Another ton of wood pellets at D&L’s place.
Unlike other times I had to take prior precautions to make sure I had two functional legs for this one. The knee is feeling better but this wasn’t the time to indulge in a 10-mile hike or something equally stupid, because…
L can get them off the pallet and onto the tailgate but of the three of us I’m the only one who can still haul 50 bags from the truck to the pile.
And in the end…
…I got some nice hardwood for the woodstove.
They say that Louis XIV had the inscription Ultima Ratio Regum cast into all the cannon of the French Army. It means “The Ultimate Argument of Kings,” and that always struck me as one of the most honest and up-front things any ruler or would-be ruler ever said. “We can dress it up prettier than this, but when it comes down to the unvarnished truth this is what it’s about: You’ll do as I say or I’ll send my goons to kill you.”
I thought about that for a long time. If there’s an ultimate argument, it seems only logical that there must be an ultimate answer. For years I thought the ultimate answer must be the bullets in my rifle, but it never seemed quite right. I’ve got bullets – he’s got frigging Cannon Balls. I mean, if there were three hundred million rifles throwing bullets at him, then maybe. But we all know that’s not going to happen. So if there’s an ultimate answer to his ultimate argument, it sure as hell ain’t bullets.
It finally came to me – and that’s when I abandoned the city and most of my stuff, and gave all that was behind me a good stiff Randian Shrug.
The ultimate answer to kings is not a bullet, but a belly laugh.
Little Bear 2009-2018
Laddie the Amazing Torso Boy 2011-2020
"Freedom Outlaw. It’s not what you do; it’s how you do it. It’s an attitude — from which actions always follow. It’s a do-it-yourself occupation. And a lifetime vocation."
- Claire Wolfe, Backwoods Home Companion, 6-07-10
I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.
- G. K. Chesterton
"If every Jewish and anti-Nazi family in Germany had owned a Mauser rifle and twenty rounds of ammunition and the will to use it, Adolf Hitler would be a little-known footnote to the history of the Weimar Republic."
- Aaron Zelman
"Authority should derive from the consent of the governed, not from the threat of force."
- Barbie
"Never underestimate the ability of shit to find a fan."
- F. Paul Wilson
"You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs." The sophistry of villains - Bah!
- Robert A. Heinlein, Double Star
“Truth is, I’m not specifically interested in an armed society. What I want is a free society.”
- George Potter
I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.
- D. H. Lawrence
Aristippus passed Diogenes as he was washing lentils.
He said, “If you could but learn to flatter the king, you would not have to live on lentils.”
Diogenes said, “And if you could learn to live on lentils, you would not have to flatter the king.”
Sandy Hook was a Gun Free Zone. So was the Westroads Mall. And the Aurora Theater. And Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Should I go on? They were all Gun Free Zones.
– Reality
“Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.”
- Robert A. Heinlein
"Civilization is the process of setting man free from men."
- Ayn Rand
If ever a man should ask you
For your business or your name
Tell him to go and fuck himself
Tell his friends to do the same.
For a man who'd trade his liberty
For a safe and dreamless sleep
Doesn't deserve the both of them
And neither shall he keep.
- Frank Turner
Don't be afraid to try something big, just because you're an amateur. The Ark was built by amateurs. The Titanic was built by professionals.
- Anon
"Nothing scares a police officer more than the threat of being treated the way that they treat people every day."
- Anon
"Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet."
- Gen. James Mattis
"Lust for power is the most flagrant of all the passions."
- Tacitus
"The man who knows what freedom means will find a way to be free."
- F.A. "Baldy" Harper
"The greatest discovery of any generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude."
- William James
We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
- Viktor Frankl
The free man will ask neither what his country can do for him nor what he can do for his country.
- Milton Friedman
“We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.”
- William Faulkner
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.
- Ernest Hemingway
"Everything the State says is a lie, and everything it has it has stolen."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
John Moses Browning - The most badass Mormon who ever lived.
"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are 'I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.'"
- Ronald Reagan
The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.
- James A. Baldwin
"It is better to be a warrior in a garden than to be a gardener in a war."
- Anon
“I tried to live in such a way that, when dying, I would rather feel happy than scared.”
– Witold Pilecki
Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master.
- Sallust
"Place your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark."
- Lazarus Long
Read, every day, something no one else is reading.
Think, every day, something no one else is thinking.
Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do.
It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity.
– Christopher Morley
“I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery; he must be made to feel that slavery is right; and he can be brought to that only when he ceases to be a man.”
-Frederick Douglass
ESSE QUAM VIDERI –
To be, rather than to seem
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
“A Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give.”
– Ida B. Wells
Do what thy manhood bid thee do; from none but self expect applause.
He noblest lives and noblest dies, who makes and keeps his self made laws
– Sir Richard Burton
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
– Winston Churchill
“Happiness is a journey, not a destination. Dance as though no one is watching you. Love as though you have never been hurt before. Sing as though no one can hear you. Live as though heaven is on earth.”
― Father Alfred d’Souza
That’s a lot of abuse for a little pallet. Hope you’re being compensated some other way also. You may have mentioned something about that in the past, but I forget shit.
They’re neighbors. They took care of me when they could and I’ll take care of them while I can.
Joel, I think you just made the finest comment in the spirit of Christmas that I’ve ever heard. You are a Good Dude (despite your claim to cantankerousness).
Put some clamp on forklift tines on the bucket of that tractor. They are dirt cheap on ebay and will spare whatever is left of you worn out knee.
Would a dolly help?
RE: forklift tines for the tractor. If it can pick up a 2K lb pallet, sure, and I’d seriously wonder why it hasn’t been already done; I’ve long said the greatest labor saving device ever invented is a gallon of diesel fuel.
But, assuming it’s like my little Kubota, about 850 lbs is the bucket limit, but for short lifts, especially those headed immediately to the ground, I can stretch it to just about 1K. Which begs the question, can the pellet supplier provide the 2K in a pair of pallets? (which, of course, raises the question about bed size; pallets are 4X4, but 8 ft pickup beds seem to be nearly extinct, and it may not be wise to put too much poundage faith in the tailgate; it could be that stacking a pair of 4X4 pallets each carrying 1k lbs could work).
It would seem prudent to do some planning now because I’d guess that either some other form of heat or “new forms of unloadiing help” will soon be required because age does impose limits whether we like it or not.
I’m a 71 year old female and am holding on to my ability to lift and carry the 50 lb bags of chicken feed. It will be a sad day when I can no longer do it. Weight bearing helps with bone density so I focus on that as I unload and carry 🙂
In regard to forklift tines: I should have addressed this the last time it came up. They do have a forklift attachment that is easily swapped with the bucket. L tells me that it won’t lift half a ton.
You are a good man, Joel. My back hurts from just looking at that pile of wood pellets.
Has your neighbor ever considered a pallet jack like this? * While it can’t lift high enough to get the pallet off the truck, it would save you from hauling the 50 pound bags from the truck to the storage area. The secret would be to keep one of the used pallets. With an empty pallet on the pallet jack, you could simple off load the full pallet that was on the truck onto the empty pallet on the pallet jack, then, after securing the load, move the stuff to the storage area and simply leave it on the pallet.
* https://handtrucks2go.com/Compact-Fully-Electric-Pallet-Jack-with-Lithium-Ion-Batteries-3300lb-Capacity.html
Probably simpler and only a little more expensive to switch to a propane stove, which is what I would like her to do.
Propane would be the best move. Not like the pellets are found in nature anyway. Good use of saw dust but that is about it.
At the risk of “I am solving a problem but am I solving the right problem?” RE: Mike’s pallet jack idea – Hi-Lift jacks for off roaders have a 7,000 lb lmit; were a pair of them affixed to two vertical steel columns, and each equipped with a fork, the truck could back up – carefully – putting the pallet on the forks. Raise the pair of jacks a couple inches to allow the truck to drive out from under the load, then lower the pallet an inch at a time by operating each jack. Given the 7K capacity, a mechanism might be designed using a single jack to operate. Then, once the pallet is lowered, a simple, $200 non-electric pallet jack could be used to place the pallet wherever one wants.
I have seen manually operated cable fork lifts capable of lifting 2500 lbs.
All of this still requires humping the 50 lb bags – individually – to the stove, though, but it would eliminate handling each bag twice.
Your propane solution is the smarter one, although I suspect that will require some road repair work to allow a propane truck access to be sufficiently economical. In the long run, though, that might turn out to be more economical than the pellet process.