Sorry about that; we had a little (a very little) weather change and my connectivity went away to the point where I couldn’t even send texts to neighbors. It’s been bad this year, not really sure why.
Not at all sure this will even work, but here goes…
May is my very favorite month, even with the wind. Still running around checking on my favorite flowers. You have your garden and I have mine: In order to have anything pleasant to look at mine must necessarily be several square miles across. Though I’m trying a minor experiment this Spring, sprinkling food plants in some of those Hugelculture pits we dug several years ago. It worked once before but I don’t have a lot of hope for this year. If they come up at all they’ll probably just feed the rats.
Things they don’t tell you when you move to the desert: Between the sweat and the dust, you go through a lot of hats. I bid farewell to a favorite this week, but I’ve learned to keep multiples in reserve.
Ever since Landlady and I mounted a door on it a few years ago Ian’s powershed has been rodent-free. So naturally when I moved the reloading shack into it this Spring, I found myself dealing with a plague of mice. The reason wasn’t hard to find; for some reason the caulking and shims on one side of the door had completely failed and there was a gap mousezilla could have exploited. Once I sealed up the gap, hopefully the mice were trapped and they’d be suckers for baited traps. I got three with the kill traps and then they stopped working; day before yesterday I set out the live trap and yesterday morning there were two in there. Found a use for Velveeta at last.
This morning early I was out doing yard work while it’s cool when I got a text from D&L: D had replaced some shelves in his garage and did I want the old ones? Actually I had a use for at least one in Landlady’s barn, so TB and I popped over to get them…
…and it turned out one of them was held together with those tiny smooth brads shot out of a nailgun and didn’t take well to transport. Nearly broke it up for firewood but instead I hauled out some tools and screwed it together more securely before moving it to the barn.
…because I can easily do that now, and I took a moment to pat myself on the back for being organized. I used to be terrible about this but when you depend on your tools, even a slob will figure out ways to keep them organized and at hand. Even – maybe especially – when space is limited.
It also helps to keep your Jeep gear in one easily portable package, because sometimes you have to dump it to make room.
And finally, I checked out availability and price of the tubing (hose? pipe?) I’d need to make that water heater experiment work … and then put the idea aside for now. Far too expensive and disruptive for a thing that might not work at all. I’ll keep boiling water for dishes and using my camping bag for showers, at least for now.
Not really a lot going on right now, as you see. Just keeping the wheels on and enjoying Spring.
How much to do the hot water? I’ll chip in, been reading free for a few years
don’t know how deep your holder for the pipe is, but have you considered 3 inch black PVC pipe? seeme I remember seeing one made that way before.
Pear tree update?
Lack of sunspots could be the blame for the lack of transmittability. We are really dead on spot numbers right now.
If I remember right, you use your phone as a wifi hotspot and your phone is an older Apple iPhone(6?). This may help with the connection issue.
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201415
😀 Okay, you know the very first instruction on that page is “Make sure that you’re in an area with cellular network coverage,” right?
Also it took all afternoon for that page to finally open. Things seem to work better mornings than afternoons lately.
Just sent you a package with the antenna signal booster – Chinese Professor creation. Read the instructions and look closely at the markings before putting it up (yeah, I know, who reads instructions). You are the guinea pig, if it works I will make another one for my home as we too are sometimes in a low signal zone.
Chicago is about 70 miles as the crow flies across the lake from here and my phone often times links to Chicago on a roaming basis instead of the local towers in town. Has been a sore point with us for years but the cell telecoms don’t give a rat’s ass about fixing it.
The hot water thing can be just plain garden hose. Or a five gallon bucket painted a dark color and mounted on a pole. You’re overthinking it.
You know that foaming Gorilla glue? I fixed a 70gal rain barrel by laying a bead of Gorilla glue around the hole and slapping an old bread bag on it, then Gorilla-glued a rag on that to block the sun. It’s still water-tight after three years.
Wal-Mart sells a bathroom sink faucet with two handles for $10. Glue that puppy to the bottom of a bucket and you have hot running water.
Anybody know what that flower is in the top picture?
I think the flower is Indian Paintbrush.
Thanks for that info and it is difficult to tell from the picture…they may very well be paintbrushes. We get lots of Indian Paintbrushes and Bluebonnets in my neck of the woods. I have these 2 flowers that come up side by side each year that are beside a giant oak tree and I thought the picture maybe looked like those particular flowers. They are a single bloom to the stalk, look like a star, and appear very thin and fragile though are hardy enough to last a couple of weeks no matter the weather.
I was wondering about the flower yesterday and concluded that – in the absence of a better pic – it probably was some type of Indian Paintbrush. I’m used to seeing them in high elevation clearings – but I know they’ve some variants out there. I used to see a pretty one called Owl’s Clover in the lower deserts.