Yesteryear
One year ago today: March 1, 2025, a 6-pancake day.
Five years ago today: March 1, 2021, that’s baloney.
Nine years ago today: March 1, 2017, yep, Jim Stafford.
Random years ago today: March 1, 2013, early Arduino.
An early start with a bit of energy, which I used to make breakfast hash and a key lime pie. Better yet, I stayed awake and watched some documentaries of living off the grid. Folks, it does not good around here to make wild claims of independence—it costs a hell of a lot of money to get a a cabin happening in the woods. This one couple who “started from nothing” carefully avoided saying where they got the cash and tools to survive for years during startup. Or where they got the tools and solar panels. I don’t mean nothin’, I’m just saying.
So I’ve decided, except for electric, which I will not skimp on, and water which is mandated by the city, am I not off the grid? Let me fathom that, because I was not happy with getting $241 in electricity bills while I was away in the hospital with the main breaker turned off. The average cost for
a small cabin system in 2025 was $15,000. But what if I live another 23 years like my last round in 2003? This requires a lot of thought and planning. See addendum.
Here is something you don’t see every day. This is dead lumber, that is, the wood was dead before it was lumberjacked. The effect is not something I’d pay extra for, but these planks have an abnormal source. It is pine wood that has been killed by a beetle scourge. The tree trunks remain standing for years after and this is the result when sawn and planed. Sorry, you will have to consult elsewhere for details but I understand there are thousands of square miles of these dead forests. A most interesting recycle idea.
Pennsylvania remains deadlocked in a fight with power companies a year now over a bill that allows residents to refuse the installation of “smart meters”. The companies were charging an opt-out fee by some other name and slow-walking the removal of existing unwanted meters. What does that tell you?
My single chore today is to get the rest of that $1600 into the joint account. This is where PPP comes into play. Many, possibly most, people would say this trip downtown is just the logistics of reality. I see it as the consequences of being poor. If I had to pay somebody else, or calculate my true full cost, this trip carries a price tag of around $75. And even after the 18th, my reserves will stand at only 34% of optimum. Who knew poverty was so complicated? It explains a lot.
Wait, there is more. My commercial bank has begun charging me the $11 monthly statement fee for below minimum balance. The joint account ATM has stopped printing the balances. An obvious ploy to encourage an overdraft. These GenX types must love to screw themselves. Another good one is deleting texts on my smart phone. It also deletes the contact and removes it from the contact list until you turn the phone off and back on. But nothing beats my original millie-phone that required ten keypresses to use the speed dial.
Picture of the day.
Dealey Plaza today.
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What is this? Turns out this is a can of evaporated milk with coffee. Agt. M and I stopped at the Russian store and I wanted some sweet evap. My crappy camcorder won’t zoom in, so here is the best shot I have of the product. My curiosity is returning and today I got some minor housework done. This place remains a shambles. As the old saying goes, if I die today the police will describe the scene as “there appears to have been a struggle.”
It is 30 days since the operation and time for a status report. You can skip this if you don’t care for hospital stuff. I am at about 50% mobility most of the time with some lingering annoyances. The numbness in both my pinkies and ring fingers is concerning. At the rate of improvement, my hands will not be normal for months yet. The loss of sensation on my outer left upper thighs is not diminished at all. My left leg is half again the size of my right from swelling.
Both feet are now subject to localized gout attacks. At the moment, it is my right heel and painful but tolerable to walk on. The two wounds for the veins in either leg are still unhealed. The left is closed but scabbed over, the right has formed a white-ish covering (not infected but looks bad) that allows clear fluid to leak slowly but continuously.
During the 72 hours following surgery, I did my best to keep notes. It remains a blur and my writing is barely legible—but it is evident they gave me narcotic pain-killers. That means two instances of treatment I refused in advance. Narcotics and blood transfusion. So much for my pureblood status, as I can never be sure again.
My guess for the drug was morphine, which has known withdrawal effects. My notes state that many times I could not read my book (the Buck novel) as the pages turned black in my hands. Black, as if burned, but not shriveling, so I could see widely-spaced single typed letters on the paper. Mostly capital Rs and Os. I would pick up the book and see the pages turn black in front of me, often with a slight gold or orange outline showing through from the other side of the paper.
My forearms are a bad shape, still bruised and damaged. I have collapsed veins and knots under the skin in several spots. I count fourteen dots and spots from needle punctures that are slow to heal. Swellings of blood on the backs of my hands have subsided to leave blotches. And the skin on both arms has become dry and loose, a condition I’ve often seen in other people in their 80s. Yep, cosmetically, I’ve just aged ten years.
And the scar. It was a thin red line a month ago, but from the ordinary required motions sitting up and daily routines, it gets slightly tugged and stretched and is now a disfiguring mark. And there is always something alarming about a wound that takes so long to heal. Later, the banking is done and I just want a quiet evening. I slated next Tuesday to get back on track with Festus. There is some light on the horizon.
ADDENDUM
Solar is not the only option. Later this week I will examine the cost of running a backup generator. I have two advantages. One is I understand the battery technology and how to install and maintain lithium. The second is my place is already 90% wired for adaptation and I can do the rest myself. I have two roof surfaces facing south and east that are unshaded. How about I get outside and take some measurements later, so I can estimate the power generation and cost. I would have no problem installing an experimental site in any of the sheds, which all have exposed south roofs with the sun almost directly overhead most days.
The videos are extra amusing to me because I see something a lot of others don’t, namely infrastructure. You see them getting water from a wall tap connected to a well. I see the tens of thousands of dollars needed for that to happen. If they had the well drilled, that cost plenty, if they dug it themselves, where did they get their water meanwhile? And is a propane water heater really living off the grid? You can fake an easy-living video for the masses, but around me you cannot fake infrastructure.
Meanwhile think of me as semi-off-grid. Because I am not about to begin growing and preserving food. I have thought about it, say with potatoes. But I live a mile from the nearest grocery. And I’m slowly getting able to walk again that far again if I must.
Last Laugh
