The Ultimate Answer to Kings

It’s a fairly unpleasant day here at the Gulch, cool with lots of wind and spitting rain. So I’m staying in and declaring it baking day; just got the bread out of the oven and in between bread duties I’m sitting around watching YouTube videos. And based on the evidence of those videos and a text from Big Brother, I get the impression that everybody in the whole country is staying home and binge-watching Netflix for the duration.

Of course when I go a week barely talking to a soul, that’s just a regular week. Not sure how long the wheels are going to stay on if everybody does that, but depending on where you come down on the question of how dangerous the new virus is it might be the smart thing in the long run. Really don’t know, and like I said “self-quarantine” doesn’t really call for much of a lifestyle change on my part.

What are you guys doing about this?

I haven’t had my morning walkie in more than a week. I can walk to the water tank and back but that’s about as much as I can stand. Day before yesterday I was on my feet for hours working in D’s woodshop and was practically sweating by the end just from discomfort.

I love the new foot. It’s not just as good as what it replaces, it’s better. The overall length is excellent. But the socket is…frustrating, because I want to be able to tell the prosthetist exactly what’s wrong with it and I’m not sure I can. It’s almost right – but it’s pressing on something almighty sensitive on the back of my stump. And it’s a challenge finding a combination of stump socks that makes it fit exactly between a little too loose and a little too tight.

So yesterday I finished sanding that toolbox D and I put together and started looking for a place in the powershed to store it. Problem is the toolshed is small and at the moment awfully cluttered – that’s the next task, weather permitting, and it’s becoming an annual affair.

Anyway, I ended up putting some hooks in the ceiling and hanging it there, and while I had gone to the trouble of moving stuff around enough to open a ladder in there I figured I should go ahead and do a rearrangement of the lighting I’ve wanted to do for – well, for years now but never got around to because it’s not that big a deal and I only thought about it at odd times when I was doing other things like servicing the batteries, which rearranging the powershed lights would make easier.

And I know I turned the lights off when I left yesterday. I’d have put money on it. But last night I was sitting at the Official TUAK Desk watching a movie, and the voltmeter right above my eyes showed the voltage lower than it should have been. Not a lot lower, a tenth or so. And that should have been all the sign I needed that I’d done it again.

But I didn’t act on it, and they were on all night. Not a big deal in light of the newly-expanded battery capacity but still at least a venal sin, especially in light of the protracted gloomy period we’re forecast to be on the cusp of. I keep saying I’m going to get one of those timer switches. But then I’m good about not leaving the powershed light on for years, and I figure, nah.

And then I do it again.

Wrap them in free toilet paper.

I’ve had a couple of recent gigs away from the cabin that required tools, and was annoyed at my lack of a practical tote. So Torso Boy and I spent a couple of hours in Neighbor D’s very capable woodshop making one.

D&L spent a year and a half constructing their earthbag workshop before they ever did a thing on their massive strawbale & earthbag extravaganza of a house. Some of it was for the learning experience, to make their fundamental mistakes on the shop instead of the house. And some of it was because they were really going to need a big well-equipped woodshop. They’ve got the only homestead I know with solar-powered 240 volts.

Torso Boy has been complaining about being left alone at the cabin so much, so I thought I’d experiment by letting him tag along. He did pretty well for a first try, though he didn’t like the power tool noise – or the sawdust. Every time we made a cut he’d spend two minutes gagging.

And there it is: Nothing fancy, and much chunkier material than I would have chosen – it weighs almost eight pounds empty, which is slightly ridiculous. But it’s all routed and very tightly joined. I could have knocked something together and it would have worked – but it wouldn’t have been half as nice or durable.

Even if it isn’t true, the world is nutty enough that it could be.

“We have always had social distancing. We used to call it being unpopular.”

– unknown

I don’t know how they do this so quick, but I love it…

It was the sort of combination mattress/box spring you buy with a kid’s bunk bed: Not exactly heirloom furniture, because you know he/she will outgrow it very soon. I know it moved several times because I carried it to the van a couple of times, and that was all more than 10 years ago.

Considering how easily it came apart…

…I’m impressed at how long and well it stayed together, is all I’m saying.

ETA: Disturbingly flammable, too…

This was the day.

It came from a kid’s bunk bed, is at least 20 years old, and I’m going to go ahead and guess that’s way beyond its rated lifespan. For the past 3 years an inch of memory foam has helped a lot, but that thing has caused an old man more restless nights than he cares to think about. Its great virtue, of course, is that it was free.

How does one get rid of an old mattress in the boonies without going full white trash? Um…

To be continued. But some of it is destined to become firewood. Some of the rest will test my new fire basket. I’ll find a way to get the fireproof parts to the county dump before … well, as soon as it can be arranged.

Meanwhile, back at the “people throw away the damndest things” department…

I was kind of hoping this would turn out to be a mattress/box spring combination. But no, it’s two mattresses.

And I don’t really want two mattresses. But the trick to living on scrounge is offering mutual benefit. Didn’t do my benefactor any good to get rid of one inconvenient mattress. So I’ll get used to the difference. Meanwhile, these are really nice. Like, nearly new. I’ve plotted for years how to score a new mattress, and now I have two.

It filled the tank with remarkable speed – I don’t know what the flow rate on this particular pump is but it’s far greater than mine.

And then when the level got to the float switch – noted by a lit led on the picture of a water tank on the excessively cute cover – the controller stopped sending power to the pump. Just like it knew what it was doing.

So the well is back in business.

You know how toilet paper has been in the news lately?

That right there is as low as my TP supply has been in almost 12 years, since the Great Costco Buy of 2008. I’m a bachelor who lives alone: I use toilet paper for one purpose only and just don’t go through a lot. There’s probably 2 years’ worth of toilet paper still in there. So no worries, right?

But I’m also a hoarder – and when you’re about to open your second-to-last package of anything, you think about resupply. And I was thinking about resupplying that not long ago, of course not getting around to it.

And of course, even here in the nethermost regions of Bumf*ck County, the latest social fad has struck…

Toilet paper: This is turning into the running gag of the Coronavirus Panic of 2020.

If this new pump’s flow rate is as low as I suspect it should be it’s too early to tell for sure, but…

I will say with certainty that there’s more water in the tank than I expected to see. Not that there’s a lot.

Looks like it’ll be a sunny day, so it’s running now and I expect it to run even more strongly when the input voltage increases with the sunrise. So I’ll check it again this afternoon and should have some idea how long it’ll take to fill the tank.

Then the question will be, will it stop filling when it’s supposed to? I consider cautious pessimism the wisest course.

Speaking of which, guess what’s jumping the gun to its own detriment?

It’s been such a mild late winter my pear tree decided to go ahead and bud. In mid-March that’s not going to work out well for it – not that there’s any remaining hope of fruit after all these years but I do enjoy watching it very slowly grow.

Yeah.

We got some sun this afternoon so I turned it on. It seems odd to me that the controller should have been showing a fault code when everything was set to ‘off.’ But apparently, like Lady Gaga, it’s just made that way.

And though it will take a while to see if actual water goes into the tank, the flashing lights say everything is working fine and there’s no reason at this time to believe it won’t.

A cool windy day, perfect for baking. Could have waited till tomorrow but baking warms the cabin and anyway tomorrow’s going to be at least a bit busier than today.

I also get to figure out what to do with that new sprouter’s first crop…

Guess I can just eat it, or maybe I’ll cook up some rice and see how it mixes with that. Push comes to shove I’ll try the possibly-mythical peanut butter and sprouts sandwich. 🙂

Powered by the sun, so it’s AOC approved! Wonder when we’ll start receiving our UBI checks?

Yeah, I came to Landlady’s yesterday to find big trucks on her ridgetop. I knew she had called the local well company but that’s not the same as successfully getting them to come out and do work, so I was surprised.

Nice to see that pole put back to use. Long-time readers might recall that the main panel array used to be there but was destroyed by wind four years ago.

Inside the powershed…

…a control box which appears exactly the same as the one that runs the cattle station’s pump. Er…about which I know nothing. I don’t even know why I said that…

…and what appears to be a charge controller, which appears to allow flexible energy use. Like we could just plug in the pump if we wanted to. I don’t like what appears to be an error indication. Can’t be sure, because there’s nothing like a manual sitting around here. Or any paperwork at all, so I hope Grunfos has good documents on their website.

Hardly matters at the moment. If this pump works anything like the one on Ian’s ridge it wouldn’t have enough power today anyway. Looks as though we’ll get at least some sun today but it’s supposed to brighten right up tomorrow, so I’ll worry about it then. Need to get some water in the tank.

Went down to the wellhead – of course there shouldn’t have been anything new to see down there but fresh tracks, which is all I saw. But you never know, it was worth checking. You can never go wrong by wondering what a local contractor screwed up.

…that sense of how rich you are, when you’ve finally built the thing you’ve been starved for all your life. Funny how it can come out of nowhere…

It’s been raining off and on for more than 24 hours so the humidity’s substantially higher than I like – nearly normal, according to my wall barometer – and it’s making my joints hurt. And I was making my bed in my smelly bedroom just a few minutes ago, and I got to moaning and groaning about it.

And I said aloud to myself, as I sometimes will, “Well, get enough mileage on your frame and you too will groan a bit while you straighten up your smelly bedroom.”

And it struck me, not at all for the first time…

…how wonderful it is that I have a place that’s just mine, tailored to the needs and tastes* of nobody but me – and how this period in my life is the very first time that’s ever been true.

I mean, I’ve usually had a place to lay my head, don’t get me wrong. I’m not going all wretcheder-than-thou on you. But in one way or another it generally belonged to somebody else, and I was just sort of allowed to be there for a time.

I love my grubby little place – it’s mine alone, rose out of the dirt for me alone. Grew and adjusted as resources allowed to meet changing circumstances. About 3 years ago it sprouted something close to a normal bedroom in a normal house, which is in some ways my favorite space. Don’t really know why, the closest I can come is that it’s the only time I had such a space that was just mine.

Didn’t even know how much I wanted that until I had it. Now I don’t anticipate ever leaving – and believe me, that right there is a very unique feeling. Aches and all, I am a lucky old guy.

—
*such as they are…

No complaint here. As somebody somewhere said, apropos of something, “It ain’t braggin’ if you can do it.”

Our old friend and friend’o’the’blog Ian McCollum got interviewed in fergod’s sake Forbes.com about his Forgotten Weapons channel! It’s not a particularly well-written article, but it’s friendly and respectful.

Is it a cool, weird world out there, or what?