Today's main task was to continue filling a trench that runs up/down a hill. Mrs ERJ was working one of the shovels and she is a delightful companion to work with.
After emptying the back of the truck, we broke apart an old clump of iris and planted them beneath the guy-wire that secures a utility pole. Keeping the grass cut beneath the diagonal wire is a chore. We planted about 30 of the "toes", three rows of them about 15" apart in every direction.
The flowers are nothing special. Compared to modern hybrids they are a half-mouthful of lukewarm spit. But they beat weeds and they are tough enough to fend for themselves for 50 years. In my world, that counts for a lot. Launch-and-forget.
Economy slowing down?
I noticed an exponential growth in the number of "toys" for sale beside the road. Quads, motorcycles, motor-homes, pontoon boats....all in the five miles immediately west of Potterville, Michigan.
$5.00 a gallon gas is biting Michigan's economy. Maybe I can find a newish, tandem-axle trailer for a reasonable price in the near future. The expansion and contraction of the economy is like the beating of a heart. Resources (like trailers and employees and commercial real estate) are released from enterprises/people who cannot make them pay and are quickly absorbed by enterprises/people who need them and can make them pay.
Farmers
There were at least three commercial farmers at the soccer game I attended Thursday night. Normally, this time of year, they would be in the fields planting from before sun-up to after sun-down. But those fields are too wet to get a tractor on, so they are watching their grand-daughters and great-granddaughters play soccer. The goal keeper for one of the teams was one of those girls.
Normally, storm-tracks spray across the eastern US like a drunk trying to pee on a tree-trunk. Everybody gets about the right amount of rain. This year they storm-tracks are running across Michigan as if LASER guided. We are getting too much rain. People just a hundred miles south of us are begging for it.
If you ain't complaining about the rain, you ain't farming.
The Story of Everything
A friend sent me a link to a documentary titled The Story of Everything. It is a film that defends the theory of "Intelligent (God-guided) Design".
I know I sound like a Richard
The problem with that genre of movies is that it allows the unbelievers to frame the argument.
Unbelievers state "Religion is proven false by science, therefore religion is garbage". That statement makes some believers lose their minds.
The appropriate response is "Judeo-Christian beliefs are still highly functional after 4000/2000 years. The half-life of scientific "knowledge" is much, much shorter. For instance, the half-life of "Truth" in Psychology is about five years*. Only a moron would trade eternal-truth for "truth" that changes more more frequently than the grad students bathe."
If you want to keep hammering those who claim all religion is bunk, try: "Science is ALWAYS proven false by future science. By your argument, that makes all current science "garbage"."
Ironically, even high-end scientists recognize that theories that have been proven false are often the most effective way grapple with reality. For example, scientists in the field of Public Health will quickly concede that "The Theory of Spontaneous Generation", while technically wrong, is the most effect way to eliminate rats and ticks and mosquitoes. Get rid of the garbage, the tall grass and the standing water and those pests disappear.
The compulsion to "prove" the Bible with science seems backasswards. Does that mean that the Bible can be disproven? Isn't faith throwing oneself into the unknown and believing (and letting that belief guide your actions) when absolute proof is lacking. Believing that a set of car keys will fall downward out of your hand and hit the floor is not "faith". It is experience.
So even if the Bible is wrong (a point I am not willing to concede but am entertaining for the sake of argument), modern science continues to fail to offer a better, more durable, simpler way put handles on the wheelbarrow that is life, pick it up and move forward. Occam's Razor chooses the Bible.
Your mileage may vary. I know one person who is certain that the way to succeed in life is to prove that you (he) is the biggest asshole first. Objectively, that isn't working so well for him but he will defend his beliefs to his last breath.
Bonus images
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| "Quicksilver was here" Modern girls use a lot more words than Kilroy ever did. |
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| Early for the big, yellow morels. |
*Specific to the number of genders, the half-life is measured in days.
May 2, 2026 is Iyar 15, year 5786 on the Jewish calendar. So more than 4,000 years.
ReplyDeleteWorking with the SO is good! And yes, the 'toys' are for sale, along with a bunch of other stuff. Choose wisely!
ReplyDeleteJoe, you struck a vein rich with metaphors.
ReplyDeleteSince slightly before Christmas I noticed an increasing number of items for sale which do not hit the market very often or in such numbers. This includes farm machinery in good condition, or family heirlooms. Many sellers offering dad/uncle/granddad's treasured shooting irons. The number of such offerings is surprising.
At first I thought it the usual holiday season selloff. But it is tenacious. It is a very good time to buy used.
Last week regular gas was flirting with $4.00, down from $4.09. Today it is $4.35. #2 diesel remained above $5, but today at $5.65.
My working hypothesis is the market manipulators are infected with 'We should be more like Europe'.
DeleteMorels! You lucky man. I would expect that you harvested all that you could find.
ReplyDeleteAnd don’t tell anyone where you found them.
DeleteJoe about the power station thread I saw this interesting post:
ReplyDeletehttps://txfellowship.blogspot.com/2026/05/pecron-e3800-dont-buy-anything-else.html
Sounds like a useful unit at a very nice price.
You might also want to look up if your state and maybe federal tax credits for buying them. When I bought my Ecoflow I got 30% back at tax time.
In my simplified memory, my favorite conflict of science vs religion is the Creation of the world. As i recall, the scientists said, ‘ well there was a Big Bang and creation started’. When asked how or why they usually said ‘we don’t know.’
ReplyDeleteI prefer that God started it.
I’m also pleased when archeologists find burnt remnants at Sodom & Gomorrah, and evidence of a world wide flood. Again their response is ‘we don’t know what happened here.’
Southern NH
It was a Catholic astronomer who first theorized the point origin of the universe. He was mocked by some other astronomers for trying to insert Genesis into science, who coined the term "Big Bang" as part of the mockery.
DeleteI miss hunting the morels since I moved to Florida, they're $80 lb. In the store here.
ReplyDeleteThat's what I paid for Morel's last year at a festival. Cut in half then dipped in egg and saute in butter. Ambrosia!
DeleteERJ, I was re-reading Francis Schaeffer's "He is there and he is not silent" yesterday and he touched on the matter of science in the modern world. His argument is that that without Christianity and its underlying epistemology, modern science could not have been started.
ReplyDeleteHe also notes in the book "I think science is going to die, too. I think its death is coming. I think it is going to be reduced to two things: mere technology, and another form of sociological manipulation. I do not believe for a moment that science is going to be able to continue with its objectivity once the base that brought forth science has been totally destroyed, and now the hope of positivism has also been destroyed. I do not think that it is going to hold on."
This was published in 1972.
I recall reading once that scientific evidence that God exists would be scientific evidence he doesn't exist since that would mean he is contained in the natural world rather than the natural world is contained in him. I think a Jesuit said that.
ReplyDeleteIf you work with 'science' very much, and don't see the hand of God, you have my sympathy.
ReplyDelete