a. I’m vexed that it came without a shaker top. And it’s—um—wet. Looks like wet sand.
b. So I’m after spreading it wherever our nightly deaf raccoon uses as his pond-approach. [Deaf: he seems the only raccoon able to ignore the sonic deterrent. And he likes to go swimming, while there’s a perfectly good river a mile away.
c. so I climb up on the berm—and trip on one of the new irrigation lines. I managed to catch myself short of falling in with a full canister of coyote urine. And not to knock a big heavy rock into the pond. And not to rip out the irrigation.
d. Thanks to the open top, I find I have deposited half the fairly spending container under the red Japanese maple. Well, it is an area that needs coverage.
e. I get myself back on my feet and go around the pond bestowing coyote-ness wherever there’s a good raccoon approach to the water.
f. Full circuit. I’m out of coyote love-potion and figure I’d better lid that can, though it’s empty, before throwing it in the kitchen garbage.
g. I locate the missing shaker top, stuck inside the discarded lid.
Oh, well.
Glad you didn’t end up going for an involuntary midnight swim and terrorizing the koi!
I have to confess that as introductions to a blog post you’ve raised the game for the rest of the world. Being from Europe the worst I have to deal with is some local cats that think my herb pot is the perfect place for them all to meet and leave waste behind. The idea of coyote sprinkles is too much Roadrunner for me!
I’m very glad you didn’t break anything. That wouldn’t have been enjoyable in the least.
CommentThe granular coyote urine never worked for us but we are dealing with deer and groundhogs, not raccoons. Invisible fence seems to work but it has to be reapplied all the time, particularly given all the rain we’ve been having. I am about to give up on deterrence and just stop planting the things they like (which means no echinacea, because although the deer dont eat it the groundhogs do, and apparently no lilies, because although the groundhogs dont eat it the deer do). I think its going to have to be roses and hydrangeas and possibly butterfly weed, and that’s about it for summer flowers.
But none of that is relevant to keeping raccoons out of the koi pond 🙂 sorry for the frolic and detour.
In my experience, deer can be fenced out effectively and easily from a smallish garden, operative word “smallish”. They go over my large backyard’s fences all the time. But the rose bed at the side if the house, 16′ x 40′, is fenced by some rather flimsy large-mesh chicken wire with a single strand of wire to extend the top a few inches higher. With the house on the other side, and the rows of rosebushes, it’s clear to them it’s an area they could get “trapped” in, so they don’t go. Think of them as claustrophobes. Black-tailed deer, mind you–moose or elk would just push their way in!
Oh, as headlines and titles go, that is one humdinger! Wasn’t quite sure what I was in for, but couldn’t wait to read it! Hahaha.
One is sincerely most relieved you are well and not, ah, parfumée is not the most appropriate word! :sneak:
One also hopes that does not then attract lovelorn coyotes of whatever persuasion and gender.
The raccoon — will perhaps be dissuaded. But as to your pond versus the river, well, your pond is a very nice, quiet, scenic, even idyllic little spot, where a hard-working (?) raccoon might relax an’ let it all hang out, so to speak. Surprised he/she hasn’t invited buddies or that special someone, or someones. (One is not too sure about the love affairs of raccoon-kind, but the years have made one more willing to consider that there are perhaps other options which oneself or others might find, ah, pleasant. So if ce jeune homme / cette jeune fille is so inclined, well, it’s far from me to object. No, literally, it’s too far away for me to object, and the raccoon’s affairs are (blessedly) not mine. Though one could envy, ah, such bliss, one supposes.) Ahem.
😀
— I fixed catfish tonight. Very fine. I dropped (!) one fillet, looked at it, nearly discarded it, and decided that, though I wouldn’t then eat it, it wouldn’t be right to let it go to waste. It therefore went into its own little pan in the oven, set aside for Goober. — If I were truly as smart as I want to think I am, I would’ve put foil on it too. Instead, it dried out too much. I, ah, added a little oil and water and will let that “marinate” after cooking. Goober was too skittery with all the goings-on cleaning up the dishes to enjoy his fine treat. (It is, to be fair, too dry and browned.) I suspect I am going to be such a soft-hearted git as to combine a bit of my fish with it, to further improve the feast. So he’ll get a nice repast at some point, likely tomorrow morning.
I really don’t know why my style’s trying for 19th century flourish, although I always did like the Romantics and Realists of the 19th century writers, back in my formative (high school dreamer) years. Somehow, the raccoon incident’s got me going there.
— Hmm, and I’d wanted to do something about raccoons. Well, I don’t know where that will go.
Re: The stalker top and the general goofiness — It is most, most reassuring to know one is not the only one so prone to such madcap mishaps. Seriously. Thank you, CJ. You and Jane are wonderful.
One is glad Tanner is doing better with his teeth in a better state. Bless the lil feller’s heart.
Perhaps the raccoon will find an idyllic bower elsewhere. But one could sympathize with the wish for a nice spot with a nice pool and garden. (It would seem you have something in common, there, hahah.)
Today netted a few more glyphs done. This week might see the majority of the draft font done. It badly needs good kerning pairs, before it’ll be usable. It’s “inspired by,” but nowhere close enough to be a revival. I’m rather happy with it, though.
Writing some tonight. This time, on the story idea rather than getting sidetracked, one hopes.
BCS, now I have an image in my head of Pepe lePew making ‘ze beyootiful moosique’ to a female raccoon who looks like Rosie the Riveter, and is about as interested in his blandishments. My head works oddly sometimes.
If Goober passes on the fish, you could always use it to bribe the skittish outdoor kitty.
What a frustrating experience! I’m glad the only thing that suffered was your dignity. The last thing you need is to take a tumble, especially in an area with rocks and water.
Durn raccoons! A shame you can’t get somebody to trap the little nudniks and take them waaaaay outside the city limits to release them. Of course, urban coons are so cagey that caging one is difficult.
For some reason your episode reminded me of the story the comedian Buddy Hackett told on the Tonight Show one night about his wife making him bury a knife in the back yard to make it kosher again because he had rendered it non-kosher by using it to spread strawberry jelly. This was late at night, he was wearing a trench coat over his PJs, the back door locked behind him when it closed, and then he was spotted by the police . . . . He had Johnny in hysterics.
“A female raccoon who looks like Rosie the Riveter.” — That’s one lady you don’t wanna mess with, I tell ya. 🙂 (Rosie seemed like she’d be a good Merchanter / spacer, by the way.)
Great, now I’ve got Rosie the Raccoon Riveter stuck in my head too! And Pépé LePew. My brain works that way too sometimes. Dunno why.
In fact, CJ’s post reminded me of a discussion here a while back. My brain was inspired to think up a very sketchy, dodgy story idea. (It seems there was discussion of ways to ward off raccoons, and coyote pee was not the only one suggested. It was so odd, I hd to write down the idea.) I just looked for it. I don’t know how I’d pull off a wacky story like that, but hah, oh, it needs something. (There was a second idea in there, different inspiration.) So raccoons might appear somehow.
I haven’t seen any of the two, three, or four strays around here in over a month, but I keep hearing at least one shrieking, maybe catching something or fighting, not sure what. That, aside from the romantic yowling a couple of weeks ago. Heh. A month or so ago, one, a smallish, skinny, very dark grey kitty, maybe female, either adolescent or built small or stunted or dwarfed (being a stray is not conducive to full growth), she was lounging inside the gate / privacy area for my apt. Unfortunately, when I went out to see if I could say hi and make friends (with dry food too), nope, she walked off. I was dumb enough to follow a little. But the strays here must be especially wary of humans of all sizes. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen her around since. (Goober had been hanging around near the window a few days, so he was trying to make friends.) But I suspect the kitty ‘m hearing may be her. — So, I don’t hold out much hope of luck, but I keep trying, looking, in case.
Heh, those raccoon ideas are really giving me a good laugh. We’ll see how it shapes up.
Got a little background for the story idea, and want to write some actual story before I hit the sack tonight. Still not too satisfied with the opening I had, but something should turn up. — And I have hit a couple of questions, such as, how much cussing is too much, fi this is geared for YA / teen readers included? I’m OK with writing that for regular stories, but I’m (still) very conservative about that (despite that I do cuss some, hazard of living life). Yet today’s kids (and kids when I grew up) routinely use words like that. I am going to opt for a light medium, but I don’t know. — If/when this gets to a finished story, it’ll likely be self-published, on my site or (daring) Amazon. But there has to be a finishd story for that, and so far, not enough is happening. But I think I can get it to, with some pushing.
I love Pepe Le Pew. Pepe’s dialog in the original Warner brothers Pepe LePew cartoons was some of the cleverest ever. In Chuck Jones’ autobiographies, “Chuck Amuck” and “Chuck Reducks” he talks about the animator Pepe LePew was inspired by. Two great reads if you haven’t yet. In my book Pepe is right up there with Marvin the Martian as my very favorite of the Warner Bros crew.
The deer ate my day lilies just as they were about to bloom. They prefer my special varieties over the wild orange ones of course. But that may be due to ease of access. They have also been having a good time with the hostas.
I think I still have some *very hot peppers* in the freezer. I have found that soaking them in water to make a concentrate, then diluting it a bit in a spray bottle to be one of the best deterrents. I also sprinkle cayenne pepper around which does help.
Since the caterpillars worked their devastation I have had rethink my garden plan. Lots more sun, which my lonely rose bush loves. I am thinking thorn hedges, perhaps like Tirnamardi?
BTW loved the way Uncle told the history of the hedges.
Apparently deer think lilies are tasty — my mom has been having little luck keeping them out of the plantation lilies, and the lemon lilies haven’t bloomed for years. They all get munched before they have a chance to bloom. If only the deer would eat the multiflora roses and the poison ivy!
Deer in Maui?! Another invasive species. I’ve never seen any evidence of predation on my burnt orange or red daylilys.
There are deer in Hawaii; the little axis deer that were imported to provide sport hunting (and venison), and they are prolific. However, the deer assaulting my mom’s flowers are the plain ol’ whitetails, commonly found across the mainland. You can find them practically anywhere except city centers, and possibly there if a large enough park is available.
Are raccoons such connoisseurs of canine crud? Could visits from a neighbor’s dog do the trick? Free fertilizer as well.
I love Marvin the Martian too, and as infrequent as he was, the red-haired monster with the sneakers, Mortimer. I was also a fan of Cousin It from the Addams Family, as a kid. I liked Marvin’s Martian Space Dog, and never quite got the “Looney Birds” (Martian birds or dodos) as a kid.
Pépé is awesome, if a bit confused about his love interests. He does make up for it in enthusiasm.
It’s no longer “politically correct,” but I liked Speedy Gonzalez too. And heck, he was one of few such characters to get any representation. He was mostly positive too.
Side Note: There are one or two of the old Tom and Jerry cartoons which feature a little duckling who tags along with Jerry. I think one of these may be one of their Three Musketeers appearances, but another is, IIRC, then-present-day. In the one I’m thinking of, the little duckling is just determined to have a mama or buddy to look up to and hang around with. As a preteen or early teen, somewhere around that age, I teased my mom, mimicking that duckling’s voice, using his lines. My mom got a big kick out of it and asked me to do it for one of her art classes’ students (an evening class, mostly ladies). I did and got a good laugh. — Gosh, it’s been ages since I watched those.
The old Duck Dodgers in the 24-1/2-th Century cartoons were favorites of mine, plus Bugs and Marvin doing their thing. Heh.
Oh, and yes, Sylvester and Tweety. — Goober is a tuxedo black and white, and long and lean, but imagine a very gentlemanly and non-assertive fellow, rather than the brashness of Sylvester or Tom. Goober would make a good library cat.
If the Warner or Looney Tunes folks wanted to do a new series of those outer space cartoons, I wouldn’t mind at all.
P.S. — I have this idea that The Orville should have a talking horse or mule episode. Why? Because Mr. Ed always talked to _Wilbur_, of course. I cannot remember who the guy was who Francis, the talking mule, hung around with. My gosh, I haven’t seen those or the Ma and Pa Kettle movies in years. Kids today have no idea what they’re missing.
Had another thought last night about deterring deer. My former sister-in-law used to string monofilament line at what would be chest high on deer. It supposedly freaks them because they can’t see it when they brush into it. I am considering. Trying it along some of the stone walls.
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Any suggestions about the groundhogs? We love them but not as much as they love our flowers.
Sorry for going off-topic again, but I really have nothing to contribute regarding coyotes or raccoons. Though I’m happy the writing is going apace and you avoided a nasty fall! I hope you didn’t wrench your back in saving yourself.
Last blog you mentioned the heatwaves elsewhere, so now I’m chiming in on that; a bit belatedly perhaps, but not too far off an acceptable subject for this chat, I hope.
We’re having a heat wave this week in the Netherlands, and two days running we broke the previous record high: yesterday it was 39,3°C (102.2°F), and today we passed the 40°C (104°F) mark for the first time in measuring history.
Tomorrow will be hot too, 39°C predicted. The heat started on Monday with 35-37°C, and may hang on for the weekend, so that is at least five days of extremely hot temperatures. The humidity is about 48%, not too bad but not really a dry heat either.
The last high temperature record before this week was from 1944, at 38,6°C=100.4°F; and we rarely have so many really hot days in a row: 3 days of over 30°C (87°F) temperatures counts as a heatwave for the Netherlands.
I know, for people in warmer countries these temperatures may be normal summer weather, but here almost nobody has airconditioning, neither in their homes nor their workplaces, and nobody is used to this – for us it’s really extreme.
It’s a clear sign of climate change, as are the increased heavy rainfall events, and the encroaching of malaria mosquitoes and other dangerous or irritating insects like the “eikenprocessierups” (Thaumethopea processionea caterpillar) who need a bit less cold than we were wont to have in winter.
We’re lucky to live in a part of the world that is less likely to experience the worst immediate effects (no terrible droughts causing famines, nor enormous forest fires, extra-strong hurricanes, mudslides etc.) except for sea level change, but at least until the end of this century that will be slow enough we can deal with it by upping our defences.
Long term, if the tipping point is passed (in the next 12-20 years!) and 60 meter sealevel rise in the coming centuries is not averted, my country will become uninhabitable and have to move everyone elsewhere, as several Pacific island nations are already contemplating now.
The thing is, after this heatwave, the second this summer, and the anouncement from the weather institute to expect more of these in future (used to be, we didn’t even get one every summer), a lot of people are starting to install airconditioning. This increases energy use which is bad for the climate, and it increases night-time noise pollution for all the neighbors who are trying to sleep with all the windows open to create a bit of a draft (and having trouble sleeping anyway, because of the heat).
I’m on the fence myself now, as I really don’t handle heat well but also don’t want to be the first on my street to be a bad neighbor and give my nice neighbors extra trouble sleeping because of the noise… for now I may try installing an extra roof-window directly over the stairs to open at night, to let the hot air out and pull in the slightly cooler night air. But that won’t work for long, as the night air is staying warmer too, the longer and the hotter the heatwaves get.
Does anyone have any advice on as silent as possible airconditioner external units?
Not knowing how noisy the a/c units you have available are, all I can say is that most people have at least window mounted units here in HI, and although you can hear them humming at night from the street, they aren’t so loud I would consider them annoying (maybe 5m from unit to street).
Things to consider:
Solar roof panels. They will largely pay for themselves in a few years; I believe Germany has had great success with them, and their climate is comparable to yours, I should think.
If whole-house air conditioning is unreasonable, get a small window unit for one room in your house as a retreat. Also investigate split ductless units.
Look into ‘swamp coolers’ which involve no more than a good fan, a towel, and a pan of water. They take advantage of the fact that to evaporate water takes a fair amount of energy, which results in cool air after it passes through a damp towel.
The old standby of ceiling fans.
Hi Chondrite, thanks for your advice.
I’ve got the ceiling fans going in the bedroom, my workroom (when I’m in it) and the living room (for the cats, at night).
I’ve got 6 solar panels at 600 Watt/peak each on the south-facing half of my roof – about all that will fit around the window and chimney (maybe one more would be possible, but the discounts were per 3). For the remainder, the contract with my electric company specifies that (the amount of) the electricity I buy from them needs to be sourced from the sustainable natural sources sun, wind or water (the latter mostly comes from hydro-electric dams in Norway, through the European power grid); not biomass as that is bad for the world in other ways. About a quarter of all households here use such a contract, which for less than $20 a year extra forces the electricity companies to invest in sustainable energy production.
As I have ceiling fans instead of standing fans, I’ve now hung my laundry in the open bathroom window to cool the draft (draught? spelling uncertainty… I think that means a large drink of beer or somesuch? but the other one has military connotations?), to approximate the swamp fan cooler you described.
Maybe I should move the drying rack into my bedroom…
The window airco units I’ve experienced in hotels on a holiday in the USA were quite noisy – I was with my sister who is noise sensitive, so we had to turn the one in the room off and keep the window closed because the humming from the outside units of the surrounding rooms was too loud for her to sleep.
Which made it too hot for me to sleep…
I don’t think window-mounted units are available here, I’ve never seen them, and our usual double- or triple-glazed windows would not take kindly to having holes cut in them. Outside walls are double and made of bricks or concrete, so also not easy to cut large holes in for such big(gish) units.
The units I see for sale over here are either portable (inefficient and too noisy in the room) or fixed split aircos. Some of those have energy-/noise-saving settings that only produce 20 decibel inside, but outside tends to be around 50 Db (48-65 or so) – too noisy in our row-houses (mine is 5.5 meters wide per house, so there’s no more than a few meters between my wall or roof (where it could be mounted) and the neighbors’ bedroom window.
Mine is fairly quiet, at least inside. (I have to get up and walk near it to tell if it’s running, even with the various indicator lights on.) It doesn’t seem to be as loud outside as others, either: I can hear several others in the area more easily, some of them I think on the building next door.
Hi P.J.Evans, that sounds encouraging. Could you find out which type or manufacturer it i s? That would give me a starting point for looking things up.
@Chondrite, there aren”t many sliding windows around here except on historic buildings (those often have windows that slide up). Most that open either turn out like doors (which is why the Netherlands needed an excemption built into the EU regulation on no jobs working unsecured on ladders for our external windowcleaners, as those can’t be cleaned from inside), some tip, or the newer ones are turn-in-or-tip so one can choose. Some patio doors slide, but people would not be willing to block off a window or door for a rarely-needed AC unit. Houses are smaller, and rooms tend to have only one window, the larger part of which is un-openable, with one smaller part that can be opened to air the room. No-one would want to take away the only openable window in a room for the few heatwave weeks in a year.
The brand name is “OLMO” – it’s what they call a “wall-sleeve mounted” AC, meaning that there’s a sleeve going through the wall that the unit fits into.
They’re a Chinese company, and they don’t appear to sell that kind in Europe, but they have several free-standing models.
Window mounted units in the US fit into the opening of an existing window; if you have a slider window, either up and down or side to side, you get a unit that will fit into the opening, secure it by ‘pinching’ it between the sliding part of the window and the frame, and block off any openings either temporarily or permanently with plywood. You may also want to attach a piece of plywood to the sill underneath the unit, to make it more stable. If all you want to do is cool one room of your house, you can probably get away with a very small unit, perhaps 5000 BTU, that will run off a wall outlet.
Good on you for having solar! We installed 39 panels 5 years ago, and they made our electric bill 1/8 of what it had been. We just put in our on-demand tankless water heater 3 weeks ago, and expect our bill to go even lower 🙂
Swamp coolers: Put a shallow pan of water in front of a fan. Attach one end of a towel to the top of the fan, and drape it so the bottom end is in the pan of water. Let the fan blow through and around the towel once it has absorbed some of the water and is damp (you may need to weight the end in the water). As the water evaporates, it will cool the air moving by it.
The AC in my apt was replaced last year, after it stopped cooling. The newer one has an “energy saver” setting, where it cycles between cooling (for about 15 minutes) and doing nothing for a lot longer. It doesn’t use as much electricity that way. I can get it to cool more if I turn it off and back on, but it’s slow getting the place to cool enough to be sorta comfortable. For me, that’s about 28C. I also use fans to move the air inside, which helps.
(Yesterday it hit 40C in my area. It’s hot even by L.A. standards. Right now it’s about 29C inside, and the door is open a little – overcast outside, so not too hot. Yet.)
@Hanneke For truly quiet cooling look into ductless air conditioners. They are more expensive but much more flexible. A fairly good description is at https://airconditionerlab.com/best-ductless-mini-split-air-conditioners-reviewed/ In Arizona where temperatures run higher than most of the rest of the US we have a need to cool in two different modes. For most of the year an evaporative cooler works just fine, but in our area we suffer about two months of the year with a monsoonal flow with high humidity as well as heat. Evaporative coolers don’t work during the monsoon because there is already too much humidity in the air. Our next coolers will be ductless mini split coolers.
Wow, 40°C / ~104°F is plenty hot enough for here too, esp. with our humidity. I think during one of our summers with a week-plus of over 100 highs (80’s at night), we reached 104 or 105, which was really bad.
Hanneke, my sympathies for Nederlanders. Houston has hot summers, but 104 / 40°C is hot by anyone’s standards; we’re not used to that here either, though most people here have air conditioning at home and at work. And all along the Gulf Coast states, there is similar summer weather, heat and “muggy” humidity. I haven’t been checking the weather regularly to see if we’ve broken highs or how high we’ve gotten. I’ve been inside a lot. The Texas and Louisiana coasts (yes, including Houston) are about as vulnerable to the rising sea levels predicted with global warming, as the Netherlands. (Houston had bayous that were drained by the original early developers / land speculators. We still have a bayou and creeks and so on. Heck, for that matter, a sizable portion of the Texas “Coastal Plains” and into central Texas — are part of the Permian Basin that gave its name to the period in geological and biological history. Much of present-day Texas was part of an inland sea or gulf in prehistory, before humankind.)
For reasons unknown, the apartment pools have not been officially open, and not much swimming has been going on, right in the peak period when kids and adults would surely love to swim.
—–
I’ve been fiddling, trying to work out how best to do a monospace typewriter font with a squarish Eurostile-like feel. Back when there were typewriters, there was at least one printhead ball that had a font like that. — Online, I don’t find much that has more than one style, or has too many styles, or costs way more than I want to spend on it. So I am going to make my own, dang it. Way back when, I had figured out how “pica” and “elite” pitches related to PostScript Courier on-screen, along with learning about picas and points at the time. So I have a partial head start. One nice font has only one face and, eek, has oddities in how it’s built internally; plus I can’t copy and reuse it. Instead, I’ve learned a bit by opening it up and seeking how they did it.
There are a few others that could work, but two are pricey or have umpteen styles too many. One set is good and I’d use it but there’s no webfoot license available, nor an ebook license if I wanted to do that. — So, build my own and offer it at a reasonable price.
I want this because, well, naturally, a science fiction fan wants a cool futuristic computer font if there’s going to be “computer text” in the story. I’m surprised there isn’t one out there already, or many, like there are of Courier and Letter Gothic.
The draft revival/inspired-by font is proceeding, and I may be done with the first stage over the weekend or else next week. I see some things that need adjusting or a redesign of those glyphs, and the draft will need kerning. (That’s the spacing of how letter pairs fit together to give a neat, even appearance without gaps.) Then it’ll be on to other faces in the family, plus a Pro character set.
——
I wrote a few pages of another draft for the story with the errant cat, but how I’d worked it out was less well-made than the first draft. So I yanked that out and will redo it, about a fourth start, more like what I’d first done but minus problematic bits, I hope.
Last night, I kept wanting to include another character from a similar situation from a story idea a while back. But I’m not sure that isn’t overdoing it. — I’m going to see if it could work. It’s worth a few pages of very rough draft to see if I like it and can build from there. — I have come up with an excuse / dilemma that lets me sidestep why this could happen in the first place. At least I hope it’s a good enough reason. So that’s one or two test runs for the story’s start, and that’s just to set up anything, not getting to when the cat and hapless boy hero / problem-child get the ship in trouble with the cat on the keyboard, the idea that sparked this thing.
If and when I get this to a completed draft, I think I will need a couple of beta readers to tell me where I have missed things or where what I’ve written makes no sense. Heh..
I don’t currently have plans for a raccoon to show up in the story, but you never know. — And thinking about the basic idea of this story made me realize there’s more there than I thought, on the nature of reality and perception, and the dreaded “fiction reset button,” plus some existential / transcendental quandaries too that could make for interesting questions going on in the story. I’ll be happy if I can get one story written. If this crew end up in a series, I’ll be astonished to get there. Heh. — I’m also taking WOL’s hint to have a lighter, humorous tone to it, which I think fits the mood and should be more attractive for readers. I somehow want to keep balance between that and any harsh real-world issues. — I still feel like a total noob at writing. I want this to work, as a story people will want to read, well-crafted, with room for more. Yet every writer has to begin somewhere. Nobody springs forth from the first, fully formed. Only Athena and Aphrodite seem to do that, heheh.
Thursday and nearly month-end already. Time goes by so fast.
One of the weirder weather conditions this week was in the SF Bay Area – on top of a mountain that’s a bit less than 1200m above sea level: 90F and 1% humidity. The dewpoint was well below zero.
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Want some cool audio science fiction? Along with ebooks or printed books?
Amazon has a “More to Explore” clicky for: Audible Originals — Out of This World — Set your imagination aree with our celebration of Only From Audible sci-fi stories.
Three of CJ’s books are listed (with cover art) along with audiobooks by several other good writers. Cyteen, Foreigner 1, and Downbelow Station are listed, and clicking on those will of course bring up links to other audiobooks of hers like the Faded Sun trilogy.
The top-left item is for a short story exclusive called Zero-G, which is YA, kid/teen friendly, and which I’d listened to a few months back; fun and pretty good. I believe the author is Dan Wells. (I might be misremembering.)
The pages there did not “know” whether I had the Audible audio titles, but did know if I had the Amazon ebook titles. (I have both for CJ’s books.)
Note Cyteen (omnibus or the older 3 volumes separately) is/are still not out in ebook form, but are still available in paperback and hardbound.
Ahem, for one title, Amazon now offers, oh my, a leather-bound edition, pricey, but I bet that is very, very nice.
Other titles by good authors are on that page. (I clicked because I was there to check on a delivery due soon. It was so neat to see CJ’s books there, not just one, but three.)
The thing about evaporative cooling is humidity. Since the humidity is high where you are, (70-80% average according to Google) then evaporative coolers are much less efficient — including the towel in the pan of water thing. (The air can hold only so much water vapor.) Evaporative coolers work well here in the flatlands of Texas because our average humidity is low (20-50%) (Our climate is classed as “semiarid,” average rainfall 16-18 inches.)
The thing with the ceiling fans is that your fan should be reversible. In the summer you set it to blow upwards and suck the cool air off the floor to displace the hot air near the ceiling, and to “average out” the temperature in the room. In the winter you reverse direction and suck hot air down from the ceiling to displace the cool air on the floor and, again, average out the temperature. Another thing, leave your ceiling fans on slow or medium speed *all the time,* summer and winter. They keep the air mixed and prevent the heat from collecting in “hot spots” near windows and on the ceiling. (ditto cold spots in winter) My AC guy told me that tip, and I’ve done it for years. Three or four ceiling fans constantly running draw a fraction of power that the AC does when the compressor and the blower and the coolant pump all kick on. (When my AC goes on, my electric meter spins like a top!) Ditto for the heater. Leave the ceiling fans on even when you open the windows as the fans will continue to mix the incoming cooler air into the room.
Drapes or shades on the sun-side windows help. I’m thinking incandescent light bulbs have been banned in Europe? — Switching all your light bulbs to fluorescents or LEDs not only saves energy on lighting costs, but saves energy on cooling costs. Incandescent light bulbs put out a lot of heat.
Also, you can remove layers of clothing for free. Wearing a single layer of light colors and natural fibers (cotton and linen) helps keep you cooler. If you keep the air moving in a room with a ceiling fan or portable fan, that will help you feel cooler. A ceiling fan on medium speed should make very little noise. Mine don’t make any.
You can also get film to put over your (western) windows that reflects the UV light. However, some neighbors object to this as they think it looks unsightly. Ditto putting aluminum foil shiny side out on your windows. You can line your drapes with those emergency blankets with the reflective side out, but again neighbors might consider it objectionable.
Hi WOL, thanks for the tips.
Yes, incandescent bulbs are mostly phased out over here, just a few specialist ones like the tiny ones that go in ovens are still available.
I’ve changed to fluorescents years ago, and a chain of LED Christmas lights at the front door for winter, so I can find my keyhole when I get home ☺️ (it gets dark at 4 o’clock in the dark of winter, here).
I’ve got outside rolldown shutters upstairs on the two southern bedroom windows (they make at least 3°C difference compared with closing the curtains and blinds), and both a terrace-style roll-out sun canopy (for when it’s not windy) and an outside rolldown screen (for when the wind is too strong) for the large livingroom southern window.
On the northern windows I just keep the light-coloured sheers and curtains closed in the morning, as they hardly get any sun.
East and west are neighboring houses, no windows.
It all helps, my house stays a degree or two cooler than my neighbors’ who open their doors and curtains too much 🙃.
Shiny foil reflecting sun from the windows would anger the back neighbors, who would be flashed with the reflected sun at a way lower angle than their window-protections are set up for. In these dense neighborhoods I’ve never seen such reflective things used, though I can see it would be effective.
The climate here is *very* temperate, so I only use the ceiling fans when we have a hot spell.
My heating bill is very low, for one because of the temperate climate and good insulation, but for another because both east and west (concrete) walls are shared with the neighboring houses and never get cold, and the stone walls store the heat from the sun shining in the south window during the day.
That also means that it takes two-three days for the house to warm up above 25°C (77 °F) during a heatwave, if I take all the abovementioned precautions, but after a heatwave it takes the house another few days to cool down again…
Yes to cool clothing! I wear wide and light cotton shirts and skirts when it’s this hot (1 thin layer + bra and underpants), never mind friends telling me I look a bit like a circus tent, and politer colleagues complimenting me on losing weight when I get back into trousers…
And yes to silent ceiling fans, it’s the most important criteria by which I selected mine. They had to have a slower silent speed, that I can run them on day and night. They’re not really slow, but slow enough to not cause much noise. I’m advocating them to all my friends and neighbors. Alas my family lives in houses with lower ceilings and are tall, they can’t use them.
@Ready, thanks for the tip and the link! Yes, this week’s humidity of 50 is lower than usual, so I’d need something that could cope with the usual 70-80 humidity. Luckily the split air conditioners I can find online here all appear to be of the ductless type – logical, I guess, as houses haven’t been built with airducts for airconditioners.
@BCS, the pool being closed just when it’s hot might be for necessary repair or maintenance, but it might also be necessary if the water temperature gets too warm, so dangerous bacteria like Legionella or skin-irritating algae can thrive in it. It’s something we see happening with some shallow beaches every hot summer (the algae, not the Legionella).
I’ve been reading an interesting book, The Shepherd’s Life by James Rebanks, about sheep farming in the Lake District in England. It’s brilliantly written and highly readable, and is an international bestseller.
James Rebanks’ family have been sheep farmers in the Lake District for at least 600 years. That’s as far back as the records go, but it may be a lot longer.
He hated school, and never had any desire to do anything with his life other than sheep farming. At school he deeply resented the view of teachers that sheep farming is a lowly occupation, only fit for stupid people who can’t better themselves, and he dropped out of school at 15.
But he did a lot of reading, later attended adult education classes (with the encouragement of his future wife), and in his early 20s won a scholarship to Oxford University. He graduated with a double first in history (the highest level degree)… and then went back to sheep farming.
He’s also worked for Unesco as an expert advisor on sustainable farming, sustainable tourism, and world heritage sites. He cares a lot about ecology, and encouraging wild animals, birds, insects and plants in a farming environment.
He has a family with four children on his sheep farm, and his young daughters and sons also love sheep and help on the farm. But he says it’s up to them to do what they want with their lives. It seems like female shepherds and sheep farmers are pretty normal in the Lake District today.
His book is all about connection with the land, but not in a sentimental or romanticized way at all.
GreenWyvern, that sounds interesting – I’ll get a copy next time I buy books.
It reminds me a bit of an old classic favorite of mine, I bought a mountain, by Thomas Firbank, published in 1941.
It’s the story of a young Canadian who bought an old Welsh mountain farm without electricity in Snowdonia and learned sheep farming there with his wife, with the help of their neighbors. The sheep run free on the mountain all summer there and good sheepdogs are indispensable, while the mountains get lots of difficult weather (7 times as much rain as London, snow higher than the sheep, dense fog on the mountain…).
His love of the Snowdonia mountain region, including walking the mountains, as well as respect for the farmers who have built up so much experience on living with the land and the animals in this difficult bit of nature shines through in the book.
Thanks, Hanneke. I’ve put that book on my list to read, though it doesn’t seem to be available for Kindle.
There’s a similar system of farming in the Lake District. The sheep live freely on the fells (mountainsides) for most of the year. From time to time all the shepherds in the area go together up the fells with their dogs to gather the sheep, bring them down, and sort out which sheep belong to which farm.
It also gives some background to Swallows and Amazons. You’ll remember in Winter Holiday when it snows. The children are so excited, but Mr Dixon has gone up the fell at first light to see to his sheep.
And from James Rebanks:
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I love Ransome’s books. Have them all, read them as a child, reread them often since. The Shepard’s Life looks excellent 🙂
Those sound restful, peaceful. I miss getting to go out into the countryside on family summer vacations, and the family farm my paternal grandparents had in Virginia, in the Cumberland Gap area. Too cold and isolated in winter, but oh, it was beautiful and right in nature. — Eventually, each of the kids (my dad and his siblings) sold their portions, and finally, a young couple in the area got the land to start their own farm and family. I hope they love it as much as my dad’s family did. (By now, they may have grown children, around college age.)
It’s a shame that teachers would think sheep farmers, or other small farmers and ranchers, aren’t smart or don’t want to better themselves. — My dad was a farm boy, served in the Army, then went to college while working, and got an engineering degree. (This was before engineers had to have the raft of calculus, physics, and so on they do now. He grandfathered in.) My dad loved history and had a great mind for engineering, a natural aptitude for how things worked and how to make them, and a lifetime of experience. My mom was an English major and had graduated from Rice, and she’d had accounting and math classes, and was a professional artist (painter). — My dad, like many engineers, could never speak or write a textbook grammatically correct sentence in his life. He had an accent that was mostly from the Appalachian mountains. (Think, the Foxfire books, the movie The Harlan County War, and the accents of Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn. That’s the sort of accent I grew up with from my dad, with a city girl very Texan accent from my mom. My own accent is much more big-city neutral.) I grew up largely embarrassed by this about my dad, until in late high school and into college, studying languages and history, majoring in English before Computer Science, I began to appreciate the deep, rich history of the area he was from. My dad and all his siblings attended college, at least junior / community college, and three of the five graduated with degrees. They all had good minds. — And my own haphazard “non-traditional student” path through college, largely due to me not accepting myself and coming out then, is, well, I have a pretty good mind too, but mine works a little differently than much of the rest of the world. (I think if I’d been able to come out in high school or in that first run through college, I might have done fine and graduated with a B.A. or B.S. the first time around, instead of getting a two-year associate’s degree.)
But my point is, just because some country boy grows up a sheep farmer and loving it, has nothing to do with how smart he is, how capable of a good education or great things in life. — I know I’m preaching to the choir, here. It just gets to me. I am very sure of how my dad and his siblings sounded, growing up, and how my grandparents on both sides, and their families sounded. (Only my maternal grandfather’s family were townsfolk. The rest were farmers. Though my dad’s family farm went back to the early 1800’s and one multi-great-grandfather had been a carpenter and prosperous farmer.) People could (and did) easily misjudge them, and yet they’d all been taught reading, writing, and arithmetic at home, before starting formal schooling, both as a matter of practical good sense, to be able to run a business or farm, and as a matter of faith, to do Bible study, and just general intelligence and culture, the idea that it was a mark of being well brought up, classy, and intelligent.
That description of the English countryside sounds wonderful, beautiful, and reminds me of visits to Virginia and Oklahoma relatives’ farms, when I was growing up.
My grandpa (dad’s side) would have greatly approved of conservation and respect for the land and wildlife. He was very particular about not having mass logging on their land, and he and grandma had each of their children, men and women, inherit the farm, evenly divided, rather than all of it going to my dad, the oldest son, of two sons.
My mom, as a painter, had very strong feelings, as did my dad, about respect for old farms and the land and wildlife. — It’s times like this, I miss being able to see them and talk to them. I have discussed the difficult parts of our relationship here, but the thing is, we mostly had a good relationship, and so the troublesome parts bother me a lot, even now. The good parts were very good, and I miss them and my grandmother (mom’s side). I didn’t get to know or be around my dad’s folks very much, as they aged faster, but I did get to know them a little. My adult perspective would be different, besides.
I’ll want to write those books down to get them later. My to-read stack is ridiculously high. 🙂 But I have several books I intend to read or reread soon. — I need to do some studying to pick up some new skills and refresh old ones.
Oh — Fun bit — It seems if you’re learning Python (programming language), one of the first things you learn is the extension for source code files. — I had to laugh when I learned I’d be writing my first program: “Hello_World.py”; Yes, Py. I had to laugh. “H’lo, Pyanfar, Ker captain, ma’am!” “D
Don’t know if she’s in her best red and gold breeches with that gold sash and the Llyene pearl, or if she’s in everyday spacer’s blue work breeches. Either way, “Hello, World, Py,” just sounds great!
(Note: I love the Texas Hill Country for the same reasons, and I’m more of a Texas boy. I grew up here. I miss the country. My grandmother was right. People need to have growing things around them, nature. It’s good for the soul.)
An odd couple of days here: The Amazon Pantry delivery of cat food and cat litter arrived at the apt. office, which meant I got a call saying that and another few items had arrived, and I needed to come by and pick those up. Again. A new person’s voice. There must be high turnover, and I haven’t tried to track how often someone new is on staff there. I said friends would be by tomorrow or the next day to pick things up. I hope my friends will do that instead of “being busy” or “forgetting.” They are sincerely doing so and they mean well and they have their own lives, work, and families. But dang, it’s a minor but monthly or weekly annoyance I could do without. It doesn’t help allay those feelings of being isolated or a misfit. (And of course I don’t like that negative thinking. It doesn’t help anything.)
More positive and more strange: When I got up early the other day and came back from taking the trash to the dumpster, well! One and then another stray cat were along the way and said hello, in a.stray cat sort of way. This was around dawn, so the lighting was bad, and I’d gone out without a flashlight. (I’d thought it was lighter out.) (Not smart, mistake, won’t do that again, flashlight next time.)
And both cats were sticking around, not quite following, but still meowing. Huh. OK, I’m a sucker, sure, I’ll say hello and try to greet them and make friends. Of course I will. I’m wired that way; I like cats and it’s just me and my cat, my cat and I. A real surprise and one of the most interesting things that’s happened to me in a while. (Yeah, Mr. Adventure and Mr. Social Life, that’s me. :-/ )
I very likely smelled a little like cat and a little like cat litter and a little like food in the kitchen trash sack I’d just carried to the dumpster. This may have helped boost the feline opinion of me a bit.
So I stopped and sat and tried to greet them. — And it’s dark and they’re dark and…was one of them Smokey? Yes, I was that silly and sappy and wishful-thinking dreamer about it. (Goober walked across the keyboard and added five plus signs, +++++, for his opinion on this, hahah. Gee, thanks, cat. Funny, though.)
I couldn’t tell which of them seemed more like Smokey, but the sound was almost right and the behavior of one was almost right, and danged if one of them wasn’t trying to follow me, hesitating, and the other was fussing at the friendlier one, yet not running off, sticking around too.
I got so far as to pick up the friendly one. I’d gotten myself a little turned around too, but knew I was at the corner a few doors down from my door. OK. But if I went back in to get a flashlight to really see, they’d likely take off, right? And if I took one in and not the other, then Goober’s exposed to anything they’ve got, and they’re strays, so it’s likely they have something.
About this time, I see one of them is darker than the other. About this time also, a guy shows up and starts talking about these strays, and it’s just getting light enough for me to see the one I’m holding is not black or dark grey, but a dark tabby, probably, brown or maybe a tortoiseshell. Not Smokey, then. Female if tortoiseshell or calico, almost surely. (Those two patterns are sex-linked, only expressed if it’s a female or if it’s a male with some very odd genetic / chromosomal thing going on, perhaps XXY, or maybe XY but some cat genetic situation I don’t know about.)
The guy describes these two as brother and sister, with the female about to have a litter again. (By the way, one of those English-language things that make no sense and you never think of until you see them: why on Earth do we say a litter of kittens (puppies, etc.) and a litterbox, the same word? Wacky.) So the little mama kitty (I hadn’t yet realized this one was pregnant, wow, low light) is possibly not the one from maybe a month or 6 weeks ago, as if I remember right, their gestation time is longer than that. I need to look it up. Haven’t had a mama cat with kittens in many, many years.
It’s unlikely either of these two is Smokey at all, and I still can’t see them in enough light to tell for sure, and I presume I’m holding the male cat. — I also can’t see the guy’s face, but by the voice and build, he’s likely 20’s or 30’s, voice more toward bass than mine but maybe tenor or baritone. (My voice is in between tenor and bass, more baritone.) And he sounds nice enough. He’s out there to say hi to the cats and feed them. — I’m off guard enough (and isolated enough?) or shy enough for no reason then, that I didn’t say too much, and I’m dealing with the thoughts that this is not Smokey, I’m foolish for thinking maybe it was, hoping for some grand literary happy ending or something, and with the other idea, that I am sitting there holding a stray cat and talking to a young man whose face I can’t see clearly enough, less than ten feet from me, in the early predawn light, enough to have any idea what he looks like, except he’s probably dark haired, his accent is city Caucasian American, neutral with a touch of Southern, maybe, enough so I don’t notice which part of the country for sure, a general idea of his height and weight and build, and that this guy is simply there, friendly enough and non-threatening, a neighbor. — And neither of us introduced ourselves, names or apartment numbers. And after I’d said OK, since he was going to feed them, and going back to where he’d been to feed them, I said goodbye and went back to my place. — Why neither of us thought to introduce ourselves, I don’t know. It seems normal and yet odd. Could’ve started an acquaintance there. I missed a good chance to get to know another person around here. Dang it. Because I was preoccupied with the situation and feeling out of place, not at risk, but off balance. And the guy’s friendly enough to talk to someone he doesn’t know, since he saw I wasn’t any risk either, holding a stray cat, peaceful enough to have a stray cat put up with that, which, you know, is a good sign of character in my book, self-flattery aside. Heh. And he’s nice enough to care enough to put out a little dry food for these strays.
So, huh. — I didn’t go out later to see if I could find the cats again and get a look. I want to see this pari, and I know I’ve seen two or three strays around, and know one’s a skinny, small one, probably female or adolescent and dark grey to black. Another is probably the tabby. Another is dark. I’ve heard an orange cat mentioned, and I think one with white patches. — I had intended to go out last night, but didn’t, due to people and cars around 11 to midnight, and then I was asleep around dawn.
I am likely to go out there with my usual flashlight and a little food, and see if I can meet the two stray cats again. But they den up somewhere near here and hang out anywhere around this part of the complex. — And if one is friendly enough to let himself or herself be picked up by me, and the other might be about to give birth, that means at least the friendly one might be adoptable. — But if they’re a pair and one’s a mama cat, she needs shelter too, if she’d allow it. My only options would be to put Goober in with me or put the two strays in the bathroom, with, oh, lots of loud meowing, until a vet visit could give them treatment, and then still quarantine needed to keep him and them from catching anything. So I am not quite ready to rescue the two yet, but the realization the one was willing to let me hold him (her?) has made me realize maybe I should try to rescue them. Life as a stray is not ultimately good, without enough food, water, shelter, and medical care (and prenatal, postnatal and neonatal).
Anyway, I want to see for sure what these two look like. I am telling myself the idea that Smokey ended up here around the apartment complex, is wishful thinking, unlikely, and not being too nice to my own psyche. I’m not too happy with myself for getting that silly notion while out there those few minutes. And yet I did. Which says, man, I am really hanging onto that, still guilting myself about it. — I should not have handled it the way I did, putting him out there in a carrier, not seeing to it he got a real home for sure. And it was one of the very few times in my life, I’ve ever let my emotional load, temper, etc. get the better of me. And the first and only time I have ever broken that principle, of a commitment to a cat as family, friend, crew, forever and always. I did wrong by my principles, by him, and by me, then. And I have tried to set it aside as something I have to live with that I can’t change, since I have no way to undo it. But I see it’s still in my subconscious, bothering me, since I’d react to a couple of strays about the same build by thinking maybe I’d found him again and we’d have a reunion, happily ever after.
It’s a reminder of how seldom the real world works like that, and how very complicated and unlikely real life can be. Besides any moral lessons or cat rescues.
So…it’s been a strange couple of days, and I will look for the two periodically. If the one is friendly enough he’d (she’d) let me hold him (her) then, well, I consider I owe them a chance to get in out of the elements and get a real home and medical care, even if they end up adopted by others. — However, also, it’s not too likely I’d get either one or both of them. I don’t know if I’ll see them again, or if I do, if they’ll think I’m approachable again. But maybe. — So I am still a dreamer at 50+, getting closer to 55+ these days. But I guess I kine wthat already. Apparently, I will always be slightly more naive or dreamer than most people. And, in this case, I am OK with that.
If I see the guy again or he sees me, I’d hope we’d introduce ourselves this time. It would be nice to get to know any of my neighbors better than hellos and then not really getting to know each other. — Though one neighbor and I did say hello a couple of weeks ago, when we both looked outside at night, due to someone knocking on a door somewhere. (Still don’t know what was going on, doubt we will.)
So…that’s my thrilling adventures for the last couple of days.
I will be very surprised if I get adopted by two stray cats, or if they let me take them in. That’s likely a long-term thing. The neighbor has been feeding and observing them long enough to have made some guesses and befriend them slightly. So anything here is not too likely. But ah, then again, I’ve also had a cat appear at the door at my parents’ old house and walk in and insist that he was home now, sight unseen. So, y’know, things can happen.
I keep thinking maybe the experience with Smokey will work its way out through fiction somehow, but a story hasn’t yet presented itself.
Worked on the two font drafts but didn’t get more writing done yet. Am about to sit down with that and try another draft. This one might stick. I hope. Don’t know why I haven’t been satisfied yet. Likely that this time, I’ll keep what’s there and keep adding, and any new draft vectors will stay, until I have something fit to make a story with. I know there’s a story worth writing in there, if I can just get it going good. Ahem, going well. — I have almost learned to say ain’t too, besides easing up a bit on everyday grammar.
At this rate, Mr. Right is never going to show up dang it. I have been telling myself to avoid thinking of that until I’m around people enough there could be a chance of anything. But that doesn’t help my feelings much. Nothing happening in that department at all. Still single, still no roommate either. Haven’t been trying, though. Too danged isolated. Heck, seeing the two neighbors and greeting two cats, and one delivery woman, have been the most social activity I’ve had, besides typing on a screen, lately.
Off to attempt fiction…. and fonts….