Hoes, Vermin and Carrots

I have at least three hoes. By pure chance, I grabbed my least-favorite hoe for hilling the potatoes. Mrs ERJ had claimed the light-weight, hoe with the red handle. The weeding hoe was behind some shovels.

This hoe is relatively heavy and awkward. Standing on end, the end of the handle is an honest 66" above the ground. The cutting or steel end of the hoe is large and cumbersome. 

And it hills potatoes like a dream. The long handle means that I can drag dirt with the handle at an optimum angle and NOT have to bend over. The big blade means that it moves a lot of dirt in each drag. I can hill one side of 50' of potatoes in two-minutes flat. Of course the dirt was recently till so it was light-and-fluffy, but still, that is a right-smart clip for an old man doing that kind of work.

Yep, another case of different horses for different courses. 

Something raided the duck-coop last night

You can see digging to the left and right of the chunk of firewood

 

Whatever the beast was, it was able to pull out enough eggs to satisfy its hunger and didn't molest the ducks. I was lucky.

 But it will be back. Easy meals will not be passed up.

As luck would have it, I have some wire shelving from a freezer. I dug a trench, laid in the wire "fence" and refilled with packed dirt. To the right of the shelving, I buried chunks of firewood to slow down digging.

 

I also installed a dog-proof raccoon trap and will bait it with a bit of scrambled eggs. It isn't like I don't know what they are hungry for.

Carrots

I have never been successful with carrots. I attribute it to operator apathy.

Carrot seeds are tiny and germinate slowly. The seedlings need frequent, gentle weeding for at least four weeks. Tedious work!

I decided to give it another go.

Reviewing previous failures, one of them is losing-the-row. Weeding is much faster if you know where your crop is not. To mark exactly where I sowed the seed, I added some kale seeds and planted a bush-bean every 2' along the row. You can use any fast-germinating seeds instead of kale...radishes and turnips work very well but the kale seeds were the first suitable seeds that I found.

Carrot seeds are tiny and resent being planted too deeply. I used the hoe to make a furrow and sprinkled the seeds into the very bottom of it. Then I poured a stream of water in to wet the soil and to gently stir it a bit.

Then I laid some cut poke-weeds over the top to delay the soil crusting over. 

Most catalog pictures are too perfect. This one is accurately depicts what I hope to harvest if I do my part. Image from here

For the record, I planted 50 feet of Red-Cored Chantenay variety carrots. RCC is primarily a "processing" or cooking carrot. It produces stubby, tapered carrots that get girthy toward the end of the growing season. It is a carrot designed for stews and juicing and is more forgiving of rocky or clay soils than the more elegant, lady-finger shaped carrots.

A very well grown row of Chantenay carrots can yield up to a pound of carrots per foot of row.

Pottage

AI slop? Maybe.

Pottage, how Medieval families "cooked".

Carrots, potatoes, turnips, rutabagas, radishes, onions, beans, lentils, cracked grain, road-kill, fish, cabbage, greens, dumplings... It is all good.

Trump and Barrett

I see that Tom Barrett, Republican, Michigan's Seventh Congressional District was one of four Republicans who voted against extending Trump's War Powers in the Iranian conflict.

I live in Michigan's Seventh Congressional District. 

I believe that is a case of Barrett voting his conscience. Given the vast amount of money it takes to run a congressional seat campaign, that decision will likely cost Barrett his seat. He will either get primaried or will be starved for funds during the general election.

There is a very small window that Barrett and one other veteran could change their vote. I suspect that one of the conditions would be private meetings where they were given privileged information about the exit strategy. Trump has been cagey about sharing details. Some members of Congress share those details with people they shouldn't.

The signal-man with the ping-pong paddles

 

Growing up, WWII movies featuring aircraft carriers in the Pacific were a childhood staple.

There was always a scene where the signal-man guiding in the battled-battered fighters would wave one off.

The Admiral of the fleet was the above that signal-man in the chain-of-command.

The Captain of the aircraft carrier was above the signal-man in the chain-of-command.

The pilot of the aircraft was an officer and was above the signal-man in rank.

And yet, the signal-man made the call regarding the continuation of the pilot's descent based on his assessment of the probability of a successful landing. Not the Admiral. Not the Captain or the pilot. Just that lowly enlisted man. (Frequent commentor Jonathan pointed out "...the signal man was usually an officer, another pilot, so that he knew what the airplane should be doing and what it could do if needed." My apologies for the error.)

WHY?

Because he had unique information. The wishes of the Admiral and Captain didn't count for Jack-squat. They didn't have the information he had.

I am going to give Barrett the benefit of the "Signal-man" analogy. Barrett flew a Chinook Helicopter in the middle-East. He has first-hand experience with how "sticky" wars are.

Good thing I am retired...

Yesterday was a BIG day. More than four hours time-on-task. That is not something I can do every day at my current fitness level.

Dragging hose, lugging water in 5-gallon buckets, cutting, carrying and stacking wood, pushing a mower, tilling-and-hilling potatoes.

I was focused on work and didn't take many pictures

 

This is a picture of a one-year-old Liberty apple graft. I removed the baby fruit. Allowing them to grow and ripen is likely to "runt-out" the tree.

Potato patch after tilling but before hilling

I have been taking generic loratadine (Claritin) to keep my pollen allergy manageable. It worked OK until about 12:30 when it was overwhelmed by the pollen from a neighbor's mowing. The eye-drops didn't seem to work. I finally took two diphenylhydramine (Benadryl) and that provided some relief.

Today's work-ticket is pretty light. Watch Quicksilver and assemble a weed-whacker (string trimmer). Of course, part of the assembly process is the final quality control check when I run it to trim all of the tall grass around our yard. I also expect to hill more potatoes while the dirt is still light and fluffy.

Please understand that I am not bragging. I am explaining why you are not getting long, thoughtful blog posts. 

The ducks

I did not save the male duck for dinner.

I was not expecting the uproar around the upset pecking order. His best-girlfriend, the Rouen duck turned into a roaring bitch and the other 5 ducks turned against her. I figure that they will be able to sort it out without my input.

Rain, ducks and data

 

The numbers show the May rainfall at various locations in mid-Michigan. The smile-face is my approximate location. The Evaporation-Potential at those locations varied between 3.9" and 4.3" for the month of May.

Fortunately, we went into May with the soil almost saturated with water. 

Alas, that water is now depleted and I am back to lugging water for the newly planted trees in the various orchards I am caring for.

Unexpected

The adult Khaki Campbell went broody and is sitting on her eggs. She is totally dedicated, but she is giving it the old college try.

I don't know what pushed-her-button but I expect it was the chirping of the new ducklings.

Khaki Campbell ducks are generally "not-broody" by nature.

Expected

The male Rouen duck became increasingly aggressive toward the four ducklings. He was keeping them away from the food and chasing them out of the enclosure. The ducklings would squeeze out between the door and the fence when the Rouen was chasing them.

I culled him with a pellet to the head. 

Random thought

Many modern vehicles have a thermometer a short distance in front of the radiator that measures the temperature of the ambient air. They also have GPS.

Companies sell "data". It is revenue that they can harvest with very little incremental cost.

It would be interesting to collect strings of GPS data and the time and temperature associated with that data. A fellow could remove everything except the hour around sunrise and an hour in late afternoon and get an exceptionally high resolution picture of the actual temperatures. Perhaps even high enough resolution to map micro-climates.

Obviously, the data analyst would NOT consider data when the vehicle was stationary because the temperature would be polluted with recirculated air or it might be sitting in a garage.

Fine Art Tuesday

 

John James Audubon aka Jean-Jacques Rabin was born in 1785 in what is now Haiti. Due to racial tensions, his father evacuated him to France in 1788 (thus avoiding the Haitian 1791 genocide of white people).

"Audubon grew up to be a handsome and gregarious man. He played flute and violin, and learned to ride, fence, and dance^*" facts which will doubtlessly delight some of my readers.

In 1803 Audubon immigrated to the United States to simultaneously avoid the draft (Napoleon's wars) and to manage his father's properties near Philadelphia. He did not speak English at the time.

"Audubon lived with the tenants in the two-story stone house, in an area that he considered a paradise. "Hunting, fishing, drawing, and music occupied my every moment; cares I knew not, and cared naught about them."  Studying his surroundings, Audubon quickly learned the ornithologist's rule, which he wrote down as, "The nature of the place—whether high or low, moist or dry, whether sloping north or south, or bearing tall trees or low shrubs—generally gives hint as to its inhabitants." 

Life for Audubon was not all skittles and cream. After a trip, he returned home to find that rats had destroyed all 200+ of his paintings. Later, in 1819 he was thrown in jail for being in debt.

Even today Audubon is criticized for circumstances that he had no control over. For instance, his father had owned slaves.

Audubon died in 1851.

Audubon is sometimes criticized for his "stilted" or "artificial looking" poses. Bear in mind that there were no trail-cams to capture these birds in the wild. Audubon collected his models by shooting them (with primitive firearms) and guessing at how they stood.

Audubon was blessed to have been born with the skills he had and the time period when he came-of-age. Interest in the natural world and the scientific cataloguing of species was at a fever-pitch and Audubon had an enthusiastic market for his work.

A tip of the battered fedora to 10x25mm for suggesting this artist. He is giving Tireless a run for the money. 

*All material in quotation marks are from Wikipedia 

Spaniels

Spaniels are a class of dog that were initially developed in Spain (hence the "Spanish dogs" becoming "Spaniels") and later refined in England.

Spaniels were one of the first classes of dogs developed to complement the hunting of small game with rudimentary firearms. Given the limitations of the weapon, the hunter had to be close to the game before it flushed.

Spaniels are bonded to their human(s) by a very short distance. They have been selected over hundreds of generations to be happy when they are no farther away from their human than a scant 20-to-25 paces. Some call that "needy" or "clingy". While descriptive, those terms put a perjorative spin on the bond. In the beginning, the bond was functional and it only became pathological when puppy-mills churned out puppies.

Springerpoos and Cockapoos are on the list of dogs we will consider when the time comes. We are both in the last quarter of our lives. Chasing after a dog holds no joy or glory for us any more.

It would be delightful if we could take our dog out to the garden, tell him/her to sit in a shady corner while we pulled weeds and have them stay. Hunting-drive is nice but having a switch to turn it on-and-off is nicer. 

Springerpoos tend toward a little larger than our optimum size. A "Standard" SP is 30-to-60 pounds with the bitches being lighter than the males.

Cockapoos tend to be a little smaller than our optimum size. A "Standard" CP runs 25-to-35 pounds. The males tend to be larger and would be more likely to hit our 30lb-to-40lb sweet-spot.

A cladogram of some common dog breeds. The farther the breeds are apart the greater the potential hybrid advantage.

Red highlight are the common spaniels. The magenta highlight shows poodles. The aqua colored dot is for chihauhau (used in a lot of designer crosses) The tangerine colored dots are "Asian" dogs, also used in a lot of designer crosses.

One random fact is that different places took their local dogs and selected for specific purposes. For instance, many British Isle terriers which LOOK like German Schnauzers are in fact are very different genetically...while Boston Terriers were selected from Boxer-like dogs and so on. 

Brittany Spaniels are really not spaniels. They are pointing-dogs and don't have the same invisible leash holding them close to their humans. 

Both crosses will be magnets for burdock burs. 

Grafting notes, Fine Art, Pride Week and Peak-pollen

Grafting notes 

Two pecan seedlings near the road grafted to Kanza.

Five Black Walnut seedlings and one "Carpathian" Walnut were grafted to Howard Persian Walnut. "Howard" is a big stretch for our climate. There are growers in New York State who are growing seedlings of Howard crossed with an undocumented pollen parent and they are observing acceptable winter-hardiness.

Howard is a variety out of the University of California breeding program and is planted commercially. It has excellent nut quality, blight resistance, is late-leafing and shows lateral bud "fruiting".

It was not selected for cold-hardiness but sometimes you get more than you expect. 

The trees grafted to "Howard" are marked with blue surveyor's tape.

If anybody knows of a grafted tree of "Howard" planted near a tree of "Broadview", I am very interested in purchasing walnuts for seed nuts from either tree.

Las Vegas

I don't have to buy lottery tickets or travel to Las Vegas or load an app on my phone to get the thrill of beating the odds. I plant seeds and graft trees. 

Fine Art Tuesday, sort of

It started. Quicksilver's artwork is now being featured on our refrigerator door.

"My grandparents are SO OLD that they have paper with dinosaur tracks done its sides."

This gallery is titled "Spooky Monsters"

A large number of Quicksilver's subjects show unequal dilation of their pupils suggesting brain trauma. I suspect that I was one of her models.

Pride Month events

It has been very quiet out there. It has been nothing like the circus of the last 12 years where you couldn't turn around without tripping over an LGBT-ellomennopeepeedeeque flag. It had been as reliable as the rising sun, even "Christian" churches displayed infinitely more "rainbow" flags in June than the number of "crosses" they displayed during Holy Week.

I think that there are many corporations who were relieved to have a graceful way to stop pushing-the-rope. They were able to say "Trump made us do it" and abandon policies that (potentially) alienated 96% of their customer-base. That excuse freed those corporations and mom-and-pop shops to make adjustments based on what the majority of what the paying customers want.

Peak pollen = Low energy

Hugh Scott, an engineer I used to work with, once observed that the difference between people who changed the world for the better and the people who were forgotten is that the Mother Theresas and Thomas Edisons kept slogging. They got SOMETHING done every day even when they were running at 40%. The people who have been forgotten...they decided to tread-water on those days.

I consider anything I get done during peak-pollen to be a major win. Meds make me sleepy. Not taking meds makes me sleepy and I itch so I cannot sleep. Rain predicted for Saturday, so I hope to break out through the other side by then.