Sometimes it seems like that. Lots of bad shit seems to happen at the same time and it's easy to let your imagination run off on ya.
I had a "Poor Pitiful Me" post going and erased the damn thing. Screw that.
Sometimes shit just goes bad and ya got to deal with it. I'm gonna deal with it and not friggin' whine like I'd started to. At my age you wouldn't think I'd have to remind myself that it's very unbecoming to whine like a little school girl when shit doesn't go your way.
So I said "Screw It" and took the day off and rode the BigBluePlasticMotorcycle all afternoon. ParamedicKid rode over on his bike and we went off together exploring the outer reaches of Gravel Roads and the Hoosier National Forest here in Southern Indiana.
Just what the Doctor ordered!! Damn, I feel better tonight. Amazing what a little bike time will do for a guy. Yes, all the Bullshit problems will still be there in the morning, but at least I'll have a better mindset to deal with them.
And that's good enough.
Gratuitous Picture for a Tuesday Night- Did you know this?
Sorry about not posting this week, but life has been getting in the way and I've been spending a lot of time running in circles.
Doesn't seem like I got a whole hell of a lot done, but it was shit that needed to get done. Pretty much not hitting the web and don't know what the hell is going on out there in the world.
Got more chasing my tail to do today and will be climbing into the little blue truck in a few for an 8-9 hour round trip that I need to do but wish I didn't.
Back posting tomorrow if things settle down.
Gratuitous Picture for a Holiday - Long drive ahead. Maybe I'll pick up a hitch hiker.
This has been a bad year for Tornadoes already. Damn. Here's a link to Yahoo News for info if ya need it.
89 dead in Joplin, MO. Looking at the pictures and video out there, I'd have to think that number is gonna go up today.
If you have it, think about kicking a few bucks towards the Red Cross. They've already had their hands full this season and I'm sure every bit we can do would help.
I damn near ran my little Blue truck into the ass end of a high end SUV today. Scared the shit out of me.
Would have been my fault too. Don't know why they decided to just stop and look at some garage sale stuff on a highway with a 55 mph limit. I also don't know where the hell my head was at not to have realized it sooner. Damn, it was close.
Nice to know that the little blue truck has good brakes and that a cross eyed old fart like me can skid around the SUV AND also miss the mailbox. Not that I needed the Steve McQueen moment or anything. I damn near had a heart attack. Speaking of Steve McQueen....
Ok, so my little skid and swerve probably wasn't quite up to Steve McQueen standards. Still, I avoided hitting a Mercedes SUV and the mailbox both and for that I'm very grateful. Last thing I need is to get in a wreck because I had my head in my ass for a few seconds.
Things are dry enough in the raised beds to get things going so that's where I'll be today.
Awful darn late to be getting things started, but better late than never I suppose.
The flat area of the garden is still to wet to work so we're gonna have to hope that things continue to dry out some. I was hoping to put corn in that area, but the growing season is getting shorter every day.
The Little Red Tractor has developed a problem with the hydraulics that looks to be beyond my mechanical experience and that = expensive. All I can say about that is....... Shit. One more thing that needs money thrown at it that I don't really have.
Just another day in paradise!
That's the way things work sometimes and damn if I'm gonna get to worked up about it. Just gonna have to see about picking up some extra shifts at work to help make up the shortfall in cash flow. Maybe I'll get lucky.
Well, back to the garden.
Gratuitous Picture for a Friday Morning- Dream Girl.
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Rode in Today......... And helped me finish off the wood splitting project!
Damn. It's nice to have friends. KidK and NotsoGentleBen once again come through.
No, I never asked them for help. They just found out I was still slaving away at that wood pile and they showed up. Hungover and all. I had made big progress on that pile already but I still had a whole bunch of Big Ass Pieces that were way above my weight class and what I was gonna easily manage. These two Cock Strong young dudes did the heavy lifting for a few hours and we got the whole pile finished!
I'd have still been out there next week if I were on my own.
Now it's simply a matter of gathering everything up and stacking it all in one good place. I haven't figured out exactly where that is yet but I have the hard part done so that's ok.
I'll say it again - It's good to have friends. I'm a damn lucky guy to have friends like this.
Well, Just Kiss the 4th Amendment Goodbye........... The 4th amendment states: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." That's been the rule since this country was founded. The Indiana Supreme Court just decided otherwise- Court: No right to resist illegal cop entry into home
"INDIANAPOLIS | Overturning a common law dating back to the English Magna Carta of 1215, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Hoosiers have no right to resist unlawful police entry into their homes.
In a 3-2 decision, Justice Steven David writing for the court said if a police officer wants to enter a home for any reason or no reason at all, a homeowner cannot do anything to block the officer's entry."
Yeah. Go ahead and read the above quote again and let that sink in a bit. And welcome to the new Police State, folks!
I saw this last night at Mayberry's place and his post title says it quite well - "Fire up the tar kettle".
Now I work with law enforcement all the time and have good friends who are cops so it's not like I have a hard-on for cops. Quite the opposite. EMS, ER folks and Cops work hand in hand and develop close personal relationships. We all look after each other because we know that each of us may need the others if we ever end up in a "Bad Shit" situation.
I have a lot more to say about this but I gotta go to work so I'll post more later.
Nothing good can come from this kinda shit, folks.
Gratuitous Picture for a Saturday Morning- This is what crap rulings like this leads to.
My policy of planting 2 trees for every one I cut continued today. Hopefully, these will do better than the last batch I planted.
Worked yesterday in the ER till midnight. Hate to admit it, but I wasn't worth a shit. To damn tired and sore from all the lumber jacking.
It was a good thing we had a fairly uneventful day - Except for the Gun Shot Wound to the head.
Haven't seen one of those for awhile. Nobody seemed to sure if it was self inflicted or not. Details were kinda sketchy and the entry was at an odd angle. Doable, just not the norm.
We tubed his ass and flew him out to, Big City Trauma Center pronto. So other than that it was a pretty low key day. I'm glad of it too. I'm taking it easy here today and decided to give my ass a break and layoff the woodpile work today. I might even take a damn nap later.
A boy has to recoup once in a while.
Gratuitous Picture for a Friday Afternoon- Today's post brought to you by......
I May Be Wore Out Now......... But this is gonna be worth it come next Winter.
I've spent the better part of the last 2 days splitting wood. After last week, cutting up that Huge Maple, I was wore to a nubbin' before this project started.
Not to worry. I've split a shitload of wood this week already and will be moving on to this pile tomorrow I hope- This pile has had 2 more good size trees added to it since this picture was taken, too.
What I've split the last 2 days? Maybe 1/4 - 1/3 of what's in this picture.
So I've got my work cut out for me for the next week or 2.
I'm hoping to get the bulk of the Garden in Friday. Not sure how I'm gonna do that yet. Everything is still wet as hell.
I cut some grass today and even in the areas that are normally good and dry, I was coming close to getting stuck in the mud.
Can't say it enough. Damn glad I ain't a Farmer. For those of you so inclined, you may take note of this and plan ahead. Commodities that include corn or wheat are gonna be rising even more than they have already. Think about that and do what needs to be done now. You'll be glad you did later. A full pantry is soon to be worth a lot more than money in the bank.
Well shit, I wanted to show you some pics of things but I'm having trouble getting pictures from the phone to the computer. Maybe tomorrow.
Update- Got a few pics. There's more but you can get an idea of how much wood has been split this week already. Not bad for an old guy. There's 2 more piles like this also. LOTS of wood.
"If you came from another land with the dream of becoming an American, not to loot, not to plunder, not to destroy, welcome. If you came here and have been lured by the easy way presented to you by those who would destroy this land and her people, now is a good time to leave. At least you won't be leaving in a box. If you came here and have been straddling the fence, pick a side."
I have this guy on my links for a reason.
Gratuitous Picture for a Monday Night- It was a nice day today. Should have had my ass out on the bike. Glad my ass doesn't look like this.
Rainy Sunday Morning........ Like we need any more of that. It's a damn swamp here at the "GrumpyUnk Command and Control Bunker" as it is.
The grass hasn't been cut in most of the place because it's just to wet & it will be weeks till a lot of it dries out enough to cut.
Oh well.
Gotta go fight the Zombies in the ER again today so here's an interesting little thing I saw at Tam's place the other day The night we bombed Oklahoma:
Bird in the Hand............ Is worth 2 in the Stove. Well, something like that anyway. Had a pair of Bluebirds caught in the woodstove the other morning.
Not exactly sure how they worked their way into that chimney cap but there they were stuck down in the stove.
It's a darn good thing for them that stove has a glass door on it or no one would have noticed them flitting around inside there.
Pretty little things.
We've got 3-4 pairs of them nesting in different places around the house this year. Don't know where this pair went but I'm glad they got out.
Gratuitous Picture for a Saturday Morning-
Zombies don't really qualify as Co-operative do they?
In the post below I was wondering how I was gonna turn that big ass tree over to finish cutting it up into manageable sections.
Toaster802 of Green Mountains Homesteading left the following in the comments - "ass that tree around with that tractor. That will make it go!"
He was right about that, too. The problem was I needed to replace one of the rear rims that was rusted through to the tune of - the tube was bulging out. It was bad when I bought the tractor last Fall and I've just been farting around not wanting to spend the money to get it fixed as there was other things that also needed fixing.
You know how it is. Since you and I can't just print the money when we need it, like the Government does, I'd been holding off on this project.
Till Toaster left that comment.
I called the local tire guy and damn if he didn't have the rim and tube in stock and had the service truck available today too. Well shit, what was I to do but say, "Go for it"?
The service guy came out and changed it out right here for way less than I would have figured and there ya go. My little tractor is all better (in this area) and I drove it down to where I was working on that Big Ass Tree and turned it over as slick as you please.
This was the maiden voyage out on pavement and it handled well. I'd never even had it in Road Gear before today.
So there ya go! I'm almost finished on the tree. The tractor is mostly functional now and all's right with the world.
Sometimes I just need a prod in the right direction to do what needs to be done.
Big Ass Tree Work.......... One of my neighbors had a huge old Maple tree taken down by the power company awhile back and it's been laying in his front yard since about December.
Some friend of his started cutting it up for firewood but apparently gave up after the easy part was done. So he asked me if I would cut it up and get it out of there for him.
Me being a sucker and a nice guy said "Sure, I can do that".
Holy shit. That thing is at least 48 inches in diameter and about 20 feet long. Not counting the branches still attached to it.
But never the less I went to work on it this afternoon and made a big dent in getting it cut up. Tomorrow I have to figure a way of turning it over so I can finish cutting it into sections. Just me and the Cant Hook/Pevey ain't gonna do it. Gonna take more power than my old ass can muster to roll that big thing over.
I'll take the chain and some big ass spikes and try to use his 4 wheeler to do it. It's to wet to pull my truck up in his yard.
We'll see. Once I get that thing cut into sections I will have to split them right there in order to get 'em to a small enough size that I can move. Oh boy. Wedges and sledge hammer time. I wish I could weigh a few of those sections just to see how big they are. Ah, it's all good. My ass needs the exercise anyway and there's gonna be a shit ton of good firewood.
The Sun even came out for an hour or 2 this afternoon. Hope that trend holds up. The farmers are gonna be cutting it close getting crops in the ground as it is. More rain could be a disaster. Farming = Legalized Gambling. I don't know how they do it sometimes.
Good News for a Sunday Night....... About an hour ago it was announced that the US Military killed Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan.
Good job fellas.
President Jug Ears BumbleFuck is making the formal announcement now. I'm glad he had the stones to give the go order on that. Frankly, I wouldn't have bet that he would have.
Nice surprise that.
As nice as it is to have whacked that nasty bastard, OBL, it probably isn't gonna change to much in the scheme of things these days. That's ok. We can be happy that OBL is rotting in hell anyway.
