Making the best of a situation

As reported earlier, Mrs ERJ will be rendering aid to a person who is undergoing surgery today, first sitting with her husband and later running and fetching.

Without adult supervision, I will be eating white-bread with no added fiber, meat that has been fried in grease and covered with barbecue sauce and sipping forbidden beverages, soda-pop made with high fructose corn syrup. In a short amount of time I will be putting a Two Hearted Ale into the refrigerator for later tonight.

June weather

After a very dry May (for my area) June has been wet with significant amounts of rain every second or third day. By significant, I mean that it makes the dirt too wet to till or hoe without risking breaking down its structure. 

This week is no exception. The weather-guessers are predicting over an inch of rain starting tomorrow at noon with a teaser of about 0.2" today starting at 1:00 p.m.

News detox

I only looked at the news once even though my week of detox ended three days ago. I scanned the headlines and thought "Nope. I am good."

It is startling how much the reader's lens is tilted by the choice of words in the headline. "Trump rages fill-in-blank" preps the reader to expect a rogue elephant bent on destruction, all decisions irrational and totally directed by emotion. "Disadvantaged youth fill-in-blank" preps the reader to be sympathetic to "the plight" of some young person who made very, very bad decisions.

Grafts

Three of the four North Platte Persian Walnuts pushed their buds. Like a ninny, I didn't get the first one covered and a deer ate the shoot.

Bucket was placed in the background to provide contrast so you can see the shoots pushing out of the graft.

I quickly put paper lunch bags over the remaining grafts near ground level. Two of them have "pushed" since then. Today I installed cages around the tree.

Encouraging mulberry seedlings

According to Lucky, there have been articles in sites that discuss Deer Management topics.

One of them suggested that if you wanted more mulberry trees in a certain location, that you can simply remove the ground vegetation and place one of the same kinds of cages you use to protect trees from deer browsing. 

That seemed simple enough.

I buzzed down a patch of about 150 square-feet near some mulberry trees (in the background of the photo). I pushed some bamboo poles with their branches still attached into the ground. Then I sprayed the fresh stubble with glyphosate.

Some birds are likely to "loaf" on the side branches of the bamboo after gorging on the mulberries. As they take flight, birds typically de-ballast (i.e. poop) thereby depositing seeds and fertilizer on the bare ground.

Mulberries are a pioneer species. Their seeds are small and cannot punch through a lot of overburden. They like bare dirt. They like sun.

I don't NEED hundreds of mulberry seedlings but it does give me a source of understock if I decide to graft a bunch of them.

Random pictures

 

Bur oak acorns

Black walnuts on a Sparks 147 branch.

Hungarian hot peppers. We are not a "hot" pepper family but this variety grows well and is productive. Its heat approximates Jalapenos peppers.

I grafted this pecan last year. It suffered a lot of die-back this past winter. I expect it to do better this coming winter. For one thing, it will have a longer growing season because it will not be sulking for a month before the buds push.

Fine Art Tuesday

Jim Foote was born in 1925 in Gibraltar, Michigan and died in 2004. Gibraltar is where the Detroit River widens and flows into Lake Erie. It is a very fertile area for water fowl and other wildlife.

He worked as a biologist for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, quitting after 27 years to devote his time to wildlife art. In his forties he became seriously involved with professional bird carving and entered bird carving contests. He was a self-trained artist who developed many of the techniques that he used in making his decorative decoys. He is most recognized as one of the first professional carvers to actually add feather texturing to the traditional decoys. He also carved fish decoys as well.

Mr Foote's work has been extensively reproduced and is widely available from secondary sources like eBay.

I spent time canoeing on Michigan's Au Sable river. This scenery reminds me of those days.

More Au Sable-looking river.

A tip of the hat to 10x25mm for suggesting this artist.

Unexpected. A dancer.

I expect to get some flak for this video.

Yes...I can tell that the young lady is probably 14-years-old. She is wearing a baggy sweat shirt and baggy sweat-pants in (boring) blue and gray. Her hair hangs damp-and-limp and is a nondescript, dishwater blonde. She should have been invisible.

The point that I want to make is that her clothing is NOT revealing and she somehow makes that an asset. It isn't about the clothes. It is what is inside of them and how she moves.

Ladies, you don't have to wear body paint to get attention. Watch this girl take over the space. She even has the busker smiling. He started out with a "Just another day in the office" expression until she started dancing.

Recorded in Krakow, Poland. 

Medical procedures, orchards and mulberries and a few pictures

The big news this week is that one of the people within our circle is undergoing surgery. While not a minor surgery, it isn't open heart or removing tumors either. It will, however, impair their mobility by a bunch.

Mrs ERJ elected to fly unto their aid with lasagna and plans to "sit" with them for a few days.

I will keep the home-fires burning and keep busy.

Very likely Mrs ERJ and I will pray a Rosary tonight with the intention of a great outcome for the surgical procedure. 

Dacha orchards

I have been thinking about home orchards and more specifically "dacha orchards".

The orchard at Southern Belle's house is an example. As the home-owner, she got to select where it was planted. They wanted to keep the yard the way it was and that pushed the orchard to a spot that is 200 feet from the house. In my opinion, it would be more valuable if it were closer to the house. 

At this point, her orchard has 11 fruit trees and five hazelnut bushes. 

Two of the apple trees are Liberty which is a mid-season (mid-September in southern Michigan) apple. The other five varieties ripen later in the season (Galarina, Melrose, Fuji, Gold Rush, Winecrisp). She has two peach trees with peaches likely to ripen two weeks apart. She has one mulberry tree and one pear tree.

A handy maturity chart. Dates will change year-to-year and in different places.. Order is very likely to stay the same. 

All trees are planted on approximately 12'-by-20' spacing.

Looking at this as a starting point for a pre-planted orchard:

I would probably replace the peaches with something else because peaches are typically short-lived trees. One of the substitutes might be a European plum variety like President or Bluebyrd (for canning) that is resistant to black-knot. Ideally, it would have a second variety grafted into it for pollination. Pozacaga and Kenmore are both self-pollinating but are both vulnerable to black-knot. I would probably replace the other peach tree with another pear tree...probably a very-early ripening one.

I would definitely keep the mulberry. It provides fruit from mid-June into August. Another advantage of mulberries is that you can harvest them by spreading a tarp and shaking branches and you can make pies using the entire berry, seeds, stem and all. Very labor efficient. 

Some mulberry pictures

A reminder of how tiny some of the unselected, wild mulberries are locally

A picture of some Silk Hope mulberries courtesy of Lucky Pittman.

If you tip your screen a little bit, you might get a little more color-contrast. This photo shows a mulberry scion and shows how large the pith is. Some of these sticks could pass for soda-straws. Fortunately, the wood cuts easily and does not shatter.

Yesterday's work-tickets

The feed-lot panels are up and I tied the tomato vines to them

 I grafted four mulberries as I continue to empty out the fridge.

Before weeding: a row of pole beans

After weeding

A tour of the property

We have Northern Orioles nesting near-by. They are hitting the bird-bath and working over the Serviceberry bushes.

 

We have garter/ribbon snakes by the gross-lot. Milk snakes are much less common. I think milk snakes are exceptionally handsome.

The snail populations in the areas where I have been spraying sodium carbonate solution and placed borax-laced baits had almost no active snails yesterday morning. Maybe they went to church! Alas, one sunny day does not make it summer. It could be a fluke. I will continue to monitor.

The small holes in these dock leaves are probably snail damage

In an earlier post I speculated that the leaves of dock (Rumex) might not support snails due to their high oxalate content. Looking at various dock plants, I see that snails DO feed on them but they don't appear to be a preferred food.

As a note for the future, slugs and snails are most active in the early morning. Both pests dislike sunlight and dryness. If you have ducks for snail control, letting them out of their nighttime safe-space shortly after sun-rise makes for well-fed and happy ducks. Also, if you have the flexibility time-wise...don't feed them until 9:00 a.m. Hungry ducks are the best hunters.

Raspberries

 

I random thought that will blow away if I don't write it down

It occurred to me as I was grafting the Howard walnuts that it would be a darned shame if somebody bulldozed the trees to build a house.

I know that it is impossible to control the distant future. Heck, I struggle to make my plans for tomorrow happen.

As I was grafting, I remembered that many of the houses...dacha...were VERY close to the road by Midwestern standards. Perhaps there might be something of value in looking at overhead images from various parts of Ukraine and seeing if there was anything useful to be learned.

Western Ukraine, near Slovakia. Houses fronting the street.

 

Northwestern Ukraine, near Poland. Very large dacha (rich people). Front of house 50 from the center of the road.

Northeastern Ukraine, slightly east of the Belarus/Russia junction. 70 feet.

So, if a fellow were inclined to plant random fruit and nut orchards, he would be pretty safe if he were to plant the closest trees 100 feet from the road. Furthermore, if he deduced where the grade favored the entrance, he can confidently predict where the house will be built.

Back engineering WHY the houses are so close to the road. It snows in Eastern Europe. Shoveling snow sucks. There is a labor shortage in Eastern Europe. They are poor by US standards with 10% of the GDP/capita. They don't just order a snow-blower from Amazon (and blowing snow sucks, too). They don't call the concrete company and order 25 yards of concrete to pour a driveway.

Also, the space between your house and the road is vulnerable to petty theft. Closing up the distance and keeping the tools and gardens behind the house reduces the visibility and the theft.

Orchards

It takes orchards time to become productive. God forbid that we should collapse like Eastern Europe but imagine the good fortune you would feel if the plot for your dacha (lifeboat) already had a dozen fruit trees and a handful of nut trees that were already producing. 

Bonus image

A composite diagram of what a typical dacha compound looks like. Source

 

A short parable for Sunday morning

Thebes found himself standing in the line that snaked upward toward the Pearly Gates. No surprise, really. He had been old. The cause was not what he expected but how you die isn't something people have a choice about.

He hadn't been a particularly pious man. He had been a man of duty and been busy. He couldn't read but even if he could there were no scrolls in the small village he lived in. Regardless, he dutifully listened to the occasional itinerant preachers who percolated through the small, rocky valleys that made up Thebes' world. He implemented what he could understand and marveled at what seemed inconceivable.

When it was his turn to be judged, a fisherman stood at the gate and the radiant ones were arrayed behind him. It was calming to know that he was to be weighed by another laborer.

The fisherman's gnarled hands swiftly counted the knots on the recording strings. His fingers shuffled the abacus. Then he paused and then repeated the counting and calculating.

Turning to the radiant figures behind him, he said "The one named Thebes is exactly equal. How do you want me to handle it?" The brilliance of the figures obscured the details. They reminded Thebes of the snow-covered sentinel pine on the ridge above the valley, first lit by the rising sun.

The voice from the brilliant figure on Thebes' left was as sweet and soothing as warmed honey. "Ask him what he wants."

Thebes was surprised, not by the fisherman's words but by what the figure had said. He was just a man. Not "holy". Not "bad". Just a man. He had not expected to be offered a choice.

"I am nothing but a common laborer. If it should please you, Lord, I should take that bucket of water, the stool and a towel and wash the feet those coming to see you" Thebes suggested. "I will set up at the edge of the light where I won't bother anybody."

The Lord asked "Will you only wash the feet of the just?"

Thebes replied "It is not within my power to know who was just or unjust. I shall wash the feet of everybody in the line."

The Lord said "So be it".

Thebes first picked up the bucket and then put it down. He could not carry all three. He solved the problem by tying the towel around his waist before picking up the other two items and trudging back down the line.

He set them down where the light of the Lord was but a kiss on the horizon and their voices were but faint murmurs. The line had grown since he had first joined it.

The worst seat in heaven is infinitely better than the best seat in hell. 

Thebes died many, many centuries ago. If you don't see him on your path to the Pearly Gates, then the position is probably open again. Something to keep in mind if the counting string with your name on it has a lot of knots on it.

Self-talk

Imagine it is the middle of the winter. There is no food in your house. As the bread-winner, the guy who "brings home the bacon", how far would you walk, how many hours would you invest to feed your beloved and your children for one more day?

Would you say "Screw it. If it isn't on the porch they can cry themselves to sleep?" There are some people like that.

Would you say "I will walk to the end of the driveway, but that is the limit of how much effort that I will invest in keeping my wife happy and my children fed."?

Or would you say "I would walk a mile (20 minutes) to get food"? I know that almost everybody would be willing to invest 20 minute from picking up the keys, driving, waiting in the drive-through and returning if that is what it takes to feed your family for one meal.

If you had no other choice, would you be willing to walk three miles one way (an hour) and back (another hour) if it meant you could bring back enough food to feed your entire family for a day. Sadly, I think that some "men" would fail at this, but most would step-up.

Weeding the garden

Before: Weeded row on the right. Unweeded in the center. Somebody has been falling down on his job.

 

After weeding. Dramatic photos are usually evidence of operator failure. The weeds should never have gotten that out-of-control.

For the sake of argument, let's say that I can hand-weed* two-feet of row a minute. That means I can weed 40' in 20 minutes, 120' in an hour or 240' in two hours...the time it takes to make a round-trip three miles away-and-back on foot.

240' of row will grow a lot of potatoes or rutabagas or tomatoes or sweet corn.

Yes, I know, there was time invested in many other activities to make that 240 feet of row happen. But if you don't stay on top of the weeds you might as well have not planted the seeds.

What weeding is not

Weeding a garden seems so pedestrian and simple that it is baffling that it can be so valuable.

But weeding isn't subject to income tax of FICA taxes. It isn't something where you have to "cover" for the sick, the lame or the lazy who expect a pay-check but don't work.

Weeding doesn't require $6 million in tools (the cost of a single robotic work-cell circa 1996).

Weeding does not require $500 wingtip shoes or a $3000 laptop with killer graphics cards. 

You don't have to take out a student loan to know how to pull weeds.

What weeding requires is that you show up and do it when it is time to do it.

Time-blindness

I think people who have ADHD lack the cognitive horse-power to envision scenarios where they might have to walk some distance and bring back food. 

They also lack the background.

Those of us of a certain age might remember reading The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder (no known relation to John Wilder) and how her future-husband, Almanzo, ventured forth in the blizzards to drag back two-tons of pounds of wheat on a sled to feed the village of De Smet, South Dakota.

That was back when men were men.

Pulling weeds when there is a pleasant breeze and the air temperature is tickling the upper 70s (F) is trivial compared to striking off across the trackless prairie in the middle of the winter looking for food. A veritable walk-in-the-park.

Self-talk

Thoughts like those are what loop through my mind as I pull weeds.

Bonus photo

Whole wheat tortilla, jasmine rice, Happy Rich broccoli from the garden, kielbasa. Eaten after a trip through the microwave and rolled into a burrito.

*Hand-weed: On hands-and-knees, identifying  the plants that should stay and pulling everything else using one's hands.