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Month: May 2020

Mon. May 11, 2020 – again with the nice days

Very nice day in the forecast. Probably gonna be ugly. [wasn’t, was cool and sunny, then warm and sunny, great day]

Yesterday was beautiful. Started cooler, but warmed up. Nice and sunny all day.

Didn’t get much done either. In fact, got almost nothing done. Almost like I took a day off. What I really did was just play hooky from life, except to make dinner, and I initially screwed that up too. Wasted the morning though.

I did get one drawer cleaned in the kitchen fridge. Yea me!

And I spent some time talking with my mom, which is a good thing. She’s doing fine. Getting restless, which is bad, ’cause she’ll be trying to go out. Right now her intellect is winning, but it wouldn’t take much for her to just throw caution to the wind and go to bridge club. Lot’s of folks in that position, I think.

Today I’ll make up for my slacking. Probably.

Keep stacking.

n

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Sun. May 10, 2020 – Mother’s Day

Cooler. Overcast opening to nice later.

There- that almost guarantees that we’ll get rain.

Yesterday was overcast, cool, and windy most of the day. Not unpleasant. Just unusual.

Ventured over to my secondary location to move some things, and collect a couple of small items for projects here at the house. Sold a piece or two to a friend while I was at it. Then hit two other friends just to touch base. Meatspace. Still important.

Today, here, we’re having a special meal to celebrate Mother’s Day. I’ve got half that elk roast defrosting, and I’ll figure out how to cook it. I guess the sides will be similar to either lamb or beef, but I’ll know better after reviewing a couple of books. Paper books, just as an exercise.

Dinner last night was grilled over a small fire in the back yard. We used the firepit/grill I’ve mentioned before and it worked great again. Nice bed of hardwood coals from backyard tree waste. Kids had hotdogs, my wife and I had homemade sausage, half deer, half wild pig, that the neighbor gave us at our Neighbors’ Night Out a year and a half ago. It’s been vac sealed and in the freezer. I also made sliced red potatoes with butter and seasoning in foil tucked in the ashes and coals. A bed of saute’d onions went under our sausages. S’mores for dessert, natch.

WRT the coming unpleasantness, my gun store buddy told me to ‘make a list’ of anything I might want. “Lots of guys in the oil patch” are starting to consign their guns for sale. So it’s already starting. Fancy guns and hunting guns, musical instruments, “man” toys- stuff with motors, boats, etc should be first. RV’s, trucks, and tools will probably be last. You can live in an RV, you need a truck for work, and tools (especially if you use them to make your living) are always useful.

Garden is… continuing. Potato towers are going gangbusters. The bag o dirt is about 2ft high now, and I’m running out of dirt. That might be as high as I go this year. The other stuff I planted as seed is coming up, wherever the squirrels didn’t eat the seeds, and where I have metal mesh to keep it safe… I don’t have enough metal mesh, that’s clear. Either that or the seeds just didn’t germinate. My ‘window boxes’ are a big disappointment. No sprouts, and the onion starts have been disappearing at the rate of one a day. Did I mention I need more mesh?

Blueberry ‘bushes’ have fruit ripening. I planted different varieties for pollenization, and because with different maturities, we should be getting berries for a longer season. So far, 4 berries have been harvested and eaten. They are very tasty, if not exactly going to fill buckets…

Last year’s pepper plants continue to provide a bounty. Delicious sweet peppers, without a hint of heat. Cabbages look sturdy, but are all leaf and no head at this point. Broccoli is a bit spindly, but the other dark green leafy (either brusselsprouts or collards, can’t remember) are starting to grow. They stayed the same size while something eats holes in the leaves for the last couple of weeks but are finally getting bigger. The grape vine looks caterpillar free at the moment, so I think I got that in time this year. The other grape vine is staying short, having died back to within a foot of the ground. I’m not hopeful for that vine coming back. It’s just not and never was, as vigorous.

Citrus is doing well, where the tree rats leave it alone. Something stole the oranges off my potted orange tree, and can’t even eat them as they are only golf ball sized. Damn spoilers. The lime does still have one or two fruits developing. The Meyer Lemon is set to produce well, but then they do very well here in Houston. And the other orange still has at least one fruit on it, and the grapefruit tree has a bunch. Still hopeful for that one. No flowers on the peach tree, but it’s fully leafed in. Not a garden that would feed the family, that’s for sure, but it will hopefully provide at least a bit of variety and tasty nutrition.

We are in this for the long haul, here at Casa de Nick. I hope you are too.

Keep stacking, keep building skills and knowledge, and do what you can to maintain your meatspace relationships. Call your mom if you can…

nick

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Sat. May 9, 2020 – supposed to be cooler today

Cool? Windy and part sun?

Yesterday was nice, then got a bit windy. Out in the country it looked like rain coming. Later it was cool-ish and the wind died down. Smelled like rain when I went to bed.

I got much of my work done at my client’s place. Some unexpected issues, which I should have expected, but didn’t, ate into my productivity there. Got him back to where he was, and a bit further along toward where he’d like to be. Then I came home.

Dinner was crock pot stewed chicken. 10 legs from the most recent Costco order, hand full of mixed tiny heirloom potatoes from the back of the cabinet, one onion, some baby carrots and celery, and the mix. Leave alone for 6 hours and enjoy…

———————————————————————————————–

Over at Commander Zero’s place, he asked if people were having trouble maintaining a sense of urgency. Yep, I am. I’ve been letting the ducks nibble me to death almost every day.

I’ve mostly settled into this as the new normal. And I’m actually reasonably comfortable with it.

Except that hurricane season will be here soon, and we’re already starting on preps for that.

And more bad is coming, and for longer and worse than people think. Waves of desperate people will be coming up through Mexico, fleeing the collapse of their already tottering nations. Living in a border state, we’ll see the first brunt of it (if it comes) but they’ll move on through to the rest of you, same as they’ve been doing for years.

It won’t just be refugees from South of the Border.

If we’re at 30% unemployment, think what it will be like in a month, or two. When there are no buyers for your used truck, that you owe $40K on. Or your snowblower, dirt bikes, or snowmobiles, or boats, or even your guns… when even normal people are starting to really feel the crunch and have no way left to raise money.

.Gov will try the same things they always try – price controls, helicopter money, running the printing presses. And the result will be the same. Argentina. Venezuela. Brazil. Zimbabwe.

There’s a world of hurt coming to the world and this time, also to middle America.

Having food and toilet paper will make it easier.

Keep stacking.

nick

(and skills, and friends)

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Fri. May 8, 2020 – Friday so soon?

Cooler and windy. Maybe. [80F at 9am, I suck at this, worse than random guessing.]

Yesterday got to be pretty dang nice. Gorgeous even. I ended up not doing my list though. I’ll be doing that today. Couldn’t get to my client’s house in time to get any work done, so today’s the day.

I ended up doing some little things, including moving food and continuing to organize my storage shelves. I have a plan for reorganizing my back corner in the garage, where the shelves for my food storage, my big 40 gallon water storage tanks, and my work bench for gub work, and maybe my non-prepping hobby will take place. I will be moving a couple of tool boxes, and adding shelves. That should result in more stuff in the same space.

I was busy the rest of the day but for the life of me, I can’t remember what I got done.

Dinner was leftovers with some additional pasta and cheese sauce.

Today should be busy…

Money helps with staying in, staying safe, and stacking. Go get you some…

n

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Thur. May 7, 2020 – wheeeee…. week is flying by

Cool and sunny, another great day. [79F at 9am, probably another hot day]

Yesterday was another great spring day. Hot in the afternoon, but nice in the shade and a cooling breeze. I spent the afternoon working on sprinklers again. I confirmed that all the zone valves were working electrically, except the one zone I wanted to disconnect anyway. Bonus! I spent some time changing out a few heads and aiming and adjusting the remaining. I’ve STILL got a couple of things to do to get better coverage of my raised beds, and one head I can’t find. It was nice to be working with water in the shade on a beautiful day.

However, since it’s taking so long to get the freaking sprinklers done, other things have slipped. And I won’t be getting to them today, as I’ll be heading to my client’s house to install the parts I have. I want to get his security cams back up, and his bluray replaced. That will get 95% back working, and the upgrades can follow as the gear arrives. Not sure when I’ll head over, but I really want to get some of my list done over there.

I made a loaf of bread in the machine since we’re finally out of sandwich bread. I even warmed up the yeast, and added extra… but it was only about 3 inches high and with a thick crust. It tastes ok, and is soft but dense. We’ll eat it, but it was not a success. I’m blaming the yeast at this point. I’ll try again with some fresh packet yeast.

Dinner was personal sized pizzas. Not as tasty as I’d have liked. I bought the crusts as a kit and froze them months ago. I had cheese and toppings in the fridge. When I went to the case of tomato paste, I discovered they were BB date 2017. High acid foods don’t do well in cans past their date and these were no exception. All were either bulged, or had pinholes that leaked. Most of the pinholes were in about the same spot too, so there must be a defect in the cans. We don’t eat red sauce, so I never use the paste. I ended up using jarred marinara sauce (which I keep around for guests on spaghetti night) with additional seasoning. I put WAY too much oregano in the sauce. WAY TOO MUCH! Oh well, I ate it, and so did my wife. Kid 1 ate some, but kid 2 didn’t care for it at all. I was hoping for a nice treat, but it didn’t work out. Dessert was daughter’s birthday flan. Hmmmm, egg pie…..

We’re approaching the end of the school year and everyone in town wants a live, in person graduation ceremony for the High Schools. I really don’t get why, but it looks like the mayor and HISD superintendent are going to have one of some kind. Sounds like a bad idea to me.

Speaking of bad ideas, barber shops and salons will be open in Texas today… it really doesn’t get more up close and personal than a haircut, with clothes on anyway. My barber was freaked at the idea of reopening, but he will because he needs the money. Not me, I’ll be cutting my own for at least a while longer.

I guess we’ll be running the experiment whether I like it or not. In 3-4 weeks we’ll know who was right.

My plan is to continue to isolate as much as possible. Limit contacts. Avoid crowds and other people in general. Stay in, and stay safe. And keep stacking. (in my case, going through the stacks too.)

n

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Wed. May 6, 2020 – not a drinking holiday

Hot and wet?  Or just hot? [I suck at weather prediction, 73F and sunny]

Yesterday got pretty hot.  Started overcast, then cleared to sunny and steamy.  Mid 90s at least.

I worked mostly on the sprinklers yesterday.  I spent way longer than it should have taken to put a new rain sensor on the system.  I’ve had it for years, never installed it.  Finally did today.  Haven’t TESTED it yet, but it’s pretty simple.

Then I spent 3 hours getting the two zones for the front yard working.  I never have winterized the system and only replace what’s broken each year, whenever  I get to it…  which is lazy and all kinds of wrong, but then I’m not super motivated by how my yard looks.   It does make it easier to keep the veg gardens watered though, which was my primary motive this year.

So, fire up the system and see what doesn’t work…

Two zones with 4 heads each shouldn’t take three hours to touch up.  But it did.  As the mechanisms age, they wear, and the sun causes parts that are supposed to be behind a cover to break down.  Those little parts are like limit switches as the head pans back and forth.  I ended up messing with those A LOT.  I had to swap parts around from heads I’d retired in previous years (hooray <s> hoarding </s> preparedness.  Then a couple of the plastic parts needed some heat to reshape them a tiny bit… and I needed to dig out the valves because the handholes had filled  up with debris over the years.

In any case, years of slapdash maintenance and patchwork replacements caught up with me.  Still, I was able to get them all running and wetting the areas they are supposed to wet without any trips to the store or ordering parts.   Today if it’s not raining I need to confirm they work with the control system and then get the other 3 zones sorted out too.   The front yard will keep the neighbors and the HOA happy, but the other zones will all end up watering my gardens for me (and also keep the back yard nice for the kids.)

I’ll have to change out some heads and move some stuff because I’ve moved beds, and put a great big generator right in front of a head… which really shouldn’t have water sprayed into it every other day.  I’ll steal one head to water my ‘window box’ planters too.  More projects.

I’m also still ordering bits and pieces, and receiving them for the repairs and upgrades at my client’s house.   I still need some income, and that’s a good way to get it.  Not perfect as I have to leave isolation, but it pays well and keeps him happy.

Ebay sales were starting to get going again, and then the lockdown hit.  I’ve sold only a few items since.  I do have a bunch to list, and getting them sold and out of here would be a Good Thing ™.

WRT the wuflu, things are still changing.  Blood clots may be the way it actually kills you, either the first time or the next.  And it may have mutated in a way that changes its severity, as it appears we might have two main strains here, one on the west coast, one on the east.  No idea what those of us in the middle might have. The economic impacts are just starting to arrive.

Disney posted a huge loss of income, United Airlines and American both posted ~$2Billion losses, Virgin is looking for buyers, and the others will be following soon.  I was a proponent of the ‘pent up demand’ theory that the economy will come rushing back.  Now I’m not so sure.  Think about what it would take to get you on a plane, if you didn’t know you were immune?  How about a trade show or a theme park?  Cruise ship?  Gold’s Gym is filing for bankruptcy protection, can 24HourFitness be far behind?  Sitting in someone else’s @ss sweat didn’t have any appeal for me BEFORE it could kill me.  Certainly doesn’t now.  My wife is sure that pro sporting events will bounce back, because fans are crazy anyway, but I’m not so sure.  They are a huge terrorism target, and attendance has been falling with the players’ political shenanigans.  I don’t feel the need to sit in the nosebleeds, eating $15 hotdogs, just to see the ants move around in real life…

I’m pretty sure the world has changed for good, and we’ll be watching how those changes play out over the next decade.  Short term, people try to cling to what they know, until forced to change.  Things will continue on, degrading a little at a time, until they finally change.

Start planning for that.  There will be opportunities.

Dinner was ham slices, mac n cheese, and the canned carrots left over from the previous day’s curry. Dessert was frozen cookie dough, heated up and oh so good…..

Stay in, stay safe, keep stacking.

 

n

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Tues. May 5, 2020 – Got some stuff done

Warm and wet later?  We’ll see….

Yesterday was another beautiful day.  It did get pretty warm, mid to high 90s in the afternoon.

So of course I cut the grass.  If rain is coming, I want to get the cutting done.  I worked in the gardens a bit.  Moved the hardware cloth (wire mesh) around to make room for the shoots.  I’ve got corn, watermelon, and acorn squash sprouting.  Added dirt to the potato towers.  Found my nemesis, the caterpillars, on the grape vines.  Sprayed those little leaf eaters.  I’ll keep an eye on it in case I have to spray again.  Tomato plants are healthy and sturdy looking, but no tomatoes.  Nothing sprouting in my window boxes yet either.

I’m still working on cleaning and sorting in the back corner of the garage.  Got my mountain bike dug out.  Which prompted trying to air up the tires, and then that led to replacing tube and tire in the front.  Used a compressor I picked up super cheap, and that will be a project too.  It doesn’t turn off when it gets to pressure.  I just kept an eye on the gauge and shut it off manually, but eventually I’ll take a look at it and fix it.  I’ve got other pressure switches somewhere…

And then I tried to buy kickstands at amazon… and couldn’t get any without a 3 week delay for shipping.  Weird.   Ebay sellers had a couple, so I did buy one.  All the family bikes need maintenance, lube and adjust at a minimum.  Just more to do.  While I’m at it, I’m getting some extra inner tubes.  Somewhere I have  a patch kit I need to find, but if the stem is leaking, you just need to replace the tube.

I spent the morning working on parts and ordering for my client upgrades.

Dinner was chicken curry over rice.  I used one of my favorites, Vermont Curry (which is Japanese), one can of chicken, part can of carrots, fresh saute’d chopped onion, and a left over potato from dinner last night.  Sometimes I add canned peas too.  I made the “half” recipe which filled us up with only a tiny bit left over.  It’s very mild and sweet/savory without any ‘heat’.  Last of the birthday cake for dessert.  There is a real advantage to using canned veg, as they are already cooked, you really just need to heat everything and dissolve the curry cubes.  Saves about 15 – 20 minutes or more.  It was one of my favorite ‘bachelor’ meals, and surprise, one child and my wife both really liked it.

More of the same today, little bits and pieces, but progress is slowly being made on lots of little things.

Make a little progress every day.

Stay in, stay safe, keep stacking.

 

n

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Mon. May 4, 2020 – May the fourth be with you, alwathe….

Sunny and warm.

It got pretty toasty yesterday.  It was 90+ in the shade and there was sun.  I mostly stayed under cover and in the house and garage.  I did get stuff done.  Could have been more, but progress is getting made.

Garden is starting to get shoots.   Corn, and watermelon or zukes are poking through.   The potatoes continue to grow.  I’m up to about 18-24″ of tower bag now.  I started with 3″.  I’ve only got two bags of dirt left, so that will limit me on my total height.  Unless I can get some bags delivered…

I harvested 2 skinny stalks of broccoli and we ate it for dinner tonight.  I got some nice sweet peppers too, off the old and new plants.  That was the first edible broccoli in years of trying to grow the stuff.

Something, rain or animal or insect, knocked all the beginning limes off my tree.  They got to be marble sized, then they were laying on the ground.  Dang it, I really like limes.

Broke down the 9 pound pork loin from Costco.  Made two ~3 pound roasts, and cut the rest into thick center cut  chops.   Vac sealed and froze it.  Until yesterday I didn’t have room in the freezer.

Dinner tonight was one of the roasts, the two skinny stalks of broccoli, a couple of baked potatoes, apples diced and baked with bacon crumbles and maple syrup, and half a loaf of the Costco heat and eat shelf stable bread.

Speaking of Costco, they start their new policies today.  Everyone wears a mask, limited number of people in the store, etc.  This is new though-

“Fresh meat purchases are temporarily limited to a total of 3 items per member among the beef, pork and poultry products.”

That sounds like 3 packages of meat protein per visit.  Funny that lamb isn’t listed, nor are prepared products like sausage, or spiral sliced ham.  I wonder how extensive the limits are?  I’d buy beef if I could get a deal and had freezer space.

This is far from over.  Some areas are reporting increases in cases and deaths after slight decreases.  Everywhere they stayed open, they have 15-20% cases.  Expect to see more in 2 weeks…   The economic impact is really just starting too.  Buffett sold out of all airline stocks.  That seems like a no brainer, but it takes actually doing it, and at a loss, to drive the point home.  Market disruption barely begins to describe our current situation.  There will be opportunities, but I think it’s probably WAY to early to be making new investments.

Keep your eyes open and stay centered so that you can more easily move in any direction.  Keep stacking where you can, including knowledge and skills.  And stay in to stay safe.   Let the other guys figure out if it’s dangerous to get back in the pool…

 

nick

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Sun. May 3, 2020 – making progress, slowly

Sunny and warm.

Yesterday was nice.  Sunny with a steady breeze, and highs in the low 90s.  I hid from the sun.

Which meant I got some stuff done in my garage and house.

I did some cleaning (with a leaf blower- 3 females with long hair, a dog, and the tree pollen).  The blower is very good at dusting and then moving everything out the door.  Hairballs like tumbleweeds…

Moved some food around, restocking the shelves in the back of the garage.  Also going through piles of stuff and boxes on top of boxes.  There is still stuff that I would like to lay my hands on that I can’t find.

In my office, I took on of my HF rigs down.  I wasn’t using it (still have two others) and I’ve been meaning to put it away for some time.  I thought about selling it at the hamfest in March, but decided to keep it for any future lake house or bug out location.

My wife’s been cleaning up the house too, which means I’m rescuing stuff.  Grrr.  And it gets moved so I don’t know where to find it.   She’s been very patient.

Dinner was HEB’s version of hamburger helper, in the Smoky BBQ flavor. It was good.   For the hamburger, I tried something new.  I cooked it first before freezing it when I broke down the bulk purchase.  So for dinner, I just had to defrost and heat it.  It made it quick and easy to get dinner going, and was pretty much indistinguishable from thawing and then cooking.  Accompanied by, what else?, canned corn.   Did I mention that it turns out I’ve got a lot of canned corn?  Birthday cake for dessert.

Today will be more of the same, garden, yard, garage, office, housework….

 

Stay in, stay safe, work on improving your situation.

 

 

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Sat. May 2, 2020 – another nice day to work outside

Cool and sunny. [76F at 9am]

Yesterday started out cool but got up into the high 80s or low 90s in the sun later in the day.  It was sunny and HOT in the driveway.   It’s nice and dry though, at least for Houston, so all the water I’m finding under stuff, and trapped in tarps will actually dry out.

I found some parts in the garage that I had forgotten about, and I still haven’t found some parts I’ve been looking for.  Found lots of old rat mess too.  Cleaning and organizing.  Should have been done years ago, but I always have something else that needs doing.  This week is no exception, but I’ve bumped some stuff around on the priority list to get more visible stuff done for my wife.  Some cleaning inside the house will probably happen today too.

Dinner was ribeye from the freezer, and stuffed mushrooms and baked zucchini from the store.  My wife ended up having to go to her site inspection, so she stopped for vegetables and chicken last week.  I’d have preferred not, but I’m not the boss of her.  Funny thing is, she never does the shopping normally.  It must be a bit of cabin fever.  In any case, she made the veg and I did the steak.  Teamwork!  Birthday cake for dessert.

Texas is relaxing some of the covid rules starting yesterday.  Nothing that affects me, or my family, but I’ll be watching the numbers closely this coming week.  I’ve stopped checking them twice a day.  They keep growing though, relentlessly, and even more so outside of the US.  We’re not done with this any time soon.

So keep stacking, stay in, and stay safe.  Skills are free, and knowledge can save you time, money, or even your life….

 

n

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