WInter continues to do it’s thing here in western Montana.

Next house I live in will be far more heavily winterized than the one I live in now. Ideally, I’d like to build from scratch someday and while the concrete dome homes seem to have a lot to recommend to them, their unconventional appearance and space considerations (where do you put a straight sofa along a curved wall?) make them a tad undesirable.

On the other hand, I’m really fascinated by these. There’s a cutaway of a wall made with these things on display at the airport waiting area and 8″ of concrete makes an impression. Impervious to forest fires and most small arms fire as well. If I were going to drop a little cabin on a chunk o’ nowhere, this would be a good candidate for materials.

I wouldn’t mind getting to actually see a place made out of this stuff. Or even one of those concrete dome homes, come to think of it. Its one thing to want to live in a place that’s built like a bunker, but not everyone wants to live in a place that looks like a bunker. Certainly, I’d take either one of those over a converted conex container.

One of these days I’ll sell my wildly appreciated house, take all the equity, and get that little chunk of nowhere. Maybe live on top of a mountain somewhere like this guy. Or out in the desert like these guys.

But, a lot has to fall into place before that happens. Fun to think about, though.

So the forecast is for another cold and icily windy weekend. Im heading up to CostCo tomorrow for monthly purchase items, but food ain’t one of ’em. I could lock the doors, not leave the house for a year, and be just fine in terms of food.

Its weekends like this, where the wind howls and rattles the windows, that I appreciate being able to walk into my kitchen and have everything on hand, on the shelves and in the freezers, to make pretty much whatever the hell I want. Its a good feeling.

Anyway, it’s up to CostCo tomorrow for bulk things like a half dozen jugs of laundry detergent, some batteries, and the usual odds and ends that I like to keep on hand in large quantities.

Once that trip to CostCo is done, though…I’m parking the car and not going anywhere until Monday. There’s not much reward in taking unnecessary risks. I’d rather discover Im out of milk and live without it for three days than have to pay for a wrecker and a new car, y’know?

And, interestingly, I received a gift certificate from CostCo  as part of their cashback program on the CostCo Visa card. I bought a truckload of 10/22 magazines last year for sale to you guys and I used that card to pay for them, so…there’s going to be a free case of chicken in my shopping cart.

And, since its going to be a weekend of high temps around 0, this’ll probably be the weekend I defrost the freezer.

What about you? Cold enough in your neck of the woods to make staying home a better idea than driving around?

The nice thing about living in a 100+ year old house is that things were, generally, built much nicer than they are today, there’s a certain sense of charm and style, and each house is usually rather unique. Drawbacks? Ask my plumber. My kitchen is outta commission until tomorrow when they come back to graft a new section of waste pipe in where the old one was. :::sigh::: I was looking forward to using that tax refund to pay the house down faster.

In other news, Im getting my moneys worth out of the snow blower this season. It isnt that we’ve gotten huge snowstorms. Rather, we get an inch here, two inches there, and after a couple weeks of that it starts adding up. Getting around town isnt too much of a challenge, but you gotta watch those California-plated cars.

And then theres gun news. You know it had to be coming, right? I traded off that Marlin 39A for a very nice, older pre-Rem, pre-safety .336 in .30-30. Now, A lever action does nothing a .308 won’t do faster and more accurately…but, its a handy little carbine.

But it can be made handier…….

To that effect, I ordered up a nice set of protected Skinner sights to replace those virtually useless buckhorns. There’ll be a replacement protected front sight as well. After that, the stock goes byebye to be replaced with a Boyds laminate in forest camo. Once thats done, I’ll inlet one of these into the rear stockto give myself a side-mounted sling, and call it a day. Should be a wonderfully useful gun by that point. Sure, I’ll have a few bucks in it that I will never recover but thats fine…this will be one of those guns I have no intention of selling.

A snowy night, where it’s a good idea to stay indoors, can be expensive when you have an internet connection, a gun habit, and low impulse control.

Nope, still here. Just busy this weekend. Remember when we had Lincoln’s Birthday and Washingtons’ Birthday as federal holidays? Then they combined them into this one holiday in order to free up a day for a federal holiday for Marty King day. But, when I was a kid, I remember getting two different holidays for the president’s birthdays.

Weather here went from a summer -like 38* to about 10. But, like some sort of displaced Donner Party member, I wandered up on to a hilltop hike on the edge of town where the wind, no lie, was coming down hard enough that I coulud jump straight up in the air and land about 8″ away from where I started. It was the kind of howling, relentless wind that you see those idiot hurricane reporters leaning against. But..If I want to test winter gear some time that was easily the place to do it.

Regular posting, such as it is, will resume towards Tuesday. In the meantime, fellow bunker-dwellers, keep doing what you’re doing.