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Shoot.

I had to host a really bitchy Zoom meeting tonight and I didn’t get to hit the ‘mute all’ button even once. I’m bummed. I really wanted to exercise raw power and stuff.

Back on the subject of the harvest, I went to two fruiterers today (I love that word) trying to by some plums for Uncle B and was told there weren’t any anywhere. The season was scarcely two weeks long. So there’s another fruit failure for 2021.

The second purveyor of fruits was really exercised about it. He put it down to a lack of pruners last year and pickers this year. He may have a point.

Who knew you couldn’t run a society that pays line workers to stay home.

September 16, 2021 — 6:53 pm
Comments: 13

Just terrible

You may recall that I have access to a neglected orchard (I tried to buy it, but oh well). I’ve just been apple picking and that is easily the worst harvest I’ve ever seen. Most of the apple trees had NO fruit on them at all.

It’s possible someone nipped in ahead of me and picked them clean, but I don’t think so. There wasn’t any fruit on the ground.

The plum trees had a little fruit. Not much. The quince trees were barren. Same for the cobnut. The only thing thriving are the blackberries.

I’ve heard the commercial harvest was similarly shit this year. The cherries earlier this Summer were scarce and sour (not enough sunshine).

I got these two buckets of sour green cooking apples.

So, any simple apple ideas? I tried an internet recipe: core it but leave the bottom in. Fill the hole with brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and butter. Microwave three minutes.

It dissolved into a giant puddle of mush, but I have to admit – it was a tasty giant puddle of mush. Next time, I’ll a little less time, a little less butter and a little more brown sugar. And nuke it in a bowl.

Oooo…I bet that would be nice mixed with oatmeal.

September 15, 2021 — 6:10 pm
Comments: 15

The archeologists are at it again…

They’ve recently found two of these very round stone balls in an ancient tomb in Scotland. Yes, I am resisting the urge to make a stone balls joke of some description.

About twenty ancient stone balls have been found in the Orkneys and others across Scotland. I was sure I had posted about them before, but I can’t find any such post. The ones in the upper right corner of this Wikipedia article are examples of what I’m talking about.

So what are they?

Researchers say the stones were probably used as both weapons and symbols of power.

Symbols of power? Really? I get that it would be difficult to make such a thing with hand tools, so maybe it was a high status item but…a symbol of power?

Don’t they make more sense as a neolithic one of these?

September 14, 2021 — 6:42 pm
Comments: 7

I had to ask.

Spotted at the fish market. I had to ask.

The girl said, “the fridge is for winkles. They’re kept very cold before they’re sent off to Korea.” I think she said winkles; it might have been whelks. I spent a moment thinking what a silly name that was and wondering why they were all going to Korea.

So the lobsters don’t like the cold? “Oh, no” she said. “The lobsters like the cold just fine. But they all come crawling out and we lose all the cold trying to get them back in again.”

Hm. Here’s a 2019 article about whelks from Wales going to South Korea. The fisherman is quoted thusly: “Goodness knows why they like them – they taste like nan’s toenails – but it’s given me a living for the last two decades,” he said.

But it looks like the Koreans also have multiple words for winkles, see here for a handy pronunciation guide. 흔들 리다 also apparently means, wave, oscillate, whiffle, shimmer, waggle, wag, quake, quiver, waver, swing, rock, sway, shake and tittup. Yes, it’s a word. Despite the fact winkles don’t seem to do any of those things.

Seafood is confusing.

September 13, 2021 — 7:02 pm
Comments: 12

Well, my spreadsheet died and went to hell

It looked great on my computer. Then I uploaded it to Google Docs and it exploded. I picked bits of October out of April.

In the end, I had to simplify it down to a nub of its former self. It needs to be a collaborative document, so people can write themselves on to a calendar.

And now I think maybe Google Docs will only allow you to edit if you sign in from a Gmail. Annoyed.

Never mind. It’s the weekend! Enjoy yours.

September 10, 2021 — 8:30 pm
Comments: 3

Escaped cow halts motorway traffic

It happened in Surrey this morning. No, not very near to me. No, it didn’t impact my morning. Yes, her name is Daisy.

What? That’s the most exciting thing in my news feed today.

September 9, 2021 — 7:11 pm
Comments: 10

Spreadsheets!

I don’t work Wednesdays. This morning over a leisurely coffee, I thought I’d download a free calendar from the internet to do some scheduling stuff.

But I didn’t like the look of any of the ones I found, so I decided to download a template and fuss with it.

But none of the templates were laid out exactly the way I wanted (I need the week to start Monday, for example), so I decided to build one from scratch.

I am not good at templates. Fortunately, I’m pretty good at stealing code. I found a calendar tutorial for Libre Office and I was humming along, comprehending stuff fine, until I got to the bit in the picture above.

If you can’t read it, it’s

By knowing the first day of the month we can get the day of the week. In my example it’s a Wednesday. The function that returns the day of week from a date is WEEKDAY. The formula is =WEEKDAY(DATE(G1,MATCH(A1,$Settings.A1:A12,0),1)). You should get a number from 1 to 7.

Yeah, no. Never mind. I pinched it and it worked.

People who understand spreadsheets can make them sing. I don’t think I’m ever going to be that person.

September 8, 2021 — 8:52 pm
Comments: 10

Abandon hope all ye who enter here

That’s a still from a mildly amusing Youtube of cats interrupting meetings. You’ve probably seen it; it was making the rounds.

I post it because I don’t have any pictures of my moggies making absolute nuisances of themselves just now. I had to host a Zoom meeting of the managing board, and there’s me trying to look all professional and together, and there’s my cats waving their assholes in the camera.

They’re not usually so clingy. I know what was up. They were *pissed* that I was jabbering away at an inanimate object and ignoring them, the dual centers of the universe.

That’s nothing. You should’ve heard when I was late for Chicken Bedtime.

September 7, 2021 — 8:00 pm
Comments: 3

Lookitim go!

Bill the Badger takes his leave. I tried slowing the video down, but then he’s just a slower streak of blur.

He was snuffling around the front garden late last night right when I wanted to go to bed. I knew the moment I opened the front door he would vanish, and there you have it (I can hit a button and manually record to this computer).

Behold, my white trash chicken empire! This is what happens when you expect three or four bantams and you get ten.

The house to the far left was my very first. It was slated for demolition when I suddenly had to house a bunch of cockerels. The one in the middle was a hospital cage I used for sick chickens. It was never meant for permanent housing. Whoever gets stuck in it overnight gets the most free range time next day to compensate.

The one at the far right is the proper new chicken house. Currently, it houses the two hens and one rooster. Why is the fox so much better at catching hens?

September 6, 2021 — 6:40 pm
Comments: 6

He’s back, dammit

I kept the chicken food inside for six weeks, which was a right royal pain. I thought by now, he would have gravitated to a new neighborhood, but my June badger has returned to pinch chicken food.

That’s the picture from last time. After that, I somehow managed to turn off the recording function on my surveillance cameras. I’m kind of relieved. I always dreaded seeing something awful unfold on video.

So late last night, I spotted an amorphous hump of fur rooting around in the feed bin on the camera last night and I said to Uncle B, “You sure you don’t have raccoons in England?” El baj was so into eating my layers pellets that I walked right up to him and he didn’t notice me until I spoke.

It’s a nearly full 20-kilo bag of chicken feed with a nearly full 20-kilo bag of cracked corn, so I don’t think I can drag them in the house without making a mess. Funny, he’s never been interested in the corn, just the pellets.

I tied the lid of the bin down with a bungee, but I doubt that will stop him and I don’t want to hurt him. Bungee cord-associated ocular trauma is a thing, y’all.

So I put a couple of folded, defunct metal lawn chairs on top of that. It won’t stop him either, but I’m hoping it’ll be loud and that will startle him. Or at least alert me.

I’ll keep you posted. Good weekend, all!

September 3, 2021 — 7:28 pm
Comments: 20