A bloke does his best to remain a gentleman in even the most trying of situations. However, even the most polished of dudes occasionally loses their cool. They’ve even been heard to mouth expletives which could make the most mouthy of teenagers blush in embarrassment. So it was the other day when the nice insurance company sent us the house and contents renewal bill. Trust me, an increase of 65% over the previous years bill would make even the most unflappable person cry out in shock: “What the f#$k?” Oh yeah, trust me in this.
The compounding effect of an annual 65% increase with this bill falls into the realms of the absurd. It won’t take very many years at all before the monster swallows the entire household income. This situation is not sustainable because within 11 years the annual bill would be around $1.5 million. The compounding effects of the math are worthy of thoughtful consideration.
A person has to be onto everything nowadays, although on a personal note, that can be a bit tiring. But is there a choice in the matter? Don’t think so. In this instance, we contacted the nice insurance company, and began the long conversation by putting our primary concern in it’s most blunt form: We can’t pay this. Seemed only appropriate.
It’s been said before that in order to be able to play within a system, you have to know the system, otherwise you are the one who will be played. Fictional tropes such as The Hunger Games, suggest as much, and if you want to live in the jungle, it’s best to know what is lurking there waiting to pounce. Truthfully, we didn’t know nearly enough about the whole insurance process. After an hours long conversation with the nice insurance company representative, numerous pointed questions were asked, and the replies were weighed and assessed. With a better comprehension as to how things may roll if a claim needed to be made, we tweaked variables in the policy and reduced the bill to 45% of the above amount.
Next year will no doubts be likewise equally challenging with this bill. They make you work for it. There are times where the sensitive person wonders how other households cope with these sorts of everyday challenges? And it certainly was not at all like this when I was a much younger bloke. Hmm, jungle, hunters, prey, hmm.
Anyway, it’s hard to know how other folks view the world, but it occurs to me that there are more unknown things, than there are known things. Yup. The other day I read a good quote in a Jack Vance short story: “only an impoverished mind considers itself the repository of absolute knowledge.” True words, and a decent guide to the path of wisdom.
Insurance wasn’t the only subject my brain has been a bit hazy on lately, turns out knowledge of rabbits was also outside of my experience. The cheeky little rascals have chewed the bark on a few of the very young citrus trees.
At this cold early spring time, protein levels in the plants are low, and so the hungry rabbits decided to supplement their diets by chewing the bark off a few young citrus trees. Who knew they even did that? The result was my fault entirely.
The young citrus trees all have strong heavy duty gauge steel chicken wire protecting them. This should have been enough to put a stop to the rabbits mischief. You can see the wire in the above photo. It’s tough stuff. Except that the trees had been growing for two years with no issues, and it was a bit of a hassle lifting the steel cages up and down so as to clear out the grass and weeds which grew up next to the tree trunks. A bright idea popped into my head: Why not just leave the cages slightly elevated so that the weeding work could be done more speedily next time? Seemed like a good idea at the time.
And that’s when things went horribly wrong. The rabbits spying my innovative behaviour, probably thought to themselves: “Thank you Lord!”, and within a few nights, they’d done their worst. Eight two year old fruit trees have come to an untimely end. I may attempt to re-graft the specific variety onto the rootstock in the hope that something can be saved, and you never know the outcome. It’s worth a try.
With the former dogs, we never had rabbits, so little wonder my knowledge of the bark-chewing-pests was poor. The now sadly departed Sir Poopy and Sir Scruffy spent every waking moment outdoors hunting rabbits, so there were no rabbits ever on the property. Now those two dogs are no longer in the land of the living, and there are rabbits lurking around.
Long term readers will recall similar issues many years ago with the rats, whom were accessing the feed and water in the chicken enclosure. That matter was eventually resolved satisfactorily. Dame Plum the Kelpie dog, and I, got into the head space of the rodents and learned everything there was to know about what they were doing with the chicken enclosure. Then over the course of two months we cut off their easy food supply, and generally made their lives (and endings) miserable. It was a long and brutal campaign, but that’s the process we’ll follow all over again with the rabbits.
The current pack of dogs aren’t as gifted with hunting rabbits as the former pack, but maybe they’ll eventually get there? Dunno. In the meantime, the dogs tell me where the rabbits are hiding, and I listen to them.
At this stage, it is hard to say for sure whether the rabbits have an active warren (a tunnel where they live and breed) on the farm. Mostly when they run away, repeated observations show that they head into the surrounding forest. But at times they’re hiding in the garden beds, and particularly those beds which are well supplied with thick woody vegetation. Echiums in particular seem suitable for rabbits, and so I’ve begun to slowly remove them. Then the height of the remaining vegetation will then be reduced. My thinking here is that a nervous rabbit will go find some other place to live and forage. But we’ll see.
The observant reader will note that in the above image, smoke from a fire can be seen. All of the woody material cut out of the garden beds, was lugged back up the hill, where it was then burnt off in the brazier.
The job is slow hard work, but then so is growing fruit trees for a couple of years only to then have a rabbit or two destroy them in a matter of mere days. There are just so many ways to go wrong when producing edible crops, that you never stop learning, but mostly, you also have to be onto everything.
Postscript: Dame Plum (with a bit of human assistance) nabbed a very large rabbit this morning, and was well rewarded for her efforts.
Earlier in the week we created two new garden rows. There are now six garden rows in the large enclosure below the machinery shed. We’re growing:
- Four rows for potatoes;
- A row for sugar beets; and
- Another row for heritage varieties of radishes and beetroot.
The scary old rototiller was used to create the two new garden rows, and the soil was also then very heavily fed. Heavy rain was predicted in the forecast, so it was a bit of a rush to get the job completely done with the rows seeded.
The forecast rain held off, and so I used the scary old rototiller to clean up an area where we’d removed some large rocks last week (you can see the new rock wall in the above photo). One of the rocks, when broken up and removed, left a big hole surrounded by a mound with very little vegetation. The machine can be used to break up the mound and then push around the soil so that it eventually becomes flat. It’s an awesome and remarkably dangerous machine. Once that soil was flattened out, we began adding ash and lime to the surface. In a year or two’s time, you’d never know the mess that the area originally was.
When we created those two new garden rows, there was more compost than we really needed for that job, so the raised beds in the greenhouse were also given a good feed. Over the past week or so, we’ve begun removing plants from the greenhouse in anticipation of starting off the summer crops.
We trialled a new variety of compost, and it’s a three way mix of fine woody mulch + mushroom compost + a brownish variety of sand. Plus the other usual suspects were chucked into the garden beds like: blood and bone meal + agricultural lime + coffee grounds + coffee husks. The plants seem to grow strongly in that mixture, plus they taste good.
The rain, when it finally arrived, was indeed quite heavy. The next day we discovered that the tree which had been leaning on an alarming angle, had returned to the ground. It’s such a dead straight tree that it will provide quite a few timber posts for an upcoming construction project.
The heavy rain was the beginning of a several day storm which swept up north from that frozen continent of Antarctica. On Saturday, it even snowed, although none settled at this elevation. Higher up the mountain range the snow would have been quite impressive. Here’s a couple of photos:
It sure was cold. Still, the spring is fast arriving and the plants are beginning to wake up from their winter slumber. We’ve even managed to harvest a few early asparagus spears. Yummo!
I’m a bit worried about the possibility that the cold weather will impact upon the stone fruit crop. In previous years, a brief cold spell has wiped out a large portion of that tasty fruit, but what do you do? Time will tell. At the moment, the earliest stone fruits (almonds and apricots) are tiny:
Oh, we’re also beginning to do a virtual tour around the property for those who are interested:
Onto the flowers:
The temperature outside now at about 10am is 6’C (43’F). So far for last year there has been 680.6mm (26.8 inches) which is up from last weeks total of 662.0mm (26.1 inches)
Yo, Chris – Oh, my gosh! That is a truly frightening insurance bill. There’s a fine old term: apoplexy. It’s a wonder you survived, opening the envelope. I’ve seen articles, recently, about people adjusting their insurance, to try and maintain lower rates. Increasing deductibles, reducing replacement costs. Sometimes, resorting to “insurers of last resort,” which are often state run programs. But, unless there’s a mortgage to be covered (the amount of which can also affect insurance rates), some “go naked” and hope for the best. I hope their best is at least half of the protections you’ve put into your place.
A silly aside, but I looked at the bill and thought, “Chris is already late, paying his insurance bill. Then it dawned on me, that among the many differences between Australia, and here, writing out dates, is another. Here, we do month / day / year. Looks like you folks do day / month / year. As do several other parts of the world.
Poor citrus trees! Is there anyway to bandage the damage? A wrap of some kind, that may work in some cases? Goran, would know. If there’s a wrap for grafts, maybe something can be done for damage?
If Dame Plume keeps up the good work, it may be time for a title upgrade. 🙂
Keep adding those vegetable rows, and you’ll seen have a proper truck garden. It’s amazing how fast ground recovers, if given a little encouragement.
The vertical becomes the horizontal. The tree is where it wanted to be.
What? No snow forts and snowball fights? Snow angels? Snowmen? Or, snow women? But, I must admit you get it so seldom, it is a wonder. “A light dusting that didn’t stick.”
The asparagus looks very tasty. Might grow some here, next year. Maybe. I mentioned it to the Master Gardeners. They didn’t seem too keen, but didn’t come up with any solid objections.
The introduction to a walkabout, of your place, was very good. Ditto the historic photos. One thing you might do, when you start your walkabout, is mention which compass direction you’re heading in. It would be appreciated.
The Rosemary is very pretty. We have a venerable old Rosemary, in a tub. Half the time it looks dead, but it’s just part of its Mediterranean lifecycle. I have to ride herd on the Ladies, who want to keep watering it, when it doesn’t need water.
I hope your peach produces at least a few peaches. so you can get a sample of them. And that the wire will keep the parrots off. Lew
Hi Lewis,
Apoplexy is a very suitable description of the feeling of being royally shafted by that bill. Yes. I’d initially believed the increase was about 50% and may have said so, but no, proper usage of maths provided a more accurate number for the increase of 65%. And to think that serious people suggest that inflation is only hovering around the 4% mark. Incidentally, the heart palpitation starter was soon followed by the mantra: ‘Serenity Now!’, which is scarily a bit close to ‘Apocalypse Now!’ Anywhoo, the heart rate soon settled, and I was able to enjoy my morning coffee without further disturbance, but a shadow hang over the day.
By the time we made the long phone call to the nice insurance company, their claim of ‘inflation’ did not produce an attack of the vapours. Lovely folks, but we’d already faced the worst by that stage, so ambit claims and obfuscation could hardly unsettle us any further. Hard questions were asked that day, and many a customer service representative knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Fluff that day, I can tell you! 🙂 How good was that original Slor quote from the Ghostbusters film?
Man, seriously, you’ve gotta be onto everything. Your annual paperwork nightmare produces a similar vibe don’t you reckon?
For your info, all of the fine details of the policy were brought back to more likely numbers and scenarios.
Oh yeah, the date formatting issue also does my head in. Dates are expressed down under as you noted as day / month / year. A lot of software originates in your country and the days and months are mixed around. Like I mentioned previously, you have to be onto everything. Computers store dates as numbers anyway.
We’ll see what Goran has to say about the matter, but the lack of living tissue with the young citrus trees is probably their err, for whom the bell tolls moment. Now if the tree bark had been only partially munched by the rabbits, the tree would recover. Incidentally, I continued that garden bed clean up work after lunch today, and Ruby nabbed a smaller rabbit. Ollie almost got a much younger again rabbit, but was on the lead at the time, and so he was mega choked and ended up being very unhappy with me (who was holding the lead at the time). The dogs are hard at work, and that is their job. At this stage, all of the garden beds need a good clean up. But it’s a big job so we’ll do the work slowly over the next few months and give the plants some time to recover.
Dude, I need some guidance here. Dame Plum has clearly performed sterling service, so what’s the next title up from ‘dame’? Have you become the unofficial heraldry officer? 🙂
That’s what I’m finding out now as well. Disturbed ground can recover quickly if a little bit of care and attention is provided. Dunno, but I’m coming around to the idea that active land management by us two legged species was set in motion a very long time ago. From some perspectives, we created ourselves a permanent job.
Hehe! Yes, the tree does know it’s own business, but generally few trees can cope with angles of 45 degrees from horizontal before returning to Earth.
Surely you jest? Are snow women a thing nowadays? One must reach for correctness. 🙂 For research purposes I ran a search query and all it returned were advertisements for women’s ski clothing. I’d say the wokesters have missed this opportunity for righteousness. Snow is really rare here nowadays that it is a serious novelty.
Makes you wonder what the objections the master gardeners may have to the asparagus plants? It’s a solid producer here, but each year we have to add a bit of rock salt to the soils. It’s an old timer bit of lore that. My gut feeling is that the plants originated near to the ocean. One of the varieties we grow is labelled ‘Fat Bastard’. It’s true, and is almost like a character out of a Mike Myers film.
How would directions relative from the house work for you?
Oh no! The ladies are killing that dry adapted plant with too much water. Ook!
Fingers crossed with the stone fruit crop. Snow is a lot for those plants to deal with when producing blossoms and fruit. Oh well, at this stage I have a plan B supplier of sun ripened tasty stone fruit, maybe.
Ha! Lewis, you’re the very model of a gentleman to have said that to a computer support person, especially if they’d confronted you with advice number one: Have you switched the device off and then back on again? At least you probably avoided an attack of the vapours. 🙂
That might work. A friend who used to until recently, work with serious head cases, suggested that the best way to defuse a situation was to ask how their day was going. I’ve got some lines ready for use when people have seriously annoyed me. One of my favourites is for when the situation has totally gone beyond any form of repair, so I tell them: You need to relax. For some reason it has the exact opposite effect, dunno, one of those enduring mysteries… Of course, with your comment, it might be worth assessing the situation for possible worst case outcomes? 🙂 Always pays to be careful with such matters.
Ooo, that winter bizz is inching ever closer to you. The forecast here is suggesting that Wednesday will be the first UV rated ‘High’ day for the season. The plants will grow that day, then it’s back to ‘Moderate’ again. And what a surprise, it rained here again today.
Those two definitions overshadowed anything else, thus my question. Why not do so anyway? It’s a good name for them. Hmm, don’t you reckon the word ‘carton’ just sounds too biggerer?
Oh yeah, the mouldy plums were a kick in the guts. Moving on, and throwing out the defective rubber sealing ring. Yum! Always good to hear that your stores of preserves are filling up. Were the green beans good enough to pick?
Hehe! You’re probably right about the rat campaign morphing into the rabbit campaign, and I mean after all both words begin with the letter ‘r’, so there must be something in that, maybe. It’s probably just me getting a better understanding of the systems here, and that includes the many of the garden beds.
Always lot’s of allegedly dodgy activities going on, perhaps like that Inigo bloke may have been up to. How’s the read? And that is a good word. I’d heard of the word scurrilous, but not as being applied to anyone’s nature as it appears to be from your description. The cheeky scamp.
Had a part paid work and part administrative day. Discovered that cd’s are getting 4.8 here, which is not bad, although 65 would be better don’t you reckon? Went to the tip to drop off the metal for recycling. You know, that sort of a day. Burned off the rest of the echium plant, and ended up getting rained up for good measure. Can’t complain really, the many activities were conducted with no particular time constraints.
Cheers
Chris
Hi everyone,
The local news had an article on the snow, and one of the photos was from higher up the mountain range. Check out ‘Snow at Mount Macedon in Victoria over the weekend’ here: Cold snap leads to snow, hail and frost in unseasonable spring weather across south-east Australia
Thought it was cold…
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – How good was the Slor quote? Got me. Lew losses 5 cultural literacy points. 🙂
Sounds like you handled the insurance company with patience and aplomb. Must have been reminiscent of the ever changing building inspection hoops, you had to jump through.
Oh, not unofficial at all. I’m a paid up member of the College of Arms (aka: Heralds’ College.) 🙂 It’s part of the cover for my witness protection program. A Dame, is the wife of a knight. The next rank up would be the wife of a baronet, called a baronetess. Next up would be the wife of a Baron. But unless she inherited the title, she’s still a baronetess. If she inherited the title, she’d be a baroness. By order of the sovereign, grades could be skipped. Might want to petition, the King. 🙂
Nothing politically correct, about it. Snowmen and women have been around for a long time. Don’t want the old guy to get lonely. Mr. and Mrs. Snowman. Fenton glass did snow couples, in a lot of different colors and finishes. A few years back, I noticed a lot of glass snowmen around, in different shades of blue glass. From different companies. I had a fit of momentary madness, where I considered collecting blue snowmen. Blue with the cold? But, it passed.
I asked the Master Gardeners about planting asparagus, next year. The hesitation was due to tubs maybe not being deep enough. That you have to trench them, and add to the trench. Mounding was suggested. They still looked skeptical. When I mentioned the rock salt, they really looked skeptical. 🙂
Computer geeks #1 advice is: “Is it plugged in?” Actually, a few times, at the library, that WAS the problem. A patron had kicked the plug out of a power strip. They only had to tell me once. After that, that was the first thing I would check. Amazing how many times that was the problem.
But then you have to put up with long involved stories, about how their day is. Which usually isn’t very interesting. When someone asks me that question, I usually say, “Too early to tell.” I’ve heard of people responding to “Have a nice day!” with, “No thank you. I have other plans.”
It was fairly sunny, yesterday, but our high temperature was only 64F (17.77C). Overnight low was 46F. Forecast for today is for 71F. Rain comes back, tomorrow. I’m noticing more trees changing color.
Carton, does sound too generic. I guess, “Those cartons in a flat of fruit,” would work. Rather a mouthful.
Well, I picked an enormous bowl of cherry tomatoes, what, four days ago. I went out last night, and picked another enormous bowl full. Ran another load through the dehydrator, yesterday. Picked a good sized bag full, from another plot that was on offer. I probably have enough in the fridge, for two or three more loads.
I got a handful of green beans. I’m thinking I’ll use them in a three (or more) bean salad. AFTER I finish the cucumber salad, that I made up, last night. Picked enough blueberries, this morning, for another round of oatmeal.
The art book is pretty interesting. The author names, names, and tells all. I’m sure he’s now persona non grata, in a number of places. He and a buddy, started dealing art, in their early 20s. Spoiled children of privilege. I’ve run across a couple of Banksy stories. Twice, Banksys’ almost within their grasp, and then they lost out. From what I’ve read so far, I gather that the young fellows will soon part ways, and the one will go on to commit high financial art crimes, and end up being on the run to the Pacific Island of Vanuatu. But, he gets caught by Interpol, or someone, and extradited.
Well, exciting times, around the Institution, today. In an effort to clear out the apartments, for the inspection, we’re having a complementary dump day. Sign up in the community room, if you have furniture that needs to go. Bag up clothes or box household stuff, and put it outside your door. Even I put a few things out.
The other night, I checked out the free table, in the library. Which is also going away. Next to it, was an antique chair. What’s called an oak press back. Patterns were steam pressed, into the wood. Maybe foliage. Maybe Father West Wind. Acorns and oak leaves. You get the idea. Well, in the back of this chair (which is in good shape) were impressed … dragons. I hauled it up to my apartment, and figure I’ll get 25-$30 for it. I’m going to put a note on it. “Game of Thrones chair. Here there be dragons!” 🙂 Lew
Hi Lewis,
Ah, dude you missed out there on the Ghostbusters Slor quote, so I shall include it here (purely for non profit research purposes): Ghostbusters – Vinz Clortho. Your education has now been uplifted! It’s a good day to be you! 😉
In English, the quote: Then, during the third reconciliation of the last of the McKetrick supplicants, they chose a new form for him: that of a giant Slor! Many Shuvs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Slor that day, I can tell you!
Yeah, it was a tiresome hour and they make you work for every saved penny – on every policy too and at all renewals. Hmm. Your comparison is rather apt, and I fully empathise with your situation there. If we had to rebuild this place, I’d prefer to live in a quickly reconstructed cabin surrounded by an apocalyptic wasteland than re-enter the rental market. My feelings run deep in that matter. Dante missed out on a layer of hell for those who deliberately place hoops for us lesser folks to have to jump over.
Your loose talk of the heralds college lead me to an article on Anne Neville, the wife of Richard III. There’s something a bit off about her expression in any of the depictions, or am I imagining this? Oh wow, what a fascinating institution, which even holds some sway on the goings on down under. An interesting place to work I’d imagine, where nothing of note may eventuate for ages, but then the merest sneeze of an office holder would send waves and waves through the upper echelons. Too rich for my tastes, and I’d worry that I’d royally stuff something up. 🙂
Ooo, the dog may have to produce more rabbit miracles before receiving such a title. I’d suggest that the Kelpie is motivated for the task laid before her though.
Well, that’s a relief. You may appreciate that snow is such a rare occurrence here that the observation of the proper and correct titles and pronouns is way outside of my experience. Far out, you dodged a bullet there for sure with the collectors impulse. Stay strong brother Lewis, and be happy with the collections within your reach.
Ah, good to hear that the master gardeners have a difference of opinion in relation to the asparagus plants. Ours grow in what you’d probably call a stock tank, and we just add to the soil every year (you have to in raised beds anyway). And occasionally I’ll thin out the root systems with a spade if the bed gets too busy. Some plants just require the sodium in the rock salt, they need it to grow. Wise to be sceptical, but for me the results are resoundingly in.
Hehe! That’s funny, and also true about people kicking the power cables out of the wall sockets. You have to be onto everything. Interestingly on that electrical appliance front, the induction cooker sounded a bit odd today, so poking around the machine it looks like I’ll have to partially dismantle the thing and give the guts a good cleaning. Lot’s of dust in there… A job for another day, but soon.
Well, yes, that would be one of the downsides to raising that particular ‘how’s your day going’ question. You posited a strong argument. Hmm. That conversation concluding phrase ‘have a nice day’, isn’t usually heard down under. It’s more usually, ‘bye’, or ‘see ya’, and perhaps this is indicative that the transaction is concluded? Generally conversations begin with a question as to how a person is, and it would sound like: “Hi! How are you? Few people expect an answer other than ‘good’. I’ve often wondered if it is tiring for public facing folks to be faced repeatedly with that question, and so have conducted experiments to see what sort of response a more simple ‘Hello’ instead receives. So far, people look relieved at the simplicity, but then there are a few outliers whom give me a sad response as if I don’t much care for their public facing plight. Hmm. There’s gotta be a middle ground in there somewhere, don’t you also reckon? Did you have to supply the requisite: “Have a nice day y’all”, response when working with the public?
Ah, the weather batten is being handed over for that was the very same temperature and conditions here today. I dread losing my hour of sleep in another fortnights time, although you may appreciate it being returned to your good self. Neither scratched, dinted, nor soiled.
Yeah, it doesn’t sound right with the carton. Hmm, how does calling the things ‘peskies’ work with you? It could be a new form of measurement with forty berries to the peskies? Got a nice ring to it, I reckon.
Nice haul of tomatoes, and don’t they smell great when they’re dehydrating?
A fine choice of salad, although it’s been my experience that the bean salad tastes better if left to sit for a day or so. The essential pan juices need to seep into the beans. Yum!
Oh yeah, that dude got into a bit of trouble in the art world, and so probably can’t stick his foot, nay even one tiny toe into it nowadays. It looked like your goobermint nabbed him, and for some reason it was mentioned that he was flown out of the pacific in one of those small corporate jets that are all the rage if you can afford them. Probably not for the likes of you and I! 🙂 Sounds comfortable…
Good stuff making use of the free dump day (that admittedly sounds a bit odd). Anywhoo, must be something in the water, because I was at the tip yesterday dumping off the metals for recycling.
Oh no, that’s no good. And also on that front, you haven’t mentioned the library for a while, although you did wash your hands of that matter for good reasons. Hehe! It’ll sell for sure. Was the chair in good shape?
Worked late tonight, and might have to do so again tomorrow. Oh well, no rest for the mildly wicked. 🙂
Cheers
Chris
insurance- This is one of those real world indicators that climate change is beyond political opinion or speculation. When disasters hit, we all pitch in to cover those affected. That’s what insurance is. BUT, the losses have reached a whole new level. There are parts of the U.S. now where insurance companies have abandoned, and house insurance is hard to get. It’s where you’d expect, along coastal areas or dry woodlands, but in the mean time, all our rates go up.
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/4844968-california-wildfires-insurance-reform-proposal/
Rabbits- A few years ago, a young pear tree got girdled because the wire protection I had was not tall enough one winter. The snow had drifted so high the bunnies stepped right over and on to the tree. Yes, in late winter, they get hungry, and will eat bark or die.
The hazelnuts are drying in the racks, and we are having hot dry weather, so things are proceeding well so far. Tomato crop has been prodigious, so Patsy is all canned out and now dehydrating the remainder. The dry (soup) beans did quite well, we’ll be shelling them out for a while. Nice busy work in the evenings or rainy days.
Potatoes- not so much. We had a good wet year, the plants looked great, but the yield was only so-so. Not sure why. The longer I live, the less I know.
Yo, Chris – Before I forget, Prof. Mass has an interesting point about solar radiation, and solar power. The high yesterday was 70F (17.22C). Overnight low was 50F. Forecast for today is 62F. It was a nice day, yesterday. I got out, about an hour before sunset, and picked another quart and a half of blueberries. I want to make sure I have enough, to take me to the end of the month. Then, I’ll get into the frozen bags, and maybe get a firmer grip on how many I actually use, per month, on average. Rain coming, today. There’s an enormous green blob, on the weather radar, heading our way. Walking H will probably be wet, this afternoon. Oh, well. She gets a bath, today, as she’s going to the groomer, day after tomorrow.
I may have to see if the library has the original “Ghostbusters” movie. Haven’t seen it in 40 years. Brush up on my cultural literacy.
Well, anyone who’d marry Richard III … 🙂 And, they seemed to be one of those rare royal couples, who got on with one another, and were of a like mind. Hmmm. Maybe it was her, who did the young princes, in the tower? Not a theory I’ve seen, anywhere.
I think you’re on to something with the salt and asparagus. But, I suppose, it’s a controversy, just like tomatoes and epsom salts.
Some places have scripts, for their public facing employees. Usually, easy to spot as the ring a false note. Can’t say I ever was subjected to that, other than the occasional suggestion that we greet the public. When I worked for the big bookstore chains, they had some pretty solid research that indicated that if you made eye contact, and greeted a customer, no matter how minimal, it cut shoplifting rates.
40 berries to a peskie? Well, there’s a problem with that. 40 blueberries would hardly fill the bottom. 40 strawberries, and it would be overflowing. 🙂
I made some cornbread, last night, to slop my cucumber salad on. Tasty! I got to thinking. Bean salad on cornbread would also be tasty. And, make more of a meal. I’ll have to mention that, to my Idaho friends. I’m sure they’ll be appalled. 🙂 .
Whisking away some crims, on corporate jets, seems to be a done thing. The author, and sometime friend of the art dealer, made the comment that when he was in the business, he was whisked all over the world, on jets belonging to buyers and sellers. That he caught them, the way other people caught busses.
Well, the dump days was interesting. The poor maintenance guy had to fend off some Inmates, removing stuff from the truck and boxes.
I take a look at the library, from time to time. Not much going on there. Seems she got bored, and wandered off. Piles of books on the floor, and a nearby table. I’ll bid my time.
Yes, the chair was in very good shape.
BANG! Zucchini! I swear, there were only flowers a couple of days ago. Now there’s at least one 10″ zucchini, in my garden. The pumpkins are also putting on size. Now larger than … two baseballs? Lew
Hi Chris,
Sorry about the rabbit damage. The wire does have to be at least flush with the ground and sometimes dug into the ground. We’ve had some luck with dried hot pepper flakes. Salve used to chase rabbits but she seems to be in doggie retirement lately. The coyotes take out a fair amount of rabbits. At our old house we had barn cats and some of them were pretty good taking out rabbits.
You asked about Marty’s progression on the waiting list – he’s moved from 23 to 11 since July so I’m guessing he’ll be moving in November. Marty being Marty, however, his place is almost packed even though my sister and I keep telling him he won’t be moving for months. Yesterday I discovered he had packed his computer. He’s done this for every move – quite frustrating but there’s no stopping him.
Had some fun at his building management office yesterday. Since he’s been there he’s gone from being able to pay his rent in cash to being required to pay online which he’s unable to do. He’s pretty self sufficient but handling a credit card or checking account just didn’t work well so we deal mostly with cash. The rent payment requirements keep changing to where I was getting a cashier’s check each month. Anyway I went to the office yesterday to see how this new arrangement would work and was informed I needed their app to pay on my phone. Well I refused as I don’t want any payments made on my phone and miracle of miracle the women went to her supervisor who agreed I could make the payment as I had been doing.
Enjoyed this week’s videos.
Margaret
Chris,
65% increase in one year? I would’ve done what you did, told them that that amount cannot be paid. I’m glad you were able to reduce it, but still…All of our insurance rates have gone up double digits, but nothing like 65%!
I live on an endless supply of sand. If I find a good bulk rate, maybe I could ship some to you for your composting. All I would want in return is a shrubbery. Or else I’ll say “ni!” until one of us is driven bonkers.
There was no rapping of knuckles from the nun in charge in my school. She motivated us with fun – even her maths class was entertaining. She was a maths genius on top of inheriting the family talent for acting and singing. That was an extremely fun AND educational year. Very unforgettable.
I did some pruning this week. Dead limbs on the flowering crabapple needed to be removed. When cleaning up afterward, I found the much-abused carcass of another mouse. Yup, Dame Avalanche was busy without my knowledge. If I find her chasing rabbits, perhaps we could work out a deal for her to occasionally assist you with your rabbit problem. Perhaps a shrubbery, lest I say “ni!’ until one of us is driven bonkers.
Thanks for the snowstorm article. Looks like parts of Australia got Spokane snowstorm amounts. Sometimes having snow that doesn’t stick is adventure enough.
Daffodils and rosemary. Two of my favorites. The rosemary blooms have such a wonderful color! Daffodils are cheery to look at. As you said, however, that snow pear IS a stunner!
Our carving show is rapidly approaching. The local woodturning club usually has some entries and demonstrates woodturning. This year, the woodturning president contacted one of the local tv stations. The tv station wants to interview both the woodturners and the woodcarvers. The presidents of the two groups will be the victims, er, interviewees. The woodturner president wants to meet with me. So late Wednesday morning we will meet to go over, well, I dunno what he wants to discuss. But we will meet near my house at one of our (Princess and me) favorite places. They have good coffee. We will meet late enough in the morning that it will be time for my second breakfast or at least my first lunch. Yes, that is my hobbit ancestry speaking. 😉
DJSpo
Hello Chris,
Insurance sticker shock! Holy cow. Our total insurances for car+house+farm is something like 1000 AUD per year. How can that be?
One clue: We are members of a regional mutual insurance company.
Also when we lived in Holland, we were part of a very small (600 houses) mutual fire insurance company. We had a part-time employee who had a small office, open Tuesday and Thursday mornings, but no other fixed costs. We all pitched into the pool and if a house burned down, we took from the savings. (The insurance association also had a catastrophic insurance, in case the whole town burned down. That was approx. half the running cost.)
Maybe time to start a mutual insurance company with your neighbours? You can do the book-keeping and the Editor the sweet and alluring sales talk. What could possibly go wrong?
No riches to be made, but good local work.
And it is painful to see the rabbit ravage. The trees will most likely be toast. The upside is that you have now lots of graft wood that you can bring to a happy grafter who can make plenty of new fruit trees.
Or you take this golden opportunity to practice grafting. Root stock is typically cheap (In Netherlands 1 AUD/rootstock, here in Sweden 3 AUD/rootstock).
Cut off one-year-shoots that are “pencil”-thickness and length and put in the fridge some time the coming days. You could probably get hundreds of good scion cuttings. I usually use zip-lock-plastic bags. One bag per tree variety. And I write on the zip-lock-bag the name of the variety with a water-proof pen.
The bags go into the cooler/fridge until rootstock arrives.
Apples and pears can be grafted any time, it almost always works well.
Prunes and citrus are harder and I think the best time is when the rootstocks start to grow in the spring and the first leaf buds out.
If you decide to keep some trees, I would prune them very, very hard, so that there will be only one or two buds growing out this spring. That way, the need for bark transport of water (xylem action) is very low, and it can sometimes be done beneath the eaten part, and the tree can callus over the damage. If you keep many branches, the need for water will be large.
Good luck!
And, I will make soil tests some time in the coming weeks, now that the growing season is almost over. For sure I will post some info, reflections and learnings. Soil is not easy.
Much of the gardening lore spread with colonization from Europe, where we are lucky to have young and un-leached soils. The soils here have only seen 10,000 years of rain. At your place, maybe a hundred times more?
Advice and tips from here would not work so well at your location.
(Also here, the gardening lore has been discarded to a great extent, in favour of mechanical and chemical products. But there are memories of somewhat sustainable practices.)
I realize that the most sustainable practices are the ones that are the least permanent. During the last year, I have looked into more of the indigenous practices of the Sami people – our native tribes in the north. They left no trace. They built no monuments. It is very, very hard to find archeological evidence of their past, but when sites are found, they can be thousands of years old. By using only perishable materials, they could go on living like that forever. (Until we came and destroyed their rivers, built mines, etc. etc. etc. Hmmm..)
Similar story as your old peoples.
Peace,
Göran
Hi Steve,
And that’s the thing isn’t it? One of the core issues with the insurance is that flood coverage was a few years ago mandated by the state goobermints, so everyone pays for the risk via higher premiums. It is worth noting that the goobermint is probably the responsible party who allowed the building of dwellings in flood prone areas in the first place. Hmm. Sure bushfires take out a lot of houses, but flood damage bills are many, many times larger because instead of a couple of thousand houses being destroyed (Black Saturday in 2009 was about 2,000 buildings, and that included barns), tens of thousands of homes get flooded all at once. I’ve heard reliable reports that the bills for flood prone declared areas can be up to five times higher than that bill shocker image. Expensive, but the likelihood of making a claim is very high.
Incidentally, the weird thing about the house here is that it’s designed and constructed to withstand bushfires, but there’s no discount for the insurance that I’m aware of. Candidly, it may get to the point in some future time not all that far into the future where we have to defend this house against a fire because there is no insurance. That’ll be exciting, like in a bad way…
I’ve been following that story about a lack of any insurance options in parts of your country for a while now. Given insurance of an asset and mortgages over said asset are intertwined, I do wonder how that story will play out?
Oh, the bouncy rotters to have done that, but yes, I’ve also learned the hard way that rabbits will seize upon any opportunity.
Hot and dry weather is almost perfect for drying produce like your hazelnuts. Steve, we grew a handful of them last year, and the nuts are beyond superb tasting. I’m really impressed with them, and hope for a bigger crop this year. 🙂 Tomatoes also appreciate such weather, and yes it’s a big job bringing in and preserving the harvest, and Sandra does that work here as well.
Ah, grasshopper, place one foot upon the road to wisdom, and forever shall it guide ye steps, or something like that! 🙂 It ain’t just you, I live in a state of constant surprise with all of the stuff going on around here. Hopefully the potato rows do well here, and once the leaves begin appearing, I’ll heap up soil onto them. But who knows how it will all work out.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Margaret,
Ain’t that the truth? 🙂 Rabbits are such opportunists that if we let our guard down for but a day, they’ll do their worst. Incidentally, the deer are compounding the problems by chewing the bark in the higher reaches of the trees and scratching their developing antlers. However! The other day I noticed that a local farmer had invited in his regular hunting crew. I saw them huddled next to their car and looking miserable and stuff whilst it was snowing. 🙂 Admittedly they were trying to look all tough and stuff and had their rifles ready, but yeah, hard to do so whilst trying to keep out of the filthy weather. Each year those dudes go on a local deer cull. There are no other predators for the deer.
Salve deserves a quiet and enjoyable retirement, but barn cats would be a serious blow to the rabbit new world order. Any plans for replacing that feline crew?
Fingers crossed Marty moves further up the list soon and can then unpack his computer. From all you’ve said over the years, you know, Marty would have his quirks, and they may possibly be unshakable.
Oh yeah, it’s outrageous the whole push to a cashless (or even a check-less) society. There’s plenty of people who would not do well at all with such abstract concepts as a credit card – waddyamean I gots to pay this back? It’s not right, but glad to hear that the office folks were pragmatic in their response. I mean, what difference does it make? You probably already know, but my gut feeling is that folks don’t want checks because they physically have to go to the bank to deposit them. When I first began working as a young adult, they’d send me out to do the banking, and it was great to get outside and have a walk around. And some days were pension days, and oh my, the trip to the bank would be a two hour extravaganza due to the queues. So what? Someone has to do the job, and I enjoyed getting out of the office. 😉
Thanks for taking the time to watch the videos. The bird vs dog poop one is doing quite well on a number of views basis. Might have to do a follow up video! 🙂
Have you had any rain lately?
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
It’s good to see that Professor Mass is onto something I’ve known about for many years. Incidentally, the graphs showing the solar radiation received would be very similar to what is experienced here although shifted six months on. Winter is a disaster zone, is it not? I’ve begun speaking to people about this matter in terms they can understand: Are the plants growing in winter? Alas, that approach doesn’t always work for folks used to consuming fresh strawberries deep into the winter months. What do you mean the plants aren’t growing in winter?
In a not so funny side story, the first year the house relied upon the solar photovoltaic panels for electricity, was a real wake up call. I guess most people believe that the sun is up in the sky, and so the panels should be producing at their full rated output from sun rise to sun set, but err, no. That’s not how it works at all, and the graphs in the essay mirror exactly my lived experience (albeit off by six months). But try telling people that. I now have to monitor the system twice daily just so as to see what is going on with nature but also the system itself and have done that for fourteen years now. There’s a lot to go wrong there, and at a larger scale, well, the technology doesn’t scale all that nicely.
Same temperatures here dude, just sayin! 🙂 I’m really reluctant to hand over the lost hour batten back to you as that will most certainly impact upon my sleep. Do I have a choice here? Hehe! Has the enormous green blob moved any closer to your part of the world? They’re saying in the forecast a little bit of rain will fall here tomorrow, but we’ll see how it goes.
With the sunny warmth today, we spent most of the daylight hours splitting and hauling firewood and I was up before sun rise. We’d run out of that fuel, ook! Some serious words were had this morning between the Editor and I about the situation. As we split the firewood today, the drier lot ended up in the wood shed, and the damper stuff ended up in the big pile drying outside in the sunshine and wind + rain. Anyway, plans have been made. Progress will be achieved on the new firewood shed, maybe soon. But until then, we have to restock the firewood coffers because the cold nights and days aren’t yet over. And there was paid work to do as well, so I finished super late tonight, near on almost 9pm. Me tired, something, something, naughty, past life and stuff. Oh well.
It’s a great film, you’ll love it and there’s massive destruction – and marshmallow. Can it get better?
They were probably all difficult! Although from time to time, the English royalty produce a thoughtful representative who appears to have the knack for smoothing the muddied waters. Is it nature or nurture? But between you and I, I reckon a difficult nature experience and a tenuous day to day grasp on power tend to breed more cautious and thoughtful regents.
Epsom salts probably work because many plants need both magnesium and sulphur. Tomatoes love a bit of lime too. I’m of the opinion that required plant minerals for species is really an observational based guideline.
Yeah, I’ve heard of those businesses which force employees to recite scripts. A famous one is: Would you like fries with that? Indeed I might, and thanks for asking! 🙂 Me neither, although with vote counting, there was an approved script you had to ask everyone, but that was more of a legal thing. The false greetings do sound that way. A basic test for such words is: Are they your mates?
Interesting about making eye contact with the furtive and thiefy customers so as to thwart their ambitions.
Would 42 blueberries fill the bottom of the peskies? 🙂 That incidentally is the magic number. Oh, you’ve pointed out a major flaw with the thesis. Not to get technical, but alpine strawberries are of a similar size to the more plump blueberries, so maybe? But would it confuse consumers? Maybe. And they’ve probably never seen an alpine strawberry, so that would definitely add to the confusion.
Man, the cornbread bean salad combo sounds awesome to me. We’ll sometimes bake a flat-ish focaccia loaf as an addition to meals, and it’s pretty tasty. Yum! Not all that different. Had home made pizza for dinner this evening. It might be a regional thing, but why ever would they be appalled?
Ah, the perquisites of lots of mad cash. Not for the likes of you and I, unless we come up with some get rich quick scheme, which doesn’t end up like that art dude did.
Hehe! The maintenance bloke would have his work cut out for him there. In the big smoke when the council would do that sort of hard rubbish pick up, it was mayhem and people would get annoyed that other more industrious and canny folks were going through the wast to seek not so hidden gems. I never quite understood what all the fuss was about, but rarely had much in the way of rubbish to begin with.
Wise to wait. Imagine if you’d cleaned the library up, set everything to rights, and you were shunted out again.
The chair sounds like a good score. Had to buy a replacement moisture meter (for use on the firewood – this being an important test). The original tester we picked up years ago uses super expensive button batteries. Talk about waste. The replacement machine uses rechargeable 9V batteries. I’ve gone on the record to say that western civilisation will fail due to a lack of preserving jars and bottles, and that sort of battery wastage is um, kind of why.
Go the zucchini! I told you you’d be fine. Those plants are feral, as are the pumpkins. Don’t turn your back on them – always unwise to do so.
Cheers and going to bed. Me sleepy…
Chris
Hi Goran and DJ,
Sorry dudes, but the most awful mid-week hiatus has struck. Basically we spent the sunny hours today (and I got up before dawn too, a bit of a story there) splitting and hauling firewood. We’d run out of the fuel, and there’s plenty of cold weather to go prior to the summer solstice.
After the firewood, we then had to do many hours of paid work, and err, finished late. Me tired. Thanks for the lovely comments and we’ll speak tomorrow.
Cheers
Chris
Hi, Chris!
We don’t pay as much for home insurance as you do, but, then, that would be comparing apples to oranges. It’s enough, considering that we have paid into it for 32 years without making a claim. We are not in an area that typically has wildfires (though we had one once) so maybe that saves money. I hear some insurers have completely left California becuase of having to pay up after so many fires. Still, I have known a good few people who have had house fires for other reasons, so it is always a danger. Now, if you want to talk health insurance . . .
So, they were pushing a premium rate on you, hoping that you would be too harried to complain.
Chris, Chris, Chris – are bunnies smarter than you? And are they smarter than three dogs? Argh – beware the Killer Bunny! Ah, I see that Dame Plum has taken care of it. Good girl, Plummy.
The six new garden rows look very nice – and neat, of, course. I am eating Borscht right now from our own beets. You still have quite a lot growing in the greenhouse.
Not having any asparagus plants anymore, when I saw a volunteer one in the garden a couple of days ago growing from the ones that had been here before, I potted it up. It would have grown from a seed as they were nowhere near that spot.
I loved the snow video, and am so happy you are doing virtual tours of your place. I had always wanted to see that. It is a most charming house. I didn’t realize just how much work the two of you had put into it.
Thanks for the flowers! The Snow Pear IS a stunner!
Pam
Yo, Chris – Re: Solar. “…but try telling people that.” All those armchair solar theorists and people contemplating solar, all want a (easy) silver bullet. Haven’t they noticed the price of silver is on the up? 🙂 Although I must admit, back in the 1970s, when there was that back to the land moment, and I read things like Mother Earth News, that I was shocked! (shocked! I tell you), that solar couldn’t be used to run heaters. 🙂 Well, I was young and dumb. Comes with the territory. They don’t tell you that ram pumps to move water, are noisy. Seemed like they always left out important little details, when it came to alternative energy nirvana.
Forecast for today is 70F (21.11C). Our overnight low was 55F. The high yesterday was 64F. That big green blob on the radar, didn’t drop a drop, at least here. The forecast for the next four days is for sunny, or scattered clouds. Maybe, some rain on Sunday, four days away. I might have to water, again.
If it were up to me, you could keep your d—-d hour. Our change over comes the end of October. As per usual, there will be lots of moaning about dropping the whole mess. Which will last through one news cycle, about 24 hours.
Yup. Priorities. With firewood being at the top of the list. I’ve noticed, even in my apartment, it’s getting a little nippy, in the morning. But, it’s just a matter of acclimating, to lower temperatures. Break out those sandals and board shorts! 🙂 Or, maybe an extra blanket and jumper.
Oh, I remember bits and pieces of the original “Ghostbusters.” Such as the doughboy. It will have to wait, for awhile. My library hold list is pretty tight, right now. I recently watched “Belgravia.” The Editor might like it, as, it’s brought to us by the same fine folks who did “Downton Abbey”. There’s to be a part 2, which is already on my hold list. Part 1 had more twists of plot, than a Dickens novel. 🙂
My Idaho friends have no sense of adventure, when it comes to food. His comment was, that the only thing that should go on corn bread, was peanut butter and jelly. Although I must admit, occasionally, I run across something that just doesn’t sound very good. Saw a recipe on the Net, the other day. For a s’Mores casserole. I didn’t read it, as, frankly, I couldn’t get past the picture. Which looked like the dog’s breakfast. On replay. 🙂
Speaking of dogs, H got a bath, yesterday. As she’s going to the groomers, tomorrow morning. The laundry room was quiet, last night, so I did a round of towels and doggies blankets.
Read some more of the art book, last night. It becomes more and more apparent, that the author, who was “friend” to the art industry criminal, is / was a very needy soul. He catered to the criminals whims, and was occasionally asked to do things that skated on the edge of unlawful. He’s just lucky he didn’t get caught in the collapse of the financial house of cards.
LOL. I had a hard time resisting the junk pick up. I saw a nice piece of Pyrex and a mid-century modern magazine rack. But I had blueberries to pick. 🙂 In more Institution news, we have a fire sprinkler inspection, today. No big deal. Other than that I have to keep my pants on, until it’s done. I hope, early. Usually, a dude shows up, and is in the apartment for less than a minute. Sometimes Little Mary Sunshine tags along, but generally, stays in the hall. Her pre-HUD inspection, will be next week. Any time over a four day period.
In further news, although we still don’t have assigned parking spaces, we are getting tags, to put on our vehicles. So they know, at a glance, who belongs in the lot and who doesn’t. There was paperwork. I had to provide copies of my registration, and insurance card. Turns out, the Bozos who hit our night managers car, well, neither of them had auto insurance.
I did put a bit of lime, on my tomatoes. And, a sprinkling of bone meal. Crushed eggshells went in the planting hole. It’s my green zucchini, that’s beginning to produce. The yellow zucchini has flowers, but still no sign of fruit. Does my garden need magnesium? It would take a soil test, to figure that out. And we all know how expensive those are. But, come spring I may have to bite the bullet. I’d really like to know what’s going on at a nutrient and mineral level, in my patch.
When I need a break from the art book, I’ve been reading “The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore.” (Friss, 2024.) It’s pretty interesting. In the 1700s, most book sellers had other sidelines. Ben Franklin sold his mother-in-laws homemade itch remedy. 🙂 Along with a lot of other things. In the 1800s, you began to see publisher / booksellers. And toward the end of that century, booksellers on wheels, in horse drawn wagons. A literary life on the open road! 🙂 Lew
Hi DJ,
Of course due to my day job, I kind of track these things over the many years, and for your interest based on past increments and a decent usage of linear regression analysis, I was expecting a 32% increase. And even then at that rate, the compounding increase quickly devolves into absurdly lows of total unaffordability. To have doubled that increase just blew my mind, and genuinely hints at serious underlying issues. Or it’s a complete ambit claim? Labour and material costs for construction down under are eye watering. You may note that I do many activities on the (as the old timers used to say) smell of an oily rag.
Thanks! I don’t envy you your very well drained sandy soils, mostly because if those conditions were here, I’d rapidly run out of stored water during the growing season and all of the plants would die. On the other hand, sand is in rather short supply right across the planet (hard to imagine, but true) and so perhaps our fortunes may have been made? 🙂 Sadly for us, transport costs might destroy the nice arrangement, and so drats, foiled again. Oh well, onto the next big scheme.
What kind of person says: ‘Ni!’ to their friends? 🙂 Do your worst! I now raise you an: ‘Ecky-ecky-ecky- ecky-pikang-zoom-boing-mumble-mumble’. Take that, and there’ll be no shrubbery.
Man, some people are gifted teachers, and you were very lucky to have been within the orbit of such a person. If I may, it’s been remarked upon elsewhere that some folks are put on this planet in order to raise our own expectations. And glad to hear that no canes were necessary, it’s usually the poor teacher who requires such tools.
From memory, you use a hand saw to delimb the crab apple tree? To Dame Avalanche, that may be her favourite chew toy! And the husky assistance would be very much welcome, but perhaps not the horror of the ‘Ni’. Knowing my lore, I could use the word ‘It’ you know. 😉 Thanks for the laughs.
The weather here is kind of variable, but it’s good to see the snow. In earlier years the white stuff has settled on the ground and it looks amazing, but I would prefer the stone fruit crop. Interestingly, the blossoms appear to have died, but where the fruit had begun developing it may have survived.
🙂 I forgot to mention that the snow pear didn’t go fully deciduous this year, and I can’t recall that ever happening before.
Oh yeah, victims is the right word. 🙂 How do you reckon they’ll cope in front of the camera? Man, it took me a while to loosen up and relax with a camera pointed at my head, so hopefully they do better. Anyway, that’s the kind of pressure you get in the big jobs (note to DJ, hold off volunteering for club positions). Are you being dragged into this? It kind of sounds like that’s what’s happening.
And there’s always time for elevenses! 🙂 Well done, the troops cannot fight on empty stomachs.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Göran,
Thanks for the view from your part of the world. And dude, that combination of policies is remarkably cheap. I can’t avoid the comparison, but even a single vehicle policy for either of the two small cars we use will cost more than that. Around AU$1,200 for your info.
Yours is an enviable estate, and I would seriously hang onto and care for that arrangement. Wow! What could possibly go wrong down under with that arrangement, you ask? Running out of mad cash within the fund if the premiums were the same amount as what you’re paying, that’s what. 🙂 The annual contributions at that rate, from the 600 houses – assuming no costs – might not be enough to even cover the costs of replacing a single house, let alone the situation of the fund facing two major claims. Dude, down under people drive around in dual cab four wheel drive utility vehicles and think nothing of the fact they cost around $60k to $70k to replace. And those vehicles are quite expensive to own and maintain because they’re heavy. That’d be the sort of risk your fund would be running down under and houses are so expensive that the situation is nuts. Check out the median prices if you don’t believe me. A lot of the economic arrangements stopped making sense to me a very long time ago. Things may be different in your part of the world? Living costs are very expensive down under. We look on at what people pay for things in other parts of the world with a sense of amazement.
An excellent suggestion. Looks like a plant nursery in the state to the north grows citrus (and other fruit trees) rootstock and can mail them down. I’ve visited the nursery long ago (you’d love it). Here’s a link: Daleys Fruit – rootstock. The nursery is amazing and was a real treat to visit. Ha! You will soon discover that prices in your part of the world are very low. 🙂 Hmm. Thanks for the information as to the process.
Yes, that’s my impression too, and soil is not easy. Plus I really look forward to reading the results and also hearing what you have to say about them.
Leaching of minerals from rain is always something of a problem, and drier areas tend to have a better diversity of soil mineralisation and fertility – but no rain for the plants to utilise (a bit of a problem that). You piqued my curiosity, and other than a few glaciers at high elevation (few mountains in Australia exceed 2,000m in height above sea level) there hasn’t been a lot of ice sheets for apparently two hundred and a bit million years. Yikes!
It is a similar story, and I’ve read accounts that the indigenous folks early on thought that it was very strange for the Europeans to want to stay in one permanent location, rather than wanting to use a wider ranging area. Mind you, territories were well defined and intransigence was dealt to. There is a lot of very subtle critique of western culture in that observation, yup.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Pam,
🙂 In a remarkably similar number of years of paying for such policies (30 years), I’ve never made a claim either! Maybe I should… I’ll tell you a not so funny story. Years and years ago a friend of mine lived up the road (when we were in the big smoke). Anyway, he appeared disinterested in maintaining his house, and then one day a big storm hit. The storm from memory was a super cell and four inches of rain fell in an hour. A crazy storm, and that night, mostly because in those days I rarely took any interest in the weather forecasts, the kitchen cupboards were all outside in the backyard – in the rain. We were fixing up the kitchen. Oh well, and I didn’t make a claim, just made good out of my own pocket. My friend was of a different disposition because the guttering for his place was full of leaves and the water over flowed and damaged the inside of the house. Now he did make a claim, and fair enough it’s an economic decision, but that’s perhaps why insurance premiums cost a lot nowadays. Hmm.
I’ve heard that story too about a lack of insurance options in that state. Whoa! Makes you wonder how folks get mortgages for such properties? Beats me, maybe it’s one of those: don’t ask, and don’t tell situations? And maybe the lenders may not care as they’ve already sold off the debt to bond purchasers? Dunno, it’s another one of those mysteries.
In Australia, pretty much anywhere outside the inner urban areas, you can have a bushfire. It’s a risk due to the vegetation, everywhere.
And I agree, we have housing costs and you have health costs, but the results are more or less the same outcome, due to the same economic predicament.
There’s a bit of that, but also we accepted much higher excesses – which presumably reflects an obligation not to annoy them unless it is a very serious claim. Also we reduced the value of the house and contents insured. It’s not a simple situation at all, and so we chose the least worst options.
The killer rabbits might be smarter than the three dogs and two humans combination. Always possible! 🙂 Dame Plum is the hardest working dog we’ve got here. Her focus is spot on, the other two are bit off with the fairies, yeah. But you’d know that dogs can be a mixed bag with their skills and personalities, and that they can change over the years.
Yes, neat is good. Neat will save us, or maybe something else will, not sure really. 😉 Yum! Pam, that’s a really nice tasting soup. Mostly the beetroots (and my favourite variety is ‘Globe’) are roasted up in the oven, then diced and added to salads. The flavour is so good.
The greenhouse is a real game changer. I reckon it adds about another two months to the growing season (one at each end) and also moderates the winter cold. We had a discussion about plant spacing today, and yeah, old habits die hard. Admittedly it is not easy to hold back on filling up garden beds, but still, my gut feeling suggests we’ll get more tomatoes from a lesser number of better cared for plants. I could be wrong, but the experiment is worth trialling? How do you go on that front? It is always tempting to chuck in another plant… 🙂
Go the seedling Asparagus! And just as a casual observation, it would be very well adapted to your local conditions and soils. Saving it is a great idea.
🙂 Thanks so much for saying that, and they’re fun to make. The next one will be on the kitchen garden, which is all the raised round steel garden beds where a lot of the fresh greens are grown. And oh yeah, in the past eighteen years we may have had a couple of days off, but each week something gets done. Worked on the new rock wall today where the long line of water tanks are.
The snow pear is a beautiful tree, and bizarrely it didn’t go fully deciduous this winter. Never seen that happen before.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
🙂 Ah, such arm chair theorists are sent to try us, yup. The one which boggles my mind and forces a laugh about is the electrify everything brigade, because they don’t really think through the consequences of trying to recharge 50kWh of vehicle batteries – every day of the year. Even half of that amount would be an impressive feat! For the record, I’ve only ever encountered two households which charge an electric vehicle from an off grid solar power system. Being really generous, say they get two hours of winter sunlight (a big call in my book), that means the household would need 25kWh of panels – assuming no losses and that the system didn’t eat any power, which it would. That’s like 125 x 200W solar panels (again assuming no losses) and few roofs could support that many panels. People are crazy about this stuff.
And yup, heating is a no go. It’s true. We’ve all been young and dumb, and I believed crazy things about this technology too. It’s hippy technology, and works really well at a hippy standard of living. We’ve been used to this system for going on fourteen years now, and even our meagre requirements, are too much on some days of the year – every year. It will never do better than that, unless our expectations lower further.
Yeah, ram pumps work really well, but yes, they are noisy, not to mention rely on a continual certain volume of water, unless they’re pumping uphill to water tanks. Someone much smarter than I may have mentioned that there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch! It’s true too.
PS: I used to pour over the local equivalent of that magazine: Earth Garden magazine, and eventually became a semi regular contributor (as did another commenter here who had a rough period in her life and has been in hiding for so long now). Alas, the publication apparently went the way of the dinosaurs after almost fifty years of continuous editions. I have a vague notion that the magazine could re-emerge from the ashes if it went back to the really cheap and practical roots of it’s origins. People would buy that. The first copy I ever saw of Mother Earth news was quite exciting, I flipped the front cover and was confronted by an advertisement for a very large and expensive looking tractor. That was the moment I knew the publication was not for the likes of I. I’m sure that it’s roots were more humble? Maybe?
You might have to water again with that sort of forecast. Still, the zucchini’s will love it. Make sure you watch your back when passing by that plant, and if you should suddenly and mysteriously disappear, we’ll know which plant ‘gone and done it’. 😉 Trying to evoke a cockney accent there. Did it work? Those small towns do seem to have a lot of trouble keeping the residents err, out of the morgue.
Lewis, we’re both pre-emptively moaning about the impending change over. We’re both finely tuned machines I’ll have you know! I hear you though, man. Jet lag for a week. Not excited, and it’s dark at that currently after dawn waking hour. Waking up in the dark is for vampires and other forms of the undead.
For your interest, very early on, the first issue dealt to after the house was officially declared liveable, was getting the water situation sorted out. But firewood is right up there too. Hehe! Good to hear that you’re acclimating to the colder night temperatures and please don’t upset the ladies at the institution – you’ll never hear the end of it.
I’ll mention the series to the Editor.
Oh! I didn’t know that about cornbread as the only time I had it was as an accompaniment to a clam chowder – and they were both good. The chef hailed from your country, and the restaurant specialised in that particular meal, but made other meals as well. Have to laugh, a long time ago some friends were throwing a bucks night, and it was around the corner from the restaurant. Waking up the next morning (I slept out the backyard in a tent), and noticing the house was quiet – a lot of imbibing, I headed out to enjoy a leisurely breakfast – and coffee at the restaurant. Had a book with me and it was all very civilised. Walked back, and in the meantime everyone else had packed up, cleaned up and gone home. It was surreal. A temporal anomaly perhaps? But yeah, savoury has been my experience. What’s your view on that subject?
Ah, yes, the pre-clean, cleaning. Wise. No doubts the groomers talk amongst themselves and comments are made.
Yeah, one of those two dudes was luckier than the other, but didn’t one of them jump ship early with that unfolding art mess?
Stay strong Lewis! 😉 And hey, people actually go through all of the hard rubbish before it’s collected. That’s proper recycling that is. And always wise to be clothed at such moments – refer to comment above. If caught, you’ll regret it, you know! 🙂 Hehe! Remember that time when…
Ah, so the car park dramas have gotten to that point? Out of curiosity, is it a requirement to have insurance for motor vehicles in your part of the world. I read some alarming statistic that something crazy like a quarter of the cars on the road down here are uninsured. I’ll bet plenty of those have finance on them, yup. The finance sticks to both the car and borrower. Does your night manager make a claim through his insurance, like how does that work in your area? That’s what would happen here, and the nice insurance company would then go after the two (not one?) miscreants for recovery of costs.
Ah, of course. The green zucchini outperform the yellow variety from my experience, but you have a wider variety of plants available than we do. Oooo, that would be very interesting indeed. At least it’s a cheap-er process in your part of the world.
Aren’t mother-in-laws something of a long running fictional trope? Possibly such narrative craziness and meddlesome behaviour (knew we’d work the word in somewhere!) would make a person itchy? Is the problem the cure, or the cure the problem? Let’s not find out…
Worked on the rock wall today for all those long line of water tanks. Brought up quite a number of large rocks, then placed them into position. Me tired. It’s looking good though, and needed doing in the first place.
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – Yes, Mother Earth News went all rural yuppie. Or, gentleman farmer? There are / were (I don’t know if they’re still being published,) two magazines that are more like the old MENews. One has useful articles, but the editorial slant is very right wing. Lots of articles on guns, and such. The other, is more like the old MENews. Useful articles. More self sufficiency, than apocalyptic prepper.
The high yesterday was 70F (21.11C). Overnight low was 55F. forecast for today is 68F. Other than a spot of rain on Sunday night, it looks like clear sailing, for the next week. And, yes, I started watering again, last night. Prof. Mass has an interesting post, about a weather phenomenon, and the possibility of aliens. 🙂 The library has taken my suggestion, and has ordered “Resident Alien” season three. I think they just overlooked it. A very funny program, with a bit of darkness, around the edges.
Did you ever see anyone again, from the buck party? Alien abduction! You dodged the bullet, there.
View on what subject?
Read some more of the art book, last night. Ah! The phrase I was looking for was co-dependent relationship. I’ve not gotten to the part where the author jumps ship, yet. But he’s pretty disenchanted with the contemporary art market. A lot of it seems to be people trading vast sums, in the “idea” of art. Art changes hands, in a way, and never leaves a duty free warehouse, in Switzerland. Just might be shuttled from one end of the warehouse, to another.
I will miss the swap table. There was the occasional useful item. But people loaded it up with so much junk!
Yes, auto insurance is mandatory in this state. The night managers damage is being covered by his insurance company. Will they sue the two who hit him, and try and recover costs? Unknown. And, as they now have hit and run charges, AND driving without insurance, if they do go and try and get auto insurance, it’s going to be pricey. I wouldn’t be surprised if at least one of them, does a midnight runner. I heard a rumor that someone did that, about a year ago. But I heard no details.
I don’t know how much soil tests are, here, but the Master Gardeners moan about how expensive they are. But, from them, I’ll find out who offers the best deal.
A reprieve from the Governor!!! Everyone got a memo, from Little Mary Sunshine, yesterday, that next weeks’ pre-inspection has been postponed, until she has a solid date on the HUD inspection. There were some projects I was going to postpone or cancel. Now I can do them. I loaded up the dehydrator, with tomatoes, this morning. Her inspection was over a possible four day period. During which, I wouldn’t be able to use the dryer. At least, not as I do now. I put it on the stove, underneath the vent fan. It is verboten to have anything on our stove tops, unless you’re cooking something.
H went to the groomer, this morning. Waiting on the call to go pick her up. The fire sprinkler man showed up, fairly early, yesterday. So, I got my nap in 🙂 . He was in and out of the apartment in a few minutes. We did talk dogs, for a bit, as he has one. H got pets. Lew
Chris:
It’s greed as much as it is people making claims. It’s not nice of me to say that without being able to show proof, but the anecdotes are thick on the ground.
I guess the bond purchasers don’t scrutinize too closely what’s in the bonds they buy? Surely someone else will cover the loss if things go wrong.
But what wonderful dogs they all are!
I always plant everything too closely; it is a big failing of mine. Will I never learn . . . ?
Just when you think that you understand a snow pear – poof! – it changes its mind.
As to what you asked Lew: In the state of Virginia it is mandatory to have car insurance or your vehicle cannot be registered with the state, which will get you a fine and perhaps worse.
“It will never do better than that, unless our expectations lower further.” I like that!
Pam
Chris,
I agree with Pam. It’s mostly greed, I’d guess 80% greed. There’s a lot of that going around. I read something today that is interesting. It’s hard to say that there is inflation when corporate profits are setting records. Or maybe…the inflation is caused by corporate greed allowing record profits?
Ah yes, sand in short supply. I’ve heard that before. I’m of the opinion that there is plenty of sand, but most of it is so far from where it is wanted/needed that transportation costs would be prohibitive. Really hard to transport sand to Spokane from, say, Arizona.
Not, no, not the ecky-ecky-ecky etc!!! And no shrubbery? Pah! I’ll add a shrubbery to my pyrography project. There’s always a way to obtain a shrubbery.
Yes, Sister D was an amazing teacher. She never had to demand anything, the students simply wanted to do well for her. One of a kind gift is what she had. We had to do arithmetic problems in our heads with desks clear. She would spout off a list of numbers separated by mathematical operators. We were expected to listen, keep up and do the arithmetic in our heads. First student to raise their hand AND have the correct answer got a piece of candy thrown to them. That was for the 7th year students. The 8th graders couldn’t participate. However, the daily contest with the 8th graders was free for my level to try also. Sister would recite some complicated real-life “story problem”. Again, solutions had to be done in one’s head. That was a daily occurrence for the first 15 minutes of maths class. I’m glad I learned how to do that stuff then. I’ve used that ability that Sister caused to sprout, I’ve enhanced it, and I’ve used it ever since.
I even used it early in my career with the County at a huge open house event. My group had one handheld calculator. The boss (the GOOD boss) used it. I calculated things for small groups in my head. After a half an hour, a voice behind me said, “Amazing! I’ve been behind you checking your calculations with my calculator for the past 25 minutes. You advertised maybe a 5% error, but you were never off at all.” It wasn’t my boss. It was the Assistant County Engineer. I figure that helped me get from a temporary to a permanent position. AND the Assistant County Engineer would funnel all of his odd projects and weird research things and problems nobody else could do – to me. I learned a lot that way and my immediate boss was happy too.
Oh, I said that I’d give an update on the dryland grasses. Both the dryland grasses and the bluegrass perked up after the cooler weather hit and watering the lawns didn’t simply evaporate.
However, the dryland grasses have responded much better than the bluegrass and looks extremely healthy. Again, where it had struggled appears to be a soil issue which will be remedied. There are a LOT of areas that need to be rehabilitated with more dryland grass seed, good dirt and maybe some wildflowers and clover added.
Yes a hand saw. But the limbs were nowhere near ground level. I used the pole saw. It worked fabulously! Friday I plan to use the pole saw on the hawthorn trees in the front of the house. A lot of dead limbs there, too. The Princess was very excited with how well it worked on the crabapple. She doesn’t like me climbing on the ladder.
I don’t like climbing on the ladder to do pruning. So we’re both happy with the pole saw.
Some of the limbs were confiscated by the husky, yes. She still has them and gnaws furiously on them when she thinks I’m not looking. 😉 Better than “Ni!”, better than “It!” Glad you enjoyed the laughs.
Hope your stone fruits survived. Those late winter, early spring snows and frosts can sure wreak havoc on stone fruit crops, can’t they?
Yes, sorta being dragged into the tv program thing. The carving club arranges the entire show, giving the woodturners the opportunity to have their own display area and do demonstrations. It was the turners who contacted the tv, then wanted us to join since the carvers are the frontrunners of the “Artistry in Wood” show. However, I also view it as an opportunity for free advertising the first morning of the show. I dunno how the woodturner president will do on tv. I’ve been on the telly before. Just need to put on my “acting” cap and be upbeat and cheerful and animated. We should have a better idea of questions and format sometime Monday.
So at our little meeting, it was the woodturning president and their club secretary and me. We all ate, as the food there is wonderful. The meeting was fine and it is obvious that we will be able to work together on camera. I had that pub’s version of an Irish breakfast with coffee. It was very tasty.
We are supposed to drop to +4C Friday night/Saturday morning. Then we should hit +30C on Tuesday and +31C on Wednesday. Those are higher than the “average” high temperature for any day in August! I figure it is best to enjoy the warm and sunny days while we have them. Winter will be upon us soon enough, I suppose. “They” say that winter is supposed to be colder and wetter than whatever passes for normal.
I just heard a noise outside the window. Dame Avalanche carried a small log and dropped it near the back door. Must be a gift from her to me. A small log.
DJSpo
Hi Pam,
It is a complicated story isn’t it, so I appreciate your reticence. Dunno, but I have this vague notion of not putting in a claim on the basis that you’ll eventually be penalised on the following premium. It’s been my observation that claims histories stick to both the person and property. But you’re right, in many ways, claiming for minor things, and / or outsourcing one’s neglected maintenance is a kind of abuse of the commons. In many ways that industry brought this mess on themselves by allowing incidental and minor claims.
Years ago I worked in a job that had access to one of the state wide shared insurance databases, and oh my, the things they recorded about claims histories at properties, commercial and otherwise.
🙂 Good shot! Yes, I also suspect the bond purchasers have little interest in the details as to their purchases. Pam, I can almost hear them now as I make the observation: ‘are you really sure you comprehend the risks here?’, to which the reply would inevitably be: “Bore someone else with the details.” I was told exactly that many years ago when I was a young bloke, by a boss who used to invest the businesses surplus mad cash. One of the less pleasant people I’ve worked for over the years, but then that’s a common experience don’t you reckon in that you can get good, bad and indifferent bosses?
I’ve heard that described as a moral hazard, when someone else picks up the tab for poor decision making. 🙂 Consequences, what are these things again!!!
Thanks, and the dogs are lovely. Ruby ran around the property for about five continuous hours yesterday – then headed back inside the house and fell promptly asleep. There was a moment when I wasn’t entirely certain that she’d wake up for dinner, and a dog never misses their dinner, unless they’re not feeling the best. But no, at the last moment, she roused herself. Ate dinner, then decamped to the a position near to the wood heater.
Pam, it’s not just you who does this. It’s taking an extraordinary amount of willpower to increase the spacing between plants, and even then, they’re still too close.
Who is to know the mind of a snow pear? Surely the elves and fairies of pre-history would know the answer, but us lesser mortals in these enlightened times can only but guess.
Yikes! For your interest, personal accident insurance is included with the annual vehicle registration costs – which incidentally are up around $900 a year. That covers injuries and everyone driving pays that, unless they’re on the road and unregistered. The vehicle repairs however is an additional insurance charge, about $1,200 annually for the dirt rat and mouse – each. That last one is not mandatory, but presents a lot of drama and hardship for the uninsured if not paid. Apparently a quarter of the vehicles on the road fall into that category. Exciting, like in a bad way, huh?
Yeah! If we didn’t have to run a business from here all year around, we could probably reduce the electricity demands in the winter months, and just scrape through, maybe.
Has it cooled any at your place?
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
Big biz likes inflation. Makes life easy for them. Maths here is the key. Say inflation is 4% consistently and a record profit is $1,000. Assuming the exact same trading conditions, the following year would then be a new record profit of $1,040 and so on and so forth. It’s not that they’re making record profits, as much as the dollar is just worth less over time. Such news should be ringing alarm bells, but no it gets celebrated. Hmm. In a steady state economy with the mad cash supply rising at the same rate as the underlying real wealth, any new record profit, is someone else’s cost, but when mad cash is printed beyond common sense, then all bets are off on that front.
A relevant quote is this doozy, because the economist dude is exactly correct in his assertion: Milton Friedman famously said: “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon, in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output.” Our goobermints are hungry ghosts living way beyond their means, and they’ll take us all down sooner or later. However, I use the term ghosts, because we get the goobermint that we demand. Who’d ever get elected by promising to reign things in? Look what happened to President Carter. An opposition years ago went into an election promising to curb the excesses in relation to some the housing investment disasters, and they got trounced. Sends a strong message, both of those outcomes.
Hehe! Yup, sand is very expensive to transport to where it is needed. Can you imagine the dramas the ancient Roman’s would have faced with transporting sand and lime long distances for use in their concrete? I call the stuff liquid rock, and it’s not far off the reality. I’m still amazed I can just wander down to the shops and purchase bags of blood and bone meal. Honestly, the summers in Arizona would defeat me.
There’ll be no shrubbery! 🙂
Man, that’s awesome training and you enjoyed a gifted teacher there. Respect for taking on the open house challenge, and succeeding. Those mental tools would need to be kept sharp, but between you and I, it’s always wise to have a rough idea (obviously I’d be more rough than your more accurate mental arithmetic) of an answer prior to running the calculations through a calculating machine. How else does one know whether the thing is correct, or otherwise?
Just read a short story based on this very situation. It was: Sail 25. The cadets leader was a crusty old hand, who forced the group of cadets to think for themselves in a life or death situation. The story itself is now over 60 years old.
Good to hear that the dryland grasses recovered faster than the exotic species. Knowing what to feed the dryland grasses is perhaps not so easy, but I’d try and replicate the mineral profile in the soils where they are naturally found. I grow bluegrass and ryegrass here, and what I’ve observed is that they enjoy super fertile moist soil when the sun’s rays are the hardest. Not always possible, especially the moisture bit. Hardly appropriate for the area, but that’s what’s available as seed. Oh well.
For your info, clover and grasses punch it out for supremacy. When soil nitrogen is low, the clover takes over because it captures nitrogen from the atmosphere and so has an advantage. After a while though, the grasses feast upon that stored nitrogen, then it declines over time and the clover bounces back again. The other week where the wood chips ended up was rapidly depleted of soil fertility, so now the clovers have sprung back. It’s all a lovely cycle. Incidentally, chucking on too much nitrogen too quickly burns up soil carbon and organic matter, yup.
Pole saws are very clever machines, manual or otherwise. Your lady is wise to be alert to the dangers of ladders and tree work. Best if such work was done by us humans at ground level, yeah. Of course one has to make sure that falling branches don’t bop us in the head, so a helmet is not a bad idea either. And maybe gloves and safety glasses as well. 🙂 So many things to remember!!! But yes, for the record, in the past I have dropped a branch on my head.
So far the blossoms are struggling, but where fruit had already set, seems OK. Time will tell. A torrential downpour hit here tonight. Far out.
Well done you, and if you end up on the telly, please do let us know. 🙂 It’s good free advertising for your club. Honestly, I’d not heard of an Irish breakfast before. It’s awesome looking, although I’m a bit dodge on cooked tomatoes. It’s a thing over in the UK, but I’ve heard them colloquially described as ‘blood clots’ and the taste is unappealing to me. Hopefully you probably, maybe, dodged that aspect and enjoyed sausages, beans and eggs? Man, I’m strictly a muesli, fresh fruit and yoghurt breakfast kinda dude, but could make exceptions for such tasty treats as what you enjoyed. 🙂
Well, DJ, all I can say is that the night time lows are similar, but those day time maximums are something else. Although, I’ve had seriously hot and dry years where a 30’C day feels cool.
Go Dame Avalanche. That’s a present for you two. She’s bringing in the firewood! 🙂 Ah, the replacement moisture meter arrived in the mail today, and gee it tells an interesting story with the firewood. Hmm. Might do a video on that over the next few weeks as part of the tour series.
I’d made the decision to replace an old junction box with the solar power system today. And everything which could go wrong, went wrong. A lot of that work is problem solving and anyway, I’ll have to head down to a nearby town to pick up a replacement metal junction box over the next few days. And 16 solar panels are now out of action… Murphy’s Law, huh? 🙂 On a bright note, the junction box really did need replacing. The terminal studs were showing signs of the steel worm – not good, and should not be. Oh well, nobody said this stuff would be easy.
Man, the winds have picked up again outside, and I got rained on this afternoon with the solar electrical work nowhere near finished.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Gentleman farmer is more likely than yuppie. I mean, have you ever heard of yuppies mucking out a chicken hen house and getting chook poop on themselves? Which would come first, the washing of the hands, or the total super massive freak out? Hard to say, really! I wouldn’t bet mad cash either way.
It’s odd how those ‘back to the land’ magazines morphed and changed over the years. Their roots would have been from those days. I could see how one may pursue the prepper market in your country, but down here, it’s rare to come across people using their land productively on a small holding, let alone preppers. That lot are like a unicorn in that it’s sometimes spoken of in hushed tones, but never seen in the wild. Maybe the difference down here is that land and rural housing is so mind bendingly expensive nowadays that young folks can’t get themselves a break? If I were in that situation, I’d head much further out than here and try and get some local work to pay down the debt as soon as possible. It’s an unappealing option, but doable. I reckon the sweet spot nowadays would be fixing up a very run down farm house on a few acres, but that’s just my perspective on the world.
The main problem with the gun strategy is that other people also have guns, and you can’t be vigilant 24 hours a day. It’s far better and easier to ensure that the other people realise that you’ve got valuable skills, and are better kept alive than made dead, and that situation would shift things in your favour. Of course, sheer bad luck always plays a part in such a story, regardless of skills.
Ooo, your weather is so close to ours, although I’m not entirely certain that you would have appreciated the torrential downpour this afternoon. As you’d imagine, I was outside at the time and got rather wet packing up tools and equipment. Oh well.
I’d decided to replace an old junction box in the solar power system today, and everything which could go wrong, went wrong. Such an experience hones your skills, and realistically I have no choice other than getting the replacement box in and working as soon as possible. It actually worked out well though, because not finishing the job this afternoon gave me time to consider alternative plans, and yeah, I’ll get onto that tomorrow.
The Editor on the other hand took two large and no longer working lead acid batteries down to the scrap metal recycler where we got some mad cash for them. They were 110 pounds each, so quite heavy. One thing I can be assured of, is that majority of the materials in those lead acid batteries will get recycled. I’ve heard figures that 97% of the materials are recovered. They’re simple and high grade ore. On the other hand, it’s of interest to me that nobody has yet to figure out what to do with all of the lithium batteries building up in the landscape. Hmm.
Hehe! Glad to hear that the radar was of terrestrial avian origins, and not some sort of alien invasion. If they can travel between star systems, they can probably easily kill us all. Resident Alien sounds like a fun show, hope season 3 is just as good as the first two. Ah, looks like Grand Designs UK will have a season 25. An impressive achievement!
Ooo, I’d wondered where everyone from that bucks party had gone, yeah, you’re probably right and the explanation fits the circumstances. Obvious from hindsight really, aliens were to blame. Actually those were the dudes I used to hang out with way back prior to 2008. They got into the online games, and that was that. Couldn’t go there myself, a bit like you with that glassware the other day if you know what I mean. I’m staying strong man… Ook!
View on subject? Well is cornbread used for savoury purposes, dessert purposes, or either? I don’t actually know how the cornbread is used, mostly because bread wheat flour is the predominant flour grown and sold down under.
Ah, you ask the hard questions: When is art, art? And when is art, an investment? And who decides which is which? The question also raises a further question: How much are the vast sums, actually worth?
You’ve suggested before that such outcomes are the reason we can’t seem to have nice things. It must be hard wired into the culture. The problems you’ve mentioned in the past with the swap table sort of sound like an abuse of the commons.
That’s all very unfortunate about the night managers vehicle, and down under the nice insurance company would go after those two, hard. I tend to believe that those sorts of incidents push people out of ‘the system’. How could it not? At the very least I’m guessing the the credit records of the individuals may possibly be given a serious demerit entry, and in many ways that record serves as a sort of social credit system. I ask you a rhetorical question with no expectation of an answer, but if they did do a runner, where would they go? Their deeds may travel before them electronically.
It’ll sure be interesting to hear of the results of your soil test. The master gardeners would moan even louder down under. I’m constantly surprised at how cheap things are in other countries. When Goran mentioned fruit tree rootstock for the equivalent of AU$1 it piqued my interest. Well, they’re $13 to $20 down under, so the idea fall flat on it’s face due to costs. It would be cheaper and entirely remove any risk to simply pay the $45 for the replacement fruit tree.
It’s a good day to be you! That’s great news, and all we can hope for is that the HUD folks are way too busy and under staffed to do the inspections. 😉
Did H then go on to do a meet and greet with her fans at the Club? And was the coffee good? I’m thinking about getting a hand powered coffee bean grinder. Beans being cheaper (and producing more essential oils) than vacuum packed ground coffee.
Always good to have a chat that way, and it’s unexpected and pleasant. Lots of interactions in the country are just like that.
Half an inch of rain fell late this afternoon. At times it was torrential. Feral weather. Hope the skies clear for tomorrow and I can get that junction box done.
Cheers
Chris
Chris:
Thanks for all the shrewd answers. Wow.
It was cooler when we were having the 4 inches of rain, but it going up some, to be 84F (29C) today. That will make the newly air-layered and grafted figs happy.
Pam
Yo, Chris – Lots of chatter on the news, about Australia. Your #1! Good on you. You think we could do something about our health care system, here. We’re dead last.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/19/health/health-care-rankings-high-income-nations-commonwealth-report
I’d say smart preppers, are low profile. The Mormon Church “suggests” that its members keep a years’ worth of stored food. Almost a directive. When I worked at the electrical steam plant, which was mostly Mormon owned and staffed, there was food stashed all over the place. Came in handy, when (before my time) the crew was cut off, for almost a week, by a flood.
I think surviving chaos, takes some bit of luck. I read somewhere, that someone said about WWII, if you turned right, you lived. If you turned left, you died.
Good work tackling the junction box. Sometimes, stepping back from a process or task, and having a good think, produces solutions. If you have the luxury, to do that.
I also went to the dump / recycler / land fill / transfer station, this morning. It’s getting too chaotic to depend on our dumpster, here at the Institution. So, I cut a great deal of grape runners, and some volunteer oak and walnut. Filled the back of my truck. I hadn’t been to the dump, in a number of years. Used to be, you could drop off yard waste, for free. And, it was recycled, in some manner or another. Not any more. I could either take it up to the tip, and pay $20, or, if under 300 pounds, toss it in a huge container, that eventually gets hauled off by an 18-wheeler. That was $15. I’ve got about half the job done. Will do another run, next week. H enjoyed her trip to the dump. 🙂 Something new. We stopped at the Club for a cuppa, on our way back. Muffy was there, being her usually over exuberant self. H doesn’t know quit what to think of her. Everyone made over H’s new “do.”
As I was leaving the dump, I noticed something called “The Floral Park Sustainability Project.” I need to look into that. They have a small website. They also had signs out, that they will soon have a tool lending library.
Good for Grand Designs, UK. LOL. They still haven’t caught up with The Simpsons, as far as number of seasons is concerned. 🙂
I always have a problem with “savory,” as it is spelled, here. Probably, because I haven’t given it much thought. “Not sweet or salty.” “Robust flavors.” I’d say, corn can be savory, or sweet. In fact, some of our eating corn, is called “sweet corn.” And, of course, there’s high fructose corn syrup. And, there are deserts that are made with corn meal. But it can also be used to make tacos. Which are not sweet. “Savory dishes using corn,” brings up some tasty looking recipes. “Deserts using corn” also brings up some tasty recipes.
Yes, doing a runner, these days, is harder to do. Given technology and tracking, and such. But the one is pretty handy at semi-criminal behavior. She’s the one with the two enormous dogs. Supposedly “service dogs.” I often say of her, that she’s a con woman, with a million sad stories. But how she managed to renew her (yearly) license tabs, I don’t know. Yes, we have a lot of people on the road, with no insurance. Frequently, in the police reports, it’s noted that an accident uncovers “uninsured driver.” Which results in another charge. And steep fine.
HUD has outsourced the inspection process, to some other business. HUD inspectors only show up, if something major shows up. I’d say, if a facility gets a really low number of points.
Our high temperature, yesterday, was 68F (20C). The overnight low was 50F. Todays forecast is for 67F.
Back when I was in the tat trade, there were hand cranked coffee grinders, to be had. Some were nice wooden boxes, with a small drawer, for the ground coffee to be collected in. Some were wall mounted units, glass and cast iron. Nice Victorian pieces, with wood and ornate cast iron components. There were also a lot of reproductions, kicking around.
When we got back this morning, there was a food box, waiting for us. A plastic clam shell of some chicken & veg salad, and a plastic container of sliced apples and caramel dip. Individual plastic containers of pudding. A bag of dried Great Northern beans. Whatever those are. An individual sweet potato pie. All that stuff, I’ll take downstairs to the swap table. For myself, I kept two cans of peaches, a dozen eggs, a box of “good” Mac and cheese, a loaf of French bread, and a pack of Polish turnkey sausage. Everything else, I’ll take to the Club. A box of cereal, that would appeal to a small child, some multi colored pasta, a pound of butter product, jar of peanut butter, two pounds of white rice, 2 tins of tuna fish, and assorted tins of vegetables. There was also a two pound bag of roasted almonds. Those, I split into 6 smaller bags. 2 small plastic container of Mac and cheese (just add hot water, and stir!). A tin of chicken noodle soup. A one pound bag of quick oatmeal. All together, two bags to take to the Club. I’ll probably be able to scrape another two bags, off the swap table. Lew
Chris,
There’s another reason that big business likes inflation. Debt. The principal on a bond is worth less when due than when it was issued. Meanwhile, the company has been recording increasing profits due to the same inflation that is devaluing the bond principal. I DO NOT like inflation. I remember the 1970s and early 1980s. It was ugly.
Poor Jimmy Carter. A wonderful human being, someone who tried to do the right thing regarding energy and environment, then castigated and tossed to the waste heap for his truthfulness in telling it like it is.
The summers in Arizona would defeat me, too. Too blasted hot for too long and it doesn’t cool off at night.
Hmmmm, I now see the problem with the Romans, and it may be the very reason why the Roman Empire fell. Concrete, sand and lime. Wrong mix of ingredients, too serious. Mate, they were entirely missing out on that wonderful mix of tequila, salt and lime. And they missed out on some proper music. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hswHOEQfj8
The Romans could’ve lightened up some. So there’s also this song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7J_Hh6SO_w
Well, I didn’t want a shrubbery anyhow. So there! ;0
Always have to have a rough idea what the answer should be. Always. My first Big Boss was also big on that. We had convoluted formulae to use. Since peoples’ monies were involved, we had to do it right and the answers needed to make sense. The Big Boss called it the “Dumb Test”, in that if you didn’t have any idea what should happen, it is possible to partition up the cost of a project and have one person get charged for more than the entire project cost. So, “Do the Dumb Test first!”
In physics classes, we got introduced to the “Fermi Problems”, named for Enrico Fermi. Basically, we were given a problem with few parameters, then we had to figure out how to solve it. The answer would be a good approximation of reality. The classic Fermi Problem is to determine how many standard bricks it would take to rebuild the Sears Tower in Chicago out of bricks. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to outline it for me. This message will self-destruct in…
Sail 25 sounds like a great story. Thanks for linking to the synopsis.
Yes, that back and forth between grass and clover is what some of the lawn areas need. Dad did that with the lawns in Spokane soon after we moved here. Very healthy lawns. Good soil, not sand, but that clover seemed to add a lot to the health of the lawn.
I got the hawthorns pruned with that wonderful pole saw. No branches fell on my head, for which I am eternally grateful. Hard work, yes, but I got to enjoy a warm, not hot, afternoon in the sun. Took a long break in the shade, lying down and watching the nut hatches that started searching for food in the tree I was working on. Good time for a break, the birds got a meal. Far be it from me to disturb a hungry bird! Plus, these birds flew to within a meter of me. Friendly.
Junction boxes. Rain. Ugh. Glad you’re getting it replaced. Sounds like the old one was wearing thin.
Yes, Dame Avalanche is bringing in the firewood. Maybe she could haul it down under, as you have run out. All I’d ask for in return is… a shrubbery. ;0
Your title for this week’s entry is interesting: Scar. When I first saw it, I thought perhaps you were going to go all Disney and discuss the Lion King. Scar was the name of the villain lion in that cartoon movie. I quickly realized that you were NOT going that route. After all, that movie had singing in it – a typical cartoon musical, and you don’t do musicals.
DJSpo
Hey Chris,
Your story about the rabbit guards is a classic example of something we see all the time in my line of work. It’s called hidden requirements. The rabbit guard had to keep out the rabbits but the hidden requirement was that it also had to allow garden maintenance. By definition, you don’t find out about the hidden requirements until it’s too late.
Now imagine that there’s a bureaucratic department that organises the rabbit guards and they have no communication at all with the department that does the garden maintenance. The rabbit guards keep out the rabbits and as far as the rabbit department is concerned they are a big success. But the gardening department hates the rabbit department since they just made their jobs harder and there’s nothing they can do since they don’t have any authority over rabbit stuff. Fun!
Cheers,
Simon
Hi Pam,
Thanks, and my day job disavows me of any and all financial daydreams. One of the downsides, I guess… 🙂 Mostly when confronted by abstract unicorn notions, my brain swings into action and asks the hard question: Is this wild idea actually going to work? I’ve been wrong before, but mostly I’m more right than wrong.
There’s a very, very old school of thought which suggests that good times have to be worked and paid for. You don’t hear that mentioned aloud in polite company these days, but since we’re all here… 😉
Hmm, you know, long ago I heard someone casually mention an equation, although maths is not my thing. However, the vague memory may impact upon your developing fig nursery (and condolences to you for having to avoid the most tasty fig jam, but I get where you are at as a few years ago I developed a sensitivity to dishwashing detergent – go figure). Anyway, the equation was this (from memory) Four inches of rain + Late season gentle heat = jungle. Maybe the equation will work out, maybe not, but I reckon the figs will enjoy the conditions.
Hope things are going well for you and your family.
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
Ah, the dreaded time value of money, or otherwise known as a monster devaluation of previously held mad cash. Yes, I agree, they know this and clap their hands in wild glee, whilst raking in the unearned harvest. When I was a kid, to be a millionaire was a truly astounding achievement. In these enlightened times that achievement is not far off the median house price. Just sayin…
It was a sense of foreboding which hit me hard when I awoke this morning. After careful consideration of the solar power system junction box upgrade project overnight, I went to the largest town that is a bit closer to the big smoke this morning. The local electrical suppliers were closed and so I ended up in a very large warehouse on a Saturday morning as the only customer – so got special non trade prices. Even so, slightly over $200 for a metal hinged and lockable small junction box floored me. I’d heard that building material costs have risen, but to be confronted with it was kind of confronting. Yep, that time value of an abused fiat currency thingee is a real nuisance.
I’m no fan of inflation either mostly because it’s a slippery eel which can get away from even with the best handlers.
Yeah, exactly. President Carter was a most excellent orator as well, it’s just a bit of a shame that the message didn’t sit so well with the population. Oh well, the moment was lost, and that happens. And here we are today. Best not to dwell on what could have been.
What do you mean the desert cities don’t cool off at night? Oh my, what a horror show that would be. One of the reasons I moved up here is because the summer nights are cooler than in the big smoke. The heat island effect with over 5 million people there is unpleasant to experience.
Oh! I’d heard that melody before. Yes, tequila. Good horn section too. On the other hand, Shelly clearly had a very big night, and may now wonder what went on the night before the blurry headache of the morning after. When such news is supplied from friends, that’s technically known as the debrief. We’ve all been there. What? Was she reaching for the ‘hair of the dog’? Honestly, I’m not strong enough for such a response.
Sure you don’t! Who wouldn’t want a shrubbery?
Hmm, for your interest, that ‘dumb test’ mindset doesn’t just apply to project work, it’s quite universally applicable. I use such a slightly removed from the details view with businesses and their err, numbers, so as to ask myself the hard questions: What’s going on here? And also, do the numbers and story make sense? How can a person review a situation without having at least a vague idea as to what the elements of the story should look like? I’ll bet you in turn guided your trainees in this way of the understanding? I sure did that with graduates.
No. Just say no to such problems. DJ, I’ve laid brick walls and learned I could lay a couple of hundred bricks per day whilst manually mixing up the mortar – which was in a very difficult to reach spot so I couldn’t even get in a cement mixer machine. Hmm. Pain. And! And! The memory remains that the average red recycled brick down under is 230mm long x 110mm high x 76mm wide, with around a 10mm mortar course. Ask me how this has been burned into my brain!!! I was cursing the other parties to the construction (Sandra and the neighbours) who demanded a brick wall. It was however a nice brick wall, as was the other one, but so many bricks… Sears Tower, even more bricks, that’s my answer! 🙂 Anyway, the original neighbours sold up and left, and the new neighbour hated on me every single day that wall was being built, and it was 3m high… I did say it was a bad idea, but did anyone listen to me? Eventually it turned out to be a very nice looking wall as I’d used recycled old Victorian era bricks. Lots of character, but plenty of hate from the new neighbours. Some relationships never recover…
I’d have appreciated learning from an old master like that irascible captain in the story. You’d get a proper education and be ready for any challenges.
Clover is a good addition to lawns, but I’ve heard in your country such additions may be frowned upon. 😉 The quest for the perfect lawn is suggestive of a person with a lack of hobbies.
Glad to hear that your head dodged falling branches and that the tree is being cleaned up. Clearly the birds approve of your work, and that’s a fine report card upon the work.
Did I mention that original connections in the terminal box displayed signs of corrosion? Anyway, the job is all done now, and onto the next one. I’m upgrading all of the external (out in the weather) boxes and connections. With the way material costs are going, it’s probably something that is best done now. How people maintain these grid tied solar power systems which they’ve never personally been involved in, is something of a mystery to me. The weather and sunshine is very hard on electrical connections.
Speaking of such matters, we also pulled apart the induction cooker today and gave it a good clean up. The other day, the machine began making an odd sound. Turns out dust had got into the fan, and some thoughtless assembly person had dripped high temperature silicone grease onto the coil – as you do. Cleaned it all up and gave the fan a squirt of WD-40 (an amazing product), and the cooker is now working fine. However, when I was in the nearby big town this morning, I’d noticed that the same induction cooker model was being cleared from a white goods store, so picked up another spare, just in case. It was the last one too, and only $99. How could an induction cooker be cheaper than a basic hinged metal box? Makes no sense to me…
Ha! I don’t think so man. 🙂 But nice try with the shrubbery biz.
True. And a very good observation. Respect 🙂 . And I don’t do dusney movies. Some Aussie music for ya: Missy Higgins – Scar
Cheers
Chris
Hi Simon,
Man, that’s exactly what happened. Who even knew that rabbits would ring bark young citrus trees? Thanks for the terminology as I’d not heard of that before, but yes, such things happen. If a system can learn by that process it’s all good, but can they is the question that arises in my mind.
Oh my! It’s quite alarming to consider that we’d live in a society were bureaucrats have their well defined areas of interest, and that decisions are being made within such places in isolation. And feedback can be blithely ignored… To be honest such an arrangement sounds highly dysfunctional. And yet here we all are today! Ook!
Proving that actions have consequences, the rabbits have annoyed me enough – just like what the rats did with the chickens – that they’re now enjoying err, their own version of hidden requirements.
The dogs and I are making life very hard for them, just a little bit at a time. Replacement fruit trees are no longer cheap. Also proving the truism that rabbits can’t have nice things. Both Kelpies have nabbed a rabbit each over the past week. The war is going well…
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Nobody tells us anything down here, let alone that we’d been voted number one position for anything. The news skipped over that achievement. Sometimes the number one position attracts a certain sort of controversy, and I’d heard – but not followed (and so have no real idea the subject – absolutely none at all) – this recent Olympic number one err, Australian situation: Australian breaker Raygun is currently ranked number one in the world — the World DanceSport Federation has explained why. What does it all mean? Dunno. Another mystery… What were we number one for again?
Oh, health care. I see. Yes, it’s true you don’t have to worry about being bankrupted just because you’re ill and seek treatment. On the other hand, people struggle to afford to keep a roof over their heads. Different cultural choices explains much of the difference, but in many ways the policies and problems are remarkably similar but with different outcomes. The article was rather upbeat about your coming election with this health issue, but I’d heard such loose talk before in earlier years. What do they say about ‘don’t believe the hype’?
It’s probably not a bad idea if you were going to follow the prepper path, to keep a low profile and be a good neighbour. Stores of stuff take a lot of effort and materials to defend, and are perhaps easily confiscated and redistributed. But! I did not know that. Interesting indeed. Makes you wonder if there had been some sort of early historical disaster with the church to have err, ordained such a policy. Have you heard of any such event? They congregate around salt lake city, hmm, that would occasionally be a very difficult place to reside in a bad season.
I agree, there is very much an element of luck to survival. It’s not everything, and the odds can be skewed in your favour, but there’s no guarantees in life on that front. There’s some super wealthy bloke trying to extend his life. I don’t follow that story, but people tell me titbits of the story from time to time. It’s a gamble as far as I can tell, and for all anyone knows he could die early in some mysterious and completely unanticipated accident. Hmm, that submarine thingee investigation and hearing is in the news. You wouldn’t catch me in one of those things, by choice. The disclaimer at the end felt just right. No point tempting fate through foolish and ill-considered words.
Yeah, that’s exactly how the problem solving work on the junction box rolled. Yup. Honestly, yet again I tried to do the work on the cheap, but nature had other ideas. So, went to a large nearby town which is half way to the big smoke this morning and picked up a nice metal hinged box to replace the cheaper plastic item. The sticker shock surprised me. $200 for a metal box. It’s a nice box, but not all that long ago the same item was much cheaper. Anyway, the job was finished mid afternoon, and it’s looking solid, like in a way the previous arrangement wasn’t.
It was a busy day too. The Editor wanted me to have a look at the induction cooker (the black magic portable electric stove top – it’s good) because the other day it was making a weird sound. Opened the back of it, and cleaned up all the dust, lubricated the cooling fan, and wiped off the high temperature silicone which had thoughtlessly been splattered onto the coil during production. It’s working fine now, but whilst I was in the town I picked up a replacement machine. Bizarrely, it must have been old stock because it was a clearance item and was the exact same model run as the one I’d been using for many years. And how could such a complicated machine be only $99 and yet a metal box is $200. Things don’t make much sense to me.
But yeah, all of the junction boxes are being slowly upgraded. The ones on the roof of the house have to wait for a run of good weather. It rained again today, and apparently, there are big rains right across the continent this week. The Indian ocean is somewhat hot and evaporating with winds blowing in this direction. Rain to soak every Australian state next week. It’s normal-ish rain for this corner of the continent, but elsewhere inland it’s freaky amounts. As to your most excellent observation about luxury, the old timers used to say: Make hay whilst the sun shines. Although people nowadays in these enlightened times may ask why would anyone want to do that?
Tips and transfer stations are amazing places. Landfill space is always on the decline, and few people seem to want a new landfill opening in their backyards. They get funny about that, you may have noticed? Down here, they only take yard waste free during (or just before) bushfire season, possibly to try and encourage people to clean up. I could burn that stuff off if it was here. Even the green stuff will burn if the fire is hot enough. Go H! Hopefully she avoided the junkyard dog? Apologies for the dodgy humour!
That’s a great idea. And all your green waste materials could be composted and/or mulched with such processes and produce something nice. I’ve visited some of those places, but they’re businesses and the mountains of woody mulch and compost are amazing. Truly, I had soil feed envy.
The presenter of Grand Designs UK is like me, no young bloke (although he’s ten and a bit years older), but he might well have another ten years in him for the work. He’s certainly entertaining and asks searching questions. In many ways the show is an old school morality tale.
Ah, that makes perfect sense. Hmm. I’d never thought of food that way before, but yeah, it is labelling something which should simply be an experience.
Doing a runner is harder to do nowadays – and lets not forget all of the cameras littered around the landscape just recording things and events. Some crims, and businesses (none that I deal with, businesses that is) treat fines and penalties as a cost of doing business. They think differently.
Ha! There’s something really amusing about outsourcing such inspections because – at a wild guess – provides a sort of plausible deniability should anything go wrong. Yes, what is this thing called backbone?
Nice weather, and it’s almost the same down here, maybe with a bit more rain. It rained again today, although I dodged the worst of it and mostly stayed dry whilst working on that junction box.
Dude! I do not doubt you, but be afraid. So last night I delved into the wonderful world of all things coffee grinders. And learned far more than I need to know, and yeah, who knew there’d be lots of enthusiasts out there? Far out man, I’ve decided to stick with the pre-ground stuff for the espresso machine, even if the experience is considered lesser, which it probably is. The Editor and I are of one mind in this regard. A good coffee bean grinder machine which will last, prepare a fine grind, plus be repairable, ain’t cheap.
Good to hear that the demise of the swap table hasn’t yet occurred, and the folks at the Club would very much appreciate the produce. And also good to hear that H and Muffy are mending their differences of opinion.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Chris,
A happy spring equinox to you! It looks like spring is springing up all around you, judging from your pictures. Keep those flower pictures coming!
It barely rained at all last weekend, but the local weather service assures us that this weekend we’ll actually get beneficial rain. I hope they’re right about that, and also right about cooler air arriving. The high was 96F yesterday, just 1F short of the daily record.
For 200 dollars the metal box should have been made of silver ;-). I’m glad you’re doing maintenance to maintain the safety of your setup, but it would be good if retailers of essential supplies made it easier, as in less expensive, to do that maintenance. Not that they listen to the likes of us.
Claire
Yo, Chris “…maintain these grid tied solar power systems.” Maybe there’s solar boys. Like pool boys. Pay mad cash, and you don’t have to think about it. You know, there are people that make mad cash, maintaining greenery in offices. And others, who make mad cash maintaining aquariums in offices and restaurants.
I ignored all things Olympics. I did see a headline or two about some controversy, over some Australian break dancer. My interest was less than zero. 🙂 .
Well, here, medical care can drive you to bankruptcy, AND it’s difficult to keep a roof over your head.
The history of the Mormons is pretty interesting. One of our home grown (among many) religious sects, or cults, depending on your point of view. They’re taking over large chunks of the West. Boise, Idaho, is a heavily Mormon town. I spent a week there. Clean, well organized, and buttoned up. But, friendly people. Even the little town my friends live in, population 850 has a large Mormon church.
Not such a new story. The rich bloke trying to extend his life. There are stories, throughout the ages, of rulers sending out expeditions to chase down rumors of life extension methods. One of our home grown folk tales, is about the search for the Fountain of Youth. Many a conquistador meet his end, in the Florida swamps, chasing that tale.
Chinese emperors seemed to have a singular fondness, for chasing such tales. Oh, well. It did all contribute to feats of exploration.
Was the junction box gold plated? Bejeweled? Can it be passed down as a family heirloom? 🙂 I’ll mention that to my Idaho friends. They’ll probably have a “take” on that.
Funny. I just used that “make hay while the sunshine” saying, to my Idaho friends, this morning. Their daughter is really hitting it big, in real estate. But then, she’s one of the few local real estate dealers, who actually return calls.
We saw no junk yard dogs. Which may have been a good thing. Cujo was a junk yard dog. But when we went through the weigh station, to pay, H got a dog biscuit.
The Simpsons never age. 🙂 So I guess they have an edge, where longevity is concerned.
I really have a feeling, that all this government outsourcing involves kickbacks. To the legislators who sneak such outsourcing into totally unrelated bills. Most often disguised as contributions to political campaigns. Payoffs, graft, corruption, bribes. Nice work if you can get it.
Our high yesterday was 66F. Overnight low was 45F. Forecast for today is 70F. The rain we were supposed to get, tomorrow night (Sun) has been moved to mid week. After that, there’s a lot of days with “Chance of Rain.”
I saw an essay on coffee, you might find amusing.
https://www.cnn.com/travel/why-i-hate-drinking-coffee
The swap table for “stuff” in our library, is going away. But the swap table for food, is in the community room, and that’s permitted. Doesn’t last long. Though there are always some things that linger. Mostly, bags of dried beans. The same thing happens, at the Club. Speaking of the Club pantry, it had been very bare, for about a week. Well, I took down two bags of food, last night, and it was filled to overflowing! Looks like someone else had got a lot of the stuff we did. So, anything else I find on the swap table, I’ll hold until things get a bit thin, again. Of course, nothing is organized the way I organize it. I left it be, until things thin out, a bit. Then I’ll sort it out. Neurosis is a terrible burden to bear. 🙂 .
I loaded up the dehydrator, with another batch of tomatoes. I’ve been mixing cherry tomatoes, with regular sized tomatoes. I discovered that the regular tomatoes, really shrink. So, this batch, I’ve overlapped the slices a bit. See how that goes. Lew
Hi Claire,
Happy autumn equinox! It was a lovely day today, cool 18’C and mostly sunny with only a slight breeze. Spring is definitely springing to life all about me. The very air itself carries the scent of flowers. The bees were all over the many pears which are in flower today.
Fingers crossed that you and your garden enjoy some decent and widespread rainfall. Hot and dry summers are difficult experiences, not mention the negative affect such weather has on all of the plants.
96’F is getting up there for late March for us as well. Hope the weather cools for you soon. It’s been my observation that over the years, whatever passes for autumn weather, is becoming briefer. Still, a proper autumn is kind of like a mini-spring, except the soil is already warm.
Hehe! Thanks for the laughs. I have friends who are gold bugs, and a month or so ago I did mention to them that they appear to have been correct in relation to the silver metal. Claire, my gold and silver is not the commonly appreciated stuff, but the plants, soils and systems to back them up. Not quite the same, but there you go!
Don’t you think it’s weird that people believe this technology is a set and forget proposition? Mostly it is, but the description ‘mostly’ does not cover all aspects. I’m going over the entire system with a fine tooth comb, just in case. I’d prefer that it work under the worst case scenarios, not the average expected dramas.
🙂 Yup, nobody asked us. Truer words are rarely spoken.
Cheers
Chris
Hello Chris,
Happy solstice!
Here we had a week of 20+C weather, full sunshine and almost no wind. Excellent outdoor cleanup weather. Record temperatures for most locations of the country, due to the well-known causes.
Indeed, stuff is expensive on your side of the world. You must be rich. (?!)
I apologize for the slight misunderstanding. 2 AUD for a rootstock is when I purchase 100x at a time. For a single rootstock, maybe 5-10 AUD would be appropriate. Still a long way to your prices.
Fruit trees are similar price in Sweden as on your side. (And half that price in the Netherlands, center of mass-produced trees in Europe.)
Regarding the economics of a mutual insurance company, I think that the main calculation is: average house replacement cost * risk of catastrophic fire.
Here, in our small town, median single family house building cost is approx 300,000 AUD, and the amount of houses that burn down every year is 1/1000.
On your end, what would be the cost for rebuilding a house? (I guess that the land/allotment cost for houses is dominant in your “market”?) When I google the amount of houses burned down in Victoria it is approx 1/1000 yearly as well. (2500 out of 2500000 homes burn each year.)
I still think someone could help you save some mad cash by starting a mutual home insurance company in your hood.
On the other hand, these days, those who make mad cash are those who sit closest to the money spigot.
Induction cookers are great. For one thing, the fire risk is smaller than for methane/propane stovetops…
Peace,
Göran
Hi Lewis,
What a great fictional trope those dudes are. 🙂 The reality of the pool dude would be otherwise at a wild guess. Never lived in a house with a pool, so it’s all pure speculation. Alas, woe is me, the days of luscious long hair and the freshness and vitality of youth are far behind me in the past. And truly, I’ve never met a bored housewife with nothing better to do and mischief on her mind – as a general rule, such ladies seem rather busy and harried. 😉
On a serious note, I’m hearing anecdotal accounts that some of the grid tied solar equipment may not be in for the long haul. A few of the components, notably the very complicated AC transfer relay switch are spontaneously catching fire. The grid tied inverters can’t just randomly send electricity into the grid, they have to match the frequency and sine wave of the grid itself – which is set by the really large generators. It’s like a choir in that they all need to be singing in the same key and notes.
Exactly. My interest was in the negative as well.
Of course, and thanks for the correction. Both circumstances are difficult in your country. It’s no good.
I’ve got no issues or beef with such sects too. If there are major societal dramas, the ready networks and support such groups provide will be a strength. Bosie is extraordinarily dry and relies solely upon the river, so the prescription for the years food is rather a wise response to reality.
I agree with you about that extension of life story in that it’s an old one. The facts kind of suggest that the outcome is a foregone conclusion. If Juan Ponce de León couldn’t find the Fountain of Youth, and the world was a more mysterious place in those days, well the thing is probably very well hidden. Incidentally, I’m curious as to how that blokes name ‘Ponce’ became such a naughty word. Many long years ago I used to have a friend who used that word, and I only had the vaguest of notions as to what he was on about.
Ha! I don’t think so, the junction box was sturdy and well made, but few would take notice of it as an expensive item. It’s got holes in it now, so I’d describe the box as slightly used. On a serious note, building materials are super expensive now.
Go H! If I knew that dog biscuits were being handed out at the local tip, I’d take the dogs more often. Oh yeah, Cujo was seriously bad news. Rabies is not something you’d want to experience. I look at the bats a bit differently nowadays, but the fruit bats are quite rare in this mountain range – the winters are too cold for them.
Cartoons definitely have an edge there. Yup! Even the voice actors can be replaced. There was a bit of industrial action with that lot many years ago.
It probably does explain a thing or three, but there’s always that whole ‘Bullshit Jobs’ thing as well. I still haven’t read that book. Did you get around to reading it? A person has to be in the network for such arrangements, and that’s probably something you and I are no good at. Best to know your weak spots, like the little chunk of unprotected underside of a dragon and stuff.
🙂 Weather is same, same here. And it didn’t rain today – that I know of. Quite a lovely day, and after keying in the subtitles for the latest video today was just a plop around doing this and that sort of a day. Had a nice read for an hour or two this afternoon. Nothing too strenuous, and all very pleasant.
The dude is English. What would he know about coffee, despite the casual name drops? Hehe! Everyone is different, and I note that whilst he enjoys tea, he was complaining about the price of said beverage. Whining can be a lifestyle choice, yes.
Ah, thanks for the explanation as I’d thought that the tables were one and the same, but no. Makes you wonder if people don’t know how to cook with dried beans? Yikes! But glad to hear that the Club network was onto refilling the pantry. Bummer, but we’ve all got a bit of that in one form or another. 🙂
They do that, and the cherry tomatoes don’t end up that much smaller in the dehydrator, although they’re more work to prepare. It’s funny isn’t it?
Cheers and better get writing!
Chris
Hi Goran,
Thanks for the comment, but gotta get writing. Speak tomorrow.
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – Today’s foray into media, is an article about glacier tourism. And how dangerous it’s becoming. Wouldn’t want to have been on a cruise ship, in that fjord, when it began slopping around for nine days. 🙂
https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/21/climate/glaciers-last-chance-tourism-ice-cave
I can only think of one place that I lived, that had a pool. When I moved to California, darned near starved to death, and ran through a number of living situations. One was a house share, with a pool in the backyard. I can’t remember using it much. Other than laying on the diving board, and soaking in the mist. Which was the first rain we had had in almost eight months.
Speaking of weather, the high yesterday was 72F (22.22C). Overnight low was 46. Forecast for today is 73F. Prof. Mass has a post, about an atmospheric river heading for southern Alaska, and British Columbia. Likely to set records. 15″ of rain, in some spots.
I’ve heard stories of poor electrical linemen, being blown off poles. They can shut down their chunk of the grid, but power from solar might be running the other way.
My mom always said that she didn’t think much of the Mormons, as a religion. But deeply admired their social service network, if someone fell on hard times. As long as you toed the line, it was available to all.
LOL. I’d say your friend was a product of a public school. Or, aspired to such. 🙂
Yes, I read “Bullshit Jobs.” Quit an eye opener. That, along with Mr. Greer banging on about the lenocracy fills in a lot of the picture about why things are so generally screwed up, in the world. Hmmm. Do you think it’s a situation of too many people, and too few useful jobs?
Speaking of reading, I picked up a little book, from the library, yesterday, that I was curious about. “I Survived the Destruction of Pompeii, AD 79.” (Tarshis, 2014). It’s part of a series, for youngsters. Say, 10 to 12 years old. There are at least 18 in the series, and all revolve around disasters. Great San Francisco earthquake, Japanese earthquake and tsunami, the Titanic, etc. etc.. Only about a hundred pages. Illustrations. And a nice followup explanation of customs and additional reading. It’s called the “I Survived Series.”
I read some more of the art book, last night. The author wanted to be a part of the art world, in some capacity, and, after a breakdown, found his niche, I think, working for, and being trained by an old school paper conservator and restorationist. The collapse of his “friends” art empire, has moved to a bit of a background story. Turns out, there are financial institutions, that, I think, lend money on art. I guess the way it works is, you borrow money from them, buy art, and hope it appreciates in value, to cover the loan, and also yield you some mad cash.
I ran another load through the dehydrator, yesterday. Crowding the regular tomatoes, a bit, seems to work. You’re right. Cherry tomatoes don’t shrink much. So, last evening I picked more tomatoes, also some green beans and Cheyenne peppers. Today, I think I’ll give the dehydrator, a rest, and go out and pick some more blueberries.
I think more people don’t use dried beans, at least here, due to a lot of reasons. Time constraints. Just plain lazy. A lack of familiarity of those as a food product. I must admit, my cooking a great deal from “scratch,” does take up a lot of time.
Last night, I had some rice, mixed in some fresh tomatoes and yellow squash, from the garden, and some frozen broccoli. Etc. Mixed it all together and called it dinner. Tasty. Lew