Messy

40 thoughts on “Messy”

1. Yo, Chris – Ah, vacuum cleaners. Even unmechanical me, has figured out how to get a supposedly broken machine up and running. But, they may have been simpler machines, back in the day. The place I lived before, had at least three (four?), vacuums, that had quit working, and were shoved in an out of the way corner somewhere. Sometimes, the fix was a simple as emptying a full bag. Or, hair or thread had wrapped around the beater brush bar. Deploy safety razor, to cut through Gordian’s knot. Or just a plugged hose. It was insane, that these machines, had been cast aside, when a simple fix was all that was needed. Well, the owners were pretty well to do, so, I suppose it made some sense to them. Luckily, they saved everything. To the point of hoarding. How many wheel burrows were abandoned, to the blackberries? Dozens.

   A great Australian sage once said, “Blessed are the competent, for they shall remain busy.” 🙂 Probably, like you, I always went the extra mile, in employment. And had an eye to making things easier, for my co-workers. A little acknowledgment would have been appreciated. Nothing over the top. Maybe a simple “thank you.” After awhile, you wonder why you bother.

   I was talking to someone younger, tonight. In some ways, older folks lived in a kind of Golden Age. You caught the Golden Age of Tourism.

   Your terraces are now ready to produce, for the year. What a great variety of tasty things. Mighty chestnuts grow from tender starts?

   I really liked the video on making peanut butter. Especially, since I spent close to $12 for a 2 pound, really good brand. A couple of questions. I blinked and missed it. Which blade did you use, in your machine. Some of those machines, have multiple blade forms. What do you store the surplus in? And, do you refrigerate it? If there is a surplus 🙂 . Any tips on clean up?

   The daffodils, are lovely. And the yellow Rhododendrons, really quit striking. We have quit a few Rhodies, here at the Institution. But I only remember seeing red and pink. Might be some yellow ones, down at the other end of the property, where I seldom go.

   We’ve had a couple of pretty wild storms. Lost power for a brief period of time. Just long enough to have to reset the clocks. One of my tomato cages ended up being the Leaning Tower of Tomatoes. I cinched it up, with bailing twine and tied it to a handy t-post. I was concerned it might collapse, and crush a small child. :-). Lew

2. Go to the link below and have a listen to old mate Johnny C’s pithy comments. Maybe time to pull that crappy thingy out of the bin.

   https://autoexpert.com.au/posts/consumer-law-protection-after-warranty

3. Hi Kezza,

   Thanks for that, and interesting, very interesting. Actually I’ve watched plenty of John’s utoob videos, and learned a lot.

   Maybe it is time. What did they used to say: Don’t get mad, get even. 😉

   Cheers

   Chris

4. Hi Pam,

   Maggie is such a lovely name for a dog. You’d imagine the personality of the pooch with such a name was kind of both whimsical, and cheeky, all at the same time. 🙂 Clearly the living was good for the dog. An enviable achievement I hope we can all live up to.

   Got the seed potatoes in today. A very big day of work.

   Cheers

   Chris

5. Hi Goran,

   Hehe! Thanks, and glad to hear that you’re enjoying them. They’re fun to make and I’m getting slowly more comfortable talking to a camera.

   What? How have I not heard of chestnut miso before? Hmm. Interesting! You’ve probably seen by now that I took your advice in relation to pollination of the chestnut burs. As you correctly noted a few months ago, the burs were empty. We’ve got two chestnut trees growing, and over the weekend – in the rain – I added a third seedling chestnut. Hopefully this will address the pollination issues in a few years, and we’ll be enjoying the very tasty nuts. All three hazelnuts now have catkins on them right now.

   With the CO2 lock, when we use 5L demijohns and the even larger 30L carboys, there are proper bungs and airlocks. With the sake, it’s no big deal and the lid is just not quite firmly anchored to the body of the plastic container. When the sake is eventually stored in the wine bottles, we leave those upright in the refrigerator door (where they can’t fall over and/or get too warm) with the screw lids sort of loose. Even now the fermentation in the wine bottles with the clear sake is quite active. We filmed another update earlier today. Honestly, I’d not realised that there was so much interest in this product, and in the past the drink we’ve made has always received rave reviews. Unsolicited advice alert: Don’t muck around with the variety of rice, and use the medium grain rice as recommended – it has the highest sugar content. It’s worthwhile experimenting with other varieties, but you’ll be disappointed.

   We discovered the mistake after uploading the video. You are 100% correct.

   Goran, the local yeasts are horrid. Maybe two years ago, Simon (who’s blog is in the blog roll) produced a good crop of apples in his backyard. So, he brought them up here, and we all mooshed the apples in the fruit press, and began to make hard cider and apple cider vinegar using the local yeasts both from here and Simon’s place. Look, it was a total disaster, and everyone’s batch failed and the scum on the surface of the brews were multi-coloured. Probably quite toxic. Anyway, Sandra and I went back to basics a week or two ago and purchased a 10kg box of seconds apples (Pink Lady variety) from a local-ish cold store. A lovely local lady gifted us the scoby, and now we have both hard cider (using commercial wine yeast) and apple cider vinegar going (using the scoby). This time it will work. Made a video of that too, which we may post in a couple of weeks time.

   Well, particular speciality yeasts have origins in particular locations. You may be able to replicate them, but can you originate them? I think not. So, get them from Japan, whilst you can. Plus the more you inoculate your land with the stuff, well, such things tend to have a life of their own.

   Hehe! Always wise to grease the nipples. Actually, I didn’t mention it on the video, but some of the nipples seize up. What I do in that situation is to remove them with a spanner (usually between 8mm and 10mm) and clean both the hole and the nipple with carby cleaner (which is acetone so it breaks down organic matter). Replace the nipple, and the grease gun should then work. You can buy kits of replacement grease nipples and they’re quite affordable. But it can be an easy two minute job, or a much bigger maintenance job depending on whether it all works. Good luck, and may the thing just work for you!

   I totally 100% agree with you. Grass competition is a real pain for fruit trees. That is an excellent suggestion, and would work. However, we used to grow plants around the fruit tree trunks and the rats and rabbits took advantage of that. It was a bit of a pain really, so we mulched up all of those plants and fed them back to the soil.

   I look forward to seeing the photos of your most excellent work.

   Hehe! Good shot, and the war is going well brother Goran (1984 reference)! That’s a lot of voles, but the rats are likewise being a pain. Oh well.

   Your summer sounds very pleasant indeed. Some years are just perfect. Are you getting a good feel for your land?

   Cheers

   Chris

6. Hi Lewis,

   Mansions are usually a dead giveaway as to the underlying wealth story. However, having read a few Wodehouse books, it is hard not to notice that after WWII, there appeared to be many an old estate which was as the old timers used to quip: Asset rich and income poor. So maybe the mansion is indicative rather than predictive? Have to take in the tourists in order to pay for the roof repairs…

   The whole thing was weird, and it didn’t look like the bloke was selling tobacco products from what we could see in the news clip. Those miscreants could have equally made a mistake, I mean one of them set fire to themselves. Very occasionally you do hear of such location and person mistakes being made by crims. I’ve had friends who roll their own, and by all accounts it is cheaper.

   And that is cheap, and it’s true mad cash was once worth a whole lot more than it seems to be today. $49 a month is cheap. 🙂

   From memory, the first place I rented was a share house with five people in the house, the room was $70 per week, which is about $300 per month. Income before tax was about $1,000 per month, although tax wasn’t all that much back then. Some rough back of the envelope calculation suggests that your rent was 22.5% of your monthly salary (assuming 40 hours per week). In 1989 rent was 30% of my monthly salary, so that’s in the ball park. You’ve got me wondering: What is it today? Looking at reddit threads people are saying rent in a share house is around $200 to $300 per week. Let’s split that in half and go for the dodgy share house where people are eating your noodles and using your towel, hmm, say $250 per week. Looking around a few official statistics websites, average earnings are around $1300 per week, more for dudes than dudettes. So that’s 19.2%, which is not as bad I thought. However, supply of housing is severely limited so who knows what it is in reality? But the ratio seems to be more or less about the same. Mind you, way back in the day I didn’t expect to pay much for ‘other stuff’, and even now I still try to live on the smell of an oily rag. Dunno. It’s interesting though. I suspect what has taken place, is that people are now more heavily intermediated, and so they’ve got more other bills than you or I ever faced as younger folks.

   Ook! Oh well, the folks on the eastern seaboard must know their business.

   I’d never heard of Mary Anning either, but what a great talent who clearly knew more than the experts of the day, probably all of them combined. Mary had a lot of things going against her, and some other things were in her favour. Just reading between the lines, I got the impression the lady was not very good in the area of economics. But then there were many who looked out for her, and so got by in her own way. Class is still very much an issue, we just pretend that it isn’t.

   I can imagine the realisation that once long ago reptiles were the dominant creature, was quite the kick in the guts to the entire culture.

   Far out! Ashed in is something I hope not to experience in my lifetime. It’s funny you say that about ‘spectacular’ because many of the oral accounts of the 1983 fire through this mountain range made mention of the ‘horror and the eerie beauty’ of the spectacle.

   Hope the guts settle themselves, and am glad to hear that you’re feeling better.

   Go H! And yes, bark away at the thunder gods. Hey, for all we know, H may be calling out in greeting? Bummer about the leak, and hope they get onto fixing it. Is shiftless Jack still in evidence?

   Hehe! It’s probably true about the film, and society. I see that there is a new Alien film franchise instalment.

   Thanks for the mental image of you cutting the Gordian knot, otherwise known as a: Hair ball. Alexander himself would have been stumped by the knot. 🙂 But yes, people don’t comprehend that most machines require maintenance and care. Even computers need the accumulated dust blown out of the guts of the things every now and then. Actually there’s a dude down here who finds such discarded vacuums, fixes them up (usually a clean of the filters), then makes mad cash selling them.

   As an interesting side note, I won’t mention the brand name because err, super wealthy and can probably squash me like an ant. A foolish hill to die upon that one.

   You actually have found wheelbarrows in the blackberries. Like how does that even happen? We try to keep machines out of the sun and rain, not to mention regularly pruning back the blackberries.

   Exactly. I dunno, and sometimes going the extra mile becomes the new norm, and you’re left working harder than other folks. Put a price on such things and folks start singing a different tune. Oh well, moving on.

   Hehe! Dude, that is so true about the golden age of tourism. Lewis, it was so quiet and pleasant. The completely over the top leaf change tourism troubles me deeply, but sometimes a bloke’s just gotta adapt to circumstances.

   I’d hope the chestnut tree gets off to a good start. We really need this extra tree for pollination purposes. It’s a seedling so that should introduce some different genetics for the other two chestnut trees, maybe.

   Thanks so much for saying that, and it’s tasty stuff. It was a single level blade, which cuts low in the bowl. Presumably if the single blade somehow sat higher in the bowl, it may not blitz the peanuts as well. Dunno. The peanut butter is stored in a small pyrex glass dish, with a rubber and clear plastic lid. The lid has an ingenious pressure release valve when you want to remove the lid. Other than that, we keep the stuff in the refrigerator and it stays fresh for a week (or at least that has been my experience). Clean up, err dogs can help, but hot soapy water cleans the whole lot up nicely. You probably don’t want to leave any old peanut butter in any nooks and crannies in the food processor bowl and/or blade. Of course there is a surplus, for a while! 😉

   Yellow flowers seem to be the earliest variety of many plants. I’d imagine that the colour itself is somehow able to harvest more from the weaker sunlight at this time of the year? Dunno though. Most of the rhodies here are also pink and red, but there is a purple one too I believe. No blue though, unfortunately…

   That’s a lot of tomatoes, and Lewis, the parents will never forgive you. You might even be hounded out of town.

   All those seed potatoes we purchased the other day at the nursery. Well, they’re all now in the ground. Planted about four dozen seed potatoes over four garden bed rows. We’re trying something different this year and have rototilled up the garden bed rows from a grassy area that has been very well fed over the past two or three years. Of course, we added a trailer loads worth of fine compost to the soil, so we’ll see how it goes. I’m thinking I might buy in some more compost and/or artificial soil mix when the stems need to be heaped up. Dunno. It’ll be interesting to see whether we end up being self-sufficient for potatoes. The blokes who run the local farm gate selling potatoes are almost eighty, and yeah, I’m worried that one day I’ll turn up and there’ll be a for sale sign on the farm gate. Those blokes work pretty hard and have been there since the late 1960’s. I’ve experienced a few farm gates falling by the wayside over the years. Time to get serious about taters! I’m just left wondering if I can replant from the crop, and I’ll ask the blokes next time I see them. They tell me all the gossip around here dating back to so long ago. People have long memories around here. 🙂

   Cheers

   Chris

7. Yo, Chris – A lot of Britains stately homes, bit the dust, due to death duties. Which really kicked in, after WWII. But, there had been a lot of other taxes, along the way, that whittled away at the gentry. Although I benefited from the hard times. The Duke and Duchess of Bedford, had to send their treasures, on a road show. Which played Portland, Oregon. I saw the exhibit, at nine. Kicked off my lifelong interest in art.

   Another entry in the Darwin Awards. Although, I think the arsonist, setting himself on fire, beats the Death by Selfie crowd, hands down.

   When you look at home interiors, from the early 20th century, there sure isn’t much “stuff.” Thank the arts and crafts movement people, for kicking that off. And, yes, you and I can remember simpler times, when not everyone had their hand in your pocket. Or that costs weren’t mandated by one entity or another.

   Mary Anning wasn’t very good at setting aside money, for a rainy day. Her income could be pretty irregular. When she was flush, she had family leaching off of her. And tended to give away money to those who were even more unfortunate, than her. In general, I think her village was pretty skint. By the way, they mention Inge’s patch, several times.

   You used to hear that America was a classless country. Cue, hysterical laughter. 🙂

   Oh, Lazy Shiftless Jack is long gone. Once the horrible woman, who was Little Mary Sunshine’s boss and mentor, retired, he didn’t last long. I still wonder if he was a shirttail relation of hers, or, perhaps her boy-toy. We’ve had several maintenance guys, since then. Mostly, pretty competent. But, I think the old bats wear them down and run them off. I think our night manager, is approaching critical mass. A pity. He’s the best.

   I started a documentary, last night. “Icons Unearthed: The Simpsons.” Pretty interesting the ins and outs of launching that show.

   The wheelbarrows were usually cast aside, due to a flat tire. Which could have been repaired. Or, replaced with a solid wheel. When I lived there, it was an ongoing battle just to keep the blackberries beaten back, from areas, to keep the place habitable. Using burning and goats. There were still vast patches, that swallowed up everything they got close to. Whole vehicles, sheds, fences … Cast aside, the wheelbarrows rusted out, fairly quickly. I often thought it would have been interesting, to pick out the best ones, and arrange them on the lawn in a flying wedge, filled with flowers. Yard art 🙂 .

   We had another storm, last night, and lost the power just long enough to have to reset the clocks. Some areas got 1/2 inch, hail. But not here. Looks like there’s another storm, moving in tonight. Oddly, last night there was no leakage from the ceiling. It’s probably going to be a hard leak, to find. Being small. And, I think it depends on which way the wind is blowing. Looking at the weather history page, the highest gust (at least at the airport) was 36mph. We have a metal flagpole, here, and it was snapped in half. The high yesterday was 75F (23.88C), the overnight low was 54F. Forecast for today is 78F.

   I half expect Little Mary Sunshine will visit my apartment, though it is unnecessary. So, I did a bit of fast clean up. Hide the extension cords, kill the dust bunnies, etc.. I had a 25 pound bag of rolled oats, 25 pounds of all purpose flour, and a 25 pound box of dried cranberries, in my hall. Got all those into gallon bags. Flour and oats, into the freezer, for a few days. Cranberries into a food grade bucket.

   I cinched up the tomato cage, with bailing twine. Doesn’t seem the worse, for wear. One of the caregivers I talk to, gave me a nice yellow crook neck squash, today. Dinner! There was a hummingbird, working over my scarlet runner bean blossoms, this morning. And I discovered two pods, forming. Finally! The caregiver who was going to bring me apples, discovered they’re all wormy 🙁 .

   Thanks for the information on the peanut butter. I’ll have to see if I can source roasted, shelled peanuts, and how much the price might be. There used to be a band called “The Peanut Butter Conspiracy.” And Jimmy Buffet wrote a song, by that title.

   https://youtu.be/DqgWXaOQ0OM?si=tES23e7wcn3ZixLW

   It sounds like the two old farm gate guys are a valuable natural resource. 🙂 I don’t know about the whole certified potato thing. Supposedly, to prevent disease. There’s probably a story, there. Is it to winkle more money out of your pocket, or to avoid another potato famine? The truth probably lies somewhere in-between. Lew

8. Hi, Chris!

   This time I watched your video first. Yum! And “It looks very good.” You made me long for some homemade peanut butter, and bread as well.

   I don’t think I have been paying attention, but who puts on the closed caption/subtitles? Is that for hard-of-hearing people, or for those that might Australianally challenged?

   Thanks!

   Pam

9. forced migration- yeah, it’s a thing. Tech wise of course, what did you think I was talking about? And crapification happening in parallel, as you shared in your example.

   And no backward compatibility or graceful degradation. Climbing the ladder and kicking out the rungs as you go, etc…

   Just gonna make it worse when the descent picks up speed and we take the first of those larger Greer stair steps.

   We’re in high harvest mode right now, made blackberry jelly this year, as the early rains kept the wild berries nice and plump. Patsy has been canning all manner of veg out of the garden, and onions and potatoes are curing in the barn before going in the root cellar. Flint corn is heavy on the stalks, and we’ll start making kraut and kimchee this next week. The hazelnuts will be ready to start picking in about two weeks.

   A few plants are duds this year, not sure why, but that’s why we plant a variety.

10. Hi Steve,

    It’s funny you mention the forced migration, but I heard you and there have been quite a number of moments over the past four or five years when a metaphorical gun has been put to my head. At such moments there’s some dude with his hand on the trigger saying: If you wanna keep on earnin’, you’ll just do this one thing. It’s not much to ask. Are you feeling lucky punk? Well are ya? Dropped the old 3G phones off with the nice telco today for them to recycle, or whatever the heck they do with them. Wiped the memory first though.

    We’re in a remote rural spot so there is no land line connection, so we’re reliant on the many cell towers in the immediate area. One of the upsides of the heavy hitters in the more fashionable end of the mountain range is that there are more than a few towers. Anywhoo, using the latest Androd operating system is quirky because many things it used to do, it no longer does, and candidly that seems rather arbitrary. Other things it does just fine. At least with the wundows operating system, it’s mostly backwardly compatible. Software on phones are like the wild west in my opinion.

    Absolutely. When I was a young bloke, the bills appeared to be quite steep relative to the meagre income. In these enlightened times, the bills seem to be more plentiful as there is a scramble for lots of minor flows from individuals. It will be interesting to say the least to see what gets jettisoned first on a societal wide basis, and then watch the repercussions. That will be something of a feedback loop, but I’m only making a wild guess there.

    Steve, how good is blackberry jam / jelly spread on a slice of warm oven fresh bread during the depths of winter? Respect to you both, and the old timers may quip that: You know your onions (which is very high praise).

    Are such things worth thinking about? Maybe. It depends if you really wanted the plants output. Some plants are very marginal here, like the apricots and almonds. When those trees produce, it’s all good, but most years there’s a reason for the failure. Best to plant a variety, then move on.

    Cheers

    Chris

11. Hi Pam,

    Freshly blitzed peanut butter is good, but slathered on a slice of freshly baked bread just warm from the oven, is a sublime experience. Yes, it’s true, we’re doing it tough. Glad to see that you were inspired. 🙂

    Hey, remember years ago when that massive patch of peanuts took, and Sir Poopy dug them up, and ate all of them? Pam, the dog got to them before I knew what was going on. I’ll give him credit though, he looked pretty happy with his gardening efforts. Dogs huh? Mr Baby on the other hand would never do such a thing, would he?

    The captions are generated by a voice to text conversion program. It’s not too bad, and of course I’m the first to admit that I have an ‘aww-stray-yan accent. 🙂 Kind of adds to the fun don’t your reckon? What’s he saying again? Did he just say something about rising damp? Hehe!

    Glad you’re enjoying the videos. They’re fun to make, and are getting easier as time goes on.

    I’m genuinely surprised by the interest in the sake making videos, and hope the sake making guilds don’t come and get me. Hey, if I disappear suddenly, you know who to blame. Just sayin’.

    Cheers

    Chris

12. Hi Lewis,

    Thanks for mentioning the inheritance tax in the UK, as we don’t have any such system in place down under. It seems pretty cut and dried, and I guess there’ll be some fancy work arounds, maybe? It’s worth mentioning that the house price official support policies are bringing the average house price in that country near to the inheritance tax limit. Guess it helps turn over properties so that families don’t Smaug (as in Tolkien’s fictional gold hoarding dragon) them.

    Whoa! Woburn Abbey would require a decent income merely in order to maintain the pile. And weren’t you the lucky one to have witnessed the exhibition of treasures first hand? Sometimes life chucks you an opportunity for a view into a window of a whole ‘nother world from that of your own. Looks like the exhibition may not be travelling these days. Guess the finances may have improved? Dunno.

    The stupid thing about the arsonist is that if he’d been wearing clothes made from natural fibres, the conflaguration would have been less severe. The flames looked as though they were on some rather tender bits. Plastic burns very quickly and with some decent warmth – or release of stored energy (from another perspective).

    As someone who interacts with people and their mad cash, I kind of read your exact analysis of Mary Annings financial competency from the brief biography you linked to. In many ways, actions can reveal an overall much larger background narrative to the character. The biography also mentioned that Mary was a rather devout believer, and so her goals may have been focused on the worlds in which we don’t physically reside. It does raise a sticky ethical and moral question: should a person help others when they’re having actual serious difficulties themselves? Dunno. It’s a predicament rather than a problem. My own perspective is to ensure that I was confident enough to swim prior to assisting drowning people. It’s an interesting dilemma, and I’m aware of many different views on the subject.

    It is pretty funny that claim of classlessness and worth a laugh. Yup! It’s not true at all, and it’s not true of here either. A few years ago you’d hear the awful descriptive for some of your fellow countrymen: deplorables. And such talk is no way to win votes, other than among your own social class. The thing with such talk is that if you go along with it, sooner or later another similar description may be turned on yourself.

    It rained again tonight, pretty heavily actually. At least this time the water tank filters didn’t require cleaning – they were cleaned the other day! Ook! Anyway, it was a good day for doing paid work.

    That’s a couple of good theories. Oh really, there’s a real art form when being confronted by endless demands to say ‘yes’ and do ‘no’. It’s been my observation that people who attempt to manage a situation via the gentle art of breaking cojones (ouch!), are not the same people who can sustainably manage a situation. It’s always worth the try: Yeah, I’d like to help out, but you know, get it on the list and we’ll see what we can do. But until then… My thinking here is that if too much gets on ‘the list’, then costs will sky rocket and then the word ‘no’ will come from higher up the food chain. It takes far more energy to actively manage people and a situation, anyone can throw around words and emotions. You see that happening all the time.

    How long has that show been going? I quite like the concept of the Doh! 🙂 We’ve all been there. And I don’t watch the show, but have seen an episode here and there, and a fave line was from Krusty the Clown: I sincerely endorse this product and/or service Sure… 🙂

    There was a bit of a drama with the voice actors years and years ago.

    Stop it! 🙂 Hehe! But I guess you’re right, people may not fix such things. Thanks for the laughs, I think… The bramble berry families do grow rather vigorously. Yikes, best not to fall asleep in the sun whilst out in the garden. It would make some pretty interesting yard art. People do such things with old horse drawn implements, like ploughs. Saw today that some cheeky wag had used coloured helmets presumably taken from the hire scooters and tied them to a telephone pole. From a distance it looked like a giant caterpillar crawling up the pole. Very well done.

    Professor Mass’s essay described how your part of the world is set up for some decent thunderstorms – and also how they work. Interesting, I always learn a lot there. Did the snapped metal flag pole land on anything important?

    Know thy enemy is a sharp move on your part. Best to be prepared. Have you heard anything about the new clearance from heater regulations? A dude’s gotta know where to hide the bodies… 😉 Does flour change in any way from being in the freezer for a few days?

    Yummo! Was it more succulent than the previous squash? We normally get peas early in the growing season, so with you heading into autumn, I dunno, but the vines might produce pretty well from here onwards?

    Thanks for the song, it’s a very western concept. 🙂 He sure can play guitar.

    What those fellas don’t know about growing potatoes in this area, probably isn’t worth knowing. You’re probably right about the seed potatoes. I’ve been growing them for years and they sort of look after themselves, although, the tubers are smaller these days. However, this year the plan is to hill up the soil against the stems as they emerge. Of course, this means bringing in more soil… What do you?

    Cheers

    Chris

13. Yo, Chris – I think the Duke and Duchess of Bedford, got a little flack, as throwing your stately home open to the great unwashed, just “wasn’t done.” Although that may go back, a ways. I remember that episode from Downton Abbey. But after WWII, a lot of families took that route. I wonder, if, when the Queen started opening up parts of some of the royal estates, if that became a bit more acceptable?

    I really don’t remember too much about the Woburn Abbey show. Except the Rembrandts. And how their eyes followed you around the room. 🙂 But, I was 9, and taken by some friend’s parents. It was my first inkling that we had this art museum. I often returned, on my own, to take in the permanent collections.

    Not only do plastic based clothes burn hot, some of the also melt and stick.

    There was a lot of cognitive dissonance when dinosaurs came on the scene. Could science and religion bump along, together? A lot of the early scientists were clergy. I think there was a lot of compartmentalization of thought. It still goes on, today.

    I was trying to think of a good synonym for “charity.” As that is kind of a loaded word. “Philanthropy” was about as close as I could come, but that sounds pretty high-brow. 🙂

    Yes, that was a major political misstep. I suppose you heard about the super yacht that went down off the coast of Sicily? Due to a water spout. I wonder if when some of the victims, were circling the drain, they thought, “But I’m rich! This can’t be happening!”

    Looks like I won’t have to water, for awhile. The next weeks forecast is all “showers,” “chance of showers,” “showers then showers likely.” The sky was looking pretty threatening, yesterday. But, I decided to go out and pick blueberries, until it started raining. I managed to get a whole quart and a half. I decided to pick out front, where the berries aren’t so large. They’re small, but the bushes are loaded. I got the whole amount, off the back of two bushes.

    The flag pole did no damage. Fell on some springy evergreen ground cover. I’m finally seeing some scarlet runner beans, developing. Four? Or did I count one, twice? 🙂

    At least 34 seasons, for “The Simpsons.” Someone likes it.

    For quit awhile, people would throw old cast iron bedsteads, out in their yards, and plant them with flowers. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, get it? A flower bed. That trope really was overdone, and wore out its welcome.

    The meeting is day after tomorrow. All will be revealed … maybe. I didn’t hear a thing from Little Mary Sunshine, about my ceiling leak. Freezing the flour for a few days, doesn’t seem to change it. I chopped up half the squash and tossed it with rice and other fresh and frozen veg. Nuked it. Tasty.

    I had an interesting conversation with one of the caregivers, this morning. The daughter of a logger. The tree trunks that were left standing, and cut high above the ground, were done so to prevent landslides. She’d asked her father, about that. I guess they do it here, too. And, as far as the tree roots in the air stumps, they were bound for a slash pile burn, that never was pulled off. Lew

14. Chris,

    Glad you got moved to 4G. Well, sort of glad. It’s a big pain moving data between phones. And, as always, some functionality was lost. What I’m seeing and hearing here is that 4G isn’t going anywhere. 5G has not been set up everywhere and probably never will be. 5G towers must be much closer together than 4G towers, so more towers and more signal receivers/transmitters are necessary. More expensive to set up that way. There are still parts of the Spokane urban area that have no 5G coverage.

    I’m not exactly sure what happened to Mullan Man. I know he DID get his MS in physics circa 1988 and had returned to Mullan, teaching high school maths and science and working in his family store. We unfortunately lost touch long ago.

    Don’t you love plastic gears and sensitive parts? I mumble grumble curse when something breaks and I find plastic gears. It’s just wrong. I much prefer the hair balls wrapped around parts, Lew’s resulting gordian knot being cut by the appropriate sharp object. Plastic gear thingies? UGG.

    I rather agree with you. Some of these things are way too expensive for the shoddy quality. Sweep and mop floors, beat the rugs, chop wood, carry water. In other words, what gets done is understandable AND provides some high-quality exercise.

    My car insurance has changed. It used to be on an annual renewal. Now it is every 6 months. Rates are increasing substantially each renewal period. I’ve heard that a large part of the increase is due to the large number of uninsured motorists in the area. Spokane has something like 40% of vehicles not insured, regardless of the law that all cars have at least a minimum level of insurance. And there are a LOT more accidents per capita, also. To add insult to the pocket book injury, my insurance company prefers monthly payments from my bank account, meaning that they actually do not send billing statements but pretty much require automatic payments. Suddenly, they will charge me $2.00 per month for this mandatory feature. And this is one of the user-friendly companies. Sigh.

    Thank you. You have solved an old mystery, answered an ancient question. “Where’s Waldo?” On your farm in the grape arbor. I’ll never need to search through any of those pictures again!

    Somehow, the air quality has turned pristine. For several days, even. We’re also in the midst of a transitional phase, so it is cooler during the day, gets pleasantly cool at night. Still very dry with winds, but hey, we can breathe and open the house up at night. We should have a few days near 25C, about “average” then revert back to 28C, “above average”. With the shorter days, these temperatures should allow the zombie grass to reawaken when given some water. We are definitely NOT experiencing cooler than normal temperatures, much less an August that is below average temperatures for the entire month.

    Dame Avalanche enjoyed the full moon. She wanted to remain outside the entire night with the full moon. She is also much more energetic in the cooler mornings. So am I.

    Thanks for the Tour of the Terraces. Those are some good “before” pictures for your upcoming growing season.

    I’ve been noticing leaves changing color already. On different varieties of trees and bushes, also. I think it’s due to the heat and dryness.

    DJSpo

15. Hi DJ,

    A friend who knows about such things, said exactly the same about the 4G network. Interestingly, we get quite clear 5G signals here, but that is due to line of sight to a few towers. There’s diminishing returns to such technology and the radio frequency spectrum is pretty much entirely fully utilised. Of course there are license fees for such usage. Oh well, and the same is true here as well, there are plenty of spots which only receive marginal 4G, and dare I mention the radio black spots within the mountain range?

    Man, I completely understand how that can happen. Over the years I’ve lost a few mates, and some of them are even still alive. 🙂 Annoying folks is something of a gift 🙂 , but in all seriousness, sometimes circumstances like economic ructions just push people to far distant places. What do you do?

    There’s a special place in hell for designers who use plastic gears where serious torque is applied. I’ve seen such designs in err, well known kitchen mixing machines (which dare not be named) and it’s not how I’d do things. To me it looks like a safety margin for the motor, so the plastic gear teeth get shredded instead of you know, like installing a proper repairable clutch mechanism. Hmm. The plastic in that instance becomes the clutch.

    And that’s the other thing, plastic gears are a lot cheaper to make than metal gears. The purchase price should reflect such design choices, but do they? And without enthusiastic independent dismantlers and home repairers, how would anyone know of the substitution? We have a vacuum cleaner which is pushing on three decades, and it has been used for some horrid jobs – like sucking the dirt from the bottom of 2.5m deep house stump holes during construction – and it just works. In a side note, I became stuck upside down in one of those holes (of 600mm diameter) during construction of the house. Fortunately Sandra was able to assist getting me back onto the soil surface.

    Ah, ook. Double ook! Well insurance financing can probably be packaged as bonds I’m guessing, thus the requirement for the monthly flows, err, sorry instalments. Hmm. Such things are on offer here, but generally it is cheaper to pay for the annual premium, which doesn’t sound possible in your instance. Hopefully you have a certificate of currency or another bit of paper from the nice folks outlining the period and details of the policy? Such details when things go wrong, inevitably end up with the question: What does the paperwork say?

    It is a weird name for a thornless blackberry cultivar. Makes you wonder if the plant breeder had a mischievous sense of humour? Couldn’t seem to find out anything about the origins of the variety. It’s available in the UK, although I didn’t see any US references. At least the age old mystery is now no longer.

    If a person can blithely ignore the preceding months, your current weather sounds ideal. Except it’s not possible to ignore the previous run of temperatures in the high 30’s Celsius, smoke particulates and general lack of rain. Watch out for Triffids in that grass! It’d be a good time to get the grass well established prior to the winter months, then it will be well placed next year to get off to an even earlier start. What’s your opinion of the dry land grass varieties so far?

    Go Dame Avalanche, and your good self of course. It’s a real relief to be on the other side of the more extreme annual weather cycle. I too breathe a sigh of relief heading into late February. Did you get the super moon in your part of the world?

    Thanks. And updates on how things are going seem to be rather popular (on the video front). Anywhoo, we’ll probably start the annual seeds sometime next month. It was good getting the potatoes in.

    Yeah, it’s interesting you say that, but I’ve noticed that leaf change is more brief in hotter and drier years. It’s different every year.

    Cheers

    Chris

16. Hi Lewis,

    Roof repairs to aged mansions can’t be cheap, so some families probably have to do what they can on an economic front. 🙂 I actually hadn’t considered that aspect of ‘acceptability’, presumably among one’s peers, but yes, leaders do have to actually lead. That’s hard work too, possibly why some folks shirk their responsibilities when falling into such a role. History is unkind to leaders who take that approach.

    Speaking of leadership, the open garden scheme is now no longer what it once when a certain Dame was at the helm. It seems odd to me that folks in those upper echelon roles don’t really consider that whilst banqueting at the table of plenty, they also have obligations to the people working hard to bring the food. Henry Ford, despite his many faults, comprehended that it was unwise to kick out the legs supporting that table. Do you reckon Noblesse Oblige will ever make a reappearance?

    I see what you mean about the eyes. They do follow you around. It’s pretty eerie. I’m sure you know more about these things than I, but looking at a number of the photographs of the paintings, you get the impression that the light in the paintings usually illuminates the face of the individual, whilst the rest of the body is a bit ephemeral. It’s there, but not to the same level of detail. Some gestures and acts are a true gift.

    I’m well aware of the interaction of fire and synthetic based clothing. It’s an unpleasant experience to come under ember attack from a bonfire and have the embers land on a synthetic windcheater (sweater) top. Burns straight through onto the skin. Mostly I wear drill cotton and leather gloves and boots when working with fire, although sometimes it gets cold and I grab the windcheater top. Not ideal. I’ve actually got a lot of welding protective safety gear, gloves, helmet, googles and respirator which can resist very high temperatures, in the off chance that there is a fire and I’m stuck having to deal with it. It’s kept ready to go for that single purpose. Put it this way, I’d rather have the stuff and not use it, than need the stuff and not have it. 🙂

    Yes, that is true about the cognitive dissonance, but it also upended a long established social order, and have the replacements been responsible? Dunno. I’d not known that about the early clergy also being involved in science. Makes sense though. It’s a very hard thing to face the loss of your worldview. We’ve spoken about the challenge that tectonic plate theory presented – I mean it’s an awesome concept to consider.

    I don’t really have issues with the word charity, but do comprehend that there are many entities out there posing as such, but the reality could be very different.

    The use of the deplorable word was inexcusable for a person seeking high office. The thing is, in that role, there may be biases for sure, but generally the person has responsibilities to everyone. That’s the ideal, reality, well, sometimes heads roll.

    I’d been reading about that ship lost just off shore, and yes that is what the papers are saying. Not something you’d want to encounter on a boat. Turns out it had quite a tall mast which was quite a bit taller than the ship was long, which you’d imagine would change the centre of gravity a bit. Perhaps one of those things which seemed like a good idea at the time. There are probably well founded reasons the masts are not usually that tall. I see Mr river has a boat with a mast that is apparently slightly taller. Makes you wonder if he’ll quietly sell the thing? The dude probably did think just that. The photos suggested someone more comfortable at table than a powerful swimmer.

    Good stuff and the rain is arriving for you at an excellent time of year, the soil will still be warm. That’s good. It rained here again today, and may do so tomorrow.

    Hmm, if the weather is bad enough that the flag pole broke, yeah, the chances of anyone being outside is probably slim. Hey, I’ve seen trees fall on houses. House versus tree, which will win? Probably the tree.

    Let’s go for four beans! 🙂 They’ll start growing well now.

    Oh my, did that bad joke really get chucked out into the garden? Lewis, it’s not natural… And as you noted, was probably funny the first couple of times.

    Fingers crossed that it’s all a storm in a teacup and the meeting amounts to a lot of hot air.

    Thanks very much for the solid answers to logging questions which had been bothering me for a number of years. Always good to get to the source. And now why doesn’t that surprise me about the slash failing to be burnt off?

    Worked late tonight, oh well, such things happen.

    Cheers

    Chris

17. Yo, Chris – Oh, I think noblesse oblige is still around. But like collapse, it’s not evenly distributed 🙂 The Lord and Lady of the manor, treated the Scottish hermit, quit well. As did their successors.

    Right around 1600, painters discovered that fooling around with light could heighten drama, and emphasize details. It’s up for debate, as to how much influence they had on each other. Georges de La Tour (1593-1652), Caravaggio (1574-1610), and Rembrandt (1606-1669). And some others that weren’t as well known. Of course, sometimes it’s hard to tell the artists original intent. Colors change over time. And through a lot of history, restoration involved slapping on coats of varnish … which yellowed. Painting restoration is a whole different ball game, these days. Given new technologies and materials.

    Back in the day, clergy were fairly well educated. Which usually meant your family had money. So, perhaps a stable income, and, maybe more important … leisure.

    Oh, I doubt Mr. River will sell his ship. Couldn’t happen to him, as, he’s rich. 🙂 All this business about the size of one’s mast. Makes you wonder if ever larger masts aren’t a stand-in for something else 🙂

    The high yesterday was 68F (20C). Overnight low was 57F. Forecast for today is 71F. Forecast is for cloudy, with showers on and off, at least to Monday. I won’t have to water, for awhile. This weather is a mixed bag. On one hand, I think the rain, is probably better for the plants, than the stuff that comes out of a tap. On the other, I don’t know if some of my plants are going to make it.

    I loaded up the first run of tomatoes, in my dehydrator, this morning. I’ve been squirreling away the cherry tomatoes, but even so, there weren’t enough to entirely fill the four racks. But I filled the last rack and a half with tomatoes, of uncertain parentage. Sliced thin, then cut the rounds in half. I think when frost finally threatens, I’ll strip the plants of even the green cherry tomatoes. They dry, and add a certain zest.

    I figure the slash didn’t get piled up and burned because either 1.) the fellows got called off, to war, 2.) there was an injury, or 3.) it was the wrong time of the year to burn slash, and they just never got back to it.

    I guess the expresso stand Ladies, are still in business. Saw this yesterday, on the police blotter.

    “A customer at a bikini coffee stand in the 200 block of West Main Street reported possible sexual harassment at 6:25 a.m. on Aug. 18. He said he was “concerned because he didn’t expect the ladies at the stand to reveal themselves and it made him feel sexually harassed,” and asked how he could get his money back from the coffee shop. He was referred to the coffee company’s headquarters and was “advised to stop going there if he did not like the service provided.”

    I stopped by the library yesterday, and picked up “Greenland.” I noticed there was a trail of blood, leading up (or down), the ramp to the front door. I didn’t ask.

    Went to the Club for a cuppa, and then nipped down to the Dollar + store and the cheap(er) grocery outlet. I picked up three bags of tinned stuff, for the Club. And, some things for me. We’re apparently having a Swiss cheese famine, again. Haven’t seen any for about three weeks.

    I managed to squeak back to the Club, before they closed a section of road. At least the route between the Club and home, has reopened.

    Worked late? Sounds like hard yakka. 🙂 Lew

18. Chris,

    Life and friends can be sort of funny, right? Friends move away, and it becomes harder and harder to keep in touch. Somehow my friend (the one who died last October) and I kept in touch over the years, despite the both of us moving several times. Lived in different cities from one another most of the time we knew each other. Yet other friends drifted away. Such is life. Yet I look back on different events that helped move me onto my current path. There are one or two people who in retrospect were very important in helping me onto my path and out of that weird church. At the time the events didn’t seem that profound, so there were no attempts to keep in touch over distance and time. That just seems to be the way life is.

    You know how it is, though, with plastic gears. The machines that have those are designed to be thrown away when the plastic gears fail. I have a hard time tossing anything that is operational except for one part. It’s just wrong designing stuff that way. I agree that a special area of that hot place is reserved for such designers.

    On one adventure when I was 20, and then again when I was 21, I explored a cave with some experienced spelunkers. Our group of mostly beginners went through some beginner areas. On our bellies in dirt with untold tons of rocks hovering over us. Down a rope ladder and we were at a small underground lake. It was fun. The group leader told us of one of his and another guy’s adventures. They were crawling along underground, their little tunnel began going down, then it became nearly straight down and abruptly ended. Headlamps were their only light. It was tight quarters and a real chore to climb backwards while upside down with one atop the other. I wasn’t that adventurous underground. I was claustrophobic enough on the easy beginner’s trip!

    Oh yes, the insurance company is required to send current details of the insurance contract each renewal time. These get filed away so I can always look at the paperwork if something happens.

    Today I did some trimming with the line trimmer. And I pruned dead stuff from the hawthorn trees. It was nice having it cool enough to work. Tomorrow should be another toasty day, though, about 32C. Not brutally hot like a month ago, but hot enough.

    Some of the dryland grasses are doing fine. Some went zombie. I’ll let you know if the zombie dryland grass perks up with more water and cooler weather. I’m hopeful that it will perk up when the zombie bluegrass does. It certainly looks healthier than zombie bluegrass.

    Yes, we got the super moon. It was playing hide and seek behind some clouds. Avalanche wanted to spend the night outside. She has done that for other full moons. Must be a husky thing.

    DJSpo

19. Hi DJ,

    Man, so true and you never know who’ll leave an impact upon you in this here life journey. Something of a mystery, really. I can’t tell who will stay, and who will go either. And also whether friends who’d once caught up as the kids say, in real life (IRL), can communicate via words over a much longer distance. You may have noticed that I enjoy a slow conversation via words? 🙂 As I’m guessing you do as well. It’s like the days when you’d scour through the post delivered to see what letters were there. Nowadays the post is usually mail order stuff, bills, work and/or advertising material. Once long ago, it was different.

    And yup, that’s just the way things are.

    Oh yeah, trust me the thought at the time was very similar: why did they make the machine like this? My thinking is that otherwise the design would have to include a clutch, then awful questions would be asked and there would be general product embarrassment. Possibly bad reviews on the interweb. Anyway, I looked into the possibility of replacement spare parts and ended up feeling rather foolish that I’d shelled out so much mad cash for the machine in the first place. Let’s just hope they fry somewhere near to the level of what was it used to be called? Oh that’s right, the usury folks. Clearly Dante felt some personal grievance there… 😉

    On the other hand, I’m not a Luddite and occasionally I do splash out on something which looks like it will be way beyond the usual shoddy offerings. It’s hard to know what stuff will be good, and what will be ordinary. Picked up a ‘Creative Sound Blaster X5’ recently and it’s extraordinary quality. You never know.

    Had a bit of a this and bit of that work day today. Added granite rock crusher dust to the potato beds and terraces today, not to mention a bunch of other minerals from the café waste. It’s time to get serious with the potatoes, and yeah we’re as ready as we’ll ever be for the growing season. Probably plant out some radishes and beetroot seeds over the next few days.

    Oh my gawd! DJ, man, your story left me feeling err, sympathetic claustrophobia. Hmm. When we were in Vietnam in the south we visited the Cu Chi tunnels and as you do when you don’t know what they’ll be like, you climb on in. Dude, it was probably a beginner area as well, except the guy in front of me was rather large and had some unexpected troubles crawling through the very narrow tunnels. To be honest I started getting a bit panicky at that point that we’d be stuck in there and was relieved he pushed on through by sucking in the gut. Yes, travel can take you places. Spelunking is perhaps not a sport for I, but glad you got to enjoy the underground lake.

    Because of the bushfire risk, we tend to scan and save a digital copy of such insurance policies and their details and store it encrypted off site. Saves a lot of drama if the house and everything else around it was to burn to the ground. You’d be amazed at the stories I’ve heard over the years of people enduring such disasters and being wholly unprepared. Even getting access to stored mad cash at the banksters can be hard with no ID.

    Yeah, that’s a hot day, but a person (and a husky) can retreat from the sun after I dunno, about lunchtime. 🙂 I’m sure a husky would appreciate some human food at that time, and then perhaps snooze away the warmer hours of the afternoon? Possibly even cheese tax might need to be paid. Glad to hear you can get outside now.

    That’s a great name and thanks for the laughs. Hopefully the zombie grass rises again from the dead which I reckon they will. We grow a mix of rye-grass and blue-grass.

    Dame Avalanche would know such things. Surely you’ve heard the stories of odd goings on during the full moon?

    Cheers

    Chris

20. Hi Lewis,

    Wodehouse has an interesting take on Noblesse Oblige – it’s the act of wealthy folks having to put up with tedious dinner conversation of other wealthy folks! 🙂 The Editor read that line earlier today (or the gist of it). Far out, Wodehouse is a tough reading act for me, probably something to do with actual exposure with that class, from the wrong end. I dunno how you feel about the author’s works, but it’s a tough school for me to slog through. The genius can’t be denied, and the dialogue is first rate, but the narrative is painfully uncomfortable.

    And yes, I absolutely agree, sweeping generalisations in relation to that class are easy to make, but rarely fit the truth of the matter. Look at how FDR in your country rose to prominence in a very dark time.

    Of course, that was so obvious in relation to the varnish, that I’d not realised the significance. Modern plastic paints tend to hold their colour, however, in the past I have used some oil based paints which do yellow over time. What’s interesting about Georges de La Tour’s paintings is that where the light source depicted is limited, like say a candle flame, the faces have far greater detail than the more brightly lit settings. It’s also possible that we’ve become accustomed to living day to day with far greater amounts of artificial light sources. Candles are a very yellow flame, and dunno about you, but I tend to lean towards electric globes in the ‘warm’ colour zones. The ‘cold’ bluer light leaves me feeling a touch unsettled. A lot of car headlights are that bluer colour nowadays. Caravaggio liked the drama in his art. You’d be hard pressed to say the depictions were emotion free.

    Ah yes, of course, one needs free time to pursue an interest and/or hobby. Mary Anning was doing just that, but the fossil hunter also probably also had to earn a living to stave off being evicted and/or starve. Higher education used to be a lot like that. My mother benefited from a free University education, but also it is not lost on me that by having pursued that path some of the simpler vocational options, but no less effective, faded quietly into the background. I’ve mentioned to you before that in the early days of work, I met accountants who’d arrived at their state via apprenticeship, rather than University.

    Sooner or later, one of those private company spacecraft will be the end of some folks. Size may be an issue there for sure: The Problem With Dicks In Space. Hmm. Super yachts were last a ‘thing’ in the 1920’s and that didn’t end so well.

    You’re nearing the end of the fast growing season, and things will continue next month, but I reckon they’ll be slower. I reckon the late corn was a long shot, but much depends. To be honest, I get a bit concerned at this time (in your part of the world) as well, but things can change with the climate. We had a very hot and dry March (your September). You dunno until the season is over.

    Today meant continuing getting the terraces and potato beds ready for the growing season. Brought back a trailer load of bluestone granite rock crusher dust and chucked it onto all of the beds. Kept thinking about hopefully no ancient standing stones were crushed up to make this rock dust which I’m casually using as fertiliser. The soil in the potato rows is looking really nice now as I added in coffee bean husks + grounds + blood and bone meal. Super fluffy.

    I’d be dehydrating tomatoes at this time of year (if the seasons suddenly flipped upside down) too. Sometimes the tomatoes of uncertain parentage (!) are the hardiest for your area. Do you save any seeds from those if they taste good? Dunno about your dehydrator, but they tend to work faster with less racks of fruit to dry. We did some kiwi fruit the other week, and they’re a bit too sweet for my tastes, almost like candy. Didn’t expect that.

    Absolutely, all of those options are possible with the slash. Given the discarded broken bulldozer cables, it’s uncomfortable, but option number two is very likely.

    In this particular case, I’m siding with the company advice there. What did the guy expect he’d see there? 🙂 And surely the above average price would have twigged the guys brain that something unusual was going on here… And the facts sort of suggest that he’d err, experienced the full service that the business has to offer. This is why dealing with the general public can be a very difficult experience as you’d also know. Fascinating that the business can even afford a head office.

    Gerard Butler is a good actor. So was the film popcorn worthy? That’s so not good about the blood stream. Presumably the library has toilets open to the general public? Refer to previous paragraph for my thoughts in that matter!

    Bummer! It’s hard to know what products will be unavailable, but when you get to the stage that you’re quietly grateful for the continuing Swiss cheese supply, things are problematic. Is it out in other local stores?

    Oh no! The dreaded road works saga continues. Probably better doing that work now rather than in the depths of winter.

    Switched over to Gargle statistics for this ‘ere interweb site a few days ago. The previous number cruncher hit the toilet and a bloke sometimes has to just face up to reality, then get into bed with big techo. Oh well, moving on…

    Cheers

    Chris

21. Yo, Chris – A thought or two on plastic gears. I’ve seen a well known peace of kitchen gear, that can be fairly inexpensive, or, really expensive. I discovered that’s because the lower price model has plastic gears … and the high end model has metal gears. Good to know.

    By law, we’ve mostly switched to fluorescent bulbs, rather than incandescent. Save the planet, and all that. Now when I go and buy a light bulb, a lot of research seems to be involved. 🙂

    I couldn’t access the video. I got one of those “Sign in to Confirm Age,” notices. I’ve never quit figured out how to do that. Though I’ve only done minimal research. I get prompts, here and there, as to if I want to sign into something with Garggle. Why would I want to do that? Are their benefits? What are the possible pitfalls? Kind of interesting, and probably off topic, but up until recently, the default search function on my computer was Garggle. Suddenly, it’s Bird, Bird, Go.

    Yesterday’s high was 70F (21.11C). The overnight low was 59F. The forecast for today is another 70F. Prof. Mass says there’s a cold snap, coming, but it’s mostly eastern Oregon and Washington. Snow in the high mountains. But, some forecasts have us bouncing back to 80sF, next week. There maybe hope for the tomatoes, yet. And, other things. A hummingbird was working over my Scarlett runner beans, again, this morning. When I dry the tomatoes, I swap out the trays, about half way through. The batch I ran through, yesterday, are looking good.

    Yes, I often see situations where I think if you don’t like what you see, go look at something else. Book banning has become quit a craze, here. No one is holding a gun to your head, to look at a particular book. And, as far as your precious little snowflakes are concerned, ride herd on your own kids.

    I’ve attempted Wodehouse, a couple of times, and just can’t seem to get with it. Not in print, not televised.

    Speaking of doing something else, if things are not to your liking … we’ll have our meeting, in a couple of hours. One of the caregivers, told me this morning, she put the screws to Little Mary Sunshine’s office assistant. Yes, la de da, she’s got an office assistant. Someone she can throw under the bus, should things go south. She’s tight lipped, but did say that people are not going to like what they hear, and some may move. Not comforting. Oh, well. All will soon be revealed.

    Yes, “Greenland” was well worth a bowl of popcorn. I’d seen it when it first came out. But had forgotten some bits and pieces. I’d put it in the top five (or ten?) of my favorite disaster movies.

    I went shopping at one of our independent groceries, last night. I don’t go often, as I think their prices are high. But some things I can’t find, anywhere else. They didn’t have any Swiss cheese, either. So, it’s official. Swiss cheese famine. I bought four items, and it came to $24. Now I must say, I do buy what I consider, “good brands.” And, buy the largest sizes. 12 rolls of toilet paper, was the best buy. $5.50. A pint of half and half milk, $2.80. A box of 6 bags of microwave popcorn, $7.00. One bag makes a good sized bowl. A quart of a good brand of cider vinegar. $8.70.

    By the way, I’ve been looking into buying some unsalted, roasted peanuts, in bulk. Trying to figure out if it would save me money. Probably. But some of the listings are unclear as to if they’re offering shelled, or unshelled peanuts. More poking about, is required. Lew

22. Hi again, Chris!
    ​
    Messy, my foot!

    Oh, yeah – Sir Poopy and the peanuts! It is beneath Mr. Baby to dig peanuts. Mr. Baby would expect the peanuts to come to him.

    I was going to look for you in Chinatown, then I realized that would be the wrong place for a sake assassination.

    You’ve already planted your seed potatoes – excellent. I, however, who should have planted my fall garden a couple of weeks ago, have not done so. It may be too late . . . Maybe not for greens, at least.

    What a stupid little part. How could anyone have “engineered” that and then still have had the nerve to manufacture it? Geez – my whole vacuum cost $200. I like it, too. Of course, I don’t clean house . . .

    I felt quite depressed when I heard about your phones. I may be next . . .

    It does lift my spirits, though, to see somebody (s) who does so many things right in the garden. Yes, you do! So tidy, so thoughtful, even so scientific. Thank you for walking us through the late winter preparations in your beds. Neatness counts! – as my 5th grade teacher Miss Mason used to say. And THAT’S how grapevines should look.

    Thanks for the flowers! Sunny with yellows, so that you don’t mind the cold greyness so much, when you have it. I wish you could see my zinnias.

    Pam

23. Chris,

    Slow conversations. Good stuff. Sometimes in this forum the slow and calm conversations can allow thought and some added depth that isn’t always available elsewhere. I’ve been spoiled in that the Princess and my closest friends have always preferred thoughtful conversations rather than emotional arguments, too. They have helped me to slow down and think better.

    Dante and the usury folks remind me of the Mikado and the Lord High Executioner’s song. It’s about his list, his little, little list, of those who won’t be missed. It is actually a rather lengthy list. Each verse ends with him bellowing “And accountants of all kinds!” Gilbert and Sullivan must have had bad experiences with several occupations.

    Interestingly enough, upon adding a few occupations that didn’t exist in Gilbert and Sullivan’s day, deleting a few that didn’t exist circa 1980, and Douglas Adams enters the fray. Yes, his list of those “useless” people who were on the spaceships that crashed onto prehistoric earth could easily have been lifted from the Mikado with a few necessary revisions.

    “Creative Sound Blaster X5?” May I interest you in my new Gargantuan Quantum Z4 Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster Brewing Machine? It makes the BEST Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters and even provides the necessary therapy to help one recover from the drinks. Well, at any rate, your Sound Blaster sounded like something from Douglas Adams. 😉

    We had something similar happen the first year spelunking. There was a tight spot. A diminutive woman was in front of me, followed by a large-boned woman and then me followed by others. The one gal almost got stuck on the way in. On our way out, she was in a near panic. Thankfully, on the way out, the angles were different and it was only a wee bit tight, not almost constricting her like on the way in. She was VERY happy to get back out in the sunshine!

    Today was cloudy, so even though the temperature was high, it didn’t feel too bad. Nevertheless, Dame Avalanche and I spent the afternoon indoors. Adequate cheese and liverwurst taxes were collected by the husky.

    Full moon? Odd goings-on? The number of car accidents and overall weird calls for police explode around the full moon here. So far Dame Avalanche hasn’t howled at the full moon. Good thing, too. I’d be tempted to join her for some creative and therapeutic howling. 😉

    DJSpo

24. Hi Pam,

    🙂 Speaking of mess, it was too windy today for a burn off, so we pruned a whole lot of fruit trees and then fed the contents into the scary old wood chipper. Talk about neat.

    Mr Baby is missing out, but then as a feline he may not enjoy such tasty plant based treats. Do cats even eat peanuts? I’d bet they’d enjoy peanut butter though.

    Nice to hear that I dodged a bullet there, or more correctly a well sharpened katana blade. Should I be nervous? Your words are generating that sort of response. It’s not my fault they tried to complicate the process…

    The instructions on the packet suggested planting the seed potatoes three weeks prior to the last frost. We won’t mention that frosts are possible at any time of the year. Ook! I reckon you’ll be right for winter greens and small tubers like radish and beetroot, but other stuff, well, there’s an old saying about how ships don’t wait at port for late passengers. And I miss planting windows too. It happens.

    Pam, the next time one of those machines breaks, I’m going to look at reviews to see what works and lasts these days. Is it too much to ask for? Price seems not be all that great a guide these days. And three dogs produces an awful lot of dust bunnies. Mr Baby would no doubts hang onto every hair that he’d ever invested the energy into growing, and so would be a delight in such dust bunny matters, maybe.

    The phone issue pained me as well, but you can’t fight city hall.

    Thanks! I really appreciate your lovely words.

    Zinnia’s are such lovely flowers, and they revel in the heat and sun. Travel is a thing of the past, so nowadays the virtual worlds must suffice.

    The wind has really picked up here tonight.

    Cheers

    Chris

25. Hi DJ,

    To take the time to stop and smell the roses is one of the things I’d aimed to achieve, and for much the same reasons as all the one’s you’d mentioned. It always annoyed me deeply that working at the top end, the expectations were such that I rarely had time to stop, ponder and consider.

    I’ll tell you a not so funny machine repair story. The two Stihl electric chainsaws I bought a few years ago are now no longer made. Probably why they were cheap to buy in the first place, however they are very well designed and robust machines and so should have a very long life – except parts are getting difficult to obtain. So I had to roll the dice and imagine what may wear out and/or break on the machines, then stock up on parts. It’s been an interesting process to say the least. And the machines are only as good as the first part to break that I don’t have access too. Oh well, moving on.

    My brain intuitively recognised the musical, then promptly took evasive manoeuvre number eight, deftly dodging dastardly bolts of unpleasantness from being subjected to a musical and also those hurled at the accounting profession. 🙂 Like many a successful artist, those two probably took their eye off the monetary ball side of their business. It’s my observation that when in business, a person must be on top of all areas, whether they like it or not. There are a lot of sharks out there looking for easy prey. Still, their experience perhaps provided them with some creative juices for that song?

    Hehe! Yes, the Golgafrincham’s perhaps proved that every occupation has it’s place in the larger scheme of a civilisation. Nobody wants a dirty telephone, do they? And the new device would be perfect for listening to any track from the band Disaster Area, it doesn’t matter which. After all, it has a massive rotary volume knob which may go to eleven. Just the thing for totally destroying your hearing. 🙂 At least in the final moments of being able to hear anything, the clarity will be totally awesome!

    Yes, that was pretty much my experience with spelunking. I must add that I have not gone back for a second go. It’s an unnerving prospect to consider that you could be stuck in the depths of the earth because the person in front of you is having physical troubles getting through the narrow gap. How do you feel about the activity nowadays? I’ll bet the lady was happy to be on the surface again. Sometimes the destination is not worth the ordeal of the journey.

    Dogs know every perquisite due to them. What’s Dame Avalanche’s pester power like skills rated at? A gentle nose nudging to remind you of the cheese tax, or a full-on bouncing around the kitchen making an issue whenever the cheese packet is brought into play?

    The moon demands to be howled at! That’s what it’s there for, isn’t it?

    Did a lot of pruning today, then spent many hours feeding branches into the scary old wood chipper. There’s a decent sized pile of mulch in the orchard now. There are probably right and wrong times to do the work, but that job gets done when the inspiration hits. And today was way too windy for the planned burn off.

    Cheers

    Chris

26. Hi Lewis,

    Yes, that particular kitchen machine was my first introduction to the plastic gear drive head arrangement. It’s a good question isn’t it? Why would that particular model look the same, and yet is cheaper. Hmm. Like you may have been, I was unimpressed at the use of the plastic, and it is good to know that there is an actual difference which is reflected in the price.

    Whoa! A boom of thunder just cracked over head. It’s raining outside now. The weather has been rather difficult today! The plan earlier in the day was to continue cleaning up the trees which had fallen in the wind storm a few months ago, but the wind was stronger than comfortable. No point working under tall trees on a windy day as it’s a bit risky. So we hauled the scary old wood chipper out and pruned the trees in the sunny orchard instead. One fruit tree was entirely rootstock, so we completely removed it. That tree was just too vigorous and was outcompeting everything near it. Sometimes hard decisions have to be made. We’ve got a huge pile of mulch now, which will get chucked onto the garden beds. The wallabies are little vandals and have made the tree pruning and shaping job to be quite random. Orchard purists would probably a fit at the state of the trees here, but best not to allow them on the property in the first place. That’s what the keep out sign is there for. 😉 And the sunny orchard is now looking very neat and tidy. Many of the trees are beginning to produce blossoms too so the season is gathering pace.

    That’s happened here as well, and I believe all of the street lighting in towns and roads were switched to LED globes a while back just for good measure. I often wonder what happened to the working globes which were removed from the street lighting? Dunno, a mystery, you’d hope they didn’t end up in landfill. But yes, I hear you about the research. A dudes gotta know his LED Kelvin colour scale before shelling out for a simple light globe, and I see that other countries use different measurements. Insert massive brain spin out. 🙂

    No worries at all, the video was pretty funny in a silly kind of way and the actor Jason Alexander played the role to perfection. And due to the new phone, gargle now probably knows more about me and my activities, than I do. You’re clearly more fleet of foot in that regard than I. The new phone has been err, problematic on that front. Some stuff now gets automatically sucked up into the garglesphere. It’s a place you know! There have even been new menu options and I have not realised my error until too late and now resistance is futile. I have to work out how to delete the information that gargle has extracted unwittingly from me. Turns out the phone contacts are now all online. Yay for privacy, not.

    Friends were telling me about that bird, bird search thing. I forget exactly what they were saying about it, but then the thing may have been bought out. Hmm. Let’s see if anything gets turned up. Lot’s of intrigue there, but nothing definitive. You’ve piqued my curiosity there. I’ll ask around.

    If the tomatoes have not ripened by the end of next month, it may be game over for them for the season, however at that time you could try the hanging the vines upside down trick? I do to get them to ripen. You need space to do that though. The hummingbird is working super hard for you, so I reckon the beans will be fine. The wrens and robins here perform similar bug eating services. Do you store the dehydrated tomatoes in a jar, or something like that? If they’re chip like, I reckon they keep really well.

    Looks like a storm will hit here in about half an hour, there’s thunder to be heard again.

    People get so weirded out like that with book bannings. Fixated perhaps? And I’m with you, they need to get their own house in order first prior to annoying everyone else.

    Thanks for saying that as I was feeling like a bit of an outlier there. I really wanted to like the Wodehouse books, but just couldn’t relate to the stupid situations. The dialogue was great and amusing, but the situations just baffled me. The Editor very much enjoys the books, and so that’s all good.

    So did you like what you heard at the meeting? Hopefully the information imparted wasn’t as dire as the purported leaks suggested. Fingers crossed for you anyway.

    That’s high praise for the film. Definitely sounds popcorn (and not to forget pumpkin ice cream – which should be making an appearance soon, if the seasonal calendar is correct) worthy!

    Ook! Sounds pretty official. Dairy farming is hard on soils and water. Have you noticed any other dairy shortages? At this stage of the year down here the milk gets a slightly sour taste due to some of the weeds the cows are eating. Might have to fork out a bit more for the better quality milk over the next couple of weeks until things return to normal, and maybe also consume less. Less for more is hardly a good marketing proposition don’t you reckon? Might not sell. 🙂

    Oh yeah, they sell peanuts unshelled in your country. When I was a kid they used to be sold in their dried shells, and you could crack them open. But you don’t see them sold that way any more. It would be a lot of work to shell peanuts for making peanut butter, but at least you know the peanuts weren’t sprayed.

    Cheers

    Chris

27. @ DJ – H doesn’t howl at the moon, or police sirens. Only at fire engine sirens. When she does, I chime in, in harmony. We sound like half The Beach Boys. 🙂 Lew

28. Yo, Chris – When I took H out for a walk, late last night, and early this morning, we got wet. It should start clearing off, Sunday night. And forecast to be 80F, by Thursday.

    So, was the entirely rootstock tree, screaming “What did I do! What did I do!” as you pitched it in the scary old wood chipper? Always an option if an orchard purist shows up.

    The bird, bird, go search is supposed to be better, less influenced by paid content. And, a lot more private. Someone here mentioned it. The guy who built the boats. Name escapes me. Old, you know.

    I store the tomatoes in one quart plastic bags, and suck as much of the air out, as I can. That worked just fine, last year. I picked another quart and a half of blueberries, last night. Out front. The berries are smaller, but the bushes are loaded. Took me about an hour. They’re drying in the colanders, right now.

    Well the meeting was .. 6 of one hand half a dozen of the other. There I am, crammed in a small room with 20 other people. I’m the only one in a mask. They introduced new tenants, and some old lady piped up, and asked if I was new. Apparently, my nefarious plot to fly under the radar is working. 🙂

    Well, the big changes at HUD are some law passed back in 2016, that hasn’t been finalized, yet. “The Housing Opportunities Through Modernization Act. (HOTMA) The final draft will be out, “maybe” next month. More information to follow. Maybe. I’ve found stuff on-line, but need to sit down and try and figure out if it even impacts us poverty stricken old follks.

    The rest of it is about the inspection. Probably, in October. And, she’ll do a pre-inspection, sometimes in September. Luckily, they’re back to the 3 foot clearance from heat sources. I’m still going to move my bedroom, into my living room, and get rid of a lot of stuff. I’m just tired of the stress and hassle. So, that’s where we are, today.

    A couple of the caregivers, wanted to attend the meeting, so they could fill in their clients, who couldn’t make it down. They were told it was a closed meeting. Boy, they just don’t want any “outsider” to figure out what goes on here. Let alone, keeping the Inmates in the dark, as much as possible. As the meeting went on and on, Little Mary Sunshine looked more and more stressed. I thought she was either going to cry, or fly apart at the seams. But, she wasn’t mean to anyone and the Ladies were having a fairly compus mentus day.

    There were plenty of other cheeses, available. It might be a marketing thing. I’d say, Swiss cheese is about the most popular. So, if they take it off the market, from time to time, people buy other varieties (I did), to clear out stock. A theory, anyway.

    We got a food box, this morning. Plenty to take down to the swap table. Individual plastic containers of some kind of chopped up fruit (apples?), individual plastic containers of pudding. Another clam shell of croissants. Two bottles of some kind of drink. An individual pumpkin pie. A small plastic tray of grapes, sliced apple, peanut butter, cheese and crackers. Not much left in the box, for “real” food. There were a dozen medium eggs, not past their due date, and a can of diced tomatoes, that I’ll keep. The rest of it goes down to the Club. A box of cereal, that would appeal to small children, a pound of instant oatmeal. A couple cans of pears. One can of chicken. One tin each of green beans and corn. A box of Mac & Cheese. A pound of butter “product.” A few other things.

    I probably won’t be hitting the pumpkin pie ice cream, this year. It’s specific to that grocer, and I’m boycotting them. I kicked ice cream, in general, about a month and a half ago. It was just getting out of hand. But, intensive psychotherapy, a trip through rehab and several 12 Step meetings, and I’m ice cream free. 🙂 Lew

29. Chris:

    My mind can do a lot with virtual travel. I have a fairly extensive library of travel books.

    Pam

30. @ Lew,

    Funny. But, which half of the Beach Boys do you and H sound like?

    DJSpo

31. Chris,

    Stop, ponder and consider? No boss wants employees to do that. They might get ideas. Good ideas. Whenever I stopped, pondered and considered, I was accused of doing nothing but goofing off. My response was , “If I’m goofing off, I’m emulating my boss. Or maybe” and I ‘d mention the new idea I had that would make part of my job more efficient. Usually, I had a mental shelf full of those ideas so I could state one on demand. Normally when I was in stop, ponder and consider mode it was for trying to come up with ways to do the job without playing management’s game.

    Ok. Let me see if I understand this. Based on experience and thinking, you have amassed a stockpile of the most likely Stihl parts that might need replacing. If a different part breaks, the Stihls might become unusable. I can foresee the new look of the farm…instead of running a junkyard of old automobiles to sell for parts, you will have a junkyard full of old Stihls to be sold for parts. Or you can spend a small fortune on the proper machines to start your own machining business to make your own replacement parts. Or maybe, just maybe, when the Stihls no longer run and you need to take down a tree, some holes can be drilled in the tree and filled with explosives. That will take the tree down, you’ll get to explode things, but you won’t have pesky rock fragments flying around. And the explosion will also create a fair amount of wood chips, so you might not have to use the nasty woodchipper as much.

    ***Bad Pun warning*** Isn’t evasive maneuver number 8 rather, umm, dodgy? 🙂 But congratulations on both recognizing that I was referencing a musical and for taking rapid evasive action.

    There were 2 student lab assistants in the physics department at the local junior college. Another guy and me. The first time I was visiting his house, he wanted to show off his stereo system. Wonderful Bose speakers were suspended from the ceiling about 2 feet from a wall. He cranked the stereo volume to 11 and played Deodato’s version of Also Sprach Zarathustra. Wonderful speakers, no sound distortion and the speakers were now angled away from the wall by about 6 or 8 inches. Once my hearing had returned, I told him that I was very impressed. But I’ve been a Deodato fan ever since.

    If I were to do it over, I would NOT have gone spelunking. Ever. I’ve never really liked tight spaces. I think it goes all the way back to Christmas when I was 3. I got a box that was almost as tall as I was with a large stuffed panda bear in it. Being a boy of 3 and a half years, the BOX was more fun than the bear. I figured out how to fold the flaps of the box to keep them together. It was a fun toy. Then I had this idea to get inside the vertical box and fold the flaps closed. Fun, but I didn’t have the arm strength to get out. So I made the box fall over on its side and the lid burst open. I was now having the time of my life, doing that for hours a day. Fun city, until dad was at work, mom was in the kitchen cooking and watching my baby sister. And I fell too vigorously and landed on my head, the flaps underneath me, in the closed box upside down and facing away from the door to the kitchen where mom was. AND the kitchen door was closed. After what felt like 5 lifetimes and I was getting very hot with all the blood rushing to my head, and feeling like I couldn’t breathe, mom pushed the box over and I was freed! That might have made me a little claustrophobic, perhaps, maybe?

    Dame Avalanche’s pester power skill rating? She pesters at about a 9 on a 10 point scale. She is very good at it and very persistent. I get the cheese packet out and am starting to get the cheese tax ready before she bounds into the kitchen. For cheese and liverwurst taxes, she actually lies down on her belly, alert for any edible treasure that might mysteriously fall from the ceiling. For other treats, she nudges, she pokes with her nose, she pushes my chair, she stares deeply into the eyes of the Princess. She also knows the phrases “No more treats.” “All gone.” “Go lie down.”

    Today was a fun day. Typical Toppenish Trip this week. So Dame Avalanche and I followed Killian and his human to a conservation area. 97 acres of hills, pine trees and a few fir trees, the typical pine forest we have here. There was access to a beach on a large bend of the Little Spokane River. We hiked to the access, put Avalanche on a long lead and let the dogs play. First time ever that Avalanche has been in the forest or at a river. Killian is an old hand at water, so he knew what to do. Avalanche took to the water like she had been in it forever. Splashing, chasing minnows, she even took a swim, which completely surprised me. Then we hiked for awhile, probably getting in 2 miles of hiking a hilly course. And then had lunches that we had packed. It was very enjoyable, not too hot and mostly in the shade.

    We got back to our homes before the winds picked up – dust storm for several hours before the rain came in. It rained for over an hour. Very refreshing.

    DJSpo

32. Hi Pam,

    🙂 It’s fun isn’t it? Such a lovely way to spend some quality time. And you can also travel to places and times which never were. Dunno about you in this respect, but I always travelled with a good book. If ever the senses were overloaded, and that can happen in exotic locations, burying one’s nose in a good book is like escaping to a more familiar and comfortable place.

    A favourite travel memory from Laos was whiling away a few hours at a very French/Asian café in a remote town drinking coffee, consuming tiny Asian, but also very much French inspired cakes and reading one of Jack Vance’s Demon Princes series of sci-fi books (I forget which it was of the five books). Plus I was covertly watching the people going about their day to day activities.

    Sandra on the other hand had attended a cultural day with the small group, and I know who had the better experience. The book wins every time.

    Cheers

    Chris

33. Hi DJ,

    Yeah, that’s the entire point isn’t it? Work hard, and leave the thinking to others. The only thing about that strategy is if the real world results of the ‘others’ isn’t quite so good. I like your strategy of being prepared with a response in advance of having the question being asked – he says noting down the idea for future use. 😉 The stupid thing about such incidents is that you become the role of Wodehouse’s Jeeves fictional character and end up doing the on the fly problem solving. That was the big part of the troubles I had reading the most excellent authors books in that I’d been there, and done that (and we bought a small collection of the books – which Sandra is enjoying).

    I like how your brain works. That’s the thing isn’t it? One day, two stroke chainsaws roar their defiance of nature at a full 100db+ noise (maybe 11?) Then the ‘electrify everything’ crew come to the fore with less powerful motors and cutting blades and the forests resound with a lot having to work harder sewing machine-esque ‘whirrr’ sounds. Even that then quietens from there as the old school chop, chop, chop of an axe or whoosh, whoosh, whoosh of a two person cross cut saw does the work at an even slower rate. Eventually as things go, the super sharp flint axes make every swing have to count. Then we’ll all use less because there is no other option. But black powder is a fine idea! Your science background, not to mention phosphate from your urine, keeps food upon the table and wood shards on the hearth. 🙂

    Hehe! Man, I did my best to dodge the unfolding musical situation of yours. Was number 8 appropriate in that instance? Maybe not, possibly number four fit better?

    Deodato’s version of Also Sprach Zarathustra, is so Seventies, it hurts as much as my ears do after having listened to it at a decent volume. 🙂 The dude loved the moog, electric keyboard and the bass guitar. Super funk, taken to 11. It’s like a funk-soul version of the Richard Strauss composition. Very cool.

    Thanks for saying that, because the experience was equally unsettling and I now know the right questions to ask of such people making loose claims that: You’ll have a blast! Don’t think so. Oh my, what an experience, and it sure has left an impression upon you at such a young age, if you can still recall it to this day. One of Sandra’s friends recounts a story where as young child she almost managed to shut her even younger brother in the dryer. Far out. Sometimes fortune smiles upon us and we somehow manage to extricate ourselves from the horrid predicaments which we’d unfortunately ended up in. Sandra encountered a tourist vehicle on the wrong side of the dirt road late this afternoon. Probably on the phone, but otherwise completely oblivious. Hmm.

    Dame Avalanche has a good control on the human situation in your household. A dog needs to know where such canineness sits in the pecking order, then make every move with such knowledge at the forefront of the dog brain. However, it also sounds to me as if said Husky is aware of your power moves. A sticky situation, with cheese.

    What a lovely day for all of you. Glad to hear that the summer extremes are beginning to moderate and that you can now enjoy longer walks without cooking your head. Dogs can be funny with water can’t they, but one with Dame Avalanches heritage probably has that gear down pat and hard wired. Had a Jack Russell dog long ago which tried to bite the water at the beach.

    Oh my, but the rain would also have had the benefit of washing down the dust – although dunno about you, but I’ve experienced muddy rain. The monster storm picks up red soil from arid lands in centre of the continent only to drop the muddy water here. Oh well, provides some soil fertility, and mud.

    Cheers

    Chris

34. Hi Lewis,

    Professor Mass is suggesting that your rain will continue over the next few days. Keep that umbrella handy, and it looks like the rain may smash some August records. Any flood warnings in your area? It was a glorious day today, warm and dry, but that is set to change late tomorrow afternoon. Oh well, changeable and stuff although I’m not seeing anything alarming in the forecast. The chances of snow is again receding. Might be another year with no snow. We’ve barely had many frosts so far this year.

    Candidly I had my ear muffs on and so closed my ears to the complaints of the tree which had the added side benefit of muffling the sound of the scary old wood chipper. Look, it’s an option to do so. It’s like consuming some juicy roast lamb, then wondering if the poor young sheep needed its leg?

    Hehe! Oh far out, please spare us all from purists with vast theoretical knowledge, but little practical application of said knowledge. It’d be like a total nightmare situation to have to face up to a panel of a dozen such folks and be put to the question: Now! Tell us all, why did you do… The scary old wood chipper may come in handy on such occasions, but of course they wouldn’t know how to start it, let alone which end you feed organic matter into. 😉

    That’s what I hear about the bird, burd, gone thingee. It’s meant to be more private, as far as anything is on this here interweb. Oh shoot! I went into the big smoke today to have lunch with friends and entirely forgot to ask about the search thing. There’s always so much to discuss, it’s hard sometimes to find time for all of the various topics. Lunch was good, we had gourmet burgers and mine was particularly tasty, albeit a touch messy. I ended up getting the burger on my face, hands, dropped some on the table, and even splatted some on the chair. Praise be to napkins! The little box the burger arrived in was inadequate for the job, and some people can’t be taken anywhere! 🙂

    Thanks for the tomato storing system information, and good to hear that it’s been tested in prior years. Yummo! I’m unsurprised those particular berries are smaller, compared the shrubs growing in the more shaded areas. That happens here with produce I can’t get much water to.

    Oh well done! Yes, out front of a rock roll band – with a mask – is where you’ve hidden, and if that was the response, yup your disguise is excellent. However, now that you’re known, favours may begin being requested. Such things happen. On a Clarkson’s farm episode, he had to connect up to water and power to one of his buildings from a nearby caravan park, and the price was being in an advertisement for the park. Few things come for free, and remember this when next approached by an inmate asking for a favour. 🙂 Although I’m absolutely certain you’re already onto this.

    Apologies for the levity, but when does a hotma, become dogma?

    Doesn’t sound like too much to be stressed over for your manager lady, unless public speaking is not her strong point. Is something being held back? Why the almost tears?

    Well that is interesting indeed. Down here, cheddar seems to be the big seller, although it is usually more aged and sold as a ‘tasty cheese’, which is a cheddar. I don’t believe it is a variety sold in your country. It’s a good theory, but I’m left wondering: What if you like the other fill-in replacement cheese variety better?

    I see what you mean, there is a lot of processed food in the box. The eggs would be good, and the chickens are all over the shop in terms of egg production in that some rare days we’ll get six, and other days there’ll be none. Hopefully the chooks get consistent.

    Given your recent err, gut issues, probably kicking the ice cream habit is not a bad option. And you’ve stoically faced the early days, program and rehab and come out the other side with your sense of humour intact. At least you don’t have the fervour of the recently converted: Ice cream is the ‘del, it’ll take you down, down to the ground you all poor food sinners! 🙂

    Cheers

    Chris

35. @ DJ – Tenors. 1st tenor and tenor :-). Lew

36. Yo, Chris – Nothing on the weather map, as to flooding, so far. Except way up in the NW, around some burned areas. Flooding, landslides, mud, and a road closed. The high yesterday was 59F, overnight low, 54F. Forecast for today is 66F. It felt very chilly, last night, and this morning. Even, inside. There was a bit of a breeze, and I think the wind chill was very low. The three day local weather history, does not record wind chill. I was down at the Club, this morning, and we were sitting outside. Note to self: Time to break out the winter coat, stocking cap, and buy a pair of gloves. By the time I left, I couldn’t feel my fingertips. 🙂

    The gourmet burger sounds very good. At least you provided entertainment value, to your eating companions 🙂 .

    Yes. Good firm boundaries. To the point of being rude, if necessary. As long as I don’t swear, or make threats, I’m on solid ground. I thought freedom of association (or from) was in the Constitution. Actually, it’s an old Supreme Court case.

    I don’t know what was going on with the building manager. There was a rumor around, awhile ago, that she’s in therapy. Gosh knows what kinds of medications (prescribed, of course), she might be on. Americans are so pill happy. She’s usually pretty well turned out, but looked … puffy. Given her age, she may also be going through the dreaded change. There was also some bit I couldn’t follow about some date that had been missed, or changed, which locks up her access to some of the monies, to run the place. And, as there’s some expenses that need to be addressed, before the inspection …

    I think I mentioned the veg store, has a selection of cheese. Including some Australian varieties. Mostly, cheddars. They’re expensive, but as a treat, I buy them from time to time. They’re a bit on the crumbly side, but, knowing that, I can make adjustments. I mostly stick with the white cheeses, as they’re “healthier” on several levels.

    I took a bag full of the stuff from the food box, down to the swap table, last night. Between what I got, and what I hunted and gathered off the swap table, I managed to take about 2 1/2 bags down to the Club pantry.

    Last night, they had a birthday for someone, at the Club. They were passing out big chunks of ice cream cake. Get behind me Satin! 🙂 I was the only one who didn’t partake.

    And, from the Wonderful World of Archaeology, I saw an interesting article on a recently investigated bit of megalithic architecture, in Spain.

    https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/23/science/menga-dolmen-megalithic-monument

    Gee, the article is almost a how-to. In case you find yourself at lose ends, or want to take up another hobby. :-).

    I finished the book on dinosaurs, and picked up the Bluestocking book, again. Stopped by the library today, and finally “The Skint Cookbook” showed up. Also, “Beatrix Bakes Another Slice.” I’ll have a look at them, tonight. Lew

37. Chris:

    Thus every time you open the Demon Princes, the experience in Laos comes back to you. I love creating associations of thoughts or places with a book I am reading, so that the next time I have that thought, or am in that place, the book comes to mind. And vice versa.

    Pam

38. Hi Pam,

    Thanks for the insight. 🙂 I’d not have thought of books that way had you not mentioned it.

    Cheers

    Chris

39. Hi Lewis,

    Must be a slow news day, because: South-east Australia’s volcanoes are practically extinct, but more will burst forth in the future. The many photos from around this part of the world are most excellent!

    Oh yeah, the big fires kill off the plants and even burn the root systems so that when the next big rain hits, mineral rich soil gets washed away. There’s nothing to hold it in place against the might of the water. Unfortunately a lot of that ends up in the ocean, which is not so good. Isn’t it a bit early to be winding down into mid to late autumn weather conditions? The plants won’t like such weather at all.

    A dude needs fingertips – could come in handy for I dunno, safe cracking. Hope the feeling returned once you warmed up again? It was quite a warm day here today, but by late afternoon a monster thunderstorm rolled on in. Fortunately the worst chunks of the storm missed this mountain range (just), and that’s something to be grateful for. The late afternoon sky was lit up with lightning, and the crashing sound of the thunder was awesome.

    Had an admin day today and just did stuff which needed doing about the house. Planted out a couple of hundred radish and beetroot seeds, and also went through the collection of stored seed and whittled it down a bit. Seed does not keep forever. And! Put in an order for some sugar beet seeds. I’ve been meaning for a few years to grow them, then boil down the mash to produce sugar. They grow really well here, or at least they used to. It’s too cold here for sorghum, unfortunately.

    Hehe! That sure happened, and everyone was very good about it and refrained from pointing out my lack of skills as a proper trencherman.

    It’s an odd subject that. Like wondering why we aren’t taught how to use critical thinking skills? We’re also not taught how to establish as you say, good firm boundaries. It’s weird isn’t it? On the other hand, it got me thinking deeply upon this subject, as well as cogitating upon what the legul system has to say about the matter in recent times, and so I updated the blog code of conduct to now say that ‘I reserve the right to decline and/or delete comments’. Seems that’s what you have to do, like a ‘keep out’ sign. There has been some very strange legul interpretations of late.

    Oh, that’s unfortunate for the boss lady, and hope that things settle down for her. Such displayed emotions during an oration would make nervous that I’d not heard all that was known. Still, I’ve long learned how to accept living with uncertainty. Anywhoo if possible medications produce the sort of result which you observed, it may be time to err, perhaps for her to do something different. And err, just one job.

    Lewis, you are like super bad, but honestly, the Editor did terrorise me a bit during that time. It’s a lot for a lady to deal with.

    Oh yeah, the more aged cheddar ‘tasty’ cheeses are a bit crumbly, and so good. Yum! I see what you mean, and for your info, they’re on the more expensive side down here as well. Cheese tends to be graded for price in terms of how long it has been aged. A few years ago I’d inadvertently purchased some very expensive cheese for guests. The deli had cut the chunk from the round, and I felt obligated to pay for it after that rapid deft knife work. Anyway, I fed the cheese to guests, and noted one particular guest was putting a good effort into consuming the cheese. Hadn’t tasted it myself, so rectified my culinary inexperience and holy cow, that was some good stuff, a bit too good really. At the earliest moment I tastefully removed the platter from the table before it was all gone. One has to move quickly from time to time.

    Dude, I’d not known of any discussions as to the health value of white versus yellow cheeses. A total mystery.

    Out of curiosity, is the stuff from the Club pantry moving quicker?

    You stoically dodged a food bullet there, but candidly, there are better cakes, like a proper tiramisu. 🙂

    Thanks for the article, and yes, the ancients were amazing to have constructed a building which will outlast anything our present civilisation will make, if we ignore toxicity. Unless a researcher can go back in time, it’s purely speculation as to how the barrow was constructed.

    Man, that cookbook has been on backorder for ages. Is it good? The title is a winner. Ah, and the local book. Hope it’s not too overly complicated? I truly missed that altogether. A sad moment.

    Cheers and better get writing!

    Chris

40. Yo, Chris – That was an interesting article, about your “practically” extinct volcanoes. As in, “almost extinct.” Mt. Gambler is a really pretty crater lake. We’ve got one down in Oregon.

    https://w.wiki/A$Uf

    I’ve never been. It was formed when Mt. Mazama blew its top. Probably killed a lot of megafauna. And, there were people around, then.

    https://w.wiki/A$Uk

    LOL. Well, you should just tell the New Zealand (plate) to back off!

    The high yesterday was 63F (17.22C). Overnight low was 52F. Forecast for today is for 73F. And the rain has finally quit. I might even be able to pick some blueberries this afternoon. By the end of the week, temperatures will be in the mid 80s. The garden will like that.

    Speaking of the garden, the Scarlet Runner beans have exploded in size, seemingly overnight.

    There’s some interesting entries to the search “the right to be left alone,” and “the right to privacy.” More court cases, rather than our founding documents. Of course, the nay sayers always pipe up with, “Well, if you’re not doing anything wrong, why care?”

    Yes, white cheeses are healthier from several standpoints. Usually, less calories, lower salt, less fat. I couldn’t link to it, but there’s a pretty good article, “The 9 Healthiest Types of Cheese.”

    Things in the Club food pantry move faster, toward the end of the month. People run low on money, or, food benefits. More things that take a bit more effort to prepare, move toward the end of the month. By the way, I read the other day that mayonnaise has jumped over 40%, in price. Probably due to the eggs involved, in making it.

    The “Beatrix Bakes Another Slice,” book is ok, if you’re a really advanced cook, I think. Or want to be. Plenty of pictures to illustrate techniques. The ingredients lists seem a bit long. I wonder if her first cookbook (which the library doesn’t have), covers more basic baked goods?

    The “Skint Cookbook” is interesting. It’s really a snapshot of how British cooks do home cooking, now. There’s old favorites (Toad in the Hole, Bubble and Squeak), but also dishes that have a bit of an Asian or Indian influence. I guess the basic message is, if you want to cook in a less expensive manner, do as much as possible, from scratch. Although he has no objections to occasional shortcuts. As far as pre-packaged stuff, or frozen veg goes. He’s got a pretty comprehensive list of what he calls “storecupboard essentials” and cooking equipment essentials. But that you don’t have to buy it all at once, and, as far as the equipment goes, op-shops are a good source. He also suggested if people wonder what to get you for birthdays or Christmas, that there’s nothing wrong with pantry essentials. But, measurements are in metric, and the conversion chart in the back is for metric to Imperial measure. Imperial is similar to US measure, but does vary in places.

    https://w.wiki/A$V4

    I probably won’t purchase either cookbook. The recipes I found most interesting, I have in other cookbooks. I think “The Skint Cookbook” would be useful, to a beginning cook. And his approach to recipes isn’t “scary.” Keep it loose, don’t be afraid to experiment, a bit. Etc.. Lew

Comments are closed.