Into the New Year

Like an old car with a weak battery, I'm hard to crank over when it's cold outside. Once I get started, I can run with the best of them.

The past few weeks have been taken up with research for the books I'm working on and doing the agent hunt dance.

When I get away from the keyboard I've been helping a neighbor repair his barn roof. Which is not exactly the type of activity most people engage in during the winter months. It's more of a spring, summer, fall kind of job, which you don't want to fall down on. Tied to a safety rope while sliding across the 45 degree slope of a 60 year old barn is not a leisurely situation. Sure it's not mountain climbing, but then I'm not living in the mountains.

I'm running roofing screws down through crusty tin and corroded aluminum panels, securing them to weathered wood which is more rot than wood in some places. It's a good thing that I'm not too heavy at this time in my life.

Anyone else might go through the roof. Which as those of you who have experienced the vertigo, acceleration and then abrupt deceleration of any fall knows that it's not how it happens, but what lies between you and the ground that can hurt you.

It's good, old fashioned, physical work and it pays off in keeping me sharp plus giving my balance and muscles a work-out. My 80 year old neighbor appreciates it and it keeps his barn roof together.

Getting my mind off my writing brings me back to the computer refreshed and ready to get on with the project at hand.

Time to Launch the 'New' Video

It's been fun, the past 6 weeks. The weather went from too hot to too cold and I've still got a Sable sitting in the barn, unpainted. To say that I've not had time to work on the blog would be an understatement.

Still working on my short story series, doing updates on "Going Dutch, Trials of a Wage Slave" and working on the video script for my public service announcement.

Watching the "Occupy Wall Street" movement has been fun. What took them so long to realize that we have all been getting ripped off for the past 40 years. I could go into the history of how our social structure has been tuned to benefit certain parties, but that's a subject for another time.

Will update the blog when the video is up on YouTube.

Sweltering at the Ranch Has Stopped

Yeah, been a few months or more. This summer qualifies as 'Hell on Earth, the Un-Cool Version'. Don't know how it's been for you, but the weather has been nuts, either too hot, too much rain or wind or....

Too hot to paint, without a temperature and humidity-controlled paint booth. If the paint doesn't fog, the painter will drip sweat into it. So, it's a no-win situation, until the temp comes down to around 80F. Scuffed the Sable's rear quarter backing it into the barn, so just now getting around to fixing that mistake. Should be ready to paint next week, but I've sung that song before.

Farm work never stops. The baby bull, Rascal, is now almost as big as his momma and his cousin, Spunky, isn't far behind. It's funny how an 800 pound animal can act like a puppy, not realizing that he can bulldoze you like a blade of grass, if he gets upset.

Writing? I'm doing plenty of it. Got a couple of projects going, not including the new video work. Stay tuned.

Other than that, welcome to the wonderful fall weather, hurricanes included. Please keep all hands and feet inside the ark.

All the best,

Tom

Full Moon and Spring

What a week.

Put paint on the Mercury Sable and did something I haven't done in years. Ran the paint till it dripped, like I'd never painted a car before in my life! Can't remember when this happened last but it made for lots more work. Spent yesterday sanding the drips down and will spend part of today sanding the rest of the car. It's like starting all over again.

The weekend was interesting, if not educational. Saturday I went to a class in "Lead Safety, Removal, Renovation and Painting". After the class, all I can say is, 'invest in plastics'. You'll need lots of plastic, as in tarps, gloves, etc. to comply with the federal regs on removing old paint in houses built before 1978. Or you could just bulldoze the place.

Got an email from an old high school buddy, hadn't heard from him in, well we won't go into ancient history, but it's been a long time. He's been doing stuff I wish I had pursued, but we can't do everything in this life, try as we may. I don't know if I can even mention what he's been doing, will have to wait and see what's allowed to be discussed. Yes, folks, that's the way the government works. You have no need to know.

The full 'super' moon was a sight to see this weekend. Took some photos and shot some video of it, for the record book. Will have to wait and see if we experience any earth shakes in the next few weeks. Doesn't look good for the short term.

Other than that, enjoy this new start to the year. It's been great here, 80 degree weather, the pear tree is in full bloom (very early) and I'm looking to get the rototiller out and churn up the garden plot.

Now all I have to do is watch out for the snakes.

Into the Spring

Busy, too swamped with work and literally flooded in the lowlands around here to have time to post on the old blog.

Will increase the blog posts, starting with coverage of the books that I've read over the past few months.

That will have to wait until I get this weekend out of the way. Going to get the Mercury Sable finished off, primer it and look to paint it next week, when the weather finally breaks into the 70's.

As for the folks out there who are dealing with the employee/employer issues and worker rights, I'll be putting up some comments on my 01Wage Slave blog.

It's going to be an interesting year!

Would Chuck Wood for Work

Otherwise, I can't wait to chuck winter for spring.

You been having a nice, mild winter? Not here. I've been playing lumberjack most of this winter, in conditions that are common up North, but downright aggravating here. I've cut and split enough wood for three 'regular' winters and it's not over yet.

I expect 50 degree weather this time of year, not highs of around 30. Which is the normal low temp overnight.

So, this past week, we went from highs in the upper 20's to temps now in the lower 70's! Great weather to catch the flu.

Posting here has been spotty, at best.

It's a good thing that I don't have access to the internet on a full time basis or I'd get nothing done on my writing or around the farm.

Love the internet, great source of info, etc., but it makes me want to comment on things that I should leave alone.

So, it's back to the shop, where a Sable awaits me. Time to put paint on it and ship it down the road. Then it will be tractor maintenance time.

Believe me, I look forward to a nice, relaxing hour or two in front of my computer, working on my writing. Some people think it's a grind, but they should try manual labor for a while.

Then they would appreciate how easy it is to give your opinion on things you aren't going to change without making a real, physical effort.

Back to work, wage slaves.

Ending the Year with a Calf

So, don't have a cow, man.

Been busy, so busy that there's been very little time to work on the blog. Cutting, splitting firewood, burned more so far this year than all of last year. Winter weather during the fall season, broke some records, a reverse of this summer. I'm sure you're enjoying the weather where you are.

The 'herd' has been self-thinning. Curlie (Curly?) jumped the fence for the last time about three weeks ago. The Boss and our neighbor decided to reach an agreement on the situation, so she was sold to the neighbor. Now, she stands at HIS fence and bellows, while looking over at our pasture. She's a cow, so go figure.

LuLu (again, I didn't name these heifers), decided that enough was enough and delivered her calf on Christmas Eve day. I was cutting some standing deadwood down by the creek when MoMo bellowed at me from the hillside. I could see LuLu was down, but didn't think much of it. Went to check on her about an hour later. She had the new boy with her. He's a healthy little dude, about 60-70 pounds and bigger than my German Shepherd.

So, a Christmas calf and a baby bull at that!

Now, if I can get some bull market activity on my writing, then it'll be a GREAT 2011.

Have a healthy and prosperous New Year!

Bovine Social Club

You have lazy Sunday afternoons, where you lie around, perusing what to do, if you don‘t take a nice, quiet nap. I know that I’ve had a few, but lately, most of them have been taken up with catching cows. This is not to be confused with Mad Cow disease, although you might make a cow mad while attempting to herd it home.

If you are wont to enjoy the company of your neighbors in a natural, rural setting, there is nothing like trying to get a lovelorn heifer back to the home pasture. Especially if she’s mixed in with about thirty other head of cattle, a half-dozen horses and a mule. Let me not neglect the Bull of the herd and it’s young son, Bull, jr.

This stray heifer, not exactly light of hoof at about 800 pounds, has been the cow errant of the farm. She likes to jump fences, even if said fence is of barbed wire construction and about three feet tall. Which is not the usual height of a good farm fence. It’s the height of some of the fence here due to lack of maintenance. Fence gets taken down by trees, animals, broken posts, etc. There’s always something to mend on a farm.

My neighbor Carol, having encouraged my father into getting this ‘herd’, is a willing participant in the care and feeding of said animals. I was against it from the start, as I knew who would get roped in, so to speak, when it came to dealing with the overall care of the ‘herd’. My previous experiences having been with a herd of about 25 cattle last year that a former girlfriend happened to have on her property. They spent more of their time over the fence, in the road or wandering in the woods then they did in the fields. Since both the cattle and my ex-girlfriend were spending more time wandering than staying home, it was best that we split. So, I really didn’t want to have to deal with more of the same, with less help, this year. At least I knew which watering hole the cows were drinking at.

When I showed up at my neighbor Carol’s door, she was in the middle of cooking beans and watching “Of Mice and Men”, which could be the story of living in my old farmhouse, but the mice have taken to committing suicide by water bucket lately, a topic which I may dwell on in a later blog.

It would be about an hour before the beans and the movie would be over, so I went out to the shop and worked on various projects. I put a couple of coats of paint on the now welded up ATV gas tank, then started taking apart the wood burning fireplace insert. Haven’t been able to sell it, so I’m going to cut it down to fit my small fireplace. It’s more than twice as big as the wood burner I’m using now.

Carol came out to get me when she was ready to go. I got some rope, a big plastic coffee can of sweet feed and found a wooden stick, about 1 ½ X 2 inches and 4 feet long. Didn’t think to bring a ball bat. Carol had her cane that she used when they operated on her knee. It helps to have a nice stick when you’re dealing with a herd or even a single animal. As Carol found out earlier in the week, when a very preggers LuLu all 1,000+ pounds of her, cornered Carol and tried to butt her, wanting to get to that can of sweet feed. Which is a real treat for cattle and horses, kind of like chocolate for kids with hooves. Three basic rules of dealing with cattle: Don’t get in with them while feeding them, don’t get between a heifer and her calf and NEVER fuck with the bull. You will get the horn, if not run over.

We piled into her van, since the farm truck was hooked to a trailer and went up the road to the neighbor’s pasture. At the field, we walked about a ¼ mile, looking through the scattered herd for “Curly”. Don’t give me any grief about these names, I didn’t name the cows, Carol did. We spot Curly on the far side of the pond. I notice a very anxious black cow, which I mistake for a bull. She’s dancing around, running back and forth. That’s when I ask Carol, “Does JW have any bulls out here?”
“Yep, why?”
“I think I see one.”
That’s when I realize that Carol, festive person that she is, is wearing a bright red Christmas sweatshirt under her bright orange University of Tennessee windbreaker, with athletic shoes. We’re being subtle here, right? I’m dressed in standard farm regalia, bib overalls, heavy boots and a black and white checked hoodie, dark blue ball cap. Just like you see down at the local feed store, rapping to the oldies.

“Uh, Carol, you might want to zip up your jacket, since that bull might not like your red sweatshirt.”

I won’t repeat her reply, lets just say that she zipped up her windbreaker while dodging ankle deep cow pies.

Turning back to the cow in question. Curly was regarding us with a wary look. She’d seen people coming for her before and it usually wasn’t a good sign. I tried to ‘make friends’ with her by using the old, native ritual of shaking the gourd, in this case, rattling a plastic coffee can of sweet feed, while calling “Here babe, come on, here babe.” Hey, it works for witch doctors, right?

She looked at me like I was some thick-glasses wearing geek in a hillbilly costume. I kept up the chant. The dancing cow gets closer and I realize that she’s a young heifer, couldn’t see her udder, since she isn’t mature. Curly comes on and gets about four feet from me, the smell of sweet feed drawing her and twenty other cows. I throw some out on the ground and she bows her head to munch it. As soon as I pull the rope out of my pocket she moves off. We proceed to play ‘chase the cow’ for the next half hour.

During this time, we realize that there is a bull in this pasture, actually there‘s two of them. Big Bull’s watching with more than a little interest, kind of like a pimp watching over his ladies. His son, Bull, jr. is prancing around, playing with his mom. Which is hard to imagine, 500 pounds of dancing beef. Big Bull, he’s cool, you would be too, if you weighed in around 1800 pounds. He looks like a four-legged locomotive with a head about two feet wide. All I can think is that I’m glad that he’s not a big one. I had one about 2300 pounds come at me last year when the herd stampeded due to 4th of July fireworks going off. The only thing that kept me from getting run over was the fact that I was next to a forest and got in behind a tree. The herd went through the forest, then they slowed down. They sauntered into the next field like nothing happened. Which made me happy, since that’s where I was trying to herd them to begin with.

We now have Big Bull decide that we’re messing with his heifer. Not only is he standing shoulder to shoulder with Curly, he’s got the rest of the bovine posse lined up with him. I faced some big offensive lines playing high school football. Which wasn’t hard, since I was the one of the smallest, lightest guys on the team and the only one that wore glasses in the whole league, while playing middle linebacker. Some of the guards and centers would laugh, until we made contact. Everything I did was within the rules. The problem is there’s no referees on this field and these animals have their own rules. You might outrun a bull for a hundred yards, if you’re a world-class sprinter. I guarantee that he’ll catch you in the second hundred.

Discretion being the better part of valor, I turned around and walked off, heading for the gate. Carol decided that would be a good idea also. I think she was growing tired of dodging cow pies and pushing horses away from her. They love sweet feed and aren’t shy about it. We had gone about a hundred feet when Carol said, “They’re following us.”

She was about twenty feet off to my left, I pivoted, looked over my shoulder. Sure enough, the bovine posse was duly following us towards the gate. We’re all out for a nice, Sunday afternoon stroll in the fields. As we get near the gate, the owner and his wife pull up. JW and Theresa park in the road and get out to help. JW shunts the horses off into a field next to the one Curly is in and closes the gate on them.

The bovine posse now has us cornered by the gate. 25,000 pounds of beef on the hoof versus three puny humans, who wouldn’t top 400 pounds altogether. The bovine posse craps more than we weigh in a day. We hold them at bay since we have the key ingredient, sweet feed. We rattle the cans, enticing them, warding off the animal spirits. Curly knows it’s ordained and shuffles forward, the rest of the herd holds back. They turn and move away, like they know we can’t be stopped and she’s been chosen to leave with us.

I get around behind her, moving slowly, urging her forward. JW keeps her from going down the right fence line and back out into the field. Carol opened the gate, wide enough to drive a truck through, shaking her can of sweet feed. Curly edges forward, then moves to up the fence line to my left. I dodge left and get her headed back towards the open gate. Curly gets within ten feet of it, then bolts left and turns on the speed like a halfback heading for the goal line. She’s gone, back into the middle of the field, in nothing flat.

A big roan mare decides that she’s seen enough and pushes the gate open, reaches over and rips the lid off of Carol’s coffee can. She wants that sweet feed! Carol bops her on the nose, while JW waves her back behind the gate into the small field.

We humans regroup, deciding that parking the maroon van and the big Chevy diesel dually at the gate might have kept Curly from coming out. The vehicles are moved, while I walk out into the field, trying to catch up with Curly. This is why you need either a good horse or a four-wheeler. A moto-cross bike would work, but I think that after hitting a few cow pies, you might have to be hosed off and fumigated before they let you in the house. Trying to walk/run after cattle will only wear you out.

After about another twenty minutes of chasing Curly, I’ve had it. I’m ready to go back to the shop, where the only cowhide is in gloves or seat covers. The Big Bull has ambled towards the lower pasture. He’s getting bored. Curly comes up along side him, going the other direction and gives him a ‘come-on’ rub with her butt. I’m watching this and decide that I better hang back, in case this is Sunday afternoon bovine lust. He ignores her and keeps heading towards the lower pasture. Miffed, she trots off across the big pasture and I start to follow her. JW yells at me, “Hey, forget it. We’ll get her tomorrow.”

I can only nod agreement and we trudge back across the pasture to the gate. He tells me about how he used to have two bulls, but last year one of them disappeared. He thinks it might have been stolen. I’m surprised. “How the hell could someone steal a bull? We can’t even get a heifer to follow us!”
He explains that they have a gun, shoots a dart with something in it that slows the bull down.

Whoa! I’m thinking, that’s it! Cows on ‘ludes! Where the hell are Quaaludes when you need them! No, wait, that would just make her really horny. That’s enough of a problem.

Wonder how many Valiums it would take?

Maybe we should just take her a bucketful of beer and let the drunk heifer stumble home behind us?

Sounds like an excuse for a kegger to me.

Yippie Ki Yaa

Or however that old cowboy saying goes...Guess I need to ask Bruce Willis, cowboy that he ain't.

No posts for the past few weeks, busy with the new 'herd'.

Let's just keep this brief and say it's been late nights, stuck trucks, tractor maintenance, heifers on the run and mending fences. Be glad that it's me and not you.

More work to be done this week and I need to be out of here. The weather's great and it's too nice to be inside. The internet is a great place to visit but I don't get my work done when I'm surfing it.

Beautiful weather and I need to get to the barn.

If it rains, more later this week.

Cows and Bushhogs

You know how you plan your week. Maybe you think about it over the weekend, set goals, promise yourself that you'll have this or that done FOR SURE, come Friday.

Last Monday started off great. Did some work on the new short story series, was closing the file when I heard a truck in the driveway.

My father, 78 years young, was outside, leaning on the horn. He had some plans for getting the main pasture ready for some cows. What cows? The cows he was going to buy that afternoon.

Which meant he wanted to bushhog the pasture. He got his favorite tractor out and I did an oil change and basic maintenance while he went to the livestock auction and bought some cattle.

When he came back he started making the rounds. After I did a few things, I caught up with him to find him driving around the pasture, knocking the overgrown field down, but not cutting anything. He had burnt the clutch out of the bushhog.

About this time, the cattleman showed up and delivered the cows. They disappeared into the field and I went back to the shop.

We put the bushhog in the shop, it turned out that it was in serious shape. My father tends to drive like he's racing at Le Mans, so I was looking at a fried bearing and a nice, deeply blue driveshaft. Overheating them will do that, if they don't seize up and shred something.

The rest of the week was spent chasing parts and cows. I got to work on a couple of my projects, but it meant for some long hours. Maybe I'll get to finish welding up those tool boxes this week.

At this time, we're waiting for bushhog parts and two of the cows are staying with the neighbor's herd. I guess they got lonely and left.

You got to love farm life. It's never what you expect.

One Bite at a Time

I'm trying to get some projects done before winter. This keeps me from doing as much writing as I would like but I usually get in an hour per day on my stories . The spider bite didn't do too much damage to my leg. It just takes time out of the day to treat it. Healing nicely, thank you.

Took on a project this week that I've been putting off all summer. Promised my neighbor that I'd weld up her 25 year old ATV's gas tank. Rust over the years has ate away at the gas tank.It had some small pinholes, but they can empty a tank overnight and you don't want gasoline all over your garage floor. It's a bit of a health and safety situation.

Oxygen-acetylene welding, for those of you who have never stuck an 1700 degree welding torch into a metal tank previously full of a highly flammable liquid, can be slightly nerve wracking. I took the proper steps, emptied the gas tank, filled it full of water, then went one step further, I put it in a cut-off 55 gallon drum full of water. Figured if it exploded it would contain the shrapnel. Don't want to mess up the shop with shredded Tom parts.

The small pinholes turned out to be major potholes. The more I welded it the worse it got. Now the tank has a huge brazed patch on the side, all in an attempt to control the splitting and cracking of the ATV tank. Old, rusty car parts will do this, gas tanks are the worst. You can get away with some pinholes in a weld on a fender, not on a gas tank.

I'm considering cutting the side out of the tank and making a new piece to repair it. What should have been a two hour job has turned into a nightmare. Which is a real bite out of my work week.

At least it hasn't blown up in my face.

NOTE: THE INFORMATION ABOVE IS NOT TO BE CONSIDERED AS A PROCEDURE, RECOMMENDATION OR INSTRUCTION FOR DOING ANY WELDING OR REPAIR WORK. WELD AT YOUR OWN RISK.

The Bite

Everyone loves the idea of living in an old farmhouse. OK, maybe not everyone. It's a romantic ideal for some people. All the old wood, high ceilings, beautiful views of fields and forests.

Then there's the reality. I've had wasps in the house, snakes stuck to the wall by the back door (a real eye opener when you reach for the door knob!) and the various creepy crawlies.

This past weekend I was snoozing in the sack when I felt a bite on my leg. Thought it was a mosquito that had somehow found me. Went back to sleep.

When I got up a couple of hours later, it was obvious that I was wrong.

A brown recluse spider bite is something you can't ignore.

I've been treating it now for the past 5 days and it's getting pretty ugly.

My neighbor has been bitten twice by a brown recluse. The first time she spent three days in the hospital and they cut out an infected mass bigger than a golf ball. She got bit again last year, treated it herself and it still took 6 weeks to heal.

She told me what to do and I'm taking care of it.

You got to love living in the country, but sometimes it puts the bite on you!

Communications, interrupted

I've been working, on the farm and writing projects. The "farm" includes car/equipment work, not to mention the typical farm activities.

Don't know if it's been the heat causing stress on the fruit and nut trees, but I've been having limbs break and even had our largest pecan tree split down one side, about one third of it cracked off and fell into the garden. Lots of firewood, but I hated to see the tree break apart like that.

As for the Great Agent Search. Just received an email from a friend in Australia. She complained of sending me emails for the past couple of weeks...and they were 'bounced' back to her.

If you're an agent and have had this happen, please resend. I really hate to send email after email to a person, in the hopes that the ISP or whatever is causing the problem gets their act together.

Otherwise, I'm gearing up for fun.

It's going to be a great Fall season!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

It's been some time since I've posted here. Busy has been the word.

The heat has slowed down work around the farm. If it's not done by about noon, forget it, you'll spend the afternoon frying in the sun. If you can stand to work in it!

The shop has been running around 100F+ for the past two months. No air-conditioning, except for a couple of small fans. If you aren't within 5 feet of them, forget it. Saw 112 degrees in there this past Sunday afternoon. I needed to get something, opened the door, ran in, grabbed what I needed (sunglasses I'd left in the car!), looked at the thermometer and headed out the door.

More fun later, getting some videos finished up, now that I've reworked the computer.

I just love all this high-tech stuff!

When it works.

Then the Rains Came

June is one of those 'benchmark months'.

I try to have the garden in, equipment repaired, a book done and out to agents, things of that sort.Thought I would have more done by now, but the monsoon-type weather we have had over the past 6 weeks has slowed me down.

The floods of May have left everything down here in a quagmire state. The garden is so wet that it's more mud than dirt.

Working at the shop can be a bit nerve wracking. It's an all metal building and welding during a thunderstorm isn't a good idea. The Baja Bug and Yanmar tractor projects are slowly getting done.

So, I've read a bunch of books and worked on my videos. Will be posting them to Youtube next week.

I'll also be adding some comments to my posts on the Richard Clarke cyberwar books.

On the Vine...OR Maybe It Isn't

Just joined Newsvine.

Read the article by Eve Tahmincioglu about contract work. Here's her article:
"Need a job, contract work could be new normal"

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36826679/ns/business-careers


Then posted a comment about it, after I stopped laughing. (It beats crying about it.)

Don't know if it shows up on my new site. It's at http://tsegerson.newsvine.com/

Left another comment about 'contract work' here in the U.S.A. at http://www.%2001wageslave.blogspot.com/

I'm not worried, the rest of the country is now starting to catch on to what's really going on in the American workplace.

They can't keep telling tall tales to the Wage Slaves. We may look dumb, but we ain't stupid.

It ain't a pretty sight, what's going on in the workplace.

Wanna eat this year?

Get that garden in now.

What's Down For Now

Me and "THE TREE"

It was a tremendous lightening bolt followed by a deafening crash of thunder that brought me out of the house and onto the porch last year. Bits of bark were scattered across the porch. I picked one up, it still steamed a bit.

Across the road, the large red oak had a stripe down it where the bark had been stripped off by the lightening strike.

My neighbor decided to have the tree cut down, since it was too close to their house and posed a threat of crushing it if it fell. A very real danger down here, since we have tornadoes and high winds in the Spring.

It's an old tree. We haven't been able to figure the age yet, but it's got to be close to 100 years old. I did a rough measurement on it and it's about 4 feet across and 80 feet tall. Or it was 80 feet tall.

So far, it's taken me over a week to cut the smaller branches off and work down to the big stuff. I'm talking limbs that are over a foot in diameter. Lots of tree left to process.

Most of it will wind up as firewood, keeping the old home warm when the cold winds blow.

The trunk, that's another story. I've always wanted to carve a large chair. Something about 10 feet tall, big enough for two people.

That or about a dozen nice coffee tables.

April, Who's Getting Fooled?

Time flies by, when you're working all the time.

I've been doing farm work, started the outline for the follow-up to the novel I just finished. Shouldn't say 'finished' because there will be revisions, edits, etc. when it gets sold to a publishing house. Let's just call it done for now. Doing the 'waiting on the agents' thing.

Dragged the Baja Bug off the trailer the other day. Can't believe it'll be 30 YEARS in June since I bought the beast. It was a typical, simple, red VW Beetle at that time. Got it from the second owner. The car has sat for about 10 years now. Stored while I worked in Europe and haven't had time to do any work on it since I've been back here. Too many other toys and irons in the fire.

May start yet another blog, to follow the rebuild work on the Baja Bug. I'll get some photos up in the next week or so. I started a video the other day to document the rebuild process. I've only built, rebuilt, modified, customized about two dozen VWs in my life, so I should have it looking good in time. Notice I didn't specify how much time...

Other than that, just enjoying the July weather in April. This can't be good, no matter how much we all love it. If it stays this way, will it be 130 in July?

I got a nice start on a sunburn yesterday, rototilling the garden with the tractor, before I realized that I was turning into a TOMato.

Enough of the bad puns, later.

Cut to the Chase...Agents and Rewrites

There won't be a follow-up post about the fire down the road. It would take too much space. The 'blog post' I wrote about it came in around 3,000 words. More a short story than a blog post.

Too much to do, getting ready for Spring planting. Already have some things done, but need to get more seed beds started and the garden ready. Plan on putting in a new orchard, mainly plum trees, but may try to add a few pear trees.

The 'to do' list at the shop is more a 'to do catalogue'. I'm still engineering the dump truck tailgate. This is not your usual tailgate. It's going to both tilt and swing open. It's a real workout to move the 40x92 inch tailgate around to make things fit and work correctly. Who needs time in the gym?

The novel rewrite is progressing, if that's a proper term for my slogging through mud pace. I'm now at the same spot I was back in January, before I lost the file. Time to put my foot down and increase speed.

Agents? Still reading blogs and doing research. If you're interested in representing me, don't hesitate to contact me.

Like any good gambler will tell you, "You can't win, if you don't play."

Place your bets!

Fractures and Fires

What a week. Glad it's about over.

Since my last post, I cracked/broke a couple of bones in my left foot. Working on the dump truck tailgate, a large piece of angle iron dropped from the truck bed. My foot didn't get out of the way in time. Landed just above the steel-toe part of my work boots.

Nothing like 30+ pounds of steel falling four feet to land on your foot! It was more than an 'ouch' moment.

This led to me hobbling around the farm and shop the past couple of weeks. You can't stop, just because your foot looks like a blue-black lump.

Thought that I got a reprieve this past Wednesday. Rain was forecast, but we mainly got high winds, up to around 50MPH. I checked out the window, looked east, storm clouds. Went out the front door, stood on the porch, looked west. More storm clouds. Some were really low, blowing across the road. Hmmm, white, not dark gray.

That's when I realized the field up the road was on fire. Right next to my neighbor's house.

I'm still writing the post on the fire. More later.