Mrs ERJ was right. Again.

Locally, doctors have four kinds of male patients in their sixties.

One group has chronic issues that require medication to manage them and the standards-of-care require frequent doctor visits before the insurance company will pay for the prescription(s).

The second group includes hypochondriacs who spend too much time on the internet. They find obscure diseases that the are sure they have and try to convince the doc that they need whatever Dr House prescribed.

The third group, the one to which I belong, goes to the doctor when sent by their wife. 

The fourth group only goes to the doctor when they are technically dead but still mobile.

For the record, the doc agreed with my wife, still coughing enough to wake her at night after 13 days from onset of a cold was too long, too much. She listened to my chest and "heard a buzz".

She prescribed a Z-pack. Mrs ERJ was vindicated even if my Kelly Blue Book value did not improve.

Southern Belle's garden

You can see the outline of the freshly tilled dirt.

It does not look that different afterward.

I decided to till up a grassy patch in the new orchard for her first shot at a garden. The places were there is no grass were recently occupied by Asian Honeysuckle bushes and the ground is filled with roots, many of them larger than 1" in diameter.

The grass was sprayed with glyphosate and it was allowed to translocate through the plants for four days. Then I mowed it and tilled it.

The dimensions are slightly less than 20' on a side. SB was gung-ho to make it much larger but 400 square-feet is pretty manageable in terms of fencing it against deer and keeping a lid on the weeds.

Deer cages

A picture of the "deer cages" I have been installing. The T-post costs about $5.50 and the fencing about $3.00.

I don't know how well it shows up, but I often have to position the stem away in the center of the cage.

Species left to graft

• Oak
• Mulberry
• Persimmons
• Chestnuts
• Pecans
• Hawthorn

Snark

 

Source

Source

I am still amazed when I see obese "young" people

 

Data from Table 026 Source

Every age-group had higher levels of obesity from decade-to-decade for every time-frame. It was across-the-board.

We mentally expect men to gain weight as we age but something happened in 2010...all cohorts over the age of 34 were in a statistical dead-heat for levels of obesity. That is,  60-and-70 year-olds were no more likely to be obese than 35-and-45 year-olds. That repeated in 2018.

The fastest growth rate in obesity levels in both absolute terms and percentage of 1990 base levels were in the 20-to-34 year-olds. Between 1990 and 2018, the rate of obesity in men between 20-and-34 increased from 14.1% to 37.2%. Their 2018 obesity rates put them in a statistical dead-heat with all of the older cohorts in 2010. That is troubling because it threatens earlier onset of obesity related issues like diabetes, heart-disease, cancer, kidney failure and strokes.

It would be speculative to guess why obesity is growing so quickly but the following list might be a good start

• Too much screen-time (sedentary)
• Very little physical "work" available. Even landscaping has been mechanized.
  
• Food is too available
• Portion sizes have bloated
• Food formulated to stimulate purchase and over-consumption

When Mrs ERJ sends me to the doctor

 

Caging trees and a few pictures

 

Everybody "knows" that you cannot time the stock-market and cannot predict the weather. That never stopped anybody from trying.

Anticipating the rain, I sprinkled some fertilizer around the newly planted trees. By count, that is a number somewhere north of 30 + 2 + 5 + 12 + 12 + 12 + 12 + 8.

I am also in a hurry to get the 5' tall deer cages around the taller, grafted trees before the buds on the scion "push". There are not a lot of carbohydrates saved up in a 4" scion so they cannot recover from much abuse (i.e. being eaten by deer). I have been dragging my feet installing the cages because successful grafting involves removing the buds below the graft because growing tips produce growth-regulators that suppress other buds (like the ones on the scion I just grafted) from "breaking". It is much easier to dis-bud trees before the cages go on.

Yesterday was a record: 6 ticks were on me when I got home.

I will be continuing to cut, fabricate and install 5' cages today and hope to do some rototilling of gardens.

Planting trees is a dance and this year it is a lively jig rather than a slow and stately waltz.

Some pictures

Pear orchard in bloom

 

Apple orchard, not yet in bloom. This is a picture of the Upper Orchard

This is the stump of a 45 year-old pear(Pyrus communis) tree that had fire blight in its crown. Holes were drilled and filled with herbicide solution to kill the roots.

A close-up of the measuring tape. This tree was in a favorable site and had pretty good growth

A yellow violet growing next to a blue violet. This image is for the U-of-M fans.

Virginia Bluebells. I was surprised to find this growing on The Property and was doubly surprised to learn it is a native plant. Springtime is full of suprises! (Disclosure: not my photo)

Self-pruning trees

It is commonly claimed by persimmon growers that the trees are "self-pruning". That is, the fruit grower has little or no reason to remove branches because some mechanism results in the tree self-regulating in the amount of fruiting branches that leaf-out in the spring.

Source

Source

On any given year, at least two-thirds of the small, fruiting branches of my persimmon trees are broken by small mammals climbing out on them to harvest the fruit. Or maybe they are grabbing the branch and bending it toward the stem they are clinging to. Who knows?

It makes me wonder how people can grow apples and pears where there are bears and moose.

Source

It is rumored that moose can break off the trunks of 4" diameter willow trees to consume the twigs. I can only imagine how motivated they would be if the feed-bag was fruit rather than sticks. It also brings up the specter of Yogi and Bullwinkle getting drunk on fermented fruit.

Bear damage

 

How do people in Canada, Alaska, Maine and New Hampshire keep animals out of their orchards?

Calculating rates of consumption

Writing the date on the lid of a item when you open it is one way to track how quickly you consume that item. For things like oatmeal it is also easy to move the lid to the newly opened container so you can track over a longer period of time.

Based on recent data, we are still going through two, 42 ounce container of oatmeal a month. They stack two-high in our cupboard and I can inventory the number of months' supply by counting the number of "silos".

We are pretty consistent in our consumption rates of some items. Other items are much less consistent. Once you have a handle on how much you use, repeat the exercise every five years or so.

ERJ went on a field-trip

I visited a neighbor today. While driving by I noticed the skeleton of a hoop house in his back yard. I left a note asking if it was for sale. A couple of days later he sent me a text. It was not for sale but he would be glad to show me what he did to build it.

He was a friendly and helpful guy and was delighted to have somebody to show his handy work to. He had used 1-1/2" diameter, Schedule 40 PVC pipe for structural elements which made it a non-starter in my book. The hoops were on 4' centers and he had three longitudinal stringers to keep them from splaying. The footprint was approximately 18' by 40' and according to his records it cost him just  a little over $1 per square-foot to build eight years ago.

His primary purpose is to supply "greens" through the winter: Lettuce and green onions for salads, Asian greens for stir-fry and kale and chard for hot greens and to add to soup.

One interesting feature was that he had a second hoop-house inside the big house for the coldest part of winter. A single layer of plastic loses a lot of heat over night and can freeze the tops of lettuce to mush. Some of the other growers he knows run a double-layer of plastic and then "blow" air between the two layers with something like a the vent on a shop-vac to inflate them.

Sifting through the conversation, some of the biggest challenges include:

• Temperature regulation, especially when it is sunny
• Storage for water, fertilizer, trays, soil
• Weeds
• Wood decay
  

His small farm was tidy and neat and I enjoyed listening to him talk about growing food.

Widow-makers, Org Charts, Burning "tin" cans and Prices

Widow-makers

The hanging stem of the black cherry (Prunus serotina) was taken care of. I used a pole pruner to cut the grape vines I could reach. I used the chainsaw to do a little more cutting. I used a tow-strap to yank it down (Thanks Sam!!!). 

1970s CEO Office Org Chart

It looks like it also served as an attendance chart. Perhaps the square covered a black background or the tab was flipped around. If the person did not up (or the position was not filled) it showed black.

That is very 2020s, i.e. Visual Management. And it did not require that he log onto a computer to see where things were going to be spicy that day.

Bees 

I drove to The Property that I am managing by way of a different route. I saw a sign where somebody claimed to be a Bee-keeper. I called the number on the sign.

He was not home. He was picking up his wife at a local airport.

He was not interested in putting a beehive in the orchard. He lost 15 colonies over the winter.

"No problem. It didn't cost me anything to ask." I said.

Then he asked me where I was.

I told him the property was about a mile west of his home-base. That got his attention. Beekeepers attend to their hives about once very two weeks. Having hives close enough to visit but far enough away that they are not competing with their home-hives is a good thing.

"Tell me a little bit more about your property" he encouraged me.

"Small orchard. Lots of goldenrod in the fall. A little bit of Autumn Olive. A Black Locust grove about 3/8 of a mile away..." and then he was very interested.

If I read the tea-leaves right, he will be dropping off a few "trap hives" and positioning them to (hopefully) capture some swarms to build his business back up. With bee packages running about $150, he doesn't have to collect very many swarms to make parking some of his empty hive-bodies on The Property worth his while.

What do I expect out of it? Good Karma. Beekeepers are super-connectors. They talk to everybody. If we work out a deal that is mostly to his advantage (say a quart of honey for every swarm he collects off The Property) then word will get around that I am a "good guy".

That may sound weird to an urban person. But a "good guy" is not targeted by rural yutes for harassment. They pick "Ass-holes" and "Pr!cks of misery" to be the targets of donuts on lawns, water balloons filled with herbicide, road-kill bouquets for the dog to roll in, security lights getting shot-out and other rural fun. Getting labeled as a "good guy" by one of the local gray-beards is partial shielding from the normal wild-oats sowing, shielding that cannot be purchased with money.

I planted the last tree for 2025 over at Southern Belle's

It was a grafted, Illinois Everbearing Mulberry that is an honest 10' tall (12' if you include roots). I can hear Erin chuckling..."Yeah, last tree. I heard that before". Erin is one of my plant-junkie friends.

I like moving mulberry trees. The roots are fleshy and easy to cut. The recover well from transplanting as long as they get a good drink of water afterward.

I also did the last grafts (Erin still chuckling in the background) on a pear seedling that was growing beside their driveway. I put three grafts of Concorde and two of an early pear (Harrow Delight or Harvest Queen) on it. I left a few branches of the seedling because I am curious. Maybe this tree has awesome pears. The only way to find out is to let it fruit and sample it.

Burning the lacquer off of "tin" cans

The hot-ticket for direct planting of nuts like pecans or acorns where squirrels are an issue is to protect the nut with a tin-can. The bottom of the can is cut with an "X" and the points of the "X" pushed outwards. Dig the hole. Position the nut. Add another inch or two of dirt. Push the tin-can over the dirt/nut. Cover with more dirt.

The squirrel, smelling the nut, will attempt to dig up the nut but will be stymied by the sharp points-and-edges and the small opening. The sprouting that arises from the nut will be funneled through the opening in the "bottom" (but now top) of the can.

The problem is that the plastic coating on the metal prevents the can from rusting. It can cause the can to last long enough to girdle the young tree.

The solution is to toss the can into a fire long enough to burn the coating off of the steel. To you, the picture might look like a bunch of burnt, tin-cans. To me it looks like the start of a forest of pecan trees.

Watching prices with interest

I laid in a six-month-supply of coffee yesterday. It cost $22, which is 10 "cheap" coffees at Starbucks (without the tip). A couple of years ago it cost $15 for the same amount of coffee.

I also shopped 5000BTU window air conditioners. I was surprised that the prices seemed almost reasonable. I assume that the big-box stores are selling out of existing, pre-tariff inventory and not pricing for full replacement-cost.

That suggests that either the management is incompetent or that they don't expect the high prices to be permanent.

There was a larger range of prices than usual. Walmart's least expensive unit was a Midea (made in China) at $159, Lowes $159, Amazon $145, Menards $128 *after rebate. Of course, it could be management reacting to the different range of exposure to tariffs on Chinese manufactured goods. Manufacturers with more exposure have more risk and are likely to adjust prices more quickly.

Broken shovel handles...

These are a cheerful spring flower. Each flower is about as big around as a pencil eraser. According Lucas (who is also a whiz at taxonomy), this is probably Veronica persica.

I got two hours of work done in the orchard yesterday. I did NOT hit my work goals. A thunderstorm showed up and I bagged it early.

The temperature was in the mid-70s, it was humid and there was not much wind.

I had to make adjustments to the break schedule. The secret-sauce was to drink a half-liter of water at the half-hour mark in addition to the full break after an hour. I was still dragging but I was able to be effective.

80% of everything was probably built/planted by people who were "not at their best".

I got one pecan tree planted. I moved six mulberry seedlings to the linear brush-pile. I girdled a black walnut near the orchard and cut a couple of "stems" to a wild black cherry. The walnut and cherries were where they would shade the pecan tree.

I put chicken wire cages around some of the grafted apples.

What I did NOT get done was to plant a couple of pear trees at the Taj orchard and I did not get the chicken wire cages around the young trees there.

Phenology update

200 Growing Degree Days b50. American plums are blooming. Asian pears and their hybrids are all in full bloom. European pears are not blooming. Apples are not blooming. On the orchard floor, Ground Ivy is blooming and daffodil blossoms are starting to fade. In the wet areas, willows of the Salix interior grex are showing yellow catkins.

Turkeys are yelping in the clearings. Geese and Sandhill Cranes (the ribeyes of the sky) are extremely vocal.

A low IQ mourning dove built a nest on top of Mrs ERJ's garage door opener.

Spring is accelerating!

Failures

I broke two shovel handles yesterday. "Unbreakable" shovel handles cost just as much as entire shovels with "unbreakable" shovel handles. That silliness is likely to change with tariffs. Somebody in the US will figure out how to cut 48" lengths of fiberglass pultrusions and sell them for $15.

The stems of the black cherry that I cut got hung up by grape vines that are wrapped around the stems and a nearby tree about 20' up. That is a potential hazard I have to deal with. The tree that is holding them up is leaning out over a neighbors parked boat so cutting that tree is not a good option. Any ideas?

Most of my fig cuttings died this year. Cause(s) unknown.

The Tixia gooseberry bush I purchased last year is clearly a currant based on the shape of the flower clusters. I will grub it out if it is a Black Currant because that species is an alternate host for White Pine Blister Rust. Some Black Currant varieties are resistant but I have no idea which cultivar this is.

I am running out of time as biological spring starts to ramp-up.

I thought the citrus seeds were going to be a failure but I see that at least two of them are finally showing signs of life. 

The Silverado is having issues. I suspect an ignition coil-pack but have to figure out when I can get it into the shop.

Random Photo (CEO in Office circa 1970)

Three telephones. Org-chart on wall. Nearly clean desk. Classy suit.

Planning for succession, Potential Popes, Proverbs, Woodchucks and Brush-hogging

One of the differences between somebody who raises animals (like sheep) and one who grows plants is that the animal breeder has to make "cull" decisions on a regular basis.

Suppose you have enough pasture for 12 ewes and their lambs. When do you replace a ewe? A young ewe will have a drop in production vs a fully mature ewe. Which lamb(s) do you keep?

The worst situation is when your kids raise bottle-lambs and insist that you keep them. Whether the mismothering is genetic or nurture, keeping lambs that you had to feed because their mother couldn't/wouldn't is not the path to profitability. Even worse is if you keep 20 ewes on pasture that can only support 12.

The problem is analogous to a coach, how many players on the bench and who he gives game-time too.

The gardener usually has a 100% turnover every year. It is less of an issue with him. Progress cucumber or Salt-and-Pepper? Serrano or Cayenne? Stupice tomato or Big Boy?

The orchardist often think in 30 year time cycles. Fruit trees are "edge species" in the cycle of progression. They mature quickly, make a lot of seeds and then cede the sunlight to taller, deep-forest species. Generally, fruit tree species don't live all that long.

A large pear tree in Austria.

Some fruit trees in favorable circumstances can survive much, much longer than 30 years. There are many pear trees that are more than 200 years old in Europe and a few in the eastern US. It can be hard to "date" a fruit tree that has a hollow trunk, so there might be many trees that are older than 200 year-old.

It is even more difficult to date a tree that forms thickets and is multi-stemmed. 

The "30 year" number is driven mostly by market forces. The market and the prices commanded by various kinds of apples keeps shifting; Fuji => Gala => Honeycrisp...what comes next? If you are producing for home-consumption you can stretch that out. That doesn't mean that any apple will do. Novaspy looked very promising until the birds discovered it and started pecking the skin. Some varieties are very robust and the wounds cork-over, but not Novaspy.

Anyway, the "tree nursery" that took up "just a little bit" of the home garden had become filled with trees that are too big to be moved and it consumed 1600 square-feet or about 30% of the garden. I bit the bullet and cut down everything but one Kanza pecan seedling, two Quercus texana and one Quercus X humidicola seedlings. Emotional attachment is not a vice I can afford.

Some of the contenders for the next (Roman Catholic) Pope

There is no way of predicting who will be the next Pope, but one of the leading contenders is an African Cardinal who is extremely conservative.

Uttering the words "conservative" and "African" causes many North American liberals' minds to vapor-lock, but Africa is a very conservative continent. People who are living without a safety-net tend to bet on the sure-thing.

There is a titanic struggle between the richest, Christian nations who are pushing LGBT and Marxist doctrines and the poorest countries...where the growth in Christian populations is greatest...which have little patience with fanciful theories. Is it about the money or is it about the souls?

Proverbs Chapter 15

Proverbs Chapter 15 has much to recommend it. Combine that with James 3:1-12 and you have a ready-made Ph.D. thesis.

Woodchuck #5

Woodchuck #5 slipped her mortal coil yesterday.

Buzzards are going to eat well tomorrow. 

Brush-hogging

I found somebody to brush-hog the floor of the Upper Orchard. He isn't available until after May 15, but that will give me time to move the big stuff out of his way.

Tab Clearing

Air Layering

I have not had great success with air layering. The few successes I had is where I used rooting hormones, had very large balls of media (sphagnum moss) and a covering that totally excluded light. I also used a couple of tight wraps of wire BELOW the bundle to reduce the flow of carbs downward to the roots.

Antisemitism

It occurred to me after I published one of my posts that the antisemitism that is rampant on US campuses might very well be due to the large representation of Jewish people in tenured positions. According to one source, 24% of the tenured positions in the Ivy League are occupied by professors who are Jewish while approximately 2.2% of the over-all US population is Jewish.

Perhaps base emotions like envy and jealousy are responsible for all of those grad students who are SURE they are the smartest person in the room promoting violence against Jewish students (and staff).

Busy, busy, busy

35 Arborvitae "Green Giant" went into the ground yesterday over at Southern Belle's.

She wants a privacy screen and "Green Giant" met the specifications.

The rooted "liners" are 8" tall and the root ball is approximately 3" in every direction. She will have to stay on top of watering them for the first summer.

Source of plants.   I think she got good value for her money.

Cutting more rabbit cages

I need at least another 24 and the count keeps climbing.

Armoring against deer

The plan is to put a cage around every tree. The cages are 12" in diameter and 5' tall. THey are made from 2" by 4" welded wire fencing.

They get a 6' Tee post to hold them in place.

Some of them will get a wrap of "chicken wire" fence to deter the deer from reaching through the 2X4 mesh and chewing on the new growth.

Almost all of the deer damage stops at 66" of height. I just have to protect them to that height, give-or-take a little bit.

Deer are very oral. They are like 9 month old babies who put everything into their mouths. I had success last growing season by "spicing up" the shoots growing out of their 48" tall cages with very thorny rose canes I had pruned out of the upper orchard. I suspect the deer lipped the rose canes and decided that no matter how yummy it smelled, it wasn't worth the effort. One pertinent detail is that much feeding happens at night when vision is not very effective.

Regarding antler rubbing, they seem to prefer soft, springy trees like willow, white pine or aspen. They also like the trees they rub to be widely spaced. A newly planted fruit tree in an orchard meets most of those specifications. Running a Tee-post into the ground and tying the tree to the Tee-post or (in my case) using the Tee-post to secure the 5' welded wire cage makes it "hard" and "not springy'. So, knock-on-wood, they will find better sparring partners out in the woods or over at the neighbors.

Top-working trees

The reason the pear tree with the four grafts in it was so "butchered" is that all of the fruiting wood will be above from the grafts. The more wood I leave, the higher the pears will be, they harder they will be to pick, the more likely windfalls will go "SPLAT!".

One minor detail that doesn't get talked about much is the number of buds to use per scion when topworking. More buds means more shoots which means "bushier" regrowth and quicker return to fruiting. I think all of the scion I put on this tree had at least four buds. 

Bathtubs

Mrs ERJ said she is fine if we switch one of our combination bath-showers to shower-only.

January 6

I was taken to task in the comments for suggesting that the crimes of the vast majority of the people sucked up in the January 6 (2021) Capital trespassing "was little more than a panty-raid).

Viewed through the lens of cui bono (who benefits) with no consideration for the speculation and hyperbolic reporting that occurred when it happened, the most defensible hypothesis is that the Deep State already knew that Donald J. Trump was toast and that they were putting a stake in the heart of Nancy Pelosi.

We know that approximately 30 FBI agents were "embedded" in the lead elements of the contingent that breached the Capital.

We know that the only item of worth that was taken and never recovered was Nancy Pelosi's laptop.

We know that Nancy Pelosi withdrew her name from consideration for leadership positions in the next election cycle.

We know that huge amounts of (potentially exculpatory) evidence was destroyed in early 2023 which poisoned all previous convictions.

We know that the most progressive elements of the Democratic Party are running amok and threatening senior, Democratic lawmakers like Chuck Schumer in the primaries.

Occam's Razor suggests that Nancy had a lot of "dirt" on her laptop and the people who stole it are not shy about using it. The cleanest working-hypothesis is that her laptop was the goal of the entire venture and that all of the J-6ers who were prosecuted were unwitting decoys.

Who is in and who is out?

I was thinking through the list of people who I would invite into my "life boat" when it occurred to me that I had camped, hiked or been on extended canoe trips with most of them.

You learn a lot about a guy when he wakes up for the fourth morning and finds his only pair of under-shorts was knocked off the line by a nighttime rainstorm and infused with grit and pine-needles...again.

The magic of sharing austere, physical endurance events isn't (just) that it identifies the weaklings and back-stabbers and contentious. It is that it highlights each individual's strengths and shortcomings.

The people I would be comfortable inviting aboard my lifeboat, guys like Timmy, Tom, Joe, Phil, Jimmi and so on, would be invited because I would know how to team them up in complimentary ways.

Yes, I still have that cold

I am running at about 80% in terms of stamina. I have had worse colds.

It has impacted my sleeping and I slept in the recliner last night. Not my preference but it was doable.

 

Long day yesterday

Top-worked pear tree. Four grafts 10' above the orchard floor

40 year-old apple tree. Rootstock was MM106. An honest 12" in diameter and 18" long chunks weigh roughly 70 pounds.

 

2' tall cages made from chicken wire to keep rabbit damage down. Grafted pear trees in the cages.

Fine Art Tuesday

Martin Eichinger born 1949. Still alive.

Link to view more of his art.

Note: His work and images of his work are not in the public domain. So I am posting a small sample of his art under "fair use" standards. You can view more of his work at his gallery in the link shown above.

Imagine my surprise (not sarcasm)

Matt Bracken pointed out that Baby Boomers are being auditioned as the scapegoats for upcoming events. I was totally unaware.

Why do Millennials and Gen-X hate on Baby Boomers?

"...economic disadvantages, environmental neglect, and a sense that boomers have not taken responsibility for the challenges younger generations face, such as climate change and economic instability..." (AI generated answer). I underlined the last part of the quote because it is an interesting turn-of-phrase.

More than half of them went to college and soaked in the toxic consequences of the tournament pay/benefit structure of Tenured Full Professor, Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, Post-Doc, T/A. It is positively medieval. 

A Post-Doc (in the worthless, made-up fields of study that dominate) cannot get on the tenure track until a Tenured Full Professor dies or fully retires somewhere in the United States. Then 200 Assistant Professors apply for his job and one wins it. Then 200 Associate Professors apply for the open Assistant Professor position. Then 1000 Post-Docs apply for the open Assistant Professor job.

Stressful, wasteful and needless. It also creates a great deal of anger in the great, thundering herd of deeply indebted, gullible, perpetual students who swell the ranks of overly-educated. That is the septic tank that the modern college student is swimming in.

And while the guidance counselors for those students might have been Baby Boomers, selling the students on the idea of going in debt so they didn't have to work while going to college and the idea that somebody would PAY them for what their credentials without them actually having to do anything was like selling heroin to an addict.

Part II

In the name of saving the environment, home-owners in highly desirable locations crush the construction of additional housing. The assessed value of THEIR house rises to astronomical levels which effectively slams the door on younger people obtaining affordable housing within reasonable commuting distance of where the jobs are. Many people who work menial jobs in the D.C. Metro area live in West Virginia and commute in the "off" hours when I-270 is not a parking lot.

Of course, the stated reason "saving the environment" is BS. The real reason is that the artificial famine of new housing inflates the value of their home, making them millionaires.

I agree with the Millennials: The Baby-Boomers screwed them by enacting zoning requirements that restrict the number of units. We elected Governors whose agencies aggressively police construction sites and hammer crews who violate standards in even the most casual or incidental ways, inflating the cost of new construction by $100k per unit.

One solution

One solution Bracken proposed was to invite struggling, younger family members back into the house when things get spicy.

That solution can be workable but the devil is in the details. Do you have any family members who are hopelessly poisoned with anger? Are their buddies/girlfriends trustworthy? You aren't just inviting another sentry into your castle. You are potentially inviting all of their friends and their friend's families.

Now is the time to be hiring them to work around the place to see if they are punctual and trustworthy. Some will be. Others will not be. Some will have personalities that are easy to mesh with. Others will not.

Showers for seniors and Humanity in the Self-checkout lane

I like the low-mounted outlet for the handheld sprayer. I like the shower curtain. I am not sold on the controls.

While Mrs ERJ and I are currently both hale and hearty, we know that can change in the blink-of-an-eye. We have family members who have experienced strokes, vertigo, sudden back or joint issues, chemo-therapy or a slip-and-fall and so-on.

Currently, both of our bathrooms have combination shower-baths with the original, mid-1970's fiberglass surrounds. I added a grab-handle to the bath attached to our bedroom.

That leaves us looking at making the (formerly known as) kid's bathroom friendlier for us if/when we have impaired mobility. It is going to be a pretty steep learning curve. We have a "window" when we can work on the bathroom in June and July.

Any opinions from you guys before I open my wallet?

Itsy Bitsy spider  Big Hairy Spider went up the water spout...

 Yeah, we don't raise snowflakes out here.

This spider was waiting in the shower for Belladonna when she was about 15. She is not a "morning person" but she woke up in a hurry that day.

Woodchucks

One more woodchuck met her demise today. That brings the total up to four. 

AU Rosa Plum

Some early-blooming trees are very attractive to bees. Others don't get much love.

My AU Rosa tree was buzzing with pollinators this morning even though we had a 20 mph wind, the sky was overcast and the temperature was in the mid-fifties. No, they were not domesticated honeybees. 

Humanity in the Self-checkout at Walmart

I was standing in line at the self-checkout at 8:15AM and a Walmart associate walked up to the elderly woman who was working the area. "How are you doing?" the associate asked.

"It sucks. But I will survive" the woman, who was wearing a face mask replied.

When it was my turn, the barcode reader wouldn't pick up the bar code because of the shiny paper the label was printed on.

"Hey, I need some help" I told the old lady.

She came over and shook her head.

"Tough day. Sorry about that" I said to her as she started tapping in the UPC by hand.

"It shows?" she asked, surprised.

"No, I saw your friend check on you and evesdropped on your conversation" I said.

"I had a woman come through who didn't know how to use the scale" the woman said. "It went downhill from there."

"Sometimes life sucks" I empathized as I gave her a fist-bump.

Then the man who was checking out at the next station said "That's a fact" and he came over and gave her a fist-bump. In fact, he taught her two that I had never seen before:

-Turkey (after fist-bump one of the people spreads out their hand like a fanning tom-turkey). 

-Snail (after fist-bump one of the people makes a "peace sign" with their two fingers and positions it in front of the other person's fist like a couple of antenna).

That got a chuckle out of the old woman.

Execute. Execute. Execute.

There is a time to Plan. There is a time to Prepare. There is a time to Execute.

This is the time to Execute.

I screwed up on Saturday. I thought I was going to finish up with the pear grafting, got out to the orchard and found that I had failed to pack all of the scions. I had some of what I needed but not the Chojuro I had planned to top-work into a mature tree at the top of the Hill Orchard.

Yes, Virginia. I made a list on a 3"-by-5" note-card. No, Virginia, I was not able to find my list after my 4th trip loading "stuff" in the truck

Sometimes good-enough is good enough if you have plenty of it. I had extra Harrow Sweet scion so that is what I used. I can make adjustments later. God willing, I will still stick a couple of grafts of Chojuro on that tree.

Peach root-stocks and hazelnuts showed up yesterday. Green Giant Arborvitae for Southern Belle's privacy hedge are expected Tuesday.

It will be windy on Monday, making spraying and top-working mature trees (ladder work) a no-go. Tuesday looks more promising as far as wind goes.

Gardens

About a third of our garden is tilled. It has been a wet spring and I am two weeks behind. The bat-house is in the upper-right corner of the picture.

 

Neighbors

I talked to the neighbor who lives next to the Upper Orchard. His dad is selling his house and moving into a facility. I found that out as I helped him unload firewood from the trailer he pulled into his backyard.

The neighbor is handling the sale and is busy cleaning out the place for the sale. That is where the firewood came from. It also explained the boats and vehicles that he had parked around his yard.

Woodchucks

I tallied three this week.

Bloom notes

AU Rosa is in full bloom. Asian pears will soon follow. Japanese flowering cherries are blooming in town (Eaton Rapids). 

Walking around the Upper Orchard which is 35 miles from Eaton Rapids, most of the apple trees promise at least a modest crop-load (barring a killing frost) which is pretty amazing since I removed 2/3 of the wood out of the canopies of the fruit trees.

Released

Mrs ERJ and I attended the Easter Vigil last night.

Approximately 10 people "joined" the church last night at our service.

Their faces were all sparkly and glowing and wet. Even I, with my cynical and world-hardened heart could see it.

The wags once noted that "In the beginning God created man in His own image. And man returned the favor and recreated God in his own, fallible image."

God is infinite. We cannot understand or comprehend Him. The best we can do is to grasp Him with human metaphors and allegories and analogies.

Not many guests expected at Casa ERJ today

Two of our kids worked today so parents who they work with can spend Easter with their young children.

Another is going to church and will be tangled up with events there for-the-duration.

Another one had "something come up". He called Mrs ERJ to let her know and apologized with abject misery in his voice. He didn't know that the call would make us zero-for-four and disappointing his mother gives him physical pain.

Mrs ERJ did the "mom" thing and asked if he needed any left-overs.

The metaphor

The radiant faces were the faces of grown-up children whose decades-long estrangement from their parent was dissolved. Their relationship has been restored. The past, with its injuries and scars, was released. Their souls were healed.

Still here. Just busy.

Still here.

Duck Brand masking tape, General Purpose, 0.7" width appears to be a solid choice for binding grafts. Walmart carries that brand and it is in-stock at our local store.

Sunday is Coming (Recommended by a friend)

 

Three-and-a-half minute run-time.

Try bossing somebody's dog

To quote Will Rogers, "If you think you are important, try bossing somebody else's dog around."

Commit this concept to memory. There will be a test. The test is called "life".

Mrs ERJ laughed

"Since when did you have friends?"

The people who shut-down the economy over Covid

The people who insisted that we wear rags over our faces, socially distance and take experimental "vaccines" are now horrified that tax-payers don't want indigent people shitting in their yards and on their sidewalks and littering the same with used "sharps".

It isn't about public safety. It is about feeling powerful and the "rush" of imposing their will on others.

Daily Grafting notes

I did some "bench grafting" yesterday.

Pyrus betulifolia seedlings in various diameters and Harrow Sweet scion, also in an assortment of diameters.

I whip-and-tongue grafted and secured with masking tape 11 trees in 16 minutes for an average of about one bench-graft every 1.5 minutes or 40/hour. 

More uniformity would have sped the process. For instance, MM-106 apple rootstock are smooth and cut like butter and are sorted to a very fine resolution by the industry. If the root-stocks are very uniform then you can also sort the scion to match and save the time needed to sort through the gallon ziplock baggie of random diameters to find a match.

I could not find my "good" snippers which was more of an aggravation than a slowdown. But it was still a stumbling block.

Having somebody cut/tear the masking tape to 5" lengths and staging them for wrapping the grafts would have eliminated about 10 seconds out of each graft. I am sure Mrs ERJ would have happily set a timer and done that...maybe staging 20 every 20 minutes had I had only asked.

I believe that one-benchgraft-a-minute is very doable, but I did not hit that target yesterday.

Coming down with a cold

Quicksilver showed up on Monday with a head-cold.

I woke up with a stuffy nose this morning so I suspect that I am coming down with a cold.

I had a weird dream last night. It was weird enough to wake me up. I was on a commuter flight packed with elderly women. We were being shipped to a "time share" sales presentation. I was trying to get off the plane and my seat toppled over backwards. The Karen who was running the rodeo made some notes on her clipboard and informed me that I would be charged for the damage I had caused.

I think that qualifies as a nightmare. 

Bonus image

Source

 

Return on Investment (bloviation alert)

I have to keep reminding myself that the Return-on-Investment in the orchards at the property that I am managing dwarfs the ROI on time invested improving other facets of the property's resources. In total, the orchards make up about 2% of the entire property's footprint but have been getting at least 95% of my attention.

Maintaining Options vs. Defending Sunk-costs

There are some commonalities between investing to maintain options and investing to defend sunk-costs. There are also some subtle differences.

I see what I am doing in the orchards as maintaining options. The disorder in the orchards was teetering on the brink of when it would be less expensive to bulldoze and start from the beginning. That is, the chaos and entropy were on the verge of avalanche. By administering a stitch-in-time I hope to keep the options that viable orchards offer "alive" for another two decades, albeit with a modest amount of annual maintenance.

A sunk-cost analysis differs from optionality analysis because sunk-cost is a backwards-looking analysis. "We invested a million dollars in        fill in blank       declining technology and we will get no revenue if we don't add more investment." Under many circumstances, the enterprise is doomed to lose money all previous investment (in the economic sense) regardless of what the firm does. And, in many cases, the firm would be better off quickly migrating to the ascending technology and scuttling the old, already-tooled technology; strip-mining the old of all the human and other capital that can be redeployed to the new technology.

There are many human factors that come into play with the sunk-cost based decision-making. One is that the most important players in the firm probably proved their worth in the arena defined by the old technology. They understand it. They identify with it. It is the "winning horse" they bet on in the past and it repaid them handsomely. They approved all of the investments that are now turning to ashes as they watch and see that as a mortal blow to their own, personal sense of worth.

Dot-products and Return-on-Investment

Suppose you have two young men: Abner and Aaron.

Abner is physically as strong as an ox while mentally he has the mind of a 5th grader (a functional vocabulary <10,000 words). Expressed as a vector, Abner might be (200, 50) with the first number representing percent (of mean) physical ability and the second number representing percent mental ability.

Aaron is mentally as sharp as a tack (a functional vocabulary >50,000 words) but is physically far from impressive. Expressed as a vector, Aaron might be represented by (50, 200).

Modern education would invest large amounts of resources into upgrading Abner's academic skills while letting Aaron fend for himself. Sadly, pushing resources at Abner is like trying to pour 32 ounces of water into an 8 ounce cup. It is wasted.

In Aaron's case, the system pours 8 ounces of water into a vessel capable of holding 32 ounces. If we are lucky, Aaron has a calm personality and doesn't get bored and start causing mayhem.

Expressed in pseudo-math, Abner is ((200,50) .dot. (50,200)) for a sum of 20k and Aaron is ((50,200) .dot. (200,50)) for a sum of 20k. Added together, the total benefit is 40k.

From a pure ROI standpoint, society would get more benefit at less cost if it stopped trying to "educate" Abner after 5th grade and concentrated on developing his physical gifts. Society would also get more benefit if the resources that WERE poured into turning Abner into an IT Wizard (or whatever the cool profession is today) were directed to developing Aaron's skills.

Expressed in pseudo-math, Abner is now ((200,50) .dot. (200,50)) for a sum of 40.2k and Aaron is ((50,200) .dot. (50,200)) for a sum of 40.2k. Added together, the total benefit is 80.4k, more than twice as much as the current model for allocating education resources.

Back to property management

Management is a limited resource. Beyond mitigating hazardous conditions, it is irresponsible to starve productive, internal enterprises to subsidize internal enterprises that offer dubious short-term and as-yet unproven long-term benefits.

Restated in the language of "Antifragility": Invest in the winners and place small side-bets on a universe of long-shots that spans the universe of potential.

Which is why my so many hour of my time are going into the orchards and the other parts of the property are treading water.

Update on Vinnie Van Gogh II, Slurping, Honeybees and Pollen

I had a hard time getting my behind in gear yesterday. Consequently, I didn't get much done in the orchards. I got eight apple trees grafted: Four Melrose and one each Fuji, Kerr, Northern Spy, a promising seedling. I also grafted two pears to Kieffer and planted five raspberry plants.

Mrs ERJ dragged brush while I was grafting, so overall, the trip was productive even though we were not out there very long.

Vinnie Van Gogh II

Vinnie is back in the garage and Mrs ERJ is happy.

The mechanic replaced the leaking ATF cooler lines and he added two quarts of fluid.

Training grandkids

Yesterday I taught Quicksilver how to "slurp". Slurping is a useful skill for drinking hot coffee and for aerating red wines. Yes, Virginia, posh wine tasters "slurp" their red wine.

It is up to us oldsters to teach these important life-skills to the young ones. 

Bees and pollen

A long academic paper on the nutritional characteristics of various plant pollen. 

The role of various amino acids in the metabolism of honey bees.

Amino Acids	Role in the Honey Bee Metabolism	Literature
Tryptophan	A precursor of serotonin, a neuromodulator and a hormone whose level in the brain increases with age	[85]
Methionine	The major substitute and active methyl donor for DNA methylation, which is an epigenetic driver of caste differentiation	[89]
Arginine	A substrate used by the enzyme nitric oxide synthase to produce NO, participates in the immune response during injury	[38]
Leucine	Affects many TOR signaling pathways and genes; in insects, as in other animals, it may be associated with the activity of many enzymes such as alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and creatine kinase (CK)	[90]
Phenylalanine	Has a strong phagostimulatory effect	[91]
Tyrosine	Participates in in the formation of sclerotin, the matrix in which chitin fibers are embedded	[91]
Histidine	A precursor to histamine	[92]
Cysteine	A limited resource in most insects and is necessary for the production of glutathione; an antioxidant that neutralizes the oxygen forms produced as a result of the reaction and supports immune functions	[93]
Proline	Takes part in physiological changes in temperature, preventing overcooling; proline increases cold tolerance; participates in energy metabolism during flight (energy boost for flight); increases the survival rate and weight of brood larvae	[87,94,95]
Glutamic acid	An important neurotransmitter regulating the processes of learning and memory	[95,96]
Lysine	This amino acid is directly involved in the synthesis of nitric oxide, a known neurotransmitter affecting memory	[85]

and a list of some common "pollinator friendly" plants

Comparison of total protein content and amino acid composition in pollen (based on Google Scholar and Scopus).

Taxon	Total Protein Content [%]	Dominant Amino Acid Composition	Literature
Brassica napus	from 22 to 27	Aspartic acid, Glutamic acid, Lysine, Leucine	[22,23,24,25,26]
Phacelia tanacetifolia	27.44	Glutamic acid, Proline, Aspartic acid, Leucine, Lysine, Valine	[27]
Solidago gigantea; Solidago canadensis	>20	No literature data available	[28]
Fagopyrum	11.4	Glutamic acid, Proline, Aspartic acid, Leucine, Tryptophan, Lysine, Valine, Alanine, Arginine	[22,25]
Medicago sativa	20.23	Valine, Leucine, Izoleucine Phenylalanine, Proline	[24]
Phoenix dactylifera	19.77	Methionine, Histidine, Glycine, Alanine	[24]
Vicia faba	from 22 to 24	Proline, Aspartic acid, Glutamic acid, Arginine, Leucine, Tryptophan	[29,30]
Helianthus annus	15.19	Leucine, Valine, Lysine, Histidine, Aspartic acid, Arginine, Tryptophan, Glutamic acid	[24,25,29]
Zea mays	14.9	Proline, Aspartic acid, Lysine, Alanine, Arginine, Tryptophan	[22,26]
Eucalyptus bridgesiana:	23.1	Proline, Glutamic acid, Aspartic acid, Leucine	[22]
Echium plantagineum	37.4	Aspartic acid, Glutamic acid, Leucine, Lysine	[22]
Salix discolour	21.9	Glutamic acid, Aspartic acid, Leucine, Lysine	[22]
Castanea sativa	21.6	Proline, Aspartic acid, Glutamic acid	[31,32]
Rubus sp.	22	Leucine, Lysine, Valine, Phenylalanine, Threonine, Izoleucine	[31,33]
Sinapis	No literature data available	Aspartic acid, Glutamic acid, Proline, Lysine	[34]
Acacia sp.	21.8	Aspartic acid, Glutamic, Glycine	[35]
Calluna vulgaris	17	Glutamic, Aspartic acid, Glycine	[36]

None of them are listed as having a lot of Cysteine. Pussy Willow (Salix discolor) was notable for providing pollen VERY early in the bee season. Clover was mentioned in the text as being "particularly high in amino acids" but does not appear in the table.

There are a number of tested supplements based on soy protein, skimmed milk powder, egg yolk powder, casein or fish meal, the ingredients of which were tested on Apis mellifera L. colonies [9,111,112]. They stimulate the development of the brood, determine the development of the hypopharyngeal glands (HPG), and all this translates into honey production in the colonies. There are also yeast–gluten mixtures available on the market with the addition of vitamins, amino acids, pollen, etc. It has been reported that the mixtures are perfect for periods of malnutrition and have a positive effect on colony parameters [9,113,114]. Bees fed with pollen, fishmeal and sugar were compared. Sugar had no effect, fishmeal worked satisfactorily, and pollen was the best in terms of bee colony development rate [9].

Note: Both fishmeal and egg yolk powder are rich in cysteine. 

The primary conclusion of the article is that healthy bee colonies need pollen from multiple plant species to provide them with a healthy, balanced diet.