Progress in Paradise...

Progress in Paradise...  Did you ever have one of those projects that you thought was going to be a trivial thing turn into the project from hell?  That happened to me today.  The project?  Installing drip irrigation for the five pots of color that we have on our second floor balcony.  What inspired me to do this was discovering a spigot immediately below the balcony.  No particular part of this project was hard – the only real problem was that I kept forgetting one part or another for the system.  Since this was the first drip irrigation I've installed at our home in Paradise, I didn't have the box of all the miscellaneous parts and tools you need for this job.  There's the filter, the faucet adapter, the pressure reducer, the back-flow preventer, the timer, the 1/2" tubing, the 1/4" tubing, the barbed flow emitters, the bug stoppers, the stakes, the emitter installation tool, and 25 or so other things.  I made a lot of trips to Ridley's.  Had to fill up on gas.  I'm thinking about new tires.  And I definitely am now overdue for maintenance on my truck.  My wallet is overstuffed with Ridley's receipts, most of them for under $5.  Sheesh.

Well, now I have that box of miscellaneous drip irrigation parts and tools!

And the drip irrigation is working fine.

I also finished installing three swinging bird feeder arms on our balcony.  I started the installation a couple days ago, with that effort ending with a couple coats of black paint.  Now that the paint was dry, I could install the actual arm and hang some feeders out: two hummingbird feeders and one oriole feeder.  We've seen quite a few of both around here, including a nesting pair of Bullock's Orioles near the southeast corner of our property, in a black willow along the irrigation canal.  I like these swinging arms, though I wish they were made of a bit heavier gauge steel.  Still, they're strong, mounted easily to the balcony rail columns, and the swinging action is perfect for getting the feeders out over the yard (instead of the nice, clean balcony floor).  The hardware that comes with them assumes you're mounting them to wooden beams, but all I had to do to make them work was to buy some good sheet metal screws and an “L” bracket to hold up the bottom.  This was both inexpensive and easy.  The black paint was a choice of mine, to make the swinging arms match (and blend in with) the balcony railing.  That worked great!

The dogs and I just got back from a roughly one mile walk, which we made very slowly because it's hot outside.  Our thermometer reads 90°, and I believe it.  The weather site says it's 23% relative humidity right now – not bad.  Except that I know that's wrong, because we have irrigation running upwind of us – it's probably more like 80% at our house.  When we had walked about a quarter mile away, the humidity dropped sharply; the difference was easily perceptible.  The dogs had one exciting moment along the walk today.  They all stayed on leash, but at one point they all three (even the ancient and venerable Mo'i!) zeroed in on a dead robin about 4 feet off the road.  Suddenly I had three dogs pulling me with about 500 pounds of force.  It was simply not possible for me to hold them back – until it occurred to me to grab onto my neighbor's fence post.  For a good minute or so, those damned dogs did their level best to separate my left arm (holding their leashes) from my body.  If they could have mustered just a few more pounds of force, they'd have succeeded.  When I hold my two arms straight out in front of me now, my left arm is now about a half inch longer than the right.  If it's still that way in the morning, I'm going to be a little worried about it!

His very own Harrier...

His very own Harrier...

Language distribution...

Language distribution...  Here's a simple graphic showing how many people speak each of the world's major languages.  There were definitely some big surprises here for me!  High resolution version here...

Progress in Paradise...

Progress in Paradise...  Debbie's still getting a little better each day.  Her appetite (which has been suppressed by the pain meds) is starting to kick back in.  We had pizza yesterday afternoon, which is by far the most substantial food she's had in two weeks.  Swelling and bruising is slowly getting better, but not fast enough for her :)

Yesterday morning a gaggle of neighbors (Tim D., Maria S., and a bunch of little S.'s) came out, and we all pulled mustard from our field.  Tim is running alfalfa and barley on our field, and one section – about a half acre – is more mustard than crop.  There's no way to get rid of that other than pulling it, all 10 bazillion plants.  We worked on that for a couple of hours yesterday, and about three hours this morning, and now its about 75% gone.  We've made giant piles of the pulled mustard, which we'll be hauling up to an old quarry a half mile away, to dry and be burned.  Monday morning we'll finish up the last of it.  Pulling mustard is pretty low on my list of fun things to do, but ... doing it in a group like this, in soil softened by irrigation, with lots of joshing and good conversation ... that makes it a lot more interesting.  I walked back in this morning with a stiff back, a serious thirst, and a big smile.  I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Yesterday morning, right after we finished pulling mustard, Ryan O. (our heating and air conditioning guy) showed up to reconnect our air conditioning compressor.  He had disconnected it last fall for us, so that I could dig a trench under it for water, network, and gas connections to the shed.  When he lit it off, there was the most lovely burst of cool, crisp air on our second floor.  It's been sweltering up there with our outdoor temperatures in the high 80s and low 90s.  Now it's just sitting there at 72°, and feeling ever so nice when I come in from outside.  Yay Ryan!

Not long after Ryan left, my new brush mower showed up.  This is a 20 HP beast that will chop through 6' tall brush and 2" diameter saplings.  I hook it to my ATV, which gives me a combo that I can get into just about anywhere.  The thing was a kit, naturally.  It took me about 3 hours to uncrate it, assemble it, fill it with oil and gas, and light it off.  The engine is electric start, and the thing lit off the very first time I cranked it.

There's a lot about a quarter mile north of our place that just sold early this year.  The new owners haven't built on it yet, so it's just two and a half acres of weeds.  Those weeds were taller than me – 6 or 7 feet tall in places – and some of them had 1" “trunks”.  I called the new owners and got permission to mow it down, and that's what I used to test out my new mower.  It worked like a champ!  I only managed to stall the mower once, in a particularly tall thicket of something that looks a bit like tumbleweeds.  The rest of it all went down effortlessly.  It was hot, dusty work, but otherwise not physically demanding.  Ninety minutes and the field was down.  Yay!

I'm not sure what I'm going to do today.  For now, I'm just going to sit and enjoy my apple juice and chair :)

Debbie update...

Debbie update...  Well, we're back – and with unexpected news.  Good news, mainly.

When we checked in for her appointment, we were surprised by a request to take more X-rays.  This request came before we'd even finished the check-in paperwork.  Though we'd brought our iPads so we could read while waiting, we never even got a chance to crack them open.  The MRI from last week was full of artifacts from the metal in Debbie's knee (we knew this already), so the surgeon wanted X-rays to get a good picture of her knee's current status.  These X-rays went quickly and easily, in no small part because of the kind and attentive work of the X-ray tech, a young lady named Brook.

As soon as we were done with the X-rays, we were scooted into the exam room, where we waited for about 10 seconds for the surgeon (Dr. Tom Higginbotham) to come in.  We'd not met him before, so we didn't know what to expect, though he was highly recommended to us by two friends in Paradise.  Within a few minutes, we knew we had a good 'un – he was cheerful, considerate of Debbie, full of information, and happily answered all our questions.

But what he had to say quite surprised us!  While he acknowledged that the MRI shows a “slightly ratty” meniscus, he's not at all sure that's a problem.  And, more importantly, it's not the worst problem in her knee.  He said that the MRI also shows a fracture of her medial condyle (the knobby “knuckle” of the knee, one of two attached to each femur, or upper leg bone).  The fracture was just a hairline crack, and the X-rays confirmed that there was no displacement (bones shifting) at all.  The treatment for this is very simple: wait.  Wait for about six weeks post-injury, or about four weeks from now, before putting any weight on that leg.  No surgery required.

The way this fracture was diagnosed was interesting.  The MRI clearly shows the edema in her knee.  “Edema” is just a fancy word for swelling, in this case in her knee.  It was very evident indeed at the time the MRI was taken, and indeed it still is.  The MRI also shows that there were two kinds of liquid causing the edema.  One was liquid that was mostly water, but the other was a liquid that was mostly fat or oil, and it floated on top of the water (much like separated salad dressing).  The water-based liquid is mainly from blood or plasma, but what's the fatty liquid from?  Well, it turns out that the presence of such a fatty liquid is a signature of a fracture.  It's caused by bone marrow leaking out of the broken bone.  It was the presence of that fatty liquid that lead Dr. Higginbotham to search for the fracture, which was quite a subtle feature on the MRI (and didn't show up at all on the X-ray).

So now we have a follow-up appointment in mid-July, and between now and then she's going to be basically bedridden and helplessly dependent on me.  Which she hates, of course.  After she's all healed from this fracture, then we'll have another discussion with Dr. Higginbotham about whether to clean up that meniscus (and remove all the hardware)...

There are many ways...

There are many ways ... that people can demonstrate their craziness.  These two decided to do it by flying tandem through a hangar at 185 MPH.  I'll call that an effective demonstration!  Full screen it...

A big step in browser-as-a-platform...

A big step in browser-as-a-platform...  It's extraordinary to see such broad cooperation amongst browser makers.  It's almost like they understand the value of standards :)  Even Microsoft is participating, which makes me wonder if the end days are nigh.  In any case, if this standard is actually widely deployed, it means that soon the browser environment will not be strictly a JavaScript world – any programming language could be supported in a cross-browser way.  Watch out, operating systems!  Browsers will be the new applications platform...

Biological compass located...

Biological compass located...  It will be interesting to see if this same sensor can be found in higher animals...

An online plant identification service...

An online plant identification service...  This is an amazing concept, a mix of automation and botanists identifying any plant from photographs, at a cost of about a dollar per identification.  I haven't tried it yet, but I am most definitely going to – I must have 50 plant species around here that I'd like to ID...

M64: the black eye nebula...

M64: the black eye nebula...  Via APOD, of course.  Full resolution version here.

Progress in Paradise...

Progress in Paradise...  Today's the big day for Debbie.  We're off to see the surgeon today; it's the evaluation for her torn meniscus repair surgery.

I went walking with the dogs early this morning.  Our routine walk (past the barley field at right) turned into something very non-routine, though, when Race decided to take off chasing voles through a just-mowed alfalfa field.  He ran about a mile north of me; I could hardly even make him out.  I tied Mo'i and Miki to a fence post and took off after Race.  Only by jogging about 3/4 of a mile could I get close enough for him to hear me, and even then he was reluctant to come to me.  I finally wrassled him into a leash – which is where he's going to stay.  Forever.

Our neighbor's 11 year old boy (Nicolas S.) and I helped our mutual neighbor Tim D. move his irrigation pipes this morning.  The pressure has been low for a couple days, but this morning it's back up, so Tim was eager to get his four strings of pipe up and running on his alfalfa.  He's also wetting down some mustard so that Nicolas and his siblings can pull it out later today.

Yesterday afternoon we took delivery of some carpet stair treads.  They're quite nicely made, and Debbie is very happy with the color and design.  I'll be installing them today and tomorrow...

Sandra and Lizzy...

Sandra and Lizzy...  Via reader Simi L.  Awesome!

I can't even imagine our dogs doing this!

Progress in Paradise...

Progress in Paradise...  Debbie's still on the mend.  Tomorrow's the big day: surgical evaluation.

I started my day with a walk, at about 5 am, with all three dogs (some photos below).  The weather was lovely, and we all watched the rising sun playing on the hills across the valley, to the west.  Race was bounding through the tall alfalfa like a mad dog – in the space of five minutes, I'm sure he traveled at least two miles.  At one point he was a half mile or so away from me.  All I could see was the madly waving white tip of his tail, except for when he made a great leap onto a (possibly imaginary) vole.  He did this about every ten seconds.  He's going to be very disappointed on our next walk, though – the alfalfa field was mowed today.  They'll probably bale it on Friday, then start watering to start the next cutting off growing quickly...

I had a good day today; got a lot done. I started by making a long-overdue cleanup of the shed's first floor.  I loaded the tractor's forklift up three times: once with plastic and other packing trash, again with cardboard and pallets, and finally with two giant trash containers.  You can actually see the floor in the garage section now :)  Then I installed three swinging hummingbird feeder holders on our balcony rail.  This, of course, involved several trips to the hardware store for screws, paint, etc.  But it's done now! 

Toward the end of the day my Billy Goat blower arrived (mine is similar to the one pictured at right).  I had to meet the truck in Providence (about 8 miles away) and we transferred the 165 pound box to my pickup.  Naturally it was a kit, and it took me about an hour to assemble it.  The Honda motor started on the third pull (after being shipped without either gas or oil) and roared to life with no hassles at all.  My test run down the driveway was a spectacular success – one pass each way and every last foreign object is blown off the pavement.  Awesome!  I never knew such a device existed until the crew came to seal my driveway two weeks ago.  They used one of these to clean my driveway before spraying the sealant.  After watching them work with theirs, I said “I gotta get me one of those!”  So I did :)

Now I've got some laundry going, and I'm about to go wash the dishes, tend the cats, walk the dogs, and then crash.  Hard!

They don't even try...

They don't even try ... to hide their contempt for the American people.  Hillary's star seems to be fading a bit, but all available data suggests that she's still the most likely candidate to win in 2016.  That's ... damned hard to accept...

Proof that Finland is the land of the bored...

Proof that Finland is the land of the bored...  Across the Baltic Sea in Estonia, they would have automated this...

My brain has not fully evolved...

My brain has not fully evolved...  Says so right here!

I hate it when that happens...

The doom...

The doom ... is stalking me...

Progress in Paradise...

Progress in Paradise...  Debbie continues to improve every day, though that dang knee still can't hold any weight.  Just two days until her surgical evaluation.  She's backed way off on the pain medication, which I'll take as a very good sign!

Lots of little things got done the past couple of days.  I finished mounting my shaper to its mobile base.  This was a little complicated by the fact that I needed to raise it a couple inches.  I used 4 x 6 lumber, resawn (on the band saw) down to an actual 2" x 5.25".  I cut it to the right length and mounted it in the bottom of the mobile base, and the shaper is attached to the wood from the top.  Works great!  Then I assembled and tested my new log splitter; it worked just fine. 

I've been waiting for several months now for a ballast box to go on the three point hitch of my tractor.  This counterbalances a load in the front loader when I don't have the backhoe attached.  My workaround was to leave the backhoe attached all the time :)  Yesterday evening Lawrence W. from Agri-Service delivered it, finally.  It's basically just a big steel box with the right bits on it to mount onto my tractor's three point hitch.  I fill it with something heavy (dirt or stones will do fine) and I'm good to go.  I'll be taking the backhoe off shortly to test this out.

I've set up all the 3" aluminum hand line in our yard now, so we're ready for the irrigation season.  We have two lines, with 12 and 7 sprinklers respectively.  Today I bought three more sprinklers and risers so that I can extend that to 14 and 8 sprinklers.  This is so that I can irrigate two areas that we're converting from weed patch to lawn.  Naturally, just as I finished all this setup our Paradise Irrigation pressurized water lost all pressure.  I suspect a filter is clogged badly somewhere...

This morning I walked the dogs before dawn, at about 5 am with the sky just beginning to lighten in the east.  It was a crisp, cool morning and the dogs all reveled in it.  Miki and Race bounded through the alfalfa, which is now about 3' tall.  I'm sure they'll be mowing it very soon now, as it's in full bloom.

My neighbor Tim D. came over around 7 am to move his three strings of hand line.  I gave him a hand (as he's done for me many times), and we had a fun conversation the whole time we were working.  Neighbors driving or walking by stopped to say hello and shoot the breeze for a few minutes.  We found a tequila bottle out in our field (where Tim is running alfalfa), and we both marveled at the unlikeliness of that artifact showing up there!  I noted on one of his hand line strings, Tim has a 15' long section of 3" hose (allowing him to bend at any angle) that was old and full of holes.  I picked up a new piece today and replaced it.  Fitting that new hose up would be hard for him, as he's got pretty bad arthritis in his hands.  It felt good to be able to help a bit.  I haven't told him what I've done (and he doesn't know about this blog), so I'm anticipating him trying to figure out how his old hose magically got renewed :)

Yesterday I heard from LeGrand Johnson company that they're going to have a big loader out our way next Tuesday, and that I can have some of its time.  I'm going to get them to do some cut-and-fill work on the southeast corner of our property, between the irrigation canal and the highway.  There's a section of old irrigation canal there.  I'm going to have them fill that in and make a gentler, consistent slope in that whole area.  The goal is to get a slope that I can mow easily.  Once I have the right slope, I'll start spraying it a few times a year with 2,4-D, and pretty soon I'll have grass there.

Now I'm trying to get myself motivated to clean up the shed.  It's full of packing material and dirt that need to be dealt with.  But it's hot and I'm feeling lazy :)

Paradise people...

Paradise people...  This is one of those days when we can't help but think we're actually living in paradise...

First, this morning I was out moving some irrigation pipes (a routine thing out here).  My neighbor Tim D. put-putted up on his ATV, hops off, and starts helping me move the pipes.  He'd spotted me from his place, a half mile away, and decided that I needed help.  I could easily have done it myself (and did so quite a few times last year), but the job was much more pleasant with a friend helping out.

Second, Michelle H. came today to clean our house.  She's been coming every two weeks since January, and we've come to think of her as a friend.  Always cheerful, her daughter Lizzie often helping, and the house looks great when she's done.  Our dogs love her (an important measure for us :).  This morning when she drove in, I warned her that Debbie had fallen and hurt herself, and talked with her about what we needed done.  An hour or so later, Lizzie rang the doorbell – and she had a beautiful bouquet of flowers for Debbie in her hands.  I got her a vase and she fixed them all up; now they're at Debbie's bedside.

When we were looking at houses up here, we were looking at the properties and the homes to evaluate them.  I did go interview all the neighbors to make sure we weren't going to move next to some raving lunatic, but we weren't consciously using the quality of our neighbors as a selection criterion.  Now that we're here, we think we screwed up: we should have found these Paradise people first, then moved into whatever hovel would allow us to be near them.  Instead we accidentally bought a nice property right in the middle of a whole bunch of the nicest people we've ever met.  The “provincial Mormons”, as one of my friends called them (a Mormon himself!).  He was gently poking a little fun at them, but I think they should wear that label as a badge of honor...

The crazy things progressives believe...

The crazy things progressives believe...  I heard this on NPR (I listen so you don't have to) while on the road to get some tractor parts.  I needed hydraulic couplers for my new log splitter, and I listened to the Diane Rehm show on the way up.

I wasn't on long enough to catch the name of her guest, but I did hear him expound on a notion I'd not heard before.  From Ms. Rehm's responses, I could tell this was something she thought of as obviously true.  The notion: that competition and altruism were in direct opposition.  In other words, that one could not behave in an altruistic manner and still succeed in a competitive environment.

I'd never heard this notion stated baldly like this before.  The ultimate altruistic society would be socialist (or Communist), in the theoretical sense – not how any socialist or Communist state as actually been implemented.  In such states, there would be no competition.  All that is old hat, standard progressive fare.  What's new to me here is the assertion that competition must be eliminated in order to have altruistic behavior.

Ms. Rehm's guest expounded on this at some length.  He believes, for example, that children should be shielded from competitive pressures – and then they would “naturally” grow up to exhibit altruistic behavior.  In other words, perfect little socialists.

This notion is also a wonderful way to demonize capitalists.  If you're a capitalist, you are by definition competitive – and therefore you're a selfish oaf and the enemy of the perfect altruistic state.

These sorts of things leave me speechless.  I cannot imagine the profound naivete and self-ignorance required to actually believe such utter balderdash. 

And these people vote.  And they'll likely vote for either Hillary or Bernie.  And these thoughts make me feel the doom is approaching...