Category Archives: Texas

Cathouse urgencies

Posted on October 9, 2011 by | 7 comments
 

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

7 Comments

Posted in 2011, Country Life, Emergency Preparedness, Free, Homesteading, Redneck Repairs, RedneckRepairs, Senior Citizens, Solitude, Survival, Texas, Uncategorized, White Trash Repairs

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Fire Ants, Dishwashing and Drought

Posted on September 22, 2011 by | 10 comments

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

10 Comments

Posted in 2011, Adventure, Homesteading, Kerrville, Redneck Repairs, Texas, White Trash Repairs

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The Yin Yang Conspiracy

Posted on September 19, 2011 by | 7 comments

In 1970, the University of Texas was squared off against itself.  The frats, the student government, the sororities, the administration, the ROTC department, and the cops on the one side, and us on the other.

The Vets against the Vietnam War, the Wobblies (IWW), the Panthers, the Young Socialistist Alliance (Trotskyite), the RYM2 (Revolutionary Youth Movement faction of the Students for a Democratic Society), Weathermen (the other, more interesting side of the SDS), and hundreds of other splinter groups were taking a fair beating, though we had the numbers.

I was in the middle of all that, writing for the alternative newspaper, the RAG, and trying to get an education dovetailed with sex, drugs and Rock and Roll with helping organize an occasional riot, march or rally thrown in for good measure.

That’s when we invented the Yin Yang Conspiracy.  An ad hoc political party.  We ran a longhair named Jeff Jones for student body president, and we threw the bastards out, lock stock and fraternity pin.  Lordee we thought we’d done something fierce, beating the system that way.  Hot diggedy-damn.

Anyway, this blog entry is in memory of that microscopic triumph among people who had in common only that they opposed the War. 

The Yin Yang Conspiracy.  A tiny piece of winning the Vietnam War by bringing the troops home.  Winning the easy way.  Coming out in the open, looking those cops, those stay-at-home flag-waving patriots in the eye through their riot masks, and saying, “Enough is enough!”

We learned a lot.  Surveillance, provocateurs, intimidations probably weren’t so pervasive in those days.  No yes-man Congress had passed a Patriot Act, so we still had some rights and protections under the US Constitution.   It would be a tougher gig today.

But, if that was now we’d be doing it again.  We’d be working in both, subtle and overt ways to bring those boys home.

Trying to get them out of there before too many more get all shot up and crippled up and be completely forgotten by the patriots who are waving flags back home.

Old Jules

Country Joe McDonald – I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag http://youtu.be/3W7-ngmO_p8

7 Comments

Posted in 1970's, Adventure, America, History, Human Behavior, Texas

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Texas Thumb and Finger Signs

Posted on September 18, 2011 by | 23 comments

Driving rural roads in Texas requires a lot of savoir-faire, cunning, and savvy. One minor slip and a person can find himself blessed with a new image because he violated a highway protocol.

That’s right. Greeting oncoming motorists in rural Texas is important business.  You never risk the full finger howdy unless you know the guy you’re giving it to well enough to anticipate exactly what he’s up to.

Once you’re committed to the full finger howdy there’s no getting out of it.  If he responds by staring ahead, looking off into the pasture through his passenger window, he wins.  He’s communicated to you that he’s enough more important than you he can practice the one-upsmanship of ignoring you.  He’s disdained your greeting, while awarding himself the uplifting feeling of having insulted you without danger of being insulted in return.

The most common way rural Texans avoid overstretching their trust in their fellow motorists is to hold out for a sign from the oncoming driver that he’s going to indulge in a greeting.  This is awkward because it ends up being a game of chicken, each driver trying to out-wait the other to insure not being a loser, while avoiding being thought a snob.

Carefully executed, the tentative hat tip can be a good maneuver, both defensively, and offensively.  Defensively, the user can quickly change from a full finger howdy in progress to snatching the hat and wiping his forehead on his sleeve in the blink of an eye.  Offensively, he can perform this maneuver AFTER the other driver has committed, thereby, winning.

At highway speeds and in traffic usually there’s no time to complete the more complex rituals involving headgear.  Instead, the game gets played from the top of the steering wheel.

The index finger acknowledge can have a number of different meanings.  It might mean, “I don’t know who you are, but I don’t want to risk being rude.”  It might mean, “Yeah, I see you but I’m not enthusiastic about it.”  Or it might mean, “I don’t have time to play,” or, “I’m not from around here.”

The fast three finger hi means, “You almost got me.”  Slower, it means, “I’m pretty sure I’ve seen you around but I haven’t formed an opinion of you yet.”

The full-hand steering wheel howdy is usually reserved for dirt roads or slow traffic and close acquaintances.  It expresses, “I’m willing to stop and talk if you want to, but I’m not married to the idea.”

The spread hand steering wheel howdy usually means, “That hay you’re hauling is on fire.”  However, sometimes it might mean, “That trash bag you threw out is caught on your antenna and waving around beside your Confederate battle flag.”

Thumb up canted right means, “Yeah, them boys won last night.”  Or, “Yeah, I heard they dropped the DWI charges.”  Or, “Yeah, I heard you won the lottery.”

Thumb up canted left means, “Just because I’m acknowledging you doesn’t mean I’m your new best friend.”

Then, of course, there’s always this.  Usually stopped, or molasses-slow traffic.  It can mean a lot of things, but one way or another it always means the same thing.  The guy needs a shave and haircut.

Old Jules

Dinah Shore – Dear Hearts And Gentle People – 1949

———————————-

8AM afterthoughts:

http://selousscouts.blogspot.com/ featured a compact camping setup this morning worth the watch called swissbox home board.  It’s expensive, but a person with a few tools and a bit of imagination could probably produce something similar for the inside of a van or camper, or use outdoors as depicted in the video.  Customized for personal preferences and needs.

Along similar lines http://www.clickclackgorilla.com/ featured RelaxShacks, http://relaxshacks.blogspot.com/ which offers a lot of ideas for other approaches to somewhat the same problem.

Way leads on to way and RelaxShacks led to TinyHouseTalk http://www.tinyhousetalk.com/category/tiny-houses/  .  Lots of good ideas and info there.

————————-

This morning I saw the first deliberate aggression I’ve ever beheld on the part of a doe.  When I went out to turn the chickens loose and feed them she came in close and didn’t agree to be run off even a little way while she waited for me to throw out chicken feed to the hens.  I waved a stick at her and she picked out an Australorp layer about 30 yards away, ran at her, kicked her rolling, and appeared intending to do more if I hadn’t come running and yelling to the rescue.

This might be the beginning of a change in policy regarding these starving critters.  I’ve tolerated them storming the place, robbing chicken feed, being a pesky nuisance constantly, even doing minor damage, but I’m not going to tolerate attacks on the hens or cats.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2011, America, Communication, Human Behavior, Relationships, Texas

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September 13, moonbows and canned thunder

Posted on September 13, 2011 by | 7 comments

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/

http://spaceweather.com/

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.

7 Comments

Posted in 2011, Astronomy, Chickens, Country Life, Current Issues, Free-ranging-chickens, Homesteading, Human Behavior, Nature, Poultry, Solitude, Texas

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Cornering the Umbrella Market in a Drought

Posted on September 12, 2011 by | 6 comments

Compulsive personality.  That’s the only possible explanation I can think of for this recurring pattern in my life.

Today I had to go into Harper to pay a bill due tomorrow.  I hate to make a trip in without getting full value for the gasoline expended getting there, so after I’d taken care of business I drove around the several back streets.  I was craning my neck, straining my eyes, looking into the back yards of abandoned houses for a cab-over camper or camper trailer I might be able to pick up cheap as a potential way to give myself an escape route if something goes sour here.

I’ll be posting about some of that Harper thing another time.  But after I finished nosing the back streets I went to the Harper Library Resale Store just because it was there.  Picked up $6.00 worth of used books at 25 cents each, moseyed around and eyeballed a wireless weather station with rain gauge, anemometer, all manner of goodies for $20.  But the box was open and there was dust on it.

My computer-like mind registered this and concluded it had been sitting there a while, nobody willing to pay $20 for it.  So I carried my books to the register and while she counted them, “That weather station back there looks as though it’s been here a while.”

She stopped counting and looked at me grinning.  They know me there.  “You want to bargain about it?”

“Wulll. Actually, I’m not sure I want it.  I couldn’t pay more than $10.”

She grinned and pointed to the room where it was located, started walking back there.  “You’re going to TAKE $10?  You ought not take $10.”  Sheeze.  We don’t get any weather here and who cares how fast the wind is blowing?  When we got there she picked it up out of the box, frowning.

“The wind direction doesn’t work is the only thing.”

“Bobby Dylan and I decided a long time ago we didn’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”

So back to the register.  $16.00.  She holds up an orange card.  “Do you have one of these yet?”  No, I nods.  “Every time you buy $10 worth of anything we stamp it.  When you’ve got $10 stamped 10 times you get $10 off your next purchase.”

“Whoah!  You’re telling me if I spent $4 more I’d have gotten two stamps on there?”

Smile.  “Yes.”

“Okay.  Let me wander around in here a little longer.”

I found four copies of the Texas Historical Review from the 1990s for 50 cents each.  Then I found a pair of good sneakers that fit marked $3.  I carried them back to the register.  “Okay.  $2 for the Historical Reviews and $3 for the shoes.  Give me another stamp on that card.”

She starts adding, mutters, “Men shoes are half price today.  You’re 50 cents short.  26 cents even if we count the sales tax.”

Deep breath.  “I want to donate 26 cents to the library.  Stamp the card.”

Speedometer cable was making noise on the Toyota when it went Communist.  Maybe if the cable breaks I can attach that anemometer to the top of the truck and use the wind speed for a speedometer if I ever get the 4Runner running on pavement again.

Old Jules

Steve Goodman– Vegematic
http://youtu.be/HnqtGjHJjs8

6 Comments

Posted in 2011, Adventure, America, Country Life, Emergency Preparedness, Human Behavior, Kerrville, Senior Citizens, Texas, Thrift Stores

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Helicopters and Orange Jump Suits

Posted on September 5, 2011 by | 99 comments

A couple of years ago I came across a profoundly orange jumpsuit in a thrift-store clearance sale, which I picked off at a righteous price.  It’s the sort worn by students of jailhouse academies in a lot of places, so the potential was great, both as work clothing and other possibilities that came to mind and brought a smile to my face as I paid for it.

Some times of the year I get considerable low-flying air traffic over the cabin, frequently helicopters.  Scares the chickens and often has me out there craning my neck wondering what they’re up to.  Sometimes they zigzag over the area, circle, generally just burn up fuel without it being obvious whether they’re taking pictures of my workings, satisfying curiosity, or something more sinister.

But that orange jump suit’s added a whole new side to things.  Nowadays when the helicopters start flying over I stay inside until they go out of sight, slipping on the jump suit.  Then, when I hear them coming back in this direction I head over to the other side of the meadow, staying just out of the trees until they’ve had a glimpse of me.

I fake panic, run into the trees and hide, peeking out at them, pretending to try to conceal myself better while they waste more fuel trying to see what I’m doing.

It’s quite a hoot, all in all, but I count myself lucky they don’t fly around doing that much mid-summer.  I appreciate the exercise it gives me, 68 year old guy running around hiding from a helicopter, but I’m not sure my ticker would stand up to the wear and tear when it’s 100 degrees F outside.

I’ve always wondered whether the local law enforcement have gotten any calls asking whether there’s an escaped convict running around loose in the area.

Anyway, I figure it gives them a thrill, puts some adventure in their otherwise uneventful lives.  Something to talk about over the radio besides all that ‘Roger that!’ stuff.

An elderly man without a lot of means has to do whatever he can to try to help other people along this lifetime, or he’s likely to be thought a waste and freeloader if he’s drawing a SS retirement pension.

Old Jules

The Kingston Trio – Everglades
http://youtu.be/w0TtIRpG-jE

——————————–

Tuesday, September 6 edit:

If you need a few more laughs I suggest the enlightened, well-thought-out viewpoint from the helicopter:

It’s All Fun and Games Until Somebody Gets Shot

Ah, the fun to be had with an orange jumpsuit.
 Evidently they aren’t telling pilots nowadays they’re required to maintain an altitude of 500 feet above ground level, that they’re not allowed to shoot anything on private land out of an aircraft on a whim,  suspicion, or gut feel, and that killing people because they’re wearing  a particular color jump suit is homicide even if it’s done from an aircraft.
They used to tell us that kind of stuff.  Must be the education system’s slipped another notch into the shallow end of the gene pool.  Old Jules

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Posted in 2011, Adventure, America, Country Life, Human Behavior, Senior Citizens, Texas, Thrift Stores

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The Sawmill: Joys and Frustrations

Posted on September 4, 2011 by | 8 comments

One of the ways Gale makes money for himself is saw-milling mesquite.  There’s a guy with heavy equipment bulldozes cedar and mesquite off ranch land, and he pushes big mesquite off to the side instead of burning it.  We go pick it up in a trailer, haul it back here and stockpile it for cleaning up to be saw-milled.

These are mesquite boles waiting to be sold to a woodworker or for Gale to work them down into something tasteful and useful:

Here are a few larger ones stockpiled by the sawmill waiting for sawmilling.

But when Gale bought the sawmill he din’t actually have an enviable shelter to put it in.

We plotted, planned, watched and horse-traded when they were putting in new power poles to acquire enough for a new sawmill barn:

Even laid out the footprint for the new pole barn and got the holes drilled:

We’ve got the design put together by us two geniuses.  Those poles need to be measured and cut to length, then dragged over to be slid into the holes, set vertical, tamped into place, first off.  Then everything that doesn’t look like a pole barn needs to be removed from that airspace sitting there empty.

But the fact is, Gale’s an old guy.  Claims to be older than me even, by an imaginary year.  He’s got a bad hip and too many other things troubling him to have any business out there trying to do work ought to be reserved for a younger guy, namely me.  I can’t afford to be losing an old friend and the man who owns this place because of some silly notion he might have about getting out there doing any heavy lifting and sweating.

So that barn of the future’s been sitting there waiting to happen for a year now.

If I had my new truck running I’d be up there now, while they’re gone and can’t do anything about it, measuring and cutting those poles, dragging them somewhere they can become something better than what they are now.  I’d be getting those poles up pointing at the sky the way the Coincidence Coordinators intended when they delivered them.

All while they’re off in New Mexico at the Hatch Chili Festival doing what’s best they do and they do best.

It ain’t going to happen this time, because I don’t have anything to pull them with.  But that new truck’s going to be running next time they leave.

On the other hand, I think he might be edgy about me doing it.  They’ve both seen the things I’ve built, or am building down here:

White Trash Repairs: Throwing Down the Gauntlet

Thumbing Rides on Throwaways

News from the Middle of Nowhere

Disclaimer and apologies – I posted this accidentally when I went to save the draft.    But there’s been too much deleting of accidental posts here lately, so I’m leaving it up.

Old Jules

8 Comments

Posted in 2011, Adventure, RedneckRepairs, Senior Citizens, Texas, Trucks, White Trash Repairs

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Drought, Starving Wildlife Stewardship and Paradox

Posted on August 27, 2011 by | 20 comments

Looking for solutions

There’s an irony in this picture.  Gale, the man feeding the deer, owns this 300 acres I live on.  One of the reasons he originally bought it had to do with the passion for hunting he spent most of his life following, which, 40 years ago was a passion we shared and was one of the ties leading to our becoming friends.  Between us we’ve killed more large mammals than either of us can remember, though I don’t recall we ever hunted together.

Each of us following the routes our lives took us gradually and independently lost any interest in killing any more if it could be avoided.

Which is still a long way from sitting on a rock feeding tame deer every evening.  I’ve never arrived there.  I’d far prefer the deer staying out in the woods tending their own affairs and leaving me to tend mine, which they refuse to do.

Now, along comes the extended drought.  Today he’s feeding a herd of 30-40 starving deer up there, spending $100 + per month on corn, range cubes and hay.  If he tried to feed them enough to get them beyond near-starvation he’d bankrupt himself doing it.  He’s picking cactus tines out of the lips and noses of his tame deer because they’re so hungry they’re trying to eat prickly pear cactus.

I’ve got another 20-30 down here I’m not feeding intentionally.  ‘Mine’ are so desperate for food they constantly hang around waiting for me to feed the chickens, refuse to be run away further than I can throw a rock, and even come onto the porch for the cat food when any is left outdoors.

But watching a herd of deer starve to death, whether you’re feeding them and given them names, or are just some guy trying to mind his own affairs and have them forced on him as unwelcome guests, is a troubling position to be in.  A few days ago he and I were discussing it trying to come up with some means of providing them more to eat without him having to spend a lot more money doing it.

Eventually it came to me people in Kerrville are probably still mowing their lawns, bagging the grass clippings and putting them out on the curbs to be picked up by the city.  We talked about this a while and considered the fact the bags of grass ferment when sealed, creating a feed we’ve both been around called silage, which livestock love.

Next time either of us goes to town we’ll be looking at lawns to see if we’re right in believing they’re still watering grass and mowing it.  If they are, I’ll soon be putting up a post on Kerrville FreeCycle Yahoo Group asking if any of them would,

  1.  be willing to allow a trailer to be positioned on their lots where others could bring bagged grass clippings so we could haul them off weekly or a couple of times per month to feed the deer, and
  2. if such a lot and such a trailer were in place in Kerrville, would they be willing to carry their clippings there instead of just to the curb in front of their homes.

But this mightn’t work, and even if it works it’s only a partial solution to the problem.

I’m looking for ideas and information.  You others living in drought-stricken areas, do you have any idea what, if anything, locals with starving deer populations are doing to supplement their feeding?

Any ideas or experiences that might lead to even interim or partial solutions will be appreciated.

Thanks,  Old Jules

Money isn’t the solution to this problem, but the performance in Cabaret does seem apropos somehow:

Cabaret- Money

http://youtu.be/I8P80A8vy9I

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Posted in 2011, America, Country Life, Current Issues, Solitude, Texas, Wildlife

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Thumbing Rides on Throwaways

Posted on August 9, 2011 by | 12 comments


I’m a lucky man because I don’t have the money to go buy ready-rolls when it comes to getting done what needs doing. In this instance I needed a garden, but I didn’t want 86 deer, 23 wild hogs and a dozen chickens in there being Communists 24/7 messing up my diggings. But I also din’t want to have to be digging holes to support any fence I wanted to put the trouble into erecting. The layered limestone wasn’t in a mood to give up any ground in favor of having posts stuck in it.

This place has a lot of old pipe lying around wishing someone would find a use for it, so a few pieces of it became the mainstay for the structural side of the job. There were other things up behind the buildings around the owner’s workings pricking him in the conscience by not being used, as well.

A roll of 3-times used/3 times discarded chain link was also among them crying for a job after being out of work longer than a US factory worker after the guys the patriots love sent all their holdings off to be done in Mexico and China to manufacture and sell back to us.

The ‘frame’ includes two welded steel triangles used to support something long forgotten, a bit of galvanized discarded water pipe, and that’s about all besides one hell of a lot of tie-wire. Ah. There’s that gate frame gives it some support on this end. But it’s strong, self-supporting and didn’t need any violations of the sanctity of the limestone substrata to allow it to become respectable.


I lacked a couple of feet having enough chain link so I made up the difference with the refrigerator shelves wired together you see beside the gate.


The whole shebang is pulled inward against itself by wires stretched across crosswise, lengthwise and diagonally from the corners, but held back from collapsing inward by the horizontal pipes. Meanwhile the chain link keeps it from falling outward.

Meanwhile, I needed support for my tomato plants:



Two scrap illuminum storm doors and old goatwire served the need.

The only cost of this fence in dollars was a couple of rolls of tie wire.


One more bug scraped off the windshield of life.

White Trash Papa rides again.

HiiiiiOhhhhhhhh Silver! Awaaaaaay!

Old Jules

Marty Robbins – Little Green Valley

http://youtu.be/WT5qegD28Wo

12 Comments

Posted in 2011, Adventure, Country Life, Homesteading, Texas, Thrift Stores, White Trash Repairs

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