Just my opinion (B-stick related)

 

If I had to pick ONE firearm to navigate life from the age of 18 until my three-score-and-ten, the Ruger 10/22 would be in the top 3. I would pick a stainless steel barrel, if it were available.

The 10/22 has gobs of aftermarket support, a robust architecture, and sturdy magazines. Unlike some semi-autos, it is not finicky about ammo. Ammo is inexpensive and widely available. It is plenty accurate enough out-of-the-box but it can also be upgraded if you want to shoot the heads off of wooden matches or flies off of a cow's ear at 50 yards.

Sportsman's Warehouse has them on sale this week for about half of the MSRP.

It is better to have a firearm than to not have a firearm. You could do far, far worse than to pick up a new-in-box Ruger 10/22 carbine for $200 (even if it does not have a stainless steel barrel)...and elections sometimes don't turn out the way we hope.

Kindness

 

Growing food in a hostile climate

 

I stumbled across this video and found it interesting enough that I sent it to my friend "Billybob" in Arizona for a reality-check.

Billybob is shy and values his privacy so I will not reveal any more details about him except to say that he runs circles around me in gardening know-how and boot-on-the-ground effort.

He confirmed that unprotected seedlings are quickly consumed by all manner of hungry and thirsty critters. Most of his plants are under wire mesh. 

He also confirmed that the dirt found beneath Mesquite trees is primo stuff and rich in nitrogen.

The narrator is doing several "smart" things. Wind-breaks reduce evaporation losses and they have a "Conex" container on one side and the air-crete walls slowing wind-speed.

Billybob assumes that she has water to irrigate.

The lower plant density means there is more soil to use as a battery to store water. High plant densities are like very fast airplanes flying at very low altitude. It can work but any mistakes means a fire-ball and a funeral. Low density has much more forgiveness.

Billybob recommended this book. Of course, you don't have to order it from Amazon. It is available from many other sources.

Anti-social plants (Images from today's walk-about)

Poison Hemlock (Conium maculatum)

The "tell" to identifying this plant is seen if you zoom in by clicking the image. There are maroon or purplish splotches by some of the follicles on the stem.

Produces prolific amounts of seeds per plant.

The dead and dried stems still have enough toxin in them after weathering for three years to still be fatal if ingested. Symptoms are similar to curare.

Cow Parsnip (Heracleum maximum)

Hand included for scale

The juice is virtually harmless until exposed to UV light (like sunlight) at which point it causes burn-like blisters. One of the folk-names for this plant is Satan's Celery. It is surprisingly common across the United States. It IS EDIBLE but comes with warnings and caveats. One of the major issues is that it is sort-of easy to mistake Poison Hemlock for this plant even though the leaves on Poison Hemlock are lacy and the lobes on this species are few and the leaves are massive rather than lacy.

It is the larval food for a surprising number of butterflies and moths, including Swallowtail butterflies:

It is a host plant for the black swallowtail butterfly (Papilio polyxenes), short-tailed swallowtail butterfly (Papilio brevicauda), old world swallowtail butterfly (Papilio machaon), anise swallowtail butterfly (Papilio zelicaon), and the moths Eupithecia tripunctaria, Papaipema harrisii, Papaipema impecuniosa, Agonopterix clemensella, Agonopterix flavicomella, and Depressaria pastinacella   Wikipedia

I am contemplating "lifting" some of these seeds because I enjoy Swallowtail Butterflies.

Dogbane (Apocynum androsaemifolium)

Any plant with "...bane" as part of its name is generally toxic.

Dogbane is no exception. 

The plant is poisonous^[9] due to the cardiac glycosides and resins it contains.^[10] Escalating doses usually cause vomiting and diarrhea. Other symptoms include dizziness, colour hallucinations, cold sweats, and excessive urination. In extreme cases, the heart rate may slow before fatal convulsions.   Wikipedia

On the upside, it can be used as a contraceptive. It is most effective if administered to your daughter's boyfriend.

Dogbane is a prime nectar plant for adult butterflies.

ESCAPED 

This is the time of year to identify patches of feral/volunteer garlic as their scapes unfurl

Deer and other herbivores don't bother garlic very much. That gives it a competitive advantage over many other species.

Canadian Airforce

Very anti-social if you get too close to their young

I know where this is...

This is an unusual collection of plant species

The Quaking Aspen has a very broad range of sites it is happy on as long as it gets lots of sunlight; dry, wet...it doen't care. The Red Cedar is the odd-fellow because she hates wet-feet. The rose sprawled across the Red Cedar's branches is Rosa palustris or Swamp Rose and it is very rarely seen in medium or dry sites.

I liked the various shades of green and blue and the punctuation of the pink R. palustris blooms swooning in the arms of the Red Cedar. I am not an artsy guy, but this spoke to me.

On the other side of the pond (left side of image) is a dock and a paddle-boat.

I think this pond would look good with Wild Rice growing in it!

Fine Art Tuesday

 

The heyday of scrimshaw was during the days of the great whaling fleets of the early 1800s before "rock-oil" had shouldered a significant share of the oil used for illumination.

Material for carving was abundant (usually the tooth of a sperm whale but other materials were sometimes used) and even on a sailing ship there are awake-hours that are not filled with chores.

Scrimshaw is usually "etched" rather than a 3-D carving, but even that varied. Today, most scrimshaw are resin "reproductions" although there is still some original work being done.

Reclaiming your power from people who "badger" or "pound" you

The person who relentlessly badgers you has already decided what you are going to do and they hound you like a Border Collie until you are in the pen...or the slaughterhouse.

They have the advantage of already planning this out. They know where it is going. They instinctively know that if you take the time to think things through that they will lose that advantage.

If you do get a breather and try to escape, they want you to provide them with enough details so they can start crowding you again.

The three magic phrases:

1: "That is an interesting proposition" or "That is an interesting question"

2: "Let me think about it" and maybe "The answer is an automatic NO! if you push"

3: "That doesn't work for me" and absolutely no more detail than that. The person who badgers has no interest in solving your problems for you. He is only interested in solving HIS problems and he only wants details so you can warp your reality to meet his needs.

Kamala Harris

Imagine for a second that it is Monday morning.

You had a great weekend and came home at the last possible moment on Sunday night. You threw your laundry into the washing machine and crashed because you have a super-important presentation to TOP management first-thing Monday.

You awaken to find that the washing machine did not complete its cycle. Every last pair of skivvies you own are soapy and sopping wet. There is no way you can dry them in time, even if you use your microwave.

Panicking, you pillage through your drawers and find a gag-gift your buddies had given you: A pair of underwear briefs made of camel-hair, ostrich feathers and neoprene. 

You have to wear SOMETHING. It simply will not do to sweat-through your trousers in the region of your private parts. The CEO is a prudish, older woman who would NOT BE AMUSED.

You stare at the horrid joke for five minutes and out of desperation you think "Maybe it won't be all that bad."

Kamala Harris

That is the current situation many Democrats find themselves' facing with regard to Vice President Harris, a.k.a. Biden's Life Insurance Policy.

The thinking was that if you choose a VP that is so universally distasteful then nobody will be tempted to neutralize the sitting president.

They are faced with the realization that she is one, feeble heartbeat away from the Presidency. Not only that, but she would be heading the Democratic ticket (and by implication, being the coat-tails that is expected to drag countless, weaker Democrats down the ticket to victory).

V.P. Harris, a closer look

She is probably a ESTJ in Myers-Briggs* personality scoring.

Her "demon" is her inability to sense or care-about other people’s well-being and a blindness toward social harmony. Unable to feel it and having always been able to achieve her goals through other means, she is unable to emulate it or project it. Attempts to project empathy come across as wooden and fake.

Her second greatest weakness is a total refusal to accept intuition. She refuses to put any trust in advice that cannot be articulated in logical-rational terms. She is very uncomfortable with gut-feel. That is almost the polar opposite of President Donald J. Trump.

Her default mode of processing information is make decisions based on objective data, such as statistics, facts, and so forth. She make up her mind quickly, trusts her own judgment and like to call the shots.

ESTJs tend to be very loyal and pragmatic. The problem is that her loyalty is toward the people who advanced her career, not to the workers beneath her or the constituents who elected her. A secondary problem for her is that ESTJs cheerfully break as many eggs as they need to make an omelets.

*Myers-Briggs is popular but most of the descriptions read like Chinese Fortune Cookie scripts. They are vague enough that after-the-fact it seems to validate or "prove" that your buddy is...whatever you keyed them out as.

ESTJ are about 9% of the population and Hillary Clinton is a notable ESTJ.