visitor

I walked into the living room from the kitchen about 3 PM yesterday when I looked up and out the bay window at the birdbath to see this amazing beautiful creature looking back at me.

I've glimpsed it four or five times in the yard as it took flight out of one of the trees from my sudden appearance and banked low over the 13 acre field and disappeared into the tops of the trees on the far side.

This is the second time I have seen it in the birdbath. The first time, a couple of weeks ago, Marc called me quietly to come look but my slow movement into the room alerted it. It looked directly at me and then flew off.

The minute I saw it this time I froze and called quietly to Robin to quietly bring me my camera. I was standing about as far away from the window as I could be in that small room and shooting through the (dirty) window and screen. I had to use the largest magnification but at least I finally got some pictures of it.

It stayed for several more minutes, dipping it's head now and then to drink but as I tried to creep a little closer it spread it wings and flew off, chased now bravely by a crow that had been sitting in one of the overhead branches not being so brave as to try and chase it off from the birdbath like they do the smaller birds.

Can anyone identify this hawk for me? Red-tailed hawk? It's tail feathers are not really very reddish.

dry

new Texas rain gauge

I'm also feeling some discontent because the drought continues with no relief in sight and none maybe expected the rest of this year and into next, thanks to that little bitch, La Nina.  Even more of the state is classified at the highest drought level and has set a new record for the driest year ever with just over 15 inches of rain in the last 12 months and the last two months were the hottest on record.

The first tropical storm of the season to come our way came and went and gave us not a bit of rain. Oh, it rained around us, got close enough to smell it and the city got some good rain, but it skirted us completely.

There was a news program on the other day about the drought and how it is affecting farmers and ranchers. The reporter took a yardstick and slipped it in one of the cracks in the earth. It went down 30”.

As I mentioned before, the ranchers are selling off their stock because all the pastures are dying or dead and hay is at such a high price that they even cut and baled the 13 acre field behind us. The cotton, so tall and lush and full last year barely comes to my knees this year.

The last time I was in the city a couple of weeks ago, the trees were clearly suffering but still living. Driving in on the West Loop past Memorial Park this last trip in I was broken hearted to see how many had died. Tree after tree...mostly pines, oaks and cypress.

As if we hadn't already been having August temperatures since the beginning of June, now August is upon us. Last week we had triple digits every day with a heat index of 120 and not even a hint of rain. I'm so thankful for all the trees around our house here in the country and in the city and that they seem to be doing OK. The temperature drops at least 10˚ in their shade.

The lakes and ponds and rivers are drying up. A little stream down the road from us that always has water flowing is dry. No water, no bugs, no plants, no food for birds and other wildlife. Nothing we can do except wait and wait and hope that when fall comes, if it ever comes, it will bring us some rain. If not rain, then at least lower temperatures.

Still, a few things seem unfazed by the heat and lack of rain. The yellow bells, the mexican bird of paradise and the wild mexican petunias continue to bloom without looking droopy and sere.

venting my political spleen

I am feeling very discontent. Probably because I have been exposed to more TV or rather, TV news, than I am used to and it's all been bad. I have lost faith in our politicians and our political process. I no longer believe that they care one whit about the people they are supposed to represent or even about governing. It's about the money and the game. They would sacrifice whatever necessary to further their side in the game while they hold themselves above the general populace.

They vote themselves a raise while denying us a living wage.

They rely on their government paid health policy while cutting funding to Medicare and Planned Parenthood.

They will fall back on their government pensions while cutting Social Security.

They send their kids to private schools and cut funding to public education.

They protect the fortunes of the very wealthy and have their campaigns paid for.

They sign pledges to promote the interests of a very few.

They don't even have to pay their own employees because the government does it for them, giving them $1.5 million each to run their offices.

The game is to win the election, to be the party in power, not to actually govern, not to care about the welfare of the nation or its people because once in office their energy goes into blocking their opponents even if it's something they agree with. They will willfully wreck the country just to discredit the guy in the catbird seat. They are poor losers of the worst sort and when they are challenged on their records, they whip up the fear machine.

This last little charade of congressional chicken over the budget is typical. This was not about governing, it was about control. They stage their ploys with complete disregard to how it will affect the general population and then blame the fallout on their opponent. They are spoiled children who won't play unless they get to set the rules. They throw a bomb into the middle of the struggling economy wiping out the marginal gains and then go on vacation.

They won't lose their jobs (well, they can but the people have to do it at election time and the people have short memories not to mention they keep gerrymandering the districts in their favor).

They won't lose any of their homes.

Their kids will still get quality educations and go to college.

They won't die of a treatable ailment because they can't afford treatment.

They won't see their retirement slip away with every stock market crash they engender (oh hell, forget gains for retirement, now we've all lost our initial investments).

They suffer nothing while the rest of us suffer from the effects of their manipulations.

Whatever you think of Clinton personally, he left us a surplus and a strong fiscal policy. Eight years of George Bush and ten years of Republican policies later has turned that surplus into an enormous debt and has transferred the wealth of a nation into the hands of a few.

And the very people who are being crushed keep voting for them. That, I just do not get.

I am very disappointed in Obama. I know that he came to office when the country lay in ruins, that he was handed a very big bag of shit and blamed because it smelled. I know being president isn't easy in the best of times but he has not delivered on a single promise. He has caved on every issue. And don't point out mandatory insurance as a health care plus. Making it mandatory does not give me the money to pay for it.

Especially now.

through the eyes of children

I went out on a bike ride with three of my grandkids yesterday. We didn't set out til 7 PM and even then it was hot but at least bearable. The three oldest, the only boy and eldest at 14 and the twins at 13 wanted to show me a place they found off the bike trail through the neighborhoods where it intersects the bayou. It is an 'engineered' bayou made into a concrete channel through the city but even these have more wild and natural drains into them and that's what this one was, an inviting cleft in the land that drained the surrounding area, a sort of wet little stream with small pools and minnows and lots of under and over growth. Hunks of concrete, old pavements made a cascade and stepping stones up and into the beckoning green.

I wasn't sure exactly where we were, where we would come topside if we followed it up but I knew basically where we were.

It reminded me of being their age with a bike and the world, only my bayou was not a concrete channel but a living waterway and the woods were full of such drains. I thought of the freedom we had as kids and how restricted their lives had been in comparison. I was a little surprised how far it was considering they weren't really allowed out even in the fenced yard without an adult too many years ago. This new hike and bike trail through the neighborhoods was like a mini-highway for them.

The kids were so funny, starting out, my grandson peddled alongside me and we talked. Jade and Autumn would stop now and then and let us catch up. When it is time for us to go 'off trail' as it were down this quite steep foot worn path to the banks of the concrete bayou and exploring the little wash it was all

look out here Granny

be careful there Granny

step over here Granny

watch out for the hole Granny

it's easier along here Granny

When we headed back, Mikey got his bike up to the top then came back for mine.

"I'll get this, Granny," as he hauls my bike up the steep slope.

It hasn't been that long since I was the one hauling all the bikes up.

Jade dashes on ahead, headed home. Mikey takes off after her yelling back to his sister who is peddling beside me, 'Autumn, you've got Granny duty' as if I'm some doddering old fool that might get lost or damaged on the way home.

"Don't worry Granny," she tells me, "I won't ditch you."

I laughed and told her I wasn't old and decrepit, just old and I was pretty sure I could find my way home. I had, after all, lived in this area for 35 years. And if all else failed I could always call out the troops on my phone.

She paced herself to me anyway and it was nice.

They've taken, lately, to pointing out all my signs of aging, the hair on my chin, the wrinkles on my face, the spots on my skin. The other day Autumn told me I was getting white hair.

Thanks, sweetie, for pointing that out to me. My usual response is to get all Abe Simpson on them, shaking my finger, creaking my voice

"And one day it will happen to you too!"

two favorites

Have I mentioned that I'm a big science fiction fan? I think I have. Probably 75% of my reading as a young adult was science fiction, maybe more. I did eventually mature and moved on to romance.

Hee hee, just kidding. I still read a good dose of science fiction and will generally go see any science fiction movie.

I guess movies is where I learned to love science fiction since I stayed up many nights in the early 60s watching things like Attack Of The 50 Foot Woman and The Amazing Colossal Man and Invasion Of The Body Snatchers on the one hand and Tarzan movies and Sinbad the Sailor movies on the other.

I'm also a big fan of westerns and will pretty much go see any western movie though I never got into them for reading material. However mixed in with the sci-fi on TV was Have Gun Will Travel, The Rifleman, Maverick, Gunsmoke and The Rebel. These were the stories and myths I grew up with.

So when the opportunity arises to go see a western and a science fiction movie, two classic genres, and they're the same movie, baby, I'm there.

Cowboys & Aliens with Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford opened last Friday and Saturday Marc and I went to see it.

I was not disappointed.

That's all I'm going to say about it besides remarking on what a fine specimen of manhood Daniel Craig is and Harrison Ford ain't too shabby either. The rest of the cast were not really known to me but the actor that played the rancher's son reminded me of my high school sweetheart. And I was pleased to see that the three female roles were played by women with natural average sized human shaped breasts. And by natural, I mean not enhanced. It was refreshing to not see women with unnaturally large perfectly round cantaloupes on their chests.

And so as long as I'm going on about sci-fi and westerns, I'll point you to a personal favorite and under appreciated series, Firefly, best described as a western in space. 14 episodes were filmed but the series was canceled before they all aired. The movie Serenity that came out several years ago was the end piece to the series. Serenity was the name of the ship.

Here are three short clips from the series and let me tell you, I had the devil of a time selecting just three.

three down, one to go

And I thought I didn't have any time to myself with the first two visits.

Jade, at 13 this summer, is full of ideas and wants to do stuff all the time. Except for checking her mail and FB now and then, she spent little time watching videos or TV like the other two. She loves to make things and will go on-line to find instructions to learn whatever it is she is interested in learning. And what a chatterbox. Unlike her older brother who talks all the time for the attention and when he runs out of things to say he'll just start repeating himself and her twin who doesn't really engage in idle conversation, Jade is just newsy and chatty. The one evening, after a long day of sewing (and sewing and cooking the previous day) that I did not contribute to dinner, Jade stayed in the kitchen with Marc while I sat and read in the living room. I could hear them as they chatted and joked and laughed while fixing dinner.

She wanted to make a dress, a stuffed monster toy, and a shoulder bag (she had brought iron on decals to decorate it).

In her new dress. She chose the same pattern as her sister and we made a little shrug to go with it. I still have to make one for Autumn probably out of the purple fabric.

She wanted to learn to make balloon animals so we got balloons.

She likes to cook and take pictures of food and made a pie, a green salad, a meatloaf and a fruit salad with little to no supervision and she helped with just about everything else.

She wants to learn to play the piano or the guitar and has signed up for band next year at school.

Learning to play chopsticks on the iPad.

We made ice cream and played Scrabble and Rummykub.

She swam in the pool and lugged a lawn chair out to the field so she could climb up on the hay bale.

Thankfully, she did not want to see the Transformers movie (in which they destroyed 534 cars...I looked it up) or any of the movies currently playing. Said she'd take $5 instead.

So I gave her the money.

hay, a web and a gift

Because of the drought, crops all over the state are failing and ranchers are having to sell off their stock because there is no feed. Consequently, hay is going for a very good price. The 13 acre field behind us was mowed about two weeks ago and yesterday it was raked and baled.

Last night about 10 PM I took the trash out and saw this spider finishing up her web just outside the garage/shop. It was at least 5' in diameter.

It was a little breezy and she was constantly moving. The flash reflected off the strands nicely though.

This morning when I looked about 7:30 AM it was gone. She'd packed up the whole thing and moved on. Amazing how they do that...spin a web and then take it down.

Every time I see a blue jay in the yard I ask it to leave me a feather. This morning this was sticking straight up in the grass.