Sunday, December 30, 2012

17-29 December, 2012 - More Snow, Christmas, Car Problems

Ever have one of those busy times yet you could summarize it very quickly because so much was repetitive? That's been what most of our winter has been like so far.

Susan is still dehydrating the frozen, shredded potatoes our SOL brought back from work plus she's been cutting and dehydrating onions from our garden. We can't seem to store them for long unless we dehydrate them so once they're harvested we spend the next several weeks drying them for long term storage. We have the daily routine of writing, household chores such as washing dishes, clothes, cooking, bringing in firewood, and caring for Scott.

Last week we had a new project when the Cherokee wouldn't start. I did some investigating and it was in severe need of a tune-up. I thought I'd done it last fall but by the looks of the plugs I didn't. We ended up taking the truck into Eureka a couple of times. I don't like driving it because it uses so much gasoline. My oldest son was here for Christmas so he and I fiddled with the car a bit and got it running again. We drove it into Eureka Friday and bought the parts we needed for it and a blower motor for the U-Haul. I want to get it replaced before we head south this winter.  We have a truck that belongs to one of the kids that we have to get back to the property.  It took a couple of session on the charger to get the battery up again.  They'd left the key on and ran it down to zero volts.  It takes a long time to charge one when they're that dead.  I ran a load test on it after charging and it seems to have survived okay.

 I've been bringing reloading supplies up from the shack this week. I'm going to build a reloading bench in the cabin. It's too cold in the shack during the winter and when I use the stove I get condensation on all the steel and aluminum equipment plus I worry about condensation in the loaded cartridges. I need them all in a warmer environment.

Our book sales have fallen a bit but we've put some new ones up and they're picking up the slack. The reduced sales are widespread according to other authors we've talked to so are probably season related.

The snow is still coming down nearly every day.  It's mostly very light snow and doesn't accumulate quickly but over time it adds up.  The worst part is that we get very little solar power on the cloudy days so we've had to run the generator about three hours every couple of days.  It's still a lot cheaper than being on the grid though.
 
As usual, Scott's day wouldn't be complete if he and grandma didn't get some trampoline time in.

Sometimes it's kind of nice to just relax and watch TV at night.  Of course it's more fun if you can get away with commandeering grandpa's chair.
 

Ah, Christmas!  We had almost all the kids here for Christmas this year. 

Of course there was lots of food, conversation and presents.  We played Pictionary after eating then they began to filter back to their own homes in the early evening.

Of course we all had the most fun watching Scott open his presents.  He's two now and understands more of what's going on.  The only other grandchild here was Tommy.  The two families who didn't make it have the other seven grand kids.

Dad is helping Scott with the final steps of opening one of his gifts.  If they built the toys as well as they packaged them they'd never break or wear out.

Susan is waiting to open one of her packages.

...more gifts...

...more gifts...

Tommy playing with some spatulas.

Susan found some things online for Scott to watch. He did very well holding her notebook computer while it was showing.  He loves videos of airplanes, trains, and cars and YouTube has some good ones on it.

I'm writing a book on reloading for beginners and these are some of the illustrations and photos that will be in it. 
 
My Kindle book (The Gun Guide for People Who Know Nothing About Firearms) is now available in print form from me or on Amazon's site.  The easiest way to find it is to type in my name on a search.  The print version has a slightly different title but it's the same content as the Kindle version.  We did that for marketing purposes.  If they have the same ISBN Amazon buries the Kindle book (which costs less) making it harder to find.  By making a slight title change they both come up on a search.  The Kindle version is selling very well.  The print version hasn't been up long and hasn't sold many copies yet.

I'll be covering things like head space and rim construction so I made some illustrations to go with the text.  The one above is on the head space section.

This one is in the chapter on "Case Preparation."
 
My goal in writing the book is to take someone who has no experience reloading to the point where they understand how to reload ammunition and what needs to be done in each stage.  I'll have a special section on equipment for the apartment dweller so that they can still reload ammunition even if space is limited. 
 
The book should be available on Kindle in a two or three weeks and the print version will be along a few days later.  (Setting up the print version is a little more involved.)
 
I'd also like to mention Susans blog at http://povertyprepping.blogspot.com/.
It's loaded with information and she does a better job keeping it up than I do on mine.

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