Late Wednesday afternoon, the little Suzuki Dirt Mouse Swift took us in comfort from here into the city. It’s not all that far to the centre of town. Maybe 60km / 40 miles. A person could walk it in a couple of days! But driving is candidly the faster option. In under an hour we pulled up to a car park on a street in North Melbourne.
The drive in was interesting. Traffic moved speedily on the inbound freeway lanes. Things were different elsewhere. On the other side of the wide grassy median strip, looking through lethally strong steel cables, the traffic volume was formidable. Vehicles one after the other just stretched on and on. We were the hare racing inwards as the scenery flashed by. The peak hour knock off journey (by contrast) was the tortoise. You knew they’d get there in the end, eventually. But oh my, what pain there was on display in the gridlock.
There was plenty of parking in North Melbourne being early evening. Sandra and I had decided to have dinner at a pub we’d frequented over a quarter of a century ago. I used to live around the corner from there for about a year, and so knew the area well. From the car, we walked up a wide street where electric trams ran down the centre in both directions. It’s full of strip shops dating back from the 1850’s and an old ornate Victorian era town hall which now houses a library. The pleasantly quaint lighting added to the charm.
During the walk we passed a group of homeless folks. The air was redolent with cigarette smoke, and a wild guess based on their perceived economic circumstances, suggests they were smoking illegal chop-chop tobacco. It stunk about the same. Casually I stepped in front of Sandra, who fell in behind, and we wove our way through the collection of folks without incident. There are a lot of food businesses on that street nowadays. A quarter century ago there used to be practical businesses such as a butcher and bakery, but no matter.
As we walked past the shops, we’d peer inside. Being near to 6pm, many were still full of empty seats and tables, the dinner crowd would presumably turn up later. Standing outside our destination, the pub, was a young lady with purple hair. What was noticeable were the piercing solid purple eyes. Dye can do that, but I’ve heard that it is a very risky procedure. Probably isn’t an accountant for her day job.
Step inside the pub, or more correctly, down the alleyway and into the dining area at the rear. It was a shock to see that the place hadn’t changed in years. Dark lighting was complimented by an open fireplace against the side wall. Small tables were squeezed into the long narrow space with an aisle in between just wide enough to navigate. A single table was raised higher than the others on some sort of small bandstand – a nod to the poetry readings of yore perhaps? Carpet would have muffled the sound, and that had probably known many a spilt beer. The comfy timber bistro chairs completed the vibe. Even the bead curtain featuring a stylised image of a rainbow coloured Jesus was the same, it being kind of hard to forget. Yep, stepping back in time.
A pint of cider from the aptly named Coldstream brewery was enjoyed with our meals. At home we’re vegetarians, but away from home, who cares? The beef burger with chips was most enjoyable. The meal arrived with a small side dish of tomato sauce, and when in Rome they say! The chips were dunked in the sauce prior to consuming. Sandra ordered the Mexican parma, which at its core is a chicken schnitzel, sometimes referred to colloquially as a ‘chicken schnitty’. The thin strip of crumbed and fried chicken sat upon a bed of chips, whilst the top side had lashings of sour cream, guacamole and jalapeno chilli’s. There’s a lot to like about that meal, but we probably wouldn’t make it at home.
After an hour of enjoying food and sucking up the ambience, the pub had gotten rather busy. The front bar in particular was rocking with energy. The crowd was young, and about the same age as us when we were last there. It was a real pleasure. Still, we had to get to the gig, and so had to bid farewell to the pub.
Walking back along the street, the purple lady had disappeared, as had the homeless folks. The food businesses were getting busier. It’s a lively part of town, and is mostly residential, with a large percentage of students. Getting back to the small car, some monster SUV had parked us in. The owner fortunately wasn’t far away. He’d been parked across an alleyway and tried to pretend that he was in an allocated car park, but no, he wasn’t. So rather than apologising he says to us: “I had to park there”, blah, blah. Quick as a flash Sandra replied: “That’s good, because now I know what someone who’d do such a thing looks like!” Bam! Yeah, he became a bit defensive after that, but at least he moved his behemoth of a vehicle.
The gig wasn’t far away at a building known as ‘Festival Hall’. It was built over a century ago, and apparently used to be a boxing ring. We scored some parking one street back from the venue. The area has little Victorian era factories and workers cottages. We walked past a small terrace house which long ago I’d recommended to a friend to buy. At the time it was $40,000 on the very edge of the CBD. I believe that my friend is still renting today. Oh well.
The ticketing system was entirely new to me being a smart phone app. Frankly speaking I was mildly anxious that the program would work properly at the door to the venue. True to form, it didn’t. The security bloke tried to check the tickets, and his machine came up with some warning about them being a possible ‘screen shot’. Yeah, sure. Being an older fella with a face which inspires trust, I looked him in the eyes and said: Mate, it’s the app, you can see it. And he waved us through. Technology is wonderful, when it works.
And as to the gig, we went to see the UK band, “The Wombats” perform.
It was a fun night, and in a bizarre twist of synchronicity, upon returning home to the forest after midnight, we counted three wombats lurking around the roadsides.
The weather has continued to be quite dry lately. Overall it’s been something of a dry year. So with the summer fire risk in mind, I spent a day cutting up a huge downed tree into firewood discs, which will be split over the next month or so. It’s all a bit close to the machinery shed for my comfort levels. The day of work produced a huge stack of discs.
About a quarter of the tree was simply too large and heavy to be turned into firewood. That lot was set to be burned off, except I was very uncomfortable as to the original location of the pile I’d created. It was all a bit too close to some large trees, and it would not be a good thing if they caught fire. There’s no point becoming the most hated person in this section of the mountain range by setting fire to the forest.
Sunday morning, on a cool cloudy day, I spent a few hours moving the entire bonfire pile to a safer location, then ignited it.
During the day I just kept adding fallen branches onto bonfire, and that forested area is beginning to look a whole lot cleaner.
Regular readers will know already that the colony of European honey bees died in their hive over the past few months. I burnt the lot off and won’t be replacing the hive. Thanks to my efforts there are enough wild bee colonies living in the surrounding forest.
Opening the hive was interesting. There was no bad odour, the combs looked alright. It was as if the hive had just decided to all die on one single day. The dead bees had just kind of stopped in their tracks. The whole thing is weird and I saw no signs of the dreaded varroa mite or any other bee disease. A real mystery. There’s a possibility that they were poisoned with insect spray.
The forest clean up work is increasing our haul of rocks. Earlier in the week, we brought up a number of loads and placed them in the newest steel rock gabion.
Two part days were spent continuing excavations on the new path project linking the worm farm to another path leading down to the machinery shed.
The scary old rototiller has been doing some great work on this new path project. It rips up the clay and produces a nice fine soil material. We’re creating a flat site next to the large house water tank. Anyway, the soil gets loaded by shovel into the big power wheelbarrow, which can then be driven around and dumped anywhere on the project where the stuff is needed.
The dogs helped us do some of the work.
At the end of the first day, quite a bit of soil had been moved.
By the end of the second day, the shape of the path really began to take shape.
There remains a lot of soil yet to be moved before the site next to the large water tank becomes flat. Eventually, large rocks will retain all of the soil.
We had some chicken dramas during the week. Two of the youngest chickens had their backs pecked open by some older bullies. The birds were given a second chance, and then went straight back to eating the younger birds, so I culled them. The vibe in the chicken enclosure is much more relaxed now, and I hope the young birds recover from their injuries. However, the birds are all looking at me funny-like.
Over the almost sixteen years we’ve kept chickens, this is the second occurrence of this problem. When it first happened years ago, we tried many different things suggested by nice helpful people on the interweb, but only culling the offending birds resolved the problem.
This week’s video is on the path project and an early spring update for the fruit trees in the sunny orchard.
Onto the flowers:
The temperature outside now at about 10am is 14’C (57’F). So far for this year there has been 586.4mm (23.1 inches) which is up from last weeks total of 582.8mm (22.9 inches)
Comments
41 responses to “The Other Wombats”
@ All,
Thanks for the kind comments about my pyrography. I had a lot of fun with that one. The lettering was a challenge. I thought it should get a blue ribbon in pyrography. Our featured artist, a master carver, sometimes a show judge, and a member of our club, well, he said that it was the best work I’ve done. I thought at least one of my best two.
Unfortunately, the judges disagreed. They didn’t like how the lettering was done. This is where it gets subjective. The 3 judges all prefer evenly spaced lettering over lettering that is “balanced” on the wood and with the main design. The work got a red ribbon.
But I had fun and am happy with the work. It’s a gift for the Princess, a Leo, and she really likes it.
“Rethink, redeploy, reorganize”. This is a phrase used by the main character in the Jack Reacher series of books. The author claims that it comes from the US Army. It’s a phrase the Princess likes but can’t remember, so I put it on a plate for her to hang up where she can see it every day.
DJSpo
Yo, Chris – That sounds like a really nice evening, in town. A few bumps, but nothing major, and everything evened out. At least the concert wasn’t canceled by a rouge fatberg. 🙂 What, pray tell, is “chop-chop tobacco?”
Sounds like the pub was a virtual time machine. Nice when some things don’t change. Did they give you the senior citizen discount? 🙂
The tucker sounds really tasty.
It’s always good to be fire conscious. A lot of people, aren’t. Your clean-up is really looking good. Sort of like the biggest estate on earth.
The “few loads” picture, didn’t materialize. Just one of those odd small blue boxes, with a question mark in the middle.
Bees poisoned with insect spray? How does that happen?
The path is really beginning to shape up. A very pleasing swoop and curve.
The video was very good. Cool shades! The sunny orchard is putting on its spring costumes. I like that time of the year, when the trees are just leafing out, and it looks like they have a green mist. I figure all those earth moving pics were to justify your evening out.
🙂 . No justification needed. You folks work hard and more than deserve an evening out, or a ramble around a nature preserve. “All work and no play,” etc. etc.. Clears the head.
The Rosemary is quit spectacular. Our venerable old rosemary, is doing OK, but has developed some kind of a lichen or moss. The Master Gardeners say they have a cure, but it hasn’t shown up, yet. You know, rosemary is one of those plants that often appear in bonsai books. I guess they’re pretty easy to “train up.” Lew
Hi Lewis,
Rogue fatberg dead ahead twelve a-clock! 🙂 I would have been annoyed if such a thing happened, but I’d imagine the band would do another gig at a later date. This country is sort of like their home away from home, but yeah things can go wrong for sure for touring musicians. Touring would be no time to become ill, would it?
At the same venue long, long ago way back in 1994, I turned up with friends to see another UK band, Depeche Mode. They cancelled on the night with very little warning. My friends said something about err, alleged drug issues causing the cancellation. I didn’t want to go anyway, but was talked into it, and so it was no great loss that one. Getting the refund felt good, like a vindication of my earlier thoughts on the subject. Winning! 🙂
Chop-Chop is what they call illegally grown and sourced tobacco products. A pack of ciggies cost about maybe, I dunno, $50, maybe more due to the taxes. So there is a perverse incentive for smokers to get their fix on the cheap. Presumably crims are happy to meet the needs of their customers?
Very funny! You may laugh, but I recall the seniors discounts for pub meals back in the day. Sometimes colloquially known as the ‘pensioners special’, just don’t ask too many questions about the meat. It’d be hard to make mad cash profits on that market what with the margins being minuscule. It’s a volume proposition which is always chancy. Hey, the gig was an 18+ years event as the venue served alcohol (no glass), and at least we weren’t ID checked like the young ladies ahead of us in the queue! The security bloke gave me a cheeky grin as he did it. It was a very good traditional pub feed.
Hehe! Lewis, oh my goodness, that’s so true about the biggest-ish estate, but so many folks get all uptight about the matter. That’s their problem. The weather today was glorious, there’s no getting around it, and it’s still warm late this evening. The bonfire was going this morning, so we fed it all day long. Me tired, but we also removed an awful lot of rocks so that the area is now more easily maintained. That work can also be described as an investment in the future.
I was so disappointed with that book because it could have been written any number of ways, but sadly it was pitched to the academic market. Hardly the sort of folks to make use of the startling conclusions. Still, I’m glad I read it.
Thanks for letting me know about the problematic image. Totally my fault. I selected an option for the photos which sounded reasonable at the time, but clearly wasn’t. Hope the image is fixed now, and I’d appreciate your confirmation. Won’t do that trick again! 🙂
Well, it’s not like someone wasn’t lurking around prior to us notifying the entire local community and setting up a large number of trail cameras just to keep an eye on nefarious activity.
Good projects are like most excellent cake batter. And I’m using the path even as it appears today. There’ll be some rain tomorrow (apparently) and that will help bed down and bind the soil, maybe.
A good friend once said about those shades that I looked like John Lennon, who also chose those sunglasses. 🙂 They’re hard to buy now because somehow the idea got into the manufacturers heads that people wanted bigger circular shades, but no.
All very true, and there is much to be said about balance. Plus what’s not to like about good food?
You’ve mentioned that your Rosemary gets over watered, and seriously, the plant does really well in droughts…
Thanks so much, I too enjoyed that photo of the the two dogs who were staring off into the distance. It was a poignant moment although there was no forest critters down there, and I’d wondered what they were each thinking at that very moment.
Oh yeah, there was a lot to be unhappy about in those days with the Finnish gold fossicker just wanting to stay out of harms way. First one lot of troubles, and then the next. You know, I dunno about you, but I read David Morrell’s book First Blood, and never saw the film. I got the idea that the actors never really portrayed the post traumatic stress syndrome and sheer nuance that the book captured. The scene of the sharing of the moonshine jug with the locals was good advice.
Let’s hope it doesn’t end badly on that security front.
A lot of squooshing is applied to small businesses, that’s for sure. The red tape only gets more intense as the years go on. And next July there’s loose talk about even more payroll complexities and penalties.
It’s all lost in translation with the green onions. We call them ‘spring onions’ basically because they’re harvested early before the large bulb forms.
That authors name does ring a mental bell. Hmm. Oh well, these things can happen. Best not to get involved, but then sometimes an open mind asks the hard question: Well, is he right? I’d like to imagine that you and I, and all the other commenter’s here, are like a good bottle of wine and that we only get better as we age.
Rain, sounds like good news. The weather station here is predicting a storm. We’ll see how it turns out. Did your rain eventuate?
Ain’t much faster growing than radish. I like those plants, a lot.
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
The pyrography was excellent, and I’m curious about the lettering, did the judges prefer some sort of calligraphy? The lion was exemplary work.
Perhaps I did not comprehend your description of the desired writing style though, but how does a person create evenly spaced lettering on a round work piece? Anyway, learning what the judges are looking for is part of the entire process of entering a competition.
For a few laughs, your situation reminds me of a time in High School when the English teacher asked for a creative essay. So I wrote something truly creative, like say along the lines of your previous Werewolf work, which was also excellent. Except that the term ‘creative essay’ had long ago been clearly defined to mean something that the words themselves did not suggest. Man, I still don’t know what the bloke was talking about all these years later. I might have missed something important there! 😉
It’s a really lovely gift for your lady. Nice one. Personal gifts are the best of all.
Go Jack Reacher! I’ve only seen one of those films (and have sadly not read the books), but enjoyed it. He’s a smart bloke because he catches the bus to move around.
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – All pictures present and accounted for, Sir! 🙂
We don’t seem to have a trade, in chop-chop, here. Maybe in our SE, where they grow the stuff. Along state borders, if one state has lower tobacco taxes, there’s a lot of informal, cigarette smuggling. Oddly, loose tobacco (for pipes), is taxed at a much lower rate. So, a lot of people “roll their own.” Tobacco, booze. Taxes on taxes on all that stuff. Here, often called “sin taxes.”
A lot of places, here, not just food, have “senior discounts.” But you usually have to ask. There are also veterans discounts.
I think some books are masters or PHD dissertations. Occasionally, a publisher can be lured into publishing them. Sometimes, it’s a university press. In the book biz, university press items were occasionally harder to get. Discounts were lower, and return policies sometimes more stringent.
Our high yesterday was 75F (23.88C). Our overnight low was 59F (15C). The forecast high for today is 66F. H and I took our last dry walk, probably for awhile, at midnight, last night. It’s coming down, this morning. A bit more than a drizzle. We got wet. 🙂 I broke out my winter coat, for the first time. It doesn’t absorb water as fast, and dries out, quickly. H got a good toweling down, when we got home. I’ll be picking up worms off the sidewalk, and pitching them into the garden beds. Looking at my calendar, on this date, back in 2019 we had our first light frost. Just enough to kill the tomatoes. This year, the leaves haven’t really started turning, yet.
Just like a lot of other things, shades come in many styles. That come and go. The Harry Potter glasses, were big for awhile. Still around, but not so much in evidence.
The first movie, “Sisu,” was very good. I’m looking forward to the second. The past couple of nights I’ve been watching a miniseries called “Outrageous.” It’s about the six Mitford sisters. They were from a noble family, on its uppers. This is the late 1920s, through WWII. They went in wildly divergent directions. Two were notorious fascists. One was the mistress (later wife) of Mosby. The other buddy-buddy with Hitler. Another sister was a communist.
I quit liked it, and the sets, of course, I found very interesting.
https://w.wiki/FUiU
Small business does it hard. Getting the Idaho hotel open, has been quit an ordeal. Lots of hoops to jump through. Inspections, etc.. Always something new, coming up. The latest? All pictures must be screwed to the walls.
Here, green onions are available in the stores, year round. I haven’t a clue where the winter ones come from. Probably, California.
Even though it’s raining, the Master Gardeners showed up this morning. They’ve got some kind of project going, with the grapes. Ground cover and bark mulch. Maybe some shoring up, as the timbers holding it from sliding through the Rodies, and onto the sidewalk are rotting out. They need some rock gabion cages. 🙂
I strung my Cayenne peppers, last night. I left the needle in the thread, as, there may be some more red ones.
Might be a glimmer of hope, for the world, yet. I saw an article in our local newspaper, about a tool library.
https://chronline.com/stories/brian-mittge-new-tool-library-is-a-swiss-army-knife-for-us-all,388015
At the end of the article, there’s also a report on a local “Repair Fair.” Chehalis Outfitters is the new name of the Sunbirds variety store. It’s in the same complex (and landlords of), the Club. Lew
Hi Chris,
That’s too bad about the chickens. If a chicken has even the smallest wound the others will go after it. I had a white hen who had a wound which was very evident being wet. The other chickens would all go after her. I took her out to the goat pen early each morning and took her back and put her on the roost when it was close to dark until the wound healed. It took a long time.
You asked if the pigs were still here – they are until Wednesday when they have t96%heir one bad day. They’ve been getting lots of apples and acorns for some time now. Doug raked a large amount of acorns for the spoiled pigs. They also get one marshmallow in the morning. They’ve had a good life.
We’ve had very little rain this month and it’s been quite warm as well. I read today that 96% of Illinois is at some level of drought. The creek at the end of the road was flowing for much of the summer but not anymore.
Claire mentioned last week that warehouses are taking up prime farmland. Well here it’s solar farms. The farmers are paid so much by the solar properties to lease the land you can see why they do it. Another example of short-sightedness.
I am so sick of apps!!. I have just about decided to go back to a flip phone. I would miss my Merlin app that identifies bird calls and my plant identification one but the rest – nope.
Margaret
Hi, Chris!
Uh, oh – is that photo uptop of the bee hives?
I am lucky, living outside of the little smoke. People complain about the traffic, but it is nothing compared to bigger places. Even at “rush” hour it moves pretty swiftly.
How neat that Melbourne has electric trams. That might be worth a gold star. That area sounds like an echo from the past (not counting the cars). Did you know that, as the big, strong, masculine male, when walking down a street – though not when dodging homeless folks – you are supposed to walk on the outside, next to the street, so that you can stop any runaway cars, trams, or horses from flattening your lady?
Eyes can be dyed?! How about purple contact lenses?
How delightful that the pub had not changed; that doesn’t happen very often. And it sounds like a delish meal. But – mama mia! – what a jerk parker. Give him what for, Lady of Fernglade! Another mama mia for the faulty app. I hate those things. I want to hold my cardboard ticket in my little grubby hand. But go Wombats large and small!
Is a disc different from a log? That’s a nice shot of your house in the background. It looks a bit like Mt. Vernon, President George Washington’s house, though he doesn’t use it anymore. It’s a couple of hours north of me.
So – it was the bee hives. You have another big mystery on your hands. Perhaps you live at Mysteryglade Farm. I think (?) bees are very sensitive to sprays; maybe you got some drift. Once our neighbor WAY over through the woods had someone spray herbicide and it drifted through all those trees and killed some of our tomato plants.
Perfecto gabions! Your rototiller and power wheelbarrow make a perfect team; the path is looking great. Hey – Plum’s ears and tail are up, while Ruby’s ears and tail are down. Do we think she has an inferiority complex due to her sister being a Dame?
I am glad that your chicken drama is not mine.
In the video, you are wearing a very nice 1930s driving cap. More nostalgia? After viewing the orchard, I now think maybe you live on Crookedglade Farm. I did that with a pear rootstock. I saved its life and let it grow because it was so beautiful. It produced a clone and I moved that one to another spot to enjoy it. We have a few native maple trees. They are slow growing, too, like my Japanese maple. And once again – the path looks great,
Wow! I have never seen such a big, beautiful rosemary bush. Thanks for that, and for the tree flowers.
Pam
@ DJSpo:
What a shame. What could possibly be wrong with that lettering? It looks evenly spaced to me. I like the noble lion so much; he reminds me of you.
Pam
Hi Margaret,
That’s so true, and it’s not lost on me that chickens were once long ago dinosaurs. The older and meaner birds caused the wounds on the young chickens backs, and we gave those two youngsters time out to heal properly before then re-releasing them. And the bullies did it all over again. Those rotters had to go.
This morning I was observing the two youngsters, who are now recovering from their ordeal. A little flash of insight hit me. The two young birds had been raised in a hatchery where all of the hens were the same age. They never encountered, knew or even learned how to duck and weave from larger and older aggressive birds – it was probably as much of a shock to them, as it was to me. If they’d done that learning previously (which had probably been the case with every other chicken I’d even purchased), none of this would have eventuated. But, here’s the thing, now with less chickens to hassle the two pullets, I can see that they’re learning and adapting to the realities of the world. They were like ‘hen road kill’ and I will never buy this way again.
Unfortunately on Saturday after the deed was done with the birds, I then caught up with friends for lunch. It wasn’t the first time birds were processed, so I was mostly fine from the experience. But I did recount the tale because I was late, and hey, that’s what goes on behind the scenes when it comes to raising stock for meat. Your pigs, like my chickens, have lead a charmed life up until that point. Far worse things occur in commercial enterprises, and such tales are always swept under the carpet with folks who don’t want to know what it takes. Exactly, they’ve all enjoyed a very good life.
Ook! I do wonder if your winter will be warmer and wetter than usual? Dunno, and hope you get some decent rainfall soon. We did a bit of forest clean up work over the previous two days, and I was rather surprised by how dry the soil looked. Hmm.
Far out, and yeah, those things are dotting the landscape further west and north of here where it is drier and warmer. The thing is, large transmission towers and lines are planned to be installed across farm land, and the rural folks having to deal with those industrial installations are not happy. If city folks want solar, put it on their roofs. The real issue here is that most city roof designs are not constructed to support much in the way of solar photovoltaic panels.
🙂 Isn’t it like everything? Some apps are useful, and others, not so much. I only ever got a smart phone because I had no choice in the matter. It was that, or lose my business which I’d worked hard to develop over many long years. What do you do?
Cheers
Chris
Hi Pam,
It’s awful isn’t it? Yes, that was the hive which was all burnt off. I took a good long look at it, and the bees had simply stopped in their tracks one day. Other than that, the hive looked and smelled fine. What do you? All the same, the hive box cannot be re-used under any circumstance, so I fed the lot to the flames and learned that honey burns fiercely and hot.
🙂 Like you, I too mostly see only rural traffic, which is as per your description mostly quiet.
The electric tram network is the most extensive on the planet, and as a kid I used to travel on them to get to school. In those days the timber windows opened to let in the fresh air during hot summer weather, and the seats were comfy leather. Conductors used to walk from one end of the tram to the other selling tickets and/or checking travel passes – which as a student I had an annual one made of cardboard. Not something which would survive the wash, huh? But then neither would a mobile phone with their fancy apps. Maybe mine would as it is designed to be smooshed around, like dropped from heights into shallow water – and continue working. A person has to know themselves with such choices don’t you reckon? Is it just me, or do you see phones with smashed glass screens?
Pam, I hadn’t considered that aspect of the bloke street positioning situation, but no doubts you are spot on. Funnily enough you reminded me of a story from long ago when we encountered a loose cow running down one of the local rural roads (which are thankfully quiet). A local farmer, whom I knew, later said: Why didn’t you stop it? It was one of those moments when you appreciate just how far out of your depth that you are. 🙂
Nope, no contact lenses, just 100% pure dye. A truly risky procedure. It was a startling look too, to which I’d not even been aware was a possibility.
The pub was lovely, and I lived around the corner from it in my youthful share house days of the very early 90’s. And it is at this very moment that I feel the need to apologise to my former house-mate, who may possibly be reading if faceplant is any guide to peoples behaviour. He moved out of the two bedroom apartment before the end of the lease, something to do with noise… Oh well, such things have been known to happen.
Apps, can’t live with them. And it didn’t even work properly on the night. The minor note of anxiety the thing produced was not welcome. Hey, they don’t do proper tickets any more. It was a fun night though, and band put on a really great show and gave the performance their all. Can’t ask for more than that.
Chainsaws decide the difference between logs and discs, yup. Great machines, truly useful, but sometimes abused in the wrong hands when taken to extremes of use.
Thank you and that is very high praise indeed. The house here is a little bit smaller, actually a whole lot smaller. Old George looks as though he had some very productive kitchen gardens there, but I hold some doubts that he knew which end of the shovel was what. His lady on the other hand would have known more about the day to day workings of getting food on the table.
Sorry to say, spray drift is a very unlikely theory. The council hasn’t even bothered to clean up the vegetation on the side of the road for many years now. It amazes me when they grade the dirt road.
The path is already super useful, and I do hope that we get to do some more work on it later in the week. Time will tell. Had to go and buy some new guts for the computer today because the operating system (from the geeky guy’s compny who is allegedly sometimes associated with the strange guy who ran islands and somehow got dead in jail) version ten, is about to be discontinued. I’m annoyed by the expense, but what does the Serenity prayer have to say about such matters? As always I’m reaching for acceptance. It’s an option don’t you reckon?
Like the name, and you’re in for a treat, and possibly a present for your son: Hanna Hats of Donegal. Such fine works of head art, but you do have to get the sizing right. As you’d imagine I’ve got a big head, but not in the metaphorical meaning of those words.
A bloke I watch from your west coast, recently visited the east coast of your country, and mentioned how different the soils were there (the trees thus being smaller). The soils here are probably closer to west coast soils given the size and sheer girth of the trees.
🙂 That was after the pruning of the Rosemary bush. It was about twice as large.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Jolly good to hear Cap’n! 🙂 Appreciate the feedback.
In today’s news, this morning I spotted a Koala climbing a tree in the valley below here, which is not far away at all. Looked very healthy and robust too. Ollie and I inadvertently scared off a young wombat loitering near to the chicken enclosure after dark. It’ll be back. And we took the day off work to attend to some of life’s pesky little administrative activities.
Drove an hours north to a big town to purchase some new guts for this computer. Geek boy’s software version ten is apparently throwing me under the bus in a fortnights time. It pains me to replace working components, but the Serenity prayer offers guidance in these matters. It’s not all the bits either, just the ones that matter in this instance. The awful thing is after the fortnights time, there is a perverse incentive for some nefarious person to do a ‘zero day exploit’ attack, and you know, I run a business using this tech stuff. Render unto Caesar and stuff, and moving on.
Well, I believe that it is a thing down here with that illegal trade, and I’d have to suggest that the extraordinary sin taxes have produced bizarre outcomes. I’ve never smoked, it was a habit which never held any appeal. There were plenty of other ways to lose yourself though, like video games, which just popped into my head for no real reason. 😉 In many ways the current situation is a lot like your Prohibition era experiment in that it provides a solid income for crims. What did the powers that be expect would happen? I’ve heard that loose leaf stuff described as ‘roll your own’ down here as well, and generally it is cheaper, and to me smells a touch better and less like a chemical factory fire.
Oh poop! I’m years away from a seniors card, and no doubts the way the state goobermint debt is rapidly piling up, it’ll be gone by the time I get to that eligibility.
Ah, of course. That makes so much sense about books being published as a doctoral thesis. I reckon that maybe the book we read on the history of recycling was one of those. Have to laugh, you, I and the Editor all put down the book without finishing at around the same point independently. Definitely not an engaging way to write. Your returns policy for those particular books could be accompanied with the delightful words: I told you not to buy the book in the first place. Now get lost! A touch confrontational don’t you reckon for folks who were raised on a solid diet of the customer always being right?
Seems like you have the possibility of a Pacific north west cyclone developing. That’ll be exciting for the folks more west of where you are. Hope some of the rain extends over to DJ’s part of the state. Stay dry, and keep a towel for H, just in case. Nothing so exciting going on here in the forecast, although Saturday and Sunday are warmer at 25’C / 77’F and 27’C / 81’F but the rest of the ten days promises cool conditions. Quite nice although I hope we get some decent rain soon. There was a little bit of the wet stuff which falls from the sky this morning.
Some years down here, the tomatoes can linger on into May, which is so weird. All depends on the frosty mornings really, but even so, the low light levels eventually get them. There are a few sickly looking seedlings in the greenhouse which have over wintered. Not sure what to make of those plants.
What fun dinner table conversation that lot would have had, and personally I’m siding with the unobtrusive poultry connoisseur. I’d possibly describe them as eccentric, yeah. Candidly there is plenty of fodder in their collective stories as to how do people with wildly different views spend time in each others company. And my personal opinion in the matter is that it would have been simply far cheaper and easier for everyone else to have provided meaning by giving the ladies an Education. The sets would have been sumptuous as befits the personages. I’ll mention the series to the Editor.
Holy carp! Who thinks to screw painting onto walls? I’d hate to consider what incident caused that rule to come into being. Probably wasn’t nice…
I reckon California for the green onions too, although with enough selective breeding they’d grow fine in your area.
The rock gabions sure would stand up to such plant mischief. But new timbers may suffice in that instance, and hopefully they get to that before it all falls onto the side walk. People can get funny about such incidents. There was that time when the sign in the geeky electronics shop smacked me in the nose and I looked like I’d just been in a street fight. I tell you truly, people looked at me funny that day what with a big face scratch and a raw looking wound.
Hope you get some more peppers to string up. Man, we’re a bit slack with those and just chuck them on a plate sitting on the bench so as to stay dry for the winter. Seems to work, although you have limited space available for such things.
Whoa! The tool library is amazing, and I know of nothing like that down here, other than equipment rental businesses. It’s pretty good, and the library photo oozed the word “organised”. A mate used to volunteer at a repair café and he mentioned that there was a requirement to have a licensed electrician on site whenever they were doing work. That was a bit of a buzzkill. I fix my own stuff as much as possible.
Might get to the computer on Thursday when the forecast suggests rainy weather.
Cheers
Chris
@ Margaret – Just as a suggestion … I have the Lively, Jitterbug flip phone. Have had, for years. They’re the ones that advertise in the AARP magazine and bulletin.
They have the BEST customer service I’ve ever run across. And, when the world “upgraded” to 5G, they sent me a new free phone.
They advertise that it’s $15 a month. Well, no. When all is said and done (taxes, etc.), I pay about $27 a month. Soon to go to $29.
When I signed up, a very nice young man, of course, tried to sell a bunch of add ons. I told him, I realized he’s just doing his job. As an example, there’s an emergency button. I asked him, if 911 didn’t work? Well, it does, so, why pay an extra $3 a month for an emergency button? 🙂 I also saved a little bit by not being able to send texts, but I can get texts. Although I found I can send texts, and am charged by the text. But, as I hardly ever do that, it’s less than the monthly charge.
Another point. I don’t know how you feel about payment methods, but I went with having it charged to my credit card, monthly. They keep pushing to have it come out of my checking account, but I ignore that.
They also have a dumb phone, and, if I’m ever cornered into getting one of those, I’ll go with them. Anyway. That’s my unsolicited advice. :-). Lew
PS: I get 200 minutes a month. It doesn’t roll over, if you don’t use them all. That works fine, for me. You can get more minutes, for more money.
Yo, Chris – That’s really exciting about the Koala. You thought there might be some lurking around. At least, with their limited diets, they’ll probably stay out of your produce. An interesting article from the wonderful world of animals. Birds, actually.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/29/science/blue-jay-green-jay-hybrid
We have blue jays, here, but I think they’re a slightly different species than the blue jays in Texas.
Yes, life’s pesky activities. I made up a batch of the oatmeal and fruit, this morning. H needs a bath. Maybe this afternoon. If she gets a bath, I should do some laundry.
Good luck with the computer upgrade. Two falls out of three. It’s lucky you had martial arts training. 🙂 Last night, I had to make a copy of H’s rabies paperwork, to give to Little Mary Sunshine. No problems. Then I went to print out your lime advice, which I had transferred to a document. I just kept getting the message, “Can’t locate printer.” Well, it’s sitting right here … I’ll give it another whirl, tonight. Also, there was an upgrade. They come, every once in awhile. Usually, they have to do with security stuff. This one took over an hour to download and install. There was some security stuff mixed in there, but I notice a couple of new icons. Things I never asked for, or will use.
Smokes, video games, a lot of etc.. It’s all addictive behavior. Or, can be. I saw a very nice article on … coffee.
https://www.npr.org/2023/07/09/1183765334/coffee-farming-savoring
I finished the R. Crumb bio, last night. Of course, he’s ‘Ta, Ta, Talkin’ About my Generation…” 🙂 So I found it interesting. I had a laugh, he has one cartoon (there’s a few in the book) that had quotes by different people, about Modern Art. “Abstract Art: A product of the untalented, sold by the unprincipled, to the utterly bewildered.” That’s from Al Capp, creator of the Li’l Abner comic strip. “Minimal art is maximum profit”. That’s from minimalist sculptor Isamu Noguchi. Philosopher, educator and scholar, (also, the godfather of media studies) Marshall McLuhan said, “Art is anything you can get away with.” 🙂
Just for poops and giggles, I checked out E-Buy to see what the market for signed, R. Crumb works were going for. Some of it is in the thousands. That’s mostly signed, original works. But there’s a lot of signed, printed material, for $100 or less. You know, he’s quit elderly, and sooner or later … well, the prices of his work will take a jump.
Our high yesterday was 64F (17.77C). Our overnight low was 54F (12.22C). Our forecast high for today is 66F. H and I stayed mostly dry, yesterday and this morning. As long as I keep an eye on the radar. The rain seems to be coming in, in waves and blobs, with a bit of clearing, between. It was pretty breezy, this morning. Prof. Mass hasn’t mentioned it, but it looks like the northern Pacific blob is back.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/blob-returned-north-pacific-ocean-180032181.html
I also finished watching the Mitford mini-series, last night. Will there be a season two? Unknown at this point, though all the actors are up for it, and there’s a lot of viewer interest. It takes one right up to the eve of WWII. Not exactly a cliff hanger, but you know things will get “interesting.” Time will tell. The sets were really great. A lot of small, Art Deco display cabinets, like the ones I sent to auction. Deco tea services. It was a feast for my eyes.
I think I’ve mentioned, our library system has a “Library of Stuff.” I haven’t explored it too thoroughly, but it’s pretty extensive. Even kitchen kit.
And, finally, I saw an article on what I had mentioned. AI “companions.”
https://wskg.org/npr-culture/2025-09-22/what-is-the-impact-of-outsourcing-romantic-relationships-to-ai-partners
There’s been a few movies, on how this sort of thing can go terribly wrong. Although there are even a couple of comedies. Lew
Chris:
My wombat has been unmasked: I just got back from the mailboxes and my son was coming back up the hill from behind the house. He said that he had seen a fat groundhog (aka Marigold Monster) in the garden and had sprinted out there as fast as he could and caught it going out through a small hole in the fence. I had not seen that hole, but it is good news to know about it. This winter major fortifications will be put in place.
I see Margaret mentioned solar installations on farmland. My son came back from the tip/dump/landfill the other day and mentioned that they had put 10 acres into making a solar installation. At least that’s not farm land, except the whole thing used to be.
When taking my children to visit my parents in Ft. Collins, Colorado, one of our favorite things was to ride the trolley, as they call it. It is a very short route, 2.4km, just a tourist thing, but it was a blast from the past as they used the original cars.
Just the other day I discovered that the covering over my phone’s camera lenses was broken, part of it right off. It still seems to work okay. I always carry it in my pocket and it does get knocked around in the garden a bit. I actually use that camera quite a lot. It is the only one I have.
You know how big those cows are – stop it?! Like, you keep cow treats in your pocket at all times, or a lasso? That has happened to me several times (the farmer has now had all his fences fixed, for the nonce). I always just call the farmer’s wife.
I daresay your former housemate forgave you long ago. Though it doesn’t hurt to show that you regret your youthful behavior.
I kind of wish the state (it’s not the county council here that does it anymore) would leave some of the roadsides alone, at least some of the time. The wildflowers are so beautiful.
My son is putting new guts in his computer, too, because we also have to make a choice between operating systems in 2 weeks. I don’t know if he dealt with the strange dead island guy’s company, or are we all doing that anyway? My laptop is not compatible with the 11 version. What to do, what to do?
Thanks for mentioning the Serenity Prayer. I love that.
Thanks for the haberdashery visit. Awesome hats!
I have made one fine cotton handkerchief and carry it when I go into town. I always have a bandana in my pocket at home. And I am now making napkins and sending them to my poor, unsuspecting friends.
Pam
Chris,
“…how does a person create evenly spaced lettering on a round work piece?” Aye, well, there’s the rub. Our master carver/featured artist had recently been working on just that exact predicament. He concluded that you can’t get evenly spaced lettering in the round. He completely agreed that the lettering must be balanced around the image in the center. The judges clearly disagreed, the judge who wrote the comments having had a graphic arts background. I trust our master carver more than the judges. None of the three judges have done extensive pyrography and thus no pyrographic lettering. I’m happy with the work. The Princess is happy with the work.
An additional comment our master carver made says a lot. He and I have discussed that either you do the work you enjoy regardless of the judging, or else you do work that you think the judges will like, and maybe not enjoy what you’re doing. The interesting comment was, “Even though you chose to do this piece for a totally different reason, it looks much more like the type of thing the judges usually like. This confirms to do what you want, as there is no guarantee they will like what the artist thinks they will like.” The judges also disliked the style of lettering I chose. They would have preferred it if I had connected the vertical and horizontal bit of the letters. The letter “E” really is a good example of their preference. A judge in another show might like my lettering. Again, the Princess likes the lettering and choice of style.
Dude, the dread creative essay. I remember similar episodes in high school English and in university English. It brings to mind my final year of high school, the senior year. Senior English, the final term, the teacher got into a lengthy unit of poetry. None of us clicked with it. On that unit’s exam, I wrote:
“I knew I shouldn’t do it:
This test was I loath to take.
Teaching poems to this group of seniors
Was one giant, gross mistake.”
Most of the rest of the class turned in blank papers. She retaught the entire unit with our input how to make it more interesting.
My last line, by the way, was an inside joke, which she did catch. Her last name was Salisbury. She told us one day that her family had hired a genealogist who found that they were descended from Henry VIII via an illegitimate child. I had quickly interjected that “We’ve learned in our Bible classes here that illegitimate children are boo boos, so that makes you descend from a big Miss Steak, Miss Salisbury.” Somebody rapidly added “steak” onto my “Salisbury”. She sighed and said that she knew she shouldn’t have mentioned that to our class. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salisbury_steak
Ah, yes, the Jack Reacher movies with Tom Cruise. I must say that we enjoyed the movies even though the Jack Reacher in the books is 6 foot 5 inches tall and 250 pounds whereas Tom Cruise claims to be 5 feet 8 inches but is probably shorter. The Jack Reacher series is another series of books that I own many of and love to reread. So for me to say that I enjoyed movies made from a favorite series of books even though the main character is miscast should mean something good about the entertainment value of the movies.
And that bus scene was classic!
“It was a fun night, and in a bizarre twist of synchronicity, upon returning home to the forest after midnight, we counted three wombats lurking around the roadsides.” Oh how funny. Three Wombats in the band, three wombats near your home. The Princess and I both had a good laugh at that. Now, are you certain that the 3 Wombats weren’t also the 3 wombats? Glad you enjoyed the concert.
So, great food, interesting people to view before the food, and an adventure with a rude driver. All of this before the concert. Quite the adventurous evening.
DJSpo
Hi Pam,
Tis the season for well fed forest critters to ravage the gardens prior to the closure of the growing season in temperate northerly climates. Your feelings were about the same as mine towards Kuato. Maybe next year at this time you need to have a ‘Fat Groundhog week’, whilst six months later we’ll have a ‘Fat Brushtail Possum week’? Better fencing and an earlier intervention will save a lot of dramas, but at the same time reduce the size and quality of the talent pool. What a decision we have to make here! 😉 Produce versus Marketing concepts – which will win?
Far out! Yup, we know not what we lose, but plough on all the same. This area used to be well known for it’s potatoes and berries, and yet time has marched on and few now remember. Mind you, when we’ve run out of potatoes I buy from some local old blokes who know every bit of ancient gossip ’round these parts, and aren’t afraid to share it with me. Those two remember, far out memories are long in rural areas. In a bizarre twist to the story, their mum used to own the large tract of land next to this which was used to produce potatoes, and it’s now all reverted to a young forest since a fire in the early 90’s.
That was so lovely looking the Fort Collins trolleys. The trams of my youth were not dissimilar, maybe a bit longer and wider, but all timber with ornate decoration. As were some of the electric trains too in those days. Funnily enough, you can sometimes see such carriages in random places in the rural landscape. People used them as sheds, or in some cases as accommodation. Two of the larger inland towns (which are probably tiny compared to the ones in your country) have those working electric trolleys as tourist draw cards. The ones in the big smoke are purely pragmatic and functional.
Oh poop, that’s no good. They are handy bits of kit when in the garden, and with the forest work over the past couple of months, it was safer to use those more robust devices than the higher quality Pentax SLR camera. Incidentally, the Japanese for some reason, sell second hand SLR cameras on the cheap, most of which have been in outstanding condition upon arrival.
Are there cow treats? You learn something new every day. Now if it was a large dog, I’d know what to do, and even the neighbours Husky if on the loose will come when commanded to do so. But a cow is truly unknown territory, and I like your style using the bush telegraph. We don’t have livestock beyond dogs, bees and chickens. And all those require knowledge of one sort or another don’t you reckon? Mr Baby has completely different needs to that of a large dog, which is different again to bees etc…
Ha! One undocumented feature of the future is that there will be more wild flowers. 🙂 Trust me, it is not free to use all those sprays, and the local council here has not managed the road vegetation for many a year. Hmm.
Yeah, version eleven is how things will go. Pam, as much as such waste annoys me, I have to also be able to operate within the world of businesses which does use such software, so I have to know it. A person could become an anachronism, so the upgrade for me is also a kick up the backside to stay up to date. However, if your son has the time, there are ways to use eleven with your older computer which bypass the need for the stupid security hardware thing that it is looking for. Not even all that difficult. Toms Hardware has a guide on how to do that. You don’t even need to log into geek boys world if that’s your thing – and I’ll choose that path, but we’ll see how it goes. It’s called a local account, if that helps. Better than being hacked or paying subscriptions to avoid the software reality.
I love it too, and try to remain calm even in horrid circumstances, although occasionally I have failed, like with the awful firewood incident. Oh well, to err, is to be human. I’m told by reliable sources that if you lose control, then someone else has gained control. Hardly a comforting thought don’t you reckon?
Well done you. That’s proper style, and you are subtly setting the tone for others to follow.
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
I see, and much depends upon the age of the judges in that instance I believe. A lot of graphic design has for many decades been relegated to computers which have made such work easy. Back in the day it required serious drawing skills, and I recall the days of huge drafting boards before software such as CAD programs became the norm. The thing which stands out to me, is that with pyrography, you get one chance to get it spot on. A lot of the more complicated repairs to machines here are like that, so I can see your perspective. Presumably, the judges would love calligraphy, but that would be like learning a whole ‘nother skill set and you’re being judged on the pyrography.
Exactly, if the work was done to please your lady, then there can be no finer compliment than if the outcome is that it is appreciated for the gift that it is.
Far out, it’d be like if we set out here to win gardening awards. I’d have to spend an inordinate amount of time keeping up to date with what the latest trends are, and then perhaps instead of planting edibles and creating resilient systems, I’d have to make much of strange plants that are super hard to grow in highly labour intensive arrangements. Such is the way to madness… 🙂
Oh my gawd! Save us from forced poetry. Possibly had Vogon blood? 😉 Your final entry was pretty witty, although I’d have not dared so brashly because the final year results would have impacted my abilities to score well enough to get into university. English was my lowest mark. The entire subject was a complete mystery, for no reason that I’ve ever been able to discern.
Ook, Mr Salisbury’s potentially faddish recommendations should possibly be taken with a grain of salt, and the awareness that such options may steal a person of a decade. That’s all very amusing with the teacher, and a wonderful way to shoot down a dubious claim to fame. I’ve never seen a Salisbury steak meal, but being vegetarian at home there’s a chance I’ve not noticed the food option. Actually steak restaurants aren’t all that common down under.
Yeah, it was an epic scene and some quick thinking. I’ve not read any of the Jack Reacher books, but have only heard good things about them. And yes, there is a bit of a difference with your description and the actor, who’d be very difficult to insure given he personally does a lot of the stunts. Gives the scenes a distinct edge.
Shape shifters have been known, for sure. 🙂 Glad you both enjoyed the humour, and the band put on a really great show. Stories circle around us all, every day, and I’d hope that people take some time out to look around them and see what’s going on. The Jack Reacher bus scene was so poignant, because the protagonist comprehended the underlying story.
Did paid work today, and it was almost a step back into winter here. 4mm of rain fell, which was good. It’s sort of dry out there.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
You can hear Koala bears growling and grunting at night far off in the forest at times. They’re much harder to spot, and at first I thought this one was a joey Kangaroo as there was an initial flash of grey fur, but there was no mistaking the furry grumpy critter with super sharp claws.
Nature can adapt to changing circumstances, and that one was an intriguing story about the blue jay and the green jay. It kind of sounds like the start of that old joke about: A blue jay and a green jay step into a pub… Don’t you think it is weird that despite all the evidence to the contrary, the dominant false belief about an ecosystem, is that it is unchanging and fixed?
There was an article today on the massive algal bloom off the coast of the state of South Australia, but nowhere did the idea enter the public conversation that perhaps treating the ocean like a massive sewer, is not such a bright idea. Anyway, the folks in the article seemed really nice and concerned, so I didn’t bother linking to it.
Hehe! That work fills our lives, yup, although it pains me to have to rebuild this computer from the ground up. When I was a younger bloke the challenge may have been fun, but now I don’t see the point of the exercise. Hope H enjoyed her bath?
Mr Greer wrote long ago about an old sailors meme for maintaining one hand for the work, and the other for the ship. Good advice, but yes, so too is knowing how to fall safely. Get thrown to the matt often enough, and it becomes second nature.
Never thought about that, but I can see why H’s rabies vaccination paperwork would be required. Imagine having a rabid dog on the loose in your building? What a total disaster it would be. But seems like you enjoyed an even worse disaster – the unwanted upgrade! Hope the printer is up and running now? Far out, all I want is for the computer to work – is it really that much to ask for? And yeah, the operating system here is coming to an end by putting a stop on the security upgrades. Man, I’d go over to Linux in a heartbeat, but some of the software I use requires geek boys system, so what do you. And the fruit stuff you use is a mystery to me.
Ha! The new icons were sent to pester you: for your convenience! 😉 Mind you, that comment is probably going to come back and haunt me over the next few weeks – you could say it was deserved. Did your machine eventually fix itself?
I know man, and a person never really knows what their particular weakness will be. It happens. On the other hand, the article on coffee was a great story. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Turns out that they’re a subtropical plant which enjoys hot and humid conditions. Hardly like the climate you and I enjoy. 🙂 It was winter-esque today, really cold and cloudy with a little bit of rain. Holy carp! Your weather is crossing over to winter mode three, not much different to down here today.
Go Mr Crumb, and may he continue to delight and outrage us for years to come. I like how your mind works there, and it’s a collectors opportunity for sure, albeit somewhat morbid. Didn’t Elvis make more mad cash after he was dead than when alive? Ah, the life of an artist can take strange twists and turns. Your memory is pretty good. Respect. And let’s avoid the art question for this evening, just on the basis that I’ve done paid work all day and yeah, a trade performs subtle changes upon the personality of the practitioner. Here’s how it works for the accounting profession (or at least it’s the goal, which is sometimes not so easy to achieve):
Took me a while to find that cartoon.
The last post from Professor Mass suggested that there is ‘A Strong Cyclone is Developing Off the Northwest Coast’. How’s the rain and wind going at your place? Any signs or reports of flooding in the area?
Not good about the Blob, and I await to read what the Professor has to say about it. There was some sudden warming of the atmosphere over the Antarctic recently, which also apparently slows the winds.
🙂 The Mitfords were not broke, and would have had some lovely surroundings. Art Deco wasn’t all that big a movement down here, probably for economic reasons. It’s got it’s own distinctive style though. Historic productions done properly would be quite challenging for the set designers and crew.
Whoa! Your library system continually amazes me. I’d have to hire such tools, and the charges would quickly stack up.
Any tool can be abused. The thing I don’t get about Ai, is that there is no creativity. Of course a real life partner can send you loopy occasionally, but isn’t that all part of rounding off the rougher edges of our personalities? Would an Ai partner have any level of nuance or discernment?
A friend was talking about these software chunks the other day, and apparently once the initial learning mode for the software is completed, there’s apparently not a great deal new information able to get into the thing. How is that a learning model? Hey, I learned today that a lonely blue jay and green jay can get together and produce hybrid jays! Cool… 🙂
Cheers
Chris
yo, Chris – Maybe the old potato guy, knows the story behind all your logger’s mess. 🙂 And, the stone circles. Or, maybe, you’d just prefer the mystery.
Here, it would be, “A blue jay and a green jay walk into a bar.” (And wonder if there’s any overnight accommodations.) It’s a pretty well proven fact, that just about anything in nature, that can, is moving north or to higher elevations. That includes people.
The algal bloom has pretty much dropped out of the news, here. We’re all wound up in shootings, of one type or another, and government shutdowns.
Well, H didn’t get her bath. Things came up. Out of sight, out of mind. I had put the strawberries I bought, in the fridge “crisper.” And pretty much forgot they were there. No harm done. I washed them up, last night, and got them on a sheet, to freeze. They were picked pretty green. In fact, I couldn’t just pull the stems off of them. I had to notch each strawberry to get that hard bit out.
And … we got a notice, yesterday, that we’re having our “yearly” (though it seems like it was more recent), smoke alarm and emergency pull cord test. Tomorrow. Having the yearly inspection still hanging over my head, my apartment is in pretty good shape. But, there’s some minor picking up and stashing, to do. 🙂
I think I am “over” drying tomatoes. I have nine quarts in my pantry. I want to get onto the jam, and, I’ve still got zucchini and pumpkins to contend with.
My first computer was geek boys stuff. But now, when confronted with that system, I’m totally at sea. It’s as much a mystery, to me, as my system would be, to you. The download was painless, but just took a long time.
Coffee, especially Arabica, is an understory plant. Needs a tree canopy. That was a nice article. Coffee growing from the inside.
Our high yesterday was 68F (20C). Our overnight low was 55F (12.77C). The forecast high for today is 66F. So far, H and I have dodged the worst of the rain. No flooding, as, it’s not an atmospheric river, but more bands of rain.
A lot of artists never made any money, or sold any paintings, during their lifetime. Van Gogh is a prime example. He was mostly supported by his brother, Theo, who was an art dealer. But, Van Gogh often traded paintings for food, lodging, paint and canvases. R. Crumb did a lot of the same thing, early on. He had an addiction 🙂 to 78 records. Mostly, early 20th century stuff. He often traded art for records.
The Mitfords were often strapped, for cash. It’s a constant background theme, of the miniseries. As with so many other aristocratic families, at that time, land rich but cash poor. They had the country estate, which, first they had to rent out, and then, finally sell. There was the London house, which they also rented out, while they lived in the Mews, behind the house. The son, of course, had to be educated at Eaton and one of the Oxbridge colleges. The daughters all had to be presented at court (pricey), and have their “season” and coming out ball. By the way, they were related to the Churchills and the Bowles … the Queen Mum’s family.
That’s a great cartoon. I’ve seen it somewhere, before. LOL. I wonder if the cartoon inspired the Ben Affleck “Accountant” movies? What with being neurodivergent, that studied stoicism came naturally, to his character.
Oh, you’ve got plenty of Art Deco, in Australia. Search: “Art Deco Architecture, Melbourne, the images, and you’ll get an eyeful. Once you train the eye you’ll see it everywhere. Then there was the Diana Pottery, New South Wales. In business from 1940 to 1975. I can’t say I care much for their color schemes, but they do have some nice pieces. I had one, blue naturally, that I enjoyed for awhile, and then sent to auction.
I watched the new Superman movie, last night. Popcorn was had. It was OK, but not, I think, a cult classic. Not anything I want to see, again. But the high point of the movie, was Krypto, the super dog. Such a naughty dog. Definitely needed a trip to obedience school. But, he wasn’t Superman’s dog. Superman was dog sitting for his cousin, Supergirl, who was off partying around the galaxy. Lew
Chris:
It could be valuable information to know that potatoes like the soil there well enough to grow large amounts of them. You just have to get the trees out of the way . . .
Cows love “sweet feed”, and that is what the farmer uses to entice them to move where he wants them. Sweet feed is a mixture of several different grains with a lot of molasses stirred in, and usually some vitamins and minerals. I guess those cows have a sweet tooth. I just had a thought: Even if you did have a bag of sweet feed with you and the cow lovingly followed you, how could you be sure where to put it? The farmer near us has electric fences in some places, and neither I, nor the cow, want to run into that.
Speaking of wildlife, I saw where you mentioned seeing a Koala to Lew. How exciting!
Yes, you are stuck with having that new operating system. And thank you so much for all that interesting information!
Have you ever grown bunching onions? I have a nice group, Attila only ate a bit of the tops, and I would like to leave them in the ground and then divide and plant them in the spring. Maybe if I give them a blanket?
I wrapped so much mosquito netting around the individual Cherokee Purple tomatoes, that I have actually gotten some big ones and have been making passata. I have you ever heard of that variety, ye of Cherokee Organics?
Pam
Chris,
Things have gotten rather insanely busy again today. The air quality, which was the worst of the year by far from Thursday through Sunday, is fantastic now. We got about 4mm of rain this evening, making about 5 mm for the week. So in all the busyness, there is good news. 🙂
More tomorrow.
DJSpo
Hi DJ,
Nice to hear from you, and thanks for dropping by to say hello. It’s been super busy here too this week – must be something in the water… Glad to hear that either the winds, rain, or both have cleaned up the air. Probably helped with the fires too. And yes, that is good news.
Not much to report here, did a 50/50 day of paid work, and then fixed up many of the things around here which were not working so well – like the mixer on the kitchen sink. You’d imagine that the cartridges for those taps are all the same, and easily replaced, but no. It’s so weird, the 35mm replacement cartridge costs about $20 to $25 with no guarantee that it will work, whilst the replacement mixer tap (with brand new cartridge) costs $60. Some items make no sense to repair. Oh well…
Cheers
Chris
Hi Pam,
Sometimes I wonder what the folks who originally farmed that large several hundred acre property would say if they could see the young forest growing on the land nowadays? Certainly I don’t mention that subject to the old blokes, who’s mother apparently owned it way back in the day. I’d get an earful from them, and who’d want that! 🙂
Ah! That makes sense about the ‘sweet feed’. Hmm. A farmer once told me that the cows like their dried stored feed mildly fermented. They’re after the sugars, which are carbon, hydrogen and oxygen – of which there is plenty for the plants like grasses. And oh yeah, molasses would take the feed to eleven on the dial! Smells really nice that stuff, although a person is more likely to encounter ‘Golden Syrup’ down under, but yeah, almost pure sugar syrup – with some minerals in it.
And exactly, you’ve posed the dilemma I too wondered about: What if I stuffed up the cow capture and recovery process? Easiest not to get involved in the first place, and just claim ignorance. The farmer will look down their nose at you, but they won’t want compensation for a disaster either. Electric fences are nasty bits of kit which will give a person an unpleasant zap – although for the record I’ve avoided interacting with them. And hope you’ve been lucky enough to also avoid being zapped? Sandra has been zapped by a fence when she was a child.
Yeah, the Koala sighting was really cool. So I was heading to the local General Store / Post Office, and saw a flash of grey fur by the side of the road behind a tree. Always driving carefully and on the constant lookout for bouncing marsupials lest there be an awful interaction, means the sides of the roads are constantly being scanned. The little bear was climbing one of the trees on the side of the road. Looked really healthy and robust too with big furry ears, although it was probably of a rather grumpy disposition. There is a creek which starts near the bottom of this property and feeds into a big dam at the bottom of the valley right below here. Plenty of Manna Gums grow in that area due to the soil moisture, and so they get Koalas, because those trees provide their favourite food. They’ll eat the slightly different tree species growing here further up the mountain saddle, but it’s not their preferred option.
And no, I refuse to swap grumpy and small Koala bears with your much larger and cleverer Black Bears! 🙂
Is there really a choice when it comes to upgrades? People tell me to use Linux Mint, but some of the software required to earn a living demands to be run on geek boys platform. And definitely, if you’re unfussed, there are plenty of easy ways to thwart the demands of ‘Thingee Eleven’ for specific hardware requirements. I just have to run a business, which pays the bills, and so can’t muck around. It’s a cost of doing business these days…
Whoa! Thanks for mentioning the bunching onions as I’d never come across them before. Hmm. Probably they’d do well in a cooler climate too given there is no natural tendency to form bulbs. An interesting thought. Hmm.
Naughty Attila, and may he be fenced out of your garden, permanently. Oh the wailing and gnashing of groundhog teeth! Hehe! People down this way in the 70’s used to throw blankets over frost sensitive plants during extreme winter weather. Did it work? Absolutely, and op shops (your thrift shops) if they’re anything like down here, have probably more woollen blankets for next to nothing than a person could poke a stick at. Try buying those blankets new and you’ll be in for a serious sticker shock. That story makes no sense to me.
Those removable timber and glass greenhouses (or whatever material like Perspex) would probably work a treat too in your conditions – if the snow wasn’t too deep and there was ample biological activity under cover to keep the soil slightly above freezing. I forget what they call those boxes.
🙂 Nice one, and I’ve never thought to use mosquito netting in that way. Yum, you’ve got me imagining the cooking smells from a decent batch of passata. And what a treat to open a bottle in the depths of winter. That variety of tomato seed is available down here, but I tend to steer away from the larger tomatoes because the growing season can be somewhat unpredictable. Mid sized to cherry tomatoes seem to be more consistent here.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Those old blokes probably do know the answer to those mysteries, and next time I see them, I’ll ask. The stone circles are a real mystery because they’re exactly on contour and would have taken a lot of effort to construct. The mystery is perhaps worth living with, after all, at this stage even explanations involving mysterious ancient civilisations are on the table! Reality may be otherwise.
Agreed, species are on the move these days. I’m always observing new bird species moving through this area looking for the right conditions. Things are getting warmer, there’s little doubt about that. Apparently the oceans around this continent are warming up faster than elsewhere: The past 11 years have been the hottest on record in the ocean. A really well put together article. The algal bloom was mentioned, although the causes were not discussed. They may offend… It’s not a complicated story to comprehend, although it is consistently presented as such. To me it says: change your ways, or else. Hard to know what other folks hear.
Yes, I’ve been reading about the shut downs. The folks sound like they mean business, and are looking for an excuse to further cut jobs. I’d probably not mess with them, but that’s me. Given the massive budget over reach, this story was going to happen one day all other things to the side. Eventually it’ll happen down here too. I’m honestly not sure what people expected would occur when all this kicked off over three decades ago. In many ways it is amazing that the run has gone on for as long as it has.
That is green for the fruit, but one thing the cooking process will do is concentrate the flavour – whatever there was to be found in green strawberries – which generally don’t have all that much sugar in them anyway. There’ll be some flavour I’m guessing, and please do let me know how that batch works out? Raspberries and blackberries make the best jam, in my opinion.
Oh poop! Did the smoke alarm folks turn up to inspect this time? Hope you got the clean up done before they arrived?
Work was more relaxed down here today. Did a mixed 50/50 day of paid work and also just fixing up things around the house which had stopped working correctly. I’m keeping up, just. Man, I was really disappointed with a mixer tap where the little plastic / ceramic cartridge had broken. It’d been sort-of-working over the past week, but once or twice it was hard to turn off the tap – and being on tank water, that’s a disaster. I replaced the tap with a new one which was $60. I tried to fix up the old mixer tap, and the replacement cartridge – which may, or may not fit – is $20 to $25. Like how does that even come to be? Fixing the tap becomes a gamble and the tolerances are really fine. I read of a number of disappointed experiences with people wanting to repair their old taps, trying out the replacement cartridges and water leaking like a sieve. Some items are simply not worth fixing sorry to say.
🙂 Man, I so hear you about that unrelenting fall work of preserving the harvest. In earlier years, the sheer number of competing tasks occasionally created a tense home environment. We’ve learned how to manage things nowadays, but early on it was hard. Good luck with the jam, and that’s what I’d do next if in your shoes.
That’s all part of the software upgrade story – just not ending up lost at sea (a nice way to put the situation, thanks). We’ve got some crazy fast interweb for no real reason I can comprehend other than it’s there, but I’ll let you know how long the updates take. Probably many hours based on past experiences…
Interesting! Years ago I grew an Arabica coffee plant which thrived in the conditions here. It was seriously fast growing and low stress. Yet a brief snowfall killed the shrub. All the leaves blackened and died within days. In a greenhouse here, that plant would do very well. And yeah, it was an insiders look into the growing side of the trade.
Go Mr Crumb, and we all enjoy our collections. 😉 I’d hope that the esteemed illustrator has a good quality turntable which can play 78’s? Sadly people want mad cash these days, but things were different in my youth when a swap was considered as a possible option.
Ah, asset rich and cash poor, with large outgoings is a constant theme of the British aristocracy of those days. Awful to have to work, or heaven forbid, sell the family farm. Hmm. How people spend their mad cash interests me far more than how much they earn. And there would be great weight attached to a pedigree.
Thanks for the correction, and perhaps there is some unconscious bias there on display for the more sparse Victorian era? I tended to lean towards such buildings when younger and interested in fixing up older houses.
Mention of Diana Pottery and a deep dive into their production, brought to mind a vague memory that I’d seen such pieces at my grandfathers house in the 1970’s. There’s a blast from the past out of the – dare I say it? – blue. 🙂 It was the ceramic rooster which twigged the memory from way long ago. Some things have to be set free in an auction to find their own way in the world, and who knows what collection your item would have ended up in? Have you ever come across an item that you’d once owned in the past?
You’re joking about the dog aren’t you? I’ve gotta check this out… … You weren’t joking around. Krypto did all the heavy lifting as befits a small fluffy dog with independent ideas. 🙂
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – You may, or may not have heard of another high-rise partial collapse. This one near NY City.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/01/us/bronx-nyc-partial-building-collapse
That was quit an article about your weather and warming oceans. A 4C increase doesn’t sound like much, until I did the C to F conversion. 39F. Yikes! I was curious about the reference to a disease outbreak, in Townsville, that killed 30+ people. Melioidosis, which I had never heard of, before. Under some conditions, it can kill about 50% of the people that get it. According to Wiki-poopy.
Our high yesterday was 64F (17.77C). Our overnight low was 54F (12.22C). Our forecast high for today is 66F. The forecast has been revised, a bit. Not as much rain, and nice weather on the horizon. I noticed our clouds were moving in an odd direction, yesterday. Coming in from the SW. I think it was due to the spin of the cyclone Prof. Mass talked about. A scrim of clouds made the moon look very spooky, last night.
I notice that the government weather site had a statement, that the shutdown won’t affect their reporting. I don’t know if we’ll get a commodity box, this month. It’s supposed to be delivered on the first Wednesday, of the month. Unless it falls on the 1st. Which it did, this month. So, we may get it, next Wednesday, or not. The shutdown is affecting some food programs, but it’s really vague about which ones. Doesn’t affect me, much, but other people will be hurting.
The smoke alarm / emergency cord inspection hasn’t happened yet. Could be anytime between 9am and 5pm. Blows a hole in my day. Oh, I didn’t have too much to do. General pick up and stash. 🙂
You may remember, quit awhile ago, I had water running in my tub. I think it was the mixer cartridge. They actually got a real plumber in here, to fix it. I remember him saying the part may, or may not work. Luckily, it did. Otherwise, there would be walls to be ripped out. Plumbing has gotten unnecessarily complicated. Compared to the good ol’ days. Faucets that can’t be fixed with the replacement of a washer. Innards of toilet tanks that look like surplus off the Star Ship Enterprise (bring back the old float and chain!). Toilets that are configured in such a way that you need a special plunger, in case of a minor blockage. Someone is benefitting from all these changes, and it ain’t us!
I usually do downloads, late at night, as there is less wi-fi traffic and I get a strong signal. Which I had. By the way, I tried the printer again, last night. I must have been holding my mouth right 🙂 . It worked just fine. The only different thing I did was move the printer away from the computer, about 6″.
Another article about coffee.
https://www.npr.org/2025/09/30/nx-s1-5553625/coffee-day-farmers-industry-climate-change-labor-stenophylla
I don’t think I’d tackle trying to grow coffee, or chocolate, for that matter. On a household economy, I think, a lot of effort for little return. More a novelty. Tea seems more viable. And I do want to trial some Yaupon.
I can’t say I’ve ever run across anything that I previously sold. Which is odd, considering the volume of stuff I’ve cranked out. Maybe I need to get out, more. 🙂
I really like the horse head bookends, that Diana Pottery made. And, some of the black and white line. I think I’ve mentioned that Australia, at one time, had quit a glass industry. And, they made some of that iridescent “carnival” glass. It was a pressed glass, and often had Australian flora and fauna on it. I can’t say I’ve ever seen any, here, though some is floating around. And brings a very high price.
And, lastly, just for fun. Mothman! Pam’s part of the country. I wonder if she’s ever gone to the festival?
https://www.npr.org/2025/10/01/g-s1-90648/mothman-festival-point-pleasant-west-virginia
I read a book about this, awhile back. Mostly concentrating on the bridge disaster. Lew
Chris:
What a great cartoon. Do we call it a spoof, a satire – or reality? We all know accountants are as cool as cucumbers.
Can’t you get treacle? Isn’t that molasses?
I have been zapped by an electric fence – and with wet hands. Foolish me. Boy, did that smart.
You know what? I’ll bet there is a dark side to koalas. I mean, besides their grumpy nature. Ten to one, if they moved onto your property some sort of havoc would occur.
I have bought a good many blankets at charity shops, but wool ones are rare to come across; however, I have found a couple.
One is my favorite huge, heavy pink one. It has got to be a vintage something. You could sleep outside in Alaska in January with that one. Can’t wash it, though probably my great, great, great grandmother could, with her arms with steel bands from washing by hand. Unless she was rich, which I have never heard.
Cold frames?
I recently saw this someplace:
Things are not falling apart. They are falling into place.
Pam
Chris,
Whew! Things finally slowed down this evening. It is definitely autumn now. Comfortable temps, clouds, sun. And we have gotten some rain. I think I mentioned that. After several days of thick smoke, so thick you could feel it and taste it, the air is nearly pristine. Hope it stays that way.
I remember the days of the huge drafting boards. I learned basic drafting skills on one of those. My lines were not up to standard. Then along came CAD and I could “draw”. 😉 That entire technology left me in the dust over 20 years ago. The junior tech did all of our mapping and drafting.
There are a few repairs and fixes that can be done with pyrography. I did quite a few of those on my lion. Got to the point where fixing anything else would’ve been counterproductive. Calligraphy is nice, but, well, not easy. Except the Princess just found some stencils with calligraphic letters. I could burn those. They look to be easier than what I did in the latest project, actually.
Fixing errors. If the project is an animal or a human, meaning if it has eyes, rule number 1 in pyrography is always do the eyes FIRST. That way, if some repairs are needed, they can be done and any irregularities near the eyes left after the repairs will be covered up by other parts of the project. Many pyrographers leave the eyes until last. No margin of error then. In fact, one of the pieces in the latest show was a nicely burned horse. Realistic horse. Except the eyes were left to the very last. The artist was sort of stuck with what was left there to work with. The eyes ended up looking human, with rather flirtatious eye lashes. Oops.
Genealogy is a strange thing. That nasty thing called statistics tells us weird things. Like, anybody who was alive 2,000 years ago and has living descendants? Well, everybody alive today is one of those living descendants. I’m a bit skeptical with some isolated populations. However, for the vast majority of us, it’s likely true. The paper trail can be somewhat elusive, however. 🙂
Hmmm, I’m starting to plan the next carving project. Or maybe another pyrography. I’m not quite sure where to start next. So maybe I’ll do some low key practice projects, chip carving and burning.
Oh, and the Princess has several large bottles she wants me to do something with. Meaning, cut the necks off of them. I bought a bottle cutter kit, complete with glass cutting oil. From what she says, I think maybe I better do some experimenting with that, like this weekend. Thank goodness there are you tub videos available. Maybe I can learn how without creating too much of a mess.
Plus, it’s time for the autumn outdoor projects. Pruning and such. It’s supposed to be dry and warm Monday, so that will be the final lawn cutting for the year, too.
Oh, and the garden is still producing chard and cherry tomatoes!
DJSpo
Hi Pam,
Truly, this evening my brain hurts. 🙂 Not complaining, because the upgrade for Win-Doh’s ten to eleven wasn’t too bad. Just a lot of grunt work. Two of the three computers have now been done, and one of them had to have new guts installed. That was the worrying bit, but so far, so good. It’s taken all day, and is still going. I’m not typing on the usual computer this evening.
The cartoon is to my mind the goal of true objectivity and distance, but alas those days are long in the past. Nowadays I’m having to pre-empt problems so that there are not great disasters down the track for clients. This is what I get paid for. The folks I know who work in the profession put on a brave face, let’s put it that way! 😉
No, treacle or molasses are rarely seen outside of stock feed businesses. Golden syrup is more readily available for some reason.
Thanks for the feedback on the fences, and I will follow your advice.
Ook! Maybe everything isn’t going all that well with the upgrades.
Maybe about the Koala’s, but they do spend most of their day asleep due to the toxic diet and may have troubles causing too much mischief.
Woollen blankets are very good finds, and not uncommon down here. Makes me wonder why anyone would want to get rid of them in the first place? What a great find, and such treasures are there for those who look. And yup, just the thing for Alaska! Brr!
Oh, sorry thanks for the correction, that’s what they’re called.
Hehe! Yes, things will eventually be a lot more local. All of it was baked into the cake.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
The software upgrade gremlins are beginning to wear out my brain! Ook! Mustn’t grumble…
Whoa! Last I checked in the news, nobody was injured in that partial building collapse. That’s what I’d call lucky. There was a school in Indonesia which apparently collapsed recently too. Seems like they were adding another two floors to the building and the structure wasn’t up for the load.
Townsville is right up in the tropics, but I believe that it has a mildly drier climate than the surrounding areas, but those floods dumped a lot of rain. Allegedly it badly effects people who may have other complications.
Today was pretty similar here weather wise, although I’ve been indoors geeking it up with the upgrades today. Oh my – they just beat me. I have to do a fresh install on my big machine which has the new internal guts. The horror!
I’d describe the weather service as an important function of the government, so that doesn’t surprise me about the message. And yes, if such food programs are hit by the shutdown, people will hurt for sure. Such things are out of our hands sorry to say.
Hehe! Such loose talk of free time makes me want to get you involved in fixing the computer stuff here! 😉 Hope they eventually turned up?
Printers are usually pretty solid with the wifi connections, but much depends. Makes me wonder about all these RF signals we’ve got bouncing around us. Certainly I have a headache tonight! Must be something in the water… 🙂
Yeah, well, ain’t that the truth. Arabica is not the only game in town. But I agree with your advice about tea camellia being the easier option. Getting a few plants started from seed is a job for the future. Bush teas are good from my experience too, although Yapoun has that magic ingredient of caffeine.
Hehe! You’ve set the many items free and at least you know that they’re not coming back to haunt you!
I spotted the black ceramic work, and it looked pretty interesting. There was an item which had an almost Pacific Islander vibe to it.
Oh yeah, I remember that film about the Mothman, and had not appreciated the larger legend. What a disaster too that bridge.
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
Ah, the system got me. One computer upgraded from Win-Doh’s Ten to Eleven. The guts of my big computer were replaced, and that took a lot of time, but worked well. Then that machine refused to update. I now have to wipe it and start afresh. It’s a bit distracting having that go on in the background… Oh well, such things happen.
Nice to hear that things have slowed down for you, what with the Club activities. Man, I get that acrid taste too from the smoke, it’s bad and there’s no avoiding it. Did you crank out the air filter device? But time has a way of clearing the air, a bit of rain, some fresh winds from anywhere that isn’t burning. You’re in such a great time of year. Has the garden perked up with the warm soil and cooler air?
🙂 Good stuff, and I hear you about that – drawing was never my thing either. Some people are simply gifted when it comes to such work. Incidentally, over the years I’ve worked with a lot of engineers and draughtsmen. Have you ever noticed that there is a higher percentage than the average of left handed people in those professions?
Far out! I wouldn’t have picked up on any repairs in the lion. Although, knowing how to fix something is also a skill. And this talk of little margin for error is giving me an attack of the vapours. See – New install on my computer this evening… Still hasn’t finished and it may end being a late one here.
The dog got that paperwork, and humans were spread far and wide by only two millennia ago. Maybe not Antarctica, it being unpleasantly super cold and stuff. It took out a few of those crazy English explorers…
Inspiration will strike when the time is right. Not all that different from ’round here – what to do next! There’s always something. And candidly I’m feeling the need to have an outdoors day tomorrow. Should be nice weather.
What? Bottle cutting. Hmm. You know, I’ve seen folks cut coloured bottles in half, tape up two with duct tape at the join, and then install them in a mudbrick wall. Looked pretty nice. Wear eye protection!
Go the lawn! You’re in a mini-spring. Hope Dame Avalanche is also enjoying the cooler weather?
Yum!
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – I was reading the comments, over at Mr. Greer’s. I saw yours about do we live in a magical society. Of course we do. I figure the Australian version of the witch, Circe, turned the Wombat musicians into wombats, and magically transported them to your road. Why? Who knows. 🙂
Never pee on an electric fence. Never have, myself, but I’ve heard stories …
That building looked like it had been unzipped. I heard about the school collapsing in Indonesia. Speaking of children in peril, I see there’s a new movie coming out called “The Lost Bus.” Based on a true story, of something that happened during the Camp Fire. More or less. Ought to be a nail biter.
Good luck with your Win-duhs upgrade. No thanks, I’d rather take a beating. My friends in Idaho are trying to get the hotel website up and running. There are problems. I guess no-one is capable of phoning in a reservation, anymore. On their dumb phones.
Our high yesterday was 68F (20C). The overnight low was 48F (8.88C). The forecast high for today is 69F. I don’t know if to water the garden, poop or go blind. Rain comes and goes in the forecast.
I noticed, last night, that the carrots and beets are beginning to come up.
Well, we had our smoke detector / emergency pull cord inspection, yesterday. Both before noon, so I got my afternoon nap 🙂 . First a young man showed up, ran around, and looked at the smoke detectors. I thought he was supposed to poke them with a stick, and make sure they beep. Then, Little Mary Sunshine showed up to check the cords. It lights up a beacon (?), over my apartment door. And one down in the office. So, she’s running around the apartment, pulling cords (there are three), as I’m out in the hall in my boxer shorts and socks, yelling back into the apartment when they light up. I didn’t give a fig for my state of undress. You get to the point of being so disgusted with the whole song and dance, that I just didn’t care. If they want me dressed, nail it down to a time window, less vague than, “Sometime between 9am and 5pm.
Goals for today: Make a batch of oatmeal and fruit (check), water the garden, wash the dog (which will probably involve some laundry), and repair some shoes.
I watched a documentary last night, called “Jesus in India.” In Big J’s life, there’s the “lost years.” About 18 unaccounted for, years. There’s a legend, that he went to India, and hobnobbed with the holy dudes. Maybe not all that farfetched, as the apostle Thomas (he who doubts), apparently did go to India and died there. Of course, there’s also the story that Joseph of Arimathea was a shirt tail relative, who was a trader, and that the Big J and he traveled to Britain, for the tin trade. Then again, maybe he just partied it up, in the flesh pots of the Roman Empire. There was a pretty good flesh pot, going, just four miles from his hometown of Nazareth. It was called Sepporis. Or maybe he just stayed quietly at home, helping his Dad build tables and chairs. Not near so interesting a story. 🙂 Lew
Chris:
I’m not so sure what to do for a hurting brain, but maybe this will be a pleasant interlude. Some photos – past and present – of the little smoke that I live 8 miles outside of:
https://uvamagazine.org/articles/charlottesville_then_now
Pam
@ Pam,
Those before and after photos are nice. Thanks for sharing that link. I’m disappointed with one pair of photos, however. The graffiti under the Bridge of Scores is different in the modern photo than it was in 1906. I was hoping that the old writings would have been preserved. 😉
I had cousins over in Midlothian. I think I still have distant rellies in Tazewell County and surrounding areas. Other family lines spent a few generations in the Halifax/Pittsylvania Counties area before heading up to Clinch Mountain for a few generations. Some still live up Clinch Mountain way and over toward Claiborne County, TN. Never met any of them, other than the cousins in Midlothian, and them only via internet and phone.
DJSpo
Hi Pam,
Thanks so much for the article, and I really enjoyed both artists work. It was great seeing the changes, and not so much changes, over almost a century. The trees didn’t grow as fast as I’d imagined they would, but they may also have been replanted during that time. And that bridge would be a problem for trucks… 🙂 Interesting also to see that graffiti has long been a problem.
Much appreciated! Into day two of this computer mess. I finally discovered a problem this morning. Somehow a hard drive had become corrupted during the update process. The problem was easily fixed, but I lost a bit of data from it. Oh well. No big deal.
Bits and bytes are digital ephemera anyway, unlike some of those beautifully made and sturdy looking buildings. A coffee at one of the street tables enjoying a coffee whilst quietly observing the scenes of the people walking by would be a rather pleasant activity – if the weather wasn’t snowing, raining etc…
Cheers
Chris
Chris,
Win doze 10 got up to no good, a lot of us were very upset with that company of soft micros. They they done went and added another foul mug to their gang, so now there’s 11 of them. I tells ya, win doze 11 do anything, it ain’t good. Computers freeze up win doze 11 rascals are around, and technology fails. Boo on the company of soft micros!
We had that air filter device running from about July 4 until a few days ago. It was a necessity. It helps a lot.
Carrots are enjoying this weather. Everything else, while still producing, is slowing down. Then there’s the one flower bed that features a lot of hens and chicks along with thyme. Looks like I may have overwatered the hens and chicks, as the leaves are turning a bit yellow. The ones I rarely water are fine. I guess I’ll water them a lot less next year.
The best draftsmen I knew who used the old drafting tables were all lefthanded.
Those English explorers…They tried to go everywhere, not realizing that the Vikings HAD gone everywhere. And then the English explorers tended “to boldly die where no Englishman had died before.” I have a cartoon of astronauts walking on the moon. When they see a wrecked dragon ship and some Viking corpses, one astronaut says, “What? Not here too?”
Cutting glass. Goggles over eyeglasses. Can’t be too careful when there’s a chance of flying shards of sharp glass. Certain protective gear can’t be ignored.
Dame Avalanche is enjoying both the cooler weather and the fresher air. She gets a bit more trickstery (if that’s a word) when these nicer conditions first hit. She knows the rule: no treats if she doesn’t eat her dinner. AKA “no dinner, no treats”. Naturally, she tries to push the limits with that. She got caught trying for treats with most of her dinner untouched tonight. So she went back outdoors. Fifteen minutes later she was banging on the door. I opened the door, she ran in. I went out to check and, yes, she had eaten her dinner. No, she did NOT lock me outside. However, when I came back in, she was sitting there staring intently at the closet door behind which her treats are kept. She knows.
DJSpo
Hi Lewis,
Man, it’s all a bloke can do to protect his consciousness from being changed by other folks. Plenty of them don’t mean you any good. 😉 Wasn’t it that guy, err, the Romanian dude, Ioan Coliano who blew that whole story wide open? Paid a high price too, but that may have been for other reasons. Hey, Circe could do that for sure, best not to annoy the lady if you ask me. Possibly a lot of fun, then a whole bunch of trouble, and best avoided. If ever you encounter that particular Goddess, act dumb like those two jailers in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Can quotes get any better than this: There’s lumps of it ’round the back. Who knows what they were talking about, but that is the whole point.
Whoa! Surely a person would only do such a tragic thing through sheer ignorance of the consequences? Although, I’m now writing that chunk of advice down on the list of things to avoid when encountering an electric fence.
It’s weird that the possibly massive chimney was able to disconnect and collapse from the building without the rest of the thing coming down. Buildings which are constructed to last for a century or longer, tend to be on the scale of the ones in the article Pam linked to. I’ve worked on century old brick buildings and they’re pretty sturdy, but they weren’t twenty floors either.
Often that’s how buildings are done in Asia. I’ve seen plenty which had rebar sticking out of structural columns ending in a flat concrete roof. Presumably the intention was to chuck another story on if needed. It’s not how I’d do things, mostly because the rebar can rust pretty quickly and who knows what the load ratings are of the floors below – or the footings for that matter.
I’ll check out the trailer after replying. Still fixing the computer. Ook! Discovered one of the reasons for the computing weirdness that was going on – one of the hard drives had become corrupted. Lost a bit of personal data, but no big deal. My systems for the business data are far more robust so little chance of any of that stuff being lost. Oh well, one computer upgrade took not much time at all, the other has eaten a whole lot of time, but is getting there.
🙂 Websites are a whole ‘nother set of skills. Hope your friends get their site back up and running soon. One of the reasons I do all this work myself is because when it goes wrong (usually at inconvenient moments), I’m not trying to get someone else to have a look and see what they think has happened. Yup, your friends may have learned the benefits of having a plan B arrangement, just in case.
This is so weird, it’s 68’F here right now, and very pleasant if I may say so. The sun is shining and the weather is sweet. Hope your watering dilemma was resolved? Funny you mention that, but during one very long computer process, the irrigation system for the round raised garden beds was fine tuned. Some of the sprays were watering the ground around the beds, and in dry years it’s problematic to waste water. The tanks are mostly full now, but who knows what rain the rest of the year will provide?
Go the carrots and beets. You’ll be enjoying a few fresh beet leaves during winter, and maybe even the roots will have developed some size by then. Hard to know, but roasted they’re really nice.
A most civilised thing to have achieved. 🙂 That’s a complex system with the smoke alarms, but then the light does save a lot of messing around trying to discover who pulled the alarm, or where the fire is – like that school fire you mentioned a while back. Wasted time, when there are only a few moments even to spare. Lewis, polite visitors always provide a time, drops ins gets what they gets. 🙂
How’s H acting now without access to her stairs?
How’s this for a spin… So the carpenter ends up doing a whole bunch of work for a bloke who had travelled to India and hung out with holy dudes there. Long conversations ensued. I’ve read a few accounts of Joseph of Arimathea reaching Britain, and surely such stories weren’t woven to increase the trade from pilgrims? A little bit of hagiography spices up the stories. No ordinary human would attempt to best Dionysus and Hercules at a wine-drinking contest!
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
Win doze ‘leven given me hassles bro. Not ‘appy, and they’s lucky ’em not wifin arms reach. 🙂
One of the hard drives became corrupted during the install, possibly due to the Bitlocker software. Can’t think how else that may have occurred. Anyway, I re-installed the whole lot from scratch, and am now sort of back to where I was two days ago. Seems to be very stable now that the hard drive mess was sorted out, but it took me a while to work out what was going on. A lot of hassle would have been saved had I just started with a fresh install of the software. Oh well, moving on.
That sounds like a similar fire season to down here, and the air stinks if there is a big burn. And hey, the smoke can travel for hundreds of kilometres, so it’s a constant. Do you compost the gunk collected by the filter? Wouldn’t be too dissimilar to vacuum cleaner dust, maybe?
Easy to over water those plants, and I don’t recall ever watering succulents, but have lost some on very wet years. Your growing season is rapidly coming to a close.
I noticed heaps of European honey bees around the ornamental flowering pears today. A lot of activity, which is good. Blossoms on other fruit trees weren’t as well attended to.
In between all of the computing stuff, the dogs and I headed out into the warm 20’C sunshine and fine tuned the irrigation system, and cleaned up the fast growing grass and other plants around the young fruit trees in the citrus enclosure. The trees probably don’t enjoy the competition for minerals, sunlight and water.
Hmm. There were just a statistically improbable amount of left handed people working in the engineering profession. Interesting that you’ve noticed this as well.
That’s very funny, thanks! And yeah, some early explorers down under met similar fates, often boldly disregarding the indigenous folks knowledge and assistance. It’s an impressive achievement really that it didn’t seem to deter further exploration.
Unfortunately, with the extreme cold weather last week, a couple of possibly unprepared hikers met some nasty weather way up in the highest elevation in this state. Two women found dead at Nelse, near Falls Creek in Victorian alpine region. My guess is that they were close to the hut, but unable to locate it in the blizzard conditions, but the full story has not yet been told. I’ve seen some folks merrily walking around such areas in shorts and t-shirts in similar rapidly deteriorating conditions, and I advised them to go back to their car immediately. But the couple ignored me and pressed on to the hut. What do you do? Never saw anything about in the papers, but people seem to be heading to more extreme environments this year under prepared for the conditions that they’ll face. Not sure what is going on there, but getting in trouble in crazy remote spots seems to be on the up this year. Possibly a reaction to population pressures elsewhere?
Nice one. And I wear a metal mesh face mask and safety glasses when cutting with an angle grinder, why run the risk of getting a shard in your eye? Not that you are doing that, but I actually did that, and a metal shard got in under the safety glasses a long time ago. The traumatic experience to remove the shard, was enough to convince me of the risk.
🙂 Go Dame Avalance, and hey it must be a dame thing because unlike the other two dogs, Dame Plum will sometimes not want her breakfast either. I chuck it on the bench and if she doesn’t want it later, the chickens sure do.
Hehe! All dogs know where the treats are stored. It’s good that they can’t open cupboard doors, that we know about.
Cheers
Chris
@ Pam – Those are some really interesting photographs. The place looks pretty yupped out, these days, but at least a lot of the old buildings have been preserved. Lew
Yo, Chris – And, in local news … We have a big milk processing plant, here, called Darigold. They’ve been around for 50 years. They’re closing, the end of December (Merry Christmas!). 54 jobs will be lost, and a huge chunk of property taxes (which might be part of the problem.) The also had a recent environmental fine, and upgrades would have been expensive. Also, over the last 25 years, a lot of dairies on this side of the mountains, have either closed, or moved to eastern Washington. So, hauling milk from there to here could be pretty expensive. Never mind the passes, in winter. They’ve opened a big, shiny new plant, over in Pasco.
So, the country is scrambling to figure out how to make up the lost revenue. They were running in the red, anyway. I wonder what will happen to the land and building? It’s near the courthouse and other county offices. Also, just a few blocks from an I-5 interchange. Maybe it will become a server farm? 🙂
That was quit an article about the two hikers. There’s the idiot factor, but also, I think maybe people rely too much on technology, these days. “Oh, well, if we get in trouble, we’ll just call for help.” I also found one of the side bar articles, very interesting. “Outback Residents Lose Solar Farm.” The energy company don’t sound very “transparent,” do they?
I didn’t quit follow that Coliano riff, or what it related to. Looking the guy up didn’t provide enlightenment. 🙂
Given the “doing everything on the cheap,” and lack of maintenance, I’m surprised there aren’t more building collapses. But I think they evoke a certain kind of horror, as do earthquakes. As they are so unexpected. I commented to Pam, about what I thought about her link to the photos. They try and move in that direction, here, in Centralia, and Chehalis. A couple of decades ago, there was a lot of grant money, sloshing around. To revitalize small historic downtowns. But a lot of it has to do with the building owners.
Our high yesterday was 64F (17.77C). Our overnight low was 52F (11.11C). The forecast high for today is 65F. I watered, last night, but don’t know if I’ll water, tonight. Probably will. The forecast for today is “40% chance of rain between 11 and 5.” It’s overcast, but, nothing looks very promising on the radar.
I realized early on (much to my chagrin) that computers weren’t a skill you could master that was in any way dependable. It was a constantly shifting landscape, usually, not to your (my) benefit. Youngsters seem ok with that.
The smoke alarms and the emergency pull cords are completely different systems. The pull cords are if you fall, and can manage to crawl your way to one. Which is probably why they must be accessible, and, touch the floor. More wasted space. A lot of old people wear an alert button, around their necks. For awhile, we were inundated with ads, “Help! I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!”
Oh, H seems to have accepted the lack of stairs in her (gimpy) stride. I put the stairs back in place, when we nap, or to to bed at night. She got her bath, yesterday. I did a lot of laundry, blankets and towels. About the only thing I didn’t get to, yesterday, was repairing some shoes. I also did fruit and oatmeal. And, another round of rice, this morning.
Would you like a side of ants, with your yoghurt?
https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/03/science/ant-yogurt-scientists-michelin-restaurant-intl-scli
I wasn’t “feeling” watching any of the DVDs from the library, last night. So, I dug out that “50 Sci-Fi Classics” set I picked up. I’d hoped for giant insects, or something. No joy. So I watched something called, “Giants of Rome.” Not what I’d call Sci-Fi. It turned out to be one of those sword and sandal epics from the 1950s-60s. Italian, and dubbed.
https://w.wiki/FY6k
If Mr. Greer watched movies, I’m sure he’d laugh his … well, laugh something off, at the portrayal of the Druids. The star of the thing, Richard Harrison, had a long and interesting career. Mostly foreign films, from B to Z pictures. Sword and sandal epics, spaghetti westerns. Spy stuff. Must have shown up on time, was pleasant to work with and knew his lines. 🙂
H and I are headed down to the Club, tonight. Jane swapped a shift, so she didn’t volunteer or Wednesday, but will tonight. Lew
Hi Lewis,
Dairy is a funny old business, and on the ground it would be hard to make a living for a small sized herd. There’s a suggestion that the mob you mentioned may be owned by a Montana group, so it is hardly a local concern these days. One of the histories I read about the more fashionable end of this mountain range stated that way back in the day there used to be a creamery which operated to meet locals and visitors demands for butter, cream, milk etc. My, but things were different in those days. Just up the road from the state governors summer residence were commercial orchards. How things have changed, and diesel is not an unlimited resource. Trucking milk huge distances by road is not a cheap proposition, although in these enlightened times for the nonce, it may be.
Wet weather makes for good dairy country, but due to pricing pressures, paddocks are generally (in my opinion) over stocked, and so the soils suffer as a result and sooner or later become seriously unbalanced. There was a minor cause célèbre here, without all the public angst, this morning. Dame Plum was promoted to class three in dog obedience school, and that is a fine achievement. So, we headed north and over the mountain range to the sunnier northern slopes and stopped off at a nearby town in the east to avail ourselves of a most excellent sausage roll plus a lamington to share later with the afternoon coffee. The paddocks in those sunnier areas looked superb, and the cows grazing there had plenty of fresh spring high protein fodder.
Being warm and windy today, it was hard not to notice the fire trucks heading to a locals burn off which had gotten out of control on the northern side of the range.
Anyway, fast forward a couple of hours, and I was in the bathroom admiring the view over the valley way off to the south and spotted what appeared to be some idiot igniting a bonfire. My gut feeling said that it was a bad idea. Yeah, turned out I was right, and at one stage about half an hour later, 18 fire trucks were attending the blaze. From this height it was amazing to see how rapidly the fire moved across the land. They all got lucky because an hour or so later, the winds died down. Nothing much else would have stopped that fire.
An alternative perspective in relation to the server farm possibility, is that they’ll come for extra taxes from the remaining land owners. I read an article on that very subject this morning: Ratepayers struggle with cost of living as Qld councils increase rates to alleviate financial pressures. Hmm.
Hypothermia up in the alpine parts of this state can kill on any day of the year. When heading out for a walk in remote country, I tend to review the weather forecast and always pack emergency gear. But! I also used to go camping in very remote locations all by myself and there are some odd folks inhabiting those parts (who I’d never give offence to). Although it was emphasised that there were no suspicious circumstances with the most recent unfortunate deaths.
The loss of that solar farm will be felt in that far northern territory of this continent. I’d read that before the solar power came online, brown outs (under voltage) were common. Electronic devices don’t cope well with a less than stable voltage supply. The grid is not the polite, reliable and humble being which many folks believe it to be.
No worries, one of the books the bloke had authored was printed in what looked to me like one point font. I’m sure there was all manner of interesting observations contained there within, but it hurt my eyes to read, so I put it to one side. Basically, he made the helpful suggestion that advertising and other forms of propaganda seek to alter a persons consciousness. Personally, I follow the ‘Golden Rule’ which the big J may have stated as ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’ and so seek only to impact upon my own consciousness. You’d be amazed at how folks fail to comprehend what attempting to affect other folks thinkin’ actually means in terms of consequences.
Downtown’s sure can change in terms of the goods and services they provide, and that can tell a person a lot about the needs of folks who are in power.
No way, it was finally warmer here today! At one point the external thermometer was suggesting 25’C / 77’F. 40% probability is not all that great. There were a few spotty patches of rain this evening, almost tropical feeling with occasional big heavy drops. How did you go?
At the core of the computer fluff, is that it is all much the same as decades ago. There’s just a lot more grunt nowadays. And the problems have escalated accordingly. When it works though… Agreed, the kids are OK with that if the uptake of devices is any guide.
Lewis, such systems fiddle and fartarse around the most important question of all: Given that may be the circumstance, do I want to be resuscitated, what with that all entails?
Oh my gawd! Milk and acid is the beginning point for cheese making. The ants down here produce formic acid, which notably stinks and is seriously acidic. I’m not liking where they are going, but may suffer from having the palate of a peasant fed on high quality fresh nosh. 🙂 But if they want to do such things, go ahead and knock themselves out and experiment, just don’t get me involved.
Hehe! Well, not much is known about the ancient Druids, and the canny Caesar was one who recounted some scant knowledge of them. Mind you, burning pitch is not something I’d want to face hurled at me. Richard Harrison is no doubts like the rest of us: he has to pay the bills, and if they’re offering work in his trade, why not? But yes, your fun line is suggestive as to what it takes to have a career as an actor. Plenty of people there fall by the wayside.
Did you get to chat to Jane?
Cheers and better get writing.
Chris
PS: Finished most of the computer work this morning, then decided to have a more pleasant low-tech day. 🙂
Yo, Chris – The state governor’s summer residence? No wonder you call it the well off end of the mountains. 🙂 Summer hill stations. Seemed to be a thing, no matter where the Empire landed.
Congratulations to Dame Plume, on her advancement. Oddly, it brought to mind aristocratic young ladies shipped off to “finishing” schools. 🙂
Those fires sound like excitement you don’t want, or need. Isn’t it a little early in the season, for that sort of thing?
That was quit an article, about the local council rates. As with the insurance industry, where’s it all going to end? “Financially insupportable” meets “community expectations.” That sort of thing happens a lot over here, more and more. Sooner or later, there are municipal bankruptcies, at all levels of government. We have an investment vehicle, here, that’s called “municipal bonds.” They used to be rock solid, had a large return on investment, and the added appeal of not being taxed. Not so much, anymore.
I also found the sidebar article, “Couple lost 250k to gambling company, without placing a bet.” Goes to show. Be careful who you pick for your financial advisor.
I’d heard of rolling brown and blackouts, but mostly thought in terms of getting stuck in elevators or interrupted surgeries. I’d never considered the wear and tear on electronics.
Propaganda. Tell a big lie, and keep repeating it, until “everyone” believes it. I’ve been thinking a lot about that, lately …
Our high yesterday was 68F (20C). Our overnight low was 45F (7.22C). Our forecast high for today is 68F. No rain has fallen, and it looks like we’re in for a week of nice weather. I see your gong through the time change, about now. Ours won’t happen until the first weekend in November.
Yes, would one want to be resuscitated and fall into the hands of the medico/pharma industry? Something I keep thinking about. Better now, than when I might have to reach for that cord.
I’d rather not have a side of ants, with my yoghurt. You’d think the scientists would put there efforts into something more useful. Like curing cancer, or something. 🙂
Yes, I had a nice visit with Jane, last night. I’ll be heading down, this morning, to chat with Carl, the retired nurseryman. Won’t be a long chat, though. One of the fellows from the Club is taking my truck, and detailing it out. A deep clean, more or less. Then, I’ll make an appointment with the garage I’ve settled on, to catch up any maintenance, and winter stuff.
One of our major canners (tin-ers?), here, has declared bankruptcy. Del Monte. Also, a major drug store chain has closed their last stores. RiteAid. There are two in our towns, one right down the hill.I guess most of them were sold off to other drug store chains. Lew