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Cave Girl (must start calling her Amber) just got through some narrow scrapes.  Of course she survived well with Mari for the three weeks we were in New Mexico, then we brought her home and prepped her (verbally) about going to the vets for a physical and some shots before her hysterectomy.  Well, that was a mistake to talk to her as the morning came to truck her off to the vet in her travel container, as it was impossible to get our hands on her to shove her into the cage. Tempting her into the cage with food was even a poorer choice for luring her into the cage.  Appointment called off. A week later, the same scenario, but this time she was in for the full treatment, hysterectomy, nails clipped, rabies shots, feline leukemia test and vaccine, what else?  Well, this time we spent two hours getting her ready for transport, and nothing worked---she seemed to suspect our every move.  Finally, as a last ditch measure, Dee put on gloves and her leather arm protecto...

We are always on the lookout for church picnics.  They are not as common here as they are in the Chech country to the southeast.  Nevertheless, we saw an ad in the paper for a church picnic, raffle, flea market, and what have you at the Lutheran Church in Uhland. We knew where Uhland is, just north up Hwy 21 and about due east of Kyle.  We motored up there and did have a bit of trouble finding it as the church yard was empty with no activity, and in fact saw no activity anywhere in the area.  Making another pass through this little community, we spotted about 20 cars at the community center, so we pulled in there.  Its on the old Spanish Trail road which parallels Hwy 21 about 100 yards away, but not very visible from 21.  We asked if this was the right place for the turkey dinner and sure enough, it was. The dinner was $8 each, was inside the community center and served in an line with beans, (always), sauerkraut, sweet potatoes, dressing, turkey and cra...

Well it's the day before we leave for New Mexico and it's time to get Cave Girl settled in her new home for the next 3 weeks. Cave girl is just barely tamed and does not know what's in store for her. We have a transport cage that we will need to get her into so that we can take her over to Mari's place. Well, the hour has arrived. We  get her into the travel cage and she is miserable. Screams howls, yowls, growls, all the sounds you never heard from a cat. We get her over to Mari's, and  put her in her cubicle inside the barn which will be her home for the next 3 weeks. As soon as we open the door to  the  travel carrier,  she runs to the corner behind the wooden pallets. Then, she climbs the plywood wall to the top of where the plywood ends, looks down between the wall stud cavities and decides to go down inside the wall, where she is now blocked from going further. She now starts to howl again, scrambling around inside the wall. She then begins to claw her wa...

This morning, CG was feeling pretty good, was snooping around all the garden areas, but otherwise just curious.  Then she decided to munch on some green grass blades.  So, I decided to introduce her to catnip.  She merely sniffed it but then walked away.  A few minutes later, she was a terror, jumped up on the rolled up car cover, raced around on it, burrowed into it, climbed on the back of the chaise lounge chairs, and then, became awol right in front of our eyes. After some minutes went by with no sound from her, we did pick up some faint meows.  Here she was up in the oak tree in front of the house, exploring every limb on this big tree.  Really bizarre behavior all of a sudden. Was it the catnip?   Who knows?

A couple weeks ago, a mother cat and four small kittens showed up in the breezeway looking kinda sorrowful.  We gave them some milk, they drank it all, and expected more but didn't get any.  The mother cat was large, mostly dark color, and the four young ones were all sorts of colors, some light orange, some black and white with no tiger striping, etc.  There was one kitten of the four that seemed to not fit in with the rest of them, hung back from the other three and when they were all scared, the one ran in one direction the others ran in the opposite direction. Well the next day, all the other cats were gone but not this outcast as I will call it.  It found a home in the block wall in one of the holes of a cinder block.  When called, it would meow but not come out.  Finally we coaxed it out with food.  It was small, ribs were showing and generally acted kinda weak. Thus, this cat's nickname got to be Cave Girl because every time she fini...

Well, earlier this week we saw an ad in the SM Daily Record for a church bar-b-que lunch for today, this Saturday.  So we decided to check it out, because, heck, we always liked church lunches from our experience in the Painted Churches area.  Remembering that the address for this Wesleyan church was on Fredericksburg Street, we headed for the church called Wesleyan up on the hill that the elephant calls home-(TSU).  Got there, no line, no shortage of spaces to park in the church lot within stones throw of the University.  What luck, got out and asked the group selling drinks at the sidewalk if this was the place for the bar-b-que lunch.  This took them totally by surprise, as well as us, so Dee asked if this was Fredericksburg (street).  They said, no, ma'am, this is San Marcos, Fredrickburg is 75 miles north of here.  No, no, the street. Well, after some frustration they acknowledged that the Wesleyan Church we were looking for was the histori...

Two of our neighbors run longhorn cattle on the community's 2000 acres and twice a year they roundup the cattle to sell the crop of young stock.  Roundup days always have a minds eye image of cattlemen on horses, ropes, dusty conditions (got that--haven't had rain in two months) and bawling cows as calves are separated from their mothers. So, this last weekend was roundup day.  Early in the morning, sitting on the back porch you could hear many bawling cows and the sound of atv's. Then on the road, from the atv, came the call "here cow, here cow" and the tinkle of a bell to call the cattle.  Such is the modern cowboy.

Okay, so for many days, there were just two Leopard Frogs in the water trough.  They like the bird beach, but sometimes they sit on the rim and look out over the countryside, and sometimes dive down to the bottom of the trough and sulk.  But for many days there were only two of them.  I had for sure thought the biggest one got nailed by the roadrunner as it had not shown itself for days. Then the day before yesterday, the big one showed up again.  But wait, that's not all.  Yesterday a fourth one showed up; so we had four L. Frogs on the beach at one time.  Then the big one jumped to the rim and stared longingly out over the front yard, and I thought, here we go, I can now witness how they appear and disappear, because he is going to leap out, and go on some journey out into the gravel and into the weeds.  Nope, after a few minutes, wheeled around and back into the water. No telling if they are making sojourns or not.  Maybe at night when i...

Yesterday we attended a two hour long presentation at the Library on the subject of the famous photo known as The Kiss.  This, you may recall was the photo of the US Sailor who was kissing a nurse in the street at Times Square in NYC.  The purpose of the presentation was to show how using facts of astronomy and geography put the authenticity of this photo in great jeopardy. This photo was taken on VJ day in NYC and was published on the inside of a LIFE magazine issue of that time.  No one knows, to this date who the two individuals were in that photo.  Some 40 or so men have come forward saying "it was me", but none were confirmed until some one wrote a book and claimed that it was two people who were proven to be "the ones".  Well, through detective work and a whole lot of cross checking, two professors at the college here have shown that the book published sometime back got it all wrong, and so also debunked the famous newscasters who made it clear on t...

First there was just one frog, then we spotted two frogs, then three.  We expect that now there will be lots of frogs. L. Frog is interesting to watch.  There are times when all of a sudden, a frog just jumps out of the tub and onto the gravel nearby.  Then sits on the gravel and jumps back into the tub. This tub is about 18 inches tall, so a good jump is required. Last, while having dinner, it was noticed that a frog had jumped up onto the limestone window sill and was sitting there surveying the countryside.  Then, not missing the target, jumped back into the tub. They like the bird beach, and share it willingly with the birds. Yesterday, a roadrunner came to drink and did those frogs duck for cover.  I am certain that a frog would go well in the diet of a roadrunner. Snakes are also a threat to the frogs.  Frogs react quickly to the presence of a roadrunner, but I wonder how good they would be at recognizing the stealth of a snake?  We know the...

Well, I am not at all sure that it is the same frog, but, nevertheless, the frog is back. In the front of the house, underneath the eave, is a metal tub filled with water for whomever needs the water.  In an earlier post, it featured the birds who have learned how to use the sloping 2x6 as a beach for their bathing. The metal tub is under the eave to have rainfall help keep it full.  Only this week have I had to add water to it with the hose from the rainwater storage tank. Last summer, a leopard frog showed up in the tank, sometimes on the bird beach, sometime hanging on the rim, some days visible, some days not.  Then, along came the fall season, and more and more the frog hung on the rim, looking out over the expanse of the dry back yard.  Then, as the days became cooler, all of a sudden, he disappeared.  To where, no one knows. Now, here it is , middle of July and L. Frog is back.  How this frog gets up the side of the tank to access the water is s...

If one lives long enough, there is a good chance to see some contrasts from earlier days to the current time. Take for example the topic of what the school required in the way of supplies for new students in the first grade or kindergarten.  In the early days (not going to reveal how early this is), it would be recalled that only a pencil and paper were required.  Then, a bit later, maybe in the 50's it was determined that a "pencil box" was also required. Fast forward to today, it seems as if now, a whole office layout of supplies are required.  We happened to notice these tables of requirements in the local big box store, listing what the incoming kindergarten and first grader needed to bring to school. Here's the list: Click on the table to see a readable view. No wonder the little kids need backpacks! One of the learnings in school these days is consumerism.

A summer day in LaGrange, how exciting, well, it was, kinda. We travelled to LaGrange to see the annual quilt show in their dedicated museum building just off the Courthouse square.  A few years ago, a sponsor bought this building and remodeled it so that it now has three large rooms to show the quilts on the wall.  In the usual style of museums, there are quilts on permanent display and then a display of quilts on loan that are making the rounds in the nation.  One ladies quilts were featured, and most of her creations were tie dyed and machine stitched to match the tie dyeing. But first we had to have lunch at one of the restaurants just off the square.  R gave it a C- rating which saves us from returning in the near term.   Then to the flower plant vendor also just off the square---hot, no sale.  She did have the fern cigar plant but they looked kinda weak, just as we would have looked and acted had we bought it and then had to plant it when we ...

Come to see my rose garden said the spider to the fly. This spider went to great ends to create an attractive spot for insects to visit, all the time he sat in the middle of the web, waiting to invite them to dinner.   Well, as our president will tell the spider, he didn't build that rose garden.  But it sure did look attractive to the midnight bugs. All the little "roses" are merely flowerettes from the crape myrtle bush you can see alongside. Click the pic for a good view.

Whatever happened to the elected leader accountability?   We recently went through some rather nasty flooding, and one neighborhood in particular seems to have been negatively impacted by the construction of a mega apartment complex.  You see, this apartment complex was built just as a dam would be built, in the flood area, and yup, it acted like a dam that created the flooding in an adjoining neighborhood. So people are naturally upset with their leaders now, and they were then too, when the leaders approved the construction in this area a year ago. So the response by the elected officials?  It was as problem created by the danged city staff they say.  To widen the blame, the P &  Z managed to get some of it too.   All  of this blaming resulted in the elected officials (mayor, etal) appearing to escape the wrath of those who elected them. Here we are, a city with a few elected officials, and tons of hired and named people who are...

Water for the birds of the neighborhood is not a critical need at the moment since we have had above normal rain. Nevertheless, dry (very dry) periods keep reappearing and so water sources need to be maintained. We found a good solution a year ago, when we had to invent a means to keep water supplied while we were away for a month.  We placed a stock tank under the eave to catch any rainwater that might fall---and then----placed a board on a slant into the water.  We knew that the water level at times would be far below the rim, and birds would not be able to stand on the rim and drink.  The purpose of the board was to provide a gradual "beach" down and into the water when it was low. For some time, they could not figure it out.  But then quite suddenly they got used to the board beach and used it to drink from the lowered water level---and---even to bathe! Interesting that the cardinals figured it out first, then the painted buntings joined ...

Well, if Jack Golding had a good mother, he would have certainly had a good father as well. Today, the hot discussion topic was the ruling by the Boy Scouts of America that they no longer could play with water pistols.  For that matter, they also have "outlawed" water filled balloons, excepting those no larger that a ping pong ball. Can you imagine playing with water balloons no larger than ping pong balls? It seems as if the kids are being supermanaged these days, not being allowed to do what kids have done for many years, all in the name of (I guess) a kinder, more civilized society. The big question is:  How will these young boys grow into men who can handle tough situations? None of this was the case at our grade school in the 1940-1950 period.  We didn't have water pistols then, but we did have rubber band guns--guns that our dads (and maybe even some mothers) helped us to build so we could take them to school for recess fights.   Well, these did get ba...

Today was another interesting day.  We ran into Caddo, and we struck up conversation about old times around this area.  He said he was born and raised in Hillsboro, TX and sought a way to escape cotton farming, following in the footsteps of his dad, a cotton farmer.   He interviewed Southwest Texas for a scholarship in football (this was in 1952).  The interviewer on the phone said, yes, he would like to talk to him about a scholarship, and advised him to drive on down to San Marcos for the interview.  Well, Caddo had no car, so he hitchhiked the way to San Marcos, interviewed and asked how he was to get the scholarship and the interviewer said "sign right here and you have it".  He did and he got the chance to play football for SWT.  He then played football, graduated with a degree in agriculture only to find out that there were no job openings in agriculture for those who did not graduated from Texas A & M.  Being an Aggie was imp...

I read an about an idea lately that is proving to be pretty good. The idea went like this:  The basis for all freedom is that one should never do harm to anyone else and should never take their "stuff". Thinking about freedom and the every lengthening list of laws, it seems to prove the point about how freedom is related to harm and theft. And certainly freedom is related to the absence of laws. Hmmm

Another eleven bluebird houses were built yesterday.  That makes 270 built since the project was started ten years ago.  These bluebird houses are patterned after the now classic bluebird story in the National Geographic Magazine article of June 1977  (vol 151, No. 6). Some of these bluebird houses have been used at places lived, but most have been given away to garden clubs, individuals, etc. The outlook is to make another 20 before next spring for two garden clubs. Here's a shot of the 11 just made, all stacked ready for delivery to Medina, Texas

Never experienced this before.  All the garden hoses stored on the ground on the northwest side of the house are badly chewed, and apparently eaten, as the chips are no where around.  Some of the hoses are vinyl, others are rubber.  It apparently makes no difference to the culprit as both have been chewed equally. I set the game camera out for a couple nights, but no photos were taken. The tooth marks are quite large, somewhat eliminating field mice---but what could it be? Here is the evidence:

No matter who you talk to regarding school discipline, if they happen to be over, say, the age of 70, they tell the same story.   That story is this:  When they were disciplined at school, went home and told your parents that you were disciplined at school, and sure enough, you were disciplined again for the event at school---almost no matter what the event happened to be.  Parents did not even ask for details, it was bam! and you were out. Today, in contrast, when a child goes home to report that they were disciplined at school, the parents first step is to call the teacher and usually blame the teacher for disciplining their child, again, almost with no investigation into the details. Why is this---why has this shift occurred so completely from teacher support to teacher blame? The answer may be simple. It may all relate to the concept of loss of control sensed by the parent.   People, when they sense a loss of control, whether consciously or unconsci...

Looking back, small things seem to mean a lot today.  Here's an example.  Our family had very little cash and so we did all of our wishful shopping in the evening when the stores were closed. It was called "window shopping". That way, we certainly were inspired regarding what we would like to buy, but we avoided the risk of making a foolish purchase, simply because all the stores were closed---except for one---the Planter Peanut  shop. The Planter Peanut man played an important role in our young lives.  Sure, we knew all the stores were closed, but we also knew that the Planter Peanut man would be open for business.   And, because we did not have the opportunity to buy big ticket items, we did have enough money to buy some peanuts---and so we did.  It made the day for us children. So, today, this is remembered far more than anything of greater purchases recalled.  Ask me why, I do not know, except its true. Every so often, we would go upscale ...

Cousin Harold is about 4 years older than I, and now lives so far away that meeting in person is hard to pull off.  So we talk on the phone every so often. Our conversation always focuses on the distant past, UFO's, or the history of atomic weapons development.  As children, we often visited each other's homes with our parents, but usually it was in the direction of his place, a farm of about 40 acres.  This 40 acre farmstead was in flat farming country in western Michigan, good for growing corn as we shall get into later. Going to the farm was always a fall event for some number of days as it was afforded by "teachers convention".  Harold's mother, my aunt, was a school teacher and teachers convention pulled her away for several days---that's when we visited the farm and ran wild. Harold tells the story of how  he and Art burrowed down in the sandy area behind the barn, making  a large cavern with a small entry hole over which they pulled a cover. ...

Went out and about the wilds for a walk and to hunt for arrowheads.  It was a nice day, sunny, about 65 degrees and rather quiet; no wind or other noise.  I did not find any arrowheads, but did find two spots on elevated areas that had a lot of debitage---flint knapping chips---but no arrow heads.  One doesn't usually find whole, complete arrowheads in the work area, just parts of arrowheads.  That's because in the making of arrowheads, there are a lot of failures and those that are broken while knapping  get discarded only for me to find hundreds of years later.  Must have been a good knapper in these areas scouted this day. Not long after starting out, I was standing on a spot and looked to my left and there it was, a big, mature skunk.  It had the most elegant tail I have ever seen on a skunk.  Had I had my .22, the tail might now be in the barn drying out.  But I didn't have my .22 with me, so it got to keep the elegant tail for another ...

Too much protection plays into the law of unintended consequences. Just today, we read that the ever increasing allergy to peanuts might stem from---not eating enough peanuts in the formative years, therefore not developing proper immunities to this allergy. So says the article written by . "Too much protection"  stories abound today.  When society offers and sometimes forces protection on the individual, the result is oftentimes that the people begin to lose their ability to avoid danger. It even happens with domestic cattle.  Many breeds of cattle are so domesticated that cows will not object to a predator attacking and carrying away a newborn calf.  Yet the Longhorn cow, not nearly as domesticated as, say, a Holstein cow, will not only "babysit" calves in a small group for other cows, but will get rather nasty if a predator shows up. Advocates of expanding breadth of  government need to pay heed to the risk of weakening society as a result of overly prote...

It appears from all the 5 years of experience of warfare with mice in the attic, a couple of things come to light. 1.  Mice, in there frantic effort to store food in a warm place for the winter, must carry the food in their mouths.  So, a baited trap on their path is sometimes ineffective---they pass right by it on their way to store their food at a preselected place.  Solution, should you know their path is to use a glue board. When they attempt to run over the glue board, they are finished. 2.  They need water, but not a lot of water. Often the small bit of water in their stored food is enough for a short time.  This means that they can live in an attic for some days without having to return to the outdoors for water---and to get more food to bring to the storage area. 3.  They are extreme in their habits. Once one finds a path to a good spot for wintering or nesting, the others are sure to follow.  For example, merely look at the pathways in deep...

In the 1930's the cost to educate one child was around $400 per year.  Now, its around $8000 per year.  Ya ya, times have changed, we all know that.  But that doesn't deter us from asking if school consolidation has really returned good benefits, or if there might have been a different approach to educating children. Recent studies on school consolidation--its been happening since the 1920's---have suggested that the drivers for school consolidation were two:  efficiency and quality of education.  So, how have each faired.  This report goes on to say that at first, efficiency was gained by consolidation, but then lost as large districts got to be more bureaucratic and government loaded them up with new requirements.  So far, that does not intersect with the quality of education---get to that later. Efficiency improvement might have been achieved by a different route: Some parts can be consolidated into central management, like purchasing, but that wo...