Bump. Up-Periscope at Bison Prepper

James Dakin, author of the dormant Bison Prepper posted here https://bisonprepper.blogspot.com/2021/08/august-article-50-prepper.html

"Dormant" isn't quite accurate. He went private but decided to give folks a peek at what they are missing.

Teaser

I don’t want you to JUST survive on wheat or soy or rice. I want you to have enough to be able to survive on long term, as a base calorie. To get enough calories to have the strength to add other foods to that core. That if you had no other food for stretches of time, to at least survive with no ill effects other than taste fatigue. And believe me, I’ve been there, taste fatigue is NOT what you worry about at the time. It is hunger. The taste fatigue comes AFTER.  Emphasis mine

Software induced hydraulic lock

https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/bad-news-south-african-looters-samsung-moves-block-their-stolen-tvs

Samsung South Africa has now announced that they would be remotely blocking all TVs looted from shops during this period. They will do this using a security feature known as Television Block Function which is found in all modern Samsung Television sets. The block will be activated on all Television sets looted from their warehouses in Durban last month.

Maybe Biden can ask Samsung to turn off all the Korean chips used in US Military equipment in A-stan... Biden is big on asking.

I am mildly curious about the process for software updates in vehicles and aircraft. Is it solely hardware like thumbdrives carried to the device and inserted and thence activated via a key-code (most secure system)? Or can it be done remotely the way Hughes Network turned off hacked unscramblers just before the Super Bowl one year?

It is difficult for me to believe that there is a total absence of "back-doors" that could be used to de-tune captured equipment. Coding changes as simple as tainting data-lookup tables in trajectory calculators or flooding a single cylinder of a diesel engine with fuel as it starts its pre-startup sequence. The "failures" could be randomly assigned to make it look like simple incompetence. 

For all the sports thinking of investing in precious metals

 

A cube of lead that weighs 2200 pounds is 17.7" on a side. You could fit it in the trunk of a Cooper Mini.

How many batteries in Afghanistan

If the post-collapse Taliban supplemented with the regular Afghan army deserters measures 300,000.

And if an infantry battalion of 500 soldiers runs through $150,000 worth of batteries a year which works out to $300 of batteries per set of boots-on-the-ground.

Then the Taliban will have to find $90,000,000 a year to keep their new toys in batteries.

Running list of winter tasks

-Prune Norway spruce of side limbs to 10' in height

-Harvest all Black Locust over 6" diameter. Cut to 8' bolts/posts. NOTE: Leave some big ones on hill along west travel corridor.

-Remove Black Locust suckers by fence line with Sprite

-Remove all 4 Lucie Kuhlman grapevines. Tentatively replace with Steuben

-Remove five Swenson Red from west end of south trellis. Tentatively replace with Reliance seedless grape.

-Remove remaining V. riparia on north trellis. Replace with ???

-Prune purple-leaved plums back to European plum buds.

-Prune CC limbs back to pollinator varieties budded on them.

-Remove vines climbing trees in the Black Walnut plantation.

-Remove another 4' of branches from the White Pine east of the Black Walnut plantation

-Cull Wild Black Cherry and Silver Maple

-Cull Ash that is crowding Black Walnuts or other mast producing trees

-Remove non-IEM branches from trees where grafts of Illinois Everbearing Mulberry took

-Clear barn foundation of Sumac. Fig nursery?

-Cull apricot trees from east yard.

---Added 9/5---

-Create 10' wide buffer area along east side of northern paddocks, approximately 350 feet long. That is, move hot-wire ten feet to the west.

-Plant "clumps" of 

• hazelnut seeds (Jefferson, NY 398 and seedling), 
• South Dakota plum seeds O.P., 
• peach pits from Madison O.P. trees 
• Marge elderberry cuttings, 
• David Johnson's L-50sxTrebbiano O.P. grape seeds, 
• Lehman's Delight O.P. persimmon seeds (might be too tall)
• Husk tomatoes
• Stupice tomato
• Jerusalem Artichokes
• Pawpaws
• Northline and JB-30 Saskatoon
• Polana raspberry

The goal is to create a "hedgerow" that will stay short enough to not bother the power wire.

Gratuitous orchard pictures

 

March 2018 Image from HERE

You can click on the images to embiggen them.

August 2021, approximately the same vantage point.

Swenson Red grapes

As long as I am posting pictures of food

This is a hybrid of a Minnesota riparia (L-50s) and Trebbiano, a white grape grown in Italy. It was made by David Johnson in Milton, Washington. The long, elegant clusters have widely spaced berries which is good for avoiding rot but bad for bird losses.

Shenandoah pears on a branch bending beneath their weight

Liberty apples are coloring up.

Hazelnuts from a seedling hazel bush. This is one of the better yielding seedlings. Some of the nuts are in clusters of 10

A close-up

NY 398 aka "Gene" in upper-left, Jefferson upper-right, seedling lower center.

Cracked-out

Canadian Plum, Prunus nigra. Notable for being very cold-hardy and suckering less than American Plum, Prunus americana. These are from a planting where the plums are less astringent than most local selections.

I did not grow the Canadian plums but had permission from a neighbor to harvest them. I am going to age them off the tree to see if the residual astringency diminishes. Then, I will save the seeds for planting.

Prunus nigra range map

Presented without comment

Nearly 80 years after his death (on Saturday August 21), Ensign Francis Flaherty was finally laid to rest in his hometown.

The Charlotte native died during the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. He was on the U.S.S. Oklahoma, which was hit several times by torpedoes and began to capsize. Flaherty remained on the ship as others escaped, holding a flashlight so others could find their way out.

His actions meant he was awarded a posthumous Medal of Honor, the United States' highest honor for military valor in action.

John Flaherty, the ensign's 79-year-old nephew, thanked the people of Charlotte for showing up to honor his uncle. 

"It seems like just the entire town of Charlotte was lined along the streets to bring him home," John said. "We cannot thank you all enough."

Text and images from the Detroit News