Donkeys

We have a pair of donkeys that have been roaming the neighborhood since we got back home to Boggy Thicket.  They are a pair only in the sense that there are two of them and they’re always together; one is tall and slender with a short sleek coat, while the other is very short and stocky – it may be a miniature - with a shaggy coat that would look more appropriate in the dead of winter.

Their home pasture is about 1/2 mile north of us and visible from our back yard, but they don’t stay there anymore.  They are more likely to be at the O'Donnell's  across the street, where the tall one has learned to tilt the bird feeders to empty all the seeds; or next door at the Graff’s, enjoying a cooling dip in their pond.  So far, they seem to be wandering the neighborhood in search of green grass and water each day, and then returning home each night.

So why are they wandering, and why are they not getting what they need at home?  I got the explanation from a kid who was borrowing my floor jack to change a tire.  “They belong to my uncle,” he told me “but right now he is in jail for setting his house on fire…He was having some family problems.”

 

EMAIL from Malaga

Not much to talk about today – just the ongoing heat and the drought, and I’m sick and tired of even thinking about that.

The most exciting thing that’s happened here is that I got an email this morning from Celia Yeary, an author from Central Texas whom I’ve never met, but who follows my blog as I follow hers.

I opened the email to read:

Hope you get this on time,I made a trip this past weekend to Malaga,Spain and had my bag stolen from me with my passport and credit cards in it.The embassy is willing to help by letting me fly without my passport,I just have to pay for a ticket and settle Hotel bills.Unfortunately for me, I can't have access to funds without my credit card, I've made contact with my bank but they need more time to come up with a new one.I was thinking of asking you to lend me some quick funds that I can give back as soon as I get in.I really need to be on the next available flight.

The email, obviously a scam, went on from there. 

We’ve all probably seen things like this before, but the thing that bothered me most is that the hacker undoubtedly stole her entire mailing list and there is nothing about this that makes me special at all.

Balancing Truth, Opinion and Plain Old B-S

I often wonder how anybody could be expected to form an intelligent opinion on anything if they are limited by the information available to them in the media.

Today’s example is a well researched and well thought out paper by three scholars from Columbia University on the subject of extraterrestrial intelligence – whether it exists, and the implications of various scenarios if it does.

You can read the 30-page document HERE.

One internet news outlet,  TG Daily, pulled a single line from the document to post a story headlined “Global warming 'could trigger alien attack.”

High Pressure and Hurricanes

The huge dome of high pressure continues to hover over Texas, and we continue to have record high temperatures and drought. 

I don’t know if it has anyone seriously praying for a hurricane yet– though there have been lots of joking references to that – but just about anyone who has lived through this summer would probably welcome a tropical storm.

Actually, this is historically a good day for Texas hurricanes;  not one, but two hurricanes made landfall on the Texas coast on August 18 – Alicia in 1983, and an unnamed storm (they didn’t name them back then) in 1916.

For a small storm, Alicia did an awful lot of damage, but it did bring some much-needed moisture.

On Aug. 18, 1983, the center of Hurricane Alicia moved over the Texas coast about 25 miles southwest of Galveston. It was the first hurricane to strike the Continental USA since Allen in 1980. That was the longest period in this century that the U.S. mainland had gone without a hurricane landfall (Tropical storms did hit within that time).
Although Hurricane Alicia was a small to medium-size hurricane, it was notable for the delayed post storm evacuation of Galveston Island (since the eye of the storm traveled the evacuation route up I-45 from Galveston to Houston). The hurricane was also notable for the shattering of many windows in downtown Houston by loose gravel from the roofs of new skyscrapers and by other debris.

 
Twenty-three tornadoes were reported in association with Alicia.
The hurricane reached a minimal Category 3 status as it hit land. Aircraft observations indicated that only a 60-mile section of the coast, extending northeastward from Freeport experienced hurricane force winds. Despite its small size, Alicia caused over $2.4 billion in damage.

On Aug. 18, 1916, a Category 4 hurricane  struck South Texas (landfall was south of Corpus Christi) coast. It was the fourth hurricane and third major hurricane of an active 1916 Atlantic hurricane season. Hurricanes of that time were not given names but the 1916 storm was the strongest hurricane to hit the Texas coast since the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, and it caused 24 fatalities

 

Heartland Ag Report

On our recent trip from Southeast Texas to Upper Michigan and beyond, we saw many thousands of acres of crops in the field, and with the exception of a few places – mostly in South Dakota – where flood waters had drowned crops or prevented planting, everything looked great.

We saw fields of wheat and soybeans, potatoes and sugar beets and popcorn, rice and peanuts, and hay fields full of sorghum and alfalfa. 

And we saw miles and miles of corn fields – already being harvested in the South, and just beginning to tassel in the Upper Midwest.

In those corn fields we saw sign after sign for Ethanol and/or Bio-Diesel.  Almost makes you wonder if there will be any left to eat.

Home Again

Back home Sunday afternoon, and things are almost back to normal.  Trips to the Post Office and the grocery store yesterday while Honey spent most of the day washing clothes – still have to make a run to the pool supply for chemicals and mow what’s left of the yard.

Haven’t posted in a while – either because no Wi-Fi was available, or just didn’t have time.  Still trying to decide whether to re-commit to daily entries.

I left quite a few pictures from our trip posted on

Picassa.  If you’d like to see them.  (Click Here.)

Peace Garden

Visited the International Peace Garden this week.

Located on the US-Canada border between North Dakota and Manitoba, it is a beautiful idea that unfortunately fails to live up to the inspiration.  It is so far out in the middle of nowhere that it doesn’t get enough visitors to generate income sufficient to maintain the gardens as well as they should be.  It’s not ugly, but it should be better.

Still, it is a nice place to spend a few hours.  I’m glad we saw it.

The Peace Tower in the Garden.  Located on the 49th Parallel, the tower and the gardens are half in the US and half in Canada.