The professional accounting body, which is meant to represent the interests of the membership, recently sent me an email full of helpful suggestions on ways to use AI (Artificial Intelligence) in business. Maybe it’s just me, but my interactions with AI have not been reassuring that the future is all that bright. You see, those programs regularly send comments to this blog, and candidly I’m unimpressed with the language skills on display. Such nuisances are deleted out of hand. In a side story regarding this subject, a friend asked me a few month’s ago how I even knew that the comments were computer generated. They don’t write like a human would, was the reply. So why ever would I risk letting such programs generate who-knows-what text to send to my clients, whom, you know, provide income which goes towards paying bills?
However, the reality is that language is a fluid construct which changes and morphs over time. Perhaps with enough exposure and over a long enough period, people will begin to expect that the sort of text produced by computer programs is the new-normal. I’ll then become the anachronism, a real old fogey. You’re so in the past, man! I’m not worried. My gut feeling suggests a different outcome for the near future. Forget about the enormous finite resources and energy required to run those programs. Historically literacy rates were always low, and if the basics of language aren’t drilled in schools, whilst the popularity of reading declines, well, things are probably going to end badly. The other day there was an article suggesting that AI is making significant headway in schools. The future is getting darker. It’s been remarked upon elsewhere, that what cannot be sustained, generally isn’t, and this I believe will be true for literacy rates.
Language skills require both work and regular practice. Outsourcing the arrangement and communication of your thoughts to a machine, will probably most likely produce a slow decline of writing skills. One day in the far distant future, they’ll have sadly died an unnatural death. Even worse, a person may not even notice. Many long years ago I experienced a rude awakening with a similar issue. Ordinarily Sandra purchases bulk supplies of fruit and vegetables from fresh food markets. But for some reason now lost to time, that week the work fell into my lap. So there I was communicating with a vendor at the Queen Victoria market, whilst buying a whole bunch of different items and quantities. It was at that moment realisation dawned on me that my mental arithmetic skills had atrophied to the point that there was no way of me confirming whether the vendor was ripping me off, or otherwise. In my shame, the mad cash was meekly handed over, and I resolved to restore this lost internal faculty.
Unpractised skills wither, before eventually fading out. That’s what the experience suggested to me, and it’s so not good for the future. Anyway, since the quick-maths, or lack thereof awful incident at the market, the mental arithmetic tools in my brain have been re-engaged at any and every opportunity. Even if the computation is complicated enough that it exceeds my abilities, at least I have some comfort that the answer provided by an electronic device, is sort of within the ball park.
Presumably, the benefit for people using AI is that the users get the feel-good buzz that comes from being ideas producers. Feed the ideas into a machine, and out spits a result. I once heard the power of this perspective bluntly stated in a film: Bore someone else with the details. Years ago I had a brief conversation with a lovely lady who owns a garden over in the more fashionable end of the mountain range. Students from a horticultural college were arranged to visit and hone practical skills in exchange for their labour. Apparently what actually happened was that the students upon arrival wanted to impart the ideas they’d learned in college. Hmm.
Long term readers will know that over the years we’ve implemented many different ideas on the property. A vision for an area or system comes into being. Then through sheer hard graft, the concept comes into actual physical being. The next step is living with the outcome and observing how it works. If needs be, we’ll rip it all out and start over again using what we’ve learned. With AI, you miss that part of the journey, and how would a person even know if the thing is wrong, or if the results could be better? The future looks mediocre at best.
Recently we’ve been working on developing the garden beds nearest to the house. This area also is also the location of the three main house water tanks. The garden bed was a bit of a mess, with woody plants hiding all sorts of unpleasantness like rabbits and rodents. During the past two months, those plants have been ripped out of the ground and burnt off. One of the interesting things we discovered in that work, is that with better access to the house water tank system, there were a few problems.
This week, we fixed up another leaking water tank over flow connection. The original connection had been in place for fifteen years, but there were a few things which could have been done better. Like using stainless steel screws to hold the uPVC plastic fitting to the side wall of the tank. Even with the very best galvanised steel screws, they’ll rust if in constant contact with water, and that’s what happened. Corroding screws allow for the fitting to become loose, which then caused leaks. Also, the new fittings we used have more evenly spaced screw holes which, means that the pressure applied to the side wall of the tank is equally spread and therefore far less likely to create a leak.
It’s a nice neat fit now. The silicone sealant does not adhere to polyethylene plastic, but instead creates a snug custom gasket for the overflow fitting. If the stainless steel screws continue to hold, then there is no reason that the connection will leak. Also, we extended the pipe outwards so that it now sits further away from the tank. Previously the pipe looked bent like a boomerang.
We’ve inspected that water system from one end to the other over the past year, and it’s now working properly.
The garden bed immediately above that large water tank, was where we removed a number of woody Echium plants. As part of making that area easier to maintain in the future, we planted out a number of Japanese maples. The seedlings were self seeded varieties which were relocated into pots last summer. Those trees will happily reproduce in the climate and soils here, and they’re good because they tend to out compete ground cover plants. This will keep the garden beds fairly clean, open and easier to maintain.
The maples appear to be quite hardy to heat and occasional dry conditions, both of which will happen in this mountain range. Two further seedlings were planted out near to a drainage ditch which is still currently a work in progress. Eventually the Japanese maples will provide great summer shade for the many ferns (yet to be planted out) which will enjoy the conditions in the basin.
A lot of the systems here work really well, and make life easy. During the week, about two, or maybe three hours of work, was enough to clean up the sapling fenced enclosure. Over winter this area is deliberately allowed to become a bit weedy so as to keep the soil in good condition. Here’s what it looked like beforehand:
The first step in the process involves using the utility mower to hack back all of the vegetation to ground level. As a side story, that mower was the one with the faulty ignition coil bolts that was fixed maybe two months ago now. The machine started first pull of the recoil rope – as it should. However, it is worth mentioning that there was a moment or two of trepidation before the motor kicked into life! The cut weeds will make for some decent soil critter feed, which will in turn further improve fertility.
The scary old rototiller was then used briefly to just turn the plant roots into the soil. I’m wary of running the machine harder on existing garden beds because I’ve heard stories that the tines – which can only dig so deep – can polish the underlying clay producing an impenetrable hard surface. A machine which is best used lightly and sparingly.
That enclosure has some of the best soil on the property, and it sure looks and feels good. All the same, a person must avoid becoming complacent, and so we fed another quarter cubic metre of compost (onto the soil surface) mixed with: blood and bone; coffee grounds; coffee bean husks; and dolomite lime (Calcium and Magnesium).
The 80 seed potatoes were planted into the fine and soft black soil. Then the area was raked smooth. It’s all really neat, and now all that needs be done is the occasional weeding and a bit of watering – just a couple of minutes per day.
We really have to make every drop of water count during the summer months. This week I fixed up, tested and adjusted the irrigation system for the round raised garden beds which form the kitchen garden. Likewise, those beds enjoy only a few minutes of water per day during the summer months.
The cleaned up garden bed where the Japanese maples were planted, had two wild plum trees growing. Both trees took up a lot of space, and had produced no fruit. They had to make way, and so were cut down and fed into the scary old wood chipper. That old machine is a beast and was purchased second hand. The original blades used to cut well, but the new sharp blades installed are truly lethal bits of kit, and they’ve have been going strong for many years now.
The seasons pea seeds were planted out this week. About 110 pre-soaked seeds were put into the ground. The garden bed was already fertilised in autumn, so the job took less than twenty minutes.
This week’s video is on the greenhouse:
Onto the flowers:
The temperature outside now at about 9am is 6’C (43’F). So far for this year there has been 582.8mm (22.9 inches) which is up from last weeks total of 575.6mm (22.7 inches)
Comments
40 responses to “Roll Up Your Sleeves”
Hi Lewis,
Yes, and winter and early spring is the best time to see the garden bones, before rampant growth hides all the unsightly messes. That’s a fair comment about the ferns, but the dogs can push aside the fronds and do what needs doing, so it won’t be an issue. The woody shrubs on the other hand were so thick and dense that the rabbits and rodents thumbed their twitchy noses at the canines. And there’ll be rocks for sure once the excavations are further progressed. We’ll probably do a days work on that task later this week. I know what you mean about the mosses, and Japanese maples for some reason encourage such plant growths. In a decades time, it’ll look amazing. Right now, it’s a bit rough and ready. 🙂 I like the moss under the trees as well.
Good to hear that your gardens escaped the ravages of the deer. Recently they’ve not dared show their faces ’round here, but it’s a matter of time and availability of food elsewhere.
Tomatoes are like that, and different varieties will have better or worse years. But given the general nature of climate uncertainty, I’d do what you are suggesting and plant a few different varieties just to hedge your plant bets. The only variety which performs brilliantly in all seasons at this location is the yellow cherry tomatoes, and they even produce self seeded volunteer plants. Possibly related to Triffids? 🙂
The egg shells you’re chucking into the soil mix probably provides the Asparagus all the lime they need? People say not to lime potatoes as well, but all the same I chucked a small amount (10kg / 22 pounds) into the recent compost mixture. Your soils are like here in that they are naturally acidic, so the additional lime maybe not such a big deal, and could even be beneficial. I reckon a lot of gardening advice doesn’t really come with decent descriptions as to the areas, soils and climate that the advice relates to. So turns out, asparagus doesn’t like acidic soils, preferring more neutral pH, so I’m with you in relation to the addition of stove ash and egg shells in your soils for those plants.
Go the extra pumpkin! 🙂 Those plants are tricksy. We might not grow as many pumpkins this season. There are other plants we prefer to consume. On the other hand, pumpkins are a good winter keeper produce. By early spring though, they’re getting more prone to go to moosh.
That’s a great idea, and if I may, radish will grow much faster than beetroot it being late now for fall crops, although both are excellent. Both plants supply leaves for salads and pesto too if your winter doesn’t get too severe. Yum! Yup, the addition of the lime can only but help those plants. I did a bit of foliar feeding of the citrus trees during the winter months with a seaweed solution (your worm tea equivalent), and it really gave them a bit of an edge when temperatures dropped to freezing.
Oooo, Cayenne peppers straight from the garden to the pot are joy to consume. 🙂 Fennel sets a lot of seed here, and Goran pointed out a month or two ago, that in his area they don’t set bulbs (which is the bit used in salads), and the same is true down here. I’d not realised this was not happening. Hmm. Dunno why either? Brassica species are impossible here during the growing season due to all manner of insect troubles. Good luck, and it’s worth trying some of the more wild varieties like kale or purple sprouting broccoli. They’re more resistant to insect attack, but not immune from it. Hey, makes you wonder how commercial growers produce those varieties in the summer months? And yeah, they’re heavy feeders those family of plants. A wise move with the extra soil food.
Glad to hear that you got some rain. Always nice. Your weather is starting to sound quite cool, if not a touch chilly. Mind you, it was warmer in your part of the world yesterday than here today. A real murky day with occasional bouts of drizzle.
Spent all day today chopping up a tree which fell over many years ago. I reckon one quarter of the time was spent chainsawing, another quarter moving chunks of timber, and the remaining half was used to sharpen the saw chain and attend to the saw. It was very dirty timber and so the chain went blunt remarkably quickly. Oh well, that job is now done. Two thirds of the tree is now firewood discs waiting to be split at some point in the future. The rest I’ll burn off, but the season for that is getting on, so I’ll have to pick the right day to do the work based on the weather forecast. Hmm. I’m looking for a cool, calm day with rain forecast later in the day.
Hehe! I would have had a chuckle at your breakfast pizza and the Editor would agree with your choice. Oatmeal and fruit are probably the tastier choice though in my books. Ain’t that the truth about some evenings with having a simpler dinner option ready to go.
🙂 That’s funny about the dodgy pasta, but probably also true.
That’s good news about H returning to the chair. Ready access to the bed was probably a step too far for the dog.
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – I’m late off the block. 🙂 Usually, I respond to your weekly blog post, on Sunday night. But, I had a couple of projects going, and it got late, even for a night owl, like me. 🙂
I can’t say I’m very aware of AI generated writing. Well, maybe in a few news reports. Mr. Greer and you sort them out, so, we’re not subjected to them. Thank you! I’ve seen a few ads for AI people. “Build your own AI lover!” The results are not inspiring. 🙂 The texture of the skin is rather like a plastic doll, and the movements just aren’t quit right. From reports I’ve seen, some people have resorted to AI for mental health issues. And, it sometimes doesn’t end well.
Computers, dumb phones, texting. Yes, I see a definite decline in literacy. I think I’ve mentioned before, that various surveys of a grasp of vocabulary has been declining, over the years. I also remember seeing, quit awhile ago, that newspapers used to be “pitched” to what a well educated fourth grader could comprehend. That’s about a ten year old.
Sometimes, I can parse out bargains, vs not, by doing a few mental gymnastics. Not that my maths are so strong. But with all the weird quantities and weights, these days, it becomes more difficult. We have some laws, in place, that many grocery store items have to have their cost by weight, on the shelf tag. I try to remember, when going shopping, to carry along my small hand calculator. And, my reading glasses. 🙂
There’s also the feel-good buzz of being cutting edge. An early adaptor. No matter how much of the results are trash.
Good going on stuffing all the water tank leaks, and making sure the whole system is working at optimum efficiency. In a lot of situations, water can be the weakest link.
So, I take it the sapling fence inclosure is a big more deer proof than the last potato site? Are you going to chuck a few sugar beets in there? And, yes, that soil does look rich. Almost good enough to eat!
The video was very good, but had a few problems with focus, here and there. No drama. Your greenhouse is really nice. And, productive.
The flowering cherries and daffodils are real harbingers of spring. Onto your epistle, and I’ll be back on track! :-). Lew
Yo, Chris – That corner of Fern Glade Farm will be spectacular, given a little time. Maybe, not as long as you think. Something was nagging at my memory, so I took a look down the rabbit hole. Yup. Buttermilk encourages moss growth. There were several links to articles and videos.
I noticed that. Most of the tomato volunteers are the yellow cherry tomatoes.
I just can’t quit wrap my head around the different kinds of lime, when and where to use them. I have a bag of “hydrated lime.” Do you think it’s appropriate for the barrel that I’m thinking of growing cool weather crops in? I need to pay more attention to the different limes. Or, at least write it down, in my garden journal. LOL. I always have to look up the difference between determinant and indeterminant tomatoes. And the difference between hard and soft necked garlic. I think part of the memory territory of my brain is made of teflon. Nothing sticks. 🙂
Our high yesterday was 70F (21.11C). The overnight low was 48F (8.88C). The forecast high for today is 73F. Prof. Mass has a post that’s an end of summer recap.
Chop wood, insure water supply. Sort of zen if you stretch a bit. 🙂
Speaking of pasta and the end of empire. I saw an interesting article, this morning. A fellow does a lot of podcasts on history. I really don’t “do” podcasts, so I was pretty unaware of him. He had one long series on “revolutions” and another long series on the history of Rome. So this interview with him is about the end of empires, and, the American empire specifically.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/witnessing-fall-american-empire-130000642.html
One man’s view, but he makes some interesting points. Lew
Hi, Chris!
So you are a member of a guild, with secret handshakes and all that? My interactions with AI have been like yours. I would say that “my interactions with AI have not been reassuring that the future is all that bright” might be an understatement. A lot of it is as dumb as a box of rocks. Very smart of you not to let those chumps into your business.
I think you make a very good point about how with with enough exposure and over a long enough period the AI junk people see will become the new normal, especially if schools don’t improve. Look at how bad spelling has generally gotten just because so many people don’t know how to spell, so everybody thinks it doesn’t matter. But try to be comforted some by the really numerous people who homeschool. At least that is true around me.
And you made another good point: If you don’t write regularly, you don’t develope (or keep) the skill. Use it or lose it. One thing I do is have three people that I write mailed letters to, and they write back. Of course, you have to find other old fogies to manage that. They don’t have to be handwritten, though I do so. One of the ladies is 88 and does better writing on a computer. She is something else!
I was about to mention maths in the above context. I try so hard to keep up doing it in my head, though I am a bit handicapped by never having been a whiz at math. But I also figure that paper and pen is better than nothing. I always carry paper and pen in my pocket all my waking hours.
AI users aren’t “ideas producers”. They are mooches. Well, there you go – with AI you gain no experience. We learn from experience. I don’t know about “mediocre”, though. Rough times actually produce a lot of change and excitement.
I appreciate your point about the galvanized screws versus the stainless steel screws. Thanks for the description. That’s a lovely, neat fix.
I can’t see the baby Japanese maples, but someday they are going to be so beautiful. I will be interested to see how fast they grow because I have one that has grown so slowly over 5 years. It seems to be sort of a bonzai type.
How much better the sapling fenced enclosure looks now. I imagine that you are right about the rototiller. I only have a shovel . . . Yep, that is the time of year that I would be planting potatoes here – mid to late March.
What kind of pea seeds are those? My pea seeds are always green.
The greenhouse looks so professional. But with charm! I like how the rain runs off the roof and down the walls and right into the soil. The permanent ventilation is interesting. So, you never cover it up? It is so nice that you have a tap right there inside. I bet you would like a second greenhouse!
The box elder maple flowers are gorgeous. I looked the tree up as I thought a box elder was something else, not a maple, but it is. In fact, what I read said that it is native to North America. There is nothing like flowering cherries. They remind me of the famous ones in Washington, D.C, presented to the city by Japan over a hundred years ago. And I love the daffies and the Plummie and the – hellies (?). Thanks!
I really like your title.
Pam
Hi Pam,
It’s not great is it? The thing I don’t really comprehend about the story is that I believe that there are currently 19 planning applications for energy, resource and water hungry data centres in the big smoke. And that’s just the big smoke near to me. Someone must be paying the tab for that service. How can such other AI services possibly be provided for free? This website here costs mad cash to host upon a local server. That business case makes sense, the other one, not so much.
No secret handshakes with the professional body, just annual fees and annual obligations – on my part. 😉 Sometimes when I think of that lot, the song line: What have you done for me lately, springs to mind.
Hey, I hear you about that. A local young bloke began, owns and runs an enormous egg farm, and I believe that he was home schooled until the final year of high school. He’s a smart bloke.
Pam, I’ve heard stories about spelling just for one example, and note that the stories suggested that some students do not even appreciate that the first word of a new sentence begins with a capital letter. If the basics aren’t drilled, they’ll simply evaporate. Lacking command of a language means that people will be unable to organise and/or communicate their thoughts. The same people probably know how to express emotions though. All the same, historical literacy rates were not all that great a percentage of the population, so in some ways it is a return to the mean (average).
You go! 🙂 The old school term for such correspondence was ‘pen pals’! Lucky you to know such fine people. A friend of mine has made the suggestion that we communicate via this (as the kids would say) ‘snail mail’ method.
Ain’t just you, maths was never my forte either. You know, and I’ll be interested to read your thoughts in the matter, but in many ways, maths to my mind is like learning another language. Music is similar really. Some people have a natural flair for such things, and that isn’t me either. But! This does not imply that the mental toolkit for basic computations shouldn’t be honed, like a decent kitchen knife.
My old high school accounting teacher forced us all to use pen and paper for two years to make all the various computations. His will was thwarted in the final high school exam (which was state wide) where we were allowed the use of calculators. I dunno, in hindsight, he had a very valid point, and if the basics of a particular subject remain unknown, how does a person progress to anything more complicated?
Oh! Ah yes, and thanks for the correction. I’d kind of meant that the use of AI will force a certain form of homogenising in relation to thinking and output with it’s users, but failed to properly explain that aspect. And I absolutely agree with you, during the days of the early 1990’s recession down here, people were more creative and social than they are today, and change and excitement is a great way to put that. People tend to forget the upsides of such times.
Thank you! We’re trying to make many of the systems here both simple and resilient all at the same time. And water leaks are a very bad idea when on sloping land.
Hmm. The Japanese maples grow between one and two feet per year here. They’re like Triffids, or at least that is the case at this location. Dumb question time: is your plant in a pot?
Our seasons run more or less the same as yours, except it gets hotter here in summer, and cooler at your place in winter. But other than that, the planting calendar has always sounded sort of the same to me. Late frosts are not the friend of potatoes, although they bounce back just fine.
I believe that the peas are snow peas, but there are also peas of err, (and this is generally not a discussion to be had in polite company, but at the risk of bouts of blushing all around) Pam, they’re of uncertain parentage. 🙂 They were dried from last summer’s crop.
The permanent ventilation is never covered up, although the winter minimum temperatures rarely drop below 28’F outdoors here, and the inside of the greenhouse would be naturally warmer on those winter mornings. The tap is great isn’t it? Powered by a 12V water pump which delivers 5 gallons per minute at 60psi. It’s a beast that pump.
Dunno where, but I read that box elder maple has some sort of pest or disease problem, which may not be present here. And flowering cherries are really beautiful. Have you ever seen photos of hillsides in Japan covered in those stunning trees when in flower? Lovely stuff. Hellies! Very funny, and thanks for the laughs – now I can’t think of them by any other name. 🙂
It’s true.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
That’s the plan, and Japanese maples grow really fast here, especially if they are not in pots – which tends to water log the soil a bit. In a nearby town to the west of here, an example of the species is growing in a little side lane, and the tree is enormous. All things being good, they’ll outlive me.
I’ll have a look into the buttermilk treatment for moss after replying. An intriguing suggestion, and moss really loves the rocks here. It would be an interesting way to produce a sort of aged look to some of the paths and rock walls, although the buttermilk stuff is probably very expensive.
Man, if for some reason I was forced to only grow a single variety of tomato, it would be: ‘Barry’s Crazy Cherry Organic’ tomato. That’s the official name too. Super hardy, excellent tasting, and a wickedly prolific producer of fruit.
Far out. Worked late tonight on paid work. It was a good day too, and I did a lot of productive stuff on site. Pleased, but tired.
🙂 Hydrated lime is like the A-Bomb calcium option in that the stuff is readily soluble in water, and may change the pH much faster than the plants and soil critters will appreciate or tolerate. Small applications probably won’t hurt, maybe. Mind you, I’ve used that stuff on seriously damaged clay which had formed a concrete like hardpan. So, I had the material left over from a construction project and wondered what to do with it – and just tried using it that way. Seemed to work, and I’ve observed that algae now grows on that stuff, which is the beginning of getting the whole soil process started.
The other three easily available types of calcium are much slower to react with water, and thus release the minerals slower, like over a couple of months. Easier on the plants and soil critters that way. Here they are in the order of my preference (based on the soils here):
1 – Agricultural lime / Garden lime = Calcium Carbonate
2 – Dolomite = Calcium + Magnesium (the magnesium will tighten your soil, which is good if it drains too fast)
3 – Gypsum = Calcium + Sulphur (the sulphur loosens the soil, which is good if it doesn’t drain fast enough)
But yeah, it also depends on the plants you want to grow in the barrel. Onions need sulphur and the gypsum provides that source etc… The above description is more or less the core of the story. But Hydrated lime is an interesting chemical, and someone further down the hill pours it over roadkill, and it’s a brutal process.
I struggle remembering so many details as well, unless like in the case of lime, I have to purchase large supplies from among different choices, and that kind of focuses the brain. But for other stuff, like the pruning say for example, there are books so I don’t have to remember the specific details. A quick refresh of the ideas, and bam, the job gets done right, maybe.
Being inside all day today, I have no idea what the weather was like. Seemed cold and cloudy though. Thanks for mentioning the Professor’s wrap up of the summer. Interesting indeed, and I too have observed here that the overnight minimum temperatures are higher right throughout the year than when we first moved here fifteen years ago. One day over winter, the morning was 0’C / 32’F, and that was about as cold as it got – which in and of itself is unusual.
🙂 All very zen. And a relief to ensure that every drop of rain water collected ends up in the water tanks.
Don’t mind a good podcast, and I’ll check it out. I do hope that the bloke mentions low quality pasta? It would be a travesty to ignore that factor.
Hehe! I was wondering what had occurred, and appreciate the catch up of text. Projects need doing, and you’ll get no argument from me there. Hope the work was OK and accompanied by some tasty nosh. Life is rarely smooth.
Hey, next time I get an AI message, and have the time and remember to do so, I’ll post a modified (i.e. no interweb back links) version of the comment for your edification. Ooo, Ollie is having a bad dream. Better go and wake him up. Hang on a second. When he woke up the dog looked relieved and wagged his tail for the friendly pat. What were we talking about again? Oh, that’s right AI. Far out, what could possibly go wrong with such a machine? 🙂 Yes, users would be engaged in certain acts, and suddenly the device manages to somehow wield a well sharpened knife to better effect at a crucial juncture! Didn’t you mention the library had a copy of the M3GAN sequel – like that robot didn’t go wacky and do bad things. It looked super creepy too. Who can ever truly know the motivation of a machine?
There’s been a few alleged incidents of computers suggesting users to do what might be interpreted as illegal acts.
I do appreciate that you used the words ‘used to be’ 🙂 It’s not dissimilar to the surprise when encountering the many and lengthy written monologue’s which formed in-part the narrative of Dracula. The verbiage from that book was eloquent, and detailed in a way that the written form is no longer presented to the reader. Basically, the book would not sell if released today.
Man, it was calculating the total for the many the weird quantities and weights which challenged the ol’ brain that day in the market. It was a major shock to discover that my skills were not up to the task at hand. The Editor likewise requires glasses to read such labels, although I’d have to suggest that just because we have the technology to print in one point font, is it really ethical to do so?
Makes sense about people wanting to be the trailblazers, or beta testers so as to get that feel good reward.
The old potato site has had the higher deer fencing (and corner supporting posts) installed. But the wombats can also get in there, and I suspect that they can consume Solanum family plant leaves and not suffer from ill effects. That family of plants are present down here as well – like the Kangaroo Apple bush.
Thanks! 🙂
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – Our Japanese maples, here at the Institution, are slow growers. Healthy, but slow. Probably because they don’t get a lot of sun. Shaded by the building for hours a day (no matter the season) and tucked under some big tree. Cedar?
I think I first heard about the buttermilk and moss, from that well known Domestic Goddess, who shall remain nameless. 🙂 I suppose you could spray it on, and make it go further. And, maybe find some that is marked down, being close to, or past its pull date.
Oh, my gosh, Barry’s Crazy Tomatoes look awesome. I’ve never seen clusters like that, on a tomato plant. I bet they need a lot of fertilizer. I see that the seed is available, from a few specialty seed companies,, here. And not all that expensive. $3.50 a packet, for 20 seeds.
Thanks for the explanation of the different types of lime. I’m going to copy, and print that out, and put it in my garden journal.
It must be hydrated lime, that murderers always chuck in graves to hide their crimes. Use the wrong kind, and the job won’t get done. Good to know. 🙂
Our high temperature, yesterday, was 73F (22.77C). Our overnight low was 46F (7.77C). The forecast high for today is 80F. We might see some rain Sunday and Monday. There’s a “chance.”
Sooner or later your professional oversight organization will probably require you to have a AI partner. Just to keep an eye on things. It will be the bane of bad accountants, and a pain in the … ear, for the rest of you. Probably, costly, too. Basically, a snitch, to report any dodgy accounting practices. Of course, the bad players will figure out work arounds.
I might change H’s name to Gimpy. Or, Chester. As in the deputy in “Gunsmoke,” (Dennis Weaver.). She’s been limping, on and off, on her left front leg. An old injury from when she jumped off a chair at Elinor’s and got her toe caught in an afghan. Well, last night I was lifting her off the bed, and she wiggled out of my hands, and landed wrong. On carpet. I thought she had dislocated her leg. But, it straightened out, and later, she had no problem navigating the stairs. But the limp comes and goes. She also has a lump on her back, that I detected. About half the size of a pea. I’ll keep an eye on that.
I got on line to order some stuff, and can’t believe how some of the prices, have jumped. I couldn’t find any Lindt dark chocolate bars, for less than $4. The same as what I would pay at Winco. So, why bother? I guess if I want chocolate bars, that’s the new normal. I bought the Greenie dog dental chews, even though the price was up. I looked for a winter coat for H. Couldn’t find what I was looking for. Her shampoo? Not less than what it costs at the vet. Ditto the 3 month flea pills (which need a prescription, anyway.) I even tried that on-line pet supply, that everyone sings the praises of. Chewy. If I signed up for automatic shipping, I could maybe get a buck off. Not worth the hassle. So, it was a rather frustrating on line shopping trip.
The library has received the new M3GAN sequel. It will probably get through processing, in a week or two, and I’ll have it to watch. I saw the first one. Yup. Creepy. Which I find most dolls, to be. If things go according to plan, it will be a popcorn night. I’m thinking, I’m in the mood for dinosaurs.
The print was so small on that pizza I got, the instructions, that my reading glasses just didn’t do the job. I had to break out the magnifying glass.
I watched another couple of episodes of “Bugs Rule the World.” It’s really interesting. The first was on pollinators. Bees, butterflies and moths. Moths evolved millions of years, before bats. Their main predators. And, they have developed all kinds of defenses, to stay out of the bats clutches. Some even make noises that screw up the bat’s echolocation. I’d read a lot about Monarch butterflies, but somehow missed the fact that it takes them four generations, to make it from Mexico to Canada. And, one generation to get from Canada to Mexico.
The next episode was “Eat or Be Eaten.” It mostly focussed on Praying Mantis. What fascinating bugs. They’re found everywhere, except Antarctica. Even above the Arctic Circle. There was quit a bit about hunting ancient lineages of Mantis, in northern South America. The more lineages in an area, the more likely it was where Mantis first appeared, and evolved. Sort of like apples in Kazakhstan. And have they evolved. Really interesting adaptations, to remain invisible to prey … and their predators, mostly, birds. Though I once saw a gruesome picture of a Mantis taking down a hummingbird. There was one Mantis that is very similar to the Stick insects. Looks like twig. Other’s have developed to look like tree bark, a withered leaf, and even an orchid flower. Next up, Beetles!
Reminded me of an old 1957 Science Fiction movie. 🙂
https://youtu.be/0gcn0_V3zv8?si=6IW2b3N4RfPG2Dx6
I see the historian has also put up a few videos on U-Tub. I may have watched a few.
We’ve all known people like this. Now, there’s a name for it. 🙂
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/articles/dry-begging-form-emotional-manipulation-110018807.html
Sometimes, when something is named, it’s easier to spot, and thwart.
Speaking of words and language, I saw a new book that the library has on order. I put it on my hold list.
“From the author of the New York Times bestseller Word Freak , a vibrant, lively, and illuminating journey through the exotic world of Merriam-Webster, dictionaries, and language, at a time of rapid-fire change in the way we create, consume, define, and use words
Words are the currency of culture–and never more than today. From selfie to doomscrolling to rizz , our hyper-connected digital world coins and spreads new words with lightning speed and locks them into mainstream consciousness with unprecedented influence. Journalist and bestselling author Stefan Fatsis embedded as a lexicographer-in-training at America’s most famous dictionary publisher, Merriam-Webster, to learn how words get into the dictionary, where they come from, who decides what they mean, and how we write and think about them. As he recounts in Unabridged , he discovered the history and fascinating subculture of the dictionary and of those who curate and revere “one of the most basic features of our collective humanity.”
Fatsis reveals the little-known story of how the brothers George and Charles Merriam acquired Noah Webster’s original American dictionary and reshaped the business of language forever. Merriam-Webster became America’s most successful and enduring compendium of words, withstanding intense competition and cultural controversies–only to be threatened by the power of Google and artificial intelligence today.
Delving into Merriam’s legendary archives and parsing its arcane rules, Fatsis learns the painstaking precision required for writing good definitions. He examines how the dictionary has handled the most explosive slurs and the revolutionary change in pronouns. He votes on the annual Word of the Year, travels to the legendary Oxford English Dictionary, and visits the world’s greatest private dictionary collection in a Greenwich Village apartment stuffed with more than 20,000 books. Fatsis demonstrates how words are weaponized in our polarized political culture–from liberal to woke to DEI –and, in a time of insurrections and pandemics, how they can be a literal matter of life and death. Along the way, he manages to write a few definitions that crack the code and are enshrined in the pixelated dictionary.
“I fell in love with the dictionary on my eleventh birthday,” Fatsis writes about the full-color college lexicon he received on that day. “The dictionary projects permanence, but the language is Jell-O, slippery and mutable and forever collapsing on itself.” Unabridged takes readers to the heart of an industry in flux, celebrating as it does the sheer thrill and wonder of words.”
That’s from the entry in the Timberland Library catalog. Who could resist? :-). Lew
Hi Chris,
Happy spring equinox! The autumn equinox is bringing us needed rain, for which I am very grateful. Until about 2 months ago it had been wet here, but suddenly it stopped raining and the grasses dried out. This rain should wake up the cool-season grasses and give the trees a good drink of water before they go dormant.
I think the worst thing about AI is the data centers it spawns, like toadstools. They are trying to pop up here, but the local governments, to give credit where credit is due, have been resistant so far. I only wish they were so resistant to the blandishments of warehouse-builders. It’s depressing to watch the rich farmland in this area grow warehouses instead of crops.
Enjoy spring!
Claire
Chris:
But that’s impossible. Surely the Big Smoke cannot support 19 new data centers. Every now and then I remind my son that we must check carefully where we look to buy land because sometimes they sneak one of those monsters in and you don’t want to be anywhere near one.
Yeah – what have they done for you? Let you stay in business, I guess. My son is not part of an organization like that, but he does have to pay fees to the state and county to have his fig business and there are annual (or is it twice a year?) inspections. However, they may be a bit of use, because the inspector, who has become a friend (it might be useful, that), has been helping him solve an insect pest problem. Could the lot you pay tribute to do that?
You hit the nail on the head: How can one communicate well in writing if it isn’t standardized? I guess we will see illiteracy proliferate. I have always been impressed with Iceland’s literacy rate:
https://theorkneynews.scot/2024/12/26/iceland-literacy-saga/
Maths, and music, have their own languages. I am lazy in my languages, just knowing bits and pieces of others. You are right – those skills, even maths, need to be honed. I do love a sharp kitchen knife . . .
Not a dumb question. My Japanese maple is in a pot now, for a couple of years. Before that it was in the ground and still grew super slowly.
Hmm, my snow pea seeds are green. Our dogs have all been of, er, unknown parentage. Mr. Baby is of unknown parentage. I blush not. At the moment he is enjoying crouching on top of a big, old stump still in the ground that is full of holes. Chipmunks live in those holes . . .
I have indeed seen pictures of the blooming cherry trees (festival, anyone?) in Japan.
I have mentioned, I think, that I was able to grow 3 new alpine strawberry plants from seed this summer. They are still producing a few berries and have put out runners. My 2 old alpine plants never put out any runners; some people say that is normal. Anyway, I should have a few new plants from those runners. Yum!
Hey! It’s fall! That’s Stinkbug-Move-Inside-For-the-Winter season. Yesterday I put on my bluejeans that had been hanging on a hook in my room, put my hand in the pocket – and pulled out 2 live stinkbugs. Once that happened to me in a shop . . .
Pam
Hi Claire,
Wishing you and your household a Happy fall equinox. 🙂 And rain is a great gift. That weather sort of occurred here as well earlier in the year with a very dry March and April. Still, it’s good for grain crops because the drier weather means that the seeds don’t ferment. Presumably the harvests have been good?
Oh yeah, getting rainfall into the subsoil is good for the trees, and I’d have no idea how to cope with the more extreme cold weather you experience. There might even be some sooking… 😉
Our priorities as a civilisation are all a bit odd, but my gut feeling suggests that the huge capital costs of AI will be its undoing. All those data centres and their ongoing costs can’t be cheap, and at the moment aren’t people paying nothing for those services? How can that make sense for much longer.
Hope your summer harvest was bountiful and that the deer stayed away from the garden. Haven’t seen them here for a while, which is a good thing – for them. Ooo, I sounded like Dirty Harry there!
Always lovely to chat with you.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Pam,
Water sets the upper limit here for such things, and this happens to be the driest inhabited continent of them all. I can’t make this stuff up: Calls for guidelines after Greater Western Water documents reveal potential data centre water usage
Those are the same water folks I believe that bill me. Hmm.
Hehe! All very true, and yes the business lives to fight another day. Lot of ticks though each demanding their share of blood. Such inspections are part of life, and there are agricultural extensions (is that the right thing to call them?) which sound quite useful in such matters. There is no equivalent down here, that I’m aware of.
Go the Skalds and their documenting of history. Sounds like a fascinating journey for the scholar to wade into, and may he discover a lost classic. It is worth noting that poorer societies and areas value cultural growth and communication skills far more than we do in these enlightened times. I’m sure the same was true of your part of the world long ago.
Pam, I hear you about that, and likewise have little flair for maths, music or other languages. It happens. And those are always handy.
Oh poop! Well it was an idea about your Japanese Maple. The pots I took the plants from had quite damp soil, which is odd because all they’d had was rainfall, although the saucer may have slowed the drainage somewhat.
🙂 The peas were green when fresh, although you’ve got me wondering though. None have yet broken through the soil, although it has been cool this week.
Mr Baby may have a long lost pedigree? Such things may be found to have fallen behind the couch, or in between the cushions. Or a dog ate, that’s the kind of thing they’d do. May the chipmunks be suitably nervous.
It’s a lovely aesthetic those massed plantings of flowering trees. You’d hope that there was enough shelter and feed for forest critters in such places, but I have some doubts about that.
Go the alpine strawberries. Who knew that strawberries could be a controversial subject? You got me wondering because the varieties here don’t produce runners, they set seed. Hmm. Some people say they do produce runners, other vehemently oppose the idea. If you’re seeing runners, then they clearly do. I’m going to let my lot loose on a large garden bed and see what happens. Hope the baby plants produce well – they should.
Ook! The name for those bugs is a dead give away, sorry to say. Can you wash the smell easily from your hands? Hey, you just reminded me, but I filled up the car with petrol this morning, and someone using the bowser pump handle had worn aftershave, because my hands stunk of the stuff. Subtle aromas are great, smack down everyone around you is just not on. 🙂 The olive oil soap eventually removed the smell. How’s your hand doing? Things can always be worse – better than skunk!
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Ah, lack of sun does knock back plants, plus the competition from a much bigger tree which does the same and even more. After a decade the Japanese maples here look like small trees, and they grow about one to two foot per year – but closer to two feet. I think the bouts of drier weather also assist that particular species too from what I was reading yesterday. Many interweb articles said they struggle with drought, but I don’t find that to be the case.
Did the nameless Domestic Goddess spend some time in the slammer? 🙂 I’m thinking you were referring to that person, who by the way has a delightful aesthetic to her farm. Of course, there are probably people to dig ditches there, unlike here where I have undertake such tasks personally. Buttermilk is a product that you rarely see here in the supermarkets. I’d put it in the uncommon product category. It’s a good idea though and I’ll keep my eye out for the stuff.
The crims may have spotted someone using the product on a dead kangaroo carcass? Seems to reduce the odour too, decomposition often being quite pungent. Seems to be a lot of road kill this year. It’s pretty hard out there for the forest critters. And larger cars (your trucks) have meant that there is less risk of damage to the vehicle, which takes away some of the incentive to slow down and be more careful. I often have to pull over on the dirt roads and let other faster drivers whizz past.
Nice weather, but again cloudy and murky here today, although noticeably warmer. Watched a storm follow the nearby freeway. The westerly winds of today rarely deliver rainfall to this mountain range, and I’ve no idea why that would be the case. A mystery.
Lewis, now I’m scared about that professional possibility. Extracting payment to cover their costs is an old story. Truly, the capital and ongoing costs for all that software is a business case which makes no sense to me, especially with bond yields apparently rising.
Duel, that was an engrossing film between Dennis Weaver (the actor) and the unseen protagonist in the truck. I forget, did anyone discover what the beef was about between the two drivers? Good solid ending though. A viewer knows there was no unfinished business.
Hope H is OK, and dogs are made of tough stuff. A magnifying glass may discover a big tick, or even a wart on H? Like you, I’d keep an eye on it, just in case. Dame Plum had a tick in her armpit (or is it more properly a legpit?) the other day. A cinch to remove then squash and burn off. How she got the thing is a mystery, but dogs can be adventurous.
Hmm. Big retailers can put the squeeze on suppliers to take the hit for supplying discounted items, they call the process down here ‘cliffing’ – which sounds disturbing. It’s equally possible that the cheaper suppliers are yet to use up their older inventory? The higher prices you’re seeing elsewhere may be the new-normal? Dunno. Time will tell.
Creepy is just the right word to describe the M3GAN doll. Made a lot of mad cash at the box office that film, and hope the sequel is equally uncomfortable! Just the thing for a popcorn night. 🙂 Go the dinosaurs. I heard a review of the latest instalment and the general consensus was that it was getting back to the roots of the story. A good idea.
Magnifying glasses are a clever bit of kit, and I use that sort of arrangement for electronics work. Sometimes the writing is tiny, and it is easy to stuff things up. The better view takes out the guesswork.
I’d not known that about Praying Mantises. Hopefully the documentary had some real close up shots? Clearly nature evolved an efficient predator there, which thankfully isn’t 150ft, like one of the comments to the film trailer suggested. We’d all be feed if that were the case. Thanks for the film trailer, and the reviews were very positive.
Such things are outside my experience, but I’d imagine that ‘dry begging’ comes with a decent pout. What’s the point of voicing indirect requests without producing some full-on pouting too? The English may describe that as a ‘Mardy Bum Face’, although that could be an older outdated term now. Please excuse the pun, but it ‘begs’ the question: How much are we responsible for the emotional responses of other folks? I’ve been reading recently about how and why people argue, just because I didn’t really know much about the deeper goings on with that sphere of human behaviour. I get the impression after the reading that if you’re encountering such passive indirect demands, that the other person could be damaged in some way, or have a very low opinion of themselves, or even feel that they’re not being respected (whatever that means). A bit of compassion goes a long way, but if I was experiencing that sort of thing, I’d work out how much energy to put into correcting the situation based on whether the relationship is a momentary or longer term thing? Dunno. People will be people.
It is hard to ignore such a book, and I’ll be very interested to learn your opinion of the work. Hopefully the author remembers to recount a coherent narrative and avoids becoming too didactic or studious. 🙂 And what a delightful way to describe the language. The words chosen display a certain sort of playfulness with words. You might be in for a treat.
Did paid work today, and finished up early. 🙂
Cheers
Chris
Chris,
Things are rather busy for us this week. However, I really liked this paragraph you wrote this week:
“Long term readers will know that over the years we’ve implemented many different ideas on the property. A vision for an area or system comes into being. Then through sheer hard graft, the concept comes into actual physical being. The next step is living with the outcome and observing how it works. If needs be, we’ll rip it all out and start over again using what we’ve learned. With AI, you miss that part of the journey, and how would a person even know if the thing is wrong, or if the results could be better? The future looks mediocre at best.”
This speaks to me that the PROCESS of doing is what’s important. This includes learning, doing the work yourself, refining your abilities. Having AI do the work for you totally skips the important part – the process of doing it yourself, of being human.
The carving club is having some controversy about computer aided carving right now. Someone keeps trying to allow the computer aided stuff to be in this week’s show “for display only”. Others of us say that the club is for people to learn and perform the craft by learning and enjoying the process as humans, doing the carving with our own hands. Once the computerized stuff is allowed in “for display only”, sooner or later the push will come to allow this to be a judged category. At that point, the human element, the PROCESS, will get lost.
It appears that the computer aided carvings will NOT be snuck into this show. The club will have to formally discuss the topic in our post-show meeting. Your paragraph that I quoted will be useful for those of us who want to keep this as a human art club, not computer work.
More later this week.
DJSpo
Yo, Chris – I planted radish, carrots and beets in the Cool Weather Root Crop Barrel (formerly known as pumpkin), last night. We’ll see how it goes. There was a nice fat earthworm. Every time I walk H, we go right past the barrel. I’ll be able to figure out when the sun finally goes around the building, and there will not be much light, back there. It’s got a good ways to go, yet. I also tossed a bunch of mushroom compost, around the base of the Brussels sprout. Not my super duper mix, but better than nothing. I watered the gardens, and then sprayed it down with organic bug spray.
I cleaned the Strawberries, by the way. There was more bad spots than I expected, so I froze them. I have to hit the yuppie discount store tonight, and will see if they have more. I’ll probably freeze them, too. You see, the thing is, I’ve already packed away my jam machine. The dehydrator is out. Given the limited space in my kitchen, it’s better to not have both machines out, at the same time. Especially, since I still have an inspection hanging over my head. So, until I’m done dehydrating tomatoes …
Yup. That’s the Domestic Goddess I was thinking of. The one with the rap sheet. 🙂 I’m sure she has extensive “staff.” She can afford it.
As with me, you’re a defensive driver. I keep wondering if someone will hit a deer, or even the bear, on Adams Street. There’s a lot of traffic going to and fro.
Our high yesterday was 81F (27.22C). Our overnight low was 48F (8.88C). The forecast for today is 78F. We have another smoke alert, late this afternoon into tomorrow morning. I see we’ll have a north wind, so, it’s probably still coming from the Bear Gulch fire.
I saw an interesting article, yesterday. A new word. “AI Sloop.” 🙂
https://www.npr.org/2025/09/08/nx-s1-5528762/ai-slop-attention-economy
Luigi is the guy who shot the health insurance CEO. Shen, is I think, some fast fashion website.
That movie with Dennis Weaver was called “Duel.” A look down the rabbit hole, didn’t really reveal any motivation for the trucker. Just your garden variety psycho, I guess. Back when I drove the freeway, a lot, if an 18 wheeler passed me, I’d flash my lights to let him know when he was clear, to move back into my lane. Usually, I’d get a break tap, from the trucker, saying, “Thank you.”
Speaking of retail, I saw another article on on-line buying and returns. I didn’t realize how much was bought on-line. And how abused returns are. There’s a store over in Central’s (I haven’t been) that deals in The River, returns. As the week goes by, they reduce the prices. Wait and you might get something really reasonable. But might also miss out, if someone else buys an item at a higher price.
Further down from this article is another on some of our op shops are getting really greedy. It’s not the first article I’ve seen, on that topic.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/wealthy-americans-online-shopping-habits-193000599.html
Never mind. I guess when I link to an article, I lose the other articles that came after it. And, it must have been another article that had the top ten US states for on-line purchases. Most of them were rural, with sparse populations and limited in-person retail opportunities.
I watched the new Jurassic Park movie, last night. There were dinosaurs. They ate people. 🙂 Well worth a bowl of popcorn. Pretty standard fare, for that series. And, of course, there were the two angsty teens and a little girl. Better behaved and more useful than the usual run-of-the-mill.
The bug documentary had plenty of close ups, of insects. In the fist episode, there were plenty of shots of the cameras used for taking those pictures. I don’t know much about cameras, but it looked like pretty nifty kit.
Dry begging: “Never mind. I’ll just stay home. Sit in a corner. In the dark.” 🙂
I don’t know if you ever trigged to “underground comics.” A bit before your time. I’m reading the biography (with his full cooperation) of R. Crumb, who sort of started the whole movement, and kept it going. The underground comics were kind of a stepping stone, between classic comics and graphic novels. He also did the album cover of Janice Joplin’s “Cheap Thrills.”
https://w.wiki/8eYK
A lot of underground cartoonists were influenced by MAD magazine. “Seeing and then handling the magazine altered Robert’s brain chemistry as surely as LSD would a decade later. He never did normalize.”
“Keep on truckin’” Lew
Chris:
I read the article. Thanks. That’s why I said it is impossible – it is. “Greater Western Water says it is exploring options to sustainably support data centre development” – what kind of comedians do they think they are? And their building example is an unholy excrescence. It ought to be J.H. Kunstler’s next ugly building pick. And then the article wouldn’t let me go back to your site. Something is afoot here.
Yes, agricultural extension offices is the right term. The ones here in Virginia work from our agricultural college, Virginia Tech. It is very highly rated.
Mr. Baby says he has a pedigree going back ages. After all, he is a king. Once I made him a little flag with his royal arms: The Flag of the Kingdom of Thing (Thing is his surname). It is white with two big, black splotches.
Stinkbug smell is not too hard to get rid of. You can wash it about half off, then within about 10 minutes the rest of it just fades away. That is why I don’t mind smushing them with my hands when they are on my garden plants.
There were a few small potato plants that had come up where I had harvested my potatoes about 2 months ago. I dug them up today and got a few more potatoes. Do you buy seed potatoes or are you able to save your homegrown ones till the next planting season? I have to buy them as I always have to harvest them so early.
Pam
@ Lew:
See, there – your Japanese maples are slow growers, too.
M.S.! I think she got a bad rap.
Pam
@ Claire:
Hi, Claire!
Pam
Hi everyone,
Just in case you’re interested…
I suspect that this comment was created by a bot:
This has been a truly captivating read, Chris! Your farm diary format is absolutely brilliant – it’s like having a window into your world, filled with such vivid detail. I love the way you describe the practical tasks, from the satisfying crunch of cut weeds to the intricate process of planting potatoes and peas, making it all feel so tangible and achievable. The way you share your observations about the Japanese maples, the flowering cherries, and the challenges like the deer and soil conditions adds such a personal touch. It’s not just about gardening; it’s about the rhythm of the seasons, the resilience of nature, and the quiet satisfaction of tending to a piece of the earth. Your passion shines through every word, and it’s inspiring me to appreciate the little details in my own garden, even the weedy bits! Keep writing, please – this is pure gold.
….
Hi Pam,
Ha! Aesthetic considerations to the side, some news outlets down here today were spruiking the idea of a second water desalination plant in the western-ish part of the city as a solution to supply more fresh water. And those things use a lot of electricity. A whole lot. Hmm.
Truly, I don’t worry about these sorts of problems, because the many issues around energy, resources and pollution set an upper limit to the craziness. As a civilisation, we may go slightly beyond that point, but eventually the whole mess is like playing one of those games of ‘whack a mole’ that err, sorry to mention this next bit, but groundhogs are popping up out of the soil so fast, that the garden produces nothing. Like Kuato eating all of the hundreds of kiwi fruit a few months ago. There’s a salient lesson there, and perhaps I would have been wise to have acted earlier with the now eaten by owls herbivore. Oh well.
Yeah, I’ve only read good things about those offices, and you are very lucky to have such services to call upon in your country. Plus the super cheap soil testing facilities. Down here a lot of things on that front, have to be figured out without external assistance. The thing I wonder about is, who will I hand the knowledge onto? It may well simply evaporate. If it’s deemed necessary, nature will provide.
Pam, surely you don’t reward King Baby’s good services to your property (particularly in relation to the say, I dunno, chipmunks elimination? 😉 ) by saying: “Thank you, Thing”
That’s a fine sounding flag too. 🙂 One of the locals around here often flies lots of different flags, and I always learn something about that obscure area of knowledge. Can’t say that I’ve spotted any in recent months, but that may be due to the ongoing cost of living crisis? Dunno.
Yeah, well, second hand aftershave sticks with tenacity. Glad that the stinkbug stench is more easily removed than say, skunk stink. Hey, I forget, did I ever mention the pink nuclear second hand lipstick incident? Probably did, it left psychological scars. Ook! Before that moment, I was more trusting, but now I’ve taken the time to observe my fellow humans in the wild (AKA local General Store) and note that a number of people use the glasses for a drink of water, and then put them back unwashed for re-use.
So, towards the end of the health subject which dare not be named, someone had done exactly that. Except the person had been wearing this weird super tough pink lipstick. Me being naive, I grabbed what I presumed was a clean glass, filled it with water, and took a drink. To my horror, that gunk ended up on my lips second hand from the rim of the glass. Horrid stuff, and you can’t wash it off. I tried high strength 93%+ Ethanol as a cleaner to my mouth skin when I got home and it resisted being removed. A truly revolting moment, which I’m now careful not to repeat. Made me feel queasy for the entire day, and I felt so much closer to the miscreant who’d gone and done it. I hate to think of what that stuff is made of – and probably don’t want to know.
I feel much better having shared that experience. 🙂 They say a problem shared is a problem halved, and that may be at least a quarter true. I’m sure you’ve never fallen for such horrors?
Oh yeah, wild potatoes turn up here in various locations year after year. And those tiny tubers are almost impossible to all remove from the soil. What do you do? This year, we’re planting about half and half with potatoes, in that half are from last years crop, whilst the others are purchased seed potatoes. By the way, we grow about six different varieties. How many different varieties do you try out?
PS: Last night we headed into the big smoke to go and see the UK band ‘The Wombats’ perform. Such a fun night, and they put on a really great show. It was packed out but we had allocated seats, unlike the general admission area.
How’s the fig sales going this year?
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
Thanks for taking the time to drop by and say hello! 🙂
So glad to read that you enjoyed that paragraph. Yeah, it’s the journey which is important, whilst the end point, not so much. Take for example, say Professor Tolkien’s book: Lord of the Rings. The vast majority of the narrative was spent on how the protagonists got from A to B. The ending was in fact, all over rather quickly. The cynic would note that Frodo didn’t even get around to chucking the ring into the hot volcanic fires, but Gollum did the right thing by everyone in the end. On that note, the film Terminator II was a different ending because the T-800 lowered itself into the molten metal by choice when the robot could have produced a dozen reasons to hang around. Oh my, we’re so far off track here, but they were some good films, at least the first and second were.
Skynet, just saying… 🙂 Alright, I’ll get serious here.
Hey, the Editor and I headed off into the big smoke last night and went to see the gig for the UK band, ‘The Wombats’ who are currently touring down under. Dude, they even played ‘Lemon to a Knife Fight’. So good, and I reckon they did a two hour set. Great performers. Wore ear plugs, so my hearing is pretty good today all things considered. 😉
Oh my! Oh my indeed. Did I ever mention the ‘apron’ incident? Surely I have? Maybe… Oh well. Long years ago I was involved with a group which self exploded over, wait for it, aprons. Utterly bonkers. But also truly instructive.
Out of curiosity, and please appreciate that this is a public forum, is the ‘someone’ a new member?
I’m loathed to provide any unsolicited advice. But instead I’ll tell ya how I’d handle the entire mess start to finish. Find out casually from the membership who supports the new method, and who doesn’t. Refer to the clubs rules to see if it has anything to say on the matter, that may provide guidance on the core activities of the group. Then when you’ve got a quorum of members who regularly put energy into the group – not a whole bunch of new comers who may overwhelm the decision, take a vote, then be lead by the decision of that outcome.
Also I’d probably quarantine such works into their own category if they make it into a competition, and also ensure that the people entering works have to contribute hours of their time to the club. It’s a bit like the whole tranz people in sports issue. If they want to do such things I have no dramas, but they really need to have their own league to compete in rather than muscling in on an existing arrangement. Especially where there may be a perceived advantage.
I’m not even sure what is a computer carving, and sure it’d be a skill too, but under no circumstances should it be compared to hand crafted work. I’d also probably set hard limits on the number of entries for those works, mostly because the sheer volume could over whelm the clubs resources and abilities to judge.
None of those hard limits are unreasonable, but such things depend very much upon the people with whom you are interacting with.
Dunno, that’s how I’d navigate that tricky situation. But then at heart, I’m not really ever schilling for a ‘free for all’. Limits in many ways are a freedom. It is my opinion that those who wish for their to be no limits, are generally the same sort of folks who want to take one big giant dump on the commons. It’s an option to which I simply don’t agree with.
Hope your week quietens down somewhat. Nobody wants too much excitement, although the band last night was most enjoyable to see.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Good stuff, and fat earthworms are a great sign that there are things for the soil critters to eat in the barrel. When they’re not to be found at all, could be a problem. 🙂 Plants eat worm poop, plus they aerate the soil. There’s a lot to like about that, isn’t there? Depending on the sun the barrel gets, you might get some winter greens from either the beet or the radish. As we’ve talked about before, the radish leaves make a fine pesto and I prefer that to rocket leaves.
The Editor had freshly picked and cooked Brussels sprouts maybe six months ago, and had a good experience. Dunno about you, but I reckon they get bitter tasting if there is too long between the picking and cooking. As a kid they were torturous vegetables. Anyway, I’ll be very interested to learn your opinion of the veg when you harvest some of those mini cabbages.
Oh poop, that’s not good about the bad spots on the berries. Yeah, what do you do? Hey, are you intending to get some more then defrost the most recent batch? But I do get that about limited bench space in the kitchen. Never enough. I thought that the inspection had already occurred, or at best was likely to be overlooked? Hope it’s painless when it eventually takes place.
🙂 The lady sure doesn’t appear to be broke, and I do applaud the intersection of form and function on her farm. It really looks very pretty and productive from what I’ve seen on the web.
Man, my ego takes a back seat when I’m behind the wheel, and glad to hear that you act similarly. People living and driving in an urban area won’t be looking for bears and/or deer. I scan the side of the roads when I drive watching for the various forest critters. The bit which gives me an attack of the vapours is when I see road kill on the freeway. At such high speeds, there’d be little chance to stop or avoid – and great risk from doing so.
Driving home from the big smoke last night around midnight, it was bizarre to see the nearby freeway empty of traffic. Dead quiet. We went into the city to see the UK band ‘The Wombats’ perform, and the group put on a most excellent almost two hour set. Took my ear plugs so as to avoid industrial deafness! 🙂 It was loud, and fun.
Had dinner in a nearby pub I frequented over a quarter of a century ago, and to my amazement, it looked exactly the same inside. There was even one of those dodgy string bead anti-fly door hangers with an image of the Big J in faded 1970’s colours. They’d be hard to buy those things nowadays I reckon! We were of course a lot older, whilst the age of the clientele looked about the same. It was busy too which was nice to see. All very cosy and comforting.
What did stress me a little bit was that the tickets were now on some sort of phone app, which ran slowly probably due to so many people using it all at once. Hmm. Anywhoo, the guy at the door to the gig, checked the phone, and his device came up with a warning about my phone displaying a ‘screenshot’. I looked at him and said firmly: Mate, you can see, this is the app. and he just waved us through. A crazy system, presumably put in place to stop fraudulent tickets being sold.
Ah, technology, you’ve done it again!
The gig was sold out, and we had good seats with a clear view of the stage. The general admission standing only area looked intense and packed in. But cheaper…
72’F / 22’C tomorrow, with maybe a late thunderstorm. You’ve still got the climate batten, but you’ll have to hand it back (unsoiled thanks very much) soon.
Oooo! Did you see the big sink hole in Bangkok. The footage was amazing, and if you look closely it appears that people are filming the incident on their phones whilst there is very little beneath them.
Yup, whatever slop will they think of next? Incidentally I posted a comment which may have possibly been software generated. I get heaps of ones like that. No human writes like that example, although I could be wrong in that they may soon be programmed to.
Such folks are best avoided. When the roads were less congested, polite behaviour was the norm. Actually on the way into the big smoke late yesterday we got to see ‘peak hour’ from the other lanes, and it’s a tough gig that. And ‘hour’ has stretched into about three hours I reckon. I hear stories that the trains are packed too, and there is talk of a second desalination plant. Yay, us!
The article on returns blew my mind. Assume for a second that I’m very careful not to have to return anything in the first place. That business model only makes sense when shipping and handling costs are negligible. But returning used products like clothes is not a nice thing to do from my perspective, and you have to appreciate that having worked in such businesses I’ve seen what some grifters can try and pull off. Still, in those days, they were the tiniest of minorities, maybe one in a thousand customers. I remember a complaint about some shoes saying how awful they were, when they looked to me like they’d had a couple of years of regular use. Completely nuts, but it happens.
To be honest, the whole return thing may have worked when margins were so massive that the costs for the policy were negligible, plus I’ve known of some businesses which chase sales growth over common sense. That arrangement may also have been a bait and switch strategy to get people hooked onto the arrangement.
That’s true, and I get a lot of parts for machines and things from online retailers. There is no local bricks and mortar supplier for a lot of the stuff. When the farm machine repair dude was alive, he’d look after that side of things for me, but now I know what he went through for all of his customers. Hmm.
Your description of the latest instalment sounds a lot like dinosaur progress! 🙂
Hehe! I see, and fortunately don’t have to deal with such talk. Probably send me loopy: Do you want to go, or what? might be my blunt summation of the statement. It’s not straight talkin’ is it?
Go Mr Crumb, and the bloke is an inspiration to us all. I’d not realised he’d done a Kafka for Beginners. An interesting idea.
Home made pizza for dinner this evening. Forgot to mention, dug soil today for the new path above the large water tank. And the plans for tomorrow were thrown into cosmic disarray. The list! The list!!! It’s a public holiday for the footy finals, and I’d completely forgotten. That’s what happens when you don’t get paid for working on public holidays. Probably do more digging…
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – So what do you put in your radish leaf pesto? Inquiring Minds Want To Know. 🙂
Brussels sprouts, were an unknown quantity, when I was a kid. Never appeared on our dining table. The only cruciferous vegetable, in various forms, was cabbage. Sprouts and broccoli were an acquired, adult taste. I usually buy sprouts, frozen or fresh, if the price isn’t too bad.
I went to the yuppie discount store, last night. I picked up another 2 pounds of strawberries. $5. What with the free strawberries I received, 5 half pints of jam will be about a buck a piece. A LOT cheaper and healthier than the commercial stuff. I’ll probably clean and freeze them up, tonight. Toss them in with the free ones. I think that will be enough for a batch of jam. I’ll hold them in the freezer, until I’m past the tomato drying season. I’ll probably also do the cherry jam, from the dried cherries I have, at that time.
I spoke too soon. The store had Lindt, 85% cocoa bars, for $3.29. I bought five, and will probably go back tonight, for more. Five bars will last me about a month. My E-Buy purchases started coming in, yesterday. H has a six month supply of dental chews, and, the bagel chips showed up. They were the cheapest thing I bought. As they are the most difficult thing to nail down for the Chex mix, that bit is nailed down.
A glance down the rabbit hole reveals that a Ryan McCallister is the domestic goddesses head gardener. At least, since 2011. On one of her estates. I guess he makes frequent appearances, on her programs.
Don’t you have enough wombats on your place, without having to traipse off to the Big Smoke to look at more? 🙂 It’s always comforting when your third space is unchanging. Uncle Larry and I went to the Elephant and Castle, for years, in Portland. Fish and chips to die for. Guinness on tap. It was a real shock when we walked in, and it had morphed into a cheesy Italian place. Although I never watched either, it was what I imagined a Mafia place from “The Godfather,” or “The Sopranos,” would look like.
As I’ve often said, “Technology is wonderful … when it works.” 🙂
Our high yesterday was 77F (25C). The overnight low was 45F (7.22C). The forecast high for today is 69F. No smoke that I noticed.
The AI post was smarmy and icky. I suppose the weak minded (no one here), would find all the ego stroking, appealing.
B. Dalton had a pretty good return policy. No cash refund without a receipt. And, if the recipe indicated that the item had been bought with a credit card, only a charge back to the card. Occasionally, we’d get a sale item, where the sale stickers had been removed. And the much higher price was still on the dust jacket. Some of that was intentional deception, but a lot of it was people being shocked at how little a friend or relative had actually spent. 🙂
I found the article on thrift store prices. It probably caught my eye, because I’ve occasionally had a yen for that particular mixer. And, it’s blue! 🙂 But why, when I have some electric kitchen gizmos that I haven’t even used yet? But I took note that you could get a refurbished machine, from the company.
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/articles/shopper-sparks-outrage-photo-absurd-204500257.html
I don’t follow sports, and, occasionally, wander into the Club to be confronted with a hoard of sports nuts, watching whatever game on the big TV. Oh, well. Whatever keeps them clean and sober. 🙂
I watched the final episode of “Bugs Rule the World.” Beetles. One in four insects is a beetle, of some kind. If it weren’t for beetles, we’d be up to our waists in dead animals and garbage. 🙂 There was an interesting segment on beetle battles, in Thailand. I saw a lot of money, exchanging hands. Actually, it’s pretty benign. The beetles that lose, are released back into the wild. None fight to the death. Points are scored if a beetle lifts his opponent off the ground, a certain amount of time. Or, tosses his opponent off a rotating hollow log.
I picked up a LOT of DVDs from the library yesterday. I could eat popcorn, for a week. Probably not a good idea. Lew
Chris:
I don’t know if that’s a bot comment. Certainly, it is a lot of impressive language to have been written just as a comment on a farm blog. One wouldn’t want to hurt someone’s feelings, however. How was it signed? Did they give an email address?
I would certainly rather see them spend the money on desalinization than on data centers.
But then the owls would have missed a mighty good meal. Then again, you missed a whole lot of mighty good fruit and that’s a lot of meals.
No. I usually say: “Thank you, Thingee.”
I don’t remember “the pink nuclear second hand lipstick incident”, but I now feel very queasy myself. Do you mean to say that the General Store puts out glasses of real glass that anyone and everyone can use? And what manufacturer makes a permanent lipstick like that? Yeah – imagine what must be in that stuff.
You didn’t fall for the horror. It was perpetrated on you. Thankfully I have never met that horror, though I now feel like I have. Yuk. You are welcome for having shared.
I only grew one variety of potatoes – as far as I know. They came from the grocery store and were organic Gold Potatoes (might have been of, er, mixed parentage).
You lucky ducks! A band with that particular name has to be good.
It’s still too hot for fig sales thus far. They have to be bare root to ship and they would probably die. Waiting for cooler weather.
I think I’ve asked you if you have bats. We have lots this year. I see them whirling around as the sun comes up and doing the same thing as it goes down. It’s wonderful.
Pam
Chris,
Good idea wearing ear plugs to the concert. I’ve done that. When we used to sit for 14 hours a day in the Spokane Arena watching high school tournament basketball, I wore ear plugs. Otherwise, I’d have a migraine by the second of 4 days and be out of commission for a week. Crowd noise. Bands. Echoes. UGG.
When 14 and in my first year of high school, a classmate went to a rock concert in the old arena, the Spokane Coliseum, aka the Boone Street Barn, situated on, well Boone Avenue. It was tinier and boydid it ECHO badly. He told us about it the following week. Quoting as best I can remember 50 years later:
“I couldn’t hear anything after the concert. And I needed a ride home. So I found a payphone, plugged in my money, punched in the number. Hoping the phone was ringing and not a busy signal, I repeated 15 times, ‘This is Brent, the concert’s over and I can’t hear anything and need a ride home.’ Forty-five minutes later my mom showed up. I’m going to try to not hear her for a week because of the concert.”
So the ear plugs were a great idea.
Skynet indeed. That electric car guy and his satellites sound a lot like Skynet.
The wikedpedia has a decent article on “CNC wood router”. It is the commonly used computerized machine to take your plan or photo and use 3-D cartesian coordinates to “carve” a piece of wood into the finished 3_D “carving”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNC_wood_router#:~:text=A%20CNC%20wood%20router%20is,Z)%20for%203D%20motion%20control.
Thank you for your suggestions. I’m actually following that exact playbook. Our show joins with the regional wood turners. I’ve got a few other ideas up my sleeve, which your suggestions confirmed to be valid ideas.
Friday we set up for the show starting at 2 in the afternoon. Judging starts at 6:30 and lasts until maybe10 at night.
I emailed a picture of my entry to your info email. Hopefully it arrived intact.
DJSpo
Hi Pam,
Agreed, there are many possibilities. Someone may have used a bot to pen a reply comment. How would any of us know? And also maybe it was penned by a human. Frankly speaking, and this is just between you and I, I could provide a detailed critique on why I believe it to be a bot, but then here’s the problem with supplying that detail: It’s feeding the beast. Why make the job easy for them? 😉
They’ve already got one desalination plant up and running, and this proposed one would be a second. Some Australian cities, such as Perth over in the far west, predominantly use that technology for drinking water. In the big smoke, as of today the dam levels are at 73%. Here the water tanks are now all full.
I know! And around and around it goes, and who knows what the best path is? Do we feed either: me; the owls; or the possums. What a decision we have to make here. 🙂
Mr Baby sounds like he lives a blessed life. How’s he enjoying his new cat run? The fluffs ran around and around all day long today in the sort-of warm sunshine. They’re pooped out now and fast asleep. Work on the new path continued today, and a lot of soil was dug and moved up hill. It’s looking good, and a large corner rock was chosen and lugged back uphill. Might have to split some more boulders soon…
They do say that a problem shared is a problem halved, but! It was a horrid experience. Yeah, there’s a stack of glasses and a water tap. The general idea is that the glasses are used once, and then chucked through the dishwasher and returned to the stack. To put them back after use is an abuse of the social norms. Out of curiosity, is that arrangement with the glasses unusual in your part of the world?
Isn’t it wonderful that your mind is now prepared for the possibility, and like I do now, you’ll take a closer look before use. 🙂 And you’ll avoid the awful consequences.
Do you reckon your variety is descended from the Yukon Gold potato? The reviews on the interweb speak highly of the buttery taste. They do hybridise, and Goran mentioned that he knows a bloke in his part of the world who breeds new potato varieties from seed. I’ve seen the potato plants here produce seed from their flowers, and that might account for a few of the feral plants.
Thanks! The gig was excellent, and I’ve enjoyed the band since I first heard them on the radio back in 2007. Seeing them play was on my bucket list (not that there really is such a thing, it was just something I wanted to do, and could achieve).
Ah, that makes sense. Mail order. Right. Stay vigilant with the rats in the greenhouse, and remember my dilemma about the possum and kiwi fruit. Sometimes hard decisions have to be made.
The bats do a wonderful job. Did you know that the ones down here look exactly like your lot, but are marsupials? Usually the only bats here are the small insect eating ones, which do the same as your description – and that’s exactly when I see them as well. They live here all year around. The larger fruit eating bats generally live further north on the continent where it’s warmer. Although sometimes they’ll venture south into the cooler inland areas, and there are a few colonies in the big smoke.
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
Ah, all is now clear as mud! You’ve got a show to get together. Best wishes, and may your entry shine. Incidentally, I believe that your entry will be more along the lines of what the judges expect, yet it also expresses your own creativity and personality. If you’re good with the suggestion, I’ll post a photo of your entry in the comments. Please let me know if that’s OK? I thought it was excellent work.
Hehe! Ear plugs are handy bits of kit, and honestly I did wonder how the rest of the audience handled the volume, but then forgot about that brief thought and simply enjoyed the show. 🙂 You got me wondering about the venue though. It’s right on the edge of the CBD, and is now over 110 years old. Originally it was a boxing ring, and has a capacity of 5,400 people. My guess on the night was 6,000 people, but that was merely a guess and it’s good to be in the ballpark mathematically with estimates isn’t it? 🙂
My only gripe, was that the seats were quite narrow and my shoulders are wider than hips, and well it was all a touch squishy. I had this strange thought on the night that they’d gotten the plastic seats from a primary school (grades one to six) clearance auction! Oh well, a minor grumble. I’m sure the Spokane Arena seats were far more comfortable.
The colloquial name for the arena is ingenious. They are just big barns, yeah. 🙂 And a nice spin on the industrial deafness, turning an unexpected incident to one’s advantage for a week. A fine excuse, and it’d work too, until things escalated and the kid was unceremoniously hauled off to see the doctor.
Over three decades ago I went with friends to see the US band ‘Ween’ perform at a small venue, and they were very, very loud. Not quite ear bleedlingly so, but yeah. I found a nice thick building column and kind of hid behind that to lessen the pain. Incidentally, fun fact: one of their later albums was created after a fishing trip, as you do.
I know man, what do you do? The Terminator films were not meant to be interpreted as a ‘how-to’ manual. 😉
Ah, thanks for the link. Right, they’re a computer controlled 3 dimensional router. I’ve never seen a CNC machine before, but have heard of them, and they’re expensive. Not quite the same is it?
Thanks, and I’ve sadly experienced groups falling apart over minor issues and weak leadership. Fortunately, time provides plenty of thinking moments to consider how such endings may have been averted. I offer no advice, other than my experience, but it gladdens me to hear that you are getting onto concluding the issue one way or another. Think of it like dog obedience classes: Would you let Dame Avalanche do whatever she wanted to do? That’s the downsides of being the boss. 😉 Good luck and seriously best wishes for a speedy resolution of the matter.
It’s Friday night here, but it’s been remarked upon before that it’s intense living in the future. Any word from the judges? Hope you do well and the show goes smoothly.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Pesto ingredients: Peanuts, chilli, Parmesan cheese, paprika, thyme, pepper, salt, olive oil, radish leaves. Blitz. Serve. Makes a decent tasting mix. I prefer the taste of peanuts to that of the drier tasting more traditional pine nuts.
Lucky you with the brussels sprouts, I thought that the vegetable was some form of torture, but being hungry and having few other choices on offer, I ate them. My mother was a terrible cook and lamb chops and three boiled veg was a regular thing. It was no hardship to do a dinner every couple of nights from about the age of twelve onwards. There’s a real art to knowing how the ingredients go together, and also how best to prepare them – and that takes experience. Possibly it would help to have a desire to produce good results – and not everyone aims for that goal in the kitchen. I’ve observed over the years that many folks have a very complicated relationship to food.
It’s interesting to read of your experiences with early food. Cabbage was rarely, if ever seen when a kid, but broccoli was a staple – the green variety – boiled to within an inch of its life. I’d not seen purple varieties until as a young adult when I’d hit the fresh food markets to nab cheaper, but good, produce. You’re doing a good sell on the sprouts, but growing them here would be hard due to the enormous quantity of cabbage moths.
That species of plant is problematic. We’ve got a large raised bed of rocket, and it’s good, but we’ll probably pull the plants soon and feed them to the chickens. Once the weather warms, they really bolt to seed and become inedible. The Editor is maintaining a diary of planting dates and comparing that to last year, and to make the most of the garden space is like planning a battle. 🙂
Five bucks is a pretty good price for that weight of strawberries, and making the jam later is a great idea. Like what you’re doing, we harvest and freeze the berries and when there is enough, a batch of jam gets made. There’s a nice rhythm to that production. And yeah, who knows what gets added in to commercial jams?
Ooo. Never made or tasted cherry jam before, and I’ll be interested to hear what you have to say about the taste. That fruit is rather expensive down here, probably due to all of the voracious bird life.
Nice score with the Lindt, and I’m wondering if you went back and ended up bolstering the stores? Doggie dental chews are not cheap down here either. And weirdly, bagels are rarely, if ever seen, although there are one or two places in the inner big smoke where it’s their speciality. Haven’t tried one. Hope the chex mix cooks up a treat!
Speaking of dogs, they are wiped out tonight. It was a nice and sunny, if mildly windy day. They ran around and around, all day. Clearly enjoying themselves. We did more digging on the new path project. Moved quite a bit of soil actually, and the shape of the path and adjacent flat site are starting to appear out of the dirt. All very satisfying.
It’d be nice to have a head gardener, although truthfully, I’m a hands-on kind of guy and prefer to physically do the work. The two must have good chemistry if they’ve had a working relationship for fourteen years. That’s a good innings in my book. Anyway, if I stopped doing the work, the cakes would have to go. Life is short, there are many possible paths… 😉
A lot of wombats enjoy the bounty of this place, and so far haven’t been a nuisance. Spotted this article from the state of South Australia: Wombat makes home in Robe’s main street as numbers increase despite habitat loss. Generally if wombats are out in full daylight, they’re probably hungry, or sick. Around here you’ll see them at twilight, but mostly at night. Spotted three nearby on the way home from the gig.
The band name is pure coincidence, although it can’t hurt their Australian audiences. Man, stepping into the pub, was like entering the way-back machine, and I agree, comfy is the word. Ah, I can appreciate your sense of dislocation with that experience, and it’s a sad loss. Decent fish and chips are a real treat. The images from the Godfather film may disturb my consciousness, an unnecessary and as yet not committed act. The Editor watched the film sometime in the past year, and couldn’t quite appreciate what the hype was all about.
Man, Mr King may suggest that the programmers should avail themselves of a copy of the manual: The Elements of Style. I see no reason to critique the bot on the basis that we’d only be feeding the beast. If the electronic thing wants to hang out in the jungle, it’s gotta learn the ways…
Haha! I’d not considered that people would return a gift for a refund, then be shocked that the item had been on sale. The horror! 🙂 Thanks for the laughs.
The blue colour for the mixer is really quite striking, and would only enhance your collection of kitchen gadgets. It may disappear into the blue kitchen here! Where is it again? Oh, there it is, couldn’t see it due to the background colours… 🙂 But is it the machine with the plastic gear head? That’s what I’d want to know, although I hear you, the blue colour would make it hard to walk past. The sticker price is a touch eye watering!
True. How do you navigate such moments? Nowadays I’m usually honest and fess up that I have no idea about the sports. There’s only so many subjects of interest that my brain can handle.
That’s funny, and yeah beetles do the hard yards when it comes to the clean up jobs. Lot’s of different dung beetles were released into the country, and they all do good work, especially at keeping the fly population down. I’d never heard of such a thing, although recall reading a fictional account of insect competitions.
🙂 Stay strong Lewis! And yes, probably not a great idea. Moderation is a good thing they tell me.
Cheers
Chris
Chris,
it would be great if you included the picture of my work in the comments. That would be an honor.
Will let you know how it did per the judges.
DJSpo
Yo, Chris – Thanks for the pesto recipe, and I’ve committed it to a recipe card. Also, peanuts would be a lot less expensive than pine nuts.
I saw an article that The River has been fined 2.5 billion, for tricking people into signing up for their subscription program. And then making it near impossible to cancel. The article mentioned that although that amount is eye watering for you and me, it was just a drop in the bucket, for The River. I never fell into the trap. I carefully read whatever they’re flogging.
“Complicated” is a nice way of saying demented. Which can come in a variety of forms, when it comes to food.
Cabbage moths are very much in evidence, here. Bane of my garden. There’s not many garden creatures I absolutely hate, but they’re at the top of the list.
I saw an enormous bumblebee, on one of the Mammoth sunflowers, yesterday. Not our standard run-of-the-mill bumble. It had a bright red spot, on its back. I think it was either a Black Tailed Bombus, or a Hunt Bombus. Bombus have 250 species.
I’ve got, I think, three 2 pound bags of dried cherries. From one food box, or another. LOL. I’ve got to figure out something to do with them. I also could plump some up, and make a cherry pie. Hmm. A quick look down the rabbit hole … there are many recipes for biscuits (aka: cookies), using dried cherries.
Yes, I went back and bought another 12 chocolate bars. What with what I have in the fridge, I should have enough for about nine months. 🙂 Just doing a bit of quick, loose math. H (also known as Gimpy or Chester), has enough dental dog chews to last her about 6 months.
Speaking of dogs, Rembrandt was a plagiarist! Who knew? Just goes to show, sooner or later you’ll be found out. Even if it takes several hundred years. 🙂 Nice looking dog. Kind of goofy looking.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/25/style/rembrandt-night-watch-dog-tan
Our high yesterday was 68F (20C). Our overnight low was 45F (7.22C). The forecast high for today is 71. Looks like we should have rain, around Sunday. And, it might last for a few days. If the forecast holds.
I went out early to the garden, and picked cherry tomatoes and a few Roma. Didn’t quit fill one rack, in the dehydrator. So, I filled out that rack, and the other three with Roma, cherry and grape tomatoes. Depends on what looks good and is relatively inexpensive, at the store. After this batch, I’ll have to make a count and see how close I am to 12 dried quarts.
I also picked all the red cayenne peppers. A couple of hands full. I may string them, tonight. I also picked one yellow zucchini. They’re not as large as the green ones. About 10 to 12 inches long. There should eventually be a couple more.
That was an interesting article about the wombats. I do wonder, though, how healthy it is for them to be grazing on the golf club grass. They do use a lot of nasty chemicals, to get that standardized playing field.
At the Club, when someone tries to engage me in a sports-centric conversation, I usually say something like, “Do I look like someone who cares?” 🙂
I think it’s going to be a popcorn night. What to choose? I’m leaning toward the new Superman movie. Another cute dog. Or, maybe the “Book of Eli.” That has to go back sooner, than the rest.
The library has changed their “New and On Order” page. I don’t know why. Doesn’t look any better. So, why bother? Something I’ll ask them, next time I pick up items.
Well, someone is smartening up. I saw an article yesterday, on the wisdom of using cash. Or, at least keeping some on hand.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/24/business/cash-war-crisis-prepare-intl
As I’ve said, technology is wonderful … when it works. Apparently, people are beginning to discover it doesn’t work, all the time. I saw a headline that apparently, in some of our southern states, the three digit emergency number failed. That seems to happen, a lot, at different times and in different places. Lew
Chris:
Why is the dam at the Big Smoke so low, when not that far away, your tanks are full? Do we think maybe the fine folks in the big city are using too much water? Without those 19 new data centers even built yet?
Mr. Baby likes the latest additions to his fenced in nature preserve very much. Part of that enclosed the underside of the veranda on the front of the house and he has a box under there, at a corner where he can see everything on the front and side of the house. He loves that box and spends a lot of time sleeping in it. On the outside of the box is printed in big letters “KingFisher!”, with a delightful painting of a kingfisher on it. Maybe he likes it because of the bird? I remember that you have kingfishers where you live, but you haven’t mentioned one in awhile.
I haven’t seen that public arrangement with real glass glasses for decades. Maybe they’re trying to not use so many disposable ones? A thought: Maybe that lipstick glass had been through the dishwasher. Presumably if it wouldn’t wash off of you, it wouldn’t wash off of a glass. But an employee should not have put it back out.
I used to see potatoes labeled Yukon Gold for sale in the grocery stores all the time, but now – never. I suspect that they just lump all yellow potatoes together now, which is why mine are probably mixed breeds.
Isn’t it interesting how many of your animals are marsupials? Makes me wonder if our one and only marsupial, the opossum, wasn’t an expectant mother from your continent that got to our shores long ago by raft.
In other wildlife news, today my son had to move my husband’s little old antique (so its license plate says) Nissan pickup truck. It had been sitting in place for quite a long time as it is on the bottom of the list for repairs. Under the hood there was, of course, a wild animal, not the usual mouse, but a squirrel with a cosy nest. I guess he figured that he was set for the winter. So much easier to move into a vehicle than do all that climbing up and down a tall tree with a mouthful of leaves.
Pam
Hi DJ,
Your most excellent recent work for the enjoyment and appreciation of all the regulars here:
Best of luck with the show.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Pam,
It’s a good question. Tell you a funny story. A number of decades ago (my, my, where ever have the years gone), I visited a friend’s place. It was a hot day, and after cordial greetings were exchanged I heard the shower running. My first thought was that my friend had been entertaining a lady friend, and so I politely ignored the sound. But then after a while the shower kept on going. Turns out, he’d had a powerful fan set up behind the water flow which acted like a home made swamp cooler. Fresh water was just pumping down the drain at a furious rate, and it was a drought year. Cracking the sads about the arrangement was an understatement. This is the driest inhabited continent on the planet, water is a scarce and precious resource. All folks in the big smoke see of that intricate system is when a tap is opened. To be honest it was something of a turning point for the friendship, we still talked and caught up, but I dunno, it just wasn’t the same again.
The electricity to run those data centres is equally as big a problem.
Out of curiosity, was the Kingfisher painted on the side of the box part of an older advertisement? In India (and from memory), there is a beer with that name, and decades ago it was quite pleasant. But yeah, the many laughing Kookaburra birds whom live here are of that bird family. They’re both tough and clever and can even kill and eat snakes, so they’re OK by me. I’d say that the bird painting is an attraction for Mr Baby, although the unparalleled view would entice him to spend time relaxing.
Oh! It’s not an uncommon arrangement down here with the glasses, but many other places will only provide such niceties upon request. Earlier today I noticed such an arrangement elsewhere with a sign advising customers to return the used glasses to the counter for washing after use, and also not to pilfer them. That was in the big smoke, and things may be different there. Had a lovely lunch and catch up with friends.
I’d wondered that too about the glass having passed through the dishwasher, and the lipstick being missed. Hard to ever know what really went on that day. But after becoming aware of the usage, I’ve observed people using glasses and then putting them back in the pile of washed ones. My belief is that germ theory won’t last more than a generation or three longer.
That’s kind of the strategy I go with potatoes too, a mixed bunch of genetics is a better arrangement than only one or two varieties, which has occurred with horrific outcomes in the past. So, mixed parentage for your lot will produce a better outcome.
There sure are a lot of marsupials down under. Placental mammals are in some cases able to outcompete marsupials, such as the dingo which was apparently traded between the Indonesians and Indigenous folks. Australia was once connected to South America, so presumably your opossums are the only survivors of that ancient super continent? No raft required! 🙂 That’s also how some of the Nightshade family of plants are down under, like Kangaroo Apples, although there are others.
Pam, I’m impressed that the Nissan pickup truck could even be moved, notwithstanding the squirrel! Machines don’t appreciate sitting around, although there are sometimes finds of super rare cars in peoples barns. Yup, March and April (your September / October) here are the months for critters seeking toasty shelters.
Had a simply awful morning. Several bully chickens decided to attempt to eat the two new young birds, and let’s just say that I cracked the sads in a most definite for the miscreants kind of way. What a way to start the day, but I saw no reason in delaying the consequences. Four went down, permanently. Two more were sniffing around the new hens, and after witnessing what went on, they feinted when captured, and are now cooling their heels in the sin bin whilst contemplating the potentially poor decisions they were just about to make. All of the chickens have to comprehend that I mean business, and will not tolerate such nonsense.
I’ve got two rules for the chickens: Don’t eat eggs; and don’t eat your mates. They know, and chose poorly. Other than that, they can live out a long and comfortable retirement. That is simply too hard for some birds to live with. I reckon the birds this morning were about five or six years old, and they had a long life ahead of them. But what do you do? We tried introducing those new hens slowly and carefully like the advice on the interweb says, but that didn’t work. We even sprayed their backs with a foul tasting pine tar solution. That didn’t work either, so I’d had enough and did what needed to be done.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
I’ve never had an issue with peanuts, but for some folks they’re potentially fatal. Your suggestion a while ago of growing them in the greenhouse has been at the back of my mind ever since, and yeah – second greenhouse project would be nice. 😉 Plus pine nuts may be edible, but they don’t taste all that great to me, although I’ve never consumed fresh ones. Stone pines will grow in this area, but it is a bit marginal for those trees. Have you ever tasted fresh pine nuts?
It’s a big fine, all the same. Funnily enough, I caught up with friends for lunch, and we had a long conversation about AI. The capital and recurring costs just seem so humongous, like bigger than Ben-Hur. And yet the services are provided free of charge. Like how is that even possible longer term? Someone made the cheeky suggestion that it may be our version of bread and circuses. Hey, probably one of the 99 reasons for the fall of western civilisation. Never sought to use the thing.
Well, I was trying to be polite using that ‘complicated’ term. 🙂 We make a lot of food from scratch so end up with little packaging waste, but a lot more organic waste which goes to: dogs; chickens; then worms – in that order.
Speaking of chickens, I had to do some awful stuff to four of them this morning. They’d broken the general rule of ‘not eating your friends’, and I’d just had enough of their poop given it was the second incidence. The two younger hens, ‘the friends’ in this case, are now recovering from their ordeal, whilst the four miscreants are now contemplating their misdeeds from the land of beyond.
Sadly two further chickens were attracted to the younger hens blood, and when captured and placed in the sin bin, after the earlier very public display of consequences, they both feinted. I have kept them alive (but constrained for now) so that they can contemplate their future choices. The two younger hens are doing OK, but were injured, and we’ve been checking on them regularly.
After this first happened months ago, we had a good long look at all the advice in relation to this matter – and it is more common than most chicken keepers would admit – and made plenty of changes. They all eat an even higher protein diet nowadays too. Today was purely behavioural and a dastardly act. A lot of the advice is good and nice intentioned and stuff, but it doesn’t work from what I’ve seen.
Cabbage moths are a pain, and truly I’ve no idea how commercial growers put an end to such insect mischief – although have some possibilities in mind… I don’t hate the insects either, but simply don’t provide them easy opportunities.
Go the enormous Bumblebee. Those are good looking bees. Hey, we’ve got a lot of flies around today, but that may be due to the chicken situation earlier today. Dunno. I don’t worry too much about pollinators after seeing how things worked a few weeks ago, and simply create a garden that gives them a reason to turn up and hang around.
Man, I’ve never tasted dried cherries before. Presumably your lot has been de-pipped? I’d use the more available sultanas instead, which are a dried table grape.
Nice score with the chocolate. How’s H’s limp today? For some weird reason, the name ‘Gimpy’ brings to mind that awful scene in the film ‘Pulp Fiction’. Once seen, hard to forget! And presumably the scene was a nod to a much older film, or book?
Rembrandt’s dog was a nice touch, and aren’t all great works built upon the shoulders of the greats who lit the way before them? Anyway, if that lot in the most excellent painting were off to defend the city, they look to me slightly disorganised, and err, best of luck with that task.
It was about the same temperatures here today, although tomorrow will be cooler and cloudier. A good day for a burn off. It’s been dry in your part of the world for a while now, relatively speaking.
Yum! Yum! Autumn is such a great time of year for fresh produce. What a great idea to string up the drying chilli’s. Some of our dried chilli’s are mysteriously hot, and I wonder about how that came to be. Possibly natural variation, although I believe DJ mentioned a variety which mostly produced mild chilli’s, except for every now and then. I’m not man enough for tens of thousands of scoville units.
I’d not considered that aspect to the wombats on the playing field story, but yeah, you’ve got a good point there. It’s dry here, but much drier over there in that part of the country, so it may be that or nothing for those wombats.
Thanks, he says busily noting down the line.
Which film did you end up selecting? I won’t ask about the popcorn, although I am curious… 🙂
Software upgrades worry me. Next month, this computer is set to be outdated by the operating system, as you do. Might have to do something about that. What a nuisance.
Far out, those were some bleak chunks of advice to householders in that far distant continent. Probably not a bad idea though. Having lived through two bank runs and the collapse of a major insurance business, I know bad and unexpected things can happen. What everyone else thinks, is a subject which is beyond my comprehension.
It is wonderful, then it doesn’t work. That’s what happens to all machines sooner or later.
Cheers
Chris
@ DJ – Wow. That is really a fine piece of pyro. Being a Leo, I’m extra appreciative. 🙂 So, where do the three “R” slogan come from? Did you think it up on your own? If so, better patent it. Lew
Yo, Chris – Life in these United States. Probably how I’ll end up. That is one sharp little 12 year old.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/priced-traditional-housing-more-americans-090000666.html
Our night manager is not only allergic to bees, but also to nuts. When his allergies come up in conversation, I observe, “My, you’re a sickly little thing, aren’t you?” He usually counters by pointing out that I’m old. 🙂 I can’t say I’ve ever had fresh, fresh pine nuts. I have a small pack in the freezer, that I should probably do something with.
Speaking of the night manager, he’s on a couple of days vacation, out camping. Little Mary Sunshine is in Mexico. The past two nights when I’ve taken Gimpy (actually, I didn’t detect any limp, yesterday.) for a walk, I’ve discovered the laundry room window wide open. 🙁 We are surrounded by morons, and half of them have no sense of security.
Another new AI buzzword. What came to mind is, not less work, just different kinds of work.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/26/business/ai-workslop-nightcap
That was a lot of drama, out in the hen house. Self inflicted. That kind of chicken advice probably worked for someone, somewhere, sometime. The same applies to a lot of gardening advice.
Oh, I’m sure the dried cherries are de-pipped. But, you’ve still got to watch it. Same goes for dried prunes. I occasionally run across pieces of pit. Prunes or cherries, there’s usually a small warning on the package, of possible shards. I suppose that covers any liability issues. 🙂
I never saw “Pulp Fiction.” Another one of those movies I found enough out about, to be … uninterested. I watched “The Book of Eli,” last night. Just as good as I remembered it. Popcorn was had (with Swiss cheese and green onions!).
I took another look at the library “New, On Order” page. It’s lost two functions that I found useful. From the opening page, I could tell if I had already placed something on hold. I could also place a hold, from that page. Gone, gone. Now I have to open up each individual title, to discover those two pieces of information. Apparently, my time is worth nothing. That’s the message I’m getting.
But, I did discover that the library has ordered in a fresh, new copy of “The Postman.” Another one of my favorite post-apocalyptic movies. I put a hold on it. Hmmm. Might be time to re-read the book, again.
Another thing I noticed about “The Nightwatch.” Defend the city? They don’t exactly look dressed for the occasion. 🙂
Our high yesterday was 72F (22.22C). Our overnight low was 52F (11.11C). Our forecast high for today is 76F. If the forecast holds, it looks like I’ll have two more nights to water, and then maybe not for awhile.
Speaking of water, those gold courses are really water hogs. Lew
@ DJSpo:
Oh, DJSpo – your entry is gorgeous! It’s perfect! It deserves to win.
Pam
Chris:
Lordy, Chris – what a dreadful chook experience! The Great Avenger . . .
Pam
Hi Pam,
Awful isn’t it? The four chickens were recidivist cannibals, and I was revolted by their actions. Incidentally, just in case you were concerned I was being too harsh, they blew their second chance. One of them I was bit on the fence about dealing with, and so I let her out, and she made a bee line to the young hens and started eating them. It was disgusting, and so I sent the remaining birds in the flock a very strong message which so far they seem to have comprehended.
There’s a lot of nice and concerned advice on the interweb about this subject, and I’ve tried those options. They sound good in theory. Some chickens are just bad eggs.
My only worry with it all was if the brutal display was all for nothing, I mean the younger chickens were injured. But today the enclosure is calm and the two newbies are hanging out with the rest of the flock doing chicken like activities. So that’s a relief. Look like there is a new boss chicken too.
Did a massive burn off today. This year has sort of been dry, so the clean up of the surrounding forest has taken on an importance.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Man, in a declining civilisation a person has to hustle. Mate, I hear you about that, and whilst I’ve tried hard to insulate us from trouble, I’m going to have to work until the day I pass on.
I have nothing but respect for the kid, and when my deadbeat dad left I was so young I barely remember him, although he seemed nice enough when I occasionally met him as an adult. Anywhoo, like the kid, I had to step up to the plate in the household being the only male at times. Don’t even know if he’s alive now – the rest aren’t. Some folks thrive under adverse conditions because it removes stifling abstract limits, and I’m one of those. The lessons I learned in the kitchen at such a young age, just for one example, stand me in good stead now. My foodie mates can make claims that I can speak to from sheer experience.
Best to have a plan B my friend, but remember to enjoy plan A right to the bitter end.
Hehe! You’re both right, and amusing all at the same time. I’ve never had fresh pine nuts either. They’re not all that great tasting, but I will defer to your opinion in the matter.
Go H! And may the young lady enjoy a long and fruitful life full of adventure. What were we talking about again? Oh yeah, the open windows are not good. It’s like everyone is super chill and claiming that you are over reacting, until the incident. Then things will be different, won’t they? Sometimes folks have to learn the hard way, and there’s no guarantee that opportunists aren’t violent.
Ah, AI has no sense of quality. It really is that simple, so the workslop thing does not surprise me. But then, I work in small business and have never seen such a thing. The scale of some enterprises becomes a hindrance. I work in small business, and they’re the future.
Exactly, the interweb advice about the chickens consuming their friends is all very nice and concerned, but the birds are little rotters whom have no sense of common decency. It’s not cool to eat members of your own flock. So I’d had enough. It’s a simple and swift conclusion to the drama. I tried the other options in the past and they were worse than useless. The thing I’ve concluded from this incident is to buy chickens in the early fall when the flock is on the moult. The protein requirements are lower, and there are less social games going on because the birds are off the lay.
Oh yeah, I get that pit problem even in fruit toast from time to time. That’s why I asked, and I’ve never consumed dried cherries. Was the disclaimer printed in one point font? 😉
Glad to hear that the Swiss cheese shortage has been averted, and that your popcorn was complete. What is a green onion? Anyway, if I were being cheeky I’d suggest that the patterns are right!
Oh far out, I’m so late tonight… Ook!
It’s a strong message that is being sent, yeah. There is a tendency to get users to administer online systems nowadays. Man, I’m hearing the clarion call of: Bore someone else with the details! I’m getting sucked into such systems as well, and I can’t say that I’m a fan of the approach.
Was ‘The Postman’ film originally a book? Wasn’t aware of that. Might have to put it on the to-read list. Do you reckon it will stand up to the test of time? It’s a great premise.
Exactly, the folks in The Nightwatch look to me as if they’re headed out on a night on the town trying to subdue trouble makers, but an invading enemy? They look hopelessly ill prepared to me as well, just sayin.
Yup, the wombats would be well aware of the golf course water usage. They’re no fools those animals. The chemicals, they’d have no idea about. Ook!
Cheers and better get writing, actually head down and push in the burn off.
Chris
Yo, Chris – I meant to mention the picture of “Ollie and Dame Plume stare into the future,” is quit good. It almost looks like an illustration for a children’t book. It stirs something in the memory that I can’t quit put a finger on. Might be “The Incredible Journey,” which, as far as I can remember, I never saw.
Might as well get movies out of the way, up front. 🙂 You might remember a year or two ago, I saw a film called “Sisu.” A WWII movie about a Finn guy, trying to keep his gold strike, from the Nazis. Well, there’s a sequel, “Sisu: Road to Revenge.” It’s got 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. This time up, he’s exacting revenge on elements of the Red Army. Who killed his family.
Yeah, I figure not much will be done about the security around here, until something awful happens.
I hope small business, is the future. Unless big business, hand in hand with government, squash them. I keep thinking of a certain Secretary of Agriculture, back in the 1980s, who said “Get big or get out.” And here we are.
Yup. Most warnings like that are printed in very small type. It’s sort of like, “Well, we took care of the liability, and now we can get on to flogging the wonders of our products, in all that extra label space.”
What is a green onion? Oh, my. Another one of those, “They call it something different, down there.” A green onion, is … a green onion. They sell them very cheaply, in the stores. In bunches. Ah! Also known as scallions. Does that help?
“The Postman” is from a book by David Brin. I don’t remember all the details, but Mr. Greer and Brin were sort of allies at one point, and then weren’t. I think there was a bit of a flame war, more on Brin’s side, naturally, than Greer’s. Oh, well. Some people get “funny” in their old age. 🙂
Our high yesterday was 77F (25C). Our overnight low was 48F (8.88C). Our forecast high for today is 74F. The weather’s going to change, and I won’t have to water, tonight. Rain on the way. And, maybe winds to 20+ mph.
My radish in the half barrel, have sprouted. Boy, that was fast! H and I are headed down to the Club, for a cuppa. And maybe a gardening chat with Carl, the retired nursery man. Lew