The Ultimate Answer to Kings

Yeah, I know. It’s damned rude to ghost your friends. Sorry. Really.

I got some sort of crud a couple of weeks ago and it took its sweet time getting better. I wasn’t eating, wasn’t drinking, just sat and sweated and read. My appetite still isn’t what it used to be but at least I’m eating actual meals now. Mostly it left me kind of depressed, not getting much done and not really caring about getting much done. Especially it left me in a very – even for me – unsocial place. I have gotten out a bit in the past week but I’m just in a rut. And I completely fell out of the habit of checking in here, and can’t honestly say it preyed on my conscience much. I am, after all, a hermit at the best of times.

I’ve got some pics of what little is going on, and I promise I’ll get back to it. Just checking in to say I’m alive and if not entirely well, at least not rotting on a hillside somewhere.

I lost my bedroom heater two winters in a row because the burner orifice kept getting gummed up. Managed to improvise a cleaning the first time but last winter I had to replace it entirely, which took two separate shipments from the manufacturer. Wouldn’t have had that problem if I’d had a proper way to clean an orifice, so…

Now I do. Only the very smallest of those bits will be of use to me, the only way I could find to get one was to get the set. Wish I had 2-3 of the tiniest one and none of the others, but that’s life.

BTW when I re-installed my kitchen bypass regulator last month the plumbing, which has pooted along fine since the construction of the cabin, was in fact all oily inside. So it’s coming from my propane supply and it will happen again. Hopefully not for a while but you never know, and now I’m armed.

…integrally suppressed .22 bolt action carbine with an LPVO.

Funny, before my evening shower (lord, it’s hot) I was very content with my guns. Couldn’t really think of anything I wanted. But while up at Ian’s a guy on the internet said – so you know it’s true – that some troll stuck those two DOA anti-NFA bills into the Big Bad Bod Bill, which is allegedly likely to pass.

And suddenly I wanted a new gun. Because if I had one of those I know a whole bunch of yard rabbits that would be dead in DAYS*.

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* Yeah I know I could shoot them now, but it would be a lot more fun with that new toy.

Not as hot as it will get, but enough that I’m sneaking around the Gulch in my sweatin’ duds.

Went out to get a bucket of hot water for dish washing, and wondered what all that hot sun was doing to my hillbilly water heater. The steam in the bucket suggested it was plenty hot, but I have a meter that can bring a little more precision to the answer…

And I was a little surprised. I’d have guessed hotter than that.

Either way, plenty hot enough for the purpose. Saves me propane, plus the extra indoor heat from boiling water. I’ve already got lots.

The main footpath away from the Lair goes right up the ridge behind the cabin and has two steep bits.

There’s lots of little rocks embedded in clay and sand, and over time my back-and-forth breaks those little rocks loose, to the point where they’re a real traction hazard. Also the upper steep part always gets a little erosion groove in it after a wet period. Tobie, in a move he may not understand threatens his meal ticket, has a bad habit of hitting the afterburners going down those steep bits and since we’re literally tied together that can be an issue.

So every now and then, at least annually, I need to go up there with a hoe and a rake and pull that gravel down.

On the upper part, I dig into the dirt to try and smooth out that groove, bringing the rocks and dirt down to fill in a bit of the middle part of the path where a wannabe-gully tends to wash it out.

Then the gravel I rake down from the lower steep bit goes to filling in what would otherwise be a muddy patch under the eave of the power/tool shed. And when I’m done…

…I have a nice smooth traction-friendly path again. For a while. Till next time.

It’s kind of a pain in the ass but it really doesn’t take long. And it probably helps prevent a much more serious pain in the neck in the fullness of time.

Or, “Now I know how a lady in a shoe store feels.”

(This unexpectedly turned into a wall of words, which I haven’t done in quite a while. Tobie is giving me That Look, so we have to go outside now but I’m going to hit Publish first before I lose my nerve. I’ll clean up the editing when we get back.)

Long-time readers know that here at the Secret Lair we have traditionally had a money problem – known as “Don’t got none.” Improvise, scrounge or do without is pretty much the whole point of the exercise and has been since I arrived in the Gulch 19 years ago. And mostly I got by fairly well for the first ten years or so of doing that, living on neighborhood gigs. I talked a lot about ‘synchronicity,’ the phenomenon of necessary things just kind of showing up when I needed them. There were some times when I barely squeaked by but for the most part it was kind of fun.

Then about nine years ago that started to fall apart for me. Some key neighbors moved away, leaving me high and dry for labor and maintenance gigs. I had a few bad moments, to be honest: Would I have to move to some inhabited place and (shudder) get a job? Could I even get a job, at this point in my life, that would cover living expenses? Out here I could live cheap, albeit in a state where one serious Jeep breakdown or health problem might sink me.

Right about then Big Brother started bailing me out with monthly care packages, which allowed me to continue as I had been, and that went on for another nine years or so. Blog readers were a huge help during that period as necessary cabin improvements got done largely on contributions. Life got more comfortable, but I wasn’t making frivolous purchases.

About a year ago, after I turned 70, I went on SS and the money problem largely went away. I wasn’t buying that custom 4X4 supertruck, but I could improve my infrastructure without pain and if I wanted to replace a worn-out tool with something better I did that with increasing casualness. Still, the concept of buying something I didn’t need just because I wanted it had long since become a foreign thing indeed.

Also about a year ago, quite coincidentally, my friend Ian gave me a princely birthday present. I’d been thinking for quite some time of swapping my daily .44 revolver for a modern 9mm, for reasons, and he laid one upon me. Nothing super expensive but it was just what I’d been wanting, and of course it raised a whole bunch of new expenses. First thing I needed was a holster before I could use it at all. The Arex has one slight disadvantage: It’s kind of a hipster brand and accessories aren’t available on every gunstore wall. I found a quicky on Amazon, to my surprise…

…pretty cheap. I expected it to be a stopgap but actually it worked out quite well. Wasn’t ever going to be my very favorite thing, because I wanted a drop holster for everyday, but for a highrise holster it isn’t bad and I’ve been using it for over a year any time I need a modicum of concealment.

A regular reader told me about a nice custom kydex company that would make a drop holster for the Arex, and I didn’t hesitate…

Not at all cheap, but that’s a damn nice holster. I’ve been carrying it for over a year and it’s great. It’s got enough drop and standoff for comfortable drawing and any time I’m outdoors in the Gulch, or am likely to be, that’s what I wear. So my holster needs are met. Problem solved, end of story.

Right? No. Because recently materialism raised its ugly head.

A couple of weeks ago I did something I probably shouldn’t have done. I went back on the Legacy Firearms Co site and shopped for a fancier highrise holster than the perfectly adequate one I already had. If I were going to buy an unnecessary fancy holster – which I definitely wasn’t – how would I want it? OD Green, of course, because it’s a concealment holster and I mostly wear OD green. I dialed in the suspension system, the sweat guard, the amount of reholstering flair, the slide length, the optic cut, the color of the standoff washers for god’s sake. Oh, look! They’ve got basketweave pattern kydex! That would be funny. It was just a game, killing time. I wasn’t going to do anything stupid like push the button…

…yeah. It arrived today.

And here’s the really dumb part: As soon as I did it, I started sweating how long the delivery would take. I got really excited about this … geegaw. Counted the days, followed the package tracking like it was a race I was betting on. People, I don’t do that. Maybe I did now and then when I was Mr. Suburban Man but that was a helluva long time ago. I told my neighbor, while recounting the story and laughing at myself, “Now I know how a lady in a shoe store feels.”

So there it is. Whadaya think?

From a Friend of the Blog…

These are words I just spoke to a dog.

A gang of cattle has taken to overnighting in my yard. Tobie takes exception to this seems to find this exciting all the night long.

Hell, I dunno. Maybe he likes it. He growls and barks. Off and on. From sleeptime till light. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night, and have basically been a zombie all this day. I hate cattle. I’m beginning to have negative thoughts about Tobie. I mean, he can catch up on his sleep during the day, it’s not like he cares about mine. So now it’s going dark, and he’s wuffing at the windows like tonight’s going to be a repeat of last night.

When I was young I could go a night or two without sleep and kind of like it, assuming the reason was interesting. I’m no longer young. And cattle in the yard in the middle of the night aren’t interesting at all.

Some damned cow decided to try scratching her back on one of my Welcome signs.

At least this time it was easy to fix. Last time it was this one…

…and being set in concrete it took a shovel and some work to set it right.

I really hate cattle. Tobie finds them entertaining, though.

Finally a day rain-free enough I felt comfortable about taking the bike to town. And the bike came back laden!

I know I’m always complaining about being on the ragged edge of the supply chain but this is ridiculous. I needed a little bit of plumber’s strap – so last week I went into the hardware store to buy a roll. They don’t carry it. Seriously?

So yeah…

I had to send away for a little roll of plumber’s strap. At least now I can casually do that. Not so long ago I’d have had to improvise.

Also, a Friend of the Blog sent me 500 more rounds of 9mm practice ammo – plus 50 rounds of the expensive stuff! Thanks!

I know I said I wasn’t going to buy any more of the reloaded stuff, and I meant it. But free has a value all its own, well worth having to do the “plunk test” 500 times. And sure enough, about the same percentage of the ammo failed the test. So far I haven’t had further problems with the previously-culled batch, so this should do it. Thanks again! I can blaze away without guilt for a while.

I don’t know if it’s a harbinger of an early Monsoon or not but we had one hell of a thunderstorm sweep through here yesterday. The sort of storm where I unplug all the indoor electronics and worry about my power system. According to the rain gauge on the weather station, which I’ve never entirely believed because I think it undercounts, we got over half an inch of rain in less than half an hour. Erosion happened before my very eyes. And poor Tobie…

…was a very unhappy little camper. I’ve never had a dog that was blasé about thunder but Tobie hates it so much he gets unsettled every time there’s any rain at all, even a gentle shower. If it’s hard enough to hear the drops hitting the roof, he goes Condition Red. And we had one thunderclap that had me heading under the bed.

Lots of mud during this morning’s walkie. The rain threatened for days before it came, and it’s forecast to rain again today but the morning dawned so clear and still that…

I decided to catch up the laundry while I could. Actually by Thursday things are supposed to go back to clear and hot. But while the forecasters are usually accurate as to what’s going to happen, they’re pretty slipshod as to when. So I’m getting some clean skivvies while I can.

It was a pretty good idea. Something I used to do when re-sizing revolver brass all the time.

Took the barrel out of the pistol and “plunked” rounds into the chamber one at a time, a little under 450 times, setting aside the ones that stuck.

And several did.

Now I’ll put a few mags full of the hopefully-good rounds through the Arex, and they’ll either work or they won’t.

I thought I broke my gun.

So in the previous post I mentioned that I had ordered 500 9mm reloads. Yesterday I picked them up in town, and this morning I loaded magazines and took them out to the driveway range. Everything went okay through the first mag but halfway through the second the Arex locked up hard. I mean I could neither rack nor remove the slide. The slide wasn’t in battery, and what’s more I was pretty sure there was a live round in the chamber so I had to proceed cautiously.

Didn’t even want to take the pistol indoors because I was going to have to fiddle pretty hard to get the slide to do anything, and – y’know. Live round. Actually I ended up tapping the slide into battery with a rubber hammer. Then I fired it – yup, live round – took it inside and tried to take the pistol apart. The slide came off the frame easily enough but the barrel did not want to come out of the slide. The reason for that turned out to be that the case was stuck in the chamber, and the extractor hook was in the rim so there we were. I finally convinced the barrel to leave the slide and then I was able to knock out the case.

I cleaned and inspected the gun and could find nothing wrong. Lubed and reassembled it: Seemed to work fine.

So I loaded up a couple more mags and went back down the driveway. And on the second mag the pistol locked up again. This time not as hard: I was able to remove the slide…

…and this time it was a fired case that was stuck in the chamber. I was able to tap the barrel out but the case remained stuck in the chamber. I had to bring it back inside and knock it out with a cleaning rod.

Put the pistol back together again. This time I loaded the mags with new Fiocchi ammo, went down the driveway, and blasted away. 36 rounds, bang bang bang, no problems at all.

I never had trouble with commercial reloads before: I’ve shot lots through 1911s in the past. But these sure didn’t work out for me.

A couple of months ago a friend of the blog sent me a princely gift: 450 rounds of bulk practice 115-grain 9mm and ten boxes of 124 grain. Yesterday I burned through (almost) the last of the 115-grain, and so…

…I used the sweet little 500-round ammo can they came in to start on the 124-grain stuff.

And while I was sitting at the table in Ian’s Cave doing that, I took the opportunity to check something that had been bugging me.

See, after a (lengthy) break-in period the Arex has become completely reliable with all types of ammo except one in one very specific circumstance: If I insert a 19-round magazine completely full of 115-grain practice ammo into the pistol with a round already in the chamber, something that (almost) only happens during practice sessions, there is a very high probability that the pistol will experience a hard jam after firing the first round. By hard jam I mean a cocked round that can only be cleared by dropping the mag, racking the slide, then completely reloading. The pistol doesn’t do this under any other circumstances. And it seems to me that what’s happening is that a round trying to enter the chamber while under full magazine spring pressure just decides it’s a little too long to make the trip. I’m not saying that’s what’s really happening, only that that’s what it looks like. The Arex has always fed 124-grain ammo – and all service ammo I’ve tried it with – just great. Can’t think of a single malfunction. And looking at the ammo it always seemed to me that 115-grain bullets of all brands* – and I deliberately tried a bunch, because early on this looked like it was going to be a bigger problem than it proved to be – stick out of the case just a little tiny bit more than 124-grain bullets do.

So anyway I’m sitting at the table, and it happens that on this same table is a micrometer digital caliper I never got around to taking back to my reloading bench. So…

115-grain FMJ

124-grain FMJ

The difference is consistent across several measured samples. I can think of no logical explanation for this. But it does seem to explain why the Arex isn’t happy with the lighter bullets. I now believe it simply wasn’t made for them.

Of course the lighter bullets are cheaper than the heavier ones, and I only use them in practice**, and while practicing there’s nothing wrong with an occasional malfunction drill. So I just ordered another 500 115-grain factory reloads from the same supplier. Because I’m not a naturally great pistol shooter, and anything that encourages me to shoot a lot is a good thing.

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* the single exception being Wolf, for reasons I won’t even speculate about.

**Okay a couple of days ago I did experience a hard jam while using the pistol as a noisemaker to drive cattle out of my yard, and that was very annoying but hardly life-threatening.

Yeah. This is my fault.

Last year I had nothing but trouble from my homemade water heater. 200 feet of black hose was so filled with calcium scale that it took forever to get water running freely – in fact I had trouble off and on for most of the summer.

So in November I thought I’d do something smart: I hauled it all down, separated the hose segments and laid them out on a slope so water wouldn’t stand in them, freezing and thawing to break the scale loose from the rubber. Gosh but I’m smart.

And it probably did some good, but this morning when I hauled the first hose off the hillside and connected it to pressure, no water came out the far end. Then the barest trickle came out. Ten minutes later: Barely a trickle. But clearly visible was a big plug of calcium scale, so I got an awl from the powershed and started stabbing the plug – and that worked! After a few minutes of that, I got clear running water! Yay!

The second hose was exactly the same, and so was the third. The fourth, for a wonder, ran clear right away.

So that was time-consuming and really not in the schedule but there’s no doubt it saved me a lot of hassle down the line. Once all four hoses were clear I hooked them one at a time into the heat exchanger box, first replacing their gaskets and wrenching them down nice and tight. And then when I went to test it…

Bingo. Works like new.

Now I expect the weather to go cloudy and cold again, just to be a jerk.

Every two months Big Brother sends Tobie a care package in the form of a sack of expensive dogfood. And I meant to ask him to hold off on this one, because with D&L stuck in “therapy every weekday” mode the only way I can go to the post office on a weekday is on the bike, and that box is too big for the bike.

But as it happens there was no trip to the therapist today. L asked me if I wanted to go to town and I said yes, even though it was likely to be a wasted trip: The box was due today, which almost always means available for pickup tomorrow. But it must have arrived early because they had it logged in and waiting for me. And now that worry is out of the way.

As I was cutting up the box and stuffing the pieces into the burn barrel I noticed that I had forgotten something important in the yard…

I took the fence down from the pear tree in November to prune the tree and didn’t bother putting it back up. BIG mistake, which until now the cattle – which are all over the damned place – have let me get away with. Uncle Murphy apparently hadn’t whispered into their ears yet.

Needed a bit of a prune anyway because the trunk was full of suckers, but now they’re gone and the fence is back up so the tree should be safe through another cattle season.

To wit: Tobie loves cattle and wants to get to know everything about them. I hate cattle with the incandescence of a thousand suns.

And the most wonderful thing about cattle – from Tobie’s point of view – is that they leave him so many presents. Smelly, gooey, tasty presents. And he’s gotta catch’em all.

Could be worse, I suppose. Ghost liked to roll in the shit.

Okay, so two nights ago we had a herd overnight in the yard, then in the morning take its dear sweet time about moving away. I ended up rampaging out in the yard with a handgun to drive them away. (What I said about the pistol primarily being a noisemaker? Yeah.) Okay, that’s just Tuesday around here but the problem is that Tobie now wants to study every slightest nuance of every cow present: Every hoofprint and especially every dropping must be studied minutely – and in the case of droppings, at least sampled. He is aware that I hate it when he does this, it’s a dispute we’ve had off and on since he was a pup. He simply doesn’t see why I object to shit-eating: I mean, isn’t that what it’s for? And so every walkie turns into this cat-and-mouse game where he rushes ahead to the full extent of his walking lead and then goes full stealth mode to get at least one nibble in before I commence yelling at him.

And of course since cattle dislike soft sand as much as I do, we tend to use the same beaten paths. Cattle are as filthy in their eliminatory habits as goats and chickens; they just raise their tail and let fly when the urge strikes without even breaking stride, so now my favorite paths are just coated in the (literal) shit. I was out yesterday and this morning with a shovel getting it moved off to the side of my driveway and the paths immediately near the Lair. Sweartagod, people call dogs dirty but livestock makes dogs look fastidious as a Victorian dandy by comparison…

…just zoomed right over the scar of the record-breaking wildfire they had almost exactly 14 years ago.

There is zero chance of it coming here but I woke up at like 3 ayem this morning unable to breathe through my completely stuffed-up nose because…

…of that.

It’s been going on for most of a week, is completely out of control thanks to all the heavy wind fanning the flames and grounding the firefighting tankers, and there’s a good chance big towns will get evacuated. Again.

In the afternoon the smoke is just plumes far to the south, but overnight it all seems to come here and settle over the hills to screw with everybody’s sinuses. Obviously kind of a first-world problem compared to what the people in the fire’s path are going through, but I am reminded that the last time this happened we had all sorts of interesting wildlife issues as unusual animals were driven north up the wash channel(s) to say hi. I’m thinking of switching back to the .44 for the duration.