Busily quiet

Pruning season at present. My new pole saw is doing good service getting rid of unwanted boughs and branches. We’re having a cold dry spell, barely three days of it so far, but it promises to go on for about a week if I’m lucky. There are plants to be uprooted, grass to be trimmed and two leaky sheds to be sealed. New lintel to go in a ten foot doorway and reinforcing of door pillars prior to fitting new doors. It all makes work for the working man to do etcetera.

Over here in the wilder west we’ve seen nothing of the rioting in Dublin, as the dependents on the state tend to gravitate to the big cities. Like the one who went on a slicing spree.

However, we never saw a whiff of trouble during our recent trip to Dublin. Christmas decorations going up, shoppers busily getting their gifts in before the rush, tourists paying a visit. Nothing I’d call out of the ordinary. Not a single broken window, at least in the tourist areas. Yet now people are kicking off?

Did overhear a few people bitching about newcomers filling up hotels etcetera, but we’ve had that since the whole Ukraine business kicked off. I could name a couple of places around Castlebar and Galway that were full of refugees last year. Maybe once the Ukrainians and Russkies finally bury the hatchet, then they can go home and begin to rebuild their lives.

Which is something many migrants seem unwilling to do. They get hooked on the welfare teat, and they don’t respect the cultural norms. Gript media have a point (See below), questioning the Social Welfare minister.

The public reaction was interesting; riots in the streets because the political class are simply refusing to listen to the demos they are supposed to represent, and I think we’re heading into a situation analogous to pre revolutionary France. But this time it’s all across the West.

All I have to say about the ‘hate speech’ laws being rolled out in Auld Oireland is that they don’t address the root of the problem. Dubbing someone ‘far right’ for voicing opposition might shut someone up online, but can never change the mind of those objecting. And denigrating people who object breeds a festering resentment, of which we’ve just seen a sniff. No one likes to be told to ‘shut up or else’. Especially not the native Irish. I wouldn’t do it. Nor would I accuse the average Irish person of having ‘privilege’. Too much of their history is bound up in repression and the desire to break free.

Here’s my prediction; all these repressive laws will do is wallpaper over the real issues until they fester and burst all over the public face like a plague of boils. Then the tumbrils will roll, and there won’t be enough Garda to stop it.

Me, I’m too old for this sierra hotel india tango. Besides, there’s land to manage, jobs to do, and works to complete before guests arrive for the festering season. No rest for the wicked.

Slightly overwhelmed

Must be almost December. The shortening days and unremitting doom and gloom have gotten to me more than a bit, and all I want to do is emulate a squirrel, curl up in a ball and count my nuts.

There’s still work to do around the property for when the ground dries out a bit. Branches to be trimmed, sealing the colander-like roof on the biggest shed, clearing the guttering, fixing the broken glass in the greenhouse and so on. It feels like a bit of a treadmill.

It’s at times like these my fragile optimism takes a break and I want to say ‘enough’. I’ve even gone so far as to begin blocking certain email addresses. Something I’ve never done before. I might ignore an email address from time to time and delete on arrival, but blocking individuals? No. I’ve blocked IP addresses before, but not recently. There hasn’t been the need.

I’m also a little overwhelmed because heretofore simple tasks are being made needlessly complex by Alphabet corporation, which won’t let me log on to my old gmail account without extra verification. Which means I can’t sign into google, and I’m damned if I’m giving them my current phone number. They’d only sell it. All this extra flim-flam being done because they care about my ‘comfort and security’, allegedly. And that’s a really nice bridge, how much did you say?

My innate masculinity is supposedly ‘toxic’. Simple politeness is redefined as ‘sexist’, ‘racist’ or some kind of ‘phobic’ (Another wretched set of neologisms coined by a few nutters to drive the rest of us crazy). One could be forgiven for feeling like all ones most cherished belief systems are under attack. And fighting back, even with the lightest touch, is somehow not allowed.

Honest doubt in the face of a lack of evidence is characterised as ‘denialism’. (Another neologism). Considering this kind of constant re-invention of language is firmly linked to Schizophrenia and allied mental health conditions, one could put forward the argument that there is a great deal of mental illness out there.

Which gets me down sometimes. And it would seem I’m not alone. See John Campbell’s exposition below.

Although I prefer to put it more succinctly; “Life, don’t talk to me about life…” or “F#ck ’em all.”

The punishments will continue..

Until morale improves… goes the old joke. Well doesn’t it feel like that every time you see the ‘news’? Like someone is trying to guilt trip everyone into supporting something when a more rational person would look up and say “Hang on a minute…”

All those who voted for BREXIT could be forgiven for thinking that the current UK administration are cocking things up on purpose, and the Government created curbs on movement (Artificially low speed limits & cameras), biased Policing and focus on behavioural control will only end when the rebellious populace begs to be allowed back into the EU at any price. Well that occurred to me, as I was thinking how I haven’t been to blighty for around four years now. Nor am I likely to go any time soon.

But then again the seemingly deliberate attempts to drive us all into the poor house are all across the ‘civilised’ West. Over inflated energy prices, the cost of travel through the roof, dodgy ‘vaccines’, scaremongering to ‘save the planet’, which is utter bollocks. While real problems like pollution and overfishing go ignored.

The war on car drivers and motorcyclists continues under the mistaken (Some would say delusional) belief that man made emissions of CO2, methane or whatever control the weather. No reasonable person of any modest science based education should believe this, as the much touted predictions have simply never come true. You do not need to be a ‘scientist’ to see this.

Then the self same people pushing this agenda say they want to have most domesticated animals (Cattle, sheep, pigs, horses, dogs, cats) slaughtered to reduce their ’emissions’. Once they’ve done (and there is no difference in weather patterns) that they’ll probably go after all the rest of the odd and even toed ungulates like Bison, Buffalo, Deer, Gazelle, Goat, Ibex, Wildebeest and Zebra’s.

So plan that visit to the Masai Maru while you’re still allowed to travel, it may be your last opportunity to see real wildlife (Apart from the odd stuffed Lion or Hyena). Because the only sane conclusion is that the people pushing the agenda that only man is vile are completely effing crazy. And our political classes are (on the whole) too short sighted or cowardly to look past the well funded NGO lobbyists.

For my part I’ve other fish to fry. The rest of the world will do what it will do, and no amount of impassioned outpourings on my part will change it. I’m just not getting involved. Things here in the wilder west are settling down now and I’m in the process of nurturing my greenhouse, getting set up for colder months and ready for Winter pruning.

I’ve already got another twenty Crack Willow ready for planting out when the ground dries out a bit. Plus half a dozen Ash seedlings. They will be going out to provide some windbreaks up in the top meadow. No walnut seedlings just yet, but I live in hope.

I’m also looking at a new pocket knife for general use around the property. It’ll get left at home mostly, but a good stout little blade is always a worthwhile tool to have around when you’re working.

Won’t take it with me if I’m going away of course. City and transit Police get funny ideas about even the most innocent motives nowadays, and besides, I don’t really need a pocket knife if I’m travelling. Might pick a souvenir one up and stuff it in the main luggage on the way home if I find one I like the look of, but not on my person or in my carry on bag.

On the plus side, the new garden machinery arrived and cutting begins when the weather dries a little. There’s a fair bit of ground to clear. I’ll also be negotiating with neighbours who owe me some favours for a few other things.

Then I’m going to get some new wooden shafts for my little recurve once I’ve cut the flat section of ground along the western boundary, which will form a nice fifty metre long archery range. New shafts are a must because my old arrows are a bit over used and long ago went in the recycle bin as nary a one would fly straight any more. There’s an archery goods store about twenty minutes away, so I’ll be paying them a visit in the run up to Christmas.

In the meantime the punishments will continue until we do what we’re jolly well told. Which is worse, the punishments or the insane goals toward which we are being pushed? I leave that to people’s own judgement. I know where I stand.

Smashing time

In my PJ’s, bare footed as always indoors and making hot chocolate yesterday evening. Hot chocolate mixed. Nicely foamed and being decanted into fancy double walled glasses. All going well until glass insert slides out of cafetiere, pushes fancy double walled glass over, glass tips over spilling foamy brown liquid everywhere, falls onto tiled floor and smashes. As brittle materials are wont to do when they strike hard surfaces at 9.81 metres per second acceleration.

Annoyed at being so clumsy I said “Bugger!” very loudly. Hot chocolate and broken glass all over the place. I turned to go and get the mop when Mrs S arrived to see what the all fuss was. “Stay back. There’s broken glass all over the place.” I said.

“What’s all the noise about?” She asked, then; “Bill. You’re bleeding.”

“Just get the mop please. And pass the paper towels.”

“Bill. You’re bleeding all over the place. I’ll get the first aid kit.” She told me firmly. I was about to say, ‘It’s only a scratch’ when I looked down and noticed that there was a large trickle of my O rhesus positive, venous (darker) rather than arterial, coming from a neat six inch long slice across the top of my foot, skin deep, nothing worse, leaving large splotches of slippery dark red on the floor. “Oh.” I said.

Then “First aid kit’s in Decon.” I said, referring to our large downstairs bathroom. So off we trolled to Decon where I could leak blood to my heart’s content without leaving a mess that might alarm any guests. Ten minutes later, bloody paper towels discarded, butterfly sutures applied, several large dressings on top, the flow of red staunched, Mrs S disappeared to clean up the rest of the mess. Including the trail of large bloody splotches I’d left traipsing into the bathroom.

Of course it didn’t hurt, I lost less than 150ml of blood, and the whole business had me kicking myself for being so bloody clumsy. I was more upset about breaking the glass. Those were Mrs S’s favourites. Which I shall replace, as it was my fault one got smashed.

First thing the following morning I even found a couple of shards almost three metres from where the glass hit the floor. So I carefully went around and double checked the whole kitchen and dining area. No more glass shards.

Oddly enough we never found the bit that sliced my foot. Or else Mrs S threw it away with the rest. Now I’ve broken glasses many times before, but never had a piece go ballistic and slice me like that, So I will exercise a little more caution with that particular type of glass in future.

Oh well, it’s all part of life’s great tapestry. Smashing, eh?

Surprise, surprise

Well it’s the Irish countryside, out in the wilder west. Got home after a trip to the shops to find a dozen cattle in my yard, shepherded by a harassed looking farmer. So I did what any landowner should do, rolled up my sleeves and tried to help out.

The cattle had other ideas, they did not want to go where he wanted. He opened a gate, they turned and fled. The cattle were not playing ball, or any other game. So for five minutes we tried to send them the way they should go, to wit, out of my front gate and along the road to the correct field. The cattle split up and trotted off, determined not to go where they were bidden. I tried to get them to turn around, but when an animal that size decides it’s going thataway, there’s not a hell of a lot you can do about it. At last the farmers dog sorted out the herd leader and got the recalcitrant animals out through my other gate. Specifically the one they came in from.

“Welcome to the countryside.” The farmer called over his shoulder as he jog trotted after his beasts. I gave him a wave. No harm no foul. We parted on a smile. Maybe next time he tries to go solo herding his animals, he knows he can give me a shout first, so I can close my gates in advance.

Rainy nights

Bit of a howler the other night, and we lost sleep when the drains started to bubble like a mad scientists chemistry lab, So first thing the following morning I was out checking the septic tank. Despite being pumped less than four days ago, it was close to overflowing. So on went the pump.

Further investigation showed a large puddle on the top of the septic field. So all the extra rain we’ve been having has saturated the soil and leaked back into the tank, backing up the system and causing the bubbling. The drains were close to overflowing. After two hours pumping things had returned to normal. Drains working properly again.

The only other damage was one pane of glass in my greenhouse. I’ll have to hire some scaffolding so I can replace it, and put in some flexible polythene vents at the same time. I’ve also got to fix a roof that is so holey that it must have been made on Sunday.

Of course if you’re on mains sewers, the overflows are downstream and overload the sewage treatment plants which back up and force all the extra water into the storm drains. All the extra water has to go somewhere, which is why it is not advisable to play around in flooded rivers. With our setup, the effect is more immediate, and we have an extra soakaway which is well over two hundred metres from the nearest drainage ditch. So no (extra) sewerage in the local trout streams. At least not from our property.

This is one of the issues with rural living. You just have to man up and do the job in front of you.

This was only to be expected of course, and things should ease off in 2024 as the stratosphere finishes dumping all the excess water vapour back into the oceans from whence it came. The flooding is nothing to do with humanity, well, apart from the idiocy of building on flood plains, Oh and believing it’s all down to an atmospheric trace gas, then wasting public funds on big silly bird killers and solar arrays north of the 48th parallel.

What we really need is cheap energy sources and effective waste disposal systems. From the standpoint of electrical engineering, a sound energy mix would be SMR nuclear for baseline and gas turbine stations for variable load. Easy to synch into the grid and flexible enough to cope with the highs and lows of variable demand. As for drainage, there are some massive tunneling operations underway deep under various cities.

As for the ‘Green dream’, it does seem to have turned into a bit of a nightmare. Electric Vehicles proving more costly, from both a monetary and environmental standpoint, with insurance rates going through the roof and resale values through the floor. Not to mention many northern alternative energy projects, including the latest Norwegian offshore wind farm being in serious financial difficulties. I can’t help but feel that the whole low carbon thing is a disaster bordering on farce, and not a farce that would raise a smile. The purely political 2030 ‘Zero carbon’ targets are slipping further and further into the mists the closer we try to get.

However, I’ve said all this before about EV’s and ‘renewables’. They are toys for the gullible and have limited facility. Nothing I have seen to date, and I do try to keep up with the latest developments in technology, has persuaded me otherwise.

In the meantime, the rain is falling, and I have to keep a weather eye out on the drains. Time for tea methinks.

Watching the leaves fall

Wet and windy outdoors, so I’m busy with domestic tasks like fixing recalcitrant computer mice. One of my bluetooth meece has been playing up of late, right click barely working and the left double clicking of it’s own accord. So I looked up the instructions, stripped it down and gave my non rodentiform bit of plastic a clean out. Now it’s working perfectly. There’s a couple more like this in my spares box, so now I know how, I’ll have a couple of working spares.

Outside the wind is blowing and the rain falling with occasional bits when the clouds clear. Autumn is the season and with our first frosts Winter beckons. As I’ve said before, no matter what the TV weatherman says, 2023 has not been much of a Summer, and the only real warmth we got this year was back in May/June. The rest was a washout. In 2021 / 2 I had to water our plant pots once a week. This year, nary a once. Indeed overwatering has become an issue.

Watching the online stuff, I’m minded to observe how much modern politics is like organised crime. Corruption, fraud, embezzlement, money laundering, theft and murder seem more common than within the general population. Yet do we see arrests and prosecutions? No.

Despite all their pretty words, our elected leaders antics resemble those more of 1930’s hoodlums than world leaders, not to mention those extranational entities like the WEF. Can I point to corruption? Certainly. It’s hard to not find it if you look below the surface. Fraud? Oh yes. Murder? If not that, the definitely corporate manslaughter. Poisoning in particular, especially over the last few years. These people make Capone et al look like rank amateurs. Yet rarely in the West is anyone from the political class arrested and charged. What happened to equality under the law?

Yet what do we hear? “Lessons will be learned” By whom? The public, certainly. Who pays the price for glaring public policy errors? The public also does, either through taxes, or more ominously with our lives. Often on the back of some very bad information indeed.

So how do we fix this situation? Who pays the piper? The politicians? They who claim to work for the public will, the West being nominal democracies? Or can they just say they bowed to public pressure?

How about the progenitors of the bad information? Neil Ferguson and his bogus models spring to mind as a classic example. He who openly flaunted the lockdown rules while pushing for worse. He whose modelling has resulted in public policy disaster more than once. Why is he not in the dock pleading for his life? That smug and arrogant bastard deserves to be. And he’s not the only one.

Then there are the policymakers who only demand ‘worst case scenario’s’. Why? Who gave them that brief? Why don’t they look at the full range?

Then how about the “If it bleeds it leads” media? “Oo no guv”, they will claim “We just reported the facts” which they didn’t. Yet who were loudest at shouting down dissenting voices, rubbishing reputable scientific sources that didn’t go along with the ‘approved narrative’?

Yes there’s a lot of blame to go around. The damage has been done. But the key question remains; how do we fix things? Stop the wars, end the corruption, restore trade links. Something has to give.

The seasons turn, the leaves fall, and the laws of nature say that there will be a reckoning. What form that takes is a matter for speculation.

Splitting logs

I have a three and a half metre long, metre diameter log to process. This task is necessary to clear it out of the space it has been hogging for the last year and a half. Not having access to a sawmill, I have elected to go old school with axes, steel wedges, and a ten pound sledge hammer. This has proved a learning experience worthy of note. While the privileged go a-rioting about a cause they have little understanding of, I choose to do something constructive.

Splitting a hardwood log of this size is a finicky business and is more about tapping than hammering, of gently splitting along the grain and learning by how to make that split cleanly by trial and error. It’s also frustrating, time consuming and blister forming. Not to mention being very warm work.

The log itself was cut down eighteen months ago and has been seasoning in one of my sheds for that long, so I reckoned it would be dry enough to split into two or three inch slabs around now, which after another six months seasoning followed by some forming and smoothing should yield some useful timber.

Did think about hiring an extra large chain saw, but the tree surgeon who cut the tree down for us pointed out that it had nails in the trunk which kept on ruining his chainsaw. And even if I could hire a mill, it would cost me hundreds in saw blades as they hit the bits of old nail and barbed wire embedded therein. So splitting seemed the logical way to go.

Took me a day and a couple of coin sized blisters (Despite heavy gloves) to get a third of the way through. So far this has yielded two three and a half metre slabs. The first two planks were sapwood, but the third is mostly heartwood, darker, more durable and denser. Closer grained.

No idea what I’m going to use the wood for, but at present I’m too focused on the task in hand.

I’m also sleeping much better, having worn myself out during the day. Mrs S is likewise happier as we now have oue new fridge and dishwasher in and running. The new fridge particularly looms over the kitchen like the obelisk in ‘2001 a space odyssey’.

Above you can see some footage of a highly trained team picking it out of the warehouse prior to delivery. Joking aside, it’s a serious piece of kit that does resemble a Kubrickesque portal into hyperspace, but in reality now easily holds all my ingredients and leftovers without cramming and does not emit brain tangling high pitched screaming noises at certain astronomical conjunctions. Although it does let me know what the temperature is inside in clear, easy to read digital letters.

Similarly our new dishwasher now lurks under the kitchen counter, purring quietly as it saves me getting further detergent rash. I fill it up, press the ‘eco’ button and leave it to clean all our dirty dishes without the need for excessive elbow grease. We think it will save us money overall on our LNG bill, which has been a source of domestic disharmony over the last six months.

One issue is that we’ve been using far too much hot water, and the amount of gas we’ve been using is therefore relatively high at another hundred plus a month for gas. So any saving on that front will be worth the candle. I’ve already pared the leccy back to around eighty euros a month, but with every more energy efficient device, that too will shrink.

I may even be able to stop splitting logs in an attempt to keep warm during the coming Winter.