On the east coast of this continent, lives the vast majority of the population down under. Myself included, albeit way down in the south. About four million buildings here have solar panels feeding daytime electricity into the mains grid. It’s an astounding achievement, especially given that there are only ten million customers for the electricity. At certain times of the day, especially during the cooler spring months, this solar powered energy source is meeting half of the demand for the entire grid on the east coast. You’d imagine it would be a cause for celebration, but au contraire: AEMO says emergency powers to switch off solar needed in every state amid ‘system collapse’ fears
It would be nice if the solar panels reliably produced enough energy to meet half of the demand, at all times and hours of the year, except it doesn’t. The technology just doesn’t work that way. The bulk of solar electricity is delivered around the middle of the day for a few hours. For the rest of the day and night, well the current social response seems to be along the lines of an amusing observation I once heard spoken aloud in a film: Bore someone else with the details.
The clever folks who have to manage the mains electricity grid have other ideas, and are now facing the practical problem as to how to deal with more solar powered electricity at certain times of the week, than anyone humanly knows what to do with. And without getting bogged down in technical details, grid tied solar technology does not provide stability like the really big spinning coal, hydro and gas generators do. There’s a very real risk that the system may pop.
What to do? Switching off the solar power is one option, and the ability to do that is being negotiated. Right now. Funnily enough, that’s what the off grid solar power system here has to do, every single day of the year. If more solar power is being generated than can either be stored or used, it gets wasted. That’s how the technology works, and I’ve known about this aspect since the very early days of mucking around with solar panels, way back in 2007.
It amuses me that the nice grid controller folks, and also the owners of the four million grid tied systems, are only now slowly catching up to this news. Years ago on the interweb I happened to casually mention this aspect of the technology, and received a rather ungentlemanly reply with the words: “Your system is so wasteful!” Yeah, sure, and at that point, further dialogue was a lost cause.
It’s hard to explain these technical matters, so I won’t. Nowadays, I’d prefer to think about gardens anyway. You learn a thing or two by getting your hands in the dirt. Did you know that in the depths of winter when exposure to the cold winds freezes your very bones, there’s not much energy to be had from solar? The sun is low in the sky, and only graces us with it’s feeble presence for a brief window each day. The plants barely grow at all, if they can survive the cold temperatures in the first place.
The opposite is true in summer. The radiation from that huge fusion reactor is fierce and burns your skin. It makes you sweat and worry about succumbing to heat exhaustion during outdoors work days. The plants lap up the excess energy and push their rapidly growing leaves towards the sky. Dogs are wont at such times to find a shady tree to hide beneath. When the ultra-violet radiation ratings reach extreme, often the plant growth slows to a crawl. Weaker plants go into shock. It can all be a bit much sometimes.
Over the years we’ve trialled a lot of different varieties of edible plants for suitability to this climate. It’s unwise in the extreme to rely upon only a few sources of edible plants. Early on, in our inexperience, we utterly failed to manage the plants, and completely ran out of anything to eat from the garden. Failure is a good motivator though, and when things get bad enough, you can make some hard calls, learn, adapt and move on. These days, we have our choice of things to eat. Do we want to add the Babaco, or the raspberries to the breakfast fruit, or maybe even both? Mind you, the raspberries are better used in jam which will enliven freshly baked bread in the winter months, so that settles the matter. Babaco, get thee to breakfast!
We’ve been growing edible plants in one form or another, for about a quarter of century now. If we had to rely upon our early knowledge of this subject, we probably would have died of starvation. You have to be patient and observant. Turns out, growing lettuce in composted woody mulch is a really dumb idea down here. But people will tell you with a serious face that it should work. It doesn’t. Nowadays, we might even know enough to be able to survive on what we grow, maybe.
There’s an economic dimension to all this too. Early on, in an attempt to reduce the mad cash demands from this epic garden, we chucked on the cheapest fertiliser in the form of any organic matter we could get our hands on. Quantities of coffee grounds that would defy your imagination have been added to the soils here over the years, as has our own manure. The cheapest of mulches and composts too, and I’m talking hundreds of cubic metres (cubic yards) of the stuff. Did the soil improve, yes. Did the fruit trees and plants grow as expected, no. Elsewhere on the planet with less impoverished soils, may do just fine with all that feed, but not so here. Nowadays, it costs a lot to look this cheap in the garden, and prices for soil mineral additives are only ever ascending. The outcomes from applying the minerals however, are simply better all around.
Years ago we planted a number of wormwood shrubs, and they’ve all grown well in the climate, except their woody nature provides excellent cover for rabbits. An undocumented feature! Generally perfection is an unobtainable state, and sometimes you can live with a good enough result. Rabbits are cute creatures, but unfortunately their actions and side effects are not so cute. Slowly, the wormwood shrubs are being removed one by one, and the rabbits are increasingly nervous. It’s hard to get things right, first attempt. And when you don’t, that’s when you face up to re-doing the systems.
I’m writing about the garden, but really, each of those lessons can equally apply to renewable energy technology (and life in general). What’s going on in this corner of the world is an epic renewable energy experiment. There have been some very close calls recently, and in the not too distant future we’ll get to find out just how it works out. Despite the mind bending scale of the electricity grid, it’s not really all that different from learning-as-you-go in the garden.
There’s been some rather hot weather this week, and the heat has brought it’s fair share of tropical-like conditions.
With the now warmer conditions, it was decided to clean up the sapling fenced enclosure and get the pumpkin seeds in the ground. The enclosure had been over run by weeds, which were all chopped down to ground level and mulched up by a push mower. The soil was then given a heavy feed of all sorts of stuff. The various seeds were chitted over night (i.e. left in warm water to soak), then planted out.
We were about a week too late doing that planting job. A few days ago some feral pumpkin seeds sprouted in the orchard. Turns out, chucking the seeds in the chicken enclosure months ago, was the easier process!
We’ve run short of rocks, both small and large, and need them to complete plenty of projects about the farm. Two boulders were broken up into much more easy-to-relocate sized rocks.
The recent warmer weather inspired me to install the second low voltage water pump on one of the water tanks. That pump runs a single tap and a bushfire sprinkler adjacent to the firewood shed. Not a bad idea to have the system working, just in case.
Another cement step was poured on the new concrete staircase.
Then another was poured.
The wormwood shrubs in the garden are eventually going to be replaced with Japanese maples. They already happily self seed here, and I’ve potted up eight of the seedlings.
In breaking produce news:
The lazy housewife variety of beans (that’s really their varietal name) have begun to sprout from seed. They’re a super prolific variety of white navy bean.
The turmeric tubers in the greenhouse have finally sprouted leaves. I’m yet to harvest any of the tubers, and they’re now in their third year.
The chilli plants are in their third year also, and have already produced fresh chillis. They’ll ripen over the next few months, and should produce a decent crop which will zing up winter meals.
The raspberry harvest is in full swing this week. The tasty berries are picked morning and evening, and already we’ve picked two plastic containers of them. They get frozen and then when there are enough, like now, we’ll make a batch of super tasty jam. Home made raspberry jam is the best.
Fingers crossed it will be an excellent apple harvest. Each week, the fruit get larger and display more colour. Most of the harvest will be made into cider.
Every day I observe the apricot crop, and ask the hard question: Are you lot ready to eat, or what? Each day I’m denied. Patience…
Pears are a super tasty fruit, if allowed to ripen. That’s not as easy to judge as you’d imagine, and many pears happily ripen off the tree. This next red variety of pear, is my favourite:
This year, some of the plum trees have decided to thank us for the lavish care and attention we’ve applied to their soil feed.
The other night when I went down to take the photo of the broken apart boulder, there was a very large bull kangaroo who stood his ground. I’ve got no beef with him, and after a while he ignored me and went back to grazing.
This weeks video is the second part of making the tiramisu, it shows how I made the lady finger biscuits:
Onto the flowers:
The temperature outside now at about 9am is 8’C (46’F). So far for last year there has been 929.0mm (36.6 inches) which is up from last weeks total of 896.8mm (35.3 inches)
“It would be nice if the solar panels reliably produced enough energy to meet half of the demand, at all times and hours of the year, except it doesn’t. The technology just doesn’t work that way.”
This is why the only way we will see a deviation from the path of decline is if a dirt cheap storage solution turns up. Alas, this doesn’t exist and it would need to exist AND being rolled out today for it have any hope of slowing the path down.
I like you attitude of, lets focus on the plants. They have the right idea. 😉
Hi Michael,
Greetings again, and hope that you’re doing well and get a decent break from work over Christmas! That’s the plan here, this year – it’s been many long years since I’ve had a decent break from work. 🙂
I’ll tell you a funny story. A few years ago now I was at the pub for a friends birthday. Ended up in a conversation with an acquaintance who asked me if I wanted to take 8x 200W solar panels off his hands. Honestly, at the time I didn’t hesitate and a week or two later, the panels were collected. What the heck? The first 200W panels I’d ever bought, set me back about $750 each, and here’s some dude at the pub offering me eight of them for free. Something was afoot! 😉
Turns out, there’s only some mob in Adelaide on the entire continent which will take second hand solar panels and at least attempt to recycle them. So when people upgrade their grid tied systems, the installers aren’t allowed to use old panels. How wasteful is that? So there are a lot of second hand panels floating around the landscape going for a song. The next lot of eight panels cost me $400 in total. We live in a truly crazy society for that sort of rubbish to go on. These things are super hard to manufacture.
Have to laugh too, people get weirded out about the longer term de-rating of the panels just because they’ve been out in the weather. Honestly, if after twenty years outside in all sorts of weather, the panels produce only 90% of their rated output, who’s going to know the difference? I wouldn’t, that’s for sure.
Anyway, enough of that! You piqued my curiosity, and it looks like you can purchase decent locally assembled and tested LiFePO4 batteries for about $400 per kWh. Not bad, but hardly what you’d call cheap.
Truthfully, the cables, racking, stands, fuses, terminal boxes, charge controllers etc. cost far more than that. And each of them are necessary. It’s a financially ruinous hobby, but it is fun and interesting.
Exactly! The best time to plant a tree, was many years ago. The same is true for any renewable energy transition.
The plants are known to make excellent usage of all that solar energy (I believe they can capture 2%, which is pretty impressive) at a much cheaper price point than solar panels. Best to stick to what works.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
The whole salmon hat orca thing is news to me. Makes you wonder if anyone has worked out how the orcas even keep the dead salmon stuck to their heads, it is after all an impressive achievement. And when the salmon (please excuse the unintended pun) head up stream, what do the orcas dress themselves up with then? Blue fin tuna hats? So many questions, but it’s good to see the big fish mucking around – the birds do that here all the time.
Did a shandy day of paid work and work around here. Split and hauled a lot of firewood, and the job now has only maybe two more days before it’s all done. The magpie family watch us at work, and are rewarded with tasty wood grubs, plus they go through the splitting detritus and eat any ants and other insects they find. Better the birds having an enjoyable feed than either of us getting bitten and stung by those super aggressive ants. The birds are funny too, once they spot us starting to do that work, they’ll sit in nearby trees watching everything, and singing. Quite enjoyable for the avian music to accompany the work, like a proper march cadence.
Hehe! I don’t think so man! 🙂 Nah, it’s an equal opportunity event where the bald and hirsute alike are gently probed by the local constabulary. Dude, one word for you with those number plate license plate readers – mission creep. Except that’s two words, yeah. Oh well. I’ve long wondered if those things will create a market for people thiefing off with vehicle number plates – it seems like an obvious consequence, but perhaps that’s just how my brain works.
It was pretty funny that cartoon, and ever so naughty. Quite irreverent. Well there’s the nub of the matter, and you’re quite right too. I believe comedy is exempt – thank the efforts of the brave and long deceased court jesters for handing down that particular exemption in English common law. I became aware of the cartoon because it caused such an uproar, that’s also otherwise known as ‘free advertising’.
Well it is an item of public interest, so yeah, why not a movie? Although turning it into a musical is probably a step too far. 😉 Maybe it is how my brain works, but when I heard about the back pack being discovered, my first thought was ‘decoy’. My take on the publics reaction is that possibly the company in question, may have gone too far. Over reach is always a risk, and the sheer number of people affected means that although it is an awful incident, the sympathy is just not visible for the guy. I’m not sure at all that Mr Greer will tackle the subject in a post, although the incident clearly has piqued his interest, as it has mine – and plenty of other people too.
🙂 It’s notably hard to keep a low profile these days… I am aware that individuals spend their energies looking into such matters, and candidly do my best to never poke them. Seems like the wiser path, huh? Hmm. You know what, I heard it once said many years ago, that events and things go strangely when you can’t go to the king and get justice – and here we are today. I read that the reward was upped today, but it’s still peanuts which tends to attract monkeys. Makes you wonder if the company in question sees the consequences as a cost of doing business? Maybe, he will get caught that way, dunno. For all anyone knows, the person could have been wearing a mask, and I ain’t talking about the thing over the mouth. Hmm. The eyebrows in the photo looked fake to me, but what do I know. The thought that the dude was a foreign agent also occurred to me a few days ago.
That’s a cold day, but then 48’F was what I woke up too this morning. You and H are doing your best to dodge the rain, and sort of succeeding, maybe. Hopefully you both weren’t too far from home when the deluge hit?
It was dry, cool and sunny here today and will be like that for the rest of the week. Oooo! I gave the sapling fenced enclosure a decent watering this morning, and in the sunlight today, numerous pumpkin, squash, cucumber and zucchini seeds are beginning to pop through the soil. Hopefully the locally adapted melon grows and produces, but that’s a very marginal fruit here – usually requires the hottest of hot summers.
Oh my! That melody is going to be stuck in my head for weeks. Thanks – it’s a great song. Pan Pipes? That’s what I’ve always thought. Hopefully it wasn’t a recorder? Myabe it was a flute. Who knows? Man, the song is so 70’s, it hurts, but in a really good way. The title is awesome too. Yeah, do the hustle!
Hope you’re doing well, and the auction crew didn’t over work you today? Did all the stuff end up in the truck? Some days are long work days indeed.
It’s a bit on the light side that increase, and might not even cover the cost of that gourmet pizza Scott mentioned…
Cheers
Chris
Ah, the dreaded duck curve writ large. I’m thinking some clever bloke will reengineer some process or function so that instead of continuous, it can start and stop on a dime. In other words, not storage, but utilization that matches the time of oversupply. I assume the electric rate gets cheap during those solar peaks?
At all scales. for as long as we have solar power ( which won’t be forever, but use it while we do) shifting from electricity on demand to shifting demand to available supply will be a hard sell, but as you personally know, can be done. Just needs a bit more thought and preplanning.
I guess I’m surprised that Australia, which has promoted solar so much, did not also require inverters that enable distributed generation control. To evenly share the pain, one could envision rolling throttling, as opposed to rolling blackouts. Crazy.
Is it a trick of perspective, or are you varying the rise and run on the steps to match the hill slope? One can only go so far in this way till you’ve got stumbling locked in.
Anyway, Will finish this week cutting the black locust wood ( good for rot resistance, but not as good as the trees you have) for our raised beds we’ll put in the greenhouse this spring.
Yo, Chris – Solar. Can’t live with it. Can’t live without it. Hmmm. It’s kind of like printers. Relatively cheap, but, oh my. The cost of the ink cartridges.
It’s that season, here. What to grow? What not to grow? The seed catalogs ought to be arriving, any day now. Wormwood and rabbits. Live and learn.
So, are you going to let the feral pumpkins, in the orchard, do their thing? It’s always interesting in the spring, to see what pops up, where. Is that a stray carrot seed? Or, fennel? I still have no explanation as to where the tomato came from, that popped up in my Patriotic Petunia Basket.
The boulders look shattered. 🙂 You can never have too many brushfire sprinklers … or stairs. What will you do, if you end up with exactly … well, I won’t mention THAT number, but you probably know the one I mean.
I think it’s amazing, that you”re Japanese maple volunteer so freely. But then, I’ve never taken a look around the ones we have here. I can’t say I’ve noticed the Master Gardeners potting up any for the yearly plant sale.
Go beans! Go Turmeric!
Cider! And apple sauce! And apple butter! 🙂 Maybe a bit of cider vinegar?
Apricots, pears, plums. Looks like you won’t starve … if you beat the parrots to them.
A stare down, with a kangaroo. My, he looks like a well fed fellow.
I watched the video on making the Lady Finger biscuits. Very clear and informative. But, they’ll never let you in the union, if you don’t use a pipping bag. 🙂 They seem kind of wasteful, to me. Or, at least, hard to clean.
The roses are beautiful. Looks like they’re about to overtake the bench, and have a good sit. Lew
And, to your letter. Speaking of the comical, I see Simon Pegg’s sidekick, Nick Frost has a new movie out. Looks interesting.
https://youtu.be/HxR_vM0ZdI4?si=uI5ETuCahCxNaKrm
Orcas are strange beasts. They get ideas in their heads, and it seems to spread. Maybe they use social media? Such as, the orcas around Gibralter. Suddenly, they started attacking, and occasionally sinking, yachts.
So when you finish with the firewood, do the magpies give you ‘what for’ when the treats and nibbles stop coming?
Gee, it’s kind of a challenge. You can say anything, as long as it’s a joke? I’m glad I so liberally sprinkle around 🙂 . I’m covered.
Big companies usually insure their executives. They’ll probably get a big pay out. That ought to make the fourth quarter returns look rosy.
I bet the internet sleuths could find a certain incriminating photo, of a certain person, that appeared in a hippie magazine. I wouldn’t run for office, if I were you. 🙂
Our high yesterday was 48F (8.88C). The overnight low was 41F. Forecast for today is 47F. The weather is very nice, today, and ought to be nice for the next three days.
Wow, those seeds are supercharged. Even with soaking overnight, my pumpkin seeds took six or seven days to sprout.
I am knackered. I was up til 5am, packing boxes. Mostly on my hands and knees, attaching tags and packing. Late last night, I took a rocker, a small bookcase and a glass plant stand, and stashed them in the library. The auction called at 8:30am, and said they’d be by in about an hour. So, I humped 15 boxes (about half banana boxes) down to the porch, a couple of chairs. Retrieved the stuff from the library. Dodging little old ladies, along the way.
The only thing Zack the auctioneer, and Gage, his helper had to retrieve from my apartment, was the two small Art Deco Display cabinets.
Does my place look empty? Well, no. There’s probably enough stuff, for next year. Not as lavish as this batch, or the last, but a respectable showing.
H was freaked. I think she thought I was moving, and wasn’t going to take her along. Or, maybe she thought she’d end up in a box? At one point, I couldn’t find her. She had completely burrowed under the top blanket, on the bed. Something she’s never done, before.
Well, that’s done and dusted. Nothing to do but clean up the wreckage, and pray the weather will be as nice as today, on New Year’s Day. I’m going back to bed! Lew
Hi Steve,
Back in 2007, I installed the first solar off grid power system and was awed by the results. The 80W panel was made in Japan and crazy expensive, as was the still working today Fullriver sealed lead acid 12V battery made in your country. Truly, the big battery, tiny 12V LCD television and DVD player could entertain Sandra and I with the latest instalments of Star Trek Voyager when we chose to spend the night in the remote mountain cabin.
The battery however went flat when the cheeky sulphur crested cockatoos chomped through the solar cables. Copper being probably just the thing to sharpen their beaks. More lessons to learn, the UV stable PVC conduit made it that much harder for the cheeky birds, but added costs. And so it goes.
Sorry to say, despite the excess supply of solar during the day for people on the grid when conditions are just right (like the three little bears), prices don’t come down. Dude, you can’t easily shut down a coal fired power station. Sure, some excess steam can be vented, but alas the machines were never made to be stopped and started all the time. Even gas turbines take a few minutes to start up, and so what are people going to do in the meantime when the sun goes behind clouds, or the wind fails? Anyway, with coal boilers, that can be done a few times over their lifespan, and no more. Unfortunately, wind and solar may not pick up the slack in the dark hours of the night – they’re intermittent.
Our general societal arrangements are not established so as to take advantage of energy sources when nature provides them. One of the biggest lessons I’ve taken away from this entire journey, is that most processes relate to attempts to preserve any harvest. Firewood for one example, is no different from making raspberry jam (it’s been a good raspberry season).
There’s only one mob now that manufacturers local inverters, and they’re hybrid beasts and are really very good – and expensive. A mate of mine who claims that he has the second grid connected solar power system in the state, has one of them with backup batteries. The other mob I purchased my off grid inverters from no longer seem to even be replying to emails. Ook! Fortunately the devices seem hardy enough and I’ll have to service them, myself.
Well, the costs were kept low, and that is what created the current solar power mains grid issues. The machines can’t throttle up or down their output and instead tend to supply the voltage at above the mains supply – how else could they push their electrons past the meter? What it looks like though: imagine if King Kong were a coal fired power plant, except the behemoth had to deal with ten thousand monkeys all throwing poison darts. That’s a sort of analogy. They talk about inertia, but what they mean is stability of voltage, current and frequency, and that’s what the big fossil fuel generators provide. Every little grid tied system connected up merely chucks rotten fruit, and if there’s enough of them…
For the grid operators, I’m guessing it is easier to simply cut out any pesky circuits that over voltage and trip the sub stations.
You’ve got a sharp eye. The rise is consistent, the run varies slightly depending upon the slope. The mind does not especially notice that difference.
That black locust timber grows like a weed here, except I tend to remove them due to their wicked thorns. But, I’ve also noticed the rot resistance, which is commendable.
You won’t regret the innovation in your greenhouse, and it will hedge your high value harvests, so you’ll get them at different times (greenhouse versus outdoors).
Any snow yet?
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
The Nick Frost film looks like fun. I see you with that family horror vacation, and raise you: 28 YEARS LATER – the zombieness story continues… Do I soil my armour, or not sleep right for days? Truly, it’s hard to know.
Ain’t just orcas. Chickens are very good at teaching one another too, and not necessarily good habits. Humans aren’t the only species to be able to learn, although I admit that teaching the chickens that it was a bad thing for them to eat eggs – and they’ve taken the lesson to heart – was personally quite challenging for me to process. Like watching scary zombie films.
No, the magpies are lovely, and we have a solid working relationship forged over many long years. Now sulphur crested cockatoos are entirely different experience, fail to feed them, and things will turn ugly. They can chomp into houses with their large and powerful beaks. And they live as long as humans and can hold a grudge. Best not to feed them in the first place. 🙂 Actually, all of the local birds here clear them off.
Hehe! I try to use weasel words to soften the easily ruffled feathers. Seems like you were right, they allegedly caught the guy, but it wasn’t DNA, apparently he was turned in. Possibly he forgot to change his behaviour, and maybe dye that hair and thick eyebrows.
🙂 I don’t think so. Those were the days when photos were published in magazines, so unless someone uploaded the article, which I doubt, I’m in the clear, maybe! Whatever, the contingency seems rather remote. But I wouldn’t run for office anyway, got plenty of other things to do with my time.
It’s nice when the weather co-operates and provides pleasant conditions. Alas, woe is me, the forecast suggests 104’F for Monday. It’s not fair you know. Still the plants need the energy in order to grow.
Really? That’s good to know about the seeds as a comparison. Interestingly, most of them were saved from last year and they looked robust and viable before soaking overnight. It was a cool-ish day here today, so I didn’t water them this morning. No point cooling the soil the seedlings are growing in. It’s getting late in the season to plant the seeds out, so the soil was quite warm (about 65’F now), which may be why they got off to such a solid start?
Oh my, that’s a late finish, even for a night owl such as yourself. Respect for doing the work. Still, the job is done now and you can relax and enjoy the extra available space. Did you end up sending off any items with sentimental attachments, or are you all business with them? Good to hear that you’ve retained some stuff, the life of the ascète is notably rarely one of levity and fun, although people can get their kicks in all sorts of ways I guess.
Poor H. The dogs here would likewise get freaked out by such changes in their habitat. They really do enjoy their patterns. Hope you slipped H some choice treats and that she enjoyed a decent petting. How’s she doing now?
What I want to know is: Did you discover any errant monster dust bunnies? 🙂
Exactly, and that’s it with solar as well as ink jet printers, although the printers which use the ink tanks are quite cheap to operate. You can obtain the panels cheap enough, but everything else is going to cost you dearly. Brace yourself for the expenditure, although most people don’t believe me about that side of the story.
How good are the seed catalogues? The thing I always wonder about, is when to start the seeds. It varies every single year, and sometimes, you’re just busy or don’t have the time. I know you advised to do this many years ago, but the Editor is now this year recording the dates when seeds were started, and using a planting calendar appropriate for the area. I know, I know! Been busy… 🙂 Are you thinking about starting any different varieties later this year?
I’d advise against wormwoods and rabbits in the garden. Opinions may vary! 😉
Absolutely, the feral pumpkins in the orchard will be allowed to do their own thing, just to see what happens. Agreed, it is astounding to see what turns up randomly in the garden, and you never know what it will be. 🙂 Your guess is as good as mine, both plants (carrot / fennel) look the same-ish at seedling stage! Tomatoes are feral for that trick of just turning up for a special guest appearance in the garden.
Hopefully the boulders sensibilities aren’t too smooshed up and they take offence? Ook! Hehe! Well, there’s a long way to go with bushfire sprinklers, but the stairs have already surpassed that number, many years ago.
Hmm. The Japanese maples produce flowers in early spring, and those are soon followed by winged seeds and – eventually seedlings. They’re a bit weedy, but such a great plant – and one of my favourite trees. The winged seeds can spread a bit further away from the parent tree. I reckon the most weedy exotic tree here has to be the cherries. Those plants are Triffids in disguise. Don’t let the nice floral display early in the season lure you into a false sense of security!
Another turmeric shoot has popped up this morning. The Editor is playing around with the idea of swapping the apple cider vinegar for kombucha which is easier to make. I don’t get involved in that…
Beating the parrots is a local sport here. Spotted a King parrot in one of the apple trees this evening. No doubt the food innovation will be shared with the parrots friends and family.
He’s a big fella isn’t he that roo? Left him well alone, and you could say that he’s in a good paddock having grown to that size.
The fricken piping bag was too much. I loathe the things because they are so hard to clean and there’s enormous waste, but yeah I got the call from the union boss earlier today telling me to shut it down. Yeah, nah, as they say down under. I’d imagine piping bags are quicker if you chuck them out after use…
Thanks! More flowers next week. I keep forgetting to put up a photo of the red ‘bottle brush’ flowers – the callistemon.
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – You beat me to it! I just saw the trailer for “28 Years Later,” this morning. And had a note to mention it, to you. Well, here’s something you may not know. There will be a sequel, “28 Years Later, Part 2. The Bone Temple.” They filmed both parts, back to back. So, it’s already in the can.
It’s funny about the assassin. It crossed my mind that he was a bit like the Unabomber, and, that manifesto was on the assassin’s reading list, and he recommended it. I’m really wondering what tipped him over the edge. A lot about his background is coming out, now. Apparently, wealth and privilege. Never had a problem with being a world traveler. Though he did have some health problems. But I can’t see any indication of inability to pay the bills. And I wonder. Where’s the girlfriend? Past or present. Or, boyfriend, for that matter.
Oh, I’m sure there’s a copy of that magazine, kicking around someone’s attic or basement. Scan it, post it to the web, and your political aspirations are over! Oh, well. Then you can do the apology tour, with the Editor standing staunchly at your side. 🙂
104F temperature! Gosh, that sounds awful. Our high yesterday was 46F (7.77C). The overnight low was 34F. Forecast for today is 43F. There hasn’t been rain, but a lot of fog, which makes everything wet and drippy.
When I get right down to it, not much with a sentimental attachment. I was thinking about that, as I packed. About the only thing that comes to mind, from the last batch, is a piece of Weller pottery. A pattern called “Baldwin” (or, sometimes, “Baldin.”) Some pieces have a lush, dark blue background. And there are raised apples, that in some cases, look good enough to eat. I even looked last night, to see how much it’s going for, these days. Didn’t see a piece for less than $285. Doubt I’ll be replacing it.
There’s a couple of things that are “no-go,” as far as sending them away. It hurt a bit to send off the dinnerware set (which filled 3 banana boxes.) I thought I had 6 of everything, but, it seems there were a few items short! No worries. Found them in the dish drainer. And, it turns out I have 2 extra dinner plates, and a soup bowl. Which I kept. Something to remind me of the good ol’ days.
LOL. While I was moving stuff around, I found my small brush and dustpan. Oh, well. Now I have two. I also thought I was short of towels, and found two. Clean and neatly folded.
The auction has started posting pictures of stuff, for the sale. It will be interesting to see what of my stuff, they put up. From what I’ve seen of the pictures so far, my stuff will really notch up the sale. Zach said there’s already been a lot of interest.
H seems to have calmed down and mellowed out. Now that we’re back on schedule. Dust bunnies? Oh, there were dust bunnies. A lot of the stuff I packed, I could get away with wiping down, or, vacuuming. But some had to be washed of dust. But, yes, bunnies. Big bunnies. Just saw an article yesterday that dust bunnies is where micro plastics lurk.
Not only do some of my seeds get a late start, but I also seem to always miss the optimum moon phase, to plant whatever. This morning, I picked some mustard greens and parsley. I think I want those, with garbanzo beans, for dinner. I washed them, and they’re in a mug of water. They’ll keep til this evening. I have some radish that’s big enough to harvest, but something has been nibbling at the tops, where they push out of the soil 🙁 .
My nomination for weedy trees, are … well, everyone seems to call them something different. “Plums, Italian Plums, Prunes, Italian Prunes.” I think the proper term is Italian Prunes. It used to be quit an industry, here, with dedicated building to drying prunes, dotting the countryside. In fact, the last house I lived in was made largely of wood, salvaged out of an old prune dryer. The last place I lived, had a thicket of them. And, the little house I once owned, had one in the yard. When I cleared the property line, to build a fence, there were many, many volunteers. Some as thick as 6 inches across. Great firewood!
I’m just finishing up a book, “Julia’s Kitchen.” It’s not a cookbook. It’s about when she finally pretty much retired, and moved to California. Her kitchen, and everything in it was acquired by the Smithsonian Museum. The book is by them. It’s not only stories of the fabled kitchen, and the things in it, but also full of “Julia” stories. She was really a generous person, with real depths I was unaware of.
When she went out on tour, she wasn’t interested in crowd size, or how many books she sold. She was thrilled that the recipes worked. When she and Jaques Pepin decided to do a show, together (they’d been friends since the early 60s), what they decided together, among other things was, the recipes shouldn’t have too many ingredients, and that it didn’t make any difference what it looked like, as long as it tasted good. Anyway. I’m thoroughly enjoying the book. Lew
Yo, Chris – You might find these pictures interesting. Or, frightening.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/10/us/gallery/franklin-fire-malibu
They’re going to release a new updated version, of Malibu Barbie. With singed hair. Lew
Hi, Chris!
It is indeed wonderful to have a home library, but the day comes – it is here! – that some books must be culled and that can be a hard thing. But it is a plus for the local charity shops that I drop them off with.
Rubbing alcohol is the number one best thing for pimples. Slosh some on several times a day and they go away. It’s the only thing that has ever conquered mine and when I was younger I tried everything, including prescriptions.
How lovely that you have those old elms.
Christmas lights report: They were so lovely the first night, then by the second, when I plugged them in, the first 6 feet were lit and the rest of the 60 feet were black. I am blaming squirrels, though in actuality I don’t see any way that one could truly be responsible. My son and I cannot figure out what happened.
My lips are sealed, in honor of your lips being sealed. In other words: Praise Big Brother!
I am impressed by the large number of solar panels in Australia, but is this going to work? That is what they wanted, but now they can’t control it. I guess the whole thing is an experiment, so setbacks are to be expected. But how dangerous is an overabundance of power? Is that why they want to be able to shut the whole thing down? I am at sea. And what about batteries? You have batteries. Is it not just a matter of scale?
As with your wormwood shrubs, I discovered something yesterday in an overgrown bed: A groundhog burrow. A very large one. I had assumed that there was a rabbit in the garden since a few of the plants had been eaten and because groundhogs usually go first to the small mulberry trees and devastate them; they had not been touched. The only thing I can hope is that the hole ran to the Big Pit where we knew a groundhog lived and which had been filled in by the CAT 955 in the summer. So maybe he is long gone. I’ll have to fill the hole in anyway, of course.
Pumpkin seeds going in – we are getting close to the solstice, aren’t we? We get quite a few feral plants. Some are duds, but some turn out very well and are interesting crosses.
What a cornucopia of fruits! All of that hard work is really paying off this year.
I watched your ladyfingers video like a hawk. I wonder of it is possible to make them with gluten free flour. Five eggs is a lot for just me, but maybe I could cut it in half. Why the sifting, and was that parchment paper? They do look so delicious. Ollie was so intense I thought he might blast off!
Aren’t you glad that you planted so many roses? The rest of the flowers are stunning, too. Thanks!
Pam
Hi Lewis (and other lovely people here who may from time to time come into contact with the US health care system),
The Editor sent this amusing (which may, or may not have an ironic element to the narrative) South Park explanation as to what dealing with your health care system looks like: Navigating The American Healthcare System | South Park: The End Of Obesity.
Cheers
Chris
Chris,
Ouch! That Redflow debacle sounds nasty. Ugg.
Enjoyed the South Park episode you linked to. Thanks to the Editor! Their inclusion of having to navigate an Escher set of staircases was brilliant.
I know how the orcas make the salmon stick to their heads like hats. Super glue. Or maybe Gorilla Glue, the kind that is saltwater resistant. Next these intrepid killer whales will market this as Orca Glue. 😉
The saga of the Australian electric grid and solar power is interesting. Somebody didn’t think it completely through, obviously. I like your comparison of the solar enhanced grid to learning how to garden.
I’ve been adding all of our coffee grounds to the compost pile. Some of our water saving ideas involve our coffee brewing process. As a result, the rinsing of the Bodrum between brewings adds weak coffee and some coffee grounds to the lawns where we toss the rinse water. It will be interesting to see what effect this has, as it is adding nutrients to the predominately bluegrass. I’ve read that bluegrass likes coffee and coffee grounds.
Busy week that you’ve had. Bashing boulders. Spraying sprinklers. Constructing with concrete. Peering at pears and admiring apricots.
Wonderful week.
We had a one day break from the freezing fog. Any ice from this is thin and bothers Dame Avalanche not at all. The compact snow and thicker ice that we get in the depths of winter are another matter. Everybody slides on that stuff. We might have a storm system enter the picture Thursday, which should break us out of this cycle of freezing fog and endless gray.
There are a lot of large trees of many varieties in our neighborhood. We were walking under one large tree this morning when a large piece of apple nearly landed on Dame Avalanche’s head. I looked up. Yup, a crow had dropped it. Dunno if it was trying to hit us or if it was just a coincidental mishap. With corvids you never know. The fact that the crow was silent before we got there and after we had wandered on is suspicious to me. They do love to have their fun.
DJSpo
Hi Pam,
Alas, may the awful culling day have been delayed just for one more read, but then! – with those books working their way back into circulation, that day of reading for them may indeed take place faster than you or I could possibly read them all. It’s such a thoughtful gift for the charity shops. Never had the desire to speed read books, your experience may be different there?
Oh yeah, that stuff works with pimples – it is a powerful cleaning fluid. They’re pesky things aren’t they? Some of the medications used to seriously dry my skin out and that looked even worse because it became red, flaky and irritable looking. Not a fan. Anti-bacterial cream worked pretty well too from memory.
You can only hope that Dutch elm disease never makes it’s way down under, it would be a loss of the old elms. From what I’ve observed of the trees, they tend to produce impenetrable thickets, and that’s probably not all that great for the health of the elm trees.
Oh no! A Christmas light mystery! The cable will be broken somewhere. Not all that easy to fix, and they use notoriously cheap cable just to keep costs down. The poor plastic here has to withstand the extreme UV of the summer sun – it’s hard out there for a Christmas light.
It’s not in my nature to be mysterious, so maybe that story needs to be told? Big tech ain’t your mates. 🙂
Well that’s a great question and gets to the core of the entire problem: Will the system work in its current format? My gut feeling suggests the answer may be no. The authoritas may have also noticed this issue and are busy talking about nuclear. It astounds me that the issue of waste is disregarded – doesn’t seem clean and green to me. But then, the lights going out for everyone is no good either. Speaking of such matters, did you know that tourism contributes 10% of each years carbon emissions – like that’s the only pollutant. I can foresee the demise of that industry, soon.
Oops. That was drool on the keyboard. Pam, I have machinery envy, a Cat 955 is a venerable workhorse. Didn’t Bill Murray blow them up in the Caddyshack film? I’m not suggesting anything there, but I’ve heard of people doing that with rabbit warrens. But like you, I also fill up the rabbit holes on the basis that it would be a bad thing to fall or step into one.
We are indeed edging ever closer to the solstice. Monday’s forecast is for 104’F, yay for us! 🙂
Always worth experimenting with plant breeding, and if they’re natural crosses, all the better because nature has done the hard work. Most of those here tend to work out OK. The Japanese maples will be hardy plants, and they’re growing fast now that I repotted them into larger pots.
It’s the soil feeding regime, particularly the additions of the blood and bone meal. Have to spread around some more of that stuff over the next few days. It’s been an amazing berry year – especially the raspberries right now. Yum!
Dunno, but I don’t see why not. You eventually dunk the lady finger biscuits into espresso mix, and that’s what you taste. The texture might be different though, but always worth experimenting. Five eggs is a lot, but it fed eight people and made twelve servings. Pam, I had three… 😉 Ollie had focus, yup.
🙂 Why buy cut flowers, when the plants aren’t that much differently priced – you just have to have the space and time (valuable things, I reckon).
I’m almost on my Christmas break, don’t tell anyone in case they send me heaps of work! 🙂
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
It’s a bit of a bummer, but perhaps also indicative of the old mantra: Ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. The specific technology would probably work better at a much bigger scale, but battery technology is notoriously expensive. It’s a mature technology too, so the easy gains have long since been made. Here’s a link to an article on them (and I believe the local ones were the Redox variety): Flow battery.
Hehe! I’d never seen the South Park interpretation, but it was a hoot, and yes, that was a nice touch at the end. To be stuck in the circular labyrinth is no fun. Did you notice that the young stalwarts had their energy dissipate as the journey progressed? I’d suggest that that is perhaps what is sometimes commonly known as a feature.
Orca glue! Funny. Thanks for the laughs. I want some of this stuff, hopefully the orcas don’t mind sharing the technology?
Thanks, and well they’re in the early phase of the grid tied solar power experiment. It’s just that an unpleasant tipping point is being reached. Basically, the technology was created with batteries in mind, and here we all are trying to pretend that the big fossil fuel generators are a battery. It’s a shame that the grid tied inverters weren’t designed and made so that they could sense demand on the grid, then supply appropriately – a more expensive proposition. In many ways it’s an abuse of the commons how those machines work. In order to make electrons move along a wire, you have to supply a higher voltage (pressure) than what you’re resisting (i.e. the grid at a lower voltage). With only a few such devices, it didn’t matter, but too many of them, and things can go wrong badly with the voltage rising too high with no ability to compensate for increased demand, and then the sub stations trip.
The really stupid thing about those devices, is that if they were able to throttle supply up and or down depending upon the state of the grid, each device, would then fight all of the other devices on the local grid circuit for supremacy, and we’d be back where we are right now.
I have to manage this very situation with the battery charge controllers. There are four of them installed, and each are programmed slightly differently so that one defers to the other depending on the aspect to the sun. It’s all nicely staged and tested over many years, because ultimately whoever writes their program (me!) gets to decide how they work. The grid by contrast is like gun-slingers in the wild west! Who knows how that will work out?
Nice idea with the coffee grounds getting chucked into the compost pile. You know you can chuck other minerals in to the compost pile as well, like lime and blood and bone meal? Truly it will be the best compost ever, or maybe not quite, but it will be good.
🙂 Tidy work too. Every little bit counts when it comes to soil remineralisation. Dunno, but bluegrass and rye grass grow very well here, and they’re in a sort of longer term dance with clover (and also other plants). It will be interesting to see what happens with that patch of soil when you make it back to spring again. Won’t be long…
This morning, I chucked onto a bare-ish patch of soil (near one of the stone rings with an oak tree seedling) a whole bunch of pine needles brought back from the city, and then for balance added wood ash over the top. Last year that patch of soil was bare of plants and was hard baked clay, but this year with such additions, the plants are moving on in. We’ll see.
My head is spinning a little bit from trying to juggle all of the busyness! 🙂 Did paid work all day today, and finished late this evening. There’s maybe one or two days left of that before I can kick up my heels and really get to work on the property for a couple of weeks. I’ll try not to overdo it, and may in fact take tomorrow off any and all work in order to get my brain back into equilibrium. Balance of course being a good thing! 🙂 Ugg! My hard wired memories suggest that Neanderthals never had to work this hard! 😉 Possibly done something bad in a past life… You probably know the feeling!
Hopefully you and Dame Avalanche avoid the worst of the thicker ice when it eventuates. Sounds pretty bad actually. Being in the future means that Thursday is tomorrow, but that will probably be Wednesday for you, and time travelling is hard on the brain. Any signs that the storm is on its way and will clear away the weather dross?
🙂 The crow did it for sure, and managed to pull off innocent face number seven. Man, sometimes you know you’ve both been beaten and just have to be cool, accept the reality and act as if the incident is beneath your dignity to notice. Maybe the crow in a former life was a bridge troll? You never know? Did you ask the crow what it’s favourite colour was?
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
I’m left scratching my head about the Malibu fires because it’s err, winter. Hmm. Enough of those sorts of fires, and the area eventually becomes perhaps uninhabitable – or there is nothing left to burn. You may wonder why every single winter, we spend a lot of time and effort in the forest, cleaning up. Hmm, the footage suggests how things can work out on that front.
The kiddies will be very distressed when confronted by singed Barbie. Might make a tidy Halloween addition?
Haha! And you thought I was half asleep. Actually the zombie film trailer looked pretty good, and I’ve watched the earlier two films in the sequence, and enjoyed them. I spotted the part two, and there was talk of a trilogy. Someone has taken the film concept out of development hell and breathed new life into the patient. But am I brave enough to go to the cinemas to watch the film? Might be. Your library system might have it on DVD before it’s released in the cinemas down here! 🙂
More has been released as to the guys alleged background, history and possible interactions with that system. Hmm. The romance aspect was mentioned, at least in the local news. Pain can be an uncomfortable bedfellow from what I’ve heard over the years.
Trust me, 104’F on Monday will be awful, but hopefully also brief and perfunctory. How’s the garden holding up under your relentless cold weather?
The raspberry harvest has been nothing short of remarkable this year, and the Editor is coming around to the benefits of pruning, thinning and the expensive soil feeding regime. The plants are hungry and need space… 🙂 We might make up a batch of raspberry jam over the next few days as the small freezer is fast filling up – we pick twice a day now, and the plants are real givers.
Yeah, fair enough, I get that, and only a few items here have special emotional attachment which goes beyond their mere physical aspect. Are those Weller Baldwin items hand painted? They look it. Those are beautifully made, if I may say so. A century old too.
Ouch, and surely the items hiding in the dish drainer was some sort of subliminal attempt – on their part, mind you – to not be sent on their way and back out into the world again? Hopefully the auction results are good and that there’s lots of interest in your items.
I was thinking about selling one of my old bits of electronic doo-dahs. It’s an intriguing AM stereo tuner – with the proper stereo signal decoder. One station in Melbourne still apparently transmits an AM stereo signal… Haven’t used the thing in years, and doubt I ever will again. It might have collector value, but who really knows? Do I try the 1 cent opening bid auction, just to test the market?
Glad you were able to keep the extras with the dinnerware set. Handy to keep as well, and yes, such items are good for nostalgia. A collector would want the set, so I reckon you picked that right.
I told you the dust pan would turn up again! How far could it have gone… 🙂 Still, spatial anomalies can be dangerous.
Decent interest tends to suggest good prices for your stuff.
A happy H, makes for a more enjoyable life. Man, you have been busy packing all that stuff up. Holy carp, now I’m looking at the dust bunnies differently. I’d hate to think what their half life would be if they contain microplastics? When we used to bring in the composted woody mulch, that stuff is so full of plastic that we kept a bin handy when unloading the organic matter. You’d be amazed at how much plastic ends up in waste streams. It’s out of control, and the stuff would be in the soils here, I have no doubts. It’s hard to tell people that plastic flowers are not compostable – you’d think it was obvious, but no.
People get good results using the moon phase for planting seeds. The night time temperatures are low enough however, that I have to worry about the forecast when it comes to planting out seeds. Soil temperature and moisture are difficult issues here to manage.
Man, mustard greens are my favourite winter leafy greens. Kapowie! Some of the mustards have serious kick to them. And parsley is super hardy here as well, although it does grow better in the summer months. Hehe! Rats and mice, and possibly also the roly poly bugs nibble away at radish. So are you on the radish appreciation train now? The Editor has only jumped on board with radishes since earlier in the year. They’re really good plants.
Cherry trees are of the same family of plants, Prunus. And yup, prunes and plums will do the same trick. Sadly a lot of that old timey industry has been allowed to decay. It won’t end well you know! Anyway, I reckon if you or I and everyone else, suddenly disappeared tomorrow, there’d be forests of fruit trees in some parts of the world. Many of the fruit trees here set seed, and often I mow them over in the orchard. A thicket of trees won’t produce fruit. As time goes on, I may get many fruit trees growing in new locations.
Oh! One of the younger citrus trees produced a single fruit which was picked today. It’s a lemonade, which is a variety of lemon, I believe crossed with an orange, which can be eaten fresh from the tree. It was tasty. Plus we picked a single orange – it was the only one.
You piqued my interest in Julia Childs and there’s a bit of discussion about her personality type on the interweb forums. Some people have a wider field of vision, and from what you’ve remarked upon, Julia is one such person. And a year or two back some show awarded a dessert recipe a prize – the thing had over 90 steps. Completely nuts and over the top from my perspective. Who has time for that?
Did paid work all day today. One, or maybe two days of that left before I can take a break. Me going to bed now…
Cheers
Chris
snow- Just a few dustings so far. Things are still on the dry side here, deep snows that melt slowly really help recharge the water, but so far, nada.
spinning reserves- that and frequency response reserves are pretty important, and I don’t think anyone has yet figured out how residential panels and inverters can contribute much to this. Of course, reserve loads, which I was thinking of, are those that can start or stop easily.
black locust- Around here, they are a mixed bag. Yes, they can be a bit “weedy”, and interfere with some forest management plans, but others like them for fence posts and similar uses. I’m in the later school, and keeping plants where you want them can be a gentle nudge or an endless headache, depending on how much you want to work with or against mother nature.
@ Pam – I did a quick search for “Gluten Free Lady Fingers.” Plenty of recipes, on the web. Your mileage may vary. 🙂 Lew
Yo, Chris – Spoilers! 🙂 I didn’t watch the South Park link, as … it’s on my library hold list 🙂 .
The Santa Anna winds used to come earlier in the fall. I read somewhere where that the “wind season” had expanded. More global weirding. When I lived in S. California, you had to be careful where you parked your car. The winds carried a lot of desert sand, and could sand blast the paint right off. You know, back when I lived down there, in the early 70s, I don’t remember there being huge fires, like today.
Oh, I didn’t think you were half asleep. Anything but. Maybe distracted by all the projects you have going.
What relentless cold weather? 🙂 It hasn’t really gotten as cold, as it could, yet. Our high yesterday was 39F (3.88C). The overnight low was a steady 36F. The forecast for today is 50F. It’s sunny. Rain is coming back tonight, and for the next week. But no fire hose. Just what they used to call “intermittent showers.”
There’s not much better than raspberry jam.
Pottery and glass companies used to have corps of, mostly young ladies, who decorated pottery and glass. Fenton glass had whole families of multi generational decorators. Some were more popular and collectible, than others. They signed their works. Sigh. All gone, now. The designs were painted on, and then fired.
I just hope the weather is ok for the auction. Fingers crossed. You might want to start your auction at the cost of shipping. And then offer free shipping.
I misplace things, and have to remind myself it’s only a 500+ square foot apartment.
I don’t think plastics have a half life. They just get smaller. And smaller. And smaller.
My mustard is pretty tame. A bit of a zing, but not much. I had the garbanzos, mustard and parsley leaves, garlic, shiitake mushrooms and broccoli. Tasty.
I forgot we had Philly Sliders, at the Club on Saturday afternoon. Roast beef, Swiss cheese, fried onions and horseradish. All warmed up. Very tasty. Although the horseradish, though the jar claimed “hot” was pretty tame. The chef, DeeDee, agreed with me.
The thicket of plums at the old place, wasn’t very productive. Until I thinned it out, a bit. Plums also have on and off years. They also made a great Japanese plum sauce.
So, will you see any more lemonade or oranges?
Julia Child was a great teacher … and also a great student. She loved working with younger chefs. And if you watch her in action, it’s very much an exchange of information. And, she was flexible. She may have started out a French chef, but then got interested in American cooking. I think James Beard influenced her, in that. She always used good ingredients, but then started stressing in season and local. Probably, due to Alice Waters influence.
She loved kitchen gadgets. The right tool for the right job. 🙂 When they were packing up her kitchen, they had to set aside some things, in a “what is it” pile, for Julia to identify. She liked to try out new technologies. She got an early microwave. Called it “the Nasa machine.” It was about the size of a dishwasher. She thought it was good for heating up tea, and maybe melting chocolate. But otherwise … She never endorsed products, but would try things out, and give her opinion. She really liked food processors, when they came out. Considered five, listed the pros and cons … and then let her fans (?) decide.
Another example of poor engineering. If I run bath water, it backs up, as the water splashes directly on the drain. Not a problem, if I use the shower. Anyway. It was getting a little slow, so I finally got around to dumping some boiling white vinegar down it, letting it sit for awhile, and then following it with boiling hot water. Better. But probably should be done, again. Lew
Yo, Chris – Well, this is interesting …
https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/11/business/video/ceo-wanted-posters-new-york-egan-digvid
Maybe we’ve hit our “up against the wall” moment? Lew
Chris:
What would be the point of speedreading a book? I mean, one might have to be a genius to do so and really get the right information from it. No thank you!
I think rubbing alcohol is antimicrobial itself. I hope so, as I count on it when I am in town. I keep a bottle in my car and after shopping, before I eat the lunch I bring with me, I pour some over my hands. I also do so after visiting my friends at the assisted living place.
No – Big Tech ain’t my mates.
I’ve been watching for awhile for tourism to slow down, but I’m not seeing it. Of course, I am not in that business, nor am I a tourist, so I am only viewing things secondhand.
Ha, ha! I forgot about Caddyshack. We once smoked a groundhog out of his tunnel, but it took all day and I’m thinking there must be an easier way. It didn’t seem to bother him either. I think he only came out because it was time for dinner.
104F – that stinks!
Eight people is a lot. You did well feeding such a group.
I have come across something interesting. I have just tested it, so we’ll see if it works. The billing departments of two different companies, one an insurer and one a hospital, have told me, after I posed the question to them if I might theoretically make up my own payment plan and pay the bill in increments instead of all at once, that if I did that it would – theoretically – work. This came after the hospital told me that I had to go to court and get power-of-attorney for my deceased mother (they know she is deceased) so that they could set up a payment plan. So, I have chosen a certain fraction of the hospital’s bill and made the first payment. I did not get to try this with the insurance company as we decided to cancel their policy and go with someone cheaper. However, I was told by the insurer that I could essentially make payments of whatever amount I chose as long as the full amount was eventually paid. Could this be a little-known strategy? I may be getting myself in trouble, so don’t anybody try this without checking with whomever you owe money to.
Shh! Chris is almost on break . . .
Pam
Hi Steve,
Hmm. It’s early days yet for you, and presumably next month, and the one after, will produce the coldest and snowiest weather due to thermal inertia? The warmer summer you just experienced will have heated up the soil more than usual. Spare a moments thought for down here, but on Monday, some parts of the state will experience quite extreme temperatures: Victoria’s first 45°C in four years on the horizon. The day may , or may not, crack the 40’C mark here, but I believe it just might. Not record breaking, but right up there. Some years we can experience ten days at, or exceeding 40’C during a summer. Might have to get out and water everything deeply the day beforehand.
And that’s essentially the nub of the problem. The grid tied inverters installed simply match to whatever frequency is there already, and supply the voltage higher so as to push the electrons outwards. There is a reason the off grid inverters I use cost four times as much because they set a constant pure sine wave frequency and rock solid voltage – then throttle up and down the current depending upon demand. That is what working solar looks like, but nobody seems to want to pay for that outcome.
And that’s true, the reserve supplies can produce pretty much on demand like gas and hydro, although they still take a few minutes to spin up to speed – and things can occur quickly in such a complicated system. Getting the grid to work properly is an astounding achievement.
Black locust are a great species of tree. My only issue with them is that one seems to keep popping up each year in the grape enclosure, which is a cage. There is a nearby ‘mop top’ tree which produces the Black Locust root suckers. I’m very much of your opinion and will happily support useful plants. And exactly, why fight nature? That’s hard work.
Will be testing out the local timber species for construction over the next year. 😉 Should be interesting.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Pam,
Respect! My brain is likewise sub-genius-fluffy-optimal and cannot manage speed reading, and so when reading, I savour every word of a book. Raises the question, why did the author use that particular word in that sentence? Plus you get to enjoy the reading ride whilst floating along for the narrative. How is the dreaded thinning of the book shelves exercise going?
That’s my understanding of rubbing alcohol and it is sold for similar uses down here, however the description may have a different meaning in your country, although I’m not really sure. Here it refers to Isopropyl Alcohol, which is the stuff that distils at slightly higher temperatures than ethanol, which is the nicer tasting stuff. The spirit makers give it a fancy name, of heads or tails, although I now forget which it is. Either way, my understanding is that it doesn’t taste as good. Yours is a good use though from what I believe. During that which shall not be named, there was a run on stills. Go figure.
🙂 From my perspective, big tech, looks real big insecure!
The Monty Python crew may once have gone on the record as suggesting: Consider The Lilies. All very true. Consider the media! If ideas are being floated there, it suggests the preferred direction. Now whether that happens or not, who is to know, but we may just find out.
Bill Murray was the funniest thing about that film, the rest, well I cringed a lot. Your groundhogs sound indestructible, please do keep them on your side of the Pacific Ocean. There was an interesting article on the rabbit population down under: Concerns biological controls losing their edge as rabbit populations climb
The nearby township bizarrely has a lot more rabbits than up here. Not sure why that would be, but perhaps a lack of natural predators in the town might be an issue.
Sucks to be us! 104’F is no fun at all. Oh well, see how it goes on Monday.
Pam, I read the description of your most excellent route through the Kafkaesque landscape, and soiled my armour I was so scared! You gotta do, what ya gotta do. That’s an outrageous legal demand from my perspective.
I took the day off any and all work today, although ended up having to do some. General Patton said something very clever about plans.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Thanks for the link, and I must say I’m always intrigued by the sheer mischievousness of my fellow man. To be frank, it amazes me that more of this sort of stuff doesn’t go on. What do those folks working in high offices expect, no reaction and no risk? That’s what they get the big bucks for. Those folks are investing their lives, and so the risk is extraordinarily high – that’s life. The ancient grandmaster of strategy, Sun Tzu, advised in the treatise: ‘The Art of War’, to never back opponents into a corner, and that advice is not being heeded. It’s sound advice as far as I’m concerned.
Hehe! Just how much South Park episodes are we talking about here? There’s been a lot of seasons. 🙂
Oh yeah, sand blasting of paint when the heat already softens the plastic is very much a thing. Ook! Have you ever seen a car parked under some sort of concrete roof which leaks? That situation I’ve observed tends to strip paint pretty well too. Presumably it’s caustic stuff.
I’m not arguing with you about the extended fire season nowadays, although pretty much anywhere outside of the inner areas of a city are at risk down here. Some of the photos from the Malibu fire reminded me of photos and footage I’d seen from the 2003 Canberra fires. Not good. Do I recall correctly that I’d been reading that California had enjoyed some decent rains this year? Oh well, maybe I read that wrong. Perhaps all the vegetative growth had dried out at just the wrong time of year. That can happen.
Yeah, no shortage of hard work down here, so that explains the distractions. 🙂 On that note, I’d intended to fully take the day off work, and only mostly achieved that outcome. Something, something, bad in a past life. Oh well, a gourmet lamb pie was enjoyed, as was a late afternoon nap. Enjoyed consuming the pie under the shade of an old liquid amber tree. The sun was hot here today, but the air was cool. The pumpkin seedlings are growing fast now. Stopped into a nearby town to check out a possible place that promises good and affordable food. Might try it next week.
Your weather sort of sounds sort of like winter conditions here. 🙂 Scares the daylights out of the tourists, but the locals merely shrug their shoulders and get on with what needs doing.
Man, the raspberries are going off like a frog in a sock. It’s been an awesome haul, and we might cook up a batch of raspberry jam – 100% am with you there, yummo! – on Saturday.
Ah, sadly such craftsmanship is now a thing of the past. The work would have been quite reliable for the artists.
The weather is always a risk with the auction for any time of the year, although does the auction house run an online bidding facility as well? That might bring in buyers from further afield.
That’s a good point about including shipping in the auction price. Hmm. I’ll try that and see what effect it has, although it’s difficult to have a comparison. Might be good.
Hehe! There’s a lot of places to hide in 500ft2 depending on the general arrangement of stuff. 🙂 Try as I might, sometimes stuff here simply vanishes, only to turn up later in a totally unexpected spot. My simple rules to avoid this most awful of situations is: A place for everything, and everything in it’s place. Look, it’s aspirational, and mostly works.
Really? That’s awful, and it does raise the question: What the heck are future archaeologists going to make of this bizarre layer of plastic in the Earth? Kind of like the soil from that huge underwater shelf slippage and resulting monster tsunami, appears to us today.
Some of the green and red mustard leaves here can get hot, but not as hot as horseradish root. That’s a real brain pain zinger. 🙂 A total head rush. That is a lovely meal. We did rice, vegetables and eggs for dinner. Not quite a gourmet lamb pie, but everything in balance. Those Philly Sliders on the other hand, sound awesome. Yum, shame about the horseradish. How do you even water horseradish down? The stuff is off the charts hot, and no doubts you were left reaching for the brain pain to find it not quite there?
True, a lot of fruit trees are biennial in their production. I still don’t know how commercial orchards force the trees to produce every year. Dunno. But yeah, the plum tree thicket would appreciate being thinned. Most years I prune the hundreds of fruit trees, although I’m no purist. Never had plum sauce, but they make a pretty tasty plum jam. Yummo!
Nah, the lemonade and orange trees are still too young to produce much in the way of fruit. If memory serves me correctly, this is their third year, and they really kick off after about a decade – but I don’t force them and run a grassy orchard (which may be frowned upon by purists). Frown they may, assist they will not (said in best Yoda speak)!
Holy carp. Alice Waters eats a very good diet – the photos show as much. There’s a lot of good stuff to say about local and seasonal produce, especially when it’s grown in good mineraly rich soils. Not always possible in areas with super cold winters. Don’t we all love good kitchen gadgets, although I have to add that the things must earn their keep, or they’re out. Alas, space is at a premium which would impact upon your kitchen stuff even more.
Hehe! That drain would make for a messy dog wash, and the bath here was very much chosen with the location of the drain hole as a concern. Years ago we’d installed a bath with a drain plug in a most inconvenient and uncomfortable location. Once bitten, twice shy, then onto the next problem which you’ll likely get caught out on.
The drains flow pretty well here by way of comparison, but there’s no back pressure or fatbergs to deal with either – everything drains into the worm farm via gravity. Some of the more caustic cleaners munch up stubbornly stuck organic matter. Dunno how good they are for the pipes and sewage farm though. Never used vinegar for that purpose.
Cheers
Chris
@Pam
I’ve heard that if someone negotiates with a hospital etc. the bill will be reduced because what they’ll receive is still more than what Medicare actually pays.
Margaret
Hi Chris,
Last week I wrote a lengthy comment mostly about the medical adventures with Marty. I must have forgotten to push the post button because it never showed up.
Anyway the fun continues. We’ve been informed that Marty was admitted incorrectly and he should have been admitted under Medicaid (for low income people) and that he may only be able to stay for 60 days which won’t be long enough before he’s able to go to assisted living. We want him to stay because he absolutely cannot stay alone and other family members don’t have the option of taking him in. He needs things like a walk in shower and ramps for a wheelchair. They keep the residents at the nursing home mostly in wheel chairs must likely for safety and liability issues. So for Marty he’s not able to work on walking around with a walker and frankly is losing the ability to do so. He’s lost a crown so I have an appointment for him next Tuesday. Yesterday I was at the nursing home and informed them that I would take him but he would need to use the walker for the short distance from car to door. The wheelchairs they have don’t fold easy and are too heavy for me or my sister to get into our cars. I was informed that I couldn’t take him without a wheelchair. Well we have a lightweight foldable wheelchair arriving tomorrow. He’s going to need it to go anywhere. I was also lucky that the financial person was there (she’s responsible for 3 nursing homes). She had told me before that she was going to try to find out how to keep him there longer. Well she still hasn’t found out and explained, after admitting herself that she only kind of understands the requirements, that it has to do with different licensures different facilities have. She still doesn’t have an answer. She did emphasis that they didn’t want him to leave and in fact enjoyed him. We found out that the doctor who did his hip replacement recommended 24 physical therapy sessions but Marty’s insurance company would only approve 16. Marty also told me that his roommate who’s been there less than two weeks also had to leave way too early due to his insurance.
Had my retiree breakfast. All were complaining about how bad our health care system is. One woman in her mid 70’s had been quite sick for a couple weeks. She couldn’t get into her doctor for several weeks to which she replied, “I’ll be dead by then.” She made the rounds to a couple different Urgent Care facilities only to find they were no longer urgent care. She finally got to speak to a doctor who said that she had a sinus infection but he wouldn’t prescribe antibiotics because she was too old.
I’m behind on your videos and all the comments here but the next few days look less busy so hopefully will get to them.
I did check out the video Sandra suggested and realized that I had watched the entire episode. It’s really something how many people are now using the weight loss drugs including my daughter, Carla, and her husband.
This morning was a low of 1F and will be the same tomorrow but will be in the 40’s by the weekend. Lots of swings in the temperature.
Margaret
Yo, Chris – I also read an interesting article, that since the CEO assassination, the stock in that company has tanked. By billions of dollars. And so has the stock of other medical insurance companies.
I picked up South Park, “The End of Obesity” from the library, yesterday. South Park seems to have seasons, but also they crank out a longer special, every once in awhile. Which I think this was. What a hoot, and how timely, as half the content was about navigating our medical system. The only thing I found a bit unreal, about that part, was that the medical insurance company had a big office in South Park. More likely, hours of telephone tree hell.
I don’t know if you ever watched much of the “Big Bang Theory,” but I was at the Club the other night, and say this bit. Thought of the Editor and you and your video endeavors. Sheldon and his girlfriend Amy had a U-Tub series, “Fun with Flags.” Here’s a two minute retrospect.
https://youtu.be/938q3OKRtlg?si=fCG9sLYA6glHAgpW
You might pick up some tips, on what not to do. 🙂
Never noticed any damage, to vehicles, parked under concrete roofs. Here, all we have to worry about is moss growing on our cars.
Our high yesterday was 50F (10C). The overnight low was 36F. Forecast for today is 44F. And, true to forecast, we’re back to intermittent rain. H and I lucked out, this morning. This afternoon? Who knows.
Given my viewing pleasure, last nights dinner was popcorn. With cheese! Desert was some tostada chips with current jelly. Darn, those seeds stick in my teeth! New information from the wonderful world of food.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/11/health/colon-cancer-omega-6-ultraprocessed-food-wellness
I was at the Club last night, and every time a fast food commercial came on (usually Christmas themed), I pointed at the screen and yelled, “Colon Cancer!” 🙂
The New Year’s Day Auction will have some on-line bidding. To be posted, soon. It will be interesting to see if any of my stuff, makes the cut. Usually, it’s things that they have “great expectations,” for. And possible shipping has to be accounted for.
“A place for everything …” A nice theory. 🙂 As you say, aspirational.
Future archaeologists (I’ve read) will find a very thin layer of plastic. The Holocene. After all, we’re just a drop in the bucket, of the vast sweep of earth’s history. It will be similar to the meteor layer (The K-T Boundary), that killed the dinosaurs. Any future archaeologists will shrug and say, “That’s what killed them.” A few years ago, I saw a documentary about future archaeologists exploring abandoned and post apocalyptic America, 200 years in the future. Trying to determine why it all collapsed. Oil, of course. Couldn’t find the title.
Alace Waters has developed a program called “Alice’s Edible Schoolyard Program. Kids raise their own veg, cook it and eat it. The idea has spread, across the U.S..
The swirl in our drains, rotate in the correct manner, clockwise. Unlike you lot, south of the equator, whose drains swirl in a counter clockwise motion. 🙂
I may be seeing less news, from Australia.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/12/tech/australia-charge-tech-companies-news-intl-hnk
You’ll have to keep me posted, and up to date! Lew
@ Lew:
Thanks, Lew. How funny; I was just about to do that myself.
Pam
@ Margaret:
How blessed I was with my mother’s assisted living place; it was a home away from home. Not so her 6 week stay at a nursing home after she broke her hip and before she moved into the assisted living. The experience was very difficult. The care was not so good, though we were in the time of that which shall not be mentioned, and that was hard for everyone. Most of the people there were quite nice; maybe just hard times. At the end of the nursing home stay we were paying for her room ourselves because the Medicare coverage for it had run out. I think it was $300 a day.
I didn’t try to negotiate with the hospital over my mother’s bills this last time as Medicare had covered so much of them. I just didn’t want to have to pay what was left all at once. What would I do without Medicare? I mean, myself, also. It is so much better since I’ve been on it this year after my husband and I used to pay $1600 a month for health insurance before that. And all of what you and I have just said boils down to why so long ago I learned how to take care of my own health without doctors, except for emergencies.
Pam
Chris:
I expect that when I am through going through the books (dropped off several more boxes today) I will be at about 50% of what I started with. Keep in mind that some of them were my husband’s, and also my father’s and mother’s since they lived with us. I have also mailed quite a few to my sister since our postal service offers Media Mail postage, which is way cheaper, but takes the slow boat.
During that time that shall not be named our store shelves were empty of rubbing alcohol for several years. I had just enough stored at home to squeak by.
I couldn’t tell from the article: Were they purposely infecting the rabbits with those viruses or were they occurring naturally?
What did General Patton say?
Pam
Chris,
Those flow batteries don’t seem worth the trouble to me. Perhaps the way to fix our energy problems lies with Elon Musk’s satellites. This next bit is meant NOT meant to be taken seriously! Perhaps he could have thousands of them on varying orbits, then eventually have them sort of act as a direct conduit between the sun and the earth. That way, we would get concentrated solar energy piped directly to earth. Gawk! I hope Musk doesn’t read that or he’d probably try it! 😉
Losing one’s energy whilst fighting the insurance/medical complex is expected by those industries. One of the nastiest bits is that my insurer can refer me to a surgeon for a certain surgery. But if the anesthesiologist is from yet a different medical group, the insurance won’t cover that. That happened to the Princess a few years ago. I appealed to the insurer, saying that anybody with the intelligence of a flea would know that anesthesia is required for surgery, that none of the insurance documents said that we had to get separate referrals for the anesthesia, and that our primary care physician was unaware of it also. We won, somehow.
Gotta keep all of what we call Explanation of Benefits from the insurer for YEARS so that specious billing doesn’t get sent to the patient by the medical facility that treated the patient. Fortunately, in Washington state, any bills from the provider must be received by the patient within one year of the event. Well, sort of. The loophole is: Provider bills $5,000.00 for outpatient surgery. Negotiations with the insurance company gets $3,000.00 written off! This leaves an agreed upon amount of $2,000.00. Then insurance will pay maybe $1,800.00. The patient is then liable for the remaining $200.00. Billing for that leftover amount is legal for several YEARS after the event. How do I know this? I just got billed slightly less than $200.00 for that leftover bit stemming from my finger surgery in June 2023. I looked up the legality of the bill. They cannot collect that $3,000.00 write off from me, however.
Wednesday turned extremely intense. The Princess had a large project going in the main room. Dame Avalanche and I were “banished” to other parts of the house so we wouldn’t get underfoot. Very late afternoon, the Princess got a text from her stepsister. Stepsister’s uncle had just died. He was diagnosed with ALS a few months ago. He was very close to the Princess and her brother in Toppenish and was brother’s neighbor.
No sooner had we read that text when a cousin of the Princess from the Warm Springs reservation in central Oregon texted. She is in hospital and nobody could explain what was wrong with her. Lots of tests forecast.
So, it was run some fast errands for things the Princess would need while she was completing her project. Got her packed and fed, then she left for Toppenish. Ugh. My head is still spinning this evening.
We did get some sun Wednesday and had a spectacularly clear sky until midnight. The stars were amazing. Then the fog rolled in. Cloudy now, with some rain/snow expected overnight. The main storm is forecast for Friday evening into Saturday.
Hmmm, never thought that the crow could’ve been a bridge troll in a previous life. I’d heard that often the bridge troll’s next life is as a sasquatch/bigfoot. 😉 I will have to ask the next crow I gabble at what its favorite color is. That’s a brilliant idea.
DJSpo
Hi Margaret,
This software seems more stable than the old blogger platform, which even ate my comments regularly – much to my annoyance. Where did they go? Truly, I looked behind the couch and only discovered dust bunnies, but no lost comments. Your last comment and reply was last week 4th December. Who knows what happened, but mysteries make for decent narratives. 😉
Margaret, Marty is so lucky that you’re taking him in what with all that entails. Truthfully, there is a certain wry sort of irony in kicking Marty out of the facility, then demanding that he not be let out without a wheelchair. Maybe it’s just the way I see the world, dunno. Getting the lightweight foldable chair is a good idea especially as you’re going to have to ferry Marty around.
The description Kafkaesque keeps popping into my head whenever the lovely people here describe their interactions with your medical system. The South Park brief cartoon skit suggested to me that there is way too much administration, and way too little actual care. That’s a problem. My mind struggles to comprehend the dark passage ways involved in journeys through that maze. Personally, I do my utmost to avoid the system here which is far simpler than your experience, and I’m not mucking around saying that. The problems down here are not with the health care system, it’s with housing and trying to keep the rain off your head. I spotted a young bloke living in a tent in a park in the nearby town today.
It’s awful to say, but there is a strong possibility that anti-biotics have been over prescribed, poorly used, and now they’re losing their edge.
Hope things settle down for you and your family. Got any plans for Christmas lunches, dinners etc?
Oh no! I haven’t watched the full episode. Thanks for the spoiler! 🙂 The farm machine repair dude, who was a big guy and about my age, told me he went on those things, and he lost heaps of weight. But then, he came off them, and put all the weight back on, and well, he apparently died of a heart attack. My understanding of the matter is that people generally equate being thin with being healthy. Actually, being regularly active and keeping stress down is probably more important, but try telling folks that and they’ll look at you all funny like. I dunno, people believe what they want to. As far as I’m aware, I don’t know anyone else on those things, but you hear rumours.
Oh far out, that is so cold! Brrr! I won’t mention that it was 72’F today, partly cloudy and a very pleasant summers day. Mind you, I’m not looking forward to Monday’s forecast 104’F horror. You have to take the good with the bad…
Cheers
Chris
Hi Pam,
It’s a universal truth that clearing one’s collection of stuff, creates space, but for what? That’s what my mind was wondering. Any plans for the space, or is this part of grieving and thinking about the future? I’ve cleaned out an estate before, and had very mixed feelings about the process. It’s hard in many ways, and some objects can form attachments which exceed their physical properties. I tell ya what though, some items I was just left wondering the hard question: Why was this thing kept?
The media mail cheapie option is a great idea! Sending stuff in the mail down here is a relatively expensive proposition. Sent some documents the other day in an A4 paper sized (think Letter standard sized in the US) cardboard envelope and tracked it cost me about $18 to send.
Nothing wrong with the slow boat option, and hey, people used to travel as passengers on cargo ships way back in the day. If the food and lodgings were OK and the ship didn’t run into trouble on the high seas, it would have been quite a pleasant way to travel about the planet. I’m not much of a fan of aircraft travel, and here I must blame my grandmother who took me to watch Airport 77 film at the cinemas as a very young child. Before that film, I’d had no idea the things could crash!
🙂 Alas, the same thing happened down here too with rubbing alcohol – and don’t forget the run on toilet paper. That run was something I never really comprehended, it was just weird. Of course everyone knows that 42 is the correct number of rolls to have in one’s stores, but I just can’t seem to manage that feat. What few people realise is in those days, there was also a run on stills. Hmm. No doubts, you were saved by having the appropriate quantities of stores? I’m not mucking around, nowadays we keep much bigger stores of all sorts of stuff. The future is a strange country.
Oh yeah, the little bunnies were purposely infected, and they’ve been doing that for about 75 years now. All good things come to an end though, and woe is us, the bunnies have few natural predators, although here we have foxes, dogs and owls who’ll do their worst with the bunnies and sort of keep them in check. It’s difficult for people to recall, but before the virus was released, the land was over run with rabbits. The archival footage will show you what an extreme unbalanced ecological situation can look like.
160 year battle against one of Australia’s worst invasives. I liked the quote, it all originally seemed like a good idea at the time.
There are four rabbits here, only one of which lives in an area I’m yet to clean up – it’s hard work and takes a lot of time and effort to do that. The others might have to be dealt to, but it’s hard because I don’t want to deprive the foxes and owls of their easy feed either.
Here’s a good quote: Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do, and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
Interestingly, when I first read about the flow batteries, the claim was made that they’d have an extraordinarily long life. However, I dunno about that, as with them having a lot of mechanical elements to their workings, well stuff wears out – that’s life. The wikipudding article suggested from memory (please correct me if I’m wrong), 10,000 to 20,000 cycles for that style of battery, which is about the same as the LiFePO4 variety of lithium batteries. Although there are no guarantees, as my own experience suggests. Trouble can come with this technology from unknown corners – like that weird soldered terminal inside the batteries we purchased. The thought of running 300A through that connection gives me an attack of the vapours! Anywhoo, fixed now and the cells with the lithium batteries may probably outlast the electronics in the battery management systems. That’s my best guess. Probably should get some spares of them, huh? 🙂 A job for the future!
I might just forward your suggestion onwards. 🙂 I’m thinking lasers could shoot the energy to earth where it is picked up by ground stations. What could possibly go wrong? Oops, we missed!!!
Oh my! DJ, everyone here seems to have some sort of run in story with that medical system. It’s really scary to read them, because you know the people involved are at a vulnerable moment in their lives and is the system really established to do no harm, or did they miss the ‘no’ word? I’ve read that our brains can’t really see that negative wording, and instead interpret it as a positive concept. Thus ‘do no harm’ maybe interpreted as ‘do harm’, which is kind of what the stories are suggesting about the outcomes.
There was a comment suggesting that the cost was $1600 per month, which after reading I almost choked. Such costs would send me broke, quickly. I’d put such regular costs in the unaffordable category.
Dude, when there is no anaesthesia, well, things go badly. I will accept your maths at face value, and the situation is completely nuts. Sorry, I can’t make heads nor tails of your experience, and the word Kafkaesque keeps popping into my consciousness – which I might add, survived the choking incident!
So sorry for your lady’s loss of a close family member and friend. I hope that the journey out to Toppenish is uneventful and that the weather co-operates. They say that some days it rains, and other days it pours. That’s not good either, and nobody wants to be an unknown medical condition. Hope your lady’s cousin recovers.
You did well, and my head would be spinning firstly at the bad news, then secondly trying to get everything organised for the journey. Is the weather and are the passes all OK?
It was 22’C here today and cool and quite pleasant. Nothing eventful happened (that I’m aware of), and we split, hauled and stacked firewood. The job is almost done, and another three hours tomorrow should see the job entirely done for next year.
Hehe! Yes, Sasquatch indeed. That would explain a few things. Have you ever noticed that bridge trolls are generally grumpy and something to be feared? They need to get some public relations people to upsell their image. Like, sure, the price to cross the bridge is extortionate, but we can at least promise that you’ll begin crossing the bridge. The ending, well that’s up to you.
It’s the little things in life… I purchased a heavy duty canvas roll out organiser for the spanner collection, and it’s awesome! You can actually find the right size spanner now rather than sorting through a small pile of metal tools. Game changing. 🙂 I’m sure you’ve had a few such Doh! moments yourself?
Is the weather conducive to Dame Avalanche and Killian catching up?
Monday was upped to 41’C. Oh goodie…
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Oh no! My mind now hurts, I get the impression that lot appear to be treating this like a public relations exercise. It’s a truly impressive achievement.
Just read the plot of the South Park episode, and what a fun ride that was. Might have to hunt down a copy. 🙂 Well if local bank closures down here are anything to go by, bricks and mortar customer facing business are probably expensive to operate which might explain that improbability. However, I may add that there are many layers of communication within society, and I have had some remarkably poor encounters over the phone when it comes to misunderstandings. Hmm. It is very difficult to have such situations in a civil and polite face to face discussion. One billing query with the nice telco almost a decade ago, took six hours to conclude. After six hours for a simple matter, I swore and they hung up on me! The Editor remarked that I looked like I was going to pop. Oh well, not my finest hour. But anyway, that’s not right, and even they must have had to face up to that, because you can go into a store nowadays and sort things out.
No, I have not watched any of the Big Bang Theory, but am familiar with the general flavour of the show and characters. Actually, their Aussie accents weren’t too bad. 🙂 Thanks for that, it was fun. Man, there were so many little things to note, and laugh at, that I’m not entirely certain where to start. I did rather enjoy the couple having a domestic argument mid recording… Bizarrely, I sometimes encounter couples doing just that, when they perhaps should be communicating with other people around them instead. It’s not nice to be used as an err, ‘safe space’, and so I tell them bluntly nowadays: Are you two having a domestic? Uncomfortable for them, but easier on me. Feel free to use that line, although make sure they’re not carrying first. Best not to be involved then, and probably run instead…
🙂 I don’t know whether you’re being serious or not, but… On the previous Suzuki dirt rat, moss was actually growing on one of the rubber seals on the rear door which wasn’t draining properly. It was actually a bit of a drama to clean out. What was weird about it, the metal wasn’t rusted.
Dodge Lewis, dodge! Was the afternoon walk rain free? There was a tiny amount of rain here this morning, but not enough to even think about. Woke up early and split, hauled and stacked firewood until mid afternoon. The job is almost done now, and another three hours tomorrow should ‘get ‘er done’. That’s the plan anyway. The day was cool and quite pleasant.
Hmm. I’d been reading accounts that cancers are on the rise in younger folks. Man, eating a balanced diet is far harder for people to do than you’d imagine. And as the article noted, being skinny is no safe haven from bad health outcomes. People are basically bonkers about the entire subject. You know, in many ways it reminds me of an observation that the Editor said to me long ago: People don’t know how to sew, so the basic standard of fit and finish with clothes these days and what people wear, is not good. Changed the way I thought about clothes, and like what is it again, 1% of the population is involved in agriculture. How can that end well?
Charming! What sort of response did you get to that outcry? 🙂
Fingers crossed your stuff makes the cut for the online auction. You never know.
It’s a goal, but I still occasionally lose stuff. I’m easily distracted sometimes, but then aren’t we all? Hang on, what were we talking about again?
Oh that’s good, and will probably be the way of things. Yup, that’s what killed the civilisation. Most people forget that plastic is usually oil.
Ah, there is a similar school yard scheme down here. Forgot to mention that one of the bones of contention with a local group, was getting involved that activity. Last I checked, I gotta work and don’t have time for activities like that, as did many of the other members of the group. Some of the promoters of the idea thought it was prestigious for the group, but the last time I wanted to hang out with a bunch of kids was like, never. It was all very silly.
Oh yes, that’s true. The water going down the drains does rotate correctly in this hemisphere, and incorrectly in yours. Thanks for noticing. 🙂
There’s a bit of a fight brewing down under. There is some aspirational goal of blocking access to social media for people under 16 years of age. That lot have a year to implement it. Last time the heads butted, they cut the government services off. Resolve kind of melted, but we’ll see.
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – I ran across another little insurance company quip. “Rationing by inconvenience.” A glance down the rabbit hole, for that term, was eye opening. And I’m sure it applies to other things besides medical insurance.
Getting blown away, for intervening in a domestic disturbance, is a real thing. Police officers often say that domestic calls are their least favorite thing to deal with. I don’t even like to watch domestic squabbles, in films. I fast forward through those parts.
Speaking of films, I watched a very interesting documentary, last night. “Vinyl Nation.” The rise, fall, and rise again of vinyl records. Lots of interesting interviews with collectors, and used record store dealers. People who press the records. Turns out, vinyl is very recyclable. There’s very little waste, in a record pressing factory. It also touched a bit, on the reasons, and psychology of collecting.
Then I watched a couple of episodes of “Star Trek: Voyager” (season 5.) They sure do mess around, a lot, with temporal anomalies and time lines. Same with “Star Trek: Prodigy.” Speaking of timelines, multiverses, etc., I saw this article, the other day.
https://www.newsweek.com/google-quantum-chip-parallel-universes-willow-1999224
I sometimes wonder if some of the dreams I have, aren’t tapping into some other universes. Not very seriously, but I wonder…
Our high yesterday was 43F (6.11C). The overnight low was 39F. Today’s forecast is for 48F. I do not envy you your upcoming heat. Another interesting article on a 35 year study of rivers.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/12/climate/world-rivers-flow-mapped
That astute observation about clothes could also apply to cooking. “People who don’t know how to cook…”
How was my observations on fast food commercials, received? I was roundly ignored. 🙂
What were we talking about? Must have been important. 🙂
Here, at least, anyone involved in a schoolyard garden, would have to have a background check. Just to make sure a kiddy perv, doesn’t fall through the cracks. I’ve seen schoolyard garden programs, in this documentary, or that. Usually, a teacher or two picks up the baton, and leads the charge.
Yes, there’s been a lot of media play, about your attempt to ban under 16 social media use. And I think California is trying to get something similar off the ground. There’s also a lot of hoop-la about banning Tock Tic. More because it’s a possible conduit for Land of Stuff agents and spies. Or, something.
Well, in the run up to Christmas, there’s all kinds of activities, here at the Institution. The Inmates will be kept busy! I keep a sharp eye on the calendar, so I can dodge all that nonsense. :-). Lew
Chris:
That kangaroo over your title gives me the willies with all those muscles. Glad he’s yours and not mine.
Of course we know what all this cleared space is for: Space for more stuff! We only hope it will turn out to be for the stuff we already have that didn’t have a space before.
I know 42 is the correct amount of TP to have on hand because Lew told us so. I’m not sure, I may only have 40. I had better check.
I think I ate rabbit years ago and it was okay. Were there just too many to use for meat for people, maybe for exports, and for pet food? The old film footage was a real horror show. It would have been a heyday for beagles. I have never met a beagle that wasn’t just rabid over hunting rabbits.
“Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do, and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.” Sorry – I’ve met too many numpties to want to count on that.
I decided today to look over my Christmas lights one more time to see if I could find why they weren’t working. I struck gold – SOMETHING had chewed through some of the wires. My son was able to fix them pretty quickly. He says he saw a one-eyed squirrel hanging around, so we are forgiving him since it’s Christmas, and he has one eye.
Our basement Meyer lemon tree lemon is ripe! It is quite large and we picked it and it is very delicious. Not as sweet as it might be if it had ripened in the sun instead of a basement, but there are more tiny lemons on the tree and they will be able to ripen outside because the tree will be back outside by then.
Pam
Chris,
I’m having an OMG moment. Why? Your discussion with Lew about water swirling down the drain. What if the water here never swirls, never has, just goes straight down? Would that be another thing unique to Spokane? Seriously, our water does circle the drain appropriately for being north of that equator thing. I think maybe that your water swirls backwards (compared to ours) because you are upside down (compared to us).
Which is correct? Well, considering that humanity and its predecessors originated in Africa, and apparently right almost exactly at that equator thing, then perhaps both are correct, or both are incorrect. Either way, they balance out.
Oh Chris, no space lasers! We had one of our Congress persons claim a few years back that the California wildfires that year were caused by “Jewish space lasers”. I kid you not.
That reminds me of the tongue-in-cheek article I nearly wrote for a prestigious Physics publication. Said publication would occasionally print joke articles for the April issue. So, the old single slit experiment in physics…Shoot photons at the slit and a bell pattern shows up on the screen on the other side of the slit. As momentum equals mass multiplied by velocity, and the light particles were going the speed of light, it is clear that each particle had a lot of momentum. Doing more complex experiments based on that experiment would get costly quite rapidly: particle accelerators aren’t cheap, you know.
So I thought that maybe I could send a bunch of elephants through some kind of slit. One of my professors said that elephants are too messy. So we decided on camels. After all, a Good Authority said that a camel can crawl through the eye of a needle! A large beast running should have momentum similar to that of a light particle, and a needle’s eye approximates a slit. Also, sometimes the experiments need to differentiate between light particles spinning clockwise with those spinning anticlockwise. These get separated via the use of filters. So, we could also introduce the experimental use of one humped and two humped camels. After all, Camel Filters (the cigarettes) had been widely available for decades and would separate the camels based on the number of their humps. Throw in some theory as a prelude and voila! the article nearly writes itself.
Next, of course, is the actual fun part: getting money for the project. My professor would have been the theoretician on staff. The department secretary’s husband was a professor in the applied technology building. Even better, the local newspaper had written about him in the sports pages because he had gotten a hole-in-one while golfing. In other words, he would be the staff experimentalist who had documented evidence aiming things into smallish holes. Based on 1) getting my fictitious article published, 2) having that “prestigious” newspaper article, 3) a plan going forward to actually purchase camels and camel handlers, the idea would then have been to apply to the US government for grant funding. Once funded, future funding easily obtainable so long as there were repeatable experiments followed by properly worded reports back to the grant agency. That would have been the gravy train for life. 😉
I called the surgical group’s accounting staff this morning. They told me why the delay. They had been fighting with my insurance people for over a year. In a nutshell, it had to do with the definition of “repair the finger and the nerve”. I suggested to the accounting person that “this insurance game is sure a mess.” There was a giggle from the accountant followed by a sad, “Yes, unfortunately it is.”
The doctors appear to be attempting “first, do no harm.” The insurance accountants seem to be saying, “First spend as little as possible, regardless of harm.”
On the good news front…the cousin who was in hospital is now home. It sounds like spending a few days in hospital, versus only treatment at the emergency room, allowed for some better diagnostics. Judging from what I was told some symptoms were, as well as the treatment, I think they nailed it and cousin should be much improved.
Awoke to a skiff of snow today at -1C. yes, a far cry from your 41C or 42C that is expected, and somewhat balmy compared to Margaret’s recent temperatures. December is usually our snowiest month. We’ve had maybe 5 cm total, with very little snow, if any, in the forecast for the next 10 days or so. Stormy, mostly rain, for a few days starting tonight, then back to dry, foggy with some clouds.
The Princess phoned this morning with a scheduling update for the services. That skiff of snow in Spokane, none in the Toppenish area. All of the events will be near Toppenish, so no mountain passes, no snow, maybe a trickle of rain.
We’ve done this emergency situation travel so many times; we both know what is needed to get her on the road safely with everything she needs. Accepting the situation then doing what is necessary is what we’ve learned to do. However, it WAS intense enough, plus the loss of a friend/relative on top of it, that I slept poorly for the next two nights. Also had a lot of errands do Thursday, which didn’t help. Friday? Other than our daily walk, the day was spent at home drinking a lot of tea. This was a day that follows my old “I can’t people today” attitude, so I’m very happy to have a day alone at the house with Dame Avalanche.
Killian’s human had discussed getting together today, a fun visit for the humans and a big play date for the canines. However, she had spent most of two weeks in the office or in classes or in the field, whereas she typically works from home. She was exhausted and in need of an “I can’t people today” event also. Conducive weather, but both humans needing serious alone time for self-care.
DJSpo
Hi Pam,
He was a big kangaroo, and they can get a bit bigger again. When threatened, they’ll use their tail and legs like a tripod and rise up. Quite something to see, and best if the marsupials are left well alone – which is my strategy, and even Ollie’s who once encountered a ‘roo doing just that. They will fight, but prefer a wide berth – as I did that day.
🙂 Stuff you already have sounds like the concept of getting organised to my reading ears? Respect. You may have noticed the conversation below (or above, I forget) about: a place for everything, and everything in its place. This was of course also noted as an aspirational goal.
Oh my goodness, so did the check confirm that the correct number of TP rolls were on hand? It’s hard to achieve that quantity because well, the stuff gets used, and then who’s job is it to monitor the unfolding situation? Have to fess up to rarely having the correct number, although we’ve begun buying stuff in bulk quantities in order to keep prices down – an adaptive strategy.
Rabbit is an OK meat, and the gourmet pie place sells a rabbit pie, which is good and tasty. The meat itself has an interesting history and my limited understanding of consumption of the stuff is that it has too much protein, and too little fat – it’s a bit out of whack for humans to subsist on. Probably no good for dogs, but at a guess cats would work well on the food, maybe.
Rabbits are bony meat, so they’re a lot of work. And yes, not all that long ago, things were bad down under with rabbits – the environmental damage was more than you can imagine. And the biological controls, which it should be said, are quite horrendous, seem to be reducing in the effectiveness.
Hehe! Beagles are well known to chase after a scent, and then head off into the wild blue yonder. I’d not be comfortable with such traits in a dog.
My faith in our fellow human may be greater than yours perhaps? 😉 But of course, you are quite correct that it is wise to be discerning when employing such techniques. I’m pretty certain that General Patton had subordinates he could trust, the stupid ones would quickly be whittled out on the battlefield, sorry to say.
Well done, and the lights would look better if the circuit was complete and un-chewed through. It is indeed the season for forgiveness, but a one eyed squirrel? Do they get into fights? I guess like chickens, the small critters would have a somewhat nervous disposition, still, he has one eye remaining to him. Have you named him yet? If not, may I suggest the name: Lucky?
So happy for you! Meyer Lemons are lovely fruit, a good all rounder lemon. And you’ve got more developing fruit on the tree too. That’s awesome. Timing will be interesting as to when to take it back outside again. They’re pretty hardy to cold conditions, but that depends on what a person means by the word ‘cold’. I reckon the tree would enjoy being out of the winter winds.
Finished the firewood job today! Yay! Happiness is a shed full of dry and split firewood ready for use when the weather turns cold.
Monday is going to be hot as, then the following Monday forecast looks wet as. My brain is spinning. Did a lot of watering this morning.
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
Water being sucked down into a drain rather than swirling around (in the correct direction of course, not being partisan in this matter, but gently suggesting that you may be wrong 😉 ), sounds like a vortex into another dimension. The non swirling bit is a dead giveaway, and yes, this is possibly unique to Spokane. Hmm. Do you put your fingers into the drain to retrieve the stuck hair knowing that there was a risk of being sucked down? I don’t envy you and would probably recommend leaving the hair globs and other unidentified organic matter.
Think of it like a spaceship circling a black hole, and you just know things are going to end badly for the plucky crew.
Oh yeah, they do balance out don’t they. But what if (and I must note that adults used to stomp such questions) there are more drains in the northern hemisphere, than the southern – will the balance be achieved then?
Really? I’ve heard some wild talk over the years, but Jewish space lasers starting wildfires appears to be a totally preposterous claim. It would have been far cheaper to fly over a spy to do that action than put some machine in orbit. What’s that rule about not disregarding the simplest explanation in favour of some outlandish concept? Discernment may indeed be the word of 2025, you read it here first!
Physics is definitely not my area of strength, but when I read about the single split experiment, the mind sort of asked the hard question: Are we talking about how a torch beam kind of works?
Very funny too, and yes, particle accelerators are notoriously large and expensive – hope the expense is worth it. Camels are a great innovation. Did you know I’ve actually spoken with someone who was quite well to do, and was arguing that the camel needle story was actually referring to a physical place where you could just get a camel through. Look, I’m no literalist, but I’d also like to believe that sophistry was not my thing either…
As a late teenager, a friend of mine smoked Camel cigarettes, and I’ve never smoked at all, the appeal was not there. But his was a unique strategy because the other smokers would have to be very desperate to bot a ciggy from him. Dunno whether it’s related, but he was the old school mate who died earlier this year. Sorry to bring this matter up but digressions and stuff.
I like your style with presenting further obtuse papers so that the funding continues rolling on in. 🙂 Well done, and that’s some tidy work.
There’s a certain weirdness to having a policy, and not being able to make a claim upon it. What is this thing then? Mind you, I have two forced to have (and they’re both checked upon) policies which would be very unlikely to claim upon. Presumably what is going on there is that my costs are subsidising other higher risk people and workplaces? The thing my mind keeps coming back to with all of these situations and scenarios mentioned here is whether the health system as it stands, has become unaffordable at the society level? It’s possible.
Oh, and this is super naughty, and lower pits of Dante’s inferno etc. But, what if the claim for the life insurance for the guy guned down was refused? At the very least there’d be some irony there.
Glad to hear that the cousin is on the mend. That’s good news, and less grief for you and your lady. Hope that she and her brother is doing OK?
-1’C what is this temperature? Hehe! It’s finally cooled down to 21’C. Tomorrow night will be hot, and Monday will be rather uncomfortable. Oh, I’d have thought that January would be your snowiest month. Ok. It’s August that happens here.
Man, that’s good stuff taking some time out to recover. I get that, sometimes ‘people’ need to take a back seat whilst we recharge the batteries.
Ah well, there is a push to get people back on site. Makes you wonder how energy and costs will feed into the work from home arrangements. Oh hey, speaking shop, I thought you might be interested to see what happens to asphalt roads on a low 50’C day from a few years ago (the photo says it all): Australia’s heatwaves: the scorching past and present
Finished next years firewood job this morning. Nice to be ahead. Like being alert, and the world needs more lerts. 🙂
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Well, today didn’t turn out quite like I thought it would, and that happens sometimes. The Editor decided to finish the firewood job for next year this morning, so that’s what we did. If memory serves me correctly, that’s three days of firewood splitting, hauling and stacking just this week. However, the job is now done. The argument which got me was that we have too many projects on the go right now, and some of them have to be finished. Finish we shall, finish we did! Actually it feels pretty good to have that job done this early.
Fortunately there were only a few hours of work to get ‘er done. Me tired tonight, but also pleased. With about an hour to go before lunch, the grape enclosure was weeded and pruned. The vines had gone feral and order needed to be restored. There’s lot of small grape clusters on the ten vines. Heaps of raspberries were picked this morning, and then again this evening. There’s a tremendous amount of work to do at this time of year. We’re in fact doing far better than previous years and getting more produce from the land, mostly because of that err, dog act way back in January which has left me with more free time.
It’s funny when you think about it. More free time, means I can extract more produce from the land, and look after it better. Who’d have thunk it? 🙂
Mate, you could say that my time was rationed by inconvenience! 🙂 Hehe! Far out. I’m pretty sure it does relate to more things than just insurance. The strange thing about it all, is that in a declining economy, there’s less stuff and time to go around, and so if unreasonable demands are made upon what there is to give, well people crack the sads. What did they expect? Although give them the benefit of the doubt, if a person has grown up and lived all their lives with the belief that there only must ever be more, you can’t really blame them for wanting more.
Although, a little naughty whisper suggests that it would be ironic in the extreme if the guned down execs family was denied payment for the life insurance policy. You’d have to admit that there is a certain symmetry to that outcome?
Oh yeah that is a high risk scenario to intervene in and I completely comprehend the cops reticence. As I mentioned yesterday I try to put the squelch on such arguments when in a social space on the grounds that it isn’t my circus. I don’t recall anyone continuing the argument afterwards, but most likely I’d walk if that didn’t work before things escalated. Having grown up with a borderline mum, I have no taste for such things either. People can act like wild animals, sure but just do it somewhere else. I’m sure you appreciate my sentiments?
Ooo, I’ll add the vinyl nation documentary to the to-see list. Looks great. Vinyl is making a comeback. One of the audio CD’s I purchased mid this year sounds flat to me, and I don’t know whether that was what the artist wanted, or it’s just dodgy and recorded at a low bit rate. It might be dodgy, but with vinyl usually a bit of effort goes into mastering the audio so it sounds bright and rich. I’d be happy with vinyl and analogue.
I loved the Star Trek Voyager series, and Captain Janeway did a great job, and the story was never dull and repetitive. I noticed that they’d brought the Captain back for Prodigy and wondered about that. 🙂 The last episode was rushed… Always fun to geek things up isn’t it?
Candidly I didn’t comprehend a single word of the quantum computing article. Was the calculation useful or not? This should be self evident, not some interweb speed test.
As to your dreams, well I’d say that has a higher probability of tapping into some other alternative universe than a wafer of silicone claims. Yes, not serious, but you’ve always mentioned your vivid dreams, and who even knows what dreams are? I’ve no working visual memory, but do get occasional vivid dreams. Dunno. The brain is a strange country that we probably don’t know all that much about.
The upcoming heat (which begins tomorrow) is not something to look forward to. I’ll just muddle through, maybe. It’s not record breaking, just unpleasant. There was an article which had a photo of crowds at the beach in 1939. Not much different really, and probably more people. Australia’s heatwaves: the scorching past and present . We used to live in the suburb of Williamstown (which is an old port and shipyards) and on really hot nights, people would go and sleep on the sand at the beach. The air coming off the bay was cool.
The article on the rivers does not surprise me. Down under would probably look worse on that front. Some dry years major rivers don’t make it to the ocean.
Hehe! That’s true, and I’d not thought about the comment in relation to cooking, but yes indeed!
Not to stress, people ignore me too. 😉 We could develop a theory here, the closer to the truth you may be, the more likely you will be ignored. Need to do some testing, but so far the results are coming in supporting the theory.
I forget too! The mind floats away at times. Good to see that I’m in good company there.
Oh no, they do checks here too. In fact you have to apply for a permit, it’s called a working with children check. The used to say if you like candy, you work in a candy shop. That’s the thing, people move around, there’s not all that much job security, teachers get smashed for work loads (at least that’s what the ones I know tell me), and who has time for such things? I felt that it was a step too far for the group to get involved with such programs, almost an over reach. Not interested. Daylight hours, I’m having to hustle for a living.
A tech friend tells me that tocky ticky captures all sorts of data then sends it to the land of stuff. I believe that federal public servants are not allowed to have the app installed on their phones. You and I don’t use our phones much, by for those who do, that could mean a lot of data gets sent to less congenial countries. It’s a problem.
Stay sharp and fleet of foot there, and hope you and H aren’t drawn into some sort of Christmas activities. Do your best, and prepare for the worst. 🙂
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – I think (maybe) from a psychological standpoint, having a lot of projects on the go, and nothing gets finished, well, it’s a bummer. Even finishing one project, gives you a feeling of accomplishment. There might even be some brain chemistry, involved.
You’re just getting into your harvest time. I certainly feel it, when the produce starts coming on, like gangbusters. Just so much to do, to get produce put up, otherwise, there’s waste.
Paid work vs the home economy. Sometimes, in the tat trade, I’d look at something and wonder if it was worth salvaging. Did supplies + time = profit? Some people take the view that their time is worth nothing. Which I don’t quit agree with.
“Vinyl Nation” is an odd documentary. In that, it just launches into the movie. No opening credits. No endless logos of production companies you’ve never heard of, or will ever hear of, again.
I noticed a couple of things about my DVD player. I told you, that often I have to seat the disc, and close the lid, over and over. Before it finally kicks into gear. I discovered, if I turn it on, and let it sit awhile, it doesn’t do that. It needs to warm up? Like an old Philco radio? Also, I noticed last night, the dark scenes, are getting darker. Sigh. But I found if I get my distance from the screen (close), just right, and the tilt of the screen, just right, it’s better quality. I think there’s going to be another portable DVD player, in my future. I’ll do more research, and buy another brand, this time.
I do wonder about some of my dreams. The Institution, where I live, but architecturally, and size wise, wildly different. Bookstores I’ve never been in, in malls I’ve never been in. People I’ve never met. So, I guess in some alternative universe, I’m still working in a bookstore. Maybe if I’d followed a different path … 🙂
That was quit an article, on your past heat waves. Once, a few years back, we hit 113F. I remember it, because it happened on the same weekend as the yearly Antique Fest. Our yesterday’s high was 46F (7.77C). Our overnight low was 46F. The forecast for today is 48F. It started getting pretty windy, around midnight. Gusts to 31mph. When I took H out for a walk, this morning, it was still gusting at 23mph. LOL. When I took her for her walks, yesterday, once we got very wet. Once we got a little damp. And once there was no rain, at all.
Well, at least no one stuck their fingers in their ears, and started going “La, la, la.” 🙂
I did a little shopping for the Club pantry, and some for me, last night. I hope for the last time, until after Christmas. We’ll get another food box, next Friday. I picked up two ham hocks, for my usual New Year’s Day lucky meal. They were $5.34. On the campaign trail, our Fearless Leader promised to bring down food prices. Now he’s saying that will be “very hard.”
I can’t say things are financially hard for me (yet), but until recently, I could usually throw two or three hundred in savings, every month. That hasn’t happened, in awhile. And, usually, getting four hundred “walking around money” was enough to see me through the month, with a bit, sometimes, left over. That doesn’t seem to cut it, anymore. Of course, I have a very costly dependent, now. Maybe I need a good accountant. 🙂
I hear stories, that in some underfunded school districts, teachers buy classroom supplies, out of their own pockets. Our Fearless Leader has vowed to do away with the Federal Department of Education. In some ways, might be a good thing. Leave it up to the states to run their own shows. But, on the other hand, I’d guess the quality of education, will vary wildly, across the country.
Scott (not friend Scott) got a call from Jane. She had her surgery, and is recuperating, at home. Good to hear. Lew
Yo, Chris – Here’s an article about data centers (server farms) and power use, here in our Pacific NW.
https://chronline.com/stories/soaring-data-center-electricity-demand-could-trigger-northwest-blackouts-industry-insiders-say,370204
You might find it interesting. Lew
Chris:
I am the TP monitor, but not a very good one. When I looked through all the places that I have stashed them and counted them, we have -153 rolls! That’s 50 and 1/3 rolls per person.
I should have guessed, since they are small, that rabbits are bony. Who wants to deal with that? I grew up with beagles. We had one who sniffed the sausage factory about a mile from our house and took herself over there to visit. Luckily, she had on her collar and tag and they called us. I think they gave her a hotdog.
Tocky ticky – that’s cute.
See you next week.
Pam
Hi Pam,
A truly impressive TP effort, and I have no idea what to make of it. They’d take up a lot of room to store them all, maybe? A mystery.
Yeah, as an occasional meal, rabbit is tasty, but you really wouldn’t want to have to rely on the stuff for meat, it throws your body way out of whack and can make you very ill. It’s a bit of a giveaway that rabbits can survive and thrive on poor feed, which in turn means they’re not great eating.
Hehe! Yes, that was the sort of incident with beagles I was thinking of. Sniffing out a sausage factory is an amazing achievement. At least the dog was rewarded (probably a bad idea! 🙂 ) and returned.
With no free speech, talking in code is how it rolls – and you knew what was meant, so that’s cool.
Cheers and better get writing! It’s hot here today.
Chris
Hi Lewis,
My mind is trying to work out whether all those tax breaks are good value given that not many people are employed, and interestingly, they want additional electricity demands which are the equivalent of half of the east coast of this continent. It’s mind bogglingly expectational, but I guess it doesn’t hurt to ask…
On that note, I’m not really seeing actual real world investment in additional 24/7 electrical generation capacity in the west, although I don’t really know what is going on in your country. It all seems like a lot of hot air down here, and suddenly environmentally conscious folks are ignoring the serious issues relating to nuclear waste.
Makes the cynic in me wonder if that lot will soon begin slowly throttling any and all chatter about global warming / climate change. Wouldn’t surprise me, you’d be astounded at the interweb traffic here in the lead up to your election, and that began in March and finished almost the day after the election. Hmm. Anyway, it’s like complaining about the climate change issue and then going out and buying the biggest gas guzzling car you can, just because that’s what you want.
Finishing activities and projects yeah, is good for the brain, and probably does involve some sort of chemistry. Some projects here are quite long term, like the firewood shed upgrade. The stupid thing about it, is that we could do the job quicker, but then that would cost heaps more mad cash. It’s like a fine high wire act. Hey, made another concrete step this morning, the eleventh. It’s warm enough outdoors that the cement was setting rather quickly.
Exactly, during the growing season, there’s a huge amount of work to do. And sometimes there’s more work than hours in the day. Oh well, it’s a juggling act as I mentioned, but this year we’re doing much better than in any previous year. It’s odd how you can spend your time in the monetary economy, or do less of that and turbo charge the domestic economy – but learning to be frugal is not a skill which is highly regarded or practised. Although I know one or two masters in that area, sometimes I’m left scratching my head at their latest score and wondering the hard question: You did what? What is this?. Inspirational stuff, but I seriously don’t have the time to go to that level of scrounging.
There’s some school of thinking which does in fact suggest that people don’t know how to value their time, and in fact generally under value it. Must be some sort of balance in there somewhere, because I’ve met people who place a very high price on their time, and a little whisper suggests to me that they’re not worth it. But more generally I believe this issue lies at the heart of the gig economy.
The documentary sounds as if it were a passion project for the people who made it? Dunno. But vinyl will win in the end, it’s got a cheaper technological base.
Poop plus! 🙂 That’s what happened to your last DVD player. Man, with such items, I either roll the dice and hope for the best, or watch reviews about them to find out real world experience. And sadly, price is no guide as to quality – which is very odd.
Would you really want to be working in a book store all day long now? But yeah, maybe. It’s hard to know, and we know very little about the universe. I dunno, my mind just doesn’t seem wired well to dwell in the past. Everyone is different in that regard.
Oh yeah 113’F sucks, and is very unpleasant. It’s not outside the human experience though, but does require a lot of acclimation. People worry about bush fires, but more people die indirectly of the heat during those times. It’s 90’F right now outside and 72’F inside, but it may not cool down much over night and tomorrow will be very hot indeed. Ceiling fans work well, but ultimately insulation can only do so much.
Hang on to H in those wind gusts! Yikes.
Perhaps if the folks put their fingers in their ears and shouted La! La! La! I can’t hear you, they’d avoid receiving your message. Dunno.
Is that $5.34 each or for both? A ham hock would be about $10 down here for one, or at least that’s what memory suggests. It’s been a while. Be careful what you wish for there. 🙂 Prices could come down, and nobody would have any mad cash. That’s how the Great Depression played out. The future is an unknown country right now, but it always was. I get the impression that we’re headed into some sort of readjustment period.
🙂 Most accountants won’t do that sort of work. I wouldn’t. Try suggesting to someone that they can’t afford the new car or the luxury holiday, and they’ll crack the sads. I don’t need to experience that. We’re swimming too, but can alter course if needed. One of the undocumented benefits of getting shafted in the early 1990’s is that I like to stay nimble and have back up plans. Everyone is different on that front, and I have friends who have never experienced the rough side of an economic recession. Dunno, events play out differently for everyone.
Down here education is state based, and the world hasn’t come to an end. Your fed folks department was probably a massive over reach and additional layer of bureaucracy, and with an extra $1tn of debt every 100 days, they probably can’t afford it. See what I mean though, people hate you for saying such things. 😉 Doing that work is not a good or even helpful experience.
Very good to hear and hope the recovery is speedy. I thought your Club was at risk of losing another member there.
Cheers and better get writing!
Chris
Yo, Chris – Flash! This just in from Idaho. “The avian flu has really hit Idaho. Lots of dead geese in the Treasure Valley. They’ve picked up 3100 and I bet that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Greenway said going down to Parma, there are dead birds on the side of the road. If you could add in other birds, it’d be scary. Then it spreads to other animals.” Greenway is their ex son-in-law, who they’re still quit friendly with. He works for the U.S. Forest Service.
Complain about climate change, and then jet off to one climate conference after another … in order to complain some more. One of the folks at the library mentioned he has just been in Detroit. Visiting family? Nope. A buddy of his wanted to see a particular concert. Air fare was only $200 (round trip?). He had some interesting stories about a little urban exploration, of abandoned sites.
“The Eleventh Step.” Sounds like a good title for book. Then, the movie, musical, opera. Maybe even a graphic novel. 🙂
A bit of scrounging isn’t a bad thing, but, as you observe, might be taken to extremes. Staying alert to opportunities is perhaps, more effective.
Looking back, working in bookstores was one of my more favorite jobs. Now? Hmmm. Things got, and are, pretty crazy out there in the wild.
The high yesterday was 48F (8.88C). The overnight low was 37F. Today’s forecast is for 45F. Well, that’s a first. Overnight, today’s forecast calls for “mixed rain and snow before 10am.” Not seeing it. And, it’s still 37F, this morning. I see thousands of people lost their power, due to the winds, up around Seattle. Dr. Mass has a post about it.
That was $5.34 for both ham hocks. You’re right. That’s pretty cheap. I got gas the other day. $4.10 for regular. U.S. gallon. Low prices are still probably a hang over, from the election.
Prices, mad cash, and the Depression. Maybe it will be different, this time. 🙂
I stopped down to the Club last night, and everyone was freaked out, as Jane had been sent to assisted living. I told them to calm down. SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) is to shovel them out of the hospital ASAP (As Soon As Possible), into assisted living. Where they get some rehab. Once she can walk a certain distance, they’ll shovel her out of there.
And, from our “do and then ask” department, I took some initiative, yesterday, without checking with anyone. Or, maybe from our “if not now, when? If not me, who? department. When we were kicking around ideas for money and the Club, we thought about an article in the local newspaper. Way back in 2015, we did something like that, and it helped.
Last week, there was a really good article about Drug Court. That’s a program where crime can get reduced sentences, and deferred prosecution, if they successfully complete a closely monitored program. There’s a half-way house, involved. Any-who. I shot off an e-mail to the reporter that wrote the article. Said I didn’t represent the Club, but that we needed help. And that there might be a story, there. That they should talk to our Club manager. I’ll run down to the Club, this morning, and give Mr. Bill a heads up.
I also put a book on hold, from the library. “Grant Writing for Dummies.” Circa 1970, I wrote a few grants for a couple of social service organizations. Can’t remember a thing about it, but know I did it. Worth looking into.
And, lastly, since it’s end of the year, and there are lists of this and that, we have remarkable discoveries.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/12/style/15-art-archaelogical-discoveries-2024
And guess what leads the pack? 🙂 I see they’ve fallen back on the old trope, “religious object.” I got to thinking about the small modest house in Pompeii, with the fantastic murals. I wonder if it isn’t the house of one of the painters? He might not make much money, but would have the expertise to decorate his own digs. Might have even been sort of a show room. Lew
Yo, Chris – An interesting article on American health “care.” It’s not just the insurance companies.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/seven-reasons-why-americans-pay-100720536.html?
Too many moving parts. Lew