All Summer in a….

Where’s it gone? Summer I mean. We’ve had a few warm dry days, but overall it’s been wetter than a Haddocks breakfast. It’s been more like late September than August. One of my Willow trees was pushed over by the wind and the rootstock, which wasn’t that well rooted, had cracked all the way through. So I took two dozen cuttings and put them in the raised beds I usually reserve for bush propagation.

Willow is dead easy to propagate, just cut a first year growth stem diagonally and either throw it in a jug of water for two weeks to develop some roots, or stick it four inches (at least) down into a damp patch of earth. Preferably with a couple of visible buds on the stem that will go under the ground. No need for rooting hormones. Willow will usually root without further assistance. Raspberries are also almost as easy. What I’ve put out for propagation will give me another two dozen trees to plant out this October. For which I have an idea.

Nonetheless, despite the wind and rain we’ve got a bit of ornamental planting done. Some Honeysuckle and Star Jasmine to decorate the roadside boundary, and some ground cover plants in pots. Mrs S and I have made some strategic decisions on where to plant a new shrubbery. There’s an old path to shift and we’re thinking about using the slabs to put in a paved area next to where the roses are blooming.

Next year I’m going to revisit where my beehives are sited, as their current location is proving far too exposed and windy. So I’ll let my remaining two hives do what they like and see if there’s any honey in September. Not that there will be much of a nectar flow in this weather. Regardless, I’ll shift the two empties closer to the sheds and reserve two new colonies for April or May.

I’ll also be planting a mixed Fuchsia, Willow and evergreen double hedge closer to the house where I don’t need to cross two acres of swamp to get to my insect workforce. There’s enough space behind my workshop to put in two parallel hedges about six metres apart, which will be where I’ll try to re-establish the apiary.

The greenhouse is working well at keeping out all the slugs and snails, the spuds are doing fine, my brassicas and tomato plants look good and I shall be buying a new combo brushcutter to keep the acre closest to the house under control. I’ll also use it to periodically attack the soft rushes plaguing my wildflower meadow.

Outside in the big wide world I hear there’s talk of more lockdowns. However I won’t be paying them any mind. I’m far too busy and the Garda won’t have any time to bother our locale anyway. Not that we see them very often. There are too many back lanes and Boreens for them to enforce any measure of movement restriction.

There’s a new chest freezer and power backup to go in the boiler house. I’ll cash in some favours for some beef. Bulk buy a few chickens with a new pen going in sometime in November.

Sometimes I think I’ve bitten off more than I can comfortably chew. Oh what the hell, I’d only be bored otherwise.

In the meantime we’re off to France next month to see if we can catch a bit of warm weather.

Is it just me?

It’s raining again. Still chilly despite a few sunny days. It’s very green outside, but that’s the wilder west of Ireland at the moment. Still here. Doing okay. Stuff is coming together. Not dead yet. Not worried about much.

No, sorry, that last statement isn’t exactly true. There are things I worry about and lots of things that I don’t. For example, I have never worried about Verrucas. Had one in my late thirties, yes, worried about them, no. Nuclear war? I’m concerned that the globalist elites current attempt to ‘crush Russia’ might push us into one, but I don’t think the Russki’s are that stupid. They have been playing the old ‘rope-a-dope’ with the Ukrainians until the Ukrainian forces wear themselves out and collapse, then push forward bit by bit.

Not worried about the Ukrainian counter offensive the western media keeps salivating about. The latest word is that a large section of their offensive line has collapsed and the Russkies have been pushing through it, exposing flanks on both sides. Considering the amount of second hand weaponry and taxpayer dollar the western elites have spunked up the wall, I can’t help but be left with a sense of weary inevitability.

Doesn’t help that it’s our tax money our politicians have been laundering. As someone who is familiar with the world of legitimate investment and cross border finance, I know a massive scam (and real money laundering) when I see it. Was that a good reason for trying to start world war three?

World war three Bill? That’s a bit off the reservation isn’t it? I do so wish it was me being a little over dramatic. Regrettably the corruption runs darker and deeper than most people can imagine.

Yeah, but the Russki’s are baaad aren’t they Bill? Those Soviets need to be put down because they’re evil, right?

First; the Russia is now a Federal Republic with Eastern Orthodox Christianity as the state religion. They haven’t (officially) been communist or socialist since the early 1990’s. They are not ‘Soviets’. They are politically more of democratic autocracy (There’s tautology). We might not like Putin, but the Russians do.

Second; er…. who started this fight? The roots of which go back to before well before 2014 when a western sponsored coup (Read Obama administration) ousted a corrupt, but ‘democratic’ (But not so long as it’s ‘our’ democracy) regime, replacing it with a more west-friendly (But equally corrupt and less democratic) regime, in turn replaced by an equally corrupt fascist regime (For the Zelenskyy philosophy, look up Banderas) which doubled down on their persecution of Russian speaking Ukrainian separatists in Eastern Ukraine and shelling civilians. Hey, but it’s ‘our guys’ doing it, so it’s okay, right?

Due to this mistreatment, back in November 2016 said Russian speaking Ukrainians organised a BREXIT-like referendum in two Oblasts (Provinces) of Donbas and Luhansk, who overwhelmingly voted to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation (Yes they did, look it up). From 2014 to just before the Russian invasion of 2022 (After several requests from the inhabitants of Luhansk and Donetsk), the Ukrainian, western backed regime was involved in shelling both local militia and civilian targets in the two seceding provinces. An equivalent might be if the EU decided to bombard Kent and the East coast of the UK for daring to vote BREXIT (But in the case of BREXIT there would be no-one riding to the rescue).

So until 2022 the Russians, at that point still militarily very weak, did nothing. Since then matters have changed. The Russians originally invaded to try and force Ukraine’s hand, then withdrew because they thought they had a deal in the Minsk accords. Then the UK in the shape of Boris Johnson, intervened politically at the behest of the US Administration, so the peace deal was off. Since then, the Russian economy, no longer being bled white by Oligarchs nicking all it’s money to buy UK football clubs and mega yachts in Europe and the west, has been on the up.

Despite sanctions (and possibly because of them) the Russians, now being good little capitalists, have turned their investment inwards, and as such are doing very nicely thank you. With the extra money their military has massively expanded and they have had time to recruit and train to the point where their army may well become the threat our esteemed globalist leaders and their lapdog media kept saying it was.

The law of unforeseen consequences also means the US dollar is now under a greater threat than ever as the global reserve currency from the BRICS nations. The globalist west may even lose it’s prime position in the world. In the process the globalists behind NATO are willing to fight to the last Ukrainian, last Pole, last Estonian, or western mercenary catch my drift?

I have a genuine fear that this war, and a planned ‘intervention’ in Niger (However you pronounce it) will plunge the ‘civilised’ west into a century of poverty. After the current US administration (and possibly the rest of western Europe) have brought back compulsory military service. This will not help though, because I keep hearing from some fairly reputable and experienced military types that “You can’t build a modern army on the fly.” Well you could. Just not a very sophisticated one. It was done in WWI & II. But with the current demographics and skill requirements of combat age westerners? Ain’t gonna happen.

We are so screwed. And it’s all our own politicians fault.

The cost of ‘settled science’

Some claim that there is no such thing as Mass Formation Psychosis, but I say this is the Achilles heel of democracy, where the poorly informed decide that the ‘science is settled’ for example and that there is only one path to follow and damn the rest of us.

Professor Mattias Desmet talks about Mass Formation Psychosis and what he thinks we should and should not be doing about it.

The answer is always not merely ‘free’ but honest and open speech, where insult and mudslinging is kept to a minimum, but the issues get properly debated and examined. Because as the COVID debacle amply demonstrated, silencing highly qualified dissenting voices is a retrograde, not a forward step.

Gloop!

We are in a small run of dryish weather at the moment. At least until Thursday, but it allowed me to get out and do things like mow the lawns and demolish an old spider-haunted shed. The big uptick in my fortunes have come with a single sound which may mean I won’t be saddled with a five figure sum for replacing my septic system.

Now my problem is that our septic tank has been backing up and needed the grey water pumping out every couple of weeks. This is expensive and smelly to say the least. Chemical interventions haven’t worked and I’ve been trying to locate the pipe leading to the leach field of my septic system for months, but today I located a small steel vent cover and opened it.

All I could see in the bright light of day was a small circle of water four feet down. About four inches in diameter. Which gave me pause for thought.

On a whim, I went over to my tool store and rooted out my sewer cleaning rod, the one with a five inch rubber disk on the end. Then I pushed the rod end down and gave things a damn good plunging. At first the rod went down easily. but about two feet down I felt some real resistance and I heard a loud Gloop! from down below and the resistance lessened suddenly. “Hello”, thought I. “Was that a blockage clearing?” It certainly felt like something had shifted. Had the source of my septic system woes just disappeared?

According to local sources our property had been unoccupied for at least four years before we bought it. Four years for a blockage to develop and clog one vital pipe which meant waste water wasn’t properly draining into the leach field. After one pumping I’d put a camera down into the tank and tried to visually work out if it was a pumped or gravity drained system. Well I wasn’t going to stick my own head down there now, was I? There was some sort of device in there, but it was too covered in all sorts of Sierra Hotel India Tango, and none of the trades were interested in helping me.

However, something has shifted, and I’m not sure what it is, but like in the old poem about horseshoes and nails, small events precede larger ones. Did I just save myself a large wedge? I do sincerely hope so.

Wot me guv?

What the hell is going on with the UK Police? An alleged 95% of real crime (Burglary, assault etc) going unsolved and yet allegedly hurty words on the Interwebs get your door kicked in and the fuzz are in mob handed to drag your teenager off to the jug? What an unfair cop.

However, it is comforting, is it not, to know that these police persons all have degrees, and are highly educated in diversity?

Maybe this is the result of putting the emphasis on theory over practice?

Dystopia

Beyond the reset. An animated short about ‘great resets’.

There’s an awful feeling of déjà rêvé, isn’t there? Because if this is a ‘conspiracy theory’ then how come it’s exactly what the Greek chorus of the progressive ‘elites’ keep telling us about? You know, ‘climate change’, pestilence and death. The only thing missing is eternal warfare.

Hell, it’s Sunday. I’m off for a drive.

Stuff your carbon footprint

My neighbours have been trolling past our place for days with trailer after trailer of peat to be stacked for final drying. Ton after ton of it. All for personal use of course, because you aren’t allowed to sell it because of ‘climate change’. Oh yeah, and Granny, and half the district gets a few bags. Might cash in a few favours myself as I still have a working fireplace and chimney.

Should help keep the gas bill down.

Screw Net Zero. Our locale is going old school. Because you don’t need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. And it will be blowing colder for the next couple of years.

A spark of hope

Caught a news item at the weekend which renewed hope that we might, in my lifetime, see the beginnings of usable nuclear fusion energy. Of course each experimental proof takes ages to set up, but the fact that the team responsible have managed to do it twice within twelve months made me prick up my metaphorical ears.

Apparently a team at Livermore in the states have managed to get over a third more power out of a fusion experiment than they put in. Unfortunately this does not mean that the cost of our power will be going down any time soon, because this is only the beginning.

However, having said that, the old ‘set up a target and blast it with lasers’ approach Livermore used does work. It just has to be combined with another type of reactor as an ignition device. Because a fire has to start somehow, and a form of ‘fire’ is what is needed to obtain nuclear fusion. The Livermore method could well be the match to start such sustainable fires.

Let’s say that the Livermore experiment can be turned into a reliable device. What would happen if the pellet of fuel was shot into a flow of preheated plasma in a strong magnetic confinement field? Then the burned plasma exhaust run into a wider chamber, from where power could be obtained both directly from some form of electrical collection device and conventional heat exchangers? Maybe using the heavy EM discharge of a fusion reaction to spin up some sort of powered flywheel attached to a generator, and the other to flash heat water to steam and run a more conventional steam turbine / generator setup? Who knows? Maybe a different technology may be developed.

No doubt such a generator would need to be heavily shielded to keep the excess neutrons under control, and some means of keeping the plasma pressure high enough, but aside from that the energy produced would be very ‘clean’ indeed. The idea, as they say, has got legs. Unlike the Tokamak approach of ITER, where all the big bucks have been going. Which, as I have posited before, have proven little better than a ‘bang in a bottle’.

Mind you, if there are protest groups like ‘Sustain’ who think we should just stop farming because they think cow farts are causing ‘runaway global warming’, then maybe necessary money will not be spent on things like the Livermore experiment and chucked into wind power, which does not work very well at the scales provided.

If there is to be an electric future, three things need to be true; first. The grid needs to be at least three times current capacity. Second, a flexible generating capacity has to be developed, installed and properly maintained. Third, that capacity must be scalable. With fusion, that becomes possible. Without it, the necessary infrastructure upgrades won’t be practical. ‘Renewables’ simply can’t cut it.

Well I suppose ‘renewables’ could supply enough power. But only if every available acre were covered in solar and wind arrays, and if the global population were reduced by at least two thirds (Any volunteers?). Sadly there are people out there that think such ecological vandalism and mass murder are an acceptable path to attain such fanciful goals. They think the world is doomed by humanity. Me, I think humanity is the world, and that world definitely needs a technology like nuclear fusion.

Or else we can squat in a squalor of our own making.

The honey

Or rather the lack of it. First hive inspection since May and the state of play is not good. The near constant rain over the last three months has resulted in a very poor honey crop, by ‘very poor’ I mean no honey worth harvesting. Both transplanted colonies have failed.

Had we had some decent weather with temperatures in the low twenties, like 2022 when I got off to a late start and still cropped over twenty pounds, then I would have made my target and the two splits would have survived. Regrettably due to the big volcanic burp back in January, we’re going to be stuck with two or three years of this until things warm up again.

August last year the ground was firm. This year it’s damp and rutty. Same for 2021. I’m hoping for warmer weather, maybe a St Luke’s Summer in mid September, which means I might get a reasonable honey crop. On the other hand, if it keeps on raining my hives will just have to struggle on and I will leave my bees extra so that they can overwinter successfully.

On the plus side I have about twenty plus trees to plant out this Autumn. A mix of Willow Ash and Birch are merrily sprouting in my yard ready for planting in October. I’ll shell out a few pennies for some Oak and Beech for the top meadow. Then I have some more fruit trees to plant to create my new orchard and fruit growing area. The Raspberry cuttings are doing okay after a false start, and the blueberries are suffering due to the excessive rain. It’s just too damn wet.

In the greenhouse my brassicas have remained slug and caterpillar free, they and the potatoes should crop in October, all things being well. The tomato plants seem okay, but I’ve had that before, only to find myself with big bushy stems and next to no fruit. However, I’m not the only one to have had a crap Summer.

My little plot has very similar issues to Harry’s. Too much rain. Ground too soft. Temperatures too low.

I don’t care what those people shrieking about man made global warming say; it’s been too bloody awful for successful growing outdoors.

The end of a story

While it’s still damp and the gateway leading to my bees is flooded, I’ve been watching video streams. Big Bang Theory still rocks. As does Third Rock From the Sun. They make me laugh, but British comedy, what has happened? Have I spent too much time out of the UK to ‘get’ the humour any more, or has something happened to UK comedy? I’d heard they were cancelling comics on the stand up circuit, but having seen a few ‘names’ die on stage while so called ‘lesser’ talents blew the roof off, I think the problem is at a deeper level.

Take for example my own tastes. As far as writers go, one of my favourites (As if you couldn’t have guessed) is Terry Pratchett. I have read just about everything of his but the Dragons of Cumbling castle. So I was pleasantly surprised to find that a second season of Good Omens had been made and was available on Amazon Prime.

The first series was not perfect, it was unfortunately hobbled by PC casting and the sharpness of Terry’s razor edged wit dulled by the script. However, the performances of Tennant and Sheen (As Crowley and Aziraphale) were so blindingly brilliant that it’s shortcomings and lame child actor performances could happily be overlooked. But that is true of most books converted to TV.

Good Omens 2 started off promising, but then about mid series showed how deep the rot has gone, and by episode six I found myself literally grimacing at the screen. It was almost like the story had lost it’s way and wandered off to play elsewhere, while the cast floundered on gamely to the finish line. It was less about averting Armageddon and more like a farce with all the jokes and confusions removed. And why were so many of the characters gay?

The first series was written when Terry was at the height of his writing powers and was meant to be a standalone, a one off. The end should have been Armageddon averted, well done and time for tea and medals. The franchise should have ended there.

Frankly, at times the script came across like it had been written by a committee of London-centric Stonewall activists. That and too much of it felt laboured and self involved. Then right at the end, Mrs S remarked that “Ooo look, they’re setting it up for a third series.”

No. For the love of God. Please no.

Huzzah!

It has stayed just dry enough to get my meadows cut. Just twenty four hours, but my neighbour thought it was okay, so they turned up team handed and now all the cut grass and wildflower is baled up and stacked. The soft rush that infested the top half of one field has been scalped all the way down to the Earth, using the premise; “Cut in July and the rush will die.” Just hope early August works too.

Inside the house, the usual catering has shifted from salads to soups and stews, the heating is on, and temperatures outside still barely getting out of the mid teens Celsius, despite all the media howling about “You’re all doooomed!” and their scary red and purple temperature maps. All you have to do is to put on a rain proof coat and waterproof boots and take a walk outside to see what things are really like, or even talk to friends and family who’ve been to the usual holiday spots. It’s that intemperate. Certainly over here in the wilder west. Someone is on drugs, and it’s not me.

Back in the real world, weather permitting I can harvest my honey in the next few days and get a new batch of frames into my supers. Not as good as I’d hoped, but that’s Apiculture for you. Then I can have a little fun driving my 4X4 around over the cut area.

Was hoping for around a hundred pounds of honey out of my four hives. but I think a more realistic total will be around seventy or eighty this year. However, I will see on Monday or thereabouts when I dust off my smoker and hive tool, and go see what my insectoid workforce has been up to.

Some of this batch of honey will go on the barter system to keep friends and neighbours sweet. The rest will be for my personal use and mead test brewing. Just six gallons to start with, but that will do to provide the mash for my first experiments in distillation. Two pounds of honey per gallon is the recipe I’ll be using. My boiler house stays a steady seventeen Celsius year round, so that will be as close to ideal as I can get. Then when I’m happy with the result, invite our neighbours for a taste party.

In the outside world the elites plans seem to be devolving into chaos. Their proxy war with the Russki’s is failing because the ammo supply is dwindling, whereas the Russians have a large industry geared up to make shells enough to bombard the attacking Ukrainians into eternity. Which I find odd, because Russia and Ukraine are essentially the same nation. Well. apart from the fascist element in Ukraine.

Bit of history here; the Russians and Ukrainians belong to the Keivan Rus ethnic grouping which goes back to the tenth century and before. Based where? Around the modern city of Kiev. Go figure.

Then there’s this self destructive ‘Net zero’ cobblers which every Government with any sense is stepping away from. On the one hand, the ‘science’ behind it is based on the political re-write of the most recent IPCC report. On the other we have reality, which does not agree. Who are we to believe?

Update: it’s not just us, even the Pacific islands of Tonga are experiencing low temperatures as low as 9.4 Celsius. Not quite a record, which was set at 8.7 Celsius back in 1994, however, that’s chilly for a place with a tropical climate. Similarly in Samoa, where locals are even reporting frost. Frosts! Where temperatures are usually around 28? Something squirrely is up, but out of control warming?

Nah.

Just a few months ago

Well it’s colder and wetter than even we in the wilder west of Ireland are used to. July was a washout and August has started off the same way. Which means my meadows will stay uncut at least until Friday. It’s also going to be cold and breezy. In August FFS!

On the plus side, the trades will be finished by Friday, leaving us with a brand new stairwell and upgraded bathrooms.

One of the things we didn’t have done in the initial refurbishment was the staircase. It was, so our builder said, not worth replacing. Mrs S and I didn’t have the budget for it at the time, so we elected to live with the squeaky third and fifth steps.

Then we had difficulty finding a carpenter for the upgrade. So we finally ended up hiring a local handyman to stop the squeaks and fit a dividing half wall with a second handrail, the premise being that if any one of our guests was worse for wear, they had two stair handrails to haul themselves up them wooden hills to Bedfordshire. Or at least the top of the stairs to go talk on the great white telephone with Huey and Ralph. (This is a very old joke, if you don’t understand, ask your Mum and Dad)

Oddly enough, putting in the new half wall along the open side of the stairs has made the back end of the hall feel far warmer. Which is nice. Especially right at the moment.

Which is an unforeseen consequence, but there you go. I have a feeling that we’re going to need all the warmth we can get this year. There’s still a lot of water in the upper atmosphere from the estimated one hundred and forty six plus teragrams (about 146 million tonnes) of water vapour punched into the mesosphere from the Hunga Tonga eruption in January 2023. That’s an added ten percent of the normal global amount of water vapour in the entire atmosphere. Which is why the weather is, and will continue to be, a little odd for the next few years until the atmosphere regains its composure. That was, like our main refurbishment, only a few months ago.

And people make a fuss about a little extra CO2, which compared to water vapour is a picayune bit part player that barely gets a walk on as far as temperature is concerned. And as for our ’emissions’, not even a gnats bollock on a tiny glitch. The planet is in charge, not us. Which should be blindingly obvious to those with even the slightest awareness.

Notwithstanding, we’ve booked a late Summer break in northern France, and are hoping that the weather will take a turn for the better. Brother in law who has a house there has agreed to put us up for a few days. Then there’s a birthday to celebrate. So it’s not all doom and gloom like the media would have you think.