So that is my first Blaugust over, done and dusted, finished.
I hit one of my goals, in that I wrote at least 31 entries, though I admit some where extremely lacking. I came up fairly short in my other goal of 31,000 words, penning only some 16,000 or so. Still, I am quite pleased and satisfied with myself for sticking to it, and always endeavouring to write something if I had the chance. There were no occasions when I just 'gave it a miss', I always sat down and tried to think of something to say. Admittedly sometimes nothing came, but that is alright.
You no doubt know that I am not by any means a particularly communicative fellow, as I find it extremely difficult to make people understand the subtle nuances of what I'm trying to communicate (and those nuances are important). I am also fairly private as a general rule. But I have, as I have mentioned before, derived a measure of catharsis from this exercise after a difficult year. Going forward my burden shall be slightly lighter.
That said, I am so, so glad to be done with it. Thanks for reading.
Until next year.
Sunday 31 August 2014
Blaugust 31, 2014 - March in Blaugust
As you may know, I've had weekends free due to a temporary work assignment. Today I was able to participate in one of the 'March in March' followups, and although I agree with the core message of expressing dissatisfaction with Tony Abbott and the current government, I came away feeling uncomfortable about the direction this particular 'movement' is taking.
What follows are my opinions at the time of writing. Given another hour or two, my thinking will probably evolve a bit further and I might change my mind, but I don't expect that in this case.
My first negative observation related to a fellow selling 'Fuck off Tony' badges, and someone in a 'Far Q Tony Abbott' shirt. I'm all for saying that sort of thing among friends if you feel that way, but in public I think it is juvenile bullplop that engenders negative associations in those who might be considering our message but not yet entirely sold on it. Likewise, banners and signs that stoop to the same level as the infamous 'Ditch the Witch' sign don't help matters.
My second negative observation came courtesy of the Socialist Alliance members. They certainly have passion, but marching in their vicinity while they yelled slogans into a megaphone, slogans that wouldn't do anything to change anyone's minds, made me irritable and less likely to attend in the future.
The third related to the turnout. Obviously down on past attendance, it seemed like the percentage of interest groups was up compared to what you might call 'ordinary folk'. The anti-fluoride/chemtrail guys were out prominently, for example (they annoy me, but at least their brand of scientific denial doesn't threaten the future of the entire planet), and had positioned themselves prominently on the steps of parliament house near the speakers, their signs making everyone look like a bunch of whackos by association.
The fourth, and this was the real biggie, was the MC. This guy came off like a classic demagogue. Everything about the way he went about addressing the crowd screamed 'seasoned campaigner', and it reminded me of the style of sermon you might get at an evangelical church in the US South, designed to whip the crowd into a frenzy of 'hallelujah' and 'praise be'. There were even the rote responses you'd expect from a handful of folk in the crowd, framing the response for everyone else.
I was particularly annoyed by the way he claimed, on behalf of March Australia, 'leadership' of the public opposition to Tony Abbott, specifically calling out the Greens and PUP as not showing any. Now for what was originally supposed to be a means for all groups and individuals unhappy with the Abbott government, regardless of broad political affiliations, to march together in a show of broad public outcry, this was an extremely political statement to make. Every political instinct in my body screams 'new party setting up a Senate bid'.
Frankly, these marches sprang up as an outlet for public sentiment. These people aren't shaping opinion, they are a reaction. Leadership would be proposing alternative ways forward, and that is what a number of the groups and parties out there, whose members have all marched, are doing. Shouting 'not in my name' is all well and good but a movement needs more than that to endure.
So while I agree with the broad sentiment behind marching under this March Australia banner, I doubt I'll do it again unless something changes.
Saturday 30 August 2014
Blaugust 30, 2014 - Progress Report
Unfortunately I couldn't find the plum varieties I wanted today. I rang around, and went looking, but apparently European plums are so unpopular not many stock them. It doesn't help that I am doing this very late in the season, either. Mitre 10 Balhannah were helpful, and will ask the grower on Monday for me. It helps that the grower is in Balhannah, or rather nearby.
I didn't plant any strawbs, as Diggers in town don't have any of theirs in yet and everyone else stocks that 'Red Gauntlet' rubbish. No natives got potted on either, nor did I paint a witty sign, so I may have to rush that tomorrow morning.
I did however pick up an Apricot 'Moorpark', some pots, potting mix, and chicken manure; built a compost heap, did the washing, got extra sleep, shared a pot of tea, and considered my options for the defence of Bulgaria (and the defence of Russia's territory in Rumania) in Diplomacy. Curse that expansionist Austrian! We don't want him sneaking any more supply centres before Winter. With any luck I'll issue the orders shortly.
As for better Blaugust content, well. You be the judge of that.
I didn't plant any strawbs, as Diggers in town don't have any of theirs in yet and everyone else stocks that 'Red Gauntlet' rubbish. No natives got potted on either, nor did I paint a witty sign, so I may have to rush that tomorrow morning.
I did however pick up an Apricot 'Moorpark', some pots, potting mix, and chicken manure; built a compost heap, did the washing, got extra sleep, shared a pot of tea, and considered my options for the defence of Bulgaria (and the defence of Russia's territory in Rumania) in Diplomacy. Curse that expansionist Austrian! We don't want him sneaking any more supply centres before Winter. With any luck I'll issue the orders shortly.
As for better Blaugust content, well. You be the judge of that.
Friday 29 August 2014
Blaugust 29, 2014 - Minimum Chips
These Blaugust posts are getting shorter and shorter. I've really been phoning it in of late, probably because we are nearing the end.
One night of decent rest behind me had me feeling a darn sight better today, though I still need to back that up with a second.
The week's work was satisfying, and things were achieved, though I am very much looking forward to the weekend as there is a lot I would like to accomplish for myself, unrelated to work. This weekend I intend to:
- Plant three plum trees in tubs, all with different fruiting times. I love a good sweet plum or prune. I might make it two and an apricot, though. Spread out the fruiting a little more.
- Plant strawberries.
- Pot up more of my natives to grow on. My collection is right out of hand at the moment, and something must be done.
- Paint a witty sign to march with on Sunday.
- Get extra sleep.
- Write some decent final content for Blaugust.
- Issue my orders in the email game of Diplomacy I am playing. Danged Austria has me in the corner and I don't want to lose Bulgaria!
If I get half of that (rather short, I know) list done I will be quite pleased. Onwards!
One night of decent rest behind me had me feeling a darn sight better today, though I still need to back that up with a second.
The week's work was satisfying, and things were achieved, though I am very much looking forward to the weekend as there is a lot I would like to accomplish for myself, unrelated to work. This weekend I intend to:
- Plant three plum trees in tubs, all with different fruiting times. I love a good sweet plum or prune. I might make it two and an apricot, though. Spread out the fruiting a little more.
- Plant strawberries.
- Pot up more of my natives to grow on. My collection is right out of hand at the moment, and something must be done.
- Paint a witty sign to march with on Sunday.
- Get extra sleep.
- Write some decent final content for Blaugust.
- Issue my orders in the email game of Diplomacy I am playing. Danged Austria has me in the corner and I don't want to lose Bulgaria!
If I get half of that (rather short, I know) list done I will be quite pleased. Onwards!
Thursday 28 August 2014
Blaugust 28, 2014 - Pieces and Bits
Another short one tonight, as I have been up far too late every night since last Friday and really mustn't keep making it worse.
I was thinking today about the link between high-intensity agriculture and species loss, and a related argument FOR the consumption of meat as a sensible, sustainable option. I'm going to have to think on this one further, and post something considered another time.
I'm finding that my temporary role at work has challenges, but not insurmountable ones. The biggest being self-regulation; staying motivated and active when you are in charge and unchecked. As such... I need my beauty sleep. Goodnight!
I was thinking today about the link between high-intensity agriculture and species loss, and a related argument FOR the consumption of meat as a sensible, sustainable option. I'm going to have to think on this one further, and post something considered another time.
I'm finding that my temporary role at work has challenges, but not insurmountable ones. The biggest being self-regulation; staying motivated and active when you are in charge and unchecked. As such... I need my beauty sleep. Goodnight!
Wednesday 27 August 2014
Blaugust 27, 2014 - Strawberries
I just got a craving for fresh Strawberries. Then I remembered that I should be damn well planting some Strawberries so that I can have said fresh Strawberries.
I'll probably go with Chandlers again, the main variety that I planted in my old veggie patch last year. Quite rewarding, as I was a lot more attentive with their care than in past efforts. I also trialled some day neutral varieties that fruit over a longer period, I think Tarpan and Kamu from memory. I won't go with Tarpan again, because in addition to having bright pink flowers, the fruit tasted, well, pink; somewhat sickly sweet. I'll probably go with good old Temptation as my second variety, the variety I tried and failed to grow from seed last year (dismal failure was dismal).
I'm also thinking I should get some big plastic tubs and grow some fruit trees. I'm not a huge fan of citrus, so something in a dwarf stonefruit. Or perhaps a full-size stonefruit that will just have to put up with potted life. I did love my Peach Alberta, it gave me great fruit in abundance (if being annoyingly prone to leaf curl, as Peaches generally are). I have also long harboured ambitions of growing Green Gage and Angelina Prunes. I wonder if I could manage them, and any necessary pollinators in tubs? I'd be very, very annoyed to have to leave fruit trees behind me again...
If anyone has some plastic tubs of a decent size, let me know!
I'll probably go with Chandlers again, the main variety that I planted in my old veggie patch last year. Quite rewarding, as I was a lot more attentive with their care than in past efforts. I also trialled some day neutral varieties that fruit over a longer period, I think Tarpan and Kamu from memory. I won't go with Tarpan again, because in addition to having bright pink flowers, the fruit tasted, well, pink; somewhat sickly sweet. I'll probably go with good old Temptation as my second variety, the variety I tried and failed to grow from seed last year (dismal failure was dismal).
I'm also thinking I should get some big plastic tubs and grow some fruit trees. I'm not a huge fan of citrus, so something in a dwarf stonefruit. Or perhaps a full-size stonefruit that will just have to put up with potted life. I did love my Peach Alberta, it gave me great fruit in abundance (if being annoyingly prone to leaf curl, as Peaches generally are). I have also long harboured ambitions of growing Green Gage and Angelina Prunes. I wonder if I could manage them, and any necessary pollinators in tubs? I'd be very, very annoyed to have to leave fruit trees behind me again...
If anyone has some plastic tubs of a decent size, let me know!
Tuesday 26 August 2014
Blaugust 26, 2014 - Cravings
Nearly there, just a few more days!
I'm thinking I should try to keep off the chocolate and the icecream for as long as possible after the month is up, but I am certainly going to have a couple of other indulgences. I am looking forward to some glace fruit, and carob-coated dried bananas most particularly. I'm thinking I should try more dried fruit in general as an alternative snack to chocolate.
I have noticed that without my chocolate habit, I am falling back into other bad habits that I though I was rid of years ago. Larger portion sizes, mixed cereals for breakfast, lazy cooking instead of taking the tiny bit of extra effort required to make something healthy. I'm pretty much eating like I did as a teenager (though not quite as heavily, thankfully).
This will be yet another super light effort on my part, I am afraid. If I remember, tomorrow I will talk about interesting things to do with growing plants in pots.
I'm thinking I should try to keep off the chocolate and the icecream for as long as possible after the month is up, but I am certainly going to have a couple of other indulgences. I am looking forward to some glace fruit, and carob-coated dried bananas most particularly. I'm thinking I should try more dried fruit in general as an alternative snack to chocolate.
I have noticed that without my chocolate habit, I am falling back into other bad habits that I though I was rid of years ago. Larger portion sizes, mixed cereals for breakfast, lazy cooking instead of taking the tiny bit of extra effort required to make something healthy. I'm pretty much eating like I did as a teenager (though not quite as heavily, thankfully).
This will be yet another super light effort on my part, I am afraid. If I remember, tomorrow I will talk about interesting things to do with growing plants in pots.
Monday 25 August 2014
Blaugust 25, 2014 - Fresh Eyes
Today I started my four weeks filling in out at Murray Bridge, and immediately started moving things around in order to spruce the place up. What I have done has so far had good feedback, and I hope to keep it up. It is interesting how a fresh pair of eyes can immediately see solutions to problems that might not be apparent to people who have seen a given situation for a long time, and how it is so much easier to improve something via collaborative process, whereby one person builds on another's earlier improvements, and these improvements are in turn improved on.
Refining something is almost always harder on your own, as it is difficult to look at something with a fresh perspective without stepping away from the project, or being prompted by something to see a new angle.
Speaking of a fresh pair of eyes, mine are hardly fresh at the moment as I have had no more than six hours sleep for the last three nights and I am definitely regretting that. As such I had really better cut this post short, and try for a nice, rejuvenating seven and a half before another day of work.
I'll leave you with one of my very favourite Beatles songs. Goodnight!
Refining something is almost always harder on your own, as it is difficult to look at something with a fresh perspective without stepping away from the project, or being prompted by something to see a new angle.
Speaking of a fresh pair of eyes, mine are hardly fresh at the moment as I have had no more than six hours sleep for the last three nights and I am definitely regretting that. As such I had really better cut this post short, and try for a nice, rejuvenating seven and a half before another day of work.
I'll leave you with one of my very favourite Beatles songs. Goodnight!
Sunday 24 August 2014
Blaugust 24, 2014 - More Plants
Every time I talk about plants I regret that I haven't taken a photo
to show you what I'm talking about. But I shall proceed anyway.
Goodenia amplexans is one of those plants some people will swear blind smells like cat's piss, but I disagree. The scent is tangy, sure, but nice to have in the mix. The leaves are hairy and light green, and it has small yellow flowers favoured by native bee species. It has a bit of an odd growth habit. If you prune it as you would other shrubs, it gets quite ruined. Any stems you take a little bit off are going to shoot lots of smaller, less structural foliage, that will grow against the existing pattern of the plant and make it look horrible forever. Instead you have to take the stems that are closest to the ground right back to the base of the plant, essentially reducing the skirt under the rest of the plant. It can grow around 1m by 1.5m usually, though I chose to put one in quite a small 8" terracotta pot today. I'm hoping to grow it to about a 40cm hemisphere with no pruning. If I screw it up somehow or it doesn't like the conditions, it is extremely easy to take cuttings.
Solanum laciniatum, the Kangaroo Apple, is fairly widespread in the Adelaide Hills. Though frequently found growing in partially shaded riparian areas with great success, I have been surprised on a number of occasions to find it thriving self-seeded in poor soils out in the open. It has brilliant purple flowers and big dark leaves, and I think is best used in dappled shade as a contributor to a 'cool' area to sit in during warmer weather. Today I put one in on the South side of the garden, on the retaining wall above the outdoor seating area. I'll have to prune back the neighbour's Bougainvillea for it to thrive, but I think it will be well and truly worth it.
About two months ago I saw an Eremophila with a wonderful little pink flower during one of my occasional shifts at Murray Bridge, called Eremophila 'Piccaninny Dawn'. I bought a specimen, and today while going through my collection of unused tubestock I found it again, soil dry as a bone in the tube but the plant thriving and covered in flowers. This particular cultivar can grow a couple of metres tall, so I have nowhere satisfying to put it in the garden (I only plant things I won't miss overly if I have to leave them behind) and no spare terracotta pots big enough, so I potted it on into a rocket pot so as to be able to grow it on for a year or two happily, and be able to plant it out with success if I have somewhere new to call home.
I might have talked about it before, but I potted on a Grevillea lavandulacea today. A tiny prickly Grevillea, beloved of birds and one of the very few that occurs locally. The local form tends to grow to only 40cm much of the time, so I figure it is ideal for a small pot. I have previously scattered a few through the front garden bed when I planted it out, and though tiny still, the flowers are working their magic.
Disphyma crassifolium ssp. clavellatum is a local trailing succulent, one of the plants commonly known as Pigface. Today I planted three tubes in a single large hanging basked, in a triangle pattern. I'm confident that with three of them in there they will grow and fill it out at a reasonable pace. It helps that they can put down new roots as they go, making it an important plant for dune stabilisation.
My final bit of pottering today was moving my birdbath. I had it out the back with my plant stockpile, but I have shifted it in amongst the various terracotta pots I now have lining the verandah. Between it and the plants I chose to pot up it should keep all of the little birds quite happy.
Goodenia amplexans is one of those plants some people will swear blind smells like cat's piss, but I disagree. The scent is tangy, sure, but nice to have in the mix. The leaves are hairy and light green, and it has small yellow flowers favoured by native bee species. It has a bit of an odd growth habit. If you prune it as you would other shrubs, it gets quite ruined. Any stems you take a little bit off are going to shoot lots of smaller, less structural foliage, that will grow against the existing pattern of the plant and make it look horrible forever. Instead you have to take the stems that are closest to the ground right back to the base of the plant, essentially reducing the skirt under the rest of the plant. It can grow around 1m by 1.5m usually, though I chose to put one in quite a small 8" terracotta pot today. I'm hoping to grow it to about a 40cm hemisphere with no pruning. If I screw it up somehow or it doesn't like the conditions, it is extremely easy to take cuttings.
Solanum laciniatum, the Kangaroo Apple, is fairly widespread in the Adelaide Hills. Though frequently found growing in partially shaded riparian areas with great success, I have been surprised on a number of occasions to find it thriving self-seeded in poor soils out in the open. It has brilliant purple flowers and big dark leaves, and I think is best used in dappled shade as a contributor to a 'cool' area to sit in during warmer weather. Today I put one in on the South side of the garden, on the retaining wall above the outdoor seating area. I'll have to prune back the neighbour's Bougainvillea for it to thrive, but I think it will be well and truly worth it.
About two months ago I saw an Eremophila with a wonderful little pink flower during one of my occasional shifts at Murray Bridge, called Eremophila 'Piccaninny Dawn'. I bought a specimen, and today while going through my collection of unused tubestock I found it again, soil dry as a bone in the tube but the plant thriving and covered in flowers. This particular cultivar can grow a couple of metres tall, so I have nowhere satisfying to put it in the garden (I only plant things I won't miss overly if I have to leave them behind) and no spare terracotta pots big enough, so I potted it on into a rocket pot so as to be able to grow it on for a year or two happily, and be able to plant it out with success if I have somewhere new to call home.
I might have talked about it before, but I potted on a Grevillea lavandulacea today. A tiny prickly Grevillea, beloved of birds and one of the very few that occurs locally. The local form tends to grow to only 40cm much of the time, so I figure it is ideal for a small pot. I have previously scattered a few through the front garden bed when I planted it out, and though tiny still, the flowers are working their magic.
Disphyma crassifolium ssp. clavellatum is a local trailing succulent, one of the plants commonly known as Pigface. Today I planted three tubes in a single large hanging basked, in a triangle pattern. I'm confident that with three of them in there they will grow and fill it out at a reasonable pace. It helps that they can put down new roots as they go, making it an important plant for dune stabilisation.
My final bit of pottering today was moving my birdbath. I had it out the back with my plant stockpile, but I have shifted it in amongst the various terracotta pots I now have lining the verandah. Between it and the plants I chose to pot up it should keep all of the little birds quite happy.
Saturday 23 August 2014
Blaugust 23, 2014 - Time Lords
Gasp, I missed a day! But that is alright, I was at work, and then I was out until well after midnight so I forgive me.
Tomorrow morning we get to see Peter Capaldi, a life-long Doctor Who fan, play the role it seems he was born for. My choice of words betray some very high hopes on my part, I admit, but I can't help it. It is the same when anything major changes about the production.
When it was relaunched with Christopher Eccleston, I had extremely high hopes that slowly got dashed. When David Tennant came on board I was more cautious having been burned once. When Russell T Davies left, and Steven Moffat took the helm, I was hopeful for a more serious, considered tone along the lines of some of the episodes he had written. Though I did enjoy the Matt Smith Doctor more, I was disappointed by the plot holes and inconsistencies; I found Moffat a far better episode writer than show runner.
Capaldi's Doctor, by all accounts in the media, is set to be a more serious take. Less of pretty face, more substance. Gravitas. I'm extremely hopeful and looking forward to seeing the episode in the morning.
One thing I'd like to touch on is how disappointed I was about the way they portrayed the Time War in The Day of the Doctor. This universe-affecting conflict of staggering scope and proportions was shown as a laser light show better suited to a low(er) budget version of Starship Troopers than Doctor Who. I know that a TV series doesn't have a Hollywood blockbuster effects budget, and so should they. Don't try to tell the story with light shows and explosions! Show the odd fleet conflict, sure, but show the universe buckling and warping under the weight of two forces trying to out-time travel one another. Show weirdness and implicit wrongness caused by it. Allude to it.
They also indulged in yet another bit of internal inconsistency with the way they portrayed the other Time Lords. I thought their 'current' character had been established in an earlier David Tennant story? How does that reconcile with The Day of the Doctor? It just seems sloppy.
Speaking of Time Lords, I am still sore that they only used Derek Jacobi as the Master in one episode. He was staggeringly good in the role.
Tomorrow morning we get to see Peter Capaldi, a life-long Doctor Who fan, play the role it seems he was born for. My choice of words betray some very high hopes on my part, I admit, but I can't help it. It is the same when anything major changes about the production.
When it was relaunched with Christopher Eccleston, I had extremely high hopes that slowly got dashed. When David Tennant came on board I was more cautious having been burned once. When Russell T Davies left, and Steven Moffat took the helm, I was hopeful for a more serious, considered tone along the lines of some of the episodes he had written. Though I did enjoy the Matt Smith Doctor more, I was disappointed by the plot holes and inconsistencies; I found Moffat a far better episode writer than show runner.
Capaldi's Doctor, by all accounts in the media, is set to be a more serious take. Less of pretty face, more substance. Gravitas. I'm extremely hopeful and looking forward to seeing the episode in the morning.
One thing I'd like to touch on is how disappointed I was about the way they portrayed the Time War in The Day of the Doctor. This universe-affecting conflict of staggering scope and proportions was shown as a laser light show better suited to a low(er) budget version of Starship Troopers than Doctor Who. I know that a TV series doesn't have a Hollywood blockbuster effects budget, and so should they. Don't try to tell the story with light shows and explosions! Show the odd fleet conflict, sure, but show the universe buckling and warping under the weight of two forces trying to out-time travel one another. Show weirdness and implicit wrongness caused by it. Allude to it.
They also indulged in yet another bit of internal inconsistency with the way they portrayed the other Time Lords. I thought their 'current' character had been established in an earlier David Tennant story? How does that reconcile with The Day of the Doctor? It just seems sloppy.
Speaking of Time Lords, I am still sore that they only used Derek Jacobi as the Master in one episode. He was staggeringly good in the role.
Thursday 21 August 2014
Blaugust 21, 2014 - Delusional Soils
I only know reality from my own perspective; from the perspective of another, might I be a delusional madman sitting in an asylum simply imagining all of this? Is each perception of reality a whole universe, in truth?
I'd call today the first day of Spring. Or rather, whatever better name you might give the season we in the Adelaide region get starting somewhere around August. I felt the season shift, and so did the birds. Today was warmer, and not only in the middle of the day. In the properly Wintry season, we might get a bit of sunshine, but the chill sets in again from about 3:30 in the afternoon. Today the sunshine warmed me to my bones, and there was no hint of chill until after the sun had gone down.
Unfortunately the Bureau are predicting a dry season. Double unfortunately, I've been seeing soil that should be nice and damp instead quite dry in the middle of Winter, and this does not bode well for plant establishment. Soil wetting agents should sell well this year.
I favour Saturaid as my wetting agent of choice. Simple granular product, easy to use by spreading handfuls about the place. Give the soil a dose around about now, while we still have some little bit of rain to fall, and then re-apply in November. The manufacturers, Debco, say apply in Spring and then reapply every six months, but honestly, the non-wetting soils in the AMLR region are properly non-wetting. In particular the soils in Belair, through Blackwood, Bellevue Heights, and the dreaded Eden Hills, have horrific soil hydrophobicity that just keeps coming back.
Once you have a wetting agent down, it is a good idea to get a decent layer of mulch going. To foster water retention, choose a mulch with a good percentage of large pieces. Compost fines, while beneficial to the soil, soak up moisture; and if they are on the surface, that moisture is easily lost. You want something the water will pass through, into the soil below. The Eco-Mulch product from SA Composters is tried and true. Though it has a fair amount of compost fines in it, these wash to the bottom where they are needed and the broader pieces stay up top to offer protection, before breaking down in their turn.
Personally I avoid using straw or hay unless you water via drip irrigation beneath it. Using a straw mulch and watering with a hose is a recipe for moisture loss.
I'm going to bounce a rubber ball against the wall of my padded cell, now. It will bounce because I believe it will.
I'd call today the first day of Spring. Or rather, whatever better name you might give the season we in the Adelaide region get starting somewhere around August. I felt the season shift, and so did the birds. Today was warmer, and not only in the middle of the day. In the properly Wintry season, we might get a bit of sunshine, but the chill sets in again from about 3:30 in the afternoon. Today the sunshine warmed me to my bones, and there was no hint of chill until after the sun had gone down.
Unfortunately the Bureau are predicting a dry season. Double unfortunately, I've been seeing soil that should be nice and damp instead quite dry in the middle of Winter, and this does not bode well for plant establishment. Soil wetting agents should sell well this year.
I favour Saturaid as my wetting agent of choice. Simple granular product, easy to use by spreading handfuls about the place. Give the soil a dose around about now, while we still have some little bit of rain to fall, and then re-apply in November. The manufacturers, Debco, say apply in Spring and then reapply every six months, but honestly, the non-wetting soils in the AMLR region are properly non-wetting. In particular the soils in Belair, through Blackwood, Bellevue Heights, and the dreaded Eden Hills, have horrific soil hydrophobicity that just keeps coming back.
Once you have a wetting agent down, it is a good idea to get a decent layer of mulch going. To foster water retention, choose a mulch with a good percentage of large pieces. Compost fines, while beneficial to the soil, soak up moisture; and if they are on the surface, that moisture is easily lost. You want something the water will pass through, into the soil below. The Eco-Mulch product from SA Composters is tried and true. Though it has a fair amount of compost fines in it, these wash to the bottom where they are needed and the broader pieces stay up top to offer protection, before breaking down in their turn.
Personally I avoid using straw or hay unless you water via drip irrigation beneath it. Using a straw mulch and watering with a hose is a recipe for moisture loss.
I'm going to bounce a rubber ball against the wall of my padded cell, now. It will bounce because I believe it will.
Wednesday 20 August 2014
Blaugust 20, 2014 - Anxieties
I have an extremely hard time saying 'no'. Whether it is someone asking a favour, asking if I can come and do a job, or an offer of an extra day at work. I always seem to justify it to myself by valuing the positive outcomes of saying 'yes' more highly than the negative outcomes of saying 'no', even when if I look at it in hindsight it will seem obvious that the negatives were the greater. But the real reason is often that I can't bear to disappoint people.
Likewise I have a hard time asking for favours, approaching women, and spruiking my services to clients. Rejection seems far worse to me than it actually is, and I see it as being far more likely than it actually is. Rejection in hindsight isn't usually too bad, but I still can't reconcile the imagined future with actual past experiences. As a result I don't take the risk of putting myself out there as much as I perhaps should, in any of my endeavours. I always hold back, anxiety clouding my judgement.
I worry too much about how I am perceived. When I am writing something like this, I tend to re-write key sentences three or four times, to more accurately convey tone and intended meaning. I'm fairly certain it makes little difference (especially as I am always writing these blogs at the end of the day when I am tired and in want of sleep), but I do it anyway. This also manifests in my habit of over-explanation and numerous rapid-fire qualifying statements when talking to people in person.
I can't stand confrontation. Be it civil or uncivil, it makes me feel awful. It isn't so bad if the confrontation comes as a surprise, as I navigate it and then think about it later. But knowing that there is a confrontation imminent that I can't avoid, on the other hand, is a horrid feeling.
During any sort of confrontation I will almost always try to explain, appease, and compromise, staying well and truly on the defensive. Those few occasions I have had to aggressively pursue an agenda with no chance of compromise always give me the shakes.
I'm always absolutely amazed when people find me scary.
Likewise I have a hard time asking for favours, approaching women, and spruiking my services to clients. Rejection seems far worse to me than it actually is, and I see it as being far more likely than it actually is. Rejection in hindsight isn't usually too bad, but I still can't reconcile the imagined future with actual past experiences. As a result I don't take the risk of putting myself out there as much as I perhaps should, in any of my endeavours. I always hold back, anxiety clouding my judgement.
I worry too much about how I am perceived. When I am writing something like this, I tend to re-write key sentences three or four times, to more accurately convey tone and intended meaning. I'm fairly certain it makes little difference (especially as I am always writing these blogs at the end of the day when I am tired and in want of sleep), but I do it anyway. This also manifests in my habit of over-explanation and numerous rapid-fire qualifying statements when talking to people in person.
I can't stand confrontation. Be it civil or uncivil, it makes me feel awful. It isn't so bad if the confrontation comes as a surprise, as I navigate it and then think about it later. But knowing that there is a confrontation imminent that I can't avoid, on the other hand, is a horrid feeling.
During any sort of confrontation I will almost always try to explain, appease, and compromise, staying well and truly on the defensive. Those few occasions I have had to aggressively pursue an agenda with no chance of compromise always give me the shakes.
I'm always absolutely amazed when people find me scary.
Tuesday 19 August 2014
Blaugust 19, 2014 - Interconnectedness
Today I did a garden maintenance job. It was a bit of an interesting one, involving a large Acacia argyrophylla (beautiful species, worth a look as a feature in sandy soils) that had become infested with caterpillars. A few caterpillars here and there don't make me bat an eyelid. Want butterflies? You have to have caterpillars. But this was taking things to the extreme; the top half of the plant had been eaten, leaving bare branches, and the rest of it was under imminent threat.
Normally in this sort of a situation, where an insect is in overabundance, a predator will come along and have a bit of fun correcting things. With these caterpillars I would have expected the local bird life to have noticed and have had a little nibble, but they hadn't. I tried to figure out why.
The first suspect was the christmas light display still in the bush, running on mini solar panels. Was this keeping the birds away? I was told it wasn't turned on. The next suspect was the horrid plastic owl on the neighbour's roof. There were no birds in the neighbour's garden, or in the gardens on either side, so it became the prime suspect.
By removing a predator from the food chain, a species had become overabundant. Because of this, it was destroying its own food source, which was also potential habitat for a number of other species. Take out one piece of an interconnected whole and the whole thing could collapse, in less than immediately obvious ways.
Another little piece of interconnectedness I was thinking about today regards the recent and extremely controversial study by Facebook on the effects of a little tweaking, here and there, of what people saw in their news feed. They found that positive stories engendered a positive mood, and negative stories a negative mood. Setting aside the enormous ethical concerns involved in playing with the emotions of 700,000 people without their informed consent, it really does highlight how we are influenced by the people around us. "No man is an island", and all that.
-----
Tip for the day (with slight gross-out warning): I hate wearing a respirator. The damn things never fit quite right, they fog up my glasses, they get full of condensed water from your breath and make your face itch. But when mulching I always wear one. The mulch I use is full of compost fines which float in the air and you really don't want that clogging up your lungs. You learn that quickly after blowing your nose in the shower following a job and having your snot come out black from being full of the stuff. Good to take the same precautions when handling potting mix and compost, too. You really, really don't want to contract Legionnaires Disease!
Normally in this sort of a situation, where an insect is in overabundance, a predator will come along and have a bit of fun correcting things. With these caterpillars I would have expected the local bird life to have noticed and have had a little nibble, but they hadn't. I tried to figure out why.
The first suspect was the christmas light display still in the bush, running on mini solar panels. Was this keeping the birds away? I was told it wasn't turned on. The next suspect was the horrid plastic owl on the neighbour's roof. There were no birds in the neighbour's garden, or in the gardens on either side, so it became the prime suspect.
By removing a predator from the food chain, a species had become overabundant. Because of this, it was destroying its own food source, which was also potential habitat for a number of other species. Take out one piece of an interconnected whole and the whole thing could collapse, in less than immediately obvious ways.
Another little piece of interconnectedness I was thinking about today regards the recent and extremely controversial study by Facebook on the effects of a little tweaking, here and there, of what people saw in their news feed. They found that positive stories engendered a positive mood, and negative stories a negative mood. Setting aside the enormous ethical concerns involved in playing with the emotions of 700,000 people without their informed consent, it really does highlight how we are influenced by the people around us. "No man is an island", and all that.
-----
Tip for the day (with slight gross-out warning): I hate wearing a respirator. The damn things never fit quite right, they fog up my glasses, they get full of condensed water from your breath and make your face itch. But when mulching I always wear one. The mulch I use is full of compost fines which float in the air and you really don't want that clogging up your lungs. You learn that quickly after blowing your nose in the shower following a job and having your snot come out black from being full of the stuff. Good to take the same precautions when handling potting mix and compost, too. You really, really don't want to contract Legionnaires Disease!
Monday 18 August 2014
Blaugust 18, 2014 - Entertainments
I spent a couple of hours back in Skyrim today, that land of freezing cold hills, dragons, and shouting goats off cliffs. As usual, my carrying capacity was fluctuating between almost full and horribly overburdened. I really need to learn to cut down to the bear necessities and ditch all of those potions I might someday use, the ore that I might possibly need for some odd purpose, and the dozen goat horns I have for some reason.
I have a bit of a thing in RPGs for playing the 'appropriate' race. In Elders Scrolls games, Dunmer in Morrowind, Imperial in Oblivion, Nord in Skyrim. It is a little vanilla, I know, but I can't help myself. So off I go, haring about, and then I start feeling bad that my fellow Nords are a bunch of racists. There are prominent examples of racism by the Nords against just about every other race in the game. Where are the friendly, welcoming Nords, open to new cultures and experiences?
I'm currently at level 60, and three perks off of having the enchanting ability and the smithing ability to make myself a genuinely excellent bit of kit. I went with light armour, because I like being mobile and stealthy, and switch between a bow, sword and board, and throat cutting.
Today's other entertainment has been watching episodes of Father Brown as I'm a sucker for a gentle British mystery, and I also enjoy early Midsomer Murders, Poirot, Miss Marple, and most especially Foyle's War. Mark Williams is extremely entertaining in the title role of Father Brown, but I hope to see the supporting cast be a little livelier and less wooden.
What fun. What utterly unproductive, waste of time fun. Every now and then I look back and realise that if I took some of the time I have spent watching or playing and instead devoted it to something productive I could have achieved X, or Y, and that is slightly saddening. I should probably challenge that and do something, but I'll play just one more hour first.
I have a bit of a thing in RPGs for playing the 'appropriate' race. In Elders Scrolls games, Dunmer in Morrowind, Imperial in Oblivion, Nord in Skyrim. It is a little vanilla, I know, but I can't help myself. So off I go, haring about, and then I start feeling bad that my fellow Nords are a bunch of racists. There are prominent examples of racism by the Nords against just about every other race in the game. Where are the friendly, welcoming Nords, open to new cultures and experiences?
I'm currently at level 60, and three perks off of having the enchanting ability and the smithing ability to make myself a genuinely excellent bit of kit. I went with light armour, because I like being mobile and stealthy, and switch between a bow, sword and board, and throat cutting.
Today's other entertainment has been watching episodes of Father Brown as I'm a sucker for a gentle British mystery, and I also enjoy early Midsomer Murders, Poirot, Miss Marple, and most especially Foyle's War. Mark Williams is extremely entertaining in the title role of Father Brown, but I hope to see the supporting cast be a little livelier and less wooden.
What fun. What utterly unproductive, waste of time fun. Every now and then I look back and realise that if I took some of the time I have spent watching or playing and instead devoted it to something productive I could have achieved X, or Y, and that is slightly saddening. I should probably challenge that and do something, but I'll play just one more hour first.
Sunday 17 August 2014
Blaugust 17, 2014 - Bare Necessities
I realise that I really should treat home buying as buying a 'first' home, with the intention of buying cheaply, paying it off, then moving on to something more expensive by using the first house as equity. But I'm 31 and I like to have nice things, so I have been trying to find a way to make whatever money I will have available stretch further.
First I began looking into straw bale construction, as it has a reputation as being a cheap option. Reading through some of the websites it quickly became apparent that it isn't necessarily the case. Straw bale can range between $700 and $2,000 per square metre, depending entirely on how much time, effort, and help you can bring to the game. I could rustle up a little help, but not enough to offset the big lack of time I could devote at the moment. Compared to starting with a cheap prefabricated home, straw bale would be a big step up. But it just doesn't seem a feasible starting point.
I was talking to a colleague today about my property aspirations, as I can't seem to stop thinking about them, and she told me her daughter was living with her partner in a caravan and a shed on her new block of land while they save for a build. I wondered if this would be a good way to go, and it got me thinking about exactly what I'd be able to do without, and what I'd need as a bare minimum to stay sane.
I could do without most things for a time. At an absolute minimum I'd need room to secure all of my stuff, so that means a large shed at the least. I'd need power, water, temperature control (or mitigation), and either a landline or good mobile reception. I'd need somewhere to store food (boxes and a fridge), chop (a table), cook (a hotplate, or a cookfire), and wash dishes (a tub). Going without a bathroom would get old fast in the Winter, but in the warmer months it would be quite tolerable.
If I could save money by living in a shed for a while, I might be able to afford a decent block of land right off the bat and build something nice on it further along the line. Or, in conjunction with a shed, I could build a small straw bale single room hut to use as a bedroom, and then when the house is eventually built it could easily be re-purposed into a detached studio.
I know me, though, and how much I like nice things. The temptation to take a risk and borrow more than I could safely afford (I base this calculation on assuming an interest rate of 10% were to happen) is strong. Oh but surely rates will stay low for five years, I muse. I shall have to remain vigilant against myself.
Saturday 16 August 2014
Blaugust 16, 2014 - Home and Garden
Lately I have been reading "The Permaculture Home Garden", by Linda Woodrow. It is a good book, with a very practical design for a sustainable and very productive backyard patch or patches, scalable up into commercial production.
At the core it involves opportunistically importing a large amount of organic matter from numerous sources processing it into your beds either via chicken tractor or rapid composting stations that are both rotated around the yard. It strikes me as an excellent, efficient system, though I worry about the chicken tractor design given considering the large number of foxes in the Adelaide Hills, and how distraught I'd be if one got in.
There are a number of alternative designs out there, including several with wire mesh floors. However wire floors would prevent the chickens from effectively scratching and bathing, and I'm not going to stop them from doing that. As such I will need to adapt the design, and figure out a way to make a chicken tractor that is nigh on fox-proof, yet remains portable. A challenge for the future!
The importation of organic matter is something I could achieve through weed collection in my small business, or even through establishing a decent sized ornamental garden from which to take prunings.
Woodrow has a very practical emphasises on investing time and effort in the initial setup so as to avoid excess effort into the future. A key part of this is the (fairly standard) piece of advice that you should position your productive garden as close to the kitchen as you possibly can. Who wants to walk all the way to the far side of the garden when you want to grab a few Silverbeet leaves or Tomatoes after a hard day's work? Far better if you can just step out the back door and be in it.
My laziness being a pretty dang impressive laziness indeed, this sort of thing is something I have to really bear in mind. Keeping all ongoing efforts to an absolute minimum through clever design will be at the absolute core of whatever I eventually create.
Integrating the indoors with the outdoors will be important. I want to feel like all of it is one big, private sanctuary. Windows will look out on bright, inviting displays teeming with interesting bird life, and open to a plethora of alluring scents and sounds. Productive plants will be as close to the door as possible. Boundaries will be reinforced by tall, thick shrubs that dampen noise, block sight, and provide habitat and interest.
Selecting plants for scent is somewhat tricky when you favour natives as much as I do, however I have started a pretty decent little list:
Senecio odoratus is the backbone. It has a very subtle yet extraordinarily pervasive scent that spreads through a garden and acts as an undercurrent to everything else.
Boronia megastigma and some of its siblings have a magnificent scent that is rivalled by very little, but they are tricky to grow. The first complication with growing Boronias is that the soil needs to have an acidic to neutral pH, which is somewhat uncommon in South Australia. The second is that they are shallow-rooted plants that can't stand to dry out; somewhat of a problem in our long, parched, Summers. A position in part-shade in a pot is the best bet, unless you happen to be lucky enough to live in the acidic parts of the Mount Lofty Ranges.
Acacia rupicola is one of my very favourite plants, and serves several purposes admirably. As it is on this list, you have no doubt surmised that it has a pleasant scent. This scent is particularly prominent after rain. It is a medium shrub, usually reaching around 2m by 2m or thereabouts, and is dense enough to offer a degree of screening. Further, it is an extremely prickly plant which serves as excellent habitat for small birds. Cats, foxes, and predatory birds will all think twice before attempting to take something from within one of these.
The various Prostanthera species, or the Mint Bushes, are next. They range from 2-3m shrubs thriving in shade, such as Prostanthera ovalifolia, to small compact shrubs that love a sunny position, such as Prostanthera aspalathoides. The minty smell they produce varies in intensity across the various species. All are quite showy with small vibrant flowers, purple and red respectively for the two species I mentioned.
Speaking of minty, Mentha australis is a locally occurring River Mint with an extremely sweet smell. It ticks a number of boxes being local, scented, edible, and as easy to grow as any Mint.
When designing your garden as a soundscape you want to first create a buffer against intrusive sounds; clever positioning of garden walls, sheds, and water tanks is where you should start. A dense planting of shrubs around the boundary will help a great deal. Try to make sure that windows will open to quiet areas.
Next consider masking, or creating enough desirable background noise that the undesirable ones become less significant. Plant things such as Agonis flexuosa nana, which has tightly clustered leaves that rustle relatively loudly in the wind. Incorporating Allocasuarina verticillata is an excellent move, as the wind whistling through a grove of these creates a truly beautiful sound.
Beyond that, most plants sound quite similar. The rest of the sounds you can attract are from wildlife. If you would like to hear frogs, create a pond with the appropriate characteristics for the species you favour, then nicely ask your friend from work who breeds frogs for some tadpoles. If you want to attract birds, plant or introduce the appropriate food sources and habitat, and drive off predators.
I can't emphasise that last point enough: If you have a cat in your yard, give up on Superb Fairy Wrens and other small birds. Try to convince the owner to be responsible and keep it inside or in a secure enclosure. If you are the owner, I will give you SUCH a glare.
Pesticides are another major threat to small birds. If a bird eats a single bug with insecticide on it, it gets into the bird's system and stays there a while. If it eats ten, suddenly that is quite a lot of poison for a tiny bird and you run into... problems.
Insecticides used for agriculture are an enormous problem, and shifting to organic production is admittedly hard. It is heartening, however, to see increasing numbers of producers opting to use sprays as a last resort instead of a regular thing.
In residential areas there is a different problem. People who spray insecticide everywhere in their home and office give me the screaming shits. There is no good reason for regularly spraying Mortein about the house. Fly problem? SHUT THE FUCKING DOOR. Mosquito problem? Ok that's a little more forgivable, but just be a little more careful for the sake of our wildlife.
There is a special layer of hell reserved for people who use residual barrier insecticides around their homes or those damnable automatic dispensers the companies try so hard to make you believe you need.
And don't even get me started on the effects of pyrethrins on people.
-----
I watched a little bit of Superman II tonight as it was on television. I was struck by two things particularly: How gangly Christopher Reeve was, and how Margot Kidder made an excellent Lois Lane. Kidder's Lane had guts, determination, ambition, and brains, but she isn't my favourite Lois Lane; that honour goes to Dana Delaney's portrayal for Superman: The Animate Series. She took all that was good about Kidder's performance and added a very healthy dose of snark, which I love.
At the core it involves opportunistically importing a large amount of organic matter from numerous sources processing it into your beds either via chicken tractor or rapid composting stations that are both rotated around the yard. It strikes me as an excellent, efficient system, though I worry about the chicken tractor design given considering the large number of foxes in the Adelaide Hills, and how distraught I'd be if one got in.
There are a number of alternative designs out there, including several with wire mesh floors. However wire floors would prevent the chickens from effectively scratching and bathing, and I'm not going to stop them from doing that. As such I will need to adapt the design, and figure out a way to make a chicken tractor that is nigh on fox-proof, yet remains portable. A challenge for the future!
The importation of organic matter is something I could achieve through weed collection in my small business, or even through establishing a decent sized ornamental garden from which to take prunings.
Woodrow has a very practical emphasises on investing time and effort in the initial setup so as to avoid excess effort into the future. A key part of this is the (fairly standard) piece of advice that you should position your productive garden as close to the kitchen as you possibly can. Who wants to walk all the way to the far side of the garden when you want to grab a few Silverbeet leaves or Tomatoes after a hard day's work? Far better if you can just step out the back door and be in it.
My laziness being a pretty dang impressive laziness indeed, this sort of thing is something I have to really bear in mind. Keeping all ongoing efforts to an absolute minimum through clever design will be at the absolute core of whatever I eventually create.
Integrating the indoors with the outdoors will be important. I want to feel like all of it is one big, private sanctuary. Windows will look out on bright, inviting displays teeming with interesting bird life, and open to a plethora of alluring scents and sounds. Productive plants will be as close to the door as possible. Boundaries will be reinforced by tall, thick shrubs that dampen noise, block sight, and provide habitat and interest.
Selecting plants for scent is somewhat tricky when you favour natives as much as I do, however I have started a pretty decent little list:
Senecio odoratus is the backbone. It has a very subtle yet extraordinarily pervasive scent that spreads through a garden and acts as an undercurrent to everything else.
Boronia megastigma and some of its siblings have a magnificent scent that is rivalled by very little, but they are tricky to grow. The first complication with growing Boronias is that the soil needs to have an acidic to neutral pH, which is somewhat uncommon in South Australia. The second is that they are shallow-rooted plants that can't stand to dry out; somewhat of a problem in our long, parched, Summers. A position in part-shade in a pot is the best bet, unless you happen to be lucky enough to live in the acidic parts of the Mount Lofty Ranges.
Acacia rupicola is one of my very favourite plants, and serves several purposes admirably. As it is on this list, you have no doubt surmised that it has a pleasant scent. This scent is particularly prominent after rain. It is a medium shrub, usually reaching around 2m by 2m or thereabouts, and is dense enough to offer a degree of screening. Further, it is an extremely prickly plant which serves as excellent habitat for small birds. Cats, foxes, and predatory birds will all think twice before attempting to take something from within one of these.
The various Prostanthera species, or the Mint Bushes, are next. They range from 2-3m shrubs thriving in shade, such as Prostanthera ovalifolia, to small compact shrubs that love a sunny position, such as Prostanthera aspalathoides. The minty smell they produce varies in intensity across the various species. All are quite showy with small vibrant flowers, purple and red respectively for the two species I mentioned.
Speaking of minty, Mentha australis is a locally occurring River Mint with an extremely sweet smell. It ticks a number of boxes being local, scented, edible, and as easy to grow as any Mint.
When designing your garden as a soundscape you want to first create a buffer against intrusive sounds; clever positioning of garden walls, sheds, and water tanks is where you should start. A dense planting of shrubs around the boundary will help a great deal. Try to make sure that windows will open to quiet areas.
Next consider masking, or creating enough desirable background noise that the undesirable ones become less significant. Plant things such as Agonis flexuosa nana, which has tightly clustered leaves that rustle relatively loudly in the wind. Incorporating Allocasuarina verticillata is an excellent move, as the wind whistling through a grove of these creates a truly beautiful sound.
Beyond that, most plants sound quite similar. The rest of the sounds you can attract are from wildlife. If you would like to hear frogs, create a pond with the appropriate characteristics for the species you favour, then nicely ask your friend from work who breeds frogs for some tadpoles. If you want to attract birds, plant or introduce the appropriate food sources and habitat, and drive off predators.
I can't emphasise that last point enough: If you have a cat in your yard, give up on Superb Fairy Wrens and other small birds. Try to convince the owner to be responsible and keep it inside or in a secure enclosure. If you are the owner, I will give you SUCH a glare.
Pesticides are another major threat to small birds. If a bird eats a single bug with insecticide on it, it gets into the bird's system and stays there a while. If it eats ten, suddenly that is quite a lot of poison for a tiny bird and you run into... problems.
Insecticides used for agriculture are an enormous problem, and shifting to organic production is admittedly hard. It is heartening, however, to see increasing numbers of producers opting to use sprays as a last resort instead of a regular thing.
In residential areas there is a different problem. People who spray insecticide everywhere in their home and office give me the screaming shits. There is no good reason for regularly spraying Mortein about the house. Fly problem? SHUT THE FUCKING DOOR. Mosquito problem? Ok that's a little more forgivable, but just be a little more careful for the sake of our wildlife.
There is a special layer of hell reserved for people who use residual barrier insecticides around their homes or those damnable automatic dispensers the companies try so hard to make you believe you need.
And don't even get me started on the effects of pyrethrins on people.
-----
I watched a little bit of Superman II tonight as it was on television. I was struck by two things particularly: How gangly Christopher Reeve was, and how Margot Kidder made an excellent Lois Lane. Kidder's Lane had guts, determination, ambition, and brains, but she isn't my favourite Lois Lane; that honour goes to Dana Delaney's portrayal for Superman: The Animate Series. She took all that was good about Kidder's performance and added a very healthy dose of snark, which I love.
Friday 15 August 2014
Blaugust 15, 2014 - Recipe for Ideas
Tonight I find myself lying on the floor in the dimly-lit lounge room in front of the fire; staring at the ceiling fan lazily spinning in circles while I listen to the crackle of the flames with the heat on my face, bits and pieces of unconnected thoughts floating through my head.
Nothing substantial, though reflections on this Blaugust so far were useful and I have resolved to keep it up. I suspect I might come short on my intended word count, but I am going to at the very least put in the effort each day. If the words don't come, so be it.
I thought briefly about the various big-wigs who came to visit us at work this week. They had some positive things to say about us which made me feel temporarily less paranoid. It also made me feel better about focussing more on my employment rather than on building my side business. Though I value my little business a great deal, I'm by no means wanting to jump into that full time and may never be.
I also pondered home insulation, thermal mass, and lacks thereof. It takes a lot to heat this little house and it doesn't stay warm for long. Too much of the heat bleeds out too readily during and after the process.
As a rule much of my best and most inspired thinking is done in three places: In front of a fire, in the shower, and in bed. It probably has something to do with being warm, relaxed, comfortable, and with few distractions. I think I might go to bed and continue reading an excellent book on designing a home garden on permaculture principles.
But first for those of you folk with too little energy and motivation left at the end of a hard day's work to cook something decent, I present to you this little bit of wisdom:
Boil up some pasta. For the last minute, add some frozen peas. Strain. In a frypan, scramble an egg or two and cook some chickpeas, at the same time. Combine that and the strained pasta and peas in the original saucepan, and stir through some basil pesto from a jar while on heat. Serve with grated cheese and maybe pepper. You are welcome.
Nothing substantial, though reflections on this Blaugust so far were useful and I have resolved to keep it up. I suspect I might come short on my intended word count, but I am going to at the very least put in the effort each day. If the words don't come, so be it.
I thought briefly about the various big-wigs who came to visit us at work this week. They had some positive things to say about us which made me feel temporarily less paranoid. It also made me feel better about focussing more on my employment rather than on building my side business. Though I value my little business a great deal, I'm by no means wanting to jump into that full time and may never be.
I also pondered home insulation, thermal mass, and lacks thereof. It takes a lot to heat this little house and it doesn't stay warm for long. Too much of the heat bleeds out too readily during and after the process.
As a rule much of my best and most inspired thinking is done in three places: In front of a fire, in the shower, and in bed. It probably has something to do with being warm, relaxed, comfortable, and with few distractions. I think I might go to bed and continue reading an excellent book on designing a home garden on permaculture principles.
But first for those of you folk with too little energy and motivation left at the end of a hard day's work to cook something decent, I present to you this little bit of wisdom:
Boil up some pasta. For the last minute, add some frozen peas. Strain. In a frypan, scramble an egg or two and cook some chickpeas, at the same time. Combine that and the strained pasta and peas in the original saucepan, and stir through some basil pesto from a jar while on heat. Serve with grated cheese and maybe pepper. You are welcome.
Thursday 14 August 2014
Blaugust 14, 2014 - The Vidjer, it Calls Me
I haven't sat down to play Skyrim or anything else in a couple of weeks now, pretty much since I started doing Blaugust. The time it takes for me to order my chaotic thoughts, or summon something from the void as the case may be, is not insignificant.
But tonight I do declare different! I'm going to poop out this excuse for a post, and then dive into something. Right after I watch the Good Game Top 100 episode. And I'll have to stop when Dirty Laundry Live comes on (my secret shame). Hmm, perhaps I won't get to play so much tonight after all.
But tonight I do declare different! I'm going to poop out this excuse for a post, and then dive into something. Right after I watch the Good Game Top 100 episode. And I'll have to stop when Dirty Laundry Live comes on (my secret shame). Hmm, perhaps I won't get to play so much tonight after all.
Wednesday 13 August 2014
Blaugust 13, 2014 - Lazy Days (Not Sundays)
Today has been my one day off for the week, thanks to having five days at work at the moment and a string of clients lined up. Naturally, I slept in until after eleven and woke up feeling groggy but alive.
Looking around the house today I have spotted shopping that needs doing, clothes and dishes to wash, an unmade bed (not that I ever make it), bags of seeds to sort out sitting on the kitchen counter, bits and pieces mum offloaded to me that I didn't want sitting in a basket to go through, and a hell of a lot of work to be done on my collection of rescued plants.
With the exception of washing my clothes so I'm not wearing something filthy to work tomorrow, I did none of it. I sat on my butt, ate food, and stared at this computer monitor all damn day. I'd make the excuse that I spent some of it working on the terrible story which I promised I'd post here, but I know that without it I'd have just played Skyrim or something of that ilk and the result would be much the same.
Due to DCC being of the 'gritty' bent as far as RPG systems go, and due also to my own preference to a darker setting full of horrors for the players to struggle against or fall victim to, the story has taken a decidedly dark turn, and I think I will post it with a warning when I eventually put it up.
Despite writing a little I don't feel particularly good about the way I spent the day. There is a part of me that is looking around and not seeing anything accomplished, and it is making critical noises in my head. Then there is the other part of me that is just oh so tired and wishes dearly that all those nuisance jobs would just up and go away.
Fortunately for me, the evening holds a meeting for my local branch of The Greens. Perhaps I will feel better after that?
Time passes...
Lo and behold, I do. I feel a lot better about today. It was a good meeting, though we ran a little over time. There was a bit of administrivia, which is always a bother, but there were issues discussed and progress was made toward actions. I feel like I am participating in the process, which is important in the current political climate. I even have ideas to raise at the next meeting.
We are having a fundraiser on September the 6th. Might be geared a little more to the older crowd, but it should be fun.
Looking around the house today I have spotted shopping that needs doing, clothes and dishes to wash, an unmade bed (not that I ever make it), bags of seeds to sort out sitting on the kitchen counter, bits and pieces mum offloaded to me that I didn't want sitting in a basket to go through, and a hell of a lot of work to be done on my collection of rescued plants.
With the exception of washing my clothes so I'm not wearing something filthy to work tomorrow, I did none of it. I sat on my butt, ate food, and stared at this computer monitor all damn day. I'd make the excuse that I spent some of it working on the terrible story which I promised I'd post here, but I know that without it I'd have just played Skyrim or something of that ilk and the result would be much the same.
Due to DCC being of the 'gritty' bent as far as RPG systems go, and due also to my own preference to a darker setting full of horrors for the players to struggle against or fall victim to, the story has taken a decidedly dark turn, and I think I will post it with a warning when I eventually put it up.
Despite writing a little I don't feel particularly good about the way I spent the day. There is a part of me that is looking around and not seeing anything accomplished, and it is making critical noises in my head. Then there is the other part of me that is just oh so tired and wishes dearly that all those nuisance jobs would just up and go away.
Fortunately for me, the evening holds a meeting for my local branch of The Greens. Perhaps I will feel better after that?
Time passes...
Lo and behold, I do. I feel a lot better about today. It was a good meeting, though we ran a little over time. There was a bit of administrivia, which is always a bother, but there were issues discussed and progress was made toward actions. I feel like I am participating in the process, which is important in the current political climate. I even have ideas to raise at the next meeting.
We are having a fundraiser on September the 6th. Might be geared a little more to the older crowd, but it should be fun.
Tuesday 12 August 2014
Blaugust 12, 2014 - A Day of Bits and Pieces
Today while working in a client's garden a flock of Yellow-Tailed Black Cockatoos (Calyptorhynchus funereus) flew overhead. Few birds are as graceful in flight, and with their gentle, haunting calls and dark colouration they are such a contrast to Sulphur-Crested Cockatoos. We are extremely lucky to have such a bird, and I always take the time to stop and watch when a flock passes overhead.
To encourage these birds to make a stop in your area, plant Allocasuarina, Banksia, and Hakea species. That said, they need tall trees to roost on and breed in. I was reading their Wikipedia entry, and it cites a study which says that the average age of tree in which they nested in the study area was 228 years. So if we don't stop cutting down the little we have left to make way for more housing, we won't get to keep these magnificent birds.
During my extended lunch break (a perk of working for yourself if ever there was one), I caught up with an old friend I hadn't seen in a long time who I had missed. She's an introvert and I'm an introvert, so both of us found small talk hard. Although catching up for conversation is pleasant, I think I prefer doing it in a situation where conversation is not the only thing you are doing. Playing a game, watching a movie or other such things with company allows the introvert more freedom to simply say nothing until something comes to mind in its own time.
As a result of our conversation I got to thinking about how much time I need alone versus time in the company of others, and trying to pin down my point of equilibrium. I seem to be happiest, I think, if I'm getting at least seven hours of alone time each day and at least three hours of face-to-face social activity in a group setting, the rest being made up of anything. I'm even fine if up to half of my alone time involves being in the proximity of a single other introverted individual, who is likewise doing their own thing and doesn't force much interaction. That still leaves a need for three and a half hours absolutely alone in which my brain can digest, and none of this includes sleep. This creates a challenge when looking for a partner, or even just a housemate.
I'll leave you today with my favourite Fleetwood Mac album, from their earlier, much more more bluesy incarnation. I heartily encourage you to give it a listen.
To encourage these birds to make a stop in your area, plant Allocasuarina, Banksia, and Hakea species. That said, they need tall trees to roost on and breed in. I was reading their Wikipedia entry, and it cites a study which says that the average age of tree in which they nested in the study area was 228 years. So if we don't stop cutting down the little we have left to make way for more housing, we won't get to keep these magnificent birds.
During my extended lunch break (a perk of working for yourself if ever there was one), I caught up with an old friend I hadn't seen in a long time who I had missed. She's an introvert and I'm an introvert, so both of us found small talk hard. Although catching up for conversation is pleasant, I think I prefer doing it in a situation where conversation is not the only thing you are doing. Playing a game, watching a movie or other such things with company allows the introvert more freedom to simply say nothing until something comes to mind in its own time.
As a result of our conversation I got to thinking about how much time I need alone versus time in the company of others, and trying to pin down my point of equilibrium. I seem to be happiest, I think, if I'm getting at least seven hours of alone time each day and at least three hours of face-to-face social activity in a group setting, the rest being made up of anything. I'm even fine if up to half of my alone time involves being in the proximity of a single other introverted individual, who is likewise doing their own thing and doesn't force much interaction. That still leaves a need for three and a half hours absolutely alone in which my brain can digest, and none of this includes sleep. This creates a challenge when looking for a partner, or even just a housemate.
I'll leave you today with my favourite Fleetwood Mac album, from their earlier, much more more bluesy incarnation. I heartily encourage you to give it a listen.
Monday 11 August 2014
Blaugust 11, 2014 - Heroes
Tonight I went to the South Australian launch and meet-the-author session for 'Optimism', the new book by Bob Brown, activist, former senator for Tasmania and leader of the Australian Greens, and all-round wonderful Human Being.
Bob is a hero of mine for any number of excellent reasons. But I think a very important one is that he managed to stand up time and again in front of the Australian people and get a fair chunk to see sense. Not all, not even a majority, but a fair chunk. When you are up against vested interests with vast resources to throw at you, when you are up against the most pervasive and perverse media empire in the world, hell bent on controlling opinions, that's a damn fine effort indeed and an example I hope more of us can emulate.
His talk was engaging, enlightening, and inspired action. Though he was well and truly preaching to the converted this evening I think a lot of us will have left with the desire to increase our efforts and do more to save ourselves from ourselves.
I stood in line to get my copy of the book signed, and one for a friend who was devastated she couldn't make it. I stuck the names on sticky notes to go inside the books, and I got to the front of the line. Do you remember meeting Father Christmas as a small, nervous child? You would be feeling excited and somewhat awed, he'd ask you a question and your brain would stop working and you'd respond with something stupid? It was almost exactly like that for me, though with age comes that ability to be only vaguely stupid instead of completely. I can't remember what he asked me, now, only that I told him about my job.
I thanked him for being him, and told him that I didn't know where we'd be without him. "I just evolved, as we all do", was his response. He had such an easy candour, and struck me as an extremely gracious, thoughtful, humble person. I felt as giddy as a schoolgirl at a Beatles concert in the 60s. If I can evolve through my life half as well as Bob Brown I will consider it a great achievement indeed.
Meeting your heroes is always a strange thing; sometimes they live up to your expectations, sometimes they shatter them. Bob lived up to them and then some, and he's one of those rare people that I think I actually understand to some degree. I'm looking forward to getting stuck into the book.
Bob is a hero of mine for any number of excellent reasons. But I think a very important one is that he managed to stand up time and again in front of the Australian people and get a fair chunk to see sense. Not all, not even a majority, but a fair chunk. When you are up against vested interests with vast resources to throw at you, when you are up against the most pervasive and perverse media empire in the world, hell bent on controlling opinions, that's a damn fine effort indeed and an example I hope more of us can emulate.
His talk was engaging, enlightening, and inspired action. Though he was well and truly preaching to the converted this evening I think a lot of us will have left with the desire to increase our efforts and do more to save ourselves from ourselves.
I stood in line to get my copy of the book signed, and one for a friend who was devastated she couldn't make it. I stuck the names on sticky notes to go inside the books, and I got to the front of the line. Do you remember meeting Father Christmas as a small, nervous child? You would be feeling excited and somewhat awed, he'd ask you a question and your brain would stop working and you'd respond with something stupid? It was almost exactly like that for me, though with age comes that ability to be only vaguely stupid instead of completely. I can't remember what he asked me, now, only that I told him about my job.
I thanked him for being him, and told him that I didn't know where we'd be without him. "I just evolved, as we all do", was his response. He had such an easy candour, and struck me as an extremely gracious, thoughtful, humble person. I felt as giddy as a schoolgirl at a Beatles concert in the 60s. If I can evolve through my life half as well as Bob Brown I will consider it a great achievement indeed.
Meeting your heroes is always a strange thing; sometimes they live up to your expectations, sometimes they shatter them. Bob lived up to them and then some, and he's one of those rare people that I think I actually understand to some degree. I'm looking forward to getting stuck into the book.
Sunday 10 August 2014
Blaugust 10, 2014 - Mulling and Musing
Today my mind is too preoccupied by costing out plans and schemes to properly Blaugust with intent, and I think I need to let it muse and mull as it wants to instead of forcing it to vomit out slabs of text. But I shall at least give you a brief idea of what I am thinking about this evening.
On the radio the other day I heard a rendition of Istanbul (Not Constantinople) that got stuck in my head and I think I found it. Such a wonderfully swinging tune.
I saw an ad this morning for a company that does pre-fabricated transportable homes, and it got me thinking (obsessing) about home ownership again. You can get a three bedroom house with a similar layout to my current abode for $70,000, or even a four bedroom house with a respectably spacious layout for under $100,000, which makes it possible to get a house on a 1000 square metre block in Callington for well under $200,000, before factoring in various annoying fees, charges, and duties. It suddenly makes it a whole lot more achievable.
Callington isn't my ideal location, mind, but it is very affordable before factoring in the extra half hour lost to driving each day and the almost $3,000 a year more I'd be paying on petrol. It has a freeway exit, and is convenient enough for work. Other drawbacks include being even more isolated from friends and family, and I wouldn't have such an excellent net connection as I do now.
For this 'first' home, I'm looking at blocks that are a minimum of 700 square metres. I'm looking for somewhere I could start up a large garden, both productive and with a rewarding aesthetic, designed on permaculture principles involving a flock of up to 12 chickens, without being right up in the grill of the neighbours.
I need something within 50 minutes of both Belair and Murray Bridge with bias to the Belair side preferable but not required. I'd love to get something in or around Nairne, but the land prices are practically double those in Callington. I'll have to keep my eyes open once I'm in a position to actually buy.
I'm also thinking about chicken tractor designs for this project, and how to make one properly secure from the digging of foxes. With my level of paranoia I suspect it will be difficult. One idea is to trench in a rebar lattice to 750mm or so around each 'station' at which the chicken tractor would sit. Sort of a docking system.This is a hell of a lot of effort, though, and very inflexible. It may be better to incorporate a flat skirt into the design so that a fox would have to dig an extra metre laterally. I'd be perfectly happy to shut the chickens into a secure henhouse each evening, but the idea is that the chooks poop as much as possible where I need it instead of somewhere I have to muck out. It is all about getting the system you set up to do the bulk of the work for you, something extremely important to someone as inherently lazy as I am.
It seems I have written far more than I anticipated. Excellent, less to make up for later.
On the radio the other day I heard a rendition of Istanbul (Not Constantinople) that got stuck in my head and I think I found it. Such a wonderfully swinging tune.
I saw an ad this morning for a company that does pre-fabricated transportable homes, and it got me thinking (obsessing) about home ownership again. You can get a three bedroom house with a similar layout to my current abode for $70,000, or even a four bedroom house with a respectably spacious layout for under $100,000, which makes it possible to get a house on a 1000 square metre block in Callington for well under $200,000, before factoring in various annoying fees, charges, and duties. It suddenly makes it a whole lot more achievable.
Callington isn't my ideal location, mind, but it is very affordable before factoring in the extra half hour lost to driving each day and the almost $3,000 a year more I'd be paying on petrol. It has a freeway exit, and is convenient enough for work. Other drawbacks include being even more isolated from friends and family, and I wouldn't have such an excellent net connection as I do now.
For this 'first' home, I'm looking at blocks that are a minimum of 700 square metres. I'm looking for somewhere I could start up a large garden, both productive and with a rewarding aesthetic, designed on permaculture principles involving a flock of up to 12 chickens, without being right up in the grill of the neighbours.
I need something within 50 minutes of both Belair and Murray Bridge with bias to the Belair side preferable but not required. I'd love to get something in or around Nairne, but the land prices are practically double those in Callington. I'll have to keep my eyes open once I'm in a position to actually buy.
I'm also thinking about chicken tractor designs for this project, and how to make one properly secure from the digging of foxes. With my level of paranoia I suspect it will be difficult. One idea is to trench in a rebar lattice to 750mm or so around each 'station' at which the chicken tractor would sit. Sort of a docking system.This is a hell of a lot of effort, though, and very inflexible. It may be better to incorporate a flat skirt into the design so that a fox would have to dig an extra metre laterally. I'd be perfectly happy to shut the chickens into a secure henhouse each evening, but the idea is that the chooks poop as much as possible where I need it instead of somewhere I have to muck out. It is all about getting the system you set up to do the bulk of the work for you, something extremely important to someone as inherently lazy as I am.
It seems I have written far more than I anticipated. Excellent, less to make up for later.
Saturday 9 August 2014
Blaugust 9, 2014 - Fiction and Filling-In
The art of creating something from nothing or rather the art
of creating something from the rich (shit) collection of influences that have shaped
your mind, or in other words writing fiction, is a challenging one. Many times have I set
out to write a novel, written as much as a chapter, then gotten bogged down
editing and re-writing again and again before giving up out of dissatisfaction
with every word I had on the page.
I can fill index card after index card with ideas for plots,
characters, events, artifacts, places… but linking them together in a coherent
narrative is hard. As such I prefer world building and collaborative
storytelling through role-playing games. I like bouncing off the ideas and
perceptions of others. Unfortunately, sometimes you promise a mate you will
write a story, then consistently and conspicuously fail to make good on your
promise for some years until like a big ol’ smarty-pants he hoists you on your
own petard when you ask for a writing challenge.
And so I find myself writing a story including the themes of debt
and tardiness. I will be recycling some ideas from my homebrew RPG setting, and
intend to use this as an opportunity to flesh out a small corner of said
setting.
Expect the story sometime in the coming week. Please forgive
me if the prose is utterly terrible.
-----
As I mentioned in a Facebook status today, I’ll be filling
in for one of the full-time staff at our Murray Bridge nursery while she is off
to Europe for a whole four weeks. This means I get five whole weekends off in
which I can be social (unless I choose to work one or two of the Sundays in
exchange for a Monday or Friday).
One of the big drawbacks of my job is that working nearly
every weekend leaves me with a stunted social life, since most others are
available for social activity on the weekend. This stand-in gig therefore
presents me with a great opportunity to catch up with people, stay out late or
get up early depending on the activity, and do things with groups as opposed to
one or two people piecemeal.
I’m wondering if this would be a good opportunity to run an
RPG for a few weeks, considering I’ll have the time. Five sessions of 6+ hours
sound about right for a decent-sized adventure. I’d be running it using the
Dungeon Crawl Classics system, which is the most utterly gonzo of the OSR style
systems. I’m thinking four or five players, depending on temperament of
players; If any have a proclivity to get irritable at the table no more than
four, and hopefully we can avoid that.
I think I would run it initially using a character creation funnel,
which is an adventure in which each player starts with four semi-useless
peasants created using 3d6*6-down-the-line rules and wielding barbers’ scissors
or if they are lucky pitchforks or a rusty sword. They are then thrown into a
situation for which they are woefully unprepared, and only the clever,
creative, and lucky will survive. Players can each expect beween 0 and 2
survivors usually, one of which they can choose to advance to first level. This is far more exciting than it sounds, as in DCC first level is roughly the equivalent in power to a level three in some other systems, though with the important caveat that everyone has distinct and interesting abilities that don’t boil down to making every class a wizard like 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons does (a travesty of a system to my mind).
Taking on this role for the month is also a good challenge
in and of itself, in that I get to take on more responsibility over a decent
period of time. I’ll get to learn new processes and hopefully pick up or at
least improve a few skills, which will be good for the future. Though I love my
job, and it pays quite well, I don’t want to stay at the same level forever.
-----
Writing these posts so at the end of the day I'm noticing after the fact that my sentence construction is terrible.
Friday 8 August 2014
Blaugust 8, 2014 - Disco Inferno
So the guy came around to fix up the firebox today. After a couple of hours of replacing fire bricks, fiddling with the flue, adding some extra heat shielding and generally getting everything else up to spec, I now have a delightful roaring inferno contained in a metal box in my lounge room. With a couple of good pieces of wood, the house is the warmest it has been in many months.
Conveniently the property agent sent around a guy to check over all of the smoke alarms, checking that they hadn't passed their use-by date. Depending on the model, they can degrade over five or ten or twenty years, so a couple needed replacing. Good timing.
The fire box I have here is a Nectre, either a Mk1 or Mk2 and I'm too lazy to figure out which. The opening is nice and wide to easily get decent-sized logs in, and it has a secondary adjustable air intake on the bottom of the door which makes getting a good flame going an absolute breeze.
There is something delightfully primal about creating a wood fire. Every part of the process, from collecting and cutting the wood, swinging a block splitter, arranging kindling and other starting material, lighting a match, the crackle, the roar the flush of heat, the scent of wood smoke, the hiss of any remaining moisture evaporating rapidly... It is an extremely satisfying process.
With the ceiling fan in the lounge moving hot air through the house, warmth is collecting in the bathroom. This is fantastic because the wooden cupboard and the window frame were getting mouldy. Hopefully the bathroom can fully dry out for the first time this Winter and put a stop to that.
My next challenge in keeping warm will be to keep my supply of wood topped up. I likely have enough for the month, but I should really get some more to season for next year. Fortunately for me there is plenty of deadfall at work that I can collect freely, as it reduces the fuel load. Unfortunately for me, my chainsaw stopped working in the middle of a job the other day. I'll need to take it apart and figure out what has gone wrong, and see if I can fix it.
I very much hope it is something simple, as my alternatives are to pay someone else to fix it, buy a new one, or give myself a great upper-body workout using handsaws and axes. Knowing me, I'll likely choose the latter option by default, until sometime down the track the allure of something vastly more powerful than my old chainsaw, something shiny and orange and new, catches me when I have some spare money. I'm a sucker for fancy gear.
Inevitably, getting a good fire going had me thinking of The Trammps' classic tune 'Disco Inferno' all day, "Burn baby, burn!" running through my head ad nauseum. Disco is a wonderful genre, and I think young people should appreciate it more than they do. The rhythm! The neon lights! The flares! The hair! Magic. And the dancing!
Just about the only time I will ever get up and dance is when I put on a little disco in the privacy of my own home, where there is absolutely no chance whatsoever that anyone will ever bear witness to the otherwordly horror of my awkward flailing. Here are a few of my top disco picks!
For 'fun' disco, think Boney M. Tracks like 'Rasputin', 'Daddy Cool', and 'Ma Baker', will all have you singing along gleefully in no time.
If you want to feel extra positive, Earth Wind and Fire are the way to go. My picks from their catalogue are 'Fantasy', 'September', and 'Boogie Wonderland', great tracks for shaking that booty.
Speaking of which, I would be remiss not to mention KC and the Sunshine Band. Their classics 'Get Down Tonight', 'That's the Way (I Like It)', and of course '(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty' are among the best.
Chic, anchored by Nile Rodgers' superb guitar work and creative genius, gives us 'Le Freak' and 'Good Times', both of which will surely get their hooks right into your soul and get you moving like a marionette.
It is worth taking a detour into the more conceptual stuff of Giorgio Moroder, one of the godfathers of disco. I'll let you explore his work for yourself for the most part, but will link some of his work later. Daft Punk's wonderful tribute, 'Giorgio by Moroder', is educational and well worth a listen.
The Bee Gees made some important contributions with their excellent and iconic soundtrack to the movie Saturday Night Fever, classics like 'Stayin' Alive' and 'You Should Be Dancing'.
Speaking of Daft Punk, their recent forays, 'Get Lucky', and especially, 'Lose Yourself To Dance', are excellent examples of a modern take on disco. Both prominently feature Nile Rodgers and his hair; two of the genre's real mainstays.
I'll close with a piece by the divine Donna Summer, which also happens to be that example of Giorgio Moroder's masterful production work I promised. In this seventeen minute version, the supremely sexual Miss Summer makes orgasmic noises into the microphone just for you in her classic track, 'Love To Love You Baby'. Stay groovy.
Conveniently the property agent sent around a guy to check over all of the smoke alarms, checking that they hadn't passed their use-by date. Depending on the model, they can degrade over five or ten or twenty years, so a couple needed replacing. Good timing.
The fire box I have here is a Nectre, either a Mk1 or Mk2 and I'm too lazy to figure out which. The opening is nice and wide to easily get decent-sized logs in, and it has a secondary adjustable air intake on the bottom of the door which makes getting a good flame going an absolute breeze.
There is something delightfully primal about creating a wood fire. Every part of the process, from collecting and cutting the wood, swinging a block splitter, arranging kindling and other starting material, lighting a match, the crackle, the roar the flush of heat, the scent of wood smoke, the hiss of any remaining moisture evaporating rapidly... It is an extremely satisfying process.
With the ceiling fan in the lounge moving hot air through the house, warmth is collecting in the bathroom. This is fantastic because the wooden cupboard and the window frame were getting mouldy. Hopefully the bathroom can fully dry out for the first time this Winter and put a stop to that.
My next challenge in keeping warm will be to keep my supply of wood topped up. I likely have enough for the month, but I should really get some more to season for next year. Fortunately for me there is plenty of deadfall at work that I can collect freely, as it reduces the fuel load. Unfortunately for me, my chainsaw stopped working in the middle of a job the other day. I'll need to take it apart and figure out what has gone wrong, and see if I can fix it.
I very much hope it is something simple, as my alternatives are to pay someone else to fix it, buy a new one, or give myself a great upper-body workout using handsaws and axes. Knowing me, I'll likely choose the latter option by default, until sometime down the track the allure of something vastly more powerful than my old chainsaw, something shiny and orange and new, catches me when I have some spare money. I'm a sucker for fancy gear.
Inevitably, getting a good fire going had me thinking of The Trammps' classic tune 'Disco Inferno' all day, "Burn baby, burn!" running through my head ad nauseum. Disco is a wonderful genre, and I think young people should appreciate it more than they do. The rhythm! The neon lights! The flares! The hair! Magic. And the dancing!
Just about the only time I will ever get up and dance is when I put on a little disco in the privacy of my own home, where there is absolutely no chance whatsoever that anyone will ever bear witness to the otherwordly horror of my awkward flailing. Here are a few of my top disco picks!
For 'fun' disco, think Boney M. Tracks like 'Rasputin', 'Daddy Cool', and 'Ma Baker', will all have you singing along gleefully in no time.
If you want to feel extra positive, Earth Wind and Fire are the way to go. My picks from their catalogue are 'Fantasy', 'September', and 'Boogie Wonderland', great tracks for shaking that booty.
Speaking of which, I would be remiss not to mention KC and the Sunshine Band. Their classics 'Get Down Tonight', 'That's the Way (I Like It)', and of course '(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty' are among the best.
Chic, anchored by Nile Rodgers' superb guitar work and creative genius, gives us 'Le Freak' and 'Good Times', both of which will surely get their hooks right into your soul and get you moving like a marionette.
It is worth taking a detour into the more conceptual stuff of Giorgio Moroder, one of the godfathers of disco. I'll let you explore his work for yourself for the most part, but will link some of his work later. Daft Punk's wonderful tribute, 'Giorgio by Moroder', is educational and well worth a listen.
The Bee Gees made some important contributions with their excellent and iconic soundtrack to the movie Saturday Night Fever, classics like 'Stayin' Alive' and 'You Should Be Dancing'.
Speaking of Daft Punk, their recent forays, 'Get Lucky', and especially, 'Lose Yourself To Dance', are excellent examples of a modern take on disco. Both prominently feature Nile Rodgers and his hair; two of the genre's real mainstays.
I'll close with a piece by the divine Donna Summer, which also happens to be that example of Giorgio Moroder's masterful production work I promised. In this seventeen minute version, the supremely sexual Miss Summer makes orgasmic noises into the microphone just for you in her classic track, 'Love To Love You Baby'. Stay groovy.
Thursday 7 August 2014
Blaugust 7, 2014 - Brushcutter Erotica/Etcetera
I've got a couple of jobs that have been piling up due to the wet weather, and in a couple of cases due to a lack of a brushcutter. So I crunched the numbers and figured that to get ahead I'd better splash out and buy one. Today I went and bought a Husqvarna 535RXT, then went out to immediately put her to good use on a job.
In the past I've been a Stihl man, favouring the stern efficiency Germans, but this time the polished engineering of the sensual Swedish Husqvarnas caught my eye and proved far too tempting to pass up.
The bright orange of the housing was like a beautiful sunrise, full of the promise of a new day. I smiled as I put on the harness and adjusted the straps so they fit snugly and securely in all the right places, and set the padded cradle on my hip. My helmet with visor and ear muffs followed, along with gloves of supple leather.
I got out the petrol and the high quality low-smoke oil the engine prefers, and carefully made a 50:1 mix which made that characteristic sound of trickling liquid as I then poured it into the engine. I shut the tank, and put away the jerry can and oil.
I primed the engine with six squeezes of the little nub, then flicked the choke and caressed the throttle. All was ready. I pulled the starter cord once, twice, and she sputtered into life, settling into a happy purr as I released the choke.
I lifted her onto the harness clip, securing her on the pad against my right hip. I gripped the soft grips of the adjustable handlebar firmly, and held down the trigger. So little vibration! Most models with this much power would rattle the bones in my hands and my hip, but not this beautiful creature.
The smell of two-stroke, less pungent than normal thanks to the quality oil, wafted through the air while the high-pitched whine of cutting line rotating at hight speed was positively musical.
She moved like a dream, and stayed the distance. I only had to refuel her once more for the whole job, and I never had to replace the cutting line. At the end of the job, I set her down and lovingly cleaned the guard and the shaft of all the pieces of grass left behind. I ended the day with a satisfied smile.
-----
In other news, my lack of sugary treats has me in the first stages of withdrawal. I am feeling flat, unmotivated, and I have the first faint stirrings of twitchiness. The neurons in my brain are most definitely not firing.
I'm intending to attend PAX in Melbourne this year as an enforcer, and I'm very much looking forward to it. Mother has offered to put me up for the duration of my stay as she is not far away at all, but I am considering more private accommodations. It will all come down to how much money I have to play with, and who else is going.
From all reports the PAX enforcers are very much a big family, something we came close to with the AVCon crew at times. It will be good to feel that camaraderie and sense of achievement again in a new environment.
I have decided to join in on a game of Diplomacy via email, which will be a new challenge. I have never played before, and have chosen the Ottoman Empire because I find them interesting, even if the game is set in their period of decline very near to the end. I have no expectation to win, but I hope I'm not first to be crushed.
As such I have been looking at the rules and the possible openings, and thinking about what the threats are. Will I play defensively? Will I charge blindly on? Will I try something fancy and clever? Will I be honest and forthright with my neighbours? Only time will tell.
Interestingly, after leaving this post for an hour or so to stare at the Diplomacy map, I find that my neurons have started to fire again quite nicely indeed. I think giving myself something fun and challenging to properly think about might help me through this lack of delicious, happiness-providing chocolate.
In the past I've been a Stihl man, favouring the stern efficiency Germans, but this time the polished engineering of the sensual Swedish Husqvarnas caught my eye and proved far too tempting to pass up.
The bright orange of the housing was like a beautiful sunrise, full of the promise of a new day. I smiled as I put on the harness and adjusted the straps so they fit snugly and securely in all the right places, and set the padded cradle on my hip. My helmet with visor and ear muffs followed, along with gloves of supple leather.
I got out the petrol and the high quality low-smoke oil the engine prefers, and carefully made a 50:1 mix which made that characteristic sound of trickling liquid as I then poured it into the engine. I shut the tank, and put away the jerry can and oil.
I primed the engine with six squeezes of the little nub, then flicked the choke and caressed the throttle. All was ready. I pulled the starter cord once, twice, and she sputtered into life, settling into a happy purr as I released the choke.
I lifted her onto the harness clip, securing her on the pad against my right hip. I gripped the soft grips of the adjustable handlebar firmly, and held down the trigger. So little vibration! Most models with this much power would rattle the bones in my hands and my hip, but not this beautiful creature.
The smell of two-stroke, less pungent than normal thanks to the quality oil, wafted through the air while the high-pitched whine of cutting line rotating at hight speed was positively musical.
She moved like a dream, and stayed the distance. I only had to refuel her once more for the whole job, and I never had to replace the cutting line. At the end of the job, I set her down and lovingly cleaned the guard and the shaft of all the pieces of grass left behind. I ended the day with a satisfied smile.
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In other news, my lack of sugary treats has me in the first stages of withdrawal. I am feeling flat, unmotivated, and I have the first faint stirrings of twitchiness. The neurons in my brain are most definitely not firing.
I'm intending to attend PAX in Melbourne this year as an enforcer, and I'm very much looking forward to it. Mother has offered to put me up for the duration of my stay as she is not far away at all, but I am considering more private accommodations. It will all come down to how much money I have to play with, and who else is going.
From all reports the PAX enforcers are very much a big family, something we came close to with the AVCon crew at times. It will be good to feel that camaraderie and sense of achievement again in a new environment.
I have decided to join in on a game of Diplomacy via email, which will be a new challenge. I have never played before, and have chosen the Ottoman Empire because I find them interesting, even if the game is set in their period of decline very near to the end. I have no expectation to win, but I hope I'm not first to be crushed.
As such I have been looking at the rules and the possible openings, and thinking about what the threats are. Will I play defensively? Will I charge blindly on? Will I try something fancy and clever? Will I be honest and forthright with my neighbours? Only time will tell.
Interestingly, after leaving this post for an hour or so to stare at the Diplomacy map, I find that my neurons have started to fire again quite nicely indeed. I think giving myself something fun and challenging to properly think about might help me through this lack of delicious, happiness-providing chocolate.
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