Driveway Signs

At our place UP on the Tundra, AKA "The Ranch", we would have a problem with a lot of traffic coming in starting in September. That is when various hunting seasons start (bear, archery deer and small game otherwise known as "bird season".) I know those driving into our place were hunting, the question is what were they hunting, small game or bear or deer or whatever they could lay their grubby little hands on. And later in the year we would have people coming in to steal Xmas trees, once it was a Sunday School teacher with his class. (A local bank vice-president who after he moved to another town was caught embezzling from his bank.)

Anywho, I decided to put up a sign to let people know it was private property. I think it was The Old Lady that got the sign and I had a metal post to put it on. I put it next to the road at about where the property line is, where the county road ends and my driveway begins. Never noticed any less traffic, in fact, there might have been an increase.

Since the first sign didn't solve the problem, decided to put up another sign, the one below.

That didn't even slow them down. For a time I thought about getting a sign from the Gempler's catalog that said in Spanish, "Caution these monkeys bite" in case they couldn't read Inglais.

Instead I made my own sign and at first used some small poles to make a tri-pod and attached the sign to it and placed it in the middle of the road. The sign is below and all three are now on the same signpost.

After putting the sign in the middle of the road, I found out it wasn't that they couldn't read, it was that they didn't know how to back up their vehicles. I found tracks where they had turned around on the one lane driveway!!

Later I attached my hand painted sign to the signpost, and it seems to be known over quite a wide area. Sometimes when I give directions to my place, I'll hear, "That the place with the Stay The ____ Out sign??" Also, I don't think we have been bothered by Jehovah's since I put up the last sign.

This Summer The Old Lady said I should cut down the weeds that were growing up and hiding the bottom sign, the one saying Stay******Out. Most of the stuff growing in front of the sign were blackberry vines and if the moose don't eat them I may get some blackberries next year, so I left them alone and besides most people know about the sign and stay out now.

Yooper In Crackerland, Again

Arrived back in Crackerland last night. Not much has changed that I have noticed so far. That opinion may change after I get out and about in daylight.

Looks like I will never get to swim in the pool here. They were working on getting it ready when I left, but it wasn't ready for use. Now the water in it is as green as Kermit The Frog.

Will get back to regular blogging after I get caught up on things; porn surfing on the intratubes, doing the mountain of laundry we hauled here from UP on the Tundra and some general decompression after over 2 thousand miles on the road.

Toilet Paper Ads On TV

Funny how Charmin went from Mr. Wipple and "Please don't squeeze the Charmin" to bears shitting in the woods. They also claim it won't leave little pieces of paper clinging to your fur!!!

Angel Soft has one where the guy spins the roll and uses it to sand the end of a board. That one reminds me of when there used to be a Co-op store and their brand of toilet paper. I swear you had to be careful how you wiped or you could end up with splinters.

Addendum; that Co-op brand asswipe was real John Wayne stuff. It was rough and tough and wouldn't take shit off anyone!!

English Is A Funny Language

Recently on PBS there was a promo where a guy was saying why he liked PBS. He pronounced "public" like pubic with a "L". That got me to thinking (and yes it did hurt) about the two words. They both start with the same three letters (pub), but those letters are pronounced differently depending on what follows the first three letters. The thing that makes English a funny language (not funny ha-ha, but funny as in weird) is there are a bunch of words where how the letters sound depend on the rest of the letters in the word. That can make it hard to read because you go back and forth on some words (especially those $4 dollar words). You think it is going to be one way and after you see the whole word, you realize it's different.

I don't know if there are any other languages where the sound of the letters change depending on what word they are in.

Digital TV Update

Last Friday I found another signal and now have a total of 5 channels. Before I had 3 channels of PBS and now I also have CW and ABC. After the switch to digital, I did autoscan a few times with the antenna turned in the approximate direction trying get channel 5 with no success. Judging by their website, the reason I couldn't get their signal was because it wasn't there. Yesterday morning was kinda foggy and yucky and then became windy and the signal was breaking up. Most of the time I had a picture, but the sound would come and go. So, I made some more firewood as there were some trees within about 50 feet of my antenna and in the direction the antenna was pointing. Not sure if that helped or not, only time will tell.

Scanning for channels with my converter box was not easy. I was able to figure out how to do autoscan, but manual scanning wouldn't work. Nowhere in the book that came with the box did it say to scan manually that after you select a channel you have to press OK. I figured that out accidentally.

The problem is that when the weather is such that I don't feel like being outside, the signal is hit and miss. It's a good thing I have DVD's and tapes.

Retirement

I was going to do a post on retirement, but for some reason last time I got side-tracked with my last post.

Anywho, they say a lot of people have trouble adjusting to retirement. I have been getting ready for retirement my entire working life. The longest I have worked at one place is when I was in the military (3 years, 8 months and 7 days, that's what it says on my DD214) and that's because I couldn't quit. I did work at a ceiling tile plant for 5 years but I worked there twice with a 2 year gap between working as a carpenter. I left the ceiling tile plant the last time because they stopped using wood for their tile and I thought it was the beginning of the end. I thought the only reason the plant was located UP on the tundra (instead of in the cheap-labor South like the rest of their plants) was the supply of wood. They would have to ship in all the raw materials and ship out the finished goods. Well, the plant has gone thru a number of owners since then, but 30 years later it is still running.

I have had a variety of jobs. I've been a carpenter, migrant aircraft mechanic and a truck driver. Also golf course groundskeeper, K-Mart employee and an interment excavator. Been fired a couple of times, quit a bunch of times and a few times arranged to get laid off so I could draw unemployment between jobs.

I have a lot of gaps in my work history that I like to call Quality Time!! I figured out a long time ago that there is no company loyalty. They expect you to be an obedient, loyal servant, but they'll get rid of you in a heartbeat. What's really interesting is when an employer says it is employment at will and you say that works both ways. They go "What"?? And you say that while they may get rid of you at any time, you are also free to leave at any time!!

The only problem is that I haven't worked in so long, I don't know what I'm retired from!!! But with all the practice I've had, I should have this retirement down pat!!

New Post

Wow, my last post was the 200th post on this blog and I missed it. I hadn't been paying attention to the number of posts, but when I opened my dashboard, it said I had done 200 posts on this blog.

Life goes on UP on the tundra. Last week we had several rainy days and it was so cool that I didn't open any windows. The rainy days gave me a chance to burn some brush piles. I finally got rid of my old mobile home (the beaver puke floor and all other burnable stuff that wasn't salvageable went into burn piles), the only thing left is the frame and the metal siding and metal roofing. Now it is in the comfortable range, mid 70's. Hope it stays like this for the rest of the Summer!!

Work on the cabin progresses, installed a new window (replaced a 60 year old, drafty window with a new thermopane one), put in an outside outlet, and am about to finish putting up drywall in the bathroom. Had a problem with the water heater, the pilot light kept going out. It got to the point where it wouldn't stay lit even when the burner was on. I replaced the thermocouple and it has stayed lit since.

Now I should pick up a few things in town and head back up the hill and do something even if it is wrong!!

Summer UP On The Tundra

Summer has finally arrived UP on the tundra. I have been able to leave the parka in the house when I go outside and can even go out in a t-shirt except for the nasty biting flies of various types and sizes.

When the switch to digital happened, I wasn't able to get any channels. I bought a signal amplifier and that didn't help. Then I cut down a tree and I got three, channel 13, channel 13 and channel 13. The PBS channel now had three channels 13.1, 13.2, and 13.3. I cut down more trees hoping to get more channels and to get a stronger signal on the one that was coming in. Instead of getting a better signal, it now comes and goes. I probably need to raise my antenna higher as there is a hill next to my place in the direction of the TV stations' transmitter.

On the other hand, I have found a couple of new radio stations. The one from Thunder Bay, Ont. (across the big Gitchee Gummee) comes in better than the one that is only about 40 miles away.

Tundra UPdate

Yesterday morning (May, 31), when I got up, the ground and everything else was covered with frost. The temp was in the 20's and it was a good thing I hadn't planted anything in the garden yet. Most days I have to build a fire in the stove in the morning and a few times I have done a fire in the evening.

I did take pictures of the frost, but as I'm using a confuser at the library, I'm not posting any.