We didn't know it was the Elite's theme song

 

Quotes from Great Conservationists

I will appreciate the names of any other quotable conservationalists a great deal.

"Land is not merely soil, it is a fountain of energy flowing through a circuit of soils, plants and animals." ~ Aldo Leopold

"A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise." ~ Aldo Leopold

"The oldest task in human history: to live on a piece of land without spoiling it." ~ Aldo Leopold

"Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend; you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left." ~ Aldo Leopold

"There are some who can live without wild things and some who cannot." ~ Aldo Leopold

"Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land." ~ Aldo Leopold

"Once you learn to read the land, I have no fear of what you will do to it, or with it. And I know many pleasant things it will do to you." ~ Aldo Leopold

"He who searches for spring with his knees in the mud finds it, in abundance." ~ Aldo Leopold

"Land health is the capacity for self-renewal in the soils, waters, plants, and animals that collectively comprise the land." ~ Aldo Leopold

"Having to squeeze the last drop of utility out of the land has the same desperate finality as having to chop up the furniture to keep warm." ~ Aldo Leopold

"Your woodlot is, in fact, an historical document which faithfully records your personal philosophy." ~ Aldo Leopold

"Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt." ~ John Muir

"In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks." ~ John Muir

"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul." ~ John Muir

"When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world." ~ John Muir

"The radiance in some places is so great as to be fairly dazzling... every crystal, every flower a window opening into heaven, a mirror reflecting the Creator." ~ John Muir

"In this silent, serene wilderness the weary can gain a heart-bath in perfect peace." ~ John Muir

"In the eternal youth of Nature, you may renew your own." ~ John Muir

"These beautiful days ... do not exist as mere pictures - maps hung upon the walls of memory to brighten at times when touched by association or will ... They saturate themselves into every part of the body and live always." ~ John Muir

"It may not be easy, life isn't easy, but dreams keep you alive." ~ John Muir

"Small is not beautiful unless small is skilled and dedicated." ~ Gene Logsdon

"The ultimate goal of gardening is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings." ~ Masanobu Fukuoka

"We must find our way back to true nature. We must set ourselves to the task of revitalizing the earth. Regreening the earth, sowing seeds in the desert--that is the path society must follow." ~ Masanobu Fukuoka

"Giving up your ego is the shortest way to unification with nature." ~ Masanobu Fukuoka

"The irony is that science has served only to show how small human knowledge is." ~ Masanobu Fukuoka

"A farmer does not grow something in the sense that he or she creates it. That human is only a small part of the whole process by which nature expresses its being." ~ Masanobu Fukuoka

"If you do not try to make food delicious, you will find that nature has made it so." ~ Masanobu Fukuoka

"The greening of the desert means sowing seeds in people's hearts and creating a green paradise of peace on earth." ~ Masanobu Fukuoka

"Ignorance, hatred and greed are killing nature." ~ Masanobu Fukuoka

"The only sensible approach to disease and insect control, I think, is to grow sturdy crops in a healthy environment." ~ Masanobu Fukuoka

"Gradually I came to realize that the process of saving the desert of the human heart and revegetating the actual desert is actually the same thing." ~ Masanobu Fukuoka

"Farming is not just for growing crops, it is for the cultivation...o f human beings!" ~ Masanobu Fukuoka

"Though the problems of the world are increasingly complex, the solutions remain embarrassingly simple." ~ Bill Mollison

"You don’t have an insect problem, you have a bird deficiency." ~ Bill Mollison

"The only ethical decision is to take responsibility for our own existence and that of our children." ~ Bill Mollison

"Stupidity is an attempt to iron out all differences, and not to use them or value them creatively." ~ Bill Mollison 

"I confess to a rare problem - gynekinetophobia, or the fear of women falling on me - but this is a rather mild illness compared with many affluent suburbanites, who have developed an almost total zoophobia, or fear of anything that moves. It is, as any traveller can confirm, a complaint best developed in the affluent North American, and it seems to be part of blue toilet dyes, air fresheners, lots of paper tissues, and two showers a day." ~ Bill Mollison

“I fish because I love to. Because I love the environs where trout are found, which are invariably beautiful, and hate the environs where crowds of people are found, which are invariably ugly. Because of all the television commercials, cocktail parties, and assorted social posturing I thus escape. Because in a world where most men seem to spend their lives doing what they hate, my fishing is at once an endless source of delight and an act of small rebellion. Because trout do not lie or cheat and cannot be bought or bribed, or impressed by power, but respond only to quietude and humility, and endless patience." ~ Robert Traver 

"There is but one kind of love; God is love, and all his creatures derive theirs from his; only it is modified by the different degrees of intelligence in different beings and creatures." ~ John James Audubon

"Great men show politeness in a particular way; a smile suffices to assure you that you are welcome, and keep about their avocations as if you were a member of the family." ~ John James Audubon

"The nature of the place...whether high or low, moist or dry, whether sloping north or south, or bearing tall trees or low shrubs...generally gives hint as to its inhabitants." ~ John James Audubon

"The fact is I am growing old too fast, alas! I feel it, and yet work I will, and may God grant me life to see the last plate of my mammoth work finished." ~ John James Audubon

"Knowing what's right doesn't mean much unless you do what's right." ~ Theodore Roosevelt

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." ~ Theodore Roosevelt

"Nothing worth having was ever achieved without effort." ~ Theodore Roosevelt

"Do Something Now. If not you, who? If not here, where? If not now, when?" ~ Theodore Roosevelt

"Show me a man who makes no mistakes, and I will show you a man who doesn't do things." ~ Theodore Roosevelt

"He who makes no mistakes makes no progress." ~ Theodore Roosevelt

A conversation overheard

While waiting for our order in the restaurant (the one that smelled like cat-piss) I happened to eves-drop on a job interview.

The pudgy young woman who was interviewing had multi-colored hair and her current position was as the manager of a national pizza chain. The outlet she managed was a town ten miles north of Potterville. The person doing the interviewing was a man of about 30 who looked uncomfortable wearing a suit-jacket.

The interviewer asked the job applicant to give him thumbnail-sketches of the people who worked for her.

She started out "Jennifer is my favorite. She does everything I tell her to do..."

"I don't like Brad. He doesn't like to wash pans."

"I don't like Krylon. He doesn't know how to answer the phone or write up an order."

Every person she ticked-off she led with her personal, emotive reaction to that person as if that were the most important thing.

And if you are the manager and being "able to answer the phone and take an order" is a job requirement, then it is YOUR job to train people who do not know how to do that. YOU ARE FAILING.

In my opinion, if the job interview involved a promotion, it was over after her first three thumbnail-sketches. Those people don't work for you. They work for the customer. They work for the company. You are there to orchestrate the music.

I could have saved that young man in the uncomfortable suit a lot of time.

My children say I am too quick to judge.

A Personal Letter to President Trump

Most Honorable President Trump:

I don't have a lot of ways to reach out to you due to the number of filters that prevent observations from "the little guys" like me from cluttering up your radar screen. So apologies in advance for using my blog to drill through through those filters.

Your campaign recently sent a questionnaire to my house asking about the issues that were most important to us as individuals.

It is my impression that the questionnaire was poorly constructed and will give you misleading information. Fortunately, I have other options than the questionnaire.

Most important MORAL issue:

The most important MORAL issue in our household involves the protections afforded to the unborn and newly-born and to the mothers who are confronted with horrible choices. The trend seems to be towards "the abortion pill" which results in the mother "miscarrying" at home and having to deal with the emotional trauma of disposing of the body of her unborn baby. SUICIDE is the number one cause of maternal mortality in the US! There are also the risks of hemorrhaging and sepsis because she is not in a hospital. All of those issues are swept under the carpet by those who see the "right" to kill your own baby as a sacrament.

Can you imagine the horror of completing the abortion and looking down into the bowl of your toilet and seeing your dead BABY floating in it? Then add the biological effects of the crashing blood-estrogen levels and you have everything you need for a total, emotional train-wreck! It is happening across our country hundreds of times every day.

The SECOND most important MORAL issue in our household involves irreversible procedures and hormones that are administered to young people for the purpose of "transitioning" their gender.

Those hormones and procedures are irreversible and the patient is far too young to understand the far-reaching impact of those drugs and procedures. We used to recognize "cutting" as a sign of mental illness. Now hospitals charge insurance companies to "cut" patients as therapy and some medical practitioners badger their patients to transition.

The most important PRACTICAL issue:

The most immediate PRACTICAL issue is the crime-rate. My dentist practices in Lansing, Michigan. I dread having to go there twice a year due to the rampant crime committed by known, frequent-flier thugs who SHOULD be behind bars or deported to their country-of-origin. 

Medical centers/hospitals are also in cities. If I have a heart-attack or stroke, I have to go to one of those hospitals. The big deal is that my wife will insist on visiting me. I dread the day when she has to park in a huge, hospital parking ramp and walk through the dark to the elevators in the far corner. She is an easy target for mugging. She is petite and not as young as she used to be. She will be distracted because she will be worrying about me.

The SECOND most important PRACTICAL issue are the skyrocketing prices. Inflation is like compound interest. As painful as the inflation of a single year might be, it is the compounding effect that is crushing. Huge amounts of money is pissed down rat-holes like Ukraine, supporting illegal immigrants who don't desire to work, student-loan give-aways, "subsidized" housing and other benefits that create disincentives to young people to people who should be upgrading their skills and working for better pay-checks. 

Printing money (electronically) and borrowing money to cover those costs creates inflation. The way to tame inflation is to stop pouring money down the rat-holes.

Executive Summary

On your first day in office, I want to see an Executive Order mandating that at least two counseling sessions be required before "the abortion pill" is obtained from the Pharmacy to provide some warning or protections against suicides. The sessions must be one week apart.

On your first day in office, I want to see an Executive Order that STOPS all "gender affirming surgery" and "irreversible hormone therapies" on minors younger than 18 years-old. It does not matter if it is done with the parent's consent. It is not the parent's body parts that are being removed.

On your first day in office, I want to see Executive Directives to the Department of Justice to pursue "WOKE" Prosecutors and Judges who legislate from the bench and deliberately refuse to enforce laws and thereby put innocent, productive citizens at risk.

On your first day in office, I want you to issue an Executive Order mandating that any illegal alien who is convicted of felony or any misdemeanor that would prevent the purchase of a firearm (by a citizen) be automatically deported to their country of origin. As an addendum to that Executive Order, I want to see language that freezes Federal funding of State Justice functions if there is credible evidence that they are NOT complying with the Executive Order.

On your first day in office, I want you to issue a "freeze" on weapon and funding transfers to Ukraine pending Executive review. I also want you to privately inform Israel of a ramp-down in support so they can negotiate with all-due-haste. One must never enter into a war in Asia unless one has a well defined exit-strategy. A ramp-down time-table will help Israel focus on their exit strategy.

Day Two of House-shopping

The first house of the day was in Charlotte. It was head-and-shoulders above the one we looked at yesterday.

The interior was squeaky clean. Neighbors were friendly and lots of kids.

One point in its favor is that the current owner is a cop based on the decorations. Frankly, the house is much nicer than my first house. Downsides were a lack of a bathroom on the second story and a lack of closets.

The next house was in Potterville. It had a beautiful back yard. The rooms were shaped funny and drainage on the south side of the house was back-sloped. Southern Belle and Handsome Hombre did the entire checklist themselves while I went walk-about with Quicksilver.

They treated me to lunch at a local restaurant. The corner of the restaurant where we sat was permeated with the smell of urine...feline urine would be my guess. I don't know if it was a customer or part of the facility.

Either of those two houses would be OK. Given their price-range and what they have saved for a down-payment, they will have to figure out what is important to them as a family and make trade-offs.

The Logic behind Reparations

The logic behind reparations

Bonus meme

Bonus bonus meme

What the heck. Might as well go for broke...

Shrinking portions and house-hunting

Mrs ERJ, Quicksilver and I joined Pelee for breakfast at the Bob Evan's restaurant in south Lansing this morning.

There was extreme shrinkage in the portion sizes. I don't think the menu has kept up. The "scramble/bowl" that I ordered was listed as 1100 calories and consisted of two eggs and a bit of corn and beans and salsa...maybe 8 oz volume in all. No way was that 1100 calories.

I am not throwing shade at Bob Evan's. The restaurant business is in the middle of a brutal shake-out due to crushing food prices and difficulty finding enough employees. Also, the segment served by Bob Evan's is considered "dying" so it might be tough to get operating credit to bridge cash-flow hiccups. 

Mrs ERJ and Pelee wanted to talk, so Quicksilver and I slipped across the street to tour the community garden at St Michael's Episcopal church. They do a fine job. Small, round eggplant (aubergine in British speak) were very popular among the gardeners from Nepal. The plants have a spiny, undomesticated look to them. (Maybe this variety?)

Quicksilver and I had a nice talk with an 81 year-old gardener who told me this was probably her last year. She is just running out of gas. The dear lady gifted QS with a handful of cherry tomatoes. Mrs ERJ called while we were chatting. I had the phone on speaker mode. The 81 year-old told her "You kin have him when I am done wid him!" and gave a wheezy laugh.

House Hunting

The house we looked at was a good house to learn on. A train went by while we were there.

It had been a rental. One of the "tells" was the octopus for "cable" feeds. There were five outgoing cables snaking away from the splitter. Maybe families put cable into every bedroom through the exterior walls...what do I know?

Some of the foundation had splintered away and the ends of some of the floor-joists were floating. There was a "fire place" in the center of the house with no damper, just straight up the chimney. I bet the heating bills were astronomical.

At least one of the bathrooms was so far away from the furnace it had electric baseboard heaters...right where shower spray could hit them.

The fifteen year-old shingles looked good suggesting the roof was adequately vented.

Some of the foundation was dressed field stone. Other was round cobble with mortar slung between the courses. My guess is that the house is 1890 vintage build and had four major additions. It was an odd, eclectic house as are most houses of that vintage and layering-of-build.

Southern Belle turned on the charm and I found myself agreeing to go with them to check out two more houses tomorrow. Southern Belle has been nick-named "Coach", she runs the clip-board. Handsome Hombre is "Quarterback" and I am "Water-boy".

Southern Belle is looking to buy a house

That was sudden.

She asked me to go along on the first home-tour. I took a sneak look at it. It is a 400 feet east of the Canadian National line that runs diagonally through Eaton County. The basement is filled with jack-posts holding up the floors. It has a shared driveway and no outside storage for tools (a big deal since Handsome Hombre is in the trades).

The house is huge and the interior is spiffy and refinished. It is the kind of house that some people would jump at because at a superficial level, it looks like a bargain.

The railroad would make it a non-starter for me. For one thing, the track is curving which increase risk of derailment AND the house is downwind and downgrade of the tracks. Muy malo!

It will be a good house to relearn how to tour them. It is a clear application of the Secretary Hiring Problem.

If any of my readers have some checklists that they like, I would love links to them.

Back of envelop gray-water calculations

Source

Gray-water is once-used, non-drinking-quality that is not sewage-water.

While gray-water has bacterial loading, the bacteria are primarily organisms that feed on dead organic materials (like skin-dander and proteins from sweat) and there are relatively few disease-causing bacteria.

"...relatively few..." is not "zero" and running it through sprinklers, for instance, is not wise. Nor is it wise to use it on lettuce or vegetables that are exposed to rain-splash and are typically eaten raw.

According to Art Ludwig at Oasis Design, the optimal use for gray-water is to run it to swales or mulch-filled basis where it can percolate into the ground beneath the surface of the mulch. That ground serves as a "battery" or a reservoir that fruit trees (for instance) can pull on when natural precipitation during the growing season is inadequate.

Mr. Ludwig offers several recommendations (paraphrased for compactness):

• Use at least 3/4" diameter, poly tubing. Laundry water has fibers in it. Water from sinks has food particles and water from bathing has hair, skin-dander and soap-scum. Large diameter tubing reduces clogging.
• Use GRAVITY. Make sure hose completely drains. Trapped water breeds bacteria and can burst tubing when it freezes.
• DO NOT use reservoirs or filters or depend on motors. Reservoirs jack up bacterial counts and turn gray-water to sewage water. Filters and motors fail.
• Run the ends of tubing into sumps sunk into mulch-filled basins. Sumps reduce the likelihood of roots growing into the end of the tubing and plugging it.
  
• Plant fruit or nut trees in basins. Tree fruits are held well above the soil which will distance food from potential bacteria issues
• Either move the end of the hose from basin-to-basin or install "Y" connectors and 1/4 turn valves to split flow. Do not attempt to modulate flow because partially closed valves will clog. Either all-on or all-off.
• Do not attempt more than four valves in series
  
• SHowers and laundry are the big gray water generators and offer the biggest bang-for-buck.
• In Australia, water from wash basin is directed to toilet tanks for re-use.

How much gray-water and what is its potential?

The bathtubs and washing machine generate about 30 gallons of gray-water per day, per occupant in the United States. That number varies widely. Some people run four loads of laundry a day (colors, whites, permanent press, delicates). Others run two loads a week. Some people run the shower 10 minutes before stepping into it and then spend another 30 minutes getting a hydraulic massage.

Sticking with the 30 gallon* number and an average of 0.15" of potential evaporation per day through the growing season, that amount of gray-water is sufficient to keep 6 trees/bushes with crowns of 8' diameter (each) growing PER PERSON even without natural rain.

"OK, fine for Michigan, but what about Texas?" Consider a line running from Laredo on the Rio Grande to Childress on the Red River. Nearly all of the Texas population lives east of that line. Cities along that line get about 20" (on average) of precipitation a year and have the evaporation potential of 90" a year for a deficit of 70". That shrinks the number of trees/bushes to about 3.

The numbers, 3 small fruit trees (or large fig bushes) for places like San Angelo, Tx and 6 for Eaton County, Mi double to 6 and 12 respectively if there is sufficient soil beneath the swales to absorb gray-water year-round. The water is banked during the dormant season and can be accessed by the plant's roots during the growing season.

In very-dry places, it is important to funnel natural rainfall into the swales/basins. Gray-water contains various salts that build up in the soil unless an occasional flushing happens that carries the salts out of the root-zone.

Alternatives to fruit trees in places where salt-buildup is a possibility include asparagus (10 feet of row replacing each fruit-tree) or alfalfa to feed meat rabbits. Both asparagus and alfalfa are considered salt-tolerant crops. The caveat of not eating the asparagus raw applies.

*30 gallons * 231 cubic inches per gallon/144 square inches per square-foot yields 48 "inch-feet" per day. If you need 0.15" per day, divide 48 by 0.15" and that will tell you the number of square-feet 30 gallons can replenish. If you need 0.35 like San Angelo in July, then divide by 0.35.

Presented without comment

 

From the comments

Frequent commenter Dan wrote:

The left can't afford to lose. They risk prison of they are removed from power. So they aren't going to allow Trump to win. They will do...anything to insure that they don't lose. Anything....including taking the current conflicts hot and using nukes. Nothing is off the table...

I am not able to read the future. I thought Felonius von Pantsuit was going to win in 2016 and I was wrong. I am very, very happy I was wrong...but I was wrong.

So even if it seems like a sure-thing...there is always a chance that God will step in and recalibrate the equipment.

Thinking in terms of probability-clouds

Maybe I am over-thinking this, but I like to visualize potential trajectories into the future as probability-density clouds. A path that has zero probability is a vacuum. A path that has a very high probability is a dense thunderhead with billowing clouds buttressing that path as minor events in history might cause minor deflections. Predictive ability is diluted farther into the future, so like charts of possible hurricane paths, the band gets wider and the peak probabilities get flatter.

The events Dan writes about are a greater than zero probability. "Cheating" is a 99.9999% probability. Rioting is a 98% probability. In the end, those details are less important than whether Harris is sworn in as POTUS or whether Trump or Vance is sworn in in 2025.

Even the most fervent Trump supporter is likely to admit that Harris prevailing, by whatever means, exceeds 35%. Because of the magnitude of the differences, that means that contingencies must be prepared for. After all, the difference between Trump and Harris are not like the differences between French Vanilla Ice Cream and plain Vanilla Ice Cream. To conservatives, it is the difference between a full plate and an empty plate.

Given the stark differences between the two branches, it makes sense to prepare for a Harris win even though we might personally consider it a low probability.

The important things in life will be a lot more local

This might not be a bad time to attempt to mend fences with people you have had differences of opinion. I am not saying that you need to roll-over like a female collie but in the language of the younger set, maybe offer a do-over. Don't do this if it isn't safe.

Paper and pencils are your friends. Records that are on the computer can be back-doored and your private dealings outed.

Networking

In a rich society, we can make lead balloons fly, tropical plants grow in Alaska and buy our way out of all kinds of problems.

Some segments of society will not be able to access those luxuries after the Progressives win. You have more resources available to you than you can possibly know. It is easier to go to Amazon and buy a schinerfizl-daltz than to ask your 20 closest friends if they know of anybody with an extra schinerfizl-daltz you could rent or borrow or barter for.

It is not too early to start exercising your barter-networking skills.

Medical care is likely to be rationed

The demographics makes the economics of killing off older people extremely attractive. My belief is that the Progressives will do what is expedient "to save the Urf".

Talk to trusted medical people and learn the alternatives to prescription drugs. Remember that nearly all over-the-counter drugs were once first-choice prescription drugs. Exercise, stretching, prayers, nutrition, sleep hygiene might not cure cancer but can have a huge benefit for heart disease, diabetes, depression and a host of other maladies.

The bottom of Maslow's hierarchy is where the action is

Heat, shelter, clothing, water, food, infections-injuries, security. Get your spiritual life in order. Purge sloth and partying and running your yap.

It is said that more people die in wars due to diseases and famine and despair than from wounds.

Whether nukes fly or we are entering a Fidel Castro-like period...focus on the people physically closest to you and focus on executing the most basic blocking-and-tackling with speed, efficiency and perfection.

....best seeds for a bad time garden

From the comments:

Joe could you do an article about best seeds for a bad times garden? And why. 

This kind of post is really more of a starting point for conversations rather than anything definitive. There are just too many variables in gardening and too many permutations in what kinds of food resources might be available.

All comments are welcome. Please feel free to join the food-fight!

***

Historically, governments make a stab at supplying carbohydrates to starving populations. Typically, they will subsidize the cheapest form of calories and they might supply vitamin pills to pregnant women and children.

The downside is that goons and thugs will add "taxes" and "protection costs" to the products. Nevertheless, I am going to start with the assumption that it will be possible to buy tortillas and white rice through the entire "event". Both keep very well without refrigeration and do not need to be handled gently. They may be rationed (perhaps five-to-eight ounces a day, per person) with the government expecting local industry to supply the remainder of the needs.

Because of the gangland aspect, actual availability will be spotty. Rural areas will probably be out-of-luck with regard to access, but in their favor, rural areas will have more land-area for food growing.

But for the sake of this post, let's assume that you live within 10 miles of a city of 5000 or more people (an hour's ride by bike) and will have some access to tortillas.

The DO NOT GROW plants:

Don't grow pumpkins. They are vandal magnets even today. Modern pumpkin varieties turn to tasteless mush when cooked. Instead, grow winter squash with dingy, outside coloring. Butternut types (C. moschata) has the highest beta carotene content of the commonly available squash is C. moschatas are relatively disease and insect resistant. Waltham's Butternut is a very solid choice.

Don't grow sweet corn. It is empty calories. Both sweet corn and pumpkins can use a lot of area. FIELD corn is a possibility to supply brute calories as a hedge against the supply of burritos being cut off. Have a plan to kill-and-eat every raccoon that even thinks about setting foot on your property. The "and-eat" means that poisons are not an option.

Do not grow little fiddly, high-labor plants with high outside-input requirements. Micro-greens grown in hydroponics will fall in this category unless you live in Alaska.

DO GROW

Focus on vitamins. Then protein. Then fats. That all changes if the tortilla-pipeline crashes, but that is where I choose to start.

#1 Turnips/rutabagas: They self-seed so it can be a perpetual plant. Purple-top turnip is the most common variety and is just fine. Both species self-seed. Both species have edible greens that you can brush the snow off-of, cook and eat. These are listed first because if you it is a triple-play of vitamins (especially in the greens), calories and fiber. They store very easily. They can over-winter in the garden.

If you don't like the taste, it is because you aren't hungry, yet.

Runners-up

Savoy Cabbage (Deadon (H) or January King (OP)). I find that the red cabbage are less bothered by cabbage worms.

Daikon Radishes (I favor the stumpy, Korean types. Green Luobo is an open-pollinated variety. Hybrid seed is much easier to find.

#2 Beans:  I expect a lot of hate on this, but soybeans are both a protein and a fat play. Most soybeans are geneticially modified, so if that is important to you then use (sprouting) soybeans purchased at an Asian food store.

Runners-up 

Almost any green bean released after 1950 will have multiple disease resistances. A major consideration is having a "bush" stout enough to hold up all of the beans off the ground.

Pole beans are great if you have ready-made structures like cattle panels or want to try Three-Sisters agriculture. Musica was the most vigorous for us this year. With regards to Three-Sisters, the rambling squash vines tend to short-out electric fences which complicates protecting corn from raccoons. It might not be worth the potential losses to multi-crop depending on your local raccoon population.

Dry-bean specific varieties...the easiest path is to go to Walmart and buy a pound of small red beans or pinto beans and plant a row of them.

Cowpeas. Find an old gardener in your area and ask him/her what varieties do well for them.

#3 Sunflowers: It is very hard to find a robust, vegetable source of fats other than nuts (and raccoons). Sunflowers have a broad range of adaptability. The best oil varieties are not available to home growers EXCEPT as bird seeds. So I am going to recommend that you consider planting black-oiler bird-seed. Obviously, they will be a magnet for damage so keep an eagle eye on them and as soon as the birds start hitting them, cut them and hang them upside down from the rafters in your garage to dry.

If planting bird-seed makes you puke, Johnny's Seeds offers a variety called Royal Hybrid 1121.

Runner-up

Canola (if you can find seeds)

Peanuts (if you have sandy soil and a very long growing season)

#4 Potatoes: Brute calorie play, surprising amount of vitamin C and fairly well balanced protein. Unlike pumpkins or corn, nobody is going to sneak up in the dead-of-night and rip-off your entire harvest. Varieties can be fussy about what sites they like best so the best bet is to talk to the old-timers or plant a partial row of the three-to-five varieties that seem promising and have a horse-race.

One consideration that is often overlooked is that potatoes have a lot of water in them. One variety might seem to yield fifty percent more potatoes yet, in fact, have provided more water but fewer calories. Potatoes that bake (or microwave) "dry" have more starch and protein in them per pound than potatoes that cook up "waxy". Don't waste precious storage space on "water".

#5 Cucumbers: Any cucumber variety released after 1950 is likely to have multiple disease resistances. The no-brainer play is to pick a hybrid of the kinds you like and to have some open pollinated varieties as back-up. Seeds from hybrids will show a lot of variation and will show some resegregation in terms of disease resistance. That is, each plant will not have the entire disease resistance package the hybrid advertised. But in many cases, the f2 hybrids will produce pretty nice cukes and you might be hard-pressed to find open-pollinated, Japanese cucumbers (for instance).

Cucumbers edge out tomatoes for #5 because pickling is a low-energy way to preserve and as a low-temperature process preserves more of the vitamin C.

H-19 Little Leaf and Wautoma look like solid pickling cucumber choices.

#6 Tomatoes: Stupice continues to star in our garden. It is very early and is just barely big enough to be worth picking. It is open pollinated.

Ace 55, Rutgers and Siletz are open-pollinated and have some resistance to Fusarium or verticillium wilt.

The same comments about planting hybrid seeds I wrote in "cucumbers" applies to tomatoes.

#7 Carrots: Short, stumpy varieties are easier to grow. This is primarily a vitamin play (beta carotene). The deeper orange varieties are better. Seed vigor is always a challenge with carrots.

Those are the heavy-lifters. You can plant a lot more kinds of vegetable-garden plants but the selections shown above put players on most of the important squares.

Numbers 2 and 3 are negotiable if dried beans and fats/oils are readily available.

Flavor plants

Onions and garlic

Multiplier onions are an easy choice and can be tucked into odd corners. Green onions are a fast way to grow flavor for those burrito-wraps.

"Porcelain" and "Stripe" type garlics are very long-keeping and cold-hardy while Racambole types are less-so. "Stripes" are usually easy to peel.

Peppers: Cayenne offers a lot of heat per-square-foot and is mild enough to be easy to work with...but wear rubber gloves when cutting it. It is also thin-walled which makes it fast-drying, a big factor in places with wet, rainy autumns.

Mint: Lots of choices. Catnip often volunteers near foundations. It seems to like concrete (calcium and higher pH, probably).

Wild foods: Nuts are a great fats/oils play if you can collect them in enough quantity. Black walnuts and hickory nuts are pretty common. If your local hickory nuts are tiny or refuse to let go of the meats, the oil can be extracted by pulverizing the nuts and boiling them and skimming off the oil from the top of the "soup".

Most greens don't have enough calories to keep you alive but do have flavor (sometimes too much) and vitamins.

Daylilies, all parts are edible.

Addendum One:

Addendum 2

The institutional memory of the research and breeding community made the 1950s as the golden era of home-gardening variety releases.

The Great Depression and the blockades and Victory Gardens of WWII were still on everybody's minds. Research projects that launched in the early 1940s were coming to fruition in the 1950s. Later research turned to commercial farming and having all of the fruit ripen at one time and making it tough enough to ship.

Even today, hybrid sweet corn like Iochief and Sweet G90 have a cult following.

Making the U.S. more like Mexico

I somehow got stuck in a loop where I start posts on topics that refuse to be captured in 400-to-600 word posts.

At the risk of the loss of flow and smoothness, you are going to get short "chunks".

"Mexico"

We had an executive from Mexico named Victor running our factory for a bit longer than a year. He was a very personable fellow. He even spoke to low-level peons like me.

I asked him how the Cartels and crime in Mexico impacted his every-day life when he lived in Mexico.

He said not-at all. The different forms of violence were patterns like fashion. One form would become more fashionable for a while and then fade away.

Then he said he still got random phone-calls telling him that his kids had been kidnapped and he needed to immediately wire $20,000 to this number.

My eyebrows went up.

"Most of them are fishing expeditions" Victor said. "When I kiss my children good-bye in the morning, we all understand it might be the last time. If they get kidnapped, they are dead. Even if I paid the ransom, they are dead. Leaving them alive is too much risk for the kidnappers."

"So when I get a call like that, I hang up and text my kids' nanny to see if they are OK."

Our current political trajectory is turning us into Mexico.

What the celebrities and politicians appear to be oblivious about is that their children and spouses and lovers and parents and nieces and cats will become the targets of kidnapping, rape and murder. Not Joe Bullshitter in B.F. Michigan. Nope. It will be hot-shot singer and the Instapot influencer and the mayor's brother and the newsie talking head, the tennis star, the basketball player....

From the Daily Mail, Sept 12, 2024

 For what it is worth, Cartel leaders HATE celebrities. It is an ego thing. They love being famous and feared. Like a male lion, they kill the cubs that do not bow to them and who, later in life, will be a threat to them. Yes. Cartel bosses regularly put out "hits" on Mexican music stars, journalists and anybody who is famous.

Celebrities are stone-cold-stupid to want to make the US more like Mexico (or Haiti).

Petty vindictiveness can be expensive

Trump was very-expertly corn-holed by ABC last night. He fought the good fight and went down swinging but he could not beat the moderators plus Harris (who rarely answered any of the questions but was not reminded of the fact)

"But ERJ, WHY would ABC want to kick Trump in the gonads?"

Frankly, they would rather be kicking Governor DeSantis in the gonads but had to settle for Trump.

DeSantis brought Disney to heel over their repeated nonfeasance and extreme tolerance for pedophilia. Disney had been granted a charter to allow them to be self-policing...sort of like Epstein's Island. Yeah, self-policing didn't happen so much.

So DeSantis, working through the Florida Legislature retooled the sweetheart charter and made Disney more accountable to State of Florida statutes.

Assorted sting operations were also conducted those seem to have a chilling effect on the staff at Disney World.

So why am I talking about Disney? Because Disney owns ABC. 

Ever since DeSantis started using them for a pinata, they have struggled to make money on their new productions. Costs bloated. Audiences have not been impressed. Of course, this is just my opinion.

They don't want to blame proud management, unwilling to recognize and correct mistakes. They want to blame conservatives, and yesterday, Trump was the target of choice. And ABC was the arm holding Disney's club.

That might prove short-sighted on Disney's and ABC's part. Time will tell.

Nine-Eleven

I am feeling it more this year than most.

Those fire-fighters and first responders rushed in while others watched TV or wailed and wrung their hands. A lot of them didn't make it out. A lot of them got cancer in later years.

And most of them would do it again.

Atchafalya Basin Cypress Harvest

 

A friend asked me to post this sixty-second video about the Atchafalya Basin second-growth Bald Cypress. Cypress wood is exceptionally rot resistant. It seems to be a shame to turn it into wood-chips for mulch.

Licentious

and Jesus said..."Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.

"From within people, from their hearts, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All these evils come from within and they defile."    -Mark Chapter 7

Licentiousness: Ignoring accepted rules or standards. Characterized by flaunting the violation of those boundaries or standards. Reveling in the discomfort of others caused by violating those rules and standards. Most often applied to sexual behaviors but is not exclusive to them.

Bayou Renaissance Man recently posted about "The Toaster-******* Problem"

One line in the link jumped out at me:

Then, when (gaining status by bragging about the number of toasters they fornicated with) that is saturated, they one up each other by being most open with the general public about their toaster f****** ways. Then they make toaster-f***** pride t-shirts and hats and bumper stickers. (Rubbing the public's noses in their deviancy)

That is, toaster-f****** gain status within their group by causing discomfort among the normal-people. Giving other people pain gives them joy and glee. There is another name for that kind of person: They are called Sadists.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is Licentiousness and is exactly what Jesus was referring to as a source of "Evil" in Mark Chapter 7. And many of them march beneath the banner of "WOKENESS:.

Fine Art Tuesday

 

Axel Borg (not to be confused with his brother Cy) born 1847 in Sweden, died in 1916.

Famous for painting landscapes in far-Northern latitudes which often featured moose (elk in Euro-speak).

Imprinting

Today's big goal is to have Quicksilver put potatoes into a bucket as I dig them.

I will need a head-start. I want there to be some potatoes already dug when she enters the garden. Attention spans and all that...

Then to help her scrub the potatoes and lay them out to dry.

Then to send her home with her Very. Own. Potatoes.

Neurotic people are neurotic because they don't feel important and have to create problems to feed their need for drama/importance.

Food is life. How can somebody who can grow food NOT feel powerful and important?

---Added at noon---

Mission accomplished. Somewhere between 10 pounds and 15 pounds of potatoes came out of the dirt. She put every one of them into the five gallon nursery planter. Then the potatoes went into her wading pool for a swim.

Her sense of organization was offended after we spread the potatoes on the lawn to dry. She promptly moved them back to the bucket "where they belonged". Who would have guessed a 2-year-old would have a strong sense of right-and-wrong?

Potato harvest started today

Four, seven-gallon bags of potatoes in the background. A typical potato in the foreground.

Today's project was to start digging potatoes.

The corn crop was a total zero. Raccoons and deer hammered every single stalk/ear.

BUT!!!! The potatoes vastly exceed expectations. God sent rains at precisely the right times. I only watered once.

I have only harvested 80 feet of row -to date- and have 150 pounds of potatoes. Big, beautiful, clean, smooth potatoes. Kennebec potatoes, to be exact. The dirt is cheerfully giving up its bounty. While the corn crop was an abysmal failure it was offset by the stunning potato crop.

I planted 270 feet of row of potatoes and while I don't expect to stay on-pace at almost two-pounds-per-foot of row, it will still be A LOT of potatoes.

And then there is the "volunteer" patch. I did not harvest all of the potatoes I planted last year. They came bounding out of the ground and undoubtedly made potatoes with no effort on my part. (OK, I lied. I did fertilize them and sprayed them once for potato beetles. I am not going to screw-over anything that works so hard for my advantage). That might add another 50% to my harvest.

And that, my faithful readers, is why it does not pay to put all of your eggs in one basket.

Preparing your property for when things get weird

 

Seven and a half minute run-time.

Pretty land. No big political messages. This guy is growing food in a tough climate/soil. From what I heard in this video, he seems to have his head screwed on straight. I could quibble about a few things he says but on-the-whole I like where he is coming from.

Dogs and aspirin (posted for future reference exclusively for my personal use)

Aspirin is not approved for canines although some vets think it still works just fine.

The Merck Vet Manual cautions that aspirin is not indicated in the United States, but if you are in some other country were doggie-specific NSAIDs are less available, Merck graciously advises that an APPROXIMATE dosing range between 10mg/kg of body-weight and 40mg/kg of body-weight is a good starting point.

Some vets suggest that the Merck guidance is too aggressive. They advise 5mg/kg of body-weight for chronic conditions like arthritis and 10mg/kg of body-weight for temporary things like pulled muscles and for acute, short-term pain management.

Since aspirin is commonly marketed in two sizes, 81mg and 325mg, it makes sense to break the dosage down by number of tablets for dogs by body-weight.

Incidentally, enteric-coated tablets are NOT RECOMMENDED for dogs. The coating does not break down in a predictable way in a dog's gut and it can pass through them or two doses can "burst" at the same time.

The best defense against stomach issues is to split their daily feeding into two portions roughly 12 hours apart. Feed them, then give them their dose of aspirin. We find that wrapping the tablet(s) in American Cheese slices is a good way to make the pills palatable.

Twice daily, 12 hours apart

 

Twice daily, 12 hours apart

Please note that I am not advising dog owners on healthcare issues. I am parroting what is on the internet and doing some math and then filing the information in a place where it will be easy for me to find it in the future.

Sometimes it is hard to get an appointment with a vet and we want to do SOMETHING to bridge the gap until the appointment.

If your dog starts vomiting or passes bloody stools or dark, tarry looking stools, then stop the aspirin immediately.

Dogs are a tough species to medicate because they are so diverse. Not just in size but in shape and metabolic rates and kidney function and....

What works for most breeds of dogs might be a fireball-and-mushroom-cloud for yours.

When you start with the theory, then all evidence points toward confirming that theory

Ummmm! No. I don't think so.

I think that is "blush". You know, facial make-up. See how evenly it is applied left-and-right side. See how it is "blended" toward the front.

I THINK the Mirror assumed Colt Gray's gender.

How did we get so fat?

How did we (Americans) get so fat?

There is a natural tendency to gain girth as we age. We lose muscle-mass. We become less active. We can afford richer foods. I weighed 133 when I graduated from high school. I weighed 144 a year after I married (age 28). I now weigh 200 pounds. Like trees, we tend to gain girth as we age.

But why are the young people so fat?

I remember being distinctly grossed-out sometime around the year 2000 when our family was at Michigan Adventure, a water-park, and I saw a 16 year-old girl (I estimate) from behind. And when she turned around, she had a beer-belly.

No, not a baby-bump. A beer-belly.

Paying a little more attention, MANY of the younger people had Dunlop's disease (where their belly done lop over their belt-buckle).

Fat Land

There is a book titled Fat Land that very plainly lays out some of the major causes. It was published in 2004 and the situation is more dire now than it was then.

The book points out the growth in portion sizes, the substitution of "sweetened" drinks for water and parental dread of correcting destructive behaviors in their children.

The author points to France as a good example. Mothers regularly pull the plate away from their greedy children if they heap too much food on the plate. "Stop being a pig. Nobody wants a fat person for a friend!" the mother will chide her child.

Somehow, Americans swallowed the BS of "Reverse Psychology" hook-line-and-sinker. We believe that if we tell our children something like that, that our child will defy us and go in the opposite direction.

I heard as much from a very nice lady where I attend church. She is about 5'-3" and weighs about 200 pounds (which is not huge by today's standards). Her mother bird-dogged her over-eating and the nice-lady says she ate even more than she would have otherwise. Frankly, I doubt it.

She decided that she would not subject her sons to that treatment because it didn't work.

Her sons now weigh 350 pounds which even by modern standards is getting a bit hefty for men who stand 5'-11"

In her mind "it didn't work" when in fact it probably did work but it made her feel bad. And, in a misplaced sense of altruism, she decided that she would not exercise tough-love with her kids.

The fact is that we cannot live life twice. We cannot choose a mother who bird-dogs us and then be reborn to a mother who says "eat what you want. Snickers bars are very filling. You will probably eat fewer calories eating 15 Snickers bars than if you ate chicken, sweet potatoes and green-beans." We lack a "control" to determine if what our mothers did worked or, in fact, was counter-productive.

Home Economy

Mrs ERJ graduated from high school in a very small, rural, "backward" community. They still offered Home-Economy classes.

She learned to sew and balance a check-book. She learned the fundamentals of nutrition and balancing the diet by color (red meat, orange and green vegetables, white carbs).

Fashion being what it is, skill-based programs like "shop" and "home-ec" became an embarrassment. Theory was "cool". Applied science was for dirt-people. Teaching (mostly) girls how to run a household was deemed sexist and demeaning.

The 25-year-old man of today has the body of the 40-year-old man in the 1980s. The same pear-shape. The softness in the middle and the stooping posture and sallow skin. Not all of them. But far too many.

How did we get so fat? I believe it is because we lost sight of the importance of the basic blocking-and-tackling of health. Eat right. Avoid poisons. Move in many different ways. Get some sunlight. Eliminate toxic people from your life (digging holes is great exercise).

We out-sourced the raising of our children to Kraft's Mac-n-Cheese and McDonald's and frozen pizza.

One huge thing you can say about the military is that it compliments the Home-Ec that women received by exposing men to the same concepts of nutrition, exercise and maintenance skills (sewing buttons, for instance) while their minds were still plastic and moldable....and as a percentage, fewer and fewer young men choose to join the military.

Presented with little comment

 

Things are SO MUCH better now!!!  Right?

A Tale of Two Trees

GoldRush apple grafted on G.935 root-stock. Picture taken September 6, 2024 in Eaton Rapids, Michigan

GoldRush grafted on MM-106 root-stock. Picture taken September 6, 2024

The second tree is approximately 25 feet south of the first tree.

G.935 root-stock slightly advance (makes earlier) the ripening of the apples. MM-106 delays ripening. Yet these two trees show exactly the opposite.

GoldRush is usually a VERY LATE ripening apple. October 15 is a typical picking date for this apple and it still needs additional ripening in storage to be at its best.

The second tree is an enigma. It should still be carrying all of its apples, yet most of them are on the ground. By all measures, the tree on MM-106 is at least a month more advanced in fruit maturity than the other.

Most people, when confronted with a situation that contradicts their understanding of how things SHOULD work, discard the observation. Some of us embrace that contradiction as an opportunity, a data-point, toward build a better model of how the universe works.

The one difference between these two trees is that the super-early ripening GoldRush tree has two small branches of G.41 rootstock grafted into it as pollen sources.

Could that be the difference?

If you are an avid reader of first-hand observations of people trying to grow fruit in places like Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta (Canada) then you will occasional run across accounts of growers grafting super-hardy varieties into trees of more "tender" varieties. They claim that grafting a local, high-plains-hardy American plum, for instance, will increase the winter-hardiness of a more tender plum, presumably because it speeds up the tender plum's metabolic preparations for winter.

Like a committee with one very strident member, a tree is a community of cells and a resolute and uncompromising clump of cells can yank the rest of the community far more than the weighted-average of the mass of the cells would leave one to expect.

The grafts are easy to locate. The G.41 is much girthier than the branch it is grafted on.

This winter I intend to prune out the branches G.41 and see if the maturity of the GoldRush on MM-106 reverts back to its expected time-slot.

Is the information useful?

Maybe. Maybe not. It might depend on where you were trying to grow fruit and what varieties you wanted to grow.

If you live by Lake Superior, for instance, and wanted to grow Liberty apples, it might be worth grafting an "accelerator" branch into the tree to ensure the fruit was ripe enough to pick before it froze.

Or if you were a commercial grower and were this close ===>||<==== to being able to ripen a variety that commanded premium prices...it might be worth trying grafting "accelerators" on a row or two of trees.

If you wrote doomer fiction, then it would be a Godsent to be able to "save" your orchard in the event of Nuclear Winter or other, serious climate wobble.

Disclosure...it is likely that there are other varieties/species that are better accelerators than G.41. Truth be told, maybe there are other factors in-play and it is not not what it looks like. I will not know that until I cut out the G.41 and see if the tree reverts back to normal ripening times.

Fake News Friday: Kennedy sues Michigan for removing Biden from the 2024 POTUS ballot

Jocelyn Benson, the Secretary of State of the State of Michigan refused to remove Robert Kennedy's name from the 2024 POTUS ballot even though he suspended his campaign and requested that his name be removed.

Jocelyn Benson is a Democrat and most critics attribute her refusal to the fact that Kennedy is likely to pull more votes from Trump (a Republican) than from Harris (a Democrat).

Kennedy's campaign turned the table on Benson by filing suites against her demanding that she also include Biden on the 2024 ballots.

Additionally, Kennedy's campaign purchased large blocks of advertising on social media in swing-states and threatened to run "Write in Biden" ads if Kennedy's name is not removed from the ballot.

Sneak previews of the ads that were forwarded to the ERJ blog showed montages of Joe Biden unequivacally stating that he was not going to stand-down as the Democratic candidate for POTUS. The ads implied that the cowardly Harris/Walz faction seized the moment when he was quarantined with Covid to stab him in the back.

Mrs ERJ left me....

Mrs ERJ left me with a full tray of ice-cubes in the freezer, fifteen breakfast burritos in the fridge and instructions to not go to Lansing, use the chain-saw, climb ladders or to go to Charlotte (except for Sunday Mass) before she returned.

Backstory

Guess who caught the cold Quicksilver had. Yep. Me.

Guess whose family has a big to-do up-North this weekend. Yep. Mine.

Guess who isn't going.  Me and Zeus, that is who.

Last night Zeus was bouncing around after I let him out of the kennel. I try to not speak ill of my children, but they thought it was hilarious to teach the German Shepherds jump up and put their front paws on their (the kid's) shoulders. We spoke sternly to them, but one in particular resisted our guidance and the habit was deeply ingrained in the two dogs.

Zeus is still a jumper. MOSTLY he misses and it is for-show. But sometimes he misjudges and makes contact with his human. That is why collecting Zeus from the kennel is my job and not Mrs ERJ's job. Mrs ERJ weighs about 55kg dripping wet with a pocket full of change.

Anyway, Zeus is over ten years old and the muscles and tendons are not quite as springy as they used to be. He pulled something in his right-rear quarter or lower back last night.

We gave him an entric-coated aspirin last night and he was better in the morning but Mrs ERJ (God bless her) was still concerned that Zeus might die while we were up-North. She strongly considered abandoning the mission for this weekend. That would have been sad because Southern Belle and Quicksilver were carpooling with us and that would leave them with a long ride and they would also likely bail (even though their room was paid for).

Fortunately, I was able to talk sense into her. I took Zeus to the vet and we left with 10, 75mg Carprofen tablets. I offered to stay home and care for the dog so all of the hens could go north and have a wild time eating desserts and talking until 3:00 in the morning.

She wavered...and then she folded. She just pulled out of the driveway.

She left me with a full tray of ice-cubes in the freezer, fifteen breakfast burritos in the fridge and instructions to not go to Lansing, use the chain-saw, climb ladders or to go to Charlotte (except for Sunday Mass).

The arrangement works out well for me. The cold is leaving me low-energy and I can plod around the house and get a few things done. I will NOT have to spend 6 hours in the vehicle. They will return sometime Sunday afternoon.

Mrs ERJ is much more social than I am. She will come back energized and I will undoubtedly hear about every conversation that occurred at the event. It is sort of like M.A.S.H 4077th TV show. The Korean War was "Hot" for three-years and one month. The TV show, M.A.S.H. 4077th was produced for eleven years and has been available as re-runs for the intervening forty years for a grand total of 51 years or about 17 times longer than the actual conflict.

Old music still bending moods

We all know people who are struggling. Some of them are younger and are unlikely to know the strength that can be found in "old" music.

I recently had a chance to suggest some music to somebody whose life has been a sh!t-sandwich. These are the songs I suggested:

Like a Bridge Over Troubled Water
You've Got a Friend
Amazing Grace version one
Amazing Grace version two

What a Wonderful World suggested by Irontomflint
Even If by MercyMe suggested by LindaG
My Sweet Lord suggested by RHT447
Lay my Burden Down suggested by Boatguy
Fire and Rain suggested by Anon 11:58 PM
Emmy Lou Harris and Ricky Scaggs suggested by Anon 11:51 PM

Sunny Side of the Street suggested by Anon 6:30 AM, Sept 6
Let it be Me suggested by Southern NH
Leaning on the Everlasting Arm suggested by Coonhollow
Hurt suggested by Anon 8:03 PM
Enjoy Yourself suggested by Anon 8:21 PM
Do-Wacka-Do suggested by STxAR
Mary Ellen Carter suggested by Bob 
If You're Going Through Hell also suggested by Bob

Square, Plumb and True suggested by Anon Sept 7 (A foundation square, plumb and true is a house half-built)

These are not complicated songs. They are not highly-produced. Most of the sound is human-voice. I think that is a strength because it offers human "connection".

I am not the bridge over troubled water.

I am not the ultimate friend.

I am not the source of Grace.

I would be a fraud and a liar if I pretended to be.

But when life is full of suckage, we need to be reminded of simple truths and we need human connection that is not knifing us in the back. We need GOD and we need to be reminded that He is always there, waiting for us to ask for a relationship with Him.

I am sure there are better songs and better artists, but those are the ones that popped into my head. I offer them as a thought-starter because we never know when the coach is going to throw us into the game and ask us to help others through a rough patch or two.

Flashlights

Mrs ERJ was lamenting the loss of one of our flashlights.

It used D-cells and was stout enough and weighty enough to pound tent-stakes into the ground. It also had a loop for a lanyard. And while it wasn't very bright, it was bright enough and it had battery life that could be measured in years.

Those kinds of flashlights are no longer fashionable. People want tiny, tacticool flashlights or 1,000,000 lumen lights that can set fire to the retinas of your across-the-street neighbor.

Even though that kind of flashlight is no longer fashionable, they can be found and they are inexpensive.

The only thing that could be improved would be to make the body of the flashlight a brighter color to make it easier to find when I lay it down AND the switch is goofy. It cycles Bright-off-medium-off-low-off rather than the Bright-medium-low-off that seems to be the current standard.

Still, for an $11 flashlight with batteries included and with a 12 hour battery life at the medium setting (360 lumens), both Mrs ERJ and I are happy. She had me order four of them.