A hot Australian summer’s day. We’d knocked off work early. Lunch was calling. Sandra and I jumped into the dirt mouse Suzuki Swift for the short drive to grab a gourmet pie. With the destination being further inland, the heat just feels hotter there. Nabbed a table for two in the shade. Went inside and ordered pies.
Hi. Have you got a chicken and also a lamb pie? Cool. Yeah, those are to have here. I’ll grab a sauce for each too. Thanks!
And so it went. A chicken, leek and bacon pie for me, whilst Sandra had the lamb and rosemary. The pies are served on disposable plates made from I’m guessing some sort of paper pulp. We take our own knives and forks. A person does what they can.
Lesser pies can be consumed using two hands. Unmentionable pies require just one hand. However, there is a certain tried and true method to eating a worthy pie. A fork is used to perforate holes around the circumference of the pastry lid. A deft hand combined with a bit of force, can lever the lid up at right angles to the pie. At this most decisive of points, you have to act quickly. Smoosh down hard on the lid so as to mix it into the essential guts of the pie. Bam! Then strike again! It takes practice and skill not to spill the pie contents over the edge of the pastry sides. Mix the lid into the contents. Add tomato sauce. And you’re onto a winner.
Given the heat, it was nice to have a table under the wide veranda. There’s a lovely grassy area with tables as well, but they were out in the sun. Too hot for us mountain folk. The veranda is separated from the car park by timber railing. Large planter boxes in the car park keep the vehicles even further at bay. It’s a country business, on a country highway, so usually vehicles in the car park move with country sensibility.
The pies were excellent. It’s a sad moment to reach, when you’re nearing the end of a worthy pie. But at that exact moment! What the heck is that? A huge shiny silver vehicle front with a Chevy bowtie was attempting to squoosh into a normal sized car park, which incidentally was closest to Sandra.
I don’t think the planter box and timber railing is going to protect me from that!
If I say run, run! I retorted.
Jokes aside, we kept on eating. The shiny big grill was only slowly inching forward and miraculously stopped just before hitting the planter box and/or running over Sandra. How’d they even see the planter box? Hmm. So many questions were raised. Like, do they even sell those things down here?
Turns out they do. A quick glance at the interweb for prices, suggests you could get four Suzuki Dirt Rat Jimny’s, or five Suzuki Dirt mouse Swift’s, for just one of those behemoths. From my perspective: expensive at best. I was left scratching my head and asking the hard question: What kind of story do you have to tell yourself to buy something so large? Beats me.
I learned about Peak Oil whilst writing for the hippy press in about 2004. Then read widely on the subject. Nothing I’ve seen or heard since then has convinced me that the theory is false. The sight of the big vehicle made me glad I wasn’t paying their fuel bills. We try to do things here as cheaply as possible, but also with a reasonable level of quality. That requires a fair bit of hard work and juggling, which doesn’t involve anything huge.
Spending less on stuff and things, is always an option. And burdening yourself with huge costs, probably detracts from the overall enjoyment.
In a rare moment of relaxation, we took two days off work this week. The other day we visited a nearby cidery and enjoyed a pint and feed.
They’ve got an extensive (and very neat!) orchard off to the side of the buildings. It’s a lovely place to spend an hour, and like us, it’s both casual and good.
We’ve been putting some thoughts towards further reducing our expenditures lately. One of the ideas we’ve implemented already, is reducing the quantity of store bought soil mineral additives which are added into the coffee ground mix.
A café in Melbourne has supplied me with all of their coffee grounds and bean roasting husks for well over a decade. That’s a lot of coffee grounds. The grounds are a bit acidic though, so for many years I’ve been adding Calcium Carbonate and Blood and Bone meal to the mixture. The fruit trees love the stuff, but it’s an expensive combination. We’ve now decided to reduce the quantity of additives, and substitute in wood ash. We’ve got heaps of wood ash. And whilst it’s not as good a mixture for the fruit trees, it will be good enough.
The surrounding tall trees drop branches all of the time. It’s unwise to leave them where they fall due to the fire risk, so we’re constantly collecting them and dumping them on the corten steel brazier. When enough material is collected and the conditions are just right, we burn it all off. And the wood ash gets fed to the fruit trees. Why not use what you’ve got?
We recently used a whole bunch of leftover materials to construct a fence for a citrus and vegetable enclosure. The fruit trees in there had the grass cleared away from the trunks, and were fed a shovel each of the coffee ground mixture. Citrus trees in particular are heavy feeders. And feed is expensive.
Rocks are a precious resource here. Any rock which can be moved is fair game! The usage for rocks varies with the size and weight of the things. Smaller and unusually shaped rocks get chucked into the steel rock gabion cages we make. A big rock scrounge took place this week, and another cage was filled. It is now ready to be sewn up (a job for another day).
Mid sized rocks are surprisingly rare. They’re used in rock walls for the garden beds. A garden bed rock wall below the driveway was completed this week. Over the following year, the garden bed will be planted out more thickly.
The largest rocks get used where we want to create flat land. They’re large and heavy enough to retain soil. And when you’re on the side of a hill, flat land is a precious commodity. Recently that work has meant the low gradient path project. And this week we began a new section of the path. This section leads towards and then beyond the (formerly) rat infested shed. The shed used to be the original chicken hen house, until we abandoned it and the rats took over. Dame Plum and I sorted out the rats, we’re now sorting out the path – and eventually the shed will be fixed too.
This is what it looked like prior to work commencing:
The new path is much wider, and the rocks lining it are biggerer.
We always try stuff here, and by doing so, we discover what works, and what doesn’t. Planting strawberries in among the ten grape vines seemed like a good idea at the time. But for two years now, the strawberries have provided no berries. The soil is probably a bit too well fed for those berry plants, and so now all they want to do is produce strawberry runners. On the other hand, the grape vines are growing really well in the soil mix, whilst many of them are beginning to produce clusters of yummy looking grapes. Bye bye strawberries. Take that! They got mulched up, then fed them to the grape vines.
Despite the mostly cool and wet summer, some plants are producing very well, like the zucchini’s and small orange pumpkins. Both of which will keep well until early spring. The pumpkins are feral – there are just so many!
At this time of year we can eat a lot of food from the garden. And here is an example of some of the items we harvested and consumed from a few days ago:
For the technically inclined, the above photo includes: Globe Artichokes; Pink lady slipper Radish; Baby Zucchini; Alpine Strawberries; Eggs; Asparagus; Lazy Housewife Beans; Imperial Mandarins; and an unknown variety of heritage Cucumber.
We’re still enjoying the Babaco papaya which grows in the greenhouse, although we’re rapidly eating all of them! Pears are still on the trees, as are citrus, kiwi fruit and of course the late season Persimmon.
A very hardy crop are the Chilean Guavas. They’re both tasty and prolific, whilst also producing a really good hedge. You don’t see them for sale commercially because they take a lot of labour to pick.
Onto the flowers:
The temperature outside now at about 8am is 21’C (70’F). So far for last year there has been 196.0mm (7.7 inches) which is up from last weeks total of 193.0mm (7.6 inches)
Hi Inge,
That extent of fantasy is well outside of my experience, and I really don’t know what to make of it all. Although, I have met many folks over the years with a loose grasp upon the truth. Admittedly, the truth is a subjective perspective given we can only know what we know, and the world is a very big and complicated place. I assume that you are cogitating upon the new knowledge and insights? Have you gained any recent insights in this matter? It’s an interesting subject, and I share your opinion. Life is interesting enough that a back story need not be concocted. Of course, it is worth noting that a few people may have a reasonable rationale behind doing such a thing.
As an interesting side story, one of the reasons behind commencing the blog almost ten years ago was that in my limited interweb exposure, in comments I used to mention doing this and doing that. After a while it sort of began sounding at best like bragging, and at worst like lying. An easily sorted out situation! Show the photos and tell the story. In the very early days a random commenter suggested that I photo-shopped the images each week (i.e. with the implication they were made up), but no, this is just my life.
Like you mentioned, life itself is very interesting. And I see stories in only the most minor of matters – like the dude driving the really huge vehicle. Those stories commence my brain cogitating upon the why of it all. Probably like your experience (maybe?), but I was one of those annoying children who didn’t know when to stop asking the hard question: But why? 🙂
Spring is just around the corner for you! And nice to hear that the sun has returned.
It was quite warm here today, as is usual for this time of year. Tomorrow will be warmer again at a forecast 99’F, followed by a late afternoon thunderstorm. I quite enjoy a good storm.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Chris;
pie- Pie has become a bit of an anachronism here, unfortunately. Yes, some old style diners will have pie, but often cranked out of massive machinery in some central processing plant, with crust that confirms the lack of concern for the palatability of the end product. Rare are the ones that make them on site, with their hands.
And as for dinner pies, or savory, or pot pies, as called here, even more rare. We do pot pies sometimes at home- an excellent way to use older chickens and all the roots from our garden. ( and sometimes lard from neighbors).
audacity- Obama’s “Audacity of Hope” book, which won prizes and made him rich, has not aged well in my opinion. Sure, I like the sentiment, and hope can get one though tough times, but to my mind, there comes a time to say, nope, time to cut our losses and change plans and expectations. Too much hope is like the gambling addict, who no longer can assess the odds, and keeps placing the bets when what is at risk goes beyond any rational calculus.
And so it is with huge. Audacity to keep assuming that our lifestyle , fun as it is, can keep going on forever, with no repercussions.
( and from the dictionary- “bold or insolent heedlessness of restraints…………”) Kind of says it all.
All the crazy warm weather this winter ( warmest on record for here, we had our first EVER February tornado) has all the local maple tappers confused. The trees are confused also. My trees started up, then just stopped. Hopefully, the next week’s more typical temps will start them back up.
I only do a few, just for us and for fun, but some folks annual income is on the line.
Water cistern is my big project for this year.
Hello Chris,
Monstrous is for monsters. Human scale is more like my scale as well.
I had a disappointing conversation with a friend in the automotive industry the other day. I shared my disappointment that the almost-swedish car brand Volo (Vehicles only live once?) are getting biggerer and biggerer with each release. My first job out of Uni was working on their first SUV release, which was 50% heavier than any of their previous offerings. Their latest release in 2023 was another 50% weight on top of that.
My friend, who used to work in the crash-safety department said that it is all about momentum, i.e. weight x velocity.
An arms race.
The heaviest car wins, when it comes down to a knife fight, and nobody should be seen dead in a Wowlo.
Tragic and anti-social.
I prefer the velomobile-kind of vehicle, but they are matchwood in a collision with anything heavier than a wheelbarrow.
Your fruit trees look lush.
Did you notice the empty hill behind the cidery? I think some trees on the hill would improve hydrology and local climate…
Peace,
Göran
Chris,
I’m torn. It’s the pies you and Sandra had. Lamb and rosemary pie is always a good choice. Chicken and leeks and bacon pie sounds fabulous also. Leeks are awesome. And everything is better with bacon. But rosemary and lamb! Consider yourselves spoiled.
And thanks for the lesson on how to properly consume a properly made pie. Sometimes eating is an art form!
You asked about rabbits…Yes, there are some wild rabbits in the region. I’ve seen a few. Only a few – they’re skittish and smart about remaining hidden.
Oh, and veggie patch plans. Probably grow potatoes, zucchini and perhaps some acorn squash in the garden. The containers will have carrots and various greens. At least that’s the preliminary plan.
11 sessions for dog training sounds ideal to me, especially outdoors. A good portion of the training should be socializing with strange dogs, being a dog with strange dogs and other humans, as well as learning obedience. Heck, I needed time in university to allow things to sift through the brain and make sense. 11 weeks should give dogs time to do that.
We had some sun the other day. A few hours of it. But we’re back to grey. Lots of rain Sunday and Monday. And snow and ice pellets, but it was too warm for the frozen stuff to stick. Tuesday should start with the dread freezing fog before giving way to sun in the afternoon. In other words, the weather has improved from horrid to “Blech it’s February!” Yes, that is an advanced scientific term. 😉
Sandra is fortunate that the big vehicle was in Australia and not Spokane. Why? Well, about once a month a car drives into a store, sometimes through the glass doors, sometimes into a solid wall. And several times a month a house will, apparently, leave its foundation and leap into the road in front of an unsuspecting car, then leap back onto the foundation with the car adhered to it. Those are truly mobile homes. 😉 Methinks there are too many inattentive drivers.
When I buy large amounts of fruit for dehydrating, it is at a local orchard. Like the cidery you visited, meals are available. It makes for a nice outing.
I hope the wood ash does what you need it to do. Replacing the calcium carbonate, bone, meal mixture has to help with costs. Hope the nutrient balance works out. I add as much wood ash as I can to the compost. The bigger the variety of ingredients, the better.
Thanks. The before and after pictures of the pathway was a good touch. I remember some automobile commercials from a several years back: “wider is better” was the slogan. Whilst those cars never really caught on, your wider paths look much more useful.
Nice photo of the flowering eucalyptus. Looking down the mountain at the tops of the trees with the lowlands in the background made it an eloquent photo.
DJSpo
Hi Steve,
I see a business opportunity! 🙂 Generally the pies are baked in-house, so they can vary a lot from place to place. I generally look for quality and consistency. As a side story, it’s a bit of a standard thing that bakeries (in this case it is a pie shop attached to a country pub in a very small town) always display their awards for ‘best pie (insert year)’ for this and that category. It’s a thing, but I don’t believe the hype and instead use my own senses to determine quality. After all, what gets sent in for the awards may not be what you find for sale in the pie warmer.
Ah yes, mass produced. One must be certain of the offal content. This was something of an issue down this way many years ago.
Pot pies have rather a lot of variability to them, and from my perspective the photos from your part of the world looked good and tasty. Why waste the old chickens? And, I’m old enough to recall the days when drippings were collected and added to a mug which was kept in the refrigerator. Food fried in drippings (lard) was very tasty indeed. 🙂
It is rather an audacious claim is not – and you know, I get the impression that the bloke ain’t broke and wondering if a broken refrigerator will push his family into financial crisis. 😉 It takes the hard sweat of a lot of other writers to pay for such book advances, just sayin.
And exactly, acceptance of limits taught me that sometimes events reach their pinnacle, then decline. It’s freeing to accept limits, and that is a fine joke which many people don’t want to hear.
In um, complicated news from down here, one of the largest coal fired generators apparently went into shut down today. 2.2GW was suddenly taken off line. It’s mayhem down here. And of course, today was a hot day, the third such in a row. A strong thunderstorm dropped a third of an inch of rain late this afternoon, but it is still warm even now. I can’t but help think that today was a good dry run as to what the future will look like. Other than us, nobody up this way has power.
Audacious is a fun word, and yes I appreciate the definition. It’s a bit Bill and Ted really. Despite the stoner antics of those two fictional characters, they had a decent grasp upon the language.
Far out! A February tornado is a surprise which you never really want to see. In other such news, there was an article a few days ago which suggested that the Tasman Sea is now warm enough to produce tropical cyclones, although the other factors contributing to the formation of such weather monsters are not yet in place. But the warmth is. Hmm. Wind is changing.
Well, as to annual income changing, the loss of power across the state is directly impacting upon many a persons income – today. The economic arrangements we enjoy also rely upon a stable electricity grid. Take away one, and the other becomes difficult to maintain.
Good stuff. You won’t regret the work. My thinking is that it would be better to have such water infrastructure and not need it, than to need it, and not have it. That’s how resilience works. 😉
Cheers
Chris
Hi Göran,
Hope you are thawing out. The photos in your blog of deep snow looked kind of cold to me. 🙂 Although this evening I’m sitting under a circulating ceiling fan with the doors and windows open to the cooler evening air. Today was hot after the third such day in a row (hardly record breaking though), but it’s been such a cool and wet summer that the conditions were quite confronting.
A late monsoonal thunderstorm dumped 8mm of rain here this afternoon, and at times it was torrential. But earlier in the day, the combination of heat and strong winds somehow took out one of the largest coal fired generators in the state. There are an inordinate number of people across the state without power now, and I’ll be curious to see how quickly the generator gets started up again. The giant machine is slated to be shut down in maybe 9 years, and people are cheering this on. Maybe after today’s experience they will sing a different tune? Dunno.
But yeah, on an electricity front, we’re like the old fable of the tortoise and the hare. We’re the tortoise and are simply chugging along accepting hard limits on what we can do in this household with electricity. But right now, in this area, it’s just us with the lights on. It’s all a bit 28 days later really! Ook!
Man, so much effort goes into producing a vehicle that you would think that our civilisation wouldn’t treat them like a disposable commodity, or a fashion statement. Vehicles used to be smaller, yes that is also my impression. I remember when the original Mad Max vehicles were made and sold. You’d see the coupes on the road and they had some sheer bravura! However, line them up next to a small car nowadays, and the supercharged V8 beasts look small (they were never sold with a supercharger, and in fact I never quite comprehended how such an engine addition could be switched off like they did in the film). Anyway, what does that say?
Many long years ago I knew an automotive engineer who worked for a local vehicle manufacturer (in the days before we abandoned such work) who was allegedly told and the demand came down from higher above: Remove 1kg of weight from the brake caliper design. The inference was that the weight saving in the brakes would be used up in other aspects of the vehicle. Hmm. It looks to me as if we’ve somehow given away so many gains in engine and materials technology for the purposes of adding bling and chunk.
It’s true, and the vehicle I mentioned would destroy either vehicle of ours if encountered under difficult circumstances.
The underlying story really is, if you’re relying upon imported finite energy to fuel such beasts, then it can only ever but be a moment in time. As a civilisation, we could have stretched out the energy resources for a very long time, but happy dreams just sell better.
Yes, exactly, the longest term proposition is the same one which uses the least amount of materials and energy. 😉 What you suggest is not a combination of circumstances, I’d want to experience but the future is always uncertain. Ouch!
Thanks. For the past several years we’ve been modifying the soil feed for all of the fruit trees, and the results are in. They enjoy a decent soil feed of varying minerals. One of my pleasures at this warmer time of year is to spend time slowly walking around the orchards and just observing the fruit trees, and all of the farm really. I’m sure you know the feeling?
From what I’ve observed of the hill behind the cidery, the landowner may run sheep. It’s interesting because the sheep have created little tiny terraces presumably over many years. I agree, the most resilient farms, and indeed the best environments, have a diverse mixture of different plant and animal (and other critter) communities. The challenges you face on that front at your place, may also be a sign that your patch of land is quite healthy relative to the general area. Just a different way of looking at problems.
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
I’d also like to think that we were spoiled, but in this instance in a good way – if this is even possible! 🙂 Not sure about your area, but leeks grow here far more easily than the more usually expected bulb onions which so far have alluded my best gardening efforts. Oh well. Anywhoo, the pies are so tasty, and consistently good too. They do a good trade for a pub in a very small country town. I like the place, and they also have their own brewery out the back.
Hehe! You know it’s a gourmet pie when the bakery treat is served on a plate with cutlery. They usually provide timber disposable cutlery, but we take our own. Takes the experience to 11, which is as you’d know, better than 10. 🙂
Interesting about the rabbits in your area. I guess you have a lot of predators happy to consume such tasty morsels? Which is perhaps why they are skittish and clever about remaining hidden. Dunno. Like you were torn about the pies, I’m uncertain as to what to do about the rabbits here. Sure I could head outside at night and simply bop them. However, they’re only a minor nuisance and me doing that would deprive the predators of their feed. Then I’d be unfortunately left with the job of bopping the rabbits all the time because the predators would depart to less hungry lands. I really don’t know what to do other than allow for some sort of balance to develop, and act only if the system gets too far out of balance. Hey, they sell a rabbit pie too. It’s good.
Sounds like a good plan, and it’s hard to go wrong with potatoes and zucchini. Oooo! Thanks for mentioning the acorn squash because I’d not come across the variety before. They look good, and I bet they’d keep well too? The perfect size for chucking into a roast veg mix – or at least that is what we use the similar sized squashes for. I call them pumpkins because that is what they’re called down here. Our soils probably aren’t good enough to grow the pumpkin monsters which must be display only models. Maybe… Surely they are?
Sandra tells me that the local Club is quite well organised and last weekend there were at least 60 dogs in different grades. Ruby will most certainly get the attendance award which means 4 beginner lessons progresses the dog to grade 1. Further gradings are anyone’s guess at this stage for the dog. Not quite like learning a kata, but sort of the same.
Hehe! Ah, it is well known due to the intrigues and wendings of thermal inertia that both the months of August and February produce the more horrid of experiences, just because. 🙂 Today down here was the other end of that continuum and whilst it wasn’t record breaking heat, no, far from it, it felt horrid hot. 34’C is not hot, but then the day began warm, humid and windy. A late afternoon monsoonal thunderstorm dumped 8mm which bizarrely only took the edge off the heat and increased the humidity. It’s cooler outside now, but the house has retained the heat at 23’C inside and falling, and yeah it’s that thermal inertia pest again.
There’s a lot of people without power tonight across the state, and I must add it’s never polite or nice to note that a ritzy area in the big smoke is now without power – but they are. The largest coal fired power station in the state appears to have gone into shut down today. I wonder if the nice people in the ritzy area with their funny beliefs will gain a new appreciation for the stabilising benefits of base load power generation? That’s called perspective.
Thought Dame Avalanche would enjoy this article (note huskies are involved): Australian expeditioners celebrate Mawson Antarctic research station’s 70th anniversary
Sadly such moments occur down here as well. It is difficult for me to comprehend how a person could confuse the stop button with the go button, but unfortunately it is a thing. It’s an impressive achievement, and truly, as you suggest it redefines everything a mobile home should be. 😉 And seriously, if the behemoth was moving fast, we’d have been the heck out of there.
Cool! How good are such places? And the meals help subsidise the orchard produce and bring the people in.
I can smell (and taste) bushfire smoke from a large fire burning up in the west of the state. What a day: Victorian bushfires threaten Grampians communities as storms lash Melbourne To put it into context, half a million people is about 10% of the states population.
Ah, sadly the wood ash won’t do what we really need it to do, but we also have to be economically realistic, and it is not as if we haven’t applied a lot over the past ten years. In some ways the soil is like a battery, and we’ll continue to apply diverse minerals, but there are economic limits. And I agree, the more diversity with minerals, the merrier.
I don’t often provide before and after photos purely on the basis that all of the images on the interweb take up space, and yeah those pesky limits again. In fact, the resolution of the images is much reduced from what they could be, for much the same reasons. I was warned early on by some person who shall remain unnamed (we all know) that the extensive number of images over time may eventually take over the web itself! Like a zombie invasion of photos perhaps? With the power off around here these parts this afternoon and tonight, it is a bit 28 days later…
And good pick up! I struggled with the sheer weirdness of writing about wide vehicles as a bad thing, and yet wide paths was a good thing. 🙂 I’d hoped nobody noticed, but oh well, the cats out of the bag now! Respect for sheer alertness.
Thanks. It’ll be interesting to see what the torrential rain today did to the eucalyptus flowers.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Chris,
I bring my own to-go container when we go out to eat. I’ve gotten many positive comments on the practice. When I worked at the recycling drives I specialized in styrofoam. There was so much! Most take out containers are made of that material. Fortunately there is a place that I know for a fact recycles it and there’s several collection sites around the county as well as the recycling drives.
We’re all getting used to the absence of Leo. Salve was quite subdued for a time but seems to have returned to herself now. I told her she gets double the attention.
Like Steve we’ve had above average temperatures as well. The tornadoes he mentioned weren’t terribly far from us though we’ve experienced a couple in January on the road of our old house.
As per usual family issues keep popping up. Cecily has now begun divorce proceedings so needs a lot of support. My aunt I’m happy to report has finally accepted her limitations and is permanently in California with her daughter. She is getting stronger and hopes to eventually have an apartment at an assisted living facility. The nightmare of our health care system has reared it’s head for Marty. His Medicare Advantage Plan (aka Medicare Disadvantage plan) is no longer covering some of his doctors. My sister and I are going to try to get him switched to a traditional Medicare plan but have heard that isn’t so easy. We have no idea how he ended up on this plan in the first place.
Just sent in my seed order which wasn’t too large. I have many already and the garden will be fairly modest anyway.
Watch out for those big vehicles!
Margaret
Hello Chris
There is a lot of anger here against large cars. Mainly I think because parking spaces are too small for them.
Poured with rain again today and I am yet again surrounded by swamp. Went shopping and had to change all my clothes when I got home. Bought the Rovelli book and have read the first chapter. Managed to understand a bit of it and slightly increased my knowledge. Shall have to persevere. It did make me have questions.
My weird sister has also left me with questions about our past and the things that she told me also.
Inge
Chris,
I know chives grow here. I might try leeks. Onions? Never had any luck.
Hmmm. You said the pies rate a 10. But bringing your own utensils turns the dial to 11? Dude! Take your own utensils so it goes to 11. Very important.
When I was spending most of my spare time in the forests, I got to see several predators and tracks from others. Coyotes, foxes, weasels, bobcats are abundant. Saw an occasional lynx, but fortunately never met up with a cougar, although they are plentiful. Wolves have moved into the area and grizzly bears are spreading. They’re rather mean. Oh, and various owls, hawks, eagles too. The rabbits have a lot of enemies who just want to eat them. One day I was hunting, and a rabbit ran past me. Right behind it was a bobcat. It was pretty cool.
Yup, the acorn squash keeps very well. As you surmised, they’re very good roasted.
Nice analogy at doggy school. It does sound similar to learning kata. Although I’m not certain that we need dogs who also do karate. Ninja kelpies and samurai huskies?
I remember one day in late July many many years ago. It was hotter than hot. And hotter still. We were likely headed for 45C which was unheard of at the time. Along came a thunderstorm. Rained hard for 45 minutes. Temperature dropped to 32C from 40C. That’s all. Then the sun reappeared and it was back to 40C, at which point it topped out. Relief for a few minutes, but the humidity went to rather uncomfortable levels.
That power outage sounds nasty. However, I’m very skeptical that any lesson will be learned. My guess is that many of these coal-fired things and similar will get shut down. Then the something will hit the fan and there will be a revolution at the polls and the “dirty” energy will be back until it isn’t economically feasible to extract it. Might take a few decades…
I read that article on the Mawson Antarctic station and its huskies when Dame Avalanche was inside. We watched the video together. She got excited hearing the excited huskies, so I had to put her outside, put on my shoes, and take her for a walk. Good day for it. No wind, sun burned off the fog by noon, so it was very pleasant.
Those bushfires sound nasty. I had to do a double take at the name of the mountain range: Grampians. Some of my ancestors lived in the southern portion of the Grampians, Scotland version.
DJSpo
Hi Margaret,
I’d never considered taking a to-go container, but it’s a great idea, although I’m super careful never to over order food as a money saving exercise – which is not always something you have any say over, or control. Respect! They call them doggie bags down here, although lately I’m hearing the term ‘take-out-containers’ (which sounds a lot more fancy don’t you reckon?) 🙂 They phased out the use of that material in a take away food use form down here about maybe two years ago now. It’s not seen now. A lot more cardboard gets used nowadays, although some of it is I believe plastic lined, which as you probably already know is very difficult to recycle. Are they still doing the recycling drives? And how’s the book shop going? Scored any good reads? I’m re-reading Steve Solomon’s ‘Gardening when it counts’, and am picking up all sorts of tips I’d missed.
It’s always hard isn’t it? Leo isn’t struggling and suffering now, although I’m sure not having his personality around leaves a hole in the household. Good to hear that Salve is recovering and enjoying double the love. A very special and happy dog.
Far out! I’d have thought that you’d be safe from tornadoes in January, or February for that matter. But sorry to say, the higher average temperatures may make them more likely. Did you see the news that a La Nina watch has been declared? That’s another wet year for us if that occurs. Not sure how that climate driver may affect where you are?
Cecily sure is going through a rough patch, and all you can do is assist with support and the kids. The kids are probably the least likely to understand the goings on, but conversely are the most accepting and adaptable. My experience suggested that it was the adults who lost themselves at such a time.
Sorry to say but the word ‘plan’ in that industry suggests to me an arrangement which represents a flow of income. Marty is a dude, and he’s also your brother so it is possible the system may have other concerns than yours, sorry to say. Hope yourself and your sister can sort out the paperwork to get Marty back on the original path? You know, follow the process and see where it leads, and don’t be put off by administrative difficulties (which I know you’re up for). From some respects, the difficulties is the entire point of the hurdles. Good luck!
Hope your seeds sprout truly and with veracity! 🙂
Well, that’s the plan with those vehicular behemoths. I used to ride a motorbike for a decade, and know when the odds are stacked against me. Makes for a somewhat nervous disposition.
Margaret, a few hours ago Sandra and I spoke of an old school friend of mine. He was a lovely bloke and in some ways had a few aspects of Marty’s, but was perhaps better able to navigate his way in the world independently with the warmth of his very close knit family, until the last of the family passed on. We fell out not through any fault of his, but after another old school friend in the group stole my ID and was caught speeding by the cops and lost my drivers license. I was annoyed enough to cut ties with all of them. Anywhoo, hadn’t thought of him for a long while, and today he entered into our consciousness. Turns out his funeral was five days ago. The dead come knocking sometimes. I liked the guy, but he made his choices all those years ago, and you know I didn’t see any of the others of the group at the funeral which was recorded. All a bit eerie and am feeling a mite bit unsettled.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Inge,
Our laws and design patterns tend to follow the English rules. And very recently, the subject of those vehicular behemoths not fitting into the mandated car parking space size was raised. It was hard for me to comprehend, but there were serious calls to alter the accepted limits to accommodate the large cars. Talk about outsourcing costs for the larger than usual choices of a few, onto the rest of the society.
And at the same time, few people seem to want to notice how stockpiles of liquid energy reserves are declining to levels not seen for a very long time. I’ve long come to the conclusion that none of our leaders want to be the bad guy, and so events will take the course that they will.
Yikes! The occasional hot and dry year I’ve experienced here has produced considerable bushfire risk. But it’s also produced the most astounding harvests. Truthfully, I worry about the impact of too much rain on the plants and soil – not to mention all of the life forms residing here.
Sorry to hear that you were drenched by the rainfall today. And that the water table has risen to such an extent. The old timers used to dig deep channels so that the water could move downhill more easily during such weather, but then that approach can backfire druing dry times. Hopefully the water is staying below your many raised pots and garden beds?
Glad to read that you are persevering with the book, although in that field of knowledge I am way out of my depth. I’m currently reading Steve Solomon’s book ‘Gardening when it counts’, and I’d suggest that the author who now lives on the island state to the south of here (he formerly lived in Oregon US) would have some pointed things to say to me about the land and soil here. What can I say, the land was cheap and economics is a real factor in peoples lives – although that sounds a bit defensive, maybe? 🙂 Oh well, it’s true!
Ouch! Acceptance may well be the best path there with such revelations. That path with such a loose grasp upon the truth is not mine. However, sometimes I get eerie little insights and perhaps the point of your sisters actions can be viewed as nothing more than entertainment. I don’t profess to know, but that was what came to me at that moment, and I can’t even say where the idea came from. How do you reckon that fits your perspective?
It’s been such a weird evening. An old school friend popped into our thoughts a few hours ago, and Sandra had briefly met and known him as well through mutual friends. When I first asked Sandra on a date three decades ago, she’d thought that the request came from him. I’d dropped off roses and an invite for a date. She wasn’t there and her house mate took in the roses and card and messages got mixed. We looked him up and turns out his funeral was five days ago – which through the marvels of technology we were able to watch. Hmm. Sometimes and in some places, the world is thin.
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
Yup, leeks are easier than onions – well, that’s been my experience. They’re a bit weedy really, and will happily self seed / volunteer, which makes us gardeners look good.
It’s considered pretty quirky to take your own utensils you know?But I dunno, I just don’t want to waste the disposable timber ones they provide. You have to be a bit super sneaky with the cutlery lest people get freaked out by the thoughtful response. Most places I eat use ceramic and stainless steel cutlery anyway, but the pies are just so good that exceptions have to be made.
It’s interesting, but Margaret mentioned Styrofoam containers and it got me thinking that I hadn’t seen them for years. Turns out they were banned a couple of years ago in that use. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen plastic knives and forks for a while either. The timber ones are made from some sort of softwood which I’m guessing is Radiata Pine / Monterey Pine. A very fast growing introduced tree in this corner of the world. Do you use softwoods in your carving projects? I’m wondering if hardwoods, or semi-hardwood species would be easier, if for the reason that they’d be less likely to break.
Whoa! I’d not encountered a bobcat before (other than the mechanical variety of the same name). Yeah, that would have been something to see. They look like very large and powerful domestic cats. I’d not known that a coyote could take down a bobcat, and that coyotes are like smaller wolves. Slightly smaller wolves! Yikes! They’d give a person in the remote woods pause for thought, wouldn’t they? 🙂 For some odd reason, I’d thought that coyotes were similar to dingoes, which have a lot in common with Indonesian wild dogs. And will bite and attack if provoked. Although, they all probably fill the same ecological niche. Have you encountered a pack of coyotes when out bush? There is a dingo sanctuary not too far from here, but wild dingoes, nope.
Very good to hear. I like trialling different varieties of vegetables because the conditions are rather variable here, and that makes it safer to grow a wider variety of edible plants. And squashes like those are meal sized. 😉
Fortunately both Ollie and Dame Plum are sound asleep so they missed your cheeky suggestion about the possibility of dogs learning martial arts. That would be a bad thing. Yes. Ruby is learning to sit and then drop on command. She has the sit action locked in. The drop, well she may be deaf, or ignoring me – it’s hard to tell. Mind you, she can hear the call for dinner from a respectable distance away.
Out of curiosity, were 40’C+ days originally rare in your part of the world? We can get from between none to ten of those sorts of days every year. Having three of them in a row is a challenging experience I can tell you – like an exam for a disliked subject where you’re just hoping to work your way through and pass, but that’s the best outcome and you have no option not to face it.
Your description of the events pretty much summed up yesterday. Oh well, most of the time the weather is on the cooler side. And I agree, the humidity afterwards was a shocker.
Thought your physics brain might enjoy these pictures from yesterdays storm: Victoria’s power outage caught thousands by surprise — here’s how it happened.
That’s my view on the future events as well. The coal fired generators unfortunately take around six years to construct quickly. It’s not something you can hurry, although corners can always get cut, I guess. I reckon it has been a long while since fuel sources like coal were economical to extract. Most of the hard work is done by diesel, and if I’m not mistaken, inventories of that liquid fuel are at the lowest levels in decades.
Your weather and dog walk today sounded lovely, and glad to read that Dame Avalanche was inspired by the canines and frozen conditions at the bottom of the planet. It was a cooler day today, but I spent it indoors doing paid work.
Those Scottish Grampians look more extensive, but at similar elevations. Fun fact: There are more trees in the Aussie version 🙂 , and also the range is the most westerly locale on the continent where ferns naturally reside. They’re quite a beautiful range really, but being on the western and southern end of the Great Dividing Range which runs right up the east coast of the continent (geologically suggesting an epic squoosh of the land), the climate can be very changeable when the prevailing westerlies blow. The higher peaks in the Grampians get more rain than here, but they can have drier summers as well. But fire is a constant across this continent wherever you go.
SE would be somewhere around Edinburgh I’m guessing for your ancestors? Maybe? My grandfather’s lot, the Dewar’s came from around there.
It’s getting late, so I won’t repeat my super creepy tale which I’m unsure I could add anything too anyway. But all the same it’s been a weird evening, put it that way. Still don’t know what to make of it all.
Cheers and hope that my dreams are not intruded upon.
Chris
Hi,Hi, Chris!
I like your title.
Leeks are my new favorite vegetable. I had never tasted them until recently. I have seeds and am going to start some inside today and then try some seeds outside later. I hope that they are not too hard to grow; my onions are sometimes iffy. Any advice would be welcome, and I saw a bit that you gave to DJSpo.
I scratch my head every day, as I drive with, and park next to, those behemoths. Does the size make them feel safer? Do they need that much interior space? What about petrol use? Monthly loan payments? There are a LOT of them here.
I’m with you on the peak oil. It just makes sense. Even if the guess about timing is off, it’s inevitable.
What restful hills behind the cidery.
I am fond of using wood ash, throw some in the beds every year. Luckily, it’s a winter by-product here. How is the citrus enclosure working out? Any invaders? What a nice road to the shed. I assume that some sort of machinery can be driven on it? Speaking of roads: After four days of rain, our ungraveled gravel road is very slick. It’s not so bad on the flat, but there are a lot of hilly parts that are like an amusement park ride. And what is worse, parts of it are turning orange, a bad sign as that means that we are getting down to plain dirt somehow.
Thanks for the veg names, even “unknown variety of heritage cucumber”.
Thanks for the flowers! They are all so wonderful, but the roses give special joy.
Pam
Hello Pam!
🙂 I’d like to take credit for the witty title, but credit must go to the electronic artists: Simian Mobile Disco. Yes, you read that band name correctly. My music tastes are rather eclectic, and that song of theirs rocks the house. If you listen to the words, they’re asking the hard question: How much is enough?
Well done you with the leeks. Aren’t they good? But be advised that the taste with leeks can range from mild to a zingy bordering on garlic potency flavour. So a bit of selection with the seeds may take a while until you get the right variety for your tastes. Hey, if you get the chance, I highly recommend cooking up a traditional potato and leek soup. It’s a classic, and so yummo. The seeds are tiny aren’t they? But they grow so much easier than bulbing onions, and well, they do their own thing and will happily volunteer year after year. Not sure if the soil might need a bit of sulphur for the plants to grow with some zing, but you can get that from a bag of gypsum. Gypsum usually being quite cheap due to it being plentiful and stuff.
Leeks are super easy to grow. You wait and see! If they can grow here, you’ll smash it out of the park. And I don’t recall ever watering them.
Sad to say, but the physical mass of those large machines does in fact make them safer to drive in. Mr Dusty the utility vehicle would come off second best in an accident. The Suzuki’s would be in third place for much the same reasons, lack of mass. However, if a person looks at the really big picture, having those things on the roads makes everyone less safe. Err, imported energy is a geopolitical risk. Petrol was $2.00/Litre ($7.60/Gallon) today. Just sayin. And I agree, metal ain’t cheap, so like you say, the monthly repayments would be epic and maybe even headache inducing. But spare a thought for the wear and tear on the roads. Plus consumables would be worn out just so much quicker than lighter vehicles: tires and brakes etc… I dunno, the story makes no sense to me.
🙂 Thanks! And yes, all those long years ago when writing silly stories about water with bubbles for the hippy press, I never for one minute thought that even the monetary system would be chucked under the bus in order to pay for Peak Oil to be put off for just a little bit longer. In some ways, I’m kind of both horrified and awed all at once by the efforts. It’s complicated… The timing may have changed, but the overall arc of the story – I don’t think so.
The landowner runs sheep up on that peaceful hill, and you can see the terracing that years and years of sheep have created. Of course there weren’t any sheep there that day, perhaps proving that the grass may indeed be greener on the other side of the paddock? Who knows, I didn’t find any sheep to ask them. 🙂 The cidery is very good, and they produce many lovely flavours. My favourite has had hops added to the apple cider. It is very good. You can’t see it in the photo, but on the other side of the large tent is a food truck. A lovely place to while away a bit of a day off.
Apparently some ciders aren’t fermented, but instead are simply 96% ethanol + water + apple concentrate + maybe some sugar and other flavours. Hmm. I prefer the fermented version of cider.
Good to hear about your experience with the wood ash. And likewise here it is an all year around by-product. It would help lift the pH a tiny bit and provide a few trace elements.
So far only the wombats have worked out how to get into the citrus enclosure. Within a day, the cheeky scamps had dug a path under the fence. Pam, they’re like little armoured tanks those delightful marsupials, and very little will stop them once they become determined to go somewhere – like inside the citrus enclosure. The plants themselves aren’t at risk from the wombats – unless the marsupials decide to remove the plant, like the fern which was pulled out last night – go figure. Last week I gave each of the citrus trees a good feed of pelletised chicken manure known down here as ‘dynamic lifter’. Mistake A) was purchasing the stuff on the way to the cidery. The car stunk badly of chicken manure there and back. All very country you have to admit? Aired the car out for a bit, and now you can barely smell the manure stink, maybe… Anywhoo, the citrus plants have responded well to the feed of the strong fertiliser and are growing. I did have to water them a little bit before the hot weather last week. But other than a regular feeding, they’re doing fine.
Ah, very astute! But of course. The old paths used to be four feet wide, and that is too narrow for many of the machines to be used with any margin for error (there was none really). The paths are now all an absolute minimum of five feet wide (when the paths are restricted by plants on either side of the path), but they can be as wide as eight feet.
Oh my and yikes! Your road condition sounds pretty scary. Especially the hard compacted and now damp clay bits. I agree with you, that’s a problem. Be careful. Four wheel drive helps in those conditions, but the local authoritas maintaining the roads would be preferable don’t you reckon?
Ah, yes, the parentage of the heritage cucumber is perhaps a subject which is considered distasteful to discuss in polite company! 🙂
My pleasure, and the roses are a fave for me too. Very soon it will be winter here and I’ll be scratching around to find any flowers, whilst your gardening will be blooming!
How was the weather where you are today? How are you going? Hope the late winter sun is warming you. It is known that after winter comes spring, and it’s true. It was cool and sunny here, so we did a massive rock scrounge and then hauled them all back uphill for use on the low gradient path project. Me tired tonight, but the project is really going along in leaps and bounds. It is possible that soil will be in short supply for that project. There’s a plan though, maybe!
Cheers
Chris
Chris:
Thanks for the thought about leek varieties. We shall see. Okey dokey on the sulphur. Oh, yeah – leek and potato soup!
Of course they would chuck the monetary system under the bus to keep their petroleum-dependent empire going.
I am glad to hear that the citrus orchard is doing well, save for a fern.
So we can’t call the Suzie “Miss Stinky”, but we could call her Miss Suzie.
I am doing well, thank you for inquiring. The weather is now back to sunny and we had some wind, so the road isn’t so bad. I recently dug a small boulder out of one of the year-old beds. Now how did I miss that last year?
Pam
Chris,
Bringing your own utensils. Hmm, makes me think. Maybe I can carve some forks and some other things and take those when we dine out instead of using their plastic throwaway things. Hmmm, you’ve given me an idea. I’ll probably use bass wood, aka linden, or maybe some of my hardwoods from the yard. Carving with soft evergreens is VERY difficult as they splinter too easily. And woodburning evergreens, well, too much residual sap. Hit a sap pocket with the burning tip and it splatters all over and burns random pits into the wood.
Speaking of carving ideas, I may have figured out how to do the lemon at a knife fight thing. I don’t want to talk about it, lest it scare me away! But I might have an idea how to do it that will be different than the norm. If it starts to come together, I’ll give updates.
Actually, I’d feel safer amidst a pack of wolves than a pack of coyotes, assuming that none of either species of canids has rabies. Wolves have historically been rather trustworthy so long as they’re not provoked – exploring their dens, getting too close to their feast, etc. They’ll typically be rather furtive, might tolerate your intrusion but send scouts to observe. Coyotes? They’ll mess with you just for the sake of entertainment, act friendly then attack you on a whim. There’s a reason many Native American mythologies have Coyote as a trickster! Coyotes are much more adaptable than wolves and often live in urban environments. We’ve got a pack that roams the neighborhood every few months – stray cats and dogs beware!
However, I’ve been around lone coyotes in the wilds with no difficulties, but never encountered a pack. Once when archery hunting deer, I found a perfect hiding spot near a tree filled with ripe apples. I watched a lone coyote jump and grab apples from branches, then eat the apples. Kept me entertained for nearly an hour.
I was lucky with training Dame Avalanche. She learned “Drop it!” about the same time that she learned “Sit!” Good luck teaching that to Ruby. Avalanche *might* come when called, perhaps, but maybe not, after she thinks about it for a few seconds.
Interesting read about the power outages. 120kpm winds are nothing to be trifled with. Our record is about 112kpm and that wreaked havoc. Trees downing the local lines is also prevalent here in high winds. Not fun.
Also in the “Not Fun” category…No snow occurred overnight Wednesday night. However, it hit about 6:00 a.m. Thursday. -3C, so the snow was very wet and packed easily. All roads turned to ice very quickly. Hundreds of wrecks. Or, as several people said, “Another day of snow in Spokane. People will drive like they’ve never seen snow before. Stay home.” Interestingly, perhaps the largest cause of the accidents was at intersections: stop signs left their moorings in the concrete and started across the streets without looking. At least, that’s what owners of some of the wrecked cars claimed. I think we got 6cm of snow.
I’ve seen pictures of the Scottish Grampians. Heather here, heather there, heather everywhere, few trees. Glad the Australian Grampians have trees. Trees are fun.
Paternal grandmother’s family, Todd, were from the lowlands/highlands border a smidge southwest of Loch Lomond, so maybehaps barely in the southwest corner of the Grampians. Maternal grandfather’s family, the Johnstons, well, the DNA profile strongly suggests origins from northeast of Loch Lomond in the Perthshire Grampians. Todds intermarried with Hendersons of the Liddesdale region of the Borders/Southern Uplands after arrival in North America.
I found your comment about James Clerk Maxwell and the Dewars a few weeks back interesting. Maxwell had the “look” of that region. Funny how that was true of various parts of Scotland.
I see that Pam recently dug up a small boulder from her garden. I’m guessing that it was new there, not one that she had missed. It’s probably a refugee that migrated from Fernglade Farms that was hoping to avoid being dug up. Ha! Pam showed him! 😉
DJSpo
Hi Pam,
Yeah, leeks are a good and easy onion replacement, and potato and leek soup is pretty good stuff. Hey, the gourmet chicken pie is actually a: chicken, leek and bacon pie. So good, so tasty. As a mostly vegetarian I must say that leeks and bacon are a good combo!
Speaking of cooking, the non stick pan (you may call them skillets?) became sticky again. It’s just one of many over the years which has done this very same trick. The waste is enormous even if the metal is recycled. It got me thinking about such things, and turns out that despite Lewis telling me that he still has his grandmothers pan in constant use, the concept didn’t quite sink in. Slow learner and stuff! 🙂 What can I say other than I’ve been busy. I’m being serious here! Anyhoo, took a second look, and turns out cast iron and carbon steel pans are an heirloom thing and used in commercial kitchens, but have to be treated nicely. Easily remedied and I picked up a carbon steel pan the other day, although I now have to season the thing and then always look after it. Makes you wonder what else we’re all missing, huh? Oh well…
The debt story suggests as much. It’s been my observation that profitable long term enterprises can generally minimise their exposure to debt. And then there are alleged enterprises which get loaded with debt whilst the perps scamper off into the sunset to enjoy their misbegotten rewards. It can happen.
Did you know that wombats have a very sensitive sense of smell, maybe even better than dogs? I poured a seaweed solution over the wombat-displaced fern and am now wondering what the wombat will make of the smell. Won’t enjoy the new stink on the fern, that’s for sure, maybe.
Yes, I’m of a similar opinion and Miss Suzie is a lovely name, and not at all reminiscent of pungent chicken manure. Should this be the new name of the Suzuki Jimny? It’s a serious beast of a machine which can navigate horrendous roads I’d never dare take her on. It’s not the car, it’s me! 😉
Glad to hear, and I’m thinking kindly of you. What’s always surprised me is how quickly people forget, and usually that is only those who’ve never experienced loss. The journey takes what it takes, and don’t let anyone tell you differently. Spring is fast approaching for you as the cooler weather is approaching here. The wind does dry the roads out doesn’t it, yeah. Already, I’m considering pulling the tomato plants and hanging them upside down in the greenhouse so the fruit ripens during winter and we can get the kale crop in before the soil gets too cold. It’s a sad winter with no fresh kale – the plant doesn’t grow, but neither does it wither in the wintry conditions.
As to small boulders, I can only suggest that the Earth provides. What use can the now free boulder be put too? Dug a lot of soil on the low gradient path project today. Me more tired than yesterday.
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
The wooden utensils are actually a thing down here with take away nowadays. Life is a bit short for take away food, not to mention coffee!!!! Anywhoo, Sandra tells me the utensils may have been been cut from some variety of bamboo. Oh no, now I’m freaking out, there are utoob videos on how to carve your own set of utensils. It’s gotten a bit mission impossible don’t you reckon? DJ, your mission should you choose to accept it is….
Linden grows really well around these parts. Goran mentioned that species a few years ago and there is a very old specimen growing up in the higher reaches of the mountain range near to where I’m guessing (I’ve not been able to discover the exact location) the TB sanatorium used to be. The tree is massive. Oh yeah, I linked to a photo of the tree.
Ah, I’d not considered how the sap pockets would affect burning, but I can understand that. Might have to think about that with the future milling. Hmm. With firewood, even chunks which have been seasoned for over a year, I’ll still occasionally encounter a sap pocket and have the red viscous liquid pour out – usually all over my gloves. Sticky stuff. I believe that there were credible early accounts of the colony that the local kids used to consume the dried sap from some species like they would eat candy. Hmm, some reports suggest for the Manna gum there is a 5% to 15% sugar content which kicks sand in the face of the 2% found in Sugar Maples. It’s more viscous though so may not be as easily reduced the way Sugar Maple sap is, which is quite liquidy.
DJ, like your style with the lemon to a knife fight thing, and I will ask no questions. As a little secret, I do the same with essays. I’ve discovered if I discuss them with Sandra before writing the words, some of the mojo of creation gets lost. Hadn’t realised this was part of the carving community as well.
Far out! Rabies is the whole next level… Not something you’d want to experience. Did you know that there is apparently an Aussie variant which has I believe only ever killed three people? Once it is past the brain barrier, things don’t end well and that can take years following on from the bite.
Thanks for explaining that about the coyotes as I’d heard them labelled as the trickster. Presumably the coyotes add a much needed random element to an otherwise already challenging environment?
Hehe! What a story, and I would have appreciated the coyotes antics as well. I’ve known dogs to do the same jumping thing with apples. And windfall apples here are not safe from anything, including the dogs. They use the fallen fruit like chew toys. Last year we went to an apple cider class with a bloke who runs another cidery a bit further away than the local one. Anyway, he visited a very old cidery in the UK (Somerset, maybe from memory?) and they were using all of the windfall apples. Unheard of down here. The photos of the orchards over there looked amazing. I need to drop by and visit the other cidery sooner or later.
Go Dame Avalanche! Ruby knows the command ‘sit’ and will do so. Drop is the next level, and she resists – possibly something to do with recently being stung by the swarming bullants I reckon. Dame Avalanche clearly has important husky business that may or may not align with your command to come. Ruby will do a similar trick except she’ll come at the command, but sometimes by a circuitous route. Hmm. Sir Poopy had his tricks back in the day. He loved everything about the kitchen, so when he was told ‘out’, he’d go, then come back again after a brief interval with a look on his face which suggested: Boss, I did what you said.
Ah, dogs, lot’s of fun and challenge.
There have been many follow up articles on the transmission tower fails, and a more recent article made an interesting observation: The ones which failed were allegedly 40 years old. Now if either of us was stuck out in the weather for 40 years, we might not look as good as the crumpled towers… The article suggested that some of them were 60 years old. Metal fatigue and the steel worm are real things. It isn’t fun is it? I like how people suggest to put the cables underground without considering the completely nuts cost of doing so – plus cables in the air can be thinner because they more readily lose heat to the air around them – underground, not so much. I told you, people are energy illiterate.
Oh no! What a horror weather combination. That’s an amusing observation though which sadly sounds like the way of things. The facts suggest as much! Hope you and your lady didn’t have to venture forth in such awful weather? Won’t mention that it was sunny and 25’C here today. Quite delightful, especially as the UV is now no longer extreme, but merely Very High. Yay! Oops, I did mention it…
I agree, trees provide much more shade from the elements than say, err, heather. And if trees can’t grow in such places, it’s bound to make for unpleasant winters and a lack of timber for construction. There are some remote mountains in Tasmania where the trees are a thousand years old, yet no bigger than shrubs. Far out, it gets cold there.
Hmm, turns out that Todd is also a name for ‘Fox’, thus perhaps why Dame Avalanche is now testing your wits with her wily antics! Ah, the brave and feisty border clans, I see. We’ve spoken of them. They were also wily. I’m detecting a pattern here… 🙂
You can see patterns in looks for sure, and the physicist had the Scottish look down pat. Even the pose of the photo (or was it a portrait, I forget now) was suggestive. We give ourselves away in all manner of ways. That’s life, but the dude could have been a younger version of my granddad! He just had that look about him.
As I suggested to Pam, the earth provides. Or the dude abides. Not sure! Rocks get heaved out of the soil here, so I get that. Speaking of such things, we continued work on the low gradient path. It’s looking good, but it is a biggerer project than either of us ever imagined, and of course we now need more large rocks and soil. We’ve run out of both of them. Oh well, can be remedied. What did they say about Rome not being built in a day, although the Roman legions would have known all about rock work and sped the project along at a furious rate. And probably made it level and much wider as well! 😉
Cheers
Chris
Hello Chris
Yes, my pots etc are not affected by the high water table. In the main they are above ground level on pallets or what ever.
Just to say that I grow and love leeks. Variety wise, I just go for the largest. Don’t try to grow onions as i don’t much like them. Son wants them but has a terrible job trying to grow them.
As far as my sister goes, I think that there was massive complexity. It was fun when she was a child but it grew and grew often unpleasantly.
I have now finished the Rovelli book, it is only 79 pages. My understanding was limited. I did get ‘circularity’ in the 1st chapter. After that it was just an occasional flash of insight. Nonetheless I found the book intensely exciting, the only comparison that I can make is classical music. Sorry if that makes no sense at all. The last chapter should be ditched it was quite pointless.
Inge
Chris:
Our fall-planted kale grows outside all winter, off and on, with nighttime temps well under freezing. Tonight is supposed to be 23F (-5C).
Skillets or pan, we say either. Like Lewis, We have cast iron skillets. I have three of different sizes. One was my grandmother’s, two were bought secondhand. They seem to “season” themselves as long as I use oil every single time and as long as I just very lightly wash them, no scrubbing.
Pam
Chris,
Yes, a mission. An impossible mission. Maybe Tom Cruise will star in another movie entitled “Mission Impossible: Wooden Utensils”.
Yes, I remember that tree and the photo. BIG tree.
Trees. Gum. Sap. “Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree” I remember learning when I was very young.
Losing the creative mojo by talking about the project is very prevalent in carving. It seems to be part and parcel of many creative endeavors. I remember circa 1984 a good friend of mine talked ceaselessly about writing a new video game “Bass Fishing”. He gave all the details etc. I told him to quit talking about it and do it. He kept talking, never did. Five years later it was on the market, written by someone else who got rich off of it. it was nearly identical to what he had discussed. If memory serves, JMG talked about this creative hazard, at least in passing, several years ago.
Rabies is one of those things best avoided. A coworker’s dogs were barking frantically one night. He went to the back fence to see what was happening and to herd the dogs inside. He got bitten by a raccoon for his troubles. He needed a series of rabies shots – extremely painful.
You nailed it re: coyotes. The stories I’ve heard from various Native American sources indicate that Coyote starts something, it gets out of hand, it might turn out okay for people, and Coyote gets a comeuppance. But Coyote never learns and the process repeats. Some of the stories are very amusing.
In addition to the heat issues with buried power cables, there is the cost of burying the cables over vast kilometers of terrain. What happens if there’s a break in an underground cable? It apparently works in some urban settings, but this is something that might not be “one size fits all”. That said, metal towers are supposed to live forever! 😉 Seriously, our society likes to build, build, build, but maintaining things is low on the priority list.
A few weeks ago, I think I mentioned that we would likely have one more good snow event and cold snap to maybe -10C. We got a healthy 6.5 cm of snow in town with Thursday’s storm. Woke up this morning to temperatures about -9C. It was a clear day, +4C, so the roads cleared and wherever the snow had been removed from sidewalks nearly dried out. Solar energy.
Oh, ugh, you’ve figured me out, indeed. Sly Fox/Todd. Sly borderers. Not to mention the unpredictable Vikings in the family tree. There were also a lot of very respectable preachers and such. I guess the barbarian genes overwhelmed the other ones in me. 😉
My great, great uncle Sam Jones lived to be just 2 months short of 100. I’ve seen a picture of him when he was about age 20. The youngest Jones cousin in my generation could’ve been Sam’s twin brother. Same red hair, same face, same everything. Funny how these things crop up generations later.
Maybe the Romans originated the “wider is better” phrase. Gotta have roads wide enough for legions and their support horses and carts, right?
DJSpo
Hi Inge,
The wet years here are really the hardest growing seasons of them all. Good to hear that your raised beds aka pots etc. will be spared the worst of the damp conditions, and yet retain decent drainage. The pallets are a really good idea, although here snakes and rats may be an issue with pallets on the ground. No need to make life easy for those two critters.
Went to a nearby open garden today. Stone Hill. It was a fairly young garden, and just like how cake batter can sometimes be very tasty relative to the baked cake, it was good to see. The vegetable patch was as you may imagine, a bit on the small side, yet they had some of the largest asparagus I’d ever seen. The fronds were well over 8 foot tall. They grow only half that size here.
Inge, onions are such a difficult plant to grow here as well. My understanding of the subject is that a person has to breed a variety which exactly suits the local conditions with the variable being daylight length during the growing season. I agree with your son that the bulbs are excellent, but I do not have the time or energy for such garden fusspots at this stage of my life. And then as you also note, there are the leeks. Superior in every way. I tend to remove the very strong tasting leeks, but this is mere personal preference and if the zombies ever took over, I’d eat all of the leeks – leaving enough to go to seed of course. Your son knows his own business well enough, but really he just has to source onions from everywhere until he stumbles upon a variety which works in your exact climate. If there was another way other than tedious plant breeding over many generations… And the seeds don’t last long. Pesky plants.
Thank you for the insights into your sister. For your interest, that has also been my experience. It may be amusing when we are younger, but then as we develop experience, you can see where such things can go. And in my case, after that growth I’ve wanted such mischief to stop, and then realised that the mischief was ingrained and my earlier acceptance had been interpreted as license. Nowadays, my tolerance for such things (and please accept my apologies) is very low. The guy who stole my ID and used it to get into trouble with the police many decades ago was just like that. And in a bizarre twist in the story, the old friend who Sandra looked into and discovered had died only a few weeks ago, sided with the miscreant. It was a hard lesson for me to learn, and it has been on my mind this week. I’m of the opinion that such people are best kept at arms length, you don’t need to correct them, or even fight them, just maintain a respectable distance. Isn’t it funny all the different personalities you meet over the years, and most of the time you just hope to come away from the experience wiser. That’s the plan anyway!
Sandra has also learned a valuable lesson this week that poking around in the past, no matter how innocent, can produce unexpected outcomes. She’d known the guy who passed away as well. Always a possibility.
No, that makes sense. Classical music is complicated and deep. It’s also meant to move you emotionally. Thanks for the review of the book.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Pam,
Holy carp! 23’F scares my summer softened soul! 🙂 It was that temperature here, but in Celsius today, which would make it 73’F with blue skies and bright warm sunshine. Quite nice all things considered.
I hadn’t known that kale could survive such cold weather. Oh my gawd, the plant can survive down to 10’F. Who knew? You know what? You’ve inspired me to get some kale and spinach plants established before winter sets in. 28’F and snow is the coldest I’ve ever experienced here.
Hope your heater is keeping on top of such cold winter nights? Seriously, you’re hardy-as because there would be a lot of sooking if I’d experienced such cold weather. Remember the stories of the delightful and super-intelligent Sir Scruffy sulking his socks off at some minor inconvenience? Well multiply that amount of sulking by a factor of ten – and that’s a lot of sooking! So, that’s how much, yeah. Except, you’re all casual and cool and stuff, going, yeah, just another winter’s day, whatever… 🙂 Hehe!
The word skillet is not heard or used down this way, and I had to look up what it meant. And that’s exactly what I was aiming for – stuff which should last several generations, and still be useful. Washing them once seasoned does seem to be a bit of a no-no for the seasoning, although you’d know your pan and the oil addition every time would continually improve upon the seasoning I’m guessing. This is all new knowledge to me, but happy to give things a go especially if it is less wasteful.
Incidentally, as you’re probably aware, we only ever eat vegetarian at home, and then eat whatever once off the property. Proving that flexibility is a real thing, the early seasoning process benefits a bit from animal proteins, so we’ll go and get some high quality bacon rashers and cook them up which should help out the initial seasoning of the pan. Trust me, I will buy good quality bacon and respect the animal in a decent home made bacon burger. I’ll even bake up the focaccia buns as well. It’ll be good. Maybe some fresh greens from the garden and a nice chunk of tasty cheese as well. Yum!
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
All this talk of wooden utensils began me wondering that after the Roman’s left Britain whether there was enough metal and blacksmiths hanging around left to even be producing eating utensils in metal? Surely at least there would be knives, but maybe the spoons were wooden? Dunno. Makes you wonder though?
Kookaburra’s really do producing a sort of laughing like equivalent song. There is a family of those birds living here, although the magpies are more dominant than the kookaburra’s. The two varieties of birds roughly consume a similar diet so they are often at odds, but mostly tolerate each others presence. Although, a large kookaburra can catch and eat snakes by bashing the reptiles head against rocks, then consuming the body. Pretty clever birds. Some of the ravens up north of the continent have even learned which bits of the dreaded cane toads can be consumed without injury. Birds are super clever.
Mr Greer alerted me to this creative risk many years ago, and likewise you also read the same warnings. Hadn’t realised that the wisdom applied to other creative endeavours, but that makes sense. Sorry to say, but your friend lucked out there. And I agree, the lesson may well be: create more, talk less. Just like enlightenment: before, chop water, carry wood! 😉 Sometimes though, I do talk through an idea with Sandra, but not if it is contentious in any way. Nope. I can do diplomatic… Maybe… 🙂
Dude, all this talk of old computer games sent me on an interweb rabbit hole, and so it turns out that there are still BBS’s and people connecting to the web via 8 bit machines like the Commodore 64. Whoa! My mind is now blown.
That’s bad. Ouch! A few years ago I read an account of someone attacked by a rabid raccoon. And it was like dealing with a fast zombie. What was worse was the account of then trying to get the shots within the limited time frame available. Dealing with that health system was just as scary as the unstoppable raccoon. And they were sent away from one place…
The trickster is a character in a healthy environment. Stops us from becoming too complacent, and yeah, amusing is the word. Unless you happen to be on the wrong side of the story, although usually there is a lesson to be learned there for the person so involved.
Finding faults in underground power cables would be like a total nightmare of a job. At least if the transmission tower falls over you can see what is going on. Underground, anything is possible. Imagine a tunnelling rat chewing upon and shorting out an underground super high voltage cable – somewhere… Or an excavator driver putting the bucket through one? Ook… So much to go wrong there. The massive DC cable connecting this state of Victoria to the island state of Tasmania (Basslink), traverses I think around 300km of water. Bass Strait is shallow water (30m deep I think and a former land bridge) but also just happens to be a super rough stretch. That cable broke in maybe 2014. The initial fix was suggested at two weeks. It took six months to find and fix from memory. Probably a fishing trawler.
I agree, and your job would have shown that maintenance issue very clearly. It’s expensive, and not nearly as much fun as building new stuff. And the question which comes to my mind: How much of any of this stuff is even resilient? 40 years from some perspectives may be a short life span for one of those towers, but to my mind, it’s amazing the thing has lasted as long out there in the weather all day, everyday.
DJ, I’m so summer soft. Hearing of -9’C and -10’C simply strikes fear into my summer softened soul. Good luck! It’ll be 36’C on Thursday, and candidly I’m not looking forward to that. Still, hopefully the heat ripens the tomatoes.
🙂 Hehe! Deep down, we’re all barbarians. Of course with Viking blood and border blood, that’s probably been amplified a little bit in your case! Anywhoo, I’ve read that it’s the natural state of mankind… Far out, I love that quote from Robert E Howard. Perhaps you are just getting ahead of the natural civilisational curve?
Yeah, you never really know what’s stored deep down in the genes. Ugg! Oooo, where did that come from? 🙂
The Roman’s gave us good roads you know! And the aqueduct. Another very amusing memory courtesy of the Monty Python crew. It’s perhaps wisdom to have roads that aren’t quite wide enough for the Roman legions, after all, they may want to conquer. We just want the paths here to be navigable for our uses in all weather, not theirs.
Cheers
Chris
Chris:
No way are you soft, and if you had to deal with colder cold, you would just deal with it. We only use our heaters a little bit. Mostly the house is heated with our basement woodstove. We also have a fireplace in the living room, but have not used it this season as my son never had time to clean the chimney, so we’ll wait until next fall. My daughter-in-law and I cook a lot, too, so the electric stove in the kitchen keeps us warm as well. Not so good in the summer . . .
I have never seasoned my pan with an animal product, though you certainly could, and I do cook meat in the pans. I always use whatever oil I am cooking with: Olive oil, walnut oil, or peanut oil. There is no denying that bacon is a delicious addition to a lot of things. And foccacia, greens, and cheese – extra yum!
I do remember Sir Scruffy’s sooking ways. Let’s call that the perogative of a knight.
Pam
Hi Pam,
Thanks! You’re right, I’d probably be fine and simply keep close to the wood heater. But if that sort of extreme cold weather ever arrived here, large parts of the garden would suffer. Do you reckon this lot of brr!, is the last of the cold wintry weather for you?
That’s some clever design with the woodstove in the basement given that hot air rises, and for free. Does your woodstove heat water as well?
Pam, I can understand how that came to be. Cleaning chimneys is a very messy job. I try and get to cleaning the wood heater steel flue about maybe once or twice per year. The only benefit with doing the cleaning work is that you get a good view out over the distance from the roof of the house, but other than that, it’s a dirty job.
If you burn seasoned and very dry firewood at high temperatures, I’d expect that a chimney or flue would be fairly clean with not much gunk in there. Still needs to be cleaned though. Never had a chimney fire, and would like to avoid that possibility in the future.
🙂 Yeah, there is some benefit to having a summer kitchen. We keep an oven outdoors (protected from the weather) so that baking bread on hot days doesn’t warm the house. Or there is a bench there where the canning boiler can sit (also) outdoors. Funnily enough, when the weather cools down as you get closer to winter, the electronics in the oven refuse to work when the machine is outdoors. You could say that the oven is cracking the sads.
The bacon isn’t doing the seasoning, it’s more of a suggested follow up once the initial seasoning has been baked onto the metal of the pan. Something to do with the proteins interacting with the seasoning. Look, I don’t know whether the people suggesting this have a bias in that regard – and they might. I’ve just never done this seasoning process before and so will follow the instructions to the letter. It always amazes me how these sorts of basic home skills have been lost and diluted, or even trash-talked so that possibly manufacturers can regularly sell us all replacement nonstick pans. It seems pretty wasteful to me, but then I was also contributing to the problem, and now I know the difference.
That’s the plan anyway, and the plan will be yummo! 🙂
Ah, many thanks for that. 🙂 Sir Scruffy would approve of this prerogative.
Another lovely sunny and cool summers day here today. Did a bit of housework and then started on a new upgrade project for the solar power system.
Cheers
Chris