Sunny Days at Last

It seems boys and girls that fall has at last truly fallen around here at the Kudzu Grotto (KG).

While yesterday and today were nice and sunny the temperature has dropped into the 50's during the day and somewhere just above freezing in the early morning hours.

But that didn't deter this young buck and his lady friend from feasting on the Breakfast buffet spread under the huge red oak tree in the front yard.



Only a 4 pointer, he was squiring her around the grounds with all the aplomb of an 8 pointer sure of his dominance over all comers. Of course that may have had something to do with them being in the middle of a subdivision and more mature bucks were being a bit more cautious in the philandering on this the first weekend of gun season here in the northern Piedmont of Georgia. Discretion that this youngster will have to learn if he wants to stay out of the frying pan or off the grill.

They came tiptoeing out into the yard at about 8 am and had a fine time till the neighbor started up his pickup truck.

Yesterday was also a time of rushing down to Walnut Grove to pick up the wife and carrying her to the emergency room at Athens Regional after a tumble from atop a rickety ladder to land in the tub in her sisters soon to be new abode.

It had me a bit worried to be sure as she is usually not one to call about a bruise, but this one was on the point of her left elbow and swelled and hurt quite a bit.

Thankfully it was just a serious bruise and nothing was broken or chipped as we had at first worried.

Of course it only took three hours for the Doctor to finally call us out of the waiting room to tell us that the X-rays showed nothing broken and then another hour waiting for the nurse to wrap her elbow in an Ace Bandage and finally after tracking the nurse down getting her discharge paper.

Have you sat in an Emergency Room waiting room lately? I don't recommend it as being on the top ten list of things to do on a Sunday Evening. I wanted to come home and take a bath in Listerine after hearing all the coughing and sniffling going on.

Of course after we had been there 3 hours we remembered the Doctor on call facility on the other side of town. Mark that down to the onset of the old timers disease in both of us. Next time for sure.

I'm just glad she didn't break a hip. Guess all them calcium tablets have done a little bit of good.

She's her Daddy's little Princess

She's also her Paw-Paw's little pumpkin.

I just remembered where I heard that title for the first time.

My Dad had a cousin....older by probably 20 years at least and more likely 30, hell, it was 35 years (I just did the math). At least one generation between them.....maybe a 3rd or 4th cousin, but we all called him Uncle Hershel. He had a small farm and had always been a small farmer in Dacula where I was raised. (Back then we were probably related in some way to 25% of the population in Gwinnett, County in one way or another.)

He'd work for my Dad on the dairy farm when we needed a little extra help which was a lot of the time. Also help out over at my Grandpa's since he was related to us through my Dad's maternal Grandmother Francis Hinton Mahaffey.

He'd married (I don't know if it was the second time, might have been the first) a widow woman when he was 65 years old and it wasn't long before she bore him a son (her second).

Uncle Hershel had brought his young son with him to visit us one afternoon while we were milking cows. The son was maybe 2 years old or less.....old enough to say a few words anyway. Uncle Hershel was as proud as a Peacock in full strut showing off his son.......carrying him held high up against his shoulder. He'd ask the boy what his name was and he'd say "Pumpkin" and Uncle Hershel would smile like the sun coming up over the Atlantic and say, "that's right, my Pumpkin".

So I guess that might be where I picked up the habit of referring to our small children as "Pumpkin". Come to think of it, I still call some of the grown ups "Pumpkin".

Anyway, back to the little princess.

We kept her for most of the 10 days that her parents were gone on their annual hunting trip to Wyoming (with a little help from her Aunt Hope) (Mama and Daddy each got two antelope and a mule deer) and enjoyed just about every minute of it. (Her Nannie would say EVERY minute)

Today the wife remembered one of the little things the pumpkin did that I didn't know about at the time.

Our sofa and love seat in the living room are covered in real genuine Naugahyde (remember that?) and while watching TV one day while Nannie was in the kitchen preparing supper she came into the kitchen with her little lips pouted up and a apprehensive look on her face and led her Nannie back to the couch and confessed that she had poked about 4 or 5 small holes in the arm of the sofa with the end of a comb she'd been combing her hair with. (Not big holes and a couple were not even all the way through the vinyl.) I'm sure her little heart was near breaking to have to admit it but her pure little heart couldn't tell a lie or pretend it didn't happen. I have to admit that just thinking about it now causes a little catch in my throat that she was brave enough to go tell Nannie of her little indiscretion.

Perhaps that is because I can remember back a long, long, long time ago to the day my Mother came into the living room and caught me In flagrante delicto a'pokin' holes in the freshly recovered naugahyde couch with one of the little Case knives that my Grandpa was fond of buying my little 4 year old self when he'd carry me to the feed store with him.

I don't remember if I got my little ass whipped for the crime or not (probably, but I can sure remember how horrified she had been of my actions), but if not I damn well deserved it.

It's a little easier to consider it an amusing little incident when it's one of the grandchildren and it's a week after it happened, but my little Pumpkin knew she'd done wrong and 'fessed up to it.

I'm pretty damn proud of her for that.

Another one (well actually three) bites the dust

It seems lately that hardly a week goes by that the weekend news doesn't have an article or report about another bank(s)closing.

Unless it happened to your bank you probably put it down to just another hiccup in the ongoing illness that besets the national and global economy. Ho-hum......well, that's what the FDIC is for. They'll take care of things. Right?.......Right??

This weekends closings come in Michigan, Colorado and Minnesota. Between them the three banks had deposits of $585,300,000.00 and assets, which really means loans outstanding, of $633,800,000.00.

Some would ask, "if the banks are supposed to have a reserve of 10% how can they loan out more money than they take in"?

It's not too hard if you take a close look at the second largest criminal enterprise in the country, second only to the bloated, diseased Federal Government.

No wonder we're in such a mess.

From time to time

there'll be a day when you want something so bad and know it's coming, but it drags on, and drags on, and at the end of the day it's still not there; and you're left with a woulda, coulda, shoulda feeling. A just not satisfied feeling, even though you knew you did all you could.

Today was one of those days...a day of waiting and anticipating kind of days. So I'm sitting here at the desk with an unsatisfied feeling.

Oh, I know, it'll show up tomorrow and I'll get 'er done, but the dust will still be in my mouth like a six day dust storm where the grit gets in every crack and crevice and you can't drink enough water to quench the thirst.

It's those types of days that cause you to set new goals, decide to strive a little harder, give just a little bit more effort, sleep just a little bit less.

I guess it's a human kind of feeling. The kind of feeling that changes you a little, somewhere down deep inside, and you know a threshold has been reached and you step over.

Probably doesn't make much sense...kinda like a lot of late night thoughts that seem so clear at the time but you know in the morning will be only half remembered and already starting to fade with the light of a new sunrise.

I was surfing the web over by the walking mans place the other day and he had a little post about some of the obscene amounts of money that some people are paid (think CEO's, Insurance executives, bank executives, talk show host's) and I got the feeling that he felt that some of these folks were over compensated to an obscene degree and I asked in the comments if he were one of those people getting paid an obscene amount of money would he would turn it down.

His response to me was one that started me thinking. I'll let you read it...see what you think.

"Just to answer your question posed and not to be overly confrontational...no I would not accept tens of millions in compensation regardless of my contribution to the profit of the enterprise. There is nothing I could do with 10 million that I could not satisfy with 1 million or $100,000 or $1.

If anything the huge executive compensation should be distributed as earnings for them who own the stock in the company because when you think of it they are the ones taking the risk."

It led me to recall something I read once upon a time or twenty (cause when you read truth you need to read it over and over until you under stand it)

It goes;

"One may not comdemn a man for succeeding because he knows how. Neither may one with justice take away from a man what he has fairly earned, to give to men of less ability".

So tell me, if you will......when a person is paid a high salary, with perhaps bonuses for performance and guarantees for producing is that person to be deemed obscene?

Oh, I don't mean the people like Bernie Madoff, or Ken Lay of Enron. They deserve the scorn and punishment they reap.

No, I mean the people like Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, his son Rockefeller Jr., and those many CEO's and top Executives whose salaries make most of us wish we'd studied a little harder.

Have we fallen so low that we can't admire people of achievement? Do we desire to pull everyone down to the lows that we might be at?

I've never earned more than $45K a year in my whole life and generally much less. Does that make me a better or worse human being than someone like Bill Gates whose net worth is more than many small and some not so small countries around the world? Does that make me an enemy of those who make more than I? Does that mean that I have to hate them, to ridicule them, to try to topple them?

Who employs more people, is responsible for creating more jobs, gives more to charities?

Who decides? You?

New things

Sometimes we get a little jaded with life. There is so much going on in the world and it seems that everyone and his brother has an interest in telling us about it today, what with the internet, TV's which run 18 hours a day, radios in the truck, etc..
It just seems a little too much sometimes and we shut down mentally to quiet the racket in our heads. Too often we find ourselves advised to take this or that nostrum which will set the world right again at some little price.

At least it seems that way to me, especially today. I was emailing back and forth with the tektite expert here in GA, and then this evening with the meteorite expert from the Fl Institute of Technology discussing ways to examine the meteorite my friend has.

Earlier today I was negotiating the purchase of what seemed to be an 18 karat gold Rolex Oyster Perpetual Daytona model. It was in fact 18 kt gold, but turned out to not be a Rolex movement. Now why in the world put a cheaper works in an 18 kt gold case and bracelet. Well, the reason is obvious even to a redneck like me. To get more money for an object of lesser value. Difference.....$2500.00 to $3500.00 for the gold, or $12 to 15,000.00 for a real Rolex. Of course that is retail and I try to never pay retail for anything except good steaks. But still....some little excitements of no lasting value in the grand scheme of things.

That is until I ran across this jewel of a youtube video over at http://randomactsofpatriotism.blogspot.com/ .

I sat here in front of the monitor simply enthralled with an exhibition of a sport I'd never considered before. Watch these two young ladies and see for yourself. For myself...I fell in love with their poise, confidence and grace. Just damn...

A streak of light

Our beloved Messiah what's in Charge of the Asylum on the Potomoc MWICOTAOTP is being even more of an idiot that usual today, talking about a New World Financial Order (I told you he was only a shill for the international bankers) and telling us WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE because of all the carbon emissions caused by us, the citizens of the USA, and we have to do something right this minute.

So I have decided to tune him out for the moment.

Have you ever looked up in the night sky and see a shooting star?

Probably most of us have at one time or another. Many have likely also made a wish. I certainly have, although I can't remember even one that was granted.

Most shooting stars are caused by very small meteorites entering the earths atmosphere and burning up well before they reach the ground. Some are actually big enough to make it to the ground. I think I read one time that the weight of the earth actually increases by several tons each year because of the amount of space dust and other extraterrestrial objects that fall to earth. But I have never actually seen a meteorite live and in person until recently.

A friend has one that he's wanting to sell and asked me if I could check on eBay or somewhere to try to find a buyer. (Who knows what to pay for a meteorite??)

They say that everybody is generally only 3 or 4 degrees separated from someone famous or a politician or somebody who knows something about whatever you might want to know about. You know someone who knows someone, who knows someone.....
well, you get the picture.

So I ask my buddy James. James immediately gives me a name and promises to get me his number which he'll have to ask his buddy Don for. Which of course Don can't put his finger on and this drags on for a week or so 'til finally after about the sixth time asking James if Don came up with the number James finally makes the time to go through his book of contacts and finds me the number......of a man who knows everything about tektites....One form of meteorite.....just not the kind we have. But he does have a friend down in Florida who is an expert on Meteorites.

So I've been trying to get yahoo mail to load pictures I'd taken of the damn thing but it just goes round and round and never finishes loading. Freaking computer. I'll try again after a while when I've cooled off a bit.

While I'm doing that I'll just post a couple of the pictures here in case any of you dear readers happen to be experts on Meteorites. If you are......wanta buy a meteorite??

Still Raining......

....But it's alright. Th' roof don't leak, the temperature is just about right, I'm rolling my feet on the Knot Knocker and listening to this classic from my young adulthood;



This time back then the wife and I were anxiously awaiting the arrival of our first child. And when I say anxious I'm not exaggerating. I'd already received an extension of the date I was due to ship out to what would affectionately come to be called "The S.E. Asia War Games" and it was beginning to look like the kid was gonna be a no show before I left. (Don't worry, she arrived in time to keep me awake for the last 5 nights of September. After that heading over there didn't seem like such a bad deal after all.) We'd already tried the trick of driving really fast over the roughest rail road crossings we could find. But at last we found the trick that did it and early one morning we made the trip to the hospital. I had yet to turn 21 and had no clue yet that so far I'd learned absolutely nothing about life. (Some would say I not yet made much progress in that area.)

One thing I have learned??

The rain falls on the just and the unjust with indifference to both so better make the best of it.

Ya'll come back later, maybe I'll have something interesting to say.

Well......why start reaching too high at this point.

Chewing My Cud....

...or Ruminations on a Rainy Evening.

I haven't looked at the weather forecast lately as it would likely just depress me, although why that should be in light of the drought experienced the last three or four years before the present year is likely to be viewed by the Great Rainmaker as a bit ungrateful.

Instead I shall be glad that I erected the Shelterlogic polyethylene garage to work under just in time for the recent monsoonal showers. There....if they give you lemons...make lemonade.

I see that our home grown messiah what's in charge of the Asylum on the Potomac (MWICOTAOTP)has decided that it would be a good idea to regulate all of the financial institutions all over the world. You just knew that an ego that massive couldn't be satisfied with just telling the idiots who elected him in this country what to do, didn't you. Ruling 300+ million people is just peanuts compared to trying to control 6 to 7 Billion. Should be no problem for him, after all he did do legal work for Acorn before stepping up to politics. Oh yeah, he does run Government Motors, that sure gives him executive experience doesn't it.

Of course he has tax cheat little Timmy Geithner and helicopter Ben Bernanke to help him manage the day to day financial things that pop up now and again. Just throw $2,000,000,000,000.00 or so at the problem. That's sure to make it go away. No problem there.

On the other hand there are some who say that all three of these stooges are just puppets for the global bankers and corporate directors. (Never mind that the Big "O" did give wall street a severe tongue lashing a few days ago.) They aren't going to waver in following directions; just like all former presidents and federal reserve presidents in recent years. They've finally got us right where they want us. These gangsters want centralized power and 100% government control. A delicate task to be sure. First they create Chaos and then they have to tweak the controls juuussstt right else we slip off the cliff into something far worse if they persist and go too far.


We are seeing some awakening among the hoi polloi lately, but are they reacting to the symptoms or focused on the real sickness? Health care has never been a problem requiring the Draconian measures proposed, but it serves to enable the illusionists to distract us with their right hand while the left hand is doing all the real work.

For instance we could worry about global warming and all the hype being put out by Goremaniac. Click on the link.....would the Arctic Ice be increasing if we were having Global Warming? Or is this simply another bit of hocus pocus?

By-the-by WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!! The Swine Flue is going to kill us all. Never mind that the good ol' regular flu that comes and goes each year regularly kills many multiples of number of people who have died from H1N1. Let's give the government the authority to say how many doses of vaccine will be produced and...Oh Yeah....lets send them overseas before we start giving them to the people who elected us and pay our salary.
The wife had a case of flu this week and we could have all died, except that I took a couple thousand units of Vitamin C for two days and continued as usual except that I didn't kiss her on the mouth for about 3 days. Close call that. Turned my piss yellow for a day or two but so far I haven't grunted or started rooting in the mud.

Well, boys and girls, my face is getting a little tired what with all the chewing and the wrinkling of my brow. Guess I'll go back to surfing the blogs, maybe pay a visit to GOC to see his Saturday offering.

Till next time I'll stay hunkered down in my Kudzu Grotto (KG) counting my cans of pork and beans and wishing I could afford more ammo.

Why I don't drink

Well, technically I do drink, I just don't imbibe alcoholic beverages. (does imbibe give a negative connotation to drinking alcohol? Not my intent.)

It's just that I was looking at this



and contemplating the fact that it has been 40 years and 2 months or so (give or take) since that wondrous event and I really thought that we'd have at least a few people living full time there by now.

Forget the fact that it would be wildly expensive, I thought the driving effect on exploration and discovery would more than pay the freight just in the uniting and driving effect it would have on mankind. Besides......I wanted to be able to go there on vacation one day. Based on my intended goal of living 'til I'm 192 this means they only have just over 132 years to get it done. Time to get off the stick NASA. (I really think that it will be private enterprise that gets it done).

On an unrelated topic if I did drink I would certainly be hoisting a glass in pride at the number of people who went to Washington, DC (the Asylum on the Potomac) this weekend to exercise their 1st Amendment rights. some estimates place it at around 2,000,000 people. Makes me almost wish I had been there, despite my phobia about large crowds. (a friday excursion to Wally World to watch Wal Martians being about my limit)

We used to get silver images of liberty walking in our change back when I was a young sprout. I picked up a few $ worth today in honor of the past weekend....
.....it just seemed appropriate.

Will the inmates in the Asylum pay any attention? Remains to be seen, but I'll bet there are a few incumbents who will have to run for re-election next year that are rethinking their campaign strategies. Possibly even giving consideration to retiring and drawing their (very generous) pensions the rest of their lives. Too bad we can't retire them the way I used to retire a Holstein when they usefulness was over.....I suppose I could have let them live out the remainder of their lives eating grass on the back forty, but that grass was reserved for producers....not parasites.

Well, I've vented my spleen for another evening, time to go draw the cover up here in the kudzu grotto once again.

This Guy gets it

Go over to charming just charming and follow his link. I think you'll be glad you did.

What's this??

Are the republocrats about to grow a set of Balls?

Lie # 1

"I'm from the government and I'm hear to help you."

This saying is so old and so obviously a lie that we hardly even laugh at it any more.

I suppose that there are individuals in the government who are sincere in their belief that they are to help those they govern, but all too often it is simply a job with great benefits and security and they don't see their job as anything other than one continuous effort to make sure nothing happens to what they see as "their" job.

Governments come from either choice or force. Think about that for a minute.......
.
.
Ok. In all ages of recorded history mankind has tended to band together as soon as their brain had developed to the point that they could see the benefits of working together.
Some of course could see the increased security they had from sheer numbers as long as they didn't run into a numerically superior opposing force.
Others could see the benefit of increased productivity in either growing or hunting food.
Still others could see that they could use the others to more easily enable them to achieve their own specific goals.
Pretty soon this devolved from using reason and persuasion to achieving their goals into the use of force to accomplish same.

Bastait in his The Law makes the case that Life, Liberty and Property are gifts from our Creator and that we have an individual right to lawful defense of those gifts, and that further we can organize together to establish a collective defense of same, but can legitimately can go no further lest we begin to destroy the person, liberty, or property of other individuals or groups, or in the parlance of the "progressives of today" spread the wealth around.

So I guess that someone from the Government (the representatives of the collective right of self defense) could be actually coming to help you, but we should always ask ourselves if it is defense we want or force to enable us violate the rights of others.

Lets ponder on how we perceive the government we have today in the Republic we call The United States of America.

How did we get here?

Did you ever ask yourself that?

Well, maybe you should have listened when the wife told you to stop at the filling station and ask for directions.

I've been in those type of situations. Many times. Many more than I'm comfortable thinking about.

The old joke is that the wife, after listening to the husband bragging about how smart he is, asks, "If you're so damn smart why ain't we rich?"

We will not go here into to the myriad possible answers which he could come back with, because generally that question pretty well shuts his mouth. Especially if he knows what's good for him.

I suppose many people are looking at the economic and political situation and asking themselves that same type of question. Perhaps a better question would be how do we go about figuring out where we really want to go.

An older friend of mine is asking himself how he got into his situation. He wants to blame the DOT for screwing up the road, but really he should be asking not how he got here, but how he's going to fix things.

There is an old saying the the quickest way to get out of a rut you've dug yourself into is to stop digging down and start digging up.

Basically my friend is over extended. He has a nice little business. It's not quite doing what it was a couple years ago...but then who is? The problem is the nice big new house he lives in, the very expensive motor home sitting under the shed he can't afford to fill with diesel, the expensive non-income producing real estate with big mortgages that no one is wanting to buy. The toys accumulated over a lifetime.

I don't reckon he's the only one in this type of situation.

The trick is.....are we going to try the old tried and failed policies again, or are we ready to maybe start to get back to what used to work and has been pushed to the wayside.

Maybe it's time to analyze things in light of six syllables in a savage truth.

This truth was uttered on Dec. 10th 2008 by none other than Bernard Madoff. He had spent decades living a lie (and living quite well by some standards), but it all came crashing down for him and many, many others when he uttered those six syllables now so infamous.

"It's all just one big lie".

Perhaps we should examine some of the lies.

More later.

Diet food

I've neglected to keep you folks updated on the progress of the diet I've embarked upon in an effort to get rid of the 4 year old child that has been growing around my midsection for lo these many years.

When last we checked in the loss had tallied about 14 lbs. I'm pleased and saddened at the same time to report that an additional 4 lbs has been shed. Pleased that it melted away with relative ease and saddened to admit that 3 lbs have suddenly reappeared. (I knew that the salmon patties with biscuits and gravy last night was going to be a bad idea. Of course the cherry turnover a bit later didn't help any.)

So today it was back to the old grindstone. Starting out with a nice 3 egg omelet stuffed with ham, onions, green peppers, mushrooms and cheese. I did manage to pass up the grits with butter.

Lunch was an old pork chop from a couple of days ago with a bit of cream cheese.

This evening was a fetch and carry supper. I was sent to Chicken express to fetch supper and carry it home.

The wife had the catfish fillet dinner while the ol' Grump and I had that fancy French country cuisine... As I like to call it "Red Neck Pâté de foie gras" or fried chicken livers. Of course I did pass on the mashed potatoes and gravy with cold slaw. I guess I could have eaten a bit of the cold slaw... but hey, why take chances.

All of this washed down with a fine vintage of Diet Pepsi (best if consumed by 10-19-2009)

Don't tell me rednecks can't appreciate up town dining.

Creepy.....

.....crawly little bug
comes wandering by my foot
with only the leaves
and sticks for a rug

Where do you go so fast
scurrying here and there
antenna wiggling like hair
Why so red your ass

Is it to keep my foot
from crushing your green carapace
or to show your awful taste
to those who give a hoot

I let you go your way
asking only that you pause
for a moment and pose
Before you and I get on with our day


make with the clickty-click to embiggen

Who do you trust?

After a bit of head scratching and a bit of conjugating on the debate between the media and the two current dominate political parties out there, I find that all my thoughts have already been thunk by those smarter and brighter than I, and if I'm smart I'll do what I have been saying for years.

"Keep your head down and your powder dry"

That being said again, it in no way keeps me from wanting to grab people by the shoulders and give them a good shake while screaming in their ear, "what's the matter with you people? Don't you see that the liberals live in a dream world?"

Ol' Milton Friedman had a way with words and an answer to at least one moonbat.

Go read this Guy

Especially this post.

Metal chapeau

Taking a lead from the inimitable elisson I have found for myself a new bit of headgear.



Giving new meaning to the term "Metal Head", which term might more aptly apply to GOC on a Sunday I am wearing a platter cover from the early part of the last century which has seen better days.

Found lying in the weeds near an old farm house it has been the object of thrown rocks, whacks from what look to be sling-blades and maybe even a lawnmower or two.

Strange location and treatment for a sterling silver cover from The Gorham Martele Company.

What strange treatment for such an item, and an even stranger resting place tonight.

If I had a brain I might refer to it as my BrainBucket

In the heat of the day

I did get up to cut the Ol' Grumps grass today. It was only 97 degrees by the time I finished.

Finally...after fiddling around most of the morning trying first one thing and then another to get the Murray riding mower to crank.

I finally narrowed the choices down to either just plain cussedness or a bad solenoid. Replaced the solenoid and it still wouldn't crank. But then I asked myself if I'd replaced all the wires in the correct order. Made one change and...it cranked. I had placed one of the small wires on the wrong post on the solenoid. Hurray

The grass at the Ol' Grumps was almost waist high and thick as could be. The Murray was moaning and belts were slipping, smoking and squealing. The blade adjustment was raised as high as I could get it. Next time I'll tell him to hire a bush hog...or maybe buy a couple dozen goats.

Speaking of cutting things.....

Our oldest daughter called the wife while on her way to work this morning. She passed along the news that the oldest grand son had tried to hack his way out of a chance meeting with a spider while helping to get the deer camp ready for the upcoming season yesterday. I guess you could say the spider won since Cody almost whacked off three of his fingers with a machete. Bird finger, pointing finger and little finger of the left hand. Only thirty stitches or so at the Washington, GA emergency room. Fortunately there was no permanent lose of any digit and the damage will heal in time. Hopefully the lesson on not over reacting to things will be imprinted on the appropriate parts of his brain. Next time he might have a chainsaw in his hands. Maybe I'll show him the three scars on my left kneecap where the chainsaw teeth nicked me several years ago just to help re-enforce that particular lesson.

One of my regulars called me as I was bringing the mower home this afternoon. I drove up after supper and picked up a few things.

One was this silver spoon from England. I'll put it next to a couple nuggets I picked up last week.



The other thing I picked up was an almost new 1866 Yellowboy (only fired once) from Cimarron's Repeating Arms. This one has the 24 inch barrel and custom engraving on the receiver. I'm not sure I'll be able to part with this baby. I don't know why as I don't do enough shooting to justify it. But better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it I suppose.

We were hoping to maybe get some rain off the tropical storm down Flordia way, but so far nothing. It's getting along about whirly girl time down that way. Hope any of you down then are battened down and provisioned up.

Ya'll come back. Maybe I'll tell you the story behind the spoon and the nuggets.

The Muse and I

My muse has been a little quiet of late....well, actually that's not exactly true. It's more like I have been ignoring her. For what reason? Damnifiknow. Probably for many of the same reasons I have been a world class procrastinator all my life.

If it's not a crisis....fuggidaboutit.

Not that there is a crisis going on at the moment...I just felt the keyboard had been a little neglected and decided to apply fingertips to remind them of their original purpose....lest they begin to think that dust and cracker crumbs are their only companions.

Well...actually the cracker crumbs have been replaced by bits of cheese, eggs, bacon and mayonnaise for the last two weeks. Mostly that is.

I have embarked on a determined (as opposed to all the other times) quest to shed the outer child of 4 years or so of age (however old they are when they weigh about 40 lbs) that hangs around my mid section.

Older age has it's benefits I'm sure, but a slower metabolism is not one of them. Of course when I was running a portable sawmill as a business and totin' 2 X 10 X 16's around or 4 X 6 X 16's, and rolling 2 foot diameter logs up the skid poles to be sawn it was a different story. The muscle is still there....it's just marbled with plenty of fat these days. I'm afraid if I don't lose a little weight that when the Obama team starts passing out the Soylent Green I'll be classified as USDA Choice #1.

(Pause to go step on the scale, trembling in trepidation and fear.)

Good.....didn't gain any after todays debauchery at the Chinese Buffet in Dahlonega.

Down so far about 14 pounds. Average 1 a day, but in actuality a couple of days didn't show any lose because I fudged a bit. (Come on...a guy need a bit of biscuit and gravy at least once every two weeks).

What you may ask was I doing in Dahlonega, GA today? Well you may ask.

The better half decided that she was not going to hang around here today and announced that she was going to the hills and if I was going to hurry up and get in the drivers seat. I started to tell her to get in, sit down, strap in, hang on and shut up......but reason won out and I kept my lip zipped.

A pleasant trip to be sure. We took US 441 up to Baldwin and then the back roads over to Cleveland and thence on hwy 115 to Dahlonega, home of the afore mentioned Chinese Buffet (where I manfully stuck to the Mongolial Beef with onions and the Shrimp with Vegetables that I made sure contained no vegatables except onions and broccli), North GA College (still a partly military school for those young men who are hardy enough and quite a few ladies who can snap to attention with the best of them) and the Crisson Gold Mine run by the lovely Tammy with an assist from her husband and Miss Jo Jo. Here I go to pick up panning supplies, the latest issue of Gold Prospector magazine and leave a few business cards since they kindly point those who want to sell any gold they find to me.

It's not a lot generally but I certainly pay more than the local pawn shops.

After leaving there we took the road up to Suches, GA a valley that is supposed to be above the clouds but today was right smack dab in the middle of them as they dropped some blessed rain.

It rained off and on after that through Morganton, Blue Ridge, Blairsville, Young Harris, Hiwassee and Helen. It pretty much petered out by the time we got within sight of The Classic City once more though. If we hadn't gotten about a quarter inch of rain last week we'd be as dry as a popcorn fart. Need some more for sure.

We stopped a time or two.....once at the antique mall in Hiwasse where we looked around and pointed out that people who would pay their prices were way too rich and moreover were a bit stupid. A for instance would be the fact that they were asking $16.00 for common date, circulated, not graded Franklin half dollars. That's only about three times the value of the silver content. If I could sell mine at that price I could make a big dent in the mortgage on the Kudzu Hovel (KH).

We got home expecting the Ol' Grump to be waiting on his supper but he has (after four years) decided to drive himself up to his rental trailer and work on it himself instead of spending a little of his sociable security to hire someone (NOT my wife, she says, and means it) to do it. So far he hasn't wrecked the car and even goes to Home Depot, where a fifteen minute in and out to grab some screws or some such, takes two hours.

Oh well, it gets him out of the house which is what we've wanted for five years.

Perhaps tomorrow if I can get the lawnmower to crank, I'll take it up there and cut his grass.

Ya'll come back. Maybe I'll tell you about the couple who passed us going south on 441 in a Ford utility van with ladder racks on the top and just married painted on the windows.

I figured it was out of convenience since if the urge struck he could just pull over to the side, move some tools out of the way on the floor in back and knock off a quickie. The wife allowed as how he'd probably won her over by saying he had a big mobile home, but didn't say it had a Ford emblem on the front.