It’s been a bit over a year since we’ve begun our YouTube adjunct adventure to this blog. The other day Sandra suggested that you, the lovely readers of this blog, might be interested in the background story, and also something about what we’ve learned along the way. It’s been a heck of a journey, that’s for sure.
Dear reader, cast your minds back to a year ago. The world seemed different in those days. It’s hard to say exactly what’s changed since then, but the sensitive person may offer an explanation: Things were more certain in those days. Oh well, life changes and the big old world keeps on spinning around and around. Say what you will, but since the US Federal election last year, geopolitics have become interesting again!
Much moaning and consternation can be heard elsewhere – you don’t have to travel far. But blame it on my upbringing, or whatever, I’m simply not wired to be down about current events. Sanguine would perhaps be an appropriate description as to the vibe here. After all, my entire life has experienced slow economic decline. If you doubt me, there’s this irrefutable fun fact: In the 1970’s my single mother received a free part time University education, paid time off work to study, and also managed to purchase a house for my sisters and I to reside in. There was always food on the table, and that was all achieved with a single income. This collected series of outcomes are simply not possible nowadays, ergo, we’re in decline. Nuff said.
So yeah, economically I hold some reservations that wealth will ever return to the free wheeling funster days of the early 1970’s. Still, I don’t hold visions for the near future which include the sort of shanty town shacks which once hard working, then the suddenly unemployed, resided in during the Great Depression of the 1930’s. We’re probably more likely to see more rounds of further congestion, shoddy products, higher prices, and greater life administration burdens. So far that’s how things are playing out.
As previously mentioned we live a quiet life out in the forest and up in the hills north of Melbourne. It’s all very nice, and we work hard to make the place both beautiful and more importantly, functional. Our hard work and thrifty nature tends to keep the economic costs of these activities low. However, as wealth slowly declines in our civilisation, people are losing faith in the system to deliver for them. And fair enough, it may not be meeting their expectations, I get that. It’s hard for me to forget the tens of thousands of dollars the University demanded, and extracted for a license to practice my profession. All so very different from my mum’s experience.
Anyway, it hasn’t even been a year yet, but there was that US Federal election, when was it again, around November or something like that. Clearly enough people felt slighted to have voted for a change in government. There’s an old saying which is remarkably true: Oppositions don’t win elections, government’s lose them. Hmm. Probably the case here.
About maybe nine months before the election, a weird thing began happening to the blog. It appeared as though the search engines began throttling the traffic to this website. Slowly at first, then it effect accelerated. It’s not nice to be made a non-person. Looking around at other independent blogs, people were losing their minds about this traffic squeezing business. Some cheeky wag came up with the description: Shadow banning, whatever that means. And it may even be true.
Honestly, I probably brought that dog poop situation down on my own head by having links to supposedly controversial websites, one which was notably permanently taken out in some sort of weird and deeply mysterious interweb hit: Mr Kunstler’s twice weekly blog: Clusterfuck Nation. The name is derived from Military slang, which I’ve heard expressed as: Hurry up, and wait! Another aspect of my internal wiring is that I’ve got a reasonably open mind, and if people make claims, rather than getting all fired up, I tend to ask the hard question: Well, are they right? Clearly, the facts suggest that other folks feel differently.
The entire throttling thing was all taken with a dose of good grace, and the day after the election, the traffic flows returned as if nothing had happened. That was strange. But whatever. However, in the months prior to that moment, Sandra and I decided to create a YouTube channel with what is known as interweb ‘back-links’ to the blog. This would force the nice search engines to maybe acknowledge this website as real, and of no threat to anyone. So we began making weekly videos in addition to the blog.
Making videos is a completely different experience to sitting down and typing out a couple of thousand words of text. At first it was difficult to relax whilst talking in front of the camera. Guys are wired to do one thing at a time, but there were times when you’d have to talk, and like you know, do stuff. The sheer outrage! And my cover has been entirely blown, Sandra now expects me to multi-task. Talk about undocumented side effects.
For the past eleven years, usually each Sunday night I’ll sit down and write about some topic which has been on my mind during the week. It’s hard to know in advance what that subject will even be, and that’s part of the fun for the reader. Who knows what journeys of the imagination we’ll all embark upon? YouTube is different. People appear to want the same journey, but perhaps better, otherwise they’ll go off and watch something else.
We tried poking the algorithm with all sorts of topics to see what the response would be. There’s definitely a bias towards how-to videos, although some of the kitchen subjects have been total flops. People seem to like chainsaws, although I’d soon run out of ideas for new content. Even the thumbnails for the images make a difference. I’m mildly offended that photos of myself score poorly when compared to pretty click-bait images. I’ve toyed around with the idea of doing a thumbnail of me with the shirt-off, flexing the arm and chest muscles, a rifle in one arm and holding Ollie by the other, all the while looking purposefully at some animal which needs killing off in the distance. It worked for that president of the big long bear country.
Nah, what I have learned about that platform, is that it is a business. There’s an interweb meme about a child encountering a deadly animal with the line: If not friend, then why friend shaped? It’s a remarkably wise question, with deeper implications than may appear at first. We’ll see where the channel goes, but trust me, that thing may look free, but it ain’t free shaped. Hmm. Who cares though? It’s just good to have all you lovely readers here!
This week’s video is a how-to video on how we make yoghurt.
The weather this week here was filthy. We had the triple unpleasant experience overdrive: wet, cold and windy! On Monday, at least, the wintry weather held off. We headed down below to the forest edge to continue cleaning up the loggers mess. And I finally finished cutting up the largest log those remarkably messy folks left. The Meg! The chainsaw required a brand new bar in order to cut straight through the thick timber, but the job was soon done and the discs were burnt off. They’re too huge for any of our equipment to split into firewood sized chunks. And I certainly can’t lift them off the ground. Easier to roll them downhill into the fire.
If you look carefully at the small chunk which has broken away from the disc, you can see that the fungi have invaded the decades old log and began to consume it. That made for easier cutting of the hardwood, but it was still no simple job for the dirty timber rapidly blunts the cutting teeth on the chain. Glad that part of the clean up job is now done.
A good job to do indoors during cold weather is to make soap. This time around, instead of using expensive olive oil, we’re trialling the far cheaper canola oil. Proving that innovations often go awry, the first batch of canola oil made two months ago was sped up by using a hand mixer. Many people on the interweb swear by this innovation, but the results speak for themselves. The soap making process may have been faster, but the results were rubbish. It’s far better if mixed by hand slowly over a number of days. This is a great example of the engineering concept of: Good, fast, cheap – pick any two!
On Sunday, it was not raining (at first), but the wind was feral. Working outdoors is both unpleasant and risky in such weather, so we headed to a nearby mountain range to visit the delightful: Fern Acres Nursey
Such a lovely place, and the folks there are super helpful. We left with a bakers dozen of ferns to plant out. Many of those will end up in the overflow swale for the two new water tanks.
And I almost forgot to include this, but in reality I did actually forget to include the next bit in a previous blog from a few weeks ago. We took a trip to Sunbury to check out some of the places of interest. That’s the nearest big town to us. Turns out there are a few ancient Indigenous stone circle rings in the area. I’d driven past this site for years and not known what it was.
It’s a very ancient ceremonial site, and there are several of them in the area. Some of those were surrounded by housing estates, which seems really weird to me, but then I did grow up watching scary horror films like, Poltergeist.
The train line is of interest too. It was one of the earliest, mostly because it connected the very young city of Melbourne to the gold fields. Turns out there was gold in them thar hills, quite a lot actually. So the train line was economically viable, and is still in use today. There was a lovely granite bluestone bridge crossing a creek. They don’t make them like that anymore.
I doubt I’ll look as good after around 160 years of use.
We also finally discovered the location of the famous Sunbury Music Festival of the very early 1970’s. Things were probably a bit loose in those days, because I didn’t see any facilities. The band Queen even played there one year. It sure was a beautiful location though. Makes you wonder what Freddie Mercury would have thought of the location? Apparently he was quoted as saying that on the bands next visit, they’d be the biggest band in the world. Proving that one must always be careful with what they wish for.
In breaking produce news:
Another chicken has come on the lay this week. Yay! Egg production will slowly rise, until it peaks and declines by February when the chickens need to moult. At that point in time, they’ll regrow their feathers for the winter months.
Onto the flowers:
The temperature outside now at about 11am is 6’C (43’F). So far for this year there has been 374.0mm (14.7 inches) which is up from last weeks total of 348.4mm (13.7 inches)
Comments
41 responses to “Steal the light”
Yo, Chris – Maybe no shanty towns, but plenty of homeless tent encampments. We even had a major one, here, that was finally done away with, by The Powers That Be.
https://w.wiki/Eino
“Shadow banning” is a pretty interesting concept. Apparently, The River is notorious for banning sellers, with no apparent rhyme or reason. That book I read about the Scottish book dealer, last year? A good chunk of his business was done with The River, and, he was constantly getting banned. And, of course it was a herculean task to get things moving again. As there is no one to talk to. Like, a real person.
Multi-tasking: But can you walk and chew gum? 🙂 That would have been a major tip-off.
The video was quit good, but did you jettison the subtitles? Also, I was a bit confused about the pasteurization of the milk. You mentioned it, when it was still in the jug, and I expected some pasteurization process. But it seems it’s done in the machine. Or is it done twice?
Fern Acres looks like a lovely and beautiful place. I wonder if there are moss nurseries? A quick look down the rabbit hole, and, yes there are. It looks like you picked out some really nice looking ferns.
That’s a pretty interesting indigenous archaeological site. There’s more going on in the landscape, past and present, than most people take in.
The railroad bridge is really stunning. Why can’t we build stuff like that, these days? Does everything have to be functional and mostly ugly?
The Sudbury Music Festival was pretty interesting. I looked up some of the history. You know, there was a recent archaeological dig at the site of our Woodstock Music Festival. The archaeologists were disappointed, as the clean-up was so thorough. 🙂
The first eggs of the season are always welcome.
Feverfew looks a lot like Chamomile. And I see you can make a tea from it, too. You must have just the right microclimate, for roses. Though as a group, they’re pretty forgiving. Lew
Hi Lewis,
Well, there are those encampments, Camp Quixote not far from you. The homeless tend to congregate near to the city, or are doing off the books things like ‘couch surfing’. Not good. The urban-rural divide councils appear to be moving against tiny homes: Tiny house residents forced to find new home after Yarra Ranges Council serves up building order.
It is an interesting concept isn’t it? Makes the curious and alert person wonder who is pulling the strings? And I’d not heard of the rivers alleged shenanigans. But yeah, toe the line or get out, might be one unspoken factor in it all. It piqued my interest that the search ungines failed to back the winner of that competition late last year. The situation with the blog here was simply collateral damage. Hey, makes me wonder whether, or not they do have real people working for them?
Hehe! Very funny, and sadly my cover has been blown with the Editor. I’ve been working on the ‘one thing at a time’ myth for years…
Hmm, the subtitle computer thing was not jettisoned by choice. Hang on a second… … Just checked the utoob and the subtitles seem to be in order. Actually, it’s mildly disturbing that the program appears to be learning my accent. The subtitles were mostly accurate. Eerie…
Yeah, pasteurisation is done by heating the milk back up to 65’C / 150’F which the machine slowly gets it up to and keeps at that for an hour (it probably takes 40 minutes to get up to temperature), although that is merely my comprehension of the process. Over the years I’ve had two bad batches of fresh milk, and that ruined the yoghurt. Had to start all over again with a new batch of fresh milk and inoculum. Not the end of the world, just a pain. Haven’t had any problems since I reheated the milk prior to starting off a new batch.
Who knew that moss was sold and could be purchased retail? Far out! The stuff grows here with no effort on my part, and funnily enough it seems to germinate at lower soil temperatures than grass, and provides the greenest of ground covers in the depths of winter here. Fern Acres is really lovely. I believe they were recently featured in Gardening Australia program which may be available on utoob. I’ve been buying from them for at least two decades. The drainage basin will look really cool when completed.
Agreed, the land all about us has its share of stories, mysteries and secrets. Thanks for mentioning the stone rings, as they are hardly signposted. That one in the lead photo is fenced off, but it’s on private property. I believe the Indigenous folks have as-of-rights access to the site. There are quieter stone circles in that area.
Thought you’d like the rail road bridge, and it’s beautiful, yeah. The rocks were quarried near to the bridge itself, although it all looks very pleasant today. Bluestone for your interest is the same stuff as used in Stonehenge, or very close to.
The site for the music festival was really hard to find. Interestingly, there was some story that the original land owners (I believe that it is now government owned, maybe) allowed the use of the land for free. How’s that for rockin’-on! Woodstock (thanks for the rabbit hole) looked like total mayhem! And probably lots of fun. The rain would have made for a problematic experience.
The eggs are on the up, and much appreciated. The birds have been off the lay for about four months now.
Feverfew is of the daisy family, Asteraceae as is Chamomile, so there are similarities, although feverfew grows into a bush-like plant. The flowers on the roses at this time of year is a bit unprecedented. Further north (and more inland), I noticed in a botanical garden that their roses are completely deciduous. Not sure what is going on here, but it has been a warm-ish year.
Ah, all rather unfortunate, and I’d read that the plague arrived along the west coast in the early twentieth century. Responses to such matters can be quite hard-core down under. 🙂 Did you see the photos of businesses being emptied, and presumably the contents were torched?
And the future on that front is far from certain. When basic concepts such as germ theory get lost…
We tend to keep boxes that are very sturdy, but yeah, the rest get burned off with the ash being added back to the soil. You nailed that too, it is very much performance art and something that makes people feel good. Soft plastics are a nightmare product on that recycling front.
Ooo, never encountered a yellow onion before. Wonder whether they even have them down here, might not. The standard variety are brown onions, although there are red and white onions as well. Those have sharper tastes and usually get put into salads.
91’F is beginning to get what may be described as more than warm. Hope it cools down for you soon? Had some work to do this morning, and then headed down below to do a bit of forest clean up work. It’s pretty damp outside now, and the house water tanks have finally filled up. The overflow tank remains empty, but maybe in a month or two that will fill.
Thanks for the advice, and I will talk to the plants, although try and avoid threatening tones and encouraging words such as: Hurry up and grow, or I’ll pull you lot out! 🙂 Sadly I didn’t make that quote up, it was someone else’s. Still it’s a good line.
My money is on the rats, but those squirrels would give me an attack of the vapours with what they’re potentially capable of doing.
Hope the honeybees turn up. Seriously.
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – That was an interesting article about tiny houses. Though, the examples were far from what I think of as tiny houses. They sell tiny houses on The River, and I took a look. I think there’s been a bit of mission creep. 🙂 The councils want their pound of flesh.
Real people? How … archaic. Droll. What a quaint idea. It’s all algorithms, ai, and robots these days.
The Japanese have some stunning moss gardens. Some of them quit ancient.
The Woodstock music festival was a cultural milestone for us, that still reverberates to this day. The little yellow bird in the “Peanuts” cartoons? His name is Woodstock. Then there’s this bit of popular music.
https://youtu.be/26LYjMww0GY?si=Gh0VNS563ePHawfc
My German Chamomile is quit bushy, once it gets going. Once I had harvested enough flowers, I pulled it out, to make more room. I see there are already volunteers coming up, here and there.
I noticed this morning… Hallelujah! … my asparagus seed has finally sprouted. Three weeks to the day. Maybe talking to them does help? When H is naughty, I tell her I’m going to swap her for a younger, prettier, trophy dog. She doesn’t seem phased. Gives me a look like, “In your dreams.” 🙂
I saw an article, yesterday, that tomato tariffs are kicking in on tomatoes, this week. Small Italian, pizza and Mexican restaurants are worried. I also saw this article about tea and coffee. And another look at our native caffeinated plant. Youpon.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/tariffs-u-only-native-caffeinated-175928575.html
Our high yesterday was 91F (32.77C). Our overnight low was 59F (15C). The forecast for today is 76F. It might be in the 90s, for the rest of the week. And then cooler at the weekend.
And, you might find this article from Pompeii, interesting. It sounds like the Roman’s were into a bit of disaster capitalism, even way back when. After the big earthquake in the 60s, it seems like quit a few houses were converted to small industries.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ancient-roman-perfume-garden-blooms-again-nearly-1900-years-after-vesuvius-eruption/ar-AA1IsJEk
I think it’s interesting that there are archaeologists who specialize in figuring out what kinds of plants grew in historic gardens, by studying pollen, seeds and root holes. Lew
Hi, Chris!
I like your title.
It seems like only yesterday that we had no videos, but look at you now – a celebrity! I never feel like anything is certain, definitely not since that which must not be mentioned, but even before that I tended to think “Never assume.” I realized – because my husband-to-be pointed it out to me when we were both still in college (mid 70s) – that we would not have the same standard of living that our parents had had, and they had had it really good and pretty easy. But that’s okay, because I like this lifestyle better.
I look forward to the days of more apprenticeship-like learning of trades, not spending tens of thousands of dollars.
That is so interesting about your “shadow banning”. I didn’t realize it had gotten so bad. All very mysterious, but something good came of it – your videos!
“I’ve toyed around with the idea of doing a thumbnail of me with the shirt-off, flexing the arm and chest muscles, a rifle in one arm and holding Ollie by the other, all the while looking purposefully at some animal which needs killing off in the distance.” Please do, please do! Then you can send the photo into the Off Grid He-Man of the Year Calendar.
Good job finishing off the Meg. That was a biggie. It’s kind of a shame that the wood couldn’t be turned into firewood. I see why, though – those logs were mostrous. Oh, I see that you are wearing your blue hat in the Meg photo. Be sure to wear that in your manly, gun-toting pose.
That is something that I am really glad to know: That one should mix soap by hand. I wonder if some of the fail had to do with the canola oil. I don’t have much confidence in canola oil.
If the stone ring was a “church”, maybe not so strange to have houses around it? It’s a really neat sight to see. And that is a beautiful and graceful bridge, a joy to view.
That is a lovely spot for a festival, but who is Freddy Mercury?
I just made some feverfew tincture. My feverfew has never bloomed in the winter. Thanks for the beautiful roses, Lavender, too. I am picking and drying that right now.
From last week:
Wallabies in the UK? That’s amazing; kind of scary, too. I hope that the hugerer Mr. Babies are still white with big, black spots. Now, that would be scary!
I have seen photos of dingo look-alike street dogs from every continent.
We never win against the squirrels.
Pam
yoghurt- Adding some powdered milk is a twist I have not tried. What I do, is pour the fermented yoghurt into a cheesecloth lined strainer, and drain off a lot of the whey. Then it goes in the fridge. It’s not full on Greek yoghurt, but it is firmer, which I like, and I use the whey to encourage the chickens to eat the fines in their feed.
sanguinity- well, not sure I can go that far, maybe with a touch of stoicism and not being attached to outcomes. I think stepping back from the day to day craziness is hard to do, but necessary for seeing the big picture, and for preserving sanity. It helps to read actual historical books, to see that humans have always been a mix of good and bad, and not a small touch of stupid.
One can both see poor prospects for BAU at the global level continuing, and at the same time, enjoy working on my own personal situation.
Anyhoo, it’s become hard to know the truth anymore, so while I do keep tabs on the latest noise, I don’t spend too many brain waves worrying or getting worked up on things that may well be intentionally reported wrongly. The serenity prayer comes to mind again.
We head off on our camping trip around Lake Superior Wednesday, won’t be back for two weeks. Hopefully ICE lets us back in at the border. Off to the land of moose, mounties, and Molson’s.
Chris,
I looked at the picture atop this week’s post and I said, “Cool! Stone circle.”
That was one big tree you cut into chunks. Working to get the big circular bits into manageable sizes would’ve been a major chore. You’d probably still be working on it. Proper use of gravity was the only solution in my book. Glad you thought of it.
Ugh! So you tried new ingredients AND a new processing method at the same time for a batch of soap? I learned long ago that the process must remain unchanged when toying with new ingredients. Changing too many major things at the same time has always resulted in disaster for me.
Wow! Fern Acres looks wonderful. I never knew that there were that many varieties of ferns. A bloke could get paralyzed trying to decide what to purchase from all the choices.
I remember when you mentioned your trip to Sunbury a few weeks ago. I’m glad you included the photo. That stone circle is cool.
I’ve seen similar train bridges near here, I think on one of the side roads between here and somewhere. Just off the main highway between here and Pullman to the south, there is a nice old concrete railroad bridge. Visible if you know where and when to look. It isn’t obvious. One of those “if you know, you know” things.
The Princess and I grabbed sandwiches from the deli near where I used to work. We hadn’t been there in many months. After eating, I drove home via a part of town she had never seen before. There were a lot of huge old houses from the early 1900s. Most of these had been kept up very well. It was a nice little drive.
Saturday was hot. Sunday was worse, the hottest day of the year. 39.5C with a light breeze. Today wasn’t as hot, but the wind kicked up around noon. Nasty gusts. It’s supposed to be worse tomorrow. One of those dry cold fronts, meaning that the winds are coming from the north. There is a fire just north of Omak, Washington. Wind gusts there have been near 60 miles per hour. That area, like Spokane, is now in a “moderate drought”. Dry winds are not helpful.
The thyme has quit blooming for now. The sedum, aka stonecrop, has started flowering with its nice pink flowers. There’s usually something blooming here from April through early October.
DJSpo
Hi Pam,
It’s a lovely title isn’t it? And I’m glad that there is no copyright on titles. The Cat Empire – Steal The Light. Maybe 12 years ago, the state government closed off the city roads and paid for the band to perform for their 1,000th gig (or something like that). In the video you can see scenes of Flinders St Railway station in the big smoke which is a grand old Victorian era building, and quite remarkable in its own right.
Oh my! Well, I’m yet to be recognised in the streets. That would be fun, maybe, maybe not, although as an incorrigible introvert I could stammer something indiscernible, yet possibly profound! And people may be left wondering what was just uttered. It could only add to the mystery don’t you reckon? 🙂
Pam, I’m so with you. I could train people to do the work excellently, for a fraction of the cost. Hmm. Oh well, we exist in the world that is, and not as it could be.
It got pretty bad although I did my utmost to ignore the background noise. Good grace has its benefits, and you and I, as well as all the other lovely readers here kept our chins up and carried on. There was mischief afoot, but when wasn’t there?
🙂 Ah Pam, lead me not into temptation! I could do that. Thanks for the laughs. You know, I’ve never stopped being physically very active.
The meg was crazy big, and what a waste to drag the tree to that spot and just leave it. There’s something deeply wrong about that, but the discs ended up being just way too big and heavy to work with. A shame, but the trick is cleaning up and not allowing such things to occur again. If the forest is well maintained, then those post fire salvage teams will have nothing to do. That’s the plan, whether it works out, who knows?
Please accept a cordial tip of the blue hat as acknowledgement of your lovely words.
I wouldn’t worry, the canola oil seems fine. What was wrong was people on the interweb advising to rush the process using a stick mixer and speeding that part of the process to an hour. Nothing will produce better soap than a hand whisk with the occasional stir of the solution over about three or four days. Good soap should not be rushed.
That’s a powerful herb and one which grows easily. Out of curiosity, which oil did you use for the tincture? Dried lavender is beautiful, what an aroma. How do you usually dry your lavender flowers?
Now we all know what Mr Baby dreams of when the eyes shut and the whiskers happily twitch away.
Oh my! So are you suggesting that squirrels are like the Terminator in that they keep coming on back? Please do keep them to your country. Lovely creatures, but from a goodly distance (Queen Charlene excluded of course, she was of noble pedigree).
Cheers
Chris
Hi Steve,
🙂 Just between you and I, I also prefer the firmer yoghurt. We do that process when making fetta cheese, and that slow cooker has a basket which fits inside the tub for that very draining process. Man, I’d hate to think of people chucking the whey out, because it contains a lot of protein (your suggestion is most excellent). I pour off the whey into the chickens bucket and mix it up with oats. The birds destroy that stuff.
The milk powder gets added basically gets added because I don’t trust the milk. Dairy is hard to produce, and the human population continues to increase, so maybe something gives? Dunno. Could be wrong there.
Thanks for the insight, and that’s a wonderful way of looking at the world, and a positive example we could all emulate. Not being attached to outcomes is the wiser path. Folks interested in history often note that patterns reoccur over a long enough period of time. Can we really ever fight the catchphrase: “It’ll be different this time?”
And your sentence, captures my own philosophy to a tee. 🙂 Worry, yes, but also recall to chop wood and fetch water. Like you, I try to keep on top of things here and ensure that they are productive. Not always easy to achieve, is it?
I must say, your country’s trade wars are having some noticeable and strange effects here. I’m in the process of replacing all of the older lead acid batteries which have performed admirably for almost two decades. The land of stuff is now busy supplying very well made LiFePO4 (lithium) batteries down under and cheaply. This was not the case until very recently. Dunno what to make of it, but the old timers used to say not to: look a gift horse in the mouth. And it’s true.
Man, it’s hard to know the truth of any of the stuff going on around us. I don’t tend to write about those sorts of topics, and instead pen stories about how it is all playing out. Mostly it is an acknowledgement of a complete lack of ability to make any difference at the upper levels of big problems. At street level, there is much we can all do, yup. How are the hazelnuts looking this year?
Well done, and hope you both have a lovely trip. And I’m sure they’ll let you back in, maybe… 🙂 You’ll be fine, maybe. Have fun!
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
My understanding is that the local lore keepers look after the stone circles, and they must be ancient. There’s about five of them that are listed, but there may be more, and sorry to say the plough probably did a lot of damage to uncounted other sites. The photo doesn’t do the circle justice as it’s about 30m in diameter. It’s dark outside tonight, and cold at 5’C. Took the dogs out for a wee in the orchard, and the Milky Way is a nice thick smudge of light across the sky. No wind to speak of. A lovely night to star watch, however, it would have been nicer outside sitting around a camp fire though sharing tales. But then we’re doing a tiny bit of that here, aren’t we? 🙂
The tree was wasteful to a degree which bothers me, but bringing in a loader to do the work would be even more wasteful (not to forget the damage such a heavy machine would do to the soils) – but with the same outcome. Yup, gravity does the work, all I needed to do was add some direction and motivation. I kept all of the broken steel bulldozer chains as they’re part of the human history of the place.
Ook! Upon reflection changing two variables does seem a touch unwise, and yet that is what occurred. We’ve had this discussion before, but usually I learn more from my mistakes, than if I get a process correct the first time around. A lot of interweb people swear by the speeding up process using a stick mixer, but truly the results were not even close and the sped-up soap is a much lower grade outcome. The new batch of canola oil based soap done the old school way even has a better aroma. Hmm.
That fern nursery is awesome, and you can wander around through paths. I’ve purchased from them for many years, but they were on the Gardening Australia program about two weeks ago. Hopefully I can find a link and you can see some brief high quality footage of the place. And yup, it is hard. I stick to the tried and tested local varieties of ferns.
Here and somewhere! 🙂 A truly fine description worthy of Douglas Adams. Many things are not listed, or hard to find, yeah. Possibly nobody really wants to bring attention to them, which I can understand. The half century ago Sunbury Music Festival site was very much that sort of mysterious treatment.
Ooo, a fun outing (and how were the sandwiches?) That era down here is the Victorian/Edwardian era (clearly probably not an influence in your country! 🙂 ) around the turn of the twentieth century, and we also love those houses. Usually well constructed, and simple, but ornate all at the same time. Worked on a few of them over the years, and I like the bones of such houses.
Oh far out! That’s hot. Ouch. Fry an egg on the car bonnet? Probably might do something weird to the vehicle paint job. Holy carp! Those are my nightmare days. Hope you, your lady, Dame Avalanche, Killian and Co, and the folks on the Rez all remain untouched by such news and events. Good weather to stay more than usually alert.
Sedum is a lovely flower, and how hardy are those plants? In the UK, I’ve seen video footage of houses which use those plants on a living roof. To be honest, I often wonder what happens when such house roofs have to shed huge amounts of water during an epic rainstorm? Think of the engineering required to hold up all that roof, soil and plant matter so that it doesn’t fall on a person’s head? Such roofs aren’t a thing down here.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Hang on, are you serious? I have to check this out… … Far out! I had no idea that such things were for sale on the river, well there you go. You learn something every day. I could make them cheaper on site from materials, but it wouldn’t be much cheaper than what was on offer.
Agreed, mission creep seems to be a thing there. 🙂 The councils operate under the state planning and building laws, so change has to come from a state level – and I don’t see the support for tiny homes. The councils also might be a bit miffed that the tiny home folks aren’t paying property taxes as they’d be living on someone else’s land. Hmm. I think such things might be possible, but first you have to ensure that you don’t annoy your neighbours – and that may not be possible for everyone to achieve.
It’s interesting, but one day we might have do some sort of accommodation due to economic considerations. This zoning has sort of rights for a bed and breakfast arrangement. They tell me that digital detox is a thing, and it might be true. I’d be super annoyed though if clueless city folks used humongous amounts of water during their stay. Can you imagine talking to such people about the gentle art of existing within limits?
Hehe! That’s a fun retort as to the real people observation. Thanks for the laughs. For once Lewis, I’m at a complete loss for a pithy reply. Yes, he saw them words and knew he’d been beat! 😉
Actually I quite enjoy the Japanese garden aesthetics. Just beautiful.
Wow, I’d never realised Joni Mitchell had such a strong and soaring voice. But yes, we are stardust, quite literally. The footage was amazing. Hits the feels, as the kids would say.
Interesting, and might have to try Chamomile again. Bushy huh? There’s always plenty to think about.
Lewis, do you see the light! 🙂 Very good, and three weeks is a bit to wait, but then the seeds may have required the warmth of the past few days to really get going? Dunno, but it was cooler last week for you. But of course talking to them helps, and hopefully you avoided using cuss words? Plants can blush you know.
H is too clever to fall for such wild talk! But then there’s a school of thought which suggests something about complacency and interactions. On a serious note, the old timers used to say that ‘Familiarity breeds contempt’, but I believe they were, and are wrong. That is only true for some people, and maybe it was for those for whom the adage relates? Dunno.
What do you mean tomato tariffs? Oh, it’s a bit like that fictional land of Oz where people are coming and going so fast my head is spinning and can’t keep up. Things and stuff are changing rather rapidly these days. Hmm. Looks like a 17% tariff is being applied. Probably won’t make that big a difference, and maybe the importers have to take a hit to their margins?
Hang on a second, Camellia sinensis grows pretty well in your country. What gives with that oversight when it comes to all things caffeinated? The Ilex vomitoria shrub is fascinating, and would probably grow very well here. Hmm. I do have to sort out some seeds for Camellia sinensis as the plant growing here is not suited for this area, and raising the plants from seed will avoid such lack of climactic specialisation.
Youch! Stay cool during this hot week. It’s 41’F outside, and may get colder tonight. Friday morning is forecast for near to freezing. Oh well.
Very clever to have recreated the Pompeii garden on site, but I do wonder if the folks hadn’t taken a few liberties with plant selection given the sheer volume of roses for example. But does it even matter? Probably not, and yeah it was probably a canny land purchase in the aftermath of the earthquake – and put to a delightful use.
Man, I’d not realised that people even did such work.
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – I saw an article about solar in cold and snowy climes. I thought you might be interested. I loved the armchair theorist, who speculated that you could attach a garage door opener, to the panels, and just tip the snow off 🙂 .
https://www.yahoo.com/shopping/home-garden/home-improvement/articles/off-grid-homeowner-busts-popular-034500374.html
I keep forgetting to mention, kitty corner from the Club is a bit of waste ground, where someone has a lot of prefab sheds, for sale. And, there are also a few what I would call, tiny houses. Basically, they’re just a shell and roof, but painted and tricked out with a bit of trim to make them look … desirable. You’d have to probably do a lot of finish work. Such as, oh, I don’t know, insulation? 🙂 But they’d be a start.
I’ve read about accommodation being made for tiny houses, here and there. I think Olympia has easements, in their building codes. Sometimes, they’re called “mother-in-law” houses. And I think, maybe in Seattle, they’ve actually built a colony of tiny houses, for the homeless. And I read about a veteran’s hospital in, I think, Colorado. They had a lot of land, and a lot of vets who didn’t need a great deal of hospital time, but had nowhere to go once discharged. So, they built a bunch of tiny houses to shelter them.
LOL. Speaking of unresponsive tech … I mentioned the satire magazine, “The Onion.” Been around for decades. I saw a short article on the dual identification craze.
https://theonion.com/study-97-of-average-americans-day-spent-retrieving-6-digit-codes/
I also quit like the aesthetics of Japanese gardens. Portland has quit an old one. Olympia also has one. Sigh. I haven’t been to either. Our Master Gardeners have a section they call the Japanese garden. Not much to it. A few Japanese maples. But there’s also a Japanese plum tree. The night manager always makes a big deal, about beating me to the plums. He hasn’t mentioned it, this year. I think he’s hoping I forget. Heh, heh, heh. I checked them out, yesterday. They’ve got a ways to go.
I’d say, see if you can find the German Chamomile. I think there are a couple of other varieties. It volunteers, a bit, but not over the top. And, when the plants are small, they’re easy to relocate to more desirable places. My pumpkins look about ready to bloom. I think they’ll get pollinated, ok. There’s a wild rose, a couple of meters away. I noticed yesterday it was full of Bombus bees.
Joni cranked out a few classics. “Big Yellow Taxi,” is a favorite.
Our high yesterday was 72F (22.22C). The overnight low was 52F (11.11C). The forecast high for today is 89F. Forecast for tomorrow is over 90F. We’re getting that north wind, Prof. Mass talked about. It’s drying out the garden, a bit. I might have to water twice, tomorrow. I guess it’s going to get feral, up in the Okanagan, around Omak, Washington. Not that far as the crow flies, from DJ. Or, my friends over in Council, Idaho.
My Idaho friend had this to say, yesterday. “This afternoon I rode to Ontario with Cheyenne. (Her daughter, the real estate agent). She had 6, 5gal buckets of paint to pick up. We had a nice trip down and back. Ron (her husband), called me to tell me that he could see smoke in the south. On our way home, just out of Council we see all these flashing lights. I’ve never seen anything like it. Apparently, we think it had been a motorbike pulling a boat…. they both had caught on fire. There was basically nothing left!! You could see the bottom framework and about 12 inches above that, charred black… the rest was gone. Done know any more than that, just that it was horrible looking. Hope the people got out!” They were lucky. They’ve had wildfires, a time or two, just out of town.
Our east coast is getting torrential rain and floods, all the way from Virginia, up into New England. New York City got two inches of rain, in an hour. The subways have flooded. There were pictures of people in stalled and flooding subway cars, standing on the seats to stay out of the water.
Archaeobotanists. They’ve done quit a bit of work at George Washington’s home, at Mt. Vernon. And, Jefferson’s home at Monticello. He was quit the gardener. Williamsburg, the original colonial capital.
A few years ago (2002) a book came out, “The Gardens of Pompeii.” (Ciarallo). It was published by the J. Paul Getty Museum, down in S. California. I got it on an interlibrary loan, to take a look. It was pretty interesting, as I remember. I found this article, by a different author.
https://mypersonalmenus.com/what-vegetables-did-ancient-romans-eat/
I suppose the gardens in the big houses, were maintained, and maybe even planed by slaves. Oh, and I almost forgot, there’s Fishbourne Palace and Gardens, in Britain. It is the largest Roman residence / palace, in England. I see they also have a Roman gardening museum.
https://roman-gardens.github.io/place/britannia/fishbourne/fishbourne_roman_palace/
The British love of gardening goes all the way back to the Romans. I guess you could say, it’s roots. :-). Lew
Chris:
That was a pretty song; I enjoyed it. I wondered about that building. Mr. Baby heartily approves of them naming their band after him.
Mystery is what they want. Go ahead and be indiscernible, yet profound.
I expect that you will be the post fire salvage team, so you are sparing yourself and the Editor quite a bit of future work.
I don’t use oil in my tinctures, I use 80 proof vodka. I lay the lavender stems on top of the bureau in my bedroom. If there are too many (there rarely are) I lay them on a plate in the dining room.
I saw something funny on my way into town this morning. I was going down 2-lane Hwy 20. Ahead, I could see an SUV waiting to turn left onto it from a dirt road, so I slowed down a bit and they turned on. By golly, as soon as I came up closer behind them a rat leapt down to the road from underneath the car and ran across the road. I was dying to catch up with them in town and maybe tell them about it through the window if we were both at a stoplight, but it didn’t happen. They may not know about rats et al eating vehicle wires. I was going to say that I know my rats now, but maybe not. I ran into Attila, Jr., the groundhog, in the garden today, less than a meter away. I thought he was long gone and had been blaming rats (and squirrels, of course; I catch them all the time) for the daily demolition. I told AJ that I just wanted to give him a kiss, but he ran away. Maybe I have halitosis; all of the wildlife runs away from me.
Pam
Chris,
I rather thought those stone circles were in the 30 meter diameter range. You may have mentioned that before.
Oh, what a nice thought. We ARE sort of telling stories around a campfire here, in a way. Thanks for that.
Much different today. The dry cold front came through. It might have hit +25C. That’s a nice break from the heat. A lot of progress was made encircling and containing the three nearest fires. The heat returns tomorrow. It shouldn’t be that scorching 40C stuff, however.
There is that about ruining the soils with the heavy equipment. Easier to let things roll with gravity. Glad you’re keeping the busted chains as souvenirs.
This is the first year I’ve grown tomatoes. I have three cherry tomato plants. Some of the tiny tomatoes are almost ripe. If the new tomato tariffs remain next year, I may have to grow a LOT more of them.
Oh good. You did a second batch of canola soap with the old process. Sounds like that worked. Sometimes, the process is the process, taking as long as it takes. Some things can’t be rushed. I’m finding more and more that I’m enjoying the process of getting to the result, rather than simply focusing on the result.
Yeah, here and somewhere. That just came to me and it sounded right.
Sunbury. Looking at that picture, I can almost hear Freddy Mercury singing “Mama, just killed a man…” That song would be epic in that setting. Of course, it’s epic almost anywhere.
The sandwiches. Well, I’ve always liked their reuben. This time, it was okay, not great. The Princess had a great sandwich. As she couldn’t eat it all, I finished it for today’s lunch. Some chicken thing with a nice pesto sauce on it.
At those 40C temperatures, yes, fry an egg on the car bonnet. Or…
Break an egg into the street
Watch it fry beneath your feet.
Dame Avalanche doesn’t understand why I don’t take her with me in the heat. Something about leaving a dog in a mostly closed car in the sun in the heat just doesn’t work well for the dog. But she doesn’t understand that.
I like sedum. The flowers are pretty. They withstand the heat. They survive even our coldest winters. After the past two windy days, the sedum is doing fine. The thyme is doing fine. The grass is all turning brown. Too windy to water. The grass will green up once the wind quits, and I get some water on it. Gotta love thyme and the succulents in these conditions.
DJSpo
Hi Pam,
Those folks are serious musicians, and played for many years before finally calling it quits. Agreed, the song is pretty and reminds me of both youth and the enjoyment of life. As an interesting side story, I knew about the free gig way back in the day and could have attended, and what does this suggest? 🙂
The building is the Flinders Street Railway Station, and was constructed with funds derived from the 1850’s – 1890’s gold rush. At one point in history, the city was the second wealthiest city on the planet after London due to gold finds, and that more ancient of piles in Europe of course ate the surplus. It’s an odd metal of little practical value. The train station though is a lovely construction, and the copper dome is not something you’d see built these days. Copper being a very expensive metal.
Dropped some of that orangey metal stuff, plus a lot of lead, off at the scrap metal dealer today. Scored some decent mad cash too. Definitely worth the travel. One advantage of lead is that it is highly recyclable, although rather toxic.
Pam, one can only but do their best. Mysterious we shall aim for, profound, well it is an elusive goal at best. Think of that Beatles song about the Walrus – like, what does it even mean? Why would anyone want to be a walrus? Personally I just wanted it to stop. 😉
Fingers crossed that we can reduce the fuel loads enough before the next big one disaster arrives – as it will sooner or later. Ook! Full water tanks would be a nice thing to have at that moment too. Wishes… Reality…
Ah, thanks for the explanation, and that’s how old school perfume use to be made. Respect. The aroma from the drying vegetation would be most lovely.
Engine bays are toasty warm and dry snugly houses for rodents – all right thinking folks know this. 😉 I doubt the people would thank you for the unsolicited advice, even more so because you’d be right. Interestingly the fluffies alerted me to something weird going on in the dirt mouse Suzuki engine bay today. Investigations revealed a tiny little deceased Fairy Wren. How the little birdie ended up inside the engine bay is a mystery, but I suspect she got in there, and couldn’t work her way out again. I like the Blue Wrens, but they only have tiny little brains, and the concept of a vehicle may have been one step too far.
Be afraid, be very afraid. Attila Jr. is in town. Ook!
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
Yes, the stone circles are in the 30m range. We passed through that town today in travels to the scrap metal dealer (dropping off some of the very heavy lead acid batteries for recycling and mad cash). Anyway, we visited the stone circle which was hard to find on the previous visit. This one is surrounded by houses, but backs onto a thin strip of nature reserve, which itself abuts onto rural land. Anyway, the visit was brief because a very large lone bull kangaroo was protecting the site. He tolerated our presence, but was a good reminder to avoid any mischief – which was not in our hearts. I’d imagine he’d been evicted from his mob by a younger bull and was using the reserve as a place to feed. I doubt the people in the surrounding houses knew that such a large kangaroo was there quietly doing its thing.
Yes, that’s exactly what we’re doing here ’round this big old virtual campfire. Honing our story telling skills. 🙂 Respect. People think in terms of stories, and this skill is useful for me in day to day interactions. But stories communicate truths or lessons. Of course there is more to it than that, but you’ve hit the nail on the proverbial head there. Well done!
That’s great news, and a cooler change is always appreciated. Hope the night time temps were cooler again. Makes for better sleeping, don’t you reckon?
Really heavy equipment does compact the soils, and heck, even heavy rain can do that trick. It’s much harder to get air into the soils. A great neighbour has a bobcat, and whilst I’d like to use the machine, it’d also push the development of the soils back a few years. Plus I simply enjoy the hard work. There’s something to be said about getting in a rhythm and setting oneself to a task. In these enlightened days of abstractions, many people are missing out on that most basic of joys.
🙂 Man, you’re getting ahead of the curve there. And, how good are your own tomatoes compared to store bought ones? The next challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to save some of the seed for next year. I was reading about the Hopi folks yesterday and their agricultural ways.
Well, we tried to speed up the soap making process based on what people on the interweb were doing, and the outcomes aren’t as good – and yeah, the journey itself is important too. 😉 It’s a funny realisation that one.
In those days the churn rate of music wasn’t as rapid as it is today, and Freddie and the band could very much have performed that song. It’s iconic and soaring with changes in timing to boot – just in case the final melody wasn’t complicated enough! The Editor was a massive fan of the band and saw them in 1985 when they toured.
The brioche is a big sell to me, mostly because bread shouldn’t be too sweet, discussions of fruit bread to the side, so yeah I get that about the Reuben sandwich possibility. But then, you totally scored with lashings of your lady’s left overs. Winning! Reminds me of the time I was at a wedding reception just prior to winter and the kitchen served up stale fish. Revolting, and the Editor shared part of her roast chicken meal. A bit of give and take goes a long way.
Lovely words! And you’re back! Yay! I finished work late this evening, otherwise there’d be a witty reply.
Dogs are generally lacking in comprehension of the more practical difficulties posed by life’s moments. Hmm. That’s happening here at the moment with the weather, and they’re consuming lots of expensive rawhide chews at night.
Those are great plants, and the grass will do what it will and that’s what it does. Not very good lines, but that was the best with the time available. 🙂
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Thanks for the warning, and I’m triggered! Hehe! Not really, what did the folks expect the solar panels would produce? So he’s getting 410W from 2,500W of installed panels (please correct me if I’m wrong in the understanding), or 16.4% output. It’s not great. And I’d imagine that the area would receive far less than 1 peak hour of sunlight that day. Sometimes, all we get is 15 minutes in a day during winter, and trust me, it is warmer here. Oh well…
Oh my gawds! The commenter really said that. My brain is quietly exploding at the thought. The sheer weight of such an arrangement would be staggering on a tilt mechanism, and if the wind decided to pick up – it becomes a giant sail. Every single home sun tracker for an array of solar panels I’ve seen has been broken. Maybe it is just the people I’ve met over the years? Nah, I fix those babies to the ground because the winds can really pick up occasionally – e.g. the minor tornado that Christmas day all those long years ago. That was exciting.
I have met people over the years who reside in sheds, which slowly over the years morph into houses, but they all run the risk of demolition orders from the council – especially if there are local complaints. From what I’ve observed based on actions as distinct from words, the majority of people seem to want ever higher house prices, even though it makes no sense from a longer term perspective. It makes no sense to me, but I freely admit to being in a minority opinion on the subject. But yeah, insulation would work wonders on some of those prefab constructions. I’ve never slept in a caravan (trailer), but have heard stories as to how cold they are. Have you ever been in one of those dwellings? That book you mentioned ‘Cheap land Colorado’, still haunts my imagination. Such a great read. But agreed, they’d be a good start, and way better than a tent.
Interesting, and perhaps here is a cultural difference, but down under those buildings are known as ‘Granny flats’, but same, same, really. I get the impression that restrictions on their installation is being reduced albeit slowly. Divorced women from their mid-50’s are at one of the highest risks of homelessness down under due to housing costs. Not something you’d expect.
It’s a good idea, and those tiny housing lots might build up some old school forms of community. Hmm. I wonder if anyone has investigated how it’s working out in practice?
The guy in the lead photograph for the Onion article looks suitably annoyed, but committed to sorting it all out at the same time. This of course may be an expression of frustration. Hehe! A fun article, but sadly sort of true for two factor authentication processes. Yes, we’ve developed a technology so bad that it can get hacked. What’s not to like about that?
Hope you get to the plums first, and I reckon the birds and squirrels will beat you both to the tasty treats. 🙂
Plenty of pollinators are attracted to pumpkin flowers, and they’re sort of hard to miss. Had to work out which type of bee you were referring too, and it was the humble and hard working bumblebee. Yeah, those are great insects.
Yes, Big Yellow Taxi is a lovely song, and I know all the words having been taught them as a kid.
Cold today, although dry. Packed up another four large batteries (440 pounds) and took them to the scrap metal dealer. Mad cash on the way! Lead is one of the most easily recyclable metals, as long as it wasn’t in your fuel. That was probably a bad thing, but won’t be the first or last pollution outrage committed. 90’F is starting to sound all rather uncomfortable. Did you do OK in the heat?
Holy carp! What a sight to see, and yep, if a fire gets hot enough. The motorbike would have contained fuel, and the stuff has a flashpoint and about 34.2kWh of energy per gallon when burnt directly. Not good, and a person can only hope for the best and expect the worst.
Thanks for the heads up on the rain over in the east coast. The video footage of water oozing up out of the err, was it sewers, into the subway was a bit alarming. Ultimately the oceans will take that lot back. Candidly, I was thinking about the London tube air raid shelters during WWII… The folks on the trains looked pretty chill, but yeah, electrocution is a risk.
Of course, you’ve mentioned the archaeological works done at those sites in relation to the preserves, so they’d be looking for other clues for sure.
The Seed Detective author is beginning to really get a grasp of the story telling aspect to his journey now. I’m about 80% through the book and he has some fun with dodgy drinking mates with chilli’s. Is this hot enough for ya fella’s? Nice shot too, and clearly the incident put an end to undeserved brinkmanship.
Hmm, I was wondering whether the hedges in the formal garden designs at the Roman Palace in Fishbourne signified anything, or were done to a particular fanciful style? Hard to maintain those sorts of neat hedging. I got the impression from the book that the ancient Roman’s loved their salad greens. And there was even some mention of the couriers which took fresh asparagus spears up into the alpine areas so they would store in the cooler months ready for consumption out of season. How easy we have it today…
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – I guess the message from Britain, is, “Don’t mess with our trees.” 🙂
https://www.yahoo.com/news/men-sentenced-over-4-years-150055282.html
I’ve never slept in a caravan, that I can remember. Most of the tiny home communities I’ve read about, the successful ones, have good management and run a tight ship. Their rules usually kick off with “no drugs, no alcohol…”
Dual authentication makes me a bit crazy. They use it at my credit union, and, occasionally, I’m doing stuff in my accounts, and get kicked off about the three minute mark. Then I have to go through the whole process, again. Irritating.
Squirrels and birds don’t seem to bother the plums. We lose more to the random pedestrian, as a public sidewalk borders one side of them.
My pumpkins bloomed this morning, and are open for business. They’re already receiving visitors. I also planted a couple of bachelor buttons (aka: cornflowers), in that tub. They’re also blooming. The orange and blue with the big green leaves is quit striking. The half barrel they’re in, is fairly close to the lawn … that gets mowed, weekly. I’ve been putting stakes in, to keep the runners off the lawn, and running up the slope. More asparagus popped up.
Last night, I caught a slug attacking Sam the Snail! I separated them with a twig, and gave the slug the old patented Woody Harrelson double tap. Works on zombies, works on slugs. I saw Sam later, and he seemed ok. I tried to find out if slugs kill snails. The Font of All Wisdom, was dry. Just lots of articles on killing slugs, snails, or both.
Stick with me, here. 🙂 “Big Yellow Taxi” has that one line, “They took all the trees, put ’em in a tree museum.” I’ll be picking up some DVDs from the library, today. One is a remastered copy of “Silent Running.” A 1972 sci-fi movie, about biospheres in space. It starred Bruce Dern. I think that was when I first became aware of him, as an actor. As I remember, the only drawback to the movie was the soundtrack. Joan Baez wailing and keening. It was a bit over the top. There are some cute droids, which I think Lucas directly ripped off, for his cute droids in the “Star Wars” movies.
It’s going to be a popcorn night. I’m also picking up “Sinners.” Vampires! And good 1930s music. Three months from theatre release, to my door on DVD. I think the studios are all trying to figure out the optimum formula, for optimum profits. In theaters, how long? How long to stream? If, or when, to launch a DVD?
Our high yesterday was 88F (31.11C). Our overnight low was 57F (13.88C). The forecast high for today is 93F. Then it will start getting cooler, and we’ll be back in the 70sF, by the weekend. So far, the heat hasn’t really bothered me.
“Hard to maintain those sorts of neat hedging.” Well, if you’ve got enough slaves … 🙂
I had my monthly fix of Mac and cheese, the other night. I tossed in some broccoli, dried tomatoes, garlic and peas. Healthy, right? I’m also getting ready to take care of my yearly craving for … root beer floats. I’ve got the root beer, from the yuppie discount grocery. Now, to source the vanilla ice cream.
“Oceans take that lot back.” And some people will be so surprised. Lew
Chris:
If you did not attend the concert, it shows you were busy, as always.
I am so glad to hear that you made some mad money at the scrap dealer. We, too, frequent such a place. We are both lucky to live where there is one.
Walrus does go on, doesn’t it? Give me “Here Comes the Sun” any day, over that.
Maybe the Fairy Wren thought it looked like a cosy place to build a nest.
Hey, in your yoghurt video, do I remember correctly that you said to use a dessert spoonful of something (dried milk, I think), How much is in a dessert spoon?
If you like, scroll down to paragraph 5 to read about fireless cookers in these stoves from 1900-1910. Interesting, however we do have Slow Cookers/Crockpots, that do that more compactly, though these fireless cookers did not necessarily use any electricity.
https://evolutionhomeappliances.weebly.com/kitchen-stoves-1900-1919-steel-gas–electricity.html
Pam
Chris,
That’s a wonderful thing, the bull kangaroo, large, protecting the stone circle. Only a fool would test him. Those guys are tough and can get mean.
Tuesday night was pleasantly cool. The house got very nice, indeed. It should be fairly cool tonight, also, but then back to the heat and the night air will stay warm until almost daybreak. That’s what the air conditioner is for. I prefer the cooler nights, open windows to the air conditioner at night.
There’s no comparison between store bought and home-grown veggies and fruits. Not even close. Tomatoes are one of the things where the contrast is most obvious.
Okay, I remember a long, long time ago in which you were known as “Cherokee Chris” on Mr. Greer’s old forum. If memory serves, Cherokee is a place name near where you live. Now you’re reading about Hopi agricultural ways. Are you certain that you’re supposed to be living in Australia rather than in North America? 😉 Seriously, growing crops via traditional methods in the general region inhabited by the Hopi and other tribes, well, it’s a challenge, but the southwestern peoples have been doing this for hundreds of years or longer. We could learn a lot about growing food from the Hopi and others. True desert people.
Save tomato seeds? Never tried anything like that. Yet. That would entail growing tomato plants from seed. I grabbed some young plants from a local store this year. With our often wonky growing seasons, this would require me to fabricate some type of greenhouse to get things off to a good start. I’ve actually been toying with the idea of a small greenhouse.
The journey. Wood carving and pyrography are teaching me to enjoy the journey. It’s the feel of doing the project, of that certain type of deep concentration, being in harmony with the process and the wood and the tools. That’s the important bit. The final project is nice, but I enjoy getting there.
I read a book a few years back on meditation. The authors contended that things such as doing taiji forms, yoga, swimming laps, sawing wood, wood carving can also fit under the heading of “meditation”. Their definition is getting into that stage of deep concentration. The brainwaves apparently act similarly with these activities as with things more typically thought of as meditation. Hence your getting out the shovel and digging up another moby rock can fit under the meditative heading.
Cool! Queen would’ve been a fun concert to attend. The Princess and I saw Michael Bolton at The Gorge Ampitheater overlooking the Columbia River near the town of George, Washington. (Yes, there really is a town called that.) That’s a spectacular place for an outdoor concert. We also attended a Reba McEntire concert at the Spokane Arena downtown. That was enjoyable. She put on a good show.
My favorite? There was a series of inexpensive concerts at the Spokane Arena one year. I mean like $4.00 for an adult ticket. The catch was that the concerts were at 2:00 in the afternoon in the middle of the week. I took an afternoon off work so the Princess and I could attend the Paul Revere and the Raiders concert. That was a lot of fun.
Stale fish? Yuck. No thanks.
Thanks. Not sure that the creativity is really back yet, but it’s getting there. A glimmer here, a glimmer there. I teach at the carving club again this Saturday. I need a finished model for a slightly different project. I’ve got an idea in mind, a 2 or 3 hour project. This will be a good challenge of the creativity process.
Because it got cool Tuesday night, and it was slow to heat up today, I was able to take Dame Avalanche with me when doing errands. And there was a nicely shaded place to park. A nice long walk followed by a long ride was just what she needed.
DJSpo
Hi Pam,
Oh my goodness, as you’d also know, there are only so many hours in a day! How was your day? Had a hectic one myself, and finally finished the water pump side of the upgrades to all of the water systems here. Yay! I’ll try and plant out the drainage basin for the new water tanks over the next week or so. It was hard working outdoors because intermittently icy rain fell. It may get to freezing tonight. Brr!
It’s a great service to the community isn’t it? And you know a material will get recycled when unrelated folks pay good mad cash for the stuff. 🙂 Copper and lead are the best materials for that outcome. If the stuff is destined for a tip, that’s something a person has to pay for, and there’s the difference right there. Sadly the used coffee grounds would usually end up in landfill. Hmm.
What a lovely song, and Abbey Road is a fave. Such a bright and dare I say it, but sunny tune. The walrus was boring and barely comprehensible, which I believe was the entire point of the exercise.
Probably, the poor little Fairy Wren to go searching for a brighter future, only to get trapped in the engine bay. Every week I check for rat activity in the vehicles and discovered the sad remains. Bummer, I like the wrens because they eat all of the bugs in the vegetable beds. Have you got birds in your area which perform such solid gardening duties?
Oh! Ah, well, truthfully, you can chuck in as much, or as little, milk powder to the fresh milk as you like and observe the results for yourself. Pam, it is a personal failing to be so lax about measurements when in the kitchen. The thing is, the protein levels in milk vary throughout the year. Like cows eating late spring grass will produce more protein in their milk than those eating summer grasses. And winter feed is a real struggle, so the amount you chuck in is entirely dependent upon the season. On a balance of probabilities, and you can quote me here, some dried milk powder is better than none. 😉
Did you notice that the last photo on that link had a tray of gingerbread men? Yeah, the fireless cookers are a great idea, and would slow cook cheap meats to perfection. Some folks used to cook such meals in beds of hot ash too, which is kind of the same process.
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
True, and the bull kangaroo stood his ground and simply watched us. They’re the fightenest marsupials around, and aren’t afraid of a bit of biffo. I made a video of two bulls going at each other many years ago: Ultimate fighting kangaroos
One of the benefits of being far inland is that the nights are usually cooler, maybe. Enjoy the cooler evenings whilst they’re in play! It rained here off and on again today, and outside tonight is almost freezing. Brr! Did the last of the water pump upgrades today, but still have to finish digging and planting out the new rock and fern lined drainage ditch for the overflow for the two new water tanks. All in good time. Went over about a dozen chainsaw chains too with a fine tooth comb and brought them back to as new sharpness. Always handy to have some spares ready to go.
Home grown tomatoes can’t be beat for taste, yup. I also reckon that it is not possible to purchase the equivalent of home grown leafy greens, I mean the leaves begin breaking down within twenty minutes of picking.
Very good indeed. Yes, Cherokee Chris was how things rolled, and that is because this little hamlet is so named. Nice one, and the Hopi seem rather knowledgeable about such subjects and also well adapted to their challenging locale, and I’m now wondering about the possibilities of planting blue maize for flour. The seed detective book has been rather an interesting read.
Of course, slowly, slowly as they say. One step at a time. No need to hurry on that front. And exactly, that is my issue here as well. A cold start to the season, then sudden heat is a challenging situation for seedlings. As the years go on, I find myself raising more plants from seeds, but will still purchase the occasional punnet of seedlings. Planted out a whole bunch of silverbeet seedlings a week or two ago. I’m no purist on such matters, and whatever works is great.
The Editor has been on that sort of a project as well of late, and I stepped in towards the end of the day this evening and provided a helping hand – which in this case worked a treat. The journey is the thing to be savoured, yeah, absolutely. This whole place is like that, and we’ve been at the task for nineteen years now. Admittedly, skills and tools are better these days! 🙂 You’d be collecting a nice array of tools as well I’d imagine? Don’t you find that it can be surprising which tool becomes the most useful, and sometimes you’d never expect it.
Mr Greer always mentions the western tradition of discursive meditation, and that suits me better (and mirrors those activities you mentioned). Candidly trying to quiet my brain is a difficult task at the best of times! You probably know the feeling?
Whoa! Double Whoa! Just cruising through the list of who’s played at the Gorge (and your choice would have been a fine performance), but plenty of local down under acts have played there. Who knew? 🙂
The token ticket prices are clearly in place to stop such mayhem like all the uninvited guests at Woodstock… Always fun to see a live gig.
Dude, there’s a special place in the pits of hell reserved for chefs who serve up stale fish (clearly frozen for a very long time). I’d force them to eat the stuff they decided to serve up. Between you and I, and this is pure speculation: I reckon they got the reception package on the cheap as a last before the winter season kind of thing – and the freezers were emptied. The chicken was nice.
🙂 It takes me a while to bounce back from grief too. And some things return differently. We pick up and accumulate scars as we go through this ‘ere thing known as life. Best wishes for the challenge you’ve set yourself.
Hehe! Happy dog in ideal husky conditions! I thought I’d lost Ruby today. She was with me, and returning from Kelpie activities every minute, then suddenly she didn’t. That was unusual. Turns out the Editor let the dog back inside the house… And was looking back at me through the glass all nonchalant and stuff. Dogs… I could almost see her thinking processes: What’s up Doc? A fine canine game was played on me. Dame Plum would never pull such tricks on me.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
I’ll remember that the next time I’m in the UK wielding a chainsaw. 🙂 Honestly, it is a waste of taxpayers funds to imprison them. I’d have them out tree planting for the next four years – every single day. They’d hurt more, that’s for sure. Certainly the area where the tree was cut down could use a lot more trees, just sayin…
I noticed that the article posited the theory as to why they cut it down, which sort of sounded like they did it for a lark. But I dunno, the whole thing seems weird to me from the initial act, to the response. Oh well, the universe is not under any obligation to make sense. It’d be nice if it did!
Not a bad idea to set out boundaries for residents of such communities, especially if they’ve been proven to be effective as distinct from some sort of moral crusade. I’ve never slept in a caravan either, but have long ago stayed in a few different cabins which were sort of like ‘tiny houses’. The idea we all need so much space these days is probably a fallacy.
Hey, I’m always intrigued by what we call ‘multiple occupancies’ and you may describe as ‘communes’, when they’ve survived for many decades. Always interesting to take note of the arrangements which bind them all together and make it work out. I visited one east of Melbourne many years ago, and it was an interesting environment.
Unfortunately the dual authentication thing suggests to me that a username and password are simply not secure enough. They’re a pain though when they text you a number, and that process is slow, and then resets. Frustrating.
Oh yeah, you’ve mentioned the pedestrians helping themselves to plums from that tree in the past. A big scary dog tied to the trunk would put an end to that mischief! Still, at least the pedestrians are consuming fresh fruit, you’d be amazed to learn that plenty of people don’t consume, or not nearly enough, fruit and vegetables. Your tree is probably a community service of sorts. Probably wouldn’t make me feel better at the continuous loss, but it’s worth a try. 😉
Go the pumpkins! Blue cornflowers are lovely yup, and they just go about doing their own thing. Lovely plants. It’s great news that the pollinators are flying around, and they’d enjoy the warmer weather you’re getting this week. Hope they watch out for dragonflies. A wise move to take the vines out of harms way, and we both know how that interaction would end up. Asparagus would thrive in your summer conditions, as they do here. You may have to restrain yourself from harvesting any of the seedling spears (not that they’ll look more than wavy fronds this season, or maybe even the next one). Hang on, you planted crowns as well. Which ones are popping up?
That’s outrageous behaviour on the part of the slugs, and I note that you chastised the slimy creatures thoroughly. That’ll teach them to mess with you. And Sam is a garden survivor, apparently tasty too. Can’t say that I’ve eaten snails, not for any real reason.
It’s a good line about the tree museum and it stuck with me too. I’d heard of Silent Running, but had not seen the film. The plot is fascinating, and very different for a sci-fi. These are not the droids you’re looking for… 😉 Wailing and keening, is not something I wish to subject my listening ears to. Can’t be unheard, can it? I’ve read obscure references to Japanese films which allegedly inspired that director. Never seen them, so can’t make heads or tails of the story.
Someone pointed out to me recently that the character Luke Skywalker hardly seemed upset that his uncle and aunt had just been err, expunged by the Empire. Or was it an act of expungement?
Lot’s of destruction and sneaky vampires based on the plot summary. Was the film good?
Nice one that you’ve adapted to the heat, or at least are managing that effect. Cold and rainy here, but the sun is meant to make a special guest appearance tomorrow, except it’ll be close to freezing in the morning. Ook! Brr!
No way… Did you know that down under there is a local Sassafras tree: Atherosperma moschatum? The crushed leaves have a very distinctive pleasant scent, but not the equivalent of sarsaparilla used in your root beers. I read an account long ago which suggested that loggers used the leaves to make a tea, and yes, well, the trees may have gotten their revenge. I’ve got one of them growing here. In your country they now use an artificial flavour to produce the taste. The float innovation sounds awesome, and just the thing for a hot day.
That’s gourmet mac and cheese. 🙂
Yes, many a surprise awaits our species.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Chris,
So do I understand you correctly that you start with unpasteurized milk? If so that’s hard to find here. When I was making yogurt it was difficult to find milk that wasn’t ultra pasteurized and the cultures would often not work well. Recently a dairy has opened that has just regular pasteurized milk so I’ve been thinking of trying it again. However in the interim I’ve been getting very good yogurt from a different local dairy at the Farmers Market. They also sell sour cream and buttermilk.
Margaret
Yo, Chris – Some of the early reports said the dufuses (yes, dufus has a plural … neither of which seem to be recognized by spell checker. No, I didn’t mean defused. Or, Rufus), expected to make a big splash on social media. Well, they did. Just not in the way they expected 🙂
The Club has “Rules of Conduct,” posted on a couple of the walls. Seem like pretty commonplace. things, to me. But then, some folk weren’t raised right. 🙂 No Drugs or alcohol. No firearms. Not over the top swearing. Etc..
I once owned a house that was 365 square feet. I guess I was ahead of the curve. 🙂 . I should have held onto that property. It’s only a short ways from the new Winco. Probably worth quit a bit, by now. But the flooding … I think the original structure is gone, and they’ve dropped a prefab in there. Looks to be about the same size.
In the late 60s, early 70s, communes were thick upon the ground. There were plenty in Seattle. I visited a few, just in the course of things. Then there were six of us who shared a house on Capitol Hill. But as I remember, it wasn’t so much an intentional community as a diverse bunch of people who came together through circumstances.
We didn’t have a manifesto. 🙂
I lost some of the pumpkin blossoms to yesterday’s heat. I hope they were pollinated, before they bit the dust. But, there’s more blossoms open this morning, and bees doing deep dives.
I planted the asparagus root, and only one frond came up. This batch coming on now are from the seed. I wonder if I need to thin them? I’d better watch a utub video or two, on growing asparagus from seed.
Some one with a dumb phone, down at the Club, that wasn’t so dumb. They found a bit of an article that said slugs will attack snails. I appeared on the scene, just in the nick of time. I’ve had snails twice in my life. Once, they were abysmal. Well, what did I expect for a $2.95 (1970 dollars) lunch special? The second time was in a higher end restaurant, and they were tasty. But, again, they fall in the classification of, “Sure, I can eat them, but there are so many other things I’d rather eat.”
I saw two Blue Jays, this morning. But one of the caregivers said she’s seen them, all along. I guess we’re just on different schedules. 🙂
I watched “Sinners,” last night. Well worth a bowl of popcorn. There was sex, but it wasn’t too graphic. Some pretty rough sex language, though.
Our high yesterday was 93F (33.88C). The overnight low was 55F (12.77C). The forecast high for today is 88F. And it will continue cooling, for awhile. I see Chicago got 5 inches of rain in 90 minutes. I hope none of Margaret’s large extended family, got washed away. Prof. Mass came up with a new weather measurement, today. A “wind rose.” It’s an interesting graphic.
“Floats” can also be made with 7-Up, or cola. Just about any kind of fizzy soft drink. But root beer is the gold standard. :-). Lew
Chris:
That sounds like a rather unpleasant day with the icy rain, on top of all the hard work. But, yay! You are through with that part, for now. My day was very pleasant, hot, but there was a breeze. I spent a chunk of it helping my son work on the small Chevy S10 pickup, that’s Mr. Brownie from some months ago, who has never quite run right. But I think some important problems were worked out today, probably because I am the official Pedal Pusher, and I was on duty. I wish you could see my petunias, they are so gorgeous this year. I have them planted all over the garden in the vegetable beds. They smell good, too. I started them from one package of Dollar Store seeds.
“Have you got birds in your area which perform such solid gardening duties?” Why, yes – wrens! Here they are called Carolina Wrens. Carolina is next door. Phoebes are excellent bug catchers, also. They are in the flycatcher family, but catch any insect that flies; amazing acrobats. And we probably have 6 or 7 different species of woodpeckers, from very small to huge. I feel that they must do some good.
So, does late spring grass have more protein than summer grass? I always watch the hay pastures around me to see who gets their first hay cutting in first. Sometimes – pretty often the last few years – a farmer can get a cutting in May, so I guess that would be the best one. After that, the three months-of-summer cuttings and then maybe (but rarely) one in September. I don’t know why I find it so interesting except that I guess I am always hoping that all these cows around us will have enough in the winter. It has not always been so.
No, I missed the gingerbread men and went back to it. That was a huge range that they were on. Toasty warm in winter, but I’d hate to slave over that beast in the summer.
Alert! My son just asked me if I knew what Spotted Lanternflies looked like, did I want to see one. They are a terrible pest some places and we have not had any. I went outside with him and he showed me and I exclaimed that I had seen that in the garden, but it was not red (I had heard they were red), so I had ignored it. Apparently, it’s the larva that are red and the underwings of the adult. He said that the only way he has been able to kill them is with his small, handheld blowtorch because they are so fast, and he proceeded to blast it.
I do not have a small, handheld blowtorch . . .
Pam
Pam,
It sounds like you need to get yourself a small handheld blowtorch. I’ve got one, which I find comes in handy at times. Unfortunately, the small handheld blowtorch has fallen into the same category as chainsaws and climbing ladders: I must have adult supervision to use any of those things.
DJSpo
Chris,
Thanks for the fighting kangaroo video. Naturally, fighting over a girl. how cliche. 😉
If it’s not too hot during the day, and if it doesn’t cloud up in the evening, we typically cool down. Cooling at night is not as guaranteed as it once was. At least Spokane is 300 m higher than the hottest parts of the Washington desert. We get several more inches of rain per year than the nearby desert (it’s a mere 50km to the west) mainly because of that added elevation and Spokane’s proximity to the southern end of the Selkirk Mountains.
Sharpening anything is its own skill set. another one of those things that requires deep concentration. Gotta do the job correctly and any lapse in concentration might result in a rather nasty cut. Learned that the hard way.
Oh, yeah, the greens are so much better freshly picked. The chard especially I wish I could grow all year. It has such a wonderful flavor and consistency.
On one of our ventures to Albuquerque, one of the restaurants we visited had blue maize tortillas. They were good. The blue maize is supposed to be rather drought tolerant, hence it is grown in New Mexico and Arizona. It should do well where you are, I would think.
The tool collection grows a little at a time. Some of my favorite tools are the ones the Princess buys for me, tools I didn’t know that I needed. She tends to know me better than I know myself.
My outdoor coffee in the mornings is my meditation time. Sometimes it’s discursive, which is a powerful tool. That’s one of the best things Mr. Greer ever mentioned in my opinion. Sometimes I just sit and enjoy the birds or the wind or the clouds. Or think about things, process things and events. Or figure out why I feel what I’m feeling. It varies day by day depending on what I seem to need that day. But it’s all active, not trying to empty the mind. That has never worked for me.
Yes chefs who serve stale fish have their own reserved section in hell. I understand that it is near where politicians and lawyers have their reserved sections.
I got about 80% of that carving project done today. I was pleasantly surprised. Friday will be mostly finishing touches. The hard work took a bit under 2 hours.
I know that look that Ruby gave you. I get that from Dame Avalanche sometimes. It’s a nice combination of nonchalance and “Where the heck have you been, dummy? I’ve been waiting for you.”
DJSpo
Hi Pam,
Icy rain is unpleasant to spend much time in, and proving that balance is a thing, today was glorious (although cold). Blue skies and no breeze to speak of. The sun even felt mildly warm-ish. A good day to move about seven deciduous fruit trees to new locations. And after packing all the equipment away for the day, I realised one tree was missed. Oh well, that’s what tomorrow is for. 🙂 It’ll be windy then, apparently quite windy. Still, the early tendrils of spring can be felt. Glad to hear that you’re getting regular rainfall.
Almost forgot to mention that the trees were moved because they weren’t doing well in their locations for all sorts of reasons, like over shadowing. Once long ago I believed in the concept of food forests, but no longer. Fruit trees need proper spacing when it’s not possible to mollycoddle them.
Go the Chevy S10! And pedal pushing is an important part of the repair process, especially if there are multiple problems which require attention. It’s easy enough when one part requires replacing, but two or more are a nightmare scenario which requires going right back to basics (over reliance on diagnostic computers are atrophying that skill). Hope the venerable steed is returned to service soon (as your words suggest may be the case). Actually, to be able to diagnose technical problems in machines is a very handy skill.
Petunias are lovely flowers, and brighten up a garden with good colourful cheer. 🙂 We’re thinking of growing more Californian Poppies this summer in some of the cleaned up garden beds. Flowers are such wondrous gifts of nature. No reason flower seeds from that source wouldn’t do well, but like all seed purchases, they can be a bit of a lucky dip – which you won.
Ah, wrens are the hardest working birds around in the garden, and did you know that your lot are unrelated to the wrens down under – although they look much the same. Phoebes look a bit bigger, but agreed, they’d likewise do good work. Pam, thinking of the woodpeckers gives me a headache – their brains must have some serious padding don’t you reckon? The Cockatoos perform similar burrowing into trees activities searching for wood grubs, but in reality they’re the builders of tree hollow nests. Should charge a fee for service…
You can test the grass fertility easily enough. Collect some at different points in the year and pile it up. The best feed will get hot enough to ignite, and that is usually the late spring stuff. Late summer grasses are all carbon and straw and usually must be fermented a bit for the herbivores to make any use of the feed. Has the feed situation improved in recent decades? Getting stock through droughts or the winter / early spring lean periods is hard, and expensive.
Pam, it would make my head feel cooked too. 🙂 Back in the day, kitchens used to be physically separated from the house because of the fire risk.
How is it that in a single day, yours was the second reference to Spotted Lanternflies that I’d come across? That tree of heaven (Ailanthus altissima) plant is down under (that the insect you mentioned is associated with) and considered weedy, but far out it can grow lush and fast in areas which have very poor soil fertility combined with low rainfall. Mostly, the soils were damaged in the first place because of recent human activities, and such weedy plants are created to rapidly shade the soil and build organic matter. Probably not nice trees, but I live with super tall eucalyptus species that have a tendency if not treated nicely to create very massive big dramas. And of course I speak nicely to the old trees in the forest. Do they listen? Not sure.
Who doesn’t have access to a hand held blowtorch? Such useful devices… I use one for shrinking the ‘heat wrap’ over cable connections.
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
🙂 Kangaroos will fight humans too. Oh yeah. Best if treated with respect and left well alone, especially the really big ones. Ollie met his match in an unexpected encounter with a big kangaroo a few years ago. The command ‘Leave it!’ proved to be the circuit breaker, and now he is always on a lead and has no freedom. Too bad, so sad, but he seems happy enough with the outcome. Things could have ended badly that day for the dog. The two Kelpies appear to be more wary, but then, they’re much smaller. And yeah, it is very much a cliché.
The Selkirk Range lead me on an interweb rabbit hole ending up at Rogers Pass. The photos were awesome, and yeah, you really are at the southern lower end of that. The avalanches (the snow, not the dog, or band) would be quite an issue.
How’s your hand doing nowadays? And it was a nasty incident, and one I think about whenever handling tools with razor sharp cutting potential. Always keep the cutting section of a chainsaw pointed away from your body, just a random thought bubble.
Your winter weather would be challenging for most greens, unless of course, err, greenhouse – maybe. Chard does pretty well here during the hot summer months as well. It’s heat tolerance is notable, and far superior to the Brassica species.
That’s my thinking as well with the blue maize. There are some sections of the garden which are impossible to water, but have super fertile soils. When on tank water, there are compromises. We moved about seven fruit trees today because they were in poor locations and could do better elsewhere. Digging up fruit trees is very hard work.
Hehe! Good stuff, and respect to your lady for doing so. Plus it’s nice to be surprised. As you’d imagine, here, there is a list for tools to purchase, and that gets sorted when opportunity presents itself, or need demands resolution. The farm expo is a good place to buy tools because there are often vendors with lots of tables of all sorts of items.
It works for me as well. Things get thought through, and that’s exactly the right word: active. 🙂
That Dante bloke had moneylenders right down on the lower levels as well. They’d all have a fun time down there…
Very nice, and apologies but I forget, is this carving project intended for entry, or for yourself?
Dogs know their stuff, and can often sneak up behind us mere humans for the fun surprise effect of it all. Dame Avalanche clearly knows the trade canine secrets.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Dufuses! 🙂 No recognition with this spell checker either, and to think that people are worried that robots will take their jobs… That’s the thing with fame, it can flip quite easily to infamy. Maybe the duo of chaos would have been better to have owned their act, and ran with the darker side to that story? Personally I have a great deal of difficulty understanding why they even announced their act to the world and expected no consequences. Interestingly the mushroom lady was allegedly meant to be very deep into ‘true crime’ stories, and yet got caught. The main problem with even considering the concept that you’re (in the nebulous sense of that word) smarter than everyone else, is that it just shows how little interactions with the rest of the world the person in question has had.
On an amusing, but somewhat related side story I remarked to the Editor the other day: “Do you think it looks bad that I didn’t know that the entrance level for mensa was an IQ of 130?” Hehe! Who’d want to hang with them anyway…
Oh yeah, those are great common sense rules for the Club. They make perfect sense and also establish the idea of boundaries, for of course those useful social constructions aren’t sometimes taught. Although we all slip from time to time and I occasionally embarrass other folks by accidentally uttering a choice swear word, never in anger, but you know, a boundary gets crossed and I can see that. Uncomfortable and awkward. At least I know not to repeat the mistake in future.
Yeah, you were ahead of the curve, but it raises the question: How much space do we really all need? Man, if the property floods, then it probably can’t be insured, or can be only at an exorbitant price tag – the most awful ‘go-away’ price. It’s hard to get permits for such small spaces, I mean property taxes are levied on the value of the property, so there is an incentive by the folks issuing permits to create an environment where property values are high.
Ah, the wonderful experience of the share house. Been in a few of those myself as a young adult. And I really mean the word ‘wonderful’ because a person gets to experience random events and circumstances that they never otherwise would have err, enjoyed, or the alternative emotion (probably needed to use the plural really ’emotions’!) There aren’t many communes around these days as there were back then. And I’ll bet they all had a manifesto! 😉
Speaking of hard work, we dug up and relocated seven fruit trees today (and found another which needs moving – work for another day). Hope they all survive, and they might. Many of them weren’t doing all that great because in the original rush to the ‘food forest’ concept, we’d not provided the trees enough space to grow properly. Turns out that’s an important consideration, especially in hard summers like the one just past. One of the trees was a Macadamia, and it has a small chance of producing nuts, but we’ll see. There are two of those trees, and one of them had such a strong tap root, that I couldn’t dig it out of the ground – so it’ll stay there in place.
Interesting. I’ve never lost a pumpkin blossom to heat – that I’m aware of. You know, the flower may have been pollinated already and was just doing its thing. You’ll know if the tiny fruit at the base of the flower begins to swell. Go the bees! And of course, other pollinating insects.
That sounds about right to me with the asparagus crown only producing a single spear. I’d leave it to grow up into a large ferny frond looking thing so that the plant can store away some energy. It’ll produce better next year. Hehe! Yup, thinning asparagus is a fine aspirational goal. Those roots I dug up still give me an attack of the vapours when thinking about that work day. It’s hard to thin good plants. The male plants will produce thicker spears, which is what you want for the kitchen.
That’s amazing that someone found some obscure but useful item on the interweb. What can slugs not do? Frightening critters. I see, and thanks for the food review. Mental note to self: edible, but if better things are on offer…
Pah! Dude, all that Blue Jay story does is to prove that the early bird does indeed get the worm, and then heads out of the garden to a shady locale for a timely nap. And that’s when more civilised sentient species (fuelled by caffeine of course) are up and about in the garden.
I reckon Bram Stoker introduced the concept of the sexy vampire when in Dracula he casually mentioned the three vampire ladies in the castle. Then clearly being Victorian England, readers would have gotten all hot under the collar (reaching for the smelling salts to restore their jangled nerves), except then the author dropped the characters like a hot potato. The descriptions of the Count on the other hand could never have had the word ‘sexy’ applied in any one paragraph. Actually, let’s not pussyfoot around here, let’s call it correctly – for the entire book. Anyhoo, I just didn’t get that part of the Dracula story with the vampire ladies, still the reader must make allowances and not seek nice neat endings.
5 inches of rain in 90 minutes would bring Melbourne to a standstill. Far out, that’s a lot of water to deal with. Hasn’t been mentioned in the news though, unlike the NYC subway flooding.
Oh! We’d call a ‘float’ a ‘spider’ down under except it would usually use lemonade. Actually the name sounds really weird when typed out, but that’s what it’s called. 🙂
Cheers
Chris
Hi Margaret,
Oh! Might not have mentioned the story correctly, but the milk is pasteurised, but! Occasionally over the years (and I’m making this stuff every week), a batch of fresh milk was a bit, err, not quite right. It can happen and there are lots of interactions with milk between the cow until it gets to the person drinking the stuff. So now, to take that possibility out of the equation, I re-pasteurise the milk. Hope that makes sense.
I’ve heard stories that unpasteurised milk is sold as ‘bath milk’. And ook! Ultra pasteurised heats milk up to a higher temperature again, so who knows what that will do to it for cultures. Probably not good.
Oh yeah, I’d give their milk a try and see how it works out. You can easily buy unhomegenised milk, which means that the liquid hasn’t been all mixed together (or more likely had the cream removed). Those often are like old school milk where the cream greets you at the top of the bottle. Yum!
The new local dairy probably could use the regular local business.
Do your farmers market folks add sugar, or other flavours to their yoghurt? I used to be a big fan of sweetened yoghurt and it took the taste buds a few weeks to get used to the taste of natural unsweetened yoghurt. Always fun…
Never had buttermilk, but it sure sounds good.
Lewis mentioned that there were big rains in your area recently. Hope everything was OK, and how’s the trail looking this year?
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – I got a notice from the library, yesterday, that they’ve ordered the documentary on Mad Magazine. It’s on my hold list. I notice they ordered a lot of other documentaries, at the same time. Probably, from the same company. A couple of them sounded interesting. I just finished up the latest Doctor Who season (which for some reason, they’ve labeled season one), and am well into “Call the Midwife,” season 14. You may, or may not, have heard that our Congress has just defunded NPR and PBS, which brings us such fine fare. They don’t get all their funding from the Fed, but it will be a bit of a hit. I might have to kick them a few bucks, monthly.
I’m sure that little house is worth little, even as a new prefab. But the land … I might dig around in the county records, just to see what the current evaluation is.
There were more pumpkin blossoms open, this morning. And the bees were buzzing. Yup, those little knobs are the female blossoms and from little knobs, mighty pumpkins grow. 🙂
That’s quit a job, shuffling trees about. I do believe there’s a special machine for that. 🙂 Macadamia nuts would be nice. If none of the forest critters develop a taste for them.
I don’t think vampires were considered sexy, until Béla Lugosi slithered onto the screen in 1931s, “Dracula.” In the movies, the ladies are always kind of set dressing. Something for the gents. 🙂
Our high yesterday was 86F (30C). The overnight low was 55F (12.77C). Our forecast high for today is 76F. Looks like for the next week, it’s going to be quit pleasant. Mid 70s, with an ocean breeze.
I made my “Spanglish” rice, for dinner. Rice, black beans, garlic, corn, tomatoes and green pepper. A dash of catsup and hot sauce. A bit of plane yoghurt, on top. For desert, I had a root beer float. I finally wised up, and opened the can of root beer, a couple of hours before hand. It doesn’t foam up, as much, and takes some of the “burp” out. I should have thought of that, years ago. Lemonade and ice cream sounds quit nice.
Here’s a bit of food history, for you. The origin of … crisps. What we call potato chips, more or less. Although here, “chips” can refer to a wide variety of snack food, potato or corn. I must admit I have a weakness for the sea salt and malt vinegar flavor. Another one of those “once a year” indulgences. I could do myself serious damage. 🙂
https://www.cnn.com/travel/crisps-britain-real-national-dish
We got a food box, this morning. I had quit forgotten it was coming. Not a bad lot. A bag of small oranges and nectarines. A couple of individual deserts. There was a box of “breakfast turkey sausages” and a pound of sliced deli frozen turkey. A loaf of good bread. A squeeze bottle of some sort of mayo product. Hmmm. I have Swiss cheese. Grilled sandwiches? A dozen eggs. Two bags of pre-cut lettuce. The kind that always seems on recall, due to some loathsome bacteria. Kitchen scrap bag and out to the garden! A jug of some kind of lethal cooking oil. The usual tins. Chicken and tuna. Various veg and pears. Boxes of Rice a Roni (chicken), pasta made from rice and corn, Mac and cheese. One pound bags of instant oatmeal, black beans and white rice. Not a bad haul, if you don’t look too closely at how highly processed some of the stuff is. 🙂 Lew
@DJSpo:
That’s what my son has, a small, handheld blowtorch. I am pretty sure that I am not allowed to have one. I can’t have my own chainsaw, either, though there are miniature versions. I got my son the other day about the climbing ladder, though. I told him that I was going out to wash the outside of some of the house windows. He was busy with something and didn’t pay much attention. I started on the dining room windows, which are about 7 feet above my head, that room being over the English (walkout) basement. All of a sudden he came rushing out because he assumed I was on a ladder (on the side of a hill, yet) and – ha, ha! – I was using a squeegee on a really long stick, and doing a very nice job if I do say so myself.
Anyway, where does one find an adult for supervision? They are in short supply . . .
Pam
Chris:
A little lost fruit tree. It seems that would be hard to miss. I, too, once was really interested in food forests, but came to the same conclusion that you did. I don’t see how they can work.
Some years ago there were Ailanthus all over the place, along the roads and everyone’s property. They have since mostly succumbed to something and are no longer a “threat”. We called them stink trees because some of the time they really do stink, but their yellow flowers are gorgeous (it is also called Golden Rain Tree) and when I see the rare one, I give it a pat. I quite like them. They can tolerate city living well, too, all that pavement and heat.
For who doesn’t have access to a hand held blowtorch, see my comment to DJSpo . . .
Pam
Hi Pam,
I know, the poor little neglected – it was a fig, by the way – fruit tree still needs to be relocated. Sad. Hopefully it gets done over the next week, because the early forecast is that big rains are on their way here. Looks like outdoors work may come to a screeching halt next Friday evening, with the rain set to hang around for almost two weeks. Should fill the water tanks… Might have to move some water this week so there is space to collect the wet stuff which falls out of the sky. Always heaps to do.
It’s a good question that, and I’ve been pondering why they don’t work for two decades. They probably do work in warmer more tropical environments. Dunno, really. Can you imagine how much fun all the forest critters would have if you planted a thick food forest at your property? 🙂 I noticed that a possum has been eating the leaves on the Loquat tree. Pesky nuisances, but also lovely little furry things. Where are the owls, that’s their job.
Yeah, I’d seen the Ailanthus altissima trees about an hours further north than here, which is near to the gold fields. I thought that they looked pretty healthy too, and provided some nice deep shade, but the trees have since disappeared. Dunno why or how? Given they’ve been in the country since the mid 19th century, can’t say that the trees have taken over anywhere. I’m unsurprised that the trees advance in your part of the world have since died back, and it’s a bit like that old bard once may have said: Much ado about nothing.
Poor Ollie was just having a bad dream. He, and the two Kelpies were helping me today move large rocks (it’s great to have a seriously awesome granite supply). There was sunshine to about 2pm, then thick clouds moved in, and it rained. The rock wall around the house water tanks has now been completed! And the peasants rejoiced! 🙂 Yay!
In the big smoke they love planting out London Plane Trees (although I’ve not noticed any aircraft associated with the plant) and those things produce a yellow pollen which fills the air and tests the sinuses. I’d prefer the Tree of Heaven, for sure. Still, plants with endurance must be celebrated.
🙂 Pam, very amusing. And every girl needs her own blow-torch, just because. Handy things. On a mildly related side story, a friend of mine was horrified to discover that I use a blow-torch to light the wood heater. Rest assured I have tested the flint and steel alternative and can use it, and settled for a ‘shock and awe’ device. Sometimes you need a bit of extra authority…
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Clearly an act of ‘ask and ye shall receive’. 🙂 Hope the documentary regarding such a beloved magazine is good. Honestly, we’ve remarked on it before, and no doubts we’ll say it again but, Mad Magazine has a lot to answer for our collective very warped sense of humour.
Oh my, did you know, and this is a fun fact, that it would take almost 22 days, or was it 23 days to watch all of the Doctor Who episodes from beginning to end? Between you and I, staying awake for 22 days continuously would probably cause me to have a major psychotic episode. Probably a bad thing! 🙂 No time for naps in that hectic schedule. And after a few days, I’d be hallucinating Daleks… Mr King’s story of the long walk, left a dark shadow over my consciousness. 😉 The premise seems all so easy, until a few days in… That Korean show Squid Games – which I could not watch – took a similar ‘do or die’ approach.
Man, I saw that about the funding. Hmm. I’ll tell you a funny story, the national youth music broadcaster is publicly funded, and they shy away from politics as if the topic itself has a bad lurgy. Their primary Raison d’être is the music. A few DJ’s have apparently lost their jobs over the years for expressing personal opinions. The problem with making oneself a target, is that you know, target. They may need the funding.
Did you dig up any interesting information on the property? By the way, the land value also counts towards the property taxes here, so there is no distinction between the buildings and the land.
🙂 That’s funny about the pumpkin knobs, yes, assuredly it is so. Thanks for the laughs. I’m reading the concluding chapter to the Seed Detective, and to be honest your words ‘manifesto’ popped into my consciousness. Such a lovely book. And it’s given me a few ideas to pursue.
Ain’t no special machine for moving trees here, although in other more well financed properties they may use an excavator. Actually the wind picked up this morning, and the relocated Macadamia tree was a funny angle. Propped it up late this afternoon and may have to give the tree some special attention over the next few months.
On a work front, today I moved a lot of large rocks back uphill and finished off the rock wall around the house water tanks. The Editor was away having lunch with friends, so it was a good opportunity to do the work my way. It looks pretty good, and the Editor was very pleased with the result. I’d had a vision for how the project may have worked out, so it was nice to have implemented the concept.
It rained from about 3pm onwards, so it was nice to pack up the tools and retreat inside.
Ah, thanks for the explanation. Yes, Béla Lugosi left a long shadow over that genre, and more or less set the standard.
Not to say this too loudly, but your summer weather sounds quite ideal. Very little in the way of extremes. On that note, things may be shifting down here. Twin rainbands offer hope of drought relief across southern Australia. Right now, it may be green and damp here, but not too far away the land is dry.
Hot sauce brings to mind Tabasco sauce, but I can’t recall your chili preferences. Or did you chuck in Sriracha sauce? Yoghurt is pretty handy, and hope your stores are stocking the stuff you like now? We add that to the enchilada’s for a touch of zing to the taste. Quite good.
Smooth moves to open the root beer early and allow the carbon dioxide to escape. Better late than never, and who knows, the gas release may have been a necessary bodily function? You never know. Lemonade spiders are really nice on a hot summers day. Just the thing to cool off and ward off the cooked head syndrome.
Ooo, salt and vinegar (although it maybe a white vinegar as distinct from your malt – still a fun choice though) is a fave. On the other hand, if chip manufacturers relied on me for a market, they’d go broke. Did I read correctly the number 10 billion packets a year in the UK? It was a fun and winding journey, and to see that we’re getting back to the thicker chip (of my youth), which incidentally just to be confusing, was described as a potato cake. Very tasty, all deep fried and stuff. I grew up eating fish and chips once per week, and they were a real treat. The fish was flake, which incidentally is shark, and very tasty it is.
Yep, if product is of uncertain parentage, then your natural caution is probably well founded. 🙂 Ooo, you hear stories of that too bacteria too down under, and oh well, maybe next time they’ll compost the human manure for longer? Maybe. Hope the cooking oil also does not suggest that it can be adapted for use in small engines? You never know! It isn’t a bad haul, and processed is, as processed is, or something like that. Look, it’s probably not all that good. Cooking is a skill.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Chris,
The yogurt does not contain sweeteners. I’ve used buttermilk for cornbread.
I was at the market this morning and the dairy provides milk that is low heat pasteurized and non homogenized.
We got some pretty big rains about 10 days ago but there was no problem with them. They were much needed.
I didn’t volunteer for the bluebird trail this year and I’m glad I didn’t. I seem to be having a problem fitting everything in as it is. Last year was pretty nasty. Lots of mosquitoes and challenging weather. Generally it was quite unpleasant. I also got to think that I’m getting a bit old to be traipsing off trail through long grasses (which last year were almost over my head in places) running the risk of taking a bad fall on an unseen ant hill or grapevines. I have 10 boxes on our property and the 4th clutch of bluebirds is hatching now and chickadees, tree swallows and house wrens have also fledged this summer.
Margaret
Yo, Chris – Ailanthus trees are considered an invasive species, here. Never mind the’ve been around North America for 200 years. 🙂 I thought you’d rise to the bait, when Mr. Greer mentioned invasive species, this week. But I see you had other fish to fry. 🙂 The last place I lived had one growing right in the corner, between the house and an attached shed where I stored my lawn mower, etc.. If I wanted to get into the shed, I’d have to hack it back, every year. I think they’re kind of pretty, and, they are pioneers when it comes to “waste” land.
I could probably do Dr. Who in half the time. As I really didn’t care for the series, before the reboot. On the other hand, if I added in all the spin-offs … Squid Games? Not interested. From what I gather, it’s a bunch of people being mean to each other.
Without PBS, there’d be no Julia Child, Mr. Rogers, Sesame Street, Ken Burns documentaries, those wonderful Brit mysteries, etc. etc..
It will be interesting to see how many of those pumpkin knobs are fertile. If not, they’ll fall off. Two bees were duking it out over one blossom, this morning.
So, did you bang out a vision statement, for your rock wall? Similar to a manifesto. 🙂
Our high yesterday was 72F (22.22C). Our overnight low was 54F (12.22C). Our forecast high for today is 72F. When I took H for her midnight walk, I’m glad I threw on a light coat.
I haven’t really even tried Sriracha sauce. It just seemed like such a faddish yuppie thing. My hot sauce of choice is Tapatio. According to the book, “Taco U.S.A.” it’s the hot sauce you’re likely to find in the majority of Spanish speaking homes. When I ask for hot sauce, in a Mexican restaurant, it’s the bottle that arrives at the table. I’m sure you have questions. So did I. Then I found this. Everything about Tapatio I’d ever want to know.
https://www.chefsresource.com/what-peppers-are-in-tapatio/
I picked mustard, parsley and tender lettuce leaves, out of the garden, last night. I chopped them up and tossed them in a bowl with a bit of rice, a can of garbanzo beans, a tomato, broccoli, and garlic. I nuked it for 11 minutes, and then sprinkled the top with cider vinegar. I think it sort of pulls together the flavors.
Yes, the chips / crisps manufactures would go broke on me, too. When I used to visit Uncle Larry in Portland, we’d always make a trip to Elephant and Castle, for fish and chips. Although here, “chips” usually mean French fries. A few lemon slices, malt vinegar and plenty of tartar sauce. Guinness on tap.
Oh, no! They’ve taken the magic out of “The Song of Wade!” 🙂
https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/18/science/medieval-saga-chaucer-mystery-error
Some people just can’t leave well enough, alone. Lew
Hi Margaret,
Natural yoghurt is pretty nice and glad to hear that you also enjoy the tasty treat. Admittedly, it was something of a journey to wean myself off sweetened and flavoured yoghurt. In the end the price was the killer – $5 for 1 Litre or about a quarter of a gallon. Home made stuff is about a third of that cost I reckon. Yummo! I’ve had proper cornbread once or twice in my life and recall it as a very tasty side dish to a clam chowder. Hit all the right notes. 🙂 Using buttermilk makes a lot of sense.
That’s the old school form of milk. Did you spot the cream floating at the top of the milk? Very tasty. You know, back when I was a kid, milk was delivered fresh to your door in reusable glass bottles (with a foil lid). Part of the delivery was picking up the previous glass bottles for washing and refilling. Generally teenagers followed the truck on foot and did the delivery work. Imagine such work happening in these enlightened days? You got fit, an old friend of mine used to do that work as a teenager.
Is there a finer thing than big much needed rains in the summer months? Still a bit on the dry side here, but elsewhere things are not good on that front. There’s a big prolonged winter storm in the forecast towards the end of the week. Fingers crossed.
Oh yeah, you’re busy and glad you could get some respite from helping out Marty, plus the move. Hmm. The move. You’d think that the trail into the bird boxes would have been better maintained, although keeping people out is a side benefit. But yes, there could be anything in that long grass, and you have poisonous snakes in your part of the country, so that would not be a good encounter. Imagine trying to find you in there if something went wrong? Glad to hear that you’re not doing that work any more, and now have your own boxes to look after. 🙂 The old timers used to say that charity begins at home.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Exactly, the trees have been here for almost two centuries as well, and have yet to take over. Didn’t the old timers used to say: Can’t see the trees for the forest? Or something like that. When I look at the forest with it’s super dense regrowth of Eucalyptus Obliqua species, it makes me a bit worried what might happen if a big fire got in there. Oh! That’s right, we’ve got almost two centuries of evidence – it won’t be good for anything. I don’t bite on the whole native plant versus introduced species, and generally ask people promoting that perspective where the plants from their last meal originated. That puts an end to the conversation – which was my plan all along. 😉 And you thought I was half asleep.
And it’s a truth universally acknowledged that there are always more flame wars to get involved in. Man, I’m just trying to aim for pleasant and calm this week! 🙂 Agreed, any plant which can grow in wasteland is super awesome and should have an honoured place in botany and also the public imagination because it’s trying to tell us something. The Hibakujumoku have something to teach us humans.
Dr Who is a massive rabbit hole, and part of my misspent youth, and they did have spin off series, which I’ve not seen. And that’s my thoughts as well, you don’t have to go far to see ‘Squid game’ behaviour in society, so why bring the narrative into your personal domain?
Man, I know, and it ain’t my decision. All I know is that the local publicly funded national youth broadcaster does not enter the fray with social issues, or political matters. It’s all about the music. I get the impression that they know they’re on shaky ground and have been for the past half century. Your lot may have forgotten the old timer saying of being careful to not: Bite the hand that feeds.
I reckon that there is a good chance the pumpkin knobs will swell into proper sized fruit. Go the bees! And a bit of competition works wonders with European honeybees.
So I read the manifesto of the Seed Detective over lunch today. Nice, but I’ve got my doubts, put it that way. There’s a lot of talk about this stuff, but action? Some. Is it enough though? And hey, I avoided the entire need for a vision statement by simply doing the work when the Editor was not home. Upon completion and later inspection, the word on the street would be: pleased with the outcome. Although that’s four words.
Well, the days are getting shorter for you. And I promise not to use the description: ‘Summer Soft!’ Oops, broke my own rule there. 😉 Dude, it was 3’C / 37’F this morning (and colder again overnight) which however was the prelude to a delightful but cold sunny winters day. Did a massive burn off of the loggers mess, and discovered an even bigger Meg. There are now plans as to how to deal with the thing – photos to come tomorrow. Oh, and the house batteries are now full again – four weeks after the winter solstice. Hmm. Hashtag, just sayin’.
Me neither with the Sriracha sauce, but I do have fondness for green and red Tabasco sauce. Yummo! On chips it’s a real treat, although we don’t make chips here. Tapatio sounds fascinating and the alleged addition of vinegar would give the sauce a nice kick. Hmm, jalapeño peppers are the ones we grow. Is there really any reason to go beyond such fiery heat? It’s enough for me. Machismo obviously plays a part in that story, and I ain’t worthy.
Gourmet rice cook up, Lewis style. 🙂 Sounds like a fine meal. Sliders are on the menu for this evening, although the patties are vegetarian and use French lentils, fresh fried eggs and tasty cheese.
Might have to head way down to the forest edge and push in the fire. Note to self: Wear the correct boots with the heat resistant soles. 😉
Go Uncle Larry, and they have similar English themed pubs down here as well, although fish and chips can be bought at a ‘fish and chip shop’. True, that’s what they are called, and I only have fond recollections. Plus you’re missing out on the potato cake. So yum, if done right and in fresh oil. Dark ale does go down well with such food. Smooths the oesophagus, or something like that. Long ago, we used to buy fish and chips which would be wrapped in butchers paper, and we’d eat them on long walks. You could rip the top of the paper they were wrapped in, and then delve inside to the toasty tasty foods and pull out a chip or two. Yum! The order for chips was always described as ‘minimum chips’ which sounds very weird because it varied from business to business.
Like you, I was happier with the elves, dragons, sea serpents and stuff. Must we get all serious with our ancient myths? And who’s to say they weren’t present in those days?
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – Probably won’t be a very calm week, for me. Woke up this morning to a lot of water on the kitchen floor, from the fridge. It did a bit of damage, to the “wood” floor. I’ll have to empty it out and turn it off. No problems with the frozen stuff. It can just go in my big freezer. But the rest of the stuff … I might lose a bit of food. I’ll leave a work order for Little Mary Sunshine, tonight. That will get her week off to a good start … I wonder how long I’ll have to wait for a replacement fridge?
I’m never eating anything again! I was skimming through the headlines, last night, and there are recalls on: bread, cucumbers, Gouda cheese, peanut butter crackers, turkey bacon, chicken sausage, ice cream bars, and coffee pods. Either because of bacteria, plastic bits, or lack of warning about nut contamination. For those who have allergies.
Doctor Who had a lot of spin-offs, and our library got most of them. Which I watched. They only seemed to last a season or two. Although “Torchwood”, which was very good, ran for four seasons. I guess I’m a Whovian. I have a plastic replica of the Tardis, sitting next to my computer. Needs to be dusted.
The small bumble bees were doing deep dives, into my pumpkin blossoms, this morning. I haven’t seen any European honey bees around them. They are few and far between. I see I have one small zucchini, developing on one bush. The cherry tomatoes are beginning to show a little color. Time to break out the dehydrator!
I’m glad you liked the “Seed Detective.” Well, he seems to be doing his part. But who will pick up the baton when he passes? I had to set it aside, as I got a big bio on “Talking Heads,” and, I stumbled on a Bill Bryson book in the library catalog, that I was unaware of. “One Summer: America, 1927.” (2013). I don’t know if I’ll do a deep dive in to either of them, or just skim for the good bits. 🙂
Our high yesterday was 72F (22.21C). Our overnight low was 52F (11.11C). The forecast high for today is, again, 72F. Prof. Mass has a post about our cool summer. Sort of like our last winter. Other than one cold “bump,” we had that one warm bump, and now, cooler temperatures. I do hope everything ripens up.
Another Meg stump? There she blows, Ishmael! Deploy the harpoons, errr, chain saw. 🙂 Although I think they use chain saws to cut up whales, these days.
Cayenne peppers are hot enough for me. I have two out in the garden, and they’ve got blossoms. They produced well, last year.
Cosmic! Synchronicity! H and I went down to the Club, last night, and there, where the food pantry used to be, was a big bag of chips. “Kettle Brand Potato Chips Croustilles Sea Salt & Vinegar Sel Marin et Vinaigre.” You may remember from the article, that brand is marketed to gourmet yuppies. I pinched them, and am saving them for a special occasion. Lew