A mate of mine was talking to me recently about a health issue he was dealing with. I don’t really know what is normal for conversations like that, and it’s rare for me even to talk about my own health matters with anyone. Basically, I’m happy to be alive, and as everyone knows, the facts suggest that nature eventually has the final say in the matter. But it is hard not to notice that as you get older, people have these kinds of unsolicited conversations with you about their health.
With my friend, I knew what he had to do to correct the health matter, but I could also see within him a resistance to the changes required to improve the situation. My best guess was that he thought he knew better, and that may be so, after all he’s got greater educational standing than I. A few years ago I learned the hard way that people interpret the provision of unsolicited advice as a sign of porous inter personal boundaries. In simple English, by doing so, you can be equally interpreted as a ‘pain in the rear’, but also a ‘sucker’. Most uncool. So, with that bit of knowledge in the forefront of my mind I simply remarked to my mate: “You don’t know as much about food as you think you do.” A real Mr Miyagi statement which says a lot, but doesn’t say much at all.
It’s kind of hard to have a good repository of life lessons when you grow up in a house where the only adult has some mental health issues. There were times when you’re the child, but were required to be the adult. Other households probably teach their kids how to navigate life’s difficulties through good example, maybe? I dunno. I didn’t get that experience. Sometimes, I just have to learn life’s lessons – the hard way. And providing unsolicited advice, no matter how useful or greatly needed, seems to reliably blow up on you. Oh yeah!
A dude simply does the best he can in trying circumstances. Anyway, one of the tools I’ve begun employing over the past few years when facing new or difficult situations, is that of asking the hard question: What do I really know about this subject matter? It can be a safe bet that if the question is being asked, then the answer may well be: Probably not all that much! And it’s true.
If I’ve learned anything useful over the past few years, it’s that admitting when you don’t know as much as you think you do about a subject, is the beginning of what the old timers used to call: An open mind. I’ve observed, and also heard, that those beasts in the wild are threatened with extinction these days.
Long term readers will recall the disaster a few years ago when the $15,000 of LiFePO4 house batteries were having some serious troubles. The battery terminals (that’s the bit where the wires connect into the batteries) were running hot. Very hot. Hot enough to begin melting the plastic battery cases. This was not a sustainable situation, and they were way too expensive to simply write off. So I asked myself the hard question: What do I really know about these batteries? You already know the answer…
One of the best things about the interweb, is that there people with special interests who are happy to research and discuss the most amazing and intricate details about their particular interest. Solar power seems to attract such people, and thank Gawd for them! For months I took a deep dive into the technology with these lovely people, and now know far more on the subject than any normal person ever should. But with the knowledge, we were also able to fix the underlying problems with the expensive batteries. The cases and designs were modified, and they now work a treat.
Alert readers will recall the many upgrades and maintenance with the power system done over the past year or so, well those were the result of the deep dive. Whenever nice people talk to me about large scale batteries, and electric this and that, and how wonderful the future will all be, I do wonder: How much do you really know about this stuff? My gut feeling suggests that the answer is probably not that all much, otherwise they might not sound so cheery! Anyway, I avoid such arguments by merely mumbling reassuring noises.
For the past week there’s been a perplexing problem here. European wasps (aka Yellowjackets) have been loitering around a particular willow tree. The tree variety is a Salix alba ‘Caerulea’ (cricket-bat willow). Here’s a wasp on one of the leaves:
It was a bit scary taking that photo, but the wasps seemed more interested in the tree leaves than my good self as a source of protein. Here’s the tree itself:
Initially, I’d believed that the wasps had a nest nearby to the willow tree. My previous experience with the insects was that they live in underground nests. You can see in the above image that I’d cut back all of the vegetation around the tree, yet discovered no nest opening. It was something of a mystery.
At moments of uncertainty and indecision, I’ll go back to basics and ask myself the hard question: What do I really know about this subject matter? Turns out, and as usual, the answer is: Not very much. However, I did know that a swarm of the insects ate the mandarin crop, in a single day. That information was hard to ignore.
So I began learning about the life-cycle of the insects, which was illuminating. It was hard to know what they were doing on that particular willow tree. Turns out a field naturalist in the island state to the south of here (Tasmania) had also observed the link between the wasp and tree. Fortunately for me, the lady had then researched what the wasps were doing in the tree. And that’s when it gets interesting. Apparently that variety of willow has an aphid associated with it. The aphids are harvesting sugars from the leaves, and the wasps are then harvesting the sugar extracted by the aphids, as well as the aphids themselves for protein. It was reassuring that the field naturalist came to the same conclusion as I, the willow tree has to go. And she’s doing that very work in her area and reporting on a decline in the wasp population. Respect.
Theoretically, I could cut the tree down tomorrow and mulch up most of the branches and leaves. That would put an immediate end to the wasp mischief and send them back hungry to where ever their nest is. However, I don’t know whether my proposed actions will seriously irritate the wasps. Their sting is pretty nasty, and this is one instance where I don’t want to find out what happens. Best to wait them out until the weather turns colder and the wasps die off. I know far less than what I actually do know. But I can be patient, learn and adapt.
Winter is fast approaching. Most evenings we now run the wood heater. During winter the sun hangs lower in the sky. Two very large olive trees had grown so tall that they were beginning to slightly shade eight solar panels. Because of the height they’d grown, we actually didn’t have the equipment to reduce the size of the trees. So, we bought an el-cheapo hugely long pole saw and hedge trimmer machine. It’s a beast, maybe even a giraffe.
The reach of that tool is bonkers, and when the machine has all of the extendible poles connected up, the word ‘unwieldy’ probably best describes the experience. It’s a cheap machine, and some of the plastic components broke after the first use, but it does the job.
A goodly amount of cuttings were produced. It took many hours of cutting to reduce the height of the two olive trees to a more manageable level.
The following day, all of the cuttings were fed through the scary old wood chipper. Now that’s what I call a proper well constructed machine.
The mulch produced is used as soil feed on garden beds. I doubt the stuff is good enough to grow the more demanding vegetables.
We try to minimise waste. Over the years we’ve used non-stick fry-pans (aka skillets), but sooner or later the non stick surface fails. Then the fry-pan is useless and becomes a waste product. This was another subject which I knew nothing about, and candidly upon reflection it’s hard to even know why we used non-stick items in the first place. So, again I took a deep dive into this subject and ended up purchasing a carbon steel fry-pan. That thing, if well cared for, should last for more years than I’ve got left.
I’ve never used this cooking material before, and the first thing you do when they’re new is clean them because the manufacturers coat them with some sort of wax layer. People say this job takes ten minutes, but the reality was closer to twenty five minutes.
We got there in the end with the cleaning.
Then you have to do what is known as seasoning the carbon steel surface. In plain English that means smearing a light coating of grapeseed oil (other oils can be used) over the surfaces, then slowly heating it. It now doesn’t look nearly as shiny as it once did.
My first impressions cooking with the material is that foodstuffs do stick to the surface, but the cleaning process is very easy. Hopefully the cookwear lasts a lifetime, and then some.
Soil is yet another complicated subject. There was a remnant mound of a commercial compost product sitting for over a year and half. I’d been curious to see if anything grew in the stuff and so just let it sit there and observe the results. My expectations were that if the stuff was any good, it would be covered in weeds at the very least. Here’s what it looked like:
The black compost material is probably very finely composted woody waste, which is not much good for growing vegetables despite the name of the product. The mound was levelled and the material was spread thinly over a large area where it will probably increase the soil organic matter, hopefully.
There were no worms in the compost product, but the magpie family did thoroughly go over the area where the stuff was spread.
I also cleaned up the enclosure where the pumpkins had grown.
The soil furthest away from the camera in the above image is some of the best on the property. The other half closer to the camera, could use some work, actually probably a lot of work. And maybe also some gypsum, and Calcium Carbonate. I took the old rototiller to one half of the enclosure and dug down as deeply as the machine would go. Hopefully it all helps.
Despite the heavy rain earlier in the week, the sunny orchard is looking dry.
Maybe because of the dry weather, the wallabies (a smaller lone forest dwelling kangaroo) have been attacking the Silverbeet crops.
In another month or so, we should be ready to harvest the plentiful kiwi fruit crop.
For some reason, the wasps ignored the more zesty tasting Meyer Lemon crop. Softies!
Onto the flowers:
The temperature outside now at about 9am is 9’C (48’F). So far for last year there has been 302.4mm (11.9 inches) which is up from last weeks total of 218.0mm (8.6 inches)