Mark-to-Market

One of the hazards of the "clean sheet of paper" approach is that historical models often have armor against rare-but-critical events that are difficult to anticipate.

For example, I once participated in the introduction of a new model of automobile that used the "clean sheet of paper" approach. One deliverable involved several systems so it was not clear which department was responsible for validating it.

When the vehicle was tested (for being compatible with the three most common forms of tow-trucks), the referee determined that it has sustained $2400 worth of damage. Imagine gentle sliding your vehicle into a ditch only to have the tow-truck inflict over $2k of damage! In retrospect, many of the seemingly non-functional features on the vehicle's predecessor armored it against damage from towing.

Social Democrats

The Communists who rebranded themselves as Social Democrats are remaking America using a "clean sheet of paper" approach.

In their zeal to protect "the working class", the Communists made property owners the "bad guy" and are punishing them with increased property taxes and by freezing rents.

For the young kids who were not paying attention in school, Communists hate private property and the people who own any.

One high-profile investor, Sergey Brin, dumped the stock he owned in a Real Estate Investment Trust that owned and managed apartments in New York City. It was reported that he decided it was better to sell at seven-cents-on-the-dollar of his original investment that to stay invested and get whacked for assessments that would put him underwater.

Let that sink in for a moment. In the opinion of a guy having a net worth of about 1/4 Trillion dollars, having your name on a deed to a piece of income property in New York City is not an asset. It is a liability.

Since property tax revenues are the product of multiplying the assessed value of the property by a fixed (but rising) tax rate, any changes to the assessed value of the property will impact the revenue collected by NYC.

In the baldest possible way, Sergey Brin just told Mamdani and the other Communists that the market value of vast swaths of NYC commercial real estate is now only worth 7% of what it was circa 2019.

All of the other holders of real estate are watching. Wanna bet that there is a line of property owners at the assessor's office demanding that there assessments be adjusted to the new reality?

A secondary effect is that it will lock up credit. The book-value of the property serves as collateral for loans. Those loans are used to finance upgrades like more efficient heating and cooling, WIFI and communication infrastructure, mitigating environmental hazards like lead and asbestos and cockroach dander. The wholesale destruction of the book-value of NYC's (and Seattle and Chicago...) property will paralyze the access to the credit needed to maintain the desirability of the individual properties and ultimately the desirability of the city.

But wait, there is more...

Brin bailed out of a sinking ship. The REIT he bailed out of owns thousands of rental units. When the REIT reorganizes or liquidates, it appears likely that nobody will step-up to assume the responsibility of managing the multi-family buildings. That is, collecting the rent and to paying the taxes and utility bills and executing the basic blocking-and-tackling of doing what needs to be done. Nobody wants to take a bite out of that poisoned apple.

The REIT Brin abandoned is just first of many. 

So how is that going to work when the boiler in the cellar craps-out in January? The REIT was vaporized. Will the city suddenly open a department filled with property managers? Where will they come from? Who will pay their wages or will Mamdani expect them to work for free? Where will the budget for replacing the boiler(s) come from? Who will evict the dead-beats and the drug dealers?

How are the Communists running NYC going to handle the evisceration of their property tax revenues? Albany cannot print money. Trump is unlikely to rescue them. There was a system with checks-and-balances in place. The Communists took a wrecking ball to it. That wrecking ball also destroyed the trust investors had in institution of NYC. A glib "My bad. Come back" isn't going to cut it.

Rainbow flag report, clover, fishing and polyethylene prices

 

The main street that runs north/south through Eaton Rapids runs past two "monument" churches.

In years past, one of the churches filled their front yard with Gay Pride flags for the entirety of June. What was jarring to me, personally, is that this church also has a large daycare and all of the flags were visible from the daycare's play-yard which defines the front yard's south boundary.

My critics (and I have a few) undoubtedly consider me a bigot and that I read too much into it, but it gives the appearance that the church is:

• Exposing very young children to blatant sexuality (which is not specifically LGBTQ+). 
• Promoting life-styles that are in direct contradiction to the Bible
• Unilaterally co-opting parental authority.
• The appearance that the church is recruiting for LGBTQP+ replacement
• The most generous possible spin is that the church's management is guilty of horrible optics

This year, 2026, there was not a Gay Pride flag in sight.

Either the church read the room differently in 2026 or, perhaps, sources of funding (Federal-->NGO?) dried up and funds available from grass-roots sources was not enough to purchase new flags.

Regardless of the reasons, I am relieved that the little kids were not immersed in LGBTQP+ propaganda.

Clover

After a slow start, the clover planted in the aisles between the rows of trees on the Hill Orchard showed up. The first three weeks of June were rainy and the white clover, being a shallow rooted species, really responded.

One aisle

A second one

 

A third one. This one's bottom 3/4 (top of frame) had zero clover in it.

Zoomed in view showing a patch of the previous picture from near the bottom of the hill

I was into Management Intensive Grazing when we had animals on the Eaton Rapids property. One of the founding principles of MIG is to manage your pasture (the timing of moving animals from paddock-to-paddock, recovery times, fertilizer/liming) to favor a strong stand of white clover. If you consistently have 15%-to-40% white clover then you are on top of your game.

The white clover is an indicator species. It is also highly palatable and it fixes nitrogen. It disappears when you let the grass get too tall before moving the animals in. Tall grass is overly mature and less palatable than younger grass. The animals eat less of it and don't perform as well.

If you think about it for a second, The Promised land...the land of "milk and honey" probably meant the pastures had a lot of clover in them. Clover makes milk. Clover flowers are rich sources of nectar for bees.

I am happy when the aisles are sporting an abundance of clover.

I am going to hold off on mowing for a week to let it set a little bit more seed. 

Fishing report

No fish were caught.

Shotgun indulged in an CAO Amazon Basin cigar.

We talked about the practicality of using an electric fence charger to "discipline" the turtles that kept stealing our bait. We decided that the Department of Natural Resources would take a dim view of our inventiveness.

Polyethylene prices

Ten-year history prices of polyethylene. 

Reader Gerry commented that I was wrong when I attributed the high cost of containers to the price of polyethylene plastic.

He is right!!! It is currently lower than the running, ten-year average. If you factor in inflation, it is cheaper now than it has been at any time in the prior ten years.

I have to qualify that a bit. There are LOTS of kinds of polyethylene. Some of it is very stretchy...like the cling-wrap you use in the kitchen. Some is very not-stretchy...like grocery bags. Some is soft and pliable...like poly tubing. Some is hard and wear-resistant like UHMW. Different processes (catalysts, temperatures etc.) produce different kinds of PE. Once a process is churning out a validated product, processors are loath to shut it down and juggle the input variables to make a different kind.

Fine Art Tuesday

Robert McLellen Bateman was born in Toronto, Ontario in 1930 and is still living in Canada.

 

Famous for his paintings of wildlife which are done in amazing detail and in with believable backgrounds.

It is an unwritten rule among the better artists that seagulls always be painted in pairs. As the old saw goes, "One good tern deserves another"

 

Another tip of the hat to 10x25mm for recommending this artist

 

Note to reader, posting will be light. The power cord for my laptop is dying. A new one is ordered and is expected Monday.

Low expectations

 

I painted the roof of the duck-jail white to reduce temperatures under it. The jail is a re-purposed truck cap that was free on Craigslist. 

I tilled Southern Belle's gardens this morning and took some measurements. She assigned me the task of putting up another pole on the perimeter of her deck so she can put up another 12' square of shade-cloth.

One 8', 4-by-4 and hardware was purchased. Receipts were saved and I will be reimbursed.

I tilled up about 20 feet of row that had been planted to beets but none of them survived. I planted half to cucumbers (approximately 60 days from seed-to-first cucumbers) and half to Daikon radish.

I set up the sprinkler on the west end of the potato patch and turned it on at 8:00 p.m. to minimize evaporation and my electric bill. Michigan allows utilities to charge 24 cents a kW-hr between 2:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. I will run the sprinkler overnight.

Coasting

Mrs ERJ and I are coasting through this hot spell. We cut our usual 40 minute walk short at 35 minutes.

We bought a rotisserie chicken and a bagged salad for dinner.

I am not getting much done but I am not standing still, either. 

Tomorrow's work-ticket

Install the new post on Southern Belle's deck.

Spot-water some newly grafted trees.

Walk with Mrs ERJ.

Go fishing with Shotgun (first time this season!!!)

Stretch target: Pick up a half-yard of sawdust.

Random B.S.

Ya know, throwing a bunch of Zebra Mussels into the Washington D.C. cement-pond would reduce the algae problems. Another alternative would be to plant Silver Carp (Hypophthalmichthys molitrix). That would drive the E.P.A. bonkers because ZM and SC are not a native species.  Maybe there are native, North American species that is an analogs of the ZM and SC. Perhaps the native species can be genetically modified so they have red, white and blue shells.

Another approach would be to allow year-round duck hunting to reduce the amount of "nutrients" deposited by visiting ducks. But I cannot see D.C. allowing hunters toting 3-1/2", 12 gauge, semi-automatic long-guns free access to the city's core.

An alternative to human hunters would be to import alligators from Florida for the warmer months. There are many patriots from Florida, Louisiana and Texas who would consider it a privilege to plant dozens of 4' (and longer) gators and gar into the waters around the US Capitol every May.

To quote the tree-huggers, "Mother Nature will heal if we just lend her a helping hand."

Margin

I was conversing with a friend who had a family member take a tumble.

The family member is a serious athlete. Maybe not an Olympic level athlete but somebody who can ride a bicycle at 30 miles per hour for an extended period of time kind of athlete.

The aforementioned athlete ingested a bee via the neck of their shirt. While distracted, things happened and suddenly they were no longer riding their bike.

Key points:

While the proximal cause was the bee, the underlying enablers were the kinetic energy and the modest margin-of-error tolerated by the bicycle.

When things go sideways, the energy has to dump to somewhere and land on someone.

If you are of a certain age and the overall, ambient, potential energy of the environment increases...it behooves you to avoid situations where tiny errors trigger catastrophic failures.

For those who are interested, the athlete did not suffer any major CNS damage but they did increase the number of discrete, osseous entities in their body by about 5%.

Speaking of low expectations

Latin must be an exceptionally difficult language to master.

My youngest brother took Latin in high-school and his instructor returned the final exam to him with a large "C" written at the top.

My brother was SO excited...to get a C...as if it was the best thing he could aspire to.

Context matters. 

One sign of intelligence is the ability to change your plans

Red dots denote peak heat-index. Note that the dew point (the green line) remains in the mid-70s. That means that wearing a wet tee-shirt will offer a lot of relief from the heat

My plan to beat the heat by working in the early morning died on the shoals of reality.

A shower shortly before sunrise made the humidity at ground-level 100% and the mosquitoes are ferocious. The wind-speeds are currently zero and don't pick up until 8:30 a.m. 

So...it looks like I will be working later in the morning and wearing a wetted tee-shirt. I dislike wearing damp shorts, so I will pin the hem up to hold the bottom of it above my belt-line.

A few photos

A no-till bean field with a very low plant-count. I walked the field and it looked like several things interacted to cause this failure.

Looking up the rows. You can see some places where everything worked and some bands where nothing worked.

The network of veins left behind suggest snails or Japanese Beetle damage.

• 30" rows, so he started with a low seed count per acre
• Seeder could not handle damp, clay soil and struggled to cover seeds after placing them in the furrows
• Snail damage on the seedlings that did emerge.

I have a lot of sympathy for this farmer. It looked like he attempted to reseed the areas where there were skips. I think he is a young guy and this will be a painful lesson. He isn't going to make any money on this field.

Posted for future reference. Makes 12 muffins

Every bit as good as McDeath's Sausage McDDNuffins.

Snails gang-tackling a velvetleaf weed (Abution theophrasti) I pulled out of the garden and tossed into the grass.

I suspect that snails emit pheromones when they are feasting. Either that, or they are attracted by the smell of drying/dying/fermenting weeds.

A problem in practical hydrology

Springs (water) occur when the earth's surface dips below the top of the ambient water table. 

In wet areas, springs are commonly found at the base of the cliffs that bound the stream's valley and bubbling up in the back-swamp. Rains charge the aquifier in the uplands above the cliffs and the inward-angle of the intersection of the flood-plain and the cliff is the feature that cuts into the water-table.

My friend

I have a friend who purchased a property with the intention of it providing much of the food he will need as a retired person.

Unfortunately, only half of it is well enough drained to grow most food plants and even that is impaired by shade, Black Walnuts, buildings and driveways.

The other half is saturated for most of the growing season.

For scale, the plot measures approximately 250 feet in the east-west direction.

Here is a topographical map of the wet half. I added a green "springs here" feature and white arrows to illustrate direction of seepage.

I also noted the berm left by the channalizing spoils left behind after the county drain commission "improved" the stream.

To summarize, my friend is first penalized by the topography. He has a massive spring along the west side of his property that floods the north half of it. He is next penalized by the berm left by the drain commission that impairs the free-flow of that water toward the (natural) stream.

The wet-half of his property is dominated by willow, dogwood, buttonbush, silver maple, ash, brambles, jewelweed and other wetland species.

The good news is that the parcel was cheap.

I have been mulling-over my friend's challenges.

Yesterday, a friend sent me this video. It is slightly longer than one minute long.

It quickly occurred to me that my friend could create similar, though more gently sloped, raised beds using the back-blade of a tractor. As long as the bottoms of the canals are continuously sloped, then minnows from the stream can forage on mosquito larvae in the standing water. 

The spoils from the canals will raise the area he cultivates. The raised beds in the video look like they are only 18" above the surface of the water, so he doesn't need a lot of elevation. The canals will also breach the berm left behind by the drainage commission.

Issues include the EPA getting pissy about him landscaping "wet-lands" even though those wetlands are (partially) due to the drain commissions handling of the dredging spoils. Another issue is the effect of seasonal flooding eroding the features so he would have a maintenance issue.

The upside is that he would gain almost an acre of prime, well-drained, bottomland garden. Literally, fifty times more than he has now.

Vaya con Dios to Father Dwight and "The Eyes have-it"

Today is the last Mass that will be celebrated by Father Dwight as the pastor of St Mary (Charlotte) and St Ann (Bellevue) parish. He served here for ten years and has been moved to a parish on the west side of Metro Lansing. In return, we are getting their pastor.

Unlike many other Christian denominations where the pastor is hired-and-fired at the discretion of a Board of Elders, Roman Catholic priests are moved at the sole discretion of the Bishop. The Bishop in Lansing has 72 players on the chessboard and, alas, every one of those individuals are men who are good at some things but weak in other areas.

The general strategy seems to be following a pastor who is weak in one area (finance for example) by a pastor who is strong in that area. Over time, though the path may wobble, it is on average it will be in a good direction.

Other factors come into play. Sometimes a bishop will move a priest to a parish closer to his ailing parents so he can also fulfill his duties as a son as well as his duties as a priest. Or he might move a priest closer to a university where the priest is pursuing an advanced degree. Those moves displace the resident priest and he must be put somewhere.

Regardless of the pastor's relative strengths and weaknesses, there are always a bunch of people who feel exceptionally bonded to him and grieve deeply when he moves on.

My outlook is more optimistic. Priests are like St Paul. They move around. If the new priest preaches from the Bible then I will be fine.

A little bit of Scripture for you Sunday

Intro material:

The Sermon of the Mount from Matthew Chapters 5, 6, and 7 jumps around and can feel like a montage of Christ's greatest-hits. I am going to take the liberty of underlining some words that thread a few of the ideas together.

Jesus leads off with the Beatitudes "Blessed are the..." sequence but then at 5:13 he starts talking about salt and light:

“You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned? It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house. Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father."   (all quotes are taken from the New American Bible translation)

Then Jesus jumps into a series of very short vignettes where he teaches that we are sinning when we knowingly expose ourselves to overwhelming temptation to sin. Two examples of those vignettes follow:

5:22 

“You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, ‘You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment,  and whoever says to his brother, ‘Raqa,’ will be answerable to the Sanhedrin, and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna."

 and 5:27

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’

But I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than to have your whole body thrown into Gehenna. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than to have your whole body go into Gehenna"

Then, after preaching about a half-dozen other topics, Jesus inserts a two verses that, if read in isolation, seem way out in left field. From Matt 6:22:

“The lamp of the body is the eye. If your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light; but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be in darkness. And if the light in you is darkness, how great will the darkness be."

The common thread of these verses are "eye" and "light". 

 

One way to apply this to modern life is to look at sources of temptation or titillation that we might find ourselves subjected to. For me, that would be the content on the internet that I allow my eyes to see and my ears to listen to. (If somebody in 32 A.D. were to describe a computer monitor on a desk, he would probably call it "a lamp", no?)

 

Porn is everywhere. It creeps into innocent searches for information. It sneaks into videos.

 

At this point there are millions of videos available on streaming platforms that will jack-up your dopamine and adrenaline levels. Not just sexually explicit material, but non-stop shoot-em ups, revenge/karma videos and so on.

 

Video games (not something I am a consumer of, but I know they exist) can fall into the porn/dopamine addicting material.

 

On-line gambling is a huge dopamine jack for many people.

 

Some uses of social media where gossip is passed along. Some theologians think that "...false witness..." in the Ten Commandments was intended to control gossip (the retelling of material that is not provable as true) as much as censure the telling of lies. 

 

Some people self-sooth by shopping on-line. That is not a problem until they are buying stuff they don't need and not able to pay to fix their car when it breaks down or they cannot make their rent payment.

 

From one standpoint, it is absolutely incredible that a book that was written 2000 years ago can advise us about the perils of the internet. From another standpoint, the fact that humans haven't changed during those 2000 years tells us that we should not be surprised at all.