David in Iraq

David is my semi-adopted son, a son of my heart. Currently he is in Iraq, and I am so proud of him.

First,I'm proud that he is serving our country, enduring hardships to keep the rest of us safe and free. He has given up the comforts of home, and put himself in a situation of  different culture, blistering heat, and danger.

Secondly, he has joined the Army as a career; he's carving out a piece of life for himself in a time of economic trouble. He is able to take care of his responsibilities, and improve his job skills. The service seems to be the only "employer" hiring numbers of folks these days, but the job is a hard one, long and erratic hours. Not everyone can or will choose it as a career.


I'll be thinking of you, David. Hope you read this post and others to keep up what's happening here at home while you're gone. We'll e-mail you often,and I'll hold you in my heart until you return. I'm glad we got to see you before you went over.
"Mom"

Surprise! A Video Made My Day

I saw this on The Texas Woman and couldn't resist. Today is a new step in my blogging career.

Dry, Dry, Dry

It's so painfully dry here that the oaks are dying. Over half of our place is wooded, and so many of the trees are turning brown. There's nothing to do about it. Even if we could haul enough water to save them, the cost of water would be prohibitive. We have county water, not a well or even a tank.

We took a ride in the M37 to check out the property before Art goes off to work on the movie filming in Smithville. Hot, parched Texas weather is taking it's toll.

Another tree has fallen over the fence dividing our property from the neighboring pasture. One more thing added to the "to do" list.
The last time that fence had a hole I looked up to see twelve cows wandering around the pear trees. I do not herd cows, so Art and Matthew rounded them up and took them back and fixed the fence.
I don't fix fences either. I am the Empress!

When Art stopped the truck for me to take pictures, I could smell the grass scorching underneath. I tried not to ask to stop for too long. Way to easy to start a fire these days. We've had two major fires here in two years, and it's frightening how fast fire moves. The last fire, in February of this year, required the Texas Forestry Service and three area fire departments to put out. A spark from a passing train ignited the grass in the neighbors pasture, and the fire moved to the deer lease on the north and west to our place. Matthew had to cut a firebreak in the woods between our back pasture and the house/outbuildings. I'm so glad we had a dozer here for him to use.

We just have a small garden left. Tomatoes and swiss chard have survived with our help. Everything else has shriveled and died.

Yesterday I started broccoli seeds for the fall garden. In the midst of this drought, I still have hope. The rains will come and the remaining oaks will drink deep.

Homeplace Begins - Two Free Ducks

Two ducks trudged across the garden. A battered-looking mother and child needing sanctuary, we thought. They looked to have ended up on the wrong side of a whuppin'; many feathers were missing, and some wounds were evident.We had no concrete plans for acquiring animals yet, but here were two free ducks! I just knew these ducks were a sign of future farm prosperity. “Look!” I caroled “We’ve been here only a week and we have ducks! We need to go to town and buy them a wading pool! “

My husband refers to me as “Mother-of-all-animals”, frequently between gritted teeth. I have ideas about animals and their care; ideas which seem so simple initially.  Oddly, our son and his friends have a similar response.

Off to Bryan to buy a wading pool – round trip just under 100 miles. We chose a medium sized, blue one, decorated with tasteful seahorses and bubbles. The local discount department store doesn’t carry feed, so off to the feed store for duck food. The feed store didn’t have a suitable container for a mere 50 pounds of feed. Next stop -- the Farm and Building supply for a large trash can to hold the “scratch”, besides, we needed some t-poles and fencing to protect the ducks. Son and friend grumbled about starvation after all this shopping; hamburgers, drinks, and fries for four completed the day’s financial damages. Twenty–year-old boys don’t eat cheap! “How do you figure those are free ducks?” Art groused, as he drove back home.

“You can’t expect the ducks to wait until tomorrow for their pool!” I gasped in horror at Art’s suggestion. “Look at them! They’re all dusty and dirty!!!” This shows how much I didn’t know about ducks then. “Mama’ was gleefully throwing water around from a large kitchen pot. “Baby” was close by, but unable to get near the water.

An hour later the pool was installed in a newly leveled spot under a pear tree. Baby duck couldn't get in out out of the pool; she needed a ramp. The fence across the open end of the garden was strung, and I drank in the sight our new ducks, safe in their new home.

The county Ag agent arrived two days later at our invitation. After his tour of the property, we asked about our new residents. I thought he said "Muskogee", but that's a city in Oklahoma. I got on the internet and found we had Muscovy ducks. Fascinating birds!


Female                                                                      

                                                Angry                   

The following week we got six brown Muscovies donated by a friend. We've taken in two goats, rabbits, chickens, and a number of cats. All came without accessories. Each time we set up for a new species, Art and Matthew grumble , "Free animals?"

Helene

Signs of Current Culture

PLEASE IGNORE THE DATE!  This is really something I'd worked on earlier, and posted October 11, 2009.

" Free Soup Kitchen On Saturdays 6:00P.M." The ramshackle grey building hosting that sign reinforced the depressing message. I don't know why I was surprised to see this sign in a small town nearby.  Perhaps it was a message of hope instead, that someone is out there making a difference. Each of us sees these signs in our own way.

Then I got an idea! (You may wish to check my earlier post on ideas.) Signs like "Free Soup Kitchen" and other new depression signs are a reflection of our current social and economic conditions.  Many of them must be out there, undiscovered.

When you're out and about, snap pics of  similar signs, and e-mail them to me at h9patch@aol.com, if you're willing. If you find any online, send those, too.

I'm curious what else is out there that reflects our current times.

Six Guns and Six Legs on SyFy

Six Guns and Six Legs
The SyFy Channel

There's nothing like a "Creature Feature" on a lazy Sunday afternoon!

With a title like "Six Guns and Six Legs", you can imagine what the movie was like. The creatures were similar to the one on the right. More spidery and mechanical, though, with grey metalic skins. They dug burrows like crawdad chimneys, but larger.

 

The setting was very authentic for the times -late 1890's, early 1900's at the latest. The town was muddy, monochromatic, and bleak. The majority of characters were likewise. Having done living history for many years, I must say the costumes were excellent, but drab. The portrayal of the settler woman living out by the mine waa dreary and defeated. Her husband was mining pitchblende, the source of uranium. Both seemed to be affected by radiation.

The Authenticity Police would have been horrified about the weaponry. I once attended a movie we were promoting at a Houston theater, all of us wearing our Old West finest garb. During that movie an usher had to come and get someone to settle down part of our group acting as AP's in one of the screenings. They were pointing out all the "mistakes", weapons showed that were from a future time. Pointing it out loudly enough that people were having trouble hearing the movie!

My favorite AP error was the chrome finished Colt python showed in "Six Guns"-- one hundred years too early. The abrasive female bounty hunter (?????) was carrying something that might have been a double-action revolver common in the 1940's and later. If I'd had popcorn I would have thrown it at the TV. Remember an item called the TV Brick? I needed one.

The space critters were hooked on uranium. They'd flop out their water hose tongues and just suck it up like mechanical butterflies gone wrong. The whole invasion was the fault of the scientist who'd hired the settlers to mine the pitchblende when the last miners died. Mr. Science was hording a ton of uranium, which drew the space critters to their town.

Predictably, aliens shot humans, humans shot aliens, humans shot humans, people betrayed the hero, and the whole town nearly died. Mr. Science baited the aliens with a trail of uranium dust, then set himself up to dynamite the aliens. The alien ship showed up conveniently overhead and the scientist lit the fuse. The hero and heroine galloped off to their new life as the wagon of dynamite, scientist, aliens and their ship exploded in a gigantic fireball. WOW! Nothing like a well deserved explosion to punish evil!

I enjoyed it immensely. I think Art did, too!

Updates - First Week of September

Updates! Thats what this blog needs.  Here we go!

This morning Art said he can feel when I've got an idea. He describes it as a trembling sensation. Hmmm. He was dragging the waterhose up to the garden at the time. I'd gone up to check the freezer gardens and they were dry. Do we have ideas by telepathy?

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Boat, the peeing cat, continues to live on the porch. Stand still for more than a moment and she'll (yep, another girl) climb you to be held and petted. She and Wally, the senior porch cat, have an on- again-off-again truce. When Wally is having a mood, he chases her under a set of shelves. When he's feeling mellow, they share the food dish.

Boat lurks by the front door hoping for somone slow (me)to open the portal . Once the way is open, she streaks in to grab a bite to eat and roughhouse with her sisters. Then the humans spoil everything and put her back outside. Her sisters don't miss her; Wally has taught her to play rough. Once ejected, Boat waits for the door to open again. The process repeats all day.                                        

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When preparing to cook raccoon, pierce the meat and soak it in reconstituted dry milk for 24 hours, That makes for a milder tasting meat. Thanks, Hangman, for that tip many years ago. It's proved to be a useful one; it works on all kinds of game meat.

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Working hard on my first fiction short story. Writing non-fiction seems so easy for me, but this quite a challenge. I've got a 3,000 word limit for a contest I want to enter, and have nearly 2,000. How will I finish in another 1,000 words and get everything sewed up? If I had no word limit, this story could end up being a romance! How's that for a surprise? Someone must think I've run out of homework, so I got a new lesson, as the old saying goes.

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Stay tuned for more updates!