Shutdown

31 thoughts on “Shutdown”

1. Yo, Chris – That was an interesting article. Although I think the man and woman, on the street, even the one’s with solar power, really won’t understand the issues. They’ll just want “someone” to fix it.

   I saw a headline, yesterday, that the last coal fired generating plant in Britain, had closed down.

   I always take a look at the sidebars, of the articles you link to. Interesting new AI horror movie. “Subservience.”

   Prepping the site, moving the tank. Routing or rerouting “utilities.” It’s a big job. The firewood shed site is looking VERY good.

   That’s so sad, about your olive tree. Although I must say I was relieved, as I thought it might be one of the two big one’s in your plaza, in front of a shed. You recently pruned them.

   You might have a frost (light, I hope) on the horizon, but your potatoes, etc., look off to a good start.

   Your video was very good. Chicken palace? Or, chicken fortress? I hope it is a cautionary tale, for those lured in by the chicks, available at the farm and garden stores, in the early spring. “Ohhh! Let’s get some chicks! Can’t be too complicated….” 🙂

   Bluebells, Daffodils and Rhodies. They really dress up a place. And signal that spring is on the way. So, the Azalea? Was it a volunteer, or just temporarily misplaced? Lew

2. Hi DJ,

   Many years ago I watched a film about the ice figure skater from your country, Tonya Harding. The film was titled (from memory): I, Tonya. A good film starring a sort of local actor Margot Robbie (from the big smoke apparently), you may have heard of her? Anyway, I sort of got the impression from the film, that in the early days of Tonya’s ice skating she had heaps of talent, yet wanted to forge her own path, except that was not what the judges wanted and so they marked her accordingly. It happens.

   When I watched the TV footage, the impression I was left with, was that the traditional designs were front and centre.

   If say a person wants the blue ribbon, first and foremost the same person has to be aware of what the judges are looking for. 😉

   I’ll tell you a funny story. Man, when I first went to University, I had this strange notion in my head that I’d somehow gone up a level from High School, so when doing a subject such as corporate law, I’d read deeply into all of the case law and look for a new and interesting angle on a particular question and was marked badly. And that approach permeated my entire philosophy at the time. Needless to say I didn’t do so well in the first third of the degree. 🙂

   So, Sandra comes along and sees me struggling mightily with this sort of learning process. One day, probably in a fit of frustration, she takes me aside and says: why aren’t you just answering the fricken question they’re asking? Then just for good measure, she hauled me kicking and screaming through the entire process of how to respond to the exact question asked! Every little tiny step in the process.

   By the end of the degree, I was achieving the top mark in the subject and graduated with honours, but I dunno. As a wild guess, the judges demand what they want on the road to your personal achievement of mastery of an art form. Hmm. Dunno why life works that way, but sometime it just does. A mystery huh?

   For the record, I thoroughly enjoyed your art, and I could not do even a tenth as well. The werewolf is most excellent. And since you gave permission, here’s a clickable high resolution image for everyone to enjoy:

   

   It rained here all day long, so I admitted defeat and spent the day doing paid work.

   Cheers

   Chris

3. Hi Lewis,

   Exactly, the person on the street with a grid tied solar power system has no idea at all about these sorts of issues. None at all. The reporting of the incident was a blink and you’ll miss it moment, and I can’t even begin to imagine the Herculean efforts going on behind the scenes that day to keep the lights on across the state. A dead giveaway for me about the underlying reality, is that few, if any, people have even the vaguest notions as to how this stuff works, and that is because the vast majority of people installing the technology speak about it in financial terms, even those who claim to be interested in the environment. It’s bizarre. Here’s an article from yesterday which illustrates that point: Calls for federal grants on home batteries as energy retailers slammed for ‘un-Australian’ solar payment drops.

   Due to tariffs in your country, and um, overall geopolitics, the land of stuff is selling electric vehicles down here for what must be probably less than cost. One of them is so cheap, I joked to the Editor that we should buy one, just for the stripping out the 50kWh of batteries for use in the house… Far out! Some things, just don’t make no sense.

   That’s what they’re saying about those coal fired power stations in the old country. 🙂 Somehow environmentally concerned folks seem to forget the radioactive waste produced by the apparently nine nuclear reactors they do have operating there, plus interconnections to mainland Europe. One of those things which sounds good in theory. I believe the recent big machine they just put on line recently in the south eastern part of your country cost US$35bn and was seven years late. Those are the ones they want to build here, but candidly I’m not sure that Australia can afford them. Fun times huh?

   Ooo, how did I overlook that film? Too busy riding my hobby horse may be the answer. 🙂 Looks good. I remember you talking about the M3GAN film, and that was a super creepy AI film. I was very partial to Alex Garland’s 2014 film Ex Machina. Dark, and also amusing but with a dire ending. On the other hand, Alice in the film you mentioned looks like a lot of trouble. Always unwise to assume that robots won’t want to set things up their own way.

   Thanks! It’s been something of a game of Jenga to get the firewood shed site to how it looks today. The outputs from one activity become the inputs for another. Rest assured, there are no gant charts…

   Oh no! I’d have been filthy if it were either of those two large olive trees. They’re about a quarter of a century old now and very pleasing on the eye. Hopefully the ring-barked tree will recover.

   Hmm, the forecast is now saying ‘areas of frost’ for Wednesday morning. What does this even mean? Hopefully we dodge that freezing air.

   Thanks for taking the time to watch the video. 🙂 I appreciate that and your feedback. We’re both kind of learning as we’re going, but what we’ve noticed is that people on that forum wish to be taken along for the journey. Dude, getting that phone call was err, unexpected. Nowadays I tend to make enquiries as to timing. Hmm. As they say, once bitten, twice shy.

   Bluebells are spreading, which surprised me. Not sure how they do that because I thought that they were corms? Dunno. A mystery. The azalea had been over shadowed by the large rosemary bush. It’s been there for many years, and they’re very hardy. Do you have any growing there?

   Lewis, such time-outrages are worthy of complaints and whinges. Then as you note, nothing will happen.

   I remember the old date palm seed found and germinated. You’d hope that the plant is bred from and who knows what interesting traits it may have? What, ancient Egyptian wheat seeds? Might have missed that one… … Looks like that story was something of a recurring 19th century fable. An interesting read too. The ancient Egyptians appeared to grow Emmer wheat, and a domesticated variety is grown these days even down under – the bakery product place sells a flour from the ancient grain. It must be high in protein because they say it’s good for biscuits and cakes.

   It was of interest to me as well that the author had a deep respect for cooking. Oh yeah, the book would look and be super cool. Have you tried any of the recipes from the text?

   Hope the garlic growing experiment works out well. They seem like an undemanding crop to me and quite productive, although the soil would need some good feeding in order to produce larger cloves. Man, you must have used every last square foot of growing space. 🙂 Respect!

   What a lovely tree, and wikithingee had an amazing photo of one covered in epiphytic growth. Stunning, and not found down under. A useful colonising plant too. Gets the forest back up and started again. I also get the distinct impression the plant would grow very well here in these forests. But then that’s what such plants grow to do. The maple I’m growing is Acer palmatum.

   Similar weather here today, except it rained. 🙂

   I had a quarter of tortilla for dinner this evening with a handful of rocket leaves (fresh from the garden) and some spears of grilled asparagus. Rice and veg will be for tomorrow! But that’s good too. The Editor is managing to produce quite a number of SCOBY’s for producing apple cider vinegar. I can only hope that the things remain in the bottles.

   Stone fruit does that mouldy trick, yup. What you described is my impression of the store purchased fruits too, and you nailed the ‘mealy’ bit. I’ll only purchase sun ripened fruits of that type from a single orchard who I know picks them for flavour. Everyone else tends to pick them green. When they’re good, they’re very good. But yeah, one mustn’t grumble, well maybe just a little bit. 🙂

   Cheers

   Chris

4. Yo, Chris – Referencing what DJ said about his entry. Innovation and change. Often there is resistance. Myself, I don’t like change. Reading about the Impressionist painters, well, they did some hard yards before their “new way” of painting, caught on. And, I seem to remember a house you renovated, that didn’t cater to the market.

   I wonder though. Maybe, some of the resistance comes from so much change, for change sake. In a lot of areas. Computer sites often offer “upgrades.” I always have the stray thought, “How will this benefit, me?”

   That was an interesting article. Here, we call it “solar net metering.” It’s had its ups and downs. As far as people understanding technology, it was the author Arthur C. Clarke who stated, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” 🙂

   And then you hear all those stories about batteries bursting into flames. Wonder if household insurance, covers that?

   I wonder about small nuclear plants. Such as, the one’s that run submarines?

   “Ex Machina” was a great film. The perils of technology. A film, which is actually a comedy about AI takeover, is “Jexi.” 2019. It has a happier ending.

   The high yesterday, was 70F (21.11C). Overnight low was 43F. Forecast for today is 73F. There’s some rain in our forecast. Nothing major. Still no frost in the forecast.

   The Master Gardeners, are here, this morning. It’s an amazing mystery, where some volunteers pop up. I finished picking the green beans, last night. Cleaned up some Elephant garlic. Interesting fact: of course, Elephant “garlic” is actually more of a leek. I wondered if it was a nutritious, as regular garlic. Well, yes. But you have to eat more of it.

   I finished of the tomato drying. It was a close thing. Only a handful of tomatoes left, after I loaded the dehydrator. For dinner, I had a can of that okra, tomato and corn. Added the remaining tomatoes, along with elephant garlic, a cubed slice of yellow squash, parsley. A bit of frozen broccoli. Rice. Pretty tasty.

   We do have some Azalea, around here. They’re easy to overlook. Not as splashy as the Rhodies.

   The Egyptians also used their wheat, for beer. Lots, and lots of beer. There are extensive wall paintings, and even figures in little dioramas, making beer.

   I also picked a big bowl of grapes, and left it in the community room. Anonymously, of course. 🙂 Lew

5. Hi Lewis,

   I get that, and aren’t much of a fan of change either. The overall force of the impressionists was a very valid example of the process of change taking shape over a long period of time, and also illustrates what it takes energy wise for a movement to be successful. There’s an element of relativism to the process though, and that is where the concept of ‘taste’ comes into play – and it most certainly isn’t a fixed position, or there wouldn’t be modern art (a realm to which my mind is simply beyond its competency to understand). I’m of the mindset of DJ where he remarked that he enjoyed the process of creation of the art form. It’s not much different from writing the blog essay week after week in that I very much enjoy the act of word creation and also the lovely dialogue with all the good people who gather around the ferny glade camp-fire. 🙂 Doing the act of essay creation won’t garner acclaim, nor will it put food upon the table, but then that’s not the point is it?

   This conversation did start my mind reflecting upon the story I recounted to DJ about my own University experience. If a person wants to move from apprentice, to journeyman and then eventually to be recognised as a master in a certain field, you kind of have to follow the process of hoops placed before you, and not deviate from that course. They needn’t make sense either and neither are they asking for innovation, because that’s not the point of the exercise. Before one can flex their creative muscles, rigid systems demand an obeisance to the standard forms. That’s how such things work.

   But then, there’s the wild-card. And I liked how DJ positioned the light source relative to the werewolf. It’s to the rear and the right of the beast. In a changing world, sometimes the wild-card shines the way forward. Much depends though on whether the structures marking the way stations in that field of endeavour can hold their poop together. And often they can, thus there is an inevitable resistance.

   Oh my gawds! What deep waters we’ve just swum in, and hopefully the murky depths weren’t as deep as that stricken imploding tourist sub which left me with the heebie jeebies?

   Oh man, that failed house sale was a real wake up call. The Editor and I stayed awake the entire night plotting how to correct the mess we’d inadvertently brought upon ourselves to which we had to extricate ourselves from. Within two weeks, we’d completely turned the ship around and sold the property, but it was a lot of initial pain, then lots more sweat and crazy long work days! 🙂 Got there in the end though, and I reckon it was a good lesson to learn. Definitely a memorable experience.

   Computer upgrades are possibly intended to benefit folks other than your good self? All those nice people working in unformation tech need jobs too… 😉

   Fortunately, I checked into that question a few years ago. It’s my understanding that the more volatile lithium batteries are those with cobalt in them. I did a very deep dive into this technology a few years ago and discovered that there is no one single chemistry for the term ‘lithium battery’. The house batteries do not contain that excitable mineral as they are specifically LiFePO4 chemistry, which are probably the safest of the lot. Regardless, you may have noticed that over the past few years I have very much increased the resiliency of all the systems fail safe cut off points? It’s been an interesting journey. And many steps would have to fail before things turn catastrophic. It’s not a guarantee of safety, it’s more not relying on a single protection point.

   The military doesn’t have to make economic sense, that’s the entire point. Maybe one day there will be commercial small scale reactors, but right now nobody is selling them as an off the shelf system.

   Dude, I need one of those phones to tell me to get out more to see movies like Jexi! 😉 Although I’d be most annoyed if some robot sent that particular photo to all of my contact list. Not cool, phone. Thanks for mentioning the movie, looks like fun. Actually I haven’t seen a film for a while, but just to tease you – Clarksons farm season two has begun… You’re missing out bro. 🙂 Ex Machina was a most excellent film.

   It was colder here today, and also at night. Fingers crossed we dodge the frost. This morning was 35’F but no ice, however, it’s a day by day thing. Right now it’s 37’F again. Ook!

   Yeah, we grew Elephant Garlic, the leek masquerading as a garlic, and to be honest, it’s a bit weedy. 🙂 Like in a good way though, but then the other leeks are like that too. Lewis, they’re taking over one or two garden beds. Removing them is like playing a game of whack a mole, except I’m not winning.

   Did you harvest as many tomatoes as you’d intended? Yummo! Having a salad for dinner this evening. Every year we get a little bit more out of the garden. And err, well, we were recently developing our own monthly planting schedule, and then I came across Steve Solomon’s schedule from his book: Growing vegetables south of Australia. It’s not quite a perfect fit, but it’s so close as to be a valuable guide, and bizarrely it largely matches our experiences and expectations. Oh well, why re-invent the wheel?

   Azalea are nice plants and enjoy the same conditions as the rhodies, but yeah, they’re as you note, smaller.

   Raises the question: Which came first? The wheat, or the beer?

   Nice work, and that’s especially thoughtful for being an anonymous contribution. Fresh grapes are very tasty. The vines here are just breaking their dormancy.

   Cheers

   Chris

6. potatoes- they can shrug off a frost pretty well. We’ve had the first sprouts get nipped, and they recover.

   protein sources- I know we’ve mentioned this before, but rabbit and deer are nice additions to the larder. These Sambar deer sound even more obnoxious than the white tail we have here. I suspect they’d taste just fine. Think of it as just one more homestead skill. Field dressing a deer- might make for some great videos 🙂

   solar- it’s all part of the denial syndrome. I often wonder if energy transition believers really think it can happen (switch to renewables to continue BAU), or are on some deep level, terrified and hoping that someone will figure out the real solution. News flash- there is no solution. The best we can do is soften the descent.

   Ah well, I’m a good one to talk, we are still grid tied and deeply dependent on the global juggernaut. BTW- gonna miss the internet when it is gone.

   electrical codes- your work output puts me to shame, so I feel quite conflicted even mentioning this, but here in the U.S., buried electrical is required to be 24″ deep if not in conduit, and 18″ if in conduit. You are in Australia, and are in a unique situation, but just wondered your thoughts on that.

7. Hi Steve,

   Thanks for the reassurance with the potatoes. Already it is 3’C outside and the night is clear, although there is some air movement, so maybe the frost won’t arrive, maybe. This morning was 2’C when I woke at first light and there was no frost to speak of so we’ll see. Actually the advice I got in regards to potatoes was to plant them a week or two prior to the last frost. The growing season here is a bit short for that advice to apply well given you can get frosts into November, and this has traditionally been a potato and berry growing area, even when the mountain range was cooler and you were unable to grow citrus.

   🙂 I’ll keep your sage advice in mind, and trust me, if I were hungry enough, bambi would make for some tasty yummo steaks. Funnily enough, there really isn’t a lot of protein wildlife moving around the mountain range, and I suspect it could be rapidly consumed if that path became the necessary thing to do to survive. Yeah, the video would really get some discussion going. 🙂 I’ve got friends who know how to do such work, so I’d probably call in some favours.

   Steve, I couldn’t agree with you more. Spot on, and that seeking hope invested in someone else figuring out the mess of the energy technology, is kind of how things are rolling. There are better ways forward, but on a practical note, it’s an unappealing prospect to mention using less stuff, mostly because people get angry at the suggestion. That path however would soften the descent.

   It ain’t just you, none of the technology we use for generating and storing electricity, can replace itself. All it buys is some time and a little bit of additional resilience. Like I mentioned to you a week or two ago, we’re weaning ourselves of LPG which down here is propane and butane. The costs just keep going up, so we’re doing our best to jump from the ship early and find something floating in the water so we don’t sink below the waves. 🙂 It’s been an interesting journey learning how to swim without the energy of gas, that one. Oh well.

   🙂 No, feel free to ask away. And that’s a great question too. The 25mm conduit contains 12V DC twin cables, and those are classified as Extra Low Voltage. As such, I believe the standard says that there is no minimum depth, it just has to be ‘safe’, and not cross (or closely run parallel to) mains AC wiring (which is 240V AC – which I’m not allowed to do anything at all with). The crossing and parallel issue I’m guessing is there because there can be some inductance from one cable to the other – not good and a little bit dangerous if you ask me.

   If it was mains AC higher voltage cable, from memory, the conduit has to be the 600mm / 24″ deep, and I’ve never encountered any cables buried below ground not in conduit in this country. For higher currents at mains voltages, I believe it is buried deeper again.

   Hope that answers your most excellent question?

   Cheers

   Chris

8. Yo, Chris – Early on, the Impressionists had a very small pool of collectors, with “vision.” Too many artists, too few collectors. And, occasionally, the art market was disrupted by wars, revolutions, and stuff. At one point, quit a few of the art community, fled to England, to get out of harms way. Monet and his family, did.

   Monet’s family said, fine, be an artist … but toe the academic line. And they held the purse strings. And constantly wanted him to return home to Normandy, where they could keep an eye on him. They also weren’t very happy with his wife … a woman from what they perceived as “the lower classes.” Unusual among the artists, but Monet was faithful to his first wife, and, after she passed away, his second. Any-who. But I digress.

   Early on, I figured out that you had to be darned near clairvoyant, to discern what instructors and teachers wanted, to get good grades. And shouldn’t stray too far from expectations. Although it all felt a bit smothering.

   Most modern art, is just … beyond me. Not interested. And I sure can’t see the money paid, for such stuff. Although I also can’t see paying 3 million for Babe Ruth’s sweaty old jersey. 🙂

   When you told the story of the house that wasn’t going to sell, it made me quit sad. That no-one with a bit of vision, showed up.

   Both my phone and computer are now “upgraded” to have a voice activated “assistant.” No thanks. I hear enough voices, without enabling another one. 🙂 I saw an article, that a lot of advertising, these days, claim AI this and that. And that people are less likely to buy such products. I suppose, partly due to the movies we’ve been discussing. People are beginning to get leery, about “the next new thing.”

   You’ve probably noticed that Elephant garlic has little bulblets, about the size of a pea. They easily come off the bulb, and can end up about anywhere. I might have had enough tomatoes, to get my 12 dried quarts, but didn’t want to leave it to chance. I bought, perhaps, a dozen and a half Romas, to fill in. And, I was able to pick a few from another garden. But, it’s done, and I can just eat fresh tomatoes til the frost.

   I was wondering about the green beans and Scarlet Runner beans. Their leaves are turning color, and falling. It’s not the temperature. I wonder if they have a natural lifespan. Or, if it’s the decreasing hours of light, that brings about their end?

   The Master Gardeners were here, yesterday. I gifted them with Elephant garlic bulbs, and another garlic starts, of uncertain parentage.

   I was going to do this and that in the garden, last night. but two friends of mine, from the Club, showed up. They walk in the neighborhood. So, I took them on a tour of the gardens. They were impressed. I got down to the other end of the property, and saw the new Japanese maple. There are also several other maples down there. Some volunteer is growing in some ground cover. It’s quit scarlet. Either an Oregon Grape, or, Red Oak. He chefs in two restaurants, so the conversation was interesting.

   Ted, the Master Gardener brought me a pint of bottled tuna fish. He had bought it right off the docks, on the coast, and his wife and he put it up. Had half of it, last night, with carrots and tomatoes, from the garden. Frozen peas and broccoli. Garlic, etc. I feel feel those Omega 3s, swimming in my veins! 🙂 Really tasty.

   One of the caregivers, who arrives early, saw two deer eating the grapes. I didn’t see any other damage. Time to deploy the blood meal, again.

   The high yesterday was 79F (26.11C). Overnight low was 52F. Forecast for today is 68F. Occasional scattered showers, today and tomorrow. Nice on Thursday. Back to occasional showers over the weekend. Still. no forecast frost, on the horizon.

   Looks like things are going to get horrendous, in Florida. Reports of no petrol in the stations, and jammed roads. The casualty count, is going to be high. And, there will be alligators and snakes, everywhere. I wonder if the tip of Florida, will become an island?

   Which came first? Wheat, of course. Can’t make beer without wheat.
   🙂 Lew

9. Hi Chris,
   Sadly what you say is true. Most I know think that solar will solve our problems. It’s disturbing to see so many farm fields turning into solar farms as farmers can make more money doing this than growing crops. And then there’s the fact that a significant number of months are quite cloudy. Your system sounds so complicated. Impressed that you can keep it up and running. Of course your diligence makes that happen.

   Watched the latest video on the chicken enclosure. Do you still let them free range from time to time?

   The bookstore is all moved and I’m happy to say I did not have to lift many boxes of books. Instead I had the easy job of erasing prices on the inside covers (boxes of new books came from another large used book sale) and sort according to genre. I have to say our managers did a stellar job coordinating the move and designing the space. It looks great and we’re getting many positive comments.

   Still no rain but I just finished cleaning up the tomatoes and pulling out the stakes and was pleased to see there is still moisture in the soil. No rain forecast for the next 14 days.

   We have friends that live in the mandatory evacuation zone in Florida and a few others that go to the area for the winter including my sister, Nora and her husband. They may not be going.

   Great flower pics as always.

   Margaret

10. Chris,

    “The trenches were all then backfilled and stomped down – no environmental activists were harmed in the stomping process.” Brilliant. I’m still laughing at that one.

    We actually had a storm front blow in on Friday. Another 3mm of rain, but this time spread over 3 hours rather than 100 minutes. It did some good.

    Naturally, the Subaru had been run through the car wash on Wednesday. With the dust that blew in with the rain, it needs washing again. Basically, the Honda gets washed and a good vacuuming once a month. The Subaru whenever I think it’s too dirty – usually just before a mudstorm recoats it with grime. 😉 I should probably wash it more often during the dry season in the hopes that a clean Subaru would attract rain.

    The television venture was rather fun. We had many people visit the show because they had seen us on tv. I enjoyed the “still” at the beginning of that segment: front and center was the club’s best pyrographer’s “Mother Theresa”. That is a wonderfully spectacular piece, which won several “Best of Show” awards. A few years earlier, that artist had done nearly as well burning a “Steven Tyler”. It did horribly in the shows. Nobody liked Steven Tyler, so the Steven Tyler pyrography did poorly.

    Which leads to my dilemma. Much of the judging depends on the moods and likes of the judges. My art can range from good to very good, but in a genre that the judges dislike, so even the art that is of good enough quality to be a blue ribbon isn’t. So, it is up to me to accept, adapt, move on.

    There is more than one way to accomplish that. You eloquently discussed one of these. (I sincerely appreciate your comments.) I have thought about that myself. However, even though we have had the same judges for years, what they like is not the same from year to year. So trying to do what the judges like would be a crapshoot, although avoiding what they don’t like could improve my chances. The downside to that is that if I create my art “for the judges”, then it’s not what I want to do, and I won’t do it as well, if I do it at all.

    So another solution is to accept that I might get red ribbons forever. Reset my expectations and occasionally get a pleasant surprise. I forgot to discuss that with myself leading into the show so I got rather miffed, as you noticed. My techniques and results are improving and I’m enjoying what I’m doing. So, I need to accept that I might be limiting my results, but those who know pyrography will recognize good quality work when it is there. The fact that the artist of “Mother Theresa” said that my current work was very good actually means more than anything that the judges could say.

    We’re experiencing more very warm weather. 25C today. Again. However, we might have our first frost Thursday morning. I’ve been rather enjoying working in the yard dressed like it’s midsummer. With the sun lower in the sky than in July, sunburn isn’t a problem. Dame Avalanche has also been busy lying on the grass in the sun, soaking it in.

    DJSpo

11. Hi Margaret,

    I’m not all that fussed about the solar myths, because solar really is a hippie technology which is being attempted to scale way beyond the hippie-sphere (whatever that is). It won’t work because the sun doesn’t shine at night (solar), sometimes the wind doesn’t blow (wind), and just for good measure, you can be in a drought (hydro). But what do you do? Nature is under no obligation to provide continuous energy to our species, and a garden proves that to be true – are conditions optimal all the time for plant growth?

    Back around Christmas 2015, the undersea power cable (almost 200 miles long) connecting this state, to the island state of Tasmania was broken – somewhere. Took six months to repair. It was no big deal for this state, because we had coal fired power stations. Except the island state to the south was in a drought, so their hydro resources were running low, and the grid there became increasingly at risk of failure. To solve the problems, they brought in huge diesel fuel powered generators in that island state to keep things going. Can’t imagine that you’d get such machines from the local equipment hire dealer! 😉 The diesel fuel bills for that island state would have been epic that summer, but the truth of the matter is that renewable energy systems will let you down, just like not getting enough rain or sun at the right time to grow the plants in your garden. It’s the same thing and that’s nature for you, and I’m sure you’d see that. 🙂 How different has your growing season been this year compared to the hot and dry season you limped through last year? Far out.

    But yes, that solar farm on farmland thing is happening down here as well, although not in this area. There’s been a massive dust-up with rural folks because the state goobermint is ramming through power transmission lines through farm land to connect up such solar power farms to the cities. The process is making a poor impression, mostly because rural people don’t want such industrial installations running through their farms. No chance of them installing anything like that around here, the old money folks in the more fashionable western end of the mountain range would have a fit.

    🙂 Truthfully, I don’t have a great deal of choice with all of the care and attention I lavish onto the off grid solar power system. It’s not really the sort of thing a person can set and then forget due to the significant risk it poses.

    Thanks for taking the time to watch the chicken video. The hens live a blessed life. 🙂 Years ago I used to let the chickens free range, however what I discovered was that the foxes know more about my business and routines than I do. They’d attempt to steal a free ranging chicken not ten feet away from me, whilst I’m yelling at the fox to go away – didn’t think to take the rifle out with me. I listen for the magpies calls nowadays because they alert each other to when there is a predator around, and there are times they do so, and I can’t tell what the call was made for. No doubts the foxes are watching from the forest edge, let alone the eagles, stray dogs, feral cats etc.

    Aren’t they lovely to have not forced huge amounts of lifting onto you. That’s respect for the work you do. Sorting books into genre is not as easy to do as you’d probably know. 🙂 Did you get any challenging books which crossed genre’s? Good to hear that the new shop is getting positive feedback. Makes all the effort worth it. I have a very soft spot for second hand bookshops, and rarely walk away without a handful of books. 🙂

    It’s no bad thing to have soil moisture and dry weather for the harvest time of year. Kind of ideal really. And at least the sun will have less force than during high summer, so the soil moisture may hang around (although that’s just a guess on my part) despite the lack of rain.

    Hope your friends get out in time? I’ve seen photos of the line of traffic exiting the area. That’s not good at all, and it’s in the news down here. The storm surges would trouble me deeply. I suspect that even if your sister and her husband wanted to travel there, even sheer force of personality couldn’t make it happen. And exactly, it will take a while to recover from these two epic blasts of nature. Hope people heed the warnings to evacuate.

    By contrast, the weather here today was delightful. Sunny, cool, calm, although overnight was 32’F. Brr! Looks like the frost skirted the orchard, maybe. The next few days should tell if there was any impact.

    Cheers

    Chris

12. Hi DJ,

    I promised Sandra not to harm any environmental activists, and I guess that in this particular case I have to be good to my word… 😉 It was pretty funny, and glad you also enjoyed my little joke.

    It’s possible that as you get less heavy snow in your part of the world that the winter rains will penetrate deeper into the subsoil? What you described is really common winter weather here, and I kind of describe that as “It rains a lot, but you don’t get much rain”. When rain is running over the soil surface, for whatever reason (including the subsoil being frozen), that’s a lost opportunity for the plants. Sometimes I scratch my head during the winter months and ask the hard question: How did we only get 3mm in 3 hours and everything is so crazy wet outside?

    DJ, if I may hazard a wild guess, your lady predominantly drives the Honda, whilst your preference is for the Suby? 🙂 Oh man, the Dirt Rat Jimny is like your Suby, in that it’s almost a waste of time to wash and clean mostly for the same reasons – it gets dirty again almost straight away. Sandra prefers driving the Dirt Mouse Swift which receives more or less similar once per month cleaning which somehow I’m doing purely for purposes relating to household happiness levels… Hmm, is there a pattern there?

    And yes, it is tempting the rain gods to wash the Suby when such moisture from the sky is required. 🙂 If it works…

    Steven Tyler clearly has one of the three missing rings of power, or a very good hair tech. Maybe even both? Dude, I almost spat my dinner all over the keyboard with that comment of yours I was laughing so much! Nobody liked Steven Tyler, indeed But I agree, the artwork was clearly much misunderstood.

    DJ, thanks so much for saying that, because it was a very difficult discussion to have, least of all because as Lewis rightfully pointed out, I’d faced my own difficulties with that particular issue and have then pondered long upon the meaning of the entire experience. To be frank with you, I wasn’t entirely certain how you’d take the discussion, but decided that you were self aware enough to also be able to step back and ponder the meaning of the experience. And it most certainly is a dilemma.

    Exactly. With a work of art, or any creative activity really, the French have a lovely saying: raison d’etre – which I believe is interpreted as ‘reason for being’. Why do we do this thing? A few weeks ago we recently visited an open garden which had famous landscape folks names attached to it. Everything was err, just so, and all the flowers were a signature white. It looked expensive and difficult to maintain, and wasn’t at all to my taste. Then next we visited a large sprawling country garden spread over ten acres which had been in the same family for three generations. The current owners had devoted four decades to developing it. There was a lot to see, and I really enjoyed visiting the place and had a good long chat to the owners. The first garden would win awards, whilst the second is very grand in the literal sense of that word, although the same judges would be looking for other aspects and would judge accordingly. As you note, it happens.

    That’s very high praise indeed from the other artist. And I’d have to suggest that your approach affords you an element of freedom, thus why I also take a similar point of view. Have to laugh, one of the best essays I’d penned in recent times was the ‘tiramisu fail’ and bizarrely, it scored some of the lowest numbers of reads in the blogs history. Talk about staying in your lane!!! What the… Oh well. Imagine for a second the pressure my friends of the big shed fame have to deal with – they won house of the year award about five years ago now – nationally too. I’d struggle with such success because how do you top that acclaim? With Steve Tyler maybe? 🙂

    Ooo, first frost will indicate a change to the cooler conditions. Hope you, your lady and Dame Avalanche have not all become summer soft? Hehe! Ah, the winter shock. It was 0’C here this morning. Brr. Patches of frost, but only on the edge of the orchards – I suspect the plants must generate some heat to have dodged that cold weather. Dunno. I’ll see how the potatoes go over the next week or so, the early vines may blacken and wither.

    Cheers

    Chris

13. Hi Lewis,

    That can most certainly happen with too many artists and too few patrons / purchasers. Presumably in those days the early impressionist artists came from wealthier backgrounds? It’s a notable achievement to paint whilst your family is going hungry. I’d not known that Monet and family had to escape to Britain due to local troubles. The bloke had a good work ethic, and he really pumped out quality paintings. Families can be pretty harsh sometimes on their children’s choice of partners. Ah, perhaps his work ethic got in the way of such indulgences? Back in the day they did use to quip that ‘idle hands were the devils workshop’, and it could be true – although just as equally the ideas could have been promoted by the mercantile / industrial class, and not to forget the puritans. Such sayings have their mark all over it.

    A fine digression too. Who doesn’t love a good digression moment? 🙂

    Sometimes I wonder if future economic troubles will reduce the sheer over-supply of free content on this here ol’ interweb thingee? You’ll have perhaps noticed that we’ve taken a specialisation approach to slowly building an audience on the utbub platform?

    Speaking of lots of hard work, we got up early this morning and then did a half and half day of paid work, and then work around the property. Finished late as is often the case on Wednesday. Anywhoo, moved all of those six large rocks from the firewood shed construction area, by taking them down to the new rock wall with all those water tanks. And also found time to pour another cement into concrete stair step for the new garden staircase. Feeling pretty good about it all, yeah. But as you can see, no time for naughty stuff! 🙂 Maybe the puritans were onto something, although I suspect they may have been so vocal due to err, guilty consciences! 😉 Just sayin…

    I agree, it is a bit smothering, and who knows what opportunities for learning get totally missed in that process? Possibly some of the methodology is pursued because it forces a person to learn to obey and recite, as distinct from critically analysing. I hear you though about the Clairvoyance aspect. At least at University the previous years exam papers were available in the library. Do enough of those things, and patterns emerge.

    Do you reckon someone will wash the jersey – even accidentally? Such things can happen, like that Banksy in Melbourne which was accidentally destroyed by a plumber drilling a hole in a wall. I don’t much have the brain-space to interpret modern art. If it’s not apparent as to what the thing is, well it’s not apparent is it. And that is when you realise you need an interpreter, and who knows whether such a person is spinning a story of err, bull-dust. Taking the mickey they used to call that act. I don’t have time for such things.

    Dude, it’s going to get washed. We all know it’ll happen by accident, and 99 times out of 100, it’s never the cleaners fault, but that one example might be the exception to the general rule. 😉

    The house story was just weird, and at the time was quite upsetting, but oh well, lesson learned, moving on. In the following two weeks, we really did put in some long work days and eventually normalised the house to what people would expect. Then it sold. This house here is built purely for us and our needs, but then so is the garden. When I read Goran’s blog, I’m a bit awe struck at all the connections he makes. Maybe I live in the wrong culture? 🙂 Very few people in this area are even remotely interested in the sort of things we’re doing here to make the place productive, that’s how good the economy pays down here to those who throw their lot in with it – and most people do. A job for the future is finding other people in the area who are doing similar things. And maybe harder economic times will get people motivated to get on-board? Dunno. It’s something of a mystery to me that issue.

    Lewis, stay away from the voices, and definitely check with us first if they tell you to do something unusual!!! 🙂 Very funny. The wundows computer assistant thing popped up onto different parts of the screen. No thanks, and whilst you can’t delete them, you can send them scurrying back to their corners. Perhaps with a well deserved dunces cap – remember those?

    True. It’s certain impacted upon my impression of the technology. Was the Terminator a force for good? I don’t think so. Was the Robocop nemesis always right? Did Aliens (from that super scary film franchise) want to be our friends? So many questions, and we all know the answers, don’t we? It probably doesn’t assist things that a lot of changes are used to push us consumers onto a subscription pricing model.

    Those are the things. It’s very difficult to remove elephant garlic from a bed for that very reason. We planted it about maybe six years ago, and it still pops up now. Candidly it’s a good survival crop.

    Respect for doing what it takes to stock up the dehydrated tomato stores. Nature provides in different amounts every year, and so you never know how things will go on that front. However, usually a person can have a pretty good idea as to how much they’ll need for the rest of the year.

    I dunno, but beans are less cold hardy than say, peas. In peoples minds the two plants get lumped together, but peas tolerate colder conditions much better and will germinate at lower soil temperatures.

    When do the master gardeners have their plant sale?

    Good stuff! And it’s always a pleasure to have visitors who can enjoy a decent tour and chin-wag. Did you say, chef’ing in two restaurants? That’s a lot of hours if he works like I’m imagining that arrangement would work. Ah, this would be Kenna’s kid presumably? Glad he could take some time out, and chefs who comprehend the origins of produce, are probably very good. Maples spread here too. 🙂 In the more fashionable end of the mountain range, there are a lot of Sycamores in the understory. We could easily send some to the UK to replace that tree cut down, and nobody here would notice the loss. 😉 I still can’t get over how few trees there were in that area.

    You’re spoilt rotten to have received the tuna fish, but in a good way. 😉 I’ve never eaten tuna prepared that way. Yummo indeed, and the fish oils are very good for you indeed. Liked the pun about the oils swimming in your system. Fish do that sort of thing.

    The fricken’ deer. Blood and bone meal aren’t cheap products, alas. Hope they stay away, I’m not a fan of them as their behaviour has not endeared (is that a deer pun right there?) to me.

    It was 32’F here this morning with some patches of frost, although only on the very edge of the orchards. We’ll see how the potato vines go over the next few days. Maybe they’ll be alright. Today was sunny, cool and still. Quite pleasant if you ignore the frozen over night. Oh well.

    Your weather sounds ideal, and it’s never good to experience the sort of weather that Hurricane Milton looks set to deliver. That’s going to be a very serious problem for that part of the world.

    Cheers

    Chris

14. Yo, Chris – Most of the Impressionists came from middle, or upper middle class families. Those, I think, really into the status quo. So, when their artist children didn’t conform … Most of them lived in dire poverty, early in their careers. The old trope about the starving artist, living in a garret was a real thing.

    One of the major news networks is trying out some articles, as “subscriber only.” I doubt they’ll be successful.

    So, when you do paid work in the morning, and then head outside, does if feel like being let out of school? 🙂

    Yes, I’m sure some of the Puritans had guilty consciences. But I think it was mainly about power and control.

    Early educators were pretty upfront about schools being training grounds for good little docile workers. All those bells and schedules.

    Someone will probably get the bright idea, to lift a bit of DNA off the Jersey, and clone Babe Ruth.

    “…purely for us and our needs.” I feel similar, when it comes to how they run this place. With the inspections and all. Still no dates. I often think that living for my comfort and convenience, runs counter to their “master plan.”

    The Master Gardeners plant sale, is usually around Mother’s Day. Which is the second Sunday, in May. They have another, smaller sale, in fall. I don’t know much about that one.

    The chef is Kenna’s boyfriend. There’s more to that story, but I’m not at liberty to divulge the details. As they used to say, they’re “keeping company.” Taking it slow. They showed up again, yesterday, and Kenna came bearing two big slabs of pumpkin / almond bread. I took one, split it in half, and buttered both halves. A quick trip through the microwave. On one half, I spread yoghurt. Kind of a taste test. Very tasty.

    Dinner was rice, a can of black beans, garlic and a handful of tomatoes, from the garden. A bit of cheese on top, and nutritional yeast. Also, tasty.

    I used up the last of the blood meal, to fend off the deer. Swung down by the store, to get another bag. They’ve moved all the garden stuff, to the back of the store. To make room for holiday tat. But, there was still a bag of blood meal. And, it’s still $15 for a 3 pound bag. 🙁

    The temperature, yesterday, was 68F (20C). Overnight low was 54. Forecast for today is 64F. We have a string of nice days, coming up. temps in the 70s. Still no frost, on the horizon. I see Hurricane Milton has begun to make landfall, in Florida.

    I’m reading two interesting books, I got from the library. Besides the Monet bio. And, “Book and Dagger.” “The Booklover’s Library” (Martin, 2024.) Same author who wrote “The Last Bookshop in London.” Which I quit enjoyed, and I think I remember, the editor did, too. We’re back in wartime London. A young widow, with a child, manages to land a job, working in a Boot’s Chemist lending library. They were a thing, at the time. Maybe not quit as good as the first book, but, I’m just getting into it.

    The other book is, “The Paranormal Ranger: A Navajo Investigator’s Search for the Unexplained.” (Milford Jr., 2024.) Milford was a Navaho ranger, for quit awhile. I don’t quit understand the difference, between tribal police, and rangers, but, they’re concerned with law enforcement. He and his partner ended up, besides their usual duties, being assigned any incidents that involved paranormal aspects. UFOs, Bigfeet, witchcraft, shapeshifters, and ghosts. If he’s telling the truth, and, I have no reason to believe he isn’t, there’s a lot more going on in the world, than we suspect. :-). Lew

15. Chris,

    Forgot to mention that I do know who Margot Robbie is. I really enjoyed her acting in “Suicide Squad”. I haven’t seen the sequel.

    Ah yes, rain on baked soil, rain on frozen soil. I once helped an engineer calculate the required size of a culvert to replace a failing bridge. (I may have mentioned this one before in another context.) One creek was the outlet for the entire drainage. My assumption: it’s midwinter with a meter of snow on the ground. We get a WARM front, temperatures to 10C with heavy rain, all of the snow melting in 24 hours. As the ground is frozen under the snowpack, ALL of the melted snow and rain will flow out of the drainage, none will soak in. The engineer was told by #2 that that is an improper set of assumptions, that engineering is not done that way. I wandered to #2’s office, chatted, then told him that maybe engineering doesn’t work that way, but Mother Nature does. Another way of saying this is “In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not.”

    Yes, the Princess drives the Honda. I drive the Subaru. While there may be patterns to keeping Editors and Princesses happy, I have found that it is best to claim ignorance. “I know nothing!” ala Sergeant Schultz of Hogan’s Heroes. He may have been the wisest person on that program.

    It would take a lot for you to make a comment that would truly offend me. Life is too short. It is much easier to learn from the experiences of others than it is to be eternally offended. You have earned the creds to be able to say anything to me.

    Oh, gag, the pristine, overly ordered “garden” versus the overgrown garden that looks a lot healthier and more natural. I much prefer the type that you enjoyed. I bet it had better bug and wildlife diversity too.

    I enjoyed “Tiramisu Fail”. There’s a way of getting out of the limelight other than a Steven Tyler likeness. Woodburn a walking stick. Enter it in the “Woodburned Walking Stick” section of the show, as opposed to the “Carved Walking Stick” section. Most likely, the woodburned stick will have one comment from the judges: “This needs to have more carving on it.” 😉

    Erm, who would even WANT to enter their house in a house of the year contest? Too much work to get it up to snuff. Too much angst. Too much ongoing upkeep to maintain “status”. Oh, that’s right. Some people crave “status”. No thanks.

    It clouded over rather early in the evening, so stayed far too warm for frost. A mild cold front is supposed to blow the clouds out overnight. Should have frost in the morning. We shall see.

    DJSpo

16. Hi DJ,

    I’d not heard of the film, but the trailer was suitably mad. The big walking shark was a hoot. Lots of explosions and mayhem plus humour.

    Yeah, that’s a very useful principle, which I’m writing down for future reference. Thanks! I do recall you mentioning an incident along those lines, but the details slipped my mind. On the other hand, this is the exact same issue I have to face with most of the systems here. It raises the most important, but also rarely asked question (present company excluded, of course 😉 ), does this here suggestion work under likely worst case scenarios? As an observation on our society, we do like to sometimes do things on the cheap. The main issue with cheap is that sometimes it’s not at all the same thing as good.

    Always wise to keep one’s lady happy, and if that means keeping the car clean, occasionally, then why not? I’ll let you in on a little secret though, in order not to set expectations too high, I’m deliberately random with such efforts. Don’t tell Sandra… 😉 One must walk a fine line between becoming responsible for said lady’s usual area of accountability, to enjoying some quiet moments with nothing much better to do. A bloke has to know when to relax, and also when to pretend to be busy. If you master this esoteric art form, please don’t hesitate sending a few tips. 🙂

    I used to watch Hogan’s Heroes as a kid. A fun show, and always wise to laugh and send up one’s stated enemy. Man, that line brings to mind the voice of Sergeant Schultz speaking just that.

    Thank you so much for saying that, and of course the social credits move in both directions. In many ways, much of the feedback I’ve received over the years here is received as being well intentioned. Every time I write now, I can hear the echo of Inge’s observation: Concision! Yes, chef! 🙂 And it’s most excellent advice to avoid the unnecessary words. It’s only in these more enlightened times that people have attempted to shield themselves from any negative feedback. Trust me in this, nature has no compunction in letting me know that I’ve utterly stuffed up a system here.

    Like here, the large rambling country garden was teeming with life, as you suggested. Speaking of wild gardens, Dame Plum had a seizure today, and Ruby is feral due to distractions. A decision has been made, and the war on rabbits will continue – in a few days time. Man, I’m very much falling into the Elmer Fudd school of rabbit diplomacy.

    Ah ha! Already you are discerning the quality of the judges minds, and mate, they have it in for walking sticks! I’ve seen some wonderfully wood burned walking sticks with images of reptiles wrapped around the timber. Lovely works of art, but hey, now I know – don’t bother entering them. 😉

    Here’s some footage of the place. It’s amazing and deserved the accolades: Amazing Homes. I doubt that there’s much else like it anywhere.

    Hope you dodged the frost? I began hilling up the potatoes today, and bizarrely, the 0’C didn’t seem to bother them. We’ll see. I’ll chuck some photos in on the next blog. I had to bring in a trailer load of soil mix because I don’t actually have enough spare soil anywhere to hill up the potatoes.

    Cheers

    Chris

17. Hi Lewis,

    In such heady classes, perquisites are tested and measured exactly, and deviations are known. I recently read an economic history of the shenanigans leading up to the Great Depression, and may have mentioned this. The message I took away from the book was that what was true one day, can turn to be false the next, and even years later, nobody really knew why things turned as drastically as they did that year.

    Yes, I recall that the author George Orwell penned ‘Down and Out in Paris’ from his experiences of living in a garret. And truly, before this evening, I’d not quite appreciated how such accommodations were arranged and had come to be, and the reason for the low status. Of course, being at the top of the stairs was viewed poorly. And the attic room itself would hardly have afforded pleasant and luxurious facilities. At least during the winter months, hot air rises.

    Nah, the push to the subscriber model may not work in formerly publicly accessible spaces. Mind you, I can see a time where the interweb sites demand users log in before viewing content – even the free stuff.

    Why, now that you mention it… 🙂 That was pretty much how things rolled yesterday, and again today. Lewis, I’ve surely done lots of bad things in a former life, and now must work, and work hard. I can live with that. 😉 Speaking of such matters, after paid work was done, I brought a trailer load of soil mix back up from the supplier in the nearby township. That’s a great business that one. Anyway, I needed the soil for hilling up the potatoes, and then began doing that process. Despite the 32’F overnight temperature, the vines haven’t blackened and died. A mystery? At the end of each row, there is now a neat pile of soil to grab so that the hilling up of the potato vines can continue for the next month or so. I was left with a bit of soil over so gave each of the fruit trees in the shady orchard a shovel load of the stuff. It all adds up I guess.

    Ruby was feral with rabbit chasing today, so over the next few days the Empire must strike hard against the wabbit webel alliance. That’s the plan anyway. Dame Plum ate something nasty earlier today (I could smell it on her beforehand) and had a seizure whilst I was otherwise enjoying lunch. That episode freaked out the other two dogs who were evicted into the dog enclosure, then I sat with her and kept her calm, then cleaned up the mess. Poor dog, she just can’t seem to stop herself from indulging. Oh well. All dogs are now on restricted access to the farm for the foreseeable future. It might be easier…

    I agree with both observations, but yes it does appear to be predominantly about power and control. And maybe also the horror they have to live with at the thought that someone, somewhere, may be enjoying themselves. That puritan lot are the ultimate in micro-managers.

    People don’t talk about such education history nowadays, but didn’t it originate in Prussia of all places? A sad state of affairs for those of us who can think their own thoughts, but oh well.

    Hehe! I’d like to see them try that with the DNA! They’ve been trying to bring back from extinction the Tasmanian Tiger for a while now. The last known one died in the 1930’s. For some reason the goobermint put a bounty on the hides, and that was that.

    Man, the concept of quiet enjoyment has been roundly ignored, and your accommodations would be subject to such things. Hmm. You know how you mentioned the unintelligent phone app upgrade the other day, well my phone was spruiking the idea for this thing this afternoon. No thanks.

    You’re a good friend to not divulge the details of the relationship. Also those sorts of things have a way of coming back around to bite a person, don’t you reckon? It’s a lovely old fashioned way to describe the relationship, yeah. Back in the day, people were rather coy about such domestic arrangements. I’ve never had pumpkin / almond bread, but was the consistency a bit cake like?

    Back to the land of rabbit food for you – everything in moderation, they say. Had home made pizza for dinner. Yum! It’s a nice time of the year in the garden, despite the fact that a person could starve at this perilous time of year if 100% reliant on the garden, and lunch was a big handful of greens, some chunks of tasty cheese (a pale yellow aged local cheddar – you’d have to search high and low for orange cheese because it’s not a thing down here, although I know of someone who could find the stuff and sometimes teases me about it) and a couple of fried eggs. Yum. After that I was chowing down on a chunk of freshly baked bread slathered with peanut butter when all hell broke out below the dining table (Dame Plum having a seizure). These things happen.

    Whoa! Lewis, how is anything cheaper here than in your country? Such things rarely happen. A 66 pound bag of blood and bone meal will cost around a $1 per pound. Mind you, the addition will be good for the soils. Sometimes people forget just how depleted the soils are down here for phosphates.

    The news here is suggesting that Milton has been downgraded, which should be a relief. However the photos and footage of the storm looked horrendous. The photos from the aftermath of Helene look far worse.

    The book sounds like a good premise. I’d not realised that libraries in those days were ‘closed access’, presumably only for the benefit of the subscribers. No wonder the pulp press did well.

    And that’s the fun thing about the world. It’s bigger and stranger than our minds can grasp. 🙂

    Cheers

    Chris

18. Yo, Chris – That was a good read, by Orwell. Some attic spaces were desired, by artists. The really large one’s, with skylights or large windows overlooking the roofs of Paris. You see them in the movies, from time to time. Great light, for art, if you could negotiate the stairs. And, the problems with climate control 🙂 .

    I avoid computer subscriptions, of any kind. I don’t care what they’re offering as an inducement. Reduced costs, free shipping, etc.. Most businesses that want to be successful, have an option for “guest checkout.” Also, when I go to some websites, a box pops up, and my computer tells me, the websites wants to know my location. Yes, or no. No, no, no.

    I guess, if you have to go out and buy soil, you’ve reached peak soil. 🙂 I hope it’s better than that load of rubbish soil, the Master Gardeners brought in, last year. They also got it from a supposed good business, that they had used before.

    Speaking of hunting up businesses … I did some laundry, last night, and washed my two coats. My heavy winter coat, that I sometimes refer to as my sleeping bag, well, the washing or drying f****d the zipper. Well, I bought the coat, probably over 10 years ago, at one of the op-shops. For $3. So, it was used, then. But, it’s still in good shape, even the lining. It’s a good length, that I like. It’s even fairly waterproof. And, it’s blue! 🙂 So, I’m looking around (and asking around) to see if I can find someone to replace the zipper. Internet searches didn’t provide much joy. There was a place down by the court house, that had been around for 40+ years. But, I think they’ve either moved, or gone out of business. Something will turn up.

    Poor Dame Plume! I hope she’s feeling better, today. The accommodations we make, for our furry friends. I keep H’s couple of favorite toys, on the bed. Occasionally, she gets it in her head, that they need to go with her, when we go for a walk. Grabs one and heads for the door. It’s easier, if before I mention “walk” that I just throw back the corner of the blanket, to cover them up.

    Now here’s a situation where a bounty on the hides, might come in handy.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/video-shows-nearly-100-raccoons-swarm-womans-yard-prompting-911-call-in-washington/ar-AA1rUMwG?ocid=socialshare

    If that link doesn’t work, just try searching “Video shows Nearly 100 raccoons swarm woman’s yard.”

    Yes, I’ve read a good chunk of our educational system was based on a Prussian model. Education methods varied, and go back a long way. The Romans, at least the rich, had private tutors. But often, a poor scholar would set up under a public colonnade, and teach. Usually, passing the hat, to provide income. I couldn’t find a link, but there’s a wall painting, of such a colonnade school, with a teacher beating a student. 🙂

    The pumpkin almond bread didn’t have much “rise,” so, it was a bit more cake-like. Who cares? Still tasty.

    Dinner last night was a can of seasoned butter beans (aka lima beans), with garlic, rice and some frozen broccoli. A little feta cheese, sprinkled on top.

    Yesterday’s high was 64F (17.77C). The overnight low was 43F. Forecast for today is 65F. The forecast is for a run of fairly sunny days, with temps in the upper 60s, low 70s.

    Private subscription libraries, were a thing, in different places, at different times. Public libraries, at the time, were mostly carrying classics or reference works. Popular fiction, not so much. Which could be expensive. Subscription libraries provided access, for a small fee. Good old Britain, with its class system. Boots had “A” subscribers, and “B” subscribers.

    I finished the “Paranormal Ranger” book, last night. After years of bumping up against the paranormal, he had an interesting theory, which I hadn’t considered, before. That most paranormal phenomenon, originate in different dimensions. Everything from UFOs to Bigfoot. Actually, that makes some sense. Especially, with Bigfoot. Why they seem to appear, and disappear. And why no bones have ever been found. He also experienced several instances of coins, falling out of thin air. They always landed on heads. 🙂 Where did they come from? Well, another dimension, of course.

    I went shopping for the Club pantry, last night. Picked up tinned tuna, sardines, corn, peas, mandarine oranges, pineapple, oysters, ersatz Spam, ravioli, bean and ham soup, mustard, catsup, chili and beef stew. We’re supposed to get a food box, tomorrow, but I’ll hold all that stuff, until next week. Lew

19. Yo, Chris – You may not have seen these photos, from the hurricane.

    https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/08/weather/gallery/hurricane-milton

    Unbelievable damage. Lew

20. Chris,

    “In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not.” I wish that was a DJ original. It isn’t. However, as far as I know, my friend who died a year ago came up with that. That one was one of his best.

    Whew! After 3 days packed with being around and interacting with a lot of people, this introvert needed a few days to recover. Finally, close to back to whatever my normal is. Remember, however, that the guy who came up with that nice quote, well, he and his brother and I once were the Normal brothers: Ab, Sub and Para. Hence, normal for me might be radically different than a “normal” person’s “normal”. 😉

    Ok, so back to the pyrography. And where is “NI” hidden? The signs have nothing to do with that. Hint: the 2 letters are not together but are both on the werewolf’s side of the piece.

    Thanks for the comment about how I did the light source. However, it was entirely unintentional. In fact, it might not even be a light source. There was some “character” in the wood that almost looked like carbon smudge marks, but wasn’t, but those needed to be worked into something. So I followed contours in the wood and lightly burned along these contours and that “character”. The “character” then looked maybe like a moon, or maybe like a pig with a moon in its mouth. Others have seen a raven in that area also, fish and other things elsewhere in the highlighted contours. Also, without adding something in the background, the piece would have looked strange and empty. Anything resembling faces or fishes or birds or anything in that random shading (other than perhaps part of “NI”) was purely accidental.

    That’s the thing, isn’t it? If you stuff up an application on your farm, the result is rather serious and perhaps catastrophic. Worst case scenarios with additional worst case multiplied into it is probably planned for? But if the cost is the main variable, worst case will not be adequately planned and built for.

    One of the weird things I had to deal with at the job was “flood plains”. There were 10 year, 30 year, 100 year and 1,000 year flood plains. Yes, it was expected that ON AVERAGE, each of those would have a flood based on their number, once every 10 years, or 30 years, etc. Building permits were okay in the 1,000 and 100 year flood plains, but not in the more frequently flooded areas. Yet what I found in those 28 years was that a lot of 10 year flood plains flooded regularly, most 30 year flooded every 10 years or even more often, and a lot of 100 year flood plains flooded several times in those 28 years. I always figured that if a house were built in a flood plain, sooner or later a flood would occur, the “average occurrence” of those events be darned. This is another practical application of my friend’s maxim.

    Sorry about Dame Plum’s seizure. Ruby distracted due to distractions? Dame Avalanche can relate to that. So you might start Elmer Fudding your way with the rabbits? Wander the farm carrying a loaded shotgun? Dude! I’m envisioning a completed woodburning featuring Elmer Fudd with your face saying “Shhhh! Be vewy quiet! I’m hunting wabbits!” Or you could take a somewhat more medieval approach: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJI_gygXsfs

    The walking stick thing actually happened at a show. A coworker had hired me to make her a walking stick, woodburned. She knew that it would be “abnormal” because she knew me. I had a good branch of chokecherry that I had trimmed, so I took off the bark and got to the wood layer. There were a bunch of worm “tunnels” on the wood. So I took full advantage, burned them, added some centipede type legs on some, mouths with fangs on most. Added a few other things, again using naturally occurring features of the wood. Coworker let me borrow it back for the show a few months later. I knew full well that it would get nothing higher than a red, simply because the pyrography patterns and designs were so nontraditional. When I saw that judge comment – “This walking stick needs more carving” – I was laughing so hard I literally had to lean on the nearest table to keep from falling to the floor. That actual judge wandered over to see what was going on. A different carver pointed at the comment, then pointed at the category marker, and said, “This is in the WOODBURNING section and doesn’t need carving, by definition!” Surprisingly, the judge is still one of our regular judges.

    No frost. +3C. We’ve had 2 colder nights a week ago, both without frost. Warming trend here with more temps expected near 25C. The leaves ARE changing color, however, and some of the trees are rather spectacular.

    DJSpo

21. Hi DJ,

    Such a clever saying, and a good way to remember your friend. A cheeky one, for sure, not to mention the rest of you all! As a fellow introvert I can well understand your perspective and need for some quiet time. How people cope without such things whilst being constantly stimulated by lots of other people, is something of a mystery to me. And as to the question of ‘what is normal’, philosophers down the ages have considered this matter. To be honest though, I’m not entirely certain the outcome from all those centuries of cogitation, have been useful – and still nobody actually knows the answer. 42 is of course the best and most meaningful answer, so far.

    Man, I looked for the letters, and alas my best efforts have gone to naught. I should mention that my brain is not wired for resolving word games, like, err, anagrams. For some reason I just can’t see such things. Another mystery. Can you at least provide a more specific hint?

    The wood you chose, may have chosen you. 🙂 There’s a fish, also a much larger piggie / moon face, and maybe even a monster tidal wave in all of the swirls. The timber certainly has lots of character. The random shading looks far less random than you’d imagine. Is part of your work, reading the timber and seeing what it has to say?

    Yes, exactly, that’s how things roll. Like when we burned out the plate steel on the first wood heater. So unnecessary, and we caused all of the damage. Of course, the wood heater was not appropriate for the job we were putting it, and that is another story – along the same lines. But I sure do miss the wood fired oven. Our winter electricity problems began after that loss. So many things to go wrong, and hopefully there’s enough years and resources to rectify most of the worst ones.

    Hehe! We’ve had that sort of conversation on the blog before about flood risk, versus fire risk. You were on the difficult side of that story, because few people want to hear the bad news about their property. And they both work on cycles too, and sooner or later, you’ll face what it means. The thing is though, from my perspective, a fire may be survivable and the risks can be somewhat mitigated, but floods take out everyone. I’ve heard that the authoritas are moving away from such terminology because the English language interpretations of the words don’t resemble the legal definition. Dunno, but the descriptions sure sound misleading to me. And every year we work super hard at reducing the fire risk, but I’d need a couple of lifetimes to eliminate it. The indigenous folks had it right in that regard the way they managed the land.

    Ah the Valkyrie, dare not mess with their business lest ye become entangled in their never ending dramas. I always loved the Warner Brothers cartoons, and did I not detect some of the melody from Ride of the Valkyrie? Brunhilda was bad news, and probably way out of Elmer’s league, magic helm or not.

    So are you suggesting that you were the ‘Ab’ of the original trio of mischief? Not a bad title there. 😉 Oh yeah, the tunnels in the wood are fascinating, and I get to see those as well down here in the timber. It will be very interesting to see what happens when we begin milling timber for the new firewood shed project.

    Yes, the comment is very suggestive as to the person you mentioned and their abilities to assess categories. Well it’s a tough job, but candidly I do wonder about such folks, and used to live next to a well known person with that err, job title, but perhaps more senior. The child of the person, had two lady friends who died allegedly by suicide. I had some unusual interactions with that lot, and err, moved.

    Ah, but did the judge say sorry for the mistake? That’s when you get to see inside a persons soul.

    Nice one, and you dodged the frost. It was the same temperature here this morning! Although your daytime temperature is the forecast for Sunday. Incidentally, the lost hour is on it’s way to you, and has been packed carefully for the journey. Please do you your best not to scratch and/or dent the hour! 😉

    Cheers

    Chris

22. Hi Lewis,

    Oh man, the latest photos look terrible, and what’s worse is that there were plenty of photos displaying the damage from the previous hurricane, like huge piles of debris on the street. Sometimes, systems can become overwhelmed.

    There were quite a few images on the interweb of some of the nicer looking garrets with lovely bright windows, and an artist busy at their work. Then there were the contrasting images of unrelieved squalor with families in dire straits during the depths of winter. Incidentally, the young family depicted in the image were in the process of receiving relief from a very well attired couple. The question did pass my mind as to whether this was an artists depiction of the situation prepared for mad cash for the news of the day? It’s hard to know, and the truth of the matter may lay somewhere else. But oh yeah, the room would get to enjoy all of the climate extremes. Still, there does need to be space available for those who choose to produce works of art.

    It’s a complicated problem, and I read in the local newspaper that a town on the northern side of the mountain range suddenly had their general store close. It was difficult from the article to work out why this had occurred. However, I noted that the business had changed hands a few times in recent years, tourists were mentioned, and there some alluding to lease negotiation issues.

    The joke about this whole property price thing up, up and away, is that sooner or later, the price of property will be so high, that nobody can make any mad cash running a business at the address. And things will slowly splat economically from that moment – as leases conclude and there is nobody left to take them up. It’s a dangerous game all these authoritas are playing.

    The Editor went into a big box store on Thursday and was the only customer. It was nice to have three staff members helping her, but it doesn’t make any economic sense. And I’ve experienced similar things, like when I bought that metal distribution box. Their attitude and prices that day was such that it made me decide that next time, I’ll shop online with less hassles. I doubt I’d be the only person to have such thoughts.

    Speaking of the Editor, she was very unhappy this morning about the time required to make all of the videos. Hmm. Could be a problem, and so I had a think over the course of the day as to how to make them easier for the sake of the household. utub is a funny business model, yup.

    Oh, that lot are pesky, and I hear you about that. Hey, I’ve got a neat line I use to squelch such bricks and mortar store subscription demands in a positive way: Thanks, but I don’t want the advertising! People seem to comprehend that. But some of the tech-bros are using the public as a funding source via regular subscriptions. Ah yes, the famous walking ATM which we somehow seem to look like.

    And the location one is a goodie, because they’re not really telling you what are all the other trackers being uploaded to your computer. I’ve got an ad-blocker program (which ironically I pay for) and it amazes me the number of trackers some websites have.

    That’s funny, and yes, also sadly true – Peak soil is real, my friend. 🙂 The volume of organic material I’ve brought in here over the past eighteen years is phenomenal. In any normal time, that would only be a perquisite of the very wealthy. Who knows what is really in any of this stuff? There have been some supplies (not from my lot) which have been contaminated with some very potent commercial grade herbicides. Not good. Didn’t work so great when applied to peoples gardens. Actually the potato vines I hilled up yesterday, have grown… Could be related to a Triffid? It’s a crapshoot bringing materials in, but if there were another way which didn’t involve ruminants…

    In other unusual garden news, I’d dropped some pumpkin seeds into the worm farm, and it’s so nice and warm in there, plus moist, that all of the seeds sprouted. I might be able to put the worm farm bin to a new use? It’s bad because it is simply too cold and wet to plant the seedlings outside. Oh well, but it’s an idea though. I’m intending to raise pumpkin and maybe even some melon seeds in the yoghurt maker later this year. It’ll work too to get them started.

    Oh that’s not good, and back in the day, everyone was good at mending clothes. In this corner of the world, the dry cleaner shops usually can arrange to have clothes repaired. It must be done locally, probably in someone’s garage, because I’ve always found it to be an affordable option. Do you even have a dry cleaner in your town?

    Dame Plum is feeling better today, and thanks for saying that. However, all dogs here are now on immediate restricted access to the wider world. Baffled would be how I’d describe their emotional state, but too bad, they brought that poop down on their own heads.

    Nice move with H covering over her toys. And clearly you’ve gotten into her mind space and outwitted her best efforts. I’d call that a distraction technique number two!

    Ah, a rookie mistake with the raccoons. That’s what you get when you deliberately set out feed for wildlife. Things eventually can turn ugly, and woe betide the day the lady neglects to bring out the feed. That would be a bad day indeed. People make the same mistake down here with the sulphur crested cockatoos, and they have powerful beaks, bad attitudes, and can happily damage houses if slighted. Not to mention they live for eighty plus years. Vindictive critters.

    Ah, I see, well perhaps the naughty Roman student let his attention wander. Letting one’s mind float away when there is a notorious martinet before you, clearly dates way back in our culture for a few millennia. That’s an interesting image, and the teacher looks like he knows a thing or two about the rat whisk.

    I prefer denser bread, and only bake with high protein flours which give that result. Sometimes people have confused my bread for cake, but that’s usually only from the merest of casual glances. Historically, padding out the flour supply with such vegetables was the done thing.

    The weather is almost exactly the same here, and tomorrow is in the same ball park.

    There was a poem penned about those subscription libraries, and it casually mentioned the class system.

    Another dimension is an explanation which suits me just fine.

    The Club pantry will clear out pretty quickly with all of those ingredients. And did the box arrive? It’s not always guaranteed now.

    Cheers

    Chris

23. Yo, Chris – I wonder how many days will pass, before the hurricane drops entirely out of the news. I ought to start a betting pool … 🙂

    Back in the day, it was a thing for the upper classes to do “good works,” for the “deserving poor.” Sometimes, for self aggrandizement. With a greater of lesser degree of tact.

    We do seem to have a lot of empty commercial spaces, scattered around our county. Sometimes empty, for years.

    When I picked up those flannel shirts, the other day, at the general all purpose store, I decided I needed to stock up on a few more socks. American made, black cotton tube socks. Before that business changed hands, year before last, the sock selection was … manageable. Now, they have walls and bins of socks, mostly name brands, and, expensive. It was overwhelming. Similar to the whole aisle of pens, at the big box office supply store. I took a look down the rabbit hole, and what I was looking for, was in abundant supply. I’ll be ordering, on-line. Of course, I wonder where the thread, for the American Made socks, comes from? Maybe I shouldn’t inquire, too closely.

    A couple of long-time businesses, changed hands here, recently. In both newspaper articles, the new owners said “Oh, we’re not going to change anything.” I’ve heard that before. Many times. Someone always has a brighter idea.

    Maybe the Editor is a bit miffed, she’s putting in all this work, just to make you an internet star? 🙂 See: “A Star is Born” (any version) or “All About Eve.” (1950). That last has a very early cameo of Marilyn Monroe. Remember, you see the same people, on the way down, as on the way up!

    When I say the same, to my computer, it totally ignores me. Maybe I should get one of those chatty assistants? When I open my computer, there’s a box that proclaims how many trackers have been thwarted, in the last week. Though the numbers don’t make much sense. But, it’s nice to know they’re on the job.

    What do you have against ruminants? Does the RLF (Ruminant Liberation Front) know about this? Your cancelled! No more yoghurt, for you. 🙂

    The clothing repair shop I mentioned, is a dry cleaner. According to the Font of All Wisdom, they’re still in business, in the same location. I’ll swing down that way, on my way to the Club, tonight. I have to drop off my electric bill. Save a stamp, as I’m driving right by.

    Speaking of the electric bill, I wondered if it would be up, due to all the tomato drying with the stove vent fan on. It was up a little bit, but nothing to be concerned about.

    Padding out the flour supply. Padding and substitutions have led to many a culinary delight! Last night, I had the last of the tuna, with peas, carrots, rice, garlic, etc.. Tasty. H got a little taste, and quit liked the tuna. Maybe there’s a cat, in her genetic woodpile?

    Yesterday’s high was 61F (16.11C). The overnight low was 46F. Forecast for today is 69F. There is no rain in the forecast, but I see big green blobs, on the weather radar. Might just be heavy coastal fog.

    I might be surprised, but I don’t think we’re going to get a food box, today. I thought it seemed a bit early in the month, for the second box. And, the sign up sheet is still in the lobby. They usually pick it up, a day or two before delivering the box. It wouldn’t be the first time, the schedule is wrong. Lew

24. Chris,

    Although 42 is the answer, I will be happy to provide more explicit answers as to the whereabouts of “NI”. Look in the tree just above the London sign. The “I” is above the werewolf’s head and might look like part of the ear of the pigface floating above the werewolf.

    Yes, there is a lot of looking at the wood, listening to the wood. Some people would see flaws in the wood. I look at these as features and character, then try to encompass them into the design. Knots can be difficult to work with, both carving and burning. Different hardness and texture. I’ve seen people decide what they are going to burn, come hades or high water, and ignore that the knot in the middle of the wood will screw up the process. A different piece of wood was needed, or perhaps change the project to use the knot as a highlight. Sort of like how I used the worm tunnels in the chokecherry walking stick. Or the monster tidal wave in my latest piece – just work with what is there, bring out some of the character of the wood. Work with the wood, not fight it.

    Yes, you caught the songs. Ride of the Valkyrie was the main one in that cartoon. I always enjoyed how Looney Tunes used so much classical music in their cartoons. They really used the overly seriousness of some operas for maximum comedic effect.

    Moi? Ab? Well, sometimes. Who was Ab, who was Sub and who was Para could be rather fluid. But under normal ;0 circumstances, I was Ab. Of course, as two of us were getting physics degrees, we also masqueraded as Jack Physics and Joe Physics. We had a lot of fun with those personae also.

    No, that particular judge has never apologized for any of his mistakes. Thanks for asking that…it has me remembering some of his more egregious booboos. That should help me realize going forward that the judging is really something of a joke, so that entering artwork in our show is more to support the club than it is to get my work judged. I’ve seen too many weird judging decisions that didn’t involve me. I shouldn’t take it seriously at all.

    What? Your neighbor’s women had a penchant for allegedly dying at their own hands? Ouch! I’d have moved too!

    Ugh. Weather came in from a different direction. Yup, brought in some smoke. We’ve stayed holed up indoors all day. Had to turn on the air cleaner fan for a few hours. We might be stuck with marginal smokiness for a few days.

    DJSpo

25. Hi DJ,

    My brain is probably not (and please excuse the intended pun) ‘deep’ enough to comprehend either the answer, let alone the question. 🙂 Touché! Thanks for the explanation as to the whereabouts of the characters. Now that you have pointed them out to me, I can no longer un-see them, although admittedly the ‘N’ is more clear than the ‘I’ to my eyes.

    I’m very much of your opinion in relation to wood. The art has to fit the timber, and not the other way around. You can see that process at work with chainsaw carvers, although do they even have such art forms in your country? Sometimes, they’ll take a tree stump and carve the most fantastical creations. I’ve watched such people at work, and really didn’t have a clue as to how they ‘saw’ the end product prior to firing up the chainsaw. Wood is a natural product and no two pieces will ever be similar, especially so with the denser hardwood species. Out of curiosity, do you prefer using hardwood or softwood species for your burning projects? I guess that choice informs the tightness of the grain, and wood grubs and ant tunnels provide the wild-card effects – like in that stick.

    DJ, I have to fess up. I only know that the melody was ‘Ride of the Valkyries’, because long ago a computer game included the epic soaring song when the game was won. It’s a really lovely and inspiring piece of music. Of course as you may imagine in those days the music was reproduced in six part 8-bit err, well it wasn’t the sort of quality people are used to hearing today – but the notes, timing and melody were still clear enough.

    The ring cycle from that err, cursed and seriously flawed genius, had a bit of a surge in popularity in the early 1980’s. It was a bit of thing at the time. As a kid I’d ask the adults what the heck it was all about, and as you’d imagine with that lot, I got rebuffed, and quite rudely too. As such, I identify such arty music with sheer pretentiousness, so it is not for the common folk, which is a category apparently I fall into. My tastes in music are much more earthy than those oh-so lofty heights. And the Warner Brothers cartoons always spoke to me, so glad to hear that I’m in good company. Yes, send them up, up, and away to the land of elsewhere! Alas Mr Greer is rather enamoured of the art form, and fair enough, that’s the wonderful thing about taste, he’d probably dislike my taste in music. Thus the universe is balanced! 😉

    What moi? 🙂 Very funny! Always fun to know people who can have fun with words. They sounded like a fun mob to know and hang out with. People are rather serious these days, not for any good reason though. If we could only but tap that super serious energy and do some good with it, but alas, it all looks like a bunch of hot air to me!

    Exactly! The club and the people in it are bigger than the show and awards. It also raises a very good question, who judges the judges? When some groups seek to self govern with demands for little to no oversight, things can sometimes go a horridly wrong. I’ve heard some stories about that lot. Makes your blood curdle, but can they be poked? Probably not. Dude, without any question of doubt, they were the dodgiest neighbours I’d ever experienced. Did you know, that one day I arrived home to find that they’d organised (and paid for) to have the electricity pole moved from out front of their place, to in front of mine? That was very deeply weird. However, on another day, I parked my beat up old car out front of their house, and somehow it was broken into, and err, moved down the road all by itself. That’s the magic of status and power for ya. When I later heard about the two unfortunate incidents, and what went on afterwards involving some people in high places, well, let’s just say that nothing surprised me. Those folks kind of scared me a bit with all the weird goings on and they’d crush me like an ant. There’s an old saying about absolute power corrupting absolutely, and that’s when I think about that family and those crazy days. Sometimes a dude has to know when not to get involved and run for the hills.

    Bummer about the smoke, but better to burn now than in high summer. You’d not much enjoy things down here either, because not only is there extreme pollen, I spied a planned burn off to the west of here. Yikes!

    I mowed a little bit today, and what nobody really mentions about ride on mowers – and we have two low centre of gravity machines perfect for steep slopes – is that they’re fun. 🙂

    Cheers

    Chris

26. Hi Lewis,

    I distinctly remember listening to the national goobermint radio station reporting of the completely nuts fires during Black Saturday 2009, when a caller messaged in to ask if they could perhaps listen to something else. Yeah, empathy is a lost art form in these enlightened days, and man, in the photos of the destruction from the most recent hurricane, plenty of the debris was left over from the only just happened, previous hurricane. What does that tell you about the scale and terror of the extreme weather in that part of the world? Anywhoo, given you’re taking bets and err, running a pool, I’d bet that mention of the storm damage will be out of the news by say, next Friday. What are the odds you reckon of that happening?

    Anyway, there are bigger issues going on in the news down here: Interstate tourist attempted to climb Tasmania’s Cradle Mountain without shoes, police say. Firstly, hard to explain. Secondly, I’ve climbed that peak on a number of occasions, and it’s so alpine that you can commence the walk and the skies will be gentle and sunny. Within the hour, conditions abruptly change and you’ll be in a blizzard. It’s so cold there that trees can take centuries to reach a foot in height. One day whilst walking there, in err, treacherous wintry conditions, we came across a young couple who were walking in shorts and t-shirts. The day had begun warm and sunny, sure. I said to them, you need to get back to the car park right now. And the weird thing about hypothermia, and also heat exhaustion for that matter, is that people get nutty. The young couple, despite looking rather distressed and asking for assistance, chose to walk further out to the nearest alpine hut instead. Sadly you never find out how some experiences ended, but hey, at least they didn’t make the news for all the wrong reasons.

    That’s what I noticed about the garret woodblock images, was that it appeared to be for just that kind of thing, self aggrandisement of the well to do. There was even a depiction of a young mother huddled under a blanket nursing a babe at her breast. And it was of interest to me that the noble woman was the first through the door offering assistance to the struggling family. Say what you will about the Batman film franchise, but in The Joker film, the narrative kind of raised the awful question as to whether the perquisites of young Bruce Wayne created the fertile ground for badies such as the Joker.

    So true. With the official support for ever increasing property prices, sooner or later, we’ll get to a point where no matter how needful the products and/or services that a business supplies are, taking on a lease will be a crippling experience, and there’ll be mass failure. What did everyone expect would happen is what I wonder. It’ll be the opposite of the Great Depression in that there’ll be mad cash, it just isn’t enough to buy anything useful.

    Hehe! That’s a feature of the current system. So much choice as to be bewildering, but you’ve taken the same approach as I do – Limit your choices, then try to navigate that route. People rarely understand that accepting limits is actually a form of power. When I was a kid, the adults used to tell me in all seriousness that I could do anything, and be anything. That is simply not true, and so I ignored them, but yet the spell circulates causing trouble everywhere, and stopping people from taking meaningful actions. That is the entire point of the thing after all.

    🙂 Some thread comes from Europe, specifically Germany, and yet most comes from Asia. You may have forgotten that I used to work in clothes manufacturing, and the parts had a very international flavour to them.

    Hehe! People can’t help themselves with making changes, as you’d know based on what you wrote. It happens, and the thing is, often businesses are being sold for good reasons, and sometimes the changes are what is required to make them more sustainable given the general conditions within which they operate. However, like you also note, sometimes people just want change for the sake of change itself.

    Ha! I don’t think so man, the Editor in this case has become overwhelmed. Ook! What a lot of drama, and we had some err, interesting discussions let me tell you. Far out. Anyway, I spent two minutes thinking about the situation, and came up with a new and easier plan. Look, utoob would be great if a person had heaps of mad cash to throw at gargle. It’s a business, I get that, but we’re providing free content, and that’s a problem. Hmm. Anyway, plan B swung into action this morning and the punters will get what they’ll get, and that’s it. I’m uncomfortable mentioning the core issue for even creating the utoob content, but it is that err, people in your country (where the majority of readers derive from) are freakin’ their minds out and have over time drifted away. I applaud you and the other lovely people who comment here for keeping an even keel when all around you is murky and messy. It’s a difficult time for sure, and things are complicated enough down here. Ook! Oh well…

    Dude, I’m always respectful and lovely with everyone, unless they really annoy me – and some do. But that’s my take on the world too, you see the same people, on the way down, as on the way up! Truer words were rarely spoken, and no doubts emotions would run high. But mostly it’s the people you meet on the way up as can get stuff done.

    Lewis, run from the chatty assistants! 🙂 Hehe! Very few of the statistics on this here interweb make much sense to me either. What do they know, and how would any of us know if they’re lying?

    Oh, that’s a bit rough. 😉 I actually enjoy tasty ruminants and their products, but being on the side of a hill, maybe only alpacas would work here due to soft footpads and concerns for erosion. And my experience with executing chickens was that afterwards for quite a while, the chickens looked at me a bit funny like. Man, I’m soft and don’t think anything about executing vegetables and stuffing them in my hungry maw. Is it a double standard? Maybe we need a vegetable liberation front for the paleo folks?

    Good to hear, and that business will surely get the zipper fixed for you in no time at all. People forget that being able to make clothes is a very serious skill. You can tell the art form is lost because so many people wear poorly fitting clothes nowadays – and wealth does in no way insulate people from such poor deportment. The things I see, and I think to myself: Did your mother say anything before you left the house today? Of course that can equally apply to people my age! 😉 Fortunately the Editor has an interest in these things and can and is learning fast. She experiments quite a bit with that work, and it’s a good way to learn.

    Nice work with the bill. Your hydro costs would be impacted by population growth and winter snow pack I’m guessing. The snow pack was quite good last winter, wasn’t it?

    That’s my thinking too with cooking. Sometimes I’ve learned heaps when I’ve completely stuffed up a recipe! Like note to self- remember to add salt to the bread mix. Hmm. Oh yeah, dogs love tuna, and cheese. Your dinner sounds lovely, and I plan to have a pasta and vegie / lentil mix tonight. It’s very good actually. Lewis, it’s most impolite to discuss the parentage of a clearly noble lady like H. 🙂 The scandal… Would H ever be able to face her adoring public again?

    Ah, the weather is almost the same here, even down to the possible fog tomorrow. Quite nice really. Late next week, the forecast suggests seriously heavy rainfall. Ook!

    So you didn’t get the box today. Yikes, but these things happen.

    Had a sort of quiet day here today, but did manage to zip around with the ride on mower in the large citrus and potato enclosure. The soil there is very well fed and the grass is growing a little bit too fast. Had a well deserved long nap this afternoon which was very civilised.

    Cheers

    Chris

27. Yo, Chris – If I were a betting man 🙂 , I’d say there will be no hurricane news on Saturday.

    Asleep at the switch. Monday is Columbus Day (or, Indigenous People’s Day, for the enlightened.) No postie or banks. Funny, they haven’t figured out a way to tat up the holiday. Although there was a World’s Columbian Exhibition Fair, in 1893. Celebrating the 400th anniversary. Still a lot of tat, floating around from that. There are collectors, for world’s fairs tat.

    I suppose in the interest of privacy, they didn’t reveal the name of the moron hiker. We’ll just call him Shoeless Joe. I’d bet dollars to donuts that he’s some kind of internet influencer, or trying to gain notoriety by throwing down some kind of challenge. Some places are beginning to charge, for rescues. Where a clear lack of brain cells, is involved. Recently, a group of hikers called for aid. Because they were tired. Not in any kind of major distress. Just pooped out. Their bill will be in the mail.

    I knew I never warmed up to Batman, for a reason. 🙂

    There’s an old business term: “Charge what the traffic will bear.” But calculating that, allows room for a lot of error. As many companies are finding out, as their profits plunge.

    Yes, that “do anything, be anything” trope has done a lot of damage. And, if the person who had great expectations is psychotic, things can really run off the rails.

    Speaking of psychotics, there’s a new Brit series, coming out, that some people are comparing, to “Dexter.” It’s called “Sweetpea.” It looks interesting, but I don’t see much resemblance. Dexter had a clearly defined mission. Sweetpea just seems set on revenge.

    It took me awhile, but an obvious solution to your u-tub dilemma occurred to me. Just don’t make so many videos. Every week is probably a bridge to far. If you want to keep the troops happy. 🙂 I’m sure Sun Tzu had something to say about that.

    Oh, I don’t know. Cows and goats seem to do pretty well, in the Swiss and Italian alps. See: “Heidi.”

    Oh, I’ll get the coat repaired. I asked around the Club, last night, and have a few leads.

    I think I got lucky, with the electric bill. As the weather was beginning to turn cool, I used the A/C a lot less. So that offset the use of the dehydrator and stove vent fan. It’s a theory.

    The high yesterday was 61F (16.11C). The overnight low was 43F. Forecast for today is 70F. Today and tomorrow, will be nice. But all next week the forecast calls for showers or rain.

    I worked in the garden, last evening. I planted spinach, carrots, lettuce, and radish in one plot. I have a poly tunnel, that’s still in the box. If the temps look low, I’ll throw it over the carrots, spinach and lettuce. The lettuce is from seed I got off the night manager, from his plants. I’ve never used a poly tunnel, before. This will be interesting. The package says it’s made of fleece. Were any sheep injured in the manufacture? Didn’t see any disclaimers. In another plot, I planted one of the varieties of garlic that I got, in the sampler. More of a job than I expected. Lots of weeds to clear out. And, I ran across some sprouting Dutch bulbs. They got separated and replanted.

    I checked the bowl with the grapes, in the community room. Still about 1/3 of them left. I’d say, I won’t bother next year. I noticed my pumpkins are beginning to get the vertical ridges. A good sign, I guess. Lew

28. Hi, Chris:

    Well, I’m just getting in here before the barn door closes.
    My poor mother has been in and out of the hospital all week. Thursday she was all nicely stabilized and feeling quite a bit better, though very weak. I took her back to her assisted living and got her all cozily settled in and then went home. An hour later, the assisted living place called me and told me that she had gotten out of bed (there was a bed alarm on it) and immediately fallen, thus breaking her arm and getting a bad cut. I had them send her back to the hospital, but this time my son went over there; I was completely knackered after these past few weeks. The break was simple and could be splinted and wrapped and she could go back the assisted living place right away.

    After very little food for several weeks, and this latest crisis, she is extremely weak, still won’t eat, though I can get water into her. I don’t think the outcome is going to be good.

    And so, I have not looked at this post – except for the flowers; that cheered me right up. But it will give me something to look forward to later.

    Pam

29. Hi Pam,

    The barn door is always open here for you, and we’re all a pretty nice bunch of folks, and there are plenty of shoulders to lean upon.

    Well, you have been busy, and in your place I’d be a bit distraught and possibly not coping all that well. However, there are always the flowers, and they cheer me up too so I appreciate you saying that. However sometimes the pollen is a little bit too much, especially when the tall eucalyptus trees are in flower. And then, to add insult to injury, I can see the little cabbage moths way up in the canopy. What are those pesky brassica munching critters doing way up there cavorting around the high spaces. And there’s an awful lot of them too. No doubts the butterflies are plotting an evil scheme to take over all of the garden in a massive coup. Things will surely get messy in the world of plants…

    Hope the silliness brought at least a mild groan to distract you! I was aiming for a chuckle, but sometimes goals can be a little lofty.

    Pam, I’m real sorry to say, but from your description, about all you can do is hope for the best, but perhaps expect the worst – which was your concluding thought as well. I forget now who here remarked that falls are a sign of where things are really at, but what can you do other than what you are doing.

    Please remember to look out for yourself and lean on your son and daughter in law if you can during this time. You’ve had a rough time of it lately.

    And expect more flowers tomorrow.

    With sympathy,

    Chris

30. Hi Lewis,

    Oh man, I like your style, and Saturday is a fine call. Admittedly your news may differ what with the impacts being more local and stuff, but we might not even make Friday down here. Just checked the goobermints news site, and there was a mention of Milton, but it came second place to Princess Kate’s first official public appearance of late. I hold strong concerns that the hurricane mess will not be cleaned up by Friday, or Saturday for that matter.

    I’m a bit confused, the day is described as a federal holiday. Does that mean, everywhere stops for a public holiday day off? That goes on down here too with the Australia Day public holiday commemorating the landing of Captain Cook at Botany Bay way back in 1788. For other folks, it’s invasion day. I get that. But what annoys me about the whole thing is that the annual music countdown which I’ve been enjoying since around 1993 used to be on that public holiday, and now is on a different day where I have another obligation. Fair enough with the change, but it’s totally messed up my schedule. It’s not fair you know… 😉

    Makes you wonder if the whole world fair thing will ever make a comeback? It’s like a giant trade show really.

    Isn’t there like a public interest factor in naming and shaming anyone who’d go hiking with no shoes in an alpine environment? There has to be some consequences to make people think twice about doing such seemingly irresponsible acts. You know, it’s one of those places on the planet where there is rain recorded in something like three in every four days. It’s feral there.

    Hadn’t heard about the tired hikers, and the fines are epic – up to $25k each. Apparently they were in a closed area too. Not a smart thing to do.

    Hehe! Yeah, the first Joker film really didn’t portray Batman in a flattering light. 😉 That was about the only Batman film I’ve seen. There does seem to be a lot of them, and the err, show from the 1970’s was less serious and very psychedelic, plus they all looked like they were having a lot of fun.

    It’s a very strange economic story that one, but that is the general rule when it comes to working out how much to charge. The problem is that eventually the costs will exceed that amount – right across the board. That’s what printing mad cash to pay for stuff can do.

    Hey, I’d never thought of the effect that saying would have upon the deeply unhinged. Hmm. You’re right, it is bad news. Yes, I’ll mention the show to the Editor, but yeah there does seem to be a bit of lashing out from a sense of being wronged, rather than any thought to the entire process. Plus if I may say, way too many connections. It won’t end well. Hmm.

    Sun Tzu would probably be right, but we seem to have come up with an easier approach. There’s lots of ‘how to’ + ‘we’re doing’ + blah, blah, blah. But on utub, who’s telling stories? So in the face of household difficulties, we’re trying something different this week. And man, I got a quarter century of almost weekly short stories to draw upon. They’ll run out of hard drive server space, before I run out of stories… Just sayin’. 🙂 And we made the video camera work easier for us. I’m just trying different stuff in that format until I find my niche, and this week’s one was done in one take.

    Well yeah, if I had to choose, I’d go for dairy goats, but the limitation here is really the winter months. I’m not entirely convinced that the farm is fertile enough to support goats during the winter months when there is almost no energy to be had from that big fusion reactor in the sky. What do you reckon about that? Have you ever had goats in the past?

    Respect! And I too ask around my network at such times to see what people know. My experience has been nothing but good with that sort of clothes repair work.

    You’d be amazed, but the dehydrator and stove fan really don’t use all that much electricity. Even air conditioners are pretty good nowadays. It’s heating anything that requires oodles of electricity.

    Same, same here. 🙂 It was a lovely sunny day today. Poured another cement step in the new staircase. Worked out a way to blitz up all of the woody wormwood cuttings strewn around the place. Moved a camellia. Fed half a fruit tree into the scary old wood chipper – it had broken in the strong winds a few days ago. And did some other stuff which I now forget.

    I’ll be very interested to hear how your radish over winters. Here, they go into a sort of hibernation, but can be pulled from the soil for inclusion in salads. Alas, last winter we ate them all, thus why more are being planted! Ooo, a poly tunnel. You won’t regret it, and I reckon it’ll give your garden another month of life at either end of the season, although only artificial light will get plants growing in the depths of winter. Hehe! Artificial fleece! 😉 Makes you wonder if the sheep minded providing the dogs with a nice sleeping sheepskin?

    Oh yeah, every clove yields a new bulb, so depends on how much garlic you want to grow! Good luck!

    Oh man, sorry to hear that because it is such a good idea. But that’s kind of been my experience too, I provide fresh tasty produce and then, nothing. Oh well…

    Cheers and better get writing (the Editor mentioned the series looked intriguing). But she’s now having to watch such shows well before bedtime, just because the story content can sometimes be a bit err, brain stimulating and impact upon sleep. A long story there…

    Chris

31. Yo, Chris – Here’s an interesting article about a “net-zero” neighborhood that rode out the hurricanes, quit nicely, thank you.

    https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/12/climate/hurricane-milton-helene-florida-homes

    I don’t know. Seems like just putting off the inevitable, for a couple of million dollars.

    Some federal holidays are more equal than others. 🙂 Most national government functions will shut down. But if something is observed, locally, is another matter. From what I’ve read, at least in the past, Columbus Day was quit a blow out, in areas with a heavy concentration of Italian immigrants. Parades and street fairs, and such.

    Well, that’s just tragic about your music countdown. Buck up! Life on life’s terms! 🙂 Here, it seems, most music countdowns are on New Years Day.

    An interesting question: “Why did worlds fairs end.” Down the rabbit hole I went. Seems like it was a combination of “fell out of fashion,” and “end of the Cold War.” Well, that’s interesting. The last successful world’s fair was Seattle, 1964. I’m glad I caught it. There were a couple of fairs, after that, but they all lost money, big time.

    We’ll gather around the old electronic campfire, and listen to Chris spin tales. 🙂

    Have I ever had goats? Well, yes and no. When I was clearing blackberries, at the last place I lived, I had a couple of goats “on loan” from my landlord’s brother. And, when my Idaho friends were out of town, I took care of their goats (and chickens, and dogs.) But I never had to milk them, or anything like that. Just feed them, and make sure they didn’t escape. And goats are master escape artists.

    The high temperature, yesterday, was 73F (22.77C). Overnight low was 45F. Forecast for today is 75F. We’re forecast for getting rain, tomorrow afternoon.

    Five days out of seven, I probably use 2 to 3 cloves of garlic, a day. depending on size. Garlic is getting very expensive, both the consumable at the veg store and the, stuff you plant. So, it’s in my best financial interest, to plant as much as possible. And keep it going, year to year.

    Ah, the old “Don’t watch that, it will give you nightmares.” I can think of few times, when I’ve watched anything that put me off my sleep. But then, I tend to steer clear of the deeply disturbing. But one is ambushed, from time to time. Lew

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