How much does it cost? I’ll buy it.

The sun got off to a slow start this morning, but finally before noon the temp climbed into laundry-washing territory…

…which is good because I was out of gelsocks. Still got a stack of regular stumpsocks, but the gelsocks are such an improvement I can barely stand the thought of going back to painful walkies with the boys. With the gel-filled socks I can walk or work nearly all day without having to change them out once. Amazing difference. Unfortunately they’re very expensive and not half – or even a tenth – as durable as my old woolen socks, so I shouldn’t get too spoiled. But while I’ve got them they’re all I want to wear.

You can’t wear them alone, or the skin will fall right off your stump or feel like it’s going to. They don’t breath at all. Which is why the big line of socks on the line. But…how did I get on this subject? You don’t care about stump maintenance, and I hope you never need to.

Where was I?

Oh, yeah! The weather. Much more pleasant subject. Took a while to get there, but today’s gonna be a mid-sixties day and tomorrow and the weekend are supposed to be even more wonderful. Which is just incredible for this time of year. I don’t know what price I’ll have to pay, but I’ll pay it.

In chicken news – Agnes the Red, the oldest living chicken in the Gulch, has earned one more season of life. After I’d completely given up on her, and actually did slaughter and attempt to eat her smaller sister Selma, she has suddenly started popping out eggs again. May yet slaughter the remaining Brahmas – probably will – but I’m going to keep Agnes around a while. Probably move her back to the Fortress of Attitude just to see what will happen.

It’s been a slow week, I haven’t had any want-to at all. Too cold to get any serious outdoor project going and too warm to sit inside and read without guilt, so I’ve mostly compromised by sitting inside and reading with guilt. The boys are getting their walkies twice a day, though, and I’m spending some time up at the reloading shack getting caught up on all those empty .44 cases. Started the winter with every single case filled, and got into February’s absurdly warm weeks with nearly every single case needing to be filled. So now I’m gradually filling them. I’ve got some more bullets coming up with Landlady this weekend, I hope, because the next session will run me completely dry.

D&L have spent the past couple of weeks trading this terrible cold I’m determined not to catch, so except for filling my drinking water jugs Monday I’ve been keeping clear of human company all week. With J&H gone, they’re about the only people I see at all on any regular basis.

And now I’m going to move on to the day’s next scheduled task, pulling down the stovepipe and giving it a good scrub. Can you believe I’ve gone without worrying about the stovepipe since early January? Last year I had to scrub it every week at least or I could barely build a fire without hyperventilating. Year before that I could hardly build a fire at all. I’ve almost entirely shaken my chimney fire phobia, but there’s no sense courting hubris. I’ll just change out of this nice shirt and get to it: I’ve already shooed the boys out of the cabin.

Later.