When the blogger's subconscious kicks him out of bed in the middle of the night

It pains me to write this, but I think the fitness-center/gym that Mrs ERJ and I frequent is a house-of-horrors from a fire evacuation standpoint.

Let me explain

I am the paranoid guy who likes to practice fire drills when he spends the night in a strange hotel room. Which way do I turn going out the door? Where is the stairwell? What visual and tactile clues identify the stairwell? Is it at the end of the hallway (preferred) or is the entrance a tiny alcove just like the room-doors? Where does the bottom of the stairwell kick me out of the building? Where am I parked relative to that point?

Where is my alternate stairwell?

I also worked in factories and we had fire drills. Sometimes the evacuation routes took us through high-hazard areas...places where extremely flammable or explosive materials were stored...places where material was precariously stacked or automated equipment wasn't necessarily stopped.

So, I admit to being paranoid and perhaps even overly vigilant. That is just the way I am wired and I deal with it.

Specifics on the facility

The fitness-center/gym complex is a warren of divided spaces with no discernible rhyme or reason. As far as I can tell, there is no master floor-plan posted anywhere and I cannot remember entering a space where the "Evacuation Route" was posted. Maybe they were there. Maybe they were small or not near the door.

Large portions of the building are off-limits to the general public. 

Obviously, men's and women's locker rooms are off limits if you are not of the correct gender.

Staff break-rooms and locker rooms are off-limits.

Physical, occupational and cardio therapy areas are off-limits.

Classrooms and conference rooms are off-limits.

Storage spaces are off-limits and my sense is that they are large and stuffed with flammables like mats, tables, mobile partitions, carpeting etc. Those items, when burned, often produce copious amounts of thick, toxic smoke.

Cooking areas are off-limits and are potential sources of ignition and flammable liquids. 

Material receiving areas (trucking docks) are off-limits. I have seen tires and high-pressure gas cylinders in these areas.

Custodial areas are off-limits. Those areas potentially hold toxic materials if heated. They are a choke-point for materials that are being disposed of.

All of those forbidden area makes it very hard to scout-out evacuation routes. The official evacuation plan might route people through those areas in the event that the "regular" exit is not accessible...but I have never walked through them.

General exercise spaces are confusing

They have multiple doors and are daisy-chained together.  You have to go through the locker rooms to get to some of them. Some lead to other exercise spaces and are used by staff. Others lead to storage areas. I have no clue where others lead to. There is the potential to walk around in circles inside the facility or hit a dead-end.

The rooms are covered with mirrors. In the event of smoke, the illuminated "EXIT" signage might not be clear due to reflected images.

Incidental notes

The clientele of the center might spend a few hours a month in the center so most of us will not be familiar with the layout.

Most of the clientele will use only a few of the services and will see only a fraction of the facility.

Many of the staff are "affiliates" or contracted help so there is no guarantee that they will be helpful in the event of a low-visibility evacuation. 

Policy is tolerant of people leaving locks on lockers. Lockers can be rented so regular clients can leave a change of clothes. There is no policing to ensure transients are not storing (potentially nefarious) items in a locked locker. 

In the event of a mutual-aid fire alarm, the supporting agencies are entirely volunteer firefighters. Sending them into a building with a maze-like layout is foolhardy especially when visibility is bad.

The facility leases out space for "events" like birthday parties and corporate training. 

 

The facility is large. It has about 70,000 square feet of interior space and over a quarter-mile of exterior wall. 

The clientele in the west and northwest parts of the building are often limited mobility (Physical Therapy), sensory handicapped (Occupational Therapy), unpredictable (Behavioral Therapy) or fragile/impaired respiration (Cardiac Therapy). Additionally, many of the clientele in that part of the building are ancient and their mental processing speed when confronted with novel challenges might be slower.

Tasks for me

Look for signage. It might be there but obscured due to visual clutter. If it is there and I didn't see it, shame on me.

But as I try to remember the "space", it is largely partitioned with half-walls, plants in urns, lattice and has a very open and airy feel to it. There isn't a lot of wall to hang things on. Additionally, the mirrors make the spaces seem semi-infinite and magnify the visual clutter.

Potential action items for the facility

Put tape on floor to direct clients out if visibility is impaired and first-responders in. Different colors can designate different areas.

Audit signage.

Store flammables with high toxicity when burning off-site.

Post a regular audit schedule for the "back rooms" like receiving and housekeeping to ensure hazardous materials don't accumulate. Have a sheet that must be initialed and dated that the site manager actually toured the area.

Review policies that might allow clients to be placed (staged) in treatment rooms before the therapist arrives. They are most at-risk in the event of an evacuation event.

Review locker policy on an annual basis to weigh risk-reward of allowing people to store private property in locked lockers in the facility. Traceability of locker "ownership" is a cluster-festival and the facility has some degree of litigation exposure to contents stored in lockers. Example: A malicious person stored peanut dust in his locker and another gym-goer goes into anaphylactic shock.

Supplemental materials

Triangle Shirtwaist Fire

Cocoanut Grove Fire

Hamlet Chicken Processing Plant 

Crans-Montana Bar Fire 

Overview of fire/smoke hazards on airplanes 

One of the recurring themes in these disasters is that the "safe way out" didn't work out. Victims were stacked up against the door that didn't open. Other ways out were available but the victim's were unable to process alternatives due to panic and the crowd-mentality.

There is probably a deeper message here. 

Daffodils and Actions-vs.-Words

I planted the first plants into the satellite or "Dacha" orchards. They weren't fruit trees. They weren't even food-producing plants. They were daffodils to serve as early pollen sources and as row markers. It was a battle driving the shovel through the roots of the goldenrod, grasses and vines.

Other perennials that I have penciled in for the ground-cover in the rows beneath the trees include horseradish, lovage, asparagus and rhubarb (and possibly Jerusalem Artichoke). None of them will be tall enough to compete with the trees and they compliment the trees from an ecological and production standpoint. An important consideration is that they are not attractive to deer in terms of browsing.

Fruiting bushes that I am considering include primocane fruiting raspberries/blackberries, gooseberries or currants.

Back when it was common practice to plant orchards on 30'-by-30' or 40'-by-40' grids, it was very common to plant strawberries or grain between the trees so the land was productive while the trees formed their canopies and before they reached peak-production.

A comparison between the economics of commercial orchards and homestead orchards

Commercial orchards hire their labor. They come in. They pick-pick-pick. Then they leave. 

A homestead orchard might have children who will happily go out and pick fruit any week of the summer or fall...because they are hungry. Not all of the fruit will fall into the basket but that is a feature, not a fault. So while a commercial orchard must be optimized for labor and markets, a home orchard is likely to be optimized for having some type of fruit ripening from mid-June until November (strawberries-to-persimmons) and even beyond in the root-cellar. And if you consider rhubarb a fruit, it could even be from early-May until November (rhubarb-to-persimmons).

Source

The challenge of most summer tree fruits is that they come-and-go in a heated rush. A tree full of Yellow Transparent, for instance, is a daunting amount of fruit to deal with due to its very short shelf-life. The fruits of late autumn, by comparison, are a "slow hand". A few bushes of raspberries, on the other hand, don't ripen their fruit all at once.

Winter pears and late apples are very forgiving in terms of harvest timing.

One of the shortest parables in the Bible

A father asked his first son to work in the vineyard. The son said "No." but changed his mind and went to work in the vineyard. The father asked his second son and he said "Yes!" but never went to work. Which son did the will of his father?

This is actually a parable-of-hope for those of us who have children who fell away from the faith. Secular culture will seem to pry many of them off of the rock-that-is-faith. In time, some of those children will see the promises of secular culture as hollow and will return.

We will not be judged by where we start. We will not be judged by where we are at this heart-beat. We will be judged by where we are when our life's breath leaves our body. 

This particular parable is a very nice "closer" for the parable of the Sower where some seed fell on the path, some among the rocks. Others fell in the thorns while some fell in fertile soil. That parable paints a bleak picture for those who are tantalized by the glamor of modern life with all of its glitter, lies and distractions. The parable of the two sons softens that picture.

Running notes

My discipline lapsed.

I dipped a toe back into running Sunday morning.

I ran a half-mile out and a half-mile back.

As I started chugging up the last grade on the way out, it occurred to me that my dismal times were largely due to my choosing comfort while running up hills. I was slowing WAY down.

I leaned into my discomfort. I changed my gait by taking shorter steps and increasing my step-rate. My half-mile time was a blistering 5:41 vs the typical 6:30.

I grabbed a minute of re-oxygenating before starting back. I consciously "worked" while running uphill. My half-mile time on the way back was 5:06.

Between that, planting, harvesting, unilateral farmer's-carries on Friday and Saturday...I was pretty much wiped out on Sunday. 

Since I will not be running a sanctioned 5k race in early-October, I will mimic the experience by running 5k on a suitably flat section of local, gravel road. What that means is finding about a 1/2 mile of flat road and running 3 out-and-backs.

Stay tuned for more adventures. 

Famine, Head-lice, Canning Jars and pictures

Dan commented on an earlier post about dire consequences if/when a technology failure triggered failed crops in the US.

The question that popped into my head involved HOW MUCH of a failure could we manage our way around and when must people start dying in the streets because there simply, mathematically, is not enough calories, fat and protein?

The short answer is that 50% of our current wheat harvest would have to fail .AND. 70% of our current soybean .AND. 90% of our corn harvest. A major caveat is that the transportation/distribution system would have to be able to efficiently allocate the much smaller amounts of food.

The first order analysis, aka back-of-envelop calculations) figured 2500 Calories per day per person, 33% from fat and 70 grams of protein per person per day. One egg per person and pregnant women and pre-teens getting 1/2 liter of milk a day.

The total ration would be famine bread that was 38% wheat flour and 38% corn flour with the remainder being de-fatted soy flour to bump the protein up to 19% (to meet the 70 grams/day target).

Meat, booze, imported fruits and vegetable consumption would be driven to almost zero under this draconian scenario although grass-fed beef and lamb would be available in small amounts and so would small game like rabbit.

Countries that depend on our food exports would be in a world of hurt.

My 40,000 fly-over conclusion is that famine in the United States is far more likely to be created by failures in the logistics-and-allocation sectors than failures in the production sectors. 

Highway pickup

I participated in a "Highway Pickup" event yesterday.

I was chatting with an older gentleman while we waited for the rest of the crew to show up. He told me about inheriting canning jars from his parents and from his wife's parents. He told me had quite a collection of them before that happened.

Recently, they gave 500 of the jars to some neighbors, an older, Amish couple.

The couple, in turn, washed every jar until is sparkled and gave them, boxes and boxes full of them, to a newly married Amish couple as a wedding gift. The bride was thrilled to the point of (happy) tears to receive the gift.

Same man, another story

Shortly before he mustered out of the Army, he worked in recruiting. He had been detailed to pick up a group of new recruits and transport them to the base for in-processing prior to boot-camp.

He was issued a Ford Econvan and departed at -3-o-dark-thirty for a city of approximately one million people.

Upon arriving at the pick-up point, he saw 14 men milling around. His fan held 8. With the motivational method he had learned in the military he was able to pack 12 of them into the van.

Driving was difficult with his elbows wedged in against his side, but orders were orders.

He had been driving for half an hour when the recruit leaning against him asked about the beds they would be sleeping on.

"You will get whatever Uncle Sam issues you" the driver replied.

"Geeze, it can't be worse than what we bunked in last night" the guy behind him said. "My gawd...I never seen so many bed-bug bites and I swear I got head-lice there..."

The driver hit the brakes and swerved to the side of the highway. "OUT!! OUT! OUT!!!!" he screamed at them.

After a multitude of WTFs, he finally got them all out of the van.

He assured them that there was a bus coming in ten minutes to pick them up (a bald-faced lie) and slammed the doors shut, leaving them standing beside the highway with their bags in the dark.

His Commanding Officer asked him "Where are the recruits? Didn't you pick them up?"

The driver said "They told me that they had head-lice. I dropped them off beside Mullet Highway near Snook Avenue." 

The CO cursed a blue streak and started making phone calls. The last time they had imported lice it had taken weeks to get rid of them and it reflected poorly on the CO's record.

Then the CO ordered the driver to get a haircut, pick up Rid shampoo at the Px and a clean uniform from the quartermaster and to get sanitized via the shower-room.

He said that he was scratching for a week after that, thinking about how close he had been to 12 men with head-lice and bed-bugs. 

Bonus pictures

See the squirrel?

Can you see him now?

Rose-hips. During WWII, boys in Britain were sent out to collect them to supply Vitamin C. That is because citrus imports had been driven to zero by the U-Boats sinking transport ships.

Pictures in lieu of actual content

 

This is the frame I fabricated from 2-by-4s and wood pillaged from an old pallet. The footprint matches that of the truck cap that will go on top of it, 5' wide by 7' long. It is 15" tall.

As yet, the openings for the door are closed except for the one that aligns to where the ducks are currently laying their eggs.

 

Amaranth (weeds)

Ralphie didn't get lucky the night before I mowed the lawn but he did get lucky when I saw him and stopped the mower.

We had a house-guest the other day and he removed the batteries from the window alarm. Fortunately, he also left the cover off so I could see that. Very weird and a little bit worrisome.

Fake News Friday: Mr Miyagi was almost cast as a character in The Sopranos

It is a true fake-fact that Pat Morita, the actor who was Mr Miyagi in the Karate Kid franchise was almost cast as a character in the TV show The Sopranos.

Other cast members objected to the choice saying that it was too confusing to have him in the cast.

"Whacks on"

"Whacks off"

"Whacks on"

"Whacks off"

"Can't he make up his mind. I dunno who to shoot. He drives me crazy." 

Back in the day...

Back in the early days of the Industrial Revolution and up into the 1950s, many manufacturing plants were a dreadful hodgepodge of equipment clumped in a semi-random way. As business grew, additional capacity would be added, often in a lean-to attached to the main facility. Sometimes shoehorned into space that had been used for something else.

Some captains of industry grouped equipment by type. All of the milling machines in one corner of a building. All of the lathes in another corner. Heat-treating in a different building. And so on and so forth.

There was rarely any over-arching plan about how things would be manufactured. Parts more-or-less percolated through the system as capacity opened up for the next operation. Because of the chaos and random routing, assembly lines were not feasible (and had not become mainstream until the 19-teens anyway).

The parts that were "in process" were moved from the pile of "finished goods" at one operation to the next process by employees classified as "shunters". They typically loaded parts on steel-wheeled carts and wheeled them to their next operation. Sometimes that that involved pushing the cart up a ramp to higher floors. Sometimes it involved pushing the cart along cratered pathways to different buildings.

They did that all day long. They were the human equivalent of a fork-truck: Lifting, moving, lowering.

If you look through an Industrial Engineering book written in the 1930s, you will notice that one of their primary metrics were the Calories consumed by workers in each classification. Shunters were among the very highest at 4500 to 5000 Calories per shift. 

Shunters are the Industrial Revolution's counterpart to the men pulling ships up the Volga river and pockets of them existed into the 1950s even in "civilized" countries like the US, England and Germany.

Back-in-the-day

Every farm boy who kept his ears open knew that if you were going to the newfangled "confinement" method of rearing livestock, you needed to ventilate the space to ensure a minimum of one complete air change-over every 15 minutes.

Chemical pneumonia from ammonia gas and stagnant air would kill far more adult animals than cold ever would.

I am keeping that rule-of-thumb in mind as I upgrade the duck-jail.

My primary motivation is to make it easier to collect the eggs. But as long as I am putting some effort into construction, I might as well be as smart as possible.

The current method of collecting eggs involves two chunks of firewood. One of them is put beneath the pick-ax so I can lift the side of the truck-cap high enough to wedge the second piece of firewood beneath it. Then I reach WAY IN to the space and feel around for new eggs. Sometimes I steal Quicksilver's toy rake to pull them to within my reach.

After collecting all that I can find, I double-check by looking from the back end of the truck cap to ensure I got them all. Then I lift up the edge, pull out the second chunk of firewood, lower the edge and then put all of the tools away.

The new method will be to have the cap sitting on 15" tall stud-frame walls with doors in the four corners. My fantasy is to look into the space from the back end and identify which corner the ducks decided to lay their eggs. Open the corresponding door. Remove eggs. Close door.

This part of the post fits with the first part because a lot of us newbie small-holders start with a hodgepodge of facilities and stop improving them as soon as they work almost-good-enough. 

Jonesing for some cattle

I am seriously wanting a couple of calves. I have about four acres of grass going to waste. Actually, worse than going to waste. It is festering with mice, ticks and other undesirables.

I could mow it, but that takes money out of my pocket and is hard on the local reptiles.

I found a neighbor with a livestock trailer. He will let me use it if I replace the rotted-out floorboards. Looks like a win-win to me.

The next task is to figure out what is wrong with the wiring harness on the truck and to fix it.

Their asking price is a little bit optimistic.

Then, I have to find a couple-three 400-to-600 pound calves that are less than $2k each. They are out there but I might have to drive 300 miles to get them and they might be beef-dairy breed crosses.

Subsistence peoples videos

Some folks like to jabber about "systemic racism" that is so pervasive that "we cannot see it".

I have my own thoughts on that, but the premise that our perspectives are flattened when our optics are within the same plane as what we are observing is a valid point.

I enjoy watching videos of "subsistence" cultures: People surviving on dacha in Ukraine, remote ethnic groups surviving in the Siberian wilderness, people in Alaska. However, I have to keep reminding myself that many of the things they do have "net-return-on-energy-invested".

Remember Oncle Horst who traded his water-soup for sawdust-bread to survive? That was a net-positive-net-return-on-energy-invested". The hot water had almost no energy (Calories) while the bread, crappy as it was, had significant energy.

Even though the videos are entertaining, riding two, 100 hp snow machines for hundreds of mile to bag a couple of caribou or to go ice-fishing or to collect a couple of pine marten for their fur is a black-hole for net-energy.

One prepper fantasy is that they will eat game to survive.

Suppose you live in a township like Eaton Rapids Township with 100 people per square mile. Suppose that we have a population density of 40 whitetail deer per mile. Furthermore, suppose that when brought-to-bag, each deer yields 30 pounds of lean meat at 500 Calories per pound. At an energy budget of 2500 Calories per person per day, how long could the population of Eaton Rapids Township live solely on the energy stored in the deer herd?

That is 600,000 Calories per square-mile on-the-hoof divided by a daily human Calorie burn-rate of 250,000 Calories per square-mile. The answer is: Less than three days.

A single milk cow in the summer can produce more than 6 gallons of milk a day. Between the fat (7,000 Calories), carbs and protein (another 7k Calories) a well-fed, lactating cow is producing almost as much food-energy as  dead deer EVERY DAY.

In seven weeks, one milk cow (which can be grazed on one acre of pretty-good, mid-western pasture) can produce more food energy than the meat from all of the deer on a square-mile (640 acres) of good deer range.

Fat is always a limiting factor in survival situations. If the milk is the only source of fat, then the milk provides enough fat to supply eight-and-a-half people with enough fat to supply 1/3 of their daily calorie needs.

I know one family that shares a cow with three other families. They have assigned days to milk the cow. If they cannot make-the-date, the family assigned the day has to make arrangments to get the cow milked. There are a lot of ways to skin that cat. 

Skid-steer Mike: Parley

I walked up to the oldest man, the one with the command voice and said “I am Mike Tardive. How can I help you?”

My announcement barely registered with the rabble.

The man I was addressing finally processed what I said, looked at me and said “Please repeat that”. 

I complied. “My name is Mike Tardive. How can I help you?” 

That caught everybody’s attention and they started babbling.

The leader made a motion with his hand to quiet the small crowd’s rising volume.

“We want to have words with you outside” the man said.

“I can agree to that as long it is ONE person representing you...and the rest of you stay in the building” I parried.

By God’s Grace, last Sunday’s readings at Mass had been about resolving conflicts with your brothers. Jesus told his disciples to directly confront one-on-one without a peanut gallery to amplify feelings ahead of facts.

The rabble disintegrated in to screeching. It was all about who was going to get a piece of me first and what they were going to do to me. Every person wanted to be the first one to take a whack at the piñata.

I kept my face as neutral as I could. The choice of their champion was not mine to make. Nothing was, literally, the only thing I could do to potentially defuse the situation.

Finally, the leader got impatient and told them to shut-up. “I will represent us” he said, with authority.

I stuck out my hand. “I already told you my name. What's yours?”

“Ricky. Ricky Adams” the man said.

He was probably 35. Clear manner of speaking. Great posture.  Understood how to work chain-of-command.  An inch shorter than 6', probably 185 pounds. His forearms had visible muscle-tone. He had almost certainly had been in the military.

“Let’s go” I suggested and started walking down the aisle toward the airlock that led to a feeder aisle that led to the waiting room and main doors. 

I purposely walked slowly. After a few steps, Ricky followed, and then caught up and walked beside me. The rest of the rabble fell in behind us, muttering dark threats.

When we reached the main lobby, Ricky turned to his little-ducklings and told them. “Sit here until I come back”.

We stepped into the sun of the early afternoon. Looking to the side, I saw the scruffy trees on the south side of the complex. I gave a half-nod with my head. “It will be more comfortable to talk in the shade”. Strategically, it was also out-of-sight of of the waiting room windows and closer to my truck.

Walking toward the Scots Pines and newly planted Red Maples, I scanned the perimeter. On the far side of the access drive that went around the facility, on the edge of the strip-mall’s parking lot, were two people recording us walking with their phones. If there had been any doubt in my mind about this being a spontaneous event, it was now gone. It was a set-up.

Once we were in the shade, I turned so my back was toward the building and I was facing outward. Interestingly, Ricky did the same. We were not directly facing each other. 

“What is your beef?” I asked, getting right down to business.

“You wrote that black people shouldn't get reparations because we are stupid” Ricky said. “You said that we would just waste the money”. 

That was not what I expected. I had expected him to say he was a Muslim and that my most recent post had offended him. My mind was churning furiously. I had never written anything like that.

“Did you read that on my blog or did somebody tell you that?” I asked. 

Ricky gave a little shrug and looked away.

I was holding my phone in my hand. “Let me show you what I wrote”.

The only thing I could remember that even came close to the ‘reparations’ for black people was a piece I had written on Universal Basic Income about six months ago. I pulled up that blog essay. It was about 400 words long and referenced how the Indian Tribes that distributed casino income to its members had markedly worse mental health markers than the same Tribes that did not have casinos.

Ricky scanned the essay. He was a relatively fast reader.

“This doesn’t say anything about Blacks or reparations” he commented when he was half-way through.

Then, right at the end, there was a paragraph generalizing the idea to include welfare and ‘reparations’.

He seemed to be processing what I had written and attempting to reconcile it with what he had been told I had said.

I interrupted his thoughts. “We have company” I said and I nodded toward the people recording with their phones.

“I think we were both set-up” I said. “I was set-up to get a beating and you were set-up to take the rap”.  

Ricky glanced over at the spectators recording us and a frown darkened his face.

That is when the cop cars started screaming down the road leading to the facility and turning into the access drive. 

“You and me, we were just standing here and shooting the shit, right?” I suggested to Ricky.

“Absolutely. Just two guys stepping outside for a smoke.” he said. He pulled out a white-and-green pack of cigarettes and shook one out. Then he lit it. He inhaled a deep pull of smoke and his face looked deep in thought.

“I don’t smoke...but it might be a good day to start.” I quipped. I looked down and saw some cigarette butts on the ground. We were not the first people to take a break in the shade of the trees.

I reached down and picked up a stubbed-out butt from the ground. I pinched it between my left thumb and index finger with the filter end out and the unlit end cupped by my other three fingers like I had seen a hundred other guys who didn't want the boss to see them smoking.

Something must have happened in the facility because the cops unassed in a hurry and most of them were hustling toward the main doors. A couple of them started our way. 

Then I commented "I am guessing that the crew you came with aren't your people, that somebody gave them to you".

Ricky didn't say anything. 

As two of the cops approached us, I raised the butt to my face and pretended to take one last draw and then flicked the unlit butt at one of the Red Maples that was off to the side. Then I said "Hello Officer. What brings you out this fine afternoon?" 

A pleasant surprise

There I was in the dentist's chair, getting my teeth cleaned.

I had been scheduled for Monday but events conspired against me and I had to cancel that appointment. Fortunately for me, they had a cancellation on Wednesday and I was able to make it. Unfortunately, it was not with my regular hygenists. Fortunately, they both have the same first name.

Small world

While sitting in the chair I learned that she was going to a Pawpaw festival in Illinois this coming weekend. I asked a few questions and learned that she and her husband have a small orchard on the south side of their property. When I asked where they live, she mentioned a town near the Upper and Hill Orchard site.

A few more questions pinned it down to being within four miles of the orchards!

One of her best buddies from high school lived (and still lives) just down the road from the orchards and she knows the area like the back-of-her-hand.

The trip to the dentist morphed from being a necessary time-sink to learning about a like-minded, "country neighbor" who I didn't know I had.

Shorter days

I seem to be getting less done around the place as the number of daylight hours shrink. I need to do triage. Some things don't have to get done before snow flies. Some should be done after the weather cools and slows down the ticks. Some is going to be much easier in the warm weather than when it is colder.

Bonus video

Education in rural, Latin America

Included in this post because watching first-grade kids' zest for life is refreshing. 

I bet they are not spending $17,000 a year to education that kid.

At one point in the video you might notice that the desks were rearranged during one of the lessons. All of the girls were looking at a dry-erase board at one end of the room and the boys were being taught lessons from a board on the other end of the room. There was no-mans-land between the two groups of desks.

I suppose that is one almost-free way to reduce distractions.

Or maybe it is two different grades in the same room. 

It is worth commenting that the diets of rural people around the world have been enshittified by highly processed, prepackaged foods. I suspect the boy's papa is working in the US and sending money home.

A kid running across old sheet-metal while barefoot. Ouch!

What a person displays on their walls tells you much about their priorities. Most of the items on that wall look like diplomas.

First-world, Gen-Z problems

The perils of putting your phone into speaker mode

A new word

A new word was added to my lexicon yesterday.

I am a "natty'.

No, Mack, it doesn't mean that I am 8% alcohol by volume.

Not "natty", the bulging blood vessels are the major tell

It means that I don't take steroids and my musculature, such as it is, is natural.

Natty. (Not me, by the way)

Thank-you for your attention in this matter. 

A happy red-neck, miracles

You know you are a red-neck when you get dressed up fancy to pick up compost at the landscape supply depot.

I put on my newest pair of jeans. A clean, high-viz yellow shirt. My cleanest high-vis baseball cap.

A big shout-out to Shane (at the desk) and Austin (running the front-end loader) at Hammond Farms in Grand Ledge. 

And then a miracle occurred

The issue that caused my life to get complicated unexpectedly resolved over-night.

Monday night, the patient went to bed with the pain that had been incapacitating them for four-maybe-five days. They woke up without the pain this morning. The patient attributes the impressive turn-around to prayer.

My schedule will in shambles for the next few days because I cleared-the-decks in anticipation of sailing through heavy winds.

The other scheduling thing that happened is that the team for the 5k never solidified, so I will not be running a formal 5k in early October. 

The Democratic candidate for Michigan's 7th Congressional seat

The Daily Mail, a British newspaper, has no problem pointing out that the Democratic candidate is a legally involved person. He plea-bargained to a felony.

Progressives will be very quick to accuse me of being a hypocrite. They will point out that Trump had been convicted multiple felonies. There are differences.

William Lawrence chained himself to a bulldozer that was creating/maintaining oil distribution infrastructure.  His goal was to make oil more expensive so people will use less of it. Hurting the "little people" of Michigan, Ohio and southern Ontario was his goal.

The felonies that a partisan court convicted Trump of involved quibbles about property valuation. If differences in opinion on property values are de facto felonies, then every tax assessor (i.e. property taxes) in the United States is a potential felon. 

Another factor is that the pipeline he was sabotaging delivered western Canadian oil to eastern Canada. It is Canadian oil. Sabotaging that pipeline is an international incident. 

The local media that screams when Trump makes mean-tweets about Canada is very uninterested in sharing the fact that the Democratic candidate for a Federal office attempted, through physical actions, to stop the supply of heating oil, gasoline and propane to Ontario, Canada.

Orchard and garden notes

Time to pick the Melrose apples. 

I inspected the new peach trees and a few of them set flower buds for the 2027 season. The peach trees were a gift from a friend out-west. The picture shown above is what they looked like in March of 2025 before I planted them. The chunk of firewood they are leaning against is about 9" in diameter.

It is dry enough to start digging potatoes again.

Smoke alarms

I keep hearing a smoke alarm going off with the low-battery chirp. Danged if I can find it.

I will keep looking. Maybe Quicksilver's younger ears can find it when she shows up. 

Boosting the signal

 I saw this on Midwest Chick's blog.

A change of pace

 

Girls shuffle-dancing to Cindi Lauper's "Girls just want to have Fun". Four minute run-time.

And yes, from what I can see of their faces, the girls seem to be having a lot of fun while dancing.

 

And, just so the lovers of Country Music don't feel left out, here is some music by Dwight Yoakam

 

Fine Art Tuesday

You get a two-fer today. Compare and contrast

A painting by Thomas Kinkade (American)

Hauling a Barge on the Volga by Ilia Efimovich Repin (Russian)

Rivers are highly symbolic in most cultures.

 

Rivers can be symbols of rebirth, as exemplified by the many before/after miracles in the Bible associated with the Jordan River. One example.

 

Rivers, which start with vigor and end up salty when they flow into the sea can be a simile for life.

 

Rivers can be a symbol of endless toil. (the second picture)

 

They can be symbols of wealth and industry. (Nile, Rhine River, grist mills)

 

They can be symbols of connection with the outside world. 

They can be symbols of death, as exemplified by the River Styx or images with a bridge across it. (the first picture)

Many thanks to Tireless Lucas and unnameable reader who suggested these artists. 

Skid-steer Mike (Introduction, fiction)

I was just settling in with Catherine to watch Judge Judy. I had rubbed lotion on her calves and shins and checked the length of her toe-nails.

My life had turned into a narrow tunnel since Kit's accident. I kept the house neat. I cooked and ate. I took care of Clyde, our dog and the chickens. I worked out at the gym for stress-relief. I went to Mass every Sunday. And I spent as much time with Kit as the rehab facility allowed me.

She had suffered a fall due to sudden vertigo. The doctors insisted on discharging her to the corporation’s step-down facility rather than sending her home. Their reasoning was murky. The vertigo was diagnosed as a viral infection that impacted her inner-ear. The doctors claimed she needed to be "in-patient" because she needed special physical therapy...but I had my doubts. The facility had recently added a wing specializing in "fall recovery" and they needed to fill it with patients to stop the financial bleeding.
 

Kit shared her room with Penny. Penny was in following a double rotator-cuff repair and was learning how to stand up.

I ate lunch with Kit every day and we watched Judge Judy. I brought my own lunch. I also brought Kit a sliced-up Fuji apple and a small container containing her favorite brand of Greek Yogurt. Institutional food is...well...lowest common denominator at best.

We kept the TV volume low. Penny was a Wheel-of-Fortune girl. She returned the favor by keeping her volume on her TV low, as well.

Early on, I greased the skids by asking Penny what she missed the most from “outside”. It was coffee. The step-down's kitchen brewed coffee in a massive urn. Other than being cold, weak, bitter and stale, it was acceptable coffee. I won Penny’s eternal cooperation by bringing a fresh coffee of the local coffee chain’s Premium Central American Arabica blend every time I visited.

I am not sure that the CNAs (Certified Nursing Assistants) who had to handle Penny’s bedpans were as happy with me, but I brought them donuts once a week so they couldn’t too mad.

The case was typical Judge Judy. The girlfriend had kicked her boyfriend out of the duplex and filed a restraining order against him. Then, she wouldn’t return his property claiming they had been “gifts”. The twist was that her ex-boyfriend’s father owned the duplex she had kicked her ex out of and the lease was in his name.

I was as comfortable as I could be considering the circumstances. That is when I started hearing angry voices in the hallway. At first they were distant, angry sounds. Many people involved. Sharp. Short bursts of syllables. Belligerent. Gutteral sounding, hard "ck" sounds. Command voices.

I was able to start resolving words. They were looking for somebody.

They were looking for Mike Tardive. “We seen his truck in the parking-lot...” 

Kit reached out and gripped my wrist.

My name is Mike Tardive. I write a blog. Sometimes I write about sensitive issues. That was not a problem a few years ago, but now every issue was like five gallons of hot nitroglycerin...looking for any excuse to explode.

I knew better. I never should have posted the essay about Mohammad (possibly) being a Jew who had been snubbed and not invited to be a rabbi. All the evidence was there. Mohammad claimed Abraham as an ancestor. Monotheistic. No local gods allowed. There was no knowledge-path of Abraham's existence outside of the tribes who left Egypt for the desert. The most logical plot was that Mohammad was a disgruntled Jew who went full L. Ron Hubbard on his peers.

The post went beyond my regular 30 readers. It got picked up by aggregators and then international newspapers. The chains all lead back to Skid-steer Mike's blog. The usual suspects were burning tires in the streets.

The usual suspects had found me. Somebody had doxed me, even to the extent of tracking my truck.

I felt an overwhelming desire to urinate. Not fear. Just a natural body reaction when I knew I might need to fight for my life.

I scanned the room. There was nothing that could be used as a weapon. By design.

I wasn’t carrying. I wasn’t even sure that I would use it if I had been. Too much possibility of collateral damages. Lots, and lots of fragile people in this facility.

It was just a matter of time before one of the CNAs spilled the beans. HIPPA does not allow it but they would either be scared or be sympathetic. "Sympathetic?" you sneer? Somebody let the mass of people into the facility.

Either one of the CNAs would rat me out or the thugs would start throwing open doors and search room-by-room.

Whatever was going to happen, I didn’t want it to play out in front of Kit. She didn’t need to be a victim of this, too.

I gave her a kiss. “It might be a few minutes before I come back” I warned her.

She closed her eyes and said “I love you…”

I pulled my arm away from her grasp.

Before I went out the door, I did 10 pushups to center myself.

Standing back up, I dusted off my hands. It was now or never.

I gently closed the door behind me. Then I walked up to the group. Every one of them, individually, outweighed me and the oldest one looked to be 30 years my junior, maybe even 40 years younger.

They were all looking past me.

I walked up to the oldest man, the one with the command voice and said “I am Mike Tardive. How can I help you?”

 

*** I don't know if this has the legs to go beyond a very short story-arc. I have things going that came up this week so I am tossing this out to fill space.***

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he does NOT crave

It is idle curiosity, but I wonder what the Chinese policy makers think of the Houthi blowing up the infrastructure supporting the trans-Saudi pipeline. That pipeline diverts oil from the oil fields near the Persian Gult to a port on the Red Sea.

China has been playing both sides of the street. Buying oil from whoever will sell it while propping up the Iranian military complex with components that can be used for missiles. I suspect that the military support came with some caveats; specifically that they would not target oil destined to China.

If so, China is learning that Iran's promises are not very reliable. The reasons it is not reliable are not important. The point is that repeated shocks to oil availability are grinding away at the myth of Chinese ever-onward-and-upward.

On a related front, Britain continues to supply Zelensky with missiles with enough range to hit oil infrastructure deep within Russia. While this is suicidal for the greater, European economy it is less damaging to the U.K. economy. Relatively speaking, Johnny Bulldog can rub Hans Pinscher's nose in the ground with little risk to to his own skin.

Meanwhile, elements of the international, deep-state supply Zelensky AND Iran with targeting information. Occam's Razor implies that they want total chaos and, perhaps, WWIII.

Even slackers sometimes touch upon the truth

My paternal grandmother once commented, quite dryly, that a fellow who can eat cornmeal mush with a cheerful face will never go hungry. She grew up dirt-poor near Allegan County's Little Rabbit River. She learned to speak English when she went to Kindergarten. Her husband, my paternal grandfather, died when she was 33 and left her with a child just as The Great Depression was about to experience the second crash (1937).

Thoreau, a slacker of the highest order, observed that the wealth of a man is proportional to the number of items that he doesn't crave. Proof that even slackers sometimes say something wise.

Craving and envy leads us into debt. Debt is the currency of the slave. Envy makes us do stupid things. Desire for status makes us do even stupider things.

Folks who grew up hard-scrabble will almost certainly do better in hard-times than the mama's-boys. The mama's-boys will go to the relocation camps and be surprised when the toilets back-up and they are not allowed to leave. The hard-scrabble boys won't leave their neighborhood. They might move in with a buddy, a brother or an uncle but they do the calculus of "It is hard here where I have resources and people know me. Why do I assume it will be better elsewhere?".

The calculus shifts if you have a solid job-offer elsewhere...but getting moved to a random sports stadium or to camps...not so much. 

A concrete suggestion

Eat a bowl of plain oatmeal or cornmeal mush* tomorrow for breakfast tomorrow morning. Have one hardboiled egg (salt is optional) and an apple on the side. For beverage, have black coffee or tea or water. Take any medicines that you have to take.

That is all it takes to reset your expectations. Doing something very simple and doing it voluntarily. If you find yourself forced into that kind of austere simplicity, you can shrug your shoulders and say, "Been there. Done that" and get on with life. 

* Bring one cup of water to a boil in a pan. In a separate container, add a half cup of cornmeal and a half cup of water. Stir contents of the container until it is well mixed and then pour it into the boiling water. Stir contents of the pan continuously until the water returns to a boil. Remove from heat and cover the pan. Let sit about five minutes. Serve.

The "joy" of running

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake...

Psalm 23, KJV. Perhaps the most comforting and lyrically beautiful language that has ever been translated into English.

Sheep and shepherds didn't live in barns or hoop-houses when this was written. There were no 800 pound bales of alfalfa hay stacked up for feed. The shepherd watched the rain clouds and knew the treacherous pathways he had to navigate through the thorny desert to get to where the rain fell. He led the flock from oasis-to-oasis and protected them from lions, leopards, bears, wolves, jackals and humans. He did not bed them down in wadis where flash-floods are a possibility.

The joy of running

After the runner has accumulated enough "miles" of training, casual running has almost the same "apparent effort" as walking. The runner can look around and see the ripe berries and mushrooms, he can find the bird nests and watch the butterflies feed. He can hear the chickens in backyards and savor the aroma of his neighbor's barbecue wafting through the air.

And he can cover twice as much ground in the same amount of time compared to walking. 

Being an intimate part of God's creation restores the runner's soul. "...paths of righteousness..." becomes more than a metaphor. The lone runner experiences something close to what young David did while tending his family's sheep in the wilderness. He also experiences some of what David experienced as he fled Saul...A light load, minimal footprint on the land and a sojourner's existence.

Key point: "After the runner has accumulated enough "miles"..."

Random image

The ever-observant Lucas Machias informed me that massive numbers of birds are moving.
 

Boiled dinner

 

Carrots and rutabagas went into the bottom of the pot first. They take longest to cook. I added some chicken bouillon to the water for flavor. I put a cover on the pot and checked it after half an hour and then at five minute increments.

All amounts are "by eye".

When the carrots could be pierced with a paring knife, I added the potatoes and sausage. When the potatoes could be pierced by the paring knife, I cooked the red cabbage separately in a casserole dish in the microwave. I wanted the potatoes and other vegetables to remain brightly colored.

I added a dollop of butter and "tossed" the contents to mix the layers.

Mrs ERJ enjoyed the meal and the total amount was about 8 quarts of food. 

Guten nacht, Onkel Horst. Schlaff Gut.

A sobering story.

"Mamma’s boys. You could tell right away who were the Mamma’s boys were", he nearly spat out of his mouth with disgust. Being young and naïve we asked how and he said"they’re the ones that died first". 

A five minute read. You might still be thinking about it five weeks later. 

Added the next morning, link to a Youtube short. 

Origins of Disney Princess names

Looking around at Quicksilver's play-date classmates, I see all kinds of apparel that sport pictures of the Disney princesses "Anna" (pronounced On-ya) and "Elsa" from the movie "Frozen".

Their mothers think that Disney invented the characters because they didn't grow up with anybody who had those names.

I grew up in the 1960s. Gangs of kids swarmed the streets. Unlike the Boomers, EVERY parent from the Greatest Generation named at least one of their kids Elsa. 

Elsa was one of the first non-gendered names. There were both boys and girls who were named "Elsa". The reason none of us chose to name our children "Elsa" is because the boys and girls with that name was always the most defiant and contrary brats.

But let me back-up a little bit. Elsa was always their middle name. Their first name was always "Or". Maybe you grew up with a bunch of kids named Elsa, too.

"YOU get your butt over here, Or Elsa I will paddle your bottom!" 

 

God (and women) laugh when men make plans

Rain

Radar image of what is heading our way

The weather-guessers are promising us 2.8" of rain today

Yesterday morning, Mrs ERJ and I talked about what we should do before the rain hit. Friday was a beautiful, sunny day and, in the morning, the possibilities were endless.

• Mow
• Pick peppers
• Dig potatoes
• Run 3.2 miles
• Mop floors (they dry faster when it is sunny)
• Landscaping
• Construction
• Cleaning up the front porch 

We agreed that the first thing I should do is to go for the run. Our thinking is just like what they tell us on the plane "In the event of loss-of-pressure, take care of yourself first. Put on YOUR oxygen mask before helping your child with his".

I went on the run. I took a nap. I helped Mrs ERJ with the ONE thing on the front porch that required two people to move. I made a commando shopping strike to the grocery store.

And I was pretty much worthless for the rest of the day.

Running notes

Acorns from Quercus alba in the road

I only timed the first 1/2 mile. Obsessing about the times was sucking the joy out of running.

My legs were sore and heavy because I hadn't fully recovered from the walk-about. Of particular note were the muscles directly in front of my pant's front pockets. Those muscles move my knees forward and up. 

Another notable ache was my left shin. The knobs of my healed broken tibia were irritating the fascia. Fascia are the membranes that encase muscles so they can slide relative to other body parts.

This too will pass.

A dead pine (Pinus strobus) along my run

The woodpeckers have been hammering this tree. Borers? Bark beetles?

I still have no word that the team of volunteers for the run in early October is a go.

My gut-feel is that since my goal is to show-up and to finish, that my training should focus on knocking out an easy 3.2 miles every-other-day until three days before the "race". Then basically do nothing but a little bit of walking in the days immediately before the race.

I now have enough miles under my belt that running has become automatic. I am comfortable enough that I can enjoy the scenery or think while running. That is a good place to be.

While I expect my 5k time to be in the neighborhood of 40 minutes, I don't have a lot of ego invested in hitting any particular number. If one of my team-mates taps-out and drops down to a walk, I am fine with walking with them. 

Boiled dinner

Mrs ERJ has been hankering for a boiled dinner: Potatoes, carrots, cabbage, rutabagas...maybe a bit of smoked sausage.

Mrs ERJ is easy to keep happy! 

"The Oligarchy"

"The Oligarchy"

Screen grab from the movie "The Death of Stalin"

The Democratic Socialists love to blather about "The Oligarchy" which implies that they believe that society is run by a handful of men who make all of the decisions in a smoke filled room, decisions which are then carried out by legions of stooges and fall-guys.

Their reasoning is that the complex and sometimes convoluted modern economies don't look like a series of simple, individual decisions. They also like blaming their failures on "evil villains" rather than acknowledging those failures are due to laziness, stupid decisions and random chance.

These are the same "smartest people in the room" who insist that oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium and pinches of of trace elements self-organized into creatures ranging from the influenza virus to Elon Musk and Blue Whales.

VO2MAX

Data for men

VO2MAX can be improved but it improves slowly. How slowly? Three ml/kg/minute of improvement in a year of steady PT is a typical number. If you are starting at 22, then a year of 3x or 4x a week work-outs is likely to increase your VO2MAX by 15%. The GREAT news is that it isn't going down as you age. 

If you are average and start a regular work-out program at age 65 (lower red dot) and stay with it, in less than four years you will intersect the 95th percentile 70 year-old. (upper red dot).

Another perspective: An average 69 year-old finishing four years of physical conditioning training peeled 25 years off of his VO2MAX's decline and now has the cardio-vascular capacity he had when he was 40 years-old. 

If you completely tune your work-out routines specifically to improve VO2MAX, you might get five ml/kg/minute improvement but there is a very high risk of burn-out and then you will achieve zero improvement. Source.

Dog-chain

A neighbor gave me a gift of some dog-chain. I am pondering how to best use it.

My current thinking is to use it to suspend a feedlot panel from the ceiling of the overhang. I can then use the panel to hang tools and buckets. I saw the idea used in a tiny kitchen where it was used to store pots, pans and cooking utensils near the stove.

Some random pictures

Locust borer

Moth

 

Chestnut tree

"...non-practicing White" and other stupidity

My IQ dropped ten points in the first 10 seconds

I clicked on a link that another blogger had posted and it took me to a Progressive talking about the Lindsay Clancy trial. The Progressive identifies as "a non-practicing White".

Sharia Law enclaves in Michigan

I am willing to consider the possibility. Presumably, that means that victims (or their families) can amputate the right hand of shop-lifters from those communities and castrate rapists. 

Q: What do you call a first-offender from Dearborn? 
A: "Lefty".

Q: What about a rapist from Hamtramck? 
A: "Squeal O'Neil" or "Squeaky" or "Mickey Mouse", your choice.

Jonesing for a 6.5mm Creedmoor

I don't need another firearm.

I do have the dies to reload this caliber.

One of the Creedmoor's selling points is its mild recoil. The Ammo.com comparison claims that the .308 Win generates 50% more recoil energy than the Creedmoor. Lower recoil from "factory ammo" is a major selling point when introducing kids to shooting.

Maybe I can talk Handsome Hombre into buying one. 

Inflation 

Another consideration is that firearms hold value better than most other items I could purchase. Inflation driven by fuel prices is accelerating. And it isn't just at the fuel-pump. Many of our gadgets come from eastern Asia and they are being slammed by oil availability MUCH more severely than we are. Low availability drives up price of production and it will get passed along.

Hold onto your shorts, we are likely to be in for a wild ride.