The Ultimate Answer to Kings

Night time got down into the mid-thirties, but it warmed up fast once the sun rose – for a certain value of warm: we’re almost out of May and it’s 64^o at nearly noon. But no wind, so it’s Painting Day!

…after it warmed up a bit. I spent an hour in the boonies in a hoodie, a good month after such things have normally been put away for the season. But a cup of tea on my nice porch…

…and then it’s time to pay the piper and starting painting my nice porch. I certainly won’t finish this week, which means I won’t finish before July since I’m leaving in a week for three weeks in the big city. But I do want to get the gutters up, which means that at least the ends of the eaves must be painted a couple of coats first.

Then a much easier job, getting a first coat on the gutter, caps, coupler, and downspout.

It occurred to me this morning, probably not for the first time, that this last bit has become something of a tradition: sit on the berm of the gulley ditch carefully cleaning the brush. This is the fifth painting season on the Secret Lair and I haven’t ruined a brush yet. My ex-wife would be so shocked – but while painting will never (ever) be my very favorite thing I’ve learned it makes a huge difference whether you’ve been dragooned into the chore against your will on your only day “off work” or you’re doing it to maintain and improve something you built and love.

…so much so I didn’t even pretend to plan on painting, except for priming the gutter and downspout. I found out yesterday that while there was plenty of gutter in the barn we had used up all the downspout, good timing because I was able to get a 10-foot length this morning. But the day’s main project was baking.

In a good session, which is to say when I’m not being lazy, the bread comes out of the oven after all the bowls and whatever dishes need washing are washed and dried and put away. That way when the baking is done, I’m actually done and can go do something else while the bread cools.

So now I’m going back out in the wind to waste some spray primer finishing up the downspout.

It’s dark in there, and the manual focus on the lens sort of fights with the autofocus on the camera so that you need to shoot when it’s sharp. Even so I can’t even testify how many chicks there are – at least two, I’m pretty sure, and they’re getting big. They’re certainly working Phoebe’s wings to the bone, flying back and forth with bugs. Fortunately for her it’s been a wet season and flying bugs likely aren’t hard to find.

Now I have to run: Monday water run time.

2013, the Year of the Mondo Monsoon! And toward the end of the warm season parts of my yard looked like they’d died and gone to a New England cottage garden. And those flowers reseeded, too, at least until the Great Cattle Invasion of 2015. Now I still get a few remnants but only a few.

I was looking for this particular video a few weeks ago because I remembered that Ian and I had shot an early and relatively unprofessional video at my pistol target, which at that moment was surrounded by waist-high and very un-desertlike flowers…

I’m supposed to be painting the porch roof’s eaves in preparation for putting up gutters. Instead I’m obsessing about my 3-week trip to the Big City. And I couldn’t find my backpack anywhere.

Yesterday I got my old suitcase out of Landlady’s barn loft, thinking there might be some townie clothes in there that need to go to the thrift store tomorrow. There used to be, but I guess I got rid of them the last time I used the suitcase 2 1/2 years ago. Instead…

Ah! That’s where I put the backpack. Good choice.

Boy, this has been a great Spring for bull snakes. I’ve seen three or four aggressive young ones, but this morning Torso Boy actually stepped on a four-foot matriarch sunning herself awake in plain sight.

The setup couldn’t have been more perfect. I saw the snake in plenty of time, identified the make and model, risk level minimum. A mature bull snake is non-aggressive, not excitable, not venomous, it’s a constrictor that lives on rats and is no threat to a full (chuckle) grown Corgi. It was directly in Laddie’s path. I let it happen.

Sweartagod, Captain Oblivious stepped on the snake. He then sprang straight up stiff-legged, which I didn’t even know Corgis could do, and … went back for a sniff.

So. Poor judgment heaped on dangerous levels of inattentiveness. This dog is never coming off the leash except in the most carefully supervised circumstances. Not really a huge surprise.

Fact Check: Did U.S. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez Repeatedly Guess ‘Free’ on TV Show ‘The Price is Right?’

I’ll deflate the tension: No, she did not. Therefore the story, posted in the Babylon Bee, is incorrect.

The Babylon Bee has posted the following contrite retraction:

[EDITOR’S NOTE: We have been notified by Snopes.com that this story is not true. After reviewing the evidence, we would like to retract it. Ocasio-Cortez did not actually appear on The Price Is Right and guess that everything is free. In fact, it appears that this entire story was completely made up. Everything else on our site is still true, however. We apologize for any confusion.]

Was a small finch of some sort. It’s the second-most likely culprit next to sparrows. This one didn’t spend too much time avoiding the inevitable once I opened the stove door and let in some light, he came blasting out in a cloud of soot – startling the hell out of Laddie – and smacked directly into the kitchen window.

I shut Torso Boy in the bedroom and opened the front door, trying to herd the stupid thing out of the cabin. Of course it ignored all open exits, preferring to throw itself sharply against closed windows like its dear old pappy had taught it. This went on until it got a good running start and damn near brained itself against the front window.

At that point rescue became much easier, as I could simply reach between the wall and the reading chair and pick him up while he was stunned. He didn’t shake it off until we had stood at the porch railing for several seconds at which he regained enough of his marbles to realize he was sitting in a human’s open hand and should probably fly away.

Got a couple of nice surprises!

BB sent me a couple of nice Carhartt t-shirts, just when it looks like I’m going to be retiring a couple of worn-through dollar store shirts.

And diagnostic tools for the Jeep! Continue reading →

…and then Uncle Joel became mildly concerned…

No sooner had my guests departed for their faraway home than I got an email from another longtime friend, reminding me of a promise the keeping of which is going to cause this hidebound old hermit significant anxiety in the coming week.

Uncle Joel’s going house-sitting. In a city. Far from here. For three weeks. Starting about a week from now.

But I can’t leave! All the yucca will die without me!

How much ammo should one pack for a three-week trip to a strange city? And I’m almost certain to forget to pack stumpsocks. Where did I hide my backpack? Lists.

Your old Uncle Joel is going to be in a Forgotten Weapons video! And not in a small way. I just saw it and it’s cool. Will come out sometime next month if I understood correctly.

Where have all the hummers gone? Maybe it’s the unseasonably cool weather – it should be hot by now – but they’re currently rare in the air. Neighbor L has mentioned the same thing, we got some business from migrants but few cared to stay and apply for citizenship. Probably flying up to Seattle to suck up that sweet, sweet government welfare, judging my own private charity substandard.

That leaves this one solitary black-chin, who except for the matter of no mate is living in a hummer’s paradise. Maybe he’s a burnt-out old hermit, I couldn’t say. He doesn’t want to hang around and shoot the shit. Either way I’m trying to come up with a decent name for him.

Water Pressure Update: I measured the level in the water tank yesterday, and it’s down to about 1500 gallons from its original 2000+. So far…

Approximately zero overall drop in pressure. There is an odd phenomenon I don’t have a good explanation for: The pressure tends to be about 5 psi higher in the morning, when everything is cold. There can’t be that much variation in the temperature of the water in the tank, it’s such a terrific heatsink. But there must be some, and of course there’s a pretty big water column that might change pressure slightly. But either way, why higher when it’s colder? I have no standing to even offer an opinion.

Ian’s here! He and Landlady came up last evening, and we’re getting an early start on replacing his porch roof. There are care packages including much food and some pretty cool and unexpected swag so I’ll get to that. And also Ian wants to shoot a fairly involved video involving his highspeed camera while he’s here. So a busy but fun weekend beckons. I’m off to do it.

Big Brother brought his own bedding to the Gulch this past week, and abandoned it to fly home. Thoughtfully he made it twin-size. So I washed the sizing out of the sheets and installed them on my bed. This morning. Without thinking about something somebody considers important…

It doesn’t smell right!

While House leadership was quick to clarify that they don’t believe in the God of the Bible per se, they said they had to explore “all possible avenues” in their exhaustive search for an answer as to why Trump was put in the White House.

Yeah, sorry. It’s another cold windy day and I’ve got nothing going on here at the Gulch.

Meant to mention this Monday, forgot: I brought a sixpack of beer to the checkout counter. Lady (newbie, I think) asks to see my ID. I give her the stink-eye over my old-man glasses and grey beard but don’t argue. So in the same transaction I get carded for beer and also receive a senior citizen discount.

Doesn’t make a lot of sense, but whatever.

So yesterday I put a new bucket nest in the Big Chickenhouse. The first round one was a hit. The taller square one was not. So I went with a smaller round one.

It wasn’t quite deep enough to fill its space. I had a feeling about that. So this morning when I noticed fewer eggs than expected, I just lifted it out of there…

Yeah. I think what this situation calls for is hinged privacy doors on the wooden nesting boxes. Neighbor L stapled old dish towels over two of them and that didn’t have any effect, but I still think she was on the right track.

Today’s sunnier and drier than yesterday, so that’s good. It’s also cold and windy as hell. I’m about to buckle down and get serious about making bread, but before that I rummaged around chasing a memory to cheer me up. So here’s a video clip from when FW videos were sometimes shot around here, and occasionally we’d do something fun with them.

Okay, I’ve been doing this in the Big Chickenhouse for a long time and I’m better at finding them than they are at hiding them. Plus whenever they choose a nest that’s hard on my back, the rocks come out. But I am impressed with their persistence.

The girls had a good day yesterday so I wasn’t expecting much during this morning’s chicken chores. I saw one in a bucket nest, and a small hen was laying in this spot between the sunflower seed barrel and a concrete block that used to hold a waterer. I figured I’d leave her alone and collect whatever was there this afternoon.

But then she got up and moved on her own, and…

Those definitely weren’t there yesterday, so even though they had already averaged more than an egg per hen they apparently stayed busy in this new spot. There are a couple pressed down under the ones you can see – I hauled a dozen newly-laid eggs out right there. A couple of the Leghorns were upset with me: I think they believed they were really pulling off a good trick.

Instinct is a funny thing: None of these hens would ever be able to hatch a nest of fertilized eggs. They’d forget all about them. Brooding and raising chicks has been bred out of them. But there’s still a vestigial part of their pea brains that says – at least momentarily, every now and then – they’re mine, they’re important, and that human is stealing them!

Big Brother certainly chose the right day to leave.

Wish he’d taken me with him.

It’s been snowing for half an hour.

Stolen from the Vulgar Curmudgeon, who has recently changed his address – again…

I gotta say it doesn’t sound happy in operation. Questions as to longevity abound. OTOH I couldn’t have done it, so what the hell do I know?