comrade simba

Trim and paint, cabinets and fixtures and then one more coat of poly on the floors and I go find me a renter while hassling Wells Fargo for the last third of the insurance check. Looks like I’ll have this gut to the studs remodel job knocked out in time for the fall garden…

14 months ago I got The Call from the fire department. 14 months of one big pain in the ass. The thing that has kept me going is the full color brochure of the 16 Series Mahindra tractor taped to the fireplace mantle in the house. That way, when I’m slumped over tired to the bone on the stairwell “tractor” gets me back up for another round of fun. I probably moan out “Mahindra” in my sleep at night.

Somewhere along the line during this time period I’ve become completely indifferent (or maybe just totally disgusted with) to commerce and shopping and people and traffic – the general mayhem of civilized culture. 16 hours on a belt sander grinding and smoothing 1740 sq ft of tongue and groove flooring sucks a lot worse than the same time spent playing “find the vegetables” in the garden. The hour’s commute each way to the house is so seemingly pointless that I have taken to camping out there two nights a week to save the time wasted. Most people are shitty drivers at best, and now that the cell phone texting phenomenon has taken over it’s flat out dangerous on the road. I swear to god when this thing is over I’m never setting foot in a Lowe’s or Home Despot again. They can go on my Wal-Mart list… I simply can’t stand subjecting myself to being around that level of consumerism anymore.

14 months ago the insurance check was 3000 less than what I owed on the mortgage. some guy offered 5000 for the burned out carcass. I could walked with 2 grand in the pocket but noooo, I went for the 18 grand net profit. Never again. I’m going back into retirement in a month and never looking back. Out of the economy, peripheral involvement in commercial activity and back to leaving the homestead once a week to offload eggs and visit my mother. Hanging out until the power goes out, ho ho!

I miss being home. I missed the first goat kid of the season the other day. I know the wife is sick of all the critter chores since summer came and I’m on the job all day every day. I miss blogging – no time to sort out all the things in my head and say what I mean. I feel like I’ve lost 14 months of my life and wonder how in the hell people do most folks watch years and decades go by in the mill without going postal. I’ll get more than a tractor out of this deal… I got a good close up look at a culture choking on its own vomit.

Took a break from the internet for a number of reasons. First, lightning zorched my ethernet card and I hate using the wife’s laptop – or any other computer for that matter. Too busy to deal with getting a new part.

Another reason for being gone is that now that summer is here and my wife and son are home all day to take care of critters I’m working on the rental house rebuild all day every day – even camping out there a couple nights a week to save on commute time. The T&G flooring is all done (1700 sq ft of the shit), sheet rock hanging will be done after tomorrow’s festivities, so I’m down to trim, paint, cabinets and setting fixtures. Of course I’m too cheap to just go out and buy trim – I’m making it out of the old flooring I pulled up. Rip it on the table saw, cut it with the chop saw, router the edges and grind with the belt sander. It’ll hold paint anyway, and trim being way over a buck a foot that’s a pretty good chunk of change to convert into tractorage, ho ho!

As long as the hole in the gulf keeps burping up shit there’s no reason to do anything but ramp up for heavy economic jolts to ‘merica’s non negotiable way of life, so I bought my boy a single shot Daisy .22 rifle. Little twirp has a tighter 3 shot grouping at 20 yards than I do! We went to a Jake’s Day Field Event a couple of weeks ago and he shot 6 out of 6 targets on the .22 range – first time with a 22 so it was time to gun him up. Also, after one throw to get his distance he stuck the target every time with a Tomahawk. Proud father, eh?

Thanks for all the comments on the last post – I’m going back into the tunnel for a couple more weeks until I have to pay bills online again. Enjoy cheap gas courtesy of demand destruction while it lasts, and buy more beans, canning lids, ammo, seeds, and other doom stuff before the next wave of people wake up and say Folgers.