Beautiful in every way

 

Win some, lose some

Topping the tray of elderberry cuttings with wood-shavings proved to be a mistake.

The temperature of the potting mix hit 123F which cooked the bottoms of the cuttings.

I unplugged the heating mat, trimmed the cuttings back to green cambium and re-stuck them.

BBB

Big Brown Bat. That is what we had flying laps in our living-room this morning before I took Quicksilver to her play-date. I opened one of the windows and then we departed. Maybe it left. Maybe it did not.

Quicksilver had asked me what was chirping over by our exterior door. Of course, I could not hear anything and thought it was a bird outside. I bet it was the bat.

Wins

Quackerberries

Nicotiana tabacum cv. "TN-90" seedlings

The big day for planting seeds will be April 1. That is when I will be planting the tomato seeds: Stupice, Federle, Rosa de Bern and Ace 55. I will also plant the sweet peppers, Stocky Red Roaster and the Lovage.

Pressure on multiple fronts

One of the things Trump's team has done well has been to flood-the-zone.

Saturating an issue with multiple initiatives tangles up the opponent's ability to file law suites and halt implementation of those initiatives.

An example of this is a voter initiative that parallels the SAVE Act in many ways.

Hat-tip to Esox lucius lover. 

Presented without comment

 

Fine Art Tuesday

 

The Widow's Birthday

Walter Dendly Sadler was born in 1854 in Dorking, Surrey, England and died in 1923. He was a commercial success because his paintings elicited nostalgia and were often humorous. The image shown above shows three older gentlemen with gifts all showing up at the same time to court the wealthy widow. The widow was embroidering at the table on left side of image and presumably decamped as she saw them converging.

Sadler found a great deal of humor in how us humans court our mates. 

His images were also suitable for lithographic reproduction and he was able to capitalize on that.

Netting the catch (a potential groom?)

Thursday night

Friday feast

A love note

Courting a widow (notice the black clothing). Short life-spans during the Industrial Revolution meant many widows and widowers even in the wealthier classes.

The complete angler

Another fishing scene

Another courting scene

 

Sunday is a day of rest

Very little to report regarding activities on Sunday.

I slept.

***End of report***

Longer version

While at Mass I noticed that I had lots of sore muscles: Calves, left knee, thighs, shoulders and neck. My eyes were itching and while waiting for the lovely Mrs ERJ after Mass I observed that the lymph-nodes at the base of my jaw were enlarged. 

I also noticed that I was tired, a hazy-gray, no-peripheral-vision kind of tired.

The sore muscles were most likely due to physical activity. Crusty/itchy eyes are from tree pollen and my allergies. Enlarged lymph-nodes could be from a multitude of sources including over-exertion and exposure to proteins that my body mistakes for alien invaders (like pollen). It could also be some minor, opportunistic virus challenging my body.

So, my Sunday day of rest was enforced by my body agreeing with God. I took a three hour nap and went to bed early.

What is this thing called "Faith"

I believe that there are many intelligent people who were raised in families that either did not practice a Christian faith or only practiced it in the most nominal of ways.

They look at Christianity as an intellectual puzzle and consider it to be contrary and irrational, a Catch-22 situation if you prefer that term.

"What is faith? How can I get it? It seems like I must  already have faith as a precondition to getting faith. I don't have faith. You say faith is a gift of the Holy Spirit but he never gave me that gift. It doesn't make any sense to me..."

One possible path...

I make no claims to having universal answers. However, a few verses that seems pivotal to those questions.

...they were cut to the heart, and they asked Peter and the other apostles, “What are we to do, my brothers?”Peter [said] to them, “Repent and be baptized,  every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the holy Spirit. For the promise is made to you and to your children and to all those far off, whomever the Lord our God will call.”   Acts of the Apostles 2:37-39

I want to call attention to the order St Peter listed them in:

1. Repent. Examine your conscience*. Resolve to not sin again. Analyze what conditions made it easier to sin than not-sin. Commit to avoiding those circumstances that make you exceptionally vulnerable to sin. Ask forgiveness from those who you hurt with your sins. (Repent, Examine, Resolve, Commit, Ask)

2. Baptize. Realize that "...name of Jesus Christ..." means that you are joining a family. Families (even dysfunctional ones) are a complex web of reciprocal  responsibilities and privileges. Baptism is a sacrament that is the equivalent of bathing in insecticides + antibiotics and autoclaving your lousy, infected old clothing.

3. AFTER you do those two things; that is when you will be visited by the Holy Spirit. It probably will not be bolts of lightning or flames or pigeons landing on your shoulder. It is more likely to be whispers and insights and maybe memorable dreams. 

*The linked Examination of Conscience is very thorough. There are many Examinations on the internet. Some are for younger people. Some are for people who are single. Others are for married people. In terms of sin, we all live in slightly different threat environments. 

Flowers, cutting grass, trees and raccoons

Unexpected surprises

Bittercress. Exact species unknown.

Crocus. Is the plural "Crocii"?

 

Cutting the grass

Bamboo. The ladder was used to clear gutters but was not needed to cut bamboo. 

Between 3% and 5% of what I need to cut. A lot of tomato stakes and fishing poles there.

Walnut roots

I was replacing pear trees that had died over the winter. In two cases there were walnut roots close to the tree. I removed those roots.

Last fall I had a gentleman use a trencher to run between the tree-line (which is mostly walnuts) and the orchard. It takes the roots several years to die and they keep pumping out juglone. I assume it is in reduced quantities as their metabolism runs out of reserves, but I don't know that.

Yesterday's "stem count" were one grafted Silk Hope mulberry, one grafted Illinois Everbearing mulberry and and five grafted Harrow Sweet pears over Pyrus betulifolia roots. I also stuck about 30 Salix purpurea cuttings on the windward side of a faint depression on an east-facing slope.

I cut scion from a male Morus rubrum, Lehman's Delight persimmon. 

Raccoons

I had a live trap in the barn (Eaton Rapids) for a month-and-a-half. During that time I caught three possum and no raccoons. I suspect that we had a die-off, either because of Canine Distemper or due to our brutal January.

I did see raccoon tracks in the mud at the bottom of the Hill Orchard. I set some traps.

Raccoons are devastating to my young mulberry trees. They climb out on the limbs to get the sweet morsels and tear them off the trunk. People growing fruit where there are bears have the same problems. Bears love apples and peaches.

Do any of my readers who feed birds have any sure-fire ways to stop raccoons from shinnying up the pole? Stove pipe? Collars/barrel-top type blockers?

Bonus images (distribution of blood pressure by age)

Men, systolic (larger or first number)

Men, diastolic (smaller or second number)

 

Women, systolic

Women, diastolic

I was conversing with a gentleman of about 65 years of age and he told me that his doctor kept talking to him about his blood pressure. He claimed that he had a BP of 230...which sounds unlikely. I wonder if he was confusing cholesterol numbers with BP.

Percent of study group, siloed by age and sex, and class of drug therapy they were receiving

 

Some pictures

 

I increased the length of the arms on my buck for cutting firewood. It made a big difference in my productivity. The extended length is 16".

I originally had them shorter because of my concern about my (in)ability to lift heavy logs high enough. That concern proved unfounded.

This guy has an interesting buck. He cuts a lot of "trash/brush" for burning. He has the play-back speed accelerated so you might want to slow down the playback to 50% or less.

Beans, beans, the musical fruit... 

I was struck by how the water that I soaked the beans in overnight developed a stable foam when I ran more water in. That is evidence that soaking leaches out oligosaccharides and saponins that might otherwise distress your digestion.

...several hours later...

Incidentally, this is a great time of year to buy hams and freeze them. Many stores run sales before Easter with hams as a loss-leader.

Cutting update

Willow cuttings.

 

Even the Crack Willows in the back are showing signs of life

Elderberry cuttings

Close-up of elderberry cuttings showing the buds pushing. They don't show up in the other picture because there is not a lot of color contrast between the new shoots and the wood shavings.

For future reference: 

Link1 Link2

A source of hard-to-find fruit varieties. Scion. "Adara" universal Prunus rootstock.