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Post by steev on Feb 4, 2019 23:10:02 GMT -5
Saw the house; not big, but 5 times the footage of the pump-house I've crashed in the past 13 years, virtually palatial in comparison.
I had the house canted to the north-west so the view from the living-room was of the coastal mountains. Guess which wall has no windows. I'm pretty sure I said I wanted a large window in that wall, but I'll have to check whether I have any proof of that; it can be fixed; the question only being who has to pay for it.
Favas are sprouting; I should prune my fruit trees; don't think I'll get to it, too many other things to do, not like I have time to deal with a lot of fruit; that's a whole 'nother project. On down the road, gotta build a screen-house for a drying facility (and a sulfuring shed). So many projects; so little time.
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Post by philagardener on Feb 5, 2019 20:55:24 GMT -5
Guess which wall has no windows. Well, if you can't have a picture window maybe a picture will have to do . . .  |
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Post by steev on Feb 6, 2019 11:20:57 GMT -5
My contractor will put in a window. Years ago, my sweetheart had a small office with no window, so she painted one to hang up.
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Post by steev on Feb 16, 2019 13:15:45 GMT -5
Jeez! I'm currently living in the Post Apocalypse, having totaled my truck; spent a day in hospital, but I'm OK, mostly just a tad stiff; sometimes I think I lead a charmed life; dangerous: that's usually when the hammer falls. So now I've gotta crank up to cover the loss, keep my clients, keep my helper, have transport to the farm, and still progress on the house and planting reclamation; maybe I'll take up golf in my spare time, so as to not get bored. Went to see my sweetheart, bearing Valentine candy and bad news; she knows me well enough to know she didn't need to tell me what a disaster I am, unlike my landlady, who went off on me until I told her I respected her right to vent her fear and anger, but that I didn't want to be her audience, being "too fucking tired".
Sometimes life is too damned interesting.
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Post by philagardener on Feb 16, 2019 13:36:01 GMT -5
Ouch! Glad you sound mostly OK.  |
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Post by steev on Feb 16, 2019 17:30:54 GMT -5
Only the good die young; Heaven won't have me and the Devil doesn't want the competition; I'll continue my sentence of "life at hard labor" until released for good behavior (snicker).
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Post by ferdzy on Feb 16, 2019 20:24:43 GMT -5
Glad to hear it "could have been worse", Steev.
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Post by philagardener on Feb 16, 2019 21:10:23 GMT -5
Only the good die young; Heaven won't have me and the Devil doesn't want the competition; I'll continue my sentence of "life at hard labor" until released for good behavior (snicker). Oh, nothing to worry about then!  |
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Post by steev on Feb 20, 2019 12:42:12 GMT -5
Found Tuesday that my helper has moved on; looking for a rental p'up but may have to settle for a minivan, parking being such a pain in town.
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Post by steev on Feb 20, 2019 21:15:47 GMT -5
Contacted a truck rental; very spendy for my circumstances; also found a used truck that may make better sense, depending on what the dealer says tomorrow.
Been using public transport the past three days (plus a lot of shank's mare); I'm very impressed by the progress of the past forty years.
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Post by steev on Feb 22, 2019 11:38:33 GMT -5
Bought a p'up yesterday; my lately flirtation with automatic transmission is over, ditto to power windows and locks; I'm back to driving stick and DIY. Fewer comforts, fewer things to crap out. Now, if I can find a helper, I'll really be on the road again.
It'll be a great relief to get to the farm, feed the cat, plant my lettuce starts and other things, harvest narcissus.
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Post by steev on Feb 22, 2019 20:30:26 GMT -5
Since I missed last weekend, when they would have been started blooming, I expect both my sweetheart and my landlady will get a bouquet. I plant more every year, as they're virtually immune to critter predation, a very valuable quality OTF.
Got some work done today with the new p'up; it has no bed-liner and a locking roll-up bed cover, which is potentially useful, but I'd prefer a lumber-rack; I suspect that will be spendy to install, if possible. I got my stick chops back very quickly; maybe when I'm 90 I'll go automatic again.
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Post by reed on Feb 23, 2019 7:52:45 GMT -5
I'v never owned a vehicle with automatic transmission, feels weird when I have to drive one. Lawn maintenance guys around here haul trailers for their mowers and weed eaters, don't think most of them have ever planted anything.
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Post by steev on Feb 23, 2019 14:17:42 GMT -5
I've never gotten that tooled-up, never having had a secure place to park such a trailer or tool-truck, nor needed equipment I couldn't load and unload daily; bear in mind, I kind of backed into the landscaping and maintenance business while employed as a bench chemist (jumped-up lab tech), as a way to write off my first rototiller. People didn't want tilling, they wanted their lawns mowed etc, so it was "sure, I can do that" and go buy whatever tool I needed and/or hit the books to get he job done; the first lawn I mowed was so overgrown that I didn't see the sprinkler-head that was in the center, just the ones on the edges, so I bent the shaft of my new mower, half an hour out of the box.
The only other auto trannie I've owned is a '62 Plymouth Valiant that was the only thing of value my ex couldn't take when she left; I keep it kind of like a scalp; haven't driven it for years, but I'll spark it up once I'm on the farm, just to tool around OTF; it's fun, push-button trannie on the left; reminds me of my first car, a '52 MGTD with the stick on the left, right-hand drive, and like running a platen-press with left shift lever. Muscle-memory is a trip; I was a wash-out at judo, but pretty fair at epee, so I figure, if it comes to that, I can do those moves with a cane; Cyrano de PlanT Farm (Way past PlanB), c'est moi!
Truthfully, I regret the automatic trannie; first, stick requires a higher level of skill and attention, and second, dipshits driving around town wouldn't be so free to have their heads up a cellphone, if they were driving stick. Whippersnappers! Grump!
I am reminded I need to score a spare rebuilt trannie, to minimize downtime.
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Post by reed on Feb 23, 2019 16:53:38 GMT -5
I did a lot of mowing when I was kid, pulled my old push mower around town on my bicycle. Had an extra little cart in between for glass pop bottles which I could sell for a nickel a piece. I was freakin rich. One crazy old lady had a yard that was nothing but flowers, berries and fruit trees with little paths between, I called it the jungle. Her name was Miss Brown, the original perma-culturist. She paid me a LOT of money to keep it weeded by hand, as much as my other jobs put together. Plus gifted me with trinkets she had accumulated globally in her younger years. I still a have an 18 karat gold pocket watch, an ancient carved jade incense burner and a few other things. Had to be careful we learned, not to mention we liked something or to ask what is was because her almost inevitable reply was, "why, you can have that" our mom and dad made us give some of it back, that was embarrassing cause you could tell it hurt her feelings. She was kinda mean too, shamed me into reading "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" good god, I was only 11 or so and she gave sneaky verbal quizzes, again terribly embarrassing to not know the answer. Another time she gave us a box full of little pieces of wood for Christmas, We were so self impressed to quickly figure out it was a puzzle, but we were wrong. It was five puzzles, a square, a sphere, an elephant, a turtle and and a biplane. She had retired from teaching the University of Chicago a couple decades before and seemed to know a lot about something or another called the Manhattan Project, which I found fascinating. There was a fellow who sat by a rope with an ax, his job if necessary was to chop the rope and drop a strange bar into a pile of even stranger stuff. They called him the Single Control Rod Ax Man. Later they added more rods but they still called it SCRAM
How the heck did I get to rambling about Miss Brown? O' mowing grass and her car had a push button transmission.
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