Fixing Feeders

For several years now, I've been using an American Hunter feeder. It's a big ole drum type feeder and it has served me well. Until this year. I went out to the lease to recover my feeder in the spring and learned that racoons had pulled the motor and battery case off of the thing. Well, damn.

I happened to be at the auction several weeks ago and on the block was a Moultrie Hanging feeder. I picked it up for about $20.00 and decided to mate the brand-new Moultrie feeder motor to the barrel on my American Hunter. I'm awaiting Milady so that I can stick my head into the barrel to tighten the mounting nuts while she holds the bolt. I can't for the life of me figure out how to be in the drum to turn the nut while I'm also outside the drum holding the screw. If I had one arm that was six feet long, with two elbows, it wouldn't be a problem.

One feeder that I've used a lot, and I like a lot is the little Moultrie collapsible feeder. The MSRP is $49.99, but you can find it on sale a lot cheaper. I'm going to keep an eye open for them this winter and if I find them cheap I'm going to buy a couple as back-up feeders. What I like about this little feeder particularly is that it's easy to store, it's almost bullet-proof and it runs on four AA batteries. One set of good AA batteries will keep it spinning twice a day for an entire season. I bought a couple of them several years ago when Simmons Sporting Goods ran them on sale for $19.95 and if they run them on sale again, I'm going to buy several.

I want to start feeding this weekend. It's time to get the feeders out and start taking pictures of the deer.

Divorce Rings

Yeah, right. It's supposed to be a new fad.

We get that this is supposed to be an empowering thing, and maybe some women will be so excited and releaved to be free from their exes they'll be psyched to have a piece of jewelry representing their split.

Okay, we get it that women buy jewelry. It's as natural as guys buying... well, it's natural.

Divorce isn't something to be proud of. When I got my divorce I felt a number of emotions. Relief, sadness, failure. A well-meaning friend gave me a Christmas tree ornament that symbolized a new beginning. I threw it in the trash.

Still, a ring to symbolize failure? Yeah, that's empowering. However, when I was single and looked down the bar to see a woman with a ring on her left hand ring finger, I considered her off limits. Verboten. Not happening. If we fell into conversation later and she told me that the ring was a divorce ring, I'd write her off as some kind of loon.

The Old Guard

When all hell is breaking loose, when a hurricane is bearing down on Washington D.C., it is perfectly reasonable to expect people to hunker down, to take shelter, to get in out of the weather.

Not the Old Guard. Members of the US 3rd Infantry Regiment guard the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. They guard it 24/7/365, regardless of weather. Regardless of hurricanes.

Members of The Old Guard have guarded the Tomb every second, of every day regardless of weather or holidays since April 6, 1948.

That's dedication to duty.

Well Done, gentlemen. Your example is noted and appreciated. I am in awe.

Sunday Morning Dawg

Several weeks ago, we cut a watermelon and the grandkids were spitting seeds everywhere. Some of them fell into the transition between the wooden deck and the concrete deck and took root. This is the most energetic watermelon vine I've seen in a while and Milady asked me to leave it alone and see what happens.

However, it is threatening to take over the yard, and the dog sometimes loses his ball in the vine.

He found it this time, but next time he might not be so lucky.

Saturday Morning

I went to bed last night with the firm intention of getting up a-dawn and mowing the grass. I overslept and woke at 7:00, the sun already firmly above the horizon. Made coffee and stumbled out on to the back patio and decided that the grass could wait another couple of days.

The news feeds on the computer tells me that Hurricane Irene has moderated somewhat overnight. The folks in North Carolina are going to take a hit, but not like the one they might have taken. As the storm moves up the coast, it's going to push water ahead of it and there will still be some localized flooding, but it's now a Cat 1 storm. Dr. Jeff Master's blog over at Weather Underground is showing that while the storm has weakened, it's still a threat to navigation and there will be downed power lines and disruption of daily lives.

It looks like the East Coast dodged a bullet, but we thought that too when Katrina was downgraded and jogged east just before landfall. Then the levees failed and the rest is history. You folks in the east, be careful today and tomorrow. This thing ain't over till it's over.

NYC Orders Evacaution

I see that New York City had ordered a mandatory evacuation of about 300K souls.

NEW YORK (AP) — Nearly 300,000 people were ordered Friday to evacuate flood-prone areas and subways, buses and trains prepared to shut down a day later as Hurricane Irene steamed toward New York, the most powerful storm to target the city in decades.

It was the first time the nation's largest city was evacuated. And never before has the entire mass transit system been shuttered because of a storm. Despite the unknowns of how the city would react, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he was confident people would get out of the storm's way.

Good luck with that, Mayor. No one in New York City remembers what it's like to be evacuated. I doubt that the yuppies understand what that means.

Brendan Loy, over at Pajamas Media, is doing a good job of explaining wind and surge to the uninitiated, but maybe y'all don't understand the scale of this monster. Yeah, it's weakened some, but it has a lot of water moving.

However, since Irene is such a huge storm–tropical storm force winds extend out up to 290 miles from the center–it has set a massive amount of the ocean’s surface in motion, which will cause a much larger storm surge than the winds would suggest.

Let's do a little math. If the area of a circle is pi times the radius squared, then with a 290 mile radius, you've got over 264,000 square miles of water moving under the hurricane. That's where the surge comes in. That much water, piling up on itself and slamming into land is a problem. A huge problem, and there's not a damned thing you can do about it.

I don't wish any bad luck on New York City, nor on Philly, nor Maryland, nor the poor souls in North Carolina who look to take the brunt of the initial landfall. It's going to be an interesting weekend. I hope you folks made those reservations I talked about yesterday.

Irene

I'm just an old country boy, a Louisiana native, and I've lived through these things. If you're paying attention to the storm track( and if you live on the East Coast, you should be) it looks like Irene is about to make herself at home in your neighborhood.

You can go to the National Weather Service and look at the whole page, but the map tells the story to a Louisiana boy. Y'all are fixin to get some wind. And rain. And, it might not be pretty. Here's another picture.

That red on the map ain't good. That's the danger area as the weather-weenies can see it today. I'll guarantee that Irene is going to jog just before landfall and this map is just a "best guess". From what I'm seeing, most of the coast, north of Charleston, is in danger. I'm talking Virginia, D.C., Philly, Boston, New York, the whole corridor. Y'all need to start battening down, packing up, and heading west. Do a mapquest and make reservations now, somewhere 200 miles inland. That should be far enough. It'll be nice to have reservations so that when you get to the hotel you won't find that the entire state of Maryland got there ahead of you.

The worst danger, with the wind, is the water. When wind stacks up water and it runs into a coastline, you're in danger of a charming little phenomena called Storm Surge. That's when the ocean comes to visit and your house moves several miles inland. Here's the projected map.

You'll notice that New York city is in that purple area, along with a huge part of the coastline.

Seriously, folks. Y'all start paying attention to what the weather-weenies and the local emergency planners are telling you.

The Donkey Whisperer

You've gotta love this guy, great political ad.



I'd vote for him.

Mystery Solved

Science has done it again. They've cracked the code to the yeast used to make lager beer.

Scientists have cracked the mystery behind lager beer after years of research and found the yeast's genomic foundation, paving way for new types of designer beers.

This is important science. Much more compelling than global warming, or nuclear physics. This is good biology. Beer is a lubricant for the soul, a gift from a benevolent God, a triumph to man's desire for a more salubrious existence. As the Friar Tuck character so plainly stated in the movie Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves.

This is grain, which any fool can eat, but for which the Lord intended a more divine means of consumption. Let us give praise to our maker and glory to his bounty by learning about... BEER.

May it always be so.

The New Civility

I see that the Congressional Black Caucus (a racist organization, based totally on race) is at it again. This time, it's Representative Fredricka Wilson (D-FL) blaming the recession on racism. I kid you not.

"When you look at African American males, 40% of them are unemployed, those under 30 years of age. I understand exactly the entire nation must be involved in this recovery but the black community is experiencing a great recession. That's what we're experiencing," Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL) told MSNBC.

"And all of the growth in the past 30 years, we see it slipping away. From home ownership, the middle class; it's slipping away from our hands. And it has a lot to do with many issues. Racism, shipping jobs overseas, access -- no access to technology. You know, the digital divide is there and many of the new jobs that's what it requires. So, we have a problem."

Yes, Fredrica, you're right. The racism of low expectations. The racism that teaches black kids that they don't need to succeed in school, the racism that tells black youth that they should be concerned more with a failed political philosophy than preparing themselves for the job market, either through training or education. It's a racism of low expectations, Fredrica, and we know who the racist is.

Jesse Jackson entered the fray today, too. He called us all racists.

For his part, the Rev. Jesse Jackson said the Tea Party should be called “the Fort Sumter Tea Party that sought to maintain states’ rights and slavery.”

You'd do well to study history, Jesse. That was the Democratic Party. The party that you've pledged allegiance to. The party of the Klan and slavery. But you can't admit that, can you?

Who's the racist?

Earthquakes and Hurricanes

I see that the east coast had an earthquake today. I bet that came as a surprise. No major damage, but who'd a thunk it?

Now, Irene is headed in and it's going to be a nice storm. Cat 2 today, who knows what it'll be when it hits the Carolinas? It's fairly difficult to predict storm intensity and track, especially four to five days out. As Brendan Loy reminds us:

Track forecasting is a much more exact science than intensity forecasting, but even there, errors can be large, as the National Hurricane Center’s advisories consistently note. Every recent discussion on Irene ends with the same admonition: “IT IS IMPORTANT TO REMIND USERS NOT TO FOCUS ON THE EXACT FORECAST TRACK…ESPECIALLY AT DAYS 4 AND 5…SINCE THE MOST RECENT 5-YEAR AVERAGE ERRORS AT THOSE FORECAST TIMES ARE 200 AND 250 MILES…RESPECTIVELY.” In other words, folks in Morehead City shouldn’t panic just because the forecast track is targeting them right now for a Saturday landfall, and folks in Myrtle Beach and Virginia Beach shouldn’t breathe easy just because it isn’t. The precise track can, and will, change.

And even a near miss can become a catastrophe, because a big hurricane might be 200 miles across.

A word to the wise to my East Coast readers, from a Louisiana native who's lived through these things. Go out out now and get three days supplies of food, water, propane, batteries and flashlights. Fill your vehicle with fuel and fill every gasoline container you own. If you have a generator, make sure that it will start. Make preparations to batten down the hatches at the 24 hour mark, when the storm track will be more precise. I don't need to tell you to make sure you've got ammunition.

You'll all be just fine.

Maxine Waters

Waters is an appropriate name for Maxine. She's a Democrat from California and she's carrying the water for the Democrats who have driven California into the ground and now she wants to stop the hemmoraging. Of course, rather than all the failed policies of the past, she blames the Tea Party.

“This is a tough game. You can’t be intimidated. You can’t be frightened. And as far as I’m concerned — the tea party can go straight to hell.”

Oh, Maxine. You want to keep the poor and downtrodden on the Democratic plantation, faithfully serving the masters who gives them freebies on the government dole.

Of course you're frightened, Maxine, I can see it in your eyes. You're scared to death that we're right and everything your overseers have told you over the years is wrong. Release your fear, Maxine and come over to the side of individual responsibility, individual empowerment and individual freedom. You can see what the welfare state has done to California and it's not pretty.

Of course, you're frightened, Maxine. As people decide that you're inconsequential, you'll lose the hold that you have on them. It's scary to take responsibility for yourself, and people are learning that it's very liberating.

Maxine Waters is a very scared individual, deserving of our pity. She certainly doesn't deserve anything else.

Atlas Shrugs

If you want to see a summation of the nation's current problems, you'd do worse to read Victor Davis Hanson's piece at Pajamas Media. For a nation built on the backs of entrepreneurs, our government seems strangely hostile to the people who crank the levers on the economic engine that is America's strength.

A couple of suggestions that tax brackets might need to be adjusted would slide off the backs of most business people. Perhaps we can even smile at Barack Obama’s new arbitrary $250,000 divide — above which those who make good money now pay 60% of the aggregate income taxes and are slurred with not paying “their fair share,” while 50% of American tax filers below pay no income taxes and are promised that they “won’t see one penny in new taxes.” That nearly every discussion on the debt ceiling was introduced by Obama with the euphemism “new sources of revenue” and “investments” was only a little alarming.

Yet once again, add up all the 31 months of tax-hike demagoguery. Those who hire finally got it into their collective heads that they were not merely not liked and to be overregulated, but to be further taxed as well — not in a conciliatory manner as contributing to the nation’s welfare, but in punitive fashion as if they were culpable for making profits in the first place.

You can't rebuild the American economy on the backs of American business. You've got to unshackle them, free them, and let them roar. Then, they'll hire workers, build new plants, make profits and rebuild America. If you demonize business, they'll hunker down and wait out the storm.

Maybe it is time for that Killer Rabbit, after all.

Sunday Morning Dawg

In this heat wave, the dog likes to spend a whole lot more time inside than outside, and I can't say that I blame him. When Milady and I are inside, the dog will often be found with his belly on the cool tiles near the fireplace.

He's taking his leisure on a hot summer afternoon.

Google Maps

I'm trying something and if it works, you'll all be able to see where I hunt. Google Maps has some features that I've been trying to figure out and maybe (just maybe) I've started to break the code on some of those things.

I went to the hunting camp today to check on things and I took a GPS to plot some coordinates then came home and started piddling with the technology.


View Searcy-Snyder in a larger map

That seemed to work. The map shows a portion of the Sinai-Snyder hunting club in LaSalle Parish, LA. There are three place-marks on that map. The one on bottom left is the stand of one brother-in-law, the stand on the bottom right belongs to another brother-in-law. My stand is under the SAT button at top right. If you grab the map you can move it around, change scale, do lots of things to it. The link to the map is here.

I think that's pretty cool. I really should pay more attention to this technology stuff.

Hurricanes

I hope he's wrong, but all I've got is hope and he's crunching the numbers.

“In a season of weak storms where 4 of 7 so far were non-tropical in origin, a frenzy of 5 to 7 true tropical storms are likely to emerge,” Bastardi said. “Almost all them are likely to reach hurricane status -- and 3 or 4 of them could impact the US coast. It appears that this very active period that is emerging could rival the 2008 frenzy of storms.”

Here we go again.

Busy Day

I spent the day at work, then came home and changed a part on the pool pump, found parts for a tractor, launched a model rocket with a grandkid. Fished same model rocket out of the pond, then took another grandkid to karate class. Came home and ate supper (Smothered steak, mashed potatoes, rolls, with leftover watermelon for dessert). As Milady did all the cooking, I washed the dishes. I'll be abed in another half hour. The alarm clock rings at 0500 and we start it all over again.

Fettucini

I came home tonight and Milady told me she was cooking fettucini alfredo. Chicken Fettucini Alfredo. Oh, Darn. It was all I could do to choke it down.

While she was cooking her pasta, my son came over. Someone gave him a watermelon that weighed on our bathroom scale at 41.8 lbs. Biggest damned watermelon I've ever seen. After supper we cut it. I fed ten people tonight. The fettucini took a hit, but we could only eat half the watermelon. Milady and Elder Son got out the melon-ball devices and she filled a large tupperware cake keeper with watermelon balls.

I'm stuffed.

The recipe for her alfredo sauce is here.

School Daze

It's back to school today for the teachers and the deputies who serve the schools today. Coffee's dripping and in another hour I'll pull on my boots and put on my duty belt. Classes start on Wednesday and the long endurance contest till next May.

Sunday Morning Dawg

We're on the road this weekend, in Tuscaloosa, AL for Milady's family reunion. When we're gone we have to make arrangement for the dog, and most weekends my mother agrees to keep him. That's where he's at this weekend, getting spoiled by my mother.

I'm sure he's doing fine. We'll be home late this afternoon.