Category Archives: Uncategorized

Golf and Irrigation

The last of the winter storms seems to have swept through and now all we are getting is cool nights and dew on the field of weeds. With the sun out and warmth everywhere we made plans for a golf get-together together with my wife’s BFF in the neighboring County. In rural Loomis there’s a little “par-3 course” with the occasional par-4 and just nine holes. I remembered how to hit with the sticks – except for the complete misses. Only lost two in the water. It was a nice walk in the country but I forgot to bring my Nikon rangefinder. Every bit of information helps, and I’m not a good judge of how far my ball travels, since I am so inconsistent. As a golf-marksman I would hardly rate even “Sharpshooter,” but it was a fine day and I think I got a couple good drives off the tee, including a very sharp hit to an abstruse Canadian goose.
With that done we ventured to Lunch. On a Friday. And we had to use the freeway. Highway (Interstate) 80. Oh My God. The masses of traffic hurtling at breakneck speeds tailgating each other – it reminded us well of why we don’t bother with the Highway-80 Corridor or travel on weekends if we can help it. Eight lanes of mayhem on rubber, flowing over the Sierras with Amazon boxes and goods, all to service the BayAryans. By comparison Highway-50 that really goes nowhere is mild and relaxed, even when it’s congested with vacationers – which is why we know all the back-roads and avoid it as much as possible too. I had planned to visit a gun-emporium and take a look at a Winchester Model 1973 rifle, but the seething horde of Humanity driving willy-nilly in a thrall with unwarranted urgency made me change my mind.
Saturday is one of my twice-weekly irrigation days (I think?) but the valves were shut off back in November, and opened to purge water and relieve pressure from the cold and ice, to avoid breaking. So today is a fine day to open the water-tap to the valves, tighten down the valves down so they function properly, re-set the timer, and test the circuits. At least I think in that order… We want to start planting and get tomatoes and peppers in the ground. Also during the spring when I was messing-about on The Embankment, I came across a couple of drip-lines with emitters that were cut, so I know I will have leaks and need to find them. Hell, you always have at least one leak or two at a minimum, if you are lucky to only have that few, and I expect to find a geyser here and there.
Meanwhile in the refrigerator, a sack of chicken drumsticks is in a Mojito-Lime marinade, and another bag has pork-chops in a Brazilian Steak-house flavor, all getting ready for Sunday Bar-B-Que – temps expected in the low 80’s.
Also down and far away in the Hippie Mountains, Big Sister is about to be a Grandma again…

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Work and Travel and Family

I follow weather patterns much more now that we live the Rural Life, close to the mountains where weather has a real effect on day-to-day activities. It’s something I never optioned much as a resident BayAryan flatlander with my nose embedded in my own singularity and just a small circle of sky overhead. But now there was an impending “atmospheric river” about to hit in just days, the so-called “Pineapple Express” from Hawaii was aimed right at us, and with that there was an urgency and a brief dry window of work to-do before another deluge.
Between the events taking place at the Ancestral Homestead there were some things falling between the cracks. Glaziers had come and gone, refreshing the bathroom. The old roof was coming off and a new one going on – but in a hurry because rain was coming.
Furniture is weird and can be difficult, being so specific to “taste” and style. Some furniture had found a new home, but not all. We were trying to find homes for our parents’ stuff, but some of it was teetering on the precipice. Dad’s rather large sideboard had found a home in a modern neighbor’s house across the street, but the table and chairs were now adrift. We had to rescue the dining table and chairs from the junk-wagon.
So we loaded the truck with extra tarps and shipping blankets and a fat roll of duct-tape and grabbed clothes and a cooler with some food and made ready to travel.
The trip down was marked with a few choke-points where commuter traffic slowed to a crawl. Being two-up we could use the HOV lanes, but there were still spots where the freeway split off and recombined and things just came to a sea of stopped red taillights. Once outside the city and free of the traveling-masses, I was able to spool-up the truck and bomb along through the countryside.
We made it to the woodworker’s shop where the table was before lunch. The legs would be a problem so we removed them, and underneath #4 leg was a penciled notation my dad had left: “New York leading Brooklyn, 2 games to 1 in the Series. 1953.” Wow. We got it into the back of the truck and headed for The House and loaded the chairs. My brother was there on another mission of mercy to grab a bookcase, so we visited. Done and done we went to the hotel, and with a bit of help had the table-top wrapped in a big blue tarp and duct-taped over to keep it dry. We dragged it inside out of the dark clouds and stacked the chairs too. It rained that night and all the next day, while we stayed dry and had lunch with some old friends who we might never see again…
Yesterday we awoke early and the rain had stopped, so we got the wet truck loaded with tarps and layers of shipping blankets, and hit the road again. Up to speed outside the sprawl I managed to avoid a ticket while making quite good time. Getting home safely with our cargo dry and intact, we deposited the old Dinner Table at the Low Granite Outcropping. Mid-Century Modern goes together.

Aqueous Onslaught

UPDATE: Two inches at 5:00 o’clock. 1.54 inches of rain since midnight, over two and a half since yesterday – the dam has been breached and my cup runneth over, and more is coming down as we speak (1:00PM).
SUNDAY UPDATE: After just .23-inches rain in February, so-far we’re at 9.65-inches just for March – and with more snow in the High Country we’re catching up to “normal.”

Daylight-Saving Time

The arrival of Daylight-Saving Time reminds us that Winter is not much longer here abouts, and with brilliant days like yesterday and today, surrounded by slatting storms – that the March lion is roaring.
So, given yesterday’s warm weather, we set-to in the yard. Cutting back the overgrown roses, weeding, cleaning up the daffodils, and de-limbing a few low-hanging head-knockers on the big pine tree that argued with its symmetry. You don’t miss them when they are gone. The little chainsaw-on-a-stick works marvelously, but I don’t like to use it alone.

Petition to Create the 51st State of Jefferson!

The Jeffersonians are getting uppity HERE. This is the full text of the petition; they had to reduce the characters to fit on the petition. Go ahead and sign it.

CALIFORNIA IS GUILTY OF SEDITION
Petition to Create the 51st State of Jefferson!

WHEREAS, The State Legislature with the help and collusion of Governor Brown have violated Article 1 Section 8, clause 4, of the United States Constitution, (which gives Congress the power to enact all uniform rules over Naturalization), The executive and legislative branches of California have declared themselves above the law and have willfully violated their oath of office by passing legislation declaring California a Sanctuary State; and

WHEREAS, the Governor and all of the voting members of the California Legislature, and its Attorney General, are knowingly and willfully in violation of United States Code of Regulations Title 8, Section 1324( iii, iv, v1, v2, v3), for concealing, shielding, harboring, aliens who have illegally entered the United States; and

WHEREAS, the California Legislature and its Governor have conspired to and did in fact conclude climate change agreements with foreign powers in order to diminish and degrade the legitimate foreign policy of the United States and its lawfully elected President. These illegal agreements are violations of Article 1, Section 10, clause 3, of the United States Constitution as well as Article 3, Section 1, and Article 20 (oath of office), of the California Constitution; and

WHEREAS, the State Legislature of California with the collusion and aid of the Governor exempt themselves from laws to which the citizens are subject. The California legislature has exempted itself from “show good cause” provisions of concealed carry regulations. The effect is to disarm its citizens while the government remains armed.

WHEREAS, the California Legislature with the collusion and approval of the Governor has violated the public’s trust by unlawfully burdening our exercise of our Second Amendment rights. They have unlawfully enacted controls on interstate commerce to deny the citizens of California access to firearms and ammunition which are commonly and routinely purchased by the citizens of other states; and

WHEREAS, the Governor, the State’s Attorney General, and the legislature, as well as the governments of all of the large urban cities, have openly declared their full intention to fight and resist the Constitution of the United States in order to further the above mentioned acts.

THEREFORE, the representatives of the 23 Jefferson Counties, in general assembly and by unanimous consent, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name of, and by the authority of the people of the counties of Jefferson, solemnly publish and declare, that these the counties of Jefferson by right of Almighty God ought to be free of tyranny, free to seek our Liberty, and our fortunes as the sovereign state of Jefferson, equal to any other State in the Union. We petition the United States Government, to immediately declare that the State of California is engaged in insurrection and sedition, and further declare under Article 4, Section 3, U.S. that the Counties of Jefferson are now and by right the 51st State, separate and sovereign from the tyranny of California, now and forever.

Chill

Today the nearly month long dalliance with Summer-in-Winter that we’ve been enjoying got frosty. The Pacific high pressure zone parked overhead got nudged aside a bit, as an arctic blast swung down from Alaska to dust the Sierras with snow and the Western Slope with cold air.
At the Army-Navy surplus store I got a Carhartt furry-lined vest to stay warm while working outside — not that I am very inclined to work outside much when it is bitter cold, but sometimes these things can’t be avoided so it’s best to accommodate them in some degree of comfort.

Yesterday the weather was fine and digging went well, and as a means of avoiding the black mud sticking to the dumper-wagon I put down a layer of pine-needles in the bottom.



It worked! The loads slid out of the wagon easily, and I made four runs until I got the John Deere’s tires all loaded-up with muck and stuck under the pine tree. After a bit of digging out I got free and decided to call it a day and go hose the machine off. My back was also not too stressed and only required one ibuprofen.

Drain the Swamp!

Turns out it was a buried irrigation line, not electric. So I started pulling it up in one direction, then the other. It’s empty and just gurgles. Don’t know where it could possibly have been feeding-from, but I got about twenty-feet pulled-up before I decided not to risk my back further and turned my attention to the swamp and began to cut watery turf. Just me and my shovel.
After about an hour and a couple bottles of water, I had nearly doubled the size of the mud-pit and banked-up turf in various low-spots, as well as filling-in about half of the rocky brown-patch.
There’s a couple dumper-wagon loads of mud to take up and fill-in the old burn-pile ditch, but with this fine weather it’s hard not to just keep at it making hay while the sun shines.
It’s fun to see progress being made, bit by bit, but now I’d better throw a couple mosquito “dunks” into that mess where there’s standing water…