Sometimes I tell people how busy we are around here. They tell me “Ure full of it…”
But remember: most people we know live in the city. Where you can get:
- A maid service
- Laundry pick-up and drop-off
- Gardeners and landscapers
- Food delivered
- Mechanics are everywhere
- People to do your nails and (wipe your….)
- …etc…etc…
The reality of being “out in the woods” is that if you want something, you do it yourself, or it doesn’t happen. There’s none of the big city “shit rolls down hill.” We’re at the bottom of the hill.
With Rural Living 101 complete, and remembering I’m 76 and Elaine is 82, come with me on a quick tour of the property. So you can see our ginormous exercise machine. Our home.
One Comfort Project
I have a larger than needed curved screen monitor on the office computer. Depending on the effectiveness of the paranoia meds, I will either have the wireless camera network scanning (the news does talk about Russia and North Korean troops all the time, right?) OR I will have my trading platform up in the event stupidity overcomes me. Or, I want to scalp a few hamburgers. Point is, this one will leave today and a 28″ flat screen with a way smaller base that doesn’t hangout all over the place will be installed. Project time? 5 minutes? Beer padding? A little early…
Work Consists of Breaking Machinery
And this is greatly facilitated by the rooting feral hogs. They must be attuned to my snorting, haven’t gotten one in my sights, yet. However, I did get the front yard scalped back (trimmer?) a little:
Park-like, right? Well, until your get to Rooterville.
Of course, there’s no worry about running the mower through this mess (blade set on high) until your blade stops, the belt squeals. And if you’re within half a mile you can hear something yelling “f*cker of pigs! Piece of shit!!!” Then the real swearing begins…
Looking up, it’s Saturday, and the freeway in front of the house is empty.
So the tractor – now toothless – goes to the Tractor Gallows where a “come-along” is always at the ready because if it’s not an errant piece of rope? (God knows what pigs were doing with rope…), the upper arm exercise begins. Three sets of 10 reps to get the riding tractor airborne, and a deep squat (between additional swear words) to find this:
As any good shade tree mechanic can see, there’s something wound around the top of the center blade. It’s a 15-minute fix from here. Haul out compressor hose, get the impact wrench. Take off blade. Undo the mess and dispose of it. Reassemble blade. Fasten a bit. Put away tools. Retract the air hose (I have done this often enough that a power retractor air hose is the only way to fly.)
Then it was off to mow the gun range and see what else I can break. Ah, a fine job it was…
As I was wrapping up, though, the power steering got wonky. Jerky. By the time I was back in the shop, the bucket was getting sluggish. Steering jerky… I knew this would be a hydraulic leak. So clean up here:
Pour in a gallon of tractor juice and look down on the hydraulic filter (which is impossible to see, but it’s down in here somewhere…
Adding insult to injury, as I extricated myself from the tractorport, here’s Elaine’s freeloading pals discussing my form and technique. I expect they were also sorting out some of the newer combinations of four letter words that were flowing like Niagra.
Photographic memories (as you may appreciate) do kinda/sorta run in the family. Well, not pure photographic, like the dude in Suits, but semieidetic – which is good enough to be able to master most things in life in a half-hour, or less. *(Crosswind landings in a small plane above 25 knots took a little longer. Though done without paint loss.)
Point is there was a nagging. “Why didn’t you look more closely at the solar panels? I think they looked dirty!” “Would you pleeze STFU in there?“ I said to the wide open spaces between my ears.
“See…told you so….”
OK, back into the office to see how the solar was doing this month…
Those red bars on the bottom are kilowatts sold back into the grid. About 10 kW sell-back on the good days. Which sounds really sweet until you remember each one of them used to fetch 10.6 cents and now they only command 5.3 cents. Seems power companies are afflicted by the same disease that impacts maybe half of all marriages: Sweet until it isn’t. You know the drill. Terms change on you. No resources, appeals, or arguments. (Bet the house I lost was bigger than…oh, forget it….)
But – back on Stupid Joe’s “no BBQ future” – this means even with the customer charge (“Oh, please, set up an account for me and charge me every month for the rest of my freaking life because NOTHING has changed on our account for 23- years…BUT i’M A GOOD-NATURED SUCKER” – who can’t say the rest because it’s Sunday) We ought to come in around $140 for a power bill for the month.
Seriously charge a customer charge IF THERE ARE CHANGES – but I have paid nigh-on to $5200 over 23 years with not even a phone number change! We have bigger problems that tariffs!
This left me pondering the next real project – when I can get through a whole weekend without breaking shit like big power equipment.
You remember last year’s deck project? Still looks good…
So the 180-degree view room we built out of 100 percent recycled materials (including both of us, come to think of it) will start from this. Look closely, because this is the BEFORE picture.
What else needs doing today? Mean besides fixing the lean-to greenhouse roof that the raccoons managed to jailbreak and even somehow get on the roof without the downspouts?
Raccoons may have mastered levitation and be smarter than us. But we’re not firing potshots at them around the big propane tank, even with glasses on. They’ve been trying to goad me into a shot – hoping I will wing the propane, which would then blow, resulting in Roast Human. Which they will split with the feral hogs. I’m onto ’em…
Oh…here’s a project in the back of the truck…
A new BBQ to Assemble.
Next week for “Show and Tell:” I will explain how the bottom of a “stainless steel BBQ” rusted out. Yessir, miracle of modern marketing, I tell yah.
Can you imagine the market for two-season crap if Amazon or Wally World could figure out how to put assembly into Prime or WallyPlus? Love to see the post office deal with that.
Later today, my neighbor’s new StarLink came in so I will give him few pointers on how to set it up. Which will basically consist of me – pointing at the sky – and saying “Up there, somewhere to the north and the system will do everything else.”
But, at least I shouldn’t be able to break too much more around here..most of it’s down for repairs already. Besides the fellow with the StarLink is the dad of the crackerjack mechanic who will become a paid hydraulic leak explorer this week.
All that plus writing columns? Sound like a PITA? Naw, maybe you ain’t ready for real life. Go have someone make you a coffee, why d’t you? Then liz-out with a book today, huh, slick?
Write when you get rich,
George@Ure.net
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