Tag Archives: lifestyle

Tough year here for cats

Posted on June 8, 2013 by | 12 comments

invadercat1

Something snagged the Invadercat here a while back, tore him up badly and took out one eye.  He hung around here a week-or-so for food, didn’t appear to be getting worse.  But then he vanished, as he’s always been prone to do.  I know he was getting food at one of the ranches around here, probably several.

But once he left he hasn’t been back.  Might be one of the other folks who’ve been feeding him took him to a vet and had him doctored, or maybe something got him in the woods.  Life’s dangerous enough in the real world for a cat with two good eyes and no serious injuries.

Meanwhile, Ms Tabby’s having worse than her usual battle with spring and summer leg and skin troubles.  Getting welts from either cactus, or fire ants on her legs, belly and tail.  I see her crouched in the meadow stalking things in places where I know there are fire ant beds, so that might be the problem.  But she’s looking worse now than anytime since she’s been with me.

Ms Niaid and Mr Hydrox are doing generally okay, though Niaid’s looking skinnier than I’d like.  She’s bringing in several mice per day to show off before she eats them, but still wants the catfood and is the eagerest eater of them all.  After I used the sheep shears on her she hasn’t picked up burrs and gotten matted hair so badly, seems a lot more pleased with herself.  Gets around well for a senior citizen.

Mr Hydrox only has half of himself sheep sheared, avoided being caught to have it finished after we had a difference of opinion during the operation regarding how much more to take off.  But last night he wanted to sleep with me, so I’m thinking he’s going to have less hair soon.

All in all central Texas probably just ain’t the exact right place for these felines and this 70 year old man and the Coincidence Coordinators are raising the ante for staying any longer than I have to.

12 Comments

Posted in 2013, Animals, Outdoors, Texas

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Thinking positive about bologna – The new paradigm

Posted on June 7, 2013 by | 8 comments

If you think you’ve reached the point where you just can’t look a bologna sandwich in the eye one more time, maybe it’s time to begin using your noggin.  Even if all you’ve got is a frying pan and a Coleman camp stove you can make a concoction you’ll savor.

Chop up that bologna into bits the size of dill pickle slices and throw it in the pan with chopped onion, minced garlic, and a teaspoon of grapeseed oil.  Turn it and stir it until the bologna browns and curls up on the sides.

Once it’s done, throw on a teaspoon of chopped dill pickles, and smear it all between those two slices of bread.  Curry, ginger, ancho, jalapeno, green pepper, all of them will add some variety to carry you through until payday.

The old ‘pound of red and a loaf of bread’ method of squeezing through hard times was never good past the second day.  Torturing yourself to death after the third was just a method of robbing life of potential joy.

This ain’t the 20th Century anymore.

8 Comments

Posted in 2013, America, Senior Citizens, Survival

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Reincarnation – Life after the evidence locker

Posted on June 7, 2013 by | 10 comments

dodge powerwagonWhen I came across this picture on the web a while back I was fairly certain I recognized it.  I believed and still believe it’s the truck belonging to the man and wife wood cutter couple murdered in Catron County, New Mexico while I was working Fox Mountain.  An incident I described in loving detail in the Adams Diggings book.  They were found several months later, a bear having dug them up where they were folded yinyang style into a 4’x4’x4′ grave in an ancient ruin site.

Damn I love that truck.  Nothing sissie at all there.  A guy could drive that thing around just about anywhere he might wish to go.  It’s been pre-disastered so the odds of anything bad happening in it would be nil.

10 Comments

Posted in 1990's, Transportation, Trucks

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FFFuture Shock

Posted on June 7, 2013 by | 5 comments

The Internet came fast, though it’s tempting to take it for granted and just absorb it as it comes along without having to faint and revive yourself.

A person can hop over to Craigslist to see what types of travel trailers and cheap RVs people have they want to sell in lordee-knows-where places he tried to forget exist in Texas.  Pop off an email or two to the people doing the selling.

Exhaust that and pop over, shoot off an email to the USFS district handling the Gila Wilderness to find out the condition of this-or-that trail nobody in his right mind would use. Whether a particular trail has been cleared enough to a particular spot to allow a mountain bike to use it.

Pop over to Google maps for a quickie satellite look at a mountain or three, reboot the machine to clear the memory when things start to die.

Pop to dogpile.com to do a search of bicycle forums and discussion boards to see what mountain bikes are costing and what people are saying about them.  Then another search or two  to find out how much weight a burro could be expected to carry.  Whether anyone’s got a notion about them as riding animals and the maximum weight of the person they could carry under particular conditions.

Spang, another websearch to DIY sites looking for ideas for load carrier devices people have put together on bicycle frames, or using bicycle wheels.

Doesn’t appear to be any limit to it.  However obscure and esoteric the interest, there’s somone, somewhere on the Internet thinking along the same lines who’s already done some of the heavy thinking.

The neighbor up the hill tells me people are putting together 3D printers in their garages allowing them to duplicate anything that’s ever been manufactured.  Putting what they do up on the Internet so other people can manufacture the same thing somehow.  Some guy making a crescent wrench that works from his old crescent wrench and a printer.

It’s no wonder the governments of the world are suspicious and concerned.  With things like that going on there’s no predicting what will come of it.  People might get used to thinking and begin to make a habit of it.

About a century ago two bicycle mechanics put something together the scientific community was busy agreeing couldn’t be done.  Without any help they took a manned heavier-than-air flight convincing enough to turn everything upside down.

Didn’t even have computers and the Internet.  If they’d had those someone might have been able to convince them they couldn’t do it.  Or everyone and his dog would have been making one in his garage.

5 Comments

Posted in 2013, America, Communication, Internet

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The Paradigm Gearshift Knob

Posted on June 6, 2013 by | 4 comments

atabrine

This a wakeup call for those of you who have ignored the DEA, FBI, and State Law Enforcement shift to required mandatory use of illegal drugs.  The War on Drugs has been a miserable failure in the attempt to either, get everyone in the US addicted to controlled substances, or place the ones not addicted into penal institutions. 

A whopping 25% of the population is neither addicted, nor in prison.  Of that 25%, at least 3% are suspected to actually be policemen, prosecutors, judges, and prison guards.  1% are believed to be politicians and lawmakers, though though a few of these are known to have allergies and adverse health reactions to some addictive and hallucinatory drugs. 

Finally the criminal justice system is going to clamp down on these shirkers and scofflaws who are making it difficult for everyone.  Effective August 31, 2013, any person found within the boundaries of the United States not addicted to a controlled substance will be given a fair trial, then sentenced to be tortured to death with common suspected terrorists at Guantanamo.

This means YOU.

4 Comments

Posted in 2013, America, Police, War on Drugs

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The price you can get for your kids has skyrocketed.

Posted on June 6, 2013 by | Leave a comment

The National Debt

Time was when parents were reluctant to sell their children.  They could barely get enough to pay a week rent for a healthy, hard working, intelligent kid.

However, luckily in this 21st Century all that has changed.  You can get wars, weaponry,  welfare, superhighways, government grants, retirement for government officials, 87 layers of cops, national health care and a lot more.  All you have to do is sell your kids, worthless, illiterate and unlikely though they are. 

Heck, I guess the kids are all already sold.  It’s the grandkids and the rest of your progeny you’ll have to hock.  But the folks who loan money to the US government are still anxious to buy them.

Especially the Chinese.

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Posted in 2000's, 2013, America, Current Issues, Government, Human Behavior, Parents

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Symbiopatriosis – the 21st Century Killer Disease

Posted on June 6, 2013 by | 2 comments

Military Industrial Complex

20th Century had its share, though.

The Yosarian syndrome.  Bastards are trying to kill me!  They’re trying to kill me every time I go up to drop bombs on them.

Support this current war because our soldiers got killed trying to invade them.  Can’t let the troops down.

2 Comments

Posted in Government, Military, Politics

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Mongolian Yahooan Wildfire Treasures

Posted on June 5, 2013 by | 5 comments

Okala

Now that Yahoo’s decided to protect us by making us agree to let them read, store, and use all of our emails any way they want to there’s not much point going over there.  Except to find out whether the sky’s going to drop some moisture.  But when a person finishes looking at drawings of clouds on maps it’s difficult not to peek at what’s going on in Mongolia, or Bongobongoland.

For what it’s worth, things appear to be okay in Mongolia.

But there’s a huge fire or two raging in upstate New Mexico.  As nearly as I can figure the Jemez Mountains might be getting another round of flames.  They mentioned Valle Caldera and some ancient sites threatened, which might mean it’s threatening the western end of Frijole Canyon upstream from Bandera National Somethingorother. 

That old guy in Santa Fe, wossname, Fenn, who hid a box worth some money if he’s to be believed, probably has those mountains crawling with people who believe him.  From Santa Fe north to Alaska.  The ones who know it’s in Colorado and New Mexico should be able to accidently start a few fires for their troubles.

If I find the time I might swing up that way and pluck the box right out from under them just to keep the townies out of the mountains for their own good.  I was going to have Jeanne’s kids swing by where it’s hidden and snag it when they go that way this summer, but it’s looking as though they mightn’t make the trip.

I can’t swear to it, but I’m fearful I’ve drifted a bit from my original intent with this post, whatever that might have been.

5 Comments

Posted in Adventure, Human Behavior, Los Alamos, Native American, Native Americans, New Mexico, NM, Outdoors

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Fire ants and fawns

Posted on June 5, 2013 by | 7 comments

concrete illusions

A few years ago while Jeanne was visiting me here a fawn was born under the cabin porch.  She made a fun video of it and posted it somewhere, here, or on Facebook.

During the years since the deer have usually dropped a fawn or two somewhere within sight of the cabin.  This year, though, there have been three within 30-40 yards.  Maybe they feel safe because I’m not at war with them over chicken feed the way I was previous years.  We’ve settled down to mostly ignoring one another with them going after apple cores I throw out, or one will occasionally come onto the porch to make a try for the cat food.

But the last doe to drop a fawn left it out in the meadow for a while and I noticed it lying out there.  I wasn’t much concerned because a doe will do that, fawn stays until she returns, nobody any worse for the wear.  But after a couple or three hours it was still there, so I walked out for a look.

Fawn was covered with fire ants.  I stood a while deciding whether to try to brush them off but it’s a tough call.  The fawn might run away where the doe couldn’t find it, or the smell of a human might keep the doe from recognizing the fawn when she returned.

But I’ve seen fire ants kill a fawn in similar situations, completely disappear it in 24 hours, not even leaving any hair, teeth or eyeballs.

I finally just decided to let it be and hope the doe would come back to lick off the ants.

Anyone thinks Mama Nature ain’t a cruel lady hasn’t been around her much.

 

7 Comments

Posted in America, Animals, Solitude, Survival, Wildlife

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Positive and Upbeat

Posted on June 4, 2013 by | 7 comments

Oil reserves

Eagle Ford Shale Formation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle_Ford_Formation

We all need to stay positive and upbeat.  With the discovery of the Eagle Ford Shale Formation oil reserves the US now his more oil reserves than the rest of the world combined.

Now’s the time to nationalize US oil reserves and production, sell gasoline to US drivers for 25 cents a gallon, and make a deal with the other oil producing countries of the world.  Run the price of oil up to $1000 per barrel and bleed them dry.  Squeeze every country that doesn’t have any oil until they are walking or riding bicycles, heating their bath water on wood fires, plowing their fields behind mules and oxen.

We’ve been patient with the rest of the world up until now, and look at the good it’s done.  Do they love us?  No.  They don’t even agree with us on a lot of things.

But now we can set them straight, finally. Put those Japanese back up to their knees in the rice paddies where they belong.  Sell toasters and rubber monster toys to the Chinese if they can find any money to buy them.

We can bring back the good old days of everyone having a good job without anyone having to go to work.  Hire Mexicans to do it all.

Thumb our noses at Arab Sheiks and Shaws who used to have more oil than us.

Positive and upbeat with good old American know-how to keep the home fires burning.

7 Comments

Posted in Government, Human Behavior

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