Brother Coon and I couldn’t come to an agreement about the availability of indoors as acceptable behavior for a coon with a long life expectancy. Whatever I did to keep him out, half an hour later he’d be poking around trying to find a way in, eventually leading to success.
Last night I’d had a bellyfull of it. I brought the live trap in and put it down next to the sack of cat food, then went to bed. Around 3:00 am I heard the trap slam shut and a lot of ruckus. Transported trap, coon and angry all outdoors to await arraignment, trial, conviction and final disposition.
For once I predicted something and it came to pass. That ice chest I salvaged out of the grader ditch actually has proved itself the popular cat-hotel I hoped it would.
I find my views about rioting to be possibly artificially drawn away from magnetic north by several personal experiences with them, as well as having been an adult during the giant city burning episodes around the time of the MLK killing.
From personal observation and experience I feel a high level of certainty that every riot since the 1960s was and is heavily infiltrated by police or other government provocateurs, pushing, inflaming and instigating to direct events toward violence. I’m not suggesting the riots wouldn’t have happened without them. The riots would almost certainly have happened anyway. I honestly don’t have a clue why they’re doing it.
But my first experience with it was Halloween, 1960, in Borger, Texas. During the days before Halloween the kids in high school were all gearing up for it, but I was a newbie in town, had no reason to anticipate what they saw as the normal way to celebrate Halloween. Wild and wooly oil-field worker traditions combined with a boys-will-be-boys tolerance on the part of adults left the options wide open.
The newspaper the next day described it as a quieter than usual Halloween with the main damage being someone starting a bulldozer at a construction site and driving it through a house, nobody hurt.
A few hundred teenagers drunk on main street armed with eggs, veggies, rocks, jars of gasoline, cornering police paddy wagon with barrage after barrage, following them back to the station house and setting fire to the lawn was just a beginning. I never saw anything like it, even during the riots at the University of Texas I was a part of a decade later.
My point is, rioting is fun, it’s joyful, it’s seductive if the anonymity of a mob can be maintained and when there are no consequences. It doesn’t take much to get people rioting under those circumstances.
On the other hand, the day after Kent State and afterward throughout the remainder of the Vietnam War the temptation to riot was always there so long as it was someone else stepping off the curb into the street. The police and a lot of the rest of the country made it plain by word and attitude they felt tolerance for what happened at Kent State and wouldn’t mind seeing it again.
I recall what a letdown it was when I realized I wasn’t the gutsy hotshot I had people thinking I was, that I was just a loudmouth coward when it came to offering myself up for what I claimed I believed in by making myself a target for all those cops to practice on.
I don’t think things are much different now. My near-certainty about riots in the US is that the government response will determine whether there are riots, or won’t be. I don’t give advice, but if I did I’d suggest anyone involved in a peaceful demonstration immediately remove himself/herself from the area as rapidly as possible at the first sign of violence.
I’d suggest carefully exploring the route and area of the demonstration on maps and on the ground beforehand. Pre-arranged escape routes memorized to allow getting the hell out of dodge. Cell phones set with standby text messages to friends and cohorts to get the message out immediately that things are going sour. But I won’t suggest it.
But I don’t have a lot of reason to think having a riot going on and being in the center of it is a place I’d want to spend a lot of time.
I said when I made the post I’d be talking more about it, but way led onto way and I never got around to doing it.
This was a one-man-band project. The footprint of that structure has about an inch-or-less of topsoil over hardpan caliche or limestone. Digging holes for the uprights wasn’t something I wanted to contemplate.
I knew I wanted the pickup camper as a roof, the shower-doors as part of the walls, wanted uprights with lateral stability without digging into limestone. But otherwise it was plan-as-you go, driven partly by material availability.
Those lower walls are two sides of a huge packing crate I picked up for $5 from a guy in Kerrville. Bought 30# of large lag-screws [$1.00 per pound] from Habitat for Humanity Recycling Store for the project because I anticipated difficulties in the lateral stability department. The shower doors were free. The 4x4s were from the same guy who sold me the packing crate.
I used the crate-sides to get three of the uprights generally in place by bolting them together. Trust me when I tell you this ought to be a 2-man job. I fudged on a lot of things by not paying a lot of attention to right-angles because I couldn’t be two places at once and knew I wasn’t going to live forever.
I took about a week building it, but probably it could have been done in a day with two people working.
As you can see I trenched below the lower walls and dug to bedrock, only an inch or two, to level the lower walls and provide a base for the corner posts.
Before putting the camper shell on top I built an interior frame and stabilized it with a steel bed frame salvaged from a junk pile:
Once that was in place I ran the front bumper of the truck up against it from whatever angles I could get to it, hooked a chain to the uprights from other angles pushing and pulling it with the truck to test the lateral strength. We get some high winds and I didn’t want it coming down, even if the additional strength the camper shell structure would add became fractured.
I constructed a lean-to ramp using 4 2x12s and positioned the camper shell diagonally on it, skidded it up with a come-along until I had it in place, then bolted it to the top frame. As I was finishing, Gale dropped down to see how I was doing and helped a lot during the final positioning of the shell.
The camper shell was missing the door, so for ventilation I used salvaged refrigerator shelving. It keeps the predators out but allows a good breeze. But to keep out the water I added the additional planks at an angle sloping away from the roof runoff.
Sheeze. I was lying in there meditating, preparing my spirit for the coming day when I heard a rustling in the other room. I ignored it at first, figuring it was just one of the cats took advantage of the window screen that doesn’t latch convincingly. But gradually I focused because somebody was having a party in there.
As I considered the awakening possibilities an opinion formed that it was probably Tabby as the most likely candidate, her being the youngest and most imaginative. Now, completely focused I listened for more hints until the sound of something falling nudged my curiosity enough to pull me out from under the blanket.
When I came through the door I couldn’t see any cat, but the window screen was pulled open far enough to admit a large cat. No sign of the offender still, though as I walked over for a closer look.
Then out from under the layers of books and other belongings a large coon face glared at me, hissed and threatened. I didn’t like this a bit. There was an escape route through the window, but I was near enough the way out Brother Coon mightn’t consider it the best option. I didn’t want him coming further into this maze of hiding places. This cabin isn’t big enough for me and a coon.
I stepped slightly away from the route through the window, eyes locked to his, baring my teeth, growling and snarling, him baring his, then stood stock still. Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef in the final scene of the Good Bad Ugly. It seemed to last forever.
But while the tension never eased, like Tuco, I saw his eyes working toward that route outdoors. My arms were spread to increase my threatening appearance and my hand was near an open bag of pinto beans. I allowed my hand to creep toward it, then drew and fired a handful of pintos at the coon.
He didn’t have the strength of his convictions. No Lee Van Cleef, old Brother Coon. He was out that window faster than I can type it. I probably should add, I’m having a bit of difficulty typing. My hands are still shaking a bit. Clint Eastwood, I ain’t.
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Ms Cholla, I feel obliged to update you, wasn’t there for headcount again last night. This time I was more canny, looked right away over at the rooster compound and there she was, searching and poking around for a way in. No problem for me. If she wants to live with the damned roosters it suits me just fine.
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Spent most of the day yesterday trying to get the Documents and Settings saved from this going-kerplunk comp into some sort of form to allow it all to be transferred to the Thrift Store comp, but no joy. Kept getting error messages after a few hours at a time of the old machine considering the matter.
Just saying.
Old Jules
5:30 am – That coon’s been back on the porch three times since the post. He’s standing on his hind legs trying to look in the window or playing with the edge of the door trying to get back in. But thus far, he’s just a smidgen too canny to give me a shot at him through the window screen.
He needs to figure out something else to do with his time if he wants to live until daybreak.
She was always crosswise to the world, even when she was just a pullet, just beginning to free range. That’s her going back into the night fortress. It wasn’t more than a week after this picture was taken the guineas decided to sleep in the trees and she decided to join them.
Every night I’d have to turn a water hose on her and drive her around up there until she gave up and reluctantly came down to join the others out of harm’s way. As she matured she always reminded me of a woman I used to spend some time with in Socorro, New Mexico, called herself a Cholla. A consistent pain, pleasing to the eye but always in the wrong place, always ready with a dagger.
Yeah, this chicken sorely tried my patience in every way a chicken could from adolescence to full maturity.
So last night when she wasn’t there for the headcount I assumed she was pulling her favorite evening trick, waiting until all the others were locked down for the night, then coming in panic-stricken, pacing and fussing in mock terror until I re-opened the fortress to let her in. But she never showed up and I was secretly glad. I searched around with a flashlight after dark for a while, thinking she might have gone broody outside, or decided to roost on a treelimb.
Ha! Nowhere to be found! Ha! Coyotes have been calling in close nights lately, so I figured between coyotes and coons that lady was going to pay the price of freedom.
This morning before daybreak I put together a post entitled, Requiem for a Chicken. Said some nice things about her, partial, selective truths. Then, in the false dawn I went out and released the main flock, did another headcount as they emerged, just to make sure.
Next I went to the old fortress and cage where I keep the other two roosters separately penned. Out they came, and there she was. I don’t have a clue how she got in there.
Evidently a bat got confused and got snagged in the buglight instead of coming into the cabin to fly around as they usually do.
Every m0rning the chickens feast under that light as soon as I turn them loose. But I think I’d best unplug it before I poke around with a stick trying to get that bat out of there.
Ah well. Maybe the chickens will eat it.
This cool morning had me putting on clothing instead of running around with nothing but shoes on to turn out the chickens and feed the cats. But it reminded me I’ve been almost a year without any gas for the cookstove and no way except the woodstove to knock the morning chill out of the cabin. I’m going to have to do something about that.
Then there’s this:
It’s coming nigh onto time to haul water again. Probably also ought to try to figure out what’s wrong with that well pump. It’s been since last December it quit, but I didn’t want to rush anything. If I need to pull that pump I didn’t want to do it in cold weather when it happened, but didn’t want to do it in hot weather the rest of the time.
Saw this in the parking lot of the Humane Society Thrift Store the other dayInside the guy was easy to identify, looked about like you'd figure
He was poking around in a box of old LP records. I tried to start a conversation with him about old music but he wasn’t having any of it.
This old XP’s going kerplunk. I picked up a replacement at the Thrift Store and if I can figure out where all these wires go I’ll have it in here in a jiffy as soon as I get around to it.
FOOD: There’s an all-you-can-eat pizza joint where you get all the salad you want, a drink and a selection of all kinds of pizza slices as many times as you go back for them and as many kinds as you want for $5.00. You wouldn’t believe how much salad and pizza a person can eat in an hour-or-so.
Only trouble is I always feel sort of bloated and sometimes have stomach cramps after I eat there. Maybe it’s something in the food.
Thrift Store 25 cent books acquired:
A Canticle for Leibowitz – Walter M. Miller: Good SF I read every 10 years or so.
Rebel – Bernard Cornwell – I like Cornwell fairly well but I haven’t read this one. Civil War historical fiction
Quick Silver – Clark Howard – Never heard of the author. Taking potluck on this one.
Double Jeopardy – Colin Forbes – Another potluck. Never heard of the author.
The Heart of the Matter – Graham Greene – I might have read this one sometime. But the only Graham Greene I’ve ever not liked was Brighton Rock, required reading in some English course.
The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco – Time I read this one again.
High Sorcery – Andre Norton – I might have read it 40 years ago. Usually liked Andre Norton.
Fuzz – Ed McBain – Potluck. Never heard of him. Looks like an extortion, cops and robbers yarn.
The Third Man – Graham Greene – Once more before I die.
Hobbit and others – JRR Tolkien – Hell, for .25 why not one more time?
Foucault’s Pendulum – Umberto Eco – I dunno if I can do this one again. I ain’t as young as I used to be.
The Blue Hammer – Ross Macdonald – I read all these 30 years ago, loved them but ran spang out. Nice finding this one.
The Forge of God – Greg Bear – Never heard of him. Appears to be SF.
Flashman at the Charge – George Mcdonald Frazer – Sheeze. I love finding these. I must have read the entire Flashman series a dozen times over the decades. They never grow old.
Protesting people being uncivil to senior citizens
I’m back from town and today I began my Occupy 40 Miles per Hours Protest of people saying and doing ugly things to senior citizens. A long line of sympathetic protestors formed behind me, sometimes dozens joined me in the protest. Many even honked their horns and flashed their lights on and off.
I doubt most of them knew what we were protesting, but they joined me anyway, slowing down and enjoying themselves on those hilly, curving roads.
I could tell which ones I was justified in my protesting of them because they yelled at me and shot me the bird as they finally went around me.
An uplifting, community-like experience all in all.
I don’t get to town all that often, so I naturally like to put on the dog, spiff myself up a bit. Sometimes that includes shaving, but I’ve found the average electric just doesn’t do the job. Add to that the fact the disposables and the replaceable blade razors leave a person with a dangerous piece of throwaway I’ve not yet figured out any use for.
Still, I like to look nice when I go to town, so I use the tool I also use to remove a lot of clogged hair from the two longhaired cats I share the place with. The shorthairs consider it a blessing to be exempt.
Starting out here’s how it appears:
After. You can see there’s a difference if you look closely.
Add a John B Stetson, a cleanest shirt and bluejeans, galluses, a pair of deadman’s boots from some thrift store and I’ll have the hearts of the town ladies all a-flutter with the fantods.
Gotta get moving, dress up and walk up the hill to see if Little Red’s available for the borrowing. Later this day maybe I’ll tell you what exciting happened there.
I didn’t know I was joking when I composed this post a couple of days ago. But even though Jeanne’s visited me here and knows me better than anyone else, when she read it she thought it was so outrageous I must be joking. After I explained I was serious and consider it a viable alternative she thought about it a day and just told me again she likes the blog entry as a joke. But she’s really uncomfortable about the concept as a serious possibility I might try living this way.
So I suppose I must be joking unless I decide it’s the right way to go. But I’m concerned about the bearings on bicycle wheels. I’m thinking maybe light motorcycle wheels might hold up better:
The financial constraints involved in trying to get the old F350 capable of pulling a travel trailer and the unknowns involved in why it was left on this place when Gale and Kay bought the property are seeming a bit overwhelming at the moment. That, combined with the uncertainties of whether I can find an old travel trailer I can fix adequately got me thinking about this.
A couple of years ago when I thought my life might proceed differently than it has, there was a middling possibility I might have an extended trip into the high mountains left in me. My thought at the time was to spend a month or two in the Gila Wilderness in the immediate vicinity of the Continental Divide.
But at that altitude and the years creeping up on me, combined with the length of the stay that would be required, caused me to think I didn’t want to do it carrying a backpack the way I’ve always done in the past. My initial thought was a burro, but the fact is hauling a burro’s a bit of a problem.
A few times in the mountains, decades ago, I encountered packers with llamas and talked with them about it, but those animals are as difficult in the size department as donkeys.
However, I ran into someone once in the Gila with a string of goats doing the packing. Goats, to my way of thinking, have a lot of advantages over the larger animals insofar as transport. Considering it led me to join some Yahoo Goat Packing groups:
I began doing some shopping around looking for a couple of young goats I might train, but intervening events led me to see that another long trip into the mountains isn’t in the cards for me in the immediate future. And further consideration about that particular use for them in that area also mightn’t be the best. They’d be a magnet for large predators, risky to leave unattended, and they’d need a lot of attention.
But thinking about pack goats during the years since has caused me to think there might be a role for them to play in a more urban setting. Namely, for older folks who could hike to the store for groceries, but have difficulties carrying them home without a vehicle. Maybe a goat cart, for that matter.
Feeding them would be no problem because goats will eat just about anything and thrive on it.
But a pack goat would provide a lot more mobility than a shopping cart for people living on the streets and under bridges, as well. A goat can go almost anywhere a person can, climb into places where a person would have a lof of problems climbing into. The ability to easily move residency out of the clusters of street people living under bridges would keep the owner out of police sweeps, out of reach predatory humans preying on the people living under those conditions.
In fact, I’ve been acquainted over the years with several people living in small house-wagons traveling around pulled by burro-power as a lifestyle and talked with them about it at some length. It strikes me a person with a willingness to walk alongside the contraption instead of riding in it might actually be able to construct a small, light house on an aluminum frame with bicycle wheels sturdy enough to carry everything it took to live, move without buying gasoline, big enough for four cats.
Maybe something along these lines only larger
Something large enough to haul some luxuries such as a camp stove, some groceries, a place out of the weather, but small enough to get out-of-sight come nightfall.
Maybe about that size, but constructed with bicycle wheels, ball bearing axles, built on an aluminum frame from salvage aluminum rails and door frames. Actually aluminum mightn’t be durable enough as the frame. Maybe steel bed frame angle iron frame as a base for everything above aluminum.
Equipped with photovoltaic charged LED lawn lights to allow night reading, cooking, etc, a chuck box and a small gas fridge. Maybe a guy would have to move up to a pair of donkeys to pull it. But maybe not.
I’m thinking maybe two bicycles welded outside a steel bed frame with a tie-rod between the handle-bars behind a yoke might serve, and a swiveling tail-wheel [bicycle wheel] to stabilize the weight and balance on the overhang behind the two rear bicycle wheels might be a good starting place visualizing the possibility.
I’m going to have to puzzle about this more as a potential way to keep living without going under a bridge if circumstances demand I have an escape route.
But here are a few other concept pics from the Practical Action website, Cabelas, and elsewhere, just to remind myself of the directions my mind’s going on all this:
74 years old, a resident of Leavenworth, KS, in an apartment located on the VA campus. Partnered with a black shorthaired cat named Mister Midnight. (1943-2020)
Since April, 2020, this blog is maintained by Jeanne Kasten (See "About" page for further information).
https://sofarfromheaven.com/2020/04/21/au-revoir-old-jules-jack-purcell/
I’m sharing it with you because there’s almost no likelihood you’ll believe it. This lunatic asylum I call my life has so many unexpected twists and turns I won’t even try to guess where it’s going. I’d suggest you try to find some laughs here. You won’t find wisdom. Good luck.
So Far From Heaven 
