Rice Hulls

On the south side of US 290, just outside the beltway, is an old rice drier that has been there for as long as I can remember.  It had fallen into disrepair, was looking pretty shabby, but it recently got a facelift that includes a big electronic sign near the top.  As we headed for Liberty Hill on Saturday, I noticed the sign was advertizing stabilized rice bran for deer feeders.

I’m not a deer hunter, haven’t been in years, but my friends and relatives who do hunt have always used corn in their feeders.  A check on line seems to show that rice bran feeders are growing in popularity – just because I’d never heard of them doesn’t mean they aren’t around.

I may not know anything about rice bran, but I do have fond memories of rice hulls.  Rice hulls are now used in everything from building materials to animal feed, but when I was in elementary school, we used them as mulch in our flower beds. 

In the innocent past, when companies didn't have to worry so much about lawsuits, rice companies would let the public fill their buckets and trailers and pickup trucks for free from the huge piles of hulls that built up outside the mills.  It was great fun to climb those hills of hulls and jump and roll in the soft, shifting pile.  For a kid who had never left southeast Texas, it’s probably the closest I ever came to playing in fresh powder snow.

March

Our grandsons were having their birthday party yesterday, and we were headed out for Liberty Hill. 

Driving along Beltway 8, just past Hwy 249, we saw a huge parking lot swarming with hundreds of people in blue T-shirts.  They were gathering for a march in honor of the late Harris County Deputy Darren Goforth, and all of the law enforcement officers who risk their lives for our safety.

 Wearing their shirts with the slogan Blue Lives Matter, an estimated 10.000 plus marched a 4.5 mile route. 

Houstonians must be out of step with the rest of the country – there were no fires, no looting and no reported injuries.  No one was arrested.

We missed the actual march, and made the birthday party with time to spare.  Fifteen hours and 400-plus miles makes for a long day, but it was worth it.  Bryce is 18 years old today, and Nash turns 15 on the 16th.  Both have become handsome young men.

In the Name

As a native Houstonian and a football fan, I’d say I am as big a J. J. Watt fan as anyone – at least I thought so until I saw this:

The banner’s creator, a guy known as Rock, says it is not a statement about religion, “I see it as satire, and plays on the fact that everyone puts JJ on a pedestal...I travel with a group of friends and sit front row for 1 road game each year and meet up with the Traveling Texans, and I hope to hang this off the railing.”

2001

Pinky

Here’s a picture of Pinky, a rare pink bottlenose dolphin, as she appeared along side her mother in 2007.  Pinky is a resident of Lake Calcasieu in southwest Louisiana.

She made the news this week when charter boat captain Eric Rue, who has been following her for years, announced that he has seen her breeding and she is definitely a female.  There has been a lot of speculation about how she came to be that bubblegum pink color, but the consensus is that she is an albino.

Nothing

Today is one of those days – nothing of significance on tap, just more of the same old stuff.

Sometimes, that is a good thing.

Hummers

Here’s a picture I took two years ago today:

 

We don’t have nearly that many Hummingbirds so far this year, but their numbers are increasing.  This time last week, there were only two or three – yesterday, we could count ten or eleven at a time.