June 17, 2023

Yesteryear
One year ago today: June 17, 2022, a book from 1985.
Five years ago today: June 17, 2018, panic & scream acting.
Nine years ago today: June 17, 2014, the writer’s club.
Random years ago today: June 17, 2012, anti-sniper drone?

           It has yet to happen that I get to use a full can of PVC cement. The stuff is designed to gel or solidify when over half empty, there must be enough air in the can to dry it out. There are no laws in America against this, especially with food. Companies like Heinz count on people too busy to use the last of the ketchup or peanut butter. I threw the ruined battery and others into the freezer overnight and we may have rescued the 20V, which is my best drill. Let’s shoot for extra pictures today because I know this phase of all yard work is boring to most. (Remember, this is the blog that dares. Dares to feature a can of plumbing solvent. Because sometimes, that is the event of the day.)

           We enter the next round of squirrel wars. Watching the action, it is two squirrels who can bring down the old birdfeeder. They won’t feed together, but if one jumps on the side of the baffle, the other can just catch on to the perch. Once he’s on, he can hang just long enough to tilt a helping of seed out the port. Clever. And they won’t do it for the camera. The other expensive feeder, the $40 unit? They just hand from whatever you suspend it from and eat the birdseed hanging upside down. Forty bucks. I have wire mesh around, if I knew the diameter of a squirrel head, I might be able to negate the seed except to smaller birds.

           We have a new visitor, a sparrow-sized little guy with brown feathers and a red head. No pics yet but he is a cutie. Last evening, wet or not, I put up the new fence pickets and this morning we’ll finish the crown row. At the moment, I’m baking a cake. From a mix, with added cinnamon and sunflower seeds. I’m too lazy to make muffins before the sun comes up. Hurry up, the aroma is driving everybody crazy. Ah, here it is. Cinnamon and sugar instead of icing and some sunflowers for that muffin effect. I’m allowed just one small portion. But now it is mostly gone, the hillbilly showed up without having breakfast and this is all I had. Well, plus coffee. We rarely have no coffee.

           He set out immediately clearing the corners of the front yard, that is heavy duty work. Then I had him haul the old incinerator blocks to the north side where I intend to see what will grow there. I finished the crown row on the fence and reinforced the windward side from the inside of the pickets. The Gulf of Mexico mugginess pervaded everything and I was out of peach tea mix. We drank all the ice cold water I could find containers for.
           Now do not confuse my observations with criticism, I need this guy around here for the heavy work. Kudzu is no joke, today I saw him work for the first time to his own point of exhaustion. I’m doing a shop specifically because I’m out of many things and all we had was cake. Here is a picture of the incinerator blocks roughly where I hope to make them into a raised planter. Just up to the level of one layer of blocks to take the pressure off leaning over a garden. It was an overcast day again or you’d see this enclave is actually nice and brightly lit. Note the surrounding and now expensive fence panels.

           It was just a three-hour day because he consistently shows up late. Here’s how the spiral works. If he’s not here at dawn, I start work. By the time he comes around, I’ve put in half my quota. Why not just put him to a task? I told you, he tends to slow down when left on his own. So I must plan to work nearby and before long I’m too tired to continue. It’s an accepted Florida fact of life if you want things to get done. By the way, I pay $10 an hour and that is it. If you want $15, go work at McDonalds, as the joke goes.
           He also gets the benefit of many learning tasks. In a sense he’s where I was, no experience doing a lot of “handyman” things, such as adding grommets. Sure, it’s a simple task but who would want to pay somebody else for it. Here is the blue tarp showing the way it forms a curtain. I mentioned the battery getting wet. My theory is this gap in the buildings is known to be breezy. The rain on this open area comes off both the house roof and the new laundry canopy. That was no ordinary windstorm two days ago, I was awake at 3:00AM and heard it full octave.

           Did you look close at the picture? On the top left panel you can see the edge of the laundry canopy at upper right. There are two tarps, you are looking at the one drawn across the front of the work area. This was not present and water got under the other small lean-to roof. There are no gutters on many older Florida houses. They would not last. On the bottom right panel, you see Cash’s old dog leash strung through the new grommets. (Cash is gone, I have not asked any questions. He was too big a dog for the city.)
           The hillbilly finds these things amazing. What I find the same is how he and so many had opportunities to learn all this stuff and never got around to it. Take those crown pieces on the fence. He thinks you have to be a genius to think of that. The reality is I was probably lazy or broke the day I needed them. I’m not broke any more, but I have plenty of experience at that. Read the addendum.

Picture of the day.
Isle of Man.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           It stayed overcast past noon so I kept the hillbilly doing the heavy lifting. A lot got done rapidly enough for once. My plan is to rake the best soil into that raised plant bed and, along with daily monitoring from the bathroom window, see what we can grow there. It will have the added advantage of wash water. What, you did not know that the water from your washing machine is like gravy to plants? Along with the fence pickets, I made a small space for a compost bucket. Naturally the hillbilly says you have to pee on it as an accelerant. “It’s the nitrogen, man.” No thanks.

           This fussy looking fence arrangement is simpler than it seems. You can see the two crown rows left and right, with a gap in the center. I ran out of cut panels, but the tree is a great barrier. The crown row will cover that gap, leaving a two-foot passage behind that row of brand new pickets at center. Behind there is both a small walkway to get around the house, and the location for the compost. (If you are tired of these fence pics, so am I, but if you look closely, you'll see the progress. This fence is important.)

           Tampa radio provided the comedy. Bud Light, the once top-selling beer in America, is not apologizing for insulting their customers. In fact, the brewery doubling down and calling them rednecks and homophobes, which is costing them more customers. What a dumb beer company, it’s a confrontation they cannot win. Have they been sampling too much of their product? In another move that is driving people to support Trump, the Secret Service has stopped protecting him as they do other ex-Presidents.
           This exposes him but the move is so blatant and shameless it backfired on the Democrats instantly. The news was they did not just lose donors, but the donors defected to Trump. Not the Republican party, which is another big loser in all this. They have long been infiltrated by Democrats posing as Republicans but now the worst of them are exposed and it is unlikely they’ll make it another round.
           That is where the old incinerator was. Moving those blocks adds up to over a ton, so give the hillbilly the grats for making it in this heat. A lot of that remaining pile is ash, which is also destined for the raised planter. I know where the best soil in the yard is for this experiment. I have my plant log from earlier years and my plan is tubers. Onions, radishes, carrots. Planning the harvests will be done the best way I know how, which is a spreadsheet. The growing area is tiny but if it is successful, there is more space further along the fence. I can only hope I have the patience for this. My record so far isn’t good and my only defense is I often left the garden unattended and headed for Tennessee.

           A medical oxygen bottle. The hillbilly saw my small battery carriers and knew they were originally for these containers. But I’ve never seen the oxygen bottles until now. I have no idea how this is used but that is one sturdy bottle. It just would not hold enough compressed air for most practical purposes. We’ll look it up on-line. I paid the hillbilly at 2:30PM, looking sincerely tired. And I was beyond sleepy myself so would up staying awake right until dark.
           JZ called, we had an hour discussing the upcoming year. He’s not used to how bureaucrats think, so I provided the coaching on how to be their golden boy. Never swear, never complain, thank them once in a while but never twice in a while. Between Alaine and I, we may have convinced him this is a signal from the Big Guy to complete things he’s been putting off. Like learning to strum guitar (ha-ha, that’s out). I’ll plan for a trip to check on things in a couple weeks, probably after the first when I’m feeling richer.
           Speaking of that, today’s addendum has a few words. I do believe JZ, for all the time and advice and philosophy, like many he has never actually seen someone systematically invest and shown him the results. He is quite impressed by the payouts from Caltier, now that he can see the direct link between the money and the return. For every $1,000 invested, you make $6 per month (sometimes I’ll say $7).

           An afternoon break had me watching what I hoped would be a true account of Rommel in North Africa. Enough time has gone by you’d hope people got past the “evil Nazi’ thing, but the “Real Time” series is another propaganda piece. How did the Allies win and Rommel lose? By burying Rommel with overwhelming numbers, plain and simple. He was outnumbered thirty to one and that nonsense persists that not one German even suspected the British had cracked their code. (I even suspect that Bletchley Park is a cover story, as the entire operation can be explained by a single unspecified source high in the German command.)
           Did I say thirty to one? Yes. Forget the lists and counts presented in the history books. Count only the mobile battle-worthy German main battle tanks. Forget the older Panzer IIs and IIIs and all the Italian junk. Count only the tanks that were running and near the battle zone where the British attacked. Also remember the German tactics were different and their tanks were not designed to fight other tanks. Instead, they lured Allied armor into prepared killing grounds.
           The yard is slowly getting cleaned up, I’m only concerned about the front anyway. That is where the kudzu has taken hold and I’m pondering taking a day to go over the whole fence area by hand and pull every bit of that vine out by the roots. Feel free to help, I’ll have some peach tea by then.

ADDENDUM
           Hmmm, curiouser and curiouser, my blog hits topped my last record of November 2018. And that was the whole month, not by the 17th. Have I become assigned class reading or something in Singapore? I’ll ride the crest of that wave. It is some sort of passing fad, I think. For instance, most of the hits are July 27, 2013, a virtually nothing day where I discuss scooter mileage and inflation.
           Caltier Fund, what’s the latest? I’ve not been lax keeping you up to date. After that unexpected large return in May, the fund is on track. I’ll remind you of the goals and the plan. The return shoots for a steady disbursement of 7%, which is not regular but they’ll have no trouble meeting it if they do nothing. Same with my investment. Although the target is $50,000 by 2030, this can now be met by much smaller monthly contributions plus rolling over the dividends while we hope the share prices will soar far beyond $5. But that last part is a guess because I can’t find a definite rule on how REITs behave. And finding out is what is going on.
           Additional equity to this fund ends on December 1, 2030. One calculation I make every period is the number of months remaining until that date. From today that is 108 months. Based on the inclusion of that projected 7% return, I calculate the amount I would have to transfer in monthly each of those remaining months to reach the goal. This money is slated to ensure the taxes will always be paid on any property that we are likely to ever own. Forget what you heard about America being a free country. The largest loss of people’s homes and properties is unpaid taxes. This country has gone severely downhill that way since the 1990s.

           No, that figure does not remain constant as you might think. For instance, this month I put in $500. There is a minimum amount I can afford and I’m not saying what it is. To do this starting this month, I need only put in $182 per month and that is nothing for me. So each time I invest over that amount of the monthly minimum declines. That is what you should be doing. I believe by the end of this month, I’ll have just over $12,000 in the fund and I have another under-performing investment I may plow into Caltier. There is every good chance, if nothing breaks down, I could have $15,000 or $20,000 in there by year’s end. Stick around, follow along.
           We’re talking the Caltier crowd-funded residential fund, minimum only $500 to join and if you can’t afford that, you’d be like me the first half of my life.

Last Laugh