Month: April 2020

Dad’s Alaska

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Here’s to the continuing government idiocy

27 April 2020 Monday

Have been remiss in writing the blog. I have been busier than a one legged pirate in an ass kicking contest. I’ve been doing everything from burning debris to loading wheelbarrows full of dirt to go into the greenhouse. Spring has sprung. We now have 5 months to complete a years worth of work.

The dirt
Dirt transportation device looking into greenhouse

It took days to burn all of the debris. Spent hours watching the fire and ‘stick picking’ across the property. Will finish the burning process today and then get on to repairing the tractor. While doing the fire thing I’ve been picking up other debris that can’t be burned. A dump run is in my future. The tractor project entails removing the axle from the parts tractor and installing it on the working tractor. This should be a fairly easy project that shouldn’t take more than 4-5 hours.

Later…..

Sunday, we loaded the dirt into the greenhouse. Summer has, after all of the dirt was dumped into the greenhouse, has furrowed the dirt in preparation for planting. She was spreading the dirt as I was dumping 14-15 loads of it in the greenhouse. It was a big job for both of us. I could tell that I was going to be sore Monday morning.

She had to go to work today (Monday). The pet care service that she works for is trying desperately to get over the dumbass government shutdown. This shutdown has put dozens of Homer businesses in jeopardy of closing permanently. In addition, much of the Homer economy is based upon tourists. There will likely be no tourist season this year. So-o-o those businesses that weren’t completely destroyed by the idiotic shutdown will be finished off by the lack of tourists. One amusing and unintended consequence is that the idiots at the Homer City Council and the idiot Mayor had to rescind their stupid plastic bag ban. It, finally, occurred to some city employee that the bringing bags from home could spread the Corroded Virus or any germ or virus. A recent study showed that the ‘bring from home’ bags often had more germs and viruses than a public restroom commode.

Summer put several goose eggs into an incubator about a month ago. In the past couple of days we have had them hatching out. We had 5 geese and one duck hatch. Four of the geese were perfectly healthy. One was hatched and had some serious problems and was never going to be well. She had to kill the poor little thing. It was never able to stand or take water or food. All it did was writhe on the floor of the pen, apparently, in pain. It was a pitiful thing to watch. We had one duck hatch Sunday afternoon. It didn’t look right to me and this afternoon it died. Circle of life kind of thing, I guess.

Had to move the tractor a few feet forward to get it in a position where it could be disassembled. This was supposed to be a ten minute job that became a 2 hour ordeal. First I was pulling it with a ‘come along’ cable winch. This winch broke while I was trying to pull the front end of the tractor around to point it where I wanted it to go. This failure led to looking for a second winch that I knew I owned but did not know where it was living. Found the winch and it, also, broke under the load. This entailed repairing the damned thing and then more aggravation. When it was repaired, I was able to move the tractor to where I wanted. Two hours shot just getting it into position. After that I was able to jack the tractor up and take off the tire and the axle. I did try to put the axle into the good tractor but it wouldn’t go. By this time I was tired and it seemed a good time to quit and have a vodka.

Parts tractor with tire and axle removed

Dinner was a small steak, broccoli w/cheese sauce and a few french fries washed down with sweet tea.

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Dad’s Alaska

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Here’s to the brave crew of Time Bandit

21 April 2020 Tuesday

Kimberly D sent me a note to tell me that the crab boat that homeports in Homer is the Time Bandit. That was, indeed, something I did not know. I thought I knew everything but it appears that is not the case.

Had to repost this picture from yesterday as I got the caption wrong.

Summer, Queen of Fire

Today’s original agenda was to burn more debris. That didn’t happen. Instead I spent several hours of picking up trash around the property. A lot of trash and junk was left on the ground last winter because of the snow. Today was the day to clean it up and take it all to the dump. Winter snow jumps onto you while you’re head, down rear end and up working like crazy to get everything done before the snow. It has become obvious to me that there is no getting it all done before the snow flies. There are just too many jobs to be done in the short season between the snows. The number of jobs that need to be done and extra things that we want do are likely more than we’ll ever get done before it snows again. An example of ‘need to’ is the acquisition of 10 cords of firewood logs, cutting them into rounds and then splitting those rounds and, finally, stacking that firewood in the tents. All of that activity will take me about a week to 10 days. If next winter is as cold as this winter we will need all of the wood we can get. This years 6 cords were subsidized by all of the drops from Dan’s addition to his house. There was near a cord of wood from that source along with three trees from our property clearing. Then there was some weather damaged lumber that we had amongst several hundred board feet of good lumber we purchased last Spring. All total it we had close to 8 cords. We aren’t going to have all of the extra wood this coming winter. Hence we are purchasing 10 cords for the coming winter. Called my wood guy last week to get him in gear.

My trip to the dump was uneventful. The only persons I saw at the dump transfer station weren’t wearing masks. In the great outdoors why should they? I saw a number of people walking alone in Homer and out East End Road wearing masks. I wondered why since the only persons even getting close to them were passing by in their vehicles. The MSM has these people scared to death. They fail to understand that they’re more likely to be killed by being run over by a moose or a car than die from a Corroded Virus while walking in the great outdoors. If this wasn’t so serious, I’d be laughing my ass off.

We had a Anchorage Dumbass Doctor on the radio saying that Hydroxychloroquine didn’t work. He quoted a study from the VA as if it were the Bible. I read the article and the most important line in the article was: “The nationwide study was not a rigorous experiment.” In other words, it was not a scientific study but he quoted it as gospel. More fake news promulgated by the MSM and a self proclaimed expert. The so-called study did not take into account pre-existing conditions, age, race, weight or any other factors that might skew the results. It was just a willy nilly slapped together paper that means nothing. By all appearance it was just another attempt to slander President Trump. There are no scientific studies at this point. However, there are stories of people recovering due to the usage of that drug. I’m gonna ask for it should I be so unlucky as to catch the Corroded Virus.

Summer got the call today to go back to work part time. She is ambivalent about the prospect but she sees the need to get more exercise. Walking the dogs 3-5 miles everyday has kept he in shape. Not walking them is means that she has to try to force herself to go walk everyday. Everybody knows that exercising is a pain and hard to do, if you don’t have to do it. Me, I put in 3000-5000 steps almost everyday. Average step 2’. 3000×2’= 6000’ divided by 5280 equals 1.36 miles. I don’t lose any weight but I’m not gaining any either.

Picking up trash and a trip to the dump. A big day in Fritz Creek. Y’all have a good day. See ya on the flip side.

Dad’s Alaska

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Let’s all drink to house arrest.

20 April 2020 Monday

Another day of burning the debris. There are two stumps that I just can’t seem to destroy. One of the looks like an octopus and the other has horns of a bull with its’ face removed. I spent most of the day gathering wood to try to burn these stumps. The trees and bushes did not have the dirt shaken out of them so I spent a good deal of time removing the dirt by hand. Couldn’t use the shovel because it wouldn’t get into the places the dirt was stuck. By the time I finished the day I was covered in dirt, mud, ash and black smudges from the previously burnt stuff.

Hanging out by the fire
Baked Octopus
Summer the Fire Girl

I didn’t get a picture of the faceless bull so there isn’t one to show.

Spent the day slogging through the mud by myself this time. Summer had other stuff to do so I continued the fire. This is boring as snot. I worked all day trying to get the pile burned. Finally, at about six o’clock I decided I’d had enough of that fun. The fire had burned down pretty low and wasn’t a threat to the community so I went up the hill to the house.

All of the cleared land you can see in the pictures was covered in dead trees, grass humps, old tires, rotting lumber and just about anything else short of junk cars. Anything not metal or rubber was burned in last years fire. That fire was so big that the Chief of the volunteer fire department saw it from 12 miles away. He was out on the Homer Spit. Out on the Spit is where the harbor is for the fishing/crabbing boats and numerous tourist traps. Somebody told me that one of those ‘Deadliest Catch’ boats uses this as its’ homeport. I’ve never seen it, don’t know the name of the boat. I did think y’all might find that interesting though. I’ll see if I can find out the boat name, if anyone is interested. Connie used to watch that show and I’ve sat with her while she was watching. I don’t have a clue about it beyond them either catching or not catching crabs. I will say that it did look like a dangerous job that I wouldn’t want.

I was going to say something about the Corroded Virus and the decided not to except to say I don’t have it.

Tomorrow will be another day of trying to turn the balance of the debris pile into ash. This would have been a great deal easier had the guy who pulled all of this stuff out by the roots shaken the dirt out of said roots.

Good night and God bless.

Dad’s Alaska

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Pain relief on the rocks

19 April 2020 Sunday

Had a little trouble getting out of bed this morning. It was not, as in previous mornings, a lack of motivation. This morning the problem was pain. I had muscle aches in places I did not know that I had muscles. Instead of simply sitting up and getting out of bed it was more of a slow crawl to grab the head board and painfully pull myself up to a sitting position. All of this pain was the result of working yesterday at burning everything we could possibly pick up and toss into the fire. On one occasion, I dragged a sixteen foot long, 6″ soaking wet spruce log about 90 feet to the fire. By the time I got it there my heart was pounding like a trip hammer on steroids and I was exhausted. I had to sit down for about 10 minutes before I could summon the energy to put the darn thing into the fire. I decided that I’d had an adequate level of cardio for the day. I’ve gotten very badly out of shape during the winter and it shows. We got about half of that same wet log burned today. As I stated yesterday, whatever burning we need to do must be done before May 1st.

They’ve been predicting rain for days. We’ve had none as of today. I have been disabused of the need to believe anything that anyone says about weather or climate. My 60+ years of listening to the radio or TV weather people getting it wrong almost daily has given me the knowledge that they don’t have a clue. With that said I cannot fathom how anyone can predict climate 20-80 years into the future. The ECO-wacko crowd are working off models. Models allow you to input data into a system in a manner to that produces the result that you want. The actual way the system works has been fully demonstrated with the COVID-19 predictions. First, it was 2.2 million plus people would die. Since then and almost on a daily basis that number has dropped until now it is somewhere in the around 60 thousand range. What appears to be happening now is that a person with a serious heart problem, with COVID-19, dies and it is being attributed to COVID-19 instead of the heart attack. This is being done to pump the numbers in an attempt to prove the model correct. This discrepancy in numbers is an excellent indicator that any modeling for any event or action is, usually, WRONG. Hurricane models are another example models always being wrong in the long term. Of course, common sense would have told you that a long time ago. One last thought, this so called pandemic is fulfilling Margaret Sanger’s (founder of Planned Parenthood) dream for America. It is eliminating a lot of blacks, old people, handicapped and other of her so called, useless humans. Certainly she would have wanted to abort them but I’m sure she’d be glad to take these deaths any way she could get them.

We are in the mud season here in Fritz Creek. The snow has very nearly all become running rivulets of water cascading down our hill. There are 100s of thousands, if not millions of gallons, rushing downhill toward Kachemak Bay. This was/is a temperate rain forest are that has dropped spruce needles and other plant matter that has become a layer of very fine soil that when water is added becomes a soft sticky mud. Even though it is only unfrozen to a depth of 1 to 2 inches, it grasps your boots like an evil Goo monster trying you pull you into the depths. Its’ grip makes it very difficult and very tiring to walk. Summer and I slogged around in this gooey mess for about 8 hours. We kept gathering up debris off the property and along our road frontage to feed the fire and dry out the burn pile so that it will, actually, burn. We have a couple of lawn chairs near the fire where we drank coffee in the morning and vodka in the late afternoon. It wasn’t quite as warm to day as yesterday. The sun was buried behind thick gray clouds being moved slowly along by the light wind. It was another good day to burn, but not nearly as nice as yesterday. We’re hoping tomorrow will be a repeat of today. About 6 PM the wind began to pick up so we let the fire burn out. Both of us had only eaten a couple of slices of cheese toast during the entire day so quitting and making some supper seemed the right thing to do. Trudging uphill in the sticky mud took very nearly the last bit of energy that I possessed.

During the day, the geese and the ducks were a little perturbed by a bald eagle circling overhead. The eagle was dissuaded of his intent of eating a duck or goose by Summer walking over into the gaggle of geese and ducks. It came back one more time. We shouted and banged on the shovel. The noise sent it gliding off down the hill to a potentially easier prey. Eagles ate two ducks and a goose last fall. They had some expensive meals. Expensive for us not for them. We do have bears, coyotes, weasels and other meat eating critters but not very many. The biggest problem lately has been a neighbor’s dog. It caught and ate one of the chickens, To solve this problem Summer loaned them our wireless perimeter fence transmitter and a collar. After a few shocks it will learn that leaving the yard is bad. Haven’t seen the dog since it started wearing to collar. We’ll likely let them keep the system for another 2-3 weeks. By that time the dog should well trained.

Had to go into town tonight. Summer needed some pharmacy supplies and wasn’t feeling well enough to go into town. I went to the Safeway as they, also, have a pharmacy and they were the only place open. While I was looking for the Pepto, I met one of the masked store employees. I spoke to him and said, ” You Millennials are scared to death aren’t you?” His reply was “I’m a Gen-X and this is for your benefit.” I laughed and told him that he needn’t have bothered. “The management makes me wear it” he replied. He helped me find a couple of other needs and was walking off as I said, “You’re a gentleman and a scholar. I don’t care what they say about you up front”. “I don’t either” he said over his shoulder as he was pushing his cart away. I am still of the mind that the mask thing is nothing more than a scare tactic touted by the Main Stream Media. Most employees would stay home, if they were sick. If an employee arrives with a fever or appearing ill the management is going to send that employee home. There is no need for the mask to protect the public. I’ve heard the “asymptomatic’ argument but I’m still thinking that we need to pursue the Herd Immunity solution.

Supper was leftover meatballs in marinara with some freshly cooked pasta. Both of us were too tired to do anything else. The thing we have to look forward to for tomorrow is more of the same. The large stumps have to be reduced to ash whether we want to or not. Try not to ‘Go gently into that good night” and I’ll yap at you again tomorrow.

Dad’s Alaska

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“Let freedom ring.”

18 April 2020 Saturday

Got another late start today. My excuse this time was staying up late watching and mostly searching for something to watch on TV. I give the movies about 15 minutes. If they are just too stupid or don’t grab my attention, I’m gone. Ended up watching one of the ‘Die Hard’ movies. Don’t remember the name but the star was hooked up with a computer geek to save America. I had seen it years ago but did not remember that until I was over half way through the movie. I’ve watched ‘Die Hard’ the Christmas movie 4-5 times. That and “you’ll shoot your eye out” are my favorite Christmas movies. Connie, myself and our two girls were watching Ralphie long before it became a ‘Thing’.

It was a beautiful day. The sun was out there were puffy white clouds and it was 57 degrees here in Fritz Creek. The snow melted so fast that you could almost see it disappear. There was, maybe, 3-4 of knots breeze with the occasional puff up to 8-10. It was a good day to burn the pile of debris accumulated last fall from picking up limbs, old rotted wood and stumps we had removed last summer. We had some additional clearing done and that pile of sticks and stumps were in the burn pile. We were notified that they will not be issuing ‘burn permits’ this year. At the beginning of May, you won’t be able to burn anything until next winter. Right now we don’t need a permit, we just make a courtesy call to the local officials and burn all of the crap we have piled up.

Summer and I spent most of the day tending the fire. We, spent a good deal of the time ‘stick picking’. The land was cleared but there is still some debris. It is mostly broken limbs and odd pieces of the mess we had cleared. All of it was water soaked and partially rotten. This stuff we threw on top of the burning pile in hopes that it would be dry enough to burn when the fire arrived. It is supposed to rain tomorrow and for the next 5-6 days, so if we can’t get it burnt today we might never get it burned.

I have noted in the news that the Governors, mostly Democrats, are refusing to lift their ‘lockdowns’. I was afraid that this was going to happen. Like the old saying; “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. It appears that these Governors are not willing to give up their near “absolute power”. There is likely to be bloodshed, if they don’t relinquish that unconstitutional power. They could call out their National Guard but I suspect that much of the Guard is among the people wanting their constitutional rights restored. Besides that fact, it is possible that President Trump would ‘federalize the Guard and issue a ‘Stand Down’ order. He doesn’t need anyone’s permission to take that action. This is all a big fricking mess that continues primarily due to the media hype.

This chart show the death rate for those who are infected.

The death rates for vast majority of Americans pretty much the same as the flu. Furthermore this, to me, seems to have about the same infection rate as a common flu (another virus). One person in the office gets the flu and then just about everyone else in the office does. I think we should all take this hype with a very large grain of salt.

Well, that’s it for me. Sayonara. Caio. Buh bye for now.

Social Distancing: I don’t know what day we’re on!

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Lots of stuff has happened and not happened. I give up!

Just kidding! I have been extremely busy with my plants and working around the house. I have hardening up all my brassicas, artichokes and onions. They now reside in the greenhouse.

My tomatoes, brassicas, onions, and artichokes.

We are melting rapidly and are just about out of snow. We have been left with mud and that’s okay. I am not gonna complain!

We have been waiting for spring and it has finally arrived. We can finally burn our brush pile! And so that’s what we are doing now.

Me and the fire

It was a glorious day yesterday as we started the fire. Sun shining bright, 55 degrees and warm, total short sleeve shirt weather. Today, we will try to finish burning. There will be a burn ban starting at the end of this month so we need to get our burn on!

Dad chillin by the fire
Music and hard seltzer. I buried them in what’s left of the snow to keep cold

We hung out and enjoyed burning in the sun and watching all the snow melt before our eyes. I am so happy that the snow is gone. Now I will have to change my tires from studded to regular.

3 days ago. Now its almost completely defrosted.
Friday’s dinner with Dan consisted of bear sloppy joes on top of tater tots and Romano cheese! YUM!
Fabulous Fabio

Well, That’s all I have for now. I will try not to be a stranger and keep posting.

Dad’s Alaska

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Here’s to opening up America!!

17 April 2020 Friday

Woke up today at 8 AM to sunny morning. Problem was that I couldn’t think of a good reason, a really good reason, to get out of bed. I didn’t get up until nearly 9:00. That seems to be a problem that I’m developing. Motivation is a good thing to have but I seem to be seriously lacking in it lately. Not sure why. Could be that I’ve gotten a terrible, nearly terminal case of Spring fever. On the other hand, it could be just because I’m old. Still don’t have the Corroded Virus fever and like most of the human race I will likely never have it.

Got serious about getting stuff out of the house. The flooring we ordered and that was supposed to be here in 6 or 7 weeks will be here Monday, barely a week after it was ordered. Since it is hardwood, it has to be kept for several weeks in the environment that matches where it will be installed. Of course, that is inside the house and the reason I’m having to move all of the non-flooring material out to the tent. Did a bunch of other little stuff like sweep, mop and pick up newly revealed trash outside. Then I quit. I’m on strike.

Basically, I just had a very lazy day. Like I said I wasn’t very motivated. Summer went to Dangerous Dan’s and I’m doing ‘make your own dinner’ night. I finished up the evening by unloading and reloading the dishwasher. Oh! And opening a new bottle of vodka. This is a difficult job but somebody has to do it.

America is being reopened when it should have never been closed. And BTW, don’t be surprised when a few more people die. The death toll so far is less than the current version of Influenza and will likely remain so. This was/is a Mainstream Media Pandemic. Worldwide more people are still dying of the flu than C-19 and it is likely that many of those deaths are being chalked up to C-19 without anyone bothering to test.

Ding How!!

Dad’s Alaska

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16 April 2020 Thursday.

Was a beautiful day of the Kenai Peninsula. Sun was out all day and the temps got very near 50F. The snow is melting like crazy and if we can get a few more days like today and we’ll be, at last, snow free. This ends what has been an unusually cold winter here in Fritz Creek. Some of the old timers have told me that this is how the winters used to be 10 years and further back. The ground is still frozen below a few inches down. This precludes any post hole digging or running the garden tiller. Still it won’t be more than a couple of weeks before we can fence in Goosifer and his girls. That damned gander is becoming a serious nuisance. He’s bitten both Taco and Gandie and now Summer has to go outside with them because they are afraid to go out by themselves. It’s pretty bad when the dogs are scared silly. Taco will chase a 1200 pound moose but he’s scared to death of a 20 pound goose. Goosifer has to be corralled and soon.

I pulled the battery out of the dump truck today. I always leave it disconnected because the truck has a short that runs down the battery after a few days. Anyway, pulled the battery out and put it on the charger for about 3 hours. After it had charged I checked the voltage and found that it was up to 13.7 volts. With the battery hot, I reinstalled it into the dump truck. The carburetor has some problems so you have to use starting fluid to get it to run. Once it is running it is okay. Am going to call tomorrow and get an appointment to get the clutch adjusted and have the carburetor rebuilt. I have the rebuild kit but I’m a mite short on expertise. Ii could adjust the clutch but since it is already going to be in the shop, I’ll let the guys at Aftershock Automotive take care of it. Besides I’d have to lie in the mud and they have a nice concrete floor.

Summer evicted the ducks and geese from the greenhouse today. She needed to use it to harden up some of her plants. They were seeded and grown in the warm house so they need to be exposed to the cooler temps outside before they are planted in the outside dirt. The ducks and geese won’t suffer as they have been spending most nights under the house. They’ve spent a good part of the winter wandering around in the snow and it is substantially warmer now than back in January.

I got around to (at least attempted to) cleaning the debris off my work bench in the cargo container. They call them a conex up here. CONEX was a prominent shipping company with thousands of cargo containers with their name on the sides. So-o-o-o that became the generic name for a cargo container. Kinda like Coke is the generic name for a soft drink in the South. “What kind of Coke do you want?” “I’ll have a 7UP. No, make that a GRAPICO.” You can, actually, see the top of the bench in some places now. I spent all winter just tossing stuff onto the bench because it was either too cold or I was too busy to put things where they belonged. Some progress is better than none, I suppose.

Last fall I had a company come out and spread some gravel because my tractor was broken. The young guy driving the machine hit the greenhouse. He broke one two of the ribs and one of the panels. Summer tried several times this winter to contact the company that sold us the greenhouse. No one ever answered the phone. I called today and got a person whose English was so heavily accented that I had to really concentrate to understand him. The upshot was that he told us how to order the repair parts and Summer ordered them. They have to come from Washington state. Hope they don’t have the Corroded Virus on them when and if they arrive.

Tomorrow I’m going to try to get the garden tiller running. I won’t be able to use it but it will be ready when the time comes. Same thing for the gas auger. Can’t put in post holes now but that time is coming soon. I can’t work on the tractor yet because I haven’t been able to move the parts tractor to its’ new home up on concrete blocks beside the big storage tent.

Go to the site below to see why I was ranting the other day about how the older people are being treated and are dying because of the idiocy of this ‘Lockdown’. Nursing homes have very minimal medical facilities and little expertise. They are not equipped to deal with any serious illness. Older people are trapped away from needed medical care. Sacrificed upon the altar of government control when the hospitals are all but empty. This is a form of genocide based upon age instead of race or ethnicity.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8224027/Police-17-bodies-piled-New-Jersey-nursing-homes-tiny-morgue-receiving-tip-off.html

Try to remember during this Corroded Virus scam that we are Americans not a bunch of wimpy, sissy, limp wristed European slaves. It is past time to start acting like Americans. Some of your fellow citizens are being murdered. Citizens are already bucking up against the unconstitutional limiting of our freedoms by over reaching bureaucrats. You’ve got stuff to do and they have no right to stop you from doing it. Remember this: They can’t put us all in jail.

Dad’s Alaska

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Greetings from my disaster area.

Of all of the silly thing to miss about the South, I miss Golden Flake Potato Chips. I have missed them before. I was sent to Hawaii for my stint in the Navy. All of the chips there were thick, greasy and tasted weird. What brought his to mind is that I’m sitting here eating LAY’S Wavy chips. They are altogether completely unsatisfying. The only saving grace for them is that they are plenty salty. Don’t often eat chips but I’m sitting here watching the predicted rain. The weather people got it right for once. Still not much of a rain. It’s more of a drizzle or maybe a pizzle. Not much more than a mist, really.

I’m sitting here in a self imposed quarantine. Summer has gone to visit a neighbor and then onto Dangerous Dan’s to return an extension cord and take him some of our leftover spiral sliced and double glazed Easter ham for lunch. After eating ham for five consecutive meals, I can attest to the fact that there is such a thing as ‘too much pig’. Hadn’t had ham since Thanksgiving (I’m not much of a turkey fan) and I had forgotten the ‘too much pig’ thing. By the next time Summer or I say “Why don’t we buy a ham?”, I will likely have forgotten the ham sweats again. “Those that forgot history are bound to repeat it.”

Spent some time sanding the sheetrock joints in the upstairs bath. Summer is anxious to paint it but not very anxious to sand it. After all my sanding, there are still places that need to be re-mudded. This will lead to more sanding. I hate sheetrock. One problem is that I hate all of the paneling that I can afford to buy. The good stuff is $300 per 4×8 sheet or the equivalent by the plank. I’m really not interested in spending $5000 on walls. I guess it’s sheetrock or what we have now, exposed insulation.

Exposed insulation and the TV I held in the last earthquake.

This house had beautiful wooden planked walls sometime before we purchased it. Some idiot ripped it out and left it as it appears now. We haven’t covered up the ugliness as we still have to rewire everything. We will be removing the ceiling soon. The light fixtures are in the wrong place Four of them on the main floor are on a single switch by the back door. Some weird stuff was done when this house was originally wired. There are no building codes in Alaska. That should tell you a lot about that with which I am contending. Sometimes I think that Summer and I should have stayed in the travel trailer and gutted this place completely instead of trying to live in and remodel it at the same time. Or, maybe, we should have torn it down and saved all of the lumber possible to be used it in the new house. We would have been living in the new house by now. Too late now. There is, however, the possibility that we will have a big earthquake that shakes it off the foundation and into the big hole we dug for the new addition. We are insured for earthquakes but we could never get that lucky. My luck it would be at night and we’d be in the big hole picking splinters out of our asses and looking for the dogs. That scenario is, of course, assuming that we weren’t lying in the big hole dead. All of life’s scenarios have some unfortunate drawback.

I’m sitting here listening to Santana’s Black Magic Woman with Miss Suzy doing her ‘cute dog’ trick i.e. sleeping. Been worried about her for the past week or so. She has taken to not eating. She only weighs almost 6 pounds, has next to no fat on her little body. It wouldn’t take much for her to starve to death. Summer went to town yesterday and while there she bought an assortment of dog and cat foods in the small containers. We’re trying to find something she will eat. Last night she ate one of the small cat foods and then later at a few bites of a small package of wet dog food I opened. She’s a Yorkie about 10 years old and they live 15 years or more so it isn’t time for her to be losing her appetite to old age. In dog years she and I are near the same age and I have the problem of eating all of the time instead of not eating.

I am still C-19 free or so it seems. No fever, can still taste and smell. Aside from being bored nearly to tears, I seem to be faring very well. I may have gained a few pounds which isn’t good for my stupid blood pressure. You can’t have everything but I can have another Fig Newton. Ran out of brewed coffee and started heating up the sweet tea and adding creamer. I drank about a half gallon of it today. Wanted more coffee but the coffee limit had been reached. 8 cups is pretty much my limit but I oft times want to drink more. I would have made more coffee except that the coffee maker only does 12 cups and Summer wouldn’t drink anymore. Coffee is too valuable to waste. Pouring it down the drain should be a sin punishable by a long visit to Purgatory and I’m not Catholic.

Sunrise today was 6:24 and sunset is at 9:24. 15 hours of daylight reflecting off my TV screen so that I can’t see what is happening. Can’t lower the drapes as Summer’s vegetable plants are on shelves in the windows. If it weren’t pizzling rain it wouldn’t matter as I would be outside until near dark. I could put on rain gear and go out except that rain gear makes me sweat and is uncomfortably bulky. If the weather forecast for tomorrow is correct (fat chance) it won’t be raining and I can get some work done outside.

It’s 5 o’clock here, 9 o’clock on the East Coast and 8 o’clock in Mobile, Abbalama. If you aren’t already well on your way to tomorrow’s hangover, you need to get with the program. CHEERS!!!!

Dad’s Alaska

/ AlaskaOrBust / Leave a comment
I’m corroding but not because of some damned virus.

Today was a day of discovery. I’m discovering things that were either left out by accident or dropped with the intention of picking it up before the snow. The stuff dropped with intention was/is mostly trash. Bits of paper, collapsed cardboard boxes and other detritus of a similar nature became visible for the first time in months. Found a hammer that I’ve looked for several times since last December. It was lying on top of a bright blue water drum next to where I had been pulling nails out of lumber retrieved from the land fill. Reason: Good pine lumber is very expensive in Alaska and for the price of my time (near worthless) I can get a $100+ worth of lumber that some contractor has tossed. In a few more days, most especially if it starts to rain, I’ll be able to move my ‘parts tractor’ to its’ new resting place. Then I can scavenge the parts I need to repair my ‘good’ tractor. After the tractor is repaired the real work begins. Gravel to be spread, garden dirt to moved and, most importantly, dirt removed from the big hole that will be the foundation for the addition to the house. I have “The Beast’ bed packed nearly full and am readying to haul it all to the landfill.. If it isn’t raining tomorrow, I’ll make that 25 mile roundtrip.

I spent a couple of hours putting away winter clothing. This led to deciding what else I need to donate to The Salvation Army. I have enough coats, hoodies and other winter gear to outfit a small army. What I don’t have is enough space to store all of the stuff. Some of the stuff still has the sales tags in it and some of it has been worn only once or twice. I’m sure that there is someone who will need it more than me next winter. Problem is local Salvation Army store is closed for the fake pandemic. Leaving it outside their Receiving door is likely to get it damaged, if it rains, or stolen. Neither case accomplishes what I want. SA making a little money and a needy person getting a good coat for a small price or free. It’ll wait,, I guess.

Another exciting thing to happen today was that the error code for no cold water came up on the washer as Summer was trying to wash and put away some winter clothing. Simple to fix but still a pain in the tush. Turn off the water, take off the hose, remove the little in line filter, clean of the little filter, reinstall the filter, reattach the hose, turn on the water and, finally, check for the leak and the stop it by tightening the hose more. Whew!!! I’m tired just writing about it.

I am still tasting and smelling things. I guess I’m still C-19 free. I’m social distancing. Not because I am obeying the illegal pronouncements of the local Communist government, but because I don’t know anyone to visit and I don’t need anything in town. Both reasons are by choice. Most people seem to be more trouble than they are worth. I’ve had two friends in my life my best friend and late wife, Connie and my 2nd best friend Bobby Cecil. Both of them are dead and I’m too old to have time to cultivate one for the 15-20+ years required to have an old friend. Not having more old friends is my own fault. I have just never had time or have taken the time to spend on things like making friends. Friends are time eaters and I’ve always felt the weight and pressure of time. I always felt that I might die any minute and I had stuff that I wanted to do before I died. Oddly enough I’m still feeling that pressure and now, at my age, I know my demise is imminent. Through the years, I have met thousands of people and have had dozens of acquaintances all of whom I sort of liked. The biggest problem, however, it that I am a major A-hole according to some people. People don’t like you to be sure of what you think and they certainly don’t want you to tell them what you think. I have often told people, “If you didn’t want my opinion why did you ask?” Also, “If you don’t like my opinion, you shouldn’t have asked.” I spent much of my life in sales. Sales people are supposed to be people persons. Over a few adult beverages most sales people will tell you just how much they detest much of the human race. I don’t know what got me onto this rant but I hereby declare it as finished as it is likely to get. “Now where did I leave that 1 1/8 wrench last fall?”

Was supposed to have rained today. It didn’t. They can tell you that the Earth will be 2 degrees hotter in 2090 but they can’t predict the next days’ damned weather. The temp was well above freezing (about 45F) and was almost short sleeve shirt weather. The snow is melting but not as quickly as it would if it would come a good soaking rain along with the higher temps. They are predicting rain for tomorrow, as well. We’ll see.

As more info on the C-19 “pandemic” comes available we are finding that it isn’t a “pandemic”. It has proven to be Ageist and Racist. In America, it is killing ‘Boomers’ and black people. Overweight and out of shape puts you in the crosshairs. Early on I heard it referred to as “The Boomer Killer”. This kinda pissed my off until I realized that I’m not a Boomer. I’m a War Baby. I was born during WWII so I think that makes me immune to “The Boomer Killer”. This is, perhaps, the greatest hoax ever perpetrated upon the world. We have allowed the destruction of the economies of virtually every Western Democracy and our own Republic. For what? The damned virus is killing people many of whom are already extremely ill and not long for this earth anyway. Those unfortunate people would have been better served by being able to see their families and have an economy that provided the necessary services to keep them alive. The hospitals are empty and thousands of them are trapped in some God forsaken nursing home that is locked down and with completely inadequate medical services. The lock down was to protect the public while it is causing the healthy among the nursing home residents to die. They’re dying uselessly and alone in some isolated, sterile room with nary a witness to their passing. My Grandmother Byrd always said, “Everyone dies alone”. BUT, I don’t think this is what she had in mind when she said that. It is time to stop this idiocy and get America back to work. This stupidity is killing healthcare professionals and the frailest among us because “We the people” are frozen with fear.

My America is fearless. What America do you live in?