Where's Orca? Pet Orca and she might wake up and chase
your mouse around.
The
Long & The Short…
My
Spring
Letter
was
long
and late, drag’d on into Summer; this Autumn
Letter is going to be Short and Sour. To that end: Whilst i am not
sorry for nor ashamed of what i said/wrote, in my defense i have to
say that after all these years of practicing, and honing my skills
and bedside manner, i am finally getting to really be a curmudgeon,
geezer class. Well, that was the idea when I started back in July. Now
as I am still trying to finish (end of October) this letter is dragging
on and on.
26vii26
We
did
have
a
kind
of awning fall. You can imagine if the three poles
were upright the awning would be a great triangular jib sail over the
water tank. About that time we had a wind of about 25mph NW, would be
from the foreground right in the photo, pressing up on the sail.
26vii30
A
Reusable
Straw
The Nature
Conservancy
was
doing
a TNC F2F
fundraising outside Fry’s
today. They send me a calendar once a year so I stopped to say
hello. Later I felt moved to write this letter to TNC
(not to be confused with TNS):
“Firstly:
I am a supporter of your work and most recently donated back in June
so *DO NOT ADD* this eddress to your junk mail list thank you very
much. I already get enough direct mail and SPAM.
“Secondly:
I ran into one of your F2F teams yesterday at Fry's in Buckeye
AridZona and asked about your "Reusable Straw". A gift for
people who donate. Clever idea. Would go well with my reusable
chopsticks and spork I always carry. So I proceeded hand the F2F
Person two U.S. Dollars. They said they had tablets to handle credit
card donations and I said I didn't want to go that route. They took
my two dollars and gave me a straw.
“Now back here I
thought to write you about that clever reusable metal
straw and found my way to your
page
and
the
squib "safety
of our fundraisers, we do not accept cash donations".
“So
now I have two subjects about which I have to write.
“I
am dismayed that the nature of our society has brought us to this
pretty pass. I don't understand what "For your safety" has
to do with you taking my money. Unless you mean that if I tried any
funny business with your F2F team they might turn the table on me;
but I do appreciate the "my safety" part when it comes to
exposing my credit card and information to yet another list building
organisation. Then there is the part about you not trusting your F2F
team while at the same time you expect me to trust your tablet will
take only a one time donation and not badger me with yet more SPAM.
“In
any
case,
on
to
Thirdly: The Reusable Metal
Straw is a clever
idea. I
may have to make a special trip to some eatery to display the woodsy
green stuff sack (No plastic straw thanks, I brought my own.) and
make a show of slurping up some iced coffee. Only thing is that the
cleaning brush included is too short to
go all the way through the straw.
”
Food
Bank Wenzday
Almost
more
of
the
same
as the above argument. Someone raised the issue
with the umbrella organisation that the volunteers get a food box
without having to stand in line at the client window. Seems
to matter not that while the volunteers work
to unload the big truck and
then sort-package-provide
and load to client’s cars the
food
boxes
the
client
only
has
to
stand
in
line for theirs usually whilst gossiping with
other clients. And this
kerfuffle in turn spills ofer
into the arena of AZDES v.s Pole Worker "salary".
And
then I am reading Hermann Hesse’s The
Steppenwolf …
All
This Week...
I
know about changes and medical issues as well, whether mine or those
around me. That the older I get the more dead people I know does not
help any at all. Some of my recent changes and frustrations have to
do with being left behind with respect to changes in the technology
society expects one to keep pace with. Being leashed to a "phone"
for instance. (I prefer the moniker Oblong since Phone is the least of
the uses.) Some of the applications on my 20-year-old computer
will not accommodate newer websites and documents since we both have
been
left in the dust of incessant "updates" and
"upgrades".
Another part is the matter of
muscle-memory when I am trying to learn a new(er) pickup. Just little
things such as the turn-signal lever being at a different angle. When
ever I stop my right hand reaches for the parking brake but must
needs transfer that action to my left foot. And if you are familiar
with the concept of Dr Who's Tardis you can appreciate that this
new(er) truck tho larger on the outside than my old truck is in fact
smaller on the inside. Parkinson's Law...
2026iix10
Monsoon Storm Here
That
storm last
night went
right overtop of The Cat Drag'd Inn.
This
morning there is 0.70"
in my rain gauge. 46mph max wind on the Gust-O-Meter from sustained
winds of 30-40mph for about half an hour. Drifting and blowing lawn
furniture.
Bus rocked around. Birdseed locker drained
well. Many buckets and trashcans need emptying. Ground shows traces
of much running water but no puddles remain this morning. Lots and
lots of lightning. Continuous flashes all around but mostly cloud to
cloud, only a few bolts to the ground, none right here. I expected
the tall palms and power poles on this slight hillock would take a
hit but no. Most of the cloud to ground lightning seemed to be after
the center of the cell had passed on to the west. Probly
my clothesline took the greatest damage and will have to be replaced. Four
cats here for breky on the patio. No sign of Fang at Capannoni.
10
August Perseid Report from Astoria
 Little
Jon, my Oregon Correspondent and formerly Resident Astronomer at The
Mount Washington Observatory, reports: “I caught a good one two
nights ago on my Astro Cam. Herewith are frame grabs just before, at
the instant of explosion, and just after.” 
2026iix11
 Another
horrendous
thumper
last
night.
Two in a row. This one had less wind
and rain but more lightning. Cloud to ground bolts all around me.
Loud and scary! 0.50" rain with SE wind up to 36mph. These
two
events
(1.20")
amount to almost double
the year-to-date total (0.68") precipitation.
13th
Oh Dark-30
Viewing
was
not
spectacular
here.
Early on lots of rain. Later clearing but
hazy. The Milky Way was rather fuzzy, indistinct. At 0300 I could see
stars; one of them, feline class, was climbing my leg to be cuddled.
In a half hour of studious watching I saw six Perseids and three
aeroplanes. I could tell them apart cos the aeroplanes were going the
other way.
August
18
The
Last
Straw
TNC
replied
with
several
pp
of “look into what occurred” and
“safety concern...amounts of cash” and a spiel about “recurring
donations” and “option to join” but in all their 241 words not
a one mentions my concern about the short brush.
18-19
August
There
And
Back
Again - Part One
A
Day
Without
Orca
Is
Like A Day Without Sunshine. I’ve been
thinking about a Road Trip since early Spring. All the way to Maine
for a couple months on the road? To drive at least part of the route
along Historic Highway 66? At least to Pie Town and back for a few
days of cool weather? But one thing or another got in my Way.
TinyTruck
being
replaced
by The
Lorn Ranger starts the list. I believe I wrote
about The Tardis Effect and Parkinson's Law as applied to this
transition: Stuff once removed from a closet will not fit to be
returned. This Lorn Ranger is
larger on the outside than TinyTruck—and
heavier
and
poorer
MPG
as
well—however there is
less space on the inside. So not everything I want to carry
around—spare parts, tools, desert survival stuff...—will fit.
Removing the bed liner freed up several cubic feet of the bed.
Removing the jump seats recovered another couple cuft of the cab. Then
there is the matter of this Ford being an early model a few
steps along the road to the computer controlled fly by wire cars of
today. The motor is the same size (2.3L) as that in TinyTruck but the
computer control part leaves a lot out of the performance. At least
the doors are unlocked with a key and have wind-up windows.
And
then
there
is
the
matter of towing. Another thing that was simple
with TinyTruck which turns
out to be overly complicated with LornRanger;
she
cries
piteously
when
I
connect her running lights to
the bus because her computer thinks I have left the lights on with
the key off so I have to find a way around that. The list goes on.
And on...
So
when
old
Eldo
friends
Laura Z wrote that she would be at Faywood Hot
Spring for a few days and Captain Hook offered to pay for a couple
nights camping at his back yard, that put the screws to me to hitch
up and escape the Severe High Temperature Warnings in Tonopah. And
that’s also when one thing after another went to hell.
After
a
few
days
of
backing and forthing—one step forward and two steps
back—I finally decided to leave Orca in charge of The Cat Drag’d
Inn and drive The LornRanger
to Deming. No easy decision.
In
April
of
2002,
with
an Unschooler and Sara(h) La Gata I drove TinyTruck from Alamosa to Conway
after
the
Detroit
8.2L
engine
blew
out on Wolf Creek Pass. Without an
Unschooler to help with Orca I didn’t want to take her along to
Deming. Better she should stay safely confined in The Cat Drag’d
Inn and keep the A/C company. So I left her with two bowls of
kibbles and two dishes of water and a nice clean litter box and
proceeded to hit the road.
The
last
time
I
went
truck camping was with Paul a few years ago out to
Saddle Mountain so I knew I had all the gear to be reasonably
comfortable for one night roughing it, I just had to find everything
and pack the truck: Sleeping bag, foam pad, tooth brush, hair brush,
meds and vitamins, towel and clothes, lunch and supper, two oblongs,
five bottles of water and a MasterCard. All loaded, truck started...
And
the
truck
wouldn’t
move.
Well, it would move but felt as if
something was dragging, holding her back. The right front tyre was
flat. Right there in the driveway. So much for my 0600 early start.
By the time I was released from Discount Tire the trip clock was at
0930 and Faywood was over 300 miles away. Travel time is always
affected by traffic; 300 miles at 50-60mph should take 5-6 hours but
one’s average speed is more like 30-40 and then there are surprise
delays. Turn signal failure, pit stops, construction... Things Ms
Google never allows for. My early afternoon ETA became
just-in-time-for-supper and a short soak before sunset and too dark to
find my
bed.
At
least
the
weather
was
nice for sleeping out in Captain Hook’s back
yard. Lots of stars, one plane, one satellite, one tiny fuzzy cloud.
Wenzday morning swapping storeys with J.B. Breakfast at Denny’s
reminded me of another breakfast at Denny’s long ago and far away,
but that’s another storey. Took on 18 gallons of fuel and a bag of
ice and headed west on i10.
At a
bridge, where a year ago a too-tall
load caused the partial collapse of the overpass,
reconstruction was still in progress. That was the first slowdown. A
ways on from there at least two semi trucks had got tangled up on the
eastbound side. One trailer was split open and hundreds of brown
bottles were strewn about in the median. My westbound traffic had to
slow for that scenic attraction. Next, just a few exits short of
downtown Tucson, my Nagravator announced that i10 was closed ahead.
Took an hour and a half of stop and go shifting and coasting before I
got around that and resumed cruising speed. At Wilcox a stop for
coffee and visit with WA7VVV added another half hour. This time the
predicted
five hour drive took only seven hours and I arrived at The Cat Drag’d
Inn just at sunset to find Orca still on guard. Sixteen
gallons of fuel and another bag of ice to get home. And now of
course all the unloading and
unpacking and cleaning up after.
Irrelevant Image Interruption
With all what is happening and the ubiquitous capability of my oblong—taking pictures - finding place -
knowing time - nagrivating - spending money...oh yes, and making phone
calls—I've been making lots
of photos but not so many captions for them. Despite the plethora of
words herewith too many of these photos have little more than titles.
You will find them scattered up and down in this monologue just to
break up the diatribe. The rain has brought out all sorts of growing
things: Cochemiea (I
think
so anyway), TayassuTajacu,
Podaxis
Pistillaris, et
alia...
Part
Two—Things That Were
Censored From The Original Telling
At
one
intersection
along
the
two-lane road east bound between Hither and Yon
(Yawn?) I was following one of those small delivery vans who had his
right turn signal on and was slowing for his turn. I was angled out
slightly left to pass. As he turned in another car came out into my
path. I jerked even more left into the left--oncoming--lane, the
truck rocked to and fro, and got safely past where I coasted a bit to
catch my breath. That was close... Would have made a good
snippit from a dash-cam.
Expanding the part about the flat
in the yard at startup: Should I have seen the flat as I was loading
I might just have cancelled the trip right then and there. That was
only the latest in a string of setbacks, and not the last as time and
a half went by, that gave me pause to consider that The Cosmic Muffin
was trying to get a "Don't Go" message to me.
As
things were at that point, despite all the previous obstacles, I was going and that was all there was to it. The truck was
loaded, the course laid in, the lines cast off, engine started.
Liftoff aborted.
The up side of course is that I was still
in the yard. Not out on the side of i10. Changing to the spare became
a learning experience especially because this LornRanger is so
different to TinyTruck. My
scissor jack which lifts TinyTruck so
easily is barely able to lift LornRanger.
Could
the
Ford
be
that
much
heavier? And the spare carrier is a whole different animal which
wanted a 3/4" or 19mm socket/ratchet to lower. Interesting that the
lug wrench for the wheel bolts is the right size but the long cross
arms of the lug wrench impinge on the bumper. The ratchet was back in
my toolbox under the table... Another tool for the To-Go Box that needs
purchase.
Once
the spare was available and the RF jacked up I found that those same
long arms of the lug wrench were not long enough to get sufficient
torque on the wheel bolts. So I built some cribbing to support the
far end of the lug wrench so I could stand on the too-short cross
arm.
Each of these petty annoyances nibbled away at my
confidence and enthusiasm. I should have called ahead to Discount
Tire so I might have been closer to the top of the queue when they
opened at 0800. As it was they did get me through on the express lane
and I was on the road again by 0930.
Hold on, there's
more. But first a Word From Our Sponsor
 On a certain September morning Cat &
Trash Walk at the intersection of two dirt tracks in the outback Orca
found six 55 gallon steel drums of black yucky stuff. We usually picked
up at least a T-Shirt sack of refuse left by careless clods who don't
subscribe to the Carry In Carry Out maxim however my trash bag was
already full of beer cans; these barrels would not fit and anyhow they
were above my sack's weight limit. The black yucky stuff was seeping
out of two of the drums. I took several photos, noted the Lat
& Long, and kicked the matter up to a higher echelon.
Part Two Continues
I was not yet out of PHX, on
West McDowell on some Nagrivator
suggested detour around a delay on i10 when the right turn signal
indicator commenced to fast-flash. I cannot drive under that
condition especially if as it turned out, to be the rear signal.
Another downer balanced by an upper. I pulled off at a garage and
found I was between O'Reilly and Auto Zone and I just happened to
have a #2 Phillips handy and I'd once been inside the rear lamp
assembly of Paul's Ranger. Turned out the bulb was not bad, only a
dirty connexion. But I bought two bulbs anyhow and two more for the
marker/brake just in case.
The last delay was a pissant
matter of the toilets in a rest area somewhere like Miami or Globe.
Drive in, park, and in small print the sign: Closed Due To Water
Leak. And another sign: The toilets across the street in the Visitor
Center are Open. Move truck across four lanes of traffic and (another
quiet upside) park under a nice big shade tree. Walk a ways through a
playground, around a mining exhibit, to a decrepit building—the only
one around—with no signs, only padlocks on the
toilet doors. Walk
back to the shady truck and make my
water on the
ground.
Actually the walking around did me good. The rest
of the drive went well not withstanding the altercation mentioned at
the beginning of this chapter. Eventually I arrived at Faywood only to
find the quaint Hot Spring, that used to be the same sort of laid back
place as El Dorado, has gone Hi Tech in a BIG way. No longer can one
just walk in, drop a few bucks and soak for an hour. Nope. License
and credit card are recorded, signature required on two forms, and
the minimum engagement is one overnight, no hourly soaking. Takes
longer to get checked in than you take to undress.
Lastly,
for
the
record,
fuel
was about 4.10/gal: 35.1g @ 4.10/g = $143.91
We
Had
A
Little
Rain
...a
few
days
ago.
Amazing
what sort of green things are popping up in
the back yard. The
Sonoran
Queen
of
the
Night (Peniocereus
greggii) is one of the plants growing in Paul's Patio. This
cacti blooms only at night and the flower is often gone by morning.
When the second bud looked promising we reprogrammed one of the Critter
Cams to Time Lapse function: one frame each 30 seconds. After three
days we had a three minute video of the flower blooming and wanning.
Very exciting to be able to capture the event the same way you see on
PBS Nature.
Another
Month
Down
The
Tubes
Been
an
august
August.
More
delays and obstruction here. Between AZDES
(Food Stamps Family Assistance) telling me I need to prove my poverty
and Google telling me my email storage is overflowing I am running
around in squares.
2026ix01
Rabbit
Rabbit
Where’s
Your
Trash
On
my
cat
walk
this
morning I was attacked by a "catclaw".
That is not the claw of a cat but a thorny bush known as catclaw
because of the way the thorns grow. They can rip denim. And skin.
Several
plant species native to the Southwestern United States and Mexico
bear the species patronym
greggii
Otherwise
doing
OK.
I
have
almost completed the move from my old-old TinyTruck
to a new-less-old LornRanger.
And pretty much the same storey
coincident with that is moving from a twenty-year-old computer to a
ten-year-old computer. But this move is not going as well. Lots of
issues with applications that will not run in the new environment and
have no modern replacement—at least none that work as simple and
fast without having to learn an entire new menu layout and all sorts
of new buzzwords.
Bullshit all this change for the sake of
change. I have been driving this LornRanger
now for a couple months
and my right hand still reaches for the parking brake which has been
replaced by a pedal my left foot can't find. With the computer my
mouse hunts up and down the menu lists for items that are not in the
same order as before.
Even that cute kitten named
Orca—cos she looks like one—has morphed into a demanding
recalcitrant teenangler. Spends a lot of her time practicing her
backstroke for some cross country swim meet.
Those
little
orange
seeds
that
the birds don't like are serving to feed a
smaller critter. Black ants, a few mm in length, not the tiniest, and
not the largest, of their kind, are carrying the orange seeds, one at
a time, west away, across the drive, passing beyond the patio table
on a course a bit to the south, around the end of the stone wall
(under construction), over an irrigation tube, to a hole a foot south
of an agave.
 Another OAE bites the dust.
Aside
from memories of working with Tony in the Carp Shop at McMurdo I have
a cutting board he made for me. We had been talking about my bus
which was waiting for me back in NH. I was describing the galley. A
few weeks later that Winter Tony presented me with this fine custom
made cutting board made of five pieces of different woods laminated
together. Still in service 28 years later, I think of Tony every time
I mince a mushroom.
10-2
Out Of Service
10-4
Shut
The
Door
10-6 Stand By For NEWS!
Orca
did
not
come
in
at her usual 16 o'clock yesterafternoon. I was busy
pacing and calling and conjuring between naps until midnight:30 when
she came in measking "Where's my supper?"
10-8
Vegetate
Podaxis pistillaris is a
xerophilic
agaric
mushroom related to the puffballs and inkcaps. It is
commonly known as the desert shaggy mane...and thrives in deserts and
semi-deserts of North America.
10-10
F2F Poll Worker Training
Hands
on
the
hardware
and
discussions of rules and procedures. Phew! I
remember way back in the old days when one would saunter in to your
polling place to be greeted by a kindly grandmotherly person sitting
at a long table with The
Registry of Voters open in front of her. You
would state your name and she would flip through the pages to find
you. A few question and answers later you would find yourself with
your ballot in a booth behind a curtain to make your marks. Granted
today
with
all
this
highfalutin technology one can go
to any polling place in the county and a Ballot On Demand printer
will print you a ballot specific to your residence. But the
grandmotherly person has been replaced by an array of terminals and
printers connected by a vast network. Ballots are read by a machine
that can tell the difference between a filled oval and a check-mark.
Votes are counted in near real-time and early
results are available the next morning. Some folks can even vote from
their car at the kerb or from their kitchen table voting by mail.
Five
hours
of
training
later
I am fully qualified to announce Hear Ye Hear
Ye, The Polls Are Now Open! And to assist voters with where to stuff
their ballots. 
261023
Thanks Again Tom Hensley!
On
this
Saint
George’s
Half
Day Tom’s impact wrench was the
essential tool in the replacement of the broken fuel filler neck of
The Lorn Ranger. And my friend Paul was the essential helper to show
me how to remove the tailgate and lift off the truck’s bed for
access to the fuel tank.
End
of
The
Line
For
October
Finally
coming
to
terms
with
the demise of TinyTruck—offered for sale last
night—and the end of Summer--put a banana
bread in my oven this
morning. All the more reason to get this Summtum Letter posted.
Note
from
Robyn
about
those
barrels of yucky stuff: “Good morning. The
Waste Disposal team was out there this morning to remove the barrels
and assess what the liquid is. They will be back next week to clean
up the soils and affected area. Just keeping you in the loop.” Thank
you very much Robyn. Well Done!
|
2026 Late Autumn
— Greetings Virtual Travellers and Pen Friends: 
