Family ties

One of the advantages of growing older is that you learn that most people don't expect you to hold your stomach in as far as you once did. (Not that you can anyway). The sand has a way of shifting and the cement settles lower and lower.

Another is that you have (hopefully) gained at least a little wisdom over the years, although after recording my experiences with frost and ice on the back ramp you would think I'd learned a little wisdom from that. Not so, however as my first step down it this morning dumped me unceremoniously on my ass once again, with my right elbow flung out to act as a brace, failing in that assignment and feeling all day as it it were dislocated. It's not, but lifting my arm above my floating ribs requires some help from the left arm. At least pain let's you know you're still alive.

Which brings me to the meat of the post at last.

One of the disadvantages is that you can lose contact with varied relatives for many reason, and then receive a call telling of one of your cousins who died today.

My dad came from a large family with 7 children. Maybe one of the reasons he and mom had 6. My Aunt Margret (his older sister) called a short time ago. One of my Aunt Mary Lou's children (she also had seven) died this afternoon. Cancer apparently. Of the Liver. Found earlier this year during a checkup for a hernia, he, having not insurance and money, let the disease take it's course. To, of course, the inevitable end.

Aunt Mary Lou lost her husband earlier this year. He was a Veteran of WWII and spent a year or two in German POW camps. So she has had her share of grief the last year or so.

If any of you feel motivated to, pray for her and her family. And then give a prayer of thanks for the family and friends around you. They may not be there the next time you think to look.

Tis' the season

Now that the tryptophan has finally started to wear off from the excess of gluttony Thursday past we can finally start working on the pre-Christmas rounds of snacking on all the sugary sweets that are served up by varied and sundry at get together's from now until New Years.

One of my all time favorite sweet things to eat are Sugar Cookies. These were always a favorite around the old home place at Christmas time and were always left out for Santa, along with a tall cold glass of 100% pure non-homogenized, non-pasteurized, fresh from the cows, that day, milk. My dad always called them Tea Cakes. For many years I would always make 12 or 15 dozen and wind up eating most of them myself, along with as much fresh dough as I could stand. Sometimes they're left on a friends doorstep secretly just before Christmas.

Another favorite was Fruit Cake. Many disparage the noble Fruit Cake, but I've always enjoyed it. Homemade by my mother (my dad liked it made a month before and soaked in rum) was of course the Gold Standard, however, in a pinch the Claxton Fruit Cake made in Claxton, Georgia will suffice. For nigh onto 3/4 a century they've dedicated themselves to this gooey delicacy.

The best cake for the Christmas season and the one that lingers upper most in my memory was the Japanese Fruit Cake that my Grandmother made. More like a traditional cake with nuts, raisins, and Coconut in either a 3 layer or 4 layer style, this single thing most means Christmas edibles to me.

I very rarely these days get to enjoy one. Grandmothers and Mothers pass on and if your bride considers it too much work............well, you do without. Not having a tree or lights up is no hardship since we always travel to our oldest daughters home for Christmas and her siblings have there own families and homes now. We all get together to feast, open presents, talk about hunting or the good old days. But something always seems to be missing.

Perhaps it's the cake.

Ooooohhhhhh!!

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You know you've eaten too much thanksgiving turkey when your back starts hurting under the left shoulder blade and then the pain moves to just right of your left nipple and you start wondering if you're old enough to have a heart attack. Then you count 'em up and decide that of course your are. You try to determine if you have eaten sufficiently healthy all of your life and the answer comes back.......Of course not. I mean come on.......all of those biscuits and gravy......the country ham and all the porkchops with the fat left on for the added taste.

You start taking your pulse......trying to determine if it's just a gas bubble or maybe a muscle twitch.......after all you did walk to the mailbox yesterday instead of letting the truck roll back 100 feet, get out, walk 20 ft across the road and back, then drive back up the drive.

No pains in the left arm...that's good.....take a couple asprins and some Malox. Maybe a little nap will help.

Come on sweet darkness, do your worst. Hell holds no horrors I haven't already experienced or imagined. If there is no hereafter it won't matter and if there is all will be forgiven.





(Burp)




Thanks God

For those who may have noticed..........

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.......that I don't seem to have as much to rant about as in days of yore, you're right.

When I, after almost 6 years of service to my country, returned to the family farm, I noticed almost immediately that I had lived in a thermos container which had been tossed out, along with the other trash, onto a planet somewhere in a different dimension that was a passable imitation of the dimension I'd been raised in, but, was as different as night and day.

This may have had something to do with the large amounts of TCP which was spewed into the atmosphere in America while I was away, or the copious amounts that emanated from the pores and clothes of most of the enlisted men (this being before some wise ass came up with the idea that women could do anything more than be clerks and camp followers, with the exception of nurses, who were automatically made officer material and so, hopefully, wouldn't mix with the Hoi Poli, and could successfully hump a 60 lb rucksack with the best of them.)

Whatever the reason, I had landed someplace strange.

A land where an ever increasing percentage of the population wanted........NO.....demanded that government should take more and more responsibility for their pathetic little live and especially the education and daily care of their pathetic offspring. Where the old saying that "those who can't do.......teach but you by god better not hold my kid responsible for actually learning anything of substance, nor expect we the parents to have any control over them. But, you better not lay a hand on them if they decide to rape a 8 year old girl on the bus. You should have taught them better.

Anyway, I just don't have it in me to rant on and try to convince others that there is a better way.

Besides, there are so many others who can elucidate the problems more literately and eloquently than I.

Fred is back. Go see what he has to say HERE.

Fall Road Trip

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Today was one of those almost perfect fall days. It started out a little cool, just enough to require a light jacket, with a turquoise blue sky, and that crisp clean snap to the air that makes your blood stir with just a hint of desire to travel to the hills.



The weather has been so dry this year that the leaves are sure to put on a show. We had a little rain the other night and wind the next day so we need to go soon before the leaves are past their peak.

I've been installing plastic totes to the gutter downspouts so we can catch what little rain we can to water the dog and some of the young grass we've planted. 350 gallons each from only 3/4 inch of rain. I have two more 250 gallon each I'll place at one end of my new shop building.



So we set our course (the spouse, the pooch and I) up Hwy 441 to I 85 to Hwy 11 in South Carolina. We motored through Seneca, S.C. towards Clemson, home of the tigers, then north towards Salem on Hwy 130. (Had I known I could have just stayed on 11 most of the way up we could have shaved probably 30 minutes off the trip.)

The absence of cars along our intended route made this a distinctly pleasant trip. Much better that following everyone else up through Clayton, GA on Hwy 441 to Franklin, N.C. I can't abide crowds and especially crowds of idiots in cars.

Shortly after entering North Carolina we turned off to the right to the park, which is a part of the Nantahala National Park.

The first thing that surprised us was the fact that even though the weather has been below freezing up there, a couple of Rhododendron bushes still had blooms on them.



Beauty endures forever, even if it is a feeble reminder of the glory of days past.

The foliage on the trees above us contrasting with the blue sky put a little spring in our steps, aided of course by the pooch wanting to pull us up the trail.



The views from the overlook were still incredible though the water going over the falls is probably less than 25% of normal.



When seen at its full flow the noise is a roar that envelopes you and holds you enthralled. Todays noise was a pleasant background to the rustling of leaves and an occasional bird call.

We clambered down the 154 wooden steps to a lower vantage point ( I know, I had to climb back up). From the picture try to imagine the Cataract that would be falling if the full width of the gorge was filled with water.



Aided by our faithful pooch (who kept encouraging us up the steps) we retraced our steps to the top.



Part way down we sat for a few minutes just enjoying the view over Lake Toxaway



and raising our eyes to the heavens to witness the beauty that nature can provide even in times of need



And so home where I snored in the big black recliner while the minute hand circled the clock a little more than once around.

Hope your weekend was all you hoped it would be.

i get all bothered

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if I don't post something on this blog every few days at least.

Sundays post was a have to, because I'd just watched "We were Soldiers once" on TV. The completion of that title is of course "and young". which we were. I've always been embarrassed that some movies touch me more than I can let on and I have to shed a few private tears. Always have but we were raised to not cry or let anyone see.

Yeah, foolish I know. Goes with the "and young".

Of course I'm still sorta young to my way of thinking. When you intend to remain in this stage of life for 192 years, almost 58 is pretty young. Sorta like a hobbit. I'll begin to feel grown up about the time I reach eleventy one.

Been sorta hard to see the computer screen since Thursday when I put my precious vision into the hand of a certain colorful doctor here abouts and his bevy of attractive blond headed assistants and had interlase lasix surgery on the baby blues.

When I was still in short pants (which I never wore, so this is a bit of literary license) I had 20/15 vision in both eyes. Came in handy for spotting flies on the inside of the cockpit bubble. Since having to wear glasses for reading was a bother I thought I'd get all modern and everything and take advantage of the Star Trek technology available today. I'm proud to say that I again have 20/15 in the right (for distance) eye and 20/20 in the left (for reading) eye.

Just not at the distance which any reasonable person would sit from a computer screen. So everything on the panel is fuzzy. They say it will improve, but, as ever, I want what I want, right now.

I was glad of the Valium they gave before the procedure. Both of them. Should have made it 3 or 4 since I still hated having them fool around with my eyes.

The ironic thing though is that as misty as I get watching movies such as the above mentioned, I seem to have something known now as Dry Eye syndrome. There has to be a problem for everything so the pharmaceutical companies can continue turning out massive quantities of heretofore unheard of remedies for brand new problems. Now if they'd only come out with better pills for the nosies in my head.

But I'm much better now doc, just keep those electrodes away from the kudzu grotto.

No Words

They're for the most part meaningless.

Just Tears.

And a remembrance that for every minute of every hour of this 24 hour period, 40 young men, and some women, of all races, creeds and colors, died in a far off distant land that was our war.
And so many others in other wars that supposedly protected or furthered the interests of this country.

You may not recognize them on the street, they look much as you or I, but if you could see inside their eyes, for only a brief moment, your outlook would be changed forever.

A most heart felt thank you to all Veterans who served, some to the last drop of devotation within their hearts, and especially to those who remain.

Thank YOU.

Fall

Is beginning to really look like it around these parts.

Some of the leaves are starting to take on that dying golden tint



and will soon be all over the yard and in the gutters.



Down to almost freezing tonight, they say.

Makes one appreciate the flannel sheets on the bed.

Soon we'll be fighting to see which one of us can use the pooch to curl up next to our back.

At last.......

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........after much lifting, nailing and stretching, and once placing too much trust in a 2 x 6, which led to falling off the top and having the same (now broken) 2 x 6 knock me out on the way to the floor, I have the storage building to the point where I spent the weekend filling it half full of Stuff I hadn't seen for the most part in over a year. Which leads one to wonder what the hell I need all this for. Well, I did find a TV that I didn't remember we had, but obviously I didn't have a crying need for it. It does give me room to walk around and look at all the stuff I probably don't have a real need to possess. But It's mine, by damn and for the minor cost of renting a storage unit for 4 years I now have it right out back.

Still not quite complete,



Less than half the "stuff'



Another less than half



After I get some electricity out there I'll be prepared if I'm regulated to the dog house. Well, except for plumbing. I can always keep a roll of Charmin out back of the building on a stick.

Life, Liberty, Property

"God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it."
Daniel Webster

Far be it from me to try to argue with Ol’ Daniel, I'd just add that sometimes you have to love it more than TV, weekends, Nascar, or life.


I particularly like this speech

Tears of the Sun

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Just watched Tears of the Sun on DVD for the umpteenth time. We got a "new to us" JVC 55 inch TV for $150.00 Saturday. Moved the old 36 in. in to the old grumps room. The funny thing is that both of these sets came from the same guy. First he gave up the 36 in. because he was getting the bigger set. Now he's upgraded to a 62 in. plasma flat panel TV. Can hardly wait till he gets a full wall theater sized TV.

Perfect timing for the dish network to give out for a couple of days, hence the DVD.

All ways get a good feeling after watching this movie. It stars Demi Moore's ex husband, Bruce Willis. The funny thing is that I know there are really people like that serving in our armed forces. And that's a good thing and I'm really thankful that they are there.

Pray for their safety and protection. I will.

Bushed!!

No, I haven't been assaulted by the President, or anyone else for that matter.

It's just that in a 14 hour day I drove 400 miles, had 5 business meetings ranging from 10 minutes to just short of an hour.

I think I'm going to have myself a sticky bun, with a glass of milk, lick the sticky off my fingers and go to bed, where I'll put on my breathing mask and have dreams of flying a P-51 over the fatherland on the lookout for Stuka’s's or ME bf 109’s.

Thinks I hate

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Things I hate include, but are not limited to,

1. Bureaucrats who forget that they exist to serve the PEOPLE of this country.
2. Politicians who forget that they are supposed to serve.......(see above)
3. Lawyers who work to get around the guarantees and protections of the Constitution and Bill of Rights of The United States.
4. Bankers who feed us bullshit and keep us in the dark about the fact that our current money (Federal Reserve Notes) is backed by nothing and has no intrinsic value whatsoever.
5. AND ALL OTHER BOTTOM FEEDING SCUM SUCKERS WHO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF ALL THE ABOVE.

Having cleared my spleen of that, I'm of the firm opinion that if we as individuals would help one another like we are supposed to. I mean really care for one another, there would be much less want in this country.

My friend, The Lovely Livey, is in need of some new wheels. Or at least newer than falling apart around her ears old.

I propose a raising Livey a newer vehicle fund. Not many people read me, but if the idea was passed along, who knows what might happen.

Check out her blog, iffen you don't like her you don't ever have to visit again.

It'll be interesting to see where this all leads.

Or am I a Pollyanna in the Kudzu?

Does anybody know...

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.....anything about silver plate flatware?

I picked up a partial set of National Silver Co. AA Plus spoons, forks, knives plus a few other pieces from another maker today?




Have I found anything, or did I waste my money?
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Look into the light.

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That's supposedly what they'll tell you when you're having laser vision correction done.

Went to a short seminar tonight to see what the procedure consists of and how much the cost might be. I'm tired of getting a new eyeglass prescription and 2 months later my eyes have changed so that one eye is fine and the other is starting to blur or feel like it can't keep up with the other.

I can remember when one of my sisters got contact lenses and the doctor couldn't fit them in his office because she became hysterical when anybody got close to her eyes, then she got one in at home and immediately it worked it's way to the top of her eyeball and mama and I had to hold her down to get it out. Sorry Sis. I know how you feel about anybody fooling with your eyes. I'm the same way. When they had to measure the pressure on our eyeballs in the army I wanted them to give me Valium or let me get drunk first. I hated that shit!

Nowadays the ophthalmologist uses machines to map your eyeballs and vision. The results are input to a computer which plots exactly what needs to be done to give you better than perfect vision. All the doctor has to do is keep you calm with drugs and eye numbing drops and talk you through the procedure which expensive machines do in less time than it takes to tell about it.

At $2500.00 per eye, each one of which is completed in less than a minute, they can afford to have a couple of half million dollar machines and a host of cute female assistants hustle you in and out like cars on an assembly line.

All that medical stuff on Star Trek in the 60's is almost here. I'm just looking forward to the day when they can transplant brains like McCoy did to Spock. About the time I'm drooling and trying to remember how to put on my pants they can just scoop mine out and replace it with some jock's that couldn't keep his foot off the accelerator and tried to make it around Dead man's Curve.

We Got Some Rain!!!!!!!

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Hooray, Hooray!!! we got some rain early this morning while I slept. About 3/4's of an inch according to the rain gauge on the oak stump.

Yesterday while we were expecting rain I cut one of the downspouts and routed it into a 350 gallon tank. When I looked out this morning it was nearly full. Over 300 gallons from just one downspout.. Had I had 3 other tanks as I plan to, I would have about 1000 gallons of free water to water the yard, flowers, even put in a small goldfish pond if I were so inclined.

Makes one think of all the abundance that we just ignore at our peril. Cities are feuding over water around here. Seems that if the government wanted to do something constructive they would build more public lakes, even smallish ones, for the times of need.

Didn't some wise ruler once save Egypt by storing up for the lean times?

I'm no greenie, in fact I find most of them sorta foolish whining about why the government doesn't do something, when if they would only do something themselves they would accomplish more good.

We were supposed to get rain

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It would be an answer to lots of prayers here abouts. I went through a couple of years drought back when dairy farming, and it was bad. I didn't think we were going to survive for a while. We had to buy hay from Wisconsin at what we thought were outrageous prices. But we made it.

This drought is much worse. Total outdoor watering bans in most of the surrounding counties.

An eternal optimist, I plowed and seeded my yard last weekend.

It looked like rain this morning. I worried that Home Depot wouldn't be able to bring out my building supplies. All we had was dust.

I started me a small storage and shop building just after lunch.

Before picture:




By supper time:





And the morning and the afternoon were the first day.

It took them long enough.

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To confirm what Carl Sagan told us 20 years ago.

The speed of light is 186,282 miles per second in a vacuum. I've never been in a vacuum, but, I was once in an altitude chamber with the air sucked out to simulate being at over 40,000 ft above sea level. Then we took our oxygen masks off to see if we could tell when we noticed anything like passing out.


I was doing real well up to about the 4 minute mark when they told me to put the mask back on. I heard the words, I knew what they meant, but I was incapable of acting on what I knew and was told. Thankfully the government doesn't like to let all that money they spent on junior birdmen go to waste, and they put my mask on for me..

If aliens ever suck all the oxygen out of our atmosphere, we'll just quietly keel over dead thinking everything is hunky-dory as our lungs keep expanding and contracting until the brain shuts down for good.

But back to this article. Apparently anytime we look up in the sky we are looking at the past. The more distant the object the further in the past we're looking. If we find Proxima Centauri in a telescope we see light beamed earthward over 4 years ago.

Some say that pictures from the Hubble Telescope show galaxies 15 billion light years ago. Are they still there? If we could travel faster than light would we arrive where they are supposed to be, to find only rubble, the results of inter-galactic warfare perhaps?

Einstein's theories supposedly tell us we'll never be able to break the light barrier. I prefer to think that anything the mind of man can conceive, man can achieve someday.

Does this contradict what bible believers think, that the earth is only 6000 years or so old? It always strikes me as a little arrogant for anyone to claim to know the mind and will of God in as much as it relates to his purpose for us. If intelligence is the glory of God, shouldn't we best be trying to obtains as much of intelligence as possible? It strikes me as a little demeaning to think that an intelligent creator would want us to sit around on clouds singing hosannas for eternity, or to never discover how to travel to the farthest reaches of space one day.

Or should I pull the Kudzu up over my head in an effort to hide from his wrath?

Lord........what fools .........

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........we mortals be.

We have enough food to make the majority of us, if not obese, at least with a more than healthy layer of fat stored. We spend energy like it is de-valued instead of costing more every day.. We work overtime to the ruin of our health...... and families. We have at our disposal a wealth of time and effort saving appliances, and want more.

We're like the squirrel running out every limb of the hickory tree in the yard to make sure there isn't another nut that hasn't been checked.

Makes me wish sometimes to be a hawk, floating on the updrafts and currents, dipping and rolling with the pure pleasure of being alive to witness all that can be seen.

What will we see..........when we look back???

Change in the weather

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OK, OK, I know that I complain about every thing, but this mornings cooler weather has me drawing up and thinking about maybe a long sleeved shirt.

As a true blue son of the South, it takes my patrician blood a little longer to adjust to cold snaps than I'd like. A nice 75 degrees year round would be much more to my liking. Where's Noble Peace Prize winner Al Gore's vaunted global warming now?

You just know that the Noble Prize committee lost what very little credibility they had left when they hung that medal around his neck. About as much credibility as Britteny Spears winning Mother of the Year.

Old Alfred Noble's guilt for inventing Dynamite all those years ago has carried down through the years, causing great peals of laughter to ring out from thinking individuals around the world whenever they call someone like Jimmuh Carter, Arafat, or Algore deserving of that award.

Shivering like a dog passing razor blades here in 48 degree weather. Whatta wuss.