Disability

 

In very round numbers, every year represents about five million people and the number of people between 15 and 64 is about 250 million people who are potentially in the labor pool.

There were 28 million Americans with some form of disability in 2012 and that drifted up to 30 million by 2020. In the last six years it has grown to 36 million. That is 14.5% of the entire labor pool.

Twenty years ago, it was rare for a worker under 30 to be on disability. Disability was generally caused by repetitive motion injuries or work-place accidents and the case-rate climbed with age. It is my impression that there has been a significant number of people in their 20s going on disability for emotional/mental issues compared with decades past.

I know this comes across as cold, but there is a world of difference between somebody in construction tapping-out at 48 because his body gave out and a 24 year-old who goes on disability because of an inability to cope with the work-place. The man in construction worked for 30 years and wore out. The 24 year-old hit-the-silk before contributing virtually anything back to society.

All that said, many people with disabilities are fully employed. Sixty percent of the people with hearing disabilities are fully employed while only seventeen percent with "self-care disabilities" are. In total, the labor participation rate of people with disabilities is half that of people who do not designated as disabled.

EHD in Eaton County?

 

A dead deer in the Upper Orchard. Maybe a couple of weeks old.

Another dead deer. This one in the Hill Orchard. No evidence of an archery wound. The other deer was too-far gone to even look for evidence wounds from a hunter.

Dating corpses is an art and ambient temperatures make a huge difference. My Wild Azz Guess is that this deer has been dead for four days. Extremely bloated. Prolapsing rectum. Rectum? Heck, it killed 'im.

In total, the Upper and Hill Orchards are about an acre. Two dead deer in a single acre doesn't mean EHD is in Eaton County but it doesn't bode well for the 2026 hunting season.

Word on the street is that Jackson and Calhoun Counties, both of them directly south of Eaton County, have been hammered by EHD. 

Lifting and I-hate-fleece for outerwear

I went to the gym yesterday. It has been more than a month since I lifted in the gym.

I was very surprised that I was able to complete my "maintenance" routine with no issues. I even added 10 pounds to the last two sets.

The routine (all dead-lifts):

• One set of six repetitions 135 pounds (a 45 pounds bar + two 45 pounds plates). Lift without straps.
• Five minute recovery
• One set of six repetitions of 185 pounds (same as above + two 25 pound plates). Lift made with straps.
• Five minute recovery
• Four sets of six repetitions of 205 pounds (same as above + two, 10 pound plates) with five minutes of recovery between each set. Lifts made with straps.

I expect to be sore for the next couple of days. I am feeling it most in my trapezius muscles. The right amount of soreness is conducive to a good night's sleep. 

While I was lifting I saw another lifter who reminded me of somebody I hadn't seen in 20 years. When he was taking a break and I was on my five-minute recovery, I walked over and asked "Did you ever work at Fisher Body?"

"Yes. Yes I did..." he replied. And we chatted for about ten minutes before I could pry myself away. He looks healthier now than he did in 2003, primarily in his skin-tones. They were now rosy-pink rather than ashy-gray.

Mistakes were made 

I have about 120 pounds of potatoes that I dug but have not collected.

We had a frost last night. 

I don't know if the potatoes were damaged but we are not going to commingle these potatoes with the others.

Fleece and burs

Fleece and fabrics with a soft surface are almost universal now. You have to look to find outerwear that is suitable for wearing beyond mown surfaces. Fleece outerwear just does not work for me this time of year.

45% of 15-to-24 year-olds do not participate in the labor market

 

Labor force participation 15-24 year-old men. NOT seasonally adjusted.

Notable for 17% swings in participation rate in the 1960s and less than half that now. Also notable for the base-rate of 55% being incredibly stable for the last 15 years.

Peak month for participation is July. 

Seasonal work is important because it is often a gateway to full-time employment and because food harvesting, for instance, is seasonal in nature.

It is worth noting that work that is paid "under the table" is not captured in this data. 

Labor force participation 15-24 year-old women. NOT seasonally adjusted.

Notable for the rapid climb starting in 1965, hitting a plateau between 1980-through-2020 and then sagging until 2010. Currently tied with men's labor participation rates although seasonal excursions are about 2/3 that of men's.

Peak participation month is July. 

Labor force participation 15-64 year-old men. NOT seasonally adjusted.

For the entire population of men, labor-force participation has been collapsing for as long as they have been taking data. We are currently at 80% participation.

Labor force participation 15-64 year-old women. NOT seasonally adjusted.

For the entire population of women, labor-force participation rose from 40% to 70% between 1955 and today.

In what appears to be a statistical anomaly, there is not seasonal ripple. That suggests that the 15-24 cohort ripple (peak in July) is damped by higher seasonal employment Sept-through-May by older cohorts of women. Examples, teachers and aides in classrooms, working retail in November and December.

Fake News Friday: Gwyneth Collections drops new fragrance for October, 2026

 

An excellent and very long essay about the fragilities in the US food system

An excellent and incredibly long essay on the fragilities of the US food system by Madge Waggy. About a 30 minute read, 45 minutes if you stop and think while reading it.

Rather than repeat the whole catalogue (of potential failure points), four things are worth holding in mind, because they are where the pressures actually meet: 

• The system has very little stored reserve, so a delay anywhere turns into a shortage somewhere else.
• The most critical nodes, from packing plants to ports, are few enough that one failure travels nationally.
• The natural base, meaning water and soil, is degrading slowly and unevenly, with the damage concentrated in the regions that produce the most.
• The public has little reserve and adapts quickly, which delays any political pressure to fix the problem.

The point of gathering them is not to list ten separate troubles but to show one system with several places it can give.

***

What would make the biggest difference is probably the least glamorous thing, which is treating resilience as something worth paying for in advance rather than regretting in hindsight. That means valuing the buffer, the spare plant, the local mill, the cover crop, and the extra warehouse, even when they look inefficient in a good year. It means measuring the system not by how cheaply it runs in calm weather but by how gracefully it fails in bad weather.

The hardest part is that resilience has no constituency. It has no ribbon-cutting, no dramatic rescue, no visible hero.

Disclosure: Some of the "stock phrasing" suggests that AI might have assisted in the writing of this essay.

Peppers, apples, lizards and ducks

The dregs in the bottom of the mug

Quicksilver was helping us pick potatoes when she got distracted.

She found some Stocky Red Roaster peppers that I had missed when doing our last picking. If memory serves, she found 13 of them.

I told Mrs ERJ that I was tired. I was done. She could toss them on the compost pile and I would be fine with that.

But she didn't do that. She put on a pretty dress and a straw hat and walked around the neighborhood and tried to give the peppers to our neighbors. She came home with two of the thirteen peppers.

In that simple act, she reinforced our standing in the neighborhood as "certified good-guys" far more than everything I have done this summer.

Girls and their social nature, God bless them all.

Technology

Southern Belle's employment evolution now includes work-from-home requirements.

To make that happen, she needs more computer power and, especially, more monitors. Her 12.7" slap-top screen is not going to cut the mustard.

The monitors are cheap. Computers, and RAM, are expensive.

Fortunately, Pascal, my new son-in-law, is gifted in the cyber-arts and is cheerfully helping Southern Belle out. He recommended two, inexpensive, 27" monitors and a signal splitter.

Jumping from one 12.7" screen to two, 27" screens AND the original 12.7' screen is approximately 9X more viewing area.

MM-106 rootstock

While poking around the property, I stumbled upon a planting of apple-rootstock that had slipped my mind. I counted over 30 useable whips and am strongly considering bumping up the two Dacha orchards by an additional 5 trees each.

The orchards are already at the gross-overkill level, but the ground is available and the trees are almost free. 

MM-106 is the most dwarfing rootstock that is reliably free-standing. That is, it does not require a post or a trellis to keep the trees from falling over even while being established. However, the trees will be more productive, earlier in their lives if they are supported because that tips the carbs:nitrogen ratio which is one of the primary variables that helps a bud decide if it is going to make a woody-shoot or produce fruit.

MM-106 is a very productive rootstock and at one time was the most commonly planted rootstock.

Its failings are that it is larger than most commercial orchards currently desire, it is intolerant of standing water (clay) and is not very cold-hardy. In spite of those failings, there are 40 year-old trees in the Upper Orchard that are Empire grafted on MM-106 and they are still paying their rent. It seems unlikely that I will still be here 40 years from now.

Life is about compromises. The greatest point in its favor is that I have 30 of them in my possession right now.

Boys need purpose

I have been pondering the first video in yesterday's post. The narrator pointed out that modern parenting (feminist-forward) rarely holds boy's accountable.

I think that is a backhanded way of pointing out that the feminist world-view is that boys/men don't have the capacity to exercise self-discipline and thus cannot be held accountable, the same way you cannot hold a mentally retarded person to the same standards as a normal person. It is the implicit sexism of very, very low expectations.

Fathers are gun-shy about challenging mothers. It rarely ends well.

Boys wither under what, in reality, is the contempt of their mothers and the cowardice of their fathers.

Proving once again that children need both parents. They need the ying and they need the yang. Boys need both mothers and fathers. Girls need both fathers and mothers. A father is not a defective parent (i.e. an inferior, third-rate mother). We are our own species and what we bring to the parenting table cannot be replaced by "more mothering".

Play-date

Quicksilver's play-date group introduces them to the letters of the alphabet. This week's letter is "L" and the letter-person is Lizzy Lizard.

Of course, being the helpful person that I am, I reinforced the lessons by sharing the following clip from The Parent Trap with Quicksilver. Sadly, there are no local businesses that will allow generous grandfathers to lease a lizard for a week.

Some pictures of the duck dormitory

The duck dormitory is a work-in-progress. 

Overview. There is an 8' by 5' fenced-in run on the right side of frame. Normally, they get the run of the garden to provide slug and snail control.

A 300 lumen, outside, spike-light on a timer that shines into the enclosure to provide additional hours of light. Ducks spatter everything with mud. Having it outside keeps it cleaner and it is much easier to clean.

The most recent addition is the solar path-light. The ducks seem more willing to go into the enclosure when it is well lit after sun-down. I dislike chasing animals. I prefer to modify the environment so they WANT to do go where I want them to go, when I want them to go there.

Mesh does not get covered with mud the way that windows do. More of the light goes in.

The main door. I had been propping it open with a chunk of wood but that spooked one of the ducks. Holding it open with a string-and-hook has been working better.

 

Ducks like to poop while swimming. That makes their drinking water filthy. I saw a woman use a slotted watering bucket for her ducks on one of the Dacha videos. I guessed at the dimensions of the slots.

Ducks like to take a drink after every few bites of food. They stick their bills in the water and shake them side-to-side. Much of the food washes out into the water.