#they were super low on stock and on sale i had to grab them so i didn't miss my chance AGAIN

[sleepy-crypt1d]

they were on sale :((((((

[mynameisjaxx]

Daichi x Y/N

(Stuff happens, so read if you want to.)

I'm currently a first year at Karasuno and it's almost time for spring break. Since starting at the high school, I had special circumstances at the beginning of the year. Mostly because my parents had just died and I had no other living relatives or god parents to take care of me. Due to the fact that I was 15, I was given the choice to stay at a half way home or to go out on my own. Knowing full well, I would never get adopted for being a teenager, I decided to opt out and remain living on my own. For the most part, it was okay, I would crash at a few friends houses every so often to wash my uniform in a place that had actual laundry detergent. It wasn't long until the manager at the store I worked at started letting me have the left overs that didn't sell.

I guess, he got the hint that I was shedding pounds like no tomorrow. So one night, he flipped the sign to close and asked me to step into the back room.

"Hey, kid, how's it going?" He started.

"I'm okay." I shrugged.

"Don't lie to me, now." He  lit up a cigarette.

"Well, if you gotta know, I'm currently living with the snacks I you let me have and couch surfing." I narrowed my gaze.

"What happened with your folks?" I look up and through the wisps of smoke, he was looking into my eyes and waiting for an answer.

"They're dead."

Silence. It last a few minutes and then he took a pull.

"Sorry, kid."

"Yeah, it's not something I'm ready to talk about." I wipe the single tear that fell from my right eye.

Tch.

"Alright, I have an idea, but only if you feel absolutely 100% comfortable with the idea."

"Shoot."

"I have a spare room, if you want you can stay there, instead of couch surfing or staying out in the streets." He takes another pull.

"I don't know, I don't feel right about just staying there. Is there someway for me to repay you?" I look up to him determined.

"Well, you can take on some extra chores around the house and we can call it even." He shrug.

"Alright then Mr. Ukai, thank you so much!" I bow.

"Don't worry about it kid, I just don't want you to end up hurt somewhere. You've been really good working for me the whole summer, and I see you like a little sister." He puts a hand on my shoulder with a light squeeze.

"I promise that I will do my best to not be a burden." I declare.

After our chat, I spend my time minding the store until closing time. I double check the floor and restock what's low and keep the journal of the day's sales. I make sure to keep everything organized before putting together a list of the things we need to order for the next week. Keishin came out with the broom and the mop, he swept and I mopped the floor behind him. We were done rather fast and put away the cleaning supplies. Stepping through the back of the store we take out the trash to the dumpster and then walk a little to the house behind the store.

"Well, this is home." He says.

"It's very nice."

"Thanks." He closes the door behind us, we remove our shoes and I walk in barefoot, taking my socks off and feeling the cold floors.

"Hey put these on, they should fit." He hands me a pair of gray slippers that seem my size.

"Thanks." I slip them on and he shows me around the house.

"So, living room is here, to the left is my room, the right is yours. The kitchen is down the hall and the bathroom is also down the hall. The is a small backyard if you ever want to sit outside and take a break." He rubs the back of his neck.

"Wow." Amazed at how neat and warm the house felt.

"Yeah, I haven't the heart to change a few things because its the way my mom left it. I just do upkeep." he shrugs.

"Well, I will be sure not to move things too out of place on cleaning day." I make a mental note.

"I appreciate that. For tonight, I'll make dinner. What do you want to eat?" He peers into the fridge.

"How about I make dinner and you tell me what my chores are while I work?" I counter offer.

"Oh, Okay." He steps aside.

I pull out the left over rice he has in a tupper ware, the shaved steak left overs, 3 eggs and a mixed veggie tray. Julienning and then sauteing them for a little color, I add the shaved steak to mix in with the juices from the veggies, adding a pinch of onion powder and a few dashes of soy sauce, I stir until the white rice has an even browning.

"So, we would be alternating cleaning duty, you'll get bathroom and kitchen and I'll do living room and front of the house. Following week, we switch. Cooking is up to you. I'm limited in what I know how to make, but it seems like you can definitely throw down in the kitchen." He motions to me.

"Well, I had to learn while my parents were at work, I made myself dinners." I smile.

"That's very smart." He compliments.

Adding the rice into the meat and veggies and adding a splash of water to make the rice a little fluffy again, I cover it. Cracking the eggs into a bowl and scrambling them before hand.

"So, you learned all this from being home alone?" He grabs plates out of the cupboard.

"Yep, we would have left overs and I'd take them to make them into a meal for myself. I hope you like it." with a half smile as I add the eggs to the same skillet. While the eggs cook into the fried rice, I clean all the utensils I used to cook, leaving just the wooden spoon I was using to help mix everything. Almost like a 6th sense, I could feel that it was ready, so I turn off the heat and proceed to spoon out a few into each bowl.

"It smells delicious!" He takes a whiff before carefully putting the steaming hot food into his mouth and hums something that sounded like 'yum'.

"Glad you like it." I laugh a bit.

That was my first night, it was very nice. It really did feel like having an older brother, despite knowing that I was practically alone in every sense of the word. He really made me feel welcomed. We worked out a deal for when I would get to school.

So while I did some early morning shifts to help prep all the sandwiches and meat buns to be sold for the day, he would take care of the store and then I would do homework while I worked the counter and he would take his break and go over to the house and prep dinner for us later.

It's been about 2 months with the same routine and there was this man, Takeda. He comes in once a day to ask where Keishin was and if he could spare a moment, everytime, he was turned away until yesterday. Kei actually agreed to whatever that Takeda man asked him to do.

"I'll be at the school gym tomorrow, so I want you to go there straight after practice. I'm not letting you out of my sight, kid." He sighs as he goes towards the back room.

"Oh, okay, but who will mind the store?"

"I'll get my nephew to watch the store." He pulls out his phone and dials a number.

"Alright, well, I'm off to school, sandwiches are ready to be stocked, coffee is in the machine brewing for the day, and the meat buns are in the steam tray." I put on my shoes.

"Alright, hon, have a good day at school and don't forget to meet me at the gym." He shouts after me as I jog out to school.

The school day was boring and quite frankly, I was just hoping to see what was going to happen after school, but I still managed to take down good notes in class. I wonder why Takeda wanted Keishin. Guess, I'll find out later.

The day ends and I bolt out of class and head to the gym, right outside is Takeda and Keishin, talking a bit.

"Hi, y/n." Takeda bows.

"Hello, Takeda Sensei."

"Lets see what we are working with." Keishin grumbles and puts out his cigarette.

Inside were boys, shouting and running around. They were playing a 3 4 on 4 game of volleyball. There were 3 boys I recognized as my senpais since one of them gave me a tour around the school my first day and introduced me to the other 2. Sugawara was very nice and detailed with directions, Asahi was super shy and told me I was scary until we spoke a bit more and then there's Daichi. He was just, woah.

Suddenly I'm down on the ground, my chest hurt a little. I wasn't sure what just happened. I definitely got the wind knocked out of me, somehow.

"Woah n/n! Are you okay??" Keishin bends down to check on me.

"Y/N!" Daichi runs over and slides right beside me.

"We are so sorry." I hear the boys shout in unison.

I cough a bit trying to breathe. Daichi helps me sit up.

"Hey, Kiyoko, toss me my water bottle!" Daichi looks at the blue haired girl.

She nods and tosses the water bottle at him and he catches it with ease.

"Here drink some. It'll help" I nod and do as he says.

A sip and I try to breath but it sounds like a heavy wheeze. He takes my loose hairs and tucks them behind my ear.

"It's alright, take your time." He stands.

"Alright, Ennoshita, sub for me. I'm going to look after her during this set."  He takes my hands into his and helps me to the bench. He sits straddling the bench and pats the space in front of him.

"Sit with your back to me." He orders.

I do and his chest is warm. I hum.

"Alright, I'm going to rub your upper arms and I want you to take deep breaths with me." He whispers into my ear.

I could feel my face turn red and my chest tighten, but I nod.

After a few breaths, I feel much better. At some point I had closed my eyes and he had stopped moving his hands on my arms and just held me.

"Hey, earth to y/n. You okay now?" He whispers, bringing me back.

"Yes, thank you, senpai." I reply.

"Please, call me Daichi." He insists.

"Well, now that you are a bit better, please go to the bathroom and check if you're bruised, if you want take Kiyoko with you. She'll be able to help with ice or if you would prefer a salve." He motions to her and she comes over.

"Okay" meek and quiet, I leave with Kiyoko to the bathroom and she comes in with me.

Unbuttoning my school uniform, I see the yellow and blue starting to form.

"What would you like for me to do? Salve and bandage or just an ice pack?" She offers, cleaning her glasses on her volleyball jacket.

"Whichever would make the bruise slow down faster." I shrug.

"I'll get the salve and bandage, wait here." She hurries out.

She returns and quietly buzzes about, tending to the bruise.

"Thank you, senpai." I mumble.

"Of course, let me know if you have any discomfort." she guides me back to the gym and I sit quietly on the bench and watch the rest of the 'set'. In between sets, Daichi comes back over to me and asks me once more if I was okay and I nod, choosing to keep talking to a minimum since my chest was still in some pain.

"So, you have yourself a coach, Takeda." I over hear Keishin shaking hands with Takeda Sensei.

"Thank you. The practice game with Nekoma are in a few weeks. Here's the details and I will need you to come by the office tomorrow so we can formally fill out your paperwork as new head coach of Karasuno's boy's volleyball" He's super excited.

"Alright boys, line up." Daichi commands.

"Thank you for coming." They say in unison.

"Boys, let me introduce you to your new coach. Coach Ukai. he's the former Coach's grandson, he also happened to play for Karasuno when he studied here." Takeda lets Keishin take center stage.

"Alright, so the rematch against Nekoma won't be for another few weeks, and I have 'til then to whip you into shape to even be close to a tied game with them. I have faith in what I witnessed today that we will beat them. Maybe not in our first game but definitely in our second." Keishin riles them up.

"Come on, clean up and then you are free to go home." Daichi claps.

The boys grumble. Just like that time passed in a flash, somehow in that time I became the co manager of the team with Kiyoko and we've become really good friends. Though I know I won't see her around much after this year, with her being a third year and all

The practice game came and the boys played their hardest, in the end, they lost making it really close to a tied game. They were absolutely devastated but definitely not discouraged. After the game, Keishin treated them to dinner. As a way to show them that even in their losses they will learn and adapt, but for now eat and work on your strength. Some of them cried and others remained stoic.

It was weeks later that Takeda slipped by the door and announced that Nekoma had invited us to join in on their training camp. Takeda and Keishin shared a glance, one I knew all too well. 'The I'm not sure we can afford it' look. An idea popped into my head, so I decided to go up to Kei and whisper it.

"Doesn't sound bad, I bet if you got the guys to help then it would definitely go a lot faster. I mean you've got the skills." He nods.

"Takeda, I'm not sure if you know, but y/n is a wiz in the kitchen, can they borrow the cafeteria on Thursday night? Y/N wants to have a bake sale for the team. Of course if the boys help out then I know they'll be in good hands." He pleads.

"What a splendid idea, I'll run it by the principal tomorrow morning and have an answer by practice. Just give me a list of what you wanted to bake and what the cost to profit is, I'm sure it will work out just fine." He looks at a determined y/n who's already scribbling away in their notebook the recipes and how much the items would cost, specially through the store as a vendor they knew they could get a bit of a discount.

On a new sheet of paper, they write down the cost to profit and hand over the menu to Takeda, who looks in awe of the menu.

"Are you sure you can make all this?" He asks.

"With help, of course. I just need to know if I have permission before I go asking the team for help." I nod confidently.

"alright then, I will pass this along." He puts it into his folder of to-do.

The following day at lunch I got the approval of cafeteria use for the thursday night which was in 3 days. Yachi who was the other new co manager created posters to put up around the school and town. The school wrote a check for the cost and I gave it to Keishin when we ordered the ingredients. The entire team agreed to help, even salty Tsukishima. It was a nice night, we took off of practice and spent the evening working hard. The boys followed my every order, I was running a tight ship that night.

By nightfall, we were all packing up the small bundt cakes in the wax paper and twine. The muffins were placed into boxes to contain them for the night and the sweeter things we baked, we left for the afternoon. The entire day Kiyoko and I were manning the cash box, and thanking students for buying and donating the change.

At the end of the day we had made back what we spent on ingredients and more than tripled our profit. We gave back the initial investment that the school spent and we took the rest to the bank. Got the coins changed into larger bills. Gave the money to Takeda who in turn, put it towards the bus to take us to the training camp and food for those two weeks. Even after that we had a little left over, which we had decided we would save for any club emergencies.

"We did it!!!" We announced.

"We're raised enough money to go to the training camp!" Yachi jumps up high like Hinata.

"Yay!" He jumps even higher.

"Rest up, we leave next Friday after school and get there by evening. We are going to be there for 2 weeks." Keishin reminds them.

Time flies and it was just a a few hours by bus to get there. It was finally here, training camp weeks with Nekoma and Fukurodani. Being the last to arrive, the Nekoma team are the ones to greet us.

Everyone is polite enough, though the tension between the captains is so awkward. It makes me want to be a turtle and hide inside my shell. Being here was incredible. The days were spent between exercise and practice games. There were many losses for the boys, but with each game they learned more about their opponents, which in turn they adapted their strategies.

The night before the last day Daichi approached me with a concerned look.

"What's wrong sen-Daichi." I tilt my head.

"Well, tomorrow there's the barbecue and I think we have enough, but I'm not sure. If there's a shortage would you mind going to the store with Kiyoko and two of the boys to help you bring things back?" He places a hand on my shoulder.

"Of course, what kind of a manager would I be if I didn't take care of my team." I laugh it off.

"Thank you for taking such good care of us, if it weren't for your idea, we probably wouldn't have been able to participate." He squeezes.

"It's no big deal, besides, Yachi's posters were also a tremendous help with donations and you guys helped me back and pack all those tiny pastries. It's my pleasure, honestly." I raise my hands in front of me.

"Thank you." He smiles and walks away.

Practice felt like it flew by and the coaches had already started the grills to heat them up. The captains of each team was manning the grills and making sure that everything was cooked to perfection. Daichi gave me the look so I took Kiyoko's wrist and she understood. Looking around the only two boys that seemed the least busy were Tanaka and Nishinoya.

It was a short walk to the store, but while we were there, we had a slight hiccup. Some guys from Fukurodani's regular students were there. They had chosen to hit on Kiyoko and she looked uncomfortable. I tried to distract them from her, but failed. It didn't help that Noya and Tanaka got involved, until I stepped in between and diffused the situation a bit.

"Listen guys, I know she is really beautiful, but she can't go out with you, because she is with me." I step in.

"Yeah, sorry boys. Can't split up the happy couple." Tanaka makes his iconic intimidation face and Noya has a demonic look in his eyes.

"Now, if we can all go about our respective days, that would be amazing." I insist and drag the boys away with Kiyoko and the food cart in tow.

We paid and we left, thinking it would be the last of it. We got back in time with the meat and more soda. The boys celebrated our return and immediately took the items out of our hands and began prep work while the last of the meat had just been put on the grill, but the time it was cooked, the meat we had brought was being put on. The rest of the afternoon goes on with lots of laughter and a light atmosphere.

It was evening by the time the teams had began slowly breaking off to go shower and hit the sack. The captains and a few members stayed behind to help with clean up. Between us we finished up in an hour and placed the trash into the dumpster. The sun had already set and the navy blue sky, like a blanket being pulled over the day to rest.

I wasn't tired so I didn't go back yet, instead I decided to walk around a bit, take in the last views of the school before morning, since we'd be leaving around 7 am to get back by noon and send the team home to rest and study for the exams the rest of the week had instore for us. Thinking over the checklist of things that I could do to kill time, I thought it would be a great idea to go to the store for a last minute run, pick up some cereal bars, or jell-o cups, some kind of snack that didn't need much prep incase the team got peckish on the ride home. Mostly because we weren't going to make breakfast, just pack up, clean and leave.

Apparently the boys from earlier just didn't know when to stop. They just had to follow me at a distance, but I didn't even realize it. It wasn't until I had gotten closer to the gym that they started vandalizing school property. I saw them, with their trash and the faint smell of alcohol hit my nose. I took out my phone and dialed Keishin but he didn't pick up, so I called Daichi.

"Hey y/n, what's up?"

One of the guys had ran towards me and I dropped what I had in hand and my cell phone, luckily it didn't cut off the call.

"Hey, back off, you can't be here."

"Like hell, we can do what we damn well please," one of them slurred.

"Come on cutie, drop the bluenette and come have fun with us instead."

That was all he needed to hear to grab the team and race outside to where I was. Surrounded and trying to find a way out. Nothing seemed viable so I did what I thought and tried to duck under their arms and run, but they caught me by my jacket. I unzipped it and left it in their grasp. I ran until I bumped into something that was soft but sturdy.

"Where are they?" A stern voice.

"Back that way" I answered with my eyes closed still waiting to hit the floor.

"Noya, Tanaka, and Suga, go in first. Rest of you, stagger in." He orders.

"Hey, they didn't touch you right?" He lifted my chin up and I opened my eyes.

"No, but it was really scary." Tears pinching the back of my eyes, just thinking about what could have happened had I not worn the volleyball jacket.

"Shhh, it's okay now. You're safe." He tried to comfort me.

"I tried calling coach but he didn't answer."

"It's okay, we told Kiyoko to stay behind and look for all 3 coaches." He pet my hair.

We stayed like that for a moment until he pulled away first.

"I don't want you walking back alone so come with me and stay behind me. I'll make sure they don't lay a hand on you." He promises.

"Okay" I hesitate.

So of course it caused a commotion and a brawl broke out. Someone called the cops and Noya, Tanaka and I were taken in because of the fight. Daichi had driven to the station with Keishin and Coach Nekomata. While there, the boys were placed in the holding cell while Noya and Tanaka and I were sitting, cuffed on a bench.

"I'm taking the fall, you guys just say it was me that did all the fighting and that they tried to attack you so it's self defense. Okay? I started the fight. You guys can't get into trouble, they'll kick you out of school or something. I'll be fine. So don't fight me. I am your manager and I will hear no protest." I turn to either side of me and they nod in defeat.

After questioning about what had happened I made up a story. About how I was walking back to campus and they were just drunk and spewing nonsense. I tried to get them to leave until one of them grabbed my wrist and I pushed him off as defense, which escalated when his buddies joined in and I fought back, having called my coach to alert him of what's happening. Noya and Tanaka said similar things so the detective gave us all breathalyzer tests to fact check.

We we let go after a few hours.

"Kids!" Keishin is waiting in the lobby to pick us up.

"We're okay coach, a little shaken and roughed up, but we'll be fine." Noya answers.

"Let's go back to campus and you can retell what happened." He looks me up and down to make sure I was okay.

Once back, we went to an empty class on a different floor than the one where everyone was sleeping. I retold what actually happened and the lie we told the cops.

Tch.

"But, they didn't touch you, right?" Kei knelt in front of my seat.

"No, Kei, I'm fine. Scared, but fine." I assure him.

"God, kid, I don't want to think about what could have happened." He engulfs me in a hug.

"I know" muffled into his chest.

Headed to the floor where the rest of the team was, they couldn't sleep. Too anxious about what happened. They try not to crowd me and I bow.

"I'm sorry for worrying you." A few tears slide down my cheek without meaning to.

A chorus of 'don't' could be heard and I couldn't help but feel relief. They ended up giving me a group hug and then they let go after a little. I smile and wipe the tears.

One of the boys managed to grab the things I had dropped and brought them inside. The bag from the store was pretty intact, but my phone sadly was not. It was cracked and had a few scrapes on the exposed metal.

I take my phone and put it in the bag with the things I got. Leaving to the managers room, the tears flow freely. It was scary. I was alone until the guys came to my rescue. I was too scared to lash out. I couldn't move. God I was so stupid.

"Hey, hey, you're safe now, honey." I heard a soothing voice.

"I know, but I could've screamed, done something."

"No, no, none of that. You called us, you did do something and escaped them before we got to you." He cups my face.

I sob a little, but he leans close and looks into my eyes. Its like I was over come with warmth. Like a security blanket wrapped around me. Taking even breaths he thumbs away my tears and gives me a small smile. I flush and my cheeks start getting warm, feeling the blush spread, I look away but he follows my gaze. So I place my hand on his wrist.

Suddenly our lips are just whispers away from touching.

"Are you sure, because I don't want you to feel pressured." our noses grazing each other.

"Kiss me"

It was the sweetest kiss. So soft and gentle, he was treating me like a fragile, porcelain doll.

"I-"

"How about when you feel up to it, I take you out on a date. I'll make it special."

"I would like that." I blush having forgotten all those scary thoughts.

[sssn-neptune-vasilias]

I wanted to type this one out so I could see just how ridiculous the SDC’s earnings must be for them to be the kind of company they are.

Weiss has told us the company hardly has any rivals when it comes to Dust. The SDC owns the majority of the Dust mines, refineries and transportation networks throughout not just in its home Kingdom of Atlas, but the entire world of Remnant. But Dust isn’t just a precious ore, it’s Remnant’s primary- if not only- source of energy and ammunition. Let’s start with the energy part. (Now this is gonna be a little difficult because I’m just doing surface level Googling- if anyone’s got any better numbers on these, I’d be happy to hear it).

The top 20 energy suppliers on the planet make a combined total of about $3.8 trillion a year. I would love to extend this list of suppliers until I’m covering enough companies to accommodate for the majority of energy supplied to the planet (for instance, this top 20 list doesn’t even account for ConEd- the supplier of most of my home state’s power- the people who keep Times Square’s lights on), but I can’t even find proper numbers for that online without some serious digging. If anyone has those numbers for whatever college project or journalism piece you’ve worked on, I’ll be happy to hear them. For now let’s say the minimum the SDC makes just for power is $3.8 trillion annually.

But as the show has pointed out before, Dust isn’t just an energy source. It’s also Remnant’s preferred ammunition for Hunters, soldiers and battle droids. Grab the numbers of the top 50 ammunition suppliers on the planet (this list doesn’t even include Chinese companies so I can only imagine what the actual numbers must be) and you get about $333 billion dollars a year. Now we’re at $4.1 trillion per year.

I’m super tempted to add in the global sales of gold, silver and platinum suppliers, but we’ve never actually seen Dust be worn and I’ll give them a break and say that the mining process to extract and refine Dust is no more difficult than that of coal, natural gas or petroleum.

But wait! Dust isn’t everything the SDC has a hand in! They apparently own hygiene brands that make toothpaste and shampoo! If the SDC has even a fraction of the monopoly on personal hygiene products that they do over Dust, then we should add the earnings of the top 5 hygiene companies (again, not including China because apparently everything has to be a secret in that country) which adds an extra $200 billion dollars to our annual haul. That’s $4.3 trillion.

As if that weren’t enough though, we also catch a glimpse of some Schnee brand cola during the food fight. I’d be insane not to add the revenue of the world’s top 10 beverage manufacturers. That extra $444.5 billion in pocket change brings us up to $4.7 trillion.

But what would all of these goods and services mean if the SDC had no way to transport all of them throughout the planet? Let’s add in an extra $152b for the top 5 transportation suppliers.

That’s about $4.9 trillion dollars in revenue every year. Take into consideration that these are all low end estimates of what the SDC’s numbers could look like. I’ll make it $5t because I like round numbers. For context, the biggest companies on the planet- Apple, Amazon and Microsoft- can barely hold on to their trillion dollar status as stocks fluctuate and earnings vary each year. The SDC is making five times that.

But of this is just scratching the surface! The SDC has been shown to basically run the Atlesian government. Ironwood- Atlas’ headmaster and general- has to confer with Jacques Schnee before he can even begin his whole “let’s close off all of Atlas’ boarders” plan. The Atleasian Knights and Paladins have even been alluded to be at least partially funded by the SDC- fuck, at this point I’d be surprised if the SDC didn’t fund Penny’s creation! The SDC have a global war machine on their bankroll. Honestly, I’m not even gonna bother looking up the numbers for war revenue, it wouldn’t make sense! Remnant is constantly under siege by semi-sentient monsters hell-bent on destroying humanity- earth is experiencing the most “peaceful” decades in history. The numbers couldn’t possibly match up. But finally, let’s not also forget that Atlas was the kingdom that brought us the Cross-Continental Transit System! Atlas owns the infrastructure for everyone’s wireless communications across the planet. Even if the SDC collects a fraction of that telecom cash, they’re looking at a fraction of another $1.1 trillion dollars. You thought Stark Industries was a monopoly? The Schnee Dust company is fucking ridiculous. These guys have wealth beyond wealth, if the SDC were a country they’d have the 3rd highest GDP on the fucking planet behind America and China.

[geekstudio]

Fan Expo 2018 Report

I was so glad to be back at Fan Expo this year after taking last year off! I got to talk to so many people and see tons of amazing cosplay and I had really missed it!

Now that I’ve a recovery day I thought I’d do up a little report about how the weekend went for me.

Long post with lots of pics so read more for the whole thing!

First up was the awesome cosplay! There were so many great costumes that walked past my table. Most of them I wasn’t able to get pictures of but here are some that I did get.

Saw this great Edna Mode on the Thursday and she had a great attitude!

This Aquaman was great! He was so high energy and outgoing and we ended up chatting for a bit during the slow morning. All his tattoos were airbrushed using custom stencils and apparently he had to run back to his hotel to get his back-up plastic trident because security wouldn’t let him in with his better, custom, metal trident o_O

I was so excited to see this Merlin and Roxy Kingsmen pair! I think they’re the first Kingsmen cosplay I’ve seen and I love Kingsmen so much!

And the last one from the weekend, the Grandmaster! I was so sad that Jeff Goldblum ended up cancelling...

Next part of the report is sales! I spent pretty much the entire weekend at my table. Usually I wander around a bit more but my sister was actually involved in a lot of the tabletop gaming events and panels this year so couldn’t cover me as often.

Lip Balm! So this was the first Fan Expo that I brought my lip balm and lotions to and they were a big hit! The most popular flavour was the Vampire one with Unicorn, Dragon, and Mermaid tied as a close second. It was the first show overall for the Dragon and Mermaid flavours so I was super happy that they went well!

Lotions! The Unicorn scent was the popular choice by quite a lot with Wizard and Fairy tied for second. That was a switch from what I expected because at Anime North the Zombie and Pirate scents were super popular and they were really low sellers at Fan Expo.

Enamel pins! This is also the first Fan Expo with my full stock of enamel pins. The biggest seller for the weekend was one of my original, non-fandom, designs, Spirit of Spring (above). This made me so so happy that a completely original design was so popular at a comic con! This pins isn’t up in my store right now but it will be soon. The second most popular by far was my Luna Lovegood Spectre Specs pin!

Candles! I brought a few candles to this show but the most popular one was the Butterbeer. This was a big surprise because it hasn’t been very popular lately. I sold more Butterbeer candles at Fan Expo this year then I’ve sold at all the shows I’ve gone to in the last year lol. Don’t know why they suddenly did that I was glad to see the Harry Potter love back!

My new Nuka Cola candles went over really well too! I have some left over though so I’ve posted them in the shop here if you wanted to grab some for yourself.

Now for my purchases!

I didn’t buy as much as I usually do this year because I didn’t have much time to shop but I did get some awesome stuff!

The mug I got from FanFit Gaming. It’s an N64 mug with different game items all over. It was their first time at Fan Expo and they had a lot of really cool stuff!

The book is Ark Land by Scott A. Ford. It’s a post apocalyptic sci-fi graphic novel and the art and colours are gorgeous! I’m super excited to read it!

I bought one of these dudes from Triforged Studios as a birthday gift for a friend that was there on the weekend. These Dittos are made from a squishy rubber and totally feel like a real Ditto.

My big purchase was this life size 3D printed Cubone skull. I got it from the same table as the Standee People but I’m not sure if it’s actually still them that sold them. I’m definitely putting this up on my wall next to my Unownymous painting from Rawry & Powly :D

Now the weekend is over and it’s back to the grind. My next show is the Etsy: Made in Canada show in Chatham, ON at the end of September so if you’re in the area stop by and say hi! After that I’ll be at EGLX, then some holiday shows leading up to Christmas. Can’t wait to see people there!

[inreucurhoa1976-blog]

Which gets back to my point: Reps are solving a scarcity problem, not a price problem. Like, Maison Margiela shoes or Vetements shoes or LV archlights or even the Off White shoes (non Nike) are all hype and SUPER expensive but reps of them aren that common because those brands actually stock enough of those shoes to reach demand. What stimulates the creation of reps is when brands start selling out, and there are people willing to pay to buy shoes that sold out, but they don want to pay some scumfuck reseller ten times retail.. Here a post explaining the situation well.So yes, the Malaysian government is that corrupt. 5 points submitted 3 years agoSomeone mentioned that MBD and My Scheming are by the same company but I don think they are, I just checked the manufacturers and they have totally different names and info.I used both types, but only the older MBD ones, I haven tried 장흥출장마사지 the 2015 (semi hydrogel?) ones yet. The best overall are the ones from the My scheming silk mask series, they super thin so they really comfortable to wear, and they stay put quite well as long as I squeeze out the excess essence before I put them on. Team up one run. Two outs. Two strikes. It all had lasted for just moments, but in that short, memorable sprint across the southwest, the Navy had been flamed, all mortal airplanes on freq were forced to bow before the King of Speed, and more importantly, Walter and I had crossed the threshold of being a crew. A fine day work. We never heard another transmission on that frequency all the way to the coast.. Just because a big youtuber doesn like a product doesn constitute a state of emergency. Sheesh.makeup needs and lifestyle leans more towards higher end makeup and I KNEW this eyeshadow palette was not for me. I wanted to get it ONLY because it Emily Noel and I adore her.SquishySnail 7 points submitted 5 months agoYeah. Expressing that you the individual are feeling repulsed is not cruel. Untactful by all means, yes, but again like I said, his comment was not directed at her.And let break down that list shall we because most of the numbers you put down are disputable.1 Shaming and blaming with hostile sarcasm or outright verbal assault. When has he used hostile sarcasm? When has purposely shamed her? Kate may feel shamed but that doesnt mean that he intended this. But more than anything, get yourself out. Because a person with nothing to lose is as dangerous to you as he is to himself. That why people are panicking here, not because they view you as naive or ignorant. To have my 장흥출장마사지 mom back. But given that it not an option, try to wait and think and make the choices that are going to pay off long term. The choices your dad would have wanted for your future. XDIt requires a little forethought, which filters out shoppers who can be bothered. So the chance is low that Tarte will figure this out, their emails, and end your discount on demand train.I been banking on this for about two years now. So far, so good!!! My last order was $4.24 for a "cleansing cutie scrubber" ($5 on sale before my 20% off code, and I genuinely wanted to grab this to try because of the good reviews). The assumed knowledge on entry to the MD program will be in anatomy, physiology and molecular/cellular biology. At or before the start of the MD program, students will be required to complete an online Foundation Knowledge Course and self assessment, developed and delivered by Sydney Medical School. This online course will cover the assumed knowledge.

[strangewriterforhire]

Some Bar, Some Where.

The music had a heavy beat to it, interspersed with a sultry tone’s of a woman’s voice caught amid its gears. The voice wasn’t in Anglos, nor Russian Trade or any one of the Asian quazi-dialects that had melded together when the floods came. It could have been Japanese J-pop, or New Korean NJ-rattle, or some other consonant with a ‘pop/sizzle/whatever’ added to the end. It could have been a classical piece murdered by a Dumb AI algorithm programmed to make music that people want to move with, or get away from with delicious alcohol. The fact reminded the music was loud, the bass turned up to the point of worrying anyone with dental work, and it hid the murmur of voices and deals being wrought by those not inebriated beyond reason. Of course the poor lighting, at least the glow panels designed not to strobe with nerve stuttering flashes, couldn’t disguise the low quality of the booze provided to the patrons of ‘Nexus’. The chances of the glass before him coming into spitting distance of barly hops, or any form of natural fermentation, were next to zero. But when you were out here on far edge of The Limb, you took what you could get. Still didn’t make the swill taste any better, but booze was booze. He now felt somewhat better about himself, the engineered fluid alighting across his brains neural chemistry to release a raft of endorphins. He missed real, honest to God, brewed in a barrel, alchaol. Good, honest, mind numbing alcohol added in by nature and not as a feature. He personally blamed the current state of the Union, the worlds spanning conglomerate of nation states all braying for their slice of the action. The Union taxed every gram of matter lifted off of the surface of a world, and taxed coded it for a destination with varying degree's of severity. At this distance from Scotland, Earth, Sol System Relay...a bottle of single malted goodness would be worth more than his life. Ship included. But hey, if he waited long enough maybe the Union would fizzle out? From United Polity before the Burst, and then it became the Unified Polities of Near Earth Space after the Burst, and now it was the Union of National Polities. UP, UPNES, UNP: that was a lot of hull designations to scrub off the nose cone of any ship. At least they kept the paint scheme roughly the same across the century and a half since mankind had burst free of planet Earth. This made ‘Polity Blue’ the cheapest per gallon across the Union and its neighbours to G-North and G-East. But that might also explain the amount of independent merchant skippers who just can’t find the dollars to pay for a paint job, and go out into the black with bare metal to the stars. “You said you had something for me?” The drinker said after a moment’s contemplation over his drink. Yavik Valentine rose from where he’d been slouching in his chair, his dreads flickering in sympathy to the strobes, and focused all four of his eyes on him. Oh don’t worry, Yavik won’t bite your hand off or anything like that. But its so easy to stereotype genies into their respective chimeric categories, that most folks just avoided registering the tiny black pupils set into recessed sockets above his brows. Somewhere in his genetic past some egg head from Earth, or that freak show Venus turned into, had thought hominid DNA and a dash of spider would be a great benefit to the species. A lot of ‘brilliant ideas’ had been made in those dark days, before Venus was intentionally nuked back into a furnace of radioactive particulates by Union sanction: Earth didn’t need a terraformed Hell a few light minutes away. But the fire hand't arrived fast enough before a new niche species of humanity had arisen: the genies. Genetically modified hominid gene stock with animal traits. Most live normal lives, and for the most part you‘d never spot them unless you went looking for them. But then you get examples like Yavik with his four eyes, or that NK-pop sensation Karim-2/40. She could well be living proof that bad girls don’t always change their spots, but when the fur grows out you might need to shave them. In Yaviks case what you ended up with was a scheming masterpiece of a baseline human with some odd optical genetics, twitchy reflexes that made them neurotic as hell, and Velcro like hooks protruding from their skin instead of follicles. This usually made T’antula genies cover up more than a nun in a nudist camp, and more often than not usually ended up with them working in the industries aligning with the production of medicinal canaboids. Well something had to help the grippy freak mellow out. Yavik ran a gloved hand through his dreads, a little pulse of blue light shimmying along them as he did so. “Might do, might do.” He said slowly through a mouth filled with close knit narrow teeth, his eyes still looking deeply into the face of his companion. “Course what I have, as a business man, don’t come free ya see? Ya wanna see what I got, ya gotta pay up front.” “Interesting sales pitch seeing as I got the call from you to meet you in this dive.” The drinker retorted gently, taking another sip of his drink and wincing: coudn't his taste buds take the hint and die already? “I stand corrected: a dive would have better swill than this.” “Hey man, hey!” Yavik cooed, as he slowly sank back into his chair “That's the finest glitter gin this side of the Limb, you treat that with re-spect.” The drinker hated it when people put extra definition on their syllables. If this turned into a paying job, something worthwhile, his rate was going to go up just for that. He gently pushed the drink, now identified as glitter gin, across to Yavik. The T’antula took a single look at the gesture, and almost dived across the table to grab it. The drinker might be a expert of boozes and rot guts, but he was all for drinks that didn’t make you blind when they got to your optic nerve and made you see things. “There, you happy now? Can we do business?” he asked, as Yavik hungrily licked the rim of the glass, his four heavy lidded eyes overflowing with pleasure. The genie merely nodded slowly, reached into his jacket and extracted a battered PassPort from within. As the jacket slid open, the drinker took a second to admire the interior lining for all the latest accessories that were all the rage this season. No guns. No gas. No knives. Maybe this was on the up and up? “Yeah man, yeah,” Yavik sighed contently as he barely held himself upright in his chair and slid the PassPort over the table top. “Yeah we can do business. PassPort’s name is Oronoco, ask the little lady that which you wanna know man.” The drinker eyed the PassPort, before gently flipping it open to reveal the complex gold and platinum design carved into the interior. As quantum computers went, PassPorts were on the low end of the scale. But given all QuantComps are parallel processing super geniuses to begin with, even the ones on the low end of the totem pole ended up being insufferable know it all’s. He placed a hand gently over the gold etching on the PassPort, and allowed his left eye to close. But instead of utter blackness, or the simple loss of depth perception, a woman appeared as his implant mugged his optical nerve in a dark alley. And as soon as he saw the beige coloured uniform, equipped naturally with beige coloured beret, with the cyan blue shoulder boards with that single white tassel braid, the drinker knew he was in trouble. “Implant tag identified: Lieutenant Commander Damien Kitcher. Union Navy ID 33K56-A2. Status: Deserter.” The woman, or more precisely the generated self image of a genderless computer spark, had a trio of seconds to state that name and rank before he yanked his hand free of the PassPort. His eye snapped open, closing off the connection between the PassPort and his optic implant. That didn’t in any way change the intensity of his glare at the laconic drunk on the other side of the table. “Sorry man,” Yavik said with an easy grin, his sense of self preservation already checking out of Motel Lights Out. “Lady paid first, and Union dollars are pretty sweet.” In a split second Yaviks fate was decided: Kitcher didn’t have the time to give the T’antula the proper beating he rightly deserved. His time was now rapidly running out, and the damn NK-rattle music wasn’t doing him any favours. He stood up, watching as the glass of glitter gin soared into the air as his leg struck the plastic table top. He glanced towards the clubs entrance. And right into the smooth armoured faceplate of a Union marine. The troopers armoured carapace shimmered from full active camouflage into something more solid and imposing, looking nothing unlike a cobalt blue human shaped beetle, with semi automatic death on its mind. His eyes flicked from left to right, and caught sight of the similar fuzzy blobs marring his vision: the one at the door was for show, the others scattered around the room were the hazards. They’d be the ones with fingers on triggers, the ones with orders to shoot first and ask question at some predetermined point in time after his blood had cooled to room temperature. So instead of leaping for the exit, of making a break for the service door behind the bar, or even in using Yavik as a human-ish shield, Kitcher slipped back into his seat with a growl. “You’re a dead man.” Kitcher said through tightly pressed together lips, as more of the Union troopers flickered into being. They began to usher the crowd out, using their armours echo assist to basically toss the free floating revellers up towards the entrance portal to Nexus and out into street. The music hid the screams and shouts, but one look at the soldiers made people realign their priorities. “Might be, might not be.” Yavik said lazily before he slowly pushed up from his seat, leaning over slightly “Then again maybe I ain’t the one to be a dead man shortly? I’m just gonna skip out, seeing as this part of the meeting ain’t mine.” “No, it’s mine.” Came a thin, reedy voice that matched the figure of a older man that slipped into Yaviks chair the moment he left it. Tall, almost deathly pale in skin colour, his morticians complexion complimented the funeral suit of midnight black with its high choking collar. The skin over his bald skull was pulled tight, giving his small eyes a constant surprised look. But it was the opal blue eyes, to bright by half, that gave him way: ManKin. Or to put it bluntly, in the parlance of the 20th century, a robot. And ManKin liked working with numbers, problems, and the horrendous political orrery of the Union. Add in the marine guard, and his presence in non Union territory, meant the man in black was working for only one organisation. “Clockwork.” Kitcher said bluntly, looking at the man as a thin smile spread across his lips. He nodded at the still open PassPort. “She one of yours as well?” “Oronoco?” the pale man asked with a slight nod. “In a way. Like any good Union citizen, even a artificial one, she is serving her Polity with national service. Quite diligently so, I hasten to add. Maybe she, like myself and others, will find her higher calling within the Union Navy? Who knows? But as I am sure you know, Mr Kitcher, service can be a harsh mistress. But it is a mistress that holds our freedom hostage until she is done with us.” The ManKin reached out and closed the PassPort. “And that mistress is not finished with you, Mr Kitcher.” Those opal eyes flicked to one side, distracted by some tidbit of information provided to him. Kitchen hated when machine's traded to ape human behaviour, It could be having a half dozen conversations and solving pi without appreciable lag in the conversation. “So you’ve come all this way to get me back in the grey and blue,” Kitcher said with a smile on his face. “I’m thrilled my tax dollars are paying for this will punt out to the edge of the Limb. Didn't know Charlamains Rock was on the approved travel list?” “Oh those tax dollar’s paid for a rather limited manhunt, after all the Union Navy has boarders to protect, worlds to police-” “Uprisings to smash, colonies to manhandle with gunboat diplomacy?” Kitcher finished. “In either case, we have found you. And I have been given full discretion by Earth to provide summary judgement upon your case.” The ManKin smiled, as out of the corner of Kitchers eye, two of the marines drifted down from the clubs upper dance volume. Full body armour, echo assist strength amplification, and what looked like a newer model of the Heckler & Kosh solid state laser rifle. They looked ready to take on a army singlehandedly, and sometimes that had been the case. “So...re-enlistment? Do I get back pay?” Kitcher asked, wishing he still had a drink before him. "At a Lt's wage bracket that could get pricey." “Permanent, non reversible neurological death.” The ManKin intoned darkly, his eyes narrowing down to azure slits as the two troopers brought their H&K’s up and levelled them at Kitcher’s head. The two dots of painted laser light now attached to his skull didn’t hurt, but should the troopers squeeze their firing studs he’d have a very interesting though pass right through his head before the end. The ManKin smiled. “Of course that is my choice, and it just so happens it is a choice I do not want to make yet.” The ManKin smiled and tapped the PassPort again. “I really did expend a lot of resource to find you Mr Kitcher, to offer you a job. Its rewards will see you free of Union complications for the remainder of your life, and you’ll be able to return to Union space. Its been a while since you’ve been home to Midowin colony Mr Kitcher, away from your family. I understand the Midowin culture prizes community and family, if I recall correctly?” The ManKin raised a hand, and if it were possible the two marines stances became more taunt and threaded with a delicate sense of impending violence. “Of course, if you choose not to listen to my job offer...” “I get it,” Kitcher growled and nodded to the artificial person. “Looks like you got yourself a ship and a captain.”

[of-another-broken-heart]

Today was: 

sleep 

so much sleep

too much sleep probably

Then: ouch my teeth hurt omg they shifted because I slept so much ugh. 

I tend to have my jaw lightly clenched, or to cyclically grind my teeth periodically throughout the day [it feels like a tooth/gum massage] so long periods of no-pressure make my teeth shift. Which means as soon as I need to do anything, like shut my mouth or chew food, I get PAIN as my teeth collide in ways they don’t normally. As always, that wore off as I “massaged” them back into normal place. 

I didn’t sleep through the whole day. I woke up and rolled over more times than I could count. I knew lil sis had a friend over. Which was part of why I tried to stay in bed so much. By the time I got up, it was quiet. I assumed the diabolical duo had invaded the friend’s house. I was wrong, though. I got up just in time to be debriefed by mom that the kids had asked to go visit a neighborhood kid’s house, to invite them out/over to play - but then decided they wanted to keep roaming the neighborhood with or without said kid, instead of coming back to our house. Mom had told them “No - your friend has permission from her parent to be HERE, not ‘in the neighborhood’,” but they made a fuss to the point where mom was sure she was going to have to go drive around, find them, and escort them back to the house herself. 

That got me pissed off, because mom is sick and lil sis KNOWS she’s sick, and giving mom a hard time should be the LAST fucking thing she’s up to... 

I had promised to go visit my grandparents, at the very least to pick up that piece of mail PopPop told me was there for mom. So mom asked me to swing through the neighborhood dirt roads to corral the kids back to the house. I agreed, but thankfully didn’t have to worry about it. The kids were gliding into the yard right as I was climbing into my driver’s seat. 

Mom’s sick still, so she definitely didn’t want to risk spreading it to her parents. She tried to go to work today, but the coughing and pain landed her right back home pretty quickly. She should have been staying in bed and resting, but with lil sis and friend doing their thing, idk how much rest she actually got. 

I updated my grandparents about mom’s state when I got there. Nana mentioned something about how my mom is pretty susceptible to brochitis, and mentioned that mucinex might help. I stuck around and chatted with them a bit (I was glad to stay away from the kid circus, and it makes them happy to have little social visits like that) then decided to visit a few stores.  

So I stopped by the drug store and picked up some generic medicines that were similar to mucinex (I don’t have $16 for one box of cold medicine holy hell). I also looked to see if they had replaced the out-of-stock pressed powder color that I had meant to buy. It was still out. Worst case scenario, I bought makeup that’s one shade too dark - but that’ll work out for spring/summer when lil sis spends more time outside probably, and her skin tone will shift to be a little darker. Hooray! I never thought about having seasonal makeup for practical reasons like that. I usually scoffed at the idea, like “Well sure there are different seasonal ~aesthetics~ but you don’t NEED different colors for different seasons!” but then the whole sunlight/skin tone reality snuck its way into one single makeup tutorial and BLAM sense was made. 

Next I swung by the grocery store because I was pretty damn sure we were out of american cheese and I had a half-baked plan of maybe doing grilled cheese and soup for dinner. Easy, filling comfort food. Half of it is soup, good for sick momma. That was my thought process, anyway. I checked the clearance shelves, as I always do, and found some good deals. The chocolate lucky charms cereal that my mom had found, and my brother really liked - two boxes, each marked down to eighty-two cents. A whole bag of onion bagels - at least a dozen - for three bucks. There were some good sales, too. I got myself two full bags of chips for less than four dollars. And two boxes of cheddar shell pasta for a buck seventy. My chocolate-hunting eagle eyes also spotted a thirty-cent clearance tag on the gift chocolate shelves next to the floral desk. Little caramel-filled chocolate squares. I swiped them off the shelf. The whole reason I stopped in was to get american cheese, so I picked up what seemed to be the best deal available (and the only american cheese on sale at all, jeez), and I grabbed some blocks of cream cheese to go along with my onion bagel loot bag. 

I got home to find mom was out. It was pretty easy to deduce where she’d gone. I brought my bag of groceries and drugstore medicine in, and the only obnoxious sounds were the slightly-too-loud living room television and the squawking of the bird and kids’ father. Mom had taken sis’s friend home and lil sis had gone along for the ride. 

I put some things away, then spotted a letter that needed to go into the mail. I decided I’d do that for mom, so she wouldn’t have to do it tonight in the cold, or try to do it tomorrow morning before the mail was collected. She pulled in the driveway as I was halfway to the mailbox. I waved the letter and said “So you can sleep in in the morning!” because there’s no school so she doesn’t have to be the kids’ alarm clock. I’d only remembered that at my grandparents’ house, and sure enough mom had forgotten, too. 

I put the letter in the mailbox with the flag up. (It didn’t strike me then, but... does the mail even come on MLKJr day? Shit.)

I chatted with mom inside, and asked about dinner. We’ve had some ground beef thawed and ready to go for a few nights now, but I asked about doing soup and grilled cheese anyway. She wasn’t really into it. Bummer for me, but not a big deal. My main point was “I’ll make a simple sick-friendly dinner tonight.” So she half thought out loud, half explained to me that she had planned to heat up some frozen fries to go along with sloppy joe sandwiches, and I was like “Okay, I’ll get started. Is there a specific pan you want me to use, or does it not matter?” 

And she was relieved and pleasantly surprised and got to go rest in bed, and I cooked dinner. I tried to get the fries to have a pseudo-fried texture to them, by coating the baking sheet with some EV olive oil, but the bottle we have doesn’t have a dribble spout, it has a POUR spout, so there ended up being a bit more oil on the sheet than I would have liked. And mom thinks she set the oven temperature a bit too low. Regardless of our reliable human error, the fries got good and warm and lightly toasted - but not enough to crisp. The oil coating helped the salt stick nicely, and it wasn’t so much that it actually made the food greasy or oily. Just a smidge heavier than planned. 

I doctored up the meat a teeny tiny itty bitty bit, too. (Can’t do too much or everyone will swear it’s spoiled or something) Some salt, ground black pepper, and garlic powder went in while it was browning. And even though I was supposed to drain off the grease, there really wasn’t much to drain, so I just left it in there. Mom tends to buy leaner cuts, so there’s not much fat that cooks off in the first place, and I was trying to slow-cook the meat to get it to tenderize and soak in some of the seasonings - which gives the little bit of grease time to cook off and out of the pan/onto the oven hood. I desperately wanted to chop up some onion or peppers to put in with the sloppy joe sauce, but even if we had any to add, I would have ruined the meal for mom and lil sis. So just the sauce went in, and I let it bubble and simmer until the fries were done. 

I heated up some canned corn and put a pat of butter, some salt, and some pepper on it, too. Not super fancy by any stretch, but a bit tastier than fresh-from-the-can flavor. 

Everybody ate and there were no leftovers! Except a little corn, because goddamn this family just doesn’t like vegetables =/ even may-as-well-be-bread corn. The kernels I couldn’t eat went into the compost bin. I washed the dishes after dinner, too. That’s normally bro’s daily chore, but he’s off at a friend’s house this whole weekend, and lil sis did it last night (and made a point of expressing how tired she was while she ate dinner), so I figured I’d just jump in and take care of it so mom wouldn’t have to worry about it at all. 

Then I made myself a cup of coffee. Because that’s a good idea at 7:30 at night. But it’s warm and delicious so whatever. 

I’ve been streaming some Legend of Dragoon the past few nights, and I’m gonna do some more tonight, too! Because I don’t have to compete for quiet in my immediate space tonight thanks to bro staying at his friend’s place an extra day wooo! 

[daveshevett]

Jeep JKU Overlanding Build - My Covid-19 Project

New Post has been published on https://planet-geek.com/2021/06/17/jeep/jeep-jku-overlanding-build-my-covid-19-project/

Jeep JKU Overlanding Build - My Covid-19 Project

The last year has been a doozie. When the pandemic got rolling and didn’t look like it was going to be over quickly, I, like many folks, looked for ways to ‘get away’. Some of these plans were born from fear and doom, some from a basic need to just Be Away, and for others, it was a way to do SOMETHING during the pandemic that felt like you were building for the future. An uncertain future to be sure, but a something you could point at and go “I did this. Now I can enjoy it.”

I’ve had a Jeep, off and on, for the last 8 years. Starting with a JKU (which I sold quickly, unfortunately), and then settling into my 2000 Jeep TJ (affectionally referred to as Ol Yeller), I enjoyed having a ‘toy’ that I could go romp in the woods, or just drive with the top off. It was freeing.

I sold Ol Yeller right at the beginning of the pandemic, because I had gotten fascinated with the concept of Overlanding, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized my 20 year old, small (but still fun!) Jeep TJ just wasn’t going to cut it. And, to be fair, the TJ was not exactly a luxury vehicle. It was time to upgrade to a vehicle I could build out into my overlanding vision.

How it started

I began hunting for a JKU (the 4 door version of the JK) in May, 2020. My criteria was:

A relatively low set of miles. 50k-75k was okay.

Manual transmission – Manual cars are slowly going away. This was the last chance for me to have a manual vehicle, I was going to take advantage of it. And besides, it’s fun.

Hard top. I could have gotten a soft top and upgraded it, but either way, I wanted a hard top in the end. In the winter, it’s really the only way to stay warm.

No rust. Jeeps rust. The JK’s are better about it than previous versions, but they still will rust.

The first version of Ghost

I found a JKU that fit the bill, aside from the hard top at a dealership not far away. Took it for a test drive, reviewed it, and it seemed like it would fit the bill. I paid cash for it, and drove it home. While driving it back from the dealer, something felt… off with it. It wasn’t tracking right, and had a bit of a shimmy in it. I had brought up the shimmy with the dealer, and they said they had fixed it, but it still didn’t feel right.

I made an appointment with my local shop (folks I trust a lot), to have them go over it. They did… and… there were problems. It turns out this jeep had obviously been in at least one accident, if not several. The chassis had been shifted forward by an inch on the frame and the body mount bolts were all twisted. The frame had been cut and re-welded (poorly) which threw off all it’s alignment. My shop was definitely of the opinion “This vehicle is unsafe. You need to return it.”

I was, naturally, hurt and felt lied to. I contacted the dealer, relayed all my issues, and they, surprisingly, agreed to take it back and refund ALL the money spent. No restocking, no tax issues, nothing. Just a check back to me. So that’s what I did. I felt a little taken advantage of because I didn’t do a thorough check, but I did have a conversation with one of the sales reps there who said they had another buyer, cautioning him “this vehicle is unsafe. Please take that into consideration when you decide to sell it again.” – I doubt it had any affect, but I had to try.

Second Verse, Same as the First, but better!

So, back onto the market I go. Strangely, I find another JKU, also white, this time with a black hardtop, less than 10 miles from the original dealer. So off I go, give it a test drive, and things look and feel… good! No shakes, it’s smooth and strong, AC works great – I’m cautiously optimistic. THIS time I make an appointment with my shop and make arrangements with the dealer to take the car to the shop for the day for a full evaluation. They agree, and a few hours later, I have a 100% clean bill of health. Nothing wrong with it!

So I became an owner of a white 2013 Jeep JKU Sahara, which was promptly named Ghost.

Ghost was basically stock. Stock Sahara wheels, bumpers, roof, interior. The only ‘enhancements’ were a bit of ‘armor’ on the sides of hte hood, and running boards. It did have the Alpine amp and subwoofer, which was a nice bonus. The head unit was the basic CD player and radio, but everything else was there including steering wheel controls and everything else. Oddly, it didn’t have an FM antenna (??), not sure what that was about. But it was the right price, the right configuration, and felt great. I was ready to get started.

The Build

Over the next 10 months, using whatever tools and basic skills I have, I upgraded Ghost. Through Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, ebay, Crutchfield, and trips to Lowes, I built. There was a LOT of learning. I’ve always been okay doing stereo installs and upgrades, and doing wiring, but this build would require mechanical work. Moving equipment around the engine bay, mounting hardware, figuring out what options to do where. The physical build took months, and wasn’t cheap.

Here’s a simplified version of all the work I did. (If you’d like a fully detailed nitty gritty “show me the rust and bolts” review, checkout my build thread on WranglerForum.com).

Found a GobiRack on Facebook Marketplace – I’ve always wanted a safari rack on the jeep, because I love the look and the flexibility it provides. The fellow who had it was happy to hold onto it for a few weeks until we could get down there. It came with a full on lightbar, and was a very reasonable price. I also learned that these racks were INCREDIBLY hard to come by. The manufacturer was way behind on filling orders, and the prices were through the roof (so to speak). I got this for a good price, and was happy to put it in the garage until I was ready to install it.

A set of XRC Bumpers (front and rear) to replace the stock ones. I was originally thinking these would be needed (on the rear) to mount the rack, but it turns out the rack mounts to the underside of the body, not the bumper. Regardless, I wanted a front bumper to mount a winch, and a rear bumper that was rugged and able to handle towing and getting banged around. This was another Facebook Marketplace purchase. Met the fellow at a rest stop down in CT. Super nice!

A Harbor Freight winch. Yea yeah, harbor freight, blah blah. But if I’m going to be anywhere off road where I might get stuck, a winch is absolutely necessary. I got this during a sale somewhere in November, but didn’t get around to installing it until April this year. It sat on my porch the entire time. My wife is very patient.

A new power control panel and relay box – this is a system that gives you switches on the interior to control exterior lights and accessories, using a separate set of relays. Very handy for high current thing (like trail lights)

A set of grips / handles from Wild Boar. The Jeep is TALL, and climbing in and out of it is a lot easier if you have something to grab onto.

A Vector equipment mounting bar – this goes on the dash and lets you mount equipment to it, like phone mounts, radios, etc.

A Boss BE10ACP-C Android Auto screen to replace the head unit – this took a lot of research to arrive at, but I’m reasonably happy with the result. I find floating screen displays really useful (I know others disagree), and having my gmaps on that screen, plus Spotify, an audio interface, backup camera, etc – a huge upgrade.

A set of new rims (via Craigslist) to replace the stock rims

BF Goodrich T/A K02 Tires.

Replaced the headlights from the stock ‘sealed beam’ whatever those garbage things were with a set of LED lights. The improvement is staggering.

So far so good, but we’re not done yet!

Now everything up until now has been pretty basic ‘kit out your jeep’ type stuff. Folks do this sort of build out all the time, and honestly, the result is pretty awesome. It looks great, it drives great, it’s fun, and it’s comfortable.

But the real goal of this project wasn’t to make another kitted jeep, it was to make something I could go camping and backwoods exploring in, and basically live out of for at least a small stretch of time. To do that, we needed to keep building.

Overlanding Buildout

The next things are parts that any camper would get. I needed a place to sleep, I needed water, food, storage, power, a way to cook, and it all had to fit in or on the jeep in a way that wasn’t horrible.

The first step there is a rooftop tent. This is a type of tent that folds up like a big taco when you’re driving, but unfolds into a big comfortable space when parked. The one I settled on is a Smittybilt Overlander XL tent. It’s quite large, fits me and all my gear and company if needed without a problem, and fits fine on top of the Jeep. This was one of the big reasons I got the JKU – this tent would not have fit on the TJ (of maybe it would have, but would have added more weight in a place that vehicle did not need it. High off the ground.

Once the tent was all set up and useful, I needed to start adding things to make camping out comfortable and sustainable. Anyone who is exploring overland builds will be familiar with this list, it’s the sort of accessory pile that anyone doing camping will understand.

Basic camping stuff like a sleeping bag and the like. I already had all this, so that was easy. The tent has a very nice foam floor on it so its quite comfortable.

A Mr. Heater portable propane heater. This heater is designed to run inside enclosed spaces, so it can warm up the tent REALLY fast and make it quite comfortable. I tend not to run it all night, but for going to bed at night and waking up on a cold morning, one button and you have a very nice toasty room to get dressed or undressed in.

A Gooloo 500w Lithium Ion battery bank that charges from the Jeep when it’s running, and when I’m camped, I can use it to power lights, equipment, recharge various bits, and also power my…

A Foho Portable fridge / freezer! Yes, I have a fridge in my jeep. For food from spoiling without the hassle of ice or ice packs, it’s amazingly useful. When I’m driving, the Jeep powers the battery, which powers the fridge. When I’m parked, the fridge runs off the battery. I can run a day or two in that mode without needing to start things up to recharge.

A full cooking kit that includes pans, utensils, a cooking stove, etc. The stove runs on propane, and I”m thinking of upgrading to a more peppy stove.

A folding table

A 5 gallon water jug

A medical kit

A variety of other gear to keep the Jeep and myself safe, such as recovery gear, spare rope, a shovel, hatchet, spare knife, etc etc.

A bike rack! Having my bike with me means I can leave the Jeep parked and go off and explore, then come back for meals and sleeping.

Given all this, I feel like I have a setup that… i can take just about anywhere. It’s comfortable, it’s complete, and it’s mine. My escape vehicle. Say hello to Ghost.

Conclusions

This has been a year of challenges for everyone. For me, this project has helped channel my needs into a project to build a vehicle I’m enormously proud of (and lets be frank, I love showing off). So far I’ve been camping in it 4 times, and will be going again next weekend. I’m constantly tweaking and adding to the build.

What’s next? Honestly, I’m not sure. I suspect I’ll be fiddling my cooking and heating arrangements a bunch (my current stove isn’t powerful enough). I’m considering a better propane management, something that lets me use a 5lb propane tank with multiple connections. Solar panels have been a thought, but I’m not sure if they’d be helpful (since I tend to camp in the woods). I’m definitely going to be upgrading my radio communications (I have no CB or Ham radio yet), and I want to have a permanent mount for a GPS locator / rescue device.

I hope to go on a couple long trips soon, but we’ll see how the weather, work, and my budget come together. Stay tuned!

[preciousmetals0]

It’s Not Too Late to Buy This Sector at a Crazy Low Price

It’s Not Too Late to Buy This Sector at a Crazy Low Price:

They told me I was crazy.

From the start of the COVID-19 crisis, I’ve had my eye on the housing construction sector.

In several of my weekly YouTube videos earlier this year, including this one, I argued that the sector offered some of the deepest value you’ll see for a long time.

Shares are irrationally undervalued, I said as far back as April, so scoop them up now … they’ll recover.

“Are you nuts, Ted?” they asked. “Economic activity is down; people are losing income and real estate agents can’t transact.”

Elsewhere, many of the same people were pushing the “don’t fight the Fed” mantra, arguing that the stock market will keep rising no matter what.

Except for residential construction, presumably.

Those folks are wrong on both counts. I’m going to show you why … and how you can make a ton of money by ignoring them.

Not All Housing Is the Same

Investors often struggle to understand the housing sector. That’s because “the housing sector” can mean different things to different people.

For most of us over the age of 50, “housing” means a free-standing single-family home. When we think about “the housing sector,” we think about real estate agents and colored balloons tied to for sale signs on Sundays.

From that perspective, housing doesn’t look so good.

Aging homeowners are staying put. So, sales of single-family homes have stagnated at around 5.4 million units a year for most of the last decade. That’s down from a peak of around 7 million before the financial crisis.

And during the lockdown, of course, people aren’t doing much weekend house hunting.

By contrast, annual sales of multifamily housing — often called “affordable” housing — rocketed from around 50,000 units in 2011 to nearly 300,000 units a year ago. Issuance of multifamily building permits averaged around 475,000 units over the last five years.

For example, in Atlanta, there’s been an explosion of construction. Encouraged by local authorities keen to broaden their tax base, developers have scooped up land near transport corridors and built tens of thousands of condos and apartments.

And even that’s not enough. The supply of both free-standing and multifamily housing has lagged far behind potential demand, despite low interest rates.

It’s true that one reason for that is affordability problems. In the fastest-growing urban areas, restrictive zoning laws have kept land prices far beyond the reach of the average first-time buyer.

But signs emerged in the second half of last year that the situation was changing rapidly.

A strong economy, historically low unemployment and interest rates — and above all, effective pushback against restrictive zoning — led to a rapid increase in new construction of multifamily housing.

And it’s precisely that segment of the housing sector — “residential housing construction” — that causes me to be so bullish.

Deep Value

The chart below shows price-to-earnings (P/E), price-to-book and price-to-sales ratios for the S&P 500 Index and for the four largest residential construction companies in the U.S. (For the S&P 500, I’ve used the Case-Shiller adjusted P/E ratio, CAPE. The unadjusted ratio is around 23.)

As you can see, the top residential construction companies are trading at about one third the P/E ratio of the stock market as a whole. Price-to-sales and price-to-book valuations are in similarly undervalued territory.

Of course, we wouldn’t expect companies like these to trade at the sort of valuations we see in growth sectors like technology. So, the appropriate comparison is to the historical average of the ratio for this sector — which is 14.08. By that measure, these companies are at a massive discount compared to historical norms.

Almost all of this discount is due to price drops since the COVID-19 crisis emerged. During recent months the housing sector has been pummeled far harder than the rest of the stock market. Just look at how far stock prices for those same four construction companies have dropped from their 52-week highs, compared to the broader market:

%

Co. A

22.4%

Co. B

42.2%

Co. C

32.5%

Co. D

35.3%

S&P 500

13.0%

Crazy Like a Fox

My bull thesis on housing is simple.

Local governments have dramatically reduced regulatory barriers to affordable multifamily housing construction over the last few years. To encourage new development, they’ve also lowered construction costs by tweaking taxes and bulk utility installation charges.

The result is gathering momentum in the residential construction sector focused on affordable multifamily homes. The target market is younger, salaried middle-class households working in knowledge-based industries like technology, marketing and other occupations that allow for working at home.

For those households, income hasn’t disappeared, so potential demand for new housing is still there. As lockdowns are gradually lifted, buyers will return to this market. And unlike single-family existing home sales, it’s possible to purchase a home before it’s built by using virtual tours and gathering knowledge about the neighborhood.

So, let people who misunderstand the diverse nature of the housing sector ignore it. My advice is to grab shares in the right companies now while they are super cheap. They’re going to bounce back … and they’re going to do so much more sustainably than many other sectors that don’t attract such negative scrutiny.

An easy and profitable way to play this sector is the iShares U.S. Home Construction Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) (NYSE: ITB). It holds both major residential construction companies as well as building material suppliers.

And yesterday, it was up by nearly 8%. That tells me the smart money is starting to come around to my view.

So act fast!

Kind regards,

Ted Bauman

Editor, The Bauman Letter

[goldira01]

They told me I was crazy.

From the start of the COVID-19 crisis, I’ve had my eye on the housing construction sector.

In several of my weekly YouTube videos earlier this year, including this one, I argued that the sector offered some of the deepest value you’ll see for a long time.

Shares are irrationally undervalued, I said as far back as April, so scoop them up now … they’ll recover.

“Are you nuts, Ted?” they asked. “Economic activity is down; people are losing income and real estate agents can’t transact.”

Elsewhere, many of the same people were pushing the “don’t fight the Fed” mantra, arguing that the stock market will keep rising no matter what.

Except for residential construction, presumably.

Those folks are wrong on both counts. I’m going to show you why … and how you can make a ton of money by ignoring them.

Not All Housing Is the Same

Investors often struggle to understand the housing sector. That’s because “the housing sector” can mean different things to different people.

For most of us over the age of 50, “housing” means a free-standing single-family home. When we think about “the housing sector,” we think about real estate agents and colored balloons tied to for sale signs on Sundays.

From that perspective, housing doesn’t look so good.

Aging homeowners are staying put. So, sales of single-family homes have stagnated at around 5.4 million units a year for most of the last decade. That’s down from a peak of around 7 million before the financial crisis.

And during the lockdown, of course, people aren’t doing much weekend house hunting.

By contrast, annual sales of multifamily housing — often called “affordable” housing — rocketed from around 50,000 units in 2011 to nearly 300,000 units a year ago. Issuance of multifamily building permits averaged around 475,000 units over the last five years.

For example, in Atlanta, there’s been an explosion of construction. Encouraged by local authorities keen to broaden their tax base, developers have scooped up land near transport corridors and built tens of thousands of condos and apartments.

And even that’s not enough. The supply of both free-standing and multifamily housing has lagged far behind potential demand, despite low interest rates.

It’s true that one reason for that is affordability problems. In the fastest-growing urban areas, restrictive zoning laws have kept land prices far beyond the reach of the average first-time buyer.

But signs emerged in the second half of last year that the situation was changing rapidly.

A strong economy, historically low unemployment and interest rates — and above all, effective pushback against restrictive zoning — led to a rapid increase in new construction of multifamily housing.

And it’s precisely that segment of the housing sector — “residential housing construction” — that causes me to be so bullish.

Deep Value

The chart below shows price-to-earnings (P/E), price-to-book and price-to-sales ratios for the S&P 500 Index and for the four largest residential construction companies in the U.S. (For the S&P 500, I’ve used the Case-Shiller adjusted P/E ratio, CAPE. The unadjusted ratio is around 23.)

As you can see, the top residential construction companies are trading at about one third the P/E ratio of the stock market as a whole. Price-to-sales and price-to-book valuations are in similarly undervalued territory.

Of course, we wouldn’t expect companies like these to trade at the sort of valuations we see in growth sectors like technology. So, the appropriate comparison is to the historical average of the ratio for this sector — which is 14.08. By that measure, these companies are at a massive discount compared to historical norms.

Almost all of this discount is due to price drops since the COVID-19 crisis emerged. During recent months the housing sector has been pummeled far harder than the rest of the stock market. Just look at how far stock prices for those same four construction companies have dropped from their 52-week highs, compared to the broader market:

% < 52 week high

Co. A

22.4%

Co. B

42.2%

Co. C

32.5%

Co. D

35.3%

S&P 500

13.0%

Crazy Like a Fox

My bull thesis on housing is simple.

Local governments have dramatically reduced regulatory barriers to affordable multifamily housing construction over the last few years. To encourage new development, they’ve also lowered construction costs by tweaking taxes and bulk utility installation charges.

The result is gathering momentum in the residential construction sector focused on affordable multifamily homes. The target market is younger, salaried middle-class households working in knowledge-based industries like technology, marketing and other occupations that allow for working at home.

For those households, income hasn’t disappeared, so potential demand for new housing is still there. As lockdowns are gradually lifted, buyers will return to this market. And unlike single-family existing home sales, it’s possible to purchase a home before it’s built by using virtual tours and gathering knowledge about the neighborhood.

So, let people who misunderstand the diverse nature of the housing sector ignore it. My advice is to grab shares in the right companies now while they are super cheap. They’re going to bounce back … and they’re going to do so much more sustainably than many other sectors that don’t attract such negative scrutiny.

An easy and profitable way to play this sector is the iShares U.S. Home Construction Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) (NYSE: ITB). It holds both major residential construction companies as well as building material suppliers.

And yesterday, it was up by nearly 8%. That tells me the smart money is starting to come around to my view.

So act fast!

Kind regards,

Ted Bauman

Editor, The Bauman Letter

[crimsonblackrose]

After our super sad trip to USJ we were all determined to do a much better job with Disney Sea. Our hotel was nearby, it included a free shuttle so there was no way to get lost, we just had to pick up our tickets and ride the Disney train.

I had a list of goals for Disney Sea

Try alien mochi

Ride a new ride (Lost River Delta) with preferably a fast pass

Watch Big Band Beat

Find and buy the Disney Sea pins.

Anything else would just be a nice addition.

When we arrived a showing for their summer pirate themed water show  was  starting but my friends were very adamant that this time I wouldn’t miss the show on my list. So we bee-lined straight for Biglietteria so that we could try our hands at the lottery. Biglietteria is a small area near the entrance and Mediterranean Harbor with a ton of screens where you scan your passes for the lottery you want to enter. For Big Band Beat that means to get reserved seating (best seating) for the show. However this doesn’t include the first show, it’s for all the shows after. You can also only enter the lottery once. That’s it. It essentially is like playing a slot machine nut if you loose there’s no more chances. So we didn’t win. What we decided to do was to go try and get a fast pass for a ride and just come back to the first show which was a free for all. We quickly headed to the Lost River Delta as the music for the show began to swell and the crowds began to get bigger. We managed to get a fast pass for Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Crystal Skull and then when we tried to get one for Raging Spirits quickly learned that after getting one fast pass you’re stuck with a wait time of at least an hour before you can do it again. (And awkwardly in our case, one hour for two of us and two hours for the third, we and staff couldn’t figure that one out.)

Thankfully a cast member caught us and explained it to us. She also was very kind and since for at least one friend it was her first time at Disney ever, so she gave her a cute sticker so that the staff would welcome her to her first journey to Disney. We also all got first ride of the day stickers with a cute Baymax drawn on it. (That throughout the day and the heat we all subsequently lost at one point or another.)

Since we had a lot of time before we could make another fast pass or go to the first showing of Big Band Beat we headed over to the Arabian Coast to get some popcorn and kill some time. As we were doing this an alert came through the speakers throughout the park in multiple languages saying that due to extreme heat they were asking guests to stay hydrated and take frequent breaks. We figured this was our plan as well and hopped in line for a short 20 minute wait at Jasmine’s Flying Carpets. Then we bought curry popcorn and a cute popcorn box to trade off carrying for the day.

While at USJ we didn’t eat much popcorn, at Disney Sea we ate a ton of it and this Steamboat Willie popcorn bucket was constantly being refilled. (And also occasionally played with since the top makes a fun squeaking sound) It did however sometimes reach the same fate as the Sailor Moon box at USJ, which was that the popcorn after a certain amount of time started to go stale.

Before leaving the Arabian coast we figured we’d see how long the line was for the Caravan Carousel, there was practically no line so we quickly joined, waited for the ride that was going to end and then climbed up to the second floor to pick our creature.

It was just nice to already have beaten our poor record at Universal Studios Japan. We had a bit of time left before the first showing of Big Band Beat so we decided to go grab lunch first. My friends got very excited looking at the menu for New York Deli which was near Big Band Beat so we figured we’d go eat there. We also planned to stock up on water while there as well since we had yet to see any for sale. The New York Deli is huge. There is so much seating. But when we went it was slammed. I sent my friends to get in line while I looked for a spot and there were just no tables open so I hovered. Eventually one nearby opened and I swooped in to take it and wait for them. One came back and relieved me of duty so I could join the other in line and we could order together to save time. I ordered the deli salad. And learned much to all of our dismay, that they didn’t sell water.

860 yen for the deli salad

They did have cups that you could use and a little fountain, but no bottles, which I know is not the greenest thing but to have a container for water that you can quickly shove in your bag on rides is much easier than a paper cup. The salad was okay but very difficult to eat. It was a regular salad but then whole sandwich slices of meat on top, and sticks of cheese, which were not the easiest things to mix into the salad.�� After lunch we headed to Big Band Beat and were pretty happy to see no line.

Big Band Beat is the only show at Disney Sea that’s in English. It’s all music and songs in a swinging jazz 1920’s big band style. It was really nice to sit inside and watch it and it was quite fun.

While the first showing is a first come first served set up, for the rest of the showing the first floor seating is only for those who win the lottery and the rest of the seats are first come first serve. It’s well worth it, we didn’t get there early enough for the first floor seating, but our seats were quite good. Better than the time I saw Hamilton and was behind a pole. I think, it makes a perfect break, especially on a hot day. After the show we quickly found the alien mochi I’d wanted to try.

Three come in a cup and all are different flavors. The filling is chocolate, vanilla and strawberry ice cream. It was so nice.

Because of the time one of our friends left in a hurry to see if she could quickly get us our fast passes for Raging Spirits. While she did that my other friend with the popcorn box jumped into the popcorn line (garlic shrimp) and I went on a hunt for water. What I quickly learned, despite the many many alerts going off to stay hydrated, that water isn’t commonly found at Disney Sea. As the day progressed we realized more often than not that the vendors didn’t sell water. Soda and ice cream yes, but water, no. So it became a thing, that if we saw water we bought it. And sometimes one of us would run off while the others were in line and run half way around the park in search of a vendor that did in fact sell water. It was incredibly frustrating. It was also more expensive than not only water outside the park but the water we’d bought (and had been available at every single vendor) in USJ.

Ukiwah bun 500 yen

I’m a bit sensitive to spicy so there’s a lot of things I didn’t try last time out of fear. But one of my friends who was with me was down to try everything, and since she’s the one who’d ran to try and get us fast pass tickets I wanted to get her a treat, something we could maybe share but also mostly for her. Disney Sea does these cute buns that come in very cute character wrapping. Last time I was in Disney Sea the Arabian coast had one filled with curry and Chandu on it, but because it might have been spicy I decided not to get it. But I’d asked about it in the Arabian coast earlier that day and they said they didn’t sell it in the summer. So instead when we were walking from the American Waterfront into Port Discovery I got in line at Seaside Snacks and got a pipping hot bun to carry over to the Lost River Delta to give her. I could literally only hold it by the the top because it was way too hot. It was very cute and not bad, not spicy either so I enjoyed a bite. It was filled with shrimp. Probably, it’s more enjoyable when it’s cooler out.

Back in the Lost River Delta we learned that the fast pass option had been closed for the day. We’d missed our opportunity to get a fast pass for Raging Spirits. Which was fine. We still had one fast pass for Indiana Jones and speeding through the line, scanning our tickets was really nice. (Though sitting in the Jeep for the ride hurt one of our friends knees, due to some position she got stuck in for the duration.) The wait time for Raging Spirits never seemed to drop below 2 hours so eventually after walking past it a couple times to see, we gave up and returned to where we’d been the luckiest, the Arabian Coast.

It was hot, we were tired. The waits in the Arabian coast weren’t long at all so we decided we’d see what we assumed would be a show and got in line for Sinbad’s Storybook Voyage. It ended up being the best ride. It’s a slow boat ride with a very similar aesthetic to It’s a Small World with singing marionettes. However it tells the adventurous story of Sinbad, a bit nicer and Disney-fied version, and includes Sinbad’s adorable tiger cub companion Chandu, which I had totally mistaken as a baby Raja when I saw the souvenirs and even the curry bun last year. Apparently when the ride first opened there wasn’t any singing and it was a bit creepier and darker and truer to the original story. But I liked the cute adventurous song that played throughout the ride and will keep playing it over and over on youtube. I didn’t get sick of it the way I would for It’s a small world, and it was cool and dark and it was just nice to sit for so long. If you’re in the area and it doesn’t have a long wait I suggest going.

At this point despite taking constant breaks we were running low on energy. One friend in particular, who’d gotten her knee twisted a bit uncomfortably wasn’t doing so well so we took a break and had some snacks

shaved ice with strawberry and ice cream at Sultan’s Oasis

After recovering for a little bit we decided to hop on the Transit Steamer line to take it from the Lost River Delta to the Mediterranean Harbor. I figured it’d be easier on my friends knee and would put us closer to shopping so we could buy the things we’d been wanting to get. Plus we’d be closer to the last popcorn flavor they wanted to try, Chinese Chili which was a little spicy. (Our favorite ended up being the curry)

It was a nice peaceful boat ride and they got to see more of the park from another view, like the Mysterious Island that we’d only quickly passed through earlier in the day to get to our lunch.

The pins were a little disappointing. There weren’t a lot available which even the staff at some of the shops, when we asked about them mentioned. We were told that they sold out often and the options didn’t usually say “Disney Sea” but after some searching we found a couple that we liked, including one of Chandu and one for a new ride that was broken when we passed and with an insanely long line outside called Soaring: Fantastic Flight which you can get a fast pass for. We decided after seeing the line and learning it wasn’t currently running that it wasn’t something we had energy to wait for.

Finally near all the shops as the sun began to set we grabbed a table and got in line for Mamma Biscotti’s Bakery which according to the Today’s event guide for the summer was having some bubble tea drink. It was in Japanese so we weren’t sure exactly what it was or how it tied in to their summer pirate theme. We ordered one and then got a ton of really cute baked goods to split.

The bubble tea drink turned out to not be bubble tea but iced bubble coffee, so we weren’t as happy with it as we’d originally hoped. (As 2 mostly tea drinkers and one dehydrated picky coffee drinker) However the long line at the bakery was for this drink. Our snacks though were really good. We got (from left to right) a banana and walnut muffin (300 yen), a black tea bread with custard (280 yen), and an apple custard danish (330 yen). With everything cooling off, some snacks and feeling a bit more rested we had a small second wind. So we decided to wander off towards the Teddy Roosevelt Lounge for dinner.

While the Teddy Roosevelt Lounge wasn’t on my must do list, it had been on my I’d like to go to list, mostly for one of their insane seasonal parfaits. But I was also hungry. The salad I’d had earlier in the day hadn’t been particularly filling, and I was mostly full of popcorn, and I really didn’t want another night of convenience store dinner. So I figured I’d order food and if my friends wanted to help me eat it then they could. If not I’d do my best.

2,040 yen

I ended up ordering one of their very meaty platters. It came with three different types of sausage (one of which was spicy), a beef pie, and chicken breast. It was a lot. But I felt like I hadn’t gotten a lot of protein (yes I completely forgot my salad had been sliced meat on top of leaves after a long day in the sun) and another friend with a special diet needed wanted some meat to counteract the sweets. It was quite good, but a bit too much for me. While I’m not a vegetarian I don’t eat that much meat and this was like a meat lovers platter. Then I ordered the thing I was most excited for. The seasonal parfait.

The seasonal parfait can be a bit more expensive if you want to keep the fancy glass it comes in (2,260 yen) but if you’re like me and have no space in your luggage and just want a nice seasonal treat then it’s about 1,230 yen. It was so good. It was mostly mango and pineapple with some blueberries snuck in there. So after the fresh fruit which included some insanely delicate slices of folded mango was whipped cream then below that was a delightful fruit sorbet then more whipped cream, some fruit jelly, more fruit and it just was layered to match the fruit on top. Since it’s a seasonal parfait if you have any dietary restrictions or food allergies I’d ask the staff first what’s in it.

Some Teddy Roosevelt paraphernalia

The Teddy Roosevelt lounge has a much fancier atmosphere. The food is a bit more pricier than you’ll find elsewhere in the park but it’s also a lot calmer and has a more adult vibe, especially around the bar. If you want a more chill atmosphere to eat or even if you have a large group it’s a good spot to go. The three of us sat at a booth that could have easily fit 9 or more people, it was insane. If you’re also a fan of US history/ presidents there’s tons of Teddy Roosevelt stuff around the restaurant. And the bar is held up by carved wooden bears.

After dinner we split up. The friend whose knee was hurting and I took the train then shuttle back to our hotel while our other friend who was at Disney for the first time stayed to ride a few rides and watch the fire works on her own. She ended up leaving when the park closed and even waited in the insanely long ride for Raging Spirits.  Ultimately it wasn’t that bad. But oh boy, summer in Japan is brutal, especially at amusement parks without much shade.

Things we did to combat the heat:

We took breaks often. If there was a seat somewhere, whether it was in the sun or not, we grabbed it. Usually one person (me) would grab a seat or hover until a seat opened up, then everyone else would order their food or drinks or snacks and then we’d either switch or I’d pay them back.

If we saw water for sale we bought it.

Anytime we were out in the sun we used our umbrellas/parasols.

50+SPF sunscreen was reapplied when we went to the bathrooms. We even shared with the occasional other slowly burning tourist who’d forgotten some.

We all had fans that we got here. It’s a Korean website, so not easy to navigate if you don’t know Korean, but those fans were great. We wore them on our neck and they  blew air up into our face so our hands were free. Mini portable rechargeable fans are really popular in Korea and have been for the last couple of years, however this is the only kind I’ve seen that is hands free and blows towards you. Only note with the fan is if you have long hair and it gets caught you’re kinda in a world of trouble. (I did this at USJ and my friends had to spend a good five minutes in line for butter beer rescuing my hair from my fan) They also do occasionally turn themselves off.

At the nearest convenience store/ drug store I stocked up on -3 degrees Biore sheets which are these wet towelettes that when rubbed against your skin make you feel cooler. One of my friends did not like them because it made her skin in certain spots have a burning sensation. Like in the crease of her elbow or the backs of her knees. So if you have sensitive skin, skip these. It’s like a cool tingly feeling that I didn’t mind, kinda like a mint product. If you’re curious this is a the Japanese website for what we used. I literally loved it so much that I bought more to take home.

a handkerchief- Whenever I’m traveling and it’s going to be hot I bring a lightweight “My neighbor Totoro” handkerchief that I tie around my wrist to soak up sweat. It’s gross but I hate the feel of dripping sweat so it’s necessity, and it’s better than rubbing my face with my hands, or trying to use my shirt. Plus I can pour water on it and then my wrist is cool for a bit.

bring your own water bottle. Fill it up before you get to the park. Some times there’s water fountains but not often. Or buy several bottles of water outside the park to carry in your bag throughout the day. There really aren’t a lot of places around the park selling water or even with water available. I’d say maybe 1/3rd of vendors offer it. If that.

Surviving Japanese Summer: Disney Sea edition After our super sad trip to USJ we were all determined to do a much better job with Disney Sea.

[itsworn]

Original Owner Still Enjoys His Unrestored 1968 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28

Darn Mick Yonkers! Leave it to that rascal to go and buy the exact car Joe Koski wanted a 1967 L79 Chevelle, down to the color and all. Both gearhead guys ran together on the loud streets of Chicago, growing up during the 1960s. Among their friends and Chevy-lovin’ crew, there was one take on performance: small-block. “They seemed to deliver lots of horsepower without breaking as much as the big-blocks,” explains Joe, who still lives in the Windy City. “Of course, we all knew the great things Grumpy Jenkins and Dave Strickler were doing with them at the dragstrip.”

When 1967 rolled around, Joe was ready to buy his own car (returning his dad’s 1965 Impala). He searched high and low for what he wanted most, a 1965 L79-equipped Chevelle. “I liked the power, and a lot of that was due to the cam, pistons, and the Holley on an aluminum high-rise manifold,’ he says. “Those small-block motors sound and perform great. I still dig the sound of a car with a performance camshaft at idle.”

Shortly after buying the hot car, Joe Koski added an alarm, complete with mercury switches and an ignition cutoff. Gas station staff were foggy on the Z’s equipment, but thieves weren’t. “I didn’t want to lose the car to burglary or somebody with a tow truck,” says Joe. “Chicago’s nice, but I wanted to feel secure parking it on the streets.”

Turns out, he wasn’t alone. Even used, those special Chevelles were few and far between, leaving Joe no choice but to pony up and order one new. “I finished the spring college semester, returned home, and was all prepared to go place my order,” he says. His family’s dealership of choice was nearby Brigance Chevrolet, home of Chicago muscle car sales icon Mr. Ed Schoenthaler.

Then came the news of Mick Yonkers and his shiny new ride, and Joe’s plan screeched to a halt. “I always took Mick for a Mopar man since he drove and raced his father’s 1965 426 Wedge Coronet,” says Joe. “Turns out, he liked Chevys, too.”

Mick’s move ended up being a blessing in disguise. It led Joe to the car he would come to cherish for life.

Wanting to be different from his pal, Joe waited to see what the 1968 Chevelle redesign would bring. His hopes rose when news broke that they’d have the L79, but those hopes dropped fast when he learned it would lack the aluminum intake and Holley carb. “Back to the drawing board I went, thinking, How else I could get that combo?” Ruling out the pricy Corvette, within the Chevy lineup those power parameters zeroed his search to just the Camaro Z/28.

Any time the car needed maintenance, Joe easily got it in the Brigance Chevrolet service department. “Several mechanics were buds, but no motor work was ever done. It has never been apart.” Joe estimates that there’s around 15,000 miles on the car. The odometer broke at 11,780, and he never bothered to fix it.

Joe was in a great spot to see those cars up close. That summer (and the summer of 1969), he worked at Brigance. Most days he could be found in the parts department, then the service department, answering customer calls, bringing cars to mechanics, and occasionally filling in as a service writer and drafting work orders. The daily tasks changed but not the high-powered machines constantly around. “All day long I was surrounded by nothing but performance,” he recalls. “The dealership was moving 435-horse Corvettes and 396/375-horse Chevelles, Camaros, and Novas all day long. I’d come to work on Monday, and first thing in the morning we’d be loaded with cars that had been to the track on Sunday and already needed repair.”

One of the guys responsible for moving that Chi-town muscle was salesman Len Dudas. He was the Koski’s go-to guy, and naturally, Joe sought him to order his 1968 Camaro Z/28. Joe was all of 19 that May, with his birthday just around the corner.

This photo, dated July 1968, shows Joe’s Camaro still wearing its window sticker. He took delivery of his Camaro on Memorial Day, which means he either left the sticker in the window for weeks or, more likely, it took a while to finish the roll of film.

Black was his first choice of paint color, but because it was unavailable, he selected his second favorite, Cordovan Maroon. “That matched Dad’s Impala, also ordered from Len,” says Joe.

Most of his limited teenage budget was taken up by the car’s base price, but he dug deep and tacked on a few options, including tinted glass and an AM radio. Like most heavy right footers buying these cars, Joe left off power steering. “Any added belt on the drivetrain was robbing horsepower,” he recalls with a smirk. “That’s not something I wanted.”

The sports car was delivered on a glorious Memorial Day weekend. Right away, Joe saw firsthand how little people knew about the new Chevy offering. “Driving home, I pulled into a Shell station to refuel.” A curious attendant came out and recognized the car, but because of the stripes he couldn’t figure out just what in tarnation it was. “He walked around and around then finally saw the fender badge,” Joe says. “He paused, looked up at me, and said, ‘What’s a Z-2-B?’”

While many folks Joe encountered sought to know what the car was, many more cared to know what it could do. “People constantly wanted to see how fast it was on the street. I always made sure the motor was in tune, just in case something came up.”

He got plenty of street time to dial it in, but even more on sanctioned strips. On any given warm weekend, he’d be at Oswego Dragway in Oswego, Illinois, competing in the E/Pure Stock class. “You’d remove the hubcaps and trim rings, pop on your seatbelt, and with street tires and closed exhaust, you’d be off and running.” The gearhead was constantly lining up against 400 Firebirds, Road Runners, Super Bees, and ram air 4-4-2s, fighting to be competitive.

“The Z’s tires weren’t wide enough for getting off the line well,” Joe remembers. “I’d pop the clutch at 3,000 rpm and feather and dance with the throttle. Once they hooked and I got going, I’d be fine.”

Although they were close to home, the track’s pits weren’t paved and were quite dusty. “It was never fun lying under the car in dirt.” After hearing of Union Grove, Wisconsin’s Great Lakes Dragaway and its asphalt-coated lots, Joe started frequenting there, as well as the US 30 Drag Strip, just over the state line in Indiana.

His biggest boost in top-end power came from a trip back to the dealership. “Once the car had its 1,000-mile warranty check-in, off came the smog pump and belt,” says Joe. “The parts department sold plugs that fit perfectly into the exhaust manifold.” Another trick he did was swapping in six-cylinder distributor springs, which were stiffer and kept better timing.

When Joe slowed down, he’d be found cruising to the local Topps Big Boy on Ogden Avenue. “I’d back in with the parking lights on and watch the other muscle cars parade through.” The joint was known for juicy burgers, but Joe would instead grab a steaming-hot pie from down the street at Villa Nova, a pizzeria still in business today.

Summertime in the Z was splendid, but come those frigid winters things got dicey. “With those skinny tires, that engine power, and rearend, I’d spin on frost,” Joe recalls. Helping him further take it easy was the 4.88 gear he installed in the rearend. He did it to own stoplight romps, but it did make his highway drives more relaxed. So much so that on December 22, 1969, Joe was interstate cruising, heading home from college, when his mirrors lit up blue and red. “The officer pulled me over for going under the speed limit. I explained the situation and the state trooper laughed, letting me go with a warning.”

Joe would go on to get his degree, leaving Brigance Chevrolet and moving on to his teaching career. His first position was teaching math at the Thomas Middle School in Arlington Heights. Now with a 30-mile commute, Joe sourced a well-loved 1957 Chevy Nomad to drive daily.

Decades haven’t changed Joe’s passion for his Z-2-B (as some called it).

Wedding bells tolled for Joe in 1975, followed by four kids in the years to come. The new dad kept the Camaro around, always figuring out a way to keep it garaged. “My single buddies, like Mick, would go from one fast car to another, kidding me that it was time for something,” says Joe. “I’d always reply that my kids are going to drive my car. Sure enough, it’s been around long enough for that to happen.”

Special thanks to model Eva Le Rouge and car owners Mark Knecht, Chuck Casey, Bob Cyr, and Mike Kohanski for taking part in our photo shoot.

At a Glance 1968 Z/28 Owned by: Joe Koski Restored by: Unrestored Engine: 302ci/290hp V-8 Transmission: Muncie M20 4-speed manual Rearend: 3.73 gears with Positraction Interior: Standard black vinyl bucket seat Wheels: 15-inch steel Tires: P215/60R15 Goodyear Eagle ST Special parts: Sun Super Tach

The post Original Owner Still Enjoys His Unrestored 1968 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28 appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

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[interiorstarweb]

Fall Checklist: Planting Shrubs & Trees!

This blog mini-series is in partnership with Lowe’s! Thank you for supporting my sponsors!

Fall is, hands down, my favorite time of year to plant. Who wants to dig a big hole when it’s super hot and muggy out? Who wants to watch a shrub struggle all summer because it got too hot too quickly after it was planted? Nobody. Fall is a great, oft-underrated time to plant trees and shrubs especially (before they go dormant for winter), and this year I was determined to do both! AND SPOILER: I DID!

I’ve been REALLY trying to pay serious attention to gardens I like when I see them out in the wild—from the layout to the particular mix and massing of plants that make them up, and this longitudinal study into my own preferences has resulted in one thing I know to be true: I love a boxwood. I love them as individuals and I love them as hedges. I love them when they form parterres and I love them when they form other things I don’t know the terminology for. I love that they stay green all winter and I love that the only real work that goes into them is giving them a haircut once in a while, which is a task I actually enjoy.

So let’s start at this area in front of my recently pressure-washed porch. Back when I bought the house, it looked basically like this. See that mass of hosta? I dug that up and divided it, creating TWENTY-FIVE individual plants.

I moved them to the space in front of the low wrought-iron fence with some purple heart and creeping jenny. Evidently it gets too cold here for purple heart to be a perennial (live and learn!), but the hostas have come back bigger and bigger year after year, as they do! They work really well in this spot because they’re so hardy—they get a little abused with foot traffic in this location but they can handle it. And since they die off for the winter, that space can get mounded with sidewalk snow and come back fine in the spring.

You can kind of see right behind the hostas on the other side of the fence, I did a hideously dumb thing. I planted day lillies. They came from somewhere in the backyard, and at this point I know I was feeling like I’d NEVER accumulate enough plants to deal with this yard and I simply had to use what I had, regardless of whether I actually liked it. Personally, I do not like day lillies. They produce a weak showing of flowers once a year, look crappy the rest of the time, and reproduce and spread like a small annoying plague. More on that in a second.

Anyway. Since I know I love boxwoods, I’ve tried to add new ones every year in the hopes that someday I’ll have all the hedges and fanciness my heart desires. I counted them up and it turns out I’ve actually planted thirty boxwoods since I’ve lived here, which ain’t bad! I tend to buy the smallest ones at Lowe’s, mainly for cost reasons. Prices vary year after year, but they’re usually in the $10-range. I planted these three years ago in front of the porch and on the side of the portico, since neither of these foundations are particularly good-looking but nothing a nice hedge wouldn’t conceal! I’m not really a fan of foundation plantings around the house generally (since I want to maintain access to the siding and foundation for current/future maintenance, and don’t want roots affecting my foundation), but I think around a porch is more OK. Boxwoods don’t root very deeply, which both makes them decent candidates for planting close to a structure and pretty easygoing if they need to be transplanted.

Anyway! This photo is from a few days ago, and despite clearly being on their way out, the hostas have all gotten so big and bushy! The boxwoods have all grown! And those day lillies did exactly what they do, which is propagate and look a mess!

It occurred to me that this area in front of the porch might be a nice place to enact a little parterre action, like in that inspiration image (which is Kingston’s own Senate House, the building where New York ratified its state constitution in 1777!). I already have two of the four sides installed! So I ripped all those day lillies out and took myself to Lowe’s hoping the nursery still had boxwoods in stock.

OHHHHHH YEAHHHHHH. I may have gotten a little excited. Did I mention that another reason I like fall planting is because of clearance sales??! It varies by store, but you can pretty much count on end-of-season promotions as they need to clear out summer/fall stock, so these babies were being offered at 50% off! Yassssss. I bought 22 of them, like any totally normal person whose house is under hella construction would, right?

Whatever, I will take a major discounted boxwood windfall whenever and wherever it comes. These things cannot be controlled.

A couple of quick notes about boxwoods, specifically, after having done some light research. Apparently boxwoods smell unpleasant, kind of like cat pee, to some people. Personally, I don’t have this problem. There are a lot of varieties of boxwoods, which is helpful to know when selecting them—particularly if you’re sensitive to the scent! Evidently English Boxwoods are the stinkiest and on the more difficult end of the spectrum to grow. The ones I bought are called Winter Gem Boxwoods which are a type of Korean boxwood, and they’re one of my favorite varieties. They’re super hardy, grow quickly, and have a nice dense foliage. You might have seen people wrap/tent their boxwoods in the winter, but I’ve never done that (that’s totally one of those aspirational fall tasks that current-me totally envisions future-me doing, but likely I will not) and they’ve been great even with heavy snow loads and record-setting low temperatures.

OK THEN.

Here is where I freely admit that I don’t think I’m a natural-born gardener from a design perspective. I love houses and rooms but I find gardens INCREDIBLY challenging from a conceptual standpoint—this is the part of the house I’d totally hire a designer for if I could. That being said, I enjoy the puttering, and I think I AM really pretty good at growing stuff—very rarely do my plants die, and I certainly can’t credit outstanding maintenance or any other special skills. I do, however, plant pretty much everything exactly the same way, so I like to think that’s what I bring to the table. It is not complicated.

It starts with laying things out. Like a dry fit! Obviously this is so you can get an idea of how it looks and figure out if you have enough plants, adjust your spacing, etc.

Once that’s done, I start planting. If there’s mulch (especially fresh mulch), rake it out away from the hole you’re digging so you don’t mess it up with a bunch of soil. Then dig a hole that’s twice as wide and twice as deep as the pot the plant came in. It’s tempting to not do this, especially if the plant is large, but it’s important to give those roots a good chance at success, and the ability to spread into soil that isn’t so compacted.

Into the hole, I’ll throw a few inches of good, nutrient-rich soil. I try not to freak out about exactly what this is: there are a lot of options but basically a compost, composted manure, topsoil, or a soil mix formulated specifically for whatever you’re planting seem to all be just fine (or at least better than nothing! gardeners, feel free to chime in). In this case I’m using compost from my own composter!

The most important thing is to not panic. That’s a general statement but also applies here.

Then I flood the hole with lots of water, and then mix up the fancy rich soil with the water and other soil in the hole with the shovel or a stick.

Then I remove the plastic pot to expose the roots! Look at those roots! Such vigor! Big up, Monrovia.

Then I use my fingers or a small shovel or whatever I grab first to break up the roots a bit. It’s ok if some of them break. This encourages them to spread out into their new environment and create new growth.

Then I just stick the roots down into the hole, making sure that the base of the plant is even with the surrounding grade. Pack around the roots with some compost and the soil you removed from the hole.

Afterwards, I give everything a good soak from above. Sometimes if I haven’t packed the soil well, this watering settles loose soil around the plant, so check to see if you need to add more soil. Of course, I try to remember to water frequently during the first few weeks or so, but ya know. Sometimes that doesn’t work out, but it’s the intention that counts. Unless the plant dies, in which case the watering is probably what would have counted.

So that’s how I plant stuff.

Then I got to break out my new toy—the Greenworks Pro hedge trimmer (which is currently on sale!)! The hedge trimmers use the same battery as my lawnmower and my leaf blower, which I just love. It’s all so easy to switch between tools. The hedge trimmers are seriously powerful and the quality seems great. I almost wish they didn’t work so well because the job was done so quickly and I was just getting into the groove!

You have to be careful about trimming boxwoods too late into the fall since you want the trimmed parts to harden before the first frost, but I felt pretty confident I still had time left on the calendar. I only trimmed the plants that have been here for a few years already and are well-established, and I tried to be cautious to only give them a light trim—just enough to even things out and make everything look under control.

Finally, MULCH TIME! Normally I just mulch once in the spring, but I didn’t get to it this year! I probably would have just waited until this coming spring since retaining moisture and preventing weeds aren’t such big issues in the winter, but mulch also acts as an insulator to keep roots warmer and protected through the winter—which with freshly planted shrubs is more important than ever.

My old faithful is this inexpensive black mulch from Lowe’s. I think of mulching a lot like painting a room—it’s that thing at the end after all the hard work that instantly makes everything look so goooood. I aim for about a 2-3″ layer, making sure to get all the way around the base of the new plants. Then it’s just a matter of watering everything again to help kind of settle the mulch into place.

Different time of year, but this is as close as I could get to a before-and-after! I’m so happy with how this area has progressed over the past few years. I feel like it’s starting to look like something nice! Feel free to review progress from 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017 if you really want to take a deep dive.

The two old rhododendrons are amazingly still going, although I think their remaining years are numbered. I’ll probably rip them out when I make it to restoring the porch itself and need more space to work. It’s possible I’ll have to transplant the boxwoods during that process as well, but that’s OK. This stuff can be tricky to figure out, because there’s so much of the house to get to but I’m not sure exactly when that will come to pass, and I still want it to look good and relatively cared for in the interim! I have a deep fear of making it a decade down the road with this house and realizing I don’t have any mature plants to landscape with.

Oh! I also dug up those hostas in front of this section of the fence, split them, and planted them closer together so they form more of a hedge than they currently do. I think if the boxwood hedge gets to about the height of the porch floor, and the hosta hedges much closer to the ground, this will look nice and layered but still structured and simple. We shall see in the coming years! I hope to get to splitting ALL of the hostas this fall but that might be rapidly becoming a spring project. We’ll all find out together.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! Because I bought…so many bushes.

The rest of the boxwoods went to the newly-restored side of the house, which may not FEEL that exciting—but holy cow, getting to the point that I can safely plant stuff without worrying I’m going to accidentally trample them or squish them with the ladder I’ve moved around this area a thousand times over the course of this summer/fall was VERY EXCITING. Finishing up the work on this side of the house has felt like climbing a mountain, at the top of which are a series of many smaller mountains I won’t be able to climb this fall (like restoring every window), but having the bulk of the work done and something nice happening with the landscaping feels like major victory. I’ll show you the whole thing soooooon!

BUT WAIT, THERE’S STILL MORE! I’M NEVER SHUTTING UP! Let’s time-hop again, back to…

3 years ago, I planted 3 Cleveland Flowering Pear Trees from Lowe’s in that strip between the sidewalk and the street. See them? One of the truly striking things when you compare old pictures of the neighborhood to new ones is the current utter lack of trees in a neighborhood that used to have tons of them! My block, for instance, used to be lined with big beautiful trees, and now there are exactly three trees and they’re all babies and they all belong to me. It’s a shame, because nicely placed trees are not only one of the easiest ways to instantly boost curb appeal, but they also help with pollution, storm water management, property value, and more. Research even shows that mature trees make a difference in public safety and crime! A quick google search returned this nice succinct run-down of why trees are so important to urban spaces.

I am the Lorax.

I’m not sure why it took so long, but it finally occurred to me that I could totally plant a fourth tree in the same line, but to the right of my garage. There’s space!

So I went and picked up another Cleveland Flowering Pear. Flowering pear trees also seem to have a certain…olfactory problem for some people when they’re in bloom (which realistically is a couple of weeks in the spring), which…I’ll let you research on your own. But they’re beautiful, they grow quickly, they flower but don’t fruit (helping avoid vermin that might want to snack on fallen fruit!), and they grow in this predictable, very upright columnar shape that makes them great for a narrow spot like this, where you don’t want to interfere with the sidewalk or eventually have it growing too close to the house. They’re also SO hardy—I probably haven’t watered the three original ones basically since they were planted, and they’ve easily quadrupled in size and are really starting to look great. This is even with the teenaged neighbor kid who seems determined to kill them and breaks off branches and messes with them when he thinks nobody’s looking. Facepalm.

I used up all my homemade compost on the boxwoods, so I picked up a big bag of this Sta-Green Tree and Shrub Garden soil. Otherwise my planting method was exactly the same.

Grow, little tree! Grow! This guy was also 50% off, making his total cost a whopping $15. For a whole tree! Can’t beat that. Hopefully at some point it’ll catch up to its siblings that have had a few years head-start. This also reminds me that I have to get out there and add some mulch around it! There’s always something, am I right?

PHEW! Well I’m pooped! My big fall checklist is winding down, though, and I’m starting to get excited to turn my attention back toward the inside of the house. I guess technically we have another month of fall, so I’m going to try to keep working through those remaining items and see how far I get. Hang on just a little longer, mother nature!

Fall Checklist: Planting Shrubs & Trees! published first on https://novaformmattressreview.tumblr.com/

[carygarman980]

Fall Checklist: Planting Shrubs & Trees!

This blog mini-series is in partnership with Lowe’s! Thank you for supporting my sponsors!

Fall is, hands down, my favorite time of year to plant. Who wants to dig a big hole when it’s super hot and muggy out? Who wants to watch a shrub struggle all summer because it got too hot too quickly after it was planted? Nobody. Fall is a great, oft-underrated time to plant trees and shrubs especially (before they go dormant for winter), and this year I was determined to do both! AND SPOILER: I DID!

I’ve been REALLY trying to pay serious attention to gardens I like when I see them out in the wild—from the layout to the particular mix and massing of plants that make them up, and this longitudinal study into my own preferences has resulted in one thing I know to be true: I love a boxwood. I love them as individuals and I love them as hedges. I love them when they form parterres and I love them when they form other things I don’t know the terminology for. I love that they stay green all winter and I love that the only real work that goes into them is giving them a haircut once in a while, which is a task I actually enjoy.

So let’s start at this area in front of my recently pressure-washed porch. Back when I bought the house, it looked basically like this. See that mass of hosta? I dug that up and divided it, creating TWENTY-FIVE individual plants.

I moved them to the space in front of the low wrought-iron fence with some purple heart and creeping jenny. Evidently it gets too cold here for purple heart to be a perennial (live and learn!), but the hostas have come back bigger and bigger year after year, as they do! They work really well in this spot because they’re so hardy—they get a little abused with foot traffic in this location but they can handle it. And since they die off for the winter, that space can get mounded with sidewalk snow and come back fine in the spring.

You can kind of see right behind the hostas on the other side of the fence, I did a hideously dumb thing. I planted day lillies. They came from somewhere in the backyard, and at this point I know I was feeling like I’d NEVER accumulate enough plants to deal with this yard and I simply had to use what I had, regardless of whether I actually liked it. Personally, I do not like day lillies. They produce a weak showing of flowers once a year, look crappy the rest of the time, and reproduce and spread like a small annoying plague. More on that in a second.

Anyway. Since I know I love boxwoods, I’ve tried to add new ones every year in the hopes that someday I’ll have all the hedges and fanciness my heart desires. I counted them up and it turns out I’ve actually planted thirty boxwoods since I’ve lived here, which ain’t bad! I tend to buy the smallest ones at Lowe’s, mainly for cost reasons. Prices vary year after year, but they’re usually in the $10-range. I planted these three years ago in front of the porch and on the side of the portico, since neither of these foundations are particularly good-looking but nothing a nice hedge wouldn’t conceal! I’m not really a fan of foundation plantings around the house generally (since I want to maintain access to the siding and foundation for current/future maintenance, and don’t want roots affecting my foundation), but I think around a porch is more OK. Boxwoods don’t root very deeply, which both makes them decent candidates for planting close to a structure and pretty easygoing if they need to be transplanted.

Anyway! This photo is from a few days ago, and despite clearly being on their way out, the hostas have all gotten so big and bushy! The boxwoods have all grown! And those day lillies did exactly what they do, which is propagate and look a mess!

It occurred to me that this area in front of the porch might be a nice place to enact a little parterre action, like in that inspiration image (which is Kingston’s own Senate House, the building where New York ratified its state constitution in 1777!). I already have two of the four sides installed! So I ripped all those day lillies out and took myself to Lowe’s hoping the nursery still had boxwoods in stock.

OHHHHHH YEAHHHHHH. I may have gotten a little excited. Did I mention that another reason I like fall planting is because of clearance sales??! It varies by store, but you can pretty much count on end-of-season promotions as they need to clear out summer/fall stock, so these babies were being offered at 50% off! Yassssss. I bought 22 of them, like any totally normal person whose house is under hella construction would, right?

Whatever, I will take a major discounted boxwood windfall whenever and wherever it comes. These things cannot be controlled.

A couple of quick notes about boxwoods, specifically, after having done some light research. Apparently boxwoods smell unpleasant, kind of like cat pee, to some people. Personally, I don’t have this problem. There are a lot of varieties of boxwoods, which is helpful to know when selecting them—particularly if you’re sensitive to the scent! Evidently English Boxwoods are the stinkiest and on the more difficult end of the spectrum to grow. The ones I bought are called Winter Gem Boxwoods which are a type of Korean boxwood, and they’re one of my favorite varieties. They’re super hardy, grow quickly, and have a nice dense foliage. You might have seen people wrap/tent their boxwoods in the winter, but I’ve never done that (that’s totally one of those aspirational fall tasks that current-me totally envisions future-me doing, but likely I will not) and they’ve been great even with heavy snow loads and record-setting low temperatures.

OK THEN.

Here is where I freely admit that I don’t think I’m a natural-born gardener from a design perspective. I love houses and rooms but I find gardens INCREDIBLY challenging from a conceptual standpoint—this is the part of the house I’d totally hire a designer for if I could. That being said, I enjoy the puttering, and I think I AM really pretty good at growing stuff—very rarely do my plants die, and I certainly can’t credit outstanding maintenance or any other special skills. I do, however, plant pretty much everything exactly the same way, so I like to think that’s what I bring to the table. It is not complicated.

It starts with laying things out. Like a dry fit! Obviously this is so you can get an idea of how it looks and figure out if you have enough plants, adjust your spacing, etc.

Once that’s done, I start planting. If there’s mulch (especially fresh mulch), rake it out away from the hole you’re digging so you don’t mess it up with a bunch of soil. Then dig a hole that’s twice as wide and twice as deep as the pot the plant came in. It’s tempting to not do this, especially if the plant is large, but it’s important to give those roots a good chance at success, and the ability to spread into soil that isn’t so compacted.

Into the hole, I’ll throw a few inches of good, nutrient-rich soil. I try not to freak out about exactly what this is: there are a lot of options but basically a compost, composted manure, topsoil, or a soil mix formulated specifically for whatever you’re planting seem to all be just fine (or at least better than nothing! gardeners, feel free to chime in). In this case I’m using compost from my own composter!

The most important thing is to not panic. That’s a general statement but also applies here.

Then I flood the hole with lots of water, and then mix up the fancy rich soil with the water and other soil in the hole with the shovel or a stick.

Then I remove the plastic pot to expose the roots! Look at those roots! Such vigor! Big up, Monrovia.

Then I use my fingers or a small shovel or whatever I grab first to break up the roots a bit. It’s ok if some of them break. This encourages them to spread out into their new environment and create new growth.

Then I just stick the roots down into the hole, making sure that the base of the plant is even with the surrounding grade. Pack around the roots with some compost and the soil you removed from the hole.

Afterwards, I give everything a good soak from above. Sometimes if I haven’t packed the soil well, this watering settles loose soil around the plant, so check to see if you need to add more soil. Of course, I try to remember to water frequently during the first few weeks or so, but ya know. Sometimes that doesn’t work out, but it’s the intention that counts. Unless the plant dies, in which case the watering is probably what would have counted.

So that’s how I plant stuff.

Then I got to break out my new toy—the Greenworks Pro hedge trimmer (which is currently on sale!)! The hedge trimmers use the same battery as my lawnmower and my leaf blower, which I just love. It’s all so easy to switch between tools. The hedge trimmers are seriously powerful and the quality seems great. I almost wish they didn’t work so well because the job was done so quickly and I was just getting into the groove!

You have to be careful about trimming boxwoods too late into the fall since you want the trimmed parts to harden before the first frost, but I felt pretty confident I still had time left on the calendar. I only trimmed the plants that have been here for a few years already and are well-established, and I tried to be cautious to only give them a light trim—just enough to even things out and make everything look under control.

Finally, MULCH TIME! Normally I just mulch once in the spring, but I didn’t get to it this year! I probably would have just waited until this coming spring since retaining moisture and preventing weeds aren’t such big issues in the winter, but mulch also acts as an insulator to keep roots warmer and protected through the winter—which with freshly planted shrubs is more important than ever.

My old faithful is this inexpensive black mulch from Lowe’s. I think of mulching a lot like painting a room—it’s that thing at the end after all the hard work that instantly makes everything look so goooood. I aim for about a 2-3″ layer, making sure to get all the way around the base of the new plants. Then it’s just a matter of watering everything again to help kind of settle the mulch into place.

Different time of year, but this is as close as I could get to a before-and-after! I’m so happy with how this area has progressed over the past few years. I feel like it’s starting to look like something nice! Feel free to review progress from 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017 if you really want to take a deep dive.

The two old rhododendrons are amazingly still going, although I think their remaining years are numbered. I’ll probably rip them out when I make it to restoring the porch itself and need more space to work. It’s possible I’ll have to transplant the boxwoods during that process as well, but that’s OK. This stuff can be tricky to figure out, because there’s so much of the house to get to but I’m not sure exactly when that will come to pass, and I still want it to look good and relatively cared for in the interim! I have a deep fear of making it a decade down the road with this house and realizing I don’t have any mature plants to landscape with.

Oh! I also dug up those hostas in front of this section of the fence, split them, and planted them closer together so they form more of a hedge than they currently do. I think if the boxwood hedge gets to about the height of the porch floor, and the hosta hedges much closer to the ground, this will look nice and layered but still structured and simple. We shall see in the coming years! I hope to get to splitting ALL of the hostas this fall but that might be rapidly becoming a spring project. We’ll all find out together.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! Because I bought…so many bushes.

The rest of the boxwoods went to the newly-restored side of the house, which may not FEEL that exciting—but holy cow, getting to the point that I can safely plant stuff without worrying I’m going to accidentally trample them or squish them with the ladder I’ve moved around this area a thousand times over the course of this summer/fall was VERY EXCITING. Finishing up the work on this side of the house has felt like climbing a mountain, at the top of which are a series of many smaller mountains I won’t be able to climb this fall (like restoring every window), but having the bulk of the work done and something nice happening with the landscaping feels like major victory. I’ll show you the whole thing soooooon!

BUT WAIT, THERE’S STILL MORE! I’M NEVER SHUTTING UP! Let’s time-hop again, back to…

3 years ago, I planted 3 Cleveland Flowering Pear Trees from Lowe’s in that strip between the sidewalk and the street. See them? One of the truly striking things when you compare old pictures of the neighborhood to new ones is the current utter lack of trees in a neighborhood that used to have tons of them! My block, for instance, used to be lined with big beautiful trees, and now there are exactly three trees and they’re all babies and they all belong to me. It’s a shame, because nicely placed trees are not only one of the easiest ways to instantly boost curb appeal, but they also help with pollution, storm water management, property value, and more. Research even shows that mature trees make a difference in public safety and crime! A quick google search returned this nice succinct run-down of why trees are so important to urban spaces.

I am the Lorax.

I’m not sure why it took so long, but it finally occurred to me that I could totally plant a fourth tree in the same line, but to the right of my garage. There’s space!

So I went and picked up another Cleveland Flowering Pear. Flowering pear trees also seem to have a certain…olfactory problem for some people when they’re in bloom (which realistically is a couple of weeks in the spring), which…I’ll let you research on your own. But they’re beautiful, they grow quickly, they flower but don’t fruit (helping avoid vermin that might want to snack on fallen fruit!), and they grow in this predictable, very upright columnar shape that makes them great for a narrow spot like this, where you don’t want to interfere with the sidewalk or eventually have it growing too close to the house. They’re also SO hardy—I probably haven’t watered the three original ones basically since they were planted, and they’ve easily quadrupled in size and are really starting to look great. This is even with the teenaged neighbor kid who seems determined to kill them and breaks off branches and messes with them when he thinks nobody’s looking. Facepalm.

I used up all my homemade compost on the boxwoods, so I picked up a big bag of this Sta-Green Tree and Shrub Garden soil. Otherwise my planting method was exactly the same.

Grow, little tree! Grow! This guy was also 50% off, making his total cost a whopping $15. For a whole tree! Can’t beat that. Hopefully at some point it’ll catch up to its siblings that have had a few years head-start. This also reminds me that I have to get out there and add some mulch around it! There’s always something, am I right?

PHEW! Well I’m pooped! My big fall checklist is winding down, though, and I’m starting to get excited to turn my attention back toward the inside of the house. I guess technically we have another month of fall, so I’m going to try to keep working through those remaining items and see how far I get. Hang on just a little longer, mother nature!

[josephkitchen0]

Secrets of Raising Katahdin Sheep

By John Kirchhoff – For many people, mentioning hair sheep evokes either “I wouldn’t have anything else” or a “No way would I have them” response. My wife and I feel there’s no “best” breed, but rather which “breed” best fits your operation. In our operation, that sheep breed is the Katahdin sheep.

Breed Helps In Property Development

We both work off the farm; therefore time is a commodity in short supply. We feel that our time must be used where it will improve our operation, rather than maintaining status quo. For example, we consider time spent worming, shearing, docking and trimming hooves as merely maintaining an operation.

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If this same time is spent building homestead fencing, water systems, improving lambing or handling facilities, it’s improving an operation. For us, the Katahdin sheep breed fits our operation and our philosophy quite well.

Katahdin: A True Hair Breed

Katahdin sheep are one of several hair breeds, the most common of which includes Barbados Black Belly, St. Croix and Dorper sheep.

While Dorper sheep are considered a hair breed, I’ve found a large number have quite a bit of wool or curly fibers in their coat. Many of the Dorper you see have been crossed with Katahdin sheep for several reasons. Breeders often use less-expensive Katahdin ewes to initiate an upgrading program with registered Dorper as the final goal. Unfortunately, as the percentage of Dorper increases, more wool is found in their coat and some animals lose some of their shedding ability. While I’m sure I’ll rile a lot of Dorper breeders, I’ve seen too many that had been sheared before a sale, which defeats the purpose of a hair animal.

The thickness of a Katahdin sheep’s winter coat will vary among individuals, but it needs to shed completely for an A or AA coat classification, which is the norm. For registered breeding stock, permanent wooly fibers are a no-no.

Hair-Breed Fallacies

Several myths still surround hair sheep. (We’ve heard them all.)

Myth #1:

They’re too small to be of commercial value. Fact: While it’s true that Barbados and St. Croix are small animals (ewes 80-110 pounds), few commercial breeders raise them. Katahdin sheep and Dorper are bred as meat sheep breeds. A Katahdin ewe will average between 140-180 pounds, while Dorper ewes will average 160-200 pounds. Dorper lambs have amazing growth rates when young.

Myth #2:

Hair sheep don’t bring as much on the slaughter market.

Fact: Eight or ten years ago you could expect a 5-10 cents/pound discount for hair animals. Anymore (at least in Missouri) it’s the carcass quality that sets the price. In this area, hair sheep often sell higher than wool sheep. More on that subject later.

Myth #3:

Since hair sheep don’t have a heavy wool coat, they can’t take the cold.

Fact: Katahdin sheep, at least, will thrive from hot, humid Florida to the western provinces of Canada. Our flock is content to sleep outside in the coldest weather and will have unmelted snow on their backs like a wool animal.

Myth #4:

A ewe’s wool will pay her winter feed bill.

Fact: In central Missouri, raising sheep for wool has been a losing proposition for a number of years. Flock owners with less than 50 animals have a difficult time getting someone to shear unless they pool their animals with neighbors. In 2001, my friend with Polypay paid $2 to shear $.50 worth of wool per animal. University of South Dakota research found it requires 250-300 pounds of dry matter forage to produce each pound of wool. We prefer using forage to produce lambs rather than wool. Our spring lambs require 4-5 pounds of dry matter forage to produce each pound of gain.

Feeding

While I can’t speak for other hair breeds, Katahdin sheep are tough, hardy animals with eating habits more like that of a goat. I’ve seen Shropshire being used to keep weeds and grass down in Christmas tree plantations. They were an excellent choice for this as they seldom bothered the pine trees. We have eight foot Scotch Pines that look like a girdled palm tree and have seen them strip an old dried Christmas tree of its needles.

Katahdin sheep will strip the bark from cedars, pines and any deciduous tree that has smooth, immature bark. They will stand on their hind feet like goats to strip any low hanging limbs of their leaves. This behavior causes problems with maintaining desirable trees unless protection is provided.

It’s also common to see animals of up to a year old climbing to the top of a big bale of hay. The desire to climb mandates the use of a bale ring to prevent excessive waste.

Feed Efficiency vs. Flushing

To properly flush a ewe, she should be on an upward nutritional plane and gaining weight. Our grass-fed ewes normally go into the fall with a body score of 4-5, which makes flushing difficult: Adult Katahdin sheep can maintain themselves on poor quality forage that had our Romanovs literally skin and bones. (A friend with Polypay and Katahdin sheep has had the same experience.)

In fall 2000, we grazed our flock on cocklebur and waterhemp that followed an oat crop. Two weeks later, the ewes hadn’t lost any body condition. Any of the sheep breeds that’s considered to be one of the true hair sheep breeds has an advantage in that cockleburs, briars, “stick-tights” and so forth don’t become entangled. (Grabbing a Romanov that’s been walking through cockleburs is like wrestling with a 130-pound cocklebur.)

Growth Rates

As with any young growing animal, the weight gains of a Katahdin lamb increase as the protein and digestibility of the forage increases. At 90 days, we’ve had November-December lambs on pasture, hay and whole grain (corn or milo) average 75 pounds. Our spring lambs on pasture alone (17-20 percent protein and 65-72 percent digestible organic matter-“DOM”) will average 55-60 pounds. May-June lambs on pasture alone (10-13 percent protein and 60-65 percent DOM) will average 45 pounds.

The lighter weights are the result of hot weather reducing forage intake (occurs with all grazing animals) and lowered nutritional quality of cool-season forages. Generally, hair breeds are more heat tolerant than wool breeds. Dorpers are known for their fast weight gains as lambs. 80 pounds at 90 days can be expected.

Gain vs. Latitude

When comparing weights, keep in mind we live in north central Missouri. In Canada, Katahdin sheep commonly gain well over a pound per day. People in the Midwest or southern states see this and make a trip to Alberta to purchase a super ram. A year and many dollars later, they can’t understand why the ram’s offspring doesn’t grow any faster than the rest of their animals.

This has nothing to do with genetics and everything to do with the latitude in which the animal lives: Things being equal, our weights will be lower than the weights of similar Katahdins raised in Canada, but higher than ones raised in Florida. High latitudes (up north) have a short growing season with long daylight periods and fast grass growth that is high in protein and low in fiber. Grazing animals put on weight quickly in preparation for the long winters.

At lower latitudes (down south), summer daylight periods are shorter, the temperature higher, grass growth is slower and is lower in protein and higher fiber. Animals don’t grow as fast but don’t need to with milder winters and longer growing season.

We’ve found that while genetics play an important role in weight gains, flock management, parasite control, forage quality and forage availability seem to be more important when it comes to the bottom line. A common lamb on good pasture will perform better than “Super Lamb” on poor pasture. The best genetics won’t keep an animal from starving to death.

Typical Markets

Other than a few lambs for Hispanic weddings, we sell our slaughter animals through the local auction barn. As mentioned earlier, there’s no price discount for Katahdin sheep or Dorper sheep in central Missouri. This may or may not be the case in other states.

We are fortunate that buyers for the large ethnic market in St. Louis often attend sales. Many ethnic groups want a much different lamb or goat than has been marketed in the past. To appeal to ethnic buyers, it often requires a change in flock management. Bosnians want 60-pound animals while Muslims often prefer 60-80 pound animals. A large-framed, late-maturing breed will not have the necessary carcass quality at these weights, whereas Katahdin sheep or Dorpers will.

Mexicans prefer a larger lamb, and let nothing go to waste. After slaughter, all that’s left is hide, manure and stomach contents. As a bit of trivia, the majority of cull ewes the U.S. exports go to the Mexico City area. Libyans prefer old worn out buck goats for their “stronger flavor”. Most Muslims prefer intact ram lambs without tails being docked. It’s important to have an animal that’s “pure” or unaltered for sacrifice in observance of many holidays. This is inconvenient since you must pasture ram lambs separately from ewes to prevent unplanned pregnancies.

Many Greeks eat lamb for Easter, which is not always the same date as the traditional Easter.

In years past, 18-30 pound lambs sold well in Chicago for Jewish Passover. This market presented difficulties such as lambing in the dead of winter, having lambs large enough (especially when Passover comes early) and pooling with your neighbors to find enough lambs for a truckload.

Mexican Market

For a number of years, there has been a good export market for ewe lambs going to Mexico. They like large groups of lambs on each farm, prefer solid colors, registered and must be enrolled in the scrapie program. While we’ve missed out on export sales the last several years because of retaining ewes to increase flock numbers, Mexican buyers will be coming by this spring.

Work with your state’s department of agriculture if you’re interested in export sales. They can provide you with information pertaining to regulations, health requirements and local export brokers. Since Missouri has more Katahdin sheep than any other state, the majority of export animals come from here.

Breeder Markets

We also sell breeding stock locally. A quality registered lamb will bring triple the fat lamb price. To be successful, you must sell quality, and I stress quality animals; send anything else to slaughter. To showcase the commercial qualities of our animals, all breeding stock we sell comes directly from pasture, having received no special treatment.

Marketing Crossbreds

For several years we’ve had Romanov/Katahdin crosses. The first generation grows quite well due to the heterosis effect, but nearly always has a wool coat. These slaughter lambs sell comparable to pure Katahdin sheep per pound unless they’re full of cockleburs and briars. If you’re grazing crop-field aftermath, their coat will pick up trash where a Katahdin won’t.

As we disperse all our crossbreeds, we’ve found the crossbred cull ewes with a wool coat have sold for 50-75 percent of what comparable weight hair ewes bring. This may be due to the fact that wool can hide a lot of rib bones and other defects, while with a hair sheep what you see is what you get.

Health Care

People converting to hair sheep breeds all notice certain things.

As mentioned earlier, hair sheep breeds are considerably more heat-tolerant than wool breeds.

When the weather’s hot and the pastures are dry, their wool animals will be under a tree while the hair animals are out grazing.

When the pastures are poor, hair animals hold their body condition much better.

Hair sheep breeds (Katahdin, St. Croix, Barbados) generally have much greater parasite resistance than wooled breeds, especially after one year of age. Research has shown Dorper have good parasite tolerance or resilience rather than resistance. They can harbor significant worm populations, yet not suffer the same effects a wool animal would. We normally worm our lambs 3-4 times a summer and the ewes not at all. Several Polypay owners in the area worm all animals 6-8 times during the summer and still lose animals to stomach worms.

Ticks, keds and flystrike are not a problem and to date, there has never been a Katahdin with scrapie.

We find it’s seldom necessary to trim hooves. Twice a year my friend with Polypays shows up at work doubled over as he shuffles around in pain. Sure enough, he’s been trimming hooves.

While I can’t speak for other hair sheep breeds, Katahdin sheep are often more “flighty” than many other breeds: Several producers of both hair and wool animals have found coyote losses are considerably lower with Katahdins. Apparently, Momma Kathadin doesn’t wait around to see what happens when Mr. Coyote shows up for dinner.

The flocking instinct of hair animals generally isn’t as good as wool breeds. Our young Katahdins can be difficult to move. Rather than stay in a group, they will scatter in all directions like a covey of quail.

Most hair sheep breeds will lamb out of season without resorting to hormone therapy.

My friend also mentioned his Katahdin-Dorper lambs are much fatter when born than Polypays.

Docking tails is unnecessary, although you still see some “old timers” that dock just because they always have.

Getting Down to Business

After lambing season, most of our “sheep time” is spent managing our pastures so that we can provide our animals with the best quality forage possible. The low maintenance qualities of Katahdins allow us the time to do so. As mentioned earlier, the Katahdin breed has served us well.

We may be partial to the breed, but we’re not raising a hobby flock. While many of the characteristics hair animals possess appeal to the hobby flock owner, we expect an animal to make us money; if it doesn’t, it’s gone. If there were a hair Hampshire or Suffolk that would do a better job, we’d be raising them.

About Our Operation

Fourteen years ago my wife got into the sheep business when she purchased three registered Katahdin ewes, a ram, and later, three Romanov ewes. Four years ago we began converting all our cropland into pasture and expanded the flock. We are currently running 130 registered ewes with 10 commercial ewes that will be dispersed this year.

We have an 18-cell planned grazing system with 10,000 feet of electric fence and 5,000 feet of underground waterline on 35 acres. We are in the process of installing another 10,000 feet of electric fence on 25 acres that will result in another nine paddocks.

This spring we had an overall lambing average of 1.9 lambs/ewe born with 1.7 lambs weaned.

Thirty percent of the ewes were first-time lambers, having an average of 1.2 lambs/ewe. Of the ewe lambs exposed, 95 percent gave birth at the age of 11-13 months. Our experienced ewes averaged 2.1 lambs/ewe born with 1.9 weaned.

Three ewes needed assistance lambing (one got it, the other two didn’t and lost their lambs), one of which was 8 years old.

The majority of ewe lambs are sold as registered breeding stock; the majority of ram lambs are sold for slaughter. Breeding stock is selected under rigorous criteria, including parasite resistance, hair coat, growth characteristics on grass alone and general thriftiness. Plans for the future include a larger lambing/working shed-currently under construction, later lambing to reduce cold weather losses (10 percent death loss for everything combined, stillborn, drowning in water tank, mashed, runts, etc.), more intense selection for increased body length and a ewe flock of around 160-175 ewes.

Originally published in sheep! November/December 2003 and regularly vetted for accuracy.

Secrets of Raising Katahdin Sheep was originally posted by All About Chickens

[pressurewave]

Echigoya Music in Shibuya

Echigoya music in Shibuya is a small shop with a lot of good stuff going on. I went there specifically to find modules from Japan’s Hikari Instruments and beatnic.jp. I stopped in in the evening, and the place had two clerks, and one other customer in the shop. You’re greeted, on entry, by a full Roland System 100, and a stack of various Akai MPC samplers. You can find different types of headphones, more recent synths (I saw a Minilogue, Mother 32, System 1-M, Werkstatt, and some others when I visited), and a selection of rack-mounted effects units.

If you’re looking for their specific hardware stock, I recommend checking their site, which is pretty easy to navigate, even if you don’t read Japanese. Of particular note is the used section there, which contains drum machines, Eurorack modules, desktop synths, keyboards, stomp boxes, turntables, and all sorts of other gear.

The folks in the shop are super helpful, and their English is above par for shop workers in the area. I really enjoyed talking to the gentleman who helped me. He even talked with me about local upcoming synthesizer events in the area, which might be useful for people visiting and hoping to see local electronic music.

I’m deeply Eurorack-focused in may synth acquisition. I spent a little time playing with the modules they had set up, which included a Hikari Analog Sequencer, a Mutable Instruments Elements, a JoMoX Mod Brane, and a 4ms Pingable Envelope Generator. The sequencer was ultra-simple, but really functional and ergonomically designed. I dropped the clock down low and used it to send voltages into the Elements. The folks in the shop were patient with the knob-twiddling. It takes a special sort to spend all day in a shop like that, I’ll bet. 

I completely fell in love with the Hikari Instruments modular mini case, which, unfortunately, they only had the demonstration version of. It’s a really gorgeous, simple design, though, with a genius little power supply. I immediately made a ModularGrid setup for it, and I’ll grab one as soon as they’re back in stock at ClockFace.

I do need to mention the oddity of prices. The reason I personally focused on Hikari Instruments and beatnic.jp gear is because they are hard to find in the US, and when you do find them, the prices are a little higher than they are in Japan. Similarly, prices on synths and Eurorack modules at Echigoya may be a little higher than you might find in the US. I have two examples that will help illustrate this difference.

Consider, first, the Make Noise Echophon. New, you might find this module in the US for $399. I recently saw one one Reverb for $300, a price you might also see in a trade forum for a person-to-person sale or exchange. Perfect Circuit had a floor model for sale for $340, when I checked. Echigoya was selling a used one for ¥37,900, so about $350. Like Perfect Circuit, Echigoya is a shop with overhead and a location in a popular part of town. Their price is still a discount off of the original price. Yes, it’s a little more, but considering how far the module traveled to get there, not unreasonable for locals looking for modules.

On the other hand, a Make Noise 0-Coast costs $499 new in the States. Echigoya has a new one listed at ¥59,800 on their site, which is about $552 by current exchange rates. So, this new unit is a bit more pricy.

My point is, if you live in the US, consider what modules/synths from here cost here, and understand that there will be a markup if you buy them in Japan, even used. On the other hand, the Hikari module I got, and the beatnic.jp device I got specifically at Echigoya were about $20 and $10 cheaper in Japan, respectively.

Overall, I really enjoyed Echigoya. I really recommend stopping in there if you are in Shibuya.