So, you go to the grocery store and look at the apples. There may be a dozen varieties available to you. You got your tart Granny Smiths for apple pie. Then, you got your sweet/tart Honeycrisp for eating out of hand and some Pink Ladies for the kids. And let’s not forget the ubiquitous Red Delicious (which at one point in history was actually delicious). Or a classic Macintosh or an inoffensive Golden Delicious. Yet, it all seems pretty boring after a while. Surely, there must be other options.
And there are. There are around 7,500 known cultivated varieties (cultivars) of domesticated apples in the world. Head to your local orchard in the fall, and they may have a couple dozen different cultivars available for picking at any given time. The local orchards in Iowa start picking some cultivars as early as August and others as late as Halloween. This lets you experience a wide variety of apples over the course of 4 months as different cultivars come and go through the season.
Though one thing will be common with all of these cultivars; they have been selected for large scale commercial production. The trees need to be vigorous, resistant to disease, and easy to manage. Otherwise, they are not worth the hassle for large scale production. The internet says there are about 100 cultivars grown commercially in the US. So where are the other 7400 cultivars, and how do I find them?
Some orchards specialize in hard-to-find, heirloom cultivars. Note that “heirloom” doesn’t just mean old; it is supposed to mean uncommon too. The Granny Smith apple traces back to 1868 in Australia. The Mcintosh apple traces back to 1811 in upper Canada. And both of these apples can be bought in grocery stores around the US. One of the defining characteristics of an heirloom plant according to Wikipedia is that the plant is not used in modern large-scale agriculture. So, I believe that excludes Granny Smith and Mcintosh from the category of heirloom apples even though one cultivar is 150 years old and the other is 200 years old. And not all of the hard-to-find cultivars in the US are actually heirlooms. The Cox’s Orange Pippin is said by many sources to the “best tasting apple in the world”, so long as it is grown in its native England. It is basically a common, grocery-store apple in England, but a rarity in the US.
A quick internet survey of commercial orchards (orchards that are in the business of selling trees) shows that there are perhaps 200 to 300 cultivars of trees for purchase that are generally called “heirlooms”. They include apples that are common in other parts of the world, but not in the US (see Cox’s Orange Pippen). Or they include apples that were in large scale production in the past, but have fallen out of favor (see Rhode Island Greening). Or they include apples that have been propagated for a niche market for hundreds of years (see Herefordshire Redstreak). Rare and obscure heirlooms can be found through organizations that focus on preserving cultivars from extinction. So, there are options if you want to start an orchard. And to start, you will need to decide if you just want something a bit out of the ordinary or if you have a calling for saving future peoples from starvation due to the catastrophic loss of the handful of cultivars that make up most commercial crops. Sorry, got lost on a tangent there.
But, before you start buying and planting these heirloom apples, there are some questions you need to address.
- How hard do you want to work? Some heirloom cultivars are known for being difficult to grow. They need to be tended to regularly.
- How do you feel about chemicals? Some heirloom cultivars are known for being susceptible to disease. They need to be sprayed for disease and insects regularly.
- What tolerance level do you have for digging up dead trees and starting over? Sometimes, they die anyway.
There is a reason why many of these trees are not in large scale production in the US. They are hard to grow, and the results can be less than spectacular. Choose cultivars carefully. There are plenty of uncommon “heirlooms” that are easy to grow, fairly resistant to disease, and productive.
If you’re still here, it’s time to start selecting trees.
The first topic of course is sex. There won’t be any apples if sex doesn’t happen. Some, but not all crab apple trees are self-fertile (like the Dolgo crab apple tree that I have in the backyard). This means a bee can visit one flower on the tree and pick up a load of pollen, then visit another flower on the same tree and fertilize the flower. Then an apple will happen. However, the vast majority of domesticated apples are not self-fertile (they are self-infertile). This means that pollen must be carried from a flower on one tree to a flower on a different tree. And it can’t be a second tree of the same cultivar. The two trees must be different cultivars. Cross-pollination between different cultivars is necessary for domesticated apples.
To make things more complicated, most trees are diploid (meaning they have two set of chromosomes), but some trees are triploid (meaning they have three sets of chromosomes). Triploid trees cannot pollinate any other tree. So, if you want to plant a cultivar that is triploid, then you need at least two other diploid cultivars to fertilize each other as well as the triploid cultivar.
And to continue with complications, not all apple trees bloom at the same time. Apple trees are categorized into 6 overlapping groups by whether they bloom early in the season, in the middle of the season, or late the season. In order for two trees to cross-pollinate they need to be in the same group or adjacent groups. For example, a tree that is in flowering group 3 begins to bloom as flowing group 2 is ending, so they can cross pollinate. Flowering group 3 is ending as flowing group 4 begins to bloom, so they can cross pollinate. So, the tree in flowering group 3 can cross pollinate with trees in groups 2, 3, or 4. However, trees from group 2 and 4 are not in bloom at the same time and cannot cross pollinate.
Please note, this is not something you have to guess at. Generally, any place that is selling trees will list what flowering group a cultivar is in and whether or not is diploid or triploid.
Was it good for you? It was good for me.
Next you need to find cultivars that will survive, and preferably thrive, in your environment. This includes your cold-hardiness zone (plant-hardiness zone), your macro-climate (sunny, cloudy, foggy, rainy, etc), your micro-climate (hills, building, tree stands, anything that alters sun, wind, and moisture that affects your orchard), and your soil type (sand, silt, clay).
Most references on apple cultivars will tell you what the cold-hardiness zone each cultivar is rated for. My home is in USDA Zone 5A, meaning that winter temperatures down to -20 F are not uncommon (the worst I have seen is -32 F). A cultivar rated for zone 6 (higher number means warmer climate) is not likely to survive for very long at my home. But apple trees also need a minimum number of “winter chilling hours” where the temperature is below 45F but above freezing. Most trees need 1,000 hours or more of winter chill to produce blossoms and fruit. So, if the local climate is too warm, the tree will grow but not produce fruit. There are low-chill and medium-chill apple cultivars that can be grown in warm climates.
None of the references are going to talk about macro-climate or micro-climate. They will, however, talk about disease resistance. Most of the diseases of concern with apple trees are fungal which are dependent on temperature and moisture conditions in the orchard. A cloudy, foggy, rainy environment is more likely to encourage fungal growth than an irrigated orchard in a dry, sunny environment. Resistance to disease is always good, but may be even more important in some climates.
The cultivar you choose for the orchard isn’t going to care much about soil type. However, the rootstock the tree is grafted on will care where it is planted though, and all apple trees are grafted on to rootstock. If you plant an apple seed, it will generate an entirely new variety of apple – totally random and usually undesirable. The only way to propagate a desirable cultivar is to cut a scion (a twig) from an existing tree and graft it to a rootstock (which is a big topic worthy of its own article).
For most of history, scions (the trees you want) were grafted onto seedling rootstock – you plant a seed, let it grow, cut it off above the ground, and then graft the desirable scion to the stump that is left. With seedling rootstock, you have no way to know in advance how healthy or vigorous your future apple tree is going to be. Thus, the people have been selectively breeding cultivars of rootstocks to achieve a variety of characteristics including: limiting the size of the resulting tree; resistance to disease and insects; tolerance of varying soil types; and cold-hardiness.
You pays your money; you takes your pick
The last topic to consider is where the apples grow on the tree. Most domestic apple cultivars grow apples on short, knobby spurs that grow from larger branches. Spurs are easy to recognize. So, when pruning the trees, you can leave spurs in place to produce apples the following year while removing excess green growth. Some apple cultivars grow apples at the tips of branches. Thus, pruning the trees requires you to make sure that young shoots are left in place to produce apples the following year.
It is important to know whether a cultivar is a spur-bearing tree or tip-bearing tree when you decide how to manage the tree. Spindle trees can be pruned to work with either spur-bearing tree or tip-bearing trees. However, with espalier is very difficult to prune the trees to maintain the desired shape of the tree without actually cutting off all the shoots that will produce apples.
That’s All Folks!
That covers the majority of the decisions that need to be made when starting an orchard. What cultivars do you want to grow? Do all the cultivars have pollination partners? Will these cultivars thrive where I live? Are the cultivars suitable for way I want to manage the trees?
Next stop, a look at kinnath’s backyard orchard.
Dry land is not a myth.
If you Google that, the first result is a beer, the second is the quote from Waterworld.
In the pantheon of terrible Kevin Costner apocalypse movies, Waterworld really wasn’t that bad. The Postman, on the other hand, is hysterically, hilariously horrid. It’s absolutely worth a watch as an unintentional comedy.
In a lot of ways, yes. It’s basic premise was sound. Widespread communication is essential for civilization and the wolf is always at the door.
Twitter will be the thing that ends civilization.
It’s coming from inside the house!
I liked Waterworld and The Postman, but I am easily entert– Oooh, shiny!
I liked the Postman better than Waterworld.
I liked the book. The movie was disappointing.
I’ve heard that before, that the book was good but the movie butchered it.
“Dry land is not a myth.”
Landlubber!
I have no idea about self polenation but my mom has one tree and it makes fruit. There is an apple tree close but of a different variety
Crossing varieties does not matter for fruit production only for what kind of offspring the seed produces.
I have the same situation for my muscadines.
Speaking of which I will be drowning in muscadine fruit this year. I was wise to save all of my empty vodka bottles, I am gonna need them.
I trimmed vines 2 weeks ago and yesterday. Some of the trimmings yesterday were four feet long. Damn, they grow faster and faster each year.
well that means nothing to me as I have no idea what they are like but to much is better than none
Variety of grape
1. I know that much
2. if it is not vitis vinifera it don’t matter
My mistake – thought you said “I have no idea what they are”, missed the “like”
All of your vitas vinifera are grown grafted to muscadine roots. Some dolt brought muscadines to Europe in the olden days and along with it a fungus that vitas vinifera roots cannot resist. It was a huge disaster. Today vitas vinifera is all grafted to muscadine root.
I know that, I covered it in my article on Romanian wine. Not all though
also not a fungus an insect
Chilean vines have original European root stock. The blight never reached there. A virtue of isolation.
new zeeland as well. europe in some places. I think even in the US there areas free of phylloxera
As to what they are like they are round instead of oblong, tough skin that is inedible and have a very grape-like flavor with a musky taste added in. All ini all, very pleasant. We have various cultivars with thinner than wild skins but still not edible. We are working on it. In another hundred years the muscadine will be superior to the grape.
Of course I prefer the muscadine as that musky taste reminds me of my childhood summers swimming in clear, ice-cold creeks and eating the wild fruit like candy. To me they taste like freedom and adventure.
I was wise to save all of my empty vodka bottles
I’m not even gonna ask how many, or if you can even store them all onsite.
Why do you think suthen has the acreage? It’s not just for the trees.
And I am not going to tell. *hangs head in shame*
No shame, bro.
I have a line of 9 empty tequila bottle handles ( which held a total of over four gallons of tequila) under an outdoor table. We use them occasionally for candles outdoors. That is a partial count of the tequila bottles I emptied our first year in Tucson, perfecting my margarita recipe.
I have around a dozen empty handles each for bourbon and rye, to manage the throughput from the aging barrels.
And those are just the bottles I saved.
Four gallons of empty bottles…
That’s cute. 🙂
I’ve got empty bottles by the case in the basement, as well as empty kegs.
I was snickering too Neph. RC has to work, I am retired so I have a bit of an advantage.
And those are just the bottles I saved.
I don’t save bottles unless I have a use for them.
I BOW TO NO GLIB IN MY PURSUIT OF A LIVER TRANSPLANT!!
Insider discount, huh?
For mom the decision was simple. A Jonathan apple tree because that is popular in Romania and all the family liked it and me and my parents all ate it growing up. I don’t think any other consideration went into it, but it is frequent enough in Romania to be pretty sure it grows without much issue.
My grandma also had a tree called bot de iepure here which means rabbit snout, but googeling it is internationally translated to starkrimson
I have no idea about self polenation
(1) Phrasing?
(2) Sure you don’t, Pie.
You “beat” me to it.
You keep talking like that you gonna get a spanking…
Are you saying your Mom works the pole?
There’s a pick-your-own orchard here that has an apple I’ve never seen in stores, Ginger Gold. I really like them – they’re a nice balance between sweet and tart.
Apples are a food I absolutely adore in two processed forms: apple butter and apple cider. I found a jar of my wifes families homemade apple butter in the back of the cupboard last week. It’s almost all gone. Had some this morning slathered on a buttered English muffin. No idea what apples they use.
Fried apples on pancakes is divine.
Apple butter on scrapple is possibly one of the few sweet non-desert dishes I genuinely enjoy.
Dammit! I come here for snark, now I accidentally learned something!
Luckily I came for the sweet tart.
anustart?
https://ifunny.co/picture/KX1C6zc77
I am jealous Kinnath. I can’t grow apples here except for Granny Smith and even those are a bit touchy and too much work. None of the most popular fruit will grow here. Too hot for apples, too cold for bananas, too hot for cherries, too cold for citrus, and so on. I am basically restricted to natives: muscadine, kumquat, persimmon, paw paw, huckleberry, black cherry.
*My paw paws are doing very well. I am not sure how many years to production but I think 3-5.
too cold for citrus
*scratches Grant Parish off potential relocations*
If I lived in LA, I’m gonna need all the Satsumas I can eat.
I am right on the edge. Drive an hour south and you can grow bananas and oranges all. you like. Drive two hours north and you can grow apples. There is a town two hours south named Washington and half of the town in planted in bananas. Ruston, La is famous for peaches – that is two hours north and east.
I am just in that transition area. I am cursed.
Ruston, La is famous for . . . . . . .
What am I forgetting? Did some rock star die in a plane crash? I thought that was Natchitoches. The crazy preacher guy? I forget his name…
Louisiana Tech?
TERRY F-ING BRADSHAW!
Next stop, a look at kinnath’s backyard orchard.
Ohhh…. I look forward to this.
Thanks Kinnath!
“If you plant an apple seed, it will generate an entirely new variety of apple”
Totally fascinating.
I planted a dwarf Cox’s Orange Pippin this spring. Seems to be waking up nicely. I assume it won’t flower until next year. Supposedly self-fertile although there are several other types of apple trees within 50 yards.
As I mentioned last time, my favorite eating apple as a kid in New England was the Puritan. Haven’t seen it at an orchard in decades. Someday when I plant a more substantial orchard, there will be at least one.
I love password change day.
/sarc
Now I’ll be typing the wrong passwords out of habit for a week.
I was thinking about you and your interest in history the other day. I went to look at some trees on a long strip. It is a one mile by 550 foot strip because it was part of the Bowie plantation that got split up over and over for several generations until the last set of heirs got slivers.
Nearby on the map is a town named Blade. I asked one of the locals how it came by that name.
“Oh, this is where the Bowies had their forge. They had everything from here to Green’s creek. Ya know, that knife he used in the Sandbar Duel was made there.”
I have no idea if that knife was made there or not but I bet there is some interesting stuff to be found there. It is nothing but trees now so I thought ” I bet UnCivilServant could go crazy there with a metal detector”.
Quite possibly.
I make it a point to update all of my passwords when one is about to expire. It usually takes me a couple of days to get used to typing in the right password.
I have one password on a sixty day expiry cycle, so every eight weeks (to keep ahead of the expiration) I reset them all on the same day. Even though the rest have a longer cycle.
“low-chill” was my nickname in high school.
There are several orchards in southern Minnesota. The one near my elementary school (Pepin Heights) does pretty well when Target and Cub Foods pick up their stuff. I’ve even seen their cider at ALDI once.
The Bayfield apple festival up in my neck of the woods is supposedly a big deal. I’ve never been – even though I like apples, I hate crowds.
I had no idea this would be a series!
To continue our conversation from last time, kinnath, cidering is a big part of the local culture here. The land I live on was an apple orchard in days past. In Fall, the local community often gets together for cidering parties, where we bring over our bushels to whomever has a press. Apple butter is also made at this time.
I do hope that this series will eventually share some of your cidering secrets!
Speaking of varieties the apple is one of many examples of the benefits of free trade and cultural contact. The original apple is from Central Asia, particularly Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, etc.. It traveled along the Silk Road to Europe by 4000 BC, and was adopted by the cultures there early enough so that their cultivation was known to the Mycenaean Greeks and Etruscans. (There is some debate that Eris’s “golden apple” was actually an orange, but that’s for another time.)
https://www.glibertarians.com/2018/12/making-cider/
Testing today.
Will be back after 2:30 to answer any questions that I find.
I’ll have to give that a re-read.
Thank you!
you are welcome
Great series and thanks for linking the cider making post!
I disliked most cider I drank but I never had any good one I think…
I’m partial to Normandy-style cider and some of the English ones that mimic that style. Impossible to find around here ‘cept at outrageous prices exceeding that of a decent bottle of wine. I tend to go a little nuts when I’m in France — “Cider? For breakfast? Don’t mind if I do. What’s that you say? It’s lunchtime? Mmmmm, cider. Dinner? Cider.” Et cetera.
This place in Rollinsford, NH makes good cider.
Apples: Another industry bailed out by Democrats.
https://web.archive.org/web/20180824070017/https://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/04/us/perfect-apple-pushed-growers-into-debt.html
And let’s not forget the ubiquitous Red Delicious (which at one point in history was actually delicious).
UCS seems like a red delicious guy.
Granny SMITH.
even I knew that
But only in a pie? or only not in a pie?
…or both?
Both, either. I’m fond of the slight tartness.
Same here. Red Delicious – blecch. Mealy.
GRANNY SMITH NOT CARE WHAT YOU WANT, YOU AM GETTING IT ANYWAY
CBS is cutting its workforce by “a single digit percent,” which I take to mean 9.9% because of course they’re going to spin it somehow.
Yashar Ali asks: what have your highly remunerated talent and C-Suite suits done to forestall layoffs?
Learn to codeStay home, save lives.Of course I didn’t refresh. Of course not.
F is a single digit in hexadecimal.
But these people don’t know that.
They’d just give you a confused look, or completely misinterpret it.
My middle finger is also a single digit.
My apple rankings, according to me:
Pink Lady
Granny Smith
Ludacrisp
Jonagold
Fuji
I’ve linked this before about the red delicious I stumbled over just after listening to my mother rant about it for half an hour.
Some further discussion on knife sharpening in the previous thread, Mojeaux.
As is generally the case, all the commenters except me are wrong. [insert smiley emoji of your choice here]
*Waves chef’s knife over a tomato. shadow passes and tomato falls into thin slices*
I must have missed that while I was mowing.
There was a sharpening sub thread? I was just going to ask about that.
*goes back*
Start here.
Also, thanks, Trashy, for the direct-to-comment permalinks! Much much appreciated.
Thanks!
Off the top of my head, so I am probably wrong and I’m not going to google, I believe samurai swords are different from western swords because they have a concave edge. I don’t watch FiF, so I don’t know where I saw that.
Anyone have recommendations for angle grinder sharpening? I like to put a edge more or less on certain garden tools. A sharp shovel blade is noticeably easier to dig with vs off the rack blunt edge.
Use a belt instead.
https://www.sharpeningsupplies.com/Work-Sharp-Ken-Onion-Edition-Knife-Sharpener-P505.aspx?gclid=Cj0KCQjwwr32BRD4ARIsAAJNf_3y1tVJ4q638SQUBQx__9fd9V_n0lJjc50WOHG1fWd0qk_BGbMxFCEaAg1qEALw_wcB
I use one of these for my outside tools. Works great.
Anyone have recommendations for angle grinder sharpening?
Don’t? It will ruin the temper and give a weak concave edge.
Maybe for shovels. Maybe.
^^^
I believe samurai swords have a flat edge. They were sharpened on whetstones, which put a flat edge on (chisels have a long flat edge on one side, knives generally have short flat edges on two sides). That said, samurai swords were classically sharpened with small, abrasive, naturally occurring stones, which could well have been rounded and put on a concave edge. But concave edges are weak, so I’d be surprised if they were intentionally made that way.
One of the things I like about my rig is that the flexible belts put a convex edge on, which is more durable. I was interested to learn that, on my rig at least, you only sharpen the backside of serrated knives, not the serrated side. That could be specific to my rig, as I learned the hard way that trying to sharpen the serrated side removes long thin strips of the abrasive on the belts.
Samurai swords have a convex edge. They used a concave sharpening system. One of the reasons they are so freaking sharp.
Yeah, I got it exactly backward. That’s what I get for being lazy.
It’s kinda hard to look up in your defense.
I can put a absolute razor’s edge on blades.
Unfortunately, my wife destroys that edge shortly afterwards.
I cannot get her to use/care for them properly. So I gave up.
If you really want to put an edge on something. This is the stuff to use.
https://toolsforworkingwood.com/store/item/ST-MAF.XX
That hits a sore spot. No matter how many times I explain it wife never gets it. I once threatened to ban everyone from the kitchen if I found my kitchen knifes in the drying rack jammed in the basket blade first with a double handful of steel flatware or dropped willy-nilly in the steel sink one more time. Finally I just made the knives ‘hands off’ for everyone but me. Dammit dammit dammit.
Yup. We got to the same place. Mrs. Dean getting a bad cut washing knives sealed the deal.
Looks like it’s functionally equivalent to a strop & compound.
How about getting the angle right for a beginner? Angle tool or?
See what I recommended above.
Hmmm… not sure if I can sell the wife with the same sharpener used to sharpen outdoor tools…
Razor’s edge dulls too quick in some applications. Might want to put a more utilitarian edge. https://www.bladehq.com/cat–Knife-Sharpening-Angle-Guide–3489
It doesn’t matter if you’re going to cut something on a ceramic plate.
“It was just once!”
LOL so true. I still do it but I sharpen regularly cuz’ I’m a bit loony.
I get shaving sharp on kitchen knives (as in, they will shave my arm, which sports bald patches after a sharpening session). Its partly the angle, and partly how highly polished the edge is. They need to be redone every 3 – 4 months or so. Mrs. Dean is at least good about only using the on chopping blocks (at least when I am in the room).
*flashes back to walking into the kitchen and witnessing the freshly sharpened paring knife being used on the granite countertop*
Also of note. My anecdotal experience has been that women love to use the pairing knife for everything. Whether it is the appropriate size or not. I have tried to explain that in most situations, a larger knife is not only better, but safer. My observations and criticisms have not been taken well.
They never are taken well.
But by golly, I’m going to keep on giving them.
*resumes self-flagellation*
Paring knives are easier to hold.
I find paring knives hard to work with, the blade is too short
The santoku knife is a better utility blade.
https://www.misen.co/blogs/news/what-is-a-santoku-knife
Yeah, that gets wrecked too.
Has sad.
grip is everything
any other grip temps the weak to move a thumb or index finger to the top to guide and load the blade = WRONG
you always cut down into the block, so your weight should always be on top; one deploys the load with the pad of the index finger and up between the first and second knuckle, closer to the first; think of it as the paring grip in many ways, only with the blade down
sharpening: the bevel for meat should be keen; that for vegetables much less so; all razor sharp most of the time; if the bevel is correct, even when the edge is not perfect, you can finish the job at hand
precisely as with golfers, some get it, but hackers argue 🙂
There is nothing right about that grip except that they’re on the handle end.
banginglc1 on May 28, 2020 at 12:57 pm
Also of note. My anecdotal experience has been that women love to use the pairing knife for everything. Whether it is the appropriate size or not. I have tried to explain that in most situations, a larger knife is not only better, but safer. My observations and criticisms have not been taken well.
Holy shit! So it’s not just my wife? That drives me bonkers, watching her trying clumsily to chop vegetables with a little paring knife.
I came home once and she was making dinner – spaghetti squash. She was splitting the squash using her good chef’s knife. Which meant hammering it through the squash.
R C: What? What? No! Nonononono!
Mrs. D: What are you on about now?
R C: Let me see that knife! *holds it up to light, sees chips out of the blade* This is not the right tool for that job! *cradles knife protectively to chest*
Mrs. D: Well, what am I supposed to use?
R C: *hands Mrs. D a cleaver, croons comfortingly to chef’s knife as he goes to garage to repair the edge*
Add me to the count of men with wives who have an unnatural affinity for paring knives. Here at my MIL’s, there are only paring knives save for one sad mini santoku that makes a better bludgeon than cutting device.
I’ve gotten my wife to use the chef’s knife, but she doesn’t care about, well, care. I gave up after seeing the knives go through the dishwasher enough times. I have a honing steel and a block sharpener and that’s good enough given the abuse those poor knives suffer.
My wife is also one who loves to cut things directly on the countertop. I gave up on having knives with any sharpness a long time ago.
She also will not accept that dull knives are more dangerous than sharp knives. No matter how many times I explain that dull knives require more force and thus are more prone to slipping, etc, her mind will not let go of the notion that dull means you won’t really cut yourself badly.
There should be battered knives support group. #allknivesmatter
dull knives require more force
I too have given up: so I simply do all the knife-work in the house.
Anyone else have just enough of an anxiety problem that you burst into tears and run screaming from the room when your wife’s survival reality show’s hero starts to swing a hatchet at the wood they’re holding in their off hand? Just me? I start shaking just writing about it. I see disaster and pain everywhere, and no one will listen.
I watch Naked and Afraid instead.
That usually gets the adrenaline going.
You’re wrong Remote Control Dean! *throws feces
Watching Minneapolis press conference about last night’s protests/looting. Apparently, according to “community leaders” many of the “looters were unknown to them” – it was them outside agitators what done it!
“That can’t possibly be our Stealy McLootyface, it must be some foreign doppelganger.”
Protest was probably outside agitators, looters were locals.
There are no good guys in the story and I have seen it play out soooooo many times in so many places it has become tiresome.
And nothing ever changes.
I’m confused though. What do white folk think a “boogaloo” looks like?
Well, in case you haven’t been paying attention to world events, it looks like that times 100. So if those scenes disturb you, then you might want to cool it on the insurgent role-play. There are plenty of groups out there that don’t fool around, and the Feds surely don’t play. Time and time again, they have proven that they’ll burn your kids to a crisp or splatter their brains against the wall with a sniper’s bullet as you hold them in your arms.
I am not sure who that is aimed at.
Just a thought in general.
If you’re hoping for the “boogaloo”, you’re a moran.
^This^
I just assumed the word ‘boogaloo’ came from idiots raised on video games that will be the first to make themselves scarce if a no-shit civil war gets started and reality sinks in.
You know who else will be gone? Mr. Tacticool Fed as soon as he realizes he doesnt have a massive advantage.
@Bacon
Boogaloo is a reference to the 80’s break-dancing film Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo. For decades, “Electric Boogaloo” was used as a humorous appendage to any sequel. For example, the sequel that doesn’t exist – Highlander 2, was referred to in my friend group as Highlander 2: Electric Boogaloo. A few years ago, in certain online circles, “boogaloo” became a shorthand reference to an imagined 2nd Civil War (a sequel to the 1st.). As with anything on the internet, people engaged in word-play and puns, thus the “Big Igloo”, the “Big Pikachu”, etc..
“Ooga booga” was just my short hand for how we tend to view conflict-ridden 3rd World shitholes. Completely an HM joint.
Thanks. *hits HM joint and coughs
I thought it was a revolutionary reference. But then again I formed that opinion from a III% group on fb. (three percent of the population actually rebelled against England).
I prefer Big Luau.
Absolutely. Having been into “prepping” back when it was called “survivalism,” I have noticed that an occupational hazard for some is that they get all these neat toys and learn these neat skills, and they start to want SHTF to happen to fulfill their fantasies of competence. A sensible man prepares for it, but only a fool or a psychopath desires it to happen.
Americans would do well to talk to more refugees from places like the former Yugoslavia or similar places. WROL will lead to atrocities that you’ve only read about happening in “Ooga-Booga” land. Under the correct conditions, I can guarantee that within a 20 mile radius of your home, there are enough people who are psychologically capable of holding down your wife or daughter and sexually brutalizing her in a gang-rape before shoving a bayonet up her vagina before leaving her to bleed to death. And if you think that you can predict that by race or ethnicity, you’re the biggest fool on the planet. I’m not trying to be lurid, just real talk.
If you want a picture of what “civilized” people are capable of, imagine how all the sadist cops would conduct themselves without any constraints put on them.
Copland attracts petty tyrant psychopaths.
Kurt Saxon wrote an excellent essay sometime during the 70s about how after a breakdown the sheriff’s departments will become the new warlords.
they get all these neat toys and learn this neat skills, and they start to want SHTF to happen
Yeah, there’s some psychological mechanism at work. I think its the same thing that makes people want (at some level) their predictions to come true, no matter how dire their predictions are. Believe, for example, that millions will die from the ‘Vid, or that it will set off a massive depression, and you start hoping it does. To prove you right, I guess. Good news is resisted or denied, even though its good news, because it means you were wrong.
That’s why St. Louis/Ferguson is interesting to study.
Lots of tiny little fiefdoms hounding people daily. Imagine: You’re slightly speeding in Fiefdom 1 on your way to work. You get pulled over and get a ticket. A mile later you’re in Fiefdom 2. You’re driving while black and get pulled over. A mile later, you’re in Fiefdom 3, and so on through about 7 of them.
Lots of tiny little warlords ruling their 1- to 2-mile stretches.
I’m not trying to be lurid, just real talk.
*buys more ammo*
Any prepper that goes over 3 months(Mormoms not included in this) is just fantasy role playing. If society breaksdown for more than 3 months we’re all pretty well screwed.
I’ve encountered some true boog believers…scary. They are itching for it.
I didn’t know boogaloo was a reference to ooga booga. Then again I recently discovered the meaning behind the Hawaiian shirts( Luau PIG roast)
HM what is the meaning behind the Igloo stuff or is it just a reference to the boog? (I’m loathe to search any of these terms)
It’s the pride of “being in the know.”
Most cults work on that principle. You become privy to protected, higher knowledge that nobody else gets.
Well, in the case of a depression, I do believe that is already happening. For example, in NH, the unemployment rate went from 2% to around 16% in the span of a month. Recovery will not be as quick, especially since most of those jobs were in the service sector that relies on the disposable income of others.
But I hope that I am very wrong.
They/we do not want our preparations to have been made in vain.
Now, my church teaches that the preparation isn’t for an apocalypse. It’s geared more toward job losses, health problems, power outages, bad weather, long winters, and suchlike. That’s not to say it’s NOT for apocalyptic happenings, but that it’s framed as events that are more benign.
So the Great Mojo Prepper Panic of 2008 was, in fact, a product of reading ZeroHedge every day and living in utter fear while paying a premium for things because I didn’t know WTF I was doing. I did not want those sacrifices to have been made in vain, but I also didn’t want things to happen. So there I was, stuck between panic and feeling utterly foolish.
I stopped doing that. I couldn’t live with that kind of constant fear.
OTHER people may see it as a hobby (see Pinterest prepper boards), but I see it as a heavy burden. It was about all I could do to buy a second deep freezer and fill it with meat. That was within my capabilities and I could see exactly what was coming and it happened.
I get it. I’m an Eagle Scout. ‘Be Prepared’ and all that. If nothing happens, I don’t see it to be in vain. The BEST prep is being involved in your local community to effect change so that conditions don’t deteriorate to SHTF.
This is one reason why I stick with my church no matter what I think of its leadership at any given moment. (Other reason is doctrine, but that’s neither here nor there.) These are MY people, my tribe. We take care of them, they take care of us, and no matter where you go in the world, a Mormon’s taking care of somebody.
However.
Lately, with our recent leadership change, there has been a move to separate us from one another, to disperse church activities (community-building) and encourage more intrafamilial service. It’s disquieting.
They pulled away from the BSA, saying they would have a replacement program for young men. Never happened and that was supposed to have happened 2 years ago.
They were the first to say, “Oh, hey, no services during the Kung Flu.”
We had an emergency prep campout with our congregation that was fabulously fun. No more.
Something is going on in Salt Lake I don’t like, and I don’t think many other people like, either. It’s weird and not right.
That was a loss on both sides.
There is some murky reason for that that the church does not believe was a mistake. I don’t know what it was, but the replacement they promised has not materialized, and the church is doing weird shit. I’m growing concerned that we’re now being governed by the antichrist.
/totally serious
The BEST prep is being involved in your local community to effect change so that conditions don’t deteriorate to SHTF.
Bad news for those of us who are asocial shut-ins.
I think its the same thing that makes people want (at some level) their predictions to come true, no matter how dire their predictions are.
I’m not sure what purpose it serves, but there is something hard coded into people to avoid being wrong at all costs. That’s why cognitive dissonance is a thing. People will go through all kinds of tortured thinking just to keep from changing their mind.
Grief.
Made this point in a different book: People base their SELVES on a Thing. They cannot have that Thing made different or never to have existed or whatever because that is a PART of their SELVES. It’s part of what makes them THEM.
So unless you’re willing to grieve the death of a part of yourself, and most people don’t even know that’s what they’re doing, you’re not going to want to part with that Thing.
On a small scale, it’s like when you have to be told Santa isn’t real and you figure out your parents had sex once for for you and each sibling you have.
I’m not necessarily sure that anchoring as a cognitive bias results from evolutionary conditions as much as it is a side effect of the brain as a neural network. Once an initial state is reinforced, it takes more stimulus to change it than to initially develop it, if that makes any sense.
That’s very Buddhist.
It’s true that the preppers will likely not last much past three months, nor the vast majority if a truly horrific situation happens. But all situations will be different. Volcanic eruption that creates massive climate change is different than a civil war in the US.
The bottom line is the people that currently live closest to the land and have the skills (not stuff) to truly survive will be the most resilient. Some humans will survive any apocalyptic scenario. It won’t be pretty, but neither was life 200 years ago. Full disclosure: I’m not in this group. I just live in a rural area. None of my family would survive very long.
Well. If that’s aimed at me, I’ll explain further.
“Nothing ever changes” = police don’t stop beating black folk to death.
“Police don’t stop beating black folk to death” = riots because there is no other outlet for the rage and seemingly no advocates to get anything to change.
I get the rage. I get the riots.
Fact is, you can burn down a Target and an AutoZone, nothing happens. Burn down a police station and the entire wrath of the US armed forces comes down on you like a lead boot.
Change starts with the police, and that’s not going to happen, ergo, nothing changes.
Just thinking out loud, that’s all. Too many people are blind to the consequences of their actions.
Sometimes there are no consequences and you’re just sitting in the way of somebody else’s rage.
What actions? The boogaloo crowd has done nothing but shitpost. A few of them have carried rifles openly at protests. The only guy to ever actually drop the hammer on the feds in the past 30 years was executed via lethal injection and literally everyone thought that was great.
That’s been my POV for a while now: as long as the State keeps turning up the heat slowly, as long as they keep indoctrinating the youth, as long as they pick people off one by one, the boogaloo will never happen. There will never again be a marching column of troops going house to house for powder and shot. It won’t happen.
It will be Bias Response Team at FaceInstaTweet flagging all the deplorables, combing through their posts looking for something that will justify a red flag order, and they’ll be picked off one by one. They’ll raid him at 3AM, shoot him, and post his inflammatory social media posts and nothing will happen.
And the Branch Davidians did nothing but live in a big house, the Weaver family did nothing but not mail in a check, and MOVE did nothing but not pick up their trash. Yet the Feds vaporized them. What I’m saying is the government doesn’t play, and if you’re not prepared for their reaction to your rhetoric, then you might want to rethink things.
This.
I’m a coward. Kill us quick.
It’s a point I make in one of my books: There is no Galt’s Gulch, no place to run, not enough money, nothing that a single man or a single community can do to hide or fight.
MOVE did nothing but not pick up their trash. Yet the Feds vaporized them.
Nitpick: The Philly city cops perpetrated the MOVE bombing. Or… maybe I should say a firebomb was dropped from a city police chopper?
In this case, something else happened. After the fire spread to burn down a good chunk of the neighborhood, the MOVE neighbors forced, through lawsuits, the city to build them new homes. Eventually the city lost and built new homes. I don’t remember how long it took. A former roommate of mine had been in some of those homes. They were the shittiest construction imaginable. This article has more and talks about recent attempts to rebuild the neighborhood.
There has been recent talk of having the city government apologize for the MOVE bombing.
I don’t remember how long it took.
PROOFRAD!
I should have re-read my comment after I found that WHYY article.
Any one small separatist group will be crushed. But the protests against the lockdowns have shown that it doesn’t take a majority of the population to effect change, just enough that the group can’t be handwaved away as lunatics, even if that’s how they may be portrayed.
Most people don’t identify with the small groups mentioned in this thread, but most people can identify with people who’ve been told they aren’t allowed to work, or visit their family, or do so many of the normal, everyday things we equate with living. Once those people start responding, the government becomes much less powerful in practical terms if not theoretical terms.
I say we burn everything to the ground and rebuild libertopia from the ashes.
Libertopia must be like one of those Cormac McCarthy novels.
I saw a post on facederp & Twitter claiming some undercover cop was running around starting he looting. Why isn’t that getting fact checked?
Conspiracy theory coming soon to a sermon near you.
Attempted Looter Shot Dead by Pawn Shop Owner in Minneapolis — Looters Later Clean Out the Merchandise at Same Pawn Shop
I bet the cops took his gun – and then let the looters have his store.
And there you have it.
Fuck ’em. Any sane business owner would pack up and leave.
He doesn’t have to worry about packing up now.
“I bet the cops took his gun”
2 is 1 and 1 is none.
Just looked up where the 3rd precinct is.
Huh. That was our regular Target and Cub Foods when we lived in Minneapolis.
Really great article, I learned a lot. My ‘orchard’ is much smaller, 4 apple trees plus 2 crabs (not counting Mrs F). I picked and choose mainly on Zone, 3A. We’re pure beach sand (we got what the glacier left us) but with some amendments plus irrigation something might grow. I saw really good looking apple trees at WalMart this year and not too high priced, maybe $25 each but I’d already bought mine from Gurnee’s or Burpee’s, I forget, WI, anyway.
Now I only have to live long enough to see the apples.
I caught my wood chuck friend yesterday and a pocket gopher this morning, I feel like a mountain man with my trap line.
Thanks, Kinnath, very enjoyable and educational. Bees are looking good so far, warmer this spring so far.
I have a sad. My swarm traps came up empty. I did something wrong. An hour after I put one of them out there were a dozen scouts checking it out but alas, they did not move in.
One of the defining characteristics of an heirloom plant according to Wikipedia is that the plant is not used in modern large-scale agriculture.
You learn something new every day! I thought heirloom referred to the ability to plant the seeds and get the same results. As opposed to hybrid, where planting a seed from the F1(? Biology was 15 years ago) plant may result in very different fruit on the F2 plant when compared to the F1 plant.
Given the info above, and having to work with plant (rice) breeders and write software from them, I’m not sure that’s possible (getting the same fruit from the seeds). If apple trees require a different cultivar to fertilize, you’ll always be getting hybrids. You can’t get F2 unless F1 self pollinates (I’m pretty sure on that). Pretty much every generation (seed-wise) is a hybrid, and that’s why you get the unpredictability. It probably takes years to develop new, useful cultivars, with lots of intentional cross breeding, back crossing, and the like (I know it does with rice). And I have *no* clue how the triploid crossing with diploid works – just understanding diploid stuff with rice challenges my brain.
Apples have more genes than humans.
https://www.alphagalileo.org/en-gb/Item-Display/ItemId/70133?returnurl=https://www.alphagalileo.org/en-gb/Item-Display/ItemId/70133
I guess my understanding applied more to self-pollinating plants. I would expect heirloom green beans to be roughly the same when I seed save and plant the next generation the following spring. I don’t expect that out of a hybrid. The characteristics could be all over the map, depending on the seed company’s breeding method.
Still, it doesn’t surprise me that it is actually just a vanity label these days.
I think “hierloom” is used by most people to mean “not the crap they sell at the grocery store”.
Self pollinating crops would indeed be similar, depending on where the heterozygous genes are, and how that affects the phenotype. That’s why I made my response conditional on the info kinnath originally posted, since I know squat about apples (and really only a little about rice, since I get that info from breeders, not study).
#MeToo
I know I can’t win the argument about what words should mean, but, for those of us who grew up on the borders of civilization, heirloom means exactly what you’d think it means (crazy, I know, but Ima not gonna change): you got the seed or cutting from friends and family, not the co-op. I will stipulate that most everything in my culture is extinct or at least abandoned by all reasonable town-folk, and the fancy stuff from Mississippi State, Auburn, and A&M makes more fruit, but I don’t give a shit about that. I grow Rutgers tomatoes (take that, Dan Quayle) because they are dense and delicious; I couldn’t care less about your huge, watery Big/Better/Best Boy or whatever. Same with roses: the cuttings from your great great grandfather’s grave grow long and mean and only bloom once, but they’re family.
Or, more simply, no one I’m related to will ever inherit anything worthwhile per contemporary norms; why should anything change after 500 years.
“I thought heirloom referred to the ability to plant the seeds and get the same results.”
It is, it’s a plant that has been grown for several generations and preserves the same attributes as the parent. F1 hybrids are just that, they’re crossbred. One of the benefits is that an F1 is typically more resistant to diseases. But if you plant seeds from an F1 hybrid, you don’t know what you’ll get. It may look like the parent, or nothing like it.
I grew up in a major apple area (western NY) – love ’em. Especially cider – yum. Golden delicious FTW (among the big types I can remember the name of). Never cared for Red delicious.
My favorite apples are Honeycrisp and Jazz. Jazz apples are just about perfect to my palate, they have good texture and just the right amount of tartness.
The drum on my Samsung electric dryer is not turning…damn thing is less than 3 years old. Found a YT video on how to take it apart…..doesn’t look to difficult so I’m going in.
doesn’t look to difficult so I’m going in.
Famous last words.
I ended up replacing the boot on my frontloader washer last year when it got so many cracks every wash meant I could do water sports in the laundry room. It turned out to be a lot harder than the video showed (especially getting the right part since everyone “claimed” their part would work but didn’t), but since my washer is 7 years old and I didn’t want to buy a new one (fixing it would have cost probably about as much) I am glad I get more use out of it for the $80 I spent on the part.
My dryer is now making some noise too (part of a set), so I suspect I will need to work on that sooner than later.
BTW Carp, iIf your thing ain’t going, is it a broken belt that will need to be replaced? Is it a motor? Do you know?
It was the idler pulley wheel that the belt runs on. It was seized up and wouldn’t rotate anymore. Pretty easy to get it off after watching the YT vid. Probably would have never figured out how to take it apart without watching that. . Going to fetch the new part now and well see if I can get it put back together without any extra screws or parts left over…..
Dryers usually aren’t too bad.
Washers are a PITA.
IF you have problems, let me know and I’ll have Mr. Mojeaux drop a comment for you. He and a friend rehabbed washers and dryers for re-sale for a very good living years ago. We NEVER have had new machines because he can keep old ones going for years.
Thanks …. I’m hoping I don’t need to ask for help but it good to know there’s help available.
Found a YT video on how to take it apart
I love those videos.
Me too, they are lifesavers. Glad people take the time and effort to make them.
My wife was try to convince me to just to call someone, she said it looks to hard. My man card was not pulled – took me 20 minutes to take the front off and get the drum out. Found the culprit, the belt idler pulley wheel was seized up, bearings shot. $14 for a new one, called the appliance parts store and have it in stock. On my way to go fetch it. Taking stuff apart is usually easy…it’s the putting back together that’s usually a bitch. Be back shortly…..
Dryers are ridiculously simple machines. I’ve fixed a couple over the years. Having three arms to get it all together is the biggest struggle. Yes, three arms is better than another person, since two people can’t fit their arms inside.
LOL
*Ted’S and Other Grammar Folk signal lit.
My sentence:
“menservants” or “manservants”?
“orphans”
There are only a couple of rules in English I have not mastered, but I have mastered noticing when they apply . . . and audibling out of those situations entirely and running some other structure.
The great thing about English is there are a hundred ways to avoid picking between lain and laid.
It’s either “menservant” or “manservants.” Applying two plural modifications sounds wrong.
That’s my reaction, too. It’s like the top enlisted rank – sergeants major is right. You wouldn’t say sergeants majors.
I’d go manservants. A manservant is singular; manservants are the plural of that.
Merriam-Webster has it as “menservants”.
I agree with grrizzly, though. “Menservants” sounds redundant and doesn’t follow the same sort of reasoning as “attorneys-general” or “courts-martial”. “Attorneys-generals” sounds dumb. I can’t think of any other noun+noun compound noun that you mark the plural for both morphemes. We don’t write “bedsrooms”.
I’d go with “manservants”, since it’s not two words, or a compound (attorneys general, sisters-in-law), “manservant” is singular, so “manservants” would be the plural.
I had manservants initially then had a brainfart while I was proofing. “Menservants” looks like it SHOULD be right, but it’s not somehow and I couldn’t explain how.
The double plural is just weird. I wouldn’t look twice at “manservants”, but would at “menservants”.
But why choose? Just alternate “manservants” and “menservants”.
Personservants, please.
Bitches?
And again we have an awesome pairing of comment and avatar.
@Pie — Can I offer you some of the rain we are having? I know your drought has sort of ended, but you probably need a lot more rain than we do.
No thanks we had to much this week and the cherries are ripening rain is not good now.
Johnny Appleseed: Man Behind the Legend
I hate reboots.
I have to go and close out of all the open programs, make sure everything is in a sane state and wait several minutes for the thing to come back.
Oh, and then I have to get the weather radar map back to the appropriate part of the country.
Also I’m more pissed off that I spilled the condensation bucket.
It’s impossible to mop up every drop of water.
Your humidity must be off the charts. I don’t quite understand what’s going on with it that it’s not dripping outdoors. Is it a window unit?
No, it’s a portable unit.
The hose attaches the spout on the back of the box. I feed it into a bucket because the window is too high for it to drain without a pump (which I don’t have)
Dehumidifier or AC? The way you’re describing it sounds more like a dehumidifier.
It’s set to AC.
The Humidity at the airport is 56% And the airport is nowhere near the rivers where my house is.
Despite the proximity of those comments, the spill was not the cause of the reboot, nor the result of it.
“I support rioting except for private property destruction” sounds odd to me. Isn’t private property destruction pretty much the whole point of a riot? The mob has never been known for leaving people alone…
Rioting about the cops worked out well in Detroit and in Northern Ireland. Just saying…
I know “Just Sayin'” and you sir are not Him / Glib Snark
Well, property destruction, and assault.
I thought it was about the Chicks. I heard girls go crazy over rioters.
I thought it was the unbeatable high.
Yep. I support rioting…except for the violence. That is the one thing I can’t support.
And property destruction, I dont support that. So no property destruction or violence. Two things.
Other than that I support rioting. Looting….leave that out as well. No violence, property destruction or looting. Just those three.
Other than that I support rioting. Wait…fires, we can’t have fires either. So just four things.
No violence, property destruction, looting or fires. Ok, now riot away.
And thanks to those riots no one wants to live in Detroit anymore so therefore you know have to worry about its police force so they did accomplish their goal, And thanks to those riots you didn’t have to worry about the cops in Northern Ireland but the IRA, Loyalist militias and the British Army instead. Again missions accomplished.
* you no longer have*
Look at you. Judging based off the outcomes rather than the intents.
The govt overlords in Minneapolis have learned quickly from COVID.Due to rioting, they’ve closed 3 post offices, shut down the light rail, and cancelled some other services.
It’s the new stick to beat us with.
Don’t live in a city with cops. They murder another person, there’s rioting. Officers made it home safely, get free vacation, paid for by you, and then you can’t go to the post office. Justice!
You know, I can’t recall the last time I heard about this happening in Mayberry. Just saying, large cities suck.
Thanks, kinnath!
Last week I was fired up to try it.
You saved me this week.
I’ll continue to use the retail orchard!
you are welcome
All three of my Apple trees were here when I bought the house. They bloom and fruit at different times. They are all dwarf, so not as tall as the house. My favorite ones are the Fuji applies. Yum!
The pears are great too, Bartlett and Asian.
I’m glad someone else did the research and the leg work. I don’t think it would have occurred to me to plant an apple tree.
Good article. I’m sort of orchard challenged myself at the moment. Doesn’t look like there’s room for an orchard on my deck. Bonsai apples?
Bonsai apples?
Did you read the last article? Apple trees can be grown in planters using very dwarfing rootstock.
I think I missed that one, I’ll go back and check it out. Thanks.
last Thursday.