Cheese Ends, 20220718

 

(Picture from here.)

 

I’m down sick with COVID so I’m not going to give this one much in the way of effort. So far, it’s a thick in the brain, cough, low fever sort of thing. The virus is trying to wear me down rather than put a spike protein through my heart. We will see.

 

So, we’ll start with COVID news.

 

Omicron BA.5 is sweeping the US:. And on the horizon BA.2.75 is yet another subvariant, BA.2.75. It’s quite possible BA.2.75 might be able to evade antibody responses due to new mutations. This includes both antibodies to both vaccine and previous infections.

 

It’s worth noting here how viruses work. They are dirty reproducers. We are used to animals or plants that are conservative in their reproduction. An apricot produces an apricot. A lamb produces a lamb. A reproductive sport that is too far off the mark dies in the womb or shortly after birth. It doesn’t take much variation to cause that effect so selection has favored the development of mechanisms that keep the organism to the straight an narrow.

 

Viruses do not have that selection pressure. If a single virus can trigger a cell to explode with half a million virions, what does it care if a quarter of them don’t work? There’s actually selection pressure for increased variation even if the cost is a large portion of the virions are not operational.

 

Different viruses— and different vaccines— have differing methods of variation. Polio, for example, has not changed enough to make the vaccine ineffective. That’s not the case with

 

This is the main reason high vaccination rates are important. You start with a virus where the vaccine is effective. If the population becomes sufficiently immune, there’s not enough virions produced to find an improved strain. If you don’t vaccinate the population, you give the virus opportunities to improve itself. Evolution in action.

 

We’ll see how BA.2.75 plays out in the US.

 

COVID has also become the leading cause of death in Americans ages 45-54.

 

Back in the why-we-can’t-have-nice-things department, the energy charter treaty is in place and is intended to compensate fossil fuel companies for lost revenue as the world moves towards a sustainable future. Big Fossil uses these treaties to sue governments to forestall policies that interfere with fossil fuel extraction. For example, RWE is suing the Netherlands because the country plans to phase out coal.

 

That this is idiotic on the face of it is obvious. It’s analogous to a child murdering its parents and the suing the government about it.

 

This actually wouldn’t bother me so much if Big Fossil were liable for the damage they caused. Okay, you caused trillions of damage to the planet. We’ll subtract the few billion you’re losing from that. Satisfied?

 

More in that department, there are a lot of period tracking apps that women use to— surprise— track their periods. You would think that data would be confidential, wouldn’t you? It isn’t. Turns out the HIPAA does not cover paternity tests, fitness trackers, or health apps— including period tracking. HIPAA only protects data kept by health providers, insurers, and data clearinghouses and their business partners. These apps are not covered.

 

Given the rabid appetite of some to stop abortion at any cost, beware.

 

(Remember when the Republicans were the party of small government? I miss those days.)

 

These are all pretty much downers. So, I’ll leave with definite positive news: the James Webb Space Telescope is operational and producing some stunning visuals. It is showing us stars, galaxies, black holes, that not only were never that clear before but not even seen. Things we didn’t know were there.

 

Yes, it took a long time. Yes, it cost more than we wanted. And, yes, it is living up to the hype.

 

How many things in life can claim that?

State of the Farm, July 4, 2022

I had a couple of ideas for this entry. It’s the fourth of July so it should be something about America. I had one about how politics has become personal and it shouldn’t be. By this, I mean we are taking peoples actions personally—as if they were aimed at us. It’s like they say at the beginning of town meeting: remember that after the meeting you’re still living in the same town.

 

But I ran out of steam.

 

When you’re so filled with rage a misstep on the pavement makes you think terrible thoughts, it’s not the time to talk about such things. Not here.

 

So, I went to my happy place.

 

The picture above is the main garden. We have three gardens: the raised beds to the west of the main garden. The east garden where we keep the turtles in the summer. That has some sweet corn and the asparagus patch. And this one.

 

To the right is the Bloody Butcher corn, entwined with beans for winter with the squash beginning to grow. In the middle are some daikon radishes, some spinach that is not doing well in the heat, and a set of basil. The trellises will have cucumber. Brussel sprouts are in the left near corner. We cultivated these in the aquaponics section of the greenhouse until they outgrew the space. Now, they’re planted in the garden. We have some hope they’ll do well in the heat since they did well in the greenhouse.

 

The A-frames are for hanging tomatoes. In the left near corner is a Sops-of-Wine apple and in the far-right corner, just past the corn, is a Granny Smith that is plagued with cedar apple rust. The tall trees in the right distance are Chestnuts. The tree behind the A-Frame is one of our peaches.

 

If you notice in the center of the picture (you may have to zoom in) there are two rows of what look like white pipes. Those are for bush beans. We’ve been having trouble with cut-worms. So, we took some PVC pipe and cut it into four-inch length and pounded it into the soil so it goes down two inches and is raised two inches. Then, we planted the beans inside them. We’ll see if that helps with the cut-worms.

 

It's the time of the summer I do most of my weeding. The absolute best weeding tool is, of course, the human hand. But I also use three other tools: a garden hoe, 4-tine cultivator (essentially a special kind of rake), and a diamond hoe. The diamond hoe is especially useful. The blade is an elongated diamond that is sharp on all four sides. It can be pushed under the soil and rip up weeds or pulled back. The narrow points allow for precise pulling out of weeks in hard to get to places. I rip up the weeds with one of the hoes, leave them more or less in place, and then drag them to where I want them with the cultivator. The chickens are eating well this year.

 

These tools are for what I call industrial weeding: weeding of large spaces where I don’t have to worry about pulling up nearby crops. But I also do a lot of weeding by hand. I don’t get up and down so much these days so I got myself a kneeler. This one doubles as a stool. I find it makes weeding much more doable.

 

Nothing helps my SCOTUS frustration like ripping invading weeds to bits.

 

This part of the summer is a waiting game. The radishes have come in—that was in the dinner salad tonight—but not a lot else. The greenhouse salads are thinning down since it getting too hot in there for lettuce. The Guomi and Honeyberries came and went quickly this year. The birds have discovered them. I wrapped up the big highbush blueberry to protect the berries and lost half of them in the process. Next year we’re going to put up the frame before the blossoms come in. Ditto Guomi and Honeyberries. We lost most of the pie cherries, too, for the same reason.

 

The squirrels took most of the strawberries. Last year it was chipmunks but we’ve been making headway there. But the squirrels have filled that breach. We’re looking into handling that, too. Maybe a barn cat.

 

But it looks like a good grape harvest might be coming. We have quite a few pears. And the Sops-of-Wine is covered with new apples. Even the sick Granny Smith is showing promise. The garden looks good and the potatoes in the raised bed are huge.

 

I’m cautiously optimistic. About the garden, at least.