The nice telco company sent me an unsolicited email the other day. Sometimes bad news arrives unasked for, yet turns up all the same. The words in the email: ‘what this may mean for you’, had a rather ominous tone, don’t you reckon? Turns out the nice company was increasing the monthly interweb connection plan costs from $90 to $110. It was a bold move on their part, and who knows, some people with less free time than myself, may pay the demanded increase.
Being the crafty and resourceful person that I am, gentle soothing words formed in my mind: The statement in the email should more properly have been written: What does this mean for you, nice telco provider? Everyone needs a long dead guide for the finer points of strategy. Sun Tzu, who penned the treatise: The Art of War, several millennia ago, is highly regarded in this here household. Taking a leaf of interpreted advice from the most astute, but also somewhat long ago deceased dude, Sandra and I visited the local nice telco bricks and mortar shop. Try the unexpected is a strategy Sun Tzu suggested! Trust me, previously I’d tried their software application to sort the problem out, and was totally bamboozled. My befuddled brain logged out of the service in a state of utter confusion.
They say that pride is the devil, and that may be true. In these days of a genuine cost of living crisis, pride was dumped by me long ago. Nowadays when confronted by such corporate extortion, blunt language seems the most successful strategy to date: I can’t pay this increase, what can we do here? You’d be amazed at the placating reception such words generate. It doesn’t need to be said aggressively, nor despondently either, just stick with a matter of fact approach, yeah!
The results achieved at the bricks and mortar shop, well they speak for themselves. Somehow with a bit of adjustment to the three various telco device plans, we’re now paying them $100 less per month. Like, what the f#$%? But it’s true. The entire story makes no sense to me whatsoever. If the nice telco hadn’t poked me with the price increase (for no additional services), I would never have looked further into this matter, and they’d be earning a $100 a month more.
A curious mind wonders how a household where both adults are working full time jobs, and with school age kids, can find the time to head into the nice telco shop to sort out this sort of billing weirdness? It’s possible that they’re simply paying the increases? Who can say, it’s all a bit of a mystery. Regular readers will recall that Sandra spent an hour on the phone to the nice insurance company a month or so ago to sort out a similar 60% price increase mess. After that incident, by default, all bills from large corporate entities are now treated with total suspicion, which they probably deserve.
There are many things nowadays which no longer make sense to me, and I was having this exact conversation with a friend the other day. He’s experiencing a different sort of pressure though. Long ago he was wise enough to purchase an old post WWII house on a large block of land near to a major railway station in an outer suburb. It was a bold and very good move, at the time.
All things change however, and nowadays he’s finding himself living in an ‘activity zone’, which is code word for easier development processes to get those larger blocks of land converted into multi-unit dwellings. The street he lives on is ever so slowly being converted into just that sort of multi-unit development environment. The increase in traffic is astounding, because just like here, few amenities are within walking distance. He recounted the poignant story of an old oak tree in the street being cut down so as to make room for a new development. Candidly I remarked that: “You’ll be moving up to the bush soon, dude!” He seemed unconvinced.
One of the things I really like about living up in this remote location, is that there are very few of the usually expected services provided for people living in cities. I love that challenge, and it’s a total myth that it’s cheaper to provide your own infrastructure. That’s simply not true. However, the thing with installing your own infrastructure is, other than maintenance and repairs, also not to forget the eventual replacement, there are no regular bills associated with the systems. So we don’t tend to see a lot of regular bills.
The few bills we do see up in the bush, are increasing at a chaotic rate. It’s really weird that trend, and I can’t even begin to imagine how other households are dealing with such economic pressures. It’s also very strange because the serious news reports suggest that inflation (a measurement of increasing prices over time) is falling. That story just doesn’t make any sense to me, especially given what the ever increasing bills are suggesting as to the underlying reality.
When living up in the bush though, there’s a very real risk that the pace of change in the city can be confronting and confounding. I’ve long acknowledged that risk, and so regularly travel into the city with the intention that it remains a familiar place. But sometimes, and it feels like this to me recently, that the pace of change in our society has been too much and too fast. At such times, there’s no harm in taking some time out for the systems there to catch up with all the changes.
The week has been warm and sunny, with one or two nights which got very close to freezing. There were even some patches of frost in the paddocks those mornings, but not where it matters, like in the orchards. Earlier in the week we spent a few hours breaking apart some boulders. Recently, we’d run out of rocks to use in the various projects, and breaking apart boulders is one way to obtain them.
The smaller of the rocks were used as fill in a steel rock gabion cage. There was however not enough time that day to move the larger rocks to where they’ll be used on the new rock wall below the line of water tanks. A job for next week!
It’s a difficult time of year balancing the various activities, but we’re managing. There’s a lot of paid work to do. Plants explode with growth once the UV rating reaches ‘Very High’, which it is right now, so there’s heaps of farm maintenance activities. And growing plants, need feeding, lot’s of feeding. Here’s a photo of the various minerals which are getting added into the regular coffee grounds and distributed around the property.
The above lot cost around $300 and should provide soil feed for the fruit trees and vegetables over the next month or so. Don’t believe the hype, it’s not cheap to produce food organically and maintain decent levels of soil minerals.
As well as feeding the several hundred fruit trees, at this time of year I also cut the grass away from the trunks using a line trimmer. It’s easy enough to do, and if you’re slow and careful, the bark around the trunk doesn’t get damaged.
Observant readers will note that in the above image (to the right of the tree), the coffee grounds mixed up with all of the various minerals ends up as a nice sandy light brown mixture which soon disappears into the soil.
With several hundred fruit trees to do (and only one third of that job done), it’s a lot of work to clear the grass away from the trunks.
The four rows of potatoes continue to grow well. And I’m yet to water those plants. Each day, I’ll add a bit more soil around the plants so as to ‘hill them up’, as they call the process. I have no idea whether this system will produce good yields, but we’ll all find out sooner or later when they’re being harvested. Even the saved and replanted potatoes seem to be growing now.
The lowest of the six rows in that area was planted out with radish seed. They’re doing well too, although this week I began thinning out the seedlings. I’m soft and it’s a painful process to thin out seedlings, but sometimes the needful must be done.
The sugar beets are in the next higher up row, and they seem to be growing at a slightly faster rate than the radishes. Again, it broke my heart to thin the seedlings, but sometimes a proper bad-as gardener just has to be ruthless.
A careless parrot managed to break into a minor hole (now repaired) in the grape enclosure. That is a job for Dame Plum, who in this particular case lacked all interest in the subject. The timing was poor, it being just after breakfast and all, and so the canine job was bungled. The parrot was deliberately allowed to escape, and hopefully the awful experience will deter other parrots from trying a similar trick!
Anyway, the hole was repaired, and the weeds growing in the enclosure were also dealt with.
The soil in there is superb. And it all looks rather neat now!
Plant growth has gone crazy over the past week. The decision was made on Sunday to mow the orchards and paddocks. We’ve got two low centre of gravity ride on mowers, and used them to zip around the property neatening the place up.
It’s worthwhile noting that both Sandra and I both became bogged in very wet ground whilst mowing. The machine I’m using is the lighter of the two, and so I was able to physically move the beast out of the wet ground before Sandra even noticed. Sadly, when Sandra’s much heavier machine became later bogged in the same area, the matter had to be brought to my attention! We used the lighter ride on mower with a strong tow rope to pull Sandra’s machine out from where it had become stuck. It almost feels like I got away with not getting caught in a similar sticky situation!
The wet weather last week left some boggy ground, but the various ferns growing here love the conditions. The very large tree fern in particular is rapidly unfurling new fronds.
It’s good to see that there are heaps of insects around now doing whatever it is that they are doing. By comparison, the city is almost devoid of insects. It’s quite eerie and few people seem to notice or even comment upon this matter.
In breaking produce news: We now have a good supply of chives again. Those green spears are my favourite variety of the onion family, and are most excellent with fresh tomatoes, salt and pepper. Yum!
Despite snow, hail and several frosts, the apricots seem to be hanging onto the trees. In earlier years the trees were not so tough.
The peach tree blossoms pollinated despite the very wet weather last week, and now all trees have tiny fruit. Of course the damp conditions produced the usual curly leaf fungal dramas. That seems to happen every year, so I now don’t even bother with sprays, the leaves grow back just fine.
Apples are still producing blossoms, but some of the earlier varieties have tiny fruit.
The earliest stone fruit of the lot are the cherries, and you have to be fast to harvest them, because the bird predation is unrelenting.
We grow a lot of different types of Asian and European pears, and most of them are quite tasty. The birds like them too, but the trees produce prolifically so there is plenty to share. Plus the birds do the useful work of thinning fruit from the trees.
This week’s video is on the soil mineral additives:
Onto the flowers:
The temperature outside now at about 10am is 10’C (50’F). So far for last year there has been 779.4mm (30.7 inches) which is up from last weeks total of 776.8mm (30.6 inches)
Everything is looking very spring-y and healthy — that dragon tree is gorgeous!
When all your fruit trees are a few years larger and producing bushels and bushels, will you sell your produce? I mean, how much fruit can one eat, in the form of jam or dried or sauce, or fresh? I have just one dwarf fig tree and I can’t consume half of its harvest.
Yo, Chris – That’s what big companies depend on. That a lot of people are distracted by the very tech they push. And, over the years, we’ve kind of lost the idea and practice, of a barter economy. We’re used to paying the “marked price,” or billed price. I don’t think it crosses people’s minds, that prices, in some cases, can be negotiated.
Well, your friend will either have to put up with living in an “activity zone,” or sell up and find somewhere peaceful, that’s likely not to be developed in his lifetime. He’s probably sitting on a fair chunk of change, by now.
I think inflation, or the lack thereof, is like collapse: not evenly distributed.
That’s quit a pile of rocks. And, you made them, yourself! 🙂
The soil additive video, was very good. But, it really does depend on the type of soils you start out with. Sometimes, I resort to The Font of All Wisdom (aka: the internet,) to check out if a particular crop I’m growing, needs a particular amendment. Which is usually blood meal, bone meal, or garden lime. And all my kitchen scraps get buried, back in the garden. A lot of minerals and nutrients, from far distant places, end up in my garden.
Your potatoes, are really coming along. I’m sure you know, that the chives you pictured can really jazz up a baked potato. With either just butter or sour cream.
Maybe the parrot broke into your grape enclosure, just to neaten it up, and make it all clean and tidy. I think that was a King Parrot? Here, they go from $100 – $500. I’d guess a young female is at the higher end of price.
I ran into a couple of lady birds, the other day, when I was cutting fennel. Rather than them ending up in the dumpster, I made sure they were moved along to other plants that are sticking around.
I was wondering the same thing as Gretchen. What are you going to do, when you start getting bumper crops, beyond what you can consume. I’d guess you have a plan. But you’re playing your cards, close to your chest. Which is a wise thing to do. Of course, some of it can be gifted away. Build that social capital! Lew
Hi Joanna,
Thanks! It’s a really beautiful time of year here. 🙂 How are things going in your part of the world?
The Sapphire Dragon is like a giant tree sized foxglove! Such a lovely tree. I have it on good authority that the flowers have a nice aroma too, but they’re way too high up in the canopy for me to put that theory to the test. As an interesting side story, the tree has never flowered before, so the floral display has been one of those good surprises in the garden.
Joanna, that’s a great question to which I don’t have a coherent answer. Selling the surplus produce is an option of course, and roadside farm gate stalls used to be a thing around here, but are becoming less seen as time goes on (the properties around here are less productive with each passing year due to demographics). At the moment though, whenever there is a surplus of one kind or another, we investigate ways to use and/or preserve the harvest. Ever thought about lemon marmalade, just for one example?
There is an awful lot of bird life living on and around the farm and they consume their fair share of the produce. About half of the bird population consumes produce, the other half consume the insects which would otherwise be attempting to eat the plants and produce. As such I’m rarely hassled by plant devouring insects, and not to mention the plant diseases that lot spread. Fortunately the bird population is limited by the winter / early spring weather and that sets the upper limit on their numbers and how much they can eat. Being non-migratory birds, which are here all year around, they fight off any and all new comers, which saves me a lot of work. The balancing act really becomes out-producing the needs of those birds – which gets easier every year.
It’s an interesting question, yup. Could we survive here now on the produce? Yes, without a doubt. Is there enough to share around after the birds have had their fill? I don’t think so. But, every year we produce more food crops, so who knows what the future will hold in store? I really don’t know. But hope your question has been answered?
Sorry, almost forgot to mention. I would love a surfeit of figs. One of my favourite jams is fig jam, and that’s a really tasty jam. Have you made that treat?
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
You know, that’s a great point, it’s not really encouraged to go in and negotiate, yeah. But that is exactly what you have to do nowadays, unless a person has got so much mad cash to spend that it doesn’t matter – which is rare. Interestingly too, it’s presented in a weird form of negotiation these days. Clearly there is a bit of power and control going on in those sorts of relationships a person has with a large corporate entity, so you can’t simply dictate the price. What you have to do is navigate through the bewildering number of options available, in order to select the least-worst outcome for yourself. The bloke at the nice telco store was helpful enough to guide me through that process. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to work out the maze as well as he could.
Yours was the exact advice offered, and um, err, incidentally unbeknownst to me, my friend has outed his own views in this matter: Neoliberalism Must Die. The oak tree incident was perhaps a step too far for Simon. When we left the inner urban big smoke way back in 2008, the nice neighbour next door decided to construct a 7m (that’s 23ft) tall brick wall on the northern boundary of a Victorian era terrace house. That wall alone would have thrown the backyard into shade for the vast majority of the year. Let’s just say that I was bothered by the neighbours property development and decided to get out of the city. 🙂 Sometimes man, you can’t fight city hall. One of the appeals to me of living up here, is that by and large the choice is considered unappealing by the vast majority of the population.
I recall your similar hassles with the book store. Hmm.
And that is very true as well. Inflation is not evenly distributed, as is the same for the cost of living crisis. Plenty of households are probably doing just fine. That also happened during the recession of the early 1990’s. If your lucky numbers didn’t come up, you did just fine, and a mate of mine who is a bit older than I, enjoyed that path. Dunno about you, but I kind of understand the process as a mental model of a ship that’s ever so slowly sinking and some people remain on board, others get a lifeboat seat, and the unlucky few end up in the ocean. It’s a slow process. Do you reckon that analogy works?
Ugg! Rocks are good. We have the technology, we can make them… 😉 Very Steve Austin! Six million doesn’t buy you the same outcome these days.
Absolutely about the video and location. As I mentioned, I only know my area. Those three soil mineral additives you mentioned are a pretty good place to start, and that is place to seek some answers, and yes, you never know what’s in all those kitchen scraps. And that thought is never lost on me. Fifteen years of bringing back used coffee grounds full of minerals sourced from tropical soils is just an astounding thing to do. In a sane world, the growers would demand the return of the used grounds, and we’d have to pay for that transport too.
No, I didn’t know that about butter, chives and baked potatoes, but far out, I’m now salivating. Thanks for that! Yum!
Sadly the parrot was not the king variety, it was a lesser Crimson Rosella. A slightly smaller bird, but no less colourful – red and of course, vibrant blue. 😉 Lewis, I would so happily send them to you, all of them, but so much trouble would ensue that it’s just not worth it. Plus the striking colours do add a splash of interest to the orchards as they dine upon the ripening fruit.
Insects do it really tough in these enlightened days of reckless and careless poisoning, so such acts as yours are a very thoughtful thing to do, and will pay dividends.
I penned a lengthy reply to Joanna in relation to that question. Basically, we’re keeping a flexible approach to the matter and are adapting as the situation unfolds. The benefit of taking such an approach is that there is no necessity to learn at a pace which exceeds our abilities and resources to trial new systems and processes. For some folks I can appreciate that the situation would be overwhelming, but as you correctly noted, the cards are being kept close to the chest. A recent glut was lemons, and we made a video about that, but also are now trialling lemon marmalade. Dunno, and hopefully the stuff is tasty.
But it is probably in my nature to gift the surplus produce away in ways that build social capital. This is a subject which I rarely speak of, but am cogitating upon. It’s difficult because it involves a certain sort of cultural shift, and people aren’t yet hungry enough.
That’s my opinion as well – that so called art work appears to my mind as quackery. 🙂
The fennel salads I’ve consumed (made elsewhere, mind you) were quite tasty and the aroma and flavour (which I also quite enjoy in small quantities) was a background to the salad. You’ve got me wondering though, is that plant bulb good for a persons health? Interesting indeed. I tend to graze upon the leaves as I wander around the place, they’re tasty. Never harvested the bulbs, but now I know just in case the situation demands such an act. Dude, there are tastier sounding biscuits (cookies)! You’ve got a point though, and years ago I enjoyed a lavender biscuit, and oh my, but it was very good indeed. Sometimes now I do mention that, I graze upon the lavender leaves as well whilst walking around. Are they any good for a person to consume (a lot of essential oils, that’s for sure)? More interesting information was revealed.
Shallots are different from bulb onions, and when we trialled them, the plants grew bulbs in a sort of cluster. Maybe you might need to get some different varieties? Dunno, it’s a mystery to me. Such plants are quite location specific, but I’m guessing will adapt to a gardens latitude slowly if enough were grown, maybe.
That wind howling the songs of the departed may not bother H, but I’d worry about over hearing unsolicited critiques of my own life performance from the dead. The author Mr King has rammed home the idea that the deceased can make for unpleasant company. Nuff said really. And what I want to know is: would they lie? Surely the departed would be under no obligation whatsoever to tell the truth, would they?
Sure you can’t 🙂 , but that was the dude. Nice deduction work, and err, yeah. The black hat in that instance was iconic. Surely you could riff off the mojo? The reception at the Club to your new-found style certainly suggests as much to me.
Lewis, I dodge crowds too, but it’s only because I’m a recidivist introvert and that’s how I roll. The get together sounds like it was fun, but yeah run, I get that. 😉
Man, that’s like those zombies in World War Z. Yeah, let’s make a lot of noise and speedily bring on the end… Whatever were they thinking? The trailer was super creepy, like escape from New York, but on steroids and with fast aliens. 🙂
Cheers
Chris
Hello Chris,
Inflation used to be measured in the volume of money. How much money is around? Words like “debasement” were used when describing Roman emperors’ moved from 98% silver to .1% silver in their coins during the centuries of collapse of their Empire.
When the goobers print money these days, our “news” outlets talk about “stimulating the economy” and “down-turn-relief” and “spending us out of the crisis”.
It kind of works for those who sit close to the spigots.
Not so much for people in the periphery.
Thanks to the link to Simon’s post about the end of Suburbia.
Back to the soil. In Swedish language, the black, carbon-rich layer of the top-soil is called the “food-soil” (matjord). We can take care of it, or not. It is a choice, for those who considers skipping eating in the future.
And fennel bulbs, those classic vegetables! I have tried to grow bulbing fennel, but often failed, just getting a tall, flowering plant. They need very rich soil to bulb out well.
I love oven-roasting the fennel bulbs. I split them in four and pour some oil, some salt and pepper, maybe some sesame seeds. Delicious.
Cut with a sharp knife perpendicular to the vertical fibres, to make the pieces easy to chew.
We also harvest fennel seed that we add to bread and biscuits, with an effect similar to anise. (Anise is too sensitive to grow here outdoors, maybe in the hoophouse next year?)
Back to the lack of loyalty/trust from corporations: I think that the main problem with the last decades of privatization is that more and more people have a commercial interest of lying to the public. Trust is going down.
As you mentioned last week, the return to feudalism probably comes from lack of trust in institutions. We revert to trust in individuals.
And regarding growing food – in Russia, the private allottments became more and more important during the 1980s, when vegetables occassionally were missing from the shelves. People started to grow their own. I heard numbers like 40-50% of all vegetable production were in allottments when the Soviet Union finally crumbled in the early 1990s.
So, when the shelves look bare, I think more people will come to you to learn how to plant potatoes.
Peace,
Göran
trees and grass- I save the heavy paper bags that the chicken feed comes in, and lay that around young trees, then dump some wood chips on them to flatten and hold them down. They last a couple years before breaking down, and suppress the grass to the advantage of the tree. I might do that for two cycles, then the tree is on its own. I’m not lazy, I’m experimenting with low input plant maintenance. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
thinning- We don’t grow radishes, but do grow beets, parsnips, and carrots which all have small seeds. We’ve gone to pelletized seeds, that have a coating of clay that makes them easy to handle and count out. I just plant at regular spacing, and no thinning. Has worked well so far.
Yo, Chris – Unsolicited opinion? There’s too much choice, in the world. And, a lot of it, I think, is to confuse the consumer into spending more. Packaging changes, name changes. There’s an old saying: “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with b—- s—.” 🙂
Saw an interesting article, this morning, that we’ve touched on, before. Refusing promotions or even downgrading jobs, voluntarily.
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/end-american-careerism-094501487.html?
I couldn’t read Simon’s post. Got the error message, “…cannot establish secure connection to the server.” That’s a new one.
Some people were gobsmacked when I moved to a small town. I avoided the rush. Sure, there are drawbacks. Couldn’t even find yoghurt or won-ton wrappers, here, in the early 80s. 🙂 And, you still need to go out of county, for some medical needs. To Olympia, or, even Seattle. No thanks. I’ll just quietly pass away. 🙂
As with power (reduce the amount I use? … horrors!), people get expectations, and they don’t like them messed with. I laugh when I see the articles, with headlines such as, “Family lives on (insert some ridiculous … to my point of view amount here) and struggles paycheck to paycheck.” Or, “I only have (insert another ridiculous amount) a month, to retire on!” I once stumbled on a conversation between our old building manager, and the Rev who drops by, from time to time. They were both fretting over their retirement. I suggested that maybe they might adjust their expectations. A silence fell on the crowd. 🙂 Not a hostile silence, but one of total incomprehension. Yes, I think your analogy works, quite well.
I might have missed it, but perhaps you might have mentioned that the compose people buy, might have all kinds of things in it, you’d rather keep out of your garden. Herbicides, heavy metals, etc.. And, sometimes, it’s just rubbish compost. That batch the Master Gardeners got last year, had waaay to much bark in it. They got another batch, this year, that they swear by. I’ve used it to pot up some things for the sale, next spring. It does seem to have a bit of well rotted organic material. But I noticed it also seems a bit sandy.
There are restaurants, here, that have baked potato “bars.” With all kinds of different toppings, to put on them. I’ve heard to, of a kind of potluck, where baked potatoes are provided, and people bring different kinds of toppings.
We don’t seem to have any kinds of introduced parrot flocks, around here. But in other parts of the US, there are.
Produce at the Club, moves a bit slow, but not as slow as the tinned veg. Maybe because we’re a rural county. More people know what to do with a raw vegetable. When we get produce, I leave it in a box, on a table, close to the front door. I can’t remember ever having anything go bad. It moves slower than the tinned stuff, and not as fast as the tinned meat, seafood, chili, stews and soups. Boxed cereals and quick oatmeal move pretty good.
You know, there’s lavender ice cream. And, I took a look in the rabbit hole, and there’s also fennel ice cream. Also, a lot of recipe ideas, some not so “out” there. I’d say, anyone who likes the taste of licorice, might like different dishes, or baked goods, prepared with fennel. Just as an aside, there’s also green tea ice cream. I’ve tried it a few times. Tasty, but a rather delicate flavor.
The high yesterday was 55F (12.77C). The overnight low was 46F. The forecast high, for today, is 55F. I got an e-mail, this morning, that the Master Gardeners wouldn’t be by. Game called on account of rain. 🙂 When I took the dog for a walk, this morning, the weather was glorious. An hour later, a downpour. So, I guess they were right.
Here at the Institution, there are supposed to be a ghost or three. I’ve never seen anything. Although, when I first moved in, there was late night knocking, in the ceiling and walls. All that settled down, when the maintenance man, at that time, checked the attic space. Nothing to see, and no dust disturbed. But then it quit. I have lived in haunted places, but no visual manifestations, other than what’s caught out of the corner of the eye. But some physical stuff. Map pins flying across the room, slamming doors.
Well, I got the bed moved into my living room, last night. What an ordeal. And now the apartment is in chaos. It’s like living in a giant Jenga game. H is a bit nonplussed, but coping fairly well. Probably, better than I am. :-). Lew
Hi Steve,
Man, that’s a genius bit of thinking, and it’d work beautifully. And interestingly, you’ve hinted at something I’ve also observed – once the fruit trees get to a certain size and age, they’re not bothered by competition from the grass. In fact, I’m guessing that as the summer reaches it’s hottest point, the grass dies back, and both shades and holds the soil together around the tree.
I’m almost embarrassed to mention that down here the chicken grains and mash come in 20kg plastic bags… Ook! We use them as rubbish bags, and well, they don’t end up buried or in landfill, let’s put it that way…
Far out! That makes two most excellent ideas in a single comment. Nice work! They don’t sell such seed pellets down here, but looking down the rabbit hole interweb thingee, you can make such items and coffee grounds have been used. Another thing to consider.
Carrot and parsnip seed is tiny, and yes, would most definitely benefit from the arrangement.
Actually, your comment last week got me thinking about the subject of soil mineral additives, and I was wondering if such stuff is available in your part of the world? What’s interesting about the topic is that you can buy the stuff by the trailer load, it just requires hours and hours of travel, so I don’t know about the cost-benefit of that travel. It probably doesn’t work out economically, so I’ve chosen the way of the tortoise when it comes to minerals. All the same, thought you’d be interested.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Göran,
I agree, and yes the volume of mad cash is at the very core of the problem. You probably are already aware of this quote, but it sums the matter up precisely and succinctly: Milton Friedman (the economist) famously said: “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon, in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output.” What I always took away from the concept is that you and I have little input to that inflationary monster! And exactly, the Romans in their dotage, debased the coinage. What could possibly go wrong?
I’ve got some friends who are very big into the golden mineral. Recently I congratulated them on their foresight given the ever increasing price of the stuff. What surprised me was that their reply was that it was not that the golden metal was worth more, it was that the paper things were worth less. Hmm. Just a wild guess here, but like myself, your golden stuff is the plants, knowledge and connections? 😉
Simon is a friend of mine, and we enjoy some good chats I can tell you. I feel for his plight, but those sorts of things are part of the reasons we left the city all those long years ago.
Thank you so much for the lovely Swedish word ‘matjord’, which roughly translates into English as ‘topsoil’. I agree, it is unwise to consume seed stock and the medium into which those seeds grow.
On the other hand, what I’m doing here in building the topsoil does not have to make economic sense. I absolutely empathise with the plight of broad acre farmers who are unable to fully charge for the plants and edibles they produce. If only super phosphate, or urea is applied to farm soils, how does the selenium, boron, manganese, copper etc. get returned to those broad acre soils? That’s why I mentioned my discomfiture of comprehending that the minerals from tropical soils in far distant corners of the planet, are ending up here.
You know, I’ve only ever consumed the fennel leaves grown here, and left the bulbs alone. The introduction to a proper fennel salad was by way of Italian cuisine, and Goran, it was a very tasty, let me tell you. Your comment got the old brain matter working and now I can’t be sure whether the fennel plants here produce bulbs, or not. I’ll keep the plants under observation. Super mineraly rich soil is in short supply, right across the planet.
Hope you get some anise growing. And when I was a young bloke, anise flavoured candy used to be sold. Tasty stuff.
Exactly! We had a politician down here who famously quipped that there were core promises, and non core promises. It was a clever choice of phrase, but isn’t it the same thing as a lie? Hopefully one day we can return to a more sane era when a leader decides to tell it like it is, via a fireside chat. It could be remarked upon that individuals don’t win loyalty, corporate structures lose that.
That’s very much my thinking as well. When people are hungry, they will return very quickly to the basics. What that will look like, is still murky to me, but it also prompted me to begin the utoob videos.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Rest assured, there is no such thing as an unsolicited opinion here, we’re all equally opinionated! 🙂 This of course being a good thing. That’s a great saying, and just so true. Back in the real world where things have to happen, bull dust (surely that was what you meant, wasn’t it? 😉 ) doesn’t cut the mustard. I know what that saying means, but how could cutting mustard come to mean that?
The article was so good (despite the uplifting ending), I sent it on to the Editor to read. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. A rigorous discussion ensued. You know, I tried hard back in 2008 to take a backwards step in my so called career, and was blocked at every point. Having a new one ripped into you by a board and/or senior management, is not an experience I’d recommend. I wouldn’t talk to a dog like that, and in fact canines are sensible enough to not respond well to humans who speak words using such emotional heat. Working in that heady lofty space was not for me, a miserable experience. Being a crafty and resourceful person, the Gordian Knot was cut, now I provide needful services to small business, and am much happier. I can’t speak for other people’s experience there, but the article provided a similar flavour to my journey.
It’s worthwhile pointing out that way back in the day, when the business returns were real business returns, the lunches were probably also real business lunches. Labour productivity is a concept which can only go so far.
Hmm, the independent blogosphere is under attack, in case you missed that memo. So far I’m only bleeding from a few cuts, and let’s not mention the bruises. My best guess, and nobody seems to really know, is that certain links produce certain results, and there is an accepted form which must be followed. Alas, I fall outside that sphere. You mentioned to me long ago, it ain’t paranoid if it’s true! Wise words.
Oh dear, the most recent utub vid seems to have struck a chord! 🙂 Skewering sacred cows, one stab at a time.
Nice work, and you may have noticed that I made a similar decision back in 2008? I actually enjoy small town life despite it’s downsides, although technically I live in what is most correctly described as a hamlet. And that’s a very interesting thing to say. Did you know, the dogs I’ve owned have usually lived long, healthy and happy lives, before getting suddenly very ill, then dead. It’s not a bad option, don’t you reckon?
Speaking of such final matters, I’m yet to hear back from Inge. It’s not a good sign, put it that way. On the other hand, I can still clearly hear her command of ‘concision’, when it comes to writing! I’ll never forget that. The Sensei who shepherded me years ago, would no doubt sound exactly the same.
Incomprehension is a great way to put the confusion. Yeah. Seriously though, the Rev. as well in that conversation? Oh well, it ain’t just your part of the world, the fear drives peoples anxiety down here as well. Realities will eventually sort out the entire expectation problem. I never forget the moment of comprehension many years ago when it dawned on me exactly what was literally meant by the phrase: ‘the land of milk and honey’. Those words don’t sound ‘big’ to me, if you know what I mean by that?
Man, I’d forgotten to even mention that herbicide issue which I didn’t see it here, but some gardens were wiped out. From memory, and please correct me if I’m wrong, the herbicides made their way into the waste mulch stream via commercial spraying of golf courses, maybe. You wouldn’t expect that possibility. However, that bark issue, yeah I saw that too. It’s notably hard to grow vegetables in woody mulch. Glad to hear that you’ve now got a good source, and yeah, from memory your clay/loam soils could probably benefit from some sand – as they do here.
Whoa! Never seen a baked potato bar in a restaurant, but would try it out for sure. When I was a kid, they used to roast potatoes in the fats of the animal which was also being roasted. Lewis, they tasted so good, and the skins became crunchy as well. I’m salivating thinking of those feeds. Yum! My mother was very much of the boiling the potatoes, culinary skill levels and it was best if she were not allowed into the kitchen. Given the alternative, it was no hardship to begin cooking family meals at such a young age.
I doubt the winters in milder areas like where you are, would be too much for our local parrots to survive. I’ve seen them flying around the alpine areas in Tasmania. Hardy and adaptable birds.
Yeah, maybe that is how it works with the tinned vegetable produce. I’m hardly surprised that the higher protein tinned stuff moves quicker. That makes sense to me. Oats are an interesting product, and the size of the flakes can really tell you something about the contents. We’re in the wrong time of the year for fresh oats, and the prices are up. $7 for 2.2 pounds of the good stuff, last I checked.
I do recall you mentioning green tea flavoured ice cream before, and I know you what mean there. Speaking of fennel flavouring, when I was a kid, lollies weren’t all that available, but you could buy glass jars of anise flavoured rock candy. It was quite nice stuff. Did they have such things in your part of the world?
Did you and H manage to dodge the rain? Sounds heavy if the master gardeners decided to pull the pin on the activities. 70’F and sunny tomorrow, which will be very nice indeed. Might get some rain on Thursday, maybe. Hey, the overnight low is almost the same here at 48’F right now at 11pm. It’ll probably get colder as the night goes on. Haven’t had to run the wood heater tonight.
🙂 Good to hear that you’ve got more than your fair share of ghosts. A place needs such things in order to remind us all of the joy that is life – the alternative in this case being on display for all to wonder at, usually not in a good way. The physical manifestations are a bit unsettling, yeah. How did you cope with such intrusions into your life?
Is the move something to do with the new heater distance regulations?
Cheers
Chris
Chris,
I liked your 6 million dollar man reference in a comment. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to become the modernized 6 million man. How? By making 6 million smaller rocks by breaking up the bigger ones. 😉
That parrot is upside down. Which leads to a question. Since you live “down under” and are upside down compared with those of us in the northern hemisphere, wouldn’t that mean that said parrot is actually right side up by northern hemisphere standards?
Which leads to some history. Several of the colonies which rebelled against Britain in 1775 were the locations to which prisoners, poor people, basically any “undesirable” (as defined by the British government) were sent. When Lord Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown in 1781, his band played “World Turned Upside Down” as they left their fortifications. All of the aforesaid “undesirables” were thereafter sent to…yes, Australia. On a side note, I apparently descend form a plethora of those “undesirables” who were transported to the American colonies.
I’ve found that visiting in person gets me further than a phone call. A phone call gets me further than anything done via the interweb. Of course, what also helps whether via the phone or in person, never yell or bluster loudly at the other person. Naturally, the large corporation “phone trees” are a mess to navigate. However, their interweb stuff seems to be very difficult to navigate also, and also is ignored, apparently.
We have moved beyond peak color for this autumn. Trees are dropping leaves. Others haven’t begun to change color. The mix of varying shades of purple, yellow, orange, red and green will be missed. Until next year. Many leaves and future color remain, but the peak has been reached.
Aren’t you glad that you have 2 riding mowing machines? Getting mired down in the temporary marsh could have turned catastrophic otherwise. I can envision you wrestling with the large stuck machine, the muck oozing over you, the machine sinking deeper, you probably getting several minor cuts and bruises. Maybe swallowing some beer while trying to figure out what else to try to get unstuck. Almost sounds like part of an old Johnny Cash song, where 2 people were brawling in “the mud and the blood and the muck and the beer”. Wisely, you have the 2 machines and were able to tow out of the vile glop. 😉
Thanks for the flower pictures. Chives are always fun, as are bluebells.
DJSpo
Yo, Chris – Just for fun. There are other uses, for those giant pumpkins. Who cares if they taste good?
https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/28/world/video/belgium-pumpkin-regatta-race-halloween-ldn-digvid
Put wheels on them, and you’d have Cinderella’s coach!
I don’t think I’ve ever encountered bull dust. I suppose, if you dried and ground it, it might prove to be a sovereign soil additive.
I can’t say I remember being raked over the coals, by any kind of a corporate board. If so, it was long ago, and I have completely suppressed the memory. Sure, I’ve worked for corporations, but never at the corporate level. Any abuse I suffered, at the hands of employers, was usually on a one to one level. And, at that point, I usually decided to take a walk. Started looking around … But then, I had a history of being able to pick up jobs, without too much trouble. Although some of them were a bit off-beat 🙂 .
H’s command of the English language, is pretty good. I’m always careful what I say to her. And, the tone I use. Luckily, she’s a good dog. Mostly. She does get an occasional “No!” or, “Naughty!”
Back when I was trying to run my own businesses, I wish I’d found a small business accountant, like the Editor and you. Or, at least a bookkeeper. It just never occurred to me. Talk about over confidence. “I’m a smart guy, and I can figure this stuff out.” Yeah, sure.
Ah, yes. The old three Martini lunch. Practically an institution, back in the day. I didn’t watch too much of the series, “Madmen.” But it was pretty much an accurate portrayal of corporate culture, back in the day.
The next time I get that message, I’ll have to write it down and see if I can’t find a workaround. I see the Fruit company has come up with a new operating system. It came out, around the first of October, and I think I’ll give it awhile, for the dust to settle. According to what I’ve read on-line, the upgrade is fairly simple. I’m surprised they didn’t at least drop me an e-mail, to inform me of this. Which is why I had missed so many upgrades, I couldn’t upgrade, anymore.
Well, I hope I fall over like a sack of potatoes. But, if sickness strikes, I hope it’s winter. I intend to crawl up in the woods. I hear hypothermia is a nice way to go. And, I’ve got a stash of some pretty potent meds, left over from my dental surgery. Potent enough, that they probably have a high street value.
Oh, back under the old administration, Rev. Bob was around, quit a bit. He shepherds a main line church, but used to do small services, here, at the Institution. He also visited sick inmates, and even took people to doctor’s appointments, and such. The new administration really doesn’t like outsiders knowing what goes on here. He’s still about, but has been discouraged.
Well, if you want to go big, how about “The streets are paved with gold.” There was many a disappointed immigrant.
I worked out in the garden, a bit. More guerrilla gardening 🙂 . I found a patch of “waste” ground. Weeded it out and dumped a sack and a half of good garden soil on it. I figure I can plant two of the garlic varieties I got, in that space. I’ll get the cloves in, tonight.
My mom couldn’t cook, when she got marries. But, over the years, managed to nail down a few bits of good tucker. After my brother and I, got in school, she did waitressing for a few years. Ad often had side jobs, or, who knows what. So I wrestled up dinner. Usually, out of cans. Dad could also cook, and wasn’t a slouch in the kitchen. Last night, for dinner, I did my monthly indulgence in Mac & cheese. Cubed up some of that smoked salmon, tomatoes, peas, broccoli and garlic. Cheesy goodness.
I’m sure there was rock candy, around, but before my time, I think. There really wasn’t a candy store / tobacco / newsstand in our neighborhood. There’s an outfit that sends out catalogues, that has quit a section of old candy varieties, that you generally can’t find anywhere else. Some of it is candy, that used to be stocked by movie theaters. I’d guess their selection of old candies, comes from small, family run companies. Corporate candy has taken over the shelf space in grocery stores and at the chemists.
https://www.vermontcountrystore.com/candy/category/candies
Rolled oats, the good stuff, is still under $2 a pound, here. If I buy in bulk.
The high yesterday was 55F (12.77C). The overnight low was 46F. Forecast for today is 55F. So far, H and I have dodged the rain.
Back when I was a wee small lad, I’d occasionally take the bus downtown to the big main library. They kept the books on the paranormal, locked up. It’s one of those subject areas, where losses are high. But no problem checking them out, with an assist from a librarian. So, I read a lot about ghosts … as one does. And the thing that stuck in my mind, was an author who said, ghosts have never physically hurt anyone. But that people hurt themselves, through fright. So, seeing and hearing things, just didn’t get me too wound up.
Well, it’s been an exciting morning, sort of. It was announced that they are replacing the hot water boilers. So, starting tomorrow, we won’t have hot water, for two and a half days. I’m toying with the idea, of starting a rumor, that the bus will be here, tomorrow morning, to take us to a five star hotel, for the duration. 🙂 But that would be cruel. I’m sure some of the old dears would take me seriously.
I hate talking on the phone, but, bit the bullet. H is going to the vet next Wednesday, for her “wellness check” and more flea pills. I gave her a bath, this morning, and will take her down to the groomer, tomorrow, to get her nails clipped. You can do a walk-in, and it’s not very expensive.
I also called the auction house. They’ll be picking my stuff up, for the New Year’s Day sale, on the 9th of December. In the meantime, I’ll just pile it all up, in one corner. If we have an inspection, tough luck. Heck, if Little Mary Sunshine wants to tell them I’m moving out, I’ll play along. Yes, a lot of moving stuff around, is because of the inspection. Also, it’s time to unload … I’m not getting any younger. And, I worry about “The Big One.” I want to get the money out of this stuff, before I might lose it all.
I watched the BEST movie, last night. From New Zealand. “The Convert.” It’s about a lay preacher who goes out to New Zealand, in 1830. It’s fiction, but based on stories and folklore. It was made with a lot of Maori participation. Cast and crew. Well worth a look. Lew
Hi DJ,
Always a pleasure to chat! And who can now forget that ol’ Steve Austin has been overtaken by inflation – six million not buying as much as it once did! You however took it one step further and delved into the arcane lore of mission possible. As some general guidelines to harmonious discussions in this forum, I reckon the actor now knows his stuff after such a long apprenticeship and despite the outspoken kooky views which I don’t necessarily agree with, yet others here won’t quite get around to watching the err, monster jet aircraft film number two. For the record, it was very good and told a simple story brilliantly. That’s why the box office takings were so massive. Hmm. Haven’t we waded into controversial waters here… 😉
Exactly! The parrot is certainly confused by the upside down-ness of the entire situation. And alas, and spare a moments thought for poor Dame Plum who’d only just consumed her breakfast and was being put hard to work chasing a fast moving prey. Little wonder a touch of lethargy was on display, and the decision was made to let parrot fly free. Sure Dame Avalanche who’s pedigree is long and distinguished and never in dispute, however the question does arise, would she do better post breakfast?
The British employed a very unpleasant practice there, and have to laugh – did you notice that the vast majority of convicts ended up in Maryland and isn’t that near to your Federal mob? 😉 I’d not known that some were transported from your country to down under. To be candid, at that time, for those of English descent, it would have been akin to sending them to Mars. The stupid thing about it all was that fast forward only a few years and with the gold rush, free transport was seen as a bonus! Gold discoveries then sheep ended convict transportation more finally than any other process (except maybe revolution and independence in your country which had a similar effect).
Good to hear that your forebears were also crafty and resourceful, but not quite good enough to evade the authoritas! This of course means that you would have absorbed their hard won lessons, and are all the better for them. 🙂 It’s kind of like a honing process don’t you reckon? Those border clans were some feisty folks, and a thorn in the side, but ultimately lost the scuffle and tussle. My lot departed those cold sub Arctic shores long ago too. And who are we today? That’s the real question.
That’s been my experience too. In person resolves a world of difficulties. A phone call is of course, and as you note, the second best option. The written word, especially in computer form, can be remarkably easy to a) ignore, and b) misunderstand deliberately or otherwise. You’d be amazed at what I have to deal with, and yet hold a number of tricks up my sleeve to circumvent. But yes, number one plan – go in and see them.
DJ, that’s a close call, and trust me, you may speak blithely of such season turning moments, but the leaf peeper folks can send a rational person into the realms of the nutty. It is fortunate that we live in the less fashionable middle part of the mountain range where few if any tourists dare to tread. Shhh! Be vewy, vewy, qy-et! 😉 (doing my best Elmer Fudd)
You’ve got a good point there, and long ago, we were almost on the point of selling off of one of those low centre of gravity ride on mowers and yet something stayed our hand. There was even a dude about to inspect the machine for that purpose. Your Johnny Cash interpretation is very apt, and I’m not a fan of mud, for all sorts of reasons relating to once reblocking a house from underneath.
Ol’ Johnny sang a dark song which was a cover of a more modern band: Johnny Cash – Hurt. Best none of us are involved with such folks. Their lesson to learn is to be better people.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Whatever will they think of next? Man, I really wish the soils here were good enough to grow such humongous fruit, then waste them, but can console myself with the image of the ginger paddler in the lead photo. That hair was dyed for sure, and you know people can sometimes try and steal ginger mojo. It’s a thing. 😉 But yeah, Cinderella’s coach suggests that the young lady spent many hours of each day maintaining the kitchen and hearth fires.
Did you know that in other parts of the world less encumbered with free roaming fossil fuels and or firewood, bull dust is used as a heating and cooking fuel? You’d imagine that there’d be something of a distinctive aroma produced from the smoke?
Exactly, that’s been my number one option as well when confronted by people talking to me, like I’d never talk to a dog. Walk away, yup. People’s actions can really display the colour of their souls. Unfortunately, I have actually experienced bosses that had lost their poop, and were what can only be described as having a tanty. It’s not pretty, and I have never communicated with staff in that manner. They never trust you afterwards. I heard a speech in the news today from the lady candidate in your election and all she spoke of was the competitor. Is it that hard to talk about what the lady has to offer the electorate instead? The author Douglas Adams put the matter succinctly in the book ‘The Hitch hikers Guide to the Galaxy’ when Zaphod’s private brain care specialist Gag Halfrunt suggested that: “Vell look, Zaphod’s just zis guy, you know..? “ There’s a deep lesson in there, which your embedded politicians may have missed completely! They’ll get there, eventually…
Like you, I too have a flexible disposition when it comes to earning mad cash and keeping food upon the table. I’ve taken plenty of jobs like what you mentioned. I have nothing but fond memories of working on a production line, just for one example.
Yes, dogs completely understand the English language, and it ain’t just you being super careful as to what you say around them. They know! Being a bit more country, I’ll yell at them the word: “Hey!” Not sure what it means, but it reconnects the need in the dog to consider other opinions.
Actually, you’d be surprised at the dearth of such providers. They’re not around. If you for example went to a public accountant and requested such a service, they’d want a cool grand for the work each month. We appreciate that small business can’t reasonably pay that amount, and so offer a unique, err in fact boutique service instead. We provide that service at a low cost point. My experience has been that those who’d been stuffed around in the past, are the most loyal, whilst marketing is usually done via word of mouth. The system itself is perhaps overly complicated and a business owner is usually trying to work out how to sell stuff and services. A person can’t be over everything, so cut yourself some slack.
Labour productivity perhaps = Work more, for less. Tell me it ain’t so?
A friend working in the computer industry urges me to upgrade, and no doubts he’d provide the same advice to you as well. But like you, I wait until the bugs are sorted out. In another year, the operating system I use, err, non fruit, will be at the end of its life. The computer I use can’t run the next system. Hmm… But I’m with you, wait. Is there any benefit to being a trailblazer?
I’ve heard that too, you slowly drift asleep. There’s worse ways to go. As to the meds, I dunno, the end comes speedily enough, but good to have a plan B, just in case. I’m unfussed about the entire matter really, and am just happy to be kicking around and enjoying good chats. My expectations are perhaps rather low? 🙂
Oh, yeah I’d heard that line about streets paved with gold, although always presumed that meant that opportunity abounded – of course, nobody really said who’s opportunity was being presented with the option.
There’s still time to get more of the cloves into the ground, but nice work. How many are you left with now?
It being a lost opportunity to experience a sub fluffy optimal meal. Life is short, and glad to hear that your mother improved, and can’t say the same thing happened. Thus my early interest in food. 🙂 Nothing wrong with a side job to bring mad cash into a household. Funds have only ever gone so far. Gourmet mac and cheese, tidy work there! Had a tortilla for dinner this evening, the chickens produce a lot of eggs each day. Fortunately I don’t give a toss about what the conflicting advice has to say about consuming such tasty produce.
Oh! That was unexpected, I’d have imagined that you’d have local shops way back in the day? Down here was the ubiquitous local business known as a ‘milk bar’, and they sold stuff you needed regularly, and also acted as the local milk distributor when the ‘milk runs’ ended. The tasty drink used to be delivered to your door in glass recycled bottles. The milk even had the cream floating on top. So good. How the mighty have fallen in these enlightened times.
Oh yeah, that’s the candy they used to sell down here too. Except it was all less than a cent and you bought it by the bag.
Far out, rolled oats are cheap in your part of the world.
Glad to hear that you’ve both dodged the rain. It was a glorious day here today and of course there was the shandy of paid and work around the property. Had to put sunscreen on late this afternoon whilst connecting up the plumbing lines for the water pumps. The air was cool, but the sun was fierce, and the plants are growing. They say a bit of rain will fall tomorrow afternoon…
You’ve done the research and reading into the paranormal matter, and so I can take your advice and be super chilled with the next ghost encounter. Definitely your words have changed my perspective in the matter.
Oh no, but hey, at least the replacements are being made in the depths of winter. That would be worse to lose your hot water. How are you coping with day one of two, and probably three, maybe… You are super cheeky, but I like how your brain works. You know, it won’t end well that trick.
It’s funny that you are doing that with the auction, although you have mentioned it previously, but I’d been feeling similar thoughts too and am putting up stuff for auction on ebuy. We’ve got some stuff that are collector items, and they have no sentimental attachments at all, we just hadn’t thought about them for ages. Cleaning out an estate has an interesting impact upon the person doing that work, and the Editor did just that job for her mother many long years ago, but even so there’s still some stuff. There’s an added dimension here too: What happens if there is a bushfire and the place burns down? You never know man.
Oooo. I’ll add this film to the to-see list. Thanks for road testing these things!
Cheers
Chris
Here’s a Youtube video of clearing grass and weeds around the base of young trees from Burncoose.
Yo, Chris – And then there’s an Oregon man, Gary Kristensen. He just paddled his pumpkin, 46 miles, down the Columbia River. Set a new Guinness world record.
Ah, I knew I’d seen a picture, somewhere. Out on our Great Plains, there are few trees. So, how to keep warm? Buffalo chips! Not to be confused with buffalo crisps. 🙂
https://www.artofit.org/image-gallery/770608186254516712/pioneer-life-collecting-buffalo-chips-and-10-other-chores-from-way-back-in-the-day/
Not exactly an assembly line, but I have fond memories of working in a shop, where we made and repairing wooden clogs. For an old Norwegian guy, named Rudy.
Some people seem to be “early adaptors.” They ought to be hunted down, along with their progeny. It’s a gene that needs to be stamped out! 🙂 Oh, well. They end up paying through the nose, for things that later become common and less expensive. Or, totally lose the plot and end up chasing technological dead ends. See: Beta tapes. Or laser discs.
It was quit a day, yesterday. I don’t like talking on the phone, and making appointments, and such. But, I bit the bullet, and called the vet. H has an appointment next Wednesday, for her “wellness check,” so I can get more flea pills, for her. I hope she still doesn’t need dental work. I’ll give her a dental chew, on the way out. I gave her a bath, yesterday. Today, I’m going to take her to get her claws trimmed. You can do a walk in, and it’s not very expensive.
Then I called the auction. I was a bit worried that I had maybe put it off too long, to make the New Year’s Day auction. No worries. They’ll pick up my stuff, on December 9th. Gives me comfortable lead time. But, they may not pick up the stuff, before an inspection. I’ve decided to just not sweat it. Work with me, people! 🙂
The weather was nice, yesterday, and I planted two more varieties of garlic, and some red onions, in that plot I had prepared. About 50 or 60 sets, all together. If I need a “cover” story, it’s next to the current bushes, which are infested with aphids. Doesn’t hurt the berries, but the plants look like hell. Garlic and onions are supposed to repel aphids. So, it’s an experiment. I have two more varieties to get in the ground. And, I’ve decided where I’m going to put them. Just waiting for some nice weather.
I did a couple of loads of laundry, late in the evening. Mostly towels and doggie blankets. The boiler room is right around the corner, from my apartment. The guys are working in there, this morning. I hope they’re done, before the weekend. And don’t bash the elevator, and knock it out.
There may have been candy / tobacco / comic book stores, in other parts of Portland. But pictures I see of them, are usually from the 1940s. I think you needed a certain urban density, to support such businesses.
The high yesterday was 55F (12.77C). The overnight low was 43F. The forecast for today is 51F. Yesterday was nice, but today is going to be wet. Looking at the weather radar, I thought H and I were going to get drenched, this morning. But, luck was with us, and we hit a dry patch.
After the day I had yesterday, when it came to dinner, I was pretty uninspired. Ate basically, junk food. I’ll get back on track, today. Lew
Hi Chris,
Had to watch this week’s video – a topic near and dear to my heart. $300 for two month’s worth of minerals??!! Even if you are applying them to a larger area than I am, it’s still much more than I pay for minerals. I can buy a 25 pound bag of cottonseed meal (nitrogen) for $30 US; that’s about 2 year’s worth for 600 square feet of vegetable beds. Missouri is underlain with limestone and dolomite, so it’s quite cheap to buy large quantities (a limestone quarry is just a few miles away from here). Even phosphorus is cheap; I can get a 50 pound bag for $25 to $50 depending on the particular source, which is at least 2 years’ worth if not more for my garden. Since my soils are young, I don’t add fertilizer or amendments to the fruit trees, just to the vegetable garden.
A visit to our nice telco is probably in order; $50 a month for a landline makes no sense. The two cell phones cost less than that combined and do more. We too have found that in-person visits and good manners result in good outcomes when we need to resolve a problem with a business.
Yesterday our high temperature was 86F, tying the daily record. And the morning “low”, if you can call it that, was 71F, a new record high minimum temperature for the date. The vegetable garden is still producing well. And no frost yet either.
Claire
Hi Mawkernewek,
Thanks for the link, and that’s the exact process I follow here with the many fruit trees. Even the planting arrangement looked eerily similar. The only difference I could discern was that the soil in that part of the world, presumably the UK (?) was much looser than here so the bloke with the Stihl hat was able to just scrub the grass to one side with a gloved hand. Down here the soil is tighter (probably due to higher levels of magnesium) and the hold of the grass is tenacious. Hmm.
But yeah, that’s the process in its entirety – a good video.
The chicken wire I use here is of a stronger gauge and also to 6ft, presumably they have a smaller species of deer there? Dunno. Sambar deer and wallabies are a challenging environment, still the same solutions appear to work.
Haven’t yet had the rabbits munch upon the bark of older trees, and that would probably be not good for their continuing health to do so. Time will tell.
Cheers
Chris
Chris,
First, an observation regarding media coverage of the USA elections. The vast majority of the news coverage is geared to sound bites…meaning they want something that can be construed as sensational or controversial or adversarial. I have found ample coverage of what the female presidential candidate’s goals are. Specifics as to how to get there? Not a chance…that is a topic that has been absent from our presidential campaigns for a long time. Most of what the male candidate has said he wants? It is out there. All over the place from his own mouth. Which news outlet reports it determines how it is conveyed.
Back to my regularly scheduled chatting. 🙂 Yes, you caught what I did. Go from the one show to mission impossible tv show (not to be confused with the Impossible Dream song (from a *musical*) and then you gladly morphed it to mission impossible movies, some of which were quite good. My firm belief, however, is to paraphrase something else you said elsewhere: Ethan Hunt is just zis guy, you know?
Ugh. We got our latest flu and covid jabs Tuesday. As we were waiting to get called in to get shot, my sister showed up for the same reason. Wednesday has not been enjoyable. Probably due to the usual mild vaccine reactions and NOT due to having a pleasant chat with my sister. 😉
Dame Avalanche post breakfast? “Yum, good snacks from papa and from the Walking Guys Who Bring Me Treats. Yum. Nap time. Birds are drinking my water? Ummm, nap time. Squirrels in the yard? Ho hum, snore! Papa, no walk yet, it’s time for my post breakfast NAP!” And so that goes.
I recently read that the nefarious British practice transported 52,000 prisoners to the American colonies between 1710 and 1775. Roughly 25% of the migration of that time frame. And these were purely felons, prostitutes, the poor (including wanderers such as Romani and English Travellers), petty thieves, etc. It does not include those of religions unwelcome in Britain, nor does it include political prisoners such as the Jacobites who were loyal to the Stewart family and were involved in several insurrections 1715 to 1745. And yes, they were mostly dumped into the Maryland and Virginia colonies near Chesapeake Bay and close to where Washington DC is today.
A lot of my forebears who arrived thusly moved inland to the frontiers as soon as they could, meaning when their terms of indentured servitude were completed, or they just ran off. A lot of FPC, Free Persons of Color, of many ethnicities from 5 continents also went to the fringes of “society” where they intermingled with whoever was there, including remnants of various Native American nations. Their descendants became quite the mix of religious, philosophical and ethnic backgrounds.
One thing that goes unmentioned in our history books is that in the first half of the 1600s and a bit later, most of the English immigrants to the colonies were men. Yet they had wives and children.
But who are we today? Seriously, I think most of us are the modern peasant class simply trying to get by and have some fun somehow sometimes. More succinctly? I’m just zis guy, you know? Gag Halfrunt was a wonderful character!
I know nothing about leaves changing, or not changing, color in your part of the world. I know nothing!
Glad you liked the Johnny Cash idea. Thanks for the link.
DJSpo
Hi Claire,
Respect. And you’ve also assisted me over the years to comprehend the underlying reality with the subject of soil minerals. It surprises me to see that with the video there are a number of dislikes, and two rather negative comments. I’d call that a direct hit upon a sacred cow! 😉
Oh my, your measurements are in imperial, and my brain is swimming with the mathematical complexities of converting such numbers into metric in order to make sense of your words. Hang on a second whilst that goes on… … So a 25 pound bag equals say 12kg of some product you can’t even buy here for neither love or money. For your amusement, that’s what I’d describe as a local unicorn! 🙂 However, for your interest, the garden lime bags are in either 12kg or 10kg weights, so same, same, in terms of weight and are about $1.50 / kg. And ah, 600 square feet of garden beds works out to 55 square metres, right. Now we’re talking the same language, the vegetables and berries here take up about ten times your area under cultivation forgetting about the hundreds of fruit trees. And phosphorus in the form of blood and bone meal is about $1.50 a pound for a 50 pound bag, but there are a lot of plants to feed and the soils here down under began on a much lower base. Phosphates are in short supply across the entire country, the land being very old and worn out. It’s funny that as a subject few people wish to discuss the realities of Liebig’s law of the minimum.
Recently I had someone suggest that all minerals are available in the soils and the crucial issue is merely establishing the correct soil biology to access that. You know, that’s a strange thought, and only partially true. It’s like pointing out that a person can access gold from the oceans, but the precious mineral in question is in such diffuse amounts that economically the procedure makes no sense whatsoever. It’s an uphill battle, yup!
And that’s an interesting difference. The fruit trees did not grow well until I began seriously feeding the soil with the additional needed minerals. Prior to that I’d tried adding huge quantities of mulches and composts for years, not to mention the coffee grounds.
Ah, things are cheaper in your country! 🙂 The nice telco wanted $110 per month for the interweb connection + each mobile phone cost $65 each per month. It was no longer a small bill. Dumb question for you: If you have two cell phones, why do you even have a landline connection? But yup, there is no substitute for face to face chats with such service providers, and every bill from corporate behemoths should be treated with suspicion. I have this saying, which no doubts many folks I speak with are bored of hearing, but it’s that: “They’re not your mates” Gets people to think about what kind of relationship they’re in.
Claire, I have to fess up, confession being good for the soul. The nice telco many long years ago had sent their call centre staff to remote third world countries in Asia with obviously cheap labour rates. One time long ago it took many, many hours on the phone to sort out a simple billing matter – and to my utter shame, I eventually swore in frustration, and the person hung up on me. Such emotional journeys are not good for the physical or mental health, and clearly there were larger issues at play there, because the nice telco soon afterwards brought those jobs back to this country. Hmm.
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
Exactly, what people want is an answer presented in twenty words, or less (aka the sound bite). What is required is nuance, and that may take several thousand words to convey the complexity of the situation, thus invoking winners, and to the nice people’s consternation, losers. In a nutshell, that is the quintessential problems facing our society which is at the end of the road. We’re no different down here.
A proper leader might utter the fateful words: We can no longer afford that. Only then will adult conversations follow.
Dude, my brain is exploding, chunks are oozing out the ears, and maybe also the nose, but fortunately not the eye sockets. To dream the impossible dream, sounds an awful lot like a particularly sticky ear-worm. Hmm! Is this really necessary for my continued good health? Unfortunately, it may well be that ol’ Ethan is Hollywood’s last true action hero. But yeah, I agree, he’s just some dude alright… 😉 Hey chuck you, me and Lewis in a blender, and the dude would probably still out-alpha the reconstituted mass of a human we’d produce. Hehe! There are so many good lines in that book – it’s a work of genius.
So, just to sort this story out. Pleasant chat was had with sister. Unpleasant reactions were had from shots. Is that right? Reading comprehension should always be honed as a skill, don’t you reckon? Just giving you a little unsolicited dad talk / advice, have you been drinking enough water after the shot? He says, whilst waving an admonishing finger backwards and forwards.
The fluffies are very much of Dame Avalanche’s reaction to after breakfast reclines. Dogs clearly require some down time to absorb the tastier chunks of their breakfast. Consider here the salt water crocodile. Lives for a long time. Gets super huge and scary looking. Is able to recover some crazy quantity of the prey, like in the 90% range. Ook! Best we’re none of us are involved. And yet in order to produce that result, said reptile requires a lot of rest and recovery. So, do you think it might be possible that Dame Avalanche will evolve into a 7m long reptile? It’s the things you don’t think about which cause a dude to come unstuck! 😉
It’s weird isn’t it that? No doubts the culture hung around in that part of your country… You’ve got me wondering how many convicts were transported down here from 1788 to about 1850? The ante was really pushed, and 162,000 were sent down under during that time. You’d hope none of them were previously employed as telephone hand sanitisers? The interesting thing about those transported down under was that if they had a skill, they generally found gainful employment in the new colony. Forgers for example were notably good clerks, just for one example.
The interior of this country is physically very different to yours, and most people transported, and even most of the immigrants these days, tend to stick to the cities which hug the coast at various points where there is fresh water. It was the Germans and Scottish who headed up into the hills. Your country has a number of vast watersheds, massive mountain ranges, and very large rivers so there is far greater fertility than here. Once you move away from the coast line down here, it gets dry fast. Few if anyone turns up down under for religious reasons. We just don’t have that sort of a culture.
Ha! Dude, there was such an English thing as the convict Female Factory down here, so err, I can’t imagine why your country would not have had such similar things. And that’s exactly what they were called back in the day, you can look it up if you’re interested it’s just a lot of hard work and punishment for minor infractions then providing spouses for the blokes, and in our travels we’ve visited some of the historic places where such things went on.
Hehe! All true. You know what? In all of our travels to distant countries I noted a similar sentiment in that people just wanted to be left alone so as to get on with their lives. That’s not always guaranteed, nope. I’m under no allusions as to what goobermunts can do.
A fine Hans Schultz, and I commend your efforts, and likewise no nothing! 😉
Johnny Cash was an interesting dude, and he could well sing that particular song knowing full well what it meant. Hmm. Thanks for bringing the subject up.
Finished one of the two new water pump systems today, and even had time to get the thing installed. It was a long, long, work day. And one of the connections (of which there are a lot) just kept leaking water. Replaced every component of that link only to discover after a lot of work that the o-ring was faulty in some way I couldn’t work out. Oh well, it’s fixed now and at least half of that water system is now working perfectly. There’s a rush to get the system working because in another week or so the pumpkins will get planted out. It’s a busy time of year, yup!
Cheers
Chris
Hi, Chris!
My defining moment was Y2K, even though nothing in particular happened. It was the first time that I realized that something could go seriously wrong, especially with the technologies we were getting into.
I am glad that I am among such illustrious company in not being able to get anything accomplished with these companies online. I have had one thing after another go wrong lately, from insurance policies to orders never getting to me. It was only when I eventually got hold of a human being each time that things got sorted out.
But they do make sense. Long ago, when we were still teenagers, my husband told me: “Follow the money.” That had never occurred to me, but I have found it invaluable ever since in figuring some things out.
It seems like you have had an unusual amount of frost, or near-frost, for this time of the year. As for us, we have usually had frost well before this, but since it was 80F (27C) yesterday and is supposed to be so for several days, I’m not too worried about that. I’m going to wear shorts today.
What a valable lesson about minerals you gave us in the video. Thank you. And thank you for the subtitles. They always make my day.
What on earth was wrong with Dame Plum, not to go bonkers over a trapped parrot? Mr. Baby would not have been awed by her title and would have exclaimed: “You female dog! What are you doing letting that bird get away?!” Then again, Mr. Baby seemed a little nonplussed when the resident huge old hawk flew through the front yard where he was yesterday, though everyone knows, even big old hawks, that Mr. Baby is more than a bit too chunky for airlifting.
The grass looks gorgeous. Did you work hard – besides the boggy mowing – to get it to look so good?
Speaking of insects – I think you must have – I saw bats yesterday evening. I love bats. Ha – I have a seed packet of chives sitting on the table right beside me. I am wondering if it is too late to plant them, what with our 80F days. I did grow a few leeks this year. They were quite a chore and probably didn’t get enough water in our summer drought.
Bluebells – how lovely. And the rhodies and orchid and the Dragon Tree flowers are beautiful. Thanks for them all.
Pam
Hi Lewis,
The dude is a giant for undertaking that 26 hour journey in a hollowed out pumpkin. To be honest, the story sounds like some sort of surreal WWII prisoner escape story from the Hogan’s Heroes series. An impressive effort of cucurbit proportions.You’d think his boss would give him the following day off work for the effort? Ah, but then that may have entailed corporate branding on the floating pumpkin vessel.
Burning dried dung is an option for plenty of people on the planet, even today it goes on. I first heard of the practice when in India. You’d imagine that the smoke produced from the fire would be quite aromatic?
Well that’s news to me. Did you know that clogs are still being made nowadays, although there appears to be a lot more plastic materials in them than the wooden ones you would have worked with. How did you get into making and repairing those shoes? It’s just not something you’d usually expect to see on a person’s resumé . 🙂 I mentioned this to you previously, but the line I worked on made computer floppy disks. I took the boxed and wrapped products from the line, and from there into the warehouse for storage and distribution. The guy working in there was a hoot, and we used have ongoing conversations about Pink Floyd, as you do. Rudy is a very cool name for someone who makes clogs, although the name Rufus for that work has a much better sound to it don’t you reckon?
Oh yes, please do spare us the constant and high levels of enthusiasm, which are the travelling companion of the ‘early adopters’. Not a fan, and generally wait to see how things play out, although I recall a tech guy long ago telling me that Muckrosofts Wundows software was a ‘wally w$%kers world’. I’d say that feelings of derision ran deep with that bloke. It amused me greatly to see him dealing with the software not all that long afterwards.
Yeah, I’ve got a radio which is a genuine AM stereo receiver. It’s a bit of a curiosity really given that AM commercial radio down under is mostly transmitted in mono nowadays. I believe that one station up north of the country still transmits stereo signals. Dunno what to do with the thing? Might sell it off. You can get burdened down with such items.
Sometimes a dude’s just gotta get on the phone and make the appointment, but I get your reticence. It’s funny you mention that about teeth checks, and I’ve read some interesting articles on that very topic. Act poor is my advice, and H won’t be over-serviced, that’s a plan anyway.
It’s a juggling act isn’t it? And it’s not like you even know when the inspections are going to take place. The auction house probably doesn’t want to have to store your stuff for too long prior to the auction. For them there is business risk in doing that, although you’d always hope for the best with such arrangements.
The weather was cloudy here today, and it rained at times, although not very much. Spent most of the day getting one of the new water pump arrangements connected up and working. Yay! By late this afternoon the system was able to be pressurised and tested for leaks, which there were. More work ensued. Leaks fixed. One of the two water pumps is now working nicely. The Editor will get a surprise later to discover that the big tree is now up-lit again at night.
It’ll be another day of work at some point in the near future, to get the second water pump connected up and going.
Had rice, greens, veg and eggs for dinner this evening. Yum!
Hehe! I really liked your garlic and red onion cover story, and yeah, why not? On a side note, we will actually get to discover whether your aphid repelling theory holds true. It might, garlic does infuse the soils with some serious chemicals.
Did you get much rain today?
Oh yeah, destroying the elevator on the way out has occurred before. Has the noise and activity abated, and do you now have hot water again?
Milk Bars were a bit different in that they were quite common back in the day, even in newer suburbs constructed in the 1970’s. But after that time, they kind of were phased out and people just drove everywhere. Around the turn of the century was the final nail in the proverbial coffin for those businesses, and in the inner urban areas some were converted into housing, others into cafés. But I agree, a certain amount of density and possibly also less commuter heavy areas, were required to make those businesses economically viable.
Hehe! Junk food city limits! These things happen.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Pam,
Oh yeah, I remember the huge kerfuffle over the Y2K business, and then not much really happened. Dire predictions were all over the news at the time, and the tech folks made a lot of mad cash, especially fixing up old legacy software. Still, I agree, simple things in tech land can go wrong. It’s a bit like tools really, the amplify force, and so when things go wrong, it’s a biggerer going of the wrong don’t you reckon? Hmm.
Pam, those systems were so bad that I couldn’t work them out. It’s nice to hear that things in your country aren’t any better, but that despite it all, you can get access to a real live person to sort things out. A year or so ago I had to interact with a robot on the other end of the phone line, and that was deeply weird. Have you come across one of those systems yet? A lot of things and systems are unnecessarily complicated, and I can’t for sure say why. Possibly why you’re experiencing such things, and it ain’t just you there. I keep hoping things get simpler. It’s not too much to ask is it?
Yup! That’s good advice right there, yup. Follow the money and see where it leads. Not always easy to do these days though.
I’m not really certain at all what a normal year of weather would look like. Variability is the name of the game here, and it is possible to have a frost next month too. Hmm. The upside is that some years, marginal crops like apricots and almonds, work out. Hey, I’m coaxing the little sick seedling chestnut back into life. It’s now got some buds on the trunk, so we’ll see if they open.
That weather will be here on Saturday, but candidly it is mid to late spring here and that’s kind of usual.
It seems a bit warm your 80’F temperature would be for late October / early November. I’d imagine that winter will arrive with a sharp and abrupt change? You’ve heard me complain before about being summer soft when faced with such chilly weather, and that may happen to you when faced with such sudden shifts in the climate?
🙂 The subtitles are what the AI thinks I’m saying, and they’re probably put there to amuse us all. The computer comes up with some whoppers from time to time. I’m surprised that the video has received such strong opinions in the comments. I did reply rather graciously to them. Oh well, it’s probably a bit like telling them that Santa ain’t coming to their garden this year… 😉
I know, Pam, even I was wondering what had gotten into the stalwart titled canine. What can I say, we all have off days, and that was perhaps one of Dame Plum’s. Mr Baby is of course correct there, and it is well deserved criticism. It’s be a rather large bird which could lift Mr Baby in his present estate. Maybe a Pterodactyl, those things looked big enough to lift a cat? I forget, but did I ever mention the story of Wandi the dingo pup? It’s a good looking dog that one.
🙂 Thanks for saying that. It’s a lovely time of year, and the grass looks good. Those plants are incidentally fed along with the trees in the orchard. As the shade in those two orchards increases, it will be interesting to see what happens with the grass during the year. The grass is dropped where it is cut too, and that helps a lot with those plants. Seeing people drive away to the tip with grass clippings is a practice I’ve never really comprehended. Hmm. You’ve given me an idea.
Bats love hunting insects, and the ones here are marsupial bats as well. Tiny little things darting around in the setting sun light. Of course there are also the fruit bats, which I hope give us a wide berth… Dunno, worthwhile giving the chives a go, and they turn up here in spring and hang out during the warmer months of the year, then disappear for the winter. A bit of a shame, because they’re tasty, as you are also no doubt aware.
Pam, I don’t really know whether I enjoy the taste of leeks. Dunno. What’s your take on that plant?
Thanks! And expect more flowers in a few days time.
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – Well, if there had been some corporate branding, maybe the guy would have got some mad cash, besides a day off work? I’ve read there’s quit an industry in “product placement,” for the movies. Corporations pay a lot of mad cash, to have a movie hero drink one brand of soft drink, or another. The computer they use. The cars they drive.
I’ve heard that dung fueled fires have quit pleasant aromas. Not that I’ve had any up close and personal experience.
The clogs, at least in this part of the world, were first used by Scandahovian dairy workers, down on the coast. Then, in the late 1930s, they caught on with college kids. Clog dancers, and such. The shop was run by Rudy, his wife, and a son. There was a sort of floating labor force, of 5 or 6 guys. Sometime, they disappeared, for months at a time, and then came drifting back.
The customer’s foot was outlined on butcher paper, and, they could pick up the finished product in a week or two. A industrial rubber sole, was attached to a wood base (?), using an industrial glue / cement, called Barge. The upper was heavy leather. We did repairs, one day a week. Which usually involved grinding off the worn down rubber sole and old glue. Sometimes, the wood would have picked up embedded stones or glass. Always exciting times, on the grinding bench, when you hit one of those. Mostly, my job was glueing the rubber soles, to the wood. And grinding off any excess.
I got the job, through a good friend, who had worked there for awhile. The crew was rather “floaty” as Rudy told us, when hired, that he didn’t care when we showed up, when we went home, or how long we took for lunch. But, we would only be paid for the time we were there. More than once, lunches got VERY long and very liquid. Sometimes, never made it back from lunch.
The Ginger Union has stated, that only people of the ginger persuasion, can be named Rufus. 🙂
I know the vet, Dr. Amanda … socially. She’s given me price breaks, more than once.
The high yesterday was 48F (8.88C). The overnight low was 43F. Forecast for today is 52F. I saw an article that Mt. Fuji has not received any snow yet. The latest date, as far back as records go. Like your other readers, we have yet to see a frost. But, with all the rain, the gardens are pretty well finished, for the year. I forgot to mention, I scattered some blood meal, on that new garlic bed.
Good work on the water pumps. I suppose there are pumps involved in our hot water system. Looks like the new units are in, but I haven’t heard when we will get hot water. I doubt they’ll let us know. Worker’s tools are still scattered about. It hasn’t been a very noisy process.
It’s Halloween, today. I guess the Ladies have something planned, at around 1. There will be some of those walking petrie dishes, called children, about. I’ll steer well clear.
Keeping things simple, due to no hot water. I had rice, a tin of black beans, a tin of tomatoes, frozen corn and garlic, for dinner. Some cheese on top. Zipped it up with some cider vinegar … and dollops of yoghurt. Tasty.
Saw an interesting article on “passive housing.”
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/passive-house-trend-booming-185419884.html?
I just wonder if you can open a window? Lew
Chris:
I have dealt with robots on the phone, yes. In fact, we have a robot at home – Rosie (I know, everyone’s robot is named Rosie . . .).
I do hope the chestnut survives. They are delicious.
Wandi – was he the one that got grabbed up by an eagle?
An idea! I can’t wait to hear it.
I love leeks. Potato-leek soup – yum!
Pam
Hi Pam,
It’s a good name for a robot, and Rosie the Robot probably kept that fictional house together. 🙂 From that cartoon producing studio, Scooby-Doo was quite silly, yet fun. Makes you wonder what the various dogs you and I have known over the years would say if they could speak? Mr Baby, may demand cuddles, lot’s of them. And! Dinner, possibly more often that is necessarily required! 😉 The dogs here would demand walks, all the time. I’m kind of glad they can’t speak…
The little sad chestnut might just pull through. It was a tough moment using the pruning shears to reduce the size by half. And for the past week or two, the sad fruit tree has been enjoying a special daily feed of seaweed solution.
Yup, that’s the dingo. Who knew that eagles can lift puppies into the air and presumably drop them from a height? Tough birds because puppies have super sharp needle like teeth.
It’s a special pleasure to irritate the arm chair theorists. They’d benefit from getting some dirt under their fingernails, like the rest of us. Of course, in these enlightened times we’ve got these things called nail brushes, but we won’t tell them that, will we.
Agreed, that is a very tasty soup. Leeks are a bit weedy here, and I have no idea why that would be. They’ve become established in the Globe Artichoke bed which has been heavily fertilised, so maybe the soil feed did the trick? They certainly aren’t being watered. What sort of conditions do they grow in at your place?
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
There was some sort of iconography on the side of the floating paddle pumpkin which denoted to the world: “It’s Real”. A mysterious message perhaps inviting us less adventurous sorts to question our belief systems that the craft was constructed from plastic composite materials. I’d imagine that after the 26 hour journey, the bloke would have been a bit sore. Not sure I could sit still for that long.
Speaking of such matters, we visited a previously unknown nearby nature reserve today and went for a loop walk around the place. It was a bit small at 240 acres so the walk took an hour and a half, but had a fascinating history, and looked quite healthy too. It was an open woodland with an astounding quantity and diversity of wild flowers. Being located upon a minor and hopefully long dormant volcano, sure helped the soil, and there was even an old basalt quarry. The famous light horse brigade of WWI fame used to train there. Who knew? It was named Bald Hill nature reserve, and I can vouch that the peak of the hill was indeed bald.
It’s a long weekend in this corner of the country, mostly because of the well known horse race on Tuesday. Thought we’d get out and about before the hordes descend over the weekend. Seems like a sound philosophy. So we took the day off any and all work, and so will work tomorrow instead. Nice to have some flexibility!
Yeah, product placement is a thing. Actually the other day I inspected one of the utub vids and discovered that the nice service there had inserted an advertisment. Don’t believe that I’m getting for that. Might send them a please explain, just to keep them honest.
I’ve got no experience with burning dried poop either. A mystery… 🙂
A subject dear to my heart, as long ago I did a stint as a factory accountant working at a business which made boots. It’s an interesting process, isn’t it? And the barge bonding agent is a fascinating material which apparently comes highly recommended. It’s awesome though that Rudy, family and co could produce footwear to an exact fit. That’s impressive because the uppers would have had to have been adjusted to fit the sole.
Interesting, and a dude can’t but help learn something new everyday. Clog dancing… A clever way to get the dancers to time their movements with the percussive beats of a melody. I’d not realised and appreciated the reach of such music.
Oh far out! Your description of a grinding wheel hitting glass and/or stones brought a bout of sympathy concern. Long ago I had to go to see an eye surgeon to remove a small chunk of metal lodged in the lens of my eye. When the dude approached me with the syringe whilst my head was locked firmly in a vice arrangement. Yikes! One of the very times my brain shut down and I passed out. The surgeon was unsympathetic to my reaction, but did suck the little chunk of metal out and the eye quickly healed. The point of the story, face masks and eye protection when using a grinder. Those tools are fine, if nothing goes wrong!
Such loose arrangements are no longer to be seen in these enlightened times, and getting an extended break from work is sometimes necessary. People are not robots. Just thought I should chuck in that I’ve not had more than a week and a half off paid work in more than six or seven years now. Over the Christmas break this year, we are going to shut down the business – me needs the break. Where’s a boss like Rudy, when you need him! 🙂
Rufus is a way cool name. And gingers get a bad rap sometimes.
Lucky you, I’d forgotten that you had connections there. That means straight talk and no silly business like: do you want fries with that?
Forgot to mention, but I’m always keeping a look out for quality hand tools, and the other day picked up some very decent gardening secateurs. The return springs in many lesser models are something of a problem, but not this quality tool. The belief is that the springs can be replaced with the cheapie tools, but my experience has been that they are a pain in the err, ear.
This is so weird, it’s 43’F outside right now at 10pm, and today was sunny but cold. 79’F tomorrow, so I’ll get up early and get into work before the sun cooks my head. Yeah, saw that about Mount Fuji. Makes the curious person wonder if the snow fell there as rain instead? Those islands get a lot of weather. Hmm. But with warming oceans, what did everyone expect would happen?
Your growing season would be rapidly drawing to a close. Nice work with the blood meal on the new garlic bed. That’ll keep off any pesky critters too, maybe not H though.
Over the past few years I’ve been saying just that here, autumn is becoming less of a thing, and you kind of flip from hot weather, into a brief period of mild autumn weather, sometimes two weeks or less, then you descend straight into winter. It hardly surprises me to hear that you’re all experiencing that similar strange shift as well now. To be honest, I thought that it was just how things were rolling in this corner of the planet.
Maybe there are water pumps involved. There might not be, and the system runs on system mains pressure alone. How’s the water pressure at your kitchen sink? If people on the floors beneath you get better pressure, then it may be just mains water pressure lifting the water to your level. Dunno. On the other hand, water pumps are pretty hardy devices usually with a long life span. Good to hear that the job is banging along. Was the hot water turned on today?
Hehe! Run Lewis, run! 🙂 Best to not be involved, just for noise reasons alone.
Passive houses work, no doubts about it, but they don’t come cheap, and the flow of air has to I believe mechanically managed. I’ve visited one.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Chris,
Busy week but wanted to pop in and say how much I enjoyed the “Breath” book. I thought I had quit the mouth breaking for the most part but after paying close attention – well not as much as I thought. If you don’t mind me asking, did you tape you mouth closed at night?
Anyway very useful information and fascinating stories about the people who found cures or at least ways to improve the lives of people with respiratory ailments. Of course it confirms that ancient cultures knew a lot and we would do well to pay more attention.
Watched your video and I don’t know why anyone would have a problem with it.
Has turned from very warm to seasonable with quite a lot of rain forecast Sunday through Tuesday. We need it.
Margaret
@ Pam & Chris – I’ve heard stories, from loggers, about cutting a tree and bringing down eagle’s nests. With many dog and cat collars, in them.
The chestnut tree: Can you get any worm juice, out of your worm farm? When I had my little worm farm, I’d catch the juice, and keep it in a gallon jug. Boy, it worked a charm, on many a struggling plant. Lew
Yo, Chris – It suddenly occurred to me, that if the pumpkin paddler did a 26 hour run, he must have paddled through a night! Must have had a support crew … in boats. And, I wonder how he dealt with the wakes of other ships? There’s a lot of heavy traffic, on the Columbia River. Huge cargo ships, carrying grain.
Sounds like a nice walk, around the nature reserve. What? No fabulous tucker? Usually, when you make these day trips, there is fabulous tucker, involved. 🙂
Let’s hear it for flexibility! It is so nice, not to have to walk H to a strict schedule. By the way, in two out of three walks, yesterday, we got thoroughly soaked. Hit it lucky, this morning. Nary a drop.
U-Tub, is a mystery. I decided I wanted to take a look at the comments, on your last video. Again, hard to search. But I did find a clutch of your really early videos, which I didn’t know were there. Some going way back. But, I finally found the soil amendment video. It said there were 4 comments, but I could only see one (and, your reply 🙂 . Obviously, the commenter put a lot of thought into his one word post. Not!
I think, sometimes, gingers play the bad rap card. Just an opinion.
I had to look up what garden secateurs are. LOL. Here, we just call them pruners. Oh, so you have pains in your … ear, too? 🙂 Now I haven’t tried it, but Ted, the Master Gardener does his yearly tool sharpening seminar. And, one of the things he does, is disassemble a pruner, to clean and sharpen it, and then put it back together. He makes it look easy.
Our high yesterday was 50F (10C). The overnight low was 48F. Forecast for today is 54F. The Three Graces, among your readers (Margaret, Pam and Claire) have all commented on the unseasonable warm weather, in the eastern US. I even saw an article, about it, last night. Looks like we’re going to set a record, at least locally, for latest frost. None forecast on the horizon, yet.
I had an interesting talk with the postie, Jake, this morning. I ordered some iris tubers, and, they haven’t come. I rechecked the order, and, I failed to notice they’re coming from Holland. I mentioned that I hoped they wouldn’t be stuck, in quarantine. Jake told a story, about a local man, who wanted a particular apple variety. From Australia. Supposedly, the healthiest apple, in the world. Of course, I can’t remember the name. Maybe starts with an “M” and is someone’s name? Any-who. The whole process took 6 years. Quarantine at the Australian end, and more quarantine at this end. I realize, such things are necessary, and even so, bad stuff gets through. Someone always breaks quarantine.
Water pressure has always been good, in this building. Also, some of the good pressure might be because there’s city reservoir, well uphill from The Institution. Still no hot water, but the guys are beavering away. H and I had to take the elevator, for our walk, as tools are scattered all over the hall to the stairs. They were up on the roof, putting in some kind of vent pipes. The reek of pipe glue is in the air. So, maybe by the end of the day?
Well, Halloween is over. When H and I went for a walk, at 6pm, we zip out the back, near the lobby. It was full of a mob of people, and the sound level was out of sight. Lew
Chris:
I’ll tell you about Rosie. She is a vacuum cleaner, and she was a Christmas present. She is a black, round, kind of a flying saucer- shaped creature about 4 inches (10 cm) tall and of a 14 inch (35 cm) diameter. Rosie makes a whirring noise because she has twirling brushes underneath her. She has her own little room under a table with a place to “dock”. I do not know how to operate her. My daughter-in-law, with her superior skills, can do that from her smartphone. Yes, Rosie is one of those smarties.
Rosie works very hard. Every day she does the rounds of the downstairs. She cannot climb stairs. I’ll tell you how I found out. The stairs had gotten very dirty from figlets being carried up there for the winter. I commanded: “Rosie, climb these stairs!” She just kept on vacuuming the dining room, which is near the foot of them. I figured out that she was not going to do any climbing, so I grabbed a broom and swept the dirt down the stairs in record time so that when she finished with the dining room she would have to go over it to get back to her dock. She finished the dining room – and went the other way, through the kitchen. That is not supposed to be her route. And I don’t know if it is a good idea to pick Rosie up when she is working (sort of like Mr. Baby). So I swept up the stair dirt myself.
A bit later I saw her in the hall near the bathroom. She was barely dragging herself along. She looked so sick that I dared to turn her over and, by golly, she had eaten a pair of undies from the bathroom, and also a grape stem. I extracted those and sent her on her way. She was pooped by then and had to recharge, but she soon got going again – and got herself stuck under a desk. While there she decided to eat a phone charger, so I had to pull her out and remove that, too. You might get the idea that some of us here leave things lying about on the floor. Well, not so much anymore.
Scooby Doo – where are you?! I loved that show. So groovy.
Needle-like teeth are such an advantage.
This was my first try at growing leeks. They were in a raised garden bed and I think they needed a whole lot more water than they got in this rainless summer – except for the one really big rain from a hurricane.
How nice to have found a new nature reserve. A place to go back to in another season.
What well-known horse race?
Pam
Chris,
Ah, you’ve, umm, hit upon the savage problem modern industrial society has. “A proper leader might utter the fateful words: We can no longer afford that.” While I agree with you, unfortunately most voters will not. Rather the sentiment would be the popular response, “We can no longer afford a leader who says such things.” See, for example, Jimmy Carter, turned down thermostat, sweater.
Yes, impossible Dream is one terrible ear worm. Get it well stuck in the ear, and it might take days to remove, weeks or months even. Even standard ear worms such as “It’s a Small World” may be powerless to remove it.
Correct. Pleasant chat with sister. Unpleasant reactions to vaccinations. Plenty of water drunk. Much better on Friday.
This year has been the most pleasant autumn we’ve had in years. Some frost. Some fog. Rainy season has arrived. Trees showing color for weeks. Very little wildfire smoke. The biggest drag has been the endless political advertisements on the television.
Yes, the rainy season has arrived. We’ve had 15mm in the past 2 days or so, with perhaps another 10mm expected over the weekend. Some of the mountain areas have been getting snowfall. Last year the ground froze before the wet season hit. NOT good. This year should have ample moisture before the ground freezes.
Ya know, sometimes I have weird dreams. Never have I had a dream about a dog turning into a 7m long reptile. Never. I’m hoping that your suggestion about Dame Avalanche will not spark a change in the weird dream trend.
On the other hand, I remember the 2nd time I went spelunking in South Dakota. A large group of us gathered near an underground pond, sat in the mud in the dark. We were regaled by a primary school teacher telling us a story she told her very young students. It was about the “Frog People”, who were giant frogs who protected normal frogs by capturing humans. At an appropriate point in the story, there was a loud shriek from one of the women. One of the guys had silently snuck up on her and touched her face with a cold, muddy hand. Frog People.
A week after returning to Spokane, there was an interesting and timely Far Side comic printed in the local newspaper. Two scientists were in a swamp with nets and flashlights. One had just caught a frog and had a sinister smile. The 2nd scientist was looking upward in total fear, his eyes blinded by a large light that was near a giant frog leg. The 2nd scientist was saying something like, “Ummm, Bill, I think you need to put the frog back in the water.” Frog People. Very timely.
Remember, many of the prisoners sent to North America, and later many of the prisoners sent to Australia, were in debtor’s prison. Yup, they were in prison for being poor. As telephone sanitizer is often a job that is paid well below a living wage, it is possible that several of the convicts sent to Australia were, indeed, telephone sanitizers. 😉
I don’t think we had any formalized Female Factories. Instead, we had the Harvey Girls. There was even a novel and a movie made about them. But the Harvey Girls were an actual real group of women pioneers. https://recollections.biz/blog/harvey-girls/
Arg! Plumbing. Even with all brand new parts, leaks can happen. It sucks. And you know what? They don’t make O-rings the way they used to. 😉
I remember when at university, I found an interesting book at the library. It was about physics graduate students in the old USSR. I read it and my dad, the community college physics teacher, read it. One section was complaints from the students about what their professors made them do as graduate students. The most common complaint? “He sent me into the lab and told me to find the leak. All those years of school and 2 years of graduate school and I had to find the leak!” Pops looked at me and said that that’s what I had to look forward to when I got to graduate school. I was a teaching assistant in graduate school, taught physics labs. The guy I shared an office with already had his Master’s degree, was a research assistant. It was HIS job to find the leak. And now you have shown that you don’t even need a physics degree in order to find the leak. Congrats on finding and fixing.
DJSpo
Hi Margaret,
Respect for reading the book. 🙂 It is interesting isn’t it. Spare a moments thought for Sandra who had the same early experiences as the author: mushy food as a kid + orthodontic work. Hmm. The book was a real eye opener, and I was a bit like you in that I thought I used my nose a lot, but turns out, more effort was needed on my part! And believe it or not, the benefits outweigh the effort involved, and so I’ve mostly retrained myself now – although it has taken a lot of effort.
No, I don’t mind you asking at all, the subject is one of those things that few people really think much about, but could be important. I mostly used the nose anyway, so keeping the mouth shut at night is a please excuse the flippancy, but a force of personality thing for me. 😉 Sandra on the other hand has been taping her mouth, mostly because of the long years of not using the nose. It was actually her that went on this deep dive and alerted me to the benefits of using the nose.
Yeah, it does make you wonder what else don’t we know about? 🙂 I’ve had two colds during this year, and interestingly with retraining myself to use the nose all the time, the colds have barely impacted me. Hmm.
That’s another mystery those two comments. It’s an odd forum because I have no control over stupid stuff like that. Interestingly, I tracked the people down, and discovered they were as they say, no great shakes. Maybe it is easier to tear down, than create? Dunno. It is very possible that the entire concept offends their strongly held beliefs that nature should deliver whatever, whenever? Given it hit a raw nerve, I’ll come back to the topic in a week or two.
Hope you get plenty of rain over the next week (although not too much as that can be bad). I worry about really intense thunderstorms because they can bring all sorts of weather mischief here. Oh well, what will be, you know the song.
It was 38’F overnight last night, and yet warm and sunny today. Of course I went down into the orchards first thing to check upon the apricots and almonds – which you can see on the tree in the next video. We’re trialling a lemon marmalade recipe just to use up some of the lemons. Hope it works out! The lemons are soaking overnight.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Pam,
You genuinely have a robot running around your house doing the vacuuming! 🙂 What I want to know is: Has Mr Baby ever decided to take on the might of Rosie the Robot? Cats would totally love one of those machines. Can you imagine the scene: Mr Baby is reclining at his leisure. Dreaming the hours away whilst in his head fighting monster mutant rodents. The late autumn sun streams through the window. Fur is warmed. An occasional stretch or yawn disturbs the bucolic scene. Suddenly! What the… Rosie the Robot incautiously approaches the reclining feline. Bam! Chaos ensues… It’s hard to know where things would go, and whilst not dissing Mr Baby’s legendary fighting skills, I feel impelled to mention that robots are tough customers e.g. The Terminator. Pam, Mr Baby’s work is seriously cut out for him there.
Haha! That’s funny, Rosie ate the floor-drobe plus other random items of technology, as only an unthinking robot would do. 🙂 Thanks for the laughs. The dogs here would have a total freak out about such a machine running around causing household mayhem. But then, the robotic addition to the household would introduce all sorts of random effects that surely the device has crossed over from it’s utilitarian roots to that of pure entertainment value?
Scooby-Doo and Shaggy were always the duo that did all the hard yards whilst solving the various mysteries along the way. Yeah, groovy is the word. The show was so 1970’s that it hurt, but in a good way.
Before this recent batch of dogs, we’d never known puppies, and oh, they’re so much fun, at least once they pass the twelve week mark. Even Ollie was meant to be six months, but given they lied about the breed, it hardly surprises me that they lied about his age as well. He was younger than that, and it surprised us how much he grew and grew. I took them all out for a long walk this evening, and they’re all now sound asleep.
I’ve never watered the leeks here, but your past summer was sort of extreme so maybe they’ll do better next year? If you allow them in future seasons to set seed and adapt to your local conditions, you might be surprised just how tough those plants are.
Is that usual for you to receive little to no rain in the summer months?
The local council owns and runs that nature reserve, and there is a friends of group involved, but blink and you’ll miss the place. I was talking with a lovely local lady in that area, and she’d lived all her life there and not visited it. It’s a quiet place.
The Melboure Cup horse race of course. We get a public holiday for the race, although being self employed there’s no paid day off for such things.
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
It’s a bit of a problem for sure, and I know people from your country who are not very nice about your former President Carter, who’s values I very much respect e.g. the sweater and who can forget the solar PV panels? Any future which does not begin with ‘we probably need to use less’, is in for a world of hurt. Oh well. He was also a notable orator and I’ve read some of his speeches.
What! Like your style there trying to insert yet another ear worm. My head is now spinning Exorcist style, and I need to go wash my ears out (as they used to say, or did they say that, maybe it was wash your mouth out, I dunno, it’s all way too complicated!)
Glad to hear that you’re feeling better now. It’s no good. Still, it’s probably better than feeling hydrophobic due to rabies. That would be a very bad thing. Not sure where that last sentence came from, but I don’t feel quite the same about the fruit and insect bats down here now. Where is this paragraph going? Hard to tell really. 🙂 Look, I’m just trying to drown out the ear worm noise.
Actually I heard a story on the radio the other day where one of the DJ’s unfortunately had a tiny moth enter their ear. Ended up in emergency… Do you know that allegedly olive oil is used for that treatment?
Good to hear that the season is going well, and everyone deserves a nice run of weather from time to time, although too much of that breeds a certain indifference to err, hubris. And yeah, oh my, I can’t wait for your election to be over. I’m over it already. It’s like the media here is all concerned about the matter and having a total melt down. Why would anyone want that top job given all the problems which need to be tackled? My gut feeling is that your country’s focus will shift inwards regardless of the outcome next week. That outcome is baked into the land.
Here’s hoping that the dream suggestion is balanced out by the ear worm suggestion and we’re all square? 🙂 Look, it’s a worthy goal don’t you reckon?
Oooo, some folks have a good sense of story telling timing. I trust that you are, and have always been a gentleman of the finest background e.g. Viking, and would never dare do such a Frog People trick on an unsuspecting lady? 🙂 Man, it’s like telling ghost stories when you’re way out in the bush miles from anywhere whilst huddled around a campfire. Some settings really give credence to a story, and who knows, it may well have been the Frog People? Oh no! An interweb search produced all manner of weirdness in relation to that amphibian topic.
Hehe! That’s funny. I love the Far Side wit. One of my favourites is a captain and co-pilot staring out the window into thick clouds and asking the hard question: What’s that goat doing up in the clouds? Of course it struck a chord here because of regular incidents of pea-soup fog up in the mountains. Whenever a plane flies too low overhead Sandra and I often quip:What’s that Kelpie doing up in the clouds? and of course my favourite: Hope you guys know what you’re doing? If one day a plane fails to climb over the mountain range, I wouldn’t be surprised at all.
Oh yeah, debtors prison was a thing way back in the day. The fun thing about reading history, is that you get to see first hand how crazy our culture can really be. Given student debt is not ever forgiven under ordinary circumstances, the cheeky rascal might point out that the debtors prison never really went away.
It’s a fascinating history, and the bloke was way ahead of his time. A friend of mine would describe the earlier pre-Harvey Girl restaurants as an err, sausage fest! The work would have been an opportunity out of many a stultifying social and economic situation. I note that during and after WWII, the available position requirements were widened again.
Man, don’t I know that first hand. You know, I looked hard at that o-ring and couldn’t see anything wrong with it. All the same, the connection leaked. What a pest. There’s learned knowledge, and the sort of knowledge required to resolve hands on problems. No reason the two experiences can’t inhabit the same person! 🙂 But yeah…
Dude, it wasn’t a test of skills fixing that leak, but more of a desire not to waste precious water! 🙂 But you know, it does no harm to use one’s problem solving abilities, and I’m guessing that such work would produce better outcomes when it comes to practical experiments?
Sandra has a degree in biology, and a year or two back, it was very difficult to convince her that the yeast she’d been using had a shelf life of less than what the packet suggested. Some batches of wine had been going off, and I’d become uncomfortable with the waste. We now test the yeast prior to using the stuff. Quality is no longer what it only once was. But for some reason, it is easier for me to make that leap, and maybe I have less faith in the quality of the stuff we’re being sold? Dunno. A mystery, but I don’t assume that things aren’t leaking. When that is the case for a long period of time, I tend to be amazed. 😉
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
What do you mean huge cargo ships in the river? Yikes! Yeah, the wake from those monsters would be unsettling to say the least, and it’s not as if they’d notice if a little pumpkin paddler were accidentally run over in the night. Why would captains of such vessels expect such a thing. Actually in the news article I read about the bloke he appears to have had a support kayak dude and maybe a small boat following.
Dunno about you, but it’s rare for me to stay awake for more than 16.5 hours in a row. We did that long ago when the house didn’t sell at auction during the 2008 global financial crisis. Spent the entire night awake chucking around ideas as to how to get out of the mess we’d suddenly found ourselves in. Not ideal, and I don’t believe that it could be good for a persons health, although the more I learn about sleep as the years go on, the less I feel that it is the strict eight solid hours society suggests that it should be. It is possible that such rigid schedules arose from the industrial mindset. After all, it wouldn’t have been all that long ago that a member of the tribe would have had to stay awake and alert for potential mischief.
The walk was really good, and we’ll definitely go back there. Interestingly the walk seems to be a locals only thing based on the few people we did see there. You can kind of tell locals from tourists. But yes, there was a famous tucker, last evening I was rather short on time to reply, and that matter was skipped. Had a roll with roast beef and salad, plus there was a most fortifying coffee scroll. Sticks to your ribs! 😉 So good. Incidentally, we didn’t actually have lunch at the nature reserve because we had no idea whether there would be any facilities for such things. A picnic table is a very civilised option, not always guaranteed! So, we had lunch at the Sanatorium picnic ground at the very top of this mountain range instead (it was kind of on the way home). The folks at the long disappeared sanatorium planted some wonderful old trees. Incidentally, I’ve never been able to find exactly where that sanatorium was physically located. Apparently way back in the day, the locals were upset at the presence of all those patients… As you’d imagine, even the buildings and memories were eventually erased, but at least they left the trees and lake.
Dogs love their patterns, and if you allow it, a dog could possibly demand the one pattern to rule them all – lot’s of scheduled walks – then you’d know true pain. 😉 Although H’s opinion in the matter may differ. That’s a total bummer about getting caught out in the rain one two of the three walks, yet the tide appears to have turned in your favour.
The Editor went out for dinner with friends consequently, it’s pretty late here, almost nearing on midnight. Had a quiet night myself, which is fine by me. Earlier in the day we poured another cement step, which makes it five now, probably twenty to go. Sewed up two steel rock gabion cages because they were now full of rocks, and after lunch in the hot afternoon sun, I clad the second water pump housing with corrugated steel sheeting. Ending up making a video too, although the Editor will work her magic on it tomorrow. Dinner was a delightful linguine with a veg sauce – very nice.
I agree, the comments were hard to find, and bizarrely, one of them was kind of posted in a sneaky way that wasn’t entirely obvious. You have to click the sort button, and only then does the comment show up. That was weird, but hadn’t escaped my attention only because I noticed it through the statistics only. It was of interest to me that the views slowed to a crawl once they posted their unpleasantness. Oh well, I’ve seen such dirty work on forums before. People will be people.
I very much value your opinion, and will take that on board. Of course it is equally possible that gingers get a bad rap. Dunno. 😉
Well that’s a regional difference because we call them secateurs which sounds kind of French to my reading ear. 🙂 Annoyances do give a person a pain in the err, ear. Such things are known! Interestingly, did you know that they sell battery pruners? Whatever will they think of next? That’s be an interesting seminar to see that work being done on the hand tool. Keeping the cutting blades sharp saves a world of hassles.
I tell you what I’ll think of next, a quiet day tomorrow, that’s what! 🙂 That’s the plan anyway. Hehe!
Did I mention the trials and tribulations of the seedling chestnut tree only recently planted? It looks like the tree might be slowly coming back to life, maybe. Far out, it’s been a lot of years since I’ve encountered such a weakling fruit tree, although when I planted the tree it looked as though a lot of the root systems had been removed. It’s possible that whoever did that was a bit over zealous. I’ll never know…
Whoa, now those are some fine autumn temperatures. We’re having a very warm night and last I checked it was still 18’C / 64’F outside, and windy. The forecast for this coming week looks rather stormy.
Man, I’m not sure whether it is amusing, but right now, our news media is full of your politics, and the record breaking weather was not mentioned. That’s the sort of article the news here usually finds alarmingly interesting. Did you see images of the flooding in Spain?
Fingers crossed that the iris bulbs arrive. I noticed the ones here are flowering. The Editor said something earlier about photographing them next week, although I do hope that the flowers survive the forecast storms later this week? They’re a purple colour, but it’s close enough to blue. 🙂
You’ve been saying that for over a decade, and I ain’t arguing with you. Someone always breaks quarantine. Allegedly that’s how the bees varroa mite arrived on our shores. Truly idiotic. Oh well, we’re only as good as the weakest link.
I’d say so, although I’ve read it takes a drop in height of a bit over 200ft from reservoir to outlet in order to achieve house pressure. The pipe glue is very distinctive smelling, and they use a two part cement down here. The first a red primer, then a blue glue. That stuff holds PVC pipes. Always wise to vent hot water systems lest they become an inadvertent steam engine. A lot of pressure to go very wrong, remarkably quickly.
Nice dodge, and I’d have done no less. 🙂 That much noise would have over loaded my brain. Not good!
The Editor is on her way home, and it now is midnight.
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – A defective O-ring brought down the Challenger space craft. But I doubt you’re planning on flying your pump house.
I have a book about the Harvey Girls. Picked it up, to eventually sell it on. Looks like it brings a good price. Now here’s an ear worm, for you.
https://youtu.be/_qBBc4lgO9I?si=5G-sZWwQcR1rhzPc
No worries. We’ll wipe that ear worm, right out! There’s a new zombie movie coming out. And, it’s Australian!
https://youtu.be/1KMaN-jVXDc?si=pR0edOXmAYWyM8nr
I usually get 5-6 hours of sleep, a night. And take a 2-3 hour nap, in the late afternoon. Seems to work, for me.
I wonder if there’s a sanatorium cemetery? Probably buried in the brush, somewhere.
H seems pretty mellow and laid back, about walk times. I’ve never seen her antsy, about going for a walk. Lucky me.
All kinds of ear worms, for the midnight hour. But the one that came to mind …
https://youtu.be/vle44kNHxDg?si=SjfW0U0jcDu2m-h2
Ah! A sort button. Had never noticed it, before. Drive by commentators are like drive by shooters. But with less guts.
Our high yesterday was 54F (12.22C). Overnight low was 41F. The forecast high for today is 54F. Yes I saw pictures, of the flooding in Valencia. Terrible devastation. An article managed to squeak through, around all the election news. Luckily, I don’t have TV, so don’t have to put up, with that. Enough gets onto the internet, and through the mail. I’ll be glad when it’s all over but the shouting. And, I think there’s going to be plenty of shouting.
We got our hot water back, around 2pm, yesterday. Doesn’t seem to have quit as much heat, or pressure as the good ol’ days. But it does the job. Lew
Chris:
What finer creation is there than a dog? Bless their little hearts.
The no-rain is very unusual. We normally get about an inch of rain per week in the summer.
My, my – the Melbourne Cup. Important stuff.
Pam
Hi Pam,
Just checked with Mr Gangle Freckles as to your observation on canine loveliness, and he wholeheartedly agrees. He’s rather enjoying some time out of the warm spring sunshine whilst reclining at leisure upon the couch.
Mr Baby would no doubts take issue and make some additional claims about cats, which is a very feline thing to do don’t you reckon?
Oh my! I’d not realised that the summer dry spell had changed so much for you and your area. That’s not good at all. Any signs of rain on the horizon? An inch a week during summer is handy, but here it averages about an inch every two weeks, and sometimes nothing at all like February and March this year. The tap (spigot) in the sky just got switched off.
Worthy of a public holiday apparently. I don’t get paid for such things (being self employed) so they are meaningless, but plenty of other people do. I plan on hauling soil that day and spreading the coffee ground mix.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Oh, I’d forgotten about that particular defective o-ring, but yeah. Not good. When the smallest of components cause things to go horribly wrong… It’s a dangerous and risky activity to venture out into space even under ideal conditions. There’s even been some recent acknowledgement of the difficulties from radiation exposure once outside the Earth’s magnetic field. NASA’s uncrewed Artemis mission highlights radiation risk to astronauts . But the economics is the real problem, how does anyone make an economic return on a manned voyage to Mars? It’s a bit like the Roman’s heading into the German territories to attack the barbarians. What’s to be gained from that activity? Other than a brief cease in hostilities whilst the barbarians recovered and regrouped, the exercise would have been one massive drain on the imperial funds.
Out of curiosity, when on-selling books, does the activity sometimes test your patience? Trust me, I have no allusions as to what an item may sell for, and the best way to find out what it’s worth is to chuck it on the open market. But still, during those activities I find sometimes that after enough months, my patience discovers its limits and then I drop the price to get rid of whatever it is. My thinking in such cases is that the market has spoken, and the price has been discovered – usually lower than expectations. I’m curious as to how you navigate that situation.
That’s one big annoyed-as kangaroo with a thirst for blood and destruction. The trailer had some classic lines, g’day skippy! , just for one. How did I completely miss this film? 🙂
Man, it’s a musical that ear worm, and my brain shrinks away in terror from musicals and killer zombie kangaroos alike for that matter! 😉
Must have been very tired last night when replying to you. The grammar was beyond poor. Some sentences made sense at the time, yet in the clear light of day, were not of my best work. Oh well, these things happen. Note to self in future, finish writing by 11pm, the brain does not function so well after that time. A man’s gotta know his limitations, just to quote Dirty Harry.
That’s a decent amount of sleep to enjoy each day, yup. As a comparison I stick to about 7 – 8 hours overnight, and will try to slide in an hour in the afternoon if I miss out on reaching the best case scenario of 8 hours. Like this afternoon. Crashed out for an hour, and it’s a fine way to reset the brain. It is of interest that sleep patterns change over the years, and in my earlier days it was not always feasible to reach the 7 – 8 hours, and then I had to make do with less. I can’t say that a sleep deficit was a good thing for my mental or even physical health, but everyone is different in that regard. I’m sure you’ve heard stories of people getting by with far less than that?
Good thinking. Hmm. I’d not considered that aspect of the situation. I’ve got some old maps of the area, and may check your idea out. Yes, a cemetery there would of necessity have been close to the sanatorium. Might not have mentioned it previously, but I’ve long suspected that there are two possible candidates for the location of the place. One is of those two is owned by a very wealthy dude, and I’ve long wondered if the location was disappeared due to that wealth influence? Dunno. My guess was based on a track which I feel was used to bring the water pipe downhill from the sanatorium lake way higher up in the range. A mystery.
Lucky you with H, and she sounds quite chilled out. The dogs here become quite excitable at the prospect of a walk. 🙂 Clearly I’m at fault for not discouraging that reaction in earlier years. Did you continue to dodge the rain today?
Yes, all very rockin! Perhaps don’t bother knockin! 😉
The sort button functionality in utub was discovered when I proceeded to use the Commodore 64 users trick of pressing every key to see if something happens! Only then were the hateful words revealed. I dislike drive by trolls. And I’m with you, yes, far less guts. I’m happy with criticism, in fact it’s part of the learning process and we’re all better for it, but that’s not what drive by trolls aim to achieve is it?
The platform is a bit troubling, because random people can report videos for any number of issues, some of which seem rather abstract and arbitrary. And as a creator, you don’t know it’s even happened. Hardly cricket is it ol’ chap? (said in best faux English voice) 🙂 Oh well, I’ve dealt with their like before.
It was a delightful 78’F here today. I tell ya what though, the afternoon sun now has some warmth, and now you know where your afternoon warmth went – down here. Hey, did you get the lost hour back?
Oh yeah, there’s going to be some shouting… Quite a lot if my best guess comes to pass. Whatever the outcome, the new incumbent will face insurmountable problems and may use the background noise as a cover. Dunno, but maybe they all need to learn the hard way? I dunno man, I don’t envy the turning point your country faces. Down here, the land of stuff sees us as your local sheriff, but more likely deputy, representing your country’s interests, and that’s no bad thing. Our highs are lower, but then the fall is lesser. On the other hand, your country is at the pinnacle, and there is no other way to go but down. That’s the difficult thing about winning the lottery.
Good stuff with the hot water, and that’s great they managed to reconnect the service more or less when they said they would do so. Ah, and there you touch on a subject which few people think about. Yes, cooler hot water with newer appliances is mandated. There are even valves which make such outcomes baked into the cake. Hmm. Turns out some folks were irresponsible with the service, and now the hot water delivered is cooler for everybody.
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – That was an interesting article, about solar radiation, and all. Well, the Romans continued their expansion, as, it made the emperor look good, and kept the slave markets stocked. Long public holidays, giveaways of one type and another. Kept the boys in the squads, busy. It all may have emptied the imperial treasury, but someone was making money. I’d say, it’s the same with the space programs. Someone is making money.
I found two side bar articles, also interesting. “Australia is clearly bad at managing population.” And, “Customers report basically new phones suddenly blocked from making calls.”
Hmm. Selling books. As far as on-line selling goes, I generally take a look at the prices posted at the two major on-line sites. If there’s a lot of a title, at low prices (say, under $20), it’s pointless to list them. I’ll donate them on to either the library, or a used bookstore in town. Sometimes, if I think a book is worth a bit of mad cash, I might do an auction, instead of a set price. As everyone seems to be offering free shipping, I also have to take that into consideration.
I was in the used bookstore, last evening. Down town Chehalis was having a “Harvest Hop.” A kick off to the holiday season, I guess. Stores open later, and offering “deals.” The used bookstore was offering “Buy two, get one (of equal or lesser value), free. I picked up a few books.
I hope the library gets the zombie kangaroo movie. May have to request it. I also haven’t seen “Cocaine Coon,” on order. 🙂 LOL. I thought the zombie kangaroo looked a bit like a child’s badly abused stuffed toy. 🙂
Oh, I think we all got along on a lot less sleep, when younger. And more hit and miss sleep. I can think of a couple of times, where I had as little as a half an hour’s sleep, between one job, and another. I always looked at it as if taking a deep dive, into water. To go from awake, to deep sleep, rather quickly.
Sometimes, H gets pretty excited when I suggest a walk. Racing around, and even a bit of barking. Which is unusual, for her. But I never get the sense that all that excitement, is because she needs to relieve herself.
The high yesterday was 54F (12.22C). The overnight low was 46F. Forecast for today is 56F. It’s sunny, this morning, and I might try and get out in the garden, and do a little more clean up. We have a wind warning, for tonight, into tomorrow. Master Gardeners? Time will tell. Yes, we had the time change, last night. Sunset time, tonight, will be at 4:47pm. An hour less light, to work in the garden. 🙁 .
I’m a bit nervous, about the election. There was a ballot box burned, in Portland, and another across the river in Vancouver. With the Portland box, the internal fire suppression system, worked, and only three ballots were lost. In Vancouver, technology failed, and a couple hundred ballots were lost. Tragic, as the Washington ballot has a tight race on it, that I’m a bit invested in. The governors of Oregon and Washington have put our National Guard, on standby. Interesting times. Lew