Let the poors eat cereal!

As some of you might know, I am currently working on a non-fiction book with my good friend, Dr. Ryan Mattson. In it, we will tackle the topic of economic inequality, showing how it has became entrenched over the last 40 years or so, and how it is much worse than top line numbers and conventional economic analysis would indicate. We plan to also argue in the book that this entrenched inequality lays the groundwork for radical political violence. Don't worry, the book isn't all doom and gloom, and we offer solutions we think would help claw back from of that wealth from the haves to the have-nots. The poors, if you will. 

As an important side note, I want to point out that if your net worth is less than $10 million, you are most likely one of us poors.

With that caveat taken care of, I have been reading a lot about previous revolutionary moments in other Western, and West-adjacent societies since the United States' Revolution that began in 1775 (or 1773, or 1763, depending on how you want to date it). Over the course of my research, I came back to a trio of big R revolutions that I think most resemble our current moment: The Russian Revolution of 1904, The Mexican Revolution of 1910 and the French Revolution of 1789. 

One of these three is not like the others...

I wrote up a fancy table laying the revolutions out side by side with our current moment, looking for the closest similarities, as well as dissimilating factors. I tentatively titled it "The Morphology of Revolution" and, as anyone doing too much book-learning is want to, agonized over which one offers the most similarities. My hope with this blog post was not just to generate interest in the forthcoming book, but also to offer readers a rough guide of signposts and events to watch for. After all, if falling victim to revolutionary tribunals is not your thing, then it might be good to have a head start on the secret police. 

...but it IS like another.

Then this happened:

I did my due diligence. This is not a clip from The Daily Show. This guy un-ironically suggested families eat cereal with milk and fruit for dinner.  

After picking myself up off the floor, cause I fell out laughing, I rushed to put this post together. Events are taking on a life of their own, and I fear I may be behind events. 

Also, I would like to thank the CEO of Kellogg for casting the tie-breaking vote. That's it. The winner is pre-revolutionary France. So go out there and party like its 1789 friends. America's ancien regime is tottering towards a reckoning of its own making. 

Let's face it, the French do everything just a little flashier and classier than we in the English-speaking world.

I do wonder what our iconic instrument of our Reign of Terror will be? France already stole the flashy one, with the guillotine. Maybe we will behead political enemies with jacked up pickups? 

 The hot season arrives for real today. Over the past few weeks, July weather has been fairly subdued. No more. The highs will top 100 today and tomorrow, and look to do so again next week. Thankfully, whoever controls the weather will slide the heat dome back over to Arizona over the weekend. 

So I went out to the garden this morning to make sure my photosynthesizing friends are staying hydrated. As is typical with gardening, while out there, I noticed a number of minor tasks that needed doing. I weeded the asparagus bed, made sure the strawberries had mulch over their roots, and dug two more potato plants.

.

All the asparagus, except one, a first year plantings. Keeping grasses from overgrowing young plants in their first year, and lots of water, ensures they'll survive, and make it to year two. In year two, you can start harvesting until the first of June, then you should let them grow until the first hard freeze kills the above-ground portion of the plant. After year three, one can harvest as much as one likes. Once established, the plants will give you 15-20 years of funny smelling pee. 

Great success!

As for the strawberries, last summer was a disaster. I mulched them way too late, and the two months of 100 plus weather and practically no rain fried their roots. There were not survivors. But like the Spartans at Thermopylae, they did not die in vain!

To tackle the hot summer weather this year, I've made sure to provide them with a thick layer of grass clippings atop their root beds. The downside of using grass clippings as mulch is twofold: if you mulch too deeply, the water will bind the grass clippings together and form a solid mat that can smother plants. But if you don't mulch deep enough, the heat can still reach the soil and roots. So, I companion planted runner beans above the strawberries, and heat loving watermelons as ground cover. 

This is a little bit of an experiment. I don't think they will completely shade out the strawberries, and I do think they will provide a much-needed buffer against the hot sun of late July and August. If the strawberries were still putting on fruit, I'd be more reluctant to shade them, as it would cut down on sugar formation, but at this point they haven't flowered in weeks. Once cool mornings return in October, I might cut back the shade plants and try to get a fall harvest out of them before covering them up for winter.

This fall's seed taters up top,
eatin' taters down below.

Digging the potatoes didn't yield quite what I'd hoped. The one in the planter didn't yield much, and neither the in ground one planted over by the asparagus. Companion planting potatoes with asparagus is a bit of a no-no, as their root systems can get tangled, and digging the potatoes can harm the asparagus, but I already dug the trench and didn't have enough crowns, so in went the seed potato. It was fine for everyone involved. 

Anyway, that's all for now. Off to write more fiction. Take care!

    Last week was the Summer Solstice. I'd like to say I observed the holiday with some Celtic incantations and a hefty does of sun-worship. Alas, that was not the case. For those reading who don't keep up on Oklahoma-based meteorological events, an extremely powerful line of thunderstorms hit the Tulsa area early Father's Day morning. These storms cooked 100 mph straight-line winds, along with all the lighting and heavy rain one could ask for. The city even activated the tornado sirens for it. In tire Okie fashion, I stepped out onto the front porch to assess the storms myself  I was skeptical, until I wasn't. I watched power flashes across the Arkansas River from my home, the got hit in the face with a lashing rain that reminded me of Superstorm Sandy. By the time the power went out, I changed my mind about how 'legit' this line of storms were. 

All that is a round-about way of saying I didn't celebrate the solstice much this year as the power was out, and I had to spend the day making sure the generator fueled to run the fridge, and doing all the household tasks without electronic appliances and by the light of a pair of solar lanterns. It wasn't exactly the Wild West, but it served as a nice approximation. When PSO kept pushing back our date for restoring power, enough laundry accumulated that I considered investing in a tub and washboard. 

Thankfully, the nighttime temps dropped back into the low 70s and the days weren't super hot, so the house didn't get too miserable. We have electricity back now, and just in time. Now that summer is here, so is the weather that makes one's lungs revolt with every breath you take outside.

It's been a few months since the last post. Everything grew well in the garden, until this week. The hundred plus degree weather has every plant, including even the okra and watermelon, wilting and wanting water. 

Pole beans, marigolds, strawberries, basil. All looking sad.

Watermelon and cantaloupe.

Pole beans, carrots, strawberries, cucumber in the raised bed. All very thirsty.
Only the tomatoes appear at all happy about this weather.

Every morning, I break out the watering can and pour some stored rainwater around the roots to get the plants through the day, but they still look like they're suffering. 

The first potato plants died above ground last week, so I dug them up. The results were mixed, as you can see from the pictures below: 

Three potatoes from a knee-high planter. Sounds like the name of a bluegrass song.
Wait, do I hear banjos in the distance?

That little guy on the right? Yep, that's the rotten one. 

Five taters. Much like 3.6 roentgen, not great, not terrible.
I had high hopes for this one...
 

This harvest reinforced a lesson that anyone aspiring to grow potatoes would do well to learn: loose soil is the ONLY soil to grow them in. You don't really get a sense of this from the pictures alone, but as I dug down below the levels of the tires, the still went from mostly loose and full of compost, to thick and damp to outright wet. One of the potatoes from the very bottom of the tire with the multitude of little potatoes, was in the process of rotting. 

So, how did I make this beginners mistake? Before I planted the eyes back in March, I certainly dug deep below the tires and broke up the soil. I even added some compost to it. The problem, I think, was not adding enough compost. I saved most of it for the layer around where I planted the eyes, as well as layering some on top. Which is a good practice. But I didn't have enough to filll the two-foot-deep holes with enough compost to allow the tubers to root deep and develop spuds further down. So now that I'm digging the taters up, I'm getting a lackluster crop.

The temps should return to the low 90s this weekend. I'm already mulling over my later summer crops, which will probably include peas and carrots, which should go in the raised bed around Labor Day. I promise to post again before then.

For now, I hope you all enjoyed the solstice and have a fun summer on the way!

Before the Last Frost

According to the National Weather Service, the average latest hard freeze (below 28 F), occurs March 17th. In 2020, our last hard freeze was April 18th. Last year was March 12th. Just because the final hard freeze hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean I can't find plenty of garden-related things to do. 

For instance, I chitted seed potatoes last week. All that means is I cut them up to separate clusters of sprouting eyes. In the interest of science, I created a control group and a variable group, just to confirm what I suspect will happen if you don't do it right.

Picture taken March 1st.

The six fingerling potatoes in the end of the egg carton were cut the same day. Three placed cut-side down, the others, cut side up. I then left the carton in a sunny(-ish) window to dry and continue growing.

And then Bobby, science happens.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the taters I left cut-side up look like they're molding. I may have to throw them out, or at least plant them somewhere outside the garden. What I found most interesting though, is the black edge of the large (I believe Russet) potatoes on the left. That one I cut in half and turned over, but it was too big to fit down in the egg carton. So, that end with the ugly looking discoloration was left sticking up at an angle. And it looks to be going bad too. It may go in the ground outside the main garden as well. 

These taters ended up curing on junk mail. They look just fine on the underside. 

I planned to plant the potatoes in the raised beds. After a little double checking, I found a number of sources of mostly solid repute, which advised against planting potatoes and strawberries in the same space. The consensus seems to be that potatoes are prone both to insect pests, and fungal diseases. On a related note, planting kale, cabbage and broccoli around strawberries can lead to the same fungal diseases. 

So, instead of putting them in the raised beds, I will try another experiment this year: growing potatoes in above-ground containers! I've read about this technique, but haven't tried it before. We'll see how it goes. 

I'm sure the 'how it's going' photo will be a lot more rewarding than this....

Another experiment I'm trying this year: fertilizing the garden with composted plant (and probably worm) matter from the plastic pool under my parent's bubbling rock. I worked this stuff into the west raised bed, the blackberry enclosure, the potatoes buckets, and the base of my fruit trees. The only place I haven't used it is the east raised bed. We'll see if the difference produces any noticeable results. 

 It doesn't smell near as gross as it looks. 

Planted from left to right: brussels sprouts, green onions, lettuce, spinach.

I'm looking forward to the possibilities the spring brings, and I hope your spring is full of (positive) possibilities too!

Advertising on Amazon

 As promised, I will blog not just about general writing and publishing topics, but I want to get into the nuts and bolts of what I'm doing.

Right off the bat, I ran into an issue I did not expect. When attempting to launch an ad campaign for my first anthology, the moderators at Amazon suspended the campaign, stating the following:

"Your ad contains content prohibited from advertising. This may include images and videos of weapons (including realistic and non-realistic firearms, swords, bows and arrows, etc.) that are shown in a violent, threatening manner, displayed in a gruesome way, pointed at a character, or directed out toward the customer. Please review section 6.4 Weapons under Book Advertising Guidelines and Acceptance Policies and update your ad."

See if you can spot the problem...

The moderators do a job, so I certainly don't blame them for suspending the ad campaign. I suppose a knife with blood on it qualifies as 'gruesome'.

Now, with the knife airbrushed out, the ad campaign went live. 

If you bought the paperback before this week, congrats! You own a rare early version depicting a gruesome knife!

Setting aside the specifics of a bloody knife, I suppose I should provide a bit more context. To come up in generalized searches on Amazon, one must buy ads which push your book up the results of any given query. For instance, if you search a general term like 'Black Mesa' you'll get a load of results. One of which is a vampire romance series involving werewolves. Fun.

So, if I run an ad campaign which outbids other advertisers, the algorithm pushes my book up the general search results, where it will, I hope, catch the eye of potential readers.

Amusingly, a friend messaged me, saying that even when he looked up the book by title and my name, the vampire romance series came up before my book. I chuckled. 

On a more serious-ish note, this is an aspect of self-publishing I wasn't entirely prepared for. I knew that running ads helps sell books. Shocker. But more to the point, I didn't realize HOW MUCH the Amazon algorithm favors advertised products in generalized searches. Again, I'm not shocked, just wearily disappointed at the ways Amazon makes money, not just off sales of the book, but on advertisements for the book. There's a reason Jeff Bezos is the richest (?) man on earth. God help me if anyone at Amazon bothers to read the book and notices the subtext of 'Summoners of Smith'.

One way to Cure Writer's Block

At a recent(-ish) event, I met another local writer who said she has trouble editing while she writes, and as a result feels she cannot get anything completed.

Hoping my response sounded witty, I quoted Mark Twain's saying: 

"Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the right words."

To be clear, I didn't try to pass it off as an original observation.

Anyway, I've never had much trouble with the first part. Crossing out the right words always seems to drag on. Delaying deadlines and publication becomes routine when you tell yourself, "Just one more round of revisions..." 

So, to keep myself on track editing the next set of novellas, I'm posting this calendar I put together in January. 

If you don't want to zoom in or try to read my handwriting, I'll throw out a few highlights:

1 - Anthology Two should be done and ready for publishing this July. 

2 - Anthology Two will include Part Two (of Three) of Black Mesa, and three novellas. 

4 - Anthology Three should hit the Amazon in time for Halloween, and will include the conclusion of Black Mesa, as well as at least two more novellas, maybe a third. We'll see how the brainstorming goes.

That's all I have to say about that. 

For now...

Way-too-early Spring Gardening

"Why are you gardening in late February?" asked the chickens.

I shook my head and continued breaking up the hen bit and grasses that sprang up in the east raised bed over the winter.

   

"You gonna just compost that hen bit?" one of them clucked. 

They were less than thrilled when I did, indeed, just compost that bit.

At least, I think that's what they were carrying on about. Then again, maybe not. I may be giving their cognitive abilities too much credit. They're chickens. They will try to murder their elders given half a chance.

Wanted for elder abuse by multiple jurisdictions.

I'm nursing our oldest hen, who survived a hawk attack, two polar vortexes, and multiple rounds of molting, back from getting beat up by the roosters.

The strawberries I planted last fall came through winter just fine under a layer of mulch and pine shavings. I'm currently debating wether I should pinch off any flowers they put out this spring to encourage green growth. If I do, they should spread all across the raised beds and put out more fruit next spring. If I don't, they won't spread as fast, and the fruit this spring (probably) won't be as numerous. As with everything, it will be a trade off.

Those green patches are strawberry plants. I promise. 

On the right side of the bed, I sowed two rows of carrots. On the left, I planted four clusters of broccoli seeds. I've never had great luck with broccoli, but I'll thin it more aggressively this spring than in hears past and see what happens. 

Along the weld wire running the length of the bed,  I directly sowed a handful of peas. I also started a bunch of peas in toilet paper tubs in a pair of planters. I plan to transplant them into this bed, and the west bed, when they get about four inches tall. But that should happen in a few weeks. Say, mid-March. 

Speaking of transplanting things in mid-March, I've got quite a few blackberry canes that rooted outside e their enclosure. This is prime time for transplanting dormant plants. If you're interested, let me know, and we can dig them up and you can take 'em home.

Trust me, the roots are down there. Under the leaves and dirt and stuff.