Adaptive Curmudgeon

This isn’t my first rodeo. I was suited up like the Michelin Man. I had three layers of jacket, heavy boots, insulated overalls, fur bomber’s hat, choppers, etc… (Choppers are a variety of mitten that’s well suited to stupidly cold weather.) My pockets were crammed survival shit; two flashlights, matches, SpotX etc… Just as I left I realized the SpotX (which I thought I’d charged) had a dead battery. No worries. I had cell phone reception, wasn’t going far, and Mrs. Curmudgeon was literally waiting for me in an idling car.

I hiked away from the car but immediately slowed to a crawl. I was exhausted. And for no good reason! My bum ankle was making me limp. The dog (on a leash) was dragging my ass around. It was tough walking and everything was going wrong in small but disturbing ways.

Stumbling on a bum ankle in -10 degrees is nothing like zipping along with my dirt bike. Covering even the shortest distance took forever.

At least the dog was having a blast. There were deer tracks everywhere.

Eventually I decided I must be on the wrong trail. It was a big wide trail but there was no sign of ATV, hiker, or snowmobile. No sign of humans at all. I assume it’s a snowmobile highway when the snow’s deep but that’s not the case yet.

I veered west, took an adjunct trail, and popped out on the plowed road only ½ mile from the car. I could see the headlights. Uncharacteristically, I used the cell phone to ask Mrs. Curmudgeon to come get me rather than my usual habit of hiking all the way back. I felt like I’d hiked all day instead of just a few minutes.

In the warm car, I directed us down more roads. Left, right, straight, etc… It was all pretty well plowed. I found another trail crossing. Maybe this was the correct one? Presumably, I’d started on the wrong one just a few miles away.

I stepped out again. This time the dog was less eager. It was brutally cold. The dim January afternoon was fading to dim January dusk.

I trudged out into the trees; trying to compare the winter wonderland before my eyes to the campsite I’d found by dirtbike in 80 degree warmer temperatures. This section of forest was dead silent. No deer tracks. No rabbits. No birds flitting about. The sun’s true location was hidden in a cloudy sky but it was nearly sunset. As the general diffuse light faded, the temperature seemed to be dropping like a rock.

Like I said, this isn’t my first rodeo. I know all about woodcraft and caution. Every ten yards or so I’d stop and assess the situation. I couldn’t pinpoint why I was moving so slow but I acknowledged it. I had a mental checklist of the thousand things that could or had gone wrong. Nothing was going swimmingly but I wasn’t doomed yet. Nothing was out of my league… yet. However, I was disappointed in my weakness.

The campsite I sought is not hidden, nor is it far from the maintained road, but it eluded me. I found it hard to judge distance comparing a slow winter trudge, bootstep by increasingly heavy bootstep… to my zippy little dirtbike. I estimated I’d need to hike out ½ mile and return an equal distance; probably much less. Every time I stopped to rest it seemed like I’d only need a few hundred yards before I’d be right where I wanted. The hike wasn’t long. It should be easy peasy!

The campsite didn’t appear. I kept feeling like it was just around the next bend in the trail.

The sun had set. Most people are scared shitless to be alone in the dark. I’m not. I’ve hiked in the dark plenty of times. In the winter, when the snow is bright white and you’re on simple terrain, you can hike all night provided there’s the slightest hint of moonlight.

“The moon on the crest of the new fallen snow gave the luster of midday to objects below.” I quoted to my dog, who was starting to look concerned.

When I say “my dog” I really mean my wife’s dog. It’s a Great Pyrenees. She’s genetically built from the ground up to be a sheepherder’s guardian dog. Great Pyrenees don’t herd sheep, they kill predators. That’s literally their whole purpose. They’ll gladly take on a pack of wolves. They gleefully turn coyotes into chew toys. They’ll square off with a grizzly if they need to.

Yet genetics is only one part of the equation. There’s the matter of temperament. Our last dog (same breed) bonded with me. Like me, it was gruff and standoffish and walked around with an air of “get off my lawn”. It tolerated kids but wasn’t cuddly. It was very protective. Plumbers and electricians never went anywhere without me there to assure the dog they were allowed. The UPS truck was on it’s best behavior at our house. My dog was fiercely protective. It would have taken on a dragon if it thought I was threatened. For that matter, anyone who messed with my dog would personally experience retribution worse than that of John Wick. We were a good set. I miss my dog.

My wife’s dog is the absolute opposite and perfect for her. It’s a big white fluffy ball of love that likes belly scratches and car rides. She (the dog) is cuddly and sweet and lovable and an absolute joy. She’s the absolute perfect companion for my sweet lovely wife. One effect of this is that the dog is not a forest lurker like me. My wife’s sweet, fluffy, cuddly, pup is literally afraid of the dark. Dumbass that I am, I’d brought the dog into a dark foreboding forest.

The dog was looking at me as if I needed an intervention. “This has gone on quite enough! Return me to the warm car and give me a nice treat. This cold weather is hard on my toes and my fur is all covered snow; which is your fault. I’ve enjoyed our walk but you’re nuts. It’s time to go home!”

There was the slightest hint of a rustling in the trees. Almost certainly a deer, though I’d seen no tracks. It could be anything from a porcupine to a yeti.

The forest suddenly seemed “wolfy”. Make of that assessment what you will. I’m not afraid of wolves, but I’m not stupid about it. I wasn’t sure if my dog was protection against them or bait to bring them in. If anything happens to my wife’s beloved dog I’ll be in deep shit! Nor was I armed. Most of the time I’m the biggest bad ass in the forest. Top of the food chain. The absolute definition of the thing that shit that goes bump in the night runs away from! This night was different. I was not at peak performance. I was exhausted and limping and had the constitution of a butterfly.

I waited a minute or two in case my second wind came back. It didn’t. I felt ever so close to that campsite but the goal no longer mattered. I hiked back out. Slowly, deliberately, carefully. I could see well enough. It never occurred to me to use either of the flashlights I was carrying. No need. But I moved slow. My ankle was gimpy and it wouldn’t do to twist it worse.

Back at the car, the dog gleefully dove in the open door. It immediately fell asleep in the car’s heat. I complained that I was unrealistically winded and slumped in the seat as if I’d been in the forest for weeks instead of hours.

I’m convinced I was no more than 50 or 100 yards from the campsite. Sometimes 50 yards is too far. You gotta’ know that truth and make the right call when the time comes.

Epilogue:

The next day I was completely laid out. My hamstring had not gotten better with exercise as I’d hoped. It got much worse! My tooth was worse too.

A day later, I went to a dentist appointment only to have the dentist cancel on me! That pissed me right off.

The next day a different dentist said my teeth were fine. He said I’d misdiagnosed a sinus infection as tooth related. A few hours later a doctor concurred and set me up with antibiotics.

When meeting with the doctor she said “one of the symptoms is extreme lack of energy, how’d you miss that?” I related the story of a short hike that wore me out. She shook her head as if to say “it’s amazing guys like you survive”. She and the dog could probably trade stories about the hike.

I’m recuperating now. I think I won’t go hiking for a while. So, how was your weekend?

A.C.

…I paused and breathed deeply of the dark icy air. The gloom between the trees had taken on an aspect of its own; an almost physical presence. The silence was almost physical as well. It was the deeper kind of silence. Caged domesticated people scarcely know such silence exists. If fact, for them, it doesn’t. Your average person would sink into angst if this level of solitude were forced on them. In such conditions you must use your intellect to make up for your emotional mind. Neither panic nor wimp out nor ignore warning signs. There’s just not enough room for mistakes. You can’t play loose.

There were no animal tracks in the snow. Birds were silent. The sky was impenetrable. The sun a forgotten thing from an hour ago. It was blisteringly cold.

My dog looked at me as if to say “what now”? Something about the forest looked “wolfy”. I’m not sure what I was sensing there, I’ve never had issues with wolves. Was my hundred pound Great Pyrenees an allied warrior or a leashed creampuff?

What was the point? Why was I here?

In the immortal words of Kenny Rogers “You’ve got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em, and know when you you’re gonna’ freeze your fool ass off”.

To my dog’s immense relief, I bailed out.

Now, the rest of the story.

Early in the week, the weather was tame. I started thinking of taking a three day weekend off to winter camp. Why not? I’ve been good. I earned a reward. That was my plan.

My plan fell apart almost immediately. I spent all week trying to adapt with newer lesser plans. I’d wanted to drive a zillion miles to camp with a friend who was also hankering for a winter expedition. But I was just too fried for the drive. So I decided to camp solo closer to home. My truck tires aren’t great and the last few miles of the access route were sketchy. So I decided to take my Jeep which would easily handle the terrain. (It’s not actually a Jeep but it’s like a Jeep so that’s what I’ll call it for now.)

My Jeep has no heat and the temp dropped to -20 farenheit. So I decided to trailer my ATV with my heated truck to a nearby spot and ATV the last few miles. The ATV is dead so I rolled it into the heated (well it’s maybe 40 degrees) garage to see if I could bring it back on-line.

Challenge encountered, solution proposed. Lather, rinse, repeat. Meanwhile I had a toothache that wasn’t going away and I was low on energy. I skipped a trip to the gym to free up a little energy. That night I put my feet up on an old box, leaned back by the fire, and read a book. In my defense I kept trying to adapt, did nothing illogical, and was carefully practicing self care. It was a good book.

Saturday rolled around and I felt like I’d been trampled by wildebeests. Toothache, vaguely generalized headache, etc… Also, I’d dinged up my ankle when I put my feet up the night before. Age is weird. I’ve never gotten used to how I can completely jack the shit out of myself by “sleeping wrong” or “sitting incorrectly”. Mortality is a bitch!

Anyway, I canceled my campout. Too many uncertainties had piled up.

One uncertainty was the location of a dispersed campsite. It’s not super far from a main road but you have to know it’s there to find it. I found it by accident on a dirt bike trip last autumn. A few weeks later I managed to relocate it a second time with an afternoon Jeep trip (it was the last Jeep trip of the season and even then I about froze in the unheated cab).

I’d been there twice, but wasn’t 100% sure I could find it in the snow. I decided I’d just take a short hike from the plowed road to the campsite. There’s only ankle deep snow out there so I’d do it on foot. Mostly, I wanted a short hike to commune with nature and maybe stretch out my suffering ankle.

Mrs. Curmudgeon offered to be my ride. She’s a keeper! We drove on well plowed dirt roads to the spot I thought the trail crossed. I dimly remembered a tree bent just so and a few other things. For a variety of reasons we’d been delayed. I stepped into -10 weather just an hour before sunset…

Stay tuned for part 2.

Today, as I do every day, I shall not judge anyone by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

I’m sure both sides of the political spectrum can agree on that. (Yes, that’s sarcasm.)

Welcome to the fourth year of 2020. What a time to be alive!

Doesn’t the tension feel palpable? It’s the gathering!

“… when there are only a few of us left, we will feel an irresistible pull towards a far away land… to fight for the prize…” – Ramírez (from The Highlander)*

Enjoy the show! It’s the gathering y’all!

Lucky for us it’s the dipshit gathering, not the deadly serious meeting of skilled and cunning immortals we’re told to fear. Our time is the uneasy faffing of stupid clumsy sweaty incoherent dweebs. The losers who got bullied in high school and never scored in college somehow got their hands on the wheel. Having gleefully driven into a ditch they’re stuck in the fucking ditch. They painted themselves into a corner. They ate the seed corn. They burned the bridges. They divided by zero. They made a mess so huge they themselves can’t wish it away. That’s what we’re feeling, the despair of losers who fucked up because they got power they didn’t merit. Their despair is not ours. They don’t know anything else but to double down on fucking up and it’s not working; which is not my fault. Nor is it your fault.

*(If you haven’t watched the movie Highlander drop everything and watch it. Also if you watched the eleven dozen knock off sequels and reboots, what the hell were you thinking? Bad sequels don’t exist in my world because I don’t let people muck up great stories with derivative cash-grabs. The single exception is Mad Max 2 which was somehow better than the original.)

Where was I? Oh yeah, reflecting on the mess that is now. Can you smell the unease in the air? Does it not feel like the tension before a thunderstorm? Do you sense the tide pulling back? Is that a tsunami building beyond the horizon? Do you see politicians looking panicked? Not just some politicians look panicked… they ALL do! Do you see every single authority figure twitching nervously as they reflect on their incompetence and try to outrun their mistakes. Which is more debased? The press or the church? Congress or the NFL? Banks or businesses? Ever see a pissing match where nobody deserves to win? I do! I see systems slowing and bureaucracies grinding to a halt. That which worked is replaced with that which makes the incompetent feel elite and it’s finally coming to a head. It could be huge. You know “the big one” is out there. We all know it.

We all know it’s coming. We just can’t tell what “it” is. Is it 1789, 1861, 1980, 1991? Will it be the storming of the Bastille, firing on Fort Sumpter, the completely unexpected miracle on ice, or the inexplicably war-free dissolution of the mighty and feared Soviet Union? Didn’t expect the last few did ya’? All we really know is there will be change. It will probably suck but it doesn’t have to suck. Sometimes what looks like an end is really a birth. Also, we don’t know if it’ll be one event or a series of shitstorms. Remember that the USSR was strong and unstoppable until the day it wasn’t. Remember “the war to end all wars” came to be known as “part 1”. (I told you sequels suck!)

“It” could be everything all at once or a fart in a windstorm. It might be dispersed chaos as political assclowns create a multiverse of circular firing squads. It might be one big non-political thing like a methed up sixty foot dinosaur that wants to stomp Tokyo. Or, and this is just a small chance but it’s possible, it could be something positive. Nobody sees whats coming, we only know that everything now is unstable.

Clear yourself of normalcy bias. That which “has never happened” has been happening. It’s been obvious since at least 2020. Maybe it started decades or centuries ago. All we know is it’s knocking on the door; whatever the hell “it” is.

For the rest of this whole damn year never let the phrase “that’s impossible” pass your lips!

Nothing can be assumed, nothing can be ruled out, nothing is impossible. There once were borders around the possible but that’s long gone. This far down the rabbit hole there is nothing inconceivable. Everything is possible, none of it likely, all of it unpredictable. Social conventions built to keep things in general balance (such as rule of law) have been battered and largely destroyed. They can’t do their primary function. Your gay priest, your profit free business leader, your biased judge, your incompetent doctor… none of them can summon authority because they cannot summon competence. They cannot fake what they failed to earn. So nothing is impossible.

For better or worse, it’s going to be a hell of a show! Hang on folks because shit’s going to start weird, stay weird, and finish (or not) with a flourish. Your goal, your only goal, is to laugh at the ridiculous and keep on keeping on. Sinking into despair is for the weak. Don’t go there.

In all times, but especially now, attend to yourself. Hydrate, get some exercise, hug those you love, get plenty of sleep, pet a dog, eat a salad, this is no time to neglect yourself or others. The thing most under attack is your mind. Keep it together. If your head is screwed on straight, most of the rest will work out as well as possible under the circumstances. Remember the basics; avoid crowds, brace yourself for more lies, and keep your wallet where you can see it. When you’re being manipulated recognize it and take countermeasures. Exercise caution because nobody is coming to help you; wear a seat belt, put on a helmet, get some sturdy boots; act like you’re a thousand miles from the ER because even if the ER is ten miles away it’s really in the past, back from when doctors did medicine. Believe nothing you can’t personally verify. Stay away from crowds. Show some discernment; value only the opinion of people who’s opinions merit value. Mock the rest. They’re ridiculous and you might as well let them know you’ve figured it out.

Above all, get away from the screen so you know the difference between real and imaginary. Things aren’t as bad as they seem. The literal world is fine, it’s the virtual one that’s a mess. The earth keeps turning and nature is as true and pure as ever. Even as society crawls up its own ass, the sun will rise in the east, set in the west, kittens will be fluffy, and summertime caterpillars will turn into butterflies only to die over the winter.

If properly anchored and sailed to shelter in time, a sound craft will ride out any storm.

I’m rooting for ya’! Happy New Year and good luck!

I left my computer unattended for several days around Christmas. This was the real deal “off”. Meaning off-line, unpowered, disks spun down, etc… Nor was it just a hardware thing. I have multiple ways to access my blog (tablets and such) but I deliberately used them sparingly. (In a world of smart phone clutching monkeys I’m not sure if modern people truly understand the word “off”. Doubt me? If you can get a modern person far enough into the hinterland that their phone loses signal, watch them. It’s comic that they’re almost physical tied to the ‘net and the severing of such is not without consequences. They’ll check their completely dead phone on 15 minute cycles; like a lifelong smoker reaching for the next cancer stick. Even if you think you’re immune, you should test it to see. It’s worth periodically getting off the treadmill just to make sure you can still do it. As for me, I chuckle that my cell phone battery died while I sat by the fire sipping bourbon. I didn’t miss it but boy was the phone pissed off!)

The unfortunate truth is our machines are no longer “machines”. Our electronic lives are used to (and to some extent demand) constant cultivation. While I was carefully limiting my exposure to digital misery (it is simply a truth that most digital media is designed to foment unease in the viewer) all sorts of minor mayhem went down behind the scenes. Some updates happened that might have been a problem. One post vanished (don’t worry, it wasn’t a big deal). I think I lost e-mail for a while. Hosting may have been interrupted (or not). In part this is because I refuse to let software have the keys to my bank account so some “auto renew” stuff did not auto renew. (Self inflicted hassle or an abundance of caution? Embrace the use of “and”.)

Anyway, I’m back and I think I’ve got the engines on-line again. This little corner of what was once called cyberspace should be as stable as ever (now that I think about it, it has a pretty good track record for limited downtime considering how little I attend to basic maintenance).

If I was gone, or bounced an e-mail, or didn’t acknowledge something… sorry. Shit happens.

In a couple hours it’ll officially be Christmas. Often I try to compose something of import around now (or Squirrels of deliberately no import). Alas, I have absolutely no words of wisdom (or humor) to offer this year. Some years the hustle of the holidays goes near frenetic. This year is different. At least for me. (If you’re enjoying the chaos, have at it.) Speaking for myself, I’ve chosen a quiet path. I’m exquisitely at peace. I have done nothing. No shopping. No bustling. No carols. No wrapping paper. No writing. No plans.

Just time spent with those I love, quietly absorbing the joy of the season while doing absolutely nothing exciting. To the extent I can, I’m radiating goodwill back, both to those close and the universe as a whole. Can you sense it?

I just stood outside in the near midnight chill. I was watching the snow. The clouds blocked my beloved night sky but I hardly cared. My only thought was how perfectly timed it is for the children who will see it at dawn. Christmas snow is the best snow. My dog obligingly did kinetic celebration on my behalf; rolling about in the stuff like a polar bear on crack. The night sky may be gloomy but is also perfect. In some ways the weather is always perfect. If there is a flaw in the weather, it is our reaction to it.

This has been a year of letting go. I’ve done so; with both grace and without. We are all human and endure the fits and starts times of stress bring to our attention. Part of letting go…and perhaps a wise choice on my part has been temporarily ignoring my little blog as necessary. Y’all accepted this with absolute patience, as if to remind me that people are pretty kind in general.

I wish you all a full measure of peace and joy. For now, the worries of tomorrow are to be put off until tomorrow. It not easy to think like that, but it is one of many keys to a life well lived. Merry Christmas.

Allow me to wander in the weeds. Ah what the hell, I live in the weeds; please join me in the weeds. I’m thinking about tractor implements.

First, the basics: Farm tractors are serious equipment. Tractors are built to pull, power, and manipulate implements. Implements are big strong machines that are connected to the tractor to do stuff. Sometimes they’re dragged or towed, sometimes they’ve got power shaft connections (called a power take off or “PTO” shaft). They may have linked hydraulics, electronics, and anything else you can imagine. The tractor is the muscle and motive energy, the implement is what allows it to do a specific job. Tractors/implements work together. It’s a good idea. It lets a tractor have almost modular capacity to address any specific task without expecting the impossibility of being able to do everything all at once. Tractor implements are what feed the world while hippies are distracted and bitching about organic soy milk.

My needs are simple. The simplest, crudest, easiest to understand implement is a set of pallet forks. It’s the same thing as you’d see on a forklift, but installed on a tractor which can traverse terrain instead of a forklift which usually can’t.

If your tractor is equipped with a front end loader, the loader bucket can be swapped with forks like this picture here:

There’s also a way to bolt forks onto the tractor bucket. It looks makeshift and can bend the bucket or overextend your expensive loader. Overall they seem like the sort of device Wile E Coyote would buy from Acme. Their very real advantage is that they’re amazingly cheap. Like <$100 to turn any farm bucket into a pseudo-forklift for lightweight stuff.

I need to lift a lot more weight than what can be done with forks bolted to a bucket. In fact, my tractor has a front end loader but I’m not using that at all. Front end loaders can never lift as much as the rear three point hitch. In case you’re wondering, only some tractors have a front end loader but virtually all tractors less than 80 years old have a three point hitch. Pallet forks on a three point hitch look like this:

The picture is a shitty one because I lifted it from the Amazon link to a
“3 Point Hitch Pallet Fork, 1500lbs Capacity Adjustable Pallet Fork Quick Hitch for Category 1”. In fact the only “real” part of that picture is that the tractor has dirt on it.

There are many such things but at my local farm store they were… and I quote “$850, but it’s out of stock, though we could order it, but it’ll take forever. And why wouldn’t you just weld your own anyway?” Sometimes it’s a bummer dealing with farm stores!

Yes yes… I know. Your neighbor’s uncle’s dog catcher’s mechanic has a set for sale only $200 if I pull them out of the swamp where his tractor burned down in 1980… so buying used is totally a great deal. (Not that I didn’t at least check Craigslist a few times.)

Also, yes I could weld a set and given my novice welding skills that might be a good fun starter project. But I’m trying to save time, not start a new hobby. Also I’d probably spend a lot of money just on the raw metal.

Ugh… I’m so done with farm stores.

On Amazon, I found a price less than $850. It was stupidly cheap! $230 (counting a coupon). That’s not a typo!

First, what’s with the coupon on a farm implement? Either you need a farm implement or you don’t. Why in God’s name would there ever be a coupon to entice you into an “impulse buy” of farm gear? I dunno’.

I do know I used the coupon. I was planning on making the purchase and was so committed that I have 3/4 ton of firewood in an immobile tote in my yard. When I used the coupon I’m sure some advertising twerp claim to have “influenced” me.

Speaking of influence, I’m providing the Amazon affiliate link. If you buy anything from Amazon I get a tiny kickback. (It doesn’t have to be a farm implement.) And you can be sure I’d tell Amazon I totally influenced you into it too so maybe I won’t mock the coupon people (whoever they are). Also, don’t freak out, I cleared like $20 through Amazon ads this entire year so I’m not trying to blow smoke up your ass to get you to melt your Visa. I just found a cheap thing I’m testing out. Anyway, where was I?

Oh yeah, so it’s weird that beefy farm gear is being sold (in broken down format) on Amazon. Didn’t they once sell books?

Next comes my second point. It’s cheap. So cheap I have my doubts. I’m going to lift a full 3/4 ton. I’m half expecting the damn thing to bend like a noodle.

Anyway, we live in the strange “now” that is the Bidenverse, so I ordered a farm implement from Amazon, with a coupon, to be delivered for free. Don’t blame me, I just live on this planet.

Then one last thing happened that really caught me off guard. It was delivered via FedEx. Farm implements via FedEx? Yes, FedEx!

Do I really live in this world? FedEx used to deliver important lawyer shit overnight to other important lawyers and shit. If you saw a FedEx envelope in my hand it meant I was carrying the title to a car or maybe I’d been sent a subpoena. Now FedEx is bringing forklift parts to some freak’s house on a dirt road? Can that be?

Anyway, it arrived. It arrived stupid fast too. I ordered it late on a Friday and it was sitting on my driveway (in a box that looked like it had been stomped by Godzilla) Tuesday morning. (I planned to have a Christmas tip ready for UPS before it arrived… the FedEx truck totally took me by surprise.)

It’s lying on a patch of ice next to the farm cat’s bowl. I have no time to assemble it right now. I’m sure it’ll be fine. (The implement not the cat… though the cat, which came pre-assembled and not delivered by FedEx, is fine as well.)

I’ll report back when I’ve tested it with a true load. (The implement, not the cat, which is lazy and doesn’t earn its keep.) That probably won’t be until after Christmas. But you’re not considering a farm implement as a Christmas present? Are you? If you are, check out the coupon!

Here’s the ad: YINTATECH 3 Point Hitch Pallet Fork 1500 lbs Capacity Adjustable Pallet Fork Attachments for Category 1 Tractor.

P.S. There’s an ad from Yintatech and a whole different ad from Yitamotor. I can’t find any difference between the two. Nor can I remember from which “brand” I ordered. I’m sure they’re both slapped together out of the same pot metal in the same factory. That said, pallet forks are crude, they’re not some CPU laden wonder device. If they work, they work. I have hope that I saved over $600. If so, it’s a Christmas miracle!

[If this is TL/DR for you. There are pics if you scroll down.]

Heating with firewood is good for you. It induces mental habits like society used to have by default. You can’t be a stupid lazy monkey and also heat your home with wood. It is definitely hard work. Wood burning folks are self motivated and their results are evaluated yearly. The evaluation is not a bureaucrat with a clipboard, it’s nature itself. It instills a sense of reality. Nobody stacking tons of firewood (literally) is losing their shit about a few percent variation in climate and none of them think charging their cell phone or recycling a paper bag means diddly squat on the global scale. Self-reliance is self reinforcing. You wanna’ be based? Quit cutting a check to the natural gas pipeline monopoly and hoist a chainsaw… that shit will straighten your ass right out.

I’m not joking about the value of nature based discipline. I spend a lot of time in sunny weather pondering just how much wood I’ll need in shitty weather. In shitty weather I spend a lot of time living with my decisions. Unlike the paperwork madness of modern life, it’s not just about decisions but work. Starting with a tree and processing it all the way to a BTU in your house is brutally hard work. Nor is it merely meathead heavy lifting. Make a stupid mistake with a saw or a falling tree and you’ll get a demonstration in physics the likes of which you’ll never forget… if you live. Also, there are real life complex variables you learn through experience. Your motivation to be clever in your solutions is trying to manage what seems like an impossible task. If you’re smart you aren’t cutting wood in the hottest part of summer. If you’re smart you’re not dragging logs through springtime mud. If you’re smart you get it all done well in advance so the wood dries fully and burns cleaner. If you’re doing it in the middle of a January blizzard, you fucked up. Etc…

Unlike politicians who wreck nations, generals who lose wars, and businessmen who sink enterprises, I live with the results of my own actions. Results matter. Good intentions are irrelevant. Tell your frozen pipes about how you meant to cut wood but you were busy that sunny June afternoon. How many otherwise intelligent college students and young adults (or for that matter decrepit Boomers who never grew up) live in the sham world where intention matters and results don’t?

Lets expand that thought. America’s national debt is $33,817,877,269,124,876.34. Would it be so if everyone lived within their own results? Of course not. We had to be trained to ignore logic to that degree. If people who vote and the people for whom we vote had to stack enough wood by Thanksgiving to make it through Easter the world would be a more ordered place. Nature gives us the lesson. Nobody in a suit and tie can generate six tons of split firewood with a printing press and modern monetary theory. Stack enough to stay warm… or don’t. Ant and grasshopper motherfucker! We evolved to live with nature and we get weird when we get too far away from reality.

Anyway, I’m far from perfect. Adding a rough summer to the unknowable and variable but cyclic demand for wood was a Gordian knot I failed to solve. I’m fucked (for now). But I’m not too sad about it. Life is hard and sometimes you lose. If you meet an adult who never lost, you aren’t talking to an adult. For me, “losing” means I supply 75% or so of my winter heat instead of 100%. How many people even see those sorts of numbers on the horizon? Also I’ve scrambled and done a little ad-hoc gathering of pre-cured wood. Maybe I’m not going to run out quite as early as I feared? One can hope.

As for the long term, I decided to level up. I’m getting older and the firewood game is physically demanding. Also it’s worth more now than it once was. A brief “break” while Bad Orange Man’s policies encouraged cheap furnace fuel is over. At least for a while and maybe forever we’re back to the economics of inflation and shortage. Obama / Biden did what they meant to do. Hell, you might as well call up Jimmy Carter and add him to my list of “presidents under which I had to struggle”. I’m not bitter. I’m just paying attention. All the media pronouncements in the world won’t change oil prices (or the other things that make life harder). The only thing a citizen can do is acknowledge what is true in the real world and act accordingly.

When you’re just one guy and you’re getting older (who isn’t?) the key to productivity is automation. We are smart critters. We use tools, anticipate situations, and plan ahead. Tooling up, while expensive, makes more sense now than it did in the past. I’ll add a special shout out to Carter / Obama / Biden for making it worth my while to spend more on equipment. Because of them, prices are high enough that investments in automation have a bigger / faster ROI.

Enter the IBC tote. (I don’t know what IBC stands for and I don’t care.) IBC totes are used to haul industrial sized reservoirs of industrial liquids. They’re roughly 275 gallons but come in different sizes. Hopefully they were filled with something benign like motor oil or a food service fluid. (I don’t even want to think about what else they might have carried.) You can pick them up used for $50 to $100 a pop.

I bought one… just one… as an experiment. If I go for this method I’ll need at least a dozen. That means $750 – $1500 for a fleet of totes.

Here’s the stats on my experimental tote. It’s 39” by 48” and about 45” tall. The internal area available for firewood is 39’ x 48’ x 40 ½” = 75, 816 cubic inches = 40.5 cubic feet. A cord of wood is 4’ x 4’ x 8’ = 128 cubic feet.

Those numbers work out very well! For some glorious unknown reason, an IBC tote is almost exactly 1/3 of a cord of wood. Another measure of firewood is a “face cord” which is a 4’ x 8’ stack of stove bolts that are 16” long. If you see a dude standing next to an 8’ “wall” of wood, that’s a face cord.

A face cord = 1/3 cord = 1 tote. Beautiful!

To repurpose an IBC tote as a firewood container, the first thing I did is remove the top bars and yank out the liquid reservoir. That’s easy. Now you’ve got a really nice cube-like metal grid for storing wood. Also the bottom is designed for lifting by pallet forks. I put the top bars back on for stability. I think that’s unnecessary. I used a cutting wheel to cut a few parts of the grid off so I can reach in there to stack (toss) the wood. I’ve been meaning to cut up the liquid reservoir to make a “hat” for the filled container of wood. It doesn’t have to be a perfect roof, only enough to keep the snow off. What better use is there for a derelict plastic reservoir?

BTW: you ever notice how a goofy redneck like me is actively demonstrating “reduce, reuse, recycle”? Everyone else is emoting about it like rescuing a soda can is a heavenly act, but redneck homesteaders live it. I expect each “already used” tote to be good for many years of firewood stacking and drying. They will do the same job as an actual building! Ten years use for each tote, or maybe more. I scoff at some Karen’s re-usable grocery bag from Whole Foods!

So now that you’ve created this thing, what do you do? Toss firewood into it! For my experiment, I tossed (actually stacked… so they’re denser than minimum) freshly cut firewood stove bolts (split and 16” long) into the tote until it was full. It needs to air dry for at least a year.

My experiment worked very well. The open grid of the tote is ideal for air circulation and it’s stupid easy to stack with the nice grid walls! Once I install a goofy looking plastic hat, the wood filled tote can sit in the middle of a field and dry just fine. I will keep drying more or less indefinitely. No interior storage needed! (Good news because my woodshed is pretty rough and my barn is totally shot.)

The whole point of this is that the container helps firewood air dry and also a tractor with pallet forks can move an entire 1/3 cord in one shot. All hail hydraulics!

Do I have pallet forks? Nope. All plans have multiple points of failure… but I’m working on it. I’ve ordered the cheapest pair of Chinesium junk pallet forks I could find. Free shipping on Amazon! My UPS guy is going to hate me!

Until the pallet forks arrive, the IBC tote can’t be moved. It might as well be cast in cement. I tried and I can’t move it an inch. I estimate it could weigh as much as 1500 pounds. It depends on the species and how dry the wood is. The current IBC is filled with denser wetter wood. It is utterly immovable without a tractor and forks.

It’s so heavy that I don’t dare try lifting it with a pallet fork attachment on my tractor’s loader arms! (They max out at less than half a ton.) I’m ordering a 3-point hitch set of pallet forks. (The hitch supposedly can lift 1,800 pounds and the forks supposedly can manage 1,500 pounds. When I hoist that kind of weight I may have the world’s lightest steering but I’ll have unstoppable traction. Three point forks are stupid simple and hook to a tractor where it has the most ability to lift weight.

When my new gadget comes I’ll try moving the tote. Assuming no surprises, I’ll probably report back that the experiment worked. (Or that my UPS driver mutinied.) If the fork’s cheap metal bends like a noodle? Well I guess I’ll have to straighten and re-weld that bridge when I get to it.

An empty IBC tote is no big deal. Two guys can lift it into a truck. An 8′ bed… like all real trucks once had, is plenty for 2 totes. If you’re desperate you might be able to stack them… I wouldn’t recommend it though.

Two guys lifting a tote into a truck is easy. One guy lifting it back out of the truck is possible. The cat helped.

It’s easy to remove the top bars and muscle the bladder out of the tote. Then cut a few of the bars so you’ve got room to toss wood in there. (I reinstalled the top bars later… I think that was unnecessary.) The totes are not perfect squares. There’s a narrow side and a wide side. They’re built to accept forks in either direction. I arbitrarily cut mine to access it on the narrow side. The super cheap forks I bought might not be able to squeeze in the narrow direction. Oh well, live and learn. 

The experiment isn’t yet a success but it looks good. I have 1,500 pounds of next year’s wood sitting in my lawn. It’s stuck in a box that looks neat and tidy. It will work with forks I don’t have. Presumably my tractor has enough grunt to lift it when the time comes. It takes time to assemble all the pieces of a system. At least I’m trying.

A.C.

I went about my day’s errands trying to remember that my shop minefield of 4 traps had a tan mouse needing disposal. When I finally got home I turned on the light and gingerly fished out one trap among three still ready to snap on my finger. It wasn’t tan at all. It was a darkish colored mouse. WTF?

I wish I’d been carefully writing down the mouse colors and counts but alas I’m just too haphazard. That’s on me. Aldo Leopold would have a full notebook with graphs and charts by now. Henry David Thoreau would have written a poem about it. Teddy Roosevelt would have mounted several and sent them off to the Smithsonian. I do notice but don’t pay close enough attention to derive conclusions.

As far as I could tell the little fucker was a brownish mouse in the morning and a darkish one in the evening. How could that be?

That night I turned it over in my head. I came up with an outlandish theory that somehow a brownish mouse had been trapped enough so I could glance it in the morning, but during the day it had wriggled loose and somehow a darkish mouse had got himself caught in the same trap by mid afternoon. I dreamed that night about heroic Rambo brown mouse escaping his almost certain doom and dipshit dark mouse falling headfirst into the trap… which is clearly nonsense.

The next morning I looked at my trap minefield carefully. There is no way in hell there had been a mouse switcharoo. It surprised me how hard part of my mind wanted to stick with my half dreamed mouse switch hypothesis. It was obvious bullshit. Yet some part of me was invested in it.

Regardless, the conclusion was inescapable. During my hurried morning I’d made an observation that was incorrect. In the evening, at leisure, I’d made a contrary observation that was correct. I shrugged my shoulders. Shit happens.

You think that’s the end of the story? It should be. It’s not. Lets veer into a whole new world!

That evening I had an appointment with a guy to buy some IBC containers. (An IBC container is a waist high, somewhat cubical, industrial liquid hauling “tank”. People repurpose them to many uses. I wanted to test the use of one for my firewood. More on that later.)

The guy, who I know and respect, texted me. “I can’t do the IBC container today. I’m sicker than a dog. Missed work for two days.”

I texted back; “That’s fine. Get well and text me when you’re ready.”

I didn’t really want details but he sent them anyway. “I got the flu shot and the Covid booster a few days ago. It feels like my chest has a weight on it and it takes some effort to breathe.”

Jesus! What does a one say to that? I didn’t know how to respond so, being a guy, I didn’t.

A few minutes later another text came in “This isn’t a good pitch for a vaccination but you should get yours anyway. I’ve had the same symptoms before. I’ll be fine in a day or so.”

Great googly moogly!

The guy took an action that has made him feel sick before. Unsurprisingly, it’s making him feel sick again. There is undeniable evidence that the “vaccination” doesn’t provide immunity against future sickness. There’s clear experience that (at least for him) it has caused past sickness and now he’s repeated the experiment with current sickness. Yet he did it anyway. And he’s encouraging me to do the same thing. Why? Presumably whatever motivates him to act this way is such a good idea he thinks it’s in my best interest to copy his actions. Well I assume he’s thinking of my best interests, but then again how do I know? Suppose I get sick just like him, then what? Is that a “good” outcome? I feel fine right now. What’s the logic of approaching someone who feels fine and instructing him to do something that has made yourself ill… twice? It feels kind of cult-like.

I texted back “Thanks”. Then I turned off my phone. The whole thing made me sad.

It was poignant. Remember, this isn’t an idiot I was dealing with. He’s intelligent, well read, friendly, and I like him. If his actions are self destructive that’s his business but what about encouraging other people to follow his lead. Why? This nice guy has willingly taken multiple doses of a thing that made him ill. He, in his intelligent and friendly way, encouraged me to take doses of the thing that made him ill. Presumably if I took his advice I would feel ill too. Is that the goal? How does one react to a world where discussions like that happen?

I thought about my stupid mouse theory. I’d made an observation in the morning but found further evidence that disproved it. The next day I really didn’t like admitting I’d been wrong. Yet I’d been wrong. So I admitted it, adjusted my thinking, and continued on my merry way. It wasn’t that hard but it wasn’t default human behavior. If that was just my goofy theory about mice, what was happening with a much more serious construct in my friend’s head? How hard will he cling to his theory? He’s having trouble breathing… again. Because he took the same action… again. Breathing is a big fucking deal! Repeated interference with breathing wasn’t enough for him to see the pattern and come to a different conclusion. What would it take?

Our minds are a work in progress. We are monkeys with cell phones. Herd animals with 401(k) accounts. We evolved for a world we no longer inhabit. Who knows what internal processes work just fine for picking fruit out of a tree but are deadly in a world where some of us have learned how to lie. And how much worse has it gotten now that since smart people with databases turned social media into a monster? It’s not just one skeevy douchebag lying to one innocent victim; it’s an army of skeevy douchebags creating an entire environment of deception. Our monkey level processing hardware seems to be up to the task of self preservation but only when we’re paying attention. Left on auto-pilot, mass deception exceeds the monkey’s coding. You wind up stuggling to breathe (again!) and encouraging other people to do what’s making your breath labored.

You have to keep on your toes. Nobody can monitor your monkey mind but you. You must practice thinking. Practice with irrelevant shit. Think carefully about small things so you’re ready when big things happen. You don’t have to fret over mice. Choose your own practice ground. What matters is you interact with external forces and learn from them. Don’t just stumble around “feeling good”. Don’t become an idiot; forcing reality to comport with your internal theories. If you’re wrong, fuckin’ figure it out!

Someone injected my friend with a substance that made him feel ill. He volunteered for this. He’s done it before. It made him feel ill before. He encourages me to do the same; presumably so I’ll feel ill too. Then I’ll be just like him. Is that his goal? Does he even have a goal? Was he encouraging me to get the shot that made him sick for no other reason than he was told to do so? Was he just following programming; saying words laid down in the fertile ground of his mind? How pissed off would he be if I tried to reason with him? “Hey friend, lets sit down with a beer and I’ll tell my story about mice…”

Nope. It wouldn’t work and it would be rude on my part. He’s entitled to make his own decisions. I’m not arrogant to think it’s my task to save anyone from themselves. (I wish he’d reciprocate and offer me absolutely no advice about vaccines. But then again how much self-reflection can I expect from a guy literally suffering at his own hand?) All I can do is maintain my dumb little blog. I write stories (this one is true!). I hope most readers “get it”. Folks might come up with conclusions that differ than mine and that’s fine. So long as they’re reasoned conclusions I’m happy. However, I won’t (can’t?) drag folks, kicking and screaming, out of their cage. In fact there’s no cage at all. 2020 might have been a maelstrom of coercion but in 2023 nobody made my friend go get the shot… he drove himself to a facility and had it done for reasons which surely made sense to him.

Next fall maybe I’ll to start taking photos of mice in traps and maintain a proper count. Or maybe I’ll Google Rodentia. Or not. It’s small potatoes in the real scheme of things. I’ve plenty of opportunities to keep my mind sharp. The point is to use the opportunities. Keep your wits keen lest you lemming yourself off a cliff.

Good luck y’all.

A.C.

Mice are a fact of country life. My crappy old farmhouse doesn’t do a good job keeping them out. My rickety workshop is worse. Feed stores in the barn (for the farm animals) can get ridiculous if I don’t keep them tightly sealed. Ironically, mice don’t live in my woodpile. That’s the only truly mouse free place. It’s the territorial domain of the chipmunks (who loudly complain about my annoying presence). Chipmunks seem to police mice out of their turf. They also leave stashes of pinecone tailings in my stacked wood. I’m chill about it because pinecone bits burn and I’m happy the ‘monks stay out of the house.

Mice show up irregularly but invariably, in unwelcome spots. There’s only so much I can do about it. Even if I kill ‘em off, more will show up. Their origin is varied. They might be vagabonds from the barn, explorers from the subbasement, or wild critters looking for the easy life. Cats do an inadequate job keeping them in check. In fact my current cat is comically unimpressive as a “mouser”. Like everything, if nobody else does it, it’s Curmudgeon’s job. I use a lot of mouse traps because my cat is a lazy asshole.

Every fall, the dial goes to eleven! Things get crazy for a few weeks. As the weather turns cold, the outside mice invade. All forests and fields have mice so there’s an endless supply of critters just a few steps from my door. When it’s chilly, the mice (reasonably enough) start looking for better shelter. They wind up in my workshop or house. This annual wave happens sometime around Halloween and it always pisses me off. Luckily it dies down as soon as there’s a nice deep blanket of snow to insulate & protect the outside buggers. This year it has been seasonally cold but the snow is barely an inch. No insulating snow = a continuation of the mouse wave to annoy Mr. Curmudgeon.

Until the situation changes I’ll have to deal with an invasion; which means I’m setting lots of traps and swearing about it.

I feel like folks who don’t live near nature but dream about it need to know the annoying parts too. Just as suburban neighborhoods have monstrous HOA busybodies, quaint rural homesteads have mice. There’s a yin and yang balance to the various annoyances… though I prefer my annoyances to urban annoyances because I can and do kill mine outright.

There’s more to the story. Without bringing in a team of Rodentia biologists or going down a rabbit hole I have this idea I’m seeing two variants of mice. Some of my trap catches are a darker colored “house mouse” and others are a brownish tan “field mouse”. Maybe this is all in my head? Google certainly isn’t backing me up on my observations; so I might be completely full of shit. (Mrs. Curmudgeon’s theory is that an artifact of bad lighting in the places I set traps.)

It’s hard to learn from observation and I could be making up stories around random variation in fur color. Regardless the dark/tan variant idea is my working theory. I think the brownish mice (literally) “come in from the cold” while the darker mice were already there (probably scheming to chew my tractor’s wiring and steal the dog food). In case you’re leaping to your keyboard, I also know about voles and moles… they’re easily identifiable.

I don’t know if the dark/tan thing is true or my human mind recognizing a pattern in statistical noise. It’s a conundrum. The sort of thing I like to think about even as I’m tossing another dead rodent into the trash can.

In my shop, I have four traps. I set them up in a little Rodentia minefield. One morning I was in a hurry, I glanced at the traps and saw that one had caught a brown mouse. My only thought was “that’s a brown mouse, how many is that compared to the black mice?” I was in a hurry so I left it there to be handled later.

You have no idea where this is going but I do have a point. Stay tuned…