1/9/2020
(Above: A magnetic curtain rod Madre acquired for me. It shall be for my benefit AND everyone else’s.)
Active Summary: Today, after performing my morningly regimen, I returned to Jacobhouse where I wrote for another half-hour and then worked on my macroeconomics class for about an hour. This was ensued by more wiring-time at Madre’s workshop where I prepared / hooked up a dual set of switches at the western side and wired in an exterior GFCI outlet on the eastern side*.
(6:33 PM Update:) This afternoon’s activities included: bovine vaccinations, calf health checks, a beef pasture survey, and a little bit of garden harvesting.
TIL: So far, I have learned two counterintuitive terms in my Macroeconomics course that I will include here both for interest’s and review’s sake.
The first term is capital. Capital, when associated with macroeconomics, is a ‘factor of production’ (e.g. machinery utilized to produce clothing, tractors utilized to sow a field, ovens utilized to bake bread, and etc.). I used to think that capital only referred to money, but it does not refer to money in the slightest within a macroeconomic setting. To distinguish between the two, the terms economic capital and financial capital are utilized.
The second term is positive economics** – economics that are based solely on ‘what is‘. The tricky thing about positive economics is that they can be true or false. So long as it can be proven or disproven, it is still positive economics.
(6:33 PM Update:) Today, my uncle asked me if I knew Italian for ‘Where is the bathroom?’. I did not, but that prompted me to learn. It is quite simple:
Dov’è il bagno? – (dohv-ey eel baño ) – Where is the bathroom?
Dov’è can also be used to ask other ‘where’ questions:
- Dov’è il ristorante? — Where is the restaurant?
- Dov’è la mucca? — Where is the cow?
- Dove*** sono le mucche? — Where are the cows?
Commentary: The weather has rebounded toward warmer temperatures today – a fact felt in true when kneeling in sun, working on that ridiculous GFCI outlet this morning. As far as highlights go, I would say the most interesting and humorous occurred when we walked one of our favorite pet cows, 326, into the same lot as a bull (son) out of the infamous curly-horn cow****. 326 quickly ran up to the potential suitor, and then, as soon as he began to express interest, she ran straight in the opposite direction. What ensued was a bit of frolicking that lasted far too long for me to stick around and watch. We think something happened, and I suppose we will find out within a month or two. (6:33 PM Update:) 326 ended up breaking out of the lot before we returned to work in the afternoon. Apparently, she’d had enough of her suitor and wanted to get back to her normal pen.
Final Note: Tomorrow morning I plan on cleaning Jacobhouse, tending the garden, and making noodles for lunch.
*Likely the tightest outlet I have ever wired. It was a small 2″ exterior box into which I had to fit a fat GFCI outlet (which itself was wired both on the top and the bottom with positives and neutrals) along with a ground-line pigtail. Padre helped me wrap the receptacle up in electrical tape and then utilized some needle-nose pliers and brute-force to shove it all into place.
** The converse would be normative economics which is based on ‘what should be’.
*** The ‘è‘ is transformed into an ‘e‘ and attached to ‘dov‘ in plural cases, but it still sounds exactly the same.
**** The bovine that has now been seen multiple times in recent videos, running across a field to obtain some fresh fruit snacks.