When you put a jacket over the hoodie you slept in to take Tobie for the morning walkie, and by the time you get back you’re down to a t-shirt on your back and carrying a bunch of textiles.
To address the absence of posts: Yeah, I’ve been mentally absent. I’ve been doing very little, to be honest. Just keeping up with chores and reading books. It’s been that kind of summer: I spent a couple of months with some sort of ailment that sapped me of all energy, got very little done – happily I didn’t have any major summer projects planned anyway – and now even though I’m not really feeling bad and I’m eating I’m stuck in a habitual loop of “Let me finish this so I can go back to my book.” I’m seriously spending too much time chairbound. Nothing is happening, certainly nothing worth writing about. Most days I forget there even is a blog, and it used to be the center of my notional social life. I have become a hermit in fact. Trying to get over it. Sorry.
I had a small annoyance the other day that would have been a major disaster a few years ago…
I was making bread…
I scraped the bottom of my Plan A flour bucket, so I dragged the Plan B bucket out from the remote corner it’s been hiding in for months, only to find…
Dammit! Bug infestation. That’s not supposed to happen. It’s not supposed to be able to happen. That’s what those expensive spin-on lids are for. Maybe there were already larvae in the flour.
Once upon a time this would have been an economic disaster. Flour is not cheap. I’d have spent hours sifting 30 pounds of flour, and just calling what got through the sifter protein enrichment. Now I’ll skim the surface and if I find bugs below it I’ll dump the whole bucketload rather than deal with it. Happily…
Hello. I’m Joel. Of course I had a plan C squirreled away off-site. Ian’s place, which we spent so very much effort building and burying in 2009-2010, may never have become his residence but it makes one hell of a bug-and-rodent-proof highly resistant storage facility.
And yesterday was Senior Day at the Palace of Food, so I got another big sack to replace the one I opened the day before. It all works out. On the way back I stopped by the post office to get a sack of dog food that Big Brother had sent me, and also…
…this mystery care package from Generous Reader Terrapod, which turned out to contain spare headlamps for the Jeep. Thanks, T!
Yeah, I know I’ve promised before to get off my thumb about updating the blog and this is the longest dark period since the last time I had actual technical difficulties. Sorry. There’s just not much going on right now. I’ll try to do better.
Glad to hear things are mostly uneventful!
Eggsellent!
If I may offer a suggestion, rather than trying to create a daily travelogue of Joel’s Desert Kingdom, you might dive into some more “Seditious Tripe” pontification. There’s certainly room for more political discussion about freedom and self-sufficiency as a way of life.
Anything to keep the ole bean from wasting away…
Does Ian have a freezer and is there room in it . Store the flour in it if possible.
Huzzah, Joel is back!
Is the cost of flour sufficient to justify the labor needed to: chill the buggy flour 24 hours; freeze the chilled flour 24 hours; remove the centrally-located lump of buggy ice flour? I presume the electrical energy is effectively free cuzza solar. I very much understand that the personal energy is another matter.
P.S.: Congratulations on the dorm fridge. May it serve you well.
Yup, I understand about the lack of motivation to update your contact with the bigger world (blog). It’s good to read you are enjoying a good book and your biggest troubles are buggy flour. Headlights for the Jeep? Thanks, Terrapod, for helping to keep Joel up and running.