rain, roads, and those pesky homeless

Once it decided to rain again it seems to be making up for lost time. Flash flood warning from the county for today (Tuesday) through Thursday. We got about a quarter inch of rain yesterday and so far today it's just sprinkled or 'light rain' as the weather app called it but big thunder storms are threatening, apparently from tropical storm Imelda which is bashing Houston and to the east. All we're getting out of it is light rain off and on but all day and all night and it looks to be the same all day today (Wednesday). That's good, better than a torrential downpour although at some point during the early morning hours there was a lightning display but no thunder and still just the very light rain.

So of course precinct 2 of our county has decided to finally repave/resurface our part of one county road and the road that our street ends at last week and this. These two roads have needed serious repair since we've been here and that's 11 years. The SOP during that time has been to fill potholes and eroded sections with gravel that has about one tablespoon of tar per bucket of gravel. The first time we get a good rain it becomes loose gravel and washes out and the flood water from Harvey just made it all even worse.

Last week they started scraping the roads down, scraping up all the grass and weeds that have grown over the edges and some of the old road surface. This week they started laying down...something. Not sure what it's called, looks like a combination of bank sand, gravel, rocks, bits of crushed oyster shell, bits of old asphalt, clay, dirt, who the fuck knows whatall but it sure doesn't look stable, I don't care how many times they drive that big roller thing over it to compact it down. 

It looks like it will wash away or become full of runnels by any major thunderstorm. Marc thinks this is just an under layer and they're going to pave over it.

I got the snowflake shapes gussied up, kind of overdid it on some of them, I'm thinking now that 'less is more' but we'll see how they all compare when they come out of the kiln. I also molded the first little experiment for the piece in my head using the half log that I made a while back (remember I showed the process of making the reproduction latex mold with the plaster bandages for support and then poured a wax of it). My plan is to sculpt these little fungus shapes,

fire them, and then (probably) glue them to the finished cast piece and no I didn't get a picture before it went in the kiln.

In the meantime our democracy is dying a slow painful death. Trump, not satisfied with caging would be immigrants and getting his Supreme Court to back him up on limiting the number of asylum cases allowed has now decided that homelessness is a big problem. Oh, no, wait, homelessness isn't the problem, it's the homeless. They are the problem, camping in our best highways, our best streets, the best entrances to prestigious buildings. Foreign investors in his properties are wanting to leave the country! He's going to do something about it. And by that he means he is looking for a place to put them after he rounds them all up. Several people from his administration were in California looking at an abandoned military property to see if it would make an adequate concentration camp 'shelter' for those pesky homeless that are bringing our property values down. And boy does he have a hard on for California. Pissed that California is able to require and maintain clean air and auto emission standards and regulations that he rescinded for the rest of the country, Trump has revoked the waiver that gave them the legal right to do so. So much for Republicans being for state's rights. Meanwhile the Democratic House is letting everyone in Trump's administration refuse to abide by the subpoenas issued to them without consequences. Why are they not all in jail!

And so as not to end on such a downer note, here are some pictures of flowers.

The white rain lilies yesterday,

the yellow rain lilies today,

the swamp lily yesterday,

the surprise lilies (or as some people call them, hurricane lilies) today.