Deluxestogie Grow Log 2020

[deluxestogie]

Sumatra Deli leaf (traditional Sumatra wrapper) is a tall, columnar plant that resembles Oriental Basma types in general shape and plant habitus. I have suspected that it originated from the same wave of Dutch traders who dispersed tobacco seed to the Ottoman Empire. It might be interesting to plant some Sumatra Deli closely, like an Oriental, and see what I get.

That notion (a holdover from 17th century Dutch traders) may also apply to the tobacco grown in the remote village of Ainaro, Timor-Leste. @Tutu noted in his travel log that there appeared to be no commercial tobacco growing at that high elevation, and that the seed he collected came from the small, personal crop of an isolated peasant farm. Ainaro might just be related to the Samsun family of Orientals (Samsun, Bafra, Trabzon, Katerini).

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

My only Ainaro consists of two plants in the field. I'm concerned that I may not have time for blossoming to progress far enough to produce seed. Since a horizontal tobacco stalk will put out roots wherever it touches the soil, I am considering an attempt at root layering the Ainaro just below the crows foot of one of the plants. If that worked, then I could snip the top stalk below the layered roots, and stick the top into a pot of soil, to carry indoors on cold nights.

What I have I have in mind is wounding the side of the upper stalk, then wrapping it in water-soaked material, enclosed within a waterproof wrap. I'll post some photos, if I go ahead and try this. If the technique works, it would be a valuable asset to northern growers who have difficulty producing seed.

Bob

 

[plantdude]

My only Ainaro consists of two plants in the field. I'm concerned that I may not have time for blossoming to progress far enough to produce seed. Since a horizontal tobacco stalk will put out roots wherever it touches the soil, I am considering an attempt at root layering the Ainaro just below the crows foot of one of the plants. If that worked, then I could snip the top stalk below the layered roots, and stick the top into a pot of soil, to carry indoors on cold nights.

What I have I have in mind is wounding the side of the upper stalk, then wrapping it in water-soaked material, enclosed within a waterproof wrap. I'll post some photos, if I go ahead and try this. If the technique works, it would be a valuable asset to northern growers who have difficulty producing seed.

Bob

I've had faster results air layer plants with some rooting hormone (IAA) added to the wound. I've never tried it on tobacco though. I notice there are a lot of do it yourself homemade rooting hormone recipes if you don't happen to have a bag of rooting hormone laying around - I've never tried any of them, but some sound interesting (aspirin, apple cider vinegar, cinnamon...) The aspirin might he worth trying since it's essentially salicylic acid and should kick off the disease response pathway and increase auxins - keep the plant from getting a headache anyway

 

[deluxestogie]

I've hooked my Prilep stalks onto a coat hanger, so that I can easily move them into the shed when rain threatens.

Bob

 

[skychaser]

("Let's see. $40 per hour times 2½ weeks. That'll comes to... Well, you owe us your first born.")

At $40 per hour you are getting off cheap. My JD dealer charges $108 per hour for shop time. But that is the farm equipment dealer and not the lawn mower guys. And $108 per hour is why I learned to be my own mechanic. I had all kinds of issues with the hydraulic systems on my old JD 3010 so I gutted the whole system. The pump, loader controls, rock shaft, steering, all of it. After over 3 weeks of working on it and $1200 in new parts, I am happy to announce that it lives again! I just finished putting the hood and side covers back on this morning. And gave it a lube job. And everything works perfectly now.

Big green tractor

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVADwhsp-Os

 

[deluxestogie]

Well, not all that cheap, it turns out. I decided not to burden the forum with my further John Deere dealer saga. They will charge me $104 per hour x 2 hours, plus ~$200 for parts, to fix the steering on the lawn tractor, can probably pick up the lawn tractor early next week, and have it all ready to be delivered to me in about 2 weeks after that.

Four days from now, the $74 of required parts that I ordered through Amazon will arrive here from California. I'll be fixing the steering myself.



More importantly, this morning, Kylo, a house wren who enjoys perching on my porch railing while I talk to him, decided to perch even closer, on the back of the other porch chair. Kylo is always noisy with his chirping and his loud wing flutters. He eats every nearby bug he finds.

An hour later, Mo, the Monarch butterfly who visits my porch regularly, year after year, decided to land on my right index finger today.

Bob

 

[plantdude]

Well, not all that cheap, it turns out. I decided not to burden the forum with my further John Deere dealer saga. They will charge me $104 per hour x 2 hours, plus ~$200 for parts, to fix the steering on the lawn tractor, can probably pick up the lawn tractor early next week, and have it all ready to be delivered to me in about 2 weeks after that.

Four days from now, the $74 of required parts that I ordered through Amazon will arrive here from California. I'll be fixing the steering myself.

View attachment 33159

More importantly, this morning, Kylo, a house wren who enjoys perching on my porch railing while I talk to him, decided to perch even closer, on the back of the other porch chair. Kylo is always noisy with his chirping and his loud wing flutters. He eats every nearby bug he finds.

An hour later, Mo, the Monarch butterfly who visits my porch regularly, year after year, decided to land on my right index finger today.

Bob

Nothing runs like a deer, till it don't my grandpa had an old deer tractor that he would spend about a week fixing every year. No idea how old the thing was though. He had it from the time I could remember as a little kid to the time he died so that was at least 25 years and I'm sure he had it for years before I was even a thought.
Good luck fixing it.
Bob, I hate to be the one to break this to you (brace yourself), but Mo isn't going to be back next year. Their lifespan is only about 8 months and the butterfly stage is about 6-8 weeks. Maybe his spirit is reincarnated and he returns to you each year. Or maybe it is the reincarnated spirits of all the evil hornworms that ate your tobacco and they are returning to pay their penance to you.

 

[skychaser]

I bought a new push mower at the beginning of summer many years ago. One of the few brand new things I ever bought. Within the first couple weeks it started smoking like crazy. It was under warranty so I called the place I got it. They said there was some issues with cracked blocks on those and to bring it in and they would send it back to the factory for replacement. No charge, no problem. Except it was going to take 3 months for me to get a new one. My lawn would be waist high by then so I bought a used one from an add in the paper. When I got the new one back it went all to hell within 2 months again. The old used one lasted for years.

A couple weeks ago I was sitting on my front porch when suddenly this big bird came flying threw and came within a foot of my face as it flew on off the far end of the porch. I said wtf was that?! The cat laying on the porch in front of me did a back flip and said wtf was that?! It looped around a big fir tree and landed on top of my front gate about 30 feet away. I could tell it was a Falcon then. It sat there long enough for me to grab my lap top and search falcon images. Up came several pictures. It was a Gyr Falcon. I've seen Peregrine Falcons and Marsh Hawk Falcons here before but never a Gyr. They are supposed to be birds of the arctic, but I have no doubt it was a Gyr. And it was huge compared to the other Falcons I have seen. The cat and I stared at it for several minutes until a squirrel up in the fir tree let out a chatter, then off it went. The squirrel likes to drink out of the cats water bowl on the porch so I guess that it what it was after in the first place. Pretty cool experience though to be nearly hit by a Gyr Falcon. And to get such a nice long look at it from so close.

 

[deluxestogie]

I hate to be the one to break this to you

I write fantasy. Sometimes fantasy is way better than reality. So, you're saying that my deeply personal conversations with Mo are actually just me talking to strangers? But...but the hummingbird that visits has been the same one for years. That counts for something. And he really likes tobacco blossom nectar. I've made him an honorary member of FTT.

Bob

 

[plantdude]

I write fantasy. Sometimes fantasy is way better than reality. So, you're saying that my deeply personal conversations with Mo are actually just me talking to strangers? But...but the hummingbird that visits has been the same one for years. That counts for something. And he really likes tobacco blossom nectar. I've made him an honorary member of FTT.

Bob

Fantasy is almost always way better than reality. Now the hummingbird, I'll give you that one. That's in the realm of possibility with those little nicotine addicts

 

[deluxestogie]

Years ago, I pulled the V-8 engine out of my pickup truck, disassembled it in a shed, rebuilt it from the crank case up, bearing by bearing, bolt by bolt. I replaced the transmission as well. Lots of work, but no problem.

Simple little snap ring.

This week, in trying to replace the simple steering on my Oh Deere! lawn tractor--a lawn tractor, I have been stopped by a single snap ring. It was intentionally engineered to be in a wholly inaccessible location, so that the Oh Deere! dealers can rake in cash on doing repairs. After spending hours removing the steering shaft and disconnecting the steering sector, the only thing remaining is that one snap ring. I can feel it with my finger tips of one hand. No two-hand access. The only way I can even see it is peering through a little hole in the steel body frame. There is a heavy steel rod preventing any direct, horizontal access to it. Vertical access is mostly blocked. What moron engineering!

Where the snap ring is hidden.

It requires tiny, angled snap ring pliers, which I don't have. I spent another two hours attempting every alternative way to remove that tiny snap ring, with no success. (Two small, flat blade screwdriver blades together with a fulcrum would do it, but only one hand can reach in there--and mostly blindly.)

What I can actually see.

I won't drive into town and shop for the tool. I finally gave up, and ordered the $5 tool, which comes to $14 with shipping and card fee. It should arrive by the time my overgrown lawn has turned into a jungle too dense for the Oh Deere! to even mow it.

Bob

 

[skychaser]

How important is that piece of metal the arrow points at in pict 2? I say get a crescent wrench or pipe wrench and make some "modifications" to their design. Bend it up. Or put a cutting wheel in your grinder and cut it off! I've run into that sort of thing so many times. Engineers should be forced to tear down and rebuild what they design. Then they would see why putting that bolt or clip or what ever where they did is STUPID. I replaced a whole bunch of those type clips on various linkages on my Deere. Half were missing and had wire twisted around them trying to hold it together. Others were bent or rusty and about to break. I bought one of those tools for clips a few years back. But can I find it? NO! Now that I am all done replacing them all with a screw driver, needle nosed pliers and a lot of cuss words, I will find it in the next week. Probably in a drawer I looked in 3 times already. But at least I could see my clips so I could swear at them properly.

 

[plantdude]

I have to agree with @skychaser. I ran into a similar situation with a counter mounted drop in cooktop about 7 seven years ago. All the counter mounted units were twice as expensive and the wife had her heart set on a nice black oven with a glass cooktop. I got a hand saw and cut the whole thing out of the counter. The new oven fit in nicely. I wish I could find the pictures, I had a nice sign reading hold my beer and watch this after I cut the mess out if it's not structurally important find a way to get access

 

[deluxestogie]

How important is that piece of metal

That piece of metal is what the (removed) battery normally sits on. So if I managed to hacksaw through 8" of it by hand, I would then have to fabricate a battery shelf later. But I seriously tried to bend the metal up, to reach that snap ring. No tool or improvised implement of destruction that I possess was capable of bending that steel. It's as heavy a gauge as the chassis frame. No bending it! If there were fewer obstructions, I just might have been able to bend it with a vise grip and a long steel bar.

I even considered cutting (smashing) a hole in the base of the steering console (that black plastic pedestal to the left in the photo), but decided that I still would not have adequate access. The console can be removed by simply disassembling most of the tractor.

[I failed to mention that the tarp that I used to cover it during the heavy rain is apparently no longer waterproof. Everything (parts, tools, etc.) that I left sitting on the lawn tractor, beneath the tarp, was soaked. Some had begun to rust.]

Later today, I discovered that the power to my curing shed is out. A Romex cable spans the 3' or so between the old shed and the even older farmhouse. There, it vanishes beneath the edge of the house roof. There is no separate circuit breaker that goes to it. Mystery wiring behind the old fashioned lath and plaster wall. I'll have to ponder that another day. So for now, no light or fans in my curing shed.

Some weeks are better than others.

Bob

 

[plantdude]

Some weeks are better than others.

I can agree with that.

Might be worth a drive in to town.

 

[skychaser]

..."No tool or improvised implement of destruction that I possess was capable of bending that steel. It's as heavy a gauge as the chassis frame. No bending it! "...

Option #3. Blow torch! Cut a hole in the sucker. lol

It hasn't rained here in over 70 days. We have been choking in smoke for a week now too. Yesterday the weather wizards finally predicted some rain from a front moving in off the Pacific today, and possible thunderstorms. And that our smoke would clear out starting today. But nope. The smoke is even worse today than yesterday. I just spent the last hour picking up everything I didn't want to get wet and putting all my tools away. And secured anything the wind might get in a thunderstorm. I just saw the forecast 5 minutes ago when I came in. Now the wizards say all the rain is going to miss us. But maybe we will get some rain by the end of next week. Still predicting the smoke wil start moving out. Suuurree it will..... I believe them.

I spent part of my afternoon picking 100 lbs of tomatoes for a lady who cans. She was coming in the morning to get them. But she called and left a message just before I came in and said her boss just told her an hour ago that she has to work all weekend now. Mandatory over time to finish a project that must be done by Monday! So no canning for her this weekend. She seemed genuinely upset about it. She wanted to can. And now I have 100 lbs of tomatoes to rehome. Criagslist here I come! A dozen others things didn't go quite right this week either. Mostly piddly stuff, but still... I know how you feel Bob. Some days you get the bear, and some days the bear gets you.

 

[plantdude]

Yep, and sometimes thing suck. And sometimes things that really do suck have a happier ending. In the grand scheme of things a lawn mower is a minor distraction. Fix it, don't fix it, the grass still grows. Tall grass is beautiful in the wind, short grass looks nice too. Personally I would be happy with either. It'll work itself out in the end - redneck philosophy 101.

 

[deluxestogie]

redneck philosophy 101.

Broader spectrum of philosophy:

Bob

 

[plantdude]

Broader spectrum of philosophy:

Bob

Yeah, but mine is free. You can't put a price on that My old philosophy professor once said if anyone is considering a degree in philosophy come see me, my real job is working for the forest service.
Looking at the cobwebs in the picture tells me you must have some of the most educated spiders around though - better keep a close eye on those

 

[deluxestogie]

As the leaf on my stalks of sun-curing Prilep 66-9/7 complete their sun-cure (curing first at the base of the stalk and working toward the tip), I pluck them off, and move them to a bushel basket in my shed. I check the leaf in the basket daily, and toss it all like a salad, to keep it equally dry. Of what I have collected so far, only a few are tinged green.

The Prilep is sun-curing more yellow than the Trabzon that I grew in 2019.

Bob