Sycamore Trees

Serious people tell me that the 20th of January – that’s tomorrow – is on average the hottest day of the year for this part of the world. It sure feels hot out there in the sun. But you know what, a person slowly gets used to the heat and fierce energy of the summer months. At these times of year, as the sun drops below the horizon and waves goodbye upon another scorching day, the dying sunlight gives a person a big thumbs up, simply for surviving the conditions.

Another glorious summer sunset

Right now in Australia, due to the wonky orbit of our planet, we are physically closer to the sun than at any other time of the year. Chuck in a depleted ozone layer, and you’ll appreciate why the down under summer sun squooshes your very bones. Air temperature aside, it’s hot out there and the sun burns your skin. You can always spot the tourists from distant northerly locales: their skin is less damaged for a start, however fear not! It takes hardly any time befor pasty white complexions to turn into the approximation of a remarkably red lobster.

The old timers used to say that: “Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun”, and it’s true. We tend to finish up outside work by around the 2pm mark. After that time, doing hard physical work outdoors in the sun can lead to heat exhaustion, which is known here on the farm, if not anywhere else, by the term: Cooking your head! Nobody really wants their head cooked. Trust me, it’s quite headache inducing.

And the dogs, well, they do want to spend their time outdoors running around in the Australian summer sun. But then reality soon kicks in, and they both retreat inside or to the shade. Everyone knows that the Kelpie breed of dog is slightly mad anyway. Ollie the Bull Arab, is the far wiser creature, and better adapted to the local conditions: He’ll find a shady spot and just rest up during the middle of the day. Nothing will budge him, except maybe some choice scraps of food.

It’s hot. The trees don’t seem to mind the heat, which is a good thing – there’s no town water, or mysterious well to keep them irrigated anyway. Unless the conditions reach an insane summer criteria, all of the established fruit trees rely on rainfall and a regimen of good soil feed. Some of the fruit trees are now over fifteen years old, and they create decent shade, which reduces the soil temperatures and moisture loss. The grass under the oldest of trees is still quite green, even now at this time of summer.

The hope is that as the orchards grow, a solid canopy will form during the summer months. And already you can see that starting to be the case in the shady orchard. The youngest fruit trees here grow in the sunny orchard, but even those are beginning to get quite large. They’ll eventually get there, but a solid leaf canopy is still many years away on that sunny side of the property.

Between the orchards and the native eucalyptus forest, there are grassy areas. In those spots we’ve planted very large shady trees such as oaks and sugar maples. It takes a few years for them to get established, and you know deep down that you’ll never see what they look like mature, but you keep on planting anyway.

This week I relocated two Sycamore trees into those grassy areas. They’re super tough trees which grow fast from seed and produce heaps of summer shade. They had to be moved as I originally had grown them in areas with almost 100% shade. Despite years of growth, they’re still bonsai sized. Here they are now enjoying their new locations, and feeling cooked by the strong summer sunlight.

A Sycamore seedling enjoys it’s new location
It’s pretty hard out there for a young tree seedling

It’s not ideal to move trees at this hot time of year, but then I wish I’d planted even more trees than we did a decade or more ago. Realistically, a person only has so many hours in the day…

Planting those two seedlings brought to mind the notable century or older Sycamore tree in the UK which was mysteriously cut down and felled onto Hadrian’s wall maybe a year or two ago. It’s worth noting that the wall is probably nine to ten times older than the tree. Anyway, I believe the hearing for the folks who allegedly did it, is this month and you’d hope we all find out why they did it. But let’s just say that with up to a million tourists annually, I have a hunch there as to motivations.

Anyway, cutting the tree down was awful, but the vast outpouring of woe in the media during the aftermath really surprised me. The fixation on a single tree no matter how photogenic, was just weird. The many photos of the surrounding area show it was the only tree growing in the area. The folks who cut the tree down, well, one perspective is that they were simply being consistent with the actions of the local landowners. That’s what that local culture looks like – they don’t like trees. What amazed me about the tree, was that it survived a century and then some in those conditions. That feat should be celebrated.

Personally, if the alleged miscreants are found guilty, I’d put them to work planting trees for a year or more. Honestly, it took me less than an hour to relocate the two Sycamore trees. It’s not hard work. Anyway, whilst we’re at it, I’d happily put all those tourists aimlessly tramping around the countryside taking happy snaps and stuff, to work at planting trees as well. And why stop there? How about them nice folks crying woe in the media, surely a good dose of tree planting for a few months would be good therapy to soothe their disturbed souls whilst putting their energy to some good use? Probably won’t happen though. To me it looks as though the whole situation is crazy, just like working outside in the mid-afternoon sun is.

It’s been a reasonably dry week here, which is usual for summer. We’ve decided lately to get some of the many rock projects finished. This week, the first row of rocks on the wall below the long line of water tanks was completed.

The first row of rocks on the wall below the long line of water tanks is nearing completion

The big yellow power wheelbarrow was used to haul large rocks back up the hill. It’s hard work because the granite rocks are very heavy. Only a single rock can be rolled into the machine’s bucket. Any further rocks have to be lifted into the bucket. Ain’t no need to go to the gym living here.

The yellow power wheelbarrow hauls large rocks back up the hill

A days work, and fifteen large rocks were installed on the long wall. It was nice to complete that minor section of the project. Done!

The first row of rocks for this very long rock wall, is now complete

There’s always a shortage of good sized rocks here. To create more large rocks, we head down below the house and split apart boulders which are part of ancient volcanic flows. It’s not a quick or easy job, however the work does provide a good supply of more easily relocated rocks. It’s kind of like having your own personal quarry!

Another days work produced about fifteen large rocks (and many smaller ones). All of the rocks get graded according to size, and then used appropriately. Large rocks are used in rock walls. Mid sized rocks become garden bed edging, and the smallest rocks are used in steel rock gabion cages. Nothing goes to waste.

It’s nice having a supply of large rocks

We now need to get some soil, from somewhere around the property, to fill up the area behind the long rock wall. Soil is like rocks, it’s in short supply. However, a cunning plan is being formed…

In breaking produce news:

The soil feeding regime of the past few years is beginning to pay dividends. The financially ruinous addition of regular large bags of blood and bone meal is clearly a solid investment in the future. It’s a good source of phosphates, and most soils in Australia are deficient in this mineral. Anyway, I’m not entirely sure that explains the situation, but the fruit we’re growing nowadays is much larger than in previous years, but it’s also full of flavour.

The other day we picked several large ripe purple figs. They’re sweet to the taste and can be eaten as is. The fig trees are very young, so I’m hoping they produce even better in future years.

These figs are very sweet and are best eaten fresh

The annoying thing about sharing your property with the wildlife, is that they share the produce. The local parrots are undiscerning with their tastes, and prefer fruit which is ever so slightly unripe. There are times I’ll pick a tree clean simply to beat those pesky brightly coloured avian friends. And wow, do they squawk and make a fuss about that or what?

A couple of Plum trees were picked the other day

The first tomatoes ripened this week. Some people in the area go to extraordinary lengths to harvest their first ripe tomato by Christmas. We grow a lot of vines and that achievement all sounds like hard work to me, so the harvest usually begins to ripen about this time of year. We’ve been selecting for mid sized yellow tomatoes for a few years.

Yummy mid sized yellow tomatoes

One of the strangest fruits grown this year are the carob pods. The tree was planted a very long time ago and was reputedly a self-fertile tree. Usually carobs require a male and female tree, which we don’t have. They’d never previously produced pods so we assumed the self-fertile claim was a misrepresentation of the facts (also known as a lie), but no. Hope the birds don’t try and take them.

Slowly ripening carob pods

Apples are a very reliable crop here, and with a couple of dozen mature trees, there are always some to harvest each year. The fruit gets turned into a tasty cider.

Sun ripened juicy apples

The pears either Asian or European, are likewise having a good year. We may try to make a batch of peri, which is a pear cider.

Lot’s of nashi pears

The sugar beets continue to grow. I haven’t checked, but hopefully they’re producing thick tubers. Of late the deer have been browsing the tops of the leaves. My patience is fast running out with these huge critters because they are all costs, and no benefits.

The Sugar Beets continue to grow well as does the Japanese Ginger

Deer tend to leave lots of calling cards.

There are piles of deer poop now in the orchards

Hopefully the large herbivores can’t get into the sapling fenced enclosure where the pumpkins, squash and hopefully melons, are growing fast in the hot weather.

Pumpkins, squash and hopefully melons enjoy hot sunshine

This week’s video is part two of the Globe Artichoke garden bed restoration. You can get to see just how much soil feeding these plants enjoy! And thanks for watching.

Organic Vegetable gardening – Failed garden bed and restoration part 2 ep 34

Onto the flowers:

European honeybees enjoy the Oregano flowers
A local bulb wildflower has begun popping up in the forest
High summer is the time for Agapanthus flowers

The temperature outside now at about 9am is 25’C (77’F). So far for last year there has been 41.8mm (1.6 inches) which is up from last weeks total of 40.6mm (1.6 inches)

49 thoughts on “Sycamore Trees”

  1. Hah! the 23.4 degree tilt strikes again. Our forecast high tomorrow is 0F/-18C.

    And conversely, if I did do work outside, I’d try the opposite of your hot weather strategy, and push hard during mid afternoon to keep the blood moving and stay warm.

    I’m just cracking hickory nuts at the kitchen table and only doing the essentials outside.

    Around here, I mostly see sycamores along streams and lower, wet areas. They are a striking tree with the bark, and can get really big.

    We’re having a very dry winter, so am already worried about next spring and the growing season. Yes, trees bull on through dry spells pretty well, once they are established. It’s the garden and the young trees I worry about. I plan to plant some more paw paws this year, and maybe another round of sugar maples.

    All garden seeds received now, and only a few weeks till we start the onion seeds in the sunroom. I don’t recall, have you tried growing sweet potatoes? I think they might do well in your milder climate.

  2. Yo, Chris – Acclimatization. Happens at both ends of the temperature spectrum. You just have to tough it out, for a few days. Which most people won’t do, but then complain about the heating or cooling bills.

    Dogs are sensible. (Sometimes.)

    The Hadrian’s Wall sycamore, Just say, “Ain’t it awful,” and move along. I suppose it had a special meaning, to a lot of folks. I would guess, people were proposed to, under that tree. A pleasant family picnic probably stands out, in memory. Rather than ongoing domestic dramas. Up in British Columbia, someone cut down the Golden Spruce. There’s a mystery, attached to that incident.

    https://w.wiki/Cn7A

    The city of Centralia, is notorious for cutting down trees, early in the morning, without prior notice.

    Re: Your photo, “The first row of rocks…” Ah, ha! There it is. Your surplus (junk) pile. Which you’ve carefully shot around, all these years. Must be that partially fried brain, that caused you to slip up.

    Nice figs! You can make Fig Newtons. Or, just fig bars. They’re a lot easier.

    I’ve gone around a time or two, with the Master Gardeners, claiming that something was self fertilizing, when a glance down the rabbit hole, claims otherwise. Tomatillos, elderberry … Turns out, there may be some self fertilization, but, generally, you get a better crop if you have two (or more) plants. Maybe they just like company? 🙂

    Those apples look just luscious. Any idea what variety they are? They almost look like a Cosmic Crisp.

    Deer. All costs and no benefits? Well, you could eat them. Or, make a pair of moccasins. If nothing else, they’ll return to the soil and provide tucker for all kinds of microbes and critters.

    I wonder if we’ll see any European honey bees, this year. There sure weren’t very many about, last year. Lew

  3. Hi Steve,

    Oh my, that’s some cold brutal weather. We’d been reading in the news that another cold snap was about to hit your part of the world, and -18’C is truly feral weather. Stay warm, hopefully the firewood supplies are ready to hand, and that the power doesn’t go out. I think it was about 32’C here today, and it’s meant to be 35’C tomorrow.

    Like your winter work strategy and do much the same in the colder parts of the year. Stay warm out there! And hopefully there are no blizzards.

    It however being more humid and downright wet and cold here during winter makes it preferable to have later work starts as well. Now I’m forced to get up in the early hours. About 4am this morning, a noisy kangaroo was out front of the house munching away on the vegetation – had to go out and shoo it off so I could get back to sleep. If it’s been quieter about eating, I’d have left the marsupial to go about its business, but that was too much to expect.

    I get that about staying inside during the more extreme weather. We’d planned to do some outside work today, but early this morning with the sun shining down through blue skies accompanied by hot air, convinced me that was a bad idea. Did paid work inside the house instead.

    The volcanic loam soils here are pretty deep, and despite the dry weather of late, the creeks are still flowing strongly (way too far from the house). Sycamore trees grow pretty well here away from water systems, as do most maples, oaks etc. They can reach the groundwater with their deep root systems during the drier periods. Mostly that’s why tall trees grow around here. It’s only today that I noticed one or two fruit trees showing minor signs of water stress, so hopefully it rains soon, maybe…

    The thing I have to worry about is neighbours pumping the groundwater dry. I’d hate to have to buy in a truck load of water just to keep the orchard alive (may happen one day). The stuff is rather expensive and only provides about 16,000L max. Diesel is a wonderful energy source to be able to move such a heavy weight of water!

    It’s hard to know what variety of weather future seasons will deliver, so maybe the rains will pick up for your area in spring and summer – you never know? But agreed, it is the younger and smaller trees which suffer during these drier times.

    Sugar maples are great tall trees, and they’re super hardy from what I see of them here. Heat tolerant too. The oldest sugar maple here survived a very short hot spell a few years ago of three days in excess of 40’C. Tough as old boots those trees, and in your area you’ll get the bonus sugar run. Good stuff.

    A friend of mine grows sweet potatoes and they seem super reliable where he is, which is warmer than this mountain location. The thing is, I don’t really eat them as the starches for some reason don’t agree with me. Not sure why that would be. The more usual potatoes seem to do really well in the soils here, but trust me, we’ll be doing strict crop rotation with those plants due to disease risks.

    Hope you’re staying warm, and it’s still hot here.

    Cheers

    Chris

  4. Hi Lewis,

    All true, and we tough it out for a few days with no air conditioning, and you do get acclimated to the heat. Although, truthfully we’d planned to work outdoors today (trying to obtain some soil for the rock wall), but by 9am the heat, blue skies and promised hot weather forecast suggested that it was a bad idea. At such times it’s good to be able to be flexible, and so we did paid work instead. It’s still quite warm right now, and won’t cool much tonight. Oh well, could be worse.

    As you’d know with H, sense and sensibilities is perhaps a situational thing is it not? 🙂 H would of course be the very epitome of a lady, and never dare get up to the mischief that Kelpies do, like say for example: applying wombat poop as a perfume. I can assure you, the pungent stench ain’t that…

    The act of cutting down the tree was vandalism in its purest form. Candidly though, it would be difficult to get a quiet moment with the tree when there are something like a million visitors annually (or were). I’d just wish people would plant more diversity of trees, regardless. Possibly my expectations are too high. People weren’t respecting that sycamore tree, they were commodifying it through over-tourism, it’s not the same thing at all as the “the Golden Spruce” which sounds super hard to get too.

    Now Grant Hadwin, that’s a weird story because how can cutting down a sacred tree be considered an act of protest? All that act could ever achieve, was to seriously annoy people. He was probably dealt too, especially if he was stupid enough to announce his travel plans in advance, which he appears to have done so. He doesn’t seem to me to be the sort to keep a low profile, so my best guess is that he’s no longer in the land of the living. Could be wrong though, but there’s not that much wilderness around really, and the very people you’ve seriously annoyed also dwell there.

    Yeah, goobermint can be big on enforcement, except when perhaps they need to act contrary-wise. Then it’s an early morning smash and grab effort!

    Lewis, you so busted me there with the scrap pile. 🙂 Yeah, I keep scrap chunks of timber there which are all handy to the machines which can cut them up and generally refashion the wood into useful sizes and shapes. The steel are the tomato supports we made, but never used. The supports may come in handy in future years. Tomato vines are more easily grown in the greenhouse than in the field at this location, but it depends upon the growing season conditions.

    Ooo! This talk of fig newtons is making me hungry. They’re a very more-ish biscuit (as distinct from the historic Moorish, who probably had a decent biscuit baking history, maybe?) Hang on a second… … Had to take a break and nip down and water the entire citrus orchard and new sycamores. Definitely not a two minute job and tomorrow is forecast for even hotter weather.

    Hehe! Yeah, I so hear you about the self fertilising thing, and here I may cite Goran’s excellent chestnut advice: The burrs will be empty! Sure enough, the burrs were empty. I’ve planted two additional chestnut trees since then, and now two of them have burrs – will they contain nuts? Time will tell. Basically some trees will self fertilise, but it takes a forest to produce a cornucopia! 😉 We’ve got a couple of dozen apple tree varieties, and fertilisation and fruit set has not been an issue. Hmm. Picked a huge box of the fruit today, and barely made a dent on the harvest. It’s hard out there for the forest critters, so we share the produce with them, and they love apples.

    Agreed, it is very likely the isolated fruit trees are lonely and require some comforting, whatever that means.

    I’ve got a list of what the apple varieties are but sadly the tags blew away long ago. Ook! Many of the varieties are heritage purchased from nurseries who promote such strains. About fifteen years ago I visited these guys and bought up big: Strzelecki Heritage Apples

    The plan with the deer is to discover the benefit side of the arrangement in a few weeks. Down under as you’d imagine, you can’t just whizz out and buy the tools to achieve finality with the bambi problems. 😉 Your country has different rules in place, and I always feel slightly naughty visiting that particular shop. Have to laugh, whilst at the shop in my discomfit I picked up the 308 tool, noted that it worked and looked more or less the same as the bunny buster, and then immediately put it down again like a hot potato. The deer will get a very strong message to leave the immediate area. Of course, the deer will remain in the forest, that’s life, it’s about managing the ecology when a particular species gets out of hand. For various pragmatic reasons, I can’t really say what needs being said here, and hope you comprehend the details of my vagary from the details above?

    Far out, and sorry to hear that. The bee situation worries me deeply, especially as news on the mite has gone dark. My hope is that the colony here survives along with the many wild colonies I’ve worked hard at establishing. The future of course belongs to the wild things.

    More frost for you, high heat for us. Such is the time of year. Needless to say, watch your footing in those treacherous conditions, and don’t let H pull you over. Dame Plum almost pulled me off the stairs last night and I missed a tread and landed with a thud. No harm done though, but I’m watching her now.

    Oh gawd, herd, no team. Far out, this noun business is hard and will definitely tie up our energy in knots, or is is nots? 😉

    Man, I’d like to visit the nearby ice cream parlour this evening, it being still warm. Anyhoo, a report to follow in a week or so. I’ll have to check the businesses opening hours.

    The rolled oats addition to the salmon loaf would help the mushiness. The texture is bringing to mind the concept of cat food.

    Speaking of food, there are the most awful of inflationary threats. This one hits hard, and oh yeah, it’s personal… Flat white coffee price likely to skyrocket, no matter where you live. Not into that story, but what do you do when you’re a caffeine junkie? I can see a day in the future where I may have to kick the habit.

    Proper earthworks and drainage would have assisted things in that instance, but did anyone ask my opinion? Having experienced a minor landslide, then changing everything which caused the drama, I hold some strong views there. The rock wall works are very much a part of that larger story. Camelot was built, one rock at a time! 😉

    Well, if you want to conduct a personality test on a bull, I’m running away! Such a critter with a bad attitude would be frightening.

    There sure are a lot of hot potatoes going around right now. 🙂 Wish it were otherwise, but life, decline and stuff. Do you mean the courier system for the library? I’ve said it before, diesel ain’t cheap.

    🙂 The spaceship nicely crashing into the carpark and expo was a hoot of a scene. I liked the way the crew slipped between serious and irreverent without missing a beat. It was a good fun film, and they nicely also crashed through the fourth wall too in a seamless way – like the chomper scene where Tim and Sigourney had to be guided through the ships smashers and commented on the stupidity of the original writers coming up with such a scene.

    Why not red indeed? Nothing wrong with gingers in my books. 😉 But that’s getting too close to your friends and I’d not be likely to venture into such (dare I say it?) hot water. I now retire from the sophist field in full glory.

    I read the spider article over breakfast and then began wondering whether the trap door spiders seen here were as deadly. Not comfortable… It’s amazing what travels in the mail nowadays, just sayin! 😉

    Well, the software used to be pretty good and robust. Plus it runs a huge number of websites on the interweb (spiders again… Ook!) My gut feeling is that they’ll fix this one in an update.

    Cheers

    Chris

  5. Hi everyone,

    The notable band: The Pixies, once sung the lines: “Where is my mind?” Such a good question, and it’s possibly one which is not asked enough in these enlightened days.

    Anyway, this evening whilst goofing off, I discovered the location of my mind before then losing it again. A sad tale, no? 🙂

    But in that brief moment of clarity, it dawned on me that I’d completely forgotten to add a link to this weeks video. Doh! Thus also proving good that good help, is hard to find.

    The problem was easily corrected, although here the initiative has been lost. The battle will be long, there will be sacrifices (you know the oration).

    What were we saying again? That’s right the video is now properly linked in the blog, and thanks for watching it! 🙂

    Cheers

    Chris

  6. Hello Chris,

    Great figs. Congratulations. When we lived in Holland I had a few fig trees in different places. The common practice was to cut the branches after two years at ground level. The new shoots would grow one year with just leaves, and fruit year two. A bit like summer raspberries. You end up with a root system and dozens of shoots and easy-to-pick figs.

    I planted ten varieties of figs last year but only five survived last winter. The rest froze to the ground. This year we harvested one small fig.
    The current winter has been very mild so far, only down to -12C for a couple of days, but mostly +2C. Let’s see how February works out, it is usually the coldest month here.

    Amazing work with your rock-based terracing. I am so grateful that our land is quite flat.

    I also enjoyed reading last weeks Prosche adventure. (In one of my first jobs I worked at a software company for automotive embedded computers and spent a few days at the BMW test track outside Munich. That was enough to cure me from any fantasies of fast driving. Now I drive very, very carefully.) Insurance companies sure know about risks and are very skilled at placing them elsewhere.

    Regarding potatoes, many things to say. First of all, enjoy the harvest!
    I would also recommend to remove all volunteers from forgotten potatoes next year, to break disease cycles.

    Thanks for the vague but instructive comments about the tools. Here in Sweden, hunting is popular but very much regulated. I have not yet started that journey.

    Peace,
    Göran

  7. Yo, Chris – Our high temperature yesterday, was 43F (6.11C). Our overnight low was 21F (-6.11C). Forecast for today is 41F. Clear and sunny. Thursday night, we might get a bit of rain, with temps over freezing. But then back to overnight temps in the 20s. Nothing in the forecast, but usually, when we move from cold to warm and back, with moisture, we get snow.

    H. What can I say. This morning, after doing our run up and down four flights of stairs, she wouldn’t use her stairs to get back up on the bed. Not even for her morning treat. I waited her out. After lots of begging, and lying on my feet as I sit at the computer (another new behavior), I see she has again regained the bed … under her own power.

    Yes. What happened to Grant Hadwin? Might be a case of “shot, shovel, shut up.” Paddle out, shot a hole in his boat, and let nature take its course. Didn’t even have to go to the trouble of digging a hole.

    You have fully justified the necessity of your scrap pile 🙂

    I’m having a biscuit quandary. I have one last serving left, of the apricot crisp. So, I ought to make a batch of … something, to have a small sweet, after dinner. I was planning on maple syrup biscuits, but, when I looked at the recipes on line, I’m glad I read the comments. Bland, unless you frost them with maple syrup frosting. Which requires maple syrup essence. Which I won’t be able to source, in the near future. So, I’ll have to decide on something else.

    Same with the Tomatillos. One plant = lots of empty pods.

    That was a very interesting article about the heritage apple place. Sounds like they’re on slopped land, like yours. And I was impressed with the detail in their weather records. Puts my scratchings on the calendar, to shame. 🙂 You too could start a colony of giant worms, at the bottom of your paddock. Maybe they taste like chicken?

    Believe it or not, there are some states her in the U.S., where you can buy ammo out of vending machines. In grocery stores and convenience marts.

    For dinner I mixed some rice, garlic, dried tomatoes, peas, celery, parsley and mustard leaves, etc.. Then I cubed up a couple of slices of the salmon loaf, and kind of folded it in. It was a lot firmer, out of the fridge. Tasty. I notice the parsley and mustard greens, out of the garden, have a kind of leathery texture to them. I wonder if they’re pumping out some plant version of antifreeze? Still tasty.

    How’s the price of tea, down there? When I decided to stop drinking coffee, at home, and switched to tea, it helped avoid the infamous caffeine withdrawal headache. As far as caffeine goes, about the only choices you have are coffee, tea, or Yaupon. Chocolate has caffeine, but it’s not getting any cheaper, either.

    Ah, courier, that’s it. Used to be, if you checked in something in one branch, that was going to the next branches on a courier run, it would go in a tote to be dropped off, at that branch. There was always a lot of tote traffic, between Centralia and Chehalis. Now, everything goes back to the Service Center, to be rerouted. Makes as much sense as mailing a letter in Chehalis, and having it go to Olympia or Tacoma, to be sent back to Centralia.

    I saw an interesting archaeological article, on rings, in your part of the world. Near Sunbury.

    https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/we-finally-know-what-1-400-year-old-mystery-rings-in-australia-are

    I like the scene in “Galaxy Quest” of the cute, mining aliens, who are helping an injured friend. And turn out to be anything but cute.

    I noticed the lack of a video, but figured you were just too busy to get around to it. I often nag at H, when I forget something, that she could have easily reminded me of. 🙂 It was a good video. You’ll have to follow up in a few months, as to how the globe artichokes are doing.

    We had our yearly membership meeting, at the Club. Election of officers, etc.. After a lot of nagging on my part, my buddy Scott showed up, so we had a good chin wag. There was a lot of talk about finances, and possible remedies. Also, another property to move to, is in the wind. An old house, that has served as a restaurant, from time to time. One of the women owns a share in it. But it also has to be run past her four sisters and a brother. It’s been empty, for about two years. We’ve often talked about increasing the cost of coffee, but have managed to hold the line at $1 a cup, .25 for refills. Lew

  8. Hi, Chris!

    Score: 4 rats

    If you are so hot right now, then maybe this will be our coldest time of the season. I hope so, then it will be over sooner. It’s odd, it stays well below freezing, even in the daytime, but if you sit in the sun, it feels quite warm. I get you about cooking one’s head. One time I got really sick doing that. At least now I know what to look out for and I stop working and go inside to rest and cool off.

    “and you know deep down that you’ll never see what they look like mature, but you keep on planting anyway” – that might make me kind of sad, but I decided long ago that what matters just as much is to plant trees for future generations. When I was a girl my two favorite past times were climbing trees and reading. In fact, my favorite thing was hanging out in a tree, reading a book. On this property where I live now all the trees were like telephone poles when we moved in, all close together and reaching as hard as they could towards the sun. They had no lower branches for my sons to climb, which did not seem to bother them. They would climb anything else, from the sides of the log house to wild grape vines. One of them became a skilled rock climber. I used to belay him when he was just a small boy. Anyway, I planted some native trees in cleared areas so that the trees would grow up with the nice low branches for climbing, for some child in the future.

    Fifteen (+15?) large, big, heavy rocks – well done! Looking forward to the cunning plan.

    Those are huge figs. Another “well done”! I pick unripe fruit, too, to beat the wildlife to it. I sometimes eat it unripe, which is probably not a good idea.

    The carob is impressive. I like carob. My daughter-in-law makes a heavenly fudge from the store-bought stuff. That is a shame about the sugar beet tops. It hurts the plants, besides which, YOU could be eating the tops.

    The sapling enclosure: In a pinch, you can stretch two lines of white rope above and along the fence, 1 foot (30cm) above it and then another line 1 foot above the first. That has worked for a long time over a 4 ft. farm gate that we have in our 8ft. fence. The deer cannot tell the rope is not rigid and are afraid they will hit it. The rope has to be white so that they can see it well, even at night.

    I enjoyed the video, as I always do. It is “pretty hard”, though possibly you enjoy using the mattock a bit? The rototiller may be scary, but it does such a nice job; the bed looks so good. On second thought, how hard was that? It only took 5 minutes . . .

    In a comment of yours to Steve, you mentioned groundwater. Do you have any idea how far down your groundwater is? How deep any of your neighbors’ wells (bores?) are? If it’s not terribly deep, I feel that any water used in the vicinity eventually seeps back into the groundwater supply. It seems to be the case where we are. We are on a well.

    Somewhere in the dialogue you lost your mind, but found it. Was it under the couch?

    It is going to be a 7 blanket night tonight. I don’t think I can wear anymore clothes to bed than I already do. I already have my wool longies on.

    Aren’t oregano flowers beautiful? And so is the wildflower. I wonder why the deer didn’t eat it. There is one of my favorites: Agapanthus. Thanks!

    Pam

  9. Hi Göran,

    People do similar techniques with hazelnut trees, and the figs can grow quite bushy, and one of them is even a small tree. I’ve never seen anyone doing that with a fig tree down here. I see, the plant has a winter cold tolerance of 15’F / -10’C which you may experience, but not likely here. The fruit trees here need to grow big so that they have root systems which can access water during hot and dry periods like the one I’m in at the moment. It was 35’C here today, but fortunately a cool change has swept through about two hours ago.

    It happens, and we’ve got about six or seven fig trees, and those were the best fruits. One of the fig trees is enormous, and I’m told it is of an African variety.

    Hope you and your family are staying warm. Thermal inertia they tell me, and usually the most extreme weather days are early February and August down here. A mild winter is a bonus for you, and hopefully the ground water is replenishing.

    🙂 Rock terracing is one of the undocumented benefits of cheap land! Göran, I dream of flat land. Things would be easier…

    Wise to drive carefully, and we all should go through your multi-track-day experience to cure us of motor vehicle hubris. In these enlightened days, I’m just happy if the machine gets me from A to B.

    We’re all going to pay for those LA fires, that’s the risk with multi-national reinsurance companies. They’re not your friends! And agreed, the employed actuaries comprehend actual risks.

    The potato crop rotation plan is even simpler than that – don’t worry about the diseases, move the beds! You wait and see late next winter, all will be revealed. 😉

    I have to be vague about that particular subject for all sorts of reasons, and the deer are a serious problem. They’re not meant to be comfortable enough to be almost outside the front door of the house – that’s a problem. On my own private land, there’s minimal regulations.

    Cheers

    Chris

  10. Hi Pam,

    Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! (from Dame Plum in acknowledgement of your most excellent rodent achievement).

    Oh my! How are you going? Aren’t you in the middle of a serious cold snap? And a seven blanket night is extraordinarily cold in anyone’s language! Brr! Did you get any snow or was it all ice? It was 95’F here today and I’ve noticed that a few plants are displaying signs of lack of water stress. The cool change swept through about two hours ago and now I feel a bit chilly… (yes, I realise that may sound strange to you).

    Rehydration solution tablets work really well to curb the worst excesses of a bad head cook situation, but some soft drinks can work well too – and a non-alcoholic ginger beer works a treat. Do they have that drink in your country?

    Exactly, that’s what matters – what are we leaving for the future generations? And also it’s fun to have a sense of adventure, trees are lovely places to hang out in, although heights aren’t really my thing. My grandmother had a huge old seedling lemon tree in her backyard and it was big enough to climb, but I lacked the skill to both climb and read. What sort of tree are we talking about here? I’m getting visions of big old oak trees with limbs hanging down to ground level.

    Your children picked up your adventurous spirit there. Lovely stuff, and thanks. Pam, you can only ever but do your best, and the winds of fate blow where they will go for their own reasons, and they leave us all swirling in their wake.

    Monday is meant to be 37’C / 99’F, so hopefully we get some rain before then. Might not be a bad idea to top up the water tanks from the reserves. Hmm. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I had to put a woollen jumper on. My brain hurts with the temperature swings…

    Hopefully the cunning plan will begin to be enacted over the next day or so. It very much depends on the weather.

    The figs are very sweet and were ripe to perfection. Hehe! Yeah, I so hear you about unripe fruit – a person has to be what the old timers used to call: judicious in their consumption. Not always easy to achieve.

    Truthfully I’ve never had access to a carob pod before, so this will be interesting. I’m dreaming of chocolate tasting carob yummies, but may end up producing some sort of weird and inexplicable sludge. It’s complicated. A fudge? Sounds like a good idea.

    The deer are out there tonight cavorting down at the forest edge. Oh well.

    Thanks, and that may work with the larger citrus enclosure too, although the fence stretches 330ft, and there are two gates which are weak points. An interesting idea.

    You so busted me with the mattock. What a fine digging tool it is. The rototiller was purchased off the farm machine dude the day he passed away, and I always think of that machine every time it gets used as a memorial. He’d have been pleased with it’s level of maintenance, yeah. And with 7.5hp, that thing digs deep in compacted clay. Not a machine for the careless. What? 5 minutes, that’s outrageous! 🙂 Hehe! I like how your brain works, and I really appreciate the good belly laugh.

    The groundwater table begins near to the surface, and then as summer goes on, it falls. I’ve no idea how deep the neighbours bores are, and how often they use them. Let’s just say that one neighbour is selling their house, so I reckon the care factor for keeping the garden bright green and not running the bore dry would be low in that instance – although I could well be wrong. There’s also a blueberry farm above the neighbour, and who knows what they’re doing? I use the creek as a guide, but it does take a long while for groundwater to flow to that point.

    Oh! That’s where my mind got too. Well that’s one less problem… 😉

    I love the taste of the fresh oregano leaves too, and the bees are all over the flowers. Something is eating the agapanthus flowers. That hasn’t happened before and they provide a lot of feed for the honeyeaters.

    Cheers

    Chris

  11. Hi Lewis,

    The cold winter has finally arrived for you, and that overnight low would be very challenging for the more cold hardy citrus. Bummer. That’d be a five or six blanket night I reckon? Hope you get some snow.

    It was 95’F here today, and that’s it for the brief run of five hot days. My brain is candidly a bit cooked tonight and I did paid work all day. Although mustn’t grumble, a very tasty muffin was consumed – lemon and coconut (a fine mix). The cool change swept through about three hours ago, and the house is open to let in the cool air. Just before the cool change, it was 82’F inside the house, but hotter outside. Anyway, with the cold night air and fan blowing on me, I’m now feeling chilly and had to put on a woollen jumper. The Editor saw me wearing that, and just laughed.

    Looks like Monday will be 99’F. Yay for us. The smaller plants in the garden are looking a bit heat and water stressed tonight. Oh well.

    Good to hear that H managed to climb up the stairs to the bed. The cold weather might be hard on her, and most heaters tend to warm the air, and not the floor near to where dogs are closest. Once the cool change came through, we took the dogs for a long walk, which they enjoyed but were very hot. They’re all sound asleep now.

    That’s my thinking as to what happened to Grant Hadwin. That sort of protest is as stupid as gluing one’s hands to art works on public display. What’s going to achieve other than seriously annoying people? If they feel so strongly about such issues, they can always reduce their burden on the environment by living a life of asceticism, or doing something to actually benefit the environment and all the other non human critters living in it. Such acts don’t gain as much attention though, do they?

    Hehe! Reading back over the scrap pile paragraph, it does read a bit like a justification. Cool. I guess everyone’s got a story!

    I love a biscuit quandary. Ever tried lavender biscuits? They’re like a shortbread with lavender, which is apparently edible. But the crisp could be modified, maybe. As long as the cook does not over-do the herbal addition, it’s quite tasty, and far from bland.

    Man, we rarely see real maple syrup, so the frosting or essence, are right out as an option. Wouldn’t even know what they taste like. Although, many years ago I did have a pint of genuine Canadian maple stout, and it was awesome tasting, but very strong.

    Ook! Hopefully the carob tree pods are full? They look replete, but who really knows, so did the empty chestnut burrs. I’ve never seen a tomatillo plant. They’re a major ingredient in traditional salsa aren’t they?

    Two of the jute strings holding tomato vines failed today and the plant flopped to the ground. Totally my fault. I’d innovated and tied the jute vine string around the steel saddle clips which had sharp edges. One of those seemed like a good idea at the time sort of things. Anyway, all fixed up and the vines are now again climbing towards the greenhouse ceiling, although I’m topping them off.

    The heritage apple people were really lovely, and they even grafted up a few trees on the spot. And all of the trees took and have grown strongly. We chose quite large rootstock, which is paying dividends in this hot and dry summer. Picked more apples today, and will have to make some batches of cider soon. It’s be good if there were a local home brew club in the area.

    We’ve already got a worm farm, but given what goes in there, I’m not risking tasting the worms to satisfy your curiosity. 😉 There’s still a dead chicken looking up at me each day from the bottom of the worm farm. Hmm. But yeah, I also reckon the worms would taste like chicken!

    Such convenience could never be cheap. Imagine if the machines caught fire – far out, run!

    Yes, the plant leaves do adapt to your cold conditions, but I only know how they’d go to 28’F. Did you notice they’re sweeter? I find that happens, although the mustard leaves can get hotter – a real sinus cleaner, and just the thing for the darkest part of winter.

    Dunno. I haven’t noticed that tea has increased in price, and the Editor bought some black tea today to use as feed for her SCOBY’s. She had this crazy idea about farming the leathery things as a chicken protein booster rather than buying mince meat for them. Except it’s a great idea. Us humans can’t access the protein in them, but chickens apparently can and it’s apparently up around 18% protein which is as good as meat. We observe better egg production after they’re fed the things, so why not?

    We can grow tea camellia here, but I’ve got to try a whole bunch of seeds to discover which shrubs work in the local conditions. The one I’ve had growing for years is so slow…

    It’s pretty weird, but centralised control kind of looks like that. Someone may be justifying their job setting up such an arrangement.

    Wow, that’s just up the road. Thanks, I’d never previously heard of these. Might go and check them out. There’s a very significant indigenous quarry not too far from here as well. Good flint rock.

    Hehe! That was a great scene with the aliens, and it ended badly. The rock monster was a hoot too.

    No. The video was done and uploaded, it’s the heat man. I’m going troppo, as they say. H would of course know all such things, and such arrangements do mean that you have to listen to her, which presumably you’re doing? I always listen to the dogs, unless they’re telling me tales of critter activities outside (which happens all the time), and I’m trying to sleep. Some of the Globe Artichokes have already produced tiny little shoots, although I’m not sure how they’d be faring tonight after the run of hot days. Even the well catered to sycamores seemed a bit weary, or troppo.

    Good to hear that Scott was motivated, and that you enjoyed a chin wag. Always fun to chat with friends. Coffee is on the up. Droughts and frosts in Brazil you know.

    Cheers

    Chris

  12. Hi Chris,

    Carob pods – interesting. I’m hoping our Asian pears produce this year. With mostly dry summers since we planted them the trees growth is behind what is usual. So far this winter has been dry too. While I’m happy not to be dealing with driving in snow the lack of it is a bit worrisome.

    Deer can cause so much damage. There’s way too many around here but it’s even worse in suburban areas where no hunting is allowed. One of my sisters had to construct a very sturdy high fence around all her garden beds and she lived in an old established suburb. Besides doing damage to plantings they can do a lot of damage in natural areas that are being restored. Additionally they carry chronic wasting disease which of course gets worse the larger the population. We’ve put heavy fencing around all our young trees to keep the bucks from rubbing all the bark off.

    As with others here in the US we’re experiencing very cold temps as well. It was -13F this morning and won’t get above zero. Fortunately the temps will moderate after tomorrow. Salve is very quick to do her business these last few days.

    I’m down with a nasty respiratory virus. Doug had it first and still has a cough. A long lasting cough has been typical with this particular virus. It’s now been a week and I’m still not feeling back to normal. This keeps me from visiting Marty as he’s living with a vulnerable population. It does give me an excuse to stay inside though.

    I used to feed my chickens extra scobies. They quite enjoyed them.

    Margaret

  13. Yo, Chris – Well, the high yesterday was 41F (5C). The overnight low was 23F (-5C). Forecast for today is 45F. I usually run down to the Club, on Tuesday mornings. Not this morning. Roads are pretty slick, and I didn’t feel like scraping ice off the truck. I might run down, just after sunset, tonight. I did that last night, to do some grocery shopping, and it was OK.

    All I have on the bed is a sheet / blanket / dog’s blanket. I’ve been running my small space heater, but not very much. It’s warm enough in my apartment, that I haven’t been uncomfortable. I don’t run any heat, while I’m sleeping.

    I considered the biscuit quandary, a bit more. Most I’m interested in, I don’t have the supplies. So, I took a look at muffins instead, this morning. I think I’ll end up making blueberry muffins. I have plenty of those, on hand 🙂 .

    H has been pretty pissy, the last couple of days. Testing boundaries? When I lay down for a nap, yesterday, she wouldn’t use the stairs, but just went into her “Woofing” routine. Not a bark, just a woof. I just waited her out, and after about 5 minutes, she used the stairs. I put her morning treat, on the bed. She wouldn’t even go for that … until my back was turned. 🙂 She’s been pulling down the covers on the bed, a lot more than usual. Also, she usually lays in the hall and watches me cook dinner. But lately has gotten under my feet, and I have to run her out of the kitchen. Micro aggressions. 🙂 . Testing boundaries?

    There are as many kinds of salsa, as there are states in Mexico 🙂 Some of them include Tomatillos, some don’t. I don’t see them used much in salsa, here. They’re not that widely available in the veg stores.

    Maybe use a heavier twine, for the tomatoes. It’s a good idea. No worries about them falling over. Once they get established, they’re pretty tough. I’ve had entire tomato cages fall over, with no major harm done.

    I can’t say the mustard leaves were particularly hot. I seem to remember that the seed package mentioned it was a mild variety. There wasn’t much seed variety available locally. I put in two kinds, but one kind was a washout. I’d say they’re zingy, but not hot.

    SCOBY’s for the chickens? Whatever works. If it’s cheaper than mince meat, why not?

    I mentioned to the library worker that the changes in the courier system were probably some MLS’s (Master of Library Science), bright idea, and now we have to live with it. That bunch have come up with some real lulus, over the years.

    I remember you posted pictures of the quarry. Fascinating place.

    It was a popcorn (and cheese! … still no bulk Swiss, in the stores). I watched a new-ish film, “The Little Stranger.” A ghost story, in the tradition of Henry James. Sort of. Crumbling old English stately home, on its uppers. Takes place after WWII. All that’s left are a mother, adult daughter and son. And one housemaid. The son was badly burned in WWII, and a youngish doctor comes to treat the son. Just to make things interesting, the doctor’s mother was once a housemaid, in the old piles glory days. There’s also a lot of sub-texts about class tension. The end was a bit muddled, and I had to get online to figure out a few things, but, overall, a very satisfying movie. Lew

  14. Hi Chris,

    You’d freeze your head today, not cook it, if you were here. Yesterday morning and this morning the low dropped to -2 F/ -19 C. Right now it’s 4pm, sun’s still out, and it’s 10 F/ -12 C, about the day’s high. If you can call a temperature that cold a high. Somehow it seems wrong to do that. 😉

    We don’t get the wide swings from hot to cold weather during the summer that you do, but temperatures can swing widely in winter, especially in February when it can get as hot as 80 F / 27 C or so or as cold as -18 F / -28 C (not on the same day however, it’s not quite that bad; that’s monthly record heat and cold). But I don’t think we will ever see anything as cold as -10 F here for the rest of the time I’m alive and long after that. It hasn’t gotten that cold since the 1990s. As cold as it is today is the coldest weather I’ve experienced in the past decade.

    While I’m hiding inside the house I am calculating yields from last year’s garden. Peppers, bok choy, and red noodle beans did really well, the peppers and beans because much of summer was rather cool and the squirrels don’t eat them, the bok choy because spring and fall were mild. The lima beans also did well because I grew them on a pea fence, which helped me find the beans more easily when they were ready to harvest. Other crops were OK to lackluster. Pretty soon I’ll start figuring out what seeds I need to buy. There is time; I don’t start anything before late February.

    We still have snow on the ground from when it snowed more than 2 weeks ago, which is a long time for snow to last for us. Maybe it will melt soon? I can only hope.

    Claire

  15. Chris:

    Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! back at you, Dame Plum!

    Rat score: Still 4, which is a good sign. Maybe he got them all.

    Brr! We got snow and ice. I’ll bet there’s not that much left in town, but it’s still pretty much all here at our house. That north slope in a forest thing . . . I also cover my bedroom windows with blankets. I have two blankets on the one in the north wall.

    Glad you’re temporarily cooler. Of course you’re chilly – you are used to hellishly high temperatures. Though a woolen jumper is a bit extreme . . .

    I don’t know about a non-alcoholic ginger beer here; it sounds refreshing. Is it real ginger or fake ginger, like the “ginger ale” that we get here? I just looked – I see both sorts. How nice.

    What I best remember of the reading trees was a big old pine tree and a huge old magnolia and a somewhat smaller pecan tree. I used to read and eat pecans while up in the latter.

    Yes, fudge, not sludge.

    I love when we have useful objects that remind us of departed friends.

    Missing agapanthus probably = deer.

    Pam

  16. @Lew:

    I am using the method you suggested so long ago when you lived in the little house in the country: To put my clothes in the bed with me to warm them up before getting dressed. Thanks!

    Pam

  17. Chris,

    Earl Grey Tea. Hot! Yes, perfection. Give me some Earl Grey Tea, hot, a little bluegrass and a good book and I’m set for the afternoon.

    Our temperatures have been a bit lower than Lew’s but nothing near as cold as Missouri or Illinois or parts further east. Actually, it has been pleasant having some actual winter weather that is not extreme. What’s interesting is a recent note from my cousin in Los Alamos, New Mexico. They’ve had more than twice as much snow as we’ve had here.

    Figs and carobs? Nicely done. I like both.

    There is a somewhat bright side to your deer issue. At least they are adding fertilizer to your grassy areas. Otherwise, it sounds like a challenge. Based on our experiences with the Rat Wars, I think you’ll do fine.

    We’ve been getting more sun the past few days. Dame Avalanche is in husky heaven now. Colder weather. Sunshine. She lies around in the sun for a few hours a day. This has been a nice break from the greys we were having.

    Ok. That’s it. I’m gonna have to plant oregano just for the beautiful flowers.

    DJSpo

  18. Hi Margaret,

    Hopefully the carob pods ripen whilst remaining uneaten by the many hungry forest critters out there. That’s the plan anyway, but will the plan survive? We’ll find out. Cored and blitzed up almost 40 pounds of apples today, and started off a lot of apple cider. Barely made a dent in the apple harvest, although the parrots are fast catching up.

    The Asian pears are fairly dry adapted, but will produce smaller fruit in dry years. They probably do best if the spring rains, or snow melt gives them a deep drink early in the growing season. Tell ya what though, they shrug off the heat with aplomb.

    Fingers crossed that the spring rains make up for a dry winter. From memory you had decent-ish rainfall during summer last season, so who knows?

    Driving in snow is outside my experience, and there was that time I forgot to engage four wheel drive and spun around – but yeah the impression left was that it is an unpleasant experience.

    You have a season for deer don’t you? And Doug is up for that task I believe. 🙂 Respect. It’s my observation that there are very few, if any, people around here who can and will err, hunt the deer. The really big land owners bring in paid young blokes (they do such work for a living) to do the culling, and this year all they’ve done is push the herds onto my property. That’s not what I’d call an effective outcome, but neither can I ignore the situation. Margaret, the deer would be destroying tree ferns in the creek which are hundreds of years old – the ferns are edible. And they’re eating the bark off mature fruit trees, and that I never expected. Oh well.

    -13’F is so cold that my brain is freezing thinking about that temperature. Hope you and your family (plus Salve) are staying warm in the extraordinary cold snap. It was 64’F here today and cloudy and after yesterday that feels like a respite.

    Hope you and Doug feel better soon. 🙂 Had someone sneeze on me this morning. Talk about yuk.

    Yeah, the SCOBY farm is a mad cash saving idea, and the chickens are responding well by upping the egg production. And thanks for the encouragement.

    Cheers

    Chris

  19. Hi Claire,

    We’re in absolute agreement, those winter temperatures are a serious ice-cream headache disaster taken to the nth degree. It was 18’C and cloudy here today, after 35’C yesterday, but your weather leaves me in something of a total state of fright. May have an attack of the vapours! -12’C doesn’t sound all that err, high to me, but this entire line of discussion is something of a relative concept which well, the old brain now hurts. Sadly, such low temperatures are beyond the capacity of even the hardiest citrus and annual vegetables to cope with. Ook! Still, freezing food stuffs becomes cheap.

    That’s been my observation here as well. The extreme cold weather records, are now decades in the past. -10’F is outside my experience. Although when walking around Nepal we reached about 5,000m above sea level in altitude, and despite the summer conditions, the clothes left outside the tent at night would freeze solid – and dry. It was really weird seeing that first-hand.

    Every year and annual harvest is different, don’t you reckon? And for your interest, since I’ve been adding bags and bags of the financially ruinous blood and bone meal to the soils, the fruit are much larger. But Claire, after reading many books, I know what Steve would suggest, but those bags are now up around $60 for 20kg.

    It’s interesting though to see the effects of the soil mineral additions up close and personal. An old timer farmer used to tell me that the blackberries were much bigger in his youth, and this year the berries are huge. Hmm.

    A friend of mine, Simon, has a large productive backyard garden but this year I noticed yellowed leaves, insects and plants which did not set fruit. I’m now paying forward your soil mineral efforts. 🙂 You were absolutely spot on too. Thanks!

    That’s so cold. It’s conversely become dry here. We can only but do our best.

    Cheers

    Chris

  20. Hi Pam,

    Dame Plum sends greetings, and cordial tail wags to your son for his most excellent ratting efforts. Over summer I’ve been reading the classic ‘Dracula’ by Bram Stoker. The naughty and somewhat toothy count enjoyed the company of rats, so now that you’ve possibly eliminated the rodents, you may well also be free of vampires? A good undocumented benefit if you ask me.

    My experience with rodents is that they head into cosy territory a few weeks prior to extreme weather, so you have to be alert to their mischief early on. But then, once the toothy critters are eliminated, that’s it. You shouldn’t see any new ones I reckon. The final rodent count a few years ago was either 20 or 22, and it boggled my mind to observe how much chicken feed they ate.

    Ah yes, on a south facing slope, I get exactly what you mean there. 🙂 The blankets on the window are a great idea. Glass leaks heat, even the double glazed panes here aren’t as good as a solid wall at protecting the house occupants from extreme weather.

    Hehe! Pam, I could have worn the woollen jumper all day today. Low thick clouds 64’F max and wind. It’s still dry out there, so I watered many plants this morning, and took the time to top up the house water tanks from the reserves – that takes hours and hours of electric water pumps doing their thing. There’s still a bit of reserve water left, but not as much as a month ago.

    There were plans to work outside today, but err, summer soft and stuff. So we we had about 40 pounds of harvested apples and used the day to turn them into cider. I don’t think I’ve ever cut up as many apples in one day as I did earlier today. Despite the dry weather, the apples were as juicy as commercial orchard grown ones. And there’s still heaps of fruit on the trees too, which the parrots will enjoy.

    As far as I comprehend matters, real ginger is used. Oh, here it is: Ginger Beer. I’ll tell you a funny story. Many long years ago it was another hot day and I’d purchased one of these drinks at the local General Store to go along with the late lunch beef pie. Yum! So there I was eating my pie (on ceramic with cutlery, all very civilised), and the owner sent a young lady out to tell me off. You see, the business hadn’t organised their liquor license at that stage, and they thought I was drinking actual beer, rather than the soft drink which they sold me. Sometimes beer is sold in similar looking bottles. Talk about up-tight! Anyway, one look at the label, and the (spare a thought for the poor young lady sent out) owner, knew he’d over reacted.

    Oh my! Reading and eating good food is one of life’s little joys is it not? And pecans are so tasty. Those nut trees get really big.

    Right, sludge, no fudge. Got it! 😉

    It’s nice isn’t it to remember our friends and loved ones. Candidly, despite all of the many hardships over life, and I imagine you’d be similar, we’ve all had some fun times and great chats.

    Oh shoot! In hindsight, that last comment is probably inappropriate in relation to the deer. Ook! Thanks, and nothing has ever totally eaten any agapanthus flowers before the deer arrived this year. The honeyeaters rely on the nectar of those flowers, and half of them have disappeared. It was nice the deer left the flower stalks.

    Cheers

    Chris

  21. Hi DJ,

    Yes Captain! 😉 He was a very good captain that one, although I reckon the Galaxy Quest crew did alright as well. And the original crew were pretty awesome too.

    Sounds like a lovely idyllic afternoon! I spent today cutting up and coring about 18kg of apples we’d picked from the trees. It doesn’t sound like much, but the job took hours. The apples were then blitzed and then squooshed in the press to recover the juice – then pressed again. Got about 9L of apple juice, and that will all be turned into a very tasty cider. It was a very off grid pirate lifestyle day today and bluegrass music would have fitted in nicely, although I listened to the national youth music broadcaster.

    What? It’s pretty odd to think that Los Alamos would get twice as much snow as you. The media reports down here are saying that the east of your country has had some serious cold weather.

    The figs were superb. We cut them in half and ate them with lunch which was tasty cheese, fresh tomatoes (with salt, pepper and chives) and oven fresh bread. Despite the hard work and all around deprivation, Sandra and I eat well!

    I’ve never had access to fresh carob pods before. What do you do with them?

    Oh yeah, the deer are converting plant material into poop at a decent rate. I’m mildly alarmed that the dung beetles don’t seem to be grabbing the poop, and it looks very hard and dry to me. Hmm. What seems to be breaking the poop down is a fungus.

    Once I got Sandra on board with the err, deer program, life got easier – put it that way. We’ve reasoned with the deer and mentioned that they’d be fine if they didn’t overdo it, but do they listen? Nope. And there are more than the single herd too. There’s one stag who is very daring, and he’ll get almost up to the front door and munch upon the tree fern. And acts seriously put-out when I shoo him off. Probably not wise to make such a scene. We’ll be fine.

    🙂 Yay for more pleasant weather for both you and the Dame Husky! Are you able to go for walks in the conditions?

    Oregano is super tough, and if mint survives underground in your winters, I don’t see why oregano won’t.

    Cheers

    Chris

  22. Hi Lewis,

    Wise to bend with the conditions, and avoid the icy roads. Did you make the run down to the Club later in the day? Had a similar vibe about this morning, although maybe it was the after effects of five hot days in a row? Dunno. But it was only 64’F and the wind was blowing from the south (the ice continent) and working outdoors just didn’t feel right somehow. No rain fell, but it was more humid. Anyway, it was nice to feel cold again.

    Cut up and cored the harvest of almost 40 pounds of apples. There’s still heaps more fruit on the trees, but we lack the time and systems to cope with the production having bought and processed boxes of apples in the many months leading up to this point. It took hours of work to cut the fruit up today whilst blitzing and smooshing it. Seemed like the right activity to do today given the weather outside.

    Having a nice chamomile tea right now to soothe the nerves before bedtime.

    Ah, I see. It’s funny you mention that, but I prefer to sleep in non heated rooms as well. A lot of hotels overheat their rooms and I’m not sure why, but believe it is done so because that extra heat is conferred as a luxury. It’s no luxury to be over-hot and paying for the privilege, but that’s merely my take on the world.

    You’ve got heaps of blueberries in the freezer, well you did the last time you mentioned them. 🙂 So, did the muffins work out well, and did you mix the last of the apricot crisp into the batch?

    🙂 Based on what you mentioned of her behaviour, I reckon H sounds cold to me. Cold dogs have trouble navigating stairs as they get crunchy joints too. The way many buildings are constructed, the floor is usually much colder than the air sitting above it, and dogs are more intimate with the conditions of the floor than us humans are. Heaters tend to warm the air, than the surfaces. Just a wild guess there about H.

    The coldest house I’d ever resided in was the thing in the nearby townships housing estate. All very modern and stuff, but concrete slabs radiate the ground temperature at you during the depths of winter. The tiled sections of the floor, like in the bathroom or kitchen were the worst.

    Hehe! True, Mexico does have a lot of states. 🙂 Ah, thanks for the answer, and with tomatillos never being seen down here, the ingredients of most salsa is pretty obvious and known. You can probably buy the fruits somewhere…

    Speaking of such matters, the early tomatoes are beginning to ripen, and we’re saving seeds from those varieties – which are all yellow tomatoes.

    Yeah, I restrung the jute twine for the tomato vines, and they seem like what you wrote, largely unaffected. Hardy plants. Oh goodie: Devastating tomato brown rugose fruit virus detected in Victoria for first time. I mentioned to the Editor that it would now be most unwise to accept tomato and chilli seedlings. Fortunately they’re both easy to raise from seed we’d saved. The authoritas did such a good job with the honeybee varroa mite spread, what could possibly go wrong?

    Man, when mustard leaves are hot, they’re in the horseradish territory and you can really feel the zing in your sinuses – and then begin to regret that last mouthful. Not sure how we ended up with such hot varieties. Oh well. Yours may rise to the challenge over time with some appropriate seed selection and saving? There’s not a lot of locally adapted seed varieties available in this corner of the planet either. Many seed varieties don’t do as well here up in the mountains because they’re bred to suit hotter climates, so it’s a sort of trial and error game – and hope for the best. Anyway, when the leaves get hot, you’ll know. 😉

    It’s heaps cheaper than mince meat, which we give them once a week in the cooler months of the year. The chickens make little happy sounds when they spot either meat or the SCOBY’s.

    Oh my! Well, there’s theory, and then theory put into practice, and of course, long established practice. The masters folks may seek novelty? But does it work at the right price point is what I always want to know.

    The radio sold for $10, which is not bad and looks like it went to a collector of such things.

    The aristocracy in that country sure did fall onto some hard times after WWII, so do you reckon the story fits the real world conditions for those folks during that time period? I believe that they still have class tensions, and that is true here as well, although our society pretends it is otherwise. However it is my observation that a fat wallet does in no way indicate social graces and status – it’s just a replete wallet.

    Cheers

    Chris

  23. @ Pam – This place is warmer, but I still occasionally take my shirt, to bed with me. I also used to heat up a couple of cookie sheets, under the broiler. Then I’d grab a couple of oven mitts, and rapidly move them around (so as not to scorch the sheets), between the bottom sheet and top sheet. That made for a toasty bed to crawl into. I finally broke down, and just bought an electric blanket. Lew

  24. Yo, Chris – Just after sunset, I ran up to the regular grocery store, to pick up a few things. Molasses and the maple syrup extract. So next time I want to do biscuits, I’ll be prepared. I spent the same amount, for half the groceries, as at the warehouse like grocer. But then, I made some pretty pricy investments. A 24oz (710mL) bottle of molasses was $11. I picked up some maple syrup extract (imitation, by the way) and it was $6 for a small bottle. A bag of Bob’s Red Mill corn meal (24oz) was almost $5. But (finally) I found 8oz chunks of Swiss cheese for $4.19. I grabbed two. On the way home, I stopped by the Club for a cuppa, and made it home before the frost settled in.

    Our high yesterday was 46F (7.77C). The overnight low was 25F (-3.88C). The forecast for today is 44F. The forecast for tomorrow night, changed. The overnight low will not be above freezing, and any moisture is out of the picture.

    That’s a lot of apples, to process. Might that be the video, this week?

    Even with the scant covering on my bed, I occasionally feel overheated. So, I hang my feet and hands outside the covers. The theory is, the blood cools in my extremities, and then circulates back to cool down my core.

    I ate the last slice of apricot crisp (warmed, with a dollop of yogurt) night before last. So last night, I made the blueberry muffins. The recipe was for a dozen muffins, so I doubled it. As long as I’m going to the trouble … 🙂 Well, I had a surprise. The tops of the muffins, are pretty … crusty (?). Had a hard time getting a toothpick through, to test for doneness. I used the same substitutions, I use for banana muffins. Almond milk for regular milk, and applesauce for oil. But the banana muffins have much softer tops. No worries. The blueberry muffins are still tasty. I ought to have enough to last a week and a half, or so.

    I think H is just being pissy. My floors are warm enough. She wouldn’t get on the bed, to play our daily game of squeaky toy keep away. But zipped right up to get her chew treat. I watch her coming and going, on our four flights of stairs. No problems, there. If she does start having problems, I’ll begin slipping her a baby aspirin, and see if that helps. It sure did with old Beau.

    Oh, my gosh, those are some sad looking tomatoes. Yes, best be vigilant. It would be a shame, if you had to burn down your greenhouse 🙂 . The article reminded me of something, though. When we’d take our every-other-year trip to California, there was a border check-point. Which, to my kid self, felt so odd. They were checking for fruits and veg. I wondered if they still did it. They do.

    https://www.ncesc.com/geographic-faq/what-do-they-check-for-at-california-border/

    As far as I know, it’s the only state that has an internal border check. People I know often make trips, to and from California, and no one ever mentions the border checks. I figure it’s such a fact of life by now, that it’s not worth commenting on.

    I’m lucky to have a couple of good seed companies, that grow their seed stock, in an almost identical climate, to what we have here. Which reminds me, I should sit down and take stock of what I have saved, and what I need to order.

    My chickens were always happy to see their afternoon bowl of goodies. They’d come on the run, jostling each other out of the way.

    One of the characters in “The Little Stranger” comments on the fact that what pushed them into hard times was a 75% inheritance tax. That book I read last year, on the demise of the stately homes, mentioned that. That’s when a lot of them were bulldozed. Yes, we also like to pretend that we have no class system. Where it really becomes apparent (and people are becoming aware of it) is in our legal system. More or less, one system for the rich, and one for the middling and poor.

    I read an article, yesterday, that should warm the cockles of your heart. And there are two pictures of people R.I.P! (Reading In Public … not to be confused with the other R.I.P acronym 🙂

    https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/20/health/recommend-coffee-shops-wellness

    Interesting, as I’ve seen a couple of articles, over the last few weeks, that discuss changes at the … shall we call it, the big chain Celestial Coffee Shops. Some of their new shops have nowhere to sit. Or are only drive through. And other articles have said they’re ending their “open door policy.” After the article above, that might be a serious misstep. Lew

  25. Hi Chris,

    I would like to recount the story of Saint Bonifatius who cut down a tree in Friesland, in an area currently occupied by the Netherlands and Germany.

    He went there as an arrogant missionary in the 700s. When he came to a sacred tree that was protected by lethal magic, he proceeded promptly to cut it down, to demonstrate the supreme powers of the new God.
    Next time he came to the area, he and all his friends were killed in an ambush.
    Some historians say there is no link between the two events.

    I think it is prudent to have a chat with the old people before removing prominent landmarks.

    Peace,
    Göran

  26. Chris:

    It seems early for an apple harvest. I thought they were mostly harvested in the fall.

    I have to admit, I have not seen a vampire lately . . .

    Poor young beermaid; I hope the owner apologized.

    No! No! No! Fudge, not sludge!

    Deer are not friends. There is only one thing that they leave behind that we cherish.

    Pam

  27. @Lew:

    Very clever, Lew, with the cookie sheets. I have a heating pad for my feet, and for stomachaches. I use that if I’m desparate.

    Pam

  28. Chris,

    I know how long it takes to core apples. Not hard labor, necessarily, but it is exacting and just takes time. You press yours to make cider, I dry mine for longer term storage and use. But coring apples is coring apples.

    This afternoon I am in heaven. Music. Not bluegrass today. Went to the post office and Linda Ronstadt was there. Looks exactly like she did in 1976. I brought her home with me. Oh, er, well, her “Heart Like a Wheel” cd anyhow.

    Los Alamos is at 2,200m elevation. They’re a bit behind “normal” snowfall, which is a lot less than our “normal” 5m. We’re just not getting snow in the lower elevations this year.

    The weather here would be cold for you, but it’s been a mild winter by Spokane standards in addition to the lack of snow. Yes, we get out for walks most days. I have more issues with icy patches on streets and sidewalks in more typical winters. This has been a piece of cake for walking. We walked over to Killian the Red at noon today. Had to let him outside. Even with it -5C, he and Dame Avalanche didn’t want to go inside and spent most of the hour playing outdoors. In the shade. I was on the deck soaking up sunshine while watching them.

    I dunno what to do with carob pods either. Mom sometimes bought carob powder. She used it in baking as a substitute for chocolate. The baked goods turned out fine, although they had a flavor that was almost completely unlike chocolate. But they were tasty.

    Hmmm, interesting that the fungus is breaking down the deer poo and not the normal critters. Ya got me speechless about that.

    I’ve been able to reason with many birds and animal species. Deer? Very rarely. The winter I bagged an elk, there was a doe and her two fawns who spent the days near where we parked our vehicle. My brother-in-law and I decided early on that they were off limits, even though they were legal. So I spent a few minutes quietly talking to the deer, assuring them that we meant them no harm. After that, whenever we were near them, they paid us no mind and continued eating. That’s the only time deer have ever listened to me.

    I need to give mint another try. Trying oregano at the same time would be fun.

    DJSpo

  29. Hi Göran,

    What a story, and yes, it is very wise not to step on the feet of the old ones, lest you have big shoes and can handle the consequences.

    Looks like ol’ St Boniface cut down the sacred oak ‘Donar’s Oak’ which some say was venerated to Thor, others to Jupiter, but either way those are deities not to be lightly annoyed. Incidentally, both of those have a reputation of the old saying: ‘don’t get mad, get even’ or maybe it was ‘get mad, and get even’ – hard to be sure from this murky distance of time. But whatever the case, things may take a turn for the worse.

    Anyway, I believe we can agree here that the old Klingon proverb applies to the story: “Revenge is a dish best served cold!”

    And sadly the robbers were catspaws of the old ones too, because they didn’t appear to have profited from the final act either – they encountered a genuinely impoverished monk. Their very actions suggest that this was not always the case in those ancient days. 😉

    Cheers

    Chris

  30. Hi Pam,

    Ooo! Is it early for apples? Hang on a second… … It does seem to be early. The trees broke dormancy in September and produced blossoms in early October (just looking back at the photos). Well, so far it’s been a warm (but not too hot) and dry summer, so maybe the trees just did well in the conditions? Dunno. I’ve noticed over the years that if fruit trees enjoy a wet winter and spring, followed by a dry and warm-ish summer, they produce better fruit.

    Just had a tiny bit of rain, and today has been very cool. It’s only 14’C / 57’F right now and wasn’t much warmer earlier. In fact today was so cool and very cloudy, that we kept on working outside and finished up late, not realising the actual time – I’d say 4pm was a late lunch, even by our standards.

    Who knows, it might be an early fall? You wouldn’t see me complaining, although Monday is now forecast to reach 38’C / 100’F. Not looking forward to that.

    Glad to hear that about the vampires, and if it’s not too much to ask, if say theoretically speaking you became a vampire, would you err, be upset if say the traditional remedies were applied to your un-dead condition? Always best to ask first in these toothy un-dead situations don’t you reckon? 🙂 Sorry, I’m reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and it’s a good read, although Bram could have been a touch more concise with the dialogue. It’s a bit like the drivel that AI produces – why let 50 words say what could be said in 500 words? Hmm. Whoa! Just got hit by a flash of insight – what if AI is the un-dead? 😉

    Yeah, you know I doubt an apology was forthcoming to either myself, or the young lady working at the café. The best I got out of that situation was a mumbled awkward explanation. It happens.

    Anyway, if I was un-dead, I’d expect the worst, and would probably make for unpleasant company! Knowing my luck I’d end up as a brainless zombie. 🙂

    Ook. I thought you meant sludge… Ah, anyway jokes aside, you forced me to look up what to do with carob pods. They’re roasted and then blitzed to produce a powder which is added to baked goods as a sweetener. I’ll definitely try that, if the deer don’t get them first. There are a lot of fudge recipes using carob, and over the years I’ve had some very tasty examples.

    I don’t quite comprehend the deer. All of the other forest critters live in some sort of chaotic balance which has been carefully worked out over the past eighteen years – even the pesky cockatoos. But the deer are just off the charts in terms of damage to the vegetation. They do things that no other critter would do, and it’s weirdly self-defeating. They’ll eat this year, whilst completely destroying future production. This level of damage is unsustainable, and I’m loath to let Ollie do the hard yards here. Old Sir Poopy knew what to do, but Ollie has other different i-deers.

    I’m curious, if it’s not too much to ask, what is this one thing?

    Cheers

    Chris

  31. Hi DJ,

    Coring apples is assisted by having a sharp and heavy knife. It was funny because I began the process using a sharp, but lighter paring knife. That was a bad idea because the skins were tough and the flesh hard. However, what I discovered was that the apples produced about 0.5L for every 1kg of fruit – which suggests an approximate 50% moisture volume. No wonder the parrots enjoy apples. Hmm. What commercial cidery do is macerate the apples then press the err, mash – which is what we did more or less: Core + Blitz + Press.

    Hmm. Never dried apples before, but it might not be a bad idea.

    A truly fine album with some notable tracks. You have good taste in music. Ever noticed that in your country, when economic times get patchy, popular interpretations of country music comes to the fore? Hashtag: Eagles Desperado album – another fine album.

    5m of snowfall depends very much on where the measurement in your area is taken, I’d reckon. It’s a lot of snow, but then you have big rivers. Climate is a very variable thing and do averages even communicate meaningful information?

    Yeah, I’m not wired for your winter weather merely by having little to no experience with such cold temperatures. The ice would bother me as well. Go those two dogs, and may they enjoy a solid sleep as a reward for such playtime. 🙂

    Had to keep the dogs restrained today. We worked up near to the road, and they have inquisitive minds and may go wandering. The dirt roads are very dusty, and on a dog walk tonight we were covered in dust. Hmm. Revenge will be mine.

    Seems like the carob pods are roasted, then blitzed to produce the powder. Who knows, and they have some time to go before they’re ready to harvest. The deer. Hmm. Down under, there’s a 28 day delay between purchase and getting your hands on, which is probably no bad thing. The deer aren’t going anywhere. I spotted the herd a couple of kilometres away from here today, but still in the forest.

    Yeah, with poop here, the birds will break up and eat any dog manure within an hour or two. There are native dung beetles for wombat, wallaby and kangaroo poop, but the birds will eat those insects as well, so they lead a precarious life. Theoretically, the introduced dung beetles should eat the deer poop, but no. It’s a mystery why the fungus is doing the hard yards, but that’s what’s happening.

    The deer here are a bit arrogant and won’t listen to good advice, sorry to say. We’ll see how it all goes, but I have no idea and it could be a big mess. The damage they’re doing is unsustainable.

    Cheers

    Chris

  32. Hi Lewis,

    Planning ahead always produces the biscuits! 🙂 And it’s funny how these days you end up keeping more stocks of stuff. They tell me that just-in-time as a theory is on the way out, and the facts support those tales. Dude, I’m not even sure what is molasses although know it is a darker but similar consistency to the ‘golden syrup’ down here. No way! Turns out that the dark sugar we buy is most likely refined white sugar with molasses added to it. Hmm. This has gotten me wondering if we should be buying better quality dark sugar. Did you know that molasses contains more vitamins and other minerals than refined sugar?

    I like how you described food purchases as ‘pretty pricey investments’ – I so hear you about that. 🙂 Nice one. Almost forgot to mention that a week or two ago when the Editor went to a fresh food market, all of the stalls had different types of bananas for purchase. Even the red bananas were commonly seen, and a new variety of tiny little bananas sold in a huge hand of them. Thinned skinned and good flavour was my review of those. Hmm, the dreaded Panama fungus may be wreaking some havoc with the Cavendish variety?

    Speaking of prices, it’s going to be a long weekend with Monday being a public holiday for Australia Day. Filled up the cars over the past few days as the prices weren’t too bad given the slowly increasing prices of crude (election? 😉 ) and the declining Aussie exchange rate – which has had a mild boost due to your election and generally good US-Aussie relationship.

    Nice score with the Swiss cheese. We’re doing the same thing when discovering the favourite block of tasty cheese is on sale. Your flour is really cheap and you’re buying good stuff too.

    Earlier today it was 22’C / 71’F but thick clouds rolled in and the temperature dropped to 14’C / 57’F. A great day for outdoors work, except that I started getting a bit peckish and discovered that we hadn’t had lunch and it was not far off 4pm. Yikes! Scoffed down a hastily prepared lunch, then made a dash to the local General Store for a coffee before they closed at 5pm. Had to check the mail, and it was quiet, which I like. Almost finished reading Dracula. I wish Mr Stoker had been a bit more heavy on the action, and a touch more concise with the long dialogue. I know what Inge may have said about that level of verbosity! Hope the lady is doing well and avoiding vampires, who seemed intent on setting up shop in London.

    Anyway, it’ll be rock work and the usual farm stuff for the next month or two until the weather settles into a brief autumn. Today was unusually cold though. We began fixing up the long rock wall along the driveway – and also during that work removed a large power wheelbarrow load of soil which was placed behind the rock wall below the long line of water tanks. The work is a bit of a juggling act.

    Nah, the next video will be on the rock work. In the past, people have gotten a bit weirded out by the various booze making activities and so I’m a bit wary of that topic.

    That’s a good theory about temperature and sleeping, and I get hot too sometimes. I’ve got a theory that the bodies temperature fluctuates throughout the night, but I’m with you about the extremities feeling the coldest, although that my feet. Usually my hands run quite warm all the time, probably due to the physical work around here.

    Yummo, and the dollop of yoghurt would work with the apricot crisp – a bit like a healthier version of cream! Hehe! Yeah, why stop at a dozen, when two dozen will fit the bill? Cooking is always best done to the right volume of stuff I reckon. Some folks are super wasteful when it comes to cooking, and economy must always be a factor – of course the external economy will enforce such kitchen strictures whether people like it or no.

    Crusty muffin tops was a plot line in a Seinfeld episode a long time ago.

    You know H’s moods, and sometimes dogs just get bored and then do things. On the dog walk tonight, Dame Plum and Ollie were very excited about encountering a large echidna, as they’d encountered it many times before. Seems to perk up their walkies. I didn’t let them near the spiky creature. Hey, you can’t seem to buy baby aspirin down under.

    Oh no! I’d not thought the problem through to the – most correct – conclusion of burning down the greenhouse. Yikes! That tomato disease is a bit like vampires – tricksy and bad news.

    Those are common down under at border crossings. Plus there are areas where it is prohibited to bring in certain plant materials, like grapes, potatoes and strawberries just for a few examples. That’s what happens when areas don’t practice proper crop rotation – plant diseases build up. This used to be a berry growing area, and I wonder if that explains some of the troubles I have with strawberries – although the hybrid plants grown nowadays aren’t all that hardy.

    Yeah, you are pretty lucky there with the seed suppliers. Even the local gardening club sells seeds that are probably better adapted to warmer conditions. I’m trying to develop locally adapted varieties. None of the cucumber seeds planted out germinated this year – how bad is that? There are some open pollinated heritage varieties of cucumbers, so we might try them in future years.

    Always an interesting thing to do! Did you pull down the box of stored seeds? Always hard to know when to chuck out and old packet of seeds.

    Yeah, chickens do lack certain social graces, and they’ll mob me at their door too when they spot me with the feed bucket. I’ve taken to adding rolled oat and milk to their kitchen scraps, and it all disappears.

    Holy carp! A 75% inheritance tax suggests that it is a bad idea to die. Having experienced an 100% err, tax on inheritance from any source, well, there’s little sympathy from me. Shame that such taxes perversely ended up demolishing stately buildings. I’ve a soft spot for old Victorian era mansions. And yes, one must have deep pockets to play in that system – it is not for the likes of you and I to wade into those administrative waters. Yup, class is a thing down here too, although many pretend to a higher class than they reside. Having worked at the top end of town, and interacted with the well to do, I’m humble and know where I fit in.

    If I could but give a piece of unsolicited advice to social climbers it may be: Seek not ye lofty reaches, for there is further to fall, and the landing may well be hard!

    Thanks for the article, and the author clearly enjoys the public caffeinated spaces. 🙂 And yes, two dudes reading in public – winning. I liked the cheeky social commentary in the article too. It’s interesting too about public social spaces, because my friends and I have a lot of troubles with such places mostly because they’re expensive. Thus the appeal of the coffee house.

    Oh, and students may accept bad coffee, and that is their lot to accept. I have zero tolerance for such experiences. 😉

    Cheers

    Chris

  33. Chris,

    Talk about brain freeze or losing my mind or something. That 5m of snow was, well, I temporarily lost my mind. More like a season total of 1.25m here in a “normal” winter. Whatever that is. Mea culpa.

    More later.

    DJSpo

  34. Yo, Chris – You can’t have rum, without molasses. It was a component, of the slave trade.

    https://w.wiki/7Jw5

    Although molasses isn’t too hard to source here (unlike golden syrup), there was none at the warehouse like thrifty / yuppie grocery. Though I may have overlooked it. The regular grocery had two brands, each in two different sized bottles.

    I think we’re still getting Cavendish bananas, here. No problems, yet.

    We’ve just come off a holiday. Inauguration Day isn’t an official Federal holiday, but it just happened to fall on Martin Luther King Day, which is an official holiday.

    Our high yesterday was 45F (7.22C). The overnight low was 25F (-3.88). The forecast for today is 43F. Prof. Mass says we’re under a lot of pressure. 🙂

    I guess the Victorians were just chatty. Although it may have had to do more with novels being issued in three volume sets. The “three-decker.”

    https://w.wiki/CpVM

    Although those were falling out of fashion, by the time Dracula was published. And, it has an interesting publishing history. But, even so, the original novel clocked in at 400+ pages.

    Enough with vampires. Let’s get back to zombies! 🙂 I picked up season two of a “Walking Dead” spin-off, “Daryl Dixon.” Daryl goes to France! I gave up on the original series, about season four. There have been numerous spinoffs, and so far, I’ve watched an episode or three of those, and thrown them all back. But this one has … staying power. I’ll soon be picking up another zombie movie … sort off. “Rumors.”

    https://youtu.be/yTxDgpnbJrU?si=mfdQINTguEFLCCFw

    I don’t see why people would be weirded out by booze making. Come the apocalypse, booze will be a major trade item. Along with an easily grown, smokable herb. 🙂

    I compared the banana muffin recipe with the blueberry muffin recipe. The only major difference, I could see, was the blueberry recipe called for more baking powder. A lot more.

    I discovered H’s stairs were on a carpet edge, that made them not quit steady. Corrected that. I also took her down to the Club, last night. I thought a bit of socialization might mellow her out, a bit. Seems to be working.

    I don’t grow cucumbers (there’s always a lot around, for free), but a few of the people here do. They seem a bit hit or miss. And, they take up a lot of space.

    I haven’t dug into the seed packets, yet. I date the packs I save myself. Most of the commercial seed companies have “Packed for …” dates on their packets. I figure they’re good for two or three years. Beyond that, not so much. Lew

  35. Chris:

    That is very chilly. Keep on the jumper. If it’s 4 pm, it’s tea time. You have missed lunch. Okay – 38C. Take off the jumper

    I fully expect AI to be the un-dead. And if I was a vampire, and destined to go on and on and on in that state, I’d take out an ad for someone to apply the stake to you know where. Unless, that is, there is a cure. Does Bram say? In less than 500 words . . .

    Perhaps brainless zombies don’t suffer as much. Hard to see how they could without a brain.

    Carob’s not just a sweetener, it has a delicious flavor, too. Yum – sludge, or not.

    Deer do seem to be self-destructive. Here, they eat everything in sight, move on for a bit, then come right back to see if it has grown back. Mostly it hasn’t. Ollie and his i-deers . . . I hope they’re good ones.

    Poopies!

    Pam

  36. Chris,

    I bought an apple coring tool and use it. Sometimes a sharp knife works better. Depends on the apples. Then I use a mandarin slicer to get fairly even thickness on the fruit to be dried.

    My 3 favorite albums, no particular order, are the recently purchased Linda Ronstadt, Desperado by the Eagles, Songs from the Wood by Jethro Tull.

    Interestingly, the youngish neighbor and I had lunch today. As she is just getting to know the Princess and me, I took along that woodburning I did of the werewolf, complete with sign pointing to the wombat. Sort of an ice breaker. I explained that the inspiration for the work came from “I brought a Lemon to a Knife Fight” by the Wombats. She perked up and said that she listens to the Wombats sometimes and likes their music.

    Also, she wants to replant lawn in her yard. I need to buy more dryland grass seed for my yard. I think we’ll work it as a team. She said she’s never done this before and wants help. So we’ll team up on both yards, sort of.

    Avalanche slept well after being with Killian. She has slept hard all afternoon since my return from lunch.

    I was just informed by the tv dealer. They will be here Friday sometime during midday. Looking forward to a new tv that works.

    Winter weather. I get out in it mostly regardless of the temperature. Just dress appropriately, thermal layers when needed. So far I’ve not needed such this season. What gets really bad is when the temperature gets much below -7C and the wind starts blowing. I have good gear to wear in windy weather, but when it gets too cold and too windy, even I don’t venture out much. That would be, for me, air temperatures below -10C with wind speeds above 12 km per hour. I used to get out in much worse, but with age comes wisdom. Or maybe I’m getting too old for that. 😉

    Dogs and dust. Ugh. There’s always dogs and thick mud that they roll in. Or maybe the unmentionable slimes and poops that dogs enjoy rolling in sometimes. Dame Avalanche likes to roll in the snow. Wet snow or powdery snow makes no difference to her.

    Dad’s house wasn’t far from the Spokane River. And pine forests. Deer liked to feed on some of the plants by his front door. Good thing, too. The deer kept those shrubs properly trimmed. Often they would jump some fences and get into the garden area. By that time, dad wasn’t gardening, so the deer got to eat apples and a few other choice things. However, if dad had been actively gardening, there would have been a definite battle of wills between him and the deer.

    Many insects seem to lead precarious lives. Most of the things that feed on the insects, well, their lives can be precarious too. Come to think of it, isn’t that true of all living things to one degree or another?

    DJSpo

  37. Hi Pam,

    Today was lovely, warm and not too hot. Travelled north to nab a gourmet pie, and then on the way back sampled the ice cream shop in the town on the eastern end of the mountain range. Both pie and ice cream were superb. A person could ask for more from their day off, but is it wise to do so?

    Just had a look at the forecast for the next ten days and Monday has been upgraded to 42’C / 108’F. Yuk! Oh well, such events are very much a part of the summer months.

    Hehe! Mr Bram never let 50 words suffice in a soliloquy when 500 would expand upon the language skills of the reader. Truth to tell, it’s a ripper tale, and the real protagonist in the story is Mina, who is the intelligent and organised mascot for the crew of plucky vampire hunters. Shame the lady is slowly turning into the un-dead, although now being twenty pages from the end may reveal a different fate.

    Wise to not want never ending sameness. It’d be nice for a while, and then become a burden before ending up as a misery. I’d take out such an ad too. 😉

    Well that’s something to be grateful for. Zombies feel no hurt – probably why they put themselves in harms way don’t you reckon?

    Hopefully the deer and wallabies ignore the carob pods and I roast them up. That’s my take as well with carob, it’s pretty tasty when done nicely. There’s always a little story, and many years ago I used to enjoy frequenting a hippy café. It was outdoors (although under cover) and yes I spotted a rat or two over the years. They used to make an awesome tasting carob (chocolate substitute) frog. So tasty. The place employed folks who thrived in the challenging conditions but they weren’t let’s say fit for the corporate world, and I often wonder what became of them when the business got upgraded and became super slick. The people stuck at that work in all weather for years, then…

    Ah, I’ve decided not to blood the gentlemanly Ollie lest he discover a new favourite hobby, if you know what I mean. Easier for me to do the dirty work. That’s been my brief experience with deer too, they’ll take everything, and then some. All of the other forest critters have long since achieved some sort of balance.

    The local wombat took a dump on our new rock work done yesterday. Talk about sending a strong message! 🙂

    Cheers

    Chris

  38. Hi DJ,

    No stress at all, and did you know Mount Spokane gets an average of 3.5m of snow per year so you weren’t too far off the mark. Being summer soft and stuff, such averages make me shiver in fright!

    I was a bit bummed out today looking at the forecast. It all reads nice for the next ten days, except for Monday at 42’C. One must take the good with the bad I guess… Ook!

    You know I’ve never seen or used an apple corer before. Looks like they might require a bit of twisting and turning to screw through the fruit. Candidly a sharp and heavy knife works quicker when faced with boxes of almost 20kg of fruit. 🙂 The job took a couple of hours…

    Do you mean a mandoline slicer? They’d work really well, and commercial machines are good at shaving ham to perfection. Yum!

    Ooo! Jethro Tull is outside of my musical knowledge. Which would you say is the best track on the album? I’ll have a listen and warm up the old ears. The youth music broadcasters hottest 100 is on tomorrow, and I’m excited and have listened for over three decades now. Always interesting to hear what the latest musical trends are, although I listen to the station often enough to be unsurprised.

    Dude, your cool factor went up by several degrees right there. Nice one. And always good to know your neighbours. What was Dame Avalanche’s opinion of the lunch? In breaking wombat news (the marsupial, not the English band) the rock work we did yesterday was christened. The large dump the creature took on the rock was hard to ignore. Wombats…

    Far out, that’s awesome to hear. Hope the dryland grasses get the best possible start in both yards.

    Dogs need activity, and I’m hoping to spread about the orchards a half cubic metre of special mineraly enhanced compost-ish stuff tomorrow. The tunes will be cranking, the kelpies will be running around like the mad dogs they are, and the fruit trees will enjoy the feed. Given Monday’s extreme heat, might even have to water some fruit trees which are closest to the forest. The tall eucalyptus trees have the bigger and hungrier root systems and can out compete the softer fruit bearing way out of place trees.

    Cool! Did the new TV arrive? You’ve yet again proved that persistence pays dividends.

    Hehe! Yes, age does tend to produce wisdom. But they do say that there’s no fool like an old fool – and on Monday there are plans to make another steel rock gabion cage. Is it wise to do this work in the extreme heat? 😉 Let’s find out! (although truthfully the work will be done early in the cool of the morning) A report on my lack of wisdom to follow.

    Has Dame Avalanche produced her fair share of yellow snow this winter? 🙂 Man, I had to water down the dogs enclosure today. They don’t spend much time there, but with it being dry and stuff lately, I could slightly smell their wee this morning and so decided to wash the area down. Smells neutral now. And with the dust right now, I’m having to vacuum every couple of days. You’d not appreciate the airborne irritants.

    Thanks for the story, and somehow the deer and I will come to a compromise where they can take some, but not overdo things. Every other critter has managed this feat to date. But all the same, I’ll have to send them a strong a message soon which they’ll comprehend.

    It’s true! The mere fact that we’ve all come as far as we have is amazing! It surprises me that people often forget this feat.

    Cheers

    Chris

  39. Hi Lewis,

    There are always canny folks out to make a buck using whatever means. Always will they be with us, and best we are never involved in their schemes. Seems like a triangular trade route also involved Australia, China and Britain. Hardly surprising. In the early days of the colony we had a military coup – turns out the martinet Governor Bligh was as unpopular in the colony as he was in command of a ship (the HMS Bounty). But despite the many wrong turns his career suffered, he got promoted to the Admiralty. Proves that competence is perhaps no limit to such heady elevations!

    Things are different down here, and molasses is usually only found in the animal feed stores. Now Golden Syrup, that’s in supermarkets. They probably fill a similar baking niche. Did you know that after our discussion of this topic, we’ve made the decision to in future purchase better quality dark sugar due to the higher mineral and vitamin content. Hmm. Well, you learn something everyday, and stuff you think you know, it probably just ain’t so. To muck around with Mark Twain’s quote.

    Lucky you with the Cavendish bananas. Most of these fruits are grown up north on either the east or drier west coasts. But crop rotation is real, and this Panama fungus is serious. There is a cool climate banana, but here it would require a greenhouse, and who knows if it would survive the winter extremes. My gut feeling says no to that. Plus the plants are usually quite tall.

    Already most of the tomato vines in the greenhouse are getting nearer to the ceiling. I’m cutting them back (topping them off is the technical term), but they continue to grow and sprawl. With the drier weather of late, it’s quite the job to water everything in the mornings.

    Always nice to have a public holiday, and woe betide the politician who removes them. I’m still feeling the hurt about losing Easter Tuesday, and that public holiday disappeared at least three decades ago. Interestingly, with the recent change in your goobermint, our lot are back tracking on their noises about Australia Day. Yes, I do understand that people are upset by the day, but then people also want to spend time with their family and kids, so taking away public holidays is probably going to annoy a lot of people, and then everyone is upset.

    Of course, I’m not upset, because today we road tested the ice cream shop in the nearby town. Dude, to me it looks like the shop was once long ago the old local dairy. That’s what they used to call the local convenience store way back in the day which sold milk products – milk, butter, cheese, and cream. Anyhoo, the icecream was pretty tasty, and I had a waffle cone with peppermint with little chunks of chocolate, plus a second flavour of rum and raisin (although I have strong reservations that any rum was present in the icecream). So tasty.

    Had the day off any and all work, although all the usual stuff needed doing got done, and that meant hours of work. If that makes any sense? At this time of year, there’s a lot to do, everyday. Oh well, that’s life on the land. But rest assured, a gourmet pie of lamb and rosemary was happily consumed.

    Got the radio off in the mail this morning and discovered that ebuy had understated the cost of postage by about $4. Candidly, the auction has netted me zip, although it is nice the machine is off to an enthusiast / collector and no longer taking up space here. I’m sure you know what I mean there! 😉

    Under Pressure! That was a pretty good song from the late 70’s I believe, and now it’s become an ear worm thanks to Professor Mass. We’ve got a stationary high pressure over the continent too. Are you feeling the pressure too? Actually, your readings would be pretty extreme for here as well. Far out, that’s err, heavy stuff. Speaking of weather, Monday’s forecast has been revised to 108’F. Total poop! And in either case, it’s no good.

    The cartoon Punch had a very amusing take on clichéd language in those three volume novels. It’s bizarre that the format was financially out of reach of the average reader, but then the creator of the format perhaps proved the economic realities of the arrangement.

    Bram Stoker’s novel did have an interesting history, and made mad cash for him after he departed the world of the living. Thus perhaps decisively proving that the book itself is un-dead! Bet you never thought of the work of literature that way? 🙂

    Yeah, I’d heard that the spin-off was a bit lackluster (stupid spell checker don’t no nuffin!), but then it’s interesting to hear that the series has now hit the right notes. Would you go back and watch the earlier seasons now?

    Thanks for the trailer, and I’ll check it out after clicking ‘Post Comment’. Is it wise to watch such images before bedtime? I had a dream about the potty mouthed chef last night. He was instructing me how to cook a Protea flower, and I had to guess the right way to do so. Man, I was feeling the pressure under that knowledgeable stare. So do I want to dream about zombies tonight? Might be easier to tackle than a frightening commercial kitchen situation, yeah! My dreams have been very odd and disturbing the past couple of nights.

    Thanks for checking out the muffin recipe. Baking powder is a necessary evil to use lightly. I can taste the stuff, but maybe it’s a form of over sensitivity? Dunno.

    Well done, that’s a fine work of deduction with H’s wonky stairs. Glad to hear it’s sorted as she’s a bit young to not be able to navigate stairs. Dogs really need socialising – they live for that stuff. You should see all the stupid things going on all the time with the dogs here.

    Hmm, that’s what I’m experiencing with cucumbers as well. You know, I might go back in time and try the older heritage varieties of cucumbers. It’s possible the more recent varieties are a bit – not so good.

    We also date seed packets, in recent years. Before then seed saving was a bit loose. It’s a good idea though. And the thing with ‘best before dates’ is that you don’t know when the seeds were packed in the first place, so yes I’m in total agreement with you.

    The youth music countdown is on tomorrow, it’s exciting! 🙂 Well, maybe for me it is. People from your country have been voting this year because the station can be listened to online. I wonder if they enjoy the Aussie music?

    Cheers

    Chris

  40. Yo, Chris – Apple peeler / corer / slicers. If you scroll down through the motorized fancy ones, eventually you get to a red, cast iron job. That’s the one I’ve had, for years.

    https://www.thespruceeats.com/best-apple-peeler-corer-slicer-5076277

    There’s a couple of tricks to using them. 1.) apples should be firm, and not too large. 2.) You need to lightly put your finger on the back of the peeling blade, to kind of guide it. No apple is completely round 🙂 . Though I’ve never done it, the slices are just the right thickness for drying. Best to drop them in lemon water, so they don’t turn too brown.

    I always thought it was unfair, that Capt. / Gov. Bligh eventually returned to England with a nice retirement and pretty much died in bed. There have been recent efforts to rehabilitate his reputation. Seems there’s a whole group of scholars who make their names by trying to rehabilitate shady historic figures. “Oh, Caligula. He wasn’t so bad….”

    I took a look down the rabbit hole, as to brown sugar. I always use the cane stuff. It comes in both a dark and light brown. I always use the dark. No clue on the package as to what’s in it. “Ingredients: Brown Sugar.” Well, yes, but … According to what I read, it has molasses in it. The stuff tends to brick up, but, there are several easy methods of getting it back to its soft, malleable form.

    When I was a wee small child, we once stayed in a little motel in S. California. It had a banana tree, in the courtyard. Impressed me, more than Disneyland. 🙂 But, there are no commercial growers, in the U.S.. Just not quit the right climate.

    It sounds like you’ve stumbled on an old fashioned ice cream shop. The best kind. There may be real rum, in that ice cream. Although there is also a rum extract. One high end brand of ice cream, here, I looked at the ingredients. Rum. It is quit tasty, too. But I wondered if I should change my sobriety date. 🙂 But, since I’m entirely off ice cream, these days, not a problem.

    Our high yesterday was 45F (7.22C). The overnight low was 32F (-0-C). Forecast for today is 43F. Looking at the three day weather history, that torrid 32F, was only for a hot half hour. Before and after, it was warmer. I thought it wasn’t quit as frigid, when I took H for her midnight stroll. No worries, though. Our overnight forecasts are back in the 20s, for at least the next week. I think the high pressure may be making my sinuses a bit wonkier, than usual. A bit of a sinus headache, that comes and goes.

    There were 7 (yes, 7) spin-offs to the original “Walking Dead” series. I think I sampled all of them, and found them wanting. Except for this last one. There will be a season 3. They’re shaking the dust of France off their boots, and heading to England, through the Chunnel. There were some interesting variations on your Standard Issue zombie. There are medically hopped up fast zombies, zombies whose touch is acid, and an interesting glow in the dark zombie. Due to bat guano or something. I did consider for a hot moment, to go back and watch the first season, of the original series. I might get back to it. But beyond that, no.

    Besides, somehow or another I missed that they’ve relaunched “Quantum Leap.” I really enjoyed the original series, so, I thought I’d give it a look.

    Youth music countdown? Oh, ye gods, is it that time again? 🙂

    I delayed H’s walk, a bit, this morning, as there seemed to be a lot of chaos in the parking lot. Someone was jumping a car, and then someone fell (two separate incidents) and the EMTs and fire department showed up. I don’t know if they hauled her off, or just got her back up on her feet. Then peace returned, and a good thing to. As we got a food box, this morning.

    It’s the local one. I was hoping for eggs, but no joy. I was also out of tinned diced tomatoes, and black beans. Nada. A lot of space was taken up by what I consider to be bad stuff, that I’ll put down on the swap table. A loaf of what we used to call white ballon bread. A small pack of cookies. An individual slice of some kind of cake. Pumpkin flavored dog treats (!). But, there’s enough other stuff for a couple of bags for the Club pantry. A pound of frozen pulled pork, a pound of butter “product.” A box of Mac and cheese. A big box of dry cereal. One tin each of tuna, pork in juices, mandarin oranges, peas, SW style corn, a couple of tins of a pretty good brand of soup. A jar of peanut butter. A few other odds and ends. Not a bad haul, and there may be more on the swap table. Lew

  41. Chris:

    Why would a person want to ask for more than pie and ice cream on his day off?

    108F – that is getting scary. At least you have water.

    I can’t wait to hear what happens to Mina.

    Well, you had rats at home . . . Or was that pre chicken and rats? Hopefully the hippy-type folks moved on to another hippy dippy establishment.

    I think that’s a wise choice about Ollie. Not that he has any sheepdog in him (as far as looks go), but it makes me think of when sheepdogs go rogue and start killing sheep. And not that Ollie feels any sense of duty towards deer. I have a feeling his sense of duty leans towards something like Anzac biscuits.

    Wombats are rather insolent, aren’t they?

    Pam

  42. Chris,

    Yes, 3.5m on Mount Spokane sounds about right. Thanks.

    42C? That’s brutal. “Ook!” doesn’t begin to describe it.

    Yes, the twisting can be hard on the coring tool. The correct knife can do just as well or better. And yes, mandolin slicer. Maybehaps if I think of it as a bluegrass instrument I can remember the name. I’d probably misremember it and call it a banjo slicer. 😉

    My uncle played the mandolin. He was good. I eventually taught myself bluegrass banjo. I was ok. Unfortunately, he developed an arthritis problem before I learned banjo, so we never got to play bluegrass together. 🙁

    Ok, my favorite 3 songs from that Jethro Tull album are Ring Out Solstice Bells https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJS9TjjHxx8
    Hunting Girl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=royymUiwItI
    Velvet Green https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-ANplhDJNY
    The entire album, which may contain commercials at inappropriate moments… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4UYX2qpUK0&list=OLAK5uy_nCpOMqaKrro1JTnOQl_Txb4KWs8LgInzQ

    Thanks. I think it’s important to know the neighbors. I appreciate getting to know someone younger. She seems to be wired with many of the same oddities I have and also is excited to meet the Princess. Having friends in the neighborhood is great. And the fact that we are both aware of the Wombats? Amazing.

    Dame Avalanche remained at home for the lunch outing. She was happy when I got home. Killian and his human came by today and took her for a massive walk with them. I was waiting for the tv people and couldn’t be away from the house during our normal walk hours. Avalanche is sleeping soundly now.

    Yes, got the new telly. It is working fine, and I like the picture better than what the old one had before it broke.

    Killian’s yard is getting invaded at night by his neighbor’s dog. It poops all over Killian’s yard. It even left a huge pile on top of one of those “stick it in the ground” solar lamps. Killian’s human was NOT impressed. Maybe we should import some wombats into that neighbor’s yard.

    That sounds like a fun day. Working with soil, listening to tunes, watching the Kelpies run around. Hope it was pleasant.

    I’ve known enough “old fools” that I wondered how they ever lived to be old, they were so foolish. “A report on my lack of wisdom to follow.” I’m sure your wisdom will intervene before something dire occurs. At least you have some wisdom, as opposed to the old fools. Although, getting the brain baked too many times might deplete the wisdom beyond recovery.

    It’s hard to produce yellow snow when there is no snow. We’ve had less than 5cm total, and none has lasted more than 48 hours. So, not much yellow snow.

    A strong message is a form of communication. Deer can be smart. The deer and elk around here know when it is hunting season, especially for modern firearms. They are much more wary. They also seem to know when certain areas are closed for hunting them. I remember one day, three of us went to our favorite area for late season archery. It was open for deer, not for elk in that area. We saw no deer and played games with the elk herd all day. They would almost walk right up to us, knowing they were safe. One of the other guys had a deer call on a string around his neck. He finally couldn’t handle it, tried to shoot an elk. The arrow got tangled in the deer call’s string, almost garroted him. He sported some marks on his neck for a few weeks. Karma. Instant karma. And we mercilessly teased him about it for years.

    DJSpo

  43. Hi Pam,

    🙂 A well baked lamb pie and also an ice cream can only but set the days dial to ten. Of course a person has to take the good with the bad, and today I worked out in the sun mixing and feeding about half of the fruit trees. Then there was that wheelbarrow with the flat tire which needed fixing. Tell ya what, I could use an ice cream now!

    Yeah, that’s my thinking as well, but the real question with the 108’F day is how much water can be used? The reserves are now down to about 10,000 gallons (although there’s about another 12,000 gallons ready to go) and who knows what weather the next two or three months may deliver? The long term forecasts are for the dry weather to continue. A mystery which I’ll take day by day.

    Mina was the hero in the Dracula story, although Van Helsing informed the others as to what to do with the un-dead. Spoiler alert, the lady survived the experience and almost became a vampire herself. All it took was ending the dastardly Count, who turned to dust afterwards.

    Sometimes I do wonder what happens to the folks who don’t fit the corporate type. And the lovely people working that long since defunct hippy café always put in a 100% and produced an excellent feed in all weather. The more society expects sameness, the more difficult it is for everyone to fit in, well at least that’s my take on the world.

    Pam, you called it correctly there! Ollie would rather chase Anzac biscuits that the wildlife, but truly, it’s a precarious balance and I’d rather he had the taste for the biscuits. His breed were created by avid hunters so as to take down a wild pig, and so I restrict his natural interests and focus the dogs mind on other activities. As a consequence, he has a delightful personality, but in the wrong hands the dog could become a menace.

    I’ve heard stories of hunters losing dogs and then just leaving them to roam and fend for themselves. It’s one of the reasons the dirty work with the deer falls onto my own head – some things you can’t outsource. Anyway, I can’t respect such casually cruel actions with dogs because of the sheer irresponsibility.

    The wombat is a most cheeky scamp, and knows far more about what we’re doing here, than we do!

    Cheers

    Chris

  44. Hi DJ,

    Mount Spokane is like 1,800m, and in many ways is similar to the local mountain range in that it rises from elevated plains. But at that height, the monster would catch some weather for sure – and snow. For your interest, that height above sea level is about the highest point in this state, although there are very extensive and remote mountain ranges. People get lost there, and a few never make it back.

    Just checked the forecast on the odd hope that the day would be cooler than 42’C, but no. Oh well, we’ve got some tasks to do that day and we’ll see how it goes. The past couple of weeks have been dry and you can see the effect that is having on the fruit trees. I gave about half of the trees a decent soil feeding today, and um, are feeling tired. At least the youth music broadcaster tunes kept me bopping along – they’re doing their annual countdown.

    Hehe! All we can but hope for is to never encounter a banjo slicer! It’s hard to imagine what would become of us all at that point. 😉 The old ones might suddenly appear and demand that we dance or die – the instrument sounds that dire.

    The mandolin has such a beautiful tone, and who can ever forget REM’s ‘Losing my religion’. A strange band who worked the fringe and ended up writing pop songs. I saw them live years ago and the performance was amazing.

    Thanks for the Jethro recommendation, and I’ll have a listen after replying tonight. 🙂

    Man, I also like talking with people far younger than myself, and I actually enjoy the current music too, although it’s one of those things that if a persons ears attuned out, the momentum could be lost. The Wombats are a really excellent band, and I’ll try and see them live one day. Tell you a funny story about such communication though, as time has gone on and I get older, I’ve become far more gentle in such discussions and listen deeply to what they have to say. There’s always something to be learned and you know, I know my place in the order of things.

    Yay for you! Glad to hear that the techno TV mess was cleaned up. Warranties are no good if they’re not enforced. Hey, I spent most of the day outside today, and at various times had the dogs running around. I’m pooped tonight, and so are they! 🙂 Use that energy.

    A wombat would do no differently to Killian’s neighbours dog, and err, I’d be pretty annoyed if that were happening here with dog invasions. Although the neighbours have a husky who has gotten out and come visiting from time to time. It doesn’t happen often enough to annoy me. What kind of dog are we talking about here?

    Hehe! DJ, you’re so right there – cook the ol’ brain often enough and wisdom departs! Something for me to look forward too. 🙂 Man, the hard thing I find is that you get some wisdom in one area, and lack it in other areas. I fixed up a wheelbarrow tire today and punctured the tube with the tire levers. Put some more tubes on order…

    Shame about the lack of yellow snow, although this does mean that we’ve dodged that pesky ear worm song. Way too chirpy for my tastes, but it sticks, like the yellowness to the snow.

    Yes, that seems to be the way of things with hunting. The indigenous folks had many systems in place to ensure that there was a certain randomness to the experiences, otherwise the forest critters would catch on. There is no season for deer here, and yes, things have gotten that bad. The deer will learn. Last night the pesky stag ate a bunch of agapanthus. Like, nothing eats agapanthus. The plants will regrow, but things are escalating. Two more weeks to wait out the local restrictions.

    Cheers

    Chris

  45. Hi Lewis,

    Just took the dogs outside to do their night time business and startled a wombat and a wallaby. Lot’s of crashing through the garden bed noises then ensued. The dogs were of course on the lead and so restrained, much to their unhappiness. They have to deal.

    Worked outside all day today and am feeling a bit cooked, yeah. Had the tunes cranking, and moved a half cubic metre of compost-stuff. It’s worth noting that a couple of hundred pounds of mineral additives got mixed in as well. Fed about half the fruit trees and hope that assists their resiliency through this dry spell of weather.

    Fixed a manual push wheelbarrow too which had a flat tire. I must say that the use of the tire wax to slip the things on and off the steel wheel hubs makes the job easier, sort of anyway. The tire had bizarrely shredded so I guess they don’t make them like they used to!

    And the smallest of the power wheelbarrows I was using today in the heat began sending out some smoke from the transmission. Not confidence inspiring so I drove it back down to the machinery shed, made sure it wasn’t about to catch fire, and then hauled out another power wheelbarrow. Nice to have spare capacity. Hope the fix for the transmission is simple, but I don’t really know. I’ll have a look at it in a week or two.

    Anyway, the dogs were likewise running around in the summer sunshine today and are equally cooked and now sound asleep.

    That’d be the Johnny Apple Peeler cast iron corer? It looks like a potent beast, and the review claimed processing time took 8 seconds. I’d call that fast. Might not be a bad idea to have one. Thanks for mentioning the machine. Dunno whether we’ll dehydrate apples, but maybe not. Using the citrus juice with apples to stop them browning, works a treat.

    It’s always possible that a mutiny could occur despite best intentions, but that Bligh bloke copped two big ones, and yet was still promoted. Such failures tend to produce a ‘don’t come Monday response’ and yet it didn’t happen. Yup, it isn’t fair that was the case. Thanks for the laughs about Caligula not being so bad! 🙂

    We’ve always used the dark brown sugar too, on the basis it has more molasses, but had tried a lighter brown sugar and haven’t been convinced that the stuff is the same. It’s an interesting rabbit hole isn’t it? And a little difference in production can make a large change in the vitamin and mineral outcome. I’m not really fussed about the bricking up of the stuff, and sort of smoosh it in to whatever mixture is being made.

    🙂 I’d be underwhelmed by dizzyland too – and want to avoid most of the rides. I don’t get motion sickness, but also see little need to scare the daylights out of me – and sometimes those machines break. It’s all fun and games, until the machine breaks. I’m amazed that nobody is commercially growing bananas in your country.

    Having the ice cream shop located in the old dairy is quite charming, and I doubt many people would recognise the old building for what it used to be. The retail space is quite small, but the product was pretty good and I always approve of waffle cones regardless. 🙂 The inclusion of rum does raise some questions, but then I hear that they add ethanol to gasoline these days… Hehe! Everyone hates a smarty pants! I’d think the ice cream inclusion would fall into the ‘rum and raisin chocolate’ school of questions. Hey, the Kombucha people so enjoy has a tiny little bit of alcohol, it being a fermented product and stuff. Anyway, good to see that you’ve dodged the entire issue, and did you feel the lack of pumpkin spiced ice cream late last year?

    Sorry to hear about the sinus headache, and dunno about you, but I tend to feel that the winter weather dries me out – thus impacting the sinuses which get inflamed – more than in summer weather. It was 27’C / 81’F here today and it felt much warmer out in the sunshine. I’ve decided to ditch the caps used to keep the sun off my face in favour of the more traditional wide brimmed terry-towelling hat. That’s a looped cotton material and my grandfather used to wear those hats. Man, I’m turning into my granddad, 🙂 but hopefully I’m nicer and don’t walk around calling everyone by that naughty name – the cheeky old rascal that he was.

    Seven is a good number for series spin offs. It’s amazing the original series produced that much enthusiasm. It’s hard to know which are worse, fast zombies or acid wielding zombies? They’re both bad news. A glow in the dark zombie would make existence easier at night. Out of curiosity, have any of the zombie varieties attempted communications with their mortal compatriots (i.e. us humans)? That’d make an interesting plot – like what do zombies want other than brains?

    Finished reading Dracula today. It was a good ending, and the hero Mina dodged becoming a vampire, just. It was a close call. The British sensibilities of the author failed to kill off any European characters, but there had to be a special guest death ensign (as in Star Trek), and so the pragmatic and wealthy American copped it in the story. No doubts any Australian characters would have been dealt too earlier, and who knows the three lady vampires may have come from the colonies based on the descriptions. 😉

    There’s a blast form the past, and I missed that series relaunch too. It’s been cancelled after two seasons.

    Yes, yes, groan away! 🙂 I quite enjoy the countdown, and have been listening since 1994.

    That does sound like car park chaos, and best avoided. Did thing settle down after the emergency services left?

    There’ll be no eggs, shortages at the supermarket with them. That’s Turkish bread, and it’s not bad although I find it to be a bit thin and dry. It will hold together though when used to form pockets of tastiness. Pumpkin is kind of good for dogs, but it depends whatever else is in that stuff? Ook! That box was what I’d call a mixed bag, with some rubbish, and some good stuff, but overall hope the Club pantry fills up and goes to a good home.

    Cheers

    Chris

  46. Yo, Chris – I don’t know. Back when I had wheelbarrows, I found a solid rubber tire was the way to go. Lucky you had a backup for the power wheelbarrow. Otherwise, you’d have had to hitch up the dog team. 🙂

    I don’t know about 8 seconds, but you can really zip along with the cast iron peeler. They were invented by those clever Victorians, who came up with all manner of labor saving kitchen devices.

    Well, well, well. I didn’t realize that we had as much banana production, here in the states.

    https://w.wiki/Cqf7

    I’d guess most of it is small local producers. I’d guess the product ends up being sold to restaurants or small, local farmer’s markets. I can’t say I’ve ever seen a local product, on offer.

    Yes, waffle cones are a treat. You can make your own, you know. 🙂 Not that I ever have. My antipathy to a certain chain grocery store, outweighed my love of pumpkin ice cream. There were plenty of other pumpkin spice goodies, floating around. The stand outs were the pumpkin spice popcorn, and the pumpkin spice/ yogurt dipped pretzels.

    Our high yesterday was 43F (6.11C). The overnight low was 23F (-5C). The forecast for today is a high of 44F. It’s a bit far out to forecast, but it looks like we’ll have a change in the weather by next weekend. Warmer temperatures and, snow in the forecast. I’ll keep an eye on Prof. Mass’s blog, and see if he mentioned lowland snow.

    I’ve had an intermittent hacking cough, the last two days. I broke down and took a slug of cough medicine, before bed, last night.

    I can’t say the zombies have ever tried to communicate anything beyond the basics.

    Vampire lore is pretty flexible. In some tellings of the tale, to kill the creator, releases all the minions he’s created. In some iterations, the vampire turns to dust. In others, they explode into buckets of blood, splashed on the walls. I think I’d rather just vacuum or sweep them up. 🙂

    I watched a bit of the new “Quantum Leap,” last night. It’s not as good as the original. If just feels kind of … flat. I don’t think I’ll put season two, on hold. And I’ll probably just skip through to the more interesting time periods.

    I picked up “Rumors,” yesterday. I’ll probably watch it in a few days. I think it might call for popcorn. I also picked up quit a few books, reviews to follow. Including … “The Mad Files.” Read the introduction and a couple of chapters, last night.

    I think I’ve found the roots of your antithesis, to musicals. Hop up here on Dr. Freud’s couch, and I’ll explain it to you. Mad magazine’s disdain of musicals, and the resulting parodies, impacted you at a young and impressionable age. You didn’t stand a chance. But, I’m sure years of intensive psychological treatment (with a few shock treatments along the way), and we can remedy your problem. 🙂

    Nothing so nice as Turkish bread. Which we mostly call Pita bread, here. No, here, ballon bread is that commercial white stuff, with little or no nutritional value. Mostly, a lot of air.

    I was able to drop off two bags of groceries, at the Club, last night. I scraped another bag off the swap table. I also went shopping at the inexpensive grocery stores, and picked up another two bags. I’ll take those in, late this afternoon. I also did some shopping for me. Tinned diced tomatoes, black beans and garbanzo beans. I had the last of the tuna loaf, last night. Cubed up and mixed in with the usual rice and veg. Tasty. Lew

  47. Hi Lewis,

    Back in the day, wheelbarrow tires were a lot thinner! The wheel itself had quite a wide diameter and the solid tire hung off that, like an old Cobb and Co coach wheel looked like, but with rubber rather than iron. In order to get a solid tire onto a wheelbarrow wheel hub would require a split rim (so you can dismantle it into two halves). But do they supply this? Nope. The hub is now a solid steel wheel and most people chuck them out and purchase a complete replacement (hub, tube and tire). And you just hope that the axle diameter is correct as there are two different sizes. Nah, I removed the old tire, wangled on a new tire, then chucked in a new tube. It took an hour and a bit of work, some tire paste, and a few tools to do that, so this is why people replace the lot. It’s really wasteful.

    I like how your brain works, and yeah, harnessing up the dogs into a team might have some decent pulling power. Although, word on the street is that a couple of oxen could do good work! Makes you wonder if in the long distant dark ancient past whether anyone tried to use a team of Aurochs to pull heavy loads? It’d be an adventure, that’s for sure. 🙂

    It’s not just you, I was dubious of the 8 second per apple claim as well. That’s what one of the reviews said. The Victorians were a clever bunch, and I can still recall the old bench mounted hand cranked meat grinders of my youth. Nobody bought minced meat in those days – you made it yourself from cheap cuts of meat. I’ve wondered for a long time whether because of my err, family background, I saw a lot of old timey ways to get by on less mad cash? Dunno. But people sure walked away from those things once they could splurge.

    🙂 I thought banana production was possible in your country. Did you note someone had grown some in Washington state? Talk about making difficulties for themselves. There is a cold climate variety which would do well in the big smoke, but here up in the mountains it’s a no go, unless I made a much taller greenhouse. Maybe now you know, you might spot the odd locally produced hand of bananas for sale? Dunno. But most here come from way up north west or east.

    No! Lewis, trying to do everything from scratch, well, that way leads to madness. 🙂 I’ll skip the home made waffle cones on the basis that a person needs to support local businesses, and that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it! 😉 Ah, I see that your morals have some limits and can respect that. Truth to tell, I avoid the germun chain which produces this strange cult like response from the people who go there: “You get so much for less”. The response is so consistent that I’m thinking major conspiracy theories might be appropriate! We haven’t mentioned the pod people for a while, and maybe the time has come around again?

    It was 80’F here today, and tomorrow still promises the dreaded 108’F. Yet, here’s the weird thing – this morning a little bit of rain fell here as drizzle and the trees in the orchards really picked up. There’s no way I could have watered them that much, and I’m truly grateful for the rain. We’ll see how tomorrow goes.

    Oh goodie, the air outside is thick with smoke. This should be exciting.

    Anyway, dire forecasts and smoke don’t mean the work stops, and we began the next phase of the new staircase project today. The first tread was poured of the next staircase heading upwards.

    Good luck with the lowland snow.

    Yeah, zombies do seem to be very one dimensional, although there was that rom-zom-com a few years ago. Had one of my favourite film lines: Better say something cool – Arggggh Felt that way myself sometimes.

    Bram Stoker’s version of vampires followed that lore where the minions were released and the un-dead turned to dust. Can’t recall seeing the buckets of blood variety – sounds nasty and possibly infectious. I’m with you, the vacuum would be so much easier.

    The series was cancelled after two seasons, so the weight of public opinion turned against them.

    Jumping onto Frued’s couch! 😉 Man, thanks for the analysis and therapy. I’m still not into musicals, but! Now the source of the troubles has been identified. Some early programming can’t be reversed, and hey, who’s to say that Mad Magazine was wrong?

    Oh yes, that stuff – hasn’t passed my teeth in many a decade. Life is too short for such bread like products. A bit like take away coffee if you ask me.

    Good timing with the refill of the Club’s pantry – it being near to the end of the month. And I better go and have a bit of a closer look at the smoke situation (it ain’t from round here).

    Cheers

    Chris

  48. Yo, Chris – When it comes to Aurochs, you’d have to castrate them. Gentles them right down 🙂 . That’s what oxen are all about.

    I can remember my grandmother using the old meat grinders. And, my mother, for something or other. I’ve got one kicking around the kitchen cupboards, somewhere. 🙂

    Oh, sometimes it’s fun to try a “from scratch” something or other, at least once. Frankly (Frank), I was surprised you accepted the Lady Finger Challenge. Soon to be an official Olympics event. 🙂 I’ve made won-ton wrappers. Once. I keep running across instructions on how to make your own Chinese fortune cookies. Imagine the fun you could have with the fortunes stuffed inside.

    Our high yesterday was 45 (7.22C). The overnight low was 23F (-5C). Forecast for today is 45F. Snow is off the forecast for 7 days out. Though Prof. Mass says we’ve got major changes, starting mid-week. And, offhandedly said “…potential for some flurries over the western lowlands.” We’ll see. I’m glad you got a bit of rain. I do not envy your 108F temps. Keep us posted on that smoke smell. How do the winds look?

    You’re thinking of the movie, “Warm Bodies.” I’ve seen it twice, now. I think it’s on its way to being a classic.

    Yes, but you haven’t had the shock treatments, yet. 🙂 If those don’t work, we can always try lobotomy.

    I read a few more chapters of “The Mad Files”, last night. It’s really a collection of essays. From the back cover: “28 Writers and Artists Assess Mad Magazine’s Influence on American Life and Culture.” I’m finding it an interesting read.

    When I was coming and going to the Club, I noticed someone had pulled back some of the bird netting on the communal strawberry bed, and plopped in three plants. Two pruned something (roses?) and a clutch of maybe some kind of flowering plant. I pulled them out, and tossed them in the dumpster. Restored the bird netting. Boundaries … sending a clear message, etc..

    It’s official. I have a cold. At least I think it’s a cold. I saw our night manager, last night, and he’s down too. Not to bad, as long as I keep dosing myself with cough medicine, once or twice a day. Lew

  49. Hi Chris,
    Sounds like a good week on your side. Here as well.

    I have the same kind of cast-iron apple-corer-slicer machine. It is great. I broke one once, but the second one lasts at least a decade.
    The one I have has a handy hook to block/remove the peeler. We usually keep the peels on the rings.
    I recommend this purchase.

    We dehydrate apples and pears in a dehydrator similar to the popular Excalibur dehydrators.
    Up here in Scandinavia we want to dehydrate stuff in September-November-times, when the weather often is overcast and wet. Solar driers just don’t work here. And we don’t run the wood burner often enough to depend on that one for dehydrating foods.

    Some apples brown quickly, others stay light for a long time, it depends on the variety and ripeness. The slow-browning apples make a light-green or light-pink apple sauce, and less brown apple juice. As Lewis said, sprinkling acid also slows browning.
    (In the US, the GMO-people have launched an apple that does not brown. What could possibly go wrong?)

    Looking forward to tonight’s essay.

    Peace,
    Göran

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