What’s this? Tuesday was busy doing paid work. It’s generally understood that work pays the bills. But then what was this all about? The nice telco had sent me a text message saying that they were soon going to switch off the 3G phone network, and my phone needed to be upgraded. I guess the implication was: Sort this out soon, or else.
As a canny and resourceful individual not wishing to spend heaps of mad cash replacing a device which already worked with the remaining 4G phone network, I thought to myself: Well, how hard can this be? Turns out, both mine, and Sandra’s phone (which are the same devices) despite having worked faultlessly for four years, aren’t good enough to do voice calls over the 4G network. That’s what was meant by the replace your phone now, or become a non-person, you have thirty seconds to comply (said in best ED-209 voice), meant. A bit of a bummer really.
The next day I headed down to the nearest town, which surprisingly has a nice telco shop where you can speak to real people and get telecommunication problems sorted out. Winning. Except, and I should have expected this, there were heaps of people waiting to be served. Other folks from the area had likewise received the memo. They even had a couch that you could lounge upon, listening to music which could have been aired on the national youth music broadcaster, and simply wait. It amused me to wonder what the other, mostly older customers waiting to be served made of the tunes.
The helpful bloke who runs the store interrupted serving a customer to inform me that my best option was to make an appointment for later in the day. Who knew you needed to make an appointment to get served at a shop? However, it seemed like a good idea to avoid the couch of older folks baffled by the most excellent youth music. As a side note, the music of RÜFÜS DU SOL, tends to improve any wait time. So despite the good tunes, an appointment was made, and I went about my business.
When you live in a remote mountain hamlet, everywhere is far away, even the nearest town. So on the trip I picked up a metal case at the electrical supply business. Some fertiliser was also chucked into the back of the car. There may even have been a coffee. With the awful possibility that simply visiting a store requires an appointment, it’s best to run multiple errands, and not waste the journey.
Once home again, I was able to begin replacing an existing plastic wiring box in the solar power system, with the recently purchased metal case. Here’s me up a ladder doing that work.
It’s hard to be upset with the nice telco for upgrading their mobile phone requirements, when I’m doing exactly the same upgrade thing with the solar panel wiring here. Perched up a ladder in the strong autumn sunshine was kind of pleasant, and the wiring upgrades were going well. In the background what wasn’t going well, was that my appointment with the nice telco was cancelled. There was a text message. I’ve heard of relationship breakdowns being communicated by the very impersonal mode of a text message: Sorry, it’s not you, it’s me. Yeah, sure…
The wonderful thing about not having options, is that there are no other options. Another appointment was made with the nice telco store. But this time I made sure that it was the first appointment of the day. Some problems, like later in the day appointments when the business is getting smashed, are best avoided.
So, there I was on another morning, sitting on a park bench outside the closed store, having arrived five minutes early, as requested by the appointment software. Computers are notably very free with my time. The minutes ticked by. Try to look casual. Inside the store looked like a replay of the Simon Pegg electronics shop motivational speech scene in the film: Sean of the Dead. Sure, I also had plans that day too.
The door opened and a young bloke brought out an A frame board onto the curb. You could hear the music, which for the record, I was enjoying. The other customers and I poured into the store as if we were coffee starved zombies seeking brains. The appointment was acknowledged, and the bloke guessed my name correctly.
He directed me to a cubicle where a lovely young lady sold me the rugged replacement phone of my choice, which was pretty much the same as the one I had. Instead of a model 41, it was a 42. The magic number had been achieved! My joke fell on deaf ears. Being early morning, looking through the shop glass I could see that someone had parked an expensive looking Mercedes sedan in the street outside. Ordinarily I don’t notice such things, except that the morning sunlight was glinting off the windscreen and landing right in my eyes. When the young lady asked for my drivers licence card number, which I’d never previously noticed because it was printed in one point text on the back of the card, all I could reply was: There’s so much sun glare from that car, that you’re surrounded by a halo, and I can’t read this one point text. See what you can make of it. Turns out that younger eyesight is better than an old fella’s, and of course she was protecting that useful faculty, by wisely having her back to the sun glare.
Fortunately, the nice telco shop had one of the very robust phones (model 42!) in stock. There was a bit of a discussion among the team about the low demand for the device. The general consensus seemed to be: Indestructible, but nobody knew anything about the device. With that detail sorted out, the business was concluded smoothly and rapidly. Some people are excited about replacing their phone, that’s not me.
All I have to do now is set up both mine and Sandra’s new phones. The government requires us to have a smart phone for the two factor authentication application for their software systems. The authentication cannot be done on a computer. If we don’t have such a phone, our income will come to a rapid halt. That’s not much of a choice, but a lot of things are like that these days. They all want to float off our productive efforts. I’d like a bit of space from their constant demands.
The purchase of the phones will consume the income from a couple of days of paid work, for no added benefit. It’ll take another day to swap from the old to the new phones. You know what? It makes me wonder if there’ll come a point in the future where the costs for running a business, will exceed the income earned, and then what?
Putting 25 Litres of petrol into the Suzuki Dirt Rat Jimny the other day was an interesting experience. Somehow petrol was $2.299 a litre, or that’s $8.74 a gallon. An impressive achievement.
Earlier I mentioned replacing a plastic box in the house solar power system, with a metal case. There are eight solar panels feeding into that fuse box, and in order to upgrade the existing wiring for those panels, I had to be able to get access to them. The roof was steep and high enough that a fall would have hurt. We had some spare short sections of solar panel railing, and so I installed those on the roof.
Once the racking was installed on the rear of the steep roof, I was able to access all of the wiring, and upgrade it all. That work took many hours perched high up on the roof, but at least the autumn day was sunny and pleasant. Prior to the sun setting, the job was completed, and the fuse box was in place and tested. This work is all about installing the industrial quality fuses, and also giving the wiring which has worked every day for the past fourteen years – in all weather – a bit of a freshen up. There are still a couple more of these jobs to do.
Interestingly, the two large olive trees in the courtyard are now slightly over shadowing these eight solar panels. The trees have to be trimmed back. That was when we discovered the limits of the machines we have to do such work. The olive trees have grown a lot this summer. Have to do something about that.
All of the pruned olive material was fed into the scary old petrol wood chipper, where it was collected and used as mulch in new garden beds.
A days work was spent excavating more soil from the future firewood shed site. The site where the large green water tank only recently sat, is getting much more level.
Spare soil is a valuable resource, and in this case the excavated soil was relocated and used as fill on the low gradient ramp project.
Despite the warm dry days of late, the cooler evenings are killing off the summer vegetables. We’re reasonably ruthless with pulling out plants that aren’t going to survive, and so this week we’ve cleared a lot of the raised garden beds.
Regular readers will recall that the soil in the greenhouse had been turned over during the past week or so. It was fertilised, then sown with winter vegetable seeds consisting of: Radish; Beetroot; Kale; and Green Mustard. The germination rate of the seed has been excellent.
We need another greenhouse!
Outdoors, the most reliable tomato for this location yet again proves to be: Barry’s Crazy Yellow Cherry Tomato. The plant is awesome and the fruit tastes great.
With the exclusion of the yet to ripen Sultana Grapes, we’ve picked the rest of the vines.
There has been the occasional European wasp observed in that area, so if we have to, all of those remaining sultana grapes will be picked, ripe or otherwise.
We picked a lot of grapes.
There are more grapes than we can possibly eat, so we decided to make a batch of wine. Given they’re both red and white grapes, the wine will be a Rosé wine, although candidly it looks more like a yellow country wine.
The seed cake could have been dried and fed to the chickens during winter, but I didn’t think of doing that at the time. The chickens enjoyed it fresh.
Spotted a herd of very large deer on the road the other day. They’d been down to have a drink at a nearby large farm dam before then heading back into the forest.
Onto the flowers:
The temperature outside now at about 9am is 9’C (48’F). So far for last year there has been 218.0mm (8.6 inches) which is up from last weeks total of 217.8mm (8.6 inches)
Yo, Chris – I wonder how many of the homeless (or, “unhoused” if you’re hip and with it) are nonpersons because they can’t cope with, or afford modern, ever-changing tech?
The Telco store. Or, you could have whipped out a book. 🙂 I’ve been a couple of similar places, where they just couldn’t stand such a display of patient contentment. And I was hustled to the head of the line.
How often have I left my reading glasses, at home, when they’re needed. Such as, reading plant tags or seed packets? I blame H. Anytime I leave anything behind, that I need, such as the coffee mug I drag back and forth from the Club, I berate her for not reminding me. 🙂
“Costs of running a business will exceed income.” Happens all the time. It’s called, going out of business.
Your olive trees reminded me of a Greek legend. Retold in Ovid’s “Metamorphosis.” Of Baicis and Philemon. And old couple that wanted to die at the same time. The gods granted their wish and they were turned into an oak and a linden.
https://w.wiki/9ZS3
I moved around a bit of soil, this evening. Not nearly as much as you do, but, soil got moved.
The low gradient path? Potholes, already? 🙂
Rows of seedlings, marching off into infinity. Or, a vanishing point.
The yellow cherry tomatoes I usually grow are Yellow Sunsugar. They do well, here, and are tasty. They don’t do quit as well as my red cherry tomatoes, but almost.
That’s a wonderful fruit press. Weren’t tempted to throw them in a vat, and stomp them with your bare feet? All kinds of interesting fungi might be added to the fermentation process. 🙂
How do you inadvertently track down a foxglove? Fall over it by accident? Late night raid on a botanical garden?
The roses are just lovely. Which reminds me. I’ve got to prune back a wild rose, which is overtaking a blueberry bush. Sorry rose! Lew
Hi Lewis,
Dude, how many functions have become interweb only communications where the questions in the forms can have any number of meanings? I tend to wonder if the very act of completing the form is all that is required to begin the wheels moving in a process. And I tell you a funny story, at the nice shop the young lady asked me whether I could confirm my identity through their app. Now, their app does not work with Android version 8, which that older phone has. There was some dismay then, but we got past that awkward moment. Mate, any person who has a hair trigger response due to personal issues, or a distrust of authority, may find themselves quickly becoming non-persons. Even the fact the transaction required a drivers license – not everyone has such a thing. And the goobers of the mint authentication app is pushing me to get a passport, even though I have no need for such an identity. That thing contains biometric data these days. The old timers had a saying about give an inch, and they’ll take a mile. And it’s true. So yes, the inability to fit in will cause a person to fall off the ship. The numbers floating around in the water can only increase over time, and that itself is a problem.
🙂 Yes, I’ve noticed that it can be subversive to read a book in public places. What do you mean we can’t intermediate between the reader and the book they may ask? That probably is the question don’t you reckon? Probably why books are banned or burned. A travesty if you ask me. Nice work with your seeming contentment. Your example may encourage other folks. Reading is like that.
Man, I so hear you about that with the reading glasses. This getting older business isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be you know! My eyesight is still pretty good, but candidly I’m beginning to struggle with focusing on text in one point fonts. That’s growing up for ya! Just because it is technically possible to print such small characters does not imply that it is a good idea. H is surely innocent? Maybe? 🙂
Thanks for the reality dad talk. Yes, that is what going out of business looks like. What would Sun Tzu say about backing people into a corner?
Note to self, don’t annoy the gods Zeus and Hermes should they be hanging out in the neighbourhood. Instead perhaps provide them with a tasty dram of our finest, and maybe some freshly baked bread with home made pesto, cheese and tomatoes. Other than the spirits, that was my lunch earlier today, and yes, it was fit for Zeus and co. Rubens again produced the finest artwork.
Out of curiosity, why did you have to move the soil? A few hours ago as the sun was setting I fertilised all of the raised garden beds and also the Globe artichoke bed and all of the roses. The Blood and bone meal component of the mix cost me about $1.80 a pound for a 33 pound bag. Ouch! They do say that inflation is reducing, although I’m not entirely certain what products and/or services they’re talking about.
I don’t think so with the potholes, but I do like your style. Given the path is new, the whole project there is one giant pothole! We’ve gotta place a layer of the crushed rock with lime over the surface, and will do that work over the next few days. There’s no hurry, rain has been in short supply for two months now, and we need the rain to set the lime. Melbourne’s driest March on record looking likely
The germination rate has been nothing short of excellent. Some of the seed was stuff we’d saved. Yeah, they’re exactly like the Yellow Sunsugar variety although open pollinated and reliably self seed every single year. A bit weedy really, but in a good way. For some reason the yellow variety of cherry tomatoes have a better flavour here than the red cherry varieties. Probably something to do with the soil? Dunno.
Yeah, nah. The fruit press does the work. And well, we sterilised the juice by getting it to boiling temperature, then added the yeast. The fermentation was feral. Haven’t seen anything like that for a while. I am observing that the shelf life of the bacterias and yeasts we use are getting shorter. Not sure why this may be.
As you’d imagine, there is a story… I’d purchased the more usual variety of foxgloves at a small out of the way nursery, and got the Canary Island variety instead. Sometimes the Universe provides…
Wild Roses do grow rather fast. Hope you manage to deal to the branches?
Do your carrots produce straight tubers? The ones I’ve grown end up a bit forked. Wise to plant horseradish in a barrel, although they can be contained by repeated cutting of the leaves. I gifted some to a friend who remarked recently that the plant was slowly taking over. Enjoying a chamomile tea right now, and hope your lot sprouts. It gets out-competed here. Good luck with the tea blossoms. It’s a slow growing plant in this sort of climate.
Good stuff with planting out the mustards for soil fumigation purposes. I actually enjoy consuming the green and red mustard leaves. Some of them have some kick too. We get powdery mildew here as well, but it’s just part of the life cycle of some plants when the nights get too cold. The Editor and I have been recently discussing at what point to remove affected plants. Sooner rather than later is probably ideal.
Did you tell off the master gardeners about the mess they’d left with the grape vine prunings? You know, there’s much to recommend a scary old wood chipper for blitzing such stuff.
What, did you have gypsies in Portland? And I see what you mean about the discord between the two services. They probably were having more fun.
During the Great Depression in rural areas, it was considered the done thing to provide the swagmen (rural travelling itinerant workers) with a place to clean up and sleep without being harassed. In many ways, the gyms provide a similar function. Hmm. The two main political parties are losing support because of the policies they’re perusing on housing and immigration which is adding further fuel to that housing fire. Man, we can live pretty cheap, but far out without a house and land, I dunno man. It surprises me that someone from outside the current lot doesn’t take the mantle of power by promising to sort out the problems. It’s not like they’re hard to fix, just unpalatable to too many entrenched interests.
Had an old fella tourist driving slowly in front of me today on a back road. Bizarrely, he didn’t let me go around him, but I don’t think it was personal and I’m not even certain he knew I was there. Generally if people want to drive super fast on these back roads, I pull over and let them do what they want to do. There’s a lot of wildlife on the roads though, and hitting one of those Sambar deer is a show stopper for all concerned, even the vehicle.
Well, I’d kept reading about references to the Hunger Games film series, and wanted to know what it was all about. Not a situation that you’d want to find yourself in.
Does your machine even play Blue-Ray discs? Speaking of old films, I watched the duelling banjo’s scene from the Deliverance film this morning. It’s great playing. If those townies had been such, well you know what my grandfather would have called them, they’d have been fine and enjoyed a good river experience. But no, they couldn’t help themselves. That’s a good title, and an even better alternative title. So was Daniel Webster all that bad?
Hope H shook some money out of that tree for the Club pantry.
Cheers
Chris
Intermediation, poorly done- Yeah, I could go on a long rant, but I’ve seen for a while now that we aren’t straying from the path of techno utopia, so am tired of pointing out a problem that won’t get fixed.
It’s all of a piece with the energy decline- cut labor cost by automating, and the burden of less effective transactions is left for us schlubs to bear.
viniculture- question- do you ever leave the mooshed grapes “on the skins” as it were before pressing to impart some tannins or other flavors?
Gas (petrol) cost- still too cheap here, I filled up on the way back from the conference for $3.04 a gallon. Maybe those land dreadnoughts will make for cheap housing in the future? Bought a new to us car last year, a used Prius, gets 52 MPG.
Ok, one more comment on the tech treadmill. I was at a conference this past weekend for agroforestry and one of the presenters had us do an impromptu survey. She put a qr code up on the screen and it gave everyone access to the survey if you knew how to do that with their smart phone. Saves time and paper and tabulation, right? Well, the younger of us did the survey, but some of the older folks, who have smart phones, but only for phones and taking pictures, were at a loss.
I am of the older persuasion, but don’t carry a smart phone, so did not partake and didn’t fret that I could not.
So it goes.
Hi Chris,
Well having to upgrade like you did would really p**s me off! I’ve been considering getting rid of my smart phone when it finally dies. Walk the talk and all that. What I would miss is checking the weather when a storm is imminent, my Merlin app which identified bird songs/calls and my plant ID app. Those last two have helped considerably in my identification skills though I wonder if having them actually makes it take longer to remember specific songs and birds. I’m of the belief that having information at our fingertips really decreases memory skills. I think of the memory oral cultures had and how that changed with the rise of reading literacy.
Had overnight visits with both daughters and granddaughters the last couple of weeks. Started some lettuce and tomatoes under lights today. Supposed to get some decent rain today which is good. Had over 4 inches of wet snow last Friday. Weather continues to be very up and down.
Margaret
Yo, Chris – That dual identification on multiple devices is a real kettle of worms. Supposed to be a security feature. To my way of thinking, it just provides hackers with two points of access. I shudder to think if our housing recertification were to go online. Probably to be outsourced to a third party. As is, the paper forms aren’t all that great. There are places where we report income. Not a clue as to if they want net or gross. Monthly or yearly figures? I haven’t had to renew my driver’s license, in quit awhile. It’s due in 2026. There’s some talk about an “enhanced” license. Gosh knows what one will have to provide to get one of those.
Well, as that great American sage, philosopher and actress, Bette Davis stated, “Getting old is not for sissies.” 🙂
There’s a lot of folk tales and myths that have to do with providing hospitality, to strangers. When you get to the core of the matter, the story of Lot in the Bible has a lot to do with hospitality. Or the lack thereof.
Well, somehow or another, I ended up with a great heap of soil in the bed I share with our night manager. Where did all that stuff come from? Of course, I did add in some kitchen scraps, a bag of leaves and a bag of straw. Which by the way, has a lot of worms. The full moon, this month, is called “The Worm Moon.” There is, or was, a partial lunar eclipse. But it’s like early, early in the morning. I’ll pass. Would probably be cloudy, anyway.
So, last night, I finally got around to cutting (sawing) the walnut volunteers, out of the Rhodes. Darned squirrels! And, started in on getting my little patch of gorilla garden, in shape. It was pretty well overrun with weeds, so that had to be taken care of. There’s some well established miniature iris, in that patch. It’s where I grew Tomatillo last year. I also needed to move a patch of garlic, out of there. I planted some Iris. Everblooming, tall, toward the back. Yeah, I know. Wrong time to plant those. And, they looked a little dry. By the time I got that bed cleaned out, it needed some more soil. So, I hauled over some of the excess from the shared bed, and also threw in a bag of pretty good compost. Used some bulb fertilizer. So, we’ll see how they do. If they don’t do anything, I’ll figure out what to put in there. Maybe strawberries. Which is a saga, in itself. We have our communal strawberry bed, which didn’t do well at all, last year. I have one opinion as to why, they have another. So, other than watering it, and dealing with bird netting, I’m backing off.
That is a dry March, for you. When I was working in the garden, last night, at one point I was run out by a shower. Waited 15 minutes, until it passed, and then hit it again. We haven’t had any more frost, and if the last one I recorded on my calendar was it, it will be the earliest last frost. At lease since I’ve been keeping records, and in this location.
Shorter shelf life of yeasts: planned obsolescence?
Yes, there were a lot of gypsies, in Portland. Or at least, they were pretty obvious. Clustered in a couple of neighborhoods. I had an uncle and aunt who lived close to a household of them. There was a vacant lot in between. Occasionally, they would throw a big party, and roast a whole goat. Which caused a lot of comment.
I won’t have to worry about the wild rose. One of the Master Gardeners was hacking away at it, this morning.
Yes. Gotta keep up with those cultural references! 🙂
I did pretty well, shaking the money tree. I received $20 each, from three people. So, I’ll be able to do a little shopping and keep the pantry going. Lew
Yo, Chris – Lets talk about architecture ….
https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/25/style/aluminaire-house-albert-frey-history-palm-springs
Probably, pretty fireproof! But it’s hard to beat the classics!
https://www.cnn.com/travel/genius-roman-creations-that-still-amaze-us-today
Lew
Hi Steve,
🙂 Intermediation in new forms is always worthy of an airing! Plus for me it’s kind of like a therapy session in that I get to have a good sook, then get on with what needs doing. You may notice that we’ve been busy of late?
And I agree, the nice telco automatically extracts payment for services, and I have to log onto their systems in order to retrieve the invoice. Clearly the system increases my personal administrative burden and they gain the benefit. In the past, if companies wanted to be paid, they sent a bill. No longer.
We’ve been making country wines for over a decade, and in fact produce all that we require, and then some. This is our first attempt at a wine derived from grapes, so I was unaware of that option with the skins. Trust me, this stuff will have both kick and flavour. It smells unlike any wine I’ve ever tasted, but more like a grape based soft drink. And the fermentation process is going off like a frog in a sock. It’s feral, but we’ll rack it out in a few weeks when things settle down, and then let it sit in bottles for at least a year before sampling. We’ve got a six year old mead which is super smooth. We don’t poison the yeasts in order to bring fermentation to a halt, but instead rely upon careful ageing and storage. I’m of the opinion that too many preservatives can be harmful for a persons internal flora and fauna.
Steve, it’s been at least three decades since I’ve enjoyed gas prices so low. My advice, enjoy them and put the energy to good use whilst you can. Thanks for the laughs too: The Land Dreadnought! Sounds like one of those British battleships which were outclassed by the aircraft carrier in WWII!
I don’t think that Suzuki is sold in your country, but the Swift achieves (in the real world) 4.6L/km or 51mpg. The 37L tank (just under 10 gallons) gets a lot of kilometres without the added technology. The engine is 1.2L or 73cc and is what I’d describe as punchy. Wouldn’t want to have an altercation with a land dreadnought though.
Oh my! Those QR codes only provide a link to a URL address, and nothing more. Hope the presenter provided a URL address as well? It’s quite presumptive to not do so. The thing I’m left wondering about was whether you learned any interesting insights in the fascinating world of agroforestry?
Cheers
Chris
Hi Margaret,
Oh Margaret, you captured my emotional response almost perfectly. However, the initial annoyance soon turned into resignation, and you know the old story about render unto Caesar and all that jazz. On the weekend a rather cheeky friend suggested that getting the now older device recycled was a fraught proposition, and I may have replied: “This is their doing, so it is their responsibility!” And I noted that there was an unobtrusive drop off box for such machines within the depths of the store. They’ll get a present, once I’ve transferred the data off the existing device. I’m in no hurry to do that work.
It’s hard to walk the talk. You get backed into a corner. Candidly, I never even wanted to be super contactable in the first place, but my thoughts in the matter, were of little consequence. When I’m working at a client, I’m there for them, and well, social boundaries get warped and I’ve learned to roll with the punches as they used to say.
That’s a good question, and it’s hard to know. I mean, someone has to inform you as to which bird is making which call, otherwise you’re in the position where you have to spend an inordinate amount of time simply observing the environment. And there are always the out of left centre birds – and what are they? I’ve got a bird identification book with colour photos to refer too, although there are some err, paintings of extinct species. But those apps do work well.
I agree with you. The thing is how much knowledge can you actually absorb? That’s a question I’m grappling with, and frankly speaking, I’ve no idea as to the potentials.
One of the interesting historical notes I’ve come across is that oral based cultures tend to place a higher value upon transmitted oral culture. In fact such things were trade items. Culture can travel far and wide, and that occurred down here. I recall coming across an obscure reference to a well known sea shanty being transmitted far ahead of any Europeans in this continent.
I hope that everyone had a lovely time. And good stuff starting the seeds under lights. It would be too early here too for those seeds if the seasons were suddenly flipped upside down. Good to hear that you are getting some rain, and hope that it arrived?
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
The Aluminium clad house would have been a real show stopper in 1931. I reckon the cladding panels would have begun life flat, then as time and weather had it’s way, the minor differential in the metal caused the warping you see. I’d actually seen this before in a house in the inner urban big smoke near to where we used to live. What’s interesting about that house is that it was reputed to be small, but it looks quite large to me. The other works the architect produced reminded me of cinemas constructed in the mid 1930’s era. They have a sort of art deco feel to them. I noticed the internals of the aluminium house were based around a timber frame.
Those Romans were giants! The bath complex in Rome intrigued me the most, and the mention of moving five million tonnes of stone kind of gave me an attack of the vapours. It was a fun article, and I enjoyed the care free style too. The area with the palaces as being the only hill to be, was a hoot of an observation. Like Studio 54, but for Roman Emperor’s!
I can sort of understand how the two factor authentication biz came to be, but you know, it provides the app owner with my location and err, biometric data. Given that lot have proved to me not all that crash hot with security, it’s a bit of a problem handing over such data into their keeping.
And yes, that is a potential problem. A lack of clear direction can lead to all manner of difficulties, and what’s alarming is that a lot of data gets swapped around nowadays. If it’s wrong data, correcting that can be a real drama. I’ve heard some stories on that front, and self administrating goober bodies can be the very worst of the lot with attempts to get errors corrected.
Part of the roads authority was apparently sold off during you-know-what possibly to pay down the extraordinary debt taken on. The former premier appeared to enjoying spending, and debt has been known to leave an epic hangover.
Bette Davis calls it as it is. 🙂 Thanks for the quote.
It looked close to a full moon this morning and tonight. This morning the moon was hanging in the west and the scene called for the big lens. Hope the photo turns out. Given all the smoke and dust in the air, the moon this evening was an ominous blood red. I’m keeping an eye out for werewolves tonight when in the orchard taking the dogs on a boundary patrol check. Haven’t spotted any yet, but the evening is not yet over! I assume you have sasquatches in your part of the world instead?
It’s been dry here, but the centre of the continent has had a serious soaking (which may arrive here from Sunday, maybe): Todd River flows after Alice Springs deluge Half their annual rainfall in three days is an impressive achievement. And you can see the dust in the air here now.
Nice soil work. 😉
Nooo! I think the dry weather finished off the last remaining walnut seedling here. I’m done with them, there are easier nut trees. No judgement here, and I reckon the Iris will be fine. They bloom here about mid-summer anyway. I hadn’t realised that you had a patch of gorilla gardening, but I like your style. Is this a new thing? Strawberries… My thoughts are Alpine Strawberries, sure they don’t taste as good, but they’re easier to grow plants. Less hassle than the commercial varieties which have to be regularly thinned, not over fed and replaced. Too much work for me. Hehe! Hey, without having seen the patch, I’ve got my own opinions there as well. 🙂
We get those waves of rain too. And sometimes the sun can shine between the waves – lulls you into a false sense of security, only to dump some solid cold water on your head! Did you manage to dodge the second wave of rain?
It’d be early for the last late frost for me if the season was suddenly flipped upside down. What do you reckon about the chances of another frost for you?
Yes, that’s my thinking with the yeasts and bacteria. Supply may also be stretched and the home market is ending up with lower quality stuff… Dunno, but it’s consistent and I’m hearing about it from other people I know.
Were your Uncle and Aunt invited to the gypsy goat roasting party? Good food soothes all manner of ruffled feathers.
Hehe! True. Still, my brain can only hold in just so much information before popping, like what happened in that Scanners film. The dreaded pod people do need mentioning every now and then.
Nice work with the can rattling. What’s your gut feel suggest that the Club pantry needs?
Worked in the big smoke today, and then stopped off in the nearby town to get my haircut. A guy’s gotta look sharp, well, that’s the plan anyway. Maybe I should simply settle on merely socially acceptable. Shouldn’t be too hard, the bar these days is quite low! Anywhoo, got home pretty late.
Cheers
Chris
Hi everyone,
When you wonder if bureaucracy has gone mad, check this bit of craziness out: Authorities seize Instagram-famous magpie, ending friendship with English staffy
Completely nuts to separate the two.
Far out!
Chris
Hi, Chris!
Well, my God – what will they think of next? It’s for our own good . . . I am tempted to use a word I probably shouldn’t, like Bolshevia. Oops.
Thanks for the flowers. I seem to be on a relentless treadmill and they cheer me up.
Pam
Yo, Chris – Yes, I thought the metal house would be a cozy cottage, for one or two people. I’ve seen artist’s reconstructions of those baths. They were pretty spectacular. Probably had huge windows, to let the sunlight in. Another Roman structure I’ve always found interesting was a shopping arcade. Talk about moving dirt, this ought to give you the vapors, too. 🙂 You just need some slave labor. They excavated out, one side of a hill.
https://w.wiki/9aTQ
Back in the time of Augustus, the Palatine Hill was a scattering of posh houses and gardens, belonging to many families. He bought a couple, and later emperors kept snatching more. One wonders how much “imminent domain” was involved, and how much outright coercion.
So far, I’ve been able to throw the on-line snoops, off my scent. 🙂 Occasionally, I go to a website, and a pop-up window states that they want to know my location. Why? I always click on “No.” Near as I can tell, they think I’m in some town, north of here.
In past, there was quit a bit of coverage of governments selling off bits of infrastructure. Towns, counties, states … There was enough of an outcry, that it seemed to be less. But, I think it still goes on, just on the quiet.
Sasquatches and werewolves. We don’t do things by half measures, here. 🙂 You may have heard about a cougar attack, in Northern California. Two brothers out hunting for shed deer antlers. There’s a market. Crafts and such. One was killed and the other badly injured.
That was an interesting article on the Todd River. I don’t know how many Australian films I’ve seen, where there’s a scene where the characters are in some sun blasted riverbed, and make the comment, “We used to come swimming here, when I was a lad.”
I got the spelling wrong. “Guerrilla Gardening.” “Gorilla Gardening” would be a sequel to “Gorilla’s in the Mist.” 🙂 Oh, I’ve been working that patch for three or four years. It was just a little 6×6 patch, of unused ground, overrun by weeds. The Master Gardeners can’t stay on top of everything. I envisioned a patch of blue and white iris. There’s some well established miniature iris, toward the front. I had planted Tomatillo in the rest of it. Don’t know if I’ll do that this year, or not. Work in progress. There was also a couple of patches of garlic in there, that I moved. What I can’t figure out is, I keep running across chunks of sandstone. The soil was carp, but I’ve been working on it.
It was pouring down rain, when I got up, this morning. Spring shower. By the time I was ready to take H out, it was sunny. Scattered spring showers. When I left the Club, last night, it was bucketing down. So, I just cooled my heels for ten minutes, and it passed. Lots of rainbows around, this time of the year. I don’t know if that was our last frost, or not. Maybe yes, maybe no. We’ve had last frosts as late as early May.
Dozens of bumblebees are out, between showers. They’re hitting the heather, hard. They’re a pretty common yellow and black. Little B-52s. But I saw one yesterday that had a lot of red on it. I wondered if that was unusual. Did a search for “Western Washington Red Bumblebees. Nope. There are several varieties that we have here. I had just never seen one, before.
Gypsies, are pretty insular. So, no sharing of goats meat. Then again, starchy Finnish Lutherans, in the late 1950s, were also pretty insular.
Well, what really moves out of the Club pantry is the tinned thick stuff. Soups, stews, chili. Any kind of tinned pasta / tomato sauce products. Tinned meat, tuna or chicken. Stuff that sticks to the ribs. Followed by tinned fruit. Peaches, pineapple, mango slices. Then comes the tinned veg and beans. Boxed cereals and shelf stable milk move pretty good. What I consider condiments, vanish pretty quickly. Honey and peanut butter, poof! Catsup and mustard, a bit slower.
Years ago, I was at a local hardware store and saw a hair cutting kit. German. It has all kinds of different length guides, that snap on. I use the 1/4” guide. Go at my beard, and then my head until the hair stops falling off. I take the guide off, and then do my neck, under my beard, around my ears, and the back of my neck. I trim up my mustache with a pair of scissors. I think that kit cost me less than $25, a LONG time ago. It has paid for itself, many times over. Just another one of my little thrifty ways.
Poor dog! Poor magpie! What I found chilling was the phrase, “Magpie placed at a suitable facility.” Suitable according to who?
Last night I watched the new Aquaman movie. “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.” Pretty good. Worth a bowl of popcorn. Lew
Yo, Chris – An interesting article on Roman home construction. Kind of a “Grand Designs – Pompeii.” 🙂
https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/26/style/pompeii-roman-construction-methods-scli-intl-scn
Now if they’d just find a dodecahedra in some kind of identifiable context … Lew
agroforestry- there is a tricky path to tread there. Having good intentions of growing food more in harmony with nature, planting multiple species that are appropriate for the local land, but still make a living when competing with Cheapfood LLC.
This is a slowly evolving movement here. Awfully easy to slip from farmer centric arrangements to driving toward efficiency and monoculture when hearing the siren call of money. If we try to feed more than ourselves, we have to scale up a certain amount, but it’s hard to fight the tendency of power to concentrate somewhere in the value chain.
As far as the actual learning the best practices, nature reveals her secrets slowly. I like Dave Holmgren’s general guidelines, but as he would say, application of said guidelines is very local.
As for what to plant, it’s a slow journey, as you need to get to know your land, and crossbreeding and selecting best genetics takes a long time when you need lots of time (three or four years for my heels, maybe ten years for larger trees) before you can assess the best progeny for the next iteration.
Here is a link to last year’s hazelnut conference.
https://www.midwesthazelnuts.org/conference-proceedings.html
Chris,
Tennis ball in the pyrography project? I have no information to give about such things. No comment. Wombats and werewolves and lemons and, oh yes, I started with Kilroy, and there’s another surprising creature to be added eventually.
Unfortunately, I’m not getting much work done on the project right now. Another complicated family situation arose, forcing the Princess to arrive home s day later. Then another one hit today, so after one night home, she has hit the road. Again. UGG.
Killian’s human and I enjoyed the basketball games. I’d never been in that arena before. It was electric.
Something interesting happened there. Technology interesting. The venue, as is the Spokane Arena, is cashless. Credit card, debit card or smart phone apps. For everything. Buy the tickets online. Printed tickets cost extra. All food and drinks in the venue are cashless purchase. I wanted to buy a tournament program. It was expensive by my standards, $20, but printed by the mothership organization. It has a lot of historical information, stats and stuff, and the rosters and statistic highlights of each of the 64 teams that began the tournament. I used my credit card. The gent said that my receipt had been texted to my phone. I asked how that could be, as I’d never done business with them or anything. He said that the company that makes the devices that runs the credit and debit cards has an agreement with the credit card companies to share information and forward the credit card holders’ phone numbers to the vendors’ machines so that the entire process, including receipts, is paperless and cashless. I felt, and still feel, violated.
A lot more places are going cashless now. Some because they get robbed a lot. Others “to save costs”. What’s sad is that not everyone, especially in rural areas, has access to banks and/or internet and/or reliable cell phone service etc. This is not including the homeless that Lew mentioned. I can easily foresee technology forcing many people into being non people and into an underground economy. Not a good thought.
I’d try to steer to something cheerier and repeat a good joke, but the only ones that come to mind are not family friendly.
DJSpo
Hi Steve,
This observation of yours can also be reinterpreted as: grow, and they shall arrive to eat! I never said who ‘they’ are. It could just as easily be exotic fungi looking for wood cellulose.
I agree, competing on that basis is very difficult, if not impossible. How can you build the mineral content and organic matter in the soil, if farm produce is sold so cheaply? The economics hardly stack up to my mind.
I’ve met Dave. His farm is about an hours drive to the west of here, and not all that far from the friends of the big shed fame. He’s built a very lovely property, and is much closer to town than I could ever dream of being. The farm is sometimes open for tours. He walks the talk. And yup, it takes a very long time to develop and acquire local knowledge, and then that’s all you have.
It may interest you to learn that with the annuals, over the past few years we’ve sort of honed down the varieties as to what works here, and what we can fresh eat and preserve. Sometimes you trial a new plant, and it’s no good. But then sometimes the results are amazing. Still, a second greenhouse is on the cards.
Thanks for the link and I’ll have a look later this evening. The plan is to plant out the dozen or so hazelnuts and see what happens. At the very least I’d suggest that pollination will be assisted by the seedlings.
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
Ah, Kilroy was ‘ere. Say no more! And I’ll ask no more, but do want to see the results. 😉 Sandra only ever gets the most cursory reply whenever she regularly asks the most awful of questions: So, what are you going to write about this week? Although, DJ, I do bend these rules from time to time when the creative juices aren’t exactly forthcoming. At those moments we workshop and brainstorm writing ideas. And ofttimes, I’ve been heard to make the bold claim: There’s no story there! It sounds like a turf war…
Anywhoo, it’s a strategy which works.
I won’t ask you as to the creature, but is it a grotesque? Sorry, broke my own rule there, and please feel free to disregard my unfortunate etiquette slip. Just ignore me.
Ah, to be footloose and fancy-free has both upsides and downsides. It is a truth universally acknowledged that having commitments also has upsides and downsides. At that point your lovely lady hits the road to err, deal with family biz, and well, life eventually finds some sort of balance. If you can work it all out and remain super-chill, please do not hesitate to expound upon your life’s hard won lessons? Ugg!
Yup, the Romans knew their stuff with those stadiums. The vibe is pretty good at such places, huh? And it was about a year ago we went to the gig at the massive stadium. It was one of the highlights of last year. Sandra knew very little of the music, but seriously enjoyed the energy there. And one of her friends was in the crowd that night as well, not that they met.
That’s not good about such data sharing, and I agree with your conclusion. Did you actually get the receipt, or was it all talk? I’ve not seen such processes, but you guys are often the metaphoric canary in the coal mine. Hmm. A politician up north of the continent put his foot down about cash-less biz recently after a cyclone hit his electorate hard. People were unable to transact for a couple of weeks because the communications network was down. Few people think of such problems, until they have to face them.
Well, the cynic in me suggests that before the err, lucrative feed trough that crimz are now involved in, helped keep them out of harms way, they used to hold up day to day businesses. I’ve been at a post office during such a situation. People forget their history, and restaurants used to be targets just for another example. So cash has costs and benefits.
And I agree, that outcome is a real problem. Not everyone can deal with such demands as I faced last week. I dunno what happens then. It’s probably not good.
OK, yeah I get that. Did you notice that I worked the magic number of 42 into the essay?
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
I’m completely unsure as to what the cheeky host of that iconic English construction program would say about the work at Pompeii? Probably something quite witty surrounded by a kernel of truth perhaps? When making concrete these days one hardly handles quicklime. Is it Calcium Hydroxide? Some brave souls have been known to use it in the garden, but it does get rather hot. I’d read historical accounts that the stuff used to be made from seashells, and inevitably there was a lime burners kiln. Lime is wonderful stuff, and I’ve observed that the fruit trees growing near to any of the crushed rock with lime paths, grow faster, and produce better than those which are further away.
Ha! The dreaded tech bro gremlins got me again. The modem required, nay, demanded a firmware update. You know it’s necessary when the thing begins intermittently working for no apparent reason. Sends me loopy that device, but one must struggle on and bow to the tech demands.
And in a moment of carelessness, I must have programmed the recharging amounts incorrectly on the super-crazy-complicated AA and AAA battery recharger. There was no smoke, but three batteries got cooked. Chunks of the plastic labels are now melted onto the battery charger, which bizarrely seems to still be working – although I’m keeping an eye on the device, just in case.
Trajan’s Market is pretty amazing. The thought of moving such a massive quantity of rocks and soil, did leave me with an attack of the vapours. Very impressive. And some of the photos looked as though there were windows with A/C units hanging off the side of them.
Yes, can Emperors be denied their foibles, which are often translated as someone else’s property loss? It’s a tough position to live at such an august address.
The interweb connection is up and down tonight. It’s sending me loopy trying to work out what is going wrong. Beats me. Might even be a problem with the telco for all I know.
Good to see that you are so far dodging the tech snoops, the cheeky scamps. I get those sorts of demands for location as well. Directed marketing, but being on the mobile network does make it harder to pinpoint. And yes, accuracy doesn’t seem to be a thing with them does it? It may work to lull us into a sense of false security?
Did a shandy work day. About half was paid work, and the other we headed down to the forest edge and smooshed up some boulders into more easily movable rocks. Has a seam of less hard granite. Yay!
I think such sales go on without the fanfare of the past. Budgets are limited and asset sales are one way to hide over spending.
Thanks for the correction as to the monsters enjoying the more remote parts of your neck of the woods, and note to self: If you head out in the woods today, you’ll surely get a surprise!
Hadn’t heard of the cougar attack. Ah, the fricken’ interweb. Can’t seem to access anything properly this evening. Hang on, may do a reboot… Sir, have you switched the computer off and then back on again? 🙂
Up in that part of the world, it doesn’t rain, but it pours! Then it doesn’t rain again for a while. Of course water resources were better managed back in the day when country which was meant to work like a soak, was flooded. It’s different nowadays, but I reckon the future may be surprising on that front.
Dude, I knew what you meant about the gardening, but was tired and so completely and utterly missed your primate word gaff. There was a lot of music playing in the background whilst I was working yesterday, and that makes it harder for me to concentrate. I eventually told off the computer, which helped a great deal. Your patch sounds like lovely idea. Hey, I’ve never encountered a tomatillo plant. Yes, soil improvements do take a while, I hear you about that.
You both dodged the rain again. Nice work! Hey, it looked like it was going to rain here today, but never did. Yikes! May is rather late for frosts, but it can happen here as well. Fingers crossed!
What? Already for bumble bees? It’s a good sign for the health of your garden. The native bees do their thing a bit later in the growing season than the European honeybees. A bit of a worry for some of the plants, such as the almonds.
Hehe! The two groups mutually agreed to ignore the other, despite the noise and festivities. Speaking of festivals, a very well known and long running one up north was cancelled today despite having announced the line-up and presumably selling tickets. They got flooded out last year, and I’ve spoken with people who were there. Not good. Talk of cost-of-living pressures was mentioned.
Ah, sounds like the ding-ding (the sound of a microwave) re-heating style cooking stuffs leave the pantry quicker? Of course people can use those as a basis for a chunky sauce and maybe chuck in rice or pasta, or bread etc. You can get creative with such foodstuffs, although most folks would probably simply re-heat them. Cooking is a real skill.
Might have to get a replacement AA and AAA battery super-complicated programmable charger… Oh well. It pays to be careful, literally in this instance.
The big box white good stores still sell such clippers. To be honest, the last time I purchased one, the thing seemed too cheap to comprehend, and it’s a pretty decent unit. Dunno. A mystery. Should I need, there is a razor sharp blade, but honestly I don’t have the experience to use the thing. Hmm. What does utoob have to say about such matters?
That’s possibly the strangest thing about the magpie story. It’s unable to survive in the wild, and they took it from a home, and are trying to place it in another home. I’ve heard that back in the day such things took place with infants. Sometimes bureaucracy can go looking for a task to do.
Switching the computer off and then back on again seems to have sorted out the interweb connection issues. Some days man, I dunno…
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – I generally toss a bit of lime around my garden patches. And, wood ash. I always wonder if I’m getting too much or too little. Oh, well. Seems to be working out, ok. My seeds should be here in a couple of days. I’ll also work some stove ash, into the soil. Now that Julia is gone, I don’t have a source of stove ash.
I was down at the Club the other night, and a friend wanted to have me show her how to use the library catalog. She had a laptop, with the other operating system. She mentioned she hadn’t used it since December (she’s got an I-whatever), so, there were a great deal of updates. Once those were out of the way, there was a lots of futzing around (a highly scientific and technical term) to find where to sign onto the Club’s wi-fi. Finally found it. And … it wouldn’t connect to the Club’s wi-fi. Who knows why. So much for that.
Well, I had smoke. 🙂 When I made the popcorn, to watch “Aquaman” the other night, well, as you know, I like my popcorn a bit charred. I generally yank it out of the nuke, and toss it on the stovetop, under the running vent fan. Never been a problem, before. Maybe I didn’t move fast enough. So, the smoke alarms in my apartment went off. A first. But, I know the drill. If you burn the toast, turn on the stove fan (already on) and open a window. So, I did, and pointed my small fan outside. It didn’t last long. The very stern woman’s voice, telling me I had a fire, and the shrieking alarm, were soon put to rest. What they don’t tell us when we move in the building (among a lot of other things), is not to open our front doors. That sets off every alarm in the building. Happens once or twice a year.
I think avoiding the tech snoops is a losing game. They get their pound of flesh, sooner or later.
I understand if you eat a lot of beans, sit on a boulder and break wind, one can occasionally split it. 🙂
I suppose you heard about our bridge collapse, in Baltimore. Saw a headline that said that the ship may have lost power and run amok, due to dirty fuel. Other conspiracy theories are out and about. I took a look at some statistics, this morning. We have over 600,000 bridges in the US. Almost half of them are over 50 years old. Almost half of them are in “poor condition.” Soon, they’ll be posting signs, “Cross at Your Own Risk.” Which won’t slow down the liability lawyers, but it’s a nice gesture.
Why does “The Teddy Bear’s Picnic” sound so ominous? Now a doll’s picnic or tea party I could see. A lot of that mob creep me out.
I always leave the sound on my computer, turned off. Unless there’s something specific I want to listen to. But then, I prefer the quiet life.
We’ll have three days of rain, and then we’re supposed to have three days of nice weather. My seed should be here, by then. Back to the garden!
Yes, the Bumblebees are out, and one of the Master Gardeners mentioned so are the Mason Bees. But, I wonder. They’re fine for the flowers, but are long gone by the time useful (edible) things are flowering in the garden.
I chuck in premade rice, to some things. Frozen veg into others. Garlic, seeds and Turmeric into everything. Last night, I had rice with frozen peas, corn, and some chopped up fried eggs. Garlic, etc. A bit of Swiss cheese on the top. Tasty.
I looked into the hair cutting kit I have. It’s from Wahl. They still make them. About double what I paid. Comes in a nifty little box. A great deal of it is high impact plastic. But, I’ve treated it gently (as I do with everything) over the years.
Trajan’s Market was converted to housing, or had some, over the eons. It was a convent, at one point. Must still be someone living there, given the A/C units. Lew
Hi Pam,
Ah, apologies, the system has failed, almost. Ook!
I do hope that you are doing OK? You’ve had a very rough year, and I’m hoping your son and daughter in law are being super kind, whilst cooking some tasty food.
For your interest, the figs here are getting some size, and I’m keeping an eye on them to see whether they begin to droop. They look like fig jam to me, but need to ripen first. And the growing season has only a few weeks to it left. And silly me, they are the flowers! Thanks for alerting me to that possibility. Before this year the trees had not produced any fruit. Also, of interest was a reference in a down under ‘complete fruit growing book’ (penned by an enthusiast, whom I once met a couple of decades ago) mentioned that the much derided breba crop of figs is actually prized in less wasteful cultures than ours. Makes sense.
Thanks for the laughs, yep it could also be claimed that when demand for a product isn’t natural and self evident, why not Bolshevia? 🙂 Whatever will they think of next? Probably not for our benefit…
My pleasure to bring some flowery joy into your day. The Roses in particular are enjoying the hot and dry weather of late. The rain looks set to return, with err, interest, from Monday. Ah, that ol’ droughts and flooding rains business again.
Cheers
Chris
Chris,
Ooops! I DID notice the smooth way you introduced 42 into the conversation but I forgot to mention it. Am a reading it correctly? Your new phones are the Samsung 42? If so, we had those until they wore out. I liked it. The Princess misses it. Mine had the recharge port break. Hers finally wore down. They were reliable.
The receipt showed up on my phone at nearly the exact moment I said, “I feel violated”. I still feel that way 4 days later.
A Pagan author I sometimes read has a recent column about AI and related technologies. You might enjoy it. https://wildhunt.org/2024/03/asatru-and-the-inevitability-of-technology.html
A photo will be sent when conditions warrant. Grotesque or no grotesque, that is the question!
Have you thought about doing a story about there not being a story?
Life’s hard won lessons? Well, we’ve actually discussed many. Spend time in Nature. Repeat as needed. Accept, adapt, move on. Slow down, relax, observe, process. Chop wood, carry water. Repeat as needed. “Breathe! Don’t forget to breathe. Breathing very important!” As far as losing a loved one goes: embrace the pain and grief. Fighting it makes it worse. Embracing it eventually yields to healing from the loss. The loss and pain will always be there, but embracing the grief allows one to move on and learn how to work with and through it.
I found some u-tub videos of the pregame frenzy at that venue. Exciting, but doesn’t come close to the actual intensity of the moment live in situ. So, not worth sharing. As you’ll probably understand from the stadium gig you attended.
DJSpo
Hi DJ,
One can only but do their best to amuse. 🙂 Alas, I have no idea what the Samsung phone is, but no, the one I rely on is the S42 from Cat, which are the same mob which make the heavy machines used in earthmoving. To be honest, I’m too careless with these devices to own anything less rugged than one of those. I drop the thing all the time, and the device is made for mistreatment like that… It ain’t fancy, but will keep on keepin’ on.
The original one is also from Cat and is the S41, and nothing on it broke, ever. Even the battery could go for days between recharging. But yeah, I’ve seen so many of those machines with broken glass, or like what you mentioned, broken external ports. I dunno. I probably just have a very poor attitude in regards to these mobile devices, mostly because any choice in whether I could own one or not, was taken away from me by the goobers. Is this the gentle art of whingeing? Kind of sounds like it now I’ve reread this paragraph. Ugg! I’ll be Vikings never had to put up with this kind of poop… 🙂
Thanks for the preview of techno horror. Coming to a transaction near you, and soon. Hey, how’s this for a by-line: In the digital age, no one can hear you scream!
Very good, and perhaps the Vikings did have to put up with such poop. My favourite line from the essay: “Odin never gives up the fight to save what is worth saving, to preserve what deserves to be preserved.” A notably worthy goal for ol’ One Eye.
Hehe! Look, I’ll stop the questions, seems only fair. You may begin hassling me about what I intend to write about this week? Thus returning the favour. I look forward to viewing your creation.
A story about no story sounds like a plot out of the old Seinfeld show. Just sayin’! I could do that. It might read like a sort of weird stream of consciousness essay. Candidly I do wonder if the chatbores are hoovering up my near on million words of essays over the past decade? Might lift the average standard of written word that the software is sucking in…
Oh man, acceptance, yes, I agree. How are you doing anyway?
That’s my thoughts as well. Being there is part of the moment of involvement, a sort of shared energy.
Did a lot of digging today. Finished levelling the site where the larger firewood shed will be constructed. I intend to learn about green timber – after all, it seems like the future to me. Best to get in early with such knowledge and experience.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Lime would work very well in your part of the world, as it does here. Tell ya what though, the awful thing about having read more deeply on soil minerals is that my mind starts asking questions like: What sort of lime do you use? Of course I’m also of the opinion that it’s better to add these minerals and leave perfection for other more focused individuals than I. Hey, I’m sure you’ve heard it said that: Don’t let perfection be the enemy of the good! As a bit of background, I bring in the crushed rock with lime, and anywhere near to the paths lined with that stuff, the plants grow heaps faster and are healthier and more productive. Here’s the conundrum though, I don’t actually know which type of lime the stuff is and so will use it in the orchard with the fertiliser mixture, and buy properly labelled Agricultural Lime for use in the vegetable beds. Man, everything is a compromise.
The loss of your friend, or any friend for that matter, is bad. No good. What do you do?
At a wild guess, I’d reckon in your part of the world that the lime will make more of a difference than the wood ash. Did I mention the other day I bought a bag of blood and bone meal 15kg / 33 pounds for $60. Far out, that’s inflation for you!
Oh no! Mate, we’ve all been there with that sort of techno dramas. It’s the journey which you have to somehow enjoy. 🙂 I mentioned to you the other day about lan-parties having those sorts of technical connection issues as well. There’s always be one computer which just failed to connect to the network for no discernible reason. Hey, have you ever been treated to the moment where someone tries to find a photo on their phone which they just have to show you, except they can’t find the thing? Eventually all interest and curiosity dies in the face of someone lost to social discourse whilst they scroll through thousands of photos on their phone.
Bummer about the smoke alarm situation. There’s always a first for such things, even when you wished there weren’t. Still, good to hear that you were onto it, and oh my, imagine opening the door and triggering all of the smoke alarms in the building. You’d never hear the end of it. Seriously. We’ve been talking about moving the induction cooker to under the window so that when you cook on the thing, the food smells exit the building (a bit like Elvis…) Otherwise it takes a while for the cooking smells to dissipate. One of the undocumented features of a well sealed house.
True. I’ve got some friends who tell me that they’ve given up that fight and just hand over whatever is demanded. Mind you, I have to do so as well, it just seems to bother me.
Ha! It’s a fine strategy. Maybe the weak acids in urine could be used to break apart the boulders? I’d not thought to try this… 🙂
That was on the news here, and it’s amazing that someone just happened to be filming the crash. And thankfully it was not at peak hour, like that earthquake we’ve spoken of which happened during a major sports event so people weren’t on the roads. It would have been awful for the work crew, and it is amazing that two people survived. But I’d noticed that about the bridge being near to 50 years old. Interestingly, the huge West Gate bridge which crosses the Yarra River fell down during construction – the two halves failed to meet and err, bits were loosened. Anyway, that thing is nearing that many years as well, and the goobers are busy creating a tunnel under the river. Probably not a bad idea.
What do you mean the tea party creeps you out? That’s a Canadian rock band, you know. Just to music geek it up a bit, their big song back in ’99 was ‘Heaven’s Coming Down’. Quite good really, and not at all politically orientated. 🙂 Sorry… Hehe!
I keep the sound switched off as well. It’s easy to do when the computer is linked up to the stereo system. The amplifier has a tidy on/off button. Very useful, you know. Most computers tend to have speakers which are on all of the time. Nothing wrong with quiet moments, except I’ve known people to take umbrage that I could dare read a book quietly in a public place. It’s always interesting to observe the people who intrude deliberately or otherwise on those quiet moments. I dunno, but the ones who do that, then apologise, I kind of reckon they’re looking for an argument or to emotionally unload with a confrontation. It’s an easy reply, you can say nothing and just stare at them, or simply say: ‘fine’. Not much they can say to that. Best to be prepared for such moments for they do happen.
I presume your seed is arriving in the mail? Seed probably wouldn’t enjoy your next three days of weather. Easter looks like it will be fine and warmish here, then Tuesday the rains will finally return.
This is a good thing, because we finished excavating the flat site for the new firewood shed today. A long day of work, but satisfying. Better get some crushed rock with lime on it before the rains return next week. Went to the pub for a feed and pint for dinner this evening. It was all very pleasant.
I didn’t know that about your bumblebees. Ours must be a different variety because they only turn up in the warmer summer months. Little flying fuzzballs those insects.
Use what you’ve got in the kitchen and pantry is a good start to any meal. Getting the seeds into meals is a very good idea. You’d be amazed how few people consume seeds. I add mixed grain to the bread, not to mention pepitas to the toasted muesli mix. Seeds are good. Oooo, the turmeric tubers in the greenhouse are growing really well this year. Dunno why they’re doing better this year.
The Editor is reading the ‘plum’ book you recommended and enjoying it. Many of the characters, if not all, are rather quirky, which makes for a fun set of stories. Today, she learned of squash casserole, and we’ll give it a go, but maybe substitute bread crumbs. Sometimes I bake a loaf and blitz it into useful crumbs.
Look after things and they’ll hopefully look after you. Except maybe the complicated small battery charger. That thing melted, and note to self: don’t use on a timber desk ever again. Had to order a new one.
Cheers
Chris
Chris:
Whoa! Sorry to hear about the almost system fail. At least I hope it was “almost”.
I’m okay and I am sorry to whinge so much. You are so sweet to be concerned.
I am glad that your figs are coming along and, for your interest as well, we have about 1400 baby fig trees – inside the house; though, soon surely the weather will be amenable to them going outside to face a more natural life. We have no greenhouse yet, may not build one because of the year-or-two-ahead move that we are planning. Please send one by the next mail.
I always ate the breba figs (I didn’t know any better) until I became “allergic” to the ficin in all figs.
What is a seed cake?
Pam
Hi Chris,
We did indeed get rain, about 2.5 inches. More expected early next week so just maybe we’ll get out of this multi-year dry cycle.
Forgot to tell you about my train experience last weekend. My senior fare used to be $4.75 to the city but last month they reduced the number of fare zones,increased some fares and reduced others. Mine is now $1.75! On my return trip I had my exact change fare ready along with my senior card. I showed my card and the conductor collecting fares on the car just waved off the money. Now they’re really pushing paying on the app but still accept cash. Also there are no longer any tickets on display unless you use cash so people who get on could easily get missed. There are no longer any tickets agents even in downtown Chicago so tickets must be purchased on a vending machine. I believe that is the case for you.
Margaret
Yo, Chris – I go to the garden store, and get bags marked garden lime. Seems to take the guesswork out. 🙂
Yes, I seem to remember some great Australian sage, philosopher (but not actor) saying that from time to time 🙂 According to a glance in the rabbit hole, it was an architect named McDonough who said that. Although opinions vary. Might have been Voltaire. Or, a whole host of other dudes.
Yes, some people are picture taking fools. And, yes, I’ve been through the photo wait. In fact, yesterday. I forget who. But, I mentioned I wasn’t a picture taking kind of a guy. They said, “Oh, that’s right, you only have a flip phone.” I said my flip phone takes photos, but, reiterated, I just wasn’t a picture kind of a guy. I had to laugh. When I ran into the vet Dr. Amanda, she had been to Greece. She had dozens of photos. Did she take pictures of cool ruins? No. She took dozens and dozens of photos of the feral cats of Athens. 🙂
I put it “out there” that if someone set off all the smoke alarms in the building, they had to buy everyone pizza.
Let’s hope they keep up the maintenance on the under river tunnel.
According to an e-mail I got this morning, my seed is “out for delivery.” The postie ought to bring it, this morning. Let’s hope he doesn’t pinch the package. He’s a serious gardener. 🙂
Pretty feral weather, last night and this morning. Rain and breeze. I noticed the clear days and nights we’ve got coming up … well, the forecast overnight lows are nowhere close to freezing. Unusual for this time of year.
I’m glad The Editor is enjoying the plum book. Gentle humor. And, a bit of culinary inspiration.
Last night, I watched an animated version of “The Canterville Ghost.” Not from any animation studio I recognized. It’s from a short story by Oscar Wilde. Depending on who’s counting, it’s been filmed between 10 and 14 times. The one that sticks in my mind, is one with Charles Laughton, filmed back in the early 1940s.
I also watched a film in the continuing Chehalis International Australian Film Festival. Or, is it? I didn’t see any connection to Australia, as far as the film company was concerned. No Australian Film Board, or anything like that. It was filmed, mostly around Sydney. But a lot of the cast appeared to be American. Though Bryan Brown was in it, and, probably, some other Australian actors I’m unfamiliar with. It’s a rom-com. 🙂 “Anyone But You.” It was entertaining, but I must be getting old. There were frequent F-bombs, to the point where I thought they were a bit unnecessary. Here’s the trailer.
https://youtu.be/ESEc6W2h9_k?si=KCkITucaSHsabua9
Which really doesn’t capture the com in rom.
I ran up to the store that has a pretty good in store bakery. And, yes, managed to score a lemon cake, for the festivities, tomorrow night. It’s white cake, and appears to have a big puddle of lemon pudding, on the top. I’m sure it will be a mess to cut. Lew
Pam,
You’ve more than earned the right to whinge sometimes. And if you can’t whinge here among friends, where can you whinge?
When irritated enough to be sorely tempted to use nasty language at people, I’ve been known to say, quite loudly, “Shostakovitch!” When told that I was very rude, I suggest that they gaggle Dmitri Shostakovitch and leave me alone. Worked every time: I got all of the necessary sounds out of my mouth, and I got people to leave me be. 😉
DJSpo
Chris,
I had to gaggle, giggle and search for the Cat S42 phone. You did well for indestructability! For additional cost, I had gorilla glass AND a very sturdy non-slick protective case on the Princess’s and my new phones. I think this is another case in which the guinea pigs, aka unsuspecting Americans, pay more for the same thing others can get. The salesclerk told me that she sells these add-ons to a lot of military and law enforcement. Seems to me as if all mobile phones should come with that stuff. Oh, and most of our phone choices are slippery and easy to drop without a non-slick case. In other words, built to be a disaster waiting to happen.
I can’t imagine the Vikings putting up with much poop at all. They’d be appalled at the poop we routinely put up with.
Brilliant! It even makes sense that in the digital age, no one can hear you scream. Brilliant. Made me think of Marvin the Paranoid Android’s Lullaby, because that’s sort of where this overly techno nonsense can lead. Only it will be humans singing Marvin’s Lullaby rather than the AI robots.
“Now the world has gone to bed
Darkness won’t engulf my head
I can see by infra-red
How I hate the night
Now I lay me down to sleep
Try to count electric sheep
Sweet dream wishes you can keep
How I hate the night”
His article put One Eye in a different perspective than most think about. Knowing what is going to happen, yet Odin never quit trying to find alternative endings. Why? He had the responsibility to take care of his family – the other gods/goddesses – and their human allies. I really liked the line that you quoted, too.
Oh my goodness! The chatbores hoovering up your writing. I bet they’re hoovering up Mr. Greer’s essays too, then. Can you imagine reading stuff from the chatbores and it all is news that never
happened at Fernglade Farm, albeit in your writing style. And maybe the abomination of reading articles “by Mr. Greer” that proclaim that technology will always find more and cheaper energy?
Appreciate your asking how I’m doing. Good timing. It reminded me that I needed to take some time out to think about that very topic. Otherwise, I can either float along on top, so to speak, or else get overwhelmed. So it became a day to refocus.
In other words, I’m doing a lot of being in nature, thinking, breathing, chopping wood and carrying water. Wednesday I read a lot and took several naps. Princess is about to lose another cousin. Two of my cousins whose dad recently died are conversing with me a lot. In other words, in the midst of the turmoil, I’m having to stay grounded and strong for others right now. But I also have to allow myself to grieve and feel. It’s rather a tightrope, but so far I’m doing okay.
DJSpo
Hi Pam,
Thanks, and the system is far from perfect, but it’s good enough, and that’s good enough for me. It was an almost fail. 🙂
DJ kind of summed the situation up nicely, but you and I have spoken for many years now, and in my books that’s a form of social credit. Life is rarely smooth, and inevitably tragic. It accompanies all of our lives.
Sometimes however there are major breakthroughs in what looks like common sense to me. The Queensland Premier (your Governor equivalent) has waded in on the debacle surrounding Molly the Magpie, who is best mates with a Staffordshire Terrier. The authoritas allegedly removed the bird from her best mate, the dog, due to permit issues. I can’t make this stuff up, and there is talk in other parts of the interweb about a certain person who possibly could be a described as a troublemaker with err, maybe special interests and focus. Molly the Magpie: Major development in bird-fluencer saga as hopes the world-famous magpie will soon be united with her best dog friends Peggy and Ruby. Peggy is a good dog name don’t you reckon?
That’s a lot of baby fig trees, and I do hope that they’re not sheltering from cold spring weather in the kitchen?
Pam, I’d like to, but the shipping costs would kill me. Sorry. 🙂 I tell you, when you see how we make the next greenhouse, your sons ears may prick up in interest. Something for the future.
A visitor in the past looked at the breba crop of figs and disparaged them. Historically, the visitor was wrong to do so. Of course they’re not the best crop, how could they be in a lack of strong sunlight. But if there is nothing else to consume…
Yikes! Yes, I now recall you mentioning your allergic reaction to the plant. Not something to mess around with. I’m sure you’ve done your homework in this matter, and I tell you, from what I just read there are a lot of pathways. Best avoided for you, sorry to say. The purple fig we consumed a month or two back was super tasty.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Margaret,
That’s a decent amount of rain, and hope the water works it’s way into the subsoil for you and that it also kick starts any seeds you planted out. It’s a good time of year for decent rains in your area.
The rain here is meant to be returning here on Monday (after a two month break). With that forecast in mind I decided to clean out the gutters on the roof today. A one hour job turned into a five hour extravaganza which kind of de-railed the entire plans for the day. You may recall that the tall Eucalyptus trees in the surrounding forest produced the most flowers that I’d ever seen only a month or two back? The gutters were full of pollen which had matted. Ook!
Well done you, and that’s cheap trip into the big smoke of the windy city. The train trip into the big smoke here costs considerably more. 🙂
Margaret, I recall the days when conductors on trams (the big smoke has a huge street car network) hip and shouldered their way through the packed trams and collected cash for physical tickets. For your info the country trains have conductors who check to see whether travellers had touched on at the station with their smart cards. Obviously the things have to be pre-paid so you’re loading mad cash onto the card whether you use it or not, and you can’t buy a ticket on the train. Touching on at the station, then touching off again at the destination is how the smart card thing works. It’s a complicated system, and I do wonder how visitors from overseas manage to navigate the system? Probably not well.
The vending machines at stations don’t appear to be able to sell the smart cards. You have to buy them at the station ticket office, when it’s manned. It’s complicated…
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
It’s a beast of a device. And after some searching, it does seem to be available in your country. Anwyhoo, the thing suits my style which borders on careless. What can I say, I have a mental block about those things, and possibly it is a personal failing. 😉 But did you see the specifications? Drop from 1.8m and survive. Immersion in water for 35 minutes and survive. Clean with soap and water or detergents and survive. You’re starting to get the gist of the story, it’s all about device survival. And that’s why it annoyed me so much to have to upgrade the old one, which more or less looks the same, because the thing still worked despite my best efforts to the contrary over the past four years. Such robust technology should be cheered on, except the system made the old one redundant.
The gorilla glass is a worthy upgrade. How many phones do you see that have cracked glass on the screen? It’s common enough that we chose to do something different, and went with your glass option as a standard. And yup, the non slick case is a good idea. The devices get dropped, you can’t be expected to be at the top of your game every minute of the day. Again, that’s standard, and even then the thing gets dropped. Exactly, it’s a disaster waiting to happen, because it will – it does here, all the time. Of course your disaster is a sales opportunity… 🙂
Thanks for the Viking confirmation, I was a bit worried that they might do so, or come and get me. Always a possibility with that lot. They seemed rather feisty.
Hey, even if they do hear you scream, does anyone care? Marvin’s lullaby is genius. Despite the serious lack of funness with that character, he’s alright. Thanks for reproducing the poem in its entirety, has it made you feel sleepy? Hasn’t had that effect on me either, in fact it’s a bit of a buzzkill. 🙂
Thanks. That line stood out head and shoulders above the other words. To do what is needful, even in the face of decline and adversity, well that’s just it isn’t it? Did Odin predate the ancient stoic school of philosophy? I reckon he would have. There are times when things occasionally overwhelm me, but then we’re here to do stuff so might as well get on with what needs doing. And occasionally the powers that be display some common sense, like the Molly the Magpie intervention.
That was my thought as well, and no doubt they’d be slurping up Mr Kunstler’s writings too, for good measure. It is an abomination. Yeah, that word works, nicely. I reckon that the things are only cheap now, because nobody is paying the full cost. That disruption model they wield is a risky model and relies on a lot of cheap mad cash.
I appreciate your response, because I’m never really sure as to how much to ask about such matters, and just go by feel instead. Probably not a good guide. Good to hear how you’re doing and coping. Life has elements of tragedy about it, but equally there is also comedy, and the companionship of a good dog. Plus some sunshine, that’s good too.
Interesting, and like you I also find it works for me doing other activities whilst cogitating upon life’s vicissitudes and losses. Rest is also good, it’s the mind healer, if not over done. Yeah exactly, you can give, but remember to also give to yourself. Too far either side of that continuum is dangerous.
I spent most of the day up a ladder cleaning out the guttering. All that pollen from the Eucalyptus trees had produced a sticky matted felt like substance. Usually I use a mains electric powered blower to smoosh the leaves and gunk from the guttering, but not this time. Had to use the hose and ended up getting splashed a lot. The rain is forecast to return Monday, and the guttering collects my drinking water. For your interest, the pipes are a wet system, and so after the cleaning I had to dump the several thousand litres of water in the wet system in order to clean the gunk from all of the pipes. It’s the water supply, so it’s time well spent, but also a very messy and risky job (falling off the roof or ladder is a possibility). All done now, yay. Tomorrow I plan to take off any and all work, it being Easter Saturday and all.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
That’s easy for you, but not so much for me. Like country and western music (sorry for the Blues Brothers reference, yes, it’s a musical!!!), there are three sorts of lime on sale at suppliers down here: Garden Lime (or Agricultural Lime); Dolomite; and Gypsum and they’re all about the same price with gypsum being the cheapest. I tend to buy the Garden Lime and the Gypsum, and avoid the Dolomite due to the clay soils here not really needing the other minerals which also come that avoided bag.
Hehe! I can’t afford soil testing, so it’s guesswork and observation all the way here. 🙂 I tell ya what though, the fruit trees growing near to any of the limed paths are just better than the others further away. Honestly, I’m thinking about just buying some of the crushed rock with lime and spreading it around the orchard. Big storms are having that effect anyway because some of the crushed rock gets moved anyway by the flow of storm water. There’s an ongoing joke with the Editor and I about the subject of soil: I can’t talk about that. 😉 Fortunately I may get to do a talk on the subject soon. Should be interesting.
It’s a good saying, and worthy of repetition. Have you ever wondered why some actors can have hugely long careers, and yet others don’t have that sort of longevity? A lot of the arts are like that don’t you reckon? Anywhoo, I’m voting for Voltaire as the origin of the saying on the basis that he has a cool name, but was also reputed to be quite bright.
Sorry to hear that, I was hoping you’d worked up a good reply for the photo-wait situation that’s non-confrontational. I like your style with the response, but some folks may get a bit tetchy when confronted with, well it’s all about them with the display. Oh well, it’s a very common situation, and I’m pretty sure I don’t subject people to such things. Must have been super-bad in a past life, probably ending up in an implosion. A nasty business. 😉 Oh no! That’s kind of funny because I know you would have loved to have ambled around the ruins of the Ancient Greeks, and yet all you saw were the feral street cats of Athens. It’s not right, but well, the profession is a give away as to interests. Talk about disappointing. So did you see any interesting cats?
Oh, that’s good about the massive building pizza purchase risk. Nice. Lot’s of ticks there: Boundaries + Consequences + Pizza. Winning!
It makes you wonder what the average lifespan of a tunnel actually is? And how would the thing even be maintained? There was some sort of flooding incident due to heavy rainfall with that channel train a while back. There’s a bridge in the Big Smoke which gives me a feeling of the heebie jeebies, and I avoid the thing. And I can’t put a finger on why it makes me feel that way, it’s only that one. Probably some deep neuroses. Have you ever felt that about a place?
Surely he wouldn’t? I used to know a lovely local lady who was forever telling me that her dad said that the best gardeners were inevitably thieves. Probably due to their propensity to take cuttings etc…
A warm early spring means a good head start for the garden. Speaking of odd weather, had I mentioned that it has barely rained here for the past two months? Well, that’s about to change. Monday afternoon, the remnants of ex-tropical cyclone Megan are heading down this way. It’s a low pressure tropical system. Should get some decent rainfall. I spent most of the day on the roof cleaning the guttering. Seriously, it’s usually only an hours work, but not today. At least the weather was nice and warm and being regularly splashed with water used to clean the things was no great hardship. But the gutters which collect our drinking water, were full of matted pollen. It was a real mess, and I had to also dump the water in the pipe system. Far from fresh. I can’t recall the tall forest trees ever producing so many flowers, and this is probably due to the serious soil feed going on for a very long time.
It is gentle humour, and rest assured, we’re reinterpreting the casserole for local ingredients. It should be a tastier option.
Ah, I’d not previously heard of this ghost story. It’s an amusing clash of cultures and also the story of a titled family looking for a bit of mad cash – which is a situation you’ve mentioned before. It was a thing back in the day. A bit of humour, a bit of lore / wisdom, and a bit of social observation. Interesting.
Sounds like a fun movie, and note to self: Don’t annoy that young lady, she’s got a mean right hand, and that was a brutal smack. Ouch! I know what you mean, swearing is a tool, not to be over used, but to be diplomatically deployed for maximum shock value. If over used it does become a bit blah. I agree.
Oooo! Yummo! The cake sounds lethal and super yummy. Hope they used real lemon in the pudding?
I plan to do no work tomorrow. That’s the plan at this stage anyway, report to follow… 🙂
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – And then there’s lemon-lime, and limeade. 🙂
There are soil test kits, you can get here. The Master Gardeners had a seminar to show how to use them. Something I should add to the “to-do” list. Although, a place as big as yours, you’d probably go broke buying kits.
Speaking of going broke, there was an article about home insurance here, that was pretty good. Nice and clear.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/home-insurance-market-crumbling-owners-100026967.html?
I spread your mantra, wherever I go. “I have an Australian friend, who says it all starts with the soil…” Credit where credit is due. 🙂
Actors with long careers? They show up on time and know their lines. They don’t make outrageous demands. A “problem” actor’s reputation gets around pretty fast.
Recently, I had a photo-wait with our Club Manager, Mr. Bill. He has a new grandchild. So, after a lot of futzing around, he finally came up with the picture. My observation? “It’s a baby.” Deadpan. He also has a new puppy. First named “Peanut,” and thought to be a female. Then discovered to be a boy. Well, when people around The Club started riffing on his name, evoking a male appendage, the name was changed to “Muffy.” Which isn’t much better, if you think about it, a bit. The pup runs H ragged.
The cats, though feral, look well cared for.
When I worked in Olympia, for three years, I’d also catch a meeting up there. I had to cross this bridge, that was over a deep chasm. Always gave me the willies. It wasn’t a very long bridge, but I was aware of all that empty space, below me. Someone told me it had been retrofitted for earthquake, but it still bothered me.
Safely got my seed, yesterday. And, I’m feeling a bit had. I mentioned the shipping was $9. I did a bit of research. It was a 4oz package. According to The Font of All Wisdom, a first class postage rate for 4oz. should be $4.19.
Maybe the pollen is good for you? Cures cancer, or something?
Wilde wrote that story just about the time in England, where impoverished nobles were marrying American heiresses, left and right, to put a new roof on the old family pile. I really should read the story in the original. Every film version probably puts it”s own twist on the story.
Speaking of movies, I watched one of the Hallmark movies, last night. They’re mostly rom-coms, but I like the one’s that have to do with food. This one was called, “You’re Bacon Me Crazy.” It was filmed in Portland! Much to my surprise. The basic story was about a food truck war.
I also saw a trailer for a new movie, that looks like a lot of fun. We’ve talked about those breakfast pastries, that show up in our boxes from time to time. Now, we have the origin story. As a comedy.
https://youtu.be/XbnoMDpN4qo?si=RIOktcaGZcvJJGUy
I doubt the cake has come anywhere near a real lemon. But, the artificial lemon flavor, will be what people are expecting. Wouldn’t want to startle the natives. I also picked up paper plates and plastic forks. Just to make sure things go smoothly. Sometimes, it’s just better to cater to people’s expectations. Within limits.
My friend’s daughter in Idaho just had a real estate deal, fall through. It was quit a chunk of land, 200+ acres. The folks negotiating on it, wanted their payments to be $1,000 less, per month. That could be done, if they came up with a larger down payment. But there seemed to be a lack of comprehension, of numbers, on the buyers part. Lew
Chris:
Thanks for the Magpie-Staffy update. I had heard the ridiculous, vindictive thing a few days ago, but nothing since.
Pam
Chris,
Indeed, that phone is available in the USA. However, I’m not sure what network it will work on. The information shows which ones it’s not compatible with – all of the big nationwide networks. Oh well, I’ll stick with what we’ve got.
Marvin’s lullaby does NOT leave me sleepy. Rather, were I to recite it at night, I’d find it haunting and depressing and then it would lead to insomnia problems. 😉
Stoics? It’s interesting, but my various studies have shown that the basic ideas seem to be everywhere at many different times. No one culture, philosophy or belief system seems to have a monopoly on it.
Molly the Magpie? Ugg. Hope she does get returned to the only family she has ever known. The first article I read, about the removal from her family, ended with “Molly has been sent to a suitable facility”. Ummm, since she can’t be released into the wild, what was unsuitable about where she was raised? Anyhow, it does sound as if saner heads have prevailed.
We raised a baby robin one summer. We made sure it got a lot of outside time. It was fun giving it flying lessons. It liked to sit on the roof and swoop down whenever we came outside. Had to put an arm out or else it would land on our heads. When the summer robins left for the winter, the robin we raised went with them. We considered that to be a success.
Oh, heck. It would be hard for you to step over a line with me. And if you did, I’d politely mention it. Asking how I’m doing right now is actually rather helpful, in fact very helpful and much appreciated.
The doctors attempted a “Hail Mary” procedure on cousin. It worked. She is doing much better and is strong enough to get a pacemaker inserted. Then maybe go home. Whew.
I left out one of the helpful things I’ve learned to do. Laugh at something at least once a day, no matter how trying the situation. Laughter is a good thing. The Princess sounded frazzled this morning when she called. She said that she had gone shopping for clothes for cousin. As cousin was ambulanced to hospital, she had no clothes. I mentioned that the emperor has no clothes. Cousin has no clothes. Therefore, cousin is the emperor. That got a good chuckle and she started to relax a bit. Humor helps.
Oh yes. Clean out the gutters. Stand on the ladder. Don’t fall down. Breathe. Climb down the ladder. Move the ladder. Climb up the ladder. Clean out the gutters…Make sure you breathe.
DJSpo
Hi DJ,
Ah, of course I’d forgotten that detail about your countries communication system. Look, there are advantages and disadvantages to that particular approach. Down here, with a smaller population, we have the one system which all of the networks connect into and share, and they’re switching off the 3G network by the end of June. Just did a read into what happens in your country, and it looks like the old battle of VHS versus Beta technology, and whilst Beta may be technically superior, VHS won the bout, whilst both eventually fell to the mat and were given the count to ten by the umpire against the race to digital formats. That’s my take on how things look to me.
What did my old phone in was that it did voice calls over the 3G network (shortly to be switched off), and yet did data happily over the 4G network. The new device is much the same, except it does voice calls over the 4G network. No choice there.
Now, the nice telco’s have been busy upgrading towers in this remote area, and bizarrely we recently got shunted for data from 5G into 4G. A year or two back I splashed some serious mad cash for a commercial grade 5G modem and have been enjoying completely nuts interweb speeds. Got used to those. Except, here’s the joke, the telco upgraded one of the nearby towers, and so the thing now sends out a stronger signal, and the stupid modem has a learning mode which latches onto the strongest nearby signal. Except it was 4G LTE it latched onto rather than what I’d become accustomed too, which was 5G. The bandwidth dropped after the nice telco upgrade, thanks dudes!
Anyway, being the canny and resourceful dude that I am, I’ve spent the past week positioning the modem and router so that they pick up the old faster 5G signal. And we’re back baby! Yeah! See, this is what comes from a misbegotten childhood spent mucking around on the old AM and SSB CB networks and constructing my own stereo equipment. And to think that the adults thought I was wasting my time. 😉
It is possible that Marvin would agree with you and suggest: Sleep, don’t talk to me about sleep. Not sure what that all means, but I reckon that is what the android would say. The nights are colder now here, and the only time my sleep is disturbed is if vixens are screeching in the orchard, barking owls are screaming in the orchard, the dogs are barking alerting me to mischief in the orchard, or I’m too cold. An extra blanket or two solves a world of issues when it comes to cooler temperatures. Of course it is getting warmer in your part of the world. You wouldn’t believe the dust in the air here – it has not rained properly for over two months now.
The stoics were possibly reacting to circumstances then? This is of interest to me because both Dame Plum and Ollie enjoy being groomed with the brush. Better than having them blow their coats in the house. Anywhoo, the outlier was Ruby, so I brushed Ollie first, then Dame Plum, and finally brought the naughty one outside to deal with the brush. And she’d watched the other two dogs enjoy the experience, then moved to acceptance and enjoyment. Dogs… I’ll bet Dame Avalanche is clever enough to enjoy a brushing?
I’m pretty certain now that Molly the Magpie will be fine due to saner heads prevailing. From my understanding of the story, the bird had zero chance of survival. Man, some birds don’t make it, and as hard as it is to say, birds sometimes employ a ruthlessness that us humans pretend does not exist in nature.
Nice one with the Robin, and birds have a very good memory. Did the Robin ever return to your place? The magpie family here know all of us, and they ignore the peaceful Ollie, but are super wary of the two Kelpies. It’s funny, but they used to get very annoyed with Ruby and swoop her (as they do with humans in the big smoke), but now they tease her mercilessly. Sometimes, the magpies try to get her into trouble too. Clever birds.
Thanks for that, and I much appreciate your perspective. If ever there is a misunderstanding, it is always best to ask, and I will do similarly. One of the problems besetting society at the moment is that we are encouraged to division, and yeah, not good. Recently I had a friend who is having some troubles, and we were talking and my perspective of the future was brought into question. You know, sometimes I recognise that people can argue about other issues, yet not talk about the things that are important, and that’s a bad thing. Dunno whether to write about that story.
That’s great news about your cousin, and those devices work. Phew, indeed! 🙂
Humour does help, and like you I also enjoy a good chuckle or laugh at how absurd life can be. Sometimes, Sandra gives off this sort of sound which is like a long suffering groan when I say something stupid too, but you know the words are always appreciated. And that was a funny observation of yours.
That was exactly how the day went for the gutters on the veranda. Except there were some gutters on the roof which I had to stand on the veranda and clean. One hand for hanging on for sheer life, and the other for cleaning gunk. I must say, after fifteen years in the sunshine and extreme UV down here, the corrugated steel roof is far less slippery than it once was – however, repeat after me: I must not get complacent!!! 🙂
Took the day off any and all work today, except I vacuumed the house (dust being more my concern), watered everything, and cleaned out the magpie water / cleaning reservoir.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Pam,
It’s good to see that cooler heads prevailed in the possible magpie abduction from home story. From what I’ve observed of those very clever birds (two families of them live here), the parents give the fledglings a day to learn to fly, then bad things happen to those who can’t or won’t.
Long ago we once took in a very ill kitten (it had cat flu and had been kicked out of the litter). I encountered the kitten, which must have been no more than a few weeks old, if that, at the front gate. I looked at him and said, if you walk through this gate, the place is yours. And the kitten did. At vast expenditure, the sick kitten spent the first week at the vet, and they grew rather fond of him.
We brought him home, and the boss dog, The Fat, who was a Dorgi, took the kitten under her wing. The two ended up being best mates, and the cat acted as if he were a dog. It was really lovely, so I’m unsurprised by the magpie / Staffordshire terrier friendship.
How’s Mr Baby doing?
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Ah yes, of course, those fine drinks should not be forgotten. Don’t laugh, but I used to know someone who believed about that word ‘lime’ that the pH was the same between the citrus and the rock forms. I don’t think so, one is on the acidic side and the other is on the basic side of the measurement. Isn’t the English language fascinating to describe very different things, using the same word? Probably very confusing for people attempting to learn the language.
That’s my point, the soil is different all over the place here. I wouldn’t be sure what sample to send in and whether the results would be applicable to the rest of the land? In some areas, despite two months of very minimal rainfall, the grass is still green because I know that the topsoil is very deep there and contains lots of humus. In other parts of the property, the grass has died off, and I know that the topsoil layer there is very thin. Even in the new citrus fenced off area, there is an unusual patch of green grass. If you trace the flow of water back up the hill, you can see that the overflow for the shed water tanks is located further up. I’m assuming that the water must travel underground and pop up there where the green grass is growing.
Look, I’d do the tests, but someone else has to pay. My willingness to spend mad cash has its limits.
Thanks for the article on insurance, and this has been a subject I’ve written about every year and is close to my heart. You may notice that we are busily cleaning up the area? I noticed in one of the photos of the nice folks in that big state to the south west of you, they had large trees almost up against the house. It’s not good, and I’d recommend probably lowering their risk, but that’s hard work. And we are likewise facing such huge hikes in costs. It interested me to read that the hard question was being asked: Why do the insured things cost so much to build? Historically, most people have constructed their own homes, what goes on at the moment is unprecedented and super expensive.
On that note, I met a lovely couple today who were old timers in the area. We knew people, they knew, and you know how such things go. I’m sure they’ve since checked our references… The couple had plans which I approved of in relation to edibles, and there may be some mutual interests there. Hmm. Sometimes the universe gives you a hard poke. Not that I’m not already busy… 🙂
Hehe! It’s a good mantra, and I’ve learned from other folks down under too. When you think about the overall state of soil fertility across the planet, it’s not a bad idea seeing what works when soils are seriously infertile. The same could be said for water. Given we’re on limited tank water and rainfall can be intermittent to non existent, we seem to manage OK with that limited resource. You’d be amazed how little water we use on the edibles, and virtually nothing on the garden.
Makes sense as to reputation within the industry. I’ve heard of some actors rubbishing the films they’d been in, and that’s not a good look. Whilst we’re talking about films, do you reckon the sequels to The Hunger Games were any good?
Haha! Mate, we’ve all been there. Makes a person wonder if hospitals occasionally muck things up and swap kids? I’m sure it must of happened somewhere. Thanks, I just thought of that too with the name. Well, at least you have some insight into the Club Managers inner workings. 😉 I’ve never encountered a dog named Muffy. Sounds like a good title for a book don’t you reckon? The poorly named underdog comes out on top and saves civilisation? And err, H is getting payback for when she ran her humans and other pooches ragged. Makes you wonder if the experience has altered her perspective on the world?
The feral cats may be dining upon feral mice and rats?
Ook! How is a bridge retrofitted for an earthquake? And it makes you wonder the hard question, why wasn’t this possibility factored into design in the first place? The 5.9 earthquake three years ago left a strong impression on me, and things could be far worse in your part of the world.
Have you considered asking the supplier the hard question about the postage costs? What you paid would be fairly usual down here.
I don’t think so, the pollen was a fricken’ nightmare. You know, there were times a month or so back where it was literally raining pollen. You could see the stuff falling from the trees. Now the parrots are cracking the seed pods for the nutritious seeds whilst doing their best to hit you in the head with the discarded pods. It’s scary out there man!
If you do read the original story, I’ll be curious to hear whether the mutual social and monetary circumstances were discreetly mentioned, or perhaps less discreetly discussed.
The film sounds like fun. Just watched the trailer. I didn’t know that mob had their own film channel. Here we may agree, but Chef was the best food truck / buddy story film I’ve seen. I still find myself thinking of that film from time to time, plus I would have wanted to sample the food. Took today off work, and went forth to conquer a gourmet pie. A worthy pursuit!
Unfrosted looks like a hoot, and it’s got a good cast. Amy Schumer is very funny. Did I even see Peter Dinklage in the trailer? I wouldn’t eat such things, but hey, it’s a choice thing. Is it on the library list?
The lemon essence would conversely startle me. 🙂 I tell you what though, the real stuff is acidic and quite difficult to work with. I had a lot of trouble once with a Key Lime Pie because I put too much lemon juice in it and the curds failed to set properly. Tasted good, but looked a total mess.
Well, maths skills being what they are. It is possible that the larger down payment was not as easily done as asked for. That can happen.
Cheers
Chris
Chris:
Mr. Baby is super. Mr. Baby loves birds, too.
All of our cats and dogs always considered each other cats and dogs. At least I could get them to tolerate each other.
Pam
Hello Chris
I have had too little time to read the comments this week.
The goat gets ever louder. I said ‘ Oh well, we can eat her’. Son’s response was ‘Certainly not, she is my favourite.’ There was a mountain rescue callout in the UK, which turned out to be a goat!
Our clocks go forward tonight.
Family members arrive this coming week. An honorary son from the US and a daughter from Australia.
Son has been without his vehicle, it is supposed to come back on Tuesday.
A Happy Easter to all.
Inge
Yo, Chris – I bet Molly the Magpie’s owners, will have to jump through all kinds of hoops to get their certification, and, there will probably be fees. 🙁
People believe all kinds of rubbish. I’d say the hardest things to learn in another language, are idioms. The example frequently used, is “beating around the bush.” How do you explain that to someone with English as a second language? Once, I worked in a bookstore where the manager was very miffed that a young Asian girl had not understood a customer alerting her to a shoplifter by using the phrase, “He’s ripping you off.” But then, that manager was a general … well, family friendly, and all.
“…unusual patch of green grass.” Probably where the body is buried.
Always nice to meet people with common interests. I tend to gravitate to people at the Club, who are interested in gardening, books and movies. Funny that. 🙂
I think I watched the last episode of “The Hunger Games.” And, now, the prequel. I think I missed the ones in-between, and really aren’t interested in them. Who knows why. But I did like the “Maze Runner” series. That, I found interesting.
Oh, it seems like every six months or so, there’s some story about kids swapped at birth. It’s also a fiction trope. Goes back a long ways.
H is generally more energetic, than her buddies around the Institution. I think Muffy is the first dog she’s run across who’s higher energy, than her. I don’t think she’s settled on an approach, yet. I hope she doesn’t decide to take a chunk out of Muffy, to calm her down.
Looking at the style of that bridge, I’d say it was a WPA project from the 1930s. I don’t know how they go about retrofitting a bridge for earthquakes, but, it’s done.
Unfortunately, our library system only has “The Canterville Ghost” as an e-book. Not going there. I see the River has copies for less than $5. Might add it to my next order.
Speaking of movies, something interesting popped up on the “new” list, at our library. “Sasquatch Sunset.” Here’s the trailer …
https://youtu.be/KgfkthLpeXw?si=ZJyzLMdAyz49PyLT
LOL. It’s got terrible reviews, and almost went straight to DVD. People walked out of theaters. I added it to my hold list. I’m sure it will become a cult classic. 🙂
Yup. Hallmark has its own channel. They really crank out the romances and rom-coms. Also, mystery / romance / comedy films. Our library orders dozens of them, but at least they usually come in multiple movies per box. I’m really only interested in the one’s that have something to do with food. And, the occasional ones that revolve around libraries or bookstores.
Yes, Peter Dinklage is in “Unfrosted.” Just another reason to put it on my hold list, if the library gets it.
My Idaho friend’s daughter also has a lot of 10 acre tracts, for sale. Nice views, I guess, if you like barren hillsides. 🙂 I asked how much they are, per, and ought to hear back, tomorrow.
Well, my little soiree, at the Club was a success, I guess. Swapped my XXXIV coin, for a XXXV coin. Feels lighter in my pocket 🙂 . There were enough people there, who I wanted there, that it was OK. The lemon cake was a success. It cut, really nice. Tasted like lemon, or, at least what people expect commercial lemon baked goods, to taste like. But I don’t know. Birthdays (either kind) and Christmas always make me feel … melancholy. After, I ran by the Dollar + store and picked up a couple bags of tinned goods. The pantry was looking a little bare, though someone had brought in several bags of rice. Which move pretty good. The dollar store, however, was pretty much out of tinned fruit. The only thing I could get was pineapple chunks. But, there was plenty of condiments and veg. Whole kernel corn moves pretty well. As does green beans. But not French cut green beans. Who knows why? There was plenty of thick soups and stews. Took the tinned stuff, in, this morning. That will have to hold us, until the next box comes in. Commodities, next Wednesday. Lew
Hi Pam,
Lovely, and Mr Baby sounds like a true gentleman of a cat.
That’s been my experience as well with cats and dogs, they get along just fine, although cats always maintain a sense of superiority over their canine friends. The last cat I owned used to play games with the dogs and pounce on them all unaware and stuff. The dogs were very respectful of the cat, yet they’d all sleep snuggled up together.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Inge,
I applaud your pragmatic approach to resolving the goat issue, and goat curry is really quite tasty. Yum! 🙂
Inge, there have been multiple rescue alarms in relation to goats purportedly stuck in mountainous areas. It should be noted that these are the natural habitat of such an animal. I had to laugh about the wild Longhorn goat apparently stuck on some remote mountain in Wales. The person who called the alert in was err, let down gently. The goat would have been fine. I’ve seen photos of goats climbing trees, and hope never to see one roaming the orchard, although, I’d likewise be thinking thoughts of curry. 😉
Ah good luck with the hour shifting exercise, and um, well, I always feel a bit of dislocation for a week afterwards. Oh well, no doubt you are more resilient, or are able to sleep in? The change over here is next weekend, and I’m currently not enjoying waking up in the dark.
Lovely! I hope everyone has a pleasant stay and that you enjoy many a stimulating conversation.
Ah, yes mechanics are known to take Easter off work, for good and valid reasons. Hope the repairs go smoothly.
And a happy Easter to you too. I can hear a steam train whistle. The enthusiasts up north run a steam train into an actual station (Castlemaine), so I believe the drivers have to keep their hours up on the network. Heard it this morning as well.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Well, yeah, that was the general consensus. Registrations, training, fees, subscriptions etc… Look, I’ve read accounts that the early convicts used to keep all manner of wildlife as pets. We’re really quite arbitrary about the sort of animals we classify as pets, and there are times I look at Dame Plum, and she has this mini-wolf expression on her face. The other two, not so much.
That’s it about beliefs, they don’t have to be true. Mr Greer has a good meme about UFO’s and it suggested: “I wanted to believe, then the goobermint said they were true!” It’s pretty cheeky. I agree, beating around the bush makes little sense, although that’s what they used to do when flushing ground dwelling birds out of their hiding places. No guarantee of success, or evading being caught poaching… Mate, I’ve worked for some folks who are unable, or maybe unwilling to empathise. That’s a tough gig.
Ooo, yeah, maybe you’re right there? Best not to make a big fuss.
🙂 Shared interests are a delightful way to connect with like minded people. Funny you mention this…
Hmm, I’d not heard of this film. Thanks, it’s on the to-see list. With the Hunger Games, I had a lot of trouble trying to work out why this was all happening, although there was a weird plausible back story. It was the performances which lifted that movie rather than the story line.
Is it really a fictional trope? I wonder that it doesn’t happen more often.
H is like all of us, getting older. It’s good to see that in Muffy, she may have met her match. A dog should be challenged, this is the way of things. After four years of Kelpie-dom, the dogs are quietening down. H may take a chunk of Muffy, and it will be a good learning lesson for the obstreperous young hound.
Beats me how they would retro-fit a bridge. Some of the really big bridges in the big smoke get regular maintenance, but honestly, how much can they really do? And one of the big bridges, trucks are shunted to the outer lanes. I don’t get that. There was a similar incident down under almost five decades ago: Baltimore’s Key Bridge collapse sparks memories of Hobart’s own disaster after ship struck Tasman Bridge. The safety systems in place for that bridge, don’t appear to be evident in the more recent collapse. Looks expensive.
I can’t do e-books either.
Oh yeah, it has the makings of a cult classic. The trailer looks like a hoot! Surely the film couldn’t have been that bad? But as you note, sometimes what the critics pan, may actually be pure genius.
Cool, food is good. Films about food are therefore good too. The same may be said for libraries. I reckon the Air Raid book club would make for a good film?
I await your review of the film.
Hehe! There are plenty of barren hill sides down under as well, they just worry me about the average rainfall. Man, the last decent rain was on the 26th January, which coincidentally was the Australia Day public holiday. Tomorrow, we may get an inch or two of rain. Don’t count your inches before they’re in the water tanks, that’s my thinking. Oh, Kathi-Thanda Lake Eyre starting to fill. At almost 50ft below sea level, I’d call that a ground water replenisher.
Congrats on the milestone, 35 years is an admirable achievement. Yeah, I see what you mean there! 😉 Even better that you got a decent turn out for the occasion. Best not to scare people with real lemon, and instead give them what they want. My guide for a good cake is the evidence as to whether it was fully consumed. Yeah, I get that. During you know what a major milestone birthday was celebrated on a park bench, sheltering from the near freezing rain, dodging the authoritas, and consuming take away pizza and a very tasty dessert stout. A true low point. Oh well, mustn’t grumble. So yeah, I hear ya.
Dude, I had to look up what you meant by French cut green beans, and my best guess was that the word ‘julienned’ frightened the people. Dunno. It’s a mystery. Man, the pantry is a great resource for those who need it. It can be tough out there.
Cheers
Chris
I wonder if anyone will write an article on 1st April about trans-species animals such as trans dogs who happen to have been born as kittens and vice versa, with someone claiming to be a veterinary psychiatrist arguing they have species dysphoria.
Yo, Chris – The web site “Good Reads” has quit a list of fiction books about infants switched at birth. Even Mark Twain had a go. “Pudd’nhead Wilson.” Unfortunately, “Good Reads” can’t be linked to, except through social media. Seems to be more and more of that. 🙁
I’d missed Mr. Greer saying that, about UFO’s. It would make a great t-shirt. Probably is a great t-shirt.
What the connection between flushing out birds, and getting to the point, is lost on me. Or, “getting to the bottom line.” LOL. Which is another idiom.
“Maze Runner” has three movies in the series. Or, six books. Teen dystopian novels. Another whole book genre.
That was an interesting article about the Hobart bridge. When I saw pictures of the Baltimore bridge, I thought of Tinkertoy’s. A children’s play set. I see they’re still making them. And then there were Lincoln Logs.
In a totally unrelated digression, the Derwent River triggered memories. Way back when I was young, and collecting or occasionally dealing in tat, I started picking up a flow blue (Victorian / Edwardian ceramic. The look was due to the manufacturing process) pattern called “Derwent.” Which I see is now called Duchess Derwent. Manufactured by the Grindley Co.. Some merchant in the Portland area, must have been selling it, way-back-when. A piece would pop up, from time to time. I had some wild idea about putting together a whole set of it. I sold if all off, when I got serious about the tat business.
Those 10 acre tracts in Idaho are priced at $160,000 per tract. My friend said that pricing land in her area, doesn’t seem to have any rhyme or reason to it.
There was no cake to take home, though it was a near thing. 🙂
Nice days, but cooler weather. On-shore flow and the days are starting off foggy.
Well, it’s Easter morning, here. The Ladies here at the Institution are planning some kind of a feed. And, some pastor is coming in the afternoon to do a service. I’ll generally lay low. Will probably work in the garden, late in the day.
Hallmark is an interesting company. They started out in greeting cards, way back when. They still have over 1,000 stores, here in the US. We have one, in town. A lot of them are franchises, I think. Not only do they sell tons of greeting cards, but also party supplies and lots of tat from the Land of Stuff. Now I suppose, they probably also have a large selection of their DVDs.
Hallmark used to put out, what I’d call “quality” TV specials. “What the Deaf Man Heard,” is an example. A movie, from a book of the same name. Then, at some point, they discovered that the rom-coms and holiday movies were more popular, and a lot less costly to produce. They’re also in the process of moving from cable to streaming. Seems to be the wave of the future. Lew