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EPISODE 471 “ICE IN THE BUCKET, ALAN, …YOU WILL NEED HELP.” “THEN J.R. ARRIVED” (CARTS) NOV.5,2021

EPISODE 471   “ICE IN THE BUCKET, ALAN….YOU WILL NEED HELP.” “THEN J. R.. ARRIVED”


alan skeoch
Nove. 5, 2021




“There is ice in the bucket, Alan.”
“So what.”

“Alan, this could be a bad day.”
“Why?”
“Sky is threatening…look at the cloud bank sweeping in like a tidal wave.”
“Seems a little dramatic.”
“How are WE ever going to get 4 Hawker’s carts from the barn to the road all by ourselves.”
“Tough job but ….”
“You need help.”

And then J.R. Grassby arrived…and the day turned out to be glorious.

(WHO IS J.R. GRASSBY?  ANSWER COMING BUT FIRST LOOK AT THE CLOUD…SINISTER)


“Sinister looking, Marjorie…like the end of the world was coming.”


WHO IS J.R. GRASSBY?  …THE ANSWER IS COMING.”

“Alan, just how are you going to get those carts to the road for the movie.  By the way what is
the name of the move?”
“Movie making is a secretive business Marjorie…they never tell me much.”


WHO IS J. R. GRASSBY?

“J.R. What are you doing here?  Your truck and loaders won’t get here until noon?”
“I came to give you a hand…I know you and Marjorie would have to get the carts to
the road alone.  …Thought you could use another pair of hands.”
“Great… And so we began moving the Hawker’s carts from the field and barn to 
the road.  Actually J.R. did most of the work while I took pictures and Marjorie got
tea and croissants ready.

J. R. GRASSBY IS A SET DRESSER…A SET BUYER…A SET DESIGNER.  VERY CREATIVE PERSON WITH
IMAGINATION.  J.R. ALONG WITH A HOST
OF PEOPLE HAVE TO MAKE A MOVIE BELIEVABLE.  THEY BUILD WHATEVER IS NECESSARY.
IN THIS CASE THEY NEED THINGS THAT ARE FRIGHTENING…NO, I CANNOT TELL YOU  THE FILM
TITLE.  I DO NOT KNOW IT MYSELF.  (we are at the rock bottom of the film industry)






  SO J.R. HELPED GET THE CARTS TO THE ROAD.

“Did you say helped Alan?”
“Yes.”
“What did you do?”
“I pushed a bit…and took pictures…”
“As usual.”
“Someone has to document this secretive business.”
“Do you think anyone ever reads your episodes?
“I hope so…this is Episode 471.  Means we have done 471 stories since the Pandemic began.”
“Why do it…why do the stories?””
“I have no answer that makes sense…except taking pictures is an excuse from pushing this cart.”
“I see your gloves are going for a ride.”
“Very perceptive…



“What kind of movie is it?””
“Horror movie…most things happen at night in a nearly dark decrepit market…that’s where the
carts come in…they will be “dressed” to look sinister.”  said J. R.


“You want a sinister look, how about a few skulls?”
“Possibly…but I like all those hanging plants best…dried, dead and hanging.”
“Anything else?”
“We’ll send a truck next week for a load….15 sacks with fake filling, maybe a barrel or two…lots of stuff. I already have around ten coffins.”
“Coffins?”
“Not a joyful movie, Alan…Dark, dark, dark”


“Nothing very dark in the house…unless a stuffed porcupine or spotted hobby horse makes the grade.”


“How about the boys up there on  the beam?
“Sorry.”


“Sorry, J.R. but ur Elephant Ear is not going with you.  It took us an hour or two to get it in here before
the frost hit.   It will spend the winter at the window.”


“Too bad Woody, the dog, is such a friendly animal…we need a dog who snarls and shows his teeth.”


“The truck arrived…and the carts were loaded in about 20 minutes and then the whole
entourage was gone.


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EPISODE 470 SPEAD THE WORD…STARTLING VISITOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS



EPISODE 470     SPREAD THE WORD….A SRANGE VISITOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS

alan skeoch
november 2021
(thanks to Thom Norris…and whoever created this warning)

Once again Thom Norris has sent a video that is startling.  Last time is was a
s steam tractor pulling 44 plows across the prairie.  This time you will be frozen
to your seat as a strange visitor arrives.



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EPISODE 469 DID WE REALLY TRADE 50 MOOSE FOR 274 WILD TURKEYS? (YES, WE DID IN 1984)

EPISODE  469     DID WE TRADE 50  MOOSE FOR 274 WILD TURKEYS?  (Yes,,,did so in 1984)


Alan skeoch
nov. 2021

alan skeoch
november 2021

MARJORIE SPOTTED THE FLOCK…BUT THEY SPOTTED HER FIRST

“Alan, quick get your camera…whole flock of wild  turkeys in the south field.”, as Marjorie got the
window down on a rainy Oct. morning.  The flock was immediately alert.
“They see us slowing down…they are moving away…FAST.”
“They have great eyes…better than ours.”
“And they have 360 degree vision…neck can swivel… hard to fool them.””
“How many are out there?”
“Maybe a dozen.”
“Can you spot the big Tom turkey…the male?”
“No, and in a few seconds they will be gone…they know we are not as quick.”
“They can run at 25 mph and fly at 55 mph.  Not many people know that.  They
think turkeys are toO fat to run and too big to fly.  Wrong on both counts.
“Strange how we see these flockS so often these days.  They were extinct in Ontario
for much of the 20 th century…Now they are almost common.”
“How many are there in Ontario do you think?”
“Professionals estimate 100,000…common.”
“How come?  How did wild turkeys get re-established while so many other
birds and animals are in decline?



HOW DID WILD TURKEYS GET REESTABLISHED IN ONTARIO?

“Was the return  of the wild turkeys natural?”
“Natural?”
“Yes, did they swim or fly across the river from Detroit or across the St. Lawrence River to Brockville?”
“No.  They got here in 1984 due to Dr. David Ankney, a retired biology professor at Western University…he
argued for a trade with American states that wanted some of our wild animals.. The trade took some time
but in 1984 it happened.   We got 274 wild turkeys.

1) traded 18 river otters to Missouri for wild turkeys
2) traded 120 Hungarian partridge to New York for wild turkeys
3) traded 50 moose from Alginqin Park To Michigan for wild turkeys

“That moose trade was expensive…50 moose for a few wild turkeys…Yuk!”

Then we released them in small groups in southern Ontario.  Only real wild turkeys…no  mixtures or domesticated turkeys.
The wild TOM TURKEYS Would not accept domesticated females as wives so those 274 had to be trapped in the forests of the USA.

“Let me see…you say 274 wild turkeys came to Ontario in 1984 and there are more than 100,000 here today.”
“That’s right.”
“Sounds untrue.”
“Not so.  Look around…easy to spot them if you look hard enough.  Some have even moved
to Muskoka and North Bay…northern places that had never had populations ever before.
They are here to stay.”
“What happened to our 50 moose and those river otters.?
“I have no idea…we could find out though.”

Wild Turkeys were worshipped by the Inca and Aztec people; 

In no time the whole flock melded into the fall field colours.  We never got close. 




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EPISODE 468 Power EYOND BELIEF FOR1905…STEAM TRACTOR AND 40 PLOWS



EPISODE 468    POWER BEYOND BELIEF FOR 1905…STEAM TRACTOR AND 40 PLOWS

alan skeoch

oct. 2021
(courtesy of friend Thom Norris)


 This is a departure from my regular Episodes in that I did not make the video but

I think readers will be impressed.   Congering the prairie was done by three steps.

Two of the steps were quite disturbing to any thoughtful person.  The third step
is the subject of this episode … POWER !

1)
First the land
was cleared of its rightful owners…the indigenous peoples

2) Then The great herds of buffalo Were slaughtered…THEIR bones sacked like chordwood. They had provided food for those indigenous people.
But they also got in the way of railway construction.

3) And only then could The prairie soils be turned over and harrowed….and that
is where this story takes off.





Subject:  Powerful Steam Tractor
 

 

 
  
  
  
 


 

 
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EPISODE 465 BLACK WALNUTS…WHAT CAN WE DO WITH THEM?

EPISODE 465    BLACK WALNUTS…WHAT CAN WE DO WITH THEM?


alan skeoch
oct. 2021



Every year someone gets conked with a falling black walnut.  Like getting hit with a world series hardball.
This year it was Marjorie’s turn.  She got wopped on the bare upper arm as she diligently tried to gather
the walnuts before the cursed red squirrels got hem hidden away in the barns.  

Now we differ on black walnuts.  I like them and have planted a number of trees on our farm.  Marjorie does 
not like them at all.   A subject of some tension each year as the walnuts fall.   they are edible but getting to
the walnut meat requires a sledge hammer and careful hand picking the walnut meat from the tooth breaking
shards.   Red squirrel teeth are better at this than human teeth.  A walnut shard is capable of breaking the
best of human teeth.  So walnuts are just wasted.   We race to get as many as we can before
the red squirrels.  Then what should we do with the baskets of nuts?   There was a time when I 
pitch walnuts along the Ontario side roads like Johny Appleseed did.   Now I take credit for a lot of walnut
trees in full growth with their progeny ‘whopping’ a few cars no doubt.




what to do with this year’s crop?   “Let’s put them in Andrew Skeoch’s fire it.”  “Not far enough away, the red
squirrels will find them and bring them back.”   “What should we do with the red squirrels.?” “Call Jackson Skeoch, he
may have an answer.”

In short black walnut season is a troubled time.





Yes, black walnuts float.  Ghastly site each year on our small pond nearest the house.

Black walnuts are killers.  Their root system is toxic to other trees.  I made the mistake of planting a hickory tree
within 20 feet of a walnut tree.  For three decades the two have been sparring beneath the ground.  This year
the hickory died and the black walnut celebrated by filling the pond with nuts.   I hope the floating nuts do not
hurt our snapping turtle as he or she sleeps for the winter at the bottom of the pond.



Marjorie is smiling.  A forced smile as she made me look at her bruised arm.



Math problem for you…what speed can a falling walnut reach before it hits the ground…or before it got Marjoie?


Here is one cache of the red squirrel…we got them 





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EPISODE 464 IRELAND….POTATO FIELD ON EDGE OF THE SEA

episode 464    POTATO FIELD ON EDGE OF THE SEA





alan skech
oct. 2021

TINY potato fields were still common in Ireland such as this one being tended by an Irish octogenarian in the 1960’s.  There was 
a time, before the Potato Famine of the 1840’s, when 40% of the Irish population depended upon these little fields for their
survival.  And when the potato plant failed starvation, death, or flight from Ireland often in decrepit ‘coffin’ ships designed to bring hand hewn timbers 
to Britain.

The potato had the power to change the world for good or ill.  Sometimes both good and ill at the same time.

Historian Charles Mann wrote  an astounding article titled “How The Potato Changed the World” In the November issue of
Scientific American.

His article gave much meaning to the picture I took in 1960 of this Irish farmer and his potato crop grown on the edge 
of a cliff hanging above the Atlantic Ocean.   A rocky field.  On the left is a rock pile presumably moved from the field.






When disease shrivelled the potato fields in 19th century Europe, devastation followed.  Ireland
suffered worse than other European nations, all of which discovered they could no longer feed
their people.

So many people were alive in he 19th century that some wondered how they all could be fed.
.  Population had expanded…indeed exploded due to the arrival of potatoes in
Europe from their origin high in the Peruvian mountains where potato plants originated.  My cousin
James Townsend, an agronomist, has climbed through the unusual fields of Peru where the potato
is almost worshipped.   I remember Jim describing the incredible variety of Peruvian potatoes.
There are around 5,000 varieties of potatoes, many of which do not look
like the potatoes we eat boiled, mashed or chipped.  Some are tiny.  Some are red..or purple, or white…
or all colours of the rainbow.  Some are so toxic that they can only be eaten if covered in mud because
the mud neutralize the  toxins

Europe came to rely on just five six varieties brought back to Europe by Spanish “conquerors” as
they systematically dismembered the Inca Empires of the Americas.   Safe to say that those
potato plants were ultimately worth more than all the gold shipped as well.  

International Potato Center
photo by Martin Meja, AP, as in Scientific American, Nov. 2011

Today potatoes are the fifth most important food crop in the world.  After wheat, corn, rice and sugar.

Another historian, Alfred Crosby, used the expression Columbian Exchange to highlight the way
Europeans affected life in the Americans…and the reverse, the way the Americas affected
western Europe.  Two ecosystems collided.  Wheat  and potatoes.  Which was the better
food crop?  Which was more productive?  Which was easier to  harvest?  Which provided more
nourishment per acre?   The potato. THE POTATO!

Wheat field canoe blown flat by the wind?  rains of wheat can also get too heavy and drop to the groud
if harvested late?   The loaded wheat grains fall over.  Potatoes are very different.  They
are tubers. They grow under the ground.  Hardier in that sense.  And potatoes provided more
nutrion per acre…much more.  Irish cottagers could live on the potatoes they grew in
their tiny stoney fields.  Harvesting is easier using potato forks or potato plows rather than combine harvesters.

Potatoes can grow very large. Charles Mann describes one potato farmer harvested a 25 lb. potato
bigger than  his head.   One year we grew potatoes on a field that had been fallow for two decades.
The harvest was amazing.  Huge potatoes.  Baskets of them. But only happened that one year
Our harvest this year is pathetic.   Why?  Land exhaustion…need guano and lots of it.

IMPACT OF THE POTATO ON GLOBAL AFFAIRS

Another historian…William Macneill…argued “the potato” by feeding rapidly growing populations, 
permitted a handful of European nations to assert dominion over most the world between 1750 and 1950″

Effects

1)The potato Ended the famines which had been common when population outgrew food supply
2) Triggered the rise of wester civilization.  Between 1750 and 1850 the potato…cheap, easy
to produce food brought increase on population…industrial revolution …urbanization.
3) Guanno followed the potato.  Use of fertilizer multiplied food production even more.
Shiploads of bird dung from islands off coast of South America changed agriculture.
Some of these deposits of dung were as much as 150 feet  thick.  This ancient supply has been
exhausted.  Today the chemical industry provides most of fertilizer 
4) And when potato plants failed due to beetles and disease another new industry grew…the pesticide
industry which by the 1940’s and 1950’s was using ever stronger forms of arsenic as 
a control.  Arsenic kills potato beetles.   (lethal to us as well)  
5) Pesticide industry is killing insects we depend upon such as honey bees.  We seem to e
approaching a huge global problem.

This expanding food production is called The Green Revolution.   So far we are able to
feed everyone…basic food for many…limited food for some.  

But there is a limit.   Ireland found that limit when the potato plants failed.  The effect was
devastating.








This was the tiny potato field tended by Mr. Kennedy in Bonmahon in 1960.  When we returned on a tour in 1965  his potato
field was grass.   I don’t know what happened but it underscored that there are limits to global food production.

Much more can be said but the hour is late.

alan skeoch
oct. 2021
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EPISODE 463 IRELAND… EXPLORATION AT BUNMAHON AND CLFFS OF MOHER (AND TWO PUBS) (CIRCA 1980)



EPISODE   463      IRELAND… EXPLORATION AT BUNMAHON AND CLIFFS OF MOHER AND TWO PUBS (CIRCA1980)

alan skeoch
Oct. 2021

WELL, here we are back in Ireland once  again because I promised Aidan Coffey I would send all pics I could find. Some of these
were taken around 1980 when Marjorie and I took our boys, Kevin and Andrew, on a tour of the mines of the Copper Coast
before it became a tourists attraction.

Marjorie did not like the idea of scaling the cliffs and crawling through an ancient adit.  The boys loved the idea … exciting and frightening.
Their eyes say much.




GRADUALLY the adit got larger and larger until we cold stand up…see Andrew above.


Copper stain oN the wall.




One of the shafts  still held in place by a piece of lumber it seems.  Not far below was water
that has filled most of he mine thereby preserving it for all time.




Then we visited the Cliffs of Moher.   See the boys top left.  


The cliffs are not fenced.  As a result people take risks as Kevin and Andrew are doing here.

The haunting music of he Cliffs of Moher on violin and tin flute.  


Not too sure what this fellow thought of us.


Always … it is easy to be welcomed in an Irish pub.




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Fwd: EPISODE 445 IRISH STORIES: I WAS A POOR PAYMASTER (I NOW REALIZE 61 YEARS TO LATE)



Begin forwarded message:


From: ALAN SKEOCH <alan.skeoch@rogers.com>
Subject: Fwd: EPISODE 445 IRISH STORIES: I WAS A POOR PAYMASTER (I NOW REALIZE 61 YEARS TO LATE)
Date: October 9, 2021 at 7:41:01 PM EDT



Note:John Wardle…tell me if you get this episode


EPISODE 445    IRISH SORIES:   I WAS A POOR PAYMASTER (I NOW REALIZE 61 YEARS LATER)

alan skeoch
Oct. 2021

FRIDAY WAS PAYDAY IN THE SHACK BEHIND THE KENNEDY STORE…WITH FREE CIGARETTES

 Being a paymaster was quite a shock on the Irish job. I hired a lot of people and was told by someone that an Irish pound a day
was the going wage for unskilled labour.  Seemed OK to the men.  As i now know the wage was
ridiculously low.  The real wage in Ireland in 1960 was $1.25 per hour (U.S)…about 6 to 7 pounds per day.

How did I not know?  IGNORANCE. I Used my own wage as a template.  I was being paid $400 a month…about $5 a day for skilled labour so the difference was
not really that great but my wage included room and board.  Not  luxury living. 
On bush jobs we worked 7 days a week, cooked
our own meals and slept in tents (enveloped in clouds of blood sucking insects).

 The Irish job was five days a week.  Luxury.

 
There seemed to be much unemployment in and around Bunmahon.
So I tried to hire as many men as I could.  There was a need for a large crew.

Three men doing Turam readings myself and Barney with console another man with lead coil 
and cable with 100 foot spacing
Two men to guard our grounding rods and motor
Three to four men as linecutters
Two men to patrol the base line and try to stop cattle from eating cable.


I suppose Barney must have seemed unnecessary to our boss in Canada. Explanation… “I need Barney to help me over the stone
and Gorse fence rows…and to watch for charging bulls or hungry boars.”  “I need him because it is impossible to run when in full
Turam harness.”  Now who could believe that?  Barney’s role
was also to protect me from tics as much as possible.  The cattle were infested with them making their noses look like
pin cushions.   Where did they get the tics?  From the tall grass and scrub bushes in the fence rows.  Barney was also
a buffer when confronted with angry farmers…many of whom wanted payment for damaged crops or stunned animals.
I do not know if anyone made such payments.


So these men earned their money.  I did not realize how small was their pay until I started to look at the cost of living and salaries
in Ireland in 1960.   

STATSTICS
The average family income in the 1960’s was around $5,800. The tax rate back then was 20%, and minimum wage was $1.25/hour. Bacon – 79¢ per lb. Bananas – 10¢ per lb.

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NO ONE ever said to me that they were underpaid.   High spirits prevailed as is easy to see in Kirwin’s pub  on a special evening.    In 1960 a pint of Guinness was around 20 pence…let’s say 50 cents Canadian.  A bottle of beer in Canada or USA was around 75 cents. 
So our employees could afford to buy about 3 pints of guinness spending their full wage.
To sweeten the wages I got in the habit of buying small packs of cigarettes and later chocolate.  About half of the population of Ireland smoked in 1960.   I did not know
that a 25 cent pack of Wild Woodbine cigarettes was the cheapest of smokes.  The pack looks nice
and no one refused/

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