Tag Archives: country life

Christmas morning assumptions to all

Posted on December 25, 2012 by | 7 Comments

Old Sol

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

I assume all of you are responding to the Universe in whatever ways suit you best this morning, and I wish that on you with profound enthusiasm and cheer.

For those of you who haven’t noticed, things have changed a lot here on earth since last Christmas.  For instance, the barycenters of earth and moon:

                                   Earth                                 
    
                     Barycentric Equatorial Positions                    
                    Mean Equator and Equinox of J2000.0                  
    
   Date        Time               X                Y                Z  
        (UT1) 
             h  m   s             AU               AU               AU
2012 Dec 25 00:00:00.0    -  0.059985055   +  0.898520188   +  0.389478777

                                   Earth                                 
    
                     Barycentric Equatorial Positions                    
                    Mean Equator and Equinox of J2000.0                  
    
   Date        Time               X                Y                Z  
        (UT1) 
             h  m   s             AU               AU               AU
2011 Dec 25 00:00:00.0    -  0.048871098   +  0.900279920   +  0.390286717

                                   Moon                                  
    
                     Barycentric Equatorial Positions                    
                    Mean Equator and Equinox of J2000.0                  
    
   Date        Time               X                Y                Z
        (UT1) 
             h  m   s             AU               AU               AU
2012 Dec 25 00:00:00.0    -  0.058478965   +  0.900591248   +  0.390372982

                                   Moon                                  
    
                     Barycentric Equatorial Positions                    
                    Mean Equator and Equinox of J2000.0                  
    
   Date        Time               X                Y                Z
        (UT1) 
             h  m   s             AU               AU               AU
2011 Dec 25 00:00:00.0    -  0.048617062   +  0.897988672   +  0.389385589

Nothing to be alarmed about, at least not yet, but still something to keep in mind.  I’m a lot more concerned about Old Sol and that Frosty The Snowman carrot he’s got for a nose at the moment.  That can’t bode well for any of us.

However, on a more cheerful note.  Or less ominous, anyway.

I just got around to opening my latest Hawaii KONATE bulletin from December 19, expecting to find out what time it was somewhere sometime.  Instead, I got this:

human clock

time greetings

I’m not certain what to make of it.  The time might be ten minutes until twelve somewhere, or  what?  Ten pm?

Then there’s this thing declaring time is valuable and what I ought to do with mine.  What the hell do these people know about time?  If it’s so valuable, what the hell are they doing lying around pretending to be a clock?

Here I was wanting to know what time it was in Hamburg sometime last week and might be in Peking day-after-tomorrow.  Last thing I wanted Christmas morning was a lot of cryptic meaning telling me what to do with my time and people lying around somewhere sometime on an upside-down clock.

But I hope you’ll all respond to it in whatever barycentric way you choose.

The New Old Jules and the Enlightened Cats

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Posted in 2012, Adventure, America, Astronomy, Current Issues, Hawaii, Human Behavior, Relationships, Science, Senior Citizens, Solitude

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The Brother of Invention

Posted on December 11, 2012 by | 7 Comments

Humane gunfighters

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

Life’s so full of happy surprises here it took me a while to remember to be surprised when I awakened warm, still parked where once chickens scratched and pecked on mornings such as this.  Then I remembered what it was I ought to be surprised about – that I’d expected this post to be made on a fast WIFI connection somewhere out where it’s probably colder than it is here.  Which is plenty cold enough to satisfy the needs of the feline population, I’m informed.

I thought it was the money situation keeping the delays coming hot and heavy, but when I managed yesterday after the temperature dropped to 20 degrees F, to get the propane heater working in the RV, I knew a new reality had dropped in to flex its muscles.  That heater had to be why the Universe kicked in to impose good sense into my activities.

I don’t know how I fixed it.  Maybe just pulling things apart and putting them back together, tapping on things, testing, and taking them apart again was what did it.  Or maybe it was my genius brother, Invention.

So this morning I woke someplace warm for the first cold morning in at least a couple of years.  I hope today I’ll be changing the oil on the RV, wrapping up a couple of other details, and try to round up the cats to hit the road before the end of the week.

But it’s not easy to feel much dissatisfaction with life when there’s warm out there to be had.  I’m going to have to kick myself with some determination to impose a sense of urgency into my intentions.

But I’ve digressed.  I’d planned to tell you about that truck I saw parked in front of the Humane Society Thrift Shop new construction area.

Can’t recall now what I was going to say about it.

Instead, here’s wishing all of you plenty of warm.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2012, Adventure, America, Animals, Human Behavior, Kerrville, Nature, Senior Citizens, Solitude, Survival, Texas, Transportation, Trucks

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Interlude in posting

Posted on October 2, 2012 by | 22 Comments

Thanks for the visits folks.  Long hard days on the RV here, trying to get me and the cats something that will go all the way down the road.  Blown tires, support springs, damages, unanticipated other are dominating my life at the moment.

helper springs

helper springs

helper springs

trailer

trailer 2

exhaust damage

I’m obliged to all of you for coming by.

My current plan is to try getting out to West Texas on a trial run before November 1, establish something that rhymes with an address somewhere out there for various legal purposes, then come back and wrap whatever’s left to be done up.

After that it will be catch as catch can online, depending on imponderables.

The cats send their regards to all of you.

Old Jules

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Posted in Adventure

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Brief Out-of-Sequence Flashes of Yesterday

Posted on September 20, 2012 by | 4 Comments

Scene:  Highway 479 midway back from Kerrville.

Boom!  Riiiipppp-like drumbeat roar from somewhere in the back of the truck.  I pulls over first opportunity, no sign of anything wrong.  Squat down peek under boxing the compass.  Nuthun.

I re-mount, pull back onto the pavement, nothing seems wrong for a few miles, then the unmistakeable sound of a tire flopping.  Pull over again.  Yep, inside rear dually tire’s blown.  What the hell.

Tire’s destroyed, but it’s a blessing.  I’ll just have to sort out how sometime later.

Scene in town, me and a guy I stop in to see when I’m there and have time, sitting on the porch telling one another how glad we were for the rain. 

“By the way, I’ve decided to swap you that trailer if you still want it.  Let me know and I’ll take the stuff off it and we’re in business.”

“Yessir.  Thankeevurymuchsir.  I wants it.”

Behind the scenes – RV air conditioner listing San Antonio Craigslist potential potentate:  

“I won’t give you more than $150.”

I ponders.  Seems to me a new tire’s likely to cost $200. 

“I ain’t taking less than $200.

The RV Air Conditioner Universe takes a powder, hopefully considering.

Scene – Elsewhere, Out-of-Nowhere Political Remark:

“We’re in deep doodoo if this guy gets re-elected!”

“We’re in deep doodoo no matter who gets elected.”

“Yeah, but more so if this one does.”

“We’ve been in deep doodoo from the time we first started letting kings make the deep doodooism decisions.  If one man’s capable of getting us up to our necks in doodoo he’s going to do it.  Ain’t nobody to stop him, so he has a moral obligation to the doodoo delivery dingus. 

“Simple as that.  If you don’t like it, don’t elect anyone.”

Old Jules

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Posted in 2012, Government, Human Behavior, Politics, Texas, Transportation, Trucks

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Cooking Thermos Bottle Beans and Rice

Posted on September 17, 2012 by | 4 Comments

I came across this on the cheaprvliving forum and decided to give it a try. 

http://www.cheaprvlivingforum.com/post/Cooking-with-a-Nissan-Thermos-5995048?trail=15

I’m making a breakfast of garbanzo beans and rice cooked by that method even as I type this.  Seems to me there are some kinks to be worked out, but overall it’s a shockingly easy, economical, energy-efficient way to cook up a simple meal.

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Posted in 2012, America, Solitude, Survival

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Rain, Feral Swine, Leaks and Yankee Soldiers

Posted on September 17, 2012 by | 6 Comments

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

We were blessed with a few days of rain here, beginning with a frog strangler during the night.  Most of the cats and I were in the RV when the tree fell on the roof of the cabin, but it made enough noise to satisfy our needs to hear something.

I made a run for the cabin to see how bad things were, but it turned out nothing came through the roof this time.  Just a wake-up call, though.  Lots more dead trees around the cabin.

After the big rain came a day of light, intermittent rainfall which allowed me to chase down and caulk various roof leaks in the RV roof I’d noted and I plugged a good many of them.  Found a few more when the rain began again, but it’s coming along.

Second night after the rain the feral hogs came in, snorting and banging around between the RV and the cabin.  I just ignored them, let them do their own thing because I wasn’t needing any altercations with that sort of individuals. 

Meanwhile, the neighbor up the hill was able to burn a lot of the piles of cedar he’d been pushing up, clearing it.  Looked like a thousand campfires across there.  Beautiful sight in the dark.  Must have been the way it would have appeared for a Civil War army looking across the landscape at the enemy camps the night before a battle.

Next morning the cats and I had our muskets loaded, bayonets fixed crouched in our hidey holes, waiting for all those Yankee soldiers to swarm across the meadow, but I reckons we scared them off.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2012, Adventure, America, Animals, Country Life, Human Behavior, Texas

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Perfect Man Shrine – Columbus, NM

Posted on September 12, 2012 by | 18 Comments

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

Someone during the 1960s built this, put up a small RV park with water and electrical connections around it, evidently for potential pilgrims.  It’s on the boundary between desert and Columbus, New Mexico.  I used to go hang around there most times when I’d visit Columbus for other reasons.  Never saw anyone there, though the shrine did have palm leaves fresh every time during the early 1990s.

But the RV park is grown up with cactus and creosote, doesn’t appear to have ever been used.  The power boxes are full of mud-dobber nests.  I’ve been thinking for some while about the place as a winter refuge.  I gather the place changed hands after someone died, the new owners live across the street and aren’t followers of Meyar Baba.  They work for USFS in Arizona several months a year. 

I was talking to one of the cats about the place last night when I was trying to sleep and she was trying to keep me from it by kneading her claws on my chest.  She likes the thought of it being somewhat remote, while having the potential for desert mice and lizards.  Probably fairly warm, too.  Suggested, once I get footloose, if something else doesn’t get in the way, that I try chasing down the current owners.  Try to get a feel for whether they’d take kindly to having someone park in there occasionally.

I’m thinking that cat might be onto something.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2012, Adventure, America, Animals, Country Life, Human Behavior, New Mexico, NM, Outdoors, Senior Citizens, Solitude

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Tolerable Tolerance For Intolerance

Posted on September 11, 2012 by | 3 Comments

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning. 

I entered a friendly discussion yesterday about the particular issue everyone’s bathing in today, yesterday on Cheaprvliving forum, so I’m cleansed of any temptation to discuss it here.  

 http://www.cheaprvlivingforum.com/post/Remembering-911-6005480

I’m gratified to have certain suspicions confirmed regarding a particular sort of individual in the virtual bathtub, but the thread got locked before all the usual suspects came up out of the woodwork.

Anyway, we ain’t going to discuss that here. 

Been doing a lot on the RV, filling in voids with insulating foam, preparing to lift the rearend to install the shocks and helper springs.  Devising a means of keeping the cats in the overhead during travel, and sleeping inside it nights with one, or another cat as company.

The felines tend to become a lot more affectionate when I’m trying to sleep in there, I’m finding.  I attribute it to a recognition we’re going to be on the road together soon and they figure I might put the top-cat position up for grabs.

They’re running for election, in other words, telling lies, saying lies about themselves and telling the truth about the others.

But Hydrox is savvy.  He knows Top Cat is a position comes without anyone having to vote, without me having to lift a finger or make any contribution to the process at all. 

So, shouldn’t be any reason at all for Jeanne to have to lock this thread.  I’m staying low-key, not planning any bathing in synthetics or simulations to influence the outcome of the Top Cat issue.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2012, America, Animals, Government, Human Behavior, Senior Citizens, Solitude

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Me, Being a People Person, And All

Posted on September 9, 2012 by | 23 Comments

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

A nice little norther blew in here the past couple of days, cooled things down something awful.  I slept in the RV, and by ones and twos the cats volunteered to join me inside for a bit of quality time, sleeping on my chest, purring and kneading claws pleasantly.  They tell me, with reservations, they think they’re going to be able to hunker down and live in there.

Came just in a nick of time, too, because what?  Three daybreaks ago?  I noticed something coming out of the now-open chicken house just after dawn.  Double-take revealed it to be a bobcat, small for a bobcat, but large enough to make a meal out of any of these wannabe toughies.  Last night the cats and I played fruit-basket-turn-over, two inside alternating with two nearby waiting their turn to come up next time I got up to pee.

Got my ‘Work for RVers and Campers Newsletter by email this morning:

Work for RVers and Campers: Employment, Volunteer Positions, Jobs, and Business

http://www.work-for-rvers-and-campers.com/.

Nowhere near as many listings in there for west Texas, New Mexico and Arizona as there were last issue, which had a couple I found exciting.  This issue only has a couple in Texas, neither far enough west to suit me, and one in Arizona up in the neighborhood of Sedona.  They want someone in an RV park up there to do various things in exchange for a place to park. 

But me going to Sedona would be carrying coals to Newcastle, I reckons.  Besides, they wanted applicants to send a photo of themselves, along with a resume.  With winter coming on I reckons I’d have to figure out which winter pic of me to send:

I’d naturally want to throw out the best possible impression of myself I could.

And  they want the resume to demonstrate how I’m a people person, which of course, I am.   Ain’t hardly any more people people out there than I am, taken from certain perspectives.  But I’m not sure how I’d go about conveying it to them.

Been a long time since I wrote a resume, though I used to count myself a fair hand at doing it.  If I was the one doing the hiring out there, I’d jump at me.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2012, America, New Mexico, NM, Senior Citizens, Survival, Texas

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New Mexico Farmer Nomads Circuit Community

Posted on September 3, 2012 by | 23 Comments

Hi readers.  I posted this on the Intentional Communities website.  http://www.ic.org/

http://directory.ic.org/24101/New_Mexico_Farmer_Nomads_Circuit_Community

Figured I’d run it up on the flagpole and see if anyone salutes:

New Mexico Farmer Nomads Circuit Community

New Mexico Public Lands, New Mexico
 Proposed [forming]migratory community to occupy BLM and National Forest lands with water available capable of growing food crops. Members would occupy each site and tend gardens 14 days maximum to stay within BLM and USFS regulations, then rotate to another community site at least 25 miles away, replacing another rotatee[s] who’s been tending the garden there.
 
No permanent structures are allowed on these multi-use BLM or USFS public lands, though if, say, a mining claim is filed [a cheap, easy means of establishing certain legitimate, defined rights of occupation], a storage for ‘tools’ building is allowed.
 
Members will need to be willing to live in tents, RVs, campers, or converted school bus shelters while occupying the sites.
 
The only reason ‘community’ is an issue is to assure crops get planted and tended at each site through the growing season, and because of the 14 day occupation limit per site.
 
Some rules regarding wood cutting, site cleanup and maintenance, and waste disposal will be needed, along with a rotation schedule for each member unit.
 
My thought is that if there’s sufficient interest in this alternative lifestyle it should begin before spring planting, 2013.
 

You just never can tell until you try, I figures.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2012, Adventure, America, Government, Homesteading, New Mexico, NM, Outdoors

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