Weeding, the basic blocking-and-tackling of gardening

Three days of dry weather after a rain is the Goldilock's time before tilling, at least with the kinds of soil I am dealing with.

A woodchuck got in and had her way with the green beans and cucumbers and lettuce.

I tilled Southern Belle's garden today. It looks a lot better after running the tiller between the rows and touching up with the hoe.

This apple tree was buried in the hawthorn and honeysuckle. The gentleman who Southern Belle hired to clear out the brush agreed to leave this tree.

I am curious to test the apples after they ripen. Even if they are terrible, I can always graft over it.

And about that pear tree I grafted...

Everything about that tree screamed "PEAR!". The twigs. The tree form. How it suckered. Everything.

So I grafted Concorde and an early pear on to it.

Something seemed off...so I looked at it more closely. It is an apple tree. The Concorde pear is doing very well on it while the early pear is not thriving. Yes, I make mistakes just like everybody else.

I am not holding my breath. Incompatibility is often delayed. It will probably reject the Concorde grafts, too.

After finishing up at Southern Belle's, I tilled the home garden but I didn't pull weeds or touch-up with the hoe. I will do that tomorrow.

If any of you have suggestions for plants I can "plug in the holes" where several plants died then I am all ears. For example, I have some very spotty rows of field corn. Maybe black oiler sunflowers? I am racing against the clock. 

Red Pop

The Shekel has a post up about Faygo Red Pop. 

Growing up in Michigan, Faygo commercials were a regular feature of local TV programming. They really pushed Red Pop, maybe because the national producers didn't occupy that niche.

Fine Art Tuesday

Fridolin Leiber born 1843 in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. He died in 1912.

He specialized in lithographs which was an early form of color printing with limitations regarding detail and colors.

There was a large market for religious and moral images with book-marker sized and post-card sized images being big sellers.

Snobs would likely turn up their noses at his work, scoffing that they were "commercial illustrations, not art", but in modern language, Leiber' work was guided by "crowd-sourced knowledge" and was very well executed within the limitations of the technology. 

 

Hat-tip to nameless in unnamed, fly-over state

Whoupi Goldbricker beclowns herself, again

Whoupi Goldbricker is a clown who knows how to work a crowd. Like P.T. Barnum, she knows the value of creating controversy and getting into the headlines...as long as they spell her name correctly.

Goldbricker recently claimed that Blacks in the United States are even more repressed and economically disadvantaged than even the most disadvantaged person in Iran.

Even if Goldbricker's hypothesis isn't directly testable, we can look at some proxies for rural Iranians and make some comparisons.

This family is in the highlands of Nepal. For the first 45 seconds we watch one of the women picking nettle greens using a hooked knife, a basket and chop-sticks. Why the chop-sticks? Because nettles will sting you before they are cooked. Yes, that is what is for dinner.

The next 10 minutes shows the woman parching corn and then preparing the family meal in a fly-infested hut. She cooks about three gallons of corn-grits, a pan of dried-fish and pot-liqour (stewed greens) and cooks some greens. Each member of the family is given a massive wad of stiff grits with some of the cooked fish and greens ladled over it for flavoring.

The video shows the family tucking into the feast as if it were something special. 

The next five minutes shows the family cooking frogs. Not just the legs...entire frogs (although they may have been gutted). 

At one level, it is inspiring to see the extreme conditions humans can survive, even thrive under.

At another level, it is sobering to realize that hundreds-of-millions of people living on the edge could be pushed into extinction with the most insignificant of changes in economics; say something as simple as the doubling of the price of vegetable oils.

At a third level, it is beyond obscene for 300 pound, Whoupi Goldbricker to claim that she is more oppressed than people like those depicted in this video. It seems improbable that Goldbricker would be able to climb up the hill to the dwelling once, much less put in a full day's work of physical labor and then be able to prepare a meal using the resources within the dwelling. 

As a side-note

I had been wondering about the functionality of the wasp-waisted cooking vessels in that part of the world.

At the 7:50 mark in the video the woman demonstrates the functionality.

And at the 6:09 mark she shows us the utility of the riveted handles on her wok.

Writing by hand (vs typing) likely to be good for long-term, cognitive health

(Writing by hand has)...profound impact on cognitive processes (and) continues to be a topic of intense scientific scrutiny. Methods: This paper investigates the neural mechanisms underlying handwriting and typing, exploring the distinct cognitive and neurological benefits associated with each. By synthesizing findings from neuroimaging studies, we explore how handwriting and typing differentially activate brain regions associated with motor control, sensory perception, and higher-order cognitive functions. Results: Handwriting activates a broader network of brain regions involved in motor, sensory, and cognitive processing (while) typing engages fewer neural circuits, resulting in more passive cognitive engagement. Despite the advantages of typing in terms of speed and convenience, handwriting remains an important tool for learning and memory retention, particularly in educational contexts.     Source

Healthy brain in the middle. Patient with Alzheimer's Disease on the right. ERJ's brain on the left.

"...broader network(s) of brain regions..." is associated with recovering more quickly from strokes and other brain trauma. It is probably desirable from the standpoint of staving off dementia in all forms. If one neighborhood is not accepting through-traffic, then having frequently traveled, alternate routes is good.

My plan is to write out my daily To Do list long-hand, in cursive (why not?). Gotta tickle those neurons to keep them on their toes. 

Good Fortune dogs me

Good News!

One of Southern Belle's pets ran off a few days ago and had been on-the-lam.

An anonymous neighbor brought it back and put it back in its pen. We don't know who it was but based on the tracks in the driveway they rode a dirt-bike.

More good news

SB was in the market for a treadmill. I saw one beside the road and it said "Free. It works". Into the back of the pickup it went. It is now over at SBs.

.AND.

I found my garden netting next to the chainsaw

.AND.

I found the tomato clips in the breezeway

.AND. 

Mrs ERJ and I were getting ready to mow yesterday when she discovered a yellow-jacket nest while moving Quicksilver's toy house. I was able to neutralize it and neither one of us sustained any stings.

Still too damp to till

The weather-guessers estimate that we will get less than a quarter-inch of rain today. If so, then I should be able to till late Wednesday evening. If we get no rain at all, then I can till this afternoon.

Rainwater Catchment and Cisterns for MY applications

From the comments:

Why do you not have rainwater catchment and cisterns?

The return on investment isn't there

It may sound like heresy to use economic terms when talking about growing things and biological systems, but it makes all the sense in the world from my standpoint. The resources I spend on one project are not available to be spent on other projects.

If the contour of the land you are working with is not favorable to the concept (flat or no funneling-features) and if the soil and rainfall regime rarely generate run-off, it feels like pushing a rope.

This is such a great graphic that I had to shoe-horn it in. Bank the moisture in the soil! Bonus Link (Warning, long...likely to cure insomnia). Many thanks to the benefactor-who-must-remain-unnamed for the links and images.

If the contour of the land IS favorable but the favorable contour is 1000 feet away from your point-of use or the favorable contour is closer but isn't on your property then you pretty much out-of-luck...you will be transporting water one way or another.

The Upper Orchard is in the middle of the image and the Hill Orchard is on the right. The screen grab is 400' from east-to-west and half that north-south. The contours are 2' in elevation. There is NO funneling.

 

This screen grab is 200' east-west and is of my Eaton Rapids orchard/gardens. It is on top of a hill and there isn't a lot of slope.

This screen grab is 200' and contains Southern Belle's orchard and garden. Up is in the lower-right corner. The property line is 25' east of the orchard so there isn't much opportunity to terra-form contour to direct run-off her way.

And, for what it is worth: 

• The normal water-table beneath the Upper Orchard is about 25' down.
• The normal water-table beneath the Eaton Rapids orchard is 45' down. 
• The normal water-table beneath Southern Belle's orchard is about 6' down but varies significantly by time-of-year.

Right now, the orchards are wide, grassy aisle-ways with the trees planted in strips that have been treated with herbicide. There is white clover and at least four species of grass* growing in the aisle-ways. If I were to install some kind of catchment system, wouldn't I have to cover the grassy aisle-ways with plastic or bentonite?

If I did that, I would lose the benefits of increasing organic matter in the soil, beneficial insects and nitrogen fixation from the clover. The grassy aisle-ways are also pleasant to walk on regardless of the weather. It is hard to say that about bentonite.

Finally, the few local attempts at catchment systems I have personally seen were mosquito breeding nightmares. The cisterns were much too small and the provisions for filling them were...childish. For example: I would need 1500 gallons (about 200 cubic-feet) to water the 70 fruit and nut trees I planted this year over a five-week dry spell. An above-ground swimming pool 3' high and 10' in diameter would be large enough to hold that but I would need a collection surface above that cistern to gravity feed into it.

If my goal was to be able to totally recharge my 1500 gallon cistern with an inch of rain, then I need 2400 square-feet of collection surface. All of that capital expense and time involved in swimming pools and laying down plastic and weighting the edges so it doesn't blow away...for a couple years of utility. You see, historically, established semi-dwarf fruit trees planted in Eaton County in loam haven't needed supplemental irrigation. The HUGE benefit is the first year while they are establishing and the second year when I am trying to rapidly expand their canopies. 

*Kentucky Bluegrass, Tall Fescue, Red Fescue and Orchard Grass 

Last week was a rainy week

 

Rain gauge at The Property. I am off-the-hook for lugging water this week

Rain gauge in Eaton Rapids.

Just as our greatest weakness is often using our greatest strength when it is inappropriate, it is possible that our greatest weakness can become a strength.

For example, I have a weakness for putting things in "...a very safe spot..." and I am sure I will remember where that is when I need that item. Yesterday, I intended to hang the netting I purchased for the cucumbers. To tell the truth, that task has been on my To Do list every day for the past week.

I looked high-and-low for the netting. I found the left-over netting from Mrs ERJ's garden (I purchased two, 24' lengths) but I could not find mine.

Mrs ERJ didn't mind if I used hers but it only spanned 18 of the 32 feet.

And then I saw the bamboo!

Netting in the foreground. Bamboo in the background.

 

Bamboo supports on the left, a little bit of netting on the right

Bamboo has some advantages. I produce it on the farm and it doesn't require working infrastructure (or fossil fuels) to have it show up in my garden. A single clump of bamboo will produce for many, many years and provide scores of poles for a multitude of uses.

Bamboo has disadvantages. It has branches in inconvenient places. The stubs of those branches are a hazard to eyes if you are not paying attention to how you trim them off. 

The way my habit of misplacing things means that I get lots of practice improvising and sometimes the improve has major advantages over the purchased product.

June 28, 2025. Yes I have weeds. It is too wet to till.

June 28, different angle

June 21

June 11

Other odds-and-ends from yesterday involved putting cages around the pear trees at The Property and burning brush.

This pear tree is growing out of its rabbit cage and is now vulnerable to deer.

More rain is expected Monday afternoon. God willing, I will be able to get some tilling done Monday morning.

 

Random fact(s)

The default dose of carbs for a diabetic whose blood-sugar is crashing is 15 grams.

 

A ketchup packet from McDonald's has 2 grams of sugar. So in an emergency, 8 packets of ketchup would be about the right amount.

 

Image from HERE

Unhappy People: A modest prescription

The previous post suggests that many people are unhappy due to failed relationships. It also hinted that the root-cause of many failing relationships is due to their adolescence being a combination of excessive acceleration early in the period and then a failure to release it and move to adulthood later in the period.

One characteristic of those failing relationships is they repeat in predictable, Groundhog Day cycles: The "Bum Magnet" or the "Serial Failure" at the same stage. The pathological extreme is the enabler who is caught in an abusive relationship.

According to Romi Chaffee, if you are the person who is trapped in one of those cycles, the key is to mentally figure out the first time you experienced it. The fact that you keep living it is evidence that you have unfinished business festering from that relationship.

Then, very meticulously comb through the events that happened BEFORE the fire-ball and mushroom cloud.

Perhaps your partner injured you in some extremely painful way.

Perhaps YOU injured your partner and you rationalized that you HAD to do it.

If you were injured, work at forgiving that first person who hurt you in that way. Attempt to honestly assign accountability to yourself for the words and actions that may have contributed to the other person acting as they did.

If you were the person who inflicted the wound, learn some humility and ask that person for forgiveness (to the extent that it is safe). If you cannot ask that person (perhaps they are dead), then find a proxy and use them. Then atone for your sins to the best of your ability.

Only then will you be able to exorcise the ghosts that keep planting the trip-wire in your relationships.  

Unhappy People: Revisited

“This one, at last, is bone of my bones

and flesh of my flesh;

This one shall be called ‘woman,’

for out of man this one has been taken.”^*

That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one body.   Genesis, Chapter 2

This post is intended to be descriptive rather than a prescription-to-fix the issue.

Is the root-cause of unhappiness due to arrested development? 

Let me set the stage

Visualize Tarzan swinging through the jungle on vines. He leaps, grabs a vine that is in just-the-right-place, swings through the air and just as he is approaching the apogee he releases and grabs another vine. This is repeated until Tarzan reaches his destination.

With that visual firmly implanted in your mind...

Historically

When a child was born and for the first five years of life, his immediate family was his "center". It was the vine that supported and shaped him with grandparents and community providing minor support roles.

At the age of five, our intrepid nouveau-sapiens trudges off to school and encounters new waters to navigate. In spite of that, the immediate family remains the center even as ancillary connections develop.

That changes in about sixth grade which coincides (coincidence?) with the development of secondary sexual characteristics in caucasians. Cliques or "tribes" of like-aged adolescents formed along gender and and mutual interest.

Q: What has 16 legs, 16 arms, 8 mouths and half-a-brain?

A: Every lunchroom table in middle-school.

Core cliques seemed to average about five members with extended cliques averaging ten. That size may be a product of evolution as groups of five are effective hunting/foraging parties and that number is still a basis for military squads.

Key Point: Much to the bafflement of the parents, the child seemed to have completely detached from the family (except for demands for clothes and money) as she searched for her place in a new tribe. Tarzan had to let go of his first vine before he could grab the second.

The adolescent years were very dynamic and produced anxiety in many kids.

In late-adolescence, social "place" crystalized and the searching focused from "finding your tribe" to "finding your mate".

That was the second hand-off. Tarzan transitioned from the second vine to the third vine. Biff shifted his time and energy from the bro's to Suzy. The bro's opinions about the kind of vehicle he drove, the cut of the clothes he selected, where he spent his leisure time were dwarfed by Suzy's opinions.

Much to the bafflement of the bro's, Biff had completely detached from their gravity well.

If it hadn't been completed by the time Biff and Suzy got married, it was vaporized when the first child arrived.

And even though their opinions didn't matter, the tribe (and immediate family) still provided networking services: Information about job-openings, property for sale, investment opportunities, advice about reputable lawyers, parenting tips...

This happened for both men and women.

Today

The first switching of attachment starts earlier and is more aggressive. The three-year-old learns that Miss Rachel is pro-Palestinian and that the coolest people wear rainbow scarves. Significant separation from family starts in third grade, also coincidentally in timing with the earlier onset of secondary sexual characteristics (Estrogens in food? More body fat? Change in racial composition?). Even though the separation starts earlier and is turbo-charged by the messages that saturate media, the children's brains are no more developed than they were in 1955...perhaps even less developed.

By age 13, many adolescents are pairing up in a sexual way. While this might have been necessary in a stone-age village, it often happened with one partner being significantly older than the other. Today, the both partners are typically from a very narrow slice of ages and their mental models are dominated by the edgy, cynical, cheap-laugh, vacuous media they have been voraciously consuming.

Key Point: Because they started before they were mentally/emotionally ready and because their relationships are built on a media-formed expectation that all sexual relationships are temporary and doomed to fail, most young people today never completely separate from their tribe.

They are almost incapable of lifetime bonding with a mate. And the tribal-clique relationships are quick to dog-pile on any sign of a fault or fissure in those one-on-one relationships and destroy them. They claim they are "being supportive" when they are, in fact, miserable people who get angry when they see somebody else with a shot at happiness.

Multiple failed relationships leave both sexes angry, and bruised, and frustrated as key emotional needs are unmet.

People are in a state of arrested development because they left some bases untagged as they skipped through their progression. They find themselves standing on a ladder just tall enough to tickle the golden-apple with their finger-tips but not tall enough to pick that apple. Media promised them glamor and sparkling-joy if they followed a soap-opera, The View approved script and they got wrinkles, body-fat, Herpes and debt.

Bonus link courtesy of Coyote Ken 

Terrorists targeting

There have been several articles in the Daily Mail about potential targets in the United States with regard to nuclear weapons.

All have them have been based on very large scale attacks by a near-peer Nation-state. None of them analyzed the targeting based on a onesie-twosie, terrorists' scale.

Key differences:

An attack by a near-peer Nation-state will not be anonymous. An attack by terrorists will be cloaked in anonymity and ambiguity and deniability.

A Nation-state has high-tech means to deliver the weapons. There are very few geographic limitations to their targeting. Terrorists will most likely hide the device in a shipment of legitimate goods and ship it via commercial channels. The longer the device is in-country the more risk of detection, so there is a very strong possibility the port-of-entry will be the target rather than missile silos in B.F. Montana.

The number of nuclear weapons available to a peer Nation-state could measure in the hundreds or thousands. The number of nuclear weapons available to terrorists is likely to be one-or-two and almost certainly less than ten.

An example of how that might play out

Suppose a terrorist group with strong interests in the  Pacific Ocean (Norks) or in the Indian Ocean but with strong support from rogue actors in the Pacific Ocean (Iranian proxies) wished to strike at the United States.

If they only had one device, which port would they strike:

From North-to-South

• Tacoma (Seatle/Bremerton)
• Portland
• Oakland (San Francisco)
• LA/Longbeach
• San Diego 

Tacoma: While Bremerton and San Diego have military targets, the payload will be in the commercial shipping area and the targets are much "harder" than civilian targets. 

Portland: Portland is small.

Oakland: Oakland is a high-volume port but the super-juicy targets, San Francisco/Silicon Valley are up-wind and fairly immune to the fallout plume and in the case of Silicon Valley, shielded by geography from direct radiation and blast.

San Diego: San Diego has almost no commercial shipping. It is a Navy Port. Even if they could slip one in, military bases are better set-up to deal with NBC challenges than civilian targets. 

LA/Long Beach:That leaves LA/Long Beach. It checks the most boxes.

The second target, if they had two devices, would be Tacoma. It wouldn't physically destroy Bremerton but it would make logistical supply and civilian support almost impossible and the base would (likely) be grossly downsized. If Tacoma were the second target, the device would already have to be on-site when the first was detonated because all shipping would be locked-down while the investigation was conducted.

A similar analysis could be performed on the East and Gulf Coasts (and Chicago) but given the current state of the world, you would have to bet there is 10X risk for the West Coast than for the other two.

Disclaimer

I am just a dumb-azz living in flyover country. I have never had a security clearance. I have no information available to me than any other human on the planet with a fast internet connection cannot get. Like every other human being, I am vulnerable to rationalizing my decisions. Under this analysis, the only "real" threat to Eaton Rapids is the fall-out plume from terrorists targeting Chicago. Depending on the wind direction, even that might not be an immediate issue.

Terrorists aren't exactly rational. They rely on networks of trusted minions, so they might deliver the device to the Kalamath River for trans-shipment. So take this post as ENTERTAINMENT, please.

And if you are a terrorist, F-U. 

Grab bag

I finished the last jar of 2021 apple sauce yesterday.

If you remember, 2021 was the second year of the Covid shutdown. At the time, it seemed like a good time to preserve a lot of food. We canned about 180 quarts of apple sauce. We gave some away, but less than you think.

Our "budget" for apple sauce had been 50 quarts for a year. My thinking had been one-a-week. That worked out pretty closely. We ate 2021 apple sauce in 2022, 2023, 2024 and for half of 2025. 180 quarts / 3.5 years = 51 quarts per year.

We do have some 2024 apple sauce in the root cellar but it didn't turn out very well because it was an "off" year for our Liberty apples.

2,4-D revisited

This is a "before" picture of part of the orchard floor where there was a butt-load of burdock. Clicking on the images will enlarge them so you can get a better sense of the difference.

 

This is what it looks like 30 hours after spraying with 2,4-D. It is probably not the exact, same patch but it gives you a sense of what 2,3-D does to broadleafed weeds. It makes them writhe with pain.

2,4-D is a synthetic, plant growth-hormone that triggers "undifferentiated" growth. So rather than have the plant's growth accelerate in a rational and coordinated manner (which would just result in larger weeds), 2,4-D growth in some types of cells but not others, resulting in warped and twisted stems and (very important here) clogging pores that transport water and nutrients.

The effect on two-year old plants isn't quite as dramatic, yet. It takes time for the active ingredient to diffuse through the plant and then trigger growth.

Rain

The Eaton Rapids property sat under a conveyor belt that brought pop-up storm after pop-up storm. We are looking at 2" of rain over the event which will end by Saturday.

The Upper and Hill Orchards are not so lucky.

25 miles away as-the-crow flies, those orchards got 0.5" and might get another 0.2 by Saturday.

Woodchucks?

This is one (of two) branches that was broken by a woodchuck. The graft is about 6' above ground. Woodchucks love to eat mulberry leaves and fruit.

 

Note to self: Prune the branches of one-year-old, grafted mulberry trees to stubs in the fall.

Shopping carts

Suppose you managed a 9,000 square-foot, chain, grocery store in a fairly up-scale community and your gross profit margins were 3% on sales. You get complaints from customers about the lack of grocery carts so you order five more from "HQ" and you expect to get "dinged" for $100 each.

You are surprised when they are delivered by UPS instead of the normal supply truck but don't think anything of it until you see that HQ dinged you for $250 a cart. You call up your buddy, Nick, and ask him what the hell is going on.

He tells you that the additional cost was due to indirect operating overhead. Your request had to be processed and approved which consumed managerial man-hours. The people who approved it had lights and heat and rent allocated to their footprint. They also had wages and healthcare costs.

There was also the cost of the shipping, which was significant due to the bulky nature of what was shipped.

With a 3% profit margin, you have to sell $8000 worth of groceries to pay for the cart. If the average customer drops $100 at check-out, then that equates to 80 customers where you didn't make a dime.

Now do 1% profit margin

The cost, delivered, of the grocery carts stays the same but now you need 250 customers/cart before you start making money again.

Cutthroat environment

Every manager gets compared to the other managers in the store.

Every store gets compared to every other store as HQ looks for "leverage".

Base salaries for entry-level managers might be $40k/year with the possibility of doubling it with bonuses. Bonuses are handed out based on relative performance and the net profit per quarter and the direction it is heading in. You don't want to be the manager who is blamed for taking a store from a 1.0% profit margin to 0.7% net profit margin.

And then there are stores that lose money, every quarter

Consider large chains that have legacy outlets in areas filled with people who believe they are entitled.

***Random fact: The item with the highest loss-rate on a per-item basis in many stores are false eyelashes. "Customers" open up the packages and fish out two or four eyelashes, rendering the package unsalable.***

It takes very few "entitled" customers (i.e. thieves) to drive the outlet deeply into losses. The chain is on the horns of dilemma because they will be accused of Racism if the close the outlet and it is in a legacy city. They will be accused of the same if they raise per-unit prices to account for the higher "shrinkage" rates. They rarely act until they face a profitability crisis and their shareholders are demanding action.

City-run grocery stores

According to Zohran Mamdani, front-runner to be the next mayor of New York City, the answer is to have city-run grocery stores.

So, how does that work? Let's say a store is primarily staffed by part-time workers making $15 an hour and no benefits. Mamdani proposes replacing them with workers whose median wages in 2024 were $87k with another $25k of benefits on top of that.

Let's see: Losing money with$15/hour workers but going to flip right-side-up with employees making the equivalent of $65/hour. And we all know how customer-oriented most public-sector employees are.

And consider all the struggling families running the bodegas and convenience stores that they will be putting out of business. It is very tough to compete against entities that are bankrolled by City Hall.

And where will the funding for all of those new, gold-plated employees come from? I doubt that the current POTUS is willing to throw money at it. I don't think China will either. The only other options are to float bonds (which will raise interest rates on all of the existing bonds NYC rolls-over) or to raise taxes.

Work detail follow-up and responding to comments

Work Detail Follow-up 

It looks like the first rain is about to fall on The Property where I sprayed starting at about 7:00 PM. That is an honest 10 hours for the spray to diffuse into the leaves. I think I am going to be OK on both the spraying and the spreading of fertilizer.

The operator's greatest exposure to the herbicide is from handling the jug of concentrate. The little bit that drips down the outside of the spout migrates across the surface of the plastic jug and up the outside of the cap. If you ONLY COULD HAVE ONE PIECE OF PPE, a rubber glove would be the thing. If you didn't have a rubber glove, a disposable plastic grocery bag would be enough.

I did get to talk to the father of the man who lives next to the Upper Orchard. He is a fine story-teller and didn't need much encouragement. It turned out that the German Shepherd is his dog. 

Statins

Caveat emptor, let the buyer beware.

I don't know how to communicate this gently, but you could take several of the knee-jerk "its a racket" type comments, change the commodity being discussed to anything else and attributed to Senator Bernie Sanders or Fauxahants Warren and nobody would doubt the source.

The profit motive is not the problem. If "profit motive" always corrupts, then Capitalism is always immoral. The problem is not Capitalism, it is the coercion and the regulatory moats and regulatory/licensing capture that occurs when producers/marketers/legislators/regulators collude to protect their rice-bowls. It is when they distort "the market" that it is corrupted.

I don't know any millionaires who advise people to hire the cheapest accountants and otherwise-unemployed legal counselors. I don't know any people who seriously care about their health and the health of their family who rely primarily on voodoo witch-doctors for preventative care (although they might grasp at straws when all hope seems lost).

One of the conversations I had with the old curmudgeon is that seven-of-eight studies in a meta-study show neutral impact on overall mortality in the group who took statins. The phenomena of 'risk normalization' is likely at play. The wide-spread implementation of ABS didn't lead to a reduction in the number of traffic accidents because drivers "absorbed" the reduction in risk by increasing their risky behaviors like increasing tailgating and increasing their driving speed through curves. They figured that they had paid for the option so they should harvest the benefits rather than the insurance company.

It seems likely that people taking statins decided they could now eat more fried foods and ice cream and that they didn't have to hit the gym. The pill would take care of all that.  

Hire the best professionals you can find and afford and will listen to. 

As a side-note, I think there is a marketing opportunity in the pharmacy business for a compounded drug that addresses high cholesterol and high blood-pressure with one pill. Maybe a combination statin-and-sildenafil or a statin-and-tadalafil.

Happy girls

One of the comments thanked me for the Russian Folk Group that sang California Dreaming. This video has the same kind of happy-vibe.

And a part of the culture 40 years ago

 

Those are what the Bud Light commercials SHOULD have been.

Broccoli without worms

My first suggestion is that you try Happy Rich "sprouting" broccoli from Johnny's Seeds.

It has a very open growth habit and small heads. It is like the Hydra in Greek mythology. Cut the first head and two come back. Cut those and then you have four.

Not my picture

In my climate it will produce heads and tender stalks (which outweigh the heads 5-to-1) until November if you keep it watered and feed it a bit of nitrogen and potash. Aphids, the little waxy-looking ones, become an issue late in the season. It is incredibly productive and I was sad when Johnny's stopped carrying it, but it looks like it is back in stock.

I think the open architecture of the plant makes it easy for little-brown-birds to find and eat the worms. Any frass (bug poop) is washed away by the rain.

A second possibility

Birds seem to be more efficient at finding and eating caterpillars on purple plants. Go figure. Cabbage worms are neon green.

There are several purple broccoli cultivars available. I linked to Johnny's because Happy Rich is an exclusive and shipping costs add up, but other suppliers also carry purple broccoli, although most of them are for "over-wintering" which doesn't work so well in Zone 5 and Zone 6.

A third possibility

Maybe floating row covers? 

Beating the rain

Today will be an adventure in beating the rain.

There are many burdock in and around the Upper Orchard. The neighbors closest to the Upper Orchard have a Beagle and a German Shepherd. Burdock burs are a pain in the behind if you have a dog with long fur.

Burdock is very "responsive" to 2,4-D applications when the main shoot is extending. The label says it is "rain-fast" six-to-eight hours after application. That translates as "enough product has been absorbed by the two outer layers of the leaf to diffuse through the plant and result in the target dying.

The weather-guessers predict that the chance of rain will be below 50% until 11:00 PM which means that if I get the product on the burdock leaves by 10:00 AM I should be OK. One of the "tricks" for spraying burdock is to soak the older, tougher leaves but not spray the youngest ones. The youngest ones will "burn" and trap the herbicide but the old ones will absorb the 2,4-D and pass it on to the main stem and roots.

One caution about 2,4-D is that it comes in two formulations. The ester formulation is volatile and can damage nearby, sensitive, non-target plants like tomatoes during hot weather. It also stinks (smells bad). The other formulation is the amine formulation. The amine formulation is much less volatile but is sensitive to water quality and penetrates the surface of the leaf more slowly. Both issues can be addressed by dissolving ammonium sulfate in the water before adding the 2,4-D amine concentrate. Using enough wetter/surfactant ensures total wet-out of the leaf surface which also helps get the 2,4-D amine into the leaf.

I will be using the amine formulation mixed to the maximum concentration listed for "spot treatment" on the label for perennial weeds.

One thing I like about 2,4-D is that the response can be seen in a couple of days. I can go back and spray the plants that I missed. 

After spraying, I intend to throw urea around some of the trees on in the Hill Orchard that are not carrying as many leaves as they should be.

Looks exactly like me in High School. Go figure?

 

Fine Art Tuesday

Probably not in an active earthquake zone

Louise Ingram Rayner born 1832 in Derbyshire, England. Her family moved to London in 1842. She died in 1924 

As an adult she lived in Cheshire which is close to the Welsh border. She traveled extensively during the summers of the 1870s and 1880s.

A tip of the hat

A tip of the hat to the still-tireless Lucas M.

Shade trees, Idiots and Statins

I looked at our thermometer and it read 86 F. The sensor is 5' above ground on the trunk of a Honey Locust, so it is in the shade. The trees branch at 15' so if there is any breeze at all, it can be felt beneath the shade trees. The 60' tall Honey Locust were the first trees I planted BEFORE we moved into our house outside of Eaton Rapids. They 12' and 18' feet south of our house.

Out of curiosity, I looked at temperatures in Lansing, the closest place that might qualify as a city.

This station is on the Groesbeck Golf course on Lansing's northeast corner. Roughly 17 miles as the crow-flies from where I live.

That is an eleven degree F difference. Most of the other sensors in Lansing were in the 93F to 95F range.

Micro-climate is for real.

In the news

So surprised. He never did that before

Lion bites idiot.

Gulf-stream showing signs of collapsing. Europe's climate will be the equivalent of Montreal, Quebec if the Gulf Stream fizzles. France is currently the sixth largest exporter of wheat after Russia and Ukraine and kiss those Bordeaux and Champaign vineyards good-bye.

Walmart and Target lobbying for $2500 fines for people convicted of stealing grocery carts. I had a neighbor in Lansing who was building a fence from carts he stole from Krogers. Cheap air-tags and geo-fencing is going to smack those people down. There is already a product that locks up a wheel when the WIFI signal disappears.

Black bear has bling removed by Michigan DNR. Now do nose rings on annoying 25-year-old SJWs.

In other news

I went to the doctor today.

About six months ago the old curmudgeon and I had a conversation.

"I don't like drugs" I said.

"These drugs have a good track record" he replied.

"You know, having 'The big-one' and falling over dead is not a bad way to go" I replied, referring to heart-attacks and high blood cholesterol.

"The chance of you having a stroke and not being able to take care of Mrs ERJ is almost the same as you having a heart attack. She would be burdened with having to take care of you" the curmudgeon snapped back.

My courage deflated. "OK, what is the very lowest dose of the statin with the fewest side effects..."

One of the things they don't tell you about statins is that the seem to put a little bit of extra starch in the noodle, if you catch my drift. Vascular system is vascular system and the noodle is a hydraulic cylinder. I only mention this because it might provide additional data for others who are confronted with this issue.

The curmudgeon was happy with my blood pressure at 132/80. Not the blood pressure of a teen-ager. I was happy because I had been chugging electrolyte that was rich in sodium the day before. I am guessing that little of that extra sodium was actually "extra". 

No rest for the wicked

 

Before

After tilling

 

Fifty-cell tray of Deadon cabbage plants and Kailaan broccoli seedings.

They are a little bit root-bound, but I have seen worse.

There is a lot of bare dirt and not much plant after putting them in on 21" by 42" spacing.

I ended up with two rows of 12 cabbages and one row of about 24 Kailaan and one 24' long row of bush beans.

Total time-on-task of 2 hours. I still have room for two more, 24' long rows. 

This was a good day for tilling/cultivating/weeding. The soil moisture was right at the Goldilocks level where it did not compact but there was enough moisture to make it easy to work with. That gives me today and tomorrow to weed since rain is predicted for Wednesday.