08:47 – More packing. We got the cased long-term storage food stacked up in the basement near the garage door, ready to load. There’s more than half a ton of that: about 240 #10 cans of dry staples from the LDS Home Storage Center in cases of six cans each, another 60 #10 cans of stuff from Augason Farms, and half a dozen cases of canned meats. That’s roughly half of our total food storage. We also have the stuff upstairs in the kitchen and pantry, and a full 4′ by 2′ ceiling-high shelf unit in the basement that’s full of canned and bottled goods–vegetables, soups, spaghetti sauce, peanut butter, etc. etc. Our current total of food is something over a ton. We’ll move most or all of that on our second trip up to Sparta after we close on the house. The first trip will be the stuff we need to get by at the new house, even if it’s just camping out in the bedroom.
Meanwhile, of course, we continue to ship science kits. Sales normally start to speed up around Thanksgiving and maintain a good pace through the end of January or so. I have three kits to ship so far today.
We decided to drop our VoIP phone line and go to using cell phones exclusively. Our Verizon cell phones get five bars all over the Sparta area, including inside the new house. At this point, literally 99% of the calls we get on our VoIP land line are telemarketing robocalls. It’s just not worth keeping it.
Barbara said her days of doing yard work are over. With about 1.5 acres of yard at the new place, she said she just wants to hire someone to mow the lawn. She’ll continue gardening, but that’s it for yard work.
Lawncare: we have a Robomow lawnmowing robot, which I can highly recommend if your plot is suitable (not too sloped, and no sudden obstructions, such as falling fruit or branches). Installing the perimeter / guide wire is best left to the dealer, but the machine is set and forget after that.
I’ll mention it to Barbara. Thanks.
What I’d really prefer is to buy a lawn tractor with gardening attachments like a tiller, but Barbara says she really doesn’t want to do that.
What I’d really prefer is to buy a lawn tractor with gardening attachments like a tiller, but Barbara says she really doesn’t want to do that.
and a snowblower attachment.
I’m not going to worry much about snow. As Barbara said, if we get snowed in it’s not like we don’t have everything we need already. I we did get snowed in, we could probably still get out and back in my 4X4.
Hm, a lot of guys LOVE running the lawn tractor to cut the yard. Maybe it’s the only peace they get during the week?
Certainly pushing a mower on that yard would be a b!tch.
Did Chicago burn last night? Didn’t see any news and haven’t looked yet.
Got the in laws here for the holidays. Gonna be good times for Nick /sarc
nick
Get a ZTR with a nice 48″ to 60″ deck and mowing the yard will be a breeze.
I want to be able to plow/harrow all that grass if we need to plant crops. I don’t think it’ll come to that, but there’s a small chance it will.
Get a ZTR with a nice 48″ to 60″ deck and mowing the yard will be a breeze.
Second that. Cut my mowing time from three hours to 1.5 hours mowing the same amount of grass. Easy to operate even in the heat of summer. However, wear ear protection.
Thanks to the western drought I pretty much let my lawn go. Haven’t fired up a gas yard tool in almost two years. Don’t miss it a bit. Bought an electric weed eater and use it to trim up the edges and spots that get too high.
I’d turn a good piece of that land into garden space ASAP, start getting it ready now. Like Mr. nick, sez, ya gotta learn that stuff hands-on and it ain’t that easy, learn from mistakes, too, and what works and doesn’t in your microclimate; get a soil test, too.
Rest of lawn, hire a couple of local kids to mow it. Worry about tractors and suchlike later.
“Maybe it’s the only peace they get during the week?”
That is correct; the guy next door seems to find ALL kinds of uses for his riding machines, mowing, hauling stuff, etc., from his properties on either side of us, every day of the week. Plow in the winta. Out constantly doing stuff, and we can easily guess it’s largely to get the hell away from nagging spouse, ancient FIL, and the train-wreck stepdaughter now living with them; the other train wreck stepdaughter lives on the other side of us; out on the deck there into the wee hours smoking her cancer sticks and coughing and hacking continuously. Both stepdaughters have iPads they tote back and forth nonstop while smoking and live rent- and expense-free, well into their late 20s.
“Did Chicago burn last night? Didn’t see any news and haven’t looked yet.”
Local imbecile nooz readers reporting some minor rioting, a few arrests, and the released video showing the kid jerking with each of the sixteen rounds parked in his brisket as he lay on the pavement, while Officer Hero started to reload. It’s almost like it’s repeated deliberate attempts to set off rioting and destruction each time now. Between the scumbags themselves, the outta-control cops, and the nooz media, that Zippo keeps getting flicked amid a pile of gasoline drums sitting on top of C4 and dynamite.
“Got the in laws here for the holidays. Gonna be good times for Nick /sarc”
My condolences. We just have a married couple/family friends coming with Princess on Saturday, when we’ll do the actual T-Day dinner thing. The wife babysat Princes and her brother a couple of decades ago and live down in the Vermont tropics. Husband is an Army vet but managed to avoid the Late Unpleasantness in SEA but he works a lot with the local Legion post down there. Good people.
Someday we’ll have wife’s cousin and aunt over for T-Day as we were invited down there on previous holidays and now we have our own house (lol, the finance company’s house that we rent).
I’m not too concerned about sustainable food. Sparta is a farming area that has lots of grain and vegetable crops, fruit, beef and dairy cows, etc. etc. And, of course, about a million Christmas trees on the hillsides.
My immediate goal is to build up a three-year food supply for Barbara, Colin, and me, along with plenty of extra for family and friends, should they be able to get there.
I will, of course, also be ordering in cases of canning jars and lids.
More Mooslim scum are a coming! Thanks Obola! Way to destroy the country.
President Obama’s open-door immigration policy is set to accept more immigrants from Muslim nations over the next five years than the entire population of Washington, D.C., according to federal documents.
Where is the outrage. 650,000 no skills, non working, underclass scum. Send them all to DC.
Obola wouldn’t be doing this without the green light from his handlers/overseers behind the curtain. It’s deliberate and with malice aforethought. He’s simply the front man, the puppet. Wouldn’t be any different with Rubio or Cruz or Trump or Cankles; this has been the design for a long time here, staring with the late unlamented Ted Kennedy and his minions back in the Glorious Sixties. And it won’t be just hundreds of thousands; it will be millions, over the next five to ten years. Obola tells us, of course, that we’re a “nation of immigrants” and it’s the “American” thing to do, which is exactly what any of the other sons of bitches would say. They don’t have to live with it or sustain the impact across the board on everything.
They don’t have enough troops and cops to run a totalitarian police state right now? No sweat, G.I.; they’ll simply use them as cadre, and arm and train all those hundreds of thousands of young males with no jobs, no skillz, etc, who would love a chance to blow away regular Murkans. Fast-track some kinda citizenship, run ’em through a version of boot camp, and hand out ARs and the mountains of ammo they’ve been stockpiling.
OFD is getting uppity and mouthing off up there in northern Vermont? You say he’s ready for a few B&E guys or dopers trying to take off his medieval poetry books? No problemo, hombres; just send in fifty or a hundred guys with rifles and swarm the fuckin’ house. Ditto that other mouthy guy in the Capital District, and the mad wizard chemist in North Carolina.
Or, probably more likely; set it up to have major urban war zones with the incoming goblins in pitched battles with the native gremlins; gets outta control and send in the troops for that particular situation and declare martial law/”state of emergency” or “national security” stuff. Establish the precedent. Make some examples. Rinse and repeat with necessary refinements.
“More Mooslim scum are a coming! Thanks Obola! Way to destroy the country.”
And for each one of those moslems, add another count of Treason (providing aid and comfort to the enemy). Drawing and quartering would be too kind. Where is there an official with the gonads to bring up the charges. Oh yeah, Obola has purged them all. Time for pitchforks and torches.
Edit: BTW, I see that Obola is calling back all that military hardware that has been given to local police departments. Could it be that he is actually concerned about a coup? Me thinks yes.
We were talking about safes a while back. I’ve had a Sentry Fire Safe for 10 years to hold papers, blank checks, etc. Monday, it wouldn’t open. After a call with Sentry, they determined the digital keypad was shot and it would have to be cracked. I took it to the local Stanley lock shop and they pried it open in about 30 minutes. I watched some vids on the net and could probably have done it, but didn’t have a good pry bar.
Can anybody recommend a good fire safe? For documents and other paper stuff. I’ve been pricing a valuable safe. As Mr. Nick stated, good ones are starting at $900.
I think you’ll have to pay closer to $9,000 than $900 for what I’d consider a decent safe.
Can anybody recommend a good fire safe? For documents and other paper stuff.
How about a safe deposit box at a bank or credit union?
I thought about a bank box, but a lifetimes worth of keeper papers for a family of 5 won’t fit.
A safe tall enough to hold long guns would definitely be in the $9K range for decency. Since I’ll probably be retiring to a high rise condo (sniff), not an option. I’ll have to mount the ARs and shotguns to the closet wall.
@mratoz
If it’s just papers, look online for used fire rated filing cabinets. They often have upgraded locking mechanisms too. Should be a ton of salvage available. Ebay has some listings and craigslist might have some near you….
nick
This is what we had for gun security when I was a kid. The only difference was my Dad made it himself.
“Electric Airplanes Will Change the Look of Aviation”
http://www.airspacemag.com/flight-today/NASA-electric-propulsion-180957302/
Dude, where is my flying car?
BTW, someone posted or told me in a conversation that they store their pistols in a fire rated file cabinet.
Must have a bunch of pistols 🙂
nick
Something like this:
http://www.govliquidation.com/auction/view?auctionId=10388457&convertTo=USD
nick
“We decided to drop our VoIP phone line and go to using cell phones exclusively. ”
Don’t you have to have a phone number in your DBA and tax certificate? I do in TX, and that number is public record. I have a vonage line I just use for that, hooked to the fax and never answered by humans. Ringer off too.
nick
I’m not going to worry much about snow. As Barbara said, if we get snowed in it’s not like we don’t have everything we need already. I we did get snowed in, we could probably still get out and back in my 4X4.
I’m betting that the county will snow plow that gas station at the corner of your property. And, if you get a ZTR, you can just drive it across the residential road to fill it up!
I wonder, if TSHTF, if you can pull gas and diesel from the gas station tanks if nobody comes to work?
@lynn,
The tank fill ports look like a couple bolts, and a dipper bucket on a string would do the trick.
nick
The tank fill ports look like a couple bolts, and a dipper bucket on a string would do the trick.
In “The Last Man on Earth” show, Phil #1 uses a hand pump with about a 20 foot long suction hose to fill up his RV from abandoned gas stations. Kinda something like this:
http://www.amazon.com/Siphon-Mate-Transfer-fuel-water-109PC/dp/B00JGX2H2Q/
Hmmm, thought there was some limit on how far you could pull liquid. Like 32 ft for water. Else it has to be pushed…
could be wrong, or it could be short enough that the siphon worked.
nick
I guess I can stop stockpiling yeast….
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/11/angry-feminist-makes-sour-dough-bread-with-her-vaginal-yeast-posts-it-online/
Oh, wait, I guess I won’t. (actually, now that I know you can just set a saucer outside and get some, that’s my fall back plan.)
nick
Just as a public service, a nice looking rifle for $470
Grab a gun has black rifles onsale for black friday:
http://grabagun.com/american-tactical-imports-tactical-imports-42.html
http://grabagun.com/del-ton-dtsport-collapse-m4-comm-stk.html
Some available in other colors,
http://grabagun.com/colt-firearms-m4-carb-mps-fde-5-56mm-16.html
And something I’ve not seen before
The Factory New AR12 is a Semi-Auto, Gas-Operated Shotgun patterned after the AR15 style,
http://grabagun.com/pw-arms-ar-12-black-12ga-20-inch-5rd.html
For when you can’t get a saiga I guess.
nick
I guess everyone was struck blind, and dumb by the yeast link….
nick
To repeat: If Obama hated America and was doing everything in his power to destroy it, what would he be doing differently?
I also coined the term the Madrassian Candidate for him, but hardly anyone gets it.
I have my long time house line and my long time business line (both over 30 years) on Vonage and Phone Power respectively. Keep them because that’s what everyone knows. Service quality is about equal but PP is cheaper by about $12. Should move the house one there too.
Some of you may recall awhile back I mentioned we are essentially out of heavy iron (bombs, smart and dumb) and cruise missles, well it is worse than that because our A-10s and C-130s do not have enough ammunition to carry out a mission.
This is just one of many articles: http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/ISIS-fuel-tankers-unharmed-US/2015/11/24/id/703437/
Makes me wonder if our “Special Operators” are similarly low on supplies.
Looks like Russia has many cruise missiles. I wonder if they would give us a few before they “give” them to Turkey:
https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/not-war/
Wait, that came out wrong. I wonder if they would LOAN us a few rather than drop them in. I wonder how many cruise missiles are on board that heavy missile cruiser? You know, when Russia moved most of their Black Sea fleet into the Mediterranean earlier this year, I wondered what they were up to. Now it is painfully obvious.
http://news.usni.org/2015/10/05/russian-warships-in-eastern-mediterranean-to-protect-russian-strike-fighters-in-syria
“I guess everyone was struck blind, and dumb by the yeast link….”
Yeah, thanks. Now I can’t get that image outta my head. Could these mutants possibly get even more disgusting? They’re. Not. Like. Us.
“I also coined the term the Madrassian Candidate for him, but hardly anyone gets it.”
Illiterates, dude. And like I say, Obola can’t do or say anything that isn’t already approved by the crafty fuckers behind the screen. Yes, he hates the country and its people, is probably a homosexual of some kind, half-white musloidophile, and a long-time communist. The powers-behind-the-throne must have been laughing their asses off for the past eight years; what a colossal joke on the country. Clearly they wanna see another civil war and the economy tanked so they can run it like some South American banana dictatorship and they’re getting theirs while the getting is still good and the middle-class Murkan golden goose hasn’t quite breathed its last yet.
“Makes me wonder if our “Special Operators” are similarly low on supplies.”
Well gee, that materiel had to be diverted to stockpile billions of rounds of ammo for all the various Fed and state agencies and departments and THEIR spec ops teams, dude. Get with the program! Having been around spec operators and their spec operations in the distant past when it still meant something, I’m not so overawed and enamored of them nowadays; there’s zillions of them, it seems. And now we have guys in underground bunkers “piloting” aircraft and drones anyway, and we’re building rifles that shoot around corners.
And let’s take any excuse we can find for a powderkeg spark in Turkey and Syria now; pit NATO against the evil Russian bastids. Kick off World War IV. While our attention is over there or on the latest innocent black toddler brutally murdered by crazed fascist cops in some shit-hole city here, the financial wizards do more funny tricks in the economy and Obola gins up another 2,500 laws and regulations and Executive Orders.
I have a very bad attitude; I feel now that we fought the wrong enemy forty years ago and should have been operating in Mordor and NYC instead of SEA rice paddies and jungles. Too late now. And lest anyone think I’m a commie fellow traveler, our opposite numbers should have been doing the same thing in Moscow, Hanoi, and Peking; let’s all wipe out the miserable evil old rich bastards sending us to our graves every generation. Reading Great War diaries and journals and letters is yet another illustration of how the old is new again, or something like that. Another stupid cousins’ war, where Western Christians slaughtered each other for nothing.
Count me out. We’ll fend off the local scum up here and I’ll be the first fummamucker out the door with a rifle when ISIS paratroopers are dropping outta the sky overhead.
Meanwhile Obola tells us:
Don’t worry, be happy. Have a happy Thanksgiving.
And: If you see something, say something. Something suspicious, that is.
And: Ima jus’ gonna go over here and sign some papers and let us bring in another few million hadji refugees, m’kay?, most of them hostile and aggressive young males…
Not even underground bunkers. Just refitted conex containers. Kinda lacks the evil genius vibe.
Well, I’m gonna be thankful it hasn’t crashed down yet. And that my family is close. And that I have eyes to see, mind to think, and body to act.
That’ll have to be enough.
nick
“Well, I’m gonna be thankful it hasn’t crashed down yet. And that my family is close. And that I have eyes to see, mind to think, and body to act.”
+1
That’ll have to be enough.
+1
And our three hots and a cot here, plus two kids that have turned out well, extremely well by comparison to much else that is Out There.
With the presence of mind to realize, also, no matter that no one in my entire extended family but my next-younger brother believe, that our “leaders” across various fields of endeavor are assiduously beavering away at destroying the country and the crashing down can happen tomorrow morning or twenty years from now or at any point in between. Twenty years MAX.
Pax vobiscum, all, and a very pleasant and happy Thanksgiving today.
Another lawn option I’d like to toss out there. We also have about 1-1/2 acres. We decided to keep only one small area as a “lawn”, and let the rest turn into a meadow. It is mown only once a year, to keep it from turning into scrub. We have a local farmer do this, because no normal mower is going to get through the high grass. Important: we never fertilize it, never have animal on it, and the farmer hauls off the cut grass. This means that the soil has gotten poor…
…which means that, after a few years, the wild herbs and wildflowers moved back in. So now the meadow is always in bloom. From early spring through late summer, there is always something flowering: buttercups, daisies, whatever. We find this a lot more attractive that just having mown grass, and it’s a lot lower maintenance as well.
Serious safes: buying used is the way to go, usually government, or bank surplus. My two are the former, my brother’s safes the latter. With banks constantly closing small branches to cut counter-staff costs, decent safes are easily come by. They can often be had for little or no money, provided you can undertake to move them.
At this point, literally 99% of the calls we get on our VoIP land line are telemarketing robocalls.
https://www.nomorobo.com/
It works for me. The phone rings once for 95% of the robots. Can be used with most VOIP providers. Shortly to be immaterial for you, but perhaps others will find it useful.
Thanks. I’ll give it a try, just in case I decide to keep the VoIP service.