The Shrewd King 10.3: Credit

“I want to see Pete, next.” Ken said after Kelly left the office. “He has farthest to go and doesn’t have anybody to travel with.”

Pete entered the office with trepidation. Kelly’s outburst was beyond the pale in the culture he was from.

“I understand that I need a line of credit to buy corn next week.” Pete started.

“Yup.” Ken said. “Either horses, solar panels or promissory notes to be paid off, in-kind, when the field south of your store is harvested.”

“How much credit will you extend on field south of my store? It makes a difference on what I can pay for corn.” Pete said. He was no stranger to haggling.

“Right now, I cannot extend you any credit on that field.” Ken said.

“But you said it was secured by the next harvest.” Pete said.

“Yeah, well about that.” Ken said. “The three of us took a ride around and looked at that field. Except for one or two small patches, it is choked with weeds and you aren’t going to get any corn off it. We cannot extend credit when we don’t have confidence that you will have a harvest and be able to pay it back.”

Pete blinked. He was not a farmer and had assumed that the neighbors were taking care of business.

“What do you propose I do?” Pete asked.

“I can’t tell you what to do, but if it were me I would continue to sell to the the one-or-two people who are taking care of their share and to stop selling to the people who expect ‘somebody else’ to do the work.” Ken said. "Slackers are generally pretty quick learners, once they get hungry."

That was going to go over like a turd in the punch bowl.

“And if we get the field acceptably weeded by next Sunday, then can you extend us credit?” Pete asked.

“If me or Don or Earl looks it over on Monday and we like what we see, we will give you credit.” Ken said.

“Can one of you come over tomorrow so you can coach us on just how perfect the weeding needs to be?” Pete asked.

That sounded perfectly reasonable to Ken so he agreed that one of them would show up about 10:30, late enough for Pete to assemble a work crew.

“Can you give me a hint about what the reserve will be next week?” Pete asked.

“Lemme ask you a few questions. Then maybe you can figure it out for yourself.” Ken said.

“Where did you come from, Pakistan?” Ken asked.

“Close. Western India.” Pete replied.

“Manual laborers, men with no particular skills, how much money did they make a day?” Ken asked.

“Maybe two-hundred Rupees a day.” Pete said.

“How much rice would that buy?” Ken asked.

“About ten pounds.” Pete said.

“You can expect to pay at least that much for corn.” Ken said. “We don’t have fertilizer. We don’t have pesticides. India did.”

***

Benicio was the next person Ken met with.

Benicio, more than anybody else, understood exactly what Ken was doing. Benicio’s former business, at its core, was really no different than Ken’s current business. Both were retailing and both were virtual monopolies.

“I know you cannot predict next week’s prices.” Benicio said. “But do you think six, 600W panels with controllers will provide sufficient credit for next weeks bidding?”

“I can almost guarantee that it will.” Ken said.

“I will send them tomorrow to give you time to verify that they work. Where do you want them sent?” Benicio asked.

“Send them here but tag them ‘Collateral for grain auction’ so nobody is confused about why they are here.” Ken said.

***

The next person Ken met with was the rude, fat man.

“Do you know who I am?” the fat man demanded as he barged through the door.

“I expect you are Dennis Blastic.” Ken said.

Ken could have worked in a factory or gone to college. Rather, he chose to farm because he found a certain class of humans to be unbearable. He could kick a tractor and there was no harm done. The tractor never tried to stab him in the back.

Denny was the kind of human that Ken had the least patience with.

“Then you know that I don’t have to apply for any credit.” he said. “Kate already cleared us.”

“This ain’t Kate’s rodeo.” Ken said. “In fact, before you can bid you need to settle-up on your previous loans with Kate.”

Denny’s mouth gaped open in mock amazement. “You mean to tell me that 22, prime breeding horses aren’t enough collateral for you?”

“Not only that, but I have four-hundred tons of prime, grass hay.” Denny said.

“Yeah” Ken said, “me and Earl been meaning to ask you what you plan to do with that Canarygrass you cut. The other thing we wanted to ask was ‘How much did you lose in the barn fire?’ I am thinking you don’t have four-hundred tons now.“

“Whaddya mean ‘Canarygrass’, you rube. It is prime bromegrass hay. The best there is.” Denny demanded.

“Have you tried feeding it to your horses?” Ken asked. “Lemme know how THAT goes.”

“But we ain’t here to argue about hay.” Ken said.

“You want to bid next week, you settle up what you owe Kate and you bring a couple of horses for us to inspect. And if we agree they are worth enough, you can bid if you leave them for collateral.” Ken said.

Denny’s face grew even redder beneath his sunburn. He shook his head like a gill-hooked bullhead. Sure-as-hell he was going to feed that hay to his horses, he just hadn’t gotten around to it yet.

Denny would play along, for a little while. As soon as he got the chance he was going to jam it up the prissy farmer’s backside and break it off.

Next 

My name is Joe. I burn applesauce.

My name is Joe and I burn applesauce.

I don't always burn applesauce. Sometimes I can suck-it-up and not burn it.

But then I push the envelop. I turn the heat just a little higher. I use just a tad less water in the bottom of the kettle. I add a few more apples.

And then I burn the applesauce.

The batch of apples I was cooking down to mush is ruined.

The kettle is impaired. I have to scrub, and scrub and scrub...and even then apples cooked in the kettle pollute future ventures.

I am also an engineer

In theory, a double-boiler where the intermediate fluid has a boiling point significantly above the boiling point of pure water but far below the temperature that scorches apples would create a very robust process.

Commercial canneries use pressurized steam. Water is cheap but equipment is not. The fixed costs of the steam equipment is amortized over enough volume that it become insignificant. That is not the case for the typical, home canner.

The next best thing would be to use an ethylene glycol-water solution as the intermediate fluid. My first swing at the pinata was to use a 2/3 EG:1/3 water solution with a boiling point of 236F...almost 25 degrees higher than pure water.

My concern was that the EG:water solution would boil and over-flow into the apples, thus contaminating them.

I investigated that concern by performing a trial run with the EG-H2O solution and using a full kettle of pure water as the test load.

This is what I found.

A turkey fryer. Nominally 55k BTU/hr. Sides modified to accept larger diameter double boiler. I cranked it up as hot as it would go to give it a severe test.

Three nuts to hold cooking vessel away from the bottom of the double boiler.

1.5 gallons of 65%:35% antifreeze:H2O. Large kettle has ID of about 15.5 inches. Smaller kettle has ID of about 11.5 inches.

Started at 11:36 AM. H2O payload hot-to-touch at 12:06. Antifreeze:H2O heat-transfer fluid bubbling at 12:11. H2O in cooking vessel at rolling boil at 12:20.

The primary concern was that the heat transfer fluid would bubble up and contaminate the apples being cooked. This photo shows the amount of rolling of the heat transfer fluid when the water in the cooking vessel was at a full, rolling boil and the turkey fryer LP burner was pegged.

The results of this trial run are promising enough to redo the experiment with real apples.

Energy slaves

Suppose the world suddenly changed and we needed to use human slaves to replace fossil fuels. How many slaves would it take to do tasks we now take for granted.

A pump station sends water 3000 feet over one mountain pass. At full capacity, it uses 2,460,000 energy slaves of power. 

If the entire population of the city of Los Angeles did nothing but pedal hard and sleep, they would generate this much energy.  -Source

A Ford Expedition SUV—1700 energy slaves. Arranged on bikes four abreast (a bit wider than a standard ten foot road lane) and squeezed so there was just a few feet between the front wheel of one and the rear wheel of the next, the Ford Expedition would require a column of energy slaves nearly a mile long...  -Source

So depending on how we count, each American has somewhere between 75 and 400 “energy slaves” working for him or her (24 hours a day), and the richer ones have thousands. The global average energy use is of course lower, and represents figures between 18 and 90...  -Source

In an austere environment, whether due to resource depletion, issues with distribution or scarcity created by political disagreement, a robust distribution system will diminish resources allocated to lower-utility uses to protect higher-utility uses. For example, rational people would choose to not air condition their garage if it means they have energy to transport their wife-in-labor to medical help.

Planned economies...socialism/communism...historically are terrible at efficiently allocating resources.  Political elite eat strawberries in January while peasants starve. Celebrities fly private planes to distant locations to discuss "justice" while women walk fifteen miles a day to collect firewood to cook their family's bread.

Technologies that can convert waste to either food or mechanical/electrical energy will be the Philosopher's Stones that converts dross to gold. Those technologies can be draft animals, gasifiers or steam engines. They can also be structural, using the waste heat in a loft to dry herbs, for instance. 

The Shrewd King 10.2: Ibbiddy-ibbiddy-ibbiddy-oo

“For sale is Lot-Number-One. There is a reserve on this lot. If the reserve is not met, none of the other lots of corn will be sold.”

“Lot-Number-One is fifteen bushels of prime, clean, last-years, Michigan corn. Who will give me 100 silver dollars?”

“Ibbidy, ibbidy, ibbiddy dee” Farmer Ken singsonged in traditional auctioneer fashion.

He paused and looked around the room.

“Who will give fifty? Ibbiddy-ibbiddy-ibbiddy-oo”

“Do I hear twenty? Ibbiddy-dee”

“Ten? Ibbiddy-ibbiddy-ibbiddy-oo”

The fat man hollered “I will give you five.”

“I have five. Now do I hear ten, do I hear ten, I am looking for ten Ibbiddy-ibbiddy-ibbiddy-dee”

I have five, do I hear seven? Ibbiddy-ibbiddy-ibbiddy-oo”

Benicio raised his card.

“I have seven, I have a seven, do I have a ten? Ibbiddy-ibbiddy-ibbiddy-dee”

“Eight.” the fat man countered. That was half of what he was currently paying and it was his limit.

“I have eight, I have eight, do I have nine? Ibbiddy-ibbiddy-ibbiddy-oo”

Slowly and painfully, the price inched up to fifteen dollars a load which was exactly what the stores had been paying. Then the price held.

“I hear fifteen, I hear fifteen, do I hear fifteen-and-a-quarter…..”

“I have fifteen once….I have fifteen twice….I have fifteen a third time...”

“Reserve not met. No corn will be sold this week.” Ken said.

Except for the hum of the fan, you could have heard a pin drop.

“What is the reserve?” the fat man demanded.

“The reserve is the minimum price the seller will accept.” Ken said.

“I know THAT.” the fat man said. “But what is the price?”

Ken really did not like the fat man.

“I could tell you what the reserve WAS but it will be higher next week. So there is no point in sharing that information.”

“On to the soybeans.” Ken said.

“How many are here to bid on soybeans?” Ken asked.

Only Kelly raised his hand.

“Can’t have an auction with only one buyer, so I will tell you the reserve and we will transact at that price.”

Kelly nodded. That seemed fair to him.

“Why don’t you step into Kate’s office and we will take care of business.” Ken said. Ken suspected that Kelly was not going to be happy with the price and he wanted a modicum of privacy.

Then Ken said to the others, “After Kelly, I will see anybody who wants to bid next week to make arrangements for credit.”

Ken asked Kelly to shut the flimsy door behind him.

Ken told Kelly what the reserve price on the soybeans was.

The blast of anger from behind the door nearly knocked the others in the auction room off their seats, it was so unexpected.

“What the FUCK do you mean, I can buy soybeans for $25 a bushel!!! I was paying $3 a bushel yesterday.”

Ken’s voice, low and calm filtered through the crack at the bottom of the door, too quiet to make out the words.

“FUCK NO! I can’t afford that.” Kelly’s voice burst out.

More low rumbling from Ken.

“You are fucking killing me. My customers can’t afford those prices and I can’t eat the loss.” Kelly said.

Inside the office, Ken said “I know that. And we wouldn't have been able to put in a crop this year without your and Milo's help. We are might appreciative for all you have done.”

And that is when Kelly came unglued.

Kelly was running on fumes. Stevie Wonder could have seen it, had he taken time to look.

Ken saw it coming. Don saw it. Earl saw it. That is why Ken wanted to do business in the office, to give Kelly at least a shred of privacy and dignity.

What the farmer’s couldn’t know...but they suspected...was that Kelly was eating poorly and sleeping worse. They also suspected that Kelly and Di had not been intimate in months.

Farming is a high stress profession. They had all been there. They could see the signs. It was like looking in the mirror.

Kelly raged on for five minutes. Every time he started to slow down and Ken tried to say something, Kelly lit back up. It was a short loop and he repeated himself several times. But there was nothing that Kelly said that was untrue.

The crowd in the auction room were riveted by the drama. Mr Ed turned off his smartphone. It would be rude to record a man who so completely lost control.

Finally, Kelly wound down, more from his voice hurting than for lack of something to say.

“Like I was saying” Ken said as if Kelly had not been screaming at him for five minutes, “we are awful appreciative of what you have done.”

“We kept track of the field-work and log hauling you done.” Ken said. “We kept track and credited you with it.”

“Whaddya mean, ‘credited me with it’?” Kelly asked.

“Credited you and Milo.” Ken said.

“We know to the gallon how much diesel it takes to work our fields.” Ken said. “We worked it backwards to the number of man-years and we credited you with that.”

In fact, both Ken and Earl had done the math separately and then had Phil Wilder check the math. They figured that a gallon of diesel equaled 13 horse-power-hours which was the same as 130 man-hours or about twenty man-days  per gallon of diesel given the fact that most men couldn't put in a full day of physical work. When there was a range of estimates, they gave Kelly the benefit of the doubt to account for the wear-and-tear on his equipment.

Ken took the piece of paper that was on the desk in front of him. He spun it around and pushed it across the table to Kelly.

Kelly picked it up. “What is this?”

“It is a receipt acknowledging the balance we owe you.” Ken said.

Kelly sat down. The number was large, eye-poppingly large...almost fifty man-years of labor.

“You might want to think about using some of that money to hire some helpers.” Ken said. “We cannot afford to have you work yourself to death and I think there will be a lot of men looking for work in a week or two.”

Next

A day of fixing "stuff"

I installed a motion activated light on mom and dad's back porch. We have care-givers coming and going all hours of the day and night. With the days getting shorter, more of those entries will be in the dark and it is hard to hit the keyhole in pitch dark.

I removed the overhead light and installed the motion activated light. Then I switched the light switch on inside and covered the switch with tape.

I got a call last night. The new light stopped working.

Dad took the dog for a midnight walk last night and very carefully removed the tape, switched the light off and then reapplied the tape.

I installed a battery powered, motion activated light. At this point, nobody is going to change how dad does things.

The clothes dryer
Mrs ERJ informed me that the clothes dryer squealed at her and then quit.

I assumed it was a belt problem.

I was wrong. The rear bearing on the engine was squealing. I was unable to figure out how to wrestle the motor out of the unit.

Attempts to give it a bath in the unit were unsuccessful.  Turning the motor by hand still resulted in squealing.

I reassembled the dryer and stuffed it back in the hole. "What the heck" I thought. I had nothing to lose. I pushed the button and the drum would not even spin.

Pushing in the "Go" button with one hand, depressing the door position switch with a screwdriver held between my teeth and "helping" the drum start spinning with my other hand...the dryer found its groove and spun...with no squealing.

I have no clue why it is working. None at all. The lube I dribbled on the motor bearings will collect dust and make a mess, but maybe we can get another six months out of the beast.

The S-10
Transmission fluid leak. That was disconcerting as the vehicle only has 55k miles on it.

The transmission fluid cooler lines that run to the radiator had rotted out. Things like that happen on vehicles that are 17 years old and get winter salt on them.

$400 bucks to fix it, mostly parts.

The Silverado
The fuel fill pipe (or neck) is also rotted out and gas drips when filling the vehicle.  Looks like a job I can do myself. The parts are $95. The parts are ordered.

The Shrewd King 10.1: The Auction House

Farmer Ken stood behind a table at the front of the main show room in Kate’s store. She had agreed to use her store as the site for the auction, even though she was not happy about the possibility of the price of corn going up.

She had no idea.

Tables and shelves had been dragged to the sides of the room, opening up the space in the middle where folding chairs had been arranged in rows.

Farmers Earl and Don were sitting at a table to Ken’s left, checking in bidders and assigning numbers as they came through the side door.

A couple of young Hispanic men sat toward the back of the room. There was something “urban” about them: Maybe their footwear, maybe the fact that they wore sunglasses rather than baseball caps.

A fat man with a sunburned face entered the room after they did. He mumbled something just under his breath as he passed them.

The younger of the Hispanic men started to rise out of his seat when the older man, all of thirty, made a small motion and the younger man sat back down like a well trained dog. The younger man was clearly not happy about being brought back to heel.

The fat man sat two rows in front of the Hispanic men and stretched out his arm, taking up all of three seats and parts of two more. He stretched out his legs and pushed the seat in front of him forward before farting.

Kate and Luke already had numbers.

A thin, east-Indian man that Ken recognized as Pete got a number and sat on the other side of the aisle, the side that was away from the side door.

John and Sam Wilder came and got a number. They sat behind Pete.

Gabby Gonzales (formerly Salazar) and Kelly Carney, of gasifier, brewing and soy-oil fame, sat together and shared a ticket. They needed grain for the distillery and soy beans for the oil operation.

Paul Seraph arrived but did not register.

Mr Ed Hall got a number as did a few of the other locals. Ed was fiddling with a smartphone. Clearly, he intended to record the auction and play it back as a broadcast.

Entertainment was hard to find on a Monday evening.

Ken banged the gavel against the top of his "podium". His Casio read exactly 6:00 PM.

“This is the first auction to sell grain held by the three of us” Ken said, gesturing at the two other farmers who still sat at the registration table.

“We will hold an auction every Monday. We will not sell grain outside the auction. When the auction is over, selling is over until the next Monday” Ken said.

“The grain will be sold in lots of fifteen bushels.” Ken said. "That is about a thousand pounds of ear corn and was chosen because it is about what most wagons can carry."

It was also about what a hundred people would eat in a week if they didn't have chickens or livestock to feed. It was a good, round number to work with.

The fat man interrupted “How do you intend to measure the grain?”

“I was getting to that.” Ken said.

“The grain will be sold in lots of fifteen bushels.” Ken repeated.

Ken had been to many auctions. Sometimes, when the auction was being run by a young auctioneer, the auctioneer would lose control of the selling. Ken had observed that the old-timers did not allow buyers to set the pace or agenda. When interrupted, the old-timers repeated what they had been saying and continued with their patter. In fact, they would often punish the impatient by slowing down their delivery as if talking to somebody who was especially stupid.

“Shelled corn runs 56 pounds to the bushel. Corn-on-the-ear runs 68 pounds to the bushel. We sell by the volume. If you object to the volume we will weigh the weight of the measure. If measure is light, the entire load is discounted in favor of the buyer. If the measure is heavy then the buyer must pay the extra for the entire lot. We will only entertain a weight measure ONCE per buyer. Is that understood?” Ken said.

The bidders nodded although the fat man grimaced at the possibility of having to pay extra if the volume measure proved to be in his favor.

“How do I know your scale is honest.” the fat man interrupted again.

Ken looked down at him, coldly. Ken was an honest 6’-2” tall and the fat man was sitting. “If you don’t trust us you are free to take your custom elsewhere.”

“Buyer is responsible for bringing any containers. We are selling in bulk.”

“Buyers are responsible for monitoring quality. We make no warrants or guarantees for after the corn leaves the property.

“Buyers must pick up their corn within a week of buying. We will not store sold corn beyond a week.” Ken said. "If you don't pick it up it becomes our corn."

“Terms of the sale are cash-on-the-barrelhead or credit if the sellers agree to the terms.” Ken said, pointing at Kate’s office. Since Kate did not have a podium, Ken had taken an actual barrel and sawed 10” off one end to use as a podium and to serve as a place to strike his gavel.

“In the future, credit must be secured before you will be issued a bidding number.” Ken said.

“For today, and today only, we accepting the following at par value:

• 300 silver dollars (about 230 ounces of silver)
• one-man-year of labor,
• one healthy, full-sized horse between two and six years of age
• 1200 Watts of solar panels with integrated controllers.

“Seller has placed a reserve.” Ken said. "If the reserve is not met on the first lot then none of the lots of that product will be sold."

“More than one lot is available but I am not at liberty to say how many lots are available.” He finished.

“Soybeans will be sold after the corn.” Ken said. “May I see a show of hands, how many bidders are here for corn.”

Five hands went up.

Benicio and his wingman were there to see if they could pick up a bargain.

Denny Blastic was going through the corn faster than he could account for. The horses were not touching the hay he had cut and he was supplementing with even more corn than he used in the winter.

Luke, Kate and Pete were there to buy stock for their stores.

“With no further ceremony, let’s start the bidding." Ken said.

Next

A day of rest

I added some information stickers to my Lee Load-All rigs for reloading shotshells. This is the 12 gauge setup. It gives me information to double-check to ensure safe reloading, that is, the powder bushing size (155) and the shot bushing size (1-1/8 oz). It lists the powder it is setup for and the measured weight of the charge dropped.

The sticker on the 20 gauge rig. Murphy is an optimist. Putting the information on the reloader means I don't have to rely on memory or generic

Someday I want to watch De Zaak Alzheimer, a movie about an aging French hitman who implements many coping skills to negate the effects his disability has on the execution of his chosen profession.

I also bit the bullet and bought another twenty pound LP cylinder. I suspect that somebody thought they needed my old one more than I needed it.  I like using the turkey cooking setup outside when making applesauce. It helps keep the house cool.