The Ultimate Answer to Kings

I haven’t seen Landlady in five weeks, and some of this stuff has sat at her house for longer than that. So apologies if you’d given up ever hearing what became of your kind care package.

About five weeks ago, in the wake of a problem with D&L’s generator starter battery, we had a discussion about battery load testers. I was aware that such tools existed from my time as a dealership mechanic – but that ended like 35 years ago and my mental picture of a load tester is something the size of a small desk that GM probably soaked the franchise a thousand bucks for. There was no reason for me to give the matter any thought, because as far as I know – and I’d probably know – none of my immediate neighbors owns such a thing.

Until now!

Big Brother said, “I’ve been using that style tester forever. I was surprised to read that you didn’t have one, given that batteries are central to your lifestyle.” Yeah – in hindsight, me too. It never occurred to me to check if there had maybe been some technical advances in the past several…decades… Continue reading →

I filled that hole yesterday afternoon after spending an hour in the wash collecting stones for LB’s grave. Filled it with rocks and then smoothed it out with the displaced sand. Went past Boot Hill first thing this morning to see if anybody had dug themselves out overnight. Nope; apparently nobody was home yesterday…

So today after it warmed up I went back and did the proper to the grave.

I confess I didn’t do the pretty rocks thing after I buried LB because that was never part of any plan I ever heard of. I did kind of start it, though: When we buried T we gave him a nice marker but it seemed kind of naked there on the bare dirt so I made a rectangle of stones from the wash to doll it up some. We started burying the pets in the same place; that was part of the original plan and then Landlady came up with the idea of the funny markers, which sort of played off T’s original marker…

…but I hadn’t really planned to do the rocks thing for the pets, to be honest. I think Neighbor L started doing that. Still, I figure why the hell not, and anyway it’ll hopefully keep any more varmints from making their dens in the soft sand over the graves.

Somehow not entirely unfitting under the circumstances.

Several of the graves on Boot Hill have decorative rocks that may serve some accidental protective function. I never got around to doing that with LB’s grave, and this morning I found reason to regret that…

Big hole! My first thought, of course, was scavengers and that both bothered and perplexed me; it’s fairly recent, and there can’t be anything left more than six feet down to attract a scavenger. Then I took a closer look…

The hole goes down less than 2 feet, then hangs a right. It’s a rabbit warren.

Which, given Little Bear’s favorite food during his life, is somehow entirely … well, the word karma comes to mind.

I’m still going to fill it in and line the grave with stones. ‘Cause don’t do that to my favorite dog’s grave.

I went out for a nice long walky this morning – the weather was perfect for it, no wind or rain, temp just cold enough to freeze the mud. No direct sun which isn’t so great for the batteries but at least you’re not overheating in your coat.

Happened to go close to the cliff overlooking the South Wash and what to my wondering eyes should appear but…

Cattle. Damn it. Not a lot of cattle, but where you see a few there are probably lots someplace close. Like shitting all over my yard right this minute.

They spooked a bit when they finally spotted me – oh, a freezer full of steak would have been so easy – and more came into view. In total six of them headed south away from me.

I texted D&L about them, since the presence of cattle means they have to be extra vigilant about keeping their gates closed. L texted me a little later, saying she had called the rancher to confirm that he was running cattle here now and he said he didn’t know anything about it. So it’s possible these six are the result of a fence break closer to town. I suppose. Maybe these six are just breeders who know this area and gravitated back to it? But it would be a long way for them to stray just for a few mouthfuls of bad grass.

Damn it! Just when the deer and elk had come back…

I shouldn’t complain. I keep inheriting the care of dogs who were raised by women, and who prefer the company of women even if they accept living with me from day to day. TB, of course, spent his whole life with Mama Liberty, a lady in her seventies, and so that’s what he sees as a proper human with whom he should live.

Neighbor L – of S&L, not D&L – has been kindly washing my laundry for years, ever since she moved up here full time. When Torso Boy learned that Jeep rides are fun he started bugging me to take him with whenever he saw me suiting up to go somewhere, and he gets especially excited if I first sort out my laundry and load it in the Jeep. That most certainly means a trip to see the Nice Ladies. He loves L – a lady in her seventies, go figure – and he absolutely adores L’s 98-year-old mother. He seriously just wants to sit at her feet and worship her.

Rather to my surprise, he never gives me a hard time about coming back to the Jeep when it’s time to leave. But if I try to leave him in the Jeep without giving him his visit, he absolutely will give me a snarling argument. He does not consider that negotiable. I can leave him home, though he’ll pout. But as far as he’s concerned I can’t take him there and then leave him in the Jeep.

I like to look at it as a test of my own maturity, and don’t let it hurt my feelings. TB is a fine little guy and, as with Ghost, I accept the limitations of the relationship. But next time I’ll get a weanling. No more Uncle Joel the Dog Nanny. I was much closer to Little Bear.

“I do not think it means what you think it means.” Or maybe I’m just behind the times. That’s not uncommon.

I happened to be reviewing the game camera mem card just now. Nothing on it but some rodents hanging around and a Corgi and an old man walking around a bush several times. And I kept looking at the way the boot sat on the old man’s left foot and thinking, “Man, that foot is worn all the way out.” And it’s not going to be fixed any time very soon because I’m a high desert hermit and the closest prosthetist I know of is five hours away by highway. Until it actually breaks, the hassle cost is too high. The only real damage to the foot at present is cosmetic and it’s been this way ten years; as far as I can tell, the real functional part of the foot is effectively immortal. So I’m not interested in spending days or weeks in the city far away just to replace my foot.

But the exercise got my mind spinning on a related tangent … what would it cost to replace the whole leg? It’s over 20, pushing 25 years old and hasn’t fit right in this century, plus in the meantime I’ve rather reconciled to the idea of one of those titanium pegs which are goofy-looking as hell but much lighter and cheaper to keep in service than mine*.

Which, given all I went through to sign up for medicare six months ago, naturally led to the question, “What prosthetic stuff does Medicare cover?” A question you’d think would be easy to answer…

Notice something that list doesn’t specifically include? I’m (almost) sure it’s just an oversight, because specifically excluding limbs from that list would be like saying, “I’ll replace any broken part on your car except the steering, suspension, wheels and tires, you’ll just have to get along without those.” I’m (almost) certain this is just a writer throwing together something that’s good enough for government work. Almost. But yeah, the list of covered prosthetic parts on the main page officially includes everything except arms and legs.

It’s just poor writing, though, because if you type “prosthetic limb” into the search window you do get sent someplace else that does specifically say…

So, yeah. In money, I could even afford to do it right now. But it would mean spending more weeks in a city, and I’m not at all sure I’m over how I spent my summer vacation.

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*When this leg was made back in the nineties, the prosthetist asked me, “endo or exo?” Which was not a question anyone had ever asked me before. Those space-age peg legs were just coming into vogue at the time, and I made the snap decision that I wasn’t ready to look down at one of those things every morning. Little did I know that they weren’t just a fad, and that replacement parts (like feet, for example) that would fit my new leg were about to entirely leave the market. I had to have my leg extensively revised in 2008 just so I could get a decent off-pavement foot installed.

Rain. Rain since sometime around eleven last night.

This is the desert. It’s an arid environment. And I really hate mud*.

It hasn’t been cold enough to waste wood and make a big mess running the woodstove. But I’m gonna fire it up this evening just to dry out the air to the normal and healthy 15 – 20%. I’m expecting to see ferns sprout any minute.

Also the cell signal is crap; I couldn’t upload this at all earlier and I’ll be surprised if it posts this time. Here goes…

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*Yeah, I know we basically had no monsoon at all this year and I have no room to bitch. Plus it’s probably good that we’re not in a wipe-the-Anasazi-right-out-of-history kind of drought. But I don’t have to like it.

I took the opportunity of this patch of mild weather to finally decide whether I’m done cutting winter wood. Decided I was, which meant changing the oil in the generator, draining it of fuel, and putting it away for the season…

…and I got as far as draining the oil, which is when I learned that I had apparently used my last quart of oil from the shed and neglected to ever replace it. Bother!

Fortunately it was about then that D&L texted me to say they had decided to hit the dollar store on coupon day, and did I want to come along? I’d hoped they would make that decision anyway because I wanted to fill a couple of propane bottles and it’s easier to do that on a non-water day for reasons having to do with the rear of their truck bed.

So I was able to top off my propane…

…and also finish servicing the generator and putting it to bed. It’s been dry and fifties here for several days now, and the mud is mostly dry at last, making it a good day to get outdoor stuff done while I comfortably can.

Get a load of this nearly irresistible* offer that appeared in my inbox!

So lemme get this straight – in exchange for an undetermined amount of theoretical money (this lady) wants to basically take over TUAK. And while the benefits to me are left nebulous, the conditions (she) places on my behavior are – in a poorly formatted manner – spelled out in detail.

Profit!

Question to the world in general, though I’m sincerely tempted to respond and ask it of the sender: Does this ever work? Ever?

I dunno – maybe it does often enough to make this approach useful. After all, I dropped out specifically because the costs and benefits of continuing to chase conventional jobs became so lopsided that that life simply stopped being tolerable. But I’m aware that I’m an extreme case for several reasons, some of which may not reflect well on me as a person. So maybe this phrasing really would suck some people in.

Irony alert: I just this minute got back from a long morning walky, the mud having finally dried enough to make walking practical again, during which I listened to a breakdown of the movie Office Space. You’re probably familiar with it; I never liked that movie 20 years ago because it frankly hit too close to home to be funny. But I think I might look it up again, because now I might be able to laugh along with the protagonist as he explores the costs and benefits of hitting “f*ck it.” High on the list, of course, is the freedom to tell those who insist it’s your duty to do more with less for their benefit to stick it in their ear. Or better yet, ignore them entirely.

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*And by “irresistible,” I mean it’s not the slightest bit attractive.

Which sounds like TMI, I know. But we got a bit of sun, which means I could use my clothes iron which pulls almost as much power as a powersaw, which means…

…I could patch a couple of new holes in my winter britches that have bugged me all week. I don’t know why this keeps happening, but begin to suspect it’s time to invest in some new heavy pants*. Hell, this time I had to cover a hole in the older patch. Of course I say that this time every year, and just settle for more patches.

Once I have the patches stuck to the pants, I fire up an audio book and start stitching. And while I was in the mood, I finished up with a bit of leathercrafting…

…a rather imperfectly sewn scope lens cap I’ve wanted to make for quite some time, out of an old leather glove. Eat your heart out, Jeremiah Johnson. 🙂

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*No, those aren’t my only winter pants. Just my favorite, for some reason. Also the most heavily patched, to the point where it’s almost certainly past time to give up on them.

…and in keeping with my observation that “baby Yoda” memes appear to be required by law just lately…

I got a real kick out of this…

When I was much younger and competitive “practical” pistol shooting was getting to be a thing, I was as much into tacticool gadgets as my budget allowed – often to what turned out to be a counterproductive extent. So I know it’s not a new thing, but I don’t go quite back this far. Nice to know I didn’t invent being an obnoxious gadget-chaser…

Never saw that one before. No idea who it belongs to.

Within reason, and if you can avoid shadows, a ground mount is better than a roof mount – especially in snow country. If you do live in snow country, be sure you build the mount high enough to allow for snow accumulation below the panels. But low enough to let you clean the panels with a long-handled squeegee.

Almost all the early panels in my neighborhood, including my original pair, were mounted on roofs for what seemed at the time excellent reasons. They’re out of the way, shadow-free, and – I dunno – closer to heaven or something. It just seems like the instinctive thing to do. But at 65 years old I’m the youngest full-timer in my neighborhood, and working a long-handled squeegee while balancing on an ice-covered aluminum ladder on a frigid morning is a good way to not get any older. I usually just clean my lower panels and leave the roof-mounted ones for the sun. But my neighbors don’t have the luxury of that flexibility.

Just think twice about roof mounts, is all I’m saying. They might be necessary in your area due to space restrictions or shadows, or maybe you don’t have to worry about snow. Fine, but you’ll still have to clean them from time to time.

Torso Boy got me out of bed at 0-dark thirty with an urgent demand, and left lots of closely-spaced little tracks in the new snow that completely covered my new porch floorboards. Lots of wind and at least some snow overnight. While not a complete surprise it wasn’t actually expected, and so in the course of other things that need doing on a cold winter morning I looked for a weather or news site that might give me some clue as to what to expect weather-wise this weekend. And in one after another I was confidently assured that the cities in my state would be just fine.

This, in case you didn’t know, is one of the minor downsides of living one hell of a long way from where they keep most of the people: Weather channels don’t know and/or care that you exist, and so see no reason to discuss the weather in your area. You can tell what the weather is by just looking out the window. Predicting what the weather will be sometimes involves taking a wild-ass guess – and as it did to me yesterday, that can get you into trouble from time to time.

*ETA: It occurs to me that this title might not make sense to everyone. It refers to this old Straight Dope entry, which I always found funny…

In my spare time I’ve been attempting to construct an Eskimo sentence in my basement, such as will be suitable for the season. I haven’t got it perfected yet, but it’s coming along pretty well, and with a little work it might pass for the genuine article. So far I have: kaniktshaq moritlkatsio atsuniartoq.

When completed, this sentence will proclaim: “Look at all this freaking snow.” At present it means: “Observe the snow. It fornicates.” This isn’t poetic, but it’s serviceable, and I intend to employ it at the next opportunity.

Alternate title: That Escalated Quickly…

I just had a very unpleasant trip to morning chicken chores. And this…

…wasn’t like this half an hour ago. And the outdoor temperature…

…was fourteen degrees warmer half an hour ago.

And my fingers have finally stopped hurting.

It started raining sometime in the wee hours and kept it up more-or-less steadily all morning. I left for chicken chores in rain gear and fingerless gloves at about eight. I took the Jeep because it was rain and wind and misery outdoors, and also because I had to deliver five gallons of water to the chickens. Fortunately I filled the jug and put it in the Jeep yesterday afternoon.

Got to the Big Chickenhouse without undue drama; ironically my biggest concern was watching for a flash flood while I was in the wash. Tended chickens, unloaded water, and there was a blast of cold and the rain turned abruptly to snow and then to a lot of snow.

Unfortunately the Jeep’s windshield wipers haven’t worked in years. It would have been a much more comfortable trip home if I’d had that shop in town see to that back in July. By the time I got down Landlady’s ridge, across the wash and up the steep hill on the next ridge I couldn’t see out. I stopped and cleaned off the windshield, found the turn-off to my road, and now the wind was hard on my left. Again with the stopping and cleaning, this time with snow filling the driver seat every time I opened the door, and the windshield almost covered again by the time I got back in and put it in gear. Covering half a mile I had to stop five times; my torso was warm enough but my fingers were past hurting and going numb. Finally made it to the driveway turn-off, which let the Jeep turn its back to the wind for a while so I could make some progress. Easy enough to get to Ian’s turnaround, with no problem except my fingers, and if I’d had a brain in my head I’d have abandoned the Jeep there and walked the rest of the way.

Between the turnaround and the cabin there’s a steep bit. Very steep, and I turned the Jeep’s nose into the wind when I got there and the windshield was instantly opaque again just as I was committed. By now the snow and mud had removed almost all traces of traction; it wasn’t quite as bad as black ice but getting there and I couldn’t say I’d have had perfect control of the Jeep even if I could see where I was. I was trying to slow the Jeep by keeping the wheels pressed into the sides of the ruts but stopping was out of the question and the Jeep was leaning at a very unfamiliar angle and I deeply regretted having a: not gotten out at the turnaround, and b: fallen out of the seatbelt habit. The whole thing probably took 20 seconds going on an hour, and when I was sure I was on the bottom I turned left and had to just sit there and catch my breath for a few moments before leaving the Jeep to see where I was in relation to the driveway.

The snow is still pouring down but the temperature appears to have stabilized. I’m staying in the rest of the day.

These mounds are popping up all over Ian’s turn-around.

They don’t really look like mole mounds, there’s no sign of tunneling around them. Just fresh dirt thrown up by something burrowing for warmth – daily – right out in the open, which seems pretty stupid. Maybe the game camera can catch a glimpse of them. I’ve got to find the instructions and see if I can increase its sensitivity.

…that these are my favorite winter pants.

Maybe I’ve evolved into a deeply spiritual and contemplative savant with no use for fashion or any of the other trappings of materialistic society, and have achieved a state of perfect inner peace?

Nah. I just really like green. 🙂