The famous potty mouthed English chef has an amusing saying in relation to food preparation: If it’s brown, it’s cooked, if it’s black, it’s fooked! I’d have to suggest that a mild Scottish accent would improve the delivery of the pithy observation. It’s true too, burnt food is not the gourmet ideal, and yet in the world of dog, the canines prefer a stronger taste to their home made breakfast mix, so mildly charcoaled is how things roll.
We’ve tested home made dog feed over many years. Drier (technically known in the trade as: Reduced) and over cooked is how they prefer their brekkie mix. Achieving such canine gourmet creations unfortunately makes a lot of stink in the house. The smell of burned dog food, sticks to the very floors and walls. Earlier in the week, Sandra had diligently kept the home fires burning, and made up a batch of dog feed. It looked like good stuff.
I was out of the house working that day, and came home to a wall of stench. Facing reality, what could possibly be said about the situation? Manfully my first reaction, was acceptance. During the evening, and despite it being only early spring, the window was cracked slightly ajar letting in the chilly fresh near to zero degree Celsius breezes. Alas the Stoics would have been disappointed, because by bedtime I’d developed this pathetic little cough. It wasn’t your full sized lung rattler, but more of someone who’s airways had been assaulted for several hours and might not go the distance.
The proverbial elephant in the room was politely raised. Cue my response which was accompanied with a very decent rendition of ‘Sad Face Number Four’: “We need to do something different!” Meaning of course that cooking the dog brekkie feed mix inside the house is not an ideal circumstance.
There the matter rested. As happens, the sun rose again on a new day. Coffees were had. The morning finally came into focus. Nice looking batch of dog food. The trio of canines rejoiced at their quality feed. Fun side story: The local birds follow the dogs around waiting for them to do their business. Avians are enjoying the brekkie mix too, although in a somewhat more processed and soiled form.
The morning was getting on when Sandra said the famous line nobody in a long term relationship ever wants to hear: “Can we sit at the table and have a discussion?” I was hoping for another coffee, but nobody fully gets what they want in life, do they? And candidly speaking, I’ve also used that ‘we need to talk’ line. I have no idea why the old timers used to quip that: All’s fair in love and war. What does that even mean? Far out!
These moments are never improved by delay, so with reluctant feet, and a heart which was secretly yearning for another coffee, I shuffled over to the dining room table and sat. There we looked at each other across the table. The dogs sensing the heavy emotions, decamped to elsewhere. Sandra made the suggestion that to avoid the dog food stink situation in future, we move the summer kitchen into the dog outdoor area. Now why didn’t I think of that? Pah! The best ideas are always other people’s.
We do have an existing outdoor kitchen with an electric oven and stainless steel prep bench which is plenty large enough to support an induction cooker. The only issue is that it is up and down a small set of stairs. The access path also runs through my office which has become narrower recently due to Ollie’s extra step – the big old Bull Arab now finds it easier to climb up and off the dog’s couch. Sooner or later though, navigating all that stuff and hazards will result in a meal being dropped onto the floor.
However, the dog’s outside area is adjacent to the kitchen, and on the same level. There are no stairs, and definitely no trip hazards. My reply to Sandra’s idea was a relieved: “Hell yeah. Let’s do this mother!”
That day, we burned off the two plywood dog kennels. The canines sleep inside the house and hadn’t used them for years. I’d suspected that during really wet weather, some of the forest critters were sheltering in them. But whatever, they were old and far from fresh, and it was no hardship to chuck them on the corten steel brazier in the courtyard. The ash was used to feed some of the fruit trees in the orchards.
The entire area then received a massive clean up using the pressure washer. Even the security screens were removed for the first time in sixteen years and hosed down. A lot of cobwebs and spiders were given the boot that day I can tell you! The stainless steel bench was brought around and levelled. The oven and induction cooker plugged in, and we were off and racing!
Ideas and systems aren’t rigidly fixed in stone here. The other day we’d planned to have a day off work, but after a brief local trip the day before, the car tyre was flat. Living out in the bush means being a long way from anywhere, the local tyre dealer being no exception to that rule. It’s an hours drive to get there and back again, so with fuel costs being what they are, why not do all of other necessary trips in one journey? Whilst discussing this unexpected turn of events, Sandra and I sat with the dogs on the front veranda in the warm spring sunshine, and just accepted that the day had slipped out of our hands. Sandra stayed home and did paid work, whilst I prepped for lunch leaving a fresh loaf of bread to rise, before then heading off. The tyre had to be left at the dealer, other places visited, then it was picked up again later in the day.
Events can be kind of like that. You plan, hope for the best, and then there is what actually happens and how you respond to that. It’s worthwhile noting what a bit of time and effort can achieve. The garden which the outdoor kitchen now looks upon has grown a lot in fourteen years. Here it is in 2012:
And here it is today in early spring when the leaves haven’t yet grown out:
It’s amazing what people can achieve when they put their minds and bodies into action. By the way, the word of this year was meant to be: “Better”, but I reckon we can also add another to the list: “Less”. The other day when everything just went off the rails, we could have done all of those activities, then tried to squeeze in some enjoyable stuff. But would it have been fun? Turns out the serenity prayer got it right: “Accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference”.
It’s been a mostly dry and sunny week. A few hours were spent here and there breaking apart boulders into large and very usefully sized rocks. I won’t bore regular readers with how we go about doing that task, except to say that some boulders are easier to split than others. And we hit the jackpot with a chunk of granite which provided nice square edged and flat faced rocks.
About thirty large rocks were driven back up the hill. With a two person lift, they’re mostly easy enough to get into the bucket of the big yellow power wheelbarrow. The machine can only drive six large rocks uphill at a time, the combined weight of them all being remarkably heavy.
Being able to tip the bucket means that the rocks get dumped where they are needed. This time we continued work on the path just below the house. That project was started late last year, but had been sidelined due to other more pressing activities.
By mid afternoon, thirty rocks had been hauled back up hill where they were placed carefully on the path rock wall. The downhill side had been completed.
The rock wall has a nice gentle curve to it. The next rock wall to work on will be on the uphill side of that path and will have a consistent width. You can see how the path fits into the larger context from a more elevated position adjacent to the house.
About eight of the rocks brought back uphill were used on the crazy paving project which sits up above the long line of gabion cages.
Earlier in the year we constructed a new firewood shed. The year has been so wet, that if we hadn’t built the shed and partially filled it up, we’d have been almost out of firewood by now. The timber stored under a tarpaulin (which we’d assumed would be fine) had begun to get thoroughly soaked before we moved it all into the new firewood shed. Another interesting thing about the shed is that we added another dozen secondhand solar panels to that roof. At this time of year we have so much electricity during the day, that we don’t know what to do with it all! The mains electricity grid has a similar issue, but biggerer. Anyway, after last years minor issue with the wood heater, we bought an industrial looking electric fan heater, and during the week used almost a record amount of electricity: 25.63kWh
Regular readers will recall that last week the grapevine enclosure received a big load of crushed rock with lime. The hope is that the lime addresses a fungal issue in a few of the vines, and it may. But just in case, we’ve potted up vine cuttings from a local variety which grows the best of the lot here.
Whilst clearing up the various garden beds, we uncovered some potatoes which appear to have grown over the winter months. They were a bit starchy in texture, but very edible.
This week, some of the plum trees in the orchards began to flower. I’ve observed all manner of pollinators on the fruit trees this year. There are native bees and wasps, small flies, and even the occasional European honey bee. I don’t believe anyone around here keeps them nowadays, so they’d be from a wild hive, or more.
Some of the deciduous trees are beginning to wake up from their winter slumber and produce leaves. Japanese maples are one of my favourite trees, and they grow like weeds here setting seedlings.
Earlier this afternoon the dogs were calling their: “Intruder Alert!” bark. Heading uphill to see what the canines were going on about, I discovered an Echidna, which is a mammal which lays eggs (and only one of two animals left which do so).
The annual rocket plant proves why it is so named. In this early stage of the spring, it’s already sporting flowers and well on the way to producing seeds.
Onto the flowers:
The temperature outside now at about 10am is 15’C (59’F). So far for this year there has been 914.2mm (36.0 inches) which is up from last weeks total of 912.8mm (35.9 inches)
Comments
41 responses to “Another word of the year”
Yo, Chris – Maybe I’m part dog? I do like my popcorn to be a bit char. I pull the bag, quickly out of the microwave, and toss it on the stove top, under the vent fan. I also open a window and aim a small fan, outwards. All in an effort to NOT set off the smoke alarms. So far, so good.
Sandra and you are lucky you communicate. A lot of couples, don’t Which sometimes creates problems, down the road.
Not quite what I was expecting, when you said “summer kitchen.” But, it’s well organize, serviceable and clean. And, commendable that you considered trip hazards, and such. Might lose a meal … or even, break a hip.
Wow, that is a big change, in the embankment. A lot of work, but the overall effect is very pleasing to the eye.
Now if you strap a rock to your back, you can get 7 rocks up the hill, per trip. 🙂 I don’t know if you name any of your machinery, but I’m naming your power wheelbarrow, Sisyphus.
All your rock work is so eye pleasing. And the crazy paving moves right along.
So is the electric fan for use in the house, or in the woodshed, to help dry out the wood? I’ve seen those used, around here, to dry out water damage. There’s an outfit in town that rents them out.
Your grape cuttings look like they’re pretty happy. Even showing a bit of a bud.
Potatoes are genius at hiding. No matter how attentive you are to getting them all out of the ground, it seems there’s always a few volunteers. Elephant garlic is the same.
Echidna are so interesting. A more benign version of our porcupines. Although not related. More, parallel evolution. Ours don’t lay eggs. I wonder what an Echidna omelet would taste like?
I always have to look up what “rocket,” is. Oh, yeah. Arugula. Sometimes, I wish the foodies would leave well enough alone.
The Rosemary is a lovely plant. And so is the Alkanet. I’ll have to remember to ask the Master Gardeners, tomorrow, about black Hellebore. Lew
Hi Lewis,
Smoke alarms can be a bit over zealous in their detection activities, and can you imagine what they’d be like during a big smoky bushfire here? Let alone the charring of some decent popcorn – which probably only took a few minutes at most. Wise of you to switch on the fan and crank the window open so as to avoid the dreaded expensive visit by the firies. I reckon you’d hear about that incident! Ook. Best to fly under the radar is my thinking.
Thanks for saying that, and it takes effort and vulnerability to discuss topics which might annoy the daylights out of either of us. I dunno man, I put myself into therapy as a young adult and from that point onwards decided it was easier to talk about hard stuff, than pretend it ain’t happening. That’s also the core take away from the serenity prayer which I believe is one of the foundations of your Club. We’re all human, aren’t we?
Well, a proper summer kitchen would have preparation space, a sink, maybe some storage etc. We’re in a bushfire zone so decided to keep things simple, but workable. Watching the dog kennels burn up in the brazier kind of cemented in my mind that getting rid of that flammable stuff close to the house, was a good idea.
I’ve never quite understood why people working in theatre would make the friendly observation to their peers to: “Break a leg! 🙂
On that note, it was remarkably warm and humid this morning – almost tropical feeling. The temptation to do a bit more forest clean up work was there, but when the sun hit me and it was registering UV as a High rating, I just said no. Spent about four or five hours instead drilling and splitting boulders so as to create rocks for the uphill side of that path. It’s time to finish the project and move onto other things. We’ll probably haul them all back uphill later in the week.
Yeah, there is some work to do in that embankment area. We have to lower the soil height a foot or maybe more. The intention is to get storm water to wash into the courtyard rather than occasionally ending up under the house, and a passive drainage system would work a lot better than the current arrangements. That area, will be the next rock wall which gets fixed up once the current path is done. It might have to have a double height set of rocks.
Ha! Lewis, those rocks are heavy! I like your suggestion, but I don’t think so man. 🙂 Yes, the machines work wonders that Sisyphus could only but dream of.
Thanks! With the rock walls, an enormous amount of effort goes into ensuring that not only do they perform a practical function, but that they look just right. Fun side story: Sometimes we disagree about how an individual rock will be placed, and what face should show outwards. But once they’re in place, they do tend to stay there, although I always have that saying of yours in the back of my mind in that they: all end up eventually at the bottom of the hill.
The woodshed doesn’t require heating in order to dry out the firewood. The dark colour of the walls and roof ensure that happens using the sun’s energy. The little heater warms up the house, which reduces the need for firewood. Today was so warm, that there is no need to run the wood heater. And the electronics of the power system aren’t remotely challenged by the continuous demands of that electric heater. Possibly economists might suggest that the power system is inefficient, but what do they know of resilience?
And yeah, sometimes like after floods, or to dry / cure paint out of season, those heaters are very necessary. We bought the thing after the wood heater pump had an issue last winter, and we froze (well not exactly, but it was more than a bit chilly). A plan B is a wonderful thing for when matters go off the rails.
How’s the heat in your place going since the person beneath you has left the building? And did you discover the mystery device making noise there?
Man, I’ve never propagated grape vines before. And had I known what was involved, I could have saved some mad cash… Oh well. The local variety has grown not too far from here and the vine was reportedly over a century old. I bought the original plant at a local farmers market, but in a strange twist of fate much later came to know the owners of the property (they bought it a few years ago).
Agreed, no potatoes left behind! Yeah, right. 🙂 Leeks like that elephant garlic can be a bit feral. We’ve got a leek variety growing here that is quite pungent and it set seed once, and has never looked back. Like you suggest, impossible to get rid of. Lower down in the valley, onion weed is feral, and the aroma is noticeable just driving past.
Echidna’s are one smart forest critter. And the dogs are instructed to leave them well alone, they bury themselves anyway in a defensive posture. Quite common around here. What do you mean that porcupines have bad attitudes? The eggs are a bit small, so I’ll stick to what the chickens produce.
It’s like calling zucchini’s, courgettes. All very confusing.
Hope you can get some black hellebores growing and they do enjoy their shady well drained positions.
How have I missed this 2012 film? Hang on, I’ll check out the trailer… … Oh yeah, Woody and the epic scenes of complete destruction. It’s massive, and probably unsurviveable (if that is even a word?) Sadly my poor education means that I’ve missed this film, and must make up for the lack. Thanks for the recommendation and prod, again. 🙂
Ha! Food in your country is seriously cheap. It’s been a long time since oats down here were that price. Some we buy in bulk too.
Yeah, there’s a lot of distress about energy costs down here, and some talk of construction of new coal fired power stations. Hmm, we’ll see. Doesn’t help the liquids story though, and we’re 90% import dependant. I note that the goobermint is constructing submarine hunting ships, compatible with US systems. All very wise to protect seagoing deliveries, but three ships may not be enough…
Agreed, the alternative candy counter label doesn’t sound right. 🙂 Yup, Lindt is one of the few which advertises the cocoa %. I’ve read of alleged ingredient substitutions possibly so as to keep prices down.
Yeah, my thoughts exactly about those gossipy old blokes! Look, I didn’t initiate the conversation, it just kind of happens with them. I dunno.
Hope you get your $5k. That was done down here back in 2008, and I just chucked the mad cash into savings. It was AU$950 per individual, which was probably worth more back in those days. 😉 Look, I didn’t ask for it, but the policy sure did boost domestic consumption.
Dude, your number is out by a factor of ten. It’s forty trillion! That’s a big number to which my gut feeling suggests may have little realistically possible way of repaying without inflating it out of existence.
A long time ago I needed a car park near to a work place, and discovered that people in social housing were subletting their unused car spots for mad cash. It happens, oh yeah. Not sure what the consequences were for getting caught. I didn’t take up any of the offers, and there were more than a few. That surprised me, but oh well, people will be people.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis cont…
Almost forgot to mention but: Home of Canowindra’s Big Peg listed for sale
That’s a big clothesline peg!
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – As long as I don’t open my front door, only the alarm in my apartment would go off. Which, I’ve discovered, can be turned off with the deploying of a broom handle. They always forget to tell new tenants, that if they burn the toast, NOT to open their front doors to air the place out.
Yup, we in AA do flog the Serenity Prayer. Also for sale, at the “candy” counter, is all sorts of bling, emblazoned with the prayer. Key rings, coffee mugs, book marks … you name it. It was sure my mantra, the first couple of years. There’s also the short, abbreviated version. “I can’t, God can, I think I’ll let Him.” 🙂
I can still remember seeing summer kitchens, on our one trip back to Minnesota. It was usually a separate out building.
https://www.bobvila.com/articles/summer-kitchen/
My friends who moved to Idaho, when they lived here, lived in a split level. Outside the lower level (which had a bathroom and kitchen area), was shaded patio. She moved a propane stove top, out there, and did all her canning.
I knew “break a leg” was a theatre superstition, but I didn’t realize it had such a varied past.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Break_a_leg
Our high yesterday was 64F (17.77C). Our overnight low was 55F (12.77C). Our forecast high for today is 69F. The rain has ended, and, we might even get a couple of 80F days, this week. A good thing. The tomatoes are dying back. I might get one more good pick off them.
Water management. Got it!
Blessed peace! I saw the night manager / maintenance folks, last night, and had a talk with them about the noise. When I saw Little Mary Sunshine, this morning, she had already talked to the folks in the apartment, under me, and said that they had “unplugged the machine.” It’s the daughter and son (supposedly), of the tenant that’s gone. I guess they’re either going to clean out her apartment, or they’re waiting for her return. Or, something.
In further Institution news, I guess another guy has moved in. One of the ladies commented that he looked like “another homeless one.” The knives will be out.
A bad day at Black Rock. 🙁 Last night, the deer totally trashed my green zucchini plants, and my green beans.
I know where the pollinators, are. 🙂 The Master Gardeners do a walk around, making lists of things to do. I tagged along. Down in the butterfly garden, they have a patch of Douglas Asters. It’s a perennial. I’ll be moving some up to the veg gardens end of the property. There was every pollinator imaginable, working those flowers.
Yes, there are black Hellebors available in the US. But none here at the Institution. They may look for some.
It’s those little bulblets, on the Elephant garlic. They come off easily, and end up just about anywhere. From tiny bulblets do mighty garlics grow 🙂
There are horror stores, about having to remove porcupine quills, from dogs noses. With pliers. The trick is, to snip off the end of the quill, with nail clippers, to break the suction. It’s still an ordeal, but not quit as bad.
I was gifted a zucchini, from another plot, and went to try the Harvester salad. I’m not sure if it’s quit a zucchini. I think it crossed with something else. The color was a bit orange, on the inside. Also, very few seeds and hollow. I’ve got it soaking in brined, with onions, and will give it a whirl, anyway.
“2012” is just about my favorite sci-fi disaster movie. I rewatch it, every couple of years. A true classic. Second choice of a classic disaster flick, is “The Day After Tomorrow.” A rapidly moving ice age, causes havoc.
We got a large chunk of cash, during You Know What. I chucked mine in CDs. They’re still there. “Making money while I sleep.” 🙂
The Big Peg is a hoot. My question is, if parking is such a problem, where did the wedding party park? Inquiring Minds Want to Know! There was a sidebar article, on other Australian attractions My favorite? The giant snail, of course.
Here we call them “roadside attractions.” Not to be confused with the 1960s hippie, fever dream book, “Another Roadside Attraction.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Another_Roadside_Attraction
We do run to the weird and wonderful. As far as roadside attractions, go.
Last night, when H and I were sitting on the garden wall, I noticed a large black lab, and a light colored pit bull, down on Washington Street. They noticed us, and began charging up the sidewalk. I grabbed H and made a run to the side door. Luckily, I have a key card for that door, and didn’t have to fumble with keys. It was a narrow thing. They were hot on my heels. After they moved on, we continued our stroll. Just minutes later, the night manager / maintenance guy, their dog and child in a stroller, came around the corner. It could have gotten really ugly. Lew
Hi, Chris!
I rather like my food a touch charred.
Now, was it the charred dog food stench or the frosty breeze that caused your throat trouble? I cooked homemade dog food for our dogs, too, but, thankfully, they requested that it be as much like people food as possible. They were so sure that they were people. Of course, mine did not get the delightful brekkie that you serve. I have your recipe written down somewhere because it sounds like it would be good for me – without the stench.
“The dog’s veranda” – that is hilarious. Dame Plum – I could see it in her eyes – is figuring that her next step up is going to be as Queen. Has there ever been a Queen of Fernglade?
My, the “veranda” looks nice all cleaned up. An ideal spot for cooking. Do you ever barbecue on that particular brazier?
Somehow I missed that it was an hour’s drive each way to get the tire fixed. You really are out in the boonies.
Amazing, and charming, how much that steep embankment has changed.
Squared and flat-faced rocks are almost worth their weight in gold. The new section of wall really shows the uniformity. I’m surprised the power wheel barrow can go uphill with that many really heavy rocks.
I can’t believe an electric heater that small was so useful. I love your wood floors. That’s so smart of you to take the grape cuttings. Will they be living in the greenhouse? What gorgeous plum blossoms! I noticed that our confused blackberry bush that has been blooming now has green blackberries.
I don’t believe I’d want to get too close to that Echidna.
I really appreciate seeing the rosemary flowers. I started 9 or 10 rosemary plants last spring from cuttings from the one small one (now dead, I think) that I already had, to plant in the small memorial garden that I have designed for the family members – including Mr. Baby – who have passed away. And I need to plant some alkanet; I also enjoy seeing that so much. Today I bought some more daffodil bulbs. I probably won’t manage to plant them till next month.
I just thought of something else about rosemary. The other day, mosquitos were swarming all over my legs, and elsewhere, so I decided to cut a bit of rosemary and rub it all over my arms and legs and I swear they left me alone after that. I smelled pretty nice, too.
Pam
Hi Pam,
Isn’t it wonderful that we all like different foodstuffs and preparation methods? For the record, I prefer meat well cooked.
Ha! Definitely the dog food stench was headache inducing, but mustn’t grumble.. 🙂 Out of curiosity, what did you cook up for your dogs? I probably didn’t provide a proper description of the dog food cooking outcome here – the stuff is cooked until it is a dry-ish mixture, which does provide that err, charred finish you mentioned. And yeah, the mix would be quite tasty.
The original boss fluff, was probably the dog with the strongest personality who ruled the others in the pack with an iron paw. She used to clean old Toothy’s face into submission, and the short-legged long-haired dachshund loved it. There were times I feared for his eyeballs, but needn’t have troubled myself. Dame Plum is on the way there, but lacks the force of personality that the old fluff boss had.
Interestingly at dog school Dame Plum appears to have the hots for one of the best dogs there, which I believe is a Kelpie-cross, but in class six. The dame has not reached such heady heights, but may in the future. Dunno. She loves Ollie though, and it is nice to have such a coherent and relaxed trio of dogs. When the old boss fluff passed on, there was always a bit of tension and infighting with the canines, and Sir Poopy and Toothy could have some serious disagreements. Of course, Sir Poopy had an arrogant air about him which was maybe deserved, depends on whom you asked I guess. 🙂
Did your pack of pooches ever become contentious with one another, or was it pure harmony? Or even agreed upon distance with one another?
Ah, no, the brazier is purely for burning off forest litter in the courtyard. During the burn-off restriction times, the trees continue to shed branches, and that brazier is a legal way to burn the stuff off – when the conditions are suitable. The ash is handy too. I don’t really barbecue anything, do you?
Your maths is sound from the big picture perspective. 🙂 With two trips, one to drop off the tire, the next to pick it up again, it was a two hour in total extravaganza – which changed the course of the day. Bizarrely, in an hours drive, I can be in the centre of the city. It’s remote here, but not so much, however I fully expect fuel prices to go up, before the most awful of demand destruction kicks in. Not a pretty story.
What is pretty is that embankment, and none of the deciduous trees have even produced leaves there yet. I can’t imagine what people thought when they visited this place all those years ago and it looked like the earlier photo. 🙂 Nice to scare the visitors!
Split some boulders yesterday and will continue work on the uphill side of that path over the next few days. Did paid work today though, but headed out to the pub for a sneaky lunch treat – which is a rare thing. Yummo! By the way, that power wheelbarrow is rated to haul 660 pounds uphill in first gear, although I’ve never put that claim to the test. It’s never seemed hassled by the loads it hauls.
The climate is a bit warmer here, and the house is super insulated, so the little electric heater can warm up about half the house in an hour or two. It sure takes the edge off the winter chill, and I’ve no idea what to do with the excess electricity.
The mains electricity grid doesn’t want the excess either, as they’ll only pay about $0.03/kWh (I believe it is a lot more expensive to purchase the energy – what a surprise!) And we’re not connected anyway. It’d cost several tens of thousands of dollars to connect up, just to earn a few cents a day. That story makes no economic sense. 🙂
Nope, the grape cuttings are in the house at the moment, and the leaves are getting bigger. I’m trying not to over water them… Ook! And yeah, the berry canes will do that down here as well. We had a raspberry which produced fruit in winter, but it tasted like cardboard – no sugars due to the lack of sunshine I’m guessing. I reckon plants will astound us humans as the climate changes.
Echidna’s are lovely critters and I’ve not experienced any grumpiness from them. They usually amble around doing their own thing whilst hunting ants.
Hope your rosemary cuttings thrive, and what a lovely memorial for such as the cheeky Mr Baby. 🙂 A toast to his memory.
There are a few different varieties of Alkanet, and I grow the ‘Green Alkanet’ variety. Much cold hardier than Comfrey and in fact they grow way higher up in the mountain range as well.
🙂 Thanks for the tip with rosemary, as I’d not known of that usage. And yes, the oils smell wonderful.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Always wise to know how such systems work as that smoke alarm. What a lot of drama would unfold if the local brigade turned up for a burnt batch of dog food. 🙂 It’s the little tricks and tips to getting through life smoothly, isn’t it. Mind you, it’s hard to be across everything don’t you reckon?
The serenity prayer is a very useful way to remember our limits as individuals. Hmm. The abbreviated version is very interesting as it hints at the reality of control, which I’ve noticed that some individuals tend to over estimate their personal abilities. Dunno about you, but my main premise in that matter is that there is very little within my sphere of control. It’s a workable philosophy… 🙂
Pah! The summer kitchen article was blocked. These things happen. Just checked out another article on the subject, and one of the first benefits was removing the cooking stench from the household. Check – I so get that! 😉 Also the fire risk was mentioned – a serious problem back in the day, and even today the kitchen is a risky work area. Having worked on Victorian era houses, it was not hard to notice that the kitchen was stuffed way down in the back – and had often been much later attached to the main residence. The articles neglected to say that due to the scarce fuel, in winter the activity moved indoors so as to warm the house and occupants. Dunno, but probably our current expectations as to indoor winter temperatures should be are somewhat historically unprecedented.
Funnily enough at the petrol station the other day, I had a guy randomly approach me and ask if I wanted help with the firewood task. The car is pretty filthy from the dirt roads, so it was a safe bet on the guys part. At this stage I don’t need the assistance, but in the future, might.
Your friends in Idaho had the right idea. Move the cooking activity outdoors under cover so as to reduce the internal heat. Why pay to cool the air, and then heat it simultaneously? It’s an obvious strategy which will be used more as time goes on. Propane is going up in price down here, which is one of the reasons we use so little of the stuff, plus we have no idea what to do with the excess of electricity at this time of year. The equinox is only a week away, and the sun has some warmth to it now.
What a can of worms that saying produces, but my favourite was the authors recollection: “”all the understudies sitting in the back row politely wishing the various principals would break a leg” Fun stuff. Is that a form of career progression?
The growing season is ending pretty early where you are, but that can happen here as well. Tomatoes are fickle plants which demand perfect warm conditions which I reckon cool climates only just provide. At your time of year I’ve either pulled the vines, or are seriously thinking about doing so. Alas earlier this year we were so busy on the new wood shed, that we failed to get winter crops in the grounds, but oh well, it wasn’t a total disaster. Even radishes, silverbeet / chard and mustard greens would grow for a couple of months were you are. Although I reckon the silverbeet would need some assistance getting started.
Did paid work today, but since the Editor has no girlie activities planned this week I promised to take her to the pub for lunch instead. Snuck out for a sneaky pub lunch which was enjoyable.
Wonder what machine was left running which made all that noise? Still, if a person is carted off to hospital in an emergency vehicle, nobody would be concerned about switching off appliances left running. It’s amazing the doors were even locked! You know, that could be a fire hazard, motors and other devices do overheat and can fail. Hmm. Dunno. An unregulated battery charger would be a disaster! Glad to hear that the audible nuisance has been put to an end.
Ook! The ladies have sharp tongues, and our is but to stoically abide and ignore references to manly dress sense and overall levels of presentation.
You may jest, but one day a news article with that title regarding the fate of those fun Dark Rock-sters might shake a lot of lives. 🙂 Those deer though, so naughty, and you know my thoughts. I checked the trail cameras the other day and spotted Bambi lurking around the shady orchard back in April. Gettin’ twitchy man!
Always wise to observe what flowers the insects actually prefer, and the Aster is a nice unassuming, probably super hardy daisy. Hope you manage to track down dome of the black hellebores, they’re quite hardy and low maintenance too.
🙂 Did you just write that those allium plants are a bit weedy? Hehe! I was baffled to read elsewhere that growing leeks is challenging, but that may be true for elsewhere.
If ever there was a good reason to train dogs into leaving porcupines well alone, that’s one. Whoa! The dogs here seem to sense the danger that they are in with Echidna’s and leave them alone. Still, if a dog was obsessive, it could be a problem for the wildlife. We don’t tend to allow them much unsupervised time, just due to the sheer quantity of things which could go wrong. They always have to be within calling distance, or they lose their freedom.
By the way, the replacement electronic parts for the amplifier repair project turned up from the land of stuff today. Airfreighted apparently, but I guess they’re small and don’t weigh much. The supplier had well over 100,000 ratings and 100% positive, so that’s a good sign that they are what they purport to be. I’ve heard rumours that this is not always the case, and because this sort of thing happens, I usually order from a reputable supplier who specialises in this stuff.
Cool, you may have a hybrid zucchini on your hands? Hope it’s tasty, which I reckon it will be. Are you tempted to save any of the seeds?
🙂 Fun stuff those films, and I’ll add 2012 onto the to-watch list. Just watching some utoob videos on the local volcanoes. This land only appears quiet, but it ain’t! After that 5.9 earthquake, I developed a whole new appreciation for geology.
One would suggest from the proffer of un-asked for mad cash, that the times may dictate the necessity? Certainly it would be popular. By the way, CDs are getting some good rates now. Yes, it’s a strange process that one, and some folks alternately enjoy spending whilst they’re asleep.
It’s pretty fun that large sculpture and there can be no misinterpretation, for it is what it is. Yeah, makes you wonder where people park, doesn’t it? No doubts some arrangements and cash were swapped for the privilege. Where is this giant snail? Hang on a second… … Ooo, haven’t heard of that one before, and the snail has a great view across the ocean.
An intriguing book, and thanks to your recommendation, the word ‘Felicitate’ can be added to the lexicon, dare I say it, but oh happy day! Had to laugh at the line: The group spends several days pondering what to do with the Corpse. Trippy stuff, but Ah Mr Robbins, what a fascinating and laborious way to write, but what adventures he appears to have created. I’d say that restaurant would fit your description to a tee! Or would they make a tea? One wonders…
Holy carp, that was a close call. Wonder who’s dogs they are? And I will say that in my youth, feral dogs were an issue, but they’re rare these days.
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – Often, houses were expanded to engulf detached kitchens. Even on occasion, privies. In winter, domestic life often moved into the kitchen. Often, there would be vents, able to open and close, between the kitchen ceiling, and upstairs bedrooms. Somewhere, along the way, I stayed somewhere where the bedroom grate, when opened, looked directly down into the kitchen. Maybe my uncle’s farmhouse, way out in SE Portland?
Back in the day, there were often purpose built outbuildings, for specific purposes. Maple sugaring shacks, come to mind. You’ve got a few outbuildings, for specific uses. Over the years, I’ve read a few books on the development of domestic architecture. A pretty interesting topic.
LOL. Maybe the guy approached you, because you reeked of wood smoke? 🙂
It’s sort of a theatre trope. The understudy steps in to fill the role of an incapacitated star, and does such a whiz bang job, that their career is launched. I think that’s part of the plot of the movie, “All About Eve.” I’ve seen a few murder mysteries, where the understudy either kills, or incapacitates the star, to get a crack at the big time. It can be risky, though. An audience, after spending mad cash to see a particular star on stage, are served up the understudy. The audience can get pretty raspy.
Yes, I can probably plant some chard, mustard and radish. I think the green beans may recover, a bit. They take cooler temperatures.
The pollinators might have moved foraging, as, up at our end of the gardens, the Bachelor’s Buttons are pretty well played out. Although there’s a whole bed of zinnia, that someone has let run riot. But, the pollinators don’t seem interested.
Actually, management is pretty concerned about securing apartments, if a tenant is hauled off. Back when Chad was our night manager, he always checked apartments for open windows, TVs or stoves left on, that sort of thing. He knew he needn’t be concerned with Elenor’s apartment, as I always made sure it was secure. Our current night managers are also on top of things.
But, apparently, the piano music generator, was overlooked. Or, later turned by the daughter and “son”. Looking at white noise machines, people’s ideas of “white noise,” is pretty diverse.
Little Mary Sunshine must have put the fear of god in them, as, I haven’t heard a peep from down there, since. Although, when I was trying to identify where the noise was coming from, I noticed there was paperwork shoved in their door. She might have used it as an opportunity to turf them out. There are pretty strict rules, about people, even family, staying with tenants.
I’m glad your parts have arrived, and I hope they all fit. One always sort of holds their breath. My A/C unit had a broken knob. To the best of my ability, I ordered a new one. It didn’t quit fit, but, it does the job.
Well, the zucchini Harvester salad was edible … but it’s not something I’d repeat. Much blander than cucumber. LOL. The saving grace was the cream, vinegar, onions and corn bread.
I think you’ll like “2012”. The families escape from LA, is just mad. And, later on in the movie, Woody does a nice turn.
I watched an … interesting move, the other night. I don’t know if I’d recommend it, as it’s rather … bucolic. 🙂 It’s the 80s, I think, and a man (who is from the area) and his wife, move to NW Ireland. He’s a writer and she’s an artist. But one thing struck me about the film. Of course, when the internet came in, I knew / wondered if the days of letter writing were over. A character in the film, comments that phone lines are coming to the area, in the next year. And that people wouldn’t be writing letters, anymore. I hadn’t even thought that “we’d been through this, before.”
I’ve seen some headlines, that in a two day period, there were over a dozen earthquakes, all along the “ring of fire.”
I still lust after the Fenton glass snail. Hmm. Maybe I’ll make it my “Christmas gift, to me,” this year.
“They Found the Body,” was a bumper sticker, way back when. I don’t know if the book or the bumper sticker came first.
I think there are less stray dogs around, as leash laws have come into effect. And, more prosecutions of dog owners, when really bad things happen.
You might find this article, interesting. Or, infuriating.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/virginia-mom-let-her-5-113046037.html
Our high yesterday, was 66F (18.88C). Our overnight low was 50F (10C). Our forecast high for today is 67F. According to Prof. Mass, our fall rains will arrive in about ten days. Garden stuff, to do, before the deluge. I better get on it! Lew
Chris:
I cooked “casseroles” for our dogs. It had chicken or beef, various vegetables, and brown rice. I baked it in the oven for quite a while to be sure the meat was tender and the brown rice cooked. I also made them dog biscuits, but no kibble. I had some bought kibble, a high end one,
Women can be so fickle. I hope the Dame doesn’t break Ollie’s heart.
Our 5 pooches mostly lived in harmony. the 92 pound one, Rex, was the biggest lamb – until he had a raw beef bone. I forgot to mention that I tried to make sure that they often had raw beef bones, for outside only!
I used to barbeque all the time. We got used to having our meat cooked that way (and the dogs, too, sometimes). At first I bought charcoal, then I said: “Why the heck am I buying charcoal?” and started cooking with wood. Plenty of that for free! I was using what had originally been a propane grill, nice and heavy and of a good height. I took away the propane and it was ready to go, for charcoal or wood. I wore that thing out.
That heater was a very smart buy.
In that case – may I pet your echidna? I think her name was Edna?
From last week, ’cause I forgot yesterday:
I do remember when you burned out the steel in the other wood heater. A lesson learned for all of us. We have bought a woodstove, bigger than our bitty one in the basement, to put in the fireplace in the living room. Way too much heat has been wasted burning wood in the open fireplace.
The farmers would expect 3 hay cuttings in a normal year. Every now and then,those on the ball would get 4.
Oh, yes – about 14 years ago (not just yesterday!) we had mouse trouble by the dozens. Have not had any since my son sorted that out, except one time, and Mr. Baby got that one. I’m only talking about inside the house. They still occasionally chew on vehicle wires and fig trees. And probably garden produce. Hard to tell with these bad chipmunks.
Pam
Chris:
Hey, Chris – how does an echidna keep its eggs warm?
Pam
Chris,
Funny. I automatically read that cooking phrase with a Scots accent.
Brown is a good color for cooking. Many of my early dishes, regardless of what they were, were brown. Tasty, but the same drab brown every time. And some of us prefer our steaks with a bit of char flavor.
The forecast rains did hit over the weekend, and then some. I made sure the driest areas got a good soak. Then I transplanted a lot of succulents that my neighbor wanted removed. They got a good soak also. That night, the rains hit. Another 0.70 inches in town, about 0.60 at the official gummint station. Tomorrow should get sunny and warmer, followed by a few days in the low 80s. Everything is still wet.
Today I got more trimming done in the back yard. The green bin for compost pickup is full and gets picked up tomorrow. Thursday will be another pleasant work afternoon with Young Neighbor. More trimming. Almost done with the trimming for this year.
In garden news, tomatoes are dying back but still producing. The chilis and peppers are all producing. Time to start picking carrots. I think there will be a lot of tiny ones, but the greens can always be eaten.
Good idea Sandra had. I would have jumped at that one also. Sounds a perfect location for outdoor cooking and dog food preparation.
Great job with that wall. It looks professionally done. Very impressive.
In a recent outing, we drove past a dentist office. “North Spokane Holistic Dentistry” or something like that. The Princess asked me what the heck is a holistic dentist? I really don’t know, so I mentioned “Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency”, and how Dirk states repeatedly, “I believe in the interconnectedness of all things.” And that this allowed him to search for a client’s lost cat (presumed dead) and bill said client for a trip to Bermuda due to the interconnectedness of all things. “So maybe”, I said, “A holistic dentist will charge you for a research trip to the Amazon jungle while searching for the exact rare herb to heal your toothache by applying a salve to your hangnail.” She wasn’t impressed.
Nice heater. Isn’t it nice having more electricity so that you can have what before would have been a luxury item?
Thanks for the echidna photo. They are so cute.
This is that time of year when you are growing flowers and I’ve still got some flowers. The chilis and tomatoes still have blooms, I saw some irises today, and some of the thyme is blooming too. Oh, and some dainty little purple flowers on some kind of plant that decided to start growing after the rains hit.
Killian’s human gave me a can of green Hatch chili enchilada sauce. Medium heat, which means it is a tad too hot for the Princess. She left for her normal trip to see her brother this morning, so I fixed enchiladas for dinner. Enough for me for three meals. Very yummy with that Hatch chili sauce.
DJSpo
Hi Pam,
Echidna’s have pouches to keep their eggs warm, just like a marsupial, except instead of birthing live young like all other mammals, they deliver eggs. The Platypus is the only other critter on the planet which does that. A rare branch of animals not found anywhere else. There’ll be platypus in the permanent streams over in the more fashionable western end of the mountain range. And hope you like this, the young Echidna’s are called puggles. 🙂 Pretty sweet, huh?
Pam, those casseroles sound delicious. And that’s kind of what we do as well, make the mix and biscuits, but kibbles is a step too far to prepare. They’re like tiny biscuits, and that would be an energy intensive process. If they weren’t available, or got too expensive, we’d make bigger batches of the mix / casserole stuff. Can you imagine the effort involved in baking all those tiny biscuits?
Ollie is tough enough to handle the competition for the Dame’s heart, and it’d do him some good too. Ooo, it’s starting to sound like the plot of a Jane Austen novel!
Well there is some truth to the situation that one does not reach 92 pounds as a pooch without raw beef bones. 🙂 And Ollie is only few pounds less than that weight. By the way the two Kelpies are well practised at stealing the big dogs rawhide chews, and know every trick under the sun. My sample size is low, but I’ve noticed that bigger dogs tend to have warmer and friendlier personalities. Dunno. What’s your view on that?
I’m with you, and wood is such lovely heat source to cook with. And I reckon it takes a while to learn how to use the resources which surround us. Requires a different perspective on working out how to do stuff.
Yes, I’d neglected to ask the Echidna her name, but why not? That’s a fine name. 🙂 Thanks for the laughs.
I so hear you about the open fire place, and they are large and resilient constructions, but so much heat disappears up the chimney. The trick is capturing more of that, and it means you can’t really let the fire go out because it takes so much energy to heat up the mass of bricks in the first place. Hope the fireplace insert works a treat. And bigger is better in that regard.
Not bad at all to get three (and sometimes four) cuts of hay per season. Impressive, but like everything, much depends upon the weather.
Pam, outdoors here, there are rodents too, and they chew upon what they do. The owls, foxes and dogs keep them in check, or at least constantly nervous. Impossible to vanquish, yup. They’ll always be with us. Ours is but to exclude them from the house, and chicken enclosure. Respect to your son (and Mr Baby) for doing the needful with the rodents.
By the way, the wayward Ruby now has three rawhide chews… So much canine intrigue!
It was cold here today, and yesterday I swear that some sleet briefly fell. Oh well. Brr!
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
Well yeah, it works better with that accent, and ook, sounds much smoother than uck, don’t you reckon? One form expresses dismay for a difficult situation, whilst the other suggests muck. Nobody wants that, do they? We need to get Sir Patrick to voice this lore, as only someone trained in a Shakespearian theatre company could. I’d not do the phrase justice with the flat Australian accent. Mate, the food’s uck’d! doesn’t sound quite right… 😉 Lacks a certain smoothness.
Man, I’m with you, underdone meat is not to my taste either. However, I believe rawer meat has a higher concentration of Vitamin C, but then I do eat a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables and may not be deficient in that regard. Yep, better cooked than not is my thinking. Reminds me of the opening scene from the 2001 film. It all looked very unappealing, but then we only eat vegetarian at home. To cut a long story short, yes, a bit of char is preferable.
Nice timing with the succulent plant transplants. They’ll do well with the combination of late season warmth and wet stuff falling from the sky. There is no better time for that activity. Respect for reading the tea leaves correctly, that ain’t easy.
Hope the remaining trimming goes well, and your apprentice learns the general overview of the arts. Have to chuckle about your green bin situation, and nothing leaves this property other than via gases back into the atmosphere (or leaching into the ground water). As a canny and resourceful sort, I’d pile it up and run over it with a lawn mower then spread it over the grass – which mind you, is a dangerous activity because a person can slip doing that process. I’ve brought at least 60,000kg of coffee grounds back here over the years and astounding amounts of other organic matter, and the soil critters ate all of it. As humans we sometimes underestimate the hunger of those critters.
Still, the woody material produced from trimming, is no good for vegetable growing soils, but great for trees and grass.
I’ve never grown carrots and am interested to hear what you find when you pull the plants from the soil. Your more sandier soil would be great for those root vegetables, I’m guessing. And autumn and winter are fast arriving at your place. It’s the lack of light, and not the warmth I reckon which determines when those heat lovin’ subtropical plants decide to die back.
Sandra made a batch of dog food yesterday, and could even let it cool down outdoors. The relief on my part was palpable. It’s been a great idea.
Thanks, and word on the street is that we’ll begin the uphill side of that rock wall tomorrow.
Ha! I don’t know what it means either, but hey, I know enough to listen to the fine objections of your lady. 🙂 That’s the problem with advertising, sometimes there can be confusion as to the services proffered. And once had a bad experience with a new dentist who attempted to set a standard of overcharging. I paid, and never went back. He also began whining about his mother in law, which I took to be a red-flag. Now if he was cheap and did a good job, I’d listen to that drivel, but that was not the case. So yeah, what does holistic mean in that context?
It is nice now that you mention that aspect! We started with eight solar panels, and learned about the technology the slow and painful way. Now there are 48 installed, every component runs cool, and the little electric fan heater takes the edge off the chill without heating up the electronics, like this morning when it was 3’C outdoors. Brr! What they’re doing on the mains grid is learning from the other extreme. And agreed, it is a luxury item. No getting around that, and it’s taken sixteen years to get to this point. The small portable air-con is another luxury item. Yup. It’s the little things in life which sometimes bring the biggest pleasures!
An Echidna young is called a puggle! The cuteness continues. Lovely creatures and they consume the ants which bother me. There’s a lot to like about that.
You’re in a mini-spring, and what a joy it would be too. 🙂
Ha! Go the Hatch chili sauce, and I’d most certain give it a bash, and go full ginger in the face and commence sweating – but love every moment! Yes, sadly due to the focus on the firewood shed in autumn, we stuffed up this years chili harvest, and Sandra eventually bought some. Not hot enough…
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
When heating fuel is scarce, the kitchen becomes a vital place in the household. Yup. Hey, the vent leading into the bedroom is a very clever idea – and something I’d never seen nor heard of. When I was a kid, heaters were generally confined to one room of the household (gas or oil fuelled), usually the so called living room. The rest of the house was unheated. That’s the room where you hung out in order to stay warm if you could put up with the company. But I don’t ever recall being cold, and may simply have worn warmer clothing.
On that note, it is my observation that clothes produced using synthetic materials aren’t as warm feeling as natural fibres, like wool.
Agreed, domestic architecture is a fascinating topic. We’ve tried to re-learn how things used to work, by giving systems a go, and then observing how they work, before then trying something better. It’s a slow and painful process, but when something eventually does work, you get to comprehend why that is the case.
It reminds me a bit of that Edo-era Japan book you recommended long ago, which kind of mapped out how and why things were so arranged in that ancient city. All very clever and well tested, but not perfect either and with competing strains. One wonders where that system may have been taken if given an undisturbed millennia, or three.
Ha! You might be right about the smoke aroma. 🙂 I’m guessing the filthy looking Dirt Rat vehicle was the giveaway in this instance, but do have some skin in the game with that preferable outcome.
Oh my, thus proving again the benefit of the golden rule, and I must say that a trigger warning should have been given prior to viewing the photo of Anne Baxter as Eve Harrington! Far out man, I almost fell off my seat at being confronted by the intensity of the image. Someone to avoid… 🙂
Yeah, the green beans will probably recover just fine, for a bit at least. People keep telling me that peas over winter in this area, but up here, there is no way they’ll do that. A spring fast growing crop are peas here. I reckon so much of this stuff depends on the exact micro-climate you find yourself in.
And it’s been a super cold day today. Winter like, but with intermittent sunshine. The air has blasted upwards from that frozen continent and I’m exposed to the south west winds. Brr! It reached a maximum of 45’F and is 37’F outside right now. I’m hoping the slowing winds keep the frost away from the blossoming fruit trees. Tomorrow morning will tell how that story rolls. Yesterday I reckon there was a tiny bit of sleet.
Did paid work for the day. The plan is to do some more rock work tomorrow.
Out of curiosity, does the building shadow that part of the garden where the pollinators are avoiding? The insects tend to prefer the sunnier spots here.
That description reads almost like a horror story, the piano music generator. The undead tinkle the ivories in unknown ways endlessly, all powered by arty-fish-al stuff. I’m sure one of Dante’s layers of hell was reserved for bad musicians sent to make our ears bleed, well that’s what I heard.
Well, yeah the temptation would be there to get some free accommodation, or sub-let out mums place whilst she was in hospital. Glad to hear that it doesn’t happen, that y’all know about.
Thanks, and who knows with spare parts, and like your experience, most of the time I get the order right, but that isn’t always. Presumably the old knob can’t be repaired? Some of the plastic glues these days are pretty good. Anyway, respect for your make-do attitude.
Oh well, our fortunes clearly aren’t going to be made with the hybrid zucchini of uncertain parentage. Back to the drawing board. It could have been good… Oh yeah, those ingredients you listed would kick some taste err, goals. 🙂 Keeping it family friendly.
I’ve watched the bit with Woody, and am looking forward to the utter mayhem of the film. 🙂 Tried looking for the Tony film the other day, and no dice. It’s playing in some of the err, more hoity-toity cinemars over in the fashionable end of town. Much too far to travel, and parking is an issue. Actually, I stopped going to one of the more arty-ish inner urb cinemas because the local council decided in it’s wisdom to limit the on street parking (which there is plenty of) to two hours. It’s stupid and says my kind is not wanted. If that’s how they feel… You need at least three hours to see a film and grab a bite, but if the local traders can’t convince the council of that reality, it ain’t my issue. And it’s not like there are heaps of commercial car parks nearby. Makes no sense to me.
Am I ranting? It kinda sounds that way. 🙂
There’s a lot to recommend bucolic. Yeah, we’ve been through this before. When I was a kid, I spent heaps of hours on the phone talking to friends. Letter writing was done, sad to say, or at least reserved for soppy emotionally charged notes to one’s love interest in the 80’s and 90’s.
This is a sad state of affairs with letter writing, and I must say that I do look forward to reading what fascinating things we’re all set here to discuss each day. Never a dull moment is there? Well on consideration, maybe my occasional rant is a tad boring! Adds a touch of spice to life, yeah maybe it does.
Here is a joke: How does an author and artist make a living these days? 🙂
The earth is rarely quiet, and hope that our good luck continues on that front.
Why not indulge, a little bit. But! Then the collection will be complete and who knows what may happen. Best to stay hankering for the item, is possibly the wisest path.
Actually the scariest sign I saw whilst travelling around this vast continent, was a house which looked as if it was a hastily erected stockade. Barred wire fencing etc. Hope you’re getting the vibe, and attached to the fence was a sign completing the tone, which declared: Intruders will be dealt with privately. Like, what does that even mean, but neither did I hang around to find out.
Agreed, dog owners are more responsible these days, but I also believe the local dog catcher job is probably more common nowadays.
I’d say infuriating. Isn’t that a matter for the individual family to agree upon – it is their risk to take after all. These things tend to swing from one extreme to another. it would be nice to have some middle ground. It may also be an expression as to how many less children there are in families nowadays. Dunno, but it seems weird to me given how un-parented my own childhood was.
That’s a big call about the fall rains in your part of the world, and it could spell an early end to your growing season.
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – Acclimated, or acclimatized. Besides probably dressing warmer, we moved around a lot more. Yes, synthetics can be cold to the touch.
The book was “Just Enough,” about Edo Japan. When I don’t have another book, on the go, I’m still dipping into “Japanese Inn.” Just a chapter or two, for a change.
Sometimes, actors have some say in who their understudy is going to be. Or, not. Occasionally, the understudy is the producers girlfriend. 🙂 No matter how inept she may be.
Last night I picked blueberries. There’s a few late season varieties, that still have berries on them. I got about a quart and a half. I would have gotten more, but one of the Inmates I do talk to, was bending my ear. 🙂 I’ll freeze them up. Mix them in with some of the berries I got from Winco.
No, our Inmate gardens are not shaded by the building. As I got around the place, more, picking blueberries, I noticed a lot of deer damage, to other plants.
Our high yesterday was 66F (18.88C). Our overnight low was 46F (7.77C). Our forecast high for today is 77F.
Here, they call those hoity-toity cinemas, “art houses.” Oddly, your feelings about being a bit shut out, plays into a dream I had, last night. Without going into a lot of detail, I was taking some college class in literature. I don’t know the “flavor.” But I was clearly, out of my depth. I was the oldest, even older than the professor. And everyone was recording the lecture, on their devices, while I was trying to make do with a pencil and paper. Any-who, when I woke up, the thought occurred to me that I was trying to “better” myself, above my station. 🙂
Rant on, Garth. 🙂 Artists and writers don’t make a living, these days. Unless they are very talented, or very lucky. Or, well connected.
Well, the Fenton snail is not part of any collection. Unless I wanted to collect every color and surface treatment. Which I don’t. I just want something in blue. 🙂 Maybe, the iridescent one.
That sign sounds like the Australian version of “shoot, shovel and shut up.” Sounds like someone has delusions of Mad Max.
Dog catchers are now called “animal control.” And garbage men are “sanitation engineers.” A rose by any other name…. 🙂
I saw another article, yesterday, that relates to “free range children.” Yup, we grew up in a golden age, of self determination. I think kids who are thoughtful, and plugged into some media, realize what they’ve lost. The series “Stranger Things,” which takes place in 1985, has a lot of 11 and 12 year olds, who pretty much free range, day and night. Yes, smaller families, these days. “All their eggs in one basket.”
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/psychology-says-people-grew-1970s-100018159.html
I was going to do a bit of running around, today, but think I should stay close to home. I think my boil, is coming to a boil. :-). Lew
Chris:
Wow – platypus not so far away. I love the name puggles, but why “puggles”? Just for the picture, I think this is why:
https://news.mongabay.com/2015/10/adorable-echidna-babies-boost-hope-for-critically-endangered-cousins/
It seems to me also that the bigger dogs are generally friendly, lamb-like creatures. It is a shame that so many people are afraid of them just because they are big. I forgot to mention one thing that our dogs liked a lot, especially when younger: Tug-of-war. We’d get an old sheet – it had to be something long with 5 of them – get Rex going on one end and then try to get everybody else going on the other end. Usually they would just grab on wherever and one of the dogs, a female German Shepherd mix of 72 pounds named Starry, would stand on the sideline and tell everyone else what to do. That Starry was so bossy.
There is a fox with a den back in the fig clearing whom my son has named Freddy; I may have mentioned him before. Freddy is fascinated by my son’s behavior and sits, really, really close by, and watches him. My son has never fed Freddy, but it must be tempting to do so. I can see how a curious wolf became a companion that way.
My son was driving on our back road yesterday and saw Freddy catch a squirrel. That’s not easy; squirrels are really fast and can shoot up trees. But poor Freddy. I think he was distracted by Mr. Musty going by and the squirrel got away from him.
Oh! I have been dousing my tools with the lanolin oil. So far I have done the hedge clippers, a baby shovel (that’s a half-pint shovel, not a trowel), and my new saw. There are lots more to do, but some need some rust removal first. The stuff smells like sheeps and petrol, which smell pretty much wears away after awhile. I am wondering if I might try it on my bathroom door hinges that groan all summer because of the humidity. I have been using WD-40, but it only lasts a day or two.
Pam
Chris,
Well, yeah, uck just sounds flat compared with ook. However, yuck sounds better to my ear than does yook. And Welsh for ick or yuck is “ych a fi”, pronounced “uck a vee”, where that “ck” is more of a throat clearing sound. Ook a fi simply wouldn’t work.
I’ve tried steaks rare. Ook! Medium rare? Ook. Medium? Okay, but. Medium well? Perfect for my tastes. It’s also what I grew up with. I don’t like my meal getting up off my plate and running off somewheres. 😉
As far as the vitamin C? With the amount of fruits and veggies you eat, you’ve got to be well endowed with vitamin C.
I was playing a solitaire game on the computer earlier. Between games, ads sometimes pop up. One ad for a new bathroom shower installation had “Before” and “After” pictures. The “Before” picture was a bit drab. The new installation in the “After” picture was very nice. The “after” picture also featured an attractive young woman, which left me wondering if she came as part of the installation package?
Sometimes the weather is easy to read here, especially after 59 years living here. The amount of the last rainfall was a bit surprising, but the fact that it would rain had seemed obvious to me. A look to the sky, a certain feel, the birds acting a wee bit differently, perhaps. There was actually a heavy dew on everything this morning.
Young Neighbor has been doing a lot of trimming in her yard this summer. She’s getting quite accomplished. She needed my help with one such project, necessitating my extendable pruning saw thingy. This next round of pruning in my yard is a bit different. Some shrubs need to be trimmed, but they also need to remain intact enough to provide some privacy from the neighboring yard. Thus, it’s a slightly different aesthetic.
You caught on fast to what I use the green bins for. Were it simply leaves or grass clippings, these would go into the compost heap. The twigs and small branches just take forever to break down, so off they go to the City compost.
Last year was great for the carrots. This year I put a lot of potting soil in the containers where I planted the carrots. I think that there will be a lot of carrot greens, some small carrots and a few medium size carrots. I’ll let you know how it turns out.
Far out! Glad the new dog food baking arrangement is working. You really need to spoil Sandra for having such a wonderful idea. Like maybe something special EVERY time she bakes another batch of dog food. I’m sure that both she and the Princess would agree with me.
I looked up a couple holistic dentistry offices online. The curiosity, right? Anyhow, it’s things like getting rid of the old metallic fillings and replacing with ceramic fillings. Why? Maybe the metallic ones might contain some mercury perhaps. Then there was treating a tooth with nerve damage or a bad infection with medication, never with a root canal. If the infection doesn’t clear up, pull the tooth. Why? Sometimes bacteria gets left behind after a root canal and causes problems later. Anyhow, those were the two biggest differences I noticed.
A few small luxuries make life a lot easier sometimes.
A puggle? Sounds like a good name for a Marsh-wiggle from Lewis’s Narnia books. At least it is similar enough to Puddleglum from “The Silver Chair”. However, looking at that article Pam linked to, well, puggle is a perfect name for a baby echidna.
Chilis bought at the chain grocery stores sure don’t have the zing and flavor that homegrown chilis possess, that’s for sure. I think some of the specialty markets can actually get some in season that are really good.
DJSpo
Hi Pam,
They’re very cute, and quite pleasant to have roaming around the forest. Not a hassle at all, and the dogs have been trained to leave them alone. There are a number of really interesting marsupial species in Papua New Guinea too, like tree kangaroos…
Speaking of marsupials, at the top of my driveway today I discovered a dead wallaby, with a tyre track running over it’s rear end. Not nice, and it’s not like whomever did it couldn’t see the house from the road. Hmm. I am deeply unimpressed by this unexpected turn of events. Dame Plum alerted me to the presence of the carcass. Oh well.
That’s been my experience as well, so far. Big dogs, are just like small dogs and want to know that us humans are trustworthy pack leaders. But I know what you mean, and people are afraid of them due to their sheer size. Oooo, that game of tug-o-war would have been fun for the pack, and there’s always a leader, yup. Sometimes I see Dame Plum getting frustrated with her wayward sister Ruby, and giving her a solid what-for. And actually sometimes on boundary patrol walks, I just chuck the hapless Ruby on a lead and the activity becomes a more pleasant experience for all. The interesting thing about Ruby, is that she gets the lesson, but sometimes just doesn’t care. Wilful, as the old timers may have suggested.
I don’t mind the foxes here either, and no doubts they’ll be dining on wallaby this evening, and for the next couple of nights. Clever creatures, and they do observe all of our actions – one of the reasons I don’t allow the chickens to free range in the orchard any more. The fox wasn’t much concerned about my presence way back in the day, and whilst I stopped the forest critter from nabbing a chicken, the hen did not enjoy or survive the experience.
A bit of kindly feed for the fox, and your son will have a friend in that forest critter. Might help with the groundhogs…
But absolutely, animals can become tame to a greater or lesser extent. I’ve got a good relationship with the magpies here, although people in the cities are terrorised by those birds.
The squirrel would have been injured by the interaction, and a fox bides its time. That’s kind of like when Ruby dropped the rabbit and Dame Plum and I had to find the poor creature and do what needed doing.
Pam, this is like music to my ears! And! And! You’ve discovered the most important attribute, it’s more sticky than WD-40. The same principle works out here as well in hot weather. Well, coat the rust, and then take your time removing it from the tools, that’s what I’d do.
By the way, I love the word sheeps, it just sounds so much more fun as the plural of sheep.
Spent most of the day investigating the area which was the old dog enclosure. Dug and cleaned up a drain pit, and discovered it works perfectly. The rock walls and soil levels in that area near to the summer kitchen have to be fixed up, but it is a big project. Might have to dig and cement the rodent proof trenches next to the house over the next day or so…
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
Thank you for the most excellent analysis of the various pronunciations, and the word yook reminds me of some particularly unpleasant insect picked up whilst bush walking when brushing up against a certain low growing shrub (Ni!) Of course as everyone knows, the yook is a wily critter and if not wearing gaiters over the boots, it’ll climb up under the leg of your pants and bury itself in the skin of the leg. Hard to extract without a sharp knife I’ve been told, and a at such delicate moments a person often learns to recite Latin more grammatically correctly (!) as in: “Romani ite domum”. 🙂 I think I’ve confused Monty Python films there…
I’m with you, and medium well done is how I’d prefer to eat a steak. My mother eventually married a bloke who’s idea of food differed from mine markedly. He’d cook steak mildly and blood would ooze out all over deep fried chips. I stopped eating with them due to the sudden downward change in diet, and in fact moved out as soon as possible. I was unsurprised to learn that he passed away I believe around a decade under the average age.
🙂 Man, have to laugh about that, but yeah, it’s all plant material and dairy here. Actually when Sandra and I used to donate blood they always used to ask us whether we’d had a barbecue recently due to the good iron levels. We eat a lot of leafy greens, which are easy to grow, but hard to buy.
What? Has the game solitaire got advertisements nowadays? Far out! My mind has now been blown. Whoa!
If that young lady was clever, instead of prancing around the bathroom in the ad, she’d have done her apprenticeship as a plumber and be raking it in. There are plenty of ladies out there who want to hire female tradies, just sayin…
Oh, you just said shrubs too. Ook! 🙂 I hear you about that, and was thinking about how to propagate some of the thicker leaved, err, indigenous shrubs (Ni!), for that very reason. It’s in seed at the moment, and has beautiful smelling flowers. I won’t mention the name of the plant because people are frankly weird about it.
🙂 That’s local knowledge about your impending weather. I watch the ant nests as they build up fortifications around the entrances, just prior to big storms. Lots of signs.
Yup, best to chip up those small branches, or better yet, get the local council to do it for free. 🙂
Potting soil is pretty good for carrots I reckon, the lower nitrogen I’m guessing will stop them from forking or having too big of a hairy root system. But yeah, please do let me know as I’ve little experience with growing carrots and need to remedy this lack.
I’d suggest that Sandra would be happy with less whingeing about the dog food stink – at a wild guess! 🙂 But absolutely, good ideas are hard to come by. On that note, I began looking at the area where the dog enclosure used to be (next to the summer kitchen veranda). Dug up and cleaned out a drainage pit which had been lost over the years – and it works perfectly. Cleaning the 150mm pipe was interesting, and messy. Stood around and just looked at the area and kind of figured out what needs doing, and how to go about that activity. It’s a big job due to the sheer volume of soil that needs removing, but it’ll be fine. Still, excess soil is an asset – which needs to be put to good use.
That’s what curiosity looks like, yup! 🙂 Interesting to hear what it’s all about, and maybe two years ago I had an old amalgam filling replaced with a composite one. Is it better, is it worse? Hard to know, but the dentist said that the downwards and outwards pressure of the metal filling could split the tooth… Don’t want that. And have had that happen. The fix up was expensive.
It’s nice just to be able to switch the little heater on and take the edge off the cold morning. 4’C here in the early hours, brr! But at least the day felt warm in the sun, despite the chilly 12’C air. The UV is now rated as High, and the sun has bite, or tooth, depending upon which monster we’re comparing the feeling too.
Man, I’ve never read Mr Lewis’s Narnia books. And was Silverchair a book, oh, I thought it was a 90’s Australian rock band – ended up doing quite well those young blokes.
We’ve been road testing the purchased chilli’s and they’re not as zingy as the home grown variety. Gotta have a bit of oomph and kick, with the occasional few moments of regret, is how I prefer those fruit. 🙂
We’re in for a run of nice dry and warm weather. Looking forward to it. Hope you get some more rain.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Actually, I’d not thought of the differences in physical activity, but that’s true. Work as an activity is quite sedentary these days, and I feel colder when that is the case. But when I’ve spent the day outdoors working, indoors can be uncomfortably warm. I don’t wear clothes made primarily of synthetic materials, however, sometimes manufacturers will sneak in a 1% polyester blend. It pays to take a closer look.
That was the book! And hope you are enjoying the other book: Japanese Inn, it was a fascinating read.
By the way, is it normal to find a dead run over wallaby at the top of one’s driveway? I tend to think the correct answer is: no. But that was what was there today. The ever resourceful Dame Plum alerted me to the carcass, but I’d have not missed it. Had to load it into the power wheelbarrow and take it down to the forest edge. The critters will feast for the next few days. And it’s warming up, so there’ll be a stink from this.
I’m very unimpressed by this unexpected turn of events, as I’m guessing that it was rolled down and onto a grassy area next to the driveway. It’s not like a person can’t see the house, or that the local council doesn’t have facilities to pick up the carcasses. Hmm.
Ha! I’m not doubting you about the producers girlfriend story, as these kind of things happen. And does the girlfriend really enjoy the company of the producer, or is it merely a career decision? Glad I don’t have to think in such terms.
I’d imagine the late season blueberry varieties have a pretty good flavour? The late season berries here tend to be the blackberries (and if you can ignore the seeds – not always possible), they are excellent. They’ve captured more of the sun’s energy being later in the season.
Speaking of berries, I did a bit of work on the crazy paving near to the blackberry bed. It’s nice fixing up some of the rougher edges surrounding the house. We’d had other plans for today, but the Editor had a minor data drama this morning, and had to re-do a few hours of gone’d work. These things happen…
Hope your ear survived the bending? 🙂 Oh my gawds! Deer damage can be just brutal, and you have my sympathy. They’ll have your garden marked out as part of their territory. Is my memory faulty, or does it also seem to you that this year has been particularly bad for deer damage? I don’t it recall it being such a big deal in prior years at your place.
I guess the sunlight is weakening in your part of the world, as it picks up down here. It was hard to believe that the air temperature was only 54’F today, and yet the sun felt fierce, that’s for sure. UV is now rated as High.
Started the big job of cleaning up the garden area where the summer kitchen now is, and where the dog enclosure used to be. There was a drainage pit which had been buried, and I can’t recall the reason why we did that. Anyway, cleaned it out, (and the 6 inch pipe) which was a disgusting and messy job, then tested to see if it still worked – and it did! The top of the pit is about 6 inches below the soil level. We’ll have to shape the soil so that water flows in there during heavy rainstorms. It’s good that it works, and baffling to me why we covered it over. Oh well.
Now I’ve begun cleaning that area up, I’ll have to dig and then cement the rodent proof trenches. That was the last of that job to be done anyway. Hope the cheeky twitchy nosed critters don’t make a dive for under the house in the mean time. Ook!
They call such places (or used to) art house cinemas down here too. Yeah, truthfully, some of the part time uni lectures were so mind numbingly boring if I wasn’t furiously taking lecture notes, I’d have been at risk of falling asleep due to exhaustion. Hey, nothing wrong with being over educated! 🙂 But is social mobility even a thing these days? I don’t think so any more, and that has changed over my lifetime. You’d have seen that change too?
By the way, I hear anecdotal reports that a lot of lectures are viewed over the interweb nowadays. Dull lecturers can be paused whilst a well deserved nap is enjoyed.
Thanks! 🙂 I’d like to be paid to write, but enjoy the process of sharing words with lovely people such as yourself, and also all of the other delightful folks who take the time to engage in dialogue here.
Lewis, as to the snail, the universe sometimes provides in strange ways. You never know when such a snail comes into your awareness.
It’s exactly the same concept with the scary-sign-dude, yeah, and I needn’t have made their acquaintance merely to get the flavour of their personality. 🙂 The signs send a strong message, but they’re probably easily alarmed and anxious. It’s the one’s with that mentality, but no warning of it, that are worse trouble.
Hehe! Sometimes they use the title: ‘Ranger’, for the dog-catcher job, and it conjures quite the Tolkien-esque image. Working as a garbage collector is apparently challenging for getting a date.
All of the eggs in one basket is probably at the core of this expression of fear. My understanding of childhood risk is that most are abused in the household, or by other adults known to the parents. Much is made of stranger danger, but statistically, the home risks are far bigger.
That article pretty much described my childhood, and it was worth noting, that parents in those days had their own lives, which is equally frowned upon now. Man, if you want to see where this is headed. South Korea is a cautionary tale of way too much competition from day dot:
South Korea is Collapsing Faster Than Any Nation in History . I would leave that land, if possible…
Cheers
Chris
Hello Chris,
Thanks for sharing the outdoor kitchen story, with background, conflict and resolution. Such experiences strengthen relationships, I think.
Regarding another thing you wrote on JMGs blog, that you used to be upset about the state of the current civilization. I had that too for a long time, and it sometimes comes back in waves, and I want to do something to help out. But most people are not looking for help, but for distraction and deflection. Those times, the serenity prayer helps me to let them go, and do their thing.I am amazed and troubled by the capacity of most people to not take responsibility. The disconnect is larger in the city, and with more academic people, but out here in the small town world I find quite a lot of people who do live with their eyes open. Not sheltered by diplomas, they have had to be on their watch to survive, I guess.
Regarding carrots – it took me several years to learn how to get them going, but now I have grown more successfully for a few years, even leaving some in the ground to grow seeds from next year.
The main challenge was weeding. I tried “permaculture”-style first, with half-broken-down cover crops and clover and mulch, but the slow-to-germinate carrots were overwhelmed. I tried transplanting too, which didn’t work for me.
Small seeds, slow germination, slow starting growth means that the garden bed has to be quite weed–free to begin with, and regular weeding for the first month or two. After that, they are strong plants who take over and no other weeds will germinate.
Home grown carrots are much more flavorful than the watery store-bought ones, at least here.
Peace,
Goran
Yo, Chris – A dead wallaby, practically on your doorstep? Is someone trying to send a message? 🙂
Probably, just a case of, “Someone will take care of it.” Or, the poor thing was hit and managed to crawl that far, before expiring.
Well, most of the blueberries are pea sized. 🙁 But, pretty easy to pick in clusters. They’ve got a lot of flavor, but are on the tart side.
Bad year for deer? Oh, I don’t know. All it takes is one or two who get habituated, to raiding our garden. To do a lot of damage. They hit me again, last night. More zucchini. A nibble on the tomatoes.
Our high yesterday was 77F (25C). Our overnight low was 46F (7.77C). Our forecast high for today is 81F. But, for at least the next week, day time highs will be in the mid 70s. I saw an article about Old Farmer’s Almanac predictions, for snow for us, this year. Snow in October. Although it really didn’t go into detail, as to if that’s mountain snow, or … well, you know how Prof. Mass feels about lowland snow. Hard to predict.
LOL. Yes, why did you bury the drainage pit? Seemed like a good idea, at the time? I’m glad to hear it’s still perking along.
Yes, social mobility. I did watch that video about S. Korea. It’s pretty much what is happening, here, but in slow motion. There’s also a lot of chatter, lately, about “nepo babies.” But mostly, as it pertains to the entertainment field. I’m always surprised when it revealed, who is related to who. Nick Cage is the nephew of Francis Ford Coppola. And, there are whole clans of musicians.
I just finished an interesting book, “The American School of Spies: The Archaeologists Who Fought the Nazis and Saved the Treasures of Ancient Greece.” (Talty, 2026). It was about the early days, of the OSS, in that part of the world. The author made no bones about the fact, that these folks were connected, entitled, and wealthy. Most came from “Old Money.” In a different theatre( Far East), even Julia Child, who also worked for the OSS, came from a privileged background. Upscale Pasadena, CA., and a graduate of Smith College.
Speaking of that “bunker attitude,” I read a book a couple of months ago. “The Dog Stars.” It came out as a movie, last month.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dog_Stars
What the plot summery doesn’t really make clear, is that they kill anyone who comes within their parameter. No questions asked.
Yes, it’s pretty much a given, that most abducted kids, are abducted by family members or, people known to the family. But that little fact gets lost in all the noise. Did you have the “missing kids on the milk cartons,” down there?
Well, I started hot packing the thing on my back, yesterday. Laid down for a nap, and when I got up, it had begun to drain. So, it’s a round of hot packs and changing dressings. For hot packs, I take a small towel, use the hottest tap water, and slap it on until it cools down. Oddly, our tap water at night, is not very hot So, it’s into the microwave for 10 seconds. I always have problems, hitting the right spot, with the largest bandaid available. So, I had a brain storm. When I got Dawg, I also got a pile of doggie “pee pads.” Which, have never been used. So, I’ve been cutting them down, and attaching them with surgical tape. Works a lot better, though the tape is … shite. :-). So, all this song and dance will go on for a few days, until it heals up. Lew
@ DJSpo:
You’re right: Puggles would have fit in Narnia. Gosh, I haven’t read those since I was a child.
I think all the metallic fillings contain mercury, which has always made me nervous since I learned that. What I don’t know is if our bodies can absorb any of that mercury in its solid form. You know about “mad as a hatter”, right?
Pam
Chris:
What a shame about the wallaby. Do you think they knew they ran over it? Someone hit a fox cub – probably a delivery driver, I’ll bet; they go so fast – on our neighborhood road the other day.
I think the old timers might call Ruby “boneheaded”, possibly apt in her case.
“Well, coat the rust, and then take your time removing it from the tools, that’s what I’d do.” Okey dokey; I’ll try it. We always had more fun saying “sheeps”. I just remembered that when I was researching the lanolin oil on a forum for farmers, that some of them said that they coated the undercarriages of their farm equipment with it.
I had wondered if there might not be rodent access around the old dog enclosure. Has the price of concrete gone up much, or do you have such a big supply that you haven’t had to buy any for awhile?
I gave my son his birthday present today, though his birthday isn’t until next month: Two bright yellow 5 gallon (19L) containers of diesel fuel. The fuel set me back $62.00, which I didn’t think was too bad, considering. I may get him some more as I have a feeling that it is going to go up quite a bit after our elections in early November. He may get some socks, too.
I don’t know if I recently told you about making fried salmon patties (they were delicious), but, after finding no-salt canned ones at a store here, they had stopped carrying them, right after my purchase. I finally found some more; I am still watching the salt some. I had forgotten how much I like salmon.
Pam
Chris:
Oh – the wallaby was at the top of your driveway. Big difference.
Pam
@ Pam,
It has been a long time since I read those also.
Mad as a hatter? Yes, I heard about that some time ago. It explains why I always thought the Mad Hatter had a mercurial personality. 😉
DJSpo
Chris,
Take a dash of this from a Monty Python movie. Add a dollop of that from a different one. Stir in a mix from the Flying Circus program. Whatever comes out of that mash up will still be entertaining Monty Python.
Dairy. Necessity for eating my jalapeno crop, the red ones especially. Garden fresh leafy greens are best. The ones from the grocery can go limp fast.
Well, solitaire online either has adverts or else a fee for ad-free. I refuse to pay, so get stuck with the occasional advert.
The new neighbors next door, they who bought the house early spring this year. He is an electrician. She is a plumber. They are happy with those careers.
Okay. You got on a roll with Ni! So, when you ask a frog how deep the water is, what does the frog answer? Ni deep! Way back when I was little, my dad said that I was Ni high to a grasshopper.
Young Neighbor and I got a lot of trimming done today. Meaning, more woody material from the shrubbery (Ni!) that goes to the City compost. Another trimming session or two in that area will be necessary.
Cool! You found the lost drainage pit. And it still works. And more soil for other projects. That sounds like a successful adventure. Would you have started on that if the summer kitchen hadn’t been moved outdoors?
Hmmm, we’ve been between 8C and 12 C for overnight lows. Got up to 27C today. Pleasant this time of year. This looks to be the pattern for several days. No rain in the forecast.
DJSpo
Hi Pam,
My thoughts exactly regarding the dead wallaby. Is this a new low? Dunno, but the next few days will be warm, and the stink will be potent. There is a local wildlife volunteers group who are great at assessing road kill and working out whether there is a joey in the pouch, then raising the little one to be released. That didn’t happen, and that was a choice made right there.
Pam, the wallaby weighed as much as Ollie, so I doubt whomever did it, failed to notice the bump in the road. Oh well, these things happen, but I was genuinely surprised to see that was the case within sight of my front door.
Boneheaded sums up Ruby quite nicely. Thanks for the astute label. The dog is clever, no getting around it, but resists learning, and that is a character flaw. Dunno about you, but I lack certainty about all manner of issues, and so will listen to disparate opinions, and then weigh up for myself the truth or otherwise. We’ve begun training Dame Plum whilst Ruby looks on, and it has only been since then that the wayward canine realises that training is impersonal.
Yeah, the application of lanolin will buy you some time to deal with the deeper care and attention with your hand tools. 🙂 The word sheeps is so fun!
It’s not a bad idea to coat the undersides of machinery. Some mowers for example have a wash port where you can connect up a garden hose, spin the blades, and the acidic grass chunks caked onto the steel get washed off. Soil and grass caked onto such metallic undersides can have detrimental effects on steel, and mower decks have been known to rust out. I guess it all depends upon how long you want all this stuff to last? This subject is very complicated, but the old timers used to say: A stitch in time, saves nine.
I’m worried as well about the rodents near to the old dog enclosure. Ook! Oh well. Actually 20kg / 44 pound bags of general purpose cement are still around or under AU$10 / US$7, which is pretty good. They’re made about an hours drive closer to the coast from here, so don’t have too far to travel. How does that compare to the prices you are seeing?
Pam, respect! Truly, that diesel story is so not good. I filled up the Dirt Rat Suzuki this afternoon with petrol (non ethanol blend) and that was as pricey as I’ve seen it around AU$2.34/Litre, but diesel was higher again at AU$2.87/Litre – which blew my mind. Then heading to the nearby town, they had diesel for AU$3.01/Litre which works out to be US$8.00 / gallon or for your two five gallon containers: US$80.00. Ouch. You did well there, and socks are always useful and needful.
Salmon is a very nice fish, and yeah, does it really need the salt? Or do either of us for that matter? Bread absolutely needs salt, but a teaspoon is enough. Too much salt raises my blood pressure, and I can feel the difference, so best not go there. I once wrote about the Greedy, Grabby, Salt incident with some otherwise tasty purchased chips which were overly dosed with salt. Oh well.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Goran,
Sandra and I work together, and genuinely have to cross check each other’s paid work before sending out to clients. I tell you what, that process is not for everyone, and seventeen years ago when we commenced construction of this house, I was told in no uncertain terms that my days of being the boss in big business, were over. 😉 Now, we plan activities for a few days in advance, and collaboratively allocate who is doing what, roughly describe the processes, and then get on with the various tasks at hand. It’s complicated! 🙂
Glad you enjoyed the story as to how we navigate all that kind of stuff.
Man, the turning point for me was when the charity mugger person who was collecting money for a very well known charity, told me that: ‘he felt sorry for me’. All I had suggested was that very little of the activities of the city around us at the time of the incident, were sustainable. Hmm. The response rocked my world, because the implications were hard to ignore.
I’ll tell you another story. Like you I have tried to help other people, even friends who were having various troubles in their life. One incident in particular changed my outlook completely. A friend was trying to buy a house for his family and needed to get his finances in order. I helped with that on the basis that he didn’t tell anyone – I’d not wanted to be hassled to provide free work to all of the people I know. Anywhoo, the work was done, and for some unknown reason, he made a big public thing about it. Hmm. The lesson I took away from this incident, and it’s something for you to think about, was: How do you help people, who are unable to help themselves? It was actually my expectations of the person which were at fault in that encounter. Which raises the question: do some people want any more in life than what you mentioned of: distraction; and deflection?
Thank you so much for your experience with growing carrots, and I’ll implement your suggestions.
You’re not wrong about taste, for all of the produce. Plus we tend to consume the plant material within half an hour (or less) of picking, with maybe the exception of potatoes. Earlier in the year I bought some supermarket potatoes, and they neither smelled good, nor tasted OK when baked. It had been years since I’d bought anything other than farm-gate, or grown our own with those tubers. And that started me looking into why the taste and aroma was so bad. It’s not good.
Oh well, the weather here is warming, and it was 17’C today with High rated UV, so felt quite warm. The plants are still growing slowly, but I did notice a tiny developing apricot. Yum! Cockatoos were munching on the horse chestnut, and the dogs and I chased them away. Those big white birds are becoming a problem. Oh well.
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
It’s lot’s of fun mashing up all these ideas. And saves us having to come up with them, although I suspect the Python fellows knew their history. After all, the Holy hand grenade of Antioch, did have more than a passing resemblance to Charles II’s royal orb and sceptre. So we’re in good company with this riffing off older ideas! 🙂
Anywhoo, after the puritans and their ideological hatred of pies and gingerbread men, the return of Charles II would have been welcomed, as it indeed was. I’d have been particularly put out by the pie-secret-pol-ice in those times. There’s something to be said about a gourmet pie. I’ll bet that Cromwell bloke used to scoff down illicit pies!
Ha! I see that you’ve experienced the true pain of your own home grown chili’s! 🙂 Thanks for the hints and tips, as I’d not tried leafy garden greens as a gut soothing agent for those fiery fruits.
I’d refuse to pay as well. Out of curiosity, do you play Sudoku? Sandra, whom has more of a head for the abstract finer points of the gentle art of mathematics, likes that game. Sometimes I’ll make unsolicited suggestions such as: Chuck a four in that box and see what happens! That’s about the time I discovered what the word: withering, meant. Couldabeen right with that random guess though, and the outcome from using the probability drive suggests as much.
Anyway, like your experience, I also get the occasional advertisement on utoob, but run an ad blocker which mostly works. The weather website begged me to allow them to display ads, and I caved. As an old fella now, I get the strangest ads on that website. One or two of them made me blush, and I had to explain to Sandra that this stuff is unsolicited and not representative of my interweb usage. See what happens when being a Sudoku smarty-pants offering unsolicited and completely random suggestions, the universe gets a person back with unusual equally improbably advertisements, yup. Phooey to that!
Exactly! That is a power couple, and super handy people to know. The future belongs to folks that know useful stuff.
Thanks for the laughs, and they were goodies. The Ni! ledger has been balanced. 🙂 Did I just slip in another one?
It was pretty nice here today. 17’C with some breeze. Finally had the day off work (mostly), and went and did a local bushwalk in a nearby nature reserve. It was good seeing people out and about enjoying the weather. The walk is nice because it’s long enough that everyone is spread out and you feel as if you have the whole place to yourself. The plan is to do some rock work tomorrow. The wind on Sunday is forecast to be feral, probably no day to be working underneath tall trees.
You got another Ni! in, well so did I just then… 😉 But then you mentioned the shrubbery… I hear you about the need to cut back plant material, and the local council will put the stuff to good use. Down under a lot of that material ends up in parks and along trees near to roads, which is not a bad outcome.
Actually the plan was to fix up that area, but I’d intended to use the soil to move excess rainfall away and into the courtyard. Now rain can be drained into the pit instead. Water had been washing under the house during serious storms, and that’s not good for the humidity and timber (not in contact with the ground anyway, but still) holding the house together. So yeah, the work was going to happen, but not in the way it will end up looking like now.
Those are some nice temperatures, and the garden will be turning into a jungle with the combination of heat and water. And by the way, the big smoke is forecast to reach 27’C on Sunday, so the warmth batten is being handed over. It’ll be colder up here in the mountains, maybe 21’C to 23’C.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Your idea puts a whole new spin on the wallaby-gate incident. If that was the case, it sure was a strong message. But yeah, the other scenarios you mentioned seem more likely to me. There are nicer ways for this story to have played out though, and the pouch needed to be checked for joeys, but by the time I got to the carcass, rigor mortis had set in. Presumably, chucking my detective hat on, this places the incident at a time much earlier in the day.
Interesting that the blueberries are smaller than what you’re buying. Probably better for your health, at a wild guess, especially with the piquant flavour you mentioned. Hey, I spotted the first tiny apricot this morning. It was so small that the flower was falling apart around the developing fruit. The forecast for Tuesday morning suggests a possibility of frost. Ook! Fingers crossed that this area avoids that icy fate.
That seems to be the case with nuisance animals here too, and the cockatoos were ripping developing buds off the horse chestnut today for no reason that I could discern. I set the dogs onto them. I fail to see the reason for their vandalism, although some interweb sites have suggested that they’re alleviating boredom and/or sharpening their constantly growing beak. Who knew mischief and intelligence were intertwined? Agreed, the deer is becoming habituated at your place, and the one I shot ended up entirely oblivious to either me, or the dogs presence. Sooner or later, it was going to end badly for the dogs. A red deer is quite large.
And that’s what I noticed about deer in the garden – they’d consume Solanaceae family leaves, like potato vines. So I’m unsurprised to read that your tomato leaves are being nibbled. It’s getting late in the season, and I doubt those plants of yours will recover.
Hey, when is your daylight savings ending? Two weeks here and I’ll lose an hours sleep. Man, I’m already yawning thinking about it, and preparing for a whinge about unnecessarily adjusted schedules and vague feelings of jet lag. See, I’m prepared for a proper whine. 🙂 Hope you can match that effort?
I’m with the Professor, and lowland snow would be abominably hard to forecast, let alone what will happen at some locale in your state next month. Talk about a meteorological challenge!
It was 63’F and sunny today, but a bit breezy. After yesterday, we decided to take the day off work (mostly), and head to a nearby nature reserve and go for a bushwalk. It was nice, and there were a few people out also enjoying the spring sunshine. Lots of people take their dogs there (although it is a dog on leash reserve). I made a batch of Anzac biscuits as well, but that was the most notable thing about today. I like days when nothing much of note occurs. 🙂 Too much excitement can be a bad thing.
Yeah, exactly, the drainage pit was buried for that very reason – which now completely escapes my mind. Actually, it was a relief yesterday to discover that the system there works. But the bonus is the possibility of recovering all of the excess soil from the area – a new path will be made from all that material. No point wasting any of it.
I don’t normally recommend such utoob things, but that one about S. Korea alarmed me, for the very reason you mentioned. Hmm. Oh well, and the ‘nepo baby’ thing gets discussed down here too, although it seems to have origins in your country. Look, that’s why I listen to the national youth music broadcaster, because who else is supporting and promoting local talent? There are a few, but not at that national scale. And even then, it’s hard to make a living in that scene.
Hehe! We’ve discussed this matter before, and I’ve encountered ‘old money’ sorts, and they’re interesting people. There is truth in the observation that with wealth, comes wider social obligations. I’d not known that background bit about Julia Child. Interesting. Maybe, just like what the old timers used to say: They know where their bread is buttered.
You know, whilst hunting around for local cinemas to see the Tony film, I did spot that ‘Dog Stars’ film – which has now gone. The book was well reviewed. It’s impressive that the director was Ridley Scott. Is the film on your hold list yet? The book sounds pretty good, but yeah, the shoot first, ask questions later, can build a lot of resentment, grudges and consequences.
Exactly. No, that’s not been trialled down here, and I for one would probably swap to a less disturbing brand of milk. Such things breed fear, when it’d probably be better to have a more basic message like: a reminder to everyone in a car to wear their seatbelts. There was a pretty nasty crash last week, and a couple of kids out of the many in the vehicle died. One wonders…
Good thinking with using the doggie absorbent pads for your cyst. That sort of tape can be good, or good and bad when it rips hairs off your skin. Ouch. Hope it heals up speedily. You’re stoic and have my empathy. Life, huh?
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – Rigor mortis? You might have missed your calling as a pathologist. 🙂 In all those mysteries I watch, the pathologist is often the most quirky, eccentric, entertaining character. See: “Brokenwood Mysteries.”
Deer, again, last night. I think they may even be eating the cherry tomatoes. Seems to be less of them, than yesterday. I was worried about my carnivorous pitcher plants. Other than nibbling a blossom off, a few months ago, they’ve left them alone. But last night I moved them into the dumpster room, and brought them out, again, this morning Until I have more permanent barriers, I thought that might be the drill. But, I had a brain storm, last night. I’ll put a big box around them, put it on in the evening, and take it off in the morning. For temporary, that will work. I’m surprised they haven’t hit a patch of strawberries I have in my bed. They have, before.
I looked it up, and Daylight Savings Time is still not permanent, here. And won’t be, for awhile. Our Congress, has adjourned. They’re all headed to their home states, to do last minute campaigning, before the mid-term elections. And, someone brought forward a motion to impeach one of the cabinet members, and no one wanted to get caught up in that quagmire, before the election. So, they’ve headed for the hills.
Our high yesterday was 81F (27.22C). Our overnight low was 50F (10C). Our forecast high for today is 75F.
I went to the Club, last night, around 5:30, to visit with someone. And, it was locked up and no one there. Darned volunteers. 🙂 So I went back at 8, and things were back on track. There’s a schedule up, as to who works when (theoretically), and I wrote down the shifts of all who I want to visit with. Carl, the retired nursery guy, is back on Sunday mornings. Jane has a shift.
Although at the cost of gas … I got some, last night. $5.80 a US gallon, for regular. The new Club is three or four times as far from home, as the old Club. Mr. Greer seems to think, that there won’t be rioting in the streets, as civilization declines. But …
https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/15/world/fuel-prices-protests-iran-war-intl
The library hasn’t ordered “Dog Stars,” yet, so, no, not on my hold list. Yet. There was a bit, in the book, where the hero “harvests” some meat off the dead intruders, to provide jerky for his dog.
I wonder if that whole “missing kid on the milk carton,” thing, contributed to the current atmosphere, of constantly endangered kids?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing-children_milk_carton
And, finally, humans vs machines.
https://finance.yahoo.com/small-business/articles/humans-rejecting-machines-were-supposed-110029199.html
Maybe a bit of sanity is returning to the marketplace? Lew
@ DJSpo:
Ha, ha!
Pam
Chris:
I didn’t realize that wallabies weighed so much. A couple of times I have come upon freshly dead possums and looked for babies, but there weren’t any, at least that I could tell.
Well, maybe one day Ruby will (probably inadvertently) save everyone’s life. Can one become a Dame on one good effort?
That is a pretty good price for concrete. I looked at what the store I would buy it from here charges. It starts with a 60 lb (27kg) bag for $5.24. Maybe I should stock up on some. Tell me again – how do you store it?
I remember those chips. There are still lingering regrets, eh?
The weather website that I used to watch also ran ads that seriously made me blush, so I switched to another one. The thing is that none of them are very accurate, so I suppose it doesn’t matter. I think longingly of how people could, if they studied it long and well, learn to predict weather by certain signs. I think that there is too much junk interfering with those natural processes now. Environmental stuff and things in the atmosphere.
Pam
Chris,
The Monty Python gang DID know their history. I saw many instances of that on the Flying Circus. Holy Grail was full of little known historical tidbits. My favorite is when they are besieging the castle. One of the French knights yells at Arthur and company, “I fa^t in your general direction!” The history behind that…I think it was 1068. William the Bast- – -, um, Conqueror was in Normandy fighting for his dukedom. Dead Harold of England’s mother had been allowed to keep the castle of Exeter as her home. She amassed a decent army there, apparently had a lot of the old Saxon royal wealth, and Harold’s sons were raiding England with mercenaries from Ireland. Harold’s mother started a revolt.
William’s deputies in England gathered an army and besieged Exeter. They were getting nowhere. Naturally, unpleasantries were bandied back and forth, culminating with the inspiration for that scene in Holy Grail. One English leader bared his backside, thrust it over the castle wall and yelled, “I s%$t in your general direction!” Monty Python had to, er, clean it up a little even for airing in Britain. That was also probably too extreme even for Sherman and Mr. Peabody. 😉
Can you imagine William the Conqueror baring his bottom and making that remark? History would have then remembered him as “Billy Bare Butt.”
My definition of Puritanism is not original. Paraphrased, Puritanism is the overwhelming fear that somebody, somewhere, might be enjoying themselves.
Leafy greens might help a bit. Best is dairy, next best is beer, then wine. A friend who was weaned on jalapenos and habaneros eats cottage cheese when the chilis get too hot. My experience agrees that cottage cheese is at the top of the dairy list as a resource.
Sudoku? I’ve toyed with it. Never enjoyed it. I prefer logic puzzles and crossword puzzles.
Hmmmm. I learned long ago not to interject opinions when others were doing puzzles. You are fortunate that you ceased suggestions upon being the recipient of the look. Another unwanted opinion might have gotten you sent to “Withering Heights”.
I get some weird “old fella” adverts also, especially junk emails, but also some you tub adverts. Many of them feature obviously AI generated females who promise to cure me of “Existential Dread” without any medications whatsoever.
Young Neighbor occasionally wears a wonderful tee shirt. A young boy is clearly having a nightmare, complete with monsters and other frightening things. The shirt states “E equals Existential Dread”. I’ve got a picture of the shirt, am toying with doing a woodburning of it, changing the wording to something that might get me lynched when I enter it in a show, maybe along the lines of “ED is Existential Dread.” Whoever Ed is. 😉
In MASH, what was Radar O’Reilly’s favorite drink? Grape Ni Hi, of course. I also had a professor named Dr. Ni once. He detested graduate students and shrubberies, however, and had no sense of humor. Although one undergraduate did say “Ni! Ni!” around him a few times with no results whatsoever.
Water rushing under the house is never a good thing. Well, unless you live on a houseboat. Water can be a major force, unforgiving in certain situations. I always liked that Bruce Lee always suggested, “Be like water.”
Of course, when Michael Jordan was at the top of the basketball world, one ad said something like “Be Like Mike.” Around that time, one of our engineers had a senior tech named Mick. Mick made a major booboo once. The engineer printed out as a banner in big, bold unfriendly letters “Don’t Be Like Mick” and place it appropriately above Mick’s cubicle, where it happily resided for several years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0AGiq9j_Ak
Killian’s human had a birthday earlier this week. As she doesn’t work Fridays, I bought her lunch today. We went to a Vietnamese restaurant neither of us had been at before. The entire menu looked very good, but we both had a hunger for Banh Mi. Most tasty! And not badly priced and properly filling.
Next time you find one of those old drainage holes, poke around in it. Maybe that is your end of the tunnel that Avalanche and the Kelpies traverse to exchange information. Then, on your next day of unwork, you can zip into the tunnel, pop out in my yard and we’ll go eat Bahn Mi. Or use the infinite improbability drive set to the correct level of improbability and we will both appear at that restaurant, our wives included, and enjoy Bahn Mi.
DJSpo
Hi Pam,
I’m unsure how large your opossums are, but down here Kuato the brush tail possum is about the size of a large cat which enjoys his seconds, and maybe even thirds, or perhaps fourths. Quite the gut that well fed critter. The littler ring tail possums are much smaller, and more prone to being eaten by owls. A wallaby being a small forest kangaroo is quite large by comparison, and weighs as much as Ollie, maybe more.
The lovely folks who do the volunteer wildlife rescue service are true saints. They check the pouches of dead or injured kangaroos, wombats, wallabies, koalas and if any joeys are found, they’ll raise them and re-release the critters into the wilds. I do not know how the folks do such work, but it’s commendable. During the health subject which dares not be named, for almost two years I encountered no road kill. Afterwards…
Here’s hoping that is the case with the Kelpie, and it’s a worthy goal. By the way, did you know that a Kelpie is an ancient Scottish monster of deep mythology dating back to the time of the Picts? Kelpie. There are connections with the ancient Bunyip, which I’ve always imagined was the once megafauna three tonne wombat. I’d soil my armour if confronted by such a beast!
🙂 Store bags of cement off the ground (on a pallet) and out of the weather would be a start. But Pam, the stuff goes off as it sucks moisture from the very air. Mind you, I’ve powderised hardened chunks of general purpose cement, and it seemed to work…
Ha! No regrets about not indulging in such food. Mind you, chips cooked in lard are superb tasting, no getting around that. But did they all live much past the age of 70? I don’t think so. My ambitions are not so great as to seek a large span of years in this life, but it’d be nice if they were healthy and active. We’re all different in that regard.
On that note, we brought up about four loads of rocks back up the hill today. Work continued on the rock wall for that path mentioned last week. About half of the uphill side was completed. Me tired.
Pam, the website ads made me blush too, and some of them were hard to explain… Agreed, it doesn’t much matter, and ours is but to try and interpret the tea leaves for the forecast in our particular areas knowing that it is in our interests to do so.
And absolutely! The longer term forecasts are not bearing much comparison to reality.
The dogs are wiped out tonight, and all fast asleep after a day of running around in the warm spring sunshine!
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
Ah, those cheeky French! Well, talk about being put between a rock and a hard place, the fyrd were forced to fight for William, or lose their status and land – so much for being freemen. But then, you have noted that we only ever rent land from the crown, thus the enduring property taxes. Oh well. I see the Siege of Exeter didn’t last terribly long, William suffered massive losses, and everyone agreed that things would be much better if taxes went back to where they used to be, which was most likely extortionate, but sort-of-affordable. In a somewhat temporal displacement via the Wayback Machine, a rock band: “The Who”, may have been referring to that very incident when they penned the line: “Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.
The tunnel under the Roman fortifications was a pretty clever strategy. The bare bottom was a solid act of defiance! And Gytha like brave Sir Robin, ran away, or was allowed to go.
William apparently blinded a hostage in full view of the defenders, and seeing that would have unsettled my bowels, that’s for sure.
Ha! Yup, whatever the source, a brilliant description of those annoying busybodies, who are probably up to a world of mischief, just out of sight, thus their vehemence and seeking to control others. The bar for Charles II appearing as more fun and super chill, would have been low. 🙂
It is possible that beer and wine have a mild anaesthetising factor on the tongue and mouth in general with the chilli! Dunno. I’ve heard yoghurt is pretty good too, but isn’t all that different a product from fetta cheese. I’ve not encountered a chilli which needs such post consumption assistance for quite a while. How about you?
Cool! All such activities keep the mind sharp, and that thing I believe is a use it, or lose it bodily function. Just like the rest. 🙂
Very funny, Withering Heights indeed!
Man, I so hear you about the unsolicited advertisements. It’s all baffling to me, and Sandra’s unasked for advertising feeds are wildly off the mark too! Makes for some fun jokes, and yes, my feeds tend to have models with unlikely biological enhancements. I do remind her that free streaming services are not exactly free.
I like how your brain works, and yes, the wood burning project will be a fun piece, and totally unexpected. Isn’t that the nature of art? Yup, hope Ed isn’t easily offended.
I’d forgotten that about the grape soda drink, but Radar O’Reilly was my favourite character in the series, although his replacement Klinger was more fun. You know, sometimes I find myself predicting the needs of business owners and then presenting the solution as a fait accompli, and think of that guy – I’d imagine that you have had similar experiences? It’s built into the very nature of a support role.
Ah, but was the humourless Professor grading the students work? 🙂 Ni! Four, Ni! to my two, and I’m bested in this match and admit defeat! Yes, we’ll sort out a shrubbery. Oh what sad days are these… 🙂
Intense storms cause so much damage here, thus all of the rock work about the place. I have to re-do a bit of the area around the house water tanks because of that late February monster hail storm which hit hard. I’d not appreciated the power of lots of ice, until that day – water in a different form. Bruce Lee would no doubt approve of the shape shifting abilities of the stuff.
Ouch, poor Mick, but then he did get to keep his job.
Ah, grasshopper, you have begun the odyssey of a thousand steps where many Bahn Mi will be encountered and tested. Only after much travail, great learning of the ways of the ancient treat, and when you can walk the ways of the rice paper lined hallway without leaving footprints, will you and Killian’s human, be ready for the world.
Ha! The buried drainage pit and 150mm pipe scored a decent clean with the pressure hose. I felt like a swat team blasting away at one of those sewage system fatbergs! But yeah, such tunnels may have gone much further than you or I will ever know. The way of the canine is full of mystery.
Actually I used to love the idea of teleportation in sci-fi, and sadly found that long distance travel, just wasn’t as much fun, otherwise your idea is very sound. 🙂
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Glad you enjoyed that delving into pathology. It was such a weird occurrence with the dead wallaby that only gallows humour seemed appropriate, and heck, I’ve tried to deliver quirky since at least the 70’s. Eccentric though, it’d be nice if that label could be better funded! 🙂 This line of thinking, tickled a memory of an English comedian and a funny old line about having enough mad cash to be considered eccentric. Pathologists are probably better paid! But truly, I’d not change much about my life if better financed, other than getting more assistance for work around here.
On that note, we brought four loads of large rocks back up the hill today. Did about half of the uphill side of a rock wall on the path below the house shown last week. Quite a good effort and a day or two more should get that job done. The soil in the area next to it was superb, a nice moist rich black looking loam. I’m sure it could use some lime and blood and bone meal, but what was there is a very good base. No wonder vegetables set seed in there and just do their own thing.
Oh poop about your deer. I’d assist, if I could, but your neighbours would have a fit and there’d be serious possible consequences. Oh well. I’m, surprised your local council, or whomever tackles stray animals, allow deer running around the streets. At the very least they’d be a road hazard.
Good thinking protecting your carnivorous plants with the box. It’s a neat solution, and I’m guessing the box would be easier to move than the plants? Strawberries are like chicken, I’m yet to discover a critter that won’t eat them, so as you noted, it’s probably been more of an opportunity thing the plants are ignored – i.e. pure luck. I wonder if your master gardeners are discovering some of their trees having the bark rubbed off by the deer? That may motivate the big herbivores removal.
Oh dear, the other political deer. What a mess of a problem, and will it change anything? In such news, I note that your country has added another state / territory – not something which happens everyday. People used to laugh at me when I said that move had a high probability of happening. History is a useful guide here, and the Alaskan purchase was also much derided at the time, yet went ahead all the same. Who knows what will come of that acquisition?
Nice weather you are having! It was 20’C / 68’F today, and we appear to be catching up to you. Alarmingly, the forecast for Tuesday morning now suggests a frost risk and 0’C / 32’F. Holy carp!
Such is the nature of the volunteer, and not everybody is a responsible person whom would take such commitments seriously. That is a complicated subject you’ve encountered, and my mind is foggy and unclear on that story as to why there’d be a difference between people. Nice thinking on your part too though, with taking note of the schedule. Hope Jane is feeling better, and the Club is getting its groove back.
Thanks for the article, and the French sure know how to riot. Looks like a national sport to me. Hey, I recall when the retirement age was lifted there, mayhem ensued, but down here, nobody blinked at the announcement. We do apathetic well! Truthfully, it’d be hard to get to a riot if fuel prices go up by too much more. The whole render unto Caesar thing pops into my head about this subject, I mean, the way currency supplies keep getting expanded each year, there is a good chance that we’ll find out what the limits to that strategy actually is.
Man, you’d have to think so. Emotional distress would be the most likely outcome of the photos to my way of thinking. The really random acts, do happen, but are rare, and they do get a lot of publicity because the general public is at risk, and probably should know of that. But the vast majority of that stuff is familial, or known to the family, problems. The statistics back that.
I burst out laughing at the article. Only in America would I read the line: Sales slumped and many of the company’s employees felt they’d been turned into robots. They began to unionize. Oh the horror of management at the unexpected turn of events! There are some fun utoob videos of people spoofing arty-fish-al job interviews, and they’re genuinely funny. One guy used my time tested: Act dumb technique, then go in for the kill routine. Bizarrely the stupid computer began sounding annoyed, if that is at all possible.
We had an interesting misuse of the arty-stuff recently. This is the sort of stuff you get, when the graduates are never hired: Attorney-general demands explanation from Tasmanian parole board over Susan Neill-Fraser AI mistake. The defence team must have gotten that error and said to themselves: Thank you, Lord! It’s a classic error of what looks to me like laziness. That’s an interesting case too, I’d always believed that the lady made the mistake of keeping it together, which is not what people expect. Oh well, not my circus.
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – Yes, it helps to be an English eccentric, if you have the mad cash. And even more, if the mad cash, is “old” money. Ancient money.
It all starts with the soil. Someone said that.
🙂 . My one bed that I’ve had, all along, has pretty good dark soil. The strawberry bed, and bed I inherited from our last night manager, not so much. But, I keep working on them.
Every once in awhile, but not often enough, a deer gets hit on Adams Street, which runs between the Institution and the parklands. I’m sure there’s probably deer damage, out around the neighborhood. I’m surprised the peasants, with pitchforks and flaming torches, haven’t turned up at a city council meeting. The Master Gardeners haven’t mentioned deer rubbing bark off of trees. I’ll have to ask them.
I picked up two more tomatillos, off the ground, this morning. I guess they’re ripe. 🙂 Soon I’ll have enough for a good batch of salsa. I am seeing more, since weeding out the bed and giving it a good feed.
You might find this article interesting, on the cut-throat world of developing fruit varieties.
https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/19/asia/asia-fruit-smuggling-seed-espionage-intl-hnk
As far as I’ve read, we won’t be adding another star to our flag. Sounds more like a defense pact. I’m sure the verbiage coming out of Washington is a lot more overblown, than actuality. We’ve had bases in Greenland, before. Every once in awhile, The Bear makes noises, that they got a pretty raw deal, letting “Seward’s Ice Box,” go.
Our high yesterday was 70F (21.11C). Our overnight low was 46F (7.77C). Our forecast high for today is 77F. Here’s hoping your forecast frost doesn’t show up. Or, does little damage. I see 6 volcanos have erupted, in Indonesia, in a short period of time. There was also an article about North Korean nuclear tests, triggering earthquakes.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/science/earth-science/north-korea-s-nuclear-testing-may-have-triggered-hundreds-of-earthquakes-over-several-years/ar-AA2cwJM4
There’s been some earthquakes, in previously geological quiet areas, here, Down around Oklahoma. They figure it might be the shale drilling.
Well, you figure we have around 20 counter volunteers, per week, at the Club. A lot of moving parts for something to go wrong. 🙂 Sometimes, things come up that are unavoidable. A kid starts projectile vomiting, car won’t start, etc.. A fellow named Adam, is keeping the counter humming along. If there’s a glitch, he calls around and sees if he can round someone up, to cover. Mostly, it works.
H and I went up to the Club, last night. Ben was working, and he’s my go-to guy for minor truck problems and advice. He installed a windshield wiper, for me. They can be tricky. And, was on stand-by, as I took my tire inflator, on its maiden voyage. Well, now I know how that works. Tires were in good shape, except one that needed just a couple pounds of pressure. I was going to leave Dawg, at home. Fooling around with the truck, I was worried she might do a runner. But, I just popped her in the truck bed, and that worked. As long as she could supervise, and observe everything, she appeared happy.
LOL. I had forgotten, that Friday night at the Club is “The Children’s Hour.” For some reason, a lot of people that go to the evening NA meeting, drag along their kids. So, there’s usually 8-10 of them, harassing the counter person (Ben) for candy. The agony of selection … that goes on and on. But, we saw a lot of people we hadn’t seen in awhile, and Dawg’s psychotic need for validation seemed satisfied.
Well, depending on your point of view, the French Revolution (1789-99) and attendant rioting had pretty good results. I guess they just decided to carry on the tradition. 🙂
Most of the “kids on the milk cartons,” were due to custody battles. But, that wasn’t generally known, until the damage had been done.
That was an interesting article, about a i and the parole board. Not parole boards, but judges here, are getting pretty miffed, that it’s been discovered that the artificial stuff in court cases, is pretty bogus. Legal precedents spun out of thin air.
I saw a headline, but didn’t investigate further, that there’s some movement afoot, to invalidate non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), in some cases. Time will tell, if that goes anywhere. Lew
Hi Lewis,
It would be an enviable estate to be eccentric, well-heeled and enjoy old money status. Ah, the joys of not giving a damn!
🙂 Yup, the soil is the starting point. Get that right, and life is easier. Alas most large scale agricultural systems try to do their best, but it’s barely just enough. I was thinking about how you add in kitchen scraps to your soil, and that will also encourage the slugs and pill bugs, but the practice works too, and that’s sometimes all you need. And sadly soils can be strip mined for all of their goodies, and it doesn’t take that many years to achieve.
It’s possible that you are the only one who’s noticed the deer deprivations? Other gardeners may put the damage down to insect attacks. The big bambi critters do tend to lurk around after dark, and if there is not much traffic in the area, who’d be inconvenienced? But absolutely, the stags will be rubbing their velvets on the bark of established trees. They seem to particularly target apple trees from what I’ve observed.
Hope you’re sitting down, but all salsa’s I’ve ever consumed had tomatoes instead of tomatillo’s. I know! Awful isn’t it? Never tasted one.
Plant theft is pretty serious business. It is interesting, and I’d not realised that there were issues with disease and traditional kiwi-fruit vines. The brush tail possums here cause me enough headaches, but the vines seem to be thriving.
Yeah, I get that. Denmark accepted reality and caved in to US pressure. But, reading between the lines, it now looks like a US territory in all but name to me. And hey, look at the difference that the Alaskan North Slope oil fields made to your country from the late 70’s onwards. It was a good buy in any other language that ice box. If you hadn’t had that Russian purchase, your country’s history would read very differently today.
That other Korean belligerent country is quite small, at only 12x the size of the big smoke metropolitan area, but has 5x the population, or in bigger terms: half the land mass of the state in which I reside. Probably not sustainable given the more northerly latitude and short growing season. Little wonder they have itchy trigger fingers and a demonstrated propensity to take things to 11. And a stable geology is not something to be taken for granted, and a less polite description of fracking could be smashing up the bedrock. What do people expect would happen?
🙂 You’re not wrong, 20 people is a lot of balls to juggle in the air. Your Club is lucky to have an Adam bloke who’ll look after such matters, and know when and who to call in for assistance. That’s all in the nature of an association and life is rarely smooth. My view is to take these sorts of commitments seriously, and even with paid work, in the past 18 years I’d had less than two handfuls of sick days – which for people with benefits (not I!) is the annual allocation of sick days, every year. Everyone is different in that regard, and I’d imagine your fill in shifts in the library didn’t come with much in the way of short term benefits?
Very good with the truck repairs. Hey, some new cars no longer have a spare tire, and they’ll have some can of foam and an inflator – so glad you know how the machine works. Always handy to know a Ben dude! Ollie is like that with me too, sometimes he just wants to know where I am, but can appreciate the information from a distance. He’s learned the hand signal for ‘wait’, and knows what it means.
Ha! Oh the joys! The kids would have adored H, and I’m with your observation as to her needs in that regard. Dogs…
Ah, I’d forgotten that the French history for such street artistic expressionism went back that far in time, but yeah. Makes a whole bunch of sense when viewed from that angle. We dispersed down here into the wilds, and probably weren’t as compressed as much. Hmm. Hard to get a leg up socially, when a dozen others or more are trying to pull a person down like in that very densely populated old country.
That’s the suggestion I read too about the kids on cartons – often custodial matters that had gone awry. Divorce battles are rarely amicable experiences, and the kids can become chess pieces in an unwinding social game. As a kid who went through that experience, the whole swapping kids backwards and forwards they do nowadays from one separated parents house to the other on a regular basis, would be in my opinion, a most destabilising thing to do to a child. If the parents messed up with their choices, fine, but the kids shouldn’t have to pay the price by becoming a football to be kicked back and forth.
Well, that incident has now landed I believe with the Attorney General, so it’s no small mess up. Interestingly, the law is an administrative system, so the past couple of years parole boards arguments will be put under the spotlight and reviewed in an unflattering light. Truly, it’d be cheaper to hire some graduates and then review their work. Yup, the arty-fish-al stuff appears to have a problem with the truth.
Non disclosure agreements are in my opinion, an expression of a larger power imbalance. If the settlement was good, there’d be no issue discussing the matter, would there?
The wallabies had used the wombat entrances to break into the citrus enclosure and begin nibbling on some of the fruit trees. I’m not happy, they know the rules! 😉 They probably don’t know… Anywhoo, today I spent hours beefing up about half of the fencing in that area, which will annoy the wombats, but what do you do? The trees have to be given the chance to grow without their marsupial loving ministrations. Oh well.
The weather was really nice too. Sunny and warm, but slightly too windy to be anywhere near large trees. 24’C / 75’F.
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – A couple of articles from the Wonderful World of Roman Archaeology. The dig season is winding down, up here in the wet and chilly north. First up, a huge wall mosaic, found in the city of Rome. Might have been from Nero’s Golden House, or, from the Baths of Trajan, which was built over Nero’s digs.
https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/10/style/biggest-ever-roman-mosaic-scli-intl
And, maybe all Roman roads didn’t lead to Rome. 🙂
https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/18/science/roman-roads-network-analysis
Someone would have to be pretty dense, to think the deer damage is from insects. It would take a plague of locusts, or, one of those sci-fi movie insect horrors, from the 1950s. 🙂 I haven’t seen any bucks, around here. Just does and fawns. So, our apple and pear tree, are not showing any rubbing damage.
Tomatoes make a red salsa, and tomatillos, a green. I haven’t had any, either. I’ve just had them, diced up in my rice and veg dishes. But, I thought I’d expand my horizons. I think it’s more of a citrus flavor, than the tomato.
And Robert Service and Jack London, would have been “translated from the Russian.” 🙂
Well, as a fill in clerical, for the library, I did get travel time and mileage. No small thing, the distances and time I was traveling. And, once I started working the system, I did end up with a bit of state retirement.
Our high yesterday was 68F (20C). Our overnight low was 48F (8.88C). Our forecast high for today is 76F. Speaking of weather, you might find this article interesting. Or, at least the photos. Especially the header photo, which switches from before and after.
https://www.npr.org/2026/09/17/nx-s1-5844642/fema-homes-collapse-ocean-climate-north-carolina-maine
Well, Dawg and I are headed up to the Club. See if Uncle Carl is manning the counter. Gosh, I haven’t seen him, in months. Lew