ShopTalk Sunday: August & Fall Work Plans

by

With our book on do-it-yourself home power now up on Amazon, most of the week here was focused on the next book – The 100-Year Toaster.  Not surprisingly, no one has yet bought a single copy of Power in the Second Depression.  It’s free on the Peoplenomics.com website in the Reader Bookshelf section.

The 100-Year Toaster will be around 58,000 words spread over 18-chapters, but it all comes down to this matter of sustainability that people yammer on about.  But, as the evidence mounts, few outside of UrbanSurvival readers, really seem to do much about.

The reason?  May have something to do with real work.

Americans have been living on the Consumer Feed Lot for too long.  We work a measly 50-hours a week and bitch and moan the whole time.  Well, deal with it.

We have no idea of what Bad Times are.  And until you start practicing for the Live Fire drills of Life, you won’t comprehend how complicated even something as “simple” as growing a garden can be.

Fall Garden Plans

This week, I was up in the garden trying to figure out who (or what) was cropping the tops of my prized tomato plants.  We have yet to have a single edible yet – save squash – and the season will be taillights in 90 days.

Part of the reason for the garden focus this year was to unveil our weak spots.  As soon as this column is posted this morning, I’ll be adding three feet of additional height to the garden gate.  That’s how the larger deer are getting in.

Elaine also saw “The two cutest bunny rabbits ever!” while she was up watering.  Good news is rabbits taste a lot like chicken but until we get them to the pot, we are having to pick up finer mesh hardware cloth for the lower part of the fence.  100-feet of hardware cloth – 36 or 48-wide – is not free.

As always, living in the Outback continues to be a give and take with nature.  Sometimes we win, sometimes – usually – not.

In the Garden Room, not enough bees coming in to pollinate the tomato flowers – so out with the electric toothbrush for 3-minutes (or less) per day. Good news in that room?  The “Gentleman” corn is doing dandy – and we’ll likely lower the planters closer to the floor next year.  Another foot lower will drop the root temps a bit and for taller crops (the toms and the corn) the overhead should be good.

You still have time to get off your butt and plant foodstuffs for fall. The seeds are still available and it’s still warm enough to put in a “no dig” garden before ugly weather shows up.

And since we would anticipate that in really hard times that Social Security will be reduced, I’m reading yet-another farming for revenue book:  Compact Farms with 15 Proven Plans…

Quickie Shop Projects

First one to talk about is Ure’s “emergency lighting” update. 

This being summer, you can easily load up on emergency lighting on the cheap.  We just added another four pack of Vont 4 Pack LED Camping Lantern, LED Lanterns, Suitable Survival Kits for Hurricane, Emergency Light for Storm, Outages, Outdoor Portable Lanterns, Black, Collapsible, (Batteries Included) which was on sale on Amazon for around $22 bucks.

This is likely to lead to another project:  15-minutes on Autodesk TinkerCAD.com to gin up some 6-inch standoffs to mount on the top of door frames.  So, when you walk into a dark room with the power out, you’ll just reach up, pull down (which switches the light on) and have at least enough light to not kill yourself in the dark.

Second topic under this heading is Work Lights.

Years ago – maybe 10, or so – before we bought our airplane so somewhere back in there – I decided to get a REAL set of lithium battery powered tools.  Got a driver, drill, and flashlight combo on the zon for some ungodly price.

In the time since, prices have come down, but so too has quality.  I’m on like my third set of 4-amp-hour batteries (the 2.0 AHR packs are worth crap for real work).  All still doing well, but there’s now a Skil backup set of battery tools.

Point is I never used the flashlight.  There’s a Black & Decker panel LED with about 25- illuminators on it that gives bright area lighting.

Since I’m always in cleaning mode, though, I decided to see if the Hitachi light was still working.

Yep. In the shop, dusk, with the overhead lights all off, the useable light is OK, but it does go off to a soft (meaning lower temperature, maybe 3,500 Kelvin) light that is pleasant at night.  But not so good during the daylight.

The answer was finding a MUCH larger lumen output LED replacement bulb.  This is specifically for 18V tools, but two minutes of monkey motion to change bulbs and WOW!

Same camera, same ambient shop lighting.

Obviously, this is a much cooler light – much closer to daylight which is in the 6,000+ Kelvin color range.  (Cooler number is higher temp – go figure!)

Family Handyman had an article on their site earlier this year that was pretty good at walking people through the LED Color game.  Tips for Choosing LED Light Bulbs for Your Home | The Family Handyman.

About the only places where this matters?  Well, everywhere.

Elaine wants the color just so for “putting on her face.”  I like something akin to a surgery for shaving and eyedrops and such.  In the studio, the LEDs (10- watt spots) last anywhere from a month to a year with no discernable difference, except color.  Oddly, the warmer LEDs tend to burn out quicker.

I hope you realize “War with China means we all end up in the dark” because – and check me on this if I’m wrong – Do we even make lightbulbs in America anymore?

Bet you didn’t know the Biden administration (and looney-lefties on the Hill) have a ban on incandescent light bulbs being made in America a year from now?  Good backgrounder at Is there an incandescent light bulb ban?.  Regency Lighting sees it coming – but not America’s “asleep at the switch” press while the Biden administration pisses away another aspect of American independence on Commie land Chyna.  But, don’t get me started.

Lumber Cheap -Projects Ahead!

Despite the promises of the Broken Biden to increase housing starts  (laugh along as you read President Biden Announces New Actions to Ease the Burden of Housing Costs | The White House) from May of this year), Housing starts are being hammered by screaming interest rates. D’oh!

The result?

Well, I have to replace one deck on the house (all prepped and ready to go) and there’s some rework due on another.  So, knowing this, I have been watching lumber prices like a hawk.  Here’s what’s gone on over the last year:

We tend to build all outside projects with treated and also the bottom plate and studs interior.  The “five-quarter” decking is all treated and at $10 bucks a board, it’s easy to see how this deck-building festival of mine could be a wallet drainer.

Several hundred MORE dollars will go into rescreening the south porch.  A raccoon (or weasel, though I forgot to ask if he was a registered democrat) got on the porch and while Mr. Nitwit was checking his backdrop (shooting a Lexus or Dodge out of season being frowned on) the weasel ripped out the far end of the screen and did a 10-foot header.  Last seen running down the county road.

The raccoon almost went for a nice long truck ride, but after spitting at me and BARKING, he was dispatched (for excess rudeness) and placed on the pig and coyote offerings mound down at the creek.

OR – what used to be creek.

Which gets to my Big Project today.

Fire Season Grab and Go

UrbanSurvival was writing about grab-and-goes in the early 2000s – long before any of the Johnny come Name Poaching types decided to monetize the shit out of common sense.

For a reasonable number, you can get a “valuable documents” pouch that’s big enough for a couple of hard drives, a laptop, backup CDs of .PDFed tax filings and all other important papers (including home and car insurance).  So, if the Drought doesn’t let up, at least when the winds come up this fall, we will be ready to head out on a moment’s notice.

Don’t even like to think about it, but an ounce of prevention thinking never really ends.

To the shop!

Write when you get rich,

George@Ure.net

55 thoughts on “ShopTalk Sunday: August & Fall Work Plans”

  1. Have not had much success with squash or cucumbers the past 3 years.
    The squash don’t seem to produce very many female blossoms so even with hand pollination few squash develop. The cucumbers seem to do fine then just die off suddenly. Have to grow them hydroponically under the shade cloth. Corn is OK unless the coons get past my electric wire fence and green beans look good after the first planting succumbed to bean beetles. The second phase was given a dose of Dipel dust at the first sign of damage then I followed up with Neem oil and soap every 7 days. They are getting ready to bloom so the Dipel was washed off to protect my bees. Things growing under shade cloth seem to be doing much better than others.
    I don’t consider myself a conspiracy theoryist (sp), just an asshole rancher, but I cannot rule out the possibility of the dipshits in charge mucking up the environment and purposely causing these kind of crop failures with their climate change bullshit. A subject for discussion at the next Executive Committee meeting.
    The 2m and 70cm bands were boring last night and when I tried some HF work my antenna would not tune. Antenna maintenance on tap for today.
    Stay safe. 73

      • 17 Meters was open Sat. and I scored the K7K expedition to Kiska island!

        White pineapple from the yard is ripe! Sugar sweet, no acid, and they don’t export… sorry! Pumpkin squash harvested a half dozen & had a filipino style pumpkin stew with Bittermellon (fresh from the fence vine). And I’m trying to sprout some of Papa’s pepper seeds… laid between paper towels and kept damp, and placed on a south-up magnet for sprouting.

      • Hank. I have been meaning to ask regarding your squash plantings. What kind of insect pests do you have to deal with there in the islands?

    • I think you are onto something Jim. Similar issues up here in central WI. In our area, nearly every tree (with the exception of the coniferous breeds), were late in leafing out. When they did, the leaves and branches were puny and withered. We have over 25 white oak trees, 12 of them in excess of 100 yrs. It looks similar to Oak wilt, but the problem with that is regardless of variety, they all look the same. Even the Hosta plants and most other bushes look sick. My neighbors report the same. I’m not sure what they will look like next spring. As for the garden, the tomatoes were very slow with small fruit, squash has blossoms but 1/4 of what we usually get. Initially, I thought it was a late frost that did it, but our gardens were covered, or not even in yet when that happened. Very few insects (including bees to be found either) The poison from the sky theory is no longer a crazy mans ramblings.

      • All the same notes here. Red Oak not thriving, puny leaves. Not one bee or bumblebee this year. 5 butterflies is all.

        Had first weird fly invasion in 5 years musta been 25 of them over one weekend, then hardly any after that.

        It is the chemtrails, it causes fires to burn hotter, destroys soil viabity, sets plants and trees up for fire susceptibility, and they stink.

      • We usually raise the plastic on the hoops and cover with 50% shade cloth around mid March. Everything under the cloth has done well but it’s a small amount. Outside the squash and cukes succumbed to bugs and borers but they were so stunted I suspect that was why the bugs got them so quick. I have some in hydroponic grow buckets under shade cloth doing great though. I’m looking at something more atmospheric than biologic maybe. Corn and beans are fighting the Japanese beetles and Bean beetles. I dusted with Dipel for the bean beetles until they started blooming so the yields are not what they should be. Hoping the late pole beans will produce something. I ordered a roll of shade cloth for next season. $8 – $9 bucks a foot. Yikes! But I like to eat 3 times a day and use lots of toilet paper.

        Hang in there. We’ll all get through this OK. Stay safe.

  2. For “grab and go”, you probably should choose SSDs.
    Also, if you shop around, you can find 512Gb USB flash drives on sale for $65 or less, possibly under $50 (again, sale prices).

    Don’t forget the power adaptor for the laptop!

  3. George,
    I ordered All Best Solar Powered Lights from Amazon a couple of months ago. I have to say, they work very well and with the small solar panel that comes with the light does a decent job of recharging the battery that the light has. At full charge, the light burned all night and gave off enough light to read by. The solar panel has a long cord that you could put the solar panel outside and run the cord into the house thru a window to charge the light. I have 3 of these lights and all have worked very well for me.

  4. “There’s a Black & Decker panel LED with about 25- illuminators on it that gives bright area lighting.”

    I am blind in one eye..and a peripheral issue in the other..at night everything sucks.. I put in brighter lights in the cars.. and for the night dog walk.. a headlamp..just like my caving lights but way better..
    https://m.aliexpress.com/item/3256803448019440.html?spm=a2g0n.productlist.0.0.7460158cQKqsGp&browser_id=674ce154294b45fc900fa7e8005afedf&aff_trace_key=4fb1e6d1ce6a4f49a027698e9dd1991a-1659274833110-09530-UneMJZVf&aff_platform=msite&m_page_id=whrtg8sr1kccabht182547d52cd8812856711c2eab&gclid=&pdp_npi=2%40dis%21USD%21%219.04%21%21%21%21%21%402101e9d516592748825057150e5a9f%2112000027624855447%21sea&algo_pvid=afb4c287-da35-425d-a55d-c7111366fa4d
    I paid I believe 3 ir 4 dollars a piece..

    https://www.amazon.com/DanForce-Headlamp-Rechargeable-Flashlight-HeadLamps/dp/B0762CW1C1/ref=mp_s_a_1_6_sspa?crid=2HW0SDU3TBZ68&keywords=super+bright+headlamp&qid=1659275286&sprefix=bright+hea%2Caps%2C298&sr=8-6-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEzUFVCSzRKNVlEUlk1JmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwMzkwOTg5MVRFVzdER0hNVlAxViZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwMTgxMjkzMldUTUJXTTNTSVZGQSZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX3Bob25lX3NlYXJjaF9tdGYmYWN0aW9uPWNsaWNrUmVkaXJlY3QmZG9Ob3RMb2dDbGljaz10cnVl

  5. Hi George – I just finished downloading Power in a Second Depression from Peoplenomics and having a browse through. An excellent well-researched resource. The section on System Design for EMP addressing something that has been on my mind.

    We have been living off-grid for 22 years in the outback of central Ontario and wish I’d had something like this when we got started with our power system.

    For your interest: We installed our third battery bank in early 2021 and decided on the Yuasa SLR 1000 lead-nanocarbon batteries. They are rated for 7000 cycles at 70% DOD. Yuasa guarantees them for 10 years (if can demonstrate you follow the correct charging and equalization procedure). The cells are also much lighter (~150 lb.) than the “forklift” style gel-sealed batteries. They are not cheap (~$18,000 CDN), but I could not resist checking out the claim for 7000 cycles.

    I look forward to taking a deeper dive into the book. Thank you for the work that you do!
    All the best.

      • The specs on the batteries can be found here:
        https://www.gs-yuasa.com/en/newsrelease/article.php?ucode=gs160310154418_236&ucode=gs160310154418_236

        They are rated at 1000 AH at 10hrs.

        The lower weight and high cycle rating is what interested us. I was mistaken, they are rated for 7000 cycles at 50% DOD (not 70%). Still pretty impressive. Our annual energy demand is approx 52,000 AH. On the back of the envelope: Using a 50% DOD (basis for our charging cycle set up) for the 10 year guarantee period I reckon this works out to about 3.5 cents per AH. Based on our experience with other big lead acid batteries (GNB Absolyte) and the lower DOD we can get 15 years out of this bank. In which case, I figure the cost would be about 2.3 c/AH. The 18K included the TrueDick 13% sales tax, so costs in your neck would lower. Circa December 2020, the costs were comparable to other similar offerings such as Outback, EnerSys, and Leoch, but with 2.5 x the cycles.

  6. Whoa !
    I say woe is da lopes that ripen overnight in da raised beds. (hugelculture). lemming Ure ear, and a garden tail grows..

    I know better understand Courage, and what makes the Muskrat guard his “electric elon” ..his musky musk.
    Who are the furry lil mofos that nibbled the F out of my 1st two ripe lopes overnight..the gluttonous cousin of the mighty Eastern Mince, the Vole. Had to excise the “wounds”, removing healthy flesh along with contaminated.
    You may be wondering to Ureself – how on dogs green Earth did a cute lil Vole climb up corrugated steel panels and into garden on top ?

    They didnt climb, the furry lil bastards went up thru the bottom – thru the hard wood and woody debris 1st layer, up thru couple feet of “seasoned” mushroom soil.
    Note 2 Self/Lessons learned – 1st layer of Ure raisedbed/huglekulture garden should be “Chickenwire” – to keep those thieving lil nibblers out da garden. Gonna try get find nice size Garter Snake while out on daily dog walk @county lake/park. Water snakes all day day everyday, but they are nasty and wont stick around if I transplant one or two – while the better half absolutely forbids copperheads, which ironically are very nice and docile..go figure??

  7. George,
    On peoplenomics side,big China worry.. They have a 1000 ship nave but 90%cannot leave coastal waters.To small no logistics tail. The other 10%cannot operate 1000 miles from shore.Poor logistics,their carriers are not very functional, and no match for ours.We do not need to get near China.
    We can cut off their oil/gas from 3000 miles away,stop food imports,and they go dark in 3 to 6 months.In a year of food blockades China has a famine and loses 500 million people.
    China cannot get past the first Island Chain. We can stop all tankers from persian gulf in the Gulf or indian ocean.Thousands of miles from china. They have no landing craft but they could use barges or cargo ships to get to Taiwan.We have advanced jets in the area,on islands and on carriers,we have at least 2 carriers there at this time.We and Taiwan can stop them or make it very bloody.Along with Philipines,Australia,Japan ,New Zealand,maybe Vietnam Thailand and Cambodia too.
    They are rattleing their chains and swords cause they have a lot of internal troubles,their economy is getting worse, their population is declining,aging as fast as Japan’s. They can copy technology but cannot build it from scratch.They do not have the infrastructure software engineers and cannot build the machines to make the more advanced chips..
    They print 3 to 4 times as much money every 6 weeks or so as we do in same time..They are in DEEP KIMCHI, (old US GI slang). Power strugles at the top too.. Good Luck to us ALL.

    • What? You didn’t realize Nasty was demented, also? She has been like this for several years now.

    • I couldn’t watch it – even the opening screen looked like Medusa and had the same effect!

  9. The peso is about to go tits up dude if my read is correct of the grid around me.

    Thanks for the heads up, since even though I’m living in Washington state? You wouldn’t know it seeing all the Texas license plates here. More and more every day. Once a while you see an Arizona plate or some other state. I mean we are used to seeing Canadian plates and Oregon plates around these parts in the summer. I tell you right now, I been doing surveys in my daily travels and there is by 20 to 1 more Texas plates in this state than Oregon. That is not normal.

    I don’t know why that is. But it is.

    I’ve never seen so many Texas plates here. Ever. So it means something.

    I honestly don’t think China will do shit.

    We just got a monster of a job up here where I work. We are in rest mode for 2 more weeks. Then about go to 6 days a week 12 hour days until the end of the year. That is alot of cheddar. I will take all that money.

    I quit buying Lotto tickets. I can’t beat the lotto. Gave it my best shot. I give up. LOL. And after that mega millions hit 1.25 Billion I thought. Nah I don’t need or even want all that. I’m happy where I’m at in life. It’s 99% better than where I was and it’s really good. I have a good life. I’m grateful.

    Seeing alot of sequenceal numbers lately. Even my odometer at the end of the day last week read 12345 on my Kenworth, when I went by murder Island (mercer islands nickname) and I picked up my last Lotto ticket about 30 minutes later it read 30,31,32,33, 34, 20 on the quick pick.

    Lots of sequenceal numbers lately.

    I’m going back to bed and resting the whole day. I don’t do that often. It’s good sometimes to do so.

    Light bulbs and ideas. Lol

    • That’s weird. I’ve had “Mexican Peso” bouncing around in my head for the last couple days, now.

      ‘Thing with lotteries is: Yes, it is a tax a person voluntarily pays. It also has a potential for a huge ROI, but only if a person “buys in.” With that said, the most-efficient buy-in is to purchase a single ticket, because that raises one’s odds of winning from “zero” to something that’s infinitely larger, even if the odds of winning are 200 million to one. Purchasing more than one ticket only lessens the odds by a minuscule fraction of a percent, beyond the purchase of that first tickie…

      If’fn I hit a lottery like that, I’d have 100 choice acres, somewhere where people aren’t and populations are thin, and I would have a school for teaching the sons and daughters of that sparse population true life-skills and how to be a Jack of all trades (or “General Specialist,” as I like to call it…)

    • Sequenced numbers. Me, too. Forwards and backwards. Mostly on digital clocks. Sometimes all same numbers. Odometer on my old Dodge Durango also–when I think to look at it. Double, triple numbers.
      More of these than varying times.
      Is it the clocks, etc or me?
      I’m beginning to wonder.

    • Oregon has state taxes, Texas does not. Maybe Texas changed a law and allows an abridged or mail order residency? Are you near Fort Lewis or other large military installation where military personnel change their residency more often than seasons? Just a thought.

      South Dakota is a no tax state and it grants residency with just a one-night stay. Also has thriving off shore banking despite being landlocked.

  10. What is going on ATR, tells me more than links to bullshit on the news. Thanks for sharing that dude.

    Here is what I’m seeing,

    That Job we are about to start mid August? Clearing 380 acres for new wherehouses for manufacturing. We are a month behind schedule because of hold up in red tape for permits. So we are waiting for the loggers to get far enough ahead of us we arent working on top of each other.

    We will be hauling out over 700,000 tons of dirt to Washington Rock, and hauling in 800,000 tons of rock. Running every piece of equipment we have. Including 10 off road haul dump trucks. The big ones with the 8 foot tires on them and a shit load of D9 dozers. As it is now we are paying over 90k a week on fuel alone.

    I been on big jobs before. This is one of the biggest jobs I’ve seen. And I been on every Google and Amazon building down town, the Bertha Tunnel project, I was the on-site truck boss for the Alaska way viaduct demo Job, re-did the center runway at seatac (that was a big fucking job) and light rail job and damn near every big public works job done in this state in the last 15 years.

    This manufacturing wherehouse gig, is one biggest jobs I’ve ever seen. Ever. That is alot fucking earth to move.

    What that tells me is on the wider spectrum of things on big picture in language of creation, is, manufacturing here in the US is big big moves. Huge moves.

    See ya around. I need to chill, because working 6 days a week 12 hour days until the job is done which about 9 months of work, you don’t have much time for anything else.

    Later dude.

  11. Infact I will do you a favor so you don’t have to research it Ureself.

    The entire Boeing plant in Everett Washington, the largest building in the world by square foot, is 98.3 acres.

    That manufacturing wherehouse job we are about to start mid August here? Is 380 acres. 4 times bigger than where they make 777 airplanes.

    What does that tell you in the language of creation? Says to me, we be making shit in the USA not China soon.

  12. The 8′ will help on the garden fence, except for the climbers, and the diggers.
    If there are no excavations, it is likely that the bunnies are squeezing in under the gate. Putting flat concrete pavers under the gate, and extending the gate to 8′ will go a long way toward critter-proofing the garden spot. Canines with go over and under gates as well. If the varmint goes for the cantaloupes and leaves everything else alone, a coyote may be your most likely suspect.
    The only sure cure for climbers is electricity. I would suggest a single strand of wire on insulators at the top of the fence, facing outward. A solar fence charger would be really green.
    What I have done to keep hogs from pushing up hog wire fencing with their snouts and breaking it is to anchor 3/8″ rebar along the bottom with short auger anchors, then tie the fence to the rebar. It doesn’t keep out bunnies, however. You can bunny-proof piecemeal, by throwing bricks or pavers into their excavations, or bite-the-bullet and put concrete or pavers around the periphery. I have also used a strand of barbed wire about 3 – 4″ off the dirt. Hogs will crawl under barb wire, but avoid crawling over it.

  13. Hmmmm. This Bloomberg article says good shit about Mexico manufacturing taking away from China.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-26/mexico-s-super-peso-shocks-traders-who-were-betting-on-wipeout

    Huh….. idk. All I know is there sure a lot of chatter in the language of creation in the world around me about Mexico, the peso and factories. Blatantly so much language about it, hard not to notice it.

    I tell ya what, I went to Alibetos over on 4th Ave in Seattle at 3am last week to their 24 hour drive through, because that there is some super yummy food, and you get alot lot more food than McDonald’s drive through, way way cheaper and better food. And at 3am there was fucking line of cars 3 blocks down the road to get food there. It only took me 25 minutes to get my food tho. They sure are quick about service there.

    When I see a 3 block line at 3am at the Mexican restaurant drive through to get food, and it’s moving that much stuff that quickly? I make note. And I make note of the Mexican fella brawling in parking lot. Nobody Gave a shit tho. Didnt stop anyone from getting their food. And when I left? The line to get get food there was longer then when I got there. That place was hopping. Im sure they were making tacos and money hand over fist. That was a couple weeks ago. So I drove by last night again to take a looksee and same line of cars was there again last night. Like 3 blocks long. But it moves quickly.

    Best pastoral quesasdea for the price. Super good food.

    And the Chinese restaurant? Not a single car in the parking lot. Not a soul dining there both nights I looked. They were open. But everyone in town was down at the Mexican restaurant.

    Hmmmmmmm.

    Wonder what that means?

    The DUDE is always talking in the language of creation around us. Telling us all kind of stuff.

    Hmmmm. Well it could mean nothing and it could mean everything. Probably both. LOL

  14. When I lived and worked in the big city, I had a bug-out bag stashed at home and every remote worksite. Now I ask myself why/where would I bug out to? The volcano ranch is where I would want to be. I see no reason I would need to evacuate. {But Hank! You live on an active volcano that just erupted five miles away!} Geologic knowledge and history are important. The last eruption was a major phase change for the volcano, and I doubt it will be coming this way for a hundred years. So my mindset is evolving into bugging in and prepping the ranch here… built on the lava flow of 1840.

      • That’s the ‘travel bag’, and of course I carry enough to get home. But I rarely go anywhere but the grocery store.

  15. “You still have time to get off your butt and plant foodstuffs for fall.”

    Now might be a good time to mention that prices on citrus and other tropical trees/bushes have more than doubled. Last winter/spring (planting season) prices ranged between $11-$17 per plant. Yesterday, prices were ranging between $40-$90 each. Plant prices typically go up when stuff is out of season, but by ~30%, not ~350%.

    Got scurvy…?

  16. In East Texas I can see planting for the Fall but around here ANYthing in the direct Sun is either dead or gone into suspended animation. The peach trees on the South side of the ranch house started to have some blooms this year after still recuperating from that “cold snap” we had year before last. I vowed, and have followed through, with more frequent watering and fertilization for them this year since I’m out there almost every day hauling water to the North end but the only peach tree that is producing normally is the one on the North side of the house that has shade most of the day from the liveoaks. I did find that spraying the trees down with water perks them up quite a bit. My sister-in-law tells the same story of the plants at her house in town. The Sun is doing some serious damage to anything green this year.

    Lots of people out there on the ‘net are talking about weather manipulation and if it ever turns out to be true … and we can get to the people doing it … God help them because I won’t.

    We usually have 3 to 4 weeks of triple digits here in our worst Summers but this has gone on about 3 months. Turns out I was wrong about the real estate development across the North fence line’s water problems, too. They don’t go for a few weeks in the Summer without water – it’s a week or two each month. They’ve drilled another well that seems to be helping but they’re far from out of the woods. Lots of people all over the area are drilling new wells and coming up with a lot of dry holes which has kept us from trying it. Six grand down a dry hole hurts the pocket book pretty bad.

    • For some reason, we’ve had a very helpful monsoon season so far – helpful for the cows and people who need their plants. Some gully washers here too, though rain makes useful outside work impossible. Fall should be better for that. The weeds and “grass” are growing like bandits, but from what I’ve heard, gardens get damaged by the sun. Bugs are here, particularly gnats and mosquitoes. If it’s cool enough to work, it’s cool enough for them to bite.

      • That’d be a dang good reason for a whole bunch of flowers on the altar on Sunday around here!

        I’m so sick of hauling water I could spit but it would be mud. The prevailing South wind keeps the dust cloud hovering around the truck unless I can out maneuver it when I’m headed North but there’s been all too many times I had trouble seeing the windshield from INside the old truck’s cab when I couldn’t. No A/C in the old gasoline powered ’86 and it’s almost suicide to keep the windows rolled up at any time past 10 AM or so – and I don’t want to go back to using the diesel truck to haul the water tank. Makes me have to take a shower every day but it’s sure nice when you can stay clean and avoid it for at least one day.

        At least I got to teach the grandkid how to shift a standard today, however. One of those life skills everyone needs.

    • The Several States each set their own voting parameters. I should think in any State where voting fraud is a felony, the statute of limitations would be at least 5 years, and any State where its a misdemeanor, the statute would likely be 2 years…

  18. Here in SW La. the little potager cleaned and ready to plant. Waiting for broccoli starts. Deciding which bed to seed in carrots. Will put in a bundles’ worth or two of green onions from the grocery store–nice to have handy for clipping. And parsley–time to sprout the parsley. Time to broadcast the Magda’s Atomic Mustard Greens seeds. ;-) Although it looks as if enough scattered when we pulled the old one that I may just transplant seedlings to better area.
    Here’s to wonderful, productive gardens for all.
    Calyn

  19. Some of the food and drink you have time bomb 73 is dreadful . Cannot beleive what you eat and quantity. Ahh well you know it all and a big ego to boot . Dreadful food types and amounts

  20. George, my ancestors arrived in America in mid-1600s, around the time New Amsterdam was renamed New York. Discovered this past weekend that some of your kinfolk were just a short drive north of us almost 1,000 years before that.
    Wife and I had a long weekend at a tourist trap, Broken Bow OK. While there, we discovered Heavener Runestone Park in Heavener, OK (about 1.5 hours north of Broken Bow), where a slab of rock was inscribed between 600 and 800 AD by Vikings or Scandinavians. The markings translate to “Little Valley” or “Valley owned by Glome”. Other runestones have been found in surrounding areas.

    • I only know that when the Ures were running guns and whiskey (Scotch, natch) in the Lowlands – kind of a local Sicilian rhme in Scotland, the American Ure’s were, among other things, accused of being spies for the King prior to the outbreak of the Revolution.
      Hey! Since we were here first (your kin and ours) shouldn’t we get, oh, you know, reparations of some kind?

Comments are closed.