M Ljin

What sort of bamboo is that I wonder? I’m relatively sure not river cane.

None on the top row.

It tells you the key, even when there are no Fs.

This might not be relevant for modern classical music, but in other genres and periods, there might be improvised sections where a note is present, which would be made sharp.

So even in a song in C minor pentatonic, for instance, where there are no As, you would still have a key signature with three flats: Eb, Ab and Bb. These three are present in whatever line is in the key of C minor even when one of the notes is not present.

For another example, take A harmonic minor, where there is a G sharp, but it isn’t written in the signature, only as accidentals. I believe the intent is to make it so you know the key just by glancing at how many sharps or flats there are without worrying about where they are. I might do it differently if I were to invent music notation, but…

I didn’t think it would work, but when the coping saw blade broke, I tried using my antique block plane for smoothing out the sides. And it is working!

When splitting, it seems that swifter, more decisive blows cause less cracking. I will have to experiment.

As for stealing food… I think region might play a part.

My town’s food pantry is overflowing with homegrown produce, high quality grassfed milk and eggs and vegetables, and so on. Volunteers have to take this sort of food home because it’ll go bad otherwise. I could be wrong, but I think we would see less of it here, where a system is in place to prevent this sort of thing, than in places where the community is less strong. I can’t say anything for the sorts of people who think it’s more dignified to steal than to accept charity, because I’m sure there are some of them out there, but hopefully they are the exception.

Maybe these foods will become more scarce, but in my part of the world organic farming and gardening is part of the culture. It may be that such a situation will force other regions to switch over as well.

(In other words your friend’s plan is a good one…if they started saving plenty of acorns last fall!)

The major idea that is coming to me here is that much-in-advance preparedness is the best protection from these stressors.

Mart,

Again I agree that most of the year, foraging all your food is quite difficult. There are a few important autumn crops, specifically acorns and apples are the ones I have found, that give enough calories and nourishment to sustain a person, but one needs to drop everything and go harvest them if they want enough, especially if they are far away. I live in a part of the valley where neither are abundant, so it is a bit of a journey to get to the right groves. Unfortunately, last fall I was not in a state which allowed extensive picking of either, but I got some acorns nevertheless and was able to have a week or two with acorns as a staple. There were also some blunders by others which lead to the remainder of my harvest being wasted because it was placed somewhere chipmunks could get to (and I didn’t know where they were until it was too late), which was a horrible feeling.

If everyone is onboard with the harvest, it is likely to turn out better than it did for me. One also needs to drop most things and focus on gathering such staples for a certain time frame, like the harvest of wild rice in other parts of the continent—having healthy, nourishing food for the year is the most important task. Acorns have mast years and so it is a good idea to save more than you need for one year, as not every year will grant a sizeable harvest. But fortunately they can be stored dry for a while.

I’m planting more oak trees—it may not help in this crisis, but it’s always good to sustain what sustains you.

Mart,

That’s all true. Also that is why diversity is so important. Knowing how to forage a large number of perennial & annual plants, animals & fungi, growing just as many species, and not leaning too heavily on any one, seems essential.

However, parsnips are a constant. So are black raspberries. Perennial roots like yams should be quite beneficial for these times, as food sources we can lean back upon when other, less consistent ones become scarce.

It seems to me when the soil and the ecosystem are healthy, they almost always provide more generally speaking: even if it may be a flop year for peaches, cherries might thrive, or plums, or you may be swimming in currants.

I should also mention wild carrots or queen anne’s lace as a food source. They are smaller than parsnips, but a similar vegetable.

I think we have been so long disconnected from our ecosystems that they are no longer capable of taking care of us when we need them. By caring for them, we can help return a greater overall abundance.

There is a statistic somewhere that hunter gatherer societies are more food secure than agrarian ones, because they make use of a much more diverse set of foods. Maybe this is a priority?

I will second black raspberries. They grow very easily, spread prolifically, and are delicious. They seem to be more reliable than (wild) blackberries or red raspberries with their fruiting.

Parsnip likes to grow in grass! They are excellent for turning lawns into gardens.

Could it be your garden soils are too fungal? Do you till them?

I notice they like to grow in paths. In this part of the world, those unaware of their virtues call them “poison parsnip” because of the blisters produced by getting the sap of the flowering stalks onto one’s skin on a sunny day. It makes me wonder if they are protectors of excessively compact earth 1. by loosening it through their roots: 2. by tillage of voles, humans, etc. looking to eat them; and 3. by deterring animals from going too often through a single path.

In the end I have no idea what they’re telling you, though!

Quarter note, eighth, eighth, quarter.
Three clicks of the metronome.

Yes—the “one” of “one-and” falls on the metronome click, and the “and” falls halfway between that and the next click. Does that make sense?

I’ve heard however that in some traditions, the “and” is actually later and more like two-thirds in, called “swing notes”. This is especially the case in jazz. Just to confuse things further.