Ekcovox and The Redhead Blackbelt have me worried with their conflicting ideas of how to handle the coming economic storm.
Being an old country boy, I get my information from watching the signs. When the acorn crop is big it will be a wet winter. If a warm wind comes out of the south, it always brings rain. The north wind always follows a storm. So, I keep my finger to the wind, and stay in touch with what’s going on. I seldom get caught by surprise. Lately, I’ve noticed people saving barrels of rice, corn, wheat, and other food stuffs. So, there must be some kind of collapse coming. They are hoarding Red Winter Wheat, which means that this collapse thing is going to be BIG and long. So I’ve, of course, been planning ahead for the “Collapse“.
Well, you can stick your head in the sand and ignore the impending collapse if you want to, but for myself, I’m saving ice. As you know, I’m a refrigeration guy, and I have an advantage there. I’m not saying that to gloat, it’s just fact. When the electricity goes off, people are going to need ice to keep their beer cold. I figure that I can make a fortune on that alone. They say that wise people can turn loss into opportunity. So, I’ll be making my fortune off all of you losers that didn’t pay attention when you were warned repeatedly, fairly and squarely.
I’m putting away a closet full of bullshit, so my blog doesn’t run out. I have a one-horse power magneto generator that I can put in the place of the back wheel of my wife’s bicycle, and if she pedals hard enough I can make microwave popcorn, and watch the Forty-Niners on television.
I trained the dog to catch turkeys, so I won’t go hungry. She does real great, but I’ve had trouble teaching her to kill them before she brings them in the house. Apparently it’s a housekeeping thing with the little woman. Something about feathers and crap all over. I tell her that it is a real set back for my dog to beat her with a broom, and our life will soon depend on the dog bringing us turkeys, when the collapse comes.
We have several wood stoves with flat tops for cooking, and we have heat collection coils in the stove to heat the bath water. If I run out of wood for the stove, I can move the water heater wires over to my wife’s bicycle. She has been complaining all summer about not getting enough exercise, and her “back there” is getting to be too big. I guess that she will be happy for the opportunity to exercise, sometimes I amaze myself at my thoughtfulness. I don’t know, I’ve told her that her “back there” looks great to me. I try to be complementary, but she never seems to appreciate it. Women! I’ll never figure them out!
I have a lot more good ideas, but somebody told me once that you should not give all your good ideas away, so I’ll also be hoarding some good ideas. As you know, I come from a long line of people, that struggled to survive, so I know a lot of things the hard way already, I feel so sorry for you losers.
Anyway, it looks like the only setback that I'll be suffering when the collapse comes, is after I told my wife about my plans, she said that I would be staying real busy chopping the tree down in the yard. It seems that I will need the wood to be hand whittling my self a new bed to sleep in. The hard part of surviving will be about the same, it will be trying the figure out women. That’s a free survival tip for you people paying attention. The future of humanity will depend on keeping women happy!
ernie@branscombcenter.com
ernie,you got my attention real quick!when you mentioned something about warm beer in our future!!!!!
ReplyDeleteHand whittling a bed! Now I know what threat I'm using next on my husband.
ReplyDeleteI laughed the whole way through.
Ernie, perhaps we can skillshare!
ReplyDeleteYou can teach me to whittle a bed and I'll teach you how to make make contraband nacho cheese it goes really good with ice-cold beer, organic canine-captured turkey and the 49ers.
(I, too, guffawed all the way through that post)
they didn't have any electricity in that house at spyrock when i visited in 1951. just oil lamps, some of which i still have and a wind up phonograph. i just found out that the sherburns built that house. that was their homestead before john simmerly bought it from them. johns homestead was further north. just found out a lot of stuff most of which i can't talk about now. but thanks cousin. for the two beautiful gentlemen.
ReplyDeletei had some pozole for lunch today. that's pretty basic stuff and cheap. my dad taught me that one man's junk yard is another man's gold mine or vice versa. but if you are just saving it for a rainy day anyway, why not give it to good will so someone can use it now.
spyrock,where do you get your info?what you said here,pre-dates my family living out east of covelo,where the black butte&eel rivers come together.there is a ranger station there now.i have many pictures of my family being there in the early 1900s.think my grandfather H.J. sold the property to the feds in about 1925.this is about as far back as i go on knowing where my family lived in this area.my dad told me many stories about living out there.i always wonder if he knew indian dick.
ReplyDeleteOkay, It's time for you guys to tell me a story. I knew that Indian Dick was a place but I didn't know that it was also a person. Who was indian dick?
ReplyDeleteshine might have known? ernie?if possible,i need your e-mail address again!thanks.
ReplyDeletewhen they were homesteading spyrock it was in the late 1800's. the simmerlys got to covelo in 1870 and when john and laura first got married they lived on a ranch in the mountains near covelo. but when they went into town for xmas, there was a bad storm and they couldn't make it back to their ranch and all their animals died in the snow storm. so that's when they went to spyrock. i've got john and lauras marriage certificate. lets say 1890 for now. well if they bought your family's homestead years ago. then your family must have went somewhere right. you know where that is. i don't know about your indian dick, but when i went to spyrock for the first time when i was 4 years old, all the big men who had been outside cutting off the pigs tails and such asked me what my name was. i told them it was richard. and they said, "oh, hi dick" i got pissed off and i told my mom, "mom, they're dickin' me." so maybe i'm related to the indian dick y'all are talking about.
ReplyDeleteRoss, I tucked my e-mail address at the very bottom left of the post above. go back to the main page and you will see it.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't figure out how to put it here.
well, i think this may be important for you family history ross because he did mention shine and luther. so like cousin said, try calling mr mervin pinches in willets.
ReplyDeleteErnie...I think I read a little book about Indian Dick from the Blue Moon. As I have more aimless time than you, I will confirm that, or not, for you and get back to you.
ReplyDeleteIf indeed the future of humanity rests where your last line of the post suggests.... we really, really have our work cut out for us. I appreciate that you seem to be working very hard at saving our future.
You can have some beans and rice from my 50lb bags anytime.
well i'm going to the 49er game. the simmerlys and chandons actually came across america from st louis in a wagon train in 1849 so i've always figured that was our team. they are playing the rams, the sheephearders. we were the cattle ranchers. so the old tradition of sheepmen vs cattlemen. my step daughter's a ram fan and she actually raised a lamb that was a grand champion at the county fair. but the rest of us are cowboys down to our mountain oysters. then mr pinchess tells me he raised both cattle and sheep up at spyrock, so i guess he predates obama.
ReplyDeleteand i have one of those high tech bycycles. willie wrote a song about big booty. no more biscuits and gravy. no more chicken fried. better be careful what you say to big booty. i like big booty just fine and its usually bootyful up in the mountains too.
sounds a lot cheaper than solar.
Spy. have fun at the 'niner game!
ReplyDeleteA lot, if not most of the ranchers around here before the hippies came raised sheep AND cattle. After the hippie's sheep killing dogs showed up, it put an end to the aready marginal sheep business.
Just fact, not a political statement.
hey gang, lets have a little history lesson with our breakfast today! =
ReplyDeletedid u know that--
after Kesey wrote "ONe Flew Over the Robins Nest" he became a famous sheep rancher
and heres the original viset bootyfull Laytonville sign.
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day
...because --"Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history." ~Plato
just peddlning my bike,
S
"Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
ReplyDeleteAnd say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.'"
I wonder who has the most fun, Suzy or us?
Suzy is wonderful and just a thought,smarter and maybe better educated than most. I'm always impressed.
ReplyDeleteErnie, a little more history here. The Government trappers kept the coyote's at bay till the hippies moved into the counties ( Hum., Mendo., and Trinity ) The county and US Government trappers could dynamite coyote dens in the spring time. As told to me by a class mate he and his dad, Sully Pinches would blast the dens but that was still in the 60's. After the hippies, I say hippie but mean new comers showed up they put a stop to that as it was animal cruelty. I guess nobody told the calf's and sheep about animal cruelty. It seems that since the "hippies" won the battle the ranchers were eaten out of a livlyhood so sold out to developers and sold the land in chunks to the new people. I'm not saying that is bad it is just progress,,,,, I guess.
ReplyDeleteOregon
Okay, Suzy, I've got to ask: are you married to Ernie? And does his wife know?
ReplyDeleteOregon asked me in my e-mail:
ReplyDelete"Ernie,
I was wondering about your coils in the wood stove for the hot water. When you made the bends did you use 90° fittings and solder them together? I only ask because I thought solder would melt in the stove. I also thought you might have used annealed copper to make the bends. Just wanted to know.
Oregon"
Oregon
I used regular old Type-L 7/8" hard drawn refrigeration tube. I made four passes 30' long each. The return bends were made out of 7/8" copper sweat ells. I bolted them to the smoke shelf plate in the top of the stove, so they collect heat both from the flame and from the contact to the plate. The tube all slopes gently ¼“ per foot up. So any air bubble will find their way into the storage tank in the attic. There is an air-purge valve on the top of the tank. There is a pressure/temperature relief valve on the inlet to the stove, and the outlet to the stove, and one on the tank in the attic. (I hate explosions!) I brazed the fittings with sil-fos refrigeration brazing rod. (15% silver)
As to the solder melting I’m not too worried. The water never gets above boiling, and that is 212 degrees, well below the melting point of the copper or the brazing rod.
Several times we have run out of water pressure and we have let the fire go out and used the other stove. We’ve never even came close to having a problem, and the system has be installed since 1982. We replaced the tanks in the attic once. They are two plain old electric water heaters. I have the elements wired to use them or not, from a switch on each element. The first tank works off of the stove and feeds into the second tank that I leave the water heating elements on to finish heating the water.
The system pays for itself over and over. Wood heat for the house, and free hot water. My wife just loves not paying PG&E for hot water!
no Robin LOL Suzys actually married to Billy Blah Blah the yuongest of the infamuos Blah Blah brothers of White Tharn --they all have scars on there arms... There dad was a retired cop in Eureka until he died in the 90s, his 3rd wife worked at The Shanty but now their both dead... and Bllys mom used to work at the Whitethorn store way back when, shes nice.
ReplyDeleteBut Ernies married to this chick named Janis that Billy and i met breefly at Radio Schack when Suzy bought a little transestor radio there not long ago. It was less than ten bucks! Janis was real sweet but she had kinda a confused look on her face when she listened as Suzy explained to one of the boys showing me radios how transisters are really sisters in a trance and that Suzy traveled to ancient EGypt in a trance wth Billys little sistser when we smoked this relly really roelly good shit that Billys brother got from the dude that supplies Willy Nelson when hes in town... LOL ... and beside being really raelly sweet shes also VERY pretty, Janis is -- Ernie yr a lucky stiff (!)
huggles,
s
Yeah, I thought so.
ReplyDeletei'm a local where i come from. and for years we were a military town until they closed the base.
ReplyDeletefor 60 years the base was here. from about 1940 to 2000. so i'm very much aware of what that's like.
hippie is a derogatory word just like squaw. except people back in the day called them diggers. they probably thought squaw was political correct back in the 50's.
but what you have up there are pot growers or drug suppliers. they are into making big money. this is not for personal use.
very few so called hippies ever grew pot back in the 60's because it was so cheap and abundant that there was no need. they even had a march down haight street back in 68 named the death of the hippie. it was orgainized by a group called the diggers. most of these people back in the day were rich white kids who dropped out of college or not or ran away from home to see what all the fuss was about. but they were all like you or me. we sometimes got put down for having short hair. but what did we care. we were surfers and rode skateboards. we were where the real action was. at the beach.
what you have up there, is just what goes on all over the world when it comes to easy money. you can call it hippie if you want. but that's really just to get your attention off the fact that the powers that be are making that all happen up there in mendocontra.
it sure is a small world. i heard about the shanty bar from where i live. i've never been there. they used to have a shanty bar here. i don't think it would be a safe place to go to for awhile.
ReplyDelete