Rebuild Update

As you may recall, if I have bothered to post anything about it, I bought a dump truck a little while back and it turned out to have a bum engine. Of course. Because that's my luck.

But it's a piece of engineering and it can be fixed. So my friend and I have set out to find an engine and rebuild it. He knows all this stuff and I fetch and carry, so it works out. I had $2k set aside for this to get the dump truck up and operational to start earning income from it.

A professional mechanic told me it couldn't be done, which just annoyed me to no end. Tell me you won't do it or how much it would cost and let me make the decision. Don't try to scare me away with ridiculous price quotes.

The first engine we found was a 350 out of an old Monte Carlo. It wouldn't fit. Starter was on the wrong side and the engine mounts were wrong. Bah. It was $175.

So we kept looking and we found another 350 that came out of an old truck. The guy gave it away for free due to some complex web of favors owed back to my friend. But since our investment is now $0 and I have an engine, I'm not complaining.

It needed a new clutch. The old one was ... shot. Just absolute wreckage. I'm surprised it didn't catch the whole truck on fire and burn down the county.

So coming out of the supply store we're up to $290 in a new clutch assembly and a wide assortment of gaskets, plus some spark plugs and new engine mounts.

Two days of work so far and the engine is ready to go into the truck tomorrow. I'm pretty pleased.

Except I've got a chunk of rust in my eye and it's hurting like heck. I may get the dump truck fixed and have to wear an eye patch for the rest of my life. Small price to pay. Yarrrr. I'll tell people I lost it during a boarding off the coast of Marabar.

The Texas Finger Wave

... or "A Guide to Traveling on Texas Backroads"

When traveling on the backroads of Texas, you'll occasionally pass a vehicle going in the opposite direction. Aside from the very real concerns of how to get out of their way on these narrow goat paths, a question of protocol arises.

It is common custom to wave at the person in the opposite vehicle. They are likely a local since they're off the beaten path. It's a courtesty to be extended.

The accepted minimal standard of honoring this etiquette is to raise your index finger on the hand that is gripping the steering wheel. This is the one-finger wave. (NOTE: Make sure it is clearly your index finger being raised if you wish to avoid unpleasantness.)

A more friendly individual will raise all four fingers to wave, but still keep his or her hand on the top of the steering wheel. This is the wave that I commonly employ. It is friendly but non-committal.

Now often I will pass a vehicle which I frequently pass, such as my neighbor Sam. He has a beat-up old green truck that is easily recognizable due to the improbable number of coon dogs jumping around in the back. When Sam goes to town, all of his dogs go with him.

Sam is a good fellow, so I must do more than the minimally acceptable level. Sam receives a wave where I take my hand off of the steering wheel and raise it clearly in the cab of the truck so he may see it. He will return that wave with one as equally high. Protocol satisfied, we both go on our way.

Occasionally you will give a higher standard of a wave than the one that will be returned. A four finger wave might be returned with a one fingered wave, for instance. This is considered bad form. The wise person will identify the vehicle approaching and try to estimate the type of wave that is appropriate.

Though the world is filled with unfriendly people and sometimes a wave will go unreturned, this is not acceptable unless you are within 90 miles of Dallas Fort-Worth or Austin, towns known for a high concentration of rude people.

The exception to the mandate of returning a wave is little old ladies wearing enormous black sunglasses and who can barely see over the steering wheel as it is. When they are identified to be approaching, the best result can be obtained by immediately zooming into the bar ditch, clearing the pavement as much as possible, and then cringing in terror until they have passed.

The Texas road wave is as complex a social gesture as a Japanese bow, but in time you will learn to master it.

Workshop Days

Here at the tail end of winter, there's a lot of work to do outside but I don't always feel like getting out in the cold wind to do it. I have a leaking hydraulic hose on the bucket of the backhoe and I need to get that fixed before someone calls and wants some work done, but I suppose it can sit for the day. 

Today we have a howling 31 mph wind out of the southwest. It's about 45 degrees outside right now, but with that wind  cutting through you it feels a lot colder. So I've retreated to the workshop to finish up a couple of knives I've had on the workbench the past week. I'll describe to you the morning process.

We wake at around dawn when the sun starts coming in through the windows. It'll wake someone up, and that person usually makes enough noise moving around to wake everyone else. Our cabin is fairly small and the plywood floor booms like a kettle drum when pounded by little bare feet running to the bathroom.

My wife usually beats me to the woodstove and she'll stoke up the coals and throw in some mesquite wood. All winter long our cabin smells like a good barbecue restaurant. Lately she's had a pot of bone broth simmering on the stove too so the rattle of the lid when the pot is boiling can be heard and the smell of broth fills the air. It's the simple sounds of a homestead coming to life.

We have cocoa of a morning as a starter. We rarely do a big breakfast, but the cocoa has eggs in it so it's more of a thin custard to start out days out. It's pretty fortifying. I'll sometimes follow it up with a piece of cheese or sausage to sort of fill the stomach in a way that liquid just doesn't do.

Of a morning I take a quick walk around the farm to check on things while the oldest boy does the morning chores of tending to the livestock. When we get a cow, milking times will be morning, but right now it's a blessing to be free from the tyranny of that schedule. I sure miss the milk though.

So the workshop is open to the wind on the south side so I have some light, and a small draft blows through there when it's cold but it's not too terrible. I cover it up with a board in the deepest winter. In the center of the workshop is a small woodstove that was what we intended to heat the house with first before we replaced it with the giant woodstove we used in Illinois.

I rob coals from the "mother fire" in the cabin and take them in a bucket out to the woodstove in the shop. It's a 40 yard race as the heat from the coals cooks my hand through the leather gloves. I pour the red hot coals in through the top of the stove onto a pile of waiting wood and wait. Soon there's heat radiating from the woodstove and I'm comfortable so long as I sit near it (as I am now). Smoke rolls out of the chimney, the only sign of industry from within.

My workbench is an old wooden door put up across two sawhorses. I keep intending to get around to building a proper one, but this has worked so well that I'm in no hurry. I am necessity driven in my work ethic. It looks like laziness to some, but one of the reasons I chose this simpler life is so that I don't have to grind so hard to get by. What work I do around here is hardly indistinguishable from what used to be hobbies.

If I'm going to run a sander I have to go start the generator, but today the knives have already been ground down to size and are ready for finishing. That’s an hour or two of handwork with sandpaper and a critical eye. I have a powerful need for perfection in my craftsmanship, but my skill always falls short. If the Lord is merciful, perhaps I will be granted the years at this craft to become better.

The stool I sit at is a wooden one I salvaged from the dump on one of my trips to haul away our trash. On some days I come home with another man's trash which I might find useful. The dump has a strict "no salvaging" policy which I flagrantly disregard and they pretend not to see me.

Today I've got a hunting knife with a walnut handle to finish up. Coffee is heating on the stove and I best get to it!

Rain in the Night

Last night brought us a little rain and a windstorm. The rain gauge only shows about a quarter inch, but I suspect that's because most of the drops were falling sideways in the strong wind.

We finally moved the RV away from the cabin. I've been wanting to do that for awhile now. Not only is it sort of ugly, but it's a sort of insurance for us. We lived in it while we were building the cabin, and if we have to bug out or decide to move then we can do so again. It's also a form of insurance, prepaid and complete. It's a spare house in case this one burns down. Lord knows a real insurance company would never insure our homebuilt cabin, and I certainly wouldn't want to pay the premiums. Think of the RV as a prepaid policy that we can see and use any time we want.

Forecasts for this week call for mid-thirties at night and 60 degrees during the day. We'll be just hanging in here.

Frost Morning

Temperature plunged down to 27 degrees in the night unexpectedly. Weather said no lower than 35, so I was a bit surprised.

This morning the household woke, as usual, at dawn and began putting arround. My wife always seems to wake up first and on cold mornings will load up the woodstove to get a good fire going. Young River Lily toddles along behind, "helping" Momma as breakfast is prepared.

The sounds and daylight and smells will wake up the rest of the household one by one and for the next hour after sunrise the steps ring with the sound of little feet as everyone troops down individually to join the rest.

As I drink my morning cocoa and stand in front of the warm stove, I can look out the front windows and see that a heavy layer of frost has been deposited across the farm. It doesn't encourage me to hurry outside. In the garden we have some plants growing, and I hope they have survived the frost. Swiss chard and broccoli are very hardy, but 27 degrees is 27 degrees. We shall have to see soon.

It's supposed to warm up quickly today and I'm looking forward to it. I have high hopes for the day.

Montana Cuisine

Montana has a bill up that legalizes the consumption of roadkill.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/montana-bill-legalize-roadkill-dining/story?id=18549790

I've eaten roadkill deer, and it didn't taste good. Even though it was butchered within minutes of being hit, and it wasn't hit hard, it still tasted bad. The impact caused a lot of blood vessels to burst and it seemed to taint the meat.

That said, cayenne pepper can cover a multitude of sins.

I would imagine that people who are going to eat roadkill aren't going to be caring whether or not it is legal. When you're hungry, you can pretty quickly turn into a zerogov anarchist.

The Song Dogs

There's a pack of coyotes that live up on the valley rim, about a quarter mile from our cabin. Almost every night I hear them howling in song.

Over the past year, I have gotten to know them well. They have a sort of a family song that they sing together at least once per night. In the summer it occurs just after dark, but in the winter it usually occurs at about 3am or so. It will wake me up when I hear it, but not in an obnoxious way. I'll lay there in bed in a sort of lazy fashion and listen to them for a few moments before I drift back into sleep.

In the early fall last year, there was an interloper coyote who came around. I suspect he's the one who got our cat. He would sit down in the mesquite woods by the creek and give a series of challenging yips to the pack up on the hill. They would sometimes answer him. It didn't sound friendly. After about a week, he disappeared. I suppose he moved on or was driven away by the dominant male of what I consider "my pack".

They don't come down here to the valley bottom. I've never seen their tracks anywhere on my property or along the upper creek. They follow the valley rim and will sing to us from there.

The past few nights, their song has changed slightly. Not sure what the deal is, but it's more fragmented. It will start up, and then others will join in from a different direction, as if the pack is scattered about. It's warmed up here and small game is on the move, so I'm thinking that the father is off hunting for the pregnant momma or perhaps a family of pups.

I identify with him greatly and I wish him well. Many fat rabbits to you and yours, brother coyote.