Pepper seeds started

Stocky Red Roaster peppers are heavy producers.

 I finally found the Stocky Red Roaster Pepper (Capsicum annuum) seeds. They were hiding behind the packages of Jiffy Corn Muffin mix.

SRR a star for production and blanched-and-frozen slices of the brilliant, red fruit have been gracing our pizzas and omelettes all winter. 

Golden Cayenne, nominally 30k-to-50k SHU

I am also starting Aji Mango (C. baccata) and Golden Cayenne (C. annuum). I was leaning toward Carolina Cayenne (C. annuum) because it has stellar disease resistance but at 100k Scoville Heat Units, it is a scorcher. As a  reference point, jalapeño peppers run 2500-to-8000 SHU.

The reason for listing the species is because planting hot peppers with sweet peppers will result in surprises if they are the same species. Mrs ERJ does not relish the idea of chomping into a "sweet pepper" and being surprised. The Cayenne pepper plants will be isolated from the Stocky Red Roasters for that reason.

Peppers are one of those garden plants where people with a certain personality (ERJ looks in mirror) can go off the rails. There are thousands of varieties and hundreds more are introduced/found every year.

Another complication is that the flavor of a pepper variety grown in El Paso will usually be different than the same seeds planted in Eaton County, Michigan. And more primitive, less highly selected varieties will have a greater range of heat than varieties that have been "stabilized" by intensive selection.

Aji Mango. Fruit is about the size of my thumb. I selected my seeds from the one plant that did not fall over.

I am a sissy when it comes to hot food. I love the SRR peppers. I used the Aji Mango (30k-to-50k SHU) to make a hot sauce similar to Frank's for general use. 

The attraction of Cayenne-type peppers is that they dry quickly and easily due to their thin walls. Dried peppers do not require refrigeration (like the frozen SRR rings) and are less bulky than vinegar-pepper sauces. Oh, but they are so, so hot!

Can anybody recommend a thin-walled, Cayenne-like pepper of approximately 5000 SHU?

Busted!

The Home and Garden show was held at the Michigan State Livestock pavilion. Free samples of organic fertilizer were available in the parking lot.

One of my roles at the trade-show was to entertain the spouses while an interested party talked to The-Brains-Of-The-Outfit. Or, if potential clients were stacking up, I would keep them occupied so they didn't walk off before TBOTO had a chance to work them over and get contact info.

A petite woman was talking with TBOTO so I started chatting with her husband. He was a man of middling-size and about my age. I struggle to describe him. Imagine a calm, intelligent Jack Russel terrier. He was clearly comfortable in his skin.

Glancing down at my name tag, he said "So, Joe, where do you live?"

"Eaton Rapids" I responded.

"Are you Eaton Rapids Joe?" he asked.

First time ever. Busted.

I admitted that I am Eaton Rapids Joe.

He elbowed his wife and pointed at me. "He is Eaton Rapids Joe."

Her eyes got big. "No!"

Then she asked "Can I take a picture?"

I thought she was kidding, but she was serious.

I promised that I would give them a "shout-out" on the blog but like a ninny I failed to write down their names. So if you read this and I messed up your names, please forgive me...my brain was turning into oatmeal.

"Hey, a BIG shout-out to Rick and Terri G."

Another gig at the Home and Garden Show

Shamelessly stolen from Fred at Vern's Stories

Today was another gig at the Home and Garden Show.

I am reading a book about Dementia. It claims that social interactions have a protective effect for Alzheimer's Disease. I think I had enough interactions to last me for the rest of the year.

I think of social-interactions the way some people think about taxes or washing dishes. They are necessary and if you don't like doing them then it is to your advantage to be able to do them well, and do be able to do them smoothly with minimum trauma and there are bonus style-points if nobody knows how much you would rather that you never had to do them.

Fortunately, two of my brothers are men of great charm and charisma. I ask "What would M do" or "What would R do" in social situations.

I expect that there will be two or three posts about my experiences pretending to be an extrovert.

Public Service Announcement

 

 

We now return you to your previously scheduled broadcast

Sabotage?

Who benefits when a major developer and manufacturer of high-end military hardware and software becomes the target of sabotage?

The question is being whispered in few dark corners now as the number of incidents involving Boeing comes to light.

Some of the damage is self-induced.

A small factor might be increased "newsworthiness" increased the amount of coverage by the mainstream media.

But given the number of incidents seems  to be increasing and the causes are beyond the control of "the factory", one must consider the possibility of malicious actors.

Means, motive, opportunity

In no particular order:

Trade-unions benefit because they can point to Boeing and insinuate "Nice brand you got there. It would be a shame if something happened to it."

During times of inflation, trade-unions seek every bit of leverage they can manage as they seek to negotiate wage increases  that keep up with inflation.

Never underestimate the value of a "brand". Name-brand shoes can command 5X the price of the equivalent un-branded shoe. Huge profit potential and a lot of advertising equity is a risk.

Foreign powers can benefit if they maneuver and become a White Knight and rescue a company in free-fall. Boeing is a treasure-trove of advanced technology that could leap-frog a second-rate defense industry into the big-leagues.

Competitors would benefit from increased sales and more pricing power. I discount this because sabotage is Pandora's box and there are no fire-walls that prevent the practice from being inflicted on the competitor.

Environmental zealots can achieve some of their goals by squashing civilian air-travel which would reduce petroleum consumption, make the skies "prettier" (i.e. no contrails), reduce transport of strawberries and farmed salmon from the southern hemisphere and reduce tourist numbers of pristine beaches so turtles' copulating is not disturbed by college students' copulating.

New World Order can achieve some of their goals of squashing dirt-people's ability to travel, assemble and communicate.

Russia believes that the west has been waging a stealth war against Russia by blowing up assets like pipelines and bridges. Reciprocity?

Anti-Zionists same as Russia. Bonus link.

Domestic traitors trapped in delusional thinking.

A breech in the levee 

My guess is that Boeing's institutional failures created an opportunity. It is possible that multiple actors saw the potential and ran with it.

Like a high-speed turbine losing a blade, the forces of the imbalance is tearing the machine apart.

Do what you can to not be standing down-range of fragmenting blades  or the rubble of the building that houses the turbine.

Tidying up a few loose story ends

“How many?” Blain asked quietly.

“Two” Gregor responded.

“We got one still unaccounted for” Blain informed Gregor. “Sig said we’ll go looking for him a half-hour after sunrise.”  

Lliam counted four. Blain did the math: Four minus Davey-the-giant next to Roger's porch minus the two Gregor shot (the two who had been positioned next to the two-track to prevent people from escaping. That left one, Lightning  who started from farther back when the light went on and the shooting started.

Gregor heard multiple men running toward him. He saw/sensed that there were at least two and they were bunched up. The first runner hit the trip-wires and was flattened. The second runner was staggered by the now-loose and slightly out of position trip-wires but not slammed face-down into the gravel.

Gregor shot the second runner twice. Then he ground-sluiced the first runner with two shots.

Then he made two, carefully aimed shots to anchor them.

Had Lightning been following the second runner, Gregor might have been in trouble. High energy 12 gauge loads (35gr-to-40gr of Blue Dot) have bright fireballs and would have both impaired his vision and revealed his position.

He might have been in trouble but Lightning would still be running with big blind-spots in the center of his vision from the spot-light.

When the team found Lightning, that made Number Four and all were accounted for. 

Things to note about the plan

The spot-light crushed the invader's ability to fight back. They could not see.

The spot-light was off-set from Roger so if Davey or Lightning started shooting at the light, Roger was not downrange.

It did not have to be 200,000 lumens but that is a common size. It was way more than needed but it worked.

The trip-wires were located in places where the runners would have maximum speed and where the assassin had the ability to engage in enfilade fire along two directions if the need presented itself.

Roger, Sig and Blain were defending their own homes. The chances of cold-feet and the defender being unable to drop-the-hammer on an invader was reduced to almost zero, even for Blain. Maybe it would have been smarter to engage them on the road but the invaders could have slipped off the road and then things would have been sporty.

The invaders were cowards. As soon as it became apparent that they did not have overwhelming, super-advantage, they bailed.

The invaders were not wearing body armor. Their weapons were not the greatest. They counted on surprise and numerical superiority.

The dogs saved the day.

Having two motion detector alarms allowed defenders to have some order in their battle plan. They had a sense of where the enemy was and how much time they might have.

Radio communication could have been a force multiplier. Lliam could have alerted the team with his count and their deployment. They could have contacted Gregor when Lightning headed down the drive.

Knowing their limitations, they had rock-solid assignments of who was going to be where, when. They also had the  hoot-owl IFF thing down.

Alice, and Ellie in Sig's house, disappeared from the story when the shooting started. That could have been a disaster. It seems probable that they were  too close to the door when the shooting started and were probably standing.

Roger did not have a good "look" at the bad-guys because they were pasted right up tight to the front of the house. He could not move west (and see Lightning) because he would be bouncing buckshot off the front of his house. He had to stand just slightly out of the plane of the front of his house and all he could see was Davey-the-Giant.

Another issue was that Sig's house was down-range of Roger's presentation of the bad-guys. Roger's "plan" was to be very close to the porch so he was shooting upward and (hopefully) pellets that missed or passed through would arch over Sig and Blain's house.

Sig had a similar problem in his role of backing-up Roger. Sig could not really start peppering the bad guys standing on the porch because Roger was downrange.

Lightning's reaction...which was totally in-character...actually did Sig and Roger a favor. His movement meant that Roger was not down-range.

There were multitude of ways events could have gone south for either party.

No Mercy (Cumberland Saga)

 

Alice could hear muttering through the door and based by the sounds of the shifting of feet and groaning of the porch, knew there were at least two men on her porch, and big men at that.

Lightning shook his head in frustration. Time was wasting.

“My car broke down. I need to use your phone” Lightning demanded.

“I am sorry your car broke down” the elderly voice quavered.

Alice could tell the men were restless, the sound fidgeting on the other side of the door increased.

After a count of two, Alice asked “Don’t you have one of those smartie-phone things?”

“My battery is dead” Lightning snapped out.

“Why don’t you go back to your car and wait in it. I’m sure somebody will see you. We got friendly neighbors. I’m sure somebody will stop and help” Alice advised.

Lightning said “That won’t work. I am parked off the road. Nobody gonna see the car.”

Lightning changed tactics. “I gotta pee. Lemme in so I can use your bathroom!”

“You musta passed a thousand trees walking up here from the road. You can use any one a’ them when you walk back” Alice helpfully suggested.

Davey snickered. Lightning gave him an elbow. It was like thumping a blubber covered refrigerator.

Lightning was frustrated. He was used to people bending and caving to avoid confrontation. That was the norm, certainly when confronted by a big, angry man covered in prison tatts. The old biddy on the other side of the door wasn’t going with the flow.

Time to stop playing games.

“Listen, lady. Either you let me in or I am going to smash this door to pieces and let myself in” Lightning said, voice filled with menace.

Alice laid a hand on the door and reinforced it with a quick, silent prayer. The door was made from 2" tongue-and-groove planks of native, Shortleaf pine but it HAD been faithfully deflecting the Tennessee sun and weather for almost fifty years. A prayer would not be amiss.

“That would not be a good idea” Alice told him, although she did not specify whether she was referring to her opening the door or Lightning’s threat to break the door.

Then she clarified “As a good Christian woman, I have to tell you that you will not come to a good end if you don’t repent and change your ways.”  Her voice was not quavering as she dropped her "helpless" act.

“Fuck you, bitch” Lightning sneered and threw his weight against the door. He was going to shoot the bitch as soon as he broke in. He figured it would be mistaken for the sound of thunder.

To his surprise, Lightning bounced off the door. Roger, in fact all of the men, had taken the precaution of bracing their front doors with lengths of 2-by-4s with the ends secured not in the door frame but in the studs to either side of the door frames. Twelve, 3” deck-screws sunk into full-dimension studs, two lengths (on high, one low) for each door of knot-free two-by-fours.

Upstairs, Lliam could feel the entire front of the house breath in-and-out like the head of a drum.

Roger depressed the switch that Gregor had wired into the 200,000 lumen spot-light fifty feet to his left and illuminated the front of his house.

Dropping the pendant, Roger started shooting the man on his porch from a distance of ten yards away. The man was easily larger than any black bear Roger had ever seen.

Lightning reacted instinctively at the sudden, blinding brightness and the sound of the shotgun reports coming from Davey's side of the porch. He vaulted over the porch railing and dashed for the two-track that led to the SUV.

Sig saw Lightning’s exit and started banging away from a distance of 40 yards...and rapidly increasing. He got off three shots.

The huge man was still standing when Roger’s 1100 ran dry. Backing away from the porch and then deeper into the shadows, Roger dropped to one knee, flipped his shotgun over and started jamming shells into the magazine.
 

Roger looked up from his task as the “bear” crashed through the railing of the porch and started toward him.

Without turning over his shotgun or aiming, Roger hooked the bolt-handle of his shotgun with the pinkie of his right hand and pulled it back and and then released it. Still holding his shotgun upside-down with his left hand gripping the barrel and forearm and braced against the outside of his left thigh, he emptied it into the giant’s center-of-mass.

The giant collapsed.

Five shots. Roger’s ears were ringing from the blast reflected by the side of the house.

Lliam was blinded by the light.

Sig was looking for somebody to shoot but there were no targets.

Blain stayed where he was and scanning for threats. Nothing!

After what seemed like a minute, Roger turned off the spotlight. Then he picked it up and pointed it where the drive broke through the trees and turned it back on. He slowly scanned the clearing.

Down the hill, two shots fired in quick succession. Then two more….a slight pause...another shot….and then another.

Sig called out “Blain, I think they are gone. Come out so we can make a plan.”

Then the two men walked over to Roger. Roger pointed to the slumped over giant who was barely visible in the light pollution caused by the spotlight.

“We gonna need the tractor to move that one” Lliam said as he joined the group.

***

Sig detailed Blain with going down the foot-path to make contact with Gregor.

Every fifty yards or so, Blain made a hoot-owl call with three hoots. It was a quirk that the local owls either hooted twice or many times more than twice, nearly always in even numbers. Only humans hooted three times.

Fifty yards out from where Gregor was expected to be, Blain got a return call of three hoots. Blain walked over to where Gregor was standing. He had not walked down to inspect his targets. There was no point. It was still dark and turning on a light when there were still enemies around didn’t seem like a good idea.

“How many?” Blain asked quietly.

“Two” Gregor responded.

“We got one still unaccounted for” Blain informed Gregor. “Sig said we’ll go looking for him a half-hour after sunrise.”

Blain could barely make out Gregor’s nodding confirming that he had heard.

“I’ll stay here” Gregor said. “Somebody’s gotta be the cork in the bottle.”

“OK” Blain said. “I’ll let the others know.”

***

They found Lightning’s body below the first hair-pin curve. Three or four pellets of buckshot from Sig had tagged him. In his pain or panic or diminished mental capacity from lack of blood, that tall man with the Nazi tattoos had not seen or had been unable to make the sharp turn. His momentum had carried him down the steep slope until his tumble was arrested by the dense brush.

The leaf-cover on the ground around was torn up. There was not much blood on the ground. Sig surmised that the attacker had bled-out internally.

He had not been dead very long. His face was warm and his limbs had not stiffened up.

***

The pockets of the men were checked. The bodies were stuffed into the SUV. The tires were repaired and Gregor drove them four miles closer to the Tennessee River before parking the SUV beside the road. He took the precaution of turning the vehicle around so it would look like it had been driven from town rather than from the Cumberland Plateau.

Then Gregor walked back home following foot-trails.

He ditched Lightning’s phone in a spring freshet, pinning the phone to the bottom of a temporary pool with a twenty-pound rock.