Third-World behaviors on cruise ships

Unruly behaviors are destroying the appeal of cruises in the Caribbean. Most of the intolerable behaviors occur while the cruise is underway and are perpetrated by economy-class passengers.

I don't know much about maritime law, but I bet most of the passengers would prethink their choices if they knew that they would be handed over to "local" law enforcement authorities rather than simply banned from the cruise-line or, at worst, face US charges.

My gut-feel is that most of the countries in the Caribbean would be more than happy to house the miscreants and to set a very high bail to be able to exit the jail. They would probably not even have a "do not flee" order in place. 

If economy passengers insist on Third-World behaviors while on a cruise in non-US waters, I think they should enjoy non-US jail time.

Taking it easy

 

Solanum carolinensis a.k.a. Horse Nettle. All parts are toxic, especially its tomato-like berries. Be sure to visit our gift shop.

Solanum carolinensis flowers

Physalis virginiana, Virginia Ground Cherry. Many look-alike species. Berries, although small are edible (even delicious) when fully ripe. It is a perennial in my climate.

I visited the Upper Orchard today.

I took it easy. I only watered the twenty new apple trees. I walked slowly, wore work-boots and the compression-brace and avoided known woodchuck holes.

I probably could have watered more trees, but they are on the Hill Orchard and I didn't want to push my luck. 

Hello fodder, hello mudder

I write you here, from Camp Grenada...

I cut some weeds. Mostly Setaria faberi  and Ambrosia trifida.

The goats liked the Giant Foxtail (Sataria faberi). I don't know what they will think of the Giant Ragweed (Ambrosia trifida).

I get the weeds off my property before they drop their seeds. Southern Belle gets free fodder for her goats. Win-win.

The curse of being old and busy

I put my keys down somewhere and now I cannot find them. I have my vehicle keys on their own rings to keep them petite, but I cannot find the big ring of keys for all of the things that are locked up that I don't visit on a regular basis. 

St. Anthony of Padua is the patron saint of lost items. I suspect that as I get older that I will be having more conversations with him. 

Let no good deed go unpunished

An enterprising youth started a business.

The county zoning commission shut him down and threatens him with daily fines if he doesn't stop selling worms to fishermen.

The energy and industry of this 15-year-old kid is astounding. He is working three part-time jobs this summer and started this business.

What is notable is that the zoning commission does not demand that he remove this building. Typically, that is what "zoning" is about, improper structures that are dangerous or reduce the value of neighboring properties. They just told him he had to stop running a business.

It stinks of envy: Parasitic leaches who cannot stand to see somebody take a risk and succeed. They are another species of Gimmedats in polyester and Reeboks.

Source of image

At their core, businesses create value. In the case of a bait shop, the value comes from turning manure into worms and then supplying those worms to fishermen who are too time-stressed to dig their own. It also comes from buying warm soda-pop in 24 can cases at the local Wally-world, putting them into a cooler with ice and then transporting the cooler to a location where it is quick-and-convenient for fishermen to access.

So a couple hours of a 15-year-old kid and a few miles driven in a beater pickup saves multiples of those hours wasted by working adults with limited vacation hours.

For the record, Ron Haas, a very high-end GM executive, was very fond of taking his family fishing for walleyes in Wisconsin.  I assume that many of the kid's potential customers have similar demands on their time .AND. will be mighty pissed off at the Karens who carve into their precious vacation time because they are on a power-trip or simply to spite an enterprising, young farmer who makes them (and their slacker larva) look bad.

Hat-tip to CoyoteKen 

Goat Wrangling

 

"The best fences have the animals, food, water and salt all on the same side of them"  -Willard Fox

"No farmer should ever raise animals that are smarter than they are. That rules out Border Collies, goats, pigs and horses for most people"   -Willard Fox 

I got a call this morning. A Southern Belle's goats had gotten out.

This is what I saw when I arrived at 6:54am

 

I opened up a gap between two feedlot panels and bent them as shown to help funnel the animals back into the pen.

There is no profit in chasing goats.

I went to Southern Belle's barn and got a large "book" of alfalfa hay and carried to the corner of the pen. The friendliest goat came over to check me out and smelled the alfalfa and was very interested. I walked through the funnel and she followed me in. Goats are social animals. Three of the other four followed her in.

The fifth goat is lame and is the omega in the social caste. She decided that eating weeds and dogwood leaves suited her better than fighting her sisters for alfalfa hay.

I put some corn in a plastic bucket and carried into the pen and shook it. The four in the pen knew EXACTLY what that was and were suddenly my best friends. The lame goat ignored me.

So I walk in a round-about way to get her between me and the pen. Then I slowly, very slowly, started moving toward her. That is called "putting pressure on the animal". They will usually move in the direction they are pointed if you slowly approach them from their side.

She decided that her mean sisters were a better option than my getting closer and she scooted around the corner and joined her sisters.

I had the foresight to preposition some twine to refasten the feedlot panels together. Time elapsed: 7 minutes.

Way better than chasing goats, especially with a sore knee.

After securing the gap where I had let them back in, I walked around the pen to find where they had gotten out.

One of the feedlot panels had a bottom corner that had not been secured to the fence post. I fixed that while I was there.

Then I added a half-bale of hay and the rest of the five pounds of corn I brought.

After all, Willard Fox said "The best fences have the animals, food, water and salt all on the same side of them".

Knees and chickens

I took it slow today.

I paid attention to how I moved.

The only physical challenge was to cobble together a couple of light and install them in Southern Belle's Chicken Tractor. That involved working in a small space with awkward positions but wasn't particularly stressing of my knee.

This is a "used" chicken tractor that she picked up for $50. It has a footprint of 12' by 6' and has no accommodations for birds roosting or for people to enter-and-exit for maintenance. I cut a flap in the the netting to let myself in and stitched it shut after I was done.

The timer is set to turn the two, 800 lumen bulbs on at 4:00am and turn off at 9:00am. 

The next upgrade is to add four, 4' long roosting bars at 1', 2', 3' and 3'. Headroom is an issue.

After installing the lights, I drove to Meijer's, a local department store chain, and purchased a compression sleeve for my knee. It feels pretty good right now. 

Media Collateral Ligament

"You were right."

Most of you probably get tired of hearing that. Tough. Let me tell you again:

"You were right!" 

The media collateral ligament is 3" or 4" long and runs vertically along the inside of the knee.

My physical activity finally caught up with me. The symptoms are consistent with a mild sprain/strain of my left, media collateral ligament. It is all calmed down and happy when I first wake up and gets progressively angrier through the day.

I have been exceptionally mindful of how my left knee feels. I think it is "torquing" or spinning on my foot that is lighting it up.

Mrs ERJ and I have very different ways of working in the kitchen. Watching her glide from station-to-station is like watching a calligrapher write in cursive. My motions are more like a chicken-on-crack looking for worms. Quick, jerky motions. Rapid acceleration means large forces.

Weeding in the garden also creates strange forces on my knees.

I think the original insult was when I was humping buckets of water in the Upper Orchard a week ago. I stepped into a woodchuck hole. I might have been OK if I had been wearing work-boots but I wearing an old, sloppy pair of running shoes. 

I see no point in visiting my primary care provider, yet. If I had actually torn my MCL I would have been sidelined immediately, so it is likely a sprain. He will tell me to slow down, rest, ice, compression, elevation and ibuprofen. Then he will tell me to come back in two weeks if it is still a problem.

Slowing down will not come easily but having my left knee throbbing with pain is not a picnic, either. Maybe I can do almost as much as long as I change my motions to eliminate the side-loads and torques on my knees.

Oops!: Link to Patrice Lewis's book

Rachel's Folly now back into draft status due to...random electrons. It may be a couple of day.

Dance like nobody is watching

 

 

Just for fun. Nothing serious.

Heads-up: Patrice Lewis's Indie Romance dropping tomorrow

 

Patrice Lewis is one of the bloggers on my side-bar. Due to an (un)fortunate sequence of events, she is publishing her latest book as an independent author.

Since Amazon is the 8000 pound gorilla in the publishing universe and since they use "algorithms" to figure out which titles to put in front of people's eyeballs, it pays to try to game-the-algorithm. If "..game.." offends you, an alternative way to say it is that disregarding the algorithms means that thousands of potentially happy readers will never hear of your book.

Ideally, a very large number of readers will purchase her book on the day it "drops" and that will prime the algorithm's pump.

If you are looking for a late-summer read and enjoy gentle romances, please consider purchasing her newest book tomorrow.

I will post a link as soon as I can. 

Middle-East, Literally a Tinder-pot

Lack of water in Iraq means more refugees pouring into Turkey which gives Turkey more leverage over Europe.

Source

The reporter is standing in the middle of head-high weeds as he reports on the farmer not having enough water to keep his orchard alive. A LOT of the water was not going to the trees but was growing weeds between the rows and vines that were climbing the trees.

Another source reports "Much of the irrigation network dates back to the 1970s and 1980s and operates at around 60 percent efficiency, with huge losses from inefficient flood irrigation and unlined canals." 

"Major Turkish and Iranian dams have sharply reduced river flows, yet the Baghdad government has failed to respond with consistent, professional, water diplomacy. Corruption and self-interest among Iraq’s political elite weaken institutional capacity and create openings for Turkey and Iran to press for deals that serve their own priorities."

"Iraq’s water crisis is more than an environmental issue. It is a test of governance. The 2018 Basra crisis and subsequent protests showed how environmental neglect can quickly escalate into public health emergencies and political distrust." 

"Iraq’s water crisis is more than an environmental issue. It is a test of governance. The 2018 Basra crisis and subsequent protests showed how environmental neglect can quickly escalate into public health emergencies and political distrust. " 

This is not a new problem. If you do a search you will find that Al Jazeera has been posting almost-yearly predictions of "Worst ever, extinction event drought" in Iraq. 

Things are crispy-dry in Iraq and Iran. 

Green Tomato Relish

My Dad's father died in 1936 when my father was 9 years old. He was an only child and was raised by his mother. She worked in a thrift/secondhand store. Money was tight.

My paternal grandmother was a tiny woman. Four bluegill fillets, a carrot and half of a potato were a full meal for her. Consequently, when fishing, we never threw any "keepers" back at the end of the day if there was more than one fish in the creel. After all, that was enough for a meal for Granny.

Every once in a blue moon, Granny would ask my dad for some delicacy that she desired. My dad would pull himself through a knot-hole to get it, even if it was extremely inconvenient. I remember him collecting dandelion greens for her.

He was a good example of a devoted son.

One late-September day, my grandmother asked for green tomatoes. She wanted to make Green Tomato Relish. I remember eating some of it and little else except that her recipe also had sweet corn in it.

I am not a lover of sweet pickles but I do love dill pickles. And I had a good supply of green tomatoes today after clearing a lane between the two rows of tomatoes. Just like my dad had an over-abundance of green tomatoes just before the September frosts.

I am soaking the tomatoes over night in calcium-rich pickling juice. Tomorrow I will process them at 180F for 30 minutes.

I was going to pickle the golf-ball sized fruit whole but I could not fit very many in a jar. The green tomatoes were very firm and undoubtedly have a lot of pectin. It isn't relish but they might end up that way at some time in the future.

For the record, Green Tomato Relish is not a niche thing. There are boatloads of recipes out there.
 

There might be another hunter in the field this season

One of my nephews married a divorced woman. Her children now call him "Dad".

The oldest is a girl in her mid-teens and she wants to go deer hunting with him. In particular, she wants to go BOWHUNTING since she loves being outside during October.

Dunham's is a regional sporting goods store and they have some great sales.

 

It is my belief that my nephew intends to buy her a cross-bow today!

We need new hunters and fishermen. I may even kick-in and purchase some hunting arrowheads for the venture. 

Tajikistan Village Life Video (points of interest)

The two most likely geological sequences for the creation of these narrow, fertile valleys in this mountainous region are landslides damming up the river and the resulting lake filling up with sediment and glaciers gouging out "U" shaped valleys. Note to readers, running water usually creates "V" shaped valleys while ice cuts "U" shaped valleys.

Some of these narrow pockets of fertile land are tiny.

2:40 Cutting apples for drying. The seed cavity shows signs of mold. Maybe Coddling Moth damage?

This small, sheet-steel, out-door stove has seen better days. It is somewhat like a "Rocket stove".

9:00 Cutting honeysuckle brush for firewood. Nothing goes to waste. Apple trees in the background. He is wearing slippers or loafers while cutting wood.

Burros are the beast-of-burden of choice. They don't eat much and they walk faster than cattle. Equipment is sized to match.

"Bolleana" like, fastigate forms of Populus alba are widely grown. They are very thirsty trees but are a quick way to grow a stick of structural timber and can be shoe-horned into narrow spaces.

Two-burner, LP stove

20:36 An interesting way to seal jars.

Apples, apricots, poplar. Home gardens, potatoes and maybe some alfalfa. Climate is arid but water from snow-melt is abundant. Days are short, even in summer due to shadows.

Animals include burros, fat-tailed sheep, some cattle, chickens, dogs and cats.

Video switches to a larger settlement at the 24:13 mark. Approximate location. Approximate elevation of 7,500 feet or 2350 meters and the same latitude as Denver, Colorado.

There is a greater diversity of crops and tree species. In the first couple of minutes I saw maize and "pumpkins" in fields. I saw no evidence of grape vines at either location.

A crew of boys gathering "weeds".

The youngest boy looks like he is 10. The dried weeds might be used for fodder, fuel or for bedding.

Diagonal striping is not for ornamentation. Probably follows contour to reduce erosion.

A willow tree. Probably pollard for "tree hay" of fuel.

31:34 A crew of boys making dried-mud bricks. I didn't see them adding any straw or manure to reduce cracking due to shrinkage while drying. One of the trees that was shading them looked like a mulberry tree.

The diagonal stick rides on the top of the mill-stone. As the stone turns, the stick vibrates and "shakes" grains of wheat out of the feed tub into the hole in the center of the millstone.

 

Burning the branches pruned from an apricot tree

Hard-core Muslims do not allow "graven images". Nor would they be putting images of their wife and daughters on the internet.

While Tajikistan is an Islamic country, they seem less rigid in their practice than some other places.

 

Because of their (literally) narrow resource footprint and the capricious weather, depopulation events are always a threat. Furthermore, there is no place to bug-out to when Tamerlane or his modern equivalent comes up the valley. The best you can hope for is a "hanging valley" that doesn't have an obvious outlet to the river valley.

 

Possibilities

Since there is an abundance of water but very limited flat land, I wonder if hydraulic-ram technology and poly pipe could be used to water some of the lower slopes. I suspect tree-crops would be the order of the day since evenly distributing the water would be challenging.

 

Hydraulic-rams are vulnerable to flooding, so they would have to be movable. Maybe solar would be a power option. 

Dirt, Mowers and Tomatoes

I did not hit the goal for the number of trips to pick up fill-sand.

After spreading the third half-yard today, we were looking pretty good and decided to drive some stakes, stretch some string and use the level to see where we were.

We decided that we needed another half-yard. We wet down the fill and then stomped on it. Then wet it again and shaved off the high spots to fill in where it was puddling.

Any guidance regarding the slope of the ground next to a house? We were shooting for 2" vertical in 12 feet of horizontal for slope and we have more than that.

I have a new mower

Well, new for me. 

A gentleman was selling his 2014 Husqvarna, 22hp, 46" deck lawn tractor for a small sum. 

It isn't perfect. One of the blades is bent and one of the spindles squeaks when turned by hand. All fixable issues. The motor runs great and the machine was very clean.

I think he just wanted a new mower.

I mowed most of our lawn with it today. I am getting soft in my old age. 

Canning tomatoes

I have today's second canner-load of tomatoes in the kettle right now. The weather-guessers keep teasing us with promises of rain tomorrow so tonight was a good time to pick. I have another 30 minutes before I can pull this batch out and call it a night.

I don't want to jinx my luck, but I got a fair amount done today.

Inflation in the price of housing

Source

Looks grim.

Let's compare three states:

Maryland: Knowledge worker based, congested Atlantic corridor. From 1950 until 2024 the median house value appreciated 288% MORE than inflation.

Michigan: Rust-belt. Mid-West. From 1950 until 2024 the median house value appreciated 144% MORE than inflation. That doesn't sound like much but if the median house in Michigan sold for $244k in 2024 then the median house in Michigan in 1950 would sell for $100k inflation-adjusted dollars.

California: Aspirational address for most of the last 75 years. West Coast. From 1950 until 2024 the median house value appreciated by 500%. So if the median house sold for $100k inflation-adjusted dollars in 1950 then the median house now sells for $600k.

Size matters 

What is NOT often considered is that the square-feet of newly built houses ballooned during that same period.

Going to the census records from 1950-2000, I found out that the size of the average single family house in 1950 was 983 square feet. By 2000, the average house size shot up to 2,272 square feet...   -Source

That is a 130% increase.

The median size peaked in 2015 at about 2500 square-feet but has since fallen back to about 2200 square feet. Source 

If you look that increase in footprint, air conditioning, improved windows, insulation, one bathroom-per-occupant and expansive kitchens (both high$/sq-ft spaces), then a 200% increase in the cost of the median cost per single occupant house is not unreasonable.

States that are over that 200% increase is something the younger generations can legitimately complain about, especially for states whose star is fading.

Hat-tip to the still tireless Lucas Machias

Small Towns and the passing of an Archtype

John Wilder recently posted an essay about how modern economies-of-scale have resulted in a culture of spectators.

He followed up a few days later with another essay where he looked at the spectator culture from a different angle: The Lighter side of dating

If you seek lions, go to the Serengeti

A trained biologist can look at an ecosystem and make some accurate guesses as to the kinds of animals he might find. If he looked at the Serengeti Plains or the Thar Desert he might predict large cats. If he studied Baffin Island, he might predict ground squirrels, Arctic Fox and migratory raptors.

The environment shapes the inhabitants and the species that are a key-in-lock fit thrive in that environment. And those same species can be totally absent in other environments where their characteristics become a cost instead of being a benefit.

Gary Wichman passed away two weeks ago.

While we moved in different social circles and we had very different personalities, his youngest daughter participated in several activities as my oldest daughter so were were "bleacher buddies".

Obituary HERE. Part of the obit:

Gary was a tremendous athlete throughout his life. He played basketball, softball, and golf long into adulthood. He completed the Chicago Marathon and 14 years of the Dick Allen Lansing to Mackinac bicycle ride, better known as the DALMAC. Gary shared his love of sports on and off the field. He coached youth football, basketball and t-ball for many years.

Gary was a strong community advocate and had great passion for Eaton Rapids. He was instrumental in securing funds for Eaton Rapids downtown revitalization, creating the riverwalk and bringing new business to the city of Eaton Rapids. Gary served as Vice President of Eaton Rapids School Board and started the Eaton Rapids Education Fund, Eaton Rapids City Council, Eaton Rapids Community Alliance-Teen Space (Board Treasurer), Founder of Eaton Rapids Development Corp., DDA-Downtown Development Authority, Eaton Community Health Alliance, First United Methodist Church Finance Committee, Kiwanis Club, Kiwanis Spring Brook Nonprofit Housing Association, City of Eaton Rapids Planning Commission, Eaton Community Heritage Foundation, Eaton Rapids Historical Foundation, Michigan Main Street Community, and Founding member of SOM. Gary worked for PNC Bank/National City/ First of America/ American Bank & Trust for over 40 years.

(Gary) was known for his hard work ethic and strong integrity, while also creating humorous skits at company meetings. Gary was a music enthusiast and was a gifted accordion player, air guitarist and air drummer. He loved spending time in the Eaton Rapids Paddle Club, coordinating over 40 years of euchre tournaments and spending time on Michigan's lakes and shoreline. Gary purchased many kayaks for his 12 grandkids to enjoy at their family lake house. He loved swimming across the lake to visit his life long friend, and playing instruments around the bonfire. 

While some might dismiss Gary as a large fish in a small pond, it is impossible to imagine a person as connected as he was existing in a large pond. Large ponds have too many cross-currents and hidden agendas (and hidden loyalties) to produce people like Gary. Large ponds have too many distractions and while people like Gary are never common, but I think they even less common in large, "process dominated" environments like big cities.

I dig dirt

Tomorrow's plan is to make multiple trips to Fill's Emporium of Dirt and start building up the grade that was underneath the deck that I demolished this year.

The geniuses who built our house built a deck over the septic tank, and since the ground was covered with a deck, they didn't bother bring up the grade. Consequently, water has little incentive to flow away from our house on that side.

I made a test run today. A round trip to Fill's that involved a 1/2 yard of "sand-fill", emptying the bed of the truck and wheel-barrowing the 1300 lbs of dirt (105 feet one-way) to the depression took 51 minutes.

My goal is to make four round-trips to Fill's Emporium of Dirt tomorrow with a stretch goal of six trips.

Blogging may be light. 

Chip-budding grapes

Chip-budding grapes.

My intention is to increase my stocks of Rombough Seedless grape.

I don't have a lot of wood on the RS vine because it is not in a great place, it is shaded for half the day by a pear tree. I have lots of buds but not much length of cane. 

One of the quirks about cutting the length of wood that contained the bud is that I could not make the same kinds of cuts I did with apples and pears. The shape of the grape stem was like a knee with the bud on the knee-cap. There is also a diaphragm at the bud which deflects the blade. The "trick" was to use my loppers to cut the stem off about an inch below the bud I was going to transfer and then whittle wood away from the backside of the stem. Then to roll the stem over and make the angled cut at the bottom of the chip. As a final step, to reverse the stem and make the angled cut at the top of the stem. Best do this where you can find the chip if it misbehaves and falls to the ground.

One possible solution is to move some of those bud and put them on grapes that are growing on a good site and are easy to root. In my case, that would be wild Riverbank Grape (Vitis riparia).

It may be a lost cause. It is pretty late in the season. On fruit trees I target late-June for my chip-budding. But if all goes well, I will collect my cuttings with the buds intact and store them in a sheltered place. Then I will "stick" them in pots.

Vitis riparia and its hybrids are eager and prolific rooters.

I was able to make about 10 bud transplants and have enough buds cut for about ten more. 

How big of a foot-print to feed rabbits?

 

A stretch of road. The verge is about 15' wide and it was about 100' to the next tree. It was mowed once this year.

At 2000 pounds of standing dry-matter per acre, that equals about 70 pounds of dry-matter.

The dominant species of grass is Smooth Brome (Bromus inermis). The blue flowers in the top picture are chicory.

 

For ruminants like cows and sheep, the rule of thumb was to budget 4% of body-weight for daily dry-matter intake. I am not saying that is a good rule for rabbits, but it is what I have to work with.

Four, mature, New Zealand doe rabbits at 12 pounds apiece will weigh about 50 pounds. That pencils out to 2 pounds of dry-matter per day and that 70 pounds of dry matter would last them a month...longer if you add a little bit of corn. If they have litters, though, the feed bill goes way up.

Three, 100' lengths of that verge would quite handily get those does (sans kits) from May 15-through-November 15 in my climate.

This is what a 1/4 mile of that verge looks like.

 

The farmers consider mowing roadsides a burdensome chore. It has to be done to keep it from coming up in trees that rob water and nutrients from the cash-crop. In this case, the farmer cannot farm to the road's edge due to utility poles.

Yes, it was a hot and muggy run this morning.

Planning

The roadside grass is a bonus and you might not be able to get it. You might have to plant and harvest your own patch.

According to the Wisconsin Team Forage website, the average yearly dry-matter yield by species:

• Timothy: 10,600lb/acre
• Tall Fescue: 13,200lb/acre (excellent choice for wetter soils. Less palatable than many other kinds of grass)
• Smooth Brome: 11,800lb/acre (very palatable)
• Orchardgrass: 12,800lb/acre
• Perennial Ryegrass: 9,400lb/acre (winter kill issues in Wisconsin. Very palatable)) 
• Red Clover: 6500/lb/acre (four-year life with only 1000lb harvested the first year)

Normally, you would plant the Red Clover with your grass since they play well together. The Red Clover can supply nitrogen and the grass "fluffs-up" the Red Clover and helps it dry when it is cut for hay.

You want to take those yield values with a grain of salt because you will have a steep learning curve.

Noted for future reference

According to Raindrop website, the Hill and Upper Orchards received about 1" of rain last night. If confirmed by the raingauge, that pushes the next watering exercise to August 20. 

"Cui bono", Public Transfers in France

Social Groups Reliance on Direct and Indirect Public Transfers (France)

Source of base image I added red iso-benefit lines to make apples-to-apples comparisons easier

France
Recent data from Insee suggest that the heavy reliance on direct transfers by certain social groups, particularly pensioners, combined with their growing electoral heft, may be a key constraint

This chart is unique to France and cannot be directly applied to any other country.

What is notable

Contrary to what the Communists claim, Business Owners, Self-Employed and Managers have the very lowest level of public transfers.

The loonie-Left screams at the top of their lungs about businesses benefiting from public roads and the internet, but those roads also benefit the employees who work in those factories and the customers who order from on-line businesses.

Green dots are family structure. The red lines are on 10% increments

Couples with one-or-two children are the least subsidized. Families that are single-parent, single-adult or couples without children receive about 25% more transfers than couples with one-or-two children.

The "Couple without children" transfers are puzzling until you consider than many of those couples are pensioners and might more accurately be described as "Couples whose children moved out".

The families with three or more children are more likely to be migrant-families who qualify for transfers not related to the number of children they have at home. 

"Single adult, no children" households are also likely to have an over-representation of migrant, working-age men.

The outliers in the other direct have a lot of overlap or "confounding"

Nearly every pensioner is over-65. Also, nearly all younger people have the equivalent of an UPPER secondary diploma. Ergo, most people with Lower-secondary (9th grade) diploma or lower are also over-65.

Raising Rabbits on a budget

I like watching "village life" videos because the people living in those places have to use their brains and native materials to achieve their goals. They usually don't have the means to whip out their credit card and order "gear" from Amazon.

Raising rabbits, a pragmatic approach.

The hutches are made from the equivalent of recycled pallet wood and hardware cloth. By modern standards, they are over-crowded. Based on how gnawed the door frames are, he has been doing this for a long time.

They have a tin roof but are beneath an apple tree for shade. 

The water bottles are fill-from-top, repurposed pop bottles. Similar item here but still more expensive than what the owner paid. He does not waste a lot of time as he rakes out the old hay and reloads the feeders and water.

The owner feeds them green-chop, wheat and unshelled corn. Based on what I saw, he was feeding them cut oat-plants when the video was recorded. The greenery he feeds them probably changes through the year based on availability.

Fine Art Tuesday

A perfect mid-1800s, Chesapeake Bay lunch: arsters and beer.

Andrew John Henry Way was born in Washington D.C. in 1826 and died in Baltimore, Maryland in 1888.

One of his patrons was William Thompson Walters, a wealthy banking, rail and steel magnet (I could not resist the pun). Walters was also a grape-grower and a collector of European-style, fine art. That is, pictures that was not solely focused on portraits, i.e. vanity; images that had "artistic" interest.

Consequently, many of A.J.H. Way's pictures are still-lifes with grapes in them.