When you put a jacket over the hoodie you slept in to take Tobie for the morning walkie, and by the time you get back you’re down to a t-shirt on your back and carrying a bunch of textiles.
To address the absence of posts: Yeah, I’ve been mentally absent. I’ve been doing very little, to be honest. Just keeping up with chores and reading books. It’s been that kind of summer: I spent a couple of months with some sort of ailment that sapped me of all energy, got very little done – happily I didn’t have any major summer projects planned anyway – and now even though I’m not really feeling bad and I’m eating I’m stuck in a habitual loop of “Let me finish this so I can go back to my book.” I’m seriously spending too much time chairbound. Nothing is happening, certainly nothing worth writing about. Most days I forget there even is a blog, and it used to be the center of my notional social life. I have become a hermit in fact. Trying to get over it. Sorry.
I had a small annoyance the other day that would have been a major disaster a few years ago…
I was making bread…
I scraped the bottom of my Plan A flour bucket, so I dragged the Plan B bucket out from the remote corner it’s been hiding in for months, only to find…
Dammit! Bug infestation. That’s not supposed to happen. It’s not supposed to be able to happen. That’s what those expensive spin-on lids are for. Maybe there were already larvae in the flour.
Once upon a time this would have been an economic disaster. Flour is not cheap. I’d have spent hours sifting 30 pounds of flour, and just calling what got through the sifter protein enrichment. Now I’ll skim the surface and if I find bugs below it I’ll dump the whole bucketload rather than deal with it. Happily…
Hello. I’m Joel. Of course I had a plan C squirreled away off-site. Ian’s place, which we spent so very much effort building and burying in 2009-2010, may never have become his residence but it makes one hell of a bug-and-rodent-proof highly resistant storage facility.
And yesterday was Senior Day at the Palace of Food, so I got another big sack to replace the one I opened the day before. It all works out. On the way back I stopped by the post office to get a sack of dog food that Big Brother had sent me, and also…
…this mystery care package from Generous Reader Terrapod, which turned out to contain spare headlamps for the Jeep. Thanks, T!
Yeah, I know I’ve promised before to get off my thumb about updating the blog and this is the longest dark period since the last time I had actual technical difficulties. Sorry. There’s just not much going on right now. I’ll try to do better.
Glad to hear things are mostly uneventful!
Eggsellent!
If I may offer a suggestion, rather than trying to create a daily travelogue of Joel’s Desert Kingdom, you might dive into some more “Seditious Tripe” pontification. There’s certainly room for more political discussion about freedom and self-sufficiency as a way of life.
Anything to keep the ole bean from wasting away…
Does Ian have a freezer and is there room in it . Store the flour in it if possible.
Huzzah, Joel is back!
Is the cost of flour sufficient to justify the labor needed to: chill the buggy flour 24 hours; freeze the chilled flour 24 hours; remove the centrally-located lump of buggy ice flour? I presume the electrical energy is effectively free cuzza solar. I very much understand that the personal energy is another matter.
P.S.: Congratulations on the dorm fridge. May it serve you well.
Yup, I understand about the lack of motivation to update your contact with the bigger world (blog). It’s good to read you are enjoying a good book and your biggest troubles are buggy flour. Headlights for the Jeep? Thanks, Terrapod, for helping to keep Joel up and running.
Most happy you’re still around!
I gotta get new headlamps for one of our old vehicles. Its older and not worth much so I’m going with cheap chinese replacements.
We store all our flour in the freezer but we live on the available and expensive grid.
Could be depression, Uncle Joel. I’ve been dealing with it for some time. I mostly manage to not let it get to me, but I have my times.
Good to see that you’re back and safe.
Glad to see you are back, Joel.
> Maybe there were already larvae in the flour.
I think that’s true – I recall reading about that. I hope you sanitize that bucket, otherwise they’ll be back for sure. Storing in a freezer is definitely advised. I wonder about sticking oxygen absorbers in with it – little buggers do need to breath, don’t they? Dessicant would help too.
“Maybe there were already larvae in the flour.”
Yes, this. Freezer if you have it.
Glad to hear from you and that you are okay.
In situations like this, I recommend choosing the lesser of two weevils.
If you decide to use Jed’s advice about oxygen absorbers, chemical hand warmers like Hot Hands will work as that.
Yay! Always good to hear from you Joel. Another suggestion: tell us what you are reading, and what you think about it. Always looking for something new to read.
Yes, the bug eggs are in the flour.
All my flower goes in the deep freeze for three days or so, that’s enough to kill the eggs. Then you can store it in the bucket.
Fscking autocarrot. I caught it on the first instance, it caught me on the second.
Those carbs are going to kill you man!
I second the book review suggestion (if you want to of course…don’t want to pressure you into anything).
Best wishes for a pleasantly uneventful winter!
Glad yer back.
I like the clam thing. 😉
Didja consider letting the chickens have that flour after you decided to discard it?
THEY would probably be happy to get extra protein!
RE: MM’s comment above (Didja consider letting the chickens have that flour after you decided to discard it?), is there a simple, less energy-intensive way of making that infested flour into something more desirable to chickens than a pile of off-white powder?
Glad to hear y’all are ok.
Have you considered a Plan B for when things are less than OK….comms windows to trusted confidants, emergency procedures such as a Spot communicator, etc. I do worry about you both.
Also, have you looked at pre-baked staples such as hardtack or zwieback that you could parallel bake to your lovely bread, and then store for a long time, consuming the tail end as the fresh supply gets added? Some looking into cheap and reliable canning might be worth a couple of hours internet time.
We have one. There’s a local text chain among a few of us who are one bad fall from serious trouble, and anybody who doesn’t check in at 7pm and doesn’t pick up a follow-up phone call gets a personal visit. Lots of old poor people back here for some strange reason…
I did that for years, even after I had begun to lose all interest in the madness out there, just to satisfy the ‘post every day’ rule. Finally decided posting every day was not a good enough reason for all that doomscrolling. It was doing nothing good for my mental health.
Speaking for myself . . .
The ‘net is full of sites beating us to death with the ongoings of the political world and its garbage. I come here to share Joel’s interesting life in the wilderness and his adaptations to this lifestyle. His interactions with his varied neighbors and his sidekick pooch are enlightening as well as humorous. In addition, I get a certain amount of reinforcement of my own thoughts on aging . . . he’s handling it “about as well as can be expected” and that suits me just fine. I’m trying to match his positive reactions to related issues.
Thanks for the good stuff, Joel!