A short fable (and math problem) and a few pictures

This is the time of year when things start moving more quickly. Blink your eyes and you miss something.

A wizard planted a lotus seed in a corner of the pond that supplied the king's kitchen with fish. Every day, the plant that sprouted from the seed doubled in size. After ten days, the lotus plant only covered one-millionth of the pond's surface and the Royal Advisors laughed at the wizard's demands for gold. After twenty days, the lotus plant covered only one-thousandth of the pond. Still, the Royal Advisors scoffed at the wizards threats of dire hunger if they did not pay him tribute.

On what day does the lotus plant cover half of the pond? On what day does it cover all of the pond and smother all of the fish? 

The 2026 garden

A broccoli plant, two weeks from seeding

A Stupice tomato plant also two weeks from seeding. Stupice is a "potato leaf" variety which makes it easy to keep track of.

My Lovage seedlings don't look that hot. I think they are very sensitive to how deeply that were transplanted. I planted two more seeds in each cell where the plant was struggling. Lovage seems to have a form much like peonies or asparagus. That is, they throw up shoots from underground crowns.

I also planted another "flight" of broccoli seeds.

In family news, one of my brothers told me that he would gladly take six tomato plants if I had extras. Well, of COURSE I have extras!!!

My sister informed me that she LOVES duck eggs for baking, so I have an outlet for those, too. That same sister wants to plant some rhubarb plants but is pinned down for time. They had a massive remodel done on their house and the building permit expires at the end of this month. I suggested that she put out feelers at the small, country church they are now attending. Rhubarb self-seeds like crazy if you don't keep weeding your patch and there is probably some 80 year-old lady who would be delighted to let her dig up as many seedlings as they wanted.

Four hours T-on-T today!!!! PR for 2026

I managed four hours time-on-task work today.

I spent three hours planting 75 White Pine seedlings and 25 Norway Spruce seedlings. Of the two, the Norway Spruce went into the ground much more quickly.

I was planting the White Pine into pucker-brush that had been brush-hogged. No above-ground brush to fight with but I still had to contend with many roots.

The Norway Spruce was planted into sod. The Norway Spruce have a smaller, less expansive root system that goes into the hole without argument and drama. 

The trees were planted on 8' centers. The White Pine were planted in multiple rows (windbreak) with the centers off-set. My customer was downcast when I told her that we need to put cages around the White Pine to protect them from the deer and rabbits. 

I spent another hour grafting pears. Grafting is not high-calorie burn work.

Tomorrow's work-ticket looks like planting another 25 White Pine and more grafting.

I wonder if the mental health crisis that Gen Z is experiencing would disappear if they performed 3 hours of hard, physical labor six days a week. Our bodies were not only designed for arduous labor, we NEED work to stay regulated. 

ERJ: Social Animal!!!

"Social connection" is one of the key factors for continued brain-health into old age. The difficulties are that the longer I live, the lower my opinion is of humans and that my friends keep moving away and/or dying.

Nevertheless, Mrs ERJ suggested that we go to a local social event. It was held yesterday evening. By some accounts, it was a success.

Kids were running like maniacs, women were screaming and men were shaking their fists. I really need to work on my parking skills. Not too long ago sidewalks ended at the road with curbs and not gentle ramps that made them look like driveways. Just sayin'.

Inside the event I made Mrs ERJ proud. They served pasta with marinara sauce and I didn't get any of it on my shirt. Nor did I walk around with my fly gaping open.

We will have to do that again but it will probably be after the venue's lawn heals up from the tire tracks I left in the very, very soft ground. People in small towns have very long memories.

What does Israel want?

 

A map showing various ethnic groups in southern Iran

It is pretty clear that Israel, for reasons of their own, are sabotaging US efforts to a rapid conclusion to the military operation in Iran. Dropping a bomb on the home of the moderate Iranian who was negotiation with J.D. Vance was not a very subtle hint.

One reason for not wanting a rapid resolution is that Israel sees no path in which a viable "Iran" is not a mortal threat to Israel for at least two generations. That means removing the source of the funding for Iran's nuclear ambitions: Their Gulf Petroleum Revenues. The most likely solution that would be tolerated by Israel would be to parcel or "partition" the country now called Iran into many, weaker regions with those regions administered by other vested interest in the region.

That is not something that can be done quickly. 

Forgive the exceptionally crude graphics, but the marked up "map" is one concept. The dashed black line is through the center of the Persian Gulf. The solid red line separates the partitioned states from historic Iran. The solid yellow lines separate the partitioned states from each other.

The dark-green region (less the fertile plains of Dezful) at the top of the Persian Gulf becomes Kuwait-East. The pink, gray and light-green region southeast of Kuwait-East becomes a protectorate of the Saudis. The dark-green region southeast of that becomes a protectorate of the Arab Emirate and includes the north end of the Straits of Hormuz. The mostly orange region that is on the south end of the Straits of Hormuz becomes Balochistan and is a protectorate of Pakistan.

Regions on the west side of Iran to the north are also chipped away, Kurdistan and so on.

The precedents for this are the partitioning of Berlin after WWII and the fragmentation of the former Yugoslavia. 

Fake News Friday: NYC outlaws tipping

New York Mayor Mamdani announced that "tipping" will be outlawed in New York City because tipping embodies structural racism and gender-norms. Inequities in tipping are micro-aggressions that target wait-staff who do not conform to the dominant culture's expectations.

"In a rich city like New York City, no person should receive less compensation because they chose to wait on fewer tables than their coworkers, ignore  customers or choose to costume differently" Mamdani announced.

"In our efforts to make New York City more equitable and fair, we are also criminalized "flirting" as a sub-set of the New York State code for hostile workplace environment. Businesses will be fined $1000 for every time a patron "flirts" with a staff member or a fellow customer or leaves a tip. We are done turning a blind-eye toward businesses that do not conform to NYC values of kindness, diversity, equity and inclusivity."

"Henceforth, a 40% surcharge will be added to every bar and food tab to ensure every waitress makes a living wage and to cover the cost of administering these new rules." 

Shopping for seasonal items

 

Quicksilver expressed a desire for a "Mermaid's tail".

We went to the Walmart in Charlotte today to find one.

Alas, they haven't received their seasonal shipment of shimmery, purple tails that enable underwater breathing.

Quicksilver was unimpressed with what was in-stock.

A big shout-out to Ben in Sporting Goods for his help. 

Three hours time-on-task, five hours by the clock

I was blessed to be able to have three hours time-on-task today. 

Grafting notes

I performed the first few grafts of the season. Mrs ERJ applauded, not because I am a fabulous grafter but because it means the sticks in the refrigerator that were elbowing aside (actual) food are starting to leave the refrigerator.

Two Walnut Hill pears. Walnut Hill is a Lucky Pittman find. In Michigan it has fruit slightly smaller than tennis balls that persist on the tree until April. In fact, they would still be hanging if they hadn't been harvested by hungry squirrels.

Two "Indian Free" Blood* peaches in the upper orchard.

Two "King David"** apples on a Hazen/M-26 tree that tried to pay its rent but it fruits in the heat of the summer and then quickly turn mushy and then drop.

Two Ashmead's Kernel***. One on the apple tree in the northwest corner of the Upper Orchard. The other on a sucker on the "tall" Melrose tree.

Both Ashmead's Kernel and King David have a lot of flavor-intensity. That is, high sugar, high acid, lots of "apple" flavor. Melrose is a work-horse for production but the apples, though large and pretty, are a bit bland. My hope is to have some apples to balance out the applesauce or cider made from the Melrose apples. 

Mark my words...

If somebody doesn't put a stop to this nonsense then I will have to mow my grass before May 1st!

Miscellaneous

I cleaned out and reset the varmint traps. I replaced the rotted-out sill of an exterior door with Type S mortar (guaranteed not to rot). I dug holes and spread fertilizer. I sprayed herbicide. I dragged brush.
 

* (Indian Free Peach) produces heavy crops of large, aromatic, freestone peaches that have dark red skin and white flesh marbled with crimson stripes. When fully ripe in mid-to-late season, the rich, sweet, distinctive flavor is excellent both eaten fresh and used in preserves, chutneys and fruit leathers.  Raintree Nursery description

** For best flavor (King David) fruit should be harvested as soon as it is fully colored, but if left on the tree the apples will hang into the winter and the color will continue to deepen until it is almost black. The flesh is yellowish; its intensely tart flavor explodes with spice, citrus, and tropical notes that are deepened by caramelized sugars. The intensity can be a bit of a shock. It will store well for about two months, and will make an amazing pie, sauce, or cider.     Description from Cummins Nursery

*** Biting into an Ashmead's reveals a dense, nutty flesh bursting with honeyed zing. The flavor is intense and complex, high in both sugar and acid, and the juice is prized by cider makers. Steve Wood of Farnum Hill Ciders describes Ashmead's as "a delicious trip to that fine line between pleasure and pain," and he finds that it adds "mad florals" and tropical notes to cider blends. While the acidity of the fresh-picked fruit might not agree with some tastes, Ashmead's mellows with age, and an October harvest is best stored for eating around Christmas, when notes of pear, spice, and orange blossom will emerge.  Description from Cummins Nursery

ArkStorm 2.0

Article

I like a good Doomer story as well as the next fellow, however, I think the authors focus overly-much on Sacramento and the Central Valley.

The idea of an Ark Storm where multiple storm-cells go barreling down the same track in rapid succession is not unprecedented.

On January 10, 1862, Leland Stanford was inaugurated as the governor of California, traveling by rowboat to the ceremony due to severe flooding in Sacramento. The Great Flood of 1862 had caused extensive damage and disruption across the state. 

The difference between then and now is that men built so many structures in areas that are subject to extreme-but-infrequent flooding. To me, the more exciting story is in Los Angeles County. Of particular interest are choke-points:

East end of the San Fernando Valley

 

Culver City

Whittier Narrows

While the water might get deeper above these choke-points, the water velocity will make these places more dangerous than the places with deeper water. 

Another area of concern are where limited access roads are sub-grade.

Sleeper-cells and Florida

I am very pleasantly surprised by the low level of Iranian "sleeper-cell" activity in the US during the past month.

I am not saying that "They are not here". Clearly, there are many people in the US with sympathy for the former Iranian government.

I am saying that I am grateful for whatever reasons (non-permissive environment, phantom threat, LE activities, hardened-infrastructure, loss-of-zealotry due to prosperity...) that we have not seen much.

If this were a basketball game, the commenter would be saying something like "The other team has been denied easy layups for the first five minutes" and nothing more. 

Kubota in Florida

This is Kubota's "big trip".

We offered to take him on a trip anywhere in the US after he graduated from high school. He said he would rather have us buy parts for his truck.

Kubota does not like crowds. He doesn't like frenzied activity around him. He hates airports.

He and his buddies drove down and they should be arriving somewhere near Daytona this morning. 

Scion sale

Cummins Nursery has a 40% off sale on their scion. The price they charge for a single scion is and eyewatering $12. Ordering three of a single variety brings it down to $8 per stick. 40% off drops that to a tolerable $4.20 a stick. Use code ROOTSCLEAR at checkout to get the discount. 

On a personal note

The pulled/strained muscle on the right side of my neck/shoulders is mostly resolved. I can now quickly glance to my left which is a wonderful thing when driving.

After three days of doing nothing, I was able to do slow, gentle "static" stretches. That helped a lot. 

Redemption, five minutes before midnight

 

Looking east over the lower half of the potato patch. Personally, I think this is a very "artsy" photograph.

There I was, moping. I just could not pry myself out of the recliner. The sky was gray. I had a heating pad on my neck. We were at the end of a (nominally) five-day dry spell even though my location had a 0.2" rain squall the day before yesterday.

I had planned to till the garden but I had checked with a shovel and the soil was too wet, too soft.

The longest spell without rain in the ten-day look-ahead is two days, and I need three honest dry days to be able to get onto the garden with the tiller.

Finally, while Mrs ERJ was off on errands, I extricated myself from the recliner (which has a tiny fragment of a Black Hole in the frame, thereby creating an anomaly in the gravitational field) and half-heartedly toured the orchards and garden. The sun had FINALLY come out five minutes before midnight, so to speak.

My plan was nothing more than to start mapping out all of the woodchuck holes. 

Then my luck turned

I stumbled across three feedlot panels that did I did not recall that I owned. SCORE! Then Mrs ERJ joined me and helped lift the 16' by 52" panels out of the weeds and the back-fill from a woodchuck hole.

Walking past the 2026 potato patch (about 4000 square-feet) I lamented that it had been too wet to till. Mrs ERJ peered at it and observed..."It looks drier now."

I looked at it and she was right.

Then Mrs ERJ said "It is 7:00 and it doesn't get dark until 8:30. Maybe it would cheer you up if you tilled some of it?".

I cautiously tilled the top half of the patch where I expected it to be drier.

Then I tilled the bottom half.

The hardest part was getting started. 

As I returned the tiller to the barn I saw Mrs ERJ trimming grape vines. I was wearing a tee-shirt and jeans. She was bundled up in a parka and a knit cap. We looked like we were two or three USDA zones apart.

Hemp products for old dogs

Zeus is struggling this week. He forgets that he is old. He gets excited and starts jumping and then his hips remind him that 12 year-old German Shepherds shouldn't do stupid stuff like that.

For a dog of Zeus's size, he is supposed to get three of these a day. Link

Quicksilver and I went on a "field trip" to the local pet store and purchased a "hemp" product advertised to help old-dogs with joint issues.

The results have been promising. His mobility is much better after three of the chews and he is barking at the pretty, young Labradoodle that is walked down the road.

I am not sure they are appropriate for dogs with impaired kidney function. They are very salty and taste like ginger.

Tagetes

Tagetes is the genus name for a group of plants that include the common "Marigold". 

It also includes a couple of plants used in Latin America as flavoring for beans and other staple dishes. Tagetes lucida has many names, one of which is "Mexican Tarragon". French Tarragon is difficult to propagate from seeds and "Mexican Tarragon" is close enough in flavor for many people and the seed germinate with abandon.

Tagetes minuta is commonly used in Andean cuisine and is sometimes called Huacatay or Black Mint. It is now grown world-wide as a seasoning.

The reason I mention this is that I was looking at my seedling trays and was struck by the fact that 90% of the seedlings are of species that originated in the Western Hemisphere with the Happy Rich broccoli being the single exception. The other "A-Ha!" was that I was growing three species of Tagetes...Tagetes erecta (aka "African marigold"), Tagetes lucida and Tagetes minuta.

Pakistan: Rock-star of Southwest Asia?

 

European nations are unwilling to risk their equipment and men defending free navigation of the Straights of Hormuz

So, Pakistan to the rescue.

I didn't see that coming.

On the other hand, India and Pakistan are getting monkey-hammered by the abrupt shutdown of mid-East oil. Pakistan is a Muslim country which buys them some credibility with what remains of the Iranian leadership. Furthermore, Pakistan is downwind of Iran and likely to get a cloud of radioactive dust should things continue to escalate. 

I imagine that they are already getting a flood of Shia refugees...Shia and Sunni have a history of friction. Pakistan is not in a position to receive 10 million destitute and angry Shia refugees.

Europe stepped down. Pakistan stepped up.

Silver and Tomato plants

I received a sixty pound delivery in the mail. When my mail-lady asked about it, I told her the small box held silver dollars. Of course, it didn't.

I am now regretting my joking about that. People will believe the stupidest stuff. The melt value of silver coins is running about $1000 a pound.

An image that caught my attention

Tomatoes are the "Weebles" of the plant world. You can lay them down when you transplant them but they defiantly pop-to attention overnight.

I was walking past the room with the seedling tomatoes when the elegantly luminous "glow" of the vertical stems caught my attention. The backlighting caused the hairs on the stems (called "pubescence" by botanists) to illuminate the stems while the dark soil behind the stems created a stark contrast.

Shortly after Mrs ERJ and I were married, one of Mrs ERJ's friends visited. I was not there at the time, but Mrs ERJ shared that her friend almost broke down into tears when she saw the tomato seedlings growing on the window sill. In fact, her eyes got very, very moist after brushing her hands over them and the distinctive smell of tomato plants hit her nose.

She and her husband had been "homesteaders" and they busted their behinds to make it work. Things happened. She was no longer married. She lived in a nicer house now but...it just wasn't the same. Smells are the most evocative sense. We can filter out sounds and ignore visual backgrounds and endure pain...but smells defy filtering.

Some more thoughts on fertilizer

I once read that the "real cost" of a gallon of fuel delivered to a Forward Operating Base in Afghanistan was in the neighborhood of $400 a gallon.

That seems insane to somebody in the US who is pumping $4/gallon gasoline into their Toyota. It reeks of corruption and incompetence until you start looking at the cost structure.

Start at $4.50 per gallon in southern Pakistan. Then apportion out the cost of maintaining "sanitized" routes through unsecured territory. Also apportion the cost of equipment that is damaged (blown-up, bullet-holes shot through the walls of the tank, damaged tires). Also add in the cost of the security detail that accompanies each fuel delivery along with the real depreciation to their equipment.

Suddenly, $400 a gallon does not seem so outlandish. It is certainly much less expensive than illegal drugs in the US (which are expensive for many of the same reasons).

Fertilizer

Fertilizer has a less hazardous trip from the dock in Louisiana to the cells in the plant you are growing...but there are costs.

The point I want to emphasize is that if you lost a 10,000 gallons of diesel in the outskirts of Islamabad you were out $45,000. If you lost that same 10,000 gallons 500 meters from the Forward Operating Base you were out $4,000,000 because the "cost" incurred between Islamabad and the FOB were squandered.

While the fertilizer is in your care, the bag can tear or you can put it in a damp place and have it turn into a rock or it can get rained on and leached into soil.

The fertilizer you sprinkle onto the soil can be washed away by excessive rains, it can be immobilized by drought (the roots requiring that the nutrients be dissolved in water before they can absorb them), the nutrients can be poached by weeds or the weeds can suck the moisture out of the soil thereby making the nutrients unavailable.

Some gardeners are casual about weeds, saying that the nutrients are still in the garden...and while that is mostly true, those nutrients are NOT available to the plant you are growing and are counting on to feed you. Disclosure: I favor using plants like turnips and rye to capture nutrients during the "off" season when I don't have other food-plants actively growing. But pay attention to the fact that the "weeds" I use for that particular purpose are edible and they can function as a safety-net if things get really spicy. 

Some forms of nitrogen like urea and ammonia will vaporize at high temperatures (again pointing to the wisdom of managing you soil moisture as an integral part of your fertilizer management).

In the soil, some nutrients bind to iron or aluminum ions if the pH is "wrong". You might have an abundance of phosphorous (for instance) and adding more will not help you nearly as much as addressing the issue with pH.

Even after the nutrients managed to dodge flood, drought, greedy weeds, bad chemistry and get into your plant, they can be lost to the plant collapsing due to a stem-disease or a hungry rabbit or deer munching the leaves. Or to cabbage worms or tomato worms or a host of other pests. At this point, you are in the same situation as the FOB that watched the tanker truck take a direct hit from a mortar round 500 meters from the wall. So close. So very, very close.

Fortunately, the events that are "most expensive" in terms of lost nutrients are the ones that are most under the control of the gardener. We can put up fences to deter virtually all animals smaller than elk and moose. We can choose disease resistant varieties and space them out to foster good air-flow. We can control the insect pests.

Weeds deserve a special note. Weeds are not "just another plant". The plants in your garden divert significant amounts of carbohydrates and protein into the food you are going to harvest. Weeds, on the other hand, do not have to "pay" those costs. They grow more quickly. Their roots plunge more deeply into the soil. Their roots have more surface area and so on. Given that your food-plants are operating under a significant handicap, you need to put a very aggressive thumb-on-the-scale to even things out. Remember, weeds short-stop nutrients by stealing them, by sucking the soil dry, by shading your enfeebled plants and by getting a head-start, time-wise, in your garden.

Moving a step away from the garden along the supply chain, timing the application of fertilizers so that they are just entering the root zone as the plants are unfurling their canopy is good business. The plants cannot "pull" nutrients unless they have leaves transpiring water. No leaves, no movement of the nutrients into the plants. The longer the nutrients are in the soil before the plant can pull them in, the greater the losses due to leaching and weeds (which had a head-start).

A step farther up the supply chain, treat the bags of fertilizer (or shovelfuls of manure) gently. Put them on a pallet off of the ground and under a roof that will keep the rain off of it. If you have mice, have a plan to control them lest they chew holes in the bags.

About that nitrogen that leached...

Suppose you have animals and you have been dumping the stable-waste in a pile. If you have been doing it for a while, that pile might be 8' high, 15' wide and 50' long.

Most annuals that we grow in gardens are fairly shallow rooted as noted in the paragraph where I discussed weeds.

However, there is a huge amount of variability. Some perennials like asparagus and horseradish have roots that plunge more than 10' deep (assuming the water table is deeper than that and they don't hit bedrock).

Many varieties of grapes have roots that run deep as do pears, figs and mulberries.

Another possibility is to plant species that are heavy users of nitrogen and use the leaves or cuttings from them as mulch. Or, use them as forage/bedding for your animals and THEN use them for mulch.

Bonus images

 

Fine Art Tuesday

Ecce Homo (Behold the man)

Antonio Ciseri was born in Ronco sopra Ascona, a municipality near Locarno in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland around 5 kilometers along the shore north of the border with Italy. It lies on the northern shore of Lake Maggiore. He was born in 1821 and died in Florence, Italy in March of 1891.

The work shown above is his masterpiece. It was commissioned twenty years before he finished it. He completed the year that he died.

 

A tip of the hat to 10x25mm for suggesting this painter.

Changes in writing styles

Mrs ERJ belongs to a "Book Club". They are all "ladies" in the finest sense of the word.

This month's book was written about 100 years ago and Mrs ERJ commented that the text is much richer in adjectives than "modern" novels.

Having a short window of time, I looked into the matter.

A Master's student in North Macedonia wrote a thesis on the topic. He determined that the text of the book that the fine ladies of Eaton Rapids are studying is only 6% adjectives which is LOWER than most modern fiction (which runs between 6% and 12% of text).

Where the 100 year-old book differs from modern writing is that 57% of the adjectives are unique and only used once in the book and a disproportionate share of them are "compound adjectives". 

Instead of choosing to describe a vehicle as "a yellow car" the author chose to write  "It was a rich cream color, bright with nickel, swollen here and there in its monstrous length with triumphant hatboxes and supper-boxes and tool-boxes, and terraced with a labyrinth of windshields that mirrored a dozen suns."

There are also dances of adjectives and adverbs that paint scenes in great detail "...fading lamp light slanting across the fluttering muscles in the fair maiden's arms..." kind of thing.

The descriptive language in the old novel is not the stylized, formulistic, and boringly repetitive bridges between action-scenes ala Marvel comic books. Those action-bridges are as invisible to the reader and as forgettable as "...he said..." in dialogue. The descriptive language in the 100 year-old novel is more like a series of meticulously composed sets in a movie where Chekhov's Gun guides the reader as he anticipates future events.

Survivor bias

There was a lot of dreck written in that era. The "nickel" cowboy novels are examples of that. Writers who had never been west of the Hudson river churned out vast numbers of novels that have since been forgotten. The few examples of that genre that are still available were written by authors who had actually been cowboys or who had spent time "out west" as hunters.

Stepping back a few paces, I have to wonder if our current style of frenetic action will look dated to future readers. Fashions change. The pendulum swings.

Herding cats

 

Busy herding cats. Read the fine folks in the side-bar

A prayer before Easter feast

We celebrated Easter with my sister and our extended family.

There were five children (all girls) in attendance and three of my nieces have-a-bun-in-the-oven and are due in October, November and December.

It was a warm, loud party with too much food and not enough time to talk with everybody.

My younger brother said grace before we ate. It went something like this:

"Rather than read a prayer, I want to share a story that might have happened. I am not saying it did...but that it could have happened.

After Jesus sent out his disciples two-by-two, what did he do? Did he sit on his hands?

More likely he found a poor down-on-its-luck village. The residents were probably old and tired. The soil was worn out and the water smelled bad. Nobody had any new clothing because cloth was dear.

Walking into the village would cause a crowd to gather, because it was the kind of village that people left and never came back to.

Jesus might have started talking. He might have told the crowd to look at the person to their left, and then to their right. To look at the person in front of them and the person behind them.

Then he would have challenged them. "The people around you are rich" he might have said.

Of course, the crowd would have told him that he was crazy. 

At that point, Jesus would have reminded them..."Do you remember when your wife was sick and your neighbor brought you and your children hot food to eat? Do you remember the time you were harvesting in the heat of the day so you could beat the thunderstorms and your neighbor's child brought you a jug of water? Do you remember the time when your mother died and even though she was a sharp-tongued woman, every neighbor visited you to console you on your loss?"

Most of the people in the crowd nodded in agreement.

"And didn't you do the same for your neighbors? When the fire in the rich man's house went out, did you charge him for an ember to relight it or did you give it freely? Did you begrudge the beggar the heal of your loaf or the copper coin that had been give to you as a gift? No, you did not."

"Amen I tell you. You are all rich men for you have seen my face every day of your life, both when you rendered aid to those in need and when you graciously accepted help from your family and neighbors. That is true riches...not gold, not barns full of grain...but to have seen the face of God in your fellow man and to have lived."

(Modified from Matthew 25:31-46)

After pondering this "prayer", I think one of the hardest things for us as members of our culture is for us to look at anybody that society tells us is "richer" than we are or "more successful" and to see them as fellow humans who, at times, need to be ministered to, who need compassion from their fellow man.

Everybody has struggles with health and family. Anybody with a brain has some degree of anxiety about the future. We can only guess at the pain and loneliness of the super-model who only attracts predator/users and whose "friends" are only interested in digging up something to gossip about. We can only guess at the pain of people who are ten or a hundred or a thousand times wealthier than we are, people who have family members who stab them in the back out of a warped sense of vengeance or whose children fall prey to drugs or perverts.

It is easy to feel compassion towards a kid who has Downs Syndrome. That kid affirms our sense of superiority and our status in the world. Isn't that the entire nexus of AWFULs (Affluent White Female Urban Liberals)? They champion "the oppressed" so that they can simultaneously feel righteous and smug. AWFUL is a clumsy repackaging of Kipling's "White Man's Burden".

Bonus pictures

A family in Ukraine close to "the front". They are making dumplings. Look at the books! How many families have the collected works of H.A. Hekpacob? Source

The young woman had to walk two miles to buy the eggs used to make the dumplings. This family is not rich in the material sense but they HAVE been blessed with wealth.

Vegetable seedlings, Rain, Turkeys and Figgy Duff

 

The roller-rack that Mrs ERJ suggested that I purchase for starting garden seeds. I have 5000 lumen shop-lights attached to the bottoms of two of the shelves.

30 Stupice tomatoes on the left side of the tray (pigmented stems) and 20 Rose de Bern on the right side.

25 broccoli seedlings in the back and 25 Federle tomato seedlings in the foreground

Some lovage seeds sulkily germinating. The articles on the internet say to expect 7-to-10 days before they show any signs of life.

Rain

We picked up another 2" of rain today for a seven-day total of 3.5" of rain. 

Turkey season

Kubota, alas, is a bird hunter. You do your best and try to guide your children in the paths of righteousness...and what do they do? 

$20 a shell. The economy shells are still $1.50 a shell

Wild Turkeys were hunted to the point of total expatriation extirpation in Michigan by farmers using 12 (1-1/4 oz), 16 (1 oz) and 20 gauge, (7/8 oz) paper-shelled shotgun loads of #6 shot fired through single-shot firearms with full chokes. Modern turkey are make of Kevlar and reactive armor and require exotic loads. Not.

The issue is that the 1930s farmer knew the range limitations of his weapon and ammo. It doesn't take rocket-science to put a turkey into the stew-pot if you restrict your maximum range to 30 yards. BUT...if you are shooting for long beards and want to reach out to 45 or 50 yards...yeah, you are going to have to drop the big dollars. 

From the Hodgdon Reloading website

I have some #5 shot, 3"Fiocchi hulls, Longshot powder and appropriate wads for 1-7/8oz loads (about 320 pellets of #5). 

I am feeling an urge to help Kubota out in the ammo department. It would be pretty cool to mimic the Federal Flitecontrol shells...they pattern very densely. Cool, but not necessary. He will be throwing twice as much mass downrange as a standard 20 gauge and (I think) he has a Red Dot scope so he should be able to center the pattern on the head with precision.

For what it is worth, he is in the market for a used semi-auto 12 gauge shotgun. Goose, duck and turkey loads have a lot of recoil and semi-autos take some of the bite out of them. Frankly, I think he should save a little bit longer and purchase a new Silver Eagle or similar product. But what do I know?
 

Bonus video

AI content 

This is for my four readers from Canada. One of you has a wife whose family came from the Maritime provinces. You might want to jump ahead to the 17:30 mark.

You cannot make this stuff up

"Why don't you look at me when I am talking?" Mrs ERJ asked as we walked around the track. We were walking our daily 40 minutes at a local track. We were going counter-clockwise and I was in the outside lane.

"I think I pulled a muscle in my neck or shoulder and cannot turn my head to the left" I replied.

"How did you do that?" she asked.

I pondered whether to share that information or not. Finally, I decided to share, pride-be-damned.

"I think I pull that muscle while I was napping" I replied.

"What???" Mrs ERJ said with surprise.

"I was dreaming that I was crossing a road and about to get hit by a bunch of cars. So I leaped toward the other side. Unfortunately, my right arm was trapped underneath me and didn't move" I summarized.

Bonus images

 

Dude(?) on left is the father in one of the videos Quicksilver was watching.

Interlude; a dry day between rainy ones

 

I opened up the door to the duck-run. They now have access to the garden.

Happy Rich cut-and-come-again broccoli seedlings. Planted Sunday.

Twenty-five of the seedlings moved to 2"-by-2" cells.

I am making a major effort to not overproduce seedlings.

Grumble, grumble, grumble....

Armstrong fiberglass drop-ceiling panel, 24" x 48" x 5/8", Model Number: 404B

I have three of them in-stock in my garage. This is the unfaced side which is usually invisible when installed in a drop ceiling.

It cuts easily with a knife.

Fiberglass batting is generally considered difficult to ignite.

Note that what is often called "fiberglass" is a material that combines glass roving and a flammable resin. That kind of material IS flammable.

I installed the unfaced side closest to the 20 Watt heating mat. 

Price of fuel in Europe, Inflammatory comments and Fishing

The price of gasoline in Germany is reported to be $9/gallon (converted to units most of my readers can visualize). The price of diesel is $10 a gallon. Source

Eaton Rapids, we have ignition

Watching brush burn counts as light duty

Temperatures near the 20W heating mat

Concerns were raised in the comments of an earlier post about the potential for fires when using heating mats near cardboard.

The mats are 20" long by 10" wide. They are sized to sit beneath standard, nursery seedling trays. Twenty Watts spread over 200 square-inches is not a lot of power density.

The good news is that I have inexpensive ways to get data. That means that I don't have to rely opinions.

 

The temperature at the top of the potting soil.

The temperature of the heating mat directly beneath the pot.

The temperature of the cardboard directly beneath the heating mat where the previous image was measured.

In other, local news

I purchased my 2026 fishing license yesterday.

I went fishing at the mill pond just a few blocks away from where I purchased the license.

Panning from left-to-right across the pond

A little bit to the right of this image there was a goose who was sitting on a nest.

I did not have any bites from either from the fish or the goose.

Fiddly work and some garden pron

Thank-you to all of the readers who suggested ways I can deal with my joint pain. I have been on light-duty, stretching, taking additional Vitamin C and praying/meditating. I seem to be bouncing back.

I got three more hours time-on-task yesterday because the afternoon rains were a no-show.

The light-duty was to drive T-posts and to secure fruit trees to them. Unfortunately, the most productive rootstocks usually have brittle roots and are notorious for leaning over.

I used 1/2", polyester "pull tape" to tie the trees to the posts and was very happy with the material. The ends frayed rapidly, so I had a piezoelectric igniting, propane torch handy. I gently toasted the ends when I cut a piece from the spool.

It was slow, fiddly work. The good news is that it was not physically challenging.

I also moved some bags of cow poop from the truck to the Hill Orchard and I pruned a Northern Spy apple tree.

Bonus pictures

Planted in 2015. 

Stupice tomato seeds, planted Sunday afternoon. Picture taken early Wednesday morning

Crackerjack Marigold seeds planted Sunday afternoon

Happy Rich broccoli seeds planted Sunday afternoon

I was able to increase the soil temperatures by placing four layers of corrugated cardboard underneath the 20W heating mat. If insulation prevents most of the heat from going down, then it will go up.

We have lots of cardboard boxes.

Bonus video footage

 Allegedly recorded at a No Kings rally. One minute run-time.