Category Archives: Homesteading

Wake-up Call – Coon in the Living Room

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. 

————————————–

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.

————————————————

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.

Unrequited Requiem for a Chicken

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.

Always in the wrong place.

Old Jules

Bat in the bug light and other big news and events

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.

Great day to you.

Old Jules

Shaving with sheep shears

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.

Old Jules

The Trap of ‘Wanting’

A person used to hear young men say, “I’d give my left nut for [fill in the blank]” and everyone knew precisely what he was saying. 

Sometime over the past few decades I filtered out allowing myself to precisely  ‘want’ anything without consciously intending to do it.  When I get the silly-assed notion I ‘need’ or ‘want’ something I just stuff it into a file folder in my mind marked, ‘tentative’, and go into a patience mode.  That just involves waiting for the Universe to drop whatever it was, or the components to fabricate it into my life.  Which the Universe consistently indulges eventually.

But yesterday in town I saw this and it stopped me in my tracks.  “Wow!” thinks I.  “That thing could wash a lot of clothes at once, and it has a wringer.”

I’ve been using the Thrift Store busted near-freebee 1947 Kenmore for some time and I’m generally tickled pea-green with it:  Clean Underwear and Hard Times.  But it has the decided disadvantage of not having a wringer.  This results in not getting so much water out of the clothes, so they take a lot longer to dry on the line.

I tagged and numbered the concept of the washer above and sent an order for something along those lines out to the Universe.  But as I thought about it driving away it dawned on me what I actually ‘need’ if I were going to do some needing is a carwash chamois wringer.

Or this:

http://www.dultmeier.com/images/prodpagethumb/LC-AT01-Chamois-Wringer.jpg

But the cheapest of those new runs almost $100, which doesn’t fit into any strong likelihoods of me ever forking out.  Even on EBay they run that price and upward.

But those things appear to be built to last.  I’m betting when car washes go out of business they end up in places nobody expected, taking up space and not getting much use.  I’m going to watch for them at flea-markets, auctions and garage sales.  And maybe I’ll post something on the Yahoo FreeCycle groups for Kerrville and Fredericksburg.

I wouldn’t give my left nut for one of those wringers, but if I wanted one I might.

Steve Goodman knew all about the trap of wanting dream things, though.  In this song he just about says it all:

Steve Goodman — Vegematic [Live]

 

Old Jules

 
 

Cathouse urgencies

 

Salvaged wheelbarrow, salvaged nightstand and salvaged material stapled over door opening

Salvaged microwave stripped of components with the back cut off makes a great means of keeping the cat food dry

Heavy rain and the cool snap last got me scrambling to give the cats a way to get out of the weather and keep the food dry.  Looks as though it will serve, but I’ve got to work on several more shelters.  They’re there, but need upgrading a bit. 

Cat houses and such

I’ll confess I’m behind the curve on a lot of things.  I should have re-wrapped that electrical tape around the busted phone line before the rain hit.  Internet’s back in tin-can telephone speeds this morning.

Artful Communications – White Trash Repairs 3

Old Jules

Gordon Lightfoot – Early Morning Rain (Live in Chicago – 1979)

 

6:30 PM:  GRADER DITCH HAULS!

Gale and Kay were working the Mesquite Show in Fredericksburg this weekend, so I borrowed Little Red today and went into town for necessaries.  But when I’m on the road I always shop the grader ditches and investigate any potentially useful items thrown or blown out of vehicles.  Today was great insofar as upgrading cathouses:

The top was missing on this, but otherwise it's in good shape

The cats will be fighting over which gets to sleep inside this

I find a lot of these lids in the ditches and this one almost fits.

 

Also found these rubber bungie cords near another bunch of trash in the ditch

Old Jules

Independence from Dead Batteries

So, call me a hypocrite.  These are made in China.   The top flashlight and radio were purchased in 2006 and the light’s been used frequently since then, including last night.

The crank side

Radio

Here’s how those came into my life:
Friday, September 22, 2006 Placitas, New Mexico
Winterizing
 
Today I was finishing up battening down the hatches on the old adobe for winter. The last week or so it’s been into the low 40s a couple of times, nights, so I’ve been pecking away at putting up plastic over the insides of most of the windows to cut down on the amount of wind blowing through the house. I came across some car-covers free a while back when the lady was wrapping up at the flea market and was going to haul them to the dump because they didn’t sell.
 
I’m cutting up those to staple over the plastic in hopes it will provide insulation. Last year it got cold enough in here to impress me with my pansyish non-pioneer spirit, even with Mexican blankets hung over all the windows and the front door on the inside.
 
Anyway, I ran spang out of staples and plastic, mid-job, so I toodled down to Rio Rancho Home Depot to buy more. The clerk asked me in passing, “Does it look like snow out there to you?”
 
I’d been asking myself the same question almost from daybreak onward. “Pretty early for it. Almost never get snow before the first of October. But it’s happened.”
 
Clerk laughed, handed me my bag, and I headed back through Bernalillo toward the mountains.
 
As I passed the Dollar General I was reminded I was running short of tortillas and a couple of other incidentals, so I swung in. I always take a look at their half-price clearance items, which are dirt-cheap and sometimes something a man could use.
 
There on the half-price clearance table was a plastic package with a hand-crank flashlight and a handcrank AM/FM Weather radio. $12 regular price. Hmmm.
 
Some little voice in my mind says, “Jules, old man, batteries are dead on your flashlight, and likely are dead on your radio. You need to buy that $6 package of flashlight and battery just in case the power goes out for a few days.”
 
So I put it in the plastic box hanging off my arm, picked up a few extra cans of canned fruit and fruit c*cktail, and headed for the checkout. Clerk knows me by sight and we’re amiable.
“You think it looks like snow out there?”
 
“You been talking to the guy down at Home Depot?”
 
Blank look.
 
“Guy down there just said the same thing. I think you might be right. That’s the reason I’ve picked that half-price radio and flashlight off your clearance table.”
 
Another blank look, then he squints at the plastic thingie with all that in it. “Was this on the clearance table?”
 
“Yup.”
 
He calls the manager over. “Is this half price?”
 
“No. The half-price stuff was all the summer stock… barbeque things and that.”
 
I scowl. “Okay. I’m not paying $12 for it. Don’t ring it up.”
 
“You’ll buy it for $6?” She grins at me. We clown around some when I’m in there.
 
“Five and a half.”
 
“Six.”
 
“Sold. Ring it up.”
 
Sooooo. I ended up with a hand-crank charging flashlight and radio.
 
The hosses are getting thick coats of hair. I’m thinking it’s going to be an early, bull-goose of a winter.
 
Mainly the radio and flashlight thing. I confess I haven’t gotten a good look at what the hosses are doing, hair-wise.
 
Jules
 
Edited in:
 
As I re-read this entry I noticed the censor had edited out the nasty part of the word c*cktail. So here I was claiming I’d bought some fruit tail, which I might if I ever come across any, but this wasn’t the day for it. That old censor’s always catching me out when I try to use that nasty word, full-c*cked pistol, c*ck fights, and now fruit c*cktail. Lucky thing for me that old censor’s on the job. Otherwise I’d be saying just awful stuff.

2011 observation regarding automatic censoring out of nasty language: Me, I’m sorry that’s gone away.  Having a computer perform the job of straight-man instead of having to wait for some commenting reader to do the job’s a lot more 21st Centuryish.  I’m old fashioned that way.

Turned out I was so impressed with that flashlight I included it here:   SECTION 10: SURVIVAL AND EMERGENCY SUPPLIES and if I were writing the book again I’d say a lot more about it, including what’s in this post.  I have a lot more experience with these now than I did when I wrote the book.

2011, I still use the flashlight frequently and it still does a good job at what it’s supposed to do.  The radio was up on a shelf until I began writing this, hadn’t been turned on in a couple of years, dust covering it.  I cleaned it up, cranked it for a minute, turned it on and picked up several stations immediately.  These things are ‘way too good to be made in China.

—————————————-

Here are some others I’ve picked up over the years.  They’re good too.

Old Jules

Fire Ants, Dishwashing and Drought

Having to haul water offers up a rare challenge insofar as cooking and cleaning up afterward.   Before the drought became so severe I’d mitigated the problem by putting my dirty dishes into potato or grapefruit bags and placing them on imported fireant beds.  A day later, voila!  Clean clean clean!

All I had to do is pull them out of the bags and wipe them down with a moist towel or cloth and they were ready to use.

But as the summer progressed and the soil dried the fire ant beds became more difficult to locate.  Without moisture in it the soil here has no structure.  The beds became invisible, and concurrently the ants seemed just to go underground.   Imported fire ants,  common name: red imported fire ant
scientific name: Solenopsis invicta Buren (Insecta: Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Myrmicinae) are eating machines.  They’ll eat anything.

http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu/creatures/urban/ants/fire_ant16.htm

“Mounds are built of soil and are seldom larger than 46 cm (18 in) in diameter. When a mound is disturbed, ants emerge aggressively to bite and sting the intruder. A white pustule usually appears the next day at the site of the sting (Cohen 1992).

I looked for other alternatives with other ant species, no joy.  What I discovered is that good American fire ants just don’t want to do that kind of work.  I tried it with every kind of ant bed I could find, dishes stacking up in the sink, me gradually being forced to use hauled water and scouring pads to clean up dishes and utensils.

If I couldn’t find some good American fireants willing to work or some way to locate illegal imported fireants for the job I was going to be reduced to hauling water a lot more, or get a dog to lick that stuff off the eatingware.

Luckily that 24/7 September 13, moonbows and canned thunder outdoor canned thunder brought in the first measurable rainfall in 100+ days here, just as you thought it would.  There’s enough moisture in the soil now to let the fire ant mounds get some altitude so’s I’ll be able to locate them for my dishwashing.

On the other hand, the rain proved my chimney-fix didn’t entirely accomplish what was intended.

Water was hitting the chimney outside, intruding and running down the stovepipe as far as the elbow, then dripping in.

Hard to think of a good quote to sum up all this.  “It’s an ill wind that blows no good?”

But it’s all good.  I just have to cut that oversized chimney-pipe and put it on there as a sleeve over the old chimney soon.  Better knowing it now than discovering it when Mr. Bullgoose Daddy-Longlegs storm comes in.

Old Jules

Roof and Chimney Leaks — White Trash Repairs

Edited in Preface:  Someone’s told me this post is a bit grim, which floored me.  That is NOT what this is all about.  I might well be the happiest man on the planet, the most joyful and grateful for the roof over his head, for the animalcules, for every moment of this life I’m blessed with.  I am sure as hell not complaining about the way I live in this post, not poking around looking for sympathy from anyone.  There’s not one of you I’d trade lives with.

Please allow your mind to read what follows with a smile.  I love this crap.  This post is me laughing at myself, laughing at whatever life might throw at me, telling life, “Do your damnedest!  I’ll keep coming.”

“Science,”  Hydrox the jellicle cat insists, “You observe, you formulate a premise, you test the premise and revise it, then you test again.  Just make damned certain it’s right this time.”  Hydrox is one of the two felines indoors during cool, and especially during inclement weather.   “If science isn’t cutting it try some engineering.”

He takes a jaundiced view of hiding under something to get away from thunder only to get drenched by a lousy roof repair experiment.   Hydrox is attuned Level 3 Reiki.

Reiki Masters,” he assures me, ” At least cat Reiki Masters, don’t appreciate being interrupted from doing high-minded things by getting sloshed because of criminal negligence on the part of a human being.”

Back when I was attuning him several people thought this mightn’t be a good thing.  It’s been a mixed blessing.

That chimney pipe was leaking badly back when it still rained.  But this repair job hasn’t had the test of a good rainfall yet.

Edit:  This larger diameter stovepipe came from Habitat for Humanity Thrift Store [toward the bottom here:   Curiouser and curiouser ] for a couple of bucks.  If the current fix doesn’t work I’ll cut the down-end with the angle cutter to match the slope of the roof, cut the top shorter than the chimney vent and sleeve the chimney with it.  I thinks it will block of a lot, if not all the pesky intrusion of rain into the chimney pipe.

As you can see, I’ve smeared tar all over the the joints in the sheet metal roof, in addition to the customized chimney.  That didn’t work too well, I’ll confess.  Got some other things to try though.  The light brown or tan you see is the foam you get at the hardware store that is touted as being able to plug large leaks by expanding into them to fill in the space.  No joy on that.

The chimney problem’s crucial.  Water hitting the side of it goes inside, runs down to the elbow in the bedroom but doesn’t slow down much:

[The gray hat’s a XXXXXX John B Stetson I picked up at a silent auction a few years ago for $10.  Man who owned but never wore it died and left it to me, though we never met.]

Naturally there’s a backup plan to keep water from coming down on the bed in the unlikely event it rains:

This has worked pretty well in the light rain arena.  Hasn’t been tested in a bull goose honest-to-goodness wind blowing rain sideways daddy-long-legs storm.

But we didn’t reach a consensus, the felines etc. on the matter of roof repairs and leaks.  Shiva the cow-cat argues, “What the hell!  Here’s a perfect spot for both those indoor cats in a thunderstorm.  What’s the big deal?  If they don’t like it throw them outdoors with Tabby and me.

I’m sick and tired of all the age discrimination around here in favor of geriatric cats.”

Meanwhile:

Old Jules

Bob Dylan– Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall

September 13, moonbows and canned thunder

Expect an uneventful day, blogsters.  Nothing has happened in the world on September 13, since 1922:

Turkey
1922 Turkey Constantinople

13th Sept. 1922 : Following the Turkish Victory in Constantinople, crowds have taken to the streets and are attacking Greek churches and homes and destroying them . The Turkish troops have been dispatched to keep order. The spread of Typhus and the Plague are now reaching epidemic proportions but authorities are insisting they do no not wish aid in the form of medical assistance from neighboring countries.

Siege of Constantinople Public Domain Photo

Full Size Original Here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Siege_of_Constantinople.jpg    Well.

Actually there was this: U.S.
1926 U.S.A. Bandits Robbing Mail Trains

13th September 1926 : The Post Office Department sent a memo to it’s army of 25,000 railway mail clerks an order to shoot to kill any bandits attempting to rob the mail, this follows an ever increasing number of robberies by bandits on the mail service which carries millions of dollars worth of mail every day. They also issued a statement saying that if the robberies continue the marines will be bought in again to protect the mail. http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/september13th.html

But otherwise nothing’s ever happened on September 13, since 1922, so relax.

On the other hand, this from Spaceweather.com

HARVEST MOONBOW: Last night’s Harvest Moon was so bright, it did something normally reserved for the sun. It made a rainbow:

“I was surprised to see a rainbow at night,” says Marsha Adams of Sedona, Arizona, who took the picture nearly 2 hours before sunrise. “The rainbow was apparently caused by the Harvest Moon beaming through the rain clouds.”

Indeed, moonlight reflected by raindrops breaks into the colors of a rainbow just like sunlight does. It takes an especially bright Moon, however, to make the phenomenon visible to the human eye. Did anyone else spot a Harvest Moonbow? Submit your images here.

http://spaceweather.com/

Yeah, Old Sol’s still got a case of measles or chicken pox.  Astrophysicists are attempting to arrive at a consensus about which, without success:

http://spaceweather.com/

I’ve been talking this over with the cats and chickens this morning, the September 13 ennui, and the possible implications and ramifications as they apply to the human psyche and potential injecting something to mitigate it all.  Eventually we agreed on a course of action.

Today I’m going to be playing a constantly repeating CD of a violent thunderstorm outdoors with as much volume as I can coax out of the receiver and speakers.  We here in the middle of nowhere want to do our small part for humanity while maybe giving a whispering hint to Mama Nature without being pushy.

It’s a true fact I’ve observed whenever I’ve been around watching people watch television:  When the box shoots out canned laughter it triggers laughter on the people watching it.  It’s time, the cats, the chickens and I have decided, to give Mama Nature a healthy dose of canned thunder and the sound of rain falling.

Old Jules

9:30 AM – Raising the ante:

On the off-chance I’m being too subtle in my communications with Mama Nature, I’ve got a load of socks and underwear in my handy-dandy 1947 Kenmore washing machine [ Clean Underwear and Hard Times ] running the gauntlet.  After the rinse I’m not going to wring them out, but instead will hang them from the line to provide the nearest thing I’m able to rainfall hitting the dirt underneath the line.

I’m betting between the canned thunder, the sound of rainfall, and all that dripping underneath, Mama Nature’s plenty smart enough to put it all together.

I just hope I got all the soap out of my socks and drawers.  I don’t need Mama Nature soaping down the countryside and trying to wash all the stuff out of the holes in the roof I’ve been plugging to stop the leaks if it ever rains.