Tag Archives: country life

The Illusion of Urgency

Posted on July 25, 2012 by | 16 comments

Lying in bed last night distracted from sleep by gallons of sweat pouring off my body I found myself wondering just why the hell the Coincidence Coordinators seem to be throwing so many obstacles in front of me and the cats getting the hell out of here, one way or another.  It just oughtn’t be this difficult if I’m not chasing a wrong path, or am avoiding one I ought to be chasing.

I take this stuff seriously [and honestly don’t give a damn whether anyone else believes it’s insane for me to do so].  Seems clear to me in moments of insight the function the cats serve in my life is that of an anchor.  The weight of my contracts with them keep me from taking the easy way out and living in a tent, a cave, somewhere I’d rather be.  Somewhere the humidity’s not so high and the heat’s more bearable.

On the other hand, I’m not certain I’d find life worth living at all without these damned cats.  That’s another feature of my life a lot of people might find insane, and another feature of it I don’t need to explain, even to myself.  It’s good enough just riding the satisfaction I get sharing my life with them without demanding sanity out of it.

I think I’d do just fine without them if they exited my life without my having violated my contracts with them.  But violating the contracts as a means to drive my life somewhere I’d rather be would cut just about everything I value in myself off at the knees.

Of course, there’s this damned project over there dancing around in the wings waving its arms around demanding a particular uncertainty principle be dismantled, provided the Coincidence Coordinators continue providing the means to pursue it.  Which, thus far, they’ve continued to do.

So where’s the urgency in it all, thinks I?  Where’s the source of the fire I’m building under myself to provide a driving ‘need’ to be in a tent or under a bridge?

Physical discomfort, thinks I, must be a big piece of it.  Cripes, I think of myself as immune to allowing that to influence my life, but there it is. 

And of course, I allowed a number of expectations to creep into my mind, demands on a future I’ve no reason at all to believe will come to pass.  Things involving smelling pinon burning beside a stream, looking at rocks through a magnifier.

Enough of all that was still lingering in my mind this morning to get me asking the I Ching about it.  He ain’t always all that helpful, but “any port in a storm,” eh?

Consultation on Wednesday, July 25, 2012 at 8:04 AM.

Present: Hexagram 61 Centering in Truth

Question:  What about just blowing it off and going to live in a cave or under a bridge somewhere?

Truth involves establishing an aware relationship between your inner core and the circumstances in your life.  Centering in truth involves the ability to perceive a fundamental wisdom, reflected within yourself – and also in others.

Truth is transformed into power when you disperse all prejudice and make yourself receptive to the world as it really is.  This power can be a remarkable force indeed – yet is rarer than generally imagined.  It can be maintained only by cultivating a genuine openness to things as they are – a willingness to see, rather than merely look.

Whenever your inner life is clouded, your influence in the world is under a shadow.  If you are fearful, you will be attacked; if you cloak genuine mysteries in dogma, opportunities for new insight will be lost.  If you vacillate in upholding your principles, you will be tested.  Yet, when you are firm and strong, the power of truth can break through even the most stubborn minds.

In any debate, the power to perceive the truth in the other side’s argument is essential to achieving success.  It is possible to influence even the most difficult people, or improve the most difficult circumstance, through the power of universal truth – for truth is something to which all things naturally respond.  Get in touch with that part of yourself that is aware of this universal force of truth.  Cultivate this inner resource, and you will become adept at using it to bind others to a common purpose.

The condition of things in the present is fairly stable. There are no specific changes indicated right now.

———————-

Guess I’d better dig out John Richard Lynn and read the judgements on Hexagram 61.  Otherwise I might get thinking it matters whether I’m crazy.

Old Jules

16 Comments

Posted in 2012, Adventure, Animals, Country Life, Free, Human Behavior, New Mexico, NM, Outdoors, Survival, Texas

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Whirlwinds

Posted on July 15, 2012 by | 15 comments

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.  Someone sent me the pic above and I figured I might as well share it with you.  My guess is that it’s some artists depiction of how Paul Simon, Leonard Cohen, Keith and Chuck will look if they don’t OD or die in plane crash before they get old.

Inadvertently found myself on a Yahoo News page when I was trying to check my email this morning.  At a glance it appears different things are happening all over the place. 

  • 17 people died of something or other in China, which was a shocker.
  • Wossname’s wife, or maybe ex-wife, is explaining to Egyptians what they ought to do about something, which they doubtless find fascinating and helpful.  She’s still one hell of an unpleasant looking lady.  Glad I was never married to her.  I’ll add that to my gratitude affirmations today.
  • Various countries are waving guns around at one another out in the South China Sea, which came as a surprise.  Article said they all want the same piece of geography and are working up to shooting at one another about it.
  • Shocked to see some people killed some other people in Mexico, must have been around the time some other people were killing some others in Syria.  Maybe some other places too, but you get the idea.
  • Some guy’s divorcing his wife after five years, which is cause for concern to someone, doubtless.
  • Exciting news in politics:  Various politicos don’t like other politicos and are probably telling the truth about them, while most likely lying about their ownselves.

A nice young man named Tom Timbo
Admired one king for his bimbo,
Next one for his wardom
Next one for boredom
But got all his ideas from Rush Limbo.

On the other hand, the sky was a looker this morning at daybreak.  Jupiter, Venus and the moon put on a nice show.

Old Jules

 

 

 

 

15 Comments

Posted in 2012, America, Human Behavior, Politics, Solitude

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Striped Pangasius, Calcium Pills, and Taurine

Posted on July 14, 2012 by | 9 comments

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

Just playing catchup here.  Posting a few items I’ve intended to mention for a while, but kept forgetting.

First, a while back I mentioned a kind of farm-fed Vietnamese frozen fish filets I got on one of those drama sales at HEB.  Told you it was great fish, cheap, none of that on-the-brink fishy taste a person is liable to get buying fish.

Bought several packages since and what I said remains true.  Striped Pangasius.

Secondly, if you’re troubled with awakening nights because of hand-grenades going off in your joints you might give this a try.  I usually have to be troubled with it a dozen or so times before I remember to do it, but it might be months before it starts again.  Usually when this Texas humidity goes ballistic.

I discovered sometime a long while back that when I eventually remember to do it, two grams of calcium pills per day for a week or two will cause it to stop.  Mightn’t work for you, but it does for me.  I just wish I could remember it sooner when the joints catch fire nights.

Thirdly, that taurine I told you about a while back I was taking to try to get off blood pressure medications didn’t succeed getting free of it.  But the stuff’s so good in other ways I’m going to keep taking it when I can afford it.

Not much else going on here besides the sky full of humidity and hazy sunlight.  I’m wondering whether there’s enough hot weather left to take the sheep shears to the long haired cats again.  Wondering whether they’ll have time to grow a good coat back before the weather cools enough to make them wish they’d kept the fur.

Old Jules

9 Comments

Posted in 2012, America, Animals, Outdoors, Senior Citizens

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Trot-lining for Skunks

Posted on July 12, 2012 by | 4 comments

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.  I appreciate you.

We’ve been blessed with some moisture the past couple of days and the ground’s soft enough I might be obliged to cancel my trip to Kerrville for groceries and cat food.  Not at all sure that car will make it up the hill until things dry enough to give the tires some purchase.

When I went out to turn the chickens loose this morning I found I’d offended a skunk who’d been trying to take advantage of things by digging under the wall of the chicken-house several places.  Because it happens occasionally, and a skunk, or coon will kill every chicken it can corner, I’d laid out chains along the bottoms of the walls with treble-hooks attached.  Evidently this was a new skunk, or [if an old one] it had forgotten the last time it tried this.

Underneath that wall is limestone, most places, but there are a few places were a determined predator could get underneath if it got past the treble-hooks.  This one didn’t.  Left a tuft of hair, a bit of paw-hide and a stink enough to have the chickens overly anxious to get the hell out of Dodge in a hurry. 

Maybe some things are worse than having your life saved.

Incidently, all that erosion control stuff I was doing for a while’s performing a lot better than I expected.  Lots of that cedar’s now buried in silt.  This place must have been losing tons of soil every time it rained for longer than anyone alive has any business remembering.

Damned cattle were eating their seed corn without a thought.  Same as the rest of us.

Old Jules

4 Comments

Posted in 2012, Animals, Country Life, Free-ranging-chickens, Solitude, Transportation

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Stumbling Through the Communication Abyss

Posted on July 11, 2012 by | 7 comments

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by.

Neighbor:  “Did you hear what the Governor of Texas did about Obamacare?

Me:  “I don’t know who’s Governor of Texas.  Don’t care what he did about anything.   Don’t know nothing about Obama, Obamacare, nothing.” 

Neighbor:  “Well you’d better find out!”

Me:  “I don’t go to doctors.  Haven’t been to one in 20, 25 years.  If I can get out of here before the election I might be able to go through the next presidential term without knowing who’s president.”

Neighbor shakes head frowning, shrugs.  The Universe pauses in anticipation of the next topic of conversation.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2012, America, Communication, Country Life, Current Issues, Government, Politics, Senior Citizens, Texas

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Certainties, Self-Examination and BS

Posted on July 10, 2012 by | 11 comments

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

If I hadn’t carefully avoided ever typing the words, “I’m dismantling Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle here,”  I’d find it easier to understand how a casual acquaintance could call this blog BS.  Anyone who’s certain Heisenberg’s correct usually has a conviction at a religious-level and genuflects muttering Hail Marys and Amens to the concept enough times per day to keep it fresh.  If I’d ever come right out and flatly stated it’s a fig-newton of the imagination I’d expect to be damned from hell to breakfast.

But I haven’t.

So I’m forced to conclude there must be something else I’ve posted here during the past year that a person considering himself prudent, reasonable, intelligent, could disagree with.  If I had time I’d scroll back over the entries and try to figure out what it could be.  Seems to me everything I’ve ever posted here is so patently obvious as to be absolutely outside the scope of rational argument.

For instance, I’ve frequently implied, but probably never come out and actually said I consider cops to be lowlife scum no better than the people they’re sworn to chase and catch.  Motivated by greed, lust for power, and cowardly, weak-kneed, vacuous need to find something inside themselves to rhyme with an ambiguous concept of self-worth.  Admittedly, it’s probably an over-generalization.  No doubt there are exceptions. 

Exceptions that prove the rule.

Same with politicians, rabid rabbit-frightened patriots, flag wavers, lawyers, CEOs of multi-national corporations, Texans, people with “WHOOPTEEDOO!  I’M A VETERAN” bumper stickers and mostly the rest of us.  Whomever we might be.

What’s not to like, what’s to disagree with in any of that?

But, of course, I’m a man with a weakness for brutal, honest self-examination, so I’m going to have to think more on all this.  Possibly scan over some past posts in an effort to find some slip I’ve made in my posts someone might be able to construe as BS.

Old Jules

11 Comments

Posted in 2012, America, Astronomy, Communication, Current Issues, Human Behavior, Police, Politics, Relationships, Science, Senior Citizens

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Talking Our Way Into Oblivion – Hydrogen and Hot Air

Posted on July 9, 2012 by | 1 comment

I posted this back in December, 2011, which seems a lot longer ago today than it did then.  But lately I’ve been running the subjects of hydrogen generators around in my mind, nosing around through the search engines about it.  Which led me to remember old Bryce and wonder what ever became of him.

I asked Rich whether he’d ever heard from him and he was happy to report he hasn’t.

Probably it’s fortuitous.  I think if Rich had known how to get in touch with Bryce I’d probably have risked a non-stop two-hour report of what who said to whom at the local restaurant in hopes of bouncing some hydrogen generator ideas I’ve been toying with off him.  Picked his brain about how the company team he was part of handled the heat generated as a by-product.

But it’s more likely I’d never have gotten a word in edgewise to ask.  Bryce wasn’t into listening.  He’d donealready been-there-done-that on everything a person can squeeze into his life and couldn’t imagine whichever part of it was skimming around inside his skull didn’t need spraying across communication efforts.  Life, for Bryce, didn’t have any room for anything much about what hasn’t already happened, with him doing the reporting of it.  No point in anyone attempting to say anything during the process because he wasn’t about to listen to it anyway.  He was too busy thinking about what he was going to say next.

Nice guy, though.  Harmless if a person had a book handy to read while he was talking through his outpourings.

The only difference between Bryce and talk radio was that Bryce wasn’t trying to sell anything.  Well, that and the fact talk radio listeners say, “Ditto!” without interrupting.

Ditto, Bryce.

Old Jules 

December 30, 2011 by | 20 Comments | Edit

A few years ago my friend Rich asked me if I’d be interested in talking with an older guy in his late 70s who was experimenting with hydrogen generators for retrofitting onto his vehicle. I wasn’t looking into hydrogen generating, but I’m a curious sort of fellow. I didn’t require any persuading. I just told Rich to give Bryce my phone number. About a week later he called me.

Turned out Bryce had spent his career as chief mechanic for the Ford and General Motors Speed Teams, or Racing Teams, some such thing. He was part of the group that put together the hydrogen powered vehicle that established a record for the highest speed ever recorded for an internal combustion engine driven automobile.

Using what he learned from all that, Bryce had created a series of hydrogen generators for his own vehicle, trying to maximize efficiency and deal with other shortcomings with the system. He did it all from salvaged materials. Heck of an interesting guy the first few times we talked. I wish I’d taken notes and drawn sketches of what he told me.

At first during our acquaintance Bryce and I had conversations. Two people brainstorming things he was doing, and I was doing. But gradually the hydrogen generating conversational possibilities ran down. Bryce was calling me every day or so, telling me all manner of things I didn’t want to hear, such as what the waitress in the cafe where he took coffee and meals said to him, what he said back, what she said back. Or what other customers said to him and what he said back. Or his brother.

Bryce would call, ask how I was, not wait for an answer, and talk non-stop for an hour, two hours. I could put the phone down, go feed the chickens or make a cup of coffee and come back to the phone without him noticing. Sometimes I’d tie a bandanna around my head attaching the phone to my ear and read a book waiting for him to wind down.

This went on for months. I didn’t know what to do about it, except straight-on explaining to him that this wasn’t conversation and wasn’t a source of joy to me. I mentioned it to Rich, and it turned out Bryce was doing the same thing to him.

Finally, as gently as I could manage, I interrupted one of his monologues and explained the problem, as I viewed it. I told him I liked him, that I’d enjoy conversations with him, but that I didn’t want to hear the same stories over and over about people at the restaurant, his brother, etc. That if we were going to continue having communications there’d need to be exchanges and some level of concern as to the amount of interest the other person had in hearing it.

Despite my attempt to soften the words, Bryce got his feelers hurt badly by this. He never called again, which I preferred to the alternative of things continuing as they were.

Sometime a few months later Rich finally got his fill of it and tried the same tactic on Bryce, with the same result. He was more reluctant to do it than I’d been, because he felt sorrier for Bryce than I was willing to allow myself to indulge.

Bryce came up in conversation between us a couple of days ago. Turns out it’s been almost exactly a year since Rich has heard from him, and a few months more than that for me. We wondered aloud how he was doing.

But neither of us is willing to bite the bullet and call him to find out, on pain of maybe starting the whole mess again.

I began this post figuring on saying some things about hydrogen generators but drifted off into Bryce and his problems. Maybe some other time, the hydrogen generators.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2012, Communication, Senior Citizens, Solitude, Transportation, Trucks

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Hurling Off Splinters and Chunks of our Lives Into the Parker Spiral

Posted on July 9, 2012 by | 2 comments

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.  Old Sol jumped when I said “Frog!” a little while ago, so you can rest easy knowing I’ve got him headed for the horizon, rate of climb indicator showing him right on schedule.  I’m figuring his ETA’s going to be about what you’re expecting.

Back when I was a wealthy man [measured in how much time I figured was left between me and exiting the vehicle] I used to spend a lot more time and energy begging and cajoling Old Sol to behave himself.  I put up with all his yawning and complaining, because I had a lot of life I was needing to get rid of and that seemed as good a way to slough it off as anything else.

Not just that way, either.  I was fat with life, spent it like a drunken sailor hurling chunks and splinters of it off every which way, losing weight gradually until I was more comfortable carrying what was left of it around in earth gravity.  I’ve got a lot more of my life spinning around in the Parker Spiral not knowing whether it’s Abel or Mable or which way’s up than I have left around here to tip my hat to.

What’s left is comparable to trying to squeeze groceries, gasoline, cat food and necessaries into a monthly Social Security pension check, so I tend to be more conscious about what I spend it on than I used to do.  It ain’t as though there’s any of it I can afford to run off downstream without me having had a look at it.

So, once I’ve reminded Old Sol he’s got important people waiting on him, I try to get on with my other business and let him tend his own affairs.  Lately he’s been grumpy about that, running the thermometer up over a hundred degrees F, but he’s going to have to get used to it. 

I ain’t got time for Old Sol’s games, not like I thought I did back when I was fat and wealthy.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2012, Adventure, Astronomy, Senior Citizens, Texas

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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

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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

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