In the immortal words of the actor Matt Damon: “In the face of overwhelming odds. I’m left with only one option. I’m gonna have to science the shit out of this.” You have to admit when up against the ropes, it’s an option. Today it rained, all day long. There’s more rain forecast for tomorrow. And earlier in the week, another storm delivered the goods. Yep, there’s sure been a lot of rain of late. Serious people suggest that it’s summer.
Long term readers will recall that for the past decade, a bunch of Pacific islander dudes turned up semi-regularly to help out with processing the firewood. It’s a big job, and those burly blokes regularly worked hard for a few hours, and were paid well. However, all good things come to an end. About a year ago, our circumstances changed, they tried to hit me up for a loan, and the relationship ended. There’s no hard feelings on either side (that I know of), it’s just how things roll sometimes.
During the health subject which dares not be named, we were able help them out and give them regular work. They did a whole bunch of work. Sandra and I candidly couldn’t keep up with their work. In fact we haven’t kept up, and the work wasn’t cost free. It’s taken us the past year just to sort of catch up with the work they did during that time. It was too much.
With all of the rain recently, we’ve been rushing to bring in the winters firewood and store it in the shed before it gets too wet. Hopefully the timber dries in the shed, or at least doesn’t get any wetter than it already is. It’ll dry in the shed just fine, maybe. Anyway, we don’t have any other option for keeping the house warm during the winter months, so firewood is serious business here. So yeah, bring the stuff in and store it as early as possible.
The original wood heater was destroyed due to using wet firewood. The steel plate burns out and delaminates. It’s a process that is hard to watch and impossible to ignore. Talk about hard won lessons. Firewood is a complicated energy source and you can’t muck around with the stuff. It’s not for everyone.
Nowadays, just like the stranded character Matt Damon played in ‘The Martian’, we have to make-do on our own. So, we’ve decided to science the shit out of the process completely. The first step was quantifying the matter. Easy enough to do. Each load of cut and split firewood we bring back up the hill weighs around 500kg (1,100 pounds). That’s a lot of firewood, until you realise we’ve recently stacked away 25 of those loads. Or 12,500kg (27,500 pounds) in total of the stuff! The local trees are the variety Eucalyptus Obliqua (Messmate), which is a hardwood with an average density of around 750kg/m3. A bit of quick maths suggests that 12,500kg / 750kg = 16.7m3, which is about the maximum stash the firewood shed can store. In old school speak, that works out to be 4.5 cords of firewood. And there is still a day or so’s work to go.
We’d become interested in this matter about mid-week, because we’d utterly run out of cut and split firewood to bring back up the hill. We were bewildered by the situation. How could this be? Yet there it was.
Earlier in the week after a day of hauling and stacking firewood, the shed looked like this:
At the end of that days work, we looked at the remaining pile of cut and split firewood. Much scratching of the head took place. Were we going to run out, or weren’t we? The head said one thing, the gut said something else entirely, which sounded rather a lot like: Dude, you’re gonna run out of cut and split firewood.
That lot in the above image was also hauled back up the hill where it was stacked neatly in the firewood shed.
The area where the firewood was kept in a large pile to season and dry out in the sun, had been totally cleared.
With the threat of a shortage of winter heating fuel, Sandra’s science brain was put into action. We can do this! Yeah! Dead and fallen trees are already seasoned went the thinking. All that was necessary was to cut them and split them.
At least half a year ago during a winter storm, a very large dead branch fell off an even larger tree. That’ll do the job perfectly. We cut and split the fallen tree branch which can be seen in the above image. The work took a couple of hours, but using our science method of measurement, the tree yielded 1,500kg of cut and split firewood. The stuff is heavy, and we don’t need to go to a gym.
The job was timed to perfection. There was one, or maybe two sunny days during the week where the cut and split timber sat out in the sun baking away. After that, and before it rained again (which it did), the firewood was hauled away, and the shed is much nearer to full now…
It’s good to be nearing the end of that job, so that we can get back onto the other tasks around here. The thing we’ve learned out of the experience, is that we’d previously been rather casual with the energy source. With the assistance of the Pacific Islander dudes, we could be casual and simply use intuition to guide the process, but no longer, those easy days are done.
For ten months of the year, we have to process around 1,500kg of firewood per month, simply to keep ahead of the job. And that’s every month, regardless. If the weather is too extreme, we then have to catch up the following month. It really would be much easier to simply flick a switch and hope that someone else, in the magical realm of somewhere else, is saving you personally a lot of hard work. That’s a gamble, and with only 40 minutes of sunlight today, and no wind to speak of, I wouldn’t be backing the good folks who say that renewable energy sources will power civilisation as it is today. The numbers, experience and sciencing the shit out it, suggests to me that’s an impossible dream.
On the day the summer sun shone, as the big fusion reactor in the sky was growing the plants and sun-baking the cut and split firewood, we headed an hours drive north to the gold fields area to check some other ruins. Off the beaten track was the cottage of one of the three blokes who were the first to discover gold in the colony. So, the story went that the newspaper of the day, held a cash prize for anyone who’d discover gold in the colony of Victoria. The three blokes were working at a nearby station (huge farm for sheep), found gold, and sought the prize. Except the government immediately slapped them with a huge fine for mineral prospecting without a license. They were eventually able to claim the prize 16 years later. Despite the enormous wealth the gold fields produced for the government, not to mention the English, epic really, the lesson learned is that it’s always unwise to think that the government has your back.
Nearby, and not listed on any maps, or even signposted, is an historic Indigenous flint quarry. The scale of the quarry is astounding, and it was quite attractive given that mining had been taking place there for tens of thousands of years.
The two warm sunny days produced some epic sunsets. Check these out:
When it rained, there is plenty of work to be done inside the house at this time of year. We made another batch of apricot jam.
The warmer days speeded up the growth of the plants in the greenhouse. The cool climate papaya Babaco has continued to ripen and turn yellow. I hope they’re tasty!
The extreme humidity of this growing season has been bonkers, so just in case of any disease issues (which I’ve never experienced), I’ve staked and pruned most of the tomato plants.
The dozen or so round raised garden beds alongside the house, grow the plants regularly used in the kitchen. This year we’ve trialled a number of different summer hardy leafy greens, and have been happy with the results.
The orchards have produced a lot of apples and pears. I just need to get some time to harvest them before the parrots do.
And in super exciting nut news and despite the almond crop being wiped out by a late frost, I spotted a couple of the first ever Hazelnuts (filberts) we’ve ever grown. I’m not sure when to harvest them, and would appreciate any advice?
And also this year, one of the oldest sweet chestnut trees has began producing some nuts.
There has been so much rainfall, that the zucchini plants are growing at a furious rate. We decided to harvest this monster because the skin was showing signs of splitting due to having taken up too much water, too quickly.
Onto the flowers:
The temperature outside now at about 10am is 18’C (65’F). So far for last year there has been 110.6mm (4.4 inches) which is up from last weeks total of 0.0mm (0.0 inches)
Hi Chris,
Here in Alabama (avg 52″ (138 cm) annual rain) we’ve noticed that during dry spells the farther away the date the higher the chance of rain. So 6 days out 80% chance comes down to 20% by the time it is tomorrow. In our wet periods they get the chance right, but predicted 1 inch turns out to be 3.
No doubt this will change in a few years as well. ????
Ann
Yo, Chris – Looks like our weather, but then, we have an excuse. It’s winter here. 🙂
All that math made my head hurt. Aspirin was taken and cold compresses applied to head. Full firewood shed = enough wood for the winter, wasn’t good enough? Think of how much extra firewood you could have harvested, while messing about with maths. 🙂
It was a very deep rabbit hole. I got wondering if the guys who discovered gold were indigenous fellows. Hence, the shoddy treatment. But there also seems to be a lot of speculation on if it was three guys, or four. And who exactly first discovered gold in Victoria. Then I tumbled down the Eureka Stockade story, and pretty much everyone at that time, was treated shoddy by the government.
I also discovered that the gold rush town of Clunes, north of Ballarat, is well preserved, and used for many a movie. And, that it’s a “booktown,” and has a yearly used book festival. Dozens of book dealers from all over, attend. Also, authors. Pencil it in. Sunday, March 24th. As in digging the hole before purchasing plants, build an additional set of shelves before departing for the festival. I bet there’s good food, too! Maybe you should think about building an extension onto the house. A library.
The flint quarry looked very interesting, as did the “fortification.” Natural rock formations can really fire the imagination. Maybe highway men lurked there, to rush out and hold up the stage!
Compared to the last cabin, that’s a sad little cabin.
A plethora of riches. Two calendar worthy sunset pictures. Have you done the maths, to see if you have enough apricot jam to get you through the winter? 🙂
Good job with your tomato plants. They look very happy. Looks like you will have a good crop of apples and pears. Can’t help with the filberts, though my uncle had quit a few. My memory may be faulty, but it seems to me they waited to pick them til the husks had dried. Also, the husks might look fuzzy, but it’s actually little barbs, and you want to be careful with your eyes and nether regions, when harvesting them. Might differ depending on species?
The roses are real lookers. Comparable with anything Portlandia can knock out. Someone at the Club was telling me that his dog ate all the low hanging raspberries.
The next two days are supposed to get pretty breezy, here. We’ll see. Gusts into the 30s, mph. Snow keeps getting mentioned in the forecasts. Lew
Hi Ann,
That sure is a lot of rain! 🙂
There’s some serious as well as minor flooding in this state today, and for the next few days. It’s still raining outside with thick fog. One of the waterways which begins off the northern side of this small mountain range is called Deep Creek which eventually drains down towards the big smoke. Along the way the rising water in the creek passes by the local cidery in a town with the Celtic name of Darraweit Guim which is about 15 miles away. They’re saying the water there is expected to peak at 18ft, which is less than the 23ft flood which knocked them around badly about two years ago. Hope they’re doing OK. Some parts of the state are under evacuation orders.
The same is true here with the forecasting of rainfall. Dunno about you, but I use the various forecasts as a mere guide to the possibilities. Not always, but often it’s exactly like you note, and the forecast rainfall is understated.
As the oceans warm, we’ll have to learn to deal with more water vapour in the atmosphere. I honestly can’t say how it will play out, but it sure will be interesting.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
It’s that droughts and flooding rains biz all over again down here. Right now, it’s rained all day and continues to do so. There’s been a bit of flooding around the state: Record rains hit Victoria with flooding set to continue around the state.
Hey, it wasn’t just you, the maths hurt my brain too, but candidly I can outsource this entire nuisance to the Editor who has a better brain for such things. Nah, sorry man, it wasn’t good enough because the problem then became, how much work do we have to factor in for each month with the firewood. Lest we run out. Rest assured with my secret weapon – the Editor – no time of mine was lost spent cogitating upon these dark numeric arts. 🙂
It seems to be some sort of repeating historical incident that our gobermunts take things too far, then they earn a response. Eureka was like that. The Kelly gang was like that. Some recent protests were like that. By and large we’re a pleasant and apathetic community, but push too hard… That story even goes way back to the Rum Rebellion, our secret and not often mentioned military coup. Frankly speaking, Governor Bligh would have been a pain in the rear. What amazes me was that he was recalled to the UK, and then promoted to the rank of Admiral. How does that work?
I’ve visited the town of Clunes, but never attended the Book Fair. By all accounts, it’s good. Ah, sadly you bring up a sore point for us. We have to remake the floor to ceiling book shelves which line either side of the hallway in the house. Being on a dirt road, and using a wood heater, dust is an issue for the books. Let’s just say that I dare not put my precious Jack Vance collection on display! So, technically speaking the bookshelves require doors so as to reduce the incidence of dust collecting on the paper. How libraries handle this matter is well beyond my ken, and I’d appreciate your advice here?
The fortification is merely another part of the flint quarry. I suspect that the indigenous folks levered slabs of rock away from the edges, then refined those slabs into useful items. The folks doing that work probably lived a charmed life where all other tribes nearby ensured their continuing good health, and who themselves then began the trade routes.
Don’t laugh, but there are some caves up in the higher reaches of this mountain range where such nefarious crims of yore waited for signs of rich stage coaches passing through the elevated plains below. The rising dust clouds gave the coaches away.
With no roof to speak of, the old ruin won’t last. You can see already that all of the windows and doors were gone. Fixing it is not an impossible ask, although purists may demand purity.
Ha! Rest assured, the jam math has been done. 🙂 We made a dozen jars of plum jam today, and also bottled (canned) another dozen bottles of plums. I spent three hours cutting up Angelina plums today, and parts of my fingers are now stained.
Also had to drop off the dirt mouse to get a replacement clutch installed. Turns out these consumable things don’t last, although the previous dirt mouse also required a replacement at five years. The sad thing is that we haven’t driven anywhere near as far in this new machine. Can you believe we’ve had the machine for five years now? It was a pretty hectic day. I took the machine into a mob whom specialise in that sort of repair work. No point mucking around.
Thanks for the info on the filberts, and I’ll be careful. Hope the parrots don’t notice them. Incidentally, the parrots seem to have ignored the buckeyes (horse chestnuts) this year. Go figure, but we’ll use those as soap nuts. They contain a lot of saponin.
That’s high praise, and I appreciate your words. The roses are a nice touch aren’t they? And they were all chosen for colour and scent, so if the sun eventually shines, the aroma is superb. Might visit the state rose garden soon. I’ll be sure to take the camera. The dogs aren’t allowed near the strawberries, and haven’t been allowed to develop a taste for raspberries…
Hope your Idaho friends get some interest from the insurance discussion.
The memory of sitting in a meeting at the fire fighting shed in the depths of winter when it was snowing outside, and I heard the words: “It’s gonna be a bad fire season”, keep haunting me. It was something of a pivotal moment. A few months ago I received very earnest and concerned emails once El Nino was declared: “Aren’t you worried by the coming bad fire season?” Apparently I wasn’t worried nearly as much as the correspondents. There were even articles in the media stoking the fears. And almost ten inches of rain have fallen these past two weeks – and it’s still raining out there. Read the good professors essay on the subject, and couldn’t agree more.
We used to buy sprouts as well, but like what you noted, we stopped. Fresh greens from the garden are a better option for us. Dunno. And with all this rain, glad to have the plants growing in raised beds. It is now way beyond wet outside. I’m not entirely sure what that means, but do we really want to know? 😉
Bugs can be an issue, even with unopened items like that rice of yours. I’ve experienced that a few times with the former bakery products supplier – they went out of business, which hardly surprised me. It’s quite confronting to see weevils in the mixed grains. The weevils seemed happy enough. Putting the rice in the freezer is a good idea, but it depends whether the bugs are already active. The weevils I’ve seen looked like they were having a party in the bag of mixed grains and there was some sort of webs in there. A nasty business.
The hippies I was referring too were the ones in the feminist bookshop with the intern Portlandia sketch.
Hehe! Very amusing, and also insightful. Anyway, who are we to argue with a good story? But yeah, it does make you wonder what the monks would have made from the Glastonbury festival? Probably a pretty penny if I may say so. 😉
Hmm, that’s the problem there. If you chuck the slow moving yuppie stuff out of the Club pantry, the nice folks who put it there in the first place might bring more. And around and around it goes. I’ll tell you a funny story. About fifteen years ago I spoke to a guy I know who runs a cafe in the big smoke and asked him about nabbing the used coffee grounds for the orchard. And fifteen years later, I’m still taking the stuff. What he told me at the time was interesting. He said that plenty of people ask, but it is rare for someone to actually take all of the coffee grounds, and be regular about it. Your yuppie food situation is like that. It might be a one-off, and then you don’t have to worry about the sign, but then if it repeats… That’s when you might have to do something, but in the meantime, doing nothing other than observing might get a perfectly workable solution. Fingers crossed of course! 🙂
Cheers
Chris
firewood- your situation is different than mine, but dry wood is the end goal. My wood sheds are open sided with plenty of overhang on the roof. Low angle winter sun shines on the wood, wind blows through to help with drying, and our winters are pretty low humidity.
On top of that, our wood burner is lined with firebrick, and no steel to oxidize.
I still haven’t bought a moisture tester, but the wood catches and burns quite cleanly. All this to say- I know with your brush fires, you have to enclose the wood, but I wonder if that impedes further drying if wood is stowed a bit wet?
hazelnuts- the nuts are ripe when the squirrels start taking them. 🙂
Not sure what species/hybrid you have, but mine have mostly American hazelnut genetics (Corylus Americana), so the involucre almost completely hides the nut. If yours are more European, Corylus Avellana, then the nut is more exposed. Either way, the shell of the nut will turn brown, even though the involucre is still green. Take a nut, and check to see if it is tannish/brown and will release from the involucre with not too much force. If so, they are ripe. Even without squirrels to compete with, if you wait too long, the nuts will drop to the ground, hard to gather, and accessible to any other critter that might find them tasty.
Maths- being a retired engineer, you’d think I math things out all the time, but actually I rely on my intuition/judgment more and more. Being a retiree, I have the luxury of just storing firewood till the sheds are full and then stop. I don’t much need to plan out work ahead of time in a complicated calendar. I also try to work a year ahead, so have some slack.
Heating a home this way is a lot of work, but as long as we manage the trees mindfully, trees will keep growing “forever”, not so much fossil fuels. And our bodies need physical work to keep senescence at bay.
Yo, Chris – That was an interesting article about the flooding. Pretty much all the problems we have here. People driving through flood waters … not evacuating, etc..
I also found the sidebar article on liquor restrictions, interesting. Sounds like more of that goberment taking things too far. Prohibition? We tried that here. Didn’t work out very well, though a lot of people made a lot of money in the illicit liquor trade. See: movie “Thunder Road.” Great theme song, too. 🙂
Looks like we might be in for some wild weather. There are blizzard warnings, up in our mountains … and it extends into the eastern part of our county. Overnight low is forecast for 19F, on Friday night. Next two days, we may get a bit of wind, into the 30mph range. From Thursday night on, the forecast is for “rain and snow,” right through the weekend. I’ll just stay loose, and figure all plans are “subject to change.”
I figured you outsourced the maths, to the Editor 🙂
Hmmm. Dust in libraries. Never thought about it much. I do know they have pretty high tech and elaborate heating and cooling systems, that have a lot of filters. Then there are the “community service” folks. People involved in low level crimes, are often sentenced to so many hours of “community service.” They have to find a non-profit or government agency that will take them on, and sign off on hours worked. Some of the libraries I worked in, they’d just hand them a dust rag and say, “Go at it.” We get a few down at the Club. They’re a mixed bag. Some take it seriously, some not.
Highway men. We have a rich history, of those. See: “Hole in the Wall Gang.” Stage coaches, trains. As a bit of trivia, I always thought our “The Great Train Robbery” (1903) was the first longer film. But, it turns out it was only 12 minutes long. You’re going to love this. The first “feature length” film was … “The Story of the Kelly Gang.” (1906). It was filmed around Melbourne and ran to 1 hour and 10 minutes.
Haven’t heard back from my Idaho friends, about what they thought of insurance in Australia. I gave them a nudge, this morning. 🙂
I went through all my packages of rice and oatmeal, last night. Ended up tossing about 12 pounds of rice. 🙁 Any packages that didn’t show any action, I pitched in the freezer. Interesting. One brand of rice seemed to have better packaging. No bugs in it. I really need to get some of those air tight, food grade, 5 gallon buckets, from our big box hardware store. Also, the desiccant packets. Sigh. I really need to go through all the rest of my “dry” stuff, and see what state it’s in.
I’m careful to not criticize whatever people donate to the pantry. Because as you noted, there may be gold among the dross. 🙂 But, I think a carefully worded “suggestions” sign might be helpful.
I’ve been reading “The Upstairs Delicatessen: On Eating, Reading, Reading About Eating and Eating While Reading.” (Garner, 2023). It’s chapters are: “Breakfast, Lunch, Shopping, Interlude: a Swim or a Nap, Drinking, Dinner.” I’m finding it a delightful read. Like digging into a box of bonbons. Or, bon mots. Although since I’ve never dug into a box of bonbons, in my experience, like digging into a box of chocolate covered cherries. It’s also highly amusing. Besides the authors personal experiences, he also references what other authors had to say about food, either in their lives, or in their books. Hundreds of them.
It got me thinking, maybe really good stories at least touch on what people prepared to eat, or what they ate. Maybe, it’s a touch of realism, that the reader can relate to. On the other hand, can’t say many authors touch on “the call of nature.” But that’s a topic for another time. Lew
Hi Steve,
I’ve seen photos of your sort of firewood set up with open sides with plenty of over hang. Makes sense if your winters are super-cold with very low humidity.
As a comparison, low angle winter sun here at latitude 37’S produces no warmth to speak of. If the plants aren’t growing during the winter months, then the sun ain’t warming either. I suspect that it may well be your super low humidity winters which contribute more to keeping the firewood dry than the feeble rays of the winter sun (but I’m just guessing and have no experience really). Winter weather here is at worst just above freezing, and any rain is almost impossible to dry off. If conditions were windier, then the wind might assist with drying, but it’s not windy here – I discovered that the hard way by testing a wind turbine generator for two months. It may also be windier at your place during winter?
Nice one with the fire bricks, although the units I’ve had with fire bricks, use steel to hold the fire bricks in place, especially on the roof of the combustion chamber. Mind you, fire bricks are far cheaper to replace than burnt out steel. 🙂
Hey, the sun finally shone today which was good because the house batteries began the day at only 42% full. Getting the generator into action during the summer just hurts my brain, so that situation was gratefully avoided. With the strong summer sunlight today, the batteries are now full. And the peasants rejoiced!
So, on hot days – or most summer days really – we open the door to the firewood shed and let the warm air in. The firewood does dry, and stays dry inside the shed. The thing is, the extreme UV from the summer sun heats the firewood shed up and that helps dry any moisture. It’s hot in there, and the firewood dries, although you still want to stack it away as dry as possible. The summer sun is hotter here. However, we’ve had almost 11 inches of rain since Christmas day, and that is some challenging conditions. We’ve had to time the work with hauling and stacking the firewood carefully to ensure that the sun dries the stuff out before it gets stacked away. You want the job to be done optimally – just in case. More heavy rain is forecast for Monday. Just sayin.
Steve, I implore you to please keep those squirrels in your country. The parrots are bad enough. 🙂
Ah, so after a bit of digging, it turns out we have the Corylus Avellana variety. Who knew? Thank you for the advice, and I’ll keep you updated on how the nuts ripen.
I’m so with you. Sandra does the maths, and I follow your example and check out whether the results look OK and/or fit. I envy you your ample time for these sorts of activities. We’re kind of juggling a whole bunch of activities at any one moment. Most of the time things run smoothly, except like yesterday when we had no choice but to preserve a quarter years supply of plums (bottling / canning) and make a dozen jars of plum jam, and yet had no solar power with which to do so due to the awful weather. The plums weren’t waiting, so we flogged the batteries hard and ended up at 42% full this morning, which is rather low.
And yes, have some slack with such work and systems is an excellent idea. We’re working out how to do the firewood and forest clean up in the same sweep.
Yeah, I wouldn’t worry about the trees because as you note, they keep growing! And old timer once said to me: ‘They never get smaller!’ As a bit of quick maths, with at least ten thousand trees, which grow at a rate of 1 metre per year, that’s 10 lineal km of potential extra firewood each year. Not enough for a cities needs, but way more than I can ever think of using. 😉
Constructed another steel rock gabion cage today.
Cheers
Chris
Hello Chris,
Great to see the first hazelnuts. I concur with Steve – try to push the nut sideways in the husk, and if it lets go, it is ready to collect. Here, it is typically six-eight weeks after summer solstice.
Bring the nuts indoors and let them cure and dry at room temperature for a few weeks. Then you can decide to roast or just enjoy fresh.
When they start to give, the bushes can be generous.
And now that they produce nuts, they will need more sun than before.
The chestnut tree is flowering, but there needs to be pollination for any nuts to form. The first year or two, you will probably get empty burs, while the tree is waiting for a friend to produce pollen.
Wet firewood indoors sounds a lot like mould to me. We store outdoors with a steel roofing (tied with ropes) for six months or so, before bringing the wood indoors. I hope your wood will continue to dry. I get old truck pallets from a neighbour, and when we dry the wood outdoors, we first make a layer of pallets, onto which we stack the split wood, onto which we tie the roofing.
During this year I hope to install at least one more woodstove in one of the other houses on the farm. I would very much like to have a woodfired bread oven.
Coming back to what you mentioned last week or so, there is no “economics” in much of what we do. I think it is a lot about the trade-off between efficiency vs. resilience. Or speed vs. robustness.
Resilience is expensive. And sometimes more than worth it.
As you said, keeping a stock of spare parts is expensive. Most machine building companies add hefty margins on spare parts, so that it often is worth it to buy a whole machine to cannibalize.
There is no “economic” value for us to can apple sauce or to cut wood or to write blog posts or to grow potatoes or to have delicious dinners with friends. But those are the things that make life interesting and resilient and fun.
I think that “economics” is too dogmatic to be useful for making real decisions.
Infrastructure for resilience here is interesting. When we bought the place, I saw that the previous owner had installed a submersible pump in the basement, in a water well that is below the house.
In the 18 months that we have lived here, the water level was between 1-2 meters lower than the pump.
This week, the autumn rains and winter rains caught up with us, and the pump is working and pumping water out of the well to keep the basement dry. It runs for half a minute every hour or so, and I think it removes 200 liter water every day. I am happy to not have to do that in buckets! Autonomous technology is great as long as it works.
Who knows for how long we will have grid-tied electricity.
This week we have -15C the whole week, and we had to move some vegetables indoors, from our storage room, since the temperature dropped below freezing. We have no heater there (yet), maybe we’ll install a small wood burner. We have had a year with many record weather events, and this is just the beginning…
Peace,
Göran
Hi Lewis,
Driving into flood waters down here seems to be an equal opportunity thing. A 74 year old lady was rescued from a car which was said to have swept away. A bloke fortunately rescued her and they hung onto a tree in flood waters apparently for an hour until they themselves could then be rescued. A dangerous situation for sure. Speaking of disasters, the papers are reporting that the door plug which sort of fell off the aircraft in your part of the world was found in some dudes backyard. Luckily the thing didn’t hit anyone, or anything. Talk about an exciting experience – you wonder why I hate flying?
We’re in a bit of a flight path, and there are times I see some aircraft which are a bit low and yet still have to climb above the higher reaches of the mountain range. It’s about a thousand foot higher! You can only hope that everyone involved in that activity knows what they’re doing? I read a far-side cartoon years ago which had a couple of pilots looking out the window and saying: ‘What’s that goat doing up in the clouds?’ Sometimes we joke around and say: ‘What’s that kelpie doing up in the clouds?’ Fortunately since you-know-what, the number of aircraft flying overhead feels like it is significantly less. Some days way back then it was one of the things flying over every twenty minutes. It was a bit much really.
I’m told that gas powered small engine machines are now banned in some of your states. Intriguing.
People can always make their own booze if they’re so inclined. It’s not hard to do so. So yeah, I also wonder about such localised prohibitions. Call me a cynic, but I reckon there are probably some serious issues in such communities which might need addressing other than a ban. And people aren’t stupid, they just go further afield for supplies. 🙂 There’s a micro-brewer in the big smoke who uses that name.
Just read the good professors blog entry on your upcoming weather. Holy carp dude! Hang onto your hat, you are in for a very interesting week – with possible lowland snow. Hope the wind isn’t too bad where you are. He mentioned grid access might be an occasional problem due to the winds, and those passes are like crossing flood waters, always a bad idea. Hey, do they physically close off access to the passes? I’ve seen the pass over the mountain range here closed during a few particularly heavy snowfalls.
🙂 The maths job should go to the person better equipped to complete it!
I can see that with the community orders folks. It would be a mixed bag what with being measured on hours and not quality of result. Give a man a key performance indicator, and he may game it…
The Hole in the Wall folks were fascinating, and successful. I see that they even attracted the ire of the Pinkeytons who were unsuccessful. What an odd place that would have been. Can you imagine the goings on in the camp? Although reputedly they had laws and arrangements which were upheld. It’s kind of funny to think the enterprise faded in the end due to a lack of loot.
There was an unsolved train robbery up north of the country almost fifty years ago: Mystery of Australia’s Great Kuranda rail robbery remains unsolved 50 years on. Possibly an inside job, but you never know.
Not much of the film now remains, 17 minutes I believe – which you can watch. It was enormously popular, and I’ve actually been to the Athenaeum Theatre to see a comedy show where the film was premiered over a century ago. It’s a beautiful old building, and may even have a subscription library. I reckon banning the film in Kelly country would have been a winning move for the film makers. 🙂 A lot of the outdoor scenes were filmed near to the Heidelberg art school.
Sorry to hear about the waste of your rice. Still, do you need the extra bug protein? Me thinks not as it would spoil the overall composition of the meal. Truth to tell, the weevils I found in the mixed grains years ago was an unappealing discovery. Honestly, the outbreak probably had nothing to do with you if the bags were well sealed. The rest of your stuff is probably fine. I did say long ago that the decline of western civilisation will be accompanied by a lack of proper food storage containers. I do muck around, but with that observation, I wasn’t mucking around. People don’t give this matter a second thought, but I recall how things were done when I was a kid when all they had were timber framed and sheet metal lined tubs kept in a dark and cool room. That worked.
Fair enough and it will be interesting to see what effect the sign has on collections. Signage in our civilisation tends to be over-used, but when it’s effective, it works nicely.
Oh, who knew they were called by that fancy name? Used to be that bonbons were quite popular. Fancy box. Separated out and nicely presented chocolates. Some of them were a bit iffy, but most were good. Haven’t seen any for a very long time. The chapter on a persons (?) days activities sounded quite delightful. Did the book include any saucy anecdotes about an authors food? No need to name names here. People do write about books, and also there are films which feature eating – err, Soylent Green had some notable scenes of people enjoying really basic foodstuffs (not just the soylent stuff).
Forgive me if I’m incorrect, but isn’t ‘the call of nature’ referring to the end result of the eating process? 🙂 I do recall a rather amusing scene from a film with people awkwardly asking the author Salmon Rushdie the most important question of all: ‘where is the loo?’ Truly.
The house batteries were alarmingly low this morning at 42% full. And I woke up again to drizzle and thick fog. My brain was telling me that this was not a good situation for the power system. Anywhoo, needn’t have worried because a couple of hours later the sun shone and the batteries ended up being full by the afternoon. And the peasants rejoiced, or at least weren’t revolting! 😉
We made up another new steel rock gabion cage today. And sewed up another one that was full. With all of the crazy rain, some parts of this side of the hill are a bit like a swamp. It’s beginning to dry out. Yay!
Cheers
Chris
Hi Göran,
Thanks for the advice in relation to the hazelnuts, and I’ll keep a close watch upon them and regularly test them. Over the next few months, I will also get some additional varieties of hazelnut and chestnut plants. That should assist with pollination.
Ah, sadly there are two chestnut trees, but the one in flower at the moment is a few years older. I might have to wait for the other chestnut tree to catch up, which it is doing. I should also mention that the horse chestnut tree has quite a number of large buckeyes on it right now. For your info, there are a couple of other nut trees including Macadamia’s which are a serious long-shot, although I have seen nuts on a tree in a similar climate garden located about an hours drive to the west of here. The almonds (actually a peach) usually do well, but they flower so early in the season that a late frost can wipe out the crop. There’s also an interesting Bunya Bunya nut tree, but that has a long way to go, but is growing fast.
There was that time many years ago when the firewood in the shed was so wet that it began producing mushrooms. Lot’s of mushrooms. 🙂 Bringing firewood indoors down here always involves the risk of introducing some alarming spiders into the house, so the arachnids are happier outside in the firewood shed. 🙂 The stuff stored in there will dry fine. We picked the days when it could be stored away, although with near on 280mm of rain since Christmas day, it’s been challenging to time that job just right.
The pallets are a great idea to get air under the firewood for you. Unfortunately here, those pallets would make great housing for snakes, and in some ways it is preferable to have the firewood in contact with the ground whilst being damp – here mostly because the snakes won’t like that.
Good stuff. And we used to have a wood fired bakers oven, and they are well worth the effort and heat the house at the same time. I’m trying to convince Sandra to add in a wood fired oven, but am having no success. We have electric ovens, and they’re powered by solar. There’s only about three to five days per year where the solar electricity is not possible – but that is at our low usage rate, the average household would have a lot more problems on that front.
Hehe! Well done, and you totally busted my secret. 🙂 The economics of it all is a story I recount so that people don’t suffer from what is known as ‘sticker shock’ at the costs. The solar power systems are my hobby and I doubt it is even any good for the environment (the grid is perhaps much worse in that regard, although most people don’t think about such matters), however, when the grid was blacked-out in this area for five days a few years ago, we still had power and hadn’t noticed. Exactly. It’s resilient, but it’s more expensive and there are limitations you have to learn to live with.
The issue with cannibalising machines for parts is that most often the parts which break are consistent between one machine and the next. Take flow rate diaphragms in two stroke carburettors – they will all go solid sooner or later. Trust me in this, I’m working out how to avoid a lot of problems in the first place, except that then takes regular work with the machines.
I agree, all those things are fun, and we also enjoy them as well. You can’t put a value on such moments in life, and neither should anyone. 🙂
Maybe the word ‘economics’ does not correctly sum up the problem – it’s more of a problem as to ‘what can you afford to do?’ And that isn’t necessarily referring to financial costs, that word can mean all sorts of things. However this does include ways of reducing costs, so that you can afford to do more with less. People can get inventive, produce things, or share resources etc. There are plenty of different ways to achieve outcomes.
Sorry man, I have no experience with basements, and in Australia, they are very uncommon. Honestly, I would have no idea what to do to waterproof an underground structure, and am not even certain that it is possible. On the other hand, a 12V high volume pump (20L/min at 60psi) with appropriate connections and hoses, wouldn’t be a bad idea to have as a backup to remove the water, just in case. I use those devices here, and they are awesome pumps, but I do modify them a little bit to make them work even better than they already do (easy to do – ask if you’re interested). They use very little electricity, around 10A at 12V, which is 120W. Even small batteries can run them. And there are 12V solar panels and charging regulators… Some of the 12V pumps here have run for over a decade. A simple technology.
Oh my! That’s cold. The heater is a good idea, and was used in the old times.
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – Yes, that was quit a deal, with the plane losing it’s door. Landed in my old hometown of Portland. They’re still looking for 4 bolts. Good luck finding those unless they went through someone’s roof or car windshield. The other airplane story I’m interested in is the Japanese plane that was evacuated in short order. Wouldn’t happen here. There would have been casualties. “You can’t tell me I can’t take my s&%+t with me! It’s in the Constitution!” Fine. Burn and die.
I hadn’t heard that about small engines being banned. I’d say, because “they” overdid the leaf blowers. 🙂
Well, the weather has been a bit wild. Rain and wind. The highest gust overnight was 30mph. But then I noticed, that was a 2:30am, and there hasn’t been a reading since. Maybe the airport is gone? Electricity has held steady, so far. Yeah, our forecast is getting pretty bonkers. I’m doing a bit of shopping, earlier in the week, just to stock up on a few things. They do close the passes, if the snow gets too deep and can’t be removed. They often make them “Tire Chains Required.”
Blame highway men for money moving to digital forms. 🙂
It’s figured that 75% of silent films are gone. But, like cars, there’s the occasional spectacular “barn” find. Though the restoration can be long and costly.
We talked recently about eating bugs. Not ready to go there.
I finished the “Upstairs Delicatessen”, last night. I might have to read it, again. Oh, yes. Plenty of saucy anecdotes. LOL. That’s a rather bad pun. The author takes on a topic, say “dinner parties,” and reels off quotes, both pro and con. Next book up: “The Core of an Onion: Peeling the Rarest Common Food – Featuring More Than 100 Historical Recipes.” The author, Mark Kurlansky has several other books on different foods, but this is the first that’s caught my fancy.
Yup. “Call of nature” is elimination of one sort, or another.
The cartoon “Wizard of Id” had a collection, that was called, “The Peasants are Revolting.” Though the meaning of the word was not the usual, and had more to do with table manners and personal hygiene. 🙂
My Idaho friend made a brief comment on the insurance situation. Wondered how much longer older homes would be insured. And thought there were more similarities, than differences.
I got home at 7:30, last night, and there was no parking, in the lot. Had to take to the street. Still no parking when I walked H at 10pm. I notice there were two spots available at 8am. I think someone who doesn’t live here is staying over. I’m feeling less and less inclined, to go out in the evening. Which really isolates me from a social life. Lew
Hi Chris,
I can understand why you’re worried about enough wood as you’ve had to use it in the summer. We have several large dead trees on the property which we’ve left up for the woodpeckers. Last summer one fell and Doug harvested a great deal of already seasoned firewood. We’ve got a couple years worth. A couple of years ago a friend offered him quite a bit of downed oak that wasn’t quite as dry but it was a welcome addition to the inventory.
That green house sure has come in handy with the summer(?) weather you’ve had for the last few years.
Right now we’re in the midst of our first winter storm – about a month later than usual. As it’s just at or slightly above freezing I don’t think we’ll get the 8-12 inches forecast. However on Friday another storm arrives with high winds as well. There should be plenty of drifting snow with that one. After that we have very cold temps as low as -11 and not warming up for over a week. Not fun to be in but good in terms of the garden and farms.
Instead of spring cleaning I do winter cleaning as there’s not too much needing attention outside.
Margaret
Chris,
I know that the hazelnuts are ripe when the squirrels have taken them all and squirrelled them away. 😉 I might have to try grabbing some of the nuts this year before the squirrels have taken them all. I figure they’re ripe when the squirrels start to plunder and pilfer them.
Our weekend snows were, well, not much to worry about, at least at my elevation. The snow level Saturday was about 200 meters higher than my house. We got about 3cm Monday night before it warmed up and turned to rain. All gone by late Tuesday morning, but VERY windy. Thursday should bring a few cm of snow AND the deep freeze. The forecasts are nearing agreement that Thursday through Sunday nights will range from -19C to -22C. Coldish.
I liked the picture of your summer morning. Looks a lot like my recent winter mornings. Glad you were able to get enough sunshine to get a start on drying the wood supply.
Hmmmm, how much wood must be gathered in the shed? I would look at it differently…Based on your experience, you need, 4.5 cords of wood. Therefore,
build a shed that can hold 20% more, or about 5.5 cords. 6 cords if you feel like a larger safety factor. Fill the shed. That should be enough wood to get you by even in the rougher years. No more calculations needed, just fill the shed.
Now calculate the number of times the wood warms you. When you cut it to length. When you pile it to dry and when you split it. When you move it to the shed. When you stack it in the shed. When you burn it. Sounds like the wood warms you 6 times. So, perversely, that’s the number of cords you should place in your shed each year. 😉
Enjoyed the photos of the old cottages. Their walls are interesting to look at.
The flint quarry and environs looked intriguing. Thanks for the photos. Looks the type of place area for further exploration. Who knows what other interesting places are nearby?
The leafy greens appear to be doing well. I’m getting hungry looking at the pictures of them. They look similar to what we grow here most years.
Triffids, er, zucchini, is something I’ve taken to growing again. It’s hard to screw up zucchini plants. And they produce so much!
Thanks. I was in dire need of some colorful flower photos. The roses look spectacular. The bench near the rambling rose is where I would spend a lot of time. Just the place for a cup of tea or coffee next to the flowers.
DJSpo
Hi Margaret,
Using firewood just on the other side of the summer solstice doesn’t make a lot of sense, but it was cold. Crazy weather. It should be more of a concern for the time of year you’re in.
Go Doug! And fallen trees are a firewood gift from nature (hopefully as long as they don’t squash anything in the process of returning to the earth). It’s a nice feeling to have a couple of years of ready firewood, it’s like savings don’t you reckon? I’ll bet Leo and Salve enjoy reclining at their leisure in front of the fire? You’d be surprised to learn that not everyone around here has the equipment and know-how to take advantage of such free gifts. I assume the same is true in your part of the world?
Oak makes for good firewood once its seasoned.
Thanks! And we’re seriously considering a second greenhouse. You can’t fight nature, so you have to roll with things as they are. I’ve discovered that tomato supports have become really expensive for some unknown reason this year. Dunno, a mystery that.
Did you end up getting any snow? Would 8 to 12 inches of snow close roads in your part of the world? There’d be a lot of sooking about so much snow if it fell around these parts. 🙂 Your Friday storm sounds horrendous, and the wind would be rather challenging I’d imagine. Is ice likely with that bigger storm? Out of curiosity, how is such weather good for the garden and farms?
🙂 Ah, unfortunately winters are busy here with burning off and infrastructure projects, although it is not as cold here as what you experience. We should also do deep winter cleaning because the wood fire produces a bit of dust, and the house doesn’t get as much fresh air – for obvious reasons. Isn’t it nice to enjoy the house after a deep clean? Dogs hang onto their fur at such times of the year as well.
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
Very funny, and as good a test as any. On a serious note, I really do watch the critters to see what plants are being eaten. You can find out a lot about the plants, and also the critters that way. The parrots are a true nuisance because they appreciate slightly under-ripe fruit.
Hope your lady didn’t have to cross any of those mountain passes visiting relatives during the recent more extreme weather? On the other hand, it’s always nice to be slightly below the snow level – unless you happen to be Avalanche. Hey, the fog level has similar effects here, and sometimes you can find yourself on either side of the fog divide. Oh my! DJ, I’m so summer soft that I’m quailing in fright at even the merest thoughts of such cold temperatures. Cold-ish is an understatement for sure. Far out! Surely you are playing down the turn in temperature?
Ha! You’re talking about the car in fog photo? Well, yeah it’s been a bit like that lately in the mornings, and very humid. There’s an area of the farm where maidenhair ferns grow wild, and that area is like a swamp. This time of year is usually dry. Fog should be the natural order of things at your place – it’s winter after all. Actually, do you normally get fog in winter? I tend to see fog in the in-between seasons, rather than in the extreme heat or cold.
It’s been something of a race to get the firewood in this year. Bizarrely, I could have done the job two months beforehand easily when it was warmer and drier. We’ve been discussing how to adapt to these sorts of conditions, and reduce double handling of the firewood.
But yeah, thanks for the confirmation of the idea and looking at the task from an entirely different perspective. As you wisely say, this is a case where more actually is better.
Ah, the maths is strong with this one master. 🙂 And your logic cannot be refuted. 6 it shall be. You do kind of need to put a bit away extra in case of illness or injury which can strike at any time. We’ve spoken over the years of just-in-time being a problematic model, and my mind has not shifted on this subject. In fact, in some ways things are now worse on that front.
Good to hear about the cottage. I never really know what photos to include. The walls of the cottage were in amazing condition. The flint was square edged, and produced a nice square finish to the building.
It’s hard to see in the photos but the flint quarry extended for hundreds of metres back from the road. I suspect that the quarry was worked in a uniform manner over time along the entire length, which speaks of concern for the future.
What’s a usual winter meal for you? I’m guessing that even a greenhouse wouldn’t survive the sort of winter weather which you’re about to enjoy. The old hill station gardens used to heat their greenhouses. They could afford it. Imagine the fuel costs?
Good stuff! Such plants as food-Triffids make us hacks look like we know what we’re doing!
Thanks. The roses are really lovely, and it is a pleasure to brighten up your day with the photos. Dame Plum sends Dame Avalanche cordial tail wags of greeting!
Me tired tonight. Did my first full day of paid work for the year today. Went to the pub tonight for a feed and pint. The dirt mouse is in for repairs – getting a replacement clutch. There is always something going on.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
There was a scene in the series Breaking Bad where investigators are retrieving chunks of an aircraft from a backyard. Had to stop watching that show on the basis that the characters and narrative did exactly what I would not do if in those same circumstances. It became hard to watch. People loved the show though…
Back to the plane, there was some loose talk that there had possibly been several reported pressure issues in the plane leading up to the err, drop off. It’s truly amazing that nobody was sucked out of the plane and the seats were empty. It would have been suddenly very cold up there and few would have been dressed to deal with that risk.
I’m with you, the bolts are gone for good. Oh yeah that other plane in Japan was not good, and wow did it burn quickly or what? Well, holding up the evacuation line whilst the plane is on fire might see some scuffles and a few fists thrown.
Ha! Hey, I’m being serious about the small engines being banned. But yeah it’s generally accepted that leaf blowers, blow. A rake would work just as well. It’s funny you mention that, but with all the rain recently, a number of driveways have washed materials onto roads, and I saw a street sweeper truck this morning on a nearby sealed road. It wasn’t doing the job properly put it that way.
Always a possibility that the airport is gone with such winds. Wasn’t that a narrative device used in the Wizard of Oz? But anyway where has it gone is the question? Beyond the sun? The dark side of the moon? 🙂 Seems to be not as easy to land on that thing as many imagine it might be. Hmm. How technology is much better and cheaper than it was 50 years ago when humans once set foot there.
So did any readings of higher wind speeds get reported? 30mph is windy but not extreme. A wise decision to get the shopping done early given the impending forecast. Hope the weather isn’t too bad.
For your interest, on this mountain range at least, closing the road is so infrequent the police and a couple of barricades usually do the job.
Oh yeah, what a thought, and you’re right. Back in the day there were a lot of violent robberies due to known stashes of mad cash. Even places like restaurants were hit. I get the impression that some protection mad cash schemes are occurring in the big smoke because there are semi-regular incidents.
Barn finds always add a bit of excitement, but I know what you mean about super-expensive restoration work.
If you own nuffin, some folks reckon we might be happy eating bugs. I’m dubious about such claims, but it’s being said. Sounds stupid to me.
Hey, that’s the sign of a most excellent book. Thanks! It was a pretty funny play on words. Oh yeah, some dinner parties can crash and burn. Ever had an uncle who’d say inappropriate things at even more inappropriate moments? Imagine inviting such a bloke to a dinner party to sit at table? 🙂 Like having a pet deadly creature – check out the piranha’s… A foodie friend showed how to cut onions whilst avoiding the eye watering side effects.
It was the Wizard of Id with that cartoon. It wasn’t just Alfred E Neumann who is responsible for our sense of humour. I really enjoyed the Wizards cartoons.
Probably not long for the older houses. Makes you wonder if the people on the plane with the pop out door get a payout? I hate flying at the best of times, and that wouldn’t have been optimal conditions.
Oh man, that’s awful about the car parking. Possible love at your place? Or someone getting a sub rental? Dude, that’s not good. Hmm. Maybe you need your detective hat on to solve this riddle? What would Dr Watson do (he did all the work most of the time anyway)?
Cheers
Chris
Hi, Chris!
Yesterday it rained all day and all night. There was already a lot of flooding when I was in town, along with parts of the little 2- lane highway I take there and back. And our dirt road was also partly flooded. I am going to make sure that I drive past the river this morning to look at it. Luckily, I don’t have to cross any rivers or creeks the way I usually drive to town. No way can it still compare with the rain you have had; that’s cringe-worthy. I do recall, though, some summers when you hardly had any rain.
If parts is parts, maybe wood is wood? How many cords per year do you think you use? I would ask per winter season, but you use it all year round.
Those kind of government jerks have always been around, as evident by your gold prospecters story. Poor guys, at least they eventually got something. What another nice cottage and what a neat place the flint quarry is.
Thanks for the sunsets!
Don’t you also have some tomato plants outside? How great that you have some hazelnuts and chestnuts. I like both of them, but chestnuts the best. Our bitty chestnut trees had a few nuts in the fall. The spines are something else.
The rose garden is a complete dream. In fact, I will see if I can incorporate it into my dreams . . .
Pam
Hi Chris,
We got almost all rain, cold rain, from the same storm that hit Margaret. Needed that rain, too, and since it fell steadily on unfrozen ground, it soaked in. Starting on Friday, however, the same storm as is affecting Lew and DJ will blow in here, and I do mean *blow*. It will be cold enough that rain will turn to snow, dump a few inches of snow on us, and then get eye-wateringly cold. With high winds and the kind of wind chills that kill people living rough. The snow will stick around. We’ll see lows around or under 0F / -18C by Sunday to Monday mornings, and it might snow again Sunday night. It hasn’t been that cold in about 2 years, but at this time of year, that isn’t even close to record-breaking cold.
We have the same situation as steve c in regard to our wood heater and our woodshed. We scavenge all of our wood, most of it from our own lot and the lot next door to the west, the rest of it from other lots in the neighborhood, with permission. Mike saws it to length and splits it if needed before he piles it at one end of the woodshed, while we take wood from the older wood at the other end. Some of the wood is oak, some is buckeye, some is maple, some is any number of other species. Around here people who don’t want to pay money to have their tree limbs taken away by a tree service pile them beside the road for anyone to take who wants it. There were many, many tree limbs piled beside area roads after our severe storms last summer. Most of them are gone now.
Thanks as always for the cheerful flower photos! Definitely a sight for winter weary eyes … and winter isn’t even half over yet.
Claire
Yo, Chris – I never did watch any of the “Breaking Bad” series. Read enough about it to not be very interested. Speaking of series, when I put “The Land Girls” on hold, the catalog listing said, “Complete Three Seasons.” Imagine my surprise, when I opened the box, and it was only season one. 🙁 But, the library has the other two seasons. Someone must have realized the error, and the listing was corrected.
I suppose you’ve heard about the phone that fell out of the plane. Actually, two have been discovered.
http://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/iphone-falls-16-000-feet-165036049.html
Someone commented that they drop their phone 5 feet, and it shatters. Aerodynamic phone? 🙂
Well, weather. Our local weather station is back on line, but 30mph gusts was the highest speed, I saw. We had snow, last night. About 10pm, I looked out and a lot of big fluffy wet flakes were coming down. By the time I went to bed, it was more small flakes and sleet. But, about 1/2″ stuck. All gone, this morning. I’ve been watching Prof. Mass, and I figure this weekend we’ll get it.
I want to go out and do some shopping, tonight. Wonder if I’ll have a place to park, when I get back? I had my yearly checkup with our Community Resource person. She comes in three days a week. I took the opportunity to have a long chat about parking. Sometimes, the building manager doesn’t respond to the inmates, but will to her. Get outsiders involved, and they get nervous.
We made the police report, again. Apparently, one Inmate said another Inmate was leaving notes on her door, accusing her of smoking mari-hochie. There’s a restraining order, now. Last time that happened, one of the people involved was moved to a facility in Olympia.
Well, the bottom line on eating bugs, from the author who investigated it, was, expensive and not very tasty. Unless flavored. Yup, they flavor them with everything from Cinnamon to Lime. I think bugs fall into the “Can be done, but there are so many other things I’d rather eat.”
So, how do you cut an onion? That was covered in the onion book, in the bit I read, last night. Clutching a wooden spoon, in your mouth, or holding a piece of bread in your mouth, doesn’t work. Cutting them near running water, or, chilling them first, does. According to the author. I put an onion to cut, on a plate, and cut it under the stove fan. Works for me. Lew
Hi Chris,
Down here in Alabama, the current west coast storm will give an us enhanced (30%) chance of tornadoes. We are in central Alabama an so missed yesterday’s tornadoes in Panama City, Florida.
Goes around, comes around. And with tornadoes it’s very fast around ;^)
Ann
Chris,
I’ve noticed that many of the birds eat fruit slightly before it is ripe. I’m suspicious that the squirrels start in on the hazel nuts before they’re ripe, also. The walnuts seem to be ripe when the squirrels dive into them.
No, the Princess was here during the latest snows. We’re both happy about that. Avalanche is happy as a lark simply with the temperatures well below the summer highs. The skiff of snow we had the other day, yes, she was in heaven. We played a lot in the yard. Some rough housing might have been included. A lot of running, mostly by her, was definitely included. As were her occasional slips and slides on the wet snow. And yes. I AM playing down the turn in temperature. As Claire mentioned, the cold for us will be accompanied with a nasty wind, just as her cold snap will. Wind and frigid temperatures. UGG. Not a pleasant mix.
Our fog is more typically during transitional seasons. In these warmer winters, however, we can get a lot more fog than usual. We had 3 consecutive weeks of thick fog in January of 1983. That was pretty weird. Not even a hint of sun or stars for three weeks.
Wood harvesting is a challenge, especially to ensure that the wood is at the proper moisture level for burning. What would happen if you had 2 identical sheds? If you dry wood as per usual and stack it in Shed #1, you know it will be ready for the upcoming burning season, year 1. Then fill wood without the current drying method in Shed #2 for the following burning season, Year 2. Will the wood in Shed #2 dry over an 18 month period? If so, then in year 2, fill Shed 1 for use in year 3. That way one shed will have dry wood and the other will be drying the wood for the following year. Extra work the first year building the 2nd shed and filling both sheds, but maybe on the long run it solves the double handling problem?
I like looking at stone buildings. And stone walls. They have a special and unique beauty to me. Maybe it’s connecting to something primal, like the stone circles where some of my ancestors lived. 😉
Some cultures have differing views of beauty and harmony. Working the quarry in a uniform manner would keep closer to the natural beauty and harmony of the location than the typical “slaughterhouse” mining methods used today. Another way of saying that is that the native miners were listening to what the land spirits wanted in exchange for taking some of the flint.
Winter meal? Breakfast is usually a bowl of oatmeal mush and a slice of whole grain toast with peanut butter. Sunday breakfast is a couple slices of bacon and pancakes. The flour we use is 50% gluten free grains and 50% chickpeas and fava beans. We DO eat a lot of dried beans cooked in the slow cooker occur, often with a ham hock. I’ll also cook dried lentils in the pressure cooker with a mix of root vegetables. Sometimes I’ll bake bread and include some of our frozen chokecherries or dehydrated zucchini. This is good toasted with peanut butter and jam. There’s always snacks with whole grain crackers, summer sausage and fruit, either fresh, dehydrated, or commercially canned. We like canned peaches with no added sugar. Canned fruit prices soared this year, however. We also keep pasta, both frozen and canned vegetables and frozen meats on hand. So it’s mix and match with any of the above. A normal dinner might be some tinned chickpeas, some tinned olives, fresh carrots. We’re eating much less meat than we once did, including more vegetables and legumes now. Oh, and I dehydrate a lot of leafy greens, too. These can be added to stews or even to spaghetti sauce and other pasta dishes. Another favorite is chili (tinned or homemade) added to a baked potato.
Indeed. food-Triffids are good to grow. Yes, they make us hacks look good, but they also provide a lot of food.
Dame Avalanche returns Dame Plum’s greetings.
DJSpo
Hi Pam,
That’s great news, are you still considered to be in a drought? Hopefully the decent soaking with the rain is a sign that things may be changing on that drought front for the whole area?
It’s true too! There is a thing as too much rain. We finished up the firewood shed filling work today, and there was a tree nearby where we harvested the firewood which was on an alarming angle (far from the usual vertical). Had to keep an eye on it. The heavy rains over the past year or so has caused it to tilt. Gravity (or the chainsaw) will eventually finish that return to earth job. Then it will be firewood.
Haha! Very funny, but wood is definitely not just any wood. 🙂 The trees here are a dense hardwood which burns hot, but slowly – which is what you want. Do you have hardwood, or softwood trees in your area, or a mix? The stuff gets used all year around (but not every day) and I reckon we use 4.5 cords a year, but are aiming to have a system with maybe 6 or 7 cords under cover out of the weather – just in case. DJ correctly guessed the direction we’re headed with managing firewood.
Pam, despite the enormous increase in the goobermunts coffers from the epic gold rush, it took them 16 years to cough-up the prize money. Aren’t they awful? The mad cash prize money was clearly put to good work as the stone walls are very well made. How good was the quarry?
Pretty awesome those sunsets, yeah. 🙂 Hope you had lovely dreams of warm sunny days, blue skies, colourful flowers and the aroma of rose.
Yeah, there are some tomato plants outside, but you know, the plants in the greenhouse are miles ahead + the growing season is only so long. I have to get some more tomato supports, and may even train the tomato vines in the greenhouse to climb up towards the roof. Dunno. This is the first year I’ve put a lot of effort into properly pruning the tomato plants.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Claire,
That’s great news about the rain, and it’s even better the rain soaked into the subsoil. How much rain did you end up getting? Out of curiosity, is your soil normally frozen at this wintry time of year? The soil in the greenhouse is 20’C which is some sort of cosmic joke for this time of year. Looks like it’s warming up over the next week, before another storm arrives on Wednesday now.
Claire, I was reading about the storm, and yikes, the words ‘cold Canadian Arctic air’ struck fear into my mild climate heart, even if the cold snap is not record breaking. -18’C with winds wipes out any chance of growing citrus outdoors, sorry to say. Hope you can hunker down during the storm, and that you and Mike have the firewood ready to go just in case the power goes out? Do you reckon the cold will be intense enough to affect the plants on your covered in porch? Truly, there would be an awful lot of sooking if I experienced such weather. 🙂
There’s nothing at all wrong with scavenged timber converted into firewood. The resource is easy for me because I have access to thousands of trees and plenty of those fall to the ground just like your experience, it’s a no-brainer. Yours sounds like a good system, and we’re moving to that where there is enough space to remove and add firewood all at the same time. Saves double handling. Ah, buckeye is known down here as horse chestnut, and they are lovely trees (and are producing nuts this year). Have you ever used them as soap nuts?
You can only hope that arrangements are being made, and the bush telegraph is in operation for folks living rough. Sorry to say, but some folks will fall between the cracks. A very old friend of mine died during the health subject which dare not be named. However, it’s worth noting that he lived the life he wanted, and knew of the risks to his health and familial history. He knew.
I’m always amazed at how good the infrastructure is in your country, and there is no tree service down here other than private operators – and they’re not cheap. I had a good thing going with the Samoan dudes. But there’s a school of thought which suggests that very occasionally familiarity breeds contempt. And since that incident, and to their credit, we’ve had many an enjoyable chat trying to mend the fence, but it was a step too far for me.
Oh no! Today was 24’C with blue sunny skies, and the house is now wide open to the cooler evening air. Tomorrow will be 32’C and it will be like a jungle out there. I can’t recall ever seeing so much water in the soil during a summer period. More flowers to come…
Cheers
Chris
Hi Ann,
Oh my! The footage of the aftermath of the tornado in Panama City was horrendous. Lucky that the extreme weather has not ventured in your direction. Have you ever been direct hit by a tornado?
They’re common, but usually minor down here, and the population is quite concentrated in the city that such a thing can hit and impact almost nobody. One Christmas day almost a decade ago, a minor tornado hit here. A fine gift with high winds and about four inches of rain. It was only a minor one, but far out! It’s something else to see the 165ft+ trees being whipped around by the strong winds.
I regret not taking a photo of the incoming storm that day, but then I was very busy during and afterwards as you can imagine. And it arrived very quickly.
Oh yeah, it’s fast as. 🙂
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
Ah, that’s no good because I thought that maybehaps, it was just the clever parrots down here which had developed a taste for slightly under-ripe fruit. Oh well, we must learn to live with the world as it is, and not how it might be. I guess what I’m observing, and you’re saying, is that it’s something of a race to get to the choicest foodstuffs before anything else does? If I had more time, and that is the plan for future years, maybe, I’d watch the birds to see what fruits they were going for, and then selectively net a few branches. The parrots have to eat too. What I’ve noticed is that each year the fruit trees produce more. The whole system just needs more time to grow.
That’s a relief to hear that travel was not required at this dangerous time of the year. Dame Avalanche is clearly tapping into those deep ancestral memories to enjoy such weather. That canine hard wiring might date back to the Ice Ages? You never know. As an amusing related side story, Sandra is dissing my Neanderthal suggestion mainly because some researcher has come up with the idea that they were early risers, and I’m not. How could anyone possibly know this? Seems like a long bow to draw to me… I can get up early if there is a need – but is there actually a real need for this to take place? That’s the question which should be asked.
Has the cold snap weather arrived yet? Truly, to me it sounds horrid and there would be an awful lot of sooking. You lot are super-stoic, or tough-as, or something like that. It was 24’C here today with blue sunny skies. A lovely day, albeit a bit on the cooler side for summer. Tomorrow will be 32’C and I reckon the place is going to grow like a jungle given all the recent rainfall. We finally finished off the firewood job today! Yay! And the peasants rejoiced, or at least weren’t revolting, maybe. 😉 Hope the three of you (and extended family locally and on the rez) stay warm during the cold snap.
The extreme cold weather I understand, but three consecutive weeks of thick fog would deeply upset me. Incidentally, the year of 1983 was serious drought down here, and the last big bushfire ripped through this mountain range. Must be something in the water that year… Getting back to the fog though, the solar power would not cope with such weather, and it would be brutal for electricity generation. The other day we had just 25 minutes of peak sunlight, and that followed on from 50 minutes the day before. I was watching the state of charge in the batteries plummet – and we’re careful of usage. Civilisation would be a serious abuse of the commons in that regard. I was thinking back on a story an electrician once told me about a family who struggled to comprehend that five hair dryers at the same time on one mains 240V 16A circuit was something of a problem. 🙂
DJ. Well done. No seriously, respect. That is the exact firewood plan we’ve come up with. It’s simple and effective and will work. I’ve just gotta excavate the site and build that second firewood shed soon-ish… I’m thinking that the job may be done somewhere around half way through the year, but we’ll see how it goes.
It might be ancestral memories, and dare I mention it, but the rocks around these parts have similar metallurgical qualities as those used in standing stones, and stone circles. My friends of the big shed fame have a number of repaired historic rock wall fences and they even have cap stones. They are nice fences to look at, yup.
It’s hard to see in the photo of the quarry, that although the flint clearly goes below ground, the indigenous folks kept a nice smooth walk between the two rock faces. I’m sure they could have dug down had they so chosen. There’s a lot to see in there, and the trees seem to really enjoy the mineral rich dust on the quarry floor despite the low average rainfall of that area. Dude, it is so different that most people would think that it is a natural occurrence. The land and spirits direct, we as a civilisation just pretend not to hear because we’re listening to other. Anyway, you couldn’t say that about an industrial quarry, as you so note…
Yum! Lovely food, and I’m a fan of peanut butter on freshly baked bread. Did I ever mention the time we managed to grow peanuts, and Sir Poopy dug them all up and ate them – all of them? Oh well. Ah, your pancakes are similar to a traditional damper and those were also, or used to be, made with gluten free grains. I reckon people don’t generally eat enough whole grains.
I can sort of see why canned peaches have risen in price for you this year due to a late frost (I get that). You should see the quality of apricots and plum we bought and preserved – far from export quality first fruits. Ook!
The chili on the baked potato is a food innovation! Hmm. Like the sound of it.
Food Triffids are a fave here too and for that reason. 🙂
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
You didn’t miss anything by not watching the series. The Dexter series finished around the same time, and all people were talking about was the bad meth show instead.
Haha! Dude, that happens, and sometimes you think you’re just about to win through clerical error, and some pesky pedant takes the win away. Ah, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory! 😉 Had to laugh, I had a similar incident just before Christmas. So, I know a guy who is deep into the arts of coffee (where I get the coffee grounds), and I’d bought a high end Aussie grown ground coffee mix for my friends of the big shed fame from that mob. Except the place stuffed up the grind by sheer accident and made it too coarse. People wind down towards the festivity season, so things go wrong, I get that. They then ground a new batch, and I was thinking to myself how good the day was turning out, and I’d use the coarse ground stuff at home – as you do. Except they wanted it back for re-sale… Bummer. Just when you think you’re winning!
I’d missed the news that one of the phones which had been sucked out of the aircraft had been found. Thanks for the link. It’s pretty awesome to think that the device still worked after such a fall. A few months ago we were discussing the stories of the very few folks who had survived falls from similar heights, although it is far more likely a person will die. Hey, I still think of the drunk baker dude who survived the sinking of the Titanic and being stuck in the -2’C water for two hours before rescue. I know what I’ll be doing the next time I’m on a sinking ship. 😉
Actually, the phone I bought is designed to be dropped from 6ft onto concrete and continue working. That’s because I will drop the thing without even meaning to. Like the scouts, best to be prepared. Hey, next time you see someone using a phone, note if the glass is broken, you’ll be surprised how common that is.
I seem to recall that your local weather station has gone off line a few times in the past. A bit dodgy really. The snow sounds lovely, nice enough to enjoy, but gone before it becomes an unwanted guest. I read Prof. Mass this evening as well, and you are about to cop it bad dude. Not a good time to be outdoors. Have you thought about getting all your runs for stuff done before that monster arrives? Does the Club cut back on meetings during such weather?
A nice idea to get some assistance with the car parking dramas. Clever. See how it goes. I sense a larger story there. For all you know, it could even be someone not involved with your place parking in the lot? You don’t know, until you know.
Oh yeah, what a drama. Isn’t that stuff legal in your part of the world anyway? Vapes may have been involved. Yeah, people don’t exercise the same boundaries with those things. I’ll bet the event set the bush-telegraph and rumour-mill on fire?
I’d heard credible reports that cooked moths, taste like baked moths. We get some huge moths at this time of year – the Bogong moth. Interestingly I haven’t seen too many of them around this year, but I put that down to the heavy and persistent rains. Anywhoo, they were a traditional food source, and I believe were baked in coals. Plants have plenty of proteins for most, but not all, of the year. That spring lean-time is a real thing, you can see the effect it has on the forest critters. We can dodge such matters because of freight and preserving techniques, but I dunno about how that will go in the distant future. Probably about the same as it used to go in the distant past, maybe.
Interesting about the fan and onion cutting. Just checked with the Editor and I got it wrong, onions still have that effect, she just now knows how to cut it up as would be done in a commercial kitchen. The tearing up is a feature, although your idea will be put to the test. It sounds good to me.
We finished the firewood job today. Yay! Truly, I’d been dreaming of encounters with snakes last night, and I had an awful nights sleep. The ground was still damp and the day was cool, so whilst not impossible (like surviving a fall from a massive height), conditions aren’t in the reptiles favour, today at least. We were working near a tree which was leaning over at an alarming rate. Worked out where the thing would likely fall, if it did, and then kept away from the area. It’s been leaning over for a year or so, I forget, so whilst not impossible, well, you never really know when your lucky numbers come up, do you? It’s nice to have finished that work.
After a very late lunch, I lay down on the couch and shut my eyes, and did not dream of anything. Yay!
Is it getting colder yet?
Cheers
Chris
Hello Chris
The squirrels here, start on the hazel nuts before they are ripe. It doesn’t matter because we have so many nuts here most years. The squirrels also bury them. This is more annoying as they do it in all my pots.
At last the weather is dry, unfortunately that means that it is very cold. I am sitting under a warm duvet.
Inge
Hello Chris,
Thanks for the suggestion to look into the 12 V high flow rate pumps. I am very curious to hear your experiences and modification. Maybe a post in a week or to explaining the gear?
Do you use a submersible pump or a sucking/pushing type?
Did you write about your pump experiences earlier?
I have a portable 5 kg 12V LiFePO battery that would work well for powering this kind of work in case of a power outage.
I completely agree to your economics and affordability thinking. Hereabouts, I am amazed by the wastefulness of our society.
When I lived in Russia in the 1990s, collapse was real and some people adapted in amazing ways. Other people gave up and died.
Regarding eating bugs, I think of people paying good money and thoroughly enjoying lobster and shrimps, which are both kind of water-insects. I quite like crayfish. When we lived in China, we tried some bbq insects, and they taste fine, but the psychosomatic effect was not fine. It is funny how much of an eating experience is psychological.
And I envy your macadamia trees, even if you are on the border of possible harvests. I love macadamia nuts. I would almost consider moving to a subtropical place, just to be able to grow macadamia nuts. But the Sand Talk book told the story of indigenous foods that are priced in a way that those folks cannot afford them any longer. I got a slightly bitter, guilty taste when I had some macadamia nuts earlier this week. Maybe I will never enjoy macadamia nuts in the same arrogant way as I used to do?
We have since this summer a 23-panel grid tied solar PV setup, 10kWp. It is more for decoration and virtue signaling than sustainability. I have been looking into the recycling of the solar PV panels and it is a mess. Most of the glass+silicon wafer are just crushed up and used as fill gravel for road works. The only thing that is recycled in a meaningful way are the aluminium frames, and sometimes the cables and electronics connection boxes. Almost all electronics waste is toxic, both from metals and from PFAS that is sprayed on the circuit boards to repel water droplets that could form from condensation.
We are looking into switching our 10 year VW Polo for an electric car one day, mainly to look ecological and green and hip. However, most of the EVs for sale now are 2000+ kg race cars with 200+ hp.
One of the few that seems slightly sensible is the BMW i3, which has been discontinued. It was built with a lot of carbon fibre and very little additional luxury electronics. Light weight and narrow tires. Clever design, and would work for 95% of our mobility days. There is a rental place not far away where we could pick up a vehicle for those occasions.
On the other hand, this project has low priority now, many other things to fix first. Also more greenhouses.
Good luck with prioritizing your next winter’s projects. I think you will start with the greenhouse and then go for the woodshed. But you may surprise us all with something completely different. A jacuzzi? 😉
Peace,
Göran
Yo, Chris – There was another series, called “Weeds.” About a suburban housewife who sold mara-hochie. My Idaho friend was quit devoted to it. I watched a couple of episodes and it just didn’t “grab” me. Hard to beat “Dexter.” Another good one, that didn’t run near long enough, was “Prodigal Son.” About a criminal psychologist whose father is an incarcerated serial killer.
Well, weather. Now the forecast is saying “slight chance of snow” for over the weekend. Though one day is just “snow.” Overnight lows are predicted to get really down there. One night, 14F (-10C).
Oh, yeah. Lots of running around and stocking up. Highway 12 (which runs over White Pass) was closed, yesterday. It’s the major highway over to Yakima. My friend Jane, didn’t make it into the Club, last night. She lives pretty far out. But, I saw her this morning. She runs the halfway house, “Funny Farm.” She was in town to stock up on bread.
I hit the cheap food stores, last night, for the Club pantry, and me. Wonder of wonder, there was a parking spot when I got home at 7:30pm. I usually go the the regular grocery on Thursday nights, but waited until 10:30 pm, in the hope I’d still have a spot when I got back. I did.
Parking is either at, or slightly over capacity. If ANYONE who doesn’t live here parks in the lot, someone goes begging. Usually, me, as I got out to socialize in the evening, sometimes. Our night manager, bless him, has started parking on the street, in an effort to ease the situation. He also patrols, as best he can.
Does the Club cut back on meetings. Not really. I mean, they’re scheduled, but if any one shows up, is another question. And can someone get there to open up? So far, not a problem. When Jane couldn’t make it in yesterday to run the counter, someone else stepped in to cover her shift.
Yes, Mara-hochie is legal, in this State. But, it’s a smoke free building, no mater what you’re firing up. There’s a smoke shack in the corner of the parking lot. Legal or no, there are people still morally opposed to it. The other night when I took H for a walk, there must have been a skunk in the neighborhood. Just about knocked my socks off. That smell is occasionally mistaken for mara-hochie. I mind my own business, and, as I’ve said before, it’s a bad smell. Not mustard gas. If they want to get excised about something, why not go after whoever is baking a chicken with the feathers on? That beats the faint whiff of grass, all to heck.
I probably don’t cut onions, in a restaurant manner. Hard to describe. I cut a divot out of the top and bottom, remove the skin, cut the onion in half. I make a horizontal cut through one side, about half way through. I cut vertically, through the half that’s been cut, first one way, then the other. I repeat on the other side. I don’t know where I learned to do it this way. The way I cut runs counter to what you see on U-Tub.
Congrats on finishing up the firewood. Got that off your plate, for this year.
Lucky you. I very seldom remember dreams I have at night. It’s the afternoon naps where I get the weird stuff. Went to bed with a sore throat, last night. Still sore, today. There’s a lot of strep, going around. Oh, well. I’ll be gargling a lot of salt water, and drinking camomile tea, with honey.
Did you hear me swear, in Australia? 🙂 Last night, I was taking stock of my little chest freezer, and a bag of frozen cranberries, that had been closed with a plastic clamp came lose. Cranberries all over the place.
I stopped by the library, yesterday, to pick up some holds. No DVDs, but five books. I started reading a bit of “American Vikings: How the Norse Sailed into the Lands and Imaginations of America.” (Whittock, 2023). As the author points out, should be really considered Canadian Vikings. As about the only solid evidence comes from L’Anse aux Meadows, in Newfoundland. There’s also quit a bit about Vikings in popular culture. Books, movies, TV series, politics, sports. I’ll probably skim a good deal of it.
The Master Gardeners were here, yesterday, to take down the Christmas tat. Looks like we will have a pumpkin patch, next year. Site hasn’t been decided on. A possible lemon was kicked around, again. Looking more favorable. As long as I’m willing to throw a blanket over it, if the weather gets, as it’s going to get, in the near future. Lew
Hi Chris,
Never been close enough to hear or see a tornado, thankfully. Saw the aftermath of a very minor EF 0 or 1 in Auburn a few years back. 75 ft tall 9 in diameter pine trees snapped like twisted toothpicks will get you thinking.
Next Tuesday night we’re in line to get the cold snap handed down from Lewis, DJ and Claire. It will get down to 14°F here. We’ll leave taps dripping, chickens closed down and extra feed for the sheep for their rumens to keep them warm. And just today our back porch hit 74•F. Gets hot, and a cold front comes through an spawns tornadoes. All together too often, but this is where we live, shrug. Crossing fingers and hoping we dodge the next one too.
Ann
Hi Inge,
The parrots have similar tastes. It was quite hot and humid here today, and I just took Ollie outside to do his business, and the King Parrots were dealing with noisy and demanding offspring. And eating the apples. Fortunately like the squirrels and hazelnuts, we also grow enough apples for both the critters and us. Every year it gets a bit easier on that fruit consuming front, mostly because the cold winters and lean early spring sets an upper limit on critter numbers.
Out of curiosity, do the buried hazelnuts sometimes result in self seeded hazelnut plants?
Stay warm, and I must say that a duvet is an elegant technology for doing so. We visited the historic Werribee Mansion today, and I noted that there was an item of clothing from the Victorian era where you could simply stuff your hands and forearms in what looked like an over sized massive feather filled sock. Probably quite warm. The gardens were lovely and we mostly had the entire state rose garden to ourselves. By early afternoon the combination of warm day and extreme humidity had an unsurprising effect and so we returned home again.
Cheers
Chris
Cheers
Chris
Hi Ann,
And may you continue to dodge such extreme weather. I’ve never quite understood why, but the minor tornadoes are quite localised down here. Oh yeah, pine trees are softwoods and can exceed their ability to sway with the winds during such extremes.
Did you know that trees (or at least the trees here) brace for the prevailing winds? A few years ago very strong winds arrived during the winter months from a direction they rarely blow in from. And the trees were not braced for this.
A lot of damage to the forest – and it was during you-know-what as well. There are areas of the nearby Wombat State Forest which are still a mess from that June 21 storm.
Far out that is so cold! Hope you stay warm and that the power doesn’t go out. Leaving the taps dripping is a good idea. The sheep will do it tough that night, that sort of weather is hard on livestock. Hey, the same is true here, you get a hot spell, and then bam, a cold front will sweep through and then everything is different. It’s hot and humid today, but don’t worry, by Wednesday there will be heavy rain and cooler southerly air here again. I’ve adapted to the variable weather, but some years are easier than others for sure.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Göran,
I wrote about the 12V water pump arrangement here: Week on Repeat. You can see a photo of the pump arrangement. However, a low voltage backup sump pump which is what you sort of require, can be set up similarly. For the electrical on-off switch you could easily set up the sort of brass float switch used in stock feed water troughs. Don’t see why not. If the water level reaches a certain height, the float triggers an electrical switch. Simple technology. But basically, the low voltage pumps are good devices, they just need a manual valve (to shut the pump flow down if needed) + non-return valve (because the pumps can pressurise to 60psi but the seals are not good enough for that pressure and there is inevitably back flow into the pump itself) + a replacement electrical on-off switch.
At a wild guess, your 5kg 12V portable LiFePO4 battery is around 50Ah? That should be enough juice to run the pump for 4 to 5 hours before a recharge. The power drawn would be intermittent I’m guessing, so it’s not like the device wouldn’t run for more than a couple of minutes at a time. Your 200L example would be done in 10 minutes at a 20L/min flow rate. I wouldn’t muck around with pumps less than 17L/min flow rate. It all depends on how high the water needs to be lifted, and the higher the water has to go, the lower the final flow rate where the water exits the pipes. That’s why you don’t want to consider pumps with low flow rates where they have to lift water. Honestly, you could have an emergency set up which connects up to a sturdy garden hose.
A sump in the basement always presents a flood risk when the water table rises – or the membranes in the walls fail.
I’m amazed by the wastefulness of our society as well. We replaced the clutch in the smaller Suzuki, and got the car back today. Had a good chat with the mechanic who confirmed my thinking: A lot of stuff is no longer constructed to last. And without prompting, his opinion was that the vehicles produced around the turn of the century (i.e. 2005 the peak of conventional oil) were the sturdiest of them all. Everything he told me can be repaired, it just gets more expensive as the machine ages.
I have not experienced such an extreme collapse, and wow, you’ve travelled around. Are you entirely sure that you had no hand in the outcome that time? 🙂 In the recession of the early to mid 1990’s with unemployment at 10%, plenty of people who lost their jobs, became part of the so-called structurally unemployed. I do wonder how this story also played out during the recent health situation which dares not be named? A lot of people have dropped out of the workforce. I’ve also known people to check out when faced with such wider societal troubles. It’s not good.
I quite like crayfish as well. Yum! There is an old Chinese saying about ‘if it has legs and is not a table, it’s food’. 😉 Can’t recall where I heard that recently, but it stuck.
Macadamia’s are superb tasting nuts, although the worlds largest production may now come from Hawaii I believe. The trees here have been in the ground a decade, and have grown only very slowly – but neither have they died. Simon, who writes the blog listed on the side bar, lives in the big smoke, and actually gets nuts from his Macadamia tree. They’re good. He has a good garden in an area with historic market gardens nearby. I reckon he might even be able to grow coffee where he is. It’s just much colder up here in the central highlands, although I have seen a nearby tree produce nuts.
Dude, it is very possible that the indigenous folks may survive the future ructions better than the folks of European origins, although there is the need to reconnect with the land. Hmm. I got the distinct impression that the author knew what was on the horizon, and well, he knows. I’m not big into guilt, and rather try to deal with the world as it is, and then do my best to navigate the absolute mess going on all around us. If you know a better way, don’t be silent!
Whoa! Those are some big panels you’re putting on. Ah, well, everyone contributes to the future in all different ways, and you know things about growing and grafting fruit trees which is beyond my knowledge. Off grid likewise involves a lot of toxic materials. Oh yeah. Most people don’t really grapple with the hard question: What sort of future are we leaving to our children?
Hehe! Dude, sorry, but they have to be race cars in order to stimulate interest because of the cost. Larger electric motors simply have bigger windings, bearings and magnets so the cost is not that great to produce a bigger motor. Look, if we as a society really wanted EV’s, they’d probably look like e-bikes. The problem with batteries is that the energy density is so much lower than with oil products. So 1L of petrol provides around 9kWh of energy and weighs around 1kg. With the LiFePO4 batteries, to get around 10.8kWh (which is a bit more than 1L of diesel fuel) of stored energy, the things weigh 90kg. It just makes no sense… The maths don’t work. Save your money.
The other thing with batteries is that they don’t like being fully depleted. On the specification sheets you see numbers proclaiming so many cycles for the life of the battery and that differs with battery chemistry and quality of manufacturing. Nobody really knows how long a particular cell will last, these numbers quoted are estimates. But battery chemistry is such that the more use the things, and the deeper you draw them down each time, the shorter the lifepsan will be. And how would a vehicle use the stored energy?
Ha! I don’t think so man. 🙂 Firewood shed first, next greenhouse. Then we’ll see.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Ah, I’d not watched that Weed series either and had candidly forgotten about it. Just had a read of the plot summary, and it gets a bit difficult to maintain sympathy for the conspicuous consumptive lifestyle don’t you reckon? That was the motivation for the entire plant growing situation in the series. Surely the mother could have downgraded and spent less, and avoided the whole messy growing and dealing issues? I was also a bit scared by the mention of the local PTA being involved… 🙂
It’s not legal down here, and I don’t use the stuff, more from not wanting to mess with my mental health – my sister was not a good example of where things could possibly go. And did I need to find out if I were so affected? Best not to find out, seems like the safer path. But listening to the national youth news with anonymous survey results, most people are motivated to grow their own because they don’t want to interact with dealers. Seems like a fair enough reason to me, and I don’t see the big deal about the stuff either. All rather arbitrary if you ask me.
Far out, I’m going to have to pull the computer keyboard apart and give everything a good clean – soon. The ‘e’ and the ‘d’ key became intermittent again this evening. Took the keys off the keyboard and discovered hair and gunk underneath. Ook! For a while I thought about trying to type a comment without using either letter, and the idea just didn’t float. The vowel ‘e’ is heavily used in our language!
Just read the good professors forecast for your east, and it didn’t make for pleasant reading. Single digit forecasts, in Fahrenheit, sounds truly awful to me, and for a few days. Stay warm dude. At least it looks like from Wednesday onwards it will warm up again. Do you reckon that will be it for the cold snaps for the winter for you?
Today in a town over to the west, the car suggested that it was 100’F and humid. We drove past a local swimming pool there, and it looked packed with people. It got to about 90’F here, but was still very humid. It’s still warm now and it’s dark. We picked up the dirt mouse Suzuki – it had been in the shop for few days for a replacement clutch. The mechanic showed me the clutch plate they’d removed, and it was worn down to the first of the rivets. This stuff doesn’t last long nowadays. Incidentally, we had a bit of a chat, and he said that the longest lasting vehicles were built around the time your Ranger and my former Dirt Rat Suzuki were built. Hmm. I’d suspected this was the case and have said so in the past, but it’s not something you hear said anywhere.
Anyway, we were in the area and so visited the State Rose Garden and took a self guided tour of Werribee Mansion. The goobermunt now owns the place (bought it from the Catholic Church in the 1970’s) and has admittedly done an amazing restoration job. You’d love the place, because the furniture, paintings and antiques were either originals, or from that era. And in an area set aside with display panels discussing the restoration work, there was a poster for the Miss Fischer Mysteries series – which must have utilised the location of the mansion at some stage. The gardens were amazing, and the state rose garden is maintained by volunteers. They were doing a good job, no question of that. We had the rose garden mostly to ourselves. A very pleasant day, despite the eye watering cost of the clutch replacement.
Incidentally, the area is surrounded by massive market gardens. It’s an ideal growing climate for vegetables at Werribee South.
Fortunately you had no need to go to Yakima and so can avoid the pass. 😉 I can’t imagine that much is grown in that area at this cold time of year? Has Jane got a no-nonsense attitude? All the same she is performing an excellent service for the community. You’d hope the inmates aren’t left in charge when Jane is picking up supplies? It would be very difficult for people wanting to get their lives together after such troubles. Trying to get a rental down here with that sort of background would be a soul destroying experience.
I like your style adapting to the car park dilemma by out witting the miscreants. Yeah, going later is a good way to avoid the nonsense. Well that’s what I was sort of suggesting. If there is any difference between the number of vehicle owners who are meant to be there, and the number of vehicles in the lot, well the facts then speak for themselves. My logic is incontrovertible (whatever that means). I’d also been wondering if any of the vehicles had lost their registration. It’s a bit Machiavellian…
Providing a smoke shack is not a bad idea, and hey, all buildings and other enclosed spaces down here are smoke free places. I recall the days when people could smoke at work, and that was a pain for non smokers such as myself. I’m genuinely amazed that the authoritas let the vaping genie out of the bottle. Now they’re having to stuff it back in.
Margaret has recounted a story involving skunks, and let’s just say that the story left a deep impression on me. Your story has only added to the awful mystique of the stink creating critters. Anyway, please add skunks to the list of things I never want to see down under. The list also includes (in case you were wondering! 😉 ): squirrels; bears; raccoons seem pretty nasty; your opossums are rather toothy; don’t want to see mountain lions either – there may be some other critters as well. Somehow the list is growing…
Your onion technique sounds good to me. Hey, I mentioned to the Editor about your use of the stove exhaust fan. She told me that when she was a kid, she used swimming goggles to avoid the onion fumes. Her parents were a bit WTF? about the adaption, but it works.
I dunno whether recalling that dream was all that relaxing for me. You don’t need a degree in dream interpretation to realise I must have been a bit nervous about snakes when harvesting the firewood yesterday. Of course, I’d like to be wrong there. That’s interesting about getting the dreams in the afternoons. I reckon everyone’s wiring is ever so slightly different, so maybe your dream state kicks in earlier? Dunno.
How’s your throat doing today? Low humidity weather can produce sore throats. I ended up with a cold in Peru because near to the Nazca lines, the humidity was like 10% and rainfall was not common. Breathing through your nose in such dry environments I’m told helps a lot.
The seismic folks reported something relating to your swearing, although it may have been an after shock? 🙂 Mate, that happens and what do you? Did you end up finding all the cranberries? And did they defrost whilst being found? Had a bag of bakers yeast self destruct on me when I removed it from the freezer many years ago. The stuff went everywhere!
Have you learned anything interesting about the Canadian Vikings? Although, how would anyone know if they’d ventured south anyway. They didn’t seem adverse to travelling around the place so I’d think it likely. The evidence is there in the north, but is it enough to fill a book?
Cool! We’ve had a pumpkin patch for a few years now, and they’re good. Although it depends if they want to grow those monsters which are just show? Dunno about those monster fruits, but they are a thing.
Yeah, sadly, every now and then, you’re not wrong, and you’ll have to chuck a blanket over the lemon tree with the sort of weather you’re getting during the next few days. The rest of the time, it’ll be just fine.
Cheers
Chris
Chris:
No drought!
We have a mix of hard and soft woods, all hard except for the pine, though I tend to think of our Tulip Poplars as soft, the wood is so light; but it dries pretty hard. Even some pines cure into something quite hard, like the Southern Yellow Pine that our log house is made of.
I generally only prune the tomatoes from the bottom-up, up to 18 to 24 inches (46-61cm) above the ground, so that water hitting the ground doesn’t splash up on the leaves. We have blight in our soil. I guess some blight gets on the stems, but the leaves seem more susceptible.
Pam
Hello Chris
Oh yes, the hazel nuts do indeed self seed in my pots and they do it very thoroughly.
Inge
Hi Chris,
Well that storm was a bit of a dud mostly because it was just above freezing so much of the snow melted. We got about 2-3 inches. Today we’re in the midst of a winter storm warning though that has been downgraded a bit. Originally it was 14 inches of snow. I think it’ll be closer to 8. It’s just above freezing again but will drop later. The wind is the big story. With heavy wet snow on branches and power lines an outage is not out of the question. In fact this morning about 7 AM when they snow was really coming down hard the lights flickered – not a good sign. We’ve got the tub filled, firewood stacked and the generator at the ready just in case. Then the cold arrives – several days not getting above 0F and lows in the minus teens. I’m supposed to be traveling in towards the city tomorrow for my granddaughter’s play in which she plays the lead. I’ll be taking the train and staying over at Cecily’s. Doug has kindly offered to drive me to the train station and pick me up on Sunday afternoon so I won’t have to dig my very cold car out at the train station.
Cecily just sent me a notice from the city of Chicago warning about the dangers of children being out in the snow and advising to keep them inside as much as possible. It’s not that cold right now!! No wonder I don’t see many snowmen anymore.
Margaret
Yo, Chris – Yes, as I remember, the housewife in “Weeds” embarked on her adventure in order to keep up with the neighbors. And so her kids wouldn’t have a fall in status. We have a series over here, titled “The Real Housewives of ….” wherever. I’ve never seen any of it, but from what I gather, it’s all about conspicuous consumption.
Well, weather. We got about 1/2″ of snow, last night. Not a big deal. But … our overnight low was 25F (-4C). Tonight it’s supposed to get down to 15F. We could have more snow and cold snaps. Our worst winter weather is usually January through March. With a few outliers, just to keep things interesting. Yesterday, I saw quit a few cars with snow on their roofs. Must have come in from outlying areas.
Yes, there were quit a few stately piles, in the Miss Fischer Murder Mysteries. One episode was filmed in a really nice old ski lodge, in your Australian alps. Front of the house tat and flash is all very interesting, but as I get older, I’m find I’m more interested in the kitchen, pantry and out buildings.
Jane is a big motherly woman with a core of steel 🙂 . The people at her place are pretty much self policing. There’s always a few old hands around, to keep things on an even keel. And, if a person screws up, they’re out on their ear, no ifs, ands or buts. Yes, housing is a real problem. We have a couple paying $1,500 a week for a motel. With a baby. She, has a felony, on her record, that’s about three + years old. Makes it tough to get into a rental. LOL. I guess she beat the heck out of her previous old man.
I hear skunks make pretty good pets … after you have the scent glands, removed. Another Old Wives Tale, bites the dust. I’d always heard that tomato juice took care of the smell. Not so. But a combination of hydrogen peroxide, baking soda and liquid dish soap, does.
Well, I have a lulu of a cold. At least the sore throat pretty much went away. But my heads stuffed up, nose runs and sneeze a lot. I’d kill for an antihistamine. Note to self: stock up for the next time.
Did I find all the cranberries? Of course not. 🙂 Oh, well. About time to reorganize my freezer.
Besides the settlement up in Newfoundland, there are all sorts of ruin stones, etc.. The author carefully examines each one. And as far as he’s concerned, they’re all hoaxes. He also examines several legends about people traveling to North America. The Irish monk Brendan, in the 500s. Then there was the Welsh guy, Madoc ap Owain Gwynedd. Though the author suspects his story was plumped, as the British wanted an earlier claim, than the Spanish. And, there are others. The author really digs into the manuscripts, earliest mention, etc. etc..
Well, I’ll probably buy the pumpkin seeds. Something heritage. There’s some nice pie pumpkins that are just under 12″ across.
I wanted something that approximated chicken soup, last night. So, I took a pack of the frozen chicken, from Thanksgiving, out of the freezer. I diced and fried up an onion. Rice, peas, dried tomatoes, broccoli, and garlic. Mushrooms. Pretty tasty and enough left over, for tonight. Lew
Chris,
Yup, competition for the choice foods leads to a race. As mentioned before, if the squirrels get all the nuts and I get none, well, that’s fine. It’s a fair trade for the entertainment the squirrels provide.
I don’t have any idea how the researchers determined that our Neanderthal ancestors were early risers. Some of the “ancient DNA” conclusions are mysterious. The early rising thing tops the mystery chart in my opinion. My preference has always been to sleep in.
Yeah, Avalanche’s preferences are totally hard wired from long long ago. Today it is -17C in the early afternoon with 18km per hour winds…Wind chill -24C and colder. Somebody was uninterested in coming indoors for several hours today. She slept in the sun. We got absolutely NO snow, just the cold. So no snow cover and the Arctic blast is rare. The City water pipes get close to the surface at the interface of the water main and the pipe to my house. With no insulating snow, we’re keeping some water running until the cold snap is over. Frozen pipes are something hideous to fix in the cold.
I wore extra layers when outside with my coffee today. The wind made it interesting, to say the least. Tomorrow should be worse… -23C with wind chills below -33C overnight. Tis the type of weather that is conducive to limiting strenuous outdoor activity. We’ve had worse in Spokane, much worse. That means that even though this is not an everyday occurrence, experience tells us how to dress, what can and can’t be done outside, how to do those things outside if required, etc. AKA experience allows a somewhat stoic response to the cold extremes.
Good job on finishing with the firewood! That’s a big chore to get finished. On the related front, glad that you’ve come up with a workable idea moving forward on the firewood. Since we had about the same idea, doesn’t that rank as “great minds think alike”?
That multiple weeks of fog bothered a lot of people. Some of us were mostly immune. It was rather eerie, however, but I enjoyed it. Maybe something ancient was coming to the surface – raid the Roman villas by coming out of the fog accompanied by blood curdling cries. Or something like that. 😉
Sir Poopy dug up all the peanuts? Oh, that must’ve been upsetting! I do know, on the bread front, that the standard American diet has few if any whole grains. The USA is notorious for having ruined bread. Much too sweet, take all the wholeness out of it, etc. For a variety of reasons, we’ve tried to move to eating like peasants, which gets back to more fruits and vegetables and whole grains and legumes. We’ve known too many people with Type 2 Diabetes. What they’ve all had in common was a diet lacking in whole grains (too much overly processed grains instead), vastly too much red meat and sugary drinks, not enough fiber. Eating the fiber rich foods also supplies more nutrients and improves gut health. And we feel better.
Chili on the baked potato was one of the beast ideas the Princess has had! Nutrition at its best and very filling. And tasty.
We went to a place called Texas Roadhouse for dinner Thursday. Due to her caregiving schedule, we were unable to really have a good meal together for Christmas, so this was our belated Christmas dinner. We had the same waitress a few months ago, and she totally remembered the Princess! We came home with plenty of leftovers for a few days. These can be made into sandwiches and mixed with salads. Yummy. And the waitress told us to take our time, so we had a VERY relaxed dinner and drinks. They make good margaritas, so the Princess had one of those. I enjoyed a good Bock beer.
DJSpo
Hi Pam,
Oh, many thanks for the correction. I’d assumed most of your east coast was in drought, well was so until recently.
Ah, the tulip poplar is known down here as a ‘tulip tree’, and aren’t they lovely? Do yours produce the tulip like flowers? I’ve got one of them growing here and it’s fast growing. Hadn’t realised it may get very large given enough time. At a guess, is your yellow pine the Longleaf pine variety? What an interesting history they have, and it is hard not to notice the many similarities to the original forest management practices which used to take place down this way. I’ve seen some of those species in botanical gardens, and they are rather large trees. An excellent choice for the lumber if I may say so.
Thanks for the info on tomato blight and many blights splash back up onto leaves. I have a hunch that the indigenous cool burning practices tended to knock the various blights and other soil diseases back.
Spare a thought for poor hapless Ruby. Today she upset a colony of bullants and has suffered multiple stings. She’s not well, put it that way. Those bulldog ants are vicious – I’ve also been bitten in the past. The exposure to the formic acid in the stings over the years has meant that they don’t bother me much nowadays, although it still hurts and is abominably itchy for days. Hope Ruby recovers speedily. I slipped her an anti-histamine which should help.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Inge,
Who knew that the squirrels were successful forest gardeners? They may serve such a role in the forest eco-system? Dunno, but it sure is a complicated environment. I believe hazelnut trees were heavily integrated into the hedgerows which dotted the landscape in your part of the world. Out of curiosity, have you ever had the chance to observe a traditional hedgerow?
I continued cleaning up the loggers mess, and managed to excavate an upside-down tree stump today. It rained again late this afternoon, and was quite a cool day at about 60’F. There isn’t too much more of the loggers mess left to correct, thankfully. Those tree stumps sure are heavy. It would have been very thoughtful of the loggers to leave the tree stumps the right way up, and I feel most tired this evening.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Margaret,
Glad to hear that you dodged the worst of the storm, although like you mentioned, the winds would also trouble me if in those same conditions. I agree, flickering lights are not a good sign of things to come. Hopefully the power stays on for you? Although you do sound well prepared to ride through the worst of the conditions.
Oh my gawd, truly your weather goes from what I consider bad, to even worse. 0’F is no small thing and is also way outside my lived experience. Hope Leo and Salve stay warm during the worst of the storm. You’d think that the concert would be cancelled given the prevailing weather conditions?
A wise precaution with the car not left at the train station. What a nightmare it would be to have to dig the vehicle out of the snow. That sort of thing happens up in ski resorts, not usually at train stations, although you may prove to be the exception.
Such rules are generally made for the less experienced, but surely people in that city would have clothing suitable for the more extreme wintry conditions? Caution can be taken a step too far, yeah.
Spare a thought for Ruby who has clearly come into contact with a swarm of bulldog ants today. Hopefully she recovers and learns a good lesson – don’t mess with the ants. It’s not like you can’t smell them, and a dog would have no excuses on that front. Hmm.
Oh, it rained here again this afternoon and has been surprisingly cool and cloudy today. Tomorrow looks much the same.
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
Yeah, what will be, will be on that front. And the winter and early spring always sets the upper population limits. I hear you about entertainment value and earlier today was observing a King Parrot imitating a fruit bat by hanging upside down in one of the apple trees.
The research seemed like a long bow to draw to me as well. Surely there’d be Neanderthals who were late risers? My thought in the matter is that the early bird may get the worm, but the Sabre Toothed Tiger will get the early riser. That’s what breaking your fast really means to me. 😉 We just didn’t say for whom.
Oh my! -17’C is so far outside my lived experience that I’m quailing in fright at the thought of such extreme cold weather. But it gets worse! On the other hand, it’s good to see that Dame Avalanche is taking advantage of the ancestral conditions. You and Lewis have mentioned over the years of specific conditions which are too cold for snow, and I’m left wondering what sort of temperature is it when the conditions produce snow?
Wouldn’t your skin stick to the frozen copper or steel water pipes at such low temperatures? Yup, experience is knowing to leave them trickling and don’t touch the things – among other useful and hard won lore.
Thanks, and I’m pleased to have that firewood job done. Did a another 500kg of kindling today. It sounds a lot, but is easy enough to process and haul. Despite the thick low clouds (and rain), I got both electric chainsaws out to do that work. It’s good testing each of them out, and tomorrow I’ll give them a good service and sharpen. One was working better than the other, and it came down to sharpening technique. The system you proposed, and we had independently come up with, will work. And I’d like to think so about the great minds bit, but you know, I’ve come across folks who are smarter, and can respect that. I’ve found over life that reaching for the top, is an unwise choice if only because nobody can hang on up there for long. Best to float around instead and let other people do the hard yards with all that challenging stuff. Interestingly, I’ve noticed that super smart people seem to be very blind when it comes to the possible futures based on what is going on around all of us.
Dude, that’s like a total understatement about the fog. 🙂 Bothered a lot of people indeed! Yeah, I guess it’s a similar situation to sea-sickness though, some folks suffer, and others don’t. Truth to tell, the fog would have only annoyed me because I’d have to run the generator for a few hours each day, but other than that, keep the wood heater going and just cook some tasty food and enjoy the ride. Solar power does not work in those particular conditions.
By the time I discovered Sir Poopy paws and snout deep in the bed of peanuts, the initiative had been taken, and I lost that round. What do you do? Such bread practices can creep over to these shores as well. I bake a high protein multi-grain loaf which is not close to the stuff that people expect, although it all disappears whenever guests stay for lunch. Peasants usually eat well, most of the time, with a few notable historical exceptions. A lot of processed food being sold I reckon is high in carbs, low in protein and coated in preservatives. That’s a real bummer. Given the economic state of the household, I didn’t see much processed food when I was a kid. It’s funny how that can sometimes work out, but sadly processed food is cheaper nowadays. Gut health is something to keep on top of, so respect. I read somewhere recently that about half the population down here have issues in that regard. I like food too much to have a poor relationship with it.
Type II is a problem. I believe that there is a component to that story which can also touch upon very sedentary lifestyles, so it is a sort of mix of the food and lack of exercise from what I’ve heard. My mate who died during you-know-what apparently had a family history of that.
We’ll try that idea, and please extend my thanks to your lady for the potato chili combo.
It was lovely of your lady to have given her energies to relatives in need during such a festive time, but yeah I remember. You didn’t fare to badly at that time! 🙂 Yum! Yum! Yum! And I had to look up what a ‘Bock Beer’ was. A festive beer, I get that. We enjoy such festive beers as well, and a few years ago a micro brewer used to produce a beer known as the ‘Magical Christmas Unicorn’. It was similarly sweet, but I reckon they’d added vanilla extract to the ferment, and oh, when it was good, it was very good. For your info, the best sweet beer I’ve ever tasted was a ‘Canadian Maple Stout’. The thing had authority as well at 10%! A bit stronger than the usual beer, but it was so good. It had aged in the keg for two years as well.
It rained here again today, and being cooler I decided to continue cleaning up the loggers mess. An upside down tree stump was leaning against a tree which I reckon dates back to the 1939 bushfires, but it might be older. Anywhoo, I managed to extract the super-heavy upside down stump, but couldn’t move it much further than that. I’ll have to cut the thing up so that it can be relocated more easily in a week or two’s time. And I ended up very wet from the late afternoon rain.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
It’s a motivation for the character, but would people really do that? I’d heard someone long ago say the amusing quip: ‘growing for fun and profit’. Yeah, sure… Dunno. Conspicutive Consumptive is a definitely a problem for the west.
You may have missed this news item: Snake spotted dangling from fridge after Adelaide Hills resident heard hissing near air compressor.
Ruby has been bitten by something today, presumably bulldog ants by the way she is acting. Vicious things, and I reckon they swarmed her. Hopefully she is ok, and the incident doesn’t deteriorate. It’s that time of year, although it was cold and wet this afternoon.
Brought in another load of kindling for winter use today. The weather was perfect for such work, and also continued cleaning up the mysterious loggers mess. A very large tree stump was upside down and wedged against a large old tree. The tree won’t appreciate that, so I managed to extract the tree stump through a combination of levering and digging but couldn’t move it too far. Me tired tonight. I’ll cut the stump up a bit next week. Too much forest work would be very hard on my body.
Hmm, I’d wondered if the chalet in the episode was filmed at the historic Mount Buffalo chalet? It was funny reading one of the reviews of the episode at the surprise that there even would be snow fields in Australia. Oh yeah. Victoria’s historical Mount Buffalo Chalet stands dormant as fresh attempt to revitalise it fails. A massive building certainly giving a nod to the arts and crafts movement of the time.
Half inch of snow would be the sort of amount we’d get here as well. Far out though, 15’F sounds like a horror story to me. Stay warm, and keep H out of puddles less she freeze the pads of her feet.
Nice, and that sort of role requires a person with those attributes. That makes sense about the people there being self monitoring. Why would they want to blow their opportunity. It’d be tough on the streets tonight in your Arctic blast. And that’s the thing, rentals are so tough to obtain that any stain on the record makes a hard job, almost impossible.
You go first with the skunks as pet concept! 🙂 Although, people have all sorts of weird and wonderful pets, so why not a skunk? Probably easier to live with that an alligator for a pet. Those are pretty strong cleaners, so I don’t see why they wouldn’t work.
Sorry to hear that you’re not feeling the best. Has the cold improved today? Your chicken soup idea is a good one, and the garlic will do you good. Oh no! Best to keep a stock of such things, and Ruby has been given small amounts of them for the ant bites.
I see, well there’s always something which needs doing isn’t there? And a good clean out of the freezer may reveal ancient treasures, and misplaced cranberries. 🙂 Like you say, it’s natures way of telling you to reorganise the contents.
Are you keeping warm given the conditions?
I’d never heard of the Irish monk Brendan the Navigator. I’m unsurprised that there are claims for others making that journey. The Vikings couldn’t have been the only ones to make the attempt. And word gets around, rumours spread, then one day, voyages are financed due to excess mad cash with which to do so.
The Queensland Blue variety of pumpkins (it looks more grey skinned to me) is about that size, and they grow well here. Bigger pumpkins are a pain, and you have to process the entire fruit and it sure produces a lot of pumpkin to deal with. I’ll be interested to hear which variety you eventually choose. Fortunately you have some seed catalogues.
Keep warm, and stay hydrated. 🙂
Cheers
Chris
Chris:
I think we have the same Tulip Poplar (we call it Tulip Tree sometimes, too). It does have large flowers that start out cupped like tulips; beautiful things, bees love them. Ours is a Liriodendron.
The Southern Yellow Pine can apparently be one of four kinds. I think our house is made of the longleaf, from Georgia, but I’m not sure.
I will give poor Ruby more than a thought. Ants are my nemesis in the summer. I never fail to put my hands where some are.
We are pondering a big change, nothing soon, maybe a couple of years down the road. My son needs more land for his fruit and nut tree business and he would like it to be on some flatter land instead of the side of a mountain (imagine that!) so we might be keeping our eyes out for property to the south of us. There is no way that we could afford any in our present county. It would be a move for all of us – my son, his wife, my husband, and myself. As I said, no hurry and we are going to watch for land prices to drop anyway.
Pam
Yo, Chris – Will respond later. Still really under the weather. Walked the dog, this morning, and had to take the elevator. Something I never do. I’m going back to bed … Lew
Hi Chris,
The track of the storm went a little farther north than predicted, so we stayed on the warm side of it for longer. Almost 0.7 inches of rain, and it was 50F most of the time the rain was falling, so the rain soaked into the soil (yay!). Then the cold front came through. Yesterday’s high was 50F; today’s high will be in the low 20sF. And it was windy, windy, windy starting in the afternoon and through most of the night. Our electricity stayed on, but we are ready to start a fire in the wood heater if necessary or we just want the extra warmth.
We got almost no snow. This is both good and bad. Good because it won’t be as cold tonight without a snow cover, though with another cold front coming through this afternoon it will drop to 0F or a little less overnight. And get windy again. We’re under a wind chill warning for the first time that I know of, with wind chills pushing -25F by tomorrow morning. It would be worse if we’d gotten snow.
No snow cover, however, is much harder on the plants. Snow acts as a blanket over the soil, keeping the soil warmer than it would otherwise be, and moister as well. Roots will not be happy for the next few days.
It’s supposed to warm up a little, to close to freezing, by Wednesday, but that’s still several degrees below our average high at this time, the coldest time of the year for us.
Claire
Yo, Chris – Why do they say a nose is “stuffed up,” when all it does is drip? I might be on the mend. I seem to be sneezing less, blowing my nose less and hacking out a lung, less. I also made it up and down the stairs, when I took H out, this afternoon. Yesterday, I ate hardly anything at all. Almost didn’t make it through my usual oatmeal and fruit. And that’s all I had, for the day. Today, no problems. Even managed the small handful of walnuts and two squares of dark chocolate. I think dinner will be very light.
Well, that was quit an article about the snake. You people and your snakes. I must say, I also got caught up in a lot of the sidebar articles. Read way to many articles about the Danish royal family 🙂 . Soon to be Queen Mary isn’t the only Australian gal, who married into royalty. There’s quit a clutch of them, going way back.
The article about the indigenous recovery program, was also very interesting. I’m all for people taking charge of their own recovery. In other words, “whatever works.” We have several programs for indigenous people, here in the US, but you don’t hear too much about them. There’s a big recovery center, across the street from The Institution. At least once a week, it sounds like they have a drum circle going, over there. On nice nights, its a treat to sit out and listen to them.
There was also a sidebar article on the disappearing beach, and a haunted house on an island. I thought it interesting that Queen Elizabeth took the island back from the family that had been granted it, under Queen Victoria. Thus freeing the serfs.
Oh, poor Ruby! Always getting into something. Too inquisitive for her own good.
I don’t know if it was Mt. Buffalo, in the Miss Fischer episode. As I remember, it was more a stone edifice. Hey, I was also surprised that Australia had “alps” and a ski industry.
Well, it was 18F last night, and is getting down to 14F, tonight. We received no snow yesterday, last night, or today, so far. Although when I took H out for her walk, there were a few flakes coming down. I even turned my base board heaters on, for a little while, last night.
They scatter this deicer, around. Probably not good for dogs. I lift H over those spots, because she’d lick it off her feet, given a chance.
Yes, I worry about our homeless in this weather. We have a couple of regulars, down at the Club, and I wonder how they’re faring. Though the ones I’m most familiar with usually dress in triple layers, and tote around arctic tents and sleeping bags. Still …
Some of those ancient treasures in my freezer, probably shouldn’t be eaten.
I’ll probably go with “small sugar Pumpkin,” from Nichols Garden Nursery. Lew
Yo, Chris – Ooops! Forgot to mention this. We’ve talked before about converting office space to residential.
http://www.cnn.com/2024/01/13/business/can-we-turn-empty-office-building-into-housing/index.html
To quote a well known Australian sage, maybe we can “science the shit out of this.” 🙂 Or, to quote someone else, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” George Herbert, 17th century. Lew
Yikes! I didn’t even realize we had anything like this, in the county. It’s practically underneath Jane’s place, The Funny Farm.
news.yahoo.com/massive-gas-outage-threatens-millions-010755183.html
It’s also close to H’s vet. Lew
Hi Pam,
The flowers on those trees are beautiful aren’t they. I haven’t noticed the bees on the flowers, but will keep an eye out on their activities in the tree now. Always good to have more diverse flowers for the bees.
Yeah, that was my guess too about the species being the Longleaf pine variety, and they were reported to have historically grown widely in your part of the country.
Thank you Pam, and I shall pass on your kind thoughts to the hapless canine. I think she kicked the hive, literally. They swarmed her and it was brutal. She’s doing better today. Oh no, do you get stinging / biting ants in your part of the world as well? Far out! It can happen so quickly and I wear leather riggers gloves when working outside – but they can still sting through those. I’ve been stung on my ankle in the last week, and almost a week later the ankle is still a bit itchy. I reckon Ruby scored multiple bites and stings (they have both kinds!)
Oh Pam! Flat land. Hmm. I dream of flat land, so can well understand your sons ambitions in that direction. Glad to hear that he’s doing well with the nursery. Heading south is not a bad idea either, although it will get hotter doing so. The economics of land prices makes no sense to me, although I’ve noticed that as interest rates climb, rural property sales have reverted back to the long term norm, which is about a year for them on the market to sell. And there seems to be a bit for sale at the moment. I suspect that the people who bought such places are getting older, and want to move back into town. I ain’t no townie! 🙂
Cheers
Chris
Hi Claire,
10’C and raining sounds an awful lot like a warmer winters day here. 🙂 Except then your weather turned cold, like really cold. Brr! Good to read that the power stayed on for you both. Hot and cold extremes challenge the electricity system, but wind like what you describe, breaks the connections. Are your power suppliers diligent at the task of removing vegetation away from near to the electricity cables?
Far out! 0’F is cold, but a wind chill forecast of -25’F is the whole next level of wrongness, sorry to say. Such cold extremes are outside of my lived experience, although at 5,000m ASL in Nepal, it was hard not to notice that the clothes froze solid overnight. Everyone commenting seems so casual about such cold weather, but I dunno. It all seems rather extreme to me, and honestly there would be a lot of sooking from this corner of the room if that occurred here! 🙂
Snow would blanket the plants, yeah. Do you reckon all of your trees will survive the Arctic blast?
Stay warm. Seems like everything is happening Wednesday. More heavy rain is forecast for us that day… What’s going on?
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Far out! The problem with infrastructure, like that gas storage plant, is that it has to be maintained, and even worse, improved, especially if demand rises. I noticed the article mentioned the cold snap in Texas a while ago. Talk about brutal consequences. I’ve seen the electricity grid fail for five continuous days in this area. You may note that I have other arrangements in place, and take all the processes around firewood very seriously. It’s hard for me to say how other folks see these sorts of issues. Hope the gas and electricity at your place has held up during the Arctic outbreak?
We have discussed this matter before about converting office space to residential, and it was done here in the latter part of the 1990’s I’m guessing for the same reasons, lack of tenants in office towers during a recession. From what I can recall, the most successful conversions were generally the older buildings. It interested me greatly that for some reason, fresh air and natural light in those office buildings was deemed inappropriate for businesses and workers, and yet a desirable trait in residential dwellings. Hmm.
It’ll happen regardless. All depends on what people want out of a living space. Maybe if it is cheap enough, they won’t care about the lack of openable windows? A mate who hails from South Africa tells me stories about office buildings there that have been sort of taken over and used as dwellings regardless of code issues.
🙂 It’s a good saying!
Oh man, I feel for you, and hope you are feeling better today? You’re probably on the mend due to the chicken soup combined with heavy dose of garlic + keeping active by walking H. Good to read you made it up and down the stairs again and are back to eating. Hmm. There’s an old saying about when you’re sick that: “If you don’t eat, you don’t poop. And if you don’t poop, you might die.” Keep your fluids up too. 🙂
The snake in a fridge is almost film worthy don’t you reckon? Not quite as dramatic as snakes on a plane, but it’s a bit more upfront and personal. Yeah, the news can be pretty whacky down here at times. Who knew that European royalty had been seeking talent down under? A wise decision if I may say so. It’s all that sunlight and fresh air you know. Incidentally, those two ingredients were some of the health responses to the 1919 Spanish Flu, which apparently originated in your country.
I agree, it is wise to provide a path, but folks have to as you say, take charge of their recovery. And you’ll get no argument from me there, programs should be results based, so yeah ‘whatever works’ should be on the table as an option.
The mysterious disappearing, then reappearing beach caught my attention as well, but I missed the haunted house. Have to rectify this matter… …. Ah, what an odd history. And strangely enough, I was reading about that history recently along with the hand back to Australia of the islands. When I hear people decrying the word ‘sovereignty’ I think of that island and its history and how that all played out. It is a truth universally acknowledged that it takes a lot of cheap labour to pay for a mansion. Speaking of which…
That’s my impression of the dog as well. Maybe in time, she’ll get with the program, but right now, she’s rather ill. But just like you, she is clearly on the mend today.
I noticed the stone work in shots of the episode, but had wondered whether it was the basement of the old pile? Probably not. Yeah, winters can be pretty cold and snowy in that part of the country. Most of the continent is reasonably flat, or maybe undulating would be a better word? Dunno. But that larger mountain range, of which this mountain range is also part of, is tall enough to produce some interesting weather all year around. The highest bits are three times above sea level as where I am.
Far out dude, that’s cold. No other way to put it. It’s funny you’re getting the cold Arctic winds, but no snow. I guess they had a pretty dry summer up where the winds originated from. Stay warm!
When I first read your word ‘deicer’, my brain failed to comprehend what you’d typed. It looked to me like the word ‘dicer’ as in gaming. What is this thing? And then with a sense of horror, the sheer scale of the application left me with an attack of the vapours. Ever wonder why cars down here don’t rust as fast? Not to mention every other thing the deicer encounters. Wise not to let H lick it off her feet.
Oh yeah, it’s not good for those folks. I recall in Nepal at serious elevation we slept in clothes and in doubled sleeping bags (i.e. one bag in another bag) in a sturdy tent. I was a bit naive about what sort of temperatures we’d encounter walking around up there, but did OK. The days were sort of warm, and all that walking kept you warm. Who knew you could walk uphill continuously for six hours, then do the same all over again the next day? A novel experience for me living on this relatively flat-ish continent.
Should the ancient freezer treasures be offered up for research purposes? 🙂
That looks like a good choice for an area with short growing seasons. I’ll chuck on a photo of the pumpkin patch for tomorrow.
Better get writing, and glad that you are feeling better.
Cheers
Chris
Chris:
I ain’t no townie either!
Pam
Yo, Chris – So far, our electricity and gas have held up. I think the only thing we use gas for, in the building, is hot water.
I think old industrial buildings and schools make better possibilities for conversion to residential. Back in the 1960s, there were whole books on converting industrial lofts to residential. Sometimes, a bit of outlaw residential. I think the older buildings weren’t so skimpy when it came to infrastructure. I’m mainly thinking of plumbing.
It was mostly good sized cities, that had a good stock of empty industrial buildings. And they were sometimes, beautiful. Lots of brick and cast iron. Huge windows. If you look close, you can see them in a lot in movies. They continued to be upgraded, and now can be quit lush. And, expensive.
Well, yeah, it’s work you know. Shouldn’t be too comfortable or have too much fun. 🙂
I’ve read a bit about the squatters, in high rise buildings, in South Africa. They’ve created a whole society. Some sections managed better, than others.
Well, again, no snow. What I call “too cold to snow,” and Prof. Mass calls no humidity. My nose was not running when I woke up, this morning. No wonder. Even my eyeballs were dry. No worries. After taking H for her walk and having a couple of mugs of water, the drip is back. But, in general, the symptoms seem to be easing.
It got down to 16F, last night. Todays high is forecast for 30F. Tomorrow, it’s going to just edge over freezing. I’ll give the truck a try, then. I wonder if the poor old thing will start?
Yup. All those healthy Australian fresh air and sunshine girls. 🙂 Transplanted English roses. Probably not a bad idea to get a little fresh blood into those royal houses.
I’m glad Ruby is feeling better. Might make a good children’s book. “The Misadventures of Ruby: A Cautionary Tale.” 🙂
When I stopped by the variety store, last week, I noticed they had bags of deicer on pallets. Our garbage was not picked up, on Friday. Either the truck couldn’t negotiate the slope of the street, or they couldn’t get the dumpster up the slopped ramp to the truck. Either way, we’re back to “Please hold your garbage.” Not a problem, for me. I produce little and keep it cleaned out.
I’ll be looking forward to a picture of your “pumpkin” patch. 🙂 .
I’m reading Prof. Mary Beard’s new book, “Emperor of Rome.” It looks at the first couple of hundred years, of empire. But it’s not chronological. She looks at the office, from different aspects. Some of the chapters are: “Who’s Next? The Art of Succession”, “Power Dining,” “What’s in a palace?”, “Palace People: The Emperor in his Court,” “Time Off,” “Emperors Abroad.” She’s such an entertaining writer. Slightly irreverent. She’s pretty clear on what we know, what we don’t know, and what’s pure speculation. She’s also concerned with the “little” people, who kept the whole show running.
I feel well enough, I think tonight’s going to be a popcorn night. I have a new movie on tap, “Black Demon.” Appears to be a rip-off of “Meg.” Well, that didn’t take long. Even if it’s a real groaner, it ought to have some entertainment value. Lew