Peppers, apples, lizards and ducks

The dregs in the bottom of the mug

Quicksilver was helping us pick potatoes when she got distracted.

She found some Stocky Red Roaster peppers that I had missed when doing our last picking. If memory serves, she found 13 of them.

I told Mrs ERJ that I was tired. I was done. She could toss them on the compost pile and I would be fine with that.

But she didn't do that. She put on a pretty dress and a straw hat and walked around the neighborhood and tried to give the peppers to our neighbors. She came home with two of the thirteen peppers.

In that simple act, she reinforced our standing in the neighborhood as "certified good-guys" far more than everything I have done this summer.

Girls and their social nature, God bless them all.

Technology

Southern Belle's employment evolution now includes work-from-home requirements.

To make that happen, she needs more computer power and, especially, more monitors. Her 12.7" slap-top screen is not going to cut the mustard.

The monitors are cheap. Computers, and RAM, are expensive.

Fortunately, Pascal, my new son-in-law, is gifted in the cyber-arts and is cheerfully helping Southern Belle out. He recommended two, inexpensive, 27" monitors and a signal splitter.

Jumping from one 12.7" screen to two, 27" screens AND the original 12.7' screen is approximately 9X more viewing area.

MM-106 rootstock

While poking around the property, I stumbled upon a planting of apple-rootstock that had slipped my mind. I counted over 30 useable whips and am strongly considering bumping up the two Dacha orchards by an additional 5 trees each.

The orchards are already at the gross-overkill level, but the ground is available and the trees are almost free. 

MM-106 is the most dwarfing rootstock that is reliably free-standing. That is, it does not require a post or a trellis to keep the trees from falling over even while being established. However, the trees will be more productive, earlier in their lives if they are supported because that tips the carbs:nitrogen ratio which is one of the primary variables that helps a bud decide if it is going to make a woody-shoot or produce fruit.

MM-106 is a very productive rootstock and at one time was the most commonly planted rootstock.

Its failings are that it is larger than most commercial orchards currently desire, it is intolerant of standing water (clay) and is not very cold-hardy. In spite of those failings, there are 40 year-old trees in the Upper Orchard that are Empire grafted on MM-106 and they are still paying their rent. It seems unlikely that I will still be here 40 years from now.

Life is about compromises. The greatest point in its favor is that I have 30 of them in my possession right now.

Boys need purpose

I have been pondering the first video in yesterday's post. The narrator pointed out that modern parenting (feminist-forward) rarely holds boy's accountable.

I think that is a backhanded way of pointing out that the feminist world-view is that boys/men don't have the capacity to exercise self-discipline and thus cannot be held accountable, the same way you cannot hold a mentally retarded person to the same standards as a normal person. It is the implicit sexism of very, very low expectations.

Fathers are gun-shy about challenging mothers. It rarely ends well.

Boys wither under what, in reality, is the contempt of their mothers and the cowardice of their fathers.

Proving once again that children need both parents. They need the ying and they need the yang. Boys need both mothers and fathers. Girls need both fathers and mothers. A father is not a defective parent (i.e. an inferior, second-rate mother). We are our own species and what we bring to the parenting table cannot be replaced by "more mothering".

Play-date

Quicksilver's play-date group introduces them to the letters of the alphabet. This week's letter is "L" and the letter-person is Lizzy Lizard.

Of course, being the helpful person that I am, I reinforced the lessons by sharing the following clip from The Parent Trap with Quicksilver. Sadly, there are no local businesses that will allow generous grandfathers to lease a lizard for a week.

Some pictures of the duck dormitory

The duck dormitory is a work-in-progress. 

Overview. There is an 8' by 5' fenced-in run on the right side of frame. Normally, they get the run of the garden to provide slug and snail control.

A 300 lumen, outside, spike-light on a timer that shines into the enclosure to provide additional hours of light. Ducks spatter everything with mud. Having it outside keeps it cleaner and it is much easier to clean.

The most recent addition is the solar path-light. The ducks seem more willing to go into the enclosure when it is well lit after sun-down. I dislike chasing animals. I prefer to modify the environment so they WANT to do what I want them to do.

Mesh does not get covered with mud the way that windows do. More of the light goes in.

The main door. I had been propping it open with a chunk of wood but that spooked one of the ducks. Holding it open with a string-and-hook has been working better.

 

Ducks like to poop while swimming. That makes their drinking water filthy. I saw a woman use a slotted watering bucket for her ducks on one of the Dacha videos. I guessed at the dimensions of the slots.

Ducks like to take a drink after every few bites of food. They stick their bills in the water and shake them side-to-side. Much of the food washes out into the water.