The Lower Muskegon River

"Write something every day" they told me.

A Three Hour Tour...

Two young guys crossing an item off their bucket list. I propose you stop at the 23:30 mark. After that there is wind, rain and words that should have been BLEEPED out.

For those of you who come from crowded places, it may be disorienting to know that there are rivers where you can boat for 45 miles and not see more than five or ten buildings from the water.

Good walleye and Brown Trout and Smallmouth fishing. Above the dam there is good Northern Pike action and at the mouth of the river and at the base of the dam there are Channel and Flathead Catfish. Much of the river is sandy-bottomed and the fish hang out in the snags, brush and stumps that washed into the river. 

Is your destiny determined by your race?

I want to push back on the chain-of-logic that contends

1. IQ is predetermined at birth and does not change
2. Race determines IQ
3. Since IQ is destiny, then race IS destiny 

IQ is predetermined at birth and does not change

It is my personal belief that the human brain is very plastic. It rewires to optimize itself for changing environments.

A quick "proof": If I read off or showed 3, seven-digit numbers to a Boomer and a Gen Z, I am confident that the Boomer will almost always be able to repeat back the numbers five minutes later with greater fidelity than the Gen Z person.

The reason is that Boomers remembered the land-line numbers of their friends and family. I can still tell you the land-line number of my grandparents and the home number where I grew up. Phone numbers, back in the day, were seven digits long. Our brains rewired to optimize the retrieval of seven-digit strings of numbers.

Second piece of evidence: There as a very large, longitudinal health study in Britain. One of the pieces of data they tracked was I.Q.

A group of people who shared one attribute scored significantly higher than the group of people who did NOT share that attribute. More interesting, the gap in test scores steadily increased over the years. It did not stay constant.

The attribute? The group that scored higher on the IQ tests were readers. Educators tell us that the single best predictor of whether a child will be a reader is if the family demonstrates the culture of readers. There are books and magazines in the home. The parents read. The parents read to the children.

How many of you who insist that IQ is entirely genetic would actually expect Ben Carson's mother to score within 5 IQ points as Ben? His mother, Sonya Carson, was functionally illiterate.

Third piece of evidence: Trauma rewires brains.

Post-traumatic Stress Disorder is just "twitchy feelings". It has been widely recognized since the the year 2000 that "Neuroimaglng studies in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have revealed changes in brain structure and function..."

People who are in combat are focused on second-to-second survival and "appropriately discounting the long term costs of behaviors" is a distraction that can get you killed. Ergo, many soldiers take up smoking while down-range.

Fourth piece of evidence: Drugs change brains

Smoking weed kills one's give-a-golly. Since the mid-twenty-teens the literature is full of peer reviewed studies with conclusions like "...regular cannabis use is associated with gray matter volume reduction in the medial temporal cortex, temporal pole, parahippcampal gyrus, insula and orbitofrontal cortex..."

Those areas are critical for longterm memory and processing emotions. 

Harder drugs kill every desire that gets in the way of the next fix.

Fifth piece of evidence: Elites from the Caribbean and Africa

Mrs ERJ's uncle was a chaplain at Southern University. SU is a traditionally-Black University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

According to him, the US born students HATED the students from the Caribbean and Africa who had been schooled using the traditional, legacy UK system.

The professors graded on a curve. The Caribbean and African students invariably earned 100% on their tests. They mastered all of the assigned material. A single student from either of those place was enough to "spike" the curve and turn it into straight-scale.

The irony is that most of the Caribbean and African students were much darker than the US born students. 

The "Race" to "IQ" link is highly confounded

The "Black Culture" that is enabled by WOKE Progressives sabotages most Black students on every count mentioned above.

Demographically, Blacks are younger than white people.

Pro-union, WOKE cities insist that education is the province of the education industry and unionized teachers. 

Culturally, Black people are exposed to more random, capricious violence and WOKE jurisdictions do nothing to suppress that violence.

Culturally, Black people are more likely to be heavy users of cannabis in their adolescence and as young adults than every other ethnic group other than Native American. That is the period when brains are developing.

WOKE culture enables mediocre performance from Black people. It is the soft racism of low expectations. 

ERGO, it is nearly impossible to untangle cultural and genetic factors.

A high IQ is like a powerful motor

A high IQ is like a powerful motor. But to be a useful truck or a fast race car, that engine needs appropriate tires and a transmission and a suspension and operator controls to be useful. It needs a road. It needs an operator to work the steering wheel, brakes and throttle.

People WANT IQ to mean more than it does. Just because you desperately want something to be true does not make it so. 

I don't expect this post to change anybody's mind. I just want to go on-record for where I stand on the topic. 

Bank Intercounty Drain

This $330k property's drain assessment was $20k. The GIS Hydrology viewer lists the "area" as about 6000 square-feet.

The property owners on the east side of Delta Township are losing their minds over the size of the assessment to upgrade the water drain that serves their area.

The assessment is (supposedly) based on the square-feet of "impermeable" surface on their property. That is, the square-feet of roof + square-feet of pavement + square-feet of swimming pool and other improvements.

Example of how the drain zigs-and-zags.

The drain runs about 2 miles from south-to-north (direction of water flow) but it swerves and snakes so its linear length is significantly longer. It was built and added onto as subdivisions were added and the area developed. Consequently, the oldest and now most congested areas are served with 14" and 16" drains (circa 1900-ish) while newer areas farther from the river are served with 48" drains. Needless to say, the drain backs up when there is a heavy rain.

The cost of the project and the associated assessments were announced about two months ago. The cost is about $60 million which is exacerbated by the fact that most of those drains are now beneath paved roads.

The 1900 property owners who are being charged for the work are outraged. There is no appeal process for the assessments. The process for calculating impermeable surface is opaque and seems to have been done with a ouija board.

15 acres, almost entirely paved. Listed as 110k square-feet in the GIS Hydrology viewer. My 10 acres with 4000 square-feet of buildings and 1000 square-feet of gravel driveway is listed as having 70k square-feet.

 

Once again, I am happy that I don't live in the city. 

Property owners in very liberal voting Delta Township are outraged when told to "pay their fair share". It has even generated disputes about who should pay for the square-footage of the sidewalks. The property owners? They didn't install them. The county? While they "own" some of the roads they didn't install the sidewalks. Delta Township? Most of the sidewalks were installed by Delta Township but they don't have budget to pay the assessment. On the other hand, why should residents of Bellevue Township pay for sidewalks in Delta Township which is what would happen if the assessment was assigned to the county?

While it may seem to be petty, the square-footage of the sidewalks adds up to a substantial amount of square-feet of impermeable surface. And if you live on a corner lot, could almost double your assessment.

Rejoice with me! I found the keys*

And so I torture you with a story

One of our tasks as parents and bosses is to train our replacements. If the children/employee is willing, then we attempt to pass on the knowledge and tricks that we learned so they don't have to remake every mistake humans have made since the beginning of time.

So there I was, standing behind Southern Belle as she started slamming in the first corner post in the next paddock for her goats.

The plan was to build the second enclosure next to the current enclosure (2 feedlot panels in one direction and 5 feedlot panels in the other direction). We planned to reuse one of the long sides of the current paddock. We would crowd the goats into a temporary cell made from four feedlot panels and recycle the ones that were freed up.

Like most people getting into livestock, Southern Belle is expanding as budget becomes available. She recently purchased used T posts and the next paycheck will buy three additional feedlot panels.

Since she had the posts, it made sense to put them in so we were ready to hit the ground running after she purchased the additional feedlot panels.

Happy Tools (named after the cheap toys found in value meals)

I tapped two nails into a work-surface. The nails were 8' minus 1/4" apart.

I tied a loop in the starting end and wrapped around the nails 9 times.

Then I marked the Start end with some paint.

Viola! A tool to show us exactly where to drive the T posts so they would be in alignment with the length of the feedlot panels.

Untangling the cord

The first five minutes at Southern Belle's was spent untangling the cord and stretching it down the two-track that runs beside the paddock.

Then we dropped the loop on one end of the cord over the corner T post of the current paddock and pulled the cord to stretch it. Then we stuck another T post 32' away (two feedlot panel lengths) for the corner post of the new paddock.

I stood behind Southern Belle (west of her) as she started slamming in the post with her driver.

Unknown to us, precisely 24 inches eastsoutheast of where she was driving the post was a yellowjacket (Vespula maculifrons) nest. It took SB about three whacks of with the driver before they were boiling around her and sharing their misery with her.

"Oh SHIT! I am getting stung by bees!!!!" she said, dropping the post driver and sprinting toward the house.

At which point I also vamoosed.

Time to make a plan

After dosing Southern Belle with 50mg of diphenhydramine (which I carry in a ziplock baggie in my pocket)** I drove home to get the materials I needed to deal with the yellowjackets.

I cleaned the remnants of herbicide out of my sprayer and mixed up 1/2 gallon of permethrin insecticide.

I found my fishing hat with the mosquito netting.

And then I walked out into the breezeway between our house and garage and pulled my quilted coveralls off of the hook where it hangs year-round.

And it was slightly heavier than I expected. Because it had a set of keys in the pocket. 

It had my keys in the pocket because that is where I put them after locking the door to the house when I am going for a run. Mrs ERJ had unlocked the door and I must have been distracted when I came back from my last run (maybe ten days ago) and not picked them up. Then I didn't have a need for them for a bit and forgot that is where I had left them.

So do I tell Southern Belle that St Anthony of Padua may have sent those yellowjackets? Without those yellowjackets, it would have been months before I would have worn those insulated coveralls. On one hand I am sad that she got stung three times. On the other hand I am filled with joy that I found my keys before hunting season started and I needed to open the safe.

*Apologies to Luke 15:9

“Or what woman having ten coins and losing one would not light a lamp and sweep the house, searching carefully until she finds it?

And when she does find it, she calls together her friends and neighbors and says to them, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found the coin that I lost.’

**I hung out for 20 minutes after she got stung to see if she had a reaction to the stings.

Presented without comment

 

First-World "root-causes" based Justice

Pawpaw recently posted an essay titled Root Causes.

We look at teen violence and try to ascribe root causes to try to rationalize behavior.  Most of that rationalization is bullshit. 

The sociologists try to put people in groups to explain societal problems and that is not always predictive.  There are always outliers.

The best thing that a society can do to establish tranquility it to set rules and enforce them. A rule that is not enforced is useless.

As a cop, I learned that the rules change from time to time. It was not my job to try to understand why someone would choose to break the law.  It was simply my job to enforce it. 

Sergio Yanes Preciado pictured above

An example of First-World "justice" involves Sergio Yanes Preciado who allegedly approached a family in a public park in Montreal’s Parc-Extension neighborhood and without provoction assaulted the father by spraying him with an unknown substance and then proceeded to batter him.

Now, a criminologist, who was not identified, has suggested the hot weather might have contributed to Preciado's actions that day. Temperatures reached a high of almost 90 degrees Fahrenheit. 

The criminologist had conducted a quick mental health evaluation ahead of Preciado's appearance before Quebec Court Judge Martin Chalifour inside Montreal courthouse Wednesday, according to The Montreal Gazette.

Are you following this line of reasoning? "Modern, First-World" criminologist claim that the father was assaulted because of Global Warming. Preciado was not responsible. The weather was.

The court ordered a 30 day psychiatric evaluation pending any legal action against Preciado. 

The flaw in this logic

There are approximately four-million people living in the Montreal metropolitan region. Approximately 1/3 of a million are men of Preciado's age +/- five years. If the weather is to blame, why didn't the other 333,332 men go nuts on that day?

To quote Pawpaw, "Most of that rationalization is bullshit." and it does a disservice to the people living in the communities where anti-social people are not held accountable.

The same flaw shows up in the "It's always the --gg--s!"

Granted, as a demographic they are disproportionately represented in crime statistics. But why is there a 4.5X difference in incarceration rates for Blacks (as a per-100k/per-100k white people) between New Jersey and Mississippi/Georgia/Alabama? What about all of the Black people who do NOT commit crimes but quietly go about their lives, work at their jobs, raise their children. If race is destiny, then how do you explain them?

Perhaps there is more of a culture of personal accountability in Mississippi, Georgia and Alabama. Maybe the courts don't make excuses (like "it's of climate change") for juveniles-of-color.

Rachel's Folly by Patrice Lewis (a book review)

Romance novels are not what I usually read although I will admit to having read one or two of them in my lifetime. So this review will seem odd to those who make a steady diet of them.

First, I want to lead off by saying that any book that is self-published is a masterpiece, just as any Whitetail Deer harvested with traditional archery equipment is a trophy. I am not going to point out tiny air-bubbles in the plot or events I might have written differently. Rather, I am going to point out what I think she did exceptionally well.

Homesteading is physically demanding

Mrs Lewis did not candy-coat the simple fact that homesteading requires an almost incomprehensible number of hours of physical labor every day. There are some upsides: You can eat phenomenally large amounts of food and still lose weight. You sleep like the dead. If you don't hurt yourself in the process, then you become physically much stronger.

The homesteader is at the mercy of the weather

As modern people, we benefit from a transportation system that smooths-out local variation in weather. You can live in Phoenix or Fairbanks and there are fresh fruits and vegetables in the grocery stores every week of the year.

Not so for the homesteader. Not only do they eat seasonally, but a severe weather event will impact their ability to feed themselves.

Mrs Lewis seamlessly worked those concepts into the story as part of the canvas that was the background for the couple's emerging relationship.

Recreation was productive

The couple went fishing: Even though it was "downtime", it was still an activity that had the potential to put protein into the diet.

They visited a neighbor: Even though it was "recreational", they still swapped things they had excesses of. The neighbor was good at sewing (for instance) while Sam did chores that were easier for a man to do.

Nothing was wasted

Right off the bat, Sam is singing the praises of pine-needles to Rachel. A bit of a rabbit-hole but that was probably Mrs Lewis's intention; to demonstrate that even commodities as common and boring as pine-needles or a match were not to be wasted.

Predators must be respected

Elk, deer, rabbits and mice want to eat the trees. Sam has a 10' tall fence around the garden.

Coyotes, wolves, bears, cougars, hawks, eagles and owls want to eat your livestock. This is not Disneyland. The livestock is shut in the barn every night. Any lapse in vigilance can be very costly.

Homesteaders think about time in a different way

Somebody who works in an office often works from a daily To-Do list. Somebody who works on "projects" often has a guide-book that outlines the specific order things must be done in.

Mrs Lewis doesn't preach about it, but she accurately describes how young fruit trees need time before they are productive. She describes how they must flower in the spring if they are to bear fruit in the autumn. Later in the book, she describes how a fallen tree must be cut and split and dried for a year before it will be dry enough to burn. 

She describes (in painfully funny detail) the steps that must happen to build a fire and cook eggs and bacon...it being clear that you cannot cook bacon if you cannot first build a fire.

These are all things that happen as cycles within cycles, like the drum cadence, melodies and themes that build and recur within a symphony. 

Diversity of tasks

A homestead is actually a conglomeration of a multitude of related enterprises. Keeping the cats marching in formation is a juggling act. Paradoxically, we fail at perfection but succeed at good-enough.

Every day is different. Even with in the day the tasks can bounce around from hour-to-hour.

Except for weeding the garden. That never goes away. 

Celibacy

Sam and Rachel did not become "physically intimate" during the four months they were together. Many readers will find that impossible to believe.

Mrs Lewis makes the point that physical intimacy early in a relationship stunts the incentive to get to know more about the other person. Not her words, but "Hey, I am getting my immediate needs met. There is no point in 'wasting' time getting to know more details about this person" 

Aging

Mrs Lewis makes the point that some power tools can make a huge difference in how long we can stay-in-the-game with a chainsaw being a prime example. As we get older we become more vulnerable to repetitive motion injuries and we take longer to heal. An hour with a chainsaw can do as much heavy cutting as one man can do in four days.

Summary

Mrs Lewis writes as somebody who has been-there-done-that. The plot (researching for a Reality TV show) carries exceptionally well. Some readers will zone-out during the information deep-dives, but that is OK. It is just like when I skim over gratuitous sex sequences in other books. Just because the words are there doesn't mean you have to read every one of them.

The background for Mrs Lewis's book presents "homesteading" with great fidelity as it carries the love story of two lonely (and wounded) people.