Rock Springs, Wyoming

Posted on October 10, 2020 by Kelsey

I went to Rock Springs this weekend, to meet up with Missus and drive home together. It was a half way point, or so, for her from her business trip. The girls and I went over, met her, and then we all stayed the night in a hotel, before driving back together this morning. I have put communications radios into both vehicles now, so we were able to talk back and forth. It was nice to be able to talk, and to have fun while doing it. It seems we discovered a secret of OTR truckers, in that they must be using CB’s to help stay awake. Having someone there made it easier to keep alert.

We stopped off a few times for breaks, and to take pictures. We even got to stop off at Little America, an old tradion for me going back to the trips I used to take back and forth a couple of times a year with my grandparents when I was a kid. On the stop there while driving out, I made sure to get the girls some 75 cent ice cream cones.

The aspen leaves across the forrest were yellow this time over, and had fallen off on large swaths of trees, while stands next to them were still in place. Last week there were reds and a little yellow. It is amazing how much it has changed in a week, and it is amazing how much things change with the eleveation. The top of the mountains was well close to their winter state, while the lower elevarions near the valley we more or less just beginning to make the autumn change.

After we got home, I soon fell asleep to make up for the moment at 1AM when I woke up and could not get back to sleep at all. I slept for two hours! To make up for it, I went out after and watered the animals and then split a bunch of firewood. I covered the logsplitter and some of the wood in preperation for tomorrow’s anticipated rains. After the rain tomorrow, we are expecting the temperatures to drop between ten and twenty degrees, putting us more on course for autumnal temperatures.

That’s about what’s been going on lately.

Worth a mention. The hotel we stayed at was realy reassuring because all the while I laid awake, I could smell the bleach reaking from the bedding, and that gave a sense of security against the Coronavirus. Then, when I woke up, I found ants crawling on the floor next to the bed, and in the shower, I found some mess that was not likely from any of us, making me rething the cleanliness of the hotel.

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I Pledge Allegiance to One Flag

Posted on September 17, 2020 by Kelsey

I pledge allegiance to the Flag

Of the United States of America,

And to the Republic for which it stands,

One nation, indivisible,

With liberty and justice for all.

Not to a flag that is nothing more than a cheap marketing campaign for a tin pot dictator. I am a Patriot, not a Nationalist. I am tired of living in a divided nation.

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Hard To Believe

Posted on September 8, 2020 by Kelsey

This year is coming along pretty nice on the homestead, even with the gardens being pretty much a total bust. There are things to do, but they mark a clear direction, and give us a much narrower list of things to do, that have to be done, than in previous years. We are even looking at ways we may be able to one day take a short trip off the place, and away for a vaction from it all, a change of scenery.

Since Missus decided to go out and pick up a used pickup truck, our ability to get firewood home has leapt through the roof. Our little cr is cute and reliabale, and can get us from here to there just fine, but it is not meant for towing the little trailer we have. When we made the deal to drive the truck off the lot, I asked for one thing, one concession beyond the price reduction that the salesman himself actually gave us without us even asking, and that was a detail on our existing car. Missus had perfpormed her heroic move by finding budget for the truck. But she had been wanting a full clean of tar for ages, and I saw this as the chance to get it done where neither of us had been able to justify the cost based on the loss of the kids just returning and trashing it again. The cleaning crew told the salesman later, “Man, you have got to see these things before you agree to them!” Well, we have two like new looking vehicles right now, and for a change, owning them feels kind of good at the moment.

Our gardens were lost to weeds again this year, and for whatever reason, this year worse than ever. I had plans to mitigate this issue and make it easier to keep them under control, but the tools in place for it busted, and I was having a hell of a time justifying the cost of their repair while other tools were out of service and in need, too. The recoil on the little tiller and on the log splitter both went out at the same time, and I had other expenses that made me hesitant to spend $70 or so to get the both replaced. It was really aggrivating. The logsplitter took priority when I finally felt okay with absorbing the costs, because winter is the proverbial unstoppable force. By that time, the garden was already a loss. It’s been frustrating, and it has provided us some insight to what to plan in the future.

Right now, if you were to ask us, next year will probably involve less gardening full stop. Who knows how we will feel about it by then. I am mad as hell because I think I have pretty much all the tools required for it. The only thing I really want now is a tracror and tiller to make it easier to till the beds over and over in preperation for sowing. I spent hours at the corn plot that cannot be seen now because of the weeds in it. Also very frustrating. I’d probably be in full on depression if not for that massive pile of firewood I have now, thanks to the truck.

I think next year is to be determined on things like, where we are financially, and if we invest in a sort of pavillion and trailer that will need space in the yard. If so, we want to set them up to serve us as a guest house and hideout to hang about in when we are not on vacation, because who wants to spend all that money on something that gets parked and only used once or twice a year? I have ideas on how to set it up to serve as a little space for missus to hang out in while she works on days when the weather is nice and she needs a change of scenery. So, that kind of thing is on our mind. We may never get further than a few miles from the farm with it, but it could give us a chance to get out to the mountains overnight and take a short rest.

Back to the topic of gardens; I see next year being a little less, and hopefully we grow more food. Don’t get me wrong, we have plenty of zucchini! But those plants will be here with the cockroaches after the nuclear winter.

Right now, news in Denver is calling the weather a “freak snow storm.” The jetstream is pouring cold air from the polar region down on us right now, and will do till tomorrow, from the look of it. I have some firewood in the lawnmower trailer out front just in case, but this morning feels fine in the house. I admit, I was kind of looking forward to an excuse to light the woodstove. By the time the sun is up this morning, we will probably have snow on the mountains here in southeast Idaho. Can we expect continued disruption of the jetstream this year?

Today is the first proper day of school for the girls. That is all I have planned for the day. Focus on that. I could use the rest from yesterday’s wood splitting anyhow. But chores like that are not things I “have to do.” I am drawn to them. It’s ahrd work, but I love doing it. It’s not just satisfying, but also fun. Today I need to see the girl’s school work the same way. This whole year, actually.

Time to refill my coffee cup. The day will soon begin in earnest. I can see a light dusting of snow on the mountain over Dayton now. Still summer. At least at my elevation.

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Rancid Fish

Posted on August 18, 2020 by Kelsey

Well, this was a gruesome night. I ate two pieces of rancid haddock, but did not realize till I was done eating all of it why it would taste like amonia. I Googled it, and found out that I had just eaten decomposing fish.

I told Missus about it, and she recommended I get it out.

“How”

“Salt water.”

I mixed up a half a short tumbler till it was saturated with salt, then drank it and asked her when it would start working.

“It would have worked for me as soon as it hit the back of my throat.”

Next suggestion was vinegar. I gave that a go, and same result.

I gave up on tonics, tinctures, and concoctions and went out back, sat at the picnic table and thought for a couple of minutes till I made myself lose my cookies.

What the? I could *think* myself into it?

Well, maybe I’ll be alright in the end. After I stop feeling like a bad Cesar’s Salad!

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Amy Walker Siedenburg

Posted on August 13, 2020 by Kelsey

My great grandmother used to say she had “the Walker sense of humor.” She said it with quite a lot of pride. It implied a quick wit, and the ability to find the humor in anything. I think it also implied a certain set of catchphrases that a Walker could use in appropriate situations.

She had one herself that came up today when I heard one of my wife’s co-workers on a call say “shit fire.” Great-grandma would be so proud that in that moment she was remembered, nearly thirty years after he death, and that her memory gave a total stranger to her a laugh.

“Shit fire and save matches!”

That was how she said it. Missus said that “shit fire” must be a California thing, because of what I sometimes said, then she said it to him, and he laughed and said, “I’ve never heard that second part.” I’ve never heard it without it, so it was good to hear the first part at all.

I don’t believe a person lives at all beyond their death, in any way. They don’t “live in our hearts,” or live in our memories. But they are there, kept as a little treasure in our minds, and it sure does feel good to have those memories triggered and get a little smile while thinking of someone long ago gone away, and to see their influence passed along in some small way. That it what gives life to them.

I miss you great grandma. You deserve whatever immortality you can get that brings happiness.

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Messing With Electric Today

Posted on August 12, 2020 by Kelsey

Today I started to move some of the stuff from the workshop/garage back to the barn/new workshop.  Yes, it is all very confusing, I know.  It has me confused too.  So I just way “whatever.”  While moving things, I got to wondering about the electrical situation in the workshop I am moving into. 

Strictly speaking, the building is more of a large shed, about 100 years old, and somehow still standing.  I am never quite sure how.  It has two rooms in it.  The large room has the big double door on it, and the small room has been divided into a garden tool room, and a place for electric fence supplies, and a chicken coop.  The chicken coop is sealed safe against predators.  You have to go through the tool shed to get into the door of the coop. 

The lighting in the building is dismal.  I have an extension cord run out to it from the back of the house for now, and when I get the electric installed, I will be promptly taking that out and throwing it away.  I can’t even remember how many years it has been out there!  The cord has a power strip plugged into it, and that has a series of short extension cords and such running to lamps and a switch that is wired to the light over the tool shed door.  I am eager to get a couple of lights on the side of the shed where the double door is, so I can light up that part of the yard on the nights I suspect predators out. 

I am eager too, to get hold of lighting that points down and has a broad shade to prevent much light going up into the sky.  I am a fan of the dark sky initiative. 

Today I took out one of the lamps that hung from the tool shed where the power strip is to the main shed, near the animal feed.  I put in a proper sonce set lamp over the door between the two rooms, on the big shed side.  From that I wired for now an outlet and plugged the lamp into it half way across the big room, and tried lighting it, but I guess I am at the end of the line for this electricity to travel, because it seldom light up, and when it was switched on, the lamp over the door began to dim and brighten.  I unplugged it and let it be for now.  It is well gh that I still have light over the animal feed area, and it is now hardened in somewhat properly.  One job out of the way for when the electric line comes in and so does a breaker box. 

My work got broken up suddely with the roll of thunder and a wind that blasted out of the west, throwing the poplar out back from side to side like it wanted to break it. I got away from the wires and went into the house. Seemed a better place to ride out the short storm.

Things calmed down just about as qiuck as they riled up, and were gone within the hour. But I have got to leave that job for now and start worrying about getting the proper electric wire into the workshop, and then I cen get those lights finished up all on a nearbye breaker of their own.

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Mild Armageddon

Posted on August 7, 2020 by Kelsey

I remember when I was a kid, and used to go to Church, hence, read things like The Book of Revelations, and had discussions with friends about it. We were young, and stupid. If I still believed in that kind of thing, I would have to cast myself now as old and stupid. But belief has faded, and I have moved on.

Back in those days, though, friends and I used to talk about what it would be like to live through the events described in the Bible. We were flooish enough to think in the first place that it might be kind of fun or amazing, and in the second, that we might actually be among the survivors.

No, here I am approaching fifty, and seeing the world in a mild form of Armageddon, and that the biggenst problem isn’t the Armogeddon itself, but the people in it. I am more worried that danger comes to us in the form of someone carrying a virus and a huge ego than anything else.

Things have settled in for the moment. If we get sick, we get sick. Hopefully it will be mild for us if we do. But that can only be taken a day, a moment at a time.

Beruit blew up the other day. They were dealing with Covid, too. They have experienced Armageddon in magnitudes so mugh higher than we. It looks like the crater is roughly the square footage of two football fields. Three hundred thousand people were made instantly homeless. My heart is completely broken for those people and what they are going through now. The facts of the investigation that will follow will prove no doubt that the cause of this catastrophe comes down to corruption, and when it is all finally spoken out loud, I will not be surprised to see civil war there. I have yet to hear of any response from American leadership on the matter, and that disgusts me. We could have started a ground war there in a matter of a day or so, with the logistics and military capability we have. We could have won a diplomatic coup with that kind of effort put into aid sent to Lebanon. But, nothing.

Bible thumpers may say we are seeing Armageddon. They may say we are seeing the end times of the world. An hundred years from now, they will still be waiting. That’s just the way of things. In the mean time, will people learn to wear masks, to wash their hands, to not touch their faces, that history repeats itself, and that corruption and deregulation leads to great danger? Will they come to realize that national leaders and corporations have not their interests in mind, but their money.

We hang out on our little farm, leaving as little as possible these days. For me, someone who is interested in a deeper understanding of how people lived an hundred years and more ago, this is a bit of an opportunity to experience something a little more like it. It’s not Armageddon. It is a deeper understanding of our place in history by living in it. We are witnesses to history. But in this moment, our fingerprints are all over it.

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Hot Summer Day. Too Hot

Posted on August 2, 2020 by Kelsey

We cut the grass today and got pretty well caught up with that. It is a lot to take care of; more than an acre. Getting it done before the temperatures go up is pretty critical, too. We did. Then Missus got started on washing llama fiber, and I got busy setting up a way to stand market umbrellas up to cast shade on our patio area. For that, I put in a post, digging a couple feet through rock and compressed soil. I was thinking it would go better if I had some shade to work in. It arrived, just after I finished.

I helped with the llama fiber after by making some drying racks to set on the laundry lines. It was pretty simple, but required a lot of wire cutting and bending. Because of the size of the wire racks, made from old fencing, I mosty worked in the sun, so that was… fun? No. But it got done, and the results seemed to work for now. We could do with rebuilding them from hardware cloth or something, but this will do for now.

We reached up to a high of 98F today. That would mean spending the afternoon in the airconditioned house, if we had one. I mean, we have a house. But the house does not have air conditioning. The sun has set, the air outside is down to the 70’s, and it is still 89F upstairs inside right now, with a fan blowing the hot air out. The fan is one of them four foot in diameter jobbies, too. So it is doing a righteous effort at it.

Tomorrow is meant to be a little cooler, though still in the mid 90’s. The fiber picker is set to arrive, too. We will be able to see how that works, and if it does the job Missus is expecting of it. Hopefully it will. If so, we are putting a load of fiber away till she gets her little shop up and running and we get it sold. We are also working out the methods to get the best result of fiber from animal to customer.

I only slept five hours last night, so I am looking forward to a good night’s sleep tonight. The time for it is almost arrived!

Best get ready.

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Remember?

Posted on July 28, 2020 by Kelsey

http://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-florida-man-bought-lamborghini-after-claiming-nearly-4m-in-covid-19-relief-loans-12037953

Remember Ronald Regan’s Welfare Queen?

Meanwhile, the Repubican Party wants to reduce unemployment payments so poor people won’t make more from that than they do while working. Bear in mind that $600 a week is double full time work at minimum wage. And that has got to be subsidised by the government for people to survive on it. Something smells rotten in Denmark, and D.C..

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Posted on July 28, 2020 by Kelsey

The coming week promises via the weather app a few really warm ones. We are meant to hit the 90’s right in the middle! Then it is meant to get a little cooler at the end of the ten day forecast, which is pretty much useless because it is so far out that it gets difficult to model with the computers.

I had forgotten what it was I thought of earlier in the year as a great birthday idea for Missus, but it was easy to find her something nice and useful to her. I set her up with two complete wire working jigs and extra little knobby things for shaping in them.

It came back to me what she needed on Sunday. So I took right to it, and ordered her a wool picker to use on the llama fiber. Bing-badda-boom! That shipped yesterday, so should be here soon. I got it off Etsy, so it is a homemade jobby. But if it does what we need, and the guy who did it worked out the troubles I had with the concept of it, then it ought to be great. If it can handle the amount of fiber we need to work, it ought to be great.

I have some photographic gear coming tomorrow. Nothing big, just a beauty dish I would like to experiement with, and the power cords to replace the British ones that came with the lights I had picked up while living in the UK. There is also another rubber eye rest for the camera. Anyway, I am looking forward to their getting here, and being able to work with the lights again for the first time in ten years.

My biggest next step is meant to be paying off PayPal and sorting out student loan payments again, and then saving some money aside to finally get a tractor for this old farm so we can get serious about working it, or at least keeping it in shape. I once read a fellow who said that anyone who is serious about farming has got to have a tractor. To all you homesteaders out there, or future ones, plan on it. Count on it. Bank on it. We have acerage we have done nothing with but use as pasture for our livestock. Even that has been bad as the grass there needs to be redone from the roots up. As we are now, we have got no chance. And I don’t even mention any other kind of vegetation growing, nor things like snow removal, a huge deal, or firewood handling and compost scooping, or digging jobs or anything like that. I have gardens that could use a larger tiller, and driveways that want a better road bed. And guess who is in a panic if any large animal dies? Yup… The guy who has got to go out and get it loaded on a trailer and hauled off to the dump.

I am sore today. Used to be that every morning that I would wake up in so much pain that I way lay there a spell and think the thoughts aging people think, like, “surely it’s cancer. That’s how I am going to die, isn’t it? I am going in misery, and this is just the beginning.” Now days cancer has gotten replaced by Coronavirus. At least there is variety in life!

As I was saying, I am sore today. I took the day easy yesterday, and sort of celebrated how clean the house is by trying out feeling like there is nothing prodding at me to be done. There is. There is a lot, and I need to get to it. Ihave shop swaps to do, and some work to finish in the craftroom and both bathrooms. I have a seat that needs building in front of the window in the library, and some seats that need to be built out on the front porch. There is painting to do, and electrical installations. I have things to do.

So what will be on today’s list? Let’s see what I can get up to!

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