long time. Some of the really, really old ones can bring a good price, from collectors. Or, used to. There used to be regular bottle shows, or exhibitions. Another one of those things that old duffers did, and has now fallen by the wayside.
That’s a fine looking turnip. Ditto the strawberries and zucchini. The radishes look so happy, they hop right out of the ground! So, there’s one hazelnut, for each of you. 🙂 Pears, apples, kiwi. Conserves?
Well, it’s New Year’s Eve, and the pyrotechnics have begun. Luckily, H doesn’t seem bothered. I think she takes her cue, from me. As long as I’m not running around with my hair on fire, she’s fine. Little does she know, after I’ve finished here, it’s bath time. Then I’m going to settle in with some popcorn, and the last of that good Australian cheese, and watch the new “Pet Sematary” movie. Might as well get the New Year, off to a good start. Lew
Your climate is so different from us (now we have -15 Celsius and will have -20 to -25 on same scale for a few days) so anything about drying firewood is quite different. We have a small shed at the backyard that was constructed from stuff left over from the bigger project – walls are built with vertical planks (boards? About 5 inch by 3/4) with an inch or so air gap between them so that split wood can dry there for a recommended two years. After that it’s dry enough for burning. It would be a poor idea to leave firewood outside, as summers are somewhat short with less snow than in winter…. (Well, for a few years we’ve got unusually warm summer periods of above 30 Celsius).
We have tried to grow different stuff at the backyard but now the trees on surrounding lands have grown so much that only a few things can grow in summer shadow – and it seems that local hares and deers like to eat anything that would taste good for humans too… and as usual it’s cheaper and easier to buy anything from potatoes to apples from local shops.
We tried to protect our two apple trees several years ago with usual chicken wire nets but one winter there was so much snow that came so fast that I had no time to add another higher net – of course the hares got to trees and ate all bark from them… luckily there are several varieties of apple available in shops.
We have now two bushes of some siberian berry variant that should produce nice tasting berries and I have protected them with sturdier wire nets. We’ll see how they fare this winter…
It’s interesting to read of different aspects of your life there, so thanks for your continued blogging.
Hi Göran,
Always a pleasure hearing from you, and I hope you and your family had a lovely Christmas and New Years. And also that it wasn’t too cold and wet! Brr!
Thanks for recounting your experience with that particular device because I’d wondered about the version 4. In a strange turn of events, I was whining about the technology to a friend of mine who has a background in electrical engineering and sometimes volunteers at repair cafes. He was the dude who alerted me to the device that you use, and I’m not mucking around, I have never seen one in use down here – anywhere. Most of my friends who are so inclined, purchase reconditioned second hand smart phones like your son did.
The Fairphone 5 will set a person back about AUD$1,500 down here based on eBuy listings. Your version still sells for about the number you mentioned, sometimes more. And glad to hear that you appreciated my perspective. I’d be happy to support such technology, but when the nearest parts are in the UK, and London is 16,900km away, like how does that even work? Say if the screen broke and was in need of replacing, sure I could do the work, but how do I run my business in the meantime when the part takes four weeks to arrive?
And here is where the story gets weird. I have to pick and chose where we have spares and maintain backup redundancies. We connect to the interweb via the mobile phone service, and despite being in the middle of nowhere, we get a 5G connection (think 200+ Mbps which I didn’t ask for) – it’s mostly due to being elevated with line of sight to a few towers. After the recent hiccups with the modem, we decided to pay for a spare replacement modem and it sits there waiting doing nothing, just in case. Might never get used. There is an economic dimension to decline. Anyway, sure the stuff can be repaired under warranty, but what are we meant to do in the meantime when so much paid work arrives via the interweb? The stuff that you own, does end up owning you.
Sorry to say, but your son took what I reckon is the best path. For your interest, the devices we ended up choosing are from the heavy equipment manufacturer Caterpillar, and I can’t fault them for sheer robustness – they can be dropped on concrete and are fine and they have a long battery life. It’s just the operating system isn’t updated, and sooner or later the software applications the goobermunt require us to have for paid work, won’t work. The replacement devices are AUD$400 and have lasted four years now.
In a funny side story, when I was at the telco shop sorting out the recent modem issues (a faulty sim card, who knew?), they offered me a new version phone of the same robust brand for AUD$130. None of this stuff makes much sense to me, and I think that’s the point. I declined the offer, but have until November to take it up – which I’ll probably have to do.
It is utter craziness, and I’d be happy with a device which worked unchanged for a decade.
Thanks for mentioning LineageOS, as I’d not previously heard of this operating system. It won’t work with the brand of phone I’m using, and installing a custom ROM on the thing looks like it’s not even possible.
The greenhouse is well worth the construction effort, thus why we’re considering constructing a second greenhouse. Plus, there is a need to practice crop rotation – even in a greenhouse and more raised beds will make that task easier.
Sorry to hear that, and you can see the same weather patterns occurring here. I suspect that there is simply just more water vapour in the atmosphere, and as the oceans get warmer, there’ll probably be even more water vapour up there. Something to look forward too…
Thanks, and please accept my best wishes as well for your 2024.
PS: Severe thunderstorms are predicted for tomorrow afternoon… And next Monday.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Seppo!
Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to you and yours.
Far out that’s cold, and yes it would make a big difference to how you treated firewood. Any moisture in the firewood at that temperature would freeze, and certainly the firewood would be hard pressed to take up further moisture – at least that’s my best guess. Brr!
The coldest winter temperature I’ve seen here is -2’C, but mostly it’s above freezing, and the winter months are usually wet. Think 99% humidity for six months day after day. So, firewood for use in the winter months must never be exposed to the rain. And shed has metal sheeting, with another inner layer of metal sheeting to stop condensation forming against the firewood.
Ah yes, well summer temperatures here can exceed 40’C for between none and about ten days per year – that sure can dry firewood + the extreme UV you get because we’re physically closer to the summer sun due to the odd orbit of the planet. The job has to be timed in between the heavy rainfall. I appreciate that in cooler environments firewood would be a very different (but no less important, possibly more so) task. We have no other heating source.
Summer shade is a problem here as well. The eucalyptus obliqua trees can eventually exceed 90m+, although the tallest are around 50m+ and even those can throw a long shadow.
But yeah, some plants have to be fenced. If there were another way. Sure, theoretically you could go out and shoot all the forest critters, but it wouldn’t take long for them to return.
The rabbits and deer have eaten some of the bark off the fruit trees here, but an old timer who ran a commercial orchard told me many years ago that the trees will probably recover – and that looks to be the case here, although conditions can be different elsewhere.
Hope the berries are tasty. Berries love forest environments, so that’s always a good choice.
Thanks! 🙂
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
I knew you’d understand about the heavy rainfall. 🙂 They do say that is wet in the PNW. Apparently heavy rainfall is predicted for tomorrow afternoon. I’ll let you know how that goes. In the meantime, we got up early this morning to continue bringing in the sun dried firewood (it was warm-ish here today) and stacking it in the shed. Will do the same again tomorrow, until the rain arrives that is. Hopefully it arrives later, rather than earlier.
Sure, mate I’m summer soft, and it’s 73’F in the house, yet the breeze from outside is 64’F and err, got that woollen jumper on again. I know, I know! It is all a bit balmy isn’t it? Did you know that word is changing to be spelt ‘barmy’ for the crazy element in the UK and down here, although in your country the original spelling remains in place? Anywhoo, we all know it, something to do with mad dogs and Englishmen… Hehe!
Well yeah, it may alarm you to know that I factored in the inputs (logs) and some of the energy (my time) for free, and the timber mill idea still made absolutely no economic sense whatsoever. You’re right, there are limits as to what can be achieved with what I turn my hand too, and right now, the immediate projects and then the plants are more important. Although, would the appealing looking ladies be up for a hard day of work using the timber mill? You know, I have some doubts there even if the additional fee is minor and inconsequential. Hey, they might need to be fed and housed as well!
In a bizarre and little known about change as of err, today: Forestry towns face uncertain future as Victoria’s native timber logging industry shuts down today. Might have to revisit the mill idea depending upon lumber supplies later in the year. It was interesting to learn that in other states, firewood supplies are part of the harvesting for the milled timber industry. I get that, the less appealing sections get turned into firewood – reducing overall wastage.
Yeah, maybe they do keep me off the streets and out of trouble. Am I? 😉
Sadly, Ruby had made her mind up that day, but at least discovered that things were worse in the forest. We seriously do cut her some slack now, and provide her the freedoms she clearly wanted, but with that comes responsibility and that’s on her head. Hey, the alternative possibilities were far worse, trust me in this. We’re just muddling through the relationship with the dog, and she seems happy enough with the new arrangements.
Thanks, and the woodshed is nearing being filled. What’s interesting is that we may not have put enough firewood out for seasoning during the cooler months of the year. We’re taking a more science based approach to the task and measuring the requirements, so that in future we know how much firewood to put aside. Makes life easier not running out.
Oh yeah, the preserving bottles are at least 50 years old and made of very strong glass. Interestingly, a friend tells me that the older preserving kits are getting more expensive on the second hand market. Might be younger duffers buying the stuff these days! 🙂
Dunno what to do with the excess supply of apples. The obvious option is scrumpy, cider or apple wine, but I’d like to do something with them to preserve them for eating. Dunno. Not something I have experience with.
Go H! And hope she was well behaved for her bath? Hey, how did the latest iteration of Mr King’s story in the film stack up? Having home made pizza this evening. Yum!
The puritans seem a most un-fun lot. What could anyone possibly have against ginger bread men? I still didn’t understand the issues they had with pies. You’d imagine that when the time came to push them away from the levers of power, that there was plenty of ready assistance to be found? And the peasants rejoiced!!!!
Hope H doesn’t get too damp in the drizzle? Speaking of flying (and those geese are late, yeah) the good professor has written about air turbulence in aircraft flights (horrid things). Did you see that some fisherman off the coast of South Australia said that him and a mate had allegedly found a chunk of aircraft wing not long after MH370 disappeared? It’s a long way from the supposed flight path.
Can’t break my own house rules dude. 🙂 Like your style.
Yeah, it’s weird isn’t it? People seem to be very super-casual with their ids these days, and well I guess the gatekeepers care seems to reflect the community concern. It’s all good, until as you say, your mad cash gets pinched.
Dumb Money, looks intriguing. Seth Rogen too. I hadn’t really followed the Game Stop shenanigans, but what did the folks at the top end expect? To expect nobody to figure out the rules is naive. I’ll add this one to the to-watch list. Thanks for mentioning it. A long time ago I speculated in day trading, but it wasn’t long before I got the awful feeling that this was gambling dude. So I stopped.
Hehe! You avoided the fries and considered the super sized drink. 🙂 It is pretty transparent, and you know, there’s nothing wrong at all with picking and choosing, although that’s not how the game is meant to be played at all.
That’s my opinion about the controlled traditional burns. They work, however I have some doubts that the goobermunt with their nice neat scheduling which ignores the weather, can ever get them to work. That job is up to other folks.
And hey, I’d been wondering about the predictions, but I can see, it’s a complex time right now. Lot’s of variables at play. Push a little bit here, and who knows what might happen? Push a bit over there, and we might get more of the same. It’s a mess. Not how I’d organise things, but then most people might not like that outcome! So all up we’re right back where we started in numptyville!
Cheers
Chris
Hello Chris
Younger daughter has survived the wet so far. Actually things were even worse as she spent Christmas up in Queensland. We are still soaking wet here and it is raining at the moment, scheduled to get much worse tomorrow.
Inge
@ Lew
The crazy version is spelt ‘barmy’ here.
Inge
Yo, Chris – And a happy and prosperous New Year, to you!
Well, that’s interesting that they changed the spelling, so one knows if they’re talking about the weather, or nut jobs. I wonder how they go about making the change? King issue a proclamation?
Speaking of Kings and Queens, I see the Danish Queen is abdicating, and that the next Queen Consort is an Australian gal. Not everyday you find your Prince Charming, in a local pub. 🙂 And, a bit of scandal rocking that royal family. But enough of the gossipy sidebars, and onto your initial point.
Sounds like your timber industry is going through the same shake-up, that ours went through a few years back. I hope your retraining programs are better planned, than ours were. Here, there was some wild idea that redundant loggers would all be turned into computer jockeys and computer coders. In most cases, didn’t work out. There were hard feelings, all around, and that lingered for years. (And, years.) I also followed the link to the article on what that means for everything from firewood to garden mulch.
Sort of related. I’m reading a book, “The Left Behind: Decline and Rage in Small-Town America.” (Wuthnow, 2018). I’m liking it, as it’s less political and more sociological. All those small Australian towns, that depended on the timber industry, will be doing it rough.
When you look at old canning jars, say, on E Buy, it’s interesting the vast amount of different closures. Lids, I guess. And, as an aside, for a long time, glass that had been turned that lavender / purple color brought a premium. As, it indicated age. Until some wag discovered if you expose glass, with Manganese in it (which was used until the 1920s), to a heavy exposure of UV rays, it turns in a couple of weeks. Or, throw it in a tray of kitty litter, and leave it on the roof for a summer. 🙂 They still don’t quit understand the process, but that’s what happens.
So, I watched “Pet Sematary,” last night. Hmmm. OK, I guess. First off, for some reason, when the film opens, I wondered, “why does the picture look so cheap?” That’s the only way I can describe it. Film stock? And the other thing is, right from the get-go, you know what’s going on. Perhaps if you weren’t familiar with the book, or original movie, there would be more of a surprise factor. It was ok, but not anything I want to watch, again. In some ways, it’s a bit of a zombie movie.
Gingerbread men were suspect, to the Puritans, as they had a bit of the poppet about them. Being figures, in folk magic and witchcraft that you could cast spells with. Voodoo dolls were a rather late comer. Then there’s the whole “graven images” prohibition from the bible (and the Koran). But people played rather fast and loose with interpretation, over the ages.
MH370: Time and currents. It’s been more than a minute, since it went down. If it turns out to really be a piece of that plane. Might be space junk. 🙂
Picking and choosing is all well and good, unless your standing in line behind someone who is dithering.
H got her bath, and is all clean and shiny. The fireworks started late, and ended early. So, not too much trauma.
I’m making up my usual New Year’s Day lucky meal. Black eyed peas, a ham hock, collard greens. Cornbread. No, I didn’t grind up any of the corn I grew. It sounds funny, but I’m having a heck of a time finding a solid edge to which to screw down the grinder. Everything is either flimsy, or rounded. I’ll figure it out, eventually. Lew
Hi Inge,
Hope your forest is enjoying the inch of rain, and that the ground isn’t too muddy for you? How’s your sons animals coping with the wet ground? Your winter weather is remarkably similar temperature wise to the sort of winter weather we usually experience here (with the exception of those awful arctic storms which arrive from the north east which you occasionally get).
An inch and a half of rain fell this afternoon, accompanied by flashes of lightning and the rolling peals of thunder. I quite enjoy a good storm. The rain was heavy, but at least not torrential. The forest smells nice.
Things are much worse in the next state up north along the coastline. Some areas of that state near to the Queensland border are reported to have had close to 530mm / 20.8 inches of rain within a 24 hour period. Fortunately, as your daughter noted to you, things have been, and still are worse up there. Flood fears persist in the NSW Northern Rivers with more rain predicted.
The forest here seems to be soaking up the water, although the ground water table is rather high, but should drop soon. Thursday through Sunday look dry and warm, but then the rains return next Monday. Oh well, it sure beats massive bushfires.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
🙂 Another year indeed, and another thunderstorm this afternoon. It’s only just finished, but an inch and a half of rain fell. Lot’s of lightning and thunder, and one strike was particularly close to the house. Disturbed my afternoon nap. Oh well, mustn’t grumble. The thunder rattled some of the furniture – very deep resonance.
We’d gotten up early again today to bring in more firewood and stack it in the shed, whilst the stuff was sort of dry. These early mornings are not civilised. Anyway, the shed is getting close to being full, but we’d run out of cut and split firewood, and once the stormy weather has passed and things dry out again in a few days time, it’ll be up again early, but this time we’ll have to cut and split the logs. Still, being warm during the cold winter months is a consolation to the hard work.
Looks like both words ‘balmy’ and ‘barmy’ have origins in the early 16th century. Barmy was a descriptive word for ‘frothing’, and presumably the head of a beer would ‘froth’, but then the following century there was an addition to the meaning: ‘frothing with excitement’. All news to me. Always interesting how the meaning of words change over time. Commonly Confused Words: Balmy vs. Barmy. The website claims common confusion, but in your country, the spelling for both words is the same as ‘balmy’.
Pubs in Tasmania are clearly a rich hunting ground. During visits to that island state, we enjoyed many a good pub feed. Yeah, the papers down here hint of rumours, but compared to the alleged goings on across the waters on that island kingdom, well, stuff is being perhaps hushed up.
It’s not good for those towns, and skills are lost. I’m often reminded that during the oil crisis of the early to mid 1970’s, your national forests were thrown open for firewood collection, so objections can be a bit moment in time. I noticed that some of the people objecting still want to use firewood, and that seems conflicted to me. What I suspect may happen is that given the long track record of forest management by the goobermunt, there’ll be a big fire through those areas (whether nature or arson kicks it off, who knows), especially if the forest gets denser, and the fire will be very hard to extinguish because of the err, dense vegetation. Then the blokes will get their jobs back harvesting the now dead trees – if they’re interested in coming out of a forced retirement. This all or nothing approach with the forests is a road to failure. But it may make some people feel good for now.
That book is sort of related, yeah. It is threatening to the social fabric of small towns. Look at the impact that mass tourism has up here. It’s nuts, and the amenities we do have, get over run by folks from elsewhere. The area gets treated like a play thing, and there’s gotta be some sort of middle ground. There has always been an element of tourism over there, but not at the scale seen during the past five years or so. Some of the amenities are up for sale, and what does that tell you? There’s no additional commercial land up in the more fashionable end of the mountain range.
The purple-glass-gate proves that where there is a market for collectibles, folks better know their stuff. I was sort of thinking of the line: ‘Knowing their brass tacks’, but I believe that it more correctly should be: ‘getting down to brass tacks’, which means something different. But mostly, it also proves that some folks are rather inventive, if given the opportunity
Was it shot on video or film do you reckon? That can make a difference to the overall look of a film. Technically speaking, wasn’t the returned baby in the book, a zombie? Undead – check. Lot’s of trouble – check. Not wanted after too many interactions – check. Sounds like a zombie to me, although yes, not explicitly defined as such. A super creepy story too (the book that is) – love it!
You learn something new everyday. I’d heard people use the term ‘poppet’ in an affectionate way, but the other definition was entirely new to me. On a serious note, the puritans were probably crazy, and sought one crazy thing to focus on after another, until they pushed things too far, maybe ran out of minor things to fixate upon, then like zombies, people probably decided that they were a lot of trouble. It was hard not to note that Cromwell refused Quinine due to it’s Jesuit origins. Silly duffer, and honestly when the monarchy gets invited back, despite their families penchant for civil wars, heavy taxation and overall mischief, you know the pies and gingerbread men ban was a step too far.
Jealousy is a tiresome, and dare I say it, a self-defeating emotion. Just my take on the world, but the need to worship should be self evident.
Who knows what junk the fishermen found, but I’ve no doubts they found something. Apparently it ruined a very expensive net. Anyway, nobody knows where the aircraft is, or if they do, they’re not telling. Imagine the clamour to bring the bodies back from such depths? Not to mention the risk and expense to do so. Best leave them alone is my thoughts, although the black box flight recorder would solve a few riddles.
It could be space junk though, why not? Containers also fall off the side of ships all the time. It’s not uncommon.
All very true, and your most excellent point can’t be denied. I’m no ditherer, although now I think about it a bit… 🙂
Glad to hear that H is doing well and is now clean. It was quite warm and humid earlier today when we were working on the firewood. The dogs were running around like crazy for many hours, and are now all sound asleep. Once the heavy rain and thunderstorm began, they didn’t want anything to do with the outside world, although even still, I dare not use the ‘walkies’ word.
Yum! Ham hocks are very tasty. Did you make up the cornbread?
If the vice jaws for the grinder open wide enough, maybe you could sit the grinder on a chopping board with a flat edge on a bench or desktop? But for a more permanent solution, there are wood working routers. A lot of mess though.
More rain tomorrow.
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – Everything you ever wanted to know about black eyed peas … including a Hollywood connection.
http://www.yahoo.com/news/why-eat-lucky-black-eyed-060000083.html
Yup. Feeling all humble. 🙂 Lew
Hello Chris
I’m back from my weekly shopping trip. The weather is sheer hell.
I am soaking wet and the gusts of wind were trying to throw one under the passing traffic.
The ground cannot absorb any more water, so I was walking through a shallow river to reach Son’s truck. All ditches are overflowing, so roads and paths are all rivers.
Son’s animals are refusing to go outside. He had to call a vet out to the sow who had just had 9 piglets, she has acute mastitis. He was imagining having to bottle feed all the piglets!
Inge
Chris;
wood mills- A nearby friend bought the milling equipment and milled a lot of wood off his land, but then, he was retired, and had plenty of time to spend on it. He had the style with the blade running horizontally and a beefy Honda engine powering the blade. Carefully leveled tracks and a weather protection roof completed the setup.
Regardless, another example of the fossil fuel subsidy we swim in daily. Hand hewing makes one really stop to think whether they need the new structure or not. Timber frame construction will likely make a comeback.
Dirt on the logs- I helped the friend with milling a few times, and he would power wash each log just before sawing, as his logs had sat in the dirt while in queue. But then, he had a well with plenty of water to squander.
He also had an automatic saw sharpener, and several blades. Scaling the equipment to how much wood you expect to mill is key to being economical, but either way, $$$.
It’s hard to see all the functions we will need to replace with muscles in a petrol free future, but the calculus of whether to self provision or buy will change a lot.
Weather- this past Christmas week, it reached 50F here in Wisconsin. Truly, the definition of normal weather is being upended yearly.
Venison- took a doe on the last day of hunting season ( This past Sunday). Of the six deer I’ve taken since living here, three have been shot right in the yard. It doesn’t get any easier than that, but also an indication of the overpopulation we have here.
books- I’m rereading Ivanhoe for the book club I’m in. A rollicking tale, and an easy read. We will likely pick something a bit more contemporary for next month, but well written insights into human behavior are pretty much timeless.
firewood- a neighbor had his woods logged for black walnut logs- they are prized for the beautiful wood, but the remaining tops are left, so lots of good firewood to be had. He’s letting me gather a share, since he’ll never get to all of it before it rots. So I’m now working on the wood for 2025-2026 winter.
Yo, Chris – Basso profundo thunder. Cool. 🙂 The front page of the government weather site for western Washington said we had the warmest December on record. Last night, I was commenting to H how pleasant the evening was. Warmish, and no rain. I should have kept my mouth shut. Rain is back and if feels rather chilly, inside.
That was a neat link to commonly confused words. Though some of them seem to be more about grammar, than meaning.
I’ve often wondered how the closing of the Fenton Glass factory impacted the small town it was in. So, I took a look in the rabbit hole. Not much on impact, but a look at the population figures, was telling. Williamstown, West Virginia. Now the town had just under 3,000 people. When the factory closed, the population took a rapid plunge of 100 people. Took about ten years for the population, to rise again.
A lot of declining towns try to get on the tourist band wagon. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. I saw some pictures of Athens, this year. Tourists packed in, cheek to jowl. Didn’t look like a fun time. Ditto, Venice. But Venice is doing two things. Banning cruise ships (due to wave wakes and erosion) and … wait for it. Charging a fee to get in.
I took a look in the rabbit hole, and several sites described the new “Pet Sematary: Bloodlines,” as cheap. But not necessarily the “look.” Rotten Tomatoes gave it a very low rating. Something like 23%.
Well, one thing I admire the Puritans for is, they did ban Christmas 🙂
Queue Ditherers? A new name for a variety of human fauna. I’m usually pretty patient. But, being old, well, other people wasting my time grates a bit.
Well, my New Year’s meal was pretty tasty. Though I found the corn bread, a little bland. And, it didn’t rise much. Usually, I use yeast, but decided to do muffins, instead. With baking powder. Of course, I have all this nice jam to jazz them up.
There was quit a bit of pot liquor, left over. In fact, I put four pints in the freezer. I’ll have to figure out what to do with it. Looking in the rabbit hole, it’s pretty much like stock. There were some ideas for gravy. Lew
Chris,
Far out! You had some sunny days and moved some wood. Good show.
Interestingly, our warmish temperatures Sunday caused our high temperatures to hit +7C. Very warm for this time of year. And FOGGY. We may get some snow, or rain, or a mix on Friday. Then it will cool somewhat – a few cm of snow expected Monday and Monday night. Whatever rainfall we get shouldn’t be anywhere near as heavy as what appears in your “heavy rainfall” photo.
Hehehe. Yes, the appealing looking ladies in the videos are not part of the deal. Their appearance in the videos is supposed to enhance sales or something. Watching some of the ads on tv, I’ve had to ask the Princess a question: “If, after paying 5 equal payments of $19.99 for the appealing looking lady, do I get a discount for that set of cookware? Or does the cookware cost extra?”
Well done. Many of my best calculations were done on the backs of envelopes. I’ve heard that many cutting-edge physics theories had their beginnings on the odd cocktail napkin.
That tree fern is doing very well. Planting it under that drainpipe was a stroke of genius. The wet summer isn’t hurting it, either.
Hmmm, for some reason, I’m bordering on writer’s block tonight. Hopefully this will pass soon!
DJSpo
Hi Inge,
Your weather sounds awful, and glad to read that you made it back home again, albeit in a cold and damp state. I was reading comments about wood heating at Mr Greer’s website today, and people forget (or don’t know) that firewood is not just for heating, it’s also used for drying things out.
Last evening, a large tree fell across the road not all that far form here (thankfully avoiding power lines by not much), and the emergency folks came up and cut up the fallen tree and cleared the road.
With a combination of your water table being high, winds, and continuing rain, I’d say that is the sort of weather which brings down trees in your part of the world. Hope I’m wrong there.
I can sympathise with your sons animals not wanting to leave their barn in such weather. And their hooves (and snouts) would wreak havoc on the soil, not to mention the increased possibility of disease. If chickens are going to die, more than likely it is in the sort of weather you describe. It’s hard on everyone, and truly I’m glad you removed the overhanging tree limb from near to your house all those years ago.
It’s gotten quite dark outside due to the thick clouds despite sunset being an hour or so away, and you can hear (and feel) the thunder. Fortunately this time, the heaviest rain looks like it is running north of the mountain range (I’m on the southern side of the range). At this stage, the rain is fairly gentle.
It was hot this morning. 82’F, but get this, 90% humidity. A very unpleasant morning, so we changed plans and did less physically demanding work today. Spent most of the day doing the regular service work on all the machines we use. Fixed a thing here and there, but otherwise tried to keep out of the sun.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Steve,
Yes, your nearby friends set up with the timber milling is exactly the set of arrangements which seem to work. You don’t have to have the perfectly levelled tracks and a purpose built shelter, but frankly speaking, you do have to have them if you want a good result – and also for the machine to last.
Hand hewing! It’s on my list of things to do to obtain a two person cross cut saw, but far out, those things are fast, but hard work. And have to be kept absolutely sharp for all the same reasons a chainsaw (and bandsaw) does.
I’m gutted. A huge thunderstorm just passed by, and I took the laptop out with the good microphone to record the sound, but no, hardware incompatibilities ruined the recording. The stupid new laptop has only a single 3.5mm jack for both the microphone and headphones as you do, and of course this requires an adapter for high end microphones. Oh well, next time…
Yeah, keeping logs clean even for a chain saw is equally time well spent, and I truly shudder to think of just how many teeth there are on a bandsaw blade. An automatic sharpener you say? Yikes! Those manual machines work kind of similar to a chainsaw sharpener (and some use the same components), but there must be several hundred teeth on a large band. Far out! But automatic is the whole next level of expense.
For your interest, there was a non profit community group which sprung up after the 2019-2020 epic fire season over in the east of the state which purchased a couple of portable mills and used them in recovering dead wood on private land for the rebuilds. The monthly costs were rather high, but it’s a good idea for disaster areas: Funding dries up for East Gippsland bushfire recovery timber salvaging project
I agree, and need may drive all manner of innovations – and compromises. We just don’t know which it will be yet.
Good stuff, and venison is a very tasty meat and being wild game the meat would usually be far healthier than the stuff you get at the shops. Honestly, there is no season down here, and what does that tell you? You’re right, it doesn’t get any easier than that.
Thanks for mentioning Wilfred of Ivanhoe. Making the Middle Ages fun again!
Good score with the firewood, and you can’t look a gift horse like that in the mouth. Doing a bit of firewood myself. I reckon we use about 5 cords of firewood a year, although due to all sorts of reasons we’ve only recently begun measuring the volume so that we can manage the work over the year. There’s no plan B when it comes to heating fuel. And it’s not just heating over winter, but the energy released is used to dry as well. People forget the second aspect to firewood heating.
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
Getting some dry weather so that we can haul the firewood back up the hill has been err, challenging this year. After finishing up yesterday it rained 40mm, and today another 4mm only just fell. This morning reached 28’C at 90% humidity, and that was brutal outdoors, but we managed and there is no air conditioning in the house.
Did less physical activities today for obvious reasons, and worked on getting all the machines serviced today, which is something that gets done every two months. If there was another way to make them last a long time, I’d do it, but that’s what you gotta do so that they all start first time, every time. You even spot things, like the fuel line on a locally made self propelled mower that had become brittle – and the tank leaked out completely. Completely evaporated too. There was no sign of the leaked fuel. Easy to fix though, if you have the spare replacement parts.
7’C and wet is like the winter months here. How are you enjoying the conditions? 🙂 Hope Avalanche gets a good long run out in the snow later in the week.
Summer rain here can be both monsoonal and torrential. It’s a wicked combination, and unfortunately does a lot of damage quickly if you don’t keep your wits about you. Looks like there is another bout of such stormy weather arriving next Monday. But until then we’ve got a run of four dry days.
Ha! Sandra says similar things to my err, hey is it even correct to call them ‘useful’ observations? Do you get this sort of critical and searching looking expression after saying such things? And maybe even hear a distinct groan-ish woe begotten sound? Not my fault such ideas pop into conversation!!! 🙂 It’s how I was programmed, by Monty Python, Douglas Adams, The Goodies etc… Society is clearly to blame.
Hmm, makes you wonder if the cocktails loosened the physics-creative-insight nerve synapse in the brain? You may have heard of that thing. Doesn’t happen at particularly dull physics parties though, does it. 😉
That entire project with the low gradient path and drainage collection basin was just something I’d had tickling at the back of my mind for a while but lacked the time to do the project. It works too, and the tree fern is very happy. I was lucky to get that plant, it was purely a moment in time.
Hopefully the creative block passes. Robert Persig who wrote the book Zen and the art of looking after you stuff (or something like that anywhoo) suggested when blocked, look at the finest details and find something to say about them. If I recall correctly, the example was that he forced his students to write about a brick wall. Anything about it. I’d personally begin thinking of a story about workers inadvertently destroying a Banksy on the wall, and the resulting public outrage and subsequent consequences. But you could just as easily write about the mortar and the origins of mortar, or how you found a shell embedded in century old concrete footings. Always something going on, just gotta look around. Good luck!
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Thanks for the new Italian descriptive, and revheads everywhere, or the Editor in the Dirt Mouse, seek such musical lows via the vehicle subwoofer speaker and amplifier combination. Of course opera is probably a bit more high brow than EDM (Electronic Dance Music). All the same, it’s bass you can feel. The national youth music broadcaster plays that EDM genre, but just to mess around with the listener, can readily flip to other genres on the very next song. It was interesting that despite being another language, the meaning was readily comprehensible – Profound Bass.
Dude, I tried to record the audio of the thunderstorm this evening, only to be thwarted by technical issues. I’d not previously tried to use the high quality microphone in the new laptop – which has a single 3.5mm input jack for both the microphone and the headphones. Pretty stupid not having separate input jacks, but that’s progress for you. Anyway, I’ve got a decent work around for the problem and might try again next week (Monday has more thunderstorms in the forecast). The thunderstorm was very cool sounding because the strikes were close, and you could hear the effect the repeated strikes were having on the birds, frogs, insects etc. Oh well, next week.
Even down under we are hearing about the weather in your part of the world: North American ski conditions looking very ‘Australian’!
Yikes! Dunno about you, but the grammar police scare me. You know they arrive in packs and are very easily excitable? Makes you wonder where they go, and what they do when they’re not up to drive-by-trolling mischief? It could be a secret club like Fight Club where the members are out deliberately causing mayhem on the interweb. On the other hand, ignoring that lot, I enjoyed reading about the history of the words.
That factory closure was only fairly recent. Did you notice that the town had lost a lot of people in 1990, more so in fact than after the factory closure? I once lived in Williamstown, but the old port suburb in Melbourne.
Oh yeah, tourism can work, and sometimes it doesn’t work at all. I tend to think that there is a tipping point for crowd numbers relative to the amenities available. Well, Venice can charge the hordes and probably should. I’d seen photos of people departing from those cruise liners and it was like a football crowd. The ‘why’ of enduring such experiences is something that I just do not understand, but given the volume of people in the photos, you and I are in the minority here. One of local attractions around these parts, Hanging Rock, gets around the entry fee, by charging visitors a fee to use the car park. Works out the same as an entry fee because it is not like you can walk there. Even residents of the council area have to pay the fee. They do send a voucher out to use the car park, but the day we went, I couldn’t redeem the voucher, so ended paying all the same.
I noticed one critique of the film mentioned something along the lines of ‘flat aesthetics’, but I’m not entirely certain what those words even mean when stringed together? Ah, just like the interred, the film may rise again in the form of a sequel to what you just watched. Can’t say I’ve ever seen the actor David Duchovny in a film or series I didn’t enjoy. Oh well.
Ha! Your fine puritan / Christmas joke reminded me of the Monty Python scene about hating on the Roman’s, but yet they’d brought the aqueduct with them! I still can’t forgive the puritans for the pie business.
Oh you’re on fire with the queue ditherers observation. And I can’t argue with your logic, it’s sound. You should have taken the 15 minute call with the petty bureaucrat to resolve a two cent variation. Surely Dante would have mentioned the level of hell reserved for such pettifoggery? I would have hung up, except they had my phone number.
I’ve never had much luck using baking powder. The chemical is something of a mystery to me. When I was a kid, the stuff was overused anyway, and you could taste it in cakes. Left an unpleasant background taste if you ask, so perhaps I have a bad attitude with the stuff? What sort of nice jam are we talking about?
A good idea to use everything including the squeak. And yeah, it would be a good stock. With ham hocks, we tend to let it cool and skim off the fat and feed it to the dogs and chickens. They love the stuff. Pork is a good meat, but the fat is very rich for my tastes – which are that of a well fed peasant. 🙂
It was exceptionally warm 82’F and humid 90% here this morning. Not the usual summer conditions. Took things a bit easier, and serviced all of the machines. I quite enjoy doing that work, and everything just runs and does what it is meant to. When testing the generator I hooked up the mains electric powered leaf blower (which is used for cleaning the machines of dirt and debris) and just turned the blast of air on me. Quite an effective way to cool down.
Rained again tonight, but might get back into firewood tomorrow when hopefully it is cooler.
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – That was an interesting article about timber salvage and the mobile mills. Might be a few redundant mills, floating around. Although I imagine there would be quit a queue. The old duffer who cut the lumber, for my fence, years ago, had a portable mill. Also reminded me of the timber salvage that took place after our volcano did it’s thing. Though, as far as I heard, that was mostly timber companies. Though I’d bet there was a lot of individual salvaging going on.
Speaking of venison, we’re having problems here in the US, with “zombie deer.” Or, if you want to get all technical, “deer chronic wasting disease.” It’s effecting deer in about 2/3 of the US, mostly east of the Rockies. We have our own problems here. “Elk hoof disease.”
Sometimes I can just about parse out what anything in a Romance language, is trying to say. Almost. Helps to have a bit of Latin, under your belt.
Seems like anytime a new computer is rolled out, there’s a lot of whinging over the lack of ports, or changes in the jacks. I see the EU is standardizing chargers for mobile devices. There’s some lose talk, on this side of the pond, to do the same thing here.
Roaming packs of grammar police. Too funny. Would make a great comedy sketch.
Hmmm. I wondered what might have happened to drive down the population in 1990, in Williamstown, WV. Then I had a thought, that actually panned out. Happens, now and again. 🙂 They’re on the Ohio River, and in that year, there was major flooding.
I’ve never liked crowds to begin with. Anything with an “off season” has more appeal. One point the book about small towns made, was, if a small town wants to cater to tourists, they’d better be near a major highway.
“Flat aesthetics” is an interesting term for the new “Pet Sematary.” From some of the reviews I saw, there was just a general sense that something about the film didn’t deliver. I called it “cheap”, but other, general, “can’t quit put my finger on it,” terms were used. Might have even been something in the photography. Wrong camera filters, or something.
I might have put too much “stuff” in my cornbread, to get a good rise. There was some whole kernel corn, pumpkin and sunflower seeds. Well, I’ve got my Current jam. And my Cranberry jam. And my grape syrup, which aspired to be jam. 🙂 If I wanted to get real industrious, I could probably do some Blueberry jam.
We’re supposed to get a food box, today. Doubt it will show up early, like last month. I didn’t dream it. 🙂 Lew
Yo, Chris – Italian pizza wars ….
http://www.cnn.com/travel/article/pineapple-pizza-italy-naples/index.html
The chef makes some interesting points about what I’ve called, “no sense of adventure.” 🙂 It’s amazing how many people violently object to a book or movie … that they’ve never read or seen. Lew
Chris,
40mm of rain in a day is a LOT. That happens here occasionally. Every single time we’ve gotten that much rain that fast, my feet threaten to grow webs between the toes so I can paddle like a duck. 😉
28C at 90% humidity sounds miserable. It has been 90% humidity or higher here for well over a week. +3C today, rain, 100%. Feels cold due to the wet. By Friday next week the low should approach -16C after snow most of the week. Being acclimated to highs +3C and warmer, that will hit hard. I’ve been enjoying the mild winter. We had errands to do today, so I was very happy that it was warmish (for this time of year) and raining rather than “normal” with slick and icy roads.
Dame Avalanche will get ample chances to run in the snow. She can act energetic, but as soon as there’s snow on the ground, she shows me what energetic truly is.
Oh, absolutely. The Expression is well known here. As is the woeful almost Groan. The Princess has been having success teaching such things to Dame Avalanche, too! Having had the same wonderful teachers you had, such as Douglas Adams and Monty Python, well, one MUST laugh, mustn’t one? And then the reasons for the laughter must explained when explanations are demanded, right? I mean, come on, the oddities of my sense of humor are well known, so the Expression or the Groan are out of place, aren’t they? 😉
Our undergraduate physics group never did cocktail hour. However, every Friday afternoon, some of the physics professors took us to Bill’s Tavern and purchased all the beer we could drink. One or another of the students would bring peanuts in the shell. Ideas freely flowed. Thoughts were thunk and discussed. There were usually two groups: the computer geek physics folks and the aspiring astrophysicists. Occasionally, the two sets of conversations merged.
One such merger quickly comes to mind. The rather attractive physics major would show up, as did her physics major ex-boyfriend. She often teased her ex. One day, she threatened to jump on the table and do a strip tease. The ex began pounding on the table while chanting, “Take it off! Take it off!” Knowing she had gotten the best of him for that session, she gave him a lascivious leer and sat down.
A few minutes later, the ex boyfriend threatened to jump on the table and etc. He quickly regained his seat with an astonishing amount of abashed alacrity as ALL of us, professors included, began pounding on the table and chanting, “Keep it ON! Keep it ON!” I’m not sure how much actual physics we discussed, but it was rarely one of those dull physics gatherings.
Interestingly, the Attractive Girl of the Lascivious Leer had some of us to her house a few times for study groups. Well, her mother’s house. Years later, a friend of the Princess invited us over for dinner. Twas the same house. Yes, she had bought the house from the people I had once known.
Ah, thanks, yes Pirsig’s idea. Very helpful. Look at the trees, not the forest, sort of thing. That book was interesting at a time in my life when it was necessary.
DJSpo
Chris,
I forgot to mention. There apparently was an automobile accident today hereabouts that was stated as being “vehicle versus boulder”. Some of the boulders in this area are very fast on the roads. 🙂 The boulder survived with a few scratches, the car, well, it hit a boulder, after all. We are nowhere near peak rocks here.
DJSpo
Hi DJ,
The boulders can be hungry, and clearly have to be treated with the utmost of respect. I’ve seen trees across the roads here, and one almost unhinged our dinner expedition Tuesday evening. Fortunately the emergency services folks kindly cut up the tree and removed it, but in the meantime we travelled almost 15km out of our way to get around it. There have been some storms where I’ve journeyed off the farm with a chainsaw and all the associated gear – but not that evening. It’s great that as a society we have enough resources to chuck at such matters otherwise the roads would be closed within weeks or months. I noticed recently that there seems to be another emergency services depot being constructed over in the more fashionable end of the mountain range. Looks quite flashy.
As an amusing side story, over in that part of the world there is some sort of emergency big wig centre, and during the last big fire of 1983, the bushfire swept right through that centre – not to mention all of the people sheltering there thinking how safe it would be. I believe it was a close thing, but everyone survived that night huddled in their cars. Hmm.
Speaking of such matters, this morning there was more rain, and fog, and 12’C. A perfect morning of weather for donning the heavy chaps and cutting up (and splitting) a rather large chunk of tree which fell many months ago. It’s hot work getting into all the safety gear and wielding a chainsaw for a couple of hours. Best done when the weather is super-cool. It’s going to heat up for a few days, then the rains will return. Completely nuts weather. I hear you about the duck webbing – and there are a lot of mountain ducks in the wider area around here this year.
Peak rocks is real, did anyone think to ask the boulder how it felt? Hope everyone else was OK?
Your more recent weather really does sound like the sort of winter weather I enjoy (sort of!). Oh man, you’re not wrong, you’ll feel that sudden drop into winter for sure. It’s funny, but I’ve noticed that the switch into winter weather has been getting more abrupt here as well. Hot, hot, hot, then suddenly cold is how it has been rolling for the past few years. A sign of the times perhaps?
Good luck! Candidly, the kelpies can also run me out. Stay strong DJ, or at least don’t let Avalanche know she has the upper hand in this matter. Use distraction technique number seven – favourite dog treats to distract her from the enjoyment and ancestral memories of the snow. 😉 That’s how I do things.
Oh no! DJ, does this mean both your lady and Avalanche are ganging up on you, and can respond to your humour in kind – and in sync? Far out man, you’re up against the ropes there. I agree, most out of place. Hmm. What to do, what to do? How about studious ignoring combined with distraction technique number four, and treat your lady to some of the favourite diner experience you mentioned. Try the experimental words: “Forget about that babe. Are you hungry? Let’s go!” Hopefully further discussions are then avoided? Maybe? Stay safe out there!!!
Thanks for the stories. Lot’s of fun was clearly had. 🙂 And it is a truth universally acknowledged that the hard sciences such as physics, and also engineering for that matter, require beer as an all round brain lubricant. Imagine how far civilisation would have progressed without beer? Not very far I’d imagine, although the philosophers union may disagree here. I’m not asking them though, would you?
Dude, it’s a small world sometimes.
We’re all lucky my brain didn’t pop earlier today. So I was looking at the spare chains for the various chainsaws (plus organising and labelling them) and noticed that two brand new chains had 63 links instead of the expected 72 links. I had a sinking feeling that a) I trusted the people selling me this stuff; and b) I did not want to have to begin making my own chains! The brain is already full. Took the chains back in to the shop and despite not having paperwork, they swapped them for chains with the correct number of links. One of the side benefits of a confirmed long term relationship with the business. It’s a bit daunting sometimes the sheer amount of stuff I have to be all over. Oh well, nobody said life was meant to be easy. Organising what spare parts to hold is a nightmare of a problem.
Good to hear. I also found the book to be useful in that it alerted me to the concept of quality – and what that meant in esoteric terms. The big reveal that the author was the problem in his relationship with his kid was hardly surprising. I mean after all wasn’t electroshock therapy mentioned? Just went with my gut feeling there. And, um, sorry to say, but the dudes ego had to take a back seat when he finally started looking at the world around him. A most interesting book indeed. What did you see in it? If it’s not too personal to ask.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Oh! Thanks for the article on Italy, Pineapples and Pizzas. You know I was once scolded by a very snooty waiter for wanting a cappuccino after 11am. The bloke was casting doubt upon my good character. Who knew it was even a thing? They’re wrong to think that about cappuccinos, you know. 😉 Ah, the Italian pizza connection. The guy likes trouble if the current pineapple-gate and ketchup-gate pizzas are anything to go by. The pizzas are probably fine, but I’m not a big fan of the traditional Italian pizza anyway – pineapple and ketchup dramas to the side – mostly because they prefer fewer toppings than meets my preference. A bit mingy if you ask me. The article had a photo of the pineapple pizza, and sure there were a few chunks of pineapple and three cheeses, but so what? Where’s the rest of the toppings was what I wanted to know.
I agree with your observation. I’ve met people whom have an automatic reaction to anything new or different along the lines of: “I don’t like that.” Like, say what? Always makes me wonder when those words are heard, although I have a suspicion that the statements are made because the people making them live with a sense of dread. So yeah, not very adventurous.
Speaking of not very adventurous! I had to deal with an uncomfortable situation today. So, this morning was cold, wet and foggy. Yes, a typical summers day! It was cold enough I could get swaddled in all the safety gear and crank out the chainsaw and cut up and split a couple of huge fallen branches into firewood. A gift from the forest – as long as such things don’t drop on your head that is. After I finished up work hours later, I got to sorting out the various spare chains (new and old) into categories based on what machine they were associated with. A bit of organisation doesn’t hurt. That was when I discovered that the last chains I bought months and months ago had 63 drive links on them instead of 72. How did that happen? Anywhoo, despite the discomfiture at the lack of paperwork, I took them back into the shop, and they swapped them over for the correct ones. Bought some stuff whilst I was there. It was weird, because I can recall the guy looking up the specifications for the chains in a book and so I didn’t give it another thought. Anyway, I’m getting organised with all this stuff, but it annoys me that it is just another thing I can’t outsource and so have to be all over the detail. Picked up some more spare parts as well today and they’re on order, because surprise, surprise, my model of chainsaw is no longer made. Talk about obsolescence.
The words ‘transmissible spongiform encephalopathy’ strike absolute fear. On the other hand, the breeding rate of that particular species is rather fast, so my gut feeling suggests that deer will become resistant to it. Now, you wouldn’t want to stuff up the cooking of the meat properly…
I envy you your knowledge of Latin. As a subject it was dropped from the usual curriculum before I was born, but I can recall my mother saying that she’d studied it at school. I find it easier to gain at least some minor meaning from the written word, although I’m sure your command would be far better. With the spoken word, I have zero chance due to dialects and localised accents.
The news about the use of standardised USB-C connections and chargers made the media down here. Dude, the power packs for laptops use a lot of different voltages. You used to be able to purchase a universal laptop power supply which comes with settings for the voltages and a raft of connectors. I’ve experienced the power supplies for laptops failing and had to purchase a universal charging device – and it worked fine. My gut feeling suggests that if we as a civilisation were actually serious about reducing waste and recycling components, there’d be a massive push to have fewer options, less crazy combinations of industrial chemistry, and more standardisation. That’s what boring old recycling actually might look like.
🙂 My pleasure to have entertained you, and may you stay safe from the clutches of roaming pack of grammar police. Tiresome folks.
Flooding will have that effect. We get bushfire risk here, but at least there’s a chance to avoid the worst effects and also do some mitigation of the risk. With a flood, it takes most at risk houses out. Probably why insurers hate flood coverage. With what is going on up north along the coast line of this country makes me wonder how the insurers and people getting flooded are coping? I’d hate to imagine how many households were uninsured.
Yeah, that’s how we do holidays as well. There is always a window of time when for whatever reason, the conditions are OK and yet the crowds are not present. Travelling to exotic locales during the Christmas period is usually quiet for obvious reasons. Being near to a major highway makes me wonder what the author means by the words ‘near to’. Did the author quantify what he meant? The reason I’m asking is because the nearby tourist town of Daylesford is nowhere near a major highway. Maybe things are different down under?
Photography and filming are arts which are outside my competency (or pay grade!) and so I can’t really offer any valid opinions, although your probing of the matter appeared to be rhetorical in nature.
Speaking of films, I recently viewed a number of utoob videos of people living off-grid, and yikes! Those folks would probably think I’m living in the lap of luxury. I do wonder how long such people stick at living in that sort of environment? There are always bills, even when you do your utmost to keep the pesky things at bay so I reckon there is a middle ground a person has to walk, which is why the Big J came up with the clever line of ‘rendering unto Caesar’. I also wonder if they’re trying to earn mad cash on number of views for their vids? Dunno.
It’s possible. What is even said about baking powder? … … Holy carp! I didn’t even know that there was a difference between baking powder and the more commonly seen down under, baking soda (although we also call it by a different name of bicarb soda). Looks like the two chemicals are required at different proportions. Hey, you might not have used enough baking powder! My brain now hurts. 🙂
Of course, apologies, I’d forgotten about those most excellent jams. We might try and make another batch of apricot jam, although we do have to sadly purchase the apricots. Oh, and it’s drizzling and foggy outside this evening. A truly difficult growing season, although thanks to a mate who donated some plants, we now have a couple of small chilli’s hanging off the bushes! Yay!
It was weird the food box turned up early last time. Probably something to do with scheduling around Christmas time? Dunno. Did you score anything good in the box? How did the Club fare?
Cheers
Chris
Hi, Chris!
I’m so glad to see your sun – any sun! Your path in the Mr. Yellow photo looks nicely dry, even with all the rain. I can hardly believe the 42F – weird. We have a small portable timber mill. My son built it and saved a lot of money that way. It hasn’t been used lately, but he used to have access to a lot of large oak trees that people had had cut down, or that he cut down for them, so we have quite a few prime boards stored in the barn. I expect that if he wants some more trees he will be able to get hold of them.
Boy, are we going through the firewood. We always do in the winter.
I feel a bit of trepidation the Ruby has been given more responsibility, but how else will you know what her capabilities are? Time will tell.
You’ve had quite a bit of trouble with apricots. Did you add sugar to the bottled ones that aren’t jam? And I wonder if your strawberry jam won’t be a paler color with the white ones mixed in.
That looks like the Lemon Squash that I grow. We have a couple of young hazelnut bushes. When they finally produce, I dread what the squirrels are going to do. Supposedly they will have a cage. The bushes, not the squirrels.
Goodness – look at that tree fern! It’s finally a tree.
Thanks for the flowers!
Pam
Chris:
I just checked our alpine strawberries. They are still green, through many sub-freezing nights, and had a few berries until about 3 weeks before Christmas. I see a few open flowers now. No pollinators out, though.
Pam
Yo, Chris – Trauma counseling teams were dispatched to DJ’s boulder. 🙂
My favorite pizza is pineapple and some form of pig meat. Sometimes called a “Hawaiian”, here. Heck, I’ve experimented with all kinds of toppings on pizza. And, nachos. Someone mentioned the pickled artichokes. One of the best pizzas I ever had, was that with big chunks of white chicken and Feta cheese. They probably wouldn’t let me into Italy. Ordering pizza for groups can be fraught. Cries of “no mushrooms!” “No onions!” “No olives!” go up. Tiresome.
Picking into people’s aversions for this and that can yield many a mental forehead smack. I once knew a fellow who didn’t like peas. Why? Because someone had told him as a small child that if he ate them, they rolled down to his toes, and stayed there.
I think we’re agreed. There are just too many choices for just about everything. You should see the pen aisle (yes, a whole aisle), at the local big box office supply store. I had a thought that some of the multitude of choices, is less about “new and improved” and more about cornering the market. And then like your chain saw, they stop making … whatever.
I think we’ll see a lot of young deer, but not very many old ones. And they breed before the disease sets in. Same problem with queue ditherers. They breed, before natural selection can take them out. 🙂 I saw a bit of a documentary on the deer problem. Some hunters think the whole thing is a government plot, to take away their guns. Or if not the government, those pesky animal rights people. There again, the hunters have probably already produced issue, before the disease takes them down.
Not much knowledge of Latin left, in the old noggin. But occasionally, something surfaces.
As far as flooding and insurance go, in your country, you’ll be hearing about it soon enough. The insurance aspect.
I suppose, it depends on how interesting the tourist attraction is. How far off the highway would you drive, to see the world’s largest ball of string? I finished reading that book about small towns, and one town was miffed at the government, as they couldn’t get a sign on the highway, indicating that there was a town, there. A lot of towns manage to get a sign that says “Business Loop.”
Well, look at the back-to-the-land movement in the 1970s. Or even the Victorian Utopian community movements. People discovered it was hard and inconvenient.
Oh, dear. Yes, there is quit a difference between baking powder and baking soda. Some recipes call for both, in different ratios. I should have stuck with my usual using yeast to get a rise. But, I was in a hurry, and went with muffins, instead of a baking dish. So, the muffin recipe I used called for 4 tsp. of baking powder, but I only used 3. I don’t know why. 4 just seemed … excessive, at the time. Clearly not. Anyway, not too bad once they soaked up a bit of the liquid, from the meal. That pot liquor.
Well, the food boxes were a bit … hmmm. Light? Thin? This is the delivery where we usually get two, one being mostly produce. Only one box, this time. And NO produce. I snagged Elinor’s box, and one contained a bag of pistachios and a bag of raisins. The other box walnuts and a bag or almonds. Protean wise, there was only a pound of frozen ground beef, two tins of salmon, and one tin of chicken. A two pound brick of processed cheese product. There was a quart of vegetable oil. Some cereal and shelf stable milk. Dried pasta and one bag of dried pinto beans. Which no one is much interested in. Also not much interest in the tinned vegetable soup, apple sauce, and kidney beans. There was also a couple of plastic pouches of a pasta red sauce. Which also, no one is interested in. All the above pile up here on the swap table, and also down at the Club.
You had to read that book that cannot be named, in high school. We had to read Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter.” LOL. I think perhaps, it was pushed as the consequences of teen pregnancy. Anyway, it wasn’t that unpopular among the kids, due to the sex and all. Which all happens off stage. And it was thin. But it has been filmed, several times, and last night I watched a remastered, 1934 version, with Colleen Moore. It was an early talkie. It takes place in the 1600s in New England. And has a lot of mean old Puritans. 🙂 Lew
Hi Lewis,
It didn’t take long… One in eight households spending a month’s wage on home and contents insurance as premiums skyrocket, experts say.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Chris,
You’ll notice I have officially ended my blog in favor of other projects. Thanks to you, and to Pam, for commenting at various times over the years, and thanks to everyone who read any of my posts! The blog had a good run, and I am relieved to set it aside and focus on other projects.
Could you please speak to your rains and send them here? We are still in moderate drought, though at least it isn’t getting worse. But it won’t get better until we can catch some more rain.
Looks like the US got the warmth in 2023. St. Louis had the second warmest year in its history in 2023. Winters were particularly warm; we had the fewest days with a high of 32F or colder and also the fewest days with a low of 32F or colder. Plus we also received only 3.0 inches of snow in 2023.
2024 is starting out warm too. The soil hasn’t frozen and so far we’ve only received 0.5 inches of snow, all in December. It might snow heavily somewhere in Missouri next Tuesday, but they don’t think it will happen here but rather to our northwest. However, we’ll get rain if it doesn’t snow, and since the soil isn’t frozen, the rain will soak in as it needs to do.
Our former next door neighbor had a portable sawmill. When he first got it, he used it to make boards to fence the yard – but he only got a small fraction of it fenced before his children got old enough that they sucked up all of his and his wife’s free time. Just another piece of equipment that sat around until he sold it, or sent it to recycling, when he sold the place.
Happy 2024 to you and everyone else reading this!
Claire
Chris,
Hungry boulders have a huge gravitational pull. They suck cars off the roads into the boulders. Cars go “crunch crunch”. Boulders feast on the car debris. I heard that the boulder is scarred. Dunno if the scar is from being hit by the car or because nobody asked how the boulder felt after getting hit.
Isn’t that the way of it? Build a “fireproof” building for the bigwigs, and when the fire comes, the building isn’t fireproof? It is amusing, isn’t it?
12C and drippy is perfect weather for some types of work, right? I get a lot of the hardest yard work done in similar weather.
Spokane has always had abrupt changes to the seasons. Those years where seasons gradually ease into the next season are rare. The suddenness of seasonal change seems to be greater now, but that may be due to my not remembering the exact details of the sudden changes from 50 years ago. 😉
But what if I’ve got ancestral memories of the snow, too? Who’s going to give me treats to distract me? I like being out in the snow playing and running. Or lighting a fire under the canopy and sitting there watching Avalanche play. Something rather “memorable” about sitting outdoors, breathing in woodsmoke, watching the snow fall and the wolflike dog play.
Yes, there are times that the Princess and Dame Avalanche gang up on me. As to your suggestion to IGNORE the Princess?!? Have you gone barmy in the new year? 😉 I would be banished to the doghouse, which I can’t fit inside of!
Oh yes, civilization wouldn’t exist without the relaxing effects of ale and mead. Scientific advancement? Gone. Poetry and music? Gone. I read once that there is a theory that the first agricultural societies were formed to ensure that there was enough grain for alcohol brewing. And no, do NOT ask the Amalgamated Union of Philosophers, Sages, Luminaries and Other Professional Thinking Persons about this! They always avoided the best sorts of parties, probably due to never getting invited.
There is a LOT to be said about regularly supporting the same businesses over the years. The relationships that are formed may have perks later, as you found with the chains. It may be somewhat old school, but I prefer doing business with the same locally owned organizations when possible.
Pirsig’s Zen book? First some context…I was still part of that weird church/cult and had recently returned from the year of physics graduate school in Las Cruces. My friend who died this past October had asked me a deep question a few years earlier. Also, reading Arthuriana and that period’s history, I got introduced to Pelagianism and Arian Christianity ideas. Both are considered to be heretical, but I found that they make a lot more sense than the dogma that I was taught. My final term as an undergrad in Spokane, I took the best class I had throughout my university career, “East-West Philosophies and Religions”, which was rather eye opening. Also, my maternal grandfather died when I was in Las Cruces. My religious friends were too busy studying to talk to me. One of my lab students, who was far from religious, dropped her studies for the night and talked me through things for several hours. I was also beginning to realize that I was wired differently than most people and wouldn’t quite “fit” into most things the way “normal” people do. So there were a lot of questions floating in my head.
Enter Pirsig’s book. The first thing that struck me about it was his ideas on quality. His way of looking at quality has applications in many areas. Esoteric, as you said, but with endless applications. I really enjoyed that and it got me started on clearer thinking processes. The book also got me to realize that there is a way to live even when one is not wired the same as “normal”, although it might take a lot of work to figure things out and find the way that works for me. As a result, I became a somewhat better observer and began to learn how to analyze things. Friend’s question, the events after my grandfather’s death, and then reading and thinking about Pirsig’s book were three of the things that helped me eventually move into a different direction and leave the weird church/cult.
Today was one of those grey days. Again. It was so humid that it almost felt like a fine mist was falling. Then it began raining in the afternoon. Fortunately, Dame Avalanche and I completed our walk before the rain hit.
DJSpo
Hi Claire,
Good for you and hope you enjoy your new direction. And I just want to throw to you a very special thanks for encouraging me to read: ‘The Intelligent Gardener’. The book was a treasure trove of information and insights, and over the years of your blog, you can see that it sure has guided your work. The changes here with the plants due to that book is nothing short of remarkable. So thanks for the introduction, for providing the detailed long term effects the work had on your garden, and also, most especially for taking the time to drop by and say hello!
I’d do soil testing here, but the cost is exorbitant, and so have to instead go with what I’ve learned over the years, and also my gut feeling. I do worry about the rain leaching soil minerals, but what do you do?
Claire, even if I could alter the weather, I would not do so. 🙂 Hope you get some rain soon. I do worry about your east coast producing a large heat island effect. It might interest you to know that the rain here is very different to the rain experienced in the big smoke.
Things sure are heating up. There’s no getting around that. It hasn’t snowed here for over two years now. The rain you receive next week sure will work it’s way into the unusually warm soil. When you see cracks forming in the soil (if you have clay that is, although from memory you have a sandy / loam mix?) you know the subsoil is dry. The cracks allow any rainfall to penetrate the subsoil more easily and not evaporate or run off. Isn’t nature amazing how it can adapt to change?
Noooooo! Oh well, I’ve seen such things happen. What do you do? About seven or eight years ago here I used to have a very amusing neighbour who made furniture and he had a shed full of great equipment. We used to catch up for dinner regularly and just talk rubbish. Yeah, well, when he sold up, the equipment was cleared possibly on the cheap. The new neighbours who bought the place are now moving on. The cycle of life huh? 🙂
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
There’s a theory that mass attracts, although I guess it also depends upon the chemical composition of the boulder. It’s been my experience that some boulders are heavier than others. 🙂 Having read a book by an Indigenous philosopher and thinker, I can only hope the boulders don’t come and get me because of all the work we’re doing with them? I’d like to think that the outcome is aesthetically pleasing and the rocks will be happy with that, maybe… As an interesting side note, we visited an historic indigenous flint quarry today. It was an awesome place, and far bigger than you’d ever imagine. I knew it was there, however there were no signs alerting the casual observer to the purpose of the place and it was off the beaten track. We viewed the quarry from the road and chose not to enter. What interested me was that the quarry was very aesthetically pleasing, and nothing at all like the horror show that our civilisation leaves behind without a care in the world.
I’m not sure the place was ‘fireproof’ and the buildings look like they’ve been rebuilt since those days, no it was some sort of emergency management department. Dunno what they do in there…
No point getting heat exhaustion is there? So 12’C and drippy is a perfect day for hard work.
Ah, I see. It’s a similar case here, and truly the four traditional seasons just don’t fit as we’ve discussed before. Things change here about every two months, depending. And yeah, I don’t know either? Memory fades, or at best gets distorted.
That’s Avalanche’s job! 🙂 That’s who. Thanks for that, and yes I appreciate such memories too – as do the trio of wolflets.
Hey, I didn’t start this whole barmy thing! Hehe! What can I say, in my defence my mum said I was a bad influence. Probably not true though, maybe. Ah yes wise to avoid the doghouse and keep in good with your lady. Sandra is not safe to ignore either, but sometimes when she’s talking to me from across the house, I pretend I can’t hear – purely for the effect. Also it’s a good reminder to ensure that conversations take place at a reasonable distance.
Meads and ales have a long history. I’d read long ago that the indigenous folks used to make a sacred drink. A hollowed out log would be filled with water and covered with a lid of either timber or bark. Then all the local flowers would be collected in season and added to the water over many months. You can see where this is going… Which do you reckon came first: bread or ale? I’m guessing a parallel development.
Yes, who would invite that lot? Imagine the incessant arguing? After a while I’d say to Vroomfondel and Majikthise, “gentleman peace please, or take your arguments elsewhere!” They’d probably argue about the validity of my instruction, or the overall meaning of the message…
As a strategy, having interactions with the same small local businesses over a long period of time is very functional, and I believe to be part of a healthy society. Now, unfortunately after a certain size (I’m guessing the upper hierarchy becomes too far removed from the day to day experience), it’s been my observation that larger businesses do not reward loyalty. Far from it actually, which seems really weird to me.
Thank you for your history in relation to the book. Pelagianism makes a great deal of sense to me as well, but as to Arian Christianity, has anyone thought to ask the Trinity? Of course that then raises the awful question, should those with a vested interest in the outcome intercede? There is a lot to unpack in all that for sure.
Dude, I’ve got a saying I may have just made up (maybe): ‘When death visits, and also at weddings, you find out who your friends actually are’.
I dealt with death at such a young age as well, and my peers were also oblivious. It’s not even funny, but only days later you can sort of see the response in their eyes: ‘Are we still talking about this? I was bored of it four days ago. Get over it!’ Ah, to live in a society where death is hidden from view.
You got the impression from the story that the author was likewise not wired the same as expected, and you could really feel the tension build throughout. And the electro shock therapy was like a kind of desensitising move after the pressure built up too much. Then things were different, but the pressure never went away for the author. Yeah, working out your own path is a great solution, well done you. Respect. For your info, I had the good fortune that the adults in my early life were mostly absent, and the environment was highly dysfunctional. So as a young bloke, I just looked around me to see what worked, and read widely on the subject. At the age of 30 I came unstuck in a work situation, and then had to think long and hard upon the subject of peoples motivations, mostly because I had no idea. Like what makes them do the things they do? An interesting journey, and I can see you’ve travelled similar but different paths.
Good to hear that you dodged the rain. 25’C and sunny (but very humid) here today. Had a slack day, and picked up 23kg of stone fruit (alas the weather has been hard this season on my stone fruit trees).
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Maybe the boulder, now distressed and slightly soiled, needs a pet service rock? Hey, do you remember the craze of the pet rock? A bold recession busting power-move because rocks don’t need feeding, or do they?
No, those varieties of pizzas are known as a ‘Hawaiian’ down here also, and sound pretty much the same. In a strange twist of fate, we went to the pub for dinner and a pint this evening and had the, get this: Hawaiian chicken parma. A true innovation. Take your standard pub feed chicken parma, and chuck on chunks of pineapple. Winning!
Your best ever pizza combo sounds pretty good to me. Yum! And why not experiment with pizza toppings? Tradition is fine and all, but what if pineapple chunks are just better? Oh yeah, you’d be banned with such culinary opinions. 😉
Actually I’m seeing a bit of push-back against that sort of mucking around with food orders. It’s happening alright. I’m of the opinion that people have to deal with the menu, except any suggestions offered by the people taking the order, or go somewhere else that is more suitable to their needs. It’s way too hard on a commercial kitchen to muck around with too much with individual orders. And with staff shortages affecting commercial kitchens as much as everywhere else they should push-back. For your interest, most of the people I associate with, generally don’t muck around with food orders. And they do have a tendency to pay cash more often than not, just because that’s how they roll. That mucking around is tiresome.
What? Well adults used to tell me not to eat the seeds in oranges because otherwise a tree might grow in your guts. I ignored them, but when really young wasn’t entirely sure either. I was sure they weren’t adults, despite their claims. That bloke you used to know had some negative associations hard wired to peas. It seems like a stupid thing of the adults to do. Oh well, nobody said we were rational, except maybe the economists, and they’re wrong.
Dude, the big box store stationery business down here also has a pen aisle just like that. Yeah, what to do when confronted by the psychic wall of pens? 🙂 A distressing experience. There is too much turnover of products. The churning mindset just seems so wasteful to me. But I guess they’re all worried by the ‘product life cycle curve’, and are trying to baffle their way around that through bull-dust (hey, can’t break my own rules!).
It’s annoying that the chainsaw model is no longer made, because now I have to keep a decent stock of spare parts. The issue of how to navigate through such matters does take up a bit of my time. It’s no easy thing, and economics is always gnawing away at our best efforts.
Ooo! Had the day off work and headed north to pick up some stone fruit (plums for preserving this time and a small quantity of apricots to turn into jam). Whilst we were up in that area, we checked out another ruin, and also an indigenous flint quarry. Took some photos and hopefully they work out. The quarry was amazing, and I could see how the rocks were recovered for tool making, or at least how I’d do it. Pretty clever. And the place was huge, and not at all obvious that that was what was going on there for millennia. A gourmet lamb and rosemary pie was also consumed.
It’s been known to happen with the queue ditherers. 🙂 Dude, you’re on fire this evening! Very funny. It’s possible that the deer disease reflects a wider issue in the environment such as maybe a decline in soil fertility.
The Editor did a botany subject at Uni and interestingly was expected to recall dozens of Latin names for plants for an exam, and yet the same institution didn’t teach the language. How weird is that? I read somewhere or other, or maybe heard, that Uni placements this year are at their lowest in maybe fifteen years. I’m not seeing a return on investment for the time and debt involved, and in fact raise that very issue with anyone who speaks with me about the subject.
No, nobody has put together the largest ball of string have they? Noooo. The thing is 12ft in diameter. But do I want to see it for myself? Oh that’s rough about the signage. Incidentally, I used to know some folks who ran an out of the way nursery, and they told me that they had to spend well over ten thousand, maybe more, I can’t recall, for an official sign at the intersection pointing down the road.
And yes, the experience of the back to the land folks was on my mind as well. Things were actually cheaper in those days, although just as inconvenient as today.
I hadn’t known that either about the baking powder and the baking soda – and we don’t even call them by those names. Four seems excessive to me as well. The yeast option will probably taste better. A fine use of the essential pan juices. 🙂
See how the next box goes, but they’re probably light because of the festive time of year. Now if the next box is light, and the one after that… What’s anyone got against dried pinto beans? With such beans we tend to soak them overnight (or during the day) in a bowl of water so as to rehydrate them before cooking. The other processed stuff, I’d be looking closely at the list of ingredients. Stay sceptical Lewis, and if you can’t, then run!
The Scarlet Letter sounds very racy! Sorry for you for having been forced to read such historic weirdness, but the story contains way too much guilt for my comprehension. As a civilisation we tend to go from one extreme position, all the way over to the other extreme position. And those puritans… Makes me wonder what secrets they were hiding to have acted so.
Cheers
Chris
@ Claire:
Oh, gosh, Claire – I enjoyed your blog so much (and your comments at Mr. Greer’s when I used to get over there). I have so little time for anything, that I just only keep up with this blog. I learned so many useful things from you. Thanks!
Pam
Yo, Chris – Timely. The insurance article. I got this e-mail from my Idaho friends, this morning…
“I talked to our insurance agent today about our policy for this next year. It includes cars/truck, our house, the duplex and an umbrella policy. The bundled policy went up $703, with our auto policy making up $510 of that!! ???? She was telling me her team is already looking into different options. Said all auto policies they offer have gone up. I learned one company won’t insure a house over 8 yrs old. Others, won’t insure if your roofing is over 15 years old. She said we could consider having a higher deductible. I’m to call back next week on Friday to see what we’ll do. Holy schnikies, it’s definitely getting closer to not being able to afford a whole lot.”
I don’t know what their base rate is, but you get the drift. I got my renters insurance notice, the other day. It went up $10 a year, so, not so much. Not that it covers much. I should get my auto insurance, pretty soon. I’ll keep you posted. I noticed the one woman in the article talked about loyalty. Ha! She should get out more. There used to be a thing called “customer retention.” It must be considered old fashioned.
Oh, yes. I remember pet rocks. How about Chia pets? I see they’re making a come-back, though I don’t think they ever entirely disappeared.
I remember the good old days, when a lot of restaurants posted signs, and had on their menus, “No Substitutions.” Many comedy sketches have been done around demanding customers and resistant restaurants. Remember the old, “5% of your customers are not worth dealing with.” Here’s a 2 1/2 minute sketch from the series “Portlandia.” Gosh, I miss that show.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G__PVLB8Nm4
LOL. No mucking around / uses cash. Have you noticed, it’s mostly men? 🙂 I save the old pen package, round up a clerk, and say, “I want more of these.” Saves a heck of a lot of time.
The flint quarry sounds really interesting. “Flint knapping” is a thing, among “experimental archaeologists.” Archaeologists who study, and master old techniques. They do it with food, too. I suppose Ruth Goodman could be considered a “experimental historian?” Now a-days, there is a study of the chemical compositions of rocks. They’re like fingerprints. It helps to establish trade networks. And, they turned out to be quit extensive.
I took Botany, at uni, too. Thought it would be an easy science credit. Well, when I signed up for one class, it turned out to be taught from a chemistry angle. I dropped it, within two weeks. Then signed up with another professor, who approached Botany from a more plant based angle. Got a good grade.
Signage seems to be one expense that new businesses fail to take into account. It’s not something you can often buy used.
Beans and legumes are something few people seem to cook with, anymore. Probably, because you need to think ahead. As in, soaking them overnight. But, with the slow cookers, maybe they’ll make a comeback?
Hypocrisy. Don’t do as I do, do as I say. “What’s sauce for the goose …” Harder to get away with, in our connected society. One of the leading purveyors of … adult entertainment on the internet, has pretty in-depth use demographics. Heaviest users are found in our states that are referred to as “the bible belt.” They also have the most “inventive” and odd, search requests. 🙂
Saw a book on the on-order, new title, library list, that The Editor may find interesting. “Jane Austen’s Wardrobe.” (Davidson, 2023). A study of what Austen wore, based on her surviving wardrobe, and investigations of her letters.
Also on the new list was, “Dark Archives: A Librarians Investigation into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin.” What’s interesting (or alarming?) is that the library ordered 2 copies, and there’s already 4 holds on it. It’s not on my hold list. Though I am tempted to check it out, carry it around, and freak people out. Maybe get a copy for our Institutions library? 🙂
Well, it’s kind of official. The National Weather Service forecasts we may get snow, Wednesday night into Thursday. Prof. Mass also mentions the possibility, but as with Mr. Green and predictions, Prof. Mass says there are a lot of variables in play. Lew
Chris,
Yes, mass attracts. Some boulders are heavier than others. Then there’s this gravity thing. However, physics can be modelled differently, based on the premise that the earth sucks, and the results for throwing a ball in the air would be the same as in the gravitational model. Seriously, a very depressed student, not a physics major but who had to take a year of physics, said in a fit of depression “The earth sucks.” We mentioned that to one of our professors and he proceeded to show the basics of the mathematical model to show that the earth sucks. It made Depressed Student feel better when we told him.
The trip to the flint quarry sounds interesting. The fact that it is still aesthetically pleasing says a lot about our “anything for a dollar” culture, doesn’t it?
I’ve been following the weather forecasts for the next 7 to 10 days. And reading Cliff Mass about the coming events. What I noticed was that the different forecasts I view are in extreme disagreement about how much snow we’re going to get, and then how cold it will get. The next 5 days I think will give us limited snow, as the storms will come in at +2C or higher. Things will change Wednesday when the cold front joins with snow but it shouldn’t snow too much here. My guess is that the -16C will happen, but I’m skeptical about the other model that shows -23C.
Interestingly, one of the comments to the Mass blog said that one model suggested -34C in Darrington, Washington. Darrington is on the coastal side of the mountains and is NOT at a high elevation. Ummm, not a chance that Darrington will get that cold. That would put Spokane at -60C. Ummm, no. So the models are screwy this far in advance. Oh, and a COLD snap, even to the -23C range, IS in keeping with a major El Nino. I’ve seen these before in El Nino winters. A storm comes in with cold and some 5cm to 8cm of snow, stays bitterly cold and dry for up to 2 weeks, then warms up and starts to rain.
Oh you like playing with fire. Pretend, from a distance, that you can’t hear Sandra. Ouch! The Princess would find a way to get even with me if I tried that. A very painful way when I least expect it.
My ancient neighbor, now deceased 4 years, once told me about how he and his brothers made alcohol when they were in their teens. They’d clean out a trough, add a lot of cut up potatoes, fill it with water, then wait for a few weeks. He said it was some of the smoothest alcoholic drinks he ever had. Sounds somewhat similar to the sacred brews you mentioned. Bread or ale first? I also adhere to the parallel development idea.
I still find that Pelagianism makes sense. Your idea about Arianism “has anyone thought to ask the Trinity” is both funny and interesting. My guess is that the founders of Arian Christianity would say that they DID ask the Trinity, and so would their opponents. What I got taught about Pelagianism is that there was a big “hearing” in which Pelagius and his main opponent spoke to the council of bishops or something, and that said council then prayed about it or something and decided against Pelagius. The truth appears to be different, and much more of a combination of politics and a beauty contest. Pelagius lost on all counts. I think something similar happened with the Arian Christians.
Once I realized that the decision was likely political, I was forced to do a lot of thinking. And observing. And remembering. More thinking. I’m VERY glad that I was able learn how to figure out my path. Which still meanders into places I hadn’t expected. And yes, your path and mine started at different places but seem to have gotten onto similar terrain. Maybe somewhat parallel with some intersecting here and there. Well done you, too.
Avalanche found an interesting chunk of wood somewhere. She dropped it near the back door for me to find. Find it I did: it did a wonderful job as a door stop! It will, however, make for an interesting carving and will be a nice addition to some of the other small heads I’ve carved. Time to start.
DJSpo
Hi Pam,
Thanks for the praise, and I’m also sad to read that Claire’s blog is ending. I too have learned a lot there.
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
It’s just my opinion, but it would be nice if boulders were all of a manageable size. Imagine the uses convenient boulders could then be put too? But sadly knowing how our species in this civilisation relates to resources, Peak Rocks would soon be more widely felt. Wars may be fought over the declining number of available convenient rocks. And perhaps the real inconvenient truth is that boulders are so sized in reality as to ensure a longer term reliable supply? Perhaps the rocks are much smarter than our opinions of them tend to suggest?
Does the Earth suck? Whoa! With such philosophical debates, I’m way out of my league. It was a lovely gesture of the professor to speak with the student one on one at that moment. I’ve always tried to make learning fun, and that’s a classic example. I had a chance encounter yesterday with someone I’ve known for a long while, and I’d like to imagine that I left the person in good spirits. We sure had some laughs.
Yeah, it does say a lot about our culture. I tend to believe that the outcomes are a complication due to scale, and also most often the people doing such work, and also the owners of the enterprise, don’t have to live with the consequences.
Weather forecasts are a model, and not the territory sorry to say. One of the weather sites I regularly visit relating to down under, often post the various forecast models, and yeah, I’m surprised by the variability as well – and they note the uncertainty particularly with dynamic storms. You reminded me of an amusing thing – I’m sometimes asked how long a project will take. My usual response is to quip: ‘I’ll tell you when it’s completed!’
Hope you get the snow, and avoid the more extreme ends of the forecast low temperatures? Dude, that’s cold. Please do keep me updated on how your predictions fare compared to the forecast. There’s often a local advantage to weather forecasting on a local level. After a few years (if a person takes the time to observe how the weather moves locally) you can get a more accurate feel for what might happen in the local area based on the forecast. Like I know if the winds are heading along the freeway in a southerly direction (and I can sort of see that area) the rain will completely miss here. A quirk of the local geography I reckon.
Tomorrow night into Monday, things will get interesting here, like in a bad way: Storms, flash flooding likely across Victoria from Sunday night with highest rain totals expected in north
It’s pretty funny playing with that sort of fire, but you have to be fleet of foot. Another fun one you can do, and in this case again I will use Sandra again attempting to have a conversation with me at an inappropriate distance. I’ll reply with made up jumbled sentences spoken just loudly enough that it seems like I’m genuinely replying, but not so loud that she has any idea as to what I’m saying. You can’t use that technique too often, but trust me you’ll end up laughing so hard you’ll have tears. Again, be swift of foot just in case! We keep each other laughing a lot through such silly games. I ripped that idea from the jailer scene in Life of Brian. 😉 There’s lumps of it ’round the back!
DJ, I have a fair bit of experience with making wines and meads, and err, sure that stuff was smooth! 🙂 Everyone says such things! Hehe! But you know, when you’re young and dumb, does that even matter? Hey, I reckon yoghurt was a parallel development idea too. You can sort of see how it might have happened. Careless dairy farmer. Hunger leads them to consume hot curdled milk discovered many days later. This stuff isn’t too bad they say to themselves. And thus cheese and yoghurt etc. were discovered.
Pelagianism was probably stomped down hard by the authoritas because it sort of promoted the pagan idea of reincarnation. And um, err, well, that idea doesn’t sit so well with that of an alternative and the more favoured option of salvation. Also it negates the err, officialdom who were probably on a nice earner at that time and felt the easy days were threatened. After all, if an individual is responsible for their relationship with the divine by their own actions, well that does present some problems for them doesn’t it? The idea makes a lot of sense to me.
Learning is an interesting subject is it not? And doctrine and intuition can only take a person so far. It’s funny you mention this.
Well done Avalanche, and she is now directing your carving works. 🙂 Smart dog!
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Holy schnikies indeed! And this is a matter I too wonder about. The numbers just don’t stack up to me, and the more people who drop off out of the premium pool, the worse the outcomes will be. The increased deductible is not a bad way to go because I’ve seen people put through claims that really should have been maintenance.
I haven’t heard people being denied insurance due to the age of their houses. There’s a lot of older housing stock down here, and from what I’ve seen of them, they’re quite sturdily constructed.
What will be interesting, and few people recall the finer details of contracts, is that houses with debt are I believe contractually obliged to maintain insurance. After all, the lender wants to ensure that there is a financial interest following on from an unforeseen disastrous event. Not sure how that issue will play out, but it could be brutal for possible breach of contract scenarios. Dunno.
Yeah I get the gist of the story. I tend to believe that at the core, is that houses are too expensive to construct. The way we do things today isn’t the only path. And the outcomes possibly aren’t all that great. There is a high rise tower with some err, possibly structural issues in Sydney. Mascot Towers apartment owner-occupiers offered sale to third party consortium. Who wants to face a potential $50m+ repair bill? Candidly I didn’t understand what the settlement offered in that case even meant.
As a point of difference, insurance policies down here generally aren’t bundled, but all done on a separate basis.
I’ve never seen a Chia Pet, but tell you what, does it do a replica Bob Ross ‘do, or what? Can they be reseeded, that’s what I want to know. Have to laugh, in searching for the one true answer, I came across an amusing article titled: Growing Sprouts Like a Crunchy 1970s Hippie Has Never Been Easier How funny is that? There’s even a bit of disagreement about using alfalfa sprouts, some say yes, and others no.
There is a school of thought which suggests that the substitution craze began in your country, and we followed, although truth to tell, I’ve never seen such a sign displayed. Generally the push back comes from the people taking the orders. And that is true with any business which deals with the general public. There is always the idiot element.
Colin the Chicken scene was totally out there! 🙂 And you’re right, after a great outpouring of virtuousness they’d completely forgotten to order the chicken! There’s gotta be a special place reserved in Hell for such folks… I watched the scene of the intern working at the feminist bookshop. Talk about a total car crash.
Far out, there are heaps of people out there practising flint knapping. This is news to me, and I tend to agree with you that Ruth Goodman is very much in the category you suggest. It looks like a very practical way to put book learning to the ultimate test. I’d read about the trade networks with rocks and plants, and err, culture was traded as well down under. Trade was actually quite extensive historically. There’s another indigenous quarry not all that far from here, and rocks from that particular quarry have been found in different states – which is a huge distance for them to have travelled. It’s foolishness to think that trade ended during the Dark Ages. What about Tintagel and it’s nearby tin mines?
Yeah, stick to the plants. A good call.
Signage is expensive for sure. Getting the permits so that the signs aren’t removed is where the serious costs are. Apparently I was told that there are certain standards to adhere too, and not just anyone could churn out a sign. It sounded like an officially captured process.
That makes sense, and I can’t think of another good reason why people wouldn’t want to cook with beans and legumes in general. Most legumes taste pretty nice to me, but that’s maybe just me. Very possible about the slow cooker increasing the popularity in the future. Something has to give. When we get the second greenhouse going, I might be able to grow some legumes in there, but will it produce enough to be worth the use of the premium growing space?
As a bit of an amusing side story about the adult entertainment industry. Simon’s blog was referenced in Philosophy News Today months and months ago, and I was most impressed. It got me thinking whether anyone had reviewed or referenced this blog. So as you do, I went looking and discovered someone had left a review for the blog on a pawnhub forum of all places. It was a good review, and also included words along the lines of: ‘an old guy just doing the best he can’. It became a policy thereafter to not seek out reviews! 🙂 But it sure gave me a good belly laugh. Another friend describes the blog as ‘down home’, which I kind of like because I seek to make the essays comprehensible and a warm place to be whilst discussing difficult topics.
I’ll mention the book to the Editor. She’s only come to historical works of fiction in recent years, and was amazed to discover that despite the settings, changes in spoken language and different social mores, they’re just like us. The household she grew up in was quite biased against and disparaging of the classics. It took her a while to realise the bias was theirs and not hers.
Yeah, it is interesting isn’t it? Makes you wonder what plans the librarians are hatching in the dark wee cold hours of the night. Surely binding books in human skin was only ever a niche activity in ancient days? Maybe. You know you want to put the book on the hold list! 😉 Give in to the temptation.
Predictions are hard, especially when they’re about the future – to quote Yogi Berra. Hope you get some snow, but not too much.
We’re in for some interesting weather from tomorrow evening. Another big storm will hit. Already there are warnings, but we’ll see how it goes. However, with the threat of deteriorating weather, we continued to bring in the firewood today. The shed is almost full. And the peasants rejoiced! Made up another batch of apricot jam. To celebrate the near full-ness of the firewood shed, we hit a local cidery for lunch. Please don’t get the impression that there is more than one cidery nearby. 🙂 The business has quite an extensive orchard, and all the trees were full of fruit, and netted. Shared a serving of nacho’s along with a fine cider. Upon returning home, I promptly went into a food coma. A bloke needs time to digest.
We’ll do half of the plum bottling (canning) tomorrow.
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – My Idaho friend had a question, but I think you’ve answered it, and I’ll pass it along. Cut and paste, cut and paste 🙂
“One way to save money is to raise our deductibles, so I called to see how much we need to raise them for a savings. Since we own our house outright we don’t have to insure it. But will for now. Progressive has a cheaper car policy but the agent is seeing if we have to bundle everything or not. Probably will go with what we have for this year. I’ll know more by next Friday. In Australia are they required to insure a home they own outright?”
That’s interesting that Australia doesn’t bundle policies. I have an auto and a rental insurance. Both have a discount, for bundling. Here, if you let your mortgage insurance lapse, the ever helpful mortgage insurance company will inform you’re lender. Who might call in your entire loan. The ever helpful auto insurance people, will notify the state, if you let your auto insurance lapse. In our police reports, I often see someone picked up for “Expired license, no insurance.”
That was an interesting article on Mascot Towers. What I found even more interesting was the sidebar article, “Katie turned the “moulding and disgusting” dump into a dream home.” Yes, I think the first time home owners amount, should also be given to first time renovators. Though the amount, given cost, seems piddling. Might pay their first year’s insurance. 🙂
Oh, I suppose the Chia Pets could be reseeded. If you worked at it. Ah, yes. The great Alfalfa Sprout Debate. Home grown sprouts can harbor bacteria, and might kill you. Even commercial sprouts have problems, from time to time.
Yes, I’m afraid it was a well known American burger chain that started the substitution madness. “Have it your way.” Something they advertised, for years. Come the Revolution, people from their ad department will be hunted down, and put up against a wall. 🙂
The “Colin the Chicken” sketch, was great. The corker was, when they decided to drive 30 miles, to the farm, to check out conditions. And requested that their table be held. The series Portlandia had some great sketches. I’ve linked to a few, from time to time. That Feminist Bookstore sketch was filmed in a real bookstore in Portland. They became repeated characters. And finally, it became a problem, as I’m afraid they made too much fun of it. Some of those people have no sense of humor.
Looking at all the Middle Eastern tat, that showed up in Tintagel, yes, trade networks were pretty extensive. You may have heard the legend that Joseph of Arimathea (who lent his tomb to the big J. No big deal. It was only occupied 3 days. The first B&B?) was the big J’s uncle, and, a tin trader. Who took the big J along to Britain, a few times. Well, he must have been somewhere during all those missing years. Myth and legend.
Oh, that’s funny about the reviews. You know, there are some actors and authors, who don’t read their reviews. Must take real strength of character, to do (or not do) that.
Oh, the Nazis got quit inventive with human skin. I’ll leave it to you to do the research. Some things aren’t family friendly, that have nothing to do with a little slap and tickle.
Now the National Weather Service says we may have snow on Monday morning. Or, a mix of rain and snow. Doesn’t sound like much, and probably won’t stick. Nights have been getting cold enough that I’ve been taking my shirt to bed. So nice to put on a warm shirt, in the morning.
Well, more library news. I watched the new “Exorcist,” last night. Pretty good, and worth a look if you like that sort of thing. I also watched “Five Nights at Freddy’s.” Pretty much a rip off of Nick Cage’s “Willy’s Wonderland.” Although I think “Five Nights” might be based on a video game. Even so, it was different enough, and well done enough, that if you’re in the mood for horror, it’s worth a look.
I also saw a book, or two, that may, or may not interest you. “Raising Resilient Bees: Heritage Techniques to Mitigate Mites, Preserve Locally Adapted Genetics and Grow Your Apiary.” (McEwen, 2023). A book I did put on hold was “The Skint Cook.” Some British guy, cooking on the cheap. (LOL, I checked the definition of “skint,” just in case it was some bit of unfamily friendly slang.) Lew
Hi Lewis,
Ah, you’ve become the metaphorical meat in the sandwich with this discussion! 🙂 The following is general advice, and I could well be wrong so best to check for yourselves the following couple of paragraphs – in fact all the paragraphs for that matter! For a house, I believe that there is no legal obligation (that I’ve heard of) to have the thing insured, so that if a person has no mortgage then the risks are entirely theirs to accept. However, I would imagine that if a house has a mortgage, then there will be a contractual obligation to have the asset insured. Banks do have an insurance policy attached to mortgages, however I assume that covers the lenders risk, despite the borrower paying for it. Although, truthfully I have no idea what insured events it actually covers. An interesting difference between your country and here is that the mortgage attaches to the property but also the individual(s) who’s name it is under. You can’t walk away from these agreements. During the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires it was suggested that about of half the 2,000 destroyed homes were uninsured.
The fire services levy (which funds the firefighters) is included in the rates (property taxes) collected quarterly by the local council. Any arrears with those are attached to the property and collected at the time of sale, or from a persons estate, but I believe they have the legal avenue to sell the property so as to recover. Fun fact, property taxes here are limited to a 5% annual increase, and there is some whining about this as you’d imagine.
Now cars are different again. In this state, the annual registration fee (which is around $800) covers registration fees and personal injury, but not the vehicle (or anything it destroys). That’s another policy and people can cover their vehicle and everything else, or just everything else. I read a statistic which suggested that about a quarter of the vehicles on the road are uninsured. Debt on vehicles and insurance are separated. If you put in an insurance claim, you have to not only get the registration number of the car, but you have to get a contact name and license details – not always possible, and sometimes a risky proposition, otherwise the fault is declared yours because the insurer has nobody to recover the loss from.
You can live cheap down here, but there are risks. As far as I am aware, the one bill you cannot get out of is rates (property taxes) and the water bill. The water bill is particularly weird because I don’t have a connection and have to manage all aspects. However the claim was made (I believe) that the bill covers the Parks Service charges. And yes it was challenged, and lost.
There are discounts for having multiple policies with an insurer, but really all the policies are treated as separate. I’m not sure I’d want to be anywhere near an area which floods – the costs of the premiums are completely nuts. It may be possible to have coverage for other events, but opt out of flood damage. Insurance is an issue I wonder about. And interestingly, as far as I’m aware, the insurers and banksters don’t swap data. They might, but if they do, that’s something I don’t know anything about.
A person can lose their license. Traffic infringements incur a fine and demerit points, and a person only has so many points to lose. The expired license and/or expired vehicle registration is one of those things which can be easily caught down here because I believe that the police cars now all have number plate readers. Hardly what I’d describe as a complex database problem…
Incidentally, it has rained all day. 40mm / 1.6 inches so far with more to come. Looks like a thunderstorm is on the radar but is still a couple of hours away. Rain band settles in over Victoria as emergency services warn of potential for flash flooding. When on a large island, surrounded by many different oceans, with no huge blocking mountain ranges, if sea surface temperatures rise then things get weird.
Go Katie! There was another background story on the house: Record housing prices see buyers turning to fixer-uppers to secure their dream homes. I like her style. There are always niches to be found, they just turn up wearing overalls and looking like hard work. That’s the story of this place here for sure, and also my former big smoke life. Still, the demand and supply equation is being artificially messed around with by the policy makers.
Well this is entirely new news to me about the alfalfa sprouts. Dude, I used to buy packs of the stuff when in the big smoke. 🙂 Sure, if it smelled funny I wouldn’t eat it, but then I wouldn’t have bought it if it looked odd either. I’m reminded of the time I first mentioned preserving tomatoes on the blog… I had an awful lot of warnings about that activity from people living in your country. Sure, it’s risky, but then life is risky. Reminds me of the Bruce Willis line: All you have to do is ‘cook the f@#king meat!’
Vive la révolution brother Lewis! 🙂 But yeah, it was a super unwise move to let that genie out of the bottle!
Oh no! That part of the sketch was left out, but the earnest couple were sure making moves in that direction of the farm. I’d hate to imagine what they discovered given that Colin was already in the baking oven. Candidly I felt for the young intern having to deal with those two older hippies – and not even get paid for the privilege! The young actor really expressed a certain disbelief and frustration at the crazy goings on. Ah well, all jokes can be taken too far.
What? No, I had not heard of that legend. Those Glastonbury monks, did they, or didn’t they? Hmm. There is a school of thought which suggests that should they have added a bit here and/or there, then they have to face judgement for their actions. Good luck with that dudes! And everyone needs the assistance of a rich relative every now and then when down on their luck. Joseph had a very early variety of funeral plan – I’ve heard of those. But I don’t see why he wouldn’t have travelled there given his background, it’s not like the island was as distant as Australia.
It was pretty funny to read the reviews of the blog, and you know I thought it was quite sweet in its own way. But yeah, I decided to look no further after that. Some of things which get said by random members of the public are quite horrific. One funny but cutting quote about an actor I’d heard, was: “yeah, they forgot to sack you!” Brutal.
Nah, I think I’ll leave such research to people who have an interest in those sorts of dark matters. Some things you can’t un-see. It’s true!
Any snow yet? It’s still raining here. I got the quality microphone working tonight so that I hope to be able to record the audio of the thunderstorm when it arrives later (if it does). It’s an epic experience to hear. Still many hours away. Oh yeah, feeling grateful to be warm and dry during the winter months is an ancestral memory that few nowadays recall. 😉
Cool, I was wondering about the new Exorcist film, and I’ve always enjoyed the super creepy theme song taken from the 1970’s classic Tubular Bells. Sadly horror films give me nightmares, and I like my sleep way too much to disturb it with such film imagery. Books for some reason don’t affect me in the same way, dunno.
A massive thank you for mentioning the book on bees. It’s on order. Nuff said!
Nothing wrong with skint cooking. And it’s a fun word isn’t it?
Cheers and better get writing!
Chris
Yo, Chris – I’ll have to spend some time, digesting everything you said about insurance, etc. And, pass a lot of it along to my friends in Idaho. Cut and paste, cut and paste. 🙂
Looks like our possibility of snow is going to be a peek-a-boo situation. The official government forecast for tomorrow morning, was for snow. Now it’s gone. But still on for next Friday. Maybe. Prof. Mass has an interesting post (1/6) about “forecast skill.” Anything beyond 5 days if pretty iffy. There’s one forecast that has an overnight low of 24F. But that’s way off the end of next week. And when we get temperatures that low, it’s usually “too cold too snow.”
When I tried the link to “Record Housing Prices…” I got the message, “Opps! That page can’t be found.” LOL. Well, why not? Try harder! 🙂
I can remember buying sprouts for omelets, way back in the early 70s. I got out of the habit. Don’t remember why. I was making rice, last night, and went to open a new bag. There were a lot of bugs, crawling around inside the plastic bag. Have a little rice, with your protean? Pitched that lot, and I think I should run any bagged rice, through my freezer, for a few days. Night before last, I finished off the New Year’s Day black eyes peas. There wasn’t much left, at least, not enough for a full meal. So, I added rice, fresh Brussels sprouts, some mushrooms and maybe another frozen veg. It seemed fine, but I nuked the heck out of it, anyway. Last night, we were back to rice, frozen veg and a few chopped up fried eggs. Cheese.
The couple in the restaurant seemed more Yuppies, than Hippies, to me. Or at least, what I call the “Terminally Hip.” 🙂 More hip than thou? Or, me either. It’s fun to send those folks up, but then, they’re such easy targets.
About the only thing the bible says about Joseph of Arimathea is that he was a rich man. Not a clue as to how he made his money. Heck, he could have been a drug lord, or running girls, for all we know. Anything else is later embroidery. But, how else to get the Grail to Britain, so Arthur’s knights could go in search. And the whole Joseph’s staff (Hawthorne?), that still grows, and produces flowers, every Christmas season. Or, Joseph’s well, which runs red. Blood of Christ and all that. The Glastonbury monks were inventive, if nothing else. If not for the Desolation of the Monasteries, they probably would have hit on rock concerts, as a fund raiser, a lot earlier. 🙂
The Exorcist theme gets a replay, here and there, in the new version.
Well, H and I are headed for the Club. Check out the pantry shelf, and see how it’s doing. It was looking pretty good, last night. Though someone brought in some, what I consider Yuppie stuff, that moves slow and takes up a lot of space. I got to thinking, maybe I should post a couple of flyers, on what we need. Just as a suggestion. Lew