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Tues. Apr. 23, 2024 – time to make the donuts..

Cool again, and probably clear. The national forecast has some stuff south of us, and we’re on the edge of it, which usually means we don’t get the bad stuff. Lots of stuff blows up from the Gulf though, so we might get some rain after all. Say it with me, “We’ll see…”

I spent yesterday mostly cleaning, sorting, and piling stuff for the auction, stuff from my office, and just stuff. I also cut my hair and shaved. Picked up the kid around 3 and got to the chiropractor and Costco for my paper towels. I am making progress cleaning out my office and bedroom. I’ve piled stuff everywhere and it’s time to move it. Long past time really. As part of that I sorted and put away receipts from auctions, and in the process found some I needed for other stuff. Also refreshed my mind regarding what I paid for a few things, especially things I though I’d sell. Time to do that.

The rat traps haven’t caught anything. My wife says she heard movement in the attic, but I guess I’ve raised a local colony that won’t touch peanut butter. Everyone says they can’t resist the peanut butter, but these rats do. You have to kill them quickly before they warn their compatriots. That is hard earned wisdom folks. Or something anyway.

I was going to do pickups today but it makes more sense to delay until tomorrow. That way I can combine the longest trip with a bunch of shorter ones, and get the most efficient route. The longest trip wasn’t available for pickup today.

I’ll continue with my house clean/organize/get ready to sell stuff plan. It’s not often that I get three days of consistent effort on one task when I’m at home. Even now, I’m tempted to mow the back yard, or switch to garage or driveway cleanup… but pushing through inside makes the most sense. I will need to do one dropoff and I’ll likely do one pickup too. Kids will need rides earlier rather than later, so I need to be home to do that, which limits my excursion time too.

It’s Spring, so Spring cleaning is appropriate. It’ll make more room for stacking!

nick

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Sun. Apr. 21, 2024 – a day of rest? Naw, can’t happen.

Cool to start, maybe warming later. The sprinkles we finally got lowed temps by about 20 degrees, so this morning will be a bit chilly. I’m sure it will all go back to normal.

Did my pickups, dodging in and out of storm cells. Nice in between the cells, anything from misty to coming down in buckets inside a cell. You could almost watch a cell move by watching the freeway slow down in the traffic app. Almost.

Hit the goodwill bins store on the last leg of the big trip. As long as I was out that way, I might as well take advantage… it wasn’t my favorite store, as there is more junk and the employees don’t care about the shoppers or the stuff, but I found a couple of good things for me and to resell.

Got home, ordered chinese food and watched a movie with eldest br… child. Did some auction stuff after then went to bed.

A pretty good day. Wife had a short power outage, and a bunch of girls running around like crazy people. I definitely had the easier day.

Today I’ll be doing more cleanup, sorting, and domestic bliss. If it’s raining, that will all be indoors. If not, maybe it is time for the play structure to come down… (not my choice but there have been enough hints that it might be on the list…)

Not that there is any shortage of tasks on the list or any shortage of more important things to do, but sometimes, a big visible change is called for.

Stack. Stack. and Stack. but be sure to LIVE in between.
nick

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Sat. Apr. 20, 2024 – 4-20 happy stoner day, or something…

Another day of warm and moist, and probably even wet… forecast here calls for moderate rain and gentle breezes. Wife and D2 will be at the BOL and she says they are predicting heavy rain and stormy weather…

They are going up with a couple of D2’s friends for a girl’s weekend. I’m home with D1. I’ve got work to do, she has a Girl Scout thing…

Spent yesterday cleaning and sorting, and doing pickups. Also doing some rat proofing. I found several bait boxes outside that were empty so I’ll refill those. The attic ones were untouched. I think I found the route in, at least on one side of the house. The siding has a corner trim that is hollow inside. One of the places I heard scrabbling has a corner molding, and there are chew marks and a hole at the top, which leads into the soffit. There was some black belly dirt on the vinyl soffit material showing that something was moving between the vinyl and the plywood, a one inch space. I covered the hole with hardware cloth (stiff wire mesh), rolled and shaped hardware cloth plugs for each end of the trim piece, used the mesh to completely fill the 1″ space the width of the soffit, and then sprayfoamed the mesh to hold it in place and fill the voids. They can chew through the foam, but the sharp mesh roll inside should discourage them.

I found a “mousehole” behind the washing machine, where something has been coming out of the wall to eat the dog’s food at night. Plugged that with 3 inches of rolled up mesh, and foam. I also found some holes in the wall that were around plumbing under the sink in the kitchen, that looked like they were enlarged and smoothed by teeth. Meshed that all up too. No foam there, because of the need to access the plumbing in the wall later. The Hav-a-heart live traps in the attic are untouched. I’ll set some modified snap traps today. With the access to the dog food cut off, they should be interested in baited traps.

In other news, my grapevine has set fruit, lots of it. This year I’m going to try some bird netting around it to try to save some for us. The lime tree in a pot is setting fruit too. The peach tree finally gave up. It is completely dead and broke off at ground level. Never got a single fruit from that tree. The apple tree isn’t vigorous and is late getting leaves and blooms. I might move it to the BOL. All but one or two of my blueberry bushes have died too. I’ll move any survivors to the BOL to join the newly planted bushes. They never were very vigorous or productive here. Collards are still growing, this is the third season for the same plants, I think. Could be the fourth.

In the last couple of days I also broke down and froze about 30 pounds of meat. Freezers are full. It’s a good feeling.

Today I’ll be doing more stuff around the house. I have to redo the repair to the tub. The cleaning crew scrubbed and chipped the epoxy away. Either they work far to hard or I didn’t get as good a bond as I thought. Still sucks to have to redo work.

It would also be nice to get the 3D printers all set up in their new spot in the “toy” room. That’s the room we use as a library and catch all. Wife suggested a narrow table against a wall to put the machines on and I am willing to oblige. I don’t want to set up the laser engraver until I have an enclosure however. I won one this week but it was missing when I did my pickup so they’ll either find it or I’ll bid on one in some other auction. It’s the second time I was bidding on one. I know I could make one but I don’t need another project. Just getting the printers running will be project enough, then getting kid 2 set up with a toolchain so she can make stuff will take even more time. Besides the obvious benefit of having the machines running, it will get stuff out of piles, corners, and stacks, and into one organized place. First I need to clear a space for the table, then I need to assemble the table… Fractal are the projects at Casa De Nick…

It will be a chance to learn some new things. That’s always good. And the kid has an interest, which is also good.

Try some new things. I can guarantee that actually doing it will be different than thinking about doing it.

And stack of course.

nick

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Fri. Apr. 19, 2024 – and another week rolls by, the world gets crazier…

Warm, moist, dark. Some chance of rain later in the day. So say the liars. Dunno what we’ll get but I’ll be sure to be inconvenienced by it… I spent most of yesterday doing indoor stuff anyway, but it was nice in the afternoon.

Did a bunch of sorting, cleaning, and work avoidance techniques to keep from crawling around in the attic. That is going to change today, as D1 saw something skitter across the kitchen floor last night. Small and fast. Attic I can live with. In the house? No. HeII no. More traps, more poison, more wire mesh covering holes. Whatever it takes.

So that is the mission for today. And doing a pickup or two. And sorting and putting away, with a stop at my secondary to get Bounty paper towels while dropping some stuff off. Costco was completely out of Bounty paper towels yesterday. I’ve got some in deep storage and I’m going by there anyway…

Later there is some kid stuff to do at her school. Then the wife and D2 head to the BOL with friends for a girls’ weekend while I stay home and catch up on the list.

I have to pull my head out and get some stuff done. I’m falling behind and it isn’t good.

Oh, the freezers are full, and the pantry is in good shape, but other stuff needs attention too. So stack, but don’t forget the other stuff…

nick

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Thur. Apr. 18, 2024 – getting stuff done, slowly, and in fits and starts…

Warm, damp, and dark. Should start the day in the mid 70s, and with overcast or clouds. The ‘damp’ part is just Houston. That’s how yesterday played out too, always on the verge of rain, but never delivering.

I did my big loop of auction houses, and got all the stuff I wanted to pick up picked up… did my drop off at my local auctioneer too. Even stopped at HEB to see if they had meat on sale. The did, so I bought some steak, and some pork ribs. My receipt said my savings were about $50 with spending of $200. I’m still buying stuff that isn’t just basics (like snacks for the kids’ lunches, soda, treats) but it’s starting to add up. I know there are others who feel the pinch more than I do. If I wasn’t able to save on all the stuff I buy at deep discounts, I’d be cutting way back on those relatively expensive items. My wife has expressed her shock and dismay several times lately when I came home with the grocery bills…

30 to 50% increases aren’t just happening to other people.

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Today should be more domestic bliss. I’m going to make a more indepth attempt to find the invaders in the attic. I want to shut down their access, but can’t find it. I don’t see evidence in the attic itself, so I’ll look more closely at the soffits or ‘eves’ which are below the floor level in the attic. They are like wide open highways around the house, and I suspect that is the main path for rodents. They do cross the open attic, as I can hear them occasionally. I wonder if they are tunneling through the insulation, so their path isn’t obvious. If it’s rats, they’ve learned not to eat the poison bait, or the bait has somehow become ineffective. They used to love the stuff, eating through the packaging in the garage to get to it. Now it has been sitting in the boxes for months.

If they are using the soffits, they can enter through the garage. I’m not sure how I’ll stop them physically as the garage has several large openings and the garage attic is completely open to the framing and soffits. I’ve been counting on the poison for the last couple of years and it was working. Something changed, as I can hear the movement, even if I can’t figure out where they are.

My wife has been more patient than anyone could expect as I’ve tried to get rid of the problem, but that is wearing thin.

Guess I have a new issue at the top of my list…

Plans. I make them. Then I break them.

One thing is constant though, accumulating resources– stacking. At least we can all do that.

nick

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Tues. Apr. 16, 2026 – more messing around to do

Cool and cloudy to start, then warming later. And some wind- “fresh” in the words of openweathermap.org. It was blowing all over last night.

Yesterday I did my doctor appointment. I like him, he’s just a bit younger than me, but the current nonsense over any meds used to treat pain is nuts. I take a simple med for chronic back pain. It’s not abuse-able, has a long and well understood history, is cheap, and is an NSAID with minimal side effects. I’ve been on it every day for about 15 years. It works for me. So why change? Why the intrusive nonsense about renewal? The office wanted a contract like I was a barely under control junkie mandating monitoring, blood tests, when and how I could refill, all sorts of nonsense for a drug that ISN’T controlled, ISN’T abuse-able, and technically ISN’T a painkiller. I pushed back with increasing firmness until he admitted all the above, and agreed I didn’t need the stupid contract.

I’m going back to the way I got it for years. F this S, I will not have my ability to control my pain and ability to work and do stuff at the mercy of a just in time delivery system, especially considering that it’s essentially Motrin, and in any sane place would be over the counter. I thought this guy was more reasonable. Guess not.

After that, I did some shopping and one pickup. Did a bunch of cleaning and moving stuff around while waiting for my chauffeur duty to be called upon. Did some more after. Tripped and fell over the child gate we use to keep the dog out of the bedrooms. Smashed myself and the gate up. Bought another in the auction last night. They always have child gates for some reason. So it was a mixed bag yesterday. I did get some stuff done, but was frustrated and stomping around, both metaphorically and in reality.

Today I’ve got several pickups to do. That should keep me busy until I have to get the kid from school. STAAR testing this week so no afterschool activities. That means a short day for me too.

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Traps in the attic haven’t caught anything. I’ll have to try some different bait. The poison boxes are untouched too, but I still hear scurrying at times. SOMETHING is up there. Possums usually go for the traps, rats usually eat the poison. I guess it could be squirrels…

Stack some poison, traps, insecticide, and the like. You may not be able to get them when you need them. Stack the other things you need to be comfortable too.

nick

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Mon. Apr. 15, 2024 – Uncle Sam says, “Pay up sucker!”

Should start cool and warm later, maybe even into the 80s. It was nice at the BOL in the afternoon, following the somewhat grey and windy morning. Sun even came out around 4pm.

I got some stuff done while I was there. Because of issues with the drive belt coming off the PTO, when I went out to mow yesterday I decided to go ahead and replace the belt before mowing, despite the lowering sky. Because my life is fractal, you can probably guess at the sequence of events…

I had three new 42″ belts, because they were a dollar in an auction, but I had mis-remembered as what I needed was a 46″ mower deck belt. Gah. So I figured that instead of a new belt, I’d take a look at it and see if I could figure out what changed and why the belt is coming off… And I did. Wear. LOTS of wear. Holes that were wallowed out, bolts that weren’t tight, guides in the wrong place. So I took apart, cleaned, greased, and replaced what parts I could. Last year my buddy gave me his old mower, because the deck was shot, but it turned out to have lots of stuff I could use to rebuild mine. Some washers for spacing, some grease instead of rust, some parts that weren’t half worn through, and some time, about 3 hours, and I had the deck back together and in better shape than it’s been in in years. Seems to run better too.

Mowed the rest of the yard, trimmed it too. Then went to check on the garden. Peas are doing well, much better than the variety we planted first. Peppers and tomatoes are doing well. Potatoes are growing like weeds. Something is eating the leaves off the turnips. I thinned out my radishes. Planted the cukes and zukes I brought up there. Went back to my place and planted the blueberry bushes on top of a sand pile. That’ll have to do for now. Decided I didn’t know were to put the mint, or the other herbs, so I brought them home again. I’ll either pot them or put them in dirt here. We’ve been getting over an inch of rain each week up there so irrigation isn’t an issue yet. It will likely be an issue eventually, so I am still moving forward with my plan to make a water wagon to bring lake water to the garden. Plans. I’ve got ’em.

The next thing on the list was more poking at the irrigation pump. I decided that a)the suction pipe wasn’t tight enough in the pump inlet, b) the intake was down in the silt, and c)there was air trapped in the suction pipe preventing the pump from priming. I lifted the intake, cut and rotated the pipe to make it tighter then glued it back together, and adjusted the level of the pipe to “burp” any air trapped in a high section… and that worked. We’ll see if it keeps running this week.

Unloading the truck, putting stuff away, and then prepping to leave took the rest of the day, and part of the night. This was a quick trip and I’m actually surprised that I got as much done as I did.

Today I’ve got catching up to do at home. Auction stuff, domestic bliss, stacking… hopefully I’ll have a somewhat productive day. Oh, doctor’s appointment right in the middle of the morning too.

But it beats working for a living.

Stack stuff. Just ‘cuz.

nick

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Thur. Apr. 11, 2024 – Just ‘cuz they say it, doesn’t mean it’s true…

Cooler, clear, and still damp. But should be nice later. It cleared out yesterday and turned into a nice day. Sunny, a bit gusty, and low 70s. More of that would be nice.

I spent most of yesterday at home. Did some domestic bliss, and will do more today. Put a pot roast in the slow cooker, and fixins in the bread machine and ended up with a fine dinner 6 hours later. And for not much effort. I tried to test the goodwill bread maker, but I’m obviously missing something about how it works. When I hit “start” I got a 6 hour timer. Should have been about 3 1/2 hours, so I dumped the bucket into my tried and true maker, and proceeded. I should d/l the manual and try again. I made “honey french” instead of my usual “old fashioned oatmeal” bread, and it came out great. Could have used a bit more salt, but other than that, soft airy inside, crunchy outside.

I also hit Costco for gas and groceries. Gas was $2.99, so 32c cheaper than Chevron. That makes a difference in an Expedition. Maybe not so much in a Geo Metro. Spent $400 at Costco and didn’t even overflow the cart. Two bales of Charmin, not on sale. It’s definitely not going on sale with the old frequency as I’m running out before the next sale. I have backup at the offsite location, so I am letting the home supply get low, hoping for the sale to stock up. Didn’t work this month so I sucked it up and paid the $30 per bale. Worse, it feels like there are fewer rolls now. I’ll have to check against the deep storage at some point. USED to be $18 on sale.

Between Costco and HEB, I spent about $800 this week on groceries and sundries. That would have been a HUGE week back in the Trump era.

I found the bin of medical supplies I was looking for. It didn’t have the stuff I needed in it. I’ll have to do some more organizing of medical preps at some point. I need to sort, label, and separate home and away kits. My two main home medical bags need to be refreshed too. I built them when the kids were little, and that was some time ago now…

There’s always more to do.

My auctioneer waved me off as they’ve been working on an in-home estate sale this week. I’ll just stack the bins and have more for next week I guess. I didn’t win anything in the last couple of days’ auctions either so I find myself without any pickup pressure today. I still have a couple of things to pickup, but I won’t be rushing all over the place.

Plan for the day is continue cleaning the house and putting stuff away, as well as processing auction wins, and outgoing auction stuff. Maybe plant some stuff in the garden if the soil isn’t too muddy, and I don’t run out of daylight. The water feature pond pump needs to be fixed or replaced soon too. The thing is getting stagnant. It’s part of the house and yard that I’ve been neglecting in favor of the BOL. Too much to do, not enough time or motivation.

All I can do is keep plugging away. At least I don’t have livestock making demands on my time too. Oh, I do have the kids, and they do need an hour or more of ferrying around every day, and it’s right in my most productive part of the day too. Oh well. I’ll miss it when it’s gone, I’m sure of that. Time is flying by as it is.

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Stack, organize, refresh, build, renew, network, upskill, downsize, and monetize… while you can.

nick

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Wed. Apr. 10, 2024 – My name is Bond, Municipal Bond, and I’m here to indenture your children…

Wet and dreary today, with warm thrown in… it’s almost like we have to pay for all the beautiful days we had recently… or just that there is variation in the weather. Naw, it’s a conspiracy. Stonecutters or Illuminated probably. In any case a little rain started last night and continues…

[yes, I know the ellipse isn’t used in a grammatically correct way in the paragraph above. I use it as a conversational gimmick, to suggest the ‘trailing off’ of a thought, or as a longer than normal pause in the narrative flow. I’m cool like that.]

Anyway…

Did my pickups yesterday. Chatted with one of the auctioneers who I’ve been dropping verbal hints on for a few weeks. I know he’s politically conservative, most small business owners are. Now I know he’s a doomer and a prepper too. He’s working on his BOL. I won a knock off version of the Big Berkey (sp?) filter and that was the opening he needed. He asked me if I meant to use it or flip it, and to share with him how it worked if I used it. That led to a chat about securing drinking water supplies, and other personal infrastructure. He had intended to go full off grid solar, but ended up with a diesel generator solution because in his words, “he doesn’t care about the noise because he’s way the F out in the middle of no where.” I was surprised he didn’t know about the solar company bankruptcy auction that morning, but he’s an auctioneer on the platform, not a buyer. He did think about keeping the filter for himself. This makes three of my auctioneers that are active preppers or getting started increasing their level of preparedness (that I know of.) He also mentioned that he was prepared to defend what is his from those who might want to take it.

I know that this place has a preponderance of “like minded” people especially wrt certain ideas and topics. That’s to be expected given the focus of my life and the blog. I like to think that there are others who visit, that we don’t hear from too often (but of whom I was reminded while going through some old posts and old comments yesterday) that may have differing views or rate the hazards of life differently. And that is great. Right now, I want to encourage EVERYONE who comes here, and through them, everyone they influence, to consider the cost of prepping vs. the cost of NOT prepping, if the future plays out the way I, and many many others, expect it to. Consider that it’s not just those few of us here, or a few other corners of the intarwebs that think bad things are coming, and indeed have already started arriving. Ordinary people from all walks of life and all situations are taking a look around and deciding to make changes to their lives to better prepare for what they have decided might be coming.

Think hard about what you can stack, actually and metaphorically, and then take action. It’s a bit of ‘preaching to the choir’ I know… but I’m specifically preaching to the others not already in the choir today. No matter what happens, even (especially) the normal trials and tribulations of life, stacks and preps will make it better. There are plenty of stories shared here of the minor, and even potentially major, problems overcome more easily and with more style due to having prepared for problems. Come and join us on the journey.

Stack.

nick

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Mon. Apr. 8, 2024 – ah, the sun’s going out! We’re all gonna die!!!!111!!1 “let’s go watch”

Cooler and overcast with a chance of thunderstorms. That’s from the national forecast. Local calls for clouds, north of here is calling for clouds. Where the totality is is likely to be covered with clouds. It’s a cruel universe that sets up a compete solar eclipse and then hides it from us.

Spent yesterday avoiding work. Cut the whole back yard for the first time this year. Some of the weeds were 5 ft tall. Had to use the string trimmer first, then follow up with the mower to mulch and level everything out. That took a good long time. Then I blew the debris back onto the lawn and used the mower to mulch them, and since I had the blower out, I blew all the leaves in the front yard too. The lawn guys tend to blow the leaves toward the house, where we have some plantings. There used to be bushes there, and sometimes mulch. Not so much anymore. But they don’t like picking up leaves so they blow them there, as if they were mulch.

Took a while to blow all the accumulation out onto the grass and then use the mower to mulch it. It was dark when I finished up.

All that to avoid setting traps in the attic for whatever creature is scrabbling around up there. I’m convinced it’s possums using the soffits to move around. I don’t see any obvious evidence in the attic proper, and nothing is eating the rat bait. I’ll set the traps today, if we don’t got searching for the eclipse.

Wife is convinced we should head to the BOL and onward into the path of the moon’s shadow. But she’s also convinced that it will be poor weather. So there is conflict in her soul about leaving early today to try to make a viewing location in time. We didn’t leave last night, because of the weather forecast, but if things change… I won’t have to put the traps in the attic.

[man, my writing is disjointed and choppy at 2am]

I’m up for the road trip if she decides to go. Otherwise, I’ve got plenty to do.

IF we stay home, I’ll be doing all the stuff I’ve been shirking for the last week. And dropping off auction stuff, if I can.

Oh, and shopping if I get the time, because this stuff won’t stack itself. Join me?

nick

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