Even a gun controller calls Obama’s response to the UCC campus killings a tantrum and correctly states that nothing Our Glorious Leader wants will end violence. Here’s a pretty good fisk of Hillary Clinton’s latest opportunistic anti-gun knee-jerking, too. Again, it’s by somebody who’s hardly a pro-gun purist. Here’s another good one. I’d expect this sort of thing in over-regulated, over-zoned cities, but when rural Colorado tries to keep people from living off-grid on their own land, we’re truly in a pickle. (Via jed in comments) Have you ever complained about how some arbitrary credit score governs too much of…
Category: Rural and small-town living
Life far from freeways, Starbucks, malls, and other benefits/distractions
Glorious day. Seventy-five degrees under a blue sky, but still a distinct feel of fall. Our walks in the woods have been short and halting since May — first because of my ankle and increasingly because Robbie’s getting so old. I walk a little bit, slowly, while Ava runs ahead. Then I stop to wait for the old boy. Not to wait for him to catch up, but just to come into sight. He’s fine on the familiar old roads with their high banks of berry bramble; can’t wander off and get lost. But he’s good for only a few…
There’s a crew out today, dealing with brush and noxious weeds on my property across the street. Two of the people, a man and his daughter-in-law, have done work for me before and I like them very much, especially her. And I trust them. But he’s in the process of handing their business off to her and she’s brought in third relative, a man in his 50s. The new guy’s been here twice and every time he’s around, I’ve got this prickly feeling. First time, he was here only 20 minutes and by the time he left I had the…
One of the little towns nearby held its annual “grand parade” this weekend. You understand that “grand” is strictly in the eye of the Chamber of Commerce.
A reader of this blog is right now doing the dangerous, punishing, vital work of fighting wildfires in one of the many blazing western states. Hats off to him, big time. He sent me this: It’s an oregano farm, so he swears. 🙂 And far from the only one they’ve come across. In fact, these grows turn out to be a mainstay of this particular area’s economy. And not with government approval. Curious, I asked whether fire crews were being ordered to destroy the illegal “oregano,” report it, or let it be. He responded: I knew I wasn’t going to…
I don’t know when webmaster Oliver put this up, so you may have caught it before I did. But part 1 of my series on turning a $10,000 house into a home is now online at BHM. Working on part 2 as we speak. One of these days, I may even have a front porch. 🙂
“No Cupcake, there is no right not to be offended.” Nicki does it again. They ripped up their kitchen floor and found a secret code + $50,000. Is that cool or what? Commentariat member Stryder informs me this story is a hoax. Wait. Why would they bust a TSA agent for doing this? Isn’t molesting us their job? Annalee Newitz does a follow-up to her expose on the lack of women at Ashley Madison and concludes that, yes, it was outright fraud by the company. Despite hints of sentencing reform and lightening up of the drug war, prison vendors see…
I’ve been hustling the last week to catch up on summer projects before the first autumnal rains hit tomorrow. The rains will be much appreciated by the poor, fire-scorched people east of the mountains; what a terrible summer they’ve had! Even here, near the coast, a real rain will be a blessing for downing dust and cleaning sometimes-smoky air. Normally, sea breezes keep our air clean, but it’s been eye-stinging a couple of times this week. I can only imagine what the poor east-of-the-mountains folk have been enduring. —– I apologize to the Commentariat members who left interesting or helpful…
R. You’ve been working on this house a long time. Where do you live? Me. Across the street from C_____. ‘Bout a mile from here. R. Directly across the street? Me. No. Two doors down. R. Ohhhhhh, my great grandfather built your house! And the house farther down on the other side was my grandfather’s place. And … (goes on at some length) Me. Cool. I knew the whole road had been owned by family a long time ago, but I didn’t know it was your family. R. Yep. Your place wasn’t much more than a chicken coop when great…
This cop is a shapeshifter! And he and his cohorts are liars and manipulators. This article is nominally about millions being about to lose their Obamacare subsidies. But the most intriguing part is how many people aren’t filing their tax returns. The war on walking? Personally, I think all these busybodies who are so worried about every little thing being “cultural appropriation” should quit speaking English. After all, our language has been appropriating words from other cultures at a furious pace for thousands of years. Our culture would be considerably improved if the “appropriation” yakkers stuck to speaking pure Anglo-Saxon.…