This will, I hope...

...be my last word on Fritz. Though probably not.

Years ago, before they established the Gulch, Landlady and her husband T used to do a lot of desert four-wheeling. On one occasion, 'way back in the boonies, they came upon a litter of four tiny German Shepherd pups that someone unspeakable had dumped there. The puppies were in terrible shape; all of them near death from dehydration and hunger. L&T bundled them into the Jeep and rushed them back to a vet in the city. One died immediately, but the others survived. When they were healthy enough, L&T found homes for them all. That apparently worked out well for two of them, but they needed to take one back when the home didn't work out. That one, as you've probably guessed, turned out to be Fritz.

M repeated that story yesterday morning while we were burying him. D&L came with their backhoe to dig the grave, and then W and I brought Fritz from the barn in the Jeep, which I believe is the same Jeep in which he was rescued not enough years ago. Fritz always had a deep love for that thing: Sometimes visitors would come by and ask, "Why is that dog sitting in your Jeep?" The answer was always "Just in case." He always hated to think he might miss getting a ride.

And somebody speculated - a question I'd never thought to ask - if the reason he loved the yellow Jeep so much was because he remembered it rescuing him from death. I don't know if that's so; hell, I don't even know for sure if it's the same Jeep. But it's a great thought. Anyway, there's no question Fritz loved riding in the Jeep, so even though M's pickup was a more logical choice I insisted on hoisting him in for one last ride.

Gad, I'm gonna miss that big, dumb goof. Ghost, Little Bear, Beauty and I went for a long walk this morning, the young dogs usually flanking and walking point, usually not even in sight. Magnus and Fritz had always stayed close to me, but they're both gone now. Sometimes it felt like I was walking alone.

There might be light blogging...

...Over the next several days. I had a chance to go to the SAR show in Phoenix with a friend, a chance I regretfully turned down when Fritz turned so sick. And when M & W urged me to rethink that decision after yesterday's burial, my first rather irrational reaction was that the last thing I wanted to do was take advantage of my buddy's death by going to the city and having fun at a humongous gun show.

But...well, that's stupid. Fritz is dead, and sitting around mourning won't help him.

This promises to be a lot of fun, actually. Normally my tolerance for gun shows lasts no more than a couple of hours; once I've seen all the repetitive tables, I'm ready to go home. I'm signing on for three whole days of it plus, which wouldn't normally be an attraction. But my friend has other friends who are exhibitors, and need help setting up and manning tables. That means that not only do I get to go to this famous show for the first time in my life, but actually rub elbows with some gun nuts who make me look like Paul Helmke. So yeah - there's only one variable I need to check, as to whether the Landlady is coming this weekend, which as far as I now know she isn't. Failing that, I'm a-goin'.

I'll bring the 'pooter with me, but don't know how much chance I'll get to use it. We're leaving tomorrow, and I don't believe I'll get back to the Gulch before Tuesday.

Gonna miss my boys, especially now that we are only three. That's a point against.

Fritz, R.I.P.

After a sudden relapse over the weekend and one really bad day, Fritz passed away in his sleep yesterday afternoon. I still don't know what was wrong with him. After a week of praying it wasn't cancer or something else incurable, I woke up this morning praying it was: Then I wouldn't have failed him so badly. I had intended to rush him to the vet this morning, but I should have bundled him up and driven him to a 24/7 clinic a couple of hundred miles away. I didn't even think about it until it was too late. I should have done that Saturday.

I was ready for Magnus to go; he was old and had a brain tumor. But Fritz was a complete shock. It wasn't his time yet. And he seemed to be doing better. Maybe my own state of denial killed him.

Fritz was a big, dumb, goofy retarded five-year-old in a fur coat. Of all the dogs he was the only one who really cared, from one minute to the next, what I thought of him. He could be a handful; he was excitable, and when he got worked up he could be like a hundred-pound self-propelled chainsaw gone berserk. And yet he loved his people, including me, without the slightest reservation.

Landlady still says she blames me for the cop incident, and I've never denied that she's right. Fritz was my KopKruncher, the only dog I ever had who'd try to take a bite out of a cop just because he saw that I didn't like him. I haven't committed a violent act since I was a teenager, but as god is my witness if that guy had drawn on my dog I'd have dropped him in the yard, the consequences be damned.

I loved him, and I failed him, and he died. I guess that's all I have to say now.

Okay, I don't personally pay much attention to the holiday...

...but it is, on occasion, hilarious.



Happy Turkey Day, Y'all!

Why I'll never be a photographer...

So we're all sitting around the Interim Lair last night, wishing it wasn't so bloody cold. LB is camped on my bed. Click jumps down from her loft, curls up next to LB's belly, then reaches up, grabs his head in both paws and starts industriously cleaning his head. And I'm all "Awww!" And I grab my camera, and I fiddle with the settings trying to find one that involves the flash. Finally get it worked out, frame the shot, hold down the "shutter" button......And Click gets bored and walks away.

Thankful for Hope and CHANGE!

From the "Why did you ask me this" department...

ME: (Clicks "SEND MESSAGE")

THUNDERBIRD: "Do you want to send PLAIN TEXT to (address of recipient)?"

ME: No. I want you to translate it into Hutu first.

Quote of the Day

"When pols or athletes do a painfully bad guest spot on a sitcom, people clap pedantically like Retard Jimmy just hit a layup. The reaction to actors pretending they're critical thinkers should be similar." - Anon

Got another comment this morning...

On a post from back in July. This post gets a disproportionate amount of attention, possibly because when you type "Sheep, Wolves and Sheepdogs" into a search engine it comes up on the first page.

This comment was less abusive than the last, which I appreciate very much. I think we may be overthinking the metaphor just a little, but it was a thoughtful comment and deserves a respectful reply.

Mutt....interesting addition to the analogy. I thought you might be an unemployeed sheepdog, since you definately aren't in denial with the other sheep, but you didn't even mention a family you would protect, like most hidden sheepdogs. I think you're just a low-level wolf, not dominant enought to initiate the aggression. or maybe you've been castrated by all the societal conditioning you mentioned. you need to ask yourself. what kind of life do you pursue? do you take advantage of others, the sheep, or do you work to improve others. or do you just provide a service. then you might be a mutt.

First of all, I am not now and never have been a member of the military or of any law enforcement agency whatever. I do not wish to be herded, and I really wish self-appointed "sheepdogs" would stop trying. Also, I reflexively dislike the "sheep" metaphor, though I don't deny that a massive proportion, possibly a majority, of "good, law-abiding citizens" fit the description of sheeplike caricatures appalled at the notion of employing violence in their own defense - I merely suggest that this is a function of nurture rather than nature. IOW, I suspect that the metaphor's "sheep" are created by the constant, womb-to-tomb drumbeat of "call 911 and wait for the nice police officer" rather than actually being born that way as the "sheepdog" apologists insist.

On the use of violence in self-defense - I have observed every sort of vertebrate creature with which I come in contact, from mice and rats through literal sheep, larger game animals, and up to every sort of predatory beast. Every Single One Of Them has this in common: As juveniles, they are weak, helpless, and dependent on others for survival. The mark of an adult creature is that it takes the responsibility of its own survival on itself. The tiniest adult mouse will turn and attack an attacker, given time. It may not - it probably won't - do so successfully, but it will do so. Because that's what adult creatures do.

All except humans. Humans in our culture, anyway. In our culture, it is demanded of us that we stand back from our own defense, "give them what they want," and plead to be defended by those designated by the State for such duty.

The facts that our "defenders" do a piss-poor job of it, that they cost far more than they contribute, that they are minions of a despicable predatory State, and that they have a dreadful habit of turning predator themselves actually have very little to do with my objection to the concept. Those are really just side issues. My principal objection to the concept is that it is insulting. It is infantilizing. It is unnatural and destructive. Whether or not humans are some higher form of beast is a religious question I'm unequipped to hold an opinion on, but we are most certainly beasts. We have flesh and bone and beating hearts as they do. And while our teeth and claws may be inferior to the least of theirs, our tool-making ability elevated us to the top of the chain long, long ago. We are beasts, with all the attributes of beasts and more besides, and yet we are conditioned from the cradle to believe - or at least to pretend to believe - that unless we are endowed at birth with some rare and mystical "warrior spirit" we are incompetent to even contemplate our own defense and sustenance.

Well...That's...Bullshit.

What's worse, while that view works against the interests of every man and woman on the planet not in a position of authority, it very clearly serves the interests of one group alone - those who connive to positions of rulership over us. Every street cop, every bastard sheriff, every bureaucrat and politician and every loathsome, petty little tapeworm in any position of authority anywhere, those are the people whose interests we serve when we acquiesce to that world view - when we agree to sit back, do our jobs, pay our taxes and let the big boys do the thinking.

What has it brought us, this belief that these people are somehow more qualified to make decisions than we are? How many wars have we started? How many genocides have we committed? How many little old ladies have you tazed lately? They keep telling us all about how safe they're keeping us, but the reality is somewhat different. Look, I'm not the least bit afraid of the so-called "wolves" that are supposed to be such a threat, but the "sheepdogs" scare the hell out of me. If I beat off a robber, maybe causing him to become a bit leaky in the process, what's the next thing I have to fear? Not other robbers, no: Next the "sheepdogs" will want their piece of me. And if - may FSM forbid! - I should do the same to a "sheepdog" here to enforce some unwelcome edict of my distant masters, my life is guaranteed to be over in a most unpleasant way. Tell me again how this is an improvement? Explain to me, please, the benefit of having these people around at all! I really want to know!

Sorry - that wasn't supposed to be a rant. Dialing down now.

Look, the closest thing to a "perfect world" I can imagine wouldn't be terribly neat or tidy. It wouldn't be a utopia; I can't even imagine a utopia. There would be predators, and there would be prey. Sometimes the innocent weak would suffer unjustly. Sometimes the innocent strong would go too far, and cease to be innocent. That's human nature; we're messy creatures, not at all suited to utopia. But those who wished to live in peace would have the opportunity to enforce that peace themselves, and I doubt very much that they'd do a worse job of it than our self-proclaimed protectors do now. And even if they did, they still wouldn't have the capacity to spread misery on the unholy scale presently caused by our would-be masters, may their scrotums rot off.

JW, thank you for your comment. To summarize my answer: I am neither an "unemployed sheepdog" nor a "castrated wolf." I live my life quietly and as inoffensively as possible to those who do not molest my peace. I strive to be of benefit to my neighbors, and they both attest that I am a benefit and reciprocate in kind. I have no interest in either molesting or "improving" any other person. I wish only to live my life, enjoy my friends, and be left the hell alone by everyone else. Where and how, precisely, does this present a problem?

On Fritz...

Still no word on what might be ailing Fritz, but the meds are having a pleasant effect. He's been much more active, though not nearly to young-dog levels. His appetite has returned nicely, which tells me his temperature is probably under control. We've had to cut short the past several morning Walkies because he just couldn't do it, but today he came along for a good one and behaved as if he was quite happy about it. He's still on light duty and heavy doses of canned food w/meds, of course, but I've caught him eating dry food for the first time in quite a while. So I have hope that what ails him is just a bad infection, as opposed to something fatal. But I'll be on pins and needles until I hear back from the vet.

The Lair's Roof

With much help from M, (IE, he did nearly all the work: All I did was cut panels and carry stuff) the Secret Lair now has a genuine waterproof roof! Yay!

Yes I know the stovepipe's too short, gorram it. A bit of retrofitting is called for there. But the hard part is done; it's just a matter of sliding in a new (ruinously expensive) double-wall pipe or fitting an extension to the top of the one I've got: Not sure which will work yet.

The interior is slowly, slowly making progress; I've got most of the wiring pulled (not that there's a way to power it) and I now at least possess all the insulation I need. Indoor plumbing of any sort will certainly not happen before Spring.

It All Comes Down to Bacon. Of Course.

From West of the West via Tam:

How to choose your religion, in one easy flow chart!

Really? Yah think?

Concerning those swiped emails...

"It is right before the Copenhagen debate, I'm sure that is not a coincidence," Trenberth said in a telephone interview from Colorado.

The Cultists of Climate Change claim that the emails were selectively leaked, exposing only the embarrassing ones. Well, but that would be the point, wouldn't it? I don't care what these "scientists" had for lunch, or whether their boss thinks they are past the deadline to submit form J1903. But if they're cooking data in the interest of the NWO, I'm kinda glad to hear about that.

Yes, of course the hackers who exposed these files have an agenda. Why should they be different?

There's a pretty good summary of the kerfuffle here.

Gorram it!

Had a pretty good day right up to the point where I stopped working. Then it all went to hell.

Landlady came over and shared coffee and breakfast. Tried to take the dogs for their morning walky, but Fritz made it halfway down the driveway and then just sat down. Thought I was going to have to carry him home. But that was all right with him; as soon as the visitors rolled out M and I went up to this old utility building S has on his ridge and started tearing out wall and ceiling insulation, rolling it up, stowing it in the Jeep's trailer, carrying it to the new Lair, unloading, going back...the dogs got more Jeep rides in one day than they normally get in a week, and it left them quite happy.

We finished up, pulled off the fiberglass-impregnated clothes, started it all in the washing machine. I was starved and tried to start lunch, only to find that:

A. I'm nearly out of drinking water, which reminded me that the hose threads had stripped out of the little pump we use for filling bottles from the barrels, and there's now no really good way to fill bottles, and I should have fixed it a week ago but forgot;

B. Though I just filled my propane bottles, I have NO PROPANE PRESSURE AT THE STOVE! It was working fine this morning, or at least as fine as it ever does. Truth is I've suspected my propane regulator has been going south for quite some time, and I think that today it just spontaneously grew tired of life. Which is going to make cooking food a bit more difficult until I (sigh) spend big bux on another.

Hating life, signing off.

Concerning Fritz...

Yesterday got really busy, sorry. Landlady is here for the weekend and so are some other stakeholders. M got our weekender neighbor S to help reality-check some plumbing issues on the Dome. W had arranged to return four of our new batteries to the manufacturer. B the stakeholder brought a digital hydrometer which we all had to play with once we'd disconnected and removed the misbehaving batteries. Then once we'd delivered the batteries for shipping, B rented a truck and we helped move some heavy stuff out of their storage unit and onto the truck. Then we partied for a bit, and then M, B and I went to the cabin and finished the roof (pix to follow.) Then we went home and move some heavy stuff out of the barn and into B's rented truck. Then we went to town and shared a loverly meal and didn't get home till well after seven. Busy day, in a series of busy days.

I didn't want to say anything about Fritz here until I'd taken him to the vet and discussed the findings with Landlady. He's her dog, after all, and I didn't know whether to call and worry her before I knew something more concrete, or to keep it to myself until then. I chose the latter which may have been the wrong choice, but it's the one I made.

Anyway: Our story so far. Fritz has become more and more listless over the past several days. He was pretty clearly dropping weight. His joints were bothering him, which worried me because if the glucosamine stopped working I wouldn't know what to do. Then he had a disastrous fall, for no apparent reason, off a bed he's slept on 10,000 times. Then while walking with him I began to notice that he seemed ... asymmetrical somehow. One side of his ribcage stuck out more than the other, but when I felt along him I couldn't detect anything and it didn't seem to cause him any discomfort. That changed overnight into a cereal-bowl-sized lump on his side, and simultaneously he - and you'd have to know the dogs to understand how shocking this was - started turning his nose up at snackies. The dogs are conditioned to go nuts at Snacky Time: It just isn't natural for him not to want to eat his canned food and everybody else's too. It scared the hell out of me.

So two days ago W and I took him to the vet. He has dropped 15 pounds since his ear surgery. He had a 103+ fever, and the lump on his side was a blood-filled hematoma. The vet wanted to know if he could have been kicked by a large animal: As inactive as he's been, that isn't possible. He's never off the property without me, and we haven't encountered any horses or elk. If, as the vet believes, the hematoma was caused by an injury, the only thing I've got is that he injured himself when he fell off the bed. The vet sent samples off for blood work, and we won't know anything from that for at least a week. He used the "Big-C" word.

When you don't know what the disease is, you treat the symptoms. Fritz got big shots of antibiotics and steroids, and I came home with handfuls of pills. Now we're in wait-and-watch mode. The good news is that he got his appetite at least partially back yesterday and plowed through an entire can of dog food. I'll be spoiling him rotten with that stuff for a while.

I don't even have Magnus' headstone planted yet. I can't lose Fritz so soon.

Maybe no update today...

Good (not perfect, but good) day on the roof front, bad day on the dog front. W and I have to take somebody to the vet, so I haven't got time to play on the computer and expect to get back late. Tomorrow for sure.

A little too independent for his own good...

Yeah, I was eating breakfast this morning when my cell phone rang, a not very usual occurrence. It was L, my neighbor from maybe a mile and a half away as the crow flies. "We've got Little Bear and Beauty over here," she tells me. She doesn't sound real pleased.

I was wolfing the last of my egg when W comes over. "L called, I'm gonna go get Beauty and Little Bear," he says. I said okay, I'd been about to go myself but if you wanna that's fine with me.

Now, LB has shown up at D&L's before, but on those occasions it has been in the company of Ghost when they went chasing one of our trucks. In this case all the trucks were sitting in the frozen yard, right where they belong. No, this time Beauty and LB just decided they'd waiting long enough for their morning walky. This Would Not Do. And it is true that Beauty and LB have gotten to be a rather mischievous team. Out here, mischief can get you hurt or killed.

W came back with the two miscreants and a rather stern request from L that we do something about our dogs. We couldn't think of anything to do but confine them during the times when they're most likely to get each other in trouble. So this afternoon while buying flashing for the stovepipe, I also bought some stake-out augers and cables. I drove my auger into the ground, connected LB to it, and went into the barn to take a shower, wondering what havoc would have ensued during my absence.

When I returned, LB was...Well, he was...

Progress is happening!

M came by this morning and said, "I'm hung up on plumbing. You wanna go put up the ceiling box and roof the cabin?"

"Why the hell not?" said I. And so that's what we've been doing.

Last Saturday, D helped me build the ceiling box for the stovepipe, but it's been sitting ever since while we put walls up in M's Dome. We're back for lunch at the moment, but have to run to town right after because the people who sold me the stovepipe kit also sold me the wrong @#$% flashing. But the box is installed and there's stovepipe sticking out through the roof.

Full disclosure: The reason I need help with what would otherwise seem a simple task is that the cabin's roof (I really must post pix at some point) is truly, massively pitched, I have one leg which means one ankle that bends and one foot that gives me feedback, and - oh, yeah - I'm terrified of heights anyway and at the top the bugger's about 20 feet off the ground.

It'll be really great to get the roofing on the poor thing so it will stop filling with water when it rains. :-(

What a revelation!

Who knew you could thwart pirates by shooting them?

NAIROBI, Kenya - Somali pirates attacked the Maersk Alabama on Wednesday for the second time in seven months and were thwarted by private guards on board the U.S.-flagged ship who fired off guns and a high-decibel noise device.

Of course, more enlightened voices were immediately raised in shocked protest. Defend yourself against armed pirates...with guns? How horrid! How...unmutual!

"Shipping companies are still pretty much overwhelmingly opposed to the idea of armed guards," Middleton said. "Lots of private security companies employ people who don't have maritime experience. Also, there's the idea that it's the responsibility of states and navies to provide security. I would think it's a step backward if we start privatizing security of the shipping trade."

Backward from what, exactly? Acting like mature creatures, rather than helpless, mewling infants?

They're three or four guys in a skiff, for god's sake! You've got a great big cargo ship, which is a far superior shooting platform! Last time piracy on the high seas was a big problem, in the 18^th century, do you know what made it go away? Cannon, that's what. Great, big expensive deck cannon. Not owned by navies, but by private shipping companies that didn't want to give their property to pissant coastal pirates. It's really very simple.

Take some freaking responsibility for yourself! Daddy's not here to protect you.

Heavy Thoughts - Why I Live Out Here

Earlier this morning, on a prepping forum where I spend too much leisure time, somebody posted a poll titled "Do you actually want SHTF?" I read through the answers, some of which were quite thoughtful. Then I added my own Deep Thoughts.

I voted "none of the above."

When I was an angry young man I dreamed of it. Fantasized about it; it was in all my plans. Would have done anything I could to bring it about, and if I didn't survive the doing I'd still have believed I'd left the world ultimately a better place. Angry young men can be stupid that way. Having studied a bit of history since then, and acquired more than a few gray whiskers, I realize that at best it wouldn't bring an improvement. A real, catastrophic breakdown might or might not toss out the Czar, but if it did it would bring the Bolsheviks and they're way worse.

No, the things I hate and fear in this world will be with me till I die. The best I can do is learn how not to fear them.

I can't make the world a better place; it's not in my power. But I'm still free to work on myself. And another thread of my youth was a sense of deep inadequacy whenever I thought of my ancestors, and how they, unlike myself, were not dependent for every tiny thing on the grocery store and the centralized infrastructure. The thought of dying of cold or hunger because the trucks and the electrons stopped moving always used to disgust me. I wasn't disgusted with the trucks or the electrons, which were out of my power. I was disgusted with myself, for being so dependent on masters I hated and forces I couldn't control.

When I got a little older I put all that out of my mind for decades. It seemed, at the time, the path of maturity. I became Mr. Suburban Man, but it never brought me peace. And older still, I decided that one part of that stupid, angry young man was right all along. I no longer give a damn whether this system endures or not, or what form its theoretical breakdown might take. I no longer debate calderas or asteroids vs. hyperinflation or civil breakdown. Instead I wrestle with balky solar batteries and help like-minded neighbors build their houses in the desert. I don't worry about the world outside me, because I can't do anything about it and wouldn't know what to do if I could. I work on myself.

So now, for me, prepping isn't about some end-of-the-world fantasy. It's about the way I've chosen to live now.