On Friday we went to a small farm expo. It’s held in a distant town which is about an hours drive north and east of here. It sure was dry in that part of the country, and warmer, but whatever. The expo is a true highlight of the year. The exhibitors are pitched at small holders and hobby farmers. That’d be us.
We must have walked around for six hours that day. Watched some demonstrations. Bought some tools. Drooled over all manner of machinery. Sandra bought some handmade sheepskin boots with outdoor soles. Consumed a most excellent charcoal grilled chilli cheese kransky hot dog with extra onion, cheese and American mustard. Yum! We even sat in on a lecture upon the mysterious subject of working dog training. And because we’re in Australia, those working dogs just happened to be, Kelpies (just like the dogs here, Dame Plum and Ruby, except better). There was even a later demonstration of the dogs and handlers abilities.
My expectations of the kelpies here aren’t that high, they’re pets. All the dogs here need do is come when called, and follow basic instructions. It’s not hard. Both dogs have been at dog obedience school for the past year, and Sandra is learning that the canines respond best to calm and assertive leadership. Love is simply not enough to get dogs to do what you want. Kelpies are probably like a whole lot of other dog breeds, they need boundaries, limits and tasks to achieve. Certainly they’re the most challenging dog we’ve ever come across – and there are two of them in the household.
Sometimes love does work with dogs, and we used that technique to get the canines used to the car. What kind of dog doesn’t enjoy travelling in a vehicle? I did say that they were challenging. Anyway, to make the car trip fun for them, I sat them on my lap and let them hang their heads of the window. They liked that, although it is hardly an ideal long term solution.
Almost forgot to mention, during the expo we bought a new battery powered tool. It’s a leaf blower. The funny thing about that machine, is that we don’t use it for blowing leaves – leaf rakes are quieter and more effective. No, the machine is used for cleaning dust and dirt off all manner of things. Being on dirt road and having a wood heater, dust is always an issue, so a duster with authority is a very useful tool. We do already have a very powerful mains electric blower. Such a great way to clean up machines after use. Sometimes the blower has a mind of its own and can knock Sandra’s hat off her head if she’s not in charge of the trigger switch – otherwise I’m in grave danger of having the favour returned. Anyway, that machine has an electrical cord, and the little battery one doesn’t. Winning!
Back to the expo. When we paid for the blower, there was some sort of confusion about the number of batteries included with the kit. The nice bloke helping us sought clarification from the boss lady. Boss looked stressed. Surprisingly she snapped at the nice blokes question. Hmm. Anyway, so as went to the cash register, the issue remained clouded in mystery. Confusion continued. However, the now miffed bloke, chucked in another battery, as you do. I have nothing but respect for such decisions! It’s not hard to be polite and courteous to reasonable work related questions involving expensive stock items, although some people may feel challenged at any moment.
It was good to have an extra battery, on top of the already extra battery, and a dude knows when it’s time to lodge a note of disagreement, and when it’s time to shut up and merely smile at one’s sudden good fortune.
The incident started the old brain working. The dogs occasionally disappoint, they are dogs after all. But generally I don’t yell at them, unless they’re at a distance and the command needs to be projected. Even then though, anger is never expressed. It may be felt internally, sure, but I’d prefer if the canines would trust me, even if they’d done the wrong thing. There ain’t nothing sadder than a pooch which is fearful of its owner.
Long ago when working in the big end of town, managing teams was non optional. I don’t recall ever yelling at staff. Calm leadership is alluring, people who can barely control their emotional states are a major turn off.
Maybe this desire for calm is just me though. My mother was a crazy person, she’d run hot then cold, but when she was in a mood, the lady was frightful. As a very young child I recall helping clean out a cabinet. Mum was drunk as a skunk. Stuff was being discarded more or less randomly. I was handed my older sisters baby photos and told to throw them out. Knowing what they were, I objected, and that was when I had the living daylights stomped out of me. My older sister was there too, smirking away, although she didn’t know what was in my hands. Chucked them out too, the fight had been kicked out of me, and so I took my opportunity for revenge. It’s not a pretty story.
I was thinking about that moment as the bloke loaded the extra battery into the box. It’s nice to have an extra, extra battery. They’d have eventually known about the loss too, that’s what inventory systems are for, although nobody would ever comprehend how it came to be.
As a postscript, at the age of 14 I took myself to the local Dojo to learn how to defend myself. The Sensei there just happened to be one of the greatest martial artists this country has ever produced. I was honest about the situation, and bypassed the waiting queue for training (which I’d not even realised existed). He was a formidable bloke, but with a great calmness about him which exuded competence. In many ways in life I’ve been both unlucky and lucky in life, but all through the rough and tumble, I’ve learned it’s best to express an exterior of calm.
We did a couple of hours digging on the site for the two new water tanks.
The rototiller combined with the electric jackhammer are making serious inroads on the site. We’ve even taken the opportunity to sort out both the width and level on the path which leads to where the new water tanks will eventually be placed.
We’ve dug up an extraordinary amount of rocks there, some of which are quite surprisingly large. All of the smaller rocks were sent back up hill and added to a steel rock gabion cage.
The soil is loaded into the large yellow power wheelbarrow, which is then driven downhill. It’s slow work, but the excavated soil is being carefully placed behind the rock wall on the long line of water tanks sitting below the machinery shed.
That long rock wall in the above photo can still take another day or two worth of excavated soil.
Saturday morning the outside temperature was 4’C / 40’F, so it really feels here that winter is just around the corner. We made the decision to remove all of the tomato vines from the greenhouse. The winter crop needs some time to become established before the really cold weather arrives and throttles any plant growth. That would be around the winter solstice and for a while afterwards.
The tomato vines were chucked out onto the paddock.
The ride on mower was used to mulch all of the vines up. Over the next week or so, the soil critters will do the rest of the job.
Anyone who has used raised garden beds soon learns that the soil level decreases as the stuff compacts and gets converted into plants. Maybe other people have a magic formula to avoiding refilling raised beds, but I’m more old school and simply add in more compost (with additions like coffee grounds + agricultural lime + coffee grounds + gypsum) with the change of each crop. I purchased a trailer load of compost.
About a third of the trailer load ended up in the greenhouse raised garden beds. It’s looking super neat in there, although it smells like ten day old dead roast lamb. It’s a heady aroma which could make the sensitive person revisit their lunch. To me it smells like soil fertility with goodly amounts of phosphate (always in short supply)!
This weeks video is on that work:
And now that the weather is cooling, it’s a great time to move trees. We had about six oak trees growing in very difficult locations. We were unable to provide them with water during hot and dry summer spells. Once the trees are established, they won’t need any extra water, but right now, they’re small and require a lot of extra assistance.
It’s hard and infertile soil down there in that part of the garden near to the forest edge. Historically, loggers took the best of the soil in the form of saw logs, whilst the remainder washed downhill. So each of the six oak trees received a very heavy feed of the compost mixture with mineral additives.
All of the relocated trees were watered, and then caged against deer, rabbit and wallaby damage. Over the next month, the plants will receive regular watering.
I like to repair and maintain the various tools and machines we use. Sometimes though, a machine was never intended to be repaired. It was a surprise to discover the other day that a button battery had been spot welded to the contacts in a small device I was attempting to repair. That’s a new one, never seen that before.
The other night a Powerful Owl was lurking in the nearby forest. Those owls are Kuato, the fat possum’s nemesis. Kuato has been very naughty of late and has even begun to consume the skin off Meyer Lemons. I have never previously seen any critter which can eat a lemon. It’s a big effort and I may have agreed with the owls to do a contract hit on the big marsupial.
The King Parrots have been making inroads in the very unripe kiwifruit harvest. Those fruit are still at least two months and a decent frost away from being ripe.
Being a very attractive bird does in no way reduce my displeasure at this unexpected turn of events.
Onto the flowers:
The temperature outside now at about 9am is 9’C (48’F). So far for last year there has been 148.6mm (5.9 inches) which is up from last weeks total of 142.0mm (5.6 inches)
Comments
50 responses to “Battery Tax”
Yo, Chris – The expo sounds like a lot of fun. An interesting and learning experience, presented in such a way as to go down quit easily. Never mind, all the good tucker. Why we eat pretty healthy, 364 days (or so), a year. For the occasional guilt free indulgence.
It’s good your kelpies are fairly different, from one another. At least, they’re not forming alliances, and ganging up on you. Not that you’ve mentioned. Very often. 🙂
H loves to go for a ride in the truck. “Wanna go for a ride?” and she’s rushing me to the door. I’m glad she is a small dog. She also likes to ride in my lap. So much so, that I have to be firm with her, and tell her to “sit” while I get myself buckled up and situated. She wants in my lap NOW!
I do not understand people, who treat, or even speak to their dogs, meanly. I may occasionally think things, but never say them. “What do you think!” is often fallowed by the thought, “Do you think?,” but never uttered aloud. When she recently had her bout of some sort of bug, and was unloading on the bathroom floor, she never heard a discouraging word, from me. I was just thankful it was on the lino. I just stoically cleaned up, and got on with my day.
Wars have been fought over leaf blowers. 🙂 But not a high body count, as far as I’ve heard. Some places have banned them.
I also try and keep drama, out of my life. Sometimes, even when I’m watching a DVD, if things get to heated, well, that’s what the fast forward button is for. I steer clear of those who thrive on drama.
The site of the new water tanks is coming along. What a job! Best taken in small chunks. Other tasks with different thoughts and using different muscles, for a break. “Variety is the spice of life…” English poet, Cowper, 18th century. From a poem, titled, “The Task.” I thought perhaps I could quote it, but it runs to six books …
Yes, one must occasionally be ruthless, in the garden or greenhouse. Some plants do lend themselves to a little relocating. It’s nothing like juggling oak trees around, but I occasionally run across a pansy and am loath to uproot it and toss it in the weed bucket. Luckily, they’re very forgiving. Dig a little hole in an out of the way spot, pop them in, and they seem to be pretty happy.
Maybe Kuato, the possum is making lemon biscuits? He sure seemed to need a lot of lemon zest. Yes, maybe you’ll have to have a chat with the owl. But be very clear on what the owl expects in return. Enforcers often demand onerous returns on their favors. A couple of fairy tales, come to mind.
The video was very good. I think it got across the idea (if one were paying attention) that not only do gardeners need to be ruthless, but also have to think ahead.
The parrots are a problem. And, apparently, becoming more so. Can you throw a bit of bird netting, over at least a section of the kiwi? So you at least get some. Here, bird netting is very cheap. And I’ve been using the same piece, for a number of years.
Geraniums are so reliable. And come in so many multifaceted forms, and colors. Lew
moving trees- Just yesterday, I moved two Korean pines. I had frankly picked poor place initially, and they were still only a half meter tall, while their brethren were up as tall as me. They just didn’t have enough sun. Hopefully, they will now take off.
Batteries- They are expensive! My old, original cordless drill has(had) a ni-cad battery, which had died. I had upgraded to the higher voltage, lithium battery style. The drill itself is still fine, so went to see if I could get a new battery. Nope, don’t make them anymore. All aboard the tech obsolescence treadmill!
But, they do make an adapter, that goes between the drilll and a new lithium. I’ll pick it up today and hope it works like they say it does.
We do live in a throw away society, but still, you would think the gang that spot welded the battery would expect owners to discover the ruse and NEVER buy from them again. Weird business model, but it must work. For now…………
Working dogs- mind boggling what they are capable of. We went to a similar event a few years ago, and saw a demonstration. I know I’m not cut out to attain that level of mastery, but then, we don’t keep sheep, so it’s all good.
When it’s gotten a bit out of hand……..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qniwI2hNhDs
Hi Lewis,
Kelpie’s and Kransky’s, two of the finer things in life, if I may posit an opinion here. Mind you, I’ve owned a sausage dog years ago which sort of blends the two concepts together don’t you reckon? To add to the confusion, that dog had been interbred with a Corgi, and so was technically known as a Dorgi. Yes, all true. And in a really weird twist to the story, the breed originated as an error in the Queen’s kennels. Lovely dog, just a tad too grumpy for my tastes. Years ago, the now deceased Sir Poopy encountered two local Corgi’s tied up on leads. The very angry dogs wanted nothing more than to attack the wily Swedish Lapphund, but he was onto their business. The distance the two obstreperous dogs could reach was calculated with exacting precision, and then he casually strolled by them just out of reach of their baying and general gnashing of teeth. That was a suave move on the part of the big furry dog. The other dogs looked like idiots. And he was well pleased with himself.
Exactly. We both eat like rabbits most of the time, so the occasional indulgence is no big deal, except maybe to those self flagellating puritans… A tiresome bunch.
It’s an interesting point you raise there, and yup the Kelpies have very different personalities and temperaments. You’ll note that only one of them is titled, the other, not so much. The better behaved one has more freedoms by default. It’s not a complex story to get across to a dog, whom as you’d be aware are masters of the gentle art of emotional manipulation. I see what you mean, but they look too competitive with each other to work together towards that end of pulling the wool over my eyes. It’d be a problem if they did! Double trouble? Imagine if H had a sibling with you?
H of course is a lady of the finest breeding who’d enjoy car travel. And that sounds delightful. 🙂
Man, truly, I’ve heard people speak to other people in the most appalling of ways. If I recall correctly, Conan had something apt to say about that. Hmm, let’s see if I can find the quote… … Ah yes, it was from the 1933 story ‘Tower of the Elephant’. Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing. I’ve remarked to such people the hard question as to whether they’d speak to a dog like that? Always they look embarrassed at being called out. Doesn’t stop them though.
It was pretty decent of H to sick up on the lino. Carpet is a lot harder to clean. Thus why we only have a few rugs on the timber floor.
🙂 Leaf blowers are super noisy machines when they’re powered by two stroke engines having the guts revved out of them. I hear you about that, and recall the pain they regularly put you through (and me no less). The other day at the general store there was a guy across the road and up the street using one of those machines and the volume was unpleasant at that distance – screaming kids have nothing on those machines. The small battery ones are super quiet, but the battery doesn’t last long. People are thoughtless when it comes to using technology.
I agree, movies with lots of anger are best avoided. Yup. Do I need to subject my mind to this dross? No. Hey, I’ve noticed that too, and some people I see into their souls that the drama makes them feel alive. Avoid.
Thanks and the excavation work is interesting, and enjoyable work in small chunks. At the expo the machine we were looking at was a large battery powered digger machine, the demo price seemed below cost to both of us, probably due to err, trade wars. Looking at the worldwide economic ructions today, and probably tomorrow etc. (which I have no direct exposure too, in case you were concerned) we decided to abandon the idea and keep the mad cash reserves. I smell trouble ahead. It’s in the wind you know, and it wasn’t dog flatulence either, although it might have been what caused the stink! I’m sure you have some thoughts on such recent matters?
A six book poem kind of makes my mind float away to other issues, sorry, it’s a personal failing. 😉 The quote is awesome though, and thanks for mentioning it.
Yeah exactly with relocating plants. As we gain experience in the garden, the eye and mind develop a better picture of what looks right. Most plants can survive a bit of a move.
Well at least Kuato doesn’t have to worry about his daily Vitamin C intake. He’s probably good for that, and I need to cogitate a bit on what you said about the owls demands. They didn’t seem onerous, but maybe the fine print needs a second closer reading. Many of those fairy tales didn’t end well… Ook!
Good pickup with the video. 🙂 Of course as a gardener yourself, you’d know such things. If all you knew about food was the supermarket, well, that’s all you’d know – and an empty shelf would be a horror story.
The decision was made long ago not to use bird netting, and at this stage I see no reason to revise it. The birds and all the other wildlife live here too, and I have to take them into account. It’s like there are two rabbits I know about down below in the paddock. They live on the neighbours forested lot. Do I shoot the rabbits now and deprive the foxes of an easy feed in the depths of winter, only to encounter more rabbits next year when there are no foxes? I really don’t know the answer to this. The deer on the other hand was a no-brainer and other neighbours sorted that out about two weeks before I could.
Read a lot of stories about Birmingham rats (a great name for a band don’t you reckon?), and I’ve no doubt they’re there, but couldn’t see any photos of the rodents, just a lot of talk. A missed photo opportunity. I’ve got no garbage service here, and it makes me wonder how long it’ll be before one of those rubbish piles goes up in flames in that city? People chuck the weirdest items into bins, and some those aren’t necessarily chemically stable. That city is clearly broke – do they give extra funds to people who once worked there, or pay the people who are currently working there? I doubt you expect a bonus one off payment from your former employers? And what are the executive people in charge of that mess being paid?
Displays connect people on the street with the stuff on offer inside the bricks and mortar store. Branding talks to a different level, the franchise holder. Ain’t the same market.
Your Club does sound like that sort of a space. The local general store is a little bit like that. I tell you what though, such public spaces are rare. A bit of a shame that, I’ve seen different cultures which value and promote such public spaces.
😉 Everything in the world of plants begins with boron. Well done you.
I listen to you as well and have learned much about the ancient world which would otherwise have been obscured to my knowledge. People aren’t all that different since those days.
Good to read that you both dodged the rain. It rained here a little bit overnight and then was cloudy and cold all day, with the occasional spot of drizzle. A good day to do paid work. Sounds like you did some good stuff in the garden. The work picks up at this time of year for you.
I recall you mentioning the German chamomile, and if memory serves correctly, you used to dry the flowers years ago? Maybe?
Hmm. Yes, the old timers used to say: repair, re-use and only then re-cycle. Don’t we have it all backwards around in these enlightened days? On that note, I may have discovered a battery to solder into that now defunct machine. I put one on order, and we’ll see how it goes. It can’t get any worse than not working, maybe…
The accent used near to where ‘Outflow’ was written is quite strong, and if they’re fast talkers, subtitles… You’ve intrigued me about the book.
A very wise strategy to know a little something about many things. One must occasionally sing for their supper conversation wise. Puts you in good stead that knowledge.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Steve,
That’s exactly what happened with the six oak trees – not enough sun, and so the growth was stunted. They’ll appreciate being moved to a sunnier location your Korean Pines – a species which I’d never heard of. Can’t believe they produce edible pine nuts. Pine is usually super fast growing, so yeah, I’d move them as well if they weren’t growing fast.
For your interest, pine nuts here are usually derived from the Stone Pine tree, which arrived with Italian migrants and grows really well in the drier parts of this corner of the continent.
🙂 The ni-cad batteries were one of the earliest small rechargeable cells, and super toxic. No doubts we’ll learn stuff about the lithium batteries too as time goes on. You know it maybe possible to crack the case on the old battery and replace the cells with 18650 lithium cells to approximately the same-ish voltage, but probably not worth the effort. The adapter is a much better idea. Did it work out OK?
But yeah, tech obsolescence is a right pain and so very wasteful. The old timers used to say: repair, re-use and only then re-cycle. Most arrangements fixate on the third option because it pushes more product don’t you reckon?
And don’t you like how all the different brand battery tools have different connectors? Did it really need to be that way.
Had a look around at how to fix up that spot welded button battery, and may have formulated a cunning plan. Think of it like an ikea hack! 🙂 We’ll see though. Put the replacement battery on order.
As a general observation, the lithium batteries are actually a better chemistry for small power equipment than compared to say, lead acid batteries (or ni-cad, or Ni-MH etc.) I’d hate to think how hard they are to manufacture though. Oh well. If I may convey some information – the trick with that chemistry is not to over charge them. Some battery charging methods used unregulated power supplies, and I see that – and ook! The small lithium batteries have cobalt in them which makes thermal runaway a bit of a possibility if over charged. The bigger house batteries here don’t have cobalt in them, but trust me, there are a lot of multiple fail safes in place, just in case. 🙂
Interestingly, the brand for that type of device with the button battery (which was a digital inductive tachometer for small engines) is no longer made. Hmm. As I mentioned, I’ll try and hack an alternative connection into the device. We’ll see.
Thanks for the video. What a truly fine effort. Man, that’s taking things to 11 on the dial for sure. As an interesting side story, the Border collies used in the video are the competitors down here to Kelpies (but only in cooler southern climates). Rumour has it, that Border Collies respond better to instructions than Kelpies, but require constant oversight. The dog wrangler at the show put it bluntly: “They can’t think for themselves!” Everyone so loves a candid opinion…
Cheers
Chris
Hi Chris,
Speaking of moving plants, I have some blueberry shrubs that are doing it tough in the shade of apple trees. This is the time of year to move them to a sunny location. Must put that on the to-do list!
We received 3.5 inches of rain on the 4th – not quite a full month’s worth, but close. Altogether, from the 2nd through the 5th, we received a total of 5.6 inches of rain, which is well over the average rainfall for the month of April. For comparison, the heaviest rains from this storm were more than twice as much as we received – a few of them close to three times as much.
While the rain is done, the flooding isn’t. Over the next week or two there will be massive river flooding in the areas where it rained. Draw a line on the map of Missouri from St. Louis to the southwest corner; there is ongoing flooding almost everywhere to the south of that line.
Meanwhile, it was sunny and 33F this morning. Tomorrow morning will be colder, hopefully only a light freeze. But since the apple and pawpaw trees are blooming, I could lose those crops. At least the persimmon trees aren’t blooming yet. And I will return to garden cleanup and preparation to begin vegetable planting later this month.
Glad you enjoyed the farm expo! That ice cream looks delicious!
Claire
Yo, Chris – It’s said that dogs take on the characteristics of their owners. Your grumpy dog, may have had a grumpy royal, somewhere in his lineage. 🙂
I can’t tell you what I had for dinner, last night. Oh, I can tell you, but don’t know what to call it. Night before last, I had rice with some chopped up fried eggs, and a lot of different vegetables. Too much to eat, so some was put aside. Last night, I added some eggs and rolled oats, and fried it up into patties. Splashed on a bit of cider vinegar. Smothered them in most of a can of diced tomatoes with green chilis. A splash of hot sauce. Swiss cheese and into the nuker until melted. Dollops of plain yoghurt, on top. I don’t know what it was, but it sure was tasty! 🙂
If H had a sibling, it would probably be her evil twin. She’s just the right size, that her chin fits in the crook of my elbow, as I grip the steering wheel. She sits at her ease, and watches the world go by. It’s a dog’s life. 🙂
At least a screaming kid clears the sinuses. Leaf blowers, not so much. Probably too much base.
Oh, I have thoughts on the current situation. But, mostly, keep them to myself. I’d rather not think less of other people. I did see this, today. An Australian company is mentioned.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/fewer-choices-higher-prices-supply-110000581.html
I actually watched some footage, of a reporter traveling around with a rat catcher, in Birmingham. I was rather disappointed. No giant rats, were seen. Although it was in broad daylight, and rats are nocturnal creatures.
I don’t see too many televised ads, but quit a few years ago, I noticed a trend. There would be an ad, and I had no idea what product or service was on offer. I think that’s the difference between branding and advertising.
I thought it all begins with the soil. 🙂
Our high yesterday was 54F (12.22C). The overnight low was 46F (7.77C). Forecast high for today is 56F. Our weather can turn on a dime. When I took H for her late night walk, I checked out the window, and it was bucketing down. By the time I got my shoes on, and got her into her coat, we went out, and not a drop was falling out of the sky. Lucky us! Rain was heavy, at times, last night. And into this morning.
Yes, I dry the chamomile blossoms, for tea. I just put them on a plate, and leave them for a few days to dry. Then I empty out whatever is left in the canister, from last year, put the new stuff in, and put the last year’s on top. Waste not, want not. 🙂
I watched a pretty good movie, last night. “A Complete Unknown.” About Bob Dylan’s life, from the time he got to New York City, to about five years later. I wasn’t a real Dylan fan, but some of my high school buddies, were. I was more Simon and Garfunkel. 🙂 It was a long movie, about two hours. I think because, unlike most music bios, they played a lot more of the music. Well worth a look, if you’re interested in Dylan, or folk music, at all. I was surprised that it was nominated for 8 Academy Awards, but won none. Plenty of other prizes, though. I watched the extras, the making of. They really put a lot of effort, into that movie, over a long period of time. I always find the set dressing stuff, interesting. They had to hunt up old microphones and sound boards, for the recording studio scenes. One actress commented on how when she showed up for a street scene, the set dressers were dumping old tin cans, bottles and newspapers, from the period, into the gutters. Even the street trash, was authentic. :-). Lew
@ Lew,
That Meal Without a Name sounds good. Very good, even, in both the original and leftover incarnations. If I fixed something like that for the Princess, she would call it DJ’s Glop or something worse. Perhaps you could call it Lew’s Luscious Vegetable Surprise. Add it to some of your other creations into a book entitled Chehalis Regional Cookery or something.
DJSpo
Hi, Chris!
Now, which thing – in a 6-hour day of many things – did you do to earn the ice cream come? I suspect it had to do with scoring the extra battery, which is a real prize. I told you about my son buying all those Milwaukee tools. He also (a lot of them came with 2 batteries) bought many extra ones. It’s really worth while having those extra ones.
I am assuming that is Plum in the car, even though her ears look rather flopped, or at least skewed sideways because of riding-in-a-car stress. She looks like a big baby. Speaking of babies . . . My seed starting set up is in the dining room. I keep buckets of soil in there for potting up the seedlings. Did I think to cover them up?, But, no – and Mr. Baby decided that they would be a convenient place to pee. Mr. Baby is BIG and these are not large buckets. I don’t see how he managed, but he was caught in the act. And then a mouse got in the house and hid in the bathroom. Mr. Baby was closed up in the bathroom with the mouse and all he did was whine to come out. I think that is because he hates to be closed in and that bathroom was where his oxygen tank was set up when he was so deathly ill. Bad memories. Anyway, he caught the mouse the next day.
You are so wise about the “calm leadership”. It makes all the difference. Yelling is actually a first step towards violence and that scares most people and they don’t even listen to what is being said, which accomplishes nothing. Calmness engenders trust. One thing that adds to calmness, as we have discussed, is slow, deep breathing through the nose.
In your video, the greenhouse soil looks good enough to eat. We also have to add soil to our raised beds; I do so in late winter or early spring. All of our beds are raised because the garden is on a steep hillside. Isn’t that how yours are, except for the new area with the potatoes? Sometimes it’s hard to know when to cull plants.
How strange to find a welded button battery. A mistake, do you think?
I wonder what the attraction is for Kuato in lemon peels? Certainly, that is not how he got fat. It won’t be long before the varmints here start wreaking havoc on our new crops. I have the rat trap sitting near me right now, but I haven’t put it out yet as it turned very cold, to be below or near freezing for a couple of nights, and we finally had a good rain. So, I don’t want to put even a rat out of his house and send him far away till it warms up in a bit. Last week you wondered “how is an African Pouched Rat not a marsupial?” Perhaps that depends on what he keeps in his pouch?
My one bitty succulent has never bloomed, but he is very faithful, having lived, and grown, for 11 years in a window without much sun. Yes, I could move him, but he is in the room where I spend the most time – the kitchen – and he is a very, very special plant so I’m glad to see so much of him. Geraniums are so great. My perennial ones outside are up already and blooming. I have looked in several stores, but there are not any annual ones available yet. Usually I overwinter some. So – thanks for the flowers!
Pam
Chris,
Dad was good at maintaining things until he got pretty old. He kept scrounging parts from somewhere to keep an old electric clothes drier cobbled together and working, for example. But he absolutely refused to climb the trees for pruning or harvesting apples or cherries. Nope, no climbing trees for him. That was my job.
Oh, the finger has levelled off at about 85% of original feeling, although it is very functional. I have to do a lot of massage of the scar tissue from the surgery. This helps the feeling a lot. Using that hand to form chords on the banjo would probably be good therapy for that finger too. Unfortunately, that same wrist incurred ligament damage twice. And now the fingers are suffering from “aging out”. My dad’s brother had the same thing happen when he was precisely this age, and he had to cease playing mandolin. The fingers just can’t do the chord work any longer. Such is how life works sometimes.
You drooled over the machinery at the farm expo. I would’ve drooled over the food. Ditto the Princess. Oh, and the kelpie/sheep demonstrations. We would’ve both enjoyed watching that.
Spokane has a day of Highland Games each August. There is a sheep herding demonstration. One year, one of the sheep got away from the dogs. The dog chased that sheep all over the grounds, both sheep and dog vaulting over a table at one point. That was very entertaining. 🙂 I had a close-up view of that, too. It was my table.
I’ve also found that love works best with dogs. Calm assertive leadership is also a form of love. The yelling and abuse? Counterproductive and unnecessary. Heck, Dame Avalanche gets into a mood sometimes where she is very needy. Naturally, that means she gets underfoot and scared. Calm reassurance snaps her out of it every time, although it might take a few minutes. Any raised voice or anger would compound the situation.
On our walk yesterday, someone was using an electric leaf blower. It was just as loud as the petrol powered blowers. Like you, I’ve found the leaf rakes to do a better and faster job while also providing good exercise. Oh, the neighbor was using the leaf blower to blow dust and stray grass clippings into the street after mowing the lawn. I grew up using a broom for that, adding whatever I swept up to the garden.
Oh, your need for calm probably was hard wired into you. I’ve always needed things calm. It’s part of how my brain is wired.
In your days of peak dirt and peak rocks, I’m glad you’re finding both in doing one project to create another level area. Dirt would be expected, but the rocks you’re finding are a bonus. Yes!
Thanks for the photo of the button battery. How wrong is that?
I’m rooting for Powerful Owl. Kuato is getting too destructive. Kuato’s diet is getting strange, it seems. Maybe you could retrain the possum to eat the parts of the kiwi fruit that the parrots don’t eat? Or, ummm, maybe that would be a nightmare team, Kuato and the parrots versus Chris. Hmmmm, you would be saying “Ugg” a lot if they teamed up.
The Princess got a good look at those tiny white flowers the other day. Her thoughts? They gotta go. So I sprayed them with vinegar. Hopefully that will eradicate them.
The neighbor rebuilt the demonic Easter skeleton over the weekend. Apparently he did something to the base to keep the thing from blowing over, as it has been windy today and Skeletor Still Stands! Ugg.
DJSpo
Chris,
Breaking news. Wind gusts hit 47 mph a few minutes ago. Skeletor the Easter Demon fell down again, lost its head again in a neighboring yard. The view out the front window has improved.
DJSpo
Hi Pam,
Ha! The ice cream clearly was for all the good works not mentioned elsewhere, and that’s my story and I’m sticking to it without revealing any details whatsoever. Kind of safer to do so, don’t you reckon? 😉 The little chunk of chocolate sticking in the side of the ice cream was a highlight. Are you sitting down… … Wait for it… … It cost $10!
Blessed are those with multiple and lots of extra interchangeable batteries for hand tools. The Big J was heard to say that on the Mount of Olives, although clerics over the long ages have sought to comprehend the deeper hidden meaning, and have failed for obvious reasons. At least when your son faces the most awful situation of a flat battery in the middle of a job (which is always the case), he can reach for one of those many spares and get back to the work at hand. And I’d do no differently, for the same reasons, but would also quietly enjoy the break.
Poor Dame Plum, that photo was taken before the car door was closed. Pam, she has oppressed Kelpie face number five on – now you know what it looks like. Once the window was lowered and the vehicle was moving, she switched to happy whilst drooly face number two. It’s complicated…
Poor Mr Baby, and well, to his mind the soil wasn’t arranged for seed raising, no, it was the world’s most convenient kitty litter tray, obviously. Cats… And yeah, cats can get pretty ill, and hope he’s over the worst of it. Had a kitten once turn up when living in the big smoke out of the blue who was suffering from cat flu. Only a few weeks old. Not good, and seriously inconvenient timing. Anyway, I looked at the kitten and said to him: “If you walk in this gate, the place is yours”, and he did just that. Spent two weeks at the vet recovering, and only lived to the age of 10, which is really young for a cat. He died of a broken heart though. The boss dog had taken the kitten under her wing (or is it paw?), and they both passed away within days of each other. Some months can be harder than others.
What happened to Mr Baby?
🙂 All very true. There’s something quite wrong about training people to express themselves via someone else’s emotional state. It’s quite difficult to really know who’s thoughts it is that you’re even thinking. If you do work all that out, please do let me know? It takes quite a lot of skill to remain calm during a crisis, and that hints at underlying useful wisdom, which if I may be honest, isn’t really valued much in our culture.
Yes, all of the land here is ultimately subject to a sloping gradient. I don’t reckon that there is any way around the necessity to add soil back into raised garden beds, but then the elevated soil stays warmer and so is more productive than traditional garden rows. Heat only speeds up the decomposition issue though. Late winter and early spring is a great time to add soil into those beds. Having a winter crop, we have to add at this time of year too. It feels right though at your time of year to add the extra soil, doesn’t it?
The spot welded battery is a major nuisance, but I have a cunning plan.
Nothing has ever eaten citrus before, until now, so I’m in the learning phase. Well done with the good rain, and I was wondering if that big storm hit your area. 🙂 Happy days for decent soil mositure! Have you located the entrances to the rat nests? That’s what I usually look for.
🙂 A lovely story, and may both you and your special succulent thrive for another decade or three to come. What do you mean annual geraniums? This is an entirely new concept to me.
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
Hope the super strong wind gust wasn’t powerful enough to lift a Husky into the air? We’re not in Spokane any more Dame Avalanche! 🙂 Jokes aside, such strong wind gusts would make me mildly nervous. Has the power stayed connected and trees remained upright? Skeletor has done something naughty in a past life. We don’t know what it is, we just know. Fate has decreed that the head shall nay remain connected to the body. You read it here first!
Did you know that being able to either track down and/or adapt spare parts to repair old machines is a very serious skill. It’s no small feat that. I don’t really talk about this subject much, but it is one of the reasons many of the machines here share common components, and if not that, then common arrangements.
Dude, nowadays we have these things called extendible pruning saws, although using the metal machines near to a power line is very risky. Mind you, so is sending up a young DJ to climb into the poorly sited trees on a pruning errand. It’s not right.
Yup, bending with the wind is easier than breaking your body or will against it. Glad to hear that the hand is mostly good, but alas few injuries ever result in a full recovery. That’s scar tissue, sorry to say. Don’t you have some added hand genetic complication we may have spoken of many years ago as well? Or has the ol’ brain finally lost the plot and just made something up!
There was plenty of good food at the expo, and most of it was well made. You’d probably both have some difficulty choosing which yummy feed to scoff back. 🙂 We don’t really have that state fair food fascinating culinary creation and adventure thing down here. Always intrigues me that stuff, although I’m probably not tough enough, and would end up feeling very unwell.
It’s a national disgrace, and I’m totally shamed, but I’ll whisper this: I’ve never been to a Highland Gathering / Games… Hope you don’t send those border clan folks to come and get me, they seemed rather formidable and unruly. Dude, I’ll tell you a fun fact about sheep and sheep dogs. As everyone knows, sheep are escape artists of the worst kind. And a working dog which allows a single sheep to escape from the flock, is sadly in hunt mode and on the kill. Hmm. They’d get a big fail in a working dog trial for allowing that, and probably would get a taste for the activity. Puts a new spin on your story, sorry to say. The sheep was probably lucky to have arrived at your table. And yes, poorly behaved kelpies have been known to drown sheep.
Being calm and assertive works with people, and I can’t ever recall raising my voice in anger at anyone reporting to me, although I’ve worked for plenty of bosses who didn’t return the favour. I’d see that as a personal failure. Dogs are incredibly sensitive to the emotional vibe of the pack, and that sounds like great work with Dame Avalanche. Husky’s are super smart dogs and won’t follow a dodgy leader whom they don’t trust.
Hehe! Dude, I don’t even know what to say about that grass clipping leaf blower observation. Hmm. One of the oddest things I’ve seen are people loading up grass clippings into a trailer and then driving them to the tip. Like what kind of story do you have to tell yourself to do that? And bear in mind that when renting in a nearby town project housing estate we got into a lot of trouble because our views on grass are probably a bit different to the rest of societies. 🙂 Truly, if a person leaves the cut grass where it falls (on the grass), the soil critters get a decent feed. It’s all gone in a week, maybe two at most, and the soil slowly improves as the tiny percentage of sunlight captured, gets stored. I dunno what to say.
My brain is wired in similar ways to yours, and I simply either deal with, or avoid drama. All the same, people continually bring drama to the door despite one’s best efforts. It’s better when things are calm.
Thanks! 🙂 Sadly Peak Rocks is very real, but there are workarounds with lower rocks returned on energy invested. It’s all very unfair.
I’d never seen a battery hard wired into a circuit board. That’s a new one to me. I’ve got plans to replace the entire arrangement with a CMOS battery which has leads soldered onto it already. We’ll see if it works. It might.
Man, this is a real mystery. Before Kuato, nothing has ever eaten citrus, other than the yellow jackets which had no reason to be here this past summer. 😉 They’re already a nightmare team, and Ugg is heard here regularly. Oh well, in another seven or eight weeks what remains of the kiwi fruit will be ready to harvest.
Bummer about the shotweed, which I call bitter cress. They’re really invasive, but if I may add, only turn up as pioneering plants. Grow a better established succession of plants, and the white flowering plants won’t get a toehold.
Apparently Skeletor bit the dust.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
What do you mean royals would be grumpy? With all that mad cash and ultimate status, you’d think that they’d have a super chill demeanour, like say Alfred E Nueman of ‘what me worry?’ fame. Actually, now I consider the matter for a bit, I have an odd hunch that the people around them would be: a) continually testing boundaries; b) jockeying for favour; and c) attempting to out-alpha them. Actually the job description sounds like a pain in the err, ear. You wouldn’t catch me wanting such a role, I’m too busy working for a living.
What is this culinary invention you’ve concocted and then put to the ultimate test? Call me fad-ish, but I’m going to place your fascinatingly tasty meal under the label, Asian fusion. It’s kind of handy because the words can mean a lot, and then also be completely open to interpretation.
We had a salad for dinner this evening, and the Editor was experimenting with a cucumber we’d grown. It was a yellow variety. She’s got some decent skills in the kitchen, but this addition turned the meal into a total flop. The cucumber was rubbery. I chucked most of the meal into the chickens bucket. Most of the time with food, we soar with the eagles, so it’s no big deal to occasionally crash and burn. I worked late tonight, and probably will do so again tomorrow, so I didn’t have time to make anything else. Oh well. The peppermint tea was nice.
Hey, evil twin is probably the way it would roll for sure. The doppelgänger is a real thing, everyone knows this. Mind you, I’m a bit scared to type this next sentence – Never come across my evil twin. How about you? Have you ever been confused for someone else?
Oh yeah, those super loud leaf blowers can tear through your skull and stir up the messy bits. Nobody wants to lose brain chunks out of their ears. 🙂 I can mostly tune out screaming kids, although I’m not entirely sure that their parents can. On the other hand, I would not want to be stuck on an aircraft for a long haul flight with a screaming kid next to me. I hate flying at the best of times, and that experience wouldn’t rate in that particular ‘best of times’ category.
You display incredibly good grace and decency. Respect.
The article will probably be how things were going to go regardless. I’m biased here having a manufacturing background. I’ve even worked on a computer disk production line straight after high school, and enjoyed the experience.
Exactly! That’s what I thought about the large rats as well. A whole bunch of talk, and few if any rodents. Certainly none were shown in photos. Doesn’t the reporter realise that the word ‘investigative’ may indeed mean working uncomfortable hours in unpleasant locations searching through garbage?
Way back in the day, the sort of advertisements you mentioned were apparently not tax deductible – the thinking in those days was maybe that the ad didn’t relate directly to a product. Sorry to make light of this subject, but did the consumers really ask for such advertisements?
🙂 You betcha it does begin with the soil.
You and H are displaying deft footwork dodging the rain. Hopefully there is none of that hubris going on, and we’re just discussing fact? Looks like the next week or so is pretty dry and sort of warm here. Nice weather, although I’ll have to water the recently relocated oak trees. The plan was to connect up a permanent garden tap for that area. It’ll be a quick job.
Thanks for that info about the chamomile drying process. How does your stuff compare to the commercial chamomile mixes for tea? Like does your stuff produce a stronger flavour?
I’m musically leaning in your direction there. Simon and Garfunkel were better than Bob Dylan in terms of both vocals, melody and lyrical content. It’s good stuff when film makers reach for authenticity, but they also have to recount a compelling narrative.
Cheers
Chris
@ DJ – The word “surprise” in any recipe title, is always suspect. 🙂 I’ll have to think of a good title, for a cookbook. “From the Demented Recipe Box?” Something cleaver and funny. Nothing comes to mind. Decades ago, when I had roommates, and would throw something … suspect together, they always accused me of lifting recipes out of the “Edgar Allan Poe Cookbook.” Those people had no sense of adventure. Lew
Yo, Chris – Rich people always seem to think more money, will make them “happy.” That some mystical, magical financial goal will yield “happy.” So, when they get there, and discover they’re just as miserable as before, well, they can get a bit raspy. 🙂 Bob Dylan was very ambitious, and chased fame. He got it. It wasn’t what he expected. Couldn’t even walk down a street, or drop into a neighborhood bar, to listen to music, without causing a riot. There are costs, to outrageous wealth or fame, that people don’t really consider.
What with the hot sauce, a bit of corn in there, diced tomatoes with green peppers, white cheese … I think I’d be inclined to more call it Mexican Fusion or SW Fusion. But, whatever … Everybody crashes and burns, in the culinary department, now and again. Every once in awhile, I’ll throw something together, and it just isn’t quit … right. Not tasty by a long shot. Sometimes, I can tweet it, a bit, to be able to at least choke it down. Last night, I managed to keep it simple. Rice, garlic, peas and corn. A splash of cider vinegar. Still tasty.
When I was a lot younger, I used to have people say they saw me, here or there, where I wasn’t. Or, that they’d seen a guy who “looked just like you.” But never interacted with these people, so, as to character, not a clue. When I’d hear that I had a double, my first thought would be, “Poor b—–d.”
Screaming kids on a space ship would be easier to deal with. Airlocks. “No one can hear you scream, in space.” Maybe airplanes should be equipped with small airlocks?
Yes, a headline promises us “cat sized rats,” and we’re lured into the article. Or, in my case, even video footage. Click bait …
Our high yesterday, was 55F (12.77C). The overnight low was 45F (7.22C). Forecast high for today is 54F. H and I’s luck ran out, this morning. Even though I waited for a clearing spot, we both got thoroughly wet. Oh, well. “In every life some rain must fall.” (Poet, Longfellow.) Also, “Rain falls on the just and unjust.” (the Bible.) 🙂
H got a bath, yesterday. In preparation for a trip to the groomer. Also washed her blankets, which are on my bed.
The chamomile seems to be a bit stronger, than the commercial stuff.But not enough to be off-putting. Seems to hold its fragrance, even from year to year. I keep it stored in an airtight glass container.
I watched the first episode of that 2012 Titanic series, last night. Pretty good. Although the sound could have been improved, as I missed a bit of dialogue. So, I turned on the subtitles. Oh, my. Twice as bad as your early videos. Oddly, I ran across an article, this morning, on new information from the wreck.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/titanic-scan-reveals-ground-breaking-120035342.html
I don’t know if the links carry over the articles from further down the page, but there was an article about how the extinct dire wolves, have been recreated. Brought to us by the same folks who are trying to resurrect the mammoth. I’m not sure if this falls into the “more money than sense” department, or, “Seemed like a good idea. What could possible go wrong,” department. Maybe both? Lew
Chris:
I am glad I was sitting down. I haven’t had an ice cream cone in a long time. My grandfather, who owned a dairy with his brother, produced all sorts of delicious things from milk, some of which were ice creams of many flavors. I think in the beginning they charged 5 or 10 cents for one scoop in a cone. They had ice cream shops, too, and started the first 7 Eleven convenience-type stores in Texas in the 1930s. In fact, some years down the line the corporation that owned 7 Eleven bought them out for a pretty penny.
That was a fine – and lucky – cat that chose you. Was his name Lucky? I have seen that with pets, where one dies and his mate dies soon after. In the case I am thinking of, two male dogs, they were actually rivals all their lives and after the first died, the other one didn’t seem to have much to live for. They were both very old, also.
A couple of years ago Mr. Baby developed serious heart trouble and almost died. I imagine that it had been lurking for some time. He was taken to an emergency veterinary clinic where they did a couple of simple tests. He was given a couple of medications, though one of the vets there thought he should be put down. Anyway, my son and daughter-in-law spent most of their time for a long while nursing him back to health with natural methods and diet, while using the two prescriptions, also. During that convalescence he had to go occasionally into a makeshift oxygen chamber which was the downstairs bathroom. The pure oxygen had to be held in there, so the door had to be closed and that scared him, as did the noise it made. He looks really good now, but has to still be watched pretty closely, with adjustments to his regimen always being tweaked. He’s special that cat!
I find various holes along the inside edge of the garden beds; I think the rats are checking on the progress of the crops. I am pretty sure that they live in the giant wooden bin made to hold brush and leaves and such.
Do you mean that all of those kinds of geraniums live through the winter there? Mine die at the first or second frost, thus being annuals here. But there is a variety that comes back every spring, though it dies back during the winter. Looking just now at pictures, I see that mine is Geranium maculatum, which is actually a wild geranium, which explains why I found it growing in the woods. But I think they have also hybridized it. Ha – just saw this. Perhaps they are not related at all:
“Don’t confuse the perennial geranium with the annual geranium—they’re different plants! Perennial geraniums belong to the genus Geranium, while annual geraniums are in the genus Pelargonium.”
Pam
Hi Pam,
Presumably with that background you’ve tasted the rich stuff which comes directly from the cow? It’s a rich and heady liquid that stuff, and shot straight through me, being somewhat soft and all. But just so nice. Well, it’s been remarked upon elsewhere that sometimes the best ideas are other peoples, so well done to your ancestors for coming up with a forward thinking idea, then implementing it. 🙂
The cat was lovely, and after two weeks of care, the vet and staff wanted to keep the tiny kitten. The memories are good, and when he arrived home the boss dog took him immediately under her wing and they used to snuggle up together at night for about a decade. It was really sweet, and the cat thought it was a dog and used to follow the old boss dog around everywhere.
Ah well, your rival dogs was an entirely different experience, yet with the same ending. Clearly the two canines fed off each others negative energy. To be candid Pam, I’ve seen that same situation occurring with people. Have you ever seen two people reach that point?
It’s a labour of love to nurse anything through its moments of trial. Glad to hear that Mr Baby made it through, and to be honest, I’ve never known of the ingenuity to construct a makeshift oxygen chamber at home. It’s really all rather clever. Respect. He’s made it into a fine a home as any cat could wish for.
Heart health often begins with good diet, regular exercise and decent teeth.
Ah, I see. You may note that there are no giant wooden bins to hold brush and leaves and stuff here? There’s always a story. So years ago I was at another rural property (the party shall remain nameless), and um, well observing a deadly snake slither into a compost bin was enough to err, drop the idea for a similar thing here like a hot potato.
When living in the big smoke, there was a community garden with plots to rent (and political intrigue from what I heard) at the end of the street. All very nice and stuff. So a long time ago, we’d take our kitchen scraps for composting to their bins. That was my first encounter with rats in their natural environment. Decided then and there to make a worm farm which drained directly into my own garden beds so as to stop contributing to the ratty mischief up the road.
Yup, some of the geraniums get knocked back a bit by frosty weather, but they all seem to struggle on in the cold. What I’ve observed is that the very aromatic varieties shrug off the cold weather far more easily. Some of them smell quite nice, whilst others are a bit, hmm, unusually strong.
There is one local variety of geranium growing in the forest, but it is not as lovely as your variety. Hey, you sent me on a rabbit hole and I reckon we’re at about the midway point for those plants where pelargoniums and geraniums can just make it through the winter months without too much die back.
Exactly, they’re different plants but just to confuse things, aren’t they all from the same family? My brain is hurting… Does it even matter? I guess wars get fought over such esoteric differences.
It was a lovely day here today, but alas, indoors and stuff. Not that I’m complaining, work needs doing too.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Just dropped a chunk of dinner onto the keyboard, and even worse, can’t now find where the food resides. Wherever has it gone, and will keys mysteriously stop working in the near future? Hey, maybe I could get the dogs to sniff out the tasty morsel? … … Well, that didn’t work, the general canine consensus was that the situation had become a bit loose, and they didn’t want anything at all to do with it. Dame Plum actually growled at me. Ollie is big enough that he could struggle free and promptly went back to sleep on the couch. Right now, feeling a bit unpopular, but the show must go on. And the food chunk has yet to be discovered.
How’s your day going? It’s been a long day here, which began pretty early, but mustn’t grumble.
Sadly such wealthy folks are wrong. Happiness is actually enjoying a silly chat with your mates, wondering whether their dogs growl at them from time to time?
Well that’s a new side to Bob Dylan, and that would be a tough and life changing outcome – which would fade as the years went on. It’d be difficult to know who a person could trust in those circumstances. Fortunately this is not a personal problem I’d ever had to deal with. Bizarrely through the action of sheer chance, I’d know who to call to get a handle on such an outcome.
That’s pretty true about Mexican fusion, and add in one of those soft flat breads for the wrap, and the meal would be pretty awesome. It does seem to be the way of things to have a total kitchen failure from time to time, yup. Once made a key lime pie and added too much lemon juice so that the curds never set properly, it was a mess.
You know, I reckon having a feel for what ingredients will work together is all part of that kind of free form cooking, maybe? It implies a well developed palate. Sounds like a nice meal. Had a simple pasta for dinner this evening, linguine with a peanut based sauce. The peanuts were blitzed a bit, but not too much so that they retained some crunch to them. Add in a bit of chilli, olive oil and Parmesan cheese. Yum! Not sure it was entirely healthy, but most dinners are a small serving size. Incidentally last nights cucumber ended up in the worm farm this morning. Best place for the woebegotten vegetable. The worms will like it.
Speaking of such things, the last time we made cider, all of the apple pulp was left over. Fed the stuff to the chickens, and they loved it. What was interesting was that any gunk leftover started to smell like apple cider vinegar after a day or two, but emanating from the chicken enclosure. When the uneaten stuff was clearly fermenting, the chickens loved it even more.
Hehe! That’s funny, and shame you never got to meet your mystery double and ask some searching questions. I’d definitely engage in a conversation, and well, also secretly hope the other dude wasn’t a better version. In such encounters there are many possible outcomes and that’s likely.
Have to laugh, when doing distance running as a younger bloke, it was quite humbling to trounced by better runners. Doesn’t hurt, and is probably good for the personality.
Oh Lewis, you’re like super bad with that comment about the airlock, but I like where you’re going with that. 🙂 Man, occasionally strange things happen on aircraft with people losing their cool, without having the airlock option. It’d probably be used from time to time.
Yeah, I saw more rubbish than rats in the Birmingham articles. Where are the rats I ask you? And yeah, click bait. You don’t have to go far to see rubbish. The cost of living pressures has bizarrely increased the amount of strewn rubbish around the rural landscape, and some roads are particularly bad. The theory is that it’s building construction rubbish and allegedly there are some dodgy operators taking the mad cash to dump the load at the tip, when other cheaper alternatives spring to their mind.
It was 68’F here today, although much cooler tonight with the wood heater running. The sunny blue skies sure looked nice. Did some good work, had some lovely helpful conversations, and generally sailed the wide accountant-seas. Will it get warmer in your part of the world towards the end of the month? October here can likewise be that cold and a mixed bag weather-wise, the plant growth doesn’t kick off until November which is your May.
On that note, some of the recently planted radish seeds are now off and racing.
Bummer that your good self and H both got wet on a walk. Does H get distressed when walking out in the rain? Longfellow had some words of wisdom for us all there. Life is rarely smooth, and it is wise to enjoy such moments. There’s a school of thought which suggests that the good times are paid for with bad times, although I don’t believe that to be entirely representative of the world we all live in. More of a guide. What’s your take on that philosophy? Is it even workable?
I hear you about the washing of the dog blankets, although rarely wash the three dogs, and only then if they’ve rolled in something aromatically irresponsible. Good for the sinuses to wash the blankets though. Was the groomer trip today?
Ah! An airtight glass container for your dried chamomile. A good idea. Hmm. I quite enjoy mint teas too, and the mint family of plants grow easily here. Fresh spearmint leaves are really lovely.
Thanks for the article on the stricken vessel. It was notable that the engineers kept the boilers going for the electricity, right to the final moment. I’d not known that ice had broken through some of the portals and entered cabins. The modelling of the rips in the structure were extensive. Shame they couldn’t patch them. Far out, there is an epoxy resin which will set underwater. Who knew? The ship wreck which keeps on giving.
Yes, the dire wolf business has been in the news here as well. Maybe it is just me, but bringing an extinct species back whilst not correcting the many issues which caused the extinction, might not work.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis cont…
Never found where the chunk of food went. Maybe the dogs gobbled it up? A mystery!
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – I stopped by the yuppie discount grocery, last night, and it was a ghost town. Because …
https://chronline.com/stories/hundreds-show-up-as-winco-foods-opens-new-location-in-centralia,378365
I’m giving it two weeks, before I venture over. I figure I’ll maybe make a trip or two, a month. Stick to the tried and true, otherwise. The new store is off my usual beaten track, and, is three times as far away. I linked the same article to my Idaho friends. They will be so jealous. They had easy access to this store, in places they lived in the past. Now, the nearest one is 1 1/2 hours away.
Geraniums. Hmmm. We have a wild variety, here. I didn’t realize there were so many varieties of wild ones.
https://www.pnwflowers.com/browse/family/common/geranium
Re: Chunk of food. Did you check behind the couch? 🙂 Maybe it fell into the bowl? I either eat in my chair, or, in front of the computer. Lost food either goes down my shirt (inside or out). In front of my computer, it usually lands on the pillows I rest my feet on. Covered with a towel.
Free form cooking. Vibration cooking? Maybe there are patterns. 🙂 They’re right, or not right. Well, if the yellow cucumber comes out the other end of the worm farm, intact, you’ll know even the worms rejected them.
I noticed there was a notice, on our dumpster this morning. Overfull and over weight. That will not make Little Mary Sunshine, very happy.
Our high yesterday was 54F (12.22C). The overnight low was 34F (1.11C). The forecast high for today is 62F. H doesn’t seem to mind the rain. She’s got her coat on, and, I give her a good towel down, when we get back inside. Early day for us, too. I had to have her to the groomer by 9am. I gave her a dental chew, on the way down. So she doesn’t knock the socks of the groomer, with her breath.
Life has its ups and downs. The only constant is change.
In that series I started watching about the Titanic, there are scenes in the electrical room, with the men gallantly keeping the lights on, til the end. When I saw the electrical room, I thought, “Ooooh! Chris would be interesting in seeing this!” I could actually see some of the control panels, in the pictures in the article.
Well, in about an hour, Little Mary Sunshine is having her monthly “Hot Topics” get together, with the tenants. A little coffee klatch that I avoid. However, in her news letter, she mentioned HUD. So, I’d better go, and see if there’s any news. What I’d like to know is, besides rents, where, exactly, does our funding come from? Wonder if her response will be so layered in bureaucratic language, that I won’t be any more enlightened, then when I went? Lew
Hello Chris,
Batteries, batteries… So many kinds and chemistries. One more toxic than the other… The last couple of years, I have seen the entrails of hundreds of different EV battery packs, and they are all different, in minute details. The electrolyte is mainly a mix of organic solvents, different kinds of carbonates, and they are flammable in their own right, even without the cobalt addition. The separator between the electrodes is in all batteries I have seen a teflon-like PFAS called PVDF. We make these forever-chemicals as if there is no tomorrow. (Maybe to ensure that there will be no tomorrow?)
Back to life and food and dairy. My neighbour with milk cows have taught me how to tap milk from his cooler tank and I know where the tip jar is. Of course there is no on-farm sale of such a dangerous product as raw milk. Unfortunately not organic, but fresh.
Last week-end another neighbour with a digger came to help me to make an artificial wetland for waste water purification, some pictures will follow on another blog. I have planned this project for a year, and I am so relieved now that everything is connected and the first wetland plants are planted. It will take a year or so to get enough roots down into the layers of porous volcanic rock that is the base medium where the nutrient capture is supposed to happen. I think I will make some water tests at the end of the Summer to see how well it works, and repeat the year after. It is a way to comply with the water treatment rules, to reduce the nitrogen and phosphorus content with 90+%.
But for a rural property, those rules are rubbish. I am allowed to spread ten metric tons of manure on our farm, and that is 100x more nitrogen and phosphorus than we could ever produce, my wife and I.
Anyways, rules are still being enforced, and we comply, with the most ecological system that I could find. And I have learned a lot in the process.
It is hard to assess when different rules will stop working, don’t you think?
One interesting part of regulatory breakdown in the Netherlands and Luxembourg that I have observed is that the Tax man meets with corporations and negotiate a suitable tax amount instead of calculating it based on some rules. Rules apply to small businesses, but not to large ones.
Do you have some way of monitoring which rules stop being enforced on your side of the world?
Peace,
Göran
Chris:
No, as far as I know I have never tasted fresh, raw milk. Maybe they were too conscious at that particular time of germs, like tuberculosis, in unpasteurized milk, or maybe my mother had tasted it and disliked it, so she was loathe to give it to us.
Oh, yeah – I’ve seen two people feeding off of each other’s negative energy too many times, even with no alcohol involved, which makes it even worse. In any case, it never ends well.
“Heart health often begins with good diet, regular exercise and decent teeth.” Well, you see, back when Mr. Baby lived in a village in New York state, he roamed the streets too often and ate things that people gave him, like pizza, and I think that probably is what affected his health, so that by the time he started on his rural life here his health had deteriorated quite a bit. Or he could have been born with the heart problem and it took awhile to show up. Anyway, he now has the good diet, regular exercise, and decent teeth – and he no longer takes any medications.
We found two baby snakes of different varieties in the garden yesterday. One always looks closely at them to be sure they are not poisonous. They weren’t, so they were let go to do their fine work of eating bugs, and when bigger, rats amd mice. But we don’t have your super deadly snakes, even with our venomous ones.
I have solved the mystery of why garden beds keep needing new soil added. Today I was digging up one of the beds to get it ready for planting and, besides the numerous small and medium rocks, there was a 20 pound (9 kg) one that I had to pry out. So, all those rocks – especially the all-too-frequent 20 pound ones are taking up space in the beds and when removed, they leave an empty space that needs more soil to fill.
I also checked out all the volunteer tomatoes in the various beds since it was 30F (-1C) last night and they were just fine as can be. I had dug up quite a few and taken them inside yesterday, but there was no need.
Pam
@ Lew,
Edgar Allen Poe Cookbook actually sounds like a food adventure to me. Patrick McManus was allegedly famous for his Whatchamacallit Stew. Whenever it was my turn to fix dinner on hunting trips, no matter what I cooked it was always the same shade of brown. Regardless of ingredients. It got so when the other guys asked me what I was gonna fix for diner, I’d reply, “Brown”. Interestingly, the Princess likes when I cook brown, as it is always tasty but never the same twice.
DJSpo
Chris,
You’re not going to believe this. I was sitting here at the computer thinking about what to write. Suddenly, a chunk of food flew out of my keyboard and hit me between the eyes, bounced onto the floor, and was rapidly gobbled up by Dame Avalanche.
Dame Avalanche had no difficulties with the wind. She was wisely asleep indoors. She tends to avoid being outdoors during rainstorms and windstorms. Smart dog.
Oh, yes, I knew dad was highly skilled with keeping old machines repaired. And adapting spare parts from whatever to repair things was his forte. He said he learned that by watching his dad during the great depression. Your method of various devices using common components is smart. Kudos.
I enjoy my extendable pruning saw. I’ve pruned a lot of things without having to climb a ladder. AFTER I was pruning the trees during the windstorm, he cobbled together a homemade version of an extendable pruning saw. It involved a pruning saw, a long aluminum pole and the handyman’s secret weapon, duct tape.
No, no genetic complications with the hands, or joints or anything that I’m aware of. The Princess would disagree and suggest that I have a genetic anomaly between the ears: jelly where the brain is supposed to be. 🙂
Once upon a year, I was the local representative for the Clan Johnstone Society of North America. Yup, one of those unruly border clans. (Although I have a fair amount of borders ancestry, it was later found that my Johnston ancestors were probably from somewhere between Loch Lomond and Perth. At least the DNA would suggest that.) During the 1500s, the time of peak mayhem on the Scottish/English border, a king of Scotland toyed with the idea of hiring a bunch of guys from a few highland clans to be sent to the borders, to pacify the borderers. Others of borders ancestry and I laughed and laughed when we read about that. Those borderers were tough and mean. And they had the attitude that “Us Johnstones might be feuding with them blasted Elliots and Armstrongs, but by gawd, no outsiders can come in here and fight them, only us other borderers can fight the borderers.” Yup, all the border clans would’ve ganged up on any highlanders and made short work of them. Highlanders were allowed in Edinburgh, but borderers had to have an escort of “proper gentlemen” in order to leave the borders counties.
One story I’ve read… The Bishop of Glasgow visited the borders, tried to convert and talk “sense and peace” into the people. Naturally, he visited the roughest areas inhabited by the meanest ruffians. In his diary, the Bishop wrote about the day that he loudly wailed, “Are there no Christians here?” Several ruffians rapidly replied, “Nah, we’se all Elliots and Armstrongs.” Later, the Bishop wrote a curse and required it to be read by all churchmen in the borders. The Great Curse can be found here, both in Scots and English. https://biggararchaeology.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/BASTLE_CURSINGS.pdf
I’ve seen people hauling grass clippings to the tip also. At least they probably offload it to the composting area. Others just take it somewhere and illegally dump it. Sad, really. My lawn mowing machine leaves things on the ground. Like you said, good feed for the lawn critters. Any excess gets raked up with the leaves and dug into the garden or added to the compost heap.
Yeah, the shotweed, or whatever it is, exists mostly in areas bare of grass. Vinegar seems to be taking care of it. Then those areas will be planted with a mix of dryland grass seed, clover, wildflower seed.
A Cooper’s Hawk has taken residence in the neighborhood this spring. It was fun watching him soar today. Mice, birds and stray cats are all food for these.
DJSpo
Hi Göran,
Exactly! What is in all these bits of technology – except you’ve seen the dark side to that story, and know it for what it is. Us folks on the receiving end of those electrical storage devices, merely have to hope for the best. And what a fine joke it is labelling the multitude of battery chemistry’s as ‘lithium’. I tend to ask, which chemistry of lithium batteries are we talking about here? On some interweb chats which began mildly, I’ve had people losing their minds over this topic. But as far as I’m aware, at least in Australia, nobody has yet worked out a way to recycle any of this stuff. Things of course may be different overseas.
The house batteries use LiFePO4 chemistry which is slightly less volatile, and have both an on-board ‘Battery Management System’ as well as external seriously heavy duty locally made solar connected battery charge controllers so as to monitor the voltage of these possibly volatile chemical reactors at all times. It doesn’t hurt to be too safe with this technology. And over the past few years I’ve upgraded all of the fuses to very industrial and high quality devices. And even then, it could all fail with a series of cascading disasters. Unlikely, but not out of the realms of possibility is it?
I doubt that there is a way to recycle any of this stuff. Lead acid batteries, absolutely, they are mostly recyclable. Lithium, probably not so much.
And yup, I’m very aware of the plastic used as separators between the cells. Hmm. It’s not a pretty story is it? However if you asked the average person on the street whether burning coal to produce electricity is better than using forever chemicals in large scale lithium batteries, you don’t have to wonder what the answer will be. Look, the whole thing makes little sense to me, but like you I delved into the details. What do you do?
Oh my! You have the most amazing neighbours and network of people in your part of the world. I’m truly in awe, and would likewise be enjoying the produce! 🙂
It’s yet another interesting point you’ve raised there. To be honest, nowadays I’m less interested in organic, and more interested in feeding the appropriate level of minerals to the soil. I doubt the 50,000kg or so of coffee grounds I’ve added to the soils over the years are all organic. Does it matter?
Diggers are amazing machines aren’t they? On a side issue, I was seriously considering purchasing an electric (big battery) digger machine spotted at the expo last week. Who knew such a machine even existed? I look forward to reading about your new err, waste water treatment system, and seeing the photos.
You don’t have to tell me that. When we installed the worm farm, the inspector err, appeared to crack the sads before then demanding double the length of infiltration trenches at extra cost. The regulations said one thing, the demand was another, and the wallet was emptied. You know what, those extra trenches have never been used, and at what cost?
Seriously, ten metric tons is a lot of manure. I so hear you about that. All you can but do is jump through the hoops placed on the track, then hope for the best.
Ah yes, and here you get to a very interesting point. Sandra has a science degree in biology, and such paperwork can be turned out at opportune moments of importune questioning. The cult of expertise suggests several weaknesses. Basically, you have to size up your strengths, comprehend the combatants, know which fight to take on, when to fly below the radar, and most importantly, consider if people in the area are flouting. Then you’ll know. If I may be blunt, there are economic considerations to enforcement which suggest that the role itself may indeed have to turn a profit.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Pam,
Fresh cows milk is quite rich and creamy, but my intestinal fortitude was not adjusted to the err, strength, and well, a person would probably get used to it I guess. 😉 Goats milk is pretty nice too if fresh, but after a day or so it gets a bit you know, goat-ey flavoured. Far out, we’re travelling culinary journeys here tonight! Many long years ago we went to a now defunct sheep dairy on Kangaroo Island, and the halloumi cheese was beyond superb. As an amusing side story, the folks who ran the dairy said that the best producing sheep were some of the dodgiest looking scrappy sheeps. Don’t you reckon the word ‘sheeps’ sounds better than the word ‘sheep’ when used in the plural mode of the language?
Pam, it was probably all of the above reasons! When uncertain, it’s best to play things safe and anti biotics are a relatively recent medicine.
Exactly, such interactions never end well. I tend to avoid people who are in an highly agitated emotional state, but occasionally reality kicks in and there’s no way out, and a person has to deal with what is in front of them.
It’s funny, but that observation of yours reminded me of a story which was discussed here over the past couple of weeks (and I may have written about it a long time ago). Back in the days of martial arts training, a sort of friend became interested in training as well. He pestered me to face off against him on the Dojo mat, and I eventually relented to the continual and obsessive pressure. Because I was more experienced than he, we agreed to no head shots. So we faced off, and the first thing he did was take a swing at my face with his right fist, as you do when you are an idiot who pushes at boundaries. And that was when everything went wrong for me. I was so outraged I lost my temper, and unleashed on him until he gave up. Now my thinking was that my so called friend would get into trouble for disregarding the rules of engagement. There I was utterly wrong. The Sensei instead upbraided me for trusting him, and then also losing my cool – and he was right to do so on both counts. It was an excellent couple of lessons to learn at a very young age. So when you encounter people in a highly agitated emotional state, a) don’t trust them; and b) have a get away plan! And try to always act with good grace.
Do New York state cats eat pizza? The living must be good there, except for maybe the heart disease side effects. 😉 Those are probably not all that great. Sometimes moggies end up in the households which are best for them, and pizza might not be part of that story despite their earlier predilections. The dogs would love pizza, but must satisfy themselves with the crust and be happy with that.
It was really lovely here today. The sun was warm, but not too hot. Headed about half an hours drive away to the nearest big town to pick up some irrigation supplies. There are jobs here that demand to be finished, except I’d run out of spare parts. To be honest, the prices of things nowadays are a bit scary…
Go the non-poisonous snakes in your garden. And I’d be happy with such critters here, but alas, that is not the case. There is a boa-constrictor on the loose in the city of Sydney. It’s someone’s escaped pet apparently. All very allegedly illegal to own such an import. Last I checked the news, it hasn’t been found yet.
Pam, I’m starting to get rock envy and can think up a dozen different ways to use that sizable rock. But I see what you mean – they leave a big hole. Think ye not of the hole left over, but rather that of the blessed soil space that plant roots can now exist in. 😉
That’s great news about the tomato seedlings surviving the freezing overnight temperature. They’re pretty hardy. I’ll bet the ones left in the soil now grow faster than the disturbed plants you took inside, maybe? Did it warm up today?
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
Far out dude, that’s what I’d call food chunk mystery overdrive solved. Surely a spatial anomaly was involved some way unknown to any of us? And also proves that Dame Avalanche’s good deeds have been rewarded.
That is a smart dog. Ollie has similar inclinations, but the two Kelpies are idiots on that front. They’ll pester me to head outdoors in the worst weather, do what they need to do, try and sniff out some hitherto unknown forest critter stink trail, and then awareness of the conditions slowly dawn upon them. Then all they want to do is head back indoors and be towelled down.
Always intriguing to hear where people learn their skills and also the motivations to obtain them. Yes, the Great Depression would have focused many peoples minds. Thanks for saying that about the strategy, but what I’m observing in real time, is that prices for spare parts are going up. Picked up some irrigation supplies today and had a bit of sticker shock. In the past, I’d just grab lots of extra parts, but err, no, nowadays they’re ever so slowly getting used up.
Yeah, fiskars make an amazing extendable pole saw and pruner. A truly great tool. Dunno what you use, but they are good. Carbon steel creates a wonderful edge don’t you reckon? Go the duct tape, it’s been known to even save the occasional spaceship, if memory serves me correctly.
Ah, I was thinking of some mention of Viking hand many long years ago, but the memory does get a bit hazy on all the finer details. The jelly between the ears may make for an easier existence for your lady – it being a flexible material! Nobody wants stubborn like a mule, do they? You can ask your lady that question! 🙂
Apparently the Latin motto (very Gaelic if I may say so) is umm: Nunquam Non Paratus! Yikes, man as a descendant of one of those equally obstreperous highland folks you mentioned, the thought of confronting an angry border clan on their own turf makes me wee me kilt laddie! 🙂 What was a Bishop of Glasga doing there anyway? Sounded like a lot of fruitless hard work if you ask me, and the border clans would probably agree. Thanks for the stories and laughs. I originally thought you were kidding about the border clan society, but no, it’s a thing. Was it fun?
That’s true, the grass clippings early in the spring would have an awful lot of nitrogen in the cut leaves. Make for a nervous experience piling that stuff onto a massive heap in the compost area. For you interest, after the recent rains, the deep litter mulch (which is about a foot deep) in the chicken run, feels warm most mornings. I have to keep turning the stuff over so it doesn’t get too hot.
Nice work with the clippings. Sometimes with the leaves, we mow them up, but the soil is a bit more active here in autumn and winter maybe than in your cooler part of the world.
Exactly. Shotweed is a pioneering plant. It’s telling you something about the soil in those patches.
Ooo, a beautiful hawk that one. Small and effective (guessing from the many photos). Hope the hawk dines upon the rodents and squirrels.
Thought you might be interested in a recent change down here: Specialist Indigenous firefighters empowered to save sacred sites in scorched fire grounds. Good to see, huh?
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
It seems like DJ found the food chunk. Blame spatial anomalies… Always a useful plot device when all other options have been exhausted. 🙂
Thanks for the link to the article on the Winco store. Looks like it’s open 24 hours a day, so a late night visit will probably be cool. I must add that the shoppers looked well pleased, although it was hard to comprehend what the titles of the various bureaucrats meant. 😉 Three times as far would put a visit on the ‘nice to do one day’ list. And an hour and a half drive would be way too far for me, being somewhat edgy after an hour in the car. Thank gawd for podcasts during such drives.
Have you heard back from your Idaho friends? To be honest, I’ve never set foot in a supermarket as large as the one in the photo. A person could get lost in there, and the image of hand-crafted coffee was definitely a tease of the finest sort.
Speaking of driving, we travelled half an hour to the nearest big town today and stopped off at the tip, irrigation supplies and big box hardware store. A fun journey, and the people at the tip are really nice, and I always make sure to have a laugh with them. The weather was stunning here today, just really nice. The prices at the irrigation supplies and big box hardware startled me. I probably need to get out more, and away from the pleasant bubble land it is up here. 🙂
By the way, with the local currency tanking recently, petrol was $2.06/Litre which would be $7.83/Gallon. I have no idea how people afford to operate very large vehicles as it’d be expensive.
Anyhoo, got the spare parts and am now set to get to work finishing some of the water tank plumbing jobs. Some of the oak trees we moved a few days ago are sporting new growth, but I have to keep the water up for them. That’s amazingly fast growth. I did have a bit of a heart starter this morning as I ambled past the house water tanks. The indicator was showing that there was only a foot of water left in the tanks. What the…? Turns out upon closer inspection algae had caused the water tank level indicator to become stuck at a very low level which was not according with reality. They’re 40% full. Phew…
No way! Is herb robert originating from your part of the world? It’s a bit weedy here, but not in a bad way. I’d not even realised it was a geranium. What was interesting was that we grow many of the aromatic geranium / pelargoniums here, just by having kept a look out for err, cuttings, over the years. The wild local geraniums in the forest here are a bit like your lot, blink and you’ll miss them. The exotic variety are all imports here.
So many places to get lost aren’t there? Oh well, I’ll guess we’ll never starve.
Oh, you’re on fire tonight. That’s funny, but yeah vibration cooking. 🙂 Isn’t it odd that in these enlightened days, nobody is talking about vibes any more? Back in the day I’d recall people saying that a place had good vibes (or conversely bad vibes). I guess we’ve all kowtowed to scientific materialism, and vibes can’t be measured, only felt, so they probably don’t exist.
Hmm, you’ve got me wondering and I’ll have to check on what the worms are up to with the cucumber. Hey, I still recall the horror film ‘The Hand’, although possessed cucumbers don’t sound as scary, as a thing.
62’F would feel pretty nice. Did you get outdoors and catch some rays?
That’s really thoughtful with the pre-emptive dog chew. How did the grooming go, was she well received by her adoring public? And you haven’t mentioned H’s nemesis of late, peanut.
Agreed, change comes will nilly whether we like it or not.
I would indeed be interested in how the electrical system worked. The scale of the equipment needed to power a liner that size would be amazing. And it’d be hot work in the boiler room. Speaking of the open water, it appears that a couple of divers were forgotten about something like 4km off shore. On face value it seems a bit careless. They were luckily eventually rescued by a passing ferry. What a nightmare, it’s apparently going through the courts. I’d personally be a bit unhappy about being any part of that story.
You know, that’s a question I’ve always wondered about as well. Any news on that funding front?
Cheers
Chris
@ DJ – McManus was a great writer, and, funny, too. I was always thankful for his output. Dad was hard to buy gifts for, and, for a long time, every Christmas, McManus would churn out another book. Problem solved.
Your fortune is made! “The Brown Cookbook: No Matter Which Recipe You Cook, It Will be Brown.” :-). Lew
Yo, Chris – What with all the shite people put on their lawns, some of it best be treated as toxic waste. 🙂 We’ve talked about that before. What exactly is IN that compost, and where was it sourced from?
Maybe a wormhole? At time, Star Trek seems big on wormholes. To get from one point in the universe to another. They come and go. They’re unpredictable. The Holy Grail is a stable wormhole. ST Voyager had an interesting plot twist. That’s where they were flung millions of light years away, and were trying to get back home. Maybe, via a handy wormhole? But, they did find an ancient communications array, so they could send messages back to earth that they were still alive. Apparently, built by a long extinct race. Whoops! Turns out they weren’t extinct, and were a bit miffed that someone was using their array. Sort of like stealing wi-fi signals 🙂 .
My Idaho friends were appropriately jealous, of our new Winco store. I noticed in one of the pictures, an employee was handing out maps, so you could navigate the store. There’s probably a GPS app, for that. But, as often as those things go wonky, one could end up falling off the end of the loading dock.
Yesterday, I had to run up and get gas. On the up. $4.50 a regular US gallon. Well, that’s why people are clinging to tenaciously to remote work. Cost of gas, commute times, and, in some cases, child care costs. I also visited the (expensive) independent grocery, for a few things I can’t source anywhere else. I’d say its customer count was down by about 2/3s.
Well, there’s Herb Robert, and then there’s Herb Robert. Might be called the same thing, due to looking identical. But has anyone DNA tested the stuff? Probably, not.
Here’s an ear worm, to bounce you along the way of your cooking.
https://youtu.be/Eab_beh07HU?si=3c9KZo7adLBuvjBC
Our high yesterday was 61F (16.11C). The overnight low was 39F (3.88C). Forecast high for today is 64F. Yesterday was beautiful, but we may see some rain, today.
The grooming went well, but last time, and this time, they didn’t quit get the ears right. Too much long hair on the back edge of the ears. Get’s tangled in her collar. I may have a go at it with my scissors.
We don’t see Peanut (aka Muffy), anymore. One of the upsets at the Club was that Mr. Bill the manager, quit.
That’s not the first time a diver or two has been abandoned, out in the briny deep. Don’t these excursion boats, take a head count, before heading in?
Well, the meeting was … interesting. I think Little Mary Sunshine is being a bit overly optimistic. HUD subsidizes our rent. If they stopped subsidizing our rent, and we paid the same, they’d only have $10,000 a month to run this place on. We have a contract with HUD, through 2029. She seems to put great faith in that. Although I’ve seen articles here HUD is canceling contracts, left and right. She also speculated that Providence (they own us … but we’re administered by HUD) might pick up the slack, until “a change of administration.) Good luck with that. Providence is a chain of hospitals … supposedly non-profit. The whole thing was started by Providence nuns, who aren’t found outside of Quebec, Canada, anymore. They weren’t very good money managers, and turned over the running of their enterprises, to others.
Other news, that I hadn’t heard. We were overseen by a HUD office, in Seattle. That was closed, and all the employees laid off. We’re now administered out of Colorado.
There was also a lot of chatter, about some rumored government pay out, due to all this supposed money saving. Someone’s sister-in-laws third cousin’s, adopted nephew supposedly got a check. Lots of excitement among the ladies. They all have that money already spent. I looked into it. The concept is one of Mars Boys pipe dreams. Our Fearless Leader has not mentioned it, and it would have to pass Congress. No one is working on it, or much interested. Besides, checks would only go to people who have been paying taxes, all along. People with gross incomes, over $40,000 some dollars. Because, “We can’t just send those checks to anyone.”
There was also some chatter about the parking situation (tight).
By the way, I checked the property records, for this block we sit on. The tax assessment is bumping up against four million dollars. I also noticed the facility is 30 years old, this year. There’s to be a party. Lew
Yo, Again – Weather ….
https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/10/weather/la-nina-el-nino-spring-summer-climate
We’re stuck in neutral. Lew
Chris:
I love sheeps’ cheese; hard to find and expensive, though. And, yes, “sheeps” is the form I use, too.
Notice the word in “Sensei”. That man was so wise; you were very lucky to have trained with him. “So when you encounter people in a highly agitated emotional state, a) don’t trust them; and b) have a get away plan! And try to always act with good grace.” Thank you, that is good.
I’d never met a cat that liked pizza before, and I’ve never met a dog that didn’t like it.
It did not warm up much today, in fact, we had a bit more rain, and it is not likely to warm up for a bit, so I don’t know yet how the feral tomatoes outside will do compared with the ones brought inside. Should be interesting.
Pam
@ Lew,
Nice title. Thanks for the laugh. The section of the book about dinner would be entitled “Brown. It’s what’s for dinner.”
DJSpo
Chris,
Oh, occasionally on an abysmally wet day, Dame Avalanche will decide to do her rounds, creep through the dripping wet shrubs, stand in the rain sniffing, then come inside. The look of sheer horror on her face when I towel her off is quickly replaced by a questioning look, “Papa, my coat is so thick, I’m not wet. Why are you torturing me with that towel?”
Yup, talk to the Apollo 13 astronauts about duct tape. Lifesaver for them. Dad used it for too many things. He had a Saab 97, bought new in 1967. A few years later, it had burned a hole in the muffler. Parts for that car were outrageously expensive, so he wrapped the muffler with about 8 layers of duct tape, completely enclosing the hole. Problem is, when the muffler got hot, the duct tape would melt, creating a very strong and unwholesome stink. But it lasted for several months. Then he did it again. When the second patch job failed, mom hid the duct tape and told him to get the car repaired properly. Apparently, she found the stench to be overwhelmingly embarrassing.
Right, the Viking hand problem. You’re not imagining it. Two of the main treatments for it overlap other things I do. Heat helps, and I heat the hand 2 or 3 times a day to help aid the nerve from the mishap I had. The main exercise for it is to place the hand flat and press down. So many of the yoga poses on the floor have the hands flat on the floor supporting my weight. Any other exercises for the one hand ailment are also suggested for the other. The result? No Viking hand symptoms for about 10 months or longer. I’m counting myself fortunate with that result.
Helping with that clan society was somewhat fun for awhile. The regional head in the Puget Sound area was great. His health failed, things weren’t as well organized or as fun. And by then I was very certain that my family did not descend from that clan. So I quit.
Seeing the extent of the shotweed is what convinced me to mix clover into the grass seed. Getting more nitrogen into those areas is hugely important, and clover is a great means to do just that.
Somebody is telling me in no uncertain terms that she is hungry. Very hungry. Duty calls, as a famished husky might become hazardous to the humans. 😉
DJSpo
Hi DJ,
It’s been remarked upon elsewhere that dogs who run around in the rain, will get towelled down if they wish to put one paw inside a house. Sometimes they’ll do that massive water spraying shake out of their coat. Droplets and mud go everywhere, so the dogs here get towelled down outside. Forgot to mention it, but Ruby rolled in something which was far from fresh yesterday. Woe was her, for she’d not realised the incident was observed AND a hose was ready to hand. Grabbed her collar and used the water pressure from the hose to remove all unpalatable stenches. Then she got to run around in the warm sunshine and dry off.
I’d not realised until watching the film, that the astronauts from that stricken vessel cobbled together a makeshift carbon scrubber using duct tape. Those were the days, and I’d imagine the engineers instructions had to be conveyed by radio. Can you imagine the presence of mind required in that situation to assemble a very complicated machine using only voice instructions? One aspect of my paid work is explaining complicated processes to people, and that’s not as easy to do as it sounds. You’d have experienced that with calls from the general public?
🙂 Duct tape is useful for some purposes, others, not so much. Mufflers get hot so the tape melts. This is known… Ook! Your mother was clearly a wise lady. Saab vehicles were quite advanced for the time, and I recall seeing a four cylinder motor with a double overhead camshaft and 16 valves in the early 80’s when such arrangements were not unknown, but rare. Hmm. On the other hand, the state automobile club which provides break down assistance, may have suggested that the brand was seriously unreliable at one point. Oh well, the parent company apparently designs and constructs quite decent aircraft, but one wonders about the future given what is going on in that part of the world.
Thanks for confirming that the memory wasn’t dodgy, and I’d not heard of the Viking hand issue before you mentioned it long ago. Good to hear that you’re still taking rehabilitation seriously – man, I see some things on that front which make me wonder about my fellow human. You can quote me here, if you want: To avoid future issues, stretch. If future issues fail to eventuate, stretch. It kind of works. 😉
Got serious about finishing some of the water system projects, and so today cemented four posts into the ground. Three of them will have garden taps, whilst one is for connecting up the large house over flow water tank into the house main water tanks. It’s complicated…
Sad to say it, but all good things come to an end. At least with the clan society you had some good times. I’ve been involved with groups where something changes and there are cascading effects. What do you do? For a while, the border clan took you under their wing.
Clover is a great idea, and I’d suggest white clover. Have you purchased the seed yet? Pioneering plants are just trying to help out.
Obey the Husky and all will be good with the world. 🙂 This is known!
Cheers
Chris
Hi Pam,
It’s such a nice cheese, yup. And other than that sheep dairy, I’ve never seen the stuff for sale anywhere, although a bit of searching around the interweb suggests that there is a farm about an hour and half drive away off to the south west. When compared to cheese made from cows milk, it was really smooth tasting with lower acid, but that’s merely my take on the stuff.
The word ‘Sheeps’ sounds more fun than ‘sheep’ for the plural form. 🙂
Anagrams are kind of lost on me, but if you were referring to the word ‘sense’ as in ‘sensible’ and/or ‘common sense’, then I can only but agree.
Sometimes you’re unlucky with the selection of people around you and that’s happened to me, but then other times, you hit pay dirt. If I may, a person but need turn up and try, and the universe will occasionally provide.
Yeah, I’m not into angry people. Life is too short.
Me neither, and I was left wondering if New York state pizzas were cool for cats? Sorry for the dodgy music pun, couldn’t help myself. Dogs are completely different, and they love pizza, I just have to make sure that there are no chunks of onions on the bits they enjoy.
Fingers crossed that the tomato seedlings survive your sudden cold snap. It’s hard on plants at this variable time of the year. My brain hurts, apparently tomorrow will reach 88’F, as you do… I’m back on to watering some of the plants, and worked on the various water projects for most of the day. The plan is to get some of these half done projects finished. It was quite nice outdoors because the sun has lost a lot of its sting now.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Interesting, and always unpleasant to be stuck in neutral! 🙂 It’s actually unsurprising about the shift into the neutral phase of that particular climate cycle. I’m not really sure what to make about it though as the impact may be more pronounced in your country than down here. We’ve got several climate drivers affecting the local weather, and you may have noticed that ocean temperatures right around the coastline of this continent are way up. Fuels a lot of evaporation which leads to rain – not evenly distributed though.
Speaking of climate, the water from the record rainfall of crazy rains up north east of the continent is slowly moving south to a large inland drainage basin. The photos and sheer size of the flood are amazing: Flooding has created an ‘inland tsunami’ around Innamincka likened to Sydney Harbour .
Sad to say, but there might be a lot of herbicide in those clippings. Ook! It’s a weird problem because if you don’t buy in the organic matter – what are you going to do then? We have discussed this matter before, but with concerned visitors I simply tell it like it is: This is what living on a poisoned planet looks like. I can’t but help feel that behind those concerns are a sort of ‘gotcha’ mentality. Dunno.
Yeah, maybe it was a wormhole which sucked in the mysterious food chunk! 😉 Thanks, I’d not considered that explanation. I quite enjoyed the Star Trek Voyager series and the captain had commanding presence and more than a passing resemblance to Katherine Hepburn. And it’s true, the neighbours always get upset when someone steals the wifi signals. 😉 I had friends who did just that a long time ago. Security was a bit loose in those days.
Good to hear that they were jealous of the new store in your area. It’s funny you say that about the maps, but the other day when we went to the bank, there’s some smart phone code thing you have to scan in order to get into the queue (although it is not obvious). The bank manager came out of her office to explain the situation to the Editor, who really isn’t into such technology. Perhaps it was the Editors unbelieving face which prompted the manager to drag us off into an office and sort out our business. We were out again in under five minutes, the only notable thing was the bond market mischief appears to have reduced rates for cds. Oh well. And I have a hunch that the manager was not feeling the best, but chose to work. It happens and is one of the downsides of being the boss.
$4.50 is on the up for you guys. The work from home thing does reduce traffic on the roads, and what’s not to like about that? The Editor went into the big smoke late this morning, and she was surprised by the volume of traffic, although it is school holidays I believe. A new costco store had opened up in an area she was travelling through and there was some sort of traffic jam story which I tuned out to. Traffic jams, happen.
That’s not good, and I see things like that with stores which seem down in customer volume. Hard to tell really, but presumably, the more expensive places like that one you mentioned, are facing pressure as customers substitute for cheaper suppliers (and I’m thinking of that rat place).
Spotted two very large rats this evening in the kiwi fruit vines. Truly, the forces of wildlife have moved against us with those plants. On the other hand, we harvested the very first indigenous berries, and they were really tasty, quite sweet. Austromyrtus dulcis – Midyim Berry. I’d not realised that their natural range was so far north and east of here. When ripe, the berries are quite soft, so despite the excellent flavour, they’d probably not survive harvest and storage.
Hey, now I’m unsure, is the plant here which looks exactly like herb robert, herb robert? According to many websites, the plant has astounding properties.
Great harmonies, good vibes, and is that a theremin being deftly err, plucked (?) in the background? I’d not noticed that instrument previously, but was wearing the headphones and got a close listen to the recording. Apparently those machines are really hard to play.
From a casual observation, your weather follows a nice sine wave curve. Nobody wants extreme weather! Hey, it was 72’F here today, and will be 88’F tomorrow. Must be something in the water…
Did more work on the water system today. This all involved cementing four pine posts into the ground. Three will be for garden taps whilst another will provide a connection for a pump. After lunch I made up all the tap arrangements as well as the pump connector which has an interesting quick release aspect to it called a cam-lock hose coupler connection.
Tomorrow I’ll start connecting up the water pipes to all these things. It’s a big job still with many days of work to go, but once completed the whole set-up will be super simple and hardy.
Hmm, the dog groomer may have strong beliefs about how H should look? Whatever is easy for you is how I see that decision and scissors will make short work of that job. Although be careful of the ears, H will not like scissors interacting with her ears.
Oh! I’d not realised that he’d quit and left the Club. Oh my. Sends a strong message. Hope the Club is in smooth waters?
It’s not good is it? You’ve got just one job take a head count and roll call before heading back to shore. A film was made about a couple being left off shore. I don’t believe that incident ended well.
Alas, we are very much now sailing in uncertain economic waters, and who knows what will happen. From what you’ve said, the owners might possibly not be charitable if the tide of support turns. It’s probably one of those things to worry about when it happens, because you can’t really do anything about it in the meantime.
My thinking with the office change is that the number of inspections will suddenly reduce, this might be a good thing. They did seem to stress you out a bit, and those kind of things would stress me too.
Yes, the rumoured pay out. Now, did you know, that that actually happened down here during the 2008 global financial crisis. If a person was up to date with their tax administration (not necessarily paying anything like what you suggested), the nice people with their levers on the money machine, deposited from memory $900 into a bank account. I can assure you that the act produced a lot of good cheer. And down here, you have to lodge a return even if it’s nil, there’s no standard one, or perhaps opting-out if income is too low, like possibly in your country.
Yikes! You hadn’t mentioned the car park for a while, so I thought it was all OK.
That’s a lot of mad cash. Hmm. All you can do is hope for the best, and maybe think about a plan B, just in case. Better to be prepared, than caught out having never considered the possibility. Crazy days man.
Cheers
Chris
@ Pam & Chris – The collective noun for “sheep” is flock. Also heard, fold or drove. Not exactly the plural, but, might come in handy for parsing sheep. :-). Lew
Yo, Chris – Your American readers might have fun, with this. It’s an interactive look at how the planting zones have changed. If you want to play with it, a bit, scroll down and enter my zip code. 98532.
https://apps.npr.org/plant-hardiness-garden-map/
The animations are a lot of fun. Looks like our area doesn’t show much change. Lew
Yo, Chris – That was an interesting article, about the flooding, up north. Tsunami? Where’s the great wave? Sydney Harbour? Any plans for a big, new opera house? 🙂 Seriously, I do feel for those folks. As far as being cut off, for weeks, I think those folks are generally better prepared to ride something like that out, unlike the general run of the population. They make them tough, out there.
Sometimes, having a small garden space is an advantage. I’ll stick with the bagged stuff, that has a pretty good reputation. When the Master Gardeners brought in a load of compost this year, they wanted to know if I wanted some on my plots. After the strawberry debacle, no thanks. Bagged stuff and my. buried kitchen scraps. Coffee grounds from the Club. And, following your lead, other amendments to the soil.
I wonder if my Scarlet Runner beans, will make another appearance? So far, no action. Though it’s early yet. I gave them a good mulch, in the fall. I threw on some of that mushroom compost.
That was an interesting story about your bank. Smart phones are getting entirely out of control. Not the same, but a related bit, there’s a new car wash, down by the big box stores. I heard yesterday, that they don’t take cash (!). The new grocery store does not take credit cards. Cash, checks, debit cards and “food stamp” cards. The Medicare Advantage plans (the plot to kill traditional medicare, and turn it all over to private insurance companies), have some kind of a card for some grocery products. They don’t take those, either 🙂 .
When you consider all the benefits to remote working, or working at home, what’s the down side? Besides power and control. Companies also save a lot on real estate, renting or owning.
Oh, I’m sure someone is working on the Midyim berries to screw them up. Sacrificing flavor, for ease of shipment. Has your resident brew master considered testing them out for some kind of liquor, or another? The flavor profile sounds like it might make a nice cordial.
One of the Master Gardeners has a real hate on for the Herb Robert. No worries. It always manages to pop up, somewhere.
I think the theremin involves a lot of waving the hands, about. The Beach Boys did experiment with a lot of non-traditional sounds. Who can forget “Pet Sounds.” Which involved actual animals, in the studio.
Our high yesterday was 63F (17.22C). The overnight low was 36F (2.22C). Forecast high for today is 55F. There’s a frost warning advisory out for tomorrow night. From here, south. We’ll see.
Last night, I settled in with some popcorn, to re-watch “Violent Night.” I saw it when it came out, three years ago. I thought it was just as good as the first time. Grumpy Santa Clause dispatches home invaders in very inventive ways. 🙂 Although there’s a lot more to the plot, than that. I’m racking up some, shall we say, alternative holiday favorites. “The Red One,” was also very entertaining.
Well, about all I can do is keep emptying out my apartment, and maybe get serious about throwing a camper on the back of my truck. One of the ladies says she has a nice bridge picked out to live under.
Things are getting crazier and crazier. I stopped by the Club for a cuppa, this morning. There was a little old guy there, who was born in Indonesia. Came to this country when he was four, and has citizenship. Fought in the Viet Nam War, and then worked for the nuclear early warning system for a couple of decades. BUT … he has an old felony conviction, years old, for cocaine. He got a letter the other day, that he’s subject to deportation. Lew
Chris:
Yes – “sense”, as in common sense.
“Sometimes you’re unlucky with the selection of people around you and that’s happened to me, but then other times, you hit pay dirt. If I may, a person but need turn up and try, and the universe will occasionally provide.” That’s the thing – you never can tell if whom you meet might not turn out to be a friend. It’s worth being friendly (or at least civil) just to see what turns up. There are such lovely people out there, everywhere.
You can’t be sorry for the dodgy music pun because I didn’t get it. ?
I noticed that you mentioned kiwis (and, unfortunately, rats) to Lewis. We have kiwis that are called “hardy kiwis”. However, they were slightly damaged by the freezing weather earlier in the week, I assume because they had already started leafing out. Have you ever had that problem?
Pam
Chris,
I do not feel the least bit of sympathy for Ruby and her getting hosed down. Dame Avalanche did something similar during the winter, necessitating a venture to the walk-in shower. Big bath for the husky, and she did a lot of shaking water in there. Not so much when I towel her off after being in the rain. But Ruby? It was a warm and sunny day, so she likely enjoyed getting cooled by the water, not that she’ll ever admit it.
Man, what they did to construct that carbon dioxide filter was nearly miraculous. First, simply coming up with the idea while writing down the steps. Second, being able to articulately convey the steps via radio. Finally, understand the steps under duress and with increasing carbon dioxide levels. Wow! That’s three separate difficult tasks all done while under duress and with a limited time frame. People do not do well understanding complex concepts in the best of times.
Yes, I had to do a lot of that on my job. Fortunately, I had spent many years tutoring math and physics, teaching physics labs and lectures, answering questions about the math and physics. I had the good fortune of understanding from an Eistein quote (or maybe it was Feynman) that if you can’t explain it to an 8-year-old, then you really don’t understand it. Thus, by the time I was at the County, I had a good background being able to explain technical things to nontechnical people. That’s actually one of the reasons why I was hired.
“Mufflers get hot so the tape melts. This is known… ” Well, I suggested to dad that such would likely be the case. He said that it wouldn’t melt, it wouldn’t be a problem. See, the Cassandra Syndrome hit me at an early age, even with my dad!
“To avoid future issues, stretch. If future issues fail to eventuate, stretch.” To become enlightened, chop wood, carry water. Once one has achieved enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. Don’t forget to breathe. These things appear to be closely related.
That’s a lot of pipes and water tanks you’re connecting together. No matter how simple you try to design it, it will be complicated. But if you overly simplify plumbing, other issues develop.
The building I spent most of my career working in was being constructed when I started there. The men’s restroom on the 2nd floor would occasionally have its urinals do weird things, then volcano all over the room. The plumbers blamed us for plugging up the urinals with toilet paper and paper towels, none of which were ever produced as evidence. I suggested that it was a venting issue. Naturally, the Cassandra Syndrome came into play. This went on for years until one day, a different plumber was in that room when one of the urinals turned volcano. He quickly concluded that it was a venting issue. The entire system was then redone with proper venting. No more problems. The designer had overly simplified the system to “save money”. Plumbing must be done correctly, which often means some level of “complicated” will exist.
Have yet to purchase grass and clover seed. White clover is what I planned. It’s wonderful stuff.
Yes, obey the husky. “Papa, give me a belly rub or I’ll bite you.” Papa, feed me or I’ll bite you.” “Papa, take me for a walk or I’ll bite you.” Yes, obey the husky. 😉
DJSpo
Hi DJ,
There you’ve gotten to the nub of the problem, it was a warm day and Ruby loved being hosed down – although I had to hang onto her collar lest she escaped, the little mischief bag. You know, I’d never thought of using a walk in shower for that canine purpose. Man, as a solution, it’s total genius. And easy to clean up.
And that’s what amazed me about the construction of the device as well. The film kind of glossed over that aspect with the carbon scrubber device, but the engineering response to a tight situation was nothing short of miraculous. When there’s talk about people with the ‘right stuff’, it’s more than simply words and ego. For a living, I have to explain complicated situations and processes to all sorts of people, and that is a super difficult activity which requires me to focus on their most minute responses and reactions, especially when they are in a high state of emotion. That scene of the engineers on the ground taking all manner of available parts, coming up with a workable solution, and then communicating how to construct the same device by radio. Whoa! That’s the right stuff all right. Blessed are those who can take in words and comprehend. The Big J said that for sure on the Mount of Olives! Mate, the things I see and can’t talk about…
🙂 That’s a super fun quote, and so very true. Teaching forces a person to communicate concepts and ideas, and did you find that those abilities assisted you with dealing with the public at your later gig? I ran a graduate program… Yup. To be honest, I loved that work.
Hehe! We’ve all been there with the Cassandra syndrome. The old timers had a useful saying in relation to this matter: Give ’em enough rope. Not ideal, but what do you do? It is possible to stop a few things from eventuating, the rest, it is our good fortune to watch them play out through to the bitter end. Way back in the day patches for mufflers used to be made and sold, they just weren’t duct tape!
I’m breathing. Did you remember to breathe as well? 🙂
Ah! Of course, my explanation as to the water pipe system was overly simplistic. What I’m doing is making the entire system so that it can perform multiple duties in one line and be more resilient. We’re in an Indian Summer at the moment, it was 31’C here today, but if I had not dropped everything a few weeks ago and began the process of reconfiguring the water stores, we may have run out of water in the house system. The new pipes allow water to be easily moved in any direction, and to any storage system.
On that note, 40m of 3/4 inch rural water pipes were installed today, and there is now a working tap and hose near to the recently planted oak trees. And that was when I discovered that a 20m hose was not long enough to water all of the trees. Oh well, they do sell long life UV stable 30m hoses. 🙂 The new connection also has the advantage of being the furthest down hill and so having enormous pressure – for possible fire fighting purposes.
Oh yeah, I so hear you about vacuum issues in drainage pipes. Hmm. Your story does not surprise me at all, and glad to hear that a new set of eyes looking at the system, was enough to correct the dramas. There’s an air vent on the roof here which negates any vacuum build up in the house sewerage system. But here’s the thing, when the plumber initially installed the plastic pipe sticking through the 30 minute fire rated corrugated steel roof system, we had a reasonable discussion about whether it was actually a good idea. Turns out, sticking a plastic pipe through a fire rated roof system was a dumb idea. Anyway, we were all good about it, and the building regulations said it was OK, except I reckon they were wrong. So he fabricated a copper pipe instead to replace the plastic one. Far less likely to burn and/or melt in a fire don’t you reckon?
White clover is a wonderful plant, and you and all the insects won’t regret your purchase. Then you will enjoy observing how all those plants play a massive tug-o-war.
Respect the husky! Obey the husky! Unless the canine is doing something stupid, then said dog must obey human. Doesn’t always work, but we can only but do our best.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Pam,
🙂 It was 88’F here today and will be again tomorrow. That’s kind of warm for this time of year. Makes for a long morning routine as plenty of plants needed watering.
Did more work on the water system today and installed a tap and hose near to the recently planted oak trees at the forest edge. It’s nice to have water that far down the hill now. Lot of work in the hot sun, and by a late 2pm lunchtime I was done.
With tomorrow’s weather forecast in mind, tonight I did all of chores I was planning to do tomorrow so that I can get more water system work done before the sun cooks my brain all over again. Mind you, this may be of assistance if the zombie apocalypse ever occurred. I mean, would zombies want their brains cooked or raw? Makes you wonder…
Exactly! I totally agree with you there. Be civil and merely observe people over time by their actions, then you’ll know them. And that’s my view on the world as well, there are a lot of lovely people out there.
It’s hard to even recall what the dodgy music pun was. Hang on, I’ll check back … … Oh yeah, early English pop punk, The Clash, with their song: ‘Cool for cats’. Sometimes I indulge my hobbies and the puns amuse me, if not anyone else. 🙂 It may be cool for Mr Baby, he may have an undiscovered pop punk sensibility? You never know.
Hope it’s not too cold there for the lucky feline and your family. I’m reading reports of a serious cold snap, with ice storms, as you do.
It’s hard for me to know what variety of ‘kiwi fruits’ are referred to as ‘hardy’. The most prolific variety here are the Actinidia deliciosa. Ah, I see, Actinidia arguta is so described as the hardy kiwi. Right. Well it ain’t, here at least. So far I’ve tried four of the vines and only two have survived, and those are struggling. Yeah, not a fan. Incidentally, I read some minor reference to cats confusing the scent of the vines for catnip, and then digging up the root systems. Of course, Mr Baby is a gentleman and would never do such a thing.
But frost risk and damage here when plants are in bloom is a regular every single year problem. Mostly the plants seem to get more resistant to that risk as they age, but I’m also feeding the soil with more blood and bone, which apparently has some effect with that. Dunno. How is that risk playing out with your plants?
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
🙂 I failed to notice a tsunami wave either, although it should be noted that the water is an unstoppable force at that scale. A case of poetic license perhaps? It was like how we were left reaching for photos of gigantic rats in the UK. Speaking of such rodent matters, Dame Plum pointed out two giant rats in the kiwi fruit vines last night. Hmm. Where are the owls when you need them? A lot of unripe fruit has been consumed…
Folks are made tough out in such outback places, and they’ll manage one way or another. Did you like how one of the towns had something like 16 residents? I’ll bet they all know each other.
We could go months here as well, if needed.
It was a hot day here today at 88’F. Finished up work before a late 2pm lunch. Had a brief nap, my brain had been cooked out in the sun, and then went to a nearby town for an ice cream. Yum! On the way back we decided to check out the leaf change tourist activity over in the more fashionable end of the mountain range. It looked all rather civilised. Still, Easter is next weekend, and things may be different then.
Anyway, installed another 130ft of 3/4 inch rural water pipe today and installed a tap down near to the newly planted oak trees. One or two of the trees has new growth. How is that even possible? That tap is the closest to the forest edge, and it will be very useful.
Hopefully the warm spell of weather is getting the winter crops germinated and growing fast.
That is an advantage with a small garden. I’m always in uncertainty land on that front because the stuff I get is only ever as good as what went into it. A few years ago I looked into this matter, and the supplier the local mob get there stuff from is not the one who sold the stuff with the commercial grade herbicides sourced from organic matter from a golf course I believe. Far out, there were some unhappy people with that result. Your process is pretty good and hope that you are observing a difference in the plants?
I dunno about beans, but you’d hope they grow well. Peas tend to be earlier in the season than beans for me at least. Fresh snow peas are amazing tasting.
It was pretty presumptuous of the bank to even consider that we were carrying smart phones, or had them. Not everyone does. What do you mean that the car wash doesn’t take cash? I see, car washes down here tend to take both cash and card payment. As someone who once worked for a very large business where half of all transactions were in cash, the stuff can be a nightmare problem to deal with. So many things to go wrong there… I like using cash, but hope to never see so much cash again, ever. 🙂
We’re in a kind of patchwork of systems when it comes to paying for transactions. I had to pay an annual subscription for a chunk of software the other day, and the reviews of the payment platform were not very nice. Kind of made me nervous.
One down side is that the costs of providing a physical space for employees to work, is actually pushed down onto the employee. Now I wouldn’t have noticed that aspect until you-know-what. We used heaps more firewood to keep warm during that period of time, and mostly because we weren’t on site where someone else was paying for heating.
That’s a great idea with the Midyim Berries. Hmm. Maybe next harvest we’ll get more and that can be an option? It’d be a great taste though. This is the first time I’ve noticed that the plant has produced anything. We harvested all of the berries and chucked them into a container in the refrigerator. I’ll see how they stored over night? Dunno.
The plant was a gift from a visitor, and I was dubious, but also wrong. Might have to start some more of the plants?
A truly massive album with some serious hits. The addition of the animals clearly didn’t hurt.
Holy carp, a frost warning is a major headache. Has the Professor mentioned anything about this weather disaster? Hey, from what I’m reading, it seems warmer in your part of the world, than it was in the east of your country… Yikes! We’ll see is how I feel about such things too.
The goobermint are conducting a massive burn off near to where the big fire was a few months ago. The air is a bit smoky, but mostly blew away from here. I see near to my friends of the big shed fame, a burn off appears to have gotten out of control. Oh dear! They’re fine as it is on the other side of town.
🙂 The holiday season makes for great film fodder. Surely it can’t be as good as Die Hard for a Christmas mayhem film?
That’s all very depressing, and let’s hope that such plans are never required. Like you, I’d do the camper option. Your winters are too cold for under bridge sleeping.
Oh my! Well, the authoritas pull a similar trick down here, but not to citizens convicted or otherwise. Especially a vet, that’s a step too far. The worst affected down here are folks from New Zealand. They can have lived here all their lives, yet failed to get citizenship, become convicted, then shipped across the Tasman Sea. As you can imagine, the flow of people to here from there is much higher, due to economics, and so our friends across the sea are very grumpy about this turn of events. Apparently it is causing a lot of social issues over there. Hmm.
What good is citizenship if it doesn’t stop such mischief? Mind you, Australia was founded on that most very British of policies, although I hadn’t heard that they use transportation as an option these days.
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – Yes, I’d say a town with 16 people, that they would know each other, rather well. Try and keep a secret! 🙂 Maybe it’s all one extended family? Let’s hope they like each other. Or, at least bump along.
Our high yesterday was 54F (12.22C). The overnight low was 34F (1.11C). Forecast high for today is 56F. Generally, pretty nice, with only a few showers, on and off. The frost advisory is still up, for tonight. From way north of here, to way south. But, our forecast for tonight is for 32F (-0-C). I figure it could go either way.
I noticed you said the new spigot 🙂 had good high pressure, and can also double for firefighting. Always a good thing, though I hope it’s never needed.
Go, oak trees! I really don’t know if the mushroom compost goosed things up. The strawberries look a lot happier. There’s even some blossoms. But then, I also threw a lot of other stuff, in all the beds. Let’s just say the overall picture looks rosier. Might just be spring growth, in general.
Well, that’s … interesting. of course, statistics need to be taken with a pound of salt, but, according to a glance in the rabbit hole, worldwide, 60.42 % of people have smart phones. What I found truly frightening is that in the US, 95% of people have those devices. 38 out of 40 people. Oh, dear. I really am an outlier. And all I hear from people (anecdotal information) is one problem after another with the beasts.
Well, I certainly handled a lot of cash, in my day. And counted down more tills than I care to think about. “My” chair, at the Club is near the cash register. I often observe people counting down tills at shift change. I often find it painful, to watch. 🙂
OK. I give up. I can’t say I ever watched, or, if I did, remember the “Die Hard” movie. I see the library has a few copies kicking around the system. When my hold list is a bit more whittled down, I’ll give it a look. I’d never considered it to be a Christmas movie, but, a glance into the rabbit hole indicates that a lot of people do.
That whole deportation thing, here. It makes me very uncomfortable, as, we’ve always been told we have “due process of law.” Which isn’t happening. It seems as if “law” (judges and courts and things) doesn’t get involved, until after the fact. After someone has been whisked off to gosh knows where.
I saw an interesting article, yesterday, on a possible flowering of op-shops.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/11/business/secondhand-shopping-de-minimis-exemption
There’s an op-shop right next to the Club. Always has a full parking lot, and a lot of people running in and out. As the article mentioned, I think a fair number of them may be hunting things, for resale. Either in resale shops of their own, or, more likely, on-line.
This has always been a poorer county. I think, all along, more people were attuned to second hand. At least, that’s the sense I get, from living here for awhile. Lew
Chris:
88F is hot! I don’t look forward to those future temperatures. But wait – it was that high here about a month ago. Crazy, eh? Not cold here now, just cool. Should be a nice day tomorow.
I am always in awe of your water systems – you have so many systems within the system.
I remember The Clash, a little. Well, Mr. Baby is a punk, so I wouldn’t be surprised to discover he had pop punk sensibility, also known as PPS. Hope it isn’t contagious.
If you have had trouble with the kiwis, then I am wondering if they are going to work out here at all. No worries about Mr. Baby digging them up, even though he is a big fan of catnip. They are at the back of the property with the figs and Mr. Baby is not allowed back there without a chaperone, mostly because of foxes and bobcats. As for Mr. B’s catnip – I had to put it up high in hanging pots (I use it medicinally) so that he could no longer reach it after he developed the serious heart trouble. Overstimulating for him.
Pam
Hi Pam,
Yes, that has been happening here as well during late winter – early spring. The air temperature will suddenly spike upwards, the plants begin growing with the additional extra energy. Trees blossom, cold sensitive plants tentatively take their first steps towards summer and so on. Then a few weeks later we get dumped, hard, by a sudden cold snap.
Not sure what to make of the trend, but it’s been pretty consistent for the past couple of years. One of the things I’m doing to improve the resiliency of fruit trees which are faced with this see-sawing climate, is to feed the soil more blood and bone meal. The natural source of phosphate gives the trees a slight edge, especially cold sensitive early trees like apricots. It’s expensive stuff though. The last 44 pound bag cost me $65. Hmm.
Glad to hear that the weather has warmed for you. Warms the bones. It was again quite warm here today.
Thanks! And a couple of hours was spent on the water system this morning. Another chunk of that project – done! I reckon there are still three or four days of work to go before the whole lot is completed.
Oh my! PPS does sound like some sort of super awful mysterious disease. Truly, I’m glad that there is a blanket ban on the marketing of pharmaceuticals in this country. Being exposed to all that advertising would make me nervous about basic issues, like feeling tired in the morning prior to a cup of coffee. 😉
Yeah, look I reckon the hardy kiwis are worth a go, but compared to the more usual variety, those plants struggle, especially in dry spells. There are easier and more productive fruit to grow, like say, raspberries. I reckon those are my favourite berries, although blackberries are hardier.
Pam, Mr Baby is in the right home. 🙂 The fluffies send cordial tail wags.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
🙂 They sure would know each other. Living in a small hamlet, a person is known. Yup. There are times the old brain thinks: “Gawd it’s a small mountain range!” And I do my best not to annoy locals. Not always easy… 😉
Had a more chill day today. Spent a few hours of work on the water system and installed another new tap. Testing for leaks takes a while, and it can be surprising to discover where they are, which is never where you think they’ll be. Nylon plumbing tape is a wonderful material.
It was such a nice warm day today. The air temperature is hot, but the sun has lost its sting and doesn’t burn your skin any more. I get the impression that this feeling is the reason people so love the summer months in the northern hemisphere – heat but lower UV radiation than what we experience down here? The other thing I’ve observed is that the light has a more yellow aspect to it. In high summer during the middle of the day, the light has a kind of bleached white aspect to it. Not nice.
What is nice today, was the gourmet lamb and rosemary pie consumed for lunch. Yum! Man, people were out and about today and there were lots of old dudes with their hot rods – must have been a meet or something like that. Looking at the forecast for Easter, there’s some rain and cooler weather predicted. On that note, Easter is super late this year and almost buts up to the Anzac day public holiday. From what I’m hearing about, people are taking three days of annual leave and having almost 11 continuous days off work. Of course, as someone with no benefits and who is not paid on public holidays, such loose talk goes over my head.
Did you end up getting the frosty morning? I’ve noticed that the air temperature can get to freezing with no frost, so fingers crossed that there is no impact on your plants.
🙂 Spigot… I don’t think so. Like your style though!
The oak trees feature in this weeks video. Great trees and grown from locally collected acorns. The trees should do well.
It’s hard to know with strawberries, but they’re forest plants and so presumably would enjoy any mixture of mushroom compost – it’d be like cat nip to them.
The market penetration of those devices is pretty similar down under. Look, if I wasn’t forced to have one in order to continue earning an income, I wouldn’t. Don’t see the need, but a dude has to pick his fights and five years ago I rolled over on that one and simply admitted defeat. The Big J’s advice is quite appropriate in this instance when there were people attempting to outwit him: Render unto Caesar, and that is what comes to mind.
The device seems pretty stable, although I don’t load the thing up with lots and lots of software applications. And the thing was designed to be dropped onto concrete from a height of 6 foot, because to my mind that seemed like a likely outcome. One must know thyself don’t you reckon? Surely you’ve noted how many folks have broken screens on their smart phones? Doesn’t seem all that smart to me if that outcome becomes possible.
Oh my! I’m so with you there about watching the till count process. Still, we must learn to let go and enjoy the moments. 🙂
Well, you’re in for a treat with the original Die Hard film. It’s so weird that it’s a Christmas film, but on the other hand, that makes an awful lot of sense. I eagerly await your review!
Ah, I see. The deportation thing works differently down here. So, the individual does their time, and then is directly deported. The judicial system has thus already had its say in the matter. What’s weird about the guy you know from the Club is that it’s occurring at a later date, and you said he was a citizen. That wouldn’t happen here.
I hear you about the de minimum standard thing, and ask you the question: Is fast fashion good for anything? I used to work in clothes manufacturing, and some of the shoddy workmanship I see nowadays really annoys the daylights out of me. When the products were produced locally behind tariffs, at least the sizing and quality was consistent. Sure, nobody will get as much stuff, but that was always an inevitability of energy, pollution and resource depletion. We just got there via a really strange set of circumstances. 🙂 Far out! I’d have not picked this outcome, would you have?
And yup, I have no problems at all with second hand stuff, and can recall way, way back in time, selling a velour couch where one leg was a brick, because it had value. The rubbish piling up in Birmingham should be a reminder as to how wasteful a society we’ve become, rather than a discussion about non-existent rats.
Actually, on that note, the other day at the tip dropping off the scrap metal for recycling, I noticed that the recycling shop had re-opened. It was a shame I was busy that day, otherwise I would have checked it out.
Yes, there are those people who make mad cash purchasing second hand items for resale from such stores, but man, there is so much stuff flowing through that cycle that at the moment, it makes no difference at all. None. All part of the great re-use side of the equation, and they’d be canny folks with eyes always upon a bargain. The future, well, it’s a different country isn’t it?
It’s not the poorer areas which will struggle with less purchasing power what with everything going on. It’ll be those who never knew that they were poor in the first place, they’ll be hit the hardest.
Cheers and better get writing!
Chris
Yo, Chris – Our high yesterday was 56F (13.33C). Our overnight low was 30F (-1.11C). The forecast high for today is 63F. Looking out the window, when I got up this morning, I don’t see any sign of frost. I don’t know where they’re getting these temperatures, from, as the local weather station still seems to be disabled.
I saw an article, yesterday. “Major Budget Cuts Purposed for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.” If the purposed cuts come about, I wonder how Prof. Mass will take it?
I wondered if you’d make it back to meat pies, again. After answering the siren call of ice cream. 🙂 I do suppose it’s rather seasonal. Anzac Day, again? Time flies.
I suppose sooner or later, I’ll be cornered into getting a dumb phone. If forced to, I suppose I’ll get the one on offer from the same folks that do my flip phone. Pretty inexpensive rates and great customer service. Marketed to old people.
Speaking of film, well, that was a complete waste of popcorn. Last night, I sat down to watch “The Dig.” I’m 20 minutes into the film, and wonder, “Where’s Ralph Fiennes? Where’s the manor house? Where’s the ship? It turns out, there are two films, released about the same time, called “The Dig.” As far as I know, the real “Dig” isn’t out on DVD, yet. What I ended up fast forwarding through was some dreary mystery, set on the moors. As one of the new bells and whistles, in our library catalog, we can leave reviews. I usually don’t. But, I did. Scathing.
Here’s another article on shopping second hand.
https://www.npr.org/2025/04/11/nx-s1-5357033/tariffs-secondhand-shopping
There won’t be a shortage of inventory, for quit awhile. The self storage units and closets of America, are deep 🙂 Just a quick look down the rabbit hole indicates that in the US, there are over 50,000 self storage businesses, that employ around 170,000 people. That’s great news that your local tip is reopening a recycle shop. I’m sure you’ll find useful treasures.
I agree, modern clothing quality is pretty poor. I’ll not forget the jeans like pants, that had the pockets sewed in backwards.
A waste of popcorn, and then a waste of laundry soap. 🙂 H does this wheezy hack thing, every once in awhile. Not very often. Yesterday, she upped a bunch of yellow bile. Right on the blankets I had washed less than a week ago. 🙁 Soaked right through two of them. Sigh. Back to the laundry room. Not one of my favorite places, to be. Lew