Where was Dame Plum the Kelpie dog? She was only here a moment ago. We’d been working splitting boulders down at the forest edge. Without noticing, Plum had entered the forest. I’m very uncool about unsupervised dogs, there’s a lot to go wrong out there, and dogs can be stupid. Come! The firm command was yelled off into the forest. A moment. Then from out of the trees emerges Dame Plum, but she looks a little funny.
One of her front legs was acting a bit weird. The dog valiantly ran to my feet with the last of her energy. She flopped onto her side and began performing the funky chicken dance. Dame Plum was having a seizure. All you can do at such moments is try to calm her down, and simply be there for the dog. It looks painful with her back arched back, the eyes a thousand miles away and her tongue hanging out. Hope she doesn’t bite her tongue.
After a few minutes the worst of it passes and the dog sort of woozily resumes normality. After ten minutes, she’s mostly back to normal. In four years, the Kelpie has had five seizures that I’m aware of. It would be hard for her to hide the fact she’d had one that I’d missed, because for a day or two afterwards, the dog isn’t running around as fast, and this dog breed does everything fast.
We keep a record of the dates, and also the duration of the seizures. Some dogs can have them on an alarmingly regular basis, so once or twice per year is at least something to be grateful for. Looking back over the records a pattern emerged out of the primordial fog of information. It was odd though that Dame Plum only seemed to have the episodes during spring or autumn. Hmm. Wonder what it means.
Sometimes it pays to think about a problem for a bit and consider patterns, because it is then you remember that Ruby (the other Kelpie) did something weird about two weeks ago. Remember, unsupervised dogs = not cool, but then they’re fast so trouble strikes quickly. Turn your back and attention away for but a moment, and the dogs are a quarter mile away. They’re that fast.
Thinking upon the incident with Ruby, she’d also been in the same area a fortnight ago. It was another back turned for a but moment. Come! Was again commanded. This time however, Ruby was off and racing in the wrong direction, all crazy like. The dog ended up heading down to the fern lined creek at the bottom of the property. Fortunately she was barking a distressed call, so we knew where to find her. And when we did, Ruby was running backwards and forwards in a small creek gully as if she were held fast in the grip of a brain lock, whatever that is.
Without wanting to scare the dog and have her run off again in a new direction, we watched her a few moments. Approaching slowly was the order of the day. But seeing us humans broke the brain lock, and Ruby came over and sat. She too was a bit woozy, but unlike Dame Plum, the unsettled dog had to walk the half kilometre back up the hill again. The kelpie was way too heavy for me to carry her that far. It’s uphill and through the bush. At least the creek was a very beautiful spot to have a brain malfunction.
Regular readers will recall the other bit of dog weirdness from last week. Ollie knocked over a wallaby in the orchard. Wallabies are a slightly smaller lone forest dwelling kangaroo. Whilst they are smaller than a kangaroo, they’re still big enough to give the sensitive to danger person pause for thought. Yet Ollie knocked the wallaby to the ground. I had to launch in and remove the large dog out of the altercation by his collar. The dazed wallaby bounced off and headed away and down the hill. It was something of a mystery because what was the usually nocturnal marsupial doing in the orchard during the daylight hours? That like never happens, except last week. And why didn’t the wallaby hop away for its very life? That’s the usual reaction from the marsupial at the sight of humans and dogs.
Frankly, there were more questions than answers. Like all good detective stories, there was something nagging at the back of my brain about the dates of Dame Plums seizures. Spring / Autumn. Autumn / Spring. The idea kept bouncing around my head. Surely it meant something? A few days of cogitation upon the problem yielded nothing. The dogs activities were curtailed.
One morning when reading the news, there was an article about some person dying from alleged mushroom poisoning. Awful. Oh yeah, spring and autumn are mushroom season. Hang on a second: spring / autumn. That’s when the metaphorical penny dropped. Those idiots (excluding Ollie) had been eating magic or toxic mushrooms. Being surrounded by forest, there are mushrooms everywhere at this time of year.
An immediate meeting of the canines was called for. There the dogs sat at attention looking up at me with three little innocent faces waiting upon the words of wisdom and otherwise sound advice. And I’d inadvertently become just like the school councillor in the South Park cartoon.
Now then kids, we’re going to talk today about psychedelic mushrooms. You shouldn’t do mushrooms. Drugs are bad, mkay?
The dogs probably ignored me, so they’re all restricted for the foreseeable future. All canine freedoms have been curtailed. They can sook. They can whine, it’ll do them no good. My mind has been made up.
It’s my opinion that the dogs didn’t consume the mushrooms directly. I believe that they have eaten the scat of a forest critter (like a wallaby!) which had dined directly upon the mushrooms.
Wind is changing though. Ruby is in dog obedience school and has been for a two months. Dame Plum is on a short leash. We’ve had dogs of various breeds here in the forest with us for eighteen years. It’s not always smooth sailing with dogs in this wild environment, but there’s never been anything like this level of mischief before. Those two kelpies are like having a pair of wolves living in the household. Both of them are wilful, and you can see them thinking about matters and weighing up the situation and their options. The challenge is fine, and we’ll learn and adapt faster than them. The mistake the dogs made was that by escalating their bad behaviour, they’ve caused me to start thinking about them. This crazy situation can’t continue, mkay!
Being near to a forest, there are a lot of mushrooms growing right now:
At the beginning of the week, the local council lifted the burn off restrictions for rurL landowners. During the warmer and drier parts of the year, landholders are prohibited from burning off forest materials out in the forest, for obvious reasons – people are not to be trusted. It rained late last week, and so we thought the conditions were good to burn off some more of the old loggers mess.
Bizarrely, in the new area we cleaned up, the loggers had also left the tree stumps out of the ground, but this time with the right side facing upwards.
Observant readers will note the tree stump has a distinct line of burn marks. At a guess the tree was harvested after the 1983 Ash Wednesday bushfires. The loggers have about five years to harvest trees killed by the fire, before their milling value is reduced. At least this tree stump was easy to roll down onto the burn off. This next stump was much bigger, and had to be cut up into smaller chunks.
Chainsaws are an amazing technology. The much larger tree stump was cut into three sections all of which were rolled into the burn off fire.
Best to clean all this stuff up, before another 1983 style bushfire arrives all uncontrolled and stuff. It will, sooner or later so best be prepared by slowly reducing the forest fuel loads, that way the bushfire won’t burn as hot. The really hot fires kill everything in their path, birds, forest critters, trees, soil life etc. The burn off fire ran for three days, but was much smaller on the second and third days.
The low centre of gravity mower is a real beast of a machine, and we run it over the clean up areas afterwards. The cutting blades mulch up anything left over thus enriching the soil. It’s also powerful enough to level out soil mounds, and generally makes the area easier to attend to in the future. The machine gets pretty dirty though, especially the underside of the steel cutting deck. The forest soil is acidic and if left caked on to the underside of the machine, it’ll slowly rust the steel.
We do most of the maintenance work with the machines nowadays, and a month or so back I noticed the mower had a pipe for a deck washer. A deck washer sprays water under the mower whilst the cutting blades are in operation. The water and cutting blades basically wash the under-bits of the mower which are the dirtiest and hardest to clean. I had to make up a series of connectors to get a normal garden hose to plug onto the pipe. Then we hooked the machine up to the hose.
I’ve never used a deck washer before, but this will become part of the normal after use care of this particular machine. Cheaper than replacing the expensive steel cutting deck, blades and arms.
It’s been remarked upon elsewhere, that regular maintenance saves a lot of unnecessary cost with expensive repair bills.
The plants in the greenhouse are growing well. We’ve had another great chilli harvest, and the fruits will hang onto this bush for a few months. The plant is now in its second year. Chilli plants are productive I believe for about six years, but outside of the greenhouse, they’re annuals.
A few weeks ago, we sowed some radish seeds in the greenhouse. Despite the now cooler weather, they’re growing really well and we have enough to get through the winter months.
Near to the rose terraces there is a dwarf pomegranate bush. It’s produced a fruit.
Is it any good though?
Onto the flowers:
The temperature outside now at about 10am is 14’C (57’F). So far for last year there has been 333.2mm (13.1 inches) which is up from last weeks total of 325.0mm (12.8 inches)
Yo, Chris – Maybe there was an escaped convict, hiding in the creek bed? Or, a highwayman! 🙂
That was quit a bit of deductive reasoning, to figure out the mushroom / doggie connection. Now that they’re on a short leash (so to speak), we’ll see if they have any more episodes. Let’s hope none of the kangaroo big fellows, go all psychotic on you. Maybe you should keep a wallaby in captivity, to produce mushroom free dog treats! Hmmm. You could market them. “Wallaby Mushroom Free Dog Treats!” Your fortune will be made. Stranger things have been marketed.
Chris plays with fire. 🙂 Were there s’mores? Wienies on a stick? No sense letting a good heat source go to waste. You could bake potatoes in the warm ashes. An old Boy Scout trick. Returning nutrients to the soil, increasing the perimeter of fuel load free ground. Win/win. So your neighbors have the sense to do the same?
A hose connected to the mower. Runs on hydraulics? 🙂 That’s a nifty set up. Some one in design had their thinking hats on.
Wow. That is a great chili crop. Variety? They look like the Cayenne I grew last year. The radishes look tasty. Mine are still tiny, but coming along. If I can find the space, I might start another run.
The Pomegranate looks like a rose hip. Some of our Rhodies are about ready to burst into bloom. It will be interesting to see what kind of pollinators, they attract. There’s a big patch, close to the Inmate’s gardens.
That red rose is really striking. Such intense color. The party colored rose just missed Madi Gras. 🙂
I’ve seen some really frightening pictures of tourists packed in, wall to wall, at different destinations. But a lot of places are re-thinking crowd control. Venice is going to start charging a fee, to get in. Amsterdam has suspended any new hotel construction. Any previously issued permits will be honored, but no new permits from here on out. Lew
Hi Lewis,
That’s possible with the escaped convict idea. But then, I’m thinking the fern lined creek setting with super tall trees is more prehistoric looking, so let’s use the correct word here: Dinosaurs. I’m yet to make a full survey of the creek, but you never know what’s hidden there.
Testing the theory is always where the rubbery ideas hit the road and become tyres (or tires in US parlance) and hopefully go the distance. But thanks. Deductive reasoning at its finest if I may say so, although the experts may claim that I have no basis for wading into their waters. Just came up with a sarcastic retort for those folks: Ok, experts! said with a certain mocking tone. Blame the bee book. Truly. Anywhoo, so far the canine theory is stacking up well, although the dogs are somewhat miffed at their sudden loss of freedom. The old timers used to quip that: with rights, comes responsibilities. And who can argue with the old timers wisdom?
The problem with the whole dog issue is that the kelpie breeder at the show suggested pointedly to me that we should have at least some fencing for a large, but enclosed dog run. That idea has been bouncing around my brain since last week. There’s costs and benefits to that idea, and we’d done mostly alright for fourteen years without such large infrastructure.
I like your idea about the specialised dog treats. Dogs inoculate their gut flora and fauna by consuming scats, as do many birds from my observations. People get really weirded out by that concept, but frankly the dogs don’t give a damn.
Unfortunately, you hit the nail right on the head. One of the adjacent lots is an absentee owner, and they really need to clean up. The old timers used to say: You’re only as good as the weakest link. It’s a problem when there are a lot of weak links. Still, we do what we can, whilst we can.
Today was a lovely sunny and warm day. 68’F and no wind to speak of. Did a massive amount of hedge trimming in the garden beds. Some of the plants had nearly grown over the concrete staircases. All of the organic materials were taken way down below to the forest edge where the soil is a bit iffy. We dumped the prunings there, and then blitzed them up with that mower. It was a long day of work. But the worms in that area will enjoy a massive feast. I think it is nice keeping the worms on side, don’t you?
That particular mower is Japanese designed and built for use on very steep ground. I agree, it’s super safe and so well designed. The Editor rarely lets me use it. Actually, now I think about it, I don’t use that mower… Hmm. Every time I mention that we could use it for some work, there’s a bit of fire lit behind the Editors eyes. Wonder what it means? But yeah, we looked around for a machine which is safe on steep ground, and it kept coming back to that beast. It’ll even cut fire breaks should that be required.
That’s the chili, a very tasty and mild Cayenne pepper. So good! What did you think about the chili’s your plant produced? Hopefully you enjoy the radishes, and don’t let them get too big. These ones are the same variety my grandfather used to grow, and I can eat them straight out of the soil. But less caveman, and more civilised, they get grated and added to salads. Hopefully as your soil warms, they’ll grow faster. Not many plants produce as quick a harvest as radishes. Wise to consider starting another run. That’s how the plant works.
Very funny, yes rose hip. The plant is small, and probably the fruit is ornamental. It was mentioned here a long time ago that the honey from Rhodies is probably not all that great eating…
Thanks! The rose terraces are a true joy.
Wall to wall tourists is what goes on in the more fashionable end of the mountain range. How the people who live and work there cope is an issue which I do wonder about. It certainly has had repercussions for the locals. The Editor whilst stuck in a traffic jam (our road off the mountain range is closed due to the construction of a roundabout) spotted large family groups having picnics just on the other side of peoples garden fences. It wouldn’t surprise me if the area is eventually closed off, or tourist numbers are capped.
Oh yeah, that does read like it may be a doozy of a storm season. The rainfall we’ve been getting of late has been minimal, then very heavy. A stable climate is good thing, it’s just that as the atmosphere warms, it holds more water vapour and has more energy. All very exciting for future extreme weather events don’t you reckon? Most of the time, it’ll be fine, it’s just sometimes it won’t.
Hehe! Oh no! Distant foreign lands may use untreated sewage as a fertiliser. That’ll give some off flavours for sure. 🙂 Yuk! The farmers of forty centuries lot used to use that stuff, that way. It does work, although I’d imagine that there’d be some risks. The palate may be able to adjust, maybe… Gawd, do you have any idea what might have happened to the grapes? Definitely bin. The Editor has to check with me such fine print too, but one point print is getting harder to read. Reading glasses are a fine technology, and super cheap.
The thing is, the unpaid internships (more politely known as placements down here) 1,000 hours are for jobs such as nurses. Hardly a vocation of the wealthy. And they have to also do a degree beforehand. It seems a bit extreme to me, and I do wonder about such things as return on investment for the time and debt just to get to that point? With my profession, in order to not work as an employee in a business other than an accounting practice, and hang out your shingle, that 3 year restriction on revenue was the hoops I had to jump. From a remuneration perspective, the work I do now pays the bills and provides some flexibility that an employment situation didn’t, but I ain’t living large. Last I checked, I haven’t had more than a week and a half off any paid work for about six or seven years now. Even during you-know-what I worked hard to ensure everyone survived, but had even less time off. The folks who sacked me recently forgot all the times I helped them out. A bit of a dog act that.
But exactly, like you I have a similarly low cost base and can make such arrangements work. For those who have larger life expectations, that arrangement can be problematic.
How did I miss the insect and bird population talk? Thanks for mentioning it. Do you reckon the hornet was some sort of paper wasp? That lot build similar nests down here. The sting is meant to be bad, but the insects don’t seem very aggressive to me.
Out of curiosity, do you know if Elinor had ever experienced a genuine food shortage? I’d heard that about people who hoard food, but had wondered.
Ah, vinca = periwinkle. Right. That’s a good choice I reckon. Do you reckon it will trail over the sides of the hanging basket? The flowers look great.
Yes, beware the due dates. Surely the library wouldn’t ban you? Maybe? Do they even send late fees for tardy borrowers?
Lewis, based on your review, here’s mine: The minutes of this our lives are by necessity in short supply. There may be better things to invest those precious minutes in than watching this documentary. Feel free to ignore, but I warned you! How does that sound, is it menacing enough? Thanks for the laughs!
Cheers
Chris
Hello Chris
I am still here but 89 years old and getting very tired.
Swiss Chard and Ruby Chard, I eat the stalks and also freeze them. My strawberries are starting to flower and I have amazing asparagus.
Inge
Funny how urban folks, partly because they have a dimly recognized yearning to reconnect with nature, and partly because it’s what everyone else is doing, come see the countryside during just one more turn of the seasons, and still while in air conditioned comfort and through a glass darkly.
I like all the seasons. Will be moving some tomatoes and peppers to the finally completed greenhouse ( well, completed enough……..) Last frost date is still a month away.
I’ll be taking a class on foraging mushrooms in May. I know morels and oyster mushrooms, but that’s about it.
https://www.driftlessfolkschool.org/classes/mushroom-foraging-may-2024
Yo, Chris – I’d be up for dinosaurs. As long as they’re the Herbaceous ones. And stay out of the mushrooms. 🙂 Some of those were pretty big fellows, and could do a lot of damage, running amok.
It’s nice today, and will be sunny tomorrow. And then for the foreseeable future, showers on and off. I heard there was frost, outside of town, but we didn’t get any, last night. Overnight lows for the next week are well above freezing.
Worms are so useful. I was given two bags of straw, that I had over the winter. Oddly, when I put one bag in one bed, there were a lot of worms. When I put the second bag, in another of my plots, I didn’t see any worms. I’ll move some from the first plot, to the second.
You mentioned you ran across an old firebreak. Might also (or has become) a migratory route for animals.
I used my chilis. in chili. 🙂 Just kept adding them in, until I got the amount of heat I wanted. As far as flavor went, I can’t say I could detect much difference among the three varieties I grew. So, maybe, I’ll just grow one variety, this year, but more plants. I think the Cayenne. It produced the most, and had the largest pods.
I keep track of, and steer clear of, any spasms of civic who-who. We don’t really have any tourist attractions, but traffic and large crowds are a problem from everything like the Seattle to Portland bicycle nonsense, or even the Christmas parades. The county fair. I mark them on my calendar, and stay home!
I always wondered about humanure and pathogens. Didn’t seem to be a problem for the Farmers of Forty Centuries. But I read something recently, that a lot of those cultures don’t eat field veg, raw. They cook the heck out of it.
All that gatekeeping, certifications and education. Mr. Greer’s post on the letocracy really brought it all into focus, for me.
I did a little research. The wasps that were trying to colonize my truck are paper wasps. By the way, he was back this morning, but I managed to flick him to the ground and stomp on him. I tried to find a good picture, to link to, but no luck. The build “open architecture nests.” Cells are hexagonal and on display.
Oh, I’m sure there were times in Elinor’s life where she was “food insecure.” Same with me. I have to really watch that I don’t pile up a lot of stuff in my pantry, or freezer, that I’m never going to eat.
Oh, yes. The Vinca will trail. The Master Gardeners were here, this morning. I have a Hummingbird feeder, and there’s another hook near the hanging basket, and I’ll get that going. The Garden Goddess kept a Hummingbird feeder, but she’s moved on. Someone’s got to help out the little fellows. If not me, who?
This morning, I helped Ted (Master Gardener) get a start on the next trellis. We got one 4/4 post up, and in place. We’ll tackle the other one, next week. Ted’s due for a shoulder replacement, so, he’s pacing himself. I generally am the carpenter’s helper. Holding the post in place, running extension cords, keeping an eye on the top bubble in the level. Whatever an extra pair of hands, can do.
The library dropped fees, awhile back. But, if you get too much stuff overdue, a certain dollar amount, your account is suspended. But if the stuff never comes back, you get charged for the materials. But it’s a good amount of time, before that kicks in. It’s just a point of pride (or neurotic) that I never have overdue items.
I watched a really good Nick Cage movie, last night. “Retirement Plan.” Inventive high body count. 🙂 A woman and her young daughter are on the run from organized crime bad guys. She flees to her father (Nick Cage), who she has been estranged from for years. Turns out, Cage is a retired government assassin … with skills. 🙂 It was well worth a bowl of popcorn. Lew
Hi Inge,
A good innings, as they say. May you reach the respectable tonne. Incidentally, haven’t you just had a massive guest-fest at your place? The tired and age observations may have little correlation. Candidly speaking, as an introvert I’d enjoy such an event, but would also be tired as a result. 🙂
Has the weather improved and the soil begun to dry out?
It’s strangely warm here today for this time of year. 70’F and it’s still warm now. The moon is rather full this evening, so we took the dogs for a long walk. It was really quite pleasant. I must say, the thought of bears, mountain lions, rabid raccoons etc. roaming the forests here would detract from the enjoyment of an evenings stroll with the dogs. Fortunately, such beasts are far away! No doubts the presence of the toothy critters would have a similar impact on your island?
Thanks. The stalks remind me of the texture of celery, but without the celery taste. Celery is a notoriously difficult plant to grow, so I substitute Lovage, which is far hardier and tastes much the same.
Oh yes, asparagus would appreciate your island growing conditions. We add rock genuine sea salt to those asparagus beds every year, and the crowns produce spears for about five months. Yum!
It’s true, I have strawberry envy. 🙂 That plant defeated me, mostly because I didn’t wish to purchase new plants every couple of years. It is possible that the strategy of parsimony does not work in this instance?
Cheers
Chris
Hi Steve,
I hadn’t quite considered the leaf change tourism matter in that light, but you might be onto something there with city folk trying to reconnect with nature. Hmm. Dude, whatever the case maybe, it is mayhem on weekends at this time of year in the more fashionable end of the mountain range.
We went over that way today to check the post office, and grab a coffee. What interested me on the drive back, was that where the city folks cars had parked, there was a lot of rubbish strewn into the vegetation. It would be reasonable to charge all of the visitors entry, otherwise the locals bear all of the costs for little discernible benefit. It’s a cheap day out for the tourists, but there is a lack of regard for that low price. It’s a bit of a predicament.
Cutting the Gordian knot, sad to say, but I’d remove all of the exotic trees and replace them all with evergreens. The program could even be sold as a win for the environment. Probably not going to happen! 😉
Like you, I too enjoy being out in nature in all seasons. And Steve, I had to laugh, because that was the very situation we also faced with the greenhouse. We painted the final coat on the timbers on the very last possible day of the season prior to winter. It happens! 😉 But then isn’t every project like that? All we can do is but our best, and only hope that’s ok.
Hope the greenhouse works, and protects those two tender variety of plants from the dreaded last frost date. I reckon you may end up wondering why you never had a greenhouse before!
Hope the fungi course is good, and you look like you’re in good hands there. There’s a lady in a town at the western end of the mountain range who also takes similar mushroom courses in the area and mountain range: Alison Pouliot. You’ll enjoy the photography.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Dinosaurs living in the prehistoric looking fern lined creek surrounded by thick forest would look super-cool, yeah. But I like where you’re going there with restricting the toothiness to the Herbaceous variety. We all end up being dinner for something, but need we bring on the final moment any earlier than necessary by recreating, say a Tyrannosaurus, then being confronted by said beast? Seems like a bad idea to me as well. 🙂
The weather here is remarkably similar. It’s warm tonight, but the weather will cool over the next few days and there will be rain at times. I see Professor Mass wrote about lenticular clouds. They do look rather a lot like the mother ship. Did he ask the hard question: Is the mother ship hiding in those cloud formations? Almost made for it.
That is interesting about the worm difference. Not all straw is equal, and I’m guessing early season straw would suit worms better than later season straw – even if the straw looks the same. Best to mix up the straw, as you’ve done. Hopefully the wormless straw didn’t have any nasty chemicals in it. But that’s life too, people are very careless with such things, and now we all have to just deal.
That’s possible with the fire break. You can see the animal trails in the forest, and they’re quite well defined. Speaking of such things, I startled a middling sized forest grey kangaroo late this afternoon. It bounced off and away into the forest. Towards the end of the daylight most days I begin to get wary of such possibly encounters. Oh, what was I doing: heading down to the long mead hall shed with a refilled jerry can of fuel. Best to keep stocks in good condition.
Did a shandy day of work today. Half paid work, and half work around here. It’s meant to rain this evening, so I got the coffee ground mixture out into the orchard. A very pleasant day. Did some other stuff. Headed to the post office very late in the day, and noticed the huge amount of rubbish left on the side of the main road by the leaf change tourists. Look at all the pretty trees. Let’s dump some rubbish! I’ve over heard some passionate talk lately. Many folks over that part of the mountain range are under siege on weekends. But yeah, best avoided.
Like your cooking style with the chili’s! Nice one. A person does become acclimated to the chili’s they grow. 🙂 I also reckon Cayenne are the best of those plants for cooler climates. In a greenhouse (and ours is not a traditional building due to the greater ventilation) they become perennial plants.
Oh yeah, those folks eating the produce of the farmers of forty centuries, all they had to do was cook the effing meat (as Bruce Willis pointedly stated in the film Fast Food Nation).
Man, I’m old enough to have worked as a young bloke with older accountants who’d learned by apprenticeship. That’s how things used to be. The current arrangements also shift the cost burden for training from the employers to the employee. I’ve paid many tens of thousands of bucks for training over the years, because demanded so.
Hey, that’s what I said – paper wasps. 🙂 We have them down here too, although they may be of a different variety than the ones in your part of the world. No stress, I’ve seen what the wasps nests look like here.
There’s been some talk in the media today about the affordability issues with renters. It’s not good out there. And I’m hearing a bit of talk about folks who are on the margins skipping meals due to economic stress. I’ve never not been able to afford food which is why I asked, however during the recession of the early 90’s, with 10% unemployment, the pay was not good. In those days I was only ever one car repair bill away from serious economic troubles. Of course, that meant having to do the car repairs myself, whilst debt was alarmingly stacking up. Those days left a bitter taste in my mouth, which cleared away any pretense that the system has your back.
There’s a fine line somewhere in that pantry and freezer question isn’t there? Is the stuff going to be consumed, or otherwise used in the future? Dunno. I mentioned to you a few weeks or months ago that the supplies of yeasts and bacteria used in food, wine and preserves we store, are being whittled down. The stuff just doesn’t seem to last as long these days. No good buying extra supplies if it goes off. Dunno, but I read that Mr Greer appears to be enjoying his new-found bread odyssey. I reckon a freshly baked loaf costs me about thirty cents to make including the energy, and that’s a decent saving in anyone’s books.
How often do you clear out the freezer though? We’re a bit seasonal really when it comes to such matters. Like the cooler and more humid weather of late has reduced the dust from the dirt roads, so maybe it’s deep clean time here. Maybe… Finding the time for such activities is hard.
Good stuff, and the birds will appreciate the feed. What do you chuck in a hummingbird feeder? It’s true what you say about that.
With your theatre background I was wondering what you’d make of this incident: Arj Barker’s ejection of a mum and baby from his Melbourne comedy show puts gig etiquette in focus. I back the comedian. People don’t go to such shows, and tickets for that comedian would not have been cheap, to hear a baby. I believe the show had an age limit of no under 15’s, so it is very possible the theatre messed up there. You’d have to ask the hard question: Did the baby have a valid ticket for the show? Some people may whine, but you don’t have to read too much historical fiction to gain an appreciation for how children used to be viewed. Despite the outrage, historically speaking, things were far harder, but also in other ways easier on parents. The many policies being pursued nowadays encourage isolation, what did everyone expect would happen?
Youchie! Hope Ted gets all that he is after from that replacement. Dude, I stretch everyday and do my utmost to keep out of that systems clutches. Thinking about the possibilities gives me an attack of the vapours! Are you learning much being a carpenters assistant? It’s always good to watch craftsmen at their work.
Or possibly an attack of the responsibilities. 🙂 I’d do no less with a library, it’s a sign of respect to take boundaries seriously.
Thanks for mentioning the film. It’s a comedy with a high body count, for sure. Nick Cage had me chuckling away despite what was going on.
Cheers
Chris
Hello Chris
I think that the fatigue is 50/50 family visit and age. The first wears off, the second doesn’t.
Today was the first day, in many months, that I have been able to walk up to the road in shoes instead of wellies.
I add seaweed to the asparagus bed for the salt.
Have never understood your strawberry problem. I haven’t bought plants for as long as I can remember. I plant out the runners, cutting them off for the purpose as soon as they display roots.
Inge
Yo, Chris – Lenticular clouds are so cool. And, they do play a roll in a lot of sci-fi movies, as a hideout for the mother ship. In the recent film, “Nope” one of the first tip offs that something is up, is a character saying, “That cloud hasn’t moved in a couple of weeks.” I’m sure you’re aware of this, but this article is interesting because it talks about the weather effect.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/powerful-volcano-erupting-could-mean-090026062.html?
I’d guess the straw came from the same pile. Maybe the worms live in one layer, rather than another. The Optimum Worm Zone. 🙂
Dawn and dusk. When predators prowl, and you’re more likely to be involved in a deer strike.
Yup. People can be pigs. Some people. A sense of entitlement. “It’s someone else’s job to pick up my trash.” It’s interesting to watch people from the neighborhood, who walk their dogs around the Institution. The one’s who pick up their dogs scat, and the one’s who don’t. Dog poop bags are cheap. I order them 650 a a time.
I think some employers buy into a fantasy that an employee with a degree = an already well trained employee. And then wonder what went wrong. LOL. I’ve read that some big companies end up running little training sessions, to teach new hires skills for dealing with potential customers. Such as, basic etiquette and table manners. 🙂
High rent prices are in the news, both local and national. But also I hear it at the Club. Seems like someone is always scrambling to try and find a place to live. I happened to see my buddy Scott, down at the Club on Saturday morning. I was speculating on our building losing its subsidy, and the Inmates having to pay market rate. His wife is going down-hill, and were she to shuffle off her mortal coil, there’s a possibility I could move out to his place. He has quit a chunk of land, that includes two houses. One he uses as his “man cave.”
I generally do a good clean out and defrost of my little freezer, before the blueberries start coming in. So, sometime in the next couple of months. 15 or so gallon bags of blueberries takes up a lot of space.
Hummingbird food for the feeder. One part sugar, four parts water. Heat it up on the stove, until the sugar dissolves, let it cool, pour it into the feeder. I had three feeders, at the last place I lived. Some people put coloring, in the mix. Which shouldn’t be done.
I think the comedian was fully within his rights. The breast feeding business is just a red herring. I don’t know if you will be able to see this article, but Katherine Hepburn was known for calling out bad audience behavior.
https://www.nytimes.com/1982/04/15/nyregion/notes-on-people-use-of-flash-angers-katharine-hepburn-flash-of-anger.html?smid=url-share
Back in Ye Olde Days, some movie theaters had what was called, a “crying room.” Soundproof, with a big window. Usually, somewhere up around the projection booth.
What did I learn as a carpenter’s dogs body? 🙂 Have the right tool for the job. Which I knew, already. Ted has a ratchet set, that he mentioned he’s had since he was a teenager. We got one 4×4 post up, and in place. We’ll tackle the other one, next week. This one isn’t a replacement trellis. It’s new construction, at the end of one of the raised beds.
Continuing the First International Chehalis Nick Cage Film Festival, last night I watched “Dream Scenario.” Just through dumb luck, both films came from the library, about the same time. It’s about a nondescript college professor from a nondescript college who all of a sudden starts popping up in people’s dreams, all over the world. And, of course becomes an internet sensation … for awhile. In the DVD extras, there was an interview with Mr. Cage. He said it is one of his favorite top five films, to make. Hmmm. I can see where it enabled him to “stretch” as an actor. But, I found myself fast forwarding through some parts, and it’s nothing I want to see, again.
Nick Cage also mentioned when he became an internet meme. Someone put together clips, from a lot of his films. It’s on U-Tub. Titled, “Nick Cage Loses His Shit.” 🙂 In theatre, there’s a saying. “Chewing the scenery.” It means, an over-the-top performance. They could have called it, “Nick Cage Chews the Scenery.”
Well, big news. Elinor is going to an assisted living facility, just NW of Centralia. Two of her daughters have been packing up her stuff. So, I guess H is finally, officially, mine. H has quite a wardrobe. More costume changes than Barbie. And not many of them I’d take her out in public in. Also, two tote boxes of dog toys. What am I going to do with all this … carp? When she moved over to my place, I brought along her two favorite squeak / chew toys.
Yesterday, we lay down for our nap. I was woken up by H going “Yip! Yip! Yip!” in her sleep. That’s new. Lew
Saw some comments regarding humanure- It’s what we all need to start doing. I use the three year rotation system described in the complete book, and it goes right on the garden:
https://humanurehandbook.com
Website gives a condensed version which gives the basics.
I’ll admit every single BM doesn’t go in our bucket, especially in winter ( it’s in an unheated area) but if we had to, we’d stop using the flush toilet completely.
As long as things are done with an understanding of the hygiene and microbial behavior, we all need to get over the ick factor.
Actually, pee is where most of the nitrogen and phosphorus is. Did I share this link before?
http://viridviews.blogspot.com/2021/01/return-of-pissoir.html
Enjoy!
Chris,
So, if I’m reading this correctly, you now have a psychedelic addict wallaby zombie to deal with. As well as two psychedelic addict Kelpies. Next thing you know, other wildlife will eat contaminated poo or even the mushrooms. I foresee a stoned psychedelic zombie horde cruising through your mountains. You might have to rename your blog to “Chris Under Siege”. 😉
You asked about Vikings visiting hot regions. Yes, they certainly did. Bjorn Ironside rampaged throughout the Mediterranean Sea, attacking both the desert and pillaging a city or more in Italy. The Rus, aka Viking traders originally from the eastern Baltic Sea, took over parts of western of Russia 9which is name for the Rus), founded Kiev, and ranged on down to Constantinople. Vikings formed part of the Byzantine Varangian Guard and fought wherever the Byzantine army fought, including the Holy Land and deserts. The Viking trade routes overlapped the Silk Road. So it is possible that a stray Viking or three ventured east on the Silk Road. Sometimes I wonder if there’s anywhere the Vikings did NOT go!
I even saw a picture of astronauts on the moon looking in disgusted wonder at a Viking ship and skeletons. Oh, wait, no. That was a cartoon. 😉
Back on the Kelpies. Remember to add in your conversation with them “Just say NO to drugs.” However, that campaign in the USA didn’t really work all that well. Perhaps your campaign will fare better.
I liked the photo of Plum enjoying fun free canine time. From her perspective: “How can I have fun when I can see papa but can’t be with papa? That is torture!” How do I know this? Avalanche has acted extremely tortured when I am on the freedom side of the fence and she isn’t. And the Canine Communication System forwarded complaints from Plum to Avalanche, who told me that Plum is miffed, to say the least. However, part of papa’s responsibility is making sure that the pups don’t harm themselves in their exuberance, so maybe eventually the Fluffies will get over it.
On that note, I may have mentioned that Avalanche has asthma. We have an inhaler and meds for this. I’ve got to put this inhaler thingy over her muzzle and zap her with a breathable dose of the meds. It is working wonders, she clearly feels better, and she is tolerant of this newish morning ritual.
You have controlled burnoffs. We’re getting beset by small wildfires already. One of them even closed down a portion of Interstate 90 about 30km west of here today. The snowpack in the Selkirk Mountains, our local range, is pretty much all melted about 4 to 6 weeks early. April has been dry. This could be a very long fire and smoke season.
That hose connection is a nice feature of your mower. The photo with you on the mower with the hose attached made it look like the machine is powered by water.
Avalanche and I ran a lot of errands today. I scored her a bag of her favorite treats from the veterinary office. I also bought seeds for the greens I hope to grow this year. I might get the potatoes planted later this week. Before I do that, I’ve got to mow the backyard, then spread the dryland grass seed. It would be good to have that done before we get some dampish weather later in the week. The stuff I seeded last autumn survived the winter and is doing fine.
DJSpo
Yo, Chris – Who pays for space junk damage?
https://www.npr.org/2024/04/23/1243676256/space-station-junk-hits-florida-home-liability
Sounds complicated. Lew
Hi Inge,
We’re on the same page there. 🙂 But you know, the old timers used to quip that where there is life, there is … something. I forgot what the next bit was, but who cares anyway? When the sun shines, and the cold near-winter winds chill your bones as you’re trying to work out how to remove a circlip which is holding a wheel onto the axle of an Italian designed low centre of gravity mower, you know you’re alive! The tube inside the tyre had developed a slow leak and had to be replaced. I finally worked out that the circlip could not be saved and had to be replaced. It’s a fine metaphor for many larger aspects of society.
However! I had a spare replacement circlip and tube (with now more on order), and the mower is working perfectly. And all is good with the world. After that job was done, I had half a day of paid work facing me. I’m trying to have a quieter week this week, so yes, I too am tired, and it is also probably due to age. 🙂 The second most certainly doesn’t, but there will be time for rest later. That’s what they tell me anyway. Could they be lying? It’s possible.
Good to hear that the water table is receding. I hope the trees have made the most of the good solid deep drink of water? That happened here from about September to the end of January, and it put the trees in good stead for the hot and dry two months of February and March. The trees sailed through, no problems at all.
Lucky you to have access to seaweed. It doesn’t get much better than seaweed when used as a fertiliser. The plant also contains many trace nutrients. I buy in containers of seaweed concentrate, then dilute with water for use as a regular fertiliser for the plants in the greenhouse. They grow well.
Inge, it is very possible that I failed to manage the strawberry beds properly. If I had more time… I’ll return to those plants when the infrastructure here is at a point where I can relax a bit. There’s still some work to do, and timber is now very expensive, so we’re going to trial milling. I’d imagine your son is discovering the high costs of materials and feed?
Cheers
Chris
Hi Steve,
Respect. For the life of me, I have no idea how humanure ended up with such a bad rap. Up until WWII, most rural people with a food producing garden would not waste such an important fertiliser. When you step back and wonder for a moment at the sheer waste of our civilisation, you sooner or later come to the hard observation: So, you’re using finite fossil fuels to supply some of the minerals that your edible plants need, then you’re dumping the minerals into the oceans. Do you think there might be a problem there?
Yours sounds like a fine system which benefits the soil in your area. After all, when you and your family consume food grown vast distances from your farm, part of the minerals end up in your soils. Can it get any better than that? I don’t think so. Man, I’ve been bringing several thousand kilograms of coffee grounds back here each year (and mixing it with other minerals) for over a decade. There are times you stop and consider the sheer awesomeness of just that act. Getting your own sourced minerals into the soil is exactly the same thing.
I read widely on this subject many long years ago before committing to the worm farm sewerage system. And yes, I recall reading your blog entry, and approved whole heartedly.
Doesn’t it make you wonder what an amazing opportunity our civilisation has to build up the fertility of the soils using fossil fuels, and yet, and yet, we are literally pissing it away. What do you do?
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
Oh man, and yeah very funny. 🙂 Of all the problems I’d anticipated living in a remote rural idyll, a stoned wallaby was not one of them. The poor marsupial upon spotting Ollie, probably wondered: Look at the pretty colours. And what’s this belting at me on full ramming speed? I hope we can be friends? (a reference to a certain fictional whale!) A couple of lethargic hops and Ollie dropped that wallaby. Fortunately it was easy to untangle the two idiots and haul Ollie away.
Has anyone ever made a film about stoner zombies? There’s a real comedic element to that take on the age old zombie horror narrative.
Thanks for the interweb wabbit hole. Björn Ironside was a giant of a Viking legend. Honestly, I fail to believe that clerics at Luni could have been that stupid. It’s like the story of the Trojan horse, surely nobody in their right minds would have fallen for such a hamfisted ruse? The clerics were probably trying to hide the fact that the Viking war party overwhelmed the towns defences, and so they came up with some much later ill considered and unlikely story about Viking deceit. That story fails what is known down here as: The Pub Test. Even the loose talk about storms didn’t quite ring true. How does one explain the barrow in the dudes home country?
Hey, they probably did head that far east. Why not?
Thanks for the laughs.
The old timers may have described my kelpie campaign by the rarely used nowadays word: Chaperone. They’re not to be trusted, but this mushroom time of year will pass soon..
I did another part day of paid work and also work around here fixing as flat tyre on a ride on mower. As a person yourself with a pragmatic approach to engineering issues I’d be curious as to your views, but maybe it’s just me that is mildly alarmed by the thought of wheels holding onto an axle by the mere presence of a circlip? Had to break the original circlip in order to get the wheel off the axle. It’s possible someone replaced the original part before we purchased the thing? It had a C-circlip when I’m guessing it should have had an E-circlip. Hmm. Second hand machines can come with a complicated backstory…
Both you and I enjoyed the image of Dame Plum behind the sturdy fence, and why not? I like how your brain works there with the story, and that was probably how it rolled. The word: woebegotten springs to mind. Never fear, the dog had plenty of runs and walks today.
DJ, I’ve never encountered a dog with asthma, but it’s great to hear that she’d doing well with the meds. Out of curiosity, is it a breed thing with huskies? Glad to hear that she’s in good hands. Well, at least you haven’t mentioned being bitten by said dog, yet… 🙂
Have you played around with her food to see if something is setting off her asthma?
On Sunday’s looking out over the valley reminds me of a scene from the fictional Mordor! There are smoky fires everywhere. Still, best to burn now, rather than later when conditions are less optimal. Far out, that’s not good, and fingers crossed that the rains return soon.
Yeah, that’s the other ride on, and it’s Japanese designed and built, and really is very good (and far more easily repaired than the Italian machine I worked on earlier today). It would be nice if it ran on water, but I don’t think it would do so well. 🙂 We’re getting pretty good at maintaining all this stuff, and you can do that work fairly cheaply in cost, but not time. It takes time man.
Good to hear that Avalanche was hard at work today! I’d have to suggest that most dogs would enjoy going on that particular errand. 😉 Ah, you are getting some rain later in the week. Yes, get the seeds in before that time. Weather forecasting is a wonderful tool.
Cheers
Chris
Hi, Chris!
Oh, boy – a dog story! I do think that you may have solved the problem, that it is mushrooms. Every now and then, when mushrooms are abundant here, I see a few of the squirrels go nuts, hopping and flipping and wrestling with sticks. I also occasionally see amanita, though I am sure that there are other kinds that might cause nuttiness. And I do see squirrels with various fungi in their little hands, including our beloved Chicken of the Woods. And I wonder, since D. Plum and Ruby are siblings, if genetics doesn’t play into it somewhere.
Well, Ollie looks innocent, but D. Plum is already thinking up a new scheme.
Ha, Ha – fun free canine time! So, has Ruby learned anything at obedience school yet?
rurL, eh? That’s a good one.
My son has sold to a lumber company some of the excess trees that were cut to let more sun into the garden. We already have about 4 years worth of firewood, even after giving some to neighbors. No burn fires for us till winter, I think. This area is a tinderbox right now.
How clever of you to realize what the pipe on the mower was for. I will ask my son if he has noticed one on our mower Cubby, the Cub Cadet. He has just finished filling in the Big Pit behind the house that was dug as a place to put the tree branches and some construction debris when we built the house. It couldn’t have been done without the CAT 955 front end loader that he bought awhile back, not even with Tractorzilla, who is usually in his black book from breaking down, even though he has replaced umpteen 1964 parts. I expect that Tractorzilla just plain wishes he was retired.
Six years from a chilli plant – that’s really something to aim for.
Thanks for the flowers!
Pam
Hi Lewis,
The space junk Florida impact article was really interesting, and that was the first thing which popped into my head: Who pays for the damages to the house? Glad to read that they didn’t turn up in Hazmat suits to retrieve the alleged stanchion. Imagine being confronted by that scene? It’d be worse than any 1980’s horror film: “We’ve traced the radiation to inside the house. Get out now!” Ah, that pop culture stuff never quite leaves your mind… (When a Stranger Calls, which incidentally was released in 1979 – scared me silly).
Oh yeah, lenticular clouds hanging around for weeks on end, probably are hiding the mother ship. 🙂 As someone who lives on the side of a super volcano which was part of a major extinction event 250 million years ago, I’m well aware of the power the planet has to make sudden changes. Like your ‘Big One’ the geologists keep suggesting that sooner or later a volcano will go off in this part of the world. Mind you, the intervals in between eruptions are several thousand years, but there would have been humans around to witness the last couple of eruptions down here. Does good things to the soil in terms of re-mineralisation, despite all the disaster, death, flies and stuff.
Yes, maybe it is the optimum worm zone. Sounds eerie. 🙂
At night the forest around here jumps with life, and dusk and dawn are when things begin and end. Maybe the deer don’t like early mornings either…
I hear you, and this issue with the rubbish strewn by the side of the road, is a new thing with the leaf change tourists. Makes you wonder if there will be any consequences for this. It’ll cost the locals to pick it all up and dispose of it. Some of it looked like tissues to me, and that can mean all sorts of other unpleasant finds. Occasionally someone will do that up on the road here. Look at the pretty forest, let’s go take a dump. It happens. I’d imagine they’d be annoyed if I returned the favour on the road out front of their houses.
I’ve heard that story, and it ain’t always true. Back when I was a boss, I tended to judge an employee based on how they performed their work. Seemed only reasonable to do so. That sort of training is not a bad idea at all. You’d be amazed, but some people do not realise that it is not a good look to pick ones nose in front of the customers. I’ve seen that happen. All very unsavoury.
Hey, I’ve begun reading the book: “A good year for plums”, which you recommended. It’s a lovely winding story with an enormous cast of characters.
It’s not a bad option, just in case the subsidy hits the poop. Sorry to hear that Scott’s lady is not doing so well. The risk I see there is if Scott err, declines in health, then you face the same housing issue, so may need a plan C, just in case. Sorry to mention that, it makes for an unpleasant conversation, but it is a risk.
That sure is a lot of blueberries, but they are good, and you can source local berries which makes it better. We do a lot of bottling, which you call canning, and the summer produce sure does brighten up a winters breakfast.
It was cold here today. I did another shandy day of half paid work, and half work around here. Fixed a flat tyre (tire in US) on the Italian low centre of gravity mower, and it’s a fiddly design, but works well. The Japanese machine on the other hand is just really thoughtfully put together. It’s funny to observe cultural differences in machines.
Does the sugar and water mix for the hummingbirds attract insects as well? Bees would be onto that mixture, oh yeah! Not a bad idea to leave food out for the insects as well.
Go Katherine Hepburn! What a fine performance and solid admonition. I’d be scared too of such a reaction. 🙂 I’m genuinely surprised that the lady thought that it would be a good idea to do what she appears to have done. Sometimes there’s a need for an adult space, and I’ve seen people doing that sort of thing in a pub. I really don’t know whether that’s such a wise move.
Nothing wrong with a crying room. They also do mums and bubs sessions as well at some cinemas. It’s a great idea. They interviewed on the radio, a comedian who specifically did skits for mums with bubs.
Very good, some lessons are best repeated, don’t you reckon? That ratchet set is probably made of very excellent materials if it is still in use. I have such a set myself, and the advertising line used to be: Ya canna hand a man a grander spanner! And I’ll vouch for that. A housemate many years ago stole some of the imperial measurement spanners which annoyed the daylights out of me.
Nice work with the 4×4 post, and with the milling, I’m aiming for about that size posts. Very sturdy, you’ll no doubt agree? What do the master gardeners intend to grow on the new trellis?
Thanks for the review, and I’ll strike that film from the to-see list. Plenty of scripts demand over the top performances, and sometimes it’s appropriate. Is that an acting form of a caricature?
Bad for Elinor, but good for you and H. Hopefully your new neighbour is pleasant and keeps the TV volume down low? Ah, donations are where this carp may end up, although you could try flogging it off on the second hand market? Some people love that gear. I think if I tried to put such things on one of the dogs here, they’d bite me! Not that they ordinarily do such things, but the outrage would demand such an act. Surely H does not enjoy all that stuff? Or is it under sufferance?
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – Our night manager isn’t supposed to tell us anything, but he did mention part of a story, yesterday. Apparently, someone skipped out on the rent and left such a mess behind, that Hazmat people had to be called in. Not getting the full story on anything around here, is just another example of the lack of transparency.
I’m probably more likely to see another volcano go off, than you. But you never know.
The Goldilocks Worm Zone 🙂
There can be fines, for littering, here. Not that I hear of them being applied, much. There’s a lot of dumping, out in the woods. Sometimes, the perp slips up, and leaves behind something identifiable, that can lead back to them. Junk mail, for instance. I think a lot of that attitude is a lack of early civics training. That and the rampant sense of entitlement, some people seem to have, these day.
I finished a lovely, winding story with a big cast, last night. “Pilgrims: A Lake Wobegon Romance.” (Keillor, 2009). I’ve read his books, and listened to his radio programs (A Prairie Home Companion), over the years. Of course, a lot of my interest is due to the fact that a lot of his material revolves around Minnesota, where my Mom came from. It’s about a contingent from Lake Wobegon, who due to a windfall, go to Rome.
https://w.wiki/9sDD
Yes, it crossed my mind that I might out-live Scott, and have to relocate again. Will this journey never end? Well, of course it will. Eventually. 🙂
Speaking of bottling, a lot of excitement in The Wonderful World of Archaeology.
https://www.fox5dc.com/news/centuries-old-bottles-found-at-mount-vernon-may-have-held-george-washingtons-cherry-brandy-drink
I haven’t had much problem with insects and hummingbird feeders. Most are constructed so that the birds, with their very long beaks, can access the fluid. But insects, with their shorter snouts, can’t.
Hepburn was a classic. She had an old fashioned sense of … deportment. Both in herself, and other people. I don’t have a problem, with breast feeding, in public, as long as you throw a blanket over the whole process. Once when I was working in the bookstore, in Olympia, I came around a corner, and there was a woman, sitting on the floor, legs sprawled across the aisle, busily feeding her baby. Blanket deployed. I just stepped over her legs and went about my business.
At the end of my long garden bed (which I now share with the Night Manager), there was an old trellis, that had seen better days. The top tier of the bed was rotting out, so that was replaced, as was the trellis. Last year, I grew green beans on it. There is a parallel bed, to mine, same width and length. So, to balance things off, the Master Gardeners decided to build an identical trellis there. I don’t know what the person who has that bed will plant. Both trellis are at the NE edge of the garden, so, they don’t shade other people’s stuff.
My stock tank plot is on the northern fringe of another section of the garden. So, I put in t-posts and chicken wire. Another trellis, more or less. That’s where I also had green beans. Which got some kind of disease. Powdery mildew? Besides anchoring plants, the trellis is handy for tying up corn, tomatoes, and sunflowers.
Last night, I replanted my carrots and chamomile. I think my seed was old.
I watched a new-ish sci-fi movie, last night. “Prospect.” I was curious, as Pedro Pascal is in it. He’s kind of a hot, new actor. A couple of things I found interesting. The film was done by a small Seattle production company, on the cheap. And, the exteriors were filmed in our Hoh Rain Forest, up on our Olympic Peninsula. A lot of slogging through the woods, which I fast forwarded through. Interesting story, but it could have been tightened up, a bit.
I’ve decided to rewatch a British series, “Foyle’s War.” I saw it, season by season, as it came out. Twenty years ago. I think I’d like to see it, all together, more or less. Foyle is an older, rather cranky detective, in Sussex, England, during WWII. So, he deals with everything from spies, to black marketeers, to garden variety murder. There’s eight seasons. The last two, the war is over, he’s retired and moved to London. Works for M15.
There were five people, boxing up Elinor’s apartment, yesterday. Everything should be out, by the weekend. Then, there will be construction for a week or two. They’ve been gutting all the apartments, one by one. I think I’ve found homes for all of H’s tat. Last night, I was just dropping off to sleep, when she began to loudly growl in her sleep. I gave her a nudge, and the rest of the night was peaceful. Lew
Chris,
I enjoyed the reference to the whale. Nicely done.
Stoned wallaby equals idiot. Ollie attacking said stoned wallaby equals idiot. I’m seeing a trend here – the stoned and those who attack the stoned are idiots. Makes perfect sense to me.
Somebody should make a film about stoner zombies. Even I might watch that zombie film!
Ah, Bjorn’s homeland barrow? Easy. “You are what you eat.” He probably ate too many of those dread Hostess Twinkies that were overly laden with preservatives. So his body didn’t decay for a long, long, long time, allowing it to be properly placed in a barrow at home. Well, either that or there’s a lot not being told in the sagas and other references.
I’m sure that at least a few Viking traders travelled east on the Silk Road. A Buddha was found in a buried Scandinavian hoard that I think came from India. A lot of goods were exchanged, as were a lot of ideas. Somebody had to be curious enough to travel to India or China. Likewise, somebody from India or China surely would have been curious enough to travel at least to the Mediterranean.
Chaperone, indeed. I was a chaperone at a few events for the teenagers. My job was, well, it was teenagers and hiding places and you get the idea. Meanwhile, you chaperone to keep your dogs off drugs.
I remember one event. Twas in the country, sort of a harvest festival, bonfire included after dark, organized by the church/cult I attended. One mother said, “DJ I can’t find Sally.” (Not her real name.) I knew that property well, so walked to the likely area, turning down multiple offers of an electric torch. A girl’s voice soon came out of the darkness “We’re over here DJ. We weren’t doing anything. My pants are still on!” I looked back toward the bonfire and saw an entire herd of 7- to 10-year-old boys arming with torches. I explained that the couple better be decent and pristine, and all twigs and straw brushed off before the Pack of Curious Boys could spotlight them with a dozen torches. They hurriedly complied and we met the Pack halfway to the bonfire.
The young lady’s mother came over to meet us as we neared the bonfire. She quickly asked me what I had seen. As I didn’t have a torch, and it was very dark, I honestly replied that “I didn’t see anything.” A few minutes later, young Sally thanked me for that. I told her that I hadn’t lied, that that was why I didn’t have a torch. “Oh,” I added, “be smarter and more careful in the future!”
Wheels held onto a riding mower by circlips? Not how I would design it, not even close. Those machines have to carry their weight, a human’s weight, and operate over terrain that might be somewhat sloped and rutted. Even Big Bertha Snowblower’s wheels are held on more substantially!
Woebegotten or Wobegon? Add a small pond to that paddock and you could call it Lake Wobegon, a mythical place Lew mentioned. I listened to that radio program regularly and went to the live program when it was held in Spokane one time. I seem to recall reading the book “Lake Wobegon Days” by Garrison Keillor more than once. Every radio program’s monolog ended with Mr. Keillor saying, “That’s the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are handsome, and all the children are above average.”
We’ve had to experiment with Avalanche’s diet anyhow, as she can be a picky eater. The asthma, diagnosed after a lot of imaging and tests when she was 5 months old, is congenital. (Actually, dogs don’t get asthma. Some anatomical thing. But it looks like asthma, acts like asthma and is treated like asthma.) It can be brought on by seasonal allergies in the spring, dense smoke in fire season, air quality issues during late autumn and winter air inversions. Anxiety probably doesn’t help. She is learning to be calm, as she is nearly 3 now. That helps. And knowing how to keep her calmer helps too, with the added bonus of her not wanting to bite me during her daily dosage. 😉
DJSpo
Hi Pam,
The dog stories are always fun, aren’t they? And hopefully with a happy ending. The kelpies had a good run outside today, but they were closely supervised, and both were busy digging a hole in one of the garden beds. Probably chasing rats or rabbits. Their hair has turned orange from the clay. It’s amazing the garden beds are as good as they are! Mr ginger freckles was on a string the entire day, but didn’t seem to mind as he was hanging out and enjoying a few moments of sunshine.
Chicken of the woods is meant to be very tasty. I agree with you, genetics does play a role in this mushroom drama. Those two were from the same litter. You’re lucky to have the fungi in your area mostly known about. Down here, in exotic plantings like say pine or oak groves, the known species of fungi grow including black truffles grow there, but elsewhere nobody really knows much about the local varieties. Like your amanita, they’re probably deadly.
Ollie is a character actor of the finest skills. He may look innocent, but the truth is otherwise. Dame Plum is the best behaved of the three of them, that’s one of the reasons she is titled. When we’re working, she’ll do her own thing, but not stray too far. Ruby needs constant monitoring due to having some of the Elder ones halfling blood in her veins. She is fey.
Ruby is learning much in dog obedience school, but the blood of the old ones is strong in that dog. 😉 Rumour on the street is that she may be promoted to grade two.
That sort of arrangement with the saw logs used to be a thing down here as well. It’s a good win-win arrangement, but alas private landowners can’t do that any more and the mills have shut down one after the other. The trees don’t stop growing though. I’d say three foot a year is substantial growth. There’s now only one saw mill in the area, and who knows where they source their saw logs.
Oh my! Hopefully you get some decent spring and summer rains. It’s cold here now. Brr. The same thing happens here during the drier parts of the year, you just hope nobody goes for the flint and steel.
The deck washer is a very good idea to remove debris from the deck plate, arm and cutting blades of the mower. Big pits are best filled in less someone inadvertently falls in! Pam, I have serious machinery envy. The CAT 955 front end loader is a true workhorse. Just the thing for such a job.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that any machine can be maintained forever. The question becomes, how deep are your pockets?
A greenhouse is a thing of excellence. A second greenhouse may be doubly excellent? Maybe…
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
Douglas Adams was a very amusing author with a sense of the absurd. Like you, I really enjoyed the Hitchhikers guide books and series. Of course this may account for our collective sense and appreciation of the absurd!
I told you my grandfather was right. They were both idiots that day, and Ollie has curtailed freedom until mushroom season is done for the season. He was out with us working today, but tied up to a sturdy olive tree. I startled a forest grey kangaroo yesterday, and it bounced off at high speed, but then they seem to be smarter than the wallabies.
My friend Simon has written some stoner comedy books which to me read like screen plays, and maybe he might be induced to write a stoner zombie book? It’s an idea with legs. Hang on a second, I’ll send an email. Done.
What? I’ve never encountered those treats, and they might be good. But they did form a minor product placement subplot in the film Zombieland with Woody Harrelson. So taking things to their logical conclusion, are you suggesting that Woody is current incarnation of Bjorn Ironside? Perhaps the dull bits of such stories were skipped in ancient days? 🙂 Can we have a bit extra background story, probably didn’t cut the mustard when parchment and clerics were expensive and rare.
I agree, it is too much of a stretch of the imagination to pretend that nobody walked that great ancient trade route, just because folks these days said so.
See, you are clearly considered more responsible than I, because nobody has ever asked me to chaperone anyone. Although once long ago as a very young adult, my girlfriend of the time asked me to supervise a party of her younger brother and his friends. The idea of that did not appeal, and proving irresponsibility, I declined, and eventually we broke up.
Yeah exactly, such things go on and are part of life. You handled that circumstance with aplomb, and a sense of providing a little bit of rope, but not too much that it ended in trouble. That’s known as finding the middle ground. And yours was good advice. People have to make their own choices.
A circlip alone does not inspire confidence, but seems to work. I’ve not ever known a wheel to fall off the mower, but there is always the first time! Even R-clips would be better as visually you can tell how they’re holding up. But a combined nut and R-clip arrangement would be better again. Big Bertha would have some serious loads placed on the wheels, yup! Anyway, I didn’t design the thing, and what I’ve observed about machines over the years is that they are a compromise design between what covers most occasions and the out of control costs of covering every occasiion. Now take that thought and extend it to say a machine as complicated as a Space Shuttle. You know this about culverts, roads and bridges and stuff.
Clearly, Lake Woebegon is a fictional place with such wild claims at the conclusion of the broadcast. 😉 Those of us who have travelled in the real world know the falsity of such claims. But does this take away from the narrative? I don’t think so. It reminds me of the claim about small furry creatures from the back of Alpha Centauri!
Ah, many thanks for the explanation regarding Dame Avalanche and I was wondering if it was congenital. Some breeds have such issues.
Hehe! Dude, I’m like a drill sergeant with the dogs. Picky eaters go hungry, then it doesn’t take long at all until they scoff their meals down with the others. 🙂 But yeah, keeping a calmer routine and space for Avalanche would help a lot.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Dude, there’s always stuff going on. But skipping on subsidised rent is just such an unexpected thing to do. I guess it adds weight to something which I’ve been considering for quite a while: Just because an arrangement is advantageous, doesn’t mean people will respect it. The lack of communication may also be a certain form of fear that such ideas can spread? Hmm.
It’s funny, but in many ways, those sorts of acts fall into the darker side of the leaf change tourist variety. Getting hazmat dudes in would not be cheap. Nope. Someone has to pay for such clean ups. It’s the Anzac day public holiday today, and we’d run out of milk (I’d used up the last making a batch of yoghurt). Anyway, didn’t really think, my brain was switched off. So I headed to the general store, and oh my gawd. It was mayhem over there, so we turned around and headed home again. A poignant moment was passing a parked car which had used take away coffee cups neatly stacked behind the back wheel. Like who does that? So much rubbish, in such a beautiful location.
Ha! I’m of the ‘you never know’ opinion. There are a lot of volcanoes in both of our areas. Nature will have her way in this regard. Over the past few years, for obvious reasons, I’ve gained a new found respect for the power of the planets geology.
That’s funny! Yes, Goldilocks worms indeed. I moved the last of the citrus trees today down to the new enclosed citrus orchard. The forest critters had been stripping the leaves off the plant, and it was doing it tough. Anyway, doing a bit of digging in the very well fed soil of the citrus enclosure showed that the top soil went down a very long way, almost a foot. That was an unexpected find.
People dump rubbish in the forest too. I have no idea why, because most of the stuff I see dumped, like old flat screen televisions, can be taken to the local tip for free. Probably people don’t know, or fear the tip fees. They’re just externalising costs onto the locals up here. I think fear of the unknown is what drives the practice, but entitlement could be it as well. Dunno.
You’ve mentioned Lake Wobegon before, and it sounds like a delightful fictional world. That’s an amusing premise for a story. Speaking of books, I reckon the Quite a Year for Plums book is a cleverly interwoven collection of observations by the author. That’s my thinking on the book. I’m quite enjoying it, but have to take a kind of floating along kind of reading mindset to the story. The dialogue is excellent.
It’s a bit of a bummer, but yeah, all good things come to an end. Maybe as an option it’s a good stop gap plan B?
The old cherry brandy is an amazing find, and may still be OK. They used to preserve cherries in brandy down here as well way back in the day. We tried a similar recipe many years ago, but it was way too sweet for my tastes. Headache inducing amounts of sugar.
Seeing the general standard of attire these days, you’d have to suggest that deportment is a thing of the past. Katherine Hepburn was probably a strong leader and brooked no nonsense, especially if boundaries are being pushed against and tested.
Thanks for the explanation of the new and old trellis arrangement. Are you intending to grow green beans against this new trellis? We use a sturdy chicken wire frame for the bean vines to climb upon. Oh yeah, that’s a great idea with tying up the corn, tomatoes and sunflowers. Stops the occasional strong gust of wind from destroying an otherwise good arrangement. Corn sometimes lodges here, but I don’t know whether I hadn’t planted the seed deeply enough in the first place? Dunno. Powdery mildew only turns up here at the end of the season for pumpkins and zucchini, otherwise it has never spread to beans. Things may be different down here though?
That’s my thinking too about the old seed. If the soil is warm enough, and they haven’t germinated – the seed is bad. We’re pretty ruthless with seed nowadays, and do what you’ve just done: If no germination, replant seed. Seems to work.
Built another steel rock gabion cage today. In the new line of cages holding the soil back on a steep garden bed, there was a need for two second tier of cages at one end. So we’ve made one of the two cages. There was talk about making a second cage today, but the old adage applies: If in doubt, do less. 🙂
We brought up some rocks to weigh the new cage down too. It’s looking good, but sadly, we really are running short of rocks. Peak Rocks is real! Have to extract some from the ground and smoosh up some boulders over the next few weeks.
Pedro Pascal is clearly an actor with a solid work ethic to get to where he has. Wow, if I were going to visit anywhere in your state, it would be the Hoh Rain Forest. A beautiful place where you’d expect to see the Elder Ones poking their noses out from behind a mossy tree trunk, and know it is best not to be involved in their business. The images are very reminiscent of the cool temperate rain forests in this state. A bit of editing never goes astray!
Working for M15 hardly seems like retirement for Foyle! The series sounds good.
That’s fast. Very fast. Events have moved from possibly, to gone, in merely days. I suppose there is demand for the apartment? Dogs know things, and sometimes us humans have to listen to what they’ve gotta say – unless they’ve been eating mushroom infused scats…
I’m putting together a talk on soil now, although it is getting a bit late in the evening. We’ll see. Maybe there’ll be some rock work tomorrow?
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis cont…
I’ve changed my mind about the outcome of what a pack of wolves could do: French tourist Tea Baudu attacked by dingo at K’gari says animals should not have to change their behaviour.
That’s a large island off the east coast of Queensland.
Cheers
Chris
Chris:
Which old ones? It may be well that Ruby is fey. Our dog, Bob Supercrazy, was fey and he is the one that warned me about the impending earthquake in 2011. Of course I didn’t listen.
Another greenhouse would be doubly double excellent!
Pam
Hi Pam,
There’s plenty of old ones up in these hills, and I’m one of them! 🙂 On a serious note, the Indigenous folks say that the spirits of the land are still here and going strong, and so who are we to argue with such observations? Best not to annoy such entities is my thinking. The same may well be true in your part of the world?
I remember you telling me that story about Bob Supercrazy and the earthquake. It reminded me of ol’ Dame Scritchy Storm Detective. It was an uncanny skill. How did Bob communicate the impending earthquake?
How did your house survive after the quake? Was there much damage? I have a new found respect for such Earth powers after experiencing a 5.9 here a couple of years ago. The noise was as much a challenge as the shaking of the land. We ended up with a lot of hairline cracks in the plaster, and that will teach me for not wanting to use cornice to hide the joins.
Yes! That’s my thinking as well. Doubly double excellent! 🙂 We have to have more room to practice crop rotation in the greenhouses. There’s always limits, aren’t there?
Cheers
Chris
Hello Chris,
Great work on the integrated wash unit. When you wrote deck-cleaning, I incorrectly imagined that you could use the machine to clean a woodden deck/terrace.
Maintenance is magic. In more enlightened times, people would repair and fix much more than today.
Forty centuries of inspiration has been good for us. We saw fresh use of humanure when we lived in China, so that is out of the question here at our place. We too much enjoy fresh greens.
We did save up using a urine diverting toilet, so we have more than a years’ worth of solid stuffs composting in rainproof bins.
We also saved up 500 liters of liquids since early November, that we will use in the May-June growth explosion time. I just installed a “venturi injector” that sucks 10% of yellow nitrogen into the water flow of one of the hoses that go into the garden.
We are not allowed to use our own fertilizer in the part of the garden that is organically certified, strangely enough, so we will use it for our windbreaks, remaining trees and berry bushes.
A friend of ours here has been using this system for decades with good results.
One of our friends is building a system where the solid stuff goes straight into a 200l wheeled bin. The less moving of buckets, the better. The seat must be at 2 meters above ground, which will be difficult at our place. Let’s see how we can improve over time.
We have several friends here who are dabbling in the humanure field, so we think that we should make a handbook together with the local municipality. Next week we will have an official here to discuss the options and safety considerations.
Strangely enough, the worm farm option is not available here. I wonder why? It would be quite doable to make one.
Peace,
Goran
Hello Chris
Son is indeed having trouble with the cost of feed. It is a reason why he is slowly moving from pigs to goats. It wasn’t so bad when he got the stuff thrown out from stores, restaurants etc, but that is now illegal.
Very cold here today, I could do with some global warming.
Inge
Yo, Chris – No, they keep us in the dark about some of the most benign stuff. Sometimes, things that would benefit everyone, here. Such as, if our night manager is going to be gone for a few days, it would be helpful to know that maybe a bit of increased vigilance, of the Inmates, would be in order. I walk H pretty late, and if I know he’s going to be gone, I check all the doors and windows, on the first floor, to make sure they’re latched. Things like that. They also don’t let us know when an Inmate has passed away. Not so important to me, but some people would like to go through a grieving process, etc..
Must make you feel good to see that one foot of good topsoil. All your hauling and chopping shows good results. So, is your soil talk for the Green Wizards, or the blog, here?
I usually read a chapter or two of something before bed. Things like “Pilgrims” and “Plums” are good books for slowing down the mind and preparing for sleep. I was convinced (sort of), for a long time, that Lake Woebegone was really the town where my mother came from. New York Mills. Except Mr. Keillor swapped Finns for Norwegians. “Names have been changed to protect the innocent.” 🙂
I’ll probably grow green beans, in sort of the same spot as I did last year. And, some Scarlet Runner Beans. I tried them once before, but didn’t get too many. As I found out late in the season that they don’t need much water. Sigh. So much to know. I’ll plant the green beans in one place, in a slightly different area, away from where the powdery mildew was. If it was powdery mildew.
I swung by the library, yesterday, and picked up 7 DVDs. Mostly, documentaries. Three of them are histories, of women, on Route 66. That’s called “The Mother Road.” Runs from Chicago to LA. Travelers and business women. I watched the first one, last night. Pretty interesting.
I also watched a Nova science film. “When Whales Could Walk.” You may know, whales came out of the ocean, climbed up the mammal branch of the family tree, and returned to the water. Paleontologists are piecing together their genealogy.
When I stopped by the library, I noticed all the staff were in masks. Someone must have the cooties.
They’re moving out all the stuff, from Elinor’s, that they boxed up, today. Tomorrow, large pieces of furniture go.
That was an interesting article on the dingoes. Any packs of dog like creatures are best to be steered clear of. Lew
Yo, Chris – Oh, no! Not the candy!
https://www.cnn.com/travel/uk-rock-candy-cheap-imports
There’s also a sidebar, “Related Article. British Food 20 Best Dishes.” It’s very amusing. Lew
Chris:
I expect Ruby has riled up some of the old ones. Yes, they are in my part of the world as well. It’s one of the things that I worry about with all of these trees that have been cut down on our property, but what’s a farmer to do?
Being Supercrazy already, it was a bit hard to figure out what Bob was trying to communicate when he went Super Super Crazy, so I didn’t get it till too late. There was no damage to our Southern Yellow Pine log house except for a bit to the contents, glassware and crockery on shelves.
Limits . . . ? Oh, yeah.
Pam
Chris,
Yes, for some reason, absurdities attract me. It’s more than just Douglas Adams, but he was rather grand at absurd. At one of the family gatherings we had in Albuquerque recently, one cousin’s husband I found to be rather quieter than I had remembered. Then I brought up some Month Python things. He got very animated very quickly. We even had the younger folks in stitches and taking notes.
Ohhh, poor Ollie. Tied up is a big curtailment. Then again, if he were trustworthy, it wouldn’t be necessary. Best to stay at papa’s side, then these things don’t happen.
Yes, let me know what Simon says about the stoner zombie idea.
Different time. Different culture. Oral traditions. Thus, people thought differently and maybe didn’t need detailed back stories. Or maybe they understood what the back stories were due to being in that culture. The 1,000 years plus time difference might mean that we are ignorant of what people in that era had as fundamental assumptions and basic knowledge. 1,000 years from now people might need voluminous back stories to explain traffic lights and roundabouts.
Yup, people will make their own choices. I preferred to treat the teenagers with respect. Rather than getting preachy, even then, when I was brainwashed, I could see that being calm and acknowledging that choices happen, events occur, and consequences result was a much better way of working with the kids. If the church leadership had ever found that out, I would have been blackballed for sure. By then, I was figuring out that I was going to leave that place anyhow.
People tend to want things cheap, fast and good. At best, only two of those are possible at any time, and I’m very skeptical of that nowadays.
You know, I have NEVER seen a real furry creature from Alpha Centauri. Never. Ever. Perhaps they don’t exist. Perhaps they are wise enough to avoid us. Maybe they got crushed beneath an unsuspecting whale falling from the sky wishing to be their friend.
We’ve gotten Dame Avalanche on a diet that is both healthy for her and that she normally enjoys. Then there is always the husky thing that happens. For some reason, despite a lot of activity, she just isn’t hungry. It has been a learning curve for all concerned.
Got the front yard seeded with dryland grass seed this afternoon. Then I got the hoses out and wetted it down. Hopefully, we will get some rain tonight and tomorrow. Not much is expected, but every drop helps.
DJSpo
Hi Lewis,
Imagine candy sticks being under threat from cheap imports? How is that even possible. Labour arbitrage is a brutal activity. I’d read elsewhere that the Blackpool area apparently struggles economically. But the building that is the Winter Gardens would amaze me. Such wonderful architecture and lovely spaces.
Expecting flexibility and open communication from bureaucrats may be a step too far. What you say is true, but if the reality remains unstated, then if anything untoward should happen, bottoms are covered. Nobody wants to leave their unprotected bum hanging out there in public waiting for a good kicking. Do they?
On the other hand, I do understand the need for communication, especially in regard to a fellow inmates passing away, that’s probably a reasonable expectation. Control, what is this thing?
The Editor urges me not to speak of the subject of top soil! 😉 But then, digging in that sad looking cumquat citrus tree to it’s new location in the very sunny citrus enclosure, it was difficult not to marvel at the texture and tilth of the lovely looking black looking loam. The tree also enjoyed a good watering in which contained a mixture of seaweed concentrate. One can only hope that the citrus tree thrives in its new locale. Dude, I felt really bad about this tree move because it was originally in the resting place of the esteemed, but constitutionally lazy, Sir Poopy. Digging the tree out was not an enjoyable experience. We chucked a goodly amount of top soil and clay over the hole, just in case. Foxes and other varmints have been known to err, dig holes.
The problem with repeating the soil talk here is that despite having read widely on the subject for over two decades, I’m no expert and am learning as I’m going. Other folks have done the hard yards of comprehension, I’m just putting their concepts to the test.
Given both Norway and Finland probably produced more than their fair share of Viking warriors in the way back machine, it’s best if we don’t annoy them! 😉 Mostly before bed I read and respond to the many lovely comments here, and that has similar effects. Plus a chamomile tea late in the evening usually goes down a treat. Always wise to change the names, especially in this country what with defamanation lores (sic) being such a pain in the rear! 😉
Beans can be finicky about watering and soil conditions, yeah I hear you. Do they have the ‘Lazy Housewife’ variety of beans in your country? I can recommend them for ease of growing and also their reliable production. The plant produces a white bean, which also dries well. I’m discovering that watering the greenhouse less in colder conditions, produces more plant growth. It is possible I was cooling the soil with the regular watering (and I don’t over water plants in the first place). I’m wondering now if the plants in the raised beds can access the groundwater? Maybe. They must be getting water from somewhere.
Plant diseases are a mystery, yup. My friends of the big shed fame once grew pumpkins inside their shed. The plant was a prolific producer, but powdery mildew spread at the end of the season and required a bit of a clean up with a high pressure water spray. One of the things I noted about the Victorian era UK gardens was that they grew melons in a greenhouse, and I’d wondered how they dealt with the powdery mildew? Dunno.
Mr Steinbeck so named that road in The Grapes of Wrath. Ah, go west young man, except after reading that book I got the distinct impression that the folks out west didn’t want the Okies, as I believe they were called. A tough time. When is the documentary set?
Ooo. Not good about the cooties. It happens, and I note that protein levels in plants are about their is it, nadir? Anywhoo, you’re in the spring lean period, so the result is hardly surprising to me.
Moving furniture ain’t nuffin! 🙂 We hauled a lot of large rocks back up the hill today, then dug them into the final stages of the low gradient path. About three more days of work, and that project should be done. It’s hard to think that it began almost fourteen months ago (by the time it is finished). Me tired, and I have to prepare the talk. I take such things seriously…
You once suggested to me that I was wrong about a confrontation with a pack of wolves, and I now agree with you. Things would go badly, and I was wrong.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Inge, Goran, Pam and DJ,
Thanks for the lovely comments, but I have to pull the dreaded mid-week hiatus card. No truly. I’m putting together a talk on all things soil, and that takes time and preparation. It’s a complicated subject, and Sandra generally won’t listen to me talking about it, but I note at the same time, is also happy to be a beneficiary of this arcane knowledge. 🙂
Will speak tomorrow, but until then…
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – Interesting about Inge’s son’s pigs. I watched an episode of “Wartime Kitchen & Garden,” last night. Had kind of forgotten about it, while my computer was down. They talked about how people would have “shares” in a pig, and everyone saved kitchen scraps, in set aside bins. They also showed several posters, from the period, for saving scraps for the porkers. More on that episode, later.
Blackpool was always a bit of a raffish, working man’s resort. That series I watched recently, “Funny Women” starts off in Blackpool. A young lady who works in her father’s salt water toffee factory (another big draw on the boardwalks), wins the Miss Blackpool contest, in the early 1960s, and then it’s off to London, to seek fame and fortune. I quit liked it, and am looking forward to season two. 🙂 Not based on a real person, but from a novel by Nick Hornby (2014), “Funny Girl.” Blackpool is also known for ballroom dance competitions. Back to 1894.
I’m sure your Cumquat will be fine, given the most excellent soil that you have provided. Might have a little shock, at first, but will spring back from that.
Back to the “Wartime Kitchen & Garden.” Before the war, tomatoes were mostly imports. So, there was a big push to grow them, in the glasshouses. Interesting. They piled soil on huge tables, and planted the tomatoes, up top. There was a scene where the old duffer gardener was adding stove ash, to the plants. For potassium, as fertilizer wasn’t available. Tomatoes were supposed to go to a central warehouse. LOL. There was a bit of black market business, between the gardener and Mrs. Mott, the cook. 🙂 Money exchanged hands, and it was all a bit furtive. He also had a marrow, for her. She commented that she’d keep her bag closed, on the way home. And said she’d be back, the next week.
There was also a segment on mixing up Burgundy spray. Copper sulfate and quick lime. Good against potato blight and powdery mildew. There was a segment on how they built soil and straw mounds, in which to store potatoes. Mashed parsnips with a drop of banana essence taste, and look just like mashed bananas. According to reports. A hay box was demonstrated. During the War, America sent over collections of seed packets. The old duffer was grousing that some of the lettuce wasn’t suited for the English climate. They had a picture of the seed packets, but I couldn’t see what all was sent.
A few seed companies carry “Lazy Housewife” beans, here. None that I use. I’m pretty happy with my Kentucky Wonder. And you use the whole pod, though I suppose you could save the dried beans for cooking. The few dried beans I save, I save for planting.
According to Prof. Mass, we’re going to have at least 10 wet days. I hope my carrot and chamomile seed don’t rot in the ground! Oh, well. Reseed again, if that happens.
The documentary series is called “Route 66: The Untold Story of Women on the Mother Road.” The first box is titled, “The Origin of Women on Route 66.” That covers the early 1920s, when the road was established, into the 1930s. The second disc, which I watched last night is “World War II and the Post War Period.” Items about the Great Depression overlap between the two. It’s really interesting and well done.
Well, it’s a bit of chaos, around here, this morning. A rental truck showed up, and they’re emptying out Elinor’s apartment. Why they didn’t wait until this weekend, when there’s less traffic in the parking lot, I don’t know. I warned them that food boxes might show up. They did. So, for awhile, we had furniture going down the elevator, and food boxes coming up. I hope our elevator survives. 🙂
So, the food box. A loaf of French bread, a small bag of apples, and a dozen eggs. A bag of individual apricots in small plastic containers. A pound of frozen ground beef, and two tiny little frozen sausage and cheese burgers. An individual slice of frosted cake, in its own little plastic clamshell. A pound of butter “product.”
A bag and a box of pasta. A pound box of quick oatmeal. A pound of raisins. Two chocolate Easter bunnies. A jar of salsa. On to the tinned stuff. A tiny tin of peppers in Adobo (?) sauce. Applesauce (3), chicken (2). One tin each of collard greens, green beans, cream of mushroom soup, chili, pork & beans and spaghetti sauce. There was a tin of mixed veg, but it was so badly dented, I tossed it. I’m glad there was applesauce. Homeless Mike really likes it. 🙂
I’ll probably hold off on taking stuff down to the Club, until Monday evening. Tomorrow, the Club is having big doings for its 39th anniversary. I’ll skip most of it, but I wonder if there will be tacos? As part of the festivities, there’s a potluck at 4. Tacos, usually at 5:30. But I think the Tacos were scheduled in, without taking the anniversary, into consideration. So, maybe yes, maybe no. I’ll just be prepared, for anything. Lew
Hi Inge,
I’m truly gobsmacked by that bit of news from your country. Oh my, what a mess for the traditional feed of swill. I’d wondered if such foods were prohibited here, and discovered that the following rules seem to apply to pig feed:
– Dairy products from overseas are also banned.
– Food that cannot be fed to pigs include:
– salad and vegetables that has been served with meat
– butcher’s shop waste
– pies, pasties, deli foods — including bacon, cheese (from overseas) and salads that contain meat.
Wow, that would add to the feed costs, and presumably would also apply equally to home prepared food wastes. The curious person wonders what affect all this is having on humans, but that’s another story… In Asia I’ve seen pigs consuming fresh sewage.
Yes, goats are a sensible option when faced with such costs. Being foragers they can consume many normally inedible plants, like blackberry, which are then converted into dairy, meat and cashmere. Not a bad arrangement.
Brr! It’s cold here as well. Hope your spring warms up soon.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Pam,
Both Dame Plum and Ruby need to avoid the psychoactive chemicals inherent in wallaby / wombat scat for a few weeks, and then they needn’t both the old ones with their tomfoolery. Surely it is not too much to ask? Anyway, the three of them are on a short leash at the moment. Are they happy? No. Are they well? Yes. Nuff said… 🙂
Pam, this is an issue I too wonder about. However, a person must look at the overall arrangement of trees, don’t you reckon? When tall trees grow cheek by jowl, it’s fine in a good year, or even an average year. However, come a less than optimal year – and they happen to all of us – the trees will suffer. I think the issue comes down to this: Are we somehow passive actors in an uncaring land? I tend to think not. Then what, becomes the question. And that question has long been answered, and the old ones didn’t seem annoyed by that.
The name Supercrazy is a dead give away, so yeah I get that, and would have been equally confused if the crazy factor was amped up to 11 (10 being the more usual upper level of crazy).
Very good. Your house would have such flexibility inherent in the very design, I can see that. Glassware and crockery is perhaps not as structurally sound as logs?
Yeah, limits! Not a fun topic.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Goran,
Very funny, and you left me with an impression of scrubbing the decks whilst on the high seas, just because there was little else to do! 🙂 Funnily enough, we do have to re-oil the timber floor in the house, and it is a job which is easily delayed to another day in the far distant future. I’m impressed that you’re re-doing the walls with natural materials at your place.
It was the death of the local farm machine repair dude a year and a half ago which prompted me to take responsibility for all of the machine servicing and repair work. Everything needs maintenance though, doesn’t it? On that note, fencing is a complicated subject and your voles strike horror into my heart. I was speaking with a friend today about how to keep all of the parrots down under off the produce on either of our fruit trees. He’d put one of my latest theories to the test, and yeah… Not good. Oh well, as they say: Back to the drawing board.
Hehe! Back in the day in rural areas, the collected fresh manure was placed into trenches and then left. After a suitable period of time the trenches were used to grow high demand vegetables. Fertiliser was historically very expensive and not wasted. As a civilisation we waste an enormous opportunity by firstly contaminating the sewage with all sorts of undesirable for the soil stuffs, then dumping the minerals in the ocean. It’s probably about the dumbest thing we do. I too enjoy fresh greens.
Fruit trees would love such a feeding, and wise to water the liquids down. And I too am confused by the arbitrary rule. Perhaps chicken excrement is more equal than human derived stuff (a reference to the book Animal Farm)? It sounds like an excellent system to me, and the worm farm here produces a permanently green and mineral rich grass for the native animals all to eat. Those animals then do their business in other parts of the land, and the fertility slowly spreads outwards from the source.
The wheeled bin is a good idea, but a 2m elevation certainly requires steps leading up to the err, throne. I’ll be very interested to hear how the talks with the local official go.
It does make you wonder, but then perhaps the contents of the worm farm may freeze during the winter months at your place, and who knows what then may happen. The ground here does not freeze during the winter months, except on days of heavy frost. But even then, it would be no more than a day or two of frozen ground. I’m thinking though, if such a worm farm was sort of dry, then perhaps the biological activity of the decomposition, especially if there is lots of nitrogen, may keep the contents warm and unfrozen? Dunno. Do well made and active compost heaps freeze during your winter months?
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
Absurdist humour is fun, and just silly. But mostly, in times of stress, it’s the court jester who can reveal the truth. And that’s what Douglas Adams and the Monty Python crew were doing. They were simply sending up the more serious folks who walk among us. And also providing you and I memorable words of amusement and entertainment. Like, how does anyone explain the Knights who say: Ni! Sorry for saying that word, I did have to use the unmentionable word in order to provide a solid working example. You can’t ask for better than that? Life of Brian has to be in my top ten all time films. Mad Magazine used to do the same thing with humour. There were others… 🙂
It’s nice to communicate with a person of a similar mindset.
Best for Ollie to stay at my side, and if he can’t do this, I’ll force him to do so with a leash. He doesn’t seem to mind the leash at all, and unlike the kelpies he will lift up his head in a obsequious manner when offered it. He gets this look in his eyes which says: I stuffed up boss, and might do it again! Best not to put temptation in the way of such canine mischief.
Simon may have remarked something about the idea being similar to the plot of a Simon Pegg film. 🙂 It’s a new twist on the zombie genre though.
That may well be the case about people at the time of the narrative, simply understanding the nuance of the language used. Without Professor Tolkien’s footnotes to the ancient Beowulf tale, much of the detail of the story would have been incomprehensible to me. The Vikings on the other hand would have loved the tale. Oh my, you’ve blown my mind with that observation of yours about traffic lights and roundabouts.
Speaking of roundabouts, the main road here off the mountain is still closed due to construction of one roundabout which is not far from the local train station. Anywhoo, whilst heading into the big smoke today, by the time I remembered this important fact it was too late and I’d gone in the wrong direction. A twenty minute detour later, through the leaf change traffic in the more fashionable western end of the mountain range, and my brain was beginning to melt. 🙂 Not really, but it’s a long way around and through a lot of tourists. A strange choice of the timing to send all the locals from here, over to there and add to the slow moving tourist traffic load. I’d read of a nearby town where the local bridge had been washed away in a flood a year or two ago and until the bridge was reconstructed, it was something like a half hour detour. Hmm.
Ah, yes, I’d do much the same. The hand of fate sometimes pushes all of us in certain directions, and it up to us to learn how to swim. There’s something of the gnostic in you, but it takes one to know one! I don’t get the big deal either, but some folks live for rules.
It’d be pretty cool encountering a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri, although the cynical person would want to question their motives for arriving on this planet. No doubts they’d have the upper hand technologically, and The Firm’s amusing song Star Trekkin’ would suggest a possible outcome: We come in peace. Shoot to kill! Anyway, the clay animation video for the song is very fun to watch.
My experience has been that only sick dogs don’t want their dinner. Of course, there is a massive hole in my experience. I’ve never interacted with a husky for more than a minute. I defer to your on the ground experience with the wild breed.
Did you end up getting the expected rain? Hopefully the soil was warm enough for the seed to germinate.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Yeah, I’d not heard of that swill restriction with pigs either. It seems to apply down here as well, and I noticed that the rules here did not indicate where the source of the feed had derived from. So a person could probably be in a lot of trouble should such scraps derive from their own household. Of course, there is something not quite right about feeding pigs remains to pigs. Although the pigs I’ve encountered seem rather unfussy about the origins of their meals, and the things I saw in Asia with those animals…
It’s not a bad idea to share responsibility for an animal. It’s funny in a bad way, how isolated every household has become. In the soil talk today I mentioned the difficulty of seed saving when you’re the only person in an area growing edibles. The responsibility to prevent inbreeding with edible plants is just that much harder when your neighbours, and their neighbours aren’t growing similar plants.
The Winter Gardens mentioned the ballroom dancing competition stretching back into the Victorian era. The series looks fun, and I’ve forwarded it on to the Editor. She’s watching some Irish crime family series at the moment. A very high body count.
Thanks. The cumquat will be better off in the new more sunnier location. It’s done nothing but be eaten by the wallabies for six years and deserves better than that. Most of the citrus trees in the enclosure have doubled in size over the past year, and survived some hard frosts (thankfully). Such cold weather is always a bit of a ‘touch wood’ moment! As you’d know. Have you passed your last frost date?
Far out! I would have thought that the English would have been busily breeding varieties of tomatoes able to survive the cooler summer weather? Mind you, even here tomatoes can be a miss in some summer seasons, and a greenhouse does take the risk away in that regard. I tend to focus on the cherry varieties for that reason. What a fine joke! Really, a central warehouse? Sounds like a dodgy arrangement to me, and I’d have strong reservations that any of those fruits ended up on the front line. The black market in this instance made a whole lot more sense!
Tomatoes really like lime, and it makes me wonder if such fertilisers were in short supply at the time?
The spray sounds like a decent anti fungal spray. Crop rotation would be easier though. I wonder if the straw piles storing the potatoes had to deal with rats? Rats are on my mind of late because they keep trying to break through the house defences. The cozy warm nesting places (if they do break through) are quite the winter prize for those rodents. Even the engine bays of the cars are not safe.
According to reports was my exact thoughts as well on that matter! I’ve never really enjoyed the taste of parsnips, but if I were starving there’d be no issues with that root vegetable whatsoever. I have the same problem as the Old Duffer, in that the seeds which get sold down under, usually are no good for this cold mountainous climate. And so I have to just keep trying lots of different varieties and trying to save seed from those which do work. You have a lot more variety in your country in that regard.
Grow what works is my thinking! 😉 I suppose you could consume the seed pods, but I tend to dry, shell and the store them. Dunno why either, maybe there is just plenty to eat at the time they’re producing?
Oh well, you can always re-sow the seeds, although you never know, the wet weather may get them to germinate. You’ve got raised beds, so the drainage should be better than the surrounding land? La Nina, sorry to say is good news for me. Cooler and damper than usual. The weather news down here is that the dry season up north of the country has arrived, and winter is fast approaching here, and it may be wet, although the forecast for the next week reads as sunny and cold. Go figure…
The Editor just watched the trailer for the series and looks impressed. 🙂 That’s a win!
Speaking of Route 66, I paid $2.17 a Litre ($8.25 a gallon) for fuel this morning. Fortunately, it’s a small and economical car. Looks like the Aussie has dropped against the green back whilst the cost of oil is on the up again. Makes me wonder if the fuel cost is enough to slow the leaf change tourists? What alarms me is that the cheap day out may be a substitute product for more expensive options… I recall my history and during the Great Depression, the trains to the country were free for city folks. Get them out in the fresh countryside air walking around. Apparently walking trails back then were a very popular pasttime. Yikes!
Oh my! What a logistical nightmare. And I’ll bet it slowed down the distribution of the food boxes?
That’s a great haul, except for the unidentified cake and you know my thoughts about substitute products… 🙂 Speaking of unidentified, dints that you didn’t make, might compromise the seal. Better than lead soldering on the tin seals though? A thoughtful gift. Is the chocolate any good?
Did you get the tacos?
The soil talk went well. It’s nice to be able to talk all things soil. 😉
Cheers
Chris
Hello Chris
The other disadvantage of swill banning is that the pig meat has lost a lot of flavour. It used to taste way better than any pork that one bought. No longer so unfortunately.
Inge
Yo, Chris – Even worse, it turned out some of the spread of Mad Cow Disease was due to cows being ground up, and added to cow feed. Then there’s the deer disease that’s effecting hunters …
https://youtu.be/bnnoW_o9iUE?si=QPVNXD7TsPHbEZk1
The very funny farmer on the “Land Girls” series, has an illegal pig. And, is always dodging the authorities, to keep it hidden. His scheme is to sell it on the black market, and make his fortune.
The latest frost date, in my records, is May 10th. So, we’ve got a ways to go, yet. I’m hearing about frosts in outlying areas, but none here, in town. From what I understand, the central warehouses during WWII sent food both to the front, and also to the populace.
When I first moved in here, a woman down the hall grew parsnips and fixed them, like French fries. They could either be deep fried, or, if you wanted to avoid the mess and extra calories, baked. I suppose, mashed with butter and garlic, they’d be pretty tasty. If I get any this year, I’ll give it a whirl.
The old duffer gardener mentioned, that potash was hard to get during the war. Hence, the stove ash. Our night manager is being bedeviled by pill bugs, again, this year. Eating his seedlings. There’s a few things, to try. Potato traps look promising.
It was cloudy, all day, yesterday. But no rain into the evening or overnight. Just as H was finishing up her business, this morning, it started to rain. Saw some news reports of bad tornados, with a lot of damage, in our midwest. The news footage was pretty spectacular.
The Editor: Which series? “Funny Woman,” or “Foyle’s War?” 🙂
I watched a new documentary, last night, on The Buffalo Soldiers. After our Civil War, companies of black soldiers (calvary and infantry) were sent out west to fight the “Indian” wars. Later on, they patrolled the “new” national parks that were being created. Before there were park rangers.
As far as your leaf peeper tourists go, you could always try what the Japanese are doing. 🙂
https://youtu.be/bnnoW_o9iUE?si=QPVNXD7TsPHbEZk1
There’s an interesting side bar, “Related article: Geisha Paparazzi.” Gosh, leave the poor girls, alone!
I don’t know about the chocolate bunnies. I left them on the downstairs swap table.
I stopped down to the Club, last night, but no one knows, for sure, if there will be tacos, tonight, or not. Still on the calendar. Guess I’ll find out, tonight. If not, it will give me something to have a good whinge about. 🙂
I’m happy to hear your soil talk, went well. Got that out of your system, for awhile :-). Lew
Hi Lewis,
It sounds like the authoritas have that mad deer wasting disease thing under control. The authoritas down here for a while claimed that they had the bee varroa mite problem sorted, except it seems to have escaped their efforts. I recall that unusual origin of crazy cow disease. Not good, nobody wants to have to deal with prions as a health issue.
In the series, did the illegal pig ever get off loaded onto the black market? Such things happen when food is in short supply. Food would have been in very short supply in the UK during WWII. Imagine having to fight on the front line with short rations. That would seriously drain morale. One of the things which stood out to me about the statistics of the Battle of the Bulge during WWII, was how much better the US supply lines were. The Germans would have collapsed rapidly after losing that battle.
Yikes! Fingers crossed that you avoid any late frosts, but then, seeds can be re-sown. That date would be around the same date for last frosts here as well (if the seasons were flipped upside down). The thing is, you can re-sow annuals, but fruit trees skip to their own beat. Apricots here are very tasty, if they escape a late frost. They’re a marginal crop at best, same with almonds.
That’s good to hear. After reading about the scrap metal collection efforts during WWII in the book Rummage (oh my gawd – had to put it down halfway through), it was hard not to note that some of the scrap metal was dumped in the Thames. Candidly I was dubious that the food received at the central warehouse was redistributed with any level of efficiency.
You know, it is possible that like fresh brussels sprouts, fresh parsnips may be less bitter tasting than the ones you can buy at the markets. Many vegetables are like that where fresh is best. I’ve had mashed parsnips with butter served with kangaroo steak, and it was pretty good. I just like potatoes better. One of my goals for later this year is getting a row of potatoes growing, but we’ll see how things go. I’ll be very curious to hear what you have to say about the root vegetable and how it tastes.
Pill bugs = woodlice = slaters. Right, well that lot enjoy young seedlings here as well. Making sure the seedlings out grow the depredations of those critters is my power move against them. Have you tried the potato trap? They like beer traps too, and are themselves edible (I believe, but have not tried). Mostly I try not to give them over winter hidey holes and feed, which means woody mulch or under rocks and sleepers. That’s like Nirvana for those pesky critters.
If the clouds provide rain, H has to get a wriggle on as the old timers used to say. 🙂 I’m sure H being a lady of the finest breeding knew when to retreat indoors, maybe? The news of the tornado reached us as well, and there was one brief video of a couple of dudes in a locomotive being direct hit. Not something you want to experience.
The weather here today was almost perfect. Sun, minimal wind and about 66’F. There was no way I was heading anywhere near the more fashionable end of the mountain range (due to the tourist risk). Instead we headed east and grabbed a very tasty lamington and a gourmet pie. Prior to that more enjoyable moment, we spent a couple of hours improving the rat defences on the greenhouse. So rats might not be all that bright. They’d consumed some of the red chilli’s and got to the seeds… That’ll learn them! 😉
I tend to believe the Editor would enjoy both series, but in this instance I was referring to ‘Funny Woman’.
Back in the day one of my favourite audio CD’s was Bob Marley’s ‘Legend’ album. It was stolen too, along with the CD player out of my car many decades ago. The later work in the pre-National Parks would have been better. During the Great Depression, many public works down here were done by veterans of WWI. Hobbies, purpose and friends are valuable things.
Man, that was the same link as the deer disease biz, but I looked up what was going on there, and the Lonely Planet website had an article on the subject. Like, what is wrong with some tourists? Who’d go and hassle Geisha’s? I see that tourists are now banned in those areas and have been thoughtfully redirected. Hmm.
My gut feeling suggests the Easter bunny chocolate was not high quality, but I’m prepared to be wrong there.
Hope you scored the tacos?
What? I don’t think so man… 🙂 Now, since we were speaking of soil… Hehe!
Lewis, I’m really sorry, but I put the ‘A good year for plums’ book down halfway through. The male characters were one dimensional, and the Della character, oh man, far out. If she were a bull for breeding purposes, I’d take her down to the back paddock and put her out of her misery. I got curious enough to read about the back story of the author, and dude, there’s a lot to unpack there. As individuals we can choose to rise above the circumstances as what brought us into this ‘ere world. Mate, I reckon my mother had borderline personality disorder, and so I can’t get into that sort of fictional world and enjoy it. It’s probably a bit close to home for me. It was like reading that Tracks book about the chick who tamed a wild camel and then headed west on a central Oz trek back in the 70’s, like that’s an ordinary everyday activity. My brain baulked at being confronted by such mental health issues, yet the book was acclaimed. Maybe it is just me? Ook!
Cheers and better get writing.
Chris
Hi Inge,
The old timers used to quip: Garbage in, Garbage out. Honestly, I have no idea, but I do recall that way back in my youth, food tasted better. I’ve read that the protein content of food has declined over the past couple of decades (and has done so for a very long time) in line with soil fertility, and this may be so, I’m no expert. However, I do have a belief that food with taste is an indicator as to the overall level of the proteins available in said food.
I’ll tell you a funny story. At this time of year, the chickens are down to producing one egg per day. We consume eggs at a higher rate than what the dozen chickens are producing, so we have to buy eggs for the next few months. We get them from a local producer, and they care for their birds and produce pretty good eggs.
The thing is, our eggs have bigger and brighter yolks. And I reckon they taste better too. So yes, I completely understand your sons dilemma with the pigs.
The only workaround with this issue is continuing to feed the soil and grow a wide diversity of plants. The chickens here consume a wide variety of plants.
If there was an easier way…
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – In “Land Girls,” the big went from pet to ham, between one season and the next. Big chunks of ham were almost as hard to hide, as the pig. The village busy body had been made overseer of food supplies. And the farmer was constantly trying to outwit her. Seems like black market transactions play a role, in a lot of the novels about WWII home front, that I read.
Potatoes are almost invasive, in my gardens. Seems like they pop up, all on their own, from one year to the next. Our night manager is going to try the beer trap. I’ll try the potatoes. We’ll see who catches more pill bugs. 🙂
Looks like we’re going to have scattered showers, for the next few days. Prof. Mass has a post on the end of El Niño, but I haven’t had time to read it, yet. There was quit an east wind, yesterday. At least at ground level. Wasn’t particularly cold … or warm. There’s snow warnings for the mountains, the overnight lows are still predicted to be well above freezing. We’ll see.
Maybe there should be an open season on tourists? 🙂 I finished the Route 66 series, last night. The route is coming back, as popular culture has created a tourist industry. I was looking for a picture, of an interesting sculpture … a run in between a horse drawn freight wagon and a “horseless carriage.” Found it, along with an interesting article on Route 66. The picture of the sculpture is down toward the bottom.
There were no tacos 🙁 . There was the remains of a pot luck, but I passed. Came home and had a couple of peanut butter Swiss cheese and yogurt sandwiches. After a good whinge fest.
The rummage book, the plums book … well, you know my philosophy when it comes to books. If you don’t like them, toss them back and pick up something else. I’m just sorry you invested in them, based on my recommendations. But once more, into the breach …
I saw a book on our libraries “new” list, that the Editor might find interesting. “The Dress Diary: Secrets from a Victorian Woman’s Wardrobe.” Stranding, 2024. Near as I can figure, a woman kept a sample book, for decades. From the fabric industry in England, to the Far East, and back again. Eventually, it fell into the hands of a fabric historian.
Someone cleaned out their pantry, and I managed to salvage about 5 bags of tinned stuff, for the Club. I’ll take down a couple of bags, this morning. Lew