Author Archives: Joel

No thunder, mind you; not a bit. But around here rain usually comes with thunder and Tobie decided there was no need to wait for it before beginning his meltdown. So I put up with him panting and pacing for … Continue reading →

Several years ago Landlady added a grain mill to the capabilities of Ian’s Cave. I used it to gradually grind up the wheat berries that had been sitting around for longer than I’ve lived here, to no purpose. Took a … Continue reading →

They’re more fun, so you use them more. I’ve been beating up my new little dueling tree so much in the past few days it’s starting to eat into my ammo stash. In ze old days the closest thing to … Continue reading →

Every damned year. After a couple of unpleasantly blustery but not especially cold days, March let winter back out of the box… Cold AND heavy overcast isn’t the usual combination, but yesterday had me running the Honda on the porch … Continue reading →

So the first Wednesday of the month is Senior Day at the Palace of Food, which Neighbor L and I hit most months. On the way back she graciously agreed to stop at the post office to see if the … Continue reading →

Gad, it’s been a weird winter. January was properly cold but we had whole weeks in December and February that were t-shirt weather. March is shaping up to be mild as can be – but I’m only saying that to … Continue reading →

I can find a little bit of it if I try. Yesterday I struggled for almost an hour and a half to replace one front shock on a Jeep TJ, the easiest front shock I know of. This morning I … Continue reading →

I don’t know why it hates me, I was always nice to it. Okay, I left it out in the weather for a couple of months that time my Jeep was getting its transmission ignored, and it’s used to being … Continue reading →

It’s like the old joke about hitting yourself with a hammer because it feels so good when you stop. Last week Neighbor L lamented that, in addition to all the other back-and-forthing she has to do, she needed to take … Continue reading →

…didn’t go ideally well. I said I wasn’t going to settle this time. The prosthetist took my foot/peg off my old socket, mounted it on the test socket, fiddled and fooled around, watched me walk back and forth and then … Continue reading →

I was so excited yesterday morning! We went on a water run Sunday, which we never do but that’s just the way D&L’s schedule has been working lately. In a fit of wishfulness I checked my post office box, and… … Continue reading →

…to allow me to get over my mobility problems and help Neighbor L with her – by now much needed – new pallet of pellets. Happily it went well. I wasn’t sure it would. But it was more a pleasant … Continue reading →

Yesterday my older brother sent me a text about a new gadget he recently acquired in his ceaseless (and annually very justified) quest to perfect his hurricane preps… We had a little back-and-forth about it, and then I forgot about … Continue reading →

…and came upon my Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) tester… In the process of testing I stuck it in a cup of the well water that comes out of my tap, and… Hoooly crap, that’s so much higher than the first … Continue reading →

So I had a stale tag-end of bread yesterday and nothing better to do with it but toss the chunks into the wash and eavesdrop on it with my game camera. I wasn’t surprised at ravens but I was amused … Continue reading →

This is not “partly cloudy.” Which is what you promised me. And your promise is why I scheduled this morning for bread day. You are fired. Happily… (And I’m not done being delighted by this) I can do this now. … Continue reading →

Yup, it’s that time. I’ve had really bad tinnitus since my mid twenties: I’ve been a shooter since I was a child and an idiot for about that long so that’s no surprise. So everything I hear, I need to … Continue reading →

Winter returned to the Gulch… …just in time for my bedroom heater to pack it in, same as it did this time last year. First it gets undependable, then it stops working entirely. I figured out last year what was … Continue reading →