Chest freezers

Southern Belle sent me out to buy a 7 cubic foot, chest freezer. Menards has them for sale for $200 which is about what people are selling used ones on Craigslist.

She plans to use a six-tub system. Three stacks of two tubs. The bottom tub is "fill" and the top tub is "use". One stack will be vegetables. Another will be fruits-and-bagels. The last stack, the one over the compressor (which is a smaller space) will be meat-and-dairy.

The big problem with chest freezers is that they fill up with food that cannot be seen or accessed. The cook might know the food is in the freezer but cannot take the time to dig through the hodge-podge...either that or they get frostbitten fingers.

Looking out the window

I recently had the opportunity to drive 1500 miles from south-to-north. This is a verbal description of what I noticed.

West of Miami: Bald Cypress and Long Leaf Pine.

Tampa: Elderberry (blooming), Sweet Gum showed up

Dade City: Sycamore?

Rolled down the window, honked the horn and hollared "Hello Annie!"

Ocala: Magnolia blooming, Mimosa (Albezia, not the drink), Mulberry trees

Gainesville: Red Cedar

Georgia: Long Leaf Pine gave way to Loblolly Pine.

Chattanooga: Blackberries and Multiflora Rose blooming, Black Locust blossoms just starting to open. Shortleaf Pine dominant.

Knoxville: Honeysuckle blooming. Black Locust in full bloom. Shortleaf Pine very healthy looking. (Shortleaf Pine is native into southern Indiana but it looks scruffy and unhappy.)

Rockcastle, Ky: First White Pine sighted.

Corinth Ky: First Redbud blooming. American Plums ending bloom.

Dayton Oh: Redbuds in full bloom. 

Toledo, Oh: American Plums in full bloom.

I know there are some big gaps in the story but I was driving for 1/2 the time and was looking at the road and not the scenery.

Springtime from a different perspective

B50 Growing Degree Days is one measure of how much "heat" has accumulated over the course of the growing season. It is one way to quantify how sprung "springtime" is since many plants don't grow much when the temperatures are below 50 degrees F.

The chart shown above suggests that plants in Charlotte, Michigan would have had a similar degree of development on April 5, 2021 as on May 1, 2018 and May 1, 2021. All three dates had about 85 GDD b50. That is a huge range of 3.7 weeks.

Even if you said "2021 is an outlier. Let's ignore it" then you still have an April 12-to-May 1 range or about 2.3 weeks.

One rule-of-thumb is that springtime proceeds north at a rate of about 200 miles per week. 2.3 weeks is the equivalent of 460 miles or the N/S distance between Eaton Rapids, Michigan and Knoxville, Tennessee.

It will be interesting to see if we have Black Locust in full bloom on May 18 since that is where Knoxville is right now and they should be that far ahead of us if the 200 miles a week is true.

Jokes from down South

Q: Why did the armadillo cross the road?

A: To show the possum it could be done.

Q: Why did the armadillo cross the road?

A: To get to the Shell Station.

 

Q: Why did the armadillo cross the road?

A: He was auditioning as the drummer in a Heavy Metal band (Thump-Thump)

A fat man showed up at the Pearly Gates and St Pete was taking his personal info.

St Pete: Where are you from?

Fat man: "Yup Nort. Oim from Joisey" (I am from New Jersey).

St Pete: Can you tell me an interesting story from your life so folks can remember you better? 

Fat man: "Yeah, I'z pullin' a U-Haul in Florida when I hadda take a leak. Soes I parks da rig 'side da road and stepped inta da weeds an I starts to whiz."

St Pete: "Sounds interesting. Keep going" as he scribbles the story on a divine tablet.

Fat Man: "Soes I feels dis tappin on my shoulder and I turns ta see whad it is, 'n its a Florida State Trooper"

St Pete: "Yes, keep going"

Fat Man: "An I peed all up and down da leg-a his pants and all over both dem shiny boots"

St Pete: "That's one of the best stories we have had in a long time. And when did you say that happened?"

Fat man, looking at his watch: " 'bout tree minutes ago."

 

Vanilla Ice Cream

Southern Belle had some concerns about how I would "fit in" with the stream of people who came by to wish them well. She was afraid I would argue politics and her neighborhood is overwhelmingly Democrats.

Miami: Where even the trees have sex-appeal.

A

The closest I came to getting into trouble was when a fellow native plant-enthusiast was giving me a tour of her backyard. I was later informed that those tours are rarely granted so I was one of the privileged few. She was pointing out her most cherished plants and I was making wild guesses as to what they were.

A nice specimen of an Oncidium orchid.

She pointed at one of them and I guessed "Palmetto" and she was amazed.

"How did you know that?" she asked.

I really wanted to tell her that Palmetto State Armory was one of my favorite suppliers of toys...but discretion won out. I mumbled something about just getting lucky.

Bursera simaruba, sometimes called the Tourist Tree because the bark is bright red and peeling...just like the tourist's faces.

And for those of you who care about such things, her picks for keystone tree species in southern Florida are Ficus citrifolia, Quercus virginiana, Bursera simaruba and Sabal palmetto. She favors trees that produce many nooks and crannies for lizards and other wildlife to seek haven in (to avoid feral cats) and trees that support a wide range of bug-life. 

K

One of the neighbors who paid stopped by to visit was "K". We talked about fishing.

One of his fondest memories was of catching a wild trout on Long Island, NY. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, there are both wild brook trout and wild rainbows in the waters of Long Island, NY. Maybe even a few wild brown trout as well.

J

J is a process manager in a growing business. We talked shop. I think I established credibility when I guessed that the machinery that ran on 50Hz AC was from Europe. He was struggling to get the machinery supplier to agree to run it on 60Hz, which is line current. Super weird, the machinery came with a equipment to convert 60Hz domestic current to 50Hz so the three-phase motors would spin the load at the desired speed.

He cracked open a bottle of single-malt to celebrate running across another dirty-hands, industrial guy in the ocean of soft-feely types. I feel obliged to do some research on helping him with one of his bottlenecks. A man has to pay for his drinks one way or another.

C

We were given a tour of an "Agritainment" venue in the Redlands.

Hawaiian Mountain Pig.

I scored points by guessing at the breeds of animals that were on the farm. My guesses were invariably wrong but I got points for trying.

M

We talked about German Shepherds. She is a fan.

R

He showed me the pictures of his farm and Cedrela odorata plantation that he had on his phone.

Vanilla ice cream

Vanilla ice cream goes with everything because it complements everything. It never overpowers other flavors. It is an easel or a blank canvas that lets the other person be the artist.

I tried to be vanilla ice cream.

The turning of pages

Quicksilver is getting her nightly bath and is cooing in sounds that simulate complex sentences of multi-syllable words. She is gesturing and I think we will be standing beneath a verbal waterfall after she gets her ChatterBox AI calibrated to mid-Western English.

Handsome Hombre is unloading the luggage that was stashed in Southern Belle's Chevy. Thanks to all who suggested the car-hauler. It seemed a little bit skittish yesterday morning when we started out but it was due to the gusty winds.

HH and I started at 6:30 local time with a temp of 85F. We stopped near Chattanooga, TN at 21:30 to a temperature of about 38F and we slept. Back on the road at 6:07. 

We went in 200 mile hops and depending on the wind sucked up between 17 and 22 gallons of fuel at each stop. We arrived in Eaton Rapids at 18:00.

HH graciously drove the shifts that were dark and through Atlanta (boo-hiss on Atlanta traffic) and Knoxville. He also drove through Cincinnati and through some horrific cross-winds between Dayton-and-Lima, Ohio.

We were greeted with hot chili con carne and cornbread. We did a minimum unload in the 45F rain. We will finish unloading tomorrow. Meanwhile, the box on the truck is open to air it out. It was bug-bombed just before we left Miami to deal with a cockroach infestation which we do NOT want here.

Handsome Hombre, Southern Belle and Quicksilver are here to stay.

And in other news...

Mom passed away in April. ...slowly at first and then quickly. She died at dawn with her two daughters holding her hand. Both of my sisters are nurses. They could judge by the changes in the sound and cadence of her breathing.

...like a libation poured out. It was a race well run, a fight well fought. There is nothing to regret or have second thoughts about.

We suspect she is "upstairs" eating cookies and drinking milk with the saints and discussing the merits of melatonin and tryptophan and a sweet morsel before hitting the rack.

Garden

All of the plants survived the inattention.

The snap-peas I planted just before leaving are up but the ones I planted two weeks before are not. Old seed! Mrs ERJ is very clear that she wants Super Sugar Snap peas and those are the ones that did not come up. The "other" peas are PLS-141 which is supposed to be similar to SSS peas.

Anniversaries

Today is the anniversary of when my leg was operated on. I was hit by a vehicle at 10PM the night before.

A question I kept getting asked was "Are you suing the driver of the car?"

No, I talked it over with Mrs ERJ. Realistically, we MIGHT get $50k-to-$150k. And while we are not well-to-do, the additional money is not a game-changer. We do not need it. And at this point, it is now a moot issue. The injured party has 365 days under Michigan Law to initiate legal proceedings. That time passed.

And even if I had sued and received $100k, what would I invest in that would retain value and that I do not already have? I keep hearing that 19 out of every 20 people who get a lump settlement burn through it in less than two years and then have nothing to show for it except more expensive tastes, a case of STDs and impaired liver function. 

My needs are very simple. That is an asset I cherish. And right now those needs are being satisfied in spades.

Apologies for the deception

I apologize to any who feel slighted (Hey, wait a minute. Were those tomato pictures really taken on Thursday?") but loose lips sink ships. We swooped in. We slammed-and-jammed luggage. We boogied. There was no time budgeted for blogging.

Details will follow.

Preview of the 2024 Republican Primary

 ===>HERE<===

Video trimmed down to 1:30 for your viewing convenience.

Busy is good, right?

oNE more day of crazy-busy and then I'll expect a normal day on Tuesday. God willing.