After the pullets’ record-breaking effort of yesterday, I wondered if I’d get anything at all from them today and I didn’t. But there was an egg in the big nest box anyway: Big, longer than typical RIR: It could only have come from the recently-barren cloaca of #7 the PTSD’d Brahma! Which is good for her, because only Saturday she was the topic of a conversation she would not have approved. If all you’re going to do is sit under the coop and be traumatized, we’ll find another way to put you to use. Maybe the dogs overheard and told her.
Today the book I’ve been working on passed 35,000 words. Pretty darned good words, too, I think, but I’ll leave that to the judgment of editors. I’m shooting for 50K but things might slow down because I’m pretty much out of low-hanging fruit. I keep having these “aha!” moments and going back to banging on the keyboard but don’t know how long I can keep that up. Can any of you guys think of old stories from the gulch you’d like to see in here? Guns, building projects, animals living and dead, strange interactions with strange people…you know there’s only so many times I can write about that time I got the tractor unstuck, or the reasons why it’s best to embrace the chaos. But I’m still working on it.
shooting the badger, maybe? how about some thoughts on the ak 47 scope and mount. The reason I ask is because it looks like an extended eye relief.
that guy that had the place close to the road that the cty regulators shut down. what happened to him. It would sort of be like the man the man from the cave by Colin Fletcher.
The badger story might be good. Not sure the long eye relief scope is worth a story.
The red-roof cabins are already in.
Probably have most of these, but off the top of my head: The city council. T’s memorial. Getting rid of the trailers (under time constraints). S&T and the bear. LB and the gas filling tube. Mama Click and the bunny(ies). Getting rid of the boulder outcropping for the Cave. Butch and the hummingbirds. The Viking cat funeral.
i would love to hear more about from how you got from 40 hour a week, mow the lawn, keeping up with the jones’ guy, to hermit in the desert. But thats just me….
The intro you put on this blog was an extremely good read – what happened next? There you are in the desert with your truck loaded with Stuff. Unless you’d lived there before and were prepared for desert life, I’d guess there are piles of stories about your daily life. I agree with John. Hermit-y people create space around themselves in many ways. Most of those ways aren’t quite as obviously dramatic as your relocation to the desert with a minimum of Stuff. How did you get to the necessity for that? Every form of refuge has its price. What price does a desert hermit /paranoid recluse pay? And as part of your title, how about including a time frame (Volume 1 19xx through 20xx) so you can write more sequels as the stories continue to pile up? You can never have too many income streams.
Like John and Zelda, I’d love to hear about the original transition time, like hw you met/found Claire.When I first started coming around the interwebs you were pretty active on TCF forum. How’d you get there and the jump to here.
Maybe some cautionary tales on how you became so talented fixing chainsaws – the ‘Oh – THATS why you do that!’ lessons.
Don’t forget some dog tales, your ‘roomies’ make for some of the most entertaining reading.
Hope that helps some.
Reading your blog every day is like listening to a radio serial and each is a treat for my day, but does what you’ve got in the book so far talk about what makes Joel tick and from whence he came. It’s not the cream we all live for, but it put’s meat on the bones. Stay safe, Al
You could probably pull an entire chapter on desert life house cats. I’m pretty new here but saw a fair amount about them early on…
Otherwise I recall there was a story about the truck and how it finally went away that certainly sounded interesting if you are willing to share…
I’d second the recommendation regarding LB and the gas filling tube. I think that was the first post I read and it kept me coming back for more.
🙂 You can’t really believe that story wasn’t in the book from the beginning. That’s one of my favorites.
Blowing up the rock behind the Dome 🙂
It’s in there.