This is why I'm not a farmer. Tips for evaluating a news source. And on being a skeptic, even when it comes to yourself.
This is why I’m not a farmer.
Some garden notes.
Got back from my trip to some mixed news.
My oats got flattened by a pretty heavy-duty thunderstorm we had.** See pic #1 attached. I was really disappointed. I had dreams of a successful harvest and those dreams got flattened like the plants did when I saw them. I'm not an expert, but I know what laid-over grain means.
I talked to a friend of mine who is a farmer and it turns out the picture may not be so bleak. I don't think that the majority of the stalks got kinked and so the plants will likely live and the groats will continue to develop. The yield will likely go down and the seeds this year won't have a high germination rate next year: the plant's just not going to be as good with a bent stalk and so the groats will be smaller and less well-developed.
Still, when I check a seed head, I see milky liquid where the oat will be and the plants are dead-looking. I'll update as the season goes on (and I'll be watching, 'cause if they die that space will get filled with beans in short order--a crop with a fast enough growth to likely prevent a complete waste of that area of garden bed).
Another bright spot? Check out pic #2 attached. My tater cacti are starting to put out buds! They're hard to see, but they're the little things inside the red circles. That means they're transplanted well and are going to grow. If they live through winter (which they should, they're good to zone 4 and I'm in zone 5), I'll have a robust patch. Maybe even some to share if you'd like.
Couple other quick notes: I mentioned tying down my blackberry canes per a protocol I saw in a paper. I am working ahead on that. Progress is shown in pic #3. You can see a tied-over cane awaiting having its top 6" cut off as soon as the terminal bud shows. Then I should get some vertical shoots.
Have you ever tried to repair something old using a repair manual and wished the damn manual would tell you what to do with rusty, dirty equipment and seized nuts? Yeah. That's kind of what happened here with the cane bending. I wish that paper had told me how difficult it was to bend a cane over and not have it snap! Multiple canes broke and simply got tipped (their broken tops cut off) this year. I think I have a better feel now, but man was that a challenge!
Lastly, just for fun, and in case you'd never seen one (like me), pic #4 is what acorn squash look like on the plant. I had expected a vine, but it turns out acorns grow on a bush like zucchini. Probably appropriate, they don't store as well as other winter squash (again, like zucchini).
**A common thing my friends say to me goes something like "you really seem to like plants, you should have been a farmer". No. And the reason why is right here. I would need medication if my survival (financial or otherwise) depended on things like this. I like being a gardener and tinkerer who earns his money in other ways. I will leave the farming to those who have stouter souls than mine and who tolerate risk better.
How can you trust what you read?
I can't give you a foolproof recipe, but I do like to post things that I come across that might help. Next time you have a free minute, you should go look at the link below for that reason.
It's from a group called the Trust Project. That's a group I know little about and so I'm not going to tell you to trust them per se, but you can hang your hat on the tips they have on their front page. A solid idea is a solid idea regardless of the ideology of the person who shares it.
You won't find an exhaustive list here. Rather you should consider this a handy "pocket reference" to help you gauge the source of what you're reading. It's also handy from the standpoint of giving you questions you can ask so you can get in the habit of considering what you're reading rather than swallowing it whole and/or passing things along by reflex.
I would add a #8 to the list. When you read something, anything, from anywhere that you find especially angering or compelling, stop and, before doing anything else, go and google google what you read. Read this same story from 2 other outlets (at least), and best to pick them from a variety of ideological perspectives.
That is a really handy way to get a better, fuller glimpse of something before passing it along or before making up your mind. As above, not perfect, but a good start and something that doesn't take huge amounts of time or research.
One last bit. Take a look at the two screenshots #1 and #2. Hey Mainstream Denver media (of all ideologies), read that bit I underlined. Oh, and hey Denver journalists, read screenshot #2. Sometimes you do mess up and tilt your stories. Your homework here is to cultivate a habit of sincerely and openly listening to your critics.
https://thetrustproject.org/trust-indicators/
On being a skeptic, even when it comes to yourself.
Staying (roughly) with the topic of how you know what you know.
I was listening to a book recently about moral philosophy and an interesting quote came up. The quote comes from the writings of Plato (I'm not a philosopher, but I don't believe Socrates wrote anything himself; we know him mainly through the writings of his student Plato).
The quote comes from the Apology of Socrates (apology in the word's original sense, that of an explanation). I linked it below if you want to read more.
"And this is the point in which, as I think, I am superior to men in general, and in which I might perhaps fancy myself wiser than other men, – that whereas I know but little of the world below, I do not suppose that I know."
This is what stuck out to me. This is the essence of skepticism (in the sense that I boxed in the attached screenshot). It's an attitude I try to cultivate, though I will not insult us both by claiming perfection.
You are welcome to see things differently, but to my mind, we all have huge limits in what we know and what we can be sure of. Our brains are not perfect. Our memories are malleable. Our thinking processes are rife with errors.
How can anyone, therefore, claim anywhere near the certainty with which you hear people claim things? I'm not sure they can. To paraphrase Socrates, we all do not know. It's just that the wise among us (or those seeking to be wise) are well off by understanding this and realizing that they do not know.
Remember this when you start to drift into a mode of iron certainty (whether that's certainty about a position, a certainty about a moral judgment, a certainty about a conclusion or fact).
Remember this when you listen to others speak. No matter their position, their education, their supposed authority, they are just as human as you and are just as apt to the kind of hypocrisy that stems from "not knowing and not knowing that they don't know".
I'll leave you with one more quote. It comes from Frank Zappa's comment: a mind is like a parachute, it works best when it's open.
There is always room for questions. There is always room for doubt.
http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/apology.html