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The average U.S. citizen manages about 168 personal passwords, while for work-related accounts, the average is around 87, bringing the total to approximately 255 passwords. This number has increased significantly due to the rise in digital services and online accounts.

Our dentist is transitioning from humans to software. We are being pressured to funnel all of our transactions and communications with his office through "the portal".

Our dentist is in Ingham county, in the city of Lansing.

I like my dentist a lot. I understand about cost pressure. I also know that businesses that put the customer/client/patient third-in-line are walking the plank toward insolvency.

At some point my dentist will retire. Maybe it makes sense to make the jump BEFORE driving to Lansing becomes totally intolerable. 

Who said 3 year-olds don't have a sense of humor

Actually, before we had kids, Mrs ERJ said that.

"Row, row, row your boat..."

Quicksilver surprised me by asking to play "Row, row, row your boat..." where I sing the song and she sits on my knees facing me. She holds my thumbs and I make rowing motions.

I was confused as she melted into uncontrollable, hysterical laughter near the end of every stanza. She shrieked with delight and gabbled away in the blurred enunciation of a three year-old (+ 8 months).

Finally it dawned on me.

"Row, row row your boat,
gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily
life is butt a dream." 

Yes, gentle readers. She was melting into uncontrollable laughter because she had tricked "Grandpa" into saying the forbidden word "Butt" (British interpretation "Arse" or "Buttocks") 

Bonus image

I got even when she was looking for her stuffed bunny. 

Bonus lyrics

Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream.
If you see a crocodile,
Don't forget to scream

Row, row, row your boat
gently down the stream.
Ha, ha, fooled you
I'm a submarine. 

Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream.
Grab an oar, jokes on you,
I'm out of gasoline 

I am always looking to expand my repertoire. Any other G-rated lyrics will be appreciated.

Not unexpected

Minneapolis

The housing market has become an unexpected casualty of Minneapolis’s political turmoil. 

Home sales in the city plunged nearly 20 percent in January - the sharpest drop of any major US metro outside the ultra-expensive Bay Area - as buyers and sellers alike pulled back amid mounting political unrest.

(ERJ notes: Markets freezing up before prices drops. Sellers are reluctant to drop prices while buyers stop looking. Oddly enough, some sellers RAISE their asking price so they can "offer the buyer a discount") 

At the same time, home prices have fallen by more than $20,000 since summer, wiping out equity and raising fears that the city’s housing slowdown is only just beginning.       Source

 

Portland

 

Twenty most expensive downtown properties.    Source

Seattle

Rents are at the same rate as 2019 which represents at least a 23% decline when inflation is factored in.

There are rumblings of Amazon and Microsoft pulling their Headquarters out of Seattle. "Impossible!" you declare?  Bezos yanked the rug out from the Washington Post after losing money too many years in a row. He may be a progressive, but a dollar is a dollar and Seattle sees Amazon as a tax-donkey. 

Finding the limits and The Big Thaw

Today's big push was to drag as much wood out of the back-lot as possible while the snow was still firm.

I got a huge boost from Kubota, my youngest son. He had a doctor's appointment at lunch and rather than going back to work he came over and helped me! Yeah family!!!

I put in about four hours and Kubota worked for about two. Frankly, the little nipper did as much in two hours as I managed in four.

I had a proud moment when he latched a hold of one of the larger diameter, 16" long pieces and picked it up. "Holy crap! This is heavy."

Kubota works in construction so he is not a shrinking violet. I have to admit that I secretly puffed out my chest. The secret is on how you grip them. If you get a good grip on them, then you can lift them up close to the centerline of your core. If you get a crappy grip then you are bending over and lifting with your back.

Kubota was NOT impressed with my equipment. "Say dad, I have a buddy and we could have this job knocked out in a few hours."

How do you explain to a "kid" that my priorities are different than those on a commercial job-site where having your trade finish their dance-card and then clear the room so the next trade can come in and start work is not the highest priority.

I am also gathering "intelligence" in terms of how little equipment I need and how many hours it will take. I am also studying the limits of my endurance at the age of 66. I can probably work 2 hours a day at this level three-days-out-of-four and not be hammered into a grease spot on the pavement. At my present level of fitness, four hours a day, three-days-out-of-four would be WAY too much.

The big thaw

German Shepherd-cicles.

I saw some raccoon tracks frozen in the slush yesterday. With the big thaw coming I anticipating some VERY hungry predators around the farmstead, I baited up a live-trap with chicken bones scavenged from a SB party, best-by sale, hot-wings package. Thanks to SNH for the tip.

A thaw is coming, Muscovy ducks

 

It looks like I have until noon tomorrow to make use of the easy sledding.

Blogging might be light.

Muscovy ducks

Muscovy ducks, contrary to what you would assume from their name, are not from Moscow. 

The species is originally from Latin America.

So I am surprised to see this kind of duck show up on almost all of the "Village Life" type videos that originate in eastern Europe. They are easily identified by the fleshy, pink growths around their eyes and on the sides of their heads.

Have any of you readers raised them? Do you have any opinions on why homesteaders and other, lower-technology enterprises value them? 

 

Yes. Old guys (and mature gals) can make an incredible difference.

So I have been thinking about what advice I would give Tad Retz, the young artist featured in Fine Art Tuesday.

Steven Hanks

I had decided to tell him (if he asked) that no image is more evocative to me than to see a mother in a garden with two or three of her children. It really doesn't matter what they are doing. They could be pulling weeds or thinning the carrots or picking green beans or berries. Likely the youngest isn't really helping, he is eating whatever the other three are picking.

Hans Dahl

To me, everything is "right" about that kind of picture. It is the circle of life. It shows humans and the environment engaging in a dance-of-peers and each treating the other gently. It is how humans passed on culture and technology before paper and ink existed.

Images like that resonate in primal, atavistic ways that are deeper and truer and more compelling than our intellects. 

So imagine my surprise when one of my internet friends sent me a treasure-trove of pictures of that very thing today.

In the text he told me that he had been approached by a long-time business associate and friend. The friend said "Things are getting crazy. I want my kids and grandkids and great-grandkids to know how to grow food here in southern Nova Ruritania. Just in case.

My internet friend has been doing exactly that for fifty years. He has grown vegetables and many species of farm animals in Nova Ruritania and done it as a business. He, too, has felt the temperature rise and the pulse-rate speed up. He agreed to give the entire, extended family a crash course on growing food in their unique climate and soils as long as they agreed to participate in his HANDS-ON methods.

Alas, it did not occur to my internet friend to take pictures until the end of the class, i.e. harvest.

I asked him if he could reach out to the patriarch and ask if I could post the pictures he sent me. To my surprise, the patriarch whose family received the hands-on crash course agreed to let me post them as long as I didn't use any names or mention any location more specific than "east of Scottsbluff, Nebraska and north of Huntsville, Alabama".

With no further ado and in no particular order....

Kids caring for younger siblings is a time-honored tradition in the garden.

Harvesting tomatoes ahead of the frost...and a sugar beet?

One of these guys is my internet buddy and the other is the patriarch who had the foresight to inoculate his clan against future chaos, tumult, tempest and storm.

I cannot imagine a more perfect picture. Tad Retz...are you reading this?

End of season means harvest. Obviously, my internet buddy is a good teacher and the students put in an A+ effort!

That kid now knows where carrots come from and he probably thinks they taste pretty good. They taste like "Victory!"

Another million-dollar image

And another million dollar image. Who said you shouldn't beet your kids?

Getting ready to spike it in the end-zone.

Another perfect picture of a "Mom" and "Kids". These are real people living life to the fullest.

It is like every player who stepped up to the plate hit a home run, one after the other.

Look at the grins on their faces. This is food that is even better than what they see at Piggly Wiggly...and THEY grew it.

This picture is "OK"

This one is fabulous! All you see are elbows and pony-tails.

And this one too!

Good photo, getting down to the kid's level

Busting with pride...good pride...earned pride.

Toiling away in the background. Not showy. Not forgotten.

 

Lots of moving parts. This family is going to do "OK" and it gives me hope for the future.

We can do this.

...but can she bake a cherry-pie, darling Billy?

As a nod to the Canadian Voyageurs and lumberjacks, I have been drinking tea with a couple gently rounded teaspoons of sugar for my "energy drink" while cutting wood.

 I recall reading about a "Rendezvous" in Canada where one of the contests was to build a fire and heat up a "tea billy" of water to boiling. The people running the contest provided the wood, typically an 8" long piece of 1X8 lumber and the contestant had to provide all of his own tools.

The "grey-hairs" had to use a flint-and-steel to start the fire while the tenderfeet were allowed to use one match.

If I recall, the best times were in the four-to-five minute range and the winners used only a razor-sharp hatchet because putting down and picking up tools takes time.

Pro-tip: Split three pieces off to use as pegs driven into the ground to support the billy above the fire.