September 23, 2023

Yesteryear
One year ago today: September 23, 2022, last time I tried . . . .
Five years ago today: September 23, 2018, is rarely confined.
Nine years ago today: September 23, 2014, knowing your enemies.
Random years ago today: September 23, 2004, NASA garbage.

           Yep, I was at the top of that ladder in y’day’s picture. Forty-five feet up in the air is not the usual environment for men my age. Here’s some further pictures of this task, it was just shy of a major undertaking. And it is not over. Two and a half hours this morning slicing up the logs to fit in the deck of his pickup. We have have wrecked my chain saw. I give it a rest every 15 minutes and tighten the chain, but the last time we saw smoke, like exhaust. But setting the saw down showed it was from the motor casing. Now it will start but won’t stay running. I’ll have to throw it on the bench.

           Switching to the electric saw, we got most of the logs cut when it threw the chain. That’s a chore and it requires three hands to get it back on. All this time, I kept throwing small pieces into the burn barrel, which was still glowing from last night. Everything centered on the yard, here I’m pointing at the base of the tree, where it snapped. Rotten inside. Yet as we progressed up the trunk, it got harder and harder to cut until we reached the mark from y’day. Dang, that wood got tough and would not break.

           Next, we repaired the fence. A necessity with his small dogs. The pipe across the top had been creased and broke as we tried to bend it back. I scrounged up a six foot piece of smaller diameter pipe and we sniped the pieces back into shape. Then used the snipes to reinforce each break by simply inserting a foot-long section inside the old pipe. It’s back up, but no way could I find my roll of bailing wire. He’s got some coat hangers we’ll repurpose. Until then the fence is held by heavy duty strip ties. By the say, I found the missing rope. It’s being used to hold a tarp over a hotdog cart. Never a dull moment around here.
           Because it is unusual, I must mention breakfast. Today I woke with a craving for pork and beans on toast. Like many a kid, I once thought that’s how beans grew. In a red sauce. I once treated a girlfriend to dinner on this meal by itself. I’m one of those fortunate souls who does not get gas from beans. If they had fewer calories, I might have put them on my list. This blog is somewhat pledged to record my health, but don’t worry I’ll start listing TV ailments or leave my fortune to faith healers. It’s that this

previous week has been unprecedented for hours of labor put in.
           I’m not fooling myself that it’s recovery, I know I’ve probably overdone things. It surpasses any exercise I normally get and it’s a pleasant high to plop down after this volume of work. My guess is the past short while has seen a sustained amount of labor I have not been capable of in the past twenty years. And who’s to say I would not have needed a short nap almost daily even if nothing had gone wrong. In ten days, I’ve quit smoking for twenty years. October 3.

           Here’s a view of the top secret Chinese spy station outside of Havana, Cuba. That’s where the missing F-35 is parked. It’s the latest in stealth fighter tech and there’s nothing fishy going on. Those are just dishes for satellite TV, government programming is surprisingly popular in Havana and its outlying districts. They love those Oprah re-runs where she has always had enough to eat, Cubans love seeing that.

Picture of the day.
Squint your eyes.
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           Consequences. In a sense, letting me know what doesn’t get exercises. Muscle cramps, which I rarely experience, tell me I’m not up to par on my ladder-climbing. It’s a mild pain but enough to say that was an unprepared adventure. I’m fine, moving around and working wondering how mankind got about before ladders were invented. This view is a bit tricky but if you look dead center at this part of the tree, you can see light coming through from the other side. The tree was rotten at the base, but remarkably tough to cut above the twenty-foot mark.

           I took it for a dead camphor tree, but the other guy says it may have been an oak. It sure cut tough. I got the chain saw running again, I suspect the hillbilly mixed engine oil with bar oil, the plug was fouled. It just needed a wave in the air, the run time on a full tank of gas on that tool with 50% trigger time is maybe eight minutes. We finally rolled the biggest long onto a stump and cut it from all sides.

           There’s a view of it from up the ladder, the last unsliced piece of trunk. In the end, the log had to be rolled and cut from all sided until the central core was cut before it would even bend. No wonder I had trouble with it up in the air last day. While I was up there, I snapped a few extra photos from that unique angle. Unique in that I’m leaving the big ladder leaning up there. Any place else I put it, she gets in the way. I found out why it was free—the second lowest rung is missing and unless you can raise your foot that high at the knee, the ladder is unusable. I stood on a concrete block.
           Looking down at birdie paradise, the prominent features are all the round shapes in the area. They are birdbaths, small tables, and squirrel baffles. I imagine this is what the cardinals see as they swoop in for breakfast. This is the logical flightpath from the best trees. No sign of the raccoon, but it has been raiding the neighbor’s dog food. To the left at the top you can see the red shed, and at lower left the corner of the silo.

           For dieters, here’s some disappointing news. I’m still maintaining my 1200 calorie per day diet, this is now at least ten years, without losing significant weight. Sometimes I do go over, but that is counterbalanced by some days when I barely touch a bite—I’ve trained myself not to eat unless physically very hungry. I estimate over the past ten days, I’ve burned nearly 20,000 more calories over what I’ve eaten. Yet the scale shows I’m gaining, three pounds this week. Few things [better] reveal the long-term damage of American food, something I have not eaten regularly in close to twenty years, but still suffer from. By 2003 I was well aware of the damage done. I had the shape and energy of a man half my age when things went wrong, but you can read up on that on your own. One of the early reasons my journal went from paper to blog was I did not want to leave only hardcopy, which is notorious for not surviving a single generation.

           I still have not been able to touch bases with the owner at the Shipp Lake. Complete opposite schedules, it seems to me this is what happened last time. I’ll presume it is a go for a number of reasons, top of which is the Sunday bartender knows me. Plus I do have a following in the sense that people who know I’m going to sing or play will wait around for me. There is quite a personality difference when I get up with the mic, and last evening was a classic. I have the option to advertise on stage because all local Karaoke people know me, and I’m careful to plug only at places that are closed on Sundays.

           The exception is Kooters, where I have a trained audience. When I’m done a Karaoke number, somebody will always ask where I’m appearing next. I mention only the club, not the time and date. I left “dance posters” with the staff at Shipp Lake last evening. It’s significantly more advertising than other shows. It seems nobody told them it was important. Um, this should not detract at all from my total opposition to America-style intrusive advertising. I would outlaw such advertising in an instant, given the power. On-line advertising belongs in a special site, dot-cat, for catalog. Where it is the user who makes the decision to have the ad in their face.

           I did it again, a forgotten excellent recipe. Low on supplies, I layered a loaf pan with biscuit mix, a can of chicken-a-la-king, and every compatible leftover in the fridge. Then, not being hungry, I wrapped it in foil and tucked it back in the fridge two days ago. Well, absolutely delicious, so return tomorrow. Sunday morning I am attempting to duplicate that recipe. I know which spices and that I added diced onions to bake. This one, we can’t let go without a try.

ADDENDUM
           Here is the cheapest livable piece of property within 50 miles of Nashville. Something is happening with real estate and I am watching closely. At $130,000 there is something wrong with it. New siding and roofing can hide any number of ills. The yard is unkempt, but I’m one to talk. I’ve been running small loads through the burn barrel for some 36 hours straight, here’s a view of the latest. I let it burn down to coals and leave it overnight. Some six barrels of yard clippings, twigs, and sawn logs have gone through this time without a single beer in sight.

           I just never went downtown to get any.
Let’s look at some news items. A group of Democrat states have passed bill that seem to say they will not use drop boxes. But looking closely, they said they will not use COVID as an excuse for drop boxes. This will fool the majority of stupid people into thinking the Democrats made a concession. Wrong, liberals are evil incarnate. Just before the election, they will create some other excuse and all the stupid people won’t be ready.

           Bob Reiner, the actor who played Meathead on Archie Bunker, has said if Trump returns to the White House, it is the end of American democracy. This comes as a surprise to people educated enough to know American was never a democracy. The bulk of non-mainstream news now show Trump is so far ahead on every significant poll and issue that the 2024 election is just a formality. What’s more, Trump has changed his stance to more accurately reflect the mood of America, which is to take revenge on the Democrats and liberals for what they’ve done to the country.

           Trump is outright warning illegals not to get too comfortable. The biggest deportation in history is coming, he says. He’s got plenty of support, the few critics left with any audience are holdouts obsessed over what Trump did not do last time. They do to on about is “failures” as if the civil service that openly disobeyed were not a factor. Next time, there will be so such tolerance of their misbehavior.

           By late evening, I have nice sore muscle groupings, a pleasant sort of pain. Worst are the “ladder-climbing” muscles. Way out of practice, I was. The sore parts are four main areas. Behind my thighs, as if I’d walked up a mile of steep stairs, and behind the shoulders from griping the sides of the ladder. It must be from pulling or something that I was not really aware was happening. Cramp isn’t the right word, more like a “leave me alone” tightness, but still mild pain. How’s that for medical terminology?

Last Laugh