Contractors A-A-R, work-tickets and Farmer's Carry

The contractors came-and-went yesterday.

One of the members of the crew lives north of Sparta, Michigan and commutes every working day to the south side of Brighton, Michigan. It is 140 miles, one-way and an honest two hours time when the weather is good and there are no accidents or construction.

Today's first job (mine) took him half-way back toward home. The next job will take him into the city of Detroit. From there he had to return to the south side of Brighton to drop off his equipment and then drive back home. He has ten grandchildren and likes to play golf. He carries a 9mm handgun.

Another member of the crew has a young child of about 6 months. His child is colicky and not eating well. The doctor finally sorted out the issues and surgery is required. That member of the crew is sleep-deprived.

A third member of the crew only works for "the boss" three days a week. He has his own business. Most bosses would not put up with that situation but this guy is an absolute artist with heavy equipment and they schedule jobs around his availability.

MOSTLY, I didn't try to help them. MOSTLY, I was successful.

The boss sets the tone. He was still in-transit when the first two guys showed up. I went out and greeted them. The first guy who I described was on the phone with the boss.

They started the job (i.e. working) before he showed up, which I considered pretty amazing. That is evidence of a level of trust that can develop when the same people work together over a period of time.

Other than NOT HELPING, I didn't do anything productive all day.

Today's work-tickets

I am not going to lift at the gym today. I am woefully behind in pulling weeds.

I intend to get in three hours pulling/cutting weeds.

I intend to cut the grass and move brush for an additional hour.

Core Strength

This video is long and boring and mentions a number of exercises that I never heard of. 

The link should pop you into the video at their #1 choice for improving core strength and it was something I understood.

Farmer's Carry is their #1 choice. Also known as "Lugging buckets of water in the orchard".  

 

A little bit of older music

Whether you liked the music or not, there were certain songs and movies that were iconic and captured some of the zaniness of the age. Contrary to what today's SJW kill-joys would have you believe, we were supported body-positivity even back then.

We could even poke a little bit of fun at ourselves. 

 The Bertha Butt Boogie (long)

Fat Bottomed Girls (make the rocking world go round)

And we celebrated other cultures

King Tut
 

Walk like an Egyptian

Construction update

Contractors will be on the property today. We might have to drop the power for an extended period. If so, posting will be light.

The main item on today's work-tickets is to stay out of their way while remaining available. 

Chainsaws, UPS, lost knives and arcane hardware (pop-quiz)

Somebody wanted to borrow my chainsaw

I asked "Why?" 

They replied "My friend had a couple of trees come down in his yard during the recent storms."

I told him "If I loan you my chainsaw I come with it."

Handing a random person a tool that can whack off an arm in less than one second is not prudent.

Consequently, part of my morning was spent cutting up a downed Wild Black Cherry (Prunus serotina) and Box Elder (Acer negundo). Both of those species are considered "invasive aliens" in Europe. Of the two, P. serotina is the more attractive tree.

Shipping something via UPS

A person in another state wanted a few pieces of bud-wood from one of my trees.

He shipped me a box, an expanded, polystyrene cooler and two ice-packs. He also included a return label to put on the box for the return trip.

About an hour-and-a-half of my morning was spent preparing the bud-wood, boxing it up and transporting it to a UPS Store.

Time-on-task/Clock-time

According to my stop-watch, I spent 4:38 on the two separate tasks. By my reckoning, maybe 90 minutes of it was actual time-on-task.

That is not a great ratio, only about 30% of the time was actually spent running the chainsaw or cutting scion. Time in the truck doesn't put food in the pantry.

Pop-quiz

This story start with a lost paring knife.

Mrs ERJ is quite fond of our Old Hickory paring knife. We have had it for decades. And then, earlier this week, it disappeared.

While looking through my inventory of cutting tools for a replacement, I happened across two items made of steel that I had been looking for because of other reasons. 

On two different occasions I had a need to add a degree-of-separation between these artifacts and their "mothers" thereby rendering their mother inop whilst still being able to restore their capability in a timely manner.

Timely, that is, if I had remembered the "safe place" I had stored these items. 

Bonus points for any readers who can identify the mothers of these artifacts. More photos can be provided if needed.

Closure on the paring knife

I ordered another paring knife. It now costs $23 rather than the $5 they cost in 2010. By my calculus, it is a bargain if you can make your wife happy for the cost of three cups of foo-foo coffee.

Fine Art Tuesday

 

Roman Kochanowski was born in Krakow, Poland in 1857 and died in 1945. He spent most of his professional life in Munich.

 

Weight-lifting slippers, Big Two-Hearted River and random pictures

 

Shamelessly stolen borrowed from Midwest Chick.

I recently learned that elite weight-lifters like TB wear special weight-lifter slippers while working out.

Say no more. I was on it like a duck-on-a-Junebug or like flies-on-'tater-salad. 

I was undoubtedly the envy of every other weight-lifter at the gym.

It was a LOT faster to get changed into my gym-togs. I slipped out of my sandals and slid my feet into these fox-fur (faux-fur) lined bad-boys. Camo shorts and a torn tee-shirt completed my redneck-chic ensemble...which coincidentally is the same redneck chic I sport outside of the gym.

I may have a future as a fashion "influencer". 

Sadly, I was unable to find the Tahini at the local grocery store so I had to make do without it.

Count me as a skeptic regarding most "ethnic" cooking. Folks made-do with what was in-season and what was abundant. It was an ever-shifting kaleidoscope of flavors that changed week-by-week...sometimes day-by-day.

I have to confess that I really like the way even a few plants of dill make the garden smell. 

A fun video

It amazes some people that places like this still exist in the United States east of the Mississippi River. The Big Two-Hearted River was the title of an Ernest Hemingway short-story. It is a real river in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. It is not big.

This is reader CoyoteKen's stomping grounds. 

Bonus images

Chinese Cabbage seedlings cv. "Citrus". Surprisingly, unmolested by the ducks.

A cucumber in a wheelbarrow. I ran out of hands and parked the cuke in the wheelbarrow. Then, I realized it was photogenic, returned and snapped the photo. 

The tomatoes on the right side of the frame were sold to me as Rose de Bern. RdB is an 80 day tomato that is very large, round an pink. I was deceived! That cannot be RdB.

On the other hand, the seeds I saved from a winter squash I purchased last fall is over-performing.

Speaking of over-performing...

It is an article of faith in the prepper community that "you never want to become a refugee".

The backstory is that this man, a software engineer from San Francisco, Ca, convinced himself that he was in mortal danger in "Trump's America". Because emigrating in the ordinary fashion requires paperwork and takes many months to execute, he opted to emigrate to the Netherlands (a bastion of Progressive ideals) as a political refugee because it was expedient.

He was distressed to find himself interred with hundreds of other undocumented refugees who had also chosen the most expeditious path. Many of his fellow refugees were from Islamic countries where the norm is to stone LGBT+ people, throw them off of buildings or to glue random body orifices shut with super-glue.

The fine Progressive of the Netherlands understand this and he is safe as long as he stays within his room but he cannot safely venture outside of the building to buy groceries or travel to the US embassy. 

In retrospect, he determined that he was poorly calibrated when he decided that he was oppressed when he lived in San Francisco, California (a notoriously conservative metro region) making +$150k per year and he wants to come back to the United States.

Preview of the day

Today's work-tickets

• Pick up the yard. We have contractors scheduled to come over on Wednesday
• Run impulse sprinkler on west end of potato patch until 1:30
• Tidy up front porch
• Pick tomatoes
• Pick cucumbers 
• Pick broccoli 
• Tie up tomato vines
• Go to the gym
• Walk with Mrs ERJ 
• Buy whole-wheat pita bread, hummas, tahini and a bottle of red wine
• Sharpen the chain on the chainsaw (small job tomorrow) 
• Pull some weeds
• Throw bottles of water into freezer to make ice
• Cut bud-wood from a pear tree 

Last night, the weather-guessers were saying 0.8" of rain today. Now they are down to 0.5" 

A warning to my readers in the mid-West, be sure to lock your vehicle doors when you leave it unattended. It is zucchini season.

 

Organized Religion

From the comments, Old Grump wrote:

Wish I could be as comfortable with organized religion as most of you here that share Joe's acceptance. I, unfortunately have many bad experiences with the individuals and organizations that purport to serve God. Every thing from demanding people living in abject poverty to give a significant portion of any income to them while living in lavish homes, committing adultery with vulnerable members and just being accepted as Gods messenger a-la Jim Jones and the Bakers. I can't say I am totally comfortable in my stance but that's where the preponderance of evidence leads me.

It is undeniable that many horrible things have been done by people flying the banner of organized religion. Is that a failing of the people who did the horrible things, organized religion or do they share in the culpability?

The first time something happens the perpetrator is the only one who is culpable.

After the first time, or if members of the religion/church learn about the sin while it is happening and don't address it...then the church is also culpable.

God has imperfect tools to work with. He once called Peter "Satan" (literally, stumbling-block). He betrayed by Judas, one of his apostles. He was abandoned and denied by ten others and the only apostle who is recorded to have stuck with him through the crucifixion is John. 

Then, prior to Pentecost, the apostles huddled like scared rabbits trying to figure out what to do next.

I scratch my head at people who reject organized religion solely because of imperfect people when the imperfect apostles were good enough for Jesus. 

The church has always been made of, and for, broken and sinful people. And yes, I consider myself to be in that group.

Only slightly related

The church exists to serve people's needs. Different people have different needs for "connection".

Foxes and leopards hunt alone. Wolves and lions hunt in groups. There is nothing wrong with foxes or leopards or wolves or lions. They are what they are.

Before interrupting a church service in Minnesota, Don Lemon was going to disrupt a church service in the deep south. That was before he learned that every man wearing a suit-coat and every woman carrying a handbag was "packing heat".

Some people are most at peace and can talk-to-Jesus best when they are alone or with just a few like-minded people. Other people feel out-of-place when they are not in a crowd. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with either type of person. The fishers of men take us all.