Yesterday

The wind-chill topped out at 565 degrees Rankine yesterday. The weather-weenies predict it will be five degrees colder today. 

I gave blood yesterday. Unfortunately, I scheduled it for mid-morning so I had a big donut-hole in the center of my most productive time to work outside. That is, the time between mosquitoes and spontaneous ignition. The nice lady who was passing out treats to donors told me that they had just run out of pitchers of sangria and the chef who made the Crispy Chicken Caesar wraps had just stepped out for a smoke-break. I settled for a 0.5 ounce packet of cheese crackers (for the salt) and a bottle of water.

I cut three oatmeal canisters in half and used them for collars around filbert shoots. I filled the collars with potting soil. My hope is that they strike roots and I will have something to graft named varieties on next spring.

All of this indoor time is messing up my sleep habits.

I have a tree that is mostly Kerr apple-crab. "Apple-crabs" are apples where the fruit is too small to be properly called an apple (the cutoff is arbitrarily at 60mm or 2-3/8" in diameter) and it too big to be considered a crabapple (smaller than 30mm or 1-1/4" in diameter. Highly resistant to fireblight, hardy down to USDA Zone 2b and, very rare for a very hardy apple, the fruit stores well. Kerr was one of the parents used in developing the Vineland apple rootstocks.

USDA Zone 2b can be expected to experience a low of -45F about once every ten years. 

There are a few branches of a rootstock called Geneva 935 grafted into the canopy for pollination. At the time I put these scion into the tree, G.935 looked like the best of the free-standing rootstock but field exposure uncovered a risk of sudden-death syndrome...possibly related to a susceptibility to latent virus that doesn't bother domestic apple varieties.

If I had a chance to do it again, I would graft Geneva 214 because it has not shown the sudden-death syndrome and is better at moving calcium from the soil to the fruit than any of the other Geneva rootstocks. 

Both varieties are susceptible to bearing in alternate years. This is the first year in the ten years since I grafted in the branches when both bloomed and both varieties have a very nice fruit set.

Mental note to self: Harvest a bunch of the fruit from the G.935 branches for seeds and plant them for rootstock and wildlife plantings.

Bangstick related 

I lubricated a batch of .223 Rem brass with Motor Honey. I put a tiny dab on the palm of one hand, rub my hands together and then run my hands through the brass, rubbing the way a Kindergarten kids works a ball of clay into a snake. One dab will adequately lubricate about 300 .223 Rem brass.

I started resizing them and promptly broke the de-capping wire off of the resizing die. Dang! 

I keep hearing that Michigan finally eliminated the "Rifle Line" which prohibits certain types of firearms in the southernmost half of the Lower Peninsula. In days-of-yore, only shotguns could be used south of the Rifle Line. Then they allowed muzzleloaders. Then straight-walled cartridges that are shorter than 1.8" long.

Chronic Wasting Disease has the DNR spooked and they would deerly (pun intended) love to knock the herd back to 30% of its current level. They are pulling out the stops.

I don't think the elimination of the Rifle Line will move the needle. We will know they are serious when the DNR allows land-owners (often absentee investors) to SELL the carcasses on secondary markets the way Australia allows "wildlife control agents" to sell kangaroo carcasses.

Must have been a slow day at Amazon 

The power cord and other assorted items I purchased on-line the day before yesterday arrived yesterday. Next day delivery! I selected free, 7 day delivery but they arrived the next day.

Random picture

Chillin'

Mark-to-Market

One of the hazards of the "clean sheet of paper" approach is that historical models often have armor against rare-but-critical events that are difficult to anticipate.

For example, I once participated in the introduction of a new model of automobile that used the "clean sheet of paper" approach. One deliverable involved several systems so it was not clear which department was responsible for validating it.

When the vehicle was tested (for being compatible with the three most common forms of tow-trucks), the referee determined that it has sustained $2400 worth of damage. Imagine gentle sliding your vehicle into a ditch only to have the tow-truck inflict over $2k of damage! In retrospect, many of the seemingly non-functional features on the vehicle's predecessor armored it against damage from towing.

Social Democrats

The Communists who rebranded themselves as Social Democrats are remaking America using a "clean sheet of paper" approach.

In their zeal to protect "the working class", the Communists made property owners the "bad guy" and are punishing them with increased property taxes and by freezing rents.

For the young kids who were not paying attention in school, Communists hate private property and the people who own any.

One high-profile investor, Sergey Brin, dumped the stock he owned in a Real Estate Investment Trust that owned and managed apartments in New York City. It was reported that he decided it was better to sell at seven-cents-on-the-dollar of his original investment that to stay invested and get whacked for assessments that would put him underwater.

Let that sink in for a moment. In the opinion of a guy having a net worth of about 1/4 Trillion dollars, having your name on a deed to a piece of income property in New York City is not an asset. It is a liability.

Since property tax revenues are the product of multiplying the assessed value of the property by a fixed (but rising) tax rate, any changes to the assessed value of the property will impact the revenue collected by NYC.

In the baldest possible way, Sergey Brin just told Mamdani and the other Communists that the market value of vast swaths of NYC commercial real estate is now only worth 7% of what it was circa 2019.

All of the other holders of real estate are watching. Wanna bet that there is a line of property owners at the assessor's office demanding that there assessments be adjusted to the new reality?

A secondary effect is that it will lock up credit. The book-value of the property serves as collateral for loans. Those loans are used to finance upgrades like more efficient heating and cooling, WIFI and communication infrastructure, mitigating environmental hazards like lead and asbestos and cockroach dander. The wholesale destruction of the book-value of NYC's (and Seattle and Chicago...) property will paralyze the access to the credit needed to maintain the desirability of the individual properties and ultimately the desirability of the city.

But wait, there is more...

Brin bailed out of a sinking ship. The REIT he bailed out of owns thousands of rental units. When the REIT reorganizes or liquidates, it appears likely that nobody will step-up to assume the responsibility of managing the multi-family buildings. That is, collecting the rent and to paying the taxes and utility bills and executing the basic blocking-and-tackling of doing what needs to be done. Nobody wants to take a bite out of that poisoned apple.

The REIT Brin abandoned is just first of many. 

So how is that going to work when the boiler in the cellar craps-out in January? The REIT was vaporized. Will the city suddenly open a department filled with property managers? Where will they come from? Who will pay their wages or will Mamdani expect them to work for free? Where will the budget for replacing the boiler(s) come from? Who will evict the dead-beats and the drug dealers?

How are the Communists running NYC going to handle the evisceration of their property tax revenues? Albany cannot print money. Trump is unlikely to rescue them. There was a system with checks-and-balances in place. The Communists took a wrecking ball to it. That wrecking ball also destroyed the trust investors had in institution of NYC. A glib "My bad. Come back" isn't going to cut it.

Rainbow flag report, clover, fishing and polyethylene prices

 

The main street that runs north/south through Eaton Rapids runs past two "monument" churches.

In years past, one of the churches filled their front yard with Gay Pride flags for the entirety of June. What was jarring to me, personally, is that this church also has a large daycare and all of the flags were visible from the daycare's play-yard which defines the front yard's south boundary.

My critics (and I have a few) undoubtedly consider me a bigot and that I read too much into it, but it gives the appearance that the church is:

• Exposing very young children to blatant sexuality (which is not specifically LGBTQ+). 
• Promoting life-styles that are in direct contradiction to the Bible
• Unilaterally co-opting parental authority.
• The appearance that the church is recruiting for LGBTQP+ replacement
• The most generous possible spin is that the church's management is guilty of horrible optics

This year, 2026, there was not a Gay Pride flag in sight.

Either the church read the room differently in 2026 or, perhaps, sources of funding (Federal-->NGO?) dried up and funds available from grass-roots sources was not enough to purchase new flags.

Regardless of the reasons, I am relieved that the little kids were not immersed in LGBTQP+ propaganda.

Clover

After a slow start, the clover planted in the aisles between the rows of trees on the Hill Orchard showed up. The first three weeks of June were rainy and the white clover, being a shallow rooted species, really responded.

One aisle

A second one

 

A third one. This one's bottom 3/4 (top of frame) had zero clover in it.

Zoomed in view showing a patch of the previous picture from near the bottom of the hill

I was into Management Intensive Grazing when we had animals on the Eaton Rapids property. One of the founding principles of MIG is to manage your pasture (the timing of moving animals from paddock-to-paddock, recovery times, fertilizer/liming) to favor a strong stand of white clover. If you consistently have 15%-to-40% white clover then you are on top of your game.

The white clover is an indicator species. It is also highly palatable and it fixes nitrogen. It disappears when you let the grass get too tall before moving the animals in. Tall grass is overly mature and less palatable than younger grass. The animals eat less of it and don't perform as well.

If you think about it for a second, The Promised land...the land of "milk and honey" probably meant the pastures had a lot of clover in them. Clover makes milk. Clover flowers are rich sources of nectar for bees.

I am happy when the aisles are sporting an abundance of clover.

I am going to hold off on mowing for a week to let it set a little bit more seed. 

Fishing report

No fish were caught.

Shotgun indulged in an CAO Amazon Basin cigar.

We talked about the practicality of using an electric fence charger to "discipline" the turtles that kept stealing our bait. We decided that the Department of Natural Resources would take a dim view of our inventiveness.

Polyethylene prices

Ten-year history prices of polyethylene. 

Reader Gerry commented that I was wrong when I attributed the high cost of containers to the price of polyethylene plastic.

He is right!!! It is currently lower than the running, ten-year average. If you factor in inflation, it is cheaper now than it has been at any time in the prior ten years.

I have to qualify that a bit. There are LOTS of kinds of polyethylene. Some of it is very stretchy...like the cling-wrap you use in the kitchen. Some is very not-stretchy...like grocery bags. Some is soft and pliable...like poly tubing. Some is hard and wear-resistant like UHMW. Different processes (catalysts, temperatures etc.) produce different kinds of PE. Once a process is churning out a validated product, processors are loath to shut it down and juggle the input variables to make a different kind.