Today marked a significant milestone. The door for the kitchen corner cabinet was reattached. So beautiful to use now. Amazing to experience. Silky smooth! There’s now even a felt air pressure differential upon opening! Three years It’d been broken, but was still just kind of hanging on in there, literally. There’s a weird point when something is busted, although not quite thoroughly enough, and so it continues to be used. And that was the cabinet door.
Most kitchen cabinets are square boxes. The hinges are simple and the doors sit at 90 degrees to the wall. There may be a single door, or even double doors, but the simplicity is lovely. They work. The hinges are never stressed, and so have a long lifespan. Corner cabinets are different. The door sits at 45 degrees to the wall of the cabinet. It takes a special hinge to cope with that. And this one had a heavy door which was 2100mm / 7ft high. Weighed around 22kg / 48 pounds too.There was a lot of pressure on those hinges, and after fifteen years defying gravity, they slowly began to fail.
Of the five hinges, the top one broke first. Then the next one down self destructed. In anticipation of replacing the lot, I’d bought some at the big box hardware store a few years ago. Turns out, I’d bought the wrong type and where was that receipt again?
The door with the damaged hinges, would require a strong upwards lift on the handle, otherwise the bottom would scrape over the timber floor. There were decent scratches in the hardwood.
The time had come to repair this monster! Sandra headed into the big smoke one afternoon to have dinner with a friend. A rather convenient opportunity to drop into the big box hardware store along the way. Purchasing the correct 45 degree hinges this time, was easy. The nice website provides aisle and bay numbers for stock items – a fine use of computing grunt, and suddenly confusion becomes a thing of the past! In the shop, they were sold in packs of two, so we ended up with six, and were left with a spare. The new hinges were quite well made, you could see the difference at a glance. The sheet metal was now secured in three spots. The broken ones were not that solid, and had actually twisted over the years due to the weight of the door. It pays to be alert with this stuff.
When fixing the new hinges on the door to the cabinet, none of the holes lined up. Being a canny and resourceful bloke, an inspired dose of Ikea hacking struck the imagination! We emptied out the contents on the shelves, I positioned myself inside the corner cupboard. Sandra then propped the door in the exact right spot with the door closed. They tell me that working in confined spaces requires a special permit, but I won’t tell anyone, if you lovely readers don’t! The hinges were attached to the cabinet, and the door now works beautifully. Easy!
The door slowly failing got the old brain thinking about how easy we can adapt to broken circumstances, if that’s what’s needed. I read the news. You’d have to be living under a rock to not have noticed the loss of around 15% of the world’s oil supply? That looks like a broken system to me, and where things will go from here is a very interesting question. Right now, in this country, metaphorically speaking, people seem to be giving the door handle a bit of a lift upwards so as to adjust for the broken hinges. Hmm. Here the situation annoyed me enough, that I finally fixed them, but this messy oil business, probably isn’t all that easy to sort out. There is a human dimension to this story though, and it’s the ability to believe a delusion. Maybe I’m too cynical, but few people in this country seem to be considering the longer term implications. The general vibe is that we’ll get back to the previous normal sooner, or later, but maybe with some broken hinges. Seems to be very much a case of: lift on that handle if you want the door to work, baby!
Delusions are a strange thing which you’ll eventually encounter in my profession. As a young bloke, with no confidentiality restrictions at the time, I briefly worked for one of the fastest growing companies in the country. It was a senior accountant position (one below the boss). The five people at the interview should have been a red flag, for clearly three of the folks had nothing better to do with their time. I asked about the businesses cash flow, and they lied. So many missed warnings, but hey, I was the young and desperate.
My boss was a good looking bloke, and his image featured on many of the swish looking marketing material. We never spoke much, he sat in the corner office. The first day on the job, I was introduced to the accounts team, and a sorrier looking crew I was yet to meet. Their little eyes implored: Are you our saviour? They poured their hearts out about the realities of the business. Surely it couldn’t be that bad? With no instructions or guidance, I spent the next three days trolling through the accounts. The situation was even worse than the accounts team believed.
Playing the politics has never been my strong suit, but I knew enough that it was probably best to speak with my boss firstly regarding the situation as it appeared to me. We spoke of boring stuff, like debt covenants, loan repayment schedules, payrolls, supplier credit etc. Really fundamental stuff to a business that size. And his reply approximated: “We’ll figure out something”, with an instruction for me to get back to work.
Naivete allowed me to be more pushy and over confident in those days. Now with more experience I’m kind of more accepting as to what will be. Back then though, I gave the alarum another ring, and made an appointment to speak with the owner. My boss caught wind of this, and cancelled the meeting. There was nothing more to be done, so I resigned, and informed my boss and separately the accounts team, that my best guess was that they had probably another months trading. I may have even mumbled a heartfelt: “sorry”.
I was wrong, they had two months of trading left, and didn’t pay me for the work I’d done either. Often you never get to find out how things turn out, this one was different, I read about in the news. An epic crash. See, sometimes it pays to keep abreast of the latest events. I was still sore about the lost pay though, and whilst I like repairing and maintaining things, sometimes, a person has to dig deep and find the good grace to just sit back and ride the splat which eventuates from a bad situation. Prescience without action, is pointless, and maybe even worse.
For most of the week, the air was so thick with humidity, it felt like a person could swim over the valley and across to Mount Bullengarook and Mount Blackwood.
Monday was sort of nice weather though, and we constructed another steel rock gabion cage. This one was half sized. It had only two compartments as distinct from the usual four.
The plan was to install the short cage on the third layer of the long line of gabions uphill of the Cantina and new firewood shed. A lot of soil had to be dug away from the area where the cage would be placed. The dirt was shovelled uphill to provide a smoother garden bed surface. Eventually that will be covered over with rock crazy paving. Should look good.
Regular readers will recall that a full sized cage was made last week. Both gabions were installed in their final spot on the third layer.
We sat these cages further back into the hill so that there is a decent width walkway on the downhill side. This will make filling and sewing them up easier. You can see the walking path more clearly in the next photo:
It was a good idea to load up the cages with a few rocks on the day. This weight keeps them fixed in place.
Half a day was spent later in the week hauling rocks back uphill, then filling the cages. The smaller gabion, is now almost full.
We’re only a couple of weeks into winter, but it’s been remarkably warm and wet. More like early spring. Some of the the plants are adapting to the conditions. Earlier today I spotted bluebell leaves popping up through the soil. Looking back at earlier years photographs, that’s about three weeks early.
The young citrus trees in the large enclosure were fed with wood ash and left overs from the bags of soil amendments used in the restoration of the greenhouse raised garden beds. As a side note, I spotted that the thermometer in the greenhouse today was 14’C / 57’F, which is rather warm for winter. The more established citrus trees don’t seem to require regular feeding.
Onto the flowers:
The temperature outside now at about 11am is 10’C (50’F). So far for this year there has been 497.6mm (19.6 inches) which is up from last weeks total of 475.4mm (18.7 inches)
Comments
43 responses to “The Accountant”
Yo, Chris – Well, fixing that cabinet door certainly gave you a lift. You sound positively giddy. Now come repair my broken bed, the glides in the drawers of the drop front desk, and maybe do something about the slow bathtub drain. 🙂
You’re lucky the Editor let you out of the cupboard. 🙂 Did you have to get a permit when chasing rats under the house?
Sometimes, Poetic Justice lets you take a peek under the hood. Of an epic crash, that is. Loosing the wages was bad enough, but I doubt the minions even got a reference out of the deal.
Rock gabion cages. Someday, future archaeologists will discover your monumental works. Gabions, stairways, terracing and all. They’ll figure out the number of man hours expended (x) and extrapolate that it must have taken 10 slaves (y) = ten years. They may decide (speculate) that it was some sort of religious complex. Though nothing seems to line up with any celestial points in the heavens. 🙂
Looks like you’re having an early spring. Although there could be unpleasant surprises, on the horizon. Frost, snow … who knows?
I that bay a culinary bay? Just curious.
Succulents are interesting plants, and the flowers spectacular. I was asking the Master Gardeners what a flowering plant was, that popped up in an odd corner of the garden. It was a succulent, and how it wandered to its present location, is a mystery.
The roses are beautiful, and just as lovely as the one’s we’ve got blooming here. Roses do put on quit a show.
Heartwarming? You want heartwarming? I watched a movie, tonight … well, more tomorrow. Lew
Hi Lewis,
Giddy is the right word. It’d been three years since the door began to break away from the cabinet. To have it all fixed up in under half an hour was err, unexpected! Some jobs are complete unknowns, and experience suggests that what seems simple, can be problematic to a degree which the average person would hardly comprehend. I’d like to have more hours in the day, but reality intrudes. Hey, the new gabion was filled today, and might even be sewn up later this week.
Yeah, no worries man. I’d love to help you out there with all that stuff, but plane travel bothers me deeply and the oceans are deep, so maybe in another life? 🙂 Tell you a funny story, as a very young bloke, and with no warning, my grandfather looked at me and said: “Son. It’s self help week!” That’s cold, but I can respect his world view.
Oh, I’d not thought of the Editor doing that trick. She’s too nice for such tricksy business, otherwise I’d never have put myself in such a compromising position. You may scoff, but long ago to fix up a leak, I had to climb into one of the big water tanks when mostly empty. Not as easy to do as you’d imagine, and startlingly humid. Getting out again was challenging.
Agreed, and anyway, the job references for most folks at the failed business would have looked bad given the spectacular crash. I simply dropped the business name from my resume. It disappeared, like my payment. It was one strange week, but I genuinely felt like what the character in ‘The Accountant’ film portrayed when he had his forensic hat on. Most sets of accounts tell me a story, and it’s there to be seen for those whom are interested.
Hehe! We can only hope so. Oh, but to leave fun mysteries for the archaeologists of the far distant future! It’s like: The Beatles, with their ‘The Walrus’ concept. What does it mean? Probably not as much as we’d all want to believe.
False spring is a thing in that country to the north of you. And if nothing else, the weather at this location can be remarkably variable. Right now, it’s warm and wet (for winter). Wednesday is forecast to reach 21’C / 70’F in the big smoke, which is nuts.
Drove up to the highest section of the more fashionable western end of the mountain range this afternoon. I’d been curious to see what all the carrying-on was about with tree clearing near to the huge cross war memorial. The fog and mist was pretty thick, but even so, not many trees had been removed. Talk about ‘much ado about nothing!’ but I guess it made people feel good about their own choices.
🙂 The Rose is nature’s reminder that there is great beauty in this world. Out of curiosity I did a search on how long roses are meant to flower for each year. The vast echo-chamber which is this interweb thing, struck hard. Has nobody got any fresh takes on a subject these days?
An intriguing sentence, and you’ve teased your film watching enjoyment, without providing any details whatsoever. Go on, what was the film? You’ve left us all in suspense.
95’F is warm, but 84’F is delightful. A bloke has to take the good with the bad.
Leaching is an option for many, but on that front I was taught a harsh lesson early on: Don’t rely upon lies. There is a story: In the final year of High School, my mother wanted me to concentrate on studies instead of working – I could have managed both, but that is a different story. So we came to an arrangement, she’d provide weekly pocket money if I quit working. Sounded like a sweet deal of money for nothing, so I quit. I collected on the arrangement the first week after it wasn’t forthcoming, and she reneged from the second onwards. Once out of work, and with wasted time hoping the situation improved, I burned through my savings. Some people are not to be trusted. Truly though, homework was taking over. Three hours per week night, and a day per weekend (plus sports Saturday to lunchtime). That school can take over your life.
That’s probably the case in that kids in rural areas have more opportunities for work. I’m of the opinion that working early for one’s mad cash, sets up a sense of how much this stuff is worth.
Yeah, ‘The Accountant’ seemed to have the upper hand in the brotherly relationship in the first film, so it will be interesting to see how it works out in the second film. I only had older sisters, so have no idea what a brother is or does.
Oh yeah, imagine what the ladies would say if you lugged the oven outdoors into the garden on a hot night so as to bake a pizza. Plus you may have to share…
I’ve seen a big chunk of Skylab in the museum, but that was a long time ago. Turns out this stuff is hard to predict exactly where it will (as they say politely) de-orbit. The film sounds like fun.
No, I perhaps did not explain the bank thing properly – they have a bank app which installs on your mobile phone so it can monitor where you are in the queue waiting for the information desk – not just for teller and banking services. Presumably the thing also monitors your movements and who knows what else. But wait, it’s so much more… I’ve not got the thing installed, and have very little interest.
Oh my, those Allium plants you are growing sound quite impressive, and yeah, probably related to Triffids. 🙂 They grow quite dense, don’t they?
Always nice to respect free garden rent space, and hope those two tomato plants do well. Weeding never stops, although the activity does slow in winter.
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – One thing I REALLY like about retirement is that I never have to do another resume, again. 🙂 With my checkered job history, I often dropped some short-term jobs (say, the one’s that lasted a year), and extended dates on some of the others. Given the low-level jobs I had, I don’t think references were checked, anyway. The higher-level jobs I pretty much worked my way into. No resume required.
One of my Dad’s least favorite jobs was painting the inside of tanks, at the Nabisco plant where he worked. I wonder if he wore a respirator? As he lived well into his 90s, I guess it didn’t do him any harm.
Nonsense songs often have deeper meanings. Or, not. I’m sure hundreds of dissertations have been written … Bob Dylan, anyone? 🙂
Our high yesterday was 90F (32.22C). Our overnight low was 54F (12.22C). Our forecast high for today is 96F. Just have to get over the hump. The forecast high for tomorrow is 20 degrees lower.
Let’s talk about tree law …
https://www.boredpanda.com/woman-blasts-neighbors-for-destroying-all-of-her-trees/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=top&utm_campaign=user
Anticipation is half the fun! 🙂 The film I watched was “Family Rental.” It was just recently in the theaters. Stars Brendan Fraser. Here’s the trailer …
https://youtu.be/n0pqP6ClcE8?si=c_1gc1bT_g0qk_82
Rental family members are actually a real thing, in Japan, and other places.
https://w.wiki/RJEn
I recommend this film, highly. Parts are very funny, and there are gentle little surprises, all along the way. I’d call it heart-warming, but that would be drippy 🙂
Now, what I have to figure out is who told me recently, that they had a son in Japan, who was teaching, but is having a problem finding a job, in order to stay. This might be a lead to a different kind of job.
My mother always dead-headed her roses, to extend their growing season. I don’t remember how long it went, but I do remember we did not have roses in winter, as you do. And, after the first frost, roses were severely pruned, and mounded up, a bit.
You think you had problems with your mother. In David Sederis’s new book, he has an essay about his father. I suppose he may have embroidered it, a bit, but if even half of it is true, he was a horrible man.
Ah! Nothing so fancy at my bank / credit union. We just cue up, and go to the next available teller. I’ve never had to wait very long, at all. They have enough staff to keep things moving along.
When I walked the dog, this morning, I sat on the garden wall a bit, and watched the pollinators. They are sure working over the onion blossoms. The Elephant garlic will be blooming, not far behind. I wonder if that makes for a slightly pungent honey?
I did a little research, and it appears I should be cutting the blossoms off my potatoes. Which I’ll start doing. The pumpkins are far enough along that I need to thin them. There are three to a hill, in three hills in a half barrel. But I can’t remember. Did I thin them to one or two plants per hill, last year?
I sprinkled around a bit of urea (to be polite about it), last night. I hope it gives the deer, second thoughts.
I pulled the pantry at the Club, yesterday morning. The shelving is heavy duty plastic. Not that heavy, but bulky. I hauled it up to my apartment, after walking the dog, at midnight. I’m glad we have an elevator. It was a bit of a trick, juggling shelving and Dawg. Lew
Hi, Chris!
Love the title!
“There’s a weird point when something is busted, although not quite thoroughly enough, and so it continues to be used. The story of my life. My goodness, that was an amazingly heavy door and that’s one big cabinet if you fit in there; I don’t believe we have any that heavy. No wonder it had troubles. The door into my bathroom has a problem, which is that as soon as the air becomes too humid (bathroom, eh) it starts making a groaning noise. Who wants to hear that in the middle of the night? All I have to do is rub WD-40 on the hinges and it’s fine, though sometimes only till the next night. Depends on the weather.
I like being able to look up online exactly where I might find something in the big box store, especially since there are never enough employees.
I only look at the news sporadically. A loss of 15% of the world’s oil supply? Is that supposed to be permanent or only because we can’t all get along? Which may mean the same thing. The price of petrol here keeps slowly going down.
That’s one of the soap operas I didn’t like: The Young and the Desperate. That is really shocking the way your boss behaved. Lying to you right off the bat? Not letting you meet with the owner? Not paying you? Perhaps he’s in stir by now.
It has been really humid here, too, but no rain. It is official now that we are in a severe drought that started 18 months ago. We have also been having record high temperatures. My son has ordered a device that will help him measure the level in our well/bore. I am not sure if that figure will tell us anything because I don’t know if we have a measure of what the level was before the drought. Maybe from when the well was first drilled.
Your gabion cages are so beautiful; so precisely constructed. Those are GOOD rocks; no peak there. I see Ollie there. I think you need to have two stone Ollie statues sculpted for one on each side of the entry to your territory.
What a beautiful Lemon Meyer tree. I see it doesn’t have to live in a basement in winter.
Thank you for the beautiful flowers. Do you cook with the bay leaves. Like a frog in a sock . . . Would that be a Pobblebonk (?) or a Tree Frog?
Pam
Chris,
Nice title. And glad to note that you finally saw that movie and enjoyed it. It is a favorite of both the Princess and myself. Like you, I enjoyed the sub-mystery of the female voice.
Good to hear that you got the cabinet doors repaired. The cabinets are no longer unhinged. 😉
Cabinet Chris. Or would it be Chris of the Cabinet? I can see options that the Editor had if she had trapped you in the cabinet. She could remain living there, ignoring any noises made by Chris of the Cabinet. Drilling holes for tubing to be inserted for the new liquid diet popular among cabinet inmates. Or maybe just leave. With the fluffies. Future archaeologists would study Fernglade and wonder what mystical rite required a male human victim to be ensconced within the kitchen cabinetry. Perhaps an offering to the kitchen god? A sacrifice to the Culinary Queen? Fortunately, the Editor’s true nature won out, and you are still here to regale us with tales of your adventures with peak rocks, rogue deer, wallabies and the Great Rodent Wars. Not to be forgotten are the stories of stick insects and pobblebonks.
Things got rather complicated the end of the week. Then we took Saturday just for the two of us. No computers. No phones. I made meals Friday evening just for Saturday. We spent the entire day together doing a marathon watching the “Band of Brothers”. It was the type of quiet and enjoyable day together that we needed and don’t get many of.
Young Neighbor had a special visitor Sunday morning. Or her yard did. I was coiling up the garden hose and noticed something large in the ponderosa pine in Young Neighbor’s back yard. Then it left the tree and soared over the yard for several minutes before catching a current and zooming away. It was the bald eagle that moved into the neighborhood for the winter and has decided to visit regularly.
Meanwhile, fire season has begun. There are two largish ones in the southeastern part of the state, one of which has crept into Oregon. Yup, we are having the dread northeast winds, which in the summer brings in heat from the desert Southwest. There is also a fire, larger than the other two combined, southerly a few miles from Toppenish. The wind has now shifted, coming from the southwest more or less. Hot and dry and very windy Tuesday is the forecast.
Not that the wind really disappeared for long. A few quiet nights, one mostly windless day. And it is DRY. Areas that I watered this morning were parched with hard dirt by 5 pm. Sunday the humidity dropped to 13% at 28C. Today hit 34C at my house. The humidity bottomed at 19%. Tomorrow’s wind storm should keep the humidity at arid levels.
One bell pepper has gotten pollinated and is growing well. More blossoms are appearing, and the Anaheim peppers are also starting to bloom. The jalapenos shouldn’t be far behind.
Time to clip the potato blooms from the potato plants. Some of the chard is ready to eat. There are also a few volunteer collard plants that mysteriously appeared. And the cherry tomatoes have started to bloom.
I’m mostly onto the summer schedule now due to the heat. Get up earlier, walk Dame Avalanche early. She is appreciating the earlier walks.
DJSpo
Hi Pam,
Ben Affleck did wonders for the profession with that film, and this is a fact to be celebrated by us pen and paper pushers! 😉
Pam, the corner cupboard is huge and tall, but that makes for a heavy door which put way too much strain on the original (badly made) hinges. You know, it freaks me out just closing the door now that it works, or opening the thing without having to give the handle a strong upwards heave. Sometimes I’ve found myself leaving it slightly open for old times sake…
Are you sure the groaning noise isn’t a ghost or maybe even one of the elder folks of the forest? Sometimes I wonder about the noises in this house, although rodents provide some explanations, but not all. 🙂 By the way, lanolin based lubricants will stand up better to your heat and humidity.
Me too, although for different reasons. I will say, the vast majority of the staff in those stores know their stuff, but I’ve had an occasional encounter with someone there who is making it up as they go along. As a gentleman, I’d never ask them if they are wasting my time, but I did think it! And brought the discussion to a rapid close, which bothers me because it is rude.
That’s good, and yes, it probably does mean the same thing, and no, normality will not return any time soon with oil, but it might. Sorry, did I just reply both yes, and no? The price for petrol is dropping here too, but will soon go back up again. The goobers of the mint halved the fuel taxes, but only for a finite time.
None of the soap operas made any sense to me either, but I did like spending time my grandmother, the nice one, so could ignore the silly emotionally charged narratives and poor decision making. My thinking as well, and I’ve heard it said bluntly by an old timer: If they can’t get the sale right, the after sales service will be terrible! Gives a person pause for thought, doesn’t it? And yes, they really didn’t pay me for the week of work. I was very annoyed, but in that case had no recourse.
Humid and dry? Sounds like the build up to a monsoon (or would be if down here). Do you get those occasional big afternoon storms in a more normal summer?
The testing device is probably not a bad idea. I mean, if the groundwater level drops below your pump, then that would be a problem. Hmm. With water tanks, you can see how much is stored (which isn’t all that much), but who knows what is going on under the ground? And you are only ever as good as your neighbours with such a system.
Thanks, and the rocks going into the cages are from last winters forest clean up work. And sorry to say, but stocks are fast running out, so Peak Rocks will be back! Buy now before the runout! Hey, that sounds like an advertisement… What the heck? 🙂
The lemon meyer tree is a ripper, and a few years ago I was worried that it was succumbing to a fungus. Lot’s of lime, a brutal prune, and the tree is looking and producing better than ever. It’s survived brief snow, but nothing like your glacial winter. I’m still saddened by the wonderful coffee shrub which grew beautifully, and died two days after a brief snowfall. The pain has not be forgotten.
Yes, we do cook with the bay leaves in a minestrone soup. The pobblebonks make wonderful music, but truly the tree frogs are the show offs of the amphibian world!
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
Have to laugh, I watched the film a few days before the Editor did, and had time to cogitate upon the story – like, who was the female electronic voice on the phone, and why add the words ‘heavy sigh’ in conversation in order to express an emotion? Nobody speaks like that, and that’s when the light went on, it was the non verbal daughter of the institute director. It was a good sub plot, and I casually dropped that bit of hard won knowledge with the Editor, and felt pretty smug for having worked it out. It’s not like the film explained the situation at all. Plus there was the framed jigsaw of Muhammad Ali on the wall, another dead giveaway. Go on, did you work it out whilst watching the film, or later?
Glad to hear you two also enjoyed the film. It was a fun romp, and what’s your view on the sequel? To watch, or not watch, that is the question!
Ha! Thanks for the laughs, but yeah a fine joke. Unhinged indeed, but also a remarkably accurate description. It still freaks me out a bit because the just door works now. I’d become accustomed to the thing in all its broken glory. Has that circumstance ever happened to you?
Hey, better being in the cabinet, than the stink the privy lot had to deal with. Wiping the bosses bottom is hardly a privilege (note the similarity in words)! Dude, the usual high standards of the blog have fallen. Last week, stories of Ollie’s err, rear end business, this week we’ve returned again to the privy. A new low perhaps? 😉
Oooo, your description reads like the stories regarding the mummified remains removed from high Andean mountains and put on display in Peru. I never quite knew what to think about such situations, and it felt to me as if the Elder Ones would be mightily annoyed. Mind you, for all of your intricate talk of survival (for a short while) on rations of Soylent Green whilst being stuck in the corner cupboard, truthfully I wasn’t rushing to volunteer. 😉 And hey, the rats might get in that hole you specified be drilled.
Whoa! I’d completely missed this series, and am in awe that you and your lady could binge watch them all, or at least some of the episodes. Very impressive. And also the stuff of joy at just companionably hanging out together.
Go the Bald Eagle! And you’d imagine that a squirrel was nabbed from the tree? Speaking of sighting wildlife, both the Editor and I have observed a large lone stag in the area. This one has antlers, so Ollie and I now do a forest critter sweep prior to letting out the excitable Kelpies. This morning was really wet and windy, and there must have been five or six kangaroos out there in the orchards. Some were reluctant to head back into the forest (for good reasons), and the big dog had to bark a few times – which he does only rarely.
Yikes! This talk of fire season is rather unsettling, and fingers crossed it stays at the ‘mere talk’ level for the summer. Man, I’m thinking of you and the folks you know and care for there.
Far out that really is some low humidity this early in the summer season. Stay safe in the wind storm, and hope neither you nor your lady have to travel far in the awful conditions.
On the other hand, if a person has enough water, hot years can be very productive. Growing a Bell Pepper is no small thing, and even in the greenhouse here, they’d struggle (and we end up with miniatures). You could probably grow some decent melons in that weather and with town water.
Are you meant to do that with the potato flowers? Hmm. And you were right too, the chard came in pole position. Tasty stuff, and had some with rice, veg and egg tonight. Yum!
Poor furry Dame in the heat,
may she find a cool spot to while away,
the afternoons in sleep.
Hey, plus the sun is probably up at 5am for you… It’s kind of dark here now at 7am! Oh well.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
🙂 Lucky you with that enviable estate. No aged pension here until the age of 67 for me, and so this means a lot more years of work. It’s funny you mention that, but years ago people with chequered job histories were treated with disdain by employers. However, once employers proved that they themselves were equally chequered, life had to move on. Jumping from one job to the next is expected nowadays. I doubt that it is an efficient arrangement, but then I’m not a fan of change, but rarely worked more than four years full time anywhere.
Man, I had an old friend who used to be a bit fast and loose with his resume, and it never seemed to hinder him. Being self employed I’ve not had a resume for almost two decades, and the fact we’re still here running a business after all those years is weight enough. In senior roles back in the day, people checked on references and dates, so it wasn’t worth mucking around. I did however drop that one week of work, and never felt bad about it because they didn’t pay me. Is it work if a person is unpaid?
The facts are suggestive that the painting job in a confined space wasn’t too bad on your dad. Although, he may have lived to 120 otherwise? You don’t know. Oh, the oldest person alive is now 112 years, which is an impressive achievement. About nine months older than the lady in the article.
Very good, and are the nonsense lyrics a poem, rhyme, or even falling into the metaphor and allegory realms? Dunno about you, but my head is now spinning round, round, right round, thinking about this stuff. Probably best to enjoy the catchy melody, and leave it at that.
Oh poop! 96’F is very warm. How did you and H cope with the day? Hope the 20’F lower temperature was reached. It’s bizarrely warm here tonight at 13’C / 55’F and wet. Last I checked it was meant to be winter.
The tree clearing case was quite shocking, and the lady has a wonderful photo of her looking even more shocked than I was. Who does such things, and boundaries are a thing. The local council down here would crack the sads about that work. Dunno, just a wild guess, but sometimes fines are viewed as the cost of doing business, and the article mentioned the dreaded home owners kangaroo court (whatever that means).
🙂 Yes, of course! What a lovely film too based on the trailer. Brendan Fraser would certainly up the fun factor in that situation. Had to laugh about the token white guy bit, but the culture would be hard to penetrate, especially fathoming the reserved nature of the people. And that job really is a thing… Oh my, I’m not sure what to make of that. There is a lack of something on display in that outcome.
Very funny, drippy indeed! I’ll mention the film to the Editor.
That is a thing heading over there to teach English. The citizens of that country face stagnating wages and inflation. And just so many tourists. On the other hand, such a job would be an opportunity to experience a deeper connection with the locals.
🙂 Dude, I remember the days when people used to dig up their bulbs in autumn and replant them in spring. All seemed like a lot of hard work, and I’ve never dead headed a rose bush. They just sort of, keep flowering. The interweb spewed up an answer of six or seven weeks repeated ad infinitum, but clearly that must be an average reflecting conditions which are somewhere else. We get months and months of rose flowers.
I asked the Editor about her perspective of David Sedaris’s father, and he sounded like a rough nut to me. David on the other hand keeps a diary and picks up rubbish, there is a lot to like about that. 🙂 The Editor loves his live show.
Parents… Makes me wonder why the bad ones have kids. My mum was a bit randomly violent at times, especially if she’d had a few drinks. One winter day I was sitting at the kitchen table working on homework, and she was mouthing off at me. Must have been about sixteen. I ignored her, which only upped the ante, but was prepared. She went for a king round hit, but instead I grabbed her right arm mid swing, stood, then grabbed the other and pushed her up against the refrigerator and said: I wouldn’t do that again if I were you. She was rotten to the core that lady, and it was a relief when I got a full time job and could afford to move out. The Editor never believed me, after all my mother could be superficially charming, but eventually she lured then turned on Sandra. It was brutal, but I did warn the Editor.
🙂 Your credit union sounds quite ideal. The local branch here is fine enough, but the app request baffles me, and there was that time they ran out of $20 notes. There is just one job…
Lovely, are your onion flowers purple-ish coloured? Good to hear that pollinators are hard at work, and those insects deserve a medal. People freak out about the honeybees, but there are plenty of pollinator insects in the warmer months of the year. The early blossoms like almonds, I dunno about their future due to a lack of insects. It might not be so great.
The taste might come through into the honey! The honey we buy from the apiarist lists the type of forest it was sourced from, and there is a difference in taste, colour and thickness. Banksia plants produce a very nice dark viscous honey.
This whole cutting flowers from potato vines is new to me. Hope it works out well, and those flowers do set viable seed. Oh my, much depends, and if you are uncertain, this may suggest that better records are necessary for next year? I wouldn’t crowd potato plants, but that’s me.
You’ll no doubts be keen to see a new lease signed for the Club, what with having all that shelving at your place. Hope H was behaving herself in all of the hauling confusion? How are they still holding meetings?
Went into the big smoke for work today. Me tired tonight.
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – My dad always surprised me. Even though he worked for the same company, forever, he seemed to understand that the world had changed. And that a lot of companies no longer had any loyalty to their employees. He never gave me any grief about all my job hopping. I was also surprised that he never had any problems, with his feet, given the time he spent on ladders. But then, he always bought the best shoes. Usually, Oxford wing tips. Which looked rather odd, paint splattered. 🙂 But I guess they had really solid soles. Or, maybe it’s genetic. I’m surprised, given being on my feet most of my working life, that I don’t have problems.
I wouldn’t worry about your spinning head. Unless you start spewing split pea soup. 🙂
Our high yesterday was 91F (32.77C). Our overnight low was 55F (12.77C). Our forecast high for today is 74F. Scattered clouds with a nice, west wind ocean breeze. There are four wildfires going in are state. Mostly, east of the mountains. As of last night, one was 500 acres and the other three, 3,500 – 5,000 acres. I think one was started by a military plane, crashing.
H seems to ride the hot weather in pretty good shape. No panting or excess water drinking. When I take her for a walk, and we stop for a sit on the garden wall, she’ll flop on the hot pavement, in the sun. Even when there’s shade available. I’ll be glad to get her to the groomer, tomorrow, and get her fur blanket cut off.
Here, lawyers seem to specialize in one thing or another. When I settled my great aunts estate, the lawyer explained how he ended up doing mostly estates. Which he really liked doing. But he hated family law. So, he’d refer family law cases to other lawyers, early in his career. And those that didn’t care for estate work, would refer those cases to him. But tree law? That’s a new one.
I wondered if the teacher in Japan was, perhaps, having a hard time finding work (after being there so long), due to the, well, should I say, the current political climate, in this country. Not fair, but I bet it … colors peoples perceptions of ex-pats.
LOL. Sedaris was invited to Buckingham Palace, to have tea with the Queen. Due to his compulsive trash picking. 🙂
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/humorist-david-sedaris-invited-buckingham-195429843.html
I’ve often thought people who want children, should be licensed. At least as strenuous as attempting to get a dog from the dog shelter (aka: dog pound.) If I ever get another dog, it will probably be through someone like Dr. Amanda, H’s vet.
The onion flowers aren’t purple-ish. As yet. But I noticed the Elephant Garlic is purple-ish … though I know as they mature, they’ll turn a nice parchment color.
We may have found a place to move the Club. According to rumor. And there was a post last night on the website, that sounded promising.
If you go to the website, and click on “Meetings” and then select “All”, and then any day, it tells which meetings meet at which times. And, if the information is available, where they are moving and when.
http://www.xiistepclub28.org
Some of the groups have been going as long as the Club. Or, longer. They all have names. You may find some of the names, amusing. :-). Lew
@ DJSpo:
Wow – this is good. A bestseller, perhaps.
“Cabinet Chris. Or would it be Chris of the Cabinet? I can see options that the Editor had if she had trapped you in the cabinet. She could remain living there, ignoring any noises made by Chris of the Cabinet. Drilling holes for tubing to be inserted for the new liquid diet popular among cabinet inmates. Or maybe just leave. With the fluffies. Future archaeologists would study Fernglade and wonder what mystical rite required a male human victim to be ensconced within the kitchen cabinetry. Perhaps an offering to the kitchen god? A sacrifice to the Culinary Queen? Fortunately, the Editor’s true nature won out, and you are still here to regale us with tales of your adventures with peak rocks, rogue deer, wallabies and the Great Rodent Wars. Not to be forgotten are the stories of stick insects and pobblebonks.”
Pam
Chris:
It’s funny how making something better sometimes unnerves us till we get used to it. I think we just generally don’t like changes as it often requires extra work to adjust to them.
An elder folk of the forest in my bathroom? Just lonely, I guess. Lanolin – check.
In a more normal summer we often get a brief shower every afternoon. It plays havoc with the kids at the local swimming pool, as they have to get out of the water any time there is rain or thunder.
I remember when you doctored the lemon meyer tree. It looks wonderful. I can understand your grief at the loss of the coffee tree. How great would it be to have your own fresh, homegrown coffee beans?
I went to the eye doctor yesterday; it had been 7 years. Everything is hunky-dory with my eyes, though I had trouble after the doctor put numbing drops in my eyes to check the pressure in them. I had a reaction to the drops and I should have known better than to have them as with all meds I always get the side effects.
Pam
@ Pam,
Thanks. I rather enjoyed writing that.
DJSpo
Chris,
Alas! I didn’t figure out the voice before its owner became apparent. Neither of us did. It was a fine addition to the story.
We have yet to watch the sequel. We’ve got both movies on DVD but, well, time and family and all that. Maybe after the Princess returns from the current regularly scheduled venture.
Dude! Of course that type of thing has happened to me. The worst instance was when the window mechanism broke on my Blazer S-10 driver door. I had to replace the door from a local car dump, aka junkyard, aka pull and save. The car was brown but the new door was what we used to call “puke yellow” when in our teens. And my key wouldn’t work in the new door. When the car was locked, had to crawl in from the passenger side. That went on for a few years until the car finally was beyond its last legs. Gasping for life would’ve been an improvement. And the Princess, bless her, never complained. At least not to me. Of course, she had her own vehicle, but still…
The king was sometimes called “my liege”. Privy. Wiping the butt of “my liege”. I like the way you combined all of that for “privilege.” I’m still laughing. That said, well, perhaps we have observed a new bottom. 😉
No squirrel in the eagle’s talons. I think he was enjoying a resting view from the highest point in the immediate vicinity. However, once upon a walk in a local cemetery at the edge of town, a red-tailed hawk swooped up from the lower level of the terrain, coasted into a ponderosa pine and emerged with a squirrel. We weren’t more than 20 meters away. It was exciting.
Unfortunately, the Princess had to leave for Toppenish this morning. The normally scheduled trip. In the windstorm. The Tule Fire southeast of Toppenish was over 24,000 acres this morning. No containment.
There’s a fire upwind of us near Soap Lake and Ephrata in the central part of the state, as the wind is coming from an exceedingly rare northwesterly direction.
And a 229 acre or larger fire just east of town near the river. Swirling winds and rapid spread. Trees, brush, many homes, wheat fields. A huge area has been evacuated. The RedCross has set up a fire evacuation center for the displaced people.
There have also been numerous small (10 acre and less) brush fires all over the Spokane area, both withing and outside city limits. Smoke from likely several sources is now present and it stinks outside. Smoke season has begun.
Most of my grass has turned crunchy. If it isn’t well shaded, it’s a case of water in the morning and with the winds and low humidity (15% or so today), the soil is beyond dry within a few hours. Sustained winds over 25 mph with gusts near 45mph will do that. Even the neighborhood “lawn gurus” have struggling grass, and they water much too heavily for my tastes.
At least that spruce tree that was having dryness issues is doing much better. It has received a goodly amount of water.
Yes, remove the potato flowers. Supposed to make the plants concentrate on growing more below ground rather than on making flowers and seeds.
Nice poem. Thanks. Furry Avalanche smiled when I read it to her. 😉
DJSpo
Hi Pam,
Change begets trouble, and as you noted, can lead events in any number of different directions away from comfort. But yeah, more work resolves many problems. It’s funny you know, but at any one time, ten things are going on here (please don’t infer a capability for multi-tasking from this! 🙂 ), and eight or nine things will be going great. Then there is that one thing. You (the nebulous person, including both you and I) never wanted to deal with the change, but far out, do we have any choice in the matter? Don’t think so. I’m dealing with one issue like that at the moment, and it is all so pointlessly wasteful, but as you’d no doubts be aware – other people can bring poop to your doorstep. Oh well.
🙂 That’s the thing with living in, or surrounded by the forest, are the Elders Ones still there? Hmm. Best to not annoy that lot seems like the wisest path to me.
And that WD-40 is good stuff, but in the heat it can run and get thin. Lanolin is far stickier and moisture resistant, after all, has a sheep ever felt damp?
Hehe! Those late afternoon summer storms were part of my childhood too, and the local pool (they had an Olympic sized pool with another diving pool) did the same thing in closing up. To be honest, in those days the thought of being hit by lightning never occurred to me. Although in those days they did advise to not use the telephone during such weather. Actually you got me wondering about whether anyone has experienced the electrical surge from a lightning strike whilst on the phone… … Hang on a second … … Hmm, I reckon we can put the topic into the possible, but rare, basket.
Hope your rain picks up from here, and fingers crossed for you. 🙂
Citrus trees are remarkably hardy, which is why I reckon yours from the winter basement, will be OK. They might need a good regular feed though. What do you do on that front with your citrus? The sad coffee shrub, which grew and grew, then succumbed to a light snowfall. It would be good to harvest some beans, and they can be roasted in a fry pan (skillet). Might have to stick with tea camellia instead.
Nice one, and respect for getting your eyes checked. Good to hear, and did they recommend a change on the magnification for your lenses? It happens with reactions, and I’ve been told that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Hope you are feeling better today?
It was weirdly warm here today. How’s this for a week prior to the winter solstice: 15’C / 59’F? Crazy stuff. Did paid work all day long, and finished up late. It’s been really busy recently, and I’m hoping to get outdoors tomorrow, but we’ll see what the weather is like. The forecast however looks, unpleasant. Oh well.
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
I didn’t figure out the voice story in the film either , until about a day later when the little light bulb in the cranium lit up. 🙂 Sometimes a bit of time is required to process upon a puzzle. That sub plot was a nice touch of mission impossible don’t you reckon? Your mission should you choose to accept it… Fun stuff. And no, we’ve not seen the sequel either, but might sort that situation out soon. The protagonist was not quite the same as a ‘sheep detective’, and was perhaps a bit more hands on with weapons, combat and stuff!
Thanks for the laughs, and they had those ‘you dismantle’ vehicle wrecking yards down here too. The ultimate junk yard, and person could test their skills on a machine which was never going to drive again. A good way to learn the task. Fun places, and the local one down here had a catchy advertising melody. No way, the ‘pick-a-part’ wrecker is still going today all these years later.
Ah, the odd coloured door on your ancient vehicle suggests a certain canny and resourceful nature, which clearly your lady approved of. The facts in this instance, tend to be suggestive of that! 😉 Man, I can only laugh, because on my first date with Sandra all those years ago err, 1994, the gearbox on my 12 year old Suzuki Jimny 92cc four speed manual (stick shift) vehicle was being rebuilt. Honesty is the best policy in these situations, and we used her car instead.
There was a bit of that ‘puke yellow’ colour going around at the time on vehicles. I’ve noticed that many new cars now have this dirty grey colour nowadays, and they look to me as if they are, err, dirty. Of course we live on a dirt road so know something about this matter, and our cars are never clean – how can they be? Some tasks are undone on a regular basis.
🙂 Etymology sometimes uncovers some startling stories! Thank you for the laughs as well. That job is probably beyond my pay grade and competence, just sayin’! Very funny, yes, and we have reached rock bottom indeed. We could have hours of jokes based on this topic.
That’s what I’ve observed here as well with the birds of prey. The avians hang around the sky lazily drifting around, and then swoop downwards at an alarming speed. I’d not want to be in their sights. It’s exciting alright.
Oh my, DJ, it is so early in the summer season for all those fires in your part of the world. Crazy stuff, and hope your friends and relatives on the Rez, as well as everyone else in the area, are safe from the troubles. Talk about crazy weather, it was 15’C / 59’F here today, you know, a week before the winter solstice and stuff. Mind you, it is very damp outside, so there is that. I spotted the first of the seasons snow drop flowers today. What the heck?
Did the wind calm for your lady’s drive to Toppenish? Fingers crossed the trip remains uneventful.
Have you got the air filter machine working in your house what with all that smoke? And I hear you about that, and you can taste the acrid air in those conditions. We’ve got local areas set aside as a ‘neighbourhood safer place’, which suggests that if things got bad, the area may not be all that safe.
Actually, in the 1983 Ash Wednesday fires, the Victorian emergency management institute office located over in the more fashionable western end of the mountain range was itself caught up in the monster fire. Many locals went there to shelter from the fire, and had to evacuate through the fire in a convoy.
The grass and ground cover plants die back here most summers as well. That lot need a huge amount of regular water in order to stay green, and we are of one mind with your opinion – it is wasteful of a precious resource. You are experiencing awful conditions, and hope they moderate, or you get a lot of rain, and soon. Nothing beats rain in those circumstances. Is there anything forecast in the longer term?
Yes, and that is a great point. Better to help out the trees in dry years. The grass will bounce back when the time is right, but a tree takes decades to grow. And that was why the deer really annoyed me killing a few in a single night, when they’d taken fifteen years to get to that point. Oh well, these things happen.
I’ve known of people to fill up buckets of water when they shower, and then regularly pour those on the trees, obviously after having gotten dried and dressed again! 😉 Water does not go to waste here, not one drop – unless a system fails.
I’ll keep an eye out on the potato vines with the blossoms. Bizarrely, we’re getting a second crop of potatoes right now and the vines are looking quite good. What is going on under the ground may be a very different story. Who knows? They’re surrounded by weeds too, and that may help the vines keep warmer on cold winter nights. I really don’t know, and hadn’t expected this outcome.
🙂 Glad to entertain the Dame, and we’ve heard of her good deeds down here thousands of kilometres away. Please convey my respect for keeping the squirrels on their toes, or is it paws?
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
You had a good break there with your dad’s expectations, and I believe that from about 1992 onwards, down here at least, the employee loyalty story was trashed, although it took a few more years to die. To be honest, it’s only gotten worse these days, and I was speaking to a local bloke this morning about how it is so weird that big corporate entities appear to favour new customers, over the existing ones. So strange, but then we both worked in small business and had other ideas about such matters.
The stories we get told are sometimes quite strange, and one lie repeated to me over and over by adults (when as a kid) was that: ‘I could do anything’, which was clearly false. Did you ever hear that whopper told?
Forget about all that though, what are: ‘Oxford wing tips’ shoes? You may have forgotten, but I used to work in footwear manufacturing, and hmm, those are some decent shoes. Yup. Look at the stitching, and the overall flexibility the design allows in the toe and arch. Very nice, and not sure what soles were used back in the day, but the ones attached nowadays look good to me. Cushioned, but not too soft or firm. Not a cheap shoe, so respect. A person has to look after their feet. The Editor did a retail stint in a big city department store (Myer) in the shoe area, and based on what she observed, vowed to look after her feet. Hmm. An instructive experience that… Everyone should do retail once in their life because it will make them interact with people serving them as an equal.
Nice to hear that you’ve dodged foot problems, and appropriately fitted shoes helps a lot, as does genetics. You may note that I always wear locally made leather work boots, everywhere. Feet are all that keep us up off the ground, best if respected.
Thanks, and I’ll be careful. Nobody wants to do the head spinning pea soup spitting thing. Or the rising from the undead business either for that matter. The results in either case would be unpleasant, and for everyone else the outcome would not smell nice at all.
There was an article in the news this morning about the bird goings on in a coastal tourist town which is to the south and a bit west of here. Marauding cockatoos thwarted by bin lid invented by men’s shed. Best not to feed the birds, and err, the tourists whom are doing just that, get to visit the area, and then leave the results of their actions. Hmm. Incidentally, those are the same birds which a neighbour feeds, and did that smash and grab trick on the apples last summer when thirty turned up. I got the little boom stick out and scared them all off. Given they live as long as a human, I hope that lot remember me. Not a fan, and neither are the local birds which live here all year around. The white cockatoos are universally hated by the other birds.
Glad to read that the temperatures have dropped a bit, but those fires… Hmm. So early in the season. And such things can happen with military aircraft. A massive fire was allegedly ignited by a helicopter spotlight in 2020: Inquiry into Orroral Valley bushfire finds Defence helicopter crew made ‘error of judgement’ after accidentally sparking blaze. Those particular military helicopters have now been all decommissioned and destroyed.
Poor H, but some dogs love cooking their heads in the hot summer sun. It’s not good for them, and they can end up woozy and ‘a bit off their feed’ as the old timers used to say. 🙂 Tis the season for the groomers.
It isn’t just you, I’d not heard of a lawyer specialising in tree related law either! What the heck? I so get that guy you mentioned picking and choosing the work he wants to do. And followed a similar strategy early on when I first headed out into the wide public accountant-seas, although we now cover all bases, which is what is required in the current environment.
Spent all day today doing paid work, and figured out some of the new systems the goobers of the mint, are putting in place. And had to do some training…
You know, people can get caught up in sweeping generalisations about a country, but the reality I’ve observed is that most folks elsewhere can separate the person from that of the country. Or maybe the people overseas were lying to me? 🙂 I don’t think so though. The Japanese are like everywhere else, enjoying the downsides of poor monetary policy with oodles of inflation, high dependence on imported energy and a wobbly currency. It probably is just ill economic winds.
What a fine wit! Thank you for the link to the article. Mr Sedaris tells an engaging tale, even when the subject is dark. One quote leaped out at me, for it is something I too have learned over the years (and am alert for in social interactions): “You can’t make fun of other people and then make yourself look like an angel” So true. Hmm. Guess I’ve become err, nicer, in my dotage, and isn’t it awful? 🙂 The nicer bit that is, the dotage thing is all very unavoidable. Ooo, it’d make for a fun monster name: Dotage, the unavoidbale! Wonder what the thing would look like?
Hehe! The cries of outrage, if that licensing thing were to be enforced, definitely could be heard from low earth orbit. 🙂 That’s a good idea about sourcing a future dog, it happens, and you know my thoughts on this matter, but they’re worth repeating: Do the folks at shelters have to be so odd? I recall a time when the situation was easier. Fortunately a local farmer sold us the two Kelpies, all legit and stuff. They get microchipped down here so there were proper papers, and all sorts of officialdom, but it was an easier way to adopt a dog. At least Dr Amanda knows you and H, and that would make things easier.
Hope all those onion plants set seed, as they will. Makes our job look like we know what we’re doing!
Go the Club, and fingers crossed the new digs work out. The news sounded early, but positive.
Ah, the groups scatter in the meantime sort of organically it looks like to me, and will reconvene (or is it more correct to say, re-gather?) at the new digs.
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – Yes, the shitification of the net. Or, more accurately, the companies that use the net. I think I mentioned either an article or a book about that topic. Here, E-buy has entirely gone to hell. I did some searches for some very specific things, the other day. And there was all kinds of totally unrelated carp, mixed in. And, I’m getting a lot of spam in my e-mail, from them. Urging me to buy stuff, that, once again, is totally unrelated to anything I’ve ever searched for.
I did a little research, and, I’m not the only one that’s noticed the change. Apparently, they’ve turned over the search function to a i . They say their computer department is “working on it.” I go way back, with that site. Even sold quit a bit, at one point. So many things that were good about it, are gone.
I don’t remember being told I could do or be anything. But that might just be a failure of memory. Optimism, in general, was pretty high in the 1950s.
I vaguely remember a few conversations that Dad’s Oxford shoes were expensive … but necessary. My Mom used to hit the garage sales, regularly. Especially in a near by area, that was quit … well, like your other end of the mountain. She pretty much dressed us, out of those sales. Once, she found a pair of Oxfords. Hand made, in England, still in the box. Never used. They fit me, and were my dress shoes, for quit awhile.
I’ll bite. What’s a “men’s shed?” Sort of like a WI for dudes? That was quit an article about the cockatoos. I hope the fellows patented their invention. Their fortunes are made. I sure wouldn’t want to eat in a restaurant, from a table that birds had been camping out on.
Our high yesterday was 73F. (22.77C). Our overnight low was 48F (8.88C). Our forecast high for today is 77F. Our temperatures will be creeping up, and hit the low 90s, early next week.
Fires start for all kinds of reasons. Helicopter search lights is a new one. Even the sun hitting a piece of broken glass, just right, can ignite a fire.
What would Dotage the Unavoidable look like? I’ll send you pictures of a few of the Inmates. 🙂
If the time comes I ever need another dog, I will check out our local shelter. See how onerous the adoption process is. Also, every once in awhile, one of the feed and garden stores has a pet adoption day. I think there’s one coming up, this weekend.
I rewatched “The Devil Wears Prada,” last night. In anticipation of watching the sequel, which is already on my hold list. It’s held up, well. Although as a defense of the high fashion industry, well, you either buy into it, or you don’t.
Dawg and I are off to the groomers. The plan is, drop her off, go get petrol, and hang at the Club til they call to pick her up. At least, that’s the plan. Lew
Chris:
Got to let poop dry before you can sweep it off the doorstep, or hose it down. Which means absolutely nothing . . . I’m glad you brought up multi-tasking. I am big on multi-tasking. I am always trying to do 5 or 6 things at one time. Recently someone said to me that she had seen online that multi-tasking is bad for the brain (that person has 4 children and a fulltime job; tell me she doesn’t multi-task). I had seen a headline pertaining to that, also, and said to myself: “Phooey. How can one get through having so much to do without multi-tasking?” Then I started watching myself as I multi-tasked and found that I was too easily losing my focus while I leapt between tasks. I still fully intend to keep multi-tasking, but I am paying more attention to focusing more intently on each job as I am at it.
Oh dear. We have cut so many trees down – what must the elders think? Some of those trees had names; some were quite old. I have been watching out for some kind of curse.
I don’t know about phones and lightning, but in one memorable storm with lots of lightning, it struck the ground next to the living room and fried all the electronics in there. We had to replace everything. Rex was sleeping near the TV and I saw a red flash next to him. He was already a Nervous Nellie and that didn’t do him any good. It looked like that event occurred because the house was not properly grounded (improper lightning rod).
I don’t know; my son feeds the trees, I just water them.
I’m fine; thank you for asking. My prescription changed very slightly. I didn’t notice in which direction. Seven years ago my vision had gotten better; hopefully that was so this time. I seriously eat a lot of sweet potatoes and carrots and have done so for years. Couldn’t hurt (except for you and the sweet potatoes . . .).
That is indeed warm, at 59F at this time of the year. We were 59F in the early morning, also unheard of here, in summertime.
Yesterday evening – it was still light – my son was doing some clean-up work back in the fig clearing. He was quite near our neighbor’s fence (bless her, she is so patient with all the noise and commotion). Suddenly, he heard terrible screams start up and ran up there and vaulted over her fence. It was a very young fawn – looked like the one whose mother temporarily abandoned it a while back. It had found itself trapped and panicked. Possibly it saw her dog Teddy, a very fine Bluetick Coonhound. My neighbor came running out and grabbed Teddy (he’s as big as Ollie) and mys son shoved the fawn outside the fence. Finally, here comes its mother. That doe appears unfit for motherhood to me; I think she is the same one that takes naps in our front yard and doesn’t even get up when we come out. My son has fixed the hole in the fence where it got in.
Pam
Chris,
Agreed, Ben Affleck’s character was great. Not the stereotypical “boring” accountant at all. Having sat in proximity to the accounting staff for many years, I know that the stereotype is incorrect, yet it continues.
The biggest pull and save store in the region is Spalding Auto Parts in Spokane Valley. One of its boundaries is the huge Interstate 90. Lots of “dead” cars were visible for years from the interstate. Then, an unincorporated portion of Spokane County decided to become a city. While it was going through the preliminary stages leading to a vote, a name fort the new city had to be decided upon. Many people jokingly suggested “Spaldingview, Washington”. Alas! “City of Spokane Valley” was decided upon. And one of the first acts of the new city was to force Spalding to plant tall trees to eventually block most of it from the interstate. Couldn’t have people driving through the new city staring at a junkyard, apparently. I still say that Spaldingview would have been a more appropriate name. City of Spokane Valley showed absolutely no imagination whatsoever.
Hmmm, seems to me you did something right. Drew the correct straw or something, as the Editor is still with you. Despite the car snafu on the first date. And she DID have the chance to entrap you in that cabinet and didn’t. I remember that in
“Who Framed Roger Rabbit”, Jessica Rabbit was asked what she ever saw in Roger. “He makes me laugh” was her deadpanned reply. Perhaps you keep Sandra properly entertained?
One summer when I was still in high school, I got a job at my school helping with maintenance projects. There was a lot of painting. Several rooms were to be repainted with that same puke yellow that my future car displayed on a door. Most rooms, however, were repainted with what my fellow students (and coworkers) called “institutional puke green”.
Well, erm, uh, some topics periodically REAR their ugly selves, ya know. And rock bottom? Well, a lot of the Natives had a rather picturesque nickname for one dude named Custer. “Hard Backside Custer” was one of the things they called him because he could sit astride a horse and ride and ride and ride. Hard backside.
Birds of prey are extra cool. Listen closely at about the 2:10 mark. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0ANsTMV6PI&list=RDrtyhEprUfps&index=7
It’s much too early for this many fires. A series of small fires broke out near downtown today. Arson. Extinguished quickly. Meanwhile, on the Rez near the south end of Omak Lake and further south, a series of fires started on Tuesday. Someone was actually lighting things on fire and tossing them out their car window into the dry brush. (The arsonist was observed and photographed. Later got arrested.) It’s called the Kartar Fire. A huge area was evacuated Tuesday evening. 8,000 acres burned with zero containment. We have family in that area that got evacuated.
Other fires all over the region. And the one just east of Spokane? Downgraded to about 220 acres. However, still active and 15 homes were damaged or destroyed.
The smoke I could smell was from a fire about 2 miles from here. It was quickly put out and the smell disappeared. Not needing to use the special air filter yet.
The wind finally quit today. Humidity was less arid at 20%. The lawns are now getting just enough water to keep the trees alive. No trees in that sector? No water. Well, the mix of various grasses and succulents and whatnot only needs a little bit every 10 days or 2 weeks. I think you mentioned that Melbourne folks average150 liters of water a day per person. That’s similar to what we use during the colder and wet season.
When I was in our garage this morning, something smelled like it had died. Sure enough, I had caught one of the renegade mice in a trap. It was properly disposed of, as was a dead sparrow that the Dame had caught. Fortunately, today was garbage collection day and I was able to get them added to the outgoing before it was collected.
DJSpo
Hi Pam,
That sure is the truth about poop. Much easier to deal with when dry. 🙂
Oh my goodness, the thought of doing 5 or 6 things at a time, makes my head spin exorcist style. A very impressive achievement on your part! And I’m so with you, the contrast to four kids and a full time job would genuinely prove that I’m the lesser human, and truly I have no idea how that story is even remotely sustainable, unless maybe a house husband, or partner is running the domestic side of things? A mystery, but then I can claim, err bloke status, which is obviously the weaker of the species on that front.
Paying a little bit of extra attention to activities, is very much in the vein of the year of better. 🙂 Respect.
The forest is perhaps more complicated than that, and the Elder Ones would I believe, appreciate less tree competition. An area can only support so many trees per acre depending upon the climate and resources, and for humans to bring the land back to that balanced state is a wondrous thing. Most forests I observe are choked thick with trees, and that only works well in the best seasons. What happens in the worst seasons is die-back and fire.
Did you hear that the other Robin Hood tree died? That’s what a curse and a warning looks like.
Poor Rex, that was an unfortunate close strike and he’d have had a mild freak out – and may have become a ‘storm whisperer, or freak outerer’? It’s funny you mention the earth stake, but I had to replace one of the two stakes here because it had broken somehow, probably due to rust. I’d not seen that happen before.
Fair enough, and hope the figgies are growing well in the early warmth? Some of the worst summers here (from a heat perspective), were also some of the most productive. In the 2019-20 Black Summer, melons grew beautifully. I’m conflicted because that season was dry with 10 days over 104’F (one of which reached 114’F – Ook!) But the fruit was amazing.
Do you usually enjoy cooler summer evening and night temperatures? That’s ordinarily how things work here, except when they don’t.
Poor little stuck fawn. With all those gangly legs and small brain, the doe probably didn’t raise the little one right. It happens. Pam, a Bluetick Coonhound looks to me like the love child of an English Setter and a Bloodhound! A potent canine, that’s for sure (and Ollie has a bit of English Setter in his genetics).
I trust your son had a good chat with the doe about the responsibilities of motherhood? And it was a lovely thing to do to release the fawn back into the care of the mum. She may mend her idle ways of lazing in the sunshine, but who knows?
Had to head a half hour south to the nearest outer urban area and visit the nice telco shop folks. Lovely people, and they helped me out heaps sorting out a problem. The goobermint has set up some registry for businesses which send text messages and I kind of have to be on it for my little business otherwise my text messages will say ‘unverified’ which doesn’t look good. 🙂 Oh well, nobody said this stuff would be easy, and I did grab a Bahn Mi for lunch as a reward. The young lady who helped me, had trained as a nurse and was doing that work so as to save some mad cash for a holiday. We had a good chat. It was the day to do such things because the weather is filthy and it rained heaps.
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
The profession bends the practitioner’s mind, and there are all sorts of personalities in the trade. I’d have to suggest that an excitable accountant is probably not much good. Best to be calm, even if faced with a storm of poop. Ben Affleck’s character in the film at least, betrayed not one iota of stress or doubt.
Ah, the ‘pull and save’, means a recover your own auto parts business. Right. Hehe! That’s funny, and such businesses are necessary, but rarely conform to the precepts of traditional aesthetics! 😉 They are, what they are. There is an auto wrecker business about an hours drive north of here, and they have a big sign out front declaring that: ‘New models, stripped daily’. It’s a big call, and surely was a meant: ‘tongue-in-cheek’.
Physically, the Editor is not with me right now, she’s having dinner in the big smoke with friends! 🙂 Ha! And there’d be a loss of trust with locking me in that cabinet. It’d be remembered! She (who like some of my friends, is an INTJ) tells me that because of my mental wiring I’ve got an emotional donut, whatever that is, and such incidents perhaps would only provide fodder for the thing. As you can imagine, we talk a lot of high level ideas rubbish, all well natured. Sometimes we can be a bit silly too and hopefully keep people laughing.
Your lady has a lot of responsibilities, on many levels, and I like how you keep her entertained as well, and you’d be a calm and safe port in stormy seas. Dunno about you, but I’m not one for grand gestures, it’s the little regular things which sometimes have the biggest impact.
Anywhoo, I got the rough end of the stick today, and had to spend time with the nice telco folks fixing up some stuff with our mobiles and modem service. Nothing they or I did, but the goobermint now has a register for businesses sending text messages, and I had to get the business on that list. Far out… I’m swamped with bureaucratic demands and initiatives theses days, most of which have costs, whilst none produce any income. Hmm.
Yeah, I recall those days when the school rooms were painted during the summer break. A nice idea for mad cash too. Good one. Hey, they also used to oil the timber floors as well, and you’d come back to school and the classrooms would smell like a chemical plant! Paint was a far more stinky product not all that long ago. At a wild guess, the paint colour was probably cheap.
Ha! Thanks for the Custer visuals. That bloke was an err, hard nut (!), and all rather over confident – the facts are highly suggestive of that trait.
The hawk was a pretty cool addition to the melody, and it worked. A beautiful voice and accompaniment. And a banjo from a gourd, who knew? Really lovely stuff. Did you notice the inlay work above the fret board? Thanks.
One of the good aspects of cameras all over the place nowadays, is that such recidivists are caught. The state to the west and north of here (South Australia) has a policy of locking up folks with those convictions on high risk days. Inconvenient for them, but better for everyone else. Hope your family and kin are safe from the fire, and that the weather calms for the immediate future, especially those winds.
Well, you’ve got the air filter, and it’s a good machine. I forget, how often does the element get cleaned, or does it only have a certain lifespan? It’d not be easy to clean up I’m guessing.
It’s been feral here today. Cold, wet and windy. That’s winter for you. I was planning to spend some time outdoors, but the conditions were really was not even close to fluffy ideal. At about 5pm, the rain was torrential. Tomorrow isn’t shaping up to be much better.
Your watering regime sounds ideal to me, and no garden raised on watering can ever go cold turkey. Can you imagine the lawn gurus losing their town water? I’ve been winding back the amount of water any of the plants get over a number of years, plus building the soil and selecting for veg which does OK in the conditions. It’s complicated, and as you noted, different arrangements of plants, have their own requirements. Harvested the rest of the chilli’s a few days ago, and it wasn’t a bad haul this year, but next will be better.
The aim for usage is around 150L per person a day for Melbourne, ah, but actuals come in at 166L which isn’t too bad. Looking at updates from Melbourne Water, they’re saying that: Over the past 24 months, Melbourne experienced some of the lowest rainfall and inflows on record – similar to the worst years of the Millennium Drought. That’s not good, although things have been easier up here in the mountains on that front. The city’s reservoirs are at 63.8% today. The tanks here are full and over flowing.
Mice! I’m getting triggered, as they say, and whatever that means! Another one bites the dust. Oh yeah, dogs and their habits… It’s not a chew toy. Oh well. I chuck such carcasses in the worm farm.
The wood heater is going nicely, and the winds are howling outside tonight. Woosh!!!!
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Feral. Yeah, that is probably the right word for the weather today. The winds are howling tonight, and a couple of hours ago the rain was torrential. Alas, I was driving at the time and watching the trees in case they decided to fall onto the road. The windscreen wipers complained: She’s got nothing more to give cap’n. If ye push her any harder, she’s going to blow! (said in best Scotty the engineer voice). More water was hitting the windscreen, than the blades could flick away. Crazy stuff.
And also an indoors day. Used up half the day getting to the nice telco shop (the local one closed a while back) and fixing some stuff up with the account. It wasn’t anything they’d done, but a new goobermint initiative means that businesses sending text messages have to get onto an official list, otherwise the word ‘unverified’ will display when I text someone. Hardly ideal for a business is it? Anyway, the process has begun. The Editor dodged all this stuff too, so I treated myself to a Bahn Mi for lunch. Soothes the savage beast. 🙂
I’d not noticed that with e-buy, but now you mention it, some of the searches have been a bit err, loose with the items returned. Hmm. I’ll keep an eye out for this, however, it is still the best option due to the feedback score. You can tell at a glance the sort of person / business you are dealing with. I’ve heard some stories about the other, cheaper options, and they leave me feeling cold.
One thing I sort of heard about e-buy, is that they’re trying to attract back individual sellers with free listings. Second hand stuff is not so plentiful due to the cheaper sites. It’s mostly businesses. That’s probably also part of what you are seeing. Things were different back in the day, but I believe that the changes reflect the wider culture, and not the system in that particular case.
Actually there is some stuff I do have to sell, and a few fall into the category of: ‘do I want to deal with strange expectational people for this item?’ Dunno. Usually if I’m not sure what something is worth, I chuck it on for a 1 cent auction and see what it is bid up to – then you know for sure.
I ignore spam emails, and get so much rubbish. Man, put your phone number on the interweb for the business, and people hammer the thing. It’s a nuisance, and so a long while back I restricted first contact to email only. The spam calls eventually faded. Actually, I had some interesting ideas for marketing the business, and have been watching a lot of material on the subject. I had to finally fess up, I knew nothing about marketing, but hey, I can learn.
One interesting idea I learned was that of the ‘Miseries and Miracles’ concept. It’s quite interesting and sort of answers the question, why would anyone new contact our business? And I have a rather good answer too.
There’s been a lot of interesting developments in the profession of late. Plus all that video work last year, will get put to some good use. At least I’m not stiff and awkward when someone shoves a camera in my face nowadays! 🙂 A kind of aversion therapy all that stuff last year, and it was for a good purpose, on a few fronts.
Adults were telling me that story in the 1980’s and perhaps the echoes of the 50’s and 60’s were still there with that expressed optimism? Certainly all of the economic troubles in the 1970’s (and there were some shockers), like 17% inflation combined with unemployment, were treated like road humps in the dark past. The 1950’s were pretty good in the US and Australia. Industry was almost intact after the war, labour was in short supply so wages were good, and most importantly, energy and resources were cheap. There is a lot to like about that combination of circumstances.
I hear you about that, and thrift and care is something a person has to do, because they appreciate the inherent benefits of those values. Those Oxford shoes would have been a massive score. I remember in that final year of school with no paid work and empty promises, begging for some new running shoes because I’d been made captain of the school cross country running team. The rubbish diet they ate didn’t help that story either! Truthfully I was a good runner, but would never have been a great runner – too many hurdles to have gotten around for that outcome. But you know, even now, I’m careful with clothes and look after them. Having grown up in a single parent household, I did my own washing and ironing from about the age of 12 and at least I always presented clean and neat, if somewhat lacking in proper mojo style. I’m sure you’d appreciate that circumstance?
Mr King’s story in ‘On Writing’ about the students which provided the fodder for Carrie shocked me as to what could have been, but truly if presentation fell outside the goal posts of normality, I’d have used some of the earned mad cash to fix up the wardrobe. Having spent time at a hippy dippy school for disadvantaged kids, I didn’t advertise my circumstances at the more English than the English grammar school any worse than it already was. Those students Mr King wrote about were sad stories, but man, I was up at 5am delivering newspapers, and then more papers after school plus chemist rounds. I dunno, there was a sort of in-built defeat with those kids. That chapter troubled me, and I’m not sure why.
🙂 Hehe! I used know the bloke who runs the local Men’s Shed. He’s a really lovely guy. It’s a place for blokes to hang out and do stuff, like getting together to do community projects. I reckon they’re a great idea, and are all over the place, especially in rural areas. The Australian Men’s Shed Association. I think it is a really good idea too, because a lot of blokes don’t have mates, and social connection is important as we’ve long discussed.
Hey, those cockatoos know my feelings, and the local birds here back me 100%, on that issue at least. 🙂
After today’s filth-pit of weather, 72’F sounds glorious. Enjoy your growing season.
All true, and the crew of the helicopter managed to burn the underside of the expensive machine too (all for a toilet break apparently). Those European helicopters weren’t good. One crashed because of I believe a software update issue killing all on board, and they’ve been dumped now for Blackhawks, which is I believe what the army wanted all along.
Naughty Lewis! I like the way you think!!!! 🙂
Of course, yeah the local dog shelter is a good place to start, and all we can but hope is that they’re not too onerous. Someone in the comments long ago mentioned home visits by that lot. We’re not talking pedigree dogs destined for Crufts… I’ve seen advertisements in the local feed shops too, and had never considered that avenue.
That’s a great film, and you may recall that I once worked in clothes manufacturing way back in the day, although more day to day items? It’s a whole different world that lot. I enjoyed the film, and the Editor has seen the sequel at the cinema with friends. I’ll be interested to hear your thoughts on the film?
Ha! Did your dawg – petrol – groomer – Club plan survive contact with real world conditions? 🙂 Hope the little lady enjoys taking her fur coat off?
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – Our high yesterday was 73F (22.77C). Our overnight low was 46F (7.77C). Our forecast high for today is 84F. Not to make you feel bad, but after walking the dog, this morning, I sat on the garden wall for awhile and watched the pollinators. Just about perfect temperature, and a nice, gentle breeze. When your nice weather returns, we’ll either be in deluge, or, the ice box. 🙂
I didn’t see any European honey bees, this morning. But quit a few of their wild cousins. I suppose they go back to the hive, do their little dance to indicate the direction and distance of good tucker. The solitary bumble bees keep themselves, to themselves. They probably jealously guard good tucker, as jealously as fishermen guard the location of good fishing holes. 🙂
I saw an interesting article, this morning. RIP Robin Hood’s oak.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/most-famous-tree-in-the-world-sherwood-forests-1000-year-old-major-oak-dies-230146735.html
As far as e – buy goes, as my mate Scott says, “What are the positives?” Yes, the ratings system is gold. And even with good ratings, the comments are often worth a look. Then there’s the prices actually realized function.
Back in the “good ol’ days,” when I was a seller, you could pick out, I think, two classifications to list your book under. Just about as detailed as a library subject catalog. So a buyer could look through a manageable number of listings, for whatever their interest was. That’s mostly gone away.
Then there were the “forums.” I religiously read through the booksellers forum. Leaned a lot, and, you could ask questions. It was a wealth of information. I think those have all gone away, or, are buried so deep no one can find them. I think some of them have moved, unfortunately, onto Face Plant.
https://www.valueaddedresource.net/ebay-community-forum-platform-changes/
Marketing can be a mystery. And, I think, it’s one of those constantly moving targets. There’s plenty of information and opinions out there, but which are “of the moment?” You know, there are whole courses of study, and degrees, in marketing. 🙂
The past, is often considered some “Golden Age.” That whole concept goes back to the Ancient Greeks. People, I think, tend to blame the loss on social aspects. Where it’s really changes in government and business that drive the loss. And they encourage the idea that it’s the social aspects, and not them. Don’t look here, look over there.
I didn’t have to really do my own washing and ironing, until I moved away from home, at 18. But one of the first things I did, was purchase an ironing board and a good steam iron. An amusing story. The first place I lived, when I moved to Seattle, was a house share with four guys, that I didn’t know. It was ok, but they were older. Mostly engineering students. One day I was set up, ironing in the corner of the dinning room. A couple of their girlfriends were there, and were amazed that me, a man, knew how to iron a shirt. 🙂
I tend to treat things, gently. No matter if it’s the doors, drawers and taps in my apartment, to my clothes. If I get a stain on a shirt, I scrub it out with cold water, and a good liquid detergent, before throwing it in the wash.
I’ve read a couple of things about how different kinds of “social capital” are “born to” rather than something you can acquire … without a lot of effort. Some people pick up on cues, sometimes even subconsciously, as to if someone “belongs,” or not. It’s how a person is raised.
I’m finding Mr. Greers post, this week, very interesting. Our current library situation is a good example. The wage earners have struck back at the salaried class. And quit a few of the salaried class have been shown the door.
So, “men’s sheds” are sort of communal man caves. 🙂 They have a great web site. I think it’s a really good thing. Here, I think there are opportunities for men to get together, but it’s more based around shared interests. Such as DJ’s wood burning group. My Idaho friend’s husband, when they moved there, joined the local trap / shooting club.
Another low stress source of dogs I thought of was … the groomer. Yup, H got her fur coat taken off. She’ll be a lot more comfortable, in the upcoming warm weather.
“The Devil Wears Prada 2” is due out on DVD around the middle of August. I think it’s already on my library hold list. By the way, the library has “Deep Water,” on order.
I forgot to mention I made up that frozen pizza, the other night. It was about 7 1/2″ by 7 1/2″. I tarted it up, with chopped garlic, tomato, broccoli and peas. Extra Swiss cheese to hold the whole thing together. It was tasty. Lew
Chris:
Ah, yes. The year of better. Thanks for reminding me.
No, I had not heard about the Robin Hood Tree, but that’s not a curse, that’s a matter of biology – its time had come.
The figgies are doing fine, as long as they get that precious water. I went back to visit them yesterday – I rarely have time to go to the back of the property – and I also was amazed at the view one gets back there of the Blue Ridge Mountains, a lot of it. There used to be no view, but now that the trees are gone, it’s quite astonishing. Our neighbor (where the fawn had gotten in her yard) really appreciates it, too.
Yikes! The power was going off and on; it did that once earlier today. I wonder if it is because of the huge extra usage in the heat or if it is something else. I immediately turned off the 2 AC window units because they can break under those conditions. Don’t know if that is a problem with yours.
Sending this part as my laptop is going wonky,
Pam
Chris, again:
No, our summer eveings are usually quite warm, and it would be miserable sleeping weather, at least upstairs where I am, except that this year we are indeed getting some cooler ones, but not all the time.
English Setters are lovely dogs; we had one when I was growing up. That’s a clever thought for the Bluetick’s heritage.
I can’t belive they have added yet another burden to your work load. Hopefully you can sometimes view it as a challenge? For some reason I am getting telemarketer calls on my smartyphone all day now; I’ve had 5 today so far. This started up out of the blue. I never answer them. I don’t want to encourage them, but I doubt that a bot cares.
Pam
Chris,
Ben Affleck’s character stayed more than calm. “Ice water in the veins” is an old term we used to use for that. Then looking at how his mind was wired and the training he went through to get to that icy place, well, ouch. I have trouble dealing with strobe lights and such. It’s almost a physical pain. His character somehow overcame that.
New models, stripped daily. How funny! I caught the play on words as I was reading it the first time.
Emotional donut? Hmmmm, I don’t think that I’ll touch that one with a 100-meter-long pole. The Editor needs her fun, right? 🙂
Thanks. The calm and safe port is what I try to be. It has taken a lot of work for me to even approach that. I think it’s more of a journey rather than a destination. Can’t be a calm and safe port if one isn’t comfortable in one’s own skin. Which means truly getting to know oneself, something that is scary to imagine for many people.
More bureaucratic red tape? UGG I feel your pain. It’s sort of a Catch 22 isn’t it? Working for a large company can suck, but working as a small businessman means that a significant part of your time is jumping through hoops. The large company can hire “hoop jumpers”.
Another guy and I had to paint some concrete floors that summer. The other guy didn’t show up for lunch the first day of painting floors. The boss went to look for him, came back laughing. Turns out that Kenny had started at the door and literally painted himself into a corner. I had thought it through and avoided that.
My claim to fame with painting floors was the signs I put up. “Wet Paint” they said. The school superintendent was working in the building I was painting floors in. Yup, he entered the room I had painted and walked on the freshly painted floor. After that the signs read “Fresh Paint on FLOORS”.
Gotta admit that that nickname did make Custer the butt of some jokes.
That was one spectacular banjo, right? Its sound and looks both are great. Young Murphy does very well, both singing and as a banjo player. I enjoy listening to her.
Ah, the arsonist on the Rez was caught on camera by an eyewitness. I think part of that area is so remote that cell phones don’t work.
Man, even with barely a light breeze today, the humidity was well under 20% again. It seems as if that is going to be the main story this summer. Humidity that low here used to be extremely rare. No longer.
The air filter is attached to a box fan via the handy man’s secret weapon, duct tape. When the filter starts getting too dirty, it means removing it and taping another one in place. They seem to last for several years, surprisingly.
The new neighbors are really into NOT watering. They plan on finding native plants for parts of the yards. They have already built a lot of raised beds for gardening. They also plan on using rain barrels to help water the raised beds. I’ve toyed with that idea. Thing is, for the rain barrels to be useful during the usual driest months, there has to be some rain here and there to add water to them. Or else have several huge tanks like you have to catch the snowmelt and winter/spring rains from the roofs. What we got in May and the negligible bits in June would’ve been more than used up already just watering veggies.
Young Neighbor helped with some weeding today. Her son was with her. He kept looking for insects. He found a lot of bugs. You had asked a few weeks back if there was a good variety of bug life with the variety of things growing in the lawns. Well, apparently the answer is that yes, there is a good diversity of bugs.
Did I mention that the mouse I caught had an Australian passport? Must’ve come here via the Dame’s tunnel. 😉
DJSpo
Hi Pam,
All depends upon what a person describes as a warm summer night. For your interest, I’d call 68’F a warm summer night here, except the worst I’ve seen is 84’F and that was horrid, but things can go the other way too with only 41’F and thoughts of running the wood heater! Usually overnight at that time of year is in the 60’F-ish range, which is quite pleasant.
Bluetick dare I say it, ticks those two breed boxes! 🙂 Mr Gangle Chunks is happily chewing upon his rawhide chew tonight. It’s cold now as we edge closer to the winter solstice, and I’ve constructed a step for him to get up onto the couch more easily. Could you believe, those two Kelpie girls were kicking him off the easy to get onto dog floor mat with woollen blanket arrangement? Those youngsters comfort is secondary, and they’ve been booted off (with indignant looks) so as to provide the big older dog an easier time of it. All of the herbal treatments seem to be working well with him, but age is age, and he’s a bit slower now and needs a extra help.
Pam, it’s been feral, and a lot of this bureaucratic nonsense is remarkably hard to bill for. We have to learn what is going on, then work out how to implement it, and that is not client specific work is it? All the demands do is increase the work load relative to the income, which drives down the hourly profitability of the business (more work for less). And we often have to be the folks at the coal face conveying these new realities, so there is a downside risk with that aspect as well. Not a fan, but I can’t afford to retire and am still 11 years away from a pension. I must say, when watching the webinars and videos this lot produce, the thought bangs around my mind: Y’all are getting paid for this, aren’t you? Hmm. Oh well, not how I’d arrange things.
Interesting about the marketing calls. Down here, as you’d imagine, there is a national: ‘do not call’ list. I get a lot of that nonsense too, but the phone screen lights up red with the words: ‘Suspected Spam Caller’ – which is one of the reasons I’m now having to get my business phone onto the ‘approved’ list. My head is spinning, and I’m with you, best if those calls aren’t answered.
Yes, ’tis the year of better. Although, we can only but try on this front. 🙂
Agreed, the tree was something like 1200 years old, and even in it’s current state will provide many benefits for that forest – like crucial critter housing. It might actually work out for the best in that tourists will stop flocking to see it, what with all that entails. Big trees down under which are easily accessible, have protections in place which stop countless folks from compacting the soil and killing it. I’m with you though, and would add that the big trees of tomorrow, are growing today.
🙂 Pam, the view sounds so lovely, and is a reminder to us that we’re part of a much larger ecosystem. But I’ll also mention the crucial word: Fire-break. Or is that two words? Forests are a patchwork.
Not to belabour the point, but the famed Sherwood forest in the UK is 1049.6 acres. That ain’t all that big, and by comparison here the property covers 22 acres. But consider your view of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and err, I can observe the Wombat state forest extending continuously to the horizon. When I look at the images of where Robin Hood apparently hung out, it’s one mono-culture of trees after another. Sure it is pretty, but few of the trees are really that old from a casual observation. Rather than an established forest, it appears to me as a theme park.
Electricity is a funny business nowadays, and you have a lot of data centres in your state. The power can go out for all sorts of reasons, and low voltage is one of those (the dropping in and out effect). You’d imagine that the solar would be good around the middle of the day, unless it’s the dreaded ‘cloudy and hot’? Dunno what is going on though, unless I could run some tests on the voltage at the house.
I’ve heard of that being the case on the power line here, but off grid it’s a rock solid supply, unless the batteries run out of juice! Always exciting, and they were hovering around half full this afternoon, with rain all day long. It’s so wet outside, that my mind is baffled. Tomorrow is meant to be much the same. Oh well.
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
Interesting, and I was not entirely sure what was going on with the strobe light scenes in the film. Thanks for the explanation. And by the way, I do not enjoy those flashing lights either. They have an hypnotic effect, which I reckon is the point. But for me, it’s kind of like having way too much movement around me distracting the caveman senses which would otherwise be detecting threats. It’s tiring that. Actually years ago I found the mandated mask business to be confusing to those senses as well, and always had the uncomfortable feeling that a sabre-tooth tiger was lurking outside of my suddenly obscured peripheral vision. It’s complicated… 🙂
Oh my! The shin bone exercises in the film are part of Muay Thai training technique. The film has deeper layers than appears at the surface. Yup, desensitising is a thing.
The car wrecker has been there a long time. Actually we went past the business today. It’s on a busy road, and someone has put a coffee van behind the fence with a few park bench tables and umbrellas. The ambience leaves a bit to be desired, but the place always seems to have customers.
Yes, the Editor likes to as they say: ‘keep it real!’ Joking around in this household is a lifestyle choice around here.
Well, and you’ve reached a universal truth there in relation to the state of ‘calmness’. And I so hear you about the journey bit. I find it amusing that people tend to ignore un-calmness, or worse, see being calm as a challenge (which is very weird but true). Dogs gravitate to those who are calm, and so they must be able to read the vibe straight away. Oh yeah, we do live in a society which rewards externalising issues, rather than an individual dealing with the internal muck. Beats me why it is that way, but it is.
One of the recent bureaucratic suggestions was that we have an officer dedicated to sorting out the requirements. Like we can afford that! We read through the demands and then ensured our business processes didn’t trigger any of the requirements – then documented that decision process in case it is requested – which it may be. Some of the ‘know your customer’, documents were nearing a 100 pages at a guess, based on an average legal structure. It’s all a bit silly.
Ha! That’s funny and also proves the truth that a person really can paint themselves into a corner. I’d not done that trick either…
I like your modification of the sign, and it also suggests that people go into situations with pre-conceived notions. Wet paint is a very non-specific warning, and perhaps suggests that a person stop and look around. What happens in reality is that the signs suggest the walls may have been painted. It also assumes that people even know that surfaces are painted. You’d be surprised…
You got me there with the Custer joke. It’s a goodie. And I’m a bit fresh out of ideas, so may enact a rear (!) guard action and retreat with my tail between my legs, as the old timers used to say.
Absolutely, the banjo was a beautiful instrument which perfectly matched the talents and vocals of the gifted artist. Lovely music.
Yeah, we’ve got mobile phone black spots too. Even if there is nearby coverage, geography can be an issue regardless. And that used to be a problem for the radios in the fire brigade trucks. As an old school tech geek this didn’t surprise me. And err, plenty of cameras don’t require a connection, or power for that matter. So glad that someone was nabbed for the alleged actions.
Man, humidity that low on a regular basis is a problem, and for your health as well as the more obvious matters. Sorry to flip this around, but it’s 99% here and has rained all day long, which has come on the back of yesterday’s storm. At least the wind has calmed. Tomorrow doesn’t look much better. The solar energy has been abysmal. How anyone expects to run an advanced civilisation on this tech is something of a mystery. Now a small hippy kingdom, that’s a different matter. 😉
Ah, an interesting arrangement with the duct tape and filter. Yeah, I can see that. Thanks.
Your neighbours sound like they have a good adaption strategy, although I’m not entirely sure I know what you mean by the term: rain barrels? Is that one of those IBC plastic containers? They hold a thousand litres of water, which isn’t much. A 25L/min pump which is roughly what you’ll get from a half inch pipe, can drain one in 40 minutes. 🙂
You know what though? It’s great when people try that sort of tech, and fail. That’s when they get to learn how amazing the systems are which keep us all alive. It hits them around the head. And hopefully they’ll add more water tanks! I always encourage people to just do something, and avoid telling them the end point of their immediate journey, for you never know where they will go.
I wont mention that someone who irregularly comments here, installed a 2,000L water tank and discovered just that. But also drains the washing machine water onto his fruit trees. So you never know what clever folks will do to save and better use that precious resource.
🙂 Fun stuff, and kids that like who observe bugs have a natural curiosity about their thinking. Good stuff.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Please don’t get the wrong impression, but I’m really trying hard to say something negative about 73’F and 84’F, and that’s then reality hits hard! 🙂 It began raining late yesterday afternoon with a whumper storm (ooo, I like the sound of that word) and dropped back to persistent drizzle. It’s wet out there…
Agreed, it really sounds like the perfect temperature to me too, and your insects are clearly also enjoying the conditions. I gave up plans of doing something outdoors today, and so did some paid work, then headed up north to stock up on apples from the cold store. I’ll freely admit it that I’m spoiled on that front, the apples are great because they haven’t travelled far from the orchards. Did a small walk too, but was rained on. Observed some intriguing characters, a middle aged lady, and an older gentleman, both driving worn cars, conducting a transaction of some sort or the other. Probably not on the books that one, at a wild guess. 🙂
The European honey bees are up against the ropes, so may not bounce back in either of our lifetimes, although I reckon longer term they’ll be fine. We get native bees too, and there are heaps of different varieties. I wonder if they’ll adapt to a changing climate and eventually head out to forage at an earlier date than what they do nowadays? Actually, I’ve read that increased insect competition improves the pollination, and has also reportedly improved honey bee harvests. Not sure why that would be (the increased harvest of honey aspect)?
Poor old tree, RIP. And I read about the death too. Soil compaction from centuries of tourism was apparently the cause, although the tree itself was quite old and few make it to that age. Even some of the older tree species on the colder island state of Tasmania, only make it to about a 1,000 years. Not a bad effort really. And tomorrow’s oldest and biggest trees, may be growing today!
Yes, guaranteed prices is one of the issues the other platforms don’t necessarily deliver upon. But yeah, like you I tend to read the comments, and some of them are a bit stupid.
Whoa! I’d not looked at the forums for ebuy. There is a lot of meat in there. I’ve been thinking about all these big interweb thingees recently, and may instead just have a simple basic presence online for my business, and instead advertise in the local papers. Probably money better spent. The thing with gargles recent changes, is that the arty-fish-al overview at the top of the search results, simply cheats my website of traffic – so why pay for that? The text will get sucked into the stupid bot thing for free. Dunno, something has broken in that space recently, and they may be chasing success at a win or die, roll of the dice game stake. Until recently, I’d not been taking the death of the interweb story seriously. Oh well, these things happen, and like the old timers say, when you’re at the top (like gargle), there’s only one way to go! 🙂
Yeah, I don’t use Faceplant, so have no idea what goes on over there. It’s use apparently, is in decline from rumours I’ve heard. Agreed, marketing is a dark art and can change with the winds. I’m betting on this subject, and will go old school, and see what happens. I’ll let you know, but will give the process a good run over a few months. My take is to stick to the basics: what are people’s current pains with their accountant? Answer that question, and the process may get easier, because I can provide the solution. Easy, maybe. 🙂 I have cheated a little bit on this front, by conducting rigorous research, or to put it more correctly, I just spoke with people to see what their issues were, and noticed a few consistent themes. Then I spoke with my friends in the industry to see how they are going, and noticed the themes repeating.
Far out! I’d not looked at the whole golden age halo model thinking from that perspective. The cheeky scamps, but yeah, you’re probably right. Respect! Busy people often have the attention span of a gnat, whatever that is. Or did I mean to type: newt? Does it really matter?
Ha! That’s funny about the ironing board, and sends a good message too. Interestingly, the ladies were also putting on display their prejudices by that reaction. No reason a guy can’t iron clothes. Hey, you were lifting the standard.
It really does pay to be more careful with the stuff we own. Takes a few more seconds here and there, but there’s savings to be had. All part of the year of ‘better’, if I may say so! The Editor is becoming something of an expert at removing stains, and was pretty annoyed when some careless lady splashed red wine onto her white denim jacket. But after much trial and error, got rid of the stain. A very impressive effort.
Oh yeah, and that is so true. Alright, here is an example of such a sign. One of the things a more English than the English grammar school teaches boys, is how to casually wear a suit with confidence. After all, they dress you up in one which a person is expected to wear in all weather, and you have to look after it. Years ago I went to a formal occasion and chucked on a suit and tie, and I was comfortable, but you could tell those who were donning attire they were unused to. This is easy to see.
And also, I’ve worked for some old money types, and they’re often far more gracious (but usually more demanding) with their interactions than the nouveau riche. You’ll work like a dog, but at least the environment in some ways is more pleasant. Settled may perhaps be the correct way to describe the difference? Dunno, the difference is of considerable interest.
In discussions with people I speak to, I tend to meet them as an equal, but then I’m pretty secure in myself and aren’t much interested in status. And yes, Mr Greer’s discussion this week is very interesting, and the library is a great example. Removing folks from the coal face, and not from the upper levels bothered me about that story, but like you taught me to say: Not my monkey, not my circus. See, I can learn! 😉
Oh that’s good. Yup, the communal man-cave. Like it a lot. Clubs used to form a larger part of the social milieu, and I find it to be rather sad that they were kicked in the guts. I like clubs, and my grandfather used to have a gift for grabbing people, and introducing them into the care of all sorts of clubs. He used to take me to the ‘Naval and Military Club’ on Sunday mornings and watch whilst he played squash with his friends there.
Go H! And did she get to show off her new do at the Club?
Much toppings makes for a fine gourmet pizza. These thin topping err, things, are not good.
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – I saw an interesting article on regenerative farming, yesterday. Looks like the “Big Boys” are catching on. Though there are always nay-sayers.
https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/18/business/why-big-food-is-exploring-regenerative-agriculture-spc
Oh, I can say a lot of negative things, about our weather. 🙂 It’s hot and I get sweaty and have to change my shirts, more often (don’t want to offend.) Which means more laundry. 🙁 There was a breeze, this morning, but it wasn’t a cool breeze.
Our high yesterday was 79F (26.11C.) Our overnight low was 54F (12.22C). Our forecast high for today is 89F.
I was watching the bees, working the onion flowers, this morning. There was a bee, that looked like, but was smaller than the feral cousins of the European bees. And they were having aerial combat! A regular dog fight. Come on guys, there’s more than enough onion blossoms, for everyone. I wonder if they were from different hives? There’s also a lot of dragonflies around, this year. And, butterflies.
Speaking of the Vast Panorama of Nature, I see they’re reintroducing beavers to Britain.
https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/18/climate/beaver-rewilding-ealing-london-flooding
I had questions … so, down the rabbit hole I went. They look a bit like platypus. Are they related? Nope. Entirely different family. There may have been a common ancestor, 200 million years ago, in the early Jurassic. It’s a case of “convergent evolution.” Species end up looking the same, due to similar environmental pressures.
And are European beavers and American beavers related? Nope. Different species. Probably split when the super continents broke up. Maybe. I imagine when the Europeans landed on this continent, and discovered it stuffed with beavers, they went a little ga-ga. I’ve met a few people who have beavers on their place, and don’t care for them. They build their dams and areas are flooded, that the owner doesn’t want flooded.
Maybe the Australian e – buy still has its forums, intact? I spent about ten minutes, searching for our forums. Couldn’t find them. I think one of the big problems, with everything from e – buy to a lot of other big sites, is that they’ve done away with moderators, pretty much. Low wage earners, but with any cost cutting, they were out the door.
The Club website, I think, is a good example of a nice, fairly clean website that works.
I can think of a good example of taking into account the customer. My friend in Idaho’s daughter, besides running a hotel is also an estate agent. She’s doing, dare I say, a land office business. Why? Well, from what I gather, the other two real estate agents in town approach it more as a hobby. From the feed back she gets, they often don’t return phone calls or e-mails. She returns each and every phone call, or e-mail … with dispatch!
From what I remember about the response of the girlfriends of my roommates, as to my ironing? I think it dawned on them that men can iron, and their boyfriends could iron their own darned shirts. 🙂
Interesting about social cues and social capital. I just saw an article about how it actually, maybe, affects the brain in children.
https://www.npr.org/2026/06/11/nx-s1-5849937/child-brain-development-stress-sleep-neighborhood-economics
Yes, how do men wear a suit, effortlessly? 🙂 How different would my life have been if a school mates parents hadn’t let me tag along to the Woburn Abbey show, at our museum, when I was nine? Or, that my mother valued reading, and the local library? Or that I got to hang out in a really high end antique shop, in my early teens?
H likes to show off her new “do.” She also seems to have a lot more energy. Runs me ragged. 🙂
I had a can of refried beans, so I tossed in a small, diced green bell pepper. Chopped garlic and frozen corn. A diced tomato. Catsup and hot sauce. Pumpkin and sunflower seeds. Melted some cheddar on top, and dollops of plane yoghurt. Tasty.
It’s a holiday, today. No postie and the library is closed. It’s Juneteenth.
https://w.wiki/3U$q
Whatever. Next up, Fourth of July. Lew
Chris:
We’ve already had a couple of nights at 80F (26.7C) and that is more of a late July and August thing. Obviously people lived here before AC with those temps, but our house is not structured well for it, I think. I did try to make sure that there was cross ventilation when modifying the plans.
Rex had a step up to the couch when older. He also had a ramp up the front steps outside, but Goosey Loosey that he was, he shied away from that. My sister had a set up that raised up her large old dog’s water and food bowls in case his neck was stiff, and his legs.
I think your comment about the bureaucratic nonsense fits in well with Mr. Greer’s post this week.
We have a Do Not Call list, too, but I am pretty sure that you has to list all the phone numbers that annoy you, and I get these calls at least every 2 hours all day long, each time a different number. I could never list them all.
Firebreak – my son says that is one of the reasons for all this clearing. The distant views you have shown us from your house are far superior. I don’t know about there, but here, a property with a mountain and valley view is worth way more than one without.
I wonder how you have half-full batteries with rain?
Here is what I am harvesting: Beets, beans, garlic, potatoes, carrots, herbs, chard, collards, a bit of blackberries, almost tomatoes, almost peppers and chillis, almost cucumbers.
Pam
@ Lew:
I was recently talking about ironing with some of the folks at the assisted living where I visit. I used to iron a whole lot, but now let it slide unless absolutely neccessary (and maybe not even then . . .). It was on my mind because I have a super nice pair of cotton khaki slacks that were my mother’s amd they just don’t look right unless ironed. Everyone I talked to mentioned how calming and soothing ironing is; I find it so myself.
Kudos to you for making the effort to look spiffy.
Pam
Chris,
Exactly, the flashy lights overstimulate my brain. Rapidly. I have the same problem with emergency vehicles and their flashy lights. They feel strobe-like to me.
The movie showed some of the background of the Accountant as he was growing up. However, there were a lot of gaps left to the imagination. The results are visible.
For some people, the expensive coffee doesn’t need a setting with ambience or a view. I see little difference between the coffee hut on a busy street, a Starbucks branch in a grocery store, or your local coffee shop at the car graveyard. None of these could possibly be classified as “a room with a view”. Well, unless a coffee barn went up near Spalding in Spaldingview, er, Spokane Valley. 😉
Ah, sounds similar to our household. Keeping it real with doses of humor added as a benefit.
Doesn’t uncalmness really border on or result from fight or flight response? Therefore constant stress. Very unhealthy. Yet, uncalmness is now considered to be the norm. Seems strange to me.
Most things really are a journey, aren’t they?The moment you think that you’ve “arrived”, that’s when something happens and you fall off a proverbial cliff.
100 pages of one document about “know your customer”? Wow! I can see the checklist now, including such things as “What is the customer’s favorite color? Does the customer prefer cats or dogs? How many siblings does the customer have? Are the customer’s parents still living? Has the customer ever sneezed while picking at the hangnail on his ear lobe? Has the customer ever quoted Vogon poetry?” And so forth.
It was very funny to me seeing who it was who painted himself into a corner. He was a bully and I was often his target. It eventually came to a head. Most of us were in one classroom moving furniture. All that remained to move was the teacher’s desk, a big old heavy oak desk, all of the drawers full. The drawers were also all at one end of the desk. Bully started insulting me and daring me to move the desk with him. I called his bluff. Then he chose the HEAVY end for himself. I suggested that we should remove the drawers full of papers and books. He said no and really started in on me. So we lifted the desk, except I never quit lifting my end, raising it over my head so that ALL the weight was at the Bully’s end. And he was too proud to stop and set the desk down and be human. Our coworkers were all blaming ME for trying to hurt Bully. Bully finally had to set his end down, I said something VERY rude (this was a religious school). Both the coworkers and the Bully decided to let things lie. He never tried to bully me again.
They sort of knew what the reaction of the boss would be. “What? DJ called his bluff and made him look dumb? That’s how to deal with a bully. Get back to work.”
Ohhh! Well played. A double. Rear guard and tail in one sentence. I bow in the face of such expertise.
I read about that filter arrangement. Much less expensive than buying an air purifier and it works very well. Simple box fan and I bought a 6 pack of PF 13 1-inch-thick filters. I think there are still 3 in the box.
Yup, the rain barrels are plastic or polycarb or something similar. Most of those available are 50 or 55 gallon. I figure I’ll let the neighbors figure it out, how many barrels, how long the water will actually last, especially since our summers have become arid. They might come up with some other wonderful idea to go with the barrels.
This was the first time I’ve been around the youngster for any length of time. His mother has said that he is smart. He is. It was fun watching him think and explore.
DJSpo
Hi Pam,
Those are some rough night time temperatures, and make for uncomfortable conditions. On such hot nights, we’ve got a ceiling fan which does sort of cool, but might not work with your lower ceiling heights. The window box cooler is a good idea. Ook! You anticipated my observation, and truly I too could have designed this house better for cross flow ventilation. You know, we’re all doing the best we can, and it was like that elderly neighbour said to me after the failed auction of the house in the big smoke: Why don’t you just knock that bit down, and install an ensuite for the master bedroom? Such things are not easily done in a narrow Victorian era workers cottage, so I thought ill tempered retorts which were never aired, then walked away. Some folks live in a world of perfect abstractions, which perfectly lack common sense. It is rather early for such warm over night temperatures, so fingers crossed that the season moderates for you.
It rained here all day long again. A dismal winter experience and I’ve had to kick off the little generator again for the second time this winter. The air is thick with moisture. Oh well, ’tis the winter solstice tomorrow, so these things happen.
Hehe! Rex had his own plans, and Sir Poopy was of a similar temperament. What is this thing? I don’t want it… 🙂 Dogs! Ollie likes his new step, but I’d not realised it slides around when on a timber floor. Some non-slip matting under the step fixed that. I had to watch him to find out why he happily used it on a rug, but not when it was on the hardwood. It’d be easier if he just told me what was going on.
Yeah, Mr Greer called it like it is this week. We’re on the bad end of that bureaucratic big stick. Often we’re put in a situation where we end up working for free, whilst the bureaucrats are paid to dictate the terms. It works like this: a new instruction is demanded, and suddenly we find ourselves doing 10 hours of ethics training, which is doubled for two people. That’s half a week of work, which nobody pays us for – I can’t charge anyone for that, and it becomes an ongoing obligation. New systems require a learning and implementation curve. The bureaucrats get paid to tell us all about it, but it’s not client specific, so I can’t say to someone, hey we did this work for you, so y’all have to pay. I hear stories that people are leaving the industry, and rumours the numbers of new younger folks are in decline. What did the authoriats expect would happen?
Oh my! The ‘do not call’ list here works the other way around, your number would be on the list, not theirs. I will note that there were some exemptions like ‘politicians’, which seems really odd, don’t you reckon? 🙂
Your son is on the money with that. The old timers around here have a saying: No fuel, no fire. It’s true too. But fire breaks between stands of trees reduces the intensity and speed of a big fire. I’d not thought of the view here that way, and have no way to test your theory regarding prices. The folks around here are gettin’ older, and nearby there are almost three properties in a row for sale, one has been for a while. The cheeky part of me sometimes wonders if I should ask another neighbour near to that trio what he’d done to annoy them all? Fortunately I’m mature and would never dare do such a thing! 😉
Alas, water won’t replenish the batteries! The solar energy harvested the past few days has been abysmal. But tomorrow is the winter solstice, and that’s how the technology works – why some folks don’t believe me about that, is an enduring mystery. If the plants aren’t growing, there isn’t much in the way of solar electric energy, put it that way. The little generator is chugging away on it’s diet of petrol right now.
The water tanks are full though! 😉 And in mid summer, the situation flips on it’s head. The water tanks will be low, and the batteries will be topped up. Ain’t nature a wonderful thing?
Whoa! Respect for the harvest, but to my mind, some of those plants are way early. Still, it’s been a hot June in your part of the world, and plants would love the energy. Do you plant a succession of new plants? Have you ever tried melons? They love the heat.
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
Oooo, I so hear you about that. I may have recounted this story before, but I use to ride a motorbike. One day an ambulance was going full lights and sirens towards me, and there was so much light activity from the vehicle, I failed to see the tiny indicators. It all happened very quickly. And that was when the big vehicle turned in front of me. Fortunately most motorbikes have good brakes and I almost fell off. It was a near thing.
The fictional character’s dad was a hard nut, put it that way. But it may also have been the correct path for that particular kid. There is no one size fits all. Actually, that part of the narrative arc reminded me of Jack Vance’s series of five books in the Demon Princes series. A grandfather trains his grandson to take revenge upon five master criminals who’d collectively done the family a great wrong. A truly masterful story.
🙂 Hehe! One can only but hope for such a decent coffee, although I appreciate a nicer environment.
That’s it too, we muck around a lot, but have our own areas of activity to look after.
Man, it’d be nice if all the good folks higher up the food chain decided to stop poking and stoking the population, but the current lot won’t do that. When I was a young bloke they kept telling us that nuclear annihilation was imminent any day. It’s an old control trick, which has been somewhat over used. But, lots of continual stress is bad for a persons health on a whole bunch of fronts.
Hehe! Ah, the reaching of the pinnacle moment, is perhaps when you realise that the only way to go, is down! 😉 Hopefully not off that cliff you mentioned, because that would be all rather unpleasant and stuff don’t you reckon?
It’d be funny that demand, if it wasn’t also serious. Fortunately, nice companies have come up with software to manage this task. We changed all of our processes so as to not trigger the requirement. The cost is extraordinary to administer this latest chunk of (insert unmentionable excrement)…
Alas, life would be easier if we could avoid such interactions, but that’s not reality, is it? To be honest, I’m reading two red flags in that description, and feel sorry for the guy. It’s been my observation that some folks express their frustration at the world in the manner you described, because for them it’s a confusing place, and so anger is what they hide behind. It’s actually a really sad response.
There’s a local bloke I can’t avoid, and so tip toe around him. He’s got this kind of sneering way of talking, and the little bulb switched on a week or so ago. His brain is just not wired for curiosity, and so he knows what he knows, and no more. I’m guessing the sneer is where he hides that aspect of himself. Dunno, pure wild guesses there, but some folks take the ‘attack is the best form of self-defence’ to an extreme.
And yeah, I like that boss: Stop mucking around and get back to work! All rather to the point, and the guy you mentioned wasn’t getting paid to be a nuisance, despite his natural gifts.
🙂 The guy should be the butt of jokes, the army was split three ways, and not communicating well. The English had a habit of promoting those who’d failed, err, Captain Bligh, and such acts corrupt a culture. These things don’t matter too greatly, until you’ve got to fight a war. By WWI, the English were very careless when it came to battlefield manpower losses. The slaughter was absurd.
Hey, whatever works with things like your filter set up, and I’m all for ikea hacking of products. Ooo, there were a whole bunch of interesting threads in relation to the topic of such filters. Those are some pricey filters too, so absolutely they’d work well, and hopefully the fans can push the air through the filter easily. Were there any tricks you had to do with the arrangement?
Ah, 200L. 🙂 It’s a start isn’t it? And every journey begins with but the first step.
Good to hear about the kid. And I recall annoyance that adults used to talk down to me like I was an idiot, and they knew everything. Let’s just say that my trust levels in them, were low! 😉 It’s funny the things you can remember from those days.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Today was yet a continuation in the poop-a-thon of misty, drizzly and down right cold weather. Rained all day again. We woke up this morning to the alarm. Looked out the window, and promptly went back to sleep. Conditions were very sub fluffy optimal. Had a nice nap after lunch too. Winter is the time for rest and recuperation. 🙂
Plus we did a whole bunch of cooking which the 15 minutes of peak sunlight for the day couldn’t power and the batteries were already low at sunrise. Ran about 2.5 gallons of fuel through the generator, that’s twice now this year. Solar power is good in theory…
Regenerative farming is a great idea, and in the longer term we’ll all have to go back to animals – crops – fallow fields – back to animals all over again. The yields will be lower, and soil mineral deficiencies will raise their heads again, but it’s better than going hungry.
Hehe! Lewis, you are a gentleman to consider other folks down wind of you on hot and sweaty days. 🙂 Your area would be more prone to excessive humidity than the drier parts of the state. It was 99% again here today, so feel free to complain, I certainly do!
79’F and 89’F sounds good, and the garden will be enjoying the sun’s warmth. It’s 42’F right now, and may have been about that for the entire day. Mind you, it is the winter solstice tomorrow, so cold and damp is definitely the word that you heard for this time of year. I’m not really complaining about it, and today was also good weather to do more on our marketing of the business. It’s coming along nicely.
Where’s Snoopy and the Red Baron when there is a proper dog-fight to re-enact? The world of insect is pretty nasty, Who knows what your land sharks would be up to in the soil? Hey, the dragonflies are a good sign, and I spotted a lot of them too last summer.
The beavers are a great idea, and the waterways in this country used to work on a similar basis. In summer with low rainfall, they’d form big separate pools, and then flood when a big storm comes along. That spreads fertility along the low lying land. We changed it all, and now wonder why the land dries out? The tail definitely looks like a platypus tail. Makes me wonder if platypus occasional dam up streams? Seems like they burrow, but don’t do the engineering that beavers seem to. Also, they’re commonly found in waterways around here. I’ve not seen one. There is a creek over on the more fashionable end of the mountain range, which flows year around, which is not always the case with the creek at the bottom of this property.
It’s amazing that the two varieties of beaver look really similar. And the article suggested much the same about folks on the land experiences with the critter – may produce flooding. All part of the larger ecological background, but I suspect that in the long run, the beavers may win.
Before you mentioned it, I’d not even been aware that an e-buy forum even existed. Here’s the one from your country, it’s at the bottom of the interweb page: They call it the e-buy community. There’s even a search box for topics. The Aussie site looks the same, but is under the local URL (i.e. http://www.website.com.au) for that mob.
Yeah, oh well, the job of a moderator would be distressing to say the least. I heard a rumour that a lot of arty-fish-al activities are actually the result of labour in other countries with lower wage rates.
The Club’s website looked to me as if it fulfilled it’s function pretty well, and keeping things simple is better from a longevity basis. I do all of the website work for this site, and also for the business. It’s fiddly, but not too hard.Tell ya what though, I’m really baffled why Gargle seems to be cannibalising its advertisement revenue for this arty-fish-al overview look. Makes absolutely no sense to me to kill and eat the cash cow. I truly wonder if it is even worth spending any advertising mad cash with them, and we (here) talked a lot about that today. The point of a search advertising payment, is to drive traffic to your website. How many folks go further than the arty-fish-al overview? Probably not many. It’s just weird. Oh well, not how I’d have done things.
And your friend in Idaho’s daughter has hit the nail on the head. That is the primary reason I hear as well, and not just for customer enquiries, but existing customers can’t get onto them either. So weird, and I don’t do that. But the strange impact of that lack of communication (and hers would be the loss of a sale), is that any issues which could have been quickly nipped in the bud, escalate. Talk about messed up, but it’s consistent.
🙂 Smart ladies to begin thinking about that possibility.
Well yeah, I’m unsurprised by the findings of that study. I’m of the belief though, that such things would be indicative, rather than guaranteed. Take for example the two High School mates who’ve since taken their own lives. Their families weren’t broke, and they had heaps of opportunities unavailable to me. And being on the lower end of the socio-economic ladder can also mean having a loving and supportive family. Dunno. But I will add that prolonged stress is not good for a person’s physical or mental health, and that I know from personal experience – but then changed my life accordingly. It’s a complicated topic. What are your thoughts about it all?
Exactly, sometimes in random life events, you find your people, then click. It’s good isn’t it to have had such experiences. I will note that I’ve encountered folks who are not alert to opportunities, and they’d miss the stuff you mentioned. I see your high end antiques, and raise you a Tandy Electronics! 🙂
H is fit for polite society! Dogs can do that, and the old dog Ollie and I, tend to enjoy more sedate longer walks. I made a step for him to climb up onto his couch, and had to add a non slip mat under it. He’s not trusting the thing, but will move past that.
Gourmet beans! You could call that meal a Mexican fusion inspired dish. Sounds fancy, huh?
Happy Juneteenth. Funnily enough, I finished: ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ today, and despite the dark overtones, it was a lovely Depression era story of social challenges as recounted by a remarkable narrator. Slavery is an odd business which inevitably founders upon economics. And hey, the English used to send their prisoners unto these shores for the term of their natural lives, which lost its fear factor when people wanted to come here. Did you know, that sometimes that lot allegedly still sneak in prisoner. And I’ve read of slavery occurring in this very country. There was a court case about someone doing that just recently. Melbourne man found guilty of keeping woman as a slave. People can be pretty cruel, that’s for sure.
Cheers
Chris
@ Pam – The Zen of Ironing. 🙂 I gave up the iron, and the ironing board, decades ago. I just hang my shirts and pants on hangers, and let the chips fall where they may.
Even my old LL Bean and Land’s End dress shirts, look good enough if I just hang them up, out of the wash. Lew
Yo, Chris – I saw an article, yesterday, about a big seal (and other animals) kill, on some islands south of you. Bird flu. We’ve also had a record number of gray whale stranding, on our states coast. Multiple causes.
https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/19/australia/bird-flu-seal-pups-dead-heard-and-mcdonald-islands-intl-hnk
Your current weather sounds like our usual weather. Our summer solstice, is tomorrow. It’s all downhill, from there! Although, due to good ol’ thermal inertia, any really hot weather will be in the near future. Winter is the time to catch up on books and movies.
Our high yesterday was 84F (28.88C). Our overnight low was 50F (10C), and our forecast high for today is 74F.
I spent a little time, in the garden, yesterday. I thinned out the pumpkins and Mammoth sunflowers. I also dead-headed potato blossoms and parsley. I ended up with a five gallon bucket, of clippings.
An odd thing in the garden. I had put soap chips, on the garden walls, to maybe keep the deer off. That was about a week and a half ago. What with watering, they’re beginning to break down, and soften. Something new. When I took H for her midnight walk, I discovered 20-30 wood lice, clustered around each soap sliver! I carefully removed the soap, and gave the wood lice the old patented Wood Harrelson double tap. 🙂 I probably dispatched around 200 of the little blighters.
I forgot to mention I topped up my tank, with petrol the other day. $5.80 a U.S. gallon of regular grade.
People tell me of other places, here, where I could get petrol cheaper. If I’m willing to drive 20 miles, to save a few pennies. I think not.
I’ve read that beaver tail, properly prepared, is quit tasty. I wonder if the same applied to platypus? One of those good to know factoids, if you’re starving to death. 🙂
Thanks for doing research, on where the e-buy forums have disappeared to. I’ll give them a look when I have more time. See if they measure up to “the good ol’ days.” At least the booksellers forums. I think a lot of long time posters, moved to other social media. As, they were banned. E-buy brooks no criticism. 🙂
Cash cows or killing the fatted calf. That book I read recently, about the deterioration of websites and services (by an insider), was an eye opener. Early on, ride share businesses and food delivery services were pretty good for the employees. But, factors, such as making a profit, or satisfying investors, took a front seat to the employees, or customers.
I wasn’t as lucky, as you. Back in the 1950s, we had a Tandy store in downtown Portland. One of my many, short lived hobbies, was leather crafting. Anytime I was downtown, I hit the Tandy store. Because that was all they did, back in the day. You were lucky to work for them, at the beginning of the computer revolution. Several of the “Young Sheldon” episodes, revolved around his caging rides to Radio Shack, and his devious maneuvering to acquire a Tandy 1000 SL/TL computer.
https://youtu.be/eNJTVbvou5I?si=F-0R44Wqnab3PPT5
Well, last nights “dinner” wasn’t very fancy. Three English muffins with peanut butter and jelly. I was still hungry, so I had a small bowl of cereal.
“To Kill a Mockingbird,” was made into a movie, in 1962. That year, it was nominated for 8 Academy Awards. It won three. Best picture, best actor, and best adapted screenplay. It was also Robert Duvall’s film debut, as Boo Radley.
Of course, human trafficking is basically slavery, for prostitution or manufacturing. But we’ve had several cases, here, much like the one you linked to. More domestic cases. Interestingly, the perpetrators seem to largely come from foreign countries, that have a recent, or current tradition of slavery.
H and I stopped down to the Club, this morning. A lot of activity. Many trucks and a lot of man power, showed up to move stuff to the dry boxes. I’d say this will be the last week we have anything like a functioning Club. Lew
Chris:
Who knows how much winter is left . . . Maybe not so much. It seems like a lot of your flowers bloomed extra early last year. (?)
Timber floors are hard on old dogs. I bought a bunch of cheap, long yoga mats and made walkways for them all through the downstairs. They weren’t going upstairs anymore anyway.
Your profession seems to be unnecessarily hard put-upon.
Folks are getting older here, too. My son and daughter-in-law are the only ones under 69 on our road. Have you considered buying up any of the properties around you? Though I expect that your hands are full enough already. We have our feelers out to a couple of different absentee owners on the road about acreages that are undeveloped here.
I do plant a succession of new plants. Some of those have worked out; others didn’t come up at all. I wonder if it has been too hot. I do water the new seeds every day.
Pam
Hi Pam,
Usually with winter down here, June and about two thirds of July are cold, the rest, not so much. And snow is usually an August thing with a big storm from the south (that big frozen continent at the bottom of the planet), maybe, if at all nowadays. Looking at the coming week’s forecast, suggests drier conditions and overnight lows closer to freezing. Certainly the climate is warming, that’s for sure. Hey, the flowers are blooming early this yea too, I mean there were snowdrops this week, and already the bluebell leaves are poking through the soil. And the same thing is true of the horseradish.
The bright side of this warming business is, if there were no frost or snow, I could grow some really interesting sub tropical plants with the more usual cool climate plants. And the climate may get there in my lifetime, dunno. The downside, hotter summers as you’re experiencing, especially the overnight lows. Not nice on that front is it?
What a good idea with the yoga mats, and I’ll keep that in mind. I’ve never had a dog as large as Ollie, and he comes with some challenges on that front. But we’re tackling each issue as it arises, and he seems to be doing OK. It’s funny you mention this topic… 😉
It’s weird isn’t it how chunks of the professions income are being carved up, but if you follow the mad cash, it seems to be headed in the direction of the tech bros. A lot of these bureaucratic demands, wouldn’t be possible without the software, and hardware on their end. And none of that stuff is sustainable, so I’m thinking that this is going to be a long and painful episode, which may fade away with enough time.
I keep reading rumours that the tech bros are running short of mad cash, and that’s the reality of constructing huge server farms – they ain’t cheap to build or run. The cynic in me has noticed that they have a certain business model which starts off with free services which kills the competition, and then progresses to paid. But does the activity turn a profit? If it doesn’t then eventually the cash dries up. It happens. Plus human nature is such that asking someone to pay for something they previously got for free, or on the cheap, is a difficult proposition. Hmm… I once did work on the cheap because of the stupid income limit set on me for three years, and I always had the feeling that there was a lack of respect from that situation. There was a bit of anger too when I could finally raise my prices, but not one of them thanked me for the good quality work they had done on the cheap. I dunno, I just didn’t want to sit on my backside doing nothing and wait out those years, but was it all a good idea? Dunno.
🙂 That’s exactly it! Rural areas are dying, and nobody seems to notice. I’m observing a swing to more populist politics in the rural areas down here. If the land is too expensive in the first place, how does an agricultural activity make any money? And the kids move away, because they can’t afford to live and work in the area. Your solution to this issue is pretty clever, and about one of the only ways that it can work out.
If property prices crash, it may mean that supply exceeds demand, and the land sits empty. It’d be interesting to see if the property taxes reduce in that situation, that’s a factor I wonder about. What’s your thoughts about that?
Hard to know really about why seeds don’t germinate. Dunno about you, but when I’m faced with that, I look closely at the expiry dates of the seeds, and also wonder whether they were any good in the first place. But oh yeah, Brassica plants would not be happy though in your current hot weather so there’s heaps of moving parts to that story. 🙂
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Yes, the bureaucrats are super excited by the bird flu and have been ramping up advertising in the media. Is it a problem? Absolutely. But birds have a very fast replacement cycle, as do plenty of mammals, and no virus is ever a 100% effective. People forget, but every year bird flu of one form or another, sweeps through the avian population. If memory serves me correctly, the poultry sale was shut down two years ago, due to this matter, albeit a different strain. Did that act make any difference, I dunno, nobody seems to be held accountable for such things. Candidly, I don’t believe that there is the financial mojo left for anything much to be done about the matter, this does not suggest that things won’t get strange. Truly, I don’t know about this one. What’s your take on the matter?
Ha! Fortunately the rain appears to have stopped earlier this morning, and now it is just cloudy for the winter solstice. 🙂 And yeah, I agree with you, it’s downhill for you from here, that’s what the view at the top looks like. It’s funny how quickly the seasons move. I like the book idea, and it is so wet outside today. I’m actually replying earlier in the day because of the sheer damp. Could be dangerous if I slip over out there. And the opposite is true here in that August is warmer than now, but will have brief and colder storms. Hope your next few months aren’t too hot?
So nice this talk of 74’F, and it’s cloudy and 45’F right now, but not windy, and so kind of alright.
How are the sunflowers growing? Ooo, I’ve never dead headed parsley either. Actually I leave it go to seed, and so it gets it’s own cycle going – makes people think I know what I’m doing! 😉
Ollie has begun to use the step on the hardwood floors now it sits on non-slip material. This is an improvement. I reckon he was hurting his front legs coming down heavily off the dog couch and onto the floor.
Who knew that the wood lice would be attracted to the soap chips? Dunno about you, but the stuff doesn’t seem edible in any way… Far out, and you’ve got a good trap there. Go Woody, and his example of terminating pests is an inspiration to us all! One day grasshopper… I loved that Kung Fu show. 🙂
Yeah, people get really weird about that cheaper fuel stuff at some unspecified distance away (probably FOMO in action). I just try not to use much fuel in the first place, which is the best option, as you’d already be aware. It just makes no sense to travel 20 miles to save a few cents. None. Your petrol is expensive, even compared to here, although the goobermint keeps threatening to reapply the fuel taxes they halved a few months ago. If demand goes up too much, and supply is constrained due to oil business realities, they’ll reapply the taxes, and then petrol will be about what you’re paying now. We’re paying about US$4.52 a gallon (or AU$1.70 a Litre).
Holy carp! After four horrid days of thick cloud and rain, the sun is shining. I’d forgotten what the thing looked like!
Oh yeah, beavers have been eaten for sure. And the thick fur would have been handy during the winters. Possum fur was a staple for indigenous winter coats in this part of the country. It’s nice fur, and I can’t imagine that the meat went to waste.
I’d be a bit wary of the platypus because they have a poisonous spur on one of the legs, and whilst it’s apparently not fatal, the toxin is meant to be rather painful and increase a persons susceptibility to pain for months. Best if left well alone, those critters. The general advice suggests that they’re best handled by the tail. I’m kind of grateful their cousins the Echidna which are around here during spring and summer, are spiky as, but fortunately not poisonous.
🙂 I’ve observed that site has a rather controlling vibe. Mustn’t let in the riff-raff! Hope the forums are OK.
Yeah, as a casual and disinterested observer to the goings on, the early days of those tech businesses are marked by lots of free stuff which makes no financial sense, unless they have fat wads of mad cash to splurge, with no requirement to make a profit. Things may have changed, and I hear stories of the faux-taxi service known as uba, and cancellations are an allegedly regular thing as the drivers seek the most profitable fare. I’ve never used that mob, and just stick with the more reliable taxi service if needed.
The thing is, once investors demand to see some mad cash returns which aren’t capital in nature (i.e. higher paper equity prices), things suddenly change. That business I wrote about recently was chasing growth over profit, and hey, they ran out of cash and blew up all rather suddenly. But until that point, the casual observer would have seen a slick operation. It was all just a big puff!
Man, I was all in on this whole home small computer stuff from way back in the late 70’s. And go Mr Sheldon! 🙂 An interesting difference between now and then, was that users had a good chance of learning how to program the machines, and you really could get under the hood of the old beasts. Nowadays users have been sort of reduced to the status of consumers. And arty-fish-al stuff is eating up the last of the creativity. It’ll be interesting if more basic machines become widely available at some point in the future. They’d probably be more robust.
Nice stuff, and had a similar dinner a few nights back. A freshly baked roll, cut in half with peanut butter on one side, and raspberry jam on the other. Then a bowl of fresh greens, a bit of cheese and two eggs. The Editor was in the city, and I couldn’t be bothered with a big splash up meal. Hey, cereal makes a good snack.
I’ve not seen the film adaption of the book, but that’s a lot of praise and hope the production lives up to the hype. In the book, Boo was a character out of sight, but always somehow present, until the final confrontation. Ah, Gregory Peck played the role of Atticus Finch.
Yeah, that’s been my impression of the situation as well. And agreed, the commercial interests are in those areas. It interests me that the domestic perps are more likely to be brought to account, and I can’t recall a local being nabbed for that activity, unless they’re overseas. It’s not part of the culture. There was another one in the media last week: Melbourne woman Zeinab Ahmad, accused of owning a Yazidi slave, refused bail. The alleged general circumstances reflect very poorly upon the people involved.
Hope the Club sorts out some new digs, and soon.
Cheers
Chris
Chris and all:
Happy Solstice, everyone!
Pam
Yo, Chris – My take on the bird flu? Something to keep an eye on. When there’s a Stephen King like outbreak, it’s likely to be a form of bird flu. Maybe. And, with fools messing about with “gain of function,” something far worse than You Know What is likely to come down the pike.
Our high yesterday was 70F (21.11C). Our overnight low was 52F (11.11C). Our forecast high today is 83F. Monday through Tuesday we’re back in 90+ territory.
It was quit pleasant, last evening, out in the garden. A good cool breeze. My sunflowers are up to about a foot tall. I deadhead the parsley to keep it producing. But, I always leave some of it to go to seed. It pops up here and there. Easy to transplant when the plants are small. I usually send some to the Master Gardeners sale.
Last night I wrestled my tomatoes, into cages. Managed to break a branch on one. 🙁 . I also drove a couple of metal posts (shorter than the t-posts) near the Tomatillos, and tied them to the posts, to give them a bit of support. Managed to break a branch on one of them. Then I did a lot of weeding. I’ve got zucchini seeds soaking, and cleared some space for them. I’ll mix up some appropriate soil (they like bone meal and coffee grounds) and get them in the ground.
I lift H down, in a couple of places. To make sure she doesn’t injure a leg. Off the bed, if I’ve removed her stairs. Out of the truck. Just places that are a bit too high.
Back when I was in school, we discussed the beaver fur trade. That it was driven by a craze for men’s top hats, made of beaver fur. But, it was a lot more complicated, than that. 🙂
https://w.wiki/57EL
E -buy is very sensitive to criticism. Or to comparisons to The River.
It was during the time I worked at the Olympia mall, when computer books started flooding in. For awhile, B. Dalton even had small stand alone stores, called “Software, Etc.” They were down the mall, from the bookstore. Once, the manager of that store, became our manager in the bookstore. That was a disaster. You may remember the appearance of corporate security, the infamous Mr. Lynch. 🙂
Our library got a remastered copy of “Our Town.” (1940). From a stage play, beloved by high school drama departments and community theaters. 🙂 It’s a snapshot, of a small New England town, population 2,000+, circa 1900-1920. It’s interesting, as it breaks the “fourth wall,” quit a bit. It’s narrated by the town chemist, who often addressed the viewer, directly. Occasionally, townspeople also speak to the audience. That was an innovation, in theatre. Also, the original play used very little scenery. The movie is lush in sets. I found it pretty interesting. It especially, if you pay attention, reveals small town attitudes.
https://w.wiki/RVtR
Dawg and I are off to the Club. See Carl. Might be the last time til we land in new digs. Lew