Trimming vines

 

Surprise! This mulberry graft is alive.

The plan to spend most of yesterday mowing was a dud.

I had to run some errands plus a few other commitments. While batting about Eaton County, I laid down my smartphone and walked away.

I was getting ready to fire up the mower when I started patting my pockets. No phone.

I checked all of the places in the house where I habitually "lose" my phone. No phone.

I asked Mrs ERJ to call my phone and I listened for the ring. No phone.

So...I retraced my steps.

I did get the mower with the new engine fired up. The motor smoked a little bit on start-up as it burned off the oil it had been sprayed with for corrosion protection. I pushed it about 150 feet. Stopped to move a hose and the blade was loose when I restarted it.

Obviously, I had not torqued the bolt sufficiently. I suspect that the engine break (a safety feature) is pretty aggressive. The blade had not been loose before I shut it down for the hose.

Since the mower was hot and I didn't want to mess with it, I grabbed the old mower and started mowing the orchard. I was able to get about an hour of mowing and cutting vines done before I bagged it for the day.

Vines

One of the thoughts I had while working in the orchard is that vines are an apt metaphor for our subsidized classes.

Vines are able to out-grow their hosts because they don't have to invest any energy into "structure" to hold themselves upright. They scramble up into tree canopies, holding themselves in place with tendrils or suckers, and then over-top their supports.

Ultimately, the trees lose vigor, die and topple, taking the vines with them.

Lack of access to house ownership seems to be a flashpoint for many of the people who have grievances.

It is my impression that many of those people-with-grievances have no idea regarding the range-and-scope of the hassles that can go along with home-ownership.

One young, kind-hearted lady that I know wanted to move in with her boyfriend so she leased out her house. The tenants kept asking for various types of maintenance be done and since she wanted to be a good landlord, she complied with speed. Since she was compassionate, she didn't choose the most economical materials because she didn't think that renters should have less "premium" materials that homeowners. Two years later, she decided that she had to sell the house because the expenses had exceeded the income by over $90k.

An extreme case? Perhaps. But if you are not "handy" and have connections with people in the trades, then a rental unit can quickly turn into a money-pit. So, knowing that, what is the most likely trajectory if renters are given a no-skin-in-the-game entry into home ownership?

Windfalls 

One of Kubota's friends had a mother who won a "home make-over" in a contest. The house was gutted and fitted with premium fixtures and surfaces. It also raised the assessed value and more than doubled the property taxes.

So let me ask a simple question, "If the mother could not afford normal maintenance BEFORE the make-over, how will she be able to afford the maintenance on the grander house and be able to pay the higher taxes?"

Obviously, she couldn't. She got behind in her taxes. The house was trashed. So, she did what had worked before.

She approached the organization that had rehabbed it the first time and told them she needed another make-over so she could sell it.

There response was that their policy prevented them from going back. They didn't have enough resources and their sponsors had ZERO interest in "another last-chance" to anybody.

Grab bag

Lifting notes

A regulation, 45 pound bar was available today.

For warm-up, I did a set of six repetitions of dead-lifts at 135 pounds. Stretched and rested for five minutes and then did three repetitions of 185 pounds.

Another five minute rest. Then a single lift of 205. From there, I added five pounds per lift with about two minutes of rest between single-lifts.

I was able to lift 230 pounds but my body said "Enough for today". So that is where I stopped.

I had to keep reminding myself about "form" and to build lift slowly. I have a difficult time resisting the temptation to try to "rip" the weight off of the ground.

Since my goal is to build muscle, I hold the weight while locked-back for fifteen seconds and then slowly lower it. 

I am sure that my muscles will complain for at least the next two days.

Dog breeders

One of the other lifters is a fellow who likes to chat. That type seems to be rare at this gym.

He and his wife have been breeding and selling purebred dogs for the last thirty years.

A Dobie from British blood-lines

He was bemoaning the trends in the various breeds. Doberman Pinschers, for instance, used to be more massively muscled and carried some bone on them. The current trend is to push the breed to looking more-and-more like Greyhounds.

On the other hand, the Great Danes that are winning blue ribbons have ever-more-massive heads and more pendulous jowls. 

I don't see the pursuit of Blue Ribbons at dog-shows slowing down anytime soon. Nor do I expect the breeders to show any restrain in turning their dogs into clownish caricatures of what the dog breeds used to be.

The reason is that a single straw of frozen, diluted semen from a "#1 dog" runs $7000 each. Of course the breeders simply add that cost (plus a mark-up) to the cost of the puppies they produce.

A few garden pictures

A watermelon vine

Cucurbita maxima vines. Presumed to be Golden Hubbard.

Tomatoes being trained up a feedlot panel

These went into yesterday's dinner.

Today's work-ticket 

Today is scheduled to be a grass-mowing day. Anything beyond that will be a bonus.

Beetles, Bats, Weeds and the spy in our pockets

I saw the year's first Japanese Beetle yesterday. I saw damage on the leaves of some grape vines middle of last week that looked like JB damage but wasn't ready to believe they were here.

For those who aren't into garden-pests, Japanese Beetles have strong preferences in terms of adult food-plants. They like Sassafrass, Basswood (aka Linden, Lime), and Grapes. The beetles that are feeding emit sex pheromones which attract more beetles which creates a positive feedback loop. Consequently, it is common to see one tree or vine absolutely hammered while a seemingly identical one nearby is barely touched.

A Big Brown Bat in flight.

The Big Brown Bat (Eptesicus fuscus) specializes in feeding on beetles. One Japanese Beetle weighs as much as 15 mosquitoes and they are stationary targets. Often, they are mating and a BBB can catch two of them in one pass. The economics of the cost:benefits to the bat are inescapable.

Knowing that, I erected my bat-house in one of the corners where my fenced-in vegetable garden borders my orchard/vineyard. I don't know if the house is inhabited, but I am trying.

I harvested our first eggplant fruit yesterday. It was from one of three plants I picked up at the local nursery and was labeled "Japanese Eggplant". I will dig one of our early 2026 potatoes to get baby-boilers and Mrs ERJ will do something magical to make it all taste good. It will likely be served over rice.

The heat-wave last week killed many of the grafts that I made late in the season. I thought they had "taken". The buds were green and extending. Now everything is dark brown. A few of the grafts were in the shade and survived. Live and learn. In the future, grafts I make after June 10 will get wrapped with (unused) toilet paper to provide a sunscreen.

It was raining when I took these pictures

Two rows of rutabagas and weeds. I am not sharing these pictures because I am proud of my garden but because this is reality. Weather happens. Weeds grow.

The potato canopy continues to expand. I have (mostly) been able to keep up with keeping them weeded.

The weeds are growing very, very well. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday should be dry enough to mow, pull weeds and till, respectively. 

Walking data

I found a large sample-size source of data regarding how much people walk.

This sample is data pulled from a fitness-tracking app on smartphones of 717k US citizens who live in urban areas. 

The average participant walked approximately 5600 steps-per-day. The standard deviation of the data was approximately 55% of the mean.

That means that the distribution is not a "normal" curve but more of a Chi-Squared distribution where the majority of the samples are below the average. That is, the average is pulled up by a relatively small number of over-achievers.

Another thing to consider is that there is some degree of self-selection in the sample. People who own fitness trackers or download fitness tracker apps are more likely to take an active role in their own health. One source suggests that owners of those kinds of devices average 1800 more steps-per-day than those who do not.

A defensible, first order approximation for the number of steps the average urban US citizen (without fitness-tracking technology) makes every day is 3800 steps or approximately 1.7 miles (2.7km). Frankly, I am surprised it is that high. 

"No Comment"

I received several emails wondering why I was not posting much today.

I can neither confirm nor deny that I was a guest at a wedding that was held in Madison Square Gardens today.

I hope this message clarifies things. 

Declaration of Independence

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it...

Bending the map

"Bending-the-map" is a term coined by Wilderness Search and Rescue people for the process that results in experienced outdoorsmen getting lost.

Imagine Joe and his buddy hiking to a secret fishing spot. Joe takes a short-cut and they end up on a ridge. Joe is sure that he knows where they are.

He pulls out his map and compass and takes reading.

"My compass is broken. Let me see yours" Joe says.

"Yours is broken, too. Either that, or this mountain is made of iron ore."

"That peak over there has to be Mt. Sumtalldude. If we keep it on our left we will hit Stoney Creek, then all we have to do is follow it downstream to Moldy Meat Swamp."

Five days later, Search and Rescue finds them on Bleached Bones Salt Flats. When Joe regained consciousness, he insisted that he had successfully navigated to Moldy Meat Swamp but that it had dried up.

I think many of the poor, lost-souls who buy into the Transgender nonsense follow a similar "Bending the Map" path.

They start out profoundly unhappy and it must be something external. Accepting the possibility that the problem revolves around their own, internal expectations is too painful to consider.

Somebody offers the hypothesis "You were born in the wrong body" and they swallow it with the enthusiasm of a Smallmouth Bass inhaling a softshell crawdad.

They embrace the idea that somebody owes them "the solution" of chemically and surgically changing their body to conform to the idealized cosmetic standards of the other sex.

All data that conflicts with their preferred solutions (the equivalent of the compass readings) is discarded. Even the flimsiest of data that supports their preferred solution is touted as absolute proof and they push onward.

From a detached, intellectual standpoint the interesting thing is that at every turn where "Joe" rejected objective data, he became more deeply invested in being "right" because the cost of his decisions, if they were wrong, increased exponentially. Thus we have transexual advocates who will burn the city to the ground over the most trivial of points.

I am not very optimistic about changing the minds of the ones who drank the koolaid but I think it is important that we have robust arguments that might save the ones who are still considering their options.

The upside is that the NEXT generation will learn that the best way to horrify their progressive parents and to establish their own identity separate from their parents will be to be "Based".

What oldsters like us can do is to refined "You might be BASED if..." lists.

Examples:

• You might be BASED if you believe that the bathroom scale aren't lying when you step on them (speedometer, altimeter, horizon, credit card balance...)
• You might be BASED if you believe that you get better at a skill by practicing it.
• You might be BASED if you are not afraid to make mistakes because you learn from them.
• You might be BASED when you acknowledge the possibility that the other guy might be right.
• You might be BASED if you can combined the best parts of the other guys' ways of doing things and your way of doing things. 
• You might be BASED if you believe that ignoring problems will NOT automatically make them go away.
• You might be BASED if you are prepared to do hard things even when you believe it is somebody else's job.
• You might be BASED if you can forgive people because nobody is perfect and you will end up with no friends if you cannot learn to forgive.
• You might be BASED if you believe the best girls smell like sugar and spice and everything nice while the best guys are as tough as snakes and nails and puppy-dog tails.
• You might be BASED if you dance the most with the one you brung. 
• You might be BASED if you believe that skinned knuckles are not a mortal wound but are the price of living large. 

Please feel free to add to the list in comment, provide feedback on the ones that most appeal to you and, most of all, share the list with others. 

Lifting notes

I went to the gym today to see how much I could dead-lift. It has been 9 months since I hit the weight-room.

All of the regulation, 45 pound bars were in use. I found a shorter bar that might have weighed 25 pounds.

I warmed up with six reps at 115(?) pounds and then at 165 with five minutes of stretching between the sets. From there I added five pounds, waited a minute and then lifted a single rep. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I hit the wall at 215 pounds.

I am pleased with how it felt while I was lifting and how I felt afterward. I would have been OK with any number I ended with. It is just data. However, I am pleasantly surprised by how high it was. My PR for dead-lifting is 245 pounds so being 15% below my all-time high after not lifting for nine months is pretty cool. 

A few observations on the transgender industry

I happened to overhear a conversation where a person who favored universal, unlimited access to what he called "gender affirming healthcare" was pitching the idea to a skeptic.

Two of the lynch-pins of his arguments were that "there are no disadvantages to puberty-blocking drugs" and "trans-reversals are extremely rare and most transgenders are very happy".

Puberty-blockers

The person who favored GAH access pitched puberty-blockers claimed that they were only used to buy the unsure youth time-to-decide. Puberty is a one-way street and once started creates a cascade of biological changes.

The person pitching GAH claimed that those changes necessitated lots of expensive and dangerous surgeries to undo the skeletal changes and length of vocal cords and so on. By delaying puberty, the "correct" hormones could be administered to result in the desired post-puberty body.

Furthermore, the person pitching GAH claimed that there are absolutely no negative side-effects to puberty-blockers. 

It is necessary to exercise critical reading skills when reviewing the academic literature regarding puberty blockers because the researchers appear to be motivated by a desire to promote these kinds of treatments.

***As a side note: I was left with the impression that some of these "academic articles" were marketing brochures shilling for the medical industry that profits from creating transgenders out of angst-y young teens. Every 13 year-old they "turn" becomes a fifty year stream of revenue*** 

A quick skim of the internet suggests that it is now known that puberty-blockers vastly reduce fertility in males. That fact undermines the contention that "the only thing that they do is that they buy time for confused youths to make up their mind". That isn't they only thing they do. They also leave the male sterile.

The researchers also bury things in the body of the text, things like "It is much to soon to evaluate long-term effects like increased cancer risk". Cancer, that is a bad thing...right?

The third point is the most difficult to quantify: Puberty is a time of social growth as well as a time of physical changes. One of the things that makes the terror of the physical changes and the challenges of interacting with girls (or boys if you are a girl) is that everybody else got thrown into the deep-end of the pool at the same time. We are all in this together.

Puberty-blockers delay puberty. The pre-adolescent who takes puberty-blockers is left sitting on the bench while everybody else boards the bus and the bus pulls out of the station. They lose the protective effects of running with the herd.

All trans are happy-happy-happy

The person pitching GAH said he knew that people who chose GAH were happier because he followed this one influencer on Instagram and she is the happiest person he knows. Honest. He said that.

The data suggests otherwise.

Suicide rates 

According to this report, the suicide rate for transgenders is 18.2 per 100k while the base-rate for the US population is 1.4 per 100k*. The source for this statistic does not identify this as age-adjusted or crude death-rate so that limits its usefulness. The same report claims that the lifetime suicide-attempt rate for transgenders exceeds 40 percent versus a lifetime attempt rate of 1.6 for the general population.

I did a cross-check on the report's numbers and there are issues with them. According to the CDC the general population's death-rate due to suicide for 2023 and 2024 was 14/100k, not 1.4/100k. That kind of mismatch makes all of the data they report suspect.

Substance abuse 

Substance abuse is another marker of unhappiness. According to WebMD, transgenders are about three times more likely than the general population to have a substance abuse issue. 

Comorbidities

According to this paper, transgender people are four times more likely to have other mental health issues (primarily mood and anxiety disorders) than the general population.

The mainstream media has reported on this issue but always link the issue to "lack of care availability" and "not be accepted by society".

It is telling that the "standard of care" for transgenders includes a life-time of mental health counseling.