I've read several articles over the course of the last several months with titles like "Easy timber framing" and "Simple household solutions." While I'm in the workshop, I have my radio tuned to KKPT and I get to hear Mick singing about how time is on his side, or Charlie Daniels being like his ol' blue tick hound, laying round in the shade.
These two concepts don't quite go together. At least they don't for me. Sure, there are lots of things that are simple or easy, but when you have 908751 simple things on your to-do list, getting thought them is not easy unless you have enough time.
For instance, scything hay is easy. Sure, it's a lot of work, but the task itself is easy. The fields around here should probably be hayed in late June, again in August, and maybe once more in late September. I can cut an acre a day... but that day has to start at 4 a.m. and end at 10 p.m. with a HUGE lunch break. It would be murder (or suicide) to work like that in the heat of the day (frequently 100° and 100% humidity). However, while I'm cutting hay, the barn's not getting repaired, the looms aren't getting built, the crochet hooks and knitting needles aren't being carved, winter firewood's not being brought in (and this is something one should start early on... believe me!), the beer's not getting brewed, and so forth and so on.
I could fence off the area and let the animals graze on a rotational basis and then only hay once a year... or maybe not at all, right? Wrong. Then the time I would send haying has to be spent building fence. That's even more work if you're trying to do things without a budget. T-Posts and wire cost a lot and splitting rails is no picnic. Of course, I should only have to do this once. On the other hand, I'm again losing time to moving the animals from one paddock to the next and back to the barn at night.
I could buy hay. In fact, I do buy hay. This frees up my time to get the things I need to get done, done. However, because the hay that I buy is around $5 per bale and it takes roughly 600 bales to feed out critters for one year - that's $3000 for those that didn't do the math - I am now trying to get more looms made just to cover the cost of the hay. No time was freed up! Add to that equation hay hauling and stacking - more time! Just buying the hay doesn't make it materialize in your nicely tarped hay yard or barn - (^%&(%)*^% Scotty, get that transporter fixed!
Sounds like I'm whining. Hardly! I love the life I'm living. However, here's a fine opportunity for folks leaning towards this kind of lifestyle with visions of leisure time away from the 9-to-5 grind to learn from someone else's mistakes. It ain't leisurely (which is why you've not seen a post here since November of 2007)... but it sure is fun!
But it wasn't enough.
For one reason or another the people that built the houses left. When they left the houses were left... unattended. Some were vandalized by people, some by nature. Important parts were taken, pipes were burst by freezing. What's left are houses with high ideals... and a lot of damage. Maybe more damage than can be repaired. Maybe they need to be bulldozed under and a new house built on the foundations.
There's a lesson here and it's simple. If one plans on ding something ecologically sound, one must stick to it or take care that what was started is maintained and protected. Without the maintenance and the protection, all of the groundwork... all of those good intentions... might come to naught or less than naught.
So there I stood, looking into an open hole thinking "Insulate box, insulate box... hmmmm." And inspiration struck!
When Robin and Summer left two days ago, they left behind an old cooler whose lid had warped. It was a matter of a few minutes work with the chainsaw to slice the bottom off of it and fit it over the water cut-off handles. I then seated the lid as best I could and covered the whole thing with dirt. The dirt will keep the lid in place. The cooler will keep the pipes from freezing.
And I didn't have to waste wood.
This is a perfect example, I think, of reusing a piece of potentially toxic trash. What ideas do you have?
Am I too picky?
My blogging platform of choice is WordPress. There's a lot of community support, a lot of themes and plug-ins and it is so customizable. Just wonderful. And now you're wondering why you're reading this on a Blogger powered blog, right? More on that later.
I just love it.
Then I hate it! I spent about 4 hours going through themes trying to find the theme that meets all my needs. Designers are you reading? I wanted
- Listing of pages which would display sub-pages without resorting to the pages widget... my sidebar real estate is too valuable for that.
- I want a customizable photo header
- I want the RSS feed button or link really prominent at the top of the page.
- I want text to wrap around the pics.
- I want the theme not to fall apart when I type in long words.
- I didn't want to have to build the theme from scratch myself.
- I didn't want to have to pay for the theme.
And that was just for the theme! Imagine what I am going through finding the right blend of plug-ins that are compatible, load fast, do what they claim to do, and not require a degree in theoretical quantum mechanics to use.
But then I started thinking abut my conundrum from another perspective. Maybe I was being too picky. After all, I do the same thing when I select wood for my TriLooms... out of a rack of 500 pieces of wood I can usually only find 20 or 30 that I consider usable (and the guys at the wood store are always rolling their eyes at me).
Likewise, my tools have to be durable, do the job, and not cost an arm and a leg. People keep telling me "You get what you pay for." That's almost a truism. I've found that the sentiment can be more accurately rendered as either "You get what you (carefully) shop for." or "You get what they rook you into getting based on a brand name that means nothing anymore 'cause it's all made with too much lead in China anyways." But I might be a bit cynical there.
Might be, but the longer I look the less likely that seems to be. I read labels in the store (drives Jen nuts... she often wants what she wants and is used to and will grab and go) and the more I read the scarier it gets.... since when was high fructose corn syrup needed as an additive to EVERYTHING? I swear, they're adding high fructose corn syrup to high fructose corn syrup. That's about as ridiculous as opening a Starbucks inside a Starbucks. And engine coolant as a sweetener or favoring in low cal ice cream? Isn't that the stuff they warn you not to spill in your driveway because dogs and cats will drink it and die?
So, I'm going to keep on reading labels (sorry, Jen), and I'm going to keep on shopping for the best products at the best prices.
I'm going to keep on being picky and I'm not going to apologize for it. Sorry, but I just won't!
Oh, yeah, why is this WordPress lover's blog being written on Blogger? Simple. I also believe in redundancies, believe in redundancies, believe in redundancies, believe in redundancies. I'm also a geek and I like to stay abreast of available technologies... sort of the same reason I'm writing this on my Mac with three Windows PCs and a linux box in the same room.