The Lower Muskegon River

"Write something every day" they told me.

A Three Hour Tour...

Two young guys crossing an item off their bucket list. I propose you stop at the 23:30 mark. After that there is wind, rain and words that should have been BLEEPED out.

For those of you who come from crowded places, it may be disorienting to know that there are rivers where you can boat for 45 miles and not see more than five or ten buildings from the water.

Good walleye and Brown Trout and Smallmouth fishing. Above the dam there is good Northern Pike action and at the mouth of the river and at the base of the dam there are Channel and Flathead Catfish. Much of the river is sandy-bottomed and the fish hang out in the snags, brush and stumps that washed into the river. 

Is your destiny determined by your race?

I want to push back on the chain-of-logic that contends

1. IQ is predetermined at birth and does not change
2. Race determines IQ
3. Since IQ is destiny, then race IS destiny 

IQ is predetermined at birth and does not change

It is my personal belief that the human brain is very plastic. It rewires to optimize itself for changing environments.

A quick "proof": If I read off or showed 3, seven-digit numbers to a Boomer and a Gen Z, I am confident that the Boomer will almost always be able to repeat back the numbers five minutes later with greater fidelity than the Gen Z person.

The reason is that Boomers remembered the land-line numbers of their friends and family. I can still tell you the land-line number of my grandparents and the home number where I grew up. Phone numbers, back in the day, were seven digits long. Our brains rewired to optimize the retrieval of seven-digit strings of numbers.

Second piece of evidence: There as a very large, longitudinal health study in Britain. One of the pieces of data they tracked was I.Q.

A group of people who shared one attribute scored significantly higher than the group of people who did NOT share that attribute. More interesting, the gap in test scores steadily increased over the years. It did not stay constant.

The attribute? The group that scored higher on the IQ tests were readers. Educators tell us that the single best predictor of whether a child will be a reader is if the family demonstrates the culture of readers. There are books and magazines in the home. The parents read. The parents read to the children.

How many of you who insist that IQ is entirely genetic would actually expect Ben Carson's mother to score within 5 IQ points as Ben? His mother, Sonya Carson, was functionally illiterate.

Third piece of evidence: Trauma rewires brains.

Post-traumatic Stress Disorder is just "twitchy feelings". It has been widely recognized since the the year 2000 that "Neuroimaglng studies in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have revealed changes in brain structure and function..."

People who are in combat are focused on second-to-second survival and "appropriately discounting the long term costs of behaviors" is a distraction that can get you killed. Ergo, many soldiers take up smoking while down-range.

Fourth piece of evidence: Drugs change brains

Smoking weed kills one's give-a-golly. Since the mid-twenty-teens the literature is full of peer reviewed studies with conclusions like "...regular cannabis use is associated with gray matter volume reduction in the medial temporal cortex, temporal pole, parahippcampal gyrus, insula and orbitofrontal cortex..."

Those areas are critical for longterm memory and processing emotions. 

Harder drugs kill every desire that gets in the way of the next fix.

Fifth piece of evidence: Elites from the Caribbean and Africa

Mrs ERJ's uncle was a chaplain at Southern University. SU is a traditionally-Black University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

According to him, the US born students HATED the students from the Caribbean and Africa who had been schooled using the traditional, legacy UK system.

The professors graded on a curve. The Caribbean and African students invariably earned 100% on their tests. They mastered all of the assigned material. A single student from either of those place was enough to "spike" the curve and turn it into straight-scale.

The irony is that most of the Caribbean and African students were much darker than the US born students. 

The "Race" to "IQ" link is highly confounded

The "Black Culture" that is enabled by WOKE Progressives sabotages most Black students on every count mentioned above.

Demographically, Blacks are younger than white people.

Pro-union, WOKE cities insist that education is the province of the education industry and unionized teachers. 

Culturally, Black people are exposed to more random, capricious violence and WOKE jurisdictions do nothing to suppress that violence.

Culturally, Black people are more likely to be heavy users of cannabis in their adolescence and as young adults than every other ethnic group other than Native American. That is the period when brains are developing.

WOKE culture enables mediocre performance from Black people. It is the soft racism of low expectations. 

ERGO, it is nearly impossible to untangle cultural and genetic factors.

A high IQ is like a powerful motor

A high IQ is like a powerful motor. But to be a useful truck or a fast race car, that engine needs appropriate tires and a transmission and a suspension and operator controls to be useful. It needs a road. It needs an operator to work the steering wheel, brakes and throttle.

People WANT IQ to mean more than it does. Just because you desperately want something to be true does not make it so. 

I don't expect this post to change anybody's mind. I just want to go on-record for where I stand on the topic. 

Bank Intercounty Drain

This $330k property's drain assessment was $20k. The GIS Hydrology viewer lists the "area" as about 6000 square-feet.

The property owners on the east side of Delta Township are losing their minds over the size of the assessment to upgrade the water drain that serves their area.

The assessment is (supposedly) based on the square-feet of "impermeable" surface on their property. That is, the square-feet of roof + square-feet of pavement + square-feet of swimming pool and other improvements.

Example of how the drain zigs-and-zags.

The drain runs about 2 miles from south-to-north (direction of water flow) but it swerves and snakes so its linear length is significantly longer. It was built and added onto as subdivisions were added and the area developed. Consequently, the oldest and now most congested areas are served with 14" and 16" drains (circa 1900-ish) while newer areas farther from the river are served with 48" drains. Needless to say, the drain backs up when there is a heavy rain.

The cost of the project and the associated assessments were announced about two months ago. The cost is about $60 million which is exacerbated by the fact that most of those drains are now beneath paved roads.

The 1900 property owners who are being charged for the work are outraged. There is no appeal process for the assessments. The process for calculating impermeable surface is opaque and seems to have been done with a ouija board.

15 acres, almost entirely paved. Listed as 110k square-feet in the GIS Hydrology viewer. My 10 acres with 4000 square-feet of buildings and 1000 square-feet of gravel driveway is listed as having 70k square-feet.

 

Once again, I am happy that I don't live in the city. 

Property owners in very liberal voting Delta Township are outraged when told to "pay their fair share". It has even generated disputes about who should pay for the square-footage of the sidewalks. The property owners? They didn't install them. The county? While they "own" some of the roads they didn't install the sidewalks. Delta Township? Most of the sidewalks were installed by Delta Township but they don't have budget to pay the assessment. On the other hand, why should residents of Bellevue Township pay for sidewalks in Delta Township which is what would happen if the assessment was assigned to the county?

While it may seem to be petty, the square-footage of the sidewalks adds up to a substantial amount of square-feet of impermeable surface. And if you live on a corner lot, could almost double your assessment.

Rejoice with me! I found the keys*

And so I torture you with a story

One of our tasks as parents and bosses is to train our replacements. If the children/employee is willing, then we attempt to pass on the knowledge and tricks that we learned so they don't have to remake every mistake humans have made since the beginning of time.

So there I was, standing behind Southern Belle as she started slamming in the first corner post in the next paddock for her goats.

The plan was to build the second enclosure next to the current enclosure (2 feedlot panels in one direction and 5 feedlot panels in the other direction). We planned to reuse one of the long sides of the current paddock. We would crowd the goats into a temporary cell made from four feedlot panels and recycle the ones that were freed up.

Like most people getting into livestock, Southern Belle is expanding as budget becomes available. She recently purchased used T posts and the next paycheck will buy three additional feedlot panels.

Since she had the posts, it made sense to put them in so we were ready to hit the ground running after she purchased the additional feedlot panels.

Happy Tools (named after the cheap toys found in value meals)

I tapped two nails into a work-surface. The nails were 8' minus 1/4" apart.

I tied a loop in the starting end and wrapped around the nails 9 times.

Then I marked the Start end with some paint.

Viola! A tool to show us exactly where to drive the T posts so they would be in alignment with the length of the feedlot panels.

Untangling the cord

The first five minutes at Southern Belle's was spent untangling the cord and stretching it down the two-track that runs beside the paddock.

Then we dropped the loop on one end of the cord over the corner T post of the current paddock and pulled the cord to stretch it. Then we stuck another T post 32' away (two feedlot panel lengths) for the corner post of the new paddock.

I stood behind Southern Belle (west of her) as she started slamming in the post with her driver.

Unknown to us, precisely 24 inches eastsoutheast of where she was driving the post was a yellowjacket (Vespula maculifrons) nest. It took SB about three whacks of with the driver before they were boiling around her and sharing their misery with her.

"Oh SHIT! I am getting stung by bees!!!!" she said, dropping the post driver and sprinting toward the house.

At which point I also vamoosed.

Time to make a plan

After dosing Southern Belle with 50mg of diphenhydramine (which I carry in a ziplock baggie in my pocket)** I drove home to get the materials I needed to deal with the yellowjackets.

I cleaned the remnants of herbicide out of my sprayer and mixed up 1/2 gallon of permethrin insecticide.

I found my fishing hat with the mosquito netting.

And then I walked out into the breezeway between our house and garage and pulled my quilted coveralls off of the hook where it hangs year-round.

And it was slightly heavier than I expected. Because it had a set of keys in the pocket. 

It had my keys in the pocket because that is where I put them after locking the door to the house when I am going for a run. Mrs ERJ had unlocked the door and I must have been distracted when I came back from my last run (maybe ten days ago) and not picked them up. Then I didn't have a need for them for a bit and forgot that is where I had left them.

So do I tell Southern Belle that St Anthony of Padua may have sent those yellowjackets? Without those yellowjackets, it would have been months before I would have worn those insulated coveralls. On one hand I am sad that she got stung three times. On the other hand I am filled with joy that I found my keys before hunting season started and I needed to open the safe.

*Apologies to Luke 15:9

“Or what woman having ten coins and losing one would not light a lamp and sweep the house, searching carefully until she finds it?

And when she does find it, she calls together her friends and neighbors and says to them, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found the coin that I lost.’

**I hung out for 20 minutes after she got stung to see if she had a reaction to the stings.

Presented without comment

 

First-World "root-causes" based Justice

Pawpaw recently posted an essay titled Root Causes.

We look at teen violence and try to ascribe root causes to try to rationalize behavior.  Most of that rationalization is bullshit. 

The sociologists try to put people in groups to explain societal problems and that is not always predictive.  There are always outliers.

The best thing that a society can do to establish tranquility it to set rules and enforce them. A rule that is not enforced is useless.

As a cop, I learned that the rules change from time to time. It was not my job to try to understand why someone would choose to break the law.  It was simply my job to enforce it. 

Sergio Yanes Preciado pictured above

An example of First-World "justice" involves Sergio Yanes Preciado who allegedly approached a family in a public park in Montreal’s Parc-Extension neighborhood and without provoction assaulted the father by spraying him with an unknown substance and then proceeded to batter him.

Now, a criminologist, who was not identified, has suggested the hot weather might have contributed to Preciado's actions that day. Temperatures reached a high of almost 90 degrees Fahrenheit. 

The criminologist had conducted a quick mental health evaluation ahead of Preciado's appearance before Quebec Court Judge Martin Chalifour inside Montreal courthouse Wednesday, according to The Montreal Gazette.

Are you following this line of reasoning? "Modern, First-World" criminologist claim that the father was assaulted because of Global Warming. Preciado was not responsible. The weather was.

The court ordered a 30 day psychiatric evaluation pending any legal action against Preciado. 

The flaw in this logic

There are approximately four-million people living in the Montreal metropolitan region. Approximately 1/3 of a million are men of Preciado's age +/- five years. If the weather is to blame, why didn't the other 333,332 men go nuts on that day?

To quote Pawpaw, "Most of that rationalization is bullshit." and it does a disservice to the people living in the communities where anti-social people are not held accountable.

The same flaw shows up in the "It's always the --gg--s!"

Granted, as a demographic they are disproportionately represented in crime statistics. But why is there a 4.5X difference in incarceration rates for Blacks (as a per-100k/per-100k white people) between New Jersey and Mississippi/Georgia/Alabama? What about all of the Black people who do NOT commit crimes but quietly go about their lives, work at their jobs, raise their children. If race is destiny, then how do you explain them?

Perhaps there is more of a culture of personal accountability in Mississippi, Georgia and Alabama. Maybe the courts don't make excuses (like "it's of climate change") for juveniles-of-color.

Rachel's Folly by Patrice Lewis (a book review)

Romance novels are not what I usually read although I will admit to having read one or two of them in my lifetime. So this review will seem odd to those who make a steady diet of them.

First, I want to lead off by saying that any book that is self-published is a masterpiece, just as any Whitetail Deer harvested with traditional archery equipment is a trophy. I am not going to point out tiny air-bubbles in the plot or events I might have written differently. Rather, I am going to point out what I think she did exceptionally well.

Homesteading is physically demanding

Mrs Lewis did not candy-coat the simple fact that homesteading requires an almost incomprehensible number of hours of physical labor every day. There are some upsides: You can eat phenomenally large amounts of food and still lose weight. You sleep like the dead. If you don't hurt yourself in the process, then you become physically much stronger.

The homesteader is at the mercy of the weather

As modern people, we benefit from a transportation system that smooths-out local variation in weather. You can live in Phoenix or Fairbanks and there are fresh fruits and vegetables in the grocery stores every week of the year.

Not so for the homesteader. Not only do they eat seasonally, but a severe weather event will impact their ability to feed themselves.

Mrs Lewis seamlessly worked those concepts into the story as part of the canvas that was the background for the couple's emerging relationship.

Recreation was productive

The couple went fishing: Even though it was "downtime", it was still an activity that had the potential to put protein into the diet.

They visited a neighbor: Even though it was "recreational", they still swapped things they had excesses of. The neighbor was good at sewing (for instance) while Sam did chores that were easier for a man to do.

Nothing was wasted

Right off the bat, Sam is singing the praises of pine-needles to Rachel. A bit of a rabbit-hole but that was probably Mrs Lewis's intention; to demonstrate that even commodities as common and boring as pine-needles or a match were not to be wasted.

Predators must be respected

Elk, deer, rabbits and mice want to eat the trees. Sam has a 10' tall fence around the garden.

Coyotes, wolves, bears, cougars, hawks, eagles and owls want to eat your livestock. This is not Disneyland. The livestock is shut in the barn every night. Any lapse in vigilance can be very costly.

Homesteaders think about time in a different way

Somebody who works in an office often works from a daily To-Do list. Somebody who works on "projects" often has a guide-book that outlines the specific order things must be done in.

Mrs Lewis doesn't preach about it, but she accurately describes how young fruit trees need time before they are productive. She describes how they must flower in the spring if they are to bear fruit in the autumn. Later in the book, she describes how a fallen tree must be cut and split and dried for a year before it will be dry enough to burn. 

She describes (in painfully funny detail) the steps that must happen to build a fire and cook eggs and bacon...it being clear that you cannot cook bacon if you cannot first build a fire.

These are all things that happen as cycles within cycles, like the drum cadence, melodies and themes that build and recur within a symphony. 

Diversity of tasks

A homestead is actually a conglomeration of a multitude of related enterprises. Keeping the cats marching in formation is a juggling act. Paradoxically, we fail at perfection but succeed at good-enough.

Every day is different. Even with in the day the tasks can bounce around from hour-to-hour.

Except for weeding the garden. That never goes away. 

Celibacy

Sam and Rachel did not become "physically intimate" during the four months they were together. Many readers will find that impossible to believe.

Mrs Lewis makes the point that physical intimacy early in a relationship stunts the incentive to get to know more about the other person. Not her words, but "Hey, I am getting my immediate needs met. There is no point in 'wasting' time getting to know more details about this person" 

Aging

Mrs Lewis makes the point that some power tools can make a huge difference in how long we can stay-in-the-game with a chainsaw being a prime example. As we get older we become more vulnerable to repetitive motion injuries and we take longer to heal. An hour with a chainsaw can do as much heavy cutting as one man can do in four days.

Summary

Mrs Lewis writes as somebody who has been-there-done-that. The plot (researching for a Reality TV show) carries exceptionally well. Some readers will zone-out during the information deep-dives, but that is OK. It is just like when I skim over gratuitous sex sequences in other books. Just because the words are there doesn't mean you have to read every one of them.

The background for Mrs Lewis's book presents "homesteading" with great fidelity as it carries the love story of two lonely (and wounded) people. 

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.