The Private Life of Beans

When I was gifted 30 pounds of dried beans for Christmas, my expectations were modest.  "Cool beans", I obviously said.  And hoped that perhaps they'd be of some use in our hunting land feed plots.  Deer will eat dried beans, tender green shoots, etc.  

So the basic plan was to just plant some in areas we turn over with the neighbor's tractor.  But it seems I had set my expectations too low.

Catching up from previous postings, I:

- Planted about 10 of each variety.  50%-70% survived my indifferent care

- Transplanted one of each...except for one variety where two were intertwined.

And the darn things kept growing.  This is a picture from March 11th.

They were supposed to be bush style beans, but weirdly turned into vine types and proceeded to climb 3 feet up the window blinds.  Had I known this in advance I would have added some stakes.  And perhaps set them up somewhere else.

But its nice to have a bit of greenery in late winter.  Sometimes I remember to water them.  Usually its when I finish a cup of coffee and use the empty cup to fetch their ration.  Caffeine traces might have something to do with their vigorous growth.

But something else is happening.  

I know very little about the sex life of plants.  I actually don't care to know more.  But I vaguely recall that in the whole "Birds and Bees" scenario there should be, you know, bees.  Or some other way to pollinate flowers.  Oh yes, there are flowers.  All three varieties of beans, with various small yellow and blue blossoms.

And there are beans.  Yes, I am officially a bean farmer now.  

This is unexpected.  Oh, we are only talking three that have reached the stage where actual beans should be forthcoming.  Several more adorable little mini pods may or may not develop.  But this shows a degree of resilience that I had not expected.

So how did this come to pass?  Well, some plants are rather ambiguous is such matters.  Male and female parts on the same plant?  I guess.  Pinto and Navy bean hybrids?  Sure, why not.  Heck, the hops that I planted years ago on the back fence just up and changed, one section of the hop producing female plants just throwing some sort of biochemical switch and converting to male hops.  The latter btw are not productive of anything useful to a home brewer.  And, to be frank, the female plants were plenty productive before this transition.  Probably there were bees involved.  Birds can't be entirely ruled out.

So now what?

It appears that free, dried beans can turn into deer pleasing snacks with a fair degree of success.  Oh, and with potting soil and an absence of rodents, turkeys and such to nip them in the bud.  Or in the pre-bud stage.  But it encourages me to try the mass approach.  Every week blast another 10 or 20 pounds of dried beans off into patches of recently cleared land.  See what happens.  Most will get eaten right away.  Some as soon as they dare show their tender little sprouts.  But evidently beans are scrappers, they'll give it their best try.  So I hope to be looking out across waving fields of tasty to deer plants.  At which point I'll tip my bean planter's hat and say "You guys/gals just do your own thing out there.  You be you."

FIRST Robotics 2026 - Tournament Number One

Off with the team to Appleton Wisconsin for a long, tiring weekend.  It's a three hour drive. 

A successful outing that proved the merit of our design and construction, and showed off what a group of talented kids can accomplish with hard work.  We astonishingly started by winning our first nine matches.  This has never happened before, and statistically may never happen again.

By the end a bit of wear and tear was showing, so our time in the double elimination final rounds was short, but for a first event it was excellent.  We have a limited amount of time to repair, recharge and in selected cases upgrade.  We are off again in about ten days.  

As usual, some oddity photos.  I'll try to add a link to our matches when it becomes available.

This event was in a big high school gym.  It's actually nicer than some of the arena type venues we've been in.  Maybe you can feel a bit of residual energy from generations of kids excited about things going on in front of them.

Our driver actually seems a bit pleased with the damage our robot's name plate took in an intense match.  

There are as always little event freebies.  In keeping with our school mascot we had these little plastic cardinals.  Somebody arranged them in this pattern.  Various stories were concocted about what was going on here.  Some were a bit dark, court martials and such.  I suggested the vibe was "Teach us oh Eldest and Wisest".  But maybe I was projecting.

Not as many mascots as in earlier days.  Those suits are hot and awkward, so when you do see them it is towards the end of the event.  I of course had to ham it up with a couple of birds.  It's me doing my best bird imitation.  It's not very convincing.

More to come.  

Link to video of our matches  https://www.thebluealliance.com/team/5826/2026

 

Robotics 2026 - Off we go!

A final afternoon of tune up, tweaking and then packing the trailer.  It's great to be packing in shirt sleeve weather!

Not like last year.....

This was a silly photo I took prior to our departure to a tournament at about the same time in 2025.  And boy, howdy, that shovel was a handy thing to have around.

But this time, while the drive will be longer the weather looks great.

I'll be banking some extra sleep hours.

Team is competing in the Appleton District event.  If interested you can follow the results and  watch our matches at: 

https://www.thebluealliance.com/event/2026wiapp

We'll see how it goes......

Baseball with The Chicago Ladies

Well, here the Chicago Ladies are in 1908.  You'll notice a few Chicago dudes there as well.  We'll get to that in a bit.

This is an example of what became known as a Bloomer Girl team.  In the years before they had A League of Their Own, these barnstorming teams traveled about playing exhibition games.  Specific to Chippewa Falls and Athletic Park, the Chicago Ladies came to town in August of 1909.

A bit of explanation is in order here.

First of all, this was far from the "only" recognized professional ladies team.  There were an assortment of such teams touring about, with the Boston Stars seeming to be the most famous.

And, its a stretch to call the members of this squad Ladies.  I mean, there's no reason to doubt the virtue of the female players, but it was common practice for such teams to have several men on them.  Usually in the higher skilled positions like catcher and pitcher.  Sometimes these would be players that traveled with the team, sometimes locally recruited lads.  As they would be expected to wear wigs - and I'm assuming skirts! - these were sometimes referred to as "toppers".

For the record - and of course this was a decade before another Chicago team got into trouble with betting - there was a bit of money wagered on this game with the odds supposedly being near even up.  Guess the smart money got it right, because the Chippewa Falls team prevailed by a modest 8-6 margin.  

Interestingly it was mentioned that a certain Dorais would be pitching for the Colts.  It has to be THIS GUY, who not only went on to an impressive pro career in sports, but also has the current high school football field named after him!

Their stop in Chippewa Falls would seem to be fairly typical for the Chicago Ladies.  Actual details of the team's history are hard to piece together.  The manager was a Birdie Carleton, who was said to have been involved in women's baseball teams since 1902/03.  In 1908 she was described as being "about 30", so I'm going with born early 1870's.  

There's a book's worth of interesting material on Miss Birdie Carleton.  I sincerely hope somebody has already written it, otherwise...well, the last time I came across something like this I had to write it (POW Baseball in World War Two).  Maybe I can get away with just tossing out some bread crumbs and somebody else will take up the task!

There's much that is speculation.  But I think Birdie - probably not her given name - got her start in Bloomer Girl Baseball around 1902.  In 1906 Smokey Joe Wood, one of the "toppers" who later made it big in the Majors, seems to have played for her on the Kansas City Bloomer Girls.  

There were quite a few Bloomer Girl teams in the first couple decades of the 20th century.  It does not sound like a stable business model.  Games were arranged on short notice.  The gate receipts were divided up; in the case of Birdie's teams often with skimpy results.  One time, out in Montana in the summer of 1909....

I'm not quite sure what "making a rough house" would have been in 1909 out on what could almost be regarded as a frontier community.  But displaying themselves in an "unladylike manner" makes it seem they were showing a little too much of something.  Their ankles perhaps.  

There tended to be strong efforts to maintain an aura of propriety on these teams of traveling young ladies.  Teas and other social events usually followed the games.

In any case the Trouble in Bozeman soon was left behind.  The sheriff released the team's equipment which had been held pending resolution of the matter, new girls were recruited from somewhere, and the road show went on..

Another aspect of the instability of this venture was the frequent changes.  In general Birdie was listed as the owner and manager of the club.  Why the photo up top lists someone named White is not clear. 

As we've seen, the Chicago Ladies may not have always been, well, Ladies.  And the connection with Chicago seems tenuous.  It was helpful to have a big city associated with your team, but the players were recruited wherever they could be found, and the team did not seem to have any "home games".

By 1912 Birdie - by the way both Carleton and Carlton appear as last names - was the manager of the Boston Bloomer Girls, at that time probably the best known and most successful team of their sort.  In 1916 there is mention of a name change to "Birdie Carleton's Athletic Girls".  The last trace of Birdie that I have - so far - located is an article from 1920.  She's in Long Beach California, playing with her team.  It is again the Boston Bloomer Girls.  They were to play a game on the  high school team field against a nine from local Elks club.  One of the players, a Miss Treglia, was slated to catch a ball dropped from an airplane!  The line up for the "girls" team lists feminine first names for all but four of their players.  These presumably were the guys, the "toppers".  In a delightful "oh so close" moment I noticed that one of these players was named Ott.  Did Birdie give a start to Mel Ott, future Hall of Famer?

Alas, no.  Mel Ott was 7 years old in 1916.  But she probably did have one Hall of Famer to her credit. Smokey Joe' career was great, but cut short by injury.  He never got the call from Cooperstown*.  But Rogers Hornsby did.  And he got his start in ball at age 16 when he answered an ad in the newspaper and played a few games with the Boston Bloomer Girls in Texas in 1912.

So what happened to Birdie Carleton?  The novelty of Bloomer Girl Baseball waned, and the Great Depression finished it off.  I have to date not learned much about her.  She was a member of a couple of women's organizations, Eastern Star and Rebeccas.  She continues to be referred to as "Miss" to an age where marriage in that era was low probability.  But finding an obituary or a gravestone somewhere has so far eluded me.  Was her name actually Roberta, or Alberta, or something less common?  

Oh I hope somebody will see this and let me know.  I don't want to write another book.

---------------------------------------

*Although to be fair the last one I wrote did mean that I got the Call from Cooperstown.  I was asked, and of course accepted, to give a talk there during a special Memorial Day recognition of Major Leaguers who had served in World War Two.  Fun, and a neat anecdote to tell people.  I rode in an elevator with Hall of Famer Bob Feller.  The hand that threw the then fastest ball in baseball history not only shook my hand but tousled the hair of one of my boys!

Robotics Update - Competition Ahead!

Robot is coming along.  I've had a busy stretch lately and so have not been on hand as often as usual.  It's an odd ten days when you've been a hockey grandpa, a pallbearer and a robotics judge... I should have another update later in the week, and a tournament report before too long, but for now you'll have to be content with the robot's name:

This is a bit of homage to a former team member.  It's also the title of a really bad Shark Movie.  But Megan, the person, is actually more formidable than any shark!

I've been working with the new video crew.  Time to break in some 9th graders.  Here in order are:

The robot at STEM night, amusing some campfire girls:

And a shop tour of the 5826 build space:

And finally, robot meets robot dog.  With a supporting actor role for Hank, my loveable if dimwitted side kick.

Robot dogs meeting real dogs seems to be a common Youtube thing, but comparing the relative skill level of the two in retrieving yellow balls....guess we have that all to ourselves!

A More Reasonable Deer Stand Upgrade

Because the box stands on our hunting land were designed for an 8 foot tall guy who never sat down, the sight lines were difficult.  Last year despite sitting on a fairly tall bar stool, a buck snuck up right underneath me.  That annoyed me a bit.  So in early spring it's time for the first trip back.

Hauling in some cargo by sled

Setting up my new platform.  Notice the red brackets.  Surplus robot parts.

Enjoying the view.

No, I mean really enjoying it.

Deer Stand Over Preparedness

Seen when driving past a place that makes big cement things.

The sign says it is an "Almost Indestructible Hunting Blind"  Here's what it is made of:

I'd call it solid concrete but I'm pretty sure it also has reinforcing Rebar in it.  It also rests on solid blocks of concrete.  I mean, you won't get this up onto the wooden poles that most blinds use.   

I suppose if you have a great hunting spot, and nothing is ever going to change, then this might be for you.  Sure would be low maintenance.  Which does not mean put it up and do no more work.  On our land we've noticed that logged over areas turn into solid walls of trees that you can't see or shoot through, just by leaving them alone for a few years.

Nature.  It's all about adaptation to better succeed in whatever the environment may be.  Perhaps if we see this sort of deer stand catch on we'll soon have this AI generated scenario become real!

(closest I could get Skynet to give me a white tail deer with a grenade launcher)