Category Archives: Texas

Brief Out-of-Sequence Flashes of Yesterday

Posted on September 20, 2012 by | 4 comments

Scene:  Highway 479 midway back from Kerrville.

Boom!  Riiiipppp-like drumbeat roar from somewhere in the back of the truck.  I pulls over first opportunity, no sign of anything wrong.  Squat down peek under boxing the compass.  Nuthun.

I re-mount, pull back onto the pavement, nothing seems wrong for a few miles, then the unmistakeable sound of a tire flopping.  Pull over again.  Yep, inside rear dually tire’s blown.  What the hell.

Tire’s destroyed, but it’s a blessing.  I’ll just have to sort out how sometime later.

Scene in town, me and a guy I stop in to see when I’m there and have time, sitting on the porch telling one another how glad we were for the rain. 

“By the way, I’ve decided to swap you that trailer if you still want it.  Let me know and I’ll take the stuff off it and we’re in business.”

“Yessir.  Thankeevurymuchsir.  I wants it.”

Behind the scenes – RV air conditioner listing San Antonio Craigslist potential potentate:  

“I won’t give you more than $150.”

I ponders.  Seems to me a new tire’s likely to cost $200. 

“I ain’t taking less than $200.

The RV Air Conditioner Universe takes a powder, hopefully considering.

Scene – Elsewhere, Out-of-Nowhere Political Remark:

“We’re in deep doodoo if this guy gets re-elected!”

“We’re in deep doodoo no matter who gets elected.”

“Yeah, but more so if this one does.”

“We’ve been in deep doodoo from the time we first started letting kings make the deep doodooism decisions.  If one man’s capable of getting us up to our necks in doodoo he’s going to do it.  Ain’t nobody to stop him, so he has a moral obligation to the doodoo delivery dingus. 

“Simple as that.  If you don’t like it, don’t elect anyone.”

Old Jules

4 Comments

Posted in 2012, Government, Human Behavior, Politics, Texas, Transportation, Trucks

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Rain, Feral Swine, Leaks and Yankee Soldiers

Posted on September 17, 2012 by | 6 comments

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

We were blessed with a few days of rain here, beginning with a frog strangler during the night.  Most of the cats and I were in the RV when the tree fell on the roof of the cabin, but it made enough noise to satisfy our needs to hear something.

I made a run for the cabin to see how bad things were, but it turned out nothing came through the roof this time.  Just a wake-up call, though.  Lots more dead trees around the cabin.

After the big rain came a day of light, intermittent rainfall which allowed me to chase down and caulk various roof leaks in the RV roof I’d noted and I plugged a good many of them.  Found a few more when the rain began again, but it’s coming along.

Second night after the rain the feral hogs came in, snorting and banging around between the RV and the cabin.  I just ignored them, let them do their own thing because I wasn’t needing any altercations with that sort of individuals. 

Meanwhile, the neighbor up the hill was able to burn a lot of the piles of cedar he’d been pushing up, clearing it.  Looked like a thousand campfires across there.  Beautiful sight in the dark.  Must have been the way it would have appeared for a Civil War army looking across the landscape at the enemy camps the night before a battle.

Next morning the cats and I had our muskets loaded, bayonets fixed crouched in our hidey holes, waiting for all those Yankee soldiers to swarm across the meadow, but I reckons we scared them off.

Old Jules

6 Comments

Posted in 2012, Adventure, America, Animals, Country Life, Human Behavior, Texas

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Me, Being a People Person, And All

Posted on September 9, 2012 by | 23 comments

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

A nice little norther blew in here the past couple of days, cooled things down something awful.  I slept in the RV, and by ones and twos the cats volunteered to join me inside for a bit of quality time, sleeping on my chest, purring and kneading claws pleasantly.  They tell me, with reservations, they think they’re going to be able to hunker down and live in there.

Came just in a nick of time, too, because what?  Three daybreaks ago?  I noticed something coming out of the now-open chicken house just after dawn.  Double-take revealed it to be a bobcat, small for a bobcat, but large enough to make a meal out of any of these wannabe toughies.  Last night the cats and I played fruit-basket-turn-over, two inside alternating with two nearby waiting their turn to come up next time I got up to pee.

Got my ‘Work for RVers and Campers Newsletter by email this morning:

Work for RVers and Campers: Employment, Volunteer Positions, Jobs, and Business

http://www.work-for-rvers-and-campers.com/.

Nowhere near as many listings in there for west Texas, New Mexico and Arizona as there were last issue, which had a couple I found exciting.  This issue only has a couple in Texas, neither far enough west to suit me, and one in Arizona up in the neighborhood of Sedona.  They want someone in an RV park up there to do various things in exchange for a place to park. 

But me going to Sedona would be carrying coals to Newcastle, I reckons.  Besides, they wanted applicants to send a photo of themselves, along with a resume.  With winter coming on I reckons I’d have to figure out which winter pic of me to send:

I’d naturally want to throw out the best possible impression of myself I could.

And  they want the resume to demonstrate how I’m a people person, which of course, I am.   Ain’t hardly any more people people out there than I am, taken from certain perspectives.  But I’m not sure how I’d go about conveying it to them.

Been a long time since I wrote a resume, though I used to count myself a fair hand at doing it.  If I was the one doing the hiring out there, I’d jump at me.

Old Jules

23 Comments

Posted in 2012, America, New Mexico, NM, Senior Citizens, Survival, Texas

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Wyffie Mysteries, Trailer Possibilities and Nomad Farmers

Posted on September 7, 2012 by | 18 comments

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

Some matters, I’m finding, my mind believes it’s better if I don’t know and refuses to assimilate and process.  I’ve been hearing for years about fast Internet and more recently how a person can just pull his car up in front of someplace in town, turn on the computer and have fast Internet.  I just took things to be that simple without going into it further.

But I’ve been doing a lot of reading the archives of the Cheaprliving Forum, http://www.cheaprvlivingforum.com/, asking a few questions, and discovering a lot without having to ask questions.

For instance, I’ve quickly ridded myself of the popup camper notion by asking one question about it, getting two helpful answers, realizing it was an abysmally lousy option.

I’ve got this laptop computer here and it’s got things on wires to plug into the USB port on the comp.   I’d assumed I could drive into town, plug one of these into the laptop and whatever it is takes a person online with wifie happens.  Now I’m finding these pre-date Wyfie and are for some other kind of fast Internet the world outgrew and left behind while I was sleeping under a tree. 

I’ve read on the forum what’s being said about their ways of connecting to wifi and the special antennae they use, all manner of doodads to amplify them.  And I don’t understand a word of it.  Don’t have a clue what it is I’m going to need to do to be able to get online.

One of the problems is that despite the CheapRLiving moniker, I gather most of these members are, either rich, or rich enough to be able to afford to go out and buy things they want.  So when they talk about solutions they’re actually talking about cavalierly forking out a $100 bill, or several of them, and calling it a solution.

Today I’m going to town for groceries and I’m going to try to find someone who’ll tell me in simple terms what I need to park my truck outside the library and go on line.  Then I’m going on Yahoo Fredericksburg Freecycle and Yahoo Kerrville Freecycle groups and find out if someone’s got one collecting dust in a closet they’d sooner hand off to someone who’d use it.

Then, if that doesn’t work, at least I’ll have a list of the things I need to get it done.  Probably find something on Ebay.

Not much interest coming on the Nomad Farmer thing.  Only two folks expressed a firm interest and one an interest for a couple of weeks.  But it’s early times yet.  Maybe late-winter or early spring some people will be wondering what to do with themselves next summer.

Or maybe I’ll just have to settle for heading for Santa Fe and take in an opera.

Old Jules

18 Comments

Posted in 2012, America, Communication, Country Life, Outdoors, Senior Citizens, Solitude, Texas

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Escape Route [or Rout] Projects and Such

Posted on September 4, 2012 by | 10 comments

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

I suppose any vehicle as old as this one and built as this one was built would inevitably require some fixup before becoming a cabin on wheels.  I mentioned in an earlier post about the springs sagging, and the springs have arrived, waiting for the new shocks to get here.

But I’m going to remove that AC unit up there to get rid of the weight, replace it with a roof vent, which is in transit.    That’s a lot of weight up there to be carrying around for something I’m unlikely to use much.  And there’s evidence the roof structure doesn’t need the challenge it provides.

I covered that crack in the front window with Gorilla tape for now, but ultimately I’m thinking I’ll cut a flat piece of panel to place behind it and fill in the bubble-void with insulation foam. 

Probably put a compartment in it for a GPS receiver with a better view of the sky than I’d get from the dashboard.

I’ll run Delorme Street Atlas on the laptop when I’m trying to navigate around towns, but I truly love Terrain Navigator where there’s enough variation in the terrain to justify using it.  I’m rigging a stand for the laptop to swivel from one of the passenger-side neck-support posts.

This thing just posted by itself.  I’m just going to finish it, editing in the rest, I reckons.

Anyway, once I get the AC off I’ll do a complete over on the roof with this stuff, and new caulking anywhere my imagination leads me.  The critical path on this part is that I can’t pull off the AC until the 14×14 roof vent arrives to replace it.

I’ve been feeling the walls and ceiling inside and out, drilling through and squirting in a lot of that Great Stuff foam where I find a void, of which there are a sufficient number to allow me a sense of accomplishment.

Then there’s the matter of the cats.  I’m making that overhead into a travel space for the cats to enjoy themselves in while we’re on the road.  A place where they can’t contrive to get underfoot, or jump out at a gas station to find a new life for themselves.

Once we’re parked somewhere it will go back to being a bed, whatever, but on the road it will be a cage.  They won’t like it, but they’ll like it better than all the alternatives they’d find in the alternative Universe they’d be choosing for themselves if they got loose.

And against the advice of people who know a lot more than I do about these matters, I’m going to find, or construct a small trailer to pull behind for large bags of cat food, tools, extra clothing, and probably some prospecting gear.

This thing’s for sale in San Antonio [Converse] on Craigslist for $100.  If I weren’t so far from SA I’d snap it up, gut it and convert it to a light haul trailer with a top to pull behind the Toyota.  Might be a ragged out popup is sitting behind someone’s house within a 40 mile radius they’d part with at a similarly righteous price.

But I’ve messed this post up enough for now.  Maybe I’ll go into this more later on a post I haven’t already posted.

Old Jules

10 Comments

Posted in 2012, Adventure, Animals, New Mexico, NM, Prospecting, Redneck Repairs, RedneckRepairs, Texas, Trucks

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Silky Rooster’s Been Raptured Out

Posted on August 31, 2012 by | 8 comments

I told you that silky rooster was intelligent, but I thought he’d outsmarted himself by getting loose and left behind here.  All those hens he came up with as a chick, the surviving rooster.  Kay’s hens and rooster.  All now joined with a free ranging flock somewhere else.

And he was sorely depressed being alone here.

But he must have known faith would see him through.  A lady down the road with 17 hens and no roosters emailed me after I listed him on Kerrville FreeCycle.  We arranged to meet yesterday at a pullover midway between her and me.

“What a beautiful rooster!”  He preened.

“What’s his name?”

“I’ve never given him a name.”  She scowled and stroked him.

“I always name my chickens.”  Attractive pucker.

To which Mr. NoName Silky replied, “I’ve been to the wild wood, mither.  Mak my bed soon.”

All’s well that ends well.

Old Jules

8 Comments

Posted in 2012, America, Animals, Chickens, Country Life, Free-ranging-chickens, Human Behavior, Outdoors, Texas

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Toyota leaf spring enigma

Posted on August 27, 2012 by | 9 comments

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

I spent an unanticipated lot of time yesterday learning about leaf springs on 1983 Toyota Motor Homes.  I knew I’d have to do something about those sagging springs and began the day knowing pretty much what it would be.  Namely buying some helper springs or spring supports from JC Whitney, installing them, then going on about my business.

Except JC Whitney doesn’t have them.

So I visited the Toyota RV Discussion group with the intention of finding out what others who don’t know as much as I do have handled these problems I’ve never handled.  Got a lot of knowledgeable, helpful suggestions gradually indicating the problem isn’t so inexpensively solved, the solution so patently obvious as I’d originally believed.

But before any solution a person’s got to know what’s under there now.  Airbag spring supports?  Retrofitted helper springs?

None of the above, turns out.

But new springs, helper springs, or airbags are clearly the way to resolve the issue.  On the forum there’s disagreement as to which.  As time allows, today I’ll spend more time at non-JC Whitney sources for the options, learn as much as I can with a head full of already knowing so much at dawn yesterday I thought it unlikely I’d be learning much else between now and dying.

But sometime soon I’m going to have to lift that house up and get under there with a tape measure and find out how long, how thick, how something else I can’t recall at the moment, those springs are.  Then spend some time on long distance phone calls with [probably] people in China or India who answer technical questions for suppliers in the US.

Meanwhile, it’s quiet outside these batwing doors.  Too quiet.

Poor old silky rooster outsmarted himself yesterday, missed an adventure a lot of chickens would pay the poultry equivalent of good money to experience.

Old Jules

9 Comments

Posted in 2012, Adventure, Country Life, Education, Senior Citizens, Texas, Transportation, Trucks

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The TimeWarpVille Enigma

Posted on August 23, 2012 by | 8 comments

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

1919 American Legion Post – Now Kimble County Historical Society Museum

I’ve poked a little fun at Junction, Texas.  Partly because they were there, I was there, and it’s an easy target, standing still gazing into the headlights.  But the stark reality is the people of Junction aren’t significantly different from you, me, and all the people living around us.  They’re trying to scratch out a living in a country that’s caving in around them, trying to hang on to what hasn’t caved in yet.

Trying to find something that works by throwing grappling hooks into things that worked in the past.  And when they see it’s not working, blaming the failures on people who are trying to reconstruct different things from somewhere else in the past.

That $3.50 per gallon gasoline sign is a disaster in rural Texas where the nearest somewhat large town’s a $20-$30 round trip.  Same as everywhere else in the western US.  It means the price of having groceries delivered to stores in town will skyrocket over time, and driving to the larger stores in larger towns will skyrocket alongside what’s happening locally.

Aside from some agriculture, nobody in Junction, Texas, is manufacturing anything anyone wants to buy locally, anyone would want to buy elsewhere in the US, or overseas.  Same as where you are, only in Junction it’s more obvious. 

But their toasters, microwave ovens, automobile parts, refrigerators and computers are manufactured in Asia, same as yours.  There’s nobody in town can repair most of them when they fail without obtaining parts manufactured in Asia.

So they fantasize about seceding.  Pretending they could go back to the independence of the past.  Pretending that would bring back ways to make an honest living.  Celebrating their tough, Comanche fighting, Confederate ancestors, pretending they have something in common with them.

While on the other hand, they try to imagine they have something in common with people a decade ago who died when an airplane crashed into a building a quarter-mile high.  Grasping for some abstraction of solidarity with the people there, some anchor that pretending they remember those people might provide to help them deal with a world collapsing around them.

In a real sense, they do have something in common with those 9/11 dead, beyond them all being human beings.  The people who jumped out of those towers weren’t manufacturing anything anyone would want, either.  If they were living today they’d be paying big bucks for gasoline, groceries, toasters, manufactured somewhere else, too.

But there’s nothing else meaningful those unfortunate people in New York could have to say to people in Junction, Texas.  If asked, I suppose they might suggest, “Build higher buildings.”

The road from Main Street to the graveyard is easier to follow in Junction, but nothing else is less complicated than anywhere else.

Old Jules

8 Comments

Posted in 2012, America, Current Issues, Government, History, Politics, Texas

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The TimeWarpVille Saga – Other Local Attractions – Food – Corn – Rain and Wireless Phoneless

Posted on August 22, 2012 by | 2 comments

As good as Barbeque’s likely to get

The locals I talked to all seemed to agree Lum’s is either the best barbeque in town, or tasty enough to balance the high cost of Cooper’s, down the road.  I’ve eaten there three times now, found them to be clean, friendly, and surrounded by an ambiance unusual enough to be almost distracting.  Good food, Lum’s. 

As I finished my meal an older guy with a cane walked past my table.  He sported a hip-holster with a Glock, ready for action.  If I’d finished earlier, and if I’d arrived in town heeled, I’d have waited for him outside and shouted, “Fill your hand you SOB!”

Then he could have shot me down, gazed sadly at my bullet-riddled corpse and muttered, “Just another young tough trying to build a reputation.”

It would have provided a great denouement.

This could be a lot more important than you imagine

There’s corn here to be had.

A worthy cause that gives no offense except to those [such as myself] who don’t even like to be told what kind of day to have.

Too small for Clark Kent

A futuristic wireless, cordless, phoneless booth.

We middle-of-the-roaders try to be there for one another

And a bull trotting along the centerline blocking the highway for a mile or more.  I took him to be another, spiritual kinfolk to myself, called to serve on the Big Jury, and headed home unrequited.

Old Jules

2 Comments

Posted in 2012, Adventure, Communication, Country Life, Texas

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The TimeWarpVille Saga – Junction, Texas Cemetery

Posted on August 22, 2012 by | 6 comments

A robe that’s so wooly it scratches

Hi readers.  I don’t recall when I first discovered the joys of hanging out in cemeteries.  I don’t remember ever not doing it.  Somewhere back there I discovered that old cemeteries, tombstones and the ways individuals choose to remember their dead tells a lot about the communities, the local histories and priorities.

Vandalism’s a problem in a lot of the older graveyards, has been for a considerable while.   But up-keep of some of the older graves where the families have died or moved away also reveals itself.

A visitor’s left to mull over how those folks standing beside the hull of someone they cared for enough to construct this managed to forget so completely.  A few generations, a few wars, depressions, and something went away.  Every cemetery in the US, probably in the world, has a lot of graves of 1918 flu victims.  Frequently they’re all grouped together, but this one’s not arranged in that way.

The Junction cemetary has 50-100 graves of Confederate Civil War veterans, mostly marked by government-provided stones, each with a Confederate Battle Flag, Confederate flag, or Texas Confederate flag.

A dozen-or-so Texas Rangers are also buried here.  Most were also Confederate veterans.

I’m wondering whether this one mightn’t have been a relative of Sherrod Hunter, commander of the troops that occupied Tucson.  The world was a smaller place back then.

Not necessarily in that order

Sometimes the survivors had the stones marked with the life experiences of the dead they considered most important, sometimes the nicest things they could think of so say about them. 

Sometimes just the way the dead wished to be remembered.

But Junction people have another, more visible way of remembering their dead.  This one’s nearer the center of town.  Almost certainly a lot of those antlers were contributed by people now residing in the cemetery.  Thrilling moments of their lives, or mundane moments in hard times, bringing home meat for the table.

Old Jules

6 Comments

Posted in 2012, Adventure, History, Texas

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