🤠 Rodeo Roundup 2018 week #2
The first of weekly "Rodeo Roundup" posts on what caught my attention that week and what happened on Rodeo Gulch. Warning: these post will be eclectic.
Santa Cruz sues Oil Companies
Just before Christmas '17, Santa Cruz County filed a lawsuit against fossil-fuel companies for contributing to rising sea levels and other effects of climate change. Santa Cruz and other coastal cities (including San Francisco) claim that oil companies knew about the impacts of fossil fuels on climate and sea levels for 50 years but concealed the risks and fought back against attempts at regulation.
This week, one of those oil companies —Exxon, countered the suit.
And New York also sued:
New York just became the largest US city to sue Big Oil and divest from fossil fuels. This is just the beginning. If the climate movement can make it here, it can make it anywhere. https://t.co/iEdLXBMuVE
— 350 dot org (@350) January 10, 2018
I'm curious to see how this evolves. Will this unfold the way the lawsuits against tobacco companies panned out?
🌃 Juno's Jupiter Images
NASA's Juno spacecraft to Jupiter is aiming to increase our understanding of Jupiter's origin and evolution. Juno's first close-up images of Jupiter are spectacular!
🛒 Anyone can be a Middleman Retailer
Anyone can sell anything to anyone thanks to the rise of cheap turnkey online stores (Shoppify, Amazon, etc.) and drop shipping (AliExpress drop shippers, Amazon, etc.) combined with the power of vast advertising networks (Facebook's, Google's or Amazon's). You don't even need to touch the product. Alexis wrote an excellent article for The Atlantic about this new breed of retailers.[1]
🚜 On the Farm
For a few weeks now, our Kubota BX25 tractor wouldn't start. I had parked it in the tractor carport after some excavation work for our retaining wall and it wouldn't start the next day. The starter motor wouldn't turn over, indicating a problem in the electrical system to the starter motor[2]. Over the past couple of weeks, I'd spend a few hours tracing the electrical system to no avail. I couldn't get the main switch out of the dashboard, and removing the engine cover was a pain in the 🍑.
Re-reading the maintenance manual again and some additional Internet sleuthing led me to a tractor forum where I learned that several others have had the same issue. Often due to a safety switch being stuck in the off position. The solution? Wiggle the handles that put the tractor in the safe position. Lo and behold, that worked! Wiggling the PTO shifter "unlocked" our tractor.
We also harvested our last tomatoes. Crazy! Tomatoes in January! Then removed the vines so that we're left with empty tomato A-frames for next 🌱 season.
The wetter weather also brought stunning sunsets. I took the lead photo 5:19 pm on Jan 11, 2018 when the Google bus dropped us back off at the Scotts Valley parking lot.
