Author Archives: Joel

Night time got down into the mid-thirties, but it warmed up fast once the sun rose – for a certain value of warm: we’re almost out of May and it’s 64o at nearly noon. But no wind, so it’s Painting … Continue reading →

…so much so I didn’t even pretend to plan on painting, except for priming the gutter and downspout. I found out yesterday that while there was plenty of gutter in the barn we had used up all the downspout, good … Continue reading →

It’s dark in there, and the manual focus on the lens sort of fights with the autofocus on the camera so that you need to shoot when it’s sharp. Even so I can’t even testify how many chicks there are … Continue reading →

2013, the Year of the Mondo Monsoon! And toward the end of the warm season parts of my yard looked like they’d died and gone to a New England cottage garden. And those flowers reseeded, too, at least until the … Continue reading →

I’m supposed to be painting the porch roof’s eaves in preparation for putting up gutters. Instead I’m obsessing about my 3-week trip to the Big City. And I couldn’t find my backpack anywhere. Yesterday I got my old suitcase out … Continue reading →

Boy, this has been a great Spring for bull snakes. I’ve seen three or four aggressive young ones, but this morning Torso Boy actually stepped on a four-foot matriarch sunning herself awake in plain sight. The setup couldn’t have been … Continue reading →

Fact Check: Did U.S. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez Repeatedly Guess ‘Free’ on TV Show ‘The Price is Right?’ I’ll deflate the tension: No, she did not. Therefore the story, posted in the Babylon Bee, is incorrect. The Babylon Bee has posted the … Continue reading →

Was a small finch of some sort. It’s the second-most likely culprit next to sparrows. This one didn’t spend too much time avoiding the inevitable once I opened the stove door and let in some light, he came blasting out … Continue reading →

Got a couple of nice surprises! BB sent me a couple of nice Carhartt t-shirts, just when it looks like I’m going to be retiring a couple of worn-through dollar store shirts. And diagnostic tools for the Jeep!

…and then Uncle Joel became mildly concerned… No sooner had my guests departed for their faraway home than I got an email from another longtime friend, reminding me of a promise the keeping of which is going to cause this … Continue reading →

Your old Uncle Joel is going to be in a Forgotten Weapons video! And not in a small way. I just saw it and it’s cool. Will come out sometime next month if I understood correctly.

Where have all the hummers gone? Maybe it’s the unseasonably cool weather – it should be hot by now – but they’re currently rare in the air. Neighbor L has mentioned the same thing, we got some business from migrants … Continue reading →

Big Brother brought his own bedding to the Gulch this past week, and abandoned it to fly home. Thoughtfully he made it twin-size. So I washed the sizing out of the sheets and installed them on my bed. This morning. … Continue reading →

While House leadership was quick to clarify that they don’t believe in the God of the Bible per se, they said they had to explore “all possible avenues” in their exhaustive search for an answer as to why Trump was … Continue reading →

Meant to mention this Monday, forgot: I brought a sixpack of beer to the checkout counter. Lady (newbie, I think) asks to see my ID. I give her the stink-eye over my old-man glasses and grey beard but don’t argue. … Continue reading →

So yesterday I put a new bucket nest in the Big Chickenhouse. The first round one was a hit. The taller square one was not. So I went with a smaller round one. It wasn’t quite deep enough to fill … Continue reading →

Today’s sunnier and drier than yesterday, so that’s good. It’s also cold and windy as hell. I’m about to buckle down and get serious about making bread, but before that I rummaged around chasing a memory to cheer me up. … Continue reading →

Okay, I’ve been doing this in the Big Chickenhouse for a long time and I’m better at finding them than they are at hiding them. Plus whenever they choose a nest that’s hard on my back, the rocks come out. … Continue reading →

Big Brother certainly chose the right day to leave. Wish he’d taken me with him. It’s been snowing for half an hour.

Stolen from the Vulgar Curmudgeon, who has recently changed his address – again… I gotta say it doesn’t sound happy in operation. Questions as to longevity abound. OTOH I couldn’t have done it, so what the hell do I know?