The second stanza of the famous Australian poem ‘My Country’, written by the author and poet Dorothea Mackellar mentions Australia’s regular and persistent droughts and floods.
The background to the early 20th century poem was that the poet was pointing out to people that sure England was a fine place, but then so is Australia, it’s just different. A friend of mine (whose blog can be found in the blog-roll on the left hand side of the screen) long ago once amusingly quipped: What part of droughts and flooding rains don’t you mofo’s get? Another astute observation. Possibly there’s something in the water down here!
As the keys on the computer keyboard get hammered away at on this Sunday evening, it’s rained continuously for over two days. An impressive achievement. Sandra and I were at the local General Store late Friday afternoon enjoying a coffee and sharing a small chunk of cheesecake. The winds whipped around the mountain range and the first tentative drops of rain began to fall. Several concerned elderly folks exiting the business made comments that despite being under a veranda, it was a bit chilly to be seated outside. You see what we have to deal with? Living in the less fashionable, but no less beautiful, middle part of the mountain range, we’re made of sterner stuff.
Anywhoo, earlier that day many hours were spent digging soil from the new water tank site. It was hot work and staying active keeps a person warmer.
All that valuable excavated material was hauled back up the hill. The plentiful rocks were useful additions to the steel rock gabion cages.
Two of the raised garden beds were emptied and removed so that the excavated soil could be used to fix up the surface level underneath the beds.
The power wheelbarrow is an excellent machine for hauling heavy loads of soil back up the hill. Without the machine, we’d have to walk up small crates of soil, and that would indeed be very hard work.
Observant readers will notice that the materials dumped from the handy power wheelbarrow don’t actually look like soil. That’s because we added in husks from a coffee bean roasting process + used coffee grounds + wood ash + leaves. It’s a heady feed for the garden bed.
A busy café in Melbourne supplies me their used coffee grounds and husks from the bean roasting process. That’s been going on for eighteen years now, and the soils here have only benefitted. The stuff is considered a waste product, usually sent to landfill. I’m saving them mad cash in waste disposal fees. It’s hardly surprising that every forest critter on this side of the mountain range has turned up for a feed in this recent lean and complicated growing season.
It’s nice to have that part of the project nearing completion. We just need some more large rocks. Woe is us, for Peak Rocks is real!
It’s funny what you hear during chance conversations up in the bush. Because of the rain over the entire long weekend, we headed north on one of those days to enjoy a lunch of gourmet lamb and rosemary pies. So tasty! The pie shop is attached to a pub and brewery. Being from the country, chance conversations often turn to the subject of the weather. It has been dry here this year, but a bit further north was a whole lot drier again. Apparently local sheep, pig and cattle farmers have been contacting the brewery for their used mash (the used grains in the brewing process) for stock feed. A good idea, but there’s only so much of that waste product to go around. At least the rains over the past few days have been very widespread across the state.
I’m always amazed that so much useful material is wasted in our society. On Monday the plumber turned up (an after hour call out) to fix the heating system. It was an act to which I’m eternally grateful, and we had a great chat too. Him and his crew plumbed up the house almost sixteen years ago, and the conversation was like no time had passed. He was admiring the large solar photovoltaic panel array in the paddock down next to the greenhouse. Admittedly there is a certain high-tech space age look to the industrial installation, and it is an astounding achievement to suck electricity from sunlight. It’s just that days like today, the things can only hoover up only 11 minutes of energy. An impressive achievement, and hope nobody is betting the farm on this stuff.
Where were we again? Oh waste! That’s right. Yes, wasteful we are. So I mentioned to the plumber that all of the solar panels cost $400, and also that I got half of them for free from a bloke at the pub. The story earned a mild look of reproach. Blame my warped sense of humour. Way back in the day, obtaining something from a bloke at the pub were code words for: ‘these goods were obtained from dubious sources, possibly even being pilfered’.
After my dodgy attempt at humour, an explanation was perhaps warranted lest the wrong impression remained. Down under, when people upgrade their grid-tied solar power systems from say, 1.5kW of panels to a much larger system of say, 5kW, the old solar photovoltaic panels are not allowed to be re-used. That story makes no sense to me, but it happens. So the high-tech items have to be disposed of in some way, and as far as I’m aware nobody on this continent has yet to figure out a way to fully recycle the things. Sure, I’ll take them off your hands, and be grateful I’m not charging you for the service, is my perspective! So we really did pick up half of the sixteen panels from a guy I sort of knew at the pub for free, and the other eight cost $400. That other source was from someone I didn’t know, and they drove a harder bargain… Still, cheap. The first solar panels we purchased were $700 each.
People lose their minds about second hand solar panels. Apparently the output degrades over time, and that’s true. But 90% output after twenty years in the sun, wind and rain, is still pretty good in anyone’s language. The plumber was impressed and looked thoughtful. It’s always hard to know where ideas journey.
Winter began in earnest on Monday morning.
That would have been the second day with no wood heater. What better way to warm oneself up on a cold day, than to do lots of physical exercise and have a burn off! Regular readers will recall that we’ve been testing the plants in the garden beds for their flammability properties. It’s not a complicated testing procedure: take a sample of the plant and chuck it in a fire and see what happens. Trust me in this, the grey leaved variety of wormwood, burns hot and fast – green.
All of the wormwood plants were removed from the garden bed on the slopes below the kitchen garden. The bed will be replanted with flowering Salvia and Penstemon species, which should look nice and provide plenty of nectar for the insects, honeyeaters and other birds.
The volume of plant material removed was astounding. All of it was hauled back up into the courtyard where it was burned off in the corten steel brazier. Fun fact: Four days later, there were still coals. On Friday when the ash was added to the soil on the sloping garden bed as fertiliser, some of of the dry dead vegetation left on the surface caught fire. That was an interesting experience, but relatively easy to deal with. What really surprised me though, was how little ash was produced from the all the stuff burnt off.
The rain later in the day would have put the fire on the sloping garden bed out anyway.
It’s nice to see the water tanks slowly refilling. As I bash away at the clickey-clackey keyboard, the rain continues to fall. That should continue into tomorrow’s public holiday celebrating the King’s birthday as well.
This week’s video is about keeping the under story of the orchard open and clean:
A couple of hours was spent mid-week on forest clean up work. The loggers left one heck of a mess, but there’s a plan!
Some of the detritus is hard to explain, like the collection of removed, but never burned off, tree stumps.
Oh the plan! Yes, the plan is to get in downhill from the loggers mess so that I’m able to use gravity to roll the heavy chunks of timber into a fire. Then burn it all off. The area downhill from the mess is relatively clear. For all I know, the loggers could have had a portable sawmill in operation there.
Curious readers may wonder what we get out of doing all this clean up work. Reducing the fire risk is one consideration, but the forest also offers us up the gift of rocks. Every rock we can handle, has a use here. And there are never enough rocks for the available projects.
On a completely random side story… A regular commenter (nod to DJ) mentioned enchilada’s recently. The story got the ol’ brain working and wondering: How hard can these things be to make? Turns out, they’re quite easy to make, and are tasty to boot!
Back to more serious business. You know it’s a tough season when the rats consume lemons. The pesky rodents are however only eating the skins and leaving the pulp – as you do. The other evening I startled an owl which was hunting something in that area, and I can only hope that the lemon seasoning was good.
In other raided produce news, the many hundreds of kiwi fruit have now all been eaten. This is a complete outrage, and an outcome I’d not anticipated. I suspect that the owls have also recently dined on kiwi fruit flavoured possum. Kuato the fat possum was recently reduced to a pile of grey fur. Sad.
Even the kitchen garden has been destroyed by the hungry wallabies.
Concerned readers may recall that there is more than a single area set aside for growing edible plants here – and so far the greenhouse is proving its worth in this hard year.
The difference between the damaged radishes (which were originally outperforming the ones in the greenhouse) to those inside the greenhouse, couldn’t be more stark:
Even now when we’re officially into winter, there are still miniature capsicums and chilli’s to harvest in the greenhouse:
Might need a second greenhouse…
Onto the flowers:
The temperature outside now at about 10am is 7’C (45’F). So far for last year there has been 276.2mm (10.9 inches) which is up from last weeks total of 215.4mm (8.5 inches)
Comments
53 responses to “Puddles”
Hi DJ,
Thought you might appreciate this article from the weekend’s weather in the alpine areas: Mt Hotham rescue work continues after snow strands holiday-makers.
I’m always amazed that people fail to read the weather forecast prior to heading out into the wilds. It can be very remote up in the Great Dividing Range.
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – That was quit an article about all the stranded motorists. Here, on several of our mountain passes, there are checkpoints. No chains. No passage. Imagine chaining up an 18-wheeler. Although I understand that chain design, has improved over the years.
I see there are terrible storms, ripping across our upper SE and lower Midwest. Hail the size of tennis balls, reported around Chicago. I do hope Margaret and Marty are OK.
You have been curious about recovery, after natural disasters. I saw this very extensive article, on just that topic, today.
https://www.npr.org/2025/06/08/nx-s1-5321444/helenes-deadly-warning-storm-recovery-failures-ny-nj-houston
It’s rather silly that people wouldn’t realize that the weather in Australia, is a whole different beast. Just looking at book titles, there’s more than a handful about Australia, that have “The Dry…” somewhere in the title. Equally balanced by other titles that include, “The wet…”
I fully appreciate the labor that went into emptying and moving what appears to be a couple of smallish stock tanks. Just emptying, moving and refilling a wooden half barrel was a real production. But then, I’ve got 25+ years on you. 🙂
If you see woozy sheep, pigs and cattle, you’ll know what they’ve been tucking into. I wonder if, in better times, they cut the regular feed with the left overs from breweries. Might take the edge off feed bills. Unless the breweries charge for their waste.
“…from a bloke at the pub.” We have a saying, here, with an identical meaning. “It fell off the truck.” 🙂 On the other hand, didn’t your dogs come from a lead at the pub?
You like your plumber, right? 🙂 I hope you filled him in, or at least sketched out, the complexity and costs of the rest of the solar system.
So, any sign of the rabbits migrating out of their cozy burrows? Long caravans of rabbits, looking like refugee migrants from our Dust Bowl?
Your video was quit good. Another nice balance of text, photos and video working in concert. LOL. I bet it will stir the permaculture folks up! As with solar, unless you’ve lived with the stuff, you really can’t grasp the ups and downs of such systems. Not that that’s ever stopped the armchair warriors from lodging an opinion. Or, just outrage.
Spain / Mexico must be in the air. Your Enchilada looked quit tasty. I had shrimp nachos for dinner.
There are no easy answers, but the depredations to your crops, this year, are horrendous. The owls need to up their game.
Maybe the rats needed the lemon zest to make lemon biscuits?
Your jade plant is spectacular. Before I moved to S. California, I had never seen a jade plant, outside a small pot. One of the places I lived (Huntington Beach) had one in the yard that was a good meter wide and high. I was gobsmacked. And later, even more gobsmacked, when it bloomed. Just one of the horticultural surprises I encountered down there. Years later, there was a huge jade plant, growing in the glassed in entry way at the Centralia library. It also bloomed. But by then, to me, that was old hat. Lew
Hi Chris,
We’ve had rain – woohoo! Nearly 30 mm in the last week, which has been brilliant.
The house is getting cool. The Northern side (new somewhat passive solar reno) is pretty nice (about 19-21C in the day, down to about 17C overnight), but the Southern side is original and colder — those rooms are down to about 14C now.
Incidentally, our worst day of solar was about 0.8 kWh per kW installed (just under 7 kWh in total). It was a rather grey day. Luckily South Australia’s wind was pumping (130% of the states consumption).
Solar panels really are like witchcraft, aren’t they? Amazing to turn sunshine into electricity. The only thing I saw that was even more incredible are the night-sky solar panels, which shed heat to the cold of space, and produce electricity by so doing. It won’t power your house though — the yield is about 50 milli Watts per square meter 😉
https://ee.stanford.edu/shanhui-fans-nighttime-solar-panels.
Cheers, Gus
Hi Lewis,
Hard to know what the snow stranded folks were thinking, but you’d hope that they’d learned the importance of reading the weather forecast in the future before heading out. They’re getting into some pretty remote country there, and it’d be a long way to walk out – if they were even prepared for that eventuality.
That part of the world gets a lot of big storms. I’d not want to be sailing on those massive lakes during one of them. Hopefully we’ll hear from them both soon. The storms look heavy and intense but relatively isolated.
What an article. Thanks for the link! I can only speak from personal experience, but designing and constructing a building to withstand the worst that nature can throw at it, is a financially ruinous proposition. And the house here is small. We’ve had a direct hit from a minor tornado. There was that 5.9 earthquake. A minor landslide. Those have been tested, apparently the house can also survive a bushfire, maybe… That’s at the core of the article – there’s a sort of spoken around expectation that all houses everywhere should be constructed to withstand natural disasters, at any cost. The example given of the elderly couple showed a trailer home, those are cheap to make. The unresolved question I have is: why put your life on the line for a cheap easily replaced building? If people are living in a trailer, I have strong reservations that they can afford to construct a house which can withstand the very floods shown in the video footage. As a society it is probably preferable to stop pussyfooting around and tell the story like it is – this thing you want to build is cheap, you can’t insure it, and you take on board personal responsibility for your own safety. That’s what’s happening anyway. Man, I’m looking at the risks here, and think to myself – how do I mitigate these? And then do something about it. Most other folks around here aren’t as pro-active and live in houses that don’t comply with the regulations I had to jump. They don’t know what it costs to rebuild. Most people want someone else to pick up the tab for the epic shortfall which is what the demands in the article look like to me. There is some truth to what was said about the industry making good money, but they also have to produce a product that their customers can afford. The whole system is a mess.
🙂 The weather down here is at best: difficult to predict long in advance! It’s rained here solidly for three days now. Like how does that even happen after such a dry start to the year? That big frozen continent to the south is again flexing its muscles.
Thought you might enjoy the emptying of the round raised garden beds because of the work you did on that wooden half barrel. Hard work isn’t it? It was a big job, and plenty of plants and soil were saved in process.
Ha! Very funny, those animals do better with mildly fermented food stuffs. Even the big rounds of straw are more digestible for them if slightly fermented – and add a bit of moisture, some sun and storage and that will happen. I wondered that too if they charged for the mash feed stock, but never considered asking the question.
Hey, they used to say an item had fallen off the back of a truck down this way as well. You never hear such talk now, maybe because the land of stuff supplies things so cheap?
Yeah, nah, explaining all that side of the solar story to the bloke is above my pay grade. He said something about having to have bought several loads of water recently, so nature is perhaps not working with his systems already, so why ruin a good moment of camaraderie?
The rabbits have been keeping a low profile recently with the owls around. Hope all the herbivores don’t come to the decision that here is the proverbial land of milk and honey?
Hehe! That’s the entire point. 🙂 I’m sure they may claim that the orchard systems weren’t set up right or maintained correctly, or some such other nonsense. The rats and rabbits were feral back then. Spare us all from armchair warriors / theorists and may they take their outrage elsewhere! 🙂 It’d be OK if such folks could enter into a discussion about topics without turning to debating tactics.
Yum! Yum! Shrimp nachos sound good. Had the last two enchiladas for lunch today. Used less cheese this time and more yoghurt, and I reckon that lifted them to new heights.
If only the rodent energy could be channelled into great food, like that documentary film Ratatouille suggested, although personally rats and kitchens aren’t a good mix. 😉
Far out, S California would grow some huge Jade plants with that climate. I know what you mean, but aren’t the plants meant to be associated with good fortune, in the financial sense of that probability?
Presumably the store would have an employee keeping an eye on the bins, their presentation and err, customer usage? I’ve got a vibe that some less than honest folks might end up sampling the wares prior to paying for them – and there were signs in the video about restraining from that activity. Oats and rice (at a wild guess) are probably at a lower risk than say, lollies and breakfast cereals.
Stink is suggestive of a singular source, the origins of which may or may not be known. Stinky suggests bigger and richer, mostly because the word adds on a ‘y’ at the end, so you know that there’s more. Odiferous is different of course from that of Odoriferous don’t you reckon? The latter form sounds pompous to my reading ear, but the earlier shortened version suggests supreme stinkiness.
Ha! I’m left wondering if the programmer had been caught out for naughty behaviour, and came up with an interesting twist to the plot involving his own creation to cover his tracks? As a side note, I’m often guilty of over subtlety, it’s a personal problem and I’m working through it! 😉 Anyway, that programmer story sounds all very narcissistic to me, but I don’t know the folks and code thing involved. The stuff the code things send me here are simplistic at best. If I had to grade them it would be 4 out of 10, with a comment: Could do better.
Really? There are people who regularly go for ocean swims every day of the year down here, and they do that nude winter solstice swim at the Dark Mofo festival in Hobart (the largest city in Tasmania). That’d be cold.
What? You’ve said that there are collectors for all sorts of stuff, and it amazes me to hear that story about the recipes.
It happens, and financial realities have a lot to say in the matter. Are you going to try growing some corn again this year?
If memory serves correctly, Claire mentioned a lack of insects as well. I rarely see them in the big smoke. Go the chamomile harvesting!
Go back a bit further and house designs were part of pattern books (collectible items, maybe?) People would buy the pattern and the builder would build the thing – or the home owner would do it. After WWII when labour and materials were in short supply, whole streets used to get together and owner build the houses. We built this house here, it’s not that hard. You know what’s hard? The permit system, that’s hard – and I did all that paperwork as well. The permits took three lever arch folders worth of paper to get all of the correct forms. Every man and their dog had a finger in the pie too, and plenty of it was stupid and included for the best of reasons: Just because… It’s not a workable system, and that was fifteen years ago. It might be worse now.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Gus,
Good stuff, and man hope the water tanks are filling up. Your area has been doing it super tough. And you wait, when the sun comes out again, your garden will grow like a jungle, even this close to the winter solstice. Hopefully the rains continue to fall in this southerly part of the continent.
Yeah, winters sure can get cold, and here today began at 6’C, rose to a maximum of 8’C, and is now a steady 7’C (which is a relatively warm winters night up in the Macedon Ranges). It’s good to hear that you’re capturing the winter sun energy inside the house. Very good indeed. Have you ever written about the reno? And I’m curious about the selection of building materials used. Such things are of considerable interest to me, and this house comparatively works like an esky. It’s a dubious source of inspiration don’t you reckon? 🙂 But it’s what I had in mind with the insulated design.
Very funny. Yes, oh well, things are different at 35’S on a solar front and when not way up in the cloudy Macedon Ranges surrounded by tall forest! 🙂 There’s consequences to it raining here when it rains nowhere else, and that’s thick winter clouds. 0.8 is an enviable achievement which would put a big smile on my face, but alas the worst day (which Sunday was close, real close) was by comparison 0.11! Not even enough solar to power the various components within the system itself. A bit of a worry really… Had to run the generator and battery charger today for a few hours, oh well.
Mind you, I’m increasingly impressed with the 506Ah of LiFePO4 batteries. So far, they’re beyond good. The other day I took them down to 20% and they still worked without a hiccup at loads of up to 100A, and the voltage hadn’t dropped off. There’s no way Lead Acid batteries would achieve that result. Black magic batteries…
Did you know, that your state often relies on the interconnectors with Victoria to provide stability of frequency for all that wind power? There was an incident back in 2016 which was not dissimilar in some respects I believe to the more recent Spain thing: South Australia’s storm caused transmission faults, but that’s not the whole story. This stuff is super complicated. And how about that time when the downdraft storm actually flattened some of the huge towers on the interconnector? You guys need more batteries, lots and lots more, then it will be a truly awesome state system. At the moment SA uses Vic like a big battery so as to stabilise the grid. And we burn brown coal… Ook!
The Tasmanian’s bang on about all their hydro energy, but generally I believe that the Basslink cable sends electricity from Vic to the island state. And when it broke years ago near Christmas, they were on rations down there with huge diesel generators because the dams were low due to reduced rainfall that year. Far out, can you imagine paying those fuel bills?
All good fun, and I personally enjoy the challenge that comes with living with this technology. It’s good stuff, but not good enough to replace the big fossil fuel powered generators. If people could adapt their usage to what nature provides, maybe it would work.
The University of New South Wales was pursuing a similar project years ago: Australian researchers show solar power can be generated at night. Sounds like a technology which requires the use of exotic materials and the output possibly isn’t the same as solar photovoltaic, but don’t really know.
Cheers
Chris
Another use for all those fallen trees
https://www.biochar-journal.org/itjo/media/doc/1434748327997.pdf
Hi Kezza,
Thanks for the suggestion, and it’s one that never occurred to me. Interesting, and it looks very easy to do. I might try it with smaller timber than the monsters waiting to be cleaned up though. It’ll create a soil which would have a great deal of surface area.
Have you tried this technique? Got any tips?
I’m wondering if terra preta soils would be a problem during and after a bushfire?
Cheers
Chris
tank status- All that rain and no tank level report? Is it easy for you to check levels and maybe give occasional updates to us? Silly of me, but I worry about you relying totally on rain. It must give a huge sense of relief and satisfaction when all the overflows are finally flowing. Even with my minor rain capture, there is a slight twinge of water anxiety after a few weeks of no rain.
hungry rats- I guess it would make sense to eat the peels only if hungry enough. That lemon oil in the peel would be calorie dense.
owl pellets- So I wonder if the owl pellets, should you find any, would have a lemony smell? Take a deep whiff and let us know. ( cue the old Cheech and Chong bit)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY7ZX6ngOSs
closing the loop- all manner of potential opportunities out there, but there are enough homesteaders and back to the land eco-farmers here, that they get snapped up pretty quickly. Not sure who gets out local coffee roaster’s stuff. One neighbor used to get the waste from a local energy bar maker, but when the business got big, the waste stream turned into a business transaction, so it’s now going elsewhere. Talk about a good source while it lasted. High energy stuff for his chickens.
solar- good while it lasts. I have ten panels I got cheap, stored in the barn for now, until I decide on a new use, or just for replacements at some point. Who knows, we might go off grid one of these days.
Yo, Chris – Those snow stranded folks? Weren’t thinking. I wouldn’t doubt there were a few of them traveling in shorts and flip flops. Comfort trumps prudence.
Yes, the Great Lakes can be treacherous. Underwater archaeology is a big deal, around the lakes. Seems like they’re always finding sunken boats and ships. From prehistoric canoes to recent disasters. You might find this little ditty interesting. And, the comments.
https://youtu.be/PH0K6ojmGZA?si=2muQQ3nYsv1G2yny
Let’s not test the survivability of the house, against a wildfire. Are we agreed? I always wonder why some people just won’t evacuate. There have been studies done. A certain segment of the population won’t evacuate. Some for pretty good reasons (lack of transportation / money to relocate), some not so good. If a fire ever starts in those woods, up behind the Institution, I am out of here so fast. Me, the dog, my go bag. anything else is just stuff.
Well. Our high yesterday was 91F (32.77C). The forecast high for today is the same. Our overnight low was 57F (13.88C). Tonight’s low will be 10 degrees cooler. Prof. Mass thinks the rest of the month will be a lot more pleasant. And we might even see some rain. I watered twice, yesterday. But even so, by evening some things were looking a bit heat stressed.
My dad used to hunt deer and elk. He really preferred the deer from down in the Willamette Valley. That’s farming country. He referred to the deer from there as “corn fed deer.” 🙂 They tasted less “gamey.”
Another California plant story. One day, I went roaring into the bookstore I was managing, and was just gobsmacked. I’d seen a Poinsettia fence! My employees, who were all natives, just couldn’t see what all the excitement was about. Pretty ho-hum, to them. I explained that I’d never seen a Poinsettia, outside a pot … at Christmas. I did them one better. They’d never seen holly, outside a pot. I had my folks send down a picture of them standing next to the 35′ holly tree, in their front yard. 🙂
I got curious. Yup. Stink can be measured. There’s a “odor intensity scale” and an “odor awareness scale.” There are articles about the science of measuring odours (which is how they spell it in Britain.)
Of course, people collect cookbooks. Looking at me with my 300+ books on cooking and food. Churches and women’s groups used to put out cookbooks as fund raisers. That’s where the fellow who wrote “Baking Yesteryear,” and “Baking Across America,” got a lot of his recipes. Some glass and china collectors like magazines and the company pamphlets, as they often reveal a lot of information, through pictures of the table settings. I have an old booklet (1920s?) from the Cream of Wheat company. It’s got a graphic on the front of a black chef. So, it’s also an African-American collectible. You can usually get more money for “dual collectibles.”
No corn this year. I don’t have the space. Besides, the night manager is growing corn, in a corner of our shared plot. Though it’s struggling. I picked a few strawberries, this morning. Also, another round of Camomile blossoms. This was the fourth time I’ve picked, and the bush was still loaded. Still no pollinators. Then I watered. Master Gardeners were here, this morning.
Yes, those old house pattern books are collectible. And many of them have been republished. Oh, I think eventually, the owner built house with not much oversight, will return. Once the lenocracy starts breaking down, and goes away. Lew
Hi Chris
There are a number of conical charcoal kilns out there. Mine is one made by a guy called Paul Taylor, who is a biochar guru of sorts. Add some dung or soil to the finished charcoal, mix with water, twiddle your fingers for a while and you likely will have biochar. The basic idea is to slow burn the wood in an oxygen depleted environment to give you charcoal, not ash. That means quenching the burn before a significant amount (say more than 5%) of the wood turns to ash. There is a cottage industry out there doing this in Australia and elsewhere.
https://www.longleyorganicfarm.com.au/biochar-cone-kilns
https://anzbig.org
Hi Steve,
A minor oversight… 🙂 Here’s how things stand as of today:
– House tanks 48kL 65% full
– House overflow tank 33.5kL 5% full
– Long shed tanks 35kL 75% full
– Cantina shed tank 8kL 35% full
– Two new tanks 11kL empty (not connected up yet)
– Chicken shed 2kL 80% full
Not bad, three days of solid rain captured a decent supply of water. As the long shed tanks get closer to being full, I’ll begin transferring water from there to other storages. They fill up pretty fast due to a large catchment area and minimal use at this time of year.
Water is a problem, no getting around it, but electricity is the bigger problem in terms of relying on what nature provides. With the water stores, the best outcome would be going into summer with full tanks.
The plants and growing systems here are adapted to minimal water usage. You’d be amazed at how far a little bit of water can stretch. The old timers knew far more about this issue than I do. I don’t recall my grandfather ever watering his vegie rows, and it’s one of those things I wished I’d asked him about at the time. He grew up on a farm during the depression – which also coincided with a drought down here. Think our version of the dust bowl.
Yeah, the rotten rats. Let’s hope the owls do their job. It’s hard to know where this lot even reside.
Go Cheech and Chong! Hope the duos main meal was better than that. 🙂
Coffee grounds are a funny waste product, and I can see how they’d end up in landfill. I have to add Calcium Carbonate and Blood and Bone meal to the stuff so that the plants can make the most of the minerals provided in the grounds. Otherwise the soils can end up out of whack. I used to just chuck the coffee grounds around the place without mixing in the other stuff, and I don’t believe it was a great idea.
Simply chopping and dropping ones vegetation too is a good idea. And that is the unfortunate reality, supplies can come to an end.
Exactly, stored well and out of the sun, wind and rain, those panels will have a very long life. You just need the other components, like plugs, wire, fuses, charge controller, battery and inverter. 🙂
Cheers
Chris
Hi Kezza,
Thank you so much for the links and photos. Go the biochar! The Longley Organic farm is in a beautiful part of the world (and with a not dissimilar climate from here, although the volcanic loam soils here are a bit richer). I’ve travelled a bit in that part of the country and know it pretty well, and at one stage long, long ago almost considered moving down there.
The bloke in the video answered a question though. The big logs in the loggers mess here, would probably be better used as firewood, although sadly they are too large for me to convert into that resource. Way too big and heavy, sorry to say. Eucalyptus Obliqua (Messmate, Tassie Oak etc.) are around 750kg/m3 and that’s very dense timber.
The biochar creation process looks very simple. Who knew? I’d probably just dig a pit here and will run some experiments in month or so. Even the activation looked simple and Seasol concentrate is available and affordable. Interesting stuff, and not something previously considered.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
It’s hard to know whether the thinking was even engaged, or whether conditions exceeded the gear – no matter how good the stuff was meant to be? That can happen too. There were more rescues: NSW Snowy Mountains hikers warned after couple’s blizzard rescue. The name of that area is a dead give away as to the winter conditions. When you get a white out in those mountainous areas, it’s treacherous – you don’t know where you are. And that can happen here too. Not fun, but at least I know this land intimately. There are better times of year to go for a hike in that part of the country.
It’s not uncommon over the winter months to see tourists alighting from their four wheel drive vehicles in this mountain range, only to be shocked by the cold weather. And yes, I’ve seen the attire you referred to. It makes me wonder: what kind of story do you have to tell yourself to wear that up here in the winter months?
Talk about shivers from that song. And yes, the comments went places. Reading about the aftermath and investigation was a deep rabbit hole. A lot of potential things went wrong that night on the lake.
It depends with the bushfire because there is always the risk we could get caught out unawares. When the 1983 Ash Wednesday fires roared through the more fashionable end of the mountain range (and there’d been a fire going up in this part of the range for weeks), there was no warning whatsoever. In fact one of the things people recalled from that night was that they were at home watching Dr Zhivago on the TV. The authorities had erroneously believed the fire was headed elsewhere and there was little warning. But I’m aware of the risky weather days, and have a good grasp of the winds and the geography. If you wait for the authoritas to inform your moves, you could be disappointed, but even still I could make a mistake. There’s no infallibility here.
From what the studies down here report is that, the population I believe is split into three categories, fairly evenly too: Prepared and ready to leave; Wait and see; and Clueless.
There was a photo from your part of the world a year or two back with golfers continuing to play a game whilst the mountainside to the rear of the photo is going up in flames. Hard to know whether it was computer generated or not, but anyway, it’s probably not how I’d conduct myself in the circumstances. Everyone’s different…
Most stuff can be replaced, even housing. No point dying for stuff. Mind you, if insurance became a problem, then all bets are off. Things would be different then, and I’m planning for that possibility. It could happen and I don’t believe it is outside the realms of feasibility.
Your temperatures are starting to get up there, and the pumpkins and tomatoes will love that weather. Plants bounce back from heat stress, although it is possibly not their preferred state of being – but what do you do, and how much water can you throw at plants? Hope the Professor is right because that weather sounds quite pleasant.
Corn fed deer! Yup, and so amusingly true. Thanks for the laughs, but I’m guessing he wasn’t kidding around. 🙂 Venison can be a bit gamey tasting, I know what you mean. Kangaroo is a bit nicer because they tend to consume grasses by preference. Deer will eat anything based upon what goes on around here, far out!
Those are amazing looking plants, and I too was astounded by them when first encountering the flowers. The local General Store used to have planter boxes with them (they weren’t fenced sized like the ones you must have seen!) That’s a big holly tree and over on the northern side of the range, they get big there too, maybe not 35′ though.
In my first adult job I worked for the water board, and somehow occasionally volunteered for the ‘odour assessment panel’. I got paid for assessing sampled stinks taken from the areas around the Werribee Sewage farm – there are a lot of residential areas nearby. That facility is truly epic in scale and old too, plus I believe it’s become some sort of internationally recognised water bird area which is closed to the public. Anyway, they sit a team of testers down in front of funnels and get them to rate the odour. It was an interesting way to regularly spend a few hours reading a book and get paid for it. I’d not realised until a few years ago that not everyone has the same abilities to smell things, and the Editor complains that I’m a super-sniffer. Hmm.
Odours is spelled that way down under too. We tend to follow the UK spelling rules, but there are some nice simplified spelling examples from your country. It’s not like the ‘u’ in odour is actually pronounced. I suppose such things change and morph over time? On the other hand, I am not a fan of the current teaching fad which brushes aside basic language skills such as spelling. Generally a person spells a word so that other people can comprehend meaning, and if spelling is poor, then how can meaning be transmitted? Of course, this may be a feature of the system and a requirement of the elites.
🙂 Well done with the collection, and my friends of the big shed fame would pour through your cook books. They too have a decent sized library of such books. A fascinating cook book on baking to be sure. You’d hope that there was some attribution for the recipes? I’m writing that note down about ‘dual collectibles’ – could be something to keep in mind. Thanks!
Lewis, he’ll get there. Everyone thinks that they can cheat nature with this soil stuff. Then you learn the hard way, or possibly give up in defeat. Or worse, keep on churning out the same rubbish year after year. We’ve all been there. 🙂
I’m in awe of your strawberries. Although the Alpine Strawberries have ripe berries on them – even now. What’s not to like about that?
Agreed. That system has to break before it can get better. People have been making their own housing for millennia. The engineering was the best of the bunch because the drawings provided specific details as to how to construct the house, what structural materials to use and when to add bracing for high winds (as I was required to). That stuff has earned it’s keep!
Cheers
Chris
Chris:
Turnip alert!
I was just pulling up most of the turnips that are left and came across the label I had at the beginning of the row, which was under a bunch of leaves. They are Aji Kogane Turnips, sweet and golden. Not Shogoin, like I had said.
https://www.rareseeds.com/turnip-aji-kogane?srsltid=AfmBOorQJsDjQrfSVmKCTGV9zS7f0xlU8FRGruZVdgjwVdZYFYR17U01
Pam
@ Lew – while you have had a high of 91F, it has yet to reach 90F here and will not do so today (Tuesday), 21 days later than the average first high of 90F. We might reach a high of 90F tomorrow or Thursday, but it’s by no means assured. Then clouds and rain move in, again, and keep the highs cooler. It could be another week or more before we get our first 90F high.
You mentioned cookbooks as fundraisers. Mike and I have one such cookbook that was published by the Gateway Dulcimer Society, to which we belong. We also have a cookbook titled Champaign County Sesquicentennial Recipes, 1833-1983. That’s Champaign County, IL, where the University of Illinois is located. I bought that cookbook the year it was published, because I was a grad student at the university and it sounded interesting. It includes some history of the people from whom the recipes were collected or had been published under their names in earlier sources, as well as some photos. I don’t think I have tried any of the recipes, but I still have the book, so it could happen.
Claire
Yo, Chris – I’ve driven in white-outs, a time or two. Like you. I knew the road. And, the “turtle” lane dividers kept me on the pavement. Back in Ye Olde Days, settlers, especially out on the Great Plains, used to string rope, from the house to the barn. To feed their animals. Also, from the house to the privy. 🙂
Another recent photo is of skiers, with Mt. Etna erupting in the background.
I noticed, yesterday, that I’ve got some green tomatoes! They’re on one of the cherry tomato plants. I think the yellow one. Our high yesterday was 91F (32.77C). Overnight low was 48F (8.88C). The forecast high for today is a much more comfortable 82F. The rest of the week will be mid to low 70s. Ideal weather.
There are a lot of commercial holly farms, down in Oregon. Seems like they’re always fighting the birds, that eat the berries. There are volunteer holly, up in the forest, behind the Institution. Volunteers show up in the rhodies, every once in awhile.
People with overactive sense of smell, can be a real pain in the … ear. We have a few around this place. “I smell something” gets a bit tedious. I usually tell them that hallucinatory smells are often a sign of incipient stroke 🙂 . Gives them something else to fret about.
A good example of a dual collectible would be something that appealed to the fuchsia loving mob, I mentioned. There’s a highly collectible pottery, Roseville (1920s – 30s), and one of their patterns is fuchsia. So that bit of tat can have a bit of a premium. Value added? I’ve got a couple of lithographs, by the artist James Montgomery Flagg. Best known for the “Uncle Sam Wants You” WWI poster.
Worth something in their own right. The subject matter of both has to do with smoking. And, yes, there’s a whole collector’s field known as “Tobacciana” which is all things related to tobacco.
How did we miss this? Our library ordered a 1994 movie, titled “Cemetery Man.” An Italian zombie movie, starring Rupert Everett. Billed as comedy / horror. I put a hold on it. Though the plot summery on Wiki-hoopy gave me pause. I guess there’s a bit of necrophilia, just to spice things up. 🙂
https://youtu.be/XVEhAw7bGx4?si=qXqRwpWb5wP1V1eh
I got to thinking, the other day. The Club is bleeding volunteers, and part of the reason is that no one wants to deal with the cash register, that The Powers That Be insist on using. I came to an … interesting (?) conclusion. Cash registers, at least the ones I encountered in retail were electronic. Pretty straight forward operations. Fairly dependable. Just about anyone could grasp the workings. New cash registers are computerized, which adds whole layers of complexity, that can be full of bugs and glitches. I guess the point I’m trying to make is it’s a situation of electronics vs computerization. It’s just an inkling of a theory, that needs a lot more thought. But it might apply to a lot more areas, than just the dust up at the Club. Lew
Yo, Chris – An article on wildfire home hardening.
https://www.cpr.org/2025/06/10/wildfire-home-hardening/
Lew
Hi, Chris!
When I sent the Turnip Alert today, I forgot that I didn’t comment yesterday because I had laptop trouble. Anyway, howdy do!
That opening photo certainly is gloomy. A good day that was for a mysterious murder . . . Anyone missing? I can see why you only got 11 minutes of energy, though.
Eighteen years of coffee grounds is a lot of coffee grounds. Do you ever actually drink coffee at that place or is it strictly a business arrangement? Do you think any of your wildlife ever eat the grounds? Besides worms and such.
You are so lucky that your reliable plumber is still around. I don’t know where the one who put in the plumbing for our house is, which is no loss. He didn’t do a very good job and my son replumbed the whole house about 10 years ago.
The bank in front (back?) of the house will look so lovely with salvias and penstemons covering it. I can’t wait to see them bloom next year. I see the brazier smoke in the background. I wonder why there were still coals in it after being outside so long.
What an impressive 15 year old Meyer lemon tree. Giant rat! Geez, at least ours are small. Though that’s kind of bad because they are so cute that I am not doing anything about them. That is an excellent point that you made about the food forest and that it has too much cover for varmints. And I feel that you are right about culling. One of our neighbors years ago kept shooting the squirrels bothering their garden, but new ones immediately filled the void. Maybe that’s just squirrels. We had no trouble with deer years ago, until all the neighbors who hunted moved away. Well, somebody got Kuato. RIP Kuato. I expect another one will show up.
Two girls and a boy kiwis . . . hmm. What a loss all that fruit was.
It’s funny that enchiladas were mentioned. I was thinking about them because somebody had exploded a tamale in the microwave and they smell sort of similar. I love enchiladas, but haven’t made them in a number of years. I thought about picking some up at a good Mexican restaurant we used to go to. I looked up the prices. One enchilada is $8.30. I don’t know how big that is. They come with ground beef or chicken. If it’s one really big one it might be worth it.
I am astonished that your peppers are still producing. We do have some tiny baby peppers on some of the plants. Lots of small tomatoes. I am growing eggplant for the first time. They are slower than molasses.
I love that jade plant. I assume it is a succulent?
Pam
Chris,
Thanks for the mountain snow article with the stuck vehicles. I mean, yes, pay attention to the weather forecast. Be prepared for the weather conditions – food, water, blankets, boots, shovels, etc., – just in case you get stuck. Apparently in Australia, as in the USA, common sense like that doesn’t exist for most people.
One day when I was cross country skiing on Mount Spokane, the weather turned from snow to freezing rain to rain and wind. I missed a turn on the trail I was on. Eventually, I got back to a known point, but by then it was hazardously windy and I was getting wet. I found a sheltered area, dug a hole in the snow and hunkered down. However, I had a dry wool sweater, dry wool socks and a nice rain poncho to cover up with. And food and water. Was I in danger of hypothermia? No. Was I comfortable? Well, let’s just say that it wasn’t like being in the living room in front of the fireplace with a cup of tea. I also learned from the experience and improved my survival kit.
Oh, I sat there for 8 hours then the State Park rangers found me with their snowmobiles. Took me back to the parking lot, where a sheriff’s deputy drove me home – they said I couldn’t drive and I didn’t argue. Because the wind had blown some trees across the road out, even had I gotten back to my car, I would’ve spent several hours hunkered down in the car – somewhat more comfortable than my snowy hole. Anyhow, that was my mountain top experience.
I noted your mention of Snowy Mountains to Lew. My experience agrees that places named “Snowy Ridge” or similarly are appropriately named. Snowy Mountains, indeed. Man from Snowy River. DJ from Snowy Hole. 😉
Good job with the enchiladas. They looked delicious. The ingredients sounded interesting. It’s surprising how easy they are to prepare, isn’t it?
It’s a good thing that I got this year’s grass seed planted when I did. Most of it has sprouted and is getting established pretty well. Just in time for the heat. Monday hit 37C on Monday, 36C on Tuesday. It was windy both days. The new grass and the veggie garden are all doing fine. Supposed to get back to “normal” temperatures circa 25C for the weekend. The first wave of 36C temperatures always hits like a brick upside the head.
18 years of coffee grounds? Wow! That is a massive amount of coffee for your farm.
A week ago I weeded the vegetable patch. Then I filled two 5 gallon buckets with fresh compost from the compost pile. This was spread around the stems of all of the tomato, pepper, squash and potato plants. It seemed to help them during the recent heat spell. And yes, I add all of our used coffee grounds and tea leaves/bags to the compost pile. A repeat of the compost addition to the vegetables will occur in early July, if not sooner.
This past weekend was one of the two big events for the carving club. It was two days of small classes. Traditionally, many of the wood carving clubs throughout the country call this the “rendezvous”. The club bought pizza for lunch on Saturday. There were four classes for each session, with two sessions on Saturday and one on Sunday. I spent Saturday prepping materials for the class I taught on Sunday.
Sunday came and there weren’t many people there. Two of the classes swallowed all of the students. Thus, two of us were without students. The other teacher decided to take my class on basic chip carving. The technique is very different from other types of carving. She picked it up really really fast, did some things that are fairly advanced, including lettering. She completed the class having chip carved a wonderful name tag. A master chip carver was at the next table participating in a different class. He was very impressed with the name tag. The quality of her work was remarkable for a first timer at chip carving.
Meanwhile, I worked on a practice board. My chip carving skills need improving. I was happy with the practice results. I’ve got an involved chip carving design I want to use for a project. My skills might be up to it now.
Dame Avalanche decided that it was too hot to lie in the sun and bake her brains. She spent most of the 2 hot days indoors where it’s cool. Plus, both the Princess and I just wanted to lounge around, reading books and napping. Dame Avalanche enjoyed relaxing with her humans. We don’t get to do that often enough, so it was enjoyed by all.
DJSpo
Hi Chris,
Wow, 0.11 is not a lot! I’ve definitely seen times here where the system is producing 0W in the middle of the day, but it doesn’t happen often.
Yeah, I know SA’s dependence on the NEM for grid stability. It does seem that the state is getting serious about batteries, and storage in general. I’m still unsure of the feasibility of using batteries for grid firming in the absence of fossil fuels. My feeling is that the quick-response gas generators are likely to be lower CO2 emissions if a LCA approach is taken, but I haven’t found a study to confirm/refute this. On the other hand, It seems that the carbon intensity of producing lithium batteries is decreasing over time…
I think a big problem with the way the grid is organised is that it’s not user pays — many people (me included) pay a flat rate for power and get paid a flat rate for solar feed-in (which probably has negative value on average). It means that there is no price signal being sent that power is a lot harder to produce at some times than others…
But yes, demand management is definitely the way to go. That and expectation management 😉
Cheers, Gus
Hi Pam,
The Aji Kogane Turnips looked really interesting, and there were a lot of references to the word ‘sweet’, which is not what comes to mind when thinking of turnips. The link you provided blocked me… What do the bots know? 🙂 I’m not sure that variety is available down under.
Howdy doody! Is that a correct reply? There’s some vague memory suggesting that it maybe so, but if not, hopefully you are appreciative of a proper: G’day Pam! My grandmother on my fathers side (not the crazy one on my mothers side) was really salt of the earth and she had a wonderful warm welcoming way of saying: Oooo, g’day lurve! The audible memory is still there, along with the creaky spring on the front gate. You can take a girl out of the Scottish highlands, but clearly the traces remain mixed in with a strong dollop of Aussie. 🙂
Now that you mention it, I forgot to search for missing people that gloomy winters day, but then there’s that old saying about: Australia is a big place and shovels are cheap! Although in this instance the saying does not apply, it’s merely suggestive as to possible outcomes. So to answer your question directly, if someone is missing, I know nothing. 🙂
Today was partly cloudy and things were slightly better, but winter is not all that great for producing electricity from solar photovoltaic panels at this location. It surprises me that with the err, more snow in your country, that few people seem to even want to talk about that subject. Dunno.
Respect for an insightful question. I used to live around the corner from the café and so know the owner by long association. Why waste the opportunity? But of course! 🙂 The guy who originally worked there long ago told me that there was often much talk of nabbing the used coffee grounds, but nobody could keep up the regular activity of removing them, but then he knew me probably better than I did. Has there been a week off blogging in 11 years? I don’t think so.
Absolutely, the soil critters consume the coffee grounds. One day I might set up a time lapse trail camera and find out what happens. But they’re soil critters. It’s possible the birds sift through and sample the grounds too.
Ah, things are different down here and I’m not allowed to do such household work. A person has to be licensed, or else. There are times I envy your country’s simpler approach to such matters, although the earlier outcomes are better here if you know what I mean – the systems doesn’t require a re-do, just more maintenance and fixing if gone wrong. It’s complicated.
The side of the house, if that’s even a thing. The flowers will look lovely, and I know a source for cheap plants from that Salvia family. Well, fires can burn for months if there is fuel and a low oxygen environment. Think of the problem in the same way that fires in coal mines are an issue. It’s one of the concerns in relation to building the top soil here too deep, or using biochar. Like how bad and long will all that stuff burn if there is a serious bushfire here? Turns out, I don’t really know the answer, but may find out. I do have work boots that can survive high temperatures – just in case.
Small rats are nice, and probably clean and pleasant creatures. Big rats eat lemon zest. Is this nice behaviour? Fortunately there are a few lemon trees. Culling is simply a different form of the whack a mole game. Better to learn the ways of the forest critters, then either outwit them (we are meant to be smarter, aren’t we?) Or exclude them. Or reduce their desires to be present. Doing the same thing over and over again like with culling, does my head in.
There are a few neighbours who will deal to the deer, but those folks are getting older, and the deer are not stupid whilst being fecund. I can do so if required, but still need to learn more about the species before acting. They’re a recent pest, but getting worse.
Thanks and I’m gutted about the lack of kiwi fruit this year. We lost hundreds and hundreds of fruit. I had to learn where doing nothing would go, and next time will act earlier. Kuato provided a decent feed for the owls. Life is hard out there in the forest, but there’s a rough-ish sort of balance to it all. You’d see that in your area as well, maybe?
Enchiladas are tasty, and much cheaper if made from scratch using raw materials. Next time I’ll try them with less cheese, and a more quality passata but even so they’ll be both cheaper and better.
Did you know that peppers are perennials (if shielded from the worst of the winter weather)? I expect the plants to produce well for about six growing seasons. If I’d not seen it for myself, I wouldn’t have believed it. The plants in the photo are into their third year.
Eggplants are one tough nut to crack, and I wish you well. Miniature skinny eggplants will grow here, but the garden space is simply not worth it. Are you growing the bigger variety?
Yup! Jade is a succulent.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Gus,
Yeah, the output can vary wildly depending on clouds, angle of the sun to the panels and shading. It’s complicated. Wind turbines are different again in that they need a constant push from the wind. Years ago we spent heaps on installing a 600W turbine only to discover that the wind here is gusty. The output voltage rises relative to the turbine rotation speed, and watching the voltage rise and then fall regularly again with the gusty conditions was a painful (and expensive) experience. Oh well.
Dead in the water solar days here about 2% of the year, and that’s only 7 days, which isn’t much. It’s just that comparatively uptime in the mains grid is in the high 99% range, which is quite amazing really.
That’s a big question about batteries. I reckon large scale batteries can provide grid firming in terms of stabilising both frequency and voltage, but it very much depends upon the electronics attached to the batteries. You’d be amazed, but the off grid inverter here senses for loads at 400Hz, but only has to regulate a 50Hz supply. For electronics, that’s easy (but not cheap to do at a high kVA RMS output). As far as I can guess, the main issue with all of the grid tied inverters installed across the country, is that they try to match the frequency and yet possibly disregard the voltage, instead of working towards stabilising both the frequency and voltage in a local grid. The stabilising function would have been possible, it’s just the more expensive option because it requires a variable output from the inverter.
To shift electricity from one point to another, you have to go from high voltage to low voltage, and so there is a risk that the distribution side of transformers can over voltage because too many grid tied inverters are sending the local circuit to an over voltage state (i.e. when electricity supply outstrips demand), but you know all that stuff.
I reckon the quick response gas turbines are a great idea, it’s just that demand for gas in Victoria is at or near peak in terms of supply. Incitec fertilisers have or maybe shutting down production and there was a suggestion that high gas prices were to blame. We’ve worked at weaning ourselves off bottled gas and have recently reduced it to a tiny energy requirement.
Some places are offering LiFePO4 batteries for $500Wh (and you can probably do cheaper if you hunt around): LiFePO4 Oz.com That’s not an endorsement for that mob as I’ve not purchased from them, it’s just in the public domain. There are still a few Lead Acid batteries in use here, and I might consider making a kit battery next time around. Dunno.
Well yeah, a lot of things are like that with pricing. Pricing is meant to send signals to consumers in relation to their usage. We got none of the $300 freebie subsidy offered by the Federal government! The eastern grid has had some close calls in the past few years, and the western grid was in the news today actually: Rising power prices push businesses to the brink as coal shutdown plan questioned.
The take away for me is that this renewable stuff is expensive relative to production of electricity from coal. If you start to look around, there are a lot of different metal smelters closing around the country right now, and those are huge users of energy.
The underlying question to all this stuff is: what sort of future do we want as a society?
Expectation management is the hard one, yup! I hear you.
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
🙂 Man, it took two super cell storms and a direct hit from a minor tornado for me to take the weather forecast seriously. Since then every day I pour over the forecasts looking for signs and portents – and can hold conversations with knowledgeable locals about the matter.
By the way, during one of the super cell storms I had the entire kitchen sitting in the backyard (in the big smoke) and the monster hit late at night. What a wild storm that was. The result of the four inches of rain in an hour was a complete write off of the cupboards. All of kitchen chunks were damaged beyond repair, and I had to borrow an electric pump just to remove the water from the backyard over the following days. It was a mess.
The next super cell was up here, and we were renting in a town in a nearby project housing estate whilst building this house. All of the water channelled off the mountain range and that was when we discovered the road for the estate was once part of a duck farm and the asphalt surface paved over a seasonal creek. The fast moving water got into the garage and was even lapping at the front door. Bear in mind, I’d never seen a flood before that moment. Just standing ankle deep in the water was enough to wash the unwary person away.
For a laugh, the minor tornado is a fun story I like to recount as often as possible, because it was just like the old joke: Say, that’s a funny looking cloud… Pretty much what I thought to myself that day. And on Christmas day too. High winds and lots of rainfall in a short period of time. Who knew the trees could lean over as far as they did?
There was another rescue which I linked to yesterday, but this time with hikers. It took 20 hours, and that’s a long time to be exposed to the snowy elements. The photo of the couple looked miserable and I was mildly surprised that they weren’t huddling together for warmth, but there possibly may have been harsh words spoken. Hmm.
The rangers did you a solid that day, and I agree, driving was probably not a wise idea after that ordeal. However, you lived to recount the tale and are now the wiser for it. How did you retrieve the car? Did you have to wait a few days?
You have to be careful about living in your state, because, you know: Mel’s Hole. There’s even an Australian connection… Watch out for the drop bears too. 🙂
How did the grass survive after the couple of hot days now it’s been a day or two longer? And hope things do cool down for your weekend. The first really hot weather is just as you describe. Ouch! It hurts.
Here’s a ticklish problem for your physics brain: The coffee grounds have been brought back here 26 times per year for 18 years, and that pile in the photos was around 90% of the usual 60kg – 70kg load. Hmm. It’s a lot isn’t it?
That’s my perspective as well when it comes to gardening in hot conditions – feed the soil and the plants are just less stressed by the heat. Nice work.
It happens with the students doing that. I’d have denied them pizza the cheeky scamps… Probably can think that, but perhaps not do it. 😉 Oh well. Your class sounded interesting, and there’s always more to learn. Some people have a knack for certain techniques, and you never know what you’ll be good, middling or bad at. What even is chip carving? I’m getting the flavour of deep incisions into timber, so presumably there is some sort of three dimensional quality to the carving, maybe?
What sort of timber do you favour for this kind of work?
Well done to Dame Avalanche, it’s a smart move, and those temperatures would be challenging for a husky. Scrambled eggs for brains is never a bright idea! Husky’s…
Man, the dogs here had serious cabin fever from the three days of rain. How’s the Dame holding up on that front?
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Done all that stuff, and more. Windows can break. Hmm. Sprinklers are good too with their own power and water. Hmm. Town water usually disappears in a big fire – and that happened in the recent LA fires. It’s right what they’re saying about embers starting fires ahead of the fire front – it kind of pre-heats an area for the front, in a bad way.
The turtles on the road help a lot in those sort of white out conditions. We’ve got white posts at regular intervals on each side of the road, and those are good too, especially on dirt roads. I remember seeing the local creek in flood and the road snakes at that point and you couldn’t see anything except water, not even the white posts. Far out! There was some dude stuck way out there and he’d almost made it to the other side, but not quite. Never found out what happened to him, so presumably it was OK. In white outs I also recognise the look of the driveways, mostly because there aren’t too many houses up here.
Man, I’ve never seen weather conditions which are so bad that string lines are required to venture outside. And in a blizzard, you’d have to want to go to the outdoor dunny pretty bad to take that risk. No way, turns out people have died in the privy over the ages. List of people who have died while on the toilet. Is this discussion in poor taste? Better than simply disappearing like that long ago Prime Minister of ours – it was probably sharks, maybe. Nobody really knows. It’s a bit eerie isn’t it? At least someone would come along sooner or later and want to use the loo, so the chances of being deceased in there for a long time are not great.
Oh yes, those skiers. Seemed a touch risky if you ask me. Did they ever get into trouble? Oh, the story gets weirder… High heels and risky selfies: Etna eruptions cause despair among mountain rescuers.
That’s great news and a good sign for your tomato harvest. I reckon yellow are the best cherry tomatoes, and have a nice strong flavour.
Are you serious? Commercial holly farms? Sadly the gargle thing brought up lots of furphy’s because so many people had named their farm that. I’ll bet with that bird seed dispersal system that the trees are a bit weedy.
Lewis, I’m a gentleman and would never make an issue of a stink, well maybe, it depends of course on the nature of the stink. 🙂 Ah, anxiety for the anxious is a cheeky strategy. Fortunately I don’t count myself in the anxious category of human – I’m sure you’ve met some in your time? It’s nice to worry about seriously important things, but all the other stuff? Probably not.
That Fuchsia mob sound a touch scary, but with decent wallets well prepared to indulge their hobbies (a bit like me with the solar power stuff!). Roseville pottery is very elaborate and has an art deco feel to the pieces, quite nice. Incidentally some looked a lot like Roman / Greek amphora’s.
Sow the seeds of Victory indeed. The artist had a great eye. Did Victory gardens originate in your country?
There are some odd twists to the film, and what I wanted to know was whether it was any good? The plot sounded mildly demented so I see what you mean by the words ‘gives pause’.
That’s the thing with software: Does this ‘ere concoction work and can people use it? Maybe the Club leadership has to learn the hard way? It’s my natural inclination to assist in situations like that, but hard won experience taught me that it’s better to stand to the side and wait out the mess. But you’re right, these devices were simpler back in the day.
Did lots of paid work today. Finished late as is usual.
Cheers
Chris
@ Claire – I’m relieved you’ve managed to dodge the wild weather, in your part of the world. Here, yesterday was a more tolerable 81F, and today is forecast for 74F. Overcast, but no rain. It’s supposed to be like this, for at least the remainder of the month. OK by me. Prof. Mass, the weather guy, refers to it as “June Gloom.” An almost yearly event. We may get into some really got weather, in July and August.
Those old community cookbooks can be really fascinating. Whole modern cookbooks have been mined out of them. (“Baking Yesteryear,” and “Baking Across America.”) Apparently, “Gooey Butter Cake,” and “Dirt Cake,” are popular in Missouri. 🙂
I’m having problems with my small sugar pumpkins. They look fine, but the veins in the leaves are turning yellow. I planted the seed in an old wooden half barrel. A good mix of garden soil, composted chicken poop and mushroom compost. I have been adding blood meal, to keep the deer off. Just a light sprinkling. I looked around on the internet, but found nothing definitive. Maybe they need some bone meal? Lime? Any thoughts on the matter would be appreciated. Lew
Yo, Chris – Re: Mel’s Hole. Probably an inter-dimensional portal or gateway, that comes and goes. 🙂
At different times, some Victoria furniture sported some very lovely chip carving. Related, the highly collectible “tramp art.”
Oh, I thought the article on fire hardening might reveal some hint or aspect that you might find useful. There was an article a few days ago, analyzing why some houses survived that terrible Hawaiian fire.
Poor taste? Is there such a thing? 🙂 Old people often pass away on the biffy. Mustn’t strain. Remember the TV series, “Six Feet Under?” How it always opened with someone’s demise, in interesting ways? One was of a sweet old lady, who had quietly passed away on the throne.
Maybe the mountain rescue people should just let the clueless, run wild. Darwin might thank them.
Here you go. Oregon commercial holly farms.
https://nwholly.org
The Roseville pottery company did some lovely stuff. I had a bit of it. All gone. Sigh. They were in business a long time, and moved with the trends.
Here you go. Victory gardens. I have a few Saturday Evening Post magazines from WWII, that have covers with a Victory Garden theme. Both the clued in gardener and the (humorous) clueless. 🙂
https://w.wiki/ESqd
The zombie movie is on my hold list. It will show up, sooner or later. I think it will be a popcorn night. 🙂 I see the new Dexter series, is in transit. I’ll probably pick it up, Saturday.
Up early this morning to drop H off at the groomer.
our high yesterday was 81F (27.22C). Our overnight low was 50F (10C). The forecast high for today is 74F. Overcast with a nice on-shore flow. Lew
Hi Chris
Given that there has been some discussion about bushfires etc on your blog just now I thought that I would add my six penneth worth. I note your comment about sprinkler systems with a dedicated water supply, so I have attached a couple of links that may be of interest to you or your correspondents. Notwithstanding the likelihood of you having already seen them. And for anyone planning to fight a brushfire locally, generally speaking having a concrete tank to hold their dedicated fire-fighting water supply is a must, as plastic ones melt and metal ones distort.
Cheers
Kezza
https://www.blazecontrol.com.au
https://www.bushfirepro.com
Chris,
You found out one of Life’s truths. Until you’ve been in a flood, you don’t know. Once you’ve been in one, you DO know. As you said, water of ankle height can be enough to knock you over, and then you’re in deep doo doo.
Yes, I read the hiker rescue article. I’ve always erred on the side of “expect the worst from the weather”, so I take along the proper gear for the worst, and make sure I know how to survive in those situations. Heck, I used to dig snow caves in dad’s back yard, sit in them for an hour or two at a time just to experience it. Served me well later.
I retrieved my car the next day. A friend drove me to the parking area on the mountain. We had dinner scheduled the night before, but I was playing in a hole in the snow instead. 😉 So after we got my car, we went out to lunch.
Mel’s Hole might not exist. Here’s a real one about an hour or so from my house. I’ve driven through it several times. It’s called Hole in the Ground. https://spokanehistorical.org/items/show/424
https://www.flickr.com/photos/pedalhead/42882731105
Most of the new grass did fine. Some of the grass on iffy soil in full sun and near the concrete driveway struggled. It got extra water during the heat. Spots in the back yard had a more difficult time, as I’ve been concentrating on keeping the newly seeded areas wet, thus ignoring the back to some extent.
Okay. That’s like 1,700 kg of coffee grounds per year more or less. 30,600 kg over the 18 years. Zounds! That’s like 67,320 pounds or 33.66 tons, American style. Are you sure that your vegetation doesn’t have a caffeine buzz? Maybe that’s the real reason why you’ve got a lot of wildlife that eats your produce, they like the caffeine buzz they get from the vegetation? 😉
Yes, feed the soil and the plants are happier. I think that the compost holds the moisture better after I ‘ve watered, also. With the heat and the wind, it’s important to hold as much moisture for the vegetables as I can.
Unfortunately, pizza was Saturday and my student surpassed me on Sunday. After the pizza. Then again, if a rookie in that carving style can surpass me in two hours, two things have occurred. One, I did a reasonably good job teaching. Second, the student has a lot of talent! I’m happy sharing my knowledge and happier seeing that someone is successful with it.
Here is a short article about chip carving. It has a picture with several examples.
https://northhouse.org/course-session/chip-carving-7-8-2023
I prefer basswood, aka linden, for chip carving. The project I have in mind will be in acacia wood, which I understand is very hard. Which means I need to learn yet another level of patience and proceed slowly. But chip carving can’t be rushed to begin with. As you surmised, a tiny three-dimensional piece of wood gets popped out of the block of wood. The basic cut is a triangular piece, so a reverse pyramid pops out when the cuts have been completed.
Scrambled eggs for breakfast, not for brain matter. Got it. Now to impart that to Dame Avalanche. 😉 Who, by the way, is doing fine with being indoors with the heat. She did spend most of Tuesday night outdoors. Full moon. She often spends extra time outdoors the night of a full moon.
DJSpo
Hi Kezza,
Would those sprinklers work – absolutely. Would a household run out of water rapidly – absolutely! There’s no one solution to bushfire sprinklers. During a big fire, often the power goes out and the town water pressure reduces to a trickle. During big bushfires there’s always the iconic photo of some bloke in shorts and a singlet standing up on a roof holding a garden hose which is providing, a trickle of water.
Here’s the four installed bushfire sprinklers all running at once: Fernglade Farm Permaculture Organic Bushfire Sprinklers Spring 2014. That’s shooting out at least 80L per minute, which is a lot of water.
I used to be a volunteer rural firefighter for a about three years, and people rely on petrol pumps and those things are hard to start during a fire because the fuel and air mix vaporises in the heat – electric is more reliable as long as the water flows through the pump and takes the heat away.
Also sorry to say, there’s no good water tanks in a fire. With concrete, water can seep into cracks and turn to steam if the concrete surface gets hot enough – and then the tank pops.
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
That’s it with the flood, first hand experience taught me how powerful a force the water can be. Now I’m super cautious with any flood waters. Every couple of years after a massive and sudden rain, the local bridge will be topped over with fast moving water. Cars don’t need much water at all to simply float away – people have a very small chance of survival in that sort of torrent (exactly, do-do land! Very poetic, and surely deserves a limerick or rhyme?)
The recent rains were pretty good, but it’s still dry so we went down today to the forest edge and continued the clean up work. The job is getting there, and the fire was so hot this evening that I could barely get close without feeling the various hairs sizzling from radiant heat. Yes, I wore the correct boots with the heat resistant soles. 🙂
That’s it isn’t it? The poor couple looked miserable in the photo, and 20 hours out in sub zero temperatures – even with good gear, is a challenging experience. It’s meant to drop to a low of -1’C tonight. Brr. I doubt the couple even knew what a snow cave was given that their tent had apparently become somehow damaged in the winds. Until you’d mentioned the concept to me, I’d never heard of such a thing. The number of people who live in the alpine areas of this continent are few. You’d be amazed at how quiet it is travelling through the more remote spots of the Great Dividing Range. Although I’ve not been there recently, and there are a lot more SUV’s on the road these days – so people might be testing out their vehicles (and presumably skills?)
Very nice, and you got your car back and enjoyed a good lunch. Outcomes could have been far worse. Bet lunch tasted good that day!
Hole in the ground is amazing, and I’d not want to have been anywhere near that glacial lake the day the banks burst. Carving granite is an impressive achievement and tells a story about how bad things were on that fateful day. Beaver is a champion, but if wolf kills beaver, then dam bursts – this is known. There’s a lovely ring of logic to that origin story.
Nice to hear, grass can be a touch fickle in hot weather. But I’ve found that even if the heat knocks the plant out, and usually that’s the case (depending on the summer rainfall patterns), then they all bounce back pretty quickly when the cooler weather returns and brings the rains.
The material adds up doesn’t it? And I believe the actual number to be much higher, but as you note, it’s a lot. It’s kind of eerie to think that all that stuff was destined to head to a landfill, but was diverted to here just because I got off my backside and asked. Makes me wonder what the coffee growers would say if they knew the end results of their efforts.
Speaking of waste, this’ll freak you out and also explain how I managed to pick up 16 solar panels for $400. I probably over paid… Solar waste problem looms following rooftop panel boom, with batteries to add to the pile. Not a pretty story.
That’s what I’ve observed here as well, compost and top soil holds more water than infertile soils. The stuff is like a sponge.
Ah, thanks for the pizza correction. Always good to have a student out perform the teacher for it raises the overall standards – as you hinted at. When teaching, my ego gets pushed to the side. It’s a learning opportunity for all who are involved in the process.
Linden is about two thirds as dense as the eucalyptus trees here, so would make for a nice carving project. Prepare thyself Mr DJ! 🙂 Eucalyptus is hard, but Acacia is the whole next level – and it’s brittle to boot. Sometimes the stump grinder carbon steel cutting teeth can struggle a bit with the density of the local acacia species timber. It’s an odd timber, and the varieties growing here are: Acacia dealbata and Acacia Melanoxylon. Super tough timber.
Thanks for the link and the photos of the technique were very good.
It looked like a full moon down here too, and hope Dame Avalanche kept a sharp eye out for werewolves. The Husky would truck no nonsense from the likes of those creatures.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
A proper spatial anomaly can explain so many things. Just because the inter dimensional worm hole was not located, does not imply that at one point it may have existed – and moved around. Of course, I’d have looked for the nearest crossroads, strange things used to occur at such places. So that would be a fine starting place.
What is tramp art? And incidentally, I’ve encountered some Victorian era chairs which had some excellent carving, with a nod to a pineapple, and also some of the local flora and fauna – such as kangaroos and emus. They seemed to feature quite a bit, and on either side of a coat of arms. It sounds all very confused, but kind of worked. It was unsurprising to discover that ‘tramp art’ had its heyday during the Great Depression – people being rather inventive and stuff, but also economical if the times demand that response. A clever re-use of materials.
Thanks for mentioning the house survival article (which I would have completely missed): These houses survived one of the country’s worst wildfires. Here’s how. Man, you’d be amazed at the efforts we’ve gone to on that fire front, and continue to do so. This house is super weird in terms of design and construction materials, and yet from a casual glance it looks like a small house. A true sheep in wolfs clothing. 🙂
Headed down to the forest edge today to continue the clean up work of the loggers mess. Had a big fire too and burnt off heaps of the stuff. Even got that blackened stump shown in the photos last week (or was it the week before, I forget?) Me tired tonight, but well pleased with the results and work. I’m hoping to get that mess cleaned up before the end of the burn off season. That’s the plan… Early this evening I went back down to push the materials together, and it was so hot I could barely get near the bonfire. Lot’s of hair sizzled from the radiant heat, and that’s already in short supply due to prevailing genetics (or so I was once told).
It’s a tough question isn’t it? Maybe poor taste is a relative concept? Lewis, I so loved that series, and yes the beginning of each show was memorable. My favourite was the guy who got killed by his wife for being boring. She whacked him over the back of the head with a fry pan, sad – and incidentally the same actor performed the role of the doctor in Star Trek Enterprise – just a few fun facts. 🙂
Well, your suggestion is always a risk anyway with rescues. To head out into the wilds is not for the casual or careless person. Even living up here can be challenging and dangerous at times. A lot of people seem to believe that risks don’t apply to them, and this perspective is patently untrue.
The Editor bought me a hardback copy of Michael Lewis’s most awesome book: The Big Short. I might read that next having just finished a book late this afternoon over a well deserved coffee. 🙂 My paperback version had been suffering signs of err, paperback strain. Pages were beginning to fall out. A very thoughtful gift.
I see, the holly leaves are used in formal wreaths for decoration. All is now explained. The plant purportedly has many historical and interesting uses. Probably would grow well here.
Lewis, you are displaying signs there of collectors remorse, which is the most awful condition of having given up at some point in the distant past one’s, or part thereof, collection. Stay strong, and know that you had enjoyed your collection whilst you had it. It’s been set free for others to enjoy.
One thing is for sure with those victory garden images, most of the folks looked under nourished. I’d not realised that they were a thing in Australia as well during the world wars. The production in your country from those victory gardens during WWII was immense. Just went on an interweb rabbit hole, delving into obscure topics such as: The Good Life series. Fun stuff, and I do sometimes wonder how much influence that show had on my own thinking and actions.
Definitely popcorn is on the agenda, and for the new Dexter series too. Is this the young Dexter, or the Dexter who gets to live on?
Hope H’s doo is up to the usual high standards of excellence?
It’ll be a minimum of 30’F here tomorrow morning. Brr! Cold, but the day should be sunny at least. Your weather sounds lovely to my winter frozen self. The power company folks were up on the road this morning trimming the tall trees away from the power lines. They’ve got a truck with an extendable boom arm out which has a massive spinning blade on the end. The arm can reach in among the vegetation with ease. An amazing machine, but the high pitched sound sent the dogs off into crazy-ville. Lot’s of barking, and the canines were sending me loopy. Oh well.
Cheers
Chris
@ Lew – I asked the internet about magnesium deficiency and got a picture of leaves with yellow veins and green in between the veins. If this is what is wrong with your plants, for a quick fix, try some K-Mag or langbeinite, which are minerals that contain magnesium, sulfur, and potassium. Follow directions carefully so you don’t over-apply. If that helps, use dolomite lime rather than regular lime in the future. You might have magnesium-deficient soil; if so, you want dolomite lime, which has magnesium as well as calcium in it.
Claire
Yo, Chris – Good news ! ! ! 🙂 🙂 🙂 No inspection on Monday. I happened to stick my head in Little Mary Sunshine’s office, to ask a question, about something. I mentioned the inspection. She said I wasn’t on “the list.” There’s a list? It turns out it’s not a HUD inspection (I don’t think.). It’s a “capital assessment.” For who, I don’t know. There may be a HUD inspection, the end of July. So, pressures off and I can get back to some other projects, that I was deferring.
Tramp art also, sometimes called “outsider art.” Folk art? I’ve seen a lot of picture frames around, but even some large pieces of furniture (bedroom dressers, etc.) were made in the style. There are books…
Some of the Victorian furniture that appears to be carved, was actually steam pressed. Oak was especially good, for that.
Yup, that’s the article I saw. Oh, I know you guys put a lot of effort into keeping your place wildfire safe. It’s really a responsibility, if one is going to live “out.” 🙂 A responsibility some folks don’t take seriously. Which is, I think, an assault against the commons. You’re good citizens.
I think there’s a balance between the totally careless and the neurotically over careful. Bore to deeply into the Land of What if, and it’s a dark answer scary place.
It’s lucky that you’re both readers. Makes gift giving easy. 🙂
I’ve made a holly wreath, or two, in my time. Pretty easy. A wire coat hanger, some light wire or twine. Heavy gloves. Up in the forest, behind my place, there’s both holly and ivy. As in the old British Christmas carol.
https://w.wiki/ETUk
I occasionally toy with the idea of putting a spray of the two, on my door. But then, I’m not a Christmas kind of a guy. -) And I doubt many would catch the reference.
Under nourished or fit? I’m always amazed at footage of school kids from the 1950s. Not a pudgy one in the bunch.
Dexter? Got me. Haven’t started watching it yet. Last night, I started watching “In Search of Edgar Allan Poe: Meet the Man Behind the Myth.” It turns out it’s a two part documentary. Oh, I knew bits and pieces, about his life. But this is an in-depth look. I sort of knew he pretty much invented the detective novel. His story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” set the template. I didn’t know that he went on to write two more stories, with the same detective. And his sidekick. A la Dr. Watson.
Oh, H looks very spiffy, now. Although she was very naughty, this morning. Sometime, during the night, she managed to bolt, and urp up some of her water. Which I stepped in. That wakes one up. After I got my toes dry, I had to get down on hands and knees with a flashlight, to figure out where the spot was. It’s never very much, but how she manages to place it exactly where I’m going to step, I don’t know. Bad dog! 🙂
Some of my garlic is looking poorly. Brown leaf tips and no scapes. Per research, when I planted the cloves, last fall, they were in the mix of good soil, composted chicken poo and mushroom compost. Also, from time to time over the winter, blood meal. Once they started sprouting, I switched to bone meal, once or twice a month. After looking at a lot of information, last night I hit them with some hydrated garden lime, and then watered. I also did the same with the asparagus patch, and the pumpkins. We’ll see how that goes.
Our high yesterday was 70F (21.11C). The overnight low was 50F (10C). The forecast high for today is 69F. There’s a nice breeze from the ocean. Quit pleasant. Lew
Chris:
What a dear that grandmother sounds like. She reminds me of my mother’s mother who did not sound Scottish, but had a Texas accent, and would hold her arms out and say: “Come and give me some sugar!” (that is, love). Her nickname from childhood was “Dearie”. No-one knew her by anything else.
Nope. You haven’t missed even one week. I don’t know how you do it. Hopefully, you like to write.
Yes, house sides are a thing. I have two. I have seen those underground coal burns in Colorado that have been smoldering for decades. It’s really weird driving along in relative wilderness and seeing smoke wisping out of the ground.
Wow! You are doing a great job with those longlived peppers.
I think I’m growing skinny Asian eggplants. I guess we’ll see how big they are eventually. Or not. Still fighting the daily battles.
Pam
Chris,
Listening in on another conversation again. I was always told that eavesdropping is a bad habit, but that was the only way to find out what was really happening in the office while I was working…Anyhow, here’s a reasonable link to tramp art. I’ve always heard it referred to as a decorative style of wood carving that is somewhat related to chip carving. Sort of.
https://www.housebeautiful.com/design-inspiration/a61665463/what-is-tramp-art-guide/
So you’re requesting some type of poetry about doo doo? I’ll see what I can come up with.
Today began with going outside, as usual, to gauge the weather and see what, if anything, changed on the street overnight. It was hazy and smelled like smoke. Fire season is upon us. Three wildfires from between Walla Walla, Washington and The Dalles, Oregon sent their smoke to us. Windy, dry, warm. Fire season is upon us. Early. Very early.
Glad you got the good rains. Is this most recent clean-up fire going to have active coals for a few days? Coals from our wood stove could be hot for days after I had removed them from the fireplace. There were two small house fires in the neighborhood caused by improperly disposed of fireplace ashes and coals.
I’ve got a book that has scads of traditional Native American stories in them. Many general topics from various different tribes. I enjoy reading a few stories once in a while. There is a logic to these stories that is foreign to modern industrial logic.
Well, the dry weather with the wind is giving the new grasses a problem. Extra watering is being done. Supposed to be somewhat windy for several days yet. Between the allergens that get kicked up and the smoke, well, it’s an adventure. 🙂
Funny. I’m trying to imagine a coffee grower in Colombia, say. And he finds out that the residues of his coffee beans have been getting dumped on someone’s soil to make fruit and vegetables grow better. Hmmm, if I were the grower and found that out, I might want start collecting used coffee grounds to help grow my coffee.
I’d known that solar panels were a waste problem now and going to get worse. I didn’t realize that the problem was already this big. We’ve discussed the electric vehicle battery problem before, but I hadn’t put that together with the batteries charged by the solar panels. It seems as if the more useful the technology appears, the bigger its downsides will be.
Exactly, teaching is not meant to be an ego driven thing. I’ve always wanted my students to be successful. I did a lot of maths and physics tutoring over the years. My goal was always to have the student(s) learn to think for themselves and not need to consult with me on a regular basis, if at all, by the end of the school term. Working my way out of a job was, to me, proof that the student was learning.
I’ll let you know how my acacia chip carving project goes. I know the wood is hard. If it is brittle and splintery, then I’ll have to use a different wood. I guess I’ll find out. 😉
DJSpo
Hi Pam,
Aren’t such folks lovely? And the name ‘dearie’ sets such a lovely tone for any interaction. Of course, I’ll bet the lady brook no nonsense from youngsters. 🙂
You’ve spilled the beans on my secret – I like to write, it’s fun. And all of our discussions are such a delightful part of everyday – like getting unexpected Christmas presents don’t you reckon? I don’t know how I do it either, and probably best not to over think the matter.
Good to hear confirmation of the house sided theory. There may be two sides here as well to this house. But is a count of two a statistically valid sample? Maths… A subject which has been ever so slightly out of reach, but that may also be my explanation for not being very good at it. 🙂
Took the day off work today. The sun shone in clear blue skies with a mild frost on the grass this morning. 50’F at lunch time, and we went for a local bushwalk in a nearby nature reserve. The place was deserted and people were clearly missing out on the glorious winter conditions.
Those coal mine fires are horrendous, and presumably nobody lived anywhere near them given you used the word ‘wilderness’? A fire got into an open pit coal mine far to the east of this state a few years ago, and somehow it was put out, but the mine and generator was closed around that time. Never heard anything about it, but presumed that it was deliberately lit by crazy people. Spare a moments thought for the volunteer firefighters having to turn up to that mess. I probably would have thought to myself that the scenario was beyond my pay grade.
It’s funny isn’t to think that peppers can produce for up to six years. I saw some reference to tomato plants surviving more than a single season, but don’t know whether it was true or otherwise. One yellow cherry tomato plant is struggling on right now, but the mild frost may have put an end to it, maybe… Dunno.
Yeah, the skinny eggplants are the ones we’ve grown as well – they can produce in areas with shorter growing seasons. Pam, it freaks me out to consider what kind of summer do you need to produce those massive eggplants you see in the shops?
Have you ever tried growing the light purple eggplant varieties? Those are good too.
How are the figs doing? And have the rat damaged trees recovered any?
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
No stress about that, this here is all public domain, which as a side note, is why I tend to keep the conversation courteous. Chip carving is what I thought about too with tramp art, but it also looks like the creators tend to layer presumably thin timber. Strong glue to have stood up to the test of time. And also a thoughtful use of materials which may otherwise have been wasted.
Went for a bushwalk in a nearby nature reserve today. Beautiful weather, and no snow to speak of! 50’F and sunny blue skies being conditions not usually associated with snow. 🙂 Spotted a lot of kangaroos and a lone wallaby (and fortunately no snakes!) It’s a little bit further north than here but not a great distance, and in the same council area, but far out it’s dry there. Probably continue work getting the site for the two new water tanks ready for installation tomorrow. Still more excavation work to do. Might create a rock lined pit with ferns for the water tank overflow. It’ll look nice, and work well.
Yes, that was the suggestion. The words were just asking for it. 🙂 Makes me wonder if a doo doo is the same as a doo wah, or a doo wop?
That’s early, and you’d hope that smoke season began after the summer solstice at least. Mind you, smoke from fires can be a problem here at any time of the year. I can see from this eagles eyrie of a height that many people tend to be burning fires with either damp material, or the things are just not hot enough at this time of year – lot’s of smoke. Some Sunday afternoons, the valley and beyonds can look like the fabled lands of Mordor. Still it’s good to see people burning off. After the initial ignition, the fires here tend to be mostly smoke free. Some of the green vegetation burnt off recently, like the wormwood, was however very smoky. You wouldn’t have appreciated the air quality that day for sure. How’s that filter of yours working? Yup, you’re on an adventure, but aren’t we all? Your grasses sadly will succumb to the summer sun, but that’s part of their cycle.
Yes, the fires will burn for days, and are not hard to reignite at all. There are plenty of coals in among the charcoal and ash. That happens with ash as you described and it’s possible that people just don’t know of that risky outcome? We’ve only had one fire in all the years when I decided that weather conditions had deteriorated and then the mostly extinguished fire had to be put out. Takes a lot of water… And made me late to get to see a client (who was good about it).
Always possible that western logic is wrong. Just because we prefer to see the world through a certain lens, does not imply that it is the only way to view the same world. Dude, I probably occasionally annoy people by looking at the numbers in their books and recounting the story revealed. Oops! Reductionism and reliance on abstraction is a school of thought which can be over applied when it is just another way of dealing with how the world works. Metaphor and allegory work equally well when suitable, just for another example. I took a photo of a large tree near to the most recent burn off for next weeks blog, and the tree itself is part of a bigger story in that area. Western culture isn’t really all that great at seeing complication that way. Can’t see the forest for the trees, as the old timers used to quip. They were right too.
Man, it’s funny you write that, but can you imagine the logistics of demanding that so many % of coffee grounds be returned to the growers for every kilogram of beans delivered? That’s what sustainability looks like, and (!) even then there’d be achingly slow losses – the oils in the coffee for one. People often suggest that they know what minerals are removed from soils by certain plants, but you know, I reckon our collective knowledge isn’t as good as we pretend it may be. That’s why I bring back more than required and also vary the types of stuff, just in case. Not all that long ago diseases due to soil mineral deficiencies was a thing.
It’s also the scale at which this stuff gets deployed. The way I see it, is the same story with the coffee grounds – if we had to pay the full price from beginning to end (plus return) with all of the stuff available, we’d never do anything! It’s a bit scary really, but I don’t worry about it all because economics allows things to happen, until a little bit after they are no longer economic, then they don’t happen any more.
Exactly! A great way to think about it: Doing yourself out of a job. Yeah, that’s what the role of the Elder in society used to be. Plus, it makes life easier if the people you’re teaching can think for themselves.
Hopefully the acacia timber used works out well. You might like the stuff, and it does cut well. Silver wattle and blackwood (the two species I mentioned) produce some fine furniture.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Well done, and that’s some fantastic news. You dodged a nuisance there for sure. On that note, I wasn’t entirely certain as to what was meant by the term ‘capital assessment’, which could mean anything really. You know, maybe it is how my brain works, but I have wondered if HUD budget cuts reduced the possibility of inspections for you?
Man, I remember renting the place in the nearby town in the project housing estate, and the regular inspections did my head in. At what point is ‘quiet enjoyment’ not part of the experience if a person is paying the bills on time? There were at least four per year – two with the agent, and two from the smoke alarm dude. Have these folks nothing better to do with their time? And I don’t know these people, and here they are poking around in my stuff. When I was a young bloke renting, all that mattered was whether I paid the monthly rent bill and if I cleaned up the place before moving on. How did it end up being all so hard? I enjoyed that rant, and hope you did as well! 🙂 Need I mention the grass cutting letter of demand?
Ah, reading the brief history on ‘tramp art’ that DJ linked to also hinted around the origins of the other description you mentioned of ‘outsider art’.
Hey, we had another ‘enchilada off’ for dinner this evening. This time the Editor unceremoniously kicked me out of the kitchen and tried her hand at the meal. Not bad, less cheese and they were cooked better (as in the corn based flat bread was slightly browned), but possibly a touch too much yoghurt was added to the fill, which cooled the contents and made them a bit liquidy. Hmm. I’m up for the next round over the next week or so, but will instead try my fill, but with the Editors cooking technique. A hybrid may arise to seize the day! That’s the plan at this stage. It’s ambitious!
So obvious with the steam pressing (I’d not thought of that process), and the timber would have been a hard wood. The designs were remarkably consistent between chairs. They used to do a lot of steam bending of timber as well back in the day – probably still do.
Thank you, and I’d not thought of the fire issue that way as an abuse of the commons, but yeah, so obvious from hindsight. The property owners (including the goobermint) are externalising their savings on maintenance costs. They all get to do other things with their saved time and resources, and when eventually the proverbial poop hits the fan, they all clamour for insurance. No wonder that industry is apparently in some troubles. The recent tax grab for extra mad cash for emergency services funding from the rural areas (there’s already an annual tax levied for this purpose) is probably part of that insurance seeking story. Hmm. I wonder if volunteer numbers reduce?
I’m with you there, and of course I allow that a person can be blind-sided by a possibility eventuating from out of nowhere. But yup, somewhere between careless and neurotic is the sweet middle ground.
On that note, we went for a bushwalk in a nearby nature reserve today. It’s just over on the other northerly side of the mountain range and up the road a bit. It was nice to see that last weekends rainfall has given the reserve some new life, but it sure is dry up in that part of the council area. Alarmingly so. The walk was very pleasant though, and the skies were a beautiful blue with not the slightest hint of breeze. Quite warm too at 50’F given we’re about a week out from the winter solstice. An apple cake was harmed during the walk, sorry. 🙂
Long ago as a young bloke I dated girls who didn’t spend time reading, and realised that longer term, that might be an issue: Why are you spending so much time with your nose in a book? What’s so important about it? Reading is such a wonderful activity and I’ve enjoyed it since I was very young – as I’m sure you did as well. 🙂 And your point is spot on!
People might not get the reference, but should we worry about that? I think not. By the way, the name Cecil Sharp is just right for someone with a keen eye for ferreting out folk songs.
Dude the food people consume nowadays baffles me. But then, we could be considered very weird for our economic habit of making food from scratch using raw materials. The kitchen is the engine room for the domestic economy. It is where savings begin. Basically, people look like they do now, because we can economically afford that outcome, and the food consumed reflects the available resources at all levels of that story. I’m always amazed by only historically recent footage as well.
Sir Arthur could not have missed Mr Poe’s work. I’d not heard that, but possibly those who write about theft in its many forms, may have more than a passing interest in the subject? Maybe? 🙂 Mr Poe was a complicated dude. Did you get to watch part two?
Go H! Actually, don’t go H! Be more careful next time and stick to the lino instead. Easier to clean up. 🙂 I’ve no idea why dogs do that sort of thing either, it’s all rather unsavoury. Here, if they feel the need to barf up some horrid thing they’d earlier stuck in their mouth, the canines head straight for the rugs. I’m onto that behaviour, and they look annoyed with me for stopping them. Don’t they realise floor boards are easier to clean? Still H has a new do, and may be enjoying the experience the way she knows how. 😉
Garlic seemed like an undemanding crop to me – it used to just do it’s own thing in the garden beds year after year, although the bulbs did get crowded. Hmm. I wonder. There was lots of advice on the subject – seems like the plant needs heaps of everything. The Calcium Carbonate (if that’s what your stuff is) will assist the plant accessing more of everything (I believe). It’ll be interesting to see if there’s an improvement over the next few days.
The high today was 50′ and the low was 36’F – with some frost. Brr!
Cheers
Chris
@ Claire – Thank you VERY much for the information. I’ll give it a whirl and see if there’s improvement.
Sunday is Father’s Day, and it’s a good reminder to give our blueberries a second application of ammonium sulfate. The first is on Mother’s Day. I do it for the Master Gardeners. Early this year, the landscaping crew butchered the blueberries. I’ll take a close look at them, when I fertilize. I’ll see if we’re going to get any kind of a crop, this year. Lew
Yo, Chris – A couple of interesting articles. A house paint that changes with the temperature. Mood rings. Who knew? Probably expensive. But, sooner or later it might be commercially produced, and prices may fall.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/09/style/color-changing-paint-joe-doucet-dfi
LOL. Maybe you should rethink the original purpose of your cantina? Not a new idea. “Dude ranches” (also called guest ranches), go way back.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/09/style/luxury-farms-homesteading
That was an interesting tramp art article, that DJ linked to. Every once in awhile, I see a frame for a Currier and Ives print, that’s tramp art.
I noticed something else, in the first picture of that article. The bamboo (maybe), shelving, off to the right. I have a small display set of shelving, that is bamboo. It’s in my “Asian” corner. 🙂 Once upon a time, I had a much older piece(s). A bed and dresser that were turned Birds Eye maple, made to look like bamboo. A bed and dresser. The dresser even had a hidden drawer, to hide your jewelry in. Probably, 1870s. I wonder what ever happened to those? I can’t remember quit when I jettisoned them. Maybe when I moved to Seattle, in 1968? Or did I take it to Seattle? And, where did I acquire them? Lost in the mists of time.
There was also furniture painted to look like bamboo. Wood turned to mimic the segments of bamboo, and then a faux finish to match the color and patterns.
Coal mine fires? How about the one in the other Centralia? Centralia, Pennsylvania.
https://w.wiki/EU9L
Sometimes, lightening will strike a natural coal seam, and set it alight. They can burn for hundreds of years. I saw one in the Dakota Black Hills, when I was a wee small lad. Another roadside attraction.
I know nothing. 🙂 Next week there’s a “hot topics” get together with Little Mary Sunshine. I’ll ask what that was all about. Yes, all those inspections are quit tedious. Although, from the stories I’ve heard about bad renters, a few numpities have spoiled it for everyone else.
Perfecting the enchilada. Sounds like a worthwhile endeavor. 🙂 Yes, why don’t people do more “from scratch” cooking? That’s a rhetorical question. I made my usual oatmeal and fruit, this morning. Enough for three days. My Idaho friend mentioned she made a chicken salad. I asked if she made the mayo from scratch. 🙂 Haven’t heard back.
I see Fearless Leader is going to do away with FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency.) After this hurricane season, which is supposed to be a bad one. Says it’s up to the states to take care of their own. And that’s what state governors are for. Whatever.
Your bush walk sounds delightful. And with perfect weather. Did you make the apple cake? 🙂
Cecil Sharp sounds like the name of a character out of Dickens. By the way, when Dickens did his American tour, he met Poe. And, they carried on a lively correspondence. They both had concerns about copyright laws, which were a mess, back then.
Yes, Poe directly influenced Sir Arthur … and, Agatha Christie.
Nope, I didn’t watch part two of the Poe documentary. It was a popcorn night, as I watched “In the Lost Lands.” From the same folks who brought us the “Resident Evil” series. It was developed from some short stories from George R. R. Martin. It was engrossing and entertaining. Takes place probably 100 years, or so, after the world falls apart. Judging from the deterioration. Visually, it looks like a cross between Mad Max and westerns.
Yes, I’ve taken what Claire said, to heart, and jotted down her suggestions in my garden journal. Lime. So many kinds to choose from. 🙂 All very confusing.
Our high yesterday was 66F (18.88C). The overnight low was 46F (7.77C). Forecast high for today is 66F.
We had some deer damage, in the garden, yesterday. Green beans, in the plot next to mine. I’m surprised. I had also laid down blood meal and soap chips, there. Maybe, not enough. Didn’t touch my plot. Knock wood. Lew
Chris:
That’s it – Christmas presents every week. That’s how delightful it is to be here.
50F in the winter sounds perfect for a walk in nature. Do you ever see any animals on those walks, especially when other people (like gabby folks) aren’t around?
I don’t know anything about eggplants; these are the first I’ve grown. I’m not even sure of what to do with them. I am growing them because my daughter-in-law likes them and because long ago I had a Taiwanese friend who owned a restaurant and she made the most heavenly eggplant dish I ever had. I have no idea what went into it. When she sold the restaurant, we lost touch.
I think all the figs that weren’t outright killed by the rats have recovered. My garden is a whole ‘nother matter. My green beans that would have been ready to be canned in a couple of weeks are now gone. I had built a chicken wire cage around them, like I am doing in many beds, but it didn’t stop whatever it was. I’m pretty sure it was rats. I am really going to have to get the traps out.
Here’s what else we don’t need: A bear got into our garbage can last night.
Speaking of tomatoes:
https://www.housebeautiful.com/lifestyle/gardening/news/a7476/disney-world-tomato-tree-record/
I thought of your lot of fluffies today. My son had a conversation with a couple of our neighbors, a man and his wife (Note: all of our neighbors are really nice people). They were telling him that the Golden Retriever belonging to another pair of neighbors had jumped on the wife, who is an older woman, while they were out walking and knocked her down. Now, the dog was only trying to play – I know him – but this has been a worry of mine since he grew past his small puppyhood. The people that own him never, ever tried to control him and he is a big, strong dog now. When he jumped at me, I used to give him a knee in the chest. I knew the situation was going to turn out badly. See how right you (or Sandra, anyway) are to have gone to obedience school?
Pam
Chris,
Far out! A bushwalk in the nature preserve sounds fabulous. No snakes makes it better. Nice break from working, I bet.
More ferns? I like what you’ve done with ferns. It makes a lot of sense to add ferns to the rock lined pits – they are so fun to look at. Did you know that ferns are edible? At least the variety we have in the forests here are.
Doo wah diddy diddy dum diddy doo? Couldn’t resist that. Still searching for inspiration for a doo doo verse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UingsUi0mI
The wind shifted just enough that the smoke is leaving us alone, for now. I took advantage of the smokeless day and the cooler temperature, maximum 26C, to get a lot done outdoors. I needed to mow the back, but the large cherry tree needed trimming to allow easier access. An hour of trimming without power tools got it done. The tree is opened up a lot more, too, which should be healthier for it in the long term. Then the mowing occurred and a good watering over 2/3 of that yard. The other third will get saturated tomorrow. It is so bone dry out, and June typically gets more rain than May.
Agreed, there are other ways to think than what the western world defaults to. One of these is that relating to everything is a foundational idea in many other cultures. Western society would rather “do” than relate. Even if the logic processes of induction and deduction are identical in western versus other, the difference in underlying assumptions leads to a lot of different conclusions and huge misunderstandings. Then add in metaphor and allegory as norms in other cultures, and well, you see where we are.
Then some of us think better in images than in formal logic. Or see patterns. Or can somehow see how seemingly unrelated things are actually connected. I think the Cassandra syndrome we were discussing some time ago gets involved here somewhere – a different way of observing and thinking and connecting.
I always enjoyed working myself out of a tutoring job. Watching someone catch on to how to think, how to work with the maths and physics, was a reward worth more than money. A few times I even found out how some of the people I tutored did later. My favorite is the student I tutored who became an orthopedic surgeon. Once the physics clicked for him, entire worlds opened up for him.
DJSpo
Hi Pam,
🙂 There were heaps of birds and animals to see on the nature walk, including a large mob of kangaroos. Despite the dry conditions, a nearby hobby farm had a large dam (pond in US parlance) and so the roo’s weren’t venturing too far. The paddocks were down to stubble though. Most of the time the nature reserve is a very quiet place frequented mostly by locals.
Once a person gets away from the tourist destinations, the land around here is pretty quiet.
Ah, I’d wondered about your experience with eggplants, and yeah, they’re a difficult fruit to work out what to do with in the kitchen. Dunno what you’ll eventually do with them, but mostly we dice then salt them. The salt draws out some of the bitter taste but mostly a lot of the excess moisture. Doesn’t take too long. Roasted (or baked depending on what you want to call the cooking process) gives the best results. They can produce a very tasty dip too, but require a bit of grilling. Yum! I’ll be intrigued to hear what your experience of them works out to be. Alas some things are intended to stay as a mystery.
Youchie! Rodents are my personal nightmare and they may be cleverer than all of us combined. Alas, I’ve observed that the twitchy nosed little rat faces enjoy climbing the lovely net which chicken wire provides. Welded mesh with small sized squares (1/5th of an inch or 5mm x 5mm) is a noted deterrent. Alas, there comes a time in every gardeners life when there is a need for a cull. You could get another cat which patrols the garden at night – they do that work for free. Well, it’s not exactly free, the feline fee schedule includes: housing + feed + shelter from inclement weather + cuddles. Cats know such things, and any new feline has Mr Baby to teach it the ropes. Possibly an advantage, maybe?
Now a bear, well all bets are off, and I’d not venture into the garden at night without a rifle and powerful torch if such critters were in the vicinity. How do you know it was a bear, and not say a raccoon?
That’s an impressive tamarillo tree – a fruit I’ve never come across. A sort of plant relative which grows here is the Cape Gooseberry (Physalis peruviana), which produces some tasty fruit and is a bit weedy. Quite nice and super hardy.
Good to hear about your neighbours, and it is an enviable achievement. Have you ever seen the film: Marley and Me? That’s about the life of a Golden Retriever, and my experience with that dog breed is that they’re a little bit nuts. I hear you about this matter, and yes, that breed in particular needs obedience training – they have their own thoughts you know!
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
It’s nice to have a day off a week, and the cold winter weather is keeping the snakes asleep and/or super sluggish, but you never know, and yesterday was strangely warm. Today was back to the usual winter with 5’C and gusty winds. A very unpleasant day to be outside. Still, there was stuff to do, which needed doing.
Had a brain twister of a solar power issue smack me in the head earlier today. There are three battery state of charge meters, and they’re all wrong – or at best only an estimate as to what is really going on. One meter counts all of the amp hours going into and then out of the battery and then divides that by the stated battery capacity. That meter understates the state of charge. Amps going in and out of a battery are at different voltages and the meter does not allow for this variance, so there is drift in the calculation.
The other displays read the battery voltage and use a table of volts versus state of charge to take a best guess on real number. It is difficult with a working battery to let the chemistry settle so that a reliable reading of the voltage can be taken.
It is possible that like some problems, there are no easy answers, but mind you, if you ignore the incorrect readings, the power system is working better than I could have guessed.
Plus I discovered one of the shunt devices which measures amps flowing through wires, was inaccurate by around 5%. Doesn’t sound like much, but compounded over 30 days, that’s a lot of inaccuracy. Oh well… At least the error is on the good side of the equation. 🙂
The pith of the tree ferns down here is likewise allegedly edible. A good source of starch, but quite bitter tasting apparently. When I discovered that the deer had been munching on them, well, strong heavy gauge chicken wire is useful against such critters.
Yes, I believe that answers the doo doo challenge, and I do recall Manfred Mann and that song was big. All part of the British rock invasion.
Yeah, the wind directions change here too and isn’t it a pleasure when the smoke blows away? A relief for the sinuses. How’s Dame Avalanche holding up with her asthma? Oh my, no power tools. Respect for undertaking a difficult job, but at least the day was cooler to work outside in. 🙂 Those cherry trees don’t live all that long, or maybe they do, I forget such details? The plant sure gets big though.
Rain is a subject very much on my mind as well. Hmm. June still is only half way done, so you never know what the next two weeks hold in store? Fingers crossed for both areas.
Yeah, exactly. It takes a lot of wrong thinking ways for our culture to interact with the ecology and also each other in the manner to which we do. There’s a part of me which believes that all of the things achieved now, would be impossible without a dysfunctional perspective. Beats me man, but I tend not to worry about things which are outside my control, and instead focus on stuff that can get done. Time I believe will sort the mess out.
That’s my perspective as well, we all think in slightly different forms. I’ve no visual recollection at all, so images are not part of the thinking and problem solving process for me. But stories and concepts, life is richer with those. For another example, some folks rely on rules so as to outsource their thinking skills, and it’s more common than you may imagine. I tend to prefer guidelines instead.
🙂 Nice one, and it’s amazing how we all learn every single day – if we’re open to the concept. On that note, picked up a new tool (or more correctly it arrived in the mail on Friday) and it is used to close up the gap on a chainsaw bar. Metal wearing on metal is prone to widen the bar gap, whilst making the chain guide thinner. And the new tool ever so slightly closes the gap so the chain doesn’t cut wonky. If I get the chance, I’ll test it out tomorrow. Looks simple enough. Reduces waste too.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
The thermochromic paint is pretty clever, and probably wouldn’t work for brick houses, although I’ve removed paint from an old Victorian terrace house front with lovely polychrome patterned brickwork. Man, I’d hate to think what sort of chemicals were used that day… Oh well, at least the tuck pointing was still intact and the brick colour scheme looked really good. They used to have t-shirts which would pull that colour changing trick, but I missed the mood ring thing. Not being moody helps. 🙂
A dude ranch? What is this thing? Possibly the link was an advertisement, but yeah, it’s a thing down here too. We might have to get into that market one day. It all depends, and off grid it could be a nightmare – imagine if some thoughtless person used thousands of gallons of precious water? And didn’t think anything was wrong with that.
Hey, bamboo is a nice material for furniture. AND! In a bizarre twist to this story, the table right in front of me is made from finger jointed bamboo. It’s got lots of character and was $35 second hand. It’s been completely sanded back and finished with about six layers of tung oil so it has a nice glossy-ish sheen and feel to the surface. Birds Eye maple provides an interesting finish in it’s own right. The dots in the bamboo are a lot smaller than the birds eyes I believe. And yeah, I hear you about that, the years do go by.
What a complete and utter nightmare of a situation with that coal fire. The one down here differed because it was rather than underground mines, in an open cut mine. Yup, when things go horribly wrong… The story in some ways reminded me of an abandoned town where, well, I can’t make this stuff up: Miners push exploration of asbestos-contaminated land at Wittenoom.
The steam rising out of the ground might give some geothermal energy folks jitters! Crazy stuff, and what, there’s one in North Dakota too – was that the Bowman area coal fire you saw? Apparently it’s out now. Oh no, there were more than one in that part of your country, and some had mysterious causes other than mining and/or human stupidity.
Sure you know nothing! 😉 Hehe! And that’s the thing isn’t it? The inspections are a layer of complexity over an already complex set of arrangements, because, you know, someone did wrong, somewhere.
Yes, the enchilada was attempted again for the third time this evening using all available recipe aspects which worked. Combined them together, and bam, enchilada perfection! Maybe that’s stretching matters too far, but my gold standard for meals is: would you serve this to guests? Now of course having said that I’ve been fed some rubbish at other folks houses over the years and did they even know (one wonders?), but here we aim to delight the palate of guests. Not too much to ask is it?
Hehe! It’s a good suggestion, but home made mayo does go off quickly, but is probably better all around. Did you just get the silent treatment? 🙂
Wow, that is cutting back on the over spending. People might not like that particular cut, but we’ll see. I believe that the cuts were coming anyway. Down here they use the defence forces during such emergencies, so you might find that happening. Interestingly and speaking of blowing up currencies, you may have missed this: First home buyers baulk as average home in Australia passes $1 million. Being a millionaire ain’t what it used to be… Well done us. The words bubble and ponzi keep popping into my head, dunno why.
It’s funny you mention making that apple cake, but sadly, word on the street is that the baker at that business is retiring and who knows if the business will continue. Might not. Do I need to learn this recipe?
Poe was not living large initially with his earnings from writing due to that copyright protection issue. I’d thought that Dickens would have more clout? But then didn’t he write that ‘A Christmas Carol’ story which was a direct swipe at certain elite sections of the population?
Possibly Hercule Poirot was a nod to Doctor Watson?
What a trailer for the ‘In the Lost Lands’ – intense, dark and brooding. I see what you mean, definitely shades of Mad Max and the Matrix as well pops into my head, but dirtier, much grottiness with zombies.
🙂 You’ll be fine, Dolomite is usually labelled as such, and it’s a mix of Calcium Carbonate and Magnesium. Garden lime is usually just Calcium Carbonate. And Gypsum is Calcium and Sulphur. Hydrated builders lime is Calcium Hydroxide (I believe) and probably too potent for the garden (far too water soluble and thus dangerous). At least all that stuff is relatively affordable. There’ll be a test! Nah, not really, maybe… 🙂
Your weather sounds really toasty to my winter chilled bones. It was 41’F and windy today. All very unpleasant, and made me not want to work outside, although I did some stuff. Got the wood heater going at lunchtime. It’s still the same temperature now at almost 10:30pm, but at least the wind has calmed. Brr!
Oh my! Yes, we were thinking about how to deal with the deer earlier today. Hmm. Not a fan. Fingers crossed the herbivores keep off your garden.
Cheers
Chris
@ Pam & Chris – Eggplant parmesan. I’ve never grown any, but over the years, different Inmates, have. They always get stolen. 🙂 Lew
Yo, Chris – We’ve had a lot of deer damage, in the gardens. Green beans, parsley .. the Quinalt strawberries were hit pretty bad. Last night, around 7, I was going to go to the Club, with H. There was a deer, munching on the roses, at the edge of the parking lot. I ran the deer across the lot, up 3d street, and behind the Scout lodge, into the woods. Did H even bark, once? NO! She’ll bark at a dog,, a block and a half away, headed the other direction. Deer? No. I scattered more blood meal around, last night. About the only thing I can think to do. Maybe some more bird netting. We need a cougar to come through and clean the pests out. Or gather all the dogs in the building, form a pack and run them down. 🙂 Useless dog.
Hindsight is 20/20. 🙂 A heat gun would have pealed that paint, right off the brick. I had a heat gun, and occasionally would use it to get paint off of furniture. It sure beat slopping around the chemicals. Just had to sweep up the flakes.
Dude ranches. Launched a thousand romance novels … and quit a few Hallmark movies. 🙂 City girl goes to dude ranch to recover from being left at the alter (or something), meets cowpoke and … blah, blah, blah.
Your bamboo table really sounds nice. $20 .. a lot of elbow grease …
And, this year’s Darwin Award goes to … (drum roll, please), internet influencers who go to Wittenoom (rhymes with doom) and camp on the asbestos tailings.
Would I serve it to guests? Depends on the guests.
My Idaho friend was silent, on the making mayo from scratch question. 🙂 But she wanted to know how I made my four fruits, daily oatmeal.
Housing market here is pretty much the same. Out of reach for most people. As I found out.
I finished watching the Poe documentary. Edgar Allan Poe … father of science fiction? Yup.
https://archive.factordaily.com/edgar-allan-poe-science-fiction/
I’m now watching a documentary, “Resistance: They Fought Back.” About Jewish folks fighting the Nazis during WWII.
Our high yesterday was 59F (15C). The overnight low was 45F (7.22C). Forecast high for today is 69F. We may see rain, next week.
Discovered! Evidence of Roman Bigfoot!
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/archaeology/a65048265/massive-roman-leather-shoe/
Lew
Hello Chris,
Short shoutout from Sweden. We have a king. Not so good. Don’t copy this, as a friendly advice to anyone who has a choice. In the long medieval past, we had a king who was chosen instead of appointed by inheritance, which was better, but still sub-par.
Today is a milestone day. We got four layer hens of a Bovans/Marans cross from a friend. Now we have a new source of fertility, backed by the grain industrial complex. (even though we chose organic feed from a farmer two towns away, he is as dependent as everyone else on the diesel for his tractors and combine)
It will be interesting to learn how to keep them happy and rats at bay.
Peace,
Göran
Chris:
Unfortunately, I can’t really handle the tiny welded mesh; it’s especially hard for me to cut. Here, we call it rabbit wire or hardware cloth. Ha – and ha! Mr. Baby would not condone the addition of another cat. He does not accept that anything else might get some of his attention. This is the first almost normal day he has had since the emergency hospital visit. The heat and humidity is hard on him, but he was hunting voles today. First, though, he had to play with some ants. I called my son at the back of the property (my DIL was in town) after I had shooed Mr. B away from the ants 3 times. My son said that it was a good sign, that it had been one of his hobbies. Go figure. After his 4th visit to the ant mound, he went and laid down on the wet gravel in the driveway. I brought my lunch out there to eat so I could be sure that the UPS man didn’t back over him, should he come.
Here is something that I wonder: In old medicine protocols, Traditional Chinese Medicine and in Europe, there exists a remedy (I am not advising this!) for arthritis. It is that one takes the afflicted part to where ants are and lets them bite one’s skin where the arthritis is. Supposedly the formic acid can relieve it. Did Mr. Baby think that ants would be good for his many afflictions? We’ll never know.
We know that it had to be a bear because it turned the whole trash can over. This is a huge, super heavy duty plastic can with a hinged lid lent to all users of the garbage collection company. Only a bear could have turned it over. He has not come back.
I never saw Marley and Me, though I remember when it came out. Every Golden Retriever I ever met was goofy.
I am still drying stuff in my dehydrator. Right now it is chard, which is the only green the varmints haven’t eaten. Besides which, every other green is bolting except the endive. I have yet to have more than a bite of the endive as something really loves it. And I am drying oregano and dill. I also have tinctures going for catnip, motherwort, elderflower, and feverfew. I just picked some feverfew a little while ago and I can still smell it on my hands. So nice.
The wild wineberries are now ripe, but there aren’t many because of the deer. I am snapping them up. We have tons of the thornless blackberries starting to ripen, though. They are inside the 8ft (2.5m) fence, of course.
Pam
Hi Göran,
Short shout out from Down Under – gotta write tonight. You may be unaware, but King Charles is actually the King of Australia, believe it or not, and all Parliamentary bills receive Royal Assent before going into law. It all sounds very academic, until the Queen’s representative sacked the Australian government in 1975. You’re all fired, and it happened. A meritocracy is always preferable to other systems of advancement, but I wonder whether it takes place these days?
Well done you! And may the chickens produce plenty of eggs and potent manure. It’s good stuff, and I look forward to seeing the photos.
We buy in grains as well, but each day an area of the garden is weeded and that is fed to the chickens. Plus kitchen scraps need not go to waste when there are chickens. 🙂
Rats… Oh well, the battle will be long, there may be sacrifices…
Cheers
Chris
Hi Pam,
I see, welded mesh is tedious to cut by hand, but an angle grinder with a cutting blade does a speedy job. Had to look up what you meant by hardware cloth as I’d never heard of that description down here. Thought you may have meant ‘fly wire’ which is different stuff again.
Go Mr Baby, and there’s a bit of equal ups and downs in his life. Lot’s of attention, but then the medical issues. It all balances out in the wash, and glad he is back to his former mischief. May the voles quake in fear, and head elsewhere!
Oh my, ants! A bit of a nightmare down here, vicious things and they’ll not tolerate activities such as the brave (possibly?) Mr Baby. Nope, they would attack, and yes, lots of pain. A whole lot of pain. And inflammation for days. The dogs are sometimes bitten and I slip them a small dose of anti-histamine. Remember Dame Scritchy who’d puff like a puffer fish after being bitten? She recovered quickly after the anti-histamine.
Yes, not everyone is pet aware. Nope.
I’m sure that Australian ants would not be part of that story, they’re brutal Pam, and right up there on the pain scale. It may work with lesser ants from other countries? Possibly the pain would be so great that the arthritis is quickly forgotten. There’s a great short video on what it looks like, just so you know I’m telling it like it is: STUNG by a Bulldog Ant! I’m equally impressed and baffled that anyone would do that deliberately.
Ook! At least hopefully the bear has decamped to more fruitful areas?
Goofy is the word for those dogs. I believe that they require a strong leader to rein the worst of their personalities in. Some boundaries would be good too with that breed. Sometimes they turn up to dog obedience school. Hmm. An exciting and mildly crazy day, that’s for sure.
Yum! And respect for the deer sized fence.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Hey, I just had a wild idea for your deer problem. Call the cops and say that you thought you saw someone lurking around in the garden, and they’ll turn up and scare the deer away, or shoot it. Maybe even call in the wildlife folks. Problem solved. And you can always pull the old duffer card saying it was a case of mistaken identity.
Dealing with deer is hard wired into H’s DNA. Sir Poopy was a bit larger, but of a similar breed, and he always knew to attack from the rear, then shoo the herbivores to the property boundary. And he’d bark at them too so as to let them know that the Sheriff is in town, and he means business. H may have momentarily had her mind on other more important matters? The entire dog collection from your lot would absolutely form a pack and go on a rampage! Seriously. About two years ago I mentioned to a Kelpie breeder that I trained the dogs here to hunt rabbits and rats, and it was like I’d farted in church – or mentioned medicinal herbs to a doctor! Far out, talk about a sudden shift in the atmosphere…
That chemical job was one I got a bloke in who specialises with such work, and the results were good. The polychrome bricks underneath the many layers of paint were awesome looking. In some respects the pain protected the tuck pointing and mortar too. So weird why anyone would paint a brick wall. That house had to be taken back to the shell because previous owners had done so many weird things to it over the century of life. Like backfilling soil under the timber floors to reduce air flow – as you do. Absolutely too, heat guns work a treat to remove plastic coatings.
What a great idea for a romance novel, and it’d probably make heaps of mad cash! 🙂 Man, not everyone is cut out for the city life, me included.
Exactly, opportunity often turns up with an affordable price tag, but it’s wearing overalls isn’t it? 🙂 None of the tables here were purchased new. The very best is the dining table, and that thing must have been easy $4,000 new. Super thick and dead straight local timber species, all made by hand in the big smoke – it’s even got the stamp from the manufacturer. When the guy sold it to us, he said it was an heirloom piece. Sure it is, but then why sell the thing for $100? It was too big for his circumstances, that’s why. The timber got carefully sanded down (some idiot had stained it with a walnut stain), then coated with umpteen layers of tung oil. It’s a stunning table now, it just took an awful lot of hauling from far away and hard restoration work – as you’d know. Buying new makes no sense whatsoever.
Yeah, thought you’d be intrigued by that story. Now, I’ve encountered asbestos for sure over the years. The stuff was sold right up to the mid 80’s so there is no way I’ve avoided it. I even recall the advertisements for garden edging with asbestos. One of those things which seemed like a good idea at the time. But would I go and camp next to tailings from the mine? No. You called it correctly.
You’ve raised a curly question there in relation to guests. But would I invite guests over who’d be a nuisance? I think not, so the folks who do arrive get the red carpet rolled out.
Hehe! It’s always worth trying with the mayo. Have an old friend who used to work in pub kitchens and they always made their own dressings. It ensured consistency, and mostly they’re not difficult. The oatmeal question is what I’d describe as a thoroughly positive outcome.
I’d not realised that the prestigious Hugo awards were named after a person involved in disseminating the genre. Thanks, and you learn something new every day. Poe was a creative genius. Did I mention that the last of the complete Jack Vance collection arrived in the mail the other day?
Why wouldn’t you in that circumstance? There was so much to lose, and was lost. It was awful and also a stain on that countries cultural memory.
That’s cold, but it was colder here today and drizzly. The Editor stayed indoors doing her own thing, but I went down and put the chainsaw to work on cleaning up. So satisfying and warm! Mind you, it feels chilly now.
Go the Roman Bigfoot, and may the warrior have inspired terror in all whom he faced in those days. The single comment was interesting.
Have to get writing, so better run. Not in a size 14 though!
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – For your consideration … I wonder where I can by the cast album? 🙂
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/luigi-mangione-unitedhealthcare-musical-premier-san-francisco-b2770019.html
As far as the deer go, someone mentioned something that I had forgotten about. Self produced deer deterrent. 🙂 . Time to start weeing in a bottle. H has no excuse. We had already taken care of her “needs” before we spotted the deer.
New furniture is kind of like new cars. Loses a chunk of value, as soon as you drive it off the lot. There’s an auction up in Olympia, that gets a lot of high end furniture. Stuff that originally sold for thousands. It’s gobsmacking how little it goes for.
Asbestos removal is big business. One of those “Seemed like a good idea…” at the time.
Yes, I had never really thought much about where the name of the Hugo awards came from. Some guy named Hugo …
Speaking of Nazis, I’m reading an interesting book right now. “The Art Spy: The Extraordinary Untold Tale of WWII Resistance Hero Rose Valland.” (Young, 2025.) Fascinating.
https://w.wiki/EV32
Our high yesterday was 63F (17.22C). The overnight low was 45F (7.22C). The forecast high for today is 75F. Prof. Mass is talking about rain, but I don’t see it in our local forecast. Maybe Seattle.
So, now that you’ve completed your Vance collection, do you feel a bit of a let down? Completion. Sometimes happens. What next?
I watched the first two episodes of “Dexter: Original Sin.” I won’t say too much. Spoilers. But, it’s great! Dexter’s origin story. Sort of like a super hero. 🙂
I pruned the grapes last night, and my tomatoes. I put bird netting over the strawberries. Kind of like closing the barn door, after the horses have escaped 🙁 . My tomatoes look like your olive trees.
Roman legionaries had to be over a certain height. Big foot might even have been an auxiliary. Or, a slave attached to the legion.
According to reports, we have a king … 🙂 . Lew