what normal life is supposed to be and fuck you, your thoughts and prayers, and your fucking guns

I've decided that the two holes in the yard were vole holes even though I don't see the trails that are supposed to accompany them that pictures show. I know we have had voles before because our cat before Cat would kill them every spring. So Monday I poked an 18” long stick in the one in the big backyard and never hit resistance. I couldn't get the stick very deep in the one in the little backyard because I needed something more flexible so I used an old measuring tape. Still only got about 6 or 8 inches in but I did fish out a big fat toad who was taking refuge in it. Then I used the hose nozzle on 'jet' and never did fill up either hole with water and nothing came running out so I filled both of them with as much dirt as I could pound in.

The other thing I did before I came in hot and sweaty was to finish filling the tub with dirt and planting my velvet okra plants.

As a portent that the Houston sprawl is heading all the way out to us the HEB here in Wharton has been undergoing a massive upgrade and rearrangement for the past few months. Every Tuesday when I do the weekly shop everything is moved from where it was the previous week, it's like a scavenger hunt to find stuff. And I swear last Tuesday they must have had every employee they have there moving products from one spot to another. But there's a lot of craziness too, like the dog and cat food being in 3 different locations, wherever they had space I guess. They're supposed to be done by June, maybe or July but the big surprise which I learned from one of the volunteers at SHARE last Thursday is that we are getting a fresh tortilla machine and a hot and cold sushi bar. A sushi bar...in Wharton? Wow. Whoda thought that would ever happen. But apparently this town is growing despite the original families' attempts to keep that from happening. An incredible amount of new home and apartment building is going on here getting ready for the influx of commuters they expect to inhabit them. We moved out here to get away from the city, away from big city crappy attitudes, taxes, and traffic and while I'm thrilled we're getting a sushi bar, I'm not so thrilled about the apparent reason.

These are my tomato plants. Two heritage and two hybrids, from the left...beefsteak, old german, big boy, black krim.

The close up of the flowers and developing fruit is the beefsteak. Except for last year when no one's tomatoes did well because it got so hot so fast and so dry and I had planted my four in pots instead of the ground and got nothing, this is the first time for beefsteak. I've tried heritage tomatoes before, though I don't remember which ones, but I've never had any luck with them only getting one or two fruits if that and determined that this would be my last try at heritage plants if they didn't produce. Well, the old german has grown taller than me and so far both it and the black krim have some developing fruit but not a lot. The other two don't have a lot either considering how big the plants are.

old german

Another dark overcast day out there today, could possibly rain all day though it isn't now. Well, the thunder has started so I guess the rain won't be far behind. I may not make it to the grocery store today after all (I did). Now it's gotten darker and the wind has picked up. Some rain. And while it is still overcast the storm has passed. Not so much rain but it did cool things down a little.

----------

I'm going to have to start ignoring the news and social media again just for my own mental health and stress levels. Because now that the dust has settled on the latest mass shooting at a mall in Allen, TX that resulted in 8 innocent dead, three of them children; a 3 year old and two sisters 8 and 11 and at least one person with her face shot off; now that thoughts and prayers have been delivered by those who refuse to admit it's the guns, the press wonders what could possibly have been his motive. Are you fucking kidding me? It's the same fucking motive every fucking time, right wing hate and violence. These people want to kill, they want a fucking civil war and no, this is not mental illness, it's what they have been groomed for by the very people who only send useless thoughts and prayers because they want this to happen.

Jeff Tiedrich lays it out clearly. 

Which has led to this.

Our governor said afterwards that he WILL NOT impose any restrictions on guns of any sort in our state after allowing open carry with no license or training even though every fucking time republicans make it easier to buy, own, and open carry, the deaths and violence increases. The republican representative, Keith Self, for the 3rd congressional district in which it took place actually said that the only reason libs want to restrict guns is because they don't believe in god, don't have faith in god's plan for us all. Are you fucking kidding me? God's plan is to have your face shot off, to have children so mangled that parents' need to give DNA samples to know which body is their child's, to be shot down like a rabid dog for ringing a doorbell? You know what republicans think is the proper response to school shootings? Teach third graders, some of whom can't even tie their own shoes, how to field dress wounds. Jesus Fucking Christ.

This country is fucked up. 

more 'what the fuck, people!'

Burning Man  was a couple of weeks ago. This is an art and environmental celebration/festival out in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada with tremendous art installations and avant guard performance art and music and chaos and people just being their wildest wackiest selves.

Here's a video from this years event, the first one in two years because of covid. It looks fun and magical and other worldly (and hot as fucking hell).

Here's a picture of the aftermath...8,000 abandoned bikes.

Not shown is all the abandoned camping gear and trash. So what the fuck people? If you pack it in, pack it the fuck out. Don't leave the stuff that you just can't be bothered to deal with after you had your fun and trashed the place. So typical of Americans, no sense of responsibility and for all their hype I would think that the people who attend would be a little more environmentally conscious. At least the people who go in and clean up the mess sell or give away the abandoned bikes and gear.

----------

Re the 'active shooter' call at the grands' old high school...my daughter tells me the police went classroom to classroom with guns drawn in full swat gear scaring the already terrified kids. A much better response than those cowards in Uvalde but, damn, this is just so wrong.

----------

In the news is Florida's republican governor Ron DeSantis' despicable political stunt of paying to have 48 refugees from Venezuela seeking asylum and a safe place to live flown to Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts from the Texas border in chartered planes paid for by taxpayer money that basically dumped them on the tarmac and abandoned them. No calls were made in advance to agencies that these people were on the way so they could be ready to receive them and be helped on arrival but he made sure there was videographer to film it. DeSantis' representative lied to these people telling them they were being sent to Boston or NYC where jobs and housing were waiting for them and the DHS falsified their papers giving them addresses from homeless shelters all across the nation that their hearing notices would be sent to insuring that none of these people would be able to show up setting them up for immediate deportation. DeSantis thought that the upscale island would be horrified at these immigrants dumped on their doorstep and show that Democrats couldn't or wouldn't deal with them but instead the residents came together with food, shelter, medical aid, working with authorities to move them to the mainland where there are support services and housing. The residents were horrified all right, not by the migrants themselves but by the cruelty inherent DeSantis' stunt. And for DeSantis and those who aided him and those republicans who support him, the cruelty was the point. They didn't give a shit about those people.

This is a man who everyone expects to run for president, a man who basically kidnapped these people and trafficked them across the nation with nothing to their names and stranded them on the tarmac of an airport thousands of miles from the border where they would have been processed. I think, I hope that this little stunt has backfired on him since it didn't exactly have the outcome he hoped for. And of course our own asshole governor Abbott is shipping busloads of migrants to DC dropping them off in front of Vice-President Harris' home and to New York's Port Authority not because the border is 'open' no matter how many times republicans lie about it, people and drugs are being apprehended in record amounts, but because playing with helpless people's lives is, to them, an acceptable political stunt to distract from their unpopular policies.

Vote Democrat top to bottom. Make sure everyone you know votes.

miscellania and heavy karma

New AC is in and instead of the round condenser it's rectangular.

All those little peaches are ripe. I took some to my neighbor who babysits some of her grandkids and I also made this Monday night.

After reading about the high price of tomatoes and so no tomato sauce this year, my friend Debbie brought me these from their garden, not pretty she said but they taste good. Guess what I did yesterday and what I'll be doing today.

I also did the week's grocery shopping, put up 7 ears of sweet corn that my neighbor gave me from his brother's farm, and made a pizza for dinner. Needless to say I was very busy yesterday and did not work on the box.

I got my summer hair cut last week.

Random thought from the other day...This country is engaged in a big karmic adjustment I think. If countries have souls of a sort, this country was brought into being through genocide and slavery and repression (which continues to this day). The US is too far down the rabbit hole now, not just guns but weapons of war and violence, we increasingly turn our murderous tendencies on ourselves unable to accept that all people are created equal and have the same rights. We are frozen, incapable of, unwilling to stop it. Who and how much do we sacrifice before the debt is paid? Can the debt be paid? That doesn’t mean we of good heart should give up the fight. That’s part of our karma.

Republicans are pretending to care and negotiate in committee on some common sense restrictions like raising the minimum age to 21 to buy an assault rifle (banning them won't even be considered) and institute a waiting period, ban high capacity magazines, expand background checks to private sales, and institute a 'red flag' law, none of which will prevent anyone from buying these weapons but may prevent mass shootings and yet, these very same republicans will vote against any bill that makes it to the Senate even though the vast majority of Americans are in favor of more regulations. After Matthew McConaughey addressed the nation at the White House press conference on gun violence, a Newsmax reporter accused him of grandstanding.

The January 6^th Committee is starting their public hearings tomorrow and Fox has said it will not air them even though they aired Benghazi ad nauseum. Republicans have announced they will launch counter programming and already have their disinformation machine and Trump's staunch allies churning out lies that the committee is illegitimate. They seem determined to keep citizen against citizen, to destroy the rule of law, and to grind our democracy into dust.

So I don't end on such depressing thoughts as those here's a few picks from around the yard.

Hairstreak butterflies were migrating through. They are so tiny, this one about 3/4”.

Thirsty bees drinking from the small pond full of parrot feather.

A little tree frog on the side of the house.

 

fucking cowards and progress on my projects

The details are coming out about the Uvalde murders and they aren't pretty. The shooter entered through an unlocked door after engaging in gunfire outside for about 12 minutes. Initial reports said that he was confronted by a security officer outside but that turned out to be false. The Uvalde police department arrived the same time he entered the school but did not enter themselves until 4 minutes later when 7 officers went in and were driven out by gunfire. And then they sat on their thumbs for over an hour waiting for a Border Patrol tactical team to arrive even though the Uvalde police department has its own SWAT unit. Instead they accosted parents who were either trying to get in to get their kids or yelling at the police to do something. A mother was handcuffed, a father thrown to the ground and pepper sprayed. The mother was released by officers she personally knew and then she jumped the fence, ran into the school, and came out with her two children. Rumor is that some police officers, while refusing to let parents get their kids out, went in and got their own kids out. Why did the Uvalde police, whose job it is to serve and protect, to bring down criminals, wait for over an hour for another team to arrive? According to a Texas DPS official interviewed on TV last night, they did not engage the shooter because “they could’ve been shot, they could’ve been killed” so instead they let a gunman kill 19 kids and the two adults trying to protect them and wound 22 others. I guess our police are only brave when they can shoot an unarmed person.

So how have our political leaders reacted? Texas governor Greg Abbott said tougher gun laws are not a solution* and it could have been worse. What is worse than parents having to give DNA samples in order to identify the mangled bodies of their children? At a press conference yesterday Beto O'Rourke, who is running against Abbott for governor confronted him, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Texas senator Ted Cruz (who thinks limiting the number of doors in schools is a solution), and the Uvalde mayor blaming Abbott (who last year signed 7 new laws making it easier for people to buy a gun) for this mess, “this is on you and until you do something it will continue to happen”. They called Beto an SOB and escorted him out.

*Which is bullshit because country after country that instituted strict gun laws after a similar mass shooting, stopped having mass shootings!

Democratic leaders in the House passed the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act after the Buffalo shootings. Yesterday the Republicans in the Senate filibustered it because they see nothing wrong with allowing an 18 year old teenager whose brain won't be fully matured until his late twenties to buy assault style rifles when he won't be able to buy a handgun til he's 21.

This nation, so filled with hate and violent rhetoric and guns, doesn't even have the moral conviction to protect its children. We love our guns more than we love our children and the very people who prevent any restrictions on acquiring guns and gun ownership will stand up and claim that this is the best country in the world. The best country in the world asked parents for DNA samples in order to identify their dead children.

------------

Well, I didn't mean to go off on another screed this post. If you missed the previous one you can read it here.

I have progress on two art projects to share. I've made progress on the box but I determined that making and fitting the coral inlay for the front is going to be too difficult and way to time consuming to get the finished cast piece to fit because of all the small tight curves. I could probably do it but the hours involved would put the price way too high so now I'm mulling over a simpler profile for the inlay. I think what I have in mind will work. So, constructing the box:

pouring the slabs

trimming them down

three sides

three sides and a bottom

four sides and a bottom

And I've made some progress on the watercolor. I've got the unopened flower and the leaf done. I'm going to need at least a two hour block of time for the big flower.

yes, the problem IS the guns

We are a violent people. We are a violent people that loves guns more than we love our friends, neighbors, more than we love our children. This country has been at war, and sometimes more than one war at a time, for nearly every year of our national existence. We have more guns in this country than people, approximately 120 guns to every 100 people and we protect those guns far more than we protect our citizens. We worship guns, churches bless them, families' Christmas photos show every member brandishing a gun, after every mass murder the answer is not restricting guns but always more guns. Nineteen elementary school children and three adults were murdered yesterday and right on cue the gun nuts clamor that the solution to school shootings is not restricting sales or requiring background checks or instituting a waiting period between purchase and acquisition or requiring training or requiring insurance or outlawing semiautomatic weapons and high capacity magazines or any other measure to reduce the ridiculous amount of guns but giving the teachers guns to protect the children because of course that's all that's needed, never mind that once gunfire erupts it's absolute chaos as people try to flee. Never mind that trained security guards with guns on site of these mass shootings are always killed. It's not like these shooters announce their intention before they open fire.

We have unrestricted access to guns, you need only be 18 to buy one legally. I've been to estate sales where guns were sold no questions asked and the only restriction to buying a gun from an individual is having the right amount of money. In Texas almost anybody can carry a gun without a permit thanks to our governor. Guns are not the problem, they like to tell us. It's mental illness. And then they fight against national health and mental care. But we don't have any more mental illness than any of the other affluent first world nation and they do not have the gun violence we do. A gun cannot walk up to person and discharge itself, true, but all the gun violence victims would still be alive if guns weren't at hand. So yes, guns are the problem. Guns and hate and violent rhetoric from politicians, even some religious pastors, against those who aren't white straight christian conservative males fearful of losing their supremacy. Our national identity, our history, is war and violence and cruelty born out of imperialism and racism and sexism and demonization of other religions. Already we have more mass shootings than days of the year this year. This is not mental illness, this is a society where violence and murder against the other is seen as an acceptable response to annoyance. How many people would still be alive if that 'good guy with a gun' hadn't had a gun at hand when his anger flared or a cold blooded response rose to irritation? Because these shootings aren't committed by criminals. They are fueled by hate and anger and some misplaced feeling that they are being oppressed. Well, everybody with a gun is a good guy with a gun until that moment they aren't, when they consciously become criminals. It is rarely the oppressed who commit these atrocities. Where are we as a nation when the most recent ex-president is openly calling for a civil war because he was not re-elected.

So what's the answer? The obvious answer that has worked in every other country is to severely restrict guns; who can have them, the kind they can have, the amount they can have, and what they need to do to have them but that will never happen here because our politicians are cowards. They want that money from the NRA more than they want to protect our children, they want to keep their jobs more than they want to do their jobs regardless of what the people want. And unfortunately and to our detriment, a good portion of our population is just fine with all this gun violence as long as it doesn't touch them or their guns, so long as they can continue their own violence, hatefulness, and racism unimpeded.

The fact is, we are not safe in this country, none of us. We are not safe in our homes when stray bullets zip through, we are not safe if we park our car on a public street, we are not safe in our cars from someone we inadvertently cut off, we are not safe at a concert or a nightclub, we are not safe in our workplaces or schools, we are not safe hanging out listening to music with our friends, and now not even our democracy is safe from those with a gun and a bone to pick. Getting rid of weapons no citizen needs or should have a right to won't get rid of the hate and anger and innate violence Americans harbor but it will end these mass shootings. We have only to look at other nations with strict gun control laws to see the truth of this.

We are a nation rotten to the core when murdering 19 children only elicits 'thoughts and prayers' from the very people who allow it to happen. We are a nation rotten to the core because this isn't the first time or even the second time but just the latest in a long string of such atrocities.

It didn't used to be like this in this country. Heather Cox Richardson's newsletter today is on the history and rise of gun ownership and gun violence in this country. You can read it here.

 

every title I think of is filled with profanity but it's not all bad

Coincidently, I posted my last blog entry on Tuesday late afternoon and Wednesday morning this showed up in my email inbox.

This is how this country has decided to deal with the epidemic gun violence here. No attempt to address the causes of gun violence in an effort to reduce it, no, instead they have decided the right approach is to give seminars on how to prepare for an active shooter occurrence. As if anyone can prepare for a thing like that. If you're within range when it starts you'll be dead by the time you realize what's happening. So fucked up. And cops getting shot too. There's been four or five in Houston in as many days, at least one dead, maybe two. Just another result of our Republican governor's all guns all the time policies; no permit needed to carry, no restriction or registration of firearms, no limit, determined to take us back to the days of the wild west. Shoot 'em up, cowboy. Yippee ki yo ki yay! This is Texas after all where lawlessness reigns. The other day a little fender bender, cars pulled to the side of the road, dude pulls his gun and a guy ended up dead. It's a race to see what kills more of us, guns or covid because no public health measures allowed here. Doesn't matter which epidemic kills us to the governor who apparently doesn't think there's enough dead Texans yet.

OK, letting go now.

I got the second attempt at the latest crown on Wednesday. It's the old style steel with the porcelain coating and the very strong tenacious glue they used to use so we'll see. So far so good.

Also Wednesday Robin went back to work since she's tested negative for covid and so now that she had to give her sister her car back, I'm taking her to work again. Which is good because it gets me up and moving since I've been so lazy lately.

The sun finally came out, sky cleared up about 3:30 yesterday and today was cold this morning but warmed up to a really nice and sunny day but it's already clouding up again. Not too busy at SHARE today, some new volunteers. Walked the dog the long walk and that is all I accomplished beside pulling up another handful of clover from around the bluebonnets in the front. I'm getting a little restless maybe enough to at least empty the truck load of fallen branches onto the burn pile tomorrow.

winter doldrums and 'big news'

I'm rarely in front of the TV when the news comes on but I was last night because I had spent the better part of the day on the couch reading. It was a degree or two warmer than the day before but still cold, overcast and wet and dreary and I did not step foot outside once. Well, twice. Once to fetch the bird feeder that's about 15' out the back door to refill it and again to hang it back on the shepherd's crook.

So one of the big stories was 'gun violence is on the rise'. No shit Sherlock! Seriously, this is news? Have they not been living in this country for the past 20 years? What the fuck did they think the all guns all the time for all people, no restrictions on buying or carrying, the whole gun worship culture was going to lead to? Less violence? When there are more guns than people, as there are in this country, when the worship of or the reliance on the gun becomes ascendant and it becomes the first and only response to whatever pisses you off as it has in this country, when the only response to this epidemic of gun violence by lawmakers is a shrug as it is in this country, when the myth of the 'good guy with a gun' overcomes common sense as it has in this country it leads to more gun violence... more mass shootings every year than days in the year, more vigilantism, more anger fueled murder because that gun is at a fingertip. We aren't safe anywhere now, not at work, not in stores, not on the street, not at an entertainment venue, not at school, not in our cars, not even in our own homes sleeping in our own beds as a recent visitor from London found out when a stray bullet went through his brain. All this coupled with the Republican politics of hate...division, racism, bigotry, repression, stoking fear of the 'other' as a means to garner support combined with their refusal to accept any common sense regulations on gun ownership has brought us here. More guns have not made us safer and we have more to fear from our fellow citizen who might be having a bad day than any outside terrorist. "Gun violence is on the rise". Yeah.

So what else is going on? Sunday I got out and dug up the sow thistle in the big backyard, well, most of the big backyard.

these things can get 4 or 5 feet tall

Still have the section behind the back flower bed that the poppies bloom in to do but I did fill the garden cart. 

Overcast again today and the wind is from the north with temps staying pretty much in the 40˚s and 50˚s which seems to be our forecast for the next week to 10 days. Did the weekly grocery shop, walked the dog. That's about it. Actually made some progress in my book and I'm ready to finish it. Gotta make a meatloaf later for dinner. Winter doldrums. I want to start the new models but I'm not the least interested in going over to the unheated studio though I have an electric space heater I could take with me but the dreary weather is robbing me of motivation. I even passed on yoga last night which I rarely do. Tomorrow the sun is supposed to show up but then it was supposed to show up today too.