Random gulchy stuff, and also today’s the day…

The unseasonable mild weather continues, in a slightly moderated form. Like, yesterday it only spent most of the daylight hours in the fifties. I’m feeling better, that sore on my stump has almost entirely left and it doesn’t hurt anymore, which means…


…walkies are back on the menu. Which Tobie doesn’t seem to mind.

I brought a ladder over to Ian’s Cave and finished the indoors part of installing that new cell signal booster…


Not that it makes any difference in how well it works but at least it won’t be constantly getting knocked off the wall now. As to what failed…


That wasn’t hard to diagnose at all. If there was ever a strain relief on that wire it went away a long time ago. I installed the new yagi more carefully, and it should last indefinitely. I also mounted it higher on the mast: The original one didn’t quite clear the ridgetop and suffered from line-of-sight problems. This one’s signal is much stronger even though it only just clears the ridgetop.

This morning I was up rather earlier than usual, no doubt due to nerves because I have to do something I’ve been dreading. This confused Tobie. All winter I’ve laid in bed till light, 6:30 or even seven. He objected at first but got used to it. Now here I was walking around with a headlamp at five in the frickin’ AM, and he’s like…


“You born in a barn?”

I have a first appointment at the prosthetics shop in the big town about 50 miles away today. (sigh) The first time this ever happened, more than 50 years ago, it was a literal shop that smelled heavily of fiberglass resin. Except for the part about being prodded in a sensitive spot by a stranger, I felt right at home. Now it’s more-or-less a bureaucrat’s office, or at least that’s the way it’s run, and I hate it all the more.

I pretty much hate leaving my grubby little gulch for any reason, but this especially. This is a place where a) guns are expressly forbidden, and b) there’s a chance I’ll have to drop my pants so I can’t just ignore the rule.

One of the things I love about my grubby little gulch is that it’s located in a place where nobody cares what’s on your belt, except possibly as a topic of conversation. So naturally it’s 5:30 in the morning and instead of kicking back with a coffee I’m obsessing over what gun to bring and how to carry it.


Oh, screw it. If I can’t wear it I may as well carry the big one.


Wish me luck.

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Me so handy!

Ian’s Cave is an unintentional but very effective Faraday Cage. It has so much mesh and is so thoroughly grounded that no electronic signal can penetrate in either direction. If you’re working inside or in the front yard, where the mound blocks all signal, you’d better have a signal booster if you want your smartphone to work at anything but playing recorded music.

And until lately, the Cave had a signal booster. It didn’t work great, not as well as the one on the Lair, but it worked.

Until lately. And it didn’t take me very long to diagnose the failure…


Notice that there’s no coax on that antenna housing? Yeah, that’s because the wire that connected everything together in the housing just fell out. No phone, no pool, no pets.

I spend a fairly substantial amount of time working in and around Ian’s Cave, and I like my smartphone, so it was incumbent on me to fix or replace the booster. Happily I have gained some experience with installing them thanks to the one Big Brother bought me going on five years ago. Not that there’s really anything to it. But I did have serious doubts that I was going to be able to handle that threaded pipe mast by myself.


I won’t say it wasn’t any problem, but I got it done. Then it was just a matter of fishing new coax through the conduit, and…


…connecting some simple components inside the Cave.

Tested the connection with my phone, and…


Yup, it works again. I was pleased with myself, and that I found something useful to do with this unbelievable mild spell we’re enjoying. Sweating in a t-shirt in early February! This has to be some sort of record.

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“I talk to my truck now, Joel.”

I went to the biggish town about 35 miles away with Neighbor L this morning. L is delighted to have her truck back and working right for the first time in quite a while, and the new hasn’t worn off. She mentioned with a laugh that she has taken to goo-boying her truck for up- and down-shifting correctly.

I replied that I was fully on board with the feeling: I still give my bedroom heater a thumbs-up when I hear it ‘foop’ on demand from the thermostat. This time last year it was a hit-or-miss phenomenon that eventually stopped working entirely and it really hurt my heart at the time.

More recently I’ve had a chance to see what I really value about having running water and what’s just sort of a convenience. A working kitchen sink, for example, is a very useful thing to have but I don’t get emotional about it coming back into my life the way I do – even after all these years – with my Real Flush Toilet. Seriously – I can haul water for the sink. But hauling shit is a real blow to your quality of life.

I’m not suggesting that losing basic amenities is ever a good thing to do. But I will observe that having it happen from time to time helps me appreciate them more when I get them working again.

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All my windows are open.

Check this out…


On February 4.

I went around the yard collecting windblown trash, did the laundry, ran the burn barrel, serviced the Jeep (that new inflator won’t top off all four tires on one charge), serviced all the batteries, practiced with my pistol, took Tobie on like four walkies…

In a t-shirt.

On February 4.

It’s supposed to stay this way for the rest of the week.


That’s kind of weird, not that I’m complaining. But I’m going to predict right now that March is going to be a wintry nightmare from start to finish, just to get it out of the way.

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I hate SHOT Show.

There, I said it.

I’ve never been to SHOT Show. Even if I were welcome there, which as a non-press hoi polloi I certainly would not be, you couldn’t drag me screaming to a crowded convention in Las Vegas. It’s one reason I’m armed, to prevent anyone from trying. Some people have zombies, I have convention venues. I didn’t say it was a major reason.

So if I’ve never been and I’ll never be, why do I bother hating on SHOT Show? It’s because I’m a retired boomer with too much time on his hands in winter. I admit I spend a lot of it watching Youtube, and I’m a gun guy so I’m familiar with most of the gun channels though I ignore most of them. But SHOT Show is a guaranteed font of content for guntubers, so…


…during and after that stupid convention, all I see are images of two things: a) Faked-together vaporware that will never actually be sold, and b) Another exciting! plastic striker-fired 9mm!! Now with extra bumpy bits!!!

Just saying, I annually look forward to SHOT Show going away. It’s a personal peeve, your mileage may vary.

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I got my water back!

And the freeze apparently didn’t damage any pipes, which with PVC is never the way to bet.

The temperature has gone back to freakishly warm: It’s actually supposed to be in the seventies for the next four days. So there was a chance my drain pipe might thaw. I wasn’t sure about that because of course no matter what the sun’s doing it’s always going to stay cold under the cabin. But yeah, I checked and the drainage was back. I was actually reluctant to open the valve to let water back into the cabin, being pretty much sure the result would be a gush of water where it’s not supposed to be. But so far so good. No drips, and the big goofy-looking gauge at the sink says the pipes are holding pressure.

Of course there was the usual brown water and sediment that needed to be flushed out…


…but I’m used to that. Even remembered to take the aerator off the faucet before opening the valve. Now I can put away all the Plan B infrastructure the Lair has been cluttered with for the last two weeks. Till next time.

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This is absolutely not my fault.

My brand new kitchen bypass regulator decided no gas for me.


First thing in the frigid morning – which is exactly the same way the one it replaced failed.

Before coffee I had to go out in the cold to rummage around for my filthy campstove…

…and by the afternoon when I went out to replace the misbehaving regulator with Plan B – AGAIN…


…it was apparently working fine. Which tells me it somehow ingested some water – this comes right after the only even slightly substantial snowfall since November, so go figure – which then froze. HOW it could possibly have done such a thing is beyond me: I only installed it in the autumn so the seals should be fine, and it’s covered from drips. But there it is.

On the good news front…


…Neighbor L got her pickup back repaired from the Big Town about 50 miles away, right after I connected my last full propane bottle to the bedroom regulator. So I was able to fill the majority of my empties, which makes Uncle Joel happy.

Less unhappy, anyway. That running sore on my stump appears to be healing, though it hurt like a bitch all day yesterday. Having now finished my morning chores and rarely getting any emergencies on Sunday, I now plan to spend the bulk of the day one-legged in the seated position while reading a book to hopefully let the healing continue.

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Okay, this put a smile on my face…

From several years ago and not really topical, but I only saw it for the first time this morning.

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Just got back from visiting Neighbor D…

Who just got out of the hospital – again – without anything in his condition improved or even justified. He has a bad infection from his hip replacement, which I suppose no doctor – especially the one(s) responsible – wants to call malpractice. They hold onto him till his white count gets down below “shocking” and then send him home – till next time. Meanwhile he can barely move without pain, let alone walk.

Which, while I won’t say it makes me feel better, at least puts my own situation into perspective. I’ve spent the past couple of weeks barely able to walk, though the past two days have been better as the sore my ill-fitting prosthesis rubbed on my stump* shows some sign of wanting to heal. I’ve mostly been sitting or lying around dreading the next inescapable walk with Tobie, which is not the way I prefer to spend my time. Sorry for the extended no-blog, I just haven’t been feeling it lately.

Winter has re-visited the Gulch, with way-below-freezing temperatures and driving wind. It finally warmed up enough to snow yesterday…


…and overnight, but it didn’t amount to anything.


This has so far been an extremely dry winter, this morning being the first time any snow at all was on the ground since early November. January has tried mightily to make up for the freakishly-warm December, and may I say it has done a damned fine job. First I lost my well water, and then…


…for the first time in several years, my grey-water drain froze up. Which would be a problem, except that I can use the buckets of sink drainage to keep my toilet somewhat functional. I always have one pitcher on the counter for drinking water: Now I have two, the other one filled with well water from the five-gallon jugs I (painfully) drag over from Ian’s for washing and such. And it might stay that way for a while: The next warm spell is due any day and I’ll see what if any damage has been done to my plumbing when I turn the water back on but once the drainpipe freezes it might not entirely thaw again till April. So that’s been the cherry on top of what otherwise wouldn’t have been a premier month in any case.


Needless to say nothing very exciting is happening around the Lair just lately. But I’m keeping up with necessaries…


They say nothing drives innovation like giving the job to a lazy man. Since the prospect of carrying the generator back and forth to the powershed on my bleeding stump has made me re-think this whole “I need electricity” thing, I got a little more creative and ran a long cord from the battery charger to the front porch. The generator has to stay in the cabin when not in use or it won’t start in the cold, but bringing it out to the porch is a lot less stressful than carrying it all the way to the powershed. Probably wouldn’t have bothered working that out in other circumstances, so there’s that.

Anyway, that’s what’s going on. Sorry for the no-blog thing, but when there’s nothing to say you don’t say anything.

—-
*And speaking of that, I have an appointment with the prosthetics shop on the tenth of February in hope of making that problem go away.

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Never too old to admit and rectify a mistake…

I have about 30 gallons of drinking water hauled in from town and stored in cool darkness at Ian’s place, and when I lose water at the Lair I end up spending some of it on utility measures other than drinking. It never made a lot of sense to me but I never got around to fixing the deficiency before today. Those blue food-grade bottles are expensive and a little fragile.


I’m going to label these two 5-gallon jugs “not for drinking.” I can fill them at any neighbor’s, rather than having to haul them all the way to town and spend a buck filling each. And they’re stout enough that even bashing around in the back of the Jeep they’ll probably outlast me.

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I suppose we could talk about Melania’s hat*, but…

I’d rather talk about winter preps, and how after all this time I still find ways to fail at them.

So. Yesterday afternoon.


This wasn’t all that unexpected, I’ve been living in fear of it since the cold snap started. Could have been far worse, as far as I know no pipes broke, it’s just an internal freeze. But it got and stayed damned cold yesterday so I just closed the supply valve and opened every inside valve to hopefully drain the pipes as much as possible. Then later Tobie and I went to Ian’s to get some water bottles for washing and such.

I really thought I had two 5-gallon bottles stored. Could only find one, so I grabbed two 3-gallon bottles of drinking water instead of the second 5-gallon, including one that’s gotten really old and no longer fit for the drinking water back-and-forth.

As I climbed a hill in my driveway, the bottles fell over, which is normal. But instead of the usual boinging sound, I got a crack and the rush of water.

“[Bad word]! [Bad word]!”


If you leave these things in the sun, they will go a wonky color and get brittle. I don’t leave them in the sun – having learned that lesson – but over time they still go a wonky color and get brittle. I knew this one was, but…


…I didn’t know it was quite that brittle. Well, it died an honorable death.

So this latest freeze caught me with my pants down. My Plan B utility water stocks were not what they needed to be. Next time I go to town I’m going to stop at the local auto parts store: They used to sell square 5-gallon jugs, and I’ll bet they still do.

—-
*No, seriously there are people on the internet arguing about Melania’s hat right now. Apparently it’s a very serious matter.

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Seven below!

That is officially the coldest recorded temperature outside the Secret Lair since 2019. Naturally on the morning I had to leave early to do something I don’t often do: Drive Neighbor L’s Jeep right through town.

For the third time, her fancy pickup truck needed to be flatbedded to the Dodge dealership in the big town about 50 miles away, which in this case meant she needed to meet the driver in the little town nearest where we live and was going to need a ride back. Also she wasn’t 100% confident the truck would get her to town without trouble so she also needed somebody watching her six. No problem, really: I don’t drive on pavement because I haven’t had a DL for over 20 years. Doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten how, but it has gotten so rare that I’m not really comfortable doing it.

Tobie cooperated with a much shorter than standard morning walkie once he realized how frickin’ cold it was outside: He has a full winter coat but when his tender toesies hit the ice he just about vetoed the whole idea. Bending to necessity he did his chores immediately and we got the hell back indoors but I still had to stuff myself into both Jeeps bundled up to the max. It’s after 10 ayem now and the sun has been up for two hours in a cloudless sky and it’s still not 20 degrees out.

Water system’s holding pressure and the woodstove has the cabin’s inside nice and toasty, though. So now I’m kicking back, thinking about those five frigid winters in the Interim Lair, and counting my blessings.

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I got another prescription today…

Last time I did that was in 2020, and I did it again today for the same reason. I can’t take this prosthesis any more.

I’ve only had it five years but it fits so badly I’m basically confined to the house for not being able to walk with it. Two weeks ago I bought a cane. It’s enough to drive me to … well, go out and get another one.

Having come back from the local clinic with a promise from the doctor that he’d send an order to the prosthetist I’m pretty much stuck with, I came home and tried to make an appointment. Only to find the office is closed, presumably for the same reason the post office was. Stupid holidays…

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Who’s Rachel Vindman?

And why does she seem so worried?


For the record Biden left office and didn’t give me a pardon either. But I never gave him any money so my sense of betrayal is limited.

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Not much going on…

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I did something financially irresponsible…

Okay, so my current carry pistol came with a Swampfox red dot…


It’s one of the less expensive brands and it worked adequately. It stopped holding zero but that wasn’t the optic’s fault. Slamming back and forth destroyed the adapter plate’s cheap plastic zeroing lugs and an optic hand carved from solid platinum and personally blessed by GOD wouldn’t have held zero. My new adapter plate machined from an actual metallic substance will probably permanently fix that problem. BUT – over time the Swampfox did the same thing the Vortex Venom I put on the M69 did: the reflection (refraction? Don’t know) of the laser against the glass gradually became indistinct and fuzzy. It was okay in most light conditions but it was very fuzzy against a dark background and aiming up a hill toward the sun it wasn’t usable at all.

I wanted to try a closed-emitter optic, and bought a Holosun that, despite the manual’s promises, didn’t fit. So I sent that back and moped. That was also when I noticed the problem with the old adapter plate so it wasn’t a completely useless exercise. Remember that I’m a old hermit: This stuff is after my time and I’m learning as I go here.

Anyway: I got the new plate, learned that it would fit a Trijicon RMR and that they’re well spoken of. They’re stupid expensive, but I really wanted this to work. So…I girded my financial loins and did something ridiculous


How’s that for presentation? Makes you think you’re getting something for your money, no? But when I opened the case, hopefully with an air of proper respect…


Well, that’s disappointing. You could at least put it on a little throne or something. Or display it upright? I wasn’t even sure it was a complete unit.

Turns out it was…


Took it out with a screwdriver to zero it. First shot at seven yards just to get it on paper, and…


Okay, that was encouraging. Turned out it didn’t need any tweaking at all.

So that seems to have worked. Let’s see if it wears any better than my other two much cheaper optics.

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That new ball valve didn’t take long to pay for itself…

I went to town this morning with Neighbor L to get propane. Everything was fine when I left but when I got back I saw water running across the yard in front of the Lair. “[bad word]! [bad word]! [bad word]!” The most likely source of the break was right where I needed to go anyway to shut off the water…


…and happily I could stop the flow with my new-last-spring shut-off valve. Even more happily…


…once I cut away the insulation the break wasn’t hard to find. I had to dig anyway, because the surest way of keeping this from happening again was to cut off the upright underground and cap it. Which I was able to easily do…


I might never have the right gas fitting on hand but if it’s a 1/2″ white PVC fitting, I’ve got it. In multiples. So I think I set a record this afternoon for time spent repairing a plumbing leak.

But it wouldn’t have happened in the first place if I’d obeyed the angel on my shoulder this past Spring and installed one of those expensive freeze-“proof” hydrants instead of another PVC upright. I’m not as broke now as I was this time last year, so in Spring I’ll fix this right. In the meantime that upright isn’t of any use anyway – except in case of a hard-to-fix leak under the cabin where having a yard spigot is handy.

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More Neighbor D trouble…

D has nearly spent as much time traveling by air in the past year as I did back in my globetrotting period. All by getting rushed to hospitals in the Big City.

His hip infection got bad again, and the hospital in the big town about 50 miles away wanted no part of him. So into the plane he went. Is this common? I’m kind of confused about it.

I got a phone call from Neighbor L this afternoon, saying that he was going to be in the City for a couple of weeks while they try to get it under control. We’ve heard that before. I genuinely don’t understand what’s going on with his condition. He can’t walk at all for constant pain, which has only gotten worse in the past months but nobody seems to know why. It has become a serious financial problem for this elder couple who thought they had plenty of money for a comfortable retirement when they moved out here and built their dream house in the desert together going on 20 years ago. He fell off his horse nearly fifteen months ago and it’s ruining both their lives.

I love this guy. He was one of the two capable men I met when I first moved here, always around when there were building projects to be done and he taught me a lot. He was there for my two Lair framing projects, always ready to help. I built the kitchen part of the Lair in his woodshop under his instruction. When I had my kidney stone emergency that left me practically writhing on the ground in pain he dropped what he was doing and (literally at one point) carried me to the local clinic. He’s like a foot taller than me, was far stronger than I ever was, and I was honored on the few occasions when he asked me to pitch in on some aspect of his big building project. To see him reduced to this is kind of painful. He deserves better.

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Okay, I’m just going to stop talking about weather on the blog…

Last post I mentioned the freakishly mild December just past, which was of course the cue for the forecast (and weather) to abruptly change to seasonal…


…which, while not surprising, is also not an improvement and I should have just quietly enjoyed what I had without bringing it up.

Today had to be bread day, and I knew that the moment I started the sky would close right up. The view from the porch…


…was not what the forecast called for – in fact we were supposed to have an inch of snow by now. Just because the overcast didn’t show up on time didn’t mean it wasn’t coming and I need full sun to run my oven. Unless I cheat…


…by taking the generator out of the cabin and into the powershed to substitute for the solar panels in charging the batteries. Which I’m increasingly prone to do in case of any doubt: The batteries turned five years old last August and, though still working fine for the depth of winter, are on borrowed time and I’d rather spend an hour’s worth of gasoline than abuse them.


I feel like I really ought to do something more permanent-looking, less obviously improvised, than just parking the Honda in the doorway but hey, it works.

At first it seemed like the right call…


…but then later the sky mostly cleared again so I could have gotten away with not bothering with the generator. What I should have done was heat up the cabin before letting the dough rise, because…


…this is what happens whenever I don’t get a good rise before baking the bread. And the only reason I can think of for why it didn’t rise well is that I didn’t bother lighting the woodstove and heating up the cabin first. It’s not the yeast, which is new and proved good before I made the dough. I should remember that next time: Heat up the room, then make the dough.

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And the moral of that tale is check your tire pressure, I suppose…

I had to go to D&L’s this afternoon to unload yet another ton of wood pellets, the third of the season so far. Tobie and I got in the Jeep and I was literally reaching for the start button when the phone rang.

Texts aren’t uncommon; phone calls almost always mean some immediate issue/emergency so I fumbled for the phone, tried to remember how to answer it, and learned that Neighbor L wanted to make sure that I brought my portable tire inflator. Which is always in the Jeep, so no extra effort needed.


Now, last time I helped unload and stack their wood pellets I noticed that I was having a very hard time hauling the little metal wagon back and forth. I attributed this to getting old and decrepit, it never occurred to me to wonder about the state of the wagon. But L had recently used the same wagon to pull a bunch of (very light) garbage bags to the barrels at the far side of the driveway and she had the same observation. Apparently being smarter than me, this caused her to wonder about the air pressure in the wagon’s tires – all of which were just barely inflated enough to avoid appearing actively flat when unloaded. So we spent a very few minutes filling all four tires from an indicated 0 psi, and the wagon suddenly rolled a great deal more easily. Technology: Is there no problem it can’t solve?

Speaking of heaters…


I have a hard time understanding why D&L are going through so many wood pellets this winter because so far it has been ridiculously mild. Seriously, all through December I think we had one 3-day stretch where the afternoons only went into the forties. Some nights wander vaguely into the high teens. It hasn’t snowed since early November. I have lit my woodstove exactly twice, briefly, so far all season.

I gaze fearfully about and emphasize loudly that I AM NOT COMPLAINING ABOUT THIS.

It will certainly change for the colder at some point. Probably with a great dramatic flourish. But the forecast so far only predicts more of the same. It’s kind of eerie.

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