Deb is a trooper. It’s been three weeks now since she broke her foot, and little by little she’s improving. As pain and reduced stamina allow, she’s picking up chores again and getting around more.
Crutches and the walking boot are annoyances, though necessary ones. Outings like our Saturday trip to Home Depot really take the starch out of her.
But she’s getting better.
I feel the need to follow up on yesterday’s post, addressing both the rule-following crowd and those truly interested in living a Life of Liberty. I understand that some readers were taken aback by my frankness, and y’all deserve a little more light on the subject.
For context, I want you to recall all of the things that you once were able to do but no longer can without State interference (if you can do them at all). Either you need a permit, or you must have a licensed someone-or-other do it, or it’s outright prohibited.
The older you are, the longer the list. If we include our parents’ and grandparents’ experience, it’s virtually endless.
What changed? In most cases, absolutely nothing — except The Rules. Behavior and activities once accepted, once legal, now are tightly controlled or verboten.
Everyday American life, as we knew it, has been criminalized.
Being subservient to The New Rules is anathema to Liberty. Living a life of compliance does not make you a good person.
It makes you a tool. Measured against Founding Principles, it makes you less American.
Disobedience, of course, can trigger consequences. Some are formal, institutional, legal, while others fundamentally affect how we live a life that’s free in a society that isn’t.
Last week I asked, “In the name of Liberty, are you willing to become an outlaw?”
Well, are you?
Are you a citizen or a subject? Are you an individual, or are you a member of the collective?
I’m not administering a Purity Test here, nor am I opening a back door to some sovereign-citizen cult. I’m only raising questions that you must answer for yourself.
“The world will change when you are ready to pronounce this oath: ”I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.’”
John Galt, from Atlas Shrugged (1957)
The Mountain emerged from two days of steady rain unscathed, it appears, registering four inches over 48 hours. Wake-up temps this morning were right at freezing, with wind chill making it feel slightly colder.
Before sunset yesterday I prepped our water supply for the dip — filled the fresh-water tank, shut off the hydrant and disconnected both ends of the hose. That was enough for managing 32°F, but tonight’s hard freeze will require more serious measures.
This was supposed to be a laundry day, and a pretty substantial one. Cooler weather means bulkier clothes — hoodies, fleeces, flannels — plus bedding needed washing and I added a bag of shop rags to the mix. Not finding ourselves in a laundry mood, however, we put that off ’til tomorrow.
I was looking forward to my trip to the post office this morning, knowing what awaited me. See, in my Ozarkansas retirement there are a few new things I want to take up — kayaking and maybe fly fishing, to name two. Today’s mail would mark the beginning of developing yet another skill.
I got a crossbow. A used one, a Barnett. Nothing fancy, merely an entry-level model.
Next stop: the feed store, where I picked up several bales of straw to backstop my target practice. Once back on The Mountain, I spent the next two hours assembling the crossbow and getting familiar with its function.
The whole process felt completely foreign to me. It was a clue that I’d chosen wisely, that this really is a blank canvas.
Eventually I cocked the action (it has a crank), loaded a bolt (arrow) and stepped outside. Standing back from a couple of straw bales, I shouldered the bow, drew a bead on center mass, thumbed the safety and squeeeeezed the trigger.
It was delicious, everything I’d imagined. Silent. No recoil.
Thing is, that carbon-fiber bolt plowed through the straw, hit a pile of our famous Ozarkansas rocks and shattered. It took me a half-hour to find the tail. The business end (including a field point) was nowhere in sight.
Like I said, this is all foreign to me. We’ll get a proper target. I’m definitely hooked.
With plenty of work to do today, I put away the crossbow, gathered our cold-weather supplies and hauled it down to the well. First, I wrapped all of the PVC pipe and metal fittings, as best I could, in foam insulation, securing it with duct tape. I mounted a 250W heat lamp where it’d do the most good. Finally, I leaned a simple thermometer against the pump’s electrical box.
Then it was on to the hydrant. I coiled 12 feet of heated conductor around the standing pipe, attached it with zip-ties top and bottom, and wrapped the result in rubber pipe insulation.
The last thing I addressed was the line from the hydrant to the RV. I replaced the warm-weather hose with our heated one and a shorter length of standard hose that fits inside the speed bump. It may get its own heated conductor soon, but for now we’ll just disconnect it.
I checked my work, and everything functions. It’ll be getting down to 20°F by tomorrow morning, so we’ll soon see if it all actually works.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable
#LetsGoBrandon #FJB