Doggedly searching for the crux of the biscuit.
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| 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 |
| 29 | 30 | 31 |
Just a touch ahead of schedule, which is surprising because the blackberries and plums were a bit later than normal and summer has progressed fairly enough so that excessive heat has certainly not been cause for a hastening of a vegetative 'throwing in of the towel,' the grapes have colored up and started softening. Zinfandel is persnickety as hell so you'll see green berries and black, shriveled raisins on the same plant even at harvest, so at veraison is no surprise. But the vineyard as a whole is definitely shifting from second to third gear... right now. The correct answer to the 'Intro to Viticulture' exam question "When do you harvest?" is "When your winemaker tells you to." But on this full moon I anticipate that he instructs us to start on the next.
Crop looks good. Berries seem a little smaller than normal; number of clusters looks a little higher. Stands to reason because spring 2006 was warm and sunny after a very wet winter, facilitating good cluster / tendril differentiation from the anlagen, yet winter 2007 was relatively dry, stressing fruit production, especially for unirrigated vines.
The novice's lessons learned from the 107 year old section:
1. Kicker canes are utterly useless for old, moderately erect vines if the goal is increased trunk vigor. By the time foliage from shoots from buds #3 forward on the unpruned canes have unfurled and start contributing to photosynthate production, the vine is well into shoot production and water transport, favoring traditionally preserved buds and, unfortunately, suckers. The other leaves have already unfurled and matured. I hypothesize that this is a function of gravity versus xylemic adhesion. I doubt I'll ever test that hypothesis.
2. Kicker canes are useful (but only in as much as they're intended as new trunk) for fallen vines, as long as the fallen vine is still moderately vigorous. Whether one or three kicker canes were preserved, and regardless of whether the basal buds on those canes were removed, and regardless of whether suckers were removed regularly through the growing season, the kicker canes (hereafter referred to as new trunks) responded with stronger cane thickening relative to suckers. Fruit load can damage (or at least misshape) bearing shoots, particularly on fallen vines whose new trunks had their lower buds removed.
3. A spike in the population of gophers is followed by a spike in the population of rattlesnakes, not a spike in the population of gopher snakes. Gophigure.
4. Severe pruning (1/3 # preserved shoots) of fallen vines, without preservation of kicker canes for new trunks, intensified the dominance of suckers over the 2-3 year resurgent arms. Perhaps new root systems have been established over the years. Perhaps the head still retains cohesiveness even if up to 1" below ground level.
5. Persistent removing of suckers only noticeably benefits (shoot growth and fruit production on) moderately erect vines.
6. A largely feral, Siamese barn cat is arguably the most beautiful creature on earth.
7. If the vine is low in vigor, whether fallen or erect, it does not respond well to any of the treatments.
8. Nothing beats a good hat.
Good enough results. In short, trying to arrive at the one best strategy is a deceptive errand. There are three, including expanded use of the 'replant that spot' solution.
For moderately erect vines with moderate vigor: Normal pruning, no kicker canes. Cut suckers regularly through the year. Restake just in case.
For fallen vines of moderate vigor: Restake with two kicker canes, to have the dominant one chosen at next year's pruning as the new trunk. Do NOT cut suckers over first growing season, as they do not seem to detract from new trunk growth, while obviously providing significant photosynthate contribution to trunk / root reserves as well as fruit production (keeping vines in production during rehabilitation is strongly preferred). Also do not remove buds from new trunk below new head on either candidate shoot as would be done on replanted vine. After year two or three they can be treated as above.
For low-vigor vines, whether fallen or moderately erect, replant. These should be treated like the blank spaces (missing vines), which account for 10% of the vineyard anyway.
As a final note, I'll simply add that Vitis vinifera seems to enjoy attention and company; few things compare to getting snockered up on homebrew and napping in a field of ancient grapevines.
We hadn't used the grill in a couple months or so, but we decided to grill some chicken for dinner the other night. Guess who'd been living under the grill cover? A black widow. A pretty big one one, at that. They're totally beautiful spiders, all sleek and shiny and armored. But I smashed it all the same. I took a couple of pictures here and here. If I'd taken the grill cover off from the other side, I'd have probably stuck my hand right up in her business.
If you have sense enough not to spend time mucking around in the sewer that is the right-wing blogosphere, you probably missed the latest frenzied circle jerk. Fortunately, Jon Swift is there to sum it all up for you, complete with handy reference links. I really should set up an f-key to insert the text "you'd think they'd get tired of being 100% wrong about everything, but you'd be mistaken".
The posting here has recently been slight. New baby, work is busy, summertime activities for the pre-existing kids, yadda yadda yadda. However, now you can supplement the meager diet here, as my brother (who you may have seen skulking about the comments as Mr. Sticky) is now posting over at Cangrejero's joint. You may notice that certain...outlooks...run in the family.
Also, happy birthday and congratulations on the new job, you miscreant.
These are the crazy-ass people you empower when you vote for the Republican Party. Max Blumenthal takes his cameras to the Christians United for Israel Tour, with special cameo appearances by Joe Lieberman and Tom DeLay, who apparently feel right at home with a bunch of wanna-be genocidal lunatics.
Say what you will, but the guy is no quitter. Small Town Misfit spotted the following entries in the Rio Grande Sun police blotter:
10:45 p.m. — A Travelers Lodge caller reported a male suspect wielding a hammer. The suspect, a guest at the motel, told police arriving on the scene that there was someone under his bed. Subject was taken to the hospital to be detoxed.
Then…
2:19 a.m. — The hammer-wielding Travelers Lodge guest from July 6 called to report that there were "people outside messing with him and trying to get into his room." When the officers arrived, the subject was still delusional, according to police dispatch logs. No report was taken.
Then…
3:34 a.m. — A Big Rock Casino caller said the Traveler's Lodge man ran into the casino and said he was being chased by someone with a gun. He was taken back to the hospital.
Then…
6:39 a.m. — The Travelers Lodge man, who had been released from the hospital, called to say that he had trapped the person who has been following him all night in a mattress. Another guest at Travelers Lodge called to tell police that the man was throwing the mattress around in his room. The mattress was blocking the motel room doorway when police arrived. A report was taken for criminal damage to property, and the subject was taken into protective custody.
Some long-suffering vegans finally get to taste meat. I'll note for the record that the photo essay thereof is on a blog mostly dedicated to logging the exact weight of the author's bowel movements by doing before and after body weight measurements.
Update: There is an unusually helpful comment thread on this over at cruel.com.
This sounds vaguely familiar: "The US Ambassador Ryan Crocker took a shot at Iran stating that they waste time and have not been effective and efficient in dealing with Iraq."
This would be, one assumes, in stark contrast to our own effectiveness, efficiency, and timeliness in all matters Iraqi. The ambassador added that Iranians are fat and watch too much TV.
#37. Nuclear powered crocodiles.
The nuclear power plant has become the main breeding ground for a giant lizard [sic].
Weekly World News is shutting down. I guess Batboy will be looking for new work now. Here's a 2005 interview with the then executive VP, David Perel.
So I'm wandering down J-Walk's blog, and he has linked to a YouTube video of babies eating lemons. This happens to be one of my favorite baby games and I thought, "Hey, I should link to the video we shot of Noah eating a lemon when he was a baby!"
But when I got to the last baby in the compilation video, there he was.
"A man with a needle sticking out of his arm crashed Wednesday afternoon into a Clifton Heights drug treatment center."
Cassini spots the 60th moon orbiting Saturn. This one is a mere 2 km across.
The Cassini Imaging Team, who found the object, said Saturn's moon count could rise further still. [...] Professor Keith Mason, chief executive of the UK's Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), said: "It is amazing to think that when Cassini embarked upon its epic journey to Saturn in 1997, we only knew about 18 of its moons. Since then, through observations from ground based telescopes and the Cassini spacecraft, a further 42 have been identified."
This just makes me sad that the Bush administration defunded the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter.
Those Chinese flip-flops at Wal-Mart have certain disadvantages.
Lots more photos at the link, if you're into that sort of thing. Via J-Walk.
How is it that the profit motive is cast in such a noble light as essential to the delivery of good health care, especially when it comes to the provision of drugs, while profiting off providing drugs for health care reasons is so notably despicable?
Worm composting could be doing more harm than good to the environment, according to research in Germany.
I think this fails a full environmental cost accounting measure pretty clearly but I love a good challenge along the lines of 'it ain't what you don't know that gets you; it's what you know for sure that just ain't so...'
Max Blumenthal peeks inside the College Republican's national convention to witness the faux-manly pounding of chests, followed by a million excuses for not putting their money where their mouths are. Remember, this is exactly the well from which the current Republican leadership sprung.
Via Sadly, No!
I have a bad feeling about this.
A life-size, robotic fly has taken flight at Harvard University. Weighing only 60 grams, with a wingspan of three centimeters, the tiny robot's movements are modeled on those of a real fly. While much work remains to be done on the mechanical insect, the researchers say that such small flying machines could one day be used as spies, or for detecting harmful chemicals.
We'll bow before the flybots before all is said and done. Though they're not to be confused with the botflies, which are a different sort of threat altogether.
Air Glory makes "grown men scream like little girls." Little girls, on the other hand, it just kills.
I went to Megan's Pie Contest with my sweetie this evening after spending most of the afternoon baking the first pie I've ever baked. Lots of good food and lovely people and fun conversations. My pie was awesome. I didn't win any awards; there were some real experts there. But it was tough for them to beat out dozens of plums shaken out of a tree 24 hours earlier, sliced, mashed, and slurried with sugar, then layered between two sinfully rich crusts...
- Yes, dig me: I made my own crusts and they held together beautifully. I rock. -
...and baked to within moments of scorching.
Froz-the-smaller-but-not-necessarily-lesser was interested in my kitchen activities. I think this is because my repertoire of meal preparation is normally limited to burritos, sandwiches, and oatmeal. Making a pie in his and his little brother's presence only to say "Bye, we're going to a party to eat this pie; have fun with your babysitter!" ventures slightly beyond even my boundaries of inappropriately sadistic behavior. So I baked two.
No, you can't have any.
Don't really know why I found this so funny. I encountered a gazillion wasp nests today removing collars around the vines for trunk setting. Arthropod troubles abound. Doing a bit of late night research, I found this picture and couldn't resist sharing. You're welcome. But as I write, I'm struck by the cinematic potential. Somebody call Disney.
Every so often you'll hear a Republican wonder in amazement why almost no black Americans vote for their party. Yesterday's NAACP GOP Presidential Candidate Forum should provide a helpful clue. And the only candidate who does show up, Tancredo, is just the guy trying to get them to join him in hating on the Mexicans.
Christ, Borges couldn't write this stuff. Via Labs.
Owsley returns to San Francisco, and he hasn't gotten any less quirky.
As a planned two-week visit to the Bay Area stretched to three, four and then five weeks, Bear agreed to give The Chronicle an interview because a friend asked him. He has rarely consented to speak to the press about his life, his work or his unconventional thinking on matters such as the coming ice age or his all-meat diet.
Sporting a buccaneer's earring he got when he was in jail and a hearing aid on the same ear, he keeps a salty goatee, and the sides of his face look boiled clean from seven weeks of maximum radiation treatment for throat cancer. Having lost one of his vocal cords, he speaks only in a whispered croak these days. At one point, he was reduced to injecting his puree of steak and espresso directly into his stomach.
That is hard core.
Because you wouldn't want to miss it if she suddenly reanimated.
(screenshot from Google News)
Early next month, NASA will launch the Phoenix Mars Lander. Should the craft land safely at the planet's North Pole next spring, it will begin searching the Martian underground for water ice.
With its flanking solar panels unfurled, the lander is about 18 feet wide and 5 feet long. A robotic arm 7.7 feet long will dig to the icy layer, which is expected to lie within a few inches of the surface. A camera and conductivity probe on the arm will examine soil and any ice there. The arm will lift samples to two instruments on the lander's deck. One will use heating to check for volatile substances, such as water and carbon-based chemicals that are essential building blocks for life. The other will analyze the chemistry of the soil.
A meteorology station, with a laser for assessing water and dust in the atmosphere, will monitor weather throughout the planned three-month mission during Martian spring and summer. The robot's toolkit also includes a mast-mounted stereo camera to survey the landing site, a descent camera to see the site in broader context and two microscopes.
We Make Money Not Art: "Palimpsesto (video) is a sculpture screen made of 'dead' light bulbs. Moving spots of light are projected on its surface and as a visitor comes closer to the screen, the light dots gather and re-create the silhouette of the person. The dead light bulbs seem to come to life again. The presence of a public metaphorically gives back their lost splendor to the bulbs."
The link has a brief interview with the artist, who considers this a prototype and intends to make it much larger.
American Brothers Gored in Bull Run: "Brothers Michael (right) and Lawrence Lenahan are gored at the same time by a fighting bull during a traditional bull run in Pamplona, Spain, on Thursday." (via)
Posted by proxy from the blogger formerly known as the Extrapolator...
The year is 2020. Federal fuel efficiency standards of 35 mpg have gone into effect, an outcome blunted by the auto industry’s success (with the assistance of the NRA) getting SUV’s defined as “counter terrorism surveillance and suppression transporters” (as long as equipped with gun racks and firing slots) and thus exempt. Vice President Cheney’s office issues a statement denouncing the new car standards as illegal because they do not conform with the recommendations of his energy task force, make-up and deliberations of which remain secret. He invokes the separation of powers in claiming that as a member of the judiciary as well as the legislative and executive branches he answers to noone. He has not been seen in person for many years, and there are rumors he is on life support.
Extraordinary President George W. Bush has cancelled the 2020 elections, as he has done every two years since 2008, based on the opinion of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, that because of the continuing terrorist threat any change in the administration would only offer aid and encouragement to those who want to destroy our democratic system, and thus be unconstitutional. Each time the action has been validated by a five-to-four Supreme Court decision.
The Democrats in the House pass their 738th resolution denouncing the actions and policies of the Administration; like all its predecessors it fails to gain the 60 votes needed to bring it to a vote in the Senate. Enthusiasm for the measures seems tepid, as members of Congress realize that under the arrangement in force they are in office for life, without the need to campaign. There is some concern that relationships with lobbyists and fund raisers are getting stale and unproductive.
The national debt approaches 20 trillion dollars, with an annual interest cost of over one trillion. Bush blames the Democrats for not making permanent his tax cuts. The real estate market continues its downward spiral, and after another round of foreclosures it is discovered that ten percent of the titles and one third the mortgages are held by Chinese nationals.
The wars in Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iran, Chechnya, Palestine, Syria, Turkey, etc. have merged; once the count of American dead reached 25,000 the military effort was out-sourced, and over ninety five percent of the troops currently involved on our side have been recruited from countries in Asia and Africa. The war is being run by a handful of anonymous colonels in the Pentagon (plus Halliburton and Blackwater). The Iraqi government continues to insist that it is making progress on laws to share power and oil revenues.
The Catholic Church tries to recover from bankruptcy by forging an alliance with Indian tribes to convert its surviving buildings into Bingo parlors. Under the agreement religious services can only be held on Sunday mornings and all religious symbols have to be covered during gaming operations. An unresolved dispute concerns condom dispensers in the rest rooms. Many parochial schools have become repositories for left over eggs from in vitro fertilization. There the nascent embryos are nurtured, subjected to hymns and to educational and inspiring lectures and homilies. How to baptize them without putting them at risk is an issue, along with the cost of separating those with Y chromosomes from those without, in order to reduce the risk of impure thoughts in mixed communities. Meanwhile the President, while vetoing the 93rd bill calling for federal support of research on stem cells, announces that they can now be produced from fingernail clippings cultured in yogurt.
Early reports from the decennial census indicate that citizens and legal residents still do outnumber illegals, but just barely. The immigration bill introduced in the Senate in 2007 has now accumulated 226 amendments. Most of them were drafted by right wing talk show hosts. Pat Robertson announces that the Apocalypse is imminent, as portended by the fact that reported sightings of Jerry Falwell have surpassed those of Elvis.
Is it some kind of law that political perverts have to be Republicans?
At least this one, North Carolina Rep. David Almond had the decency to resign almost as soon as word of his inappropriate behavior came out. The North Carolina House Republicans are trying to keep his transgression a secret, but they did force him to resign. An insurance agent, Almond was serving his second term in the House. Impeccable DWT sources tell me he exposed himself in front of a female employee and chased her around the room yelling "Suck it, baby, suck it." It is unclear whether or not there was physical contact. She filed a personnel complaint.
Wow. Also, the wackos that disrupted the Senate invocation the other day because it was [gasp] being delivered by a Hindu? Yep, you guessed it.
I'm dealing with a work backlog and an unfortunate flea situation that developed while I was at the beach, so I'm still getting back to this slowly. In the meantime...
Scientists report the first conclusive discovery of the presence of water vapour in the atmosphere of a planet beyond our Solar System.
Haven't thought about Kosovo in a while, have you? The news isn't so good.
Piercing your cervix? Seriously? "Even more interestingly: the piercee in question is FTM, and the piercing, a personal symbol of the ownership and control he has over his body, has been placed prior to a planned radical hysterectomy."
From the Department of Excuse Me, I Must Have Misheard You: "British forces have been accused of releasing a plague of ferocious, man-eating badgers in the Iraqi city of Basra." [Update: Better article and video.]
The climate change deniers love to try to blame the rising global temperatures on the Sun. Try again.
I'm very encouraged about the explosive trend of installing photovoltaic tiles on the roofs of sprawling new subdivisions. As this quasi-article (real estate fluff piece) points out superficially touches on, it's been facilitated by a mixture of good public policy, face-the-facts planning, and letting the marketplace go. The residential construction industry is in the tanks right now so good news is sparse. But damn was this paragraph discouraging:
The 60-home Rocklin project is called Wisteria. Home sizes range from 3,800 to 4,400 square feet...
So the houses are going to be big enough to double as convention centers or army barracks, ballooning their energy consumption requirements but, by golly, they'll have (extraordinarily inefficient when compared to basic, basic, basic conservation measures) solar panels on them.
I just cry sometimes.
[FL] State Rep. Bob Allen was arrested Wednesday after offering to perform oral sex for $20 on an undercover male police officer, authorities said.
Dude was McCain's Florida co-chair. Mind, this isn't soliciting a prostitute, this is offering a blowjob for 20 bucks, cash. But speaking of Republicans and prostitutes, I noticed that Senator Vitter admitted that he committed "serious sins" in connection to the DC Madam's escort service. I've recovered from Catholicism fairly thoroughly since the mid-80s so my take on dogma may be a little rusty, but I seem to remember that for Catholics (Vitter is one) sin is sin. So... what would qualify as an un-serious sin, exactly?
Returned from a week at the beach late last night. It'll be a few days before I'm back in the swing of things here.
Regarding Iraq, John Doolittle is now using the word quagmire and last night said "We've got to get off the front lines as soon as possible."
In only marginally unrelated news, commenting on Scooter Libby's commutation he noted "I don't know why he didn't just pardon him outright." Pardons... Hmm...
Jerry Melton wanted to catch his dinner while fishing Thursday morning on a stretch of the Catawba River [...] "When I got it on the bank I didn't really know what it was; I hadn't seen anything like it before." [...] State wildlife officials later identified the fish as a piranha, in a new instance of a potentially dangerous non-native fish being dumped into local waters.
Ye-ouch!
Melton noticed something very different when he opened the fish's mouth with his pocketknife: "It had a whole bunch of teeth. Then it just bit down and left an impression in the blade of my knife."
One of the founding members of the liberal blogosphere, The Rittenhouse Review has been in the blogroll here since the very beginning of this site. Via Atrios, I see that its author, Jim Cappozola, died this evening. I never met Jim in person, but we linked to each other and had some email conversations some years back. He was one of the nicest guys you could ever hope to only sort of meet and was a hell of a writer.
And Libby walks. God, how I hate this administration.
Update: Go read Kung Fu Monkey on this.
I think that the Chimpan News Channel might be even funnier if I spoke Japanese, but monkeys in suits is pretty good all by itself.
Rhymenoceros versus Hiphopopotamus. Also, Bowie Song is brilliantly executed.
The Dune Re-Edition trailer is funny.
And finally, your kids will love Crotchy!
