Nice Dirt

Mmmmm......
(make sure that the sound is way down)
Can't wait to play in some of this.

Joy

When I returned from half way around the world in the late summer of 1994, I was standing on the fantail of a huge flat-top warship looking down toward the USS Arizona, and at a large flag attached to my boat waving in the light wind, finally back on the land that it was sent from. I was proud of my country and thankful for those who went before.

Today, listening to a poet, a group of musicians, and a new leader for this country, I once again have that feeling. It's hard not to be happy for today and each day that we all enjoy without fear of being shot for what we think.

CP's First Carrot of the Season

She's doing the first-carrot-of-the-season dance with a mouthful of broccoli florets. I picked one that I thought might be done growing, since none of them are crowning yet, and told her to give it a pull. It started coming out of the ground and just didn't stop. It was roughly 8" long, but by the time CP got done with it, all that was left was the green top.

This carrot was sincerely the sweetest carrot I've ever tasted. It was amazing. Full of liquid and it had that really light sweet taste that reminded me of the confectioners' sugar sweetness from Minneola Tangelos.

Fruit Peddler

Just heard a song about the last fruit peddler in New Orleans by Chris Smither on Radio Bob McWilliams' show Trail Mix. We used to listen to Radio Bob when we lived in KC and Topeka. Sometime soon, our little superJetta will be filled with that sound again. Anyway, the song and the story are worth checking out.

Not that bad...

After watching Frontline tonight, I realized that no matter what comes our way, we'll probably never have it as bad as some. About half way into this show, I started wondering why there aren't some retired military SF or spook types sitting at home bored, who don't help people wade through the mess of getting their family members back.

As an added bonus, or just for old times' sake, they could just help some of these traffickers disappear.....as in assume room temperature. When you figure in the human misery that these traffickers and their enablers (corrupt police) spread across the world, an $0.18 bullet is a small price to pay to wipe them from the earth and commit them to a compost heap. I don't know, but I think that if I had the amount of training that folks in the ugly business that nobody ever sees have and didn't have a family life, it'd be a valuable use of that training and one hell of a contribution to society to pull just one person out of slavery.

Farewell Project Truck

A year or two ago, my lovely wife who is spoken of here often, allowed me to remove $750 from our savings account to get started with yet another old project vehicle. We purchased a VW van before that and made a little money off of it with only limited work, so this seemed like a promising enterprise. Well, it turned out that as of today, we are down a few hundred dollars from where we started because my project truck left on a flatbed truck in exchange for $300. I trust that it's going to a good home because a family friend bought it as a project vehicle for his biodiesel making hobby. As much as I am sad to see it go, the open space created by the removal of said truck will soon be filled with fruit trees. Minneola tangelo, Meyer lemon, Ruby or Rio Red grapefruit and possibly a fig or a white pomegranate. We shall see.

Fries With That?

Here's what came up on google this morning.
Things may be a'chaning around here pretty soon.

Mmmm Mmmmm Good

There's nothing like having a one-income household in these financial times that relies on contract work with a big computer and bigdrivesinthebasement type company. Well, evidently they had their super-efficient contract signer down in the basement with a red swingline stapler working on TPS reports. This ingrained silliness resulted in a dozen or so contractors being furlowed just like the year before last. To add insult to this year's missing paychecks, several of the projects aren't being funded and the shuffle is on. Luckily, the LW's contracting company put her into training mode and idled her with pay for a week. On the flip side of that luck though, was news today that she'll be taking an unexpected week off without pay soon and may be out of work at the end of the quarter.

Wild

I just read this post from over at Sweet Juniper and it made me think of the wild spaces near where my brother and I grew up. Here's a map to show what I'm talking about.

If you look closely at it in the satellite photo, you'll see a house just to the north of what's now River Birch Ln where it meets Willow Creek Dr. That was where all of the fun started for my brother, myself, five beagles....and two ATVs. You can zoom out and see where there are several ponds and it looks like a lot of clearing. Well, when we lived there, none of that existed. It was hard to get down into the valley and across the creek and it limited access to most. River Birch Ln and the houses to the west weren't there. It was old logging roads....and trees.

Following River Birch out to the west where it makes it's first turn and it's our old "duck pond". Someone dammed up the natural drainage there and it filled with water and wood ducks. There were always a few there hanging around and it was a great nesting spot. All of the surrounding trees in this area were, and what's left of them are, hardwoods. Beautiful trees that were just perfect for sitting at the base of on a cool winter afternoon...and falling asleep. The old logging roads snake around through the area and made a nice loop, whether whizzing by on the old ATC200 or walking with my old 20ga over my shoulder and a happy mutt at my feet. Many weekend days as a 12 year old, under the guise of hunting, I'd leave the house with my shotgun and dog and just go off into the woods for half a day. The sights and memories of it still come back to me when I kick over a wet pile of oak leaves somewhere and get a passing bit of the smell. A little further west, and just north of the weigh station that you see on the north side of I-20, is where I missed a shot at the biggest deer that I'd ever seen at the grand distance of 20 yards. Not to far from there was where we surmised that this deer, or one of his intelligent contemporaries, jumped I-20 when one of our dogs was chasing him, and waited in the space between the highway lanes until the dog was hit by a car.

It was a good place and I can only hope that the people who live there now have kids that go out into the woods and enjoy it like I did. I learned all kinds of things out there and was simply allowed to experience it as it was - woody, quiet, perfect.