Yes, it’s iris time again. If you’ve been following this blog for a while you must know by now that I absolutely love irises. We have a whole garden devoted almost excolusively to irises. And they’re just coming into full flower now. Here are a few photos from earlier today.
And for no reason at all, here’s a silly cat image I stole borrowed from Pete over at https://beetleypete.com/ If you enjoy posts from a retired English gentleman who occasionally puts up very silly images, posts some delightful fiction and chats about life in general in the small town of Beetley, in Norfolk, go check it out. He is a lovely, gentle soul, with a wry sense of humor.
Other stuff:
Meanwhile I’ve been working on this…
It is, heaven help me, a cat riding a T-Rex through the deserts of Utah. Thats going to be engraved on a 37cm X 25cm panel inlaid into a gift box MrsGF is making. Sometimes the stuff I come up with when I sit down with Photoshop makes me wonder what’s wrong with my brain. But never mind.
BTW: If any of you out there would be interested in that image up there let me know and I could make it available for downloading here. I think. Maybe. It would be as a standard .PNG file that would be suitable for importing into a laser engraver. If you’re interested let me know at theoldgrouch@grouchyfarmer.com. I never really intended to set this up to download files but if people are interested in stuff like this I’d probably set up a separate page here with just a listing of downloadable files for laser cutting/engraving.
If you have comments or questions you can reach me at that email address as well.
Weather
The weather has been, well, odd, to say the least. Over in Two Rivers about 20 or s0 miles from here where friends of ours live, they had an intense and highly localized storm that leveled half the trees in the city the other day. Parts of the town were without power for three days. They estimate they had straight line winds up to 80 mph. Meanwhile just a few miles away they got nothing but some rain.
Temperatures have been highly erratic here. One day we have a high in the 50s, the next it can be well over 80. Yesterday it hit 92 here. Now it’s getting cooler and we might struggle to hit 65 by the end of the week. They were predicting thunderstorms last night but those fizzled out before they even really got started. We got about a tenth of inch of rain and that was it.
It’s very, very dry out there. We’re going to have to start watering the gardens already tomorrow.
Weather patterns are changing drastically all around the world. I have friends and family scattered around the globe and what I hear from them is often downright frightening. In India where my niece’s husband’s family is from, this May has been one of the warmest on record with temperatures pushing 113F in Delhi. One of my best friends lives in Barcelona half the year and they’re seeing temperatures pushing up to 100F or beyond. Even in the UK temperatures have been pushing up into the 90s.
Farming
With a name like grouchyfarmer I suppose I should talk about the ag industry at least briefly. Even though I’ve wandered far away from farming long ago and have dabbled in everything from writing to electronics to arts and crafts, I’m still a farmer at heart and what I see going on out there in the ag world is heartbreaking. Especially since all of the problems farmers are having right now are due entirely to decisions being made by power mad, greedy politicians who only care about enriching themselves and clinging desperately to their little bits of power and influence.
Farm bankruptcy rates are up by 50% or more in the last year, and look like they’re going to get even worse as time goes on.
Diesel, the fuel farmers use in their equipment, has gone up more than 60%, from about $3.47 to $5.60. Even as high as $7.50 in some places like California.
Fertilizer prices have spiked up 61% as well, and exactly at the wrong time when planting season is here and young plants need to be fertilized to get strong growth.
Meanwhile prices farmers get for two of their primary crops, corn and soybeans, have plummeted to the point where it looks like most farmers around here aren’t even going to be able to break even.
Dairy farmers are doing a bit better, but they have problems too. I know some farmers around here who are working 18 hour days because all of their hired help basically packed up and fled, even if they were in the country legally. Word is out that if you’re Hispanic, even if you’re in the country legally, you’re going to be swept up, detained for weeks if not months, and probably end up deported even if you have a green card. We used to have a fairly large number of Hispanic families here in town. Wonderful people who were hard working, honest, friendly and becoming part of the community. They’re all gone. All of them.
It’s going to be a hard year for farmers around here. A very hard year. And the tragic part of it is that this is 100% the fault of that bunch of sniveling, greedy, power mad politicians in DC. And I mean both political parties are at fault here. Democrats and Republicans both are more concerned with maintaining their little bits of power, trying to suck up ever more money from corporations and oligarchs through this system of legalized bribery we call a campaign financing system, that they’ve entire forgotten that they are supposed to be the representatives of the people in their home districts.
Okay, rant over. I swore I was not going to get political here in this blog and for the most part I’ve kept that promise. But when I see the sheer crap that is going on in Washington and here in Madison in the state legislature… Never mind. Enough.
Astronomy
It’s been so long since I talked about it here that you’ve probably forgotten that I’m also an amateur astronomer. That’s one of my telescopes down there, my 11″ Celestron.
I’ve reached a point in my life where I just have too many interests and hobbies and I’ve started to do a bit of triage. I’ve pushed aside some things like tinkering with electronics and a few other things to have more time to devote to the things I enjoy the most. So I’m able to spend more time with photography, art, the whole engraving thing and yes, astronomy.
My interests have changed a bit over the years. I’ve become more interested in astrophotography than in direct visual observation, especially photography of deep sky objects. The Celestron is a fantastic telescope but there are “issues”. It’s size and weight are one. That sucker is big and it is heavy. The optical tube assembly weighs in at around 60+ pounds and I’m not exactly a spring chicken any more. Trying to maneuver that thing up and down the stairs, getting it set up on its mount, etc, well I’m just not physically capable of wrestling with that thing without risking dropping $5,000 telescop down the back stairs. So it’s gone to live with my eldest son who is planning on using it as the core for a fixed observatory set up in his back garden with a small building with a roll off roof, concrete pier, power, internet, etc.
Meanwhile I have a new telescope on order that should be here by June 7, they tell me.
And as you can see, it is something entirely different from the Celestron. It doesn’t even look like a telescope to be honest. For one thing it is exclusively an astrograph telescope, it does photography only. It doesn’t permit visual observation at all. In fact I don’t even have to be near it to operate it. It is controlled by a tablet computer or app on a cell phone via WiFi or bluetooth so I no longer have to endure the clouds of mosquitoes that we get around here. Just set it up after dark, turn it on, and then sit in my nice, air conditioned house controlling it entirely by computer from the kitchen table. Or if I take it out to my sister in law’s farm to get away from the light pollution, from inside of my car.
I admit that I’m taking a bit of a chance here. I find it hard to believe that a scope this small and this cheap can get the results I see in the reviews of this thing. Supposedly this thing can get good images of even difficult deep sky objects like the Horse Head nebula in just a few minutes, even in relatively poor conditions. And it’s only about $600 compared to around $5,000 for something like my Celestron. It sounds too good to be true.
After I’ve had a chance to get it set up and have figured out how to use it, I’ll talk about it more.
Anyway, that’s it for now. Time for me to get out of here!
grouchyfarmer 
I had an aunt named Iris. She would have loved your delightful display of those flowers. Dairy farmers here are going broke over the price of milk. It is costing them more to produce than the supermarkets will pay the for it. One 300 year-old family herd has just been sold off, and the farmer has sold his land for use as a ‘solar panel farm’. We often hear the statment here, “You cannot eat or drink bricks and metal”, and that is so true.
I know nothing about telescopes, but that one looks very hi-tech, and I am sure it will give you many happy hours of enjoyment of your hobby. Many thanks for your kind words about me and my blog. Much appreciated.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Farmers are seriously struggling pretty much world wide. I think that in the UK it’s even worse than it is here. The whole farming industry has been turned into a kind of political pawn it seems.
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I have always loved Spring the colors are amazing….damn a great telescope….too much light pollution for it to be useful down here…..good luck…..chuq
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Light pollution here is terrible as well, but this one is supposed to have filters and software that helps to compensate for that. And if nothing else I can always take it out to my sister in law’s farm. The whole thing only weighs a few pounds and takes only about 5 minutes to set up where my Celestron, including the optical tube, heavy tripod, battery pack to keep it running, etc. weighs in at something like 130 lbs and takes a good 45 minutes to get set up and calibrated. Even just take it a couple of miles out of town to one of the wildlife refuge parking areas would get me away from most of the lights. Plus I won’t have to be right there with the scope babysitting it the way I do with the Celestron.
Frankly it sounds too good to be true. If I wanted to use traditional equipment it would cost me probably in the range of $6K or more to put together an astro imaging system with the capabilities they claim for this Seestar, and it sells for around $600.
Anyway I’m looking forward to getting it. I love astronomy but I’m of an age now where I value my creature comforts and sitting outside being swarmed by mosquitoes while trying to peer through a telescope is not at the top of my list when it comes to recreational activities With this thing I can sit in the house running it via Wifi.
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Sounds like a great adventure awaits….good luck chuq
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I dearly love your Irises… they are magnificent and beautiful and I imagine the aroma permeates the entire property and is thrilling and energizing… I love them…. we call them “The Poor Man’s Orchid.” Our own Irises have been in bloom for a couple of weeks now and they seem to be extra full and lush this year…. we have had a lot of rain and some good balance between warm and cooler weather… and the Irises are just wonderful. My Grandmother loved them too and had them planted beneath her bedroom window … other favorites were Peonies … I love Peonies too … and Petunias ….
Yes things are definitely going to be rough for American Farmers this year…fertilizer costs, the cost of fuel to run the farm machinery will all be out of site and, of course, this will lead to even higher food prices for American consumers ….and yes, it might be the fault of both the political parties…but the Trump Tariffs are not helping either …. it seemed to me, correct me if I am wrong, the farmers had it somewhat better under the Democrats ….but enough voters chose this path so now they will have to endure the consequences….I already hear complaints from some voters saying, “This is not what I voted for.” Oh well… moving on…..I imagine the current administration is going to follow their well-known pattern of bankrupting all the ventures they have touched….so a bankrupt nation cannot be too far down the road ….depression time again ….I hope not… but we will see.
I love the cat with the cigarette picture from Beetley Pete– I have always been a cat lover myself…although I also had some dogs in my life….but Pete is uniquely entertaining on his blog… and I dearly appreciate his work …
Great post, my friend… entertaining, informative as always….I do so appreciate your blog.
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thanks for your kind words. They are appreciated! 🙂
Farmers do seem to do a bit better under a Democrat administration but all things considered, it doesn’t seem to matter all that much which party is in power. The politicians need to keep food prices as low as possible or there’s hell to pay from the voters. Farmers are a fairly small minority in the US and elsewhere, and ultimately wield very little political clout. We don’t have the millions of dollars that the big monopoly food processors have to bribe government officials. So when food prices start to climb, it’s the farmers that get squeezed while the food processing monopolies like Tyson, JBL, Cargill, etc, who are responsible for virtually all of the price increases and inflationary pressure on food prices, get off scot free.
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