Sunday, June 26th, 2022. Week number 25
Good morning. It’s about 10 minutes to 7:00 and the Sun is already up. This week is going to be a hot one and it’s going to require some definite attention.
For some reason, the emotions of the barn water barrel collapse last week were not severe. Perhaps I expected failure or maybe I knew that that lead tank was not on solid enough ground. Maybe I had too many other things on my mind and just allowed the weakness to slip past me. Maybe I just believed that if I put a little water in the tank, the ballast would be enough to keep it stable. It wasn’t. When the rain and the wind came, the lead tank toppled over, the line got pulled free and all of the tanks simply drained out into the land. 1,000 L lost.
Perhaps at the time I was suckered by the romance that even one or two hours of rain would be enough to replenish the tanks. Maybe I believed my system was foolproof. I think that was a foolish thought.
I basically have somewhere between three and four tanks available with water now. There hasn’t been enough rain to do anything else and five of my 10 barrels are completely bone dry. The weather reports, which are as untrustworthy as a Florida relative, call for rain or perhaps a bit of rain this Wednesday and then nothing until the following Tuesday. That’s it. Just some brief showers once a week for the next two weeks with temperatures going as high as this region allows.
Technically, there is a chance I have enough water to keep everything moist by watering every other day. And if Wednesday’s rain is at least somewhat substantial, I get a refill that might take me to next week. Do you believe in this? Do you want to pray to God or to Jesus for help? Would you like to write a letter to the president? Any president will do. Would you like to write a letter to your representative and ask them why it never rains or why the weather service doesn’t understand officially about climate change?
I went on the weather site and they have news there. This is one of their lead articles:
Lake Mead water levels drop closer to dead pool status
The nation’s largest reservoir is at its lowest level since it was filled in the 1930s, and experts say that the declining water levels are ‘deadly serious.’
Water levels at Lake Mead dropped to historic lows this week with persistent drought exacerbated by climate change and increased water demands driving the reservoir closer to becoming a “dead pool.”
The nation’s largest reservoir on Thursday measured at 1,043.8 feet, its lowest level since the lake was filled in the 1930s.
The minimum elevation to generate power at Hoover Dam is 1,050 feet, according to the National Park Service. Below this level, the reservoir would be considered an “inactive pool.” However, Patti Aaron, public affairs officer for the Bureau of Reclamation’s Lower Colorado region told the Boulder City Review back in May that Hoover Dam will still be able to produce hydropower below this level. She stated the new threshold where the dam would no longer be able to produce power is at 950 feet.
Should the water levels fall below 895 feet, the reservoir will become a dead pool, meaning water levels will be too low to reach the lowest water outlet at Hoover Dam and flow downstream.
In addition to all of this interesting news, it seems that all the weather we get right now is very similar to the weather I’m getting here. We don’t get gentle rains anymore. We get brutal storms or we get nothing.
I’ve said this before but the way I look at the situation is that it is similar to a person who is very constipated. If your excretory systems are not working, if they are blocked, you are very uncomfortable all the time and when you do get to relieve yourself, it’s painful and sometimes violent. The difference between taking a nice poop and diarrhea is what we were talking about. Sorry if you were thinking that this was a food blog and I am making a big mistake by mixing metaphors but this is exactly deadly serious.
I’m reading AccuWeather for this and they have a section labeled climate.
Massive public works projects are needed in Texas, Nigeria, the Arctic ice is breaking up, the sea is dropping huge amounts of algae on the beaches, the Alps are drying…
One wonders at what point will people stop and think.
For the last few years, I have been doing a lot of personal writing but at the same time, I’ve also been working with independent journalists. I think the motive for anyone who takes the trouble to write is that you hope that you are being an influence on others. Perhaps your motivation is simply to amuse or to intrigue. Perhaps you just wish to play with their emotions, bring them up or bring them down or play with their sense of fear. Of course we have plenty of people who do this for political advantage or simply for money. We have quite a few people wasting people’s time and energy and making it impossible for actual information to pass through to the general population. This is the concept of fake news. Usually conservative political groups try to make the economy more important than ecology in my case and use a snow blower technique to blind already overloaded people with useless information and lies.
If I say something about how dry it is all the way at 52° latitude, for some reason people just say that it’s fake news. If I measure my groundwater and measure how often the weather service, using traditional means to predict the weather, he’s wrong and what the quality of the rain is even against my own anecdotal understanding from living here 20 years, people just brush it aside. That’s just Adam and everyone knows you’re not supposed to listen to Adam.
It occurs to me that general public thinking is that THEY will do something about it. We all know who THEY are. THEY are the people who take care of us now. THEY give us our jobs, THEY bring us our exciting supermarket food from thousands of miles away, THEY make all of our important moral laws for us, THEY arrange for weapons shipments and Big blocks of money to come and help us when we are attacked unnecessarily by our neighbors. THEY are the people with agency, the ones who actually do things, whose tastes we are obligated to follow and whose wins dictate the seasons. THEY will help us. THEY know what they are doing. THEY got us here. THEY will certainly get us out.
I don’t see this as the correct answer. I don’t see how THEY I’ve been anything but incompetent and ineffective and inefficient or are not guilty in the causation of massive environmental harm year after year after year. No, turning to the capitalists to solve problems caused by capitalism is illogical. The math doesn’t make sense. You cannot go to profiteers to find the solution for damages caused by profiteering.
The only answer that makes sense is that it is personal for every individual human being to take responsibility for themselves and their lives and to purposely and purposefully make all efforts at conservation and limit the amount of pollution and garbage we are responsible for.
The only thing that we require from the corporations and the conservative governments and all of the slick suit carpet bagging Representatives wasting our attention time with bullshit information is to take the pressure off the economic system so people can lay back and take it easy. It is the answer to the problem. Keeping the population of the planet as aggressive and hungry as possible because they live in an economic system that they cannot win unless they are super athletes is illogical and unsustainable and has caused all of the massive ecological damage that is obvious and seeable today.
This perverse animal farm that we have built is the cause of the ruin of the planet
I’ve mentioned that I’ve been watching the original Star Trek show and last night as an addition to this, I watched an interview with William Shatner who played the captain of the Enterprise. Right in the middle of his interview about himself and his ideas of American television, he quoted a book by Rachel Carson called Silent Spring.
The overarching theme of Silent Spring is the powerful—and often negative—effect humans have on the natural world. Carson’s main argument is that pesticides have detrimental effects on the environment; she says these are more properly termed “biocides” because their effects are rarely limited to solely targeting pests. DDT is a prime example, but other synthetic pesticides—many of which are subject to bioaccumulation—are scrutinized. Carson accuses the chemical industry of intentionally spreading disinformation and public officials of accepting industry claims uncritically. Most of the book is devoted to pesticides’ effects on natural ecosystems, but four chapters detail cases of human pesticide poisoning, cancer, and other illnesses attributed to pesticides.
Understanding his age, Shatner was quoting a book written 60 years ago and according to Shatner:
And then finally I came up with the only answer that makes any sense to me and that is even 40 years ago, Rachel Carson wrote a book called the Silent Spring and it was the beginning of questioning the planet’s ability to sustain itself. The human race is in question right now as much as we try to blindfold ourselves and deny it and put on colored glasses. The fact is that within 100 years, as short a period of time as that, it could mean the end of human life. And then (perhaps) the earth will cleanse itself and another species will be the top.
But Star Trek posits that in three or four hundred years, life will be wonderful and that technology which has dug us into this, larger than a mess, into this cataclysmic possibility will get us out of it. This is a strange sort of human characteristic that the very thing that’s killing you is going to make you better. That positiveness that life exists and that goodness will out and right will prevail and heaven exists. All the positive aspects that we look to as we look around us at the ruination. And we seek to be uplifted by a variety of things. Religion being one of them and Star Trek being another. Well there are people out there who found something (in us) they could hold on to and became very passionate about those ideas.
Indeed.
Mr. Shatner is still an environmentalist by the way:
The only thing we can do is to do everything we can do to try and keep this thing going. And in my opinion, the best thing we could possibly do is simply stop inflicting ourselves on the planet and on each other.
Last week, I wrote about a sudden burst of consistent energy that I haven’t had in quite some time. It really was something that I had to drive to get up and do all of the things I need to do. I had even the wherewithal to go through the pain caused by all of this movement. I was actually pretty pleased with myself and liked what my landscape looked like with all of this fine human activity. Honestly, I even broke the Sabbath late yesterday afternoon and took the trouble to pull a few weeds in the garden where we are growing peas. It’s not a successful garden and it was hard for me not to bend down and do a few minutes of work. Don’t throw rocks at me.
This burst of energy is not only helpful to help me get through my days, it’s also a healthy way to manage my own health. I like to eat and I do not like fasting or controlling my portions. It is who I am and I’ve lived my life this way and it’s hard for me not to enjoy a meal. But what this means is that I am obligated to move around and be very physical in order to retain my health. I could go into the history of my diabetes but it had a lot to do with getting my bicycle stolen and the police not allowing it to come back to me. That’s another strange story but basically taking me off my bike has led to my physical downfall.
These sorts of public health problems in the age of information and electronics are going to be tenfold in the future. I’ve talked about the percentage of the population that will have diabetes, about what happens to people who are first generation Western diet fast food consumers. The information is out there. The science is real what KFC does for you when it comes to your town. Or McDonald’s.
Add to that the contamination caused by single-use plastics and exactly here, the pesticides and chemicals needed to maintain mono crop Mass plantings specifically designed to feed animals. You have in other words, the recipe for disaster.
Personally, I’m pretty happy eating a vegan diet. Not eating meat doesn’t bother me one bit. I don’t miss it and if I think about it, it is truly disgusting to me right now to put dead animal flesh in my mouth. Feel free to laugh but it’s been four or five years now and I’m getting along just fine.
But leaving me completely out of this, moving to a plant-based diet would not only ease the weight that will be put on public health from diabetes and cancer, it will also free up a lot of farmland and put less environmental stress on the planet by reducing animal agriculture or ending it entirely. This is just the science of climate change and it is not even talking about the physical abuse of sentient beings and how we end up using that exact same way of doing business on ourselves. Most likely, making a mass decision to end cruelty to animals will also go a long way to ending cruelty towards people.
You know, like a giant positive domino train, one horrific nightmare after another falls and the world has an opportunity to heal itself and get better.
Anyway, it seems that I’m probably going to have to take some water out of my well this week. Current measurements will allow me perhaps one tank a day. The new pump will take care of that pretty quickly and this will increase the amount of water I have available over the next few weeks. Hopefully, the new pump will be less obtrusive and my water will not be spoiled as much as the submersible pump caused.
However, I am going to make a run to town today. The outlet valve on the new pump leaks like a sieve. I wanted to buy metal couplings but was only able to buy plastic. There is a different place that has the couplings.. I will try this first but it is also possible that the problem lies in my three-quarter inch hose not being big enough to support the power of the pump.
I’m going to try increasing the strength of the coupling itself. I don’t hear any strain on the pump itself but it’ll be a great cost savings if I can avoid having to buy a bigger hose. That’s money and garbage. Yes, live and learn and life mistakes cost what they cost but still, I am on a budget here.
It’s not going to be a lingering stay in town. If I can do my job in an hour, this is a positive but if I miss my train, I have another one or even another set of alternatives that will be a purposeful use of my time.
The only thing I am not looking forward to is the bike ride along the Sandy service road. No rain for a couple of days means that this damn thing is going to be like a sandbox and I’m going to be suffering every turn of the cranks. Where does all of this sand come from? Desertification. The surface road runs in between giant State fields growing single crops year after year after year. Have you heard this rhetoric from me before?
So, I have one hour from right now before leaving so I guess I’m going to get up and get moving. I’m also going to be a little attentive to my diet and to somewhat minimize my portions. I understand exactly what I just said but it’s just too warm for big meals. It’s just logical to go minimalist. And besides, I’ve got a lot to do.
***
Eu candidate status has been achieved. It is perhaps a reason to cheer but really, the problem of getting the European Union to get out of its cars is the only issue at place. Blah blah blah, the Russians are horrible colonialists and have no right to shoot missiles and kill civilians, women and children. This war is one of the most revolting displays in the post internet world and the ridiculousness of the rhetoric proposed by them and by agreeable conservative legislators all in the pocket of the oil business is simply nonsensical. It is brutality for brutality sake and the demonstration of how little the profiteers actually care about the harm they cause humanity.
So how many days and weeks and months have to pass while this bureaucratic change takes place? While we fight for the status of the country as seen by europe, what exactly happens to the millions of displaced people or the families who have suffered losses? How does all of this pompous posturing and passport shuffling help the children who have had this as part of their upbringing?
If you believe the situation is evil and you wish to wave a flag of freedom, ride your bicycle today. Ride your bicycle tomorrow and leave your car every single opportunity you can. Don’t look for reasons to burn fossil fuels, look for reasons to be ecological. Don’t go to the supermarkets and buy food that has had to travel thousands of miles on fossil fuels to get to you, forget your egotism for a moment and eat what is local and seasonal. This is better for the ecology and it’s also better for your own personal economy and for the economy of people who live near you.
Stop wasting resources on your personal egotism and amazingly enough, you will be contributing directly to the war effort. Stop supporting the oil business, and Russia stops receiving a billion dollars a day to support their lunacy.
***
It’s 10 minutes to 10 and I am lying in the grass next to the train platform. Only one stoppage along the road. It is indeed a beach but if you ride the crown of the road and stick to the tractor tracks, you can find at least a little purchase. Maybe 15 slides but only one stoppage. Yes, I got angry. I have not achieved this perfect state of sentient being that allows emotional outbursts to pass by. I get angry. I always get angry. I will always get angry.
The plan of action is actually pretty simple. The guy I usually go to only deals in plastics. And there is another seller nearby who I believe has some brass couplings. I will go to her and sit through her insistence that I buy seven times as much as I need. She has a higher quality coupling but she has a higher sense of getting every penny out of her potential clients. I will make no comment here regarding traits of the sexes.
In the owner’s manual of the pump however it does say that there might be a problem if the volume of the hose is not sufficient for the power of the pump. I currently have about 50 m of 3/4 in hose. This was absolutely fine for my old pump at least after I took the trouble to make a custom clamp that held the hose in place. I used two clamps actually just to be sure. Also, it was a submersible pump so leaking was a pointless discussion.
This pump however is right in front of my eyes and watching a steady stream of my water fly out of the plastic coupling is alarming. I count how many liters of water I have and I have taken quite a bit of trouble to make a system that retains rain water so that I will actually have water to pump. I don’t want any leaks in the system if I can’t help it. This is not only for water pressure, it’s for volume.
Of course, their recommendation will be to buy a thicker hose. a thicker hose would be heavier but I would also have less problems with crimping. These cheap hoses I bought are better when you leave them outside in the sun all the time. It just seems like an inevitability that I will need another 50 or 60 m.
It’s Sunday morning so there is a parade of people heading back into town on the train. The train station is located next to a country cottage community. There are a lot of dachas here.
It’s pretty hot and all the old folks are walking very slowly. I’m not sure it is so hot for me. According to the weather report, it’s actually pretty mild…
***
Okay it’s 10 minutes after 11:00 and I’m sitting on the train ready to go back. I got everything I needed, two metal couplings and even some veggies that have not quite appeared on my own field, in about 5 minutes and got back to the train in time to sit down and even spell check that little piece of text from before. I would say but I am having a lucky day so far.
The reason I say that it’s lucky and the reason why the previous section ended with an ellipsis is that I had a chance to have a very nice conversation with the nicest girl in the world. I’m not very keen about putting people’s names here. I don’t think she would mind but just for privacy’s sake, I will just refer to her as the kindest girl in the world.
I first met her last week as I was riding along the railroad tracks to the train station. I was preparing to sweep out to the left to go around her but she heard me coming and moved, flashing me a brilliant smile that seemed like sunshine. It was the kind of smile that stops you and makes you grateful for it.
I got to the station faster than she did of course and found my place in the grass. When she finally arrived and walked past me, I made sure to smile back at her and she told me that she thought my beard was very pretty. Can you imagine that?
I never saw her on the road today but I was early for the train and she came by with that beautiful smile again and this time I did everything I could think of to hold on to her for a while. You just must do something to hold on to these moments when they appear.
She is a teacher, 26 years old, studied education in Minsk and specialized in education for autistic children. She said that this probably explains why I think she’s so nice. I myself have never been clinically diagnosed as being on the spectrum but I’ve often wondered if I was. Either that, or I just don’t like people.
We had a lot to talk about. Dealing with people with developmental disabilities, education and her mother and I are even neighbors of sorts. I don’t know who her mother is but I understand she lives nearby.
We kept up the conversation pretty much the whole ride. I stood up slightly early because I had to be with my bike to get off the train. She shook my hand twice, the first one perhaps wasn’t enough for either of us. She actually looked a bit sad that we were parting. Honestly, I was sad too. I told her that she could find my contact number on my blog if she was interested. I got to say goodbye one more time after I got off the train but it was just in passing. Sorry, I only have an hour if I’m going to make the return trip on time.
Right after this, my legs were on fire. Okay, you could blame the warm up on the Sandy service road but I was flying over to the market. The first place I went to had the couplings I needed and when I went into my wallet for the money, I even found five rubles that I didn’t even know I had. When I checked my phone for the time, I was plenty early and I even took the trouble to buy some vegetables for the ride home.
What can I say? I’m having a lucky day today. Let’s hope it stays with me all day. And cheers and a shout out to the nicest girl in the world.
And yes, though she is younger than my daughter, I didn’t notice the ring on her finger and asked the name of the person who gave it to her. This is not why I ended the conversation. Just saying. When you know it’s your lucky day, it is best if you cover all of your bets.
***
It’s a quarter to one and I’m already back at home and crashed on the floor of the War(m) room. The trip back was a bit of an effort with four stops but no falls. Four stops with a few angry loud words but nothing so brutal. Probably the most interesting thing was noticing the tan that my bike gloves made on my arm. It really was very hot on the way back.
Right after I got home, I sort of sat on the bench for a while and did nothing. Sometimes just getting back here seems to coincide with the end of my energy. After a few minutes though I got up and closed the gate. I put my bike away in the closet and unpacked the new couplings and the vegetables and stored away my bag and gloves. I opened a few windows because the house is absolutely delightful when the breeze flows through on hot days. This is a glorious summer house. It’s not really a winter castle unless you enjoy the minimalism like I set up last year. I really didn’t mind the winter. But summer is when this place really sings.
I’ve taken off my riding pants and I’m going to switch over to a pair of shorts. I don’t think I am going to burst into energy directly. I think I’m going to take a little bit of a rest here. It’s not that I don’t have things to do, it’s just that I don’t have anything to do that can’t wait. The garden definitely needs some water but it is much better to water later towards the evening or early in the morning. It’s just a higher percentage of gain. And as far as weeding and picking in the boxes or working with the trees, there’s almost no difference between today and tomorrow. Watering is the only real job that needs to get done.
As far as that goes, my plan is to pull water from my well and partially fill the three barrels under the barn. They are completely dry as is the barrel I have now at the back of the house. There is some rearranging that needs to be done and I think I’m going to move one pallet to the back of the house and double those two barrels, leave two under The Root cellar and three at the front of the house and under the barn. This is better than leaving all of my eggs in one basket so to speak. And I think the volume I get when it does rain in these places makes this a reasonable choice. I’ll probably get overflow at the barn but that’s a problem I can fix on another day.
I do want to pull water from the well today because if I don’t, I really might not have enough water to get through the week. They say that we will get some rain on Wednesday but there is no guarantee it will be an hour of steady water. Anything less than that and there is no guarantee that my tanks will fill. Better safe than sorry and I’d rather have an overflow than not enough.
I’ll water the plants from the three buckets in the front of the house. These are the only full buckets I have and I would like to drain them somewhat so that if we do get some rain, I get some benefit there as well.
Other than that, I truly hope these brass couplings make a difference. I hope it doesn’t leak too much. I’m going to take the crap out of the threads. If it truly is a matter of the pump simply being too strong for a three-quarter inch hose, both the inlet and outlet are 1 inch each (25 mm), well, that’ll be a problem for another day. We will get there.
Other than this, there is just one note about the ride to town. I have nothing bad to say about anybody again. Everything just flowed as it should. But there was one small moment that may or may not be hypocritical.
As I was writing in the grass along the tracks, I came upon three alcoholics making their way to the train. Forgive me for not using the name people. As I came up on them, I simply asked for one road. They were all standing on different aspects of the path and there was no particular way for me to get by them. There were two guys and a female and the female turned and smiled and made a big fuss about how they should get out of my way. There was quite a bit of drama in it and some obsequious smiles. I said thank you and rode the rest of the way to the station.
Once there, I crashed out on the grass like I always do and when they finally arrived, they stopped and tried to make conversation with me. Forgive the objectification but I saw no profit in it whatsoever and said I was busy. I was actually. I was typing the words that you saw before.
They were of course insulted but took it as a matter of course. I’m not the only person who has told them to bugger off. When you leave your life from one medication to the next, you pretty much get used to being told to bugger off.
But then it was only 3 minutes or so before the kindest girl in the world showed up. She recognized me and I recognized her immediately and I started talking as fast as I could hoping that she would waste some time with me. In fact, I literally said that all I wanted was for her to waste some time with me.
Was this hypocrisy? It’s hard to say. Is this some kind of sexism? Am I saying that a woman should be obligated to give her time away but a man has no such requirement? Should I say that the need for energy from one group of people is not exactly equal to my own? Or perhaps I’m just dealing with and taking advantage of my own celebrity.
It’s hard to say. Right now, with whatever time and attention the nicest girl in the world gave me, I feel bad for not karmically sending it around. On the other hand, if when the nicest girl in the world showed up she had found me in pleasant conversation with three obvious alcoholics, my star would have dropped like a stone in her eyes and I probably wouldn’t have had the nice train ride. Perhaps we are supposed to be kind to each other or perhaps it’s better to allow normal pragmatism to prevent us from having too many unnecessary relationships.
Perhaps there’s even one more small nuance to mention in all of this. As I was suffering on my return trip on the Sandy service road, my chicken neighbor’s henpecked husband drove by in his stinky automobile. Neither of us waved at each other. I couldn’t see his face so I couldn’t see if he was smiling at me slogging through the beachy sand. Only the foul stench and the removal of my access to clean air meant anything.
But in thinking about this moment of dismissing some people and putting yourself out for a kind moment from others, it was the chicken woman who decided at a glance but she did not like me. Obviously she felt that I was completely dismissable and below her. She didn’t want to be dirtied by the likes of me.
I find that a bit ironic actually. Haven’t gotten to know this princess of Uzbekistan well over the last year and a half, I can’t really think there was a status issue. Most likely, she was formulating how much money she could take off me. Most likely, it was not just being a shitty neighbor, most likely she just wanted to get her game started as quickly as possible.
God bless the American dollar. As long as I have an American passport, I will never ever be lonely here.
***
It’s a little bit after 5:00 and I’m just sitting here waiting for a delivery. For some reason, the delivery people moved back my potential delivery by 1 hour. I don’t know why I always have to come at the very end of the day. It’s not that important. It’s not going to get dark till well after 10:00 and the only thing I have to do is some watering.
I ate a really nice meal a little while ago. It was the first time I used my steamer in quite some time. Some potatoes, an onion, a piece of a zucchini and some cabbage. I think I sprinkled some salt on it and that was it. In a word, it was refreshing. It was exactly what I wanted. I ate too much yesterday and this meal was my first and probably my only for the day. I ate some peanuts and dates this morning. I also had some fresh spinach with dinner.
Sometimes, I guess you just want to take the heaviness out of your diet. I moved around pretty well today, I had energy right up until the ride home. I was baking on the service road and I didn’t really want to do any more running. I took a few moments to put everything away but basically, I’ve just been laying around and doing computer work for the whole afternoon.
As for what kind of Internet work, it was absolutely nothing special. I built my new bookmaking spreadsheet. In case I haven’t made it clear, I am pretty much spot on as to my finances at all times. I don’t play with money that doesn’t get marked down. Everything that comes in and everything that goes out gets marked. I think I’m more accurate than BelarusBank. Recently, I’ve moved all of my cards on to their internet banking system but before this, they had a habit of misplacing 50 or so rubles every month. I wasn’t always losing them, sometimes they would come back to me later on. Eventually, we understood each other but it was always a little unnerving to have your numbers be off. Now, with the internet banking, they don’t have the chance to be so crazy. If I use a card for any reason, I immediately have it in writing.
As for business plans for next year, I don’t know. Perhaps I will find the energy and wherewithal to try and make some of my plans come true. Perhaps some opportunities will come in from somewhere. Maybe there will be some teaching opportunities. Maybe not.
If I sound like I don’t really care, that’s not exactly true. I always worry about money and if I actually had the money I thought I was supposed to have, that might make a big difference in how I look at things. As it is, I’m just going to leave quietly and inexpensively as much as I can. I find it much more interesting to worry about this Garden than I do about money. I don’t have too many irons in the fire but I’m not really broke. I’m not rich but I’m not completely poor. I’m just taking it easy. I can’t think of a single reason to do anything but take it easy.
I mean, let’s see what happens. I’m not the president of this country. I don’t have any particular power or influence here or over the American people. I certainly don’t have people clamoring to read me or to work with me. That was years ago when I was hot. Now, I just take care of the local problems. It’s enough for me. I don’t mind not playing the game one bit.
This being said, if something came to me as a positive, I would certainly listen. This doesn’t mean I’m on my knees and begging. I’m not begging anyone for anything. I’m just saying that if for some stupid reason suddenly I become interesting somewhere, I’d listen. If there’s a deal, let me know the story. What’s wrong with that?
Other than that, as far as the truly important things go, I’m going to be a gentleman to my ex partner whenever she is around. I have no intentions of drinking alcohol or eating meat. I have absolutely no reason to change my diet or party habits. But other than this, I guess I live somewhat of a rustic life and there seems to be quite a bit of exercise necessary just to live here. I guess I will just go with that. Why not? I’m not complaining one bit.
***
It’s 6:30 and I’m in the middle of pumping my well. There is almost no vibration and really this pump is very quiet. I’m not really drawing so much water though. It has something to do with the inlet hose laying flat against the head of the well. It must be pulling with quite a bit of suction and there’s nothing particularly asking the hose to stay around. Again, it’s hard to say what the story is. Perhaps a halfway investment would be to invest in five or 10 m of 1 in hose and appropriate couplings just for drawing water.
On the other side, there is not a single leak anywhere. Not in the hoses and not in the new couplings. There is no spray of water. Just a very slow draw from the well. There are also no leaks at the barn tanks. I guess I put them back together reasonably enough and all three are collecting water.
Still, I’d have been happier without losing that thousand gallons. But at the end of the day, I can’t complain. It certainly seems as though I have a pretty good system here. The pump is running. It runs very cool. I can touch it almost anywhere without burning my hand. I’m a little unhappy about how quickly it draws from the well but perhaps that’s fixable.
If I have any complaints though it is that they claimed it was self priming. This is not a gigantic deal but you have to bring out at least a liter and a half or 2 L of water and drop it into the tank before you start. Again, this is not the end of the world and the thing works. I’m just saying that they should not say that it’s self priming unless they want to explain itself priming means you yourself prime the pump.
I’m going to give this about 5 or 10 more minutes. I’m going to let it get down to 240 m. 30 L of water is close to 200 L. I could do more but it’s just kind of frustrating as to how slow it’s pumping. At least the pump’s not hot.
Oh, and the automatic on off works amazingly well. That’s the best thing about this. Even all these fixes and problems getting started today were made much easier for my ability to just turn off the pump and take my time getting from place to place.
Hopefully when I do the watering which is coming up in maybe a half hour, it’ll draw faster from the tank and I’ll get better pressure. We’ll see.
***
Crazy day. A lot of stuff and then not much and then a lot of stuff. The new weather report says that if we get rain, it won’t even be here until Thursday. It looks like I’m farming my well at least two times and maybe three. I’ll probably be doing this for the next while. Hopefully this thing doesn’t go dry. A lot of the plants didn’t look so good. They seriously needed a drink. Some things do better than others without water. But not forever.
Global warming. It’s been 15 years of drought. It’s not going to be easy. But I will try.
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