A Time Traveler's Guide to Shortages

Of course this isn't the first time this planet has experienced plagues and shortages. But there's nothing that says you can't get good tips for the #QuarantineLife by repeating parts of that history.  At the time of this writing, there are a lot of shortages of stuff we've heretofore been taking for granted, and what has escaped y'all's notice is how fast-pace your "timeline" has become. Stuff that used to take time to do or get, you have heretofore gotten almost instantly by comparison. Y'all have been traveling to your own futures by skipping over the usual sequential events because somebody else has taken the time to do the prep work and all you had to do was just go fetch.

How about that. Go to the store, buy time, and just heat & eat.

All the talk about "flattening the curve" boils down to buying time.  So then--now that you're all stuck at home (except for the pros on the frontline, that is), a week feels like a year, doesn't it. Welcome to real time (sorry, Bill Maher).

Can't find butter at the grocery? Use suet. It tastes the same. Beef fat is beef fat is beef fat. Instead of draining your beef after cooking, render that suet from the pan. Oh right--that takes time.

Can't find baker's yeast at the grocery? If you have any yeast left at home, then use that to grow some more. It's a plant. You can grow your own and never run out of it again. Yeah, you got it--that takes time too. I've heard the people who complain about having to take the time to use starter, either fresh or sourdough, and demand that the grocery store deliver bread directly to the mouth. That's how much of a time traveler y'all have become and it takes this kind of fixed point in time to rein you in, make you sit down, and take a hard look at what you've become. You're taking your own time travel (skipping over steps in a sequence of events) for granted these days, just as you've been taking all the people who make your time travel possible for granted. The farmers, the produce cleaners, the active dry yeast makers, service people and you've been feeling entitled to such.

We've gotten past a previous Dark Ages, but that took a few centuries, didn't it. You're at the beginning of a Dark Ages now, but we're in a good position to skip over those steps in that particular sequence of events because we know what we're doing now.

Or do we? If we don't, we're about to repeat history.

This recipe was used during the Great Depression, for feeding kids in orphanages, and old folks in old folks' homes over the hill.

Dates back to the days before snow got jet fuel polluted

This is the WWII era that made "shit on a shingle" famous--before there were rice and pasta shortages like today.

I also have a shortage substitution thread pinned to my Twitter account you might want to check out.

More supply shortages have become manifest and so I pin this "make do" thread to my Profile & will add to it as I can manage. My first "make do" recommendation is to read the Foxfire series of books. They reveal how Appalachians have made do. #QuarantineLife #MakeDo

— Clara Listensprechen (@ClaraListenspre) April 9, 2020

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Twitter's being a fiend about image uploading so I'm going to post a screenshot here and then post a link to it on Twitter.

Interesting traffic through Monarch Larva Monitoring Project Site 2519

As in years past, I post at least one post for the purpose of providing information via Google or other favorite search engine for anyone who sights any of my monarchs with my home made wing tag on it. FINALLY was able to bring this operation to the attention of Monarch Watch, at long last.

A search on the wing tag number will at least bring up the Monarch Larva Monitoring Project website, and going from there you can also find the latitude and longitude of the site 2519 and find it on their map. The rest of the number is the number of the individual on which is kept the same data as Monarch Watch wants from the people who use their tags--and I use both. They serve different purposes.

Yes, I also measure 1/2 wingspan too, and record that, in addition to any other notes on remarkable monarchs. I keep notes on two visible genetic markers: white spot and gray streak. There exists no entomological term (that I can find, anyway) for the cell on the forewing that these markers occur, but they're in the same cell in the forewing usually hidden by the hind wing as illustrated in the above picture. Needless to say, because the particular white dot is very visible in the pictures other people take of monarchs, I collect more location information on those than on the gray streaks.

Color of wing tag indicates that this butterfly is last year's.

This year an unusual opportunity to study a breeding case presented itself, in which a genetically defective male mated with an OE infected female in captivity. Not intended, but it happened, so I saved all the eggs, hatched them, to see what sort of offspring would be produced, and in this regard this post will be an ongoing work in progress because caterpillars are still eating. At this point I have on hand 11 chrysalides showing no symptoms of OE and while they were caterpillars, showed no genetic anomalies. The same is true of the remaining caterpillars.

What happened is that only one chrysalis showed signs of OE infection and that was a heavy infection...but...it was the second born. The firstborn looks perfect. Another interesting development is that the mother's lady parts weren't working right so even though I provided a potted Silky Gold Tropical milkweed for her to lay eggs on (she had no choice on host plant), the eggs she tried to lay didn't stick and dropped to the soil, wherefrom I carefully retrieved her eggs, and then put in a coffee filter liner at the base of the milkweed to catch subsequent eggs with. Therefore hatchlings had no kind of bonding, even remotely, with the host plant.

Each egg was placed in a sealed condiment cup with one Honeyvine leaf in each. Some hatchlings took right to it but others walked around in search of food. I then put a small leaf of Showy milkweed in those, and again, some took to it and some didn't recognize that as food either.

When I put in a Tropical leaf, they took right to it.

The professional scientists have made a big issue of Tropical milkweed as an undesirable non-native, but here's a reminder that eucalyptus isn't native either and yet it's considered to be an important west coast tree for monarch overwintering. Yes, monarchs adapt, but so do all other creatures to all other changes in their habitats and environments. This is not news. But some, without sufficient basis, blame Tropical as a cause of OE spread rather than being an accidental, merely coincidental, introduced element because OE was prevalent in the geographic areas it is found concentrated in before the introduction of Tropical...so has been my understanding.

When I started getting involved in monarchs a few years ago, I was just a casual observer until I discovered that I actually had milkweeds in the yard they were seeking, and I had no idea I had milkweeds because Honeyvine doesn't look like a typical milkweed. And yet monarchs here sought it out. I installed other types of milkweed to offer a choice, and discovered that monarchs can be choosy about host plants and this year I discovered that monarchs that chose Tropical weren't necessarily OE infected. There were monarchs that stuck with Showy exclusively, too. And as has been typical of late summer monarchs, they preferred Honeyvine. There's been an argument out there that late season Showy is of substandard quality, but that doesn't take into account the fact that late season is when Showy produces young shoots by rhizome, so that shoots THAT speculation down.

So--it's been appearing to me that monarch science is more speculation based on insufficient data than observation based. What data is collected doesn't paint an accurate picture of what's actually going on. Me, I'm making observations. I observe that what Monarch Watch monitors with its wing tag program is exclusively monarchs that go to Mexico to die. Re-migration isn't studied, and thus their typical tag recovery rate is around 1%.

Now then--enough for now; expect editings later.

=======================Oct 14=====================
Logging 2 pupation fails with the caterpillars that J'ed. Just as the skin split, they quit. However in terms of genetic malfunctions, I suspect that "birth order" has a lot of say in what happens. A male's sperm deposit goes only just so far and the lifetime is too short for multiple matings of the same couple.
=======================Oct 15=====================
Barely escaped a frost last night but tonight, under a freeze warning. I have 2 tagged monarchs waiting to be released when it gets warmer, and getting warmer is indeed in the forecast. A curse on all cold snaps.

I've been up to my eyeballs in monarchs!

...which explains why I haven't been blogging as frequently as I have been in the past. I also discovered a Facebook Group specializing in monarchs (The Beautiful Monarch) Wherein I learned a truckload of things about ensuring the survival of monarchs in the wild by rearing them in captivity. There are a lot of insect predators out there, from spiders to parasitic flies to parasitic wasps, and just plain ole wasps) that diminish monarch populations to the point where scientists say that, in the wild, monarch survival is put at 5%.

For the near decade that I've been observing these beauties come and go through the yard (Monarch Larvae Monitoring Project site 2519) I still didn't have a clue as to how many are actually out there and how many perish from predation AND the City's ordinance on mowing, and by the City's own mowers.

What's important about the Facebook Group is that I'm not the only person up against the Code on yard maintenance and we give each other tips and advice on that, and I'm thinking we should get organized in that regard. I was pretty much celebrated for making the statement that I show up at each and every City Commission meeting. Not only do I enjoy local support for doing so, for other matters, but I enjoy the backing of monarch enthusiasts elsewhere, so...the work continues.

And yes, the photos have accumulated although I've already posted a good number of them in my Google Plus Collection, "Back Yard Zoo"...fact remains I'm very much behind on posting them on Blogger on the main page as well as on my 2016 Monarchs page of this blog.  As the work load of shepherding more monarchs than I ever imagined here to adulthood and subsequent migration draws down as frost approaches, you can bet I'll be posting that backlog of pictures as time permits.  Right now, the monarchs come first.

This is a case where I used a wing tag to repair a tear.

The pupae box.

Freshly hatched 1st instar baby on Honeyvine leaf. When people think of milkweed, it's not the Honeyvine they usually think of first.

Separate monarch-related post, Google beacon MLMP 2519 OCT

"MLMP 2519"

If you have used Google to search that term inside quotation marks, this blog post should be right up at the top of your search as an exact match.  The second should be the site number 2519 on the Monarch Larva Monitoring Project's website.  Why? Because...

Right now I have 3 very late straggler monarch larvae that pupated in the first week of October, meaning that when they emerge as adults, it'll likely be close to November and the big monarch migration will be over.  An expert tells me they won't make it through the winter because of their late start--at least, they won't make it to Mexico.  Purchasing Monarch Watch tags for this year is out of the question according to the website of THOSE folks, so I've made my own tags out of repurposed plastic produce labels which I've chemically wiped clean, and with acetate-capable india ink, inscribed "MLMP 2519" on each of 3 such tags.

When the monarchs emerge, I will tag each one with one tag each, but if you're reading this because you have recovered one of my butterflies, there's something else you should know, too--the tags are tint coded, too.  The number in black ink indicates point of origin, but the tint identifies the individual.  Individual number 1 died, so there is no brown-tinted tag, but individual number 2 will sport a red-tinted (rose?) tag, individual number 3 will sport the orange-tinted tag, and the last individual will be wearing plain white.

When they emerge, get tagged, and get released, I'll post pictures here.  I have my email in the header of this blog so you can contact me if you catch one of my kids, but know ye that the color tint of the tag is just as important as the number.  Thank you.

Larvae 1 and 3 pupated first; 1 was a casualty. This is 3 and when it emerges, will get the orange-tinted wing tag.

In order from front to back (or right to left if you're counting 1 dimensional placement--don't do left to right, that would be wrong) pupa number 2, which will get the rosy tinted tag, and pupa number 4, which will get the white tag.

Below is a shot of the stickers I described, but the swirly background came about by my chemically wiping the original stickers, which were sitting atop other stickers salvaged from purchased produce, so it got a bit messy.  India ink is supposed to adhere to plastic, but you can see here that it looks chipped in places, so I might have to re-do that.  And then again I might not. We'll see when the time comes.

Monday Monarch UPDATE: pupa 3 has just completed pupation as of 10:15 this morning, and it looks like it's a girl!

I can now confirm with certainty that this one is a female. And it gets the orange wing tag.

Here she is this afternoon, tagged and ready for take-off:

Change of tag plans for larva 2, and it's because of a tagging complication I encountered. They're all girls except this one, and it was the last to emerge an adult, and it just didn't like the tag.  Wing tags didn't bother the girls, they went ahead and figured out  that flying stuff, but this guy just didn't even want to try.  He sat on a stalk of tall phlox like a bump on a log for hours. Released him in the morning and by mid afternoon, he hadn't budged from the spot.

I took him back in and verrrrrrrrrry verrrrrrrry carefully used the tip of a sewing needle to gently remove the wing tag--which took nearly all of the colorful wing scales with it--and I just took a Sharpie to write "2519" on the bald spot where the sticker  had been.  Miracles of miracles, he then decided he could figure out how to fly after all.

My youngest (larva 4) matured before this guy did even though he turned pupa before the youngest did. The youngest didn't play by any of the rules set forth for how monarchs are supposed to go through their assigned stages, and zoomed through the process at a remarkably rapid pace.  Here she is, perched on my pecan-stained finger:

Here's what Mr. Slowpoke looked like last night. The youngest was already out of her chrysalis (that dangly thing on your left) and I thought his emergence was imminent...but...my battery pooped out before he emerged, so I didn't catch it on video despite best efforts.  He's still quite a dark handsome thing in this form, though...

Now here's a pic of Little Miss Get 'Er Done Yesterday next to Mr. Slow As Cold Molasses:

October 26 UPDATE: Finalized the images of monarchs in various stages to put on a calendar, folks.  Also usable for greeting cards.  Now I need to find a reasonably priced printer to do the job.

mini-UPDATE, printer edition: Decided on PDQ Printing, and though the cost of producing calendars proved out of the question (for now) greeting cards are being printed up as I write this update. WOOT!

Buried under pecans and the absurdities of the number system mathematicians use

Oh my, where to begin?   I haven't posted because I'm doing several things at once, and in a number of instances, where time is essential.  I can't let the pecans languish in their husks too long or they'll get moldy, even inside.  The last of my monarch larvae have all turned into pupae at this point, so I need to worry about making wing tags out of produce stickers because Monarch Watch warns against purchasing stickers for the wrong year, so screw that. Etc etc etc etc...and on the mathematics scene, just coming down the pike is news about a rather long-standing, obscure proof by a Japanese mathematician that is only now drawing attention: he takes over 500 pages to show proof of "The ABC Conjecture", just as Stephen Hawking contemplates a black hole paradox ,  others revise the string theory, and computer scientists start to bemoan the possibility that there may be NO way to effectively compute long sequences (whether it be the human genome variations or working out the final decimal place that Pi computes to in decimal, I guess).

Please, people--you consistently insist on using a number system that considers imaginary numbers to be real, and you think you haven't gone completely bonkers proclaiming that certain solutions using this number system are simply not possible.  You guys should be the poster boys for irrational numbers rather than be proud mathematicians, in my humble view.  Einstein wasn't a mathematician per se, you know, so dwell on that as long as it takes until the situation finally dawns on you.

Consider the widely acclaimed brilliance of Stephen Hawking, for instance, the guy who threw a party for time travelers and reported that nobody showed up.  He doesn't see the flaw in his premise, that what he claimed to have proven is that NO intelligence ANYWHERE in the universe has EVER developed time travel, as in NEVER AT ANY TIME, AT ANY LOCATION IN THE UNIVERSE.  Capaldi's Doctor Who took a sour turn lately, too, in the science/math department by erroneously citing The Bootstrap Paradox and the Faraday Cage and I suppose just to make the claim that the Doctor Who series has finally opined that it's worthwhile for the series to take the science seriously again in its script even if it did less than a half-assed job of it.

The good news for Doctor Who is that whomever wrote Matt Smith's script hit the mathematical nail on the head when it was stated, "humans are so----linear."  That, people, is the mathematical and scientific description of the difficulty, even with Mr. Hawking, in a nutshell.

Even with loop-backs, string theory is, well, infernally linear.  So is the computation of a lengthy sequence. So would be the computation of any time traveler likely to encounter that Bootstrap Paradox.  All the time travel paradoxes I've seen listed online make the erroneous presumption of linearity, and so we arrive at why Mr. Hawking is in error just because no time traveler from any time, from any point in space in the universe, showed up at his party. A chess game is a perfect example of sequence from opening to end that is not linear, but at the same time it's a perfect example of why it's a mental trompe l'oeil to claim that it's amazing for chess masters to play several games at once, win every time against anyone less of a "genius", and even play "multi-dimensional chess" to boot.  Take a wild guess why a computer is capable of playing a game of chess.

Chess is too damn predictable, that's why.  So, any person can claim to be able to see far enough into the future to win at a chess game or multiple chess games played at the same time (yeah--THAT would be a non-linear enterprise, too, wouldn't it), because when you're capable of making moves that preclude the possibility of other moves, you know how the future moves are going to go. So anyone watching in amazement at a chess master is basically watching as much an illusion as watching a master magician insofar as what you're thinking about how it's possible is entirely wrong.

The linear-minded looks at a chess board and figures out to the nth power how many moves are possible.  The chess master, on the other hand, figures out how many moves get ruled out if his first five moves are such-and-such, which is why such opening moves (and response moves, for that matter) get formal names, as named gambits.  The irretrievably linear mind is convinced that one can never prove a negative, while the chess master, in his opening gambit, proves that certain moves cannot be made, proving negatives throughout the progression of the game.  You can't solve any sudoku puzzle without proving negatives, either, and goodness knows how non-linear THAT game is, even though it does incorporate linearities.  It is not confined to linearities like the frustrated mathematicians who are convinced that there's no shortcuts to long sequence calculations and that those bogus time travel paradoxes means that time travel is impossible.

Well, Stephen--time just doesn't work that way.  Just don't give up on trying to understand it.  The reason why the mathematic proof of "The ABC Conjecture" had to take no less than 500 pages is because even among high level theoretic mathematicians, they remain frustratingly and infernally too damn linear.  That, and their reliance on a faulty number system that treats imaginary and irrational numbers as real things, not to mention inable to establish accurately the precise ratio of Pi. Seriously--"quadratic time" talked about re: the Wagner-Fischer algorithm is clearly an improvement over strictly linear computing, but you braniacs still can't figure out the branched conditional exclusion chess game method of narrowing that down even one bit?  While we have computers that are capable of playing chess using that method?? Gimme a stinkin' break already.  You guys grasp the mathematics of fractals but you fall down on THIS job. Sheesh.

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You were expecting maybe a lengthy screed about the Dem debates, hm?  It's too early.