|
|
We live on a year-round creek, but upstream of us are people who may lawfully divert as much of the water as they wish… OR let any fraction of the natural flow roll through our yard. It is one thing to accommodate what nature sends our way. It is another thing entirely to be at the downstream end of humans with unknown (likely tenuous) attachments to nature. Last year I had extended access to a backhoe. Among the projects I knocked out was to build a backwater so Beagle Brain (our beagle/lab cross) could no longer sneak out of the vulnerable spot where the containment fence crosses the creek. I even built a fish ladder in case jumping into […]
You have-to have initials after your name to lend credibility to your projects and pronouncements. My latest creation inspired me to append “STEE” to my name. Further explanation will wreck the aura, but I’ll go ahead anyway. It stands for Shade Tree Electrical Engineer… similar to the Shade Tree Mechanic title I earned repeatedly with my auto/truck/motorcycle/tractor repair toolset. Running a ham radio shack requires steady, clean 12-volt electricity. Handheld transceivers, HTs, or walkie-talkies if you prefer, have their own batteries. Cheaper ones use AA or AAA, but most use rechargeables whose chargers plug into standard 120-volt household outlets. Our mobiles and base units all run on 12-volt direct current in our shacks, vehicles or deployed field stations. I […]
Mozart Piano Concerto No 3 in D major is a lovely piece, but to watch a 5-year-old smoke it out on a grand piano is an amazing treat. While 20 adult musicians read and play their parts off sheet music, the diminutive Russian holds it all in his head. More amazing is the power this little guy puts into the keyboard. His tone, articulation, rhythm, timing and feel are as good as any adult I can imagine playing this piece. And DO STAY for the encore. He is clearly enjoying this short piece. Observe the audience reaction. Were this in the USofA a handful of simpleton boys in man bodies would be dog whistling for minutes after this lovely, sensitive […]
I enjoy my carnivorous plants a heckuva lot more than flypaper, to understate more than a little. The wonderful folks at California Carnivores provide insect control for me year after year. My honeydew from a couple years ago is still among the living – and presumably happy campers in my home. Officially known as drosera capensis, my honeydew is highly photogenic and wonderful for keeping little flying insects in check. Peter D’Amato, founder and principle at California Carnivores told me the little dewdrops at the end of the leaf hairs are ounce-for-ounce the stickiest substance known to man. Once an insect lands on one of these leaves it’s stuck. The leaf then curls up around, and digests the insect parts […]
My OLD, second-hand Ryobi table saw was the weak link in my workshop. Since I use the heck out of it, and the safety, ergonomics and power were all marginal, I finally brought that tool up to my shop standard. That, of course, necessitated construction of a new stand. This time I wanted to integrate my router so I could quit having to bring it out to set up every time I wanted to use it – a diversionary task that often had me selecting a plane, files and lots of sanding rather than going through the router setup and take-down chores. Better still, rather than having my router clamped on top of my 900-pound 3/4″-thick steel metal-work table, […]
Mid-April has given us a number of beautiful warm days that we celebrated with yard puttering. The wheelbarrow left behind from a clean-up project stands as a testament to the variegates Montana can send our way. Four inches of snow on the heels of a Tee-shirt weather week.
I began blogging, that is self-publishing Idaholiberty.com on the Internet in 2007. At the time, I was chairman of the Idaho Libertarian Party, growing it to its largest membership in 35 years, eventually twice a candidate for Idaho governor – very active politically, culturally, and doing my best to share knowledge. “The Blogosphere” seemed like a great tool … still does. In 2013 I found myself no longer tethered to Idaho’s Treasure Valley. Montana’s Bitterroot Valley had caught my interest long before. In March I found a cabin in Conner that was to become our foothold in this area and by June we had completed the move. You can see in my series Post Card From Conner, it is […]
My mission of mercy was to ferry my granddaughter from her Darby Montana old folks prison to Arco Idaho where her dad met us to carry her on for a few weeks with the rest of her family. While I scored a zillion points with all of them for spending the time and automobile miles on her deliverance, I will admit here that the retired race car driver flogging the retired race car is no chore at all. Don’t tell the family. They are bestowing “Hero points” on me for “giving up my day” and putting the miles on my car. Not everybody is suited to ride with me, but the 17-year-old was in the right frame of mind, […]
I was asked to accompany a prospective first-time firearm purchaser to a gun store in North Carolina. She just wanted someone to cover her six. Good thing, as it turned out. The half-wit behind the counter wanted to sell her one of those Hollywood-cool-factor wrist-cracker 12-gauge shotguns. I helped her get out of the store and told her to find a different dealership. Even the much lower-recoiling 20 gauge pump-action shotguns I recommend would be uncomfortable and marginally controllable without the normal shoulder stock. If somebody is pushing the handgun-mode setup your direction, find a different somebody to work with. Much more recoil than a .38 Special is too much for beginner or intermediate handgun use. In shotguns, definitely a […]
At 0400 hours (4:00 AM) this morning Scooter (aka: Beagle Brain, BLAB – Beagle Lab cross) bugged me to let her go outside. Experience has taught me to honor those requests. I saw this big, fat moon and remembered this was the night of this year’s largest super moon. So I shot it. I fetched my trusty Canon SX740HS camera with image stabilization and 40x zoom to take a couple of moon shots. It is pretty hard to hold a steady sight picture with a palm-sized camera, on an object 224,865 miles away, moving at a speed of 2,288 miles per hour, during the day. Harder still in the middle of the night when I would just as soon […]
Two weeks ago I shared insight into what the DARPA Virus was and was not in my post: virus not Made In China nor is it natural. The swift and unprecedented reaction by rulers around the globe implied foreknowledge of the unnatural, engineered virulence of this bug. I won’t repeat the evidence here – click that link for the back story. Searching Bitterroot Bugle for “virus” reveals a significant number of articles on the subject. I have said all along that the reaction by lamestream media and politicians will be a guaranteed horror; the virus itself a maybe. In Ravalli County, Montana the odds of coming in contact with someone who has tested positive for THE VIRUS is one out […]
My wife cannot imagine breakfast without eggs. Even with her awesome wheat, nut, blueberry pancakes, maple syrup, bacon and sausage, there still has to be an egg on top. I cannot imagine a homestead without chickens. Even in a downtown tract home I had one. Now my flock is around 20. I feed them organic, non-GMO because we expect to eat the eggs and want a healthy product. I also supplement with a bit of oyster shell calcium and ample grazing space. The girls love it. Our springtime egg production is up to over a dozen a day. I will let a broody hen reproduce sometime this year to refresh the flock. After two years, production falls off rapidly, […]
|
|
