At High School my favourite classes were Accounting in years 11 and 12. The teacher was a real hard nut, and refused the use of calculators in all but the very final state based exam, and then only because he didn’t have an option. He was a bit of a character too, and also the schools discipline master. That meant he’d run the after school detentions. Somehow from time to time, I’d end up in those, and I’d be forced to hand write out the school rules. A handy way to keep the skill of producing cursive script – at speed. For some reason, he’d always accuse me of arrogance, although who really knows what he meant by that.
Despite the crusty outer exterior the teacher presented to the world, he was alright. Some folks put on a grumpy demeanour to hide their softer inner nature. I on the other hand was apparently arrogant. Whatever! Anyway, the dude did instil a solid grasp of the fundamental principles of accounting (and cursive script). There’s a real beauty to the abstract system as it was revealed to me in those days. I’ve never forgotten that either.
With nothing better to do with my time, I pursued a career in the field. Little was I aware in those days, that my grandfather after the war made that choice as well. My older sister eventually got in on the act too. These sorts of hereditary diseases have been known to travel in family clusters, and such may be the case here. Did I mention Sandra’s career choice? Hmm.
One of the appealing aspects of the profession, was the possibility of quietly sitting in an office, pouring over data and systems whilst trying to herd the numerical cats into a meaningful outcome. For the classic introvert Jedi, the call of that narrative is strong. The reality is far different – the dark side of the profession. You have to deal with people! And some of them can be as demanding as a Sith Lord, on a bad day.
Turns out that in addition to learning about numbers, systems and stuff, I then had to learn about people. Candidly, my parents were probably not the best role models, and so I’d always cast my net further afield in attempt to become a better version of myself. It’s been an interesting journey. And ah, it’s amazing what fascinating mentors are out there in the world waiting to assist should a person but care to step outside their comfort zones.
Despite the perception of arrogance, from early days I made a pretty good boss. People seemed to enjoy working for me, although similar support from further up the food chain, was rarely forthcoming. After two decades, a bloke discovered his limits, and then went off and did something else with his time. That’s how I ended up working with small business. It’s a nice space, and due to crass economic reasons, people don’t muck around there.
Saturday had been the culmination of a few rather hot days last week. It’s not unknown, but it has actually been many years since spring weather has pushed at the 37’C / 99’F limit. Before lunch, we worked outside in that heat. The afternoon was then yawning free. Except Sandra mentioned that the hot afternoon would be the perfect time to do the compulsory two hour ethics course. Yawn, a nap was looking like the better option. Unfortunately, the training had to be done before the end of the year, or else.
Sometimes a dude has no choice, then man’s-up and gets on with the work at hand. Despite the low motivation, my general knowledge of systems whispered in the dark crawl spaces of my mind, that the professional body folks were going to check up on this matter. As a bit of background, there’d been some sort of high level alleged scandal, and now every accountant member has to complete annual compulsory ethics training. Last I checked, the situation had nothing to do with us, or small business. However, it’s been remarked upon elsewhere that Sith Lords can be rather arbitrary in their demands for obeisance.
Fortunately the ceiling fan spun around and around on the otherwise hot and sweaty day, thus keeping my cool. We both sat through the hours of training and passed the exam, an enviable achievement. There was a sense of relief for having completed the training because it would have been so easy to procrastinate, and the yawns were hard to ignore.
Much of the material seemed to have been prepared by academics, which is fair enough, it is training after all. But there was one unusual observation made, and it was that we are now in a: ‘post truth world’. Nobody told me about this. My mind read the sentence, then blurted back into the conscious chunk of grey matter: What did they just say? Yeah, apparently we’re in a post truth world, whatever that means.
Still don’t know what it means and frankly speaking, I’m genuinely afraid to type the words into an interweb search engine! Hey, these things are recorded you know. Imagine this scenario, there I am all innocent and stuff, assisting the police with their inquiries (a polite term for interrogation), when they pull out my search history: Can you explain to us why you were doing a search on the subject of a post truth world? I’d break out into a guilty sweat for sure, lesser people would spill the beans.
Far out. The vast majority of people working in small business are kept busy with the expediencies of buying stuff; selling stuff; and keeping the mad cash rolling along. Over the years I’ve had some amusing and genuinely funny conversations with people in small business, but nobody has ever raised their concerns about living in a post truth world. It’s a farcical idea at this level, and truly, if I were a Sith Lord, I’d put those academics to hard work, like I have to do.
Regular readers will know that it’s been rather dry here for the past month or so, but today it rained gloriously! About three quarters of an inch fell over the farm, with more to come later in the week. It’ll be a very stormy and tropical week here. The rain is a good thing, because the storage levels in the house water tanks, had dropped to about half. A bit of worry given summer has not yet officially begun.
However, very early in the week, the days were cool and dry. Looking at the forecast for the days of hot weather, then followed by stormy weather, we spent two days bringing in next years supply of firewood. That work involved, splitting pre-cut rounds, then hauling and stacking the firewood under cover. Another two, maybe three days of work, and the job for all of next year’s supply, will be done.
We’ll have to wait now for the weather to dry up again before that firewood job can be completed. Speaking of rain, some of the work done this week had to be covered over with plastic so that it didn’t end up becoming damaged. Another two cement steps were poured on the new concrete staircase leading up from the sunny orchard and into the courtyard behind the house. Rain can pock mark the surface before it dries.
It’s the growing season here now, so all of the plants require a feed. They’re hungry those plants, don’t under estimate them! A trailer load of compost stuff (it’s a mix of sand + fine mulchy compost + mushroom compost) was brought back to the farm.
Many of the vegetable beds were given a good feed with the stuff in the photo. One of the round raised vegetable beds has been given over to growing strawberries. My friends of the big shed fame astounded me last year by producing a good harvest of strawberries. They were ruthless with giving the plants plenty of room to grow, and also cutting off any runners. An enviable example, and perhaps we have been far too soft with the strawberries in the past…
Long term readers will recall that a month or so ago, we removed a large wormwood shrub from a garden bed. That move was part of the ongoing Rabbit WarsTM. Much of the plant was used as mulch on the soil. It’s been interesting to observe the growth of many of the new plants in that bed. Four rhubarb crowns were planted into the soil, and they’ve thrived despite the hot and dry weather (and lack of watering). Also mint seems to be popping up as well. The plan from here is to keep the vegetation in the bed low in order to thwart the rabbits.
Some of the compost-ish material was used to feed the six garden beds in the citrus and vegetable enclosure. The row of radishes and sugar beets are doing really well. Even the Japanese ginger which was roughly planted, is thriving. A nice weed to have.
In breaking produce news: Apples have all put on a lot of size this week. The earliest won’t be ready to pick until about after Christmas, but we watch the birds activities. Our avian friends tend to begin to sample fruit about a week or two before it is ripe. They really should learn some patience!
A peach tree which has only been in it’s location for about three years, has produced a goodly quantity of fruit. Sun ripened peaches are simply superb tasting, and we grow a few different varieties.
Pear trees don’t produce as large a crop as apples. The fruit is good though, and even better, if they are picked at the correct timing, they’ll ripen off the tree. Pears are a bit unusual like that.
We’re not far away from the beginning of the raspberry harvest. Most of the fruit will be stored in the freezer until we get enough berries to produce a batch of raspberry jam. A true delight in the winter months slathered on freshly baked hot bread. Yummo!
The earliest of the stone fruits are always the cherries, but the birds are dirty for them, so we hardly harvest many at all. The next stone fruit to ripen are the apricots, and it looks like after four years of nothing, we may finally get a decent haul.
A few years ago, I obtained some seeds of the North American pawpaw (Asimina triloba). As a fruit tree, it’s rarely seen down here, but there’s no reason it shouldn’t grow well. Four seeds germinated. One seedling died, two are thriving, and another I thought it had died. The trunk of the fruit tree was cut back hard, and the roots have sent up a replacement trunk. It’s exciting!
The many large elderberry shrubs are now in their rather pungent flowering stage. It’s an epic stench, but not as stinky as when you make up a batch of elderberry wine, as we did today. Interestingly, earlier today I saw a guy by the roadside harvesting the flowers of feral elderberry plants. He looked like he knew what he was doing.
This weeks video is all about experimenting with different growing techniques:
Onto the flowers:
The temperature outside now at about 10am is 15’C (59’F). So far for last year there has been 799.0mm (31.5 inches) which is up from last weeks total of 783.2mm (30.8 inches)
You might want to shade the pawpaws until they are 18in high, as they are an understory tree…
Yo, Chris – Maybe the teacher thought you were arrogant because you’re of the ginger persuasion. 🙂 People have some funny ideas, about gingers. “Strange visitors from another planet…” 🙂
I’d heard of the truthiness thing. But I didn’t get the memo, either. Had to pick it up in the street! The memo probably went to the same place as your auto renewal notice … and, the water bill. There’s been a few times where e-mails seem to go astray, for days at a time.
Well, if you want to throw off “Those Who Watch,” you might do a search for “agnotology.” Hmmm. Root word, agro? “The study of culturally induced ignorance or doubt.”
Is the water tank half full, or half empty? Optimism or pessimism? What I want to know is, what’s the interesting plants growing around them. Giant ferns? And, as long as we’re clearing up mysteries, what’s that blue thing, stuck in the middle of your wood pile? Moisture meter?
Wow. Your steps are looking good. One or two is kind of ho-hum. You’ve now entered “flight of…” territory.
I’ve got to tackle our communal strawberry bed. But there’s so much going on, right now. I’ve got a couple of bags of good garden soil, and half a bag of composted chicken poo, to work in. Along with a bit of blood and bone meal Then I’ll separate runners and get them re-planted.
Wow, that’s really looking like a bumper crop of fruit, this year.
Apples, pears, apricots, and peaches. A regular fruit compote.
The paw-paw that rose from the dead? Keep an eye on it. Might be a zombie.
This week’s video was very good. Though the permaculture folks will probably be on your tail. Luckily, you never uttered the word, and stuck to “food forest.” I thought the video was good, as it was more about … method and emerging philosophy of growing stuff. The idea that growing stuff isn’t engraved in stone, and depends a lot of local conditions and circumstances. Such as, cover for rats and rabbits. And though you didn’t mention it, those could be a draw for snakes.
The flowers are all lovely. The rambling rose appears to have few petals, so, perhaps an old variety.
You might find this article interesting. Farming is becoming viable, in Alaska.
https://www.npr.org/2024/09/13/nx-s1-5002049/climate-change-farming-alaska-native
Our new breadbasket. Lew
Hi Gerry,
Many thanks for the good advice. Your observation agrees with what I’m seeing with the two survivor pawpaws, and I’d not known of their origins. The two surviving and healthy plants are in the citrus enclosure which enjoys morning, midday, but not the late afternoon sun – which can be the hottest part of the day here. You’ve answered the question as to why that particular third seedling died back, and I’ll put some shade protection over it – plus significantly deepen the soil it’s growing in.
Right now though, I’m trying to get my head around two continuous days of rain, and pea soup like conditions. It was 99’F only a few days ago… Now it is very wet. The climate here has shifted yet again. Every year it appears that the variability of the climate is in fact increasing.
Do you grow any of these pawpaws?
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
You’re not the only one asking the hard questions as to why. The Editor was also stirring me up about that arrogance matter, and your guess sounds about right to me. Pure ginger jealousy, and nothing more than that. 😉 But seriously, and honestly, it’s not arrogance if a person is right, is it? Hehe! Far out.
Actually I enjoyed the teachers methodology because he was very old school and drilled the basics so that the core subject was known, and he retired the year I finished High School. Nothing but good memories there, except that somehow one of the other students always did slightly better than I. Nothing wrong with being second best, but early on I was troubled that there was some inherent bias going on within the school with the results, but no. The independent state wide exams confirmed the same result – second best in the subject by a mark or two. I did try hard too! Sometimes acceptance is a wonderful state of mind. 🙂
All very true about gingers from another planet, and back in the day, people believed in UFO’s. Last night I was reading about the X-15 project and if I’d seen one of those machines flying around, I’d have called it a UFO too. I might be wrong, but one flight got to Mach 6.7, and that feat has not been equalled for something like 60 years. My how we’ve progressed.
🙂 My paid-for email server is so old school that it would be difficult for messages to be lost, but there is always the first time. But what you say is true, nobody told me about this truthiness nonsense either. Is it important, I dunno. Does it affect me? Probably not. Incidentally, the Editor has expressed a desire to read the ‘Straight and Crooked Thinking’ book which Inge recommended long ago. It’ll be very interesting to discuss the quite concise summary of techniques, plus the book was first published almost 85 years ago. I doubt humans have changed all that much since those days.
Bravely, on your suggestion, I ran a search on the topic of agnotology. My vocabulary has expanded, but as per the previous paragraph, people are pretty much the same as they were several thousand years ago. I quite enjoyed the book on argument furphy’s mentioned above, and now see them everywhere – but always was it thus, at least in my lifetime.
Hmm, I like where you are going there, and would suggest that the water tank is half full. 😉 But just between you and I, earlier in the week I was wondering if I should order and pay for a truck load of water before demand became for the stuff became so great that the company wouldn’t accept the order? I’ve never done that before, but the storages were dwindling.
You’ve got an observant eye. Closer to the tank are two rough tree ferns (Cyathea Australis) and on the left hand side of the photo is an example of a soft tree fern (Dicksonia Antarctica). The rough tree ferns grow much faster, but the soft tree fern is no slouch either because I leave a constantly slow dripping source of water for it.
The blue thing in the middle of the wood pile is a metal brush pan. After each load of firewood is stacked, we clean up the loose material on the ground, and use it as mulch in the adjacent garden beds. Waste not, want not, or that’s what the old timers used to say.
The concrete staircases get used a lot, and one thing we’ve learned here the hard way over the years, is to provide easy access to areas, or they won’t be maintained. That’s the original formwork too, so all of the stairs are of the same ‘rise’ – the technical term for height. You can tell when any stair tread height is a little bit off. You feel it automatically. Have you ever come across a stair tread that was ‘off’? Thanks!
If you discover how to work the strawberry cycle from one year to the next, please do tell me. Those plants do really well, then nothing. Candidly, there are easier plants… It’s all a bit of a mystery to me, and for all I know, the rats are eating all of the berries. Dunno, a mystery!
Fingers crossed we produce enough fruit to meet everything’s needs this year. Fruit compotes right now include Babaco, Pomello and Alpine Strawberries. Yummo!
An undead fruit tree – now my brain really hurts! Man, I already cut the head off, and it’s still alive, more or less. A zombie plant, far out, we’ve all experienced some of those. Scary stuff.
Oh thanks so much for the feedback. Appreciate that. And that’s exactly my point, and you do encounter such forces of nature. People have great growing success in one environment, and then make the claim that they know all environments and the gardening technique is equally applicable. Don’t think so. I only know here, and the systems we’ve trialled. And some of the ideology implemented earlier was a giant bunch of dog poop for all the trouble it wrought. I’m sure you’ve encountered the dreaded, true believer?
I’ll continue the video theme next week showing other areas of the farm and the systems. Snakes are of course hopefully elsewhere, but I do try and be alert for signs and indicators of their presence. Here the local birds do some sterling work.
The climbing rose came out of nowhere, but agreed, the flowers do look like an older variety. Hmm. The rain over the past two days (which incidentally has not stopped) has caused harm to the older school rose flowers, but not the newer varieties.
Thoroughly enjoyed the article, thanks! Given the folks there import apparently 95% of their food, it’s a good idea locals are trialling growing plants in a changing climate. Seriously, people used to say when we first bought here a bit under two decades ago, that growing citrus in this mountain range was not possible. The trees thrive here, and have done so for many years. Best just to try stuff and see if it works out. I’d imagine that there’d be people in northerly parts of Europe and Asia who’d have something to say to the locals there about growing food.
Note to self, don’t shoot helpful birds. The rime of the ancient mariner is an interesting tale with supernatural elements. Isn’t rime a salt reference? Best you’d not be involved on that fateful journey, and it was odd that the mariner survived the travails. Casabianca on the other hand should have jumped into the water whilst he had the opportunity to do so. I’d only ever heard the bawdy versions of that poem.
Wet and cold, is not good, but at least both H and your good self can grab a towel and put it to good use. Getting drenched would have felt cold. Took the dogs for a long walk tonight, and we all ended up wet, but as you note, it was muggy and 63’F with no breeze to speak of. It rained all day today (and yesterday) so ditched plans to work outside and instead did paid work. Seemed only appropriate. Oh, and the forecast is suggesting a storm will arrive tomorrow. Goodie!
Hehe! Did you happen to slip in mention of a musical? My mind floated away, like those monkeys! They’ve been talking about that film on the radio, and one presenter mentioned that he was of your opinion in that how could the original film be beaten? I might not subject myself to the film, you know, musical and stuff, but please do chuck in a review when you get around to watching it.
Whoa! The Godzilla minus one trailer was intense. The title makes no sense to me either. The minus one creature looked as though it lacked nothing in destructive power. The effects were great. Yup, life in that country would have been very difficult post WWII as well as in Europe, on all sides.
Avoiding getting into trouble was (and is) very much on my mind. I envy your country’s free speech amendment to the constitution.
It’s hard to know who’s truly independent these days. Rest assured, I’m not taking mad cash from anyone for this forum (or the utoob). The article on leaf change tourism in the eastern part of your country mentioned something about paid influencers attracting visitors to an area – too bad if you live there. I was talking the other day with a lovely local who’s observed recently that a nearby swimming hole is being taken over by people from out of the area.
Yes, I’m getting swamped with Black Friday advertisements. Unfortunately for me the name is suggestive of a really bad historical wildfire of epic proportions. Appreciate the warning, my brain would struggle with such images.
Nothing wrong with pineapple spam. I have tasted this very long ago and was quite pleased with the results, although it was cooked on a griddle over an open fire – so there was an element of rusticity to the process. Shrimp nachos are sounding equally tasty too, and have an element of sophistication.
🙂 Gotta keep on top of the day to day processes.
Hope the storm is not too bad tomorrow. Crazy weather. The house batteries have not filled for three days now. Yes, solar renewable energy, all very good and stuff in theory, until the weather turns against you.
Cheers
Chris
Hello Chris,
Post-truth only works in bureacrazies and for haughty positions.
Us lowly people who work in the soil have truths and facts staring in our faces all day long. If I tell a dead tree that it is not dead, it makes no difference. On the other hand, in my notorious past office career, I would sometimes conjure a powerpoint presentation to explain that the last projects seemingly abject failures actually were an impressive success that led the corporation to new heights.
Each echelon on the ladder removes a big chunk of truth.
This pattern is common in all dictatorships, of which corporations are one kind.
Madoff-style schemes with post-truth accounting are usually short-lived, and that is nothing for us lowly reality-people.
Up here in Scandinavia, the government has not much debt, but has instead convinced the populace to take on huge real estate debts to finance “growth” on its’ behalf. Our currency volume (M3) has grown 300% in 20 years. And they claim with a straight face that the total inflation has been something like 30% in this time. That sounds post-truth to me.
This week-end I finally got around to watch your latest seven videos. I love it. It is great that you share what works at your place and what doesn’t. And how you think about the different tests you do. Not as detailed as Claire, but quite good anyways.
The tours of the farm help to get a better perspective of how it all fits together. The separate photos on the blog are difficult to stitch in my head, so the tours help me to better fathom the scale of everything and how it is all connected.
The only thing I could not understand is who is the “bad old uncle”? 😉
I like the slightly longer format (like the sake-making tutorial) and would be interested in watching you make elderflower wine, can tomatoes and process your summer bounty.
Up here, the trees have now shedded all their leaves and tree planting season is in full swing. We have our farm store open on Saturdays and it is great to meet new people every week-end. I am maybe a bit of extrovert, since I love hearing the stories of their gardens or farms and how they want to improve their place with a majestic walnut tree or a convenient hazelnut bush.
Sometimes I get photos from customers after a couple of years, when they share how well the trees grow. (And sometimes, quite seldom, when trees die…)
I had a strange realization last week, when I heard the latest news from the Ukraine situation. Russia launched a new space-travelling ballistic missile (ICBM-style) onto a the small town of Dnipro, and they called it Oreshnik – which I know means hazel. Why would they name a killing missile after a life-giving tree?
Madness.
Anyways, off to the fields!
Peace,
Göran
Hi Göran,
The weather here is crazy. A few days ago, the maximum temperature reached 36’C, and it’s now rained solidly for two days, and a storm is forecast for tomorrow, and the day after, and also the one after that etc. Over the next week, rain will fall over the entire continent – everywhere. It will be a most excellent thing to head into summer with full water tanks and damp soil.
It’s been remarked upon elsewhere that getting one’s hands in the soil is less abstract than worrying about the concept of ‘post truth’, whatever that actually means. Perhaps they were talking about organic growing methods and soil remineralisation efforts? 🙂 You’ve clearly had some interesting experiences there in workplaces, and I dodged that by leaving those sort of work environments in 2008, which is well before the time when such fads took a persons attention away from actual work tasks.
Too many levels of hierarchy can fail just as easily as too many chefs in a kitchen can lead to err, personality problems and clashes. Yes Chef!
The return on investment for the increased debt burden just hasn’t been all that great from my perspective. That sort of growth in M3 in your country is possibly not a good idea, and down here from 2015 to today, it looks as though the same M3 variable has doubled. Either way, history suggests the inevitable outcome of these types of policies so candidly I don’t really know what they’re thinking pursuing them.
Man, I watched the inflation of the housing bubble take off in about 1997. Some days are pivotal moments, and at that time we’d attended a local auction for a house (that’s a public form of a bidding war – which is how many houses are sold). The price received at auction was much higher than anticipated, and deep down I knew what it meant. What has surprised me, is that the bubble has continued to be inflated for so long. It’s actually an impressive achievement. The story no longer makes any sense to me. The median house price in this country – that includes everywhere on the continent – is now just below a million dollars. That amount of mad cash doesn’t buy you what it used to – and that’s looks like inflation, but you know that already.
Thanks very much for the feedback. Just between you and I, Sandra and I are trying to work out what formats and narratives work on utoob. Some videos such as the sake, had a ready audience. Others like the local parrots consuming the dogs manure, are sheer entertainment, again with an audience. But truly I don’t know, and so now we’ve begun doing something different by forging our own path.
Claire has an exceptionally good and rigorous approach, and I have learned so much over the years from her scientific methodology and tests. And am very much in her debt for pointing me in the right direction in this matter. Soil tests in this country are very expensive, and so I’m attempting to incorporate a similar result, but using trial and error instead. The plants seem to be growing well.
The bad old uncle bit is pure entertainment! As are the dogs doing their usual mischief in the background.
I like the kitchen videos too, and may return to them in time. This week I plan to make a tiramisu, but won’t record it, or maybe I should? Dunno.
Ah, winter will soon be felt in your part of the world. I look forward to seeing the photos of your place covered in snow. Looks amazing.
Hehe! It’s good that all of us have different personalities. I’d like hearing and sharing stories too, but would then require some quiet down time in order to recover 🙂 – that’s what it means to be an introvert. I’ve noticed over the years you have an ability to create social networks which are very impressive.
Strange things are afoot in that war, but it may well be settled soon, possibly not to anyone’s liking. Dunno. Learning to be a good neighbour is difficult for some folks of all backgrounds.
What’s the hazel bush ever done? Actually I’ve got a little container of last seasons hazelnuts sitting in front of me just underneath the screen. I directly planted a few many months ago and intended to raise the rest in the greenhouse, but will probably just roast and eat them now.
Cheers
Chris
Hello Chris
I shudder to think what ‘post truth world’ means.
We have had a sprinkling of snow followed by endless sleet and rain. Then the temperature went from 32F to 62F in 24 hours. The wind had moved from north to south.
Son encountered a man using a chain saw to cut up a fallen tree. The chain was loose and Son said that it was likely to wrap around the man’s neck like a duchess’s pearl neckless. He spoke to the man about it but said that the fellow wasn’t much interested!
Inge
Hi Chris,
I have no idea what “post truth” means either, unless it means that the person who used the term is post brain cells, say from them being eaten by a zombie. 😉
Now ground truth, that’s another thing. Ground truth from here is that the official weather station still hasn’t recorded a low of 32F, although my location, which is a bit cooler, reached it on 23 November. It turns out that the latest official date for the first 32F reading is 27 November. But it sounds like we will just miss setting a new record, because tomorrow (26 November) the low is supposed to be a bit under 32F. Darn! And it looks like we will just miss setting a new monthly rainfall record as well. The current total is in 2nd place, but we aren’t supposed to get enough rain to beat the record for the rest of the month. Double darn!
Yesterday was very warm, a high of about 22C / 71F, near but not quite a daily record. Triple darn! I got everything but the arugula harvested. By this coming weekend it’s supposed to be mid January level cold; that would kill everything but the arugula, thus my haste to harvest.
Your seedling’s leaves do not look like Asimina triloba, sorry to say. American pawpaws have smooth-edged leaves, not tooth-edged, and they are huge. See this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asimina_triloba. I think the original seedling you planted was something else, not pawpaw.
I’m glad you are getting rain to refill your water tanks! The land still looks quite green despite the warm and dry spring you’ve had. Go the fruit crops!
Claire
Yo, Chris – The person in the number one slot, was probably some kind of an idiot savant. With poor personal hygiene. 🙂 Number two in a state wide exam, is nothing to sneeze at.
Well, you’ve cleared up a mystery for me. Sadly. When I was a wee small lad, on the school ground, I saw something metallic flash across the sky at an incredible speed. I’ve always thought it was a UFO (which are now called UAPs, “unidentified anomalous phenomena.” I can only assume that’s because everything that moves, seems to be rebranded, these days. For no apparent reason. The dates for the test flights, fit. Oh, well. There was that one other incident …
The tree ferns are just lovely. Ah, a metal brush pan. I had a plastic brush pan, that I’ve had for decades. Somehow or another, it recently went missing. 🙁 I thought maybe I’d left it out by the gardens, as, I sometimes get a bit sloppy, and sweep off the top timber on the raised gardens. Of course, it could be floating around somewhere in this Jenga game I’m currently living in. But, I broke down and bought another one, the other day.
Oh, I’ve run into off stair treads, from time to time. I just take unknown stairways, very carefully. It’s funny what our feet can tell our brain. Such as, that slight dip in the hallway, outside my door.
Some people don’t take into account micro-climates and soil. They just take into account the VERY broad planting zone charts, and think all will be right with the world. Never mind our crazy climate, these days.
So, the climbing rose just showed up on its own? You didn’t plant it? I wonder where it came from?
Stories like the one from Alaska, well, I find them encouraging. I do know that prices are very high, in Alaska. Always have been, due to transport costs. But, wages are very high. And, for a long time, any citizen of Alaska got a cut of the oil money.
Our high yesterday was 46F (7.77C). The overnight low was 43F. Forecast for today is 50F. It was raining, last night, when I took H for a walk. But it was dry, this morning. There may be frost on the horizon. Maybe.
Well, I’m still stuck in techno hell. I’m beginning to feel like Dante. The second ring of Techno Hell is printers. Or, maybe Virgil’s trip to the underworld. I spent another three hours, last night, wrestling with the printer. I even watched a few U-Tub troubleshooting videos. No joy. I finally came to the conclusion that, I had a lemon. And, not the tasty kind.
So, I went back to the big box office supply, this morning, and bought another printer. I think I was talking to the manager (a very nice, helpful man), and, he assured me that I had done everything I could possible do, and that, yes, I probably had a lemon. The new printer cost me less than the two cartridges, for the first printer. I’ll try and get it set up, this evening.
There was a slight, silver lining. Somewhere, along the way, my computer upgraded its OS program. Did they ask me? No. Was I informed? No. My first clue was when my screen saver, which had been views of vineyards (Sonoma County), was suddenly replaced with a view of some very big trees. Sequoia. Yup, the OS upgrade I was not looking forward to, has been done. Doesn’t seem to be much difference. I think it has more to do with dumb phones, and such.
Anyway. Once more into the breach! Lew
Hi, Chris!
I see now – you can’t help yourself being attracted to numbers; it’s in your genes. But how does that jive with not being good at maths?
Is there a charge for that ethics training?
A typo? Most truth? Almost truth? Cost truth? Lost truth? The meaning is definitely lost.
Half mast is not good . . .
Lovely steps. You have that process down pat.
That’s nice, dark compost. The apples really have grown a lot, and the peaches and apricots. The fruits are looking very good.
When do you prune thornless blackberries? Ours are like octopuses right now.
My goodness – those elderberries aren’t shrubs, they’re trees. I’ve never seen any that huge.
Thanks for the video. I enjoy them very much. Now we can be really sure just how much you love Rats and Rabbits.
The succulent flowers really pop out at you! Gazania, roses, and geraniums, too – the colors of the week are magenta and purples. So beautiful – thanks, Uncle Chris!
Pam
Back before Gutenberg, and Luther, and all that crazy disruption in the 15th century or so, truth was handed down from generation to generation by carefully scribed books inked by patient monks. That truth was then promulgated by the men of the cloth, and it was good.
(I’m talking western civ., but it went down similarly all over the world).
Then those two jamokes mentioned above came along with easy replication and a different take. Now one could share abundantly any alternative to the official storylines. We now have radio, TV, internet with thousands of sites , millions ( billions) of users (all with opinions), and corporations with algorithms of greed. ( We always say algorithms, but it’s really algorithms of greed).
News Bulletin for Chris:
We are well and truly post truth in the mediasphere. (that’s not a word, but it should be). Even in the nascent days of television, Walter Cronkite, the epitome of trustworthy reporting (fond memories of those simple days), had an agenda, but no one else had the bandwidth to disagree. ( well, no one had bandwidth back then, but I digress……)
Anyway, media of all sorts has been weaponized to the point that I truly hesitate to trust ANYTHING of the printed or audio sort. Granted, some things I sort of trust much more than others, but have been burned too many times to let my guard down completely, and that’s a sad thing.
I often wonder if our polarization is an unfortunate byproduct of the ease of anyone being able to toss something into the world with no check or edit function ( or morals for that matter). OR, multiple factions intentionally poisoning the well to create the tribalism and uncertainty. Either way, a reverse seems unlikely till the internet and broadcast media shut down at some point during the descent.
(didn’t mean to get dark, but this is a big deal. The recent election cycle was breathtakingly brash and baldfaced about disregard for truth. So it goes)
But you are right, what happens right in front of us is truth. Touch it, smell it, hear it, we are animals after all. Our senses kept us and our forebears alive because they reflected the real world around us.
One of our neighbors died last week. He was a young man(39) and died while building a house. A piece of equipment got him.
A well liked man, deeply connected to the local community, so this weekend, aside from meal trains and go fund me’s, a firewood brigade was organized, with big trailers, many chain saws, and literally dozens of people cutting, splitting, hauling and stacking firewood for the widow and their two young daughters. She will have heat for several winters I estimate. Myself and the others who actually heat with wood marveled at the amount of wood we stacked up for her in such a short time. We know how much effort and time a single man would have taken to do that.
Patsy made chicken pot pie, salad and chocolate chip cookies for the meal train tonight. The new widow was our chicken sitter when we would run off for a weekend, bringing her two girls with her to do the simple chores while we were gone. There may come a day when she does that again, but not for a while.
OK, my wine glass is empty now, time for bed soon.
Hi Inge,
It’s an odd claim for an academic to have made, because in my mind, the golden rule of ‘do unto others’ then comes into play. If the academic posits such claims presumably about other peoples words, then how are we (the independent thinking folks), going to view the academics perspective on the matter? The same standard must be applied to the academics claim, lest the person lose all credibility.
To my mind it raises the awful question as to whether the academic wished to take control by becoming the arbiter of what item is truth, and what is otherwise. I make no such bold claims, and still have no idea as to what the term meant, although have read more than I care to know over the past few days.
Interestingly, Sandra has begun reading the most excellent book you recommended to me many years ago: Straight and Crooked Thinking. The first edition of the book is almost 85 years old now, and very relevant. Thanks so much for mentioning the book as it has shaped my perspective, and also honed certain intellectual tools.
Oh yes, being on an island to the south, much like being in a sudden mountain range here, the prevailing direction of the wind, will very much determine the ambient air temperatures. It’s positively tropical feeling outdoors today – and very humid. Yet last week I was cogitating upon the idea of ordering in a truck load of water (an expensive option which I’d prefer to avoid).
I absolutely agree with your son. The chain should not sit too loosely on the bar lest it detach at high speed with awful consequences. However, a little bit of an eerie whisper suggests that if the chain was that loose and still in operation, it was not as sharp as it might be. One lack of understanding with that particular tool, suggests to me that the finer points of operation of the machine overall are outside the ken of the person wielding it.
Inge, I’m almost, but not quite, embarrassed to mention that I have eight chainsaws of various types, and maintain all of them to a high degree of working standard. And wear appropriate safety gear when operating them. Anything less than that approach, can end up badly for the operator.
The ability to purchase such a dangerous machine, does not equate with the skills to own and maintain such a beast. Your son is absolutely correct, but equally correct to walk away when the proffered assistance is disregarded. The things I’ve seen over the years as well…
Cheers
Chris
Hi Claire,
The post truth claim is a very shaky and dubious claim, which raises the awful spectre of the golden rule of ‘do unto others’ which in all good faith, apply equally to people making such claims. Fortunately you and I dodged that particular trap, but despite wide reading on the subject over the past few days – I still have no idea what they’re talking about either. 😉
Dodging zombies is the best explanation of the term I’ve yet encountered. Total respect! And thanks very much for the laughs.
Ah, sorry to say it, but the weather gods sadly moved against you to deny two (or is it three?) lots of weather related records. 🙂 Better luck next year. But did you really want to experience the wettest November on record? Did the officially recorded frost arrive as per the scheduled forecast? The rainfall readings I provide are from the ‘official’ weather station over in the more fashionable western end of the mountain range (which is not all that far away as the magpie flies), so they differ slightly to what I experience. This year has been marginally wetter here, but the results are within an inch, so who cares?
Claire, your weather is not far off what we’re experiencing right now! 22’C is extraordinarily warm for a month shy of the winter solstice. Wise to harvest everything you can with that particular forecast in the immediate future. It is a universal truth that frost damaged mush makes for poor eating.
Oh my! You’re right. The seed seller lied to me. What the heck are these plants then? The seeds looked the same as the ones in the photo, but as you correctly point out, the leaves are completely different. There are catkins on the strongest growing plant (not flowers), so I’ll put a photo in next week – and hopefully someone can identify the plant. Thanks for letting me know.
Thanks! When the levels in the water tanks get low at this time of year, that’s a worry. The rest of the week is forecast to be stormy and warm – thankfully. I’m yet to get the Cucurbits in the ground outdoors, and may start the seeds in a yoghurt maker so as to provide a constant 30’C moist environment for a couple of days.
I’ve learned a great deal about soil and especially appropriate plant spacing from you, I now see the results in the forests. Always interesting to shift an understanding.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Pam,
You’ve got me there. 😉 It’s odd isn’t it, but here is the truth of the matter and you can make of it what you will: At primary school (years one to six) I was around, but never quite, the top of the class. In high school, years seven and eight, my mother sent me to a school for disadvantaged kids (Ardoch High School). Let’s just say that the curriculum was from my perspective, rather experimental. Now my mother had, I believe, undiagnosed borderline personality disorder. Trust me, she was a very difficult person. My grandfather, seeing how the wind was blowing and observing the story from afar, stumped the mad cash to send me to a private school for years nine to twelve) where I’d get ‘An Education’ in the old school sense of that term. So I started that other end of the spectrum school in year nine (a very unusual year and I was one of the only new kids) and had to learn to survive the social system there. Academically, I’d unsurprisingly dropped to the bottom quartile (in only two years!), an impressive achievement. In maths class, being a new kid, I ended up inadvertently sitting next to the school bully through an utter lack of comprehension of the social order. Three lost years was too much for my inclination to catch up upon, you have to remember I had a lot of other lost ground to make up for too. I have no innate gift with maths, but can apply myself if needed. There were simply other streams of education to tackle.
At university, I earned High Distinctions in the subjects of statistics one and two, which long ago some cheeky wag suggested was maths for dummies. Yeah, sure, whatever. Navigating a culture of organised after school fights was much harder I can assure them. 🙂
So, now you know! Possibly I’d been very bad in a past life, and now have to make amends, which I’m happily doing.
Pam, your brain is super switched on. That’s a great question! So of the ten hours of ethics training over the next three years, three hours are free. The rest, not so much. Hmm. Someone is making mad cash, somewhere. Technically the strategy is possibly known as a bait and switch.
I dunno what the academics were talking about either – but then I don’t watch much television, so maybehaps that’s the difference? If I’d cheekily suggest it, the academics should perhaps enjoy a digital-detox holiday from the media?
Thank you! It’s always a real pleasure to have access to a new set of stairs with which to access steep parts of the garden.
The sand and soil business has a lot of different compost and soil mixes, and that one in the photo is quite good, although I can only guess at what is in there. It’s just fortunate that our society is so wasteful, that we can go and buy compost at affordable-ish prices, and people generally view the stuff as waste. Makes you wonder what else is going to waste…
Oh! We pruned the blackberries in winter, and absolutely, the effort was 100% worth it looking at the plants now. We also thinned the raspberries by a third, although it’s hard to tell that now.
🙂 Elderberries are like weeds around here. They’re huge and almost small trees. My only regret is planting them next to the back door. The aroma is hard to ignore.
Hehe! Let’s go huntin’ some wabbits! Actually at this stage I’m hoping the owls and foxes get on with that job before I have to act. The rats are in check, for the moment.
Thanks! The flowers are lovely, aren’t they? 🙂
Has it greened up at your place? And have you had your first frost? Hopefully all the figs are now under cover, and I’ll be interested to hear how your greenhouse is going this winter.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Thanks for the laughs! I almost spat my chamomile tea all over the keyboard and screen whilst reading your comment. You might be right there! 🙂 Fun stuff. Accounting Theory at Uni was the only subject I’ve ever topped, and was awarded a prize and a useful letter of recommendation for. The subject just made sense, and it covered the social and historical reasons behind why the profession does what it does. Kind of a bit like a history of ideas relating to accounting. It’s more interesting than you’d care to imagine. Your early rail roads and tycoons had a bit of an impact on the actual methodologies employed. I’ll bet those lot loomed large over the land in their day.
Glad to be of assistance with mystery clearing efforts. 🙂 It amuses me that the manned machines from almost sixty years ago, outperform today’s lot. And why ever would the aliens wish to be rebranded as UAP’s? People generally know what you’re talking about when the acronym UFO is mentioned, but sadly the latest incarnation (who asked for this really?) sounds like a particularly nasty urinary tract infection.
The other incident sounds intriguing, and also very funny! Yes, it was alright, before the incident.
Tree ferns are so ancient looking in a garden. I’d be surprised if some of the ones here had not ended up in your part of the world? They may have. I know that the UK grows plenty of them. Long ago, and way before my time, there used to be a book store in Melbourne which had a fernery which customers could sit in on hot days and enjoy the books for sale. Millions of books, monkeys and an orchestra — the story of EW Cole and his Book Arcade. I vaguely recall mentioning this story to you years ago, but it’s still a great story, and I’d have loved to have visited that store.
🙂 Sometimes the simplest of tools are useful, and brush pans and shovels are an elegant technology. And use the brush for similar purposes. I tend to purchase metal pans, which are harder to find these days. Have you got all the stuff for auction ready to go yet? Ouch, they might not pick up until next month.
There’s a real art and science to making stairs so that our minds can adjust properly to them. Just one tread rise being different, is easily picked up on by the brain, as you’ve clearly also noticed. Presumably the floor just outside your door is concrete? The blokes pouring and levelling such materials do their best to make them flat. Nature sometimes has other plans for that liquid rock material. Dunno about you, but I’ve heard of builders using a floor levelling epoxy material once the concrete has set and cured.
I agree, the generally accepted planting zones don’t apply here either. It’s an indicative guide, but people can get stuck on actual numbers. The climate here is closer to the island state across the strait, than the rest of Victoria. And good selection and local breeding can produce plants that survive in unexpected environments. It’s far more complicated than most people would tend to believe. And yes, the climate has shifted in my experience.
It’s possible that we did plant the climbing rose, and then forgot about it. That’s been known to happen. It could also be a self seeded variety? Dunno. Feral rose bushes do turn up here.
It is encouraging the story from Alaska as to what the folks there are trialling. That’s the future, and as people get hungry enough, the practices will spread. It wasn’t all that long ago, and certainly within my lifetime, that people kept productive gardens in the back yards. The practices really died out in the late 1970’s, but the past is in fact the future.
I’d read about the cut of the oil mad cash up there.
Oh no! Have you escaped the techno level of hell, and beyond? Hey well done for working out the problem – the printer was f#@udged! It’s great that the machine was replaced. Never encountered a lemon printer before. Yikes! The author Cory Doctorow to refer to the degradation of online platforms and the American Dialect Society selected the same word in 2023.
Tidy work dodging any hiccups with the operating system upgrade, which you didn’t ask for. At least that machine is working.
Had vegetable soup and bread for dinner this evening. Where’s my gruel? 🙂
Cheers
Chris
Hi Steve,
Thanks for the excellent and thought provoking comment. Sadly I worked in the big smoke today and got home late and have run out of time to reply. The dreaded mid week hiatus is now in force! Shall reply tomorrow, but until then, it’s bedtime. Me tired and looking forward to the Christmas break from work.
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – Accounting theory sounds a bit like a prerequisite class you had to take, to get into library school. It was called Libraries and Society.
Think of all the opportunities for one-upmanship! 🙂 “They’re not called UFOs, anymore. They’re called UAPs. Didn’t you get the memo?
I remember you mentioned Cole’s. They don’t make men … or buildings like that, anymore.
Shovels. Yup. Elegant old technology. This is a little old, but you might have missed it.
https://www.newsweek.com/exceptional-3500-year-old-wooden-artifact-discovered-archaeology-1977501
Wonky stairs, and the senses. I’d guess the inner ear, throne of balance, also has something to do with it.
After a three hour struggle, I got the printer to spit out some labels for the auction stuff. So, a total of ten hours of my life, gone, just to get a printer set up and working. A good thing, too. I see the auction started posting pictures of things for the New Year’s Day sale, yesterday. They’re scheduled to pick my stuff up, on the 9th. I’ll give them a call, Tuesday, to reconfirm.
I was a bit concerned, about H. She didn’t eat or drink anything for about 24 hours. She was her usual perky self, but it’s a mystery. Maybe she decided she was getting a little rotund, and put herself on a 24 hour fast? Might be a doggie religious observance?
It was 50F (10C), yesterday. Overnight low was 41F. The forecast for today is 48F. The forecast for later in the week, was for possible frost. Those temperatures have been revised up, a few degrees. Out of the frost zone.
I had garbanzo beans, rice, garlic, corn and dried tomatoes, for dinner. Etc.. With a bit of cider vinegar, yoghurt, and Swiss cheese, to jazz it up, it was quit tasty. Lew
Hi Chris,.
Well it’s one of “those” weeks again. I’ve only had time for a quick read and a skim of some of the comments. After your reply to Steve I went out to check out what he wrote and , yeah, what he said. My twin granddaughters went to college this fall but not to the same one. One of them, Abi, told her mother that she wished there wasn’t the internet as no one wants to do anything. The other, Anna, said no has a sense of adventure. Apparently there are tunnels under her school and a tour was offered and she couldn’t find anyone to go with her. She did go anyway, though.
Marty is improving but still in the nursing home. Luckily this one is so much better than the past one. As expected his insurance plan has decided it’s time for him to leave in two days even though they have no real knowledge of his condition. We’ve decided to pay for an extra week out of pocket at $300+ a day to be sure we have any help he’ll need set up. He really shouldn’t be living alone but there’s no other option. Looks like at least January for him to move into the assisted living facility. Needless to say he takes up much of my time. I found in his mailbox a notice that he was to pick a Medicaid Managed Care plan by November 28th or one would be picked for him. After some research my sister found they one he would be in by default had the worse reviews. Of course one has to see if his doctor and medical system are in the plan. No one seems to know anything but at least we found the one his doctor in included in. So after a long phone call much of the time on hold we finally got him signed up but they would only take his current address at the nursing home. We need to call them again when he goes back home. So the saga continues. There is more in the family medical saga but I’ll end here.
Weather has turned quite cold but no snow which is helpful as the Thanksgiving holiday weekend is upon us.
Margaret
Chris,
Post truth world? Ugh. As Claire said, perhaps zombies? As in too many people have become too many zombies? Or maybe there’s a lot of people in academia and high level positions who have been afflicted by brain worms?
I do remember about 20 years ago. A person very high in our Federal government said that he controls the truth by stating something, whether factual or not, and repeating it often enough that it BECOMES truth by the endless repetition. Maybe that is what “post truth” means?
Ethics training? UGG. We had similar things. The video courses on our PCs were soooo boring. The unit on sexual harassment was especially bad, we all agreed. Why? Because the videos, in teaching us what not to do, actually showed us how to harass.
The worst was the 2 hour class, held in an auditorium, about “Violence in the Workplace”. It began with a video of a guy stomping into his cubicle, throwing a pile of files into the wall, flinging himself into his chair which then crashed into the wall, ending with his pounding the desk with his fists and cursing. The narrator then said, “If someone near you in the workplace acts like this, they are a candidate to become extremely violent. Any such behavior should immediately be reported to your Risk Management department AFTER you call the police.”
Upon returning to our desks after the training was over, my work neighbor (an accountant) and I talked about that opening video. She and I BOTH did such things 4 or 5 times a day. Each. We concluded that if we didn’t stomp around and throw files, mutter curses and pound on our desks, then we would get violent. In fact, many of us thought that way. And we all said that in our reviews about the training. Oh, and with the additional comment that if our managers weren’t all a bunch of Sith Lords, perhaps we wouldn’t have to vent some steam regularly.
Your new steps are coming along. However, their intended destination is not entirely visible. Makes me think maybe you’re finally constructing the stairway to heaven? Or is that the one that has the gargoyles at the top?
Succulents and roses. Beautiful.
The problem Cheyenne had with that epic snowfall was that she was 17″ at the shoulder and had to look up at this impenetrable ridge of snow. Once I showed her that it could be got through, she was fine. Still needed me to flatten out some spots, but she was able to cope after a start had been made.
“Yes, all very nice, but can you sing like them?” Well, there’s the rub, isn’t it? I can sing fairly well. Got paid for singing at weddings a few times. If I could sing half as good as those women, I would’ve been able to make an ok supplemental income singing. But, no, I pale in comparison talent wise. A second strike also exists: I’m not even 1/4 as good looking. 😉
DJSpo
Chris:
That was rough going in that last school. What was the point of it? I couldn’t do statistics; you are way ahead of me there. I’m afraid I didn’t pay much attention in school. If you can easily pass tests, and I could do that, then you can skate through. It was after I got through with school that I really started learning.
I don’t know. Not so much bait and switch as forced compliance at your expense. That’s not serfdom, but it’s not right.
Probably 90% of useful stuff is going to waste.
Good news for the blackberries, I hope, since it’s almost winter. In fact, I hope that I shall be allowed to prune them back soon so that I can get around some of the beds they are next to.
It has been a very green and beautiful autumn here, even without much rain. The figs had better be under cover as we are about to have a stretch of below-freezing weather. My son and my daughter-in-law have been working so hard to get that accomplished.
Ouch! Yesterday I was pulling my little wagon up one of our steep slopes and I tripped and landed hard on my right knee. It swelled up to the size of a baseball; in fact, it is still the size of a tennis ball, but feels ever so much better. I wouldn’t want to mention that putting ice on it yesterday and then alternating ice and a heating pad today has helped immensely because, of course, it would not be right to suggest such a thing unless someone asked their doctor first about it. I also have some marvelous stuff that I put on such injuries, but I won’t mention that either.
Pam
Hi Steve,
It’s not everyday that 63mm of rain falls, 50mm of which fell in less than 20 minutes, and at 6am this morning! That was a fun way to wake up and get outside into an early start for the day. At least the air was warm at 18’C. A truly strange day where I feel as though I’ve somehow been teleported into the Amazon rainforest.
Back to your missive though. I don’t doubt you, and nowadays I merely scan the articles fed to me and read the ones which are of interest. It’s worthwhile asking the hard question: How has commentary become news? And is commentary the purported analysis?
I envy you your experience of the media in their slightly more trustworthy days. As a young bloke I was simply too busy with hours and hours each night and weekend homework and school sports, and then full time work and part time Uni, to take much of any notice of the media. Star Trek Next Generation episodes used to run at 11pm on a Tuesday night, and that was during the recession of the early 1990’s, and that was about the only television I had the time to watch. Of course, friends lived across the road, and dropped by to watch the show cranked hard through the stereo system. The poor neighbours…
However, the first share house I resided at were quite horrified by the original war for oil, you may remember that episode? So the household of five people, got together and marched with about 300,000 other people protesting the war. Man, we brought the city to a halt that day. It was awesome, and I’d not ever experienced a similar communal feeling until years later riding a motorbike with a massive crowd of other riders (on a huge and very loud Yamaha XV-750, what a beast!) at a Christmas rally in support of sick kids. Didn’t make one dog poops chunk of difference sorry to say. The war went on, the sick kids were better funded, but didn’t escape the hand that fate dealt them.
But I agree with you. The media has an obligation to present nuance to the public, lest it sign its own death warrant – which it may have. And so here we are today.
The recent election in your country had people down here all riled up as well, and whenever the subject arose I diverted the conversation to more local issues. Candidly speaking, can’t say I’ve won any friends by that cheeky tactic, still I’ve avoided adding to the enemies list, and that’s a freakin’ good thing. People have such hair trigger reactions these days, makes the sensitive bloke a touch nervous. 🙂
But yeah, like Tom Bombadil, my concerns are the local wombats, wallabies, gliders, roos, echidna’s etc. With the storms forecast today, last night I watched from afar a huge old wombat hoovering up some of the mineral rich herbage prior to the rain. The larger affairs further removed are doomed and that is the underlying message of peak oil.
Oh Steve, I’m so sorry for yours, and your communities loss of someone who’d impacted upon all of your lives. It’s always unfair when the young and motivated are snatched away leaving us elders to fill in the gaps and do what needs doing as best we can. Truly yours, Patsy’s and your neighbours efforts are an awesome act of kindness in a dark moment.
The new widow and kids may need community connections in a dark time.
Machines are wonderful tools, but they can also inadvertently multiply problems. I’m not mucking around, if I’m having an off-day, I put those tools down, whatever they are, and go off and do something else. The ‘gotta go do it’ drive can turn out very badly sometimes. And please extend my condolences for the loss.
With sympathy
Chris
Hi Margaret,
🙂 Hope things settle down for you and also that Marty’s situation stabilises.
I do rather appreciate your cheeky in depth analysis! And got a few chuckles from your words. Thanks for that.
Hope the twins are coping with being separated? I guess such things have to happen sooner or later. But, there are plenty of people who don’t wish to spend every waking moment online. Your college world is such a different experience to how Uni was for me – being part time at night after a full day of work. My peers and I just got in, did what needed to be done, then got out again. Candidly, and it’s probably a personal failing, but I wouldn’t know what to do with all the free time a sort of college environment might provide. Have the twins thought of getting some part time work? That’ll introduce them to new people who are different to their college peers and maybe give them a wider world view. Dunno, just a random thought.
Far out, respect. That daily bill will add up, but will be very good for Marty. It’s been my observation that care plans are the sort of things which possibly provide a continual flow of income. I’ve read that your health system has the highest cost per capita of any other country, and yet are the outcomes all that great?
Glad to hear that the snow has politely stayed its hand. Almost two and three quarter inches of rain has fallen here today, and much of that was under twenty early morning minutes. It’s like a jungle out there…
Cheers
Chris
Hi Pam,
That’s such an interesting question, and it’s one I wonder about as well. Yes, the early experience certainly means something, and what exactly was it preparing the students for?
Lucky you! I make no such claims and have to seriously work my backside off in order to achieve good grades. 🙂 Glad that we’re all different. Candidly, doing further study nowadays simply irritates me. Haven’t I done enough already to satisfy the powers that be? Apparently not. Oh well, moving on. There is a concept and I now forget where I read it, but it described the difference between ‘book learning’ and ‘learning by doing’. Both have their places, although I do encounter many claiming that they know, yet they may not be able to convert their knowledge into concrete action. It’s a funny old world we live in.
Yes, you absolute called that correctly. And I won’t mention the courses which take two hours, yet only accredit you with one hour. Like what the… Is it an indictment on the value of the course, or my time? Maybe… A mystery, but rest assured, I did not ask for that halving.
Maybe elsewhere, but not here! 🙂 Anything arriving here which was once alive, gets incorporated into the soils. Fun fact: Did you know that cardboard has useful amounts of boron in it? Plastics used in packaging are the biggest waste, but can release a lot of energy.
Hehe! That’s been my observation with those blackberry canes as well. Turn your back on them, and they’ll take over! Possibly related to Triffids. Last summer was so wet and cold (which later turned hot and dry towards the end) that the canes produced very little fruit. This year will be better. It rained almost three inches today and woke me up super early at first light. Crazy stuff… I was already tired yesterday… Oh well.
Fingers crossed that all the figs are under cover before the freezing weather arrives. And Pam, you sounded a bit like Dirty Harry there. 😉 Even I was feeling mildly nervous – had the fig moving job been completed in time? Guess we’ll find out. Good to hear that your son and daughter in law are getting the work done.
Oh far out, that’s not good. Has the swelling reduced today? I tell ya truly, accidents can happen so quickly. Hmm, that’s something I wonder about as well. My old Sensei was a noted healer and used to work in sports physio and had accreditations. He was a big believer though in the use of heat, but was pushing against the grain there. Personally I enjoy sitting in a hot bath after a hard days work and letting the heat work it’s way into the muscles and joints, but everyone’s different and the official advice is otherwise.
And I don’t believe that down here in this one minor difference, that I’m subject to the same restrictions you lot are talking about such matters. Turns out some speech is not as ‘free’ as others… Makes you wonder, huh? 🙂
There’s more rain to come over the next few days, and I might go into summer with full water reserves. That will be a most excellent thing.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
It’s a good idea to comprehend why a service is being demanded and paid for, and libraries would be no different at a guess. Plenty of folks in the goobermint may have forgotten that detail. Did the class cover the historical forces which produced a library as we know it today? Nothing ever emerges in a vacuum of actors, needs and consequences.
Pah! Don’t recall asking for the change in acronyms. Surely aliens from outer space don’t require a rebranding? And hold serious doubts that they would have requested the change. Dude, do I take the challenge and type the ‘why’ question into a search to see what rubbish is returned? Hey, the info might mutate into human form – you heard it here first! Noooo. All the best and most interesting changes are apparently courtesy of your goobermint. So it wasn’t the aliens requesting the change. 🙂 You’d imagine someone was paid handsomely to implement the change? I liked the old UFO’s.
It was a beautiful building wasn’t it? Quite welcoming and human scaled – and designed for human enjoyment. I’d have spent money and time there as well. You’re not wrong about that, the bloke who ran it had a gift. Here’s a little bit more about him, a very interesting person: The completely true and absolutely bonkers story of Cole’s Book Arcade. When I was really young, my grandmother had a copy of one of those Coles Funny Picture books, and I used spend hours reading it. I’d not realised at the time that the book was decades old.
Man, I don’t think that they’re going to let me use that wooden shovel any time soon. 🙂 It’s pretty awesome to consider that a wooden object has survived for that many millennia. As a wild guess, the folks who made it, left their tools in that location so as to save them the effort of carrying the items backwards and forwards to their village. The area apparently has no signs of early occupation and was only seasonally used, and it would have been more important to carry back produce than tools. Dunno, just a hunch.
You’re probably right, but truly I can’t tell which sense is letting my brain know that a stair and/or floor is wonky. Might be a combination of senses? Dunno.
Speaking of floors. I picked up a powerful belt sander the other day. It’s a beast of a machine. Anyway, the plan is over summer to begin sanding back some areas of the floor inside the house and recoat it with tung oil. I’d been tossing up the idea of using linseed oil, but the tung oil looks like it will be hardier. Given the last coats were put on the floors fifteen years ago, the oil is pretty hardy. Did you ever use wood oils on some of the furniture restoration jobs you did?
Whoa! Ten hours you’ll never get back, sorry to say. What a pain, and I’m not mucking around, I’ve never encountered a dodgy printer out of the box. That’s a new one to me, and you’d hope that it was an isolated experience?
Best of luck with the auction mob, and you’ve dealt with them before, so it should be ok, but wise to check up, just in case. Turns out though, people are beginning to notice just how much life admin is being pushed onto people by companies: Life admin means most of us are working a ‘parallel shift’ and often paying for the privilege. Someone has come up with a natty term for the burdensome work. I very much appreciated the ‘hassle factor’ being mentioned. Not a fan.
Hope H is OK? Dogs are usually unwell when they go off their food, but sometimes they can also do odd things – and yeah, maybe it is. Is she back on her food today?
It’s getting late, and I worked late again this evening. A bit over two and two thirds of an inch of rain fell today. It woke me up at 6am and I had to head outside with an umbrella and keep the water tank inlet filters clear. Almost two inches fell in twenty minutes. It was feral out there. On the plus side, the water tanks are almost full, and might well be before next week. Far out!
Dodging the frost zone, but the lack of sunlight will slow growth. But at least you avoid the frozen mornings. The climate is a bit wacky.
A nice dinner, and had a vegetable lentil pasta meal tonight. Yum. Man, I can hear a bird outside calling. That’s weird, and I suspect that there is some mischief afoot. Might go outside and have a look.
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
Yeah, I’m also thinking that zombies in search of brains are at the basis of this new fangled theory. But your new brain worm hypothesis sounds plausible to me as well.
It’s funny, well maybe not, that you mention this matter. But I took the dogs for a long walk earlier this evening. And during the walk, an insect fly into my eye. What a nuisance. Anyway, had to walk home blinking a lot and flush it out. As you do, I was imagining that the insect was some sort of burrowing critter which was going to go through the eyeball and directly into the brain. You see, it all comes back to brain worms. 🙂 I think I flushed the pesky thing out of my eye, maybe…
Haha! The high up bloke in the fed goobers probably missed the old timer saying of: ‘pride goeth before a fall.’ I must add that I’d also heard that claim made, and it sounds ludicrous, and rather arrogant. He may have forgotten that us folks have personal agency, and might blithely ignore his nefarious plans. Sometimes there is strength in apathy.
DJ, I can only but salute your stoicism, and for the record I’ve never sat through a PC (presumably correct?) presentation and training. Might explain a thing or two… So are you actually suggesting that you learned how to appropriately harass? Spare a thought for me, there’s an added complication here, I work with my wife, who in the professions terms in which we operate, outranks me. I made the joke years ago to someone that sexual harassment is a policy in our workplace, and it completely fell flat. The reaction was not good. Didn’t quite say I was awful, but you could see it in their eyes. See I missed the PC training you did. How was I to know? They tell me that timing and context is everything with the professional comedian.
No! DJ, such a waste of time. Conan would have thumped the both of you, but probably wouldn’t have caused you to feel such emotions in the first place! Sith Lords would be a completely different experience. Badderer, yes – this is known. Did you know that being able to swear is a hallmark of the profession? You were working with a true master of the skills there. 😉 Sometimes you have to know how to utter an expletive in a way which let’s out a little of the tension.
Very funny. Yes, that is if heaven is the courtyard behind the house. 😉 No gargoyles at the head of these stairs, this is a whole new point of access.
Even Ollie would have had some issues with 27″ of snow. That’s so much that my brain can’t actually process the experience.
Total respect, because I can’t sing at all, so you’d be miles ahead there. Did you enjoy getting out there and performing? And there is of course always that issue. Yep, we’re at a disadvantage there. True.
63mm of heavy rain fell today. 50mm of it fell in 20 minutes at 6am. Not my finest hour, but I had to head outside and keep the inlet filters clear. All I can but hope is that my replies here tonight, make sense. It’s not much to ask for, is it?
Cheers
Chris
Chris:
You’ve stayed in business; that should be enough. It shows that you have experience and know what you are doing.
You’re the one who told me about boron in cardboard, which is why I like to use it in the garden.
My knee is much better today, though still swollen. I won’t be climbing the ladder to put up Christmas lights yet. Funny – I did incorporate a hot bath with Epsom Salts into the treatment, though, of course, Epsom Salts might not be safe for everyone. Ask your doctor.
I see where you were speaking @ Lew: Tung oil is hardier in my opinion. We’ve only used it on furniture, but we used it on our dining room table 41 years ago and it still looks pretty good. I wish we had used it on the floors.
Pam
Chris:
I forgot to mention that I have seen a baby Bluebird and a baby Red Headed Woodpecker. This is significant because I have never seen such young birds here this late in the season. I hope that they will have enough to eat if they are unable to fly south this late. It has been a mast year for acorns and the woodpeckers are gorging on those. I don’t know what the Bluebirds are eating. We have had a whole lot of bugs around with the continuing late warm weather, and the garden has seeds, but is about to turn very cold, as I mentioned further up.
The woodpeckers are extra interesting. There is the adult red headed one, the baby one, and one the size and coloring of an adult, but its head is pure black. The internet cannot tell me if this is a stage before it becomes red. That would be very strange though, because it would mean that they had had two broods really close together.
Pam
Yo, Chris – Well, really, really late, today. I’m settling in to respond, in the evening. Usually, I get up, brew a cuppa, a short e-mail to my friends in Idaho, read whatever you posted, walk the dog, and then respond to your post. Everything was on track, until I came back from walking the dog. Your site would not load. And, neither did some other sites, or, they were really slow. So, internet problems, of one type or another. My wi-fi signal was strong. Tomorrow is the holiday. Holiday traffic? Who knows. Things seem back to normal, tonight.
We have a yearly UFO festival, here. I don’t know how long it’s been going on. It’s at our local historic society. I’ve never gone. I’d guess it’s sort of because, back in 1947 a pilot saw a UFO, up toward Mt. Rainier. And that sort of kicked off the whole UFO craze.
Thanks for the article on Cole’s. If I were of the same temperament I am now, I’d guess Cole’s might put me off, a bit. Too much of a circus atmosphere. Although there appeared to be quiet nooks, one could retreat to. I found the picture of his wife, quite interesting. My, enough antiques to fill a tat shop. Just behind her I see a lot of glass epergnes. And it looks like quit a few glass baskets, hanging up behind her. Fenton made a lot of those … and so did just about every glass factory that did any kind of “art” glass.
I wonder if the ancient shovel was used for digging peat? That stuff really preserves organic items. Including, a lot of bog bodies.
I can’t really add too much about wood oils. I never used any, in restoration projects. That I can remember. I was more a shellac and varnish type of a guy. 🙂
Well, looking around on the internet, the brand of the first printer, doesn’t have such a hot reputation. They’re the one’s who trap people into a subscription for ink … and if you don’t keep up your payments, can brick your computer. “PC Magazine” did a review of the best printers. The bad brand wasn’t even mentioned. The new printer I got was right at the top of the “best” list, as far as dependability goes.
Oh, my. That was quit an article about “life administration.” I don’t see anything changing, until everything falls apart, and we begin all over again. There are consumer protection agencies, and some private groups. But it looks like a lot of them will be gutted, or neutered. Just as big business prefers.
At least you folks don’t have to navigate (as near as I can tell) the labyrinth that is our health system. Margaret gave you a taste, of that. And the Medicare part D, which covers drugs, also has many, many plans, each different and owned by different insurance companies. My Idaho friends actually pay some guy, to help them navigate all the systems.
H started eating and drinking, again, after about 24 hours. Still don’t know what was up with her. Though talking to other dog folks (and, people with kids), it’s not unusual.
Our high yesterday was 48F (8.88C). The overnight low was 41F. Forecast for tomorrow is a high of 48F. There’s been a bit of rain, but more a heavy mist. It sounds like you’ll be able to top off your water tanks, and not have it trucked in. A win.
Last night, I had my monthly Mac and cheese fix. There was a box of the “good” stuff (a relative term.) I added garlic, frozen peas and broccoli and some of my dried tomatoes. There was enough left over for a second go-around, if I feel peckish. 🙂
In news of the world, the cost of vanilla extract is probably going to go up. Mexico is one of the 5 leading producers. And, due to weather, they lost 80% of their crop.
I noticed a new book, on the library list. “Falling in Love at the Movies: Rom-coms from the Screwball Era to Today.” (Zuckerman, 2024.) Thought you might be interested. I’m not. Now, if it were musicals … 🙂
I don’t think I mentioned that I watched that documentary, “Scrap.” It was really interesting. Did I link to the trailer?
I also watched a movie, called “Arctic Convoy.” I think it’s a Norwegian film. Subtitles. During WWII, there were ship convoys, between Iceland and parts of free Russia. Materials, from the Allies, so they could fight the Nazis. The convoys were guarded by the RAF and other British forces. The British stuffed it up (reason unknown) and protection was withdrawn. So, the 30 some ships were told to scatter. Only about 1/3 of them, made it to Russian ports. The rest were picked off by Nazi aircraft, u-boats and mines. A really engrossing and interesting movie. Lew
Chris,
There’s another way of looking at it. Not zombies. Not brain worms. A bit of a story first to get us there…
Our master carver who recently died had a series of off the wall carvings. All were hand carved and painted as necessary. All looked very very very realistic. One was a bunch of bananas. One had been peeled halfway down and had a bite out of it. Title: Bananas, Slightly Used. Another was a plastic container of store boughten cookies. Package opened, a cookie or two missing, one of the cookies in the package with a bite out of it. Title: Cookies, Slightly Used. He even had the chocolate chips perfect in the cookies. There were others in the series. He and I were brainstorming one day. We decided that his final installment in that series would be to carve the Three Stooges. Title: Brains, Slightly Used. Alas! He never got to it.
So maybe what we’re really seeing with this Post Truth nonsense is simply Brains, Slightly Used. 😉
I agree. My initial thought on the High Up Goober’s (Thanks for that one!) statement was “How hubristic!” Hmmm, strength in apathy. I like that.
I had no choice about those PC training time wasting events. No choice whatsoever. Mandatory training OR ELSE. Come to think of it, I was able to worm my way out of some other mandatory training things, but as these later ones were tracked on the computer system…
But PC. What do those letters stand for? You suggested Presumably Correct. Then at the end of your paragraph was the phrase professional comedian. Which got me to Perturbingly Comical. I’ll never view PC the same ever again. Thank you for the lesson. 🙂
Unfortunately, both the sexual harassment and especially the ethnic harassment training courses were very explicit in the examples that were given via films with actors. The ethnic harassment was so far over the top that I called the head training person in Human Resources and explained that due to the graphic nature of the examples, I would not be able to complete the sessions. Surprisingly, I was excused. They later announced that they were looking for another vendor for future training due to the many employee complaints.
One of the things that the sexual harassment training said was evil was calling a coworker “dear”. It could even be held offensive to those overhearing, even if the other person wasn’t offended! The engineer in the office next to mine? She called EVERYBODY “dear”. And always had. Then, soon after that training, I had a problem with my computer. One of our computer techs came by to help me, a young lady who got along fabulously with me, which is a long story of saga length in itself. Anyhow, when she got done and my computer was working again, I said, “Thank you, dear. Gaaahhhh! Now I’m in trouble!” She said, “Calm down, DJ! It’s you. Everyone knows you’re harmless! Jeesh! That was one stupid class.”
Very funny! Yes, sexual harassment MUST be a policy where you work. And people who can’t see the humour in your situation, well, they must be rather miserable, right?
But we DID work for Sith Lords. Swearing was a required release. I found substitute words to use, however, that had the proper sounds. I’ve possibly mentioned my misuse of the name of the composer Shostakovich? Try it out and you’ll find that “Shostakovich!” works quite well.
But then we had some new person start in our office. Supposed to be a low level manager of some type. I never really knew what her job was supposed to be, although we ALL knew what it morphed into. Some of the younger set might get highly offended by an actual swear word, so this new person would get complained to, then loudly and publicly correct the person who used the offensive language. Sometimes, she would lurk outside cubicles or offices then pounce if there were complaints about management being made. I began referring to her as the Grand High Inquisitor.
Then came the day that an old timer told some of us that her cancer had returned. I said, “Shostakovich!”, only to have the Grand High Inquisitor come around the corner and start to berate me. Someone else said she was out of place as we had all just been given sad news. I told her that I had NOT used any foul language and to look up Shostakovich on gaggle.
Then the BIGGEST time wasting program began. Yes, the Grand High Inquisitor was able to get the Biggest Boss to spend a small fortune of tax dollars so that we could all go through a Morale Improvement Course. Very in depth, lasted for years. To cut to the chase, after the initial questionnaires, there was a largish meeting about the results. The Grand High Inquisitor gave an introduction and mentioned that our language was a problem of epidemic proportions and that substituting words to replace swear words was bad also, as the intent was clear. Yup, I blurted out “Shostakovich, Bach, Beethoven and Brahms! Just write me up now!” That stopped that idea in its tracks.
So, yes, you are in a wonderful place. Your own boss. Well, maybe subordinate to the Editor so that a policy of sexual harassment is maintained at your work site. And working with small businesses. Government and large corporations can be so outlandish they become Pesteringly Crass.
Oh yes, the performing was enjoyable. I’d sung in choirs since age 10, although we had a lot of music and singing in our house anyway. Totally enjoyed choir and a smaller singing group in high school. Duets with my sister at 2 or 3 weddings was fun.
Dude. 50mm rain in 20 minutes? The Princess wants to know what kind of a rain dance are you doing? You might need to demonstrate on one of your videos. I mean, if you’re doing a rain dance and get that kind of result, those of us that have hot and extremely arid summers need to know how to do this, break the droughts.
But you need to get the rain to fall at a better time. Having to keep the inlet filters clear BEFORE COFFEE is a bad thing. And your replies were coherent. But then again, I use “Shostakovich” as a cuss word!
DJSpo
Hi Pam,
Ook. You never know, and um, well shifting climates can produce all manner of unexpected outcomes. Hmm, looks like bluebirds have a different diet in the winter months, and given the return of moisture to your part of the world, maybe they know more about the local fruits and berries in your part of the world than you? Dunno, I get such mysteries as well. The baby woodpecker will be easier to supply additional feed for over winter, if that is your thing. Birds are highly adaptable creatures and dare I mention that the parrots love Ollie. He’s a big dog and does big poop. The wildlife here lets nothing go to waste.
Yeah, the juvenile varieties of birds look very different to the adults down here as well, but that shifting climate thing produces odd outcomes.
Ollie discovered a lost little baby ring-tail possum this evening. I suspect that the parents were eaten by owls last evening. Anyway, I’d intended to relocate the orphaned possum to it’s most survivable locale, and Sandra had other plans. It’s pretty cute and nestled deeply into a towel. The local wildlife rescue folks are now involved. Events are rapidly unfolding. Possums don’t survive here because of the owls.
Thanks! Yes, that’s my take on the world. The runs are on the board and anyone can check them out. However, I noted an odd shift in culture many years ago – with some social arrangements, you can be only as good as the last encounter. That world view is alien to me, but perhaps like Triffids, aliens walk among us?
🙂 Believe it or not, boron is a highly essential plant mineral. Without the stuff, the plants will not grow. And isn’t it amazing that we simply dump this stuff in landfill? Respect. It’s not hard to take advantage of our societies epic waste, is it?
Lovely to hear that you are feeling better today. And climbing ladders may be a job for son and daughter in law, if they’re not flat out getting the place ready for the winter. What’s the traditional date for Christmas decorations to be installed? 1st of December here, although the iconography usually makes no sense given it is summer. But oh well. Mustn’t grumble.
Pam, it amuses me greatly to think that there is at least one subject I can speak about more freely than in your part of the world. 🙂 Kind of funny when you think about it. My experience is that soaking in a hot bath is good, and the ancient Romans perhaps held similar opinions.
Thanks for sharing your experience. Until a few days ago I was tossing up the idea of using linseed oil, but you’ve provided the deciding vote – tung oil it shall be. Unfortunately I bought a can of the polyurethane stuff and now can’t return it. There’s another fate in store for that can of plastic whatevers. The tung oil coated floors have survived fifteen years of occupancy, so why not stick with the tried and true. Hey, makes you wonder, can we grow a tung oil tree? Why not! Whoa! What a toxic-as tree, which wouldn’t survive here. Linseed on the other hand would and does grow just fine, if needed.
I sense a story with your choice of oils on the floor. If it’s not too much to ask, which oil did you choose?
PS: Might have to drop off the possum at the vet tomorrow. The owls have been busy of late in this area, let’s put it that way.
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
Thanks for the story. And such a delightful suggestion with the final instalment in the series. 🙂 The comedy trio were known for that. Perhaps as a nod of respect to your master carver, you could produce a fake Shemp, but using your favoured pyro techniques so that the series was completed?
Oh man, the apathy comment was rather heart felt. People down here are genuinely losing their minds over the recent err, results of a certain day in your country. I’m starting to ask them – so why didn’t you vote if it means so much to you? I on the other hand tend to worry about the things that I’m at least involved in…
I see that tracking training outcomes on databases knows no geographical boundaries… They had me stitched up on the ethics course too, and they’re tracking it. Last I checked, the dramas had nothing to do with me.
Oh, on a breaking lost little baby possum news front (see comment to Pam): Arrangements have been made to collect the little marsupial in a nearby town.
Hehe! I doff my hat to you good Sir, and now honourably retire from the field knowing I’d met my match. Perturbingly Comical! Nice one and thanks very much for the laughs.
I’d have likewise been very uncomfortable with such over the top graphic images, and there’s something a little bit weird about displaying them. Almost a bit of a certain form of grooming there, but I don’t really know for sure. Hmm. I’ll cogitate upon that matter and maybe the source of unease will float to the surface.
Well that claim seems very strange to me, because formal letters were and still are, often begun with the words: Dear Sir / Madam. It doesn’t get any more formal than that. And when I was young, the older folks, particularly grandmotherly sorts, always used to call me: ‘Love’. You’d hear them say: Oooo, g’day lurve – which is how it sounded. It’s funny how culture shifts over time. For a formal letter, I’d still use the word ‘Dear’ over that of the informal greeting of ‘Hi’.
What did the big J say about planks and eyes? He was right too.
🙂 You’re right, there were and still are a lot of Sith Lordlings out there. Are they bored or something? I’d like to put them to work bringing rocks back up the hill in some sort of harness arrangement. Fortunately small business doesn’t seem to produce an excess of such folks, mostly because the fat is not there to support petty tyrants with a megalomaniac complex disorder. Thanks for the suggestion – when in polite company I tend to say, fudge it – then provide a cheeky grin. They know what it means.
Oh, public humiliation works so well, yeah, not. I’m feeling your pain from thousands of kilometres away. If I may, stress and tension is not good for a persons health, and we must always seek to right ourselves, before we attempt to right others. As someone with plenty of work to do on that front, I rarely seek to right others… Probably a personal failing… 😉 I’m sure you know what I mean.
You’ve mentioned the repeated attempts to improve morale. The facts on the ground suggest the effectiveness. Ook!
That’s pretty much how things roll, and we aim to provide a service which can make life easier for the people who pay us to do so. We’re kind of navigating our way in a neglected service area which the profession can’t afford to provide. It’s been an interesting journey.
Good stuff, and that sounds like a lot of fun. Music wasn’t part of the household when I grew up, although I fondly recall many vinyl albums played on repeat.
Your lady has a perceptive mind! Not to go into too many details and there’ll be no video, but lets just say that I bounced out of bed. The noise of that sort of rain sets off an internal wake-up alarm. Slipped on some sandals, grabbed an umbrella. Yelled at Sandra from the kitchen who was still in a state of mild shock and in bed (meanwhile water is pouring out of the water tank inlet filters): Where the f#$% are the brushes? They’d been moved to a convenient new location… Raced outside, naturalists would have been impressed at my stoicism. Ended up drenched, but managed to store most of that rainfall in the water tanks. At least it was a warm storm. Dried off afterwards and had a hot bath to warm up. There was no coffee beforehand!
I’ll share a little secret with you – remove those coastal ranges to the west of you, and you won’t need to know any secret rain dances. 🙂 Australia is a notoriously flat continent and that storm originated in the Indian Ocean, which is now rather warm.
Did a bit of mowing today – actually mowed most of the place. And we began making a tiramisu video. I’ll spill all my cooking secrets. Thanks for saying they were coherent. My brain was switched off by late last night. Always dangerous!
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
It’s nice when the usual patterns all line up without worldly disorders and disasters. How are your friends in Idaho going? Is the course all that it was cracked up to be? I’ve noticed that this site is a bit slow to load since the latest Wordsmoosh update. Dunno why either. But if you’re having troubles with other websites, as you say, that’s probably your end. At least I can pay the hosting folks for more oomph, which is possibly where it may have to go. Please keep me updated if the slow loading for this site continues?
Weren’t they talking about cutting back on the wi-fi services in your building? Have to laugh, when we put up the fire shutters over the windows in the summer months, the interweb signal gets bleak. I joked to a friend of mine who is an electrical engineer that somehow we’d built a Faraday cage!
Have you heard whether the annual UFO festival gets much of a crowd? I guess a lot of test vehicles were zipping through your part of the skies since say, 1947… 🙂 As a kid I spotted a weather balloon high up in the sky and thought it was a UFO. The flight on the balloon wasn’t as random as I’d imagined it might be, which was odd.
I agree, the store really played to the customer base and it was something of a circus. Although as you noted, the arcade was big enough that there were quiet corners. The fernery would have interested me, and been a pleasant place to visit on a hot day. On that note, the Canberra botanical gardens has a fernery which has sprinklers keeping the moisture levels just so. Summers in that inland capital city are hot and I doubt ferns would grow there otherwise.
I too thought the image of his wife was interesting. There was a lot going on in that photo. And it amuses me greatly that their relationship began after a full page advertisement in the newspapers of the time. Sort of like the ultimate: Position Available, advertisement. Quite sweet in many ways, and clearly the bloke knew his own mind.
Oh my, collectors pay good mad cash for those glass epergnes in these enlightened times. Whatever were they used for? Or are they simply collector items, even back in those days?
Good thinking, and you’re probably right. Peat has plenty of uses. And weren’t certain classes of crims in ancient days chucked into peat bogs? I remember reading some vague reference to that practice, somewhere.
Fair enough. Ah, Shellac is a hardened glaze sort of finish. Tough stuff from what I was reading. Quite useful for furniture.
🙂 Nowadays I tend to read and watch reviews before shelling out the hard earned mad cash. It’s amazing what info is out there, and I’ve gotten around to that process, a few years ago. Before then, as you’d know too, it was a bit lucky dip whether what you bought was any good or not. Even reputable brands can produce lemons. A tick for dependability is a good thing in my books as well. Glad to hear that thing is working.
That annoys me too, although there is little I can actually do about it. Agreed, not much will change, until the bitter end. They’re very free with all of our time. It used to be that in the past, companies used to serve the needs of their customers. I remember those days. There’s little in the way of protection down here. I’m still reading articles about insurance price hikes, and some were over 100% annually.
Your health system leaves me with heart palpitations, and wondering if they’d have time to see me without eventual bankruptcy being a problem.
Go H! And glad to hear that she is feeling better. Yeah, dogs sometimes do that. Short term is good, longer term is not so good.
Hey, we began making a tiramisu from scratch video today. And I hope to annoy the purists on the basis that any publicity is good publicity! 😉 It’s a strategy…
It’s getting colder in your part of the world. No rain today, but it was reasonably cool at 75’F and cloudy. Managed to mow most of the place this afternoon. Discovered an orphaned baby possum. Presumably the owls got the parent/s last night. Oh well, we’ll see how it goes. The Editor called in assistance. People in New Zealand hearing this discussion would be having a total freak out.
Yum! Always nice to sate the cravings. Had rice, veg and fried egg for dinner. It was a late dinner, possum business…
That’s not good, and um, err, it’s heaps cheaper to make your own vanilla extract. Isn’t vanilla essence some other material altogether?
You used the ‘m’ for musicals word, but then redeemed yourself with the ‘r’ for rom-com. The world is now back in balance. I believe you did mention the film and I may have watched the trailer.
Ook! English bureaucracy… Just sayin’.
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – Your site usually loads pretty fast. Sometimes, the pictures are a little slow to download. But no drama 🙂 . I just go grab a cuppa, while it’s doing its thing.
They’ve been banging on about ending the free wi-fi, in my building, for a couple of years. I think to scare more people into getting private services. Whatever is on offer, is good enough for me. What I hear the most complaints about, is streaming. Which I don’t do.
I don’t know if the UFO festival, gets a good turn-out. But, they keep having it. The local historic society also hosts a Big Foot Festival. And, a Ghost Hunters Festival. The historic society is in an old redundant train station (a really beautiful old brick Victorian building), which is rumored to be haunted.
Advertising for brides or grooms, in newspapers, wasn’t that unusual, back in Cole’s day. Just part of the classified ads. I think he was noteworthy, due to the over-the-top full page ad. 🙂 And, we’ve talked about picture brides. Not all that much different than the current days internet dating.
Epergnes were usually placed on dinning tables, sometimes on mirrored plateaus. The “horns” or baskets were filled with a little water, and then flowers. I’ve had a few, over the years. Oh, my. Very fragile. The glass handled baskets, were also very fragile. Easy to knock those handles right off!
Archaeologists are in two minds, about the bog bodies. Either it was punishment of criminals, or, religious sacrifice. Might have been a bit of both. Hundreds have been found, all over NW Europe. Their state of preservation, can be remarkable. Some look as though they’ve just laid down to take a little nap. Some have been mistaken for modern murder victims.
Shellack does have a tendency to chip. Just about any finish usually had one draw back, or another. Shellack will also “alligator” (as in hide), under some conditions. But can be restored, using some solvents. The effect can be induced, artificially. And, it’s been done to imitate an antique finish. Not necessarily to deceive, but often to get a desired “antique” effect.
Back in the day, there was the monthly “Consumer Reports” magazine. They took no advertising. Most libraries carried it. I think they’re strictly on-line now, by subscription. I’d guess our library might have it, as one of their free data bases. There was also the “Good Housekeeping Institute.” Which was run by the women’s magazine, “Good Housekeeping.” The “Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval,” was sought after, by many products.
Don’t have heart palpitations in the US. If could end up being quit costly. 🙂 Tourists are often advised to acquire short term health insurance, before entering our borders.
I’m looking forward to the Tiramisu video. You’ll blow them away, when you make your own lady fingers. You might mention any alternatives, to the booze in some recipes. A quick look down the rabbit hole reveals many recipes, without alcohol.
Our high yesterday was 48F (8.88C). The overnight low was 37F. High today is forecast to be 44F. Tonights low is forecast to be 31F. No rain, but fog, this morning. The oddest thing. I had my alarm clock, set for 8am, yesterday morning. But I woke up about ten minutes before it was set to go off. I saw on the news last night, that we had a small earthquake, right about that time, out in our eastern county, near Mt. St. Helens. A 2.3. I wonder if that’s what woke me up? Looking around my apartment, I don’t see anything near an edge, that seems to have moved.
I hope the little possum, does ok. Kind of you to see to his welfare.
Here, we can buy pure vanilla extract. Or, artificial vanilla extract. Gosh knows how that is made. But, as you pointed out, one can make one’s own, out of the bean. Here, they sell one or two beans, sealed in a bottle. Usually in the spice section, at the store.
Well, Thanksgiving is upon us. The Institution is having some kind of a meal, this afternoon. I’ll steer well clear. The Club is having big doings, this afternoon. I’ll probably go down, this evening. See how it all went. I’ll do my own cooking this afternoon. I re-read the recipes last night. Fairly simple.
I started reading a new book, last night. “Bunker: What It Takes to Survive the Apocalypse.” (Garrett, 2020). It’s pretty interesting. The author was an archaeologist, and, as a sideline, an urban explorer. Now he’s a “cultural geographer,” whatever that is. I’m finding it engrossing. One point he made, about all this bunker building, is, it goes quit a ways back.
He also made an interesting point, about the difference between fear and dread. Fear is something that has a definite source. Like … cougars. Dread is a kind of free floating anxiety. That things aren’t right, but you can’t quit put your finger on what.
He also pointed out some real differences, between the US and Europe. In the US, the most elaborate bunkers are build to preserve government and military. Citizens, are on their own. Hence, the backyard bomb shelters of the 1950s and 60s. In Europe, shelters are built for more of the general population. Switzerland had more shelter space than the entire population of the country. Lew
Chris:
How kind of you to take in the little possum. He must be pretty confused. I never found a vet around here that would take in wildlife, maybe because we have a wildlife rehab center just over the mountains and they will take in literally anything. I have brought them injured or orphaned animals many times, always left them a donation to help take care of the patient.
I used to decorate as soon after Thanksgiving as possible, but it doesn’t matter; it’s the spirit of the thing. I will admit, though, to a bit of competitiveness with my neighbor Sherry. We can see each other’s houses through the woods now that the leaves are off and really enjoy looking at the lights through the trees.
Good luck with the tung oil; that’s a big job no matter what you use. We did not use oil. Unfortunately, we tried to take a shortcut and used water-based polyurethane, which wore off very quickly. I actually waxed them a few times; it didn’t go that well.
I have grown flax, just for the flowers. I think I remember trying to ret it, just to see. That is so hard.
We just had Thanksgiving dinner. All vegan, all gluten-free. Very good! I was going to have chicken with mine, but what the heck. It’s good to like eating lots of different things. I sure do miss wheat, though. It’s so much easier to work with.
Pam
Hi Pam,
The possum is now in good hands, and will most likely survive. He’s a little fighter that one. I can’t say with any certainty what happened with mum possum, but I’d noted a BooBook Owl in the orchard the previous night. Those birds feed on possums, and that’s why there generally aren’t any possums – large or small – here. Spare a moments thought for the sheer improbability of survival. First the owl. Then the encounter with Ollie the next day, who pointed the little fella out to me.
Ah, there is a similar wildlife mob operating in this area, but they have worked out links with the local vets. To be honest, it’s all volunteer run and they all do truly astounding work. And yes, I acted exactly as you did. They operate the network on (as the old timers used to say) the smell of an oily rag. During that which shall not be named, I rarely saw any road kill, but in these enlightened times things have changed.
Yeah, it is very much the spirit of the thing. I’ve got a very soft spot for those decorations, and it’s great to see neighbours trying to one-up each other. In an otherwise very serious world, it’s kind of fun. 🙂
In the winter months when the foliage cover is at its poorest, our lives are enriched by the surprising visuals of observing changes in the surrounding area. Was that house there before? Have they done an extension? That pond looks bigger – actually there is a local who’s had subcontractors working on enlarging their dam, and the work has been going on for months. I truly wonder what they intend to do with all that extra water, and would be mildly concerned to be living downhill of the much biggerer dam, but hopefully they’d know what they’re doing, maybe.
Ah, thanks so much for mentioning the floor sealing you used. That was my experience with the stuff as well many years ago in a different house. Truthfully, the sales dude made the claim that the technology was amazing nowadays, and we lapped it up. Ook! Then there was the patch which didn’t adhere to the timber – who knows why, but the tree species has resins… Anyway, we sanded the patch back and cleaned it thoroughly, then reapplied the polyurethane and it was a mess and always looked bad. In the hallway too where everyone could see. You’d think such things would happen in a neglected corner of the house where few brave souls fear to tread, but no.
I’ll start that re-sanding and re-oiling of the floors job over the Christmas break. Hopefully the results are good, maybe. I found that areas where soap gets on the floor, such as kitchens and bathrooms, the tung oil really struggles with and is broken down – but it took fifteen years. Presumably the soap breaks down the oils, even if they are fully cured? Dunno.
Never used floor wax, so I appreciate hearing of your experience, because I’d considered the option. Thanks!
I’ve never done such work, and can only but stand back and marvel in awe at your trials of retting flax into linen. There is a spin off magazine, which details the process, although you’re probably already aware of such things. Honestly, I could mend the clothes and fabrics we have, but to make cloth from new materials is beyond our skills.
Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family. Total respect! As a vegetarian at home, going the next level and gluten free is beyond my skills. I’d miss wheat too. I forget, have you ever tried some of the older varieties of grains, like Spelt flour? I use that stuff all the time, and it’s good. The bakery products supplier down here also supplies other older varieties of flour too. But honestly, I read about how to make super fluffy bread what with all the err, unusual chemicals, and just said no. My loaves using bread wheat flour are generally denser and tasty.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Thanks for the feedback on the interweb site. The server is local, and the severe blocking on it has loosened up since a certain day in your country a few weeks ago, so sometimes it’s difficult to know how it appears to people in other parts of the world. The blocking episode was weird, and had been going on since early in the year. Turns out claims from some nice companies to do no evul, are possibly unfounded in my lived experience anyway. What do you do?
A nice cuppa can provide enough time to solve some of the worlds problems, or at least warm our innards on an otherwise cold day! 🙂
You’ve mentioned that threat with the wi-fi reduced service in your building, and I’d wondered how it was playing out. But I agree, and streaming services require a lot of interweb. I’d imagine that they’d run at 60 frames per second, which makes the amount of photos I upload look like peanuts.
Hang on a second, isn’t the Centralia rail station still used on a north south route? Or are the historic society in another now disused rail route? I used to live in the big smoke near to an inner urban circuit rail loop that was abandoned decades ago. Interestingly, the goobermint is busy digging a new underground inner urban rail loop (that would be the second such line). I remember when the first underground loop was opened. Nice and cool on hot days, and you could feel the rush of air whilst on the platform as the train approached the station. Always had a very distinctive smell of damp.
I hadn’t known that about advertising for brides or grooms being a thing back in the day, but you had mentioned picture brides, and even royalty long ago used to use such methods. To be honest, as a young bloke the newspapers offering such classified advertisements were a bit bawdy, which made them kind of fun to read. I was never quite sure whether the advertisements were pure fiction and intended as bait, and suspected they were. Still, taking a full page advertisement out shows true commitment and displays a level of seriousness to the subject matter at hand. It is pretty much the same as interweb dating, yeah I can see that.
Always happy to avoid feeding people at table who’d demand an Epergne as a centre piece. Speaking of such things, finished the tiramisu and video today, and will release part one of three on Sunday evening local time. The harsh test will be the guests… I do however wonder about the long term nature of ceramics, and broke the handle off a mug the other day. Don’t make them like they used to!
The bog bodies could equally have been both crims and religious sacrifices – they had to choose someone, and someone volunteered their services by being a general societal nuisance. It’s an ancient practice I’ve never really read much about. Hmm. Turns out, there are heaps of bog bodies and as many theories. The state of preservation for some is remarkable. I don’t believe any have been found down under, and we do have peat bogs in some wetter parts of the continent. Presumably the people burying the bodies would have been concerned about animals digging up the remains and doing what they do?
Interesting, I’ve never used Shellack, but agree with your observation. No method is perfect, and all have downsides. The tung oil for example gets worn unevenly with soaps for some reason. I don’t see such work as deception, it’s more about appropriate restoration. You don’t want antiques looking as if they’ve just dropped out of a factory in the land of stuff or arrived flat packed! There has to be some character.
Ah, down here that would be Choice magazine, and it still does the work, but behind a paywall. Yeah, they used to apply ‘made in Australia’ labels to goods too.
Your comment about the health care system continues to give me heart palpitations due to financial anxiety! Sooner or later, your system will revert to something that people can afford. A bit like our housing, the costs are now so great, that the success of the policies has laid bare the awful reality of the great unwinding.
Ooo. I’ll mention the alternatives to marsala in the text, although that will be in part three. Hope you get some laughs out of the videos, especially part two. I’m starting to relax into the process, although it involves a shift in mindset. I believe that the booze provides a sharp taste to the otherwise bland mascarpone cheese based on how it works in the recipe. Plenty of things could substitute for that. Hmm, you know, melted dark chocolate mixed in might work.
Hmm. Your senses may be more highly attuned than you previously believed? And they wake me up. The 3.0 the other week was felt, but it didn’t rock the house like that 5.9, far out! Over summer the plan is to begin room by room fixing up the hairline cracks in the plaster from that day a couple of years ago. I’ve been kind of busy… 😉
The possum is doing OK last I heard. He’s in the care of wildlife carers and had a good feed this morning. If I was thinking properly, instead of wrapping him up in socks and a towel, I’d have chucked him in the yoghurt maker over night to keep a higher temperature. Kind of replicates a pouch. We sent them some mad cash to say thanks for their hard work, and it’s a local volunteer group. They do great work. When you-know-what was in play, we rarely saw any road kill. It’s feral now, but try telling people to slow down.
Well I just learned more than I wanted to know about vanilla essence (which I don’t use). We make our own vanilla extract using vanilla beans. Tastes pretty good. You can buy the beans in bulk which is heaps cheaper. Might be a reseller market given the supply issues?
Happy Thanksgiving to you, and hope you both dodged and enjoyed convivial company on the day. So did the shrimp nachos win?
What? Is 1% of your fellow countrymen really preppers? I’d wondered who made up the 1% group that more serious folks than I talk about. Those new missiles would make short work of an underground bunker, just sayin’. And I really like that distinction between fear and dread, yeah, absolutely. Quite obvious from hindsight don’t you reckon?
Another point of difference, if I may! There are very few, if any bunkers, down under. In fire prone zones, probably not a bad idea, but elsewhere, not really. Being on an island has some advantages.
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – Once upon a time … 🙂 Centralia and Chehalis are both on the north / south main rail line. Both had rail stations, at one time. Both were Victorian brick gems, built c. 1900. During WWII, 42 passenger trains, a day, passed through. Never mind the freight.
Eventually, the Chehalis station was made redundant. Anthrax runs out of the Centralia station. I think the Historic Society either bought the station, at a ridiculously low rate, or, they have a very long term lease.
Although, occasionally unscheduled stops are made in Chehalis. 🙂 One night, I caught the train down to Portland, from Centralia. Suddenly, the train stopped in Chehalis. A drunk had not gotten off the train in Centralia. He was unceremoniously dumped, in Chehalis.
One of the segments in the documentary “Scrap” was of an old guy who has collected a number of old urban trolly cars. He renovates them. And, they’ve been bought by a number of cities. Usually, as a tourist draw, though they’re still people movers. Sometimes, it’s a city revitalizing their old trolly routes.
Looking forward to your Tiramisu video. The holiday has screwed up my sense of time. I keep thinking it’s Sunday morning. Nope. Friday morning. I woke up this morning thinking, “Chris will post his video, tonight.” Nope. Must be one of those temporal anomalies.
Ceramics. Accidents happen. I haul my Club coffee cup, back and forth to the Club. I managed to knock one off the outside bench, onto the concrete, a couple of months ago. Accidents happen.
I suppose some of the bog bodies are people who just fell in, and were sucked under. Even in modern times, the Moors are a treacherous place, to cross.
I can’t imagine buying vanilla beans, in bulk. Just not seen, here.
Ah, contraire, mon ami. 🙂 I was reading more of the bunker book, last night. There was a whole chapter on Australia … and another one on New Zealand. Although the reasons for bunkers differ, a bit. Here, people worry about economic collapse, nuclear war, societal unrest and weather. What kicked off the Australian interest was mostly environmental. The Black Friday fires, and the more recent ones. But more people are realizing that the Australian cities, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, would be unsupportable, given a crisis. And, of course, ya all have Mad Max lingering in the back of your minds. One group of people have well thought out (and tested) plans, for getting out of the cities. See also: “Wildfire Safety Bunkers, Australia.”
Yesterday’s high was 43F (6.11C). The overnight low was 34F (1.11C). Close, but still no frost. The forecast for today is 45F. It’s sunny, this morning.
Well. Thanksgiving. I made the Velvetta fudge, in the afternoon. I hadn’t read the recipe, closely enough, and it called for powdered sugar. 7 1/2 cups of the stuff. Luckily, I managed to find exactly that much, in my pantry. A bit on the old side, but it worked. I almost had a disaster. It called for vanilla, so, I grabbed the bottle, poured it into the measuring spoon and … the smell gave it away. I had grabbed the orange extract. Luckily, I hadn’t dumped it into the mix. Although, I sure do like the chocolate orange balls … Another time. I finished the fudge, and had poured it into a large baking dish (parchment lined), but had some left over, and used two small disposable baking tins. It has to cool to room temperature, and then be refrigerated for 3 or 4 hours. I chopped up all the veg for the pineapple / spam and set it aside. As it was getting late, and I thought I’d run down to the Club.
Thanksgiving at the Club was not very successful. Only about 18 people, showed up. In past, the turnout has usually been 70 or 80. So, where was everyone? Well, Jane out at the Funny Farm had a big gathering. And, November is Gratitude Month, as far as AA goes. A lot of the outlying meetings, decided to have their gratitude banquets, on Thanksgiving, instead of earlier in the month.
I was able to snag two 8″ pies, still in their cartons. A pumpkin and a cherry. And, a container of turkey. I put it in the freezer, when I got home. Whatever I make with it, I’ll cook the s—t out of it, so, it ought to be ok. The pumpkin pie was pretty good. But I’ll probably trash the cherry. Typical cardboard commercial pie.
So, when I pulled into the parking lot, I ran into Holly. She’s the caregiver for her mother, who lives next door. She often stays for a few days at a time, or nights. They have the dog Olive, who is one of H’s buddies. So, I was telling Holly about the fudge, and, my upcoming spam extravaganza. But mentioned I wanted to put in some celery, but had forgotten. Holly offered to give me a couple of stalks, of hers. So, when we got back upstairs, she brought over the stalks … and I gave her one of the small tins of the fudge.
So, I made up the spam and pineapple (etc.) and had it over rice with a bit of broccoli, on the side. Tasty. There was enough left over to put some packs, in the freezer.
I tried some of the fudge, before I went to bed. Not as tangy / zesty as I remember. I checked a couple of other recipes, on the web. Some had half again as much of Velvetta, as in the cookbook recipe I used. And did I originally have fudge … or brownies? I also stumbled on several recipes for cheddar cheese brownies or fudge. Hmmm. I wonder. A good sharp cheddar … There are possibilities, there.
What with all that chopping and stirring, by the end of the day, I had cramps, in my right hand. 🙁 .
Several times, during the day, I reflected on what I was grateful for (AKA, counting your blessings.) Which is what Thanksgiving is supposed to be about. My friends, the Club, my dog, this blog, affordable rent and electricity. The garden. The list is actually pretty extensive. Dare I say, a printer that works? :-). Lew
Chris:
Good news for the bitty possum. Good Uncle Chris to the rescue again! That’s very interesting about your neighbor with the dam. When I see ponds on flat land, I think “No worries.”, but when I see them on steep slopes like where we live, like our neighbor’s pond below us, I wonder. I am glad it is below us. I wish we had one, though. We always talked about building one.
I didn’t know that about soap and floor treatment oils, but I guess it makes sense. Our kitchen – and bathrooms – have timber floors. What about yours?
I have tried spelt, and einkorn, but they do bother me. I’ve also baked with sourdough starter, which is supposed to help, but it didn’t. I can make a sort of gluten free sandwich loaf now and crackers. That helps a lot, though they are way far from the wheat breads I used to make.
The greenhouses have been reinforced with two layers of the plastic cladding, making a total of three layers, with air in between. Propane heaters have also been set up, to be tried tonight, as we may have below freezing night temps for at least a couple of weeks. Look out figgies!
Pam
Chris,
I’ve toyed with the idea of burning the 3 Stooges so as to complete the Master’s series. Haven’t decided about it yet.
We are having a week of the Spokane Gray Skies. No rain, just clouds. Some patches of fog. Skiffs of white stuff on the ground that is more freezing fog than snow. Stayed below freezing all day today, first day like that this season.
I can start raking the leaves in the front yard soon. The back yard’s leaves got spread in the vegetable patch. Those from the front will mostly join their compatriots, although some will be added to the compost pile.
Ahh, yes, the recent day of, well, yes, that. Some people have lost their minds in despair. Others have lost their minds to giddiness. There were big flags and large posters on both extremes in several yards. All have been taken down. My take as a commoner is that, with the upcoming change in head honcho, figure out how to adapt to the changes. Same would be true if the other person had won, likely with a different set of things to adapt to.
Getting too emotional about the outcome just doesn’t work for me. In other words, another reason why your “strength in apathy” idea is spot on.
Yes, the dramas had nothing to do with me, either. A person or three acts out of line, then inHuman Resources gets to add a highly paid training position to train people how to, oops, how NOT to do, the offending behavior. Then, because of the ability to track us doing the How (not) To training, we are stuck having to “attend” the training. Even I, who was adept at avoiding meetings with time wasting morons, couldn’t wriggle out of it.
I see that your possum child got moved to a better place and that it is receiving good care. Well done.
Planks, eyes and the Big J. Indeed. Very appropriately put.
If you say “fudge”, all know what you mean. If you say, “Oh, jeez!”, all know what you mean. Way back when, a friend had been dumped by his girlfriend. For a few months, every time he needed to swear, he used her name, “Oh, Margaret!” he’d say. Hence, “Shostakovich!” People won’t have a clue.
Thanks, but the Grand High Inquisitor’s (GHI) attempt at publicly humiliating me really didn’t work on me. I’d had too many attempts at that by my supervisor and/or Big Boss. The GHI wasn’t in my chain of command and had no authority over me whatsoever. So, just words from an idiot really didn’t affect me much. Rather, it just gave me more reasons not to trust the GHI.
I went through one morale training crap when I worked at a local university. There were seven at my final workplace, but I was able to miss one of them. They even did a repeat a few months later, and somehow, I missed that one also. None of them changed a thing.
You found the niche in the accounting industry. Providing those niche services is great, if you want to do quality work for good people and aren’t trying to get rich. Which, with your mentality, working that niche area is perfection. I was happy that my final 12 years was spent doing niche functions that not even the bosses knew anything about. Hard to get micromanaged when nobody knows what you’re doing.
“Where are the bleeping brushes?” Always in the new “convenient” location, which is known to one person and, umm, “forgotten” by the other. Happens here, too. 😉
Warm storm. Warm bath. Good deal other than no coffee beforehand. And your travails were successful. My neighbor would suggest that with such circumstances, you are living the dream.
Ok. No rain dance lessons. No video. No written instructions. Simply remove the Cascade Mountains and we’ll get more rain. Got it. Now to think about HOW to remove the Cascades without getting caught, where to move all of the dirt and trees and animals, hmmmm. I like a good challenge!
DJSpo
Hi Pam,
Just checked the Facebook page of the Macedon Ranges Wildlife Network, and there the little fella is – front and centre. Just to save you a bit of clicking, here is the little possum:
Fortunately that neighbour is far enough away that their expanded pond has absolutely no influence on the water here. I’d not be comfortable living directly downhill of a large farm dam on sloping land either. 🙂 Ook! A dude / dudette needs to be able to sleep without worrying about such disaster dramas.
Speaking of weather craziness, it rained all day here today. Had a bunch of friends up for lunch, and one particularly hardy friend even rode his push bike up from the railway station in the rain. It’s a long uphill ride and not something I’d done. He looked quite pleased with himself, as well he should for that effort. A massive chat-fest ensued inside out of the rain, and lots of yummy food was consumed. The day was most excellent.
I also didn’t know that water with soap over a long enough period of time, will remove the tung oil from hardwood floors. Mind you, it’s been fifteen years since the many coats of oil were applied so that’s a pretty good outcome. And likewise both kitchen and bathroom have hardwood tongue and groove timber floors. Interestingly, the soap effect was multiplied where ever the summer sun’s rays hit.
Ouch! The bakery products supplier also offers Emmer + Buckwheat + Kamut + Tapioca + Teff flours! Far out… One day I may put each of these choices to a bake off test. It’d make a good video don’t you reckon? Ultimate bake off – which flours are best, let’s find out!
However, sensitivities are sometimes a consequence of our complicated and opaque supply chains. Yeah, sorry to say. Rarely are they within our control, and repeated exposure after a certain point, only makes things worse. A very long time ago, bread wheat plants were five to six foot tall, and did not require spraying, or even watering in the right climate. And here we are today with an almost entirely different super weakling, but productive plant. Dishwashing detergent sets off eczema on my hands. Hmm. It’s hard to know in advance where we will get unstuck, but my main advice would be, if you’re unable to move forward, try looking backwards to see what went on. Home made olive oil soap is a much friendlier product for me and from my perspective.
Fingers crossed that the little figgies do OK with all that care and attention. They do eventually go deciduous, and that’s how the trees scrape through the cold winter months here. It always depends upon how sensitive they are to cold extremes. Just being out of the wind should help them – well that’s my guess. Dunno.
Did the frost eventuate?
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
The idea about completing the wood burning series, sort of suggested itself. What do they call it again? An, err, an homage. It’s awful to suggest it, but the narrative maybe more comprehensible to those judges we spoke about a while back. But I get your reticence, and such things take place when the time is right, and not one moment before.
What? Did you just write the term: freezing fog? Yikes! A new weather related event to strike fear into those who are a touch summer soft. 🙂 Bleak conditions, yup. It rained all day long here today. Just unceasing drizzle, but at 20’C it wasn’t exactly cold. Had friends up today for lunch, and enjoyed a truly fine chat, but the farm tours were wisely ignored. Some days are just not enjoyable for such outdoor activities.
Do the leaves break down before the spring weather arrives? They can get sludgy here, which is quite slippery for human and canine alike. I’ve begun raking them into piles, and zipping them up with the mower. Gone in no time at all then, and the soil critters rejoiced! 😉 Have to be careful of footing though.
Glad you enjoyed my strength in apathy response! Don’t knock it! 🙂 I used to get razzed up about this sort of stuff, and then discovered that getting on with the stuff I could do something about instead, produced far better personal outcomes. It’s a mystery. The local music scene has produced some interesting acts over the years, and one song stood out to me in my formative years. The band had the curious song title: “I’m interested in apathy!” Clever blokes, probably a bit like us, over educated!
Ah grasshopper, when meddling in the affairs of those who walk in the clouds, the stalking tiger can nay avoid the time wasting meeting of uncertain resolve. – you read it here first!
What can I say? You but did your best to dodge the meetings, and yet you were still snared. What little wiggle room any of us really has. Ain’t just you there. 😉
There’s a photo of the little possum in my reply to Pam. That volunteer group really does great work.
Nod to Lewis there for the label, but yeah the Big J knew a thing or twenty. Notoriously hard to communicate those many things…
Hehe! Such things have been known to happen with the language. It’s fun anyway to play around with the language, and sometimes I’ll garble words deliberately – but you’ve gotta work with the systems you find yourself in. Now if free speech were a thing down here, I’d not have to duck and weave like an underdog prize fighter! And maybehaps the entertainment factor would be lower.
I respect your effort at having to also duck and weave against largely abstract forces in that particular work place. What else can you do? But the experience does itself undermine trust. What else was expected? The employment experience of the early 1990’s recession, entirely changed my world view. There are moments in your life when things simply become challenging, and nothing is ever the same afterwards. But in some ways, I put the experience to good effect.
Hehe! Thanks for the laughs. And I absolutely agree with you. True pain is micro management.
🙂 Late spring, early summer is total super crazy thunderstorm season here. In summer, it may well be super cell and/or minor tornado time (always exciting)! Knowing exactly the location of that particular cleaning brush, is necessary! Yeah, it happens and we can only but look on in wonder at such innovative changes. By the way, the water tanks – all of them – are now full. In only one week. Truly odd weather… I shudder to think what next month will bring. And the one after that, and oh yeah, late summer will be crazy too. Ugg!
One can only but do their best, whilst trying to fend off two dogs who are hassling me for a chunk of left over tiramisu. Something had to be done to stop Ollie from drooling on the floors. No wonder the tung oil needs resurfacing! Drool probably has lots of enzymes and complex proteins. Yuk!
DJ, here you have both the mind and skills of the engineer and physicist to apply to the task. Just sayin… 🙂 Probably best if you use your skills for other less harmful purposes!!!
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
It’s funny to think that a century ago, the rail system was more extensive and in far greater use than it is today. It’s only in the past couple of decades that the system began being reinvested in again. When I was a kid, the trains used to be the old ‘red rattler’ timber variety with the big comfy leather seats. It astounds me that there weren’t fires on them.
Clearly your country went through a similar process of walking away from the train network in favour of trucks and cars. Makes you wonder if that economic decision will ever be regretted? Some of the towns on the eastern end of the mountain range used to have a rail track and stations. The tracks are gone, but the stations are there if you know what to look for. Often the earthworks for the level tracks are still in place.
Thanks for the laughs as to the cheeky name! The country trains here are pretty good, and mostly fast and on time. It wasn’t always like that, and the Editor grew up relying on them and lets just say that the dislike for the service is palpable.
Hehe! I sense a story there, and such things happen. Lucky you, err, sorry, that unfortunate person, didn’t end up in Vancouver! Hey this is not my stop! 🙂 The country trains always make me feel sleepy, but whilst that’s ok heading into the big smoke, I dare not fall asleep heading outwards bound. Who knows where a dude could end up! Man, they go right up to the border on this line. The Editor would be rather annoyed at having to drive up and rescue me.
Just watched the trailer for the Scrap film. Looks good and I see that the full documentary is available on utoob. A lot of eerie imagery, especially the abandoned 1950’s era cars with the forest growing up around them all. It’s amazing the many groups doing such work with old trolley cars – and just as you mentioned, they run around the city on the tram network, but have been upgraded a bit to make them easier to operate. About an hours drive to the west is a group who restore and operate an old trains and trams museum. I’ve been meaning to go out and have a look. Went once, and they were unfortunately closed due to you-know-what.
The tiramisu was good, and conveniently there were two servings left over for after dinner this evening. I had to fend off Dame Plum and Ollie, who was candidly drooling, by offering them a small chunk. Had a bunch of friends visit for lunch and a chat fest. The weather co-operated by raining all day long, so what else to do but sit at table enjoying good food and discussing the worlds many problems. Action plans were made, but just like Fight Club, we don’t talk about that… Had a delightful day.
Oh, isn’t that awful when you’ve been sucked into a temporal anomaly? The rest of the day just feels off, and hopefully it wasn’t the Thanksgiving food?
That’s what happened here as well. Knocked the mug against the table, and bam, the handle fell off. After twenty years, the cost per usage would have been very low. It’ll be replaced, but let’s just say that life is a bit short for matching crockery – unless you have to impress the family. That’s different, but since we’re both orphans… Not a problem at all! 😉 Did you end up replacing your travelling mug?
To be honest, since the pink nuclear second hand lipstick off the glass incident, I’ve been somewhat more careful about different places standards of cleaning. Probably not cooties, but yeah, who knows. It makes me feel mildly queasy thinking about it…
Yeah, that would happen. Probably a bit like quicksand, and if you knocked yourself out and fell into the peat bog, the odds of getting out again alive would be quite low. No guarantee you won’t be dug up again in the future.
I guess it’s easier because I know people who can sell them to me on that basis. The nut guys which is a family run business, and they’re really lovely, and always look after us. We buy bulk supplies from them, and have done so for many years. I have conversations with them about werewolves and zombies too, so it’s always entertaining.
What? I’ll tell you a funny story about those bunkers down under. Do they work, probably. Do they fit the codes? Well that became the question as to whether they are widespread or otherwise. But the old timers around remote sawmills, always used to have a dug-out bunker. But I wasn’t really aware of the prepper movement down under. Hmm. They do seem to keep a low profile. Might have to check out the book. And yeah, Mad Max created a cultural image, which remains to this day.
Yay for the sun for you! I’d wondered where it had gotten too today. Man, you’re skirting on frost territory there.
Do you know, I reckon like what you were sort of suggesting, the orange citrus extract might work in that recipe. Did you use milk or dark chocolate?
You know, I’m not a big crowd kind of guy, so 18 people would have been a more enjoyable event. A little brain whisper wonders whether combining the gratitude and thanksgiving events was an economically driven change?
Pies from cartons are good, but are they gourmet? Well, nuff said. And yeah, a super wise move and I can hear Bruce Willis making the helpful suggestion: All you have to do is cook the f@#$%^& meat! Not too much to ask, but sometimes hard to achieve.
Go Holly! What a lovely swap of produce. Celery is really hard to grow. So did the gourmet spam extravaganza work out well? Or are you in the gathering of raw materials phase?
Always hard to get this cooking stuff exactly right. And just between you and I, and I’ll whisper this, but I should have added more marsala to the mascarpone cheese.
🙂 A truly lovely list, and in between all of the travails and tribulations of life, there’s heaps to be grateful for. And I likewise enjoy our regular chats.
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – That’s quit a picture of your little visitor. “Oh, grandma, what big eyes you have!” 🙂 I must say, your possums look a lot more benign than ours.
We used to have a much more extensive rail system. Lines ran from here to towns out on the coast. Up into the hills, in our eastern part of the county. Up to the little coal mining towns, that no longer exist. Some of the roadbeds have been converted to “rails to trails” hiking routes. I suppose the rails have long since been scraped 🙂 , but at least the roadbeds are still maintained. Some have been paved for bike paths.
Cheap air fares and completion of our interstate highway system, did in the railroads. Although there has been an uptick in ridership. But, access to some parts of the country is a ghost of its former self. You can’t get there, from here. It would be nice if I could visit my friends in Idaho, by rail. The tracks don’t run anywhere near where they live.
I also read an article a couple of months ago, that our interstate, national bus systems are dying. A lot of them are selling off their inner city real estate. I see the Portland Greyhound station has bit the dust.
I think the “Scrap” film is worth a look. There’s one bit where a fellow is scrapping out a ship in Spain, to build a church in South Korea (What? No scrap ships available in South Korea?) But there was one blink and you miss it, bit. The guy is telling a group of hard-bitten ship busters, what the pieces are going to be used for. A church. You can see it in their faces. The job has taken on a bit of … reverence. They seem to take a bit more care, disassembling the ship. And the guy in the Dakotas, who makes full sized animals out of farm scrap? Amazing.
It sounds like you had a real nice gathering. Chris’s salon. 🙂 Good company, good tucker, good conversation.
It still feels like Sunday morning.
Matching dinnerware sets. Well, mine is going to the auction. I pick up odds and ends I need, from the Dollar + store. None of it matches.
The bunker book is pretty interesting. He had quit a conversation with the Australian fellow, who build mostly fire bunkers. He travels the world, and meets a lot of interesting people. A lot of them, he calls “Merchants of Dread.” Playing on people’s fears. Some are outright grifters. The author is thoughtful, and drops in a bit of philosophy and psychology, from time to time. Trying to figure out what this phenomenon is all about.
The high yesterday was 45F (7.22C). The overnight low bounced back and forth between 32F and 34F. The forecast for today is 47F. We’re in for a run of clear days and progressively colder nights. I’m not calling first frost, until the grass in the morning is crunchy.
The fudge was made with some kind of yuppie coco powder, that showed up in our food boxes, awhile back. It was hemetrically sealed, so, still good. Claimed to have some dark chocolate, in it. Getting cooking exactly right, is sometimes due to a bit of instinct. While I was stirring the fudge, it finally attained a glossy look, and sheeted off the spoon. I knew it was ready to pour. All that stirring to make sure it didn’t burn on the bottom.
Oh, the pineapple / spam stuff was done and dusted, Thanksgiving night. Tasty. Enough left over to freeze a bit, for later.
I ventured down to my bank, last night, to get the months walking around money. With a great deal of trepidation. It being Black Friday, and all. It’s practically in the parking lot of The Store of Walls. I thought late in the evening things might have calmed down. The roundabout of death, was pretty dicey. Traffic was on the heavy side, but wouldn’t have been bad except for one or two people who were in some kind of an all fired hurry.
I starved the dog, all day long. 🙂 Not that she seemed to notice. It was time for another flea pill, and I wanted her to wolf it down. So, I hid it between her kibble and a bit of mixed veg. Mission accomplished.
I watched a new Brit mystery series, last night. “The Marlow Murder Club.” It had four episodes. One of those small, English villages, or towns. Three women, of a certain age, band together to solve a murder or three. Which all seem to be connected. All three of the women, are overlooked, for one reason and another. It was very good, and is renewed for a second series.
I had a sensible dinner, last night. Rice and veg. I think tonight might be a popcorn night. The new “Beataljuice.” Lew
Yo, Chris – An interesting article about a recently discovered cider apple, with a red interior.
https://www.opb.org/article/2024/11/27/oregon-apple-surprise-fruit-northwest-cider-makers/
Could be titled, “The Apple Thief.” Soon to be a major, motion picture. :-). Lew
Chris:
What a wonderful creature! Look at that luxurious coat and brown button eyes and little hands. He says: “Say, what!? Where the, umm, heck am I?!” You did well saving that little one. Thanks for the picture!
You – and Sandra – and your irrepressible personalities and delectable cooking were bound to make a day most excellent.
I would like an ultimate flours bake-off, but best plan for a comedy ’cause it aint going to be easy.
We did have frost; the figlets seem okay. Much worse to come, though, maybe 16F (-9C).
Pam
Hi Pam,
The latest news on the little possum is that he’s doing well and eating, resting, all the things a little forest critter needs to do. His chances of surviving the night unassisted were near zero, so the possum owes Ollie a life debt. Just between you and I, and hopefully the big dog isn’t reading, always chancy, it was a good thing he held those powerful teeth at bay to let me know what was going on. What a gentleman the dog is, occasionally. 🙂
Hehe! It was a fun day, I can tell you. It’s funny, but neither of us grew up knowing how to host guests, but being a quick student and knowing people (i.e. the big shed fame folks) who are far more charming, has had some benefits in that direction. Might write about that story tonight. Haven’t yet worked out the story. Oh far out, it’s getting late… Ook!
I’ll take your words under advisement. A friend of mine, Simon (of the dissenting opinion blog in the blog roll) bakes a super tasty dark rye loaf. It’s good, and most years he’ll host an around-ish Christmas luncheon. Always a fun day. Plus his area is warm enough to produce Macadmia nuts off his backyard tree. So tasty.
Holy carp! My mind recoils in horror at such low temperatures. Stay warm, you and your extended family + the little figgies! That’s the plan…
Cheers and better get writing.
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Thanks for the great article on the red fleshed apples from the south of you. Apples are great trees in that they’ll readily hyrbidise, and every now and then, the trees will pump out a truly awesome new variety. Your Johnny Appleseed dude did your country a favour by planting the many seedling varieties in that the outcomes would be truly wild, and sometimes quite significant. Every single apple has some sort of use whether it is in the kitchen, for preserving, or cider making.
We’ve been occasionally working at cider making for a long while, and only recently seem to have produced a very fine drink. The earlier efforts were not so good. There are a few tricks to it all, and we got some decent help recently from a local lady who also grows an edible garden.
The local possums are more benign that your more toothy carnivorous variety, which may bite if annoyed. The dark side of vegetarianism… 🙂
Speaking of local wildlife encounters: Rattled driver forced to pull over on Monash Freeway after tiger snake slithers up leg. Holy carp! Probably left the windows opened.
The steel in the rails was probably of a decent grade, and recycling metal is a lucrative business. The same events occurred here as well with the rail system – it was gutted. Likewise many of the old rail lines have been converted into rail trails for bicycle riders exploring the countryside. But yeah, like you, I’d be happy to travel by train about the place.
Not good about the bus system, and the Greyhound buses were a cheap way to travel long distances. Well there is that competition for land use, yeah. It’s a weird state of affairs for land to be more valuable for constructing dwellings, than running businesses that employ people. The result of many long years of goobermint policies, sorry to say.
You’d imagine that someone in South Korea would know how to scrap ships, but that’s an intriguing observation. Hmm. I’ll try and check the film out over the next week.
It was a good catch up with friends. Man, you know what though? It’s a skill to be able to host people at a gathering, and my mother absolutely failed to hand on any skills in that area. Have had to learn the hard way… But have reasonably proficient skills nowadays. Fortunately I can also cook. 🙂 The latest video is on how to make the mascarpone cheese for the tiramisu. Yum!
🙂 Welcome to my world of mismatched crockery and cutlery. Hope you get a decent price from collectors for your collections.
Yeah, that fire bunker would be the big use of such constructions down here. Pretty much anywhere outside of a major city (and even then you are at risk), is subject to a fire risk. It’s a weird old continent this one. 🙂 It’s not a bad name at all for the effect: The Merchants of Dread. It’d make a particularly good band name for some heavier rockers. But yeah, something must be driving such physical responses from people – personally, I hope the things aren’t needed.
Jack Frost is peeking out from behind that tree over there. Hope you and H keep a sharp look out for the dudes presence. The ice was slippery at one point for you last winter. No good.
🙂 Waste not, want not! Wise advice from the old timers. Ah, so the choccie leaned towards the dark side of the cocoa force. Nice! I see, and it’s been my experience that dark chocolate is better in cooking. Yup, the potty mouthed English chef once amusingly quipped: If it’s brown it’s cooked. If it’s black, it fooked! whatever that means. I had to continually stir the cream whilst it heated up when the batch of mascarpone cheese was made. No point burning the cream.
🙂 I kind of feel that your gourmet spam falls into the fun to cook and eat category. That stuff needs to be wheeled out every now and then, lest we all end up being too serious!
Oh my gawds, you ventured out on the Black Friday shopping extravaganza. You’re a brave soul to have done so. Well truthfully, as a young bloke I was a bit razzed up when I drove, but walking away from a head on, changed my mind wonderfully. Nowadays, I’m super chill and ignore the worst that other drivers chuck at me. Unwise to use up my nine lives at such a youthful age – you’d probably know the feeling there? 🙂
Shifty move with H, but it’d work. Good stuff.
There’s a lot of mischief and mayhem in those small English towns. It’d make for a nervous existence, but at least some lovely ladies would no doubts solve the mystery as to why us unlucky souls were made dead. That’s one less worry, although do ghosts actually worry about ‘who done it?’
A choice dinner. Sliders with tasty cheese, eggs, and vegetable patties are for dinner this evening! Yum! Feeling peckish tonight. Spent most of the day getting the second low voltage water pump which is connected to the large green water tank working. As you’d imagine, it took a while to rectify leaks – fortunately no dodgy o-rings in this instance. However the pump pressure controller was faulty, and that was a nuisance. Used up my spare, and better go and order another whilst I remember.
Far out, I better also get writing!
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – I wonder if we’ll see the red interior apples, soon, at a veg store near me? Apples are a fascinating fruit. And, so versatile. Even the “spitters” can be used for something. Vinegar, if nothing else.
That was quit the article about the snake in the car. Given your recent high temperatures, I wonder if the lady, had her air conditioning cranked up? Might have made the snake a bit sluggish. It’s bad enough when one gets a wasp or hornet, in a car. Snakes are a whole other level.
I watched the new “Beetlejuice” movie, last night. Some have said it wasn’t as good as the first one. But, they had rewatched the first one, recently, so the second suffered by comparison. I hadn’t seen the original in a couple of decades, so, the second didn’t suffer by comparison. I found it well worth a bowl of popcorn (with cheese!). And, of course, CGI had really advanced, in a couple of decades.
I also watched a documentary, “Odysseus Returns.” The tomb of Odysseus may have been discovered. Quit a few years ago. But it wasn’t discovered on the island of Ithaca, but another near by island. Which created all kinds of political problems. So, the tomb is off limits, now. But it was fully excavated but hasn’t been “published.”
What with all the family gatherings we had, I suppose I always had a template for hosting. And, when we lived in Portland, there were get togethers with the neighbors.
I’m looking forward to your video on Mascarpone cheese. Sounds rich. 60+% butter fat? Yup. Rich.
I stayed up way too late last night, reading the bunker book. Fascinating stuff. Might talk a bit more about it, tomorrow.
The high yesterday was 45F (7.22C). The overnight low was 30-32F. All night long. But, I’m not seeing any frost. Maybe because it’s foggy. Prof. Mass has a post on the lateness of the frosts.
The idea of putting together pineapple and Spam, comes from Hawaii and other Pacific islands. Those were pig-centric cultures. Spam, being pork, fits right in. Add an Asian infusion of making sweet and sour dishes, and you’re on your way. It’s actually a pretty old recipe.
You know, there’s actually a tongue in cheek book, “Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village.” (Johnson, 2021.) Our library got some copies of it. Amusing, in spots. Lew