mooretrees journal

Where are you and where are you going?
mooretrees
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by mooretrees »

horsewoman wrote:
Mon Dec 05, 2022 12:45 pm
So stupid, right? It's socially unacceptable to do or talk about a perfectly normal thing. My parents were chucked into a bathtub with their siblings each Sunday 60 years ago. They didn't even have a shower in their house. (Actually, our bathroom is clearly installed as an afterthought in our old farmhouse, two rooms have been reduced to squeeze a bathtub in, surrounded by walls.).

Due to extremely dry skin I've always showered as seldom as possible. I can go 7-8 days until my hair gets an " unwashed" look and I seldom have body odour. And that's what a wash cloth ist for! It was the same when I did hard physical work on the farm outside. This is probably dependent on skin type to some extent but I think it's ridiculous that showering once a day is considered necessary and every one else is disgusting.
Preach! If I talk about my hygiene at all with normies, then I just try and be really goofy-which is easy for me.

mooretrees
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by mooretrees »

Mid-week check in:

I'm spotty with doing these check ins with the MMG, but am trying harder this week. i'm more energized to participate on the forums since all of the conversations about darknetting, ERE2 and so on.

The last two days were some of the first normal life days in the bus. Woke up, got kiddo ready for school, exercised, read, dealt with food, hung out with DH, ect. Lovely.

Body stuff:
I'm gearing up for Nordic ski season by researching and implementing some stuff from @slevin, focusing primarily on the Knees Over Toes fellow's split squat and possibly the hip flexibility/strengthening exercises. I tried the split squat today and it was very revealing. Ankle mobility is limited-I HAD to lift my toes to do the stretch, the hip stretch is very pronounced on my wonky side and I had to switch sides as I was shaking after two reps. I can see how this single exercise could make a big improvement in a short time. I'm shooting for two to three times a week (am and pm reps) doing it, kettlebell swings on two days, then skiing or snowshoeing once or twice a week as weather permits.

Money:

I hate tracking money, but think I need to push myself so will be tracking groceries and food out for the month. I am eating out as a way to access public space and because I sometimes don't want to clean/cook in the bus. I can do better. No goals, but gathering information and just already feeling that because I am tracking I'll likely be less spendy. I have increased my HSA contributions and am slowly reading The Permanent Portfolio book. I'm liking the PP so far and it's pushing me to understand macro economics in a way I hadn't anticipated. We still have most of the house sale money in our bank account, so I'm thinking of moving 20-30 k to either short term Cds or starting the short term treasury path that the PP recommends. Will likely implement either of those in January. I don't understand what I'm doing yet so ok going slowly.

Social:
The property we live on is great, but the folks that are our landlords aren't really up for hanging out too much. It's a combination of they're still really serious about not getting sick and perhaps the five year old has too much energy for them? I realized I was waiting to be asked to folks house's for dinner and since that hasn't happened yet, I'm planning on offering to bring food over. We have a friend coming over for dinner tonight and it'll be some work figuring out where we'll be sitting, but I'm looking forward to working out the kinks.

I have put very little effort into meeting any of my son's school friends, it's interesting how little socializing has happened via the school. I've joined a local community group that is powered by a few motivated people. I'd like to try and put on a repair cafe via the community group, possibly start a square dancing evening and maybe a book club. I'm not much of a book clubber, but it's a well established way for people to get together and I'm interested in building community connections. We're in a small town that is very white and ag focused, so that seems to lead to a lot of independent people keeping to themselves.

Reading:
I'm considering either finding a list of 100 classic books to read for this coming year, or crafting my own list. I read quite a bit, but could expand my reading in a more deliberate way. If I craft my own list it will bounce around likely between; classical lit I've avoided (likely American authors initially), woke stuff (social justice, BIPOC authors), popular history (Stephen Ambrose style) and fun stuff. I know I enjoy reading several books at a time as I vary during the day what I can read. Evenings are for fun, lighter fiction while mornings are for more heavy thinking books. Our MMG is good at pushing me to read books that I might avoid due to their perceived difficulty.

ertyu
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by ertyu »

Reading: option 2 (craft your own) seems much more fun :D

Hristo Botev
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by Hristo Botev »

mooretrees wrote:
Wed Dec 07, 2022 2:07 pm
Reading:
I'm considering either finding a list of 100 classic books to read for this coming year, or crafting my own list. I read quite a bit, but could expand my reading in a more deliberate way. If I craft my own list it will bounce around likely between; classical lit I've avoided (likely American authors initially), woke stuff (social justice, BIPOC authors), popular history (Stephen Ambrose style) and fun stuff. I know I enjoy reading several books at a time as I vary during the day what I can read. Evenings are for fun, lighter fiction while mornings are for more heavy thinking books. Our MMG is good at pushing me to read books that I might avoid due to their perceived difficulty.
I know I responded to your related question on my journal, but FWIW I'll repeat here the benefit of reading "classic" books with a group. I'll also add a plug for working chronologically, at least to a certain extent. A lot of folks crap on Adler and the great books movement, and perhaps there's something to that; but, I think it is undeniable that there is a "conversation" going on as between those old books that people are still reading, and reading those books in chronological order (roughly) allows you to participate in that conversation. E.g., I can't wait to start digging into Aquinas, but I'm not going to do that until I've gotten through Aristotle, and I'm not going to touch Aristotle until I've gotten through Plato.

As for time of day, I've been pretty good lately about setting aside 30 minutes to an hour each morning, before the kids are up, to drink my coffee and do my "serious" reading. My other reading happens in the evening or at night--but I treat my reading like I wish I treated my exercise: I set aside time for it every day, at the same time, and I rarely make exceptions.

mooretrees
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by mooretrees »

@hristo botev, appreciate the responses. I think I could be a morning reader too, by candlelight with a coffee. Half an hour is not a long time, do you feel like you make decent progress on the books? I totally agree with you on the chronological reading order, but I'm still not going to do it. :lol: I think this coming year is about plugging some holes in my reading education. If I can get the habit to stick, then I can be more thoughtful about my reading.

I'm making a list and started potentially lightly talking about reading some of the same books as a coworker/friend. That could be fun, though neither of us is that interested in having formal discussions.

Hips/body:

Started doing some knees over toes inspired strength stretching. The main two I'm doing are the split squat and a second one I can't remember the name (you put weights on your knees while sitting with feet together, stretches the adductors. The split squat is interesting, it feels really great on my wonky hip side and my legs are usually trembling after 5 slow reps. I don't have a clear goal other then working on hip flexibility and strength, but this is really just a start. I'm liking the low stakes of doing these two stretches three or so times a week. I can't tell any differences yet, it's too soon and with only two exercises, I don't think I'm likely to see anything for a bit longer. I'll be looking for increased mobility when I stretch and a difference in how my left hip feels while walking/moving.

I keep returning to the vo2 max thread for insights on heart rate training. I've actually taken my heart rate several times during different activities. Snowshoeing uphill: 136, walking at a brisk pace: 104. I'm trying to find that sweet spot of Zone 2 training and understand my own level of fitness. I did an orientation at the hospital gym mainly to use the shower, but now I can use the treadmill/bike to get more zone 2 time. They have limited hours, but I think I can squeeze in during their early hours.

Hristo Botev
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by Hristo Botev »

mooretrees wrote:
Wed Dec 14, 2022 10:08 pm
Half an hour is not a long time, do you feel like you make decent progress on the books?
For sure. The guy that started onlinegreatbooks.com originally called it, somewhat jokingly, "intellectual linear progression," because he was a strength coach and that was a play on a strength training program for beginners called "novice linear progression." The idea is to make small, incremental (but consistent) gains. So applied to reading hard books, read a little bit at a time consistently as opposed to saying to yourself you're going to read 4 hours on Sunday, e.g. I probably average 45 minutes or so a day during the week of "heavy" reading, so about 3.5 to 4 hours a week; that's a lot, and doing that over the last 18 months I've managed to do deep reads of Iliad, Odyssey, the plays of Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, and Aristophanes, the histories of Herodotus and Thucydides, and eleven of Plato's dialogues, including The Republic, as well as Mortimer Adler's book How to Read a Book. And in that time I've also read the first volume of Shelby Foote's monster trilogy on the Civil War and started the second, along with many other side readings of both a secular and spiritual nature. I am NOT a "fast" reader, but you can cover a lot with 3 to 4 hours of dedicated and focused reading a week.

Western Red Cedar
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by Western Red Cedar »

mooretrees wrote:
Wed Dec 14, 2022 10:08 pm
I'm making a list and started potentially lightly talking about reading some of the same books as a coworker/friend. That could be fun, though neither of us is that interested in having formal discussions.
Have you thought about starting a local book group? It seems like it might mesh well with your goals to build stronger social relationships. It might require more flexibility with the reading list, but it may make for a more enjoyable experience.

mooretrees
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by mooretrees »

I’m in a book group now and can’t seem to make more than one meeting a year. I guess for once I’m not interested in the social aspect? The coworker I’m talking to about reading books together is someone who I will talk ideas and such already. So it could be a very low key way to discuss any book we read together.

Hristo Botev
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by Hristo Botev »

ERE has done reading groups in the past, no? Perhaps send feelers out to see if there is any interest.

For me, I need the plan and the accountability. I need to know this month I need to read these pages, and that I need to have read them and gathered my notes by X date, when I will meet with others to discuss and I need to have something interesting to say/ask. Without that accountability I'd probably just sleep in.

mooretrees
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by mooretrees »

@HB

Been thinking about your morning practice with reading as I start my days. It's more realistic for me to read after the hustle of getting DS out the door in the morning. I have at least one day a week where I can relax back into bed and focus on reading.

mooretrees
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by mooretrees »

Midweek update:

Had a bit of a rough moment at the property, seems we were overstepping boundaries about what areas/structures we could use. We cleared the air and understand what the property owners want and how to maintain the relationship. It was taxing though to go through the conversation and the worry that we were upsetting our friends. Another area that they were unhappy with is composting our poop on their property. I am not sure where the miscommunication went awry there, as I thought I'd been VERY clear about our hope to compost on site and they seemed to understand at the time. Things change. We'll be hauling our poop off site to a RV spot, we haven't done it yet and I'm dreading it. I'm also super bummed we can't compost the poop. Not sure if that situation will change but for now, we'll do what we need to keep the situation good.

Body stuff:

It seems I'm in a rehab situation. I watched this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEAc-Ds7zJw
and 'diagnosed' myself with very weak external rotation strength in my hips. I'm starting the slow process of correcting that, and hope I'll see progress in a month or so. Despite my wonky hip, I'm still getting out there and hitting some basic goals of consistent workouts, snow sports and walking. I also have a wonky, arthritic ankle on the same side as my hip, a weak core and lower back, so I've got a lot of work ahead of me. For now, the focus is the hip. The understanding that all areas are connected means any gains in one area will help all over. Right now, body weight squats (plie style for the external hip focus), lateral lunges and split squats are the three exercises in my routine. I've found a good local walking spot and am checking my heart rate during the walk- 120's. So right in that zone 2 spot. Adding the gym at work means I will be able to try using bands to strengthen my hips and shower there too!

Money:

I'm 2/3rds of the way finished with The Permanent Portfolio book. I'm not implementing it yet as I can't explain it well enough to demonstrate I understand it. I hope to find some other resources to augment that book. It's helping me start to get our financial picture organized. I'm tracking food expenses this month. So far they're at $630.94, but most of that is a quarter of beef. Without the beef, we're at $164.05 and 10 days left. Seems good. I will be doing a shopping trip tomorrow for some veggies and trip provisions.

San Diego:
We're traveling to San Diego soon. DH might have the flu, so the trip will start sometime next week. We're taking the '81 VW Rabbit and hoping to see AxelHeyst, MountainFrugal and anyone else in Southern CA. We hope to camp some (once the nights are above 20F) and I rented some hardcore sleeping bags and a larger tent to make sure we're set up to have a good time. I wasn't ready to buy new sleeping bags so it was awesome to rent them and try them out before dropping significant cash.

Scott 2
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by Scott 2 »

Have you tried
mooretrees wrote:
Wed Dec 21, 2022 5:59 pm
'diagnosed' myself with very weak external rotation strength in my hips
Have you tried monster walks / lateral walks with a band around the knees? I like to do those before any lower body work. They turn on the external rotators in my hips, making it easier to use them during the other movements.

theanimal
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by theanimal »

That's a shame about not being able to compost your waste. Many of our friends/family are really curious by the idea so I've led numerous tours of our compost. "Look, our old poop is buried in there!" "What do you smell?" That has been a huge factor in changing people's minds and having them see it as less of an "extreme" practice. Granted, it is on our property and the same would probably be difficult if your friends are already not very receptive to the idea. I wonder if they'd change their minds if a copy of The Humanure Handbook happened to find it's way into their house. ;)

horsewoman
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by horsewoman »

The situation with your friends took me a few years back, when we had a similar thing on our farm. There is a small flat above our garages and one of the horse owners asked if she could move in there in exchange for helping in the stables.
Initially we were very happy but the situation turned complicated pretty quickly. She "overstepped" by doing perfectly normal things (in her view) we would never have thought to talk about beforehand, but turned out to be pretty awkward/annoying for us.
She also vastly overstated her willingness of how much help she wanted to give - or rather she realised how hard our work was physically.
It was a super messy situation that ended in lots of hard feelings and her moving out in a huff, with both parties feeling taken advantage of.
Now, DH and me are both socially inept, I'm sure better communication would have helped. So your friends talking to you is a good thing. I tried to talk to our tennant, but she got offended (autistic bluntness is seldom appreciated).

I hope you can find common ground again with your friends, so that a beneficial (for both sides) long-term solution can be found.
Having loads of land/property does something to your psychology make-up, I have found. You don't need to accommodate people in your day to day life, because your neighbors are far away and you spend lots of your time working your land alone. You can indulge in your quirks and oddities freely. It's a small shock to the system when other people running around suddenly.

Our tennant didn't have a washing machine, so I agreed to her using mine (thinking a single person would have one load a week). She had 3 loads a week at least, which was shocking to me (I have 2 for 3 people!). It was highly uncomfortable to take my agreement back without me looking like an un-hygienic cheapskate. Maybe your friends are in a similar situation with your composting. They had a certain idea, but reality turned out to be very different.

MBBboy
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by MBBboy »

Laundry habits vary......widely. We literally had brother-in-law and his girlfriend show up yesterday, and I went upstairs and was confused why all of the laundry that was safely hidden in the dryer was sitting folded on our bed. Turns out one of them needed to do laundry. They have been here less than 12 hours. At least she folded our stuff for us ("incorrectly").

Brother in law has also been an offender in the past when staying with us for a few days, and doing laundry for like...2 shirts. I was so confused.

They way I grew up, you did laundry when you had enough for the whole machine to be full. We didn't have an in-apartment washing machine until I was in high school. Guess you think of loads differently when you have to break out the quarters and trek to shared laundry area and spend a bunch of time watching your stuff

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mountainFrugal
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by mountainFrugal »

mooretrees wrote:
Wed Dec 21, 2022 5:59 pm
Right now, body weight squats (plie style for the external hip focus), lateral lunges and split squats are the three exercises in my routine. I've found a good local walking spot and am checking my heart rate during the walk- 120's. So right in that zone 2 spot. Adding the gym at work means I will be able to try using bands to strengthen my hips and shower there too!
I think it is really smart to get this hip situation figured out before adding a lot of cardio running volume as those muscle imbalances might be harder to get rid of if you are adding running impact into the mix. The walking is a great way to get back into things. :). Do you have specific time goals for walking and gym work?

mooretrees
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by mooretrees »

@Scott2, I haven't tried those but when I get into the hospital gym with their bands, I'll be experimenting with them.

@theanimal I do think that one of the couple might be open to learning about humanure, but one of the problems I didn't mention is that they're a commercial property and subject to some state environmental quality checks. They are doing a huge water reclamation project and can be inspected by the state at any period. For now we'll take the poop offsite and keep them in the state's good graces.

@horsewoman That is indeed a bummer of a story that ya'll went through with your tenant. I'm trying to avoid a similar situation! I think the key is better communication and quick action for when they want something changed. I'm not sure if I see us here for many years, but at least until spring? Also, we don't use their shower or washing machines, I'm glad to not have that interaction with them. They're still so covid cautious that it's just easier to stay out of their house entirely.

@mtf I'm going for 1. consistency in workouts, and 2. 40 min + timeframe for walking. I'm not sure how often I'll go to the gym at work. I haven't figured out how to incorporate into my work day yet.

mooretrees
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by mooretrees »

We've been traveling and since I hate writing on the phone I've waited until our return to post.

Vacation:

We drove to San Diego to visit my in-laws. My son had no idea that he had another set of grandparents as we hadn't seen them since 2O19. The highlight of the trip was the three nights we spent with AxelHeyst. We left super energized for all things ERE/building, just everything. It was fantastic to see his set up and spend hours walking in the desert looking at poop and talking. Can't say enough about how awesome he is and his parents, and their land. I can't wait to visit again.
One of my takeaways from visiting my in-laws is that I'm gonna work hard not to be like them as I age. I don't want to be too negative about them because I think most people avoid planning for their own deaths/incapacitation, but their lack of planning could be a bad thing for us. Anyway, since we got home last night DH and I have talked about creating our own wills and related estate planning. And I sent the in-laws and their other child a pointed email asking for them to work on this stuff. I do not have high hopes that one email will accomplish anything. However, I hope to make small progress and get our financial/life in order. I can't berate them if we're also not organized!

Health:

I've been pretty diligent about my hip exercises. I've repeated my initial exercise that highlighted my weak external rotation muscles and have made strength gains. I've also been working on my posture because bad posture could be part of why my pelvis was tilted. I think I'll schedule another visit with the same chiropractor as a way to check my pelvis. I don't see going regularly, but I think periodic checks could be useful.

End of year review:
While I'd like to make a splashy post about how many workouts I did or how much money I saved, I can't. I remain consistently inconsistent about tracking all things. I counted up all the recorded workouts in my planner, 32. I'm sure I did more workouts then that but......

Last year was a gigantic year for us. We sold our house, moved twice and moved into our schoolbus. I will cut myself some slack that my tracking was bad. We also transitioned to parents of a school kid. I can't overstate how HUGE a change that was for us. Being parents of a young kiddo during covid was, well, NEVER_ENDING. Of course, now we have to deal with other people making decisions about what our kid needs to know, playground dynamics, and more. As far as being able to live in the bus, having our kid in school made a big difference in DH getting the bus livable.
Last year I started beekeeping and put more effort into candle-making as a side hustle. I harvested honey and learned how to kill several hives. I also started a local beekeeping group. I focused on fermentation and did a better job at harvesting wild fruit and preserving it. With all of our moves, I wasn't perfect. I didn't make any progress on gardening which is understandable. My biggest success with wild food harvesting was convincing a friend to be interested in black walnuts. We've harvesting and dried 10 plus pounds of unshelled walnuts. I hope to start shelling them soon. I have no idea if I like them but I am committed to eating them regardless. If I don't like them raw, they'll go in baked goods or granola. I started really diving into birding and nature observations. My son and I do the nature observations together and he watches me do occasional terrible drawings. I made very little obvious progress on drawing, but am looking at birds in a different way. That 'might' translate into learning to draw them if I keep at it.

2023:
I will post about this year soon.

Western Red Cedar
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by Western Red Cedar »

mooretrees wrote:
Thu Jan 12, 2023 5:45 pm
I've been pretty diligent about my hip exercises. I've repeated my initial exercise that highlighted my weak external rotation muscles and have made strength gains. I've also been working on my posture because bad posture could be part of why my pelvis was tilted.
I hope the hip rehab is going well. This video might be of interest. Jeremy Ethier's content is usually really solid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkhbkK53OgA

mooretrees
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by mooretrees »

Thanks @WRC! I'll check it out.

Feb check in:
I haven't done a great job posting on the forum and I've come up with a new rule for myself. Two posts on other's journals before posting in mine. Keeps me more engaged here and potentially ups the number of people responding in my journal.

Health:
My hip is MUCH better these days. I am gratified that my work has paid off and a little bit of effort has reduced my pain and made exercising more pleasant. On that note, I actually tracked my workouts!
Kettlebells: 4 sessions
Nordic skiing: 7 (this is the most I've ever skied in a season, let alone a few weeks!)
Walks: 11 (this is especially high because we did a lot of hiking on our vacation)
Body weight: 7 (primarily hip related squats and I started doing side planks as well).

I'm very pleased with myself for all the above work I did. Having my son in a ski class is definitely facilitating the increase in skiing, as well as his all day kindergarten. Last night at ski class I was really tired and considered sitting in the car and reading a book. I also forgot my poles and wasn't sure how much that would suck. I bucked up and went out anyway and tackled a hill that is really intimating and skied longer than I thought I would. Skiing without poles is very different and really showed me how much I rely on them for balance.

I ordered two of Pavel T's books and I'm going to start on the Simple and Sinister program when they arrive. I really, really enjoy kettlebell swings and I haven't made any progress learning other exercises. The program sounds simple enough to do while also doing other activities, we'll see how it goes. I feel stronger and if I squint hard enough, I can see more muscular arms.

Bus life:

DH has got the saw working and started on his first boards for the ceiling. They look good! He's going to mill the whole lot down, then make them into ship lap (not sure how to say that?) and then install. The first board went fairly quickly so we'll see how the rest go. He's enjoying the process and it's challenging him.

We hired our friend again to do some projects, she's almost finished building a set of shelves that will be our pantry. All of the materials were stuff we had on hand so it's just her time. Next up for her is finishing the entry way closet. Both projects will make the bus more tidy and livable. Right now we all unload our coats and shoes right in front of the bus and it gets cluttered quickly.

We've going to buy a propane stove/oven here soon. We're mixed on the electric induction stovetop. It's fast to heat water but can be annoying with cooking. Sometimes it seems that when both burners are going the heat lowers on one of burners. Also, it's another way to reduce our need for electricity. The town we're in frequently loses power, something we didn't know before we moved here. I'm very excited to have an oven again, I really missed one. We'll use the induction stovetop at the farmer's market so it's not an entirely wasted purchase.

It's sunny out and I need to go for a walk, so that's all for now.

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