Who just got out of the hospital – again – without anything in his condition improved or even justified. He has a bad infection from his hip replacement, which I suppose no doctor – especially the one(s) responsible – wants to call malpractice. They hold onto him till his white count gets down below “shocking” and then send him home – till next time. Meanwhile he can barely move without pain, let alone walk.
Which, while I won’t say it makes me feel better, at least puts my own situation into perspective. I’ve spent the past couple of weeks barely able to walk, though the past two days have been better as the sore my ill-fitting prosthesis rubbed on my stump* shows some sign of wanting to heal. I’ve mostly been sitting or lying around dreading the next inescapable walk with Tobie, which is not the way I prefer to spend my time. Sorry for the extended no-blog, I just haven’t been feeling it lately.
Winter has re-visited the Gulch, with way-below-freezing temperatures and driving wind. It finally warmed up enough to snow yesterday…

…and overnight, but it didn’t amount to anything.

This has so far been an extremely dry winter, this morning being the first time any snow at all was on the ground since early November. January has tried mightily to make up for the freakishly-warm December, and may I say it has done a damned fine job. First I lost my well water, and then…

…for the first time in several years, my grey-water drain froze up. Which would be a problem, except that I can use the buckets of sink drainage to keep my toilet somewhat functional. I always have one pitcher on the counter for drinking water: Now I have two, the other one filled with well water from the five-gallon jugs I (painfully) drag over from Ian’s for washing and such. And it might stay that way for a while: The next warm spell is due any day and I’ll see what if any damage has been done to my plumbing when I turn the water back on but once the drainpipe freezes it might not entirely thaw again till April. So that’s been the cherry on top of what otherwise wouldn’t have been a premier month in any case.

Needless to say nothing very exciting is happening around the Lair just lately. But I’m keeping up with necessaries…

They say nothing drives innovation like giving the job to a lazy man. Since the prospect of carrying the generator back and forth to the powershed on my bleeding stump has made me re-think this whole “I need electricity” thing, I got a little more creative and ran a long cord from the battery charger to the front porch. The generator has to stay in the cabin when not in use or it won’t start in the cold, but bringing it out to the porch is a lot less stressful than carrying it all the way to the powershed. Probably wouldn’t have bothered working that out in other circumstances, so there’s that.
Anyway, that’s what’s going on. Sorry for the no-blog thing, but when there’s nothing to say you don’t say anything.
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*And speaking of that, I have an appointment with the prosthetics shop on the tenth of February in hope of making that problem go away.