The Ultimate Answer to Kings

That I’m trying to upload pictures for a slice-of-life post at this very moment and finding it impossible. I really do have a very nice post all laid out but there’s only one bar on the smartphone that’s my hotspot. I’m not ignoring you, but the cellular network is ignoring me pretty consistently lately. At this moment I couldn’t even send this placeholder but that’ll change any second.

As if that weren’t bad enough I have Emmylou Harris playing in one ear and Torso Boy rather distractingly howling in the other. He does this every frickin’ time. I truly don’t know if he hates the sound of her voice or is trying to sing along.

A neighbor is cleaning out a packed long-term storage shed, which is always a dangerous time for me to come near. He had some sheets of clear acrylic and black plastic stuff, and I thought those would be two of the expensive bits of a heat exchanger for summer hot water, maybe even a built-in shower. When I mentioned the notion he showed me this…

4X8, with the glass. Already drilled for piping, it’s literally made to house the sort of heat exchanger I envision.

But it’s substantially more … substantial than I had in mind, and I need a few days to read and think and kind of grow into the idea so I didn’t commit to taking that box off his hands.

But I don’t have any big building project on tap for this summer. With that box and a couple of hundred feet of ABS or even black hose…

Look what a Generous Reader sent me!

This is a much newer pattern camo than my other stuff. Heavier fabric, too: Might even do for winter wear with longjohns. I always reluctantly give up my BDUs in winter. Thanks!

There were some included goodies…

Munchies for dog and man and some rifle cleaning gear, always useful.

Big Brother is determined that I shall not starve on his watch…

Lots of canned chicken this time around! Honey and cookies and apple sauce. And Landlady topped off the Lair’s coffee stash…

…so that we have coffee for months if they decide to ride out the pandemapocalypse up here in the sticks, an eventuality that looks more remote by the day. Better luck next time, I guess.

Thanks, guys! You rock.

Firewood storage at Landlady’s place has always been kind of an issue. No matter what expedient we cobbled together it either fell apart in the weather or became an elaborate rat nest. Late this winter, to celebrate her nice new deck she decided to cut through the nonsense and bring a nice plastic bench/chest. That seemed to work fine except that for the past couple of weeks every time I come around to check on things I found the lid wide open…

…and it took me a while to figure it out. I mean if it was only the first time I’d think maybe she just left it open. But I know I closed it, and now it’s open again. I’ve never been bothered with poltergeists.

Spring gets really windy, and the wind can really swirl around that porch in odd ways – especially since we laid down all that exposed floor space. So, since the chest has a couple of locking rings and I have a few little snap links I never found any other use for…

I think that’ll chase away our little poltergeist. If it doesn’t I’ll get worried.

Thought about it while I was writing the post below, in fact, though I was already boiling chicken for dog food and couldn’t run right out to test my theory.

In the previous post I mentioned that I have a new(ish, now) Lee manual primer tool that uses proprietary shell carriers. Comes with a whole set of them.

That reminded me that I also have an old manual primer tool that does not use proprietary shell carriers, and that I did not look on it for my one and only carrier that fits .44.

So later, after the chicken and rice were done cooking, I went back to check…

…and there it was, safe and sound.

It never made sense to me that I would have lost that one singular essential component out on the ground somewhere when everything else seems just fine. I mean if I were missing a whole bucket’s worth of stuff I’d be looking for where I absently mislaid that bucket. But I’m really not.

Grrr. I suppose it was inevitable, though…

In the interest of easing myself back into this ‘reloading’ thing I decided to pick up more or less precisely where I left off by addressing a years-old sin of omission. Wideners, which is probably not talking to me anymore, sent me 2 pounds of pistol powder supposed to be perfect for big-bore in exchange for an ad on my sidebar – which they got – and a review – which they didn’t because before it even arrived I took a bad fall, tore a rotator cuff and enjoyed a very painful winter going up and down the loft ladder. For months I couldn’t raise a coffee cup with my right arm, let alone work a manual ammo press. I always felt kind of bad about that – but I’d already unsealed the powder cans and anyway they didn’t ask for them back.

So let’s start with that. I downloaded the Western Powders loading data guide – which whatever the virtues of their powder, leaves a great deal to be desired in providing data for .44 Special and Magnum – came up with a sensibly minimum powder charge for 200 gr. cast semiwadcutters, and toddled off to my shiny new loading shack.

And everything went swimmingly – with new batteries the powder scale works perfectly and no spiders built nests in the dumper – until the moment when I had ten shiny primed cases each containing precisely 7.2 grains of Ramshot True Blue and ten waxy bullets waiting to be seated in the cases.

And that’s when the inadequacies of my packing strategy jumped out, stuck their thumbs in the corners of their mouths and screamed, “booga booga booga.”

I guess I just assumed the case holder was still on the press. Where else would it be? The only caliber I loaded for years was .44, and the primer tool uses a proprietary holder (I still have a full set of THOSE holders. Because I didn’t need them today.)

I looked everywhere I could think to look, everywhere I might have squirreled a small important part away. Nope.

Went back up to the old RV that was my former loading shack before the rats kicked me out. I still have a ton of components and redundant gear in there, or rather Ian does.

Nope. Found a bunch of cool stuff I’d kind of forgotten about including a real digital caliper clean in its case which might work with a new battery. But shell holders? Nothing that will fit a big rimmed cartridge case, no.

AARG!

Maybe I’ll load some 45 ACP while I’m waiting for the mail order to arrive. I’ve got that holder, though no need for ammo.

Good news, while traipsing up and down the hill to and from the RV, I passed my favorite little barrel cactus…

…and look who’s going to bloom this year! She’s got the prettiest flowers in the desert. So that’s nice.

Now if you’ll excuse me I have to give Brownell some money.

There was a lot more of this on the game camera’s mem card and I tried off and on for 2 days to make a more extensive .gif but my up/download speed has been the worst lately. So we’ll have to settle for this snippet because I’d like to clear the card and turn the camera back on.

I haven’t complained much about the cattle so far this year because so far they really haven’t been any hassle at all. At most they give Torso Boy a reason to vocally yearn for his ancestral Welsh plains from time to time. Even when a herd finally made its way through my yard as captured by the game camera, they didn’t pause to knock a lot of stuff over and slobber over the rest.

But who’s cleaning up my driveway, cattle? Huh? You think this is San Francisco? You do know there’s a pandemic going on, right, and that I shouldn’t have to shovel up other … creatures’ … excrement? Yeah. When I start hawking my lungs up I’m gonna track down each of your calves and cough right in their individual moronically cute little faces.

I hurt my shoulder in 2016 and couldn’t even work a press for a while. Unfortunately by the time I could get back to it I had thoroughly lost the war against the rats in the old RV I used for a reloading shack. And you’re either in the habit or you’re not, so it was a while before I even considered it much of an issue.

But I’ve been wanting to do more pistol shooting and commercial ammo is out of the question for anything but defense loads – the only local ammo dealer doesn’t even stock .44 Special – so I had to get back to it but it really has taken me a while. I built the bench out of cut-up fencing and pallets almost a year ago. Cleaned out the RV of everything but the deep-storage stuff in Autumn but got stuck on the need for a shelving unit. That last excuse issue was solved by a neighbor a couple of days ago, because people throw away the damndest things.

And yesterday and today I set up the shelf, wired up some lights, and got busy emptying buckets…

It’s a little cramped; a tiny room in Ian’s powershed originally intended for ammo storage so not entirely inappropriate to repurpose it for loading. Really just exactly big enough with barely an inch to spare. Just the way I like things.

I still have to come up with some tunes, though. Seem to have completely lost my old MP3 player but I believe that tablet computer my brother gave me a couple of years ago will work at least as well.

I came out from where I’d been working in Ian’s powershed and scared this guy up on a piece of concrete rubble…

Since he didn’t seem especially skittish I went around the other side of the column…

Half the size of a full grown iguana. The more common sort of lizard is much smaller. Good to see the reptiles again, though I’ll have to start paying attention to where TB’s walking. Last Spring he stepped right on a bull snake before he noticed it.

I’ll buy locally if I possibly can, and even though the local hardware didn’t stock a timer switch and it wouldn’t save any money I figured it’d still be quicker to order it through them than online from Amazon.

3 weeks later…

(sigh) And I’m not thrilled with it because I can turn it on but have to wait for it to time out, I can’t just crank it back to zero like with every other timer switch I ever saw. Which doesn’t quite defeat the whole purpose but puts a fair dent in it. And I didn’t realize I needed a plastic cover because the metal cover I had on there is specifically named as a no-no in the instructions.

But whatever. At least I won’t wake up in the morning and wonder why the voltage is 2/10v too low.

And wonder of wonders I remembered a new trailer hitch ball.

I didn’t figure on the auto parts store being closed by decree – so it’s a minor miracle the hardware store had one that’ll work. It’s the sort of trap Murphy likes to set for me and I was very surprised he gave me a pass this time. It’ll probably turn out to have a mis-marked size or something.

The local library is closed, of course. They thoughtfully left the wifi on since that’s the only way some people can connect, so there’s usually somebody parked in the lot with a laptop or whatever.

And here’s a touch I initially viewed rather cynically – they taped a plastic box on top of the book depository for people who wanted to exchange books, seeding it with some donations. “That’ll be empty next time,” I thought.

But no, it’s always full. It rarely contains anything you’d want to take home and read, but it’s always full. And D&L gamely do their part to join in.

I laughed till I choked. Maybe too much humor isn’t good for you?

Maybe the yellow ones are female? I did not know that.

What causes me to suspect this is that after I finished morning chores I stopped the Jeep beside the trashcan corral which is where I keep the gas cans out of the sun so I could fill the fuel tank. And while I fill the tank I like to listen to the radio. But it’s Sunday morning so there’s nothing worth listening to on the few stations the Jeep can pull in at all but NPR was coming in all right.

So while I emptied 5-gallon cans into (her?) the Jeep lectured me about this novel that tells how hard life is for South Korean middle-class college-educated women in their harsh patriarchy-ridden society – I mean sometimes they have to make choices between having a job and raising children, I didn’t know it was so bad there.

And then the Jeep played an interview with this girl? Who was bummed about missing out on the planned Earth Day demonstrations? Because of the Coronavirus? And she was totally going to lose her chance to be the next David Hogg? And for some reason every time she paused for breath she sounded like she was asking a question? Which is really weird? Because she has all the answers?

Oh, and also orange man bad.

It leaves me feeling a bit guilty about all that white male privilege I keep hoarded in the pantry. Not a lot. Just a little.

This has been my teapot since 2008. Landlady gave it to me shortly after T died, when she was shutting down their fifth-wheel. Before that I boiled water in a saucepan. I replaced the knob on the cover with a cabinet pull because the bolt had broken off. The whistle stopped working quite some time ago but it’s a small cabin and you know when the water’s boiling because it gets quieter. Thought about replacing it a few times but truth is I fill it with a 3-gallon jug and the fact that the handle folds down works for me.

But this very morning I looked inside and thought…

“Wow, y’know, the enamel’s gone on the bottom and the rust is really taking hold.”

Guess what S&L were taking to the thrift store and offered me this afternoon?

I’m just saying, it’s weird.

The trailer ball has been loose on the Jeep’s hitch adapter for quite some time. I’ve tightened it before but this time I let it go for too long, it seemed…

I took the adapter off earlier this week to mount the bike rack, and figured I should tighten the ball before putting it back on. But the nut would! Not! Move! I tried lubing it, heating it, nothing. I put a pipe on a pipewrench and only managed to turn the vise no matter how hard I tightened the clamp…

Finally managed to wedge a pair of channel locks between the jaws and the bench, and that worked. Got the nut off intending to clean the threads and put it all back together, but…

Um…really left it too long. You can’t tighten a bolt that has no threads.

Gurg. Going to the auto parts store on Monday. That one’s on me.

ETA, several hours later: It just occurred to me now, because hindsight is always so useful, that what would have worked ever so much more elegantly would have been to put the adapter back on the Jeep upside-down and then apply the wrench and pipe. Ah, well…

I very carefully coated all parts of every positive connector this morning – and some negative ones at first just because I got carried away, though the negs don’t tend to corrode – and now we’ll see if this stuff is the super anti-corrosion vunder grease or if you’re just as well off with petroleum jelly.

Updates to follow, hopefully not very soon.

Okay, so the plan was to go over to Landlady’s powershed with an old steel bowl, a box of baking soda and an old toothbrush. I had already prepositioned several gallon jugs of water for rinsing and scrubbing the battery tops after I boiled the corrosion off the positive connections.

Note to self: Next time make it an old ceramic bowl.

It was exactly the right size to bridge those two contacts. Couldn’t have planned it so well. Or badly. Whatever. Scratch one bowl.

Fortunately the powershed is connected to the chickenhouse, and chicken raising tends to collect old bowls for all sorts of things. Shouldn’t have even brought the bowl. So I was able to continue, and…

The whole rest of the powershed is a big mess but the battery tops and connections are clean.

I turned on the big window fan and left the powershed door and the window to the chickenhouse open, and it’s a warm windy day so hopefully most of the water will have evaporated off the floor when I go back for the final step…

I got a bottle of this late last year for my own batteries and it works fine, but my battery terminals aren’t prone to corrosion for some reason so that’s not a real test. If it’ll cure Landlady’s batteries I’ll believe, brother. I’ll believe. Because I don’t know why, something about the conditions in her powershed maybe, but her batteries have always been the worst for corrosion.

Yesterday was the first official bike trip to town of the year. I did it on a freakishly warm afternoon in early February but that was just because I was bored of winter. This morning I actually wanted to do a couple of things in town and decided to take the bike.

The cattlegate is something over five miles from the Lair by long winding road. I cheat and take the Jeep there and unload the bike. From the gate it’s almost exactly two and a half bumpy miles to pavement. From there it’s maybe another mile and a half to the start of what few stores there are. A pleasant ride, weather permitting. End to end, including an idle detour to see what’s down this road here, nine and a half miles on the clock.

Of course the bike did most of the work but I’m getting better at using the gearing and pedals to get better range out of the battery. At first, back in August/September, I couldn’t go more than 20 miles on a charge but even with dirt road friction and hills it’s probably half again better than that now.

I guess you’d have to be familiar with InRangeTV to really get this but I laughed till I choked. The mud tests are a recurring feature of Karl and Ian’s channel – as are shitposts. And when you lock Karl in a house filled with editing gear for two months alone, unable to go out and shoot stuff – well. Things will happen, that’s all.

It puts the cartridge in the chamber, or else it gets the bucket again.

Those dogs that were hassling that cow and calf about a month ago. This time they were much closer to Landlady’s place – and they seemed to have it in their heads to hassle me.

The weather cleared overnight and I was taking my muddy morning walky – the first time with the new leg, which is getting more comfortable – and I was on the ridge overlooking the cattle watering station. From here the road goes sharply downhill, takes a left around the station and across the wash, then back uphill again to Landlady’s. And I wouldn’t even have known the dogs were in the area if one of them hadn’t started barking at me.

I looked around the station, assuming the dog was barking at a cow. But there were no cattle and the dog sounded really close so I scanned past the station and there they both were, on the berm at the bottom of the hill, on the other side of the road between it and the wash. Scott the Road Guy built that berm up a few years ago when we had that big flood that washed the road out, and those two dogs were standing on top not barking at any cattle but at me.

That was just rude, and I decided to see how far they were willing to take this. If they got proactively aggressive we’d just end this right here.

I went down the hill which took me out of sight of them for a minute or two but they were still in the same spot when I rounded the turn and the brindle was still barking. As I recalled from our first encounter the brindle was the first to break contact but the light brown one didn’t want to pay any attention to my yelling – that suggested that even though right now the brindle was the one making noise it was the brown one I should watch.

They were still on top of the berm, neither advancing nor retreating. I started walking toward them straight and hard, looking right at them, making it clear who was the aggressor here. If you want to fight, I want to fight. That is in my experience the most sure way to get a strange dog to back down. The temp was in the twenties and I was wearing layers and anyway I’m no big quickdraw artist so of course I had my .44 in my hand before I ever rounded the turn. The closer I came, the less sure about all this the brindle seemed to get even though she kept barking – but as before, the brown one just stared me down.

I got to within maybe thirty yards, still walking fast, and to my surprise they were letting the situation ride. At that range I could easily take one of them with the pistol but as before I really truly didn’t want to shoot a dog that somebody else definitely owned. So I guess you could say in the end it was me who chickened out: I held the pistol out to my side and fired into the sand.

More often than not when I use my pistol in the boonies it’s just to get a troublesome animal moving – one more nice thing about a .44 Magnum is that it makes a nice big boom. And as soon as I made the gun go boom the dogs disappeared down the other side of the berm and I saw them no more. As before it’s the brindle who ran the first and fastest. If it comes to shooting I’m shooting the brown one first.

And damn…

These mutts are getting expensive. I either need to load cheaper ammo or just go ahead and end the dogs. I’m going to be too forbearing, and they’re going to rip something up – hopefully not a neighbor – and then I’m going to feel really bad about not having just shot the damned things.