Author Archives: Joel

Yeah, I know. It’s damned rude to ghost your friends. Sorry. Really. I got some sort of crud a couple of weeks ago and it took its sweet time getting better. I wasn’t eating, wasn’t drinking, just sat and sweated … Continue reading →

I lost my bedroom heater two winters in a row because the burner orifice kept getting gummed up. Managed to improvise a cleaning the first time but last winter I had to replace it entirely, which took two separate shipments … Continue reading →

…integrally suppressed .22 bolt action carbine with an LPVO. Funny, before my evening shower (lord, it’s hot) I was very content with my guns. Couldn’t really think of anything I wanted. But while up at Ian’s a guy on the … Continue reading →

Not as hot as it will get, but enough that I’m sneaking around the Gulch in my sweatin’ duds. Went out to get a bucket of hot water for dish washing, and wondered what all that hot sun was doing … Continue reading →

The main footpath away from the Lair goes right up the ridge behind the cabin and has two steep bits. There’s lots of little rocks embedded in clay and sand, and over time my back-and-forth breaks those little rocks loose, … Continue reading →

Or, “Now I know how a lady in a shoe store feels.” (This unexpectedly turned into a wall of words, which I haven’t done in quite a while. Tobie is giving me That Look, so we have to go outside … Continue reading →

From a Friend of the Blog…

These are words I just spoke to a dog. A gang of cattle has taken to overnighting in my yard. Tobie takes exception to this seems to find this exciting all the night long. Hell, I dunno. Maybe he likes … Continue reading →

Some damned cow decided to try scratching her back on one of my Welcome signs. At least this time it was easy to fix. Last time it was this one… …and being set in concrete it took a shovel and … Continue reading →

Finally a day rain-free enough I felt comfortable about taking the bike to town. And the bike came back laden! I know I’m always complaining about being on the ragged edge of the supply chain but this is ridiculous. I … Continue reading →

I don’t know if it’s a harbinger of an early Monsoon or not but we had one hell of a thunderstorm sweep through here yesterday. The sort of storm where I unplug all the indoor electronics and worry about my … Continue reading →

It was a pretty good idea. Something I used to do when re-sizing revolver brass all the time. Took the barrel out of the pistol and “plunked” rounds into the chamber one at a time, a little under 450 times, … Continue reading →

I thought I broke my gun. So in the previous post I mentioned that I had ordered 500 9mm reloads. Yesterday I picked them up in town, and this morning I loaded magazines and took them out to the driveway … Continue reading →

A couple of months ago a friend of the blog sent me a princely gift: 450 rounds of bulk practice 115-grain 9mm and ten boxes of 124 grain. Yesterday I burned through (almost) the last of the 115-grain, and so… … Continue reading →

Yeah. This is my fault.

Last year I had nothing but trouble from my homemade water heater. 200 feet of black hose was so filled with calcium scale that it took forever to get water running freely – in fact I had trouble off and … Continue reading →

Every two months Big Brother sends Tobie a care package in the form of a sack of expensive dogfood. And I meant to ask him to hold off on this one, because with D&L stuck in “therapy every weekday” mode … Continue reading →

To wit: Tobie loves cattle and wants to get to know everything about them. I hate cattle with the incandescence of a thousand suns. And the most wonderful thing about cattle – from Tobie’s point of view – is that … Continue reading →

…just zoomed right over the scar of the record-breaking wildfire they had almost exactly 14 years ago. There is zero chance of it coming here but I woke up at like 3 ayem this morning unable to breathe through my … Continue reading →