Seasonal Work Begins
But my pie-in-the-sky grand schemes are not dead!
It was a busy week at Perky Pelican Pond Service. We had an odd job or two over the winter, to keep us very-partially busy, but now the weather is nice and people want their ponds cleaned and treated.
Actually, just two days ago, on April 4th, Winter had one last gasp (famous last words in Montana):
The snow started falling the evening before, on Thursday. Kenny and I were out on the job site until late and neither of us were in the mood to grocery shop and make dinner, so we went to the local pizza place, got a window booth and watched the snowstorm roll in from the north. You’d figure people around here would be so used to cold and snow and changing mountain weather that there wouldn’t be much hubbub about it, but when you’ve already had a string of springlike days, with the grass turning green and the redwing blackbirds singing their o-ka-leeeee and chack chack, a surprise, late-season snowstorm is still something to talk about. There’s always the standard supermarket-cashier-lady lament, “I’ve had just about enough winter,” as the snow piles up in the parking lot.
The three kids in the booth two down from us got up and went outside to play in the snow, leaving mom and dad to stay warm and finish the pizza. I checked the weather report and knew right away that after a splendid morning on Friday (see above pics) the snow would melt quickly, so we didn’t need to cancel work. I texted the crew and said, “Tomorrow let’s enjoy the snow a bit and meet at 9 instead of 8.”
Sure enough, it warmed up quick and we were able to get our work done.
By afternoon the ground was snow-free.
I can’t say which I prefer, working outdoors in the Bitterroot Valley in spring or summer. Of course you get perfect afternoon temperatures in April and May, but mornings are chilly and in the afternoon one minute you’ll be in a t-shirt and the next you have to throw on your ski hat and parka, only for it to warm up again. In summer it can be oppressively hot out in the field but at least you only need one change of clothes all day- jeans, company baseball hat and t-shirt. (provided you don’t fall in the pond- then you’ll appreciate that change of clothes you packed)
This is all a roundabout way to apologize for a current lack of substack content. Things are always a little erratic at the start of the season and plus we’ve made permanent and temporary personnel changes. We have a new office secretary; we lost a regular worker; Bill Davenport is half out of commission after an operation and difficult recovery; and I am trying to fill the shoes of Lars Hansen, who is back to self-employment as a full-service contractor. He’ll be with us on the tough, huge jobs requiring building, repair and major landscaping skills, especially when we need his excavator, but I’m the new field foreman for the day-to-day work. As I’ve mentioned before, Lars can fix anything so it’ll be a challenge when things break. Luckily I can delegate fixing jobs to my skilled crew, who mostly know how to adjust a crescent wrench.
As for my journalism, writing and interviews, it will continue. Kla.tv is staffed by Monday to Friday 9 to 5 stiffs who do all their video-production work in their free time and I’ll remain part of that. I just need to get into a groove at work, and get a regular schedule with regular hours so I can pencil in substack and BBR time. At breakfast yesterday Larry Devries asked me, “How’s BBR going?”
-Well, it’s a bit dormant right now. I’m considering being more of a facilitator than do-everything producer/manager/content creator.
Larry is the MIT computer whiz and I asked him, “How about you do a regular show on computers and tech?”
I hope to field a good crew of content creators who will put up their own, regular shows. As the station grows and viewers increase, the best creators will get the best time slots.
Anyway, just wanted to say that nothing has changed for the main goal of getting the truth out via kla.tv, BBR and Substack, seasonal work notwithstanding.
Coming up on kla- I’m looking forward to see the Frankfurt-Team edit of my Bart Sibrell (moon man) interview, as well as the Patrick Wood (Technocracy News) interview. And there have been some interesting discussions at the Saturday breakfast that you’ll want to hear about here on Substack. All coming soon!
Addendum: Audobon Field Guide is a great web page. They have, count ‘em, 14 versions of the red-wing blackbird’s songs and calls. I love the sound of the red-wing. Sometimes the most common birds have the most beautiful (and funny) song. If you are in a benighted location with no red-wing blackbirds, I’ll forgive you for breaking the screen-free Sunday rule and checking out their song here.
Addendum 2: Sometimes I feel bad about whacking out a clump of cattails, as per customer request, when I know there are blackbird nests that are going to go down; if there are eggs inside I try to find another area with cattails or bulrushes to relocate the nest, but I don’t feel too bad about this particular aggressive and sometimes crazy bird- there are plenty!
Press onward for the truth! Pass legislation that the Montana legislators who promote the 6 million silliness be turned into lampshades. Gab is having some problems with the UK government.