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Post by philagardener on Oct 6, 2017 5:22:23 GMT -5
What bites my ass is this: whenever you see pictures of Isis, or whoever, tooling around the desert, they always seem to be in old Toyota p'ups; how do they do that? Can we get some of their mechanics here? I mean, we give them a job (and maybe a nominal pre-paid Costco card); they're gonna convert; everybody wins! No CARB regs in Afganistan . . . . You need a(nother) parts car! |
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Post by steev on Oct 6, 2017 22:54:09 GMT -5
So the Indian Subcontinent/Middle East is where Toyota p'ups go to die? Kinda puts elephant graveyards in perspective, n'est-ce pas? Didn't people used to use them for utility vehicles; Hannibal comes to mind.
My own p'up is back on the road, peppy and quiet; my wallet is $2K leaner, but leaner is more fit, one hopes (if not, I'm screwed, having become as scrawny as my Dad and his, by this age); maybe I need to haul a bunch of Taliban around to keep it running. The trouble with scavenging parts is that they're often nearly shot (could be why the vehicle is scrapped).
While new parts are pricey, after-market parts don't last, so it's a replacement merry-go-round.
While this thread has drifted from plants, I will draw it back by pointing out the value of returning our agriculture to earlier strains, not dependent on chem-ferts, pesticides, and herbicides. While not really expecting the Apocalypse, I do expect global trade to decline; this will require a societal change in our attitude toward food (please note that in this, as in many other threads, I draw no lines between the USA and the rest of the world; we are one world, all children of our Great Mother, and we will live or die together, if we fail to get that; Nationalism is fun, but might that not be counterproductive?
Peak phosphorus is predicted and nitrates are dependent on natural gas; commercial agriculture is as unsustainable as gasoline-driven cars; we get sustainable or we go to the wall. I'm not that worried for myself; I have remote land and I'm old; most of the coming shit-storm isn't going to hit me.
In some other thread, I posted about the need to educate, especially women, so they have value beyond breeding and domestic help; I was thinking of world-wide; NLT 50% of humans are female; have we so many trained, intelligent humans that we can write off half the population in many places/cultures because of their gender? I'm not optimistic about this continuing to work.
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Post by steev on Oct 8, 2017 21:57:24 GMT -5
A flock of starlings cleaned out all the grapes that weren't paper-covered.
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Post by steev on Oct 10, 2017 19:05:00 GMT -5
Worked yesterday and today breathing ash from the current wildfires; nearly coughing up a lung.
The on-going drop-off of my client-list continues; fuck 'em; I can't keep up with everything, so I'll keep up with those that hang in. I can see having a work-week of only two/three days of only committed, high-value clients; mostly those whose yards I've kept up for 25/35 years.
Damn, I'm starting to sound like some sort of "valued retainer"; oh, well; just call me "Jeeves".
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Post by richardw on Oct 11, 2017 18:26:53 GMT -5
Thats what i find too with my pet sheep shearing is you always people who just drop off the list without letting you, and that pisses me off, but i'm always picking new clients 'next door' or 'down the road' from long term clients. Sometimes i drop a person off the list for any number of different reasons.
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Post by steev on Oct 12, 2017 22:33:38 GMT -5
That is the greatest benefit I've found in having my own business (not gonna bitch about the downsides): not having one employer, but many clients; it's so liberating to be free to "fire" any client, for any reason, without losing my income. I recently fired one because she thought my helpers might be "casing" her place for later robbery; not just possibly racist BS on them, but disrespect of my judgement in who works for me. She's toast. Byeee!
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Post by richardw on Oct 15, 2017 15:41:18 GMT -5
Doesnt say much about the level of trust she had in you then alright. Me, i work on my own, even better, though i do take my father out sometimes from the old folks home, he just follows me around in his blissfully happy state of dementia.
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Post by steev on Oct 15, 2017 20:34:38 GMT -5
Good on you for your filial attention.
When I was ~9. Pop and I went to take a first cousin of his to visit the cousin's grandmother in a "home"; she was a sister of my great-grandmother; I was left in the car while they walked in; I saw her, a small, white-haired woman like her sisters, my great-grandmother Margretta and great-grand aunt Matilda, come to the door, but she couldn't open the screen-door because there was a hook too high for her to reach, meant to keep the patients/wards/inmates from wandering off. I thought it very sad at the time; as I've grown older, I only find it more so.
So, it having looked like my Service tree was going to produce a crop this year, I looked at it as I drove in; almost no fruit! Damned birds, I thought, until I went to check it out; it had been hard wind and the matured fruit was on the ground; I gathered 2-3 pints of the largest, which is now in the freezer, prior to bletting. This is it, sports fans; will Sorbus domestica be worth more than a pretty, pest-free little tree (like Breda Giant {hah} medlar)? We shall see.
That hard wind had ripped the paper cloches off all but one bunch of grapes, so the birds cleaned them out. One bunch of grapes, not, I think, much of a crop; if it's still there next weekend, I'll cut it, as I doubt it's going to sweeten much more.
The watermelons seem pretty finished with setting fruit, so I got one for my sweetheart and one (green-fleshed) for me; the critters pretty much cleaned them out; I never seem to have the pellet gun at hand when that ground-squirrel is about.
A very few winter squashes seem likely to mature fruit, if the ground-squirrel doesn't get them before I get it.
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Post by 12540dumont on Oct 16, 2017 11:01:23 GMT -5
Worked yesterday and today breathing ash from the current wildfires; nearly coughing up a lung. The on-going drop-off of my client-list continues; fuck 'em; I can't keep up with everything, so I'll keep up with those that hang in. I can see having a work-week of only two/three days of only committed, high-value clients; mostly those whose yards I've kept up for 25/35 years. Damn, I'm starting to sound like some sort of "valued retainer"; oh, well; just call me "Jeeves". Jeeves, it's awful smokey here. I've had a nasty sore throat from breathing the stuff. Finally gave up and did some much needed housework. Now, this morning it's a bit clearer. Boy that was a wind though! It's so darn dry everywhere here, I could see that fire just about anywhere! I too fired 5 clients last year. Sure, go on vacation for a month and forget to tell me. Email me 3 weeks in and ask if I could hold their vegetables. (Hold them? Hold them? Yeah, I had them in my hand when I was picking them. And then they sat in the fridge, and then I fed them to the chickens). I also can't abide anyone who calls me and says, "our family doesn't eat corn, peppers, tomatillos, or eggplant but we'd like extra melon instead each week". Oh boy, don't get me started.....you can see where this is going. Where in the heck am I supposed to get extra melons and what am I supposed to do with all those extra veges? Let me just go out there and wave my magic spade.... |
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Post by richardw on Oct 17, 2017 2:17:45 GMT -5
Seems like people are becoming more and more selfish, lazy and self centered. A local woman was telling me the other day how last summer she had a heap of blackcurrants that she advertised in the local school newsletter 'come help yourself', only one person replied and that person asked her to pick them for her, 'no its pick your own sorry', she never heard from her again, oh well, at least the birds put them to some use.
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Post by steev on Oct 19, 2017 22:41:10 GMT -5
So I had the Sorbus fruits in the freezer three days, put them in the fridge to thaw, and just tried one; no way in hell would I willingly eat those! Sourish and tooth-mucking; feh! Has anyone got a clue what I should have done/do to make these suckers worth eating?
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Post by steev on Oct 20, 2017 10:44:58 GMT -5
Thanks; looks like a plan.
I'm not unwilling to acquire a taste for whatever, although there are things that require too much input, like sugar, to qualify as "survival" foods if SHTF.
Maybe if there's nothing but zombies and Sorbus, I'll deal with it, but I'm not sure I wouldn't want to just jump in the chipper ("Fargo" reference, there).
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Post by steev on Oct 26, 2017 23:52:45 GMT -5
Having weathered my landlady's push to get (some) of my stuff out of her basement (yes; I'm a pack-rat, Olympic-grade); I hope to get back to the saw-dustery tomorrow (missed the last two weeks, having the truck loaded with my stuff); that hardwood shavings/sawdust is primo mulch and very useful in the compooster, easier to work around plants than the bunny-bedding straw, which works fine in other uses.
One must make the effort to use materials to their best advantage, if one has any limit on one's stamina, that certainly having become a feature of my "Golden Years".
Another client bailed today; it's all good; less time to worry about less profitable/interesting accounts. I may have a prospect for an apprentice, but if not, no problem; I'm really starting to seriously look away from working in town for money; gotta get my farm-house built; gotta blow off the job; gotta live for love, not money. I don't look to be a hermit; I look to involve my community (ranchers) in gardening, seed-saving, and breeding. I think showing by doing will do the job, mostly with the young.
My landlady admitted to having tried one of those bletted Sorbus; we are in agreement: damn, that's nasty!
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Post by steev on Oct 28, 2017 0:34:30 GMT -5
Having spent three weekends getting (some of) my stuff out of her basement, I had too much work to get to the sawdustery today; oh, well, I'll take more of my stuff (I think I'm a "stuffionaire", to coin a phrase; you never know when that POS will be just what you need, if you can find it). When my then buddy and I were surveying our acres with his little kit and he couldn't see "that" far, I had the yellow, weed-filled plastic bags that worked; when one of the wheelbarrows had a flat, I had half a can of fix-a-flat so we could mix and pour that slab. Have I mentioned that I'm a pack-rat? How would I get by out in the boonies, if not? It's 40-60 minutes to the nearest hardware store, just going.
When the county assessor has been and gone, I expect to build 10'x12' structures (no permit required) to deal with my storage issues, as well as to permit sorting stuff, so I can actually find what I need occasionally. Actually, it occurs that I'm prolly thinking of more storage space than living space; I wonder what that means.
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Post by walt on Oct 28, 2017 13:07:56 GMT -5
I agree that things are cheap now, though not so cheap that I can afford them. That is because people are cheap too. Desposable, like paper towels or ass wipes.
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