Adaptive Curmudgeon

My last post included some bitching about elementary and high schools (because they deserve it) but there’s always more to say. Dr. Profeta has sage advice about college:

“We need to encourage our kids to slow it down, to take a longer path to college, perhaps. Expose our kids to real education—the kind of education that comes with a W-2, a boss, getting up early and working late and interacting with people who can’t afford a higher education. Make them appreciate the life experiences that come with nailing a 2 x 4, washing dishes, wheeling people to X-ray, picking up garbage, answering telephones. Make them earn their spending money BEFORE college and decide on their own if they’d rather use it on alcohol, weed, a four-block Uber ride, or laundry and food.”

(Hat tip to Maggie’s Farm and askblog.)

Like most Americans, I have 1) a life and 2) common sense. Thus, I’ve been ignoring politics. It’s just too stupid lately. I’ve been stacking wood. Winter is coming.

It’s hard work and I’m doing every foot pound of labor myself. I’m a real deal, no bullshit, genuine, one man operation. There are other residents of Curmudgeon Compound but the dog’s too old and the rest have other priories. I’m not saying this to gripe. It’s my choice to cut wood. My goal is an optimistic shout out to other folks who also pull a load solo. The world isn’t all group projects and I rooting for the success of anyone who stands tall and tries their best.

Anyway it’s slow going. I finally racked up cord #3 and it was a struggle. I’ve felled, bucked, split, hauled, and stacked three full cords (9 face cords) and it still isn’t enough. But it’s what I’ve done. It’s many many tons more than the nothing I started with. (Last winter we ran out and it sucked!)

I felt the need to blog about my tiny little personal accomplishment so I logged on… only to realize everyone lost their Goddamn mind. Seriously, what the fuck’s going on out there?

First, my PredictIt feed showed a rise in one of the “impeach Trump” markets. I pondered what “Russia, Russia, Russia” claptrap is afoot this time. Did someone see Muller’s likeness in a piece of toast? Should I bet against them just to earn a pizza’s worth of smug winnings?

I surfed around investigating this round of perpetual butthurt and the lady doth protest too much methinks. It seems comically thin. Muller’s 2 year fruitless witch hunt is practically a model of prudent efficiency compared to today’s “breaking news” (which will probably be forgot faster than Epstein’s convenient demise). (Forgot about Epstein didn’t you?) Painting with a broad brush I sussed out that someone leaked something about an unnamed source who may or may not have directly witnessed a phone call that may or may not have said some shit… about Biden. Really? First of all it’s a legitimate topic of conversation but more importantly is there a worse hill to defend at all costs? Does nobody step back and think “am I doing a silly thing right now?”

As an analogy, when I’m using my chainsaw I maintain situational awareness. Fail that, and I won’t last long. I need total control over not merely the vicinity of the saw but also the big picture. Loose track of what you’re doing and you might sever something that’s holding several tons of tree without planning for the results. Gravity will kill you as fast as a kickback. Many people have wound up mashed into the ground and a few die every year. I propose DC is ignoring a world that merits situational awareness. By now, they wouldn’t know wise governance if it bit them on the ass.

I wanted to buy “NO”; wager a ten spot on sanity. But I held back. I literally thought to myself “is it wise to bet on sanity in 2019?” Nope! 2019 is not a time of sanity. I’d gladly bet against an impeachable offense but it’s not relevant. The House is in such a froth they’d happily impeach a ham sandwich on the grounds that it’s a supervillain from Jupiter. Count me out.

Off hand, I suspect this new foolishness benefits Trump. Each harebrained overstep is a slow pitch over his home plate. A giant outrageous eleven month bullshit explosion might be setting up a grand slam. If they push Cheeto Jesus from “squeak a narrow win” to “steamroller” it was self inflicted. I think Scott Adams said “all the democrats need to do is look sane”. He’s right and they don’t.

But what do I know? I’m just a dude who chops up trees.

Then I moved on to the more rational parts of the…

…what the fuck is this?

Apparently, Congress got super serious. Due to global warming, our lives hang in the balance. Because it’s an urgent matter of life and death they took testimony from a 16 year old with Asperger syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder, selective mutism, and a history of depression. (I’m not making that up, I took it from Greta Thunberg’s Wikipedia page.)

This shows nobody important buys global warming. When your ass is really on the line… you sure as hell don’t go seeking wisdom from a messed up 16 year old girl.

“Holy shit, I may have cancer.”

“We’re making arrangements for an oncologist right now.”

“Forget the oncologist. This is life or death! Only the very best advice will do. I need the emotional rantings of an autistic teenage girl!”

Ha ha ha… yeah, I know, not very PC of me. I’ll probably be pilloried for failing to properly genuflect but I’ll take that risk. After all, looking for logically consistent depth and wisdom from a distraught teenager is hilarious.

She’s a victim. It’s tragic really. Lemming-like masses of emotion huffing junkies told this kid she’s doomed and she’s too young and impressionable to know better. I sympathize. I went through it too (at a younger age and to a lot smaller degree). I was told the Russkies were going to drop the bomb, the looming ice age would freeze us, and overpopulation would make us all starve. I believed that stupid shit… when I was in elementary school.

Why? Because the fucking school told me all that crap! I remember reading a “school magazine” about how we’d have to eat ants in the coming times of starvation. They also helpfully pointed out I’d never get to own a car because there would be no fuel by the time I was 16. I’m not making it up, propaganda has been in schools for a long time. How was I to know they were full of shit?

Luckily I wasn’t totally surrounded by idiots. The only people that said ridiculous shit were voices on TV and a few of my flakier school teachers. My dad just shrugged and stacked wood and told me to chill out. Wise man.

Unlike Greta, I had the benefit of growing up to be well adjusted. I ignored spastic yahoos and became a real adult. I wasn’t saddled with a handful of untreated maladies and used as someone’s unholy meal ticket.

I skipped Greta’s emotional testimony. I won’t participate in that level of creepiness. The kid’s a victim. A movement that gets off on emotional testimony has her wound up tight and is using her like a meat puppet and that’s not right.

When an eight year old (still reading from Wikipedia) gets depressed and lethargic, stops talking and eating, and is diagnosed with three (three!) difficult conditions… you get the kid some decent treatment. You don’t use them as a battering ram. Good grief, show some kindness and let the kid have a normal life. She should be fretting over the prom or getting a driver’s license or playing video games or doing whatever stupid pointless crap teenagers normally do. The mind boggles at such cruelty.

As for Congress. Those fuckers are complicit. Kids are just kids. They don’t know shit. Everyone knows that!

I’ve got socks older than Greta Thunberg. I won’t take advice from someone that tragically unbalanced and youthfully naive. Call her back when she’s 30. When she can drive, hold a job, raise a family, and has a trade other than weepy grandstanding she might have intellectual value. Congress should interview adults with degrees in chemistry and a track record of wise prediction. If they were really worried about global warming that’s exactly what they’d do.

Everyone’s nuts and I’m going back off line. I’ve got wood to cut. Winter is coming.

A.C.

(BTW: This post’s title is not meant to weigh down the far more thoughtful Woodpile Report with my baggage.)

I’ve been monitoring the presence of a lonely (hungry?) stray cat bumbling about the periphery of my homestead. We’ve named it Tardo based on the fact that it’s dumb. It’s not just dumb but immensely so. Suppose you took two opposing party politicians and chained them to each other. Then suppose you provided your politician sandwich with an expense account, cocaine, and an Uzi. The cat has less common sense than that!

While the family has declared that its official name is Tardo, I sorta’ call critters whatever they ought to be called at the moment. It’s a cat, it’s too dumb to know it’s own name anyway. As it tries (ineptly!) to integrate into our homestead’s social scene (which requires making peace with our pre-existing outdoor cat “Evil” and trying not to die due to nature) I’ve been rooting for it. If it shows enough sense to settle in, it’ll have a good life.

It’s a toss up if it’ll work out. Some things are so stupid you wonder how they ever came into being. (See: Congress, AMC Gremlin, and Racewalking.) For the last several days, I’ve been calling the cat whatever name seems to best represent it’s current level of dumbass.

“C’mere Tardo, I’ve got food.”

“Yo! Null Set, get the hell off my truck!”

“Hey, Dialtone, quit trying to nap where I’m stacking the wood. You’re gonna get crushed!”

“Listen up Common Core, you have to eat the food, not stand in the bowl meowing.”

“Hey, Fart Blossom, have you been rolling in the mud? You look like a pig’s doormat.”

“Fer crissakes, Paul Krugman, you can’t lounge on the anvil of a 27 ton hydraulic ram while I’m splitting wood!”

That last one might have been too mean. I wouldn’t expect a cat to know the name of an economist so wrong that he’s practically a reverse compass, but maybe the critter could just tell. I’d gone a bridge too far and he gave me a foul look. It was as if was saying “How dare you compare me to that imbecile. I may be a cat so dumb I fell in a mud puddle but at least I don’t wave around a bullshit Nobel prize while being fantastically wrong. I’m outta’ here.” Then he stalked off into the woods.

I haven’t seen the cat for a few days. I fear it’s toast. Perhaps I should’ve stuck with his earlier nickname “Owlbait“?

A man who tried to fight a grizzly bear in Banff National Park was recently fined $4,000. It’s not the Babylon Bee and there’s nothing more to the story than the headline. You can read the whole thing for further details (and photos!) but there’s no surprise. I’m sure you already guessed there was alcohol involved. The article will confirm it.

Of course, the judge and park people get all “hand wringy” about how this traumatized the bear and various other crap. They barely stop short of rambling about Gaia and global warming… but maybe that part got cut by the newspaper editor.

For example, there’s a quote about how this dipshit will “create an aggressive animal that obviously has the ability to do a lot of harm to humans and the public in general”. Nope! A grizzly bear already has the ability to do a lot of harm. It was born a fuckin’ grizzly and it’ll die one. It has the ability to do harm every step of the way. That’s why you don’t fight ’em.

What the drunk numbnuts did accomplish is making a bear that’s deeply confused. The bear is probably thinking “WTF was that all about?” I’m sure all its bear friends are making fun of it; “you ran away from a human? Why?”

The judge also added that the fine “is a strong message to other individuals who, for whatever reason, would think to engage in this kind of behaviour”. Bwa ha ha… yeah we all need a message to tell us not to mess with things that can rip us in half. Just the other day I was thinking of stuffing thirty badgers down my jock strap but then I though “what message would a judge give over this action” and I thought better of it. After this maybe society will send messages to people who stick their head’s in wood chippers, piss on arc welders, and bungee jump using chain.

As you can tell, I think the judge’s explanation is unnecessary. Initiating shirtless inebriated hand to hand combat with grizzlies is a self correcting problem. Dudes this dumb just don’t last long.

Regardless, I like to think there’s a living room somewhere with a framed copy of the fine. If you had that document wouldn’t you hang it up? “$4000 penalty for fighting grizzly bears“. They might want to hurry because this dude’s not going to last long.

It would become a family heirloom. “Oh yeah, that framed document is from Uncle Ed back in 2019. He died shortly after that in a bizarre event involving a cement mixer, three orangutans, a fifth of whiskey, and eleven car batteries. All they found was his femur. It was in a tree. God rest his soul.”

Nothing on the video was news to me, you probably know it too. But it sure feels good to hear it repeated so have fun watching it. My favorite quote: “Pestilence, war, famine, and death are on the decline.” (I’d pay good money to hear a few 2020 candidates say that at a podium!)

(Hat tip to Maggie’s Farm.)

A random stray cat has been hanging around for several weeks. This happens on homesteads. Cats sometimes just disappear and sometimes other cats just show up. Exceptionally stupid ones get stuck in outbuildings. During recent rainstorms “Interloper cat” was stuck in my garage roof for 3 days. Dumbass!

When I finally figured out the fool was stuck in there, I enlisted a kid to help me put up a ladder and drag it down from the rafters. Instead of running away when I grabbed it by the scruff of the neck, it purred and practically climbed into my shirt pocket. I inspected it carefully. It looks youngish, not quite fully grown but close, healthy, well groomed, skinny but not starved, no collar or tag. Possibly it’s someone’s pet that made bad decisions in life to end up at my homestead and it can’t find it’s way home. Or maybe it was born semi-feral in a time of ample food and has lucked out so far?

Winter is coming. The critter’s been hanging around for weeks and it appears to have absolutely no “wildness” or common sense. I doubt the idiot can catch enough mice to feed itself. I nicknamed it “Retarded Dumbass Extreme” while the kid and I fished it out of the roof. (I stand by my assessment.)

Our resident cat has been trying to dissuade it but it’s old and small and has failed. If you want to hold territory you must defeat invaders. Fail at that and you cede control to them. This is true of all organisms from slime mold to humans; with cats (in my opinion) being closer to mold than noble creatures like dogs.

The two cats had a “negotiation” by a campfire. They’ve come to some sort of detente and seem to coexist well enough now. I think they’ll get along. There’s not a lot of bullying or the kind of fighting that causes injuries. (I won’t abide animals really fighting hard on my property. It’s uncool and harshes my mellow. I’ll step in to settle the situation if necessary.)

Also we always have too many mice and my pre-existing cat (who’s name I forget and I just call it “Evil”) isn’t keeping up. It’s getting old and it was never a great mouser anyway.

I made my decision and announced it. I might as well feed the new cat. If “Owlbait” here is still around in a month, it’s officially our cat.

Mrs. Curmudgeon vetoed my names; “Interloper Cat”, “Retarded Dumbass Extreme”, and “Owlbait” were all rejected. She rechristened it “Tardo” which does seem appropriate. “Tardo” and our other cat “Evil” wound up eating side by side and not fighting. That’s a good sign.

In a month, if it’s still here, it goes to the vet for the standard “feral cat to outdoor mouser/pet” upgrade pack. Basically I’ll spring for whatever shots it needs and neutering.

The kids and I watched the new cat adjust while I outlined the vet schedule. Kids need to learn by example what’s entailed with adopting various critters. Before the kids left I had to add a bit of wisdom:

“When someone gives you free food and a place to stay, even if they do it out of kindness as I’m doing right now, sooner or later they’ll cut your balls off. Remember that.”

I hope the kids remember what I said; they’ll need that wisdom in life. Tardo just purred.

Fall didn’t start well. It kicked in the door with a week of cold, shitty, rainy, muddy, weather. It tracked depression all over my floor, keyed my car, and drank the last of my beer. It was unwelcome!

It made me antsy. The last few winters kicked my ass and I’m not ready for the next battle. I wandered about the house muttering “winter is coming”.

Finally, the weather broke enough that I could get back outside. I was frantic to go play and simultaneously stack a thousand cords of firewood. I decided to ant my inner grasshopper and stack more wood.

I went another round against the big tree that I’d already felled onto my yard. I’m rather proud I’ve been “cleaning as I go”. Already most of the crown, limbs, and twigs are gone. Anything bigger diameter than a cheap coffee can is good enough to burn. I’ve already bucked, hauled and stacked all of it. (I prefer limbwood sized firewood; “topwood” is the best!) Anything smaller than a coffee can but larger than a big cigar has been burned to ash (on my lawn of privilege). Anything smaller than a cigar won’t jack up my lawnmower so fuck it.

A week’s rain had made everything into a sponge. Before I knew it, I had ruts everywhere. I hope they don’t jack up my mower next year.

Meanwhile the trunk is yielding heavy 2+’ diameter rounds. They’re a royal PITA. Technically it takes a while for water to soak deep into a hefty chunk of wood. The wood didn’t get the memo and it felt twice as dense as the week before.

I struggled to get each piece to my splitter (which goes to eleven). Then, I encountered some internal rot. Partly-rotten firewood sucks but it’s not a deal breaker. I’m not making furniture with it! It’s only fuel, so a little punky stuff is totally fine. On the other hand there’s a point of diminishing returns. I’m not going to bust my ass stacking and drying material that’ll never be much more than a smoldering sponge.

So I split chunks and kept about 80% of the resulting material. What a hassle; like ripping moldy corners off a slice of bread to make a sandwich with the remaining portion. Soon I had a sizeable pile of crap beneath & surrounding the splitter. Meanwhile I was driving back and forth with small loads to my woodshed and it seemed like no progress was getting made. Some days are like that.

Progress was slow, wet, and unsatisfying. I’m still shy of 3 full cords. Damn it!

Around sunset I’d had enough. I stowed my saw and gear. I shifted gears to carrying around a glass of bourbon with tea. Then I touched off the icky mess that marked the splitter’s working spot.

It was wet and took some prodding to get it going. I rested in a lawn chair while the sun set. I relaxed in the gloom as the fire mostly smoldered. Our outdoor cat (demoted years ago from indoor cat) sat on my lap and purred. I dozed fitfully.

All around me the forest woke up. Lots of creepy crawly sounds. Mind you, I was a couple hundred feet from my house and sitting next to a fire, so there’s nothing to worry about. Anything with brains will steer clear of “man in the forest” and anything that doesn’t might get walloped with my shovel.

This night, the forest didn’t give a shit and got aggressively “jungly”. A deer snorted at me challengingly. WTF? I spoke aloud to the forest. “You’re a herbivore and I have a freezer full of your relatives. Did you not see the fire from 100 yards and smell it from a quarter mile? Leave me and the cat alone.” The deer had been stuck in the rain all week too. It wanted access to my apple trees and wasn’t subtle about it. Tough shit Bambi.

It’s been so wet. Frogs came out of the woodwork. (When I have more chickens I have fewer frogs.) A few bats came by. The smoke (and one of my trusty Thermacells!) kept the mosquitoes at bay but something mammalian that was larger than a softball and smaller than a football kept rooting around the edge of my vision. Muscrat? Zombie? Fuck it, I was drunk by then anyway.

Then a stray cat that’s been hanging around (provisionally named “Interloper Cat”) came up to sit by the fire. Our pre-existing demoted outdoor cat and the new interloper cat interacted by screeching and posturing pointlessly; like Republicans and Democrats jockeying for position. I ignored the racket as I stumbled around looking for my bourbon. (I don’t use flashlights very often.) When the coyotes started howling both cats forgot their animosity and crowded close to my lawn chair; instant friends. “Ah”, thought I, “an external enemy makes interesting bedfellows.”

Eventually the wood was gone and I’d had enough bourbon. It was a pleasant if somewhat creepy crawly night.

There’s absolutely nothing about this video that isn’t great. It’s a big ass bear riding in some Russian dude’s sidecar. There’s no secret message, no hidden meaning, just a giant potentially dangerous beast in a ridiculous conveyance. Perfect!

I’ve always wanted a Ural (sidecar motorcycle); in part because they’re wildly impractical. Alas, the Ural is Russian crazy and, even if I could afford a Ural, I can’t do Russian crazy. I’m in awe of this video’s distilled essence of Russian crazy. I salute them for it. (Don’t get me wrong, I can do American crazy and that’s got its own merits. If I had a Ural I’d do something deplorably fun of the red, white, and blue variety with it… but not a damn bear! A Ural in it’s native habitat seems ideal for under a bear’s ass. Everything is perfect.)

Drink it all in. It’s a bear on a motorcycle sidecar. What a wonderful world in which we live!

I used to spread firewood across several phases and all over my land. A bunch of felled logs out in the forest. Some piles chunked up but not split. Another heap by the woodshed, chunked and split but not stacked. A bit split and stacked too. Especially vexing, my trailer was always loaded and never available for other uses. (Now that trailer is occupied by a boat.)

Lately I’ve been doing the opposite; to the extent time and energy allow I’m going all the way from standing tree to stacked firewood. (Several steps in the same day.) Also, if the wood’s on my lawn I’m trying to cleanup with fire. I used to drag logs wherever, and cut it whenever, and split it as I could… leaving big piles of debris (which I never cleaned up). This year’s experiment is to start a fire and keep it going as I work. Instead of cast off limbs here and there and bark and crap from the splitter… I end with just a pile of ash and a hole burned in the sod. (Obviously it’s weather dependent.)

This weekend I dropped a tree on the lawn. I had a fire going in no time. Trees have tons (literally) of small limbs that aren’t suitable for firewood. If you don’t clear it quick, the grass intertwines with them and it’s a bitch to clear. Also the tiniest tree has a huge amount of limbs that’ll jackstraw and fill a truck bed super fast. Raking is a PITA for which I never have time. This time I was also tossing shit on the fire instead of the truck and watching it out of one eye as I was running the splitter.

Progress was much slower but since I was creating a finished product I’m not sure it’s less efficient overall. It’s a lot nicer work area. The cheery fire smells better than sweaty laborer. Instead of my lawn looking like WW 1 trench warfare just happened, it’s just a little rough around the edges when I’m done. I suspect a little ash in the soil might be decent fertilizer too.

Also, time is catching up with me and I take more breaks. This weekend I hit a point where I was physically tired. I just sat in a lawn chair burning debris. Beats TV and I was still slowly getting stuff done.

Very relaxing. After a second wind and few more rounds hauling and splitting I called it a day; but I stayed out there to enjoy the already fading season. I sat by the fire listening to coyotes until the wee hours. I chuckled thinking of the looming specter of white privilege the New York Times invented out of lawns. I mentioned it last month:

“As usual, clueless fucknuggets at the New York Times (where else?) can’t be bothered to do actual “journalism”. (Does that word exist anymore?) As an alternative to work, one of them sniffed their own ass long enough to think about lawns. Like every damn thing these douche canoes encounter, lawns are racist and bad for the environment.”

Here’s a description of my “lawn of privilege”: There’s still a half processed log lying on the lawn. The area has been scattered with pencil sized twigs that are too numerous to pick up and pointless to rake. I think I found any bits that could do harm to a mower deck and that’s good enough for me. The soil is compacted from driving back and forth hauling finished wood but I don’t care. The ATV is hanging around hitched to the splitter. There’s a chainsaw on a stump nearby. But all the various limbs are already gone; because I burned them.

I enjoyed sitting in a lawnchair watching a campfire burn through my sod… pretty fuckin’ upscale! I present a photo of my lawn of privilege:

Privileged? I’m damn near a Rockefeller. One who gets shit from condo dwelling dweebs who’ve never had a lawn that wasn’t maintained for them. Of course unemployable whiners are always welcome to visit my house. I’d hand ’em an axe and say “get to work, there’s a bottle of water on the stump for hydration but no beer until sunset”. They’d learn what work gloves are for. They’d need a month cowering in a safe space to recover from a weekend of my luxurious privileged lifestyle.