A few pictures

 

I saw these on a persimmon tree in my yard

Chrysalis (cocoons)

From the internet

Prometheus Moth chrysalis

Luna Moth chrysalis

Seedling update

It has been three weeks since most of these seeds were started. 

 

The lovage is starting to show true-leaves.

It is not all skittles-and-cream soda

Something is impacting the older Stupice tomato leaves

Bottom of leaf

These bumps look like aphids but don't move when I scrape them. Puzzling. I am going to treat it as if it was due to excessive fertilizer (note the purple) and put them on a well-water diet for a week.

And...we lost a duck today. They found a way out of the garden enclosure and were waddling around the yard. Then, a few hours later three of the four were back into the enclosure and there was no sign of the fourth one.

Coyotes and fox have their pups and kits to feed. My fault for not addressing the Great Duck Escape. 

Hoop houses

Gromit commented on an earlier post:

The lifestyle of Pavlo's parents is rooted in the fall of the Soviet Untion, not the Ukraine / Russia war. They've farmed that area, like they do now, for years. The content that shows his grandmothers a and neighbors places show well over 40 years of rough rural living. Pavlo's girlfriend fishing for perch is much as you describe, simple rig, simple location, fill the basket with fish then watch as half the catch is preserved and stored.

A minor correction, the girl who fishes for perch and Crucian Carp is not Pavlo's girlfriend. The perch fisher is about fifteen years-old and as far as I know is not related to Pavlo in any way. Pavlo's girlfriend/wife(?) is Luba and she is a blonde who usually braids her hair.

The adaptation to "technology" in subsistence cultures is a curious thing

On this channel the main character comments "I can double or triple my harvest of potatoes and cabbage with two gallons of gas. That is a pretty good deal." (Note: Units changed to something most of my readers can identify with and he is talking about enough cabbage, beets and potatoes to feed fifteen people for a year). He was talking about using an inexpensive, gasoline-powered pump to irrigate his family's fields of staple-vegetable crops.

Another technology that pops up in many videos are "hoop-houses". Suppose you lived in a place like Iron Mountain, Michigan and you could count on a 60 day growing season. Furthermore, you don't know if that will be from June first until August first or from July first until September first. Being able to guarantee SOME production from May 1 until November 1 triples your growing season. It won't triple your production of calories but it will armor you against scurvy and rickets.

Your lucky day

I am a bit of an idiot-savant about being able to look at a stick and determine what species of tree it came from. Images from this video:

Running a gasoline powered tiller inside of a hoop-house with limited ventilation. Not so smart.

Vertical supports and ridgepoles are Black Locust and the hoops and diagonal braces are Filbert (aka Hazelnut bush) shoots, probably three-years-old. They cut the shoots green and warmed them up before bending.

I am always astounded by how dry the soil is.

(Smiling), girls-be-girls. She made sure her hair was beautiful and her clothing was flattering before recording video. That is not mandatory in SHTF scenarios.

After watching this sequence a few times, I guestimate the width of the hoop-house to be between 10' and 12', the height to be about 7' and the length to be about 30'. The ends are opened-and-closed to control temperature

They plant tomatoes and cucumbers in the house in this video which was recorded in mid-April. In Michigan (pre-SHTF), I will be planting those crops outside in late-May and early-June rather than mid-April. They will be picking cucumbers (a 55 day crop) less than a week after I plant my seeds in the garden.

What tickles me about this video is that somebody executed a hoop-house that effectively doubles their growing season with very little money out-of-pocket. The Black Locust posts and poles and the filbert shoots were probably local. The plastic film might last three seasons (more likely two) if they don't peel it off the frame and stow it out of the sunlight (UV damage) after the risk of frost is over.

The thought-process also intrigues me. "I am trading 7 liters of petrol to gain 2000 kilos of potatoes" or "I am trading two handfuls of cornmeal which will attract minnows and then allow me to catch seven perch". 

This would be a fine cottage industry after the SHTF; throwing up hoop-houses made of (mostly) indigenous materials. 

 

We are running about two-weeks ahead of schedule

A wet driveway

The daffodils are finishing up their gig. The plums, service berries and ornamental pears are blooming while the pears in the orchard are tuning up their fiddles. 

Yes, I know. I have trash to pick up

Violets are still providing a beat with snare-drums. 

 

Bumblebees working Ground Ivy and Dead Nettle flowers are sketching out the melodies of summer. But not very many bumblebees, nope, not many of them.

The bumblebee is in the center of the picture. Look for a couple bands of pale yellow.

Bumblebees are ground-nesting bees. The constant rains have to be hard on them. I went to set a body-grip trap at a woodchuck hole yesterday and it was flooded. All of the woodchuck holes were flooded.

Looking at the plants that are in bloom, I estimate that we are ten days to two weeks "ahead" of a typical year in terms of bloom sequence. 

Raccoon guard update 

The 3" round vent was too small to fit around the mulberry trunks. It would have if the trunks were smooth and straight...but they are mulberries so that isn't going to happen.

The riding mower started after I filled the tank with gas but it stalls out when I start to lift the brake pedal. I might be starting the mowing season with a push mower. A mower with an effective cutting width of 18" must be push about 5.5 miles to mow an acre. At 2 mph, that pencils out to a freckle less than three hours.

King David Apple

The blurbs for this apple suggest that it is an accidental cross between Jonathan and Arkansas Black or Winesap.

According to the SSR genetic data published by the USDA, Jonathan as one parent and Winesap as the other is a much, much more likely scenario than Jonathan by Arkansas Black. Winesap matches across all nine microsatellites while Arkansas Black does not match at microsatellites CH01f02-A, GD142-A or GD147-A.

"Pavlo from Ukraine" parents starting their own gardening channel

Pavlo from Ukraine is one of the video-bloggers who I follow. If you click on the link it will take you to a tour of his mother's garden as-of a couple of days ago. One thing that I found notable was the number of small fruit crops and the area dedicated to them. They also have fruit trees and nut trees. And they have a vast garden dedicated to "staples" like potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic and so-on.

It is my opinion that if you want to see effective food-growing technology (as opposed to "trendy" eye-candy) then you need to watch people who depend on what they produce to feed themselves.

If you are interested in hunting to put meat on your table then don't watch content put out by shooters critiquing the latest $1400 rifles and whiz-bang magnums at a shooting range. Find the guy who walks around with a simple, much-used shotgun or .22LR and maybe has a few live-traps and snares in strategic places. The first hunter is flying into Wyoming or Alaska and (maybe) shooting an elk or moose once a year. The other is likely bringing a squirrel, rabbit, woodchuck, muskrat or other critter into the kitchen EVERY DAY.

If you are interested in fishing for food, don't watch the guy flying across a reservoir at 60 mph in a brand new, $40k bass-boat. Find the guy who is fishing for catfish or panfish or whatever-bites-medley using set-lines and cane-poles. 

In a similar way, Martha Stewart isn't going to show you how to grow a million Calories a year per person. Nope. She is going to show you how to grow geraniums and micro-greens for salads.

You need to visit guys like Possum Ridge and Pavlo's parents. In the case of Pavlo's parents, they were forced into it by 300% inflation in the cost of food. Their pension check now only covers the price of dairy products and eggs. That is why I am excited to see that Pavlo split-off the content where his parents show us how to garden as a stand-alone channel.

Consider popping in on them every few weeks and seeing if any of their videos strike your fancy. Their videos are about 8 minutes long which I find to be a very watchable length.

One miraculous thing about knowledge is that it can scale very quickly and inexpensively when we engage our minds. I hope we never NEED those skills in the US but God laughs when men make plans. 

The weather is driving the bus

 

Regardless of what we want, the weather is driving the bus this time of year.

It looks like April 22 and 23 will be prime days for planting potatoes, asparagus and transplanting some broccoli. The soil will be dry enough to till and walk on.

In terms of planting nursery stock, I am balancing soil conditions against my ability to keep plants cool and dormant. Today, God willing, I will be putting thornless blackberry plants into the ground, and maybe two peach trees, one plum and four apples. The holes for the blackberries are pre-dug.

I also have some round, galvanized, 3" duct to install on some mulberry trees to deter raccoons. I need to liberally grease them with Crisco because I think they can shinny up 3" round if it is dry. The raccoons and woodchucks climb the trees to eat the berries and the woodchucks also strip and eat the leaves. They break the branches on the young saplings and is not good. Black bears cause the same problems with apple and pear trees but they are extremely uncommon in this part of Michigan. 

An accidental discovery

I lifted up the cell-pack to show the roots dangling down into the water

The seedling trays and the cell packs are different heights. The tray is deeper than the cells.

I put a stringer from a pallet, nominally 5/8" thick, in the bottom of the tray to keep the cells from sagging in the middle. Then, on a whim I added water to the tray figuring the humidity would slow down the drying-out of the potting mix.

Danged if the tomato roots didn't reach right out and start sucking up that water without my even thinking about it. They look pretty healthy. I will continue to water the plants as the potting soil dries out but it is always nice to have a back-up plan.

Today's Quicksilver music selection

 

Downtime, Wild Turkeys and Ticks

We did not have Quicksilver today. We were going to various medical appointments and it absorbed both of us since one of us was not allowed to drive. We got back home at 3:30 p.m. 

Quicksilver was spoiled by Tia Belladonna today. Tomorrow I will have to endure "Belladonna did it this way" and "Belladonna did that..." It is grand that the family can close-ranks and support each other; in this case Belladonna came to the aid of Southern Belle. Of course it helps that Belladonna is very fond of Quicksilver.

Enforced rest

God must have decided that I need a break. We picked up about 3" of rain in the last week. The ground was already saturated and things are wet, wet and wet. Other counties in Michigan have been hit much harder than Eaton County. We only have eight road closures and four closed bridges and no dams on the verge of collapsing.

The FEDEX guy made a delivery right after we got home. He told me that he cancelled several deliveries today. There were multiple driveways that were covered with water and if he can't see the bottom then he isn't going down them. The last one had a "Slow Children"* sign and only two feet of the post was visible above the water. That suggests that the water is 24" deep where the sign was installed. 

Given that I would be starting late and the muddy conditions, I decided that I could take the rest of the day off and maybe load the dishwasher and push the vacuum cleaner around a bit. Who knows, I might even plug it in and turn it on. 

Wild Turkeys and Ticks

It is rumored that Wild Turkeys suppress the tick population.

I haven't seem much evidence that supports that theory

 

But it is possible that Mrs ERJ is not mixing my drinks strongly enough.

Disney does it again

Back in the mid-1990s I worked with a woman named Cindy K.

Cindy was of the opinion that really stupid ideas reappear every seven years. The first time you heard it (from management) it seemed reasonable but as you were forced to implement them the ideas' proved unworkable for a number of reasons.

The second time you were exposed you might have pushed back just a little and management explained why "It is different this time." 

That is when Cindy claimed you should find another job. Because there will be a third time and you will not push back just a little and then you will be branded as "that guy" and you will be stuffed into a corner.

That time-line probably changes with different organizations and the frequency of management "turns-over" is probably the major variable driving the variation in the time.

Disney

You may not remember but Disney took a lot of heat for their animation Song of the South a few years back. They decided to NOT release the product to streaming or DVD because of that push-back.

The critics of Song of the South were not angry about the artistic and production values of the product. They were enraged by the perception that African-Americans were portrayed as simple, aimless people.

Disney is exquisitely sensitive about its public image to the extent that they power-wash the swallow nests (bird nests) off of their buildings at O-Dark-thirty so there are no images of them "killing baby birds" to circulate.

Trolls

Sophia the First: Season One, Episode 3 indoctrinates children to be pro-immigration. The "immigrants" are trolls who live below the castle and are not allowed in by the mean, unfeeling adults.

Some of the lyrics or one of the songs 

Gnarly: Sometime I'm feeling happy
And there's lots I'd like to say
I start to speak
My knees go weak
Cause the words get in the way
Life's full of happy moments
Like being here with you
So ask us how
Were feelin' now
And this is what we do
When you can't find the words for your joy
Make some noise!
Trolls: Make some noise
Gnarly: The beat that you repeat is your voice
Make some noise
Trolls: Make some noise
Gnarly: Feeling crazy? What do you do
Make some noise
Trolls: Make some noise
Make some noise...

Yessir: Immigrants...nothing but simple children who need seven-year-old children to advocate for them and to SHOW adults that they can be smuggled into the castle in spite of all of those mean rules. 

Note that the comments for the video are turned off.