El Rancho S-OH-S Part 03 by KimB

Episode Power Maybe

There are two parts to getting power: The Electrical Company and Local Government. While I'm working with the Electrical Company answering Jolt Questions, I also have to work with the local permit folks. I will be working with them a lot, so I am making special efforts to learn what it is I need to know and to learn how to ask for it.

It's all in how you ask.

Every aspect has someone with a dog-in-the-fight or an axe-to-grind. It's rather surprising how many different groups are involved, each with their own agendas. Navigating the waters isn't straight forward and you never know when a crocodile is gonna bite you. Once the croc has raised it's head, it's best to come back another day and try again because NO is a very basic part of their vocabulary, and like a toddler, NO becomes THE answer for everything.¹

Of course, NO isn't the answer I am looking for and it invariably comes down to having asked for the wrong thing. Sometimes you just have to reword things to get where you want to go. I'm adding lots of new words to my vocabulary.

Once you get the idea that it isn't a game of 20 Questions²; it's more a game of Guess the Word³.

So the game is this:

• Game Board:Undeveloped Lot
• Players:Electrical Company, Local Government, Moi
• Goal:Electrical Power
• To Win:Must complete all Objectives
• Objectives:
  1. Permit
  2. Electric Power Pole
  3. Electric Power Meter
  4. Electricity
• Rule:You cannot have electrical power on an undeveloped lot

I like games!

References

1. ht tps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_8-Ball
   The Magic 8 Ball is a toy used for fortune-telling or seeking advice. The user asks a yes-or-no question then turns it over to reveal a written answer.
2. ht tps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty_Questions
   Twenty Questions is a spoken parlor game. One player is chosen to be the answerer and selects a topic. All other players take turns asking a question which can be answered with a simple "Yes" or "No."
3. ht tps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Password_(game_show)
   Attempt to convey mystery words to each other using only single-word clues...



My Sources Say NO

Silk

While having a phone chat with my daughter today, we covered several topics of special interest to each of us, health, books,knitting projects and her plans for a retirement cabin. Then our chat drifted into remembrances of conversations with family members and I mentioned one I had with my paternal grandmother many years ago. Grandmother told me about raising silkworms and feeding them mulberry leaves.¹

I believed her, because she was not the kind of person to exaggerate or make up stories, but at the same time, I wondered if it really had happened. We never discussed it further but I kept the remarks in my mind. My daughter and I talked about the pros and cons of Grandmother actually raising silkworms; I knew mulberry trees grew in the United States, because we had one in the yard of our house in Iowa where I lived as a child.

I have to back track here in order to set the scene of my Grandmother's young life. My father was raised in the south, my mother was raised in the north, consequently, I have ancestors that fought on both sides of the Civil War. Grandmothers father, my Great Grandfather, was raised in Virginia.

There had been an effort to produce silk in the Colony of Virginia with the cultivation of silkworms in response to King James's interest in the subject, but it was unsuccessful, possibly due to lack of enthusiasm among the Colonists. When a young barrister in England, Edward Digges ², emigrated to the Virginia Colony, he developed a strong interest in reviving the production of silk.

Digges purchased from Captain John West 1250 acres in the present day York County, Virginia. Digges even wrote a pamphlet describing how the silkworms could be kept outdoors on native mulberry trees. Digges efforts to create a silk industry proved futile when the Virginia Assembly became disillusioned and passed an act that rescinded a prior act requiring the planting of mulberry trees.

Today there a numerous mulberry trees still standing and the Georgia's Historical Society relates information about the Mulberry Grove Plantation in Georgia.

References

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulberry_tree
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Digges
3. Four of the most important domesticated silk moths.
   Top to bottom: Bombyx mori, Hyalophora cecropia, Antheraea pernyi, Samia Cynthia.
   From Meyers Konversations-Lexikon (1885–1892)

Silk Moths ³

The Great Texas Grass Episode by Anno Nymus

In 1964, I found myself attending college in San Bernardino. I was missing my girlfriend during that particularly long hot 'Berdoo'¹ summer, so I called her whilst she was summering, and simmering, in Texas, on a mandatory family visit in August. That she was OK there was a wonder, as we all had come to think of Texas as the end of the world !

In those days, most everyone in my California circle - myself especially - generally believed that all Texans were cowboys, oilmen, or country music performers; that everyone rode horses to work, had big hats and ranches, and cactus bloomed everywhere. We had seriously stereotyped images of "Texas", that might seem comical now, of a dry hot barren, foreboding desert with circling buzzards – a place to avoid.

If I owned Texas and Hell...
I'd rent out Texas, and live in Hell!
    General Philip Henry Sheridan 1866 ²

'Berdoo' folks know about living in heat, so we could appreciate Texas as just being a dang hot place to live. We thought everyone there lived like the Dynasty TV series:³ business men were like the character 'JR Ewing'⁴ and everyone was a spur jangling redneck or roustabout or worse. All of which pretty much encapsulated everything we thought we knew about Texas.

Those were simple times.

The PC, and mass communication devices were 30 years off. You only knew the latest stuff from radio, and TV (3 stations). We had rotary corded, or public pay phones: the cordless home phone didn’t exist yet, and it's still 25 years before cell phones. Digital had not happened yet! There were no pocket calculators only slide rules. No instant worldwide communications – except expensive trans-oceanic phone calls. It will be 4-5 years yet for Monterrey Pop and Woodstock, and the moon landing.⁵

It was a simpler time, but we had certainty in what we knew. Texas, seemed like it was a whole 'nother country.

As I was chatting my lady friend, I was eager and extremely curious how my 'Hippie from California'⁶ was making out in the dreaded land of her redneck family. I asked, 'What is there to do in Texas?' Her reply was a classic:

In this heat, our biggest excitement is
 laying awake at night just listening to the grass die!

After many, many life adventures, 50+ years later, I now find myself very happily living in Texas, as a 'T-I-C' (Texas Improved Californian). I have a wonderful 1 acre ranch and house, with a fabulously landscaped lawn, and beautiful pool ! As I write this, it's now deep gulf coast summer, and the lawn is getting pretty well baked, in spite of daily watering.

As I was studying the situation recently – and fretting about the lawn, I suddenly burst out laughing ... recalling my friends comment from lo those many years ago ! In a flash, I had finally evolved enough to appreciate the depth of that 50 year old observation!

Nowadays, even in the midst of this particularly hot summer, I really do enjoy sitting out on the veranda overlooking the pool, watching the birds at the feeders, relaxing in my lovely and tranquil yard and gardens .. very park like. It IS a 'whole 'nother country'!

When answering the phone, and asked what I'm doing, I often I tell folks .. “I'm jus' watching the pool evaporate”, but you know, I'm secretly trying to suss if I can hear the grass die!!

This brings an inner smile of course, glowing at how serendipitously all this has converged. It's been a very long road from California to Texas, materializing over a 50 year arc: Texas having – realistically - changed from mysterious far off land to – literally, a wonderful piece of paradise !

T for Texas,
T for Tennessee
...
any ol' place I hang my hat
is home sweet home to me!

    Jimmie Rodgers – The Yodeling Brakeman - 1920's⁷

References

1. San Bernardino, California has many informal nicknames: San Berdoo, S.B.D., S.B., San B., Dino, San Bernas, and Berdoo are the most common
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bernardino,_California
2. General Philip Henry Sheridan (March 6, 1831 – August 5, 1888)
   1866 his quip was widely reported:
   "If I owned Texas and Hell, I would rent Texas and live in Hell."
   https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Philip_Sheridan
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Sheridan
3. Dynasty is an American prime time television soap opera that aired on ABC from January 12, 1981, to May 11, 1989.
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynasty_(1981_TV_series)
4. John Ross "J. R." Ewing Jr. is a fictional character in the American television series Dallas (1978–91) and its spin-offs, including the revived Dallas series (2012–14). The character was portrayed by Larry Hagman from the series premiere in 1978 until his death in late 2012, and Hagman was the only actor who appeared in all 357 episodes of the original series. As the show's most famous character, J.R. has been central to many of the series' biggest storylines. He is depicted as a covetous, egocentric, manipulative and amoral oil baron with psychopathic tendencies, who is constantly plotting subterfuges to plunder his foes' wealth.
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._Ewing
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Hagman
5. List of Pre-Digital Communications and Technology
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotary_dial
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slide_rule
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monterey_Pop_Festival
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodstock
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11
6. A hippie (sometimes spelled hippy) is a member of the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s.
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippie
7. James Charles Rodgers (September 8, 1897 – May 26, 1933) was an American singer-songwriter and musician in the early 20th century, known most widely for his rhythmic yodeling. Rodgers, along with his contemporaries the Carter Family, was among the first country music stars, cited as an inspiration by many artists and an inductee into numerous halls of fame. Rodgers was also known as "The Singing Brakeman", "The Blue Yodeler", and "The Father of Country Music".
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmie_Rodgers_(country_singer)
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Yodel_(songs_by_Jimmie_Rodgers)

El Rancho S-OH-S Part 02 by KimB

Episode: Electrical Service

One might think that electrical service in the 21th Century is a given for civilization, it turns out it is not.

What that means is: You have no "rights" to obtain electrical service if for some odd reason beyond comprehension someone with more privileges than you, says "no".

When I bought the property I did a lot of research and talked with anyone who had anything to do with building, the area and covered every possible part of my meager ass-ets by asking questions and as this saga will no doubt go to show, just because you got a question answered does not mean the answer is valid after you got it.

In case, you might be inclined to think my research was lacking, my main research document is now more than 100 pages plus all sorts of supporting side documents, images, diagrams and details of anything that might be even a teeny-weeny bit helpful.

In this case it is Electrical Service.

After researching and talking with the electrical service provider for this area, as well as reading all the PDFs and studying all the diagrams included, I called them to begin the process to get the service put on the lot. I ended up with a Service Planner who will be The One to determine what I get and how.

What the TV shows skip are:

Questions about Service and what does THAT mean?

There appears to be three sorts of people you have to interact with:

• There are people who know and share their knowledge.
• There are people who know and do not want to share their knowledge.
• There are people who know but will not give you the time of day.

You will find out pretty darn quick which sort of person you are interacting with and you have to adjust your approach accordingly. Sometimes it's better to abort and try again in a few days.

When you get a Type A, this is the fastest and nicest path from where you are to where you need to go next. Cherish these folks 'cause there are plenty of Bs and Cs to go around.

When you get a Type B, this is the person that says: "You tell me what you want in detail" and then replies with "We Don't Do or Allow That".

If unfortunately, you to come face to face with a Type C, just go home and try another day when Type C might be assigned to someone else.

So, in the case of the Electrical Service Planner, I have to answer questions about things I really know nothing about, you know like electrical stuff. One might think that 'cause it's electrical service and they are the ones in charge of it, they might be able to suggest, offer, advise on what is needed but no.....

As I am winding my way through the list of things that require answers, there is always another question or mismatched answer to resolve. It's rather exciting actually, to pass one level of questions to find out what's on the next the level.

Jeopardy with a jolt.

The Far Horizon

[Editor's Post]

Food - Glorious Food!

The Recipe Box: Steamed Artichokes
[Editor's note: This story was written by ElGato]
Wednesday, November 16, 2011

It may take a long time but the end result is from a life time of love.

The 17 Year Spread by Barbara
[Editor's note: This story was written by Barbara]
Saturday, April 26, 2014