RRC GIS guidance

-RRC Map-

Check out this video created by Kreg Harrison. He presents precise instructions on how to use the Railroad Commission public GIS viewer to look at property and where the dry holes, plugged wells, etc. are situated. I found the link to Harrison's video on the Fisher County Mineral Rights Forum.

Dirt wave

I see a lot of weird weather things and amazing clouds out here in the country. It keeps me scared of storms. This was shot after the outflow boundary blew through here yesterday and headed east.

Would I let the grasshopper die?

Poor ol' grasshopper, he got a pretty bad rap. That ant was pretty intolerant. Sometimes the grasshoppers are the ones who know how to have fun, and that's worth a few grains of wheat.

When we were teaching our kids about work ethic, we told them that the most important thing was to show up everyday on time. I've seen a few fellow workers who weren't much on form or style, but as long as they could be depended on to be at work when they were supposed to be, they had fulfilled 99% of what was required of them. An excellent job can't be performed by a worker who is not present, no matter how talented they are.

TEXASCBX Photography

My eyes love looking at this photo (click!).TEXASCBX:

Just wondering

I read something the other day about how many people died this year while driving and texting. I just wondered how this was determined. What is the evidence? Is a phone found in the hand? Did authorities at the scene pick up the phone and find a text that was mid-sentence? It seems it would be hard to prove such a thing unless there was an eye-witness or someone on the receiving side of the message who could associate the time of a wreck with the time of the correspondence. I would think that when a wreck occurs, the phone goes flying. I'm not trying to make little of texting and driving, it's just that people are too quick to jump on a showboat, requiring no evidence in taking up a new mantra.

Apricots & Algerita

- Algerita Bush -

The algerita bushes and apricot trees are heavy with bumper crops this year, but the window for picking is very small. I've been fantasizing about apricot jam with a few berries thrown in or a sunrise concoction made up of mostly apricot jam in a jar topped with a layer of algerita. I've never eaten such, but it makes my mouth water to think about it smeared on a piece of heavily buttered toast.

The photo was taken on a Mitchell County back road. I haven't seen any around here because they were burned out in last year's fires. Regrowth is evident, though, and the berries will once again be plentiful in this part of Fisher County.

Steak Cook-Off contest entry

The official entry form for the Hogg Maulies Steak Cook-Off in Rotan on June 2 is now available. Just click on the blue link and download.

Opening of bids canceled

After an hour in closed session, the RISD school board voted to cancel opening the sealed bids for the Hobbs Campus. No bids were accepted and the bidding process will be defined at a later time.

Fate of Hobbs School on agenda

The Hobbs School may go to the highest bidder if the Rotan Independent School District agrees to an acceptable amount at the school board meeting tonight.

On the other hand, the matter could be deferred. No minimum bid was set, and members may decide to establish a set of ground rules for bidding.

The school board meeting will be held at the Rotan School Campus LRC building at 6:30 p.m.

Hogg Maulies to perform at steak cook-off

Mark your calendar for June 2, 2012. The Hogg Maulies will be at the rodeo grounds in Rotan for an outdoor concert and steak cook-off. Spread the word!

Admission
Concert: $10 in advance $20 at the gate ($5 cooler charge)
Cook-Off: $100 entry fee per team, 4 person teams (concert admission included)

8:00 am - Cook-off gates open
12:00 pm - Cook-Off Registration
7:00 pm - Steaks judged
7:00 pm - Concert gates open
8:00 pm - Cook-off winner announced & concert begins
(Hogg Maulies & Circus Bear Trickery)
~BYOB~ 
~Cash Prizes~

Call Gareth Pipes @ 806-786-9186 for more cook-off info.

You can buy concert tickets in Rotan at Lees Service-Auto Parts, Jonelle's Beauty Salon and Josh Helms Rough Creek Catering, or ONLINE at Outhouse Tickets 

*(Schedule copied from Hogg Maulies facebook page)

Goat On a Rope

- Goat Dog -

When I was a little girl, two or so, I had a goat. My dad said I used to hold on to that goat by a rope. I don't remember the rope part, but I do remember standing in the backyard with the goat while Daisy (my grandma) hung clothes on the line. That is one of my staying memories, whispered back to me when I use my own clothesline. Oh, to be caught between two sheets as they blow in the wind, standing in a child's secret garden, smelling the rich scent of cotton fabric drying in the sun. Baby, you can't buy that feeling.

At night, Daisy would make me wash my feet in the bathroom sink before we went to bed. I thought this was an old timey ritual, but now I know that children run on their bare soles, which become as tough and nasty as a pair of shoes. We would then slide between the slightly rough, but clean, sheets, and she would tell me made up stories, the same ones she had also told my dad as a child, about a little rabbit who had to cross a canyon to get to his birthday cake, or a little frog who had to jump out of a puddle that was quickly filling with rainwater. I had no idea what a canyon was, I just figured it looked like Rough Creek (well, I guess I did have an idea), and I see now that a frog is probably not going to drown in water. These memories that were made without premeditation have the most value to me.

Children's feet are so delicate at first. My mom called mine little blocks of chili. I passed this traditional name on to one of my children, and referred to the other one's toes as little grapes (as seen from the bottom side). Once they became mobile, though, they could have been fire-walkers. We lived in a house that had a yard full of stickers that got transferred to the kids' feet, the older one in particular. When we went fishing and he would fall asleep, I'd pick stickers out of him until he twitched so hard that he nearly woke up. It was one of those things that parents do that seem wrong because mostly it was done for a laugh. A good, deep, gut laugh.

Lordy, I hope that's not one of that child's earliest memories.

It's Not So Bad, If You Squint Your Eyes...

-Birkla-

I was telling my kids earlier today that I had a dream about the first boy I loved and how he is now a mayor and insurance salesman. Then I rambled on to say he was a super-funny guy with a motorcycle, but I cheated on him (i.e., kissed) with his best friend, a Matthew McConaughey type character (see photo, right). There were more than a few similarities in the "Dazed & Confused" character and our own hometown smooth man.

One of the kids said that I oughta put that stuff in a book. I'm surprised that they would be interested. I won't even look closely at photos of my parents "in the day" when they were young and beautiful. I have a hard time picturing them in their teens and twenties, or even thirties. If they did half the things I did, I do not want to see it written on their faces.

I must say, I'm very jealous of a Texas blogger, known as The Bloggess, for achieving the writer's dream of publishing for money, and a book at that. What really upsets me is that in a blurb I read, she said that no one believed her when she said she used to swim in a tank that they washed pigs in. Well, hell, if I knew people were interested in that kinda stuff, I could write all day! I'll write my pig trough anecdote and perhaps I will be published soon.

On our farm, we had a big rambling farrowing barn, built for chickens, used for pigs. There was also a penning area called the lot. In the lot was a big concrete trough, originally made for cattle, I think, but it had been modified for pigs to drink out of, with lots of little fountain things placed on the outside where a pig could mash a tab with its snout and the water would come out. This trough was only about three feet high and the pigs would sometimes crawl in the water to cool off.

My grandmother, known as Daisy to me, Mrs. Templeton to others, would ask if I wanted to go swimming, and guess where she would take me? That's right, to the pig trough, down in the lot right behind her house. Pigs are not discriminant about where they crap, either. Yes, it was squishy between the toes on the bottom of the concrete (mini) pond. I was pretty young then, at that age where bugs and spiders still didn't creep me out and I would eat pig knuckles willingly. Sometimes referred to as the good old days. Goat on a rope and all that. A tale for another time.

Okay, publishers, editors, rush me! I got a jillion of those down-home on the farm stories just waiting to get out of me. I'm like a gold-egg-laying goose. Catch me if you can (really, it will be easy).

I'm Clint Black

I'm killin' time, like ol' Clint sings about, hanging out in Hobbs, waiting for the weather to change.

I came across this photo in my albums, but I know I didn't take it. It was the basis of the mural in downtown Rotan. Probably Ricky Niell sent it to me. Ya got the Double Mountains in the background there and it makes me love it.

I kill a lot of time scouring the internet, and I saw that the Hogg Maulies are scheduled to play at the Rotan Rodeo Pavilion on June 2 for a steak cook-off. This event is listed on Outhouse Tickets and Hogg Maulies facebook. Maybe if we all follow them on twitter, we can figure out if it will really be happening.

The Fifth Annual Hog Fest Bike Rally has been slated for the weekend of September 1. I bet they're hoping for cooler temperatures so the fire truck doesn't have to go around spraying down everybody, although that was pretty fun.

I saw in the newspaper that Big Country Electric will be offering high-speed internet next year. I'm ashamed to say how much I pay for satellite internet, so I am definitely interested in an alternative. I  just hope it reaches this far out and that we aren't forced to bundle services to get it. Right now I pay $9 a month for a Dish receiver that's stuffed under my bed in order to get WildBlue internet through them.

Cooler temperatures have made this day pleasant already, and the likelihood of rain today and tomorrow looks good. I would rather have to mow the lawn than step on dry grass that impales my feet, and we're hoping the Tifton we planted two years ago will finally get a chance to take off. We sure don't want another year of fire.

Paper Posts Story About Two Boys' Death

The Rotan Advance / Roby Star Record has an in-depth story on the deaths of Jeremy Claxton and Nick Walker that occurred on Bill Pfluger's China Creek Ranch last week. There are photos of the well accompanying the article. Contact The Newspaper Office in Rotan for information on acquiring this issue, 325-735-2562.

May as Well Stand Firm On...Whatever

Back in my beginner rock-n-roll days, the church upped their guilt venture on teenage music, urging us to toss away the devil's words and snuggle up to Jesus. I put all my 8-tracks (hahaha!) in a shoe box, or two, and stowed them under my bed and strove to walk the straight and narrow. Come on, now, I couldn't throw out all my Columbia House 12-for-one-cent tapes, that would be madness! Anyway, after a few weeks, the lure of AC/DC and Molly Hatchet became too strong and the music was once again assaulting my mother's ears as she did her ironing in my bedroom of a Saturday morn.

I think preacher-man could have done a lot more damage if he would have just told us that our rock gods were mortal and the words to those songs, that I used to parse like CIA trying to crack a secret code, have no deep meaning. These days, Ozzy wants a colonoscopy, Eddie Van Halen needs hip surgery, and poor ol' Ted has tipped his rocker. I even heard Steven Tyler admit that it didn't matter if the words made sense, as long as they sound good together.

We have a local classic rock station, and at first that seemed cool. A song would come on and remind me of the good old times. Now the songs have been overplayed and have rubbed out the old memory, replaced by the memory of just driving down the road listening to a song, instead of, let's say, hearing Baker Street or Blinded By the Light while you were swimming at the Country Club and laying in the sun, and the cute boy you liked was being rowdy with his friends. And, seriously, we hardly listened to Pink Floyd except now and then, on special occasions. That stuff was too depressing and trippy.

I was looking up something on Hank Williams the other day (I think Hank was was rock-n-rolly, so I'm not off topic), and read on the Roadside America website that when you go to his museum, you better not mention Elvis, or you'll get plowed. You will be informed that Williams' success in his few years expanded way beyond what Elvis achieved in a life that was twice as long.

Which just goes to show that there's always a side to take. Here we go on the circuitous path of my mind.

Around here, if you respect the president, are a democrat, or are offended by racial slurs, you learn to keep it to yourself unless you enjoy being screamed at and possibly purged from the community.

I see that it's just the opposite in the liberal areas. Remember Kirk Cameron, up there in Californ-I-A, recently getting blasted for saying his piece about gay folk? It was just as bad a tar-and-feathering as if someone had walked into our local Dairy Queen and declared Jimmy Carter was the best president we've ever had. Man-oh-man, you better have some thick skin if your opinion goes against the grain of the local norm.

It makes me wonder, does the side you take really matter? Whatever side you're on feels just as strongly as the other about their own issues.What is it that makes people with differing opinions want to rip the others' throat out? A good debate is understandable, but why is a blood-letting, petty undermining and character assassination so close at hand? Do we just need a good rain?

ANYWAY, so whether you like the kids' music or not, let them have it. One day Nicki Minaj will go through menopause and Maroon 5 will be collecting Social Security. Ha-ha! Yes, now that will still be around.

Hobbs School to Sell By Sealed Bid

According to the April 26 issue of the Rotan Advance / Roby Star Record, Rotan Independent School District will be taking sealed bids on the Hobbs School Campus until May 16. The bids are to be left at the Superintendent's office. Contact Williamson-Branson Real Estate for details.