Tag Archives: homesteading

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

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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

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The Great, Great Speckled Bird

Posted on June 12, 2012 by | 6 comments

The Great Speckled Bird: Respecting our Betters

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

A few years ago when I had a lot larger flock of chickens a pair of fox-critters killed over half of them in the space of two days.  The second day I heard another chicken-drama taking place, grabbed the nearest long-gun and ran out to investigate.

Confusion out there.  The hens were all huddled underneath cedars pointing at one another, hoping someone else would be selected by whatever had them scared.  But The Great Speckled Bird was out in the open, craning his neck, looking for the problem.  As I ran by, he joined me, then hopped out front.  He ran straight for a cedar tree about 30 yards from me.

A fox was under that cedar, saw the rooster approaching, probably saw me, as well, and turned to scurry away.  I quickly dispatched him a few yards into the escape.  At that point TGSB joined me as I examined the carcass, dancing, clucking excitedly.

I’d never heard of a rooster behaving hunting-dog, thought it was an anomaly.

But yesterday he strutted his stuff again, and he’s still got it.  Hens were acting about as before, one out in the open making a lot of fuss, though.  I looked out and saw TGSB running across the meadow for the henhouse.  I snagged the long-gun and headed out to find out what was happening.  Arrived about the same time as TGSB.

A glance inside the henhouse showed black feathers lying around inside.  Probably came from the Australorp raising the dickens initially.  But TGSB was clucking, rubbed my leg and I looked down.  He was dancing around the rear-end of a coon, hind legs and tail sticking out from under Battlestar Gallinica. 

I’m sure the coon didn’t realize any of it wasn’t hidden, and I’d never have seen it if TGSB hadn’t pointed it out.

Battlestar Gallinica, the US Space Program, and Fluid Reality

Having resolved the coon issue, I just paused, drew a deep breath and admired him for the ten-thousanth time.

Some of you have wondered why I keep an old, crippled, useless rooster around.  I’ll confess, TGSB is the reason I keep the hens around.

Old Jules

6 Comments

Posted in 2012, Animals, Chickens, Country Life, Free-ranging-chickens, Homesteading, Human Behavior, Nature, Outdoors, Poultry

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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

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1977 C60 School Bus – Idle Musings

Posted on June 3, 2012 by | 3 comments

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

Some of you made some good, helpful comments about the last post, and although that bus might never come into my life, my mind’s insisting on playing with the associated problems.

Insofar as the matter of cooling for summer driving, I’m thinking ram-air venturi.  A hole cut at the question-mark, flange installed with a megaphone-like air-catcher-compressor expanding inside the bus.  Water misted from a pressurized pump-up insecticide sprayer as the air expands as it’s released inside the bus.  Rear windows open to pull the cooler air backward through the length of the bus.

I’m thinking for cooling the bus as a dwelling, a thermal syphon arrangement pulling air from the shaded area under the bus, releasing it along the floor, the hole for the venturi open and the windows cracked at the top to pull the cooler air upward from the floor. 

Maybe some sort of misting device inside the bus, also.

I use those pump-up insecticide sprayers anyway for showering now, today, and that one would serve that use when the bus is parked as living quarters.  I’d cap the hole with a PVC cap when the venturi wasn’t in use, weather was cold, or it was raining.

As for heating it winters, I’ve got a number of ideas, some as strange and unlikely as these.  But the cats and I are used to living cold and hard.  What’s bare minimum for us isn’t likely to be much warmer than our ancestors spent their lives living with, uncomplaining.

For cooking meals while driving down the highway I’ll install one of those enclosed propane grilles to sit atop the engine, use waste-heat from the engine to do the cooking, pull it out when I’m ready, slow-cooker-like.  There’s plenty of room under the hood for a cooker capable of handling a banquet.

There’s an old propane refrigerator from a camper I gave Gale 30-40 years ago stored up there I posted a picture of here on an earlier entry, which I’d install.  Those AC shelves will work well, I thinks, as a means of running water lines, gas lines, and electrical wiring.  Out of sight, out of the way, but accessible.

A couple of propane burners on a platform and a Coleman stove oven might be the solution for somewhere to prepare food while camped if I don’t cook outdoors.

I’m thinking LED lighting, assuming I can find it at the right price.

Those pump-up insecticide sprayers are surprisingly useful for all manner of unlikely purposes.  Good for washing dishes, rinsing dishes, showering, all in a severely water-saving mode.  Heat the water, fill one with soapy water, another with clear water, you’re in business.

Thanks for your interest and comments.

Gracias, Jules

3 Comments

Posted in 2012, Adventure, Homesteading, Survival, Transportation

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Escape Routes and Hideyholes

Posted on May 31, 2012 by | 10 comments

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

Gale had himself an appointment with the kidney-marble specialist yesterday to find out what they might do about getting it out of there.  Haven’t heard the outcome yet.  But what I’ve seen of him from the time they turned him out of the hospital until now leads me to think he’s going to be slow getting back into peak performance any way a person might view it.

This entire health event episode has hardened the realization for me that if things had played out differently I might have had to jump ship from this place with whatever cats I could take along, almost no lag-time.  Got to devote some attention to pounding a hole in the wall of the Universe that includes something besides hitching out and finding a bridge to live under, minus felines.

If the Coincidence Coordinators allow it, that 1977 Bluebird school bus might provide the answer.  I figure it’s going to take a month of stopping by there when I’m in town and nobody else buying it during the interim, but I might be able to beat him down enough eventually to be able to swing it.  But if it works the price will have allow me to fit in buying tags and liability insurance coverage.  Plus a tank of gas, cat food and a little for me to last the rest of the month from when it happens.

Once it’s out here I can work on it to make it capable of the cats and me living in it, while still working on the various things need doing on Gale’s place that he’s not going to be able to do for a while.  The wildlife management plan he promised the county he’d do includes thinning the cedar, erosion control mitigation, etc., and there’s heavy lifting with me being the only one here able to do it.

I’m fairly determined to get his first year promises done before I leave here, provided he’s alive to need them done.  If the bus works out, once I sense something complete in it, I’ll feel free to box up me and the cats and head for the sunset.

I’ve got a lot of stirrings in me churning around, telling me I need to be somewhere with more interesting rocks than a person can dig up here, the trees aren’t dying like flies, and the rivers empty into the Pacific Ocean..

The guy from up the hill told me when he was here that they’re crying for backhoe operators in the country between Uvalde and the Mexico border.  Oil field work.  So a stop out there a while to garner my resources on the way west might fit into the plan if the Coincidence Coordinators think it’s a good idea and the cats will agree to it.

Old Jules

10 Comments

Posted in 2012, Adventure, Current Issues, New Mexico, Senior Citizens, Solitude, Texas

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The 21st Century Through Mirror Sunglasses

Posted on May 28, 2012 by | 3 comments

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

For six days this Australorp hen’s been sitting on a golf ball and two chalk eggs.  Every day I go out and rob the real eggs from under her, stroke her, talk to her, listen to her grumbles, whines, complaints, leaving that golf ball and the chalk eggs to give her something to hope for.

Highly-bred hens such as this one are somewhat similar to 21st Century human beings in some ways.  They’ve had almost all the instincts bred out of them in favor of, either producing a lot of chicken-meat in the least possible while, or producing as many eggs as their bodies allow.  Australorps hold the world record for the most eggs produced by a single hen during the span of a year.

The cost, from the perspective of the hen, is they’ve mostly lost the instincts required to cause them to go broody.  The instincts required to survive as a  species.  Same’s true of my Americauna hens.  Great layers, lousy instincts.

So I’m prone to have a warm place in my heart for a hen when she goes broody, even though I don’t need any more chickens, don’t want any chicks.  It’s the mawkish sentimentality in me, I reckons.  I feel a lot of sympathy and tenderness for a hen trying her best to hatch clutch of eggs, even if the eggs are chalk and golf balls.

I try to simulate a pair of mirror sunglasses when I go out to lift her off the latest eggs, hers and those the other hens try to sneak in under her to give the species another microscopic shot at survival.

Those imaginary mirror sunglasses mightn’t be necessary to me to get through these final decades of my life, but they certainly make it easier to watch what’s going on around me.  Human beings sitting on golf balls and chalk eggs, allowing instincts to creep briefly into their behaviors occasionally, probably won’t hatch.  But it appeals to my mawkish sentimentality side and there’s no harm in it.

At least no harm that would be neutralized by me not indulging. 

A creature pays his money and takes his chances this lifetime.  Even if the creature’s a hen and the eggs aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. 

Old Jules

3 Comments

Posted in 2012, America, Human Behavior, Senior Citizens

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Cunning, Intelligence and Free Ranging Chickens

Posted on May 21, 2012 by | 15 comments

I don’t think this applies to caged chickens, but my experience with caged birds is limited.  All I can actually tell you is that free ranging chickens are some of the most cunning, cagy, calculating, communist creatures on the planet.

A free ranging hen can calculate to the second how long it takes my eyes to narrow, my jaw to clamp, pause listening, and spring out of my chair when I’m trying to do something on the comp and I hear a chicken on the porch.

A free ranging hen can judge almost to the inch how far and hard a person can throw a rock with any accuracy.  A free ranging hen can predict almost exactly how far and how fast a 70 year old man can run swinging a stick before he gives out.

A free ranging hen is able to predict within a few seconds how long and how loud it can cackle and raise hell just outside the window before it needs to start dodging rocks or running into the bushes.

A free ranging chicken recognizes a slingshot and knows the difference between a slingshot stretched as an empty threat, and a slingshot with just about a bellyfull of chicken games.

A free ranging chicken usually won’t eat ants unless it thinks a person would rather it didn’t, in which case it will.  The whole flock will stand on a red ant bed pecking, so long as the ants aren’t carrying off their feed to the ant bed.

A free ranging chicken will ignore hard cat food scattered around on the ground away from the porch, but it will sneak around trying to find some on the porch everytime it thinks a person’s in the middle of something needs concentration.

I subscribe to the philosophy the reason the chicken crossed the road was for practice.  Training dodging cars.  And motivated by some human being not wanting it to cross the road.  Try to get a chicken to cross the road and it’s going to stay home cackling under the window or crapping on the porch.

Old Jules

15 Comments

Posted in 2012, Animals, Chickens, Country Life, Free-ranging-chickens, Homesteading, Human Behavior, Nature, Poultry, Solitude, Texas

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Current Brush Dam Project

Posted on May 18, 2012 by | 2 comments

When I began this a person couldn’t tell there was an oak tree without standing off at a distance because it was so choked with cedars.

A gully was being cut down to bedrock in the swale.  I’ve got a lot more cedar in the immediate area I’ll be clearing, but I’m figuring before I put anymore on the dam I’ll stand atop what’s there and cross cut as deep as the chainsaw bar will reach to compact it as much as possible before adding more material.

Incidently, once I got most of the cedar cleared from around that oak I found this great, long, straight one.  It’s a keeper, though I don’t know what for.  Assuming I can get it loose and untangled from the upper parts of the oak without having to cut it.

There’s a watershed of maybe fifteen acres with a lot of slope draining into this spot.  My thought is I’ll bring the dam roughly six feet high after compacting, then thicken it with whatever cedar’s left in the immediate area.  Afterward I’ll move upgrade and create a series of brush berms across the grade to slow down concentration times.

Lots of work left to do on it, but watching that dam grow’s a smiler for me.  Someday I’m going to try to figure out what makes me tick.  This whole sudden new joy of doing all this came out of nowhere.  Gale’s up there laid up, doesn’t have a clue I’m doing most of it on his property, though I describe most of it to him.  He shrugs and tries to seem encouraging, but I doubt he can picture what’s going on here.

Meanwhile, me just down here working my arse off for the hell of doing it, not a clue why.

Old Jules

2 Comments

Posted in 2012, Adventure, Country Life, Outdoors, Science, Texas

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No Limit to Benevolence

Posted on May 16, 2012 by | 11 comments

I’d just settled in for my afternoon nap when the phone rang.  Sheeze!

Radio announcer voice explained he was Dan Somebody-or-Other with the Police Benevolent Association fund raising.

“This number’s on the no-call list.  It’s illegal for you to call here.  Same as if you’re giving me a ticket for five miles over the speed limit.”

“Uh…”

“I paid a $35 fine for a burned-out license-tag bulb last time I had any dealings with your kind.  Think of that as my contribution.”

Spang hung up on me just when I was getting warmed up to ask to see his license and proof of insurance.

Meanwhile, went up atop the hill with my spyglass.  Counted 14 buzzards circling around the ranch house for the 4000-plus acre ranch half-a-mile to the north.  Widow lives there alone, but maybe she had grandkids visiting killed something last night.  The buzzards are swooping but not landing, maybe skittish because it’s so close to the house and barn.

No buzzards circling over toward Gale’s, the new neighbor’s place, or the CopShop Party Hunting Cabin.  Only other buzzards swooping are probably checking out a coon that was on the front porch a couple of nights ago, tore half-an-ear  off the invader cat.  I shot it through the window screen during a pause in the action and it flopped some, dropped a lot of blood on the porch.

But by the time I got my shoes on and went outdoors it was gone.  Looked around all over from hell-to-breakfast for it next day, but couldn’t locate it.

Buzzards think it’s under a clump of dead cedar 100 yards from the cabin.   Glad it didn’t die on the porch and dump all those fleas for the cats.

Built a humongous rock and brush dam I’m hoping will prove to function as though a beaver built it.  I’m a firm believer the only reason a beaver dam holds water is because nobody ever told it science don’t allow beaver dams to hold water.

Old Jules

11 Comments

Posted in 2012, America, Animals, Country Life, Government, Human Behavior, Outdoors, Police, Senior Citizens, Solitude, Texas

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