Following the great firewood processing of 2025, I was left with some junk wood remnants: rotten chunks, un-splittable end pieces, wood that absorbed too much mud over the years, etc. So I carefully stacked them into a pile and ended up with a…
No, not a haphazard pile of junk wood. A stumpery!
No really, this is a thing. The great Monty Don – Britain’s most famous master gardener, told me so.
And no, I’m not making this guy up either. The Brits are weird. He’s on Amazon streaming. Look it up.
The premise being, a pile of large chunks of wood can add visual interest to an otherwise over-manicured garden. Maybe, or it might just end up looking like a pile of junk. Which is why I’m attempting to inoculate it with mushroom spores.
I did successfully grow a mushroom patch last year, though the mushrooms themselves weren’t very tasty.
Four years is hardly a sufficient data sample by which to predict trending weather, but I took my historical phenologic observations and graphed them nonetheless. It would turn out to reveal a short-term trend.
Dandelions are the outlier, and I didn’t start measuring all events on the same initial year, but there’s a noticeable dip – indicating a warm spell. That 2-year period returned to previous values last year.
I have yet to observe crocus flowers, but they are starting to bloom. And with all the recent snow, it would appear that we’re beginning to return to a cooler seasonal climate.
Interesting. I shall continue to monitor this. I may delay planting dates.
Feminists often don’t acknowledge the exploitation of men. The assumption that men have always possessed personal agency is in direct opposition to most of our history. Most men did not get to choose their social status or career options. Most men were expected to conform to predefined values and obligations – same as women. I’d even go so far as to suggest that the rift in egalitarianism was fairly recent. When modern western society shifted towards one of individual autonomy, women were excluded – a social problem which has, on paper anyway, since been addressed.
Of course, what’s written and what’s practiced are two different things. And while legal obligations such as, say, equal opportunity in the workforce be enforced – which are dependent upon everyone playing by the rules, shouldn’t so too certain social obligations be governed? A woman is judged by her domestic competence. And men are judged by their physical abilities and willingness to suffer physical injury. Why don’t we as a people change these?
Because they supersede civil law. They long predate civilization. They remain the foundation to our survival as a species in those early days, which paved the way for common law, prior to civil law. I don’t think they can ever be changed. They’re part of who we are.
Point being: as a man who lacks economic and political means, I’m trapped in an exploitative system too.
So it was that 10 years ago I willingly agreed to be the functional mass of man flesh required to maintain an estate…for 10 years. My premonition at the time was that age and injury would compound to ultimately end my usefulness as a man after that timeframe. Such a prediction has turned out to be surprisingly accurate. I’m gradually phasing into a period of needing more hired help, and becoming incapable of tasks which formerly were straightforward.
And one such task is moving heavy objects. In this particular case – laundry machines to the basement! Moving these machines was always a bit of a struggle, but no Herculean effort. Then Liz’s new wash machine arrived. It’s the first front-loader we’ve ever had, and as it would turn out, significantly heavier than top-loaders. Its specs weigh in at 217lbs. And the all-steel appliance dolly we borrowed was 50-70lbs. That’s really damn heavy, especially considering that the bottom step of the basement is narrower than laundry machines, requiring one to lift them over the stair ledge on the final push.
We managed it, but I’m paying the price. Next time, younger men are needed.
They’re also entertaining to watch!
Of course, this will be 10 years this summer, at which point I might irreparably break anyway. At least my promise will be fulfilled.
Of all the decisions I begrudge my parents for, vehicle availability ranks high on that list. I can get over a lot of things, and being a parent myself now, I understand that money is always limited and decisions have to be made. However, once that lesson is understood, it confuses me as to why parents would decide to have more than one child when they can ill-afford the first. But three? Even the wealthiest of my contemporaries rarely go that route. A third child is usually an accident or a surprise twin.
But: Catholicism. Organized religion has a remarkable inability to consider a more modern quality of life. It makes sense to encourage a population to have many kids when the goal is to grow the community and half of children die before age 5. And in a time predating birth control (or even after it became available but the church prohibited it), it probably didn’t require much encouragement anyway for young couples to engage in more sex – for God, and the community, of course.
Anyway, speaking of quality of life and vehicles, here are some activities directly tied to available transportation in one’s formative years. More specifically, if one doesn’t have access to a car in the suburbs:
Dating – difficult (unless of course you’re a girl and find a boyfriend with a car, as my sisters did)
Extracurricular activities – difficult and always needed a cranky parent
Working – difficult
Finding a job that actually pays well and offers a career – impossible
Feeling like a total loser – at least this one’s very easy
Overcoming this barrier was eventually possible when my future father-in-law sold me his old Corolla, which I then unceremoniously lost to black ice on one of the worst damn on-ramps in the state. Fortunately, the insurance payout gave me a down payment for my truly first car (I don’t consider the Corolla to be a first car): a used 2003 Honda Accord, which I proceeded to drive for the next 18 years, ultimately naming it: Old Blue.
Old Blue in front
Unsurprisingly, I never became a luxury car type of person. Possessing a car at all was my luxury, and an economic utility vehicle that consistently maintained its basic functions was sufficient.
But Old Blue’s age has shaken my confidence in this later quality. I no longer feel that it will always work in a time of need, and repairs are getting numerous and costly. Its latest issue is a rusted exhaust line, which I exacerbated by driving over a snow mound and ripped open. Now the engine exhausts under the hood, which wafts into the cabin, not to mention bypassing the muffler so it sounds like one of those small penises you hear at night playing Toretto. I’ll get that fixed eventually, but for now I needed something more reliable.
I wanted a station wagon. I wanted a car with a car’s chassis – not the typical SUV/crossover standard that everyone seems to make now. Or as I call it: do you want a long turd or a short turd? Seriously, they all look the same, with that turd-shaped aerodynamic (analdynamic?) profile. Bend over and think of England, fellow motorists. And with Liz’s Ascent, we don’t need another type of such a vehicle. One anal probe per family is adequate. I want an actual car, but with the cargo space and convenience of an anal probe…I mean hatchback.
This limited my options. Volvo apparently still makes station wagons, though I’ve never seen a new one. And Mercedes makes one, but I’m not ready for that cost. So, a non-station wagon non-anal-probe-hatchback car. That leaves compacts. And with that comes certain problems, notably image and demographic appeal.
Here’s what I’ve come to accept are the two types of people who buy compact hatchbacks:
Hmong gang members
Trust fund baby wannabe street racers
This tends to lead manufacturers into douchey territory, with trim and accessories. When’s the last time you saw a hatchback white Honda Civic and one of the above stereotypes didn’t come to mind? What to do?
Here’s what’s on offer today:
Honda Civic – Absolute no for both the reasons above, my relationship with the local dealership, and past experience with their modern vehicles.
Toyota Corolla – Lower horsepower and front wheel drive only – nah.
Mazda3 – I drove one of these as a rental and really liked it. It was underpowered, but I didn’t know which version I had. It was worth considering, except…
Subaru Impreza – Standard AWG with higher HP on the RS model, and despite past misgivings with the Ascent, the dealership was completely accommodating with repairs and warranties and rentals. Top contender.
And fortunately, Subaru has thoughtfully separated out their douchey demographics into their WRX category, which is a souped-up Impreza. If you go on Reddit and read Impreza reviews, you’ll very quickly encounter some comment about how the poster should have bought a WRX, because that’s a “real” car, for which aftermarket douchebag add-ons have flooded online retailers. Want a spoiler with a wide muffler while pretending to be Formula One Frank and cranking RPMs with a turbo late at night? WRX.
So I went with the Impreza. The 2026 Impreza RS, to be specific. Old Blue’s 160HP always felt just a tad underpowered on hard accelerations, so I wasn’t keen on the Impreza Sport’s 150HP. Granted Old Blue was old and no doubt lost some HP over the years, but even so, I wanted a little more power. The RS’s 180 HP so far seems to fill that gap with just a bit more oomph. And the top-tier model for the Impreza line comes with some luxury additions that certainly don’t hurt – like everything the automotive industry has done within the last 23 years. Seems there’s been some technological advances.
New Blue
It’s also my first new car! It only had 8 miles on it when I test drove it. So just a couple other butts have been in there. No chance of anything weird that I don’t know about that’ll fail unexpectedly in the future.
Should have taken a pic of the odometer sooner
And it’s all mine and no one can touch it!
Okay, that’s not true. Part of the reason for getting it was so the kid would have a small and easy car to learn how to drive with, equipped with all the modern safety features. But that’s a year away, and for now it’s all mine! Then once she learns how to drive, she can have Old Blue. It might be a beater, but I won’t leave my own kid without a personal transportation option.
Being a 90s kid was no joke. If one had a mother with a propensity for drama, as I did, then prime time Television was her oyster. After the daily soaps concluded, it was off to “real” drama. There was 20/20, Unsolved Mysteries, and whatever Barbara Walters was going to indignantly talk about that evening. But Dateline was my crux.
Dateline, for the uninitiated, was an hour long show that took one news event and tried to squeeze it until tears came out. And it usually approached it with two messages: “men are evil and they will kill you”, and “your children aren’t safe and they’ll be abducted”.
Sadly, that unmarked van filled with candy and psychoactive drugs never appeared, but that didn’t stop mother from confining me to my suburban corral: the backyard, enclosed with a privacy fence.
The red box roughly highlights the back yard section. And if the satellite distance reference is accurate, I calculate my pen to have been about 3000 sq ft. Or ~0.07 acres.
As one might imagine, the mind of a child tended to wander in such a limited environment. And as the summers of my stunted social development compounded, I withdrew entirely and accepted the yard as my entire world. I became intimately familiar with every detail of that small space.
And in that space was a small patch of annuals. Specifically, four o’ clocks.
One day, I noticed that the spent flowers, which had dried on the plant, had an pleasant earthly tea scent. Further observation also revealed that the petals crumbled easily, and effused their aroma quickly into water, specifically a mug of water left out on the concrete patio in the hot Texas sun. Furthermore, the resultant tisane tasted delicious. I had stumbled upon something.
But the experiment was cut short when mother, having taken her usual Schindler’s List perch by the full-length backyard windows, witnessed my activities and intervened. The resultant lecture was less a cautionary lesson on knowing with certainty that a plant is edible and more a morality lecture on how my selfish and careless decisions impacted other people (her). I came out of that conversation with no additional scientific knowledge, but instead sobbing and begging for forgiveness – exactly what a Catholic mother wants. The overlord of morality had won again.
Fast forward to today and I was watching Netflix. And as with any Netflix show involving food, that Danish chef guy was there talking about his amazing restaurant and how he forages ingredients. But, for the first time, I noticed a certain flower being used as a garnish. Nasturtium flowers always show up, because they’re pretty and taste peppery. But this looked different. I swear it was a four o’ clock flower. This necessitated a quick internet search.
30 years later and I find out that not only are the flowers edible, but they’re specifically used in infusions: exactly what I was doing.
I get that information is much more accessible today, and that digging through encyclopedias gets tedious and that was a rabbit hole mother didn’t want to explore, but did every childhood mistake have to end with crying?
I guess she was worried that if the psychoactive drug van wasn’t showing up, I’d start randomly sampling plants to find drugs on my own. But as it turns out, my culinary curiosity led to foraging – something Netflix is now telling me is the mark of a genius chef. Who knew?
