Tucking the garden in for the winter

I read in a magazine that planting oats in your garden is good for the soil and you can harvest a crop later in the year.

Can anybody tell me how long I will have to wait before the seeds germinate?

 Belatedly beating the garden into shape for the winter.

I need to rethink my management because I had a huge problem with snails. I always have some, but early summer, 2025 was ideal for snails from a rain and humidity standpoint.

I planted oats (actual oat seeds, not the cereal) this year for a cover crop. They winter-kill at about 20 Fahrenheit so they will not take-off and grow in the spring. I will till them under as soon as the ground is workable. My thinking is that the snails won't have any food or cover for most of April and that should knock back the population. 

Seeds

This time of year is a bonanza for seed collection. These are a persimmon variety named Juhl (aka Yates).

Nearly all of the very best Claypool persimmons have this variety as the female parent and some variant of Early Golden (Early Golden, Garretson, George, G1, G2, Killen, Golden Supreme, John Rick, Szukis, F-100) as the pollen parent. My two main trees have a Szukis or F-100 branch grafted into them.

This is an "on" year for Emma K black walnut. The crop on the Sparks 147 and Drake is much lighter. The Emma K is a very early bloomer and the seeds were undoubtedly pollinated by wild, unimproved trees. The Sparks 147 and Drake bloom at almost the same time and are planted close to each other, so it seems likely that many of the nuts are blessed with promising genetics from both sides. 

Finding a good woman (or man) is like drawing a good hand in poker

In a previous post Dan commented that it is difficult to find a woman who is "sane".

Michael replied that there are plenty of sane women out there.

Both statements are true. (Note: All of these comments apply to men as well)

I think most happy men agree that we were blessed/lucky to end up with our spouse. It is a rare man who marries the first women he takes a good, hard look at as spouse material.

Just a few from my past include:

• "DoriLee" who was naming our children after our second date. Names included Dorcus, Drusilla, Ogemaw, Crawford, Delta and other off-beat names. 
• "Anne Marie" and "Debbie" who were Boss-girls and called all the shots.
• "Joni" who had a high body-count and informed me on the first date that "I am on the pill".
• "Ivy" who was simply incompatible. 

And while some venues (church, hiking-clubs etc.) might enrich the pool of candidates, there are no guarantees.

Modern dating customs reward those who misrepresent themselves. WYSIWYG people need not apply. Profiles on apps are a hash of meaningless buzz-words that tell you nothing about their values. Everything is filtered to be inoffensive, especially the photos.

A simple photo of the person when they first woke up and a  24 hour log of what they did the previous day (in half-hour increments) tells you infinitely more about the person then the apps that claim to match you to your soul-mate.

Sadly, the deceit does not end at the app. The woman/man changes over time. Most of those changes are reversion to character and some are good...and many are bad. After all, we are our-best-self (or at least wearing our best face) when we are trying to attract a mate. Once we have a lock on them, we don't put quite as much effort into trying to "look good".

Like poker, the first cards we draw might be great or they might be less-than-mediocre. The hand we end up with depends, in part, on the cards we throw in.

And we still might end up with a really pathetic hand. 

Bonus image

The photo does not do justice to how the seed head glows.

Computer issues 8-(

Something happened to the official laptop of the ERJ blog. It probably involved German Shepherds, three-year-olds or clumsy sixty-six year-olds, either alone or in combination.

Two broken wires on the power supply. The opening on the port where the power cord plugs into is oblonged. I purchased a new power supply and it is not "making" the contacts.

I am using Mrs ERJ's desk-top computer.

I am going to sulk a while before spending the money to purchase a new (to me) laptop.

It may be God's way of telling me that I have a lot of chores sitting on the one-yard-line that I need to punch into the end-zone. 

Bonus image

I am corrupting Quicksilver just like any other grandfather would do.

We made peanut butter chocolate chunk cookies yesterday. They would have had more chocolate but somebody kept stealing the biggest pieces off of the cutting board.

Including the Peanut Gallery poisons negotiations

 

“If your brother sins [against you], go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother. If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that ‘every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses.’"    Matthew 18:15,16

 

I consider this high-level negotiation advice.

The video below shows fairly typical "modern" negotiation tactics

 

 Three minute run-time

 

To summarize for those who don't want to waste three minutes of their lives:

She went on a date with a man. It was an awesome date and he is a wonderful man...and she is going to dump him in six more hours if he doesn't text back and simp about how awesome she is. That is, she expects him to read her mind because she never told him that was important to her.

 

So rather than tell HIM what she needs (first line of the Scripture quoted), she goes on Tic-Tox or X or YouTube and preens about what a special-and-refined princess she is and what a clod the "wonderful man" is.

 

It is binary

You can either have a successful and profitable negotiation or stroke your ego and self-aggrandize.

 

It is fine to want both. But which is really important? If a successful and profitable conclusion is the most important thing, why would you handicap yourself by poisoning the negotiations? 

 

The budget debates illustrates this because the politicians are grandstanding for the voters back home rather than hammer out an effective budget. 

Some thoughts on the budget negotiations

According to Bazerman, Neale and Lewicki*, there are five biases or mind-sets that sabotage effective negotiations. These observations were written in 1983, so they are widely known and widely ignored.

Grandstanding...escalates conflict and polarization in negotiation when a firm public position is taken prior to negotiation. There is little room for anything but escalation since a retreat from or a change in the public position will be perceived as weakness and failure.

Public opinion is toxic to negotiation. Even when there is significant overlap in "acceptable" solutions, the rank-and-file shareholders will not accept any solution until both teams of negotiators pound each other to pulp. The rank-and-file's perception is that their negotiator could have "done better if they had tried harder" unless they cross the finish line totally spent and depleted. 

...bias due to the setting of a referent point (the benchmark by which gains or losses are determined) along the same lines as their public target goals, so that negotiators come to negotiation with a posture that fosters risk-seeking attitudes, making it less likely that a settlement will be reached.

...overconfident regarding the belief that their position will prevail, they will not be cooperative in pursuing other, more creative options conducive to a settlement

...inability or unwillingness to perceive the interests, aims, and needs of the other party has a bearing on rational negotiations, since a negotiator unable or unwilling to understand the other party's perspectives is not likely to bargain realistically.

...view that there is a 'fixed pie' (the gains of one party will mean loss for the other) also inhibits the development of creative options that yield maximal joint benefits. 

Looking at the budget negotiations and the government shutdown, Schumer is between a rock and a hard place. He has the uber-liberals barking at his heels. Occasional-Cortex will probably beat him in the 2028 Primaries. The other side owns the 80% side of most of the 80-20 issues.

The other side of the aisle the 80% side of most of the 80-20 issues. The only thing that can derail the 2028 elections are the economy. A 40 day government shut-down does not weaken their position as much as it hurts Schumer's side.

It is my opinion that we are already in a recession even though reporting agencies and MSM claim we are not. Driving around, I see more and more "toys" and vehicles parked by the road with For Sale signs in the windshields. Recession-denial will make it drag on and impact the 2028 elections. 

Prolonged recessions are  akin to amputating a leg one inch at a time. The dead-wood and non-performing assets are given CPR since they are stage-props. Resources that could be invested in productive enterprises are frozen in those dead-man-walking companies and the real economy is moribund.

A 40-day shutdown would speed the collapse of the housing prices, especially in the hyper-inflated Maryland-northern Virginia market and would restore some sanity in lending. All of the "important" people on the east and west coasts will suddenly be talking about the recession when they lose 20% of the assessed value on their $5.7M mansion.



*Heuristics in Negotiation - Limitations to Effective Dispute Resolution (From Negotiating in Organizations, P 51-67, 1983, Max H Bazerman and Roy J Lewicki, ed.

 

Pete Hegseth's talk in two pictures

 

The WOKE military

Mission-focused military

"No Standing"

There seems to be a lot of free-floating anxiety looking for a place to land. People are getting really wound up. Folks who were "regulated" and "functional" just a few months ago are now a hot-mess.

Never put your hands between dogs that are fighting

There is a long-standing legal principle called "Standing". I can file a law-suit against somebody but it will only be adjudicated if I have "standing'. That is, if I can demonstrate that I was PERSONALLY injured by the actions I am protesting or if somebody I legally represent or am the guardian of was demonstrably injured.

Example: There are some people who are totally spun-up by the Trump administration firing missiles at boats allegedly used by narco-terrorists to transport drugs to the United States. It can be arguably that those actions were outside-the-Constitution. 

Under historical precedent, the next-of-kin of the ship's captain could file suit. The owners of the boat's cargo could file suit. The owners of the boat that was destroyed could file suit. Maybe the company that insured the boat could file suit. NOBODY ELSE is entitled to a hearing because they did not experience demonstrate injury or loss.

So why are 60 million people losing their minds over this incident and dozens of others?

Adrenaline junkies?

I don't exclude myself from this criticism. I find myself watching Youtube videos that get me wound up. It seems as if "rage" is a very addictive emotion and reaction-and-engagement algorithms float feeds that elicit rage in you to the top of your stack.

Key points

You are being jacked-around when the narration begins the piece with the conclusion: "Because of Global Warming..." or "Because of dementia-riddled Biden's..."

The past cannot be changed but you can armor your future against unwanted outcomes.

Trust is quickly and easily destroyed but very slowly earned.

Today's rage-inducing topics will age as quickly as the trendiest hair-styles.

The words "...could..." and "...should..." are not your friends when you apply them to other people. The only person you can control is yourself.

Yes, Trump could order the military to fire missiles into legacy, US cities. It is not impossible. But take a deep breath; what are the odds that he would do that? What are the odds that the military would execute those orders? I suggest that the odds are one-in-a-billion that he would order a Hellfire missile fired into a US city during the next 7 years. If ordered, I estimate that there is a one-in-a-thousand chance that the military would execute that (illegal) order.

Yes, the NGO should not incentivize breaking the law. But spinning-up emotionally does not change the incentive-disincentive landscape the NGOs are operating in. Sure, write letters. Call your congresscritter. But rage just makes you stupid and elevates your blood-pressure and cortisol levels.

You are in charge of your life. Stop being Pavlov's dog to the notification "Ping" on your smartphone. 

Random, feel-good video