The Ultimate Answer to Kings

Hi. Little Bear here. Yeah, I know I’m not supposed to be able to use the keyboard but what He doesn’t know won’t hurt Him. I’m careful not to drool on the keys too badly and we’re fine. Happens all the time. Hell, how do you think we get by financially? Just go over to Weekly Standard and see if you can guess my pen name. It’s all tripe, I know. Pays better than lovelorn columns, though. I fit right in there, knowing nothing whatsoever about political philosophy and world events.

Dad hasn’t been a lot of fun lately but He smells like He’s going to live. Yesterday He chased me out of the new room while He changed sheets and things, and then He flopped into His chair and didn’t do much else for the rest of the day. This morning He got up early, ate something besides toast, and then actually made a big ball of bread dough for baking. (I like bread.) So maybe He’s slowly coming back. Dad’s never been sick in all the whole world and I don’t like it. Avoiding Him is hard, even though the Lair is bigger now.

Anyway, Dad said He was going to get back to the blog and maybe He will, but I notice He said the same yesterday and all He did in the end was fuss around the bedroom and then watch BBC documentaries all afternoon. But if He were here He’d say thanks for the good wishes and go enjoy your holiday. He’s getting better.

I occasionally enjoy Art of Manliness, but not all the advice offered is of, er, equivalent utility.

🙂 Okay, not much has any real utility at all. But it is fun to read from time to time.

One of Little Bear’s new favorite places is the Lair’s rear entranceway, where he’s relatively safe from being tripped over in the dark.

Little Bear’s a gigantic dustmop of a dog who’s never had a bath in his life.

And I’m afraid it shows.

What’s left of the wall beside his original bed is far worse, of course. But here it really shows.

I woke up yesterday feeling somewhat better, it says here, but that went away by mid-day and while I never got actively sick that bloat and pain in my belly returned. Had nothing to eat all day but a little dry toast and regretted eating it. Did drink rather more water and tea than I wanted but I think I was dehydrated anyway and of course still am. Everybody crying out that I should have added electrolytes to my preps are quite right; of course they’d have been stored in the same place as my canned soup and fruit: At the top of a vertical 10-foot ladder that looked rather high yesterday – those parts of yesterday I even remember, I mostly just fugued out on my bed watching BBC infotainment on my smartphone. (I remember little of yesterday, but I do know the origin of the term “drawing room.” Always kind of wondered about that.)

The weather went entirely wonky while I was away. I apparently slept through an enormous windstorm that flung all sorts of things around the yard night before last (I think that’s when – I have the oddest feeling I’ve lost a day) then yesterday dawned clear but abnormally warm; 38^o by my thermometer. That bit about being warm didn’t last; the temperature dropped steadily all day and the wind picked up, and every time I had to go outside for something I came back chilled. This is the first time I’ve been really sick since before T died, and I begin to realize that the manly, vigorous, outdoorsy damn-the-torpedoes life might not work out so well for an invalid. At least not one whose sole remaining ambition is to achieve great age.

Things never got very cold, it bottomed out at 18^o this morning and the wind seems to have died. No idea what the forecast is, haven’t bothered to look. I remember yesterday taking a lucid moment to bless the generous TUAK reader who not only donated the new bedroom’s space heater but then traveled a great way to help with the harrowing matter of installing it. Even though I had already split kindling I’m not sure I could have built the cabin fire very well yesterday had I needed to – instead I threw frugality to the devil, kept the curtain closed, and mostly luxuriated in a warm bed.

Slept well and normally all last night, and woke this morning feeling hungry and rather well. I’m taking the bit about “hungry” with caution, or at most dry toast and tea. But I believe I might later try and assay one of those cans of chicken soup.

Little Bear has been a doll through the whole thing, not at all demanding – though that might be related to his really not wanting anything to do with me at all except at dinner time. LB has never been sentimental about ailing packmates. This morning he actually greeted me and wanted a belly rub, so maybe he thinks I’m on the mend. Still going to have another day inside, aside from walkies and chicken chores.

I could actually get dressed for a while today – yesterday just pulling a pair of sweats over my pajamas took half an hour’s manning up – and I’ll need to, because it’s still 21^o out and it’s time to walk dog and feed chickens. 🙁

And hungry, which I’m currently approaching cautiously with a little dry toast. Tried the same thing sometime mid-day yesterday and only brought back the nausea.

But I must have dodged the flu, which was my big fear. Back when I was Mr. Suburban Man I used to catch every flu bug that came along and it always took a month to fully recover. Now it’s been ten years since I had it, and I’m not convinced I’d survive. But if I had the flu I’d be well into “somebody please just kill me” by now.

I did get out to do chicken chores yesterday but only just barely. Since I barely slept at all night before last, I made up for it by sleeping much of the morning well past noon, and then again from five to just now. Woke for a while at midnight with a little headache, took some aspirin and went back to sleep. Actually most of yesterday is just an unpleasant blur.

Neighbor L – who also brought me chicken soup and store-bought bread – told me that some other neighbors appear to have gotten the same stomach bug at the same time.

I made a big pot of bean soup yesterday and it didn’t sit well at all. Up till 3:30 throwing up, woke at 7 and started throwing up again. Still don’t know if it’s bad food or if I brought a dose of flu back from town. Really hoping for that first one but that’s not how it’s acting. Have to get dressed for morning chores now but I’m having trouble getting out of bed.

No idea why American women don’t do this. Rape would go the way of polio overnight.

Cologne mayor thinks she can stop migrant sex attacks with ‘respect’ wristbands

As many may know, New Year’s Eve 2015 was a disaster for the German city of Cologne. Hundreds of women were sexually assaulted, robbed or raped by large groups of migrant men.

But officials of the city and the police think they have now found a solution. The mayor of Cologne, Henriette Reker, launched a new campaign, focused on respect yesterday. Wristbands with the text will be distributed throughout the city to prevent new sexual assaults and rapes.

Not sure I buy this story, or at least not the linked picture since wouldn’t be the word be rücksicht? Not sure how many nice blonde Cologne ladies read English, never mind how many Muslim rapists.

It’s a fun story, though, and unfortunately – given recent European history – not 100% implausible.

Happens every winter with mature hens. They moult, drop their feathers and grow new ones, and almost entirely stop laying eggs. I expected it, predicted it, try not to be bothered by it.

What does bother me is that six months ago I was bitching about my superabundance of eggs but never got around to experimenting with long-term storage. Now I’m buying eggs.

The store price of eggs has crashed since we started raising chickens, at least around here, so it’s not like it’s a big deal. It’s just ironic in a bad way, that first time when ol’ Chicken Farmer Joel has to buy a carton of eggs.

…can be fun!

Scored a spare-spare propane bottle. Now I have two at the front of the cabin for the bedroom heater, two at the rear for the cookstove, and a good one in reserve. That way I don’t feel like OMG I gotta rush out and fill up on propane every time there’s one empty bottle.

And sometimes spending money at the hardware store is really no fun at all…

Speaking of spares, any time I have to run out and buy a plumbing part because something froze and broke, I try to keep that trip from being necessary next time by bringing home enough to fix the problem at least twice. That gives me plenty of time to forget whatever clever thing I did with the part by the time I need it next time.

In this case, of course, we’re not dealing with Lowes. So there were a few minutes when I thought I wasn’t even going to be able to score what I needed, much less spares. Empty bins or bins filled with the wrong damned parts – all of which look alike, of course – are not my favorite thing. But I finally came home with three fittings, when I hoped for four. That’s enough to fix the thing twice as long as nothing really outrageous happens. And really – what are the chances of that?

And now the break is fixed, and the pump is up there humming happily along.

Hopefully it’s pumping water. I dipped the tank for some idea of the current level, and at dusk I’ll go up and check it again just to make sure water’s moving in the right direction.

Never did completely lose cabin water, just had some warning gurgles and shots of rusty goo. And it even happened just after dish washing yesterday instead of the usual thing. So all I really missed was my evening sponge bath, and I don’t mind if LB doesn’t.

…if you see it doing this…

h/t

Yeah. I said that. Because I’m a putz. Turns out he was just hiding out in the pumphouse, giggling, waiting for me to notice.

I need a gadget. Maybe an app. Maybe go oldschool with a really loud gong. I need a device that will tell me at a distance when the water tank is going empty. Continue reading →

Got this from Landlady this morning…

The Honeymoon is Over: Chicken Honesty

When we finally got our first flock of chicks, each fluff-ball was socialized daily, fed from hand and given a special name best suited to his/her personality. Special treats were lovingly offered each day, and every egg was a celebrated as a victory.

Fast forward three years later and we are so over that now. We currently have chickens that we’ve had for close to a year that don’t even have a name. And since we haven’t socialized them properly they get all Benny Hill theme music on us (forward to the 1:07 mark) when we try to get close. Bitches.

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t believe we loath having chickens. It’s just now that all the gilt has worn off and I can be 100% honest with you about it all. To keep it organized, here are 5 truths about raising chickens that any experienced and honest chicken owner can tell you:

Every word that follows is true, as I attest from experience.

Speaking of annoying birds… Continue reading →

We’ve had a fairly extended cool spell, with night temps at least dipping briefly into the teens and sometimes substantially colder than that for eleven straight nights. Very far from record cold, but cold enough that I can stop saying, “yeah, but wait till it gets cold.” I swapped out the bedroom heater’s propane bottle on 12/7 and determined that this time, since I’m so bad at estimating how empty a bottle is by weight, I’d resist the temptation to swap bottles before the one in service sucked dry. And it finally did last night, sometime in the wee hours of 12/17.

Uncle Murphy having gone off on a well-earned vacation, it couldn’t have happened on a better night. Clouds and cool wind blew in yesterday afternoon and the clouds stayed overnight, so it never got cold at all. I noticed on rising that the bedroom seemed a bit cooler than usual but really didn’t give it any thought while I dealt with LB and coffee and the main cabin’s fire. The cabin warmed up very nicely, the fire not having been given much opposition, and when I went back into the bedroom at 6:30ish the temperature difference was instantly noticeable – and not in the way it usually is that time of the morning. At last I’d sucked a bottle dry.

This was ten days of running the thing like an old lady, mid- to high-fifties from evening to mid-morning, being really profligate. In the old Interim Lair a full bottle wouldn’t have lasted six days. With this space heater in the new bedroom it lasted ten.

Maybe at some point I’ll get a diverter regulator like they use on RVs so I can pair up bottles, since the bottle is virtually guaranteed to suck dry in the middle of the night.

Though I can’t offer an explanation, I’m also happy to notice that the pilot is lighting more readily than it did at first. When we first installed the thing, the spark lighter was almost useless. The only sure way to light the pilot was to remove the sight glass and light the flame with a butane lighter. But the last two times the sparker has been enough. First time I figured it was because there was still propane in the line and the firebox hot, but this time it was cold and empty and I still had no trouble with the pilot.

At that rate of consumption it would take 12* full bottles to get from here to mid-March, which – when I put it that way – is an appalling lot of propane. But barring new emergencies I really could afford to do that – and of course this isn’t Minnesota. High desert winter is episodic; sometimes it’ll dip much colder than that, and sometimes there’ll be periods not that cold at all. Best thing to do is throw a comforter on the bed, throttle it back a bit but not go all worst-case and use the heater only for extinction-level nights.

—
*9, I mean! Arithmetic is hard.

I used to really enjoy reading Dave Barry, back when his column was in the Detroit News. That was a long time ago, I kind of lost touch with him as a humorist for several years, and now when I occasionally encounter something he wrote it seems kind of flat. I guess that Pulitzer was a long time ago.

Anyway, I say all that as prologue to the fact that I was just reading a Dave Barry 2017 holiday gift guide which really isn’t all that funny but it did include a mention of a product which, if real, would be about the dumbest gadget idea I ever heard of. And it was at the end of a Dave Barry list, so I already had some very silly gadgets in my mind. He described it but you can’t always assume something he describes is real, so I looked it up.

It’s real. It’s not only real, it’s sold on Amazon under like a dozen brand names.

Imagine it with me, Mr. and Mrs. America: An alarm clock that, when it goes off, you half-asleep lift a gun-like object and shoot a target on top of the clock to put it into snooze mode.

What, I ask you, could possibly go wrong?

h/t

Is something I used to hate far more than freezing in the light, which is just sometimes part of a day’s work. Waking to cold, not having the juice to push back the dark with any authority…There were years when I was positively superstitious about the Winter Solstice. Fully understood why early Europeans used to throw big festivals in late December: It maybe kept them from slitting their own throats en masse.

The Solstice is less than a week away and now, thanks to the wonders of gradualism and creeping technology, the darkness is just pretty muted light.

And I can hardly claim to be freezing through it.

Lit the fire less than an hour ago, and I’m already peeling off what few layers I bothered putting on in the first place.

The Secret Lair is becoming positively civilized. For certain reasons I retain a bit of sentimentality toward that old RV trailer but I can’t say I miss shivering through December mornings in it – or in the earliest iteration of the Lair, for that matter.

Pittsburgh police responded to the call about a fatal accident in Homewood at about 8:50 a.m.

“…so I went back to bed.”

Police: Man found dead under van that fell on him while trying to steal wheels

Before you trust your life to your jack, make sure it deserves the trust.

Also, don’t ever do this.

Spent a couple of hours yesterday afternoon just moving things around from where they are to where they ought to be. Brought firewood to Landlady’s place, at last. Moved some stuff she wanted moved from her barn to Ian’s Cave. Moved some wood I’d dumped in Ian’s yard when I thought (pre-Honda) I’d be doing my wood-cutting there. While there I struggled to relocate a #100 propane bottle I scrounged last summer. It has some gas in it but I don’t know how much, I keep meaning to test it with a Heater Buddy. I dropped in at Ian’s yard at the time for lack of any other more logical place to put it, but that turned out not to be a good place, so…

Panting, swearing, cursing the gods and the day of my birth, I shove-rolled the cosmically heavy thing through loose sand and finally got it onto the bed of the Jeep trailer where it was easier to muscle upright and strap it to the front. Hauled it where it needed to be and just dumped it there, promising to return with a handtruck to store it more neatly. People, my shoulders are shot. I never was a circus strongman, now for purposes of moving heavy things I’m just an old man.

And that – added to the fact that I always bum rides to town – is why I stick to 7-gallon propane bottles. 😉

…it’s good to have neighbors around, I guess.

When the ground is freezing, it’s best if one of them has a backhoe. I’m afraid Neighbor L is in the process of losing the second old dog in far-too-quick succession.

There were advantages to a chimney fire phobia: When you’re cleaning your stovepipe every 4-5 days it never gets very sooty. I could knock the whole job out while the bread was rising. Should have considered that before I started today because stovepipe cleaning, one of the four chores I wanted to accomplish before 2 in the afternoon, turned into a two-hour job.

I mean, I knew it would make a mess. But you sweep it up and that’s that, right? In this case there was such a mess that I figured I may as well do something out of character and really clean up the stove and corner. Swear I get a little more suburban every day.

I need to fashion a tarp of the right size to lay down here if I’m going to go so long between stovepipe sweepings. After picking up the pile the floor tiles were still black. I have a new mop – there’s Mr. Suburban Man poking up his ugly head again – but I wasn’t going to ruin it on this job. So I ended up swabbing up the soot the old-fashioned way.

Then since I had everything torn apart anyway I went ahead and cleaned the wall tiles and dusted the wall’o’kitsch. Which unfortunately only points out how dusty the gunrack is. I may need one of those big dust mops on a pole. That new bedroom has corrupted me.

Now I need to pop the bread into the oven, and while that’s baking I’ll do the more traditional Joel winter chores: clean up the bread-making mess, sharpen the kindling hatchet and fill the woodbox. I’ve had the Jeep trailer in the driveway since before the pipes broke for the purpose of filling Landlady’s wood bin, but there’s a good chance that’ll get knocked back yet another day.