Category Archives: Texas

Opposing Thumbs, Tools and the 21st Century

Posted on July 8, 2012 by | 8 comments

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

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

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

Enter:  The Tree Terminator.

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

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

Old Jules

8 Comments

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

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Letting a Camel Get a Nose Under the Tent

Posted on July 7, 2012 by | 9 comments

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

Most of you who read here frequently know I’m a man who prefers insanity and what a lot of you might consider hardship to compromise of a lot of things you’d assign no value to.  The world I live in is a place with a rigid value structure teetering on the edge of an abyss I do my best to keep it from falling into.

Yesterday I was tending my own affairs when the newish neighbor up the hill drove down and offered me a Shiner Boch beer.  Which I considered a tasty gesture.  I bought a case of beer sometime last summer and was down to almost my last one in the fridge.  That Shiner pulled me a beer into the future.

A while back I’d offered, neighborly, if the neighbor ever needed anyone to lift the other end of something I’d be pleased to lift it.  I don’t mind being a help when someone needs something I can do.  Glad to do it, in fact.

So, as I sat there sipping that Shiner Boch he explained to me he’d fired a likely young man he had up there working for him.  Said he’d like me to come work up there helping him a while.  Offered me an hourly wage to do it.

Given my financial situation I was sorely tempted and tentatively accepted, fully aware of the dangers inherent in changing the nature of my relationship with a neighbor from helpful, casual acquaintance to one of employer/bought-and-paid-for-employee.  And asking myself how the hell I could charge a wage to do something I’d have done anyway for nothing if he’d asked.

You’ll probably consider it foolish, maybe melodramatic when I tell you the entire damned issue kept me awake a lot longer last night than it had any business doing.

The man has a lot of machinery up there, all of it different by one nuance or another, from anything I’ve operated before.  Never operated a track machine, which I’d like to learn to do.  Never operated any machine that wasn’t gasoline fueled.  So if I have an opportunity to learn I’d consider the learning a potential value to me sometime.

And the guy has a lot of experience as a mechanic, believes he might be able to get that old Ford F350 Gale gave me that’s still sitting up there quietly waiting, running.  [ Got me a new truck!, The New Truck Resurrection,  Another Bug on the Windshield of Life – The Tow Bar, Running the Obstacle Course – the F 350, Learning How to Not Be So Stupid].

If he managed doing it, there’d be a lot more value for me than any damned wage he’d be likely to pay.  If he tried, but didn’t succeed, no big deal.

It’s not a quid pro quo that way.  Just two folks, each one needing a helping hand, extending one each to the other.

No camels putting their noses under the tent.  Nobody bought and paid for.

As a person who’s seen and experienced the entire range of potentials for neighbors wanting to shoot or beat the bejesus out of one another, this seems to me a decent way of disarming it all.  If a person’s driving off a few miles to work for someone and everything begins as a clear exchange of dollar value for labor it’s safe.  Someone decides to lean harder than someone else is willing to be leaned on, they easily go their separate ways.  No harm done.

But two people essentially handcuffed to one another by proximity don’t need to be throwing that sort of temptations out to human frailties.

So, here in a little while I’m going to wander up there and see what he wants me to do in exchange for fixing that damned old Communist F350.

Old Jules

9 Comments

Posted in 2012, America, Solitude, Survival, Texas, Trucks

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

Running Around Bare-Assed Naked – Visitors, Telescopes and Determination

Posted on June 30, 2012 by | 8 comments

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

Yesterday afternoon I was sitting outdoors reading Mitcheners, The Bridges at Toko-Ri [a truly bizarre piece of twisted logic intended to explain why the US was fighting a war in Korea nobody understood] wearing nothing but a pair of shoes.  Nobody much comes here, but I heard a vehicle on the hill, glanced up and saw a truck making its way down.  Ran indoors and slipped on a pair of trousers, still zipping up and pulling my galluses over my shoulders when the newish neighbor pulled up in front of the cabin.

Which has happened occasionally since he moved up there.  Something just to get used to, me being a guy who ain’t interested in what neighbors think of me if they have to use binoculars or come unexpected to get around to thinking it.

We talked a while, had a pleasant visit, and he left without commenting on the fact he’d probably gotten a forbidden view of my almost 70 year old traffic stopping bod.

But this morning when I logged on and glanced through the daily digests of Yahoo Group posts I came across this posted yesterday on the “Not Your Usual Goat” list:

Re: OT: Zillow
 
Fri Jun 29, 2012 9:33 am (PDT) . Posted by: “Cheridehart” thumber_smiget
I am to open to even consider going out nude more or less even in my nighty
. We are to open for that . Even with the neighbors on the next 20 acre lot
We are in farm land area my place was a wheat field at one time what trees
I have around the house I planted . I was adjusting the telescope one day for the hubby for sky watching and
focused in on a house going up on the hill side say about 25 miles away . I
did not think anything of it it was being built did not know someone was
staying there had not seen any one . Had hubby check it out if I had it set
for him okay it was a little blurred for me he wears glasses . Well when he
looked the guy was taking a shower in the garage part of the place right
where I had it pointing Hubby ask me if I was spying on the neighbors and
how many times have I watched him shower . I told him for now on he can
adjust it for him self from now on I am sticking to my own scope which is
pointed a Venus at the moment be going back to the moon soon . We have very
few out side lights so makes for a very good night sky watching around here
Can not believe how may satellites are up their blinking there way across
the skies. The last three good sky events we have had we where so clouded
could not see anything. Cheri
Led me to consider the big house someone built on the ridge about 10 miles away from here, which I watched them build through a telescope.  As it happens, I shower outdoors every day pouring gallon orange juice jugs of water warmed by sunlight over my head.  Direct line of sight from the big house on the ridge.
 
Got me wondering whether Cheri might be up there looking at my private stuff through a spyglass pretending I’m Venus.
 
Which I ain’t.
 
Maybe I need to start keeping one hand over my crotch.
 
Old Jules
 
Afterthought:  About The Bridges at Toko-Ri
Paraphrased
 
Navy Task Force Admiral character:  “No, this war isn’t necessary.  We could let them have it [read, let the North Koreans have Korea].  But what would we give them next?  Japan?  Hawaii?  California?  Besides, it’s honorable.”
 
Soon-to-be-dead fighter pilot:  “I’ve got to do this because the bastards shot down a guy I admired while he was directing fire on their advancing troops.  I can’t let my buddies down.  Wouldn’t be honorable.”
 
Soon-to-be-dead helicopter rescue pilot:  “I do it because I hate communists.  I’m a gutsy guy.  Not some coward.”
 
Weepy wifee of soon to be dead fighter pilot:  “I was against the war, didn’t want my hubby killed.  But I changed my mind after the Admiral explained why it’s necessary.  Now I’m okay with it, though I still whine and weep.  Now I whine and weep in a noble, more courageous way.”
 
 
 
 
 

8 Comments

Posted in 2012, America, Astronomy, Homesteading, Human Behavior, Nature, Outdoors, Senior Citizens, Solitude, Surveillance, Texas

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Mandatory Liability Insurance and the School Bus

Posted on June 28, 2012 by | 4 comments

Neglected to mention, for anyone interested, I talked to the insurance folk about mandatory liability insurance should the bus jump into my life.  Turns out every one of those seats is a potential injured passenger with an axe to grind.  Insuring it with the seats intact is out of the question.

But my insurance carrier doesn’t insure school busses converted to RVs, or whatever rhymes with an RV this would become if I do what I’d planned doing with it.  The lady would have to search out a special insurance company to provide coverage, and while it would be cheaper than a bus, cheap is relative.

Her wild guess without having chased it down is that a year of insurance on it will be in a range I’d consider outside mine.

If the guy who has it drifts down into something I’d be willing and able to meet, getting tags on it will be costly, insurance probably worse, rendering it a yoke around my neck I couldn’t reasonably expect to carry.

I asked the I Ching what it thought about the matter and the hexagram it gave was ‘Dangerous Depths’, with changing lines advising caution.

Which, of course, I am.  Cautious, I mean.  Dangerous depths don’t bother me but I like to keep my altitude below me, as opposed to above me.

Everything else being equal.

Old Jules

4 Comments

Posted in 2012, Senior Citizens, Solitude, Survival, Texas, Transportation, Trucks

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Suppression of Public Discussion of How Damned Hot It Is

Posted on June 28, 2012 by | 12 comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Old Jules

12 Comments

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

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Unplanned Protrusions

Posted on June 23, 2012 by | 15 comments

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

A person with his ear to the ground listening for possibilities and interference from the Coincidence Coordinators can find himself in unexpected places, which I did.  Yesterday.

Had to go into town for groceries and animal necessities, but I’d been watching that bus for about six weeks.  Thought it might be time to begin feeling around in the head of the man who owns it. 

We were sitting in the car lot office circling the issue, nobody putting a toe in the water when a Lincoln pulled up in front and a guy got out, shouting, “I put serious stuff up my nose!”  He was shouting it non-verbally, but body language communicates sufficiently sometimes.

He jitterbugged into the office – it was clear he and the owner knew one another – and pointed across the lot to an older model American somewhat small car. 

Tweaker talking a mile a minute:  I’ve got checks out I need to beat to the bank with cash.  Would you buy that car from me for $1400 cash right now?

Owner:  No.

Tweaker:  $1300?

Owner:  No.

This progress worked its way down $100 at a time to $400, the owner nodding negative.  The tweaker paused.  “No?”

Owner:  NO.  I’ve got a cash flow problem here.  When I sold you that car I’d taken it on a trade in.

Tweaker turns to me:  Would you buy it?:

Me:  No.  That ain’t my kind of car.

Tweaker:  Huh.  I guess I’d better try to sell it to someone else then.  I’ll get my stuff out of it.

Tweaker goes out to the Chevi, takes a lot of stuff out of the back seat and carries it over to the Lincoln.  Meanwhile, I’m thinking.

Me to owner:  Would it be any problem for you if I bought that car from him?

Owner:  He bought it from me.  I don’t have anything to do with it now.

So, I got to the car about the same time as the tweaker returned to it, asked him about it.  Keep in mind, he’d talked to me in the office a few minutes earlier, asked if I’d buy it for $400.

Tweaker:  Would you buy it for $1400.

Me, scowling:  No

Tweaker:  $1300?

Me:  No.  Do you remember me?  I was in there with you and him a few minutes ago.

Tweaker:  Sure.  Would you give me $1200?

Me:  No.

We worked our way back down, me assuring him I honestly wasn’t certain I was interested at any price.  So we went over it, looking at everything, listening to the engine, driving it around the parking lot.

Tweaker:  Are you going to buy it?

Me:  You only got down to $600.  We aren’t down to talking about it yet.

Tweaker:  But you haven’t made any offer.

Me:  I’ll give you $400 lock stock and barrel.  No sales tax, no nothing else.

Tweaker:  That’s just the amount I was hoping for.

Turned out the papers from him buying it hadn’t come back from DVM yet, so I sent him off to get whatever was needed to sign it over to me and he left, saying he’d be back there at 2:00 pm.  I went off to a couple of thrift shops and returned at 2:00.  He was nowhere to be seen, so I hung around chewing the fat with the car lot owner until he arrived back and we did the motions of transferring things him jittering and jotting, talking incoherently.  We had a blank form and he signed it, wrote out a bill of sale on a piece of notebook paper.  Barely readable.

The story should have ended there, me coming back here to get Gale to haul me to town to pick it up.  But the tweaker had a lot of dances and fast peter-piper-picked-a-pail-of-pickle-peppers left in him he needed to get out.  Asked me if he should give me $100 back on the car.  No idea why.

Me:  No.  We’re okay. 

Eventually I nudged him friendly out to the Lincoln so he could go take care of the bank.  Went back inside the office shaking my head, made arrangements to leave it in the lot a few hours, or until this morning so’s I could come pick it up.  We all shook our heads at one another, shrugged, shook our heads some more and I was on the road home.

Gale was ecstatic, knowing he won’t be loaning me Little Red anymore for my necessaries.

Me, I’m just tickled the Coincidence Coordinators are so much smarter than me.  When the time comes I’ve figured out I don’t need it I’m comfortable I won’t lose money on it, provided it still runs.  But even as junk I won’t lose much if it comes to that.

Old Jules

15 Comments

Posted in 2012, Texas, Transportation

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Giving God More Marching Orders

Posted on June 15, 2012 by | 8 comments

It was flags and God Bless America signs I noticed mostly in Kerrville last trip in.  Had me wondering whether something was going on I’d missed. 

Here’s a country where they’re still planting grass in the suburban yards so they can mow it at $3.50+ per gallon for the mowers, giant television sets, shiny new doolies, SUVs, RVs and golf courses demanding more blessings because the ones already provided don’t fill the cup.

But maybe I’m reading it wrong.  Maybe God Bless America’s a parenthetical statement:

(Help me God, because the onliest people I’ve got to choose from are all going to provide me with more undeclared wars, ship more jobs overseas, bail out more banks, automobile companies, allow my savings to be ravaged, and treat my Social Security as though it were welfare beggings.)

I dunno.  Seems to me this nation’s enjoyed considerable blessings for the duration of the lives of everyone living in it.  Even those living on the streets, on the Reservations, just about everywhere, compared to a great majority of the less-deserving who didn’t manage to get born here.

If there’s a diety out there looking for advice maybe a “Thankee!” would get a better hearing than, “Gimme more!”

Maybe it’s time to belly up to the bar and recognize that life’s a tough place to live and sometimes people have to live it without giant television sets and new SUVs.  Judging by the people the US public have selected to look out for their interests it would take a diety a lot more forgiving than the one a majority of believers believe in to heap more blessings on those demanding them.

Thowing good money after bad isn’t one of the traits attributed to the usual diety.

Old Jules

8 Comments

Posted in 2012, America, Communication, Government, Human Behavior, Politics, Senior Citizens, Social Security, Texas

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Divine Intervention – A Blossom Fell

Posted on June 15, 2012 by | 12 comments

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

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

KERWHUMP!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Back to square one, thinks I.

Old Jules

12 Comments

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

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Old Sol: “John B Stetson’s Gone Solar”

Posted on June 10, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Me:  This overcast is protecting you this morning.  I can’t tell what you’re doing up there.  You doing your stretches, getting a move on?

Old Sol:  I tell you, I welcome those mornings when I’m blessed with a little something between me and you guys.  There’s a guy named John B. Stetson been prying, taking pictures, nosing into my affairs something awful.

Me:  Yeah, I saw something about him:

http://spaceweather.com/

“In Falmouth, Maine, amateur astronomer John Stetson photographed the ongoing activity around sunspot AR1499.  “These solar active regions are producing M-class and C-class flares that are easy to see through my H-alpha telescope,” says Stetson.

“NOAA forecasters estimate a 25% chance of more M-class flare today, although this is probably an underestimate considering the rapid pace of development of magnetic fields near AR1499. Stay tuned.”

Old John Stetson’s probably just trying to drum up hat bidness.  Nothing directed at you, personally.  I can’t think what my nose would look like if it weren’t for John Stetson and his hats.  That horizon’s forming itself up fairly well.  I assume you’re ready to get some work done?

Old Sol:  Could you cut me some slack here?  Of course I am.  When haven’t I?  But I’ll tell you for a fact I’m getting sick of all this sophisticated surveillance equipment you’re getting down there.  It ain’t all just to sell hats, either.  Reporters forever poking around, digging up secrets.  But at least I got that chicken around behind me now.

Me:  Yeah, I’m relieved about that, too.  So are the chickens.  They saw it as a sign, began to get all worked up about it.  Nobody around here besides me has any fondness for Buff Crested Polish roosters.

Old Sol:  You guys are a caution.  Anyway, yeah, I’m right up here where I’m supposed to be.  Go do something else.

Old Jules

Leave a comment

Posted in 2012, America, Astronomy, Science, Solitude, Surveillance, Texas

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

Clean Underwear and Couscous – One Dose Addictions

Posted on June 5, 2012 by | 4 comments

Clean Underwear and Hard Times

Hi readers.  Thanks for the visit.

It’s been almost a year since that old Kenmore dropped into my life. 

I hate to think I’m becoming addicted to modern conveniences, but here’s my back yard today.  It’s been and is still a blessing I have to stop and take a deep breath when allow myself to appreciate it fully, the gestalt, I mean.

I never found a wringer, so there are tricks to it I’ve gradually learned, and will gladly unlearn sometime if I ever locate a wringer at the right price.

In some ways that qualifies as a blessing associated with the whole hauling-water experience.  A person finds himself experimenting with all manner approaches to personal cleanliness honing down the amount of water required.  For instance, it’s actually about 1/3 gallon less water than the pump-up insecticide sprayer to shower using one-gallon orange juice jugs left out in the sun.  Just pouring enough to wet down, scrub down, and rinse.

I’d actually be about a gallon cheaper if I cut my hair, which I’ve considered because the water required to rinse shampoo out afterward.  But my hair hasn’t been cut since Y2K and I hate to bust into a winning streak taking chances of that sort.

But I wanted to tell you about couscous.  I’d never heard of the stuff, but at the HEB store they offered a package coupon deal including it.  Bought a bag of farm raised fish filets imported Vietnam, got all manner of other things free.

Got out my magnifying glass to make sure it didn’t have MSG in it, then eventually made myself fix it.  Herbal chicken couscous.  Doctored it up with ginger and curry, chopped some onion into it, added chopped jalapeno.

Sheeeeeeeze that stuff’s good.

Instant addiction.  Next time I’m in town I’m going to see what it costs.  If it’s reasonable I think I might find myself chowing down on couscous a couple of times a week.

Old dog, new tricks, instant addiction.

So it goes.

Old Jules

4 Comments

Posted in 2012, Country Life, Homesteading, Human Behavior, Senior Citizens, Solitude, Survival, Texas, Thrift Stores

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,