Homestead mailing list

[Bill Jones <billj AT harborside.com>]

During my trip to California and just beforehand, I wrote 5000 lines of
program in 50 days.  This includes almost 100 subroutines to check and
apply algebraic transformations to trees, and a program to print
equations in the same form as you expect to see them, with fraction bars
and square root signs.  The reason there are so many algebraic
transformations is that nearly every rule of algebra can be applied in
forward or reverse order.  There are 26 subroutines just for dealing
with minus signs!  To keep from having to write twice as many
subroutines, I combined the test for whether a transformation can be
applied at the present subtree, together with the actions for actually
applying it, into single subroutines.  This allowed me to place the same
line at the midpoint of every subroutine, separating the test code from
the action code.  It's somehow apt: "If Not Serious Then Return True".
"Serious" is the name of the Boolean quantity passed by the calling
program; if you send it a 'True' then it actually does the algebraic
transformation.  This was all very logical, because the second half of
each routine just uses the nicknames for subtrees created during the
first half, like "Addend", and reconnects them into a new tree
structure.  As far as the program that prints the equations, it's just
inspired.  It plans for how much rectangular space each part of the
equation will take up by doing a bottom-up traversal of the tree, then
does a top-down traversal to locate the upper left corner of each
rectangle.  During the first pass, it also saves a position parameter
that tells the position of the operation within the rectangle, if any
(the left edge of a radical sign, the height of a fraction bar within
its rectangle, or the horizontal position of a '+' sign, etc.).  Before
I even printed an equation, I had it draw the nested boxes for the
subtrees.  So I already knew that it would work.  After that it was just
a matter of refining it to do things like subscripts.  We still need to
adjust some numeric parameters.  Of course, it's still a bear to get all
this to work within the I/O straitjacket provided by the compiler, and
we've still got to get the equation and the tree and the code string in
their separate interacting windows.  Did I mention that I also wrote
some routines to produce a linear code string, with parentheses and
such, from a tree, just as a programmer would write them.  I've promised
to write a program to do the reverse procedure, to parse a code string
and produce a tree.  Once it's all working smoothly together, you'll be
able to do algebra directly by clicking on the equation, the same way
that you can algebra by clicking on the tree right now.

The geese survived just fine on cat food, with their automatic waterer.
 They lived in the new barn at the east end of the new shed.  The
guinea pigs, all female now, did great through the cold in the new
solarium.  The wall isn't built yet, so an aluminum flashing partition
along the floor keeps them in their area.  They have their own little
red chicken waterer.  I piled hay onto a palette, and elevated the four
corners with gallon pots.  This made an excellent shelter and hay dispenser.

I had quite a bit to do once I got back.  All six beds of garlic needed
compost on them, and the onions too, and I had to plant peas and
potatoes.  The yacon never got harvested, either, last fall.  Our
February window was rapidly coming to an end, and I really needed to at
least get the barn cleaned out for the new lambs which might come any
day.  So I rushed to get as much done as I could, including layering
newly clipped berry vines with guinea pig and goose manure, but I hurt
my back at some point, so I had to cover up the remaining guinea pig
manure with a plastic tarp.  It was just a little pressure on a disc,
which I've had before, so it's back to normal (no pun intended).  The
strawberry crowns will wait for another week.  Besides, the rain will do
them good, since the drought of February dried them out some.  I managed
to get some trees and shrubs in just before the rain.  I've also spent
every minute of non-outside time placing the various orders for plants
and seeds that were overdue.

As predicted the February window came to an abrupt end yesterday, so I
have some time to send out an email.  I could unpack my suitcase!  The
yacon is going downhill fast, and I really need to process it.  I'm
eager to make yacon yogurt, since I need the culture to seed another
project I'm trying with some tapioca roots that I brought from
California.  The Vietnamese tapioca cake "banh khoi mie" resembles
cheese in texture, and I want to try making a small, salty one from
soured tapioca to see if I can make something like cheese.  I should
have enough grated tapioca left to make a regular sweet coconut-flavored
cake too.

Speaking of which, rural Oregonians are really living in a shopping
vacuum here.  The produce in markets is priced (literally) as if you
were in a campground concession stand, compared to the discount markets
of southern California.  On any day, I could get bunches of parsley,
cilantro, radishes, or green onions: all _5_ for a dollar.  They do have
Trader Joes in Oregon, and they're great for deli items and snacks, but
I'm miles from the nearest one, in Eugene.  Then there's the Asian
markets where you can get 39-cent cans of coconut milk.  Yet despite
this, there's still one food that's worth taking south: cheese.  The
California cheese lobby has it all so under control, you won't find any
on sale.

I should really mention our trip to the Bay Area.  We went to the Santa
Cruz arboretum.  It had been rainy, but the clouds parted toward the end
of the day, and we basically had the place to ourselves.  The most
beautiful thing about Santa Cruz in February are the acacias blooming
everywhere.  Down there I saw mostly Acacia baileyana, but north of San
Francisco I saw some Acacia dealbata like our local ones.  On Sunday we
went to Point Reyes, but the lighthouse has been fully racketized, like
Hearst Castle (in other words, you can't just drive to it any more), and
we opted not to squeeze in with the sneezing children on the tour bus.
We still had fun driving to Tomales Bay and hiking among evergreen
huckleberry on the hillsides.

This was the first time I ever went to California without getting a cold
and/or food poisoning.  But we tried.  I've really got to register my
disappointment with the Asian restaurants that exist there now.
Everywhere you are served bland hospital food with no trace of garlic or
chiles.  The ultimate insult was when the "Thai chicken salad" at one
place was brought out with a big bowl of mayonnaise.  I objected and the
waitress brought some peanut sauce, which was also bland.

I also didn't lose a single plant while I was gone.  I was especially
happy to see the Vietnamese coriander in the terrarium on the enclosed
front porch.  It's capable of growing all winter there, and the colder
nights don't bother it.  There was a big freeze that cut it back some
while I was gone, but if the house had been heated, even that would have
been all right.

I'm really looking forward to planting a raised bed of raspberries.
With a little protection, 'Amity' fall-bearing raspberry will go on
ripening berries into winter.

Today is the 11th anniversary of my arrival in Oregon.  It's taken me
that long to feel that I have things under control here at our summer home.

I apologize for not keeping in touch as much as I should with people.
But soon it will be time to start building raised beds, and I'll be on
the go again.

Happy Springtime,

Bill