Labor Day Weekend, lots of things...
Sep. 3rd, 2023 03:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickI'm still playing hoof boots, which is going fairly well.
Took the horse out for 6+ miles at mostly a middling trot on the shoulders of the not very busy hard road on Saturday AM, that was fine, no boot fit issues despite a hard spook at two ginger cats running out from under the skirting on a doublewide. Oh, and we saw a fox crossing the road at the Felton covered bridge. Foxes are pretty neat.
Sunday I took the horse over to my house and marched him down the (dirt) road and up the hill, then back the way we came on Sunday AM. This was a largely walk outing but it started at about 1780 (feet above sea level, I am an American and we use the stupid units in these parts), went down to about 1330, and then up to 1860... plus the reverse of that to get back out. The total distance was a little shy of six miles but the amount of uppie and downie makes it effortful enough to serve on the fitness front. Still no boot fit issues.
Bird (The horse is named Bird) had a bit of a puffy ankle on the driver's side hind coming out of the field this morning but it was cool to the touch and he trotted sound, so... we went out for a spin. At the end of the significant hill marching, fat ankle was down to regular size, tendons were tight, ankle was same temperature as the other one (it had never been hot, just had some filling). Sometimes when you increase workload and/or change footwear on horses, you can have some filling on ankles, one or both. I'll continue to observe this but he's not limping and it's not hot and after six miles of fairly effortful walking, it looked better than it did when we started. It's a long way from the heart, anyway.
I got both of those rides in the bank before the heat of the day, yay planning!
Saturday I played two tanks of fuel (It runs for about an hour per tank) in the hydraulic woodsplitter, plus some stacking. Sunday I did another tank of fuel plus a lot of stacking. I still have Mount Wood in my yard, but that's only because Dad keeps cutting more tree. (It's green as hell, fell over in a thunderstorm earlier this summer, and will need to be split and stacked for a year before it's burnable. This is next year's firewood, not this year's firewood. I already have this year's firewood ready to go.)
Saturday I cut half the grass, Sunday I did the other half. Yard looks pretty good, I gotta say. I did some weeding and picked the grape tomatoes (I bought one grape tomato plant. It is huge. It is covered in grape tomatoes and I get about twenty every day which I suppose I could do something with besides... dip them in a small puddle of mayo and eat them raw, but honestly this is me living my best live over here.)
I could get after the mint, which this late in the season is shamefully invading the Sudetenland and pretending that that's the extent of its ambitions while not fooling anyone except for Neville Chamberlain. End of the season (when I cut down the peonies and asparagus plants) I'll rip it and its roots back to a more reasonable footprint, but I'm not quite there yet. I did cut out the old canes on the black raspberries and wove the new canes through the support structure. Because I wore gloves this year, I'm only a little worse for wear from that.
In media consumption, I watched the 8 episodes of One Piece Live Action on Netflix in Spanish with Spanish subtitles. Gotta say, I like the Spanish Buggy the Clown better than the English one. (I then rewatched it in English to see how that was. Getting my money's worth from the Netflix, over here.) I was pleasantly surprised with how well Netflix did at this adaptation, but I'm not like a superfan of One Piece. I know there IS a One Piece and I have a reasonable grasp of the thing (rubber pirate Luffy, Nami, Zoro, Sanji, Usopp) but I don't, like, LOVE it and I'm in no way current nor have I spent time on the anime or manga. My awareness is that I don't live on Mars and I have some toes in assorted anime things in passing. That was Friday and Saturday nights after the day's significant physical activity vis a vis Mount Wood and playin' horse.
Mom's husband sent me more blind-taste-test coffees. He doesn't drink coffee, but he has recently developed some enthusiasm for... making coffee? I don't know why, but with this I get free coffee. He likes... reading reviews and sourcing coffee and experimenting to see if the different origins are different coffee flavors and whatever. Anyway. In the first round of experimental coffee, I got a numbered list of like 12 coffees to try, which I did. I filled out the score sheet and we had a chat about the coffees. I was not impressed with the Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee. (I just get a numbered list and a fistful of numbered, heat sealed bags with about enough coffee to make two cups of each kind, but he tells me what they are once I let him know about my scores.) I think he likes the "blind taster" thing and he's interested to see if there is any correlation between price and taste. So yeah.
I like coffee well enough, and I like free things, so I'm playing along. Can't say that my bonafides are particularly great as an expert coffee taster, but whatever. On my dime, I buy store brand beans for like eight bucks a pound and I grind them fresh for my morning joe which I make in a pour over carafe thing. I then add enough cream to make it about two shades paler. But also Mom (they're both retired) does not want to play coffee taster forever and she's happy he has someone else to play with. I may eventually get some bigger amounts of free coffee out of this, especially if I like stuff mom doesn't.
No laundry has as yet been done and I still have to pound out my damn duolingo today. And the kitchen is a wreck and I'm too tired for a margarita. *sigh*
Labor day weekend is that thing, in the US, where people who work too much spend three days doing all the work they can't get done during their regular lives because they're too busy working. So they work on the holiday weekend that is FOR worker to rest and which exists because of unions and labor rights efforts.
Oh, and fun fact, I have to do a possession (landlord-tenant, not ... demonic) on Monday at 6 pm, wtf constable. Tenant is in jail for violating her parole, owes me about two grand in unpaid rent.
Tenant's "friends" that she "is letting stay there" are selling drugs out of the apartment and beating up the place but they're not paying any rent. The borough cops helpfully told me this the other day like as if I didn't already know it. Borough cops were "Hey, you should do something about those people, they're no good." Mmm. Thanks, borough police. You guys are super helpful.
I don't get a gun. I don't get backup. I don't get a kevlar vest. I am not going to go pound on the door of the drug-selling addicts and demand that they vacate after they've spent the last month and a half telling all my other tenants that they are squatters and squatters have rights while operating their open air drug market on my property.
I am slowly and legally following the appropriate procedural steps that are provided for in landlord tenant law in the state of Pennsylvania to remove the druggie "friends" who are paying no rent and destroying my apartment. It is not fast and I could not do it at all if they were rent paying tenants who were destroying the apartment and selling drugs, but since they are NOT THE TENANT and since the TENANT IS NOT PAYING RENT, I can 100% evict the tenant for cause, to wit: failure to pay rent, and then I get the apartment back and the "friends" who were "staying with her" have to leave because it's not her apartment anymore -- her rights have been terminated for failure to pay.
For an eviction, there's a filing. About fifteen days later, there's a court hearing at the district magistrate. There's an appeal period of ten days that has to expire after the judgment is rendered at the hearing. There's a filing for an order of possession. That has to be served and the actual date of possession has to be like ten days after the order is filed. The whole thing, including weekends and stuff, takes about 45 days if you're prompt about it. Landlord-tenant is NOT criminal, it's civil. Nobody goes to jail. Nothing really happens. The landlord pretty much never gets the money that was owed as back rent. That money is gone. But, the landlord DOES get the apartment back... always. ALWAYS.
Once the order for possession is issued, the constable has to SHOW UP at the appointed time and throw the bums out. At that point, I change the locks and the constable posts the property and the bums have to go be somewhere else. If they refuse to vacate the property, the constable summons the state police and the people who had refused to leave get arrested and go to jail. Mostly, though, they clear out the day before the constable is scheduled. SOMETIMES they argue with the constable about how they do not have to go, but eventually they all leave. I have never ever had the constable have to summon the state police.
Took the horse out for 6+ miles at mostly a middling trot on the shoulders of the not very busy hard road on Saturday AM, that was fine, no boot fit issues despite a hard spook at two ginger cats running out from under the skirting on a doublewide. Oh, and we saw a fox crossing the road at the Felton covered bridge. Foxes are pretty neat.
Sunday I took the horse over to my house and marched him down the (dirt) road and up the hill, then back the way we came on Sunday AM. This was a largely walk outing but it started at about 1780 (feet above sea level, I am an American and we use the stupid units in these parts), went down to about 1330, and then up to 1860... plus the reverse of that to get back out. The total distance was a little shy of six miles but the amount of uppie and downie makes it effortful enough to serve on the fitness front. Still no boot fit issues.
Bird (The horse is named Bird) had a bit of a puffy ankle on the driver's side hind coming out of the field this morning but it was cool to the touch and he trotted sound, so... we went out for a spin. At the end of the significant hill marching, fat ankle was down to regular size, tendons were tight, ankle was same temperature as the other one (it had never been hot, just had some filling). Sometimes when you increase workload and/or change footwear on horses, you can have some filling on ankles, one or both. I'll continue to observe this but he's not limping and it's not hot and after six miles of fairly effortful walking, it looked better than it did when we started. It's a long way from the heart, anyway.
I got both of those rides in the bank before the heat of the day, yay planning!
Saturday I played two tanks of fuel (It runs for about an hour per tank) in the hydraulic woodsplitter, plus some stacking. Sunday I did another tank of fuel plus a lot of stacking. I still have Mount Wood in my yard, but that's only because Dad keeps cutting more tree. (It's green as hell, fell over in a thunderstorm earlier this summer, and will need to be split and stacked for a year before it's burnable. This is next year's firewood, not this year's firewood. I already have this year's firewood ready to go.)
Saturday I cut half the grass, Sunday I did the other half. Yard looks pretty good, I gotta say. I did some weeding and picked the grape tomatoes (I bought one grape tomato plant. It is huge. It is covered in grape tomatoes and I get about twenty every day which I suppose I could do something with besides... dip them in a small puddle of mayo and eat them raw, but honestly this is me living my best live over here.)
I could get after the mint, which this late in the season is shamefully invading the Sudetenland and pretending that that's the extent of its ambitions while not fooling anyone except for Neville Chamberlain. End of the season (when I cut down the peonies and asparagus plants) I'll rip it and its roots back to a more reasonable footprint, but I'm not quite there yet. I did cut out the old canes on the black raspberries and wove the new canes through the support structure. Because I wore gloves this year, I'm only a little worse for wear from that.
In media consumption, I watched the 8 episodes of One Piece Live Action on Netflix in Spanish with Spanish subtitles. Gotta say, I like the Spanish Buggy the Clown better than the English one. (I then rewatched it in English to see how that was. Getting my money's worth from the Netflix, over here.) I was pleasantly surprised with how well Netflix did at this adaptation, but I'm not like a superfan of One Piece. I know there IS a One Piece and I have a reasonable grasp of the thing (rubber pirate Luffy, Nami, Zoro, Sanji, Usopp) but I don't, like, LOVE it and I'm in no way current nor have I spent time on the anime or manga. My awareness is that I don't live on Mars and I have some toes in assorted anime things in passing. That was Friday and Saturday nights after the day's significant physical activity vis a vis Mount Wood and playin' horse.
Mom's husband sent me more blind-taste-test coffees. He doesn't drink coffee, but he has recently developed some enthusiasm for... making coffee? I don't know why, but with this I get free coffee. He likes... reading reviews and sourcing coffee and experimenting to see if the different origins are different coffee flavors and whatever. Anyway. In the first round of experimental coffee, I got a numbered list of like 12 coffees to try, which I did. I filled out the score sheet and we had a chat about the coffees. I was not impressed with the Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee. (I just get a numbered list and a fistful of numbered, heat sealed bags with about enough coffee to make two cups of each kind, but he tells me what they are once I let him know about my scores.) I think he likes the "blind taster" thing and he's interested to see if there is any correlation between price and taste. So yeah.
I like coffee well enough, and I like free things, so I'm playing along. Can't say that my bonafides are particularly great as an expert coffee taster, but whatever. On my dime, I buy store brand beans for like eight bucks a pound and I grind them fresh for my morning joe which I make in a pour over carafe thing. I then add enough cream to make it about two shades paler. But also Mom (they're both retired) does not want to play coffee taster forever and she's happy he has someone else to play with. I may eventually get some bigger amounts of free coffee out of this, especially if I like stuff mom doesn't.
No laundry has as yet been done and I still have to pound out my damn duolingo today. And the kitchen is a wreck and I'm too tired for a margarita. *sigh*
Labor day weekend is that thing, in the US, where people who work too much spend three days doing all the work they can't get done during their regular lives because they're too busy working. So they work on the holiday weekend that is FOR worker to rest and which exists because of unions and labor rights efforts.
Oh, and fun fact, I have to do a possession (landlord-tenant, not ... demonic) on Monday at 6 pm, wtf constable. Tenant is in jail for violating her parole, owes me about two grand in unpaid rent.
Tenant's "friends" that she "is letting stay there" are selling drugs out of the apartment and beating up the place but they're not paying any rent. The borough cops helpfully told me this the other day like as if I didn't already know it. Borough cops were "Hey, you should do something about those people, they're no good." Mmm. Thanks, borough police. You guys are super helpful.
I don't get a gun. I don't get backup. I don't get a kevlar vest. I am not going to go pound on the door of the drug-selling addicts and demand that they vacate after they've spent the last month and a half telling all my other tenants that they are squatters and squatters have rights while operating their open air drug market on my property.
I am slowly and legally following the appropriate procedural steps that are provided for in landlord tenant law in the state of Pennsylvania to remove the druggie "friends" who are paying no rent and destroying my apartment. It is not fast and I could not do it at all if they were rent paying tenants who were destroying the apartment and selling drugs, but since they are NOT THE TENANT and since the TENANT IS NOT PAYING RENT, I can 100% evict the tenant for cause, to wit: failure to pay rent, and then I get the apartment back and the "friends" who were "staying with her" have to leave because it's not her apartment anymore -- her rights have been terminated for failure to pay.
For an eviction, there's a filing. About fifteen days later, there's a court hearing at the district magistrate. There's an appeal period of ten days that has to expire after the judgment is rendered at the hearing. There's a filing for an order of possession. That has to be served and the actual date of possession has to be like ten days after the order is filed. The whole thing, including weekends and stuff, takes about 45 days if you're prompt about it. Landlord-tenant is NOT criminal, it's civil. Nobody goes to jail. Nothing really happens. The landlord pretty much never gets the money that was owed as back rent. That money is gone. But, the landlord DOES get the apartment back... always. ALWAYS.
Once the order for possession is issued, the constable has to SHOW UP at the appointed time and throw the bums out. At that point, I change the locks and the constable posts the property and the bums have to go be somewhere else. If they refuse to vacate the property, the constable summons the state police and the people who had refused to leave get arrested and go to jail. Mostly, though, they clear out the day before the constable is scheduled. SOMETIMES they argue with the constable about how they do not have to go, but eventually they all leave. I have never ever had the constable have to summon the state police.
no subject
Date: 2023-09-09 03:28 pm (UTC)That blind coffee test thing sounds fun. From an observer point of view. lol Although I'd probably do it with tea.
I knew it took a while to get tenants out. Scary, though, about how much damage they can do in the meantime.
no subject
Date: 2023-09-10 12:18 pm (UTC)Generally, people are not trashing your rental unit to get at the landlord, even if they are being evicted. ("Generally" does not mean that they never do, we have had a few, but MOSTLY they are not that into you. My family has been landlords since my dad -- age 82 -- was a tween so I do have a reasonable amount of experience to back this up.) Mostly there are other things going on and the trashing of the rental unit is kind of incidental. It's collateral damage because it was just there. People do a lot better at the landlord gig if they don't take rental unit damage on the chin. It ain't about you, it ain't personally directed at you, and it's best if you just put everything back together, get another tenant, and move on with your life.
Possessions are a civil matter. Nobody is going to jail. Nobody is going to have to pay fines or anything. (Landlord pays the court costs to bring the suit, expenses for that are added to the judgment, tenant doesn't pay the damn judgment because if they had any money in the first place they'd have paid the effing rent. Basically what happens here is that the landlord eats the back rent and the court costs and so forth. They ain't no money coming out of the evictee. I mean, I guess there could be, but that ain't the way to bet 'em. The landlord can record the judgment and attempt to enforce it, but again, that only impacts a tenant's access to credit, like for buying a house or a car. In the world where my tenants operate, there is no buying a house or a car where bank financing is needed.)
A good constable (locally, not sure how things are elsewhere) understands the need of people to say their piece and "stand up" to the man. They will let the evictee talk/yell/swear/bang things around as needed for personal honor or whatevs. It is important for people to feel that they have dignity and honor and here (I'm in Appalachia) this includes being able to tell off the constable/landlord and air their grievances, frequently at high volume, in front of their own people. Letting people do this makes them feel better. Not only does it make them feel better, it reduces the chance of an actual incident (attack on landlord or constable, anyone going to jail, anyone getting shot) happening. So, while one might indeed have a desire for some sort of retaliatory constable interaction where the evictees have to hustle it up and GTFO and the constable gets to visibly posture and threaten, that is completely counterproductive to the primary goal of getting the apartment back and the secondary goal of not having anyone get shot. There's no upside to an unfavorable escalation here and lots of downsides.
Evictions go best when (a) everybody is civil (b) the people with the power understand and respect the needs of the powerless to posture, front, and say their piece and (c) people who are already fairly hard pressed are not made to feel EVEN MORE hard pressed. If everybody is not civil, the landlord and the constable still need to be unfailingly civil because their failure to escalate in response to evictee threat displays will be seen as weakness by the evictees and they will, in that small way, be able to walk off feeling like "they sure told those assholes".
Evictees can (and have) call me a fucking cunt bitch whore while I am changing the locks and they are schlepping their belongings out in cheap dollar store trash bags to throw them in their friend's beater car. If my evictee would like to call me a fucking cunt bitch whore to make themselves feel better about their imminent homelessness situation, well, ok. I can live with that.