Reflection

 I am writing this to post over at the CFDA page, so my normal readers should just buckle up, or scroll past.

Many of us have noticed over the past year that participation in our sanctioned matches is getting smaller.  Large matches that used to draw 80 shooters are drawing barely 50 and match promoters are wondering how we can get more shooters to come to our matches.

I know, for myself, I budget $1000 for a three-day sanctioned match. Between entry fees, fuel, hotel, restaurant and incidentals, it costs money to go to a shoot. Like everyone, I'm getting older.  Travel is a bit more stressful than it was10 years ago, and my old body takes longer to recover from the stress of traveling.

Putting on a match is a major commitment.  It takes planning and coordination across several levels.  By the time we rent a venue, buy trophies, pay caterers, arrange for prize money,  and gather all the incidentals, a club might be several thousand dollars in the hole.  We know we will never get rich doing this, but we certainly don't want to lose money. My club has successfully held nine (9) state championships.  The numbers I am seeing from some state matches makes me wonder if those clubs are losing money, which does not bode well for the future of our sport.  We need to get more people to our state matches, but I am not convinced that we are asking the right questions.

We need more clubs.  We need to penetrate markets where the cowboy culture is strong. The fact that New Mexico does not have a strong CFDA club astounds me. New Mexico has a strong cowboy culture and should be fertile ground for our sport.  Likewise, Missouri.  Missouri should have at least one vibrant CFDA club.  Those of us who remember the old TV series Rawhide recall that Rowdy Yates was pushing the herd to the rail line in Sedalia, MO.  It seems like a natural for Cowboy Fast Draw.

Someone once told me that if your club isn't growing, it is dying. Likewise, the organization.  We need more clubs.

The World Reacts

 I've never followed soccer, but I am told that the World Cup has come to America and lots of tourists are over here getting their minds blown.  In a good way.  Little things that we take for granted. Like restaurant portion size, like American barbeque, like yellow school busses.  They seem to be baffled by gallons of sweet tea.

Many of these games are held in smaller towns, and mid-America friendliness and hospitality seems to have made a favorable impression.

Perhaps this is a good thing.

Thursday Already?

 It's Thursday and I realize that I haven't pasted anything since Sunday.  The reason is simple.  There ain't nothing happening worth commenting on.

The weather is confounding.  Lots of rain, very little sunshine.  The humidity is always at or above 90%. The ground is saturated. With this amount of rain, it is nearly impossible to keep the pool chemistry in balance.  Abut the time I get it right, we get another deluge of fresh water, throwing everything out of balance.

Thankfully, the tropics are quiet. No identifiable hurricane threat.

It's just been a quiet week.  

Solstice

 June 21st, the longest day of the year, and that is just an astronomical fact.  Something to do with the tilt f the axis in our yearly orbit.  The ancients noted this day in their observatories (think Stonehenge).

The beginning f summer. Tomorrow, the sunlit portion of the day will be a bit shorter, culminating on December 21s when the cycle starts again.

Today, through a fluke of the calendar is also a Hallmark holiday.  Fathers Day.  It's a holiday that I truly don't care about.  I've never seen the  utility.

Flood

 When I lived on Bayuo Derbonne in southern Natchitoches pariah, I learned about flatland flooding.  Three days of rain and the creeks, sloughs and bayous are full.  Two days later, the water comes down from the hills with no place to go and all the creeks jump their banks.

When I lived on the bayou, it was simple luck that my house never flooded.  The old man who built it knew that floods happen and built the house on a tiny elevation that stayed dry. There were several times when we were flooded in, but the house stayed dry.

That's what is happening in Avoyelles parish right now.  Moreauville, Simmesport, Cottonport are all going under.  The old folks, who knew where the high spots are, built on those high spots.  The younger folks bought a piece of land and built a house may not have noticed that slight elevation and built their house in a place that floods once every ten years.  Worse yet, urban sprawl changes the way that water flows.  New rads, new shopping centers, new parking lots move water in new ways.

I feel empathy for those folks because I have been there.

Bats

 Sitting on the patio at dusk, I noticed a few bats circling over the pool.  I've noticed them the past several nights just after dark.  Someone must have a bat house around here.  Louisiana has several species native to the area and I'm no expert on bat identification.

I mentioned salmon patties earlier.  My standard recipe is one can of pink salmon, one egg, and one sleeve of Ritz crackers, crumbled.  Salt, pepper, garlic powder.  Fry in good oil at 350F until golden brown.  Old NFO says that they always used saltines. Interesting.

It's nice to watch the bats zip around in the early evening.

Rain

 The tail end of Arthur is overhead, and it is raining like a heifer pissing on a flat rock.  This is nt news in semi-tropical Louisiana where rain is a constant threat.  This too will pass and thankfully we have no wind to speak of.  It is supposed to rain, on-and-off for the rest of the day.  The ditches are full.  We sit atop a hill, so flashfloods are not a concern.  Not so for my neighbors who live in the flat river bottom.

Tomorrow is Juneteenth, a holiday commemorating June 19, 1865, when Union troops entered Galveston, TX and posted the Emancipation Proclamation. It is considered by many to be the date where slavery was ended in the United Staes.  Lots of towns and communities have celebrations.  For many across the South, tomorrows celebrations will be damp. Very damp.

But that, as they say, is for tomorrow.  Today we watch it rain.   I'm going to cook some crab cakes and salmon patties for no other reason than Belle loves them.   First, I need to chop and onion and crush some Ritz crackers.

Arthur

 Checking in at 1:00 pm, I see that we now have Tropical Storm Arthur in the northern Gulf and that he is expected to roll across my acre tonight.

Lovely, just friggin lovely.

Wednesday

 That tropical rain event we have been enjoying isn't done yet.  It very nearly became a named storm, but just could not pull itself together.  It is coming onshore and will lose steam soon.  But, the weather weenies tell us that it is going to lose steam as it runs across us one more time.  Oh, Joy1

I'm noticing the outrage from the usual suspects about Trump's refusal to release the text of the peace deal with Iran.  Trump may have good reasons for that, and he has promised to release it as soon as it is signed. I also note with some amusement that these same suspects have probably never read the surrender documents that Grant got when Lee surrendered. I also bet that they have never seen the text of the surrender from Japan.

Today, Belle has asked for a pasta dish with heavy cream. I thin that a stroganoff is the way to go.  If you'll excuse me, I'm off to the grocers.