Tag Archives: survival

What’s with the pointy nightcaps? Sensible Sleep Headgear

Every year I wonder about these pictures of Scrooge and others wearing pointee nightcaps.  It’s a subject dear to my heart because I became an aficionado of sleeping hats when I used to do my slumbering outdoors a lot.

The function of a nightcap is to keep a person from losing his body heat through his exposed scalp and hair.  Besides doing that it needs to stay on the head while you toss and turn.  Those pointed hats do none of that.

I’ve tried a lot of different types of sleeping caps through the years and found it’s not easy to find one that satisfies all the minimum criteria:

This one’s sheepskin and I’ve used it for 30 years when the weather’s cold enough.  But it’s stiff and doesn’t stay on all that well because one of the straps for tying under the chin broke off sometime way back there and I haven’t gotten around to fixing it.  The temperature has to be not-too-warm or it becomes a cranial sweat lodge and not-too-cold because it doesn’t provide any protection to the exposed part of the neck.

A balaclava solves some of that, but it’s only one layer thick, somewhat expensive, and tends to wear out at the chin.  When the ambient temperature gets down around freezing it needs some help.

They make those fleece caps for women and I find them in thrift stores for a buck frequently.  When I find them, I buy them and wear them a lot, outdoors, indoors and as sleeping caps when the weather’s cold, but not cold enough for something more extreme.

During this last cold snap when the water froze inside the house I came up with this, and I like it a lot.  It’s a fleece blanket folded four times lengthwise, wrapped around the head and tucked into/zipped in to the fleece vest.  It stays in place and is warmer than anything I’ve ever found.  It’s tempting to drag out the scissors, needle and thread and cut it down to a four-layer balaclava, but I hate to mess up that fleece blanket.  The “don’t fix it if it ain’t broke” school of winter headgear might apply here.

When the weather’s cool but not cold, the stocking cap is a seductive option, even though they don’t ride out the night well.  I keep a stack of a dozen of them on the bookshelf above the bed so I can reach up and find one for a quick reload without turning on the light.  Same concept as a fresh clip of ammo for a rifle near at hand.

Pointee hats are talk.  As Tuco observed in The Good, Bad and Ugly, “When you’re going to shoot, shoot.  Don’t talk.”

Old Jules

 

New Careers for Retirees and the Unemployed

I know some of you readers are out of work and having difficulties finding jobs.  With this post I’d like to twist your mind around in a way that might give you a different way of approaching the affair of starting to make money to live on.

I don’t know whether there’s any hope or not, but I can tell you it ain’t easy. From the time I gave myself a Y2K until I moved back to Texas I tried a number of desperate ideas that might have worked if I’d been smarter.

But I think there still might be something here in the way of thinking about it to give you a fresh perspective.  Trying to find jobs flipping hamburgers at minimum wage or clerking in a motel graveyard shift, or stocking shelves and unloading trucks for a Dollar General didn’t prove out for me.  I suspect it won’t for you.  A lot of the reason is that young people don’t like working around older people.  At least, they din’t in my case.

But the world’s still got niches a person might fill, things that people need doing and might pay to get done that the Chinese can’t get over here to do yet.

Polishing long-haul truck rims, bumpers, gas tanks:

I don’t know whether they’re still doing it, but truckers within the past few years [some of them] had an overweening pride in their wheels, bumpers and grilles.

Frequently they’ll pay up to $100 for the tractor wheels, gas tank, bumper and grille while they catch a snooze at a roadside park or overnight truck stop. An angle grinder/polisher, portable generator and a CB radio are the main costs of going into business.

Didn’t work out for me because my angle polishing head flew off, the knurled stem that held the head walked across the gas tank, cut through a fuel line [the truck was idling] and started squirting diesel all over the place before it caught fire [after he’d shut the rig down].

Might work out better for you. A person could make $500 – $1000 per day if he was fast and good.

Bodyguard:

Bodyguard didn’t work out well for me, either, though it paid well. Anyone who needs a bodyguard usually has a reason for needing one.

Respectable people doing legal things hire bodyguards from companies who do that for a living.  But there’s a type of activity going on out there in the world that needs a different kind of bodyguard.  If you’re a person who’s generally law-abiding, but desperate or open-minded enough to look into it, you might find a place there. 

You’ve got to be a non-drug user, absolutely and unwaveringly, uncompromisingly honest, and you’ve got to be willing to be around some of the sleaziest human beings on the face of the earth all your waking hours.  And you’ve got to be convincing that you’re uglier, colder and crazier than all those lowlifes around you.

Then there’s the danger of going to prison, which isn’t likely, but could happen.  The things that go sour  in that line of work tend to be of a different variety.

Tool handles:

It used to be a person could do well trading with the tribes if he was willing to go deep into the rez. Might still be so. They always have tools with broken handles, so buying a load of handles somewhere for all manner of tools, replacing the handles on the broken tools you’ve bought, then taking them by the truckload onto the rez, buying their heads with broken handles and selling them a used one you’ve repaired can be middling lucrative. But you’ve got to be relatively near a big rez or a lot of small ones.

Those mightn’t fit you and probably don’t, but they might give you an idea or two about some crack you can shine a flashlight into and find a way to make a living.  Even in this brave new 21st Century.

Old Jules

 

RAZ Auction and an Aborted Escape Route

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

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

If you own a chainsaw and it has a primer plunger or bulb similar to the one above you might give some thought to keeping a spare around.

I’d barely started cutting when this one developed a crack and allowed air into the fuel line.  I shrugged, puzzled over possible ways to plug the air leak and decided it probably couldn’t be done because of the oil and gasoline.  So I asked Gale to pick one up for me in Kerrville the next day.

The place he went had a bag of these things of 87 different sizes.  It wasn’t enough to know the saw model and make.  No way of matching anything without the actual item to compare it to.  So a $5-or-less has now taken several days out of getting firewood cut and those dead oaks threatening buildings and roofs onto the ground.  Oak Wilt, Firewood and Sawmilling

There’s no wind today and I think if it weren’t for that piece of plastic I’d have both of those down and cut to firewood lengths by mid afternoon.  I’m going to pick up a spare when I get a replacement.  That saw’s got a lot of miles on it and it’s been a good one, but maybe it will figure it can’t die final-like until it wears out that extra primer plunger bulb.  Cheap insurance. 

And if the saw goes kerplunk and leaves me with one of those little hollow plastic bulbs on my hands I can probably rig a way to use it for something else if I live long enough.

One more bug on the windshield of life.

Old Jules

 

Sunday Morning Flies

I don’t recall ever seeing such an abundance of flies in Texas.  I first noticed it a week-or-so in Kerrville in a restaurant.  Flies were buzzing around the place in such profusion the customers were waving forks and dinner rolls in the air trying to drive them off.

Then I began seeing them here, hanging around the windows and door, waiting for things to happen in their favor.  I usually think of fly problems in a context of fly-breeding sources, so I checked the chicken roosts, figuring I’d allowed the droppings to build up enough to allow fly eggs to hatch and go through their development cycle.  Not so.

But up at Gale and Kay’s house a few days ago I saw they were similarly blessed.  Plenty of flies to go around.  Enough for most usual purposes.

Yesterday, or the day before they began finding their way into the cabin.  They weren’t docile enough to allow chasing and swatting as an option, and I’m not all that big about having flies walking over my face while I try to sleep, type, or meditate.  The military surplus mosquito net head-cover I’ve had for thirty years or more works as well as anything I know of to keep that from happening.

I’m a person who tends to believe most things are indicators of other things, but I haven’t a clue what this is an indicator of.  Probably someone somewhere would say it means we’re going to have a hard winter, or some other unusual kind of winter.  Usually Texas has a few flies and they’re worse in the fall season, but on its worst day this part of Texas usually can’t compare to a normal fly-day in the high desert country.  Desert flies converge on perspiration and any other water from miles around.

Swatting Flies in the Last Century

But this year Texas can brag it has something to compete with New Mexico.  Rich folks from Houston and Dallas won’t need to go to Ruidoso, Eagle Nest and Taos to have as many flies as they hanker to have crawling around on them.

Old Jules

A Sobering View of Y2K

That tribal talk a week or so ago got me thinking about an old Mescalero bud I’ve known on and off through the parts of this lifetime that matter. We go long times without seeing one another, but we top off the long spells by bumping into one another in unlikely places.

Kurtiss and I first met working on Skeeter Jenkins’ ranch near Kenna, New Mexico. Must have been 1958, ’59. Skeeter wasn’t a joyful man on his ranch-hands. He’d berate Kurtiss by comparing him to us white lads, then he’d turn around five minutes later and tell us we weren’t half as good cowboying as that damned Apache over there.

I guess the only good that came out of that job was the bond that formed between Kurtiss and me, and the lifelong lesson I learned about not trusting ranchers. Old Skeeter cheated all of us spang out of a hard week pay and spread around the word none of us were worth the board he’d furnished working for him.  Fortunately, he’d done that sort of thing before, so nobody paid him any mind when it came to hiring us for other jobs, which we frequently got screwed out of our pay on, same as with Skeeter.

The last time I ran into Kurtiss must have been 1998, ’99. He and a couple of Arizona broncos were sitting on the tailgate of a truck parked for a powwow in Albuquerque when I came across them and a case of beer that was too close to gone to be any good.  When we’d killed what was left of that case we kicked out of there and spent the night singing ’50s rock and roll songs, getting roaring drunk and filling in on the minutia of our lives since we’d last met.

Spent a good bit of time talking about Y2K also, which was much on my mind at the time, and they’d never heard of it.   I expected that and explained to them. Those Apaches thought that just might be something really fine.

Kurtiss immediately thought of a state cop over toward Ruidoso who’s bad about kicking around folks who’ve had a bit much to drink, “I hope nobody gets to that prick before I do.”

Those Apaches demonstrated some rich imagination concerning the nuances of Y2K aftermath.  “We’ll be able to run raids on the Rio Grande tribes like the old days!”   This didn’t interest the Arizonians.  They were fairly sure Mexico would be open for a bit of raiding, though, and better pickings.

Then Kurtiss went thoughtful.  “I’d sure as hell like to kill me some Navajo.”  He told the old story of Bosque Redondo and all the slaughter the Din’e did to the less numerous Mescalero during the decade years they shared the reservation.   Apache numbers there were decimated until only 1800 were left alive when they escaped the rez and went back to Mescalero.

Bosque Redondo was fresh on his mind because of Navajo whines he heard at the Gathering of the Tribes Powwow. “Mescalero’s too large for such few people.” (The enormous Din’e Rez is getting jam-packed these days, by comparison.) “They ought to take some of that land away and give it to us,” was the general theme.

We fought our way down,” Kurtiss quoted himself. “And you guys multiply like rabbits.”

This led to some laughs and sneers about the theme of the Gathering of Nations Powwow, “Celebrating 400 years of unity (among the tribes)“.

I wonder where that was,” one of the Coyoteros grunted. “The Apache never saw it and neither did our enemies. Those Mexicans and Pima and all those town Indians were lucky the whites came along to save them.”

Mostly those guys were in agreement in their scorn for other southwestern tribes. “They don’t know how to use the land,” gesturing with a nod and a slight pucker of the lips.

A whole different view of the end of life as we know it.

Old Jules

 

Rotting the bone marrow – Dependence on China for tool steel

I noticed several years ago a person can’t get good drill bits in the US anymore.  When you buy them they’ll barely cut into aluminum, afterward they’ll cut nothing and can’t be sharpened to hold an edge capable of cutting.

Today I walked up to Gale’s to look at some spectacular rocks he’s acquired [opalized petrified wood], and this drill bit thing was on my mind because I’d just attempted to drill through some aluminum.  I mentioned the Chinese steel drill bits and how we need to watch the thrift stores for US bits from a time when they’d hold an edge.

“I’m seeing the same thing in saw blades,” he mused.  Damned band saw blades won’t cut with any duration.

As we discussed it the light dawned.  Even Chinese screwdrivers bend instead of breaking.

“Do you suppose it’s the alloys they’re using, or the temper?”  Neither seemed to me to satisfy the symptoms.

“Might be a bit of both, but it doesn’t make sense.”  Gale’s done considerable tempering of steel, as I have.  “Tempering just isn’t that big a deal.”

But whether it’s intended or not, whether it’s the alloy, which it probably is [There’s a good possibility they’re sending us something nearer IRON than carbon steel] the fact is it creates a still greater dependence.  Nobody in the US is going to be able to operate any of a hundred metalworking businesses if they can’t get good tool steel bits, blades, tools.

I’ve got a pair of wire pincers out on the porch I thought about when I got back to the cabin.  I’d noticed just the gripping them enough to cut woven wire bends the handles to the center.  This was a more-or-less expensive pair of pliers.

If I believed in conspiracies, I’d be tempted by this.  But I’m at loss why we’re not getting high quality tool steel inadvertently.

How, I wonder, would it appear differently if it were a conspiracy?

Old Jules

Oak Wilt, Firewood and Sawmilling

Two years ago these were healthy trees.

About a year ago the trees in the vicinity of the cabin began dying.  I’d been fairly certain it would happen because there’s a grove immediately above about 100 yards that had all died off two or three years ago.  It appears to have started at the power line easement atop the hill and is making a path of dead trees moving east, or downhill.

Conventional wisdom is that it’s Red Oak Wilt, or Red Oak Disease.  There aren’t a lot of certainties about it, no preventive measures or cures anyone’s aware of.

Over the space of about a month they lost all their leaves and the bark began separating from the wood.  One of the problems with trying to get them down is the abundance of wasps making nests between the wood and the bark.  Hundreds of wasp nests and clouds of angry wasps.   The temptation is to wait for a cold day.

There was a certain amount of urgency about trying to take some of them down because after Oak Wilt kills a tree the first strong wind often brings it down.  Evidently the disease rots the root system long before anything shows above ground.  Several of the dozen-or-so trees dying immediately around the cabin and outbuildings actually have large limbs hanging over roofs.

But the nights are cooling enough to send the message it’s time to begin building a pile of firewood.  It won’t take much hauling this year.  Some of it I could almost cut and allow it to drop down the chimney pipe.

The larger trunks are going to be a major undertaking to split, so I’m thinking I might sawmill any of them with potentially good lumber left.  Sometimes Oak Wilt rots out the center too badly to leave anything worth using except to burn, but sometimes it leaves the heartwood almost untouched.

If there’s enough capable of being sawmilled it might provide enough oak for a project I have in mind cut relatively thin into planks usable for building a structure.  But in any case it ought to stay toasty inside the cabin this winter.

Old Jules

Fiddle-Footed Naggings and Songs of the Highway

The human mind is a strange place to find ourselves living if we ever get enough distance from the background noise to notice.  I tend to notice it a lot.

This morning seemed destined to be just another day.  Gale and Kay were doing the Austin Gem and Mineral Show, so I’d figured to walk up to his house to get the truck mid-day so’s to take care of putting their chickens to bed tonight.  Startled me a bit when I looked up and there he sat in Little Red a few feet away, having brought it down to me.  My hearing must be further gone than I’d realized.

Seemed they’d no sooner gone than I got an email from Jeanne saying my old friend from childhood and later lost-gold-mine chasing days was in Fredericksburg trying to get hold of me hoping I could get over there for lunch.  Heck, it must be 15 years or more since I’ve seen Keith, though recently he’s been reading this blog.  Naturally him being 40 miles away and me with a truck sitting there available, I headed over there.

Really nice visit, but in the course of bringing one another up-to-date he asked me a number of questions about my situation here that forced me to take a hard look and organize my thoughts about it all.  That kicked off a series of trails of thinking to organize clearer, more concrete priorities for myself within a realistic examination of my options.

There aren’t a lot of them, but they’re all stacked atop a single one:  having the means of leaving this place in a relatively short time if the need arises.  It’s time I decided on a single course of action and begin leading events in a direction that allows it to congeal in a way that accomodates the needs of the cats. 

But the process of thinking about it in an organized way had a parallel thinking-path over whispering somewhere else in my brain wiggling out a sort of excitement, anticipation about it.  Here’s something that will be pure trauma and agony for the cats I do everything possible to spare such things, and my ticker’s beating a little faster in a pleasurable way just considering it.

That, combined with the certainty the process of getting things together to execute the plan I come with is going to involve some unpleasantness, excruciating work and fingernail chewing as it goes along.

Seems I’ve somehow contrived to be two different places at the same time inside my mind.  One being pushed by probabilities to do what makes sense rather than what I’d prefer, the cats would prefer.  And one reaching somewhere into fond memories of pinon trees, high mountains and an entirely different sort of solitude than I have here.

Keith confided to me today, “Everyone thinks you’re crazy.”  I can’t find any good argument that everyone’s wrong.  It’s nice being crazy and still being as happy as I manage to be all the time, though.

Anyway, to satisfy that fiddle-footed nagging, here are some songs of the highway and the road.

Old Jules

The Cheers – “Black Denim Trousers”

 

Roger Miller “Me And Bobby McGee”

Merle Haggard – White Line Fever

NAT KING COLE ROUTE 66

John Denver – Live in Japan 81 – Take Me Home, Country Roads

Roger Miller – I’ve Been A Long Time Leavin’ (But I’ll Be A Long Time Gone)

Hank Snow – I’ve Been Everywhere

Charley Pride-Is Anybody Goin’ To San antone

Playmates – Beep Beep (The Little Nash Rambler)

 

Robert Mitchum sings The Ballad of Thunder Road

Roy Orbison – Ride Away

C. W. McCall “Wolf Creek Pass”

Hot Rod Lincoln – Charlie Ryan and the Timberline Riders 1960

 

MAC DAVIS Texas in My Rear View Mirror

 

Guy Clark LA Freeway

 

Willie Nelson On the Road Again

 

Easy Rider – Born To Be Wild (HQ)

 

LOST HIGHWAY by Hank Williams

 

Leonard Cohen – I Can’t Forget (live 1988)

 

Beach Boys – (It’s The) Little Old Lady From Pasadena

 

Beach Boys live ’64 Little Deuce Coupe

 

Neil Young – Hitchhiker

 

VANITY FARE HITCHIN A RIDE

 

‘YOU KNOW I LOVE YOU’ BY KENNY ROGERS & THE 1ST EDITION

 

Fats Domino – Walking to New Orleans

 

Unrequited Love – I Coveted This

I watched it sit in a vacant lot I frequently drove past in Kerrville for several years.  Occasionally I’d trip up the hill to it, walk around it, kick the amazingly good tires.

After I began scouting for a new, moveable dwelling I began going snake eyes when I got near it to keep my intentions from drawing the attention of the Coincidence Coordinators.  Sydney Baker is at the other end of town from the lot it was sitting in, so I assumed the Wing King was long defunct and this jewel was waiting for me to chase down the owner, make an offer, and take it away.

But today when I drove to that lot to get the license tag number so’s to try to contact the owner the bus was gone.  I figured someone had called a wrecker to haul it away because they were going to use the lot for something.  I puzzled over my next step toward finding it as I drove to Sydney Baker to see who occupied the address of the Wing King on the side of the bus.

Sheeze!  The Wing King was right there, still in business.  Okaaaay.  Got to prepare myself mentally for this.  I kept driving, furious thinking.  But a few blocks ahead in the parking lot of the strip center in front of Dollar Tree, there it was, parked parallel to the curb.

I walked around it, squatted down to see if it was dripping oil or coolant.  Nothing.  I pulled off my vest and slid under the engine.  Everything was pristine.  No grease, barely any dirt.

What the hell’s it doing sitting here?  Why did they move it?

Nothing for it but to drive back to the Wing King and talk to the owner.  Now.

I sat in the truck going snake eyes a couple of minutes to prepare, then went inside looking for someone who looked ownerish.  Two kids.

“Is the owner around?”

“No, he doesn’t work days.”

“I want to talk to someone about that bus down there parked by the curb across from the high school.”

“The water pump went out on it.  He’s waiting for the part.”  The kid thinks I’m someone in authority about to make trouble.  How the hell could he think that, looking at me?

“I want to talk to him about buying it.”

“He won’t sell it.  He got it for almost nothing, $1500, and it’s only got 10,000 miles on the engine.”  Thanks a lot kid.  I needed to hear that last part.

The other one, a girl chimes in.  “Yeah, and parked there with that sign on it reminds the high school kids we’re here!”

Ahhhh.  And Kerrville has a sign ordinance.  That bus parked there doesn’t violate it.

That’s a bus the cats and I will never live in.  But at least I found out about a place sells chicken wings.  Wonder if they’re any good.

Old Jules

C.W. McCall – Wolf Creek Pass – a song about a truckload of chickens.