Tag Archives: homesteading

A Poem as Lovely as a Tree – An Oak Ponders Oak-Wilt

Posted on December 3, 2011 by | 22 comments

 

Possibly  this one would choose something by Arthur Rimbaud,

“True, the new era is nothing if not harsh.

“For I can say that I have gained a victory; the gnashing of teeth, the hissing of hellfire, the stinking sighs subside. All my monstrous memories are fading. My last longings depart, – jealousy of beggars, bandits, friends of death, all those that the world passed by. – Damned souls, if I were to take vengance!

“One must be absolutely modern.

“Never mind hymns of thanksgiving: hold on to a step once taken. A hard night! Dried blood smokes on my face, and nothing lies behind me but that repulsive little tree!… The battle for the soul is as brutal as the battles of men; but the sight of justice is the pleasure of God alone.

“Yet this is the watch by night. Let us all accept new strength, and real tenderness. And at dawn, armed with glowing patience, we will enter the cities of glory.”  From ‘Farewell’ by Arthur Rimbaud

Or Baudelaire:

“— Enjoyment fortifies desire.
Desire, old tree fertilized by pleasure,
While your bark grows thick and hardens,
Your branches strive to get closer to the sun!

“Will you always grow, tall tree more hardy
Than the cypress? — However, we have carefully
Gathered a few sketches for your greedy album,
Brothers who think lovely all that comes from afar!”

From ‘Flowers of Evil’, ‘The Voyage’,  by Charles Baudelaire

Or Edgar Allen Poe:

The breeze—the breath of God—is still—
And the mist upon the hill,
Shadowy—shadowy—yet unbroken,
Is a symbol and a token—
How it hangs upon the trees,
A mystery of mysteries!

From ‘Spirits of the Dead’, by Edgar Allen Poe

My own saga with Oak Wilt and this particular tree is sung in these past posts:

Oak Wilt, Firewood and Sawmilling

For Want of a Nail – Something Worth Knowing Chainsaw-wise

Outsmarted by a Dead Tree

I’d written about possibly trying to salvage some of it for sawmilling, but that’s not in the cards:

The interior of the trunk is riddled by cracks caused by the rapid shrinkage.

Oak Wilt came on it fast from the roots.  By the time anything showed topside the tree was evidently already dead. 

Arthur Rimbaud, Charlie Baudelaire and E.A. Poe should have put their heads together and written something immortal about how to get the rest of it down.  The job has the potential for being right there in the target zone for their kind of writing.  It’s going to be a booger-bear any way I cut it.

Old Jules

Everything else being equal I think I favor pines:

 

All that tree-stuff hanging up there leads me to think our songsters are too humanocentric about hanging trees.

 

22 Comments

Posted in 2011, Country Life, Homesteading, Poetry, Redneck Repairs, RedneckRepairs, Texas, White Trash Repairs

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Outsmarted by a Dead Tree

Posted on December 1, 2011 by | 12 comments

Tree Numero Uno didn’t agree to my offer to let it go down without a fight.  The trunk broke but the uppidy part refused to answer the demands of modern physics.

I’m not the sort of man to sit still for anything defying science and gravity.

I got my digging bar and proceeded to put forward reasoned arguments as to why that tree needed to obey the law.

The top part of the trunk moved over on the stump every time I applied pressure to the bar.

I cut the trunk at an angle so the trunk couldn’t slip back this way when it fell and get in the way of the path I was leaving to get the cut wood out.  But now, by cunning Communist refusal to do what’s right there are several tons of potential energy trapped in the upper trunk.  If I use the bar to pry it further this way that upper trunk’s going to snap out of there like a catapult and knock the bejesus out of everything downrange.

But if I leave it standing it’s going to pick its own time to come down.  And it’s already demonstrated a lousy set of values and ideals enough create a suspicion I’ll be under it when it does.

Maybe I was actually supposed to go to Kerrville today.

Old Jules

4:04 PM edit:  I got it down, but with more style and panache than I consider tasteful under the circumstances.  No broken bones, no serious injuries, nothing destroyed I can’t live without.  On the other hand, there’s still a lot more tree left propped up on dead branches 10-15 feet in the air, so there might be another dance left in the old dame yet.  Jules

12 Comments

Posted in 2011, Adventure, Country Life, Current Issues, Homesteading, Redneck Repairs, RedneckRepairs, Senior Citizens, Solitude, Survival, White Trash Repairs

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Sunday Morning November 27, 2011 Musings

Posted on November 27, 2011 by | 21 comments

Old Sol’s finally recovering some dignity, getting some of the southern hemisphere melodrama behind him.  He’s spun around about 90 degrees and you can still see some of it lower right near the horizon.  But all-in-all he appears to be getting back to the business at hand. 

Nobody’s sure what the business at hand is, there’s a nice little solar breeze flowing out of that coronal-hole complex mid-south, leading us the way a hunter leads a goose he’s trying to shoot down.  It ought to reach us around the 29th of November.  Interesting stuff happening down at the south pole.  Remember where you heard it first.

I went up to turn out Kay’s chickens just before daybreak and kicked up a herd of about 20 wild turkeys, which we haven’t seen on this property in a goodly while.  But the country’s filled with hunters now, and there was some shooting not-too-far from the property lines yesterday.  They’re skittish critters and might have decided this side of the fences is safer, everything else being equal.

I swung into Kerrville yesterday to finally pick up that primer-bulb for the chainsaw and get chain and bar oil.  In the AutoZone store I noticed a couple of things I think might actually be worth buying as new tools after studying them a while.  One is a ratchet with 1/4 inch drive on one side and 3/8 inch drive on the other.  It has a comparatively short handle and a break just where the ratchet handle ends with a swivel on it to allow the handle to be bent allowing access to communistly personal space invaded places.

The other was a set of two box-end wrenches with ratcheting heads covering 8mm, 10mm, 12mm, 13mm, 14mm, 17mm, 18mm and 19mm.  If someone had told me yesterday morning I’d buy some new tools if I went to town they’d have lost intellectual standing in my eyes.

But looking at these I’m figuring I’m a pretty smart puppy.

Afterthought:  Jeanne found a discarded copy of Chancellorsville, by Edward J. Stackpole and sent it to me for my birthday.  I’m up to my elbows in it, finding it particularly interesting because the Stackpole generation of Civil War historians have such different perspectives about so many facets of what went on in that war.  He goes into loving detail about Hooker’s history, his behaviors throughout his career, his relationships with Lincoln and his various commanders and particularly with Burnside.  I’d never read that scandalous self-aggrandizing report he sent in about Antietam before now.  I’d also never encountered Grant’s “I consider Hooker a dangerous man,” appraisal of him. 

If I’d been driving my own truck I’d have had Chancellorsville propped up on the steering-wheel reading it on the drive to and from Kerrville, is how seductive I’m finding the tome.

Old Jules

21 Comments

Posted in 2011, Astronomy, Country Life, Homesteading, Redneck Repairs, RedneckRepairs, Solitude, Survival, Texas

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November 22, 1963

Posted on November 22, 2011 by | 24 comments

C.S. Lewis, author of the Narnia series of kid books and the Screwtape Letters died.  He was also a middling good science fiction writer.  I always enjoyed his work and consider him an important writer within his area of interest. 

At the time of his death I didn’t hear about it because Aldous Huxley died the same day and got most of the fanfare.

Huxley’s Brave New World was all the rage at the time, one of those books young intellectuals all asked one another whether they’d read, and of course they all answered, “Yeah, wasn’t it great?” whether they’d read it or not.

Overall I believe Lewis has stood the test of time better than Huxley, but we can’t go back and give Lewis a better funereal showing at this late date, so I just figured I’d mention it here.

Old Jules

24 Comments

Posted in 1960's, Books, Writing

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Feral Hog Plague

Posted on November 21, 2011 by | 19 comments

One thing that happens when you get a group of country people hanging around without a lot going on involves a mysterious sorting and filtering process.  Small groups of strangers with similar interests are drawn into intense exchanges of arcane esoterica.

Saturday a few old guys including me got talking about chickens, coons, skunks and feral hogs none of us would have ever learned if we hadn’t been to the auction.

The wild hogs seem to be concentrated, we found, in some locations and absent in others.  A guy from a few miles east of town seems to have the worst problem of any in the group, and despite the fact he’s killed a hundred hogs this year he says it hasn’t made a dent in the population. 

He’s devised an ingenious trap with several interior rooms the hogs can get into but can’t get out, allowing him to capture a dozen at a time.  He kills them in the traps and drags them down to a remote corner of the property with the previous hauls.

That guy knew some hog catching tricks I’ll probably use here next time they come in here or up and Gale’s tearing things up.  He uses boxes of Jello as bait.  Says they can’t resist it and they’ll choose going into a trap after Jello over breaking into a feed bin or tearing the walls off a storage shed for chicken feed.

But everyone agreed the hog population in Central Texas is out of control something awful.

Then, this morning, my old bud Rich sent me a link to this Yahoo News story:

Mexico to cull 50,000 wild boars from US invasion

http://tinyurl.com/7qrtwng

Mexican officials have unveiled plans to slaughter some 50,000 wild boars that have crossed the border from the United States and now threaten agriculture in Mexico.

The Ministry of Environment in Chihauha state said some 1,500 hectares (3,700 acres) of farmland in the border town of Ojinaga have been affected by the large number of feral pigs that have come from Presidio County, Texas.

“We must get rid of these European wild boars because they sleep overnight on US soil during the day and cross over to the Mexican side to feed,” Ignacio Legarreta, a state official, told local media.

The boars of European origin, which were imported to Texas as pets and then replicated in the wild, have caused serious damage to the flora and fauna of the area, officials said.

“They have reproduced to reach more than 50,000 animals that threaten the area,” said Legarreta.

The authorities intend to use cages with food inside to trap the animals.

But back at the auction.  I asked whether any of them had ever tried bringing the hogs in and selling them at auction.  None had, and at first everyone’s reaction was a guffaw.  Nobody likes getting close to a critter capable of ripping you in two and eating you.  Probably the auction folks wouldn’t take them despite the fact they handle a lot of dangerous animals.

But then someone mentioned there’s a place in Ingram always advertising they want to buy swine on the hoof.  Sausage place, one thought.  Which got us thinking how a person might build a trap on a trailer so’s to not have to deal with them more than dragging the trailer to Ingram, letting them inspect them and kill them in the trap, drag them out, weigh them, and pay up.

I allowed if I’d considered that and thought of it earlier this year I’d be a lot better off financially today than I am.  There was a lot of muttering and thinking going on among all of us before the conversation changed to coons.

Old Jules

19 Comments

Posted in 2011, America, Communication, Country Life, Mexico, Senior Citizens, Solitude, Survival

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RAZ Auction and an Aborted Escape Route

Posted on November 20, 2011 by | 6 comments

Yesterday Gale and Kay were away on another craft fair and I had access to Little Red, so I decided to trip into Harper for the farm/livestock auction.

The pickings were fairly slim because fewer people showed for it than I’ve ever seen at that auction.  But things were going dirt cheap as a result.

Cheap, I should have said, by comparison with the usual fare.  On a normal third Saturday someone falls in love with this sort of thing and is willing to hock the family jewels to carry it home.

But yesterday even jewels of this sort were going for a couple of bucks:

You’d think the seat and steering wheel on this would be worth someone hauling home at those prices.

A few items did draw bids a bit higher.

This compressor that might work went for around $15.

Plenty of antlers of all description but I wasn’t sure what Gale could use or I’d have stayed around to bid on some of the lots.

The poultry barn only had a few dozen birds, none I found a compelling need for.  The livestock weren’t out in force.  A few bighorn sheep, four starving longhorns, a few ibex, maybe a wildebeest I didn’t get a look at, and a horse headed for the dogfood factory.

I could have left after one quick swing around except for this:

I’d been nosing around for different living arrangements [also here Pack Goats for the Elderly and a Youngish Hermit and here Thursday morning meanderings].  I had a lot of reservations about this domicile.  That’s particle-board it’s constructed of, the frame looked to be for something a lot lighter, the door’s so narrow I had to turn my shoulders sidewise to go inside.

It was set up for propane and water at some time, but mostly everything except the wiring and hoses were removed.  That bottom-middle vent, when opened, looks directly inside through a stripped cabinet that evidently once held a sink.

This rear window would have to be removed to get anything wider than the door inside.  It doesn’t open.  And I couldn’t help wondering why there had been a deliberate removal of the tail lights.  No evidence of a license tag ever having been on it.

Those two vents open directly into the trailer underneath the two seats at the front, which would be a problem on the road in inclement weather.

But even knowing it was going to require a lot of work, beginning with protecting that particle board, it was a possible.  This winter would be a lot warmer living in there, and that’s a factor to warp judgement to a degree.  And having something that would provide a mobile escape route if I need one, a lot easier than anything I’d come across thus far lent itself to a decision to bid if the competition wasn’t strong.

I figured it might go for $300, which I could cover.  I decided I couldn’t go more than $500, and even that would squeeze things a bit uncomfortably.  When the bidding came it went to my $475, long pause and someone bid $500.  I turned to walk away, then spur of the moment raised my arm for $525.  And the bidding stopped.

I’d just bought the damned thing.

I went to the office to pay for it, forked over the money and the young lady was filling out the paperwork when the older lady behind her chimed in.  “He told you about not being able to get a trailer title for it didn’t he?”

“Hmmm.  No.”

Her face curled into a snarl.  “That SOB!  He was supposed to announce that before he auctioned it.  You can’t take it onto the road.  You can’t get a title for the highway.”

This caused me to have to back up and try my hand at rapid thinking.  Not my long suite.

After a pause, both of them staring at me, “Do you still want it?”

“Um.  I guess not.”

She counted my money back to me, I handed them the keys and went back outdoors to re-organize my life.

Nothing much had changed while I went from one package of my immediate future back to the one I began the day with.  The world was still waiting for Godot.

But while I went about the task of getting my mind back unshuffled I watched this dog make a statement about the whole event, laying a line of cable between me and all that potential future I’d just stuck my toe into, then pulled it back out.

Old Jules

6 Comments

Posted in Adventure, Country Life, Music, Redneck Repairs, RedneckRepairs, Senior Citizens, Survival, Texas, White Trash Repairs, YouTube

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That Grader-Ditch Water Softener

Posted on November 18, 2011 by | 2 comments

I’m much thrilled about this.  That outer shell is going to help haul a lot of water, but that ain’t the half of it.

That fiberglass tube feels as though it has walls half-inch thick.  It’s evidently intended to take a lot of pressure.  Don’t know yet what I’ll use it for.

This says it had an 8 gallon per minute capacity.  Which probably means there’s an 8 gpm pump somewhere here.

Sheeze the Universe was kind to this old guy yesterday.

Old Jules

 

2 Comments

Posted in 2011, Country Life, Homesteading

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Kerrville Trip Nov 17 Salvation Army Book Haul

Posted on November 17, 2011 by | 8 comments

The Making of the Roman Army From Republic to Empire, Lawrence Keppie

I don’t recall ever reading the Keppie version.

Myles Keogh Biography by Charles L Convis

The Art of War, Sun Tzu, forward by Liddell Hart.  My version’s paperback and doesn’t have the Hart forward, so I’m tickled pea green with this.

Frontier State at War – Kansas 1861-1865, Albert Castel

I’ve already got this, but it’s an old copy and doesn’t have the dust jacket.

Brown Water Black Berets – Lt. Commander Thomas J. Cutler

Never read this one.

I’d have been back sooner if it hadn’t been for this billy goat on the Ranch Road.  Spent considerable while trying to find an unlocked gate to one or another ranch nearby.  He was tame, really tame, and I could have lifted him over one of the fences, but didn’t know which side of the road to choose.  Gale and Kay are calling around to try to find who owns him.

Lots of roadkill deer and exotics in the ditches between here and Kerrville.  I’d hate to see this guy join them.

But the biggest, most exciting haul of the day:  Someone dumped an intact Kenmore Water Softener in the grader ditch.  The outer shell is rigid nylon, looks to hold 20 gallons, and inside’s a fiberglass cylinder might hold another 7, 8 gallons if I can think of something to use it for.  And the pump appears to be undamaged, also.  Something really heavy in there somewhere.  The whole shebang must have weighed over 100 pounds.

The HEB grocery store parking lot was jam-packed and I REALLY didn’t want to go in there.  But I said to myself, “If you’ll go in there and promise not to be forever whining and complaining about it I’ll give you a special treat.”

“Hmmm,” says I.  “What do you have in mind?”

“How about a pie?  Or some Elgin sausage?”

“If you don’t want me whining and complaining you ought to fork over Elgin sausage AND a pie.  All or nothing.”

“Cripes!  You’re driving a hard bargain, but time’s wasting.  You got it.”

 

Old Jules

8 Comments

Posted in Books, Texas, Thrift Stores

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Juggling the Possibilities

Posted on November 17, 2011 by | 14 comments

I finished off most of this bottle of Jack Daniels on December 31, 1999, while I was sitting around listening on the short wave radio to Y2K not happening, first in New Zealand, then Australia, then places further west until it got to me, where it happened well enough to make up for those other places it didn’t.

But as you can see, there was some left in the bottle when Y2K got to me.  I resolved to hold it back until something else happened.  I’ve had it sitting over there on the microwave collecting dust for several years, threatening to celebrate various New Year and Thanksgivings and I-don’t-know-whatalls.  I’d had it in the back of my mind lately I’d do my 70th birthday with it, then slid the clock backward and thought maybe my 69th here in a few days.

But it’s colder than a bear’s butt in this cabin this morning.  I’ve got water heating in the microwave half-gallon at a time to pour over my head for a warm shower before I have to walk up to Gale’s to see if Little Red’s available for a necessaries run to Kerrville.  Got to thinking a hot toddie might just warm things up enough to stop some of this shivering I’m doing before I pour that water over my head.

That Y2K whiskey just mightn’t survive another hour.

On the other hand, it might be nice to have it for when I turn 75.

Old Jules

14 Comments

Posted in 2011, Y2K

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The Communist Toyota 4-Runner

Posted on November 16, 2011 by | 10 comments

The Got me a new truck! project doesn’t appear to be going anywhere fast enough to offer any near-future prospects for getting wheels under me.  Thursday morning meanderings,

I was out studying this problem again yesterday and this morning.

I’ve got a starter, but I hadn’t dared start the job because of a Catch 22.  At the time the 4Runner was my only transportation and even starting it by rolling it downhill was better than no transportation.  But once I got it blocked and it rolled forward a bit the blocks would be wedged in front of the wheels and I’d have no way to get them out.  My mind locked into this problem, so when the battery went dead and it rolled to the other side of the meadow without starting I didn’t back up in my thinking and realize it didn’t apply anymore.  I already didn’t have any transportation.

Believe it or not, that took me several months to figure out.  But I finally did, and studying the situation I decided if the new starter doesn’t repair the problem I can hook a cable to the back bumper and that telephone pole behind and use the 2-ton come-along to pull it back up with the battery fully charged.  The downhill roll from the telephone pole should turn it over enough to get it started.  Afterward I can try Plan B to decide what to do next, but with a truck that will work if I park it on a downhill grade.

As nearly as I could figure that wheel well is the only access to the starter.

I stuck the camera in there for a better look at how much of a Commie it planned to be.

Bigger than Dallas, a man can get to the heads of both bolts holding it on.  The Universe is kind to a man like me.

But first I needed to jack it up from a bumper so’s the brake disc wouldn’t be pushed up squeezing what little room I’d have to work. 

And I had to get that wheel off.  I’d forgotten why I always carry that wheel-puller in the truck.  The hubs are from an old Isuzu Trooper I used to own and they don’t make an exact fit.  When I torque down the lug nuts the wheel jams against the threads and it won’t come off without a lot of persuasion.

But there it is.  Hot diggedy damn!

Easy!  Easy money!

Man, people pay good money to get to do a job as easy as this one’s going to be.

And there it sits after I ran spang out of altitude, airspeed and fancy ideas.  My tools are up at Gale’s under the hood of my New Truck.

Sheeze.  I’ll have to bring them down next time I borrow Little Red.

Old Jules

 

10 Comments

Posted in 2011, Country Life, Homesteading, Human Behavior, Redneck Repairs, RedneckRepairs, Senior Citizens, Solitude, Texas, Trucks

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