Mmmm...

I never knew this thing had a plate warmer?

Cold, Holidays, and the Lake House

We had planned to have a visitor for Thanksgiving, but winter storms had other plans. That along with a serious cold snap, made us decide to bug out for the holiday. So we went to our fallback location at the lake.

We miss all our friends in Colorado, and I really miss all our kids. But the holiday was ok and it's always comfortable here at the lake house.

It was a chance to catch up on yard work at the lake house. One of my big peeves from last season was that there were years of leaves that had to be cleaned up. So hopefully getting a jump on that now will save me some work next spring.

Pellets for the stove are much cheaper here, so we'll load up before heading back to the cabin. I got a couple new blinds on a Black Friday sale, and some buckshot, I look forward to getting back up the hill and trying to put some meat in the freezer.

Should be meeting with a guy this week to get serious about putting a roof on the cabin. Then I can get on with the water catchment system. Always plenty to do, if I have the desire to do it.

Movies and other stuff

A good way to look for movies.   I like to peruse Flixter's "upcoming dvd" list, as those are the movies I am likely to have access to.   To find a movie that I will probably enjoy, I look for anything with a viewer rating higher than the critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes. 

If critics love it, I probably hate it. They live to stroke the egos of the Hollywood elite they serve.  Listen to the people,  their reviews tend to amalgamize as they pile up,  and you get a better idea of how real people feel about the flick. 

If the critics rating is higher than the viewers, that's a red flag. There are always exceptions, like when both ratings are very high or very low. But it's a good criteria to get started. 

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Enders Game   
     Two weeks after its release, I finally bit the bullet and went to see this IN A THEATER.  I'm not even sure what the last movie I saw in a theater was - maybe Madagascar 2? - who knows. The house was full of stinky fish smells and Chinese only conversations, so I had to go somewhere.    

It was a great movie, well adapted from one of my top 5 Sci Fi books. I always liked the character a lot, especially when I was young. Strategic and ruthless.  

 Thinking back on it, I could see how those who don't know the book might have found the movie to be flat. I'm sure I was "thinking in" the parts they left out - some big and some small - but memorable enough to me that I subconsciously put them in the story where they belonged.    

I hope they pump out Enders World quick. It'll probably bomb in everyone else's opinion, but I'm sure it'll be great in my mind. 

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The To Do List   
   I really like the star of this picture, Aubrey Plaza (also my favorite strip mall). She was in "Safety Not Guaranteed", which was a brilliant movie. This movie however, maybe less than brilliant.

Girl graduates high school a virgin, and decides she needs to become a complete slut before starting college. Eventually, sort-of realizes the error of her ways, but not really. Ending on the note, "sometimes sex is just sex" which my many years tells me is very rarely true- at least not for both parties.

Aubrey's eye rolling and tongue and cheek demeanor help keep it light and a little better than tolerable. 

Red 2   
     Forced myself halfway through this one. Ugh,if only star power could make a movie. But it doesn't. It really doesn't. 

Killer Joe   
     Phew, where to start on this one. Imagine a spooky and nuanced Matthew McConaughey, a cool and scary character. Surrounded by a a cast you want to fail - except for a cute and cuddly Juno Temple. Very cool movie, check it out. 

The Last Days on Mars   
     Still trying to get back to this one. It looks like a soft scifi:  guy on Mars may have discovered life, falls in a hole. Dat-da-daaa.. skipping along...  He arrives back at the station, takes off his helmet and HOLY CRAP IN A CAN!!!

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Revolution season 1   
     With a couple of Startrek movies under his belt and a new Star Wars flick on the way, I'd like to say that JJ Abrams has the necessary Sci Fi cred to pull off a show like this. But some of his other projects like Lost and Fringe are unwatchable to me - and we can't let him off the hook for Felicity. He does however have a knack for spotting talent (Like Keri Russell, Jennifer Garner, Sonya Walger, and Elizabeth Mitchell), and brings that to Revolution.  

Real quick - because as you know, I hate reviewing the story line - I assume you already have an idea of what that's about. Lights go out, couple people knew it was coming, jump ahead 15 years to the mess we have become.    

At times the plot was a bit tedious, I struggled to stick with it when it was stretched week to week and mired in commercial interruptions. However, sitting and watching episodes rapid fire - it's a great show and flows much better. A big cast where all players are important makes for a more multidimensional experience, and plenty of back story is included to allow you the opportunity to care about the characters (or hate them as the story dictates - hate is a form of caring right?).   

The season wrapped up great, with plenty of surprises. I enjoyed it and will be digging into the next season soon. 

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Banshee  season 1   
     Still not sure where I come down on this one. Ex-con ends up sheriff in a small town (by killing the actual sheriff).  All hell breaks loose from there. Good enough, but some things I struggle with:   
    
One is that every fight lasts 478 minutes during which each contender should have died a dozen or more times. I've seen trained people fight. Fight for their lives. One is always better than the other, even if only a tiny bit. The fight ends quickly, and someone dies horribly.  
    
The other is that every time our protagonist arrives home there is someone waiting in his apartment. As a con and a sheriff, you'd think privacy would be paramount and he'd lock his friggin door. Sometimes it's some misc baddy there to rough him up. More often it's one of three town bimbos come to screw his brains out. Both scenarios seem ridiculous.    That said, they've left us with great set up for season 2, so I'll have 10 or 12 more episodes to decide if I like the show. 

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Modern Family season 4   
     I thought it would be nice to " lounge" a bit and get away from all the serious stuff. You all know the show, and it's 20 minute blurbs will usually evoke a chuckle or two. That held true through the season. Oddly enough, I found myself wanting some intrigue and drama. Will have to be sure to blend candy coated stuff like this with more substantial fare in the future. 

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Caprica   
    It's been a couple years since I've watched Caprica. This BSG prequel is really well done, though a bit laborious mid season. I found that fast forwarding through anything with "Amanda Greystone" Paula Malcolmson for several episodes helped to avoid the mindless tedium of her character wasting time doing nothing. Seriously, she plods along doing nothing that forwards the plot or her character episode after episode -most of that tied to the shows stupidest character "Sister Clarese".    

     More holo-program stuff and a better focus on the Zoe Greystone character would have helped (imho), but it was a cool little spin off. Too bad it never made it past the teaser for season two.

How "off the grid" are you?

We get a lot of suggestions of how to be "off the grid".  My feeling is that off the grid means no government regulated power, water,  or utilities. Other ways to be self sufficient are a bonus, but not a necessity.

We still have cell phones, and actually had to get another since there is only one local company that has service up here. We have satellite internet.  I quit watching TV over a year ago, and don't miss it a bit.

In Oklahoma, some things are bit more difficult. We had planned to plant at least 50 fruit trees on our property. But we've learned that doing so may be more difficult then we thought. What people don't realize is that deer eat everything. Not just the fruit.

We've seen wild persimmon trees better than 20 feet tall and have 3 persimmons at the very top. The tree is reduced to 1 main branch. All of the lower limbs, not just the fruit, but the branches have been eaten by dear. They will stand up on their back legs and eat everything they can reach.

Those trees will bear nothing next season, they may even die.

So planting small trees it's just putting out fresh feed for the deer. Whole trees will disappear overnight. Put a 6 foot fence around each tree? Not out of the question. But eventually they will be big enough to stand on their own, and the deer will trim them back to nothing.

People always say to us you should plant this, or you should plant that, and grow some of this. But they don't understand, we're not just off the grid, we're in the wild. We are competing with raccoons, skunks, dear, birds, and even rats out here. If you plant seeds the seeds are dug up and eaten. Any fruit or vegetable becomes food for the wild animals. One guy we talked to had to put up an electric fence to keep coons out of his strawberries.

So gardening and orchard planting becomes a game of building a fortress to protect your plants.  A game you'll probably loose. The blog is called More Bears than People - but it could be called Thousands More Coons than People.

I also thought that getting meat would be pretty easy.  We're surrounded by tasty critters here. All you need is a gun and you've got meat on the table.  But as I mentioned in earlier posts, that hasn't been as easy as I thought.

I still think there will be successful hunts, when I get the formula right. But we're still eating store-bought meat.

Lots of people turn to livestock to fill the need for protein. Goats for milk and meat. Chickens for eggs and meat. Rabbits, cattle, hogs, and whatever. But then you get into several tough tradeoffs.

Chickens, rabbits, ducks, turkeys and other small defenseless animals out here are BAIT. So you build them fences and fortresses and they get snatched and eaten a little slower.

Coons are near impossible to keep out, and you'll contend with fox, coyote, bob cat, owls and hawks, and potentially even bear and mountain lion.

Bigger livestock LEAVES. So again you're constantly fencing and fortifying - only now to keep them in. And with any of them, you're now trading your time and the cost of feed, medicine, and vet bills for meat. On the small scale, your hand raised meat will cost more than store bought.

The biggest drawback of livestock is that you can never leave. You can't just lock the chickens in the coop for two weeks with a bag of feed and a bucket of water.

Heck even fruit trees require year round watering for the first year or two.

Who wants to be chained to one place for a whole year?  Forget it.

Now and then someone will ask something like "how are you going to be really self sufficient?  You still have to buy clothes and stuff."  Yeah, no shit, what am I going to do - grow cotton, comb it spin it, weave it, and sew clothes out of it?  Screw that, I'll go to Walmart.

So the goal is to be reasonably sufficient on electricity, but we'll still need to supplement with propane. Though the pellet stove requires the purchase of pellets, and wood would be more abundant and free, it's also a hell of a lot of work. Wood piles have also proven to be homes for "special friends" like rattlers, scorpions, and spiders - near the house is bad enough - but carrying them in with the fire wood on a cold night is a bad thing.

I think we can get there on water, but there is more work to be done. If we can get the roof on, than a catchment system follows. If done before Spring, we could conceivably gather enough water for a year.

Getting back to Roots

Roots music, in my understanding, is that early Country and very early Rockabilly which in time became the pop-country and rock and roll we hear on the radio today.

I've never been a fan of modern country music. Some of it's ok, but it's tough to listen to the radio for hours on a country station. Same formulaic composition you find in pop music.

Here in Oklahoma/Arklahoma we have Big Country 107.3.  It's kind of the "oldies" station for country music ('cause there's already 9 generic country channels).  Big Country is awesome. 

I'm hearing songs I remember from when I was a kid, and yeah, I'm singing along - loud!

Hunting and the Howling Winds

At the top of my to do list is always the word "HUNT".  It's too easy to get caught up in projects and laziness and forget the biggest reason we're up here. I've been sighting in rifles, sitting in stands, checking cameras, and delivering corn. For the record, nothing yet. We have about 5 deer coming through the upper stand, though not on a schedule. As many as 11 turkey at a time at the lower stand. I just haven't managed to be at the right place at the right time.

It's a dark and fuzzy photo, but this guy has a decent rack on him.  

The turkey vids are pretty funny - it's like a damn stampede.  These guys come charging in, trying to beat each other out for the corn.

They're all scratching and digging around - I wish the trail cam videos had sound.







We've had the wind just blasting the cabin for the last few days. At the bottom of the hill, the South end of our property, it's calmer and warmer (when chilly).  But our beautiful view comes with a price. Fortunately it's 70 degrees today, and will be warm over the next week.


The rain barrel is almost empty, could definitely use more water.  But we'll get by either way.

Mini projects, and working my way down the list

Haven't exactly been knocking out the projects over the last few days.  With time spent in stands, and trying hard not to start anything I can't finish, I've been picking away at the edges.

Traded away the old diesel generator, I have no idea how to fire it up anyway. That left me with more space in the shed, and I patched the holes used for hoses and exhaust.


Cleaned and swept the shed and decided to get serious about getting the rat out of our lives. He ceased being cute and cuddly when he started crapping on everything.

Sorry for the graphic pic, but I wanted to show the winning combination. I wrapped the "trigger" with fabric and slathered it with peanut butter. Last time he just ate the peanut butter off the trigger without tripping the trap. Then used a lag bolt to fasten the trap to the floor. This made him have to gnaw and pull on the fabric - and die. Pretty good sized bugger too - at least twice as big as any squirrel I've seen in Oklahoma.

Tried again at fishing (not even sure what that thing is).  Used a yoyo on a tree and tried jugging the other side.  I think our smallest hooks are too big for the fish we have.

Cracked open a fresh tin of 54r...


...changed oil in the Raider...

Finished dragging the rotten old battery box away from the house - and the many years of rotten old leaves and sticks...

...it took all night and every drop of used motor oil, but burned all of that stuff to nothing.

Neighbor Mike went crazy with a hand ratchet and took down 30 more sections of fence.  That's 450 sheet metal screws - Thanks Mike!

I hauled it up the hill and sorted it into "clean pieces to use on the roof" and "cruddy pieces to use for skirting".

All neatly stacked on the North side of the house (where the wind shouldn't send it flying like a bunch of giant razor blades).

...and of course, ROCKED THE HOUSE!
(that's funny you see because there are actual ROCKS along the skirting around the house.  Get it?  Oh, never mind. sigh)

Cold days coming

I guess we'll find out soon if all the winter preparations will pay off. The cabin has been holding heat much better over the last few days - but it's been pretty warm.

Sniping from roof tops

I just don't seem to have any luck sitting in a stand and waiting for deer and turkey to wander through. I feel like I should be waiving a flag or something because I'm so visible. Any noise, any movement, any scent - and you're sitting in a tree doing nothing.

Years ago I said that hunting is not very sporting, because shooting an animal is too easy. I would definitely retract that statement now. While shooting a critter may be less "fair" than say "knifing" it, the knowledge, hard work, and talent that go into being ready to take that shot at the moment the shot is there are very real.

I say that as a guy who has been living in a hunter's paradise for over two months. I have more game animals, varmints, and predators here than anyone could hope for.

I have managed to bag exactly ZERO of the ridiculously abundant wildlife running around me every day. No, I haven't hunted every day, not even close to it. But the result is ZERO.

Anyway...  today I tried to site the night vision scope on the PSL - but it's still not close enough to the target to use for game. Too bad, because I can see GREAT with it. But I'm not going to chase away all my deer by throwing bullets all over the place.

The AR is dead on, and I managed to hit the target with open sites putting Ania (my Polish sweetheart) to work for the first time.

Permanent "heebie jeebies"

The sun came out this morning, and I'd guess we got up over 70 degrees. A nice day, and good for the solar power system. This gave bloom to 478 b'zillion LADY BUGS saturating the sunny spots on the outside of the house.

Since lady bugs are pretty much the only thing here that don't bite, sting, poison, or really contaminate in any way, you tell yourself to ignore them. But as they crawl on your neck, land on your eyeball, and crash directly into your ear-hole like a damaged viper coming in to the Galactica - you can't help but to shoo, shush, and swat them away.

I've been back in the house now for over an hour and the heebie jeebies will NOT go away. Would Sherri think I'm nuts if I ask her to smack the hell out of me with the fly swatter?

UPDATE:  Sooo...  ladybugs bloom so they can DIE!
This pic is from the next morning:

You only turn 238 once

Today is the Marine Corps birthday.

I was looking to see if the Sgt Major had issued a statement, and found it odd that I was finding stuff that says "happy birthday Marines" and such.

I don't remember "happy" being a part of it.  All Corps occasions (in my mind) are solemn remembrances.  Even our song is The Marine Corps Hymn. It's not an anthem or a marching tune.

My days in the Corps will not be written in history books. They will not be more than footnotes in dusty files, long since shredded to protect the chain of command.

But we will be part of the collective memories of Marines on days like today.  As I remember my time,  and Marines past and present, I know that even I will be part of that reverence held for our Brothers who came before and since.

Misc Smaller Projects

Though equally important, and often steps on the way to bigger projects, these are some of the other items getting checked off the list...

Sherri installed window kits on all of the interior frames. We've used these for years in Colorado, and they're great for reducing the cold air coming in around the windows. 

Assembled and fired the chainsaw for use on future projects. 

Plugged a big hole in the bathroom ceiling. 

It's ugly, but it's warm. 

Learning to drive offload. 

Replacing water filters. 

Trying to sell the old fridge, hot water heater, and the diesel generator. One down, two to go. 

Power and Paint

I'll get into the details later, but I managed to turn a 20 minute project into a four day project - and it involved PAINT.  Painting is possibly the biggest time sink on the planet, and I find that the more painting I do the less I enjoy it. Thus rush through in more of a "slathering" than an accepted "painting" operation.

That said, one of the to do list items was staring me in the face as I wrapped up the other project. ..

Hard to take pride in the DWP with equipment looking like that. 

The propane guy had pointed out the blackening on the tank. "That's not from a fire on the ground, that's from the sun baking your tank!"  Looked at me like I was mildly retarded and said "you gotta paint this tank".  "Golly mister, I'll get right on that."

So, a little more than two months later:

Painted the deep sea diver helmet too

So this was not a cosmetic project, but to improve the efficacy and to extend the life of the tank. ...but it does look a little better...

Will post a final pic when the finishing touches are in place.

It's important that we acknowledge the brave volunteers who willingly gave their lives to complete this project. We will remember you - for as long as your crunchy little corpses remain stuck to our propane tank. 

I want one

Fire Scout helicopter can fly itself, http://fxn.ws/1hmIeST

Can we just program it to fly from here to the hospital and back?

Snake bite? No problem, just jump into the helo and push the GO button as things go dark.  Wake up in the emergency room, head back home. 

Panorama Pics

Let me know if these view OK, not sure what the blog software will do with them.

The front yard

360 from the roof of the shed.

180 from the roof of the other shed (that's the upper deer stand to the far right.

Anyone still wondering why I don't want to leave?

Former screen door

Now curing hickory nuts

Today's special friends

The big point in cleaning things up is to try to gain control over the spiders, snakes, and misc critters around our immediate living area. The point was driven home by what I found in the vintage wood pile by the house:

That's a walking stick, a cricket, and a baby rattler.

Two baby rattlers, and another baby snake of unknown genus. I did what all macho men do - I hit them with a stick 'til they were dead.

This guy gets to live

I also found a baby garter snake, and - except for taking away his house - I left him alone.

After hand-bombing all the crap wood into and out of the wheelbarrow (oops, I mean Nissan truck) I also found a scorpion in the truck bed.

Plenty of stuff here that wants to ruin your day. Hopefully by cleaning up some of this crap I can keep them away from the house.

Cleaning up the North side

On the to do list I have "skirt the North side" and "get the barrels up for the rainwater flush system".  However, there is plenty to clean up and get out of the way before getting to either of those projects.

Five year old firewood that is probably more closely related to dirt than wood. A couple of diesel fuel barrels,  one full of ???

Not that we have any company coming up to judge us on how Hillbilly the yard is...  ...but I need to start somewhere. 

Picked up the trash, moved the punky old firewood over by the burn pit, and hauled the barrels over behind the shed (where the barrels live).

Pulled 6 years of rotting leaves and "stuff" away from the house, and have things in hand for chopping up the old pump housing. The pump housing is a big box that used to control water from the well and the rain catchment system. Now it's just soggy rotted plywood with a couple of dead batteries in it.

Movies

The Heat
   (see Miss Congeniality 2)

Kick Ass 2
   Maybe more violent than it needed to be?  (did I just say that out loud?)  Just seems like the Kick Ass franchise should be more "fun" than shooting people in the face and cutting off heads. Yeah?

Wide Awake (via Netflix)
   Independent film maker about my age talks about his lifetime of insomnia. Some I found interesting and could relate to, but the latter half of the movie was a bit self indulgent.  Worth while documentary though, helped me get to sleep. 

Dispicable Me 2
  Meh, pretty good. Better than expected. Minions make the movie. 

The Suspect
   Got 7 1/2 minutes into this one.  Nothing but stereotypical racial small town white people saying stereotypical racial stuff to a stereotypical black guy. Come on Hollywood, is that the best you got?  Pushing the agenda that all small town people are racist?  That's it?

Catch .44
   You can almost hear them say "I wish I was Quentin Tarentino."

The Wolverine
   I know this movie was showered in critical acclaim - basically saying "if you were horribly disappointed in the last Wolverine movie, you'll find this one to be less horribly disappointing. "  But I may have to go back and watch the other one just to verify which was less horrible. 
  The beginning was cool, a little (way) back story, becomes reclusive...  ...seeks a little revenge, hot chick shows up. So far so good. 
   About 16 minutes in hot chick reveals a universal truth about warriors. I found it honest and sound. 
   Then they go to Japan and the whole thing gets stupid. He falls for this bread pudding milque toast empty shell of a generic girl - and spends the rest of the show saving her (often from herself).
   Yeah, watch and enjoy. Just try not to get your hopes up. 

X-Men First Class
   Bumped into this while putting away The Wolverine above.  Just barely holds your attention. Doctor X is a priss, and it's off-putting.

Room 237
   Goofy theories about hidden meanings of 1980 movie The Shining. Expose on the genocide of the American Indian? The Holocaust? Minotaur in the labyrinth?  These guys think Kubrick is a god communicating in code.  Pretty stupid. 

2 Guns
   Great banter movie. You'll catch yourself chuckling at the back and forth. They use some sloppy cuts, out of focus shots, and a few blips and quips to give it a 70s b movie feel - but they don't overdo it. Both gritty and slick. Great movie. 

Turbo
   Basically like every other kid's movie you've ever seen. But solid voice acting from Paul Giamatti and a small roll for Hollywood's hardest working man Samuel L Jackson help make the movie enjoyable. 

Pitch Perfect
  OK, yeah it's a chick flick, and yeah I've seen it before.   But now and then you just want to watch something that in no way will stimulate your brain.   Pitch Perfect is the perfect movie for a time like this. 

Critters

I saw this 'yote on our road one morning, and headed toward the stand.  pics show all the turkey running away at the same time.

Here he's streatching out and sniffng the feeder.  Not sure if he's picking up on me or the bear - who hasn't been around for a couple weeks.  He's being very careful.

But not so careful as to miss out on some high fructose corn syrup. 

I call her Pearl

Great shot here of the albino coon...

How to ensure you don't eat too many cookies...

Buy crappy cookies.

Solar So Far

Thus far the solar power system is doing great. We use so little power most days that we're not dipping into the batteries much at all. That will change as it gets cold and we need to run the pellet stove more. But for now, we're well below the capabilities of the system.

We have 1050w of 24v panels running through an Outback 80 amp controller. That charges a 12v battery grouping with 1530 amp hours of potential storage.

It's a small system, but so far is holding its own. I'll check tomorrow, but we should be generating 3.5 to 4.5 kw per day.

I still struggle with making sense of it all.  This many watts per day of use, through the inverter, the batteries, the controller, and drawing from the panels...  Still don't know how to properly size a system. 

Back to the cabin (where I belong)

We came down from the cabin for a few days. I have to admit that I had over done it a couple days in a row, and resting up the "muscles" (I use the term loosely) was a necessity. Useing creatine every day is great for that extra energy to let you work hard day after day - but it doesn't give you time to rebuild those muscle fibers you've broken down.

Lots of protein and rest has me ready to get back at it.

I don't know if this is what retirement is for people who retire old?  I am coming up on a year since I walked out the door for the last time, and have gotten frighteningly good at doing nothing.

Sitting around the lake house, where there are no chores to do (of any magnitude) just bores the crap out of me now.

Somehow I convince myself that making coffee, doing a load of laundry, playing video games on my phone, and watching Season Two of Startrek Enterprise makes me "busy".  Phew, so many things to do, how will I find time to take out the trash and get a shower?  Nah, those things can wait 'til tomorrow.

So it'll be great to get back up to the cabin - back off the grid - where there is never a shortage of things to do. OK, some things are fun, and some are work. But even a day off there feels like a day well spent.

Robert Kyosaki (sorry if I misspelled that), the Rich Dad Poor Dad guy, says you really need a full year off when you step away from a business. It takes that amount of time to get your head out of the game and completely decompress.

I think I'm there. Uber decompressed.

Is it time to start looking for the next big thing?