Diabolical Leaves Yield to God’s Favor

God keeps helping me break through barriers.

Today I broke the oak leaf barrier.

My property contains thousands of useless oak trees. They’re not white oaks, red oaks, black oaks, or chestnut oaks; those species are useful. They’re live oaks and various scrubby, crappy oaks which produce bad lumber and drop horrible leaves that kill everything they land on.

Ever since I moved here, I’ve been trying to get rid of oak leaves. I bought a leaf blower, and when I aimed it at the leaves, they actually moved closer to the ground. They refused to be blown away. I bought a mulching kit for my 60″ mower deck, and the leaves ignored it. I bought a 50″ sweeper, and it only removed loose leaves. Leaves that were farther down in the crud column refused to move. Also, Spanish moss kept wrapping around the sweeper’s axles and immobilizing them.

Recently, I bought a harrow. This is a heavy steel thing you drag. It’s like a net made of 3/8″ steel rod, with tines protruding downward from it. It loosened leaves so the sweeper would actually pick them up.

This was a big development. It meant I had some hope of getting rid of packed-down leaves, as long as I was willing to stop the sweeper several times an hour and pull Spanish moss off the axles with pliers.

Today I ran the harrow and sweeper, and then I decided to get out one of my leaf blowers. Miracle of miracles…the leaves moved. The harrow had loosened them to the point where they could no longer grab the dirt and hold on. While laughing at me.

I blew a tremendous amount of leaves into the woods. I was able to see grass, or bare dirt where grass used to be, in many areas. I can see my driveway. I worked for about four hours.

The blower isn’t ideal. It’s a one-hand blower with a gas engine. It would be perfect for a 1/4-acre lot with reasonable leaves, but I need something more powerful. I have a much stronger electric blower, but the battery only runs 20 minutes, and a second battery is $200+.

I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to buy a gas-powered backpack blower that could knock a truck over. Echo makes one that puts out over 1000 cfm. That’s almost twice what my electric blower puts out.

They say the big Echo is so strong, you can dig holes with it. That’s what I’m talking about.

It’s amazing that my yard requires a tractor, a harrow, a sweeper, and a high-end blower to clean up the leaves, but that’s how it is when successive generations of landowners fail to cut undesirable trees and replace them with better ones. If I had hickories and pecans instead of oaks, I could get rid of my leaves with a rake. I’d also have valuable timber.

I may also buy a peach tree. The man who built my house made some bad plant decisions, and one bad choice was a maple tree 15 feet from the house. Here, maples grow maybe 80 feet tall, and sometimes we get tropical-storm-force winds. Hello? Fortunately, I guess, lightning hit the maple about 15 seconds after my dad closed on the house, and in March, it keeled over and landed in my driveway. I need something to replace it.

I will not even consider citrus. People who buy citrus are in denial. Citrus greening is going to kill every single citrus tree in North America, except for a few varieties. It’s a done deal. When you buy citrus, you’re investing in failure. Besides, I don’t want to be reminded that I’m in Florida. I want my property to look as much like Tennessee or Ohio as possible. The other day I cut a healthy pygmy date palm in pieces and put it on my burn pile.

I have considered buying a peach tree before, but the only varieties that work are strange creations that come from the University of Florida. I figured they had to taste bad. There had to be some sacrifice, in order to get a peach that will produce in hot weather. A friend tells me I’m wrong. He lives in Kissimmee, and he grows good peaches.

He got his tree at Home Depot, of all places. If he can do it, so can I.

I don’t know about the peach tree, but I’m definitely getting a blower, and if things work out, in a month, I may have a yard that looks like a yard. Maybe God will show me how to kill the awful weeds. Maybe he’ll help me find a type of grass that resembles a real lawn.

The interior of the house is very clean. I even got the bird cages clean, which was impossible in the past. Now the order is spreading to the yard, the pasture, and the woods. It’s too much. I love it.

I don’t know why I couldn’t get all these things together before. It must have been my unequal yoking with my then-non-Christian dad. I partnered with a person who chose to live under curses.

I’m on a roll. Thanks to God, every single day is good.

Mooooooooooooooooo

It looks like I’m a farmer.

I have been working with the property appraiser’s office, and they hooked me up with a guy who mows farms and bales hay. If I produce hay, I’m a farmer, and I can get an agricultural exemption that will cut my property tax. They also gave me a number for a forester. I might be able to get credit for growing timber. Such as it is.

Today the hay guy came by and looked at my farm. He said he wanted to put cattle here instead of mowing and baling.

The more he told me about it, the more I liked it.

If I sell hay, I’ll get nothing. He’ll bale the hay and keep it, and the county will cut my taxes. I’ll still have to maintain my fences and so on. If I put cattle here, he’ll have to pay me for a lease. He’ll keep the fences in order. The cattle will keep the weeds down. I’ll get free manure, too.

It sounds like a good deal.

Right now, I’m trying to find out what to charge him. It doesn’t sound exciting. I am hearing figures ranging from $300 per year to $3285 per year. Based on the information I’ve accumulated, the lower figure is more likely to be correct.

I would be happy to let him put cattle here for nothing, but you can’t do business that way. When you have something of value, you have to charge for it. It’s irresponsible to give things away to strangers. I would have made the deal today, but I had to have a figure to give him.

I also need to look into the legal side of the lease. Do I need a contract? If so, where will I get a form?

When I talked to him about leasing, I made sure he understood I plan to continue shooting and making other use of my land. He understood completely; you don’t want to buy a big farm and then be unable to use it.

I always pray for God to give me and the people on my prayer list property in areas where his people are strong and the spirits against him are weak, and I ask him to send people to take care of what we have and to help us spend our own time serving him. Looks like he chose to grant this prayer with respect to me. I could raise cattle myself, but I would be out there all the time fixing fences and doing other chores.

If I go through with this, I’ll post photos of my new roommates. Never say my life isn’t exciting.

I Feel Almost Competent

I have to blog again. I have fixed the surging on my Homelite pressure washer. I feel invincible.

I found the answer on one of the most useful Youtube channels imaginable: Steve’s Small Engine Saloon. The proprietor took a carburetor just like mine, opened up the access to the pilot jet, and reamed the ethanol crud out with a 0.013″ wire gauge drill bit.

It’s so simple a swing voter could do it.

I ordered the drill bits he recommended, and today I spent 10 or 15 easy minutes opening up my pilot jet.

Now my engine doesn’t surge at all. The next time I use the pressure washer, I’ll actually know what to expect from one second to the next.

Here’s another one of his videos. This one got the pressure washer running. The one about surging made it run correctly.

Ethanol is so destructive; why doesn’t everyone know about wire gauge drill bits? I’ve thrown out a number of Harley jets I could have saved, had I known what to use.

You always hear people say you should use carb cleaner or Sea Foam to fix clogged jets. That stuff never works. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t, anyway. I don’t think I’ve ever seen carb cleaner fix a carburetor. I put Sea Foam in some tools with clogged carbs, and while it improved things, it didn’t solve my problems. A mechanical device like a drill bit gets in there and gets it DONE. It doesn’t make excuses.

I have a generator which is acting up. You better believe I’m going to yank the carb. I’m positive I can fix it. Once I get that done, I can MIG weld again. I’d like to build a mobile base for my giant table saw, but I can’t do it without MIG.

If I had known about wire gauge bits, I would have used them to fix my Echo CS-590 chainsaw instead of wrecking it and then paying a repair shop $135.

The outside of my buildings should be pretty clean 7 days from now. It’s a dream come true.

Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.

Delight thyself also in the Lord: and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.

That about sums it up.

Antifa Gas Costs me Another Day of Work

This week I finally got some use out of my big Echo chainsaw, which had been out of commission for months. What a relief.

I screwed the saw up in a number of ways. First, I used Democrat gas. I used 10% ethanol fuel, which ruins small engines. There is no way to defend this stuff. It doesn’t save us money on fuel. It’s not really good for the environment. It makes food and animal feed more expensive by removing corn from the market. It’s bad, bad, bad. It’s stupid. And the motivation for making it is greed, not a desire to improve the environment.

I left socialist gas in my saw for something like two months. My understanding was that you had to leave it a lot longer before it would clog a carburetor. I was mistaken. My saw would not start. I tried all sorts of things. I took it to an authorized repair place, and they kept it 4 weeks, did nothing except put an ancient carb on it to replace my new one, and then returned it to me in a non-functioning state.

I replaced the carb at my own expense, and I sort of got the saw running. Unfortunately, I wrecked it while trying to get the new carb adjusted. The problem–and this is only a guess, based on faulty memories–is that I revved it a lot with the brake on. This caused a bunch of failures. It warped the clutch drum. I am told it melted a line which supplied oil to the chain. I am also told it ruined the clutch springs.

I was told about the oil line and clutch springs by the people who finally fixed the saw.

When you rev a saw with the brake on, you engage the centrifugal clutch with a drum (which is also a sprocket) which is locked in place. The drum can’t turn, so the clutch rubs on it and heats it up. Then the drum warps. After that, disengaging the brake doesn’t work, because the new bulges in the drum rub against the brake whether or not the brake is on.

A chainsaw’s chain carries heat away from the hot parts. When you rev the saw with the chain locked, heat builds up where it should not. I think this screwed up my oil line, assuming the repair people were being truthful when they said it was melted.

Anyway, the place that finally got the saw running was another authorized repair center. They took 4 weeks, but they managed to repair the saw. Unfortunately, they did things I didn’t want done. They claimed they sharpened the chain, and they also said they put Loctite on the saw’s screws. I can sharpen a chain in 5 minutes, and I don’t want screws I can’t remove. Sometimes Loctite is too much.

I took the saw out this week and did some work. It ran well, although I’m not sure it’s running wide open.

When I looked at the wood being ejected from the saw, I was not happy. It looked fine, which is to say, it did not look coarse. When a chain is sharp, it will produce big chunks of cut wood. When a saw sprays dust, it’s dull.

I sharpened the saw today, and I got really big chunks and curls of wood. Happiness. But what about the money I paid to have it sharpened?

I was also disturbed to see that the bar looked dry. It oiled fine before I wrecked the saw. I had to adjust the oiler, which makes you wonder how much the repair guy knows.

I was still reasonably happy with the repairs, until I put the saw down today, turned it off, and then returned and tried to start it. Three of the screws around the starter cover had vibrated out, in a pasture. They are gone forever.

What about that Loctite? If it was there, it didn’t work.

You don’t actually need Loctite to hold screws in a plastic saw case. You just need to tighten them correctly. Someone didn’t do that. Now I’m wondering: did the repair guy loosen those screws? They said they Loctited screws, but did they mean every screw on the saw? Maybe they didn’t work on the starter cover, so maybe they never intended to Loctite those screws. It could be my fault. Perhaps I put the wrong screws in (some are shorter than others), or maybe I left them loose.

Seems to me that when you work on a saw for money, you tighten every screw that holds the covers on. It takes 30 seconds, and it’s common sense.

Now I can’t use my saw.

I found new screws on Ebay. I was going to talk to the repair people, but they close at noon on Saturdays, so they’re at home drinking beer when I need them. I’ll have the screws on Thursday. I ordered two sizes. The ones I’m sure I need arrive Thursday (or sooner), and the ones I MAY need arrive Friday. I ordered enough so I’ll have spares.

I’m feeling some guilt about the screws. I learned what they were on a parts website, but I got them from Ebay. I don’t feel right about getting information about a product from one company and then buying from another, unless there are special circumstances. I’ve bought things from the parts site in the past. The main reason I went with Ebay was time. They’re faster. I’ve waited a long time for this saw to work, and I really need to get some trees moved. Maybe I should put in a token order from the parts place to soothe my conscience.

In case you’re wondering, Echo Timberwolf saws have a number of M5 20mm and 16mm T27 Torx bolts with a tapping thread. That’s what you need. You don’t need Echo-brand screws, which are obscenely overpriced. Stihl saws also use these screws.

The big saw will be offline for several days, so I’m not cutting tree trunks any more. I have a 16″ saw for bucking, but it’s just not the same.

Today I cut a big oak that fell during hurricane Irma. It’s in my pasture. I left it alone originally because I liked the way it blocked the view from the road. The leaves fell off, so I had to do something.

I’ve been thinking of getting an anvil, because…anvil. Anvils are cool and useful, and I may want to forge something some day for fun. You can get a very good Chinese 66-pound anvil from Amazon for about $170. Less on Ebay. To use an anvil, you need a stump to rest it on. Today I thought about that while I was cutting the oak, and I decided to make a stump.

The bit of oak trunk I chose was about 22″ in diameter, judging by the extent to which it was too big for my 20″ saw. You would think cutting a stump for an anvil would be simple, but it isn’t. It’s not easy to make a chainsaw cut perpendicularly to the axis of a tree trunk. It will usually be off by a considerable extent. Today I found that it’s possible to do surprisingly fine work, adjusting and massaging a cut with a chainsaw. I ended up with a stump that should work fine.

I read that certain stumps sold for anvil purposes (they exist) are 22-1/2″ tall, so I shot for 23-24″. I got a fairly decent piece cut, and I sprayed the ends with metal primer to slow drying and prevent the wood from checking and splitting.

Why did I use metal primer? It was handy. Nearly any kind of paint will prevent checking.

The stump I cut has spalting (mild rot) around the circumference, but I don’t think that matters. Spalted wood is fairly solid, and the anvil will be sitting on sound wood in the center of the stump. We’ll see what happens. I stood the stump up on the porch of my workshop to keep the rain off of it, and if I go through with my plan, I’ll find a permanent location for it indoors.

I’m sure the stump will work. It’s possible that bits may come off the circumference with time. I’m not worried. It should be fixable, and if not, stumps are not hard to find here.

I was wondering how to make the stump sit on concrete without rocking. I think I have the answer. I can use a chainsaw to shape the bottom of the stump so there are three big parts that contact the floor. Anything with three feet will sit flat on a flat surface.

Marxist gas didn’t just do my chainsaw in; it also choked my Echo pole pruner. I have been working on it for a while. I believe there is varnish in the fast jet. Carb cleaning stuff doesn’t help much. I think the only real answer is to remove the metal plug the greenies have put over the fast jet screw (to prevent it from working correctly), remove the screw, and use carb cleaner on everything. That would be hard, so instead, I bought a Chinese carb.

Echo pruners, like Echo chainsaws, use carbs made by a company named Walbro. A tiny, simple Walbro carb for my pruner costs $100. Amazon and Ebay sell Chinese clones for…wait for it…$11. Hmm. Do I pay the repair people a huge sum to fix my Walbro carb every time Bolshevik gas clogs it? Do I pay $100 for a new Walbro carb every time? Uh…no. I will simply buy a new Chinese carb whenever the saw doesn’t run. It takes 5 minutes to install, and it looks like the quality is no different from Walbro. My guess is that Walbro has Chinese people make its carbs. I doubt there is any difference at all.

I finally have the gas problem under control. I go to Sunoco and buy ethanol-free 91-octane gas for nearly the same price as 89-octane Bernie Sanders engine poison. Then I treat it with Biobor Ethanol buster (Sta-bil doesn’t really work). I put it in a new gas can that has had the dangerous, useless socialist spout and cap replaced with old-fashioned ones from Amazon.

There are so many obstacles to making small engines work, it’s a wonder anyone succeeds. The gas is poison. The cans don’t work. Most fuel stabilizers don’t work. Running the engines dry between uses doesn’t work. Home Depot charges something like $40 per gallon for real gas.

I’m hoping the lessons I’ve learned will work. It’s amazing to me that people aren’t marching in the streets over this stuff. Everyone has the ethanol problem, and most of the solutions we are given do not work at all. It shouldn’t have taken me, an intelligent person, a year to get past the lies and fables. Why not just tell us the truth up front? “This gas is garbage. Only a couple of fuel stabilizers work, and you will find out the others don’t work when you try to start your engine next spring. Running your engine dry in the fall won’t help. Your EPA gas can cannot be made to function correctly, and we don’t care, but you can buy parts for it on Amazon and turn it into a functioning 1980 gas can.”

It’s bad to have people jamming us up, but it’s worse when they try to hide it from us. Just tell us the truth. We’ll pay for your bad gas and accept the fact that its real purpose is to make corn growers rich so they can contribute to political campaigns. We’ll pay for the gas can parts. We’ll pay for additives that work; just tell us which ones they are.

I’ll work with the system. I will not pay $40 for Home Depot gas, but other than that, I am willing to tolerate the farce, as long as I can keep my engines clear.

Arrggh.

My pruner carb should be here Monday, so I can use the pruner on Wednesday. That will be nice. I may go ahead and hack up the old Walbro carb, since Echo’s multi-year warranty doesn’t apply to carbs (the parts which usually malfunction). If I can get the Walbro clean, I can hold it in reserve and save myself $11 when the China carb (the other China carb, not the Walbro) poops out.

Considering the BS I had to deal with, I got a hell of a lot done this week. The oak is ready to burn, and I have the beginnings of a good anvil stump. I only worked maybe three hours. Imagine what I could get done in a world without ethanol.

Bring on the electric era. We’re already starting to see a few electric products that are actually practical. The greenies are making the use of fossil fuel such a torture, I’m starting to look forward to an electric car. As soon as we reach the point where you can get a charge in 5 minutes instead of half an hour or more, I will be ready to join the dance. Make me an electric chainsaw that will run for 5 hours on two batteries and then get out of the way and take my money.

The Dead Still Have Footprints

I haven’t blogged in three days.

Things keep improving for me. The truly unpleasant stage of grief is behind me. Every so often, something brings a little bit of the grief back. Today I had to cancel my dad’s cell phone account, for example. I had been reluctant to do that. Of course, it was a hassle. Canceling any kind of account is a hassle. They never let you cancel without the customer retention speech. Today the customer rep asked me why I wanted to cancel, and I came up with a brilliant response. In a cheerful voice, I said, “I just want to cancel.” He couldn’t counter that. If he had asked me for details, I would have said, “Well, I have to cancel.”

Little things keep reminding me how difficult caring for my dad was. The actual tasks usually weren’t that hard, but the weight of the responsibility was tremendous.

A short while ago, I drove past a strip mall. It has some sort of operation where seniors go for day care, if I understand the sign correctly. I used to drive past it with my dad, and I would wonder if I should be dropping him at a place like that a few times a week. I never did it. I thought he would find it insulting, and I knew the people would be from a different social class. Maybe I was wrong. Anyway, I don’t think about things like that much any more. They used to weigh on my mind constantly. “Am I doing the right things?” “Am I choosing not to do this because it’s a bad idea, or is it because it will be troublesome for me and expensive?” “When I choose not to act on his complaints, is it because they don’t make sense, or because acting on them would be impractical, or is it mostly to save me aggravation?”

I always wondered if I was doing the right things for him. I also wondered whether I was doing right by myself. It was hard to be sure.

Driving is completely different now. I don’t have my dad’s strange input in my ear. He used to sit beside me and ask me questions. One of the things he asked me about involved the cars we passed. He hated the way people drove with their headlights on in the daytime; it got under his skin for some reason. He would ask me why people had their headlights on, and I would say it was for safety. Then he would start listing his objections, and I would say, “Remember, it wasn’t my idea.” We must have had that conversation more than a hundred times.

While we rode in the car, I tried to talk to him enough to be thoughtful and patient, but not enough to drive myself crazy. Sometimes I realized I was only talking to him when absolutely necessary, and I would try to engage him in order to make up for it.

At some point in 2017, he started asking me to come up with good topics for conversation. He did this mainly in restaurants, while waiting for the food to arrive. I guess the dementia made it hard for him to think of things to talk about. He came to hold me responsible for entertaining him. Trying to cooperate, I would bring things up, and he would dismiss them in a crabby and condescending way. That discouraged me from talking. I realized I couldn’t do what he was asking, because there was no topic that would satisfy him. No matter what I brought up, he would end the conversation quickly.

Every minute I spent with him was work. There was no way to relax or look after myself.

He always paid for lunch. You would think that would be a blessing, but I had to help him to the door. I had to help him sit down and stand up. I had to order for him. If he went to the bathroom, I had to go check on him and hope nothing bad happened. I had to entertain him. Also, his table manners were a problem.

Today, as I drove past the strip mall and the humble day care place, I thought of these things, and I saw how much my life had improved. I was driving home from the grocery, and all I had to think about was getting myself home.

“Humble” is a word that should resonate with all caregivers. The world of seniors who need help is very humbling. They go from performing surgery and writing musical scores to activities like making holiday cards for their loved ones out of glue and construction paper. The whole process is humbling. Very painful to watch.

I have one of those cards. Valentine’s Day. I can’t decide whether I should keep it. Did it mean anything to him when he made it? I doubt it, but I will never know. Maybe he was just following directions to keep the staffers at the ALF happy, or maybe he was thinking about his love for his children.

It was in a drawer in his nightstand when he died, and he had spilled a glass of water on the nightstand, so the card is not in good shape. Did he put it in a drawer because it meant something to him, or did a staffer do it to get it out of the way? No idea.

Of course, when I talk about the stress I used to feel when I was with my dad, I’m thinking of the pre-assisted-living days, before God altered his personality. Once he changed, I looked forward to seeing him. I did limit the time I spent at the ALF, because once I hit two hours, I wanted rest, but I was grateful to be there, and it was very rewarding.

He was wonderful after he changed, but I didn’t drive him much after that, so when I drive, I think about the way he was before he changed, and that makes me recall the stress.

Sometimes I still feel sorry for him, because he was so helpless and dependent, but I keep reminding myself that he’s nothing like that now. I’m feeling sorry for someone who no longer exists and will never exist again. My dad is with Jesus, and he is young and healthy. He doesn’t forget things. He doesn’t fall down. He can’t be sick. He can’t have an injury. He’s full of love, and he is surrounded by love. He’s doing much, much better than I ever have. He must be so happy to be there. My mother must have been beside herself when he appeared to her.

It’s crazy to feel sorry for either of them. I’m the one who still has problems!

Why do we feel sorry for dead people we know are with Jesus? I would trade places in a heartbeat, but the feeling of pity still comes back to me sometimes.

Maybe I made serious mistakes. Maybe I was a jerk sometimes. It’s hard to judge myself accurately. But does it matter? He was content with me, and we were perfectly reconciled when he died. I told him how much I loved him, and I said he was a great dad. I told him he owed me nothing. I made sure he knew there was nothing between us but love. Then he left this cursed world and all of its problems behind. Now no mistake I made matters. He made it! After 87 years of steady work, Satan lost! What does my dad care about what happened on earth? None of that stuff can touch him.

I hate Miami so much I can’t describe it. I’m so glad I left that place. If someone came to me today and said, for example, that one of the major highways there had sunk into the earth, and that traffic in the area would be unbearable for at least three years, it would mean very little to me, because I stay out of Miami. It would be like hearing about a crop blight in Cambodia. I doubt people in heaven sit around stewing about trivial things that happened here on earth.

I suppose it will take me a couple of months to heal, internally. I don’t mean I won’t be happy until then. I’m very happy now. I just mean I need to get over the internal reactions I developed in response to a heavy burden, and I need to stop re-evaluating my performance as a caregiver. Other people will need my help down here. I will apply the lessons I learned from caring for my dad, and I will try not to make mistakes with them.

I forgive myself. What else can I do?

I’m just starting to understand that I can relax. I don’t have to be all over the probate stuff. Nothing has to be resolved this very minute. It doesn’t matter if I take a couple of months or even a year to get it done. No one cares. Virtually everything belongs to me already, there are no other heirs, and there are no significant debts.

I used to be concerned about spending my dad’s cash too freely, because he had money tied up in some properties we needed to dump, and I was reluctant to invade certain accounts. I no longer have to think about conserving my dad’s cash, because everything is mine now. There is no difference between “his money” and “my money,” so I can spend what needs to be spent, without thinking about loans or the threat of unexpected bills for new care.

I can take some time and get my property in order. I’m fixing the yard. I finally got my big chainsaw fixed, so I can move the remaining downed trees that cause problems. I can get the house pressure-cleaned. I bought a harrow, and I used it to dislodge the horrible oak leaves that are ruining the yard. I’ve been picking them up with a yard sweeper and dumping them in the woods. Pretty soon, the grass should start looking like a lawn again.

I have fewer cares. I just need to make my heart understand that.

The other day God gave me this phrase: “Thank you for freeing me from my dad.” That may sound disturbing, but God is always right, and I don’t apologize for anything he says. My dad, the new Christian who was bursting with love, was absolutely wonderful, and I was extremely blessed to have him, but our situation was unsustainable. He couldn’t stay, and I couldn’t keep caring for him, even with the help of the ALF staff. He had to go so I could live. He didn’t give too much up. God had already perfected our relationship, and my dad’s body was beyond help. It was time to leave this life and be born into a new one.

When I put it that way, I almost feel jealous.

These days, I feel my dad’s absence when I pray in the morning. I pray for this one and that one–people I keep on a list–and after that, there’s a hole in my prayers. I used to pray for my dad, but now I can’t. It feels strange, but it reminds me that things have gone very well. There are only two reasons why you can’t pray for someone: either they can’t be saved, or they are doing so well they can’t be blessed any more than they already are. My dad is in the second group. Feeling sorry for him is irrational.

Not on This Earth

While my dad was living out his last days, I prayed for him to receive salvation. I also prayed for God to help him bear whatever fruit he could. I was amazed at the way my dad turned to Jesus and escaped damnation. Seeing him bear fruit has been even more surprising.

My friend Mike runs a hospice company. He was so moved by my dad’s story, he made employees read my blog. Mike himself says he wants to be baptized here. When I went to Kentucky to bury my dad, I got to spend hours talking to my aunt and cousin, who needed help with their walks. I got to pray for my cousin’s salvation with her. At the viewing, I shared my dad’s testimony with a number of people, and I was able to counsel a second cousin who apparently knows little about God.

On top of all this, my friend Amanda has a couple of sons who now want to be baptized. She is bringing one of them today. His name is Sean. He has been under attack for years, so he really needs this.

A tormented, demanding relative of Amanda’s erupted last night and insisted she and her sons do a number of menial chores today. Expected. Satan always hates it when someone threatens to make progress in the kingdom of heaven.

I have been fighting the problem in the supernatural, and our power is greater than the power of the children of darkness, so we will win. I believe Sean will be here today.

I would appreciate it if people would pray in support.

Whenever it appears that something good is about to happen, Satan will try to derail the train. It’s such a standard part of his procedure, we should be ashamed when we fail to counterattack in advance. We know it’s coming, yet we usually act surprised. We react instead of attacking first.

I forget to counterattack all the time. I will try to be more responsible in the future. I suggest you do the same. It’s silly to have the same problem over and over and fail to adapt.

I’m wondering what’s going to become of me. As much as I love living where I am, I keep feeling like I won’t be here at the end of 2020. It may be that God put me here to help my dad, Mike, and Amanda. Mike has Ocala connections, and he loves to visit.

If God moves me north, it may mean Florida is in trouble. I think that’s the case, regardless of whether I move. A hurricane moved hundreds of thousands of liberal Puerto Ricans into the state, and we are in the process of restoring voting rights to felons, virtually none of whom are Republicans. We may see disturbing changes in upcoming elections, and after that, Florida may look more like Massachusetts than Florida.

Tennessee appears to be the Idaho of the East. It’s extremely conservative, and it’s full of Christians. One would expect sanity to retain its influence there considerably longer than in other eastern states.

When I left Miami, I knew I would get more land for my money in Ocala. If I leave Ocala, I know I will get more land–and much, much nicer land–in Tennessee for my money. That’s a pleasant thought. I like having 34 acres of sandy land that isn’t totally flat. Having 300 acres of fertile land, in a place where hurricanes don’t hit, with real hills and creeks, would be tremendous.

I know absolutely no one in Tennessee. I don’t know what I could do for God there. I just have a feeling.

A couple of days ago, I saw something neat. I had just returned from Kentucky, via Tennessee. I had veered into the Smokies on the way down, even though it added a lot of time to the trip. I could not resist. I turned on Youtube after I got down here, and I decided to look at the Cardboard Box Church channel, which is my favorite.

The man who runs the channel, Tom Fischer, started out in New Jersey. A year or two ago, he and his wife moved to South Florida. This week, he was teaching in the Smokies! How about that? He would have been very near me, at the same time I was there. Made me wonder if God was telling me something.

I replaced my copies of the first three Foxfire books this week. These are books about Appalachian life. A teacher tried to engage students in Rabun Gap, in northern Georgia, and he couldn’t get anywhere, so he started a magazine. The students did the work. At first, it was a relatively useless poetry magazine, but later, it focused on the heritage of Appalachian heritage. They interviewed old people. They wrote about things like killing hogs and building log cabins.

When I was a kid, my mother loved the first Foxfire book, and I ended up owning several volumes. They were eaten by ants (long story), so I don’t have my old copies. Now that I have new ones, I’m enjoying them. They can be helpful with things I don’t remember fully. Georgia is not Kentucky, but the similarities outweigh the differences.

Am I training for my return “home”? I don’t know.

Last night I searched Youtube for videos about Appalachia. I found a video featuring Charles Kuralt. It was shot in 1965. It was about Christmas in a poor area in Kentucky.

Kuralt showed a shot of the local post office. It said “Roxana.” My second cousin used to run that post office. My grandfather is buried near Roxana. I was startled. I hadn’t realized the area where my dad’s people lived was that poor.

Actually, now that I think about it, it wasn’t that poor. Kuralt focused on some shacks belonging to people who couldn’t get it together. I remember visiting nearby Whitesburg when I was a kid, and while it wasn’t Monaco, people had real houses and cars and so on. It wasn’t terrible.

Could it be that a liberal journalist twisted the truth? That would be incredible. Kuralt was a very deceitful person, so I guess I shouldn’t be shocked.

Maybe the area wasn’t totally hopeless, but there were plenty of people there who didn’t do well.

There was a kid in the video whose clothes were so bad he couldn’t go to school. There was a man who lived in a shed behind his ex-wife’s house because he couldn’t afford to move. Another man dug coal in a mine behind his house, not for money, but to heat his family’s home.

It was distressing. Everyone in the neighborhood was on welfare. They lived on “commodity” food, which is what people in Kentucky call surplus products provided as handouts. “Government cheese” and so on. That cheese is really good, by the way.

I felt bad for them, and I felt very grateful for what I have. I wondered what God would have done for them, had they known him better. Poverty is not normal; it’s a curse, like cancer or autism. We’re not supposed to be poor.

The more I thought about it, the more I thought the people were to blame. You don’t have to stay in a poor area if you don’t want to. My dad moved to Florida. My great uncle moved to Indiana. His son worked in Detroit, designing giant machine tools for making car engines. Eastern Kentucky has poured migrants into a number of states, and those people have done well. You can’t expect Uncle Sam to support you forever because you refuse to move from a blighted region.

My dad always said he thought the geography was what doomed Eastern Kentucky. It’s largely vertical. Building isn’t easy. Making roads is hard. Large-scale farming is not practical. There are lots of places where making money is easier.

Another problem is that the people resist learning. There is no excuse for illiteracy in America, and there hasn’t been for at least a hundred years. If you know how to read and do math, you can teach your kids by writing in the dirt. It’s not that hard. My mother taught me to read in her spare time.

Fundamentally, every problem boils down to a poor relationship with God. I shouldn’t get caught up in the physical manifestations.

I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I have tremendous confidence in God’s willingness to put me in a good place.

I suppose I should clean bird cages and get the house ready for my guests. I am eager to see Sean get to know God and find out what it is to live in victory and peace. If you’re praying for us, thank you. It’s very important. Prayer isn’t just a gesture. It has more power than anything else we do.

Pain is Tempered by Expectancy

I keep getting great comments on my experiences with my dad’s decline and death. I want to thank everyone again.

I’m not wasting a second, getting things in order. Today I went to visit the cremation people, and I made all the arrangements and paid them. The total was $945. That includes everything, plus 10 death certificates. They would have provided an urn free of charge had I not bought one already.

I’m also getting the house and grounds fixed up. I keep my house very clean for the most part, but disorder is a problem. The yard is a mess. I started mowing again this week, and today I sprayed glyphosate on the weeds.

I may have people come here to observe my dad’s passing, and I don’t want to embarrass myself too much. I know I live like an eccentric, and that will always be true, but I have to try to make things as normal as I can for guests.

I stopped by the ALF today and dropped off what remained of my dad’s special supplies. They told me some of the residents were poor, so this stuff could be helpful. I don’t want it near me. That part of our lives is over. I could take them his shower chair, but I don’t want to go to the ALF again.

I miss going to the ALF, but I have to move on and get a feel for my new life.

One of the ALF staffers asked if we were having a service. She said they would like to come. I was very touched. They only knew him for a few weeks.

My neighbors called and said they would watch the house and care for my birds if I had to go to Kentucky. That was wonderful. The people here are tremendous.

Social Security has been notified. The insurance companies have been told to stop billing. When the death certificates roll in, I can deal with banks and so on. We…I…still own my dad’s house in Miami, and as of today, it’s for sale. His death put an end to my huge capital gains problem.

The grief is maybe 70% as intense as it was yesterday. I don’t mind it. I’m glad he became the kind of person I can miss a lot.

Yesterday I did something a little strange. I didn’t feel good in the evening, emotionally. I also felt I needed food. I decided to have breakfast. Breakfast is the most cheerful meal of the day. We eat it while we still are still full of hope. It reminds us that life is full of new beginnings. I had a fried egg, toast, and decaf. It made me feel a lot better.

A close friend asked how I felt today. I said I felt a mixture of grief and eagerness. I don’t have to explain the grief. The eagerness comes from losing the burden of caring for him. Now that he’s gone, there are many things I can do that I couldn’t do before. I can get on top of my responsibilities. I can sell things I’ve been wanting to sell. I can travel when I need or want to.

I’m dying to get my tools moved here. As much as I hate Miami, I may drive down this week, check things out, and make some decisions.

It may sound crazy, but I’m considering building a workshop. I have a house and a shop for the tractors and some of my tools. I have been planning to put my machine tools in my garage. It would be ritzier and more ergonomically sound to put them in a separate building.

I’ll need to find out what it would cost. I think the best thing would be to contact the builder who built the house, since they did such a fine job.

I think about things like this, and then I think about how much I love and miss my dad. When you lose someone you love, emotions come and go in waves. I know I’ll feel better tomorrow than I do today, and by the time we bury my dad, I should feel very good about everything.

I heard from some of my relatives today, and we had a great conversation. I feel like some members of my mother’s family have drifted off, and others are still on board with me. I should make an effort to tighten things up with the ones who are still interested.

I also had a long call from a young friend who is in law school at FSU. I remember meeting her when she was 17, at Trinity Church in Miami. She found out I was a lawyer, and she started asking me if I could write recommendations to help her get into school. She was already sure she wanted to be a lawyer, but she doubted herself. She thought the work might be too hard. Now she’s doing great, and her second year is coming to a close. I give her the best advice I can. Anyway, if I hold an event here, she wants to come. I told her I’d pay her fare.

She’s funny. Calls me “Esteban.”

My friend Amanda said she was going to bring food tonight, but she has a fever, so that’s off. She and her kids are sick all the time. They used to come every weekend. I believe something is trying to keep them away, because I tell them about God. I would appreciate it if people would pray for them.

Sometimes I feel like my dad is still alive. For example, I come in the house, and I feel like I need to start preparing for my daily ALF visit. Sometimes I feel like I should check my calendar to see if he has any medical appointments. Then I come to my senses.

I don’t want his memory to fade. I don’t look forward to a time years in the future, when he seems to be part of a distant past, as my mother does. It will happen, if God allows me to live. I can’t prevent it.

I don’t want to think of him as a dead person.

Things will get better, and I suspect God has someone who will appear and fill the void. Maybe a wife. Maybe new friends who will be involved in some kind of ministry with me.

I’m extremely glad my dad didn’t die in Miami. I was afraid he would end up in a home run by calculating mercenaries, surrounded by old Cubans who didn’t speak English. The people who care for him were great, for the most part, and everyone I have dealt with here since he died has been warm and helpful.

The funeral home director from the cremation place told me he wasn’t sure all of my dad’s remains would fit in the Amazon urn I got him. I told him I wasn’t going to be difficult to deal with. I said we could take whatever wouldn’t fit in the box and scatter it here on the farm. He said that was exactly what he was going to suggest. Very thoughtful.

Dad used to sit in a chair on the front porch and read his newspapers and do his puzzles. I would scatter the ashes on the lawn around the porch.

If I hold an event here, that’s what we’ll do. It’s a little unorthodox, but I don’t care.

That’s how things stand. I am still here, so I have to go on. My dad is in heaven, without a care in the world, surrounded by love and complete protection. I have to stop feeling sorry for him and start living.

The Perils of Owning a Tiny Hobby Pool

I feel like a rant. I will try to keep it short.

I do not like swimming pools. I don’t like public pools because they’re full of pee, dissolved feces and mucus and other secretions, hair, band-aids, and God knows what else. I don’t like private pools because they’re for suckers. You give up 1800 square feet of prime lawn, and in exchange you get a tiny patio and a pathetic pool which is, if you’re lucky, 30 feet long and 8 feet deep. Your insurance company won’t let you have a diving board or a slide, leaving you with very little to do on the four yearly occasions when you actually use your glorified kiddie pool.

Pools are a pain in the butt to maintain. The base fee for a service is around $1200 per year, and that doesn’t include replacing things that crap out. If you maintain the pool yourself, you end up spending a lot of time trying to fix inferior products designed by the worst engineers in the universe.

Pool parts are made from cheap plastic that isn’t strong to begin with. It starts out bad, and then it gets worse as solar radiation eats it. The materials are crap, and the designs are so bad, good materials wouldn’t help. O-rings poop out. Handles snap off. Plastic parts that are supposed to be watertight crack. And the replacement parts, which are also garbage, are overpriced. You can pay $20 for a few O-rings to rebuild a single valve. In the real world, O-rings are nearly free, but the people who make the pool junk won’t tell you which sizes you need, so unless you want to guess, you have to pony up.

My pool has driven me nuts. A doodad that lets air out of the filter screens fell off months ago, inside the filter. I couldn’t see the problem because it was internal. The pressure inside the filter kept going up, no matter how much I backwashed. This caused cracks to appear in the pump body. This caused water to spray on the motor. The motor would eventually have failed because of this, so I had to take the entire pump apart and cover the cracks with special epoxy.

The pump’s outlet was the location of the cracks. The outlet is threaded on the inside and outside. You can choose to use a male or female fitting to connect it to the system. Originally, it had a female fitting on it. I replaced it with a male fitting which screws into the outlet. It turned out the female fitting had been holding the pump outlet together, by squeezing it after it was tightened.

I turned the pump on after replacing the pipes and fixing the original leak, and while the old crack no longer leaked, I had water coming out in two more places. Screwing the male fitting in exerted outward pressure on the crap plastic of the outlet, so it either created new cracks or opened old ones.

I spent quite a while cutting and cementing PVC to make this stupid thing work, and now I have to rip it all out, apply more epoxy, and redo the whole thing with a female fitting.

While I was having problems with the filter pressure, I kept using the backwash valve over and over. I didn’t know these valves were junk. You can probably get by with only rebuilding yours once a year if you give it light use, but when you backwash 15 times a week, the O-rings die, and then you have to get new ones. Your local hardware store doesn’t carry the right sizes, so you have to go on the web, find out which ones you need, and order them from Ebay or some other source. Either that or overpay.

I rebuilt the original valve after waiting forever for O-rings to arrive, and it still didn’t work, because the valves themselves get corrupted with corrosion and so on. I had to buy a whole new valve which is more complicated. The design is supposed to be better than the old ones, but Amazon reviews mention quality control issues and so on, so I’m sure it will give me problems eventually.

The manufacturer is a company called Pentair. I think they get their engineers from mental institutions. The worst junk imaginable.

It’s possible to get around the backwash valve problem by choosing not to get a backwash valve. You can design and build a complicated system of ordinary ball valves that will do the same thing, but it may take up a huge amount of space.

My new valve is leaking. Not much, but enough to be annoying. I believe the ends of the pipes that exit the valve are irregular, preventing the O-rings from seating well. No problem. God forbid Pentair should have to make their parts correctly. I’ll just take the whole thing apart, sand the surfaces down so they’ll seal, and make it function.

I figure I only have another 4 hours of work to go, on a system that should have lasted 30 years without repairs.

Pentair isn’t alone. I’ve also used Hayward products, and they were also unreliable. When a pool pump says “Made in Mexico” on the motor casing, you ought to know you’re in for trouble.

Get this: pool pumps have open-frame motors. OPEN, instead of totally enclosed fan-cooled (TEFC) motors. Incredible. What kills pool motors? Water. How does it get in? 1. Seals that die because they overheat if you run them for 30 seconds without water, and 2. BIG VENTILATION HOLES IN THE CASINGS. Am I the only one who sees the issue?

The next time my pump motor dies, I should get myself a beautiful surplus TEFC motor (American made) from Ebay, for $60, and I should fab up a way to adapt it to my pump. Beats paying over $200 for three-year Mexican motor made from old hubcaps.

I have never owned a large hotel pool, but my guess is that they use much better pumps and filters. Pentair makes disgraceful Mickey Mouse products which are designed to fail, and I know hotel owners and universities and so on wouldn’t rely on that kind of equipment. Somewhere out there, there has to be a competent company that makes reliable products which are, sadly, too big for my tiny, shallow 30-foot pool that has no diving board.

If you’ve never had a pool, and you can’t wait to get one, think twice. My dad got our first pool when I was 12. My family has had two relatively nice 40′ by 20′ pools with diving boards. It’s not worth it. You will use your pool rarely after the first year, and after that, it will just be a money suck that increases your insurance rates.

Spend the money on a serious brick barbecue with a pig pit and pizza oven built in. Put in some shade trees and landscaping. Forget the pool. You’ll just be buying a headache.

Okay, I feel better now. You are dismissed.

Letting Chemistry do the Work

Today I worked on the big oak that fell over in the large pasture to the north of my house. I have had over a year to cut it up, but I made it my lowest priority because it enhanced the property’s privacy. For most of the year, it had leaves on it, and even though it was on its side, it provided a screen that was maybe 20 feet high. Hard to give that up.

I stuck a chainsaw and some other stuff in the tractor ballast box, and off I went.

Actually, that’s not true. First, I tried unsuccessfully to start my big chainsaw. I opened it up and looked at the carb. I did all sorts of things. No joy. I thought I was protecting it from leftist-mandated, CO2-generating, vehicle-destroying ethanol, but maybe I failed. Ethanol will freeze up any engine if you don’t drain the gas during long periods of inactivity. I know of three ways to get around this. First, buy real gas with no ethanol in it. Second, drain the gas whenever you stop using an engine. Third, put a product called Sta-Bil in your gas. It will buy you two years. I have a special gas can for my saws, and I always put Sta-Bil in it.

I had to give up on the 20″ saw and fall back (not literally) on the 16″ job. Frustrating. I looked up ways to de-crud carburetors, and I found an interesting method: dishwashing liquid and water, in an ultrasonic cleaner. I just happen to have two ultrasonic cleaners that belonged to my mother. I think she used them for jewelry. This gives me a strategy.

Gas was making it to the cylinder, but I don’t think it was enough.

Anyway, after I gave up trying to start the big saw, I got to work on the tree.

The first thing I tried was to lift a bunch of branches I cut recently. I learned something new. When you lift something with a tractor’s front end loader, you can turn the tractor over very quickly.

I tried to lift the branches, and the load was mostly on the right side of the tractor. As the hydraulics extended, the right side of the tractor leaned toward the ground. It was disturbing.

I never use the tractor’s seat belt, because I have an irrational fear that it will make an accident worse, not better. I have to get over that. I know the roll bar won’t fold up, but it looks so flimsy.

We are having record heat here, just as I was getting excited about cool weather. The temperature in the nearest town is 93 degrees right now. That would be a little high for August. Last year on this date, the high was 77. Tomorrow the weather is supposed to go back to normal. Not sure why I felt like I had to pick today to work in the sun.

I also wanted to work on a stump so I could prepare it for an application of stump remover, but I ran out of steam. I’ve been applying potassium nitrate (saltpeter) to stumps since August. It’s an amazing product. You drill holes in the stumps, pour in a fairly small amount of saltpeter, add water, and walk away. A few weeks later, you will find that your stump is mushy and rotten. If you put 8 or 10 holes in a stump 2 feet wide, you will find that a lot of the stump AND the roots are so mushy you can cut them up with a maul.

I have tried burning stumps with charcoal, and it will work, but it takes a long time and a lot of charcoal.

I don’t know why it works. I can’t understand how a chemical in a hole an inch wide can rot wood a foot away, but it does.

There is a problem with saltpeter, however. It used to be dirt cheap, and you could buy it anywhere, but now it’s scarce. The best price I’ve found is 8 bucks per pound, at Tractor Supply. Why is it scarce? I’m not sure, but I think it has to do with Islam, the religion of terrorism.

Saltpeter is an ingredient in gunpowder, and it appears that it has been used in other explosives for the purpose of killing the innocent. You can look around and read about a failed terrorist bomb made from saltpeter and one other ingredient.

I don’t know if terrorism is the reason why it’s so expensive for me to dissolve stumps, but it sure seems likely. What other reason could there be for the sudden scarcity of a very familiar product Americans bought in bulk for centuries?

It’s like the disappearance of Postal Service mailboxes. Remember those? We had them before 911, and then they started disappearing. A mailbox is an easy place to deposit a bomb. Not sure it’s any easier than dropping it in a post office lobby, where it will kill more people, but I suppose it’s harder to do that without being identified.

I have not been able to find any references to terrorism’s connection to the disappearance of mailboxes, but it seems obvious, and the government’s own explanation–cost cutting–seems stupid. It doesn’t cost any more to grab mail from a box than it does to take it out of a bin in a post office. Whatever. Thank you, Mohammed, for one more inconvenience.

Timothy McVeigh, one of the left’s hens’-teeth-rare white, non-Muslim terror celebrities, used ammonium nitrate, a popular fertilizer, to blow up the federal building in Oklahoma City. Now it’s hard to get ammonium nitrate. You have to fill out paperwork, apparently.

It’s a wonder we still have access to anything that blows up.

Before I realized someone had choked off the saltpeter supply, I looked all over the web, figuring someone had to be selling big sacks of it. I thought I found a source on Amazon. Someone was selling 5-pound bags of saltpeter for about $20, so I ordered one. Better than paying 50 cents an ounce. Today I found out what I actually ordered is “Chile saltpeter,” or sodium nitrate. People say it’s chemically similar to potassium nitrate, so I’m going to try it anyway. It can’t hurt anything, and it may do the job.

I have read that a lot of other chemicals will soften stumps. Epsom salt and the unobtainable ammonium nitrate have been mentioned. I would not be surprised if sodium nitrate worked and saved me some money.

I had to buy a 1″ wood auger in order to make deep holes in stumps. I also sprang for a decent lithium drill. I can’t believe the amazing cordless drills they make these days. I bought a Makita, and I made sure I checked the torque and ordered a good one. Makita makes like 400 different drills; not sure why. They could cover all the bases with a dozen.

My experience with the drill was startling. Live oaks are extremely hard, so I thought drilling holes in them would be a terrible job. I was mistaken. The auger went through oak like it was cheese. I can’t understand it.

While I was drilling more holes this week, I realized it was so easy, I could get rid of small oaks simply by hollowing them out with the drill.

Now that I know how easy it is to get rid of stumps, I wonder why most people leave stumps in the ground and walk and mow around them.

I have stumps that are sprouting suckers. I hate that. Live oaks refuse to die gracefully. I figure stump remover will put a stop to it. If the wood is falling apart, it can’t be expected to remain alive.

I spent a lot of time Googling stump-removing chemicals this week, and I ordered sodium nitrate, so I’m sure I’m on all sorts of government lists now, as if I hadn’t made them already by joining gun forums, buying ammunition online, and writing blogs critical of Obama and Islam. I know the DoD has me on a hate list; I’ve seen the block page. Nice. Thanks, guys. I wonder if Farrakhan’s website–an actual hate site–is on the list.

I hope the government isn’t wasting much energy on me, because they have limited resources, and there is absolutely no possibility that I will try to blow anyone up.

Of course, that’s exactly what I would say if I were a terrorist.

There is no way to win.

I should have waited until tomorrow to work on trees, but I wanted to get outside. Maybe tonight I can get the big saw’s carb fixed up, and later this week I can wreak some real havoc.

It was hard to be effective today. Work a little, overheat, gasp for air, stop, rest, work a little more, and so on. I was wearing steel-toed boots and jeans with a lot of heavy stuff in the pockets, and I was wrestling branches and holding a saw. The sun was fierce, and the breeze was nonexistent. Overheating took place quickly, and when you’re too hot, you feel physically weak. Your body stops supplying power in order to force you to rest.

I left my chainsaw and pole saw out in the pasture. Time to get back up and retrieve them.

I should have this huge tree cleared away by the end of the month, or, alternatively, I may be dead. I am hoping the tree loses.

That’s all the excitement for today. Be careful what you Google, or you may end up bunking with me in Leavenworth.

Time to Pay the Piper, Little Buddies

Today I had some fun with a new project. I added a spray boom to the utility cart.

You may wonder what a spray boom is.

When I moved to this farm, the seller left me a 25-gallon spot sprayer. This is a contraption with a polyethylene tank and a wand you hold in your hand. You hook it to a cart battery and drive around, shooting various types of poison at plants and bugs.

Last week I started using the spot sprayer, and I saw that it was good. I found a huge jug of concentrated glyphosate in the workshop, and I obliterated a huge number of troublesome weeds. So much better than paying $18 for a tiny jug of Roundup with a wimpy squirt pistol.

Unfortunately, it was a pain to use. I had to steer the cart with one hand and spray with the other, and I could only cover a three-foot swath. I would like to spray my pastures, and there is no way I’m doing it three feet at a time.

I looked into the matter, and I learned about spray booms. A boom is a rigid beam or pole. A spray boom has nozzles attached to it. You attach it to a vehicle, and it will spray a nice, consistent swath. You don’t have to hold anything in your hand.

I also looked into boomless sprayers. A boomless sprayer doesn’t have a rigid support member. It only has one nozzle, and the nozzle sprays out to the sides. With the right pump and nozzle, you can spray a swath 25 feet wide.

A boomless sprayer is better for most people. It’s less cumbersome, it’s cheaper, and it will do most of what a boom sprayer will do. It’s not as good for hitting plants that are behind other plants, however.

I was going to order myself a boomless sprayer, but I decided to hit Rural King today, to see what they had. They stock a two-nozzle boom that will attach to “most” spot sprayers. It was only $49. I didn’t know what to do, so I prayed. I felt like the boom sprayer was the right choice, even though I wanted the other one, which cost over twice as much.

I got the thing home, and I found out it only fits “most” spot sprayers if you do some work on it. It had a strange “return” nipple on it, to return unused stuff to the tank. My sprayer doesn’t do that. It just pushes stuff out. Nothing goes back. I had to find a way to stop up the return nipple. My machine tools are still in Miami, so I couldn’t make a threaded plug.

I decided to plug it from the inside with an old foam earplug. There was no way the pump would be able to push it out, and it would seal the nipple nicely. It worked perfectly.

Of course, the one-size-fits-all struts that came with the boom would not attach to my sprayer or cart. I ended up taking the tailgate off and using Irwin clamps to attach the boom to the rear of the dump bed. It turned out this was an ideal solution. Instead of a bulky sprayer with steel struts on it, I only have to deal with a small boom and two clamps. Excellent. When I prayed for guidance, I felt like the boom was a bad idea, but it worked out great.

I didn’t know what kind of fertilizer to use on my grass. The whole point of buying a boom was to avoid using hobby-grade products that come in tiny packages. I assumed that Rural King would have some kind of soluble fertilizer in big bags, for tractor-pulled sprayers. Unfortunately, they only had one product: ammonium sulfate. Fifty-one pounds for 11 dollars. It’s sort of like ammonium nitrate, only cheaper.

For 11 bucks, I was willing to take a chance. It was way cheaper than things like Scott’s Turf Builder, and because it was soluble, it worked in a sprayer. I wouldn’t have to push a spreader like a peasant.

I mixed 10 or 15 pounds of ammonium sulfate with 25 gallons of water, and I added some 2,4 D just for fun. Off I went. It worked great. Now I have to see how it affects the grass. I hope the yard doesn’t die.

It would take a long time to spray my 13-acre pasture this way, but it could be done, and it would be better than paying someone else $75 per hour or whatever. I would like to get rid of the weeds that are taking over. If I could do that, I might have an easier time getting someone to mow my land for the hay, and besides, it’s not a good idea to let weeds eat a pasture.

I sprayed a little bit of my small pasture, just to see how well the chemicals worked.

I may upgrade my pump and try a boomless sprayer for the pasture. I think the boom sprayer is better for the yard, because it won’t hit shrubs accidentally, but when it comes to larger areas, it’s clearly better to spray 25 feet at a time instead of 6.

I couldn’t find insecticide for the sprayer. That’s not totally true; they had malathion. I want some something better. Maybe I can buy several jugs of concentrated imidacloprid. The yard needs something powerful.

Hmm…Ebay has super-concentrated imidacloprid, cheap. It’s considered safe, and it does a great job on bugs, even underground. SOLD.

We had a lot of problems with moles and/or gophers last year. Today I read that the way to get rid of them is to kill the grubs they eat. Wish I had known that last fall. I’m going to blast the whole area around the house with imidacloprid. I should also soak the bases of the oaks near the house, to kill the bugs that make them fall over.

I really want to get the lawn and grounds under control. I was afraid of spending money last year, and I was busy coping with downed oaks. I was also very ignorant. All these things contributed to the chaos the yard is now experiencing. I think the sprayer will make a big difference, provided I don’t kill everything with it while I’m learning about chemicals.

Maybe I’ll post a photo of the cart with the sprayer rigged up.

With God’s help, this farm will survive me. It just has to last long enough for me to figure out what I’m doing.

Guilty

I am following up on the story of the pastor of New Dawn Ministries, the last church I belonged to. After a number of delays, his case crossed a threshold on October 5.

There were 8 charges. According to a county website, he was charged with 4 counts of lewd and lascivious molestation on a child under 12. It says he was charged with 4 counts of lewd and lascivious conduct (different thing) with a child under 16.

Last Friday, he was adjudged guilty on one count of lewd and lascivious conduct with a child under 16. He was also convicted of one count of lewd and lascivious molestation (not conduct) with a child under 12. He took a plea, which means he said he was guilty.

“Molestation” is a worse crime than “conduct,” and it carries a much heavier punishment.

A person guilty of L&L conduct has:

Intentionally touched the victim in a lewd or lascivious manner; or
Asked the victim to commit a lewd or lascivious act…

A person guilty of L&L molestation has:

“In a lewd or lascivious manner, intentionally touched the breasts, genitals, crotch, butt, or clothing covering those areas of the victim; or
In a lewd or lascivious manner, intentionally forced or enticed the victim to touch the breasts, genitals, crotch, butt, or clothing covering those areas on the defendant…”

I thought he was accused of rape, but that may not be the case. The prosecutors may not think he committed rape, or they may think it’s too hard to prove.

I am not a criminal attorney, so I am not completely sure how the process works at this point. I worked for the PD in Miami very briefly, and then I put in some time as an intern with the legal aid people in domestic violence. What I recall is that people who took pleas were sentenced immediately, because part of the plea process is negotiating a sentence. There is no point in having hearings to decide on a sentence when a defendant has already agreed to a punishment. Perhaps that isn’t always the case, however. Maybe my former pastor hasn’t been sentenced yet.

The clerk’s site says he will have to surrender on December 5, so he must not be in prison or the county jail right now. Maybe he got a break because his wife is dying from a brain tumor. Maybe the court is giving him time so he can be present when she dies. I’m just guessing. There has to be an explanation.

The site also says something about a probation agreement being unsealed. Certain sexual crimes require post-incarceration probation.

Florida has a number of mandatory minimum (“man-min”) sentences on the books, and child molesters are among the targets. Lewd and lascivious “molestation” of a child under 12 carries a man-min of 25 years followed by probation. That’s not the maximum; you can get life. Once you’re in prison in Florida, the best outcome possible is to shave 15% off your sentence through “gain time.” It’s not clear to me whether a molestation defendant is allowed this option. Some courts have said they are not.

The punishment for L&L conduct is not as bad, but it’s still very severe. It’s not like you can pay a fine.

One would assume that a convicted child abuser would do serious prison time no matter how well things went for him in court. Thing is, man-mins are pure fiction, at least with regard to certain crimes. My sister was charged with two man-min offenses, and she was convicted of one. She never spent a day in prison. She put in a fair amount of time in the county lockup because she paid little attention to her felony diversion conditions before her trial, but the county lockup isn’t prison.

Although convicted, my sister was sentenced to probation, not prison, and she failed to comply with the conditions. After she disobeyed the court, she went to prison, right? No, the court simply said she had “failed.” Apparently, this means she will not be eligible for probation if she is convicted of new crimes. Basically, it means she was not punished at all.

All this shows that mandatory minimums don’t always have teeth. Whether they’re enforced uniformly in molestation cases, I could not say. Florida has the nation’s harshest child-protection laws, so it’s not a great place to live if you’re a molester. Maybe molesters never get what are called downward deviations (sentence reductions) in man-min cases. A Florida Supreme Court case (Rochester v. Florida) suggests they do not.

I could figure this stuff out and provide a certain answer if I were being paid and took the time to do quality research, but that’s not happening, so I’m making a fair effort and hoping I’m right.

I don’t think I’m going out on a limb when I say that a middle-aged man who molests his own niece for years, in Florida, is absolutely sure to do multi-year prison time. Surely there is no way the courts will allow him to avoid incarceration.

The grapevine (relatives of the pastor) says his sister is pushing for 7 years, and that his wife is somehow involved in a sympathetic filing asking for no more than 2.5. The relatives don’t really know what’s happening, however. It’s gossip. If the state websites are correct about his status, my former pastor is looking at over 25 years, no matter what.

I don’t like rooting for someone to go to prison, because I’m a bad person myself, and I certainly don’t want to be exposed or held accountable. I believe it’s important for this man to be imprisoned, however, because child molesters often have multiple victims. We don’t know who else he has hurt or will hurt. We don’t know whether he can control himself. Also, I think his niece would be harmed by the knowledge that the justice system cared about her so little it allowed her molester to remain free. I don’t know how she could feel safe in that situation. She should be able to associate with her family and friends, secure in the knowledge that she won’t see her uncle walk in the door. She shouldn’t have to worry about seeing his car creep by while she stands in her yard.

Whether society really needs to put him away for 25 years (or even 85% of 25 years), I could not say. He shouldn’t be able to be near her until she’s an adult, at the very least.

I have told all I know. It’s a very sad story. If the man-min means anything in his case, his family is in for an extremely rude awakening, and the free world may never see him again. For a 51-year-old, 270-pound diabetic who absolutely refuses to eat vegetables, 85% of 25 years could well equal a life sentence.

This is certainly a different outcome from the one we used to hear about from Jorge, our “house prophet.” He told us we were all going to mount unicorns stuffed with gold bars and ride them into the gates of the Emerald City, more or less. One rosy prediction after another. We would have a big building. There would be miracles. None of it happened. And I was the jerk because I was “negative.” I didn’t buy into everything that was said.

I may have been less than positive, but the bad things I thought would come to pass, did. Those things happened, and it didn’t stop there. The end of the church and the destinies of the pastors were actually much worse than I thought they would be.

The strange thing is that the pastors did give us truths from God. He spoke through Pastor Albert many times. I benefited a lot from listening. It goes to show you that you can’t assume a person is right with God simply because God speaks through him. Consider Balaam.

In other news, it looks like Hurricane Michael is going to miss me and everything I own. That’s a relief. I can’t tell you how many hours I spent last year, cutting, moving, and burning trees my myself. I didn’t enjoy using buckets of pool water to bathe, either, and caring for a dementia patient without electricity or water pressure is an ordeal I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

On the down side, Michael is headed for an area not too far from Milton, Florida, where some friends of mine live. Milton is on the east side of Pensacola. It seems like the Gulf Coast gets whacked a lot these days.

If the forecast is right, Milton will only get tropical storm-force winds. That’s a lot better than 125-mph winds, which have 4 times as much energy.

Ocala is wonderful, but Michael has me thinking about Tennessee. I can’t lie. It seems like I go through the hurricane waiting game every year, and it gets old. Eastern Tennessee has no real natural disasters to worry about. I’m sure they have occasional tornadoes and floods, but it’s not like living in a hurricane zone, and they don’t get frequent earthquakes or tidal waves. Also, it’s maybe 6 degrees warmer than Kentucky in the winter, and there is no state income tax.

Clouds Dissipating?

Thank you, God. The weather is changing.

It’s 89 degrees here, but it took until after 12 p.m. to get that hot. A couple of weeks back, we were looking at low 90’s, and things heated up faster. It’s dryer now, too, and it’s much more pleasant in the late afternoon and evening.

Last night I went outside as the sun was starting to dim, and I didn’t begin sweating immediately. I could have stayed out and not suffered. I didn’t even get bitten by bugs.

I wasted a lot of good weather after the summer of 2017 died. I put outdoor jobs off. This time I plan to pounce. When it’s cool enough to work, I will cut, mow, or burn something, or I will take some guns out and shoot.

I keep thinking I would like to pull out and make a permanent move to Tennessee eventually. A few days back, I decided to check the weather up there. It was not as great as I had hoped. In fact, it was pretty close to what we were having here. Maybe September in Tennessee is just as hot as it is in Florida.

I checked the forecast for the upcoming month, and it looked considerably better. Where my area has lows in the high 60’s, Tennessee expects lows maybe 10 degrees lower. That means fewer bugs and more good weather for outdoor activity.

What I do will depend on my dad. It’s impossible to make solid plans when you’re dealing with dementia. This winter, my dad may be exactly like he is now, he may be worse (somewhat or a great deal), and he may not be around at all. As long as he’s living at home, I won’t want to move. If he’s not living here, I can do whatever I want. If he’s in a facility, I can move and then find a new facility up north. If the end comes, I’ll have no strings to consider.

There is good news regarding my dad. Yesterday we went out to lunch. I asked him if he ever thought about making plans for the hereafter. He asked what he could do, and I said he could receive salvation. He asked how to do that, and he said he was willing to listen to anything I recommended.

Did it mean anything? What demented people say varies from one day to the next. I can’t tell you whether this is an important development. I told him I would tell him all about salvation later. I didn’t want to hold a revival in an Indian restaurant.

Maybe I was wrong to hesitate. He could have passed away last night. I plan to bring it up again today.

I believe God has told me my dad will be saved, so I don’t feel I have to be in a rush. If God says he’ll be saved, it will happen.

My dad’s attitude seems to have changed during this month. I don’t know what’s going on. Maybe a stroke affected some little part of his brain that generated anger and pride. Maybe God is restraining poisonous spirits that have always controlled him. His physical therapist says he has slipped over the last week, so maybe there is a physical explanation.

It would be fantastic to have a dad who isn’t angry and proud. I can’t imagine that. He has always released his negative feelings freely. When I’m angry at someone, I remain polite and work with them, and I try to spare their feelings. My dad has always vented his inner feelings directly onto people, with no hesitation. If he suddenly started acting like the rest of us, I wouldn’t know what to do. It would be like having him replaced with a different person.

People have always walked on eggs around my dad. Imagine suddenly being able to speak freely around a person like that.

It’s a strange thing; inner changes that would help him prepare for his departure would also make it harder to let him go.

Being around an angry and very vocal person is like being struck with a whip all day. No matter how much you love the person, you get angry, over and over. Repentance is something you repeat many times per week. You can’t help looking forward to spending time away from them.

It’s not hatred or vengeance. It’s fatigue and a desire for relief. What is it like when such a person puts the whip away?

I hope he’s serious about God. I have always expected him to wait until the last possible second, but maybe it won’t be quite that bad. It would be nice to have some time with the new version of him before he goes.

A Woodsman has to Keep his Head

Today I tested the axe I hung. I went out and found a particularly hateful and evil tree, i.e. a live oak, and I cut it down. The axe worked just fine, and the head didn’t loosen or fly across the woods. People who advise me have been badgering me to put metal wedges in the axe, so now I feel I have the go-ahead to give them the official thumb-nosing they deserve.

Cutting the tree was a very bad experience in a couple of ways. First, it involved exercise. Second, it served to underscore the total superiority of chainsaws. A one-minute job became a ten-minute job.

I’m not completely sure what I’ll do with the axe in the long run. I just feel like a farm needs an axe. There must surely be jobs one needs an axe for.

It’s really heavy, or maybe I’m just old. Weren’t axes a lot lighter when I was 16? Of course they were. I’m sure of it. And my feet weren’t as far away as they are now. These days, my feet are like grown children who moved to another state. They only visit me a few times a year.

When I was a kid, I wondered why old men’s toenails grew so long. Now I know.

I was thinking it might be good to cut down several small trees per week, just for the exercise. Swinging an axe vigorously is extremely unpleasant, so it has to be good for me.

Live oaks are a pestilence. I am planning to kill every small live oak I see, and I treat little maples as though they bore golden apples. I want the maples to dominate. It’s not my fault people let live oaks grow here in the past, but it doesn’t have to continue on my watch.

I suspect that my small Home Depot Fiskars hatchet will always be more useful than an axe, but I’m still glad I learned about axes. Knowledge and skill are good things to have. Being stupid is not a virtue unless you’re a hereditary Democrat trying to live on the government teat.

I noticed one surprising thing while I cut the tree: I wasn’t immediately soaked with sweat. Three days ago, I would have been. The weather is going to change soon, whether it likes it or not. That will be great. Also, I was not attacked by mosquitoes. As far as I can tell, we have had about 5% of the activity we had last year. I may be wrong, but I seem to remember being scared to go outside in the post-Irma period. I spent a lot of time shopping for mosquito remedies. I haven’t felt the need this year.

There are a lot of things I want to do on the farm, but lately, working for 5 minutes has meant needing a complete change of clothes and a shower. That’s discouraging. You find yourself asking yourself if it’s really worth it to move the branch lying across the driveway. Maybe you can just drive around it…

If the weather is really turning the corner, I’ll be able to make up for some of the shameful laziness I displayed last winter. I treated the good weather like it would last forever, and then it left.

I’m hoping to get more done this year. Right now, I’m trapped in a period of excessive bookkeeping activity, so I can’t do much, but I expect that to pass in a few days, and after that, I may actually be free to get some things done.

I continue to search for a double-bitted axe at a decent price. I have ordered two old ones from Ebay plus a new one from Amazon, and none have been satisfactory. Once I have a double-bitted axe, my collection will be complete. Except for a small axe which is larger than a hatchet. And maybe some other axes.

I’m going to flop on the couch with the birds and drink a small amount of medicinal Scotch. Between the bookkeeping and the horror of ten minutes of exercise, I feel I deserve to be indulged.

If I locate another axe, you will read about it here. I hope someone invents one that swings itself.

The Tools Make the Man

I’m thinking of buying a set of hookaroons.

A hookaroon, also known as a pickaroon, is a logging tool. It’s an axe handle with a pointy steel head at the end. The point is perpendicular to the handle. You swing it at logs, and the point goes in. Then you use the axe handle to move the logs around.

It sounds a little stupid. After all, you can bend over and pick a log up, using gloves. That doesn’t sound so bad, does it? It’s the easiest thing in the world, until you do it a hundred times in one day. Maybe you’re in great shape, and bending over to lift things doesn’t bother you, but most people would feel pretty sore after a day of picking logs up off the ground.

A lot of people use a single hookaroon, but some say you’re supposed to hold one in each hand. They work well in pairs. That makes them expensive.

I ordered another item: log tongs. These come in different sizes. Big ones hook up to tractors. You hold little ones in your hand. They’re like big scissors with points on the tips. When you slip one over a log and pull, the points go into the bark and hang on. The theory is pretty much like hookaroon theory. You don’t have to bend as far to pick things up, and you don’t have to rely on your hands to give you a grip.

If you have big log tongs on a tractor, you don’t have to deal with looping chains or straps around logs. You attach the tongs and take off. I would be a little nervous about tongs flying off and killing me if I applied a lot of tension. I suppose you have to use common sense.

Most people don’t use proper logging tools. They don’t even know what they are. Sometimes that makes sense. If you do very little work with trees, you shouldn’t waste a lot of money on tools. I have a lot of trees, though. I need to do things right.

A cousin of mine lived with his mother on a farm my grandfather owned. His dad’s business failed, and then there was a divorce. My grandfather allowed my aunt and her son to live on the farm rent-free. They relied on a wood stove, so my cousin had to use a chainsaw and a maul. He never learned how to do things right. There was no one to teach him.

I can tell you two lessons he needed to learn. First, he needed to learn that whenever a striking tool or a wedge or chisel gets mushroomed, you’re supposed to grind the mushroomed bit off ASAP before pieces fly off and hit you. He also needed to learn to wear safety glasses.

I don’t have any metal wedges. I have plastic ones. They’re light, they work great, and they don’t mushroom. Also, if the saw hits them, the plastic loses. Won’t hurt the saw. I just paid $11 for two new wedges.

I’m not sure, but I think metal wedges are used for splitting, and plastic ones are used for felling. I don’t know if a plastic wedge could take the pounding a splitting wedge takes, but it will definitely stand up to being hammered into a saw kerf so you can cut up a tree.

One day I was with my cousin while he used a maul and wedge to split logs in his driveway. This is a stupid thing to do, in my opinion. You should use better tools if you can. We didn’t know that, and my aunt didn’t have a lot of money anyway.

I have probably written about this before. My cousin took a swing at the wedge, and then he fell down holding his leg. He looked fine, and the maul hadn’t hit him. He was in real pain. After the chaos subsided, he pulled his pant leg up, and we saw a little lump on his shin. It was a piece of steel. There was a matching cavity on the maul. A chunk of steel the size of a .22 round had gone through his jeans, penetrated his skin, collided with his shin bone, and slid about two inches up his leg.

You’re wondering why I mentioned glasses. What if the steel had flown toward his eye?

We took him to the emergency room in Lexington, and my aunt worked on the insurance forms. She asked me what I would say he was doing when he got hurt. I said, “busting wood.” Days later, she got documents from the insurer, and it listed her city of residence as Busting Wood, Kentucky.

Guess she filled in the wrong box.

My cousin didn’t know which tools to use or what kind of safety equipment to buy, and he didn’t know how to take care of tools, so he got shot in the leg. That’s what it adds up to.

I have no plans to split logs, because I dread using my fireplace. It makes a mess. If I did decide to split logs, I’d use an electric motor with a conical screw on it. They use them in Europe. You bolt a motor to a table, and you attach a screw to the shaft. The screw is pointed at one end and maybe 2-1/2″ wide at the other. When you shove a piece of wood into it, the screw bores into it and splits it. It’s incredible. Looks much better than slow hydraulic splitters.

You can buy a splitting screw that fits a tractor PTO shaft.

I don’t know a whole lot about splitting logs, but the screw looks better than hydraulic splitters. They’re very slow, and they cost a lot.

I’ve also ordered a set of mesh glasses. These are safety glasses with stainless steel mesh instead of polycarbonate. When you work outdoors with plastic glasses, they fog up and fill with sweat. That can’t happen with mesh.

People say mesh doesn’t do a good job of deflecting fine wood dust. My take on that is that anyone who eats a lot of dust needs to learn how to sharpen a saw. Sharp saws make chunks, not dust. I may be wrong; maybe a sharp saw makes enough dust to cause problems. I’ll find out when I try the glasses.

You’re not supposed to use a chainsaw to make cuts above your shoulders unless it’s a pole saw. My guess is that people who shoot a lot of crap into their faces are violating this rule. Held at a safe level, a chainsaw will naturally shoot debris at your right leg or maybe your right side.

They make hardhats with mesh visors and built-in earmuffs. I may get one. I already have a hardhat, but I only use it when I cut things that can fall on me. I’m hoping I can use the mesh glasses with the hardhat and avoid a cumbersome apparatus with everything attached.

In October, the weather will become bearable, so my tree-cutting efforts should accelerate. I look forward to getting more of this crap moved out. Last year, it often seemed very difficult, but then I didn’t have the right tools until I was pretty far into it.

Try cutting up a big live oak without a pole saw. It’s a nightmare. You can’t get close enough to the branches, and a lot of things you want to cut will be above your shoulders. A pole saw really tames a big fallen tree.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to burn everything I cut, but at least it will be on the ground where it will rot quickly.

Studying and springing for the things you need pays off. I’ve been working on the farm for a year without killing myself or even injuring myself seriously. I did burn the hair off my ankles once, but that was an improvement.

I don’t know what else I should get. I’m sure things will come to my attention. Here’s to another year with 10 complete fingers and no disks that don’t work.

Another Sunday at Home

I thought I was going to church tonight. God keeps telling me not to join a church, but when I asked if I could visit, it was another story. I thought tonight was the night.

I looked around on Google, and I found a Spirit-filled place that looked okay. I decided to try their 6 p.m. service. I got a shirt out and started ironing it. Then I looked at a video.

They were singing in Spanish.

I have done the ethnic church thing. I was an armorbearer and all-around slave at a Haitian church, and then I was an armorbearer, deacon, and doormat at a Puerto Rican church. I’m not ready to go down that road again.

I found that black churches don’t just tolerate hypocrisy; they expect it. How you act at home means nothing as long as you jump up and down and pretend to care about God at church. I found out that Puerto Rican churches are full of emotional people who get angry over nothing and can’t accept correction. There was way too much loud music, screaming, and rolling on the floor at both churches. I’m ready to sit among people who are a little less inclined to histrionics.

I don’t want to go to another church where everyone pretends to know the Holy Spirit yet thinks Barack Obama is practically Jesus. I can’t deal with Christians who are so ignorant they think Jesus was a leftist.

I looked at some other websites, and then I decided to let it go. I got up and finished putting the new handle in my axe.

I have to say that I think I did a really good job. I haven’t used the axe yet, but it looks great.

I was considering using a wood-swelling product to make the head stick to the handle better. I even bought some. The chemical in wood-swellers is dipropylene glycol. You mix it with water in four-to-one ratio. Wood-swelling products are very expensive, but pure dipropylene glycol is fairly cheap on Ebay. I ordered a bottle. I also bought a gallon jug of RV antifreeze at Tractor Supply, for $2.50. Some brands contain dipropylene glycol. I thought I might install the axe handle and then soak the head in antifreeze for a while. RV antifreeze is not like the antifreeze in your car. It’s food-safe. It’s used to protect freshwater pipes.

I finally installed it the old-fashioned way. I coated the wedge in wood glue, pounded it in, cut off the excess with a coping saw, and sanded the top of the handle to make it look nice. Here is the result.

I may soak it tomorrow anyway. Can’t hurt, right?

RV antifreeze is diluted dipropylene glycol. The stuff I ordered is pure. I have a second axe head on the way, and I plan to use the pure stuff on it.

Assuming the handle I bought is sound, I think the axe I fixed up today should be very pleasant to use.

It’s nice to know I did it right. Thank God for Youtube. When it comes to hanging axes, the world is full of BS, and the people who spread it make themselves sound highly confident.

They remind me of preachers.