The Ultimate Answer to Kings

“…Having magazines carrying multiple bullets is irrational.” So single-shot only?

Biden went on to claim that when he was vice president during the American colonies’ revolution, he didn’t need so-called “assault weapons” to defeat the Japanese invasion of Kansas, even when they launched their sneak attack with dinosaurs. “Just shot my blunderbuss through the door and sent them running,” he said, “didn’t even load the second barrel. And we liked it that way!”

…the odds keep improving for Big Brother. That hurricane that’s still scouring the Bahamas has paused as if in a desire to do a good job of it, but they’ve been predicting for two days that it will take a right turn and not do the same to BB’s house. He has a Cat 4-rated house with lots of improvements*, but if it picks up its wind speed again and does touch the south Florida coast he’ll be elsewhere in a more hardened shelter.

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* However you might curse the building codes anywhere else in the continental U.S. you might live, you haven’t dealt with building codes until you’ve dealt with south Florida building codes. As much as I normally enjoy denouncing busybody government regulations, there’s a good reason for them in this case.

Just a few days ago I stopped deleting the contents of the spam locker just to see how ridiculous the numbers could get, and overnight the count went over five figures.

Yeah, over ten thousand individual examples of that gibberish. I really don’t understand the point of it. Somewhere a spambot server has completely lost its mind.

I can’t call it dog “training,” because I don’t know anything about dog training I didn’t pick up empirically and probably much of it is wrong. I never dealt with dogs much before I moved here. But in my admittedly limited experience, if you want a dog to bond to you and consider your desires important at all times you’d better start when it’s weaned at the latest. Success with a dog that hasn’t known you all its life depends on the dog.

Of the original pack, the only one that really cared what I thought was Magnus the Golden Retriever. The others liked me fine and depended on me to maintain their daily schedule but didn’t think it important to obey me if something more interesting was going on somewhere else. I lived with Ghost for more than eight years and he never considered any command of mine more compelling than a suggestion which he was free to disregard. Little Bear, who joined me when he was a fuzzy little puppy, thought I was a god to be loved and feared. And even he became completely deaf if there was something worth chasing and he could get away to chase it, figuring it’s easier to get forgiveness than permission.

Laddie the Corgi was seven years old when he joined me, had lived his whole life in a wildly different environment, and was separated from his person in a way that was pretty clearly disorienting if not downright traumatic. So I was prepared to be patient as he settled in, but for a long time I thought it was going to be one of those deals like Ghost where I’m just the nanny. He naps through most of the day and didn’t really care most of the time if I paid attention to him. He gradually learned to come to me when he needed out or something else. We developed a schedule and he held me to it and so got along fine, but for most of the past year I wouldn’t really say he was “my” dog except in the technical matter of possession.

But lately his behavior toward me has changed subtly and we’ve grown closer, with him behaving less independently and not acting so confused or even alarmed when I did something with him that wasn’t on the usual script. He has suddenly shown an interest in coming with me when I went off on one of my mysterious human forays out of the cabin.

For the past few evenings I risked taking him for his regular evening walky without the leash, just to see if he’d stay close and what happened when – inevitably – he flushed a rabbit and wanted to chase. And bless his heart, yesterday evening it finally happened and he obeyed immediately when I called him back. He came running back to me and I praised him like he’d won the Nobel in Physics and he acted like that was just the greatest thing that had ever happened, and then he trotted off to take his dump in the usual place and we headed back to the cabin and his cookie.

And that was the first time I – and maybe he – felt like he was my dog.

…because it’s barreling down on my big brother, like half of them seem to do…

Texted him this morning to see if he was riding it out or bugging out. Few minutes later he sent me a photo…

He was cutting branches away from power lines when his ladder went sideways on him. Not hurt at all but he took a bump. He’s got another day or so to finish battening down, he’s got a lot of experience doing it, and he figured that was safer at this point than trying to get out of the way by way of the turnpike.

I wanted to put it together with all like-gauge cables, just to even everything out, but ended up having to use a few scrounged cables of much larger gauge. No big deal, but this is the first time I’ve actually had new batteries and it bothered me esthetically. Figured I’d be able to get some at the local auto parts store but that didn’t work. So I ordered some, and it took the better part of a month for them to arrive.

Now it’s complete. 🙂

Like any house dog he knows the signs when I’m getting ready to leave. Up until now he usually showed no interest in coming with me the way LB or Ghost always did. But lately, more and more often and twice today he has headed for the door and made it clear he was prepared to pout if I didn’t bring him with.

Fine with me, as long as I’m taking the Jeep. We had to come to an agreement about dismounting, because he wanted to jump out of the jacked-up Jeep when we get home and with his weight and frame that’s asking for major joint problems in a very short time. But now he knows to wait on the driver’s seat till I get him down, and then he races off to the porch for his cookie and all is right with his world.

Of course he’s out of luck when I’m planning to use the bike…

And looking surprisingly good, given some of the dire stories I’ve heard in the past couple of weeks. He has dropped a lot of weight, going from skinny to downright gaunt, but he can talk and use his right hand. His speech is slurred but he doesn’t have trouble finding words, he can grasp but says he has trouble with fine control and doesn’t have a lot of strength.

But he’s back and functional and in good spirits, happy to be home. He’ll be doing his physical therapy at a clinic in the little town nearest where we live, but may need to go to the big town about 50 miles away for speech therapy. Given the improvement in his speech in just the past week I don’t know how much he’s really going to need that, but what do I know.

Anyway, he’s back! And out of the danger we didn’t even know he was in.

…make me look back on days like this with something approaching nostalgia…

I won’t say Monsoon is my favorite time of the year on account of the mud. But every season has its blessing, and when the storm cells rumble through every evening there’s a lovely breeze that cools things down and lets you sleep. This year Monsoon is apparently giving us a miss, and the heat is starting to wear on old Uncle Joel.

I promised to be there at six o’clock, and I was there at six o’clock. I received detailed instructions about every step involved in feeding and medicating the horses, but L didn’t actually have any suggestions as to how one lets two large, rambunctious dogs out of their kennel for a walkie, then gets them voluntarily back inside the kennel. Fortunately I have inherited/scrounged an assortment of leashes over the years, and two of them are currently hanging from the kennel fence. Butch is good at squeaking past you when you open the gate, but I’m older than he is and better at preventing it. So they had their walkie without undue fuss.

D&L have their processes down pat, 1-2-3. Horses being creatures of habit as much as anybody, when their meals come in specific courses they expect those courses to happen 1-2-3. And heaven help you if you forgot the apple. I’ll bet they’d have complained at me if I cut it the wrong way – except L pre-cut it. Bud the Ancient probably doesn’t care that one piece contains a pill, but the instructions for the insertion of that pill are exceedingly specific. 🙂

Then into the workshop to tend their 16 big Rolls-Surrette batteries, a process which took longer than I expected considering how short a time it has been since it was last done. I guess when you really use your electrical system, you really do have to pay strict attention to battery maintenance. You may insert your own version of “No duh, Joel.”

Over to Landlady’s place for chicken chores, after which I went down to her house to drop off a dogfood tub and check for mice in traps. Didn’t find any mice in traps but there was one in the bathtub…

This happens from time to time, and it’s especially gruesome when two mice fall in the tub and can’t get out because you can bet the strongest one ain’t starving to death while there’s a perfectly good weaker one standing right there unable to escape. But this was just one tiny young doormouse* curled up by the drain waiting to die. I could have squished it, I suppose, but I never do. I scooped it out with a convenient Mason jar and released it under a bush a good ways from the house. Probably a snake or bird will get it, but that’s not my problem; I’m not adopting it.

Then home to knead bread dough, because I’m totally out of bread and had to open one of those B&M cans yesterday to tide me over. Monsoon hasn’t been happening and it is too hot in the afternoons to bake. Timer for the first rise just went off!

I do apologize for my lack of content lately, it has pretty much been accompanied by a lack of activity aside from necessary chores because the old man just hasn’t been feeling it for the past couple of weeks. An occasional phase, which will probably pass in time.

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*or whatever variety it is, who cares…

D&L have this arena for training their horses…

…and just after D got sick one of the posts responsible for keeping tension on the tapes just up and fell over, eaten right off at ground level by termites that apparently like the taste of anti-termite treatment. Continue reading →

Every now and then a legitimate comment accidentally finds its way into my spam locker, which is normally full of crap like this…

I’m tempted to just let this unintelligible and apparently pointless flotsam pile up in there – but this place really runs on the comments and so at least once every day I go into the spam locker and check to see that, either due to the commenter being new or having added a commercial link or ten, no legit comment that ended up here gets swept away or ignored for a month.

But overnight whatever spambot does these things to me got a little excessive…

…and I’ll be damned if I’m sorting through 427 of those before I’ve had my coffee. Sorry – if you posted a comment overnight that didn’t show up, please feel free to put it up again. The next time I’ll probably see and approve it.

A post here is pretty much mandatory. But I spent yesterday fiddling around in the loft till it got too hot, then bingewatching The Last Ship till bedtime. Nothing is going on and I don’t have a coherent thought in my head.

Oh, wait, here’s a bit of actual content: If your ammo is going to get soaked, avoid steel cases. I went through all Landlady’s centerfire ammo, and after the brief wetting about 20% of the Wolf was really blooming rust. Of the Tula, I ended up disposing of almost exactly 10%. A little of the rest was slightly spotted but most was still okay. Given a week in the water I’m sure it would have been much worse.

By contrast the brass cases were really just fine.

Here’s an unrelated funny video.

Okay, so some of that soaked rifle ammo came home with me this afternoon. I went through it, the Tula seemed fine but some of the Wolf was already actively rusting. I sorted it out and loaded the rusty ones into one magazine. After a certain neighbor had had time to get chores done and be safely inside her soundproof house I took Torso Boy out for his evening walky then gave him a cookie, grabbed my rifle and that magazine of rusting ammo and took them out to the gully behind the cabin to blow up some rocks. Didn’t take long, and I wasn’t going all the way out to the range to do it.

Come back in, and…

There was a half-eaten cookie on the floor and no Corgi. I assumed he’d gone into the closet, he’s done that before, but when I looked around he was huddling in the corner of the bed where he’s not supposed to be unless I tell him he can (not that he obeys that when I’m gone, of course.) This picture was the fifth time he was on the bed after I came back inside, because I hauled him off the bed four times and he refused to stay off it long enough for me to pull the blanket back.

He wanted his Happy Place. I’ve plinked off the front porch with a .22 before and he just went into the closet, but I think this is the first time I’ve fired a real rifle right by the cabin in the year he’s been with me and he was not thinking happy thoughts. He didn’t settle down until I specifically tucked him in, and it took several tries.

Sheesh. I thought Ghost was bad about gunfire…

Went into Landlady’s house this morning after chicken chores, because she’s due this evening and I come by fairly regularly to make sure no mice are rotting in traps stinking up the place.

No mice, but a sound as of pissing water was coming from behind the closet wall.

In the utility closet where the water service emerges from the floor, water was shooting out of a big open crack in an elbow joint. A broken pipe in August? This is Murphy at his finest. It must have cracked last winter during one of those extended cold spells. I went without water almost all winter.

So I ran up the ridge to the shut-off valve, then back down to assess damage. Unfortunately her entire ammo store was in the path of the water, and all the cardboard boxes are soaked. It’s not a lot, maybe a thousand rounds of centerfire in various calibers but I mourn for four old-fashioned bricks of .22LR. Not that any of it is going to be duds in the short-term but it’s probably not a good idea to keep it longterm. And I’d say the steel-case rounds should be shot up in fairly short order. Fortunately her spare rifle wasn’t on the ground.

So there’s plumbing work this weekend. And I don’t think it’s going to be possible to replace that elbow joint without tearing out some of the closet wall. I wonder: Some of you guys sent me sealing tape, and the elbow itself is exposed enough. Is it possible that could fix a break of that kind without having to cut out a bunch of wallboard and pipe?

And find yourself in an existential quandary
Full of loathing and self-doubt
And wracked with the pain and isolation of your pitiful meaningless existence
At least you can take a small bit of comfort in knowing that
Somewhere out there in this crazy mixed-up universe of ours
There’s still a little place called… Joel’s Gulch*.

Things have been really slow at the watering station lately. The buzzard is the only regular visitor. Those evening mulies are the first biggish animals I’ve seen there in weeks. Dunno who the old fart is.

I’ve heard a rumor that the cattle might return in November, as the cattle outfit that has the grazing rights to my front yard are thinking of using it for winter range. Don’t know if that’ll really happen.

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*with apologies to Al Yankovic…

Just a day when I felt lousy. Then as if I weren’t already miserable something set off my sinuses and to keep from watching the mountain of tissues grow any higher I took an antihistamine. Between the two I basically drowsed in my hot darkened bedroom all afternoon.

Today’s much nicer…but I still don’t have anything to write about.

…that the list of possible answers to the question “what could go wrong?” is extremely long. Name a mistake, I’ve probably made it. If it was fun, I’ve done it lots. But I do try to learn from the more serious ones.

And one of the more serious life lessons old one-legged Uncle Joel has learned from his mistake-ridden life is this: Not only must you take precautions not to stupidly strand yourself too far out in the boonies to walk back, you must know that you know how to use those precautions.

Training! It isn’t just for Tactical Timmies anymore. As a side benefit you not only learn how to use emergency gadgets but you also ensure that said gadgets work in the first place.

Point currently in discussion: I want to take the new electric bicycle farther afield. Probably to town at some point, but the truth is I’ll probably cheat and trailer it to the county road. From there the total round trip actually pedaled will be less than 10 miles. But there are also neighbors more distant than D&L where I occasionally do paying gigs, easily within the bike battery’s range but gotten to entirely on rough dirt roads with cactus and sharp rocks and lots of nice thorn bushes. Honestly that trip sounds like a lot of fun and I’ve wanted to do it for several days while the weather’s still dry, but it would be stupid to do so unless I not only have the equipment I need to repair and re-inflate tires but know that I know how to use it.

Big Brother sent me a gadget I didn’t even know existed…

…and I was damned if I could figure out how to use it. Couldn’t be that difficult, right? Two threaded fittings and a dial. But I only had one gas cylinder and didn’t want to expend it until I had spares. One fitting seemed to go with the cylinder well enough but I couldn’t figure out how the other one went on the tube.

Using my spare tube, I finally concluded that it didn’t fit. There didn’t seem any way to make it fit. Conspired with Big Brother, who agreed: There are two kinds of tire valve (I did not know this) and the device is for the other size. It’s the wrong gadget. Nifty, compact and efficient, but it won’t work at all.

Point is: The time to learn that was in Ian’s cool cave with a beer on the table, not kneeling on rocks in the hot sun ten miles from home. Old man not so dumb.

He’s still in hospital but out of ICU and out of danger. Says he can kind of make a fist and his right arm is tingling, rather than still numb. His speech still comes and goes.

Supposed to be about two weeks before he can be transported closer to home.

I enjoy Ian McCollum’s videos as much as anybody. He’s been doing it a long time now and he’s truly good at it. I fully understand that he has lots of devoted fans, and he has earned them with a lot of hard work and talent. Full marks, no lie. I get a certain amount of (annoying) reflected glory just because he’s a friend of mine.

But by chance I encountered a tribute video that … I dunno … maybe a little over the top? Bordering on creepy? Maybe it’s the soundtrack. Maybe it’s just me.

I’ve got nothing else to offer right now and it’s going to be a busy morning. Enjoy.