Martial Law as it might be applied by the Progressives

In spite of conservative's fears of blue-helmeted thugs going door-to-door to collect tools needed for self-sufficiency and for self-defense, I DON'T think that is what the Progressive's most common implementation of Martial Law will look like.

May I humbly submit that we saw Progressive, Martial Law in the recent past. One definition of Martial Law reads: 

The law imposed on an occupied territory by occupying military forces. 

The Antifa camps in Portland and other cities and the pro-Palestinian occupations of college campuses this past year were arguably Martial-Law administered by Progressive proxies.

Not convinced? Military and law enforcement personnel are allowed a great deal of latitude and vastly diminished accountability during Martial-Law. Civil rights like freedom of passage and freedom from search-and-seizure are suspended. There are very few checks-and-balances on their actions and they can act with near-impunity. If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

From the Progressive perspective, those adventures worked great and had very little blow-back and I would expect them to double-down.

What might a by-city Martial Law implementation look like?

Disclaimer: I have no military or law-enforcement experience so I am undoubtedly getting a bunch of things wrong. Read this for ENTERTAINMENT value only.

Just for shits-and-giggles, I want to rough-out a "mission" whereby Orange-Force implements Martial Law on a city with roughly 80k population and a core-area of 20 square-miles. It COULD be Springfield, Ohio but it applies equally to Kalamazoo, Michigan and maybe fifty other cities in the US.

The objective of the imposition of Martial Law is to identify and capture key Purple-Force players for later processing.

Springfield, Ohio

The first objective would be to secure the southern and then the eastern boundary because I-70 is one of the United States MAJOR east-west arteries for over-the-road logistics. Quite by coincidence, the city of Kalamazoo has I-94 along its southern boundary and it is THE major artery between Chicago and Canada. Lots of small-to-medium size cities with large influxes of immigrants are bounded by a major interstate.

Since Springfield is a scant sixty miles from The Ohio State University (and Kalamazoo is home of Western Michigan University) the smart money would run the operation between Christmas-and-New Year, or during Spring Break or two weeks after the University(ies) break for the summer to minimize collateral damages and to reduce the risk of useful idiots reinforcing Team Purple.

After securing the southern flank, the second wave of movement would be to secure the major inbound/outbound roads marked with red score-marks in the image shown above. Simultaneously, "Spotters" would be positioned 30 miles outbound on the interstate to identify inbound busses that might be transporting allies of the Purple-force. Vehicles with radios would tail the busses to ensure they did not exit the limited access roads to avoid road-blocks. Once inside the area where Martial Law has been declared, many of the Constitutional Rights of the riders are diluted and they can be detained.

In weeks before the operation, Artificial Intelligence would be monitoring cellphone vocal traffic and tagging numbers that trafficked in Creole, Spanish, Farsi, Arabic, Mandarin, Cantonese and other languages-of-interest. GPS locations would also be harvested prior to the operation to gain insight into the travel and association patterns of those groups of people. Intelligence would also download the "translation apps" resident on phones.

That information would be harvested ostensibly to "push" text messages to the various groups in their native language but would have obvious tactical advantages to Team Orange.

Food deliveries to retailers inside of the Martial Law zone would be delayed but food would be available at the check-points. The caveat was that the entire household must report to the check-point to ensure the proper amount of food was distributed. 

When residents showed up at the check-points, they would be offered a deal they can't refuse, an all-paid, all-inclusive stay at a resort in sunny Cleveland. There would be sniper over-watch and violent refusals would get a kinetic response. Refugees (why mince words) would be sorted into sheep and goats and dealt with accordingly.

In five days, the population would be reduced by 50%. In ten days the population would be reduced by 90%.

Then the door-to-door sweeps start. If done at New Year or Spring Break, IR will identify inhabited houses and Purple-force movement. If the op is run during the summer, seismic sensors must be "sprinkled" and drone coverage must be continuous.

Take-aways:

Never consent to becoming a refugee.

Beat the rush, panic early and ALWAYS have multiple options of places to land. Even better, have a change of clothes and a few other necessities stashed there.

It is always good to have a friend or family member who works in the mail-room of the local LEO office. Since mail-rooms are extinct, the closest relative is knowing somebody in IT.

There will be a pulse or a tempo to operations. No sane general would attack Russia in December. Likewise, there are "good" and "poor" times to run Martial Law ops in the US.

A few pictures

 

A Szego hybrid chestnut tree. It is time to start knocking the chestnuts down so I can beat the deer to them.

Schlarbaum hybrid chestnut

The bees that are squatting in my trap hive

Forest floor degraded by extreme deer pressure. The trees along the right side of the frame are apple trees and the one in the background, slightly left-of-center is an oak.

I am tempted to install a deer-exclusion fence for a bit of this area just to see how much change happens. I saw some deer exclusion enclosures at the Crockery Creek Nature Area in Ottawa County and the differences were striking. The enclosed areas were not very large, maybe 15' by 30'.

This image is from Cuyahoga County, Ohio. The area was fenced for 4 years and growth is from the native seed-bank or from plants that were smoldering-in-place being released from deer pressure.

Martial Law: Not "IF", but when, where and why

With the escalating passions over the up-coming elections, both sides are envisioning circumstances where "the other side" would be likely to declare Martial Law.

Examples:

The progressives envision Trump starting to deport illegal aliens and the aliens resist, killing ICE deputies. Trump declares Martial Law on a city-by-city basis and the hot-spots get cleared out.

The conservatives envision Harris going house-to-house confiscating weapons and the owners of the weapons resist....

What both of these scenarios share is that the declarations will be local and will be shifting. There are not enough resources to administer and enforce Martial Law nationwide.

How to prepare?

Here is a fairly comprehensive but lopsided article. In my opinion, vigorously advocating for "your rights" will make you a lightning rod. Another issue is that their Gold-Standard news sources lean left.

Lock-downs and curfews are likely. Communication black-outs are almost a certainty.

Note to self: Work on alternative comms plan including nodes outside of likely Martial Law foot-prints. That plan MIGHT be as simple as riding a bicycle ten miles in a given direction with an SD card in my shoe.

It is a little bit dry out there

We have had 0.6" of rain in the last month vs. 3.3" of evaporation potential. The top layers of soil are getting pretty dry.

We are sitting at 2850 Growing Degree Days b50 vs a median value of about 2700 GDDb50 for this date.

Our median growing season (assuming net photosynthesis stops on October 15) is about 2900 GDDb50. 2021 was the outlier at 3300 GDDb50 on October 15 but the rest of the data is fairly tightly clustered.

Is "Morality" subjective

It is popular to contend that morality is subjective and that in an absolute sense that all moral-systems are equal. It is unpopular to argue that some moral-systems are inherently superior to others.

I guess today is the day I am meant to disappoint others and to be unpopular.

When morality does depend on circumstances

It is always possible to find extreme situations around the edges of the "map" where the margins read "Thar be Dragons".

For example, the Donner Party or UAF Flight 571 where survivors resorted to cannibalized deceased members of the party.

Finding an exception in Thar be Dragons does not invalidate a general statement.

The case that some moral systems are superior to others

Consider two moral systems that self-extinguished: Jim Jones's cult and the Shakers. Both are now extinct. Can anybody make a credible case that either of those cults are the equal of moral-codes that still exist? How can they be equal when they don't exist in any measurable way and can no longer provide guidance on day-to-day issues?

I suppose the contrary will argue that they were BETTER than existing moral-codes. An environmental zealot might make that argument, for instance. That is fine, but you just proved my point; that some moral-systems are "better" than others.

How to rank them?

In the dry language of engineers, "extinction" is a high entropy event. "Irreversibility" is another way to describe entropy. If you put an ice cube into a hot cup of coffee and stir it for five minutes it is almost impossible to recover the undiluted, hot coffee and the ice cube without increasing entropy (irreversibility or disorder) outside the system.

From a practical standpoint, systems that are pathologically high-entropy almost always lose wars when they wage them against systems that are significantly lower-entropy. That is due to lower-entropy systems generally having more population and higher technology.

Sparta, who murdered their weakest sons lost to Athens. The American-Indians who were bedeviled by enormous infant and child mortality lost to Europeans.

A moral system that encourage rape of the landscape is a high-entropy system. A moral system that fosters stewardship of the landscape is a low-entropy system.

As a side-note, here are two verses from Deut Chapter 20:

When you are at war with a city and have to lay siege to it for a long time before you capture it, you shall not destroy its trees by putting an ax to them. You may eat of them, but you must not cut them down. Are the trees of the field human beings, that they should be included in your siege?

However, those trees which you know are not fruit trees you may destroy. You may cut them down to build siegeworks against the city that is waging war with you, until it falls.

Viewed through the lens of entropy, that language looks like a very strong commitment to stewardship and long-term viability for humans.

Did the spread of Islam create the Sahara Desert?

Some blamed the growth of the Sahara Desert on the growth of Islam. The contention was "The Arabs were not the sons of the desert, but the fathers of it."

The style of warfare preferred by Jihadist during its rapid assent favored open plains and was hampered by trees and cover. The argument is that Islam destroyed trees on principle.

Even though the Quran (Surah Hashr Ayat 5) has language prohibits the cutting of date-palms it has been accepted as "OK" during Jihad since Jihad is Allah's will. All other trees could be cut at at-will.

It seems doubtful that cutting all of those trees CAUSED the Sahara Desert but it probably accelerated its spread.

Also on the topic of stewardship

Communism is the abolition of private property. In general, most people take much better care of their own property than they do of "community" property.

"Beat it like a rented mule" is a saying that comes to mind.

"Tragedy of the Commons" is another saying that comes to mind.

Ipso facto, Communism is an inferior moral system than a system that favors private property.

For the same reasons, the hook-up culture is inferior to dating and marriage.

The idea of mixing

Entropy is often introduced as "mixing". A spoonful of sugar mixed with a glass of water cannot be recovered without applying outside energy to evaporate the water. One key point is high-entropy requiring outside resources to return to its starting state.

Consider a classroom with two pupils. John is a whiz at math and shop. Sebastian is a dreamy poet who likes to draw pictures.

A high-entropy system would demand equal outcomes and pour enormous amounts of energy teaching John to write poetry and to draw pictures as well as Sebastian while pouring equally large amounts of resources trying to pound math and shop into Sebastian's brain. Because outcomes are most important, John is starved for math and shop instruction and Sebastian is starved for poetry and art instruction.

A low-entropy system would give John MORE math and shop classes and fewer poetry and art classes while giving Sebastian MORE poetry and art classes and fewer math and shop. The NET learning would be much higher for the low-entropy system. If the concept was extended across the society, there would be higher net-carrying capacity and greater capacity to fight wars.

Suppose, on the other hand, a moral system randomly decided that half of the population could receive absolutely zero formal instruction. Random in the sense that it was totally disconnected from the (potential) student's ability to learn. That would be a failure of stewardship and is a special case of the high-entropy moral system. There are some moral systems in the world today that forbid educating women and "unbelievers".

IS THERE ANYBODY I HAVEN'T PISSED OFF TODAY. LEMME KNOW. I AM ON A ROLL!!!

Moral reasoning and accountability

For whatever reason, it is easier to behave in a morally proper way when you know that there is a chance that you will be held accountable for your actions.

Cotton and civilization

In an unexpected and quirky way, cotton was a keystone resource in the development of "civilization" as we know it.

In the medieval and early-Renaissance period, a book cost about the equivalent of one day's un-skilled labor  per-page. Since hand-written script was much less compact than the mechanical typeset pages we are used to today, a five-hundred page book (like Fifty Shades of Grey) might be 1500 pages of vellum. And, if the vellum was particularly fine, it was almost transparent and was only marked on one side. So the 1500 page book was printed on 1500 separate sheets of vellum and would cost the equivalent of three year's wages for the average Joe. I suspect Fifty Shades would not have sold as many copies, had it cost that much today.

Even into the middle of the Renaissance, paper was made from beaten linen rags. Linen is not very productive and the paper-makers were competing with other trades like candle-wick makers and the like. Also, because fabric was so precious, clothing was worn to mere tatters and there wasn't that much substance when they were sold to the rag-pickers. Despite all of that, a "University" textbook on cheaper paper might sell for the equivalent of $200 or $300 and a third of that was the cost of the paper it was printed on. It was a bargain compared to the meticulously tanned and scraped hides that became vellum and parchment.

But something incredible happened between 1500 and 1800 AD. Cotton started being grown in the American deep-South and India became a major exporter of cotton. The price of paper dropped from the equivalent of $0.30 a page to the equivalent of $2.50 for a ream of 500 sheets. That is 1/60th the price. The daily wage of an unskilled laborer in 1800 was about $0.70, enough to purchase 140 sheets of paper. That was a huge leap from the single page in a book that a day's labor could purchase in the late-Medieval times**.

Paper was cheap enough to publish newspapers which were passed from one person to the next and were then recycled. That was absolutely unheard of when a single sheet of material to write upon was a working man's daily pay*. Broad-sheets could be printed and tacked to trees and fence-posts. Political tracts that expressed radical, political ideas were written, published and tacked up on trees, fence posts and the sides of buildings (and to church doors). Hymns were written. Plays were captured for eternity. Laws were codified and became accessible to a broad swath of humanity.

Key to that was the nature of cotton. Linen fibers are trapped in the stem and bundles of stems must be submerged in water for the stems to partially decay. Then the stems are beaten to dislodge the semi-rotten flesh and leave the fibers, which are then combed, dried, bleached in the sun. The yield of usable fiber per acre of ground is not very impressive. 

Bundles of flax in a "retting" pond.

That limits linen production to places like Holland and Belgium and certain areas in France and Britain, places where many shallow ponds dot the landscape where bundles of flax can be submerged.

In modern times, an acre of flax yields about 400 pounds of processed linen. Before fertilizer, insecticides and improved varieties were developed, one third of that was probably an outstanding yield.

Cotton, on the other hand, yields about 800 pounds per acre. 

Cotton which is not trapped in stems and the lack of shallow ponds and autumn springs are not a limiting factor in the production of cotton. Even the "waste", the dust from the outsides of the seed (the linters) can be used for paper.

The explosive embrace in the growing cotton resulted in a quantum leap in the affordability of "paper", which in turn resulted in a quantum leap in the quality and amount of thinking and the ability to share ideas and to integrate other people's insights into one's own thinking.

I appreciate African-American's visceral reaction to "cotton" and the plantation system. But that cultural empathy should not totally obscure the fact that if cotton did not exist, it is likely that we would still be living in a pre-scientific world...say, the equivalent of 1550 AD technology.

*Comparing the cost of an object to the price of a day's labor from an unskilled worker is misleading. The nature of the economy was such that a day's pay was only sufficient to keep the worker and his family alive for one-more-day. In fact, it was less than that because his wife and kids were out there hustling for calories and barterable goods. An unskilled worker NEVER had excess money to pay for anything beyond the barest of necessities.

The only point of referring to an unskilled person's daily wage is that it is one of the few commodities that seems ageless. The point is that if a wealthy person wanted to buy a book then he had to be willing to forego the kilometer of irrigation ditch he could have paid to have dug with the same amount of money

** I am guilty of conflating blank pages of paper with pages in books covered with hand-written script. So sue me.

---A huge note of thanks to Alma Boykin and Lucas Machias, both of whom cheerfully sent me reference materials. All errors are mine.---

Pictures from the projects

 

64 square-feet of shelving space.

The shelves are level. The stringers in the pole barn are not. They slope about 2" in 8 feet.

The platform without decking.

With decking it weighs 140 pounds. That might drop a bit as the treated lumber dries out. Removing 12 bolts breaks it into the top, two side panels and four diagonal braces to make it easier to move around. You know, for when I get old.

This is a fairly typical tree in the orchard. The circled area of the branch is about 9' above ground. The circled area is also 8' away from the center of the tree. Everything extending past that (another 8' or so)  is outside the tree's allotted space.

In a nutshell, deer eat tender, young shoots that are less than 6' above the ground. If the highest apples that can be hand picked are (8' (step ladder) +7' (reach) - 2' (not standing on two top steps)) then all of the apples must be carried between 6' and 13' of height. Since horizontal limbs generally slope upward as they grow away from the trunk, it is hard to create a "cone" shaped tree that ensures even light distribution throughout the tree's crown. More typically, one ends up with a mushroom shaped tree or a "flat-topped" tree.

It isn't just the deer pushing the growth higher. If the orchard floor is maintained by mowing, then any limbs that extend beyond the mulched-or-herbicide rows must be high enough to not injure people operating mowing equipment.

Commercial orchards are mostly tall-spindles. Basically, a wall or a comb with the teeth pointing upward. That comes at a price of 1000 trees per acre vs. 115 for trees planted 15' by 25'. At $20 a tree, that is a very stiff toll. Additionally, small trees have smaller roots and cannot access moisture stored in the subsoil nearly as efficiently as larger trees. Those tall-spindle hedges require irrigation.

Another "typical" tree. Too much wood carried too far away from the trunk and too high in the air.

The "plan" is to ATTEMPT squatty cones (modified, central-leaders or Christmas-tree shape) with a maximum height of 10' on the central leader and a maximum crown diameter of 16'. Why 10'? because apples will be carried on the new growth that will be ABOVE the 10' heading cut to the central-leader.

A secondary factor pushing me into aggressive pruning is the young trees that will be plugged into the holes left by culled or dead trees. Those young trees will fail if they do not get sunshine. That means that the survivors must be pruned back into their allotted space.

Fine Art Tuesday

 

There are at least four artists who go by the name Heinrick Hoffmann (or some variant of it). This Heinrick Hoffmann was born in 1859 in Kassel and died in 1933.

His paintings are mostly of the post-card type...bucolic and peaceful. I saw one of his pieces (or a reproduction) at an estate sale. Unfortunately, I was not able to find that same piece to add to the collection.

The unkind would dismiss him as an "illustrator" rather than as an artist.

 Bonus image (Schenk, not Hoffmann)

Good stories start with bad judgement

So there I was, doing a bit of back-yard carpentry work.

I decided that I needed some scaffolding to prune the apple trees at The Property. Careful measurements determined that I only needed four additional feet of elevation to do a dandy job trimming the lowest "whorls" of branches.

For those who haven't done this kind of thing. It would seem that an eight-foot tall step-ladder would be the cat's meow for this kind of thing, but you would be wrong.

Operating a chainsaw from a step-ladder has certain limitations. Among other things, you run out of arms and hands to hold onto the ladder, the branches you are trimming and the chainsaw, you don't have a bail-out option AND if a branch drops down and jumps back at you, it will knock you, the running saw and the ladder ass-over-teakettle before you can think, blink or fart.

A short platform offers more options. I can work from one end and remove most of the overhanging mass. Then I can shorten the horizontal to the length my pruning plan and the tree's natural branching dictate.

Fast-forward

My plan is to have a platform 4' square, 4' above the ground.

Unlike some of my other projects, I decided to cut the ends of the studs defining the perimeter of the platform's deck on 45 degree angles (i.e. picture-frame cuts). And therein lies the story. (At this point Roger is chuckling. He already knows what is going to happen)

Placing the 8' long 2-by-4 upon yon picnic table and carefully marking out my cuts, I proceeded to produce two, 4' long sticks with 45s on the ends. I then repeated the exercise with a second, 8' long 2-by-4.

Legs were cut. Diagonal bracing was added. Sub-assemblies were joined together. Another trip was made to the local lumber yard and 5/4" treated lumber was purchased in 8' lengths. The treating not only changes the color to gold but apparently adds to its value such that it IS gold.

Now for whatever reason, the picture in my head was that the exterior dimension was a skoosh less than 4'. Having seen decking that was nailed along the extreme, cut end and seen it splitting-out, I decided it would be extra-special-spiffy if I cut my planking 1.5" longer than the length they were spanning so the deck-screws would have some meat behind them rather than their gripping the ends of the planks by the fingernails, so to speak.

I pulled out the first 8' 5/4 treated and used the top of the platform and a scrap length of 2-by to measure the "length + 1-1/2"" and penciled my mark. I did not use my measuring tape because, like a ninny, I had laid it down instead of putting it into my pocket or clipping it to my belt. (Roger is cackling with glee. "Get the danged yo-yo" he is shouting at the computer.)

I went back to the picnic table and made the cut. Then, because I KNEW it was less than 4', I used the shorter piece to mark off the longer piece and I reduced it to the length of the shorter piece.

I repeated the same with the second piece of golden, Ponderosa Pine planking.

Lacking any better place to put them, I carried them over to the scaffolding and laid them on the framework that defined the top of the platform....

...and they were too short.

They weren't just 1.5" too short. They were 2" too short!

When you cut "picture-frame" corners, the outside dimensions grow.

Creating a word-picture of why-that-happens is difficult but I will give it a shot.

If you took two, 8' 2-by-4s and cut them into 4' lengths and them fastened them into a frame, you would create a rectangle with outside dimensions of 48"-by-51" because one dimension would grow by 2X the thickness of the wood (2-by-4s actually being 1.5"-by-3.5")

To make a true 48"-by-48" square frame, you would have to cut two of the sticks to 45", throwing away the equivalent of four, 1.5" SQUARES by 3.5" long prisms of wood.

When you cut "picture-frame" cuts, you end up throwing away 4 TRIANGULAR prisms measuring 1.5"-by-1.5" by 2.25" by 3.5" long. That is, if you aren't thinking ahead (like I wasn't).

It was painful (expensive) to mess-up the two 5/4 decking planks but I will surely find a use for them.

The fix is to scab a 2-by-4 inside of the frame. Buy two more 5/4 decking planks and cut them to 48" lengths and proceed as before. All "shortage" of decking will be chased to the scabbed end of the platform.

Just because I blog doesn't mean I don't make lots of mistakes. One of my reasons for remaining anonymous is because I have more latitude to share my opportunities-to-learn.

Insulin price and availability

President Trump issued an Executive order forcing Big Pharma to match European prices. On Mr Biden's first day in the White House, he issued an executive order cancelling President Trump's Executive Order.

The United States has, by far, the highest prices for insulin in the world. Ironically, the Eli Lilly facility in Indianapolis, Indiana is the single largest producer of insulin in the world.

Insulin is the chemical regulator produced by the pancreas that meters glucose (sugar in the blood) through cell walls into muscles, the brain cells and into the cells lining blood vessels. A lack of insulin (Type I diabetes) results in a very high blood sugar level as the liver keeps pumping it into the blood-stream but the cells that need it are not able to absorb it.

Recently, users of certain brands of insulin were sent notice that there may be a 30-to-60 day lag-time in the delivery of their prescriptions. That is a very big deal for the 2 million people in the US who have Type I diabetes and availability and quality of insulin is a life-or-death issue.

According to Al Jazeera News, equipment that had been used for insulin production has been rescheduled to produce the latest (and much more profitable) weight-loss drugs.

All that on top of (maybe) World War III going hot and cutting off supplies of, or disrupting the production of insulin from other countries.

God must have a mighty high opinion of us because He never gives us more than we can handle and things are getting mighty interesting, in the Chinese curse sort of way.

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.