Author Archives: Joel

Being true to your ideals really sucks sometimes. It’s been four days short of a month – yes, I looked it up – since I discovered a can of Plan B coffee was four years out of date and decided … Continue reading →

Twice a day for five days I’ve made my way across the eastern plateau and up a mesa to the really cool house of my distant neighbors T&S, to take care of their dogs and horses. One nice thing about … Continue reading →

New Details Emerge From Bizarre Police Shooting This is not a new incident but the article is only a couple of weeks old and too funny to ignore. I have edited but added nothing, and will only comment that if … Continue reading →

I replaced the Lair’s toilet with its very first brand-new one in February of last year, so not quite two years ago. You’d think that qualifies as practically brand-new, but that’s because you don’t have to deal with our water. … Continue reading →

Not that this is nearly as cold as one of those Michigan plumbing repairs would have been in the second week of December. In fact when I was working on the sunny side of the house it was quite comfortably … Continue reading →

If only Al Franken had left a woman to die in an air pocket in his submerged Oldsmobile instead of striking a grope-pose for laughs on a sleeping woman protected by a flak jacket, then his fellow Democrats might have … Continue reading →

At the time that I discovered the big water leak under the cabin, I was already committed to making a loaf of bread and a chicken pie. The bread came out well, and that was more or less the last … Continue reading →

Even while I was writing my boast about how it won’t freeze, and if it does freeze it won’t break, I knew I was tempting Uncle Murphy with my hubris. Nemesis followed promptly. It’s baking day. I filled the mixing … Continue reading →

…but stay in the mid-teens at night. I’ve retired the chickens’ waterers for now, because when they freeze getting them unfrozen is a complicated and usually messy chore. I have some cheap stainless steel bowls I only use for chickens … Continue reading →

I haven’t been following the story of the special prosecutor who’s apparently planning to keep looking for Russian collusion with the Trump campaign until Trump confesses just to get it over or the heat death of the universe, whichever comes … Continue reading →

When I was Mr. Suburban Man I really couldn’t justify the expense. The house and wife and kid and 2.5 shiny cars are expensive. When I chucked it all and became a cedar rat I could have justified the expense … Continue reading →

Eleven degrees out this morning, and that’s as cold as it’s gotten so far this season. There’s some heat leakage past the bedroom curtain; normally the cabin stays about 20o above ambient when I’m in it but not actively heating, … Continue reading →

The bad thing about keeping livestock is that you can’t go away and leave them to die horribly if you feel like it. Well you can, but it’ll get you on the evening news. Enter Joel’s Rent-a-hermit! For a low, … Continue reading →

It’s been pretty much a tradition since moving into the Lair in November 2011: Watching when and at what angle the sun arrives over the ridge… …because with the Lair’s free sample of a battery bank, the early evenings and … Continue reading →

Not for me, fortunately. The Lair’s water delivery system started simple and got simpler to the point where there’s little to freeze and little of that is prone to break if it should freeze. Today, though, I have special reason … Continue reading →

Courtesy of BB we learn of the latest impediment to law enforcement officers’ efforts to get home safely at the end of their shift… Feds Issue 4,000 Orders to Seize Guns from People who Failed Background Checks Which news shouldn’t … Continue reading →

…and the obvious joke popped out of my mouth while LB and I were in the Jeep listening to the radio… “And hardly for the first time, the Silverdome hosts a disappointed audience…” Turns out I was too late. Far … Continue reading →

Yesterday I managed to dribble gasoline all over the back of Landlady’s Prius, as 2 of 3 retrofitted Jerry can vents decided to leak precious juice. I assumed the same thing happened as before, that the sealant held but the … Continue reading →