Vegetable Pick-up

I'm just about to go pick up our weekly share of vegetables from the local farm, Heaven's Harvest. Here is what is in season now in Massachusetts:

Scallions
Edible Snap Peas
Edible Pod Peas
Pickling Cucumbers
Bok Choi
Green Peppers
Sweet Potatoes
Red Cabbage
Zucchini
Yellow Squash
Dandelion Greens
Green Leaf Lettuce
Red Boston Lettuce
Red Kale
Parsley
Sage
Oregano
Thyme

A full share is a bushel; we just get a half share, which means we only get the items that I've marked in red. However, we have gotten all of the other items in previous weeks.

This is the third week of produce (out of 15 total). The first two weeks we also got a pint of strawberries, but the cool wet weather has already washed out the rest of the strawberry crop. Blueberries are next.

The farmers bring our share, plus those for about 80 other families, to a warehouse here in town, once a week. I can ride my bike to go pick them up -- they fit in a backpack. When carrots come in, the carrot leaves fly out the top of the backpack like a flag.

It is fun to get these veggies and then have to figure out how to use them up within a week. Also interesting to see what is in season at a given time.

We pay for the produce ahead of time. That way, the farmer has the money at the beginning of the season, and we customers all take on part of the risk. If a given crop should fail, we all share in the loss. On the other hand, we all benefit if a particular crop does better than expected. The organic aspect is nice I guess but the main reason I like it is this financial set-up. It's proven as a good model for keeping these small truck farms going in the rural areas around large cities. I don't think it would work for the giant grain farms like my uncle's in Kansas: what would we do with 100 bushels of wheat or corn?!

We do probably pay a bit more for the produce than we would at the grocery store, but all in all we think it is worth it.

Keith's Word of Warning: Diesel Fuel

When your uncle hands you a fuel filter that he just removed from a Freightliner semi truck tractor, do not hold the filter between your arm and torso as you bend over to pick up a gasket off the ground, because the fuel filter is filled with diesel fuel that will pour out over your shirt and jeans and soak all the way through to your underwear.

Situation Wanted

I feel certain that given my current skillset I could pilot an investment bank, savings and loan, and/or an insurance company into the ground with at least as much efficiency as the Dick Fulds of the world, but at a much more reasonable pay rate.

Fuld took home in the neighborhood of $350M over the past five years; I would have been willing to croak Lehman Bros for $80K per (plus snacks of course) and I can almost guarantee I would have done it in half the time.

The Free! Enterprise! System!

This is from February 2008, when the Bank of England nationalized – ahem, nationalised – Northern Rock Bank, but pretty much all of it applies to the U.S. banking system over the last two weeks.

Absurdism at the 50 Yard Line

Albert Camus, who preferred football (soccer) to the theatre, might have enjoyed this:


Pre-Game Coin Toss Makes Jacksonville Jaguars Realize Randomness Of Life

Convention Review

I am enjoying the little bits of the convention that I am watching. Trying not to overdo it.

I love-love-love Michelle Obama, so I was sure to watch her speech. It was OK, but not the best showcase for her qualities, and I thought her brother's intro was way too long.

I missed Hillary's speech -- seeing too much of her in the winter and spring is what led to my cold-turkey giving-up of the blogosphere except for Tyler Cowen.

Did see Bill C and Joe B last night. I like Joe B as a speaker very much and his mother is great. Will probably check out Obama at the Stade Fasciste football stadium tonight as well.

So Long, Buchholz

The consensus on the Sons of Sam Horn website is that we won't see Buckminster Fuller on the big league club again this year. Many want him out of the organization entirely. His 2-3 innings per start screw up the bullpen for days afterward.

I said that Buchman Turner Overdrive was a flash in the pan way back in April. He lacks mental toughness. That no-hitter last year went to his head and according to reports he partied all off-season, dumped his straight-arrow agent and generally lost his bearings.

I briefly met the AAA Pawtucket Red Sox manager at an autograph signing last week. He'll have Buckyball running laps and sweeping out the dugout faster than you can say Frank Tanana Daiquiri.

Splashdown: Jays 15, Sox 4

Just got back from jumping off the Tobin Bridge with the rest of the Red Sox fans. Miraculously, I survived the plunge into the Mystic River.

If Beckett was going to pitch that badly, it's a shame they didn't pitch him against Halliday on Saturday, when we had no chance anyway. Byrd coulda beat Marcum.

Toys of the 1970s: Fisher Price Garage

The top floor of the garage featured a turntable mechanism that was fun to crank but which I have never seen in an actual parking garage; perhaps such contraptions were before my time. In addition, elevatoring cars to the various levels was made obsolete starting in the 1940s with the arrival of the reinforced-concrete ramp-up-to-the-next level system. On the other hand, outdoor glass elevators were just entering their heyday in the early 1970s and grease racks were still going strong in those days before the arrival of sealed joints. Also, a gasoline pump in a parking garage does seem like a good idea. All in all, hours of fun for the low low price of $10.85.

Zipcar Review: Mini Cooper

Very peppy and fast. A heavy and solid car, too, for its size. Only problem was, when I was stopped at an intersection, I couldn't see the stoplight-- the ceiling was too low! I had to lean way forward over the steering wheel and crane my neck up:

– or stick my head out the side window. Another option would have been a periscope through the sunroof but I lacked the necessary materials to make one. Later I found out that I could have cranked my seat down toward the floorboards so that might have helped.

Andrew Mellon: Friend of Tax Fairness

In his 1924 classic Taxation: The People's Business, Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon wrote:

“The history of taxation shows that taxes which are inherently excessive are not paid. The high rates inevitably put pressure upon the taxpayer to withdraw his capital from productive business."

Key words here: inherently excessive. That's obviously in the eye of the beholder.

But he also wrote:

“The fairness of taxing more lightly income from wages, salaries or from investments is beyond question. In the first case, the income is uncertain and limited in duration; sickness or death destroys it and old age diminishes it; in the other, the source of income continues; the income may be disposed of during a man’s life and it descends to his heirs. Surely we can afford to make a distinction between the people whose only capital is their mettle and physical energy and the people whose income is derived from investments. Such a distinction would mean much to millions of American workers and would be an added inspiration to the man who must provide a competence during his few productive years to care for himself and his family when his earnings capacity is at an end.”

So explain to me and Andy again why we tax capital gains and "carried interest" at 15% while nurses and office managers are taxed at a marginal federal rate of 43% (28% + 15.3% FICA tax)?

Is it that now that we have Social Security for workers, we need to give owners a little Investor Security as well, or what?

More Gove County Photos

Entrance to Cemetery at Grainfield, Kansas
Originally uploaded by ckhartman

I have added a few photos to the Flickr photoset of Gove County, Kansas that I started last summer.