This blogging thing has come to a middle. Several years ago I mused that it was probably time to retire the blog because it wasn’t about the adventure of roughing it in the boonies anymore, but the sedate adventures of an old man living in a cabin with a corgi. Now it’s a big brown mutt, the corgi having found a way to break my heart, but the ‘sedate’ part is all too true. The aches and pains of this past year have me spending most of my time indoors, and with any luck the next big adventure will involve pulling pipe to properly plumb my new propane cabin heater. Which I love, by the way.
Weather-wise, this has been a very strange December.
Day after day in the sixties and seventies. Nights in the forties sometimes. T-shirt weather in December does not happen – or didn’t till this year. We got a little actual weather a few days ago, though, and now the temperature has fallen to something closer to normal. 9:30 in the morning and it’s still below freezing outside. Inside it’s sinfully toasty. By this time of year I’m used to living in layers and a hoody, hoping the inside temperature gets warm enough for a sink bath once or twice a week. I really do love this new heater.
Homegrown disasters can still occur, of course. Christmas Eve night laid what turned out to be a minor one on me…
When the AC power just abruptly stopped working. I still mostly had lights, because most of my lighting is DC. But the outlets didn’t work, the AC lighting didn’t work, none of my electronics were charging, the stove clickers didn’t click and of course the oven was now just a dark box without function. I truly fretted about that. Still nice and warm, though. Christmas morning I found out what the problem was…
Once the sun came up enough to make moving around practical I confirmed that there was nothing wrong with the power generation. The charge controllers were working, the batteries were batting, the inverter was humming happily to itself. No error messages anywhere. So I took myself inside and crawled under the kitchen counter in the farthest corner of the cabin to where my circuit breaker box has sat minding its own business in the dark for over fifteen years. Nothing apparently wrong with the circuit breakers themselves. I wiggled wires till I got an arky-sparky, and found the problem. A loose-ish connection from the very earliest days of my cabin-wiring experiments, just waiting for a little corrosion in some scrounged wire – before I figured out that pulling skanky scrounged wire through the actual walls of my very flammable cabin was probably a bad idea, and actually bought a roll of new wire for that. But what the box was wired with was original, and just waiting for its chance to give Uncle Murphy a little laugh. It has now been replaced with proper wire, and tightly connected, and everything’s hunky-dory again.
I spent the holiday weekend quietly, the closest thing to an adventure going to tend a neighbor’s cat while they were away with family…
…and that’s been the extent of my adventuring. So I’m going to stop apologizing for the scant-to-no blogging, because it’s time to admit this is the new normal. Not shutting it down, just ceasing to pretend that I’m much of a blogger anymore.
Fair enough. Good to read you didn’t burn your abode down with faulty wiring. I will be pleased to read when you feel like writing; until then, enjoy your peaceful gulch life. You’ve earned it.
Darn. Speaking as someone who just bought a chunk of dirt and was planning to build his own hermit cabin, I was looking forward to more insight.
Well, heck, Joel! Don’t stop now, your just getting warmed up.
Good that you fixed the wiring without having the post start with “I was sitting there minding my own business when I smelled smoke and it got dark”. Blogging doesn’t have to be exciting for us to look forward to it; pretend it’s your diary and we’re sneaking a look over your shoulder. Or maybe not as that sounds kinda creepy.
dammit YOU’RE ! Ugh, me no grammar.
That’s cool, Joel. Go at your own pace. Ken Lane is tapering his off, and has said he’s shutting it down; he just doesn’t yet know exactly when. It happens. We’ll be here as long as you want to occasionally yell at clouds–I mean, share your accumulated wisdom.
As far as weather, Christmas through the 28th was in the 70s, yesterday it fell to freezing. That, however, is not unusual for Tennessee.
Did you at least give Tobie an opportunity to properly exercise that cat???
Life has its ebbs and flows. Maybe it is trying to lull you into complacency so it can surprise you.
If you get bored I would love to read about your collection of holsters.
Can’t miss you if you don’t go away.
I kid. I’m only kidding.
I happen to like how you think and how you do what you do and more. And that’s the truth.
Of course, please keep on being you. Infrequency of posting won’t dissuade me from regularly checking in.
I’ve enjoyed your posts for many years. I like the mundane ones as much as the ones where you’re battling stray cattle and coyotes. Maybe it’s the result of me getting older too and concluding that getting a broken window fixed is all the excitement I need most days. Anyway, post only as much as you feel like, I still appreciate it.
Happy New Year!
My best argument for encouraging you to (at least occasionally?) continue blogging:
your reports are real, not some fantasy of an off-grid hermitage. As such, they are ‘reality therapy’ – maybe that works better for me than for you, but it ALWAYS makes for good reading.
Thanks In Advance!
I would hate to see you stop the musing. There are so few good writers left in the world, the ones that can maunder on about any subject and make it interesting. You are definitely in that category.
You could pivot into more philosophy instead of ground reports on broken-whatevers. Why is the desert attractive? What parts of it are beautiful, what parts ugly? Why are humans allowed to be on the planet? If an alien ship landed by your porch, what would you say to its pilot? Would lizards go hungry if we didn’t feed them M&Ms?
There are SO many topics….
So it goes, Joel. Time is fleeting, and I think most of the blogworld out there has gotten kinda thin. For good reason, seems we’re all in the same boat with aging out. ‘Twere me, I’d be sitting on the porch, watching the creosote bushes sway, and not much more than that. Gotta say I’ve enjoyed reading your missives, and I thank you for the entertainment and thoughts, trials and tribulations.
Thanks. It’s been fun.
Roger all the above. Glad things aren’t a raging nightmares. Whatever you write, is enough. Thanks for your time and efforts.
If you drop off you will not be the first. But you will be missed.
I will gladly second Randy’s sentiments. I have enjoyed your postings for years and admit I worry when you’re dark for a period. Do as you see fit and Godspeed to you.
You are much appreciated Joel. I hope you will keep your blog page open for a while and at least occasionally post something even if it is only a picture.
I miss the real.
Happy New Year to thee and thine hound, O grumpy arid wasteland dweller. C’mon, give us an update, I miss you.
Do you have someone coming by regularly to check on your aliveness? Or is Tobie going to starve to death if and when you are no longer uprightable?
Funny you should mention that, MM. We actually do have quite a number of old/ailing neighbors, and there’s a sort of sunset daily text exchange to make sure we’re all still upright.
Facebook is for quitters 😉