Remembering Old Memories.

Most every night when I go to bed, my mind wonders and starts thinking of all sorts of things, mostly plans and memories.  Last night I got remembering one summer when my kids were younger.  The memory that came back was of my youngest son one summer of his life when he was still young.  He got himself a gasoline powered weed eater and planned to (and did) earn some money with it.  Yes, he used it for work but he also figured out a way of using it for play.

He removed a propeller from an old electric trolling motor that didn't run anymore.  Then he removed the spinning head that held the heavy cutting line from the weed eater and replaced it with the propeller.

Now, before I go on with my story, I should tell you that the first few years that we lived on this property, this area of East Texas had a very wet climate and it rained most every day around 17:00 (five o'clock) in the afternoon which kept my swamp very full and back then it looked like a six acre lake, which it was.  So, my son had plenty of water to test his new invention.  He paddled a canoe out to a little deeper water and then fired up the weed-eater with the propeller installed on it.  Wow, he really zipped over that water.  It was something to see, him standing in that canoe holding that weed-eater in the water and going pretty dang fast.

Not sure what made me remember that incident last night, but I sure am glad I did.  I hope you enjoyed my story as much as I did remembering it.  I am sure you all have some memories that are too good not to share and I hope you do share.  Now, you all have a great day, you hear?

Gloom and Groomers

The weather here in East Texas is still gloomy and today was dog grooming day.  That makes matters even worse, coming back home to a silent house. . . no barking to greet us.  Funny how bad I miss my little rascals.  It is like part of me is missing.  I guess that I have gotten way too attached to them and visa-versa, but I like it that way.

After we dropped the three pups off, we went shopping and picked up a few supplies, that took up a few hours.  We then came home and ate lunch and now it is 13:30, four and half hours after we dropped them off.  Gee, I would think that they should be done by now.  I guess I will wait until a little longer and then I may just give them a call.  I guess I am going through a separation syndrome.  When the phone rings and I go and pick them up, I will have an immediate recovery. Now, you all have a great day, you hear.
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Update:
Just got back home with the pups and now all is well in my world.  Hope all is well in yours, too.

Remember in my last blog posting I showed what the grandkids made for me and the birds.  Well, remembering back before Christmas time they showed up with some hand made decorations that they made for our Christmas tree.  Well, since we canceled Christmas this year, we didn't have a Christmas Tree set up.  But then I remembered that a few years ago, my wife made a tree from all the wild grape vines growing all over my place.  It sits in the corner of our living room and is always decorated with something, actually, many things.  So, it was the perfect place to put their hand made gifts.

This first picture shows the red one with some green mixed in.  That old owl in the lower left corner of the picture has been in my family for generations.  There were originally three of them, and when I and my cousins were young and went to visit grandma and grandpa at Christmas time, our job was to find all three of them.  So, it holds a lot of precious memories for me.

And over on the other side of the grape vine tree are two more that they made for us this year.  That one on the right wants to pull me right in, like a vortex or a whirlpool.  Pretty nice, aren't they?

OK, want to see the whole tree?  Well, here it is:

Even though we didn't have a Christmas tree, that didn't stop the grandkids from giving us their hand made ornaments and the old grapevine tree volunteered to substitute as our Christmas tree.  That way, we can enjoy their gifts all year long.  I sure hope you had a great Christmas season and you all have a great day, you hear?

A Gift for Me and the Birds.

The grandkids came up to see us.  They had a gift for us and the birds.  What makes it extra special is that they made it themselves.  It was a treat for us and the birds.  I hung it up with my regular feeders and snapped a picture of it.  Here it is:

Now, isn't that a really great gift?  And guess what, the birds like it, too.  So, it turned out to be a great Christmas after all.  The feeders give pleasure to the birds that come to them and birds that come to the feeders give pleasure to me.

The weather here is still unseasonably warm with highs around 80 degrees, plus or minus a degree or two, depending on the time of day.  It is now almost nine pm and it is still very warm, still in the 70's.   There is a cold front coming and that sure will stir things up with the hot humid gulf air sitting over us.  That should happen sometime this weekend.  Now, you all have a great day, what is left of it, you hear?

Christmas in Cut & Shoot, TX.

I am sure you are all familiar with the that old Christmas carol, Silent Night, right?  Well, here in Cut & Shoot, there is no such thing as a silent night on Christmas Eve and especially not on New Year's Eve.  Cut and Shoot lives up to its name, or at least the last part of its name.  My oldest pup is deathly afraid of things that go bang, boom, or pop and she did not have a peaceful evening.

Well, I got up this morning and ran out to see what Santa had left me over night.  Dang, there was nothing there!!  I have come to the conclusion that all the gun fire, fire works, and fire crackers frightened his reindeer and they wouldn't come near this area.  Yep, that is the reason, it sure couldn't be that I have been a bad boy or anything like that...

Well, at least Mother Nature left me a beautiful present.  I went out this morning and took a couple of pictures of the present she left me.  Believe me, I sure do enjoy nature's gifts of beauty and wonders.

And here is a picture of all of the wild flowers that grew through the fence around the dogs' yard.  Who could ask for a better gift?

I sure hope you all had a joyous Christmas and got to spend time with your loved ones and do all the things you love to do and eat all your favorite foods.  But remember, don't overdo it, in another week, we get to celebrate New Year's Eve.  Dang, that means a lot more noise around here.  That night of the year sounds like a huge battle fought in WWI and WWII combined.  I am very sincere in wishing you all a very merry Christmas, you hear?

Merry Christmas Eve.

Just sitting here rocking and enjoying the quiet of Christmas Eve.  Not doing any celebrating; no tree, no lights, no gifts, no icicles, and no cold air.  Even this late in the evening it is still in the 70's temperature wise.

Maybe Santa Claus well bring me a gift. . . or maybe not.  I haven't been a real good boy, you know.  Anyway, this is the time of year we remember and celebrate the birth of God's son sent to earth to die for our sins.  We celebrate this time of year, not because Jesus was born this time of year (he wasn't) but because some king a long time ago wanted to appease everyone and had it celebrated the same time as their Yule season celebrations.  Tried to mix Christianity in with their pagan holidays.  That king tried to please everyone, and you know that never happens.  You can not make everyone happy no matter what you do.

We have been hearing about severe weather that is suppose to move into this area Sunday evening.  They say there may be high damaging winds with a chance of a few tornadoes.  This will all happen as a cold front moves into our area.  Although our "winter" is usually later into the first of the year, it is still way above normal temperatures.  I am not going to complain.  Just telling you all how it is.  Now, you all have a great and very merry Christmas, you hear?

Birds, Birds, Birds. . .

We have lots and lots and lots of birds.  Yes, I feed them.  I buy bird feed in the large 35 pound bags which I get at Tractor Supply.  It doesn't take them long to go through that bag and I have to go get another and then another and then another. . .  I also put a couple of blocks of suet out at the same time.  Tractor Supply has many, many flavors of suet and I buy a variety of them.  They like some flavors more than others so as time goes by, I can weed out the ones they don't prefer and only purchase the ones they like.  It doesn't matter what time of year or the weather, there always seems to be hungry birds at my place.  Don't ever take it as a compliment when someone tells you that "you eat like a bird".

There are lots of different varieties of birds that come to sample my offerings.  I saw one yesterday that I couldn't think of what it was.  I went to get my Peterson's Field Guide, but guess what?  I can't find it.  It can't be far, I use it often.

Of all the different birds, there a more cardinals than any other kind.  Just before I started writing this blog posting, I looked out and there must have been more than two dozen of them.  Where did they all come from?  My wife says the birds are hiding in the trees and bushes just watching and waiting for me to put the food out every morning.  No, I don't leave it out over night because the raccoons get to it and have destroyed feeders trying to get all the food out.  The first one that they destroyed was a big, expensive, wooden one.  I now just buy the smaller plastic ones and also put a few scoops of seed on ground in three different areas all close to the main feeders.  That way, more birds can eat at the same time.  OK, so I and my place are going to the birds. . . but I like it that way.  Now, you all have a great day, you hear?

More Info on RV

My last blog posting was about the decision to sell my motorhome.  There is a little more information about it that I believe would be important to anyone thinking of purchasing a unit like mine.  There are two very important things.  The first is, since its GVW is 26,600 pounds, you need a class-B or a commercial license to drive it.  I didn't know this and drove it a couple of years with out the proper license and if I had a wreck, even if it was not my fault, it would be considered my fault since I was driving it illegally.  Here in Texas, driving anything over 26,000 pounds (or 30,000 pounds combined vehicle weights) requires the higher license.

I was on a trip and sitting outside the RV talking to fellow RVer.  The fellow asked if I had any trouble getting a license to drive it.  I said I didn't have any special license and was not told when I bought it that I needed one.  Ignorance is no excuse for breaking a law.  Let me tell you, the rest of that trip from then on was not very pleasant, knowing I was breaking laws.  I quickly corrected that problem and now have the correct license.

My RV also has air brakes.  Since it has an air-ride suspension that takes compressed air to operate, it only makes sense to have air brakes and air horns (have both a regular horn and air horns).  Most people don't know how air brakes work.  For safety reasons, the brakes are spring loaded and always engaged.  Air has to be applied to released the brakes and if you loose air pressure, the brakes will come on.  Anyone I have talked to who never had air brakes thought the opposite was true, that you needed air to put the brakes on and they wondered what would happen if you lost air pressure.  Well, now you know.  Hope you all have a great day, you hear?

Going To Sell My Motorhome.

I guess since it has been a year since I used my motorhome, it must be time to sell it.  I really hate to do that, but I suppose that it is the best thing to do.  I am not getting any younger, so I will just oil up the ole rocker/recliner and sit down and rock and rock and rock.  Hey, wait a minute, that is exactly what I do now!!  So, you see, why let it just sit there in the driveway when some family could be having the time of their lives traveling in it.

Before I describe it in more detail, I will post a couple of pictures that I took of and in it.  Along with these and my header picture, you should get a good idea of what it looks like.

I had some preventive maintenance done on it, like getting the roof seems all re-caulked, etc.  If anyone is interested, let me know and I will put together a more complete list of what is in and on it.  Sine that bottom picture was taken, I had the large awning replaced.  There are awnings over the door and the other windows, too.  The inside is like a home, even has a four door refrigerator, gas stove, microwave/convention oven and much, much more.  When all four slides are open you could hold a square dance in the living room.

It is powered by a CAT diesel pusher and has a diesel generator in the front.  Have replace the tires.  That mostly describes it.  If any of you are interested, send me an email at

wb3dzy@consolidated.net

 and I will answer any questions that you may have and give you a price.  Now, you all have a great day, you hear?

50 Years of Fun.

I am an RVer and I bet a lot of my readers are, too.  If you are or have been an RVer or know someone that is, then you probably have heard of the Good Sam Club.  Good Sam Club and Camping World are 50 years old this year.  Hard to believe that they have been around that long although I had some form of RV for almost that long.

I started out with a pop-up camper that had a solid bottom and roof, but when opened up, had canvas sides and ends that slid out with beds for sleeping which left most of the 25 foot box open for daily living.  Had lots of storage and we made good use of it.  When I moved a couple of times, it was our temporary home until we could get settled.  Then one day, when I lived near Justin, TX (north of Fort Worth), a tornado flipped it end over end and it just came apart.

After that, we got a bumper pull travel trailer which both my wife and I really liked.  Then I traded it in for a class-C.  All three of those RVs got lots of use and we liked every one of them.  Now I have a diesel pusher which is shown in my header picture.  So, over all that time and different RVs, I have been to camping world and at one time, was a member of the Good Sam Club.  So what now?  Maybe I should sell this last RV and settle down to old age and my rocking chair.  Now, where would be the best place to advertise it?  Maybe instead of trying to sell it myself, I could take it down to PPL Motor Homes, where I bought it in the first place.  Now, you all have a great day, you hear?

BTW, that picture of 50 years of fun came out of my Jan. 2016 issue of Motorhome (the magazine).

Visit to Eye Doctor's.

Had an appointment with the eye doc this morning.  A little over a year ago, I had a laser procedure to burn off some cellular growth under my inserted lenses that were put in my eye when I had my cataracts removed.  I was told at the time to get the other one done in a year or so.  Well, it has been a year or so.  He checked me and said, yes, it was time.  I said great, zap if off.  He said I would have to set up an appointment and come back to have it done.  I said, oh yes, you just want to make double the money.  He never answered.  There goes the old common sense law, "never piss off your surgeon".

My eyesight is still very hazy, so I am going to cut this blog posting short.  They should clear up and I am sure by tomorrow they will be back to normal. . . No, better than normal.  Now you all have a great day, you hear?

Explaination for Yesterday's Blog Posting.

On yesterday's blog posting, I talked about shrunken heads.  You may wonder why or how I came up with that subject.  Well, I am going to tell you.

Our three dogs go to the groomer usually every month.  The last trip left my oldest lovely pup, Muffin, looking quite different.  She had to have her face trimmed real short because somehow she managed to get the hair on her face so tangled and matted that the groomer had no choice but to cut it out.  So, when I first saw her, her head looked like it had been shrunk and she reminded me of the characters in the movie Beetlejuice that had the tiny heads on big bodies.  Poor Muffie had a tiny shaved head on a huge fluffy body.  And yes, it made me smile.  But of course I still love her to death.  She is my buddy and is usually laying beside me in my rocker/recliner as I write my blog, search the internet, or just watch TV.  She is my snuggle bunny during the day but not at night.  She prefers to sleep on my chair at night and Gizzy, our youngest, prefers her fluffy, soft, big pillow inside her own pen house.  The male, he prefers our king size bed, but usually lays right next to me.  Hey, my pups like me and I am so glad.  But, of course, my male just loves his mommy, my wife, the most and stays with her almost all day long.

OK, now you all pet your pets, if you have any, and have a great day, you hear?

Shrunken Heads.

For some odd reason, I woke up this morning thinking about an old movie that I enjoyed, Beetlejuice.  I thought the guys with the shrunken heads were quite funny.  You don't think shrunken heads are funny?  Then you didn't see the movie.  Here is what I am talking about:

And the star of the show sitting with the guy with the shrunken head.  This gives you some perspective to the size of the shrunken head on the guy on the right side of the picture.

Yes, the above are just props in a movie, but there have been some tribes of natives that actually practiced head shrinking.  This last picture is supposedly of a real shrunken head:

Of course I have no way of knowing for sure if this picture is of a real head, but it sure does look like it.  Don't forget, you can enlarge any of the pictures by clicking on them.  Of course, some of you have already seen way too much, right?  Now, stay away from head hunters and have a great day, you hear?

Things I don't understand.

There are a lot of things I don't understand, and my wife is the first to point that out.  But hey, I am man enough to admit that there are a lot of things I can't wrap my mind around.  To keep this blog at a reasonable length, I am only going to tell you about a couple of them.

The first is "entanglement".  That comes from the strange and weird world of quantum mechanics where it says that two particles can react with each other at a distance.  That distance can be a hairs width away or the whole way across the universe.  Distance doesn't matter.  You can google it and read to your hearts content, but if you are like me, you just can not understand it.  Blows my mind.  In fact this inter-reaction can happen faster than the speed of light.  This has been scientifically proven.  Even Einstein called it "spooky action at a distance".

The second concerns the cosmic microwave background.  I have trouble understanding how microwaves can be coming from every point in the universe at about the same intensity.  It is like a glow left over from the "big bang".  That would mean there must be the same amount of "stuff" in any direction we look.  Wouldn't that put us in the center of the universe???  I don't know about you, but I am the center of my universe (grin).  Well, not exactly, my wife, our family, and our pups are the center of my universe, how about yours?  Now have a great day where ever you are in this universe, you hear?

Got a Computer Problem

I wanted to scan some photos so that I could send them over the internet.  Sounds easy enough, right?  Wrong!!  As I told you awhile back, I got a new computer, an Asus to replace my older HP that bit the dust (I may still get it up and running. . . right?).  Well, my new computer will not talk to my HP scanner/printer.  It keeps asking for a CD that I don't think I have.  If I do, I have no idea where it is.  So, I guess it is a time for a new one, right?

I may just go shopping today.  I use scanners and printers quite often, especially when I want to put pictures on my blog. I have an older scanner, but don't know if it will work with the new laptop.  May have to try it sometime, but then I still don't have a way to print out anything.  I will see if I can find the software on line or if that fails, maybe the store will sell me the software without a new scanner/printer.

OK, got things to do, so you all have great day, you hear?

Wondering About Warm Blooded Fish.

Ask any fisherman, ask Barney of the Old Fat Man Adventures, he does a lot of fishing, if fish are warm or cold blooded.  I am sure everyone will give you the same answer, they are cold blooded.  OK, I agree.  Fresh water and salt water fish are cold blooded. . . except for one, and if there is one species of warm blooded fish, couldn't there be more?

Now I am sure by now you are thinking that Dizzy slipped a cog or two or has been dizzy way too long.  But wait!!  There is a warm blooded fish.  I never knew that there was until today when I accidentally stumbled across one when I was searching the internet for something else.

I guess I have kept you in suspense long enough.  Here is a picture of a warm blooded fish, the Opah, or Moonfish:

To Give you an idea of the size of a typical Opah, here is a picture of a fellow holding one for the camera.  Not too small, is it: 

Well now you all have been mooned. . . well, it is a moonfish, right?  Before I go, I don't want you thinking that the moonfish has a temperature of 98.6 degrees of so.  No, compared to us, they are really cold, but they can manage to keep their body temperatures a degree or two or so above the water temperature where they live way deep down in the ocean.  You can go here to read more about the Opah: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/14/opah-warm-blooded-fish_n_7286712.html 
Now, have a great day, you hear?

Was Asked for Swamp Pictures.

Back on November 28, 2015, TROUBLEnTX requested that I put some updated pictures of my swamp on my blog.  So today, to please her, and anyone else interested in my swamp, I walked down to the northeast corner of it and took some pictures.  The swamp is about two and half feet below its highest level.  These are for you, Trouble:

And for another blogger, MsBelinda at Terlingua Dreams, who is always giving fuel prices in her area, I decided as I was filling up my Jeep Liberty this morning to snap a picture of the gasoline prices.  In case you want to know, diesel was $2.10 per gallon. 

Don't forget, you can click on the pictures to enlarge them.

OK, I hope I satisfied Trouble and now you all have a great day, you hear?

Shadows in Old TV Westerns.

I like to watch old black and white TV westerns and the Western Channel carries a lot of them.  It seems that those old shows got a few things wrong, besides some of the plots and the people and the times in history.  So what am I talking about.  Shadows and lights, that is what I am talking about.

Let me explain.  An actor runs into an old mine, the camera is further in the mine to catch the action as the fellow runs into the entrance of the mine.  It is a bright day outside the mine entrance, but the actor's shadow points away from the camera towards the door.  That is opposite of what I think it should be, but of course the camera needs the light, right?

OK, what about an outdoors scene or show that depicts life in the late 1800's.  The actors are outside talking over plans for catching the stagecoach robbers when I hear an airplane flying over head.

Also, the candles, matches, and oil lamps were a lot better back then, too.  A fellow enters a dark room and lights a match and the whole room lights up.  Same thing happens with candles and oil lamps.  Both of which must have been at least the equivalent of a 100 watt light bulb or more.

There are a lot more instances like these but for now, I would like you to tell me what all mistakes you have seen in movies or any TV show.  It is fun to look for modern stuff in movies and shows that are set a couple of hundred years ago.  Now, make sure your shadows are pointing away from the light and have a good day, you hear?