One thing at a time

 

We have two semi-feral cats frequenting our property. One is a calico cat who is at least 80% white. Her coat reminds me of Brach's Christmas Nougat candies. A little bit of orange. A little bit of gray. Lots of white.

The other semi-feral cat has semi-long, black fur.

Semi-feral cats are also known as "barn cats".

My thinking on barn cats has softened over the years. The predators that used to keep rodents in check take a beating. Mowing is hell on large snakes like rat snakes, milk snakes, blue-racers and corn snakes. Owls get whacked by cars. Fox get mowed down by mange, distemper and other diseases.

More rodents means more ticks. More ticks means greater risk of tick-borne diseases.

While I will not feed or otherwise encourage barn cats, I am not doing anything to reduce their numbers, either.

Doctors and such

The last month involved trips to the eye doctor and my personal physician for check-ups.

I also made a trip to the accountant.

The well drillers gave us a visit and took water samples.

I don't like drama.

The best way to avoid drama when purchasing a used car, as an example, is to take it to your mechanic and have him look it over BEFORE you buy it. Then, listen to his advice. If he says "It is a turkey. DON'T buy it!!!" then don't buy it.

He would rather not get stuck fixing a bunch of issues that could be avoided. I would rather avoid periods when the vehicle is out-of-service and having to pay for repairs that were foreseeable.

Same deal with accountants. There are lots of stupid ways to do things and there are some smart ways to do them. Being stupid makes messes that must be cleaned up.

The well-driller called back later in the afternoon and advised that we use a product containing sodium hydrosulfite and sodium metasulfite to purge iron from the resin bed of our water softener as a first-step in the diagnostic process. The water softener will get a second dose in two weeks. If that solves the problem then we got off easy; $13 worth of chemical vs $1500 of equipment.

The eye-doctor suggested that I should visit more than once every five years. My right eye is unchanged but I need a different prescription for my left eye. Since my eye-doctor will be retiring soon, I need to find one another one, preferably one that is not in Lansing.

Meat Hook for cleaning Tiller tines

$12 for two of them

I wish I had figured this out thirty years ago.

You cannot beat these for pulling weeds, wire and twine that have wrapped around the shaft of your tiller.

If you are cheap, you can cut a piece of livestock panel into a tall "T" with one wire for the vertical and one for the cross-piece. Then you can bend the bottom of the "T" into a hook. If you are smart, you can cut the bottom of the "T" at an angle with your bolt-cutters and it will be sharp enough for your purposes.

Calcium dip improves pear storage-life

Filed here for future reference. Placing newly picked Asian Pears into a "dip" of water and calcium chloride increases their storage-life. Different cultivars may vary in their preference for concentration and duration of the dip. Most papers suggest 2%-to-4% calcium chloride, by weight and a 20 minute-to-30 minute dip is adequate.

Fruit is placed into cardboard boxes and allowed to air-dry.

Icing the dip is also a way to rapidly cool the fruit prior to putting into the root-cellar.

Clorox Poolspa Calcium Hardness MSDS claims that the product (about $4 a pound) is 100% calcium chloride. 2.0 lbs of product in ten gallons will yield a 2.5% solution. The same amount in six gallons is just a skosh over 4.0% solution. Calculations are based on 2 pounds because the Clorox Poolspa comes in 4 pound packages.