Category Archives: Homesteading

Placitas – Impossible to Stay but Hard to Leave

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

That adobe was built sometime in the 1930s as a turkey barn, then later converted to a dairy barn until the 1950s.  The walls were 18 inches thick, the floor a couple of inches of poured concrete, flat roof that held several thousand gallons of water when snow accumulated on the roof and the canales intended to drain the melt became solid ice.

No heat, rotten iron pipes for plumbing, and a back wall ready to collapse next snowfall.  The vigas holding up the roof, cracked timbers sagging with the weight of 75 winters.  Roof leaking into the adobe walls, eroding them beneath the vigas enough to cause me to arrange the couch I slept on in such a way there’d be something between me and it if the whole thing collapsed.

The rent was so high I couldn’t afford to pay it, eat, feed the cats and pay the utilities, even with the intermittent jobs I could pick up.  So they’d cut off the utilities every few months until I could raise the money to have them turned back on.

Maybe the best place I’ve ever lived.  Certainly the hardest.

That last winter living there I was shovelling snow off the roof, slipped and fell into the snow on the ground below and lay there unconscious some undetermined time before I awakened and struggled indoors.  Stove up something awful the rest of the winter.

But the cats loved the place and so did I, even as I watched the walls dissolve and the crack between the back room wall and ceiling widen.  The near-certainty the house wouldn’t last another winter gradually had me wondering whether I could find a bridge to live under without giving up the felines.

Gale had been suggesting for several years that I move here and live in this cabin on his place.  Another winter in Placitas, the cat necessities, and the vice grips of no-obvious-alternatives gradually persuaded me.

Gale and his brother drove up from Texas with a trailer, packed me up and hauled me, the cats, and all my worldly goods down here in one fell swoop.  A person can count himself lucky if he can have one friend in a lifetime like Gale’s been to me.

For several years here it’s been easy to not think about what comes next, to just savor being here and the absolute luxury of not being in the joy of Placitas, the adobe, the proximity of some bridge to live underneath.  We seemed a lot younger, that short time ago, Gale and me.  The cats, too, for that matter.

But aging comes more quickly these days and it’s creeped into the picture until it fills it.  The Coincidence Coordinators are nagging at me with increasing urgency and insistence to look for the next bridge not to live under. 

So far I believe I’ve been the luckiest man ever to walk the face of this planet, possibly among the happiest.  I’ve discovered I’m nowhere near as tough as I once thought myself to be and Placitas taught me I’m also not the pioneer my ancestors were.  I wouldn’t change a minute of those years after I gave myself a Y2K, but I sincerely won’t regret not doing it again if I don’t have to.

But maybe now I’ve toughened up enough to make the next step as much a blessing as this one’s been.

Old Jules

Today on Ask Old Jules:  Marriage Before Sex?

Old Jules, why is it important to get married for having sex?

 

Powdered Horse Milk

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

After I finished my morning download ritual this morning and prepared to go outdoors to bring up Old Sol and turn out the chickens I checked Ask Old Jules Biggest Regret? to see which of my brainstorms of the past she’s picked for the day.  I take a lot of things about myself for granted and occasionally one of my answers rattles me a bit, gets me asking questions about me and what makes me tick.  This morning is one of those.

Sitting out there under the tree I found myself asking, “What in the dickens is wrong with me that I feel so content and can’t come up with anything to regret?  It ain’t as though I haven’t gone the last mile to assure myself of plenty any sane person would prefer to be otherwise.”

I can’t guess how many people live the way I do, close to the cuff, physically having to force myself to maintain a comfort range that includes whatever the Universe tossed my way.  Probably a lot do in the poorer countries, but likely not too many within the boundaries of the US.  But when I see some evidence of them, I generally find myself on the edge of feeling sorry for them.

But meanwhile, I’m about as content, almost euphoric about my own life most of the time as a person could be.  Yeah, there are nagging things need doing, need changing, forever being pushed forward in time for one reason or another because of limited options.  But they whisper from the wings and mostly I don’t pay them any mind.

“Would I like, or trust someone like me if I came across him?”  That’s what I finally found myself asking.    And the answer’s a bit confusing to me.  “No,” I’m forced to admit, “I probably wouldn’t.   How the hell could you trust someone like that? “

“So, do you want to change it?”

“I’d hate to.  I’m more-or-less fond of being happy.  But it might be better to cultivate some regrets, some yank-your-heart-out-things I wish I’d done differently.  This satisfaction thing can be taken too far.”

Cultivating regrets, yearnings, deep feelings of loss might just be what it takes to live a life of fulfillment.  It would open the door to finding things to be scared of, frightened they’d happen.  Angry because they did, or didn’t.

Old Jules

 

Shinola, etc.

I’ve been coming across the word disambiguation somewhat frequently on the web lately. It always brings a smile when I see it, gives me a momentary ambition to disambiguate something.

But the problem is that I don’t know anything much.  Even inside the 21st Century where uninformed opinion is respectable, almost universal, and carries the certainty and power of positive speaking, I just don’t know anything much.

Besides, the dialup connection, or WordPress is being a pure D Communist this morning.  It’s taking me forever to even load the site.  I’m rolling on the floor with joy everytime it tells me it can’t find the webpage.

So instead of disambiguating you readers on some uninformed opinion I have, I think I’ll give you a quick and dirty on something I know something about because I’ve discovered it around here and watched it happen.

I’ve told you about the Great Speckled Bird and how he’s in decline because of something he did in his youth to cripple him up something awful.  One side of him just doesn’t work the way it ought to, and it causes him a lot of pain and distress.  I’ve expected him almost every morning to be dead when I go out to turn them out for free ranging.

But  I’ve been making up orange-peel tincture and treating him with it for a longish while, and it always makes him feel better after I’ve done it.  Sometimes when he’s in particular pain he actually volunteers, gimps over and sits around near where I am, hinting.

I don’t have arthritis troubling me, but if I did, the Great Speckled Bird testifies it’s the way to the truth and the light, orange peel tincture.  He says it’s the difference between Chit and Shinola.

Costs almost nothing to make, too.  Just put your orange or grapefruit peels into a jar of vinegar instead of throwing them away.  In a while you’ll have a tincture.

Chit and Shinola disambiguated.

Old Jules

Today on Ask Old Jules:  State of Democracy?

Sweatsocks, Milo Maize and Microwaves

Morning readers.  I’m obliged you came by for a read.

Some of you are too young to remember why microwave ovens and electricity were invented.  It’s a fact worth knowing.

The pioneers, when they invented this country, lived mostly in dugouts.  Dugout canoes in the summer, dugout houses in the winter.  Those winters tended to get them cold on their backsides and necks.  So they started growing wheat, milo maize, rice, to try heating up and putting in some warm container to throw around their necks to try to keep warm.

They tried all manner of containers, those cold natured ancestors of ours.  Tried skinning rabbits and sewing up grain inside the hides, but it didn’t take any time at all before the only benefit they were getting from it was the smell of burning hair.  So they invented sweat socks to put it in.

But they needed a way to heat it up without burning it, so they invented microwave ovens.  Trouble was, the microwaves sat there for generations full of sweatsox waiting for electricity to be invented.

Then along came Nicoli Tesla Edison with the solution.

So nowadays all you have to do is plug that mama in, that microwave, shove in a sweat sock full of grain, run it about five minutes, and you have a thingamabob you can drape around your neck when it’s cold, or stiff, or for when the old shoulder’s reminding you of a motorcycle that wrapped itself around a tree 40 years ago, and you can toss in another one for putting at the foot of your blankets to give the cats a place to get hacked off when you throw them off it and go to bed.

Got two of them in that microwave right this very moment.

Thankee universe for nicola tesla edison and joseph h. microwave and their yankee ingenuity inventions.  And thankee universe for joseph cotton’s development of sweatsocks.  Also Horatio Milo, the developer of Milo Maize.

We lucky to have this universe to provide such blessings.

Old Jules

Scouting the Escape Route

Even though Gale’s change in plans for last week postponed the schedule for The New Truck Resurrection the new year seemed a good place to start examining the next steps for exploiting the possible.  I didn’t have a clear enough idea about the options and my thinking was bouncing around inside a range from becoming Joe Palooka’s pal, Humphrey Pennyworth:

to building a house on a trailer http://tinyurl.com/7a95xyo, to finding some trashed bumper-pull trailer and fixing it to live in RAZ Auction and an Aborted Escape Route.  I needed to narrow things down.  So I finally did the obvious and visited Craigslist to see what’s out there within the price-range of what I might be able to manage.  The results were surprising, welcome and uplifting.

I received this travel trailer in a trade. It has been sitting for a while. We are in the process of cleaning it. {lots of dust} The trailer is in overall good condition. Would make a great hunting trailer. The outside looks dirty because it has been sitting onder a oak tree. I tried the A/C and it will have to have the dirt dauber nests removed, the fan makes noise. The water pump runs but I am not going to put water in the tank until the weather warms up. Not sure about the ref. but one the same size at Home Depot or Sams are about $100.00. I am selling the trailer as is where is for $1500.00. It has the propane tank with the small fitting. New tanks are about $20.00 each. The trailer looks great inside, it has not been abused.

And inside:

Or if the New Truck doesn’t turn out to be dependable after a Real Mechanic gets it going:

1983 Toyota RV – $1500

One Owner
Runs and Drives Good
53k on 4 cylinder
5 speed manual trans.
Missing door on camper…
Needs TLC..$1500 obo..

Inside:

What I found is that within a 200 mile radius of here there are a number of already livable dwellings on wheels available for $1000 to $1500.  Livable, or capable of beng made so without a lot of expense or labor.

It took me a year to set aside a thousand bucks to be sure I could pay a mechanic to get the New Truck licensed, mechanic-worked, and inspection-stickered, or the Toyota fixed.  But the work mightn’t require all of it.  In any case, putting together whatever remains between what’s left and buying something will require some squeezing of turnip-blood.

But I need something I can pull out here and move the cats and me into so I can begin putting the cabin into the shape it was in when I moved here.  And start pulling down the chicken house and pens, garden fence, and the upside-down hot tub project so’s nobody’s left with a mess I made of the place.

I think I managed, at least, to define the critical paths and some potential realities as a means of finding my way out of a situation I’d come to think of as too nigh-onto-hopeless to contemplate in any meaningful way.

All in one day, January 1, 2012.

I feel 30 years younger than I was December 31, 2011.

Old Jules

 

2011 Red Oak Wilt Movement and Behavior

The disease evidently arrived when the powerline went in running north to south at the top of the ridge on the far left side of the pic.  Or possibly when that gravel pit was scooped out just to the right of the earliest attack.  Those earliest trees have been dead at least five years.

In 2010 it moved abruptly downgrade attacking the trees surrounding the cabin and in the vicinity of the chickenhouse.  But I hadn’t noticed until I viewed the sat-image that it’s also moving west beyond the ridgeline [far left].   Beyond that ridge and to the west it’s heavily treed with oaks all the way to the western property line. 

Judging from what’s happening to the west of the ridge there mightn’t be a red oak left on that side of the property within a couple of years.

But downgrade to the east there doesn’t appear to be any infestation at all, yet.

Truly a mystery.

Old Jules

My 2011 posts about this:

Oak Wilt, Firewood and Sawmilling, For Want of a Nail – Something Worth Knowing Chainsaw-wise, A Poem as Lovely as a Tree – An Oak Ponders Oak-Wilt, Outsmarted by a Dead Tree.

Shame and a Confession About Inter-Species Sex

Good morning readers.  I’m obliged you came for a visit this morning.  In case you’re experiencing post-Christmas letdown this morning I’m going to indulge in a couple of guilt-ridden confessions to provide you a measuring stick so’s you’ll realize whatever troubles you have aren’t all that bad.

First I’m going to tell you something dawned on me about the Communist Americauna hen.  All my life I’ve known about clucks.  Everyone who’s ever been around chickens knows about them.  Every flock of any size has a cluck.

Farmers and town folks who’d lived on farms when I grew up had an expression, “Dumber than clucksh*t” as a means of describing me, frequently, and others of my ilk, and everyone knew the exact reference in the comparison.  A cluck is a chicken that’s crosswise with the world, with humanity, out-of-step with the flock. 

I raised these chickens around here except for the Great Speckled Bird, either from hatchery chicks, or from eggs hatched by brooding hens.  I’ve always taken a great deal of pride in the fact I don’t have any clucks.  My flock is comprised of all good chickens.

But over the past few weeks something sinister’s been creeping into my mind.  I’m being forced to acknowledge the Communist Americauna’s a cluck, right here in MY flock.  Always has been.

So if you think you have troubles, if you had a war with your relatives over Christmas, if you bankrupted yourself buying doodads, if your dad didn’t like the gloves or socks you gave him, forget it.  Forgive yourself.  At least you probably haven’t raised up a cluck and had it right there in your life all this time without knowing it.

But as if that weren’t bad enough:

Now the inter-species sex confession.  That silky rooster’s always been a source of amusement to me.  Back when I had silky hens he fathered the other bachelor rooster here and was always good to the hens when he could catch them.

But now the Communist Americauna’s moved in nights with the two bachelor roosters this one’s become odd-man-out.  His filial son got the Commie.  When I turn them out he’s spending his time lying constantly claiming he found something good but the Commie and other hens aren’t paying him any mind. 

The same people who used the word ‘cluck’ to describe me had another in their arsenal they used on me a little later, and it applies to this poor old rooster, too, same as it once did to me.  “Hornier than a three-peckered billy goat” crept into the language as I reached young-adulthood, and here it is again referring to this silky rooster.  I, at least, stuck to my own species and the opposite gender.

The guineas here came from the hatchery with a rooster chick for every four keets, the reason being guineas are braindead stupid and the only way they can learn to survive until they have a chance is having roosters to teach them the basic tricks like breathing, drinking water and eating.  All but two of those guineas got picked off by predators over time, but the two remaining still venerate the Great Speckled Bird and these two bachelors.  They listen to the rooster lies about what they’ve found and come running.  And when the roosters fight the guineas try to be peacemakers, interfering any way they can.

The other day I was outdoors and noticed the silky lying to the two guineas, which he’ll do, but then he started doing his rooster-dance and quicker than I can tell it spang mounted one of them.  And she cooperated.  An unsettling sight.

But then, somewhat later, Shiva the Cow Cat was down in the meadow digging one of her holes to relieve herself in when I saw the silky approach her, dance a couple of steps and he was on her so fast it took her a second to react.  She couldn’t believe what had happened, and neither could I.

Next thing I know he’ll be trying to mount my leg like some poodle dog.

So whatever problems you think you’ve got in your life this morning, console yourself.  It ain’t that bad, most likely.

Old Jules

Blind Chickens, Talking Diamonds and Greedy Galaxies

I’m aware some of you readers keep chickens.  If you’re having problems with blindness among them you might be interested in joining http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Free_Ranging_Chickens/ where there’s an interesting discussion going on about the problem.  This was the beginning post for the thread:

Blind Rooster
Posted: Sat Dec 3, 2011 5:47 am (PST)
Just wondering if anyone has had any experience with this. Monday afternoon, I noticed two hens on the wrong side of the fence, so went to retrieve them, and find the rest of their little band. Found all but one rooster. Couldn’t find him in any of the “regular” places, but they do have lots of room to roam. Figured I’d check again before bedtime, as he’s usually the first one in. Didn’t show up. Put everyone else in, and went hunting, for feathers if nothing else:(. Well, I found him by the fence, but inside. Just sitting there. He let me pick him up without protest, but he’s always been laid-back. Still, I knew something was wrong. Put him in a different coop, with shelves instead of bar roosts. The next day he was down on the floor, walking around, but bumping into the screening for the duck section, and sitting in corners/nests. Realized his vision was at least partially gone. Blocked him in, and started antibiotics, since I had no idea what else to do. That night he was back up on the shelf, so he must have some vision, I guess. Wasn’t eating or drinking that I could see, just walked over everything. Brought him into the Hospital Unit (a carrier in my bathrooom :). He began to drink, and finally eat. He crows (oh, swell) but his cue seems to be noise rather than light. Put him outside yesterday (in a big crate) afternoon for some sun, but he just sat there. Some of the other chickens did come scratch around him, but he seemed oblivious.
His eyes look odd, not whiteish, but the center (behind the cornea and inside the iris, where it should be black) looks “solid”, if that makes any sense.

Any thoughts?

Free_Ranging_Chickens@yahoogroups.com

Meanwhile, you readers involved in clandestine, extra-marital relationships might be well-advised to remove your diamond jewelry before checking into some seedy motel. 

In the quantum world, diamonds can communicate with each other

December 2, 2011 By Joel N. Shurkin

The vibrational states of two spatially separated, millimeter-sized diamonds are entangled at room temperature by scattering a pair of strong pump pulses (green). The generated motional entanglement is verified by observing nonclassical correlations in the inelastically scattered light. Credit: Dr. Lee and colleagues, Image Copyright Science|AAAS  http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-12-quantum-world-diamonds.html

Elsewhere in the news, the 99% movement has suffered a disturbing setback with the discovery we live in a greedy galaxy, gobbling up smaller galaxies.  http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-11-beast-tails.html

Barred Spiral Milky Way. Illustration Credit: R. Hurt (SSC), JPL-Caltech, NASA

The Milky Way galaxy continues to devour its small neighbouring dwarf galaxies and the evidence is spread out across the sky.

Government and Wall Street Cray computers working on the problem tentatively estimate the 99 percenters are actually 0.000000000000001 percenters galaxy-wide.  Political and financial-industry hired-guns are working three shifts to prepare television documentaries and PR campaigns to assist in correcting the error.

In a related story, multi-national corporations and Wall Street banks have hired a team of astrophysicists and astronomers to study black holes in an effort to develop more thorough strategies and techniques to solidify and expand their holdings.  Additionally, the illustration on the right suggests black holes might also provide improved methods in the use of pepper-spray.

“An optical image of the sky showing the location of the black hole, Cygnus X-1. (Right) An artist’s conception of the black hole system, showing the black hole drawing material towards it from a massive, blue companion star. This material forms a disk and jets that emit radiation. Credit: Optical: DSS; Illustration: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss

“Black holes are among the most amazing and bizarre predictions of Einstein’s theory of gravity. A black hole is thought to be point-like in dimension, but it is surrounded by an imaginary surface, or “edge,” of finite size (its “event horizon”) within which anything that ventures becomes lost forever to the rest of the universe.”  http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-11-black-hole-unmasked.html

The overall optimism derived from these stories was something I wanted to share with you readers to lift whatever waning spirits you might experiencing his crisp, rainy morning.

Old Jules

A Poem as Lovely as a Tree – An Oak Ponders Oak-Wilt

 

Possibly  this one would choose something by Arthur Rimbaud,

“True, the new era is nothing if not harsh.

“For I can say that I have gained a victory; the gnashing of teeth, the hissing of hellfire, the stinking sighs subside. All my monstrous memories are fading. My last longings depart, – jealousy of beggars, bandits, friends of death, all those that the world passed by. – Damned souls, if I were to take vengance!

“One must be absolutely modern.

“Never mind hymns of thanksgiving: hold on to a step once taken. A hard night! Dried blood smokes on my face, and nothing lies behind me but that repulsive little tree!… The battle for the soul is as brutal as the battles of men; but the sight of justice is the pleasure of God alone.

“Yet this is the watch by night. Let us all accept new strength, and real tenderness. And at dawn, armed with glowing patience, we will enter the cities of glory.”  From ‘Farewell’ by Arthur Rimbaud

Or Baudelaire:

“— Enjoyment fortifies desire.
Desire, old tree fertilized by pleasure,
While your bark grows thick and hardens,
Your branches strive to get closer to the sun!

“Will you always grow, tall tree more hardy
Than the cypress? — However, we have carefully
Gathered a few sketches for your greedy album,
Brothers who think lovely all that comes from afar!”

From ‘Flowers of Evil’, ‘The Voyage’,  by Charles Baudelaire

Or Edgar Allen Poe:

The breeze—the breath of God—is still—
And the mist upon the hill,
Shadowy—shadowy—yet unbroken,
Is a symbol and a token—
How it hangs upon the trees,
A mystery of mysteries!

From ‘Spirits of the Dead’, by Edgar Allen Poe

My own saga with Oak Wilt and this particular tree is sung in these past posts:

Oak Wilt, Firewood and Sawmilling

For Want of a Nail – Something Worth Knowing Chainsaw-wise

Outsmarted by a Dead Tree

I’d written about possibly trying to salvage some of it for sawmilling, but that’s not in the cards:

The interior of the trunk is riddled by cracks caused by the rapid shrinkage.

Oak Wilt came on it fast from the roots.  By the time anything showed topside the tree was evidently already dead. 

Arthur Rimbaud, Charlie Baudelaire and E.A. Poe should have put their heads together and written something immortal about how to get the rest of it down.  The job has the potential for being right there in the target zone for their kind of writing.  It’s going to be a booger-bear any way I cut it.

Old Jules

Everything else being equal I think I favor pines:

 

All that tree-stuff hanging up there leads me to think our songsters are too humanocentric about hanging trees.

 

Outsmarted by a Dead Tree

Tree Numero Uno didn’t agree to my offer to let it go down without a fight.  The trunk broke but the uppidy part refused to answer the demands of modern physics.

I’m not the sort of man to sit still for anything defying science and gravity.

I got my digging bar and proceeded to put forward reasoned arguments as to why that tree needed to obey the law.

The top part of the trunk moved over on the stump every time I applied pressure to the bar.

I cut the trunk at an angle so the trunk couldn’t slip back this way when it fell and get in the way of the path I was leaving to get the cut wood out.  But now, by cunning Communist refusal to do what’s right there are several tons of potential energy trapped in the upper trunk.  If I use the bar to pry it further this way that upper trunk’s going to snap out of there like a catapult and knock the bejesus out of everything downrange.

But if I leave it standing it’s going to pick its own time to come down.  And it’s already demonstrated a lousy set of values and ideals enough create a suspicion I’ll be under it when it does.

Maybe I was actually supposed to go to Kerrville today.

Old Jules

4:04 PM edit:  I got it down, but with more style and panache than I consider tasteful under the circumstances.  No broken bones, no serious injuries, nothing destroyed I can’t live without.  On the other hand, there’s still a lot more tree left propped up on dead branches 10-15 feet in the air, so there might be another dance left in the old dame yet.  Jules