If you’re one of my three (or is it two?) regular readers, you might recall that the 9s of Uruguay bother me. And if you look at this one, you can see that obviously the writer was taught to make a nine starting with a counterclockwise loop, which then rejoins itself and veers off at an angle to look like a 9. Unless it doesn’t, in which case it ends up as a P.
But what’s up with that first digit — ?
It’s a 4. It just happens to be upside down.
How the hell did someone learn, or decide, to write a 4 upside-down? Also, if you clicked on the link above, you might note that the 3 here is verging into the territory of the 2 on the linked page.
Uruguay is not an exotic country, but does hold some mystery. If you’re willing to squint just right, with your bad eye.
You might recall that I planted fruit trees in the wrong place on our chacra. I finally got around to transplanting them: pathetically poor root structure in the impermeable soil that turns from incredibly sticky mud in the winter to something resembling concrete in the summer.
I planted one each on the two piles left from the installation of the septic system, complete with wind protection with fencing and shade cloth I had on hand.
The only other shade cloth I had had stripes, so now we have this jaunty little display in our back yard. But this is by far the wettest year we’ve had here, and particularly bad for mold in houses and plants in the ground. Will they fare better in their new location?
A couple of pepper plants persist, even as the sun sinks lower and lower in its daily path. I figured well, maybe I can give one of them a little more sunshine with a piece of sheet metal I had lying around. Note the ashes from the wood stove in the lower left.
We live at 34°45′ south (about the same as Raleigh, NC in the north).
A few kilometers from here, we have a vineyard and winery that produces exquisite wines: Viñedo de los Vientos (Vineyard of the Winds). Once a year they serve a gourmet meal with their wines, and it always seems to be very cold. Last year it was in April, at night, and they had huge and welcome bonfire and heaters in the covered area. This year it happened at noon, and not only was there no bonfire, neither did the propane heaters inside work, nor did they have the plastic windows that used to block the wind, and it was rainy and windy.
This picture, taken from where I sat, looking into the wind, illustrates the absence of at least five people who apparently made reservations and thought better of it, given the nastiness of the day. Fortunately I had a couple of knit caps in the car.
As usual, the menu was themed, meaning the same thing was served over several coarses, in this case lamb (cordero). It was delicious, and the company—a gringo and Uruguayan couple at our table—fun.
I note that the Playstation 4 has landed in Uruguay. Yes, only 850 US dollars! My son was able to buy two last December in the States. He sold the second to a friend here, and got almost all his money back for both (he gave his friend a deal).
The PS3 and Kinect are correspondingly cheaper as well, of course.
Teacher Pilar (our neighbor in the campo) measures out mycelium and shows us how to do mushroom farms in bags. Cool stuff!!
Well, OK, no badgers. Our last organic gardening class was all about growing mushrooms. In a plastic bag, I placed alternating layers of boiled wheat straw, and two types of white gunk of ‘shroom spores (because, given the choice of one or the other type of edible mushrooms, I replied “yes”), inoculated in wheat and sorghum.
Mycelium? I’ll get up to speed on this.
The problem is that now, equivalent of early December for you northern-hemispherians, trying to maintain germination temp of20-24°C (68-75.2°F) inside your single-brick uninsulated Uruguayan house presents, um, challenges.
I have found a solution, but it won’t arrive in time for this batch: ebay > temperature controllers > free shipping from Hong Kong / China. Build a little insulated enclosure, connect an incandescent light bulb inside to the TC and chau (ciao in Italian), let the electronics do the heavy lifting.
Worth pursuing: while any mushrooms (much less fresh) were scarce here when we arrived five years ago, you can usually buy fresh now, but freaking expensive.
The exercise triggered an avalanche of other “project” ideas: aquaponics, which involves in my case explorations of solar panels and related electronics (again, eBay), since interruption of grid electricity in the country is not an emergency in the eyes of those who fix it. Fish make for awesome fertilizer, but I don’t really want fish I’m raising to eat to become soil amendments because of an electrical outage.
One of these days I may actually DO something. Stay tuned 😉
