The Ultimate Answer to Kings

With neighbors on both sides, whenever I want to go shooting I feel obligated to either travel way back in the boondocks to do it or get buy-in from the neighbors because of the noise. So – not that I don’t love them all – when I found out that both D&L and S&L were going to be out of pocket for a while…

…as soon as the dough started its second rise I grabbed a rifle and fixings and headed for the range.

Even though I carry a gun every day and use it for defense a lot more often than I did when I was a real person, I actually practice a lot less than I did when I was young, strong, and employed with a weekly ammo budget. Now I have the time, but I don’t have the ammo. Expending two 30-round mags is a rare pleasure – and an unsustainable expense.

But the older I get, the more I embrace the wisdom of Gun Jesus…

Wow, couldn’t have picked a more perfect morning to pour a slab. It was even sprinkling a bit at first.

I knew I should have bought seven sacks. Meant to, and I always underestimate how much concrete I need. Always. Really even seven wouldn’t have been sufficient. I had one 80-pound sack left from last year’s construction, so Monday I bought six 60-pound sacks and thought that would be good. I was wrong – again.

Used a little more than half a sack yesterday on LB’s grave marker pedestal but I thought I’d still have plenty. I was very wrong. I brought the 80 and two and a half sixties to the Lair this morning, and halfway through filling the form I had to rush back to Landlady’s place for two more sacks. That leaves me with one, which isn’t enough for the stairs.

The slab came out pretty good, though…

…and I used up just about everything in the wheelbarrow. Neighbor D would have done a neater job of floating the surface around all that rebar, but that’s sort of the story of my life. It’s flat and level.

Didn’t forget the pagan sacrifice.

Didn’t forget the clean-up, either, the only part of any concrete job I enjoy.

I did plan to do the stairs tomorrow or even this afternoon after the slab sets up a bit. But now I can’t. Darn.

And now it’s baking day.

Final tally for the ($85 plus shipping) LB Grave Marker Bleg comes to $206.66.

More-or-less in your name I have pledged $100 to the travel fund for Laddy the Highly Intolerant (We have too many L’s here already, so if he does get here and turns out to need an acronym, it’ll probably be LHI.) – should that actually happen.

Which event – update – looks a little more likely every time I correspond with the guy currently keeping him. It’s still up in the air, but during our last correspondence he did speak of bringing a chainsaw to collect juniper burls. He and his partner have a wood crafty sort of business. Anyway, of course I’ll keep you posted.

And now, no more putting it off. I have to go load the Jeep with concrete sacks. Here’s a bad picture of a hummingbird cloud.

Be afraid. Obey.

Consume. Depend on the Authorities. Marry and reproduce.

Went to chicken chores early, because I had to put on my Sexton Joel hat. The form I use for pouring pet grave markers is in Landlady’s barn, and so is all my concrete.

It might be months before we get LB’s new gravestone, but I’ll be ready. And anyway it puts me in a concrete state of mind for the morning’s big chore…

For all the past year the back door steps have consisted of a pile of loose concrete blocks, but it’s time to un-redneck the Lair’s back door.

Almost ready to pour the pad now. This evening after it cools off I’ll pack dirt around the form, then I’ll hit the deck running first thing in the morning while it’s still cool. Saturday morning I’ll set the blocks in place and fill them.

Sometimes I don’t recognize the world I grew up in. I’m pretty sure it’s the same place – the names are mostly the same, the oceans haven’t moved – but it’s not the same at all. It can hit me in a single sentence, like…

[Jerry] Seinfeld is of course a huge advocate of humor in comedy.

…and as little as ten years ago that would have been a complete nonsense sentence, perhaps a lame attempt to be funny. But in context of course it makes perfect sense, and does not indicate that the comedy part of the world is a better place than it used to be.

Of course I’m so old that when I was a kid, if you looked up “gay” in a dictionary you’d only get…

Gay (adj): Showing or characterized by cheerfulness and lighthearted excitement; merry.

…so I’m just happy all my organs still work and I haven’t broken my hip more than the permitted number of times before death.

But seriously, folks. I’m so old I remember when comedy contained humor. And we liked it that way.

But the problem has been explained to me at last, in terms I can understand.

I am appalled that you cannot understand why this plastic gun is a SERIOUS, MAJOR threat to the security of our country and its people.

It is so obvious that I shouldn’t even have to explain it, but I shall, and I’ll try to use small words so that you can understand it.

Someone might melt it down and use it to make a straw.

Ah! Thank you! I am persuaded.

Cody Wilson should go straight to the camps. For the Turtles!

All these strangers, wanting to give me money. I must be a helluva guy.

But most offers are more convoluted – or maybe just more incoherent – than this one…

Dear day Friend,

My name is Michael Kent I am the personal attorney/sole executor to my late client who shares similar Surname with you.

After the death of my client in an auto crash since the year 2007, the bank contacted me to provide his Next of kin to inherit his fortune totalling Thirty Seven Million United States Dollars (US$37,000,000.00) according to the existing banking policy.

I have written several letters to his country embassy with the intent of locating any of his immediate or extended family who will stand as the next of kin and all my efforts has been to no avail.

I have received official letters from the board of directors of the holding bank in the last few weeks suggesting a likely proceeding for confiscation of his abandoned personal assets in line with existing laws therefore I have been issued a 30 working days ultimatum to provide his next of kin or forfeit the deposit.

>From my professional experience I can use a legal means to re-profile and present you as the next of kin to my deceased client since you share same surname to enable you put a claim to the funds on our behalf.

Please kindly indicate your interest by sending me your direct telephone number to my private email address for verbal communication [redacted]

Yours sincerely,

Barr. Michael Kent

Call me paranoid but I picture this as some sort of DOJ “go directly to jail” phishing trip, like an FBI agent promising to give a 90-IQ jihadi wannabe lots of cool explosives…

Sorry, I had a morning post all queued up and then apparently never scheduled it. I was out the door early this morning for my first day on the job.

All I have to do is drive up a road and trim any bushes or trees that hang out over the shoulder to scratch fenders and tear off antennae.

I ended up filling the Jeep trailer three times this morning and nobody mentioned what I was expected to do with the cut-off brush. Probably nobody would have complained about one more pile beside the road – the grader leaves lots – and indeed I did drag the few big heavy branches off behind a tree somewhere inconspicuous. But I drove the big piles of brush into the boonies well away from the road. That added to the job a bit.

All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others. Twas always thus. One of the people in charge of seeing that I got the job pointed specifically to this (I think rather picturesque) old juniper and drew his thumb across his throat.

It no longer impinges on the roadway, but I’ll have to come back with a heavier-duty saw to make the trunk go away.

I had a specific stretch of road in mind to complete this morning but the principal objective was to evaluate the tools and techniques I thought would work. I knew I needed a pair of lopping shears, didn’t like the pair available at the local hardware, and bought a pair of Fiskars online. Now I find I’m not crazy about them either, though they do work. The loppers are sufficient for probably eighty percent of the work, and almost all the rest I could get with the cordless recip saw. But there are two limbs I need to go back to with something heavier, so I think I’m going to go ahead and preemptively pack the generator and the heavy recip saw. The chainsaw is actually in the proposal at a higher rate of pay, for when trees need to go away. I need to get specific direction for that.

All in all, what I have will work. I planned to be out two hours, it really took more like two and a half and it wasn’t a stroll. Most of it is Alligator Juniper and it sees no reason to cooperate – in fact it can retaliate. I should consider long sleeves in future. But in general, I can do this. The max I can currently invoice in a month is fifteen hours, which at $10/hr would be a nice addition to my income.

I got the flu last December for the first time in a decade, and like always it flattened me out. In one way the timing was fortuitous since I’d only moved into the first floor bedroom two months earlier, and climbing the ladder to and from the loft would have pretty much been impossible. But it also showed me that I’d gotten complacent about “what ifs.” When you live completely alone, you need to plan ahead for bad things, and I really hadn’t. Former Weekender Neighbor L was a huge help, bringing soup and store-bought bread, and during the really sick bit the food didn’t really matter anyway because I couldn’t eat for several days, but still. Better prior planning was definitely indicated.

Hence the “sick box…”

Got to thinking about it yesterday because I wanted to add a couple of cans of that B&M bread to it. Went over everything to make sure it will still be good when I need it.

Couple of lessons learned – Packaged electrolytes would have been smart, I got really dehydrated. Wished at the time I had a fever thermometer, and they’re not expensive so why don’t I? But mostly soup and aspirin, and now bread, on the first floor so I can get to it when I’m sick.

And then I covered it back up with an old towel, so the contents wouldn’t get all dusty during the hopefully long, long time before I need it.

You guys are awesome. Stop sending money for LB’s grave marker, we’re almost at 200% since the last time I looked.

With your consent, I’ll pledge any surplus to another fund raiser currently taking pledges – gas expenses for the guy who might (if that decision is made, which is still a week or two away) be driving Mama Liberty’s dog, Laddie the Highly Intolerant, from the Great White North to the Gulch. As of the last time I looked, that pledge will put that fund raiser close to the top.

As you know the pet sematary part of Boot Hill where I buried Little Bear last month …

is … how shall I put this … eccentrically elaborate?

Landlady gets these from a little company called peternity, which unfortunately got its website hacked somehow and so this time she has been forced to back-door the transaction through Etsy. It’s going slowly…

I went to the Etsy page per your instructions, but my friend wants a slightly more customized version of the headstone similar to what I’ve had in the past. What he’s looking for is:

Small marble marker ($85), horizontal orientation
Graphic of a Newfoundland (either full body or head)
Engraving in Copperplate font:

Little Bear
2009-2018
Jeep Hog and Babe Magnet
Cats loved him, Coyotes feared him

So all I know so far about what I’m going to owe Landlady for the thing is that the base price of the marker is $85, and then whatever all the other fees are. Basically I need to come up with something in the neighborhood of $100. I’ll pay it regardless, but if anybody wanted to kick in a little to Paypal to help fit Little Bear into the neighborhood it would be appreciated.

I spent yesterday afternoon hiding from the heat – Monsoon has taken a break and it was one of the hottest days of the month. Not crazy over the top hot, and the lull in the humidity is nice, but it still brushed the bottom of three figures.

In the evening, while the light was still good, I dragged out the chopsaw and generator and got a little work done…

Cut the trim for the single remaining untrimmed front window. This should have been done back in early May but there was a, um, lumber malfunction. Just a matter of squirting some caulk, screwing it together and dragging out the damned paintbrush again.

A great deal of scrap has gathered under the work table, getting wet and muddy. Some of it is useful but most was just waiting for the woodshed. So while I had the chop saw out…

I made firewood.

I don’t really use that much firewood, of course. The Lair is small, I live alone so there’s nobody but me to complain, the winters normally aren’t all that cold during the day and of course my stove won’t keep burning at night so why worry? The woodshed holds about two cords when stuffed full, and it would take an extraordinary winter to empty it. By most people’s standards that’s nothing.

Just to put me in my place I got some pictures yesterday, from the folks who are taking care of ML’s dog Laddie. Coincidentally one of them shows a piece of their firewood operation in the background…

These guys don’t heat with no puny cut-up pallets – nor, probably, would that ever be adequate. Man, I want one of those rounds just so I can finally have a decent chopping block. This is somewhere in Southern Montana, a place I considered moving for my final bug-out but rejected because I don’t really want Winter is Always Coming to be my family words.

Made the regular Monday morning water run this morning. The local food store/hardware got a pallet of concrete a couple of weeks ago and that was my best chance for acquiring the concrete I need for the rear steps, but I procrastinated because $5/#60 sack is highway robbery. But the pallet was emptying fast, so this morning I choked back a sob and pulled the trigger on that purchase…

…and since it’ll be a couple of days minimum before I’m ready for it and leaving it at the Lair is just daring the sky to open, I stashed it in Landlady’s barn where it’ll stay in powder form whatever the weather.

While in the store, I yielded to venial sin…

That’s right. Yeah. I bought a pound of cheese. And I’m not ashamed or nothing.

Seriously, I love this stuff but it’s ridiculously expensive. I doubt I succumb to temptation more than once every couple of years. And then, since I can’t possibly eat a whole pound of cheese in a short time no matter how gluttonously I behave…

…I bagged 2/3 of it up and carried it over the ridge to Ian’s fridge. Where, hopefully, I’ll forget all about it until it becomes a pleasant surprise later.

Won’t anyone think of the children? h/t

And anyway, straw bans can fix anything!

And remember – the next time you peek through your blinds and are annoyed to see that smiling pair waiting on your porch, magazines in hand…

It could be worse…

I don’t think I ever found a less fruitful location than this particular corner of the wash. A few birds and one mule deer that was apparently lost. This is the whole recorded activity, every single frame, for four days…

…so this morning I took it into an obscure corner of my stomping grounds,…

… near the wash but separated from it by some clay/ash mounds, with a little more varied vegetation and evidence of a lot more coyote activity. Always wanted to see what goes on in here when I’m not around.

Sunday mornings on weekends when Landlady is here we usually get together for coffee. This morning we agreed to try some of that canned bread Big Brother sent.

There’s not a lot to say about it except that it’s really quite tasty. It has a moist texture and a fairly open crumb that takes butter well. Toasts right up nicely – It’s canned bread, you know, I probably wouldn’t serve it to the Queen but also certainly wouldn’t call it last-ditch survival rations. I like it. Don’t know what it costs but if possible I’m going to call it a permanent addition to the pantry.

D’you know, when I proposed using 30-pound propane bottles for the Secret Lair’s cookstove, some people argued that that would never work? I couldn’t imagine why not, this is one of the poorest counties in the continental U.S., lots of people live out their lives in old RV trailers and are happy to have 30-pound bottles with a little pressure in’em. In fact I was just finishing up my stay in an old RV trailer, five winters long, and though I won’t say propane supply was always the least of my troubles it was only because that was a symptom of my overall transport troubles. Those little portable bottles worked fine.

What I really worried about, though I mostly kept it to myself, was that while building the Lair I did an awful lot of scrounging and improvising. Doing that with propane is a good way to get blowed up.

Every opportunity I’ve had to learn something about how propane plumbing is supposed to run, as opposed to the way I learned to run it, I took. Every opportunity I had in the next few years to improve the Lair’s propane infrastructure, I made. These days – I can’t even believe I’m saying this – it actually meets code. Even though having two separate sources for the two propane outlets is a little weird, it wouldn’t fail an inspection. Not a single rotting rubber hose anywhere.

I’ve got a couple of nice regulators, one of which has a plastic dome that will turn milky with too much exposure to the sun even though it’s made for an outdoor application. And I thought, as a final crowning touch to celebrate finishing the space heater’s plumbing, I ought to make it a little sun awning.

And I made another smaller one for the cookstove’s regulator, just to finally shield it from winter ice.

I am exceedingly pleased with myself.

Landlady was scheduled to come up this weekend but I wasn’t expecting much in the way of care packages. I had bought some stuff on Amazon, tools and such…

A package of yeast, a set of clamping leads for my multimeter, a pair of lopping shears for that clearing job that is currently hanging fire, and a package of AAA batteries…

Sidebar – I’m supposed to be this rough-tough got-it-all-figured-out desert survivalist, right? Got all my preps categorized and alphabetized and stored carefully on the part of the pegboard with the right silhouette painted on, right? Uh huh. So how did I run out of common batteries? I’ve got a zillion AAs – people have sent me veritable tubs of them. And normally I’d also have a sufficiency of AAAs, since so many flashlights and other small gadgets use them. But I guess I didn’t restock last time I replenished flashlight batteries, because … there I was. Embarrassing.

(ahem) Anyway, it turns out some Generous Readers had in fact sent some stuff… Continue reading →