The national youth music broadcaster – Triple J – turned fifty years old earlier this year. It’s not a bad effort, and a good use of taxpayer funds. Think of it for a second, when they first began broadcasting I was unceremoniously dumped early into primary school in grade prep. Even worse in those days, flared pants and thick mutton chop side burns seemed to be a thing. All, totally unforgivable. Anywhoo, the national radio station is celebrating the auspicious occasion with a listeners countdown of the top 100 Australian songs of the past 50 years. And a person gets ten votes. And that’s it.
For a country with such a small population, their annual musical polls can receive millions of votes, which is really quite astounding. What can I say, possibly the compulsory voting for politicians at all levels has spilled over into other areas of Australian’s lives? Whatever. After previous polls, the news media scour the results looking for trends and patterns, and not all those cheeky scamps have a kindly heart. There was that 2009 poll which produced a notorious sausage fest result, with I believe only nine female singers represented. Not a good look, and changes at the station were apparently made.
Anyway, what a decision we have to make here! Ten votes to represent the very best of this nations prodigious music output from the most recent five decades. Do I upset a friend who will be sure to ask me, by not chucking in a vote for one of the Hoodoo Gurus 1990’s classics? Hard decisions will have to be made. Fortunately Sandra and I are made of stern stuff. The other day during a brief discussion upon this very topic, I mentioned that on their voting website you could log in, provide identity and make a short list from the long selection of songs. Sandra was unconvinced at this innovation, she has a list on paper.
Sometimes going ‘old school’ in this tech-bro era is a workable approach. Technology can sometimes provide an aura of certainty when the truth may well be otherwise. Every morning I check on the status of the batteries used in the off grid system, and have been doing that for well over a decade. Initially recorded on paper, the numbers are later added onto a spreadsheet. Long ago I believed that the power system would be a ‘set and forget’ proposition. That was so naive. It’s wondrous to think back on those early carefree days! Now I know better, and keep a regular eye on how it’s working. Each day I’ll record: the voltage the batteries began the day at; the state of charge % of the batteries; if the generator/battery charger was used; and how much energy did the solar panels harvest from the sun.
Recording data over a long enough period of time does reveal some interesting patterns. That’s how I realised that the three weeks either side of the winter solstice (like right now), is not all that great for harvesting electricity from the sun. Short days and long shadows are a real bummer for true believers in a renewable energy future.
Anyway, the power system sure supplies a lot of data. The other morning the digital display was suggesting that the batteries were completely empty of charge. 0% was displayed on the meter. Never seen that before. It wasn’t right either, after all the lights and coffee machine were still working just fine. The battery voltage also suggested that the ‘state of charge %’ was in reality much higher. Hmm. What to do?
I’ve noticed that when people are confronted by a digital display of any sort, there is a tendency to sort of accept that the numbers provided are accurate to a high degree. Au contraire dear readers, a digital display alone does in no way provide any guarantee of accuracy, it’s probably just got more decimal places. The old timers used to cheekily quip that: The map is not the territory, and they were right. Of course, plenty of digital displays are actually good, it’s just not all of them are so. They should be treated with a healthy dose of scepticism. And the state of charge meter that morning was plain old wrong.
Knowing how the power system was meant to work uncovered the minor issue pretty quickly. Without going into too many boring details, a small data reader which monitors the electricity flowing through a very chunky wire, had somehow become out of whack. It was easy enough to adjust a screw setting on the device so that it now reads a slightly higher (and probably more accurate) number on the digital display. Done and fixed. Onto the next problem.
These sorts of issues are a bit of a pain because you’d hope things just worked. You know, with a lot of my paid work nowadays, the tech-bro solutions are being wheeled out more and more frequently. It can be quite frustrating when systems don’t work, and you’d be surprised how often that is the case. I get the distinct impression that many of these online systems are set up with the central tenet of: Let’s assume that everything is done perfectly and nothing goes wrong. Yeah sure, and unicorns fart rainbow coloured clouds too you know.
On the other hand, some of the predictive stuff these days can be quite useful. But you have to forever keep an eye on the computer, it’s not always right. And on that note, is it just me who gets the impression that I’m training these bits of code to do my job? Trust me, I celebrate every single mistake they make, and fortunately there are plenty of those. The really funny conclusion I’m deriving from observing the patterns of these systems, is that I’m still working just as hard. Turns out the efficiency wins from the predictive systems are being offset by dealing with the losses when things go wrong, as they regularly do.
It’s funny, but I’m old enough to have begun work in the accounting profession when the books and records were kept entirely on paper ledgers. Everything seemed to work OK in those days. The real laugh though, is that back in the early 1990’s when the previously mentioned band, The Hoodoo Gurus were on the national youth airways, I took a few companies from those paper systems over to computer based systems. There was an underlying sense of idealism. The thing is, afterwards the work took the same amount of time and people to complete. Nowadays instead of handing the mad cash to the folks who printed the paper ledgers, the tech-bros won the day, and it’s not lost on me that their demands for regular subscriptions are increasing.
The week has been mostly dry and warm. Tomorrow, the forecast is for 19’C / 66’F in Melbourne, and given it’s only a few days after the winter solstice, that is quite unseasonably warm. The sky earlier this evening produced a brilliant red hue on the clouds. What an odd year of weather it’s been!
Work on improving the water systems continued this week. The excavation work on the site for the two new water was completed. Most of the soil from that project has been driven back up the hill and used to improve the flat land adjacent to the house. The many round raised beds in that location form the kitchen garden.
Now that the excavations had been completed, we were able to roll the water tanks into position. The two tanks sit on a bed of rock crusher dust. It’s a waste product from quarries, but don’t let the word ‘waste’ fool you, the fine grained stuff is an amazing fertiliser. We brought back a trailer load of the material.
The largest yellow power wheelbarrow hauled the rock crusher dust down the hill where it could be dumped on the excavation site. A long metal spirit level was used to smoosh the material around and ensure that the surface was both flat and level.
Just to give an idea as to how big these two plastic tanks are, I can just reach high enough to touch the inlet filter edge.
The only way to move these plastic monsters, is to tip them onto the side, and then roll them. It was the work of about fifteen minutes to roll the water tanks into place.
This week’s video shows how we move the large plastic water tanks around using human labour.
Over the past day or so, 10,000L / 2,600 gallons of water has been transferred to those two new water tanks. The really long line of water tanks was rapidly filling up from recent heavy rains. On cold winter mornings when there is frost on the grass, condensation forms on the side of the water tanks – and you can see the water level. There are plenty of other ways to work out how much water is stored in tanks too.
With all of the soil relocating done recently, an idea formed that we’d fix up some of the minor issues with the round raised garden beds. Candidly, they were installed in a line which was a bit, err, wonky.
There were also the two round beds which had been removed so that we could fix up the soil underneath them. These beds were placed at either end of the long line.
Also an asparagus bed (one of three) had originally been installed way too close to one of the large house water tanks. It could possibly be moved, maybe. Turns out that was a super hard job to do. The electric jackhammer proved up to the challenge and was used to dig up the plants. I’m sure they’ll be fine. But it was one headache of a job!
That steel ring was too tall, so once it was removed, a couple of corrugations were removed using an angle grinder.
It was a long hard day of work that one, but it’s now all done. And more importantly the raised garden beds look super neat. We just have to fix up the rock wall now.
The mornings have all been mostly frosty, although the frost is probably best described as a ‘light frost’.
In between all that work, we also put another day into the clean up of the old loggers mess. The bonfires tend to look the same one week to the next, so I didn’t bother taking along the camera that day. It’s worth noting that the loggers mess clean up work is progressing at a respectable rate, and may even be completed this burn off season, maybe.
About the only fruit trees producing anything right now are the citrus, and they’re amazingly productive:
Onto the flowers:
The temperature outside now at about 11am is 10’C (50’F). So far for last year there has been 300.6mm (11.5 inches) which is up from last weeks total of 286.8mm (11.3 inches)
Comments
49 responses to “Do you remember?”
Yo. Chris – I quite like mutton chop side burns. A real throw back to Victorian times. Pornstache? Not so much. Not many men can carry it off, and not look sleazy. Except for maybe Sam Elliott and Tom Selleck. 🙂 Men’s facial hair? Everyone has an opinion.
Invoke the secret ballot.
There’s a new book coming out about the obscenely rich tech bros. “The Haves and the Have Yachts.” 🙂 NPR gave it a good review, and there was an interesting author interview. It’s on my library hold list.
Obviously, you just need a new digital display. 🙂 Reminds me of a neighbor, who shall remain nameless, who had three blood pressure readers … that all gave wildly different results.
I once had a boss, who I didn’t think very much of. But one thing she said (and probably lifted from someone else) was that computers don’t make less work. They just make different kinds of work. Pity (maybe) the poor business, that computerizes, lays off half the staff, and then discovers they’re hopelessly swamped. Today, I watched a 15 minute struggle, with the new computer cash register at the Club. To ring up a $1.58 sale.
That sunset picture is calendar worthy.
Ollie obviously approves of the fine tuning of the kitchen garden raised beds.
Thanks for the size comparison between you and the new water tanks. But for all we know, you could be only four foot eight. 🙂
The video was very good. Rolling, rolling, rolling … For 20 points, Bob, name that TV western series.
I don’t remember you having so much consistent frost, in previous years. Am I misremembering, or are we entering a new ice age? Any snow on the horizon?
I bet those mushrooms would go good with a nice Beef Wellington. 🙂 The earthstar looks, not of this earth. Very pretty, in an unearthly kind of way.
I winding down to the end of the Stephen King novel. I’m reading slower and slower. Not exactly savoring it. Just putting off the inevitable. Probably, a character or two who I find very likable, will die. King’s like that. Lew
Hi Lewis,
It’s rolling and rocking outside with a decently loud thunderstorm. Always good to see and hear the thunder giants cracking the sads with one another. And also, we picked up a smaller trailer load of compost like stuff this morning and filled up the remaining raised garden beds with soil stuff. A bit of blood and bone meal was added, plus some garden lime. The heavy rain now will wash the stuff in and compact the soil. It really is feral outside.
We unloaded the trailer in record time too just as the sun was going down a few hours ago. The vast majority of the day was spent on paid work, what with it being near to the end of the financial year and all.
Blokes facial hair. Hmm. Who can defy the genius of Joe Cocker at the Woodstock festival? You could see that he was giving the performance his all. And it was a cover song too.
Ah yes, the secret ballot. I may call on that out because the alternatives are not a good prospect. Another bridge to cross at some future point in time.
Hang on a second, didn’t the barons of the 1920’s invoke the massive super yacht status symbol? How did that era all end again? Anywhoo, I’ll bet they’re making up for something… 🙂
Oh my, it’s even more feral outside… Tree frogs are kicking up a loud song about getting by with a little help. Apologies for the dodgy music pun.
I’ve noticed that with blood pressure monitors too, it’s weird isn’t it that the numbers can vary so much. When much younger the spurious claim would be made: Best two of three! Hard to know what it actually all means. Whoa! The rain has picked up again. Better go check out the water tank inlet filters… … All clear and only got a little bit damp in the process. It was like a spring storm rather than something you’d see in winter.
Yeah exactly, humans need to be employed to keep an eye on the computers. How can that situation be cheaper? It’s a story which makes little sense to my brain. That cash register will be a turning point upon which all manner of strange events pivot. Once had a similar thing with a group, but with branded aprons for a farmers market. Didn’t comprehend any that, but did get the distinct impression that the blokes had no intentions of wearing aprons, branded or otherwise.
It is known by all that Ollie has discerning tastes and can appreciate the gentle art of creating unique visual appeal.
You’ve made a solid point there about the comparison and size, but a true gentleman never boasts of such matters. 😉
Oooo! Ooo! Ooo! Gunsmoke! Did I get the answer? Pah! That Blues Brothers musical, yes, yes, has been burned into my consciousness. They did that more correct series theme. And you may wonder why I’m wary of exposing the rawer parts of my mind to further earworms?
Hmm, I reckon you’re right there about the frosts. Did you know: Colder than Antarctica: coldest morning in a quarter century for NSW, ACT. The old timers used to say that cold years, were dry years. Hmm. Mind you about just under half an inch of rain fell on an unseasonably warm day just on the other side of the winter solstice. Candidly, my brain hurts thinking about it all.
Oh, you are like super bad with that mushroom quip, but then I was having similar thoughts. 😉 There’s an interweb meme which may apply in that particular situation: Why not friend, if friend shaped?
All very true, but Mr King has not ended the lives of characters as fast as George R R Martin did in that epic unfinished tome, has he? Although The Stand wiped out a goodly portion of the entire population, so that’s a winning move. Anyway why hasn’t the author simply employed a competent ghost writer? Having not watched the series, I’ve been left hanging for years. Dangling away, wondering where the plot went. It might be lost… 😉
A very funny observation – yes, whatever will I do? Man, I’m fated to work until the final day on this planet. That’s what karma looks like. Plus there’s always something going on around here. Not sure I could write the blog post: Nothing much happened. Imagine the stress of doing nothing? Far out!
Yes, of course I forgot you released the beastly and clearly potent nematodes. A good move.
Looking at a photograph of a friend of the museums creator, one Loie Fuller, it’s hard not to notice that the lady has what I’d describe as a beguiling expression, but not necessarily deceptive, more it would drag you into whatever schemes were at the forefront of that intelligence. Can’t say the architecture of that building is to my taste because it appears to me to exhibit an odd sort of institutional aspect, which it kind of is nowadays.
Brr! That’s cold for a summers day, and it may actually have been warmer here today. How does this all work again?
How silly of me, yes, bakers yeast costs mad cash. Obvious in hindsight, yeah.
That tool sounds like it would work well. I’ve got a sort of hooked steel tool which works similarly with jam jars, but instead of damaging the glass, it can potentially damage the lid. Did you get around to making the additional jam?
That’s it, tea is the correct English term. Although I’d have to suggest that based on what I’ve heard, Australian Anzac biscuits would be preferable to the English digestive biscuits – just as a wild hunch there.
But what if the tiramisu was really good? 🙂
Cheers
Chris
cutting with a grinder- what a chore- did it really need to be shorter?? Maybe just bury deeper? How many discs did you go through?
boring details/book club- I’m the odd man out in our book club. Most others are very much entertainment readers, and keep to short and simple thank you. I, on the other hand, don’t mind a bit of detail, so would have found your data recorder “boring details” not boring.
The devil is in the details, after all. I see that all the time in legislation from our clown show congress. A sloppy and underinvested press doesn’t help either. A thousand pages long, with deftly hidden clauses that never seem to be mentioned in the summaries till after it’s passed and signed into law. Even then, spin doctors create a fog of uncertainty. I’d rather read it myself, if it wasn’t for the cryptic legalese they use.
weather- it’s been hot here. Supposed to break tomorrow. Watering the garden and green house like crazy.
music- I wonder what a poll would look like here? Fun idea- have each vote also include the age of the voter. No personal ID, just age. Then do some slicing and dicing of results to show how our music tastes get pretty much set in our teens and twenties. Oh sure, the occasional current song sounds ok, but my favorites are most likely on vinyl.
Yo, Chris – Steve C. gave me a good laugh. Yes, why didn’t you bury it deeper? 🙂 Hindsight. 20/20. Our night manager has erected some kind of structure, covering his entire garden bed (which abuts mine). PVC pipe and netting. I haven’t seen him since the erection of said structure, but will have to tease him about not keeping the deer out, but keeping the weeds in. Actually, poly fleece would extend his growing season … and in spring, with plastic, it would make a nifty mini greenhouse.
Facial hair? ZZ Top wins, hand down. “She got legs …” Joe Cocker is the bomb. I might even have a greatest hits CD, kicking around, somewhere.
Musical choices probably reveal status and class. No Mozart for you!
I think the whole yacht arms race, started back in the Gilded Age. Although back then, it was more racing yachts. Smaller, fleeter, faster.
No cigar for you. It’s the theme from the TV series “Rawhide.” Clint Eastwood was in it. Gave him a leg up.
https://youtu.be/3_rHrLHIeyI?si=HxVA7VA82UQ2E4xM
Our high yesterday was 64F (17.77C). Our overnight low was 46F (7.77C). The forecast high for today is 78F. Because of the rain, I didn’t have to water, last night. But, due to the rain, I had to reapply the blood meal. I misted it, so it would stick better. That was quit an article about your weather. The author has a sense of humor.
The Master Gardeners are here, this morning. I have bean beetles in my Scarlet Runner beans. They’ve said to apply Diatomaceous earth. I’ve got some of that.
Yes, I made 6 more half pints of strawberry jam. I think I’ll take a break for a couple of days, and then make blueberry. The currents are getting ripe, and if no one beats me to them, I’ll do some current / cranberry jam. That was tasty. Lew
Hi, Chris!
So, do you think Australians now feel compelled (impelled?) to vote on most anything that comes their way? And what would be the point of compulsory voting (politically speaking)? Anyway, what a task to choose only 10 songs from that era. Good luck.
It’s an onerous task keeping your solar system in order, from records to repairs. You’re a better man than I, Gunga Din! I am never surprised at how often those tech-bro (tech-sis?) systems don’t work.
That’s a gorgeous sunset; one of the best. That’s a nice FLAT spot, too. Ooo – smooth and LEVEL rock crusher dust. You have dug out the water tank spot perfectly. The video was so scary! I kept thinking of that fellow that was killed by a runaway one. Thanks, I have no need to go to a horror show now.
There is another level, the one that shows how much water is in the tank. Neat. That was a wonky line of tanks. Mustn’t have that. It is so even now.
Today I was walking past the garden toolshed to go into lunch, when I spied a 6 foot (1.83m) long Black Rat Snake slithering in the door; the door doesn’t quite close all the way. I hailed him – Black Rat Snakes are pretty calm animals – and said: “Go to it, Sir Ratsbane! They are all yours, mousies, too.” This may be just what I need to fix my problem.
That looks like a Christmas succulent; very pretty. It has been mushroom season here, also, with all the rain in late spring. Thank you for your mushrooms. They’re always fun to look at.
Pam
Hey Chris,
Didn’t know about the Triple J countdown. I might actually tune in to that. Got me thinking of a top ten songs that never had much mainstream success but were still awesome. Here’s my list:
Electric Mary: Let Me Out
The Poor: Tell Someone Who Cares
Scarymother: Lord of the Flies
Bzark: Be My Parasite
Alchemist: Road To Ubar
Jeff Lang: I Still See You
Destroy She Said: Game Over
Preshrunk: Roadrager
Magic Dirt: Ice
El Moth: Fisherman
Hi Steve,
Oh! To cut an entire slice off the ring used up a single thin stainless steel cutting disc and was but the work of a minute or two (I buy bulk packs of 25 discs). You’re right though, burying the ring deeper would have worked just fine. And originally the ring was buried deeper – it was just really difficult to dig up and relocate the partially buried ring because of the extensive asparagus root systems. Dude, they were even sticking to the steel with a tenacious force I’d not believed. How is that even possible? I had no desire to revisit this matter in the future, that’s why I cut the lower corrugated sections from the steel. 😉
In the distant future, the steel will eventually rust out and be replaced by rocks.
Steve, you’d enjoy hanging out with a group I catch up with regularly who’d enjoy similar tastes in reading. They’re not shy of a deep intellectual discussion, put it that way. I try to balance up personal fluff reading with heavy reading, and mostly get that mid-point, maybe.
The word ‘calibration’ describes the long and complicated process of getting the data recorder working correctly. It’s a trim pot adjuster.
Have you ever read Michael Lewis’s book: ‘The Big Short’? I recommend it. There’s a minor sub story in the book where a duo / trio of well informed young-ish blokes comprehend the enormity of (and took a short position against) the subprime shenanigans in the lead up to the Global Financial Crisis of 2008. They went to the press with the full story prior to the crash. Nothing came of it. Those media folks probably have mortgages, car loans. One of the main protagonists went to the official authoritas after the dust had settled to discuss the issues. Nothing came of it, other than alleged punishment for the individual. That lot there probably have mortgages and car loans to meet too. Hmm.
For your interest, I applied for the planning permit for the house here. That process involved reading through and responding to legislation. Once you realise that these things are an administrative system which appears to want to administer itself, things become a whole bunch clearer. I’ve known people who set out on that planning path, and failed, because they forgot the good advice mentioned previously.
Fingers crossed that the weather changes for you, and you get some decent summer rains. Today here was again feral wet, but this time windy. Trees in this area have been toppling, but so far things are OK here.
Hehe! That’s a great idea, and I’m pretty certain they use the polls to guide their programming team as to who is listening. Did you know that vinyl is making a comeback, and may even outsell the humble CD these days?
Cheers
Chris
Hi Pam,
Absolutely they do. Yes. 🙂 The whole point of compulsory voting was that early on in the Federation (and the Australian nation today was originally a collection of separate British colonies for a century or so) was that the population was too apathetic or disinterested in voting to perform the act. When you think about it a bit, the story makes perfect sense: The nation began as a penal settlement – so if the adult population doesn’t vote, they’ll get punished via fines. Can you imagine that happening in your country? 🙂
And Pam, the voting system is paper based and so completely honest. We get the goobermints we ask for, that’s for sure.
Yup. 10 Australian songs from 50 years is a hard act to follow. As some background to the process, my shortlist was 50 songs. And the letter ‘R’ is for ruthless. I culled. The culled some more. What songs would I listen to today and can still produce an emotional response was my filter. Done and submitted. No fines for me… Just kidding, that time. There are actually serious fines for the political events though.
Thank you. You could call it a hobby. I was talking to my mechanic today about solar power. He’s a good bloke. He’s just installed grid tied solar on his house. What we did also discuss though, is that gas supplies have peaked and are in decline in this state (despite the country being a major exporter of the airy energy stuff). The goobermint is now pushing people off gas appliances and onto the electric grid. We had a very interesting chat about that.
Yes, all very true, the tech-sis community are equally culpable. Bad systems are very much an equal opportunity matter. 🙂 Pam, these things send me loopy when they go wrong, and they do!
Did you know I did the curve for the excavations by eye? There were three know points marked in the soil, and they were joined by an arc. How good is the rock crusher dust? That stuff just works.
Sadly I’m guessing that the water tank that got that bloke was at least double the size of the plastic monsters I was dealing with. Trust me, I treated them carefully and seriously.
You can also tap on the side of a water tank and listen to the different sounds made so as to determine the water level.
Yes, neatliness is next to goodliness, and is a very different state from wokiness. I made that up, but it sounds super double plus good don’t you reckon? It’s hard to recall now why the raised beds were wonky, but all sorted now. Neat systems here tend to illuminate some of the slithery denizens of the forest. 😉
Go the Black Rat Snake! And may many a pesky rodent be dealt to. You’re so lucky to have such pleasant natured reptiles. Pam, why is all the wildlife down here either super deadly, or super grumpy? It’s not right. Nature often provides answers to our garden conundrums. And snakes are decent hunters.
Are your mushrooms known and edible? Down here you’d have to be a bit brave to forage for mushrooms in areas other than pine forests.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Simon,
Ah, it will most assuredly be an interesting countdown. And err, don’t worry if you miss it. 🙂
You’ve got fine taste in music, and if I may say so as a general observation, your list is weighted towards the 1990’s. Music is such an individual matter of taste, always fascinating.
My own votes:
Sidewinder – Titanic Days
Sia – Breathe Me
The Chats – Smoko
Violent Soho – Covered In Chrome
Vera Blue – Hold
Thelma Plum – Better In Blak
Mallrat – Charlie
The Herd – I was only 19
Ruby Fields – Dinosaurs
King Stingray – Get me out
A very different list to yours, but I reckon you’d like Sidewinder for sure.
I was curious to hear what you had to say about the tech-bros, but there’ll be another time.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
I had to chuckle about that observation too, because the steel ring was originally buried more deeply. And that was the whole problem. Digging the thing up to move it was a nightmare job. Never again with those beds. To be honest, it kind of felt like justice was being served when I took that angle grinder machine to the steel. 🙂 Take that yargh! (spoken in best pirate voice)
Longer term, the steel will eventually rust away, then we’ll replace those edges with rocks. Probably work better because the rocks would store heat overnight.
Man, the weather is feral here today. I thought yesterday was bad, but that was only the encore. The winds picked up and were swirling the trees around. Not here, but close by plenty of trees came crashing down.
Hehe! We’ve all been there searching for the perfect solution to eliminate the weeds and protect the crops with minimal effort. Nothing really beats a bit of attention and good fencing (and your soap / blood meal combination seems to be effective too). And a greenhouse would work well in your part of the world except for those two weeks when it snows heavily. That could be difficult, maybe.
A great song, and yes, those dudes have some serious facial hair. You’d want to keep it away from machinery that’s for sure. Years ago I was talking with a diesel mechanic who had that length of beard get caught in a machine (fortunately it wasn’t rotating at the time so could be fixed with scissors). And that’s a lot of mojo to have on the line and lose. Everyone recalls that old timey story of the strong bloke with the good head of hair, and how that worked out.
I’ve watched a bit of footage from that festival over the years, and Joe Cocker’s performance stood out as the high point. He was giving it everything he had.
Hehe! Well that is true. Classical music was never introduced to me by the elders, and that is the entire point of that exercise – as you well know (deducing that from your comment). What was then left for me? So yeah, nah. I grew up listening to rock and popular music from a very young age, and just never stopped listening. I have this vague notion that if I was to stop listening to the newer releases, the plasticity of my tastes would harden – just a wild hunch there. I reckon I’d be one of the national youth broadcaster older listeners though. Oh well, it’s kind of like being in a job where they’ve forgotten to sack you! 😉
Speaking of super yachts. Did you see that they’re trying to recover that sunken super yacht? And well, the Gilded Age ended also with a spectacular economic bust in the 1890’s. Oh man, that was a bad one. Maybe there should be an super yacht economic theory as form of prediction for depressions?
Ha! Very funny, and I was being too subtle: The Blues Brothers (1980) – Rawhide Scene. What’s the chicken wire for? 🙂 RIP John Belushi.
Not sure I quite understand what you mean by misting the blood meal? Is that like spraying the stuff? That weather interweb site has some good authors, and always produce interesting articles. It’s cold and wet here this evening, but fortunately milder than other parts of the country.
Yup, the dinosaur powder is meant to deter all sorts of critters as it’s sharp stuff. Plus it should give some feed to your soil. I don’t use the stuff very much, mostly because it is expensive and it’s only very occasionally when things go off the rails with insects. Little brown birds are your friends if the bean critters are active during the daylight hours.
Nice work with the jam. Currant jam is really tasty stuff, you’ll love it – and it might even be a good dose of Vitamin C in the depths of winter?
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis cont…
Almost forgot to mention. There’s one downside with reading in public. Two pages from the end of the book – and a couple sits nearby and begins to have a very loud argument. Firstly the emotional energy was freaking me out, and I’d have to suggest that their display was poor form. Totally ruined the reading moment for me, I’ll get to those last two pages tomorrow. Oh well. I’m sure you’ve also been on the of that story at some point?
Cheers
Chris
Hello Chris,
Your place looks prettier and prettier. Pretty-making work with lining up the raised beds, at a proper distance from the house.
The video title was a bit of a clickbait, since I was hoping to see you roll the tank down the hill, but only saw you moving it on the flat land. Too scary a moment to film?
I have a content request, since we now have layer hens: What is the recipe you use for the chicken-scoby? I have a scoby, but it is growing very slowly in our current feeding regime, so I would like to get a feeling for how much sugar you feed and in which volume, and how often you can take out a fragment of the scoby?
On the interweb I found several people testifying of the value of scoby as a egg-layer food-source, but nobody that I found shared their recipe. Maybe a video, maybe a text response – all would be very gratefully received.
We have rains. It is great. A bit windy, but very good. Weeds are growing like crazy, and some of our veggies are doing their thing. We have just finished the asparagus season here.
Speaking of which – how can they stick so hard?
We moved some asparagus crowns that have been in the ground for something like a decade, and they were a meter deep and entangled. They looked like whitish, solid squids, reaching down into the depths with their tentacles.
Amazing plants with delicious early-summer delivery.
We are now in the spinach, mustard and radish-season. Soon the first redcurrant berries here will be ripe. I think we will add some haskap/lonicera blueberry in the coming years, since they are even earlier.
We were late with the cucumbers this year, and they only now start forming.
Solstice was celebrated thoroughly in the weekend, with some good friends. For you, the days will now only be longer and the light will return!
Peace,
Göran
Hi Chris,
Congratulations on getting the tanks set up and starting to fill them with water!
An update on the local deer: it, or they, have found my vegetable garden. The fence around it is only 30 inches tall. It’s intended to slow or stop dogs and rabbits and human trespassers, not deer.
After a few days of neglecting the vegetable garden for other matters, I checked on it after lunch today. Weep for the two eaten cucumber plants; there will be no homegrown pickles this year. Most of the set tomatoes have been eaten as well. And the pole bean vine has had its upper leaves and tender vine tips eaten – not from rabbit height, but from deer height. We’ll be buying tomatoes and green beans too.
On the other hand, it has not eaten the collard leaves, or the beets, summer squash, or pepper. Neither did it eat the long bean (vining cowpea) leaves or stems. Last year the same plants were uneaten as well. Now I know what to concentrate on growing in my garden.
Our neighbor a couple of blocks to the east has seen two different deer, a doe and a fawn, at his place. Apparently one or both of them are the culprits. I don’t think there is enough space between houses to legally hunt them, and their predators other than humans don’t find dense urban areas suitable. So I suppose they are here to stay.
I hope you get all the rain you need! It continues to be hot and humid here, but less hot than the last few days.
Claire
Yo, Chris – It sounds like you’re having a bit of weather. Trees crashing down? Firewood. Best stay in. Our high yesterday was 79F (26.11C). Our overnight low was 54F (12.22C). The forecast high for today is 82F. I think I’ll put off bottling up the blueberries, until tomorrow. When it’s much cooler. And we may have rain. I guess I’ll give H a bath, and wash all her blankets, tonight.
I’ve made current jam, last year. Funny story. I picked and picked currents (they are so fiddly) and thought I had enough for a batch of jam. It’s night and I didn’t. I sure wasn’t going to take a torch, go down in the dark and pick more. So, I grabbed a handful of dried cranberries, plumped them up, and tossed them in. I’m sure I’m not the first person in the world to discover how tasty this combo is, but it sure is tasty. 🙂 Now, I won’t fret so much about picking enough currents. I had some left over strawberry jam. I put it in a clean bottle and put it in the fridge. Had some of it over vanilla ice cream, last night. Waste not, want not. 🙂
The world is just too complicated. I stopped by the general merchandise store, last night, as I was getting low on pectin. There was a bin with jars for .49! Score! Or so I thought. I grabbed two. When I got home and took a good look at the label, it’s only good for freezer jam. 🙁 You can’t use it for hot packing. Not that it said that on the label. I had to resort of this inter-web thingy, to find that out. Oh, well, I’m only out a buck, and will find a home for them.
In more garden news, I finally got around to planting the asparagus seeds. I let them soak all day. Snakes seem a topic of conversation. (Pam). One of the caregivers saw a snake hanging out around the garden bed, next to mine. I hope no one harms it. A.) we have no poisonous snakes this side of the mountains, and B.) they’re really beneficial. I guess it’s about a foot and a half (half a meter) long, but very thin. The bean beetles only come out at night.
Someone (and I know who) trashed one of the hoses. There goes $80 shot in the tuchus. And only a year and a half old. Oh, and reports of me assaulting a woman in the parking lot of the Institution are highly exaggerated. 🙂 I was talking to Mary-Jean, one of the Master Gardeners. She’s a very tall woman, a retired night nurse. She tripped on a sprinkler head, and started to go down. I made a grab for her, and we both ended up, flat on the ground, we me on top of her. No damage done, and we had a good laugh. But anyone glancing out the window (curtain twitchers) would construct quit a different story.
I scatter the blood meal, on the top rail of the raised garden bed. They are wood, about 6″ wide. I first mist, before I water, so it sticks a bit and doesn’t get washed away. There are different settings on the hose sprayer, and “mist” is one of them.
Looking at your two music lists, there isn’t a single song or group I am familiar with. What a difference 25 years (the difference between your age and mine) makes. Unless you’re just trying to out obscure each other 🙂 .
“The Blues Brothers” is a classic. And who can forget this scene with James Brown?
https://youtu.be/PZpH9Khn0E0?si=ftboM6k6ofDFjANO
Or the one with Aretha Franklin? There are so many.
“Samson and Delilah.” 1950. Victor Mature, Hedy Lamarr and Angela Lansbury (!). Directed by Cecil B. DeMille. I saw it as a third run movie, at the old Lombard Theatre at a Saturday matinee.
I had an odd thought, this morning. I need to call and make H a vet appointment, for next month. I don’t have a problem, getting in, as we’re old time customers. It’s the same with the groomer. Sometimes, they are not taking any new clients. And, they’re expensive. I got to wondering, if perhaps those businesses, and others, aren’t doing a certain amount of rationing by price? It’s a thought.
And, finally, in news of the world, I don’t know if you saw this about Britain’s power grid.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/unprecedented-eight-fires-10-weeks-124700784.html
Also, somewhere in the Pacific, a ship load of EV cars caught fire. Those batteries! Lew
Hey Chris,
Hah, haven’t heard of a single one of your picks. A reminder of how many good bands there were floating around back in the day. You could say, “these are “my” bands. Go find your own!”
As for software, the problem is that it’s really expensive to build it properly. Software is symbol manipulation and we have a very reliable measurement of people’s ability to do that. It’s called IQ. There are different types of intelligence, of course, but the intelligence required to build software (IQ) is in very short supply and nobody wants to pay the real cost.
The great hope now is that “AI” will do it. Consider me skeptical. About ten years ago, we were told that self-driving cars were about to take over everything.
Chris:
Well, now, my country had Prohibition. I would have thought that was impossible. It’s not like we already had a predisposition towards teetotalism.
Thank goodness, my state uses paper ballots. Not that there aren’t ways around that.
I haven’t had piped-in gas since we moved from Dallas, Texas in 1989. I liked the gas cook stove, water heater, and individual small room heaters in each room. I can’t remember how much it cost, but I expect probably not much, because Texas has a lot of that stuff.
I didn’t recognize a single song or group from either your list or Simon’s. Maybe that’s not so strange?
You have quite an eye for excavations. That’s neat – a musical water tank.
It’s super double plus good and you are one of the goodliest people I know.
Well, somebody probably knows the mushrooms around me, but it’s not me, except for the Chicken of the Woods, which I haven’t seen for a couple of years. And that red one with the white bumps.
Do you recall our Rosie the Robot vacuum cleaner? She’s been at it again. Yesterday she ate one of Mr. Baby’s toys: A stick with a string, with a rubber band tied to the end of the string. I was able to carefully unwind the string from her grabby parts. Luckily, Mr. Baby does not know about this.
You know it’s so hot here, right? My son has decided, come cooler weather, to put an electric fan in each of the louvered openings in the attic gables on each end of the house. One will pull air in, the other wil blow air out. The thick insulation up there has really helped, but it could be a lot better.
Pam
Hi Pam,
Prohibition is kind of silly, the stuff is so easy to make… 🙂 Way back in the early days, there was a military coup in Australia, over the issue of rum. True story. Back to your country’s prohibition days, the Bendigo pottery (which is the next large city north from here although it’s probably tiny by US standards) used to do a brisk export trade of pottery demijohns marketed as – get this – health items. 😉 But yeah, that whole affair was a big giant waste of time and effort.
Paper ballots have a wonderful chain of custody to them, and if the folks in charge are honest and the system is robust, it seems to work down here. During counting scrutineers loom over your shoulder during the count process. One was getting a bit too close many years ago, and I told him he needs to give me some more working room – which he accepted graciously. Probably had bad eye sight, but that’s not my problem. Do I want to hear his breath in my ear? It was a bit ooky.
Piped gas is pretty good and cheap. They’ve got that stuff in the big smoke, but clearly that rug is being pulled out from under households. Makes me wonder about how the electric grid will cope with all of the additional demand. Take heating for example, during winter when solar power doesn’t quite cut the mustard – as they say, demand would be highest. Makes no sense to me. Who can forget the series Dallas and JR Ewing… More hat than cows!
Absolutely not strange at all. 🙂 I’d be surprised if you knew any of the songs. Australia is a long way from anywhere so there is a good home grown music scene, but at the same time small markets means that artists struggle economically to stay afloat. The more distant a city is, the livelier the local scene is, and Perth in Western Australia has produced some notable talent.
Yes, drum solo’s on the water tank walls! 🙂
Pam, that’s lovely. Thanks. I’m sure your household is a delightful place too.
Ook! What else says dangerous more than a bright red spotted white mushroom? It’s almost saying: You were warned… Mind you, the bears are a bit scary.
If Mr Baby were younger and healthier, there would have been feline punishment for Rosie the Robot. Agreed, some things must be hidden from cats.
Hmm! The attic gables probably get quite hot. Please do let me know how the experiment works out.
Had some sleet fall here today. It’s a bit cold at 36’F. Brr!
Cheers
Chris
Hi Claire,
Thank you, and an additional 11,000L of water is no small thing. The winter rains are filling up the tanks, but there is a long way to go before they are all full. My aim is to go into a summer with full water reserves.
Actually it was good to transfer some water to those new tanks because that was when I discovered that the very large batteries in the machinery shed were at the end of their life. Despite the sleet and generally revolting weather today, we took four of the large batteries to the scrap metal dealer (many more to go). They pay good mad cash for lead, and it is an easily recyclable metal. Not sure anyone has gotten around to working out how to recycle Lithium batteries, but that technology does work better and will last longer than lead-acid.
Oh total deer poop! 30 inches is sadly no obstacle to bambi and co. I’ve come to arrangements with every other forest critter here, but the deer have this sort of insouciance about their activities which rather irritates me. Honestly, I don’t know what to say, and it’s probably not wise to personally cull them in an urban area. There could be ramifications and unintended consequences from doing that.
If it makes you feel any better, the top of a loquat tree was destroyed a few nights ago. It was a deer smash and grab operation of the direst sort.
But then. A few years ago I was travelling through the forest in the valley below and came across a herd of about a dozen deer. It was the most astounding sight. The group were gracefully running and the leader of the herd stopped suddenly and it was as if a ripple washed over the rest of the deer. Never seen such an elegant display of coherence before. A mob of kangaroos on the other hand are all over the shop and certainly would not give over their minds to the bull, no matter how tall and strapping.
Pam, they pulled all of the sugar beets from the soil. All of them. Hmm. Don’t you have a ranger who works for your local authorities? There is no season for deer down here, and I have as-of hunting rights only on my property with that species. The cheeky herbivore scamps seem to know the property boundaries, although who may have told them is an interesting question!
Out of curiosity, have they marked your property with scats? Worthwhile checking out. I’d be burying such things as quickly as possible.
Rain, hail and sleet today at 2’C. I was wondering if there’d been some snow up on the higher elevations of the range. Maybe.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Simon,
Thank you for the introduction to your picks, and please consider yourself introduced to my lot. Magic Dirt is the pick of the lot with yours, although I would have voted for ‘Dirty Jeans’. You’re in for a treat with the countdown. It’s amazing how wildly disparate people’s musical tastes are. In an amusing side story, a few months ago I was speaking with a young lady at a workplace who informed me that Triple J was so much better way back in 2015. Can you imagine my bemusement when I replied that people have been saying similar things for the past 30 years! 🙂 All good fun.
Hmm. I’m going to cogitate upon your thoughts for a while in relation to software as I’d not considered them to be ‘symbol manipulation’ and it’s kind of blown my mind. I reckon you’re right too, but whoa!
And exactly, there are different kinds of intelligence. Also on that note, there’s a point at which complexity becomes so great that the underlying system itself is too difficult to comprehend in any level of detail. And that gets to your economic observation as to outcomes: Does this thing sort of work? And can we afford as a society to pay for it to work?
Pah! Nice one! The other day I did a quick gargle search to see how much a postage stamp cost, and the answer returned by that thing, was wrong. Self driving cars is such a weird story, because it makes so little economic sense to install some hideously complicated equipment to do something which a human can do more or less for free.
I’m sceptical too of such claims. And that thing is edging its way into my paid work life. Such a pleasure to see the utter stuff ups.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Göran,
Thanks, and we’re really trying to work out a nice balance between form and function. The American farmer and now deceased author Gene Logsdon once made an interesting comment in a book about how farms back in the day (when he was a younger bloke) were more aesthetically pleasing places.
All good to hear. I was hoping the thumbnail picture of the upside down water tank with the bulldozer worked as click bait too. 🙂 Rolling the tank down the hill wasn’t too problematic, but with filming that would have required Sandra to manage the camera. And I was a bit uncomfortable with the idea of holding the water tank all by myself on a whilst on a slope. Easier not to film that bit, as your surmised.
Spoke with Sandra this morning, and yeah no worries, we’ll do a SCOBY video. It’s her area, but I’ll do that video, and it’ll be the one after the next one (if that makes sense). The next one has already been filmed and uploaded, but not yet set free. No detail will be left unturned, and it’s a really easy high protein feed for the chickens.
Out of curiosity, are you adding black tea to the sugar feed? Some people use green tea, but it isn’t as an effective a feed stock. Black and green tea are from the same plant, the black tea leaves are simply fermented, and that makes it easier for the SCOBY to take up the feed. Handy hint there!
Yay for summer rains, although winds do dry a place out. Good to hear that the vegies are doing well. Cucumbers need a lot of summer warmth here, and will only produce fruit in the new years – or your July.
The soils here are a bit different to yours in that they’re a volcanic loam which has probably has a higher clay content than your sandier lot. It’s sticky, and I couldn’t quite understand how the asparagus roots had stuck to the steel, but they had a tenacious grip. Otherwise the roots are exactly as you described – massive white squids. Thanks for the mental image. 🙂 An electric jackhammer was used to dig them up, it was not a gentle job.
Yum! Yum! Berry season is a true joy every summer. Hope you expand your variety of berries too. Here that provides an extended harvest for months. Are you finding that the garden is now beginning to contribute to the household economy significantly?
Happy solstice to you and your friends. It was a nice day here and surprisingly warm, however the weather has now turned full winter mode. Rain, hail and sleet – with cold Antarctic winds. Brr. 2’C tonight.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
The ‘bit of weather’ got worse today. There was even some sleet earlier this morning and it’s 36’F now. Snow can be attractive and pleasant, then there’s the lot a person experiences with driving Antarctic winds, hail, rain etc. Fortunately there were zero plans to work outside today. Did some paid work, and then took four of the super heavy now almost dead batteries down to the scrap metal dealer. They pay good mad cash for the metal. By the time we get all of them down, half the cost of the new batteries will be covered. Not a bad deal. What surprised me was how much they were paying for copper. That was interesting. I keep reading of shut downs of various ore smelters and refiners in this country, which is not good.
Did more paid work this afternoon and into the evening.
Anyway, combined the travel with a super authentic Bánh mì lunch which the Editor was extolling the virtues of. And yes, the reality lived up to the hype. They used cucumber cut into long thin strips as well as other vegies, and that cut down on the fat of the pork for me. Very good indeed, and that’s despite the cold weather (although it was warmer in the big smoke). Also visited a fresh food market and stopped off at the banksters, as you do. No point wasting the travel on one task.
79’F sounds pretty decent to me right now. 🙂 Cooler and rain will be a nice change for you as well and save some watering effort. Took the dogs out for a long walk tonight and managed to dodge the rain, but I sure was rugged up.
Currants and cranberries are a pretty good combination, and I’d happily substitute currants for cranberries in meals and vice versa. Oh, you buy dried cranberries in bulk don’t you? You tend to see currants grown more down here because they require less water than cranberries. Yes, but how did good was the strawberry jam? That’s the missing details! A tidy and proper use you pit it to over vanilla ice cream.
The Editor had dinner with friends this evening in the big smoke, and mentioned that despite the winter chill, people were still buying ice creams. On that note too, ice cream shops have become pretty gourmet these days.
Ah pectin. For some weird reason my brain had confused that stuff with gelatin, so I was thinking maybe it could be added with the kitchen scraps to the soil and you’d get some phosphates, but no. Probably wouldn’t hurt chucking the pectin into the soil though as it’s a sugar type molecule. And we don’t add purchased pectin to jams, but you know, we do grow quite a lot of citrus which has oodles of the stuff and that all works pretty much the same anyway. Wasn’t aware that there was a distinction either. New mysteries. Wonder if it is the same stuff but in different dilutions? Beats me. Have you uncovered anything about this matter? Way back in the day, pectin was sold as ‘jam setter’.
Fingers crossed that the asparagus seeds germinate, and my gut feeling suggests they will. I mean, the plants self seed here without any work on my part.
The snake may be an escaped pet? Anyway, you’re lucky not to have any poisonous varieties in your part of the world, and I keep thinking from time to time about that bloke who worked on his body’s resistance to various snake bites in that article you linked to a while back. I’d call that a special interest, yeah. It’d only be early in the season, thus the condition of your reptile. Down here they’re meant to be worst during the spring mating season.
How does a person even trash a hose? Those things are made super tough. I’ll keep an open mind on those possible reports and recall the hose. Things were OK before the hose incident. 🙂 Now there’s a profession which would build the character trait of pragmatism. Those without it, probably get weeded out of the health system, or promoted where they possibly can’t do any harm. Tongues will however wag in your trip, catch and tumble situation, and the more you deny the err, moment, the worse it may become for you. Gotta be cool in such situations, and as a very young bloke working in the city I caught a lady who was about to go splat on the ground. Instead of it being a gentlemanly gesture, it was kind of awkward and entirely unavoidable. Hey, your incident would make a good plot for romance novel! Don’t knock it, there’s a bountiful market behind such words. Unfortunately, my skills at penning dialogue are a bit not good, like after the tumble I’d probably say: Are you OK? which also suggests that the other party is most assuredly not OK. Instead a smoother move would be: That was an intriguing introduction. You wanna go get a drink? I dunno, see writing good dialogue is hard. 🙂
Right, the blood meal can be added to water then misted. I see. It’s just that product isn’t sold down here. All of it goes to a rendering plant where presumably it is baked and then converted into a fine dry material along with the bones and other err, chunks. That stuff smells better than the public toilet I had to use today. Had to go bad. Surely people can direct number twos into the bowl, or at least clean up after themselves. Not pleasant to encounter and quite ripe.
Go James Brown, and what a great scene. And Aretha put in a fine performance. John Lee Hooker did a cameo as well.
Why did Delilah want Samson to cut his hair? I’ve met people who are perpetually dissatisfied, and avoid them like the plague. They’re not worth it you know.
Hmm. I hear similar stories too about not taking on new clients. Have to out our own business as well for this behaviour, and I tend to enforce a no d#$khead policy when it comes to clients. Life is too short, and I can’t be bothered with the stress they bring. On the other hand, everyone can go through a rough patch in their life, and that’s fine, they just might want to check whether they have some social runs on the board first. Yeah. It’s funny, but what I hear consistently from new clients is that they were unable to contact their former accountant – for whatever reason. We’re very contactable, but unlike the rest of society, I set and enforce boundaries. Our society has forgotten how to relate and interact. Did you think something was odd, when house prices became such an issue that society has now physically segregated itself based on the arbitrary notion of wealth? It’s an experiment, but I don’t reckon it will end well. It’s an interesting thought you’ve raised there.
Oh my! The article on the UK grid does not surprise me one bit. You may recall that a year or two back I splashed an inordinate amount of mad cash on upgrading all of the fusing? All of it. Every last one. Turns out none of this stuff lasts, and some of it on the grid is being asked to do a lot. It seems rather foolhardy to blame foreign actors when under investment and basic failure is the more likely cause.
And I’m super careful with this technology.
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – What with those arctic winds, make sure to keep your ears covered. And your nose with a muffler or scarf. I once had a “light”case of frost bite, on an ear. I couldn’t feel that side of my head for a good year. Our high yesterday was 81F (27.22C). Our overnight low was 52F (11.11C). The forecast high for today is 68F. We might get some rain, maybe yes, maybe no.
I saw an article about an unusual event, down your way.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/25/travel/australia-outback-flooding-kati-thanda-lake-eyre-intl-hnk
Wow. It looks like magic.
Junkies steal copper. There’s a construction site here, that has been hit twice in as many months. You think they’d invest in a night watchman. or lean a bit heavy on the police to up their patrols in that area.
Yes, if I have errands to run, I always try and cluster them. When I lived “out” I only came to town once a week. I usually had four or five stops to make.
The strawberry jam was very good. Tasted like strawberries. 🙂 I tried some peanut butter, on the vanilla ice cream. Also very tasty. I suppose the next logical step is PB&J ice cream. Review to follow.
The asparagus seeds should germinate in a week or two. What with all these horror stories about asparagus roots, I’m glad I won’t be around to deal with it. 🙂
Our poisonous snakes, east of the mountains, are rattlesnakes. My dad never wanted to go hunting or fishing, in late July / early August. he always said that they were blind, at that time, and would strike at anything, without their usual warning. So, I looked in on that, and found this very interesting article from our National Park Service. On second thought, I won’t link to that as it had 12 lines of url. Seems excessive.
No, I don’t add the blood meal to the water. I sprinkle it on the tops of the raised bed walls, and then mist it, so it sticks better.
For some strange reason, God put the source of Samson’s power, in his hair. Why? The Lord being inscrutable, and all, we’ll never know. I figure Delilah was just doing the usual chick thing. “Ohhh! You’d look so much better if you cut that beard! And those long locks have to go! Makes you look like a girl!” I’d say Delilah was what we call, “high maintenance.” 🙂
We’ve talked about this, before. 5% of your client base are bound to be d#$heads and are not worth dealing with.
I did a E-Buy order last night. Seems like the really inexpensive stuff comes from people with very few feedbacks. They are either just starting out, and trying to build up a good feedback record, or, it’s a scam of some kind or another. Those I ignore. Sorry newbies. I go with anyone who has a good price, and positive feedbacks of 95% or more. I figure that 5% of negative feedback was from d#$heads.
I ordered H’s Very Special Shampoo. It’s some kind of anti-allergy, anti-itch stuff. As an extra added attraction, that they don’t claim, she hasn’t had a single mat in her fur, since I started using it. I also ordered a good stock of her poop bags, and a paper shredder.
She got a bath, last night. Then I washed all her blankets and towels, which just happen to be my blankets and towels. 🙂
It was a popcorn night. I watched an older movie, “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.” (2016). Directed by Tim Burton.
https://youtu.be/tV_IhWE4LP0?si=XQeCzuvncE-iLLSy
The trailer really doesn’t do it justice. I’d read the book, and saw the movie when it first came out. But that was awhile back. Pure fantasy. Very entertaining. Lew
The Big Short- Yes, I’m familiar. One of the very few books I actually listened to rather than read, but yeah, those signals are out there if you know what to watch for. Groupthink is a hard thing to avoid, but best to do so especially when change is sneaking around the corner. These days, I think opportunities will be less about making a payday on an unusual market move, and more about finding a safe place to hang on till the rubble stops bouncing.
tank foundations- Maybe I’m just a nervous nellie, but the tight fit between the tanks and the cut bank worries me. What if a rock sloughs off the cut surface, and lodges between the tank and the dirt? Each time the tank cycles between full and empty, I could imagine a slow grinding away at the tank wall.
rolling tanks- I had the same thought as Goran- would have loved to see the move. I’ve come up with interesting rigging to move one awkward or heavy thing or another by myself, but slow and steady and some help is safer. Stories could be told……….
rain- We just got 3 inches/ 75mm of rain two days ago, with more in the forecast! It all came down in a short time as it is wont to do these days, but it was so dry, ( and good ground cover everywhere) we had zero runoff on our place. The gravel roads are bit bumpy now though. Not sure how the row crop farmers fared.
stainless steel cutoff wheels- Stainless steel is not a great abrasive. What are these wheels coated with? Inquiring minds want to know.
Chris:
“If the folks in charge are honest . . .”
J. R. Ewing: He was one fine villain. They filmed parts of the show in the highrise apartment building (it was swankier) next to my grandmother’s building. This was in Dallas, of course.
Ha! Simon didn’t know any of your picks either, fine proof of what a large music market you have, as you said, and I’d say that’s good.
Brr! Sounds nice.
Pam
Chris,
A bit overly hectic again/still. At least the veggies are doing well. I’ve had a few salads with mixed collards and chard from the garden, cherry tomatoes (from the store for now) and pickled jalapenos (also from the store). Very yummy.
We had rain in the forecast for 3 days. I figured we might get 5mm total maximum. We got all of two drops (almost literally) Friday and Saturday. Sunday morning it rained hard for 20 minutes. Then quit. 5mm. Darn, I guessed right!
From last week…yes, I was one who noticed a face in a tree picture once. That’s the type of thing I tend to notice.
Triple J is 50? Wow. Fifty years sounds like a long time. Then I realized that you were a few years old before Triple J started. Makes you feel kind of old, doesn’t it? Then I realize that I was 15 years old when Triple J started. Ya know, on second thought, 50 years ago doesn’t seem so long ago after all. 😉
Okay, good songs from the past 50 years. Hmmm, how about “Surfin’ Safari” by the Beach Boys? Arghh, closer to 60 years old. Hmmm, my favorite songs by Linda Ronstadt and the Eagles were mostly recorded more than 50 years ago. Dang, that’s a hard one. 😉
I like paper lists. The Princess likes paper lists. Sandra likes paper lists. You’re losing in the polls, Chris.
Old school works for me. It works when technology doesn’t. The website I use for my Welsh lessons gives me points for completing lessons. Sometimes I get double or even triple points. The other day, they were down for “Maintenance”. Twice. And again at times the next day. Then, after everything was “fixed”, I was NOT getting awarded points properly, sometimes not at all. Then 2 days later, my point total for the week suddenly increased. Yup, they had caught up with their mistakes. Technology.
Of course, what to the points really do? Nothing. It’s a way to keep people motivated to learn and keep doing lessons. I’d be motivated without the points.
Oh yes, digital displays are always correct. (That was sarcasm.) In the early days of cheap handheld calculators, my classmates got out their really cheap calculator to test me. “What is zero divided by 8?” they asked me. “Zero” was my reply. The digital display agreed. They then asked “What is eight divided by zero?” I replied with “Technically, that is undefined because you can’t divide by zero. However, sometimes we call that answer infinity.” They all laughed and told me I was dumb. Their calculator said that eight divided by zero is also zero. I talked them into asking our math teacher. I explained the situation to him. He grabbed their exceedingly cheap calculator and tied it. He looked at them and said “Doug is correct. He knows math. Your calculator is wrong. It’s a cheap piece of trash. Lesson of the day is to know what you are talking about and don’t blindly accept what technology says. Lesson 2 is that you get what you pay for.”
I remember paper ledgers. To this day I prefer paper and pencil first to outline the problem. Spreadsheets and computer programs, when properly constructed, are good for large volumes of repeat calculations. Blindly accepting what they say? Not so good. I mean, what if something goes wrong with your computer when you are outside your spaceship and need to get back in and the door won’t open. After saying “Open the pod bay door, Hal”, you don’t want to have the computer reply “Sorry, Dave I’m afraid I just can’t do that.” These things have limits. Oh yeah, that topic again. 🙂
The thyme is in full bloom. So are the few sage plants I have. Purple and purple. very enchanting to look at.
DJSpo
@ Pam
I deliberately chose a lesser-known list to prove my hipster credentials :). In fact, unless you were living in Melbourne in the late 90s-00s and liked going to local dive bars, you probably would have missed most of those bands. Having said that, a couple of them I would rate as world-class. Melbourne used to have a quite incredible live music scene. Not so good these days due to our new national religion of real estate speculation driving a lot of venues out of business.
@ Chris
If you think about it, most software systems replace the old bureaucratic paper-based ones and those systems were also truly awful if something went wrong. The tiniest little mistake on your paperwork and some lobotomised bureaucrat would make your life hell! Most computer systems are the same. Do the right thing and they’re fine. Do the wrong thing and you’re in a world of pain.
Hi Simon,
I agree with you about the national sport impacting upon the once thriving live music scene. Sandra and I used to live near to the Empress Hotel in Fitzroy North and they had a band room (now since throttled to acoustic last I checked), and all manner of bands performed there. Man, even the Sydney Opera House has allegedly well heeled neighbours who crack sads about the volume. From what I hear from industry sources, it takes three audio engineers to monitor the decibel levels nowadays, not do anything useful like monitoring the show. I mean, it’s the Opera house and all manner of bands play there, and not all of them are classical. What did the people who moved there all expect? Probably higher real estate prices for them. Hmm. Now I pay $150 a ticket to see a band, and that’s merely a sign of the cost of living crisis. Oh well. Your dive bar enjoyment is a treasure.
When Nirvana toured in the early 1990’s tickets to see them at the Palais Theatre were $27 each. Just sayin…
I used to have a CD of some of the more obscure bands which played at that local venue mentioned above, and one of the tracks was apparently titled: John Farnham is Satan! I’m sure they were being irreverent, but where is their like today?
So I put your music list into utoob today and did my usual daily stretch routine. The energy, you could feel it. If you don’t mind, Electric Mary and Magic Dirt were world class, but without a market. And I recall those two songs. Thanks, and the musical journey was thoroughly enjoyed.
Dude, as to your observation, and there’s always a story. Years ago I completed a detailed form for the tax folks, and it’s an odd form in that even today they’ll only accept it on paper – yet it is still in wide use. I hand wrote the form, which was extensive and took a couple of hours to complete. But get this, I missed putting a number ‘1’ in a single box. So a bloke at the tax office phones me up and queries the lack of any number in that one box. I begged him to add the number 1 to the box, and he just said no. Then I requested that the form be sent back, and he just said no. At that point the smirk could be heard. I so hated him because he disposed of the form, and because it was my mistake I had to spend hours re-doing the form for free, and I was so busy at that time. And that’s the bureaucratic world I inhabit.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Pam,
All we can but hope for is that their dishonesty does not trample upon the quiet enjoyment of all of our lives. In this case, one can but only hope. Often there are super ugly things going on in the world, but here in this little nice corner of the interweb, consider yourself in bubble land. Such a lovely place to reside. 😉
J. R. Ewing looked to me like an escaped actor from the sitcom ‘I dream of Jeannie’ who finally could flex his inner naughtiness. Did it end well for the fictional character? Me thinks not. Your grandmother clearly got to partake in some of the Texan mojo without all the hassles or the costs, and so I’m guessing the lady was cleverer than all the rest of us?
The independent artist is worthy of supporting. Reminds me of my own writing career. 🙂
Took today off work, well not exactly, still had a few hours to do this morning it being very close to the end of the financial year. Went for a walk in a nearby nature reserve, and then came back home, lit the wood fire, and had a long nap. If there are more enjoyable days, it would be difficult for me to comprehend their shape. The simple life for me.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Steve,
It’s such a great story of sheer exuberance and an utter lack of concern for fundamentals, which go horribly wrong. My perspective after long consideration, is that nobody will ever thank you for betting against the dominant paradigm, and being right to do so. In many ways, it’s a lot like the unfortunate fates dished up to whistle-blowers. Hmm.
And you nailed that, absolutely. Respect, and that was a core story which may be missed by the casual reader. If there is no apparent safe place, where then is a safe place? The film glossed over that part, but the book covered it. All of the protagonists of that story had to consider that aspect. I’d imagine that after all these years, the answer remains no clearer.
The ground does move here, but not at a rate which will cause any concerns to the water tanks – and you can quote me on that in the far distant future. 🙂 The plastic is polyethylene and absolutely nothing sticks to it, plus the side walls of the tanks are very thick. They’ll be fine on that front. And I’ve got sixteen years of experience with them. In other areas where a fire swept through, the tank roofs melted to the water line, and yet the structural rigidity remains.
When moving heavy items around here, I tend to prefer the two person methodology on the basis that if there is an incident, help can be arranged. The loggers mess left in that place, some seriously heavy duty broken steel cables, and man, looking at them is an instructive lesson. Hmm. Yes, bulldozers pulling thick steel cables will have them under some serious tension.
Go the rain! And hey, that happens here too. Not much rain, and then a whole lot. And your summer conditions are ideal this year, yes, such water is best stored in the sub soil.
I hear you about the bumpy roads, and they get slushy and pot holed after such weather. It always seems to be pivoting between dust and mud. Oh well.
This is the cutting discs I use, and they’re locally made: Flexovit Advanced 125 x 1.0 x 22.23mm Metal Cut Off Wheel – 25 Pack. They really cut steel fast and cleanly.
Cheers
Chris
Flexovit- wow, I need that. I checked out their website, and boggling how many products they make. I have a couple old steel tanks I’ve been holding on to to make a biochar cooker, but one is an old pressure tank for water, with an internal bladder. I’ve been reluctant to take the torch to it, but these cutoff wheels would be just the thing. There is a flexovit USA, so……
Still couldn’t tell what the wheels are coated with, no doubt proprietary, but if it works, who cares.
two person work- Yeah, if nothing else, one can call for the ambulance. Patsy is always reluctant to leave home on errands if I am doing chainsaw work, but really, I’d bleed out before help could be arranged anyway, so I say, go do your errands 🙂
Economic lala land- Nate Hagens just posted an excellent take down of conventional economic theory. It’s 43 minutes, but I thought a good introduction to someone not collapse aware. His new website design is goofy. The old one was fine, but I admit the production is a bit slicker.
Hi DJ,
Firstly, we have plans to plant out more sage plants, and yes, the flowers are delightful. There are honeyeater birds here which thrive on the nectar, so why not plant more? 🙂
Glad to hear that life is operating for you at the usual pace, a person could become unsettled if everything suddenly began operating smoothly. And I’m wary of such moments as well. What’s just about to happen that is currently unknown? Always problematic. Balance as usual, and a person has to take the good with the bad.
Had today mostly off work, and went for a walk in a nearby nature reserve. Lunch was a tasty ham and salad wholemeal roll and a coffee scroll. Far out it was cold though, and I doubt the maximum exceeded 6’C. I was surprised to see other folks enjoying the walk too, although it was big enough that encounters were brief.
Hehe! DJ, have you mastered the esoteric and occult knowledge of pouring over the various weather forecasts to determine what actually has a high probability of happening in your area? Sounds like it to me. Man, I go to a few different sources so as to get a feel for the most likely forecast conditions. However, sometimes things can be stranger than predicted. The other night I’d decided to run the petrol generator and could sort of feel a distant rumbling. Was this an aircraft taking off at the airport (which produces a very deep sound here)? Nope thunder, and a solid storm was approaching. Put the generator under cover and spent time cleaning out the water tank inlet filters whilst enjoying a solid downpour.
Respect, and I’d not noticed the face in the tree until you’d pointed it out. Now I can’t un-see the face, but it’s there alright. Makes you wonder what the story is for that remnant to have occurred? Probably not good.
Hehe! I am an old dude! 🙂 Nod of respect to the old dudes and dudettes. Once the age counting thing included a five in the first digit, a bloke had to come to terms with the reality. But then, hey, due to the unusual familial circumstances I grew up in, being old was already old news. Nowadays at least I’d hope there was some accumulated wisdom? About the best we can all hope for don’t you reckon?
All are excellent artists, and good music rarely ages, although room must be made for younger artists.
Hehe! DJ, paper lists are an ongoing in-joke in this household. Glad to hear that both yourself and your lady likewise enjoy such brain dumps, and as a technology I’d have to suggest that paper lists extend the mental capacity. They work, and I too rely on lists when the ol’ brain is overloaded.
Oh no! Software meltdowns and unexpected fix-ups. Simon in his earlier comment mentioned that a lot of programming is symbol manipulation. That observation blew my mind because I’d not considered that aspect to the story. Programmers on the other hand, can annoy the freakin’ daylights out of me when things go horribly wrong, like your example.
As an old school and now reformed computer gamer, that levelling up is err, well, it’s part of the whole. Hmm. Nowadays I struggle to enjoy the games and probably should simply avoid them altogether. 🙂
Exactly! Yup. Your story was spot on, and I’ve had arguments with plenty of people over the years who are looking at their devices for directions, and ignoring local knowledge of the road conditions. Before relying upon a mechanical brain, first make certain of fleshy brain comprehension.
I’ve been using spreadsheets for over thirty years (back to mainframe days), and realise that the map is not the territory. Sometimes I recount the story of using Excel when it was delivered on two floppy discs so as to make a point. Hmm. Hal was clearly a bad egg, and got what was coming to it. A great scene too of triumph over machine. Given the film was made before I was born, it holds up well. An enviable achievement. And who can forget the Thus Spoke Zarathustra moment?
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Oook! I’d not realised that the fleshy parts of a persons body would not snap back after defrosting from an incidence of frostbite. Glad that the feeling in your ear eventually recovered. Your weather is perfect for an outdoor summer’s day. It was quite cold here today at 43’F, but at least the wind had stopped blowing.
Did some paid work earlier. It’s getting only days away from the end of the financial year, so lot’s of people are getting their err, proverbial ducks lined up. Been busy, which is good. The next two weeks should quieten down a bit. Oh! We went for a walk in a nearby nature reserve, and it was lovely. The recent rains had hit there as well and so there were all sorts of signs of life beginning to sprout. Certainly there was a lot of marsupial scat around.
Had a tasty lunch of a ham and salad wholemeal roll, with a coffee scroll. After the walk, we returned home, lit the wood heater and had a pleasant nap. Where ever has the day gone? 🙂
Oh yeah. The vast inland lake is fast filling up in one of the biggest flood events in many decades. It’ll bring a whole bunch of life to the arid centre of the continent, and… Negative IOD emerges – what does this mean for Australia? The north west rains may be returning to here? Maybe.
It’s a beautiful part of the world, and the lake truly is epic in scale. It’s also interestingly below sea level and so won’t go anywhere but either down into the soil, or up into the atmosphere.
Interestingly, as you’d imagine down here, the scrap metal dealers take your details. All of them. And so if stolen chunks turn up, well, the sources are known and the authorities are alerted. Tends to reduce such nefarious behaviour, but then you’ve gotta trust that the scrap folks don’t lose your details. A lot of trust is involved.
It surprises me to hear when folks don’t organise their travels to perform multiple functions. Dunno why they don’t, but it seems to be a thing. Might be that even today, petrol is too cheap? Or people are looking for a reason to get out of the house? Dunno. Probably lots of reasons involved in that story.
Hehe! Very funny, and you’d be amazed at the bland tasting jams I’ve been exposed to over the years. Thus why we make our own nowadays. Your excellent result is not always guaranteed. Oh hey, began reading The Seed Detective book today.
That’s what you reckon about the asparagus roots. 🙂 Those things are feral, and the closest I’ve seen to them are Agapanthus roots. Interestingly, the deer have begun eating the leaves of that plant. In all my years here, I’ve never seen anything consume Agapanthus leaves.
Fingers crossed the seeds germinate, which I reckon they will.
Oh shoot! Yes, an angry rattlesnake would be alarming angry critter to encounter. Thanks for avoiding the long link. Dunno whether the snakes are literally blind, but what I’ve heard of the reptiles down here is that the younger examples often lack the discernment to not inject venom into a bite. Older snakes can often produce a dry bite which has no venom, but who is to know what the status is? I read recently of a bloke who had no effects for about 15 hours, and fortunately he was in hospital where the anti-venom could be administered when it did kick in. Presumably it is not cost free for the reptiles to produce the deadly venom?
Thanks for the explanation regarding the blood meal. It all makes perfect sense. Any further signs of deer deprivation?
Oh yeah, please spare us all from high maintenance folks. 🙂 Life being too short.
Man, I reckon there’s about a 10% element in the general population all other considerations to the side. And I ain’t even considering the large percentage of err, primary rule followers, who will do whatever just because some instruction said so. Personally, with clients I aim for 0%, and achieve that.
I’ve noticed that with ebuy as well. And you alerted me to that rough statistic a long while ago. There are just some folks who’ll provide negative feedback for the sheer joy of being contrary. To be honest, I use the feedback rating as a guide to probabilities, and have heard some horror stories with folks on other platforms. Dare I mention faceplant? Never used it, mostly because I have no desire to be involved with such an odd social affair. The Editor and I were discussing the subject from a completely different angle this morning – some folks see the world on a transactional basis, whilst an alternative perspective is that of an ongoing relationship basis. Society as it is so arranged today tends to favour the transactional approach, but that story introduces gains and losses. Hmm.
Very good, and itchy skin is not good for a dog. I feed the dogs a small quantity of coconut oil in their breakfast everyday, and that I believe is good for their skin. On the other hand, whatever works and if there are no mats in her fur, that’s great news. Out of curiosity, what’s the paper shredder for?
Hehe! Hope you avoided the dryer towel things, whatever they are. No doubt they’re scented and might permeate other dryer loads. I’ve got a super sniffer nose, so such aromas are major irritants. The world is a colourful olfactory place, and I can’t even begin to imagine what canines make of all that sort of human activity.
I recall that film, and Tim Burton produces some novel and entertaining films.
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – Our high yesterday was 70F (21.11C). Our overnight low was 54F (12.22C). he forecast high for today is 66F. It’s overcast with a nice breeze. We may see some rain, this afternoon. We may be pushing 90F, on Monday.
I think I read somewhere, that once upon a time, that lake was more permanent. And that there are prehistoric archaeological sites, around the old shoreline.
I picked up a couple of books, at the library, yesterday. One looks pretty interesting. “Invisible Iceberg: When Climate and Weather Shaped History.” (Myers, 2024.) Myers created AccuWeather, which has been around for quit a few years. I’ve never looked into it. Most of the chapters are pretty short, just three or four pages. It’s a book I’ll probably dip into, when I put my feet up for five minutes, between one task and another.
Nothing like a walk in a nature reserve, to clear all those numbers, out of your head. 🙂
I had my Spanglish rice, last night. Rice, beans, tomatoes, mushrooms, corn. A bit of Swiss cheese and yoghurt (instead of sour cream) on top. Tasty. I had vanilla ice cream with strawberry jam on top. Tasty. The next night I tried it topped with peanut butter. Also tasty. Last night, I went full PB&J. Tasty, squared 🙂 .
The gov tightened up on scrap dealers, especially when catalytic converters became a hot theft item. I saw an interesting article about copper theft, in Texas, yesterday.
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/houston-couple-caught-camera-allegedly-113300258.html?
When I was a wee small lad, and we visited Nebraska, a relative took us up in his small plane. He flew low over an old stage coach station. Nothing left but a couple crumbling adobe walls and the cellar hole. Which was full of hundreds of rattlesnakes.
No deer around, recently. Knock on wood.
What’s the paper shredder for? Well, to shred paper. 🙂 I see you can mix a bit of it in with your compost.
When I walk H behind the Institution, we pass the laundry room. And that’s where the dryers vent. Sometimes, it’s like walking through poison gas 🙁 . I don’t use anything but a bit of liquid laundry soap. Lew
@ Simon:
I wished I’d been there. In fact, my husband and I had thought about moving to Australia or New Zealand in the 80s, but never made it to visit either place, so stayed in the States.
Pam
Chris:
I love this particular bubble land. That’s why I’m here so often.
What’s not to like about I dream of Jeannie? A beautiful genie lives with an astronaut – they sure don’t make ’em like they used to.
My grandmother was one smart lady. She was up to her neck in Texas mojo, too, being the wife of a Congressman. Some say she was the power behind the throne . . . Everyone liked Dearie.
I support thee, independent artist!
Yes. A walk and a fire and a nap. Few things are better,
One thing I like about this time of the year: I can put my bread to rise on the front porch, it’s so warm out there.
I discovered an interesting thing today. In early spring I had taken an old, wrinkled onion from the grocery store that had missed being cooked and planted it in the garden. I wanted to see if it would bloom because pollinators really like onion flowers. It did finally bloom recently, but today the flower stem got broken, so I pulled up the whole thing. It had four nice sized onions where the original large one had been! There is no way I could ever find out the variety, this was just a cheap store-bought yellow onion, certainly not a bunching kind. I’ve never seen that happen in my garden.
Pam
Chris,
Good idea. If it helps the birds, plant more. I like it.
We’ve been in family emergency mode for 20 years now. I wouldn’t know what to do if things remained calm for more than a few weeks at a time. 😉 Actually, I think I could figure it out if things stayed calm.
Walking through nature preserves is always worth the time in my experience. You never know exactly what you’ll see. Glad that a tasty meal was involved for you also.
Oh, having lived here most of the time since 1967, I have experienced most of the weather that nature can throw at us in Spokane. I also researched what to expect from climate change, mostly looking at projections for say 2060 or so. Not likely I’ll be here then, but I figured that some things would likely be in place by 2025 or 2030 rather than later. The easiest change to notice will be (and has been) precipitation: how much per year and WHEN it occurs. Perhaps somewhat more rainfall than in the past per annum, but in a condensed season – and sure enough, for 8 or 9 of the past 10 years, the rain spigot begins turning off at the end of March, if not earlier, and we experience July aridness in late May and June, the arid season lasting into late October or even mid-November some of those years. In the past, one could count on rain through the end of June, a good storm in late August, then rains developing by the middle of October.
Also, I’ve found a forecaster that seems to have picked up on the change, so I follow that website. It was an easy guess with this latest system that came through that Spokane would get very little rain, due to the changes in weather patterns. Cliff Mass had a map of the entire state of Washington that he discussed before the storm system hit. The map agreed with my assessment, showing the inland desert and Spokane mostly missing out on the storm.
The other change I’ve noticed, also mostly in the warmer months. Once upon a time, the evenings would usually cool off in Spokane as soon as the sun was setting. There was a noticeable change 20 years ago, and it seems to have become the new normal. Rather than beginning to cool early and providing 2 or 3 hours of deliciously cool air ending after sunrise, now the nights stay warmer until well after midnight, the temperature eventually spiking to the low, which might not be much different than what it used to be, but the overnight coolness only lasts for an hour at most before ending after sunrise. In other words, as Cliff Mass has said, the overnight lows aren’t extremely different than what they were 20 or 30 years ago. But what he and most people who write about weather do NOT mention is that the AVERAGE temperature here from 9 p.m. until 6 a.m. in our hottest months has risen substantially over the past 30 years. Meaning infrastructure cools less overnight now.
Cool, Chris! Thunder near the winter solstice! There is actually a phenomenon called “Thunder Snow”, basically a thunderstorm in the winter with snow. I’ve experienced that maybe twice here. Very rare, and it feels weird to have thunder in the winter.
I chatted with my old boss for two hours today. He would be the guy who hired me at the County. As always, we had a pleasant conversation. I mentioned that there are times when I feel old at age 65. He immediately replied, “Wait until you’re my age, young whippersnapper!” Yeah, he’s about 15 years older than I am. Still very active and mentally sharp. His wife, like the Princess with me, has forbidden him to climb ladders without adult supervision.
And yes, accumulated wisdom is something that is happening for me, the Princess, for my old boss. Doesn’t happen for everybody any longer, but it’s good for those who accumulate it.
It was funny, paper versus computer, when I first started at the County. The boss would AWLAYS go to paper and pencil first. The college student who helped train me ALWAYS went to the computer first. I could do either, but my preference is still with pencil and paper, at least to outline a problem and a probable means to solve it. Writing helps me think, whereas pounding away at a keyboard can short circuit my thought processes sometimes, especially with solving maths or physics problems. I’ve gotten a lot better about “writing” on the computer, but old-fashioned maths? Pencil and paper first, please.
Yes, Simon nailed it. Computer programming is now more character manipulation than the old style of programming with FORTRAN or COBOL. It was near impossible to write a good FORTRAN program without actually knowing and intimately understanding the subject at hand. Things have gotten far away from that.
You mention almost weekly in your writing that the digital readout is not the map, or something along those lines. The maths is a model that helps us understand nature, that helps us predict what will happen when we turn on an electric circuit, but the maths and physics formulae are NOT reality, they are but a description based on our observations of nature. Pretty much what you say when you say that the digital readout of your current is only a readout, not necessarily what is going on in the circuit. The fact that you recognize that is a lot of why you’ve been able to tinker and improve your solar energy system, as well as cobble together what you’ve got with various generations of panels. That’s a lot of hard-earned but extremely real and practical knowledge that you’ve gathered. It is probably closer to reality than what anyone could get out of most printed textbooks on the subject.
Yes, the Thus Spake Zarathustra moment in that movie was great. Spine-tingling even.
DJSpo
Hi Steve,
I’ve used those Flexovit thin cutting discs for many years and will vouch for them. Nothing cuts faster, but I’d never push the disc and let it take it’s own bites into the steel at its own pace. Have cut some quite thick plate steel too over the years at maybe 6mm. Given the propensity for hot metal shards to go flying, I wear safety glasses plus a helmet with a face mesh. You won’t be disappointed.
Exactly. Presumably the bladder is a rubber sort of product? The discs will rip into that as well.
I’ve got no idea, which is why I pointed to the actual product. Seems like some sort of abrasive mesh, but whatever it is, tough.
Hehe! Yes, chainsaw injuries will be bad, all other considerations to the side. A wonderful machine, but things can go wrong remarkably quickly. I always wear gloves, helmet, safety glasses, and most importantly, chaps for protecting the err, more delicate bits. Years ago in a more carefree state of mind, a chunk of timber flicked back at high speed and hit me in the shin. Chipped the bone. That hurt, and is a fun way to hear the ocean in your ears and see stars floating before the eyes. Not good, but fortunately not too bad an accident either. Now I wear chaps.
🙂 Have only seen one or two items from Nate, but when a school of thought begins with the premise: Now let’s assume that people are rational and goes on from there, well it’s poop ideology from the factory in my opinion. 😉
Cheers
Chris
Hi Pam,
🙂 Lovely words, and we run a tight ship here, but it’s also fun too!
Yeah, it was a pretty funny, and also a mildly silly sitcom, and I recall it well. Barbara Eden is a very beautiful lady. I rarely watch television or films these days, although a month or so back went to the cinema to see the latest Bridget Jones film. Charming, amusing, also very deeply sad, but ultimately uplifting. I’d recommend you avoid that film.
Texas mojo sounds highly pragmatic. Well done to your grandmother, and sometimes us lesser males need to be guided gently! 🙂 Although I believe that us humans work better when co-operating, and the old timers used to say something about ‘the whole exceeding the sum of the parts’.
Bread rises nicely on warm days. Speaking of bread, Ollie and I discovered a bread chunk way down at the forest edge this morning. The only plausible explanation is that someone had been trespassing way down below the house, possibly yesterday given the stuff wasn’t too damp. Given the machinery shed locks had been tested in the past week, we’ll put up some trail cameras and probably have to call the cops. It’s a long walk from anywhere through thick forest to get there, but not out of the realms of possibility. There’s always something isn’t there? And people bring troubles to the door. Began calling around the neighbours. It’s rather unwise activity given we can shoot deer on the property, thus why I’ve gotta make an official call.
Garlic grows that way over time with bunching bulbs, but I don’t know enough about that mysterious onion plant. However, I do a similar thing with planting out soft onions and they grow just fine. Apparently the trick is getting a variety which is attuned to your day length, if that makes any sense. Did you try cooking any of the bulbs? The chives here have just sent up a few tentative early shoots. Yum!
Finished off the rock wall near to the new set of concrete stairs today. Me tired after moving lots of large and heavy rocks.
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
I kind of got that impression too over the years we’ve spoken. Maybe that outcome is simply the results of the various moments which lead to today? I prefer calm, but err, real world events have other ideas in store for all of us.
On that note, earlier today Ollie and I were out doing a boundary patrol check, and discovered a chunk of bread way down below on the forest edge. Left it for fifteen minutes so as to make sure it wasn’t the actions of a bird or animal. The most likely explanation is that a human dropped it there, probably yesterday given it was dry-ish (it’d been seriously wet earlier in the week). What a nuisance. We’re putting up some trail cameras, and oh well, the constabulary will have to be notified. We’ve got as-of rights to shoot deer, and it would be awful if some idiot was walking around down there where they shouldn’t be. I’ve begun contacting the neighbours.
So yeah, emergencies, err, happen!
It’s a funny nature reserve in that I get the impression that there are a friends-of group who care for it, but when I look around at how that works out in practice, there are some things I’d seriously change. 🙂 The old hippy I met was part of that group I believe, and he said some rather strange things about managing the land there. Still, I feel rather fondly towards that area and the walk is rather pleasant.
Not many people consider how the climate will possibly change for themselves in the immediate and longer term future. Respect. Hey, I doubt I’ll be here by 2060 either. 🙂 Still, it’d be nice to give it a try. For your info and on that note, with the loggers mess clean-up, I’ve been looking at the longer term cycle of fires in the area, and noted that they’ve been every four decades or so, with the last in 1983. Hmm. The Indigenous folks apparently used to fire the area every 15 years maximum, which seems like the safer path. Fires here (and probably in your part of the world too) being driven by a combination of available water, winds, fuel load and prolonged heat.
It’s interesting you mention the higher night time overnight lows, and that is what I’m observing here as well. Of course there are some benefits to this in that the soil doesn’t cool as much so plants grow faster – if you also have the water. And yeah, bigger splats of rain too. Makes it far more important to get all that water into the ground where it belongs.
Also the ‘heat island’ effect will be present in your area, I mean how much more hard surfaces and buildings are there now compared to say twenty or thirty years ago?
It feels weird to have thunderstorms in winter here as well, and the day of the winter solstice was remarkably warm. When the southerly cold front finally arrived a few days ago, there was a clash. We had sleet on Wednesday, a very cold day. Now a combination of thunder and snow would mildly freak me out.
Split some boulders and then hauled many large rocks back up the hill today. Finished a number of sections of rock wall in and around the raised beds in the kitchen garden. We’re very pleased with the result.
Always nice to catch up and chew the fat with people you’ve known for a long time. You’ve got a decade on me, and so I promise not to say I’m old and stuff, except I am. 🙂 Yes, whipper-snapper reporting in for duty! DJ, ladders are a part of life here, although rarely used. Your lady is wise, for a fall can lead to many sudden life changes – and have known of people for whom that has happened.
I like pencil and paper too for problem solving, but will revert to computer depending upon whom the explanation is intended. Take the other day I was working out a problem with a calculator and noting the answers down, then the light went on and I realised that I was required to furnish a spreadsheet model for another persons usage. But the work I’d already done was the best cross check of the computers answers based on my formulas. When in Rome they used to say.
Yes, that is my comprehension, and also the effects of using modules for programming stifles a lot of creativity. I taught myself 6510 machine language as a kid, it wasn’t that different to the basic programming language, just a whole bunch faster. But yeah, a person had to know how the machine ticks.
Thank you for those words, and the solar in particular has been a very long journey, with still further to go. In many ways I get the distinct impression that with the subject of electricity, the engineers are being roundly ignored, and that is a problem.
Ooo! Now I can hear that ear worm blast of the heavy drumming and orchestral build up. 🙂 Hardly soothing bedtime music… Hehe!
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Do you reckon it will warm up more next month in your part of the world? Ah well, I’d say 90’F fits that question. Stay cool on Monday. Apparently it will be 59’F and sunny tomorrow. No rain here today, did yours make a special guest appearance?
Speaking of such things, hmm. I’m rather annoyed. Ollie and I did a boundary patrol check this morning and discovered a chunk of bread, like the sort which would have accidentally fallen off someone’s sandwich, way down below on the forest edge. Talk about trespass… Anyway, we photographed it’s location, bagged it up and froze it. Could be handy. We’ll put up some trail cameras – which I’ve already got, just in case they were ever needed. Now they are. Might have to call the cops and see what they reckon, or at least it will be officially recorded in case there are future issues. It’s not like we can’t shoot deer. For the life of me, I can’t think why anyone would be that stupid. I’ve started contacting the neighbours about it too, see if they know anything. Word tends to get around.
I believe that there were a few ancient inland lakes, and there is: Lake Mungo. I’d say 40,000 year old human remains is pretty ancient, and the land there is like nothing else I’ve seen. Isn’t it amazing how far our species got around the planet so long ago?
I’ve read that those privately owned weather forecasting services earn part of their keep by providing local weather alerts to subscribers. That could be quite important if the weather was about to get ugly and cause a lot of business damage, like say mines. Read a bit more of the seed detective today. A delightful book, although the reading time was very short due to a late lunch.
We spent a lot of hours splitting some boulders, then hauling the large rocks back uphill. Finished a good chunk of the rock wall project around the raised garden beds. It’s nice to have access to a decent supply of rocks for all this work. And another steel gabion cage probably needs to be made soon.
Hehe! That’s funny, and yes, the ol’ brain did require some house cleaning. Too many numbers can stifle a persons creativity. What better place to do so other that in a nature reserve!
I reckon yoghurt is a good replacement for sour cream, which is often fattier. Your rice mix sounds tasty, and just the thing for a summer evening. Had a salad sort of meal tonight. Half a cob of corn. Half a radish from the garden. A dash of pesto made from the radish leaves. Chunk of tasty cheese. And some potato salad. Just the thing after a day of hard work.
Ooo, I hear you about that, and it is doubly tasty sounding. 🙂 Was it enjoyed with a film? I’m very much a fan of peanut butter on freshly baked bread still warm from the oven and your use is intriguingly good.
All metal scrap gets recorded as to its origins at the dealers (as do other businesses dealing in second hand items), so as a result it’s not commonly thefted. That’s a lot of copper those folks allegedly stole, and they must have known about the trade to have pulled such a heist. I mean how would they even know if the connections weren’t live?
I’d say observing hundreds of rattlesnakes from the distance of an aircraft is probably the safest way to view the reptiles en masse. Count me out of a closer look, the adventure seems at best, unwise.
The deer here have been turning up very early in the morning (when it’s still dark) and consuming Agapanthus leaves which again, is a story which just boggles my mind. Good to hear that the herbivores are still dodging your garden.
🙂 Good one! We tend to burn paper off and spread the ash around. I’ll be interested to hear how fast the stuff breaks down in the soil at your place?
Stay safe, and well you and H already know enough not to breathe the unholy air in. I don’t get why so many products have such strong odours these days. It’s not necessary to the workings of the actual product. Funnily enough, white vinegar (the distilled sort) is a strong cleaner which easily removes such smells via the wash. And you’re right too as to what you told me long ago, that white vinegar stuff is way too complicated to make without a lot of equipment.
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – Our high yesterday was 66F (18.88C). Our overnight low was 55F (12.77C). The forecast high for today is 68F. There was no rain, yesterday, but it sure looked like it was trying hard. 🙂 I still had to water. Looks like the same, today. Yes, our hottest months will be July, August, and maybe into September.
Oh, no! Hansel and Gretel won’t be able to follow the bread crumbs out of the forest! 🙂 But, seriously, that is worrying. You get a sense of violation.
Ah, that’s it. Lake Mungo is what I was thinking of. Interesting article. But I wondered about that “geomagnetic excursion.” What it looked like, on the ground. If anything. I suppose it might alter anything that migrates, using magnetic north as a guide.
I’m glad you’re liking “The Seed Detective.” All kinds of interesting things to maybe trial … if you can find the seed. And just the histories of various families of plants, is fascinating.
I partook in the ice cream while checking out the headlines, national and local. Just to sweeten things up. 🙂 I bottled up some blueberries, last night. 6 1/2 pints. All 6 pinged, so I guess I got a good seal. I had almost a pint of the blueberry jam left over, after filling the jars. I put it in the fridge. Hmm. Over vanilla ice cream? Next up, current / cranberry.
I have a hard time finding my deodorant brand, in unscented. Once, I had to resort to “Fresh” scent. I guess fresh, stinks. 🙂 I don’t know either, why everything has to stink up the joint. It’s probably a chick thing. 🙂
We were talking recently about the impact of aprons, on your gardening / seed savers group. I saw this article, yesterday.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/25/style/apron-fashion-renaissance
The Editor might find it interesting.
I keep forgetting to mention, the library has ordered in four old Sherlock Holmes movies. It was a series, in the late 1930s, and into the WWII 1940s. They’re the ones starring Basil Rathbone. You might find this article interesting. When another studio took over the series, they turned it into “Holmes fights the Nazis.” 🙂
https://w.wiki/EajL
We got our delayed food box, today. Old ladies won’t starve. 🙂 . Report to follow, tomorrow. Lew
Chris:
This is very bad news, that someone has been trespassing on your property. Is this the second time? I know that you had a run-in with someone sometime. How could you tell the locks had been tested? Trail cameras are an excellent idea, but now there is more work, not only setting them up, but checking frequently for images, and more expense. Will they record at night? Could this be that same guy that challenged you in the past? Could it be a neighbor? People could get to us by crossing the fields and paddocks of the two huge farms behind us.
I may save these small onions to plant when it’s cooler. I have a heck of a time growing chives, yet they’re supposed to be so easy. I do have a few right now.
Chris the Rock. As long as it’s not rocks in the head.
Pam
Chris,
Yikes. Thinking and talking about calm and you discover that you’ve been infested by an interloper, a trespasser. That’s not good. Hope it’s a one time event and not something that gets more exciting. Glad you’re talking with the neighbors and taking other measures. The way you took photos of and saved the glob of bread sounds great, too. Good idea.
The Spokane area has a lot of natural areas. In addition to countless parks in the urban area, there’s the very large Riverside State Park. I grew up a stone’s throw away and a quick hike down a hill to get there. There are a lot of small to large County natural areas also. A lot of good hiking in various terrains.
Okay, so without the Indigenous peoples taking care of the forests, including a burn about every 15 years, now you get devastating fires about every 4 decades. That is a bad trade off, which you know better than I do. The Natives had a much better understanding of things, didn’t they?
Whew! After 2 weeks, the winds finally seemed to quit tonight. Saturday should be pleasant, warming to about 27C, followed by another heat wave nearing the 37C range again. Summer is definitely here.
You got it right the first try with the heat island effect. The urban area is now gargantuan compared with how it was 20 years ago, which dwarfed what it was in the 1970s. Areas that were pine forest or farmlands are now asphalt and concrete and commercial areas and housing. Yup, heat island, big time.
Rock work is hard labor, but I’ve always found it to be enjoyable. There is a very obvious result. It’s satisfying to be able to see the result of the hard work.
BASIC was the first computer language I learned, followed by FORTRAN. I also played with the 6510 some also, but I never got really good with it. Using any of those required logic and attention to detail.
I think sometime back I may have mentioned Indian Relay Races, maybe posted links to a race or two? Anyhow, about 2 weeks ago, the Muckleshoot Tribe near Seattle held a large Indian Relay contest at the Emerald Downs horse racetrack near Auburn, Washington. I’m sure Lew knows where it is.
There were several teams from the Princess’s area. One of these won the event. One rider, 4 laps around the track, three changes of horse. All bareback. The horse handlers can make or break the race for a team. One of the handlers for the winning team was one of our great-nephews. He has been called Little Pete since he was knee high to a grasshopper. Now he is slightly over 2 meters tall. Little Pete. Here’s a link to the final race, won by the Omak Express team featuring rider Tyler Peasley.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsJa-drVzxs
Ear worms? I was talking to cousin from Albuquerque this evening. We got onto the Beach Boys and the Beatles. “Eleanor Rigby”, “Sloop John B”, “409”, etc. Pick one for the next ear worm. 😉
DJSpo
Hi Pam,
What do you do? One day you’re swimming along nicely against the metaphorical currents, then out of nowhere a rogue wave hits. Talk about choppy waters. Oh well. I’m dealing with this unfolding situation on a number of fronts – best to cover many bases and leave no stone unturned less events escalate. Exactly, more work and more expense for me. Yup. I like how your brain works, and I’m wondering most of the same questions. What the answer is, could be anyone’s guess? But events have now been set in motion, and there are consequences. It’s not in my nature to be mysterious, but this time around I’ll have to leave out some details until the dust settles.
Always worthwhile saving plants which are awesome, and grow easily. I honestly can’t tell you anything about how or why the chives are growing here – they just do their own thing and produce year after year. They were planted so long ago, however they do get an annual feed and live in a raised garden bed. Although growing larger onion bulbs are an issue here. It might not be on average warm enough, dunno. A mystery. You could say that I don’t know my onions! 🙂
Yes, one tries to be stoic without including granite in their brain matter. Pam, I reckon doing that would hurt! Ouch.
Another cold day today, and this morning I’ve kicked the bush telegraph hard.
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
These sorts of incidents have a natural habit of escalating, so evasive manoeuvres number six were taken in the past day or four and fingers crossed that the nuisance is nipped in the bud. Opening communications is one of the responses, and talking saves a lot of misunderstandings and consequences. Sounds ominous, but people need to be given the chance to learn. I had that opportunity when I was younger mostly because life was simpler. Now it’s complicated, but the same social rules still mostly apply. I’ll avoid further details until after the dust settles – it’s unfortunately not my natural state to be mysterious. Oh well.
It’s good that you’ve got plenty of natural areas in your part of the world. People need such spaces with all of it’s inherent humbling challenges to us humans, lest folks descend into the dark realms of concerns over abstractions. Nature has a wonderful way of kicking us critters in the backside lest we become too arrogant. The ancients knowing that hubris turned to nemesis did not save them, nemesis did. Then they forgot it all over again.
Exactly. That’s it. The whole land management process is not an ideal, it’s a compromise. Well done and thanks, I’d not latched onto that word, but yeah, that’s what it is. I worry for the older and taller trees here which provide the housing for the forest critters because, it is those which are most at risk in really big fires. There’s usually always stuff to eat, but housing in the forest is always in short supply. This is why the spotted quolls (marsupial cats) are no longer in the forest after the 1983 fires when they need to be here to restore some balance.
Glad to hear that your fortnight of winds has died down. That’s a relief. Yup, summer is at your place for sure. Hope you stay cool on those extreme days. It’s feeling cold here, but nothing like your winters. Quite mild really. I see that there is an East Coast low storm soon to hit the err, east coast of this continent. Think big waves, strong winds and lots of rain. It’s forecast to be pretty calm further south down here.
That’s it, and I can feel the heat island effect in summer here. The house and the immediate area around the building will be slightly hotter than only a short distance away. You can feel the difference. It’s that pesky thermal inertia again. Can you imagine what the desire for thermal mass like brick dwellings works like in that sort of climate? Crazy stuff. But yup, changes to the human landscape unfortunately happen. A person simply hopes that the massed effect is not too bad.
The rocks are so useful here. Out of sheer curiosity, when have you had to deal with rocks? Although I recall many sections of your garden included them. Heavy stuff, and it’s not hard to see why castles were made from them.
🙂 Oooo, we’re in total geek land here, and that was where my learning began as well. Respect! Never tried fortran, but from what I saw it was not that dissimilar to basic. Same, same, but better. And probably still used, somewhere. Machine language didn’t appear to be all that different either, you just had to comprehend the workings of the core hardware architecture – like how does this thing actually work. I reckon very few programmers these days would know such arcane details. Underneath all the flash and glitz, the core stuff is still mostly the same.
Well done and congrats to your local Indian horse relay team – what a sport of serious skill and team work. There’s some irony to the name Little Pete! All good with me. You could feel the adrenalin watching that race, and the changeovers were so smoothly executed. A well deserved win, and Mountain Crow was not far behind and close to the title. Also a respectable finish.
I’m resisting your earworms. One must stay strong and not lose focus. 😉 The Bee Gees were mentioned on the national youth music broadcaster today because of that impending Aussie countdown. 1977 was a strange time.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
That’d be how the hot weather would work out here as well, it usually begins after (or on) New Years Day, which is your July. Not far away really, and the garden will benefit with the additional solar energy. It was cold here again today, although similar to your overnight low. They’re saying rain will fall tomorrow. We’ll see, looking at the forecast there may be an hour or so for me to get some stuff done outside.
Went into the big smoke today and had lunch with friends. Good fun, food and lot’s of chats.
Yeah, Hansel and Gretel blew their cover, put it that way and lost the bread crumb trail. Hmm. To be honest, it may have been banana bread as it has equally that sort of look to it. It’s possible that whoever it was bolted upon spying Ollie and I heading in the general direction. Oh well, I’m treating the whole thing like a process to be dealt with, and have employed a few strategies. The speed at which I respond to problems varies, just because it seems like a good idea to do so, but this time I moved fast. Kicked the bush telegraph hard today. Got some more stuff to do tomorrow and Monday. Not an ideal way to spend my time and energy, but it is what it is. Unfortunately I can’t go into details, and it isn’t my usual thing to be mysterious.
You lead me down a rabbit hole with that loose talk of geomagnetic excursions. Doesn’t seem to be too big a deal for survival, but there was some correlation with a cooling climate. Hey, and the Australiasian strewnfield event would have been horrific to have experienced. Then there are the solar flares, some historic ones were bigger than the Carrington mess. Lot’s to go wrong for sure, that it’s amazing that things actually go right, sometimes. 🙂
Man, I’m always open to trialling new varieties of vegetables. Limited growing space is inevitably one of the problems. I’ll be curious to see where the seed detective takes me.
I see, all very good, and a person does need to stay on top of local and national events of note. Why not add to the enjoyment with ice-cream? You know, I’ve never tasted blueberry jam, but am guessing it would be very good. You’ll appreciate the vitamin hit in mid winter for sure.
It might be a chick thing, but surely you’ve come across blokes who use too much aftershave? I don’t like the smell of that stuff either, although appreciate why it is applied after a cut-throat razor shave. Didn’t Thoreau’s brother die from a tetanus infection from using a rusty razor? Why didn’t he bother sharpening and cleaning the steel first? So many questions, and David Thoreau seemed a quiet and earnest fellow, perhaps a touch too earnest for my reading tastes. Probably missing out on some of life’s more visceral joys, but back in the day they did say that spiritual pride was one of the deadly sins. Hmm.
Never watched The Bear series, and now I know aprons are part of that storyline, well that’s final for me. 🙂 I’ve only heard good things about that show, probably intense, but then commercial kitchens reportedly can be.
The name Basil Rathbone is made for an actor portraying the fictional detective. It’s interesting that the initial film quality apparently was dialled back with the change in studio, but also the times were tighter, and people had other things on their minds in those days.
Glad to hear that the food box has turned up. Any news as to the causes for the delay?
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – our high yesterday was 66 (18.88C). Our overnight low was 55F (12.77C). Our forecast high for today is 75F. It’s forecast to get progressively warmer, over the next few days.
A chat with friends is always good. One of the fellows I chat with, down at the Club will be gone for awhile. Heading to Italy. Mostly Rome. He’s going with his son and daughter-in-law, who is quit familiar with the country. I warned him to not break anything. Don’t be the ugly American. 🙂
“Isn’t my usual thing to be mysterious.” Yeah, you mentioned that … three times. 🙂 I think you love being mysterious. As Little Willie Wigglesword once said, “The lady (or dude) doth protest too much.”
Tell me about limited garden space … The Master Gardeners are here this morning. They’re doing a seminar on butterflies. I stuck my head in the community room, to say hello. They were wrestling with the technology. Power point, something or other …
I tried some of the left over blueberry jam, on ice cream. Tasty. I picked current, for almost an hour, last night. Fiddly. I learned something interesting, last night. You may remember that, by accident, I ended up making some current / cranberry jam. I remembered that I had put no pectin in it, and that it still jelled, quit well. It turns out that currents, and cranberries, are both very high in pectin. Something to keep in mind.
Yes, Thoreau’s brother died of lock jaw. Maybe he was in a hurry, because he had a hot date? 🙂 The Victorians did it rough. If the consumption didn’t get you, lock jaw would. Thoreau had a big impact on the 1970ps, back to the land, hippies. Particularly his book “Walden.” Although he fudged a bit, and wasn’t as independent as he made out. He also spent a night in jail, for not paying his taxes. 🙂
I haven’t been interested in watching “The Bear.” You’d think it would be right up my alley. But I gather there’s lots of high emotion and yelling. I don’t need it.
All books are on hold, for the moment, as I’m deep into “Hollywood High: A Totally Epic, Way Opinionated History of Teen Movies.” (Handy, 2025.) All the way from the Andy Hardy series, to the present. I just finished the section on “Rebel Without a Cause.” I mention it because of the infamous apron scene, between Jim Backus (Dad) and James Dean (Son). It occurred to me that maybe I should have been a sociologist. 🙂
We didn’t get a food box, last week, due to a lack of volunteers. So, what did we get? A dozen eggs (two broken) and a box of corn flakes cereal (smashed.) But everything else was in good order. A loaf of white ballon bread, a frozen Marie Callender meat loaf, a pack of frozen cheddar hot dogs (that made H so sick). A bag of shredded lettuce greens, 8 oz of shredded Colby jack cheese and one pound of butter “product.” There was an individual fruit tart in a plastic clamshell, and two large biscuits stuffed with M & M candies.
There was a one pound each plastic bag of dried pinto beans and white rice. One pound of spaghetti pasta. A big jug of vegetable oil. One box each of Hamburger Helper stroganoff and Mac & cheese. A jar of sweet pickles and a jar of peanut butter.
Tinned stuff: One tin each of white chicken, blueberry pie filling, tuna, chili, pork & beans, chicken noodle soup, corn, carrots, and green beans. Two tins each of pears and tomato sauce.
Not a bad haul. Most of it I took down to the community room, and put it in the fridge, or on the swap table. Lew
Hi Lewis,
Your weather is so ideal, and matches what occurs here in summer. December (your June) is cool, then it heats up for two or three months, then back to the more usual cloudy, damp and cold weather. Quite nice really, but probably not ideal for growing heat demanding annuals like grains and stuff.
I’m enjoying the seed detective book, it’s a quaint and lovely journey. The author is also highly aware of what has been lost over the years. Also he has a well trained BS detector, which I approve of.
Hope your friend is ready for some seriously hot Italian weather? It’s early in the summer months there, and already the news suggests heat waves for that part of the world. Australian’s can be a touch brash and boisterous too, although I’ve always projected a gracious persona when in foreign lands. Seemed like the safer path, but everyone is different.
Oh well, what do I say? 🙂 Of course your point was floating around in my brain when penning those words, and hey, who’s counting? A little bit of mystery doesn’t hurt, and the authoritas continually feed such nonsense with the line: It’s an ongoing investigation – which could mean that they have no idea. Ultimately they must take the blame for a fish rots from the head, so it ain’t my fault! 😉 I now rest my case.
Hopefully the butterfly class moved to the err, the garden? Observation being a wonderful thing.
Yummo! And that’s probably why currant jam is rarely seen – the bushes are prolific, but hard to pick. Imagine being paid by the pound to pick the fruit? Hmm. I’ve got to prune our currant bushes. Do your master gardeners do that job annually? Ah, we’re deep into the science of jam making here and know the rough acidity level and pectin content of the fruit / berries prior to even starting the cooking process. And the citrus we grow provides all of the pectin, if needed.
A date to die for? Hmm. A casual date is not worth it you know… But yeah, the Victorian’s had no idea about germ theory, and from what I’ve seen and observed over the years, neither will the west in three or four generations time. Even today, people fail to clean basic wounds and I’ve known of some stories where things went horribly wrong afterwards.
And yeah, the guy was apparently getting food from mum. Hashtag, just sayin… Maybe he just needed some time out?
I’m with you and am also interested in the series, but like you have no need for the emotional stimulation. Calm is nice. Life is complicated enough.
🙂 A fine choice of book! And hey, I envy your ability to be able to read more than a single book at a time. My brain is clearly of a linear persuasion. But seriously, I am unable to consider the bona fides of the book you’re reading if it did not cover – extensively – John Hughes seminal classic: The Breakfast Club. 😉
The food box sounds like a 50/50 mix to me, did much survive the swap table / fridge? The natives must have been hungry after recent box scarcity!
Cheers and better get writing!
Man, I’m so late tonight. The Editor set off a fire in the brazier in the courtyard and it was a total fizzer due to being all wet and stuff. Anyway, the pyro-cavalry (me) descended upon the matter and set things to right. But I’ve lost just under an hour…
Chris
Yo, Chris – Our high yesterday was 75F (23.88C). Our overnight low was 50F (10C). Our forecast high for today is 75F. We may be bumping up against 90F, tomorrow. Then another cooling trend. Once upon a time, we grew quit a bit of wheat, this side of the mountains. Different old varieties, I suppose. I see Prof. Mass has a post on weather ballon hysteria. 🙂 I saw an article, yesterday, that the U. S. Navy is going to stop sharing weather information. Just as we head into hurricane season.
https://www.npr.org/2025/06/28/nx-s1-5446120/defense-department-cuts-hurricane-ice-weather-satellite
Take your case to our Supreme Court. You’ll probably win. 🙂
I’ll find out what the turn out for the butterfly seminar, was, tomorrow. It didn’t look to promising, when I stuck my head in. Oh, I’m sure they took a stroll around the grounds. We have a butterfly garden section, full of plants that attract butterflies. There’s also some nice rock work borders, in the shape of a butterfly. I hope they at least see one, as I haven’t seen many around. I forgot to mention, I did see a couple of dragonflies.
I did a bit of pruning on the current bushes, last fall. Just the dead limbs and any crossed branches. The deer nipped off the tops of the bushes, but no harm done. I was picking last night, again, and they’re just about perfect. Pull right off without many stems and little squishing. There are quite a few aphids, but they don’t seem to affect the berries, at all. I’ve seen quit a few lady bugs, feeding on the aphids. I even saw a tiny, baby one, last night.
Have I discovered something new? I was wondering if there was any advice, on the internet, as to the proportion of currents to cranberries for the jam. Apparently, it’s a first in human history, or at least, the history of the web 🙂 . Plenty of recipes for jam made with one or the other, but no combos. So I wondered if you’d consult your Resident Master Jam Maker? 75/25? 50/50?
Oh, I’d say germ theory will bite the dust in less than three or four generations. Judging from how stuff sweeps through this building.
I think I should get an emotional support penguin 🙂 . Yes, it was a popcorn and penguins evening. “Penguin Lessons” was such a good movie. I predict it will cause a craze and penguins will become the pet du jour. Probably, very expensive. But if I wait awhile, people will be onto the Next Big Thing. There will be penguin rescue agencies, and they will be very available.
John Hughes has been referenced several times, and I think he gets a chapter or two. I just finished the chapter on beach party movies (Annette and Frankie!). Next up, the darker “American Graffiti.” You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that movie.
Due to the disruption in the schedule, and the way the calendar falls, we may get another food box, next Wednesday.
The Fourth of July is next week. I see the fireworks stands are being set up. I haven’t heard any blasts in the neighborhood, yet. Always a fraught time for some dogs. H is made of sterner stuff. :-). Lew