Drywalling, Beating the Buzzer and Recreational Plumbing...all in one day

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.

First review on this model at Lowes:

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.

Did Goldberg just Torch the Brand?

Link

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.

Pictures

 

Tomato seeds, germinating.

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. 

Filed for future reference: Home-brewed, walk-in cooler

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.

INKBIRD, 1800W plug-in thermostat.

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.

The sacrifices I make for my readers...

 

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.***

Tariff on Automobiles and Automotive Components

 

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.

This and that

Nicotiana seedlings starting to show up.

Romaine Lettuce seedlings.

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!

Walnut tolerance

A review of Juglone (toxic material exuded from walnut roots and husks) tolerance on scholar.google.com suggests that there is little agreement regarding Juglone tolerance of plant species/genus among  peer-reviewed papers.

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.

Grab-bag

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.

 

More of the Same

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.

Dragging brush

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.

How soon before "video evidence" is not allowed in court?

How long before all of that AI computational power is used to edit Law Enforcement body-cams, Ring doorbell footage and video recorded on smartphones that is immediately beamed-up to the cloud?

As a side-note:

Would the race-riots of 2020 happened if Derek Chauvin's expressions had been less "gleeful" and smug?

The potential for AI to shape narratives is frightening. Recorded images used to be evidence and conclusions were drawn from them, but we long since passed the point where the conclusion can be formulated before the event and the images crafted to support that concussion.

An AI trailer for a (spoof?) movie titled "Karen"

A humorous AI piece that is aimed at entertainment...but look at Fiona's facial expressions. The facial expressions of the AI creation is more convincing than a human actress.

Humble and pedestrian miracles

The remaining "Limonka Rustica" Nicotiana seeds were planted. I also planted about fifty Romain Lettuce "Green Forest".

In a few days I will plant my tomato seeds: Stupice and Ace 55. I will also plant some pepper seeds if they show up in time, Lola Hybrid.

Custom grafting apple trees

A friend approached me after Mass yesterday and asked if I would graft a family heirloom apple from the family farm. It is a summer apple with 80% yellow ground color and 20% red blush. The apple has sentimental value to my friend. He believes that it was planted by his grandfather.

It is my jaded, cynical view that "ancient" apple trees are rarely as old or as rare as the enthusiast thinks they are. I average somewhere around +90% "takes" when working with quality scion and root stock. I think I will graft three of them, each in a separate bucket. If they all take, he can share them with his sons.

I moved a tree stand today

I need new straps. Maybe the old strapping is fine....but age, UV and all that. This stand is on the Eaton Rapids property.

Guardian Angels

Quicksilver lived up to her name today.

I went down into the basement to rotate the laundry and QS wanted to come with me.

No problem.

She was slightly behind me when I heard a "Thump....thumpity-thumpity-thumpity..." and her face hove into sight followed by her body as she surfed down the steps.

I arrested her motion by sliding my foot sideways to catch her right shoulder.

I don't know how she ended up sliding down the stairs head-first, on her back.

She was shaken up but no lumps or bumps were found.

Quicksilver has incredibly thick, curly hair. For whatever reason, her mother braided her hair Sunday night and the braid cushioned her head as it encountered each step.

God sends many miracles. Most are so pedestrian and humble that we do not recognize them. Miracles like the braid.

Weather

Why does a wind-chill of 25F seem frigid in March and balmy in January?

Mrs ERJ had some appointments mid-day. Combined with the weather, I did not go to The Property and drag brush.

The wind-chill for tomorrow is predicted to be ten degrees F warmer than today.

God willing, I will be able to put in four productive hours dragging brush.

Points of contact

I am practicing getting up off of the floor. Some scientists (?) seem to think that the number of points-of-contact you require to lever yourself out of sitting cross-legged is a predictor of your biological age.

For example, you might require using both legs and both arms to lift yourself off of the carpet. Or perhaps you can get up but need one arm to steady yourself and get your legs beneath you.

The standard is two-legs. Yeah, right. Ain't happening.

Yet hope springs eternal. Lack of flexibility is a major issue.

Comparing 5.56NATO to 10mm Auto out of a PCC

A 10mm Auto fired from a Pistol Cartridge Carbine SEEMS like a good idea. Let's see how it pans out by-the-numbers.

According to Ballistics by the Inch, a 135 grain hollow-point can be expected to have a muzzle velocity of approximately 1700fps out of a 16" barrel and a "hot" 180 grain hollow point might have 1560fps.

Sighted in for a 125 yard zero, the weapon is a legitimate "deer capable" cartridge out to 150 yards with a mid-range rise of 3.2" and 1100fps of velocity at 150 yards, more than enough to get the 180 bullet to expand.

The Ruger PPC in 10mm can be had for about $860. 

Let's compare that to an AR pattern rifle in 5.56NATO

Some of the 5.56NATO chambers are cut rather generously so I am going to suggest a very pedestrian muzzle velocity of 2600fps for a 77 grain Sierra TMK bullet.

Zeroed at 200 yards it is a legitimate "deer capable" cartridge out to 250 yards with a mid-range rise of 2.4" with an impact velocity of 2080fps at 250 yards.

At this time, you can purchase an AR platform rifle from Palmetto State Armory for about $400, or about half the price of the Ruger PCC.

Additionally, the ammo for the 5.56mm NATO is much easier to find than 10mm Magnum ammo.

Bottom line

From a pure numbers perspective, the AR platform firearm in 5.56mm NATO is a better choice than the 10mm Magnum PCC. Given the differences in capability, a PCC in 10mm Mag would require a price-point of about $250 to be worth considering.

Sugary drinks

Two articles recently came out. One linked beverages with high sugar content with oral cancer. The other linked "high glycemic index" foods with more aggressive forms of lung cancer.

Oncologists have long suspected links between sugar and the spread of cancer. My friend Jim was diagnosed with prostate cancer almost a decade ago. His oncologist put him on a "diabetic diet" and together they agreed to heightened monitoring with no other treatment. The tumor "stalled out" for almost nine years before resuming growth.

Super Size Me

In the 1950s, Coca Cola took the radical step of adding a "King Sized" bottle to their existing mass-marketed bottle size. The "King Size" was 10 ounces and the "regular" size bottle held 6.5 ounces and 21 grams of sugar. (Source)

Today, a "Medium size" Coke at McDonalds holds 21 ounces and has 70 grams (3 ounces) of sugar.

We are far more sedentary than previous generations, regardless of our current age

Additionally, muscle-mass is the largest blood-sugar sink in the human body with the potential to absorb five-times as much sugar as the human liver. That only happens if there IS muscle-mass. Without significant muscle-mass, blood-sugar levels peak at higher levels and stay high for longer periods of time.

I have two family members that stopped drinking soda pop. Individually, they were each drinking about one, 2-liter bottle of soda-sweetened-with-sugar a day. That resulted in 285 grams (10 ounces) a day of sugar in their diets. Their weight loss was marked after dropping the sugared soda.

Bottom line?

Be mindful of what you put in your mouth.

Change your habits. The 2-liter bottles of pop were more of a habit than a conscious choice.

Move your body. Use your muscles or lose them.

Seven days worth of contributions

 

This is seven days worth of food and diaper donations from the Charlotte campus of where I go to church. On a per-family basis, the contributions from the Bellevue campus usually dwarf that of the Charlotte campus.

I want to make sure that this post has the right tone. This is not intended to be "bragging". It is intended to be similar to a factual, fishing report. Sort of like "I caught a couple of channel catfish last night and the biggest one was about 18" long."

Some rough statistics:

Total Sunday attendance at the Charlotte campus is usually between 250 and 300.

The number of registered families is approximately 600.

To quote Bertha Beyersdorf of Saginaw, Michigan "If you can't do very much, then make sure that what you choose to do makes a difference."

Bertha was famous for knitting lap-robes even though her fingers were grossly warped decades of rheumatoid arthritis and it was a marvel that she could even hold knitting needles.

Rent-a-Beagle

The (now deceased) Sage of Eaton Rapids once told me about their family dog.

SoER was born in 1936 and grew up on the north side of Eaton Rapids. It was only a few, short steps before you were walking farmer's fields. In 1948 there were still fence-rows and shade-trees in the middle of the field for the farmer's horse to stand under while the ploughman took his break.

The fields were much smaller then. That was a legacy of the days when a farmer worked the fields with horses and he could only plow ten acres in a week. To spread the heavy work-load, he grew several crops with staggered planting dates. Corn, edible-beans and wheat were typical locally. Throw in a hay-field and woodlot and you ended up with four, ten-acre fields on a forty-acre farm. That 40 acre farm had 1-1/2 miles of fence row with scattered rock-piles. 

The region was dotted with many small dairies with hay-fields and pastures.

Furthermore, marginal land had been "land-banked" during the 1930s to reduce production and raise prices. The 1940s saw many young men who might otherwise be farming go off to fight wars.

Those factors combined to create a super-abundance of Cottontail Rabbits.

The Sage told me that not only did he hunt rabbits on a regular basis, but neighbors would "borrow" their beagle to hunt rabbits.

The Sage's parents didn't mind a bit. Jack, the dog, enjoyed the exercise and the neighbors paid for the privilege by dropping off "extra" skinned and field-dressed rabbits to help feed Jack's family.

It was a pretty sweet deal for all parties involved.

Looking at the particulars

The bicycles of the day were very primitive but they almost always had a basket (or two). Some country kids rode their bikes to school every day until they had earned enough money for a car and some of those kids lived 6 miles outside of town. Pity the kid who lived northeast of Eaton Rapids. He had to bike along roads laid out in a rectangular grid and had to ride nine-miles to go six.

Given a 3 mile, one-way limit, there were approximately 9 square miles of hunting land accessible from where SoER grew up (marked with the red star). The area to the east is clipped by the Grand River.

While the bikes were primitive, the people who had bikes rode them and had strong legs. Riding two or three miles out into the farmland was a trivial jaunt.

A smallish beagle might weigh 15 pounds and could be trained to ride in the bicycle's basket.

Charles Daly 101, a modern single-shot shotgun. Priced at approximately $110 without the optic

One of the most common "kid's" firearms was the single-shot, break-open shotgun. These were often in 20 gauge or 410 because the shotgun was light weight (on the order of 4-1/2 pounds) and the recoil was daunting in 12 gauge. The shotguns came apart by loosening a single screw in the bottom of the fore-arm and the two parts could be stuffed in a backpack or lashed to the top tube of the bike frame.

Of course, this system was not limited to kids. Adults could also ride bikes and use portable shotguns.

SoER recollects that he ate a lot of rabbit meat as a kid.

Broadheads for crossbows: Fixed vs. Mechanical?

KEAUP Broadhead Fixed blade

Muzzy Trocar Fixed blade

Rage Chisel-tip, two blade mechanical

Back a million years ago, EVERYBODY said you needed mechanical broadheads for crossbows because the short bolts did not stabilize as well as longer, traditional arrows. EVERYBODY claimed that traditional, fixed-blade broadheads would compete with the fletching and the arrow would plane off the intended path.

Is that bad information?

If it is, then my inclination is to pick something like the Muzzy Trocar...unless you guys have opinions (pick up raw meat, throw into the pit).

Crossbows and Optimal Range

I have a great deal of brush left-over from pruning the orchard(s) at the property I am managing. The property also happens to be where I and my extended family hunt deer.

One of the deer hunting stands is in the northwest corner of that orchard. There is a grassy meadow to the north of orchard and from the stand is 180 degrees of arc. 90 degrees of arc is a farm-field and 90 degrees is orchard. It is impossible to see the orchard from the stand because there are houses down-range from the orchard and what you cannot see, you cannot shoot-at.

It occurred to me, as I was dragging the brush, that I can create a fence of stacked brush with gaps in it to funnel the deer traffic. Traffic that would flow closer to the stand can be diverted farther way and traffic that would otherwise be farther away can be diverted closer.

Optimum range of shots

In general, for a given weapon there is a sweet-spot with regard to distance or range to the target. For a smooth-bore shotgun shooting a Foster slug, that distance is between 40 yards and 70 yards. Closer than that and the deer might hear incidental noise from the stand and/or it might give you very little time to react. Farther than 70 yards you start running into the limitations of your technology. Certainly, you can kill deer with Foster slugs out of shotguns at greater distances but there are more things that can go wrong.

With a traditional bow using the arrow speeds of forty years ago, 20-to-25 yards was considered "ideal". Far enough away that the deer cannot hear you hyperventilating nor your heart racing. Close enough that they are unlikely to "jump the string".

Crossbows

I happen to know of a young man who hunts in Eaton Rapids. He hunts both archery and firearms season. He reads the on-line magazines and religiously watches hunting videos. He is also very optimistic. He regularly launches arrows at deer 60 yards away because he has seen it done on videos by dudes using the same (fast and expensive) crossbow that he is using.

The reason that I know of this young man is because he has requested permission to track wounded deer (plural) across my property, deer that he wounded when shooting from his stand which was a quarter-mile away. And no, he never did collect those wounded animals.

The question I am posing to you, my readers, is what is the "sweet-spot" in terms of range for Whitetail Deer if a duffer like me was using a 10 year old crossbow with an advertised velocity of 370fps?

"Write something every day" they said...

I am still here.

I have been busy. In lieu of actual content, here is a rerun of a post from 2014.

I pulled this post shortly after it was published because the Sage of Eaton Rapids objected to my sharing HIS list. He has since slipped his mortal coil and I don't think he will be bothered if I share this partial list.

Warning, the links may be stale.

***

The guys I drink coffee with are old-school, masculine men.  It is not something they wear on their sleeves.  It is something that you pick up over time, a comment dropped here, a short anecdote there.

One of the guys is very well read.  He prefers to avoid notoriety.  He will be called "The Sage of Eaton Rapids".

I wheedled his list of Favorite Poems to share with the readers of this blog.  I may have to retract this post if he objects to it....  Here are the first eleven, in the order shown on TSOER's List.

Title - Author - Year Published - Link - Thumbnail lines

The Fool's Prayer - Edward Sill - circa 1887 - Link

"'T is not by guilt the onward sweep

Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay;

'T is by our follies that so long

We hold the earth from heaven away.

 

House by the Side of the Road - Sam Walter Foss - 1928 - Link   
Let me live in a house by the side of the road
Where the race of men go by-
The men who are good and the men who are bad,
As good and as bad as I.

Annabell Lee - Poe - 1849 - Link

It was many and many a year ago,
 In a kingdom by the sea

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

  By the name of Annabel Lee;

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

 Than to love and be loved by me.

Tintern Abbey - Wordsworth - 1798 - Link

Five years have past; five summers, with the length Of five long winters! and again I hear These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs With a sweet inland murmur.

Rime of the Ancient Mariner - Coleridge - 1834 - Link

It is an ancient Mariner,

And he stoppeth one of three.

'By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,

Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?

Sampson Agonistes - Milton - 1671 - Link
A little onward lend thy guiding hand
To these dark steps, a little further on;
For yonder bank hath choice of Sun or shade,
There I am wont to sit...

Marriage of True Minds - Shakespeare - - Link
Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove....
...But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
   If this be error and upon me proved,
   I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

O Captain, My Captain - Whitman - 1865 - Link

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,

The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,

Charge of the Light Brigade - Tennyson - 1854 - Link

All in the valley of Death

   Rode the six hundred...

... Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,

Cannon in front of them

Volleyed and thundered;

Stormed at with shot and shell,

Boldly they rode and well,

Into the jaws of Death,

Into the mouth of hell

Rode the six hundred.

Bonny George Campbell - Anon - 1700s - Link
Hie upon the Highlands, and laigh upon the Tay,
Bonnie George Campbell rode, out on a day.

The Shooting of Dan McGrew - Service - 1907 - Link
Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,
And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the lady that's known as Lou.

 

A short primer on causes of violence

Presumably, crimes are committed by people in whom Means, Motive, Opportunity,  and Low-Inhibition-toward-violence all intersect.

Since degree-of-inhibition against violence is difficult to measure or quantify, most detectives pursue the first three elements when attempting to solve crimes. Their flow-chart is to find the people who had Means, Motive and Opportunity and then start checking alibis.

Let's look at them one at a time

Any man who amounts to anything has enemies. And the quality of one's enemies is a better measure of his character than the qualities of his friends. There is never a shortage of people with "Motives".

Among those men who count as enemies, there are almost always powerful men/women who can kill with their hands, or with a sharpened pencil, a speeding motor-vehicle or with a sly addition of poison to the victim's diet.  So there is rarely a shortage of Means...heck, people have been and continue to be killed with well-aimed stones.

Humans are (probably) much easier to kill than Whitetail Deer because Opportunity avails itself at every turn. Very few of us wish to live our lives as hermits or as super-spies.

The factor that makes murder a rare crime is not due to the lack of any of the first three factors but because MOST people have powerful inhibitions toward acting violently.

MOST, but not all. People who have acted violently in the past are much more likely to act violently in the future than people with no history of violence. Once breached, the barrier is much easier to breach again.

People who have been institutionalized for mental illness are more likely to act violently than people who have never been institutionalized, "danger to self-or-others" being a key characteristic of those who have been involuntarily institutionalized. If it helps, think of "Suicide" as a special case of "Homicide". Somebody who has attempted suicide is statistically more likely to be capable of homicide.

People who are addicted to drugs are known to have impaired judgement and reduced impulse control. They are also more likely to engage in violence than people who are not drug addicts.

People who are committed to the overthrow of the foundations of the society are more likely to commit violence than those who do not seek to overthrow society. In a similar way, people who have pledge their allegiance to violent groups like gangs are also more likely to commit violence.

So, classical, Western Civilization considers individual responsibility at the linchpin of cause-effect, consequence-responsibility. This is not done blindly. Certain privileges (like owning a firearm) are denied to those groups of people who have demonstrated membership in the high-risk groups listed above.

Exceptions

There are weak-minded people who are exceptionally susceptible to outside influence. If a person incites violence by feeding weak-minded people lists of "targets" and engages in a relentless campaign of dehumanizing those targets, then the person inciting violence is also culpable if/when those people (or their property) are attacked.

Those who manipulated weak-minded people are also "pulling the trigger".

Working in the orchard

The "Bat Pole" at the property is installed

If you embiggen the photo you might notice the length of scrap chain I included to reinforce the concrete for radial cracking. MUCH easier than bending rebar.

 

Looks pretty good from this angle

And, believe it or not, it is vertical at 4-1/2' above the ground. It is THAT bowed.

Wrapping trees

I wrapped the tree that had been gnawed on. Instead of being half-gnawed, the trunk was completely girdled. I am probably going to lose that tree. I wrapped it anyway.

The bait station had been hit and a corner nibbled off...and the critter had then packed the station with dirt. I have never seen that before.

First Lunch

Nothing fancy. A cup of hot tea from the thermos (Canadian Voyagers lived on the stuff, although they tended to add a lot of sugar). A peanut butter and jelly sammich and some potato chips.

After eating, I set the alarm for an hour for the next break. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Piling up the fire-wood/smoker sizes. The brush is dragged out of the orchard and stacked into a windbreak.

A two-hundred pound guy walking burns in the neighborhood of 300-to-350 Calories in an hour. Dragging brush, using a chainsaw, digging holes, mixing concrete...maybe a bit more than that.

I got in three honest hours of work today. That did not include the time I took for breaks. I estimate I have another 30 hours of work to do to clear the orchard floor.

Comments

I appreciate the restraint that you guys are showing.

For one thing, this is only a blog. It rates right up there with late-night AM sports radio talk-shows in terms of "importance". Somebody blathering away doesn't take a penny out of my pocket. And for that matter, they don't add a penny either.

I appreciate that there are folks left-of-me who are willing to pop-in and read what I write. That seems to be a rarity.

Everybody needs to vent every once in a while. I can understand that they are stressed. We had eight years of Obama and four years of Auto-signer, so BTDT.

The other alternative is that they are bored and are trolling my readers for cheap-entertainment. One "tell" is that trolls use broad, inflammatory statements but don't ask any questions. The preferred response is to politely ignore them. The troll didn't ask a question...there is no profit in answering a question they did not ask.

From the standpoint of entertainment, endless tit-for-tat comments are a bore. If you feel absolutely compelled to respond, take one swing at the pinata and then give it a rest. I am not sure what "tats" are, but I think half of you guys are getting gypped.

Politics is an ugly business

He might look like a mental-patient, but he can still kill you.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer canceled his book tour over security concerns. Apparently, he was afraid that he was going to get the Steve Scalise treatment

At the risk of beating a dead horse, Schumer canceled due to threats from the radicals in his own party, not the conservatives, not MAGA, not Trump. 

The media will undoubtedly twist the story to make it Trump's fault. That is what they do. They accuse the sane people of everything they are doing.

Daily notes

Nicotiana seedling update. Picture taken March 18

Nicotiana seedlings. Picture taken March 11

Digging holes

I dug the last few holes for replacement fruit trees in the Upper Orchard at The Property. I thought I had six to replace in the last row but two of the 'empty spaces' had fruit trees. One was a sucker from a root-stock and other was a puny, spindly, shade-stunted pear. I left the one that were there and only dug four holes.

It is my habit to take a walk about whichever orchard I will be working on before I dive in and tackle the task I have planned for the day. I was distressed to find some newly girdled apple trees. I don't think that I missed them the last time I was in the orchard. I took the appropriate precautions and will go back today and care for the stripped bark.

I was distressed to see that the "tree tubes" seemed to favor young trees being attacked by mice.

The current plan for the new trees will be to take 24"-by-36" pieces of aluminum window screen and wrap the trunks with it. Since that will be much bigger than required, it will wrap around several times and if I "crimp' it with my hands it will not unwind. I will not tie it. I want it to expand as the tree grows. That should be enough to deter both mice and rabbits. 

Laying out orchards

It is my habit to think in terms of "sun coordinates" when planning orchards.

Since I live at 42.5 degrees North, the sun is south of straight-up at noon. That means that if I plant short trees north of taller trees, the short trees will be in the shade. Fruit trees in the shade make less fruit, and fruit of lower quality than trees that get full sun. (This might not be true in the desert).

Another point to consider is that morning sun dries off the dew and reduces the risk of mildew and other fungal diseases destroying the leaves. Planting taller trees east of shorter trees handicaps the shorter trees. Fewer leaves catching the sunlight means less fruit and lower quality fruit.

A third point is that cold air puddles in lower areas. Fruit species that bloom earlier in the spring want to be planted up, out of those puddles.

On the site for Southern Belle's orchard, the east end is slightly higher than the west end.

At this time, three rows are planned, running East-West and they currently five trees long.

I got three of the hazelnut bushes planted today.

The southern-most row, from East-to-West:

• Cresthaven Peach
• GoldRush Apple (The least vigorous apple variety)
• Liberty Apple
• Liberty Apple
• Chojuro Pear (Note: Pears are on less-dwarfing root-stock than the apples. Chojuro is the least vigorous pear variety of those planted)

Middle row, from East-to-West

• Contender Peach
• Melrose Apple
• Fuji Apple (The most vigorous apple variety)
• Harrow Sweet Pear
• Kieffer Pear (The most vigorous pear variety)

North row, from East-to-West

Yamhill Hazelnut (Does NOT have complete resistance to Eastern Filbert Blight)

Yamhill Hazelnut

Jefferson Hazelnut (Does NOT have complete resistance to Eastern Filbert Blight)

Somerset Hazelnut (So far, no evidence of EFB)

Grand Traverse Hazelnut (the tallest variety, strong (but not total) resistance to EFB)

Then, about 25' west of the Grand Traverse, to plant a grafted mulberry.]