After more than a decade of writing weekly essays, it’s difficult to avoid becoming slightly self-conscious. Some weeks the inspiration is vaporous and difficult to grasp, yet other weeks, the essays write themselves. Looking across the Pacific Ocean at our allies recent election results, it was hard to ignore a certain underlying theme. The reality is though, nobody reading this forum wants to hear me banging on about politics. It’s true too. And Australians are notoriously apathetic about such matters, that is, until we aren’t.
At heart I’m a deeply practical kind of guy. The questions which bother me run along the sort of lines: Does this here thing you’re talking about work and/or make much sense? Chances are, that it might not. Often it’s a case of lot’s of talk and no reality. So when I read economic statistics suggesting that the US national debt is increasing at a rate of one thousand billion dollars every three months or so, my brain is stupefied for a moment at the audacious scale. What did you just say? It takes a moment or two for the grey matter to process the astounding information before the next question floats into the consciousness: So are y’all getting value for money there?
We’re no better down under. Last I checked the federal government was one thousand billion dollars in debt. The state government was something like two hundred billion dollars in debt. The numbers are crazy, mostly because I’m not seeing any earnest efforts to pay them off, as is expected of the general population to do so with debt.
The numbers are just so humongous, that they’ve developed this kind of academic and remote vibe. It’s not until you start having to deal with the folks who work in bureaucracy, that you begin to ask the hard questions. After all, you’d hope that there was at least some accountability to the general public given their salaries in part derive from those same debts. Puts a whole new spin on the story, yeah.
The other day Sandra ventured into the roads office in a nearby township. The $800-ish annual vehicle registration bill, never arrived in the mail as it usually does. There was no email about the bill either. No phone call. No text message. Nothing! Dead silence.
Most people reading by now might be saying to themselves, yeah big deal. Except, if the bill isn’t paid on or before the due date, the police can, and will fine you something crazy like a $1,000 for driving an un-registered vehicle. Then if three months lapses beyond the due date with no payment, the vehicle will have to go through the entire re-registration process all over again. There are more costs for that process too! And I’d reckon the insurer would use the non-payment as an excuse to weasel out of any claims. So yeah, it is a bit of a problem.
Imagine Sandra standing in the office being lectured at by the bloke behind the counter. He spent a few minutes explaining to her in detail, that paying the bill on time was her responsibility, all other considerations to the side. It’s kind of ironic really, because it makes me wonder what the bloke thought she was doing there in the office in the first place. Hmm. Anyway, the kicker in the entire conversation, was that the guy described the bill as a ‘courtesy reminder’. That was a truly impressive use of the English language, whilst flipping the culture on its head. Sandra kept a cool tool, politely got lectured at, and paid the bill (fortunately a few days before the due date). In such situations it is wisdom to refrain from providing some pointed home truths, which can save the truth teller the embarrassment of being physically evicted from the office.
Back in the recession of the early 1990’s, unemployment was 10%. I had to take any work so as to keep a roof over my head and food upon the table. That’s how I ended up working in commercial debt collection for four years. There perhaps, I gained my deepest insight into the human condition. During that period it became obvious to me, that if you wished to collect upon a bill, the other party to the transaction must be aware of the intention. Clearly, since those days the culture has changed and it has now become more lucrative to collect using the fines and penalties approach – possibly one cunning strategy to pay down the stupendous government debt.
We’ve kept a record of all bills paid over the past fifteen years. Observing that the bill had not been received or paid, was how we picked up the error. As an interesting side story, over that period of time, the bills have increased at a compounding 4.5% each year – which is far above the official inflation numbers. Anyway, after the visit to the roads office, we still don’t know if the bill will even be sent next year. What we do know, is that the culture has changed. We will adapt to this change.
As part of adaption, all of the regular bills were reviewed. It was discovered then, that the annual water bill had also never been received or paid. It’s outrageous that we even receive a water bill given that we have supplied and paid for all of our own infrastructure relating to water, sewage and drainage on the property. But that is another story. Half an hour on the phone, and the nice person at the water authority refused to take payment over the phone, but promised to send an emailed bill. It’s never turned up, and is now very late. We’ll have to call again because we can’t register online – they’ve changed everyone’s customer number. An impressive achievement.
And around, and around we go, where it stops, nobody knows. What I’m observing though, is for all the massive expense and debt, those folks aren’t good value for money. The bloke at the roads office got paid for lecturing Sandra. The bloke at the water authority got paid for basically not doing what he said he would. I dunno about you, it’s either ineptitude or contempt, take your pick. Either way, it ain’t working. When I look across the ocean to our allies and hear the talk about taking a big economic stick to petty bureaucrats, it sounds like a plan to me.
The past couple of weeks have been occasionally hot, and mostly dry. The grass is now beginning to turn yellow, as happens every summer. The plants however are enjoying the suns warmth, and as much as hot days are uncomfortable, the plants do need the heat to grow. Some of the paths are beginning to disappear!
A couple of hours spent with the hedge trimmer machines, and the jungle gets hacked back nicely.
As part of the ongoing Rabbit WarsTM, a large wormwood shrub was removed from a garden bed. Interestingly, no burrows were discovered this time, but the large apple and tree ferns will probably appreciate the reduced competition.
All of the leaves, sticks and other organic matter were thrown onto various garden beds where they will form a useful mulch. The larger branches were burnt off in the brazier. It was a good night for the burn off because the air temperature was cool. The ash and charcoal makes for an excellent fertiliser.
It’s been a busy week around the farm, as is usual for this time of year. A day was spent splitting, hauling, then stacking firewood in the old shed.
We’d run short of metal tomato vine supports. Looking at the various types available for purchase, a cunning plan formed! Why not use scrap materials to construct some sturdy long lasting structures. We made three of these:
Even the metal screws were recycled. The plan is to let the structures sit out in the weather for a bit so as to wash away the steel cutting oil, then paint them with metal paint which we’ve got spare. They even fold flat and so won’t take up much storage space during the winter season.
Saturday was warm at 31’C / 88’F in the shade. Do I do this job? That was the question. There was a need to install a garden tap (spigot in US parlance) in the large citrus, potato and vegetable enclosure. To date I’d been hauling buckets and watering cans down into the enclosure for the vegetables. Yeah let’s do this job!
The hardest part about the job was digging the trench for the water pipe. That’s hard work on a hot day, and I was thankful for the cranking tunes from the national youth music broadcaster – Triple J. An excellent use of government mad cash if I may say so. The music made the job easier.
Lot’s of breaks in the shade. Plenty of water. Music. Eventually the trench was dug. It was surprising to see how dry the soil was.
Plumbed up all of the connections to the existing shed water system. That’s the long line of water tanks. Tested the system and inspected all of the joins and pipes. Discovered that the tap had a leak which I could not fix, even with a brand new valve and o-ring. Regular readers will note that the curse of the faulty o-ring strikes yet again! Replaced the tap, tested the system for leaks, then backfilled the trench. It’s handy to have a source of water closer to those plants.
In a breaking produce news update: The globe artichokes are seriously pumping out their tasty chokes. We strip the outer leaves, then boil the chokes in water with bay leaves. They are one tasty vegetable, and for a thistle, they demand to be grown in very fertile soil.
Historically, after the mountain range was logged, the soils were used to grow potatoes and berries. The climate suits those plants. The soils on the other hand had limited fertility, and it’s hardly surprising that they were eventually farmed out. The forests then returned. My thinking with the soils is to always add back more than I take, and so berries grow really well here. Alpine strawberries are the first to produce, then the raspberries, currants, and finally blackberries. Those plants provide a long and mostly continuous harvest throughout the growing season.
It’s been many years since I’ve planted new fruit trees, but this year a bare-rooted seedling chestnut was purchased. The tree was very slow to break dormancy and I was concerned that it had died. At that point, the size of the tree was reduced by half and then fed each day for a couple of weeks. The feed is a bucket water mixed in with a seaweed concentrate. A few weeks ago, the tree sprang into life.
The warmer weather has assisted the insect population, and the air hums with life. The sounds remind me how quiet the city is on that front.
This weeks brief video also touches upon the story of inflation:
Onto the flowers:
The temperature outside now at about 10am is 11’C (52’F). So far for last year there has been 783.2mm (30.8 inches) which is up from last weeks total of 780.8mm (30.7 inches)
Yo, Chris – One wonders, who holds all that debt? And if it isn’t paid, or is defaulted on, will it be turned over to a collection agency? 🙂 I have this fantasy, that if the US defaults on its debt, someone will show up and go, “Well, we’ll just seize Yellowstone Park. Looks like a money maker.” Or, “The state of Iowa looks like a good agricultural bet. We’ll just assume ownership of that.”
One wonders if the bloke behind the counter banged on, because he was a bit disappointed that the scam didn’t work, and you showed up to pay your vehicle registration. Maybe he has a quota? Usually, when dealing with people over the phone, I ask for a name. Or an employee number.
The gargoyle looks deeply offended, by the Foo dog. Or, guardian lion, if you will. Maybe it was something it said?
Tempted to walk across the hot coals, barefoot? Proves your spiritual bonafides, or something.
Doesn’t look like any tomato frame I’ve ever seen. Well, whatever works. Maybe you should patent it.
Let there be water! One envies the old time saints, who could just smack a rock with a staff, and get a good flow.
Looks like you have a bumper crop, of globe artichokes. I’ve never seen them around here, outside of a greenhouse.
Soil fertility. I’ll have a bit to say about that, tomorrow.
Go chestunut! It was probably the good talking to, rather than the sea weed drench, that got it kick started.
You’ve got the numbers. Here, inflation is such and so percent … but on the ground, it just feels like a lot more.
The flowers are real knock-outs. I’m sure my singed retinas, will recover … eventually.
Prof. Mass’s last two posts (11/16 & 17), are about an upcoming bit of wind. He even invoked the specter of the Columbus Day Storm. Although, from what he said, the worst of the winds will be out on the coast, and miles to our NE. The Columbus Day Storm tracked in a completely different way. So, no worries. Lew
Hi Lewis,
Yup, a long and interesting article on Arthur, which sort of went nowhere fast. Wouldn’t it be interesting to have that Geoffrey of Monmouth at a dinner party to put him to some hard questions! My own beliefs are that the character was in fact a successful warlord in the south west who held things together for a long while, before eventually being overwhelmed. And Merlin, well courts used to have their wizards, and the success of Arthur was probably entwined with the success of Merlin. Sometimes larger than life characters come to the fore and stamp their impressions upon history. I mean, it’s not like nothing happened once the legions left Britain.
Yeah, those French definitely eyed off, and eventually won Britain, but were in turn themselves subsumed. The history is kind of odd really in that in order for the Normans to rule unchallenged, they had to become more English than the English. All very strange, and I can see the effect that the land down here has on the culture, although people living in cities can pretend that it is otherwise. Possibly the land in your part of the world exerts a different effect again.
Please excuse the unintended pun, but it’s good the hear that you have good hearing. As you note, this is not the case with everyone, and the Editor was recounting a story she’d read about someone with normal hearing who ended up living in a university dorm for deaf people. It was amusing, as well as a little bit ooky!
I noticed that as well in that the earthquake effect was felt very differently. It was interesting, and that’s very true there are a lot of different soil and geological areas in this part of the world. For your interest, at the time I was sitting in one of those office chairs at a desk, and both heard and felt the rumble through the floor. Like the 5.9 earthquake, but much lesser, the movement was up and down. But man, experiencing the 5.9 really changed the way I think about earthquakes. One of the good things about a timber framed house is that it has a lot of flexibility. It’s genuinely hard to know if the house settled back in the same state as before the quake. Dunno. But my advice, best that you and H were outdoors at the time, if you get the chance to do so. These things come out of the blue.
🙂 Man, I so agree with you and try not to let the bloodsuckers eat up my time. However, despite my best efforts, I think that they’re winning…
You’d best not play the Editor at scrabble then. It’s brutal and unrelenting and I walk away from the incidents a broken man. Like you the vocabulary is expansive, but it’s all in the details dude. Oh yeah! As a fun side story, we stopped playing board games because whilst I was crushed like a baby harp seal at Scrabble, the favour was returned in Monopoly. It was like that scene in Lord of the Rings with Gandalf crying: You shall not pass!, unless payment was made. Anyway, the entertainment was not for us. 🙂 Anyway, I knew what you meant.
Oh that’s unpleasant weather indicating a short run into the winter season. It was quite pleasant here. A touch of rain this morning. Cloudy skies and a top of 66’F. Did a shandy day of paid work and work around here. Spent many hours in the cooler weather splitting, hauling and stacking firewood for next year. Might do another day of that work this week before the weather really heats up: Heatwave looms for southeastern Australia. Oh poop…
Oh no! You’ve mentioned those milk cartons before, and agreed, such dire scenes would upset my breakfast as well. Breakfast of course being the most important meal of the day, after lunch and dinner, although they’re pretty important as well. A bit like being forced to speak to people in public without first having a coffee, which is generally a situation which is considered to be a bad thing. Dude the fortunes I could have made had early mornings been tolerable! Doesn’t your armed forces make some claim about doing more things before breakfast than pretty much everyone else? Although, what about people working night shifts? They probably didn’t think about that. Have you ever worked a night shift? I’ve worked late, but I reckon 11pm is about the latest hour I’ve ever been paid to work.
OK, the process is cheaper in your country. $5 is a bargain for an annual pet registration. Always an interesting concern which we’ll find out about sooner, or later. The local council down here is limited to 5% annual increases, but they push close to that each year. I do wonder where all this sort of price movement is headed, don’t you? The local council has a cashier as well, but I believe they push people towards paying online.
How long is a long time in relation to check clearances? That would take about four or five business days down here, although you can pay the bank to do a fast clearance.
Dare I say it, but the land is full of manure – it’s everywhere. It’s only in cities and urban areas that people waste the opportunity to get the minerals back into soils. Most of that lot ends up in the ocean, that’s called pollution.
Good stuff, and for some odd reason I’d worried that the dye was added to most cheese’s in your country. Beige is a pretty good description of the colour, yup.
You’re getting some weather there, and hope the master gardeners turn up.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis cont…
The software almost ate today’s comment. The bits and bytes are hungry!
Hehe! Yeah, that was my exact point about debt collection – not all debts are created and collected upon equally. Oh yeah. It’s weird isn’t it? Who knows how the situation will roll, but both of those are not bad guesses. 🙂 I mean look at how during you-know-what, part of the roads office here was sold off without much fanfare for something crazy like eight thousand million bucks. Someone will want to be making some mad cash returns for that outlay.
Far out! I’d never considered that the guy had a quota, but yeah, maybe you’re right there. To be honest, I’d heard rumours about fines and penalty quotas and employees being promoted and benefiting from. Hard to know if it’s true. Some goobermint services are a cost, they’re not there to make mad cash profits. People forget that, and it can lead to unusual outcomes.
Lewis, it’s a delicate balance between east and west (with the dog and the gargoyle), and one can only hope that the two mighty warriors are matched and decide not to take the big stick to the other.
Walking on hot coals is expensive. My new work boots turned up in the mail today, and note to self: Keep away from hot coals lest the soles get burned again. Hmm.
Man, I don’t really know whether the tomato frames will work, but we’ll find out soon enough. 🙂
Where’s a good and handy saint when you need one! That water trick would be awesome. Before buying this place, we almost bought a property which had a naturally flowing spring. Regrets, I’ve had a few. And the land was cheaper too… Ook!
I absolutely look forward to hearing what you have to say about soil fertility. There may be drool…
True, the chestnut was encouraged to: hurry up and grow, or I’ll pluck you from the soil! Fear sometimes works wonders in small doses.
Thanks! And I seriously do hope that you don’t enjoy another Columbus Day storm event. A person can have too much excitement. Hopefully such winds don’t make it as far inland as you are.
Cheers
Chris
The great unraveling- As we’ve been following Dr. Morgan over at SEEDS, it gives good perspective on that facet of the ongoing transition from industrial civilization to…………something. Those who have it good don’t want to give it up, and the super organism itself is just following its cancerous nature.
To get just slightly political, since it bears on the topic of dealing with debt, this past election cycle continued the time honored tradition of each party promising a bright rosy future. And everyone laps it up, as the idea of acknowledging a decline is just beyond the pale. Denial to the bitter end I guess.
Subconsciously, I think people are aware. This may well be the reason for increased suicides, anxiety, and general fractiousness.
so it goes.
Finished sorting the hazels, will deliver them this week. (Keeping back some for our own use of course). This is the small company I sell to. Quite local and much smaller than the web dressing would lead you to believe. A well meaning outfit, but just confirms my inclination to view much of the web with a jaundiced eye.
https://www.americanhazelnutcompany.com
This was firewood weekend, got lots of wood from a friend for the work of bucking and loading. Back is a little stiff today. Some was so large, the 18 inch bar on my Stihl did not nearly cut through, and had to go at it from both sides. Will commence splitting and stacking this coming week.
I’m sure you have your own routines and favorites, but we find this way of doing bread pretty handy. We have the book, but the idea is pretty much spelled out at this link.
https://artisanbreadinfive.com/2013/10/22/the-new-artisan-bread-in-five-minutes-a-day-is-launched-back-to-basics-updated/
Anyway, much more of the bread is consumed warm and fresh this way, as baking is spread out over several days. Now that cold weather is here, we bake more bread. (yes, I admit we buy store bought bread much of the year).
Hi Steve,
All very true, and that’s sort of what I’m also thinking is behind the cause of the err, great freak out of ’24!
I’ll tell you a funny story. In the previous dirt mouse Suzuki Swift, we had an external temperature gauge as part of the dash display. Pretty much all vehicles which have computer controlled fuel injection take the ambient air temperature into account when determining the fuel mix. The sensors are there. Except, when we got the replacement dirt mouse Suzuki Swift, six years ago now (my how time flies!) it didn’t come with an external temperature gauge. And despite all of the improvements over the previous model, and it is in many ways a much better car, and super efficient, I felt that weird lack – at first. Now I’m used to it, and don’t notice the loss. But, please don’t laugh, it’s a good metaphor for current events in that change is afoot and there will be winners and losers.
The noise is perhaps all part of the story that the previous winners, may now have to take a hit. That’s life when there’s only so much stuff and energy to go around. In order for someone to come up, someone else needs to go down. The basic problem is as you noted, the weird belief that all boats can lifted. This is simply not possible on a finite planet, but try telling people that and you’ll never get into office in the first place.
Yup, and so it goes. I hear ya! And I enjoy a pleasant existence by having less demands in the first place. It’s an option, as you’d also no doubt be aware. 😉
Respect! And thoughts of decent hauls of hazelnuts just makes me salivate. How did you go shelling them all? Oh well, marketing does involve a certain sort of rose tinted glasses situation.
🙂 That makes both of us. Was also at that job today, although was splitting, hauling and stacking the stuff. Man, moving a disc of timber which exceeds 18″ is heavy hard work. Some of the trees the loggers left on the ground were a shameful waste (and fortunately in the minority). Bucking large diameter logs is no fun at all. Hope your back eases up.
Years ago I spent two days being drilled out in the forest by a crusty old forestry worker, and he was a total martinet when it came to techniques for looking after your back whilst doing that work. Of course I disappointed him, but that emotional state may have also have been something of a lifestyle choice for the bloke! Those are very interesting and useful machines, yup.
Glad to hear that you took up the offer of the firewood. Such things are opportunities which knock at the door, wearing overalls and look like hard work. 🙂 But you’ll be warm over winter.
Thanks for the bread recipe and it looks great. I’ve never punched the dough down… Ook!
Hehe! Man, I’m no purist, and baking bread and consuming it fresh and warm from the oven is one of life’s joys.
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – Well, unless someone finds a mouldering old manuscript, buried in the library of some stately old pile … Old written words took a huge hit, during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Thank you, Henry VIII. 🙁 There were a few people scrambling around, trying to save this and that. But a huge percentage of those libraries were burnt, or, used to wrap fish.
There might be some earth shaking archaeological discovery. But, as far as a historical Arthur, I find the smallest detail the most compelling. That in the couple of hundred years after Arthur’s supposed time, many Celtic royal families named their sons Arthur. And there was that bit, where someone was described as “But he was no Arthur.” Someone named Arthur loomed large, for quit awhile, in collective memory.
I’ve pretty much decided that if the ground starts rolling, H and I will hunker down, until things settle down. I just don’t think getting down four flights of stairs, is doable. Besides, it recently became apparent to me, that those stairs are wood. And, our closest exit from the building, well, the gas main is right outside that door. Never mind the air conditioning units, that might fall off the building. They certainly drip on me, when it rains. No, I think our best bet is to hunker down next to an interior wall. Nothing along that stretch to fall on us. Unless the whole building comes down, we ought to be ok.
The Club has the occasional tournament. Usually, there’s a pot, that’s split between the winner, and the Club. So, it’s kind of a fund raiser. I see there’s a Gin Rummy tournament coming up. There’s been poker and cribbage, in the past. I don’t know how the state gaming commission would feel about that, but, best let sleeping dogs lie. 🙂 There may have been a Scrabble tournament.
Our high yesterday was 50F (10C). The overnight low was 39F. Forecast for today is for 45F. Still raining, on and off. I didn’t see the Master Gardeners, this morning. They may be done for the year. Although they’ll come and decorate the entry way of the Institution, for Christmas.
Looks like you’re going to have a bit of a scorcher, for at least a few days. I noticed in the video, that you’re browning up. Or was that just dust? (I was going to say dirt, but that would be rude 🙂 .
Well, I’m a night owl, and I’d say it’s because of some of the jobs I had. Of course, as a student, there was the infamous “all nighters.” I worked for a janitorial company, for about a year and a half, way back when. That was all night work. Of course, working in bars, well they didn’t close until about 2:30am. And, there was always about another hour of counting tills and cleaning up. And, even when I worked in bookstores and libraries, I much preferred the afternoon / evening shifts. Much to the joy of my co-workers. So, as I often say, “I am a creature of the darkness!” 🙂
I think the check that I wrote to the vet took three or four weeks to clear. Either it strayed, or, they don’t make a physical trip to the bank, all that often. My rent and electric company checks, usually clear in three or four days.
When that auto registration trap reaches critical mass, I’m sure there will be a lot of whinging in your popular press. Then, something may be done. Do you have any toll roads, in Australia? There are some, here and there, mostly on our east coast. Some of those have been sold off. Also, parking meters, in larger cities. Privatization and outsourcing. That’s the name of the game.
Much to my chagrin, I went to read some more of the food and travel book, last night, and discovered I had accidentally returned it to the library. I put it back on hold, this morning. Luckily, there are few holds on it, and I should get it back, fairly soon.
Soil. I was reading that Mark Bittman book, “Animal, Vegetable, Junk,” last night. He’s got a whole chapter titled “Soil and Civilization.” The bit I noticed is about renewing soils. Stuff you already know, but, it’s nice to have it all in one place, in a tidy little package.
“There are four major ways in which a field can be planted repeatedly and still have its nutrients replenished: fallowing, planting cover crops, rotating crops and fertilizing. All of these have been used, alone or together and at times unwittingly, since agriculture began.” Then he goes on to bang on, about the different methods.
The book is really a history of agriculture. And food production, up to the present. We were hunter / gatherers for eons, and agriculture is really a short span in the time stream. And, we’re pretty much making a mess of it. As things stand now, it’s mostly unsustainable.
The Columbus Day Storm was a different beast, then what’s going to happen over the next few days. Think of the geography of western Oregon and Washington. We have a Costal Range, which is much lower than the Cascade Range, to the east. In between is a long valley. The lowlands, shot through with different river drainages.
The Columbus Day storm made landfall, from the southern Oregon coast. Made a hard left when it hit the southern part of the valley, and shot due north, across two states. With attendant death and destruction, along the way. Lew
Hi Chris,
Oh yeah, missing bills I know them well. Is it purposeful? I don’t know but I don’t trust the post office. I once had a packet of legal documents to send to Pat and Mike’s guardianship lawyer. I sent it certified mail an not an insignificant cost and it never showed up! As I record all expenses I’m well aware of when a bill or tax is due. One of the things on my winter to-do list is to write this all up for Doug. He wouldn’t have a clue of something was missing and I think he’s in the majority there.
Yep, everything necessary has risen in price. I haven’t actually averaged the percentage increase but I know it’s way higher than advertised. Food, insurance, property tax, garbage pick up, phone come off the top of my head.
On a related note I was at my doctor this morning for my (mostly waste of time) annual Medicare physical and a pre op exam as I’m having cataract surgery in two weeks. The nurse is busily pounding away on the computer going over all my stats and wants to verify my pharmacy. Well I had changed so it was wrong. I had changed it over a month ago with the ophthalmologist who is in the same medical system using the same computer system which of course is supposed to make things more efficient. I told the nurse that and I said I had also changed it online as it was wrong there yesterday.
On a positive note, I do like my doctor who is down to earth and is not at all a pill pusher. He asked if I wanted the flu shot emphasizing that it was up to me. I said yes but not the booster for the unmentionable. He said he doesn’t recommend them anyway which surprised but pleased me.
We are awaiting Marty’s discharge which will be too soon. Marty has packed everything including most of his clothes even though he won’t be moving for a couple months. He needed clothes at the nursing home so I had to open boxes to find them. It became apparent, though not a surprise, that the boxes will have to be repacked with supervision. He had clothes mixed with tools or dishes and that was only in the half dozen or so I looked it. I have given him the heads up that this will be happening. He seems to be coming along but is mostly in a wheel chair. He’ll continue to be a serious fall risk when he gets home (sigh).
Doug’s already lost 2 out 4 hives including his strongest. He knows it’s not mites as he treated recently.
Raining here now which we still need.
Margaret
Hi Margaret,
What a nightmare of a situation with your post office, and we’d call that ‘registered mail’ down here. Never to be found again though is a problem… The mail in your instance has to be signed for down here. Interestingly, you can pay for tracking with stuff sent in the post down here, and it’s worth it. But yeah, things can occasionally go wrong, although I’ve not experienced this happening. There is however the most awful of first time incidents, and sooner or later something will disappear. Interestingly, my mail for a weird reason (I’m guessing) gets inspected. Yup. Some petty bureaucrat seems to have an interest in such things. It’s a very long story… But 100%, it is nobody local and of that I’m absolutely sure of. Hmm. Oh well, moving on.
A very wise idea getting Doug involved in your record management, and what’s occurred from this entire episode is that Sandra is now likewise having to become involved. She sorted the water bill drama out today, and as you’d imagine, that involved another phone call to obtain the new customer number. Far out…
Margaret, you and I have a professional interest in these matters. I’d have to suggest that other people think to themselves the thought: How hard can this stuff really be? A comforting thought, that is if you’re not involved in the processes.
I agree and am observing the exact same scenario playing out down here in relation to day to day prices. They’re going up. And, my video on the subject this week was a total flop. 🙂 A truly impressive achievement. Oh well, moving on… It intrigues me that people are ignoring this subject, and it makes you wonder why that would be? Dunno really.
Best wishes for the cataract surgery and hope your recovery is speedy. My head was spinning around and around trying to decipher which database was wrong with your pharmacy details. And truthfully, your medical system scares the daylights out of me.
Interesting indeed. Hmm. A person must wend and weave their way through that maze and take personal responsibility for the outcomes, oh yeah. During that-which-shall-not-be-named, I had an official and very strange encounter with an infectious disease expert, and he was really super chill. We enjoyed a very frank discussion on the subject in terms of likely risk factors. Not the sort of thing you’d ever read in the media. But it left an impression.
Oh Marty, what surprises do you have for us all next? But were you actually surprised at the box discovery? But yes, that’s the thing with falls in that they increase with regularity sorry to say. Hope he’s fine and continues to brighten all of our lives.
Margaret, varroa is now got a hold in the state to the north of here. I looked at the treatments and just said no. My hope at this stage is that a small wild colony in the area will adapt. The other week we enjoyed a picnic lunch in one of the highest parts of the mountain range which is quite remote, and watched the honey bees foraging for pollen and nectar on some of the wild plants up there. The bees will be fine and adapt by ultimately reducing their cycle, the honey supplies on the other hand, I dunno about that.
Go the rain! It’s been quite dry, and soon to be hot here. Ook!
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
That crafty old King managed to divert a lot of economic activity into his coffers. A shame he’d not really considered the ancient manuscripts destroyed in the process. Just had a weird thought pop into my head – wouldn’t all that monastic busting energy produce a wave of unemployed clerics? Kind of like the recession of the early 90’s all over again on that front, but perhaps worse. Using the ancient manuscripts to wrap fish was a fine, and also deeply disturbing mental image.
Those sorts of Arthurian details really do tell a much larger story to me as well, but archaeologists wouldn’t like such patterns, mostly because they’re intangible and indicative rather than some tablet recounting the entire episode in all its gory details, pulled from the ground. Fortunately you and I needn’t require such rigorous evidence. The shadow cast was very long indeed from that historical figure.
My brief experience suggests that these ground shaking events are over pretty quickly, and well, how fast are we all on our feet? During the 5.9 quake, the dogs refused to leave the house. Candidly I was reminded of the story from that horrific big-top fire where the two animals refused to co-operate with the handlers, thus slowing down the entire escape. We left the dogs in the house that shaky day. They made their call. Honestly, your plan is about as good as can be achieved given the time available. In a fire situation you’d hopefully have more time to exit the building, at a wild guess.
Dunno about your perspective, but those sorts of card games are good exercise for the brain. Never played gin rummy, but looked up the rules and it sounds interesting, and most likely quite challenging. We used to play card games as a kid, and the game ‘Snap’ comes to mind, but I’m not sure how many kids nowadays would do so. A deck of cards could keep us entertained for hours. You’d hope that such over reach never extended as far as this minor matter. Stranger things have happened though.
Brr! It’s cold here tonight. 44’F outside. Had to start the wood heater, mostly because I’d sat on my backside all day doing paid work. That activity doesn’t generate the sort of internal heat that splitting and hauling firewood does. Man, it is so weird starting the wood heater tonight, because we’re in for a brief minor heat wave later in the week. My brain hurts. Has the first frost arrived yet at your place?
The UV rating is now in the ‘Very High’ category, and despite sunscreen I still get a lot of sun. They tell me it is probably not good and will be the end of me. Oh well, I don’t pretend or want to know the future. Don’t you reckon your brain could become fear prone if you knew the future?
Hehe! There is a lot of dust here too now.
It does sound to me as if your growing season has come to an end. In another months time, you’ll be at the winter solstice. And I’ll be whining loudly about the heat and lack of rain.
It takes one to know one! 🙂 By nature I’m also a night owl, but does society let me indulge my desires to have late civilised starts of a morning? No. It’s all very unfair! Dude, they ply me with coffee and send thee forth upon a productive schedule. Hardly relaxing is it? 🙂 Hehe! That’s a funny line about creature of the darkness. They’d sure look at you funny-like, but still want you to take the afternoon / late shifts. Oh yeah.
Ah. May I add in a touch of interpretation to the check situation? No? Yes? Plough on! The business waited several weeks before someone physically took your check down to the bank to deposit in their account. With bank branch closures being all the rage, it costs a lot of mad cash for a business to physically deposit a check. Personally I’m unfussy about such matters and can deposit checks at the local post office, and I’m going there anyway…
It’s interesting you say that, because I’d wondered about that matter as well. At what point are people going to collectively crack-the-sads about the missing bill situation. On some of the forums on the interweb, the err, free for all variety, there was little in the way of empathy. Of course that is to be expected of such forums, but still, the general consensus seemed to be: Get an app to track this stuff dude! Not sure how I feel about such responses, and who knows, they may be paid marketing efforts.
Your library list probably needed to be cycled a bit anyway. Hopefully the book boomerangs back around to you soon. After reading and completing a heavy and serious book on gardening I decided to treat myself reading-wise. Went back to an old favourite as a form of comfort.
Never read that book, but I’ve got a general understanding as to how the two topics are interwoven, and it is my considered opinion that civilisations rise and fall on the back of their maintenance of soil fertility. And I agree, that’s actually a pretty good summary of humans interaction with the shepherding of edible plants. In many ways, we’ve made those edible plants we rely upon, quite dependent upon our farming efforts – whilst stuffing it all up completely from a longer term perspective. I’ve read massive interest in returning our human produced manure back into the soils, but western civilisation in particular has a serious problem with that story.
Oh my! Yes, I can see that the storm would have moved through the valley between those two ranges. If the valley narrowed at any point, I’m guessing the energy and damage was amplified? Good to hear that the storm is not about to repeat that day.
Cheers
Chris
all the signs- computers and automated transactions have been one more way that cost cutting has been attempted, as the net energy that society functions on wanes.
Thing is, complexity and efficiency are less resilient to disruptions, so when the slightest blip happens, many ripple effects can occur, and who is usually impacted? Not the billionaires, that’s for sure.
I could prattle on about all the other things being done these days with short term payoff, and long term failure, but what’s more intriguing to me is the fact that others can’t see the overall common theme and trend line we are on.
I watch it all unfold, as it’s fascinating, but don’t stress, and just focus on the here and now. Niebuhr’s serenity prayer is wisdom for all times, but especially now.
Everything pretty much in dormancy now, time for splitting wood when the weather is nice, inside chores like cracking walnuts, repairing things when not so nice. Got the first seed catalogue for next year already. We usually get like a dozen, I guess they share mailing lists.
Hello Chris
Actually I am very happy if you bang on about politics. It interests me. The problem is that I don’t want to put my thoughts out on the internet. However, I am fascinated by the insane subject of debt these days. Government debt seems to rest in a whole other world. If every country is in the same state, it doesn’t seem to matter at all. Just keep printing money. Is there a debtless country sitting on the top and laughing at the potential?
Here I have seen an advert offering a credit card and saying that it could be used to pay the interest on another bank’s
credit card!!!
It is turning very cold here, which is rather earlier than usual. Rats are eating all my veg and where they don’t like something e.g. leeks, they are just biting them off. I never had so much trouble before. Son is trying to get some ferrets ( he used to have them). He says that rats don’t like their smell and so tend to keep away. This sounds weird to me.
Inge
Yo, Chris – Back when I was selling stuff, on-line, I got tracking numbers, for everything I sent. It really didn’t cost all that much more. But, I’ve noticed the detail in the tracking, is really slipping. Not only the US Postal Service, but also the other two major carriers. Packages seem “off the radar” for days at a time.
Not exactly archaeology, but a recent story about another Titanic artifact … sort of.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/17/style/arthur-rostron-titanic-watch-auction-intl
There were probably as many stories of the unemployed clerics, as there were clerics. 🙂 Some fled to other Catholic countries. Some switched to the new Church of England. I suppose a lot of it depended on what roll they played in the old monastery. I suppose those involved in the medicinal gardens could set up as chemists. I’d say the nuns had a lot harder time of it.
The last big earthquake I was through, lasted 45-50 seconds. The longer the quake, the more damage. Once the roll and sway get going. Besides the soils, a lot also depends on which direction the waves come from, and configuration of a building. As with a ship at sea, it depends on if a wave hits end on, or, broadside.
I don’t worry too much about fire, in this building. We have a pretty robust fire and smoke detection system. And, I pretty much know what to do. Check a door for heat before opening. Cover mouth and nose with a wet cloth. Stay low, and crawl.
Yesterday’s high was 45F (7.22C). Overnight low was 37F. Forecast for today is 47F. There’s a forecast for wind gusts up to 40mph. At least, here. In past, some wind forecasts have come to naught. We’ll see. We’ll just hunker down, and hope for the best. No frost yet. Check out http://www.weather.gov . Click on western Washington. I’ve haven’t seen that many colors, in a long time. Further down the page are radar and satellite views.
It was nice, or at least not raining, yesterday afternoon. I planted an iris, and cut down the Mammoth sunflowers. They had broken free of their moorings (twine), during the last bit of wind. Thought I’d better hack them down, before they fell and killed a small child :-). Even though they had bloomed and had large heads, they didn’t get pollinated. Bloomed too late for the bees. The birds and squirrels, ignored them. Had they not been pulled up twice (morons!), they would have provided some tucker, for the wildlife. But, at least they were stately.
I think what really set me on the path of being a night owl, was many a night, reading away. Under the covers, with a flashlight (torch?).
I’ve noticed that, about the young. It’s all apps, or, when computer problems arise, they just shrug and seem to think “that’s the way things are.” I want names. I want heads to roll. But am dismissed, as, that’s just a boomer, being a boomer.
I watched a good movie, last night. “Borderlands.” It was just in the theatre, a couple of months ago. I thought it was a DC or Marvel comic book thing. But actually, I guess it’s based on a pretty popular game. Sci-fi. Great cast. Cate Blanchett, Jamie Lee Curtis (still looking fine), and Kevin Hart. Blanchett is a bounty hunter, looking for the daughter of some tech mogul, whose daughter has either been kidnapped, or run away. To a planet that is an apocalyptic wasteland, the armpit of the universe. There’s also a treasure hunt, involved. Well worth a bowl of popcorn.
I went shopping for the Club pantry, last night. Managed to pick up three bags of tinned stuff, for about $35. Stopped by the Club for a cuppa, and discovered the bathroom was on the fritz. Might be something major. Mr. Bill snaked it out, to 50 feet, but still no joy. Might be a broken pipe. Someone with more industrial equipment, will be by this morning, to see what can be done. We share the building with our landlords (the general merchandise store), and they are notably unresponsive to problems such as this.
I took the groceries in, this morning. Pantry is looking pretty good. I’ll get another food box on Friday, so that should take us through the weekend. Thanksgiving is a week from Thursday, and, there will be potluck at the Club. So no-one will probably starve, through the end of the month. Lew
Hi, Chris!
No matter what you put out weekly, it is outstanding. It’s always an enjoyable read and always instructive – might I say enlightening? I appreciate so much all the time and hard work you put into doing that for us week after week and year after year.
An $800 bill to register your vehicle?! I think I pay $35 annually, but I probably pay more than you on something else. Yes, it’s best not to argue with bureaucrats; it usually doesn’t turn out well. I’m pretty sure that not a single national government intends to pay off their debt. Each of those high-level bureaucrats hopes that by the time the bill comes due, they will be out of office/bureaucratic position – or dead.
Bushy is the word! And then unbushy, or even debushified. Now the gargoyle and the lion can see other again. I have a spot on a bank where two metal roosters face each other about 4 feet apart and have a perpetual stare-off. I hadn’t been paying attention and realized that Earl was there, but not Red Rooster. I guess that means Earl won the stare-off. I poked around and found Red Rooster buried under fall leaves and dead ferns. He is back on guard and the stare-off continues, Round 2.
What a nice tomato structure. I like it! Quite a sculpture. Beauty and functionality, especially since they fold flat. That last thing was so smart.
I don’t know what language I speak . . . I call it a garden tap, but maybe I picked that up from you. Though sometimes I call it a faucet. You dig a trench with a pick, too? I have a baby pick to go with my baby shovel and baby wheelbarrow. And Mr. Baby. Yep – O-rings come from a cursed family.
That is now a handsome little chestnut tree with, I am sure, a long, bright future at Fernglade Farm, if we don’t consider wallabies, wombats, and deer.
Thanks for the encouraging video. It gives me hope!
And thanks for the flowers. Purple is the color of the week!
Pam
Chris,
There is some type of winter storm advisory or something out for Tuesday night into Wednesday. I don’t think it will snow here, or at least not stick much on the roads. It’s +2C and probably won’t get much cooler overnight. Much ado about nothing, perhaps.
Ah, you guessed correctly. As a result of the exciting hike through McLellan Conservation Area, Dame Avalanche slept extremely well. So well, in fact, that I was rather jealous. 😉
While on our walk today, I saw something I’d not seen before. 2 ravens were chasing a hawk through the area. I dunno what started the altercation, but the hawk seemed to be rather more desperate than if it had been a murder of crows. The ravens were about the same size as the hawk and just as agile. Unfortunately, they flew out of sight before I could see the results.
Let me see if I have this correct. Thou shalt pay an annual fee to license your car. (So do we.) No bill was sent, as payment is your responsibility. And that no bill is required to be sent, it is really only a “courtesy reminder”? But without the bill being sent to you, how are you supposed to know how much you owe? In this state, the Department of Licensing is required to send the notice several weeks before the fee is due. By State law, the local taxing authority must send the property tax bill a minimum of 45 days before it is due. And these tend to work properly.
However, I do NOT want to go through difficulties, so I keep track of my car license dates. I’ve even found them online after the notices had been sent but before I had received them. I learned the hard way due to our wonderful Federal Postmaster that with ALL of my monthly bills, I have to know when they usually arrive. If they’re late, call the company. Why? because the Federal Postmaster changed the delivery process, which causes delays. His name is DeJoy. Because of the delays he induced, even many post office employees contemptuously refer to him as “DeLay”, or even “That bleep Delay”. I noticed that, like me, you keep track of the typical due dates so as to avoid late penalties. Wise move.
I was a petty bureaucrat, at least by job title. I refused to BE a petty bureaucrat. I was fortunate in that my first supervisor and his Big Boss refused to treat the public bureaucratically. What I found infuriating was when alleged coworkers acted like petty bureaucrats to the rest of us.
When you talked to the water bill person, did you take notes of date, time, their name, and that they had promised to send the bill via email? I hope so. That is basic information the Princess and I keep with any important conversation with bureaucracies of any type. Having that information has helped us avoid further fees a few times.
Nice vegetable frame. It should work for tomatoes. It looks surprisingly similar to the wooden drying rack we use for drying clothes. See, you can use those frames in the winter, near the wood stove, dry your clothes. You’ve made a multipurpose frame.
And from previously used parts, yet, including the screws? Respect!
Thank you for the flowers. They are spectacular. The bee bottom was a bonus. 😉
DJSpo
Hi Steve,
You know I’m just old enough to have experienced my profession in the days before we all sat at computers staring intently into the screens? 🙂 Back in the day, we stared intently into ledger books. And, I absolutely agree with you – the demands on the electricity network from using the ledger books weren’t all that great in those days. Data server farms on the other hand… What could possibly go wrong?
It’s like when the software update took out the airports (not to mention many other services worldwide) a month or so ago. Wouldn’t have affected private jets. Nope.
That’s something I also wonder about, which is why one of the reasons behind penning the essays each week. Instead of discussing ideas, I point at something and ask everyone to ‘look here’. There’s stuff to see, but a lot of people want to bury their heads in the sand. Beats me why they’d want that, but then it might be a ritual of sorts. Dunno really.
Reinhold Niebuhr was a very clever bloke. An eminently workable philosophy.
Yummo! Fresh walnuts are amazing tasting. Do you grow any black walnuts as well? Watered the walnut here tonight – probably needs it with three hot days coming up (35’C each). Today however was cooler, and spent most of the day splitting and hauling firewood.
Enjoy the seedling catalogues!
Cheers
Chris
Hi Inge,
Thanks very much for the confirmation about the suitability of the subject. I never really know how any of the topics discussed here will be received. They tell me that courage is tackling the unpopular! 🙂
Politics down under is usually quite dull, there is however one intriguing situation occurring at the moment. Our ambassador to the US, who was a former prime minister (don’t worry, we’ve got plenty of those to spare), allegedly went on the record and said some not very nice things about the incoming President. He’s a bit of a cheeky scamp and apparently has deleted the records, fortunately folks smarter than you or I, have recorded his unusual observations for posterity. Thus also inadvertently proving your reticence in making any commentary in these areas is a wise move: Kevin Rudd insists he is ‘ready’ to work with Donald Trump, despite previous criticisms.
If it were I in that position, I’d resign from the post.
Oh no! Inge, that credit card offering appears to me to be a disaster. Credit card interest is notoriously high. Whatever will they think of next?
It’s almost a month out from the winter solstice, and that’s not good to hear. Usually down here, the coldest weather is a month either side of the solstice. Yet the extremes are felt after the solstice. Have you had a frost yet?
What a great idea! I must side with your son here. The ferret is a great idea for dealing with the rats. I control rats through habitat destruction and reducing their easy access to any feed. That keeps a lid on their numbers, but I doubt rats could be eliminated here. They’ve been on the continent for about five million years last I read up on the subject. Hardy creatures. Please do let me know how it works out, I’d never have considered a ferret. Hmm. Could be less troublesome for the birds than a cat would be.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Pam,
Thanks! Lovely to hear, and truly I write each week so as to have delightful ongoing conversations with all of the delightful people who comment here. Thanks for taking the time to comment. It’s always a pleasure to hear of news from afar.
Pam, trust me, every time someone here mentions a price, the mind does a quick comparison to local err, conditions. Recently I believe Lewis paid for something at a higher price than down here. It was all very exciting – possibly even a new era had dawned. The following day he supplied a correction. Deflation – of the emotional sort, not the financial – then took place. Drats, foiled again…
I agree with all of your views. And I expect that in their lifetime, and not to mention ours, we’ll all get to find out how this monster debt game will work out. Until then, I promise not to seriously annoy any petty bureaucrats. Well at least I’ll do my best anyway. But if I could get away with it, that’s a whole ‘nother story! Hehe!
Oh yeah, the gargoyle and the Chinese lion do a permanent face off as well, and it’s a bit like a concrete-esque reproduction of geopolitical tensions in the Pacific. If we employ the appropriate symbology, then the tensions between the two get balanced and nothing untoward happens – they just glare at each other across the ditch. Of course Ollie is a large dog and could in a fit of excitement damage one of the characters, and then all bets are off. Don’t blame Ollie though, he’s lovely. 😉
Oh my gawds Pam, that’s positively awful. You see what can happen here. It’s hard to say which geopolitical power bloc Earl represents, but I can hazard a wild guess, especially when red rooster (which as an amusing side note is a chain of chicken fast food take away down here) remained – the colour being indicative. That was a close call there, and wise to reinstall Earl in his proper place. Everything in balance, yes. Round two indeed! Seriously, we should be thanked for our efforts at balancing such heady world energies and tensions.
Thanks! The steel on those tomato structures is a bit rusty, so I’ll paint them over the next few hot (Yikes!) days with cold galvanising paint, then give them a top coat. I’ve got black, yellow, grey and red metal paint to choose from, and they’ll end up looking super cool.
Good stuff! Do you know, if you went into a hardware store down here and asked for a spigot, they’d look at you all funny like before asking the hard question: What? They’re called taps down here. Sorry, but using the word faucet would also confuse everybody. Even bathroom taps are called, taps.
Yes indeed! The tool is a little bit different to a pick, it’s called a ‘mattock’ down here, but is basically a pick with a wider cutting blade. If there is a better hand digging tool, I’m yet to encounter the thing. I’ve worn the cutting blade of one of them out through years of use. Very wise to have tools which suit your strength and stature. And of course, Mr Baby is always a good addition to the environment and for cuddles.
Now I’m starting to worry about the seedling chestnut, all over again… It’s amazing that any fruit trees made it here to maturity. The deer eating the bark is the worst.
Producing stuff is the new black! I know friends who live in apartments and wonder what they can do. I tell them: make soap and/or booze. Strangely the discussion then goes quiet.
🙂 More flowers coming up! Although there are three hot days in a row now before a storm dumps some much needed rain, so fingers crossed that there are flowers for the next blog. Might take the photos early…
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
+2’C is not that bad, and well within the norms for your part of the world at a guess. Perhaps your media has become summer soft? 😉 That temperature would feel cold though, no getting around that. It would be about that overnight temperature here if the seasons were suddenly flipped upside down. Dude, it was 7’C outside last night, and 8’C right now. Brr! The forecast does suggest that Friday night into Saturday morning will be warm (probably 20’C), but nothing unusual or out of the ordinary for this time of year. A couple of days will reach 35’C, then a storm will hit and things will cool again, or at least I’d hope so, it’s been dry the past couple of months. But yeah, all par for course, and agreed, much ado about nothing.
Ah, good sleep is one of those things I spend a lot of effort towards achieving. Not always easy to do, so you have my empathy. Dogs are more relaxed creatures than us humans. And I won’t mention anything about Neanderthal genes influencing our ability to awaken rapidly in response to threats – perceived or otherwise. 😉
Those Corvidae family of birds are wonderful farm companions. Yes, they’ll do that trick with predator birds. I’ll have you know that I’m on very good terms with the magpie family here. There’s about seven in the group. They’ll chase away the huge wedge tail eagles, talk about courage. If there are problems like snakes and foxes, the birds will seek me out, and they have a distinctive alarm call which I can recognise. Of course there is a cost, and today when splitting, hauling and stacking firewood, we’d chuck them juicy wood grubs. Plus after we moved away from the area they’d clean up the rest of the bugs and ants. Much happiness ensued.
Yes, that’s about how it all works. What I’m guessing is going on is that the powers that be in those authorities are happier paying the salaries of the IT department folks, than the dude and dudettes working the mail room. It’s an interesting shift in economics, and reflects a lot about our culture and preferences. What they’re kind of demanding, without going to the effort and expense of communicating, is that us folks required to pay the bills, need to log into their systems and retrieve the electronic version of the bills. You asked an excellent question. Hmm. At this stage, the local property taxes are being sent by physical mail, and so they should given the size of the things and the fact they seem to go up each year by around 5% (the maximum allowable increase).
Dude, it wasn’t all that long ago that the mail was delivered daily. In these enlightened times, it gets delivered I dunno, maybe two or three times a week – I’m not really sure any more. Man, to add insult to injury, the postal service does not deliver to this physical street address. Who even knew that there were such things as postal delivery black holes? Physics probably has something to say about these things, or at least some nifty equations! Everything goes to a post box at the general store, and can you imagine the confusion caused when someone insists upon sending the mail to a physical street address and they don’t believe me about this not being possible. That’s an exciting proposition.
But absolutely, given you and I have to deal with the consequences for non payment, it’s probably wise to keep track of them. All of them.
I know, we’ve had that discussion over the years. I hear you and would do no less in the same position you were in. I’ll tell you a not so funny story from my interactions though. A few years ago I had to fill out this multi-page, complicated massive form, by hand. They refused to accept a typed form, photocopies etc. I have no idea why, it would make no difference. So I spent an hour and a half writing out the form. Sent it in, and a few weeks later got a phone call. I’d forgotten to put a ‘1’ in a single box on the entire form, but all else was correct. I pleaded with the guy to simply mark the box with a ‘1’. He said he couldn’t do that. Then a brief discussion took place about how long it took to fill the form out, by hand, and could he send the form back to the postal address on the form. Man, I’m sure he was smirking, because he just said ‘no’ and shredded the form. At the time I was so busy, and had to re-do the form otherwise the client would be fined, and because it was genuinely my mistake, I couldn’t in all honesty charge the client for the re-work. There are so many little situations like that in my work. It wasn’t like this many years ago.
Thanks for the advice, and I’d genuinely not considered that option. To be honest, down here, most people on the other end of the phone call, won’t provide their names or any way to re-contact them. And fines have to be paid down here, before they are able to be challenged. Years ago I read of a bloke who’s fine began as maybe $2.5k before finally escalating to almost $250k because he didn’t pay it first. It’s a brutal system. You can appeal fines although it is a hugely long process, so it’s wise to always pay them first.
Hehe! The similarities are striking with the clothes drying rack. Yeah. We’ve always used washing horses and just plonked the clothes out in the sun, or in front of the wood heater. Gets them dried. Such an elegant technology don’t you reckon?
Absolutely. The steel was 20x20mm RHS (rectangular hollow section) and we’d gotten a big pile of them from the tip shop years ago. The tip shop was closed a year or two ago. Sad because useful stuff recovered from the landfill was sold there. We’re an amazingly wasteful species! It’s an impressive achievement.
Thanks, and the succulent flowers were blooming in the sunshine today. No bees were embarrassed by the photo shoot. 😉
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
The tracking option is quite cheap here as well. About $2 extra with postage. Well worth the extra coin for the peace of mind it gives. I’ve seen stuff go astray into odd corners of the country, but as yet, nothing has been lost. Fingers crossed. Man, I hear you about that things are a bit ‘off’, but my expectations are low and I’m quietly grateful when things actually turn up.
The gold watch is good and the captain did the survivors a decent turn there. It sure would have been cold, and sitting in a life boat on that fateful night would have been no easy ride – especially when you’d have known what happened to the majority of the passengers. Makes me wonder if anyone died on the lifeboats that night? Hmm. Seems like hypothermia got more than a few, usually people rescued from the water. It was of interest to me that a few clever folks began swimming in the direction of the lifeboats. Some folks keep cooler heads in a crisis, I’ve seen that play out over the years.
Well the clerics probably wrote their hard luck stories! 🙂 Interesting, and I’d not realised that some clerics switched sides. But yes, always wise to be useful. Alas, I agree, the nuns would have had a tougher time of things.
Holy carp! That’s a long earthquake, although the 5.9 went on about that long. It was amusingly long enough for me to shout at the Editor to turn the out-of-control washing machine off (the display is like a fighter jet – stupidly complicated), and when she did do so and the house kept shaking – we got out. So yeah, it would have been about that long. Not long enough to escape from the third floor though and herd an H and grab the go-bag. Practice makes perfect in such instances.
Hmm. Very good thinking with all those fire responses. The one minor issue there is misdirection. I believe that during the Grenfell tower fire, people were advised to go back to their apartments (maybe, please correct me if I’m wrong there). Always best to be on the safe side and get out at a guess, although much depends as always upon circumstances.
The recent rain forecasts here have been a bit like your recent wind forecasts. Absent! Did the wind arrived today? And hopefully H was whisked away into the air. Strange things can happen during wind storms. Do you get colour maps for wind, or was that rain you were referring to?
It was another delightful day here today. Sunny and about 18’C / 64’F and no wind to speak of. Did some paid work, then got back outside and split, hauled and stacked firewood. Another two or three days of that, and the entire job for next year will be done. Getting in early and doing the hard work whilst the weather is still cool-ish. The sun feels fierce though. Tomorrow we’ll have a run of four hot days, before some rain (hopefully).
Don’t you hate that? Sometimes the birds here did pull up seedlings for no real advantage that I can see. Perhaps the seedling affected the avian overall artistic vision, so the plant had to go! 🙂 The cheeky birds. But yes, it does slow the plant growth down. I don’t believe that the summers are hot enough here for sunflowers to properly produce their tasty seeds. We have to buy them.
Hehe! Yes, Mr King has kept me awake into the wee-hours of the morning turning page after page. I’d have to suggest that such activities were time well spent. And Lewis, ah, the times and places, some real, some reputedly real, we’ve all been on our reading adventures. But a very good point, and probably does explain a thing or two.
All very true, and I dunno, the app-appeal just isn’t there for me either. Want a diary, get some paper. It’s not hard. I’ve heard of people persisting with ride-share apps, long after a more normal taxi would have whisked them away home again. You hear stories, as I’m sure you have as well? Maybe? I don’t get the appeal. I’m old enough to have experienced accounting systems which were paper based. Going to computers didn’t cut the number of staff, and simply increased the quantity of paper used. Things were in fact more economical in the past on that front. The heads probably should roll, but will they? Makes you wonder at what point all this stuff and waste is no longer affordable? I’d say we’re getting very close to that point especially given I hear the ‘r’ word popping into the news and talk lately. r of course is for redundancy. Having experienced that in the early 1990’s I made damn sure I wasn’t in a position to feel the feels again. Hmm.
The Editor was meant to be going out tonight for dinner with friends, but economics with the friends put an end to that outing. Instead she and Ruby went to the local dog club instead. Apparently it was a good evening there and heaps of people turned up.
Interesting cast. Would anyone expect anything different? 🙂 I’ll check out the trailer in a sec.
Oh poop! Far out, that’s never good. The old Club house at Sunbirds had a dodgy dunny as well. Hey, it could be a fatberg! No seriously. I’ll bet it’s a fatberg given how far down the plumbing snake travelled.
Good to hear that the pantry is running smoothly. Are you intending to put in a showing at the potluck?
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – Usually, I use “faucet” or “tap.” Everyone seems to know what I’m talking about …
Saw an article about chestnut trees, last night. Apparently, a large chunk of the world’s chestnuts come from Greece. And, due to drought and heat, that industry has fallen on hard times.
Here’s an article about our Postmaster General.
https://moneyinc.com/louis-dejoy-net-worth/
I thought the last administration would have gotten rid of him, but it’s a pretty complicated process, which includes a board of governors … who all have their own agendas. It would be interesting to know, who has large blocks of stock, in the other two major carriers.
Yes, one hears stories about people being directed to go back into dangerous situations. 9/11 is an example. Some people were directed to stay at their posts … others, directed back to their offices. Luckily, I think, we don’t have a PA system, here at the Institution. It’s really up to each individual to decide what to do. My inclination is to get out as safely and quickly as possible. And not to re-enter the building, until the fire department gives the all-clear. Which I have done, over previous false alarms.
Well, so far, the storm, at least here, has been a nothing burger. Oh, yeah, plenty of rain. H and I got pretty wet, yesterday. But this morning when we went out, there were black clouds around, but also plenty of blue sky and sunshine. We got some sporadic wind. But not much. Looking at the weather history page, we’d get a gust of 17-20mph, and then nothing for an hour or two. It’s still possible that it might pick up, this afternoon. Yesterday’s low was 45F (7.22C). The overnight low was 43F. Forecast for today is 51F.
From our “Who knew?” department. I got around to setting up my printer, last night. The new one. I really didn’t have a need to print or copy anything, so, why bother. The start up guide was pretty useless. Just steered me to a couple of on-line sites, trying to sell me stuff. Most useful? My “Sonoma for Dummies” guide. Clear step by step instructions to get the printer to communicate with the computer. But…
I keep getting the message that the printer cartridges, that came with the machine, are bad. Who knew ink cartridges have a limited shelf life? In fact, one tip I saw, relating specifically to the kind of cartridge I have to use, advised printing a page of something, every week. Just to keep it nimble. Talk about waste … So, this afternoon, I will go to the big box office supply store, and I pray they will have the right cartridge, in stock. And if they do, I’m sure the sticker price will be a shock.
I’ll do that before I visit Jane, at the Club. I’ll find out if the sewer problem has been cleared up.
I won’t be going to the Thanksgiving at the Club. Too many little petrie dishes, running around. Too many people. I might go later in the evening, when things clear out. I’m pretty sure Thanksgiving, at the Club, is where I caught the Norovirus, a couple of years ago. I’d rather not have a replay. Lew
Yo, Chris – Here’s a pretty concise article about our storm.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/20/weather/bomb-cylone-west-coast-washington-climate
In other news of the world, I see your red crabs are doing their yearly migration. But do they taste good? Also, a smuggler was caught with 300 Tarantulas strapped to his body. I guess he wasn’t ticklish. And a large Tiffany stained glass window sold, at auction, for 12+ million dollars. Lew
Chris:
Black, yellow, red, and grey – lovely! I expect nothing less than a masterpiece.
Don’t your friends like soap or booze?
Sometimes I hear more U.S. news from you over there than I do over here. And Australia is never mentioned, not even that former, one-of-many prime minister you commented on.
That’s a blow, that your tip shop has closed. As far as I know, we have never had a tip shop and I have always been jealous of yours, tip shops being one of the finer things in life.
Ha – I knew what a dodgy dunny is! What I need to know, my sister and I were just arguing about it, is a biscuit a cracker or a cookie?
Pam
Chris,
The big snowstorm was a fizzle here. Barely a skiff in town. Mountains and passes got hit pretty hard, though. I heard that in the greater Seattle area over 600,000 people were without power for awhile. It got rather windy there, to say the least.
Recently learned a new Welsh phrase. Prime minister is prif weinidog in Welsh. Pronounced preeve weeneedog. I think that phrase would fit for many politicians in many countries?
Yes, sleep and Neanderthal genes. As in “I heard a pack of wolves howl in my dream. Now I am wide awake wondering if I should run, climb a tree or start randomly throwing spears at any moving shadows.”
Took my Subaru Forester in for routine servicing today. And an overall inspection. All of the struts are failing. They are keeping it overnight. They paid for a LYFT to get me home and will pay for a LYFT to get me there tomorrow afternoon. The Princess is on her normal week with her brother.
You’ve mentioned your um, well, “grubby” relationship with the local magpies. 😉 Give them grubs, they give you warning about the nasties. Happiness abounds. Unless you’re a grub.
That type of thing seems to be a universal norm: what is good for one is evil for another. What’s good for the corvids is evil for the grubs. Eating tasty bark from the fruit trees is good for the fauna, but evil for the trees. This can be entitled as the Universal Law of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
5% allowable property tax increase? Ouch! We are limited to getting a 1% annual increase, maximum. Well, unless the local taxing authority decides to also grab previously “banked”, aka unused, increases. The only limit there, I believe, is how much banked increases exist. That said, the local people here rarely tap into any of the banked reserve. So far.
The change DeLay/DeJoy made was simple with nasty consequences. All mail deliverers had to leave for their routes by 6:30 a.m. regardless of whether all their mail had been sorted or not. Then the next day’s stack was placed ON TOP of the undelivered remnants. Some pieces of mail might take weeks, rather than mere days, to be delivered. I missed one bill payment that way. The local people suggested that I have all bills and important stuff sent to a post office box at the local mail building. That all gets sorted and delivered daily. No problems since.
Well, unless I order something online. For years, if it were shipped via private carriers like United Parcel Service (UPS) or Federal Express (FedEx), it couldn’t be delivered to a PO Box but had to be shipped to a street address. So I’d get a notice in my box to contact the appropriate delivery company, who would then schedule delivery to my home address. Eventually, everybody got on the same page, and UPS and FedEx now have all of the postal office street addresses that correspond to the PO Boxes, thus facilitating delivery to the boxes. The problem with getting packages shipped to the house is that in some locations, they get swiped off of one’s front porch! The boxes are safe from that.
Goodness! When working, I had a few forms returned to me that hadn’t been completely filled out. I wasn’t supposed to fill in the blank spots, even when instructed to do so by the other person. What I could do is email it back, fax it back or snail mail it back. I wasn’t allowed to shred the form. That just seems so wrong and so beyond the pale. It’s the ridiculous policies like that one that drive you mad, isn’t it? The only hope one has is that the instigators of such ridiculous policies “will be first against the wall when the revolution comes”. Douglas Adams and his Hitchhiker’s Guide series to the rescue again. He had so many great ideas and great quotes.
And, like, wow! Not being able to get the name of the person you’re talking to for business and billing and etc.? Wow, that’s, like unAmerican! 😉 Most of the places I do business with, government and private companies, the people normally give their names at the start. Those that don’t upfront will freely give the name upon request. Wow, I didn’t realize we had it so good in those regards.
Yes, wonderful technology, the clothes horse. Collapsible, portable, functional.
That is a funny thing, right? Bees and dogs and other insects and critters do NOT get embarrassed when their bare bottoms are visible. Most humans, well, embarrassment occurs. Usually. I do recall my boss and the Big Boss were driving home one night from a meeting. 60mph on the interstate, after dark, and a car pulled up beside them. Two teenage girls in the car. It was summer and warm and both cars had their windows down. Teenaged passenger stuck her bare butt out her window aimed at face of Big Boss. The girls were laughing. My bosses were quite embarrassed when they told the story the next day.
DJSpo
Hi Pam,
🙂 Oh my, the pressure you’ve just applied… Can it be achieved, possibly not. All we can do is but try!
Actually some of my friends refrain from consuming alcohol, whilst others do. I’ve never really asked why that would be either, I just kind of accept their decisions. Dunno about your experience, but generally if there is an important back story surrounding such decisions, most people will tell you in their own time. Events and circumstances often have their own momentum and flow.
As to soap, well, I’m not entirely certain of err, my friends person hygiene habits, but if they were unusually odoriferous, I’d probably say something. I’ve actually had to address such issues in the work place, oh yeah, that’s a fun task I can tell you. But with the olive oil soap, we make and use that and I’ve not experienced eczema since that change. Hmm. Turns out commercial soaps are a funny product.
That hardly surprises me. Did you know that we once lost a Prime Minister? Seriously, the dude just kind of disappeared never to be seen again. I believe he was eaten, which is kind of fitting for the wildlife down under… Harold Holt. He seems to have been something of a cad. Those who sup with the devil may end up as fish food.
Tip shops are great resource recycling centres, but alas, now we are in the same sad state as your part of the world. Seems a bit wasteful to me.
Oh no! The great biscuit debate of 2024. You do know that wars have been fought over less that such heady matters? 🙂 A biscuit is all of the above down here, although the savoury dried baked things with lots of salt tend to be differentiated nowadays with the term ‘cracker’. A cracker idea huh? I’m honestly not convinced that I answered your question, but you could safely call a cracker a biscuit down here and be ok.
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
Sorry to hear that storm didn’t live up to expectations! 🙂 Just read Professor Mass’s account and I must say that he’s rather chuffed with having forecast the storm fairly accurately. Of course this may not be a consolation to the 600,000 people without power in the aftermath. A mid latitude cyclone sounds like a frightening event, which probably would run out of significant force by the time it influenced your more easterly part of the world. Being a bit inland has that effect here as well, and for that I’m quietly grateful.
Droughts are bad, no getting around that, but impending big storms tend to make me worry far more. Candidly I was more relaxed about such matters until the minor tornado, super cell, earthquake, freak wind gusts, kind of awoken me from my meteorological blissful slumber. It’s been remarked upon before that a dude can only take so much…
By the way, hot day one of three, now done.
We’ve all been inconvenienced by weenydogs before. In maybe April this year, I wrote a blog about going to the agricultural expo, and honestly I should have taken a photo of the woodcarvers work for your interest. Please accept my apologies for this oversight. Anyway, in this instance I must blame the weenydog. Look, you brought this subject up. So there I was waiting in line to order a charcoal grilled cheese kransky hot dog with onions and mustard sauce in a bun, and the old bloke in front of me was messing around with his order. I’d previously had an interaction because that’s how things roll when in a queue with such a force of nature. The guy running the stall was truly remarkable in his dealings with the bloke, and set the highest standards of customer service for those who encounter the frightful weenydog beast that I’ve ever seen. He just didn’t engage with the old bloke, and even better, whilst the bloke was messing around wasting everyone’s time, and the folks in the queue were getting restless. He walked off and made a show of attending to the grill where the tasty sausages were being grilled. I was in awe of the guys skills. Then, he came back to the bloke, rapidly took the order and cash, set him to one side to wait whilst the rest of the orders were then taken. Reminds me of: Revenge Of The Nerds – Booger meets Snotty. Sometimes you encounter the true master.
Exactly! This is my experience as well. The Neanderthal brain is alert for strange noises in the night – quiet snoring and other more usual sounds are disregarded. Burst full into wakefulness with the thought: What dire beast need be skewered? Except when there are no dire beasts in the vicinity and it is merely the wind rattling the house frame, or making weird ah-oooh-gah sounds through the open window, our brains are left chasing sprites. Things would be far easier if there was a dire beast making the noise and it could be properly chastised!
Yeah, struts don’t last forever, and they work hard. Hopefully the boots they bolt into have not experienced the dreaded steel worm? It was nice they organised a lift for you, that has never been offered to me. Wow. Courtesy cars used to be a thing, but the insurance costs and risk of fines put an end to that practice a long time ago.
Hehe! Who’d have thunk it that us humans can be active actors in the environment? I choose the magpies, every single time – and they know it. Shame the environmentalists completely fail to appreciate the approach.
Oh man, inflation down here at the street level is brutal, and it boggles my mind that the same-ish folks say one thing, and demand another. And yes, 5% is their maximum for local property rates (taxes), and they take it. Not a fan. On that note, I’m going to put the utoob alorgithm to the test this week, and post a slightly modified version of last weeks – and see what happens. At the very least, the outcome will be instructive.
As an interesting point of differentiation where the culture of your country casts a shadow down here, did you know that in most instances here, post boxes are generally attached to post offices. Or at least the vast majority are. Because of the situation in your country, many online sellers tend to not deliver to a post box address. I tell ya man, when the postal service wont deliver to this street address, that can sometimes have strange and unusual consequences for deliveries. Hmm.
And that’s the thing with courier deliveries – if they even consider delivering to this remote spot – the packages can get pinched.
I applaud your common sense and compassion for those folks by returning the incomplete paperwork – and have the exact same issue and response with clients. What may be important for myself, is not necessarily the same as their concerns. The dude who shredded the form knew full well what he was doing to me. Yup, those cheeky scamps at the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation marketing division… I’m so with you, the author probably had a whole lot of fun writing those lines, and we did the same whilst reading them.
Absolutely, anonymous is very much how we deal with genuinely faceless bureaucrats. Some things actually work better in your country.
Hehe! All very true, and the bees, well they don’t mind one little bit posing for the photo. The dogs pose for photos, although it’s hard to know whether they actually realise what is going on, but they play along. It’s hard to believe that your big boss got mooned, although from some respects it’s nice that boss enjoyed meeting some of the constituents who paid for the salary. Then a person knows what they’re dealing with. 😉
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Thanks for the heads up, and from now on I’ll stick to the word ‘tap’. The word faucet is rarely heard down here, and the spell checker didn’t even recognise it. Of course some people believe that computers are the arbiter of all things good with the English language, and there the people would be in the unfortunate state of: error. A nasty place to be, but it happens and we must make allowances… 🙂
Professor Mass described the weather event as a mid-latitude cyclone, and I like the sound of that description more than a bomb cyclone. Thanks for the link to the article. Sounds awful, but the photo of the guy using the undersized chainsaw wasn’t wearing gloves or any ear protection that I could see. And the glasses will only protect his eyes, the rest of the face, man I dunno. Hmm. And his posture was not good, his back might be assisted if it were kept vertical rather than that odd bending over with a chainsaw stance. Plus if the pressure on the branch was unfortunately released, it could get him directly in the soft bits. That would probably require a trip to the hospital. There’s a reason I wear chaps using that dangerous AF machine, although I only chipped a bone in my leg when a chunk of timber was flicked back at high speed. Sure, dangerous situation, but err, safety first.
Oh my! Waterspouts and 34 foot waves are frightening. I still can’t think of rouge waves without recalling the film: The Perfect Storm. Holy carp, that’s a lot of localised rain. Hope the storm works out to be calmer than the article suggested.
Dude, I reckon if you nicked one of those red crabs and cooked it up, it’d taste good! 🙂 The tarantula news is unsettling to say the least. Ook! You may have missed the koala home invasion – they’ve clearly been watching utoob videos of bears in your country and further north, doing similar activities: Koala home invader rummaging in bedroom startles Adelaide couple returning home from work
Not good about the chestnuts, and candidly that part of the world has always looked as though it might become an arid land. I don’t really comprehend why anyone would go to the islands there at the very hottest part of the year, like that TV doctor bloke who died whilst allegedly just walking around. The trees grow very well and produce strongly in this part of the world.
Ah Lewis, sadly defamation is a thing down here and I am never really free to say what I would like to. A shame really.
With the 9/11 incident, one of the command centres for the firefighters was set up I believe rather close to the buildings, although it was hardly initially imagined that they’d both collapse. With some of the residents being hard of hearing, would a PA system even be effective? And who’d take responsibility for giving the advice to ‘get out’? Get it wrong, and people scream retribution for their inconvenience, get it right and people applaud clear thinking in a crisis. There is little middle ground in that story, but basically I believe people act that way because it off-shores their personal responsibility. I’d do as you react to the situation. Better to be wrong in a harmless way, than wrong in a deadly way.
Did the wind pick up today? I’d imagine that some areas closer to the coast got slammed pretty hard given the number of power outages. Today was the first of the run of four hot days. It got to 30’C / 86’F and was quite pleasant. Tomorrow and Saturday will be a lot hotter. Anywhoo, we headed north to pick up fruit and vegetable supplies from the cool store place. It’s heaps cheaper, and I mean significantly cheaper, than locally, and the quality is better.
🙂 Behold the mysteries of computing devices. That’s so true, gone are the days of explicit instructions, we now get to enjoy what you probably spotted as the ‘quick start guide’. My absolute favourite was setting up the modem, because the instructions were available on the interweb – and you need a modem to connect to the source. Hmm. Presumably they assume that people can use their phones for this activity? Your guide book is probably the wisest way to go. 🙂
There is functionality on the modem, which basically I do not understand. And incredibly complicated bit of technology.
I wasn’t even sure what Sonoma is. Sounds like some sort of unusual and possibly fatal sleeping disease. Hang with me a second, here’s how it works. You go to sleep, blissfully unaware of the impending doom. AND! At one point in the evening you roll over half asleep, kick the dog, and fall out of bed with the attending injuries. Some people used to blame monsters hiding under the bed on that disease. You read it here first.
Actually, for the oldest ink jet printer we have (it refuses to die), the print cartridges have chips on them which communicate with the printer. Hmm. Talk about complicated… Presumably they all do. I bought the generic cartridges because they’re inexpensive and mostly work, but some of them do come up with an error message from time to time which suggests that the printer does not recognise the things. There’s a plethora of cartridges too. Crazy stuff. The cheapest printer to run is the one which uses ink tanks. Those are clever, although from time to time the maintenance kit has to be replaced. Yup, the mad cash is sometimes to be extracted via the cartridges. Were they reasonably priced?
Fingers crossed that the sewer problem was fixed up there. Could be a fatberg!
Hehe! I so hear you, but such tendencies are more readily explained away in my naturally introverted state of mind! I just like my quiet existence, although from time to time I make exceptions like that massive stadium gig I went to early last year. Such a fun night that one, a real highlight of the year. The performer has had her issues in the pass with the drink, and has of late been rather quiet. Hope she’s doing alright there.
But far out, I remember that. You went down like a sack of spuds, and you were not well. That experience would put me off such events. The old timers used to quip: Once burned, twice shy. Good advice.
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – Faucet, spigot, tap … As long as we’re in mutual agreement, that any of the above means “place where the water comes out,” then we’re all on the same page. 🙂
Our high, yesterday, was 52F (11.11C). The overnight low was 43F. The forecast for today is 51F. Now here’s the weird thing. Contrary to the forecast, or what I was seeing on the weather radar, it was pretty much dry as a bone here, yesterday. And, this morning. No noticeable rain has been falling. Makes for pleasant walks, with H. You’ll have to break out the industrial strength sun screen.
I saw a headline, for the Koala home invasion. But I didn’t look into the article, more deeply. Because … well, here, often, there’s a video and just a couple of lines of description. I’d rather read an article, than watch a video. So, the article you linked to, was oh so nice. Doggie doors are a menace. I don’t know how many stories I’ve seen, about wildlife, or neighborhood strays, using doggie doors to gain access, and create mayhem. What? You can’t get up off the couch and let your dog or cat, in or out?
Australia! Chestnut capital of the world! And you’ve got in on the ground floor. 🙂
It’s the old “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” conundrum. Sometimes stated as, “Poop or go blind.”
Argh! Computers! Or, printers, in this case. So, I picked up two ink cartridges, yesterday. $135. And, once installed, I keep getting the same error message. 🙁 There was some song and dance about downloading a driver (?). Which, requires my Fruit Company password, which I have conveniently mislaid. Sigh. So, this evening I’m going to try and get my old computer, and printer, up and running. I suppose I’ll have to buy a fresh cartridge, for that.
I’m also having some “minor” problems, with my new Blu Ray player. The picture is great, but I often have to insert the disc, 5 to 10 times, before it finally kicks into gear, and plays. And these are, mostly, brand new discs. But, it’s also a problem for well circulated older discs.
I did have a low point, where it all just seems so overwhelming. Life if just too complicated, to deal with. Oh, well, once more into the breach … “Half a league, half a league, half a league onward ..” Etc.
Sonoma is the name of the operating system, that runs my computer. My old computer ran on Snow Leopard. The Fruit Company operating systems all have names. So, there was a run of toothy beasts. Then it was a run of Spanish place names, such as Sonoma. Next up … trees. The operating system I will be upgrading to is Sequoia. Someone probably gets paid big bucks, to come up with this stuff.
I swung by the library, late yesterday afternoon. Then to the big box office supply. Hit the veg store. Was going to stop by the Club for a cuppa, but … It was locked up, and a sign was on the door. “Closed due to plumbing problems.” I figured there might be something on social media. So, I checked the Club’s Face Plant page. Before it slammed shut, (Sign in, sign up, or die), I saw that there was a post, “Club closed due to broken pipe.” Who knows if or when that will be repaired. The landlord is not forthcoming, on jingle for repairs. We do have a large cash reserve, but, pretty much just make expenses, month to month.
Well, it’s time to make my next batch of oatmeal and fruit. Simple. Straightforward. No apps or drivers, involved. Lew
Chris:
I forgot about the eczema being a big reason for your soap making. It was very smart of you to figure out your problem, and to take measures.
I love the conspiracy theories about PM Holt’s death. My, My.
I eat hummus every day, so I buy a lot of dried chickpeas. In the past I have tried to grow them, only to get not a lot more than a handful, which doesn’t do me much good. I have tried growing pinto beans which I also eat fairly often and I have had the same problem. It looks to me like one has to plant an awful lot of bean plants to make it worthwhile. However, I can grow a fair amount of green beans, bush and pole, the kind where you eat the whole bean, pod and all, while it’s green. I even use some of those dried in soups. Do you grow beans to dry? I just can’t remember.
Pam
Chris,
I agree with Lew about that thing that the water comes out of. Yesterday I called it a faucet. This morning I referred to it as a spigot. Tonight it’s a tap. Turn a thingamajimmy and water comes out.
We got more rain this morning. With my car getting an operation on its struts, I had to walk over to let Killian the Red out for a spell. So I walked in the drizzle with Dame Avalanche. They chased one another for a bit in the mist, then we all went indoors. The two dogs played some more. Then Avalanche and I walked home in the very light mist. Notice that the rate of precipitation was decreasing. It had completely stopped when the LYFT came by so I could get my car out of the shop. Handles a lot better with all new struts.
I’m assuming that the 2nd of 3 hot days was survived? Better than the freak gusty winds and mild tornado storms and torrential rainfall followed by another round of shaking earth, I hope. I don’t much enjoy those things either.
Of course, we get that white stuff. Snow is a four letter word. To reply to a question from some weeks ago…yes, I’ve been snowed in here. Once. Surprisingly, it wasn’t in the mountains on the Rez. Nope, it was here at our house in Spokane. Woke up the morning of December 17, 2008, to find 69cm of snow had fallen in about 18 hours, most of it overnight. Yes, 27 inches. That was before I had Big Bertha, but the snow was too deep for snow blowers anyhow. Took a LOT of digging. For 2 days.
Oh, grand story! Waiting in line to order a weenydog deluxe for lunch, only to have some “weinidog” in front of the line gumming up the works. Respect to the vendor for knowing exactly how to deal with the difficult bloke.
There used to be an outdoor dog vendor near where I worked. He grilled his dogs on the spot. The Polish sausage with sauerkraut, grilled onions and grilled bell peppers, a bit of mustard, was awesome. Then he retired and was replaced by someone who boiled the dogs. No grilled veggies either. I tried his once and that was enough.
I had forgotten that scene. Snotty was indeed a master at, well, something. I’ve often said that it is good to have at least one talent that has been mastered.
Agreed! If a dire beast needed skewering, or at least chastising, then one’s adrenaline would be properly channeled, and sleep could be attained again. But with winds and other false alarms? UGG!
Yes, our inflation has been nasty, too. They say that the rate of inflation has dropped. Hmmmm, not on necessities it hasn’t.
Thanks. Returning the forms to be corrected was the only proper thing to do. Fortunately, the first time that happened, both Boss and Big Boss were away. The junior tech came to me, showed me the problem and suggested that we return it with a short cover letter to explain what we needed. I agreed, signed the letter she had already drafted, and we sent it out. I told Boss and Big Boss the next day what we had done. Too late for them to change anything. Thus, we had set a precedent and kept on doing it that way. Oh and the Biggest Boss thought we had doing something wonderfully correct in returning it.
Dunno how, but I ran into this song today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9N_h3S6ueQ
Then, from nearer to you, there’s this. I really like the harmonica in this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj0dqbVD4fQ
DJSpo
Hi Pam,
Yeah, the eczema – just on my hands – was a bit of a problem. Turns out the liquid dishwashing detergent we used, which makes some sort of claim about being recommended by dermatologists, in fact produces seriously dry skin with me, leading to eczema. Doesn’t bother Sandra one bit that stuff. Hmm. It was a bit of a journey to work out exactly which product was causing the issue which we did by a process of deduction and addition. It did however get me interested in the subject of soap. What is this stuff we’re being sold? You’d be amazed by what’s in the commercial stuff. Have you ever made soap?
Hehe! It is possible that his outrageous behaviour may have reduced the likelihood of a timely rescue. One can only speculate here, but his lady perhaps saw her opportunity for revenge, and then possibly took it. Of course, equal arrogance in his abilities to swim in challenging waters was at play. Then there was that submarine theory. But yes, it’s equally likely that aliens were involved – the mothership never ceases its demand for human bodies to experiment upon. 🙂 We’ll never really know, but all we do know is that the dude is gone, somewhere. It’s eerie when people simply disappear.
Oooo! Yummo! How tasty is hummus. Yum. Oh Pam, I tried too, and discovered that the conditions here are simply not hot enough for chickpeas. 🙂 The same is sadly true for pinto beans, but I agree totally delightful. That’s the thing isn’t it? At least you get it, the scale of production for some crops we casually consume, is off the charts. I buy huge bags of untreated high protein bread wheat flour, and when you look at how much flour comes from a single grain, it’s staggering.
Haven’t tried a green bean, but we do grow and dry the white navy bean which has origins in your country. It’s about the most productive bean, other than the winter broad bean, I’ve yet encountered. It’s on the smaller side, but does well in the climate. Have you tried growing that variety?
It’s hot here tonight, still at 88’F. Ook. It’ll get hotter again tomorrow before the monsoon arrives in earnest. Spread around a trailer load of compost today.
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
From here onwards, for the sake of simplicity, rather than clarity, let’s call the thing a ‘tap’. Open the valve, and water rushes forth. And here’s the problem: Leave the valve open accidentally, and the water and electrical storages drain rapidly. My brain now hurts. 😉
The essential problem with describing a device as simple as a ‘valve’ by way of using ordinarily expected names like ‘tap’, is that the beauty and complexity of the overall system is lost to the fog of mystery. One of the goals of moving to this remote location was unveiling that mystery, and all I’ve discovered is that there are further and deeper layers of mystery. The heavy duty UV stable plastic water pipes used to deliver water are just one component in the overall system. I doubt I could make them here using the resources available. It’s like looking at a vast drainage system and asking the hard question: Yeah, so could you construct that useful 300mm diameter concrete pipe buried in that working culvert? You start working backwards to the source, and discover how far removed we all actually are. Bubble land is a wonderful place. Supply your own infrastructure and keep it working, and the entire system looks vulnerable to shocks whether they be economic, resource, political, or environmental. Maybe it’s just me… 😉
Rainfall is neither regular, nor consistent, and subject to change at short notice and without warning. It’s hot here today, will be hotter tomorrow, then the rest of the week looks positively monsoonal. Bizarre, but not out of the realms of the expected. Did Dame Avalanche enjoy her walkies in the drizzle? The dogs here would. They’re not summer pooches and have hid inside for the majority of the day.
On the other hand I moved half a cubic metre of compost today, and poured another cement step on the new garden staircase. It’s so warm tonight that I’ll be able to pour another one tomorrow. But sadly have run out of the sand and aggregate and will have to whiz down to the supplier and restock. How easy we have things in these enlightened days!
That’s good to hear with the struts. When they’re shot, or seriously worn out, the forester would no doubts be somewhat vague feeling. 🙂 Ook! Or Ugg!
Thanks for asking, yes. Survived the heat and even managed to work outside until 2pm, although ended up feeling very hot and bothered. A small chunk of cheesecake later in the afternoon soothed my over heated brain. But truly, it is a bit of a hobby for me to bring in vast quantities of additional soil minerals so it’s no hardship. It’ll be hotter tomorrow.
Yes, and that’s very true. I can assure you that nature can deliver some serious knock out punches. 🙂 The boxer philosopher Mike Tyson once quipped that everyone has a plan, until they get a punch in the face. That by the way was his general fight strategy. I’d not like to face up to him, even as he is today. Best if such forces of nature where elsewhere and not annoyed!
27 inches of snow is so much to consider that my brain hurts even thinking about it. Weather extremes are rarely pleasant experiences, but you’d have got a monster workout. Was the snow powdery?
The guy working that farm expo stall set the gold standard for dealing with difficult customers. I was frankly in awe, and the old bloke was ahead of me in the line as well, and had already spent that time attempting to engage me in conversation. Spare me from extroverts! At heart I’m an introvert and so are slow to warm to people, and the bloke made an unfavourable impression. The cheese kransky was excellent though, so worth the trials and tribulations!
And that would be the Polish sausage, or close enough to it. Oh yeah. I’m salivating thinking about the food now. The addition of sauerkraut only ups the ante and is a true innovation. Boiling such tasty treats is just not cricket. The horror! Man, I’m sure you’ve encountered plenty of businesses which were sold, then the new owners began to innovate with the products (mostly to save mad cash and reduce costs for them), then nothing was ever the same again.
🙂 Snotty and Booger, two memorable characters put on this planet to amuse us all with their err, less than sociable habits. I tend to believe that the core theme of the film was that the more socially acceptable characters came across rather poorly by way of comparison.
Dude, it’s 29’C here and pushing on 8pm. The cloud layer suggests to me that this is going to be one warm night. Oh well, it’s far hotter in the big smoke right now. 34’C. Sucks to be them! And summer has yet to officially arrive.
DJ, what can we do? Our senses are attuned to the wild steppes, forests and plains, yet they force us to live in civilised surroundings. Here, I must now quote the now long deceased author, Robert E Howard, who has amused and entertained me over the years. It’s a revealing quote, for those with the genes to be sensitive to the realities:
“What do I know of cultured ways, the gilt, the craft and the lie?
I, who was born in a naked land and bred in the open sky.
The subtle tongue, the sophist guile, they fail when the broadswords sing; Rush in and die, dogs—I was a man before I was a king.”
Far out, that was a good read. Much like Douglas Adams, very quotable!
Sorry to say, but the reality is that there are limits. Pesky things. They hover in the background and order and direct all our lives with a firm hand, although many pretend that it be otherwise. One of the saddest aspects of the push of peoples from the south into your country, is that simple economics artificially ups the pressure upon demand for basic stuff. Unless the supply side for basic stuff was addressed, that was always going to lead to where you are (and the country here as well) is at today. It surprises me that anyone would expect a different outcome. In a world of decline, one’s gain, is another’s loss, and if there were another way I’d be more than happy to consider it.
We’re looking at the costs of those basics and adapting as fast as we are able to do so. Is your household doing that? One good aspect of living in such a wasteful society, is that there is plenty of scope on the margins to take active evasive manoeuvres.
So good, and I’d do no less. The old timers used to quip in such circumstances that it was best to act first, ask forgiveness later. Clever thinking. Good to hear that you had official support for your actions.
I must say at about 3:00 in the song, when Patty Loveless hit that series of notes, Ralph knew he’d met his match – you could see it in his face, although the song narrative went equally badly for the fictional characters. You brought this on yourself! And it’s been said elsewhere that one music recommendation deserves another. An Aussie spin on murder ballads: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds ft. Kylie Minogue – Where The Wild Roses Grow Very beautiful and slightly disturbing but along the same lines as the Appalachian ballad.
Yeah, I know of The Waifs. That was one heck of a harmonica.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Agreed, and that will be the general plan moving forward when describing valves which when opened, deliver water. Of course, I’m happy with a bit of genuine anarchy, so call them what you will, and we’ll all more or less comprehend, maybe. Newer readers will have to fend for themselves!
It’s getting colder where you are, that’s for sure. The winter solstice is not too far away. Actually, just between you and I, your temperatures are quite survivable, and things are notably more extreme elsewhere. Well that’s interesting about the radar. I guess the technology has it’s quirks. It’s usually accurate here, but sometimes the low thick clouds will deliver drizzle just in the mountain range, whilst the radar will show clear skies. Such weather you’re experiencing is good for dog walks, yup.
It’ll reach 99’F here tomorrow. That’ll be exciting. Right now outside is quite warm, but it’s much cooler up here in the mountains than what the city weather stations are recording. I sleep better in a cooler climate. One notable downside of growing elderberry shrubs near to the house is the memorable floral scent the plants produce which can enter the house. It’s really weird how those same stinky flowers can produce a tasty cordial or country wine. The epic stench from cooking up a batch of the flowers for either purpose is hard to ignore.
With the hot weather today, we poured another cement step and it’ll be dry by tomorrow morning (but not cured). But whatever, the surface will be dry enough to pour another one regardless. Also brought up and spread around a half cubic metre (about 0.7 cubic yards) of compost (whatever that stuff actually is) about the place. Always fun bringing in more organic matter for the plants to consume. I’m yet to spread around the coffee ground mixture, and may use it to clean up the sapling fenced pumpkin enclosure over the next few days. I’m going to try and use the yoghurt maker to germinate the pumpkin, zucchini, cucumber and melon seeds over the next few days. I reckon it will work too, but we’ll see. Anyway, the soil is now warm enough to get those plants in the ground.
I’m with you, and enjoy a text based description of the events. The words used can sometimes be quite enlightening as to the authors state of mind. Still, the footage of the koala getting up to mischief was quite good. For all those reasons, we’ve never used doggie doors. Many years ago, friends had a massive tomcat break into their house via the cat door, proceeded to urinate everywhere, then seriously messed up their pet cat which never really recovered from the injuries. It was brutal, and what you say is true – cat and dog doors aren’t keyed, and so things can go wrong.
Hehe! The chestnut burrs last year sadly were not pollinated and so were empty of nuts. I’d not even realised such a thing were possible, but Goran alerted me to the issue (one of the good side products from writing the blog). Anywhoo, thus the third chestnut tree planted – a seedling, with presumably random genetics. Should assist pollination, maybe? The second chestnut tree has grown in size quite a lot over the past year, but who knows. We try stuff, and hopefully it works out.
There are some old chestnut orchards around the area, and most years I watch many of the nuts going to waste on the ground. Dunno what to make about that, but gleaning is usually discouraged around here. Years ago I encountered a bloke working at a nearby vineyard. He was pulling out the vines, and they seemed OK to me. Anyway, I asked him if I could take a few of the vines away and replant them given they were piling them up in a heap. He said no you’d have to go and ask the owner (who wasn’t there), which was all very weird – any soil diseases there would be up here as well, it wasn’t all that far away, walking distance really. I dunno. Moving on. The ten vines we’re growing now are producing tiny clusters of grapes. Early this year we got a decent harvest of them. They’re all different varieties but are for both table and wine making use.
Exactly man, there’s no easy choice, you just have to take the best guess with the limited awareness of the unfolding situation. And hopefully grab H as well, and maybe the go-bag. That’d be handy to have in any aftermath.
Holy carp! That’s one heck of an expensive printer cartridge, but then they are that way, yup. Ah, sadly I may point out that one advantage of avoiding the fruit company stuff, is that things on that driver front are a bit more loose and so they’re more easily and readily sorted out. Hope the venerable old beastie works, and it’s side kick printer. Did it end up working? I may have mentioned the old laptop which despite being 15 years still works perfectly? My intention was to sell it off for not much coin. So I’d had the thing on ebuy for a month or two, and seriously, despite the super cheap price, nobody wanted it. Took it off the market and will just keep it ticking along for an emergency machine. Dunno.
You’d know this, and we’ve discussed the subject over the years, but one of the great ways to find out what an item is truly worth, is to put the item on the market and discover the reality. Before that moment, it’s all talk. I’m sure you’ve heard such loose talk over the years about how much such and such an item is worth?
That’s not good. Are there any reviews for the specific Blu-Ray player machine on the interweb? Sometimes they can be enlightening, and occasionally you’ll come across a solution. Oh holy carp dude! The subject is a minefield. Far out! And the players have firmware updates. My brain is now hurting…
Yeah, I’m with you there, life can sometimes become overwhelming. Although I should add that I’m kind of wired to be upbeat, but some situations just throw you into a complete pile of dog poop. Still, at such times it’s wise to take stock and consider alternative paths. Back in 2008, I’d had an absolute gut-full of the top end of town, and it left me feeling miserable. Went off and did something else with my life, and immediately felt much better. The work there was no drama, but the constant emotional load was too much for my brain, and I’d had enough. A lot of contention in such environments, usually from higher up the food chain too, and not for any really good reason that I could see. The values pushed downwards differed to my own, and that sometimes lead to contention. Absolutely, forward and away we go! It’d make a good marching song don’t you reckon: Left, left, left, right, left. One. Two… You know the rest.
My point exactly. I’d always expected to be paid for doing work. Regularly coming up with such names, maybe exciting and well remunerated, but it doesn’t seem like work to me. See, I have the wrong mindset for such heady lofty airs, and then share candid opinions, and they all ended up hating me, despite also needing me. Hmm. Not my problem.
Did you notice that the pen aisle was any smaller? 🙂 Down under, the veg store is a business that is getting harder to find. That’s unfortunate with the Club, and not right. Depends upon where the problem lays, as to who has to pay for it. If it’s a big and remote enough problem, then it’s the landlord’s issue really. I’d imagine that their toilets are blocked up as well? Crazy stuff. And in the meantime, who provides the very useful services your Club supplies? Can you guys get a church and/or other hall in the meantime?
Cheers
Chris
@ DJ – Maybe the Princess might know … is there some lyrical Native American words for “Place where the water comes out?” Lew
Yo, Chris – Hadrian’s Wall … the gift that keeps on giving. 🙂 You may have seen this. It’s a couple of days old.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/15/science/gladiator-knife-handle-roman-celebrity-intl-scli-gbr
Our high yesterday was 48F (8.88C). The overnight low was 43F. Forecast for today is 55F. When H and I took our midnight walk, it was still dry. About half an hour later, I could hear it start to rain. Rained all night. Stopped right before I took her out, this morning. I’ll keep quiet on this state of affairs. Hubris, you know. 🙂
Seems complicated, those seeds you mentioned. I just soak them in a small jar of water, over night. Seems to work. Gives them a few days leg up.
That’s the way to go. Throw the chestnut in the ground, and see how it goes. Well, I have certainly learned a lot about gardening (and a lot of other things) from this blog.
I suppose, some people have an overactive sense of ownership. Or, perhaps the worker’s boss was a real ogre, and he didn’t want to set him off. As far as value, I resort to Oscar Wilde. “A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, but the value of nothing.” Then there’s the whole something, something of previous investment. Generally, sellers have an inflated idea of the actual value of something. These day, though, what with on-line auctions, it’s pretty easy to see what something actually sold for. If you take into account IDENTICAL item and IDENTICAl condition. Which most hopeful sellers, don’t.
The printer. The saga continues. Last night, I spent about two hours hunting up my Fruit Company password. And, cleared out a lot of other dross, at the same time. So, for the second time, I pulled the whole computer / file cabinet out from the wall, and with flashlight (torch) found the scrap of paper, with the password on it. I did a couple of security downloads, and called it a night. I may (or may not) tackle the printer, again, tonight.
I didn’t check the pen aisle, while I was in the big box office supply store. I was dude shopping. In, get what you need, and out. 🙂
Back in business! I swung by the Club, this morning, and all is right with the world. Our Club manager, Mr. Bill, was fit to be tied. The plumber’s bill came to $980. After an estimate of $300 something. 2 guys, an hour and a half. What was the problem? Mr. Bill speculates that someone had shot up in the bathroom, wrapped the works in paper towels, and flushed it down the loo. So, no more paper towels in the bathroom. Hand washing must now be done at a sink, out front.
When I got home this morning, there was a food box waiting. Pretty good, mostly. All kinds of little plastic clamshells of baked this and that. A loaf of white ballon bread (both of which will go down to the swap table.) But, stuff for the Club. Cereal that will appeal to a small child, a dozen eggs, a jar of peanut butter, a tin of salmon. A ;sound of butter product. There was Thanksgiving stuff. A box of stuffing, tin of cranberry sauce and a tin of pumpkin. Two boxes of Mac and cheese. One of which I’ll keep, for my monthly fix. A small bag and a small box of rice. Various tins of fruit and veg. Not a bad haul. Lew
Chris:
Soap – I tried long ago and failed. I think it was probably that we had tried to make our own “lye” from our own ashes, and didn’t do that right. There is always tomorrow! Though I have kept my eyes out for a long time, because you mentioned it, to find some silicone molds at a second hand shop. No luck yet. What else could I use? But soup – Yes! I make soup most days. Navy bean is one of my favorites and I shall try to grow some next spring because I never have tried to do so.
All of us being GF here, our staple is rice. We buy it in 50lb bag increments.
Oh, my goodness – that’s hot! And more of it tomorrow for you. We may have had our first freeze; I’m not sure. It’s a month late.
Pam
Chris:
Thank you for this, which you offered to DJSpo. It’s wonderful.
“What do I know of cultured ways, the gilt, the craft and the lie?
I, who was born in a naked land and bred in the open sky.
The subtle tongue, the sophist guile, they fail when the broadswords sing; Rush in and die, dogs—I was a man before I was a king.”
Pam
@ Lew,
Hmmm, tough one. Neither one of us speaks much Salish. I know more of the Chinuk Wawa, aka Chinook Trade Jargon. It’s a polyglot of various Northwest Native languages (Chinookan the basis), some English, French, Hawaiin, Spanish and Russian added also. From the old fur trade days.
So in the Chinook Jargon, “where water comes out” is “ka chuck chako klagh”. To say “Hi friends” is “klahowya tillicums”.
Interestingly, I DO know the Salish word for “white man” – “suyapi”. I also know the Chinook Jargon word for “white man”. We were setting up for a ceremony at the family house on the Rez once. My youngest sister-in-law had joined the military, married a white guy from Boston with the same first name that I have. They were there also. Another brother-in-law didn’t want to confuse things by using that name for both of us, so called the other guy “Boston”. I laughed every time he called the guy “Boston”, because 1) the other guy was VERY pale and 2) “Boston” is the Chinook Jargon word for “white man”. And I’m the only person there who spoke Chinook Trade Jargon.
DJSpo
Chris,
Okay, I’ll keep things simple. Wouldn’t want to accidentally tap into something that’s confusing. 😉
Working on things, constructing things, yes, you do learn the secrets to mysteries while uncovering other mysteries. Water pipes are a great example. Very mysterious things, water pipes. Turn on the tap and water comes out, drops into a sink and then disappears. Where does it go? Hint: “away” is an incorrect answer! And if the sink drains slowly or not at all, does that mean that there’s a python or alligator in the pipes?
Yes, Dame Avalanche enjoyed the walk in the light drizzle. Heavy rain began about 5:00 a.m. today. She wanted to stay indoors almost all day. So did I. We got over an inch at the house by noon. Then more late afternoon and in the evening. A lot of storm drains are covered by leaves, so that there is a LOT of urban flooding. I got indoor chores done. Dame Avalanche slept. Except for when I sat under the patio roof drinking coffee. She almost caught a mouse then.
Meanwhile, your moving half a cubic meter of compost is WORK. The concrete step would be enough for me for a day. We should get a break from the rain late Saturday morning for most of the weekend. Probably time to rake leaves, as the snow from earlier in the week, plus all this rain, has knocked most of the leaves off the trees.
Vague. Very technical term used by automobile mechanics. 😉 Very descriptive of how the Subaru was responding and moving. Now it is crisp and sharp.
Yummy. Cheesecake. I’ve been known to have a fondness for blueberry cheesecake. Just the right stuff on a hot afternoon.
I’ve heard that quote before about being punched in the face. And it’s very true. I think it was General Patton who said, probably quoting someone else, that every army has a battle plan that ends the moment the first shot is fired. So much of life is accepting that something has changed, adapting, then moving on. I like to maintain a rigid policy of flexibility.
That 27 inches of snow was what I call “in between” or “barely powder”, but it certainly was NOT wet and heavy. The other extreme from “wet and heavy” is what I call “fake Hollywood powdery snow”. That’s what falls below -12C here. The horrendously deep snow fell at about -7C. Not quite powder, not wet and heavy. Just snow.
In addition to shoveling the driveway and sidewalks and path to the back alley, poor Cheyenne the Finnish Spitz needed paths and “personal” areas carved out for her. She literally could not get from the patio into the snow until I waded through it and made areas and paths for her.
Being an introvert, nerd and never part of the “in crowd”, I find that the “in crowd” is usually uptight, snobbish and very classist in outlook. No room for us normal people with them. That movie showed that. Not that I’d call the nerds in that movie “normal” either.
Nice Howard quote. Thanks.
Oh yeah, we’ve been adapting at the margins for years. Now the margins are much closer to the core in some areas. In other places, we’ve got more room to make cost saving changes. It’s an ongoing process.
That was an interesting song you linked to. And mildly disturbing lyrics. I also found Nick Cave’s voice to be disturbing somehow.
Here’s another ballad by Patty Loveless. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5QtQKeLmao
Much less heavy is this one sung by her cousins Crystal Gayle and Loretta Lynn. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuCENi4whRw
Yes, all 3 were daughters of coal miners. IIRC, Patty’s father is closely related to the sisters’ mother. Fun fact: the three singers and I share a common ancestor several generations back. Knowing that, and having a pocket of cash, will buy me a cup of coffee somewhere. 😉
DJSpo
Hi Pam,
Robert E Howard was such a prolific author. And years ago on the recommendation of Mr Greer, I purchased the collected works of the Conan stories, but also the hapless, tough as, but always amusing Sailor Steve Costigan. Sailor Steve was in many ways a far less intelligent character than Conan, but tended to end up in less serious troubles, his bulldog for instance had a penchant for biting policemen in Asia – as you do, but he rarely shied away from a dust up, and like Conan, usually won despite the poor odds.
Incidentally when the Conan book arrived in the mail, it was leather bound and printed on low acid paper. It amuses me greatly to consider that of all the books being printed in these enlightened times, that particular collection of stories may survive the test of time due to being printed in a robust and long lived format. The book itself has quite a bit of heft, and the author would approve of it being wielded in a bar fight, just for one random example. It’s a heavy book. 🙂 And very quotable as you now know!
Hmm. We’d never attempted using our own lye, but I’ve noted that the trick with soap production is getting the temperature differential right between the fat and the lye. The rest is easy, but it is not a process for those who are careless, that’s for sure.
Time will perhaps cure your lack. It’s a universal truth that sooner or later, everything turns up in an op-shop (thrift shop in US parlance). They used to use metal muffin trays, but inevitably you’d leave a little bit of soap on the metal, but no big deal really. Silicone makes the job far easier though. Hot knives used to cut the soap into cakes.
I reckon navy beans would do well where you are, mostly because the origins of those tasty beans are from your part of the world. They do really well here as well, and it’s a go-to dried bean. Speaking of which, it’s time to soak the beans and get them in the ground, for a monster storm is approaching.
You don’t tend to get continent wide weather systems due to tall mountain ranges and stuff. Things are different here: Major storm outbreak across Australia to follow hottest spring weather in up to 42 years.
It’s been very hot today, but I worked most of the day. Me tired.
Rice is good. But which variety? I stick to Basmati as it has the lowest sugar content – which also makes it no good for sake making. Respect for buying in bulk. Do the same here.
A month late is a bit of a worry, but then that means your growing season was a month longer, except for the lack of rain. Have conditions turned around to wetter yet? It’s hot here still, but there’s the beginning of some drizzle.
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
I must say my friend that I respect your turn towards the realms of simplicity, lest you hurt everyone’s brain here by discussing obtuse mathematical problems. 🙂
And yes, that was a very clever pun. Respect!
That’s really the thing isn’t it, and also gets to the heart of the dilemma posed to the students to: ‘fix the leak in the lab’. There’s book knowledge, and then there’s knowing how to connect up water pipes, and which variety are heavy duty enough that they can sit out in the sun, rain and occasional snowfall all year long for decades, and just work. I found out recently that in order to make some plastics UV stable, they add carbon. I’ve trained graduates over the years and more than anything, it’s been a humbling experience in that they hold up a mirror – can I get this abstract idea across and into their brains? Not always easy to do, especially whilst keeping them laughing along.
Yes, encountering an alligator and/or python when in the confines of a sewer would be not good under any circumstance. The rats would be frightening enough! It’s got the hallmark of a ripping good Conan tale.
Have you ever used on of those insinkerator machines? I’ve never used one and would probably avoid it on the basis of having another set of steel cutting and munching teeth to sharpen. There’s plenty of stuff already to maintain here, without adding more. Easier to walk down to the worm farm compost bin and wave at the stricken alligator, dump some kitchen scraps on its head, and slam the cover shut.
Man, and inch of rain is always good news, despite what Dame Avalanche may believe. It’s slightly drizzling outside right now, which is a relief after a run of hot days. It’s still 26’C inside the house, but at least it is now cooler outside. Oh yeah, unidentified organic matter during heavy storms is my personal nightmare. Things can go wrong, very quickly, so I’m hardly surprised that you’re seeing some minor flooding.
Go Dame Avalanche, and it’s very civilised to enjoy one’s coffee whilst surveying their domain. Dogs of course care little for such niceties and will instead spend most of their free time hunting. Mice are super fast.
Thanks, and well as the years get on it’s only wisdom to pace oneself… 😉 Ook! Poured another cement step today and for giggles I mix the cement by hand in a wheelbarrow, and this time around also moved a quarter cubic metre of sand and aggregate mix. Candidly it was a bit warm today, and there was a bit of whining on my part when late this afternoon we sat down for two hours and did the compulsory ethics training demanded of us both due to professional requirements. Last I checked, we ain’t done nothing wrong, but sadly it appears that some of my professional betters in the highest echelons had, or were at least alleged to have done so. Not a fan. First up against the… Hmm.
Did you get around to raking up all the leaves. And I’m curious, what do you do with them?
Good to hear. It’s amazing when vehicles are restored to their former glory, unless they didn’t handle so well in the first place, like most vehicles of say, the 1970’s era. I remember when the local manufacturers came up with the nifty idea of getting vehicles to go around corners properly – and then marketing the concept. Crazy stuff, but it happened. Mad Max’s original car came out of that sort of change.
DJ, it’s got blueberries in it, and here we are of one mind and opinion. Yum! Could have done one today, but you know, moderation is a good thing, maybe. 😉
General Patton’s speech to the Third Army, the unedited one, is an absolute ripper – he spoke the guys language. Oration is an under-rated skill in these enlightened days.
That would have been a lot of snow, and good to hear that it wasn’t wet and heavy. I’m trying really hard to imagine what dealing with 700mm of powdery snow would be like, and my brain now hurts. -12’C would definitely provoke a touch of whinging… 🙂
Poor Cheyenne, but you’d think that a Finnish Spitz would know how to handle snow – it’d be written into her core memories. Still, dogs get older and they get crunchy. Over the years I’ve built ramps for elderly dogs so they can navigate their way around a bit easier. Sir Poopy the Swedish Lapphund loved the snow. Couldn’t get him back inside the house in such weather, but on 40’C+ days he struggled despite being clipped short.
🙂 The most interesting people I’ve known, are usually very quirky, and I’m that way myself.
An interesting point, yes, the margins are very much closer these days. Hadn’t thought of it that way before. Hmm.
Nick Cave is meant to be disturbing! 🙂
Yes, all very nice, but can you sing like them? 🙂 Hehe! Thanks for the songs. Lovely stuff.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
The metal work in the Roman knife handle is superb craftsmanship. Presumably the Latin word ‘secutors’ is the derivation of the English word ‘executor’? I’d not want to face off against a guy wielding a sword and all that armour. The odds of survival would not be all that great. It’s amazing what they keep finding on those digs. Although the article mentioned the ancient knife handle was found in a river. You’d hope that the left handed gladiator had someone looking after the merchandising for him?
The weather spirits are looking kindly upon yours and H’s walks. I’ve always imagined that the lack of sunlight at your time of year suggests the underlying average sort of temperatures. It happens here as well, you don’t see a great variability between day time and night time temperatures.
It was hot here today, and is still 68’F at almost 10pm. Just took Ollie and Dame Plum outside to do their business and noted that far off in the distance, someone appears to have ignited an epic fire. The embers flowing into the night sky looked like a comets tail, but red. It’s a fair way away, fortunately. Makes me wonder whatever were they thinking? Probably that the fire wouldn’t have gotten that big. Hmm. Hopefully rain arrives soon and squelches the mischief: Major storm outbreak across Australia to follow hottest spring weather in up to 42 years. Thought it was hot…
Had a late lunch today, the pumpkin and potato casserole. It’s quite good, but we’re onto the last of the pumpkin now. Poured another cement step this morning, and moved a quarter cubic metre of sand and gravel mix (the stuff we use to make the concrete mix). Then I may have mentioned in the past that a very large US based consultant is alleged to have done some unusual practices with goobermint information. Anywhoo, not my circus, except it’s hard to fathom this, but we spent two hours this afternoon doing compulsory ethics training. Far out, go on, take another little piece of me you lot in high places! Everyone working in the profession has to undertake annual ethics training now, so best to get it out of the way. I would have preferred a nap after this mornings work outside in the hot sun. Alas, my opinions count for naught.
Wise to avoid hubris! 🙂 A strong message for all of us, really.
Yeah, well, I’ll try your method with the seed raising too. In fact both systems will be trialled at the same time on the basis that something will work. The issue I have with those particular plants is that the night time temperatures here are usually too cool, and so whilst it’s hard to believe, it is possible we’re marginal for the pumpkin varieties we do have access too. Melons are worse, and will only produce fruit on the very hottest of summers at this location.
As a general rule I avoid dogma and do pretty much what you noted: Just try stuff and see what works. It ain’t just you either, I also learn things here as well. Gardening is complicated, and one of my regrets is that I did listen to my grandfather on such matters. But I recall that he rarely, if ever watered his vegetable rows, and they were productive. It may be that we no longer even grow the varieties he had access too. Dunno, and I can’t exactly ask him now – without a lot of personal inconvenience. He grew up on a farm during the depression era, which just also happened to coincide with a drought. He’d have known how to manage a garden easy. It’d be second nature to him, but to us folks in these enlightened days, we just have to make do and learn as we go.
Thanks! That’s a great quote, and so true. Actually being able to look up the value of past auctions for items is particularly handy, although I agree entirely with both of your points. People can overlook all sorts of important matters when it comes to greed. True. Hey, did I mention that we eventually sold the old Yamaha music synthesiser / keyboard? I had no idea that the machine was so good and had a sort of cult following. It took a couple of months to sell, but the guy who purchased it and picked it up was absolutely thrilled with the purchase. One of the quotes I read about the machine was that: they don’t make them like this these days. Always nice to see things go to a good home, and we were never going to use it. Music is like learning another language, and I found that I got to a point during the learning process where I could sort see the level of effort required before me – and knew I was already busy. Hmm. Music is a harsh mistress.
Good to hear you recovered the password. What a nightmare to have the equipment and not be able to use the stuff. Such activities give me headaches! 🙂 Did you get the new driver and/or firmware installed today? I still can’t believe the software demands a password. Next it might want a credit card!
Hehe! Oh man, that’s funny. Yes, as a general rule, that’s how I roll as well. Get in, and then get the heck out again. The experience is just not that much fun, and there are other things to do in life.
There’s a bit of irony there in someone doing that particular activity, at the Club of all places. Clearly, the person in question has a bit of personal work to do. It’s a bit of a dog act, and you guys have to cough up the funds for the repairs. There’s always something new going on. And not a bad response. Long, long ago, in another house, a female visitor was having err, lady business and did not ask the Editor for assistance. Used two rolls of toilet paper instead, and blocked up the sewer. This was only discovered, the following day after the visitor had left, when we were having an open for inspection with prospective purchasers of said house. The real estate agent was pretty quick thinking, and he locked up the entry into the backyard where the sewer plumbing drama was taking place. I’ll bet your friends daughter in Idaho never had to put up with that err, poop! 😉
The food box sounds pretty decent. Do you get a public holiday for thanksgiving day? The resulting food comas might tend to push the celebration into a long weekend. I know you’ve been having issues about what to cook, has the food crystal ball revealed any pictures of clarity? I did mention roast chicken, maybe with some potatoes roasted along in the essential pan juices. Yum! And the left overs can feed you for days. There’s chicken soup. Rice with chicken. I reckon even roast potato sandwiches would be pretty good, but I’d go real butter not whatever it is that you scored in the box! Sounds like a plan?
Cheers
Chris
@ D.J. – I don’t think you can grow up in the Pacific Northwest (at least, in the past), without picking up a little Chinook trade jargon. I vaguely remember even studying it a bit, in grade school. Also, a bit of indigenous sign language. And, I think Cub Scouts / Boy Scouts touched on indigenous forms of communication.
Of course, maybe my elementary school was a bit more ethno sensitive. Being named Chief Joseph Elementary School. 🙂
“Boston Men.” Yup. Have heard that. You probably know the story about Portland, almost being named Boston. And it rested on a coin toss. That coin is on display at the Oregon Historical Society, in Portland.
“Almost Boston.” I think it was a hippie underground newspaper, way back. There was an album called “Almost Boston.” But, web searches are screwed up, as, a movie comedy called “Almost Boston,” came out this year. You know how it is. Web searches get stuck in a rut, and can’t deliver what you’ve asked for. Lew
Chris:
Thank you so much for the very interesting story about Robert E Howard. You are right about books, that the older ones were of much higher quality, usually, and will last longer than what is offered now.
Thanks for more soap ideas, and navy bean thoughts.
Looks like you may have a cool spell.
Basmati and Jasmine, though I also eat some brown rice.
Pam
Yo, Chris – There’s something about water … 🙂 Both the Romans and the Celts had traditions of tossing sometimes quit expensive bling into rivers, springs and ponds. As a religious thing. I suppose it even carries over into modern times. Tossing coins in wishing wells or fountains.
Gladiators were the rock stars of the Roman world. Some of the graffiti from Pompeii had interesting takes on the cult of the gladiators.
Our yesterdays high was 55F (12.77C). Overnight low was 45F. Forecast for today is 51F. I see Wednesday and Thursday night are supposed to get down to 30F. Maybe our first frost? Although, this year, frost seems to have little to do with the gardens. They’re looking pretty played out. Although there are still a lot of flowers blooming.
That was an interesting article about your weather. Sounds like temperatures and possible rain, are bouncing all over the place. I wonder if that far off fire was a lightening strike?
The ethics training does sound like a waste of time. Sigh. Someone, somewhere massively screws up, and everyone has to pay for it. I’ve seen it, all the time. When there were upgrades to our store manuals, it was usually due to some kind of major incident. This whole change in the HUD inspection, three feet from a heat source vs 6 inches, might have been due to a fire somewhere. Or, it might just be demands from insurance companies.
LOL. Cult followings are always good to move tat.
Haven’t tackled the printer, yet. Maybe tonight. Maybe not. Might be a popcorn night. My feelings are pretty complex. Feeling stupid, angry, frightened that I might not be able to get it up and running.
I keep getting a notice that I need to do another upgrade, from the Fruit company. Near as I can figure, it’s so my compute syncs with my dumb phone. Which I don’t have. But I suppose it can’t hurt. Might be something in there that’s vital to the running of the computer.
I’ve had the same thing for dinner, the last two nights. Rice, half a can of diced tomatoes, half a can of black beans, half a green bell pepper. A little corn. Etc.. A splash of vinegar and a few dollops of plane yoghurt. I guess that makes it savory, which I like.
The populace seems to be divided into two camps. Those who think the landlords should pay for repairs. And those who know through experience, that they usually don’t.
Yes, Thanksgiving is an official holiday. And Friday is Indigenous People’s Day. Sort of an optional holiday. The library has always been closed, the day after Thanksgiving. The unstated reason being, so the Ladies could shop the Black Friday sales. This Indigenous People’s Day gives them cover. 🙂
Still not feeling the urge to do anything out of the ordinary, for Thanksgiving. Culinary wise. Lew
Hi Pam,
The author recounts rollicking tales of the underdog facing insurmountable odds, and then triumphing. Mr Howard had an outstanding work ethic and was prolific despite his short life. The Great Depression would have been a difficult time for authors of pulp fiction, and financially he had a rough time – as was common in that era.
So true, and my pulp fiction paperbacks from the 1950’s to the 1980’s are not looking all that great these days. You’d have seen the yellowing of the paper and the glue holding the bindings starts to give away? Perhaps in as many years again, the books would help to feed the compost worms. My little secret is that the Jack Vance completed works (a lot of books, also a prolific author) is printed on low acid paper, and may avoid that future fate. But what will the future make of the stories?
🙂 I’ve avoided doing a soap video mostly because of the caustic solution you mentioned. But, with a bit of care, the process is easy.
Far out it rained over night and for most of the day. The air is like a tropical jungle right now. Thick and heady with the aromatic scents of the forest – particularly eucalyptus oil. Quite nice.
Those varieties of rice are my choices as well. Good stuff.
Cheers and better get writing!
Chris
Hi Lewis,
That’s my take on the world as well. Water is a major motif in music, even in today’s enlightened days. Mr Greer may suggest the Rhinemaidens have something to do with that, but I’d hazard a wild guess that the theme goes way further back. Water of course is life, and I suspect that our species moved out of Africa way long ago due to a change in the climate, and a search for water. Who penned that famous line: ‘water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink’. Man, the story of that stricken carrier in the Pacific during WWII and the sharks, plus the three days of immersion, left an impression, that’s for sure.
It’s been dry here for weeks now, and the grass was just beginning to turn yellow. The storm arrived overnight and the weather station here is recording about three quarters of an inch, with more to come this week. It’s positively tropical out there now. But before the storm, I was looking at the water levels in the tanks and wondering at what point we shift into water-saving drought mode. It was a close thing, as is the case with resources from nature.
The solar power system barely scraped an hours energy from the sun today. This technology cannot run an industrial civilisation.
I’d imagine that being a gladiator was a rough training arena where only the toughest, clever and lucky survived? Talk about honing of the combatants. Makes me wonder if the legions didn’t take on such champions as mascots and um, energy for the troops?
The frosts will arrive sooner or later, but that’s what I’ve noticed down here, if the frosts don’t take out the plants, the lack of energy from the available sunlight will. As much as I dislike hot days like the past couple have been, the plants need the heat to grow. It’s just kind of unpleasant to experience.
It is possible that a lightning strike caused that epic fire, but I tell you what, it wasn’t called in. Fortunately the rain overnight and into today would have put the fire out – and there’s more to come over the next week. The climate here has suddenly turned towards the tropical. A truly stormy couple of weeks are in store.
Hmm. I’ll write about the course this evening. It was penned by academics and they made some astounding claim about living in a ‘post truth world’ whatever that means. It sounded like a big call and raises the question: can they themselves be trusted? They also said something about artefuchal unintelligence. Honestly, I’m just interested in the plants and was forced to take the course, but whatever dudes and dudettes. I just do what I’m told…
🙂 Hehe! Yes, if only we could tap into cult followings with some unnecessary and high margin product, our fortunes will surely be made this time…
Sorry to hear that, and you have my sympathy there. Such troubles leave me feeling pretty unhappy as well. If I may share a little insight into the situation: It needn’t be this way, but far out, it’s unstoppable. I’ve asked myself such questions over the years, and can only suspect that something, something, dodgy acts in a past life. What else do you do man?
Ook! Upgrades are always a bit problematic. Had to do one on the website tonight because it had become slow to load for me. And the macrosnot people flashed a window up yesterday telling me that support for my version of wunderwindows will cease in less than a year. They didn’t quite mention that there is a option to pay for a further three years, which I’ll do because this computer wont run the latest version. And around and around we all go, where it stops, nobody knows. Best of luck dude, and sending you some positive energy.
Sounds like a tasty meal to me, which ticks all of the boxes. We’re doing a salad for dinner again. Works for me.
Hehe! Everyone has an opinion as to who should cough up the mad cash for repairs. The paperwork usually settles the finer details of the argument, however, and here is the conundrum – in order to force the compliance with the paperwork, the toilet may be out of action for a longer than either you, or I, or anyone normal for that matter, to cope with. Sometimes the amounts have been shelled out, and the equal amounts are deducted from the regular payment, but it depends.
Happy Thanksgiving and Indigenous peoples day and I’d aim for the long weekend option. Public holidays are of little meaning to me mostly because nobody picks up the tab for those in my circumstances. Oh my! You piqued my curiosity as I had no idea what Black Friday was, and so did a search, and talk about brain over load… I didn’t know it was a thing down here as well.
I get that, but what about fish nachos? 🙂
Cheers and better get writing. Oh my, I’m so late tonight.
Chris
Yo, Chris – Samuel Taylor Coleridge. (1772-1834). “Rime (apparently, they didn’t have spell check, back then) of the Ancient Mariner.” Somewhere, in my early academic career, some sadistic teacher assigned that we learn 24 stanzas (our pick) from that poem. Could have been worse. Might have been “Casablanca.” “The boy stood on the burning deck…” 🙂
Our high yesterday was 52F (11.11C). The overnight low was 43F. Forecast for today is 46F. Our luck ran out. Last night, H and I got very wet. This morning? No rain, but pretty breezy. Sounds like it’s pretty muggy, in your part of the world. A highly scientific and technical weather term.
“Gladiator 2” hit our theaters, this week. I’ll wait for the library, to get it. I also discovered that “Wicked” is “Wicked” part 1. I’ll wait until they cough up part 2. I can’t say I’m particularly excited to see it, but, I figure it will be a cultural reference, for a long time. I did read the book, years ago. I there’s no flying monkeys, I’ll be disappointed. Nothing can beat the original movie, “Wizard of Oz.”
It was a popcorn night, last night. I watched “Godzilla, Minus One.” I have no idea what the title means. I thought it was quit good. Different, from the usual run of those movies. It takes a more humanistic view. More character development. It kicks off with a young Kamikaze pilot, who has a run in with Godzilla, right at the end of WWII. There’s quit a bit of how hard life was, in post war Japan. Most of the other movies, gloss that over. Worth a look.
“Post truth world.” Newsflash! People lie! 🙂 Looking forward to your take on “the class.” Careful. Don’t get yourself in trouble.
There are people that spin fortunes out of nothing. They’re called influencers. 🙂 People also make a lot of money, by beating the drum for out-there conspiracy theories.
So, the American custom of Black Friday, has even spread down there? People have been injured, or even killed in the stampedes. You may remember I watched a horror / slasher / serial killer movie, a few year’s back. “Thanksgiving.” (2023). The serial killer is triggered by a Black Friday stampede. His victims were dispatched by such gruesome methods, that I had to fast forward through some bits. Can’t say I really recommend it. Watch at your own risk.
I thought about shrimp nachos. Might do that. But I’d have to source fresh shrimp, somewhere. As tinned shrimp has not been seen in a long time. Or, maybe, I’ll finally break out that can of Spam, and do Pineapple Spam.
But, this morning it’s oatmeal and fruit. If I want something to eat, for breakfast / lunch, tomorrow. Lew