Blooms

Working in the garden has been an absolute delight as immediately adjacent are three apple trees and a humongous hedge of lilacs - all in their glorious full-bloom.

You'll have to click on this photo for a better look

 

The panoramic photo doesn't really do justice to the view - the rise in the turf marks the location of the ancient farmhouse that stood on this site.  Beneath is the crumbling and rocky rubble stone foundation.  A refuge filled with countless voids that are a wintering location for the resident snakes.  A hibernaculum. 

In any event, one of the early settlers of this place planted three apple trees of indeterminate variety.  The fruit is edible and makes for fine table fare if you like smaller tart apples for apple sauce and pie filling or picked and enjoyed fresh.

The tree on the left and the one in the middle are positively ancient and gnarly.  They've got to be more than 100 years of age.  The one on the right is not quite as old and is the best producer of those small tart apples.

The lilacs (also planted by an early settler) have grown into an impenetrable hedgerow that is habitat to the hummingbirds and other migratory song birds.  They also provide thermal cover to the occasional pheasant that overwinters in our yard.

And the blossoms this time of year are a short-lived - yet an absolute delight to enjoy.

 

IMHO - our ancestral lilacs rock......

Quitting Time

Most of the garden has been planted and the girls and I are shucking peanuts on the porch watching heavy farm equipment come home for the day.

Frosty Bohemian Style Pilsener brewed in the traditional Czech style for a deeply refreshing flavor with a hint of malty sweetness.

New Belgium Brewing - Fort Collins, CO

Raising a toast to planting time....

Fish Fry!

In case you are wondering how to make a fish fry happen for a large group of people here are instructions in a handful of easy steps. 

Directions: 

Trailer your boat to northern Wisconsin and launch.  

Catch a bunch of fish – black crappies and walleye are preferred although a northern makes for fine table fare if you can wield a sharp knife and clean the pin bones from the fillets. 

click on images to enlarge

Scale and clean your fish.  Best to leave the skin on as it adds flavor.   

Dip fillets in a wash of eggs beaten with milk.   Dredge in flour seasoned with white pepper, garlic salt and paprika.  Set aside. 

Return floured fillets to the egg wash and dredge in Panko bread crumbs.   

Place fillets in a cookie sheet in the freezer to firm-up.   

Bring a couple of gallons of vegetable oil up to temperature in a propane-fired turkey fryer.   

Things will happen really quickly at this point so be sure to assemble a few acolytes to hold the light, run fillets to the kitchen, hold the tray and basket, etc.  

When the oil reaches 375 degrees carefully drop your fillets into the basket and cook until golden brown.  Be careful not to crowd your fish.  Watch the temperature of the oil and adjust the flame as needed    

Remove fish fillets to a cookie sheet covered in paper towels and hold in a 200 degree oven until everything is ready to serve.   

Serve-up with potato salad, slaw and buttered rye bread.  Homemade tartar sauce too.   

Adult beverage of your choice. 

Cheers!

Antlers are Forming

The girls and I fetched the SD cards from the trail cameras today and they insist I share this video with you.

Velvet-covered antlers are forming on the local bucks and this vignette is fun.

It's a windy day (even the tree the camera is strapped-to is swaying) and something has got this guy a wee bit agitated...

Boom or Bomb?

I happen to be a baby boomer.  Baby boomers are that demographic cohort born between 1946 and 1964. We are called ‘boomers' because during this period of time, there was a statistically significant increase in the number of births.  Our parents were making babies – resulting in a boom or bulge in the broader, general population.  I am fond of this analogy - boomers are the pig moving through the python.

It should come as no surprise that I have boomer stuff on my mind.  First, I recently retired.  Second, I spent almost four decades counseling people on how to plan for a financially-secure retirement.

Using your imagination I'd like you to think about our world a decade from now.  

In 2019 the youngest of the baby boomers will turn 65.  Stated differently - all of the baby boomers will be age 65 and older.  This also means that for the first time people over 65 will comprise a whopping 20 percent of the population.  This has multiple implications. 

On our journey to 2029 about 10,000 boomers will turn 65 each day.  The growing ranks of retiring boomers is expected to have a direct impact on the number of available workers in the U.S. workforce.  As boomers retire, younger people will climb their career ladders to replace them.  This turnover in the labor force creates opportunity.

Because the Social Security program is primarily funded by payroll taxes assessed on wages there will be a shrinking number of workers contributing payroll taxes and an increasing number of retirees tapping their benefits.  This introduces an element of risk.  The good news is that we know about it and thus can (and should) plan for it.  Without a plan it could lead to a crisis.  Delay simply increases the risk and scale of potential crisis.  

Along those lines only 55% of my boomer cohort has some retirement savings.  And of those who have saved - 42% have less than $100,000 set-aside. As a consequence, roughly half of retired boomers will have to rely on Social Security as their principle source of retirement income.  That is scary.

Compounding this is most of us are living longer than our parent’s generation and certainly our grandparent’s generation.   That aside, boomers suffer higher rates of hypertension, higher cholesterol, obesity and diabetes.  These complexities are going to impact the cost of health care – likely increasing it.  Nevertheless, I smell opportunity - namely swelling jobs in the healthcare sector as boomers age.

You're probably thinking - Hey!  You're scaring me.  Now I'm not going to be able to get to sleep tonite with all of your scary population statistics rolling around in my head. 

Not at all gentle reader.  There is likely opportunity that can spring from crisis.  And a clever individual will embrace the opportunity not the crisis. 

As long as you have your imagination activated – visualize this:  One fifth of the nation telling you to get off their lawn.

Quote of the Day

The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. 

The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. 

-H.L. Mencken, the Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920

Ponder This

Soon we are going to recognize and celebrate the 50th anniversary of man setting foot on the moon.  

Photo - NASA

 

A photo of Apollo 11's lunar module ‘Eagle’ – approaching the command module after leaving the moon’s surface.  The date is July 21, 1969 and in the backdrop are both the moon and the earth.  

The Law of Conservation of Mass (or principle of mass conservation) states that for any system closed to all transfers of matter and energy, the mass of the system must remain constant over time.  A system's mass cannot change so quantity can neither be added nor be removed.  As a consequence – the stuff that makes up every human being, dead, alive or yet to be born, is in the frame of that photograph.  So, even if you hadn’t been born at the time this photo was taken you are technically in the photo as the matter that eventually made you was already on earth. 

Every last human who was dead, alive or yet to be born is in that photo. 

With one exception.  The man who snapped the photo - astronaut Michael Collins.   

Think about that….