Wandering down to the non-swamp.

I was asked a few weeks ago what my swamp/lake was looking like.  I decided to take my camera and let you all see it.  On the way down there I spotted where something had a meal:

It was a small animal.  What do you think it was?  It could be a rabbit, a coon, a possum, a skunk, or something else.  The skull was a little too large to be a squirrel.  This next picture is of the deepest part of the whole place.  It still has moisture in the bottom but it is more like pea soup.  To the upper left you can see the bones of what used to be a huge pig.

Here is a picture of what used to be the deepest part until I dug way down with the tractor:

Compare the above to a picture taken a few winters ago of the same area:

Enough of that, they are hoping that a tropical disturbance in the Gulf will move far enough west before turning north to give us some rain later in the week. Going to cross my fingers.



Yesterday, I stopped at the local hardware store and purchased a new 40 gallon hot water tank and a dolly to handle it with. Since I worked on the old one, it has been heating water just fine but the water has never cleared up; it is still red. I have high acid water here and also iron ore under the top soil and clay, so we have always had that problem, but the old hot water tank just does not seem to want to clear up. I thought that leaving it sit for the three weeks that we were on vacation would have let stuff settle out, but it seemed no better and in fact maybe even a little bit worse. So as soon as I post this, I am going to go drain the old one and try to get it out of the house and the new one in. They weigh more than I can lift, so will have to use my head instead of my back, or not.


Hope you all will have a better day than I am planning on having.
____

After Lunch Update

OK, I have been hard at work all morning trying to get that old hot water heater out of my house. I have not been able to do it. It fits in a tight opening both width and height wise. That was no big problem getting it all undone. Disconnected the water in and out and the gas and the flue. Then I tried to get it out. Has to be tilted about 30 degrees to get it out, no problem yet. Then I sees that it will not clear the gas pipe nor the water pipes that come out of the floor. Bummer for sure. I have tried blocks and pry-bars and maybe even a little bit of cussing. I give up for awhile. Will have to come up with a plan. Take down a wall maybe. . .
Even if I get it out, how will I get the new one in?

Wondering about my coffee.

I like coffee and I love good strong coffee. My wife and I are opposites when it comes to coffee. She likes her coffee weak, at least to my standards. Of course, not too many people like coffee as strong as I do. The only reason I don’t order espresso is that they serve it in such a small cup and if you order 7 or 8 of them it goes over my budget.



I usually buy 100% Columbian ground and roasted coffee. I used to grind my own, but I am getting lazy. Went grocery shopping yesterday and they were out of my coffee!! I have enough for awhile, but not for too long. May have to ration it, or worse, drink regular coffee. I keep a jar of instant coffee, Kava, around to add to the regular coffee my wife makes if I don’t want to take the time to do my own. Makes a pretty good cup of coffee.


When we are on the road in the RV, we make coffee two ways. The first is coffee bags. They are just like tea bags only have coffee in them. Quick, easy, and no mess when you are going down the road or at a quick stay at a rest stop. Boil water, pour into a cup, and put a bag in the cup; two in mine. When I have time, I make my Columbian by the drip method. We have these funnel shaped things that fit over the top of a coffee cup and a coffee filter fits into them. Just put in the desired amount of your favorite coffee, pour in some boiling water a little bit at a time until the cup is as full as you want, and presto, you have coffee. In fact I use that method at home for my good, strong coffee.


I usually put four to six spoonfuls of ground coffee into the funnel’s filter, depending on the size of the cup. Sometimes, not often but just when I want something a little different, I add a spoonful of French Vanilla coffee to my Columbian. Now that makes a special rich tasting cup of Joe.


OK, now I want a good cup of coffee. Going to make a good strong cup and sip on it as I read some more blogs. Tell me what coffee you like the best, what strength, and how you make it. You all have a great day now and sit back with a cup now and then.

Wondering about space travel

We got our first television way back when I was 7 or 8 years old. Of course back then there was only one TV station that we could get at the time. Since we lived just south of Butler, PA, it was KDKA channel 2 out of Pittsburgh. Even back then, my favorite programs were science fiction. I grew up having no doubt what so ever that some day man would explore the universe. Of course at that young age I had no idea how large the universe is and to think about it, I still don’t. Unless some magical never thought of type of super transportation is developed or the sci-fi teleporter can actually be perfected, we are stuck to our own solar system and then probably only to our closest neighbors, the moon and Mars.



I believe that the best chance of life elsewhere in our solar system would be on Europa, a moon of Jupiter. Europa is an ocean world covered by a layer of ice. The gravitational interaction between it and Jupiter heats Europa enough to keep the ocean liquid and a perfect place for life to form. Jupiter puts out very strong radiation that would be bad for humans and doesn’t do electronics very much good unless they are will shielded.


No matter how tough we think we are; man is fragile. Once you get up over 10,000 or more feet you will understand that you feel much better closer to sea level. Our earth’s atmosphere and magnetic flux shield us from the Sun’s dangerous radiation. The solution, let robots or machines do our exploring for us. They can go more places with less shielding and life support than man could ever dream of going. They have gone close to the sun and have either landed or flown by all the major things in our solar system and sent back information and pictures from these places. Without these machines, we would not know much about the solar system.


Speaking of these machines, how many of you remember when the two Voyager space craft were launched back 34 years ago? Do you know that they are still sending back data? They are so far away that it takes over 12 hours for their radio signals to reach us here on earth. In fact, Voyager 1 will become the first spacecraft to cross the boundary of the heliosphere and into interstellar space. BTW, the heliosphere is a huge bubble of charged particles from the sun that surrounds our solar system.


Just think, if a young astronaut, say at age 25 had been on that flight, he would be almost 60 years old by now. So now, maybe you will understand that machines are, for the time being, our best way to explore places higher than Mount Everest.

You all have an out of this world week, you here?

Wondering where our visitor went.

First off, let me tell you that it got to 109 officially yesterday in Houston and since I don’t have a recording thermometer, I don’t know if it got any hotter than that here. We are usually a couple of degrees hotter in the summer and a couple of degrees cooler in the winter because we are just a little bit further from the Gulf. They are predicting a cooler day today of only 108. We will see. It was cool this morning, around 72 degrees. That is the coolest temperature I have seen in a long, long time.


OK, now about my visitor. Mr. Onion Head from Pennsylvania stopped in for a visit. He was a real sweet guy, that Mr. Head. He was just so sweet that I hoped he would stick around awhile. He was a real character, even dressed up in “Texas” style cloths to try and impress us. Here is his picture:

He didn’t need to dress up to impress us, because we know way down deep inside he was real sweet.  He didn’t stick around here very long.  I am wondering where the heck he is.  I don’t remember seeing him leaving.  This is quite a mystery; maybe you can help us solve it:

You all have a great day now, you hear?

Wondering how hot it will get.

Hurricane Irene over there on the east coast is affecting us here in east Texas.  How, you say?  Well, it seems that it is causing some hot, dry wind to blow in here.  As you all know, I live in Cut and Shoot, which is north of Houston.  It always seems to be a couple of degrees warmer here than the official temperature at Houston’s big airport.  How hot is it going to get here today?  The weathermen are predicting 107 to 110 up my way and in Houston:

Therefore, I am going to keep this blog post short so we can get to the flea market early before the heat gets unbearable. I know that I shouldn’t, (and I am not going to) complain about the heat when some people are getting battered by Irene. The last hurricane to make landfall in the U.S. was Ike, and I remember it well. Still can show you damage from it on my place. There are almost always tornadoes that spin off hurricanes and I believe that most of the damage on my property was caused by a tornado.

I hope all you who live on the east coast take all the precautions necessary to keep you and your family safe. Evacuate all the low areas. My property is not low but I left. My son and grandson stuck it out and wished they hadn’t.


Good luck to all in Irene’s path.

A good visit with a friend.

I told you before about the lady that we met at the flea market just up the road from us who was just visiting her son here in Texas but lived just a couple of miles from my Aunt in Pennsylvania. It is a small world. I also posted a picture on one of my blogs of her and her husband when we visited them during our trip to Pennsylvania. Remember that blog:
http://dizzydick.blogspot.com/2011/08/reviewing-my-wandering-part-1.html
Well, she is back down here in Texas for week or so and we spent most of the day with her yesterday. Took her around to a few shops, stopped back at our place and had a good visit, then took her to her son’s house in time for her grandkids to come home from school. She has the cutest grandkids, a little girl just starting out in school and a boy who is a few years older. They are both smart and talented. Real nice kids and I get a kick out of them.

Yesterday was the coolest day we have had for the last few months. It actually stayed under 100 degrees, but that will not last long. Be back up over 100 today and they are predicting 106 for the weekend. I guess I should not complain, knowing what is going to happen to the east coast of the USA. That is a big storm they got heading their way,.

You all have a good day now, you hear?

Wondering what that wet stuff is.

It rained, it actually rained!!!!! I can’t believe it. Last evening some light showers moved through here and we got a whole quarter of an inch of rain. I was so happy. Then this morning about 05:30 a thunderstorm hit here with some hard rain and we are still getting a light rain with thunder in the distance. It looks like it may continue for awhile. So far, we have received an inch of the wet stuff. This has answered a lot of prayers, for sure. It is probably way too late to save a lot of things, but it will sure do a lot of good for what is left alive.


For some reason, the big high pressure dome moved a little bit to the west allowing some rain to get to us. It may move back, but till then we may be getting more rain. The weather man says that the computer programs did not predict this rain and that is why it was not in the forecast. Glad to know that Mother Nature out smarted their computers.

It is only 75 degrees right now, so maybe it will stay under a hundred if the clouds and rain stick around for the rest of the day. I can’t remember a day that it didn’t go over 100. It has been way over a month or so. Even if that doesn’t happen, I am ecstatic that we finally got some rain. Maybe this broke the cycle. Let us hope so. We need a lot more rain. We normally get 40” or so of rain a year. We are about at least three feet shy of that mark and only have four months to go in this year. Who knows, maybe we will have floods the rest of the year. Texas is known for its extremes.

I am real thankful for what we got and are getting. Hope the rest of the drought ravaged areas get some rain soon.

You all have a good day, I am already having a good day.