Sitting up on the roof a person gets to appreciate just how big the sky is. It’s not just that you’re physically closer to the wide blue vastness either. Nope. It might have something to do with the fine balancing act required to work at precarious heights. By the end of the day, the muscles feel like they’ve been stretched and strained. That is difficult to ignore. However, the fine tunes banging along all day from the national youth broadcaster Triple J, took the mind off the high wire act of perching up in the air for hours and hours like a very focused bird. Yeah, despite some ear worms, that was a decent distraction. But nah, it’s none of that. A bloke sitting up on the roof replacing and rewiring a distribution fuse box, gets around to thinking thoughts about the world and stuff. It’s a good place for that activity.
The original fuse box was very seriously IP rated (i.e. extremely resistant to water ingress). However, reality proved to be different. The plastic contraption sitting out in the sun, wind and rain for sixteen years, nowadays wasn’t looking all that great. Candidly there were a few leaks. The thing was removed and replaced with a very sturdy metal box with all new industrial grade fuses (high rupture current fuses for those who are technically inclined). It’ll be interesting to see how the new metal box and fuses look in another sixteen years time. Anyway, the good thing about metal boxes is that they are repairable, but far more expensive.
Back when the solar panels were first installed, purchasing metal distribution boxes designed to be installed out in the weather, was a financially ruinous proposition. Thus the original choice of the cheaper plastic box. The things still are expensive, but this replacement box was part of a scratch and dent clearance sale. A bit of metal primer paint was applied to the minuscule scratches, and the box is now as good as new. With this off grid solar power stuff, it pays to be on the hunt for any industrial duty items which are being sold at clearance prices.
Inside the metal box, the replacement industrial fuse holders were also sourced from an industrial clearance sale. About a year ago a bulk supply of those were purchased for this job. They’re usually very expensive items. Hmm. Anyway, the fuses which sit in the holders were however sourced new from a reputable supplier. I’m dubious about second hand fuses, mostly because you can’t ever really know their usage history.
Early on in the job, it was a disturbing moment up there on the roof. The plastic box was opened and the leaked water could not be ignored. Off grid solar power systems are hardly a set and forget proposition, although if a person had someone else install the thing, how or why would they know to look for any problems? That observation makes a person wonder.
Most of the systems here with the house are complicated, but usually they’re not so complicated that they don’t all get regularly inspected. Most of that work is done on a casual observation basis. That means being alert for anything different, or realising when the system plain old just ain’t doing what it should be. Any discovered problems are either corrected, or the components are replaced with more durable items – like as is the case with the new metal distribution boxes.
Things are perhaps different elsewhere? Economics is always an issue, and the fire at the big substation in London this week does make me wonder. The infrastructure in the background which few people take notice of, is far less sexy than a flashy terminal building. The big infrastructure items are the stuff which keep the lights on, the taps running, and food upon the table for most people. Here at least costs can be reduced by chucking in the occasional scratch and dent clearance component. Not to mention that my labour is free. Neither options are available for the big infrastructure systems which keep society ticking along, so they’re inevitably expensive to install and maintain.
It would be super cheeky to note that the powers that be down here have recently made bold economic moves aimed squarely at roof top grid tied solar power systems. With four million or so (of ten million or more households) of those systems installed in this country, the price paid for exported electricity was reduced to mere cents, or even less than a cent per kWh (Kilo Watt Hour). Installing such systems are probably no longer much of a financial proposition. Pretty much everyone I’ve ever spoken to about roof top solar mentions the financial side of the story. Only a very tiny minority have said that they did it for the environment.
Contrast that low price for electricity exports into the grid with how things were way back in 2008. In those heady early days of a new hippy tech dawn, exports to the grid from roof top solar generated electricity was purchased at about $0.60/kWh. That’s a pretty awesome return, but alas, now is a distant memory.
Sixteen years ago when the first off grid solar panels were being installed on this here roof, hopes were high for complete self sufficiency with electricity. Reality was otherwise. Nowadays the system achieves 99% uptime (3 to 4 days each year with just not enough sunshine combined with a low battery state of charge). Expectations have become much lower over the years, and today it is enough if the system works with minimal problems – which it mostly does. Mind you there’s been a considerable investment of time, resources and personal effort to achieve that outcome.
You see articles in the media where experts are making helpful suggestions because the price for exported electricity has now dropped to only a few cents per kWh. One of thoughtful brain fart was to use the electricity generated during the daylight hours when the sun is shining strongly enough. Not a bad idea, except due to other economic circumstances, people are generally elsewhere doing other responsibilities during the daytime hours.
It’s funny, but the social arrangements in society by and large really don’t match up very well with this source of electricity. It interests me of late that there has been a push in the media to install batteries at a household level. Sure. But they’re expensive big ticket items, and can sometimes be alarmingly dangerous. Hmm. Whilst I was sitting up there on the roof today bopping along to the tunes, dodging ear worms and cogitating upon the world, a vision of the future smacked me around the head. Soon, many of those four million installed systems will slowly fail one by one. Something will go wrong with any of the weird components in those systems. They’re out in the weather all day long for years. But who’d know if something went wrong? With prices for exported electricity being so low, people probably might not even wonder why there is no credit on their electricity bill. And fixing the installations might be a step too far, for who would chuck good money after bad? Yep. Makes a person wonder.
There was some decent rainfall at the start of the week. The clouds delivered rain all day long, and then for most of the night. That was something of a relief given recent worries about dwindling reserves of stored water. Regular readers will recall that a decision was made to purchase two additional 5,500L / 1,450 Gallon water tanks. The lead time for their production was given as three to four weeks, except they were delivered early this week. It’s been remarked upon elsewhere that the ultimate social sin is to arrive too early. And the plastic things are monsters they’re so huge!
It’s perhaps unwise to imagine that you have plenty of time to excavate a large flat site, when in fact you don’t. People living on flat land don’t have these sorts of problems! Earlier in the week, a day of digging took place. The excavation job is done by hand. An electric jackhammer breaks up the clay, then the scary old rototiller turned the lumps of clay into a fine soil mix.
Once the soil is broken up into tiny particles, it’s much easier to shovel and load into a power wheelbarrow.
The first days worth of soil was used to increase the ground level near to the top of the recently completed concrete stair project. The final step on that staircase ended up a bit higher than the ground level. That won’t do, and is something of a trip hazard. So we increased the soil height there.
With the power wheelbarrow fully laden, the wheels are driven backwards and forwards across the site. The soil compacts with every single load.
On the day where the rain fell, it was so nice to feel that wet stuff falling out of the sky, so we placed crushed rock with lime over the new soil surface. Then very large rocks were rolled into their new position as a garden edge.
The heavy rainfall combined with a few warm sunny days, has set the lime in the crushed rock nicely. Days later, the surface is now firm, and looks as if it has always been that way.
Interestingly, since that job was completed, it looks to me as if we might have to relocate the last round raised garden bed which is closest to Dame Plum in the above photo. The aesthetics of the garden bed just aren’t quite right now because the path now looks too narrow. Oh well.
Whilst we were moving rocks around, one side of the concrete staircase was completely lined with rocks. The rocks placed there stop soil from being washed onto the stair steps.
Yet another day of digging and hauling soil from the excavation site was done. There’s still probably a day or two of digging still to do. What you have to work out with these excavation projects, is what to do with all the suddenly available soil. It’s a valuable and useful material. So, we placed more soil against the rock wall with the long line of water tanks.
The stuff had to be shovelled into the power wheelbarrow at the excavation site, then shovelled out again and placed onto the rock wall in the image above. We added a lot of soil to each end of that line.
That middle section of that rock wall can easily take the rest of the soil.
This week’s video is on this very topic:
During the excavations, the magpies hang around (despite the dogs) and they’ll happily consume any tasty grubs we find.
The season is fast turning cooler, and was that a sign of early frost in the valley way down below the farm the other morning?
The ten grape vines have produced plenty of tasty fruit. Being dual purpose mixed variety vines, there’s always a use for them. Some fruit is added to breakfast, whilst the rest is pressed into juice for wine making.
Despite the colour of the grapes, the pressed juice is a yellow-ish liquid.
It’s such a busy time of year with lots to do, and it’s hard to ignore that even the timber on the fruit press needs to be re-oiled soon.
In breaking produce news:
Onto the flowers:
The temperature outside now at about 11am is 14’C (57’F). So far for last year there has been 137.8mm (5.4 inches) which is up from last weeks total of 109.8mm (4.3 inches)
Yo, Chris – Re: Solar: Shame, smashing people’s fantasies. Next you’ll be telling us there’s no Santa, Easter Bunny, or the Great Pumpkin. Can the tooth fairy be far behind? 🙂
Decades ago, when I was looking into alternative energy, etc.. (I read a lot of THAT magazine), there was the whole passive solar business. All you had to do was open your heavy curtains, around sunrise, and close them, around sunset. Always being a singular dude who mostly lived by himself (and worked a lot of swing or graveyard shifts), I always wondered WHO was going to open and close those curtains. I suppose one could rig up a complicated system, on a timer, to do the task. Beyond my small skills.
I also remember how disappointed and disillusioned I was, to discover you really couldn’t run much of any kind of heating units, on solar. Reality bites. 🙂 Now I don’t consider myself to have an overabundance of intelligence, but don’t people investigate these things? Oh, well. Maybe not. There’s been some studies that indicate people will believe almost anything, as long as it more or less matches the preconceived ideas they already have.
I’m glad you got a fair amount of rain. That ought to unwind a fair bit of the tension you’ve been feeling in your shoulders.
The big rock headers at the top of the staircase, really set them off. And adding the rock borders really sets the whole thing into the landscape. Future archaeologists will declare it a “ceremonial way,” for unknown religious observances. 🙂
The video was quit good. What does one do with spare soil and rocks? Boy, in a few places, the wind was really ripping through your place. I surprised more of it wasn’t picked up on the sound track. Which was very clear, throughout.
That’s quit a bucket of grapes. I can practically smell them. That smell that is instantly recognizable, but only comes around, once a year.
The cucumbers have that look about them. Fall is nearly here. So, the beans. Are those Lazy Housewife? Are the beans in the pods for seed, or for eating? Or, both?
The roses are real knock outs. Especially, that first one. Looks like an old variety, that’s maybe been fiddled a bit, to produce that contrast of colors. Just stunning. Lew
Ah yes, the relentless march of entropy. They say rust never sleeps, but solar breakdown of polymers doesn’t either. I hate having to buy and use tarps, jut so much more micro plastic drifting away in the breeze, settling down in the soil……….
Last night, while mulling over our financial plans, (recent chaotic happenings from the bronzed one make you stop and take stock) we thought about all the larger projects we might do here, but the continual ongoing mundane drone of maintenance cost was also a concern. Harder to quantify, but quite real.
Darned weather has been weird for collecting sap for syrup, the general consensus was that many, including myself, started too late. We had some very early warm spells, which speeds up the sap run. I eat too many sweets anyway.
Rainy day yesterday, so cracked a lot of walnuts and listened to various podcasts/utoobs. Nate Hagens does a lot of interviews focussed on the ongoing prelude to collapse. Just the thing to accompany my squirreling away a store of nuts.
Here is the cistern I’m planning on for our big water capture project this summer:
https://www.norwesco.com/products/waste-water-tanks/bruiser-tanks
Figure to go with the 1500 gallon/5600 liters size. This is beyond my handyman resources, so will need to hire a local excavator.
Why variety of dry beans did you grow? We usually grow “heritage” named varieties, save seed and mostly bush habit, but lately doing pole beans, even though they are more work, too many damp falls have ruined some of the beans before we can harvest.
Hidatsa, Jacobs cattle, Black turtle, stuff like that.
Hi Lewis,
There are writing moments when guilt overwhelms the senses. And that is ever the case when I puncture the solar energy tooth fairy biz, but does anyone notice? Hard to tell really. 😉 Today in the now cloudy weather was spent up on the roof doing the final bits and pieces to ensure that the new metal distribution and fuse box exceeded expectations. It was a long and awkwardly uncomfortable day, which is why nobody ever thinks to check the workings of this hippy technology stuff. Roof designs probably weren’t made with this solar energy tech in mind. But we can hope that The Great Pumpkin finally makes an appearance if we’ve been good, which may be in some doubt, maybe. It’s not too much to ask though is it?
Haven’t we all read such magazines? And heck, I used to write for the hopium magazines. Far out, yes, the passive solar business is great if as you say, your social arrangements accord with the various responses. That’s the thing with hippy tech, it requires a hippy lifestyle to properly work. We put the window fire shutters up on hot days, but then we’re here a lot and can manually manage such systems. And yes, they do help, but if the average temperature is in the upper reaches, then there ain’t much anyone can do, and mechanical cooling is not a bad idea.
So true. Cooling is reasonably efficient using electricity. A mechanical motor compresses gas to produce cold temperatures. And fans use very little electricity. Heaters, whoa! People don’t know, or don’t want to know. My disappointment was also very real. Reality bites indeed – hey, that would be a good name for a 90’s emo film! 😉 Even with 25kWh of battery storage, an electric heater would drain all that in around 10 hours-ish. Thus why we use firewood for heating, which is a very local resource, here at least.
The studies are probably right. I keep coming back around lately to the charity mugger conversation: How can any of this stuff be sustainable? Never got a cohesive reply either. Talk about ripped off.
Thank you for saying that, and yes the prolonged rainfall has done just that – taken the pressure off. That’s why I could do the solar upgrades this week, and that project has been waiting to be done for months. There’s still another day of work to go.
Hehe! On a personal note, I’d be happy if those future archaeologists took note of how neat the rock work is! 🙂 Of course, your observation is how things will work out to be. Man, how cool would it be if theories were chucked around about how giants were employed to do the rock and soil work?
The utoob stuff is gaining momentum, although it is an entirely different medium to here, which is more my natural turf. The microphones are pretty good and probably better than the camera. When I began looking into this medium, most of the feedback was that people could deal with ordinary images, but not poor audio. So that took more of the funds, and I very much appreciate the words you wrote.
A shame that the vines don’t produce for longer, but fresh sun ripened table grapes are an awesome addition to breakfasts. The smell of freshly squeezed grape juice is that – it’s like nothing else.
Yup, the pumpkin, zucchini and cucumber vines are quailing in fright at the suddenly cooler weather. Softies… 🙂 And those beans are indeed the lazy housewife variety. And living up to the name, we haven’t yet harvested them and they’re sun drying in the pods. If I were only to plant one variety of bean, it’d be that one.
It’s hard to believe that the roses haven’t been watered at all this year (other than rainfall), and they’ve thrived in the conditions. You mentioned a while ago that roses were known to the Roman’s. And bizarrely, some species of rose have the highest concentrations of Vitamin C in the plant world. We grow a couple of those multi coloured rose varieties. There’s a fire and ice variety which is quite stunning.
I’d missed this series of films, but no doubt the soundtrack was pretty decent. Lot’s of garage grunge bands to shock yo mama, with their loud and depressed lyrics! 🙂 Actually, on that pop culture fiction note, last year was brimming with what I’d describe as ‘sad girl’ music. Not to my taste, but that’s how it rolled. It’s funny how difficult economic times for youth brings out the dark and emotionally heavy music.
Brr! It’s now 50’F here tonight, which is not too far off your daytime temperature – and coincidentally also the temperature where the European honeybees decide to sleep in until conditions improve. Agreed, it probably was the overcast weather causing that.
Getting washed away by a massive flood event seems to have done the fledgling town in. Probably how the prairies there got their soil feed via the flood waters I reckon. Robert Newell’s House was lucky to survive and would have been one of the oldest settler houses in your part of the world. It’s quite Victorian era really, but infused with a certain American flavour. Down here at that time, the houses were Georgian inspired and quite plain (us being behind the times in those days). There’s still a few of those around in the big smoke in unremarkable locations. Respect for the article. 🙂
Two angry French dudes wander into a vote and decide the future direction of politics. 🙂 Sounds like an intriguing tale, and stranger things have happened in history.
There’s still another day of work to do on the roof with the solar power system (another plastic box needs replacing, but that’s the last of them). Since the weather is co-operating, the job will get done this week. I tell ya what though, during early afternoon the wind picked up, and that was interesting. Must have been a sailor in a past life – one hand for the ship, and the other for me! Made it difficult doing jobs which required two hands. Happy to have retained solid footing up there all day long. Feel a bit well used tonight though. 🙂
Any news on the disappearing stuff from the swap table? You could equally have a hoarder in your midst.
Youch! That article on the food banks does not make for pleasant reading. How this all plays out is anyone’s guess, but the day was always going to be sooner or later, sorry to say.
This week’s essay scored about six revisions. It worked out alright to do a final review this morning when feeling refreshed and after coffee. The ol’ brain was a bit fried last night from being up on the roof in the sun all day yesterday.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Steve,
It’s funny you should say that about polymers, microplastics and tarps. Haven’t gotten around to constructing the larger firewood shed, so the original one is full, with a large pile next to it, but out in the weather. So last week before the storm I purchased a high tarp to put over the firewood pile. Except my previous experience with the huge plastic sheets, matches yours.
Yup, and from the soil…
Hehe! He seems rather good at upsetting the previous order, yeah. So turbulent times it is, and shall be (Yoda might cut spending too – the swamp and hut didn’t look all that flash). And that’s my exact point. All these systems and machines require ongoing time, mad cash and energy. If you work out where to start, and where to stop with this stuff, please do let me know. I have no idea and whilst on the roof all day today finishing off the solar power re-wiring, we didn’t pick the beans. How do you do everything required, and also the needful? It is real, I hear you.
Like your style with that last sentence about the sweets! 🙂 It’s hard timing natural cycles like that, and sometimes they just don’t deliver the goods. The other times you get way too much. It’s like the many apricot trees here, most years nothing, and then some hot and dry years they produce buckets of fruit. My best thinking about this matter, is that a diversity of edible plants provides the best insurance. And did I mention that the deer and/or rabbits are eating my sugar beets? Oh well.
Good to hear you scored some rain. It’s a good time of year to get the water into your soils. Haven’t listened to Nate, my brain needs something lighter when doing work around here. Podcasts are good when driving. I’ll have a check into Nate next.
That’s an impressively strong looking water tank, and presumably you’ll bury the thing to stop it freezing? It looks strong enough to bury. Digging a hole that big is beyond me too! That tank is as big as on of the two delivered last week. A lot of water. Presumably it’ll have a pump of some sort? Have you figured out that side of the project?
The bean variety is a heritage navy bean called ‘Lazy Housewife’. Man, it’s good. Been around since 1802. Bean ‘Lazy Housewife’ (Organic). I grow the vines up fences and stuff like that.
Thanks for the note about bush beans as I’d been wondering about them. Hmm. Probably would have similar troubles here.
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – By the time the archaeologists show up, all your rocks will have rolled to the bottom of the paddock. Rocks having their own ideas about where they want to be. They’ll work out how many man hours all your projects took, and then through a complicated mathematical formula, figure out how many slaves you had. One of your woodsheds will be identified as slave quarters. 🙂
When you decided to do videos, you did your research. What a concept!
So, you saved your dried beans and eat them? The garden bed I share with the night manager, had green pole beans. He’s not going to do them, this year. But, I saved seed from them, and have decided to replace my Kentucky Wonder, with his Blue Lake. They were better producers, and a straighter bean. He also had some really nice lettuce, that bolted. I saved seed from that. But, it looks like it’s volunteering all over my patch. Mostly in the wrong places. 🙂
Our high yesterday was 55F (12.77C). The overnight low was 52F (11.11C). The forecast for today is 61F. Tomorrow’s forecast is for 70F+. If it holds, it will be the first time it’s broken 70F.
Most of those prairies were the result of Native American land management. Including controlled burns.
The Newell House is pretty much an example of American Country Gothic architecture. In its simpler forms. I often see them in Currier and Ives prints. I’ve seen some of the pattern books, reprinted, from that time. Even the women’s magazines of the day (Godey’s Lady’s Book, Peterson’s Magazine) had occasional features on those type of houses. I think you could write off for more detailed plans. They were often called “Country Villas.”
History and life often veer off in strange and unexpected directions. I was just talking to someone about that (the life part), the other night.
There were a couple of clear hours, late afternoon, yesterday. So, I potted up 10 strawberry plants, for the Master Gardeners sale. I used half of some of their compost, and half purchased garden soil. I kept running across worms, in their compost. I pitched them into the strawberry bed.
The Master Gardeners came this morning. They bought in a truck of compost. I park at the end of the lot, and, the compost is stockpiled right next to my space. So, I moved my truck so they could get in. And then moved it back again. It rained. A lot.
Glory be! I found mushroom compost, for sale. First I’ve seen in 5 years. I was looking around on-line, and according to that, one of the smaller hardware store chains had it. Sure enough, in back, way down at the end. One cubic foot bags. I asked the nice young lady at the counter, how much they were. $7.59per. But they’re might be a sale, in early April. But, if they have it, perhaps some of the other outlets do. For less. I could order a pallet of the stuff, from the big box hardware store … for $750. Don’t think so. Best garden I had was when I had mushroom compost. But let’s not go crazy. Lew
Hello Chris,
Good work, to replace the connector/fuse box and the fuses.
Solar radiation destroys plastics.
I had an interesting experience when inspecting the solar PV we had on our house in the Netherlands after five years or so. I had just routed the DC-cables over the roof and into the shed where the transformer was located. Five years after installation the insulation rubber of the cables started to pulverize. (I should have put the cables inside a conduit, but I had been a bit sloppy when reading the instructions.) Solar damage of polymers is a real thing, as Steve said.
Just like Steve, I also listen to Nate’s simplification podcast. The guests are more interesting than the man himself, imho. Many interesting perspectives. I think you would appreciate the episode with Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, who dissects the myth of “energy transition”.
Another favorite podcast host, Rachel Donald, also interviewed the same guy, with a very insightful discussion.
(Side remark: I think I would very much like to meet both you and Steve, but since I kind of stopped flying many years ago, it seems unlikely.)
I also sometimes listen to the Zero-input agriculture podcast by the very aussie Shane.
Today, I moved some trees and prepared more beds for seeding out walnuts and chestnuts for next years’ rootstock. The cold storage has worked great this winter.
Some veggie seedlings are in the starts as well.
But very patchy germination. I seeded four chili varieties, and the only ones that germinated were the ones I had saved since last year. Not one of the purchased seeds came out. Strange. I use a mix of sand+perlite+biochar as a well-draining, no-fertility seedling mix.
How much extra seed do you sow? If you need, say 10 pumpkin plants, how many do you seed?
Peace,
Göran
Hi, Chris!
No wonder being up on your roof is not so bad, with that view. What does a distribution fuse box on the roof do in relation to solar panels? Is that the same thing that we have in the basement that connects all the house wiring in one place? Goodness – don’t buy any used fuses! That’s the vision I saw: “Soon, many of those four million installed systems will slowly fail one by one.”
We had .25 inches of rain today. It’s dry, dry, dry.
Have a high spot? No problem. Have a low spot? No problem. Call Chris and his rototiller, power wheelbarrow, and – for some reason only powered by hands – shovel. That’s a nicely level and covered rock-with-lime area.
One thing in your video that especially struck me was how frightening it would be if a high wind blew those water tanks away. Away where?!
Too bad magpies don’t eat rats. I met Mr. and Mrs. Garden Rat yesterday. They were just where Mr. Baby had said they would be – in a brush pile. Now, knowing that they were in a brush pile, why did Mr. Baby not do something about it? Maybe because he wasn’t around. Still, that’s a pretty lame excuse. Though, of course, he can’t open the gate by himself.
We have some young Muscadine grape vines and got a few grapes last year. Those are the dark red ones with large seeds and a leathery skin, but they have a wonderful flavor and not as many disease problems. I love cucumbers; I like to make a sweet pickle relish. I like beans a lot, too. I am still eating green beans I canned last year.
From last week: Around here, deer are the biggest carriers of ticks. they wander all over and the ticks drop off of them, to climb on other animals – and pets and people.
We do have a state fire map. I checked it a few days ago and there were no fires close enough to be a worry.
The roses are so perfect. I don’t see how with the hot, dry summer you have had. Is the last flower a passionflower? Thanks for all of them!
Pam
Hi Pam,
The view is pretty epic. For most of the time up there in the heights my mind was very focused on the challenging task of remaining on the roof! 🙂 Truthfully, there was one moment when two hands were required for a particular task and I had to anchor the elbows firmly upon the roof to protect me against the risk of falling off, but still that moment was not ideal.
Ah, each of the eight solar panels has two electrical wires underneath them, one of which is positive, and the other is negative. Truly, I have no idea what that actually means either, but there are two wires on each and that’s what they’re called. I’ve got this wind-up (seriously I’m up there on the roof winding the handle on a machine prior to use) digital tester device which tells me which wire is which, so I don’t have to think about the matter.
With two wires each and eight solar panels, that means that there are sixteen wires in total to deal with. A bit of a headache really and a lot of wires.
Now here’s the thing, the solar panels as they are supplied aren’t good enough. They produce a thing called voltage (which you can sort of imagine as the same thing as speed in a car – it’s kind of a measure of how fast the electricity moves). Each panel is good for a 24 volt system, which is actually kind of sluggish. The house uses a 48 volt system instead, which is double that speed. So there’s a way you can connect up one panel to it’s friend panel, so as to double the speed up to 48 volts. And that’s what I did.
The beauty of that speeding up process to 48 volts, is that the number of wires you have to deal with are halved from sixteen to eight. But you’ve still gotta connect up the eight wires somehow, and that’s what goes on in the mysterious distribution box.
So there you are left with four positive wires, and four negative wires – eight all up – joining at the box. Inside the box are two separated very thick chunks of copper with holes drilled in them. Basically you need thick chunks of copper to stop the combined electricity from all those panels from getting super hot, overwhelming the chunks, and then melting them. That can happen! So, there’s one chunk of copper for the positive wires and another chunk for the negative wires. And attached to each of the copper chunks are very thick and expensive wires which send the electricity down to the batteries. They also have to be thick so they don’t overheat and melt.
It really is that simple. All the serious costs with stuff is not the panels, but it’s everything else you need to move the electricity to where it is needed.
Hope that answers your question about the mysterious distribution box! It is pretty much the same sort of thing as what’s in the basement, just different because the voltage (speed) is higher so the wires can be thinner.
Oh my! Hope you get some rain, soon. Any sign or news of the fire in your area?
Thanks. 🙂 Why go to the gym? It’s a workable philosophy. The area near the top of the stairs now looks as if it’s always been that way.
The last time a water tank got away from us a long time ago, and it was a very big tank, the 1,650 pounds of plastic smashed into the side of a bulldozer. Hmm, the delivery guy was perhaps somewhat careless, put it that way.
Owls for sure make up for the magpies need to sleep at night when the rats do play. Surely Mr Baby would have provided useful assistance if the gate was left open in that instance. Do you have snakes in your part of the world?
Yum! Yum! They’re givers those plants. It’s funny you mentioned the disease, but one of the vines had a bit of mould on the grape clusters, and that’s something that needs looking into.
Didn’t know you could can beans. Hmm. Interesting. Thanks for mentioning that. We dry them, but that then means you have to re-hydrate them prior to cooking.
I hate ticks. The dogs here hate ticks. Basically we’re all just not that into them. Deer huh? Hmm.
Good to hear that the fires are far away. They must be chucking resources at those from your local area. It happens, and volunteer numbers are down.
The last flower was a … … I forget … … Ah, it’s a Corymbia ficifolia. A strangely brightly coloured tree from Western Australia. They struggle a bit here in the cool mountains of the south east of the continent, but what a show!
Cheers
Chris
Hi Göran,
Thanks and yup, plastics are most certainly not all created the same. With the extreme UV radiation we get down here during the summer months, most of the locally made UV resistant plastics are pretty hardy and stable. Some of the hoses we use have a claimed 30 year lifespan, which is pretty good. The rural pipe will last longer than that. The other stuff with no claims as to UV resistance, hmm, maybe not so good. And that’s the problem, which is, and which isn’t? It’s very wasteful to have to test this stuff, but how do you know?
🙂 And that’s been my experience as well with cables. Generally down here, if the wires are rated for solar purposes, they seem to have a pretty long life. Some of the wires I re-did yesterday, and the day before, have been out in the weather for sixteen years and they’re OK. But I’ve seen the degrading plastic insulation.
But the thing is man, I inspect all this stuff regularly. The state of the power system gets checked twice each day – at the beginning and end of the sunlight. Your experience does not surprise me with the degrading plastic insulation on the wires. The electricity can pack a punch too, especially with grid tied systems which can run into the hundreds of volts DC. Hmm. Who checks this kind of stuff? And there are now so many installations in this country that plenty of them will be failing, some catastrophically. I’ve read things about some of the components which are more subject to failure than others.
Part of the distribution box is installing fuses between each of the solar panels. It may sound over the top, but a problem in any one panel won’t take out the entire system, not to mention damaging the very thick cables required to send the extra low voltage high current electricity down to the battery room. Nobody ever wants to see the magic blue smoke of an electrical fire.
Thanks for mentioning the podcast, and I’d not come across Nate previously. Had a listen to the professor Jean-Baptiste Fressoz episode today. Excellent. The gentleman was spot on in his interpretation of the situation. Couldn’t argue with him on any point.
Anyway, the question left in my mind is, so what do you do with that information? The professor himself stopped at merely alerting his peers and audience to the predicament. But what next? That’s the real question. He mentioned anger, and that may be a result of the difficulty involved with his response, but that’s merely a guess. I read the Limits to Growth first edition book and it was a fascinating read, very err, academic in its approach. Look, it’s a tough sell. And look where that went… Yikes!
Respect, and it’s not just you who came to that conclusion with flying. 🙂 Once I knew about 2005, I couldn’t un-know. And trust me, I wanted to be wrong. The catch up would be fun, and for sure I’d take you and your lady to the local pub for a meal and pint. A reader and his lady from not too far away from you, did actually visit years ago, and it was a fun evening. I’d like to believe that it was a highlight of their travel down under, but they faded away from commenting many years ago.
My mind boggles at the claim of zero input agriculture, so I’ll check out the concepts. Might learn something.
Spring is gaining speed in your part of the world! Always nice to be able to spend time out in the garden with the plants. Never a dull moment!
Well, sometimes the seed you purchase is of the lowest quality around. The market gardeners tend to expect and demand the best, and home gardeners get whatever is left over. Sometimes it’s pretty ordinary. You have to hunt around for good quality seed at the scale you and I buy at. Dude, everyone blames themselves, but it’s most likely the seed quality.
The thing with saving your own seed is that you have to start thinking about maintaining the genetic viability of the variety. Oh well, that’s what a large garden is for. It would be far easier if all the neighbours, and their neighbours, and their neighbours neighbours were planting edible gardens. Oh well, what’s going on today, is but a moment in time.
30 pumpkin seeds. Three in each hole for ten plants. And I use scissors to cut off excess seedlings once you know which one you want to keep. If you pull them from the ground you inevitably upset the plant roots of the seedling you want to keep. If for some reason they don’t germinate because the soil is too cold and wet, I’ll replant the seeds until they do.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
That’s a complete bummer. 😉 I was sort of hoping that some of the rocks would still be artfully arranged so as to provide the future archaeologists with some head scratching moments. Maybe I need to inscribe some of the granite with baffling graffiti and arcane symbols? In many ways the machines are actually slaves. It’s funny you mention that aspect of their work around here, but I’d been cogitating upon this issue lately. You see, if a person burdens themself with too many of those machines, then the person themselves will be a slave to the machines. Economic realities are always a consideration – can I afford to maintain this thing, whatever it is? And on a serious note, that refers to time, energy and resources.
It sounds a bit weird doesn’t it? But I learned a lot of interesting things, like how much people have to spend in order to earn. And it’s bizarrely about equal, up to a certain point. Most folks seem to be earning on the affiliate links. Basically the path I chose through that system does not please the masters! Probably why I regularly get shadow banned – you can see it happening in the statistics. Oh well, they offer the path.
Absolutely! Once the beans are dried, they last a long time, but have to be rehydrated for many hours prior to cooking. Hey, that Blue Lake variety is sold down here. It’s meant to be a good keeper as it can be blanched and frozen. It’s 140 years old, and going strong that variety.
Hehe! Free plants are pretty good, but like you say, usually in the wrong place. I’ve given up on lettuce because of the cabbage moths. It’s brutal out there.
It’s funny when at your time of the season when there is little difference between the daytime and night time temperatures. But your weather is taking that concept to 11. 🙂 Yup, it sure is warming up in all sorts of places. Over in the far south west of this country, they’re breaking weather records too and not in a good way. Perth facing hottest late-March spell on record. I’d not want to experience that sort of heat at this time of year.
The weather has been remarkably pleasant this week, although the nights are getting cold.
Of course, it takes a lot of care and attention to nurture and feed a prairie ecosystem and I have nothing but respect for a society which can work that out. The floods would have dumped a whole bunch of soil minerals on the area too from time to time. All part of the process of making land productive.
Interestingly, the hippy I encountered last week was very much against controlled burns of the nature reserve. And we were looking around at all the fallen dry timber on the ground, but I was thinking that the place would go up like a frog in a sock should a fire come ever through. It’s probably a job which needs doing in the cooler months. But who will do such work when there is resistance even to the idea of it?
I love the detail in the American Country Gothic architecture style. It’s beautiful, and truly, you don’t see that kind of work down under until the decades later Victorian era. I’d not been aware of the style. But yeah, back in the day plans for houses were purchased from a book and that’s how it rolled. We’ve worked on houses built in the 1890’s using such pattern sets, and having survived over a century, they’re sturdy. The lesser examples were probably demolished. For all the fingers in the pie involved in house building these days, the outcomes probably won’t be around in a century. Are we better off with the present system?
It’s hard to know when strange events are afoot. Sometimes we all focus on the big issues which are in our faces and also minds, and yet it’s some weird innocuous issue which causes the biggerest of them all dramas. Was the conversation you had good? I quite enjoy those sorts of random and unexpected conversations.
Hope the master gardeners plant sale goes well and their groups coffers are refilled. Hard times are good for edible gardening stuff. Worms are a great sign, and I look for those as well. We get monster earthworms here as well, although during the hot and dry summers they can go deep or wait out for the rains as eggs. Good compost is a thing of beauty. I’ve never generated enough organic matter for a separate compost pile, of course the worm farm is different and the undesirable kitchen scraps end up in that.
Glad to hear that compost didn’t fall all over your truck. Such things have been known to happen. The rain will probably make that big compost pile steam. So they’ve added air, and now water to it. Hmm. Compost is one of those things where it is not good for the pile to get too hot – some of the goodies end up being lost to the atmosphere sorry to say.
Total excellent score with the mushroom compost. That stuff smells potent. 🙂 And that’s been my experience with the compost as well, and you may notice that it is part of the compost mixture I bring in. Unfortunately down here they chuck a bit of bed straw in with the poop, but one must not grumble.
The pallet may overload your truck! 🙂
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – An odd thought crossed my mind, when I was reading Pam’s and your exchange about 4 million failed solar systems. The thought was, “Maybe solar is just a fad.” 🙂
Man as slave to machines is a concept that’s been kicking around for quit awhile. Said in a lot of ways, and across all kinds of media. “Man as slave to machines” as a search, yields some pretty interesting results.
Spend to earn. That’s an interesting concept. I think I became aware of it, reading “The Two Income Trap” by Elizabeth Warren. When you figure the cost of transportation to a job, an appropriate wardrobe and maybe child care, if people thought about it, it would make more sense for one spouse (and not necessarily the wife) to stay home. Someone has to open and close those curtains for passive solar. 🙂 We’ve talked about the concept of a household economy.
Oddly, our cabbage moths didn’t seem to bother the lettuce. Ours seem to have more of a taste for any kind of Brassicaceae.
Our high yesterday was 63F (17.22C). Our overnight low was 54F (12.22C). Our high today is forecast to be 72F. I don’t know if we’re going to see that. The day is starting off cool and foggy / overcast.
Of course, there’s that painting by the artist Grant Wood. “American Gothic.” It’s probably a dead heat, as to if that painting, or the Mona Lisa is the most parodied painting of all time. 🙂
Oh, those conversations are always interesting. Everyone has stories about how life’s path forked, for better or worse. How it seems to have a randomness, or, a degree of luck.
There was a new Master Gardener last week, and she wondered where the compost heap was. We had to trot out that old, old story. From before my time. But passed down. They tried a compost heap, here at the Institution. But people (morons) just couldn’t seem to grasp the concept that not just anything can go in a compost heap.
I haven’t bought any of the mushrooms compost, yet. Waiting on my next check (if there is a check). I’ll buy a bit from the small hardware chain, but see if I can find it cheaper, somewhere else. Figuring out where to “spend” the small amount will be … interesting.
I’m hoping the big hardware chain’s pallet of the stuff, was what was going to the store to be broken down and sold by unit. Maybe they just put it up on the website, to see if anyone nibbled? Lew
@ Göran: as someone with years of experience in germinating pepper (sweet and chili) seeds, may I offer some advice?
First, pepper seeds need consistently warm, moist conditions in which to germinate. I put the containers in which the pepper seeds are planted on a heat mat (a rubber or plastic mat with wires connected to a source of electricity) and cover the containers with clear plastic until the first two true leaves of the seedling are visible. The soil or soil-less mix in which you grow the seeds should be 75-80F (about 25C) at all times. You’ll need to uncover the container if sunlight shining on it or in the area where the container is heats the air over 25C, and put the cover on again after it cools. Don’t over-water the soil, but do keep it moist.
Second, it takes a minimum of a week, usually closer to two weeks, before seedlings appear even when doing this. Pepper seed germination and early growth is slow and depends on steady warmth. Once the first two true leaves appear, the seedling will accept cooler temperatures and still grow, but not as cool as lettuce, for instance, accepts.
Happy spring!
Claire
Chris:
Hey – I just realized that you were not wearing the requisite harness. Eh?
Like a car battery, but a thousand times worse. Isn’t each wire marked “negative ” or “positive”? Well, that is clever of you to raise the voltage. It is simple – and nicely deadly on all fronts. Maybe it’s better that you didn’t have a harness on because if you got fried you would just shoot off the roof and it would make it easier for the coroner to get to the remains.
What shape was the tank in after its escape? Did you get a refund?
You know what? We do have owls and I had forgotten, though I often hear them at night. There’s an encouraging thought. We have a number of a variety of snakes, they should help. One of them – the Black Rat Snake (Ha!) gets quite large, 5 feet (1.5m) long for a grandaddy one. Another especially encouraging thought, considering the name.
The beans I can are the ones in the pod, green “string” beans. Though I have certainly bought canned cooked beans (the seeds) like black beans and pinto beans – and Navy beans.
It certainly reminds me of a passionflower.
https://www.gardenia.net/plant/passiflora-incarnata-wild-passion-flower
Pam
Chris,
I had an interaction this morning with a different early morning agent of utter nuisance. It’s called The Alarm Clock. Ugh, I’d forgotten those 5:00 a.m. starts when I was working! There wasn’t even the glimmer of a glow in the eastern sky. Ugh. We both needed to awaken early so that I could be properly awake to get the Princess to an appointment 45 minutes away. Yes, proper naps were held after returning home.
Sunday was drippy and barely got to 10C. Tuesday was sun and thin clouds and 21C. Wednesday is supposed to surpass 25C. Atypical for March, record setting even. We’re not having to use the furnace…
Cool! Two new water tanks, just in time for the rainy season. also, that means a new project to level an area for them, then more rocks for stabilization, etc. Just when you thought you were done with projects, too. 😉 At least the dirt was useful to finish off the top of the new stairway to heaven area.
The harvested grapes look yummy. Dad had a grape arbor. Fresh grapes and homemade grape juice were looked forward to each year. I wanted to ferment some of the juice, then distill it, but, well, it wasn’t my house so I was overruled.
As to the stairway. After getting the area level and then rocked and limed, it looks great. The Princess was amazed at how good the large rocks make the finished project have that something special. And lining the stairway is looking good. Nice planning and implementation. Are you going to add some mysterious objects to enhance future archaeologists into thinking about the religious celebrations requiring such a stairway and rock walls? Maybe bury a pile of bones nearby?
This is one of the fun times of year. Your flowers are still amazing. Bulbs in this area are growing, and some of them have lavender blooms already, so we both have some flowers blooming.
DJSpo
Hello Chris,
Indeed – what do we do with the information about the future that is coming?
It is not so easy. On the one hand, I feel I stand with one leg in the current system, with a small company to manage cash flow and taxes and transactions. The other leg is in a relationship world, where reciprocity and health and local food dominates.
Living in these times is a bit schizophrenic.
It is a mild form of the syndrome of people who live in dictatorships. On the one hand they say “yes, yes” to the powers, and do other things in their subcultures. I had several encounters with this when we lived in China.
Of course it is a milder form here, but still present.
At least these realizations help me to lower expectations on things like pensions and future monetary income, to reduce dependency on faraway systems. For the last ten years, I have been systematically de-digitalizing my life. I used to have quite a few servers and cloud services and sensors and electronic assistants. I even stopped using smartphoney for a few years.
I take up more physical skills and spend more time with real people.
This website is one of the exceptions.
Yesterday I was interviewed for a sociological research project on the “Green transition and Digital transition” in Europe, and my views on this. I asked the researcher if he had seen any evidence of a green transition or a change towards an ecologically sound society, and he admitted that he also did not see any transition in reality, outside of the political promises for 2050.
Very peculiar. Research as a ritual.
A bit like your chugger?
Thanks for the pumpkin tip. And the tip removal tip.
Peace,
Göran
Hi Claire,
Thanks for the pepper advice!
I think the soil was too cool. I will retry and use a heat mat.
Peace,
Göran
Hi Pam,
You are absolutely correct. There was no harness, and I apologise for recently ‘doing as I say’ and ‘not as I do’. It’s not a pretty look, sorry.
Car batteries can give quite a kick if shorted out. I’ve heard of old timers using that spark as a sort of emergency welder.
The wires are of course out in the weather, and both had black plastic insulation. The standard insulation is red colour for positive and black for negative. They do come with a sticker with a plus or minus sign, but err, out in the weather for sixteen years. 😉 The sticker is long gone, but the wind up digital tester knows the truth of the matter. Yes, the voltage can be added up with solar panels to quite remarkable and deadly heights. The grid connected systems don’t generally operate at the extra low voltages I’m allowed to muck around with. Down under a person needs a license for such heady and dangerous environments.
To be honest, I probably should have gotten a safety harness, but on the day my mind was elsewhere. A bit of an oversight really. I’ve found the rewiring job to be a bit stressful because there is only such a small window of time to get it all done. Last week I would have been cooked by the sun, and now in the forecast the rains are returning in force. It even rained over night last night. Tomorrow is the final day for this stuff and I’ll replace the other plastic distribution box. The job has been waking me up at night, which is rare. Thanks for the laughs too. Very funny. Hmm. 🙂
The smooshed water tank and bulldozer was a nightmare problem. It actually ended up long ago in the small claims court, where the other party appears to me to have made some rather bold claims as to competency. Interestingly a year or two ago, someone was killed in an unloading incident, and as a result the courts forced the suppliers to do better. You know, what I learned out of that episode was that nobody wins when things go badly. As a side story, the water tank was almost completely recycled. An impressive achievement for 1,650 pounds of polyethylene.
The owls do such important work in the ongoing Rat Wars. Glad to hear that the war is going well in your corner of the world Sister Pam! 🙂 (channelling George Orwell’s Big Brother) It would be nice if the snakes here weren’t so seriously deadly, but due to that risk, the rodents are encouraged to go elsewhere – rodents being snake food.
Pam, those are weeds here. 🙂 Beautiful flowers though. So years ago I planted a black passionfruit vine, and the grafted chunk died. But the rootstock is like a total weed now. A visitor pointed out to me that I was growing rootstock instead of the tasty fruiting variety. Lovely flowers all the same. 😉 I’m conflicted, what to do?
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
That most pesky of nuisances woke me up this morning as well. What the heck is the matter with that stupid device thing? Couldn’t the bits and bytes detect that the sun had barely scampered above the horizon? Tis not civilised.
Hope your lady’s appointment went well and that nothing untoward is going on.
Alas, things were slightly different down here today. Early morning with dark skies – check. Coffee, well that aspect is unconfirmed at your end, but my gut feeling says that some additional stimulation may have been required in those early hours to ensure that the caveman part of your DNA was overridden. I’d do no less. Ugg’s unite! Worked all day, and finished up close to 9pm. It’s nice to be in demand. 🙂
A nap sounds like heaven to my brain, but realities intrude and such bliss was not to be mine…
Whoa! For the record, it was, and is warmer in your part of the world than down here. Respect, and may the plants enjoy the delightful combination of warmth and water. Atypical suggests warmer than ordinary. Better though than what the city of Perth in Western Australia is enduring this late in the season with a record breaking heatwave.
Read an interesting article on the aquifers in that same-ish part of the country and it’s caused my brain to cogitate upon the message: Pilbara traditional owners push back on Rio Tinto, state government water extraction from sacred sites. Hmm.
My friend, ain’t nothing finer than enjoying the bounty of excess soil, rocks and flat land. Other people can get their kicks in other ways, but my mind is fixed in this regard. What’s this loose talk of being at the end of projects? 😉 Of course, I recognise that one day my voice will be silenced. Oh well, in the meantime, let’s make some noise people! 😉
Hehe! Like your style, and would do no less. The authoritases can get weirded out by such talk. Need I suggest the old anthem from your country, Copperhead Road?
Your lady might be interested to know that all of those large rocks were once boulders. Agreed they make a bold landscape statement. I’m thinking along those lines as well, and Lewis and I were discussing the potential for strange arcane symbols to be engraved into the granite just to mess with their heads. What was the Latin for Roman’s Go Home again? That’s an order, isn’t it! Spoken like a true command, rather than a question. Always fun that film scene.
Lovely to hear that the land in your part of the world is waking from it’s winter slumber.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Göran,
We can only but hope that sooner or later, other folks will begin asking such hard questions. But until then, who knows what crazy stuff will happen. And exactly. It’s not just you, I have to walk in both worlds as well. Man, once property taxes became a thing, you have no choice in the matter, and have to mostly do what you’re told. If I may posit an opinion in this discussion – we have but a small amount of free will to employ. It’s the mark of the man to observe where that energy is spent.
That’s an interesting observation, and it’s funny you also noted that approach. When I encounter people who are very demanding, I likewise employ that technique mostly because such folks are not all that great at engaging with a situation towards producing an outcome. ‘Yes’ seems to be an end point for demanding people. Managing people is quite a lot more complicated than simply making demands. Hmm. My but we’re delving into deep waters here! 🙂
I envy you with the smartphone avoidance for a while, because back in very early 2020, the goobermint demanded that I get such a device, or lose my business and income. A uncomfortable moment in life that.
The joke with fiat currencies and the unusual games being played with them, is that we might all get paid a pension, but what is the purchasing power of that allocation? Hard to know, but I’m guessing that unless the mad cash supply expansion program doesn’t come to a halt, sooner or later there’ll be either a currency crisis, or unpleasant inflation. History suggests that these are the outcomes. To be candid, I’m amazed that the game has been played for as long as it has been, and way back in 1997 I’d never have envisioned today where the median house price in Australia is $880,590. Back then you could buy a house for around $70,000. That’s a lot of mad cash expected nowadays and presents many problems to the population.
Congratulations on being involved in such fascinating research. However, it does sound much the same as the charity mugger incident, and a lot of what we all do in society is very much of a ritualistic nature. All in the hope that tomorrow is the same.
Pumpkins are also very sensitive to cold soil. The holy grail of plants for me are melons, but they only fruit here in the hottest of hot summers, like 2019-20. That was the last seriously hot summer with 10 days above 40’C. What a year that was…
Wishing you and your family a most excellent growing season.
Sandra is watching the series from your part of the world, Morden i Sandhamn. Delightfully charming is what I’m told about it. I’d be a bit scared holidaying in such a town. 🙂
Cheers
Chris
Hi Claire,
Thanks for the most excellent advice (reading over your shoulder), and chilli plants are a perennial in the greenhouse here (but would die outside of that protective building). They get a bit unwell looking in the depths of winter, but can bounce back early in the spring. Rumour has it that the plants can produce well for six years in such conditions.
And funnily enough, the larger bell peppers are beyond the summer conditions here. Little tiny ones will grow, but nothing bigger than that.
Wishing you a delightful and productive growing season, and hope that the storm risk has passed. The rains have returned here, although the grass is only just beginning to regrow. You should see the ferns go though! They are loving the increased moisture and warm soil.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
You’re probably right there with that thought about solar. It’s a bit mind blowing though, isn’t it? Maybe it was because I wired the whole thing up in the first instance, and have had to face sixteen years of continuous entropy on the entire system, that the realisation dawned on me. It’s funny too in a kind of black humour way, but looking around I’m starting to observe and hear about failed systems.
I must be a bit weird too because I really did go into this technology boots and all with the idea that it would be great for the environment. It was a hobby and interest as well. If economics were a key factor, then we’d have simply paid the $30k in costs to connect up to the grid. It would have been cheaper, by a significant margin. Most of what I see elsewhere are that people are motivated by the economic story with the technology, and you know, fair enough. But when all those systems fail, as they will one by one, and the economic returns are low, who’d want to chuck good mad cash after the bad? Especially if times are tight.
Ah poop! The best ideas are always first thought elsewhere! 🙂 I’d not realised that the machine / slave discussion had been in play for a long period of time. I’d derived the idea from the old saying about: Mad cash being a good slave, but a bad master. The ideas floated around and then the brain could see the same relationship going on with machines. I’ll have a look where that rabbit hole goes later tonight.
It’s already near on 11pm, and me worked late tonight, until almost 9pm. My thinking in the matter is that if people want me to work and are happy to pay, then so I shall. Time for rest later. Had a nice dinner of rice, veg and two fried eggs. Yum.
Hopefully the weather is dry tomorrow (how weird does that sound after the past few dry months?) Anywhoo, there’s one more plastic distribution box on the roof to replace with a more sturdy metal enclosure and upgraded fuses. That’ll be it for a while on that system, hopefully. A person with an occasionally nervous disposition must not tempt the fates of hubris. Only seems wise don’t you reckon? Have you ever tempted fate, and it ended up well?
It’s a fascinating concept isn’t it? Far out man, I’m old enough to have worked with accountants who’d earned their position via way of an apprenticeship, and professional recognition was a $50 fee for them. They thought my route was quite amusing. Hmm. Uni took seven years study part time and an enormous financial cost, the post graduate professional recognition was three years study part time, plus costs. I’d have taken the apprenticeship and $50 route in preference any day! 🙂 The authoritas are probably mystified why the birth rates have plummeted, but being busy and under serious financial burdens does not encourage such child rearing activities.
The household economy is a wonderful thing, and we invest a lot of time and resources into that. The benefits and return are quite good and slowly getting better. Are you hearing of people in your part of the world putting effort into that?
The two income trap is a difficult situation, yup. It’s hard for most people accustomed to dual income households, to step away into the unknown domestic economy, and property prices don’t make that leap easy at all. Plus I do wonder how households are now dealing with the administrative burden heaped upon them by caring and nice companies. Sometimes that burden really annoys me, then I sit down have a nice chamomile tea and gather my fortitude and head back out into the fray.
But overall, my gut feeling suggests that as a society economic stratification is playing out geographically – and that is a very real problem.
Lucky you, lettuce gets destroyed here, or the soil and air temperature warms too fast and the plants bolt to seed and/or get leathery leaves. Haven’t figured that plant out, and so eat perennial rocket during the summer months instead. More reliable in the heat. Oh yeah, the Brassicaceae plants are toast during the high summer. 🙂
It’s warming for you! Yay for spring, which is my favourite season. It was about the same maximum temperature here today at 19’C / 66’F. There’s record flooding in central north eastern Australia. Looks feral up there.
American Gothic is an awesome painting, the folks depicted have such expressive faces. To my mind, the set of their mouth’s suggests dissatisfaction with some unknown incident. The bloke looks a bit like the final captain in the MASH series, and the daughter’s eyes are focused elsewhere. How good is the quote from the artist: ” “All the good ideas I’ve ever had came to me while I was milking a cow”?
Agreed, life is very much a random affair where luck plays a role as great, if not greater, than circumstance and hard work. Such thoughts could upset total control freaks! 🙂 Too bad for them.
The Editor is deep into another Scandi Noir series. It reminds me of those quaint English towns where bodies pile up. Truly, the undead must be up to mischief in such towns for the body count to be so alarmingly high. 🙂
Hehe! Ah the baptism of fire for the new master gardener. Funny stuff. Hey, I recall when living in the big smoke that down the end of the road adjacent to the train line, there was a community garden. They had a couple of compost bins for kitchen waste – and yeah, the rats were big and happy creatures. Some things should never go into a compost pile, but does anyone listen? Oh, conditions are the same in your country. Good to hear that underneath it all, people are the same.
Fingers crossed that there is a check arriving. Such talk makes me mildly nervous. Yup, making mad cash go far is an art form. The Editor is very much getting into that space, but I’ve got some friends who are experienced in that area. You’re of course a notable practitioner of the skill.
You’d think so. The stuff is much cheaper to buy down here by the trailer load. All that packaging would be a nightmare of waste.
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – Solar: In for a penny, in for a pound. 🙂
Man as slave to machine. That’s kind of what the Luddites were all about. Besides destroying a whole way of life, the idea of man as slaves to the machine. And, instead of cottage industries (home economy?) it was to the mill. Hmmm. Maybe the first inkling of the whole “back to the office” meme.
Tempting fate? Well, I suppose anytime I drove in an alcoholic blackout, I was tempting fate 🙂 . Worked out ok. Still alive.
Of course, future archaeologist might float the theory that you were able to do, all you do, due to extended family. Or, 12 kids.
Whoa! More flooding up in your north? Those folks are doing it tough. Our high yesterday was 72F (22.22C). First time we’ve seen that, this year. The overnight low was 48F (8.88C). The forecast high for today is, again, 72F. With decided changes. Yesterday was pretty glorious. Today? Rain, wind, hail, thunderstorms and the possibility of a tornado. Although that last is a very small prospect. According to cooler heads (Prof. Mass) and our National Weather Service, only a 2-4% chance of tornados. I don’t know why people depend on weather apps, that just wind them up.
According to what I remember, the models for “American Gothic” were the artist’s dentist, and sister. Artists were always scrambling for models. The cheaper, the better.
I watched an “interesting” movie, last night. Good cast. Based on a true story. Didn’t make much of a dent, at the theatre. “The Order.”
https://w.wiki/Dap9
Well, yesterday was “interesting.” I laid down to take a nap, to be awoken my some dominatrix lady, in my ceiling, yelling about dangerous CO2 levels. Like our fire alarms, drove every thought out of my head. I popped open a window, just in case, and then realized … the power was off. EMP? Nope. Cars still driving on the freeway. Any-who, got myself together and went downstairs. Apparently, a Bonneville Power transmission line had gone down (no details), and Chehalis and Centralia were without power. As the crazy lady in my ceiling was still yelling, I decided to take the dog down to the Club, and maybe get a cup of cold coffee. No dice. They’d locked the place up, and fled. A few people I know showed up, and we chatted. About 5 the power came back on.
As to why the power outage tripped the CO2 detectors, no one seems to know. That never happened in a power outage, before.
Went home and the crazy woman had been silenced. Killed an hour, and headed back to the Club to visit with Jane. Went home and made a batch of Velveeta fudge, substituting sharp cheddar cheese for Velveeta. Minimally more healthy? Less expensive, at least. That wasn’t the only substitution. I didn’t have enough cocoa powder. Needed 4 oz, and only had just over 2oz. Sooooo … I grabbed a Lindt 83% cocoa bard, broke it up and tossed it in. Seems to have worked, but I still don’t think it’s quit “cheesy” enough. I’ll see what the tasting board thinks.
LOL. And, as a background to all that, you may remember the periodic cyst I get on my back. Well, it’s been working up to making another appearance. I’ve been slapping alcohol on it, for a couple of weeks. It finally started draining, yesterday. What a mess. I know the drill. Hot packs and bandages with antibiotic cream on them. Of course, it’s in a place that’s hard to see / reach. It’s a real pain in the … back. 🙂 Lew
Chris:
Sister Pam forgives all. Understandably, your mind was elsewhere on the day you should have been wearing a harness. Of course, those wires and their stickers would have been out in the weather, not like a car battery under a hood. Sorry you have to duplicate the same job again. I don’t see how you do all that work around the place and still manage to earn a living – and keep up with this blog. Super Chris!
Ha! Rain! We had 12 drops yesterday.
What a tragedy, a death by water tank. If that had happened here the company would have been sued for 32 million dollars and the plaintiff would have gotten it.
We had a pear tree once by the barn, where the grafted part died, but the rootstock still thrived. It had beautiful flowers in the spring and gorgeous red leaves in the fall, so I just left it. Sadly, it eventually had to be cut down because it was in the way of some work, but I enjoyed it for some years before that. Perhaps you’ll enjoy your passionflower vine – until something changes.
Today I set drip hoses under all the blackberries that grow around the perimeter of the garden. I still can’t get used to them not having thorns and am way more careful working among them than I need to be.
Did you mention to somebody here something about pruning pumpkin vines?
My son is going all out to spruce up Charlie Brown. I am not allowed to call him that. I am supposed to say “the S10”. Boring. So when the S10 and I are alone, I call him Mr. Brown. Mr. Baby highly approves of Mr. Brown has claimed him. My son leaves the door open when he is working on it and Mr. Baby lies inside on the seat and supervises. Last night the two of them were working on him after I had gone to bed (I go to bed really early as I am an early bird) and every now and then I heard the horn toot. My son informs me that it was accidental and that it did not bother Mr. B at all.
Pam
@ Lew,
The Order? I don’t need to watch that. Or read the book it was based on. I remember the events clearly, some of which happened here in Spokane and all of which happened within 40 miles of where I live. Twas interesting times.
When I was an undergrad at Eastern Washington University, I tutored a guy for a few months. He was a cameraman at one of the local TV stations. That tv station had gotten an interview at the Aryan Nations compound with Richard Butler. However, they were told to leave the cameraman outside the compound, as they wouldn’t allow “his kind” onto their property. The cameraman in the van was African-American. Naturally, the camera was on during this exchange, which aired on the evening news that night. That became the beginning of the end for the Aryan nations.
The cameraman in the van was the guy I was tutoring sometime later.
DJSpo
Chris,
The appointment went fine. Dental procedure. 8:00 a.m. for dental work is uncivilized and must be some sort of torture. But she is fine. Thanks.
And yes, coffee was a major event before we left home for the appointment. Very necessary to function, especially that time of day.
Yup, we neared that 25C mark today. It felt hot, as I’m still acclimated to late winter rather than those late spring temperatures. Dame Avalanche and I enjoyed a 3 mile jaunt today. Afterward I sat in the sun enjoying a cold drink while she slept in the shade. Had to take full advantage of the sun. Cloudy now, maybe some thunderstorms later, then a few days of rain.
The neighbor had this big tall skeleton thing outside for Halloween. I may have mentioned it. They never took it down. Eventually, some of the wind storms knocked it over and detached the head. They put it back together and added Easter decorations today, stood it back up. It really looks beyond hideous. “Demonic” is how the Princess described it. Ugh.
I watched two crows building a nest in one of the nearby tall Ponderosa pine trees. Things should get interesting with that nest later this spring. That tree has been used by the ravens for several years as a safe shelter from which to taunt the crows. Now the crows will be raising little crows in the ravens’ safe haven. I’ll keep some popcorn ready to hand.
Thanks for that article about the water in the Pilbara area. We’re having similar issues with Tribal water rights in Arizona and other places. The experiences are very similar to what was in the article.
Hmmm. The Princess just requested that I find my slingshot. I was reminded that I was once reasonably good with it, and that I used to use ice cubes as projectiles. They melt leaving no evidence behind. She wants me to start practicing again. Maybe there’s a stray cat problem she’s noticed. Or something.
Yes, she is aware that the rocks are all parts of boulders you’ve broken up. I make sure to tell her your about you bashing boulders.
Copperhead Road. Thanks. That was fun.
DJSpo
Hi Pam,
Another day (and the last hopefully for a long moment) was spent up on the roof today sorting out the final remaining plastic distribution box for the solar power system. No need to wear a harness today because I could simply sit on my backside on the roof and do the required work – very little risk. The other day, and thank you very much for your kind words, my mind was not quite on the right track for about half an hour. Oh well, sometimes mistakes happen.
The stickers are long gone, and they remind me of the various plant tags which have also disappeared over the years. It is possible that the tags are now to be found behind the couch where all good dust bunnies go. Oh, I hadn’t thought about that likelihood. Hmm. … … Nope, they weren’t there. A mystery!
It’s funny you made that observation, because the very same issue was on my mind only a few hours ago. It’s a juggling act which I deeply feel called to do, and have no idea why, plus how good are our chats? 🙂
A dozen drops of rain is a nice round number, but it’s hardly significant is it? Any sight of rain in the future forecast? Apparently it will be 30’C / 86’F here tomorrow. Me over summer.
The incident here involved a completely different company, but clearly unloading large water tanks is a somewhat risky proposition: WorkSafe Victoria charges water tank manufacturer Polymaster after man dies, another seriously injured
Pear trees are lovely, and super hardy, err, the rootstock at least. One of my favourites which is a street tree in a nearby town is the Manchurian Pear. A fine tree. But yeah, sometimes trees are in the wrong location. I’ve got a quince tree which is in the wrong spot and has never done all that well. Haven’t gotten my head around why quince trees just don’t seem to work well here. Dunno.
🙂 I’m a big fan of the thornless blackberries, for all of those reasons. They produce some very decent sized berries too with a soil feed. Yum! Hope yours do well, and please do let me know how they go. The berries are produced on second year canes…
Nope! Never pruned pumpkin vines. Dunno who said that? Tomato vines – yes, they get pruned, and that is a good thing.
Charlie Brown is such a fine name for a vehicle. All vehicles have secret names, and this is how they develop history and mojo. Clearly if Mr Baby has adopted the vehicle, then it’s cool. Fingers crossed that the repairs are negligible and that the beast has a long life.
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
Oh yes, positively uncivilised and am glad to hear that your lady is now feeling better. Nobody ever looks forward to going to the dentist, and the words ‘procedure’ simply elevate the discomfit levels to 11 on the dial.
Have to laugh though. People may wonder why I go to the dentist for an annual check-up and clean, but it’s because to my mind regular maintenance is better than repair. And even then, sometimes there are those repair moments, sort of like what your lady endured. Please extend my sympathy.
Good to hear that you were both fortified against the wee small hours of the early morning. That’s when the elder folk are at their most mischievous, and in your pre-caffeinated state, they may have pinched your nose and tweaked your ears. Best to stay alert against such mischief and here coffee helps.
Speaking of such matters, the last remaining plastic junction box was replaced today. A big job that one up on the roof, but it’s all done now. Me tired. It was sunny and cool today, but not so tomorrow. 30’C apparently… I’m takin’ the day off work to rest and recover.
Oh yeah, 25’C would feel hot given the winter weather you’ve recently enjoyed. Wasn’t it snowing only a week or two ago? My brain hurts too, last week there was a 35’C day. Ook! or is it more correctly, Ugg!
Good to hear that rain is in the immediate forecast for your part of the world. Same here, although nothing like what is going on up north of the continent. Far out, they might need flippers to get around some towns.
Not sure what to make of a skeleton dressed up in Easter regalia. Sends a strong message though, that’s for sure! 🙂 But is it art?
Two crows versus how many ravens? Hmm. Sparks and feathers may fly. The world of bird is a tough place where all sorts of horrid things go on, however, the birds do play around a lot here when the conditions are good. Right now, they follow Ollie around. Must be feeding the dogs right, or something like that. The big pooch pretends not to notice as if it is beneath his dignity to worry about such avian acts.
It’s not good is it? However, if I may say so, what is not sustainable, usually isn’t sustained. Did you notice that in the article the mine was having to pony up the mad cash for a desalination plant? Talk about expensive water. Such systems may even tip the mine into a loss maker – making fresh water from the ocean is not cheap. Aquifers are a finite resource if more is ever taken than replenished, and common sense sort of suggests that if it was possible to replenish a depleting aquifer through natural means, you wouldn’t need to pump from the thing – there’d be other sources of water.
Ha! A long time ago a neighbour had a troublesome dog. Nice thinking there, and I’d not taken the thought processes that far. 😉
It’s a lovely thing to have your own personal quarry, which gets nicely cleaned up regularly at the end of the works. I’ve visited some local indigenous quarries over the years, and they’re quite attractive places. Scale of course is the big issue when compared to industrial mines.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Really liked the phrase, and had not heard it previously. However, the phrase sums up the entire situation perfectly. Spent another day up on the roof replacing the last remaining plastic junction box in the entire solar power system. Truthfully man, I wasn’t feeling like doing the work this morning, but got into the job and took extra time, care and paid attention. The tunes were good, the sun shone and the wind was calm. Conditions dictated that today was the day to work. Who can argue with that?
It’s funny, but if people have a full days work for me, I go in. Other than that, it’s remote work, which is cool too because it saves them having to pay for travel time, plus a whole bunch of different business get work done for them – and it keeps prices down for everyone. The thing is I’ve done that arrangement for like seventeen years, and survived any billing queries because when I’m on the clock for client, I’m on the clock and working.
I hear stories about ‘work from home’, and it’s hard to really know how hard other people work. Dunno really, but then I’m in small business, and they don’t muck around due to economic realities. The thing with such neat working arrangements is that if they are abused, then they go away. And plenty of work can’t be done remotely. But I hear stories though… Hmm.
Ook! Yeah, that is tempting fate, but clearly lady luck was with you in those moments, possibly also guiding the wheel and pedals all the way. 😉 The thing with the past is that there were actually less cars on the road. It was quieter. I recall as a late teenager, the brakes on the car locking up whilst not too far away from here actually, and I ended up on the wrong side of the highway. Nowadays with increased traffic, that would be probably fatal. The highway was empty of traffic that night.
It’s a good theory that the future archaeologists are tossing about. Could alien technology be chucked into the story somewhere?
The flooding up north is crazy. Relentless rain plaguing flood-weary Queensland. I’d describe that as widespread. The weather here on the other hand, has been quite pleasant.
Lovely weather in your part of the world. Throw open the windows and let some warm spring air in. 🙂 As much as a person can, anyway. Probabilities are one of those maths abstract expressions which are quite handy, but few people comprehend. It’s probably not a smart move to even mention the things when simpler messaging would work better. A very tiny chance of a tornado is possibly a clearer message.
Really? I’d read that the artist used his sister (who made her own clothing for the depiction and the family dentist – as you do). From what I was reading, the artist wasn’t paid all that handsomely for the painting. That’s the problem with going viral, how to leverage the sudden rise to fame!
Just read the plot summary of that intense film. Sounds interesting, but the timing release was err, considered difficult. And it was filmed in and around DJ’s area. Cool. As a general observation on such groups, the goobermine is usually pretty good at dishing up violence.
They don’t have CO2 alarms down here, smoke alarms, yes. But does anyone really want to be annoyed by a demented robot screaming incoherently? The stuff of nightmares! It’s surprising that a power cut would set the alarm off. Down here the smoke alarms have 9V batteries in them for when the power goes out. I use a special rechargeable batteries for that purpose just because I hate the waste of a use once battery. Can you imagine the demented robot screaming from those things I’d have to put up with if there was a bushfire? Unrelenting. Hopefully you avoided submissive behaviour with the robot?
I’d say less expensive, but was the end result as good? The Editor is trialling cheaper canola oil rather than the expensive olive oil in the soap making. Will it be as good? Dunno. The addition of the Lindt chocolate can only help. Yum!
Good to hear that the cyst is draining. I’d imagine you’d have been feeling the pressure of the thing? Still messy, but hey, I reckon having Kuato on your guts would hurt worse (the Total Recall version, not the possum).
That’s it. I’m taking tomorrow off any and all work. Done. I feel quite good about that captain’s call! 😉
Cheers
Chris
@ DJ – I remember when all that was happening. One of the armored truck heists was at Seattle’s Northgate Mall. I’d lived near there, once upon a time.
The Order was a splinter group, an offshoot from the Hayden Lake bunch. The Order felt the Hayden Lake bunch were all talk but no action.
It always feels a bit eerie, when life crosses history. Lew
Yo, Chris – Yes, sometimes it’s hard to propel one’s self, out the door. But, once you get into the swing of things … There’s a saying. “Get up, suit up, take the first indicated step.” 🙂
Like a lot of things, remote work can be abused. But, there sure are a lot of positives for the worker. As long as assigned tasks are completed to the employers satisfaction, who cares? I think it’s often a case of power and control.
I just saw an article, yesterday, on future archaeology.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/26/science/technofossils-discarded-objects-human-legacy
Our high yesterday was 70F (21.11C). Overnight low was 46F (7.77C). Forecast high for today is 56F. Well, our apocalyptic weather forecast turned out to be a big nothing burger. Zip. Nada. I guess up north, they had some small hail, lots of lightening strikes. Burned a couple of houses. Some trees down. Blasted electrical equipment. But, no tornados or golf ball sized hail. I was coming home from the Club, about 6 last night. There was no traffic. And, it looked like a few businesses had closed early. But, it was just a typical rainy evening. Of course, now, a certain percentage of the population won’t pay attention to forecasts. Which is not a wise idea.
Back in the 1930s, a lot of people made their own clothes. Not that unusual. Flour companies printed floral designs on their sacks, just so they could be reused as fabric, for clothes. I have seen clever DIY projects, using plastic sacks, turned into everything from placemats to purses.
I saw our building manager, Little Mary Sunshine, this morning. Turns out only two apartments had CO2 problems, during the power outage. Lucky me 🙁 . Turns out, all I would have had to do is grab a broom, poke the demented woman, and she would have shut up. Who knew? Just another thing they fail to tell us, around here. Why was it set off by a power outage, in the first place? Doesn’t seem to be a concern, as long as there’s a work around.
Enjoy your day off. I suppose good tucker will make an appearance.
I made frosted orange biscuits, last night. Tasty. I’ll make frosted lemon biscuits, tonight. I need to do a little more research into cheesy fudge. I think I saw some recipes, with more cheese involved. They don’t taste “cheesy” enough, for me.
I saw a trailer, for a new movie, last night. Looks like a lot of fun. “Penguin Lessons.”
https://youtu.be/xdjEXNX1nSA?si=UERzLSDxqTu6s-q7
I hope it makes it to DVD. Never know, these days. Last night I started watching “Star Trek: Lower Decks.” The fifth and final season. 🙁
I’m reading “X Troop: The Secret Jewish Commandos of World War II.” (Garrett, 2021). Really interesting. They were refugees, from Europe, that the Brits formed into a commando unit, to return to Europe and fight and undermine the Nazis. Lew
Chris:
Our chats are GOOD!
Rain maybe in a few days, but they’ve been saying that for weeks.
My first thought about the 2 incidents where people were killed by water tanks was that they were not trained to be doing that kind of work. It was not the place for the buyer to be helping unload the thing, or the neighbor of the buyer. It seems that that was taken into account and it was the fault of the water tank company for not having a better unloading practice in place.
NOW I know that blackberry fruit is produced on 2nd year canes, after butchering a few of them during the winter, when I was not supposed to prune.
Cheers, Pam
Chris,
Indeed, dental work is bad enough any time of the day. But 8 a.m. dental work is, indeed, a “Spinal Tap” moment. 😉
We go twice a year for the dental cleaning and check-up. And we keep up with routine hygiene, too. “An ounce of prevention equals a pound of cure” sure fits here.
The elder folk tried the nose pinching and ear tweaking even after coffee that day. Thick fog was prevalent in patches with speeding cars. Not a good mix. Coffee was my friend.
Good those junction boxes are done. And a day off from your labors is always a good thing. Hope you did something fun?
Yup, a week or so ago it was the seasonal mix which included snow. Typical March weather here to go from extreme to extreme. 25C is too much though. Ook and ugh are both appropriate. The only months it hasn’t snow in town since I’ve lived here starting 1967 are July and August. Snow is very rare in May, June and September, but it happens. One Friday June 13 it snowed in town, 1cm at our house, 5 to 8cm in higher elevations in town. December through February are the only months I’ve not experienced 70 degrees, so extremes can happen but have limitations.
Seriously, March can have subzero temperatures and temperatures into the 70s. August can be scorchingly hot, or cloudy with highs in the 60s. In other words, the weather of those 2 months overlaps and they also include the hot and cold extremes. Hence my claim that Spokane has two seasons, March and August. 🙂
It doesn’t look like art to me. And the Easter skeleton does send a message, but I’m not sure what it is. It was breezy overnight and part of the decorations partially blew off and are literally hanging by a thread. It’s, umm, interesting to look at.
I’ve only ever seen one raven at a time in that particular tree. I think there are about a half dozen ravens nearby, but the murder of crows consists of several dozen. It was over 50 last August. It will be interesting to watch how this works.
Yes, that cash that Rio Tinto is having to spend on desalinization is a lot of money. But desalinization is energy intensive, so there’s going to be an ongoing added expense to run the desalinization. As you hinted, the sustainability is questionable at best.
I’ve appreciated the photos you’ve posted of some of the indigenous quarries. They are proof that maintaining beauty and harmony with nature is possible with anything. If beauty were a priority, industrial mines could encompass it. But, well, profit first makes anything else impossible.
Thunderstorms expected for the next 36 hours. Maybe we’ll get a good light show tonight. I enjoy watching Thor and Tesla playing around. 😉
DJSpo
Hi Pam,
It’s been fun hasn’t it? 🙂
Essentially you’ve sort of hit the nail on the head there. Respect. Large and very heavy plastic water tanks can be made, sure. They can even be trucked from the manufacturer to site easily enough. Getting the big round things off the back of the truck trailer was the weak point in the process from my perspective. I believe that the coroner made that observation as well. And that was where it went wrong for us as well. Bizarrely we had a bulldozer ready to hand with that big blade which could have stopped any and all problems. But what it looked like to me was that the guy unloading the huge plastic thing all those long years ago, was in a hurry. And that is when things went wrong, fortunately not to the same degree as the article. Makes me wonder how many dramas and near misses were never reported?
To be honest, the mistake was mine because I presumed that they knew what they were doing.
Oh! Not to worry there with the blackberry pruning during winter. Your timing was spot on for that work. Based on what we do here, that’s the perfect time of year. The canes grow so fast during summer that you’ll be amazed. The summer pruning work with those canes really revolves around stopping the giant arcing canes from blocking access to an area – that’s when the gardener needs to harden their heart and lop those Triffid-esque like growths off. 😉
Me tired today after all that recent work up on the roof. Your son probably has the advantage of being younger and recovering from such airy heights work more rapidly. 🙂 Hope Charlie Brown is nearing all around vehicular goodness!
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
It’s a good habit to be have, and I hear stories with regards to such regular maintenance due to cost of living pressures. The last time I was at the dentist it appeared, although I didn’t listen closely, but it kinda sounded like work was being rustled up. One of the good things my mother did was instil that habit of going annually.
It’s not quite the equivalent issue, sorry to digress it’s a bad personal habit, but spending three days replacing the plastic boxes and wiring up on the roof for the solar power system sort of also falls into that story.
You would have seen the same story playing out with roads, drains and other important chunks of infrastructure back in the day. To my mind, it’s always something of an economic juggling act. Another old saying is that ‘a stitch in time, saves nine’.
Well yeah, the elder folk are impervious to coffee themselves, but it gives us lesser humans a bit of an edge against their tricksy games. 😉 Glad to hear that you dodged the nose pinching and ear tweaking – that’s incidentally the soundest strategy when dealing with such kind.
Oh my! Driving in thick fog is something which occurs down here as well. Hmm. The authoritas do suggest to drive to the conditions, and err, speeding is not the wisest choice in such weather. Makes a lot of assumptions that decision.
Yeah, thanks. I slept a lot today. Had a walk around a botanical garden, had a lovely chat with a nice lady I’ve known for years, ate a good lunch, and visited the cool store to grab some boxes of seconds apples for cider making. Then got home again and slept some more. Needed the time out today. Had to do some paid work though which couldn’t be wiggled out of. 🙂
Oh, and filmed the video up on the roof for next week. All up, it was a pleasant and relaxing day, although I’m glad Sandra was doing the brief bit of driving today.
Man, I hear you about that. It was 35’C here last week. What the heck is with these massive temperature swings? Which as you note are par for the course, as they say. Sometimes it’s a bit challenging though. Meant to rain here tomorrow night, we’ll see. Like the claim, and locals observations carry serious weight – two seasons indeed!
Look, at your not-art words of reply I was going to write something witty about the debates of Majikthise and Vroomfondel, but then (being easily distracted and stuff) there was some note spotted that the book had been banned in several countries due to profane language. Imagine what the students missed out on, and the awesome publicity!
The Easter bunny skeleton has clearly been constructed so as to mystify all of us. 🙂 I can’t make heads or tails of the description either, but it sure doesn’t mean nothing!
The few Ravens versus the murder of crows – there’s gonna be an old fashioned bar fight. Hard to know the outcome.
With the indigenous quarries, it’s hard to even know that the area had been mined of stone. But when you take a closer look, it’s quite amazing and really quite blends into the environment nicely. If I had to grade our species efforts these days, it’d be an F with a note – could do better.
Hope those two made a lot of noise and produced some decent thunderclaps. 🙂
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Regina Brett has a very keen mind combined with a sharp eye. It’s a great quote, and the gumption to put one foot in front of another upon a journey is a lost art form in these enlightened days. Possibly a side effect of the push to be safe, whatever that means – which usually looks like the opposite goal to me… But yeah, I manned up yesterday and completed the work up on the roof. This morning I made a video from up on the roof for this week. An unusual medium that one.
Today was for resting and recovery, although there was some urgent paid work to do. Headed north to the cold store to grab a couple of boxes of seconds apples for cider making. Enjoyed a delightful lunch and walked around a botanical garden. Had a lovely chance encounter and chatted for a long while. Slept in the car on the way home again. Then slept some more. Me still yawning tonight. Oh well.
To be the devils advocate, having people work from home saves society an awful lot of infrastructure costs – like public transport and roads. Well, here we may differ with our opinions. I get paid to produce results as efficiently as possible and survive on that challenge. But generally employees on the other hand are paid for their time, with the hope that tasks are getting done. There is a bit of a mismatch there between the rewards and the incentives, and as long as an employee can dodge the work and not be fired, they might be winning over my lean and mean approach.
But yes, power and control is also an issue, and just because a person is a manager, it does not in any way suggest that they are ideal for the management work put before them.
There sounds like there will be a lot of chance in what survives in the fossil record from current times. The recycling bit of the story amused me, sure they will dumpster dive, maybe. The plastic would make a pretty wicked but super stinky heating fuel.
Hey, did you see the news reports of the collapsed skyscraper in Thailand? Not good.
The old timers used to say about your weather: Two steps forward, one back, so it goes. Either maximum temperature sounded nice to me. It was warm here today, but you can feel that the sun is now sending less energy to this part of the planet than compared to high summer.
It’s always a good day when such alarmingly scary weather doesn’t eventuate. 🙂 Lightning strikes will do that. Sadly that is true what you wrote there. It’s a bit like the old joke about getting something right a thousand times, and once wrong. Guess which will be remembered? 🙂
Man, in the 1970’s I recall people making their own clothes from patterns. We spoke of those thick packets of plans. Obviously I didn’t grow up in the upper airs, but there was nothing unusual about home made clothing – even the school uniforms had plans available for them to keep costs down. I loved hand knitted woollen jumpers as they worked better than the machine knitted stuff, and knitting was an activity of the home economy. It boggles my mind at how wasteful as a society we are nowadays. Doing more with less, will most certainly be a cultural phenomenon in the near future. You can already see the early signs of this habit being picked up and run with. The thing is, I have doubts that the present economic and social arrangements will continue. You’d appreciate my perspective in that it probably helps facing that future if you’d been poor in the past at some point.
Yes, your lucky numbers did come up with that incident. Not sure what your CO2 detectors even look like, but the smoke alarms down here do have an off button. The blaring shriek of the things only ups the ante during an incident where they’re useful.
Frosted lemon biscuits. Yum! Research into recipes pays off, as long as the nice folks aren’t leading you up the kitchen garden path. 🙂 We’ve seen a few of those over the years, up. Hey, on that note, we sped up the soap making process several days by using a stick mixer. Who knew, other than all the people on the interweb recommending the usage. The mix set mind bendingly fast. Wonder if it’s the same, but we’ll see in a month or so when they’re OK to use.
It’s hard to explain, but there’s something really lovely about the line in the film trailer: The penguin is not a communist
Hope the final season is good and wraps up well. Sometimes Star Trek does not pull that feat off well.
The WWII book sounds fascinating, and weren’t those English cheeky at getting small groups of commando’s into places no sane person would otherwise go. I still recall the book you mentioned about the quirky and adventurous characters behind the Bond fiction.
Cheers and me off to bed early tonight. Sleepy.
Chris
Hi Göran,
Had a look at the zero-input agriculture blog and it’s behind a paywall. I was interested to see what the author was doing. Oh well.
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – I’ll be looking forward to your aerial footage. Ever think about getting a drone? I do have mixed feelings, about those things, but they have provided spectacular footage. I saw a film about English cathedrals, a year of two ago. Wow. Flying around inside and providing views of details you couldn’t see from the ground. Hmmm. You could dive bomb those pesky deer. 🙂
It sounds like you had a really nice day off. Mostly. Judging from your sleep patterns, you really needed a day to unwind. Not only the physical stresses of the job, but the mental stuff, too. A lap around a botanical garden would be ideal, for recharging your own batteries. Do you ever see plants you really, really want? Speaking of gardens, I ran across an article, this morning, about the seed nursery I use.
https://osseeds.org/cooperation/
Fascinating stuff. Wow. Old man Nichols was responsible for bringing Elephant Garlic, to the U.S. Who knew? The same stuff I grow in my garden. Although I’m sure I didn’t get it from Nichols. I don’t know where it came from. I just keep replanting it, every year. I’ve noticed some has volunteered, in other plots.
Boy, they’re doing it rough in Bangkok. I saw a lot of footage, this morning. The high rise coming down, people fleeing the debris cloud. It brought back memories of 9/11. I wondered about the water streaming down another high rise. A regular water fall. A punctured roof top swimming pool. Bridges down. Something was nagging at the back of my mind. A lot of Bangkok is built on fill. It’s also a bit of a river delta. And, they’ve already had problems with sea level rise. Not a good combination to build a city.
Weather. The boy who cried wolf? 🙂 Our high yesterday was 59F (15C). Our overnight low was a steady 48 (8.88C). Forecast for today is a high of 52F. There’s been rain, on and off. And, wind now and again. Gust in the mid 20s mph.
You could have sewn together all those gifted tea cozies, and gotten a nice wood jumper out of the deal. 🙂 Or, unravelled them, and knitted one. Might have been some striking color combinations.
I made the frosted lemon biscuits, last night. Tasty. I had tested the recipes. And made the minor tweak of adding 1/2 tsp. of extract. Also, I made a note, last night, that I can cut the glaze recipe, in half. Way too much left over. Lew
Chris:
Yes, my son is probably a bit younger than you since I could be your older sister, I imagine. Don’t know if we want to bandy a lady’s – or gent’s – age around here.
Pam
Chris,
But your roof antics and repairs really are the same as annual dental maintenance visits. They both originate from a sense of discipline and understanding that if things aren’t maintained now, the costs later will be many times higher. Proper maintenance helps avoid disasters.
Still see the same thing with roads. Road maintenance is expensive. The winters here tear the heck out of roads with the constant freeze, thaw, freeze cycles. There’s a lot of road work that needs to be done and dwindling resources to pay for it.
Today’s storms brought some gusty winds. The Easter Skeleton doesn’t like gusty winds. The gusty winds blew over the Easter Skeleton, knocking off its head. This has happened with the skeleton every time it is upright, and we have a windstorm. The neighbor hasn’t learned. Now the skeleton is leaned almost flat against a fence with its head sitting nearby. It is still plugged in, so lights are twinkling.
I drove through very dense fog once between Ellensburg, WA and the Columbia River. It was the season for elk herds to migrate in the area also. Naturally, I slowed down for the conditions, meaning maybe 30 km per hour or a bit less. A white truck with no lights on passed me doing over the posted 100km per hour speed limit. Never saw it until it was beside me as it blended in with the fog. It was a very tense drive, especially as there were several other vehicles that were ignoring the conditions.
Glad you were able to have a slow day and fun and naps. That’s more of that maintenance stuff. Necessary.
Wow. I had to look up the banning of that book. Language. Questioning religion. Lack of seriousness. Yes, a comedic book has been banned from some locations due to lack of seriousness. My response to that is that many people take themselves much too seriously. Douglas Adams made fun of everything, his scientific beliefs and attitudes often topping the list of what he was making fun of.
No thunder. Darn. But some well needed rain so I won’t complain.
DJSpo
Hi Pam,
Exactly! 🙂 Ah, to be young again, what a wonderful thing. And yes, it would be very impolite to mention age.
It’s turned colder here today and even rained a measly tenth of an inch over night. Still one must not grumble about the small things wanting more. Actually that sounds like advice from a Charles Dickens novel.
Just checked out the weather news and read the words ‘snow’, then realised it was referring to the north of your country. Did you get any rain from the big storm? More heavy rain, snow and severe weather to hit the U.S. this weekend.
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
Looking at the storm weather forecast maps for your country suggests that your area may be spared the worst of the weekend cold snap. What’s it looking like at ground level? Running the wood heater tonight if it means anything, although am enjoying the mildly cooler weather down here.
Hmm, I’d not thought of maintenance as a form of discipline, but that makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the insight. All of the machines and systems here get maintained and repaired to the level they need. Still, sometimes components in systems break, and then they need some attention. When up on the roof this week, I noticed that the frost valves for the solar hot water panels were malfunctioning. Unfortunately they’re a subject I know nothing about, so may have to get in the plumber to replace them. I understand how the solar hot water system works, just not those frost valves. Not even sure why they are there. A plumbing mystery! 🙂
Just between you and I, dealing with a crisis is fine, but if such a situation can be avoided in the first place, then that’s the better outcome, every time.
It’s been my observation that road maintenance has slipped in this area, and the state goobermint recently had a by-election (in Simon’s more distant part of the big smoke) and they got flogged on that subject and almost lost a once safe seat (i.e. the electorate there was formerly a very safe seat for them with a big margin – not so any more). Interestingly, just after that election, some of the main roads around here had repairs announced. Your freeze-thaw cycles would be hard on road surfaces, and down in the valley below the mountain range, the reactive clays produce a similar heaving outcome between wet and dry seasons. The Earth is hardly a fixed circumstance is it?
Agreed, the resources to fix all this stuff up are dwindling. The state goobermint down here has taken on a stupefying quantity of debt, which has been poured into infrastructure in the big smoke – a new underground train loop. The rural areas are perhaps asking the hard question of that lot: What have you done for me lately? 🙂
Far out, the Easter skeleton has been knocked out by the winds, and yet it’s now on the ground waiting for the count to ten by the referee. Will the skeleton rise to continue the bout, that’s anyone’s guess at this stage. Still, there’s some – dare I say it – spark of light left in the skeleton.
It’s 9pm here and raining again. Winter is fast arriving on the scene. Had 2.5mm of rain overnight which was good. The grass is beginning to regrow.
Thick fog is a thing here as well, and visibility can reduce to only a couple of metres. Sometimes you can barely see the posts on the side of the road and that’s not good driving conditions. I’ve no idea how people can drive at 60m/h in such conditions, and it’d give me a fright as well when confronting them. One can of course know the road intimately, and yet not know in advance as to what is on the same road – these being entirely different schools of knowledge. I’d not want to unexpectedly meet an Elk at high speed.
Thanks! Yeah, the work on the roof for three days was quite mentally challenging because it involved a lot of problem solving and ensuring that I simply stayed up on the roof without decamping to the ground quickly. Rest is definitely necessary after such an experience.
Woke up this morning still feeling a bit tired still, but soon got into the day. Had lunch with friends in the big smoke, and it was a very enjoyable catch up.
Sadly I lost a friend last year because what looked to me like a case of beliefs in relation to all that. A bit of a bummer because I don’t really hold many fixed opinions in that area of knowledge, and never even felt strongly about the subject under debate, and yikes, dared to make a joke. For some odd reason I’d believed that the scientific method itself suggested a healthy level of scepticism. Probably I’m naive in such matters, and sometimes my humour falls flat.
Spare a thought for Sandra at this point in time – it took her years to discern the difference between me having a joke, and being serious. As a general rule, just like Douglas Adams made fun of everything, most of the time I’m joking around. There’s a funny (to me anyway) video on how we two sometimes discuss matters (she looks at me now and says ‘is this a pizza thing’?): when the INTJ meets the INFJ
Well, where there’s no thunder, usually there is no lightning – which is a good thing from a fire and damage perspective. Good to hear you scored some rain.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Drone footage would be pretty interesting, but the cost dude, the costs! I don’t think so. Now if someone wanted to stump the mad cash for such a device, we could take the videos to 11 on the dial. But I agree, some footage from drones is pretty amazing. I like where you’re going with the ideas for the deer, and it would be less problematic for all concerned.
Down here, drones are regulated as aircraft, so the penalties for messing up with them, are pretty extreme. And of course one must have aviation insurance… Yes, the land of the free, not. They use the devices now in the building industry because trades can get a close look at various things way off the ground without actually climbing up onto the steep roofs and such. Not a bad idea.
There’s some great drone footage of this mountain range. I reckon on some of the images this place shows up as a tiny little white dot.
The rewiring job itself was slow, but not overly problematic, it was more the risk of falling off the roof, and then the continual effort required for hours and hours of pure concentration upon the task at hand. It was quite hard to take any breaks in the work or either the contortions required to be up there on the roof.
I find that gardens in general are very relaxing places, and there are a few old gold rush era botanical gardens in the area to enjoy. Oh yeah, it’s difficult to know when to stop adding more plants to this place. The other day I took note of the average distance between mature oak trees, mostly because it’s difficult to move the trees when they’re large. Best to get such stuff done right first time around. Plus I’ll never get to see the trees in their mature form.
But take Chinese Quince trees for example. The lone tree produced a single fruit, and so I was thinking maybe I should get another one of those trees? Plus some loose plans were made to harvest fallen acorns and plant them here.
Do you get inspired to plant new stuff in the space available to you?
Holy carp! Elephant garlic is huge – and a leek, but with characteristics of both leek and garlic and a milder flavour. Hmm. Interesting. Leeks are a bit weedy here, but I find the flavour too strong in the variety we have growing, hmm they might even be ramps? Dunno. They’re pungent, put it that way.
The story on seed co-operation was really interesting, and showed great foresight. Not all seed merchants are of equal quality, and your lot sound very thoughtful in their approach.
Looks like the damage nearer to the epicentre in Myanmar was much worse again. The tower sure did come down quickly and yes, that was an awful day. Any city near to the coast will eventually have serious troubles to deal with, but fill is not good.
🙂 Very much so, the boy who cried wolf syndrome. A shame that, because sometimes there is actually a wolf. Your overnight low is about the same as here tonight, and it was raining last time I took the dogs out. The pooches didn’t seem all that keen, although Ollie pointed out a hugely fat wombat, which he was under strict instructions to leave alone – plus the string attached around the dogs neck helped. The living here is good.
I’ll bet the nice folks making those tea cosies used synthetic yarn. But I do like your upcycling ideas. Mad cash would have been received better, and I do wonder if the folks there could read the disappointment on my face? 🙂 Still, a better gift than the box of handkerchiefs. She was an odd lady that one, but my other grandmother made up for the lack.
Nice to update the recipe notes. Hey, we keep a folder of such handy recipes, separated roughly on meal type. How do you manage all of your kitchen notes?
Went into the big smoke today to have lunch with friends. A lovely catch up, and the burger was good. Gourmet you’d call it, despite the lack of beetroot. It was a more tropical vibe kind of burger, with a pineapple ring (don’t tell the serious foodies about the pineapple addition!) The chat was good too. Got home and it was cold and threatening rain, so ran two loads of firewood through the wood heater. Warmed the house up a bit too much, but still, it’ll cool off as the night goes on – outside is as cold as your part of the world now.
I must say, I’m looking forward to the return of the sad little lost hour. Getting up in the dark is not cool. 🙂
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – And Money Python’s “Life of Brian” was banned in Ireland, Norway, and several British cities. Ireland, I can sort of understand. But Norway? It’s always interesting as to what gets banned, where, and why. Some authors pray their books will get banned. Always a boost to sales. 🙂
I think drones have become pretty cheap, here. As with a lot of tech, prices tumble as they get more common. Just for poops and giggles, I took a look down the rabbit hole. The Store of Walls has them for as little as $50. I suppose if you flew it low, and on your own land, it probably wouldn’t be a problem. But, yeah, yeah. Why risk it.
It’s good your roof has gutters. Call of nature, and all that. 🙂 I’m glad that job is done, too. Every time you take to the skies, I get nervous, for you. Silly I know, but there it is.
There’s some plants I’m tempted to grow, but it’s always a matter of where would I put them? And, due to your mention of such, I’m putting more thought into plant rotation. I’m also thinking about what plants I could grow, inside, to free up more space in the garden. I’ve got four strawberries plants, left over, and may tuck them in some corner of my outside gardens. Just haven’t decided where, yet.
The Elephant Garlic is really interesting to grow. And, tasty. And, decorative. Every year, I usually cut the big pom-pom blooms, off the tops. So the bulbs will get bigger. But I leave 5 to run their full course. I dry them, and put them in a tall vase. Swapping out the one’s from last year.
I bet small growers wouldn’t get that kind of cooperation and advice, from Big Seed Companies, these days.
Our high yesterday was 54F (12.22C). The overnight low was 43F (6.11C). Although the feed from the local weather station, died about 5am. I wonder what that’s all about? Funding cut? The forecast high for today is 54F. Prof. Mass has an explanation as to why the predicted storm was a non-event. Comments were interesting. I must say, even our National Weather Service had a note to keep an eye on the forecast, as it was subject to change. But, the change came so late in the afternoon, I’m sure some people didn’t take note. And, like an oil tanker, making a course change can be a problem. I notice even the Boy Scouts lodge, behind our place had cancelled their usual evening events.
There was no synthetic yarn, 40 years ago. 🙂
I keep recipes in a recipe box. Especially constructed to hold 3×5 inch cards. Search: “Vintage Recipe Boxes” to get an eye full. I’ve had mine for years, and can’t even remember where I picked it up. Free, I’m sure. Mine is made out of sheet metal, and has a blue and white floral design.
A Hawaiian burger! I’ve never had one, but, you can find them on menus, here and there. They sound tasty, to me.
I took around 3 1/2 dozen biscuits, down to the Club. Lemon and Orange. By the end of the evening there were only four left, that I sent home with someone. I didn’t know it was birthday night, for one of the groups. The room was awash with cakes and ice cream. So, a lot of people weren’t there specifically for my birthday, but some were. My friend Scott was there. He doesn’t get out much, due to the sick wife. Good to see him. Lew
Hi Chris,
Finally a chance to drop by. Marty is moved and mostly settled. I finished emptying and cleaning his apartment and turned in the keys last Wednesday. Of course that day I had arranged for a man who had been cleaning the apartment to come one last time for a once over. Before he got there sewer water began to seep into the kitchen and ended up spreading into a hall and bathroom and under appliances. The man, Gordon, did what he could and I reported it to management. Couldn’t believe that happened on the last day there (well yes I could). It had happened several times before.
Of course this is Marty. He had a sore tooth so I took him to his dentist and it appears he may need some rather extensive dental work which will necessitate several drives and not short one. At least he’s moved now. My sister will be back from Florida on Tuesday and I’m hoping she can pick up some of this but the real work is done. He is happy at his new place and shockingly keeping his apartment pretty picked up. He’s also getting physical therapy and is doing the exercises as well as walking the halls with his walker so he’s mostly graduated from the wheelchair.
I just wrote a paragraph about the weather here and hit some button and it disappeared grrrr! I’ll try again.
It’s been a very up and down spring temperature wise. We’ve gotten some rain but not quite enough. It’s still pretty dry and there’s been quite a few grass fires. I think they’ve mostly been controlled burns getting out of control. It’s also been quite windy so I suspect people are burning when it’s too windy. Some of the migrants have returned and outside work has commenced in earnest.
Have cut down my internet time substantially which is a good thing. Even with all the Marty stuff I’ve still been able to get a fair amount of reading done.
Hey, be careful up on that roof.
Margaret
Hi Lewis,
Now if memory recalls correctly, didn’t the lead female character in that Monty Python film eventually get elected to a council in Wales and remove the ban on ‘The Life of Brian’? Nice to be able to wield political power for good works! Why banned in Norway? Sometimes the questions run too deep for us mere mortals to comprehend. You’d think that Latin teachers everywhere would have been cheering on the film? 🙂 But yeah, being banned can attract a lot of attention a book would otherwise never receive.
There’s a lot of variability in price with those flying machines. Down here you can get one from anywhere from $35 upwards. Clearly quality comes into play with these things. I recall that the regulations down here require a license for drones weighing beyond a certain amount. I’m not really sure that the cheap machines would produce watchable video. The utoob clips I watched last night were from rather pricey units.
🙂 Hey, that’s my water supply! Nah, working up on the roof in the sun meant excess water was released as sweat, so no need for call of nature and stuff up there. In fact one day was so hot, maybe last Sunday, that my brain was mildly cooked. Writing last week was hard because of that weird feeling. Looking outside today is like winter. High humidity, cool air, a bit of rain this morning. This is why I rushed to do that work (although took my time because of the risk etc.) The season has changed. And it ain’t just you, vigilance is the word that you heard – that state of mind wears the ol’ brain out.
Exactly, where does one put excess plants? Hard to know really. Sorry to say, but crop rotation is a real thing, and I tried so hard to dodge it, but one must occasionally bow to realities. Hope your strawberries go well and please do keep me updated – those hybrid plants are a total mystery. The Alpine Strawberries are so much easier, but they do not taste as nice.
Has your Elephant garlic set seed with those five you leave? Or do you begin them again from the bulbs?
I’m very much of the same opinion. The sensitive person can only hope that those big companies don’t muck things up too badly. In the meantime all we can but do is select for the best open pollinated varieties and with the magic of pollination processes, occasionally pinch some hybrid vigour into the open pollinated saved seeds. That’s the plan, reality may differ. 😉
The high here today wasn’t far off yours at 17’C / 63’F. It’s suddenly like winter outside today. Wouldn’t have wanted to be up on the roof. Anywhoo, inspected all of the other solar power distribution boxes today and gave them a clean up, and a minor upgrade (added in a couple of 32mm corrugated conduit glands to two of the boxes). Couldn’t find any water ingress and/or damage. That’s it with maintenance for another six to twelve months, although in early June we may add in six temporary solar panels so as to boost winter power production. A job for the future.
By the way, well done, the Editor loved the film trailer with the bloke and penguin.
You’d have thought that your weather forecasting services were essential and had long since been gutted. I hear vague stories with the local mob down under regarding funding. Interestingly, the national youth music broadcaster folks say the same story from time to time. I get the impression that those two services are actually run on the smell of an oily rag. Interestingly down here, news on that front suggests that ‘spensive consultants may find their fees cut. Hmm.
What? Are you serious? … … Oooo, the synthetic materials developed just prior to WWII made parachutes and cheap army ropes possible, a fine use. It’s possible the tea cosies were wool, but there is a good chance that the nice folks may have used some sort of synthetic material. I was too young to know anything about that. Still, wool loomed large over the Australian economy and imagination in those days. There’s an old saying that we used to ride on the back of sheep. Sounds a bit weird when put that way, but sheep as an animal are survivors in risky environments, and they can dig up roots and eat those.
Ook! Better get writing, so late tonight…
Yes, the recipe card box was very much a thing when I was a kid, and people would collect the set. I forget whether the recipe cards came with a weekly magazine, but back in those pre-MMT-enlightenment days plenty of things arrived that way. The old ‘In Search of’ magazines were published like that a long with a television series, and I recall an Encyclopedia purchased that way. The blue and white floral design – with sturdy sheet metal box – is how I sort of recall the tidy boxes. Things were better made in those days so as to last the test of time, and the gunk in a kitchen.
Pineapple in a burger is a wise food investment, hey, much like chucking in a chunk of beetroot. 🙂
Happy birthday to the Club. 🙂 Sounds like a fun evening, and having only four biscuits left – when there are plenty of other offerings – is the best review a chef could ever receive. Good to hear that Scott was able to drop by given his personal circumstances. Hope the chat was excellent.
Took a decidedly strong strike against the rats today. One can’t muck around with these twitchy nosed rodents. Anyway, they may be smarter than I, and that gives the sensitive person pause for thought. Oh my, it’s so late, I’ve gotta bounce dude, speak tomorrow! 🙂
Cheers
Chris
Hi Margaret,
It’s 9pm and so late that I’m unable to reply in any meaningful and /or coherent sense this evening. Will chat tomorrow instead, but until then, better get writing!
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – I don’t know the minutia of the back story of the banning of “The Life of Brian.” I wonder what that lot did with the film “Dogma?” 🙂 A most excellent film. Some people are just humorless.
And, from the Wonderful World of Australian paleontology.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/28/science/fossilized-fish-16-million-meal-australia
Sounds like they’re a bit like the grunion runs, down in California, or, our smelt runs, up here in the Pacific Northwest. But I want to know how did they taste? Like chicken? 🙂
I suppose picture quality varies a lot, with drones. Kind of like security cameras. Some of the footage from those is so bad, it’s laughable.
I suppose those puffy Elephant Garlic heads are seeds. Maybe. They seem to be mostly cultivated from the bulb. Or, actually, when I’ve harvested the bulbs, there’s all these little bulb-lets. Which is probably why they pop up in odd places. The bulb-lets easily fall off. I took a glance down the rabbit hole, and see there are many articles on the cultivation of Elephant Garlic. That whole family of plats (garlic, onions, etc.) CAN be grown from seed, but, it sounds like a pretty finicky process. Planting from the cloves is so much easier.
Weather. Well, yesterday was warmer than the overnight low. And the overnight low was cooler than today’s high will be. Yup. Our local weather station is still down. Nothing in the newspaper. Nothing at the airport web site. They do have a face plant page, but no-one has posted to it since 2022. I did see a stray forecast that stated that our high today will be 62F. It’s a mystery.
I mentioned “Penguin Lessons” to a guy at the Club. He was checking it out on his dumb phone and said it’s a long movie. One hour and 50 minutes. I also saw a trailer for another film, that looks interesting. “The Death of a Unicorn.” Described as a comedy / horror film.
Ah, synthetics. As I’m sure you know, a lot of those are derived from oil. Sheep will make a comeback. 🙂
The Rat Wars continue. We’ll expect dispatches from the front. Lew
Hello Chris,
Thanks for a good week’s worth of reading.
Regarding the Sandhamn Scandinoir adventures, it is quite a famous place here. It is an hour or so with ferry outside Stockholm in the Baltic archipelago. And expensive.
I was once on the island of Sandhamn with a friend who had married into a rich family with a house there, of which he was very proud. He pointed out all the CEOs’ houses and ministers’. (They seemed like jerks to me, but I didn’t stay long enough to have my prejudice shattered.)
I think there is no need to murder, to have quite some drama in those circumstances. Send my greetings to Sandra.
Regarding the Shane zero-claim farming, the SubPar blogging platform is indeed quite annoying. I could read at least some articles without paying, but maybe it is because I follow someone else on that platform. Unclear behaviour.
The Dr. Shane podcast is available for free here: https://rss.com/podcasts/zeroinputagriculture/
I suspect that the word “zero” is inserted as a kind of click-bait, but nevertheless he has interesting experiments with high-labour/low-material input growing. One of the most interesting of his claims is that staple crops are the only thing worth growing. “Salad vegetables” are neither necessary, nor worth the effort. (If I remember his claim correctly.) On the other hand, who decides what is a “staple crop”?
We are getting some bone-meal and boron and peat-free soil mix next week to add to our soild. Maybe I should call our growing method “Somewhere-in-the-middle-input Agriculture”? What do you think about that catchy phrase?
We are closing down the tree shop for the season next week, and we only have some 20-30 trees left from last years’ growth. The new trees and the ones we graft now in April and May (total maybe 700) will be available when we open the shop again in November. It has been a good season.
Peace,
Göran