When the train jumps off the tracks...

Yesterday's work-tickets dropped like flies. Well, at least the first two did.

I elongated the holes in the frame of the Troy-Bilt tiller. It turned out that I only needed about 3mm to get the belt squared away. I guess that when the shafts are very close together, it doesn't take much misalignment to make them look horrible.

I added the gear lube and let it sit nose-up for 20 minutes to ensure that the lube flowed all the way back to the tiller/tines. Yes, it says to do that in the manual.

I got the cabbage sprayed for cabbage-loopers.

And then...and then....

Mrs ERJ pointed out a branch from our Honey Locust that shades the south half of the garage. The branch extends 35 feet from the tree trunk to the west end of the garage

Yep, that is a problem.

She called my attention to the split.

I started trimming branches from the far end but quickly ran out of length to my pole saw.

I suggested that I should purchase a fall-harness, lanyard and rope and work from the roof of the garage.

She "suggested" that there are some jobs that are best handled by professionals with truck-mounted cherry-pickers.

It was not an argument I was willing to pursue.

She worked her magic with the phone.

Paul pulled into our driveway at 8:52 a.m.

I was a little slow to start taking pictures. He is almost done.

The last chunk he removed

Width

A good view of the split

He was gone by 9:55 a.m.

I am very proud of myself. I didn't give him any advice at all.

Highly recommended for tree work. 

Fine Art Tuesday

Trees, probably willow, that were repeatedly harvested for poles is in the center of the frame. That style of tree is called "pollard".

Ole Ring was born in 1902 in Denmark and he died in 1972. He was the son of a notable painter, L.A. Ring. It is truly a pity that he had not been christened "Young" Ring.

His work interests me because he is painting everyday scenes from almost exactly 100 years ago. Horses were still common. Fuel was expensive and poles (probably for gardening and rough carpentry in the barn) were harvested from trees. 

A willow beside a ditch recovering from a severe hair-cut. The wood was probably harvested when the ground was frozen. A couple of years of regrowth showing on that tree.

Probably not yachts but working boats. Small cabin near stern for sailing during bad weather.

Thatched roofs in the background. The driver is sitting on a hank of straw, perhaps the seat had been wet from the dew.

Windmill in the background.

Horses pulling a freight wagon. Lights mounted on building on the left.

Pollard willow beside pond. Rock rip-rap on left bank implies it might be an artificial pond. Windmill in the background.

Sycamore tree on left, background. Maybe oaks on the right. Hip-roofs are a common choice in areas where high winds can lift simple, gable roofs.

I assume the water is a canal.

Motor Oil

A few weeks ago I was eating nachos with a bunch of retired (and one still-working) powertrain engineers. 

The conversation turned to motor oil. They were shaking their heads and clucking with disapproval. Everything the guy in the video says in this video was echoed by my former work friends.

It was their collective belief that as soon as one manufacturer specified 0W-20, all of the other manufacturers pressured their engineers to also approve that viscosity. 

For the record, the first number is the viscosity at low temperature and the second number is the equivalent of the viscosity the higher number would be at that temperature. That is, at low temperatures 0W-20 acts like 0W oil and at higher temperatures the oil has the same viscosity that single-viscosity 20W would have at that temperature.

Lubrication scientists (tribologists) achieve the dual-viscosity through the addition of small amounts of chemicals with molecules that look like your closed-fist when cold but then open up like your hand when hot, thereby making the fluid thicker. Over time, that additive becomes less effective and the oil slowly reverts back to the lower number at all temperatures.

The most sensitive part of the engine is typically the camshaft-lifter contact and it is worst when the engine is hot and the engine RPM is low. Most automotive engines now have roller-lifters interacting with the camshaft. Very few "small engines" use that technology.

I don't mean to be a kill-joy, but I see no real-world downside to running 10W-30 year round. You might lose a tiny fraction of a mile-per-gallon in fuel economy but that is chump-change compared to the cost of replacing an engine or being forced to buy a replacement vehicle. The manufacturer might claim that using the higher viscosity invalidates the warranty but IMHO using the higher viscosity oil reduces the likelihood of ever needing the warranty.

Tomatoes, eggplants and work-tickets

 

First tomato harvest. 100 grams. Some very rough-looking tomatoes.

My plan is to keep a running tally of the weight of the fruit harvested from the 24' of row that I planted.

The tomatoes are planted 24" between plants and each plant has an 8' tall, bamboo pole to be trained up and I am trying to keep them to two-leaders. From east-to-west there are 2 Maybe-Federle, one Stupice, one Black Krim, six Stupice, two Maybe-Rosa de Bern. The rows run east-west and the east end is slightly shaded.

Mrs ERJ has a plant of Sweet Baby Girl cherry tomatoes in her kitchen garden. I will not be including those tomatoes in the tally nor will I count the four tomatoes that I planted in the potato patch to fill "holes" in the rows.

My reason for weighing them is to get a better handle on how productive tomatoes are in my soil and under my intermittent care. My maximum tomato consumption is one quart of canned tomatoes per week or (roughly) sixty quarts per year. That works out to 120 pounds of fresh tomatoes. Working backwards, that suggests that I need to pick 5 pounds of tomatoes per foot-of-row over the course of the season.

That seems pretty aggressive-but-possible at this point as along as I don't let any of the tomatoes go to waste, that is, go unpicked.

Eggplant

I picked 500 grams of eggplant yesterday. That is a bit more than a pound of them. I am still trying to figure out how to cook with them. So far, they have gone into "skillet" dinners along with new potatoes, sweet corn, breakfast sausage and various sauces for flavor.

Mrs ERJ asked me how they tasted. I had to admit that I couldn't really taste them but that they added "squeak" to the mouth-feel while chewing. Any guidance from my readers about simple, easy eggplant recipes will be appreciated.

Yesterday's work-ticket

I try to keep Sunday's work-ticket light. I flushed out the trickle irrigation lines in the Eaton Rapids orchard. Then I ran it over-night.

According to the internet, I am using my irrigation system wrong. The experts claim that I am only supposed to run enough water for each day's use by the plants. So, if I calculated that a tree will transpire five gallons of water in the next 24 hours then I should run a 2 gallon-per-hour emitter for 150 minutes every day. The thinking is that watering more than that increases the size of the wet-spot and weeds and grass in the lanes will use that water.

That tidy and overly-exact plan falls apart when you have an orchard with trees of various sizes.

I am using the system to provide supplemental moisture. I figure that I can run the system overnight one or two times a week and the soil absorb absorb the extra and the trees can "mine" it on the days I don't run the system.

One of the quirks of the Eaton Rapids orchard is that the top 24" of dirt is highly variable (some is gravel, some is highly organic) due to prior uses of the plot. However, that top 24" is underlain by a clay soil that keeps most of the water from sinking deeper than the roots can reach it. If I go totally crazy running water in the orchard, the soil in the middle of my potato-patch gets the over-flow.

Today's work-ticket

Disassemble the Troy-Bilt tiller, elongate the motor mounting holes to better align the pulleys. It occurred to me that I might be able to loosen the pulley on the transmission and slide it closer to the engine...I will keep that in my hip-pocket in case I need to.

I also purchased the specified gear-lube which I will add to the transmission. I purchased a cogged-drive belt which should be more tolerant of the small pulley diameters.

Then I have to reassemble the unit and test it. 

Pull weed in a couple of rows of potatoes.

Spray the cabbage for cabbage loopers. 

Bonus images

Pears. A Duchesse d’Angouleme clone 

 

Grapes. A Robert Johnson hybrid of L-50s (V. riparia) by Trebbiano (V. vinifera). I had been unimpressed by this vine until this branch found a sunny spot. The mediocre performance was not due to the genetics, it was due to lack of sun.

Wages, again

Back during Obama's first term, Obama directed his Department of Education to move Psychology from the Social Sciences and to count them as one of the STEM majors. 80% of the graduates with degrees in Psychology are women...approximately 80,000 of them. That essentially doubled the number of women graduating with degrees in "STEM" fields overnight, a fact which he trumpeted during the 2012 reelection campaign.

AI generated. Newly graduated Psychology students make between $30,000 and $50,000 their first year after graduating 

 

Newly graduated Petroleum Engineers command over $100k per year in the market place.

 

To put the wages that the Psych majors get into perspective, if you divide $30k/year by 2000 hours then you get $15/hour. If you do the same for $50k/year then you get $25/hour. Those are the wages that a $100k investment in a four-year degree (that takes most students five-years to collect) commands.

Of course the Feminists immediately jumped on the wage disparity, claiming that women were being repressed because women with STEM majors were paid so much less then men with STEM majors. 

Meanwhile, under California's "Prevailing Wages" Labor Laws, the guy who holds the Stop sign where you enter construction zones on roads is making over $38/hr straight time and over $86/hr on Saturdays.

Of course, that sign man has a job that is dirty, dangerous, sometimes dark and it is loud and outside and demands long hours. He cannot wear cute outfits on the job and take selfies in them, nor can he post them to social media while he is on-the-clock. He has to wear bilious yellow attire and he usually doesn't bother with false eyelashes or fingernails.

Bonus image

 

Inflation, wages and buying power

One of the side-conversations that happened during yesterday's family event was with my oldest brother.

He was marveling that employers were offering entry-level jobs that required no special skills at $30 an hour and were not getting many job applications.

He remembers working for a lot less money than that. He also remembers when new employees started at a lower rate and then their wages increased with longevity.

Inflation

There are many "official" inflation values that are published. A common flaw in most of those published calculations is that they leave out "the volatile food, fuel and housing" costs.

It is commonly understood that the Fed has a "target" inflation level and they "print" money to hit that target. Their logic is that an expanding economy needs more money in circulation to support the increased number of economic transactions. 3% annual inflation is a commonly mentioned target.

If you divide the aforementioned $30/hr by the effects of the published rate of inflation, then a worker earning about $16.67/hr twenty years ago has the same buying power as somebody earning power as today's $30/hr (ignoring the effects of income taxes).

If you accept that the real loss of purchasing power is at least 6% after factoring in non-hedonistically* adjusted food costs, fuel and housing, then  $9.40/hr provided the same purchasing power in 2006 that $30/hr does in 2026.

"Working your way up..."

My brother also mentioned his amazement that the "kids" entering the work-force feel that they are entitled to the highest pay-rate from the very first hour they work. "Back in the day" you had to be with a firm for five or ten years before you hit top-of-pay-scale.

I think that "pay me that now" attitude is due to the fact that employees no longer expect to work for the same firm their entire lives. Pensions only exist in the public sector so there is very little penalty to job-hopping. Since they only expect to be employed at the firm for three-to-ten years, there is no expectation of being around to reap promises of better treatment in the future. Consequently, the pay-ramp of the past has no appeal to the transient workforce.

My brother isn't worried about his kids. They are in their forties and well-launched. He is worried about the world his three grand-daughters and one grand-son will have to navigate.

I also share his worries, but for different reasons. I like to think that my kids/grandkids will have a robust set of problem-solving tools in their toolbox. But what is going to bite them in the backside will be the accelerating overhang of debt. All of that "free stuff" that politicians are promising isn't free. It is purchased with borrowed money. 

Historically, the only viable move for the government is to debase the currency and for firms to shrink-and-cheapen the goods and services they offer. First slowly. Then rapidly.

*"Hedonistic adjustments" are a slight of hand used by economists to make inflation look lower than it is. Suppose you eat a rib-eye steak in a decent restaurant every Friday. As prices go up and your paycheck doesn't, then most buyers stairstep downward in their choices. They buy a cheaper steak, they start eating at less expensive restaurants, eventually they are eating Bar-S hotdogs and then they are eating a can of beans at home. The economists don't count that as inflation because the buyer is getting the same amount of protein and their enjoyment stays the same.

Summer is more than half over

Mrs ERJ and I attended a funeral yesterday. It was for the husband of a couple we had known at church. They were the parents of one of our kid's soccer coaches and Mrs ERJ had worked with their daughter. There were other intersections in our lives, primarily shared difficulties that most people don't have to deal with.

The deceased was 84 years-old and died of dementia. That is a tough way to go. Tough for the person who has it. Even tougher for the close family and caretakers.

One thing that was notable was the number of people who attended. The average Sunday service in this church is about 100 +/- 30 people. There were about 130 people at this funeral, a number that is phenomenal for somebody of that age at a funeral on a Saturday in the middle of the summer.

It was a tribute to the quality of the deceased that several of the people who attended the service were EXTREMELY uncomfortable in church. Their body-language radiated "I want to escape". And yet they were there. They hugged the family members who they were there to support. 

Garden news

About 40 feet of row were planted to Daikon radish seeds yesterday.

The lawns in the area are turning brown. Looking at the last 30 days of rain and evaporation-potential, income is about 3" short of outgo.

Chinese cabbage, Japanese iris and bayberry seedlings

A week ago

The fall-and-winter vegetable planting guide from Territorial Seed Company. There is still time to plant those unused corners of your garden. Territorial Seed is based in Oregon.

If you live in the northern tier of states, then you think of "summer" as June, July and August. By that measure, summer is more than half over.

For the record, I picked our first two cucumbers yesterday. 

The Family Event

My sister organized a fishing derby for "the grandkids"

Poles/rods and reels and bait were provided. The kids were taken out on a pontoon boat or were allowed to fish from shore. "Q" was at the head of the Leader-board with 10 fish. "L" caught the biggest fish. "S" was given the award for being the bravest because she kissed every fish she caught. Every kid got a prize for something.

A pretty piece of music

Kids and their parents out picking wild berries. For the kids, the adventure is half work and half play. A rain comes up. It is not a big deal.

I enjoyed the background music even though I couldn't understand a single word of it. 

Memories are made.