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I'm moving over to Southernboyrambles.com. 

 

Pecan or Pecan

Most of my youth, and some of my adulthood, was spent on a small dairy farm.  At the time 316 acres seemed a giant of a place with fields, pastures, uncut woods, small streams (I still call them creeks), the barnyard and outbuildings and, of course, the old house we called home.  

In front... the front yard naturally, with a front porch and the living room which was a little hard to understand to me because it was reserved for visitors and Christmas.

on the west side back was the "Back door" which opened into the kitchen and was always the point of entry into the house.  For one thing it was closest to the driveway and more importantly to the dairy barn and every thing that happened.

 Directly across the driveway was three of the best things about living on a farm.

Two old pecan trees and one walnut tree forming a triangle  all of which were huge and possible planted in the late 1800's. They all three forked about 5 or 6 feet off the ground and were linked on two of the triangle sides with clothes line wire.

It was a magical place to play in when the sheets were hung on the line.  I could imagine myself anywhere my young mind could conceive.

Not every year, but, maybe every 3rd year the pecan trees would be loaded with nuts.  The walnut tree was sort of old fashioned and steadily provide black walnuts every year.  But the pecan trees were special.

 For one thing, well.. the every 3rd year thing, but mostly because of the fun of eating those wonderful nuts. And besides, the pecans were a lot easier to crack.

You see the walnuts would drop in their thick green husk which then turned black and would stain your skin clothes or anything else they came in contact with. So you either had to wait until that had decayed and then you could smack the nut with a hammer, or a rock if that was handy.  And then you better have a nail flattened on the end ( 8 penny nails were a perfect size.  While the pecan husks would open while on the tree and then drop those brown and black striped nuts which my mom and dad could crack easily in their hands and the meat would almost naturally fall out in two halves.  (better not use too much force though, or you'd crush the halves and would have to hunt and peck for the pieces.

It was a great time to be young and alive.

But, for all my 60 some odd years the controversy has raged.  Even before that and I'm sure even long into the future.

How do you pronounce the word Pecan?

I personally say pa Khan and others say Pee can.  

Each looks at the other as being backwoods or unlettered, perhaps putting on airs in an effort to be seen as superior to the other as if it were a matter of world shaking importance.  Perhaps ranking up there with whether to get a tattoo or not, maybe even as high as whether your drive a Ford or a Chevy.

Maybe it doesn't really matter.

Maybe it really only matters if you eat them in your brownies or your  scrumptious paKahn pie!  

  

 

Why do I feel so confused?

or

 Did I take my happy pills this morning?

Have you found yourself asking questions like these of late?  Does down seem up and up seem down to you?  WTH is going on here?  Why don't I trust politicians or the msm as much as I used to.  Do you find yourself asking people, "What would uncle Walter Cronkite do"?

 Weren't we getting along with the Russians just a little while ago?  Didn't we say we would wipe ISIS from the scene?  

Did I go to sleep 5 years ago and wake to find the world inside out?

Weren't we supposed to find that our health insurance premiums would go down $2500?  With a better benefit package and all at the same Dr. as before?

 Folks, I have deliberately tried to distance myself from the world a bit.  Sit back and let it go on it's merry way.  Listen to the social engineers and be happy with the new found peace and contentment in my life.

Perhaps you too might be feeling a bit light headed after reading headlines like these,

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1968311/america-plotting-to-allow-9000-isis-fighters-to-escape-terror-capital-mosul-so-they-can-attack-russian-troops-moscow-outrageously-claims/

 I don't know about you, but, I'm beginning to wonder if there is any sanity left, or, 

Maybe I need to talk to the doc about getting my dosage increased!

White House wants to add new racial category 

 

 I note with a bit of head shaking that the minions in Washington want to add a new racial category for people from the middle east and north Africa.  

As that big headed kid from the comic strip used to say, 

"Good Grief!" 

Here's a novel idea.

Instead of trying to separate us all into warring factions.  Why don't we just start to refer to all people around the world, without regard to skin tone, shape of eyes or ears, language, big or small, short or tall, as simply HUMAN !

Or maybe even as brother or sister?   

Check out their spurious reasoning here:

 http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2016/09/30/white-house-wants-add-new-racial-category-middle-eastern-people/91322064/

It seems a strange thing

A very curious and strange thing that I have been privileged to witness the death of quite a few people during my time.

The strange part is the fact that I do feel privileged as opposed to grief, or sadness.   Certainly not happy in any way, and some I would take great pleasure in being able to once again enjoy their company and conversation... even their love.  To once again see their smiles and hear their stories.

But, I mean to say that I am glad, even if only for a moment, to have been touched by their lives.  Whether it was for good or ill.

I think the first death I was aware of was a young boy in my 6th grade class, Berven Chipley.  He and his brother we playing in the woods.  Their activity was finding dead pine trees that were still standing and if they could they'd push against them until they started rocking back and forth and snapped off.  Unfortunately on the last one when it snapped instead of falling away from them it snapped off and fell toward them.  His brother escaped, but a pine limb pierced him through the liver and pinned him to the ground.  

He'd seemed a happy boy with family that loved him.  While I was not close to him, nor attended his funeral, I marveled at the outpouring of grief and love my classmates expressed.  

My first glimpse of mortality.

The next followed soon after when my maternal Grandfather passed from stomach Cancer.  From a tall hale man he'd withered down to a shell of his former self, to the point that my mother could pick him up and turn him in his bed.  My Grandmother had started taking in borders to pay the bills when he got sick and she kept that up until dying many years later at the age of 75.  And I saw love and nurturing, caring, yes and grief, but an enduring spirit that always stuck with me.

A great uncle who died of leukemia not long after I'd married.

Young student pilots engaged in forbidded helicopter antics during flight school in Mineral Wells, Texas

Comrades-in-Arms in Vietnam.  Some by enemy action, many during acts of heroism, a couple by suicide, and two by stupidity.

Some were very close and dear to me and many I only knew because we served together.  All touched me more than I would recognize or admit for long years after.

And there were the enemy.  Quite a few I'm sure by my actions.

I learned to respect them.

So many through the years, for it seems that as the years go faster so to do the number of deaths that impact you pile up faster and faster.  And each one leaves it's mark.

My father in an accident, totally unexpected.  Grandmother, Grandfather, aunts and uncles.  My Mother after a long long struggle.

And along the way there were the animals; dogs, cats, cows, horses, and of course the animals that provided food.

I'd never been afraid of making the hard choice and even committed a few in great anger that it was necessary.  Maybe because in some way I caused it, or contributed to it.

But, now I'm faced with the, not possibility, but the certainty that my old dog, Gracie Mae, that Dalmatian, fur shedding, one blue eye and one brown, almost 19 years of happiness and joy of having me as her human is literally on her (I want to say last legs) but, the front two work fine.  And she gives the first impression of being much younger, as she runs to see me, begs for touching and petting pushing herself up against me, just for the pleasure it gives her seemingly to have me around.

I'm faced with the choice of keeping her around until she one day can't or won't be able to get up, or paying some veterinarian that doesn't know her to give a final injection, or do it myself in a somewhat more brutal, but almost Viking send off.  Which thing I have done many times..

But this time. 

 

And sometimes stuff happens

A quiet day here in the pecan orchard.  Eschewing church for the opportunity to wash, dry and fold some laundry..........floors got mopped the deck cleared of oak detritus the tree rats insist on causing to fall.
The old spotted dog even got washed.  Which came as quiet a surprise to her.

When the cabin fever got too bad I drove over to a buddy's and helped him put a new radiator in a Crown Vic he's been trying to get running, while waiting for a title to be found.  Nice former police care but hasn't been running in a while.  Supposedly all that was wrong with it was the radiator was leaking. Based solely  on the fact that it over heated on a drive to town.  And the previous owner telling the same story.

Anyhoo the radiator got changed out with only a small amount of skin and blood lost.

Crank the Car.  Start filling radiator...........everything sounds good........but it sure seems to take a lot of water.  Look under the car to see if anything can be seen.

Water running out as fast as going in.  Oh, probably heater core he thinks.  So we bypass the heater core.  Surely this will fix it.  Try it again.......

STUFF!!

Probably a cracked block.....

I quietly exit the neighborhood before he can get it jacked up and goes ballistic.

Sometimes you just don't get a break.

First tentative steps back into the Interwebz 

Welcome back to the world of the semi-concious.  Just over two years have passed since I put anything out to the world.  Lots has gone on. Most of it not worth explaining.

Couple of things stick out:

1.  I don't care to be a part of the populace that keeps the current system in place as far as my God-given rights are concerned.  I'll watch and perhaps comment if I just can't help myself, but, for the most part, consider what happens in Washington, DC, HollyshitWood, and things reported by the MSM as something beneath notice most days.

2.  I'll try to give you a taste of rural life and the efforts I'm making to make things grow around here.

kdzu

Memorial Day 2013

A gentle lesson.

Some congratulate Veterans on Memorial Day.

I worked behind the shop and mowed the entire lawn today.

And thought............

Of all the barbeques and boats bobbing in the lake and all the bottles and cans of beer Consumed...

but, I didn't think much on them.


Please in no way take the next words as rebuke.  I was honored to serve my country as I thought I understood it and the Constitution we took oath to defend.  I am honored that you think of me as hero.  I will always try to be that for you as much as I know how.  My time as soldier marked me forever, ill or good.  Contributed to what and how I am today.  I have an ever greater appreciation of that as the days go by.

But, Memorial day, I'm afraid, will always be a time of sadness somewhat for me, for it is not just the barbeques, or the parades and the politicians high sounding blathering s to masses of ignorant sheeple.  Not stupid people, but people who yearn to have someone tell them what to think and do

Rather, I remember the dead I personally know and those I never knew, except through stories and histories, personal accounts of people who did know and serve with them, before my time and now in wars and conflicts both known and unknown, who believed and believe they were/are doing something required and right, whether it is/was or not, whether it truly made a difference, or not.

I remember the mother and father I had to inform that their precious son was not just missing, but gone.  Obliterated as if he had never been in the front seat of that Cobra, never ran home from school with excitement to tell of what he had learned that day, never taken his first turn behind the wheel of the family car, mother or father nervously watching, hoping he'd never be in an accident where they were not there to guide and counsel him out of the danger zone.
Remember those I saw fall, salute the boots and helmets, grief for the lose of their camaraderie, shameful for the relief that........there but for the grace of God.........

Mine not the only story, only one........one out of all the hundreds of thousands. 

Stories we should remember with sadness and pride, not only on Memorial Day, but each and every day.

AGW Just Damn

Can you believe this weather?
No?
Neither do I.  52 degrees on May 4th, 9:20 in the am. with wind blowing 15 to 30 mph.

I've always been glad to live in the South............ Now?  I'm beginning to want to move farther south.

This is the time I've lain by corn before, or was at least giving it a first weeding.  Around the Kudzu area the farmers are just now planting their silage corn, and probably wondering if they'll have to re-plant

Makes me want to go and stick a pin in Al Gore

The Possum

Ol' "Possum" is gone.  All my life I've identified with so many of the lyrics he wrote and the songs he sang.  Always leading with his heart.  And sometime having that sucker stomped flat.  Like I say, "identify".

If I could go back in time and change any of the choices.......... I don't believe truly that I'd change a one.

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For the love of little Chill dren

And the peace of mind of all the world, you need to turn in those evil guns right now.

Never mind that just over 129 years ago our peace loving government disarmed almost 300 of our citizens with heroic bravery.

http://www.commonsensejunction.com/?p=21553&print=1

December 29, 2012 marked the 122nd Anniversary of the murder of 297 Sioux Indians at Wounded Knee Creek on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. These 297 people, in their winter camp, were murdered by federal agents and members of the 7th Cavalry who had come to confiscate their firearms “for their own safety and protection.” The slaughter began after the majority of the Sioux had peacefully turned in their firearms. The Calvary began shooting, and managed to wipe out the entire camp. 200 of the 297 victims were women and children. About 40 members of the 7th Cavalry were killed, but over half of them were victims of fratricide from the Hotchkiss guns of their overzealous comrades-in-arms. Twenty members of the 7th Cavalry’s death squad, were deemed “National Heroes” and were awarded the Medal of Honor for their acts of [cowardice] heroism.

With, I have been told, approximately 1/16 Cherokee blood running through my veins, and the rest consisting of the blood of US citizens going back to at least the early 1700's I'm really reassured by the care and concern our government is showing for us.

Wiping the sweat from my prepetuallly furrowed brow

Whew!.

I've been hunkered down here in the Kudzu Grotto (KG) since before Santy Claws time worrying about that there Financial Cliff (FC) that all those news people on the Big Rectangular Must Have Information Box (BRMHIB) sitting there so smugly catty cornered in the blue room, even those crackpots on the Fox beauty pageant channel, have been yammering on since the election.  Even to the point of keeping my haid down for more than a week after they claimed they'd fixed it forever and ever, amen!   I've seen too many rabbits shot down like the furry raskals they are cause they just couldn't sit there, all hunched up and hidden like, til those evil gun toting, bible fearing, kindergarden killers walked right on by with their eyes clouded over cause they know so damned much totin' they ass haulter AK's.

I ain't gonna be the first rabbit to run just cause some pompadoured talking head said everything was just fine now.

And that may be a good thing since I jest took a look at how many gazillion greenbacks is gonna be sweated by us field hands for the benefit of our betters and masters.  Which will enable them to pay off all our IOU's down at the plantation warehouse and general store, stead of them just adding on more to the totals on those brown paper sacks they keep fer each 'un of us in the hogshead barrel in the back room.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-01-01/putting-americas-tax-hike-perspective

I feel so much better now.

I can climb up the financial ladder to the surface and take a shower under the garden hose with some Dawn dishwashing liquid, cause the better half was beginning to cringe a little bit when she thought I might be fixin to ask her for a little hug to wipe all my fears away.

Every thing be coming up roses now, fer shore!

Not sure of the math they used.....

But this is way more murders that all the gun and knife murders, or all murders for that matter in the US for that year.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/01/08/A-Joyful-Planned-Parenthood-We-Aborted-Over-333-000-Babies-In-2011

I wonder how long before we ban abortions in this country?

Oh yeah!  This is apparently what we the people want.

Karma's a bitch ain't it.

Shades of Solyndra

Maybe I'm just a conspiracy nut, but, I've got to wonder if this loan is payoff for political donations to the O'bummer campaign.

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20130109/AUTO0104/301090398/Nissan-launching-production-Leaf-U-S-?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|FRONTPAGE|s

"Nissan Motor Co. said it will begin U.S. production of its all-electric Leaf on Thursday in Tennessee as part of a $1.4 billion government loan."

We all know how well those other green loans turned out.

Some days it doesn't pay to get out of bed

I've got to wonder if this guys karma is good or bad.

Whatever, his luck is spectacularly bad........or good, depending on how he looks at it.

http://www.myfoxorlando.com/story/20541269/pennsylvania-man-fails-at-2-suicide-attempts-on-interstate-before-work


"State police say a man twice tried to kill himself on Interstate 79 in southwestern Pennsylvania before going to work".

Mariah

One of the smaller benefits of living atop a slight hill surrounded by pasture and fields is that there is absolutely nothing to stop the wind from sliding under the porch and around the foundation, through myriad cracks and holes of this 113 year old farmhouse.  Especially on the first day of winter and the end of the world as we knew it.  Damn those Mayans!

Even the Leland Cypress trees along the road  don't slow it down, and the bare branches of the Post, Blackjack, Southern Red and White Oaks only seem to intensify the cold as the wind howls among them.

The good news is that unless Armageddon happens within the next two hours, twelve minutes, Spring is only 3 months away.  That means that here in NE GA we'll be getting some 70 degree days along about the end of February.  Sorry Minnosota............sucks to be you.

In honor of the wind.......

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Way out west, they got a name

For rain and wind and fire

The rain is Tess, the fire's joe and

They call the wind Mariah

O no, Mariah blows the stars around

And sends the clouds a-flying

Mariah makes the mountain sounds

Like folks were up there dying

Mariah, They call the wind Mariah

Now before I knew Mariahs name

And heard her wail and whining

I had a girl and she had me

And the sun was always shining

O, but then one day I left my girl

I left her far behind me

And now I'm lost, I'm oh so lost

Not even God can find me

Mariah, O, Mariah, They call the wind Mariah

I hear they got a name for rain

And wind and fire only

But when you're lost and all alone

There ain't no words but lonely

And I'm a lost and lonely man

Without a star to guide me

Mariah, blow your love to me

I need my girl beside me

He, Mariah, O, Mariah

I'm lonely can't you see

Mariah, O, Mariah

Please blow my love to me

Mariah, blow my love to me

Sunday Evening with out the big screen tv

At the end of what seems like a long day, (long enough for a little nappy po right after lunch) I begin to reflect on the almost over Thanksgiving extended weekend.
On Thursday the kudzu wife and I journeyed down to her sister's house for turkey and dressing, giblet gravy and sweet potato souflee.  SIL's daughter and newish husband were there along with daughters son by first marriage and his friend John.  Big boy.......Big appetite.  Also attending were SIL's platonic boyfriend and his young son.  A great time.......I did not have too much to drink.

Friday was a clean up day here at the new Kudzu Grotto (I'm searching for a better name) a 112 year old house and acreage.  With assignments from the kudzu wife I started early and stayed at it until late.  Cleaning and dusting......those little things, while the KW was preparing pumpkin pie, cheese cake, two largest turkey breasts.  (man those things were smelling good)  We were looking forward to the first full family get together in the KG.

Saturday arrived and people started arriving before noon.  Son's in law started the fish fryer up to deep fry some cubed wild turkey breasts.  (be still my beating heart, not a piece left over for munching on today. 

Georgia trounced Georgia Tech at the dome in Atlanta which looked great on the old JVC big screen we scrounged from neighbor when he upgraded to plasma years ago.  Got through the game and then since nothing else of interest was on the boob tube was turned over to the teenagers to play games on.
Somehow before they left the volume had completely quit.  That's nice when you're wanting people to just leave already, but not so much if you want to chill out with mindless tv before bed.

So maybe the day seemed long because of no TV, but hey, I got some pecans picked up, ensured the well was adequately covered for the cooler weather that's coming.

I did have some time yesterday to discuss politics and economic conditions with some.  We're all sort of thrashing around trying to keep businesses afloat in what seems like hopeless conditions at the present.  The good things for the elders is we're either out of debt or getting closer.  Still we worry about the younguns, even though some are over 40.

Somehow I suspect that we'll all be judging people by the marks poised by ol' Rudyard in the coming months and years.


If
by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son! 

I think we'll all know a lot more  by the time next Thanksgiving rolls around.

Who cares what I think?

What matters is what you think.

http://theferalirishman.blogspot.com/2012/11/when-you-get-minute-watch-thisseriously.html

Let the chips Fall!

 Just my opinion

David,
As your attempt to meet with Isakson shows, the GOP establishment does not want Tea Party advice.  In their arrogance they believe they have all the answers. 
IMO we don't need them.  The old establishment has to fail,  and will.   Let it!!  They have purposely let it get to the point of destruction because they have only the ideas of the past.  They are welded at the hipbone with the money lenders, bankers, printers, crony capitalists, war-makers and defense (so called.  How much money would they make if peace broke out) industrialists.
Power-brokerage is their business and life.
Again, IMO, we need to concentrate on building up 9/12 groups, Tea Partiers who have not bought into the establishment, true constutionalists and others of like mind.
If we become big, strong, committed and numerous......including all True Freedom Lovers on the right and the left, and believe me they are out there (go watch the Glenn Beck show from last night)
THEN........will we have something with which to compete and win.  We will have to create a new paradigm in education, politics and government..........and the established order will fight us tooth and nail.  Hell fire............we're all ready doing it amongst ourselves.
We are going to have to first form into tribes on a local level, committed to one another, then to the next tribe, until we are ready to form a NEW Nation conceived in Liberty (sorry Abe).
Let the old regime fall...........

Only then will the people be ready to learn about liberty and freedom again.

What say you?

Nothing has changed

Well, it sure didn't take long for the republicrats to show they learned nothing from the last election, did it?

Mark Rubio, Newt and all the rest of the good ol' boys have jumped all over Mitt Romney for saying what we all know to be true.

The democians won the presidential election because of the gifts Obama handed out.

OH No!!!!

We can't be alienating any potential votes for us by telling the truth, can we?

We can't say that women want free contraception including abortions all paid for by somebody else

We can't say that people want 2 years of unemployment paid for by somebody else

We can't say that we would rather give out free housing, food and entertainment to the socially disadvantaged in order to keep them from throwing cement blocks from the overpasses

We can't say that the poor, poor, pitiful poor in this country live a lifestyle several orders of magnitude better than  90% of the rest of the world

We can't say that it wouldn't affect the rest of us one whit that some women want to marry other women, or that some men would like the opportunity to do the same, when for decades we've worked to destroy the institute of marriage by paying unwed mothers to not only give birth to their bastards but support them the rest of their lives

We can't say that it's OK to drink one drug or inhale as many mind altering drugs as possible as long as a medical doctor writes the prescription, but don't you dare try to gain access to other substances we've labeled as illegal, because we need a war on them in order to keep our prisons full and provide employment to petty dictators wearing a badge  an a holier than thou attitude

We can't say we have to support the armament industries by bombing the shit out of third world countries.  We're spreading democracy don't you know.  (The founding fathers would shoot us out of hand for using the word democracy)

A political party that would rather cater to the most base emotions rather than stand on principal is not one I will join.

On the other hand, a political party that would have me as a member is not one I'd join anyway!