Texas Thanksgiving 2010.

In 1997 Julia and I revisited the Baltic Sea on a cruise that we had first taken in 1962, during which we first met. We also stayed in Copenhagen for a week, the city where I had proposed to her.

In Christmas 1967, after 3 years of marriage, we took a magical tour around Texas with our, then, new friends Tom & Martha Hardin. This year, 2010, 43 years later we were going to repeat at least some of that trip with our, now, old friends Tom & Martha and our number one Grandson, 17 year old Bradley.

At first I was just going to give a few highlights of this trip, but as always, whenever I visit Texas I get carried away. At first this Blog started off with , - "I am not going to go into a lot of detail about the trip." - Somehow that morphed into this detailed account of another 'Texas Odyssey'. Believe it or not I could have expanded it even more, such is my love of all things Texas! (Even now I am drinking my coffee out of a cup that announces quite simply "TEXAS", while laying on the floor nearby is a T-Shirt that says "Don't Mess With Texas". (I wouldn't dare - would you?)

The three of us flew to San Antonio and Tom picked us up at about 10 pm. We then spent two days at their lovely home. The first day we visited The Alamo, two Missions and Riverwalk - where we had a fine Mexican meal. The second day, Sunday, after attending a service at Tom & Martha's Church and meeting several of their friends, we set off for West Texas, arriving late in the evening at our historic hotel The Limpia. In Fort Davis we visited Tom's old stomping grounds, the homes of several of his relatives including Dudes ranch and various other places that Julia and I had been to before but which were new to Bradley.

In the evening we went to the Indian Lodge, a cool building built in the 1930's by the CCC where there is a nice restaurant - The Black Bear. It is located in the Davis Mountains State Park. After a good meal Bradley and I went outside to see the stars which were unbelievably bright, and numerous, in the dark Texas night. We had been warned to look out for a Mountain Lion that had been seen in the area. When Bradley said "What is that?" pointing into the darkness, I of course thought that he was trying to scare me. Not seeing anything, but with Bradley insisting that there was an animal "right there", I dropped to my knees to try to get a better view of it against the sky. Still no sign, just them Tom turned on the lights of the car and there right in the headlights was a deer walking away from us! Either Bradley has incredibly good vision or I have bad sight - or maybe a bit of each. we then visited The McDonald Observatory on Mt. Locke and after a tour of the facilities, used several of their telescopes to observe some of the wonders of our universe. It was cold up there at night. The only cold temperatures we had during our 8 days in Texas.

The next day, Tuesday, was an adventure day as we went on a trip to the Mexican border. Due to "The troubles" we were not going to enter Mexico this time. On all our previous visits to Texas we have made several forays into that exciting country. This time we went to the border town of Presidio where in an otherwise dreary town we made an exciting discovery in the form of a wonderful and authentic Mexican Restaurant. A good meal was enjoyed by all. After that we set off to discover some of the "Towns" that we had visited in 1967. In order to appreciate what we were looking for you need to read my story "Texas, Christmas 1967". If you e-mail or call me I will e-mail you the story - it is about 26 pages long and gives a detailed story of a trip taken by us, two newcomers not only to Texas, but to the USA after just a few months here. It is interesting, if only as a History lesson of the observations of those two immigrants made 43 years ago. Read the story and then compare Texas then to Texas now!

After the Mexican meal we set off to "Discover" the "Towns" of Ruidosa and Candelaria. I cannot describe them for you, I'm sorry, to understand why, you will need to visit them for yourselves! In my humble opinion they are worth the visit although some, indeed many, would doubtless disagree with me! Enough said.

To get back to civilization we took an unmade "Road" to Marfa (Of Marfa Lights fame). Just as in Texas a "River" does not necessarily have water, so a "Road" is not necessarily a road!

The "Road" was long and dusty. Although it was only about 25 miles long it seemed much longer. The stones were large, many larger than the road clearance of our Mercury, but the views were stupendous. The Chisos Mountain Range kept beckoning, but never got closer.

On our 1967 trip over this same road it had been getting dark at this point in the trip, we were late for a dinner date with Tom's Cousin Mary, we had no idea what lay in wait around the next corner and we were going way too fast, even for Tom's venerable Ford Fairlane, survivor of some 75 miles of this wildest "road" that any of us had ever traversed in our lives. Even Tom was out of his depth. At one point, and we were all looking out for that 'infamous' point now, we had been travelling - well slipping and sliding really - at about 60 miles per hour, which was at least 50 miles per hour faster than we should have been going, we went down a slope that suddenly changed from down to up. The Ford 'bottomed out' with a sickening crunch to not only the car but to our four already bruised bottoms, and continued on. We were sure that at the very least several springs had fractured. And maybe the engine casing, oil pan, shock absorbers and any other parts that were underneath the car. But we did not stop to check. One problem was that the trunk was loaded down with a weeks worth of luggage and supplies for four Texas travellers. Consequently the the car was riding very low, especially its back end. We made it back to civilization, and to Cousin Mary's for dinner, albeit two or three hours late. Which didn't seem to faze her at all. That was something that we learned about Texans on that trip, nothing seems to faze them.

Back to 2010. About halfway along the Chisos Ranch road we saw a pick up truck ahead of us. We were steadily gaining on it, until suddenly we saw it turn into an even smaller road - was that possible? We passed it and shortly after saw it again, this time behind us. It followed us closely, close enough that we were able to see that it was a Border Patrol vehicle! Oh, Oh, did they think we were "Illegal Immigrants". We continued, hoping to reach a town or something before it pulled us over and searched us. Eventually we reached a 'paved' road. By now the ladies had gone too long without a "Pit Stop", and the bouncing had not helped. We looked for a suitable 'private' place to stop. (It doesn't get any more 'private' than this area, many miles from the nearest house!) But even so apparently a suitable stand of trees or bushes was needed. Eventually such a place was found. We pulled over. The Border Patrol vehicle stopped too and we all walked back towards him, hoping that he did not have four pairs of handcuffs out and ready. He didn't. Instead he climbed out of his large Pick Up and in his Texas drawl asked if we were all OK. When we assured him that we were, he said that he was following us in case we were having a problem. He probably thought that we were travelling rather slowly, not knowing that Tom was treating his loaner car gently. (Tom's own car was in the shop and when they didn't have it ready as they promised on Friday they gave him the almost new Mercury to use for the week. Little did they know that it was going to be bouncing around a bunch of ranch roads on the Mexican border!) Anyhow, the Border Patrol man didn't seem suspicious of any us, not even of Bradley, even after Bradley asked if he could have his picture taken with him! The Border Patrol man went on ahead and we followed in his considerable dust cloud. The ladies found a suitable bush and all was well with the world again. We pressed on to Marfa and had a fine meal at the famous Paisano Hotel & Restaurant on Highland Ave, also known as the "Home of the Stars", because James Dean, Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor stayed there while filming the movie "Giant".(Dean stayed in Room 223, Hudson in 211 and Elizabeth Taylor - my favorite! - in Room 212), after which we went to the viewing area for the famous Marfa Lights and watched for a while - this time unsuccessfully. We had seen the mysterious lights on previous visits.

Then it was our last night at the Limpia Hotel. The next day we set off early for San Antonio. But it was to be a long day. There was much to see between the Fort Davis Mountains and the big city of San Antonio. Most of what we were to see Julia and I had seen before, but it would all be new to Bradley - which would make it new to us. Showing Bradley some of the highlights of my favorite State would be a new experience for me too.

We took Highway 90 and drove through Marfa. In Alpine we drove past the home of the famous Joaquin Jackson , author of "One Ranger" and " One Ranger Returns". The Gage Hotel in Marathon, a real Western hotel in a real Western Town was our next brief stop. The Gage was built by Trost and Trost - who were also the builders of the Paisano hotel in Marfa, that we had visited just a day earlier. Both hotels are full of history and deserved a longer stay. After a few pictures, one with Bradley poking his finger in the eye of a Mountain Lion (Stuffed), we pressed on. One day I would like to stay at one or both of these Hotels. Both are within easy driving of Big Bend National Park, an awesome Park well worth a visit - or two. Then it was on to the little town of Langtry and Judge Roy Bean's Home and Courthouse, "The Jersey Lilly", named after Lily Langtry the English Actress. It looks far different now than it did during our first visit in 1967 when there was no Visitors Center, no Cactus Garden and no anything except the Jersey Lilly Saloon that looked almost the same as it did now except that it was more dilapidated then. The famous "Hanging tree" was still there, also a little worse for wear. (Although it is thought that Judge Roy Bean, the Law West of the Pecos, had never actually hanged anyone there.) In 1967 there had been a lot of desert, tumbleweeds, sand and dust. And no visitors except us. Just across from the Jersey Lilly was Mr William Dodd's house which is literally falling down now, but had been intact in 1967, in fact we went inside then. Mr Dodd was the man that immigrated from England with Tom Hardin's grandfather John Henry Ashby. They formed a partnership with a Mr Cross, who was their Sunday School teacher in Birmingham, England. Mr Cross paid for them both to go tho Langtry Texas when they were 18. They were going to raise sheep and goats. When that didn't work (You will understand why if you ever go there - and I recommend that you do.) they tried cattle. That was also a failure. Mr Ashby married and moved to Uvalde where he opened the towns butcher shop. Dodd also married but stayed in Langtry where he owned the town's general store/post office and eventually took Bean's place as Justice of the Peace after he died. Dodd's relatives still live in Langtry and Tom keeps in touch with them. There are many stories that I could tell about Tom and Tom's family, and their adventures in Texas.

Our next stop was at Seminole Canyon State Park with an interesting Indian exhibit, including pictographs. And then it was through Del Rio and on to Tom's birthplace and hometown of Uvalde where we made a brief stop at a drug store that Tom has frequented for pretty much his whole life. We had ice cream floats, banana split, coffee etc. Tom saw people he has known for years. Then it was a quick drive through town, past his mothers old house and the Garner museum, which was closed for renovating, updating and adding on to. We almost met John Nance Garner in 1967. I was excited in my first year in the US to be meeting an ex Vice President of the US. His son Tully had been Tom's Uncle's partner in some business ventures, including the 10,000 acre ranch that they owned together. It was named Bitter Bottom and we had visited it several times over the years. However, Garner died just a few days before we were to meet him. Very inconsiderate of him we thought!

After Uvalde we went straight to San Antonio.

Tom, Bradley and I got up early the next day, which was Thursday and Thanksgiving Day, as Bradley had an early flight. Fortunately they live only ten minutes or so from the airport and we were there by around 6.00 am in time for his flight back to Baltimore and the new love of his life, Janie. Lucky Bradley. Oh, and of course his family. Bradley had elected to return to Baltimore to be with his family for Thanksgiving rather than spend an additional 4 days in Texas. Remarkable!

Thursday was a lazy day to recover from the trials of the trip. We went to an English Pub for Thanksgiving Dinner - how wild is that? The evening was spent looking at movies of two of Tom and Martha's trips - to Russia and China, and watching an old movie called Dial M for Murder.

Friday was time for a trip to Fredericksburg, a small town that we had visited before. On our previous trips there it had been a very quiet town, today it was different, as different as chalk and cheese! It was packed, we had trouble finding somewhere to park or to eat, and it was even hard to get into the stores to shop. This last tragedy did not seem to upset Tom at all! Fredericksburg is famous for being the home of the Chester Nimitz Museum of the Pacific War, which we visited, and enjoyed immensely. Indeed, although we spent two or three hours there we could easily have spent twice as long. It was one of the most interesting museums I have ever been in.

And then Saturday was an early start for our flight back home where our daughter Sarah met us. A perfect end to a lovely journey.

All was well at home, thanks to our friends Mike & Christine taking good care of the Chickens and Cats.

John Lennon.

Yes it is the 30th anniversary of John Lennon's death. Hardly a cause for celebration.
But as many of you know, I am a sucker for figures, and some figures that spring to mind here are of gun deaths in the US. John Lennon's death by gun is just one of approximately 50,000 people per year in the US who die by guns! So, in the 30 years since his death one and a half million people have died by guns in the USA! (About the same number that die in traffic accidents every year in the USA.)
That includes deaths by Murder, Accident and Suicide.
Here is a breakdown: -
Number one is the USA at 14 per 100,000
Second place goes to Brazil, Mexico and Estonia at about 12
Then Argentina at 9
N. Ireland (a country at war!)and Finland 6
Switzerland, France, and Canada about 5
Norway, Austria, Portugal, Israel and Belgium about 3
Australia, Slovenia, Italy, New Zealand, Sweden, Denmark
and Kuwait about 2
Greece, Germany, Hungary, S. Ireland, about 1
Spain, Netherlands, Scotland, England & Wales, Mauritius Hong Kong and S Korea less than 1
Japan .05 !! (1/2 per million or one two hundred and eightieth of the US ! Or one gun death for every 280 in the US!)

Most people would not see anything wrong there, but I would say that we have a problem!

It seems to me that the reason for this is the easy access to guns in the USA and the USA's acceptance of violence as a way of life.

But think, one and a half million deaths by gun since 1980 in the USA against about 100 in Japan in the same time period! Something wrong somewhere - as far as death by guns is concerned - and it isn't in Japan.

The new recyclers.

You have heard of the Nouveau Riche no doubt? But have you heard of the Nouveau Recyclers? No? Well they may come by your house too, they come by my house most days of the week. It works like this - I go out my front door to get my newspaper and on the way I pick up, today it was - some scratch off lottery tickets, an empty cigarette packet, (Minus the cellophane wrapping which must have blown away), and a plastic soda cup complete with lid and straw. Later today I will go out to get the mail and there will be more donations from my Nouveau Recycler friends. Perhaps a beer bottle or two, sometimes I get the whole six pack, carton and all, but not usually neatly packed together. Of course there are often miscellaneous donations like sodas cans, beer cans, McDonald bags complete with wrappers, unused food and even the plastic toy if I am lucky. I have even had socks and other articles of clothing - don't they know they are not recyclable? Anyway it all gets sorted and put into the appropriate bin, to picked up on Tuesdays by the AA County Recycling truck.
Thank you recycler friends, even if it is an unusual way of recycling, whatever works, I guess it's the thought that counts?
Dave.

It's like watching a nature show!

These were Julia's words this morning as we sat, enthralled, by our view of The Lake. It was very windy, as it has been for several days now.
The Lake was covered with whitecaps, the trees were bending and twisting, but what held our gaze most was the birds. Over the period of a few minutes we observed Turkey Vultures, Eagles, Canada Geese, many types of Seagull and several different varieties of Diving Ducks.
Even after 2 years of living in paradise we still cannot believe the sight that meets our eyes whenever we look out at The Lake. It doesn't seem to matter what time of the day or night, there is some new sight for us to marvel at.
If it isn't the birds - which are always there, but there are many more on The Lake whenever it is stormy on The Bay - then it is the Sunset, or the Sunrise. Or the Moon & the Stars so bright that they could blind you. Or a fox running across the lawn, a baby Raccoon, Skunk or Possum or some other unknown Mystery Creature. Only once have we seen a Deer, a Stag at that!
On the other side, where we have a view of The Bay we can see Cruise Ships and Tankers passing and big whitecaps when it is rough, while here on The Lake it is comparatively calm even in the roughest storms.
The variety of scenes is staggering, every day is different, the Sun or the Moon or the Rain, Snow, Mist, Fog, Heat, Cold, new buds of Spring, the colors of Fall, always a different sight to see. Even after two years, I still see something new, something that I have not seen here before, at least once a week and often every day. Fish spawning, water over the pier, logs floating, a snake swimming, water rats, seagulls eating clams on the pier - after dropping them onto the pier from up high, swans gracing our waterfront, a turtle on a floating log, a crab eating a dead fish, Kingfishers, Egrets, Cormorants, Loons, Hawks, Osprey, Doves, Grouse, Bitterns, Owls, Hummingbirds, Blue Jays, all the other LBJ birds (Little Brown Jobs) and a thousand other wonders.
Whenever we plan to leave here a few days or a week I always hesitate and have been known to tell Julia, "I don't want to leave, there are only 365 sunsets a year and I hate to miss one of them."
Got to go, there are great Blue Herons calling to me.

"Hyper inequality"

Huh? Hyper-inequality?

I am talking about inequality in incomes. Did you know that the top 1% of income "Earners" in the US take 23% of the all the income? If that is not inequality then I don't know what is. 10 years ago the top 1% took 8% of all the income. Doing well aren't they? In a few more years they will be up to 50% - well on the way to their desired goal of the top 1% getting 99% of the total income of the US -and paying NO taxes. How about that for a goal?
You may well laugh. The income tax paid by the top 1% of "earners" in 2007 was 16%. Before that it was 30% and before that 40%.
It is beyond belief to me that the Republicans want to REDUCE taxes on the rich even more!! How can this be? Their share of the total income is skyrocketing and their tax rate is dropping. And yet people are crying out for it to happen!!

We need to reduce our deficit. At present we are borrowing 40 cents of every dollar we spend. Is there ANYONE left who thinks this is sustainable?

By allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire the rich will pay 4% more tax! Yes that is all. This alone will keep Social Security and Medicare going indefinitely - for at least the next 75 years! BUT, the Republicans want instead to keep the tax cuts for the rich - which means we will have to borrow Billions to give to the rich. I could not be more disgusted. I cannot understand it, why are the Republicans so insistent? To the point that a majority of Americans agree with them! Their propaganda machine is awesome.

My answer to the problem would be to tax the rich much more heavily. By the time someone reaches an income of a million dollars a year they should be paying at least 90% of everything over 1 million. You can't make that much money honestly, in my opinion.

Everyone should pay their Social Security tax and Medicare on ALL of their income. It is after all a form of insurance, everyone pays in to the insurance and you only collect it if you need it. If you don't need it that is good, you should be happy about that, and you are helping the less fortunate. (The people that you collected all your money from anyway!)

Collect much more tax on alcohol too - this will bring in more money and at the same time keep people healthier, which will in turn reduce health costs. A triple whammy! Same for cigarettes, more taxes equal more money in the federal coffers and less sickness, less time off work, less health care expenses.
More tax on gasoline, same reasons, less gas use will keep the air and water cleaner leading to less illness and health care expenses. Also people will buy more efficient cars, which will reduce gas use even more, giving more of the benefits described. There would be a further BIG advantage - less money going out (We spend 1 Billion dollars a DAY on imported oil!) Cutting that back would help cut our deficit, cut the pollution of our air, water and land and cut off funds to the terrorists that hate us.

US Gas consumption

I went to do some errands today. As usual we try to combine several things into one trip. This trip included the Post Office, Bank, Supermarket and a couple more stops. At the Bank I went to the drive-thru and shut off my engine while I conducted the business - it usually takes about 5 minutes. My vehicle does about 26 miles per gallon which translates to about 4 ounces of gas per minute while idling. So I saved 4 oz times 5 minutes or 20 oz of gas. There are 3 lanes at my bank and the other two lanes had, you guessed it, two SUV's in them with the engines running. They use about 8 oz of gas per minute - so about 40 oz of gas each for the 5 minute wait. As there are undoubtedly millions of visits to banks per day, can you imagine the savings?
At the Supermarket a lady had driven her SUV to the front of the shop to load her groceries, and yes, you guessed it again, it sat there running while she loaded it. You are not supposed to leave a vehicle running when not in it, but why leave it running anyway? It just sends more dollars to our enemies in the Middle East. (None of the people so far looked even vaguely Middle Eastern).
Next stop the 7-11 to pick up a bag of ice, where of course, you guessed it, was a large Pick Up Truck, sitting there running, burning 8 Oz of gas per minute, while the owner picked up her cigarettes and coffee. (Again what is the point in leaving it running?) She was still in there talking, after I had conducted my business, paid and left.
On the way home I was behind a school bus. Mothers were waiting for their little ones with their cars, engines running, they were waiting outside of the cars (SUV's) as it was not cold. Several of them had driven up their driveways to get their kids!! None of those driveways were more than 100 yards long. So gas was wasted in driving up to the road, and in leaving them running while waiting for the bus. seems to me the walk would be good for the mother and the child.
The point here is that it would be no problem at all for the US to save 10% of the gas we use. And as we send one BILLION dollars per DAY abroad to pay for for our gas, much of it to terrorist countries that use it to attack us, we could help our balance of payments considerably. (That's more than a third of a TRILLION dollars a year!)

Just a thought.

The Deficit.

Forty cents of every Dollar that the US spends is borrowed!

Does that sound like a country that is overtaxed? I think the normal procedure is to spend a dollar for every dollar that you collect in taxes?

How long can we keep this up? To do this yourself for example - you earn $6 and then you borrow $4 and you then spend the $10. Or to put it another way, you earn $60,000 you then borrow $40,000 and spend the whole $100,000. Would you call this a responsible way to carry on? How long do you suppose you could keep this up?

And yet, the Republicans want to cut taxes to the RICH! This alone will cut tax revenue by $300 Billion a year (Or $1,000 for every man woman and child in the US!) We will have to borrow this money! In other words we will have to borrow $300 Billion dollars - from China? - TO GIVE TO THE RICH!! The rich are already rich beyond the wildest dreams of almost every American. The rich people are the 2% of Americans who make between $250,000 and $250,000,000 (And more!) So the 98% of Americans who make less than this will have to pay to borrow this money - that's 3 TRILLION dollars over the next ten years - to give to the rich, the already rich. Does this make sense to ANYONE? Even the rich? Even Warren Buffet the second richest man in the US says it is crazy!

Obama's Stimulus package already gave the biggest tax cut ever to the middle class tax payer (95% of Americans) Why don't the Democrats work with this? Tell us about their successes? The Republicans rant on about all the tax increases made by Obama - there have been none! And about taking away our guns - not one word has been said about that by the Democrats.

The Republicans are so much better at promoting themselves - with no worries at all about whether what they say is accurate or not, even outright lies are spouted repeatedly over and over until they take on a life of their own and are believed. Even obvious lies.

Obama's tax increases - wrong, he has CUT taxes to at least 95% of Americans since coming into office. Obama is going to take away our guns - wrong, not one word said about that. TARP was a waste of money - wrong, $700 billion loaned to banks, $660 billion paid back already. Obama should have let the car makers go under - wrong, GM is 60% owned by Americans now and made $2 Billion in profits in the last quarter! Chrysler is holding it's own and even making a slight profit, Ford never borrowed any money and made almost as much as GM last quarter.The bailout saved more than a million jobs. Obamacare will bankrupt us - wrong, it will extend Medicare for at least 12 years. And Illegal Aliens do not qualify for any benefits. (Other than treatment for life threatening injuries and illnesses at ER's, as anyone can, and should, get.)
Obama wants to set up Death Panels - wrong, more lies and scare tactics from Sarah Palin et al. And. if we allow the tax cut to the rich to expire in January, that alone will keep Medicare and Social Security solvent for at least another 75 years! Instead we (Republicans) want to borrow money to give to the 'already rich beyond our wildest dreams' Americans - and by doing so destroy Medicare and Social Security as well - all to give even more money to the ridiculously rich.

And the Wimpy Democrats say nothing about their accomplishments except "Sorry", keep quiet and hang their heads down. If the Republicans had accomplished half of what Obama has accomplished, they would be strutting around and hollering about it.

Food Waste Friday - The Frugal Girl.

Kristen, I read your readers question about Cheerios that had gone off. My suggestion for that or almost any other thing that has gone off or is past it's best to a point that you don't even want to risk it on your husband or kids! Is to give it to the birds - they don't check the "best by" date, they just tuck in and if it doesn't suit them they don't eat it. Chances are it will get knocked to the ground where some other wild creature will find a use for it.

If people would put a bird table up and put most of their food waste on it, we might have a lot more songbirds to enjoy. Just be sure it is not easily accessible to the local cats. Birds will eat the half eaten sandwiches and hot dogs from your kids, leftover french fries, fried chicken, cat food, apple cores, almost anything. Even better, in my opinion, would be to give it all to a neighbor who, like me, keeps chickens.

More and more people are keeping a few chickens to supply themselves (and maybe even their friendly neighbors who give them scraps for the chickens!) with a few fresh eggs, while at the same time using up food scraps that would otherwise go to waste. Chickens will eat almost ANYTHING!! Including carrot tops, lettuce or cabbage leaves - they don't care if it is the poor leaves from around the outside - all food scraps (If you eat it, they will eat it) That should cover everything, but I still find people surprised to hear that they will eat the remains from a fried chicken feast or a chicken or turkey carcass, fish bones and skin, crab feast remains - they will get every tiny scrap of crasbmeat that you missed, and the guts, lungs and all - seeds of any kind like from a cantaloupe or watermelon, and any kind of fruit waste, peelings etc etc, I even give them leftover beer, tea and coffee. I think the only thing I have found they won't eat is citrus fruits.

If you don't want to feed the birds or a neighbors chickens for some reason, at least compost your waste (But not any kind of meat, fish, milk product etc) Then you can put it around your flowers, bushes or trees to feed them.

Go for it, another advantage is keeping stuff out of our landfills which makes them last longer - and thus keeps our taxes down! And it is less for the trash trucks to haul, more savings in gas etc.

Lobbyists.

This was not intended to be a Political Blog, but unfortunately I seem to have drifted into it. I promise to go back to my old posts that did not offend anyone, soon. I can only blame my change on the dreadful campaigns that we have lived through recently.
Meanwhile, for some reason I decided to check out John Boehner - who has never been one of my favorites - here are a few scary truths about John.
Maybe you like him? You certainly do if you are a Wall Street Banker, or a Tobacco Baron, or a Health Insurance Company, or a Coal Mining Company, or almost any other Fat-Cat-Big-Businessman.
Lets go back to 1955 when the House was all set to get rid of those ridiculous Tobacco subsidies. Makes sense right? Why subsidize a drug that causes cancer? Then, here comes John (Man of the people, helper of ordinary Americans) with lots of big checks from Tobacco Lobbyists which he handed out to his fellow Representatives who promptly changed their minds. The subsidy remained.
Am I wrong or is Lobbying way out of control? I suppose it's pretty much like all of America - if you have enough money you can buy anything (Or anyone!)
The Republicans are back and so is the "For Sale sign" on Congress.
John Boehner took money from the Health Ins Co's and then he voted to deny coverage to sick children, and to the people who rushed in to help on 9/11 exposing themselves to lots of nasty toxic stuff. He took money from defense contractors and voted for every war. He tirelessly helps the OVERDOGS, takes their money and flys to the Islands on their private jets. It's the 'American Way' folks, and John Boehner knows how to make it His Way, with Your Money.
He vows to stand up for "The Ordinary American" against the Rich and to Cut the Deficit. Guess what his first priority is to Help the Ordinary American it is to fight to keep the Bush Tax Cuts for the richest Americans (That's the richest 2% - does that include you? No, I didn't think so, me neither, but if we were, he'd be in there fighting for us!) That alone will cost us 2 to 3 Trillion Dollars over the next 10 years. What happened to serving the Ordinary Americans? What do The Ordinary Americans get from John Boehner? They get the bill for a 3 TRILLION dollar tax cut to the richest 2% of Americans - and of course along with that 3 Trillion more on the deficit, that he promised to cut! Could it be he is working for himself in some way do you think? Could he be collecting from the rich people he is serving? After all they pay his campaign expenses and send him on those expensive trips. Not you and me! Who would you expect him to help? Quick - you and me or the Fat-Cat-Big-Businessman with lots of cash that he wants to give him. That's what I think too. When it's campaign time he says one thing, but the day he get in its all different.
But it's not just John Boehner it is the Republicans, it is they who Pillage America and Redistribute it's wealth to - The Rich!
Of course The Democrats are not that much better - just slightly. They do at least try to help the poor and middle class while they rob us. The Republicans don't even do that.
When the Democrats make their feeble efforts to help us (The only country in the civilized world that doesn't have a health care system for all of its people)the Extreme right rush in with their stories of planned 'Death Panels' that will kill off the old, sick and disabled?
And so it goes, they, The Republicans, are much better organized when it comes to attacking and lying, so they make inroads where they really shouldn't. The Democrats stand around like a bunch of sheep while the wolves attack them.
Enough of John Boehner. I would really like to have a go at the Tea Parties Glen Beck. They, the Tea Partiers, must be even stupider than the Democrats. Glen Beck - I assume they have not checked back into his past. Ten years ago he was a DJ on morning radio, drunk most of the time and on drugs. One morning he called, on the radio, the wife of another radio show host - a competitor - who had just had a miscarriage, and taunted her, on the air. He has called for someone to shoot Michael Moore and poison Nancy Pelosi. He thinks anything that the Government does to help ordinary Americans is Socialism or Communism (I wonder if that includes free schooling) On his Fox "News" program he likes to tell us that Hyperinflation is coming and that we should buy gold. But it has to be gold coins, because "Obama is going to Nationalize gold bullion." Guess who sponsors his program? Goldline, a company that sells - you guessed it - gold coins! A quick story here about Goldline - they are being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission, because they sold an old woman about a hundred thousand dollars worth of gold - for $230,000. He epitomises Republicans in my mind, pose as the champion of the Ordinary American, while ripping him off. If the Tea Party wants a man like that as their leader, well they are getting what they deserve.

Voting.

Are you going to vote? I don't think that it really matters, if it did they wouldn't let us do it!

White Heron.

I looked out at the pier the other morning and saw a beutiful White Heron standing there looking down into the water. I don't know if it is a Great Blue Heron that is white or some other kind of Heron. But it certainly was a pleasure to watch. We have seen him/her there before. The "Regular" Great Blue Herons still fly accross The Lake - an awesome sight and sound for sure. They make a loud 'squwaking' sound as they fly with their huge wings almost, or maybe actually, brushing the water. Another little message from "Our Little Bit of Heaven."

Political ads.

Is it just me or is anyone else fed up with the political ads in the media nowadays?
They ALL make these outrageous statements, most of which have NO basis in fact! (In other words, they are quite simply - lies.)
The problem I think is that many people still think that if it is in print or on the TV or Radio, "It must be true." Yes, there are still people who think that, instead of knowing, "The New Truth." which is, in my experience, that if it is on the Internet, it is untrue - at least 90% of the time - and in many areas closer to 99% of the time!! Yep, untrue - otherwise known as lies - or VERY occasionally a mistake, but not often, almost always out and out lies.
If it is not a political ad, which I pretty much know is going to be lie so I ignore it, but is anything else on the TV or Radio or in the newspaper, I treat it with suspicion. These media outlets have lots of good reports. Unfortunately the level of ignorance out there nowadays is so widespread that you just have to take everything with a pinch of salt. Use your own common sense and if you are not sure check it out.
A couple of 'facts' that I have caught myself recently - just mistakes really, not anyone actually lying.
"The second earthquake was a 6.0, just slightly stronger than the first one which was a 5.0." Wrong, earthquakes are measured so that a 6 is 10 times stronger than a 5! So a 7 would be 100 times stronger than a 5 ! And an 8 would be 1,000 times stronger than 5. A simple mistake. But wrong nonetheless.
Others have been, "It only takes about ten minutes for a radio signal to reach the moon." (Actually it takes just over 1 second, that's less than 1 1/2 seconds.)
"It took 30 minutes to cut Ms X out of the car." The time - 30 minutes - was right. It was the person who was wrong. I happen to know the person and it was Ms Y, not Ms X.
The list goes on, and my only point here is that we need to guard against believing everything, or how about anything, that we read or hear. If it is a political ad it is almost certainly a lie. And if it on the Internet, it almost always wrong - usually an out and out lie. I check out every story that I get on the Internet and have found almost none to be true - maybe one or two or three out of every 100!!! There are stories attributed to Andy Rooney, all wrong or lies. To Bill Cosby - he denies saying any of them. And so it goes, someone wants their favorite quote to be read so they attribute it to someone famous.
Someone probably was fired from Starbucks, so they start a rumor that Starbucks would not send coffee to the American troops in Iraq. And it spreads like wildfire. Everyone believes it - "It MUST be true, it is on the Internet." In fact nothing could be further from the truth Starbucks did send coffee to the troops in Iraq. In fact they set up coffee houses there.
There are dozens and dozens, probably hundreds, even thousands more cases where some unknown person starts an untrue rumor about a business or a person, and before you know it millions if not hundreds of millions know about it and most probably believe it!!
So PLEASE, PLEASE, don't believe ANYTHING that you read on the Internet, and think carefully about everything else.

President.

I keep hearing bad stuff about our President, but after reflecting on the last what - 18 months, he actually seems to have accomplished quite a lot.

Lets take Health Care, a lot of Presidents have wanted it, and not been able to get it. Teddy Roosevelt, Harry Trueman and a whole bunch more, but Obama succeeded where they failed! And it is not going to bankrupt the country as many are trying to say. In fact by all accounts it will extend Medicare's life by about 12 years AND cut $143 Billion over the next 10 years! Not too shabby. And the insurance companies can no longer cut your coverage if you get sick!! Now THAT is a biggie! Another plus - in my book - is that people with pre-existing conditions can get covered, no more "Feel Good" stuff like denying coverage to sick kids. You can keep your kids on your policy until they are 26 now as well. As Joe Biden said "It's a Big Fucking Deal." Obama managed to cut $136 Billion from what health insurance companies charged the government for being middlemen between Medicare and patients too!
How about the $60 Billion savings that banks charged to do the paperwork on student loans? The US government sets the rate and assumes the risk. The Banks collected big bucks for doing almost nothing. No wonder the Banks hate him. The new law also caps payments on student loans at 10% of income and forgives loans to students who go into public service. Several Presidents have tried to do this before. Obama succeeded.
I've seen studies by reputable companies that say we'd have lost 16 million jobs if we had not had TARP and the Recovery Act - double the 8 million jobs we did lose. Without those acts unemployment would have been more than 16% - with double this years deficit. TARP cost has gone down from $700 billion to $30 billion. The Recovery Act produced 26 and a half million jobs. Just think where we would have been without that stimulus! We were going 'down the tubes', probably to a new depression, I don't know how we didn't, Obama's enemies were surely hoping we would! Some people wanted a bigger stimulus than he got. But according to Mark Zandi - John McCain's adviser - "It ended the Great Recession and jump started a recovery." But Obama is getting a bigger stimulus, he got the unemployment benefits extended, three times, we had the Cash for Clunkers program, Aid for States, then there was that $170 Billion loans and tax cuts for small businesses. All fought against by the Republicans - who keep shouting about the tax increases since Obama got in, when in fact almost everyone is paying less taxes since he got in. The Trillion dollar tax break, only to the rich helped get us into this problem!
The Recovery Act in fact: - Reduced taxes to the middle class. It delivered benefits to 95% of working families. It also invested in Clean Energy ($94 Billion) and we sure need to clean up our environment, especially our air and water. It also put $100 Billion into improving education.
It took Bush 8 years to almost destroy America, we were bleeding to death from several wars, some legal, most illegal, tax cuts galore to the Richest of the Rich, as well as just the Rich, and of course to Big Business and Big Banks. Evisceration of The Clean Air and Clean Water Acts and a host of other Anti-American, Pro Big-Business moves. But Obama got the Stimulus/Recovery Act going within his first month in office! He has stopped the bleeding and is getting America back on its feet. I never thought it would happen, it seemed that Bush, in the Worst Presidency Ever had brought us to out knees and it would be at least years if not a decade or more before we could recover from such a beating. But here we are after only 18 months, officially out of the recession (it may not seem like it but the economists on both sides say we are) back on our feet and climbing out of the hole. Seems to me that is a remarkable achievement especially as he is being fought tooth and nail all the way by those desperate to see that he doesn't succeed under any circumstances. I would respect the opposition a lot more if they would get both sides together to help us out of this hole instead of putting up as many blocks as possible. Obama has held out his hand "across the aisle" repeatedly, only to be rejected repeatedly. Even when he does what the opposition wants, like a tax cut or to stimulate the economy or save Detroit they change their minds and fight against it. At this point in our dilemma we should have some kind of Coalition Government, with both "Sides" on the same side - the side of America. But the extreme right has shown that they are not interested in putting America back on her feet, they are only interested in seeing that Obama does not do it.
Well, he is doing it without their help, it is slower, without every ones help and with almost half of Congress and the Senate sabotaging his every move, but he is succeeding, much to their chagrin.
How about Detroit? Save them, everyone said, even the Conservatives, until he started to save Detroit, then it was "let them go under." Well he proved them wrong again. Remember that old adage "As goes GM so goes America."? To have let GM go under might have been the last straw for us. Now GM and Chrysler have recovered, sales are rising. A million jobs were saved. I don't hear any Conservatives saying "Good job Barrack." (As a matter of fact I don't even hear any Democrats saying it.) One of the biggest problems with Democrats seems to be they don't crow about their accomplishments - and as you can see from this here Blog, there have been a lot - they need to, instead they just seem to be getting on with what has to be done, with no help from "The other side." In fact with the other side spending all their time and money berating what IS being done, while not doing ANYTHING constructive themselves at all. Talk about a bunch of whiners. First they put the country on it's knees and then they say "Put us back in" and we'll . . . .What - Do the same thing over again?
Hey and guess what, approval ratings of the US in the rest of the World are rising. Countries everywhere were laughing at us when Bush was in office, well, really they were laughing at Bush, but they actually like Obama! He is restoring our damaged reputation in the rest of the World.
And how about this Black President - or should I say Green President? - and his clean energy commitment. Re-power America in a Clean Way! There is a chance we will double our renewable energy in the next year or so (Unless The Party of NO get back in, in which case all bets are off on anything that could help Clean up the Air or the Water, in favor of giving Big-Business a free rein to Pollute us as well as rob us) The EPA (That's Environmental Protection Agency), is in their sights - because it is "Anti-Big Business" - which means in my mind that it is Pro-America and Americans. It's name says it all, Fat Cat Big Business wants the "RIGHT" to destroy, pollute and dump whereever they want to. So I think the EPA is headed for extinction as soon as the "Greed is Good" party gets back in. I still think the Clean Energy movement does not go nearly far enough, but I guess its as far as he could get it against all the resistance from Extremists, Haters and Fat-Cat Big-Business people. The Cash for Clunkers got 700,000 gas guzzlers off the road. Automakers have been required to cut CO2 emissions and raise fuel standards. Big polluters like Cement Factories, Coal Plants etc are having limits set requiring them to reduce their carbon pollution by 28% in the next ten years.
I think he is doing a remarkable job, considering the Resistance. If only he and the rest of the Democrats would tell us what they have done. To sum up a few accomplishments : - Saved the Auto Industry, Health Care Reform, Getting at least some of our service men and women out of Iraq, (Where we never should have been in the first place) Helping the Environment, Cutting Taxes, a Stimulus that boosted the economy out of a depression. Why can't he capitalize on these accomplishments? Maybe because he is too busy focusing on a better future for the country, instead of doing "Politics stuff" He sees the need to get us out of a hole and getting us going again and just can't be bothered with wasting time on politics. Unfortunately "The other side" is concentrating all their efforts on thwarting those efforts, instead of helping him as they should be. Making up outrageous lies and accusations. I see what is going to happen, he will be ousted, the country will recover because of all the Recovery Stuff he has put into place, and the incoming party will claim that it was their doing because they will immediately undo all his accomplishments in finance reform, environmental reform, health reform etc. I further predict that we will have the worst depression ever within a few years as Big Business and Big Banks continue, and even accelerate their "Business as usual" attitude whereby they steal, pillage and plunder the assets of the middle class and the poor for their multi-million dollar bonuses, sacrificing our air, water, food and anything else that can pull in a few more dollars to their over-stuffed bank accounts.

Lets cut our dependence on foreign oil.

O.K. - how to cut our dependence on foreign oil, Congressional style.
Get inside our politicians heads with this way to cut our dependence on foreign oil: -
Give a $100,000 tax break for people buying large SUV's, such as the Hummer (which gets 11 mpg)That should cut down on how much gas we use right?
Some "smart" guy also said how about giving a tax incentive to buyers of Hybrids (Some, such as the Toyota Prius get over 50 mpg) Reluctantly, this was also passed - but only up to a maximum of $2,000. And a rider was added on reducing the allowance by $500 a year until it phased out in 4 years. Another rider was added in, in case too many people took advantage of this generous offer, the tax help would only be allowed for he first 60,000 people to buy one.
There, job done, aren't we smart, THAT should help with our dependence on foreign oil!!
(By the way, just in case you think I was being funny, that IS true. The $100,000 tax break on BIG fuel INefficient fuel guzzlers and the $2,000 tax break on small fuel efficient gas sippers.)

Now, question, does that make sense to anyone? It sure doesn't to me.

Hows this for an idea? Give MAJOR incentives for anything that involves the reduced use of oil. How about Solar Hot Water Systems, Solar Electric Systems, Wind Systems, Generation of electricity by any kind of sun, wind, water, wave, geothermal system - you name it - that is produced in this country! That would give us at least two results - reduced use of foreign oil, which would in turn produce reduced oil prices, and increased employment in the US. In case our politicians don't understand how that would work, it would mean that the systems would be made here, in America, which would mean American workers would be used to make them. Understand, comprehend, politicians? AND more American workers would be needed to install them. And service them. And sell them. This would give more Americans jobs - thus REDUCING unemployment. That was REDUCING not increasing unemployment. (You gotta explain it in VERY simple language to Politicians - or as a very good friend likes to call them "Pileofshitens")
I could probably come up with a hundred other ideas to reduce the use of foreign oil, and other stuff, most, if not all, of which would result in decreased use of foreign oil AND increased employment in the USA.

No Soc Sec rise again next year!

It seems that "Prices have not risen this year", so Social Security payments will not go up next year - for the second year in a row. Whoever decided that apparently has not been in the grocery stores and supermarkets that I use! I guess they run in different circles to me. The big screen, flat and the 3D TV's are dropping in price as are the big houses they enjoy. The stocks and bonds they like to buy are at record lows as are vacations and air flights. So overall "Prices are stable"! Unfortunately the people who rely on Soc. Sec. don't see things the same way as the robber barons that rule us. First class air fares may be dropping but the unleaded gas for the old 'uns ancient car is rising. House prices may be dropping but, if your old parents are fortunate enough to be homeowners, their property taxes are rising. Hey a fancy meal at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse may be on sale, but ground beef and beer went up, again.
So what is the deal here? I'll tell you what I think it is - the wanker Bankers have to get their multi million dollar bonuses, and someone has to pay for it. Who better than all those old people? What do they need money for, they'll only use it to buy stuff like newspapers, cigarettes, beer and food. And a movie once in a while. And they waste so much on drugs too, nasty stuff like Celebrex, various Statins, Ibuprofen, aspirin. Hey have you seen how they cut them in half? What is with that anyway? Say waiter, "Could you make that two lobster tails please?"
Where was I? Oh yes, the Bankers and their multi million dollar bonuses - did you see that the Wall Street bonuses are UP this year? Way up, $144 BILLION, well after last years puny payout, I ask you! I was worried, as I am sure they were, about how they were going to keep their big boats going, not to mention the helicopter and the his and hers Lear Jets.
Then there are the rich people with their TRILLION dollar tax cut, got to keep that going, or where would they be? I'd hate to see them dump their Porsche and have to drive a pissy Jaguar Or have to fly business class instead of first class.
No, the only thing to do if we are to keep our standard of living up is to pull in our belts and forgo that Social Security rise.
"You know Bill, it's hard to believe, but some of those old bastards still have some money left, they hang onto it like they hang onto life. I was thinking if we cut the interest rates down, we could keep even more for ourselves." "Good idea Clyde, but I've got an even better one, lets cut the interest rates down to just about nothing! Then see them squirm, they'll have to part with their money then. So we''ll get the interest that they were getting AND we'll get their money too!" "Fabulous, you'll get a BIG bonus for that idea alone Clyde. I can see that we'll be able to order another jet and a couple of new Mercedes for our first class trip to that "Conference." Clyde & Bill rub their hands and smirk at each other.
(SOCIAL Security - doesn't that sound a bit too much like Socialism to you Clyde? Maybe we should work on getting it eliminated when we get in again next year, can't have all those blood sucking Socialist Old People hurting our standard of living.)

Mowers.

Today 29 or 30 Mowers arrived, it is hard to count them when there are so many. The "Mowers" in this case are Canada Geese. They were on our neighbor's lawn busily "mowing" away when I brought Julia her morning tea at 7.30. They must be just passing through as we have not seen more than an occasional few for several weeks now.
Fall has definitely arrived, the last few days we had temperatures as high as 85 degrees - the average at this time of year is usually 68 - but it is forecast to be in the low 60's for the next week.
The workmen arrived yesterday to begin installing 27 solar electric panels on our Southwest facing roof. They will return today to finish the job. A pessimist, like me, would now say, and I do, that the sun will now disappear from the sky forever! So, after some weeks without seeing the sun you will all know who to blame!
The sun is out now so I am going to enjoy my last sunny day, for who knows how long! On that pessimistic note I leave you, to rejoin my cup of coffee.

Mirror Lake.

I awoke this morning to another Beautiful Morning in Paradise. I have a beautiful view, a beautiful house and a beautiful wife, what more could any man ask for?
But this morning the view was overwhelming, not just inside the house, (wife), but outside too. The sun was doing it's usual magic with the early light over The Lake, but now of course we have the beginnings of the Fall Colors too. From our bedroom window we look right across The Lake to the trees on the apposite side. Even on any regular day this view in the early morning is breathtaking, as the sun shines directly on the trees highlighting them perfectly, but now the trees are all decked out in their autumn shades, and the colors are only going to get better! Today we also had an unusually still day. Most days are usually calm early, but today there was not a breath of air and the water was literally like a mirror. If I had taken a photo with the shoreline in the center of the picture and printed it out I am sure you would not have been able to tell which way was up, that is how perfect the reflection was. The stillness of the surface was broken here and there by bugs struggling on the water, by fish breaking the surface as they inhaled the struggling bugs, and by the mysterious white birds that dive into the water in search of a meal. These small white birds, about the size of a grackle, only seem to appear in the mornings and evenings and are fascinating to watch as they fly about 10 to 40 feet above the water, suddenly tuck in their wings and dive straight down, hitting the surface with a tremendous splash and immediately flying off again, presumably with a catch. I say presumably because I have to assume they are successful never having actually seen what they catch. I do think that they must have a tough head, or suffer from awful headaches!
This evening again brought another, "Best Sunset Ever", as always! It is dark now with tremendous lightening flashes lighting up the sky - but no thunder - isn't that eerie? I could swear that I saw the new moon out there earlier with its magic reflection making a silver "road" across The Lake, but it has gone now, maybe behind one of the clouds.
There is never a time that something is not happening here, so much so that I am often reluctant to go anywhere else. This evening we went out for lobster - Monday is Lobster Night at a local restaurant, $10.99 for a Lobster and two side orders! - who can resist? But I had to wait to see the sunset before I would leave!
Well time for some TV I guess. At least PBS doesn't have political ads. We watch a lot of PBS anyway but at election time it gets more of our attention, so that we can avoid those awful ads full of lies from both sides. It is so upsetting to see so much hate. Which makes our peaceful Lake even more . . . . you fill in the gap.
Good night.

In response to responses to my previous blog, already.

No, I don't have anything against children, I like them, or against anyone having children, if they can afford them Just as I have nothing against someone who has a Lexus or a Mercedes.
I just object to having me pay for someone else's luxuries.
It's not as if the human race is in danger of dying out! In fact seems to me that there are way too many of us. That was reinforced last night when I had to go to a meeting and a 40 mile drive took me more than 2 hours!
Why do we need to subsidize the production of more and more people? To populate a World that is not getting bigger and to compete for the few parking spaces available - not to mention the finite supply of food, water, oil, clean air, and land?

Child benefits.

There is a big discussion in the UK at present about the reduction in Child Benefits - specifically cutting those subsidies to people making more than about $70,000 a year. First you need to understand that these benefits have been paid for years to anyone who has a child. I think it started after the second world war. It is something that has become entrenched and everyone thinks it is their right if they have a child, to get weekly or monthly payments from the Government just because they decided to have children. After all, who can afford children! People with children have extra expenses over people who don't, etc etc and on and on.
BUT, my feeling is that no one HAS to have children, there are reliable birth control methods now, which there weren't years ago. Why should people who don't want or can't afford children subsidize others who do want them? Why should a couple who are responsible enough to know they cannot afford children subsidize someone who does? It is their choice and if they want them, that is fine, but they should pay for them. I would like a nice new Jaguar, or a Lexus or even a Porsche, but I can't afford one - so I don't get one. Using the logic of child benefits, because I can't afford a nice new expensive car, the State should tax everyone else and give me a Car Benefit so that I can get one! Or how about a World Cruise, that would be nice too, I can't afford one, no problem, lets institute a Vacation Benefit for those who can't afford a World Cruise.
What is the difference? Why should I pay for something you can't afford? Whether it be children, cars, cruises or a nicer house, why should I pay for you to have any of these things? I realized we couldn't afford a lot of children, we did want children, we did the responsible thing and had what we could afford, one. Even that was hard, we knew if we had any children we wanted to give them a nice life, good food, a nice place to live and a good education. We decided that we might just about manage that for one child. Why would I have 3 or 4 children, and then not be able to feed them properly, live in a hovel, not be able to take them places or give them a good education? That would be irresponsible. There are many irresponsible people out there, why should I subsidize that irresponsibility? Why should they not subsidize that new car I want, and the World Cruise and the Big House, all things I can't afford, just like they can't afford multiple children, but they think it is their right to have them and then have me pay for them.
I'd like to hear your views on that.

More Solar Stuff.

Most of you know that Julia and I are into the "Green" movement - and have been pretty much all of our adult lives.
I wanted to mention a little known item - President Carter had Hot Water Solar Panels installed on the roof of the White House to supply the hot water for the White House. Yeah! Good decision, I think.
Apparently Ronald Reagan didn't, he had them removed!! I have to ask why? Did he have friends in Big Oil?
Now our new "Greener" President - Yeah - is having Solar Hot Water Panels installed on the roof of the White House.
I predict a short life for them. Two years from now we will almost certainly have a Republican President - who will probably have them removed! Big Oil wins again. Well until the next "green" guy gets in anyway!!

Religion.

Is anyone else getting sick of all the killings going on in the World in the name of Religion. Seems to me that more wars and killings happen in the name of Religion than for any other reason.
I propose a ceremonial burning of the Holy books of all the worlds Religions and a banning of belonging to any of them. Lets burn The Bible, The Koran, The Talmud, The Veda, The Tao, The Analects, The Bhagawad Gila and any other "Holy" books that we can find. Better burn the Sacred Book of Oil too - if there is any such thing - it is seriously challenging Religions as a cause of war.
Just a thought.

Flooding at The Lake.

There is always something happening at The Lake. Today it is a flood, two tropical storms - remains of Hurricanes have come up the East Coast and we have been having a lot of rain for the last couple of days. Last night it rained steadily and it continued heavily today. The forecast is for anywhere from 5 to 10 inches with as much as 13 inches in some places. Our neighbor Bill Holt came over this evening to inform me that my pedal boat looked to be in danger of floating away (I have it pulled up on land) he was afraid that the water was going to come up high enough to float it off. It is full of water and I was not able to tip it to empty it myself, but Bill thought we would be able to do it together. We tried together but it wouldn't budge even a fraction of an inch! We tied the boat to a tree. He then suggested putting something heavy on the pier to keep it from pulling apart from the lift if the water came over it. We considered putting concrete blocks onto it, but decided against it. The rain was very heavy and so were the blocks!
I went down in the dark a short while ago - it is just past 11.00pm and the water was several inches above the pier! We have been here more than two years now and this is the first time that the water has come up over the pier. Tomorrow we will see if there was any damage.

Bald Eagle.

Yesterday was an exciting day on The Lake. Julia was sitting enjoying the view of the water from our bedroom when she saw a large bird flying across The Lake. It landed in the dead branches of a tree about 40 or 50 yards away. After she got out the binoculars and the bird book she determined it to be an immature Bald Eagle. Apparently Bald Eagles are considered immature up to about 4 years old. She called to me and I looked with our second set of binoculars - a present from our daughter Sarah and son-in-law Roy. The Eagle was precariously perched on the dead stump of a branch near the top of the tree eating a fish. It is indeed a magnificent looking bird as it stares imposingly at you. By now four large black Crows had appeared and were sitting on branches close to him. He eyed them imperiously as he brutally tore at the now almost dead fish - it's amazing how long they continue to struggle, even when there is hardly anything left of them. The Crows, took off and landed, flying very close to the Eagle, I suppose trying to get him to drop the fish. But he didn't even seem to see them, taking hardly any notice even when their wings almost touched him. It seemed foolish to me as the Eagle could have dispatched one of them easily. I can only assume that they knew he already had food, so wouldn't go after them. They were just hoping to distract him enough that he would drop it and then leave so they could eat. But no such luck, he ate the whole thing. By now we were watching without the binoculars, suddenly I said to Julia, "All the Crows left." and she relied "No there is still one at the top of the tree." I got the binoculars up to look and what was there was not a Crow but an Osprey! If he had come to challenge the Eagle for the fish he was too late but his appearance had certainly scared the Crows off. We watched the stand off for a while as the Eagle cleaned up any little pieces stuck to his talons and the branch. It was when I looked around to see if anything else was happening that I noticed the Great Blue Heron standing in his usual spot on the end of our pier, looking down into the water. When I glanced back at the dead tree both the Eagle and the Osprey had vanished. It was as if nothing had happened. These little dramas happen all the time on The Lake - and everywhere else in the World - usually without being noticed. But every once in a while we are privileged to be a part of them. I looked back at my pier in time to see the Heron spread his six foot wings, tuck his long legs out behind him like the tail of a kite , and launch himself gracefully into the air, just, somehow he flies so close to the water that he appears almost to be apart of it.

Solar "Stuff"

If you, like me, are into Solar Stuff, such as Solar Hot water, Solar electric, Hybrid cars or even Windmills, you may want to act on your impulses now rather than waiting until later.
We purchased a Hybrid car, a Toyota Prius, and are enjoying 52 mpg, cutting our gas bill in half, not to mention reducing our carbon footprint and helping to clean up the air.
We also installed a Solar Hot water system on our roof and once again, (we had such a unit on the roof of our Dock Road home for more than 25 years) are enjoying almost free hot water. And in the process reducing our use of electricity and therefore oil.
Solar electric is also in our plans and with the incentives available now we expect to recover almost 50% of its installation cost. (For the solar Hot Water and Solar Hot Air systems that we installed at Dock Road in the 80's we received incentives in the form of Federal and State income tax and County property tax that covered about 80% of the cost!)
However, if you are considering any of these Earth friendly, clean air, money saving moves you need to do it NOW because it would appear that the Republicans are about to take back control. And the Republicans are committed to rescinding the Solar Credits. They will bring back big oil, subsidize big cars, kill the Clean Air Act (Oops, Bush already did that) That is the Republican Agenda, screw anything to do with a clean environment, anything that is not favorable to Big Business is out, and that means solar incentives that could cut into oil profits. So if you are planning on doing it at all it's now or never!

Hurricane Julia

Well Hurricane Julia never came to anything did it? Unlike Hurricane David in 1979 - only the second Hurricane with a male name, and a REAL Hurricane, a category 5 that did major damage, killing I believe several thousand people. My Julia was crossing the Atlantic with our daughter Sarah on the Queen Elizabeth 11 at the time. This proved Julia's iron constitution, she was among the very few who continued to eat, Sarah was not among the unaffected. Even the crew and especially the wait staff were laid low by the rough seas. There were too few waiters even to serve the hardy few that made it to table.
Julia has some remarkable characteristics - apart from her beauty, even temperament and ability to cope with life's inequalities - she does not suffer from seasickness, she does not get bitten by mosquitoes or fleas, actually this last is not 100% true -but on the rare occasion that she does get bitten not only does she not feel it but no welt or swelling of any kind appears! And now a new peculiarity has appeared, she does suffer from skin lesions, something that is a result of spending hours laying in the sun during much of her life, (she also doesn't burn in the sun.) Because of these lesions she has to visit the dermatologist to have them removed from time to time. She usually goes twice a year and has one or two pieces cut off during each visit either for a biopsy or removal. But the weird thing is they also use liquid nitrogen to freeze off a dozen or two 'precancerous' growths during her visit - and she does not blister! In fact apart from a slight itch you would not know they have done anything.
Contrast this to me. If I go outside, word immediately spreads like wildfire among the bug community, and I am at once inundated with every mosquito, flea, tick, no-see-um, and whatever other nasty that Pandora let out, from several square blocks around. If I even see the sea I start to feel queasy, get close and I feel worse, if I actually get onto the surface of the water in a boat, well all I can say is stand back because you could need a major clean up. I too spent too much time in the sun during my youth and need to go for what I call my annual diet - one where they reduce my weight by the simple expediency of cutting bits off of me. Last year they took a piece of meat off of my back that I estimated at around a half pound. In fact it was so big that when if finally came free he couldn't hold it and it fell on the floor with a nasty plop! This year they used the dreaded liquid nitrogen on about 20 or 30 'precancerous' things and unlike Julia every one of them has blistered to the point that I have to keep myself well covered up or I am afraid that if anyone sees me they will haul me off to a leper colony where I will live my life as an outcast. At least until I heal, which so far the blisters show no sign of doing.
Hey, bummer of a Blog so far, is there something more positive to relate? Well of course there is The Lake. Grandson Bradley came last weekend and we took a couple of turns in the kayaks exploring The Lake's many wonders. The wildlife, mostly in the form of birds continues to fascinate. Even now Harry The Heron stands on the end of our pier and two ducks are standing on the crab trap next to him. Yesterday we watched an Osprey pursuing his apparent assignment of clearing every last fish from The Lake. The sight of The Great Blue Heron flying across The Lake is bewitching to say the least. I never tire of seeing them flying so low, and I can't help but think that if they were a foot or two lower they would be a fish flying through the water. What else? Of course there is the sun, whether it is rising or setting I hate to miss it. I usually get up early so as not to miss the unearthly beauties that it uncovers as it bathes the water, the sky and the surrounding trees in it's light. And of course the sunsets here are to die for.
Well gotta go, another cup of coffee calls. Bye. David.

"Illegal Immigrants" on The Lake.

This morning about a dozen "Illegal Immigrants" landed on The Lake. I was sitting watching the peaceful scene, with the wonderful colors of another beautiful sunrise spreading across the gently rippled surface of The Lake. A group of about 15 Canada Geese were ambling around close to the water and nibbling on the green grass of our neighbor's lawn. All of a sudden there they were, 10 "Illegals", crashing noisily onto the surface of The Lake, disturbing its smooth surface and honking loudly. The geese that had been peacefully dining a moment earlier suddenly changed their slow walking to aggressive strutting, wagging their heads up and down and letting out loud whoops. All hell was breaking loose out in our Peaceable Kingdom. Another group of Canada Geese had landed in the water close to the first group. It was impossible to tell if the "natives" were upset at the arrival of the "illegals" or were welcoming them! Anyway after a while the commotion died down and peace and quiet returned to The Lake.
Meanwhile, up at the Humming bird feeder, things were heating up. Two Hummers - no, not the GM version - the avian kind - like to feed here, but not together, one will be feeding quietly all alone, (No sign of a humm, so I don't know where they get that name from. But I wouldn't mind betting that John Wisniewski knows.) when Hummer number two arrives and a fierce, high speed fight ensues. At least we assume it is a fight, they both fly off, doing battle? Soon one returns. We have never seen them feed together.
The huge Great Blue Herons appear from time to time - they MUST have been Pteradactyls in a previous life - and soar majestically up and then down until their 6 foot wings almost touch the water. We never cease to be amazed at the gracefull sight of these wonderful birds.

Nature paints a picture.

Yes, The Lake is an absolute picture. Especially at 5.30 am, I have tried to tell Julia, the love of my life, to get herself awake at least for long enough to see the effects of the sun over The Lake in the morning. But to no avail. (I like to tell her that she must be in practice for the Individual Sleeping Event at the next Olympic Games in London in 2012. She won the silver medal when she was Sleeping for the US last time she entered, but this time I think she is determined to win the gold!)
Anyway, that aside, the sun does its magic every morning as it colors The Lake and the trees around it in its palette of pastel paints. First a blanket of pink or blue and then usually working up to the golds. It all depends on the clouds and all the other variables, but it never dissapoints.
Kristen, The Frugal Girl, e-mailed me today, which reminded me to check out my refrigerator for anything that I missed. And sure enough there it was, a lone, nasty, black banana. But that was all, my chickens will love it, they don't turn up their noses (beaks) at anything. It all goes down, along with their feed, the weeds that I throw in, the lettuce from the garden that went to seed and everything else, and comes out the other end as beautiful tasty eggs. One of the many miracles of nature. So does that count as waste? No I don't think so either, in fact I can't remember the last time something went to waste. When you have chickens there is no such thing as waste.

A great deal of activity on The Lake

Last year the Carp spawning happened on June 8th. This year it happened today - May 22nd. Now does this mean something? Like Global Warming? Or maybe their spawning is tied to the moons phase?

Whatever, The Lake was boiling today with the sexual antics of hundreds of Carp. I kid you not, hundreds, There was considerable thrashing and churning of the waters as the Carp flailed about in the shallow waters at the edge of The Lake. Sometimes it appeared to be just two fish, but at other times there were three or even four or more whipping around in a frenzy. The splashing wasn't happening all the time, as I said there were literally hundreds of fish out there but most of them were just swimming around - looking for a mate? I could stand on our bulkhead and looking down, see them swimming by. Most were around 2 feet long but there were quite a few of 3 feet and a couple of times I saw fish that were at least 4 feet long!!

I wonder if they are in The Lake all the time, but we only see them during the spawning season, or do they come into The Lake at this time of the year to mate?

There is a lot more activity, mostly from the birds. The saga of the Cananda Geese and their Goslings continues as does the attacks on the Geese by the pair of Swans. Last year the attacks were all by the male Swan while the female was sitting on their nest. In vain, I would add, as the eggs had ben oiled by the Dept of the Environment to prevent their hatching. As the female Swan is now patroling The Lake with the male I assume that the Dept must have broken the eggs or removed them this year.

I have seen at various times lately the Buzzards, the Great Blue Herons, a Great White Heron, Egrets, Osprey, Cormorants and the mysterious little white bird that dives into the water from on high.

Three G's.

What are the three G's I hear you saying? God, Guns and Gays. Is it just me or are the Extremist Conservatives of the USA overly occupied with the three G's? It appears to me that their entire psyche is concerned with these things about which the rest of the world says, ho hum.

I say Grow Up America. The new British Prime minister - a Conservative, no less! - was asked how he felt about God, his reply, "I don't have a direct line." amused the British public as much as it amused me.

Guns, a dozen or so Brits are killed each year by guns, (As opposed to 50,000 or so in the US) The feeling there about guns? We are better off without them.

Gays - Yes, we have them.

That's it.

The recent election in the UK - six weeks of electioneering! Does that sound like heaven or not?

Compare that to here, where we have to suffer AT LEAST two years of political ads 24/7. I say at least, but in actual fact it is more like a permanent state of political advertising from the moment the election is over, every politician is concerned with one thing and one thing only - getting elected next time. Why? Most of them could make as much as their pitiful 200K to 300K a year or whatever they make as a Congressman or Senator, as a banker or lawyer or whatever it was they did on Main Street before they decided to annoy and rob us. I can only assume it is because they can make a lot more in other ways in their new capacity. A LOT more. As in millions more.

The longer I live here the more I am in favor of a fixed term for Congressmen and Senators. A one time term of six years sounds about right to me. Even the President is limited to two 4 year terms. Why should we allow these scoundrels to harrass and steal from us for an unlimited time?

Food waste

As usual in our household, there is no food waste. When you keep a few chickens nothing goes to waste! In fact, we waste so little ourselves that it is often hard to find any treats to give the chickens. Last night we had two couples over and we all had a good shrimp feast. No, there were no left-over shrimp! But there were a lot of shrimp shells and wouldn't you know it, chickens even like shrimp shells! So they were happy to feast on them, the scrapings off of the plates, beet skins and tops, plus a few other things like potato skins, carrot skins, bean ends, banana peels etc. They will reward us with some eggs.
There is very little that chickens won't eat, but one is anything citric, so the compost pile benefitted from the grapefruit skins, orange peels and such like.
When I mow the lawn, a pile of the clippings goes into the chicken run, the rest onto the compost.
Tuesday is recycle day and the recycle bin will go out at the curb, well filled with paper, plastic, glass and metal. Our trash can was emptied last Friday, it will go out again in about two weeks. Yes I put out one trash can about every 3 weeks, and it is usually less than half full - well it seems that almost everything is recyclable now, about the only thing going into our trash can now is the cats litter, debris from our vacuum and a few odds and ends like dirty paper towels. With no food waste, that doesn't go in there, even if we did not have chickens, any food scraps and byproducts (peelings etc) would either go onto the bird table or onto the compost pile.

Geese on The Lake

The Spring Season has arrived and with it the new broods of Cananda Geese. Julia saw the first batch of new babies a few days ago. The second batch showed up just one or two days later, and we have been enjoying them every day since.
Last night at "Bedtime" both of the families left our neighbors lawn and headed across the corner of The Lake to where their nests must be. We have not seen the nests but there is an empty lot or two along that part of The Lake's shoreline and that is where they must be, well hidden no doubt, as they have escaped the fox's attention. We see Mr Fox around here from time to time but somehow he has not bothered them, yet.
Anyway the families set off in single file, father first and then the babies - four in one tribe and five in the other - with the mothers as rearguard. Each clan was in a perfectly straight line. I imagined the mothers talking to their offspring like Marine Sergeant Majors, barking out their orders to keep the line straight, keep up speed, maintain a direction, pull in those wings and stick out that chest.
This morning we looked for their presence next door, but could see no sign of them. Then, at about 8.00am, there they were, ushering the little guys (and girls ) into the water for the short trip to the feeding grounds. Late risers. Our neighbor mows his lawn religiously every few days but with 13 hungry beaks "Mowing" it every day he may be able to slack off a bit now!
Their lawn slopes right down to the water, so it is an easy place for the birds to exit, whereas our waterfront is guarded by a bulkhead that prevents them from accessing our lawn, much to Julia's disappointment.
The weather has been even more unpredictable than usual, we had a temperature of 90 in March and now here we are in May with temperatures some nights in the 40's. Last night it went down to 51. Now, at almost 9.00am, it has only reached 60. I turned the heat off a couple of days ago, as it didn't seem like we would need it again, but here we are back to wearing sweaters and Julia is wrapped in a blanket in the evening while doing her crossword and watching TV. The usual Maryland weather, and the old adage - if you don't like the weather, wait for an hour and it will change, seems once again to reign.

Debt.

I have been hearing a lot of concern lately about the massive debt being built up by the Obama administration.
Thinking about this, here is my answer. I did not hear a lot of concern about the debt built up by the Bush administration - more than all the other Presidencies that had gone before him combined!! And this was after he had been handed the biggest surplus ever, in the history of the US!! By the Clinton administration.
George Bush then proceeded to not only give it away but put us further in debt than any other President, by far. He began by buying the Presidency. How? Well if you remember, Clinton had built up a big surplus, he then planned to have by 2010 zero debt!! And left in place a plan to do just that - we should have no National Debt by now if that plan had been followed.
Instead Bush started out by saying, "If you vote for me, I will give everyone $600.00". (How would you feel if I said, "Vote for me and I will give everyone $5,000.00" Do you think I would be voted in?) Well it JUST worked for Bush, even paying everyone $600.00 he barely scraped in. In fact I'm still not sure that he did! Then he proceeded to give tax cuts to all his rich buddies. As I have said before, if the rich got a 1.3 TRILLION dollar tax cut, where does that money come from? We still have to pay for everything. Well guess what, it comes from us - you and me - us poor suckers have to pay it. If the rich dudes don't pay it someone else does, and that someone is us poor folks.
Now Obama is trying to bail us out. And getting no help. Cutting taxes and giving everyone $600.00 checks is an easy way to be popular. Straightening out the idiots treatment of our economy is hard to do and still be everyones friend. Bush encouraged greed, theft, and criminal treatment of all of us by the big banks and wall street.
I am a big believer in taxing rich people. There is no way that what Tiger Woods does for example is worth 2,000 times what I do!! (He makes $100 million dollars a year, I don't even make $50,000) Is that right? Is one banker or wall street criminal worth $5 million or $50 million or even $500 million dollars? Yes, some make that much and even more! Some people might say, "Good luck to him, this is America, blaa bla blaa." But I don't think they realize that that $50 million dollars or $500 million dollars doesn't just come out of thin air. It comes from us! Yes that's right, it comes from you and me, straight out of your pocket. If he didn't have it, we would still have it. The spread of income is higher in the US than anywhere else. The difference between the richest and the poorest is bigger here than anywhere else in the world. In my opinion there is no way that these thieves should be making these ridiculous sums of money.
When I started work some of my bosses made TWICE as much money as I did! I hoped one day to reach such an elevated position! The average CEO 30 years ago made 30 times as much as their average employee. Today the average CEO makes 300 times as much as their average employee. Disgusting. I would change the tax laws dramatically if I had my way. It would still be possible to earn more than the next person by working harder or longer or smarter, but not to the ridiculous extent that we have now. Certainly by the time anyones income reaches a million dollars a year, and maybe earlier, they should be paying 98% tax on anything they earn over a million. There is no way that anyone deserves a private jet, a private yacht, a huge mansion, or several mansions, while there are people in this country that don't have enough to eat, can't afford to take their sick children to a doctor, don't have a home to live in, can't get a job, and so on.
Just my opinion. It's also my opinion that is not Socialism. Common sense maybe, but not Socialism. But if it is Socialism then Socialism is better than Capitalism - the kind of Capitalism that we have here now anyway. I think that Capitalism is the best system - the problem is the Capitalists! What we have here in America now are not true Capitalists. They are a bunch of greedy thieves and criminals.
It is also my opinion that true wealth comes from work. We get wealth from work, that is one reason America is so rich, because we have hard workers. When you dig things up and make stuff out of it like iron and aluminum and build cars and refrigerators and silverware and grow things to make clothing and food, you create wealth. Bankers, wall street types and others of that ilk, create nothing. They just take what others built. What they do has no worth at all.
Again, just my opinion.

Education.

I met a young couple yesterday, nothing unusual here you might say - except they had 7 children, the oldest of which appeared to be about 8 or 9 years old. Oh yes, and she was pregnant. "What do we have here?" I said to the father, and he said, "Gifts from God."
OK, moving on, I got to thinking, how can they possibly afford to raise 8 children? And that is always assuming they stop there! We had one child and stopped because we decided we could not afford to raise any more than that, and still give her the things we wanted to, including a good education.
Education, now here is where I have a problem with what I consider to be too many children. The couple live in the DC area where public school education costs $24,600 per year per child - including teachers pensions etc. (Incidentally the average Private School in the DC area costs $14,500 per year) Now, as many of you know figures fascinate me and I like playing with them. Lets start with 8 children times $24,600 - that is $196,800 PER YEAR! I think 13 years is the usual length of education. So, $196,600 times 13 equals $2,558,400.00. Now it is presumptuous of me to assume that they could not afford to pay that, however I am going to assume that. So if they cannot afford to pay it, who does? Well you and me of course! This offends me because I decided to not have more children because I could not afford them. But I have to pay for other peoples children. In this case at least $200,000 per year just in education costs!.And they won't even be contributing to those costs at all in taxes themselves. With 8 deductions plus two more for themselves I am pretty sure they won't be paying any taxes!
Don't get me wrong, I am all in favor of free education for all children, however there needs to be some responsibility on the part of some people. I think we can help with that responsibility - as they are obviously not able to help themselves - we can at least stop the granting of a taxable deduction for every child. How about as some kind of compromise here, that we give a deduction for the first child and then no more deductions? If you can afford children then you should at least be able to pay your taxes. It should be enough that we pay for the education of the children, why should we pay people to have more children? In other words if I decide that I can't afford more children why should I pay for someone else to have them? (In fact I would like to go even further than no deductions after the second child. How does this sound? One deduction for the first child, no deductions for the second child and then ADDITIONAL taxes for each extra child over two! After all if you can afford more children, you should at least be able to forgo tax deductions considering the huge additional tax burden that you are placing on everyone else.)
Oh yes and I DO like children! I also like chocolate, and you CAN have too much of a good thing, don't you think?

Common Sense Party.

Well, I've about had it with The Tea Party and The Coffee Party, I think it is about time I entered the arena with The Common Sense Party. What do you think?
I think that both "Sides" should have one common purpose - Good - they should be trying to do some good for People, good for the U.S., good for the World, good for the Environment, for our Children, our Neighbors, our Fellow Man. In other words they should live The Golden Rule - do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Instead, all I see is politicians doing whatever they can for themselves, with no thought at all for the people they are supposed to be serving, the people they swore to serve, us.
We should all vote for a man or a woman, not a party. No consideration seems to be given to the person who is going to represent us, all anyone seems to care about is are they are a conservative or a liberal. If we were to forget parties and toeing the party line, our representatives could vote for what they think is right for us and the country, not what the party says they must vote for. A Coalition Party or a Common Sense Party. Forget the two party system, how about a one party system - the Peoples Party.
Do you think Obama will be able to correct 8 years of Bush excesses? Eight years of greed, criminals and thievery. I am beginning to doubt it. Things may be too far gone.
There is too much hate and hostility, if every representative was his own man or woman, it would delete a lot of the rivalry, opposition and resistance that take up all of their time now. Maybe they could devote some of their - excuse me OUR time - to their work. The work that WE pay them to do, which is to run the country efficiently for US. Instead of ruining the country for their own ends.
Anyone seen to be taking bribes should immediately be OUT. Right now lobbyists spend more than 1 million dollars a DAY on senators!!! Health Insurance Co's alone spend more than $1 million a DAY on lobbying for their companies. How can we compete with that? Obviously the Senators are going to represent the Health Insurance Companies, the Big Banks, Wall Street criminals etc, not us. They are going to go with the money - wouldn't you? Me to. Taking any money from anyone should be reason for immediate dismissal from working for us. Soon, we would have people there doing the job we put them there for and pay them for. People who want to do good. People like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and a few others who had the country in mind and not how much they could steal from us and their country.

101 Cormorants?

Well I have seen the movie 101 Dalmatians, but when I looked out of the window early this morning I thought for a minute that someone was making a new movie! I didn't actually count them but there must have been around 100 Cormorants on The Lake, they were coming in and landing continuously. I watched for a while as they swam and dived and depleted MY fish stocks! Let me see now 100 Cormorants eating, what, at least several fish a day. That's hundreds of fish. Well at least I don't have to worry that the 4 fish I take every 2 or 3 days is going to hurt anything. And then when I came out of the shower they had almost all gone. Had I woken up a little later I would not have even known that the crowds had been here. They seem to come and go at different times of the day but I have not seen such a large number this year. Last year it seemed there was a steady population of about 50 but they seemed to stay here on The Lake continuously for several weeks. This year sometimes I see just 2 or 3 and them none and then 40 or 50. And then today's huge number.
The Great Blue Herons continue with a steady population of 2 or 3, at least that is all I am seeing. Last year there were more, some days I counted 8 or 10, but this year we seem to have a greatly reduced number. It is quite amazing how different the bird population is from year to year. Julia has been observing a small number of Osprey fishing The Lake, she will suddenly say, "Look, there goes another fish flying over," as an Osprey flies over with another fish firmly grasped in its talons - heading for its dining table.
Well it is time to go to work.

Time for more unpopular stuff!

Back when Bill Clinton was our President he put forth the Deficit Reduction Bill, it gained NO Republican votes. But, it created 23 million jobs! And produced a balanced budget, the first in about a hundred years! (In fact it produced a surplus!!)

Now we have a new Health Care Bill, that will give health care to children with asthma, and leukaemia, and diabetes - Oh No! Now, if you get cancer, you can still get health insurance - Gasp! You can't be refused insurance because you are born with something wrong with you - Wow! If you get sick, you can't be dropped by by the Health Insurance Industry - What? How Un-American can you get? This is pure Socialism. This "ridiculous" bill gained NO Republican votes!

When John McCain was running for President he said "Country First", now he says after this 'awful bill' has been passed "No Co-operation Now". Does that sound to you like Country First? (Was there any co-operation before? I don't think so.)

I even hear that Texas is removing books from their schools that refer to Thomas Jefferson - apparently he backed separation of Church and State. Sounds like Socialism or Communism to me - I don't think - but apparently the Texas school board thinks it does!

Oh, and when is Rush Limbaugh leaving? Didn't he say "If the new Health Bill passes I'll leave the country."? (That could have got the extra swing votes to pass it!!!) It would have gained my vote anyway.

Taxes, all these extra taxes that I keep hearing about, I checked it out and it seems that 95% of Americans are paying LESS taxes than when Obama took office. The 5%who are paying more are the 5% of Americans who make over $250,000 a year. And that is only because the 1.3 Trillion dollar tax cut that Bush gave to the rich was allowed to run out. Now, when you cut 1.3 Trillion dollars in taxes to a group of people, correct me if I am wrong, but that money has to come from someone else, and the only someone else that I can see is everyone else. That would be the poor and the middle class. (you and me - I WAS middle class, now I am poor) And the way I saw it happen was to take away our savings (bank and wall street crashes) take away our home equity (housing crash) raise interest rates on credit cards etc and lower interest rates on savings (If you had any savings left) We lost a lifetime of savings over the last 5 years - around $800,000 - and the few hundred that we somehow managed to hide from the thieving banks and wall street criminals is drawing the princely sum of 1/10th of 1% interest. (Yes that's right one tenth of one percent) The way I see it, they havn't finished yet, they still see a few crumbs left and wont' be satisfied until they wrest every last nickel from us. To do that they have to get rid of the one guy who is standing in their way, or trying to. He won a round, they are not used to that. Now it is 'crosshairs' everywhere, even more invective vituperative talk, cursing, calls to arms and violence. The media is not helping, they bring every animosity and difference to the forefront, whipping up differences where ever they can. Soon our differences, that used to be comparatively minor - we were all the same country - and were better than every one else, and were proud to show every one else how it was done, may be our undoing. Minor differences, in lifestyle, and religion, were exagerated out of all recognition in other countries, such as Africa, by governments and media and resulted in revolutions, slaughters, genocides and purges. If we don't get the media's and political "parties", out of control, grip on us, I am afraid we may see these terrible things happen here. Hard as it is to believe, it could happen. Even a couple of years ago I could not imagine what is happening now, occuring here. It is frightening.

Spring on The Lake

Well spring is certainly 'springing' on The Lake. The birds are here in force. We have had Canada Geese here pretty much all winter it seems, the Swans are back and the male is busy as usual trying to clear The Lake of all danger to his forthcoming progeny. It is a full time job for him, he charges across The Lake in full fury, wings smashing against the water, honking loudly and literally running across the surface. A frightening sight indeed. It is a pretty scary sight and sound for me so I can only imagine how the ducks and geese feel. They take off, fly over him and land elsewhere on The Lake. So he has to start all over again. Very frustrating!
This morning we saw a fox, yes, just after 8.00 o'clock in the morning he (she?)trotted right across our backyard, down to the water, turned around and went across the neighbors yard where two geese were floating in the water. He ignored them, but they moved a little further out, then surprisingly they swam slowly after him, following him as he made his way along the shoreline. I can only think that they have a nest along there somewhere and were concerned about him finding it. He disappeared into the undergrowth and we wondered about a fox out in the daylight. I thought rabies, although he looked healthy and perky, Julia said maybe he has a family to feed. Who knows. Anyway it is very exciting here on The Lake in March. Today is forecast to be the first 70 degree day since last November, then tomorrow it is supposed to be 72 and 73 on Saturday! Wouldn't you know it, the guys just finished putting the stove and chimney in a few days ago. That is the reason for this awesome weather! I have kindling and wood stacked by the stove waiting for a cool evening, but, it looks like we may have to wait until next winter to enjoy it! The trees are all bursting out, including the potted dwarf fig that I put out onto the deck yesterday. The lawn is looking green, how appropriate as it was St. Patrick's Day yesterday, but Julia informs me that the green is all clover. (Again appropriate for St Patrick!) Whatever it is, it is green, I'll take whatever comes, no weed killers for us, having all grass is boring, the variety of weed flowers is much more exciting. And we don't want fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides washing into The Lake do we?
Global Warming seems to be back after a short hiatus! Whatever, I don't want to fight, we will see, what will be, will be. But we still want to try to reduce, lower, diminish or neutralize as much pollution as possible.
The weather today is perfect, just the right temperature and sunny. My neighbor Bill arrived at our house this afternoon in his "Boat", a pedal boat - the S.S. Poorman! We know how he feels, I think he is in the same situation as us, with his mortgage being somewhere around the same as his income! Our two mortgages are actually more than our total income! If we could only sell our old house (Now down to almost half the original asking price.) or our English Cottage which we put on the market a couple of weeks ago, we might be able to hold things together for a while. Even if we could just rent Dock Road things would not look so dire. But as they say, these things are sent to try us! We don't think we need any more trials though!
The snowstorms of the winter certainly changed our landscape, five feet of snow will do that! We had a nice hedge between our yard and our next door neighbor, but that is flat now. I spent a good part of today picking up fallen branches and have quite a pile. We only lost a few, mostly small, trees but a lot of the bigger trees have lost a large number of their branches. Over at Dock Road, (still not rented or sold), we also lost trees and branches, as well as a hedge, and the beautiful Camellia bush was heavily damaged by the snow. The greenhouse/solarium was sagging and I had to jack up the central support, an estimated 3 to 4 tons of snow on the roof had pushed the central support pole and its footer about 3 inches into the ground! I jacked it up, dug under it and poured more concrete on top of the old footer. It seems to be working so far.
The world has another mouth to feed. At 6.30 am this morning (10.30 am in the UK) my niece had another little girl. Our second Grand Niece. Her name is Molly India and she weighed in at 7lbs 13oz. Mother and daughter are doing well and are at home already.

BPA/BPH

I've been reading all this about BPH/BPA plastic bottles and got to thinking about our experience in raising our daughter who was born in 1971. Plastic bottles were available then, but we just didn't feel right about using them, common sense said that if plastic got hot maybe some of it would migrate into the bottle's contents! So we used glass bottles. Similarly, with the plastic and whatever they were made of diapers, who knew what was in them? So we used cotton diapers. When Julia was carrying, and breast feeding Sarah, she never used any drugs - by drugs I mean painkillers or anything - not even an aspirin! If she had a headache, she had a headache, that was it. She never took even one pill or one alcoholic drink the whole time. We put as many of our chemicals, cleaning materials, etc, as possible in the garage away from delicate little lungs. Microwave ovens were big then, but I wouldn't have one in the house with a baby. It was years before we used one, and I'm glad we didn't, I think they may be safer now, but there was a time when there was a scare about some of them leaking microwaves and working for the British Navy, as I had some years before, I knew what microwaves could do to you.
Over the years we gave baby Sarah as few medications as possible. I would rather she had a headache than dose it up with pills. Sure the headache would be gone a few hours after the pills were taken, but it was also gone in a few hours without the use of pills!! And who knows what those pills did? After all a headache is normal and natural, we all get them and they usually go away. The chemicals and drugs in the pills are not normal. Why put stuff into your body that has no business being there? (The drug companies spend BILLIONS convincing us that we cannot get by for even a day without their expensive concoctions. And we buy it, and them.)
Julia continued to work while pregnant, and continued to be vigilant about any danger to our new baby, so much so that when a pest company arrived to spray the offices of the company that she was worked for, she told her boss that they would have to do it overnight or at the weekend or she would have to leave. They, the pest company, and management, assured her that it was safe. But she left immediately. She was certainly vindicated there!
I guess my only point here is that a person's or a parent's common sense should be given free rein when something as precious as your child is concerned. If in doubt about something, err on the side of caution. If you have even the slightest doubt about whether something might not be right, don't do it. Nowadays, with the availability of the Internet, it is easier to check something out than it was 30 or 40 years ago, but it was worth the extra effort then and it is worth it now and always will be. Today there are thousands of new chemicals being introduced to our environment and our bodies every year, almost none of them are tested at all! Use your instincts! With so many new chemicals coming along it is harder and harder to avoid them - so we need to be be ever more vigilant.
Remember, if in doubt, don't. Or at least check it out thoroughly.

P.S. I just read that the CDC (Center for Disease Control) tests for 116 chemicals, but they estimate the number of chemicals out there that we are exposed to at 80,000 Yes, that number was eighty thousand! I would say we don't know the effects of by far the majority of the chemicals that we are exposed to every day, and the number of those chemicals increase every single day, and the new ones are not tested either. Incidentally we don't even know if the ones that have been tested are safe! We only know that they have been tested - not that they are safe!!
Enjoy your chemical soup.

Is it just me, or . .

. . . don't the Republicans have anything to say except "The Democrats are doing everything wrong." "The President is doing everything wrong." They don't seem to me to have any ideas of their own, the only thing I hear is how everyone else is doing things wrong. How about coming up with their own ideas? Maybe I shouldn't say this but didn't they have 8 years to do something, but didn't, unless you call giving tax cuts to the rich something and letting Capitalism run riot to the point of ruining not just us but the whole world.
And while I'm on it, why isn't our new President doing something with the banks? After the last lot let the banks take all our savings and IRA's and then said thank you by giving them a blank check, shouldn't he be putting some rules on those banks? Shouldn't anything that is "Too big to fail" be made smaller - so that we CAN let them fail if they try to rob us all and then hold us to ransom again?
As I have said too many times, Capitalism is the best system, or it would be if it weren't for the Capitalists! The bankers and wall street types aren't Capitalists they are just a greedy bunch of thieves and criminals hiding behind and using a wonderful system for their own ends. And that end is to take everyones money for themselves, its that simple, they don't care in the least if people lose their jobs, their savings or even if they ruin the entire country, as long as they can get ALL of the money. All of my money, all of your money, all of everyones money.