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maki2 · Dec 4, 2024

The days are just flowing by calmly this month. No major weather events. A few potlucks to attend but I am not the person creating the main event menu items.
I do want to get up early one morning in the next couple of weeks and drive to the border crossing in Los Algodones and get new glasses made. Teeth cleaned while waiting for the lenses to be produced, etc.

Today though is sorting out a gremlin in my vinyl cutter that is preventing truly clean cuts. Likely the blade holder the tiny blade slides into is the cause. Could be paper debris fiber build up in it. I will start by taking it apart, compressed air, WD 40 on the ball bearings, etc. I think I have a spare new one. Fortunately the blade holders are sold on Amazon. So I will schedule a few to be delivered soon.

There is no Amazon locker in Quartzsite. But there is one in front of the General Store in the small town of Brenda. Not too bad of a drive to Brenda from Quartzsite.

Morgana · Dec 5, 2024

For anyone who enjoys reading about the nitty-gritty of where stuff comes from or how stuff is made ... here's an interesting article about dairy farms
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/05/...e_code=1.fE4.xoEJ.TdKapjZnJNTU&smid=url-share
It focuses on bird flu (a danger for dairy workers, but apparently not for most consumers), but what's really interesting about it is how it describes the process and has short videos showing the steps. Just from reading I never would have imagined how it really goes. And it has cool factoids, e.g. that the robot milkers seem to be more pleasant for the cows.
Yes you could take some parts of the article as an excuse to go political but PLEASE don't. It is too fun, and delightfully disgusting, just taken at face value.
Mooooooo.

NctryBen · Dec 5, 2024

O

Morgana said:
For anyone who enjoys reading about the nitty-gritty of where stuff comes from or how stuff is made ... here's an interesting article about dairy farms
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/05/...e_code=1.fE4.xoEJ.TdKapjZnJNTU&smid=url-share
It focuses on bird flu (a danger for dairy workers, but apparently not for most consumers), but what's really interesting about it is how it describes the process and has short videos showing the steps. Just from reading I never would have imagined how it really goes. And it has cool factoids, e.g. that the robot milkers seem to be more pleasant for the cows.
Yes you could take some parts of the article as an excuse to go political but PLEASE don't. It is too fun, and delightfully disgusting, just taken at face value.
Mooooooo.

Dairy was what I had a degree in… haha!
Was hired by one of my instructors to manage his dairy herd. We had automated milkers… but they either took milkers off too soon or too long. So it took some real knowing every cow. Not milking them out properly would either reduce their production or cause things like mastitis… massaging utters and some hand milking is a must on some cows. I’m sure the more modern equipment is much better. But equipment fails… it amazes me of some of the ways we make things better.
When I was driving for the beet harvest… they were pointing out a farm that milked a huge amount of cows…. It was hard to imagine how that would work out… I started out with the buckets with milkers attached and you’d have to dump milk into a “step saver”… basically a covered bucket with a hose that would suck the milk to the bulk tank. Then went to a pipeline… there the milk never was exposed to the barn smells. And then a couple twelve cow parlors… after graduation was my parlor experiences. This was back in the eighties and then the government cow buyout happened. It was hard to see a herd I had taken from second worst to second best in the county. Registered Holsteins. All get slaughtered and the farm could not be used for milking for X amount of years.
So I went and built fireplaces instead…

maki2 · Dec 10, 2024

Fixed my issue with my vinyl cutter for getting clean cuts. While cutting this morning found one of the other gremlins, the end on the power cord is loosing its grip, a slight jostle is tripping off the power connection. I will see if I can improve its grip. I do travel with spare power cords that fit it. Part of my having too much stuff syndrome is that I carry extras of device cables because you just never know! I do not want to be making a 40 or 50 mile one way drive for a cord when I have a shipping deadline to meet

maki2 · Dec 11, 2024

Temporary Gremlin fix with half of a wooden clothes pin as a support wedge. Any slight jostling of the power cord was occasionally causing a very slight sag on the plug which caused a disconnect to power disruption to my vinyl cutter. Very frustrating when that happens in the middle of a cutting of a sheet of very tiny miniature cardstock buildings. I can’t recover to the exact position the blade was in as the cutting file sent to the machine from my computer gets wiped out of the machines memory with the power outage. The exact position of a 0,0 cutting start point set by button pushing for each sheet when loaded in gets wiped out when the blade moves back to its normal resting stop when the power goes back on.

Now that the cord is stable I will cut the buildings that are missing from the set of 8 that got disrupted. I doubt I will create a more permanent fix when an easy to do temporary fix worked just fine. It is the perfect height and width to fit onto that little recess. I have plenty of clothes pin support wedges around if this one gets lost

vanbrat · Dec 11, 2024

maki2 said:
Temporary Gremlin fix with half of a wooden clothes pin as a support wedge. Any slight jostling of the power cord was occasionally causing a very slight sag on the plug which caused a disconnect to power disruption to my vinyl cutter. Very frustrating when that happens in the middle of a cutting of a sheet of very tiny miniature cardstock buildings. I can’t recover to the exact position the blade was in as the cutting file sent to the machine from my computer gets wiped out of the machines memory with the power outage. The exact position of a 0,0 cutting start point set by button pushing for each sheet when loaded in gets wiped out when the blade moves back to its normal resting stop when the power goes back on.

Now that the cord is stable I will cut the buildings that are missing from the set of 8 that got disrupted. I doubt I will create a more permanent fix when an easy to do temporary fix worked just fine. It is the perfect height and width to fit onto that little recess. I have plenty of clothes pin support wedges around if this one gets lost View attachment 36913

good fix for minor problem. unless of course it didn't get fixed then it would have been a bigger problem

vanbrat · Dec 11, 2024

So I had a good day at work today. I had the day in the 3-5 year old room and we were playing outside chasing imaginary sea monsters that sneaked up from the beach. I sent the 5-6 kids that were playing the game after the scales of the sea monster for they are magical. Of they ran and they all come back with various goodies. Except one little girl she came back yelling "teacher teacher I got his testicals." I stopped what I was doing and asked her "what did you get?" she repeated "I got his testicals! see right here and she showed me her empty but full hands and ran off to show everyone else. I turned my back to the group and laughed and told my coworkers and we all had a good laugh

twomountainlions · Dec 12, 2024

Got to make new cayenne pepper-mint spray, cant decide on the medium to make it stick.
Might use 303 Protector as a base.
Yesterday I bear sprayed under my rig and it stinks like bear spray from feet away now but it will wear out.
Woke up to a fox stealing my rat trap, it chewed through the cable that secured the trap to the chair in several places. The trap wasnt set but I guess it smells like the rat that was caught earlier elsewhere so the fox wants to take it. The same fox took a dump on my door rag earlier. Apparently foxes can chew vehicle wires too so I started bear spraying under the rig immediately and got some of it blown into my face what a fun night (this new spray is good, wouldnt want to be on the the receiving end of a full blast)

maki2 · Dec 12, 2024

Desert rodents eat and nest among strong smelling and spicy, very strong tasting plants. If they are hungry they will eat it. They also nest among the roots of plants such as sage, pine, juniper and creosote bushes. They will eat juniper berries, they eat hot peppers. When all there is to eat in the desert is strong smelling stuff then those rodents have long since adapted to feasting and living among and sustaining their diets on strong smelling and tasting plants and seeds. Think about it, this is basic survival in nature, they have to adapt or die.

twomountainlions · Dec 13, 2024

The animals with their sensitive noses won't want to come near that bear sprayed stuff. I had used capsaicin on my wiring with good results so far, mint is just an extra. Rat and mouse traps are the most sure way though. But can not trap the fox, and foxes dislike capsicum and mint smells

maki2 · Dec 13, 2024

I had a rat chew a wire on my Honda Element while camped outside of Flagstaff. It was not among the vehicles that had soy wiring in them. The dealership installed capsaicin coated sleeving on that wire. I had trapped and killed the rat that nested in the engine compartment before that repair got made. Then a second rat came in to nest and chewed on that coated wire, so a second repair to it. That vulnerable wire that ran on top of the relatively flat transmission housing, perfect nesting platform, is now caged in with the wire mesh screening used for soffits in houses to prevent rodent intrusions.

A physical barrier to protect vulnerable wires under a motorhome is a one time solution that uses no chemicals and creates no odors. Home Depot sells that wire soffit screening mesh in 4 inch wide by 25 foot long rolls. . Also get a spool of single strand wire to secure it. Metal cutting utility shears to trim the marsh to width and length and pliers needed to cut and twist DIY wire ties are also needed. Think outside the box of what everyone in the RV world is doing such as chemical sprays solutions. That strong mesh screen is what is used to stop rodents entering houses. They can’t chew through it, it breaks their teeth. I took a rodent deterrent from the sticks and bricks housing industry to use for a home on wheels solution. Not a very big leap of out of the box thinking

VanFan · Dec 13, 2024

maki2 said:
Temporary Gremlin fix with half of a wooden clothes pin as a support wedge....

Great use of a clothes pin half! When I started out, these were used to stuff and hold makeshift window curtains in place. Always good to have a few on hand.

maki2 · Dec 14, 2024

I have about 3 dozen clothespins on hand. I have sticky cutting mats I use to secure the cardstock that goes through my vinyl cutter. The tiny paper fibers get left behind on the sticky surface eventually making it not sticky enough. So the mats require a water rinse to remove those fibers and then hung up for dry time.

twomountainlions · Dec 14, 2024

I'd use mesh for sure if camping in Sequoia where those wire chewing marmots live.
With capsicum I think its important to maintain the smell, not just capsaicin flavor built into the coating. First day after bear spraying I couldn't even sit anywheree near my rig.
But I also have 5-7 snap traps setup in places which I know have lots of rodents.
If nothing is getting caught means wires are likely safe and leave 1 or 0 traps then.
Plus bight motion detector ground lights.
Scented peppery stuff is just extra line of defense.

This year is very low on rats and mice, caught nothing in places where they literally swarmed last year.
This year is high in fox population and activity, they probably bloomed last year due to explosion of rodents and are having hard times now, which may cause them to approach rigs more. I had seen a kit fox in every single camp since October, where I used to not see them, while almost no rodents were caught. One youtuber just filmed a fox stealing stuff from her camp near Quartzsite and she got a dog.

maki2 · Dec 14, 2024

There are indeed foxes running around in the washes along Plomosa Road BLM camping. I was camped there in December of 2022 and a guy camped near me showed me an image of one in the campsite that his trail camera had captured the previous night. Super paranoid guy he wanted to warn everyone around him including me about aliens attacking us (as in extra terrestrials from elsewhere in the solar system). I guess he was hoping to capture images of one of them. But he was proud of capturing the fox image and I enjoyed looking at that image.

Rainy years create more vegetation ie food supply which creates explosions in rodent populations. An abundance of food creates the immediate reaction of an increase in female rodent ovulation and breeding. That is a very real thing, it is not an urban legend.

Happy Camper · Dec 15, 2024

maki2 said:
Super paranoid guy he wanted to warn everyone around him including me about aliens attacking us (as in extra terrestrials from elsewhere in the solar system). I guess he was hoping to capture images of one of them. But he was proud of capturing the fox image and I enjoyed looking at that image.

Jokes on him. The foxes are actually advance scouts.

INTJohn · Dec 15, 2024

Happy Camper said:
Jokes on him. The foxes are actually advance scouts.

They’re at my Kamp, too. Spyin on us. They’re not called Foxes for nothin. Sending recon info by AI to those super xtra terrestrials out there in the sky.

Queen · Dec 15, 2024

Quick question on a different topic, I haven’t been around in a long while, can anyone tell me where Cammalu might be found?

twomountainlions · Dec 15, 2024

There is a 10 year cycle for fox populations, apparently ...nature can be brutal. At least mice and rats from snap taps go back go the desert and become a meal for them

abnorm · Dec 15, 2024

Queen said:
Quick question on a different topic, I haven’t been around in a long while, can anyone tell me where Cammalu might be found?

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