The Ultimate Answer to Kings

Last couple of weeks I’ve been spun up trying to (in some cases literally) keep the wheels on – and worrying about them coming off. Back pain, social stuff, even some family stuff. I have declared today a no-nothing day.

Go look here instead.

…and at first I thought the animal creeping up behind her was a coyote. But it wasn’t quite that small once it came into the IR flash. I’ve just grown used to looking at pictures of elk, which are to mulies as freight trucks are to Volkswagons.

I had an idea for a thing using PVC rather than coathanger wire and I still might build it to see if it works – but I also have a very bad record of ignorantly second-guessing people who know what they’re doing to my own detriment. So for this first iteration I decided to go with the basic and proven model.

I have to go to S&L’s this evening and that takes me right past Landlady’s so this will go into service soonest.

And this is the cure.

We’re having a bit – more than a bit, a lot – of a mouse crisis at Landlady’s house, which is quiet and contained and safely unoccupied for long periods. We catch a few mice every month but only a few, and their numbers are clearly starting to get out of hand.

And so in her big closet did Landlady a stately bucket trap decree.

Faithful TUAKians have talked about bucket traps for mice for years. It’s a simple enough matter, they’re known to be effective, but I never got around to building one because they take up a lot of space and I didn’t ever need one that badly. But now there’s a reason, so this afternoon after chicken and T&S chores we’re going to build one. Stay tuned.

And once again hung around the watering trough for quite a while as if they hadn’t a care in the world. It only happens once a week or so, I guess they move around a lot. It’s been a really good autumn for deer and elk so far, I saw a whole pile of mulies yesterday evening on my way home from T&S.

Here I had a whole bunch of elk pictures and had to pick what to make a gif of. I got a kick out of the young’uns racing around while this one big cow just stands in the foreground, no doubt saying “you kids are going to fall and die and I’m not cleaning it up.”

…once in a while coming over and staring at me in my chair as if to ask, “How oblivious are you exactly?” I am ignoring him, as usual, though he clearly believes my neglect of simple perimeter security is suicidally irresponsible. This is because Laddie assigns the same level of urgency to a bird roosting in the eaves as he would to a mountain lion consuming a fawn on the front porch*. He truly seems to find all this natural stuff alarming – until a couple of days ago the robins were migrating through, and he thought a flock of robins in the yard was just the most unnatural thing he’d ever seen.

In general I’m surprised at what a serious dog he is. I have only seen pictures and videos of Corgis before meeting him, and I expected something more happy and goofy. He has his enthusiasms, to be sure, but I seldom see that famous Corgi grin. Mostly he just very seriously attempts to guide me to correct actions and sensible decisions.

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* Full Disclosure: we haven’t put that last thing to the test. Yet.

Story at eleven, followed by extensive CNN roundtable discussion on the dangers of white male recluses and what action should be taken to control them.

…and all I can say about that is that a 4WD is pretty much a requirement for getting anything done around here. Most of the time you can get along without it if you’re careful where you go. But when you need it nothing else will do.

Mud flies when you’re having fun. Or even just driving along minding your own business.

And for those safety-mongers among the commenters who’ve been after me about porch and stair traction…

I’m going to replace more of the skateboard tape on the top tread of the stair as money and opportunity allow, but the worst is already gone. There’s a handhold all the way down, and at least some measure of traction material on every surface. If this thing puts me on my ass again during the sloppy season it’s because I’m not watching what I’m doing.

I just can’t accept the wisdom of people so oblivious to the irony embedded in their own rhetoric.

Yesterday evening on the mesa there was a cool, fitful blustery wind and that pretty reliably announces a change in the weather, usually for the worse. So when I finished up I put the boys in the laundry/mud room with a bucket of water. At the time I considered it an excess of caution since there was no word at all in the forecast about rain.

Started raining overnight. Rained all night. First light revealed that the gullies were running. Still raining.

I had intended to go early because the boys would need feeding. But poor roads + poor visibility + the windshield wipers don’t work dictated that I wait until the rain at least slacked off. Finally left at 7:30ish when it was just sprinkling.

The road was saturated and slippery, but that’s what 4WD is for. I could even have crossed the south wash with relative safety. Not very deep, not very fast…

…because the ground at that crossing is usually nice and firm when wet. Would have been a scary problem with the damaged front axle because the wash commonly digs channels on either side of the crossing, but I could have done it.

I didn’t, though, because I have to cross the same wash a ways downstream and that crossing is soft and quicksandy even without the running water. Chances of successfully crossing there are far worse.

Normally of course I’d have simply turned around and gone up to the plateau on the Bumpy Road, which bypasses the south wash entirely. But that’s what got me into this mess a week ago in the first place. Now it’s asking for a frankly busted axle on a “road” no tow truck will risk. I did go do chicken chores early in case the east wash decided to run, which I don’t really expect. But what the hell? Already wet.

I’ll try again in a few hours. The boys will be hungry, but they’re dogs; they’re always hungry. At least they’re safe and dry.

I think this has become Laddie’s favorite part of the day. Gods help us all if I change my habits.

Laddie sheds constantly, fine little undercoat hairs damn near impossible to sweep up. It’s basically his superpower. So he’s only allowed on the bed when the blankets are pulled back and I’m right there. Since lately I’ve taken to spending the last hour or two reading in bed, that means he gets to actually lay on the bed right next to Uncle Joel, a practice of which he approves.

So last evening I was puttering around, pulled down the blankets but wasn’t really planning to lay down yet. At some point I returned to the reading chair instead, and Laddie worked to correct my obvious error…

…and he proceeded to patterpatterpatter back and forth between the chair and the bed, never taking his eyes off me. “Come on, boy. You can do it. You’ll figure it out. Come on…”

Good news!

Whew! CDC Says You Can Dress Up Your Chicken For Halloween After All

It was all a big misunderstanding!

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it’s actually okay to dress up your pet chicken for Halloween. So there’s nothing to squawk about.

ABC News apparently caused the flap while reporting that some 92 people in 29 states had been infected with a strain of multidrug-resistant salmonella after coming into contact with raw chicken products. The news outlet also quoted health experts who said that it was “easier for a person to come into contact with harmful bacteria that live on poultry, including salmonella” when dressing a chicken, whether in a Halloween costume or a sweater.

The CDC issued a statement to clarify that “despite news reports to the contrary,” officials have “not warned people against dressing [live] chickens in Halloween costumes.”

The things people find to do, and to worry about, is an endless source of entertainment here in the cold, rainy, dreary gulch.

h/t to Landlady

Neighbor L does the flowers for the dogs she knows about. Lately she gives Boot Hill (which is due for a major upgrade, by the way. Stay tuned.) more maintenance than I do.

When I buried LB my back was out and I couldn’t finish the grave, so D came and helped me with his backhoe/loader. We ended up with a big mound on the grave which I left there in fear of scavengers, even though LB was so big we made sure the grave is nice and deep. So I finished the marker some time ago but the weather went goopy and then my back went out and I forgot and this glove’s too big and the sun’s in my eyes and shut up. Anyway, now the grave is smoothed out and the headstone’s in place.

LB was a dork, but he certainly earned his place on Boot Hill. By coincidence I was working on the grave when Neighbor L happened by and stopped to chat. She pointed to the empty spot on the line between Ghost and LB and asked, “who’s going there?”

“That one’s mine,” I said.

It’s good for you!

There is an element of off-grid life that under certain circumstances does sometimes seem difficult to distinguish from masochism. My cramping right calf told me all through the first half of the morning climb that I don’t get enough exercise.

Sigh. Every single morning. Stairs?

Or driveway?

You picked a fine time to leave me, loose axle. But I passed the halfway mark yesterday morning.

It’s all downhill from here.

And there are compensations. After I cleaned out the litterbox, picked up the dog shit, fed and watered and checked planting soil and generally did the chore, I got to sit down in a cool pleasant courtyard and play St. Francis to a couple of lovestarved dogs, who were loving it.

And of course it buys me the privilege of living here…

I like it better when the sun’s out and I’m not climbing a mountain twice a day because the Jeep broke. But even so I do love it here very much.

Also I’m really starting to get a warm place in my heart for Project Veritas.

In the video, Rep. Sinema says that Arizonans will “actually shoot you” if you support gun bans in an Arizona campaign. Davidson says that while Rep. Sinema can’t outwardly campaign on gun bans, what she can do is champion other gun control points:

DAVIDSON: “So we can’t talk about that [assault weapon bans] right? So what Kyrsten… the conversation that she can lead is how do we get to a place where we can, background checks… We’ve got to fix the gun show loophole, we have to fix the background check system. We’ve got to make it harder for people who have been convicted of domestic violence and other violent crimes to get guns—I mean those are the conversations we can have.”

Also featured in the report is Steve Andrews, a big donor to Sinema’s campaign for the Senate, who says that while not being able to campaign on assault weapon bans “voting I’d have to assume she’ll be okay.”

I can’t hear things like this without thinking about maybe buying another gun. I wonder if any of these people ever contemplate the truth behind the old joke of Obama being “America’s Greatest Gun Salesman?”

Nah. In fact if anything they only illustrate the truth behind another aphorism, not a joke at all, that goes something like “Gun control isn’t about guns, it’s about control.”

I don’t like being controlled – and especially resent being set up for rule by lying, manipulative politicians who can’t even be bothered to hide their contempt for me. I never vote for candidates but also never proselytize that, because let’s face it: Voting against candidates like this Sinema creature is simple self defense – even when it only enables whatever’s wrong with the other candidate you didn’t get to pick.

They’re entirely to blame for political violence, always trash-talking the other side…

Yeah. Stupid right wingers. Why can’t they be civil and polite like good progressives? Then everything would be perfect – you know, after they died off.

I’ve been going up T&S’s mesa twice a day since last Wednesday to take care of their dogs and cats. The dogs spend the days kind of trapped in this very pleasant courtyard surrounded by the (breathtaking; I wish I could show you) house and don’t lack for anything but companionship. Bucky is always a little standoffish at first until he decides I’m okay; Taz, the smaller one, is a frantic lovesponge.

I climb the mesa, check on the cats, clean the litterbox, pick up dog shit, fill food and water bowls, check for signs of destructive entropy, and sometimes water plants. The last thing I always do before leaving the house, morning and evening, is give each of the dogs a large biscuit. They know to expect that. I guess they also know that’s the last thing to expect till next time.

Bucky apparently lives for dog biscuits, and will literally sit there trembling with anticipation till I fork it over.

Taz, more interested in being petted, finds this little ritual less compelling. In fact, this morning…

He refused it entirely at first. In fact he was fine until I tried to hand it over, and then he got all morose and pouty. I sat down on the steps and nerfed his head for a while, which seemed to be what he wanted. They’re both used to hanging around with T all day; they’re with him in his truck wherever he goes, they come along on daily runs. But now it’s pushing a week and they’re just lonely.

I’m usually kind of wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am about doing this chore, frankly anxious to get home and be done with the “will the Jeep even get me home” ordeal twice a day. But I think at least once or twice this week I need to relax, sit down and play with some dogs.

Pullets heading toward maturity eat like maniacs. My little girls are growing visibly larger by the day, their voices are changing out of those high-pitched peeps, and their combs are starting to emerge. Probably be months yet before they start laying practice eggs, but this is a different breed from what I’m used to so I’m prepared to be surprised. In any case they’re growing big and healthy and despite their unfortunate start we haven’t lost a single one that got here alive in the first place.

S&L got back from their trip out of state last evening, and this morning they solved two growing problems: They had a ton of dirty laundry and L invited me to come join mine to the pile, which is welcome. Also, I completely underestimated how much gasoline I would need for the T&S gig, am almost completely out, and D&L aren’t planning the usual Monday morning water run tomorrow. I was thinking about sneaking into town this evening for a gas run, but didn’t believe I would even have enough fuel to do that. But S loaned me five gallons of generator gas, and L plans to go to town sometime tomorrow and will let me tag along and fill my jugs – along with S’s Jerrycan whose previous contents are now in the Jeep. So there’s a source of anxiety gone.

It’s a beautiful cloudless morning, and I’m going to go out and enjoy it before it turns cold again.

But you’ll never promote them by being a self righteous jerk.

That’s all I’m saying.

Judging from the evidence, from the head down.

Local scavengers normally seem to find roadkill snakes quite a delicacy; they don’t usually stay in place long. But this one has been in T&S’s driveway since last Sunday. It moves around but it never vanishes, and every day there’s a little less of it.

I finally got tired of stepping over it and flipped it over the rock wall. Should have thought to stretch it out and measure it against my 5-foot stick – I’d estimate this as 3-4 feet originally, which isn’t especially big for a bull snake. They have a very bad habit of sunning in the middle of roads, where they look like fallen sticks till it’s too late to swerve safely.