Spring has sprung in Texas, which means my sojourn in the Lone Star State is fast ending. Ol’ Dutch and Miss Trixie, the Yellow Rose of Texas herself, have been spending our winters down in the big hat country for some time now and at least miss the white goodness in Colorado. Ol’ Dutch worked up quite the aversion for cold and snow after 30 years of fighting it while working and so it is a nice relief from the shoveling and sitting around looking out that snow brings me normally.
Oh, I know that there are a lot of outdoor activities that a person can participate in during those long snowy months. My friends and others all tell me how much fun it is to snowmobile, ski, and snowshoe in the white goodness but no matter how you slice it or dice it I just do not like the cold. And it appears to me that long cold winters mostly are followed by joyful bundles of endless expense 9 months later that interferes with the opening of Elk Season in September. Otherwise known as cutting off your nose to spite your face.
As much as I do not like the cold and snow, that is not to say Ol’ Dutch will not brave the harshest of conditions to hunt or fish but that is a bird of a different feather as providing food for the larder is a man’s responsibility and I take that in all seriousness. Hence, I do as much of that as possible being that I am a good man. Or something like that.
Texas, although a big and interesting enough place, is not my first choice if I were to pick a place to winter over but like most old people, we go where the grandkids are. End of discussion there. As far as places to live off-season from Colorful Colorado that is as good as any albeit we may be a tad too far north in that expansive State as we do get some cold weather. Which can be more troublesome at least down here than in other places due to what they call “the Grid” or lack thereof. For it is in Texas you see that they are still feeling that old Alamo independent spirit and have refused to hook up their electric system to the national grid of electric providers.
But for that reason, Ol’ Dutch has seen fit to have his own backup system in place for just such emergencies such as when the grid goes down. Just this past winter I was able to score on a generator and it sits outside ready to provide electricity at the touch of a button. And you all know how the purchase of such items usually goes too. As soon as you buy something like that then you never have another outage until such time as the generator will not start from lack of use.
Oh, I know a person can and should periodically go out there and start said contraption just to make sure it works, but out of sight and out of mind seems to come into play and it does not get done as you well know. Miss Trixie says it may be more of an “out of my mind” type situation and I want you to know that I thank her daily for her kindness and wisdom about my age and mental capacities.
This past winter true to form we had a big old ice storm come roaring through our area and Ol’ Dutch was lathered up like a racehorse finishing the Belmont Stakes just thinking about getting to use the generator. But as you can well imagine by now as you read this, the lines stayed up almost in an anthropomorphic one-finger salute to all my efforts to prepare for an electric failure.
And no, I did not get to use the new generator and save the day. So, I guess being too late now in the Season for another icy attack I should go out and at least start up the beast and make sure it runs. But then again, it is tucked away out of sight, and I am still out of my mind so I will do the manly thing and wait for inevitable failure instead.
Kevin Kirkpatrick and his Yorkie, Cooper, fish, hunt, ATV, or hike daily. His email is Kevin@TroutRepublic.com. Additional news can be found at www.troutrepublic.com.
