Tag Archives: culture

Upside Down Thrift Store Horse Trading

Posted on September 23, 2011 by | 9 comments

This 24/7 music to keep owls from killing my guineas at night  [ White Trash Repairs and Fixes – Owls and Rock ‘n Roll ] is hard on audio equipment.

A while back I was without music to confuse the owl-folk.  I’d spang worn out my Kerrville FreeCycle-donated 200 CD Sony player and was scouting around for whatever the Universe had in mind to replace it.  A couple of months had passed, to I figured the Universe was ripe.

Salvation Army Thrift Store in Kerrville was having a half-price off on electronics sale.  I nosed around among the 8 track tape players, the television sets, the wires with all kinds of connections pretending not to pay any mind to a Sony 300 CD player staring at me as though I was the abyss.  The door was open on it and it seemed a bit battered, but someone had taped, “WORKS” on it, along with a price of $65.  $32.50 with the half-price on electronics.

The guy I think must be the store manager was at the register, and we’ve done enough business over time for him to know my ways and for me to know his.   Between ringing up purchases he was watching me not lo0k at that CD player with a half-smile on his face.  I moseyed over to it scowling, making sure in the corner of my eye he was looking, and tried to mess with the door to get it closed.  Shook my head, then looked up and met his eye.

“If that thing has a door it doesn’t seem to close.”

“Bring it over here and we’ll talk about it.”

I put it on the counter and we both scowled at it.  “That’s a lot of money to have to risk for something might not work.  If I bought it could you write down something so I could bring it back if it doesn’t work?”

We both knew the answer to that one.  It’s sold as is.  “I can’t do that.  But I’d sure hate for someone to buy it and get stuck with it not working.  What do you think it’s worth risk-wise?”

He and I have been through this enough times before to know how we play the game.  “I couldn’t pay more than $20 for it.”

“No,” shaking his head, “I’d rather give it to you free than let you pay that much.”

“I’m not taking that out of here free.  I’m not begging.  I’m just trying to find a price we can agree on.  How about $15?”

“How about a buck?”

“$10?  I’m not sure I can go any lower than 10.  A man has to live with his conscience.”  I feigned away from the counter as though about to walk off.

“Noo, no, no!”  Him acting frantic.  “How about $5?  Could you go $5?”

“Sold.”

He carried it across the counter to the register and started figuring the tax.  “It’s half-price for electronics today.  But you probably don’t want to use that, do you?”

“Naw.  Just ring it up at the full price we agreed to.  I’m not looking for any bargain.”

Old Jules

Steve Goodman- The Auctioneer

9 Comments

Posted in 2011, America, Country Life, Human Behavior, Kerrville, Senior Citizens, Thrift Stores

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Fire Ants, Dishwashing and Drought

Posted on September 22, 2011 by | 10 comments

Having to haul water offers up a rare challenge insofar as cooking and cleaning up afterward.   Before the drought became so severe I’d mitigated the problem by putting my dirty dishes into potato or grapefruit bags and placing them on imported fireant beds.  A day later, voila!  Clean clean clean!

All I had to do is pull them out of the bags and wipe them down with a moist towel or cloth and they were ready to use.

But as the summer progressed and the soil dried the fire ant beds became more difficult to locate.  Without moisture in it the soil here has no structure.  The beds became invisible, and concurrently the ants seemed just to go underground.   Imported fire ants,  common name: red imported fire ant
scientific name: Solenopsis invicta Buren (Insecta: Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Myrmicinae) are eating machines.  They’ll eat anything.

http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu/creatures/urban/ants/fire_ant16.htm

“Mounds are built of soil and are seldom larger than 46 cm (18 in) in diameter. When a mound is disturbed, ants emerge aggressively to bite and sting the intruder. A white pustule usually appears the next day at the site of the sting (Cohen 1992). ”

I looked for other alternatives with other ant species, no joy.  What I discovered is that good American fire ants just don’t want to do that kind of work.  I tried it with every kind of ant bed I could find, dishes stacking up in the sink, me gradually being forced to use hauled water and scouring pads to clean up dishes and utensils.

If I couldn’t find some good American fireants willing to work or some way to locate illegal imported fireants for the job I was going to be reduced to hauling water a lot more, or get a dog to lick that stuff off the eatingware.

Luckily that 24/7 September 13, moonbows and canned thunder outdoor canned thunder brought in the first measurable rainfall in 100+ days here, just as you thought it would.  There’s enough moisture in the soil now to let the fire ant mounds get some altitude so’s I’ll be able to locate them for my dishwashing.

On the other hand, the rain proved my chimney-fix didn’t entirely accomplish what was intended.

Water was hitting the chimney outside, intruding and running down the stovepipe as far as the elbow, then dripping in.

Hard to think of a good quote to sum up all this.  “It’s an ill wind that blows no good?”

But it’s all good.  I just have to cut that oversized chimney-pipe and put it on there as a sleeve over the old chimney soon.  Better knowing it now than discovering it when Mr. Bullgoose Daddy-Longlegs storm comes in.

Old Jules

10 Comments

Posted in 2011, Adventure, Homesteading, Kerrville, Redneck Repairs, Texas, White Trash Repairs

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The Horror of Discovering You Love Opera

Posted on September 21, 2011 by | 11 comments
A performance of Don Giovanni with the great Italian baritone Antonio Scotti (as Don Giovanni). Scotti sang the role of Don Giovanni at Covent Garden, London, in 1899 and again at the Metropolitan Opera, New York in December of the same year.

It never dawned on me I was proud I didn’t like opera.  I’d never heard any opera except brief snatches or in spoofs.  I’d never given any conscious thought at all to the fact I thought people who went to operas did it to show off to other people who went to operas, or were snooty and just wanted to impress someone, or were sissies.  Never gave it a single thought.

To my mind a person who went to operas was just naturally, naturally, naturally someone I had no respect for, had no time for, would never take seriously.  I didn’t need to think about it.  I knew.  I don’t recall anyone ever trying to change my thinking about it, either.  I imagine they all knew same as I did those opera goers were phonies and sissies.

So, sometime in the late-1980s when my ex-wife got a couple of opera tickets for a performance on the University of Texas campus I wasn’t overjoyed.  I suited up and traveled down there under duress, grumbled behind her to our seats, scowled when the lights went down and battened down the hatches for hard weather.

Over the next couple of hours a pair of blinders was removed from my eyes, plugs removed from my ears.  A war went on inside me as the realization dawned that I loved this stuff.  The next time an opera came to Austin it was me insisting we get tickets.

That would be bad enough if it had stopped there.  But when my marriage broke up in 1992, and I relocated to Santa Fe, mildly affluent, I discovered a Santa Fe Opera exists.  I attended a performance, and thereafter every year bought season tickets and used them as long as I could afford them.

I’ve attended a lot of concerts and live performances in my life and enjoyed many with Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, Kinky Friedman, Leonard Cohen, Loudon Wainwright and others, including a few Broadway performances.  But I’d be lying if I claimed every opera I ever attended wasn’t as thrilling and uplifting as I walked out as any of those.

And naturally, I hate myself for it and hang my head in shame admitting it.

Florida Grand Opera-DON GIOVANNI, The Don’s final scene

11 Comments

Posted in 1990's, Adventure, Education, Human Behavior, Music, NM

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The Hitch-Hiking Hoodoos

Posted on September 20, 2011 by | 8 comments

I was reading clickclack gorilla’s hitching story and it dawned on me what’s going on in Europe with hitch-hiking is entirely different from it in the US.  Evidently thumbing rides there still includes ‘respectable’ people.  It wasn’t so long ago the same was true in the US.

As a youngster and young man I hitched across the US up-down and sideways more times than I’ve traveled it any other way.  In the military it used to be the most common way soldiers traveled, but it was also a legitimate way of getting to a destination for anyone else, as well.  When I got out of jail for riding trains in Rochester, New York, in 1964, the judge at the arraignment told me, “Don’t you know hopping trains in New York is a FELONY?”

“No sir.  I didn’t know that.”

“Is there someone you can contact to get money for a bus ticket to get back to New Mexico?”

“No sir, there isn’t.”

“I’m going to say this, then I’m going to let you go.  Hitch-hiking is only a misdemeanor in New York.”

After I was released a police officer drove me out to the Interstate and let me off at a freeway entrance.  And way led onto way.

All that hitching as a youth was an adventure I suspect a lot of people alive today haven’t experienced.  Every trip was a hundred stories, including the one above.  And every hitch-hiker I’ve picked up over the decades since [I still do] has been a story in itself.  I keep a case of Dinty Moore stew in the truck and usually give them a can or two if they’ve convinced me they’re hungry.

Today people are generally frightened of hitch-hikers, or just don’t believe the potential feel-good rewards of picking them up is worth the risk of getting robbed, assaulted, or just being trapped inside a vehicle with a person who smells as though he’s been on the road a while is worth it.  I’d opine they’re thinking smart.   I’d be lying if I said I haven’t had some close calls, both hitching, and picking up hitch-hikers.

But I do it anyway, and I’m glad I do, glad I have, wouldn’t trade having done it for the alternative.

I’m thinking I might throw in a few of those hitch-hiking, hitch-hiker tales on this blog occasionally.  Some are chilling, some are strange, but every one is unique.

Old Jules

CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL – SWEET HITCH-HIKER

8 Comments

Posted in 1950's, 1960's, 2011, Adventure, America, Free, hitch hiking, Human Behavior, Youth

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Abdicating Personal Responsibility to Politicians

Posted on September 19, 2011 by | 6 comments

The comments on the Yin Yang Conspiracy post got me thinking about this:

In 1961, at the age of 17 I took an oath agreeing to be part of a team effort to kill anyone John Fitzgerald Kennedy, and later Lyndon Baines Johnson, thought needed killing.

Everything I’ve learned about those two men during the decades since has caused me to believe both were despicable, incorrigible individuals bent on personal power and self-aggrandizement, first, with the betterment of the US public only a priority to the extent it contributed to those.

But I raised my right hand and took an oath to become the trigger-finger for anything they wanted doing, volunteered to point a rifle and kill whomever these two car salesmen cum rich-boy opportunists found more convenient dead than alive.

My thinking today is that, despite the popularity of the choice I made, despite the fact millions of other men made the same choice to abdicate their ethics, their intelligence, their judgement to those men and others exactly of the same unworthy breed, [still do so today,] it’s not a choice to be admired, praised, encouraged, or rewarded.  If anything, it’s a testimony to my own shallowness, stupidity, weakness of character and obliquely, a failure of self-respect.

Today, men and women who openly vilify the President of the US, the US Congress, detest the US military command and officer corps, are nevertheless pointing their weapons at whomever those people they detest tell them to kill.  And label doing so a virtue.

Aside from the fact I didn’t know enough when I took my oath to recognize what scum the two presidents I agreed to kill for were, those people serving today are in precisely the same position I was in.  They’ve agreed to do whatever the dregs of humanity tell them to do, do it without question.

The main change between 1961, and 2011, is that I agreed to do it for $78 per month, whereas they’re getting paid one hell of a lot more to obey the orders about which unlucky human beings get the downrange surprises.

Think about it.  Thousands of young men died, thousands killed because Richard Milhaus Nixon told them to do it.  Yet Richard Nixon outranked those politicians of the time in scumhood so conspicuously he was casheered from office by the others of his club.  His own peers.

What am I missing here?

Is there something in this worthy of admiration?

Old Jules

6 Comments

Posted in Adventure, America, Current Issues, Human Behavior, Politics, Senior Citizens

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The Yin Yang Conspiracy

Posted on September 19, 2011 by | 7 comments

In 1970, the University of Texas was squared off against itself.  The frats, the student government, the sororities, the administration, the ROTC department, and the cops on the one side, and us on the other.

The Vets against the Vietnam War, the Wobblies (IWW), the Panthers, the Young Socialistist Alliance (Trotskyite), the RYM2 (Revolutionary Youth Movement faction of the Students for a Democratic Society), Weathermen (the other, more interesting side of the SDS), and hundreds of other splinter groups were taking a fair beating, though we had the numbers.

I was in the middle of all that, writing for the alternative newspaper, the RAG, and trying to get an education dovetailed with sex, drugs and Rock and Roll with helping organize an occasional riot, march or rally thrown in for good measure.

That’s when we invented the Yin Yang Conspiracy.  An ad hoc political party.  We ran a longhair named Jeff Jones for student body president, and we threw the bastards out, lock stock and fraternity pin.  Lordee we thought we’d done something fierce, beating the system that way.  Hot diggedy-damn.

Anyway, this blog entry is in memory of that microscopic triumph among people who had in common only that they opposed the War. 

The Yin Yang Conspiracy.  A tiny piece of winning the Vietnam War by bringing the troops home.  Winning the easy way.  Coming out in the open, looking those cops, those stay-at-home flag-waving patriots in the eye through their riot masks, and saying, “Enough is enough!”

We learned a lot.  Surveillance, provocateurs, intimidations probably weren’t so pervasive in those days.  No yes-man Congress had passed a Patriot Act, so we still had some rights and protections under the US Constitution.   It would be a tougher gig today.

But, if that was now we’d be doing it again.  We’d be working in both, subtle and overt ways to bring those boys home.

Trying to get them out of there before too many more get all shot up and crippled up and be completely forgotten by the patriots who are waving flags back home.

Old Jules

Country Joe McDonald – I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag http://youtu.be/3W7-ngmO_p8

7 Comments

Posted in 1970's, Adventure, America, History, Human Behavior, Texas

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Texas Thumb and Finger Signs

Posted on September 18, 2011 by | 23 comments

Driving rural roads in Texas requires a lot of savoir-faire, cunning, and savvy. One minor slip and a person can find himself blessed with a new image because he violated a highway protocol.

That’s right. Greeting oncoming motorists in rural Texas is important business.  You never risk the full finger howdy unless you know the guy you’re giving it to well enough to anticipate exactly what he’s up to.

Once you’re committed to the full finger howdy there’s no getting out of it.  If he responds by staring ahead, looking off into the pasture through his passenger window, he wins.  He’s communicated to you that he’s enough more important than you he can practice the one-upsmanship of ignoring you.  He’s disdained your greeting, while awarding himself the uplifting feeling of having insulted you without danger of being insulted in return.

The most common way rural Texans avoid overstretching their trust in their fellow motorists is to hold out for a sign from the oncoming driver that he’s going to indulge in a greeting.  This is awkward because it ends up being a game of chicken, each driver trying to out-wait the other to insure not being a loser, while avoiding being thought a snob.

Carefully executed, the tentative hat tip can be a good maneuver, both defensively, and offensively.  Defensively, the user can quickly change from a full finger howdy in progress to snatching the hat and wiping his forehead on his sleeve in the blink of an eye.  Offensively, he can perform this maneuver AFTER the other driver has committed, thereby, winning.

At highway speeds and in traffic usually there’s no time to complete the more complex rituals involving headgear.  Instead, the game gets played from the top of the steering wheel.

The index finger acknowledge can have a number of different meanings.  It might mean, “I don’t know who you are, but I don’t want to risk being rude.”  It might mean, “Yeah, I see you but I’m not enthusiastic about it.”  Or it might mean, “I don’t have time to play,” or, “I’m not from around here.”

The fast three finger hi means, “You almost got me.”  Slower, it means, “I’m pretty sure I’ve seen you around but I haven’t formed an opinion of you yet.”

The full-hand steering wheel howdy is usually reserved for dirt roads or slow traffic and close acquaintances.  It expresses, “I’m willing to stop and talk if you want to, but I’m not married to the idea.”

The spread hand steering wheel howdy usually means, “That hay you’re hauling is on fire.”  However, sometimes it might mean, “That trash bag you threw out is caught on your antenna and waving around beside your Confederate battle flag.”

Thumb up canted right means, “Yeah, them boys won last night.”  Or, “Yeah, I heard they dropped the DWI charges.”  Or, “Yeah, I heard you won the lottery.”

Thumb up canted left means, “Just because I’m acknowledging you doesn’t mean I’m your new best friend.”

Then, of course, there’s always this.  Usually stopped, or molasses-slow traffic.  It can mean a lot of things, but one way or another it always means the same thing.  The guy needs a shave and haircut.

Old Jules

Dinah Shore – Dear Hearts And Gentle People – 1949

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8AM afterthoughts:

http://selousscouts.blogspot.com/ featured a compact camping setup this morning worth the watch called swissbox home board.  It’s expensive, but a person with a few tools and a bit of imagination could probably produce something similar for the inside of a van or camper, or use outdoors as depicted in the video.  Customized for personal preferences and needs.

Along similar lines http://www.clickclackgorilla.com/ featured RelaxShacks, http://relaxshacks.blogspot.com/ which offers a lot of ideas for other approaches to somewhat the same problem.

Way leads on to way and RelaxShacks led to TinyHouseTalk http://www.tinyhousetalk.com/category/tiny-houses/  .  Lots of good ideas and info there.

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This morning I saw the first deliberate aggression I’ve ever beheld on the part of a doe.  When I went out to turn the chickens loose and feed them she came in close and didn’t agree to be run off even a little way while she waited for me to throw out chicken feed to the hens.  I waved a stick at her and she picked out an Australorp layer about 30 yards away, ran at her, kicked her rolling, and appeared intending to do more if I hadn’t come running and yelling to the rescue.

This might be the beginning of a change in policy regarding these starving critters.  I’ve tolerated them storming the place, robbing chicken feed, being a pesky nuisance constantly, even doing minor damage, but I’m not going to tolerate attacks on the hens or cats.

Old Jules

23 Comments

Posted in 2011, America, Communication, Human Behavior, Relationships, Texas

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Curiouser and curiouser

Posted on September 15, 2011 by | 12 comments

Notice that hash marking of diagonal sunspots.

spaceweather.com

Then have a look at the positions of the three weirdest spin axis / magnetic fields in the solar system.  Saturn, Uranus and Neptune:

SimSolar v2.0 Planetary position simulation

Old Jules

8:30 AM – Just for those who think a blog entry ought to have something for everyone.

Tired of buying compressed air to blow the dirt out of your computer, watching the prices on it rise to simulate gold?

60# of pressure that doesn’t run out.  Cost was $2 in a thrift store.

Computer gurus will tell you it might cause moisture to condense on the important components of your comp.  Physics says they ought to be maybe right because of the venturi created when the air expands leaving the pressurized tube.

I’ve been using this one inside and outside my comps for about two years.  Haven’t seen any signs of condensation, haven’t experienced any damage to the comps, haven’t spent a penny on compressed air, don’t have a bunch of empty cans lying around wondering what to do with themselves.

But that’s just me.   I’m a risk taker.

It also serves as a great, compact bellows for starting fires in a wood stove.

INTERIM UPDATE to September 13, moonbows and canned thunder

Mama Nature after two days of brainwashing with canned thunder:

Old Jules

5:00 PM – Decided I needed to go to Kerrville for necessaries.  Ended up getting a couple of watermelons from an old guy brings them up from the valley.  He says it’s his last watermelon trip for the year, says they’ve gotten too high in cost down there to allow him any profit after hauling costs.  I told him he needs to buy another truck and make up the difference in volume.  Some jokes have been dead long enough for reincarnating them.  This one fell on deaf ears.  Only drew a puzzled look, as though he was considering the entrepreneural aspects.

This was hard to resist.  All those foam ice chests could have kept my chickens pooping foam plastic until spring.

Those shower doors are still coming in for them I reckons, with nobody buying them.  I got 20 free for building my chicken house out of, but I’m betting you’d have to pay $5 for all these until they’re ready to put them in the dumpster.

Those have collected dust, been around a while.  I’m guessing a person could have them all at a righteous price as low as your conscience would allow you to offer.

Next stop:

Not much going on here.

Next stop:

A guy surely needs one of those, eh?

Didn’t buy nuffin there though.  Eventually did pick off a $3 electric 6 cup rice steamer never been out of the box at Salvation Army Thrift Store.

12 Comments

Posted in 2011, Adventure, Human Behavior, Kerrville, Redneck Repairs, RedneckRepairs, Thrift Stores, White Trash Repairs

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Future Me

Posted on September 14, 2011 by | 11 comments


Morning Blogsters:

Someone showed me a website where a person can send emails to be delivered to themselves at some specified future time.  http://www.futureme.org/

Interesting thought.

What’s more interesting, however, is that a person’s allowed to have those emails to his future self posted for the public to read, though those are anonymous.

It’s a study in the way a lot of people view themselves.

One intriguing shot some 16 year old fired at his 22 year old self,

“I hope you’re out of the Marine Corps by now.  If you aren’t, you are an idiot.”

A 16-er who ain’t yet in the Gyrenes telling his future self he hopes he’s out by now and implying going in was a mistake???

But what’s most puzzling is the way so many are lecturing their future selves.

“I hope you own fifteen rent houses by now and are driving a Corvette.  If not, you’ve been procrastinating.  Get busy.”

Evidently a lot of people are going along on the assumption they’re as wise now as they’ll be five or ten years from now, and that the person they’ll be won’t shudder, nor blush that HERE’s what they used to be.  Here’s how they used to think.  Whew.

“No wonder my life is such a mess if THAT’s where I came from”, they’ll be saying.

One cute one  from some young adult of indeterminate age was addressed to him/herself to be delivered, January 1, 2013.  It congratulates the future self for being there to read the email, reminding about how he/she had been into Mayan prophesy predicting the end of the world in 2012.

OOOOOOOkay.

Got me thinking, what’s really needed is a site where we can send emails to be delivered to ourselves at specified times in the past.

For instance, I could send one to me for delivery January 1, 1999.

“Hi guy.

“You just took your retirement funds out of their safe haven, retired, and you’re getting ready to go off and prepare for the collapse of civilization. 

  • “You think the banks, the IRS, everything’s going deep South a year from now. 
  • “You think buying that land on installments is a smart move, that the money’s better spent buying food, shelter, barter items, medications, for hoards of refugees that will be coming out of the cities.  Because,
  • “You think when civilization collapses the taxes, the installments, even paper cash will be gone, kaput.

“I don’t want to influence you about most of what you’re going to do during the next year, but I do have a couple of suggestions.

  • “First, notice I’m sending you this email by computer from 2011.
  • “Second, you’ve asked yourself what you’re going to do if the lights don’t go out and think you know the answer.  Prepare yourself for a surprise or two.  No need to change anything much, but keep in mind life is full of the unexpected.  Savor the adventure. 
  • “Third, store your retirement cash you’re depending on in case Y2K doesn’t happen in a metal container where the rats can’t get to it. (Trust me on this one.  Just do it and don’t ask any questions.)

“Other than that, you’re doing fine, sport.  Just go on with what you were doing when you opened this email.

“From the man you’re going to be twelve HARD years from now,”

“Jules”

“PS – There’s a website out there where you can answer this email and have it delivered to me now.  Don’t bother.  I  was you once.  I remember all about it.  You don’t have anything to say I don’t know already.

“PPS – Start learning as much as you can learn about playing blackjack.  You’re going to need it for a while. 

“I’d probably be remiss if I didn’t mention that you are one incredibly stupid SOB, though you don’t know it yet.  You won’t know it in 2002, 2006, 2008, even 2010, either, though it won’t have changed.  In fact, you’ll always be convinced you are right on top of things during all those times.  No problem, chum.  It will add a lot of adventure and spice to our life.

“You don’t get to be smart until September, 2011.  Tough gig but it’s something to look forward to.”

Old Jules

George Harrison– Any Road

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NOTE:  I can’t visit Face Book because of the load time and my slow connection.  However, Jeanne’s posted a video on my FB what? Account?  Site? Whatever they do over there.  It’s a short thing of a fawn born under my porch she caught on camera while she was here.  Those of you who are able to open Face Book might enjoy it.  Jules

11 Comments

Posted in Communication, Creative Writing, Current Issues, Human Behavior, Internet, Writing, Y2K, Youth

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September 13, moonbows and canned thunder

Posted on September 13, 2011 by | 7 comments

Expect an uneventful day, blogsters.  Nothing has happened in the world on September 13, since 1922:

Turkey
1922 Turkey Constantinople

13th Sept. 1922 : Following the Turkish Victory in Constantinople, crowds have taken to the streets and are attacking Greek churches and homes and destroying them . The Turkish troops have been dispatched to keep order. The spread of Typhus and the Plague are now reaching epidemic proportions but authorities are insisting they do no not wish aid in the form of medical assistance from neighboring countries.

Siege of Constantinople Public Domain Photo

Full Size Original Here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Siege_of_Constantinople.jpg    Well.

Actually there was this: U.S.
1926 U.S.A. Bandits Robbing Mail Trains

13th September 1926 : The Post Office Department sent a memo to it’s army of 25,000 railway mail clerks an order to shoot to kill any bandits attempting to rob the mail, this follows an ever increasing number of robberies by bandits on the mail service which carries millions of dollars worth of mail every day. They also issued a statement saying that if the robberies continue the marines will be bought in again to protect the mail. http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/september13th.html

But otherwise nothing’s ever happened on September 13, since 1922, so relax.

On the other hand, this from Spaceweather.com

HARVEST MOONBOW: Last night’s Harvest Moon was so bright, it did something normally reserved for the sun. It made a rainbow:

“I was surprised to see a rainbow at night,” says Marsha Adams of Sedona, Arizona, who took the picture nearly 2 hours before sunrise. “The rainbow was apparently caused by the Harvest Moon beaming through the rain clouds.”

Indeed, moonlight reflected by raindrops breaks into the colors of a rainbow just like sunlight does. It takes an especially bright Moon, however, to make the phenomenon visible to the human eye. Did anyone else spot a Harvest Moonbow? Submit your images here.

http://spaceweather.com/

Yeah, Old Sol’s still got a case of measles or chicken pox.  Astrophysicists are attempting to arrive at a consensus about which, without success:

http://spaceweather.com/

http://spaceweather.com/

http://spaceweather.com/

I’ve been talking this over with the cats and chickens this morning, the September 13 ennui, and the possible implications and ramifications as they apply to the human psyche and potential injecting something to mitigate it all.  Eventually we agreed on a course of action.

Today I’m going to be playing a constantly repeating CD of a violent thunderstorm outdoors with as much volume as I can coax out of the receiver and speakers.  We here in the middle of nowhere want to do our small part for humanity while maybe giving a whispering hint to Mama Nature without being pushy.

It’s a true fact I’ve observed whenever I’ve been around watching people watch television:  When the box shoots out canned laughter it triggers laughter on the people watching it.  It’s time, the cats, the chickens and I have decided, to give Mama Nature a healthy dose of canned thunder and the sound of rain falling.

Old Jules

9:30 AM – Raising the ante:

On the off-chance I’m being too subtle in my communications with Mama Nature, I’ve got a load of socks and underwear in my handy-dandy 1947 Kenmore washing machine [ Clean Underwear and Hard Times ] running the gauntlet.  After the rinse I’m not going to wring them out, but instead will hang them from the line to provide the nearest thing I’m able to rainfall hitting the dirt underneath the line.

I’m betting between the canned thunder, the sound of rainfall, and all that dripping underneath, Mama Nature’s plenty smart enough to put it all together.

I just hope I got all the soap out of my socks and drawers.  I don’t need Mama Nature soaping down the countryside and trying to wash all the stuff out of the holes in the roof I’ve been plugging to stop the leaks if it ever rains.

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Posted in 2011, Astronomy, Chickens, Country Life, Current Issues, Free-ranging-chickens, Homesteading, Human Behavior, Nature, Poultry, Solitude, Texas

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