Yeah, I’ve been around

I just haven’t been interested in posting. Part of it is probably related to taking an enforced break from (most) of the news. While I feel much better mentally, it also takes away a big source of things to post about.

I’m not going to be consuming nearly so much news in the future, either. It’s repetitive, most of it is a lie of one sort or another, and it harshes my calm. I’m old and getting older, and I don’t want to end up like my Dad the last year or two he was alive-angry and bitter that the country was going to hell, handbasket not included.

The country will, or will not, go to hell no matter what I do. That is an inescapable fact. Me getting angry over it will change exactly squat.

Not that I won’t pay attention to the news, I will. Doing otherwise is foolish, and it’s how you get blind-sided with stupid shit like “red flag laws”. I’m just not going to allow myself to be obsessive about it. I guess I’m just putting the Serenity Prayer into action in my life. Probably should have done that two or three decades ago. Slow learner.

I haven’t been inactive, though. Lots of things to accomplish here at the Freehold. Chimney swept, last of the year’s firewood split and stacked. And so far, we’ve burned the wood stove a grand total of 4 days due to warmer weather. No unseasonably so, but with a non-sealed wood stove, it’s really easy to get the inside temperature up to 80, so we generally only use it when we get temps in the low to mid-40s during the day and low-30s or lower at night.

As with so many people who plead poverty, we bought Mrs. Freeholder a new vehicle, a Jeep Cherokee. She was due; her hybrid Toyota Camry is past due for the hybrid battery to spit up an error code. That car went to Son, whose been wanting something that gets better mileage than a Dodge Challenger with a 6.4. However, he notes that it’s pretty slow. I assured him it’s just relative to what he’s used to.

I’m also splitting next year’s wood, or I was until the hydraulic splitter took a dump. Started squealing like a banshee. Killed the throttle and took a look-nothing grossly wrong.  Tried to pull the starter, and it pulled out and stuck. Uh-oh.

Checked the price of new motors while hoping it was just the starter. Saturday I towed it to my small engine mechanic, who says the motor is fine, but the recoil starter had recoiled its last. And that the coupling between the shaft and the pump is shot. Still the repairs will be cheaper than a new motor, so it’s all good.

Being poor, I also bought myself a radio.

This is supposed to be a video, but Blogger.

That is a Zenith 5-S-127, a thing of beauty fondly remembered from my childhood. My Dad, who had been to school for radio repair, had one in the basement that was listened to continually. While I was away from home, the transformer died. I asked him to keep it, but it was sold at a garage sale before I could save it. Probably for $5 knowing my Dad.

As you see, the restoration on this one has been started by the previous owner. It needs more work, which I’ll be happy to do. It will take some time, effort and no doubt money, but it’ll be worth all three. Mrs. Freeholder even likes it.

We’ve also decorated for Christmas, at least what we can get away with. Those are my Hallmark Star Trek ornaments, along with some meaningful Christmas memorabilia.

There will be no tree this year, due to these two little darlings. They’re rescues, somewhat foisted upon us by our daughter. They came from her brother-in-law’s home. Mom wondered up with them. They kept Mom, but these two needed homes and no one else was going to volunteer until Mrs. Freeholder decided that we needed kittens to take the place of some of our cats of blessed memory.

Meet Calypso and Bob. That picture is from September. They move too fast now to get one that good.

Mrs. Freeholder and I have also done a bit of light travel, twice to the South Carolina coast. Once was for a “marriage retreat”, which wasn’t as bad as I feared it would be. Actually, I got a couple of things from it.

The other trip was the weekend after Thanksgiving at Old Friend and wife’s condo. We ate, did a little shopping and generally enjoyed each other’s company.

So yeah, I’ve been keeping busy.

One thing I’ve noticed, however, is that things I think of as maintenance activities, such as cleaning, laundry, grocery runs and so on, are quite capable of crowding out things that I think of as “moving the ball forward”. Things like actual improvements to The Freehold, “restoration” work on my truck and playing with my radios just keeps getting put off. I’ve decided that I will make time for these things, even if it means some maintenance gets deferred or stretched out. What good is being retired if you work all the time?

Speaking of which, the last football game appears to be off, so I’m going to claim the TV and watch a movie or YouTube or something. Y’all hang in there.