Category Archives: Country Life

Naked City in the Sticks

Posted on July 30, 2012 by | 21 comments

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

I’ve resisted posting a blog entry about this incident a couple of days now.  Felt I needed to allow it to settle in my mind enough to think calmly and clearly about it.

I’ve explained before that the nearest property line is almost 1/4 mile away from here.  No line-of-sight to the nearest dwellings.  Woods, rough roads and rough country between here and the nearest neighbor.  Aside from Gale, no reason whatever for anyone to be anywhere near here, and Gale rarely comes, never without honking his horn at the top of the hill. [That bluelike speck right-of-center in the pic is the roof of the cabin.  The barely-visible white loop’s the turnaround.]

Sooooo.  A couple of days ago I’d just finished my afternoon solar shower, poured a couple of gallons of water over my head for a soapdown shampoo and rinse out in the driveway.  Went inside to towel off and stepped back outdoors onto the porch to let the sun finish things off.

“DAMMITTOHELLSHIT!”

A cammie 4-wheeler with two people aboard was creeping by about 30 feet from the porch.  I jumped back inside to throw on some trousers and by the time I got back outside it was gone.  Not a sign of whomever I was wanting to throw rocks at and shout lectures about respecting property lines and the not-to-be-aspired-to human trait of nosy intrusion.

Because that 4 wheeler wasn’t coming down the driveway.  It came from the direction of the chicken house.  Nothing in that direction for another quarter-mile to the north property boundary fence. 

Even though that new neighbor’s got 90-odd acres for himself and his family to fart around on knocking down trees and blasting away with every caliber firearm ever invented, 90 acres just isn’t big enough when a man’s richer than 18 inches up a bull’s ass.  Got rich early enough to get thinking he could run over everyone in reach, bluff whomever he couldn’t buy outright.

When he was coming down here trying to get me to go on wages working for him I had a vague suspicion this was the kind of thing he had in mind, ultimately.  Getting a leverage in place so’s he could do anything he pleased.  He’d already described every property and house within sight of here in enough detail to suggest he’d explored already what was none of his business.  Described it without blushing, as though it was a given.

Sometime during those visits he was making down here I asked permission to haul water from his well up beside the driveway, and he’d given permission.  His water’s nearer than Gale’s from here, and the road’s better.  I’d done it once already.

But after this incident I’ll be going back to hauling water from Gale’s.  And the only thing I’ve got to say to him about what happened the other day:

“Stay the hell away from this part of Gale’s property and keep the kids and grandkids away from it when they’re visiting.  One of the rare positive stereotypes about Texans is that they respect property lines.  Where the hell did you grow up?”

Says he reads this blog.  I hope he does.

Old Jules

21 Comments

Posted in 2012, Communication, Country Life, Homesteading, Human Behavior, Parents, Senior Citizens, Solitude, Surveillance, Texas

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The Illusion of Urgency

Posted on July 25, 2012 by | 16 comments

Lying in bed last night distracted from sleep by gallons of sweat pouring off my body I found myself wondering just why the hell the Coincidence Coordinators seem to be throwing so many obstacles in front of me and the cats getting the hell out of here, one way or another.  It just oughtn’t be this difficult if I’m not chasing a wrong path, or am avoiding one I ought to be chasing.

I take this stuff seriously [and honestly don’t give a damn whether anyone else believes it’s insane for me to do so].  Seems clear to me in moments of insight the function the cats serve in my life is that of an anchor.  The weight of my contracts with them keep me from taking the easy way out and living in a tent, a cave, somewhere I’d rather be.  Somewhere the humidity’s not so high and the heat’s more bearable.

On the other hand, I’m not certain I’d find life worth living at all without these damned cats.  That’s another feature of my life a lot of people might find insane, and another feature of it I don’t need to explain, even to myself.  It’s good enough just riding the satisfaction I get sharing my life with them without demanding sanity out of it.

I think I’d do just fine without them if they exited my life without my having violated my contracts with them.  But violating the contracts as a means to drive my life somewhere I’d rather be would cut just about everything I value in myself off at the knees.

Of course, there’s this damned project over there dancing around in the wings waving its arms around demanding a particular uncertainty principle be dismantled, provided the Coincidence Coordinators continue providing the means to pursue it.  Which, thus far, they’ve continued to do.

So where’s the urgency in it all, thinks I?  Where’s the source of the fire I’m building under myself to provide a driving ‘need’ to be in a tent or under a bridge?

Physical discomfort, thinks I, must be a big piece of it.  Cripes, I think of myself as immune to allowing that to influence my life, but there it is. 

And of course, I allowed a number of expectations to creep into my mind, demands on a future I’ve no reason at all to believe will come to pass.  Things involving smelling pinon burning beside a stream, looking at rocks through a magnifier.

Enough of all that was still lingering in my mind this morning to get me asking the I Ching about it.  He ain’t always all that helpful, but “any port in a storm,” eh?

Consultation on Wednesday, July 25, 2012 at 8:04 AM.

Present: Hexagram 61 Centering in Truth

Question:  What about just blowing it off and going to live in a cave or under a bridge somewhere?

Truth involves establishing an aware relationship between your inner core and the circumstances in your life.  Centering in truth involves the ability to perceive a fundamental wisdom, reflected within yourself – and also in others.

Truth is transformed into power when you disperse all prejudice and make yourself receptive to the world as it really is.  This power can be a remarkable force indeed – yet is rarer than generally imagined.  It can be maintained only by cultivating a genuine openness to things as they are – a willingness to see, rather than merely look.

Whenever your inner life is clouded, your influence in the world is under a shadow.  If you are fearful, you will be attacked; if you cloak genuine mysteries in dogma, opportunities for new insight will be lost.  If you vacillate in upholding your principles, you will be tested.  Yet, when you are firm and strong, the power of truth can break through even the most stubborn minds.

In any debate, the power to perceive the truth in the other side’s argument is essential to achieving success.  It is possible to influence even the most difficult people, or improve the most difficult circumstance, through the power of universal truth – for truth is something to which all things naturally respond.  Get in touch with that part of yourself that is aware of this universal force of truth.  Cultivate this inner resource, and you will become adept at using it to bind others to a common purpose.

The condition of things in the present is fairly stable. There are no specific changes indicated right now.

———————-

Guess I’d better dig out John Richard Lynn and read the judgements on Hexagram 61.  Otherwise I might get thinking it matters whether I’m crazy.

Old Jules

16 Comments

Posted in 2012, Adventure, Animals, Country Life, Free, Human Behavior, New Mexico, NM, Outdoors, Survival, Texas

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Trot-lining for Skunks

Posted on July 12, 2012 by | 4 comments

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.  I appreciate you.

We’ve been blessed with some moisture the past couple of days and the ground’s soft enough I might be obliged to cancel my trip to Kerrville for groceries and cat food.  Not at all sure that car will make it up the hill until things dry enough to give the tires some purchase.

When I went out to turn the chickens loose this morning I found I’d offended a skunk who’d been trying to take advantage of things by digging under the wall of the chicken-house several places.  Because it happens occasionally, and a skunk, or coon will kill every chicken it can corner, I’d laid out chains along the bottoms of the walls with treble-hooks attached.  Evidently this was a new skunk, or [if an old one] it had forgotten the last time it tried this.

Underneath that wall is limestone, most places, but there are a few places were a determined predator could get underneath if it got past the treble-hooks.  This one didn’t.  Left a tuft of hair, a bit of paw-hide and a stink enough to have the chickens overly anxious to get the hell out of Dodge in a hurry. 

Maybe some things are worse than having your life saved.

Incidently, all that erosion control stuff I was doing for a while’s performing a lot better than I expected.  Lots of that cedar’s now buried in silt.  This place must have been losing tons of soil every time it rained for longer than anyone alive has any business remembering.

Damned cattle were eating their seed corn without a thought.  Same as the rest of us.

Old Jules

4 Comments

Posted in 2012, Animals, Country Life, Free-ranging-chickens, Solitude, Transportation

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Stumbling Through the Communication Abyss

Posted on July 11, 2012 by | 7 comments

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by.

Neighbor:  “Did you hear what the Governor of Texas did about Obamacare?

Me:  “I don’t know who’s Governor of Texas.  Don’t care what he did about anything.   Don’t know nothing about Obama, Obamacare, nothing.” 

Neighbor:  “Well you’d better find out!”

Me:  “I don’t go to doctors.  Haven’t been to one in 20, 25 years.  If I can get out of here before the election I might be able to go through the next presidential term without knowing who’s president.”

Neighbor shakes head frowning, shrugs.  The Universe pauses in anticipation of the next topic of conversation.

Old Jules

7 Comments

Posted in 2012, America, Communication, Country Life, Current Issues, Government, Politics, Senior Citizens, Texas

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Opposing Thumbs, Tools and the 21st Century

Posted on July 8, 2012 by | 8 comments

Hi readers.  You 21st Century people probably see this sort of thing every day, take it for granted.

If a person has a piece of land with too many trees on it the 21st Century’s figured out a way to get them off in a hurry.

All that old fashioned 20th Century stuff with chainsaws, backhoes, bulldozers and such seemed futuristic when compared to a double-blade axe and a span of oxen.  But opposing thumbs don’t sit still for inefficiency.

Enter:  The Tree Terminator.

He’ll run spang out of trees before he runs out of machine, I’m thinking.  But he’s got a rock rake he can put on it to pile up all the rocks exposed by the overgrazing cows, cutting out trees and general devilments of geology.  And once that’s done there’s probably an attachment to castrate goats and another to balance the check book.

The 21st Century don’t need no stinking badges.

Old Jules

8 Comments

Posted in 2012, Country Life, Homesteading, Human Behavior, Nature, Relationships, Science, Texas

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US Citizenry Herding the Future Into New Chutes

Posted on July 6, 2012 by | 5 comments

Climate change no longer tops US environment worries

The people who get on the telephone and pester other people to tell them what’s important and what isn’t have made a disturbing discovery.  Whereas the US public used to think global climate change was the daddy longlegs to fret about, they’ve switched horses.  Now they’re worrying about whether they’re going to have enough water to drink, along with a few other things.

Considering how well informed, literate, intelligent and prone the US public is to worry about what celebrity is fooling around on a spouse, or what dress some celebrity wore to some function, this represents a surprisingly practical and unlikely issue for the citizenry to choose for concern.

Not to say it’s timely.  Timely might have been better defined as back before the fish in all those major rivers downstream from cities discharging treated sewage into them developed worrisome ulcers on their skins.  And became scary to eat in other ways.

Timely would have been back when there weren’t houses over all the major aquifers built to demand future water until the mortgages were paid off in four decades.  Timely would certainly have included a population asking itself,

“Am I going to be able to eat [or even smoke] the grass I’m irrigating by robbing water from an aquifer with a 100,000 year recharge cycle?  Any chance this golf course would grow grain crops as a better use of non-renewable and as-yet uncontaminated water?”

But the telephone pesterers didn’t go a step further and ask the well-informed pestered what, precisely, they’re each doing to better the situation.  Maybe the next p0ll will do that.  The answers will involve writing letters to politicians and signing petitions, almost certainly.  Not flushing the commode once a day and keeping the showers short. 

Sure as hell not letting the lawn die and the golf clubs rust.

Old Jules

5 Comments

Posted in 2012, America, Country Life, Current Issues, Nature, Science, Survival

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Suppression of Public Discussion of How Damned Hot It Is

Posted on June 28, 2012 by | 12 comments

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

I went to town a few days ago to get the stolen car covered by liability insurance, and when I returned the Great Speckled Bird was defunct.  Evidently decided it was better to take his chances on ending up in a factory farm for chickens next lifetime than put up with more of Old Sol’s blessings during this one.

Naturally his passing stirred things up considerably here.  The bachelor roosters were promoted to full-fledged hen-chasers and released to free range daily, sleep with the flock, nights.  But it’s also caused an undercurrent of rumors.  Whisperings and quiet cluckings nights when the doers can’t be identified and prosecuted.  Claims that it wasn’t just the heat offed TGSB, but radioactive fallout. 

It’s partly my own fault.  One of the felines was probably sneaking a look when I was reading trivia such as the article below:

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/5/prweb9498292.htm

Gen. Stubblebine’s prognosis is dire: “When the highly radioactive Spent Fuel Rods are exposed to air, there will be massive explosions releasing many times the amount or radiation released thus far. Bizarrely, they are stored three stories above ground in open concrete storage pools. Whether through evaporation of the water in the pools, or due to the inevitable further collapse of the structure, there is a severe risk. United States public health authorities agree that tens of thousands of North Americans have already died from the Fukushima calamity. When the final cataclysm occurs, sooner rather than later, the whole Northern Hemisphere is at risk of becoming largely uninhabitable.

“. . . The US Government’s statistics document an excess death rate of 20,000 US residents, mostly healthy infants, in the first 9 months following the multiple nuclear events at Fukushima. . As a humanitarian, strategist, intelligence analyst, father and grandfather, General Bert understands that doing nothing is, quite simply, not an option.

“. . . The lack of information is, however, a matter of State policy in Japan where it is now a felony offense to discuss negative aspects of either nuclear power or the Fukushima situation in particular.”

Old General Bert’s correct, the cats, chickens and I all agree.  Doing nothing is not an option.  But as Commander in Chief around here, I’m not aware of a damned thing I can do, nor of anything the cats and chickens can do to influence whether the Northern Hemisphere becomes largely uninhabitable.

Any more than we can do anything about this heat wave, except hunker down and try to think of ways to not follow TGSB into the next incarnation.  And maybe try to find something useful to occupy ourselves despite the standing 8-count we’re all trying to function in.

For starters, I’m declaring martial law within the hearing-radius of the cabin and henhouse.  Japan, at least, can be accused of doing something, even though not a damned thing can be done.  I’m taking a page from Japan’s book and making it a criminal offence for any item of poultry, feline, or human being here to say, “Damn it’s hot.”  Or, “Reckon how radioactive it is today?”

Old Jules

12 Comments

Posted in 2012, America, Animals, Chickens, Country Life, Current Issues, Free-ranging-chickens, Government, Human Behavior, Politics, Science, Survival, Texas

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Divine Intervention – A Blossom Fell

Posted on June 15, 2012 by | 12 comments

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

I was relaxing in a camp chair just before dusk yesterday when the Coincidence C0ordinators gave me a nudge to remind me my priorities are too much anchored in the chicken, cabin, drainage issues recent past.  The bachelor roosters were loose for their afternoon free range and my attention was directed to making certain neither of them sneaked off to bloody TGSB.

KERWHUMP!

Suddenly a few feet away I had an oak tree poking into my affairs.  The chickens were going crazy running every direction, guinea-mania drowning out the chicken-panic, me just trying to fathom what I was seeing.

Turned out one of the remaining trunks of the oak that fell on the roof of the storage building a while back decided to put the squeeze on the Bachelor Rooster Containment Center.

Spang blocked off the chute between the pen and the night fortress, raising all manner of questions about protected places to house the roosters for the night.

But more importantly, forced the awareness that this cabin, all the storage buildings, even the main chicken pen, surrounded by dying oaks waiting to fall on something important.

Nobody got crushed in this one.  The cats were well away, even I was far enough out of reach so only a few leaves and a bit of dust got to me.  But I’ve got lots of trees and not-all-that-many cats.

I pondered it all last night for a considerable while.  If that tree had come down on me there’d have been a lot of hungry, thirsty chickens and felines lying around with Xs over their eyes before anyone got around to wondering how long it had been since they’d seen me and why.

And the fact is, even though I’m a fair-hand at the one-man-band act, I can’t figure any way in hell to bring a lot of these potential crushers down in a way that doesn’t include them falling on the cabin roof.

So I did a lot of weighing and juggling what I ought to be thinking and doing.  Concluded I first need to scout around for a home for the chickens.  The lady who runs the Habitat For Humanity Thrift Store has a lot of free rangers, along with some goats and two dogs to protect them all.

I reckons I’ll be talking to her next time I’m in town to find out whether she might give them a home.

Meanwhile, maybe put up a tent out in the meadow for summer sleeping until I can feel some confidence the tin roof won’t be sleeping beside me if I snooze indoors.

When I left New Mexico a lot of the reason I felt pressured to do it was the fact of a roof arguing in favor of collapse and an 18 inch adobe wall looking for an excuse to fall.  If Gale hadn’t offered the use of this cabin I’d have had to find a lot less wholesome place than this before the snow flew.

Back to square one, thinks I.

Old Jules

12 Comments

Posted in 2012, Adventure, Country Life, Free-ranging-chickens, Homesteading, Human Behavior, Nature, Outdoors, Solitude, Survival, Texas

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The Great, Great Speckled Bird

Posted on June 12, 2012 by | 6 comments

The Great Speckled Bird: Respecting our Betters

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

A few years ago when I had a lot larger flock of chickens a pair of fox-critters killed over half of them in the space of two days.  The second day I heard another chicken-drama taking place, grabbed the nearest long-gun and ran out to investigate.

Confusion out there.  The hens were all huddled underneath cedars pointing at one another, hoping someone else would be selected by whatever had them scared.  But The Great Speckled Bird was out in the open, craning his neck, looking for the problem.  As I ran by, he joined me, then hopped out front.  He ran straight for a cedar tree about 30 yards from me.

A fox was under that cedar, saw the rooster approaching, probably saw me, as well, and turned to scurry away.  I quickly dispatched him a few yards into the escape.  At that point TGSB joined me as I examined the carcass, dancing, clucking excitedly.

I’d never heard of a rooster behaving hunting-dog, thought it was an anomaly.

But yesterday he strutted his stuff again, and he’s still got it.  Hens were acting about as before, one out in the open making a lot of fuss, though.  I looked out and saw TGSB running across the meadow for the henhouse.  I snagged the long-gun and headed out to find out what was happening.  Arrived about the same time as TGSB.

A glance inside the henhouse showed black feathers lying around inside.  Probably came from the Australorp raising the dickens initially.  But TGSB was clucking, rubbed my leg and I looked down.  He was dancing around the rear-end of a coon, hind legs and tail sticking out from under Battlestar Gallinica. 

I’m sure the coon didn’t realize any of it wasn’t hidden, and I’d never have seen it if TGSB hadn’t pointed it out.

Battlestar Gallinica, the US Space Program, and Fluid Reality

Having resolved the coon issue, I just paused, drew a deep breath and admired him for the ten-thousanth time.

Some of you have wondered why I keep an old, crippled, useless rooster around.  I’ll confess, TGSB is the reason I keep the hens around.

Old Jules

6 Comments

Posted in 2012, Animals, Chickens, Country Life, Free-ranging-chickens, Homesteading, Human Behavior, Nature, Outdoors, Poultry

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The Smoke We Called Living

Posted on June 10, 2012 by | 12 comments

A few days ago Wayne, the guy everyone’s looking at in this pic sent it to me.  Brought back memories of a time when I had a dozen suits in the closet and more ties than would fit on a rack across the closet door.  That photo must be from 1975, 1976.  Leading edge watch I was wearing must have cost a bundle.

I’m the one with the chin.  The meataxe is the one without one.  Ken was his name.  If my memory serves me rightly he died sometime in the late 1980s, early ’90s and left a lot more people glad he did than wished he didn’t.  By that time he’d been far enough out of my life long enough so’s I didn’t give much of a damn one way or another.  Ken never amounted to much this lifetime, but he narrowly missed a few good bets, geography and time being a key factor.  He’d have fit right in a number of places when goose-stepping was more popular as a pastime.

Old Wayne’s stuck with that career all these decades, fought his way up the ladder to success, winding down now.  When we re-established contact a few months ago I’d thought for a long time he was probably dead, too.  But he’s a couple of months away from hanging up his gun, instead.  Retiring.  Cleaning out his desk, I reckons.

I’m hoping before I head off into the sunset, but after he finishes getting all that behind him, we’ll get out on a river bank somewhere and watch the bobbers on a trotline, scramble up some catfish and eggs for breakfast.   Him winding down, me just listening and watching.

For a human being, getting success behind ain’t always easy.  Tough drug  to kick most times, but a man has to do it.

Old Jules

12 Comments

Posted in 2012, Adventure, America, Communication, Country Life, Human Behavior, Senior Citizens

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