L.J. Jones's Blog

What Goes Stink In The Night

Mice are always a prevalent problem for us. We have critters, and they eat grain; and they leave particles of their feed on the ground. We spill, on occasion, leaving more grain on the ground. So, ice pretty much have a free buffet. Why don’t we keep cats? They eat mice, right? Well, they do if they are not given free choice kibble. Cats, like all creatures, maybe more so than others, are lazy. Why hunt when they can lay about all day and eat as they please? And while they are at it, they poop everywhere, spray in the porch, dig up plants, and stock my rabbits and baby chicks They will hunt my rabbits but not the stupid mice. We cannot get our neighbor to stop putting out free choice cat food.

I thought about snakes, like a boa, but it’s too cold here. [image error]Weasels-too expensive, and the dogs would eat them. Poison is completely out of the question. So, it is traps. Lots of traps. But mice are not as stupid as you might think. Once you catch one, you have to move the trap to another location. And with all the grain and hay laying around for them, they are pretty picky about what they will eat.

This year, they have been exceptionally terrible, and they moved into the house as well as everyplace else. I can hear them at night while I lay awake. They crawled around through the walls, sometimes falling through the insulation, bumping and tumbling. I can hear them chew and chitter, squeak and squabble. I knew then that we were headed for a problem. A stinking kind of problem.

It started in the warm part of the day. Just the small hint of decaying flesh as it heated up. By nightfall it would fade some. But as time wore on, the smell became more atrocious, and did not fade.

I noticed first, as I tried to sleep; the noises were gone. I hadn’t heard anyone in the walls for a while. Several days. Who knew how many of them were trapped in the insulation, rotting? And because all the activity had gone on near and above my head while in bed, it was not exactly a place we could just avoid for a time. It was of course possible that the dead lay under the bed, not in the wall. As their stench rose to a disgusting level, we had to take action. First order was to burn the sensi pretty much 24/7. But that wasn’t enough. So, we whipped lavender oil on our pillow cases, under our noses, and kept a soaked cotton ball close to hand for when the walls of comfort were breached.

[image error]How long can a mouse stink you ask? A long time, actually. And the odor is not a little one just because the body is small. The fetor spread through the house, we couldn’t get away from it. Something was going to have to be done. Those of you that have been to our little cabin know just exactly how small it is. Those of you who are new to us, well, our house is exceptionally small. There was no place to get away!

We could not just lift the bed and hunt under it to see if we could find the corpse. Nor could we crawl under it, the frame was too low. We had a plan to fix that, but that was a job for later. Much later, like… next year. It was a major operation to lift the mattress enough to get under the frame. I can’t lift, so that left it to Laura.

Neither of us were real keen on the job. We had planned to get some work done in the shop. I hoped that this would be a quick job and then we’d move on. Hopefully with the source found and disposed of. Again, if you know us at all, you know that our life is lived in chaos. In other words, we cannot plan anything without a hurricane coming in and tangling things up. Unforeseen events always, I mean ALWAYS, pop up. That is chaos, and our life is ensnared by chaos.[image error]

Why don’t we try and raise the bed while we are at it, that way we can actually get under it to remove carcasses and use the under-bed for storage. Sure, how are we going to do this? The frame was already held up by blocks of wood. If we added more blocks, it would just make the thing unstable. What about just building our own frame? Major project, it would take all day. What about carving holes into 4×4 wood posts and putting the bed legs inside the hole? Hmmm, we were skeptical, but maybe it was a happy medium between not doing anything and building a full frame. It took about an hour to drill holes in the 4x4s, and we headed for the bed. Of course, we had to clear it off, and around it, enough to just life the box-spring and mattress off the frame. All the while, the stench of decay filled our nostrils until the sense of smell was burned away.

 

So, all the stuff that was on the bed, and around it, was now stuffed into my desk area. There was a big trunk, now it filled the kitchen, and a bench that now blocked the front door. No problem, this was going to be quick. Laura moved into place and pulled the mattress away from the wall, trying to lift it off the frame. Frame and all moved away when she pulled, revealing all the little boxes we had managed to stuff under the bed. Laura moved around to the head of the bed. Keep in mind size, ok.

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The bed nook

Because our bed is tucked away in a corner where you really can only access it from the foot. There are walls on two sides, and a very, very, narrow space against another wall. Moving around was difficult. Laura was grumbling, I was still trying to keep a positive outlook. I wasn’t the one struggling with trying to move the stupid bed, though. She managed to lift the bed and I crawled and writhed around, getting under the mattress and picking up the little boxes, then trying to wiggle back out without bumping Laura or spilling the box’s contents onto the ground. There were a lot of little boxes, and bending, twisting, and crouching was killing me. Spasms in my back started right away, and nice stabs followed up.

“If you get me a board, I can prop this up and then I can help you with the boxes,” Laura suggested.

Excellent. I moved the boxes and the bench that was blocking our way in, and went on the hunt for a long board. We have lots of scrap stuff laying around and I quickly found a board I thought would work. It did work, and we were able to remove the remaining stuff from beneath the bed. Now that all the boxes were gone, we could see there was no dead mouse. But we did sweep, and the bed started to fall. It landed on my computer screen that is mounted on the wall so that I can still work while I am down. Laura supported the bed and I unscrewed the screen from the mount as fast as I could. I did not want the mount or the screen damaged. I quickly struggled out from the tiny hole that was our work space, and put the screen on my desk, just behind my other monitor.

I grabbed the 4x4s and squished my way into the space with Laura, again. It was then that we noticed that the bed frame had come unscrewed at some point, and was askew. “I’ll go find some nuts and bolts,“ I said, squeezing back out.

I went on the hunt, going to my tool shelves and looking in the most obvious places first. I try very hard to keep my shelves organized. But I just can’t manage to keep it that way. It took a little while to find a few nuts with fitting bolts. Laura came out to help. I get the bolts, we take them in and re-assemble the bed frame. While I had been gone, Laura had scrubbed the floor with a potent bleach solution. It helped with the smell remarkably, but before long it only helped for a little while.

We stuck the 4x4s on the stupid bed frame legs and gave it a jiggle. Completely and utterly unstable.

“We have two choices,” I stated flatly. “We can just put it back the way it was, or we could do the frame.”

“What would be faster?” she asked.

The smell was stronger than ever now, as if we had disturbed the corpse, although we had found no sign of the dead body.

[image error]“We need to decide what to do about the smell,” I interjected.

“Do we have any lime left?”

“No lime.”

“Hang on,” Laura said and squished through the tiny little space we had between the wall and the propped-up bed. She came back shortly and handed me a bottle of scented oil. “Use this. Use all of it.”

I spread it on the wall where our heads lay while in bed. It smelled much better, mostly gone.

“So, just putting it back is probably the fastest,” I groaned, leaning against the wall.

“But we already have it all torn up. How much longer for a frame?”

I calculated, building the thing in my head. “Not long if I can find boards the right length.”

So out we went again, pulling out boards and cutting them to size. When we went back in the house with the boards, we both notice the smell had returned, but now the worst of it had moved into the kitchen area. I accused the large amount of dirt we had swept out from under the bed area. “Maybe the dirt has some of the body fluids mixed in it.”

“Maybe,” Laura said, making a face. “It is defiantly out here more now. You looked through the boxes?”

“No mice in the boxes, just food, candy wrappers, and poop.”

“Well, let’s get this done and then worry about the smell.”

I drilled, Laura held boards and handed them to me, and in a decent amount of time, the frame was built, and it was time to put the mattresses back down. We pulled on the frame to get it away from the wall, and we found that part of the frame was about a quarter inch too long. I sighed. “You are a terrible carpenter,” Laura says.

“I know,” I agreed with a laugh. It was a quick fix with my oscillating saw, and down the mattresses went onto the new frame. It raised the bed considerably, making underneath more accessible. I could do a low crawl and get to the back wall. However, I made another observation. “Kess is going to have a hard time making it up there.”

“I have some ideas,” Laura said. “I will be right back.”

While she was gone, I swept up all the nasty dirt and disposed of it, getting it out of the house. The smell still lingered, strongly. We were gonna need more bleach, or something.

Laura came back, and I told her we needed to get the stuff out of my area, so I could sit for a while. We got all the blankets, pillows, and stuffed animals back onto the bed. I sat down in my chair, wrinkling my nose. The smell was still quite terrible! I looked down, shaking my head. Why had it moved and why was it still smelling so bad!? I noticed something on my keyboard, it was a string… no, it wasn’t. It was a tail. I followed the tail with my eyes, coming to a bloated, seeping body with green skin and part of its hair missing.

[image error]“Uh,” I said, lifting the corpse by its tail. “I found it.”

“Ewww,” Laura made a face.

“It couldn’t have been there all this time, I just cleaned my desk off this morning, before we started all of this,” I stated, still holding the mouse up.

“Well, it didn’t just die,” Laura deducted, “it’s already decomposing.”

“Then how did it get to my desk? Zombie?”

[image error]I looked on my desk to see what had been moved to it while we’d hunted for the smell. All that was there was my screen. “It had to of been stuck to my screen. But…”

“Just start by getting rid of it, will you?” Laura asked.

“Right.” I took the rotting corpse out to the chicken coop and tossed it. The chickens moved in, someone grabbing it and running. They love mouse.

I returned to the scene of the body drop. I picked up my screen and inspected it. Right where the monitor attached to the mount, on a bottom corner, was a bit of hair and body goo. I looked to where the mouse had been laying upon my discovery. There was a puddle of ooze.

“Ok, I am officially grossed out,” I stated. Laura was already handing me a good strong cleaner in a spray bottle and I went to work. I found more slime and hair on my monitor mount on the wall above the bed. I scrubbed it three or four times. I remember when I had taken it off the mount, the bottom screw was loose, and one was missing. I surmise that the mouse had managed to force its way between the monitor and the wall mount and then became stuck. How I had missed that while unscrewing the monitor, and putting it on my desk is worrisome. However, the lighting had been nearly no-existent, and I had been in a great hurry to get both items out of harm’s way. But still, I missed the dead, decaying mouse; and it leaked onto my desk. You can guess that my desk-every inch of it-has been thoroughly scrubbed and cleaned. Several times.

The mouse is gone, and the smell mostly gone, just a faint odor reaining. I would guess that there is still something dead in the wall. “Do you want to take the wall out?” Laura asked.

“No,” I stated emphatically. “I do not want to take out the wall. It isn’t so bad now. We can cover it with sensi and lavender.”

“Oh good,” Laura sighed.

It was time to milk. The day was gone. Hunting down one little dead mouse had taken all day. Stupid mouse. Stupid Wall. Stupid Bed.

2018 – A Reflection

It’s literally been years since the publication of Warder Born. I am really quite embarrassed as an author to have had so many years go by without another book for those that are interested in reading them. I will not give you excuses, all I can tell you about is life. Something we all do, some certainly do it better than others.

Most of the time, I consider myself one who is living better than most. Although, the past year and a half, I couldn’t say this.

Living better than most, to many minds equates this to making a lot of money. Making money always helps living, but it does not mean that you are living well. What you really have to ask yourself, and be completely honest, is, are you happy?

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Teanaway Run

Sure, you think, I’m happy. I have a good job, I bring in a decent paycheck, I have a place to live, and I have a really nice car. Maybe even you have a super nice house! Maybe you have an excellent job, and bring in tons of money. But are you satisfied at the end of the day? Do you stand staring at the moon with a glass of ale in your hand thinking “today has been a great day?” And why you’re saying that, you have a light heart, and a smile on your face. Not a smile of greed, or lust, but one of complete satisfaction within your mind, heart, and most importantly, your soul.

My partner and I live an unusual life, compared to society and their expectations. We live without running water, indoor plumbing, or even a solid roof over our head. Neither of us worry about what our hair looks like, I might even go days without re-braiding it. What a slob you might think, but what is the purpose of brushing your hair? To get all the tangles out? Maybe to look good for everybody else to look at? That’s it, you see. I don’t care what others think of what my hair looks like. I’m not worried that I have wrinkles around my eyes, or that at forty-eight my hair is completely gray. Believe me, the gray is the mileage, not the years. This old body has covered many, many miles. And that gray hair is a badge of honor to those miles.

Lately there’s been desperate little satisfaction in life. Bitten off more than we can chew. That’s what happened in the last year and half. Putting the cart before the horse, up a creek without a paddle, you probably know all those sayings. Well, that’s us. Thinking we can make anything work, because that’s what we’ve always done. Now we are trying to play catch-up. The only problem is, only one of us can run. Me, I’m stuck back here limping along, gnashing my teeth at my body for giving up on me. I spend been half the time on my knees these days because I can’t bend over to reach something below my hips, or because I fell and haven’t managed to get back up yet.

I’ve done so many things in my lifetime. Everyone thinks I’ve lived such an exciting life. They are right! I’ve had many great adventures and exciting times. But the problem is, I am not ready for that to stop. I want to keep exploring and learning and… I want to do whatever I want! That’s how I have lived. If I wanted to go run dogs for 50 miles, I went and ran dogs for 50 miles. If a huge windstorm came up and tore the tarp off the hay pile, I would crawl up there with the stupid tarp and the wind screaming thirty or forty miles an hour, and tie it back down. I did what needed to be done, I had the strength and the knowledge, or at least figured it out as I went.

And now those days are gone. I can’t run dogs anymore, and I can’t climb up the hay pile unless it’s only one bale high. Hell, I can’t even carry a gallon of water without… Without consequence. I’ve spent a lot of time fighting the fact that I’ve used up this body, it’s done. The pistons don’t fire right, the wiring is all shorting out, and the struts have gone flat. In fact, not only have the struts gone flat but the leaf springs are broken.

But what has taken me a while to understand, is that there still are new adventures to be had. New adventures, new excitements, new stories. And now that I spend 70% of my

With the coming of 2018, I realized that I still can live well. My soul can be fulfilled, my mind and heart content. All I must do is adjust how I see my life, look through a different part of the prism and see how it reflects on what lies before me.

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Come on! There’s more!

How Dogs, Part 3 – Jet Fuel

The Witch and the Warrior

I asked LJ to write the next installment of our story about our life with sleddogs because she tells it best! Enjoy!

DOGS!!!! How can I spell that word and send the shivers of excitement coursing through your veins like a shock of electricity? Well, I can’t, but that is how I felt when it came to running dogs. It still is, if I allow untampered adrenaline to take control. Close your eyes and imagine the wind in your face as you stand on the runners of a 25lb sled, whisking through the snow with the trees laden with newly fallen flakes. A river runs beside you, thick with ice over the rocks, but still churning water swirling down the mountain.

One of our very favorite places to run. A pic from many years ago.

Listen to the sounds of padding feet of a dozen dogs, panting breath, the water…

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The Old Tales

Book ii – Tower Torn

Pretty much the working title right now, but it has a good chance of making it through the process.

So this is Therin and his oathsworn on a new quest joined by Traysa McTavish, another wizard from Caer Shamal that you were introduced to in the first book, Warder Born. These books are completely “stand alone” adventures. You need not have read the first book to be able to easily read this one first and maybe later go back and read Warder Born.

I know everyone was really excited to hear more about Rhaith and Kye, but right now, they are silent. Don’t worry, there will be more to explain their fates in the future. There might even be tidbits on the blog now and again.

For you all that enjoyed Darfinel, now worries, she is also part of Tower Torn, just not beside Therin right now.

At the moment, I finished chapter 15. Of course, this is only the first write. I always make changes on the first, second, third, and usually on the fourth edit, my editor smacks me if I try to make more changes.

Hope you are all as excited as me about the next book. While I type away at the keyboard, or sink away in the tub to meditate on the next part of the story, I am already working on the third book. I just can’t type fast enough, nor have enough time to do the writing I want! Damn those consistent costs of living for getting in the way.

Tell all that you know to get these books! Then I can rely on the income from that and stop the other job. Could get a book a year out that way! Zoom!

Ok, all for now, I will send you an update when there is more to tell! Everyone likes pictures so here is one I did for Tower Torn[image error]

Darfinel of Ladasia

Born of lower nobility, Darfinel chose to make a life as a merchant until she was near her thirties, a past middling age for a women in her country. Sometimes she felt bored with the road, but it was better than managing the small lordship and estate she had been left by her father. Then a stranger appears as her guardsmen on a long haul over rough roads, and she begins to learn her true destiny. What else can you add about Darfinel? Does she feel love for anyone? What country or world was she born in? Who was her true father? Was it the man that taught her her trade, or was it a wild warrior of the desert that was feared by all? Tell us what you think, what you would like to hear more of. Spill it![image error]

Prophecies of the Hawk

The Creation of Magic

What affected my choice in how my characters use or cast magic?

Magic, or the underlying ground matter of it, stems from the elements – earth, air, fire, and water. A large assortment of  ancient and modern religions call forth, twist, mix or use in some fashion, the four elements previously mentioned; and then a choice of the fifth being spirit, metal, or stars, for example. In some cases only the four elements are used.

Some of these religions are ancient Greek, which heavily influenced European beliefs through the Renaissance period. Ancient Egypt also used the elements, as well as many other items or spirits, to conjure many forms of curses, spells, and enchantments. Ancient Tibetan rituals used the elements, as did the Chinese and Japanese. More modernly accepted religions that use the four elements are Hinduism, Buddhism, Wicca, Native American… well, as you can see the list is long, and it goes on.

I followed the Native American spiritual path for a time in my younger years, learning how the elements of nature are used to call forth and aid in actions needed, or wanted, while walking the good red road. Later, I looked for more ritualistic path for stronger magic, and turned to Pagan concepts, and read heavily into druidism and Celtic magic, as well as more ancient forms of stronger magic in ritualistic events.

So when it came time for me to decide just how my wizards would use or draw magic, it was not a very far to reach to choose to use the elements. Where there is substance, there are the elements of nature-Air, Earth, Fire, Water; and I chose Spirit as my fifth. To create affects such as fire, I look at the fire triangle. Fire requires air, fuel, and heat. It is therefore reasonable to believe that a wizard would need to combine those things in order to create a fireball – air, earth, and fire, twisted, woven, combined in some fashion-to create the desired affect of the fireball.[image error]

Are there other authors that use or have used similar ways such as I? Certainly, and perhaps they came to their methods in the same way I did; through study and practical use. Or perhaps, they simply drew it out of air.

Taylor Bridge Fire, Living in the Black

Its been almost three weeks since the original evacuation and burn of our area. We have power and water, the animals are all settled. I just have a few pictures I wanted to share with everyone interested.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Taylor Bridge Fire, Living in the Black-day 16

Hey, that’s today! Bone tired.

Here I am, writing to the sounds of the generator. The good news is, PUD is supposed to be here today after lunch to hook us back into the grid. YAY for no more generators! Not that I am unhappy to have had them, power is good, power is our friend, power lets my computer addiction grow and flourish.

But, yes we can live without it. We can live through and without most things, when it comes to it. Some have to be tested, but we have lived in the rough before, and although sometimes I think Laura and I have grown soft, I believe we are just hard enough.

Power is up! We have power to the house and shop, water running, so the pump was just unable to deal with the generator. So happy!

So, for Laura and I, things are pretty much back to normal. I feel pained that Ed and Maggie still only have their little trailer and a few things that were donated, while they have few momentous items that they cherished. I am sorry for that. I wish them all the best, and will continue to help in all the ways that we can, and since we are right here, less than twenty feet away, I hope they will let us.

Tonight we are all going in to have dinner together. We are lucky to have such good family/friends. They say you can’t pick your relatives, and that is true, but you can pick your FAMILY!

From here out I will not be going day by day , but I will make note of things that change. Now I need to return to writing my next book, following Warder Born. Please feel free to check out the current book, and look back often here for updates on the next one.

Again, thank you all for following our story of Living in the Black, and a huge thank you for all that helped anyone and everyone during this time of crisis in Kittitas County while we faced the Taylor Bridge Fire. Words are not enough to tell you how we feel of about all this support. May the elements follow your path and open the gates to your future.

This has been LJ Jones reporting live, during the Taylor Bridge Fire. Now back to you…

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The flames are just past our home…

Taylor Bride Fire, Living in the Black-day 15, August 27th

Things are getting easier, and I have some ideas to help Ed and Maggie get a storage shed up easily and reasonably cheap. But I want to test it out on a hay shed first, and make sure its going to work.

Fed Shirley’s critters, only today and one more day of that. Hauled water, went to town and picked up some medicine for Doc. Both of us felt run down and beat, but more laundry had to be done, and orders needed to be cut and prepped. That was about it.

Ed called PUD to find out what was up with the electricity still not hooked up. He left a message, but no one called back. Figures.