Meghan, my dearest friend in the whole, wide world reached out to me and thousands of other high-powered Mainstream Media personalities and asked us to shillpraisepromote gush-over her relaunched brand "What Evah".
I am not allowed to print Meghan's last name but it rhymes with "Success", and that is what my gurl Meghan is all about: Success!!!
Oddly enough, there is a county by that name in northern Indiana and it is filled with Amish families.
I am a bit miffed that Meghan demanded that I sign a non-disclosure agreement prohibiting me from identifying where these products are made but that is a small matter.
I am sure you will agree that these are the finest, freshest products if you should ever chose to destroy their collector's value by opening one and trying the contents.
Help a sistah out and make Meghan's product launch one that she will never forget.
You have probably seen these birds hovering over a hapless field-mouse as the raptor pinpoints its precise location before plunging in to harvest his lunch.
Range map. Green is present year-round. Amber is spring-summer-fall range.
Kestrels, also known as Sparrow Hawks, are North America's smallest falcon. Some experts estimate that populations of the American Kestrel has plummeted by over 90% over the last fifty years.
The very high populations of fifty to one-hundred-fifty years ago were almost certainly a historical anomaly.
Among the probable "players" for the decline are loss of nesting habitat, disease and parasites, and loss of prime, foraging habitat.
Kestrels, along with several species of small owls, are cavity nesters. When there are not enough suitable sites available, continuous use results in a build-up of lice, ticks, nesting material, poor drainage and diseases. There are tons of plans for "Kestrel nesting boxes" on the internet.
The loss of prime foraging habitat is a tougher nut to crack. Farmers almost always had pasture and that pasture always had a stair-step progression of grass in terms of height. It was heaven for mice and easy for avian foragers to hunt.
Those small farms also made grain, used to feed livestock, available to English Sparrows. To a kestrel, a colony of English Sparrows is the equivalent of a drive-through window at a KFC.
Finally, those old farms seethed with insect life. The weight of the beetles, grubs and hossgrappers on an acre of pasture could easily outweigh the cow that was grazing it.
All of those components; rodents, birds and bugs are key elements of the American Kestrel's diet and suburban America with its manicured lawns, prodigious use of pesticides and poverty of grain-eating livestock contribute to that. Even commonplace technologies like power garage-doors contribute to the decline by trapping kestrels. The high-strung birds are likely to injure themselves in their frenzy to escape by smashing through windows.
None of the conditions listed above were common in most of pre-Columbian America.
Hat-tip to Lucas Machias for the idea for this post.
The three open spaces are approximately 48" by 29-1/4"
No, I did not choose the color of the walls. Tomorrow will see me filling in the rectangular open spaces and "mudding" the long seams.
Peach tree
I was at Menards today and this tree called my name. It is a "Contender" peach and was almost 6' tall and the price seemed reasonable. Contender is on the list for what I was going to plant in Southern Belle's orchard. Not having to graft it might save a year or two in terms of the tree starting to produce fruit.
The Atlantic Magazine is owned by Laurene Powell Jobs. She also owns 4% of Disney's stock and has an estimated net-worth of about $10B.
Since March 1, Walt Disney stock lost about $20B in market cap. That impacts a lot of 401-k and IRAs and insurance company portfolios and public sector pension balances.
Since March 1, she lost $800M, on paper, on her Disney stock. Since 2021 Walt Disney stock lost 45% of its value. Extended over Laurene Powell Jobs' 4% ownership, that amounts to a $5.7B haircut. Total market cap for Disney company fell by about $142B. All of the same comments about 401-k apply.
So, The Atlantic Magazine doesn't have to be profitable. It is an avocation or a hobby for Mz Jobs. Sort of like breeding Carrier Pigeons or French Bulldogs. It doesn't have to be practical.
The reason a movie that was expected to make money but loses a projected $110M can have a $20B impact on the market cap is twofold.
The first is that there is a multiplier involved. If you were buying an apartment building, for instance, you might pay 15X the projected earnings (revenue-costs). For a company with proven growth prospects, you might have to pay 40X earnings.
The second factor is that Disney makes a lot of money licensing the images of its various characters. It is still generating very large sums of money for Mickey Mouse's image, for instance. Those licenses are perpetual, money-printing machines that operate at almost zero expense to Disney. Unless something drastic happens, the latest incarnation of Snow White will not generate anything like the licensing revenues of Lion King or Frozen.
The second factor plays into the first. As long as Disney kept churning out movies that were successes in the theater, its earnings kept accelerating and it commanded a higher multiplier in the stock market. As soon as it falters, i.e. proves it is not infallible, then the multiplier wilts. Two major duds in-a-row totally guts the glittery image of an unstoppable growth company and the Price/Earnings ratio falls off of a cliff.
The drywall work proceeds apace. The pressed-paper tiles were removed and I added a 1-1/4" long crown staple to the 1"-by-3" furring strips every place it touched the bottom of a truss. Drywall is heavier than paper.
I need to purchase the correct junction box for the ceiling fan before I go much farther.
My shoulders and neck are sore. I anticipate headaches in my future. Still, life goes on.
Buzzers on GE dryers (offered for entertainment purposes only)
The dryer at Southern Belle's house is directly below Quicksilver's bedroom. The end-of-cycle buzzer is identical to the buzzer at a basketball game. Of course, the most convenient times for Southern Belle and Handsome Hombre to do laundry is when Quicksilver is down for her nap or in bed for the night.
Great dryer but horrendous end of cycle signal. Simple dryer that works
great. Dried towels in 30 mins!...Now to the end
of cycle signal, it is just horrible and unbearable! It alerts you two
times for about 13 seconds long. With all windows and doors closed, you
could still hear it outside. It doesn't have an option to turn it
off....
Buzzer for that model of GE dryer according to V&V Appliance Parts
The piezoelectric buzzer unit is a black "ice cube" with two, 1/4", male, spade connectors on top.
OH! GEE GOLLY! Look. A black ice cube!
Theoretically, after unplugging the unit one might remove the back panel to the back-splash that holds the controls and find the black ice cube with the two, 1/4", male, spade connectors on top.
And, hypothetically speaking, a fellow might remove one of the wires to the black ice cube and generously wrap the exposed metal end with electrical tape. If he were extra-special careful, he could also zip-tie the wire to another wire so the end was suspended in space distant from any of the metal panels. He could then plug the unit back in and verify that the buzzer was disabled.
Of course, leaving it in this condition probably violates the warranty, so if a person were so foolish as to do this, he should IMMEDIATELY return it to its as-delivered-from-the-factory perfection. And after returning it to factory condition, to re-install the back panel to prevent curious engineers from messing with its innards.
Recreational Plumbing
The other "little favor" Southern Belle requested was to replace the valve that feeds cold water to the washing machine. The old one had fractured where the threaded inlet screwed into the Tee, leaving a portion of the "nipple" stuck in the Tee.
I would say "No sweat" but removing the old Tee at the solder joints and replacing it was the order-of-the-day. It is what folks in the turd-herding business call "A sweated joint". It was not my prettiest work but it didn't leak and Southern Belle was cheerfully whittling down a pile of laundry when I left.
Paul Anka cover
One of my Dad's favorite songs.
They did a great job capturing the feel of the old-time recording studio's reverb.
BREAKING: "The Atlantic's" Jeffrey Goldberg now reveals Mike Waltz had him in his phone contacts b/c they've spoken previously. "He's telling everyone he's never met me or spoken to me. That's simply not true," Goldberg told NBC's Meet the Press. "I understand why he's doing it."
If Jeffrey Mark Goldberg, Editor-in-Chief of The Atlantic actually said that, then he just made "burning" confidential sources Editorial policy at The Atlantic.
The value of journalism involves collecting many seemingly-disconnected slivers of information and knitting them into a rational narrative. Think of the fable of the Three Blind Men and the Elephant.
Goldberg's throwing Mike Waltz under-the-bus for short-term, tactical, political gain will have a "What the hell am I risking?" effect on the armies of "sources" who feed information to The Atlantic's journalists. Not having access to confidential sources will hamstring The Atlantic's ability to perform that function and will murder the value of its output.
Ace 55 are on the top-half as viewed in the photo. Stupice are on the bottom half. The Stupice are germinating much more quickly than the Ace 55. The seeds were planted March 27th and the the tray was placed in Walmart, disposable, (translucent) plastic grocery bag. It was placed on a 20 Watt warming mat and kept at about 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
More wardrobe observed on-campus
Looked like a heat-transfer equation to me.
Deuce Anna Quattah (not a girl's name)
I grew up in Lansing, Michigan. People in Lansing built Oldsmobiles. People in Lansing drove Oldsmobiles. Except Black people. They drove Buicks and sometimes Cadillacs.
Curb feelers. Not a Buick
1972 Buick 225 2-door. No curb-feelers. Locally, the cool, young guys who wanted to impress the ladies drove two-doors.
Look. At. That. Trunk!
Specifically, most well-to-do Black men drove Deuce Anna Quattahs. With curb-feelers.
I think it was because the Oldsmobile dealerships did not extend credit to Black customers while the Buick dealership did.
Never discount how availability of credit can shape culture.
I got to thinking about that as Mrs ERJ and I walked across the Lansing Township floodplains. Formerly a golf-course, the land was now covered with multi-story apartment buildings that house students.
Student loans enable kids to live off-campus in newly-built apartment complexes. There are even condominiums that Pappa can buy and then use for a write-off.
My gut-feel is that these commercial real-estate investments will not age well.
There is little no organic demand other than what is enabled through student loans to attend University. Demand for many college degrees from diploma mills that churn out no-value-added credentials is tepid-at-best. That is, the return-on-investment approaches zero if you look at five years of forgone wages (especially compared to skilled-trades) and deferred retirements.
Historically, technology accelerates and the expertise that a college degree "signals" becomes stale ever more quickly. What once informed employers that a job candidate had job skills that would be useful for fifteen years now inform potential employers that the candidate knows how to look things up on Wikipedia...and most bright, young people without college degrees know how to do that.
Snow White
For the record, the movie Sydney White is a sweet, tastefully done remake of the Snow White story.
It is relatively common in the world of (beer) home-brewing to create "walk-in coolers" where kegs of beverage can be kept cold. But unlike a commercially manufactured, walk-in refrigerator that can cost tens-of-thousands of dollars, these enterprising folks retrofit ice-fishing shanties (Canadians are ardent home-brewers) with common, window-mounted air conditioners with the factory thermostat "jumpered out" and with an alternate thermostat wired in series.
This could be a handy cooler to have if a person needed a cold place to hang some newly killed meat.
I don't know how fast this would pull down the temperature of three, newly killed Whitetail Deer or a 300 pound hog, but if a fellow knew in advance he could pre-chill (or freeze) jugs of water starting 48 hours in advance and they would assist in pulling heat out of the carcasses.
Mrs ERJ and I went for a walk at a local college campus today.
I noticed that several of the women were wearing "wide" leg jeans. No, not "baggy", these were form fitting in the region of the derriere and then flared very subtly below the pockets.
Totally unlike yoga pants which leave NOTHING to the imagination, the fabric of the wide-leg jeans is flowing and has a wee bit of flutter. Nothing slutty...just a come-hither motion like the feathers of a well-fished marabou jig.
I totally get that these slacks only work for women with certain kinds of body shapes...but it is heartening that some fashion-conscious, young women are buying slacks that are not ripped to shreds or shrink-wrapped to their forms.
***Full disclosure: I think slit skirts and flamenco dresses are high-fashion.***
Maybe a back-door way to subsidize Tesla? Honda is also positioned to benefit compared to their traditional competitors Toyota, Nissan and VW.
Components make up roughly 40% of the cost of an automobile. 40% is "fixed cost" like the cost of the tools and dies and engineering. 20% is direct labor.
A 25% tariff on a vehicle that is 50% imported parts will raise the cost-to-produce by about 5%.
Some of the prices of domestic content will rise as manufacturers start purchasing commodities like nuts-and-bolts and spark-plugs from domestic suppliers.
I am using the bottom half of gallon milk-jugs to germinate my seeds. I found that I can make a much tidier cut with a pair of scissors than I can cutting them with a utility knife. The seeds don't care but the "pots" are a little nicer to work with.
The seedlings will be transplanted to multi-cell planting trays.
I started the tomato and green onion seeds yesterday. If the rain holds off, I will till Mrs ERJ's kitchen garden plot today. ---Note: Just walk around her garden. The soil is too damp to till.---
A change of pace
We have a few days where we will not be watching Quicksilver.
Mrs ERJ suggested that this will be a good time to do some things inside the house that might otherwise be difficult with a little-one underfoot or napping.
One of those tasks involves drywall and a ceiling. Oh boy!!! Fun!
Most lists on the internet are unreviewed repetitions of prior, field-observation based lists. Attempts to replicate the lists in the lab have been very mixed.
The authors hand-wave the variable results by claiming that there are multiple soil/bacteria/walnut exudate interactions. One class of bacteria convert the exudate to toxic chemical. Other classes of bacteria decompose the toxic chemicals. The toxic chemicals bind to clay particles with initially slows the spread but later may prolong the toxic effect.
The scientists nearly always use sterile potting material to produce seedlings (which are a convenient size for experimentation and cheap enough for multiple replicates) and then use a tea brewed from ground up roots or husks to challenge the seedlings.
Sterile potting material means almost no bacteria and very, very little clay.
This affects me because the orchards at The Property are surrounded by Black Walnut tree. I have permission to cut some of them but there are others that I am not permitted to remove.
The literature, flawed as it is, uniformly claims apples (Malus) are susceptible. The claims are scanty with regards to pears (Pyrus) but they might be less susceptible than Malus. The literature tends to imply that cherries/plums (Prunus) are relatively immune. The literature also gives good grades to Persimmons (Diospyros) and Pawpaws (Asimina).
It was not part of my original plan, but I have some peach rootstock coming this spring. I may plant the "extras" where they will be stressed by Juglone and we will see what happens. Having a surplus of peaches is a bonus and is much better than having a bunch of runty-dying apple trees.
Dragging brush is hard on my clothing. I am getting many little rips and tears in my trousers.
I am also getting many little rips and tears in my skin of my arms and legs.
QS showing me how to use the stethoscope
Quicksilver is delighted by that development. Mrs ERJ recently purchased Quicksilver a medical kit and it has seen a great deal of use as QS has been doctoring my "boo-boos".
Quicksilver not only puts on bandages, but she gives me an shot, and sometimes two, of antibiotics with each boo-boo.
St Lawrence Nursery
Reader Tim W. called my attention to the fact that St Lawrence Nursery has been opened under new management. St Lawrence Nursery was originally started by Fred Ashworth in 1923 and then passed on to Bill MacKentley (and family). The operation went dormant for a while and is now operated by Conner Hardiman.
I have purchased several trees from St Lawrence Nursery and would not hesitate to do so again. I still have Trailman and Kerr apple-crabs, Nova (named after Bill MacKentley's daughter) pear and Nova (from Nova Scotia) raspberry.
St Lawrence specializes in very hardy fruit and nut trees. Ironically, some of the apple-crabs that are most winter-hardy, varieties like Centennial and Chestnut, also do very well in the South.
As a matter of disclosure, it is my opinion that the minimum temperatures listed in the catalog are optimistic by about 15 degrees Fahrenheit. If the catalog says a variety can withstand -50F, it is prudent to read that as -35F. The reasons are complex but include length of growing season, how quickly the temperature drops or how heavily the tree bore in the growing season before the cold-snap. A tree in an optimal state of dormancy might survive -50F but perish at -35F if it over-bore or if a very early killing frost hit or if the temperature was above freezing and then dropped 70 degrees in a matter of 24 hours or if the grower made a late-in-season application of high-nitrogen fertilizer.
Tick Borne Diseases
A map of tick-borne diseases in the continental United States
This is a good time of year to "burn" ditches and fence rows if your local government allows it. There are few things that knock back the tick population better than burning. It not only kills the ticks looking for hosts, it deprives rodents of the cover that protects them from predators.
At some point, we have to weigh the health costs of tick-borne diseases against the health costs of smoke from burning grass.
Chronic Wasting Disease
In North America
In Europe
CWD in Europe is a different strain than what is seen in North America. It is speculated that CWD arose independently in Europe.
No Comment
I have no comments regarding the latest drama regarding the leaks of the military communications to the Atlantic magazine other than "Don't commit any communication to "electronic" communications that you
would not want printed in your local paper or used as evidence in a
court-of-law".
I don't possess any unique insights or inside information. I am standing on the sidelines watching it play out.
Suckers
Suckers should be running (locally) this weekend.
Suckers start running/spawning at 50F (10C) water temperatures. Black Creek is the closest stream where the USGS monitors water temperature.
I got to The Property and realized that I had failed to include any power tools. There I was with three, fully charged batteries and no saws.
Improvise, adapt, overcome.
My goal was to work one hour and my stretch-goal was three. I made it 2:45 hours on-task and 3:30 by-the-clock.
A neighbor hailed me 45 minutes into my second hour and offered me a place to sit down and a cold Coca Cola. It would have been ungracious of me to refuse.
From near the southwest corner of the Upper Orchard looking north
From the same spot looking east.
Work is going slower because I am having to drag each piece of brush farther.
God willing, I will get to where a friend with a brush-hog can go through and shred the odds-and-ends.
View of the south end of the linear brush pile from the deer stand. The golden Christmas-tree shapes are young Sawtooth Oak (Quercus acutissima)
I continued to drag brush out of the orchard.
Location of opening through brush pile
I measured the distance from the base of the deer stand and made an adjustment. The opening through the pile is now 27 yards-to-30 yards from the stand and is 3 yards wide.
The gap that I hope will funnel deer to within 30 yards of the stand
View of the north end of the linear brush-pile take from the ground, looking to the north. This picture was taken two hours after the first image.
The brush pile now extends another 25 yards past the opening.
3-1/2 hours by-the-clock with 3 hours on-task.
I figured out that longer breaks mean I don't beat myself into the dirt in terms of fatigue. While it seems wasteful, it means I can get three hours of work done instead of two. That is a good use of my time because I have a bit more than an hour (round trip) invested in driving.
Blisters
I have a blister on the end of my big toe. That will probably impact what I can do today. Less walking and more trimming/cutting to breakdown pieces into more manageable sizes.
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