Author: chogan@directresearch.com

Post #1552: COVID-19, still 33 new cases per 100K per day

The apparent increase in cases over the July 4th holiday was an artifact of data reporting.  Now that’s past, it looks like the COVID-19 new case rate is unchanged from where it was a month and a half ago.

Data source for this and other graphs of new case counts:  Calculated from The New York Times. (2021). Coronavirus (Covid-19) Data in the United States. Retrieved 7/7/2022, from https://github.com/nytimes/covid-19-data.”  The NY Times U.S. tracking page may be found at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html

What’s odd and somewhat disturbing is that COVID-19 hospitalizations continue to rise.  Below, cases are red, hospitalizations are yellow.  No idea why hospitalizations continue to rise, but we’re now well over 5,000 new COVID-19 hospitalizations per day in the U.S.

Source: CDC COVID data tracker.

I would like to verify that total cases remain unchanged (not just the officially reported case count), but the last remaining independent data source appears to have quit.  The survey-based portions of the Carnegie-Mellon University COVIDcast website have not been updated since June 25.  I can only guess that means they’ve stopped doing their internet-based survey.  Which means I can no longer track their measures on the fraction of the population with self-reported COVID-like symptoms.

Post G22-032: No-salt pickles 2, the experiment

 

See next post for results

Background

This is a continuation of my just-prior gardening post.

The goal of this experiment is to come up with home canned no-salt sour dill pickle.  Not a refrigerator pickle, not a sweet pickle, not a “low-salt” pickle that has half as much salt as a regular pickle.  But a canned, shelf-stable sour pickle with no or negligible sodium content.  That tastes OK. Continue reading Post G22-032: No-salt pickles 2, the experiment

Post G22-030: Joining pieces of floating row cover the easy way.

 

If you have ever needed to join two sheets of floating row cover, or other spun-bonded or non-woven porous plastic cloth, this post outlines the easy, skill-free way to do that.

In a nutshell:  Use fusible interfacing.

If you know what fusible interfacing is, you probably don’t need to read the rest of this.  The only pro tip is to use a damp pressing cloth, to avoid melting the floating row cover. 

For the rest of you, fusible interfacing is hot-melt fabric glue that comes in thin sheets.  Cut it to size, slip it between pieces of fabric to be joined, press briefly with an iron, and presto, the fabric pieces are joined.

My only value added in this post is in pointing out that this does, in fact, work quite well with floating row cover.  The only other method I’ve seen mentioned is to sew it, which strikes me as both a lot of skilled work, and likely subject to early failure.

Let me put two caveats up front.

First, this seam is strong enough to use, but it’s not as strong as a sewn seam when used on this thin plastic material.  If you stress it enough, you can pull those two pieces of plastic spun-bonded fabric apart.  So far, for me, it is holding up well in my intended use, which is as a cover for a hoop house.  But in that use, it’s just draped over a frame, not stretched taught.  This probably would not work well in an application where the cloth is stretched taught and stressed across the seam.

Second, a hot iron will most definitely melt floating row cover.  (Ask me how I know).  So place a thin, damp cloth over the fabric/interfacing  sandwich before pressing it.

Details follow.  But you’ve already read everything you need to know.

Here’s the end result below, once with the seam sitting flat, once with the seam standing up.  I am sure the floating row cover will fail before the seam will.

FWIW, I moseyed through ironing two 30-foot pieces of row cover together in about ten minutes.  Start-to-finish, it took me far longer to write this up than it took to do it.

Walking that fine line

Sometimes there’s a fine line between thrifty and stupid.  This project may well cross that line. But the facts in my case are the following:

  1. I own a gigantic roll of 8′ wide floating row cover.
  2. I need some that’s at least 12′ wide.
  3. I own an entire bolt of fusible interfacing

Why I own an entire bolt of fusible interfacing, I do not know.  Must have had a reason for it, at some point.  But at this point, it’s been sitting with my sewing stuff so long it’s like an old friend.  I’ll probably be a little sad if I ever finally use it up.

It’s this sort of thing that caused my wife to revoke my Costco membership.

Source:  JoAnn Fabrics

In any case, fusible interfacing is cheap.  I cut mine into 5″ strips, but surely a strip a couple of inches wide would be adequate.  At full retail, above, that’s  $1.29 worth of fusible interfacing, to join two 10-yard pieces of floating row cover.

As long as this works, and doesn’t take a lot of time, I think that puts me on the thrift side of the line.

A few notes on the process.

Tools

As shown above, the only tools you need are

  • an ironing board
  • an iron
  • a pair of scissors
  • a thin, damp cotton cloth.  (A handkerchief or bandana would be ideal.)

The ironing board is optional but makes this a lot easier.  It holds stuff at the right height, it allows the material to glide over it, it’s padded just right for ironing.  In short, it’s the thing that was designed to make ironing easier.  If you lack an ironing board, a towel on a table can be used as the base for your ironing.

The iron should be set to steam, if you have that setting.  Otherwise, set it about halfway between its lowest and highest setting.  The interfacing itself just says “use a hot iron”, so the setting is not critical.  Anything that will melt the glue but not the fabric is OK.

A hot iron will melt floating row cover in no time flat.  That’s why you must use some sort of cover, and why I suggest using a thin damp cloth on top of the assembly to be ironed.  That both presses steam into the cloth, ensuring even heating, and limits the temperature to somewhere around 212F (100C).

Materials handling.

Here’s the trick:  Keep it neat.

It doesn’t matter whether you have additional layers of floating row cover in the stack of material to be ironed.  Just insert the fusible interfacing between the two pieces that you wish to glue together.  So if your row cover comes folded over — leave it that way, and handle it that way.

In my case, the 8′ floating row cover came folded over, on the 4′ long roll.  I left it that way.  I unrolled the length I needed (30′), put a weight on the fabric, unrolled another 30′ back in the direction I started from, and then cut that (total-of) 60′ piece off the roll.

The result was a single, neat, 4′ wide stack of four layers of floating row cover.  Two long folded-over pieces, on top of each other.  In cross-section, it’s like two “U”s on top of each other, with the open sides of both “U”s on the same side.

My goal is to glue together layers 2 and 3, along the open side of the U.  Just as they lie.

If you know anything at all about sewing, you are probably appalled at the thought of making a seam this way.   That is, just by gluing two flat pieces of cloth together as they lay on top of each other.

You’ve probably got an urge to do something that’s stronger, like trying to make a lapped or French seam.  Ignore that urge.  Floating row cover is a beast to handle in this circumstance.  Trying to align large pieces of it, to form any sort of fancy seam, is just asking for trouble.

Just keep it simple.

  1. Take your rolled-up pieces of row cover
  2. Unroll enough to cover the ironing board, with the edge to be glued facing you.
  3. Let the excess fall off the ironing board.
  4. Peel back the top layer(s) and place a strip of fusible interfacing between the layers you want to glue together.  I used strips about 5′ wide, but that’s clearly overkill.
  5. Straighten it up and iron it, with the thin damp cloth on top.  It only takes a second or two for any area, and you only need a light pressure.  If you are unsure of yourself, stop, let it cool for 15 seconds, and test the bond by pulling on it.
  6. Pull fresh material onto the ironing board and repeat.

Take care that the fusible interfacing is ENTIRELY COVERED by the two pieces of that you want glued together.  Whatever it touches, it will glue together.  You can be as sloppy as you want, as long as you don’t accidentally glue together anything other than the two pieces that you want to glue together.

At this point, I think I’ve driven it into the ground.  The only real point is to keep the floating row cover as neat and compact as possible.  Don’t unfold it, roll it up before you move it, and so on.  And mind that the fusible interfacing is not sticking out where you don’t want it.

Extras for experts.

I only used this to create one long seam, but the same technique would work to create a more complex shape.  Any sort of a cover that you could sew, you can create from floating row cover and fusible interfacing.  So, for example, I could fuse a couple of seams perpendicular to the long seam and make a tent-like shape.  And so on.

I am confident that this would work with any porous spun-bonded or non-woven fabric.  As I understand it, fusible interfacing works well because you get a physical bond, as you press the glue through the fibers of the fabric.  This is what allows you to join, with confidence, a low-surface-energy material (poly-whatever-plastic) that would be all-but-impossible to glue up if it were in the form of solid sheets.

That said, I have not literally tried this with Tyvek or similar non-woven fabric.  My guess is that as long as there is a fibrous (as opposed to slick) surface to the fabric, this would work.  But, duly noted, I have not actually done the experiment.  For sure, fusible interface works with just about any traditional (woven, sewable) fabric used in making clothing.

Addendum:  A rebar lesson learned

To use this floating row cover, I had to cut up one 10′ piece of rebar.  Turns out, unless you want to lay out some cash, that’s not quite as easy as most internet sources will suggest.  They’ll tell you all the ways you can (possibly) cut rebar.  Many of which are reasonably cost-effective if you’re going to cut up a ton of rebar.  They won’t really focus on what it’ll cost you if you don’t happen to own the right tool already, and you just want to cut up one piece.

For me, the cost-effective solution was a hacksaw with brand-new blades.  That’s blades, plural.

I should start with what I’m using this for.  This is for my attempt to grow  parthenocarpic cucumbers and summer squash under insect-proof netting (Post G22-013).  Which, in turn, is my way of dodging last year’s plague of cucumber beetles and squash vine borers.

Here’s one of the two hoop-house enclosures that I hope will keep out the squash vine borer and cucumber beetle.  Note the visible seam between the two pieces of floating row cover, created by the fusible-interfacing method outlined above.

The construction of this is standard.  For two hoops, pound four short pieces of rebar part-way into the ground.  Then bow two pieces of 10′ piece of 3/4″ PVC pipe and slip the ends over the protruding pieces of rebar.

I (of course) bought rebar in the cheapest form possible.  In my case, that was 10-foot-long pieces of #3 (3/8″) rebar.  I could have bought it pre-cut, but at a much higher price per foot.

I owned several tools that plausibly would cut 3/8″ rebar, so I figured, hey, I’ll just cut it when I get it home.

Well.

That was when I identified all the tools I owned that either wouldn’t cut #3 rebar or cut it so slowly it would take all day.  These included:

  • Bolt cutters, 24″ — too small to cut the rebar.
  • Jigsaw:  too slow (probably the metal-cutting blade was already dull).
  • Dremel tool with metal cutoff wheel — too slow..

Circular saw? I didn’t want to invest in a $25 metal-cutting blade, to cut up one $6 piece of rebar.

Angle grinder?  I don’t own an angle grinder.  And, as it turns out, looks like all the cheap ones specifically say NOT to use a flat metal cutoff disk.  So I really didn’t feel like investing $100+ in a new, higher end (and dangerous) tool, just to cut up one $6 piece of rebar.

Hacksaw with a dull blade?  No go.

Hacksaw with a brand new carbon-steel blade?  Bingo.  Cut halfway through the bar, then bend it to snap it.  First cut was easy, second was OK, third was work.  Then toss the blade and put in a new one.  I could feel and hear the blade going dull over the course of three cuts.

The upshot is that a hacksaw will work fine, as long as you have a sharp blade.  It’s not even hard work.  But if you use cheap carbon-steel blades, expect to get maybe three cuts per blade.  And if your blade is dull, this basically won’t work at all.

Bottom line:  You can easily cut rebar with a hacksaw and a new, sharp blade.  But the cost of the hacksaw blades used may well offset the savings from buying a single long piece of rebar and cutting it at home.  I’ve since bought a pack of better bi-metallic blades, but I have no idea (yet) of how many cuts you get with a higher-quality blade.

Post #1550: A recent Washington Post article on research about food.

There was an article in the Washington Post yesterday, Diet soda is fine, and 3 other food truths it’s time you believed, by Tamar Haspel.

I believe it’s the first and only time I’ve seen the phrase “observational study” in a popular press article.  I was so impressed I wrote a lengthy comment.

Which, because I have nothing better to blog about today, I’m reproducing below.  Obviously, you should at least skim the article if you want to make sense of the comment.

…

On your first point, this is also the reason poor people eat a poor diet. Try planning a month’s worth of meals at the current SNAP limit of $194 a month. You — like poor people everywhere — will find yourself loading up on starch, sugar, and fat, and skipping the fruits and vegetables. Rice at $0.60/lb provides about twenty times as many calories per dollar as apples at $2/lb.

(Highest calories/dollar among grocery-store items? Vegetable oil. Fried food, anybody?)

Second, bless you for using the phrase “observational study” in a news article. I was a health economist by trade, and if there were one little bit of understanding that I wish I could spread, it’s that not all “science” is created equal. Randomized controlled trials sit at the top of the heap, in terms of their strength of inference. Observational studies sit at the bottom. (“Natural experiments” of various sorts sit in-between).

Whenever you see the results of a study, the first thing to ask is whether or not it was a randomized trial. Hint: Almost no studies of diet are randomized trials. And if not, then is there a plausible alternative explanation of the facts, e.g., fat people drink diet soda, instead of diet soda makes you fat?

Finally, I note the absolutely toxic interaction between the frequently false and counterintuitive “findings” of observational studies, and the modern media’s thirst for click-bait. This virtually guarantees that every oddball and counterintuitive (and wrong) conclusion by every half-baked academic researcher will be hyped. And that any actual science — which by-and-large tends to show boring things, e.g., weight loss is all about restricting calorie intake — gets buried under an avalanche of pseudoscientific nonsense.

Post G22-029: Ground cherries.

 

My advice on growing ground cherries?  Don’t bother.

X-ray specs and sea monkeys.

This year I’m trying a few new plants in the garden.  For whatever reason, ground cherries caught my eye.  They seemed easy to grow, and the idea of growing something sweet in the garden was appealing.

If you look at the seed catalogues, you’ll see piles of beautiful ripe fruit.  You’ll see the fruit described as “about the size of a cherry tomato”.   You’ll hear the flavor likened to, e.g., pineapple.

And X-ray specs let you see the bones in your hands.  And sea monkeys provide endless amusement.

I bought some some seeds for Cossack Pineapple ground cherries, sprouted them, and transplanted the seedlings to the garden without incident.  They grew just fine, and appear to be thriving in the garden with no help from me.  So ease-of-cultivation is as-advertised.

Here’s the garden plot, below, with a bunch of healthy ground cherry plants.  I have maybe half-a-dozen plants, in about 16 square feet of garden space.

The fruit are unusual.  They have a papery husk like a tomatillo.  So it’s moderately interesting plant, though nothing showy.  It doesn’t really stand out in the garden.

Here’s the first problem:  The fruit is about the size of a pea.  Not a pea pod.  A pea.  OK, maybe a fairly large pea.  But definitely in that ballpark.  Vastly smaller than, say, a typical cherry tomato.  Imagine having to pick your peas by picking one pea at a time.

Oh, did I mention the ground part?  The fruit ripens over an extended period of time, visible as the papery husks change from pale green to pale tan.  You will see it said that the best way to tell if the fruit is ripe is to let it fall to the ground.   My take on it is the only reliable way to get ripe ground cherries is to pick them up off the ground.  As a result, in practice, you harvest these by getting down on hands and knees and rooting around in the mulch, underneath your plants, to find these pea-sized fruits in their cute little papery husks.

Here’s the second problem:  The total yield of fruit is tiny.  Maybe this will get better as the season progresses.  But right now — from a half-dozen of these, covering may 16 square feet — I might be able to pick enough of fruit to match the volume of one (1, a) salad tomato.  And, because I’m impatient, I pick not only what’s on the ground, but I pick some that appear ripe, but are still on the bush.

Here’s what today’s harvest looks like, in the husk, and then peeled:

Note the color variation for both the husks and the fruit.  That’s because I picked a handful up off the ground — those are the ripe yellow ones above — then snagged a few more that were still hanging, but appeared ripe.

Here’s the third problem:  They aren’t sweet.  At least, these aren’t.  Not even the fully-ripe ones.  They do have an unusual taste.  It’s described as being like pineapple, but in fact its only distantly related to that.  Slightly tangy, slightly fruity. It’s definitely pleasant.  Even the green ones have a nice tartness to them.  But it’s not some great delicacy.  It’s nowhere close to being as nice as, say, fresh blackberries.

It’s possible the yield will pick up some, as the season progresses.  It’s possible that other varieties are tastier.  But as of today, my view is that these are an interesting novelty, and nothing more than that.  If you’re willing to get down on hands-and-knees, you can harvest a scant palmful of ripe fruit per day, out of roughly 16 square feet of garden space.  And enjoy an interesting — but not sweet — fruit-like flavor from them.

In the grand scheme of what I could be growing in that space, and using my gardening time for, these are a waste of time and space.  Interesting.  Better than nothing.  But I won’t be growing them again.

 

 

Post #1549: COVID-19 trend to 7/1/2022, sitting here in Limbo.

 

If I were a stock market analyst, I could look at today’s chart, make up a name (the reverse clamshell formation), declare that it clearly meant that stock prices were going up (or down, doesn’t matter), and make a ton of money as a financial pundit.

But the fact of the matter is that we’re just kind of stuck in COVID-19 limbo.  The U.S. daily new case rate has been at or about the current level since late May.  Going up?  Going down?  Going nowhere?  Beats me. Continue reading Post #1549: COVID-19 trend to 7/1/2022, sitting here in Limbo.

Post G22-028: Low-pressure hose timer autopsy.

 

Edit 7/29/2022:  When all was said and done, I bought another copy of the one that just broke.  I then modified it by drilling two small weep holes, like so:

I then mounted this horizontally (with the dial facing the sky).  In theory, when this leaks — and it will — the weep holes will allow the water to drain without drowning the motor.  Which — see below — is what killed the first one.

Edit 7/11/2024:  That same cheap-o hose timer above is still working.  Granted, it’s only been two years, so I can’t exactly claim victory.  But it’s worth nothing that this one — mounted to drain through the weep holes I drilled — at least didn’t crap out after a year, the way so many of its ancestors did.  I take it in during the winter,  I give it new batteries annually.  It has to open and close twice a day during the summer.  I don’t think it’s too much to ask that $30 should buy me more than just one or two years of service.

The original post follows.

A hose timer is a gizmo for turning water on and off on some pre-set schedule.  You (typically) stick a couple of batteries in it, program it, place it between faucet and garden hose, and turn the faucet on.  It will then operate a little valve to turn that water on and off according to your chosen schedule.

Until it breaks. Which it will.  Which you probably won’t notice until your plants start withering.  Unless you’re away on vacation, that is.  In which case you’ll return to dead plants. Continue reading Post G22-028: Low-pressure hose timer autopsy.