Chickens test boundaries

- Super Secret Nest -

Someone who hasn't lived in the country might think that having livestock would be straight up work, what with all the feeding, watering, doctoring and housing, but there's always some little scuffle or drama going on with the animals that lends to some entertainment.

Just the other night there was a bellowing of the bulls, where they may take turns seeing who can be louder, or they may carry on in unison. Actually, I think the bull calls might be like the boom box scene in High Fidelity, or they're just singing to the lovely ladies in the pasture. The bovine ladies.

The hens have started laying, so ardently that I wouldn't be surprised to see an egg on top of the clothesline. Every time an egg is laid, the hen laying cackles and calls, then all the chickens on the yard call back, as though to congratulate a new chick being born to the world.

The hens are all running around trying to find a nest that won't be found by the other chickens. Places like in the rosemary bush, under the freezer, behind the electric saws and drills, or on a bench in the shop (see accompanying photo).

When one hen figures out where another is laying, she will go on the nest, break the eggs, and lay her own eggs there. Then the other hen will come back to the nest, thinking those eggs are hers, and sit on them, doing all the work of setting on and raising the offspring. Pretty clever and sneaky for a little ol' chicken.

I have one black stag (immature rooster) who has figured out how to come in the dog door. That's very exciting, to come in the house and find a large, black bird eating the food out of the cat's bowl.

It's like Easter every day around here, trying to find where all the eggs have been hidden by the hens. Sometimes I don't find them all, and sometimes the hens don't remember where they're at, either. There is no pleasure in coming across a nest full of rotten eggs, although they do explode upon impact if thrown, which has a sense satisfaction. Though it takes a bit of bravery, or foolishness, to pick them up in the first place.

We're all here together

- Les Templeton -

I was visiting Dad in the hospital last year, after he had a stroke, when he piped up and said, "My dad came to see me the other day."

I said, "Oh, yeah? How did he look?" I was a little worried at what Grandpa's appearance might have been, since he had been dead for over fifty years.

"He looked alright," Dad said. "Fat, wearing khaki."

I said, "Well, that's good."

Going slowly into the new year

- Hay, how's it going? -

You know, it seems like everything has slowed to a grinding halt in the last month. I can't get transactions with business or personal accounts to get a move on. Some blame could be put on bureaucracies that refuse to use modern technology to exchange documents, but even the usually super-efficient on-line actions are slow to get through the system. It all needs a new year laxative, if you ask me. Let's get going!

I'm not real clear on what the outside world considers fake news, but a few local articles have me scratching my head and thinking this is pretty close to it.

One was in the monthly electric magazine. It was about a local movie theater and how much work and renovation was being done. I swear, I haven't seen any action around that building in two years, not since prisoners were used to clean it out and fill up a large construction dumpster with debris. The Hogg Maulies even had to do some fancy editing to mock up the marquee, it's in such bad shape. They used the front of the theater on their recent album.

Then, a local paper dedicated nearly the entire top of the fold to the grand opening of a music museum. I thought it sounded pretty exciting, so I headed on over there on the Saturday afternoon cited in the article. When I got there, the doors were locked, a gate pulled across them on the inside. There was a sign laying on the ground by the doors, piled over with leaves. I looked inside and cafeteria tables had been set up and some items laid on them here and there and underneath. It looked very dinky and lame. Not worth using half the front page of the paper to publicize.

If you picked up on the clues of my last two posts, then you know that drilling is beginning out here. There is already a rig set up just to the east, and can be seen from my back yard at night. Another is about to be within a mile of my house. A few of us are a little concerned about noise and traffic. Having my own well would definitely alleviate my complaining.

Bull has supplied us with the entertaining photo used today. He really loves hamming it up on the game cameras, when he's not using them to scratch his back. I have a lot of photos of cow backs.

Prepping...

- Rig to come -

It's started...

Getting tied down

- Bobcat in the chicken pens -

It's been almost a year since I ditched Dish TV, in an attempt to cut the cord and save myself hundreds of dollars.

Here's what happened. I bought a small desktop digital antenna that picked up five or six channels (we'll never be able to watch Andy Griffith again, it was on all the time), but the signal was easily interrupted by walking near the antenna, or by using anything with an electrical ignition, such as a lighter or the stove top burners.

So, I tried the old antenna on a pole. It picked up the same channels, but not consistently, only for a few minutes at a time. Then I bought another digital antenna, this time one that mounted on the old antenna pole. It picked up twelve to sixteen channels, but also inconsistently. The 9 channels (9.1, 9.2, 9.3, 9.4 - yeah, I thought the decimal format was weird) only seemed to work well 7-11 p.m., the signal was as easily interrupted as the desktop antenna, and constant rescanning and turning of the antenna pole was necessary to receive a signal.

Also, no money was saved. In fact, much more money was spent than before. The expense of the antennas and the expense for more data on my phone plan so I could use it as a wifi hotspot to watch netflix, Hulu and other streaming channels on my Roku is greater than anything spent for Dish.

I signed up for Direct TV this time, the very cheapest package, which affords us many more channels than we've had in the past year. I still have the outside digital antenna hooked up, because satellite tv is not reliable during thunderstorms or snowstorms. I am enjoying the consistency of the channels, but I don't like the format of Direct TV as much as I did Dish. Recording programs and setting the guide to where you only see channels you get is confusing. Dish is much more customer friendly, but Direct is definitely an improvement over the last year of digital viewing.

Next, the challenge of finding truly unlimited satellite internet. It's doesn't make sense to me that phone plans measure by data but satellite plans measure by mbps uploaded and downloaded. If satellite happens to speak of data, then it defines between hard and soft data, again, a term I've never encountered regarding phone data plans. I do know that even 25 gigs of data is still very little to have for watching netflix and such. I really don't want to have to miss the next season of The Ranch and the kids would come visit us more if they knew they could play video games when they visit (haha!).

(The bobcat photo is for amusement only and doesn't pertain to any subject in this article!)

Hobbs Homecoming 2017

Hobbs Homecoming will be held Saturday, October 21, at the Hobbs School.

Registration is at 9:00 a.m., the program is at 10:00 a.m. and lunch will follow immediately after.

Rough Creek Catering will serve the meal. Cobbler has been requested for dessert.

The meal is $12.50 per plate.

Fall comes trickling in

- .7 today -

You are all welcome for the surprise rain this morning. We used our strongest medicine to draw it here, you know, leaving the vehicle windows down and a sack of seed in the back of the pickup. Just imagine what we would have conjured if I had left clothes on the line.

I'm putting the open times of a few places I've needed lately in the right-hand column. I thought they might come in handy for some of you. For phone numbers, you can click on these links: 
The Country Store 
Roby Drivers License Office
Hobbs Cafe
You might have to sign in to facebook to see the Hobbs Cafe link.

I was listening to a radio program (a podcast), and the hosts were talking about a book they were reading, some kind of psychology - theology - philosophy volume, and the author's basic idea was that everyone wants to be loved, and that is the driving force of humans. I have personally come to the conclusion that we all want to be relevant, with our family, at our job, in our community. When we are no longer relevant, we lose our zest for life or become anxious. Or, maybe we can learn to be comfortable living alone, although even then one might have animals who finds one relevant. That might be enough to sustain the soul.

I am certainly looking forward to next week when fall finally peeks its little head around our corner of the world. I've lived in this spot for over fifty years, but I still get fooled every year into thinking autumn is closer at hand than it really is, then becoming completely worn out by summer temperatures. Hold on to that thought, it won't be too long before I'll be crying for summer, again!

The detriment of the Driver Responsibility Program on the common man

- SR-22 Letter -

I'm getting on the job training regarding the Driver Responsibility Program in Texas. I'm trying to help someone out with their tickets and here is how it goes: get tickets for not having insurance; pay tickets; pay surcharges; file an sr-22, even if you don't have a vehicle, which means you have to buy insurance just to walk around, and you have to maintain that for two years; then pay $100 to get your license reinstated.

That is too much for a very organized person to deal with, much less a regular guy barely getting by, and I mean organizationally as well as monetarily. Oh, and by the way, after paying $780 in surcharges, they sent a notice charging for them, again.

Here is where I can use one of my favorite sayings, the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing.

According to a recent article in the Texas Tribune, there was consideration for getting rid of the program during this legislative session, but that was kiboshed in the senate.

I heard Nolan County attorney Lisa Peterson talking on KXOX radio one morning a couple of weeks ago about the undue burden the surcharges of this program puts on poor people. When someone can't pay or figure out the complicated labyrinth that has to be navigated to get in the clear, they end up in even more dutch with the law.

The person I helped with the tickets had insurance, just didn't have proof, and waited seven years to take care of the citations.

Screendoors

- Screen Doors outdoors -

Lately, it seems my eye has been drawn, especially, to screen doors on dilapidated houses. It may be because I want some screen doors on my own house, but I think that the screen doors produced today are thinly made and the screen is plastic instead of metal mesh, so I yearn for the screen doors of yesteryear.

Now, is it really screen doors I yearn for, or is it being three years old and slamming out one of those doors, knowing no responsibility and looking forward to the adventure of each new minute?

Truth be told, I haven't looked at a new screen door in a decade or more. They're probably perfectly fine. I feel I may have taken an object from my past and idolized it sentimentally.

I could probably get an old screen door and revitalize it, but I think I might be disappointed, because I won't be able to recapture youth, and the feeling of running out the door barefoot, carrying a dripping ice cream cone, and enjoying that satisfying slap of  the screen hitting the door frame.

There's nobody left to even yell at me about it, anymore.