Odds and ends

 

I enjoy this guy's channel. He is just a regular "dude" in Nepal who takes a LOT of video footage and posts it with minimal editing.

This video shows a woman harvesting a crop of garlic. Her "field" is probably about 150 square feet and I estimate that she pulled about 150 pounds of "wet" garlic out and will have about 25 pounds of salable bulbs.

The sound quality is pretty impressive. You can hear the roots snapping as she is pulling the plants.

I learn something from most of these kinds of videos. It never occurred to me that I could harvest my garlic when the tops were still 50% green.

Other tidbits: She pulls weeds (maybe chickweed and some dill) and she feeds it to her goats. She is wearing "western" style clothing that was probably channeled through Goodwill or similar charities and resold in 3rd world countries like Nepal. It is impressive how they are able to shoe-horn productive patches of garden into small and oddly-shaped bits of available, level ground.

It is difficult for me to imagine a culture that is so accepting of a stranger showing up and being allowed to take intensive and personal video footage like this.

New phone

I purchased a new phone and Belladonna, saint that she is, did all of the button-pushing to port the service to the new device.

I have a learning curve to go through. I struggle to turn the darned thing on which may be a combination of my fat thumb and the protective case that guards the "Home" key.

Another feature that sucks is that it takes enormous photos (like 24 megapixels) which will blow-up my email. So I need an app to shrink them down to 1200 pixels on a side, max. Nor am I wild about having them stored on "the cloud".

It bothers me that NOBODY who does not clean their lens with fanatical frequency and surgical care benefits from that kind of pixelation. Grumble, grumble, grumble.

Touching the "Wet Paint"

So, after pissing on the nurses for eating Carrot Cake I went and made one.

One, 9 ounce package of Jiffy Yellow Cake mix 1/2 tsp cinnamon and 1/4 tsp nutmeg mixed dry.

One egg, 1/2 cup applesauce and 2 Tbl spoons molasses (mixed together)

1.5 cups of grated carrots, 1/4 cup of raisins, dried cherries and chopped walnuts, each.

As if making muffins, mix liquids (line 2) with dry cake mix (line 1). Be gentle and just mix until all ingredients are wet and most dry clumps are broken.

Fold in carrots, raisins, cherries and nuts. Mix until well-wetted by the batter.

Place into an 8" square pan (I used Pyrex) and cook at 325 F for 25 minutes. Turn off heat and leave in oven for an additional 10 minutes.

I frosted with cream-cheese frosting but I think it was better without the frosting.

I got good reviews from the family on the effort.

Grafting

I made a trip to the property I am managing.

I planned to graft, mow and spray herbicide.

Today was cool, wet and windy.

That made mowing and spraying non-starters. So I grafted. The highlight is that I grafted four Selber Shelbark Hickory scion to some Shagbark Hickory seedlings. Thanks to Lucky-in-Kentucky for the original scion. I also grafted some more mulberry trees.

BOLO Chestnuts

Somehow I misplaced about 10 pounds of chestnuts that I intended to use for seed nuts. I will probably find them in July, all dried out and dead.

I looked in all of the likely places, now I have to look in the unlikely ones.

Target planting date for late-cabbage seeds is May 15. That is the next major "tombstone date".

At least the handwriting is legible

Not Home-schooled

Why I don't like people (in principle)

Two vignettes. Let's call them fiction.

An old man with multiple health issues inherited a small parcel of land that gave him access to a lake. Fishing is the one joy the old man had in life. The property was bequeathed to him for untold decades of service to the previous owner.

The next-door neighbor moved the stakes that define the corners of the property and then built a split-rail fence across the access to the property to deny the old man access to it and so he (the neighbor) can use the property as if it were his own.

The next-door neighbor is counting on the fact that the old man is not well-to-do and will not be able to afford a lawyer to contest the fence.

Second vignette:

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources has a box in their org-chart dedicated to finding and contesting "infringement". That would be driveways built across State Parks, garages and Cannabis greenhouses built on State Parks, fences that just happen to give landowners an extra 3 or 300 feet....

I assume that most branches of the State government that have significant amounts of real-estate have similar boxes in their org-charts.

According to a confidential informer, the DNR branch has over 300 active cases on the books at this time.

Take care of yourself: Part 2

The centerpiece of yesterday's event honored a nurse who came to the profession late in life. She was 29 when her husband died and a random bit of kindness from the visiting nurse changed the trajectory of her life.

She had no family within thousands of miles after her husband passed and no close friends at work. She felt adrift. She entered a nursing program for lack of any other path.

The visiting nurse, whether he knew it or not, was an agent of God, or an "angel" if you prefer. Nursing is what the new widow had been born to do.

Near the end of her speech, the nurse chided the audience. "I have been asked why I am retiring. Everybody can see that I love caring for people and they ask 'What will you DO?' "

"I am going to teach people how to cook. I am going to teach you (nurses) how to cook food that is good and that is good for you."

"Too many nurses think that OK to use every minute to take care of patients and your family. You are always rushed for time. And I watch you eat two chocolate-peanut butter brownies and a piece of carrot-cake for lunch every day while you catch up on paperwork. That is not OK."

"I am going to go into your homes and teach you how to take fresh vegetables and fresh meat and how to turn it into meals."

So there you have it. Nurses are not supposed to diagnose but this one did. Generalizing, the most productive people in our society are killing themselves by eating foods designed to have long shelf-life and to be eaten by distracted people. And it isn't just once-in-a-while. For some of us it is every darned day.

We have five senses. Food that is good for us excites all of those senses. Not only does it taste good, it looks good. It smells good. It feels good. It pairs very well with human conversation (sense of hearing). Oh, and it nourishes your body.

Take care of yourself

You have to take care of yourself because you cannot take care of anybody else, or even yourself, if you let yourself hit the wall.

I was invited to attend a Nurses' Week event at a local hospital and multiple speakers spoke to that message.

A few days earlier, a friend emailed me a link to this article Stop the “If Only This Would Happen” Game Now

When I get pummeled by several, intersecting messages I take that as a sign that it is something worth blogging about. 

The "new normal" killed the "old normal" and the "old-normal" isn't coming back

Hospitals are in a staffing and revenue death-spiral. If you, as an employee, don't take care of yourself then the system will suck you to the bottom of the sea as surely as the Titanic's suction did to swimmers.

If you are a supervisor, your management du jour will strip-mine your good-will, credibility and honor to meet their short-term objectives.

If you buy a new tractor you will be paying $2000 a year for as long as you own that tractor for software updates. No pay. No start.

A parenting analogy

One of the things the wise Mrs ERJ figured out early in our parenting was that attempting to be a "reasonable" parent meant that when you hit the end-of-the-rope it was impossible to temper actions with reason. It was all gone. The cup was empty.

Better to be more assertive early in the escalation and never get pushed over the edge. The difference as seen from the child's perspective is microscopic but it is huge from the parent's side of the interactions. Sometimes a little bit of theatrics is warranted. You can LOOK like you are at the end-of-your-rope without actually being dangerously angry.

Learn to say "NO" so you can sometimes say "Yes"

It used to be an article of faith that if you started to feed birds then it was a death-sentence for those birds if you stopped feeding them. I am sure Mrs Grundy was well intentioned and thought that her scare message would motivate bird-lovers to keep feeding the birds, but it was almost total B.S.

In the wild, the offerings of food are an endless kaleidoscope depending on season, rain, temperature. Food sources would spring up in full bounty only to disappear within days or weeks. And the birds didn't starve. They simply moved on to the other sources of food.

People come to you with their problems like birds come to a back-yard feeder. They come because they know that access to resources is a "sure thing". They don't come because "There are no other resources out there". They come because of habit and comfort and certainty.

If providing those resources (time, talent, money, physical goods, a listening ear...) start to drag you down, you CAN tell them "No." and take care of yourself. And to be honest, forcing them to find other sources of resources while they still have some mental flexibility will make them stronger. It will help them grow their network.

It is infinitely preferable that you and your immediate family remain strong and vital rather than have you hit-the-wall. It is preferable that those who lean on you have alternate sources of resources because we are all getting older and stuff happens.

Ironically, Mrs Grundy's admonition about not-stopping probably prevented many people from feeding the birds. They never said "Yes" because an authority told them that once they said "Yes" the lost the option of ever saying "No".

Birds, Statins and Blood

Birds

In addition to countless swallows keeping us company while we were fishing, there were birds about 300 yards from shore that were clearly catching insects on-the-wing over the water. The birds were bigger than the swallows and the mystery bird's wings were very long and slender. Nighthawks? Whipper-wills? Some kind of Swift?

There were also some very dark, almost black, duck-like birds flying across the lake that Shotgun tentatively IDed as cormorants (Boo-hiss).

Statins

I went to Scholar.google.com and looked up (statins life-expectancy) and one of the meta-studies that popped up had these two sentences in it: 

Eight trials randomizing 65,383 adults (66.3% men) were identified. The mean age ranged from 55 to 69 years old and the mean length of follow-up ranged from 2 to 6 years. Only 1 of 8 studies showed that statins decreased all-cause mortality.

And so while it is indisputable that they reduce cholesterol levels and reduce the number of Major Cardiovascular Events at a rate of one for every 250 patient-years, the net benefit in terms of life-expectancy is...weak.

One mechanism that could explain some of that is that the things the doctor tells us to do to lower or low-density cholesterol benefits many other systems in our body. Exercise, for instance is great for damping-down blood sugar spikes, circulation, blood pressure, helping your bowels move, bone and mental health.

Eating healthily helps keep weight down which helps everything listed above.

I suppose the temptation is to slack off on doing-the-right-thing if the statins drop your cholesterol below some, magic number.

Blood

I gave blood today at a local high school. The students were great. They allowed walk-ins to cut in line and give blood before they did. I am SURE than an extra 15 minutes out of class had NOTHING to do with their gentlemanly behavior.

Racing against the clock

The pollen of Orchard Grass (Dactylis glomerata) is my kryptonite. My eyes swell up and become irritated and itchy. I pretty much write off the week that pollination of that species is peaking.

Everything seems exceptionally early this year. My "lost week" is usually the first week of June. I expect it to start in the next seven days this year.

One of the countermeasures we are trying this year is a small HEPA filter in our bedroom. The unit is rated for 215 square-feet. We are also going to disrobe and put our day-clothes in a hamper in a different room, then to shower in an attempt to avoid walking more pollen into the bedroom.

We just started doing this but so far the results exceed expectations.

Today it took me 90 honest minutes to plant 15 raspberry bushes and to armor them against deer. I planted 6 Nova, 3 Killarney, 3 Joan J, and one each Brandywine and Royalty. Raspberries are a luxury fruit. A freshly picked, fully ripe raspberry is a delicate treat that does not travel well. On the positive side, once established they require little care, at least in our climate.

Raspberry freezer jam made with raspberries you grew and picked yourself is one of life's finer treats. Throw in a three-egg omelet made with lots of extra-sharp cheddar cheese, ham sliced thick and fried in a cast-iron skillet and toast made from thickly sliced, home-made bread and you have some good living!

Fishing report

I saw a Bald Eagle drop out of the sky and pluck something from the surface of the lake. Neither Shotgun nor I caught anything.

The calculus of selecting targets

Biden, battered in the polls by the left, waffled and wavered and finally declined to not send Israel additional precision munitions.

If one, small precision bomb could have done the job, will Israel now use 6, larger bombs with the accompanying increase in collateral damages?

If a precision bomb can hit a moving vehicle known to be carrying a "high-value" target will Israel now revert to leveling entire blocks to accomplish the same end?

It seems to me that there is a very high probability of perverse outcomes.

 

Truth does not Need to Convince (Cumberland Saga)

“Sue-prize! Sue-prize! Sue-prize!” Deputy Canina said in her best Gomer Pyle voice.

She had just gotten a call about a party who wanted to report a stolen vehicle just two hours after she had overseen a vehicle winched onto the flat-bed of a wrecker, not more than two miles from where the call originated.

The caller was not able to tell the 9-1-1 operator the street address but the GPS coordinates that read out on her center-mounted computer placed it just about where the “Amish” people lived.

“Well, that should be interesting” Canina thought.

This time, the boulder in the middle of the drive had been removed and she was able to navigate her cruiser up to the top of the plateau and she parked in the middle of a turn-around loop. She did not have to wait long before a woman who appeared to be wearing nothing more than a very large, man’s tee-shirt and flip-flops showed up.

A weedy looking man poked along behind her as if he had no desire to interact with the police. He was wearing pajama bottoms and dollar-store flip-flops. They were definitely not dressed for the sixty degree temperatures and the intermitent mists.

Canina ran down her window. “Did you report a stolen vehicle?” Canina asked.

“Yes. And I know who stole it and you need to arrest him!” the woman’s voice grating like fingernails an a chalkboard. 

Canina had long ago come to the conclusion that most people had the voice they deserved, that strident, dissonant speaking voices were cultivated at a subconscious level.

Another thing that got Canina's back "up" was that she did not like to be told what to do. “First, I have to take a report and gather information.”

When people pushed her buttons Canina had learned to follow policy as exactly and as precisely as she had been taught at academy. Maybe even MORE precisely. It gave her something to focus on rather than her visceral reaction to “the public” she had been sworn to serve.

Canina ran up her window and reported her location. Then she turned off the cruiser. She slowly and meticulously gathered up all of the items she would need to collect the information. A wicked thought seeped into her mind...Miss Shrieky Voice really would have a chance to chill.

Stepping out of the cruiser, Canina asked the woman’s name and asked if she had any ID. “Darcy Johnson...and my ID is in my car.”

Canina nodded her head and slowly tapped on the touch-pad. “Just got this and I am getting used to it” she said trowelling on the “hick” voice. What she said was totally true. It was a 4th Gen, fully integrated law-enforcement “tough” computer full of proprietary software. While it wasn’t bullet-proof, it was bullet-resistant and would slow most pistol bullets down enough such that penetration would be limited to 2”...enough for a couple of weeks off work or so the tech-rep joked.

“Can you hurry it up?” the man asked. "Its freezing out here."

“Make and model” Canina drawled out, voice as slow and thick as syrup.

“It is a Jeep Liberty” Darcy said.

“Year?” Canina asked.

“2002” Darcy responded.

Canina was 99.9% sure she knew exactly where that vehicle was but she would get to that in her own, sweet time.

“Where did you last see your vehicle?” Canina asked as she slowly read down the list of questions.

The man stood behind Miss Johnson and wrapped his arms around her, pulling the now-damp tee-shirt tight, presumably to stay warm. As Canina had guessed, that was all she was wearing.

“There he is. Arrest him!!!” Darcy shrieked, exitedly pointing at a middle-aged man who was walking between a couple of the dilapidated houses. Canina looked up and saw a lean, deeply tanned man of below average height. He shot her a quick glance and kept walking. His clothing was plain and showed signs of wear and careful patching.

“Why do you think he stole it?” Canina asked, curiosity having gotten the better of her. “Did you see him do it?”

Something didn’t add up. A couple of urban slut-puppies lodging with the Amish? That went together like oil-and-water and as a cop she didn’t like those kinds of riddles.

“I didn’t have to. He told us to leave and when we refused, he said ‘then we will take care of it.’” Darcy said.

“Why didn’t you leave if you weren’t wanted here?” Canina asked.

“We have a lease. I want to show it to you. Then you have to arrest him” Darcy demanded.

Canina knew that Darcy was lying. Her training officer had drilled into her that when somebody starts giving you way more detail than is strictly necessary then they are hiding something or trying to ‘prove’ a lie to you. Canina didn’t know exactly what Darcy was lying about, but she knew it was something.

Best to play dumb. Nobody ever expected cops to have a brain.

Canina slowly reached up and started slowly scratching her scalp like she needed to in order to think.

“Well, I been trained that my job is to catch criminals and not get involved in civil law. Your gonna have to get a lawyer and take him to court iffen you got problems over your lease” Canina advised Darcy.

“But I’m thinkin’ that if you file in this county, the judge is gonna wanna know why you and that fella signed a lease iffen he was just gonna turn around and throw you out?” Canina pointed out. “Maybe youl’d be better off filing it in whatever city you came from.”

“That doesn’t matter” Darcy evaded. “He stole my car and you have to arrest him!” 

"What is your address...." Canina kept to her script. "And where did you live before that..."

Finally, Canina decided to stop playing around. Darcy’s lips had turned blue and the Joshua's teeth were chattering. Yes, she had collected his info, too.

“Is the license plate of your Jeep KMG-8279?” Canina didn’t have to reference her notes. One thing that you quickly pick up in law enforcement is the ability to memorize a dizzying number of license plate numbers.

“Maybe. I don’t know” Darcy said. “I might have a picture on my phone. I don’t know. Why?”

“I am pretty sure your vehicle was towed by Snider’s Towing and is sitting in their impoundment lot in Dayton” Canina said.

Darcy perked right up. “Hey, can you give us a ride to go pick it up?”

Canina vigorously shook her head. “Nope. Against policy. You are going to have to call an Uber or something.”

“Do you have the number for Snider’s?” Darcy asked.

“Just use your phone. S-N-I-D-E-R-S in Dayton, T-N” Canina said.

Before Canina drove around the loop to get her cruiser pointed down the drive toward the public road, she called in to the station. Something was tweaking her intuition. There were just too much parts that didn’t seem to fit together.

“Hey, what can you tell me about the white, Jeep Liberty KMG-8279?” Canina asked the impoundment clerk.

“We got some hits on the license plate from the National Crime database. The vehicle was involved in several ATM smash-and-grabs in Nashville and Huntsville” Cindy told her.

“Do tell” Canina replied.

“The Sheriff said that he’d appreciate it you had some time to do a little bit of digging around. The perps might still be in the neighorhood” Cindy added, helpfully.

Everybody liked to stay on the Sheriff’s good side and Canina owed him a solid. He had tipped her off about the 14' jonboat that had been a late-addition to the County's confiscated property auction. Canina was the only bidder and she had picked it up for a song.

“I just might be able to help you out” Canina replied. “I am going to live-stream on channel 37. If things go froggy I damned well better have some help showing up speedy-quick.”

And then before Cindy could reply, Canina muted the audio-speakers and opened her door.

Shouting at the backs of the couple who were shuffling, zombie-like, toward one of the greenhouses, Canina yelled “I just talked to the Sheriff and he told me to give you a ride into town. He reminded me that we are supposed to protect and SERVE.”

Darcy smiled at Joshua and said “Told you these fncking hicks would help us out.”

As they neared the running cruiser, Canina asked "Don't you need to get a key?"

"Nope" Darcy said. "I have a secret key taped to the inside of my gas door."

“Sheriff said you gotta ride in back but first I gotta give you a quick frisk to make sure you aren’t carrying any weapons” Canina shrugged. “Insurance regulations.”

It was a very quick frisk. They just weren’t wearing much that could conceal a weapon.

They settled into the back, so grateful for the heat blasting out of the vents they barely noticed the smell of old vomit and urine.

Are most profession positions that "require" a college degree about to be vaporized?

Was slavery doomed as an agricultural production method?

Maybe the first American Civil War was not necessary for slavery to end. Perhaps there were other factors in-play that made its ending a foregone conclusion. If not in the early 1860s but certainly by 1880.

Mechanization was making farm labor more productive so fewer workers were needed. Ditto for improved varieties and better understanding of fertilizers.

Tobacco and cotton were being produced in places like India and Egypt and Turkey in increasing amounts.

Various pests, like the boll-weevil would reduce the profit margins of cotton.

Like the Thanksgiving Turkey, the entire edifice was largest and most "magnificent" just before it was slaughtered. In 1860 it was inconceivable to those in the middle of the institution, whether owner or slave, to understand that not only was it going to end but that it was an inescapable conclusion.

It was cheaper to release the slaves and let them fend for themselves rather than to hang onto them and eat the fixed-cost.

College education and salary-man

I was in one of those awkward social situation where I looked for an escape. There! Outside...a patio. There was a couple out there also seeking solitude and quiet.

I struck up a conversation with the gentleman. He was a Senior Advisor to a firm engaged in supplying professional services. I asked him what a Senior Advisor does. 

He responded that the part he liked best was mentoring new, unseasoned employees.

During the course of the conversation he informed me that it was common practice among the newer hires to cut-and-paste from Wikipedia or to have AI write reports. He was aghast. The firm is charging $300 an hour (or more) for their services and they are submitting 6th-grade work. No synthesis. No integration. No probable-path projections. No counter-measures specific to the client's unique challenges and resources.

The clincher is "If that level of work is 'good enough', then why do we even need Professional people? The plumbers and school administrators and clergy who rely on our services can cut-and-paste from Wikipedia a whole lot cheaper than we can do it for them. If they need more, we can hire a stenographer to type the keywords into the AI engine with fewer typos than somebody with a Master's degree."

The kindest, most generous perspective is that AI can be used as a no-guilt way to terminate unproductive or redundant knowledge-worker's position. "Sorry Karl, we had to let you go. You can blame AI."

4th Break

Most of the tree seeds are planted.

Shumard Oak (Tennessee seed-source), pecans, Northern Red Oak (Ingham County, Michigan seed-source) were the three major seed-lots I got planted today.

I also planted 12 pots of Okra and a bulk planting of a mixed-lot of grape seeds, primarily open-pollinated Steuben but also some open pollinated (V. riparia L-50s X Trebbiano). The V. riparia is from Minnesota and has sweet fruit. Trebbiano is one of the most widely planted winegrapes in Europe. 

There is a lot of by-guess-and-by-golly with regards to open-pollinated grapes. The Steuben is probably self-pollinated and most of the V. rip X Treb were probably pollinated by wild V. riparia or GR-7 winegrape.

Tomorrow, God willing, I will finish out the small-lots of acorns, pecans, walnuts and hickory nuts.

Time for a wee-libation of grog.

---Added later---

Phenology report, 325 GDDb50. Chokecherries and Autumn Olive are blooming. Timothy (grass) is pollinating and my sinuses are getting angry.

Black Locust seeds are in the ground

I planted a forty foot long row (500 seeds) of Black Locust. My intention is to thin them out to one stem every two or three inches.

"But Joe, why would any sane person plant a 'weed-tree' like Black Locust?"

Primarily because it grows like a weed and when juvenile it has thorns that deter Whitetail Deer.

It is the most widely planted forestry tree in many areas in eastern, central and southern Europe. It grows very quickly. The heartwood is extremely, hard, wear-resistant and rot-resistant without any treatments. The flowers make good honey. Many of the trees from selected seed-lots produce a high percentage of trees with tolerable form.

It does NOT do well in places where flooding is likely.

It is a tough tree that does relatively well in tough situations. It is good to have many different tools in your tool-box and Black Locust is a tool that fills a particular niche very, very well.

Getting the monkey off my back

First break

Black Locust seeds have an impermeable seed-coat. One way of degrading that seed-coat is to dump the seeds into boiling (212F) water for 60 seconds and stir. Then to add cool water to bring the temp to about 100F and let them soak for four hours.

Before and after pictures

April 6

Approx April 20

Mixed peppers on left, Ukrainian Orange Icicle on right

Red Cajun onion on left, Stupice tomato on right

Okra

Miscellaneous peppers

Seasonal Tourette Syndrome

Like many fellow sufferers of Seasonal Tourette Syndrome, my symptoms flare up in late spring.

I am taking the usual precautions. I shaved my head and beard. I am wearing brightly colored clothing and I am avoiding people who are sensitive to random cussing.

It helps me manage the symptoms but doesn't really address the root causes of the cussing and the ticks.

I am about a week behind in the gardening. There are only so many days when the sun shines in May. My body can only be pushed so hard. Sometimes motorized equipment doesn't want to start or is "down" for maintenance.

During tick season, Mrs ERJ often mutters "You need to have your head examined", consequently the removal of my above-the-neck pelt.

The second installment on "Grifters" will be delayed.

Problems with Clocking?

If you are closely following the solar and wind-energy stories, then you have undoubtedly heard about "grid instabilities". As the percentage of non-central power-plant contribution goes up, risk of "grid instability" increases exponentially.

A relatively small, stand-alone grid centered in Alice Springs, Australia goes unstable at 13% "Green" energy make-up.

60 Hz, Alternating-current

In the US and in Canada, the standard "line voltage" for in-house appliances is 60 full, sinusoidal variations in line voltage every second with the peak voltage nominally between 155V and 175V with an Root Mean Square voltage of 110V to 125V.

In Europe, the frequency is 50 Hz.

The technical problem is that solar cells produce DC power...that is, no reversals in voltage. Wind power can produce alternating current but it is freakishly difficult to match it to the demands of the grid so it is usually converted to DC and then chopped up and flipped around to feed it into the grid.

The least expensive way to convert DC into AC that matches up with the grid is to reference the voltage of the grid and then to "trigger" off of it.

The grid is huge and robust and highly buffered by its loads(inductive) and line(resistance) characteristics. But, at some point the energy injected into the grid starts to jack around the voltage that is triggers when the "green" sources push energy (120 times a second) into the grid.

A complication is that the grid, as an electro-physical reality, can store energy in several modes: Capacitive and inductive. That can creates internal dynamics that can cause resonance and escalating excursions especially when simple, "step" or "impulse" (on-off) inputs are applied.

Another complication is that there might be learning-algorithms incorporated into the logic. The intent would be to make them universal in the sense of not caring if they were sent to a 50Hz grid or a 60Hz grid. Chaos and drift are not your friend when you have an energetic friend dumping power to your grid.

An obvious work-around would be to have a master-clock similar to GPS setting the timing for the (now) disjunct parts of the system. The problem is that we know that GPS can be hacked. Hacking the master-clock signal has the potential to melt wires and/or maybe short out transformers.

My Resume

I am old, slow, fat, ugly, not plugged-into social media and am agnostic about technology.

I show up early.

I don't quit until I am done.

I smell like sweat rather than weed when I am done.

I don't steal stuff although I have been known to walk off with a pen in my pocket.

I give credit to those who help me and don't claim it as my own work.

When I am wrong, I admit it and try to contain the damage.

I was productive today

Today was a very satisfying and productive day.

I was outside by 8:00 and grafted some plum suckers to AU-Rosa.

I moved my tomato and pepper seedlings outside. The weather-guessers threw the chicken-guts and determined that it would alternate between hazy and overcast. For once, they were right.

I sprayed weeds in the orchard and yard.

I had an errand to run in town that took a half hour.

By 10:30 it was almost dry enough to mow. I set the alarm on my phone for an hour from when I started. When the alarm went off I finished whatever chore I was doing. I went inside and drank some ice-tea. Read my emails...Lather, rinse, repeat.

For the record, I am using a push-mower. No need to go to the gym on days when I mow.

I had another errand at 4:00 so I knocked off a little bit early and took a shower and put on fresh clothes. Part of the errand involved grocery shopping. I was back by 5:30 and I AM DONE FOR TODAY. 

The first few mowings of the year are a chore. There are always things that need to be picked up and the grass is growing like greased lightning. I still haven't made it completely around the house. The grass on the north side doesn't grow very fast which I am thankful for.

In bloom:

• Turnips
• Rutabagas
• Quince
• Horseradish
• Ground Ivy
• Celandine
• Yellow Rocket (aka wild Mustard)
• Lilacs
• Redbud
• Dogwood
• Tulips are almost done
• Some of the oak trees are festooned with catkins
  

291 Growing Degree Days, base 50F.

Deflating Angst

This was on the radio in 1971. Five minute run-time but you can stop after three. The intro is excessively long but nothing is perfect. You can always launch it and move on to other tabs, letting it play in the background.

Unlike some of the music from that time, it aged very, very well.

I was particularly taken with the line "Don't compare yourself to others. You will become either vain or bitter." Good-gravy!...social media's corrosive effects captured in two, short sentences.

Fake News Friday: Climate "Scientists" discover Gravity Waves

 

Climate "Scientists" discover alarming gravity waves as the sea-level rises by different amounts in different sea-coast cities!!!

Lead Scientist, Ima Dumkopf informed the press that shifts in the molten iron core caused by rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere are undoubtedly the cause for the variation in sea-level changes.

Dumkopf projects that Mexico City will be underwater in less than 200 years.

Grifters (Cumberland Saga)

The cute, little Jeep Liberty pulled into the loop at the end of the drive late in the evening. The young woman who was driving only saw an older couple, so she piloted the vehicle over to them, stopped and put it into park.

A young man exited the passenger side and walked enthusiastically up to the old man and said “Uncle Roger. It is great to be here!!!” His manner was reminiscent of Salesmen world-round.

Sig looked at the young man and asked “And who are you?”

It took a few minutes to sort out the whys and where-fores. Joshua was the son of one of Copperhead Cove’s far-flung alumni. The driver of the vehicle was his girlfriend Darcy. Given the lateness of the hour and the fact that every adult in Copperhead Cove had just put in a 14 hour work-day, Sig decided to put Joshua in the now-vacant van next to Gregor's and to park Darcy in the spare bedroom.

They would sort things out in the morning.

***

As was his habit, Gregor showed up in his mother’s kitchen first thing in the morning for a cup of coffee.

“How did you sleep?” Ellie asked. Moms can tell when their children are at their best.

“Not worth a lick” Gregor muttered.

That got Sig’s attention. Gregor had worked as hard as anybody the day before and he should have slept like a log.

“Why is that?” Sig asked.

“I bet that if you look into the room where you told the girl to sleep, you will see that she isn’t there” Gregor answered, obliquely.

A half minute later, Ellie popped back into the kitchen. “Sure enough, she ain’t there.”

Gregor nodded and took a long pull from his steaming mug of coffee. “She was in the van next to mine making them springs squeak.”

Sig’s eyebrows lifted like thunder-clouds. “She what?”

“She and that young man were having sex” Gregor said, speaking plainly.

Sig started to stand up. He was a man who dealt with problems head-on.

Both Ellie and Gregor suggested that he not charge off, half-cocked. There are times when a bit of planning is worth the time invested.

***

A half-hour later, Sig knocked on the metal door on the side of the van.

“Go away” the man inside commanded the person knocking.

Sig pounded harder.

“I told you, ‘Go the Fuck Away!” the man’s voice yelled. “It's the middle of the fucking night!’

Sig threw the door open.

Sure enough, the man and the woman were sprawled out on the mattress and neither one of them were wearing a stitch of clothing.

“You have five minutes to leave the property” Sig informed them.

The woman smirked and shook her shoulders, making her boobs jiggle. Joshua had told her that his kin were fundamentalists and she liked putting prigs like that on the defensive.

“You can’t make us leave” she taunted him. “We have a lease.”

“Nobody signed no leases. You can either leave easy or we can help you” Sig asserted.

“Judge don’t know if there was or wasn’t a lease” Darcy rubbed Sig’s nose in the fact. “It will take at least six months to get a ruling. So you just better get used to us being here” she crowed

Sig looked at his wristwatch. He had seen plenty of boobs in his time, admittedly most of them were on the bottoms of cows. A part of him wondered about the utility of piercings and hardware inserted through the nipples but that was neither here-nor-there. “You have 4 minutes and 30 seconds.”

“Shut the door, old man. We have better things to do than to listen to you talk shit” Darcy said and then she leaned over and put a smokin’ hot kiss on Joshua’s lips.

“Okey-dokey” Sig said. “You made your choice."

In all fairness, it took over six minutes for Gregor to hook the tow-chain to the front of the Jeep. He had to make sure it was snug or he would lose it on the hair-pin turns in the drive.

A 5500 pound truck in 4WD-Low can drag a 3000 pound vehicle downhill any day of the week, especially when “Park” only engaged the front two wheels.

Gregor realized that he had a problem when he reached the public road. He couldn’t just dump it on the road. There were no shoulders and it would be a major traffic hazard. Not having a better plan, he kept dragging it and headed toward the old cemetery.

He goosed the gas pedal figuring that as long as he didn’t stop moving, the rubber of the Jeep's front tires would liquefy and lubricate the movement. Looking through his outside, rear-view mirrors he saw smoke boiling off the front tires.

As the cemetery hove into view, he realized that he had another problem. He could not pull the Jeep completely off the road without tearing up the turf of the cemetery. He eased as much of the Jeep off of the pavement as he could and then paused to consider his options.

After stowing the tow-strap, he parked behind the Jeep and turned on his hazard flashers. Then he called 9-1-1. “I wanna report an abandoned vehicle that is a traffic hazard” he told the operator.

A half hour later, Officer Rosa Canina pulled up behind Gregor’s truck and lit up her flashers. Stepping out, she walked over to Gregor, who was leisurly smoking a cigar and asked “Are you the one who called in?”

“Yes, officer. I am” Gregor answered. He decided to answer as much of what the officer asked as seemed prudent.

A quick glance informed him that Officer Canina did not have any rings on her fingers.

Looking at the skid-mark leading up to the disabled vehicle, Officer Canina asked “So you just happened to be driving along and saw this vehicle?”

“Yes officer. Looks like they had a wheel-bearing lock up” Gregor offered. In fact, it did look like that could have been what happened.

“Any idea where the owner of the vehicle is?” she asked.

“Nope” Gregor said. Heck, they could have been walking this way or still in the van or having breakfast in Roger’s house or out in the woods looking for mushrooms for all he knew.

Officer Canina sighed. “Thanks for calling it in. I would rather sit here waiting for a tow-truck to show up than to have to be pulling bodies out of a wreck.”

Waiting for the tow truck to wend its way from Dayton, Gregor and Rosa made small-talk. Gregor learned that Rosa liked to fish for catfish in the Tennessee river and even had a boat. Rosa learned that Gregor had recently returned to be with his family and didn’t have a girlfriend.

As the tow-truck was dragging the Jeep onto the flatbed, Gregor had an inspiration. He called his buddy in town and asked, “Hey Conner. Do you still know any repo-men?”

In fact, Conner still did.

“I just had an intuition. I seen Snider’s Towing in Dayton pick up a 2002 Jeep Liberty, Tennesse plates, number KMG-8279. I don’t suppose anybody is looking for that vehicle. Iffen they are, they can call Snider’s and figure out where they took it” Gregor told his buddy.

Random observation

More evidence that the pro-Palestinian protesters are not affiliated with the universities where they are protesting.

University of Michigan fans would rather have a drunk with syphilis pee on their faces rather than sleep in a Green and White tent (MSU Spartan colors).
 

Presented without comment

 

Avian (Bird) Flu: What we know now

Avian Bird Flu is a form of influenza that can have very high mortality rates in humans but at this date has not staged a major "break-out" from its natural reservoir in wild birds (predominantly waterfowl like ducks).

Leaving out all politics, a topic that is covered amply in other places and likely to be mentioned in the comments vis-a-vis timing, the scenario that is usually discussed is the break-out occurring in small, multi-species farms where ducks and chickens and pigs and a cow and human's are in intimate contact for many hours a day. There are many of those kinds of farm in east and southeast Asia.

What we "know" now

The current strain of bird flu floating around North America can infect cattle.

The current strain appears to be highly lethal to cats.

Antibodies to strains of flu that infected humans in the recent past offer partial protection against bird flu.

About that last point

Whether due to God or evolution or the limitations of the synthesis of very large proteins in our bodies, our antibodies are "modular".

To provide you with a mental model, visualize a basketball with pebbling, seams and the maker's logo impressed or molded onto its outer surface. That would be the target organism. Antibodies are like clay-moldings of the surface...keys looking for their locks. When they find "a match" they click-in like legos toys. One or two antibodies might slow down the basketball but they depend on gang-tackling to totally neutralize it.

The beauty of this system is that when a disease-causing virus or bacteria mutates, only PARTS of it change and most of the surface is still recognizable to most of the antibodies as "BAD!" and they try to kill it.

The lymph nodes recognize it as an invader and they ramp-up production of antibodies associated with the previous challenge, most of which will have activity against the new invader.

Vax or natural?

The academic paper that I base the statement about the probability of cross-over protection looked specifically at vaccinations for seasonal flu. Let me quote:

A small frequency of CD4 T cells specific for subtype H5N1 was detected in several persons at baseline, and seasonal vaccine administration enhanced the frequency of such reactive CD4 T cells. We also observed that seasonal vaccination is able to raise neutralizing immunity against influenza (H5N1) in a large number of donors.

If you are one of those people who frequently swim in Petri dishes like day-cares, elementary schools, bus stations, barracks, restaurants or Emergency Rooms then it is likely that you have been challenged with enough seasonal flu strains that you will have some "natural" immunity to Avian Flu.

If you are a grumpy curmudgeon who avoids humans in all forms, it is likely that you do not.

A final note

During the Covid event, some epidemiologists speculated that the very wide range of severity might be due to the size of the initial dose.

Their reasoning was that if you received a small initial dose, like a single droplet of saliva or snot from a sneeze 60 feet away, then it took Covid time to ramp up its numbers and find the tissues it most preferred. That gave your body's immune system time to start ramping up production of antibodies. If, on the other hand, you took a sneeze right to the face then you body never had a chance to get out-in-front of the disease and you were more likely to have severe symptoms.

A point that is hiding in all of that is that the person swimming in the Petri dish is getting exposed to EVERYTHING and can develop immunity without ever being symptomatic as long as he/she does not have a compromised immune system.

Wednesdays are for fishing!

This was our first Wednesday evening fishing.

I was using nightcrawlers and caught three bluegills and one yellow perch. I was surprised that I caught two of them on the #2 hook and two on the #12 dropper. If I were hungry I would have kept them all but since I have plenty of food, I gave each fish a kiss and a dollar bill and asked them to tell all of their friends what great guy I am.

Shotgun got skunked. He took the ribbing with good humor. He knows that the shoe will be on the other foot and he will return it with compound interest.

The swallows (birds) were abundant. We saw five swans (species unknown) as well as a goodly number of other waterfowl.

Okra and geese

Well dip me in batter and called me fried-chicken. 10% of the okra seeds I started on Monday are showing signs of germination.

A question for the okra experts: How many plants?

Spoiling Grandkids

Quicksilver and I split a donut for breakfast. We were down by the river and we watched a goose with goslings chase off another goose.

Walking back to the vehicle, I watched Quicksilver trying to mimic how that goose got big: Head low-and-forward, arms stretched out backwards like wings, herky-jerky walk and attempts at hissing.

That reminded me of a very young man at church who jets around the sanctuary the very same way. His dad flew large, green choppers back-in-the-day and I had teased him about his son being Air Force material.

I am beginning to think he has the makings of a Marine aviator. Nobody wants to mess with Canadian Geese or Marines whether on land, water or in the air.

Activists and protesters (snark alert)

From my working-class, mid-Western perspective there seems to be little difference between a participant in Special Olympics and the great masses of people with arrested development who participate in protests and as "activists".

Can we just give them their shiny trophy and tell them to go home until next year?

I am not slagging the kids in Special Olympics. At least they are leaning into the limits of their potential. Not so much the professional malcontents who expect to be rewarded for their uncivil behaviors.

Overflowing Outhouses (Cumberland Saga)

“You need to do something about the outhouses” Heddy told her husband Samson. “They are over-flowing.”

Samson recognized from the tone that pointing out that the outhouses would stop flooding when the rain stopped was NOT going to go over well. He imagined that Jesus himself was familiar with that tone if the Wedding at Cana story in the Bible had gone the way he pictured in his head.

Sighing, he said “Yeah, I need to walk around anyway. I might as well scope out the problems now.”

Heddy, “Jadwiga Sophia” in the family Bible, had engaged on a commando-strike shopping mission in the run-up to evacuating the home they were renting outside of Gastonia. Cloth diapers, plastic pants, safety pins, loose-fitting dresses and shoes in ascending sizes. Kitchen cutlery, twenty-pound bags of pinto-beans, spices….

Her purchases were informed by the memories of her childhood. For instance, she purchased children’s clothing in bright colors, the better to find them should they wander off chasing butterflies. The Cove was a very big place when you are a panicking parent looking for a wayward child.

What had been mercifully erased from her memories was the deplorable state of sanitation in Copperhead Cove. They had not progressed much beyond buckets, barrels and holes-in-the-ground. In their defense, there was very little that could be done with low-tech solutions and the thin layer of clay that overlaid the impermeable bedrock. It was the equivalent of a bird "white-washing" a fat-man's, sweaty, bald head on a very hot day.

All of which Samson confirmed in his walk-about in the rain. Having worked excavating and construction in the Piedmont region of North Carolina, he had picked up the ability to discern what was beneath ground.

But what he needed now was an expert. Maybe not in geology but in some quick bandages that could be slapped over the problem until better solutions could be found. Remembering a snippet of conversation he overheard, he decided this might be a good time to get to know Amira.

Going over to their new home, he knocked on the door and asked the young man who answered the door, “Is your mother home? If she is, I wonder if I can have some conversation with her.”

The young man did not answer but closed the door without saying a word. A surprised Samson waited a half minute, unsure of what to do. Finally Amira came to the door. Pointing at the wicker chairs beneath the awning, she indicated that he should sit.

Frankly, she was glad for the interruption. Being penned up in the house with Walter and the two boys was trying, especially since she was a “busy” by nature and enforced inactivity irked her. 

"Nice chairs" Samson said.

"We found them in a back room" Amira said. "The woman who lived here must not have entertained much."

“What do you want to talk about?” Amira got to the point.

“It seems like I heard somebody say that you used to work in a medical lab. I was wondering it that is true” Samson asked.

“Yes, I did. Our lab performed standard blood-work and other tests” Amira responded “Why do you ask?”

“My wife asked me to do something about the sanitation issues here. Specifically the outhouses. I need somebody to bounce ideas off of. I am hoping that might be you” Samson said.

Amira rolled her eyes at the mention of the outhouses. “We had outhouses in Bosnia but they were flower gardens compared to the ones here” Amira acknowledged.

“I am all about bang-for-the-buck” Samson started out. “It is not like we have a lot of money and at this point all of the labor is being used elsewhere.”

“So what I want to know is what can we do that is fast-and-easy while we figure out the long-hard-and-slow?” Samson concluded.

“You mean to make them smell better or to stop disease?” Amira asked for clarification.

“Mostly stopping the spread of disease. If more people show up, and I believe in my heart that will happen, they will add to the crowding and the overloaded system. Something is going to break” Samson said.

“Germs mostly spread from surface-to-surface” Amira started out. “In Bosnia we had wooden shoes we wore to the outhouse. We took them off and left them on pegs next to the porch so we didn’t track the filth into the house. That would be the first, and simplest thing to change.”

“It does no good to wash hands inside a bathroom if you have to touch the door handle with your hands to leave” Amira continued. "It just takes one person who does not wash their hands to contaminate the next ten people leaving the bathroom."

“Can the doors be changed so they are like the ones you see by the kitchen of a restaurant...they swing both ways and have no latch? Servers can push them open them with their elbows or bump them open with their butt. They don’t need to use their hands” Amira asked.

It took Samson a couple of seconds to visualize the kind of door she was describing...”Like the swinging doors of a Western saloon?” he suggested.

“Maybe, but weather-tight, for the winter” she said.

Samson nodded. It would be nearly impossible to seal the doors but the gaps could be small.

“Anything else?” Samson asked.

“A wash basin outside the lavatory” Amira added. “It has to be outside because sun sanitizes and because everybody will see who doesn’t wash their hands and it can be addressed.”

“It will freeze in the winter” Samson noted.

“And it will be fine in the spring, summer and fall. So you get ¾ of an answer” Amira dismissed his objection.

“How does the person refill the basin? Would there be a jug of water next to it? Isn’t that just another way to pass germs around?” Samson asked, trying to visualize how the wash station would be used.

“Moving water is a very old problem” Amira said. “Everybody had a different way of solving it but the Romans probably had the best answers. Their aqueducts are still being used today.”

The picture of water being delivered overhead popped into Samson’s head. Maybe put the jug over the basin and have a valve that could be stepped on to open it….

He was definitely going to have to make a trip into Athens to the big-box store and the Goodwill. While he could fabricate hinges and manufacture wooden clogs, factory-made solutions were readily available for both countermeasures and his wife implied a-need-for-speed.

While he was at the big-box store, he would look over the plumbing supplies and pray for inspiration.

Looking out at the rain which showed no signs of slowing down, Samson asked "I don't suppose you have any board-games? We have some jigsaw puzzles we could trade."

Grinning wryly, "Two-year-olds and jigsaw puzzles don't go together well."

That and this

Primers for reloading

Many different brands and "sizes" are available. That might not be the case after the election. Pack your own parachute.

Physical work

I went to the property I have been asked to manage and put in 4.5 hours pounding in fence posts, mowing grass, spraying herbicide.

I set the alarm on my phone to go off in an hour. I take a five minute break, drink some water and eat a snack if I am hungry. Physically, I could have gone longer but the wind picked up (15mph steady) and my next set of tasks involved herbicide, so I will hit it again tomorrow.

It is projected to be just as windy but I will be as fresh as a daisy and will be better able to attend to all of the little details.

The value of medicine?

Is the value of medicine its cost at the local pharmacy or is the value of medicine what it might cost if it were unavaiable?

One of my family members had porch pirates steal a package from between her storm-door and her main closure. The package was small. It contained pills.

So if it were valued based on the typical transaction price, it would be a misdemeanor.

If it were valued based on possible consequences the "value" would be much, much higher. She had a coronary event when she was 39 and suffers from migraine headaches and her firm can bill $150 per hour when she can see clients.  (No, not Mrs ERJ)

The "yutes" walked off with pharmaceuticals that might have been valued at $60 but in a worst-case scenario could have resulted in my family-member having a heart-attack or stroke or being incapacitated by headaches (and snarling up the scheduling at work).

I propose that any porch-pirating event that involves prescription drugs be considered a felony regardless of its nominal, retail value.

It seems a near-certainty that we will have another "pandemic shutdown" some time in the future. It seems equally certain that many people who rely on prescription drugs will respond by ordering on-line and having them delivered. Stevie Wonder can see that the growth will be explosive...and so will the rates of theft.

And as long as I am dreaming, why don't we write the laws so anybody over the age of 15 will be charged as an adult? Can you imagine the horror of watching your child die for want of an epi-pen...a device you KNOW they pitched into the trash as soon as they realized it had no street value?

Fine Art Tuesday

 

Louise Rayner born in Derbyshire, England in 1832 and died in 1924.

Many of her paintings were from Chester which is fifteen miles south of Liverpool.

Interesting because Lucas (an internet friend) sent me an image, artist unknown and we attempted to play Sherlock Holmes.

Image, unknown artist

Same image as above some features highlighted

Louis Rayner image

One of the quirks of European architecture is that it was shaped as much by tax collection schemes as it was by climate and availability of materials.

For example, one common tax scheme was to base property taxes on the Width + Depth of the ground floor times some multiplier. The assumption was that addition was within the reach of even the most simple-minded nephew and that upper stories would be the same size or smaller than the ground floor. See the features circled in red on the highlighted image.

In very short order, the ground-floor interior shrank to reduce the tax bill. Upper stories, the "private" part of the building was supported on posts and a substantial portion of the ground-floor was given over to expansive "porchs".

Some cities taxed the windows which resulted in extra windows being bricked closed. see the feature circled in black in the highlighted image. The fact that the LOWER windows were bricked up suggests that crime was an issue with, in turn, suggests that there is either a very large transient population (port city) or is very, very large.

If the image was painted in England, it probably came from the "Wet" or the west side of the country.

The third feature that is circled is the vegetation growing on the roof. That suggests a very damp climate that is pretty much year-round and not seasonal.

The final feature that might narrow down where the unknown city might be located are involves the slope of the streets. 

I am tickled when I see people making rational decisions to avoid onerous taxes.

You can still see this (in Michigan). Most "townhouses" and new student housing are 2-1/2 stories high. The missing half-story is 48" or more below grade (even if they have to bulldoze fill up to the walls). The motivation is the avoidance of fire-suppression equipment that is mandated starting with buildings of three-or-more stories in height.

Tax avoidance is world-wide. In some countries, the assessment that property taxes are based on are not raised until construction is finished. The property owner will have the contractor pour a few vertical beams for "the top floor" but then suspend construction, thus avoiding higher taxes. Images like the one shown above are common in Nepal.

More paintings by Louise Rayner

A common feature of Rayner's paintings was a recognizable, church steeple in the background. Signs on buildings come-and-go but iconic steeples are points of pride for communities and probably made it easier to sell paintings.

And while the image painted by the unknown artist might not be Louise Rayner, it was painted in the same style and of the same environs.

This and that

The attempt to root some MM-106 was a dud. They were too moist and molded. Nothing venture, nothing gained.

Sculpture in public places

This particular dynamic-sculpture is above the lounge for surgery admissions at U-of-M (E. W. Sparrow) Hospital in Lansing. It is dedicated to the lawyers who specialize in malpractice torts and is titled "Post Nasal Drip". Who said that there was no professional courtesy shared between the medical and the legal professions?

My brother had a procedure today and I kept my sister-in-law company for three hours.

Okra seeds

I started the Okra seeds today. I hope I have better luck with them than I did with the MM-106.

Somewhere in Israel before 2012

M1 Carbine accessorizes well with a black handbag

Miscellaneous images

Tour guides in Israel carrying more M1 Carbines

At the beach

Not "Safe Queens"

Check out how they duplexed (triplexed?) the mags

Planting the 'tater patch (Cumberland Saga)

Lliam ran the tractor over the garden plots before Blain and Evan worked them. He pulled the disc parallel to the rows to comb out the stalks. Then he went perpendicular to the rows so the individual discs could chop the corn stalks and pumpkin vines into lengths short enough that they would not wrap around the shaft of the rotary tiller.

Then he went back to the lumber mill and building project.

“Why don’t we just plant the potatoes over there?” Evan asked Blain, pointing to last year's potato-patch that the disc had fluffed up and leveled out quite nicely. In contrast, the field that had been planted in corn the year before was still in-the-rough, even after Llaim had tilled it both ways.

Blain had asked Sarah the same question. It seemed like make-work to plant potatoes, the first crop of the year, into the fields that needed the most work.

“Did you ever hear of the Great Potato Famine?” Blain asked Evan, sharing the info Sarah had given him.

“Maybe. Wasn’t that in, like, the 1970s?” Evan asked. For him there was no difference between 1970, 1870 or 1470. They were all impossibly long ago.
“Nope. It was in the late 1840s. Between starvation and people leaving Ireland, it almost emptied the country” Blain said.

“They planted potatoes in the same plots of land year-after-year. And they planted nearly all of their plots to just potatoes. A disease that killed potato plants came and there was nothing to break the cycle of disease” Blain said.

“For five years in a row, all of the potatoes in Ireland turned to slime before they could be harvested” Blain said.

“Big deal” Evan said. “So they didn’t have any potato chips to eat. Why didn’t they switch to corn-chips.”

Blain looked at Evan to see if he was joking. He wasn’t.

“They didn’t have corn to make corn-chips. You are missing the fact that maybe ¾ of the calories they ate came from potatoes…just potatoes and nothing else. It would be like me only letting you eat half of your breakfast and then expecting you to work all day without anything else to eat” Blain said.

Evan shrugged. “I still don’t see why it was a big deal.”

“Day-after-day?” Blain asked. “You would lose three pounds a week and would be dead in months.”

Now it was Evan’s turn to frown. “But you said there were still people alive after five years. How did THAT happen if they would all be dead in half a year?”

“Some of them lived in port cities and they could buy food brought in by ships. Others lived by the ocean and maybe they could catch fish or dig clams or eat seaweed” Blain speculated. “Others might eat grass growing beside the road hoping they could get some nourishment from it.”

“There were still rich people in Ireland. Poor people probably went through their garbage looking for scraps of food. Or they might steal grain from the barn that the rich people were going to feed their animals” Blain said.

“OK, I get the picture. We don’t plant potatoes in a field where we grew potatoes the year before because diseases would wipe them out” Evan conceded.

Evan was able to till ground faster than Blain could follow up with planting the potatoes. Sarah insisted that the rows be precisely spaced so there would be plenty of room for the tiller to pass between them. She also insisted that the plants be 24” apart within the rows so the potatoes would be large enough to make them worth peeling.

Evan shut down the tiller when he finished tilling the plot and walked over to Blain and asked “Where do you want me to till next?”

“I want you to help me plant potatoes” Blain said.

“But I like tilling” Evan whined.

“Nope. We finish this plot before we move on. Besides, you need to learn all the parts of planting, not just running the tiller” Blain said.

Sarah was very firm on planting the pieces of seed-potato with the skin-side-up. And since that is how Sarah did it, that is how Amira’s (and Walter, Abe and Evan’s) plot was planted as well. There were faster ways to plant potatoes. Blain had even seen a gizmo in Roger’s shed for planting potatoes but the pieces were not inserted at an even depth nor was there any mechanism that ensured they were skin-side-up. So they did it the slow way.

“I still don’t get why I can’t keep running the tiller” Evan badgered.

“You can, after we finish planting this field” Blain said for what felt like the tenth time.

“But what is the point of finishing before moving on?” Evan asked.

“Do you watch football?” Blain asked.

“I have a video game that I play. Why?” Evan asked, taken off guard.

“Do you get points for moving the ball to the five-yard-line?” Blain asked.

“No, stupid. You have to punch it into the end-zone or kick a field goal. Everybody knows that” Evan replied.

“It is the same deal with this patch of potatoes. We can put all kinds of work into it but it really isn’t worth anything, as far as feeding your family, until it is completely planted. Getting the ball to the five-yard-line isn’t good enough” Blain explained.

Evan grudgingly marked the rows of potatoes by placing a rock every 9th hill in case they needed to be tilled for weed control before the plants poked their shoots above ground.

Evan had just started tilling the next patch when the rain started...

---Notes---

Modern, commercial potato farmers plant much closer together than that. For "new redskin" potatoes or for potato chips they might plant as close together as 6" apart in the row. For those market outlets, large size is a defect and planting close together limits the size of the tubers to what the market wants.

For baking potatoes, they might plant at 12" apart in the row. Again, different markets want different sizes. Home owners might want smaller sizes that microwave quickly while restaurants desire a size that fits nicely on the serving platter.

Subsistence, low-input farmers will plant farther apart so each plant has a greater volume of soil to "mine" for nutrients and moisture.

Combining the wide plant spacing with the poultry manure fertilizer will result in rampant vines that sprawl and make tilling difficult. It will also result in very large tubers, many will be knobby and some of them will have a defect called hollow-heart.

The upside is that if they had been getting 1000 pounds of potatoes per 70'-by-70' plot they might get three times that with the additional fertility.