The Ultimate Answer to Kings

I like Tru-Spec BDUs until they start to wear out – then they go downhill fast, and (on me, at least) they always fail first just above the left knee reinforcement. I have enough cut-off shorts, so – sigh…

I have a long strip of OD iron-on patch that has become standard procedure. Cut off the required amount, iron it on…

…then put on a podcast or an audiobook or a movie you don’t need to pay much attention to, and spend a tedious hour sewing around the edge. It’ll outlast the rest of the pants, which were already off the ‘wear it to town’ list anyway.

I wish I could find a link to the pair MM sent me a year or two ago. Those are still my nicest britches – but they don’t have a brand tag and I haven’t found them on Amazon.

I got a surprise at about four this morning. A big storm rolled in overnight and it must have gone on for a while before I woke up because I was having this very vivid dream about a big water leak. Then just when the whole thing erupted into the air in a huge geyser I was awakened to water crashing down on the bedroom’s metal roof. I got up and closed some windows then went back to bed – Poor Tobie probably had a bad rest of the dark time because there was some impressive thunder before I went back to sleep. We got another storm cell just before full light and when we went out for a pee…

The last cell was disappearing to the north…

…and the south looked all pretty and blue. The forecast calls for t-storms today and tomorrow, and in fact we’ve had a couple of sprinkles this afternoon. And just yesterday I thought Monsoon was over and I should take down the awning over the front bedroom window for winter. Guess I’ll wait.

Tobie is a virtuous dog, for the most part. Still a dog, though. So of course the one thing he does with superlative skill involves theft of food.

Yesterday, like today, we swung by the freezer at Ian’s Cave to get a jug of ice for the cooler and a couple of hunks of chicken for supper. I put the chicken, still in its bags, in a bowl and left it on the counter. Far back from the edge, but – because I’m a trusting fool – not otherwise guarded.

Later in the day I checked on the state of the thaw…of the single hunk of chicken still in the bowl.

Tobie professed complete ignorance of the matter. I believe his exact words in body language were “Chicken? What is this ‘chicken’ of which you speak?”

I guess I should be happy he left me one. Probably shit plastic tonight or tomorrow morning. Won’t be the first time.

…but when you do need it, no expedient works half as well. And it’s unobtrusive and relatively cheap, and I wish I’d known of its existence 15 years ago.

Last winter when I was blundering around trying to figure out what was wrong with my bedroom heater, I removed the bypass regulator for the propane bottles and replaced it with the original single-bottle regulator. This had no good effect but I never got around to replacing the bypass regulator until this morning. And having done that, of course you want to go around and test the various fittings for gas leaks. In particular the pigtail hoses are prone to developing slow insidious leaks, which can’t always be pinpointed or sometimes even detected by the old soapy water trick. Which is why…

…whenever I have to fiddle with my propane supply, this gadget becomes my favorite thing.

Give it half a minute to calibrate itself, then just poke it around all the little rotaty bits, and the bits where rubber meets metal…

And hey presto!

Gotcha. Now I have to replace that hose. But in the meantime I can just close the valve on that bottle and I won’t waste gas waiting for winter.

So yesterday I got a reply from Holosun concerning the screws that came with my new optic. They asked me to describe the screws I required, which was a stumper: If I could technically describe the screws I have, I could solve the problem myself. I could measure them, and did, and sent photos of one of the screws in a digital caliper. My hope was that they could look up what screws were required to attach one of their optics to an Arex adapter plate. No surprise – and no real kick against Holosun that it was a vain hope. They replied to my reply that if I could tell them what I want, they would be happy to ship me some without charge. Which – okay, fair enough but no real help.

Step two: Get proactive about locating a local gunsmith. I took the advice of a commenter below and did a search for “Arizona FFL Directory” and there is one listing for the crappy little town nearest where I live. I will call that number and if the FFL is still in business – doubtful but possible – he/she/they/zer will likely know if there’s someone who can help me.

Once in the past I located an alleged gunsmith in the big town about 50 miles away and actually went there to meet him. He was so flaky about making contact I declined to leave my only carry gun with him and just learned to fix it myself. Or live with the defect – in honesty this was so long ago I don’t even remember what the problem was. But that was it as far as people claiming to be gunsmiths were back then, and so I’m not really getting my hopes up now. But we shall see.

Completely different. I’m there to let him have some exercise and a poop. He’s there to smell the neighborhood.

In careful, thorough, leisurely detail. Missing nothing. Every goddam bush. Occasionally making marginal notes. Sometimes indulging in a vociferous retort. Clearly for Tobie it’s not just a scent, it’s a conversation.

And that’s fine, to a point. But I often ask him if he couldn’t just skim the summary and download the dissertation for later, on his own time.

I haven’t seen Zelda in the comments for quite a while but I thought about her this morning. I had to cut back some bushes from the driveway, the same kind that sent me back to childhood asthma in May and June…

And I remembered that episode and chose not to repeat it in a way I like to think she would have approved.

Having decided that I do like the Arex as my new carry pistol after all, but really don’t like the optic it’s attached to, I did something extremely bourgeois…

I purchased another, better optic. The optic of my dreams, actually, if I started having one of those. And it had the appropriate adapter plate and everything. Unfortunately I was forced to conclude, after half an hour of fiddling followed by another half hour of trying to deny reality, that it did not have the appropriate bolts. Nor could I find any elsewhere.

I am very disappointed.

This thing cost almost as much as the retail value of the gun. Now I don’t know whether to send it back for a refund or hang onto it in a probably futile hope of getting it to attach to my pistol through luck or synchronicity or the benefit of my overwhelming virtue or something – I have no clue how to find a local gunsmith.

…is the big event for the day, and I have to go do that in a few minutes. I’ve just been sitting around most of this week, no special reason, just stocked up on dowanna, hence the sparse blogging. But just to prove I’m not a total couch potato…

…and to placate Generous Reader MM, I did wash Tobie’s bed cover yesterday.

Tobie has become less neurotic about his bed than when he was younger…

I have an old dog blanket D&L gave me, that I used as a substitute last time we had this not-really-a-crisis, and he finds it surprisingly acceptable. In fact…

…when things are all back together and his freshly-laundered bed is returned to him, he generally gives it a fairly low Yelp review until he decides it smells right again. Customers: They’re not always right, but they’re always the customers.

After changing the bedding first thing this morning I had a bunch of laundry to wash. Brought it up to the washing machine at Ian’s Cave and this was going to take a while, so there was no point heading straight back to the cave after our regular morning walkie. So I said, “Let’s go for a ride in the Jeep.”

Tobie approved. I don’t often do joyrides, and since chicken chores are no longer a thing Tobie doesn’t get nearly as many Jeep rides as he thinks are necessary for health. We went down the wash to the first crossing, then took the road back in a circuit that eventually ended up at Ian’s. Where I had a bunch of washing to hang…

… while Tobie guarded our back in the cool shade.

So he got a hat trick this morning: Walkie, Jeep ride, lie out in the shade.

I expected to either hear the bedroom heater working during the night – or not. Instead I slept like a stone for nine hours and wouldn’t have noticed if the heater had played a Sousa march. But upon waking I looked up at the thermostat and found that the room was unusually warm. I cranked up the heat a couple of degrees – and the heater lit with not the slightest drama. Then just now I happened to walk past it and found it unpleasantly warm. Success!

I now dread winter far less than I did 24 hours ago.

Actually sat down and read the manual, which suggested that cleaning the pilot light’s supply pipe and orifice could be an annual requirement what with spiders and whatnot. That got my attention – I mean it was unlikely to be spiders, since I started having trouble halfway through the winter when the fire was always going – but you never know when you’re going to get some oily propane that can certainly do a number on an orifice. I’ve seen that before.

The pilot flame seemed fine to me but the manual specifically said that it must cover the top of the thermopile. And y’know…

…it wasn’t really doing that. So I got out my line wrenches, removed the gas pipe to the pilot, cleaned the orifice – which rather startlingly fell on the floor when I removed the pipe, I was wondering how I would get to it – as much as I could without a specific set of orifice rods, put it all back together, and…

…now the flame covered the top of the thermopile. I gave it a few minutes to heat up proper, and rather than check millivolts I cranked the thermostat up to 90^o and turned it on. And the heater lit right up.

A gradually clogging orifice from a bottle of dodgy propane would explain why the heater became undependable before it just stopped working entirely. So have I fixed it? Well, it started. I can hope. I have set the thermostat for 70^o, which the bedroom temperature will fall below during the night. If the heater wastes a lot of propane overnight, I fixed it.

Monsoon hasn’t left us alone yet – Yesterday afternoon we got wind and quite a lot of rain, and this morning it’s gloomy and cool…

So cool, in fact, that I just caught myself digging out a light hoodie. At 8:30 ayem in August I’m normally sweating in a cut-off work shirt.

I hate winter. And I never got back to trying to find out what’s wrong with the bedroom heater. Swore I wasn’t going to wait till it was a winter-prep crisis. Better get off my ass about that.

In my various travails breaking in and getting used to this plastic striker 9mm I have of course had attacks of nostalgia for my very nice S&W m69 revolver. Why did I decide to take this painful journey to present-day armament? 17 rounds in the mag versus five, sure. Not having to carry an assortment of ammo in speedloaders all the time, okay. But…

Oooh my god. $1.44/round for Winchester white box? $1.34/round for aluminum case Blazer? Are you okay? Did something hurt you, and you’re just lashing out?

And that’s not even the expensive stuff – or the stuff you’d really want to shoot out of an L-frame.

$2.90/round for .44 mag carry ammo. That’s … extraordinary. And of course that same old $71 for a box of aluminum case .44 Special, which is literally the only commercial .44 Special ammo available around here.

Maybe a guy could do better online, I’ve never bought ammo online. I know lots of people do. But pistols aren’t rifles: You can gain a certain level of proficiency with a rifle, come back a year later and at least be able to hit a stationary target. Good chops with a pistol require regular practice, at least with me. And the price of reloading components hasn’t really come back to earth either. This last ammo drought hurt us.

If my only reason for switching to 9mm were ammo price it might still be a rational choice. And the Arex is behaving itself better. As long as I avoid 115 grain Winchester white box. And don’t fully load the magazines.

But I miss my S&W. I have spells where I think I should research the price of .357 Magnum.

Well, the first thing that went wrong was that the food processor stored at Ian’s place, which I dragged back to the Lair, flat didn’t work when plugged in. So I ended up dicing all those pear sections I’d previously spent so much time quartering. I reduced them in two batches – which took hours…

…and then when the small batch, which naturally took less time, was getting nearly ready I consolidated the batches and reduced them more. Which took hours.

It’s really kind of discouraging how little actual material you finish up with. Last time it was only worth the effort for the learning experience but this time… Continue reading →

Except for a few I picked just a couple of days ago, the pears have softened up nicely so this morning I quartered and cored them. Since there were many very small pears this took me like an hour and a half standing at the counter and my back did not thank me. Also, the bounty has raised an unexpected problem I certainly didn’t face last time…

The raw pears completely fill my biggest pot. Which means I either have to make two or three batches of pear butter, or maybe I can use the little food processor that’s stashed at Ian’s place to reduce the volume. I’m going to try that and see how it works, but first Tobie and I have to take a Jeep ride to S&L’s. I’m taking care of their chickens and cat while they’re gone, and I think the chickens are going to like all these pear cores.

This afternoon will be sweaty, rumbly and possibly wet, if all the other afternoons this week are any guide. But it’s sunny, still and relatively cool this morning, and Big Brother sent me a package, so let’s go for a bike ride and get it.

On the way back I saw something flash by on the road, so I circled back to see if my snapshot impression had been correct…

Yup: A broken bolt will probably lead to a bad day for somebody, and then left on the road like that it’s likely to cause a bad day for somebody else. Too nice a day not to scoop that up and toss it into the ditch before it wrecks somebody’s tire.

My complicated plan for getting a trailer-load of trash to the landfill went off without a hitch. Asked the guy at the gate where I should unload the panels – he said there was too much glass for the scrapyard, so just dump them with the rest.

Didn’t seem quite right, to be honest. I know it’s silly but I get a little sentimental about gear that’s done me a lot of good service. These were definitely done, had in fact lasted a good deal longer than you really expect old multi-crystalline panels to go*, and I was happy to replace them – but I kind of felt like a heel just leaving them leaning against a wall of garbage. Plus it makes me wonder just how toxic your average landfill really is…

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*Once they turn brown, they’re done. Don’t know why they do that but they do.

I do what I can to minimize trash buildup, but…

…trash does build up, and sooner or later it has to go somewhere. Since I don’t (officially) drive, and I really don’t drive (on pavement) so much that the prospect of doing so in an unsanctioned manner makes me nervous, the logistics of this became complex. And rather more labor-intensive than my aching back thinks is quite right, but tomorrow morning all this junk is going away.

What was left of my bread was getting a bit funky at breakfast this morning, and there was no Monday water run, so I decided to hit the baking early while it’s still cool.

I learned to bake my own bread because I had to if I wanted bread. That’s no longer strictly true but when I had alternatives I found, not to my surprise, that I really prefer baking my own bread.

Our neighborhood cemetery started out as a family cemetery, mostly for pets, and grew from there. Since 2008 it only contained one human. But the Gulch has experienced a rash of deaths in the past few months, and…

…now there are four*. There’s talk of expanding the fence.

S&L have become the de facto keepers of the cemetery since they bought the property, and they decided it was time for a neighborhood “celebration of life” from which I just returned. Had to reschedule it from yesterday afternoon because the thunderstorms didn’t cooperate. S joked that it was a trick to get some of us heathens to come to church on Sunday.

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*Since I’m not the most socially up-to-date person in the world I was struck by the novelty of three out of three recently deceased people not only being cremated but also being buried in multiple places. All these people had families elsewhere, and only part of them is interred here. It’s probably super common and I’m just clueless.

Whacked back the weeds, pruned off a bunch of suckers and gave it a good mulching of old chicken shit and rotted straw.

Judging from that 6 foot ladder the pear tree is roughly 12 feet tall now, certainly getting hard to pick the high fruit. I’m wondering if I shouldn’t cut off those high vertical branches before I put the fence back. Maybe it’ll branch out more, get wider rather than higher.