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11月25日 Gratitude is an Attitude
I have been asking people all week what they had to be thankful for this year. I have tried to keep the conversation short but some people are hungry to tell their life story or an aspect of their history that made a mark on them. I won’t go into the life stories but instead give a brief description of their comments.
As I left I was thinking about “doing the right thing for the people in our lives” and it seemed so simple but that is what we do everyday of our lives. Many times in the past year I have felt resentful that I was rarely acknowledged for doing the right things for my oldest daughter and grandchildren. I remembered that I was told many times in AA meetings that gratitude is an attitude that will get us through almost anything and to keep it simple. To not get worked up about the events in the world and to keep focused on what in my life is “doing the right things” so that when I go to bed at night I can fall peacefully asleep. The third time I went to treatment for my addiction, many years ago, they would not allow me to read the newspaper or watch the TV in the day room. I was to no longer focus on those external things that I could do next to nothing about and instead focus on “doing the right things to remain drug free and connected with the important people in my life”. Talking to that old man brought me back to that time when I first learned that lesson. It also brought me back to what I was thankful for in my life. I am thankful for the fact that I need to cook a huge meal for a group of people and that it will turn out wonderful. I am thankful for having not only family but friends who have stuck with me no matter what. That was brought home to me when my old boss sent me a note and I talked to her. After I talked to her she invited me to come for Christmas. We have somehow been connected since 1977. When I came to Houston I got another friend and she and I have worked together almost daily since 1983. When I moved to this neighborhood I decided I needed a friend that was not connected to work and the first person I met has been a friend since 1989. When I decide I need a friend one is always provided and they are friends for life. That is far more than others have. Not only do I have friends but I have family. In the last year my oldest daughter came to her senses and got rid of the boyfriend she had brought into her home to live with her and her kids. She decided to go back to school and her oldest daughter signed up for all AP courses at her high school. Now she will begin college two years early next year. She will do this while still in high school but it gives her focus in her life. She was able to set her goals and she is doing the right things at the age of 15 to achieve them. Even though she has dyed her hair and seems like an alien to me much of the time. she is doing the right things and doing them her way. 12 is healthy and doing fair in school. She is also an honor student but gets lazy about homework. Her sister was at that age also so she will get through this stage. My son-in-law remains sober after his treatment that he left early. He has refused to talk to me or look at me since he got back from treatment and yesterday was forced to do both. I had thought he was angry but instead he was full of shame for his binge and the damage it did to his children. We talked and I could not take away his shame and guilt. I told him to take the worst shameful moment and wrap it in an envelope to keep in his mind at all times. Next time he feels like taking another drink he needs to open the envelope and read the documentation of the incident completely before he decides if the next drink is really worth it. I told him that he still has 12 and that 15 might be back eventually but right now she has moved on with her life and is to fearful of him and her well being with him. I told him to stay sober and not put the same marks on 12 that he put on 15. I know that sounds angry and hard but he has to hear it. I was grateful that I was able to talk to him and give him that message. After he left my youngest daughter called from Georgia and tried to figure out how I could be with them during the Christmas holidays. We might work it out but I also am invited to be with two friends in different states, I still have my daughter in Houston and her two kids and I felt grateful that I had this problem of having so many loving people around me that they all wanted me to be with them on Christmas. I have tried to “do the right things” and now as I sit back I see that the crop I grew is solid and strong. So this holiday season I will feel gratitude for all that I have and quit wishing for more material things. Now I need to start my pumpkin pies since Thanksgiving dinner is only 30 hours away and there is a lot of cooking to be done. Happy Thanksgiving to all of you out there and I hope you have gratitude in your hearts this season. Throw away the newspaper and turn off the TV.. Pictures: I am grateful that I have a front door to hang a wreath on and I did find that turtle out there… 11月21日 Old FriendIt has been raining here and turned cold. Well by cold I mean it is 55 degrees outside. I am such a wimp that the heat is on. I have been lazy all day and the only thing I accomplished was to get a new battery for the car and put it in my car. My Honda just turned over 201,000 miles so I don’t know how many more years it will keep truckin. Every other car I have owned was lucky to get 100,000. At that time they always started their death walk. Not the Honda. Something unusual happened on Friday. I got a note in the mail from my old boss Mary Jane. I worked for Mary Jane for about 4 years off and on. At one point I left Ashland and moved back to Superior but after the demise of my marriage I went right back to Ashland. She and I left that treatment center at about the same time. She went to Hazelden Hanley in Florida and I went to the corporate offices of Lifemark which in the early 80’s was a huge healthcare conglomerate and later merged with AMI or American Medical International. After I read the note I called her and we both updated each other on our activities in the last 25 years. She lives in a small town of about 1,300 people and the city itself is almost 3 square miles where as Houston is 650 square miles. It is the very tip of eastern and far northern Minnesota. It is surrounded by Lake Superior on two sides. It would be a great place to live if you like smelt and lots of cold and snow.
Anyhow we updated each other on what has been going on in our lives for the last 25 years. I clearly remember the last time we talked and I believed it was in 1985. I remember the exact location of the office I was in and at that time I was running a locked adolescent psychiatric and chemical dependency treatment center. I remember because we had an admission at the same time and it was a 14 year old boy brought in by his minister father and mother. The boy was tied up in duct tape and in the trunk of their car. They wanted us to “FIX” their boy who had peeked in his neighbors window. The neighbor was like 80 some years old. I don’t know if we ever fixed the kid but we did work on fixing that family. So anyway I remember talking to Mary Jane as this ruckus was happening outside of my office.
So anyway I am glad my old boss Mary Jane has found me. I hope to see her before we die. We are both getting pretty old. She older than me… The picture is some shelters they are building for homeless. They sell for $1,500 each. I don’t think I will be buying one anytime soon but in my 30 foot shed I am finishing for the kids they want lofts in it for bed space. The ceilings are very high and this little house gave me a good idea on how to put in bunk lofts for the kids without taking up a lot of space to do it. I will put a ladder at each end of each loft and that will help support the weight of the lofts. There is enough room in the shed for many lofts but I will build in 4 of them so their friends can bunk out with them. Enough for now….Hope you are all well. 11月17日 ABU GARCIA AMBASSADEUR 5500C FISHING REEL
We may have lived in Saint Cloud then but most likely we had already moved to Bayfield Wisconsin. The Garcia reel was made in Sweden. I will cover another of my reels tomorrow unless I find something to complain about….
11月16日 Rod and Reel History
The Ugly Stick was created by mistake. The engineers were testing strength with the graphite rods. They blended fiberglass and graphite together and went home for the night. The next day they tested what they had and it was far stronger than what had been selling as a graphite rod. The brought the rod to a company meeting that afternoon In spite of this Shakespeare patented the ugly rod and at an annual fishing show hung heavy items from the rod. It was a contest and the ugly stick beat out every other rod. Even the French and Italian made very expensive rods. You can still get Shakespeare Ugly Sticks that cost anywhere from $40 to $250. In fact I believe they are probably still the best selling rod out there. We just have not found a way to improve on the Ugly Stick in all these years. We all still use graphite rods mixed with fiberglass. I am interested in rods but mostly I am interested in reels. I have a lot of reels and some of them are in pretty bad shape.
The other reel I am working on cleaning today is the Daiwa Silvercast 208 RL. It is in real good working order but at saome point I will get the Goldcast. I read that the Goldcast is even better. In either case you will have a hard time tangling the lines on these reels. They are close faced reels but I still prefer an open faced reel. I have one in the car and I still have my fathers reel. Now he has been dead since 1971 so you know that is real old. I have no idea when he got it but I am sure it was in the 50’s or 60’s. It is in the shed so I will get it out tomorrow to take a better look. In fact I will continue this tomorrow when I have a chance to get a good look at all my reels… BTW I caught 3 sand trout's on Sunday. Everyone was snagging sand trout. Just another fishing lesson... 11月14日 Animal House
All these kids were part of the drama club at the high school and had just finished a performance. They have another one tonight and today they are judging talent contests in local middle schools. They showed up at my house at 7:30 this morning for breakfast. It is a tradition that I always make the morning meal. They gulped down Finally everything is settling down again. It made the dogs tired and they are passed out in my house. I am sneaking out while the sneaking is good. Been wanting to go fishing and rain is coming. It is now or never…. Later 11月11日 38 years of sobriety today! I lived in St. Cloud, Minnesota and was terrified about going into a bar or being around any kind of a drug. Near the end of that first year my family had a get together. All of us kids wanted to get together at the lake cabin my parents owned. I have four brothers and sisters and we all arrived on a Friday evening in big mosquito and bear country. It was near Akin, Minnesota and my father always said if we spit across the lake we would be in Canada. I now know we were pretty far from Canada but as kids we always believed him. All my siblings stayed sober for the weekend but then they were not addicts like me. On Sunday we were out on my parents pontoon boat just motoring around fishing when a speed boat came zooming by. They were zig zagging and screaming. It was a bunch of teenagers throwing empty Hamm’s beer cans in the lake pretty fast. Our neighbors were a kind elderly couple and they were sitting on the lake by their cottage in a small row boat. They always did that in the evenings.
I know this sounds crazy but I would not go in the bar. I was terrified of entering a bar. Instead he had to go in and I grabbed extra towels in my car and we tried to slow down her bleeding. Her spleen was hanging out and I knew she was not going to make it. I am sure her husband also knew and by now she was unconscious. (actually there was not much blood flowing anymore because she had probably already bled out-she was dead not unconcious) It would take to long so brother came running back and jumped in the car and drove like a madman to a hospital. I followed behind but did not drive near as fast as he drove.
It was a strong reminder to me about the dangers of drugs and alcohol. I was fortunate in that my children did not become drug addicts or alcoholics. Many times the children of an addict become addicts. Instead my oldest became co-dependent and married an alcoholic who she denied was an alcoholic for 10 years. They are now divorced for many years and he went to treatment about a month ago but would not stay and went back home. 12 wants to go to his house for the weekend and her mother will not let her. She wants to have a dad and he called and told her that “they” said it would be good for his recovery if she stayed at his house on weekends. 12 wants to do anything possible to support his “recovery”.
15 says she will never be alone with her dad again no matter how long he says he is sober and she was freaking out that 12 was planning on going to his house this weekend. 15 has not been the same since and is now in therapy to try to be able to sleep a full night without having bad dreams. Sometimes I lay in her bed and tell her Indian stories until she falls asleep. I then sneak back to my house. So on my 38 year anniversary date I sat at the bay with my grandchildren. As we were walking back to the house there were 4 deer in a neighbors yard. I had my camera and took pictures. I told them the story of the Deer after I got the pictures: One day Fawn heard Great Spirit calling to her. Great Spirit was on the top of Sacred Mountain. Fawn immediately ran towards Sacred Mountain but found a demon guarding the mountain. The demon was trying to keep all the beings from connecting with Great Spirit. The demon knew he would gain in strength if he could keep Fawn from connecting to Great Spirit. If the demon gained power over Fawn he could scare her off the path.
The deer represents the need for all of us to find the gentleness of spirit that can heal all wounds and tells us to stop pushing so hard trying to change others and be our own gentle selves. Deer teach us to be as warm and caring as a gentle breeze and forgive those around us that have strayed off the path. Stand our ground and don’t stray off the path with them but also do not condemn or judge those struggling with a demon. To stay on our own path, center ourselves, focus on serenity and Great Spirit will help guide us up the mountain. As we were talking about this story the deer did not get up to run away and we were amazingly able to walk very close to these wild deer. 15 coughed and the deer finally wandered off. I was unable to get all the deer together because by then we were to close and I only had a zoom lens with me. I also got a snowy white egret at the bay. I liked it because you can see a mirror image in the water. The kids asked the significance of the mirror image and all I said was “you are another me as I am another you”. They will think on that one a long time. Actually it meant that the water was calm and Grandfather was getting low in the sky and allowing Grandmother Moon to take over for the next shift. When they come back with their complicated explanations of the mirror image i will tell them about the calm water, Grandfather Sun trying to go to bed for the night and Grandmother Moon clocking in. 15 has had her hair dyed pitch black. I asked her if she is trying to look like and Indian and she said no she wants to look like a vampire. She said if I believe in miracles, ghosts and aliens then I surely should believe in vampires. These kids now a days are really into vampires but she played a vampire in the school play. I guess it went to her head. Well that’s it for now and I hope you are all fine out there… 11月9日 Charles Smith on Healthcare
http://www.oftwominds.com/blog.html I love this guy! From the Survival+ point of view, all the ideological positions on "healthcare" which are being sold like commodities are laughably detached from reality. "Healthcare reform" has nothing to do with either socialism or capitalism. Socialism is the Veterans Administration system (owned lock, stock and barrel by the government and run by the government) which offers remarkably cost-effective if basic care to millions of vets, and capitalism is cash-only clinics like those offered in Mexico, India and Thailand and in some Wal-Mart walk-in clinics. The entire "healthcare reform" enterprise is not about providing care to all--that is the sales pitch. It is about milking the entire populace so more of the national income is transferred to the "healthcare" cartels and State (central government) Elites. Here are the three key realities which are not addressed by "healthcare reform": 1. The "healthcare" cartel (and thus its partner the State) is not interested in health because health is horribly unprofitable. People who eat well and are mentally and physically fit have no need for costly procedures, treatments, tests and pharmaceuticals, hence they cannot generate revenues or profits. Managing diseases is what's profitable, so the system is oriented not at prevention or nurturing health but at enabling chronic disease which is very profitably managed with pharmaceutcals, surgeries, etc. 2. Once the connection between service and customer is broken and the money to pay for all products and services is printed or borrowed in essentially unlimited quantities, ontologically (inherently) there are no possible price controls. This is why an elderly gent like my friend's father can enter the hospital with a non-life threating issue (gallstone), receive treatment which didn't really resolve his health issue and then Medicare is billed $120,000 for one week of "care" regardless of the efficacy. When the service is "free" (that is, payment is borrowed/printed in unlimited quantities), then the cost of care will necessarily push up to the ultimate limit of the system's ability to pay. Medicare and Medicaid already exceed the Pentagon's budget, and they are growing three times faster than the long-term trend rate of the U.S. economy. 3. There is no "fair" way to ration care; the U.S. simply rations it by essentially random "legal lottery" payouts/jackpots/penalties and other regulatory means. The bottom line is "healthcare for all" without limits is unaffordable everywhere--it is simply more unaffordable in the U.S. system. The wealthy in rationed-care systems simply opt out and go buy "unrationed care" elsewhere, cash on the barrelhead. The dirty little secret of supposedly "model" State healthcare plans in Europe and Japan is that they are running up against the limits of what those economies can afford. If you disagree, go ask the State finance ministries of France, the U.K., Germany and Japan for their 10 and 20-year projections of national healthcare costs. No nation can increase healthcare spending 6% while its underlying economy grows 2%. In a mere 8 years, healthcare costs will rise over 50% while the GDP will rise (at best) 15-20%. That is the essence of unsustainability. Medical Care Prices Are Rising Faster Than Overall Inflation (BusinessWeek)
The U.S. spent an estimated $2.4 trillion on health care in 2008, about 16.5% of gross domestic product and a 6% increase from a year earlier. Medical care prices are rising faster than overall inflation, and the burden on consumers continues to grow. When everything is "free to all" then technologies and medications quickly reach marginal returns: yes, this drug is only effective in 15% of the case, and yes, it costs $10,000 a month, and might actually hurt some patients; but since the State is paying for everything, why not give it to everyone who might be helped? And if it's restricted, then isn't that rationed? The "healthcare" cartels' goal is to carve off a greater share of national income for themselves. This isn't capitalism; it's monopoly capital-crony capitalism, the very opposite of free-market capitalism. The State's political class is a willing partner in this transfer of wealth to Elites because it welcomes the hundreds of millions of dollars in donations offered up by tort attorneys, Big Pharma, and all the other players milking the "healthcare" system for billions. So who ultimately pays for "free" "sickcare"? The productive middle class and working poor. Healthcare which doesn't actually improve health but simply profitably manages chronic illnesses is in essence a stupendous tax on the productive class of the nation. The healthcare cartels are delighted that "healthcare" has climbed from 6% of GDP to 17%, and they will be delighted to see it rise to 20%, then 25% and 30%, until at some point it bankrupts the nation, as it most certainly will for the above reasons. Until the State collapses in insolvency, "healthcare" acts as a giant machine which diverts money from the middle class and working poor into the coffers of the sickcare cartels and their State-Elites partners. You want a system that works? Then depoliticize and de-cartel the system entirely. Jettison the entire sickcare system and revert to cash-only for every product and service, and offer a voluntary VA-type system which people can opt into if they choose to pay the insurance and co-payments (which VA does not have) and live with the defacto rationing of long waits and basic care which is limited by the budget alloted. There is no "entitlement," only whatever care which can be distributed for a given amount of money. Thus it's not the budget which can rise but the efficiency of the system in doing the most possible with a set sum of money. This is the only sustainable way to provide care without bankrupting the nation. These two systems--"pure socialism" and "pure free-market capitalism"--can co-exist quite amiably as long as people get to choose from a range of imperfect choices. If health were more profitable (to providers and to consumers) than managing disease, then entirely different choices and incentives would arise. 10月11日 Clotheslines
In the US 6% of our household utility bill goes to our dryers. I live in Texas and our electric bill comes out to about $4800 a year. Now if you do the math we pay the equivalent of paying for a new Maytag dryer each year. It took a long time but I finally convinced my other daughter to hang her clothes outside. I strung clotheslines and bought her clothespins. Living here in the intense heat the clothes dry as quickly on the outside line as they would have dried in the dryer. We generally get no more than 2 or 3 days a month of rain and unless it is a tropical storm the showers come in fast and leave quickly. This is a perfect place to hang out clothes. I surveyed the 300 homes in our area and found only 3 other homes that had clotheslines that I could see. My mother quit hanging out clothes when she got an electric dryer. She did not want to look like we could not afford a dryer. I find out that is why many people back in the day quit hanging out clothes. Home owners associations thought it made the neighborhood look shabby. Of course back then there were no home owner associations because once you bought your property you could do what you wanted to do. The benefits of outside drying are: http://www.acontrario.org/node/398 According to a 2001 Department of Energy Study _ only the refrigerator and heating and cooling units top the cost of a dryer being used by Americans! If all Americans switched to line drying laundry we would save 6.5 billion dollars (of consumer money), and if they line dried just half their loads we would instantly decrease residential U.S. Carbon emissions by 3.3% according to a 2007 article in the New York Times. Alexander Lee, a lawyer in Concord, N.H., who runs a Web site, Project Laundry List, to promote hanging clothes to dry, said the actual electricity consumption by dryers was probably three times as much as federal estimates because those estimates did not take into account actual use at laundromats and in multifamily homes. I just read where Ontario is handing out free clotheslines to anyone willing to become eco friendly by solar drying their laundry. In the last year state lawmakers in Colorado, Hawaii, Maine and Vermont have overridden these local rules with legislation protecting the right to hang laundry outdoors, citing environmental concerns because clothes dryers use at least 6 percent of all household electricity consumption. Florida and Utah already had such laws, and similar bills are being considered in Maryland, North Carolina, Oregon and Virginia, clothesline advocates say. .A new documentary is coming out called “Drying For Freedom. a Film About Clotheslines. http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/boston/new-documentary-drying-for-freedom-a-film-about-clotheslines-093774 The above is a link to the 5 minute trailer. You will turn off your dryer after watching it…. . 9月27日 The Stimulus Bill ExplainedShortly after class, an economics student approaches his economics professor and says, “I don’t understand this stimulus bill. Can you explain it to me?” The professor replied, “I don’t have any time to explain it at my office, but if you come over to my house on Saturday and help me with my weekend project, I’ll be glad to explain it to you.” The student agreed. At the agreed-upon time, the student showed up at the professor’s house. The professor stated that the weekend project involved his backyard pool. They both went out back to the pool, and the professor handed the student a bucket. Demonstrating with his own bucket, the professor said, “First, go over to the deep end, and fill your bucket with as much water as you can.” The student did as he was instructed. The professor then continued, “Follow me over to the shallow end, and then dump all the water from your bucket into it.” The student was naturally confused, but did as he was told. The professor then explained they were going to do this many more times, and began walking back to the deep end of the pool. The confused student asked, “Excuse me, but why are we doing this?” The professor matter-of-factly stated that he was trying to make the shallow end much deeper. The student didn’t think the economics professor was serious, but figured that he would find out the real story soon enough. However, after the 6th trip between the shallow end and the deep end, the student began to become worried that his economics professor had gone mad. The student finally replied, “All we’re doing is wasting time and effort. Even worse, when this process is all over, everything will be at the same level it was before, so all you’ll really have accomplished is the loss of what could have been truly productive action!” Source- http://blog.theconspirator.org/ The professor put down his bucket and replied with a smile, “Congratulations. You now understand the stimulus bill.” Keep your powder dry and pantry full. 7月10日 Boarding Houses and Laundry SoapOne of the needs that is arising out of the downturned economy is boarding homes. Boarding homes are almost unheard of now. It used to be that when Pa died Ma turned the old house into a boarding home. She was able to generate enough money to pay the property taxes, buy food, utilities, etc and have a little left over. She was used to feeding a big family and so nothing really changes for her after Pa dies. She rents the bedrooms by the week initially because that way if she ends up with someone she does not want she can throw him out after the first week. She has control of the kitchen and prepares the meals. If a boarder does not show up for the meal it is his or her problem. You can keep hold of your home, even if one or both of you get laid off. More and more people won’t have any place to live. They can’t afford houses, even now, so they rent apartments. But very few apartments are being built, what with the credit contraction, so prices there are rising. People will be coming to you. Give a married couple a slight discount ( the cost of two boarders, minus a little ), since two are staying in one room. Another big consideration is the communal eating/cooking. You are factoring in the food with their rent. Together, their two costs constitute a bargain for them. For the home owner, there is profit without out of pocket expense. You can cook cheaply because you have the time and equipment and knowledge to cook from scratch. Plus, you can buy at a Costco, Sams or Restaurant supply place for a discount. Your boarder can do neither. While he pays you less than what it would cost him, he pays you a lot more than what it cost you. It is a win/win. You are already giving him cheap shelter by only allowing them a room. Then, you give them a cheap way to eat because you are splitting the bulk cost of food and energy. If you are baking twenty loaves of bread at a time, the cost per loaf energy wise is much more negligible. Granted, a single person could bake an entire ovens worth and freeze the surplus. They could buy meat in bulk and freeze. They could crock pot. But, most of them can’t do it, out of ignorance or out of lack of equipment investment. You are providing a service most can’t match on cost. You turn into a house bitch and keep your home quiet and orderly. You are providing something that your boarders are dependent on and cannot find a better deal short of the homeless shelter. You can even provide wireless internet for an added fee and for nothing you can put an antenna on your house and have all bedrooms wired for a TV. So each boarder can have a TV in their room for an additional fee. I tried to check rates online and only found one local and they only rent out rooms for $16 a day. There were 5 boarding houses in the Houston area and they would not disclose their rates over the phone and they all had long waiting lists. I am sure there are others unlisted but that just demonstrates the need for boarding houses. Onto another subject: I have many readers who are not commenters and I guess we all have that. I have some that have been reading for years and occasionally emailing me. A few days ago I made a comment about not knowing how to make my own soap and I was surprised by the number of people that make their own soap. Here is a list of recipes that I got as a result of that post. (this came off of another blog post from someone but they did not leave the link so I also can’t leave you the recipe link) Laundry Detergent Everyday Surface Cleaner (works on anything) Heavy Duty Surface Cleaner (for grimy messes) Glass Cleaner Carpet Cleaner Floor Cleaner Bathtub Stains Laundry Pretreatment I had other emails with recipes for making your own laundry soap: 1 cup grated Fels Naptha bar soap Next Recipe 1 cup grated Fels Naptha bar soap Recipe 3 1 Cup Grated Soap * Mix together and use 1 Tablespoon per load, 2 Tablespoons if it is a really soiled load. When I get home from Georgia I will make my own laundry soap! PS: The San Francisco Chronicle reports today that Mayor Gavin Newsom has ordered all city departments "to conduct an audit of unused land--including empty lots, rooftops, windowsills and median strips--that could be turned into community gardens or farms." 6月14日 Great Blue Heron
The largest North American heron, with a head-to-tail length of 91–140 cm (36-55 in), a wingspan of 167-201 cm (66-79 in), and a weight of 2–3.6 kg (4.4-8 lbs), it is blue-gray overall, with black flight feathers, red-brown thighs, and a paired red-brown and black stripe up the flanks; the neck is rusty-gray, with black and white streaking down the front; the head is paler, with a nearly white face, and a pair of black plumes running from just above the eye to the back of the head. The feathers on the lower neck are long and plume-like; it also has plumes on the lower back at the start of the breeding season. The bill is dull yellowish, becoming orange briefly at the start of the breeding season, and the lower legs gray, also becoming orangey at the start of the breeding season. Immature birds are duller in color, with a dull blackish-gray crown, and the flank pattern only weakly defined; they have no plumes, and the bill is dull gray-yellow. This was the heron I got a picture of yesterday morning. That is a big fish he got and he is handling it like he is going to bring it some where else to eat it. I got 4 shots of this giant before he decided he had to let go of the fish in order to escape my camera. He was very aware of my presence and did not want to leave the fish behind. He finally dropped it and walked away very rapidly. He watched me for quite a while and when I got far enough away he went back to snag the flopping fish. I left him alone at that point.
It was 120 degrees in the sun and 99 in the shade and it did not bother me. Sometimes I can just handle that heat and ride for many miles and other days it tears me up right away. Yesterday I had no problem with the intense heat but I stopped every mile or so and drank a lot of water. While I put up an antenna
If I wake up in time I will get the sunrise tomorrow. Two days now I missed Grandfather Sun and I better get back out there on time. Update: I overslept again. At 11 twelve and her best friend came over. They were starving to death. 12’s mother made fish for dinner and they would not eat it. I also would not eat over there. When my daughter’s boyfriend is done putting all those Mexican spices on everything you cannot tell what you are eating. Still this morning their house totally smells like garlic. So I again made dinner during the night and got all the kids from over there to eat. They were all grateful. She and her boyfriend live for themselves…. So I am going out right now since the sun is not shining. It will overcome the clouds shortly but I need to get out and back in 2 hours so I don’t cook. Have a great day everyone… 6月12日 Post Ike Tent Cities
People decided it was safer to hide out on their own property rather than live in tent cities. For a while they were getting FEMA trailers but the city of Seabrook (the 2nd hardest IKE hit area with Galveston being the worst)Seabrook decided it was an eyesore so they then passed some rules saying that the FEMA trailers could not be in Seabrook anymore. The ones that were there were grandfathered in. One of my best friends has one of them right on Main Street or I should say 2nd Street.
We have one elementary school where over 1/3 of the kids are homeless. They live on the streets with parents or in a shanty under a bridge or in some other unstable environment. So daily over 200 homeless kids show up and it is pretty sad. For the most part these people are invisible in this country. Nobody wants to see them and so they don’t see them. In Dallas a few years back a group showed up to try to help feed homeless and it created a big stir. It became illegal to feed the homeless because they felt it would increase the homeless. I blogged about that back in I think 2005. I do know that there are active churches in Dallas trying to help. So in answer to your question Marge, yes we still have cities of homeless people. They are not all from here; your homeless people find their way to Texas because they would freeze to death in Iowa, Minnesota, etc. We have a huge tent city near Harlingen Texas. That is the River Grande Valley. Every time I have gone into Mexico I cross there. The $111 million tent city, between a federal prison and a county jail, is used by the government to hold captured non-Mexicans until they are sent home. Previously, most such detainees were released into the United States before hearings, and a majority simply disappeared. Civil liberties and immigration law groups allege that out of sight, the system is bursting at the seams. In the Texas facility, they say, illegal immigrants are confined 23 hours a day in windowless tents made of a Kevlar-like material, often with insufficient food, clothing, medical care and access to telephones. Many are transferred from the East Coast, 1,500 miles from relatives and lawyers, virtually cutting off access to counsel. Instead of calling it Gitmo we call it Ritmo. Most of the Mexicans caught are just thrown back over the border. LOL… There are over 30,000 non Mexican’s in our new tent city jails or other locations in the US but I believe most are in Texas. For each person there you pay $78 a night to keep them there. That is where your taxes are going. Comments on this prison from: http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=1433 Detainees are subject to penal system practices, such as group punishment for disciplinary infractions. The tents are windowless and the walls are blank, and no partitions or doors separate the five toilets, five sinks, five shower heads and eating areas. Lacking utensils on some days, detainees eat with their hands. Goodwin described a group of women who huddled in a recreation yard on a recent 40-degree day with a 25-mph wind. "They had no blanket, no sweat shirt, no jacket," she said. "Officers were wearing earmuffs, and detainees were outside for an hour with short-sleeved polyester uniforms and shower shoes and not necessarily socks." We had a real problem with the general population of the Rio Grande Valley during Ike. They thought it was headed for them and most of the people refused to go to shelters as they thought that ICE would pick them up and send them back to Mexico. Also did you see on the news that we are sending about 13 Gitmo detainees to a small island and paying the island like 100 million dollars to take them. That is where you tax money is going. It just gets crazier…. So I hope that answered your question about our tent city problem here… 6月10日 Alligator Gar
The garr I saw was only about 20 inches long so it was a baby. I talked to fishermen along the waterway and they also said they have seen the gar coming back. The gar have two sets of teeth and they are razor sharp teeth. So taking them off your hook is a serious business. There is a good chance you will get snagged by those teeth if you are not careful. Fishermen started saying the gars attacked them but it was incidents where they were taking off the hook. Being from up north where we got big northerns and huge muskies we always used a pliers type of tool to get the hook off. I have never seen a fisherman use one of those here.
Yuppie fishermen use a bow and arrow to snag the gar. They are special bow fishing gear that you buy. You can get set up for about 200 bucks to be a bow fisherman. I have spear fished before on Lake Superior and I assume it is basically the same principle. We would set up our teepee on the ice and watch our fish hole. When a big Muskie went by we would shoot off the spear that had a line attached to it. Only Indians were allowed to spear fish as I recall since we needed to fish to survive on the reservations.
I tried to take a picture of the gar but it was dark against a dark background and it did not work. Gar are excellent to eat. Cleaning them is hard since their scales are like made out of steel. I will go out again on my bike ride at about 6 pm and be home by 8 pm. Here are some pics from last night…. Look at that picture of the 4 wheeler type of homemade vehicle. Now look at the rear view mirror. You can see the guys face perfectly in it. Odd picture so I threw it in. 5月30日 American Alligator
Here are some pics of the poor baby. I will go down at sunrise tomorrow and I hope he is long gone an d does not try to get so close to humans ever again. 5月28日 Snakes and Birds
I had been sitting in this spot for about 20 minutes meditating and not moving. I suspect since I had my big hat on that blended into the brush I was unseen. As a result he landed close to me and I got off about 5 shots before he left. His wing span was about 30 inches and he had a loud squawk. So if you know his name give me a holler.
As you can see our old fishing pier was taken out by Ike. It goes out a quarter of a mile and a lot of fish I then got back on the road and I and a guy in a pickup stopped for this huge snake. He was at least 10 feet long. I had my camera on macro so it is not a good picture. The guy’s motor was running and the snake quickly went under his truck and got into the front hood of his truck. I don’t know what kind of a snake he is but he was very long. Certainly taller than me or the guy standing across the street. He also was a quick mover. The last picture I got was a turtle. He was pretty far off and pretty big.
Cheryl 5月20日 Photo Ride
After I got the deer I went down to the bay and took pictures of the sunrise and birds. I then went half a mile up towards the main road and what to my wondering eyes should appear? A quail standing in the grass watching me. I again ride right up to him and snapped his picture. I believe this is the first time I have seen quail in a residential neighborhood. They are good to eat.
Well this is pictures of my photo bike ride and I will go out later today and get other pictures…. 5月10日 Planters, Geckos and Lyme DiseaseLook at this gecko. I was walking on my deck and he had another gecko’s head in his mouth. They were fighting and I could almost hear them snarling at each other. I ran in my house to get The neighbor did not want the raised planter. She is always lamenting how she missed gardening now that she cannot get down on her hands and knees to weed, etc. I guess she just complains in order to exercise her mouth because when given the chance to go do her gardening again she turned it down. So I will make use of my small back yard behind the shed. I have used all my other space. I decked out my entire area and have a 30 foot by 4 foot flower garden along the side. I can always convert it to a potato or bigger vegetable garden later. I have used every bit of scrap treated wood I have been able to find that is in good shape and added onto my deck to the point that everything is decked out now. After the hurricane people have been collecting on insurance and throwing out perfectly good lumber. That and I tore apart my daughters deck or a portion of it for the fencing after they sold the back half acre of land. She has that decking and they will expand their deck along their side of the house. Now my decked runway between my house and shed is 45 feet and the width varies from 5 feet to 12 feet. I then built a garage/shed for my bike and that is 5 feet by 9 feet. My bike is almost that big. I have the raised portion of the deck and the sides up. I now need to build the door and the roof. Today I am building a ramp that is 8 feet by 6 feet. I need to get my bike up on the platform and it is to hard on my back to try to lift it. I have done it many times and can’t continue. There is to much threat of injury to my back. The pictures look pin cushioned and they are due to the camera angle. You can tell I used all kinds of sizes of treated lumber and some pretty new and some old. Treated lumber is supposed to last 50 years even if it is underwater. Scattered through the long narrow remaining back yard are a few pieces of useable left over lumber and PVC pipes. Don’t ask me what I am going to do with the PVC. I don’t know yet but in front of the house I have a lot more of it. It is all good new left over piping from construction jobs in the neighborhood. Now you know why I have a huge strong box on the back of my bike. The kids used to be able to ride in it but also I can pick things up and bring them home. The kids turned into giants. I will find a good use for the PVC pipes. Nothing goes to waste and everything has a use. Now I need to find about 30 treated 2X4’s and I will have what I need to do the raised planters. I bought the plastic planter boxes at Home Depot yesterday and now laid out over $100 on the project. I already had about 15 other planters around that will be used. I will do what is called square foot gardening. In a raised planter your production is twice as much as it would be if you were to plant it in the ground. So theoretically this 5 foot wide (actual 3 foot because I need 2 feet of walking space) by 50 foot long space will grow enough to feed a family of 6 and that is what we have here. The plants will be raised enough that you will weed them standing up. The width of the planters will be 2.5 feet and underneath will be shelves of plastic containers for storage of outside equipment. I have five 18 inch wide by 3 foot high nice Rubbermaid 4 drawer chests to hide under the planters. They will be hidden with a fence skirting along the bottom but unknown to anyone else the fence will have inside accordion hinges that open and close. So whatever is in the drawers will be waterproofed and sealed before going into the chests. The chests will not be on the ground but will have a platform built on the ground for them to sit on. When I get to that part I will need 50 foot by 3 feet decking. That is 30 eight foot decking boards. I just checked the price of new treated boards and it would come to $300. Throw in the bottom braces under the decking and you are getting up to $400. Then the 50 feet of fencing is another $100 and then the planter box lumber prices will be another $150. A total of $650. My budget is about $200 so I will get the raised planters in first and begin growing my vegetables. Slowly as I find lumber along the side of the road in the neighborhood. I will get the bottom framing done and then the fencing. I already have accordion hinges but not enough of them so I will have to pay for those and I have plenty decking nails left for the job. Sorry you all had to read this part but I was trying to figure out my construction materials and the price…. Maybe the PVC pipes can be used to hold hanging plants along the top. The fence is 8 feet high so at 7.5 feet I can have the pipes coming across for holding the hanging plants or the racks for things like tomatoes to climb up instead of having them climb up the fence. OK... I have that one figured out…. Enough already… I am Reprinting this Article because it is very important information. Stay safe everyone and Happy Mothers Day. People who venture into the woods or fields should be aware of a very serious, but underreported, threat to their health, the deer tick. Deer ticks carry and transmit Lyme disease and a half dozen other serious diseases. Deer ticks can be found in most parts of the world. They are very common in Central Wisconsin which has a large population of deer, their preferred host. Thanks to the anti-hunting nuts and poor government management practices deer can found in residential neighborhoods, including large cities. 5月7日 Library and Raised Plant BedsOur local library has been closed since Hurricane Ike slammed into it 8 months ago. Not only did I use it but my grandchildren used it every week. Their school was across the street from it and after school they would go there to study or do research. They also used it for a place to go when they waited for their swim team to start or when they needed a ride and were waiting for a parent. It had a big bathroom that accommodated them switching from their school clothes to their swim suits. It was a safer place compared to the school parking lot. AT the library there was always a library worker keeping an eye on them. It is now gone and the replacement won’t be built for another 3 or 4 years.
OOPS..give up the idea of shelves. Underneath it needs to be able to drip. Depending how difficult it is I can then go build one for another neighbor who would give her right arm for such a thing. She has a wheelchair and a scooter. She could wheel her scooter in it and work on her plants. It would be at the right height that she could reach everything. Watering it may be a problem for her. I will have to run a double hose deal on her outside faucet (I have an extra one in the shed) and have an attachment at her height for her to reach the hose with a nozzle on the hose that she can turn on and off from the raised garden. (I also have an extra nozzle like that) Her middle section will have to be wider for her to prevent getting sprayed when she waters the top plants. Her gate would have to be a swinging gate that has a simple hook lock on it. Then there could be a place in it for all her gardening tools. I figure with what I have lying around here and the extra stuff I would need the cost would be about $150. Now that I am writing this and thinking about it I think I will only build her one and me none. She would take great joy in gardening and she would most certainly be overjoyed to share the produce and the seeds she gains with her church people. I would have a steady stream of fresh vegetables from her and in my yard I can plant the under the ground types of plants. Things like carrots, potatoes, etc. Better yet, I would let her look at the picture and have her design it on paper for me to build. She could come up with her own measurements, etc. She would know what heights to use for her beds as it may be different from something I would use. She is always asking me what I am going to do with all this treated stacked lumber in my yard so she will not feel like I am spending a lot of money on it. I could even put a compost bin out there for her garden. Of course it would be quite small and that is all you need for something like this. Now this is exciting…..It is dark and looks like rain today. I will wander over there later with a printed set of pictures of raised garden beds. I will Google it and find other designs also. I can tell you right now where she will locate it. She has a huge side dining room window that she can see everything from. She will want it right there where she can keep an eye on it and it is already built up with pavers so she can wheel herself over to it easily. Very cool idea! Well I will let her come up with the cool ideas and do the building at my house and bring the various sides and pieces over there to assemble. I would rather build it in the shade thank you very much! I will let her come up with the cool ideas and let her know I want one but I don’t want the daily work involved in maintaining it which is true. Her church people will go nuts over it and they will be bringing over the right kind of dirt, etc. Well enough already. As I work on it I will take pictures….. Neat and inexpensive project that will give someone else hours and days of joy, and give me a steady supply of vegetables and medicinal plants. Happy Mother’s Day neighbor…. Later….It is my house cleaning day.. 5月4日 Fiat and Madeline IslandThe first car I ever bought brand new off the shelf was called a Fiat. I paid about $3,000 for it and at that time it was more expensive than an American made car. I liked it because it was small and I thought cute. My husband was trying to be supportive but I could tell he would have preferred that I buy an American made car.
Now the American car companies have crashed and burned and the news is both Orwellian and Kafkaesque, coarsely propagandistic and twisted at the same time. Chrysler, we are told by our president, will emerge stronger, better, more wonderful than ever, etc. Really? Based on what? Sadly, the company has almost no new models in the works, and has partnered up with another failed auto company in Europe which is essentially propped up by another government (Italy) keen on saving a relative handful of high-profile unionized industrial jobs. All of that is for another blog…. My father did no die a rich man but everything he had was paid for. He died in his prime and was just beginning to make enough money to take a vacation. As a child we never went on a vacation and as an adult I never went on a vacation. It just was not a big deal in our family. Before my father died his wish was to see Madeline Island in Wisconsin. That is about as spiritual as he ever got. Madeline Island was the stronghold of the Ojibwa Indians for many years. I guess he wanted to kind of go back to his roots. My mother drove him to Wisconsin and they drove his Chrysler onto the ferry and took the 10 minutes drive around the island. We laughed at the humbleness of his request to see his ancestral homelands but as I matured it became very meaningful to me in my life. It helped me to move back to our ancestral homelands and I stayed for 10 years. All of this rambling brought me to this point. This is what happens if you don’t stay focused on the point. I guess you all don’t get to read my rant on the Big Three today. There is so much of importance to write about and here I am rambling on memories. Like in the front page is “Appointees Gave 4月3日 Cuts, Bites & Fire Ants
No I can't get insurance. At my age it would cost more than my monthly income. In 3 years I will qualify for old age insurance. Medicaire... The deck is totally demolished now. I have the lumber stacked up and the roofers are here today so I can't work outside. Shingles and stuff flying around out there. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Tuesday I wrote: Within minutes of each other I had 2 minor medical problems. I have been tearing down the old 20 foot by 30 foot deck. It is easier to build a deck than tear it down. Many of the screws have rusted and you have to saw each of them off and that is a hard job. Then when you get the plank off you still need to watch out for sharp edges from either the pulled out screws or sawed off ones. Each plank is 10 feet long and pretty heavy since it is all treated lumber. I am stacking them up about 100 feet away. Long walk with something weighing 50 pounds. Then you have the undercarriage of the deck and I have found a few places where that has been rotted away. This treated wood is supposed to last 50 years so I suspect my ex son in law did not use treated wood on the undercarriage. That would be his speed. I know the first 20 feet are treated under carriage lumber because I bought all that lumber about 10 years ago. He added on the last 10 feet later. So it is the last 10 feet that I believe is not treated and probably has termites. I have a contract with Terminex so I called my guy and he will be over later in the week to treat my house and yard anyway. He will know if it is termites.
First I snagged my hand on a rusty screw and it tore an inch long slit in the side of my hand. Remember the board is about 50 pounds and I could not hang onto it when it slipped. Very dirty cut with lots of blood. I sat on the deck and injury number 2. Brown recluse spider bit my leg. He is a dead spider now. He is poisonous and whatever he injected into my skin will rot the skin. I cleaned both my leg and hand with lots of antibacterial soap. Now if I had insurance I would have jumped in the car and spent a few hours at the doctor’s office. No insurance and lots of survival gear here. I put ointment on the hand and bandaged it up. It would not stop bleeding so I went to the next step. I grabbed the wound with locking clamps and had 2 butterfly bandages. As soon as I stopped the flow of blood I sprayed on another antibacterial stuff, let it kinda dry and then squeezed on the 2 butterfly bandages.
The Brown Recluse Solution (in a glass bottle)
When combined...
That problem should be taken care of and I will not need to go get antibiotics for it. I live in a sub tropical rainforest and there are lots of biting things here. Fire ants will actually eat you if you let them. They are meat eaters and we have mounds everywhere. Millions live in each mound. They are fast and efficient. They are up your pant leg before you know you are standing near a mound. Then they all start biting at once and more are crawling up you as you swat the ones already in place. You need to strip off your clothes immediately as you run away brushing off the ones on your skin. The pain only lasts about 10 minutes….thank God! They do not survive the washing machine and that is where your clothes end up after you shake them out. As you shake them out inevitably more find you but you need to shake out your clothes before dumping them in the washer. You can tell I have lots of experience with fire ants. I never saw a fire ant or a cock roach until I got to Texas. I can truthfully say I have no cockroaches in my house. I will get a flying tree roach in a few times a year and that happens when the door is open and usually you don’t know they are there until night. I hunt and release. In my last house I had fire ants and in my last office I had fire ants. No cockroaches… just ants. It was a new house and on all 3 floors I had ants. I would poison them and that would last a month or so and then they were back. So every month I put fire ant poison in the carpeting. That house was totally carpeted and in my new house you might find a throw rug but no carpeting ever. If you spill something or leave crumbs the ants will know it and within a few days they found a way to get in your house. If you are killing ants outside then you take a bar of lye soap and melt it in 5 gallons of water. You pour it all around the mound. After you circle the mound you kick the mound a few times to get all the ants out of their nest and ready for battle. You then pour the lye on them and you might even kill the queen ant. You must circle their mound or they get away. Another method is destroying their scent trail. Just before a rain, or in the early evening before the ants have gone underground for the night, dig up and scatter them. Fling them as far as you can, DOWNWIND. Their scent trails will be washed out by the rain or dew. Most of them will not find their way back. This may need to be repeated several times. Another thing you can do is begin the 3rd world war. It seems that fire ants from different colonies do not get along. You can try putting this to your advantage by mixing up the ants from different mounds. Colonies can be eliminated, or at least, weakened, using this method. It should work, as long as the area you live in does not have multi-queen colonies. When there is only one queen, the fire ants are territorial and will fight invading ants. Using a long handled shovel, take a shovel full from mound one and set it aside. Take a shovel full from mound two and place it where you removed the ants from mound one. Then take the ants you put aside and put them into mound two. If you have three colonies, you can do a three way mix. Watch what happens. You should see piles of dead ants in a few days. If you have them in your house or office then you pretty much have to use a pesticide. I would sprinkle it on my carpeting and a few days later vacuum it. I would follow the ants back to their mound and kill the ones in the mound…but even with that in a few months they are back. Well I took my break from my wounds and now I need to get back out there and tear up the deck. |
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