The Ultimate Answer to Kings

“I’m the least superstitious person I know,” I told Landlady, as I took a round out of a speedloader, “But I never pour concrete piers without an ammo sacrifice. Been doing it since 2009, and none of mine have fallen down.”

She didn’t go so far as to say it made sense, but added to the sacrifice because why take chances?

Landlady came a day early so we could work on her solar panel rack. And we got the first part of the project done without undue fuss, and just knocked off for lunch.

We’ll do the second part tomorrow morning. More on that later.

But when she got here she brought up packages I hadn’t expected! Big Brother send a couple of boxes from walmart.com, which is always nice – he feeds my canned meat jones and also keeps Torso Boy in Pup-peroni and peanut butter-flavored crackers, plus usually adds something new I haven’t tried which is often quite good.

And a couple of things I either didn’t expect or had sort of forgotten about. Look what Paul Foreman sent me!

Comes from SurvivalBlog – obviously – and is advertised to be…

[C]omplete content of all SurvivalBlog articles since the beginning of the Blog (2005) through 2019. This archive is only available as an EMP resistant, 100% waterproof USB stick, which is easily carried with you. It can be read on any computer with a USB drive…

…and that should make for some interesting reading. Might even be a lot of useful information there. Thanks!

Generous Reader SLee sent me something I’ve always wanted to try…

A sprouting kit! Along with an assortment of small packs of different sorts of seeds, and an offer to supply a larger bag of whichever suits my taste once I’ve tried them! And as if that’s not enough, a large cash donation toward the cost of my new prosthetic leg! And just at a time when an additional expense came to my door and I wondered if I’d be able to do the leg and give the Jeep what it’ll need this year. Eases my mind considerably, and thank you all very much!

Got everything I hoped to do done.

And scored some free firewood – 2 or 3 years from now when it has a chance to dry out.

There was a lot more cut substantial wood than I expected. I keep my use of juniper to a healthy minimum, but Landlady’s stovepipe is shorter and double-walled and burns a lot hotter. It never even soots up. So it’s safer to use juniper in her stove.

Started the well pump yesterday evening, and checked the tank on the way home…

Nice and full now. Don’t like to let it get too far from full, because you never know when the pump or something else will crap out again, and it’s good to have some lead time. Takes me a long time to empty that tank – unless I get help from gravity.

Then I went home and made milord’s breakfast…

Boiled chicken and rice can’t be a very exciting meal for a dog, but he has gotten used to it – he even eats the rice now. He doesn’t get it all the time because I don’t have access to big bags of Wally World frozen chicken all the time. But I do what I can, and last summer’s pancreatitis hasn’t flared up again so far.

Glad I got the Jeep’s suspension issues sorted out last year, because…

Continue reading →

Mid-thirties, which wouldn’t have been bad at all because it’s mostly sunny – but I didn’t anticipate the wind. I figured I’d be okay for at least a couple of hours as long as it wasn’t so cold my fingers were hurting in work gloves. Which they weren’t, and that Carhartt coat is windproof, so I got quite a lot done.

All the heavy stuff, really. A big sectional sofa – complete with two of the heavier recliners I ever lifted – and a kitchen stove all had to come off the patio and onto a flatbed trailer for transit to the dump. A defunct wind generator complete with maybe 100′ of cable had to come off a second floor porch and out to a steel pile in a more remote part of the property. That was an adventure because of the wind, which moved that particular objective from “definite” to “maybe” on account of the very rapidly spinning blades. I happened to catch it during a lull in the action, rushed up the stairs and bound the blades with a ball of (reader-provided) string I’d brought along for the purpose. Then I hauled the cable up onto the porch and off the other side where the stairs are, and then wrestled the generator and a heavy steel pipe down the stairs without damaging anything, and then carried the whole mess out to the pile since I knew the owner wanted it down from there but had neglected to ask where he wanted it to go.

By then my energy was beginning to flag but the next task involved cleaning out a carport, which at least was out of the wind. That filled the Jeep trailer again, and by the time I got that emptied I was out of steam and anyway it was pretty much noon. So I came home for lunch, and…

Somebody let it be known he didn’t appreciate my leaving him alone all morning and then crashing in front of the laptop with my back to the world instead of validating him and taking him for a cold windy walky. Uncle Joel is a bad person. We try to work around it, you know, we’re stuck with him. But there’s no point denying it.

Unless I missed some or he adds to the list, I’m about done with junk hauling. Now the project moves to brush hauling, of which there is a lot. He hired somebody to trim at least an acre’s worth of junipers and then realized he had no useable plan as to what to do with the enormous brush piles. I suggested what I usually do, which is to put them in the Jeep trailer and haul them out he-doesn’t-want-to-know-where. “I am,” I told him, “godfather to many many baby rats, born in safe brush piles out in the boonies provided by me.”

I’ll be out at this guy’s house for the next couple of days, mostly moving stuff around. He bought a property with an existing house, the yard of which needs quite a lot of cleaning up.

The gig mostly involves piles of stuff, which is my specialty. But the first thing he wanted was this shed door fixed. He also wanted the shed roof shingles fixed but I had to pass on that.

So last night, keeping an anxious eye on my voltage readout, I celebrated bedtime by doing something I haven’t bothered with in years: I went out to the powershed and turned the inverter right off. This left me with lights* but eliminated the usually-but-not-right-now insignificant parasitic draw from the inverter. Three days with no sight of my shadow had finally pushed my much-improved electrical system back to where it was in 2013 or so.

None of this would matter to a normal person: Batteries are expendable commodities and numerous neighbors find out theirs are low when their inverters shut down. Long-time readers know I went through a lengthy period where I scrounged all my infrastructure and a single shorted cell on a worn-out second-hand battery could be a disaster. I grew used to babying batteries. And as of this past summer I have four new batteries for the first time ever, and I’m sure my ex-wife would complain that I treat them with more consistent loving-kindness than I ever showed her.

So this “crisis” is for informational purposes only, is what I’m saying. I never came close to involuntary inverter shutdown.

Anyway: I got up, took care of TB’s needs, and went outside to switch the inverter back on. Came in and recorded voltages…

The upper read-out is for the main battery bank, four T105s connected to the inverter. The lower reading is for 2 older (very old, and just showing signs of failure) T105s that run my 12-volt lighting. Since the beginning of winter those two batteries have begun to track consistently lower voltage even fully charged, and they discharge a tiny bit faster. With the inverter off all night we just barely bumped down below 12.0 volts (no load) for the first time … ever, really. I took that pic at 7 am, and watched carefully while doing other things. The sky cleared overnight so I knew we’d be on the road to recovery as soon as the voltage began ticking upward…

…which it did more or less the moment the sun peeked over the ridge.

So that’s good to know – on the fourth day I’d either have had to ration electrical usage or give serious thought to whether hooking my battery minder to the battery bank as a whole would actually work. Pretty sure it would work in a straightforward manner – it works on 2 batteries, why not 4 – but I’ve never really tried.

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* Much of the main cabin has been retrofitted with 12 volt LEDs, and the addition has nothing but. So all I really needed the inverter for was charging wireless devices and of course the vital task of grinding coffee.

When I let TB out for a pee this morning it was just starting to snow. Today’s forecast was/is “periods of sun and clouds, some showers.” And I hope it’s no lie about that “sun” thing, because…

Do you want dead batteries, Murphy? Because this is how you get dead batteries…

Here comes the mud again.

Glad I brought my boots inside yesterday evening…

I’d go back to bed and try to forget it’s all happening, except I already did that and woke to this nice surprise. Yeah, I know the rest of you have been living in an unrelenting deepfreeze for months now and wish I’d stop whinging. But I’m a desert rat! I’m privileged, damn it, and I was promised an arid environment! Arid!

Stupid Greta Thornberg. Thunberg. Whatever.

A little after 6:30, an hour before the sun’s due to creep over the ridgetop at this time of year, but it’s clear there’ll be no sun this morning…

It wasn’t raining when Torso Boy went out two hours ago but it has started now. I never picked up all those plywood scraps scattered around the yard to help with the mud, because I’m a pessimist realist.

This rain was forecast and it’s only supposed to last the day, and I have no clue how much rain we’ll get. But I’m reconciled that we’ll have another half-week of muddy walking, minimum, just because it’s been that kind of winter.

We didn’t get any useful sun yesterday either, and it shows. This is the part I pay attention to, of course – but whateryagonnado? It is what it is.

And I’ll take the good, too. It’s been a wet but very mild winter. I started the winter with two and a half tiers of wood in my shed, and wondered if it would be enough.

Here it is late February and I haven’t touched the last tier!

Figures. I’ll have to haul it all out of there in Spring to fix the floor, which the rats have already undermined pretty badly in spots*. But the good news is it’s that much less wood I have to cut later this year.

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*Yeah, my brilliant rat-frustration plan failed pretty spectacularly in certain – okay, all – respects. I may need to figure out how to put a door on it after all.

Maybe not health care exactly. I wouldn’t go to these folks to treat my corona virus. But I like their attitude about building artificial limbs and getting paid.

Only three days out and I got a call from them this afternoon, wanting to set up an appointment for the week after next, sooner the better, because that’s when they’ll be ready with the test socket. And it’s a good thing I did my homework on feet, because he wanted an answer about that. We’re going with the Rush Rogue – and may I say that it is very weird that they sell such a variety of these things they feel the need to give them dumb names like sports cars – because believe it or not* there are online forums where you can look up reviews. And the reviews for the Rush feet are pretty universally positive.

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*Ok boomer, it’s not really surprising at all. There are flashlight forums; why does a prosthesis forum surprise me?

So in the previous life-related thread somebody asked, “Can you tell us more about the foot options? Obviously you will need the all-terrain version.”

And that’s exactly what I’ve spent a good portion of this morning learning more about. Yeah, the more all-terrain the better, but longevity is also a consideration. Some of these things appear absurdly complex for what they do. For example…

PROPRIO FOOT is an adaptive microprocessor controlled ankle for low to moderately active amputees, designed to improve safety by increasing toe clearance in swing phase and adapting to changing terrain.

Yes, that’s a foot with an on/off button. I don’t even want to know. No, we’re not going with that one, but the list continues through things like…

The RUSH ROGUE® provides the most realistic and dynamic foot and ankle motion available. The Vertical Loading Pylon provides comfortable relief from high impact loading allowing the user to push the foot to the limits. The components are made of advanced fiberglass composite which is three times more flexible that most conventional prosthetic feet. The roll through characteristics of the foot provide exceptional energy return with no “dead spot” allowing users to push themselves to the limits.

That has possibilities. Or…

The Maverick Xtreme AT fiberglass foot comes with a split keel design that provides excellent inversion and eversion for enhanced ground compliance and patient stability on uneven terrains. It was designed for active K3 and K4 level ambulators who require a product with increased durability without compromising the desired energy storage/return and smooth roll-over during stance phase of gait. The aerospace grade fiberglass combined with the innovative heel/keel design allows for a natural, flexible feel during activities of daily living (ADL’s) and various strenuous exercises.

I like the looks of that one best so far, though considering how much durability I got out of the current carbon fiber foot I’m still kind of hoping to stay with that rather than swerve to fiberglass.

Anyway, I’m only halfway through the list of suppliers and each has a list of similar-to-identical products I’m supposed to pretend an opinion about before the next appointment. But they all look like those so far.

All these things come with a foot-shaped shell for putting a boot on – but that’s all the shell does. The part that does the work is the weird-looking part.

And even after 48 years, this still strikes me as a bizarre conversation to be having. Don’t really know why.

Oh, boy. This is good.

God said, “I need somebody with no charm, no charisma, and no compelling reason to ever serve in government to nonetheless buy his way onto the ballot, then buy his way into the mayor’s office, then buy off the city council to eliminate the two-term limit on mayoral service. And then I need him to spend nine figures buying his way into the Democrat primary, because there would be nothing more hilarious than watching a broken down old socialist get robbed, again, by yet another New York crony who is the life-size poster child for everything that’s wrong with modern capitalism.”

So God made a Bloomberg.

It has occurred to me that Democrats may actually find themselves faced with a choice between a communist and a monarchist.

…as certain emails I know were sent were not received. So if I don’t reply to one, that’s because I never saw it. Don’t know why.

I was, however, greeted on the new day with no less than five messages from TUAK’s Chief Financial Officer – fortunately I’m getting those emails – who informs me that several people hit the tip jar after yesterday’s post, and not for trivial sums. Thank you all very much! I promise not to blow most of it on hookers and cocaine.

Not exactly my favorite thing to do, of course…

I figured this would go one of two ways: There would either be a demand for five or six administrative visits before anything got done, or some guy who’s been doing this forever would just dig out some plaster wrap and a tape measure and get down to it. Happily, it more or less went that second way.

I am responsible for coming up with about 2 grand. Happily – and unusually – I’m in a position to do that. Unhappily it’s money I was planning/hoping to spend getting the Jeep a rebuilt transmission in the Spring, but this takes priority.

So it looks like I’m going back for a test fitting in roughly ten days, and he said the new leg should be complete in about a month. Not bad. I wondered if it was going to be old-fashioned plaster cast or if I’d stick my stump in a wiz-bang laser scanner that spits out a 3-D printed mold. It was much more that first thing, but nowadays they do have a transparent test socket they check the fit with before molding the real socket. I also came back with homework: There’s a bewildering variety of carbon fiber feet to choose from and I’m kind of expected to have an opinion by my next appointment. That’s new, to me at least.

So it went well! I’m excited.

I’ve had a really nice day. The weather is absolutely gorgeous: Low 60’s at 2 peeyem, hardly any clouds so nice bright sun, very light breeze. The latest batch of mud is almost gone now. I took the long way for morning chicken chores, which meant a 15-minute chore took like an hour and a half…

…during which among other things I looked in on absent friends’ properties to see if everything’s okay – need to tote a wheelbarrow or two of firewood to Landlady’s place, I see… Continue reading →

…that comes of installing and maintaining your own vital infrastructure!

Yes! You too can live off-grid, and wonder with every bump in the night whether your tap will run and your toilet will flush! Let “what’s that noise?” become the center of your life! Start today!

Regular readers will recall that less than two weeks ago we had a pretty good windstorm here at the Gulch, and the next day I found Landlady’s solar panel rack sort of … kneeling.

Nothing was really broken, and I didn’t detect anything wrong with the system electrically. At least not right away. She and I got it back upright last weekend, though of course there’s still work to do on the front legs…

But the morning of the very day she was to arrive, I noticed something unsettling. Every thirty seconds or so, for about five seconds, the inverter would buzz and the display would show a 3000 watt load. This had clearly been going on overnight and had badly discharged the batteries. It happened like clockwork; 30 seconds off, five seconds on.

I had no idea what the problem might be or how to alleviate the problem short of switching the inverter off, which I didn’t want to do since Landlady was coming that very day. I checked it again in the afternoon; the batteries were charging in the sunlight, but the periodic severe discharge continued. She dropped by the Lair after she arrived, since we had to coordinate the work plan, and I told her what was going on but had no suggestion as to a diagnosis.

She figured it out, though, quite logically: she asked herself, “What’s the oldest electrical appliance on the property, and could it cause that kind of load if it failed?” Then she went into the powershed and unplugged the well pump. The cable was hot.

Yup. She checked the well pump, just because it was due. It’s fried, I guess, and the 30-second gap is the time it took for the relay to re-set? I really don’t know.

And yup, I confirmed today that the tank, which should be completely full, is in fact less than half full. Pump’s toast, and I expect after all these years the one-way valve is leaking.

These things come in bunches.

While of course this is bad news, chances are it’ll work out well in the end. The pump is more than 15 years old and really was due, and it’s of an old design that’s now seldom installed off-grid around here; AC, high-flow, and needs god’s own amperage to run. The plan is to replace it with a solar-powered low-flow DC pump like the one Ian and I use. Properly installed it’ll be low maintenance but in case of failure we can do swap-outs ourselves, and it’ll put no strain on the main electrical system at all.

Socialized healthcare sucks! I mean, don’t get me wrong, there does seem to be a lot of free stuff. But when a conversation about a new prosthesis starts to involve colonoscopy – well. That’s a bit too much on the nose, I don’t care how positively you view Medicare. I guarantee I’ll be sick or injured before the next time I see a doctor – because it’s damn near a certainty that I’ll be sick by the time he’s done with me.

Still, I did get my prescription. So the meeting about a prosthesis next Tuesday is on.

And I finally scored a sack of sunflower seeds for the hens, which the feed store has been out of them for the three weeks I’ve been trying – which in turn means I’m welcome once again in the chickenhouse. And as if to celebrate, two of the four remaining superannuated Rhode Island Reds laid eggs today! Which is good for them, because they’re on borrowed time. I “retired” three RIRs already this winter.

And it’s a wonderful, cloudless and almost windless day, which caused me to throw the rest of my non-standard duties aside and take a lovely sweaty long walky. I was in shirtsleeves before I’d gone a mile. Still some mud to deal with but we had a nice sunny windy day yesterday that took care of a lot of it.

On to my last culinary experiment…

I really can’t recommend canned pulled pork in barbecue sauce as a meat pie filling. I mean, maybe you’d like it. There’s no accounting for taste. But I made a sort of paste with the contents of a can and lightly fried potatoes, diced onion and like a third of a can of peas, let the whole thing simmer for an hour or so while I made the dough…

…and the crust came out okay but the filling was awful. Canned pulled pork works okay on its own in sandwiches, but for the pies I think I’ll stick with beef from now on.

…waiting for a doctor to deign to gift me a moment of his time. Still no guarantee I’m going to get the prescription which is the only reason I came.

I got a kick out of this…

Has anyone ever considered filling this form out truthfully in the entire history of bureaucratized healthcare? Asking for a friend.

I really hate this. I’m a cedar rat: you have your idea of personal space and I have mine, but mine is measured in miles and involves firearms.

More later, no doubt.

It rained yesterday morning. After a fairly pleasant afternoon it rained hard last night. Apparently it rained all night. This morning it turned to wet snow.

The mud is back.

It brought friends.

The weekend was so warm and nice I broke out my summer boots. My good, favorite, nearly new, non-waterproof boots that I like to keep nice.

I hate my life.

How bad is the mud? The mud is so bad I took the wash home from chicken chores because the road is damn near impassible and the driveway definitely is. In a capable 4X4.