Genetic Drift

An earlier post asked "Are there more crazy people now?" and the body of the text focused on how the pressures of environmental "triggers" have increased for most causes.

The genetic portion which is responsible for 60%-to-85% of the cases was not discussed in that post.

Are more people carrying "crazy-genes" then they did in the past?

The short answer is "yes".

Life was a constant struggle for sane, well adjusted people in the slums of Limerick, Liverpool and Hamburg. It was fatal for crazy-people.

As recently as 1900 in developed countries like Ireland, England and Germany, if your mother was crazy you were probably not going to live to see your first birthday.

Infant mortality in Ireland starting in 1930 at 85/1000 live births in urban areas.

 

Infant mortality in Ireland 1960-2020 ending up at about 3/1000 live births.

If you were a crazy-woman, your best chance of getting married was to get pregnant and "trap" an impulsive man. There was  a pretty good chance he was also crazy or was an alcoholic.

As her child, your best hope for survival was to be placed in an orphanage, which in turn greatly reduced your chances of marrying and producing children.

In total, crazy-genes had a high probability of "dead-ending". In those days the pool of crazy people resulted from random meetings of recessive genes or in new mutations.

Flash-forward to the permissive, Welfare-State

Anecdotally, one of our local characters who was called "Homeless Girl" had five children before age 25 and they were all removed by Child Protective Services because: 

• She was homeless
• She was addicted to drugs and could not care for them

Eventually, she O.D.ed in the bathroom of a fast-food restaurant.

The average woman in the United States has her first child at age 27-1/2 years.

That means that this crazy-woman had FIVE children before the average, not-crazy woman had her first. And all of the crazy-woman's children survived.

This is happening (with minor variations in the details) all over the United States and Europe. 

Numerically, that means that back when "crazy-genes" self-extinguished we experienced a rate of approximately 5% seriously crazy people. Now the crazy-people genes are subsidized rather than exposed to Darwinian selection and the numbers are growing much faster (due to high risk behaviors) than the numbers of not-crazy people. 

Fine Art Tuesday

 

 "The Ramp Grove is a secluded old growth forest remnant along the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie River in Washington State. We identified it on satellite images. We named it the Ramp Grove because it is an unusual ramp-like geologic formation with cliffs above and below. It starts at 1500 feet and tops out at 2000 feet."
Too isolated to log economically.

Hat-tip to Lucas Machias

Lessons from Jake Paul

 

A Social Media personality decided it would be a lark to go into the boxing ring with a top-tier, professional boxer.

The personality had a few photo-op bouts with ancient Mike Tyson and assorted wannabes and he didn't totally embarrass himself, so he decided that he was ready for prime-time.

I think it was Joe Rogan who called it. "Anthony Joshua is going to f___ing kill him." 

And Anthony Joshua did. It was like watching a hungry wolf execute a Golden Retriever. The wolf is a pro. His life depends on efficiently killing the prey. The Golden Retriever is play-acting. Jake Paul was not capable of defending himself. He was always a half-step behind and Anthony Joshua was reading him like a book.

Death of "...the narrative"

One of my kids asked me "Why are you so negative about Meghan Markle?"

If I am honest, it is because I resent her certainty that top-dollar script-writers and video camera-men are more important than decades of experience. 

I have a nephew who is a cook in Napa, California. He has been busting his ass for twenty years and has satisfying some of the most affluent and critical clientele in the world. And he will never get one-tenth of 1% of the accolades that Markle demands as her marriage dowry.

"The Rev" (my nephew) works 18 hour days and, with support, bangs-out  flawless 7 course meal for a wedding reception for 200 guests. From scratch. And he can do it four days in a row. Week-after-week-after-week.

He is not unique. There are legions of people like him in every city in the US. 

Markle does not even know how to hold a pastry bag. 

And the "...strong, independent woman..." insists on using her maiden name, except when she thinks using the surname "Windsor" is more to her benefit. Even though the only reason people pay any attention to her is because some dude named Andrew married her.

My super-powers

My super-power is that Mrs ERJ seems happier when I am around.

My dog likes me. 

Most of the time, my kids will respond to my texts if I ask a direct question.

I am pretty good at keeping gas in the tanks of our vehicles.

Beyond that, I am pretty humble. I have no desire to make a spectacle of myself by claiming to be more than I am. The higher the monkey climbs, the clearer the view everybody else has of his backside. 

Asymmetric Information

 

"Just Divorced" stick family

 

This is a follow-up on the previous post "Human Trafficking".

From the comments 

Milton, one of my regular readers commented about mothers needing to rethink the threat situation and then he added 

"...With a Mama Bear mentality and defensive handgun training (***last minute gift idea fellas***), let the gift purchasing be left to Dad."

Let me point out that he did not write "Purchase the mother of your children a firearm" because that would be a violation of the Federal Firearm code sometimes called "a straw purchase".

He suggested finding a certified trainer who is experienced in training WOMEN.

Women are not men. On average, women have smaller hands than men. From a physical standpoint they can have difficulty racking the slide due to hand-strength and upper-body strength issues. 

My sister had a boyfriend who bought her a Derringer in .45 Colt. Maybe not the best choice. Not my sister's hands.

Some women are extremely petite and will have a hard time "hiding" a concealed carry. Most women's clothing, especially for younger women, is form-fitting. Perversely, the firearms most suitable for deep-carry (like Derringers) have brutal recoil and limited-to-very limited ammo capacity. 

Women are more likely to be "talked down-to" when purchasing a firearm and end up with a firearm that they are not comfortable with. They are less likely to ask questions especially when men are around. 

Maybe the hardest thing for a woman to wrap their mind around is that they have to know when they pick up a weapon that the MUST be willing to pull the trigger without hesitation when the need arises. At some point there is no more time to "talk about it" or "call a friend" or "exercise conflict de-escalation techniques". If you wait for +100% certainty* then you (and your kids) will be the victims.

Asymmetric information

Going back to the scout cruising the parking lot looking for kids to nab at the local big-box grocery store. Most parents are going to think "My kids are responsible and would never open the door for a stranger." right?

Visualize kid(s) playing on their phones in a Honda Odyssey or Ford Bronco with the "cute" stick-figure family shown at the top on its back window.

Now visualize an older person in a Walmart vest banging on the window and yelling "Oh my God! Oh my God! Your mom fell and hit her head. She needs you right now!!!" What "responsible kid" will fail to rush to his/her mom's aid?

If the kid hesitates, the faux employee can add "She needs you to unlock her phone so she can call for help."

That stick-figure family that "mom" modified to stick her thumb in the eye of her "ex" just made her family a prime target because it gives potential abductors a credible back-story. They KNOW that the shopper is not "dad". They know that the kids will be hyper-protective of "mom".

We live in an era of Too Much Information. Most people share personal information as if they were writing in their best girl-friend's high school year book. Facebook is probably the worst offender but even a bumper sticker can share too much information. That information can be used against you. 

Incidentally, I applaud all of my commentors. You are very discrete in what information you share. Keep up the good work. 

Regarding the issue of "sensationalism"

There were 254 "Human Trafficking" cases (some involving multiple people) identified in Michigan in 2023. Is that a lot for in a state with 10 million people? Link

I sent an email to the person who shared the information with me. I asked for permission to attribute the quotes to her and/or for "original sources" to quote. I sent it at 5:38 p.m. on Saturday but she hasn't gotten back to me. 

I decided to exercise executive privilege and run the post anyway due to time urgency. I trust that my readers are mature and can decide if any "entertainment" I post on this blog applies to your situation or not. 

*99.1% certainty + redundant confirmation 

Human trafficking

 

A person who follows these issues closely recently informed me that we are at "annual peak human trafficking".

She said that the Super Bowl represents the largest "event" for the human trafficking industry. And industry it is. Orders are made. Delivery time-tables are specified. "Products" are delivered. 

For a kidnapped child to show up in Southern California (where the 2026 Super Bowl will be held), they must be scooped up this week. Fortunately for the kidnappers, the frenzy of Christmas shopping makes it easy to have a scout cruise parking lots and calling in "teams" to nab kids left in cars to play with their "device" while mom or dad is making last-minute purchases.

One reason this isn't covered in the news outlets and captured in the FBI UCR system is that there is a break-down in reporting as files-are-cleared at the end of the year. Law enforcement agencies have a limited number of days to report-out end-of-year data before the results are compiled... Overburdened agencies face a lot of "moral hazard" to disappear reporting incidents that happen in the last half of December.

Another factor at play is many "missing children" are assumed to be muddled custody issues as they are passed back-and-forth between separated parents. The Christmas-New Years period is probably peak-chaos for custody conflicts and it is easy to assume that "Brad" is being an asshole. Little does the custodial parent know that their child is in a basement in Detroit getting addicted to drugs to make them compliant in time for The Big Party in Southern California.

My source informed me that the largest demographic for "orders" are for children between the ages of 5-and-11 (gender not specified!). Then next biggest demographic this time of year is for white women between the ages of 35-and-70 for the purpose of "Harem Masters". And yes, they are also addicted to drugs.

The third biggest demographic is for minority men between the ages of 20-and-30 as "Pimps" to keep the "Harem Masters" in line. 

These people are all expendable. In fact, they become a liability as the party "fizzles out" and they become potential witnesses/evidence. All of those little kiddies seen in the Epstein photos? Yeah, they are dead.

I know it sounds like a horrible Liam Neeson movie but as I get older it becomes harder and harder to find any act that is so depraved that there are not people actively engaged in and profiting from it. 

Bottom Line

Take your children with you into the store when you shop or leave them at home with a responsible adult. Don't leave them in the vehicle. Don't let them bring their "device".

Keep track of them while you are in the store. Pro-tip, buy them helium balloons and tie them to your child's wrist. Leave the ribbon long enough that the balloon can be seen above the racks.

Order stuff on-line and have it delivered. It probably won't arrive in time for Christmas Day but you can point out that there are 12 DAYS of Christmas. Jesus himself didn't get his Christmas gifts until the Magi arrived and that was NOT on the day of his birth. 

Stay away from crowds! 

Frequency of DIAGNOSED Mental Illnesses in the US

Jonathan commented on the previous post:

"...in some circles it (a mental illness diagnosis) is celebrated so people look for and encourage diagnoses that may not be medically accurate."

My perception is that many "sophisticated" players are gaming the system to take advantage of the "...reasonable accommodations..." for people with "disabilities" in the Americans with Disabilities Act.

If a sophomore in high school can get a "label", then those accommodations often include extra time to complete tests. That includes the SAT and ACT which are college entrance exams. Sometimes those accommodations are so burdensome to the faculty that they allow the student to take the test home to complete.

Those labels follow the student to college where they offer the same advantages. Some "disabilities" impact the ability to read and so the "reasonable accommodation" involves supplying a person to read the questions out-loud. Some "disabilities" involve attention deficits and so the university is legally required to offer the student a private room (perhaps without a proctor to watch for cheating) to take the test.

By the numbers:

Recent annual rates of various mental/emotional health disorders in the United States (Link):

• Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders: 1.2%
• Borderline Personality, Cluster B Disorder:  1.5%
• Bipolar Disorders: 2.8%
• Post Traumatic Stress Disorders: 4.1%
• Substance Abuse + Mental Health Diagnosis: 8.1%
• Major Depressive Disorder: 15.5%
• Anxiety Disorder: 19.1% 

(Anxiety and Depression are two sides of the same coin. Anxiety happens when a young person struggles to keep up with his herd/tribe. Depression happens when the young adult realizes that he will NEVER be able to keep up with his tribe) 

Diagnosed mental/emotional health disorder rates by selected demographic silos (Link):

• Male: 20%
• Female: 26.7%
• LGB: 53:2%

Stats from another website (Link):

 

Serious mental illness (SMI) is defined as a mental, behavioral, or emotional disorder resulting in serious functional impairment, which substantially interferes with or limits one or more major life activities. 

Bottom line

1 in every 9 Gen Z in the work-force has been diagnosed with "Serious Mental Illness. 

1 in every 13 Millennial has been diagnosed with "Serious Mental Illness". 

If you are in a group of 20 random people, there is a good chance that there is at least one person in that group who is unhinged.

Plan accordingly. 

 

Are there more crazy people now?

 

Let's look specifically at Schizophrenia because it is among the most studied mental health disorders and many mental health issues share comorbidities. That is, if you are diagnosed with one "disorder" then there is a pretty good chance that at some point you will also be diagnosed with another disorder as symptoms evolve and manifest. So it is reasonable to assume that the "triggers" or environmental risk factors for Schizophrenia are likely to be risk factors for other mental illnesses.

Schizophrenia is also of interest because Nick Reiner was (reportedly) diagnosed with it. Schizophrenia is one of the "lifetime" diagnosis unlike Anxiety Disorder or Depression which can come-and-go.

It is currently believed that Schizophrenia is highly heritable and that the external "risk factors" that trigger it represent between 15%-and-40% of the aggregate risk. Some of those external risk factors* include (Link):

• In-Utero Trauma (bleeding, diabetes, rhesus incompatibility, preeclampsia, low birth-weight, oxygen deprivation, malnutrition, drug-use, other) Link
• Infections 
• Migration 
• Urban environments
• Childhood Trauma
• Cannabis use 

Let's look at them one-at-a-time

In-Utero Trauma: I would rate this as slightly elevated compared to 20 and 40 years ago. From anecdotal evidence, recent immigrants are less likely to seek prenatal care and might not even be paying attention to their pg/non-pg status...risk factor slightly increased.

Infections: Specifically Toxoplasma gondii and Chlamydia. T. gondii is spread via untreated fecal material, primarily from cats. Chlamydia rates increased by 50% between 2000 and 2015...so this risk-factor increased.

Migration: Migration to the United States showed a very large increase in the 2021-to-2024 (inclusive) time-frame. Literature specifies 1st and 2nd generations being at increased risk....so this risk-factor increased.

Urban environments: My perceptions is that there is a small, net outward migration from highly urban environments. I will call this....risk factor slightly decreased.

Childhood Trauma: It has been observed that the most dangerous person in a young child's life is his mother's new boyfriend. Traditional families continue to shred....risk factor increased. 

Cannabis Use: It has been decriminalized at the state level and legalized in many "Blue" states. Furthermore the level of THC in samples obtained "on the street" have increased by a factor of three between 2000 and 2019....risk factor increased. 

Tallying up the count, five of the six environmental risk factors increased with three of them increasing substantially. One of the six risk factors shows a weak improvement.

Conclusion: Perceived increases in rates of severe mental illness is factual and not a figment of reporting or in increasingly aggressive diagnosis or more expansive definition of diagnostic criteria.

 

Note to readers: I will be busy today and expect to be back-in-the-saddle tomorrow. Responses to comments will be slow. 

Bonus video

 Hat-tip to Lucas Machias.

 

* Poor sleep-hygiene was mentioned as a risk-factor for Bipolar Disorder (aka, Manic-Depressive or Jekkyl-and-Hyde Disorder) but not in the paper referenced. Forty years ago broadcast TV shut-down after midnight and people didn't stay awake round-the-clock "gaming". Except for some convenience stores, nearly all businesses shut-down for maintenance or cleaning every night. That has been a major change during my lifetime.

Well, this is a fine kettle of fish!

What kinds of work can old people do?

Pension funds, Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid going broke is a foregone conclusion. So is inflation withering of purchasing power of the assets you might have saved. Furthermore, taxes will rise as governments become desperate to feed the ravening beast.

It seems inevitable that I will have to work to put bread on the table at some point in the next 15 years. In 15 years I will be 81 years-old. 

What kinds of work can a 65 year-old do? What about 70 year-olds? 80 year-olds?

Work vs Job

Notice I used the word "Work".

"Job" implies some degree of permanence. It is an artifact of the Industrial Revolution and the transition of the economy to consumer debt. Nobody was going to loan you enough money to buy a car if you didn't have a "job", that is, a guarantee of future income.

In the United States, the majority of the economy transitioned from "work based" to "job based" sometime in the 1920s and 1930s. Before that, the only people with "jobs" worked for the railroad or in steel mills or the new automobile plants.

Limitations of being older

• Vision is often an issue.
• Reaction times get slower
• Physical strength and stamina are limited
• Hearing is often less acute

Most of us will not be capable of doing 40-hours-a-week of concrete work in our seventies. Long-haul, OTR, transcontinental trucking is also not in the cards nor is delivering 50 pound bags of dog-food to apartment blocks.

Going door-to-door selling garden produce is a possibility. Mrs ERJ does that now when she gives away her surplus of cherry tomatoes and sweet peppers.

My dad was canning tomatoes into his mid-80s and mowing grass with a garden tractor until he was 90.

Watching young kids...say up to 5th grade, is an option.

Repairing clothing is an option if you have bright light, magnifying glasses and (perhaps) easy to thread needles.

Being a waiter, bus-boy or bartender for a few hours (lunch rush) is a possibility although wet floors are not our friend. 

If you had to go back to work as a 75, 80 or 85 year-old, what would you do? 

Hand Grenades, Canaries and Christmas Carols

Today I introduced Quicksilver to the joys of The Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote cartoons.

Growing up and watching these cartoons, I somehow came to the conclusion that hand-grenades were a regular item of commerce and were a commodity that would be easy to obtain as an adult. Alas, if only it were so.

Most of the segments we watched were from the 1960-to-1964 time-frame.

In 1960 there were still cats and dogs alive that had been born while WWII was raging. Everybody who was over the age of six and not in a coma knew what a "Stuka" was, for instance.

1960 was seven years after the Korean Conflict went from HOT to SIMMER.

In retrospect, there were probably a lot of "off-books" devices floating around in 1960. If you were a trustworthy sort of fellow and were known to be able to keep your mouth shut, you could probably shoot grease-guns and toss pineapples and potato-mashers and play with det-cord, perf-caps and Serious Putty.

Canaries in Coal Mines

I know that I have at least one reader who is a young lad of less then fifty so please humor me if I tell you things that you already know.

Coal miners were known to take canaries into coal mines because the small birds were exquisitely sensitive to toxic and explosive gasses. A miner might attribute a headache to the home-brew he drank the night before, but if the canary went Tango-Uniform, they all hauled anatomy out of the mine and did not go back into it until after it was thoroughly ventilated.

In real-life (whatever that is) there is a dramatic tension between wanting systems that perform without providing irritating or distracting feedback .AND. the need to know when a system approaching massive failure.

Idiot lights are one solution to the problem. In biological systems like streams, orchards and fields we use indicator species.

In a stream there is a hierarchy of species that will tell you much about water quality. Grayling are the most demanding of oxygen and water quality. When they die off you know that the system is slipping.

In an approximate and descending order you might have Brook Trout, Rainbow Trout, Brown Trout, Walleye, Smallmouth Bass, Northern Pike, Channel Catfish, Suckers, Common Carp, Gar, Bowfin, African Walking Catfish.

In the orchard, apple trees are very sensitive to the toxins produced by Black Walnuts. Apple trees are expensive at $20-to-$60 a tree. A rational person would find a less expensive, highly-sensitive plant (i.e. Canary in the Coal Mine) if he were to trench around the orchard and wanted some assurance that all of the roots had been cut or if he wanted to visualize the leaching and decay of the toxic compounds.

Stated another way, why would I risk killing a $20 tree when I can test the soil with a tomato or marigold plant that cost me a nickel and a delay of a year?

Christmas Carols

 I am 60% certain this is in Spanish

Handsome Hombre picked up Quicksilver this afternoon.

Quicksilver is of an age where language is absorbed with lightning speed. It does not seem like that because she hasn't figured out how to make all of the consonant sounds. You need a keen ear to decode when she asks "Please close the door" for instance. But all of the signs are there that it is all going into memory.

I asked HH what some of his favorite Christmas Carols are. HH grew up in a very religious family in a country where everybody speaks Spanish. Of COURSE they sang Christmas Carols.

I shared that this is an outstanding time to teach those songs to his daughter. Looking at his face, it was clear that the idea had never crossed his mind.

"Gimme a list. We can listen to Christmas Carols sung in Spanish just as easily as we can watch Roadrunner cartoons." Melody, meter and rhyme are all mechanisms that help our brains retain information. Song and verse are how information was passed down before the written word. It is hardwired into our brains. Not exploiting what God put there is to be a wastrel of the basest sort.

Resilience vs. Efficiency: Grains

 

 20 minute run-time

This video is interesting because it explores the tension between "Resilience" and "Efficiency".

Before you get super-excited...the narration (perhaps AI generated) takes liberties with technical concepts like "hybrids" and "clones". So take everything else in this video with a grain of salt.

Humans are in a race with fungi, bacteria, virus and chaos. For a while the winds and tides were with us and we have thrived. Pendulums swing. Things change. Even if the earth was filled with oil there is a finite amount of oxygen in the atmosphere. At some point we will have spent our way back into a pay-as-we-go thermodynamic relationship.

Life is "interesting" in the corners

One "hack" in optimization software is to examine the values in the vertices (corners) of the allowable universe. Interesting genes are found on sky-islands in Arizona, cracks in sidewalks, Peru, Spitzbergen Island, Mount Tahat, Orkney Islands, Hillsdale College and Fort Dapp. 

Genetic trajectories are not anchored by regression-to-the-mean when they evolve in isolation.

While novel and useful genetic packages can be found in random individuals in the great, thundering herds of conformity, it is not economical to search for them in such places. It seems unlikely that one would find a land-race that can deal with toxic soils in the fertile fields of Indiana where it is not an issue.

Let's raise a toast to those of us who refuse to bow to the cast-pewter gods of conformity! 

Source of heirloom grain seeds 

Random thought

I look at all of the water-containment run-off swales that the EPA requires of newly paved areas. I understand the concept. Unbuffered rain run-off and snow-melt can be "acid" or thermally hot. Channeling the runoff into a containment area and then having it percolate through the ground buffers the pH and stabilizes the temperature.

A random set of containment ponds in an un-named suburb in a midwestern state.

How hard would it be to toss a couple of handfuls of viable Wild-Rice seeds into every detention pond in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, and North and South Dakota during the month of October?

Native range of the genus Zizania at the granularity of "county". Source

If the Wild Rice is happy it will establish and become repatriated and ducks (and humans) will rejoice. If not, nothing ventured-nothing gained.

Hat-tip to the tireless Lucas Machias

 

Planning notes for fertilizing the orchard(s)

Pruning trees is a good time to look them over and think through management plans for the coming growing season.

I did not fertilize most of the trees that I pruned last winter. Removing 1/2-to-2/3 of their canopies nearly always causes rampant new growth the following year. Adding fertilizer exacerbates the problem. Lush, rampant growth makes the trees susceptible to fire blight and makes the next year's pruning (which is this year's) more work.

Commercial orchards send leaf-stems (petioles in botany-speak) to laboratories for chemical analysis. They use the results to fine-tune their fertilizer applications, sometimes on a month-by-month basis.

I use more primitive methods because those lab tests are not cheap and I don't need to squeeze out every last 40 pound box of apples to make payroll.

I tweak my fertilizer plan to produce a target amount of shoot growth each growing season. I aim for a minimum of 24" of growth on dominant side-shoots while I am growing the tree to fill its allotted space and 12" of growth after they have fill their "place".

Most of the heavily pruned trees gave me 18" or so of shoot growth and will produce substantially less next year unless I add fertilizer. Those trees are now carrying a lot more vegetative and fruiting buds. More shoots means fewer nutrients per shoot. More fruit means more carbs being pumped into the fruit.

Always be suspicious of round-numbers

One rule-of-thumb for fertilizing apple orchards is to broadcast 100 pounds of Nitrogen-per-acre at the beginning of the growing season. It is hard to think of a number that is "rounder" than 100lb/acre.

One detail that gets glossed over is "Do you also fertilize the grassy aisle-ways?" 

My inclination is to NOT fertilize them. More aggressive grass growth means more competition for moisture and if you cannot irrigate it means fewer pounds of apples. 

The trees in the Upper Orchard are planted 15' between trees in the row and 25' between rows. That is low-density by modern standards but I am not running a modern orchard.

Beneath the trees, the area sprayed with herbicide varies between 6' and 10' in width. If I split the difference (i.e. 8' wide by 15' per tree) and go with the 100lb/acre that means I need to apply about 0.6 pounds of urea per tree. Key point, the fertilizer must be scattered evenly over the 120 square-feet per tree.

The more vigorous trees like the Empire on MM-106 I might use a bit less than a half-pound. 

The less vigorous trees like GoldRush will get the full 0.6 pounds because they are struggling to fill their allotted space. 

Trees that were planted last year will get a half-pound of urea over the a circle with a 10' diameter centered around them and will get extra weed control.

Newly planted trees will get hand-watered with 300PPM Nitrogen water.

Very early May is a good time to broadcast fertilizer in Michigan. In many years we go into a period of low rainfall starting in late-May through most of  June and I want the fertilizer dissolved and carried down to where the roots are BEFORE that happens. 

Weed control

Weeds compete with your trees for nutrients and moisture.

A fertilizer-plan is only half of the game just like the offensive game is only half of the football game. Weed control will be a composite of herbicides (primarily glyphosate but it may include a pre-emergent like Simizine) and mowing. Most grass that is mowed short has much shorter roots than grass that is not mowed. That is why a lawn that is "scalped" is the first lawn on the block to brown-out in the summer.

Orchard floors do not need to be groomed to city-park standards but I do have to stay on top of mowing if I intend to reap the benefits of the fertilizer I apply. 

A few more pictures from yesterday

 

The temperatures went above freezing yesterday

The rabbits were eating the branches I had trimmed from the fruit trees the last time I was in the Upper Orchard

I spread wood ashes in the Hill Orchard. Clover loves potassium and wood ashes are a good source

The snow is stressing the deer for food. They are having to dig for it. There were a few volunteer turnips growing between these trees

The sill of the shooting port is tilted slightly so water runs out. If memory serves, the slope is 0.5" in 3-1/2"

Even though the roof projects past the sill, the wind was blowing the water droplets in enough to hit it. The splatter made the thighs of my pants damp and I got chilly.

Eventually, I got smart enough to realize that if I didn't lean back in my chair that I could cover more of my thighs with my parka. Slightly later, I figured out that I could put my gloves on top of the exposed parts of my thighs and keep my hands in my pockets.

Those two changes made a significant improvement in my comfort level.

When it is cold, I do not rest my weapon on my thighs. I lose a lot of heat as that big, iron bar sucks out the heat and efficiently transfers it to the atmosphere. It is essentially an antenna that emits heat. 

A random "artsy" picture of the orchard taken near the top of the Hill Orchard and looking west.

As a side note, the number of dead mice in the small bucket trap is up to four.

The view from the office

 

I saw the four deer this afternoon.

The first was forty minutes before the end of legal-light. It was 300 yards away and running.

The second was 120 yards away and I could only see the top half of its body due to cover. It did not look like a very large deer and it didn't move very much.

The last two deer were 5 minutes before the end of legal light and they were in dense brush and near the edge of the property. I don't have written permission to track deer onto the neighbor's property.

No shots were fired.

Pruning

I know it looks like I was able to prune the tree in about 45 seconds, but the contrails were left by two separate planes. The orchard was beneath the approach for the Grand Rapids Gerald R. Ford International Airport

The "J" stenciled on the trunk of the tree is because the fruit keyed-out as (probably) Jonafree based on fruit characteristics and the records of what was planted in the orchard. 

The good news is that my expectation was to get five trees pruned and I was able to prune seven!  I have another fifteen to prune at that location and then I will start pruning the trees in Eaton Rapids.

Nick Reiner. Drugs are bad

At the time of this writing, it is generally believed the a man named Rob Reiner and his wife Michelle were tied to chairs and their throats were slit by their son, Nick Reiner.

My first thought had been that they had been killed by thugs who were trying to steal their crypto assets. That seems to be their mode of operation. Take the crypto owners hostage and torture them until they cough-up the account number and password.

I am still slightly skeptical. How does one man tie two, active healthy people to chairs against their consent? We may find out that this was a shake-down gone wrong and that Nick Reiner helped the crew gain access and then things went south.

The current reports are that Nick Reiner had problems with drugs. My assumption is that he was also mentally ill, if not before his heavy use of drugs then afterwards as he spiraled into psychosis. 

 The story is getting plastered all over the place because the male victim "made a difference". The male victim was "famous" and he was "somebody who mattered".

In the end, it will not matter as long as people can afford to kill their brains with drugs and as long as we avoid addressing to our country's systemic failures regarding mental health issues. In many ways the two issues are joined at the hip.

In the long run, it seems highly unlikely that Rob Reiner will make any difference at all. 

A bit of Scripture to wash the taint out of my mouth

For then will I remove from your midst
    the proud braggarts,
And you shall no longer exalt yourself
    on my holy mountain.
But I will leave as a remnant in your midst
    a people humble and lowly,
Who shall take refuge in the name of the LORD:
    the remnant of Israel.
They shall do no wrong
    and speak no lies;
Nor shall there be found in their mouths
    a deceitful tongue;
They shall pasture and couch their flocks
    with none to disturb them.   -From Zephaniah Chapter 3

Regarding the circle-jamboree of Data Centers and AI

---Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor. I don't have any "Certificates". This blog post is offered for entertainment purposes.---

Background on AI's foundational technology (numerical methods)

In numerical methods, "integral based algorithms" are forgiving and robust while "differential methods" are rife with instabilities. Rates of change (X,t) tend to multiply measurement error. Acceleration of rate of change (X,,t) is even filthier. "Jerk", the rate of change of acceleration (X,,,t) is even filthier than acceleration.

Also from numerical methods, interpolation (estimating values that are bounded by measured data) is pretty safe while extrapolation (estimating values that are outside the cloud of measured data i.e., future predictions) get squirrelly very quickly. The farther into the future the prediction, the squirrellier the number.

This is important for two reasons. My AI expert informs me that LLM are basically "Auto-complete on steroids". They are guessing what the next word will be. At some point that runs out of gas. The other way it comes into play is that the astronomical valuations and ability to pull financing is based on speculation about how AI will fundamentally transform the economy like petroleum, semiconductors and the internet did. 

Can any of the proponents of AI offer a credible guess as to when the venture will be profitable, covering both the costs of the sunk investment and the variable cost of the energy to run them?

Frankly, I think they are barking up the wrong tree. The AI that will be profitable will be tiny chips embedded in drones (unmanned, aerial vehicles) and will parse out potential targets and communicate with other drones in its cloud. Survival on the battle field will involve keeping your IFF helmet fully charged and the antenna undamaged and transmitting.

"But you HAVE to be investing in AI because that is where the stock-prices are exploding!!!" 

I sort of am. 30% of my retirement fund (calm your beating heart...it isn't that much money) is invested in various equity index funds. Since NVIDIA, Oracle, MS and Alphabet are a substantial slice of the S&P 500, I am invested in them.

I am fine missing out on "beating the market". The exquisite agony of being "left behind" combines the two major forces in the market. It combines both Fear and Greed all in one package. It is fog-of-war and blindness-from-testosterone combined into one package and is virtually guaranteed to result in risky bets. 

Errors AI seems to be prone to

"Nothing is better than God.
Warm beer is better than nothing."
***apply transitive property***
"Warm beer is better than God." 
Words can have very different meanings depending on context. 

"You are a sight for sore eyes"
Oscar Wilde's original intention was "...a sight to cause sore eyes..." 

"You look like the first breath of spring!"
The only survivable way to tell a woman that she looks like the end of a long, hard winter.

(From an AI generated Youtube video) "Alvin York charged the trench filled with 126 German soldiers armed only with his Springfield model 1903 and his 1911 Colt handgun" 

While the "Standard" rifle for the U.S. Army was the Springfield model 1903, there were not enough in inventory to issue to the troops who were sent to Europe in 1917. Rather, they were issued the Enfield M-17 chambered in 30-06. In this case, "standard" and boots-on-ground reality were different.

Mountains of money are being sunk into "Data centers" and AI. I am humble enough to acknowledge that I may be very wrong. But I fear that the results will be more dystopian than empowering.

Snow is a storybook that we write in with our feet

We have had snow on the ground for a couple of weeks now and it is a good time to see the natural traffic patterns in our yard.

I see deer and rabbit highways.

I see where I go, at least in the winter.

That is useful information from the standpoint of planning "zones" as defined by "permaculture".

Practitioners of permaculture suggest that it is rational to place enterprises that are high-maintenance and high-output close to the paths you walk daily. For example, you might put everbearing berry bushes long the path between your kitchen door and the mailbox or the hen-house. Gathering enough berries to dress up your breakfast or lunch does not require any additional steps and consequently are more likely to get picked than if your berry patch was a 100 yards away.

Gardens and chickens both thrive with daily attention so it makes sense to put them close together from the standpoint of labor. They offer symbiotic opportunities in terms of nutrient cycling, especially if you have a station for cleaning your vegetables next to the chicken run. Toss the "seconds" over the fence and "BOOM!", recycled with no composting required.

Everybody is going to do things a little bit differently because we start with different property. Some are loath to cut down mature trees. Others are ruthless.

Rough guidelines 

Zone 0: Inside of your house: Looms, spinning wheels, work benches, kitchen, pantry, herbs on window sill. 

Zone 1: Several times-a-day to daily visits: Inside the "yard". Porches, gazebo, kitchen/salad garden, everbearing berry bushes/trees, BBQ pit, swings, arbors, sandbox, flowers, barns, dog-kennel, hen-house, driveways, garages, water spigots

There will be blurring of zones. The milk cow is staked out in the pasture every day but the pear tree on the left side of the frame might only be harvested once a year.

Zone 2: Daily visits to 3X week: Garden with crops that require less care (potatoes, sweet corn, winter squash). Orchards. Pastures grazed by milk-animals.

Zone 3: 2X a week-to-every 10 days: Pasture grazed by meat animals, some kinds of orchards, intensive coppice.

Zone 4: Every 10 days to every 2 months: Hedgerows for seasonal fruit and mushrooms, a spot for fishing.

Zone 5: Less frequently than once very 2 months: Forest crops like poles, firewood, nuts. Places to trap. Marshland hay-field.

Another flexibility involves NEED. In times of famine you will be walking the pasture of your meat animals collecting dandelions, chicory, and other greens every few days to take pressure off of your garden. You will be bird-dogging the hedgerows to beat the birds and squirrels to the edibles. When you have high needs, what was Zone 2 is promoted to Zone 1-1/2 and Zone 3 is promoted to Zone 2. 

Redecorating tip

Mrs ERJ hinted that she wanted to have one of the bedrooms repainted with Seafoam.

I did not know that there is a color called "Seafoam" but I know that now.

Most men will look at this and shrug. I look at it and think "That means that girls need 25 bottles of "blue" fingernail polish. Think of the profit potential

Any clue on how long it will take for the smell to disappear? 

Another Ukrainian Grandmother video dropped

Three of her daughters (or daughter-in-laws) and two grandsons spent the day with her. (Link)

I thought the video was spliced together over several days due to changing hat colors

But, no. I was wrong. Three different women, same day. Rewatching the video, the different colored hats was useful to see how tasks were divided up. I think the woman wearing the plum-colored hat is the take-charge, oldest sister. 

The ladder circled in red has been in every video and seems out of place. All of their other tools are stored inside or underneath eaves to keep them out of the rain. Why would they haphazardly leave this ladder in the weather where it will rapidly age and become unsafe?

Perhaps it is the only way to get to the items stored in the attic. Items like winter clothing and such.

They visited a neighbor to have oats dehulled and to collect wood-shavings.

Their neighbor's house has the same architectural feature.

Reapplying grout to the outdoor stove at the 10:30 mark.
 

The profile and spine of this knife looks a lot like a knife used to fillet fish.

 

Small details like that make me wonder if fish is a large part of their diet.

Random note: I think there must be a steady market for small luxuries like fingernail polish even when war is raging in the middle and on the other end of the country.

Family Party After-Action-Report

Yesterday was when my sister hosted the extended-family Christmas party.

Mom died two years ago and Dad died in 2019. Last two Christmases were not particularly festive as the family regrouped. 

Five siblings and our spouses attended. 

Seven of the next generation + five of their spouses attended.

Eleven "little ones" were in attendance. 

I got to hold a couple of babies and feed one a bottle.

White Elephant gifts were exchanged by random-lot and then the gift stealing followed.

The older geezers talked about our new knees, hips and issues with vision and spines. We also talked about the exceptional mobility of athletes in college sports and how that impacted recruiting, talent retention and program success/failures. In many ways it mirrors the issues on the productive side of the economy.

The oldest man sported hearing-aids and he turned them off when it got loud. Then he smiled. 

The mature women talked about family matters.

The young guys talked about jobs, the complications of home-repairs in hold houses, wood stoves and the cost-of-living. 

The girls (about third-grade) retired to the bedroom where we had left our coats and talked about "boys". 

We watched a couple walk across the frozen lake from north-to-south. It has been several years since December was cold in southern Michigan to where anybody dared attempt that in December (much less in the first half of December). They made the crossing without going swimming.

They were not walking side-by-side. The man was walking about 7 paces in front of the woman. Maybe the ice had started hissing-and-cracking. Ice will usually "tell you" when you are being stupid and spreading out reduces the risk of falling through. If you are alone and you hear that, spread out your feet and shift only part of your weight as you move rather than lifting them. Slide each foot in-turn. Oh...and head back to shore.

Or maybe it was just a case of the man was in a hurry. 

I ate too much and moved too little and we stayed too long. It was a magnificent party and it had a splendid turn-out. The crowd is a testament to what a great hostess my sister and her husband are. I am sure there are tens-of-millions of parties across the US that are nearly identical, but this is the party I attended.

Clever way to deliver gifts to your "friends"

 

"Just drop them off"

The address is a trailer park.

Free food or free alarm-clocks? 

I am not the brightest guy in the world but there is a pretty good chance this is a prank. Either that, or somebody is starting a cock-fighting ring. 

Bonus image

Second Bonus Image

If Charlie Brown had lived in West Texas

Grab bag

Quote of the day

"Pain is proof that we are still alive.

I have never felt so alive!"

The lifting is going OK. I think I completed my third of fourth session yesterday. I felt strong enough to add 10 pounds for the last set of six reps.

AND...I am more than just a little bit and pleasantly sore.

Sourdough

Does anybody have any opinions? King Arthur Flour has very precise instructions in how to create your starter.

Is there any benefit in helping it along with a yeast and/or a lactic bacteria culture? The picture in my head is to "help" the culture along with a yeast like SafAle T-58 and low temperature lactic bacteria culture like kefir or skyr.

CB 22 Shorts

Unfortunately, they have a much lower point-of-impact than the .22LR that I usually use. I plan to count the clicks to get it where I want it and then tape a card to the stock so I can "recover" the .22LR setting if/when I switch back to that ammo.

The .22 CB Shorts are no louder than a pellet gun and (supposedly) send a 29 grain, round-nosed, lead bullet down-range at 710 feet-per-second. That compares with a .177 "springer" tossing an 8 grain pellet between 850-and-1000 feet-per-second.

The .22 CB Shorts are not energetic enough to cycle a semi-automatic but they feed through a Savage Mark II bolt-action just fine. 

Rabbits are not hard to kill nor are squirrels. I just have to be able to hit them in the head or heart-lung area.

Blackberries

I ordered my blackberry bushes for next spring. I ordered from Ison's Nursery of Brooks, Georgia. I opted for 10 Ouachita (approximately pronounced as "Wichita") and 5 "Apache".

The temperature at which 50% of the flower buds are killed. Source.

Ouachita is slightly more cold-hardy than Apache. Apache has significantly larger fruit. Both varieties are from Arkansas breeding program. Both are thornless and upright. Both have good quality and very good disease resistance.

My experience with the cold-hardiness ratings on blackberries is that most of them are optimistic. If I get a good crop 2 years out of five I will be thrilled.

Rabbit hutches

Southern Belle has some rabbits arriving next week.

The previous two are no longer with us. The first one to become deceased  was dispatched by her sister. They went from best friends to best enemies.

The second one may have died from over-eating snacks.

Raising livestock isn't something you learn from a book. Books are helpful...but not the final word.

I spent a couple of hours "winterizing" the three-apartment hutch that was built around a truck-cap. I put doors on both ends of each apartment and it is very well ventilated since I built it in August. I threw cardboard into the bottom to cover about 2/3 of the floor and threw in some bedding.

I covered the west side of the "apartment building" to block one door on each apartment to reduce cross-ventilation. 

Finally, I added a "bolt" to lock the doors shut to reduce losses to predators.