Hunting And Election After Action Report: Part 3: Wombats And Schedules

Posted on November 16, 2022 by AdaptiveCurmudgeon

[Note: my hunting partner is an honorable fellow for whom I have considerable respect. He has no idea I write a blog and he deserves every bit of privacy I can offer. I don’t want him unfairly involved in my petty bullshit literary endeavors. I mention him in passing only to flesh out the story. Out of respect for his privacy, I’ve changed any details that might identify him (or our hunting spot). For example, his name in this story is Beetroot McTavish and I’ll say we were hunting deer even though we were hunting wombats. I’m pretty sure no human has ever been called Beetroot and wombats taste great with a side of fries.]

So, where was I? Oh yeah, the furnace was out of oil, my truck was on it’s spare, the TV was broke, and my HAM radio was not fully assembled. That’s not too bad. There are little sacrifices one makes when they’re in a recession. (You know what it is when you’re in a recession but DC changes the definition of “recession”? It’s a fucking recession because changing definitions doesn’t change reality. Suck it Orwell!)

I needed a break, I’d planned for this hunt and tilting at windmills over being an election judge had gone for naught. I figured that was a gold plated all-clear signal by the eternal. Time to hang out with nature!

I left Mrs. Curmudgeon with a warm fire in the woodstove and a full box of wood nearby. Then I tanked up on the most expensive diesel I’ve ever purchased and rolled out. A few days later I was hunkered under a pine when my cell phone vibrated. (I knew I should have left it in the truck!)

After months of rejection, I’d been called to be an election judge. I barked into the phone “you gotta’ be shitting me”, but it was true. My small irrelevant county has a million little old ladies that do the election thing and it sounded like they wouldn’t need me until someone died. Fortunately, nobody died but someone was on chemo. I had promised, to the darkness near my campfire, that I would come if called. So I agreed and hung up.

What now with the logistics? Election judges are occupied the entire voting day. This meant I had to somehow vote absentee at the last minute and definitely do it before the day in question. Then I had to get my ass to the place at the time.

Why? Because if honest people do nothing then honest people will have done nothing.

Even if it amounts to nothing… even if we all wind up in concentration camps after Fauchi has become a robot overlord that shouts “I am science” and nukes Baltimore… I’ll know I did the right thing. If you do nothing but sit at home bitching about things, you will have done nothing but bitch.

Unfortunately, I was busy with the entirely unrelated endeavor of hunting. How the hell was I going to accomplish both? I decided to hunt when I could hunt and bail when time was up. This event’s timing, like so many in 2022, was uncertain, rushed, and decided in realms I don’t’ control.

Stay tuned…

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Hunting And Election After Action Report: Part 2: HAMs And Kremlinology

Posted on November 15, 2022 by AdaptiveCurmudgeon

Don’t think I was overly wigged out about the TV. Like I said, it hasn’t been on since early spring when I last heated the house by woodstove. Another week or month or year without large format YouTube videos won’t kill me. But it did remind me how little true news I’m getting.

As a counterpoint to the TV, I’ve been upgrading my HAM setup. The internet is great but when (if?) it goes full totalitarian (or more totalitarian) then what? Will your fancy VPN do Jack-shit if your ISP shuts you down because you have an unpopular opinion or vote for the wrong party? Are you going to use TOR and Linux to find actual news and even then will it be true? If you’re using this marvelous communication technology to read Wikipedia and Twitter you’re ill informed anyway. HAM is one alternative in our decreasing toolbox. It’s not perfect but it’s (partly) analog and it reaches actual living breathing humans. (Unlike the human-ish bot people of Twitter.) Soon (in theory) I’ll be able to use radio waves to peek over the horizon and sniff about for minor but relevant information.

All modern news sources are filtered through media systems that are flat out propaganda machines. Most of the time it’s a complete lie. The rest of the time most of the potential truth is missing some key piece of context. Other times it just plain doesn’t mention things you’re not supposed to see. (Are there still riots in Iran? In France? Is Venezuela still the remarkable socialist success story it was when NPR was abuzz about it? (Have they finally run out of zoo animals to eat?) Heck, modern media can’t even report the weather without somehow tying storm damage to global warming or mean Republican politicians. When they say “this incoming storm is the worst thing to happen since chlamydia” does that mean it’s a legitimately bad storm or that someone wants disaster funding added to the next omnibus bill?

This is the case for me and it’s the case for you too. You might not like to think of it, but your knowledge about real events happening right now is surprisingly limited. It’s likely that an American with broadband, cable, and cell services in 2022 is less well informed than an American reading a three day old newspaper they found lying on the counter at Dennys in 1980. (Remember when you could read two newspapers from two different locations and compare TWO points of view? Seems quaint doesn’t it?)

Here’s one example among many, Russia, in it’s war with Ukraine, has supposedly been losing incredibly hard. They’ve been reported to be on the brink of total collapse (according to damn near everyone who draws a salary to say such things) since day one. How long before we acknowledge that at least the early reports were incorrect? If Russia has been inches from total defeat for three quarters of a year; how long can one be inches from a defeat without actually being defeated? Meanwhile, every talking head that says so has a pristine record of accountability. They assured us that Hillary was robbed in 2016 but to question 2020’s election is treason. They told us the vax would protect us from COVID. (They still try to say it.) They said that the two consecutive quarters of declining GDP is not a “recession” because it’s 2022 and the president is from one of two parties so the word “recession” has a new definition.

Given they all spout the exact same geopolitical evaluation, I can conclude from it… what exactly? That Russia is losing so hard that they’ll be a smoking crater by noon tomorrow? Or that two months hence they’ll still be reporting that Russia is still losing and still on the verge of implosion? I have no clear way of knowing the situation. (Note: I’m not inviting you to post your opinion on the event, only reflecting that the media has an incredibly bad track record for accurate reporting.)

Suppose you really want to know the true nature of things and you live in our modern hive mind clusterfuck of “narratives”. How can you check what you’ve heard against reality? Often we’re forced to parse bits of propaganda. Back in the cold war, there was a word for this: Kremlinology. People used to listen to what Soviet Russia announced, knowing full well it was a total lie. From the lies they’d try to piece together the truth. Reading the tea leaves of Soviet pronouncements was a genuine profession. Serious and otherwise sane people worked diligently using that method in an attempt to discern the truth.

Yet, when the USSR caved like a house of cards, the US was taken completely by surprise. Parsing propaganda to discern the underlying truth had been a complete failure. Why were doing it now… and in our own nation, is beyond me.

So anyway improved HAM radio capacity is coming into being and I picture it being useful at least within the US. Suppose the press announces that everyone in Baltimore has died of COVID and I have no way of knowing if that really happened. Theoretically I can use the radio. I’ll either bounce across several repeaters in the VHF (2 meter) band or use something more technical to get a message through directly to the area. “This is <Callsign> from Curmudgeon Compound calling Baltimore. Are you guys all dead?” “Baltimore responding, nope we’re fine. CNN said everyone north of the 45th parallel froze to death because of global warming. Are you frozen solid?” “Nope, when we get cold we go ice fishing. We’re fine. Have a nice day Baltimore.”

See? When all is lies, a way to go straight to the source may save your ass. I wish I’d planned ahead to detect areas that were the most “masky” during the Nuremberg nightmare of COVID.

Alas, my new (NOS) HAM radio is still in its box. It’s sitting on a couple of expensive cables. It’s adjacent to a boxed up antenna that annoyed my UPS driver and which I haven’t yet mounted. So, the election would have to happen without me having the slightest idea what’s truly going on. I neither could watch the song and dance on TV, nor could I radio for on the ground reference. I’m in the dark. (How is that different from what everyone else is experiencing?)

Consider this, I’m writing this post week after the event and Arizona is going through a full week of discovering new votes that lean a certain way. (They always lean a certain way.) I’d dearly love to radio Arizona. “This is <Callsign> calling Arizona.” “Arizona here. Go ahead <Callsign>.” “I have just one question. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?” “Arizona here, we’re as mystified as you. Maybe the ability to count was lost when we went to common core?” “Are you guys OK? Blink once for ‘yes’ and twice for ‘rescue me’.” “We’re fine, by the way, didn’t you freeze to death due to global warming?” Etc…

So yeah, I was more off grid than even my average. For “normie” events like elections I was about to go under a rock.

Despite tinkering with the radio I was oddly OK being in the dark. I felt drawn to the idea of isolation. After my camping trip I was noticeably relaxed. Whatever happens will be what happens. I care. And I do what I can. But it’s not my job to carry a collapsing society, kicking and screaming, into each new day.

I shrugged my shoulders, packed my shit, and went off to slay Bambi.

More in part 3.

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Hunting And Election After Action Report: Part 1: Trigger Warning And Dead Furnaces

Posted on November 14, 2022 by AdaptiveCurmudgeon

[Warning: this story touches on spirituality, elections, and hunting. Third rail topics all. If you’re the sort that freaks out over such things, run.

Actually, if you’re the sort that reads “trigger warnings” why are you even here? In fact, I’ve changed my mind about the first paragraph; if you’re here, you’re an adult and I don’t need to tell you to relax and have a good time. If you’re a dipshit, a “trigger” warning won’t help anyway. All the false and pretend “trigger” shit is yet another layer of self-censorship foisted upon us by people who’ll keep “tweaking” society until we all have Munchausen by proxy. I’ll just keep wordsmithing as well as my pointy little head can manage and post as if I still lived in a society of adults.]

I had second thoughts after I wrote my last story. It wasn’t helped by the reaction of an acquaintance with closer connection to the zeitgeist than me. For example, he’s a normal human being and therefore would never use the word zeitgeist.

“You did what?!?”

“It was a metaphor.”

“Jesus shows up at a campsite. He’s hammering cancer sticks. Then you ride a motorcycle in a forest and it’s church? Are you mad?”

“It was a form of communication. People need a story of inner peace, just as I needed to live it.”

“People need soma* shoved up their ass. There’s an election in a few days and you just know it’s going to be a shitshow. They’ll be all riled up. Put your dumb little story on the internet and you will be savaged by the woke mob!”

“Meh, I’m not popular enough to be savaged. Plus, it’s the truth, metaphorically speaking.”

“Nobody tells the truth. Even losers like you aren’t unpopular enough to tell the truth!”

“I’ll risk it.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“It’s been said.”

Pause…

“So, aside from outing yourself as an idiot, what are your plans for the week?”

“I’m going to vote and then go off line and hide from everyone. I want to spend some quality time with my pressure canner.”

“Off line!?! During the election! Are you mad?”

[*Note: The universe has gotten so fake and gay that when I Googled “soma” it didn’t come up with Huxley’s Brave New World. (Technically, I have a non-Google search engine but that’s not the point.) The point is that there are people who think “soma” refers to “a drink having intoxicating properties from ancient India”. The poor bastards lacking context are clueless and our reference materials won’t help! Ironically, that’s part of what Huxley was talking about!]

Anyway, I wrote a story that ranged from shitting in a bucket to encounters with the eternal, timed it for release with the auto scheduler, and then ran like I’d lit a fuse. I had some concerns but I’d already planned outdoor time and the cure for internet concerns is the real world! However, maybe I’d take Election Day to sit on my ass like a “normie” and watch the results on TV. Who knows, things might happen in a reasonable manner? (Quit laughing! Everything turned to shit, but it didn’t have to be that way.)

During my planned off-line “vacation” I was very busy with real world issues. My truck is still on the spare and my furnace ran out of fuel. The latter became non-trivial as the weather turned chilly. You might think I’d just call 1-800-frozenballs or fill out a form at furnacefuelatBidenrates.com but that’s not the way of things. Fuel delivery never worked well in my rural area. Even before society crawled up it’s own ass it was frustrating. For decades I’ve made calls to fuel delivery people and for decades they’ve arrived late, refused to go down my driveway, showed up at inconvenient times… or (most commonly) just ignored me. This time, they promised to call back, didn’t, and never showed at all.

That’s OK. The thing about declining society is that it’s (in some ways) predictable. Simply assume a world of incompetent dumbassery and plan for that. This is why I own a tank with which I can manually retrieve my own furnace fuel.

It’s a bitch to mount it in my truck so I hadn’t used it for several years. Then some components broke. That’s my own fault. I got weak during a time of plenty and stopped using the tank.

The Orange Menace’s brief window of thriving economy was a time when fuel delivery was cheap and reasonably efficient. Sandwiched between Obama’s non-existent but perpetually reported “green shoots recovery” and the death spiral of the Bidenverse it was a time when I ordered cheap fuel long in advance and was never in a rush. That was then, this is now. I’m in a strange dying parallel world where I’ll bleed hard to fill a 250 gallon furnace tank. (I found a receipt for about $450 to fill the tank just a couple years ago. It’ll be TRIPLE that now! Unless I’m almost maniacally carefully about it, I’ll burn more than one tank per year. Drop well over a grand and a few months later do it again!?! As Obama said in 2009, elections have consequences.)

Like one does in a tough economy, I played at the edges. I couldn’t swing a refill this spring. I ran real low hoping for cheaper prices during the summer. (Furnace fuel usually drops in price a little during the summer but not this time. Seasonal cycles don’t apply when politicians are fucking the supply chain like a cheap hooker.)

Anyway, I made a dozen calls, got nowhere, was told to expect a call back (which never happened) and ran out of fuel on the very day it started snowing. Poetic no? Now I’m going to have to bleed the lines before the furnace will start, but that’s a second order hassle because the tank is still empty.

So I said “fuck it” and lit the woodstove. Sadly, my wood supply reflects another moment of weakness. For many years I cut and stacked all the wood I’d need for the long winter. It’s an absolutely herculean task. During the rule of Cheeto Jesus, which still has people quaking in their boots for some reason, fuel was dirt cheap. I went from stacking 120% of my needs to about 85% of my needs. That 15% of “give” made a big difference in my life. It’s just plain easier living in a time of sound governance and thriving economics.

Before you mock me and my inadequate wood supply, remember that a man who supplies 85% of his heating needs in the cold north, entirely with his own efforts, is still doing a pretty manly task. Nobody gets to laugh unless they’ve done more; and if you have done the deed you already know all about your personal your awesomeness. I briefly enjoyed the less intensive workout and even now I figure I’m more self reliant than 90% (or is it 99%) of the populace.

Anyway, I dug into my inadequate woodpile and lit the fire. This is when I made another discovery. The TV was dead.

I don’t watch much TV; as noted by the fact that the TV hasn’t been on for months. I hadn’t realized it but I’d fallen into the habit of sitting in my chair, toasty warm and sipping whiskey, while I watch YouTube. Nothing goes with a warm fire like a video of some dude freezing their ass off. All hail Lars from Survival Russia! A shout out to Emporium Outdoors. Well done Lonnie. Etc…

Also, I’d decided to watch the first post-2020 election in real-time. Would it be a return to reasonably ordered transfer of power? Would it be another shitshow with weeks of half assed excuses and strategic truckloads of mystery ballots? (As an aside, I’ve often thought of that night in 2020 as a step into the looking glass. I went to bed in what appeared to be a reasonably orderly world with a more or less routine election. I woke up on the first steps in the path to the Bidenverse. The disenchantment of strange statistical anomalies stings more because I, for a brief moment at least, stayed in a world where things in politics seemed to follow my experiences in real life. Subsequently, I got to feel that naïve belief ripped directly out of my body and I was forcibly plunged into the clown world we inhabit now. Which is to say, it’s one thing to read a newspaper about Chicago’s permanently corrupt elections and it’s another to watch them spring up everywhere on animated maps.)

With the TV dead, my main connection to real-time “moron level news” was severed. This seemed ominous. It was at that moment I started thinking “this is definitely going to suck”. Predicting that the election immediately after 2020 would go full retard isn’t a difficult guess, many people were more cynical than I. Yet, for some reason I felt pretty optimistic right until the dead TV seemed to bring forth sorrow in my mind.

More to come…

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Camping Trip: Part 9: I Made It Home On A Spare With A Smile

Posted on November 11, 2022 by AdaptiveCurmudgeon

It was a fun motorcycle ride. I wish it could have gone on forever. Alas, all things are fleeting.

I wisely kept my enthusiasm on a leash. The oncoming storm sounded like the real deal. Hard to imagine it happening on the same planet as the blue sky playground where I happily rode along… but I know better than to get caught out there. I returned to camp long before it was due to hit.

Back at camp I packed all my stuff; including the wildly successful “shitbucket” and the supremely useful little electric chainsaw. I carefully put my shotgun in the back seat, hitched my trailer to the truck, tossed the flat tire in the truck, strapped down the bike, and rolled out.

A half mile out of camp. A gamebird was just standing there in the road!

I put the truck in park, grabbed my shotgun, and… dammit. All my ammo was still on the motorcycle! (You can’t have a loaded shotgun in the truck but I could have had the good sense to stick a few shells in my pocket!)

By the time I ran from the driver’s door to the mounted bike on the trailer, and then to the dirt road in front of my truck… the bird was long gone. Not that I minded. I hadn’t specifically been after birds, I’d been after peace; which I’d found. It had been a successful trip.

The spare tire held even though it was a very long drive home. In the middle of the night, the long delayed weather front hit. All hell broke loose. Even within my house I could barely sleep through the screaming winds.

So I end the story of my camping trip and the previous “glamping” that led up to it. I was happy, tired, spiritually at peace, rejected as a volunteer, and unconcerned about the rejection. I was mentally (if not physically) rested and already dreaming about my next trip. We are specks in the universe; hunkered down when we must and venturing forth to seek wisdom when we’ve the gumption. We progress in fits and starts. Through it all, irrational elements howl pointlessly outside, amounting to nothing.

I wonder what the future holds but I’m not overly concerned. I guess I’ll fix that tire and let the rest of the universe tend to itself.

What better thing could a man do?

Posted in Fall_2022, Walkabout | 6 Comments

Camping Trip: Part 8: Sunny Ride To Nowhere

Posted on November 10, 2022 by AdaptiveCurmudgeon

Because of the dreary weather, I started a fire in my tent’s stove before zonking out. I slept like bread in a toaster, waking about once every 3 hours to restart the fire. I had prepared more wood than I thought I’d need. I used it all. I slept like a baby.

The next morning was absolutely out of character with the rest of the trip. Glorious sunshine. Bright blue skies. Birds chirping. Just amazing. Like falling asleep in November and waking up in July.

It was Sunday and I was worried that the church would have a service. I needn’t be concerned. Nobody showed up. Unlike the cloudy Friday night that had campers nearby, and unlike the Saturday morning that brought herds of UTVs, this Sunday morning was all for me. Nobody showed up at all!

Despite being human, I’ll never understand humanity’s herd-like ways. I checked my spare tire (still holding air) and wondered where the people had gone. Why was Saturday a migratory event and Sunday completely unpeopled? Why did they vanish exactly when my truck was on a jack? Why be out and about in the forest during the gray previous weather but not this warm and sunny morning? As far as I know it was still hunting season. Was everyone in a church somewhere else? Were they all home watching TV? Did they finally drop the bomb and nobody told me?

I had the world’s most peaceful morning coffee but I was too lazy to cook a proper breakfast. I simply put the pot of chili back on the stove and warmed it up. Delicious!

After that I finally decided to address the elephant in the room. I went to church.

We all have comfort zones and this is not one of mine. I respect both God and religion but stay out of organizations. To quote Groucho Marx; I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member. I just don’t trust people en masse; certainly not with my soul. Yet there was the church and how could I not go within? It gave me refuge when I needed it. I ought to pay my respects.

If you know much about very remote things it’s true that some of the most remote buildings are never locked. A lock on a primitive cabin is just an invitation to a broken door. Instead things are sometimes left wide open in the hopes that nobody will take the more or less nothing that’s within. Also, it might provide shelter to someone in an emergency.

So I clomped up the stairs to the door I knew would be open and peeked in. It was gorgeous. A simple, unadorned place. Were I medieval I might call it a peasant’s church. Simple pews. A cross. A barrel stove in the back. You could imagine people on horseback coming to this place. I suppose, given the way of things, you could imagine horseback peasants coming to this place again.

I sat there a long while and looked at the simple wood cross. Nothing.

Damn! The eternal came to my campfire with a pack of smokes two nights ago but not to the little white church. Why? Because that’s what happened and that’s all there is to it.

It was a beautiful place. I’m absolutely sure God has come to many people right there in that pew where I sat. But not for me. I was a little disappointed.

Walking back to my campsite I wondered about myself. If that sweet little church couldn’t reach my heart then am I truly made of ice?

Soon I was distracted by a chipmunk sniffing around my dirt bike’s tires and I forgot all about church. I own a motorcycle! In a flash I’d suited up, started the cold engine, strapped my hunting gear on top of my survival stuff and rolled out.

It was unseasonably warm but I didn’t trust it. The weather report said Armageddon was on it’s way. I really ought to be hustling home on my spare tire. As a compromise I wore my new suit of full protective gear. It wouldn’t be good for hiking or hunting but if it suddenly started to rain (or I piled into a tree) it would be the safer choice.

I zipped down a forest road, took two random turns and hit a trail I’d done once about a year ago. There are about a million designations of trails, roads, minimum maintenance roads, UTV trails, etc… my favorite are the ones that say “limited to less than 1,000 pounds”. These are specifically trying to warn away the bigger 2 row 4 seat UTVs. “I know the salesman said it would go anywhere, but don’t be stupid.” Me and my 300 pound farm bike zipped around the sign and had a great ride.

It was easy riding and very pretty. I crossed out of forest and into what you might call muskeg. It would be a perfectly reasonable place to find a moose.

Somewhere in the middle I stopped. I was about 5 miles in and maybe 4 miles to the dirt road on the other side. I put the kickstand down, killed the engine, and just stood there.

This! This is church! I stood on some dry dead grass and nibbled on a hunk of beef jerky. My church’s foundation is dirt. I felt amazingly happy. It may be the last warm sunny motorcycle day of the year and I hadn’t missed it! I was out there basking in it. I was where I ought to be.

I had a fun time just buzzing around. I tried to remember I was there for birds but there was nothing for it. I simply didn’t care. If I saw one I’d try to dismount and grab my shotgun. Probably, I wouldn’t be able to get my helmet off in time to aim. Not that I cared. I’d be just as happy looking at the colorful larch and aspen. I was in church y’all!

Last post is next…

Posted in Fall_2022, Walkabout | 5 Comments

Camping Trip: Part 7: Chainsaws And Halloween Masks

Posted on November 9, 2022 by AdaptiveCurmudgeon

I got back to camp at an awkward time; too early to make dinner but too late to go gallivanting. The night before I’d used most of the firewood in the camp (it was pretty crappy anyway) so I decided to “test” my spare tire and my new (year old) electric chainsaw. I got the saw for camping and trails and stuff. It looks like a toy, but it’s a solid piece of kit! Every time I use the little beast I’m impressed.

I unhooked my old utility trailer and left that back at camp. (Along with my dirt bike Honey Badger. I swear it was moping at not being ridden.) I rolled my truck a few miles looking for either a gamebird or a nice dry (and small diameter!) log.

It’s a wet season and I was in a wet area so everything was pretty squishy. But you can hardly fail to find firewood if you’re in a forest. I eventually grabbed probably 10 times what I’d need for the evening. This “over gathering” was on purpose. I intended to “pay it forward” on the firewood I’d found in camp and used when I was up against the deadline of sunset. Indeed I left triple the wood that was present when I arrived.

I was rolling back to camp around sunset. Usually the area is deserted but in this season and at sunset every road had trucks & SUVs creeping along. They were looking for game birds by driving at like 5 MPH. I assume UTVs were doing the same thing on the UTV trails.

It was fun to watch. Having no idea of the “normal way of things” I’d discovered a form of hunting where burly SUVs with burly men roll along slowly while peering out of their vehicle’s open windows. (Note: I’ve taken my share of birds near roads. I’ve just never done it from a street legal vehicle while car pooling. I often walk down the road hoping for the best; with fairly unimpressive results. Other times I buzz around on my dirt bike looking for likely terrain and then hop off for short jaunts; which is a good way to wind up eating bratwurst for dinner instead of wild game. If I took my Dodge with 3 friends on board we’d probably get more birds. I just never thought of it. (Plus I camp solo.)

One vehicle that passed was a Suburban with three(!) rows of seats. Each row had two beefy men dressed in blaze orange. Presumably, if anyone saw a bird all six would pile out like a miniature Marine platoon! Lord help any bird near the road!

Then came the funniest one yet. An old guy with a decrepit sedan was inching along watching the ditches; and yes, he had a passenger and both were dressed in orange. The passenger saluted me with the car of beer he was drinking. God I love my country!

Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, a good sized F-250 rolled by. All four windows were rolled down and an orange clad figure peered out of each one. In the driver’s side rear window I saw something that made my day. Michael Myers, the creepy murderer from the “Halloween” movies was looking right at me! I couldn’t believe it.

I salute you, freaky dude in truck! He must have thought “here’s a geezer with a chainsaw,  I’ll put on my mask for when we roll by”. Of all the things I didn’t expect, I didn’t expect that the most!

I was delighted and surprised. I tried to wave so he could see I appreciated the mask but I might have been too slow. They were long gone before I thought to take a snapshot.

I wish there’d been an urbanite photographer  to get the third party view. The photo could have been epic. “Here’s a horror movie death machine guy who’s road hunting while a dingy geezer with a chainsaw is waving at him like Forrest Gump. Don’t leave Boston… ever!”

Actually that’s a thought that stuck with me that evening. I feel like anti-hunters and gun control fans have no idea how many hunters walk among them. It was merely bird season and I was in the world’s most inconvenient location yet the roads were being patrolled strong enough to stop a tank division coming out of Canada! When political winds go gale force and people rant about things I think they have no idea what the real world looks like. I saw a zillion teams of hunter seeker bird assassins on just one late afternoon break of firewood gathering. It’s very much in everybody’s interest that those folks be left to happily chase the wildland equivalent of chicken nuggets. Don’t make them angry. You wouldn’t like them when they’re angry. Just look at the kind of logistics and firepower they deploy to catch a thing the size of a chicken! If I could give the whole world one piece of advice it would be this, leave people alone.

Back at camp I popped open my flask of whiskey and made a vastly more elaborate meal than usual. Why not? I had time to kill and lots of firewood.

The weather was not cheery. It was downright baleful. (I thought a long time to come up with that word and that’s the right word for the conditions; “Portending evil; ominous.” Yep, that’s the right word!)

The air was tense and chilly. It was deathly still. A front was scheduled to move in the following day. It would come with a heaping helping of windstorm. It felt like the existing air was just running out the clock. The dense cloud cover not only blocked the night stars but muffled sound itself. Nothing moved that night. No owls, no wolves, no rustling critters in the forest… nothing. Except me.

For some reason I was in a lighthearted mood. I built up a decent fire and baked bread. Yeah no shit, I made crude croissants out of refrigerated dough from a supermarket in an old cast iron pot. I’d brought some charcoal to do it right but I mis-timed and just used wood. I forgot to bring oil or butter. No matter, it worked ok.

I browned up some stew meat and onions to whip up a basic chili. It was delicious. I see people on YouTube do “fancy camping food” all the time. I’ve been in a rut of Mountain House because it’s handy for when weight or time matters. Now, it’s nice to expand into new ideas. Unfortunately, I made waaaay too much. Cooking for one is hard. The air was about the temperature of a refrigerator and there was no sign of a bear problem so I just sealed the pot and left it on the table.

Then I turned on my shortwave radio and strung an antenna into a nearby tree. What wisdom from the world at large would I find? Turns out, nothing deep. I wound up listening to Rob Zombie’s “Superbeast”. Deep? No. Fun? Yes!

If only I could bottle that moment in time. How would it feel to another; someone peering from a distance. See if you can imagine a deep dark forest completely bereft of humans… save one. Add in a half eaten pot of chili and a swig or two of whiskey and a nice little fire. Imagine the beaded woodsman dancing merrily to Rob Zombie. Imagine all this in the most foreboding weather imaginable. Imagine this happening on the hallowed ground of a church that outlasted the community that built it. Surrounded on three sides by nearly impassible lands and centered amid depopulated not-quite ghost-towns that have been empty for a century.

It was in this place that I had a great night’s sleep in a Russian tent purchased as a solid F.U. to a cratering society.

And I’m not done yet…

Posted in Fall_2022, Walkabout | 1 Comment

Camping Trip: Part 6.6: I Was Called

Posted on November 8, 2022 by AdaptiveCurmudgeon

I was called. I’ve no time to explain. It’s all chaotic and at the last minute. I was pretty happy to be spared a task I dreaded but while you read this I’m probably doing the deed. Unless I’m not.

Wish me luck.

Posted in Fall_2022, Walkabout | 3 Comments

Camping Trip: Part 6.5: I Was Willing, But Not Called

Posted on November 8, 2022 by AdaptiveCurmudgeon

[This was to be the last post in the series and the series was to end on election day. Alas, I spent too much time pondering the spiritual and gallivanting in the shoal waters of Luggable Loos and other camping gear. At the risk of scrambled chronology, I post these thoughts today; election day. The text goes live via database scheduling, I’m not even sure I’ll be on-line. The rest of the story will continue tomorrow.]

A few days after my return from camping I got an e-mail. Apparently, the urban county that supposedly needs election judges… doesn’t. I’d clearly indicated I was “willing to travel” on their form but they didn’t care. My volunteer application had been routed from the urban zone where staffing is inadequate (and shenanigans might or might not happen) to my rural county which is duller than dirt but has no drama. My rural area dutifully reported to me (as it has before) “we don’t need anyone here”.

They did not call. I am not going.

I’m not upset about it. First of all, the situation spares me a decision I didn’t quite know how to handle. It also spares me several hundred dollars in expenses; not to mention a long and unwelcome trip. Finally, I feel like I did what I was meant to do.

I felt obligated to offer help, which I did. I never felt obligated to kick down the door and force myself on a system that doesn’t want or need it.

I was prepared to do a task. That is all. That doesn’t mean I was looking forward to it. It’s better to do something than bitch about the world. I can truthfully say I wasn’t inert in the face of challenge. It’s the second time in a year that I was ready to go to the mat. It’s the second time I was spared an unpleasant situation. It’s the second time I’m very grateful.

I’ll probably spend most of election day in the forest; as the universe has decreed I should.

I type this well before the actual day of the vote. This text will be stored in the great database in the sky; from which the data will auto-post as scheduled. The post will happen regardless of events. The post will happen if the elections are squeaky clean diamonds of sanity that secure “the consent of the governed”. The post will happen even if everything gets shutdown at midnight and trucks full of ballots arrive at key locations where the windows are blacked out in the complete anthesis of transparency. Mobs in the streets or happy citizens waving little flag stickers… who knows which… or both.

As for myself, I don’t even know if I’ll be on the grid the day the election plays out. I don’t even know if there will be an election day or a month of “lawfare” leading to mushy compromises.

I’m not sure it will do me any good to watch it in real time. I’m not sure it’ll do anyone good. The last time I went to bed in one universe where things were seemingly ordered and there were a few weird hiccups in a few key places. I woke up in another universe where everything had changed. Concertina wire was part of elections and soon we had political prisoners doing hard time for “parading”.

I’ll always felt split by that. The dichotomy is almost visceral. It’s like the innocent act of sleep put me in a parallel universe; we’re here now and there’s no way back.

I don’t know what will happen this election. Neither do you. I pray that it is drama free. I still don’t quite know what to think of the last election. For once I’m not alone. Nobody is really happy with it, on either side. All evidence indicates our society neither confident about the future nor successfully digesting past events.

The guy who showed up at my campsite seemed to think it wasn’t a big deal. It will be as it will. Politics distracts from reality; it divides us from the spiritual. Also, it’s not inconceivable that clean behavior could restore faith in our institutions (though it’s asking too much to heal our society in one fell swoop). I hope it makes things better. And if it doesn’t, that too is how it should be.

Take care everyone.

A.C.

Posted in Fall_2022, Walkabout | 1 Comment

Camping Trip: Part 6: Land Navigation

Posted on November 7, 2022 by AdaptiveCurmudgeon

[I return now to the story (and life) so rudely interrupted (for better or worse) by the elections. I hope y’all have been celebrating not just political wins but re-emergence of a society that can manage proper transition of power. Meanwhile, back at camp, I’d just finished a small motorcycle maintenance issue and an exhausting tire change.]

After all that work, I wasn’t in the mood to run my freshly gassed and packed dirt bike. I grabbed my shotgun and my hunting jacket (which is also bristling with survival gear) and headed out on foot. As always, I was alone. This time I was in a genuine “trackless” area.

If you don’t go off trail you might not know this but there’s happy nature and there’s grumpy nature. Two sides of the same coin. The same glorious natural environment that lightens your heart can be a stone cold bitch that’s out to kill you. It all depends on the circumstances.

The place I’d camped was at was the dead end of a spur road that forked into a big chunk of nothing. Five minutes out of camp I was in a roadless area that was last “civilized” a century ago. It has no “hiking paths”. It doesn’t even have UTV trails.

There’s occasional logging action out there but most of that is winter based. Heavy equipment comes in through the swamps when they’re frozen. If you follow their tracks in summer they’ll lead you astray. Overall, this place was a navigational mess.

Navigation tends to settle on three things; points, edges, and areas. There were no edges to the nothing. No “if you get to the ravine you’ve gone too far”. No “the area terminates at a big obvious lake”. No points either. Occasionally a tree that’s a little bigger than the other trees, but nothing that would show up from a distance as a legitimate point of reference. No good views of a mountain peak; I couldn’t even see the sun in the western sky. Nor could you navigate by “areas”. A solid block of pines or a solid block of aspens would give two things upon which to fix your place in the world. This place didn’t have discrete chunks of different conditions so much as a messy dispersed stewpot with a little of this and a little of that. Everything blended into a giant uniform matrix of “this messy stuff here” and it went from forever to forever in all 4 directions.

I wandered around out there hoping I’d see a bird that didn’t hear me coming from a mile away. I was aware of the risk I was taking. I’m perfectly skilled at such things. This particular terrain was extremely maze-like but I’ve been in mazes before. The sky was cloudy and the air was chilly. It felt like it wanted to rain again; it would be a cold icy rain for sure. The sun would set in due time and I couldn’t even identify the sun itself. (The whole sky was a uniform gray.)

I went about a mile; checking behind me often to make sure I’d get back out. Finally I decided the risk reward equation was too far gone. Reward was 4 ounces of bird. Risk was some hunter finding my skull in a decade. A lot of it was that I was tired. If you’re going to do solo things you need a mind firmly under your command. You need to rationally assess your own condition. If you want to pretend you’re something you’re not… stay in town.

It was late afternoon, I was bushed, the place was a maze, it might turn to cold drizzle at any minute, and I’d never been there before. Red flags all. So I turned around and hunted back toward camp.

Call me a wimp if you wish. In my defense, I’ve lived a lot longer than some people who’ve ignored nature’s hints.

Plus, I was just starting a re-read of a good book!

More to come…

Posted in Fall_2022, Walkabout | 3 Comments

Camping Trip: Part 5: Tourists And A Flat Tire

Posted on November 6, 2022 by AdaptiveCurmudgeon

Inevitably “tourists” arrived. This is a beautiful place and it’s game season. I knew there would be more action that usual. Even so, I’d underestimated the draw.

All morning, UTVs with 2 or 4 people each kept showing up. It was always the same, the first thing they’d do is run for the outhouse. Then they’d wander off at a much more relaxed pace. There are more UTVs out there than you’d think.

One notable group was a grandma/grandpa set in a shiny new UTV followed by a beaming kid on an archaic 3 wheeler (ATC). Don’t go all safety nerd on me, the kid was riding it just fine. And boy did he look happy!

A few people rolled by very slowly to peer at my tent (which is unusual in design). They did this while failing to address me, the dude sipping coffee right next to the object of interest, how gauche!

One lady emerged from the outhouse and then made a beeline to my camp to look at “the little hut”. She had a chicken and wondered if a tent like that would keep it warm. I suppose so, but it would be the most expensive chicken coop in creation. I offered that if it keeps me alive it’ll keep a chicken alive but for my chickens I just make sure I’ve got enough chickens that they can huddle together. Keeping one chicken warm is hard, keeping 6 or 12 is no problem at all. She ignored my practical idea, which sums up 2022 precisely. We talked about ice roads for a while and then she wandered off. Her chicken must be a hell of a pet.

One fellow stopped and gave me a thumbs up. He had a question; “Is that a Russian tent?”

“Yes it is.”

“Nice.” He enthused. Then he added one more thing. “Fuck politics, I like that Russian tent.” Almost like he was afraid he’d get caught having committed Crimespeak he immediately clammed up and rolled his UTV out of there. Poor guy.

Having encountered a guy afraid of the entire topic, I ponder the Russian angle to what should be peaceful camping equipment. I bought the tent for several irrational reasons; none of which were geopolitical. I don’t have anything against the people of Russia. I think they suffered enough within the Soviet Union; which is gone. It’s not 1962; Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy are all dead. I feel like nobody knows the USSR no longer exists and the the Russian Federation is a different thing.

Back on the topic of the tent, I shocked myself at my own commitment when I spent the money. It simply felt right and I did it. It was only a few months after the Afghanistan retreat and not 6 months before a new improved war popped up. There’s always a new improved war. Would sanctions have interfered with the purchase? No idea. Was the eternal calling my bluff? I don’t know that either. How would a man know that?

It’s clearly of Russian origin but it’s built to very high standards. It’s rare. It’s not something you’d find at Gander Mountain. I think that’s funny because a lot of the stuff at Gander Mountain is made in China. I don’t know if I only had one shot to own this tent. I know I’m glad I made the leap when it felt right.

I spent a scandalous length of time making an overly elaborate breakfast. This was a form of procrastination. I really am tired from “life”. I was just out of steam. I had brought my motorcycle (“Honey Badger”) and I’m equipped to take the little beast on trails looking for game birds. But there’s a time when the right thing to do is to percolate coffee and do nothing. It was a decision made as much by my body as my mind.

I began reading a tattered old paperback. Robinson Crusoe!

Soon a new kind of tourist began filtering in. Bird hunters started arriving. UTV’s with 2 or 4 orange clad, shotgun toting bird slayers made the same beeline to the same outhouse as the “tourists”; but they did it with more armaments. Pretty soon so many groups of UTVs had shown up that I couldn’t tell when one cluster left and the next arrived.

I’d only read the first chapter of Robinson Crusoe when the onslaught of people finally drove me into motion. With coffee perking lazily on the fire I was set to read all through a chilly but pretty day. I gave up when three UTV’s (some with four seats) showed up toting a grand total of 5 men, 2 women, and 2 dogs. How many birds are out there?

I rolled my motorcycle off the trailer and prepared to go… somewhere. Alas, I discovered an annoying maintenance issue. The chain was too slack. The proper solution is to jack it up on a bike stand (which I don’t own) so the rear tire is suspended. After it’s suspended loosen the rear axle and twist a couple of “snail brackets” to push the rear axle back a bit. It’s not complicated.

Last time I did this while camping I used an old tree stump to elevate the bike. It worked. This time there were no appropriate stumps. That made the simple task into a struggle.

I strove mightily, finally solving the situation by balancing the bike on front tire and kickstand while perilously leaning it over my hunched shoulders just enough to lift the rear tire off the ground. It was a dumb, dangerous, solution and hard work too. However, it got the job done. I lubed the (now tight) chain, checked the gas, loaded the usual survival equipment (I ride loaded for bear), and was ready to go.

Frankly I was pleased I’d solved the chain dilemma. “Nothing has worked out but everything has been more or less drama free” I thought. Everything could have been a disaster but I’d handled each new issue like I knew what I was doing. Nice.

Then I made a discovery that kyboshed everything.

The truck was on a flat! Not cool when you’re a million miles from nowhere! (As a practical matter a rear flat on a dually is something I could probably ignore it enough to limp to a garage. Not that there were any garages anywhere nearby.) I wanted to ignore it and simply ride away on Honey Badger; let “tomorrow Curmudgeon” deal with it.

But it was better to deal with the task at hand when many people were around. There were six people hanging around the outhouse. Including a sweet old retired couple cooking a picnic on a little BBQ. Something could go wrong. If that happened it would be advantageous to my safety. Also, what if I needed to haul the tire to a shop? My motorcycle can get me to civilization but it can’t haul a truck tire. There was a chance I’d need to beg a favor!

I lowered the spare, checked that it was holding pressure (it was, and frankly it’s nicer than my other tires), and started struggling with lug nuts. 8 lug nuts sounds cool until you have to do them by hand. I jacked up the truck, swapped the tires, re-installed the lugs, set her down, and retorqued the lug nuts. That doesn’t sound like much but it was quite a workout.

I’d started the weekend already tired. Then I’d done some light motorcycle fiddling. I’d followed up by swapping the rear tire on a truck that’s just about as big as consumer trucks get. I was out of steam!

I also noticed something, the instant my truck was in the air EVERYONE VANISHED. Literally dozens of people coming and going TURNED INTO NOBODY AT ALL. What’s up with that?

Well I’m used to working without a net so no big deal. I’d done all that grunting and lug nut torqueing without so much as a nod from any of the UTV people. There’s no mystery in that. The UTV people that might have been incoming seemed to know to go elsewhere. Now that’s a mystery.

More in the next post…

Posted in Fall_2022, Walkabout | 8 Comments