Everyone deserves a break today!

As the title says "everyone deserves a break today", so I will comply by not making a long post.  Now, you all have great day, you hear?

Wondering about sun spots

This is the year (2013) when our sun should be at its maximum activity during its 11 year cycle and the sun could produce some huge super flares.  So, what does that mean to us?  Well, that depends on whether we take a direct hit, a glancing blow or a complete miss.  A direct hit could be disastrous, especially to the power grid and comunications.  The man made satellites that circle our Earth and used for communications, defense, and scientific study of our earth and the universe will take the hardest and the first hit.  Dang, there goes my satellite TV which I surely do love.

There have been a lot of super flares but thank goodness not many of them have hit the Earth.  The last major hit that that Earth took was back in 1859 and was predicted by Richard Carrington.  Now, all such events are called Carrington Events in his honor.  Back then in 1859 there was not near as much stuff vulnerable to a flare.  But they did have telegraph and it sure did a job on it by shocking the operators and even set the telegraph paper on fire.  The keys kept clicking even when the battery connections were disconected.

Every now and then, Mother Nature has to show us that we are really not in charge and that we are very, very vulnerable to the ravages and whims of the vast universe.  Although we may be but tiny specs in the eye of nature and the universe, you all are very huge in my life, so you all have a great day, you hear?

Pups to the groomer.

Our three pups will be going off to the groomer's today for their monthly fix up.  Last month the oldest female came back with what we call a "hot spot" where the groomer had some trouble getting a tangle out and irritated her skin.  Of course after we got home, the male started licking it and made matters a lot worse.  Since we had both our females "fixed", he gets excited about the smallest things even if they are imagined.  Poor boy, I feel sorry for him.

It seems that yesterday's rain is over, although I have not seen the sun yet.  Last night the weather man said it would clear off today and get up in the mid to upper 70's.  It will be a good day even though I had trouble sleeping last night and am a little on the tired side.  Of course, any day that I wake up alive is a good day, right?  Now, I plan to have a good day and I want all of you to do the same, you hear?

Wondering about some red wild flowers.

For the last couple of weeks my wife has been seeing some pretty red flowers along a fence on the back road we take coming back home after stopping at the post office to get our mail.  She keeps telling how pretty they are and I always seem to keep missing them.  Yesterday, was different.  I remembered about them before I got to them and it just so happened that there were no vehicles behind me and I had my camera in my pocket.  I handed the camera to my wife (the flowers were a long a fence on the right side of the road) and told her to take some pictures.  I slowed down and made a quick stop and she snapped a couple of pictures.  Usually this field gets covered with blue bonnets and these red flowers which, after some research, I believe that they are a wild Phlox.  Here is the panoramic view:

 I cropped the picture down for a closer look:

 And a little closer:

Can't go any further, it is already starting to get blurry.  You get the idea, right?  This is the start of a very pretty time here in Texas.  Now, you all have a great day today, you hear?  It is a rainy day here in East Texas.

Wondering about hibernation.

Just a couple of days ago, poor old Punxsutawney Phill was yanked out of his den and his hibernation and held up to see if he saw his shadow.  Of course he saw his shadow and there will be six more weeks of winter.   That is just fine with me, because the weather here has been pretty nice with highs in the 70's.  I can take six more weeks of that before the hot, hot summer gets here
Correction:  I was looking at last years results and this year he didn't see his shadow so Spring is around the corner.

Oh, got off the track a little.  I was going to talk about hibernation.  What is it?  Do any of you know?  I figured it was sort of a state of suspended animation and in a way, it is.  A warm blooded animal that truly hibernates is closer to dead than alive.  Their heart rates drop to only a few beats per minute and their body temperature drops very low.  The Arctic ground squirrel cools itself down to 27 degrees.  It has actually come up with a way to keep its blood from freezing.

Everyone has heard that bears hibernate and usually have their cubs during that time.  Just in case you think that you could then sneak up on them and take a peek, if you were to come within 50 feet of her den, her heart rate will spike and wake her.  Of course I suppose that just like humans, there will be some that are extra heavy sleepers and you could enter their den while they are sleeping.  Notice that I used the word "you" and not "me".

It isn't always the cold that sparks the hibernation process  but also drought or periods of low food supply.  Mammals are not the only ones that hibernate; lizards, snails, turtles, and fish will hibernate, even in warm weather when food is scarce.  Life has many tricks that it uses to maintain itself.  I prefer to hibernate on dreary, rainy days like yesterday and this morning.  Now you all have a great day, especially if you have come out of hibernation, you hear?

Wondering if blogs are like TV shows.

I was just wondering where some of the blogs I follow, including mine, would fit if we compared them with TV shows.  They don't all fit into just one category or, in this case, TV show.  Some are like travel brochures, some are like do-it-yourself manuals, some are like encyclopedias, some are full of useful information and some are not, some are about prepping, some are about homesteading, some are about people, some are about children, some are about pets, and some are just plain full of it (grin).  My blog is all of the above, but mostly just "full of it".  I wonder, how many of you recognize yourselves from the above list?  What??  I missed you??  OK, I did forget your category, so here it is:  "The best blog in the universe".  Now, did I get everybody?

The different types of TV shows would vary from variety shows to comedies, from horror  to happiness, from despair to joy, from helpful hints to useless information.  Just like I watch all those type TV shows I also read all the different types of blogs.  If they were all the same I would only have to read one of them, right?  Everyone has their own and usually different opinion of things.  Some of you are such prolific writers and it is a joy to just read your pose, some of you travel in RVs and that always is of interest to me, some of you fish and I love to fish, some of you talk about food and I love to eat.  I could go on and on but I always seem to enjoy reading what you all write and try to listen to what you have to say.

Now that I have written this, I am not quite as full of it as I was when I started (grin).  You see, some spilled out.  Now I hope the TV show which you are in today will be a wonderful and cheerful show full of plenty of sunshine and smiling faces.  In other words, have a great day, you hear?

There was a crooked man. . .

There was a crooked man and he walked a crooked mile,
He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile.
He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse.
And they all lived together in a little crooked house.

 Remember that poem?  Well, so far I am not a crooked man and I don't live in a crooked house, but I do have a crooked power pole.

And a view from the other side:

 What happened, you may ask?  Well, a little while back the power company hired contractors to trim the trees and vines and any such stuff away from their lines.  When they came in here, they must have pulled too hard on the vines and when they saw what they did they just quit, leaving half of the line from the transformer to my pole untrimmed.  So, I guess I will try to finish their trimming job and then straighten my pole.  I think I will get a treated 2x4 and use it as a brace after I tie a rope around the pole and winch it back to vertical.  Not a huge job, but one that needs done and one that needs done right.

You all have a great day now, you hear?