Grab-bag

Richard Tease, weather-guesser extrordinaire, promises us 0.4" of rain tomorrow.

Handsome Hombre and I drove to Lansing's South-side Menards (a big-box building supplies store) to pick up some shop-lights. Putting in the racks for the lumber in my garage messed up the lighting plan and Menards had 7000 lumen, LED shop lights for about $14.

It was notable, the height of the corn around my house (much of it 24" tall due to the drought) and the height of the corn on Vermontville Highway a scant few miles north of here. It is over 60" tall and tasseling.

What was also notable was the temperature difference between the Long Convention Center in Holt at 91 degrees and the temperature of our thermometer beneath the shade trees in rural Eaton Rapids at 82 F.

Another second replant

I had a replant fail. I tilled it up and replanted, again. It is getting late in the season. I planted turnips, kale, rutabagas and "Green Meat" radishes. 

The row of beets looks OK but a little starved for nitrogen. I mixed up a little urea and a pinch of borax in five gallons of water and gave them a drink. That might perk them up.

I also started spreading straw around the strawberries...about three weeks late.

Everything happens for a reason. This gardening season served to teach me humility.

The first flat of Romaine Lettuce seedlings

Planted on approximately 3" by 5" centers.

The tray is approximately 2' by 4'.

Detail of the corner of the frame. The plywood beneath the 2-by-4 is not part of the frame.

A rake

Deer meat

Handsome Hombre frequently works with a young man who is very passionate about hunting deer.

HH struggled a bit with "deer", "does", "buck", "8-point", "dink", "fawn", "venison", "deer-meat", "back-straps" and "tender-loins". By his count there were at least five species of big game invisibly wandering around Eaton Rapids.

I had to explain that they were all the same species and much like Eskimoes have 50 words for snow, deer hunters have many words to describe "deer" and "deer meat".

I also reassured him that our orchard would be a magnet for deer if he wanted to try his hand at hunting them after the season opened. I have a cross-bow that he can use and we can throw together a ground-blind.

Pre-pubescent trans surgery

I present this as information and am going to try to not interject judgement.

I recently was included in a conversation with a person who is much closer to the "trans" community than I am.

I found his insights thought provoking even though they were not in alignment with my values.

It was his contention that going through a sexual transition is widely recognized in the LGBT community as being correlated with a spike in suicide rates. His explanation is that changing your sex after your "first puberty" is at least 2X more violent than the puberty God programmed. You are not transitioning from androgynous-to-male or androgynous-to-female with androgynous being a blank canvas. You are getting yanked from male-to-female hormonally or female-to-male.

He speculated that the huge push to pull sex-change therapies ahead (pre-pubescent "gender affirming care") was to avoid a huge +2X spike in suicides that might reflect poorly on the LGBT community.

One can only imagine the suicide rate for misguided souls who trusted their parents and doctors and went through a sex change only to discover that their "gender" was not the cause of their unhappiness...and they go through a third bout of puberty knowing that the people who should have most defended his/her interests were more interested in....something other than them.

Beds

The garage at my parent's house continues to yield treasure.

The latest find are the beds that were at the cottage when I was a wee-lad. The head-board and foot-boards look like solid sugar maple.

My earliest memory of them is circa 1969 but they may have been there much longer.

It got me to thinking about the (sad) fact that beds like that are no longer a desirable item.

Kids want "branded" products that have images of the-latest-cool-thing stenciled on their surfaces. "Frozen". "Marvel". "Dr. Fauci". The actual bed is pressed sawdust and printed-paper but young people (and we were once young) are incapable of conceptualizing time and durability and...consequently...enduring value. They want to have status in their tribe and have little appreciation regarding the costs.

Ironically, they are the same ones that a few years later are dunning us for our "throw-away" society.