A Little Pain

 

Some pain came back to me this morning. I had bought a net to cover the bed of my Red Pickup. I was putting it on last night and it got dark. I was looking for a part and it was dark. So, I decided to finish the project in the morning. The next morning, I waited until the sun provided some light. It was a little chilly and I dressed in Jeans, a shirt and blue sweatshirt with a zipper in the front, I cleaned the mud off my shoes in the garage, then came in and polished my shoes. I do that every morning, sometimes I must glue the seems back together with ShoeGoo, then I wear another pair of work shoes. When I was ready, I went out to my truck. The school teens were driving their vehicles down our road to school. We live 200 hundred yards from the school. I went out to the truck and inventoried the net parts and looked at what would work for me and what I did the night before was inappropriate. I started over and it was a little chilly. I had worn gloves when I went out, but I could not manipulate the fine black net stretch cords. When I finished the project, I banged my hand against the truck bet and the pain came to the forefront. I knew what it was it was early stages of frostbite. A pain very familiar to me since I had worked a dam #50 during the ice storm and freezing river. I came into the house and went to the kitchen sink and filled an ice cream bucket with warm water, leaning toward hot. I placed both hands into the water and stood there for 5 minutes warming the water as needed. After 5 minutes my hands were back to a normal feeling.

I worked on a database for a half hour then went out and chipped my large stack of wood with my woodchipper.

I still have my books still at Amazon to sell. I also have my art work for sale at Fine Art America.

My artwork on a women's tank-top. 

Hurricanes and Earthquakes

Good Morning,

Did a piece of the huge ice have something to do with the size of the storm we just had? Some say yes and some say no. What caused the ice to melt? A belching volcano or a long line of autos going to work in California. A couple days later this monster hurricane swamped Houston. That must be the moon. I felt the earth shake a few days ago and read about the shaking in Idaho. 

In Idaho?

That’s got to be Fracking!

One thing I did notice this week was that they build their homes in Florida to withstand strong winds. I think maybe Houston will make their homes as strong as Florida’s and also on stilts or privileged manmade hills.

.

Good Morning

Good Morning,

I think the queen want's her country back.

I am out on the deck an the birds are singing. I had made a tripod to hold up my sunflowers that had blown over; they seem to be doing fine. Our big tree looks like it has been through a tornado and has barely survived.

Today I haul rock to the wash outs. I may sow some grass seeds too.

I feel good mentally and physically.

Our yard is a lush green. Absolutely tropical. I live on a rolling hill in Western Kentucky.

Our first Early Girl Tomatoes. The storm the other day knocked the green tomatoes off the vine, we found them laying on the ground.

9:30 AM
I started to haul rock and cut sod for the washed out area in the upper photo below; I then hauled rock to the wash out area in the next photo bottom.

11:00 AM
I came in to take a break and blog.

I placed rock and sod in the washed out areas in this photo above.

11:15 AM

I have 2 more loads of rock to haul then I eat then go swimming. The 2 loads go here in the next photo; I did not have enough grass clippings to cover the area at the far end so I am making a rock path to the crawl space door and putting the grass clippings on each side of the path.

12:00 Noon

Mom made BLT's for lunch plus some home made sugar sweetened Ice Tea and home fries.

1:15 PM

I am done hauling rock for the day; I made the path to the crawl space.

Time to rest then into the pool with mom about 2:00 PM.

" How well wold we do without the Internet Service?"

Good Morning,
I feel good this morning mentally and physically. It is 70 degrees outside and inside our home. Someone asked the question, " How well would we do without the Internet Service? "Well we did just fine during the Ice Storm. Click Here.

Good Morning; 24 Degrees

It has stopped snowing and it is quiet out before the ice storm; we have been warned. I do not worry about such matters for I am retired. Mom works and she does worry about such matters. If she goes to work today she will not come home because it will be just too dangerous to travel back to Marion. She may be fired for that thought but we keep in mind her safety.
**
I keep forgetting about my nose bleeds. The last time I got into this situation it took about a year for them to stop recurring.

Good Morning

The area is mentally preparing for an ice storm? Do we have five days of water, of heat, of electricity and soap/soup.

We do and a box marked candles.

***

I do have problems but you all know what they are. 

I sit like slug waiting by typing for the end. I am sure it will happen when these words fade.

***

The radio says that it came on a midnight clear with the appropriate song.

***
Happy Birthday Mamie.

It is cloudy and 69 degrees outside on the deck, in the pool it is 83 degrees.

Birds are singing and it is very hazy. 

I am about ready to paint the deck it looks ready. I have a paint that makes the deck look this way so the new finish looks like this when it is done.

I feel good this morning, our grass slowed down it's growth, most of the garden is under control and very green.

I am going to take a photo of a sunflower.

My smart phone sends my photos to my computer laptop for viewing and editing. That way I keep garbage off my Facebook and blogs.

This post I email to my old email address for editing and maybe a post somewhere.

I have eating cucumbers in the fenced in area of the garden. I put pickling cucumbers near my Devils Tower. Mom just said the deer just ate my pickling cucumbers.

The Hackberry before the Ice Storm and my garden before the pool.

The Devils Tower: The Stump of the Hackberry is my Devils Tower where the deer ate my Cucumbers last night.

In 2006 the deer used to lay in the shady spot under the Canna and Elephant Ears shown at left. 

Can you see the matted grass where the deer and fawn lay.

When they got up they would eat fresh tomatoes and tomato plants and fresh Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans from my garden a few feet away.  

Good Morning,

We have sunshine and about 57 degrees here at home. I mowed a little and chipped some branches from my shrub pile which is getting smaller. The scrub pile is atop of the stump of our Hackberry which we lost during an ice storm. Things are pretty well decayed in that pile. Some hard woods need to be cut smaller but overall things are fine in that scrub pile. It will be almost flat by the end of this year. Hopefully a flower bed next year.

I feel good this morning though I had a reaction from something I ate yesterday and lost it in the rest room and trash can.

Anyway I am fine this morning.
The brush pile is behind the pool in the lower photo and alive and well in the top photo.

The pool temperature dropped this week to 65 degrees. I have been in it twice this May The first time it was 80 degrees and the second time it was 76 degrees. I will go out and chip some more brush and mow the lawn. Tomorrow I may roto-till the garden.

Good Morning,

I awoke at 2.00 am and decide to watch the news on TV and to my surprise there was none on any channel.At one time in my life not too long ago CNN under Ted Turner was a 24 hour News Station, today it is another conglomerate. CNN on satellite had a special, MS NBC had something about jails, C-SPAN was all about war, C-SPAN 2 was all about books and Fox News was incomprehensible. The only available outlet was the Internet.

I am not sure of the temperature so I should get up and check? It is 50  degrees on the front stoop (North side) and 54 degrees on the back deck (South side).
 I mowed the lawn yesterday and it was wet in places. There was one place I will mow Monday because of the standing water. The spring under our yard is up due to the heavy rain. When the spring falls our yard will dry out. This happens every time it rains.

The big tree is gone, it split in two from the ice storm, the garden spot is now a swimming pool. The spring runs from your right to the garden spot and continues on to the corner of our lot. It flows from right to left. If you find a crawdad hole you can hear the heavy water flow about 3 or 4 foot under the ground. Our yard is a heavy clay which holds up very well over the spring.

Good Morning,
It is clear out-doors and very still; the temperature was 36 degrees; I am going to look at the map a see what is left of the big storm.

I feel good this morning and it seems the storm is just sitting in one place and dropping snow in Pennsylvania.
My prayers go out to all that have been without any communication with the planet because of the storm. We are so used to warmth, shelter, love and communication.
***

I believe in Global Warming because the planet does change. For as long as we have been around volcano's have burned our lungs with deadly ash. Those explosions have caused the planet to heat up and melt the ice. The winds have changed and so have the ocean currents. The Industrial nations have not helped by belching coal soot into the air just like the volcanoes. Who are we to blame?

How long can we live near a volcano? Do we move as far as we can or do we live as close as we can?

It is the same with belching chemicals plants that give off toxic fumes that dissolve lungs. Some of us were smart enough to move away from danger.

I grew up in a toxic environment in Pasadena and was only saved by the government when I joined the Navy and they said I had bronchitis; I said, "I did not.", because I knew no better and had lived that way my entire life. The Navy cleared my lungs and when I left the service I was stronger manly because I could breathe a lot better. I never went back to live near any industrial area.

Good Morning,
I took the day off yesterday and watched football and NASCAR. Mom was off and worked on some photos her aunt had sent to ad to mom's family history (her father and mother).
This morning I was thinking of the hard hat I wore during the ice of 1977-78. I think there is a photo of the hat here on this blog.
***

Some folks do not think much of a hard hat but this hat is something special. See the the red round sticker at left (you may have to click on the photo to get a better view); it says Ice and Snow 1977.

I got the sticker and $87.00 dollars while in the hospital after a hernia operation. The sticker and money was the governments appreciation for working 12 hours a day 7 days a week for two months in the 1977 -1978 winter storm. Click on the hat to see some of the photos of those days.

Anyway one day at Smithland (sometime in the 1980's I decided to bring my hat to the lock to display and use the hat. After the first day on display I noticed that someone was trying to take the sticker off the hat. I promptly brought the hat back home where it hangs in our laundry room. That sticker means a lot of very cold hard frost bitten work plus the hernia and I was not going to let someone get the sticker for a trophy. 

***

Anyway that is the story of the hat. Here are some photos of that ice here  and  here.

I feel good this morning though I am a bit overweight somewhere in the neighborhood of weeble and some roly-poly fun humor.

I am going out at 0900 to clean the pool maybe for the last time this year (iffy). When that is done then I have to air up my lawn mower tires (one is flat) and put the mower away in the shed. The pool man may come by today to winterize the pool and put the winter cover on it.

In 2009 Western Kentucky had a terrible Ice Storm and just last month the Tree Trimming crews with their Cherry Pickers and Tree Limb Shredders just left our county where they had been working non-stop since 2009.
They were contracted to remove the extreme dangers (hanging limbs) from our wooded areas.

We could not talk out, fly out, drive out or walk out of the ice storm of 2009 Jan.- Feb.

If I wait a few minutes I will be able to see just how cloudy it is outside; as cold as it is and the moisture I sensed I would assume that snow is in our forecast. My coffee maker gave me a half cup of coffee this morning, so I tried again with a different mug and now I have a mug and a 1/4 of coffee after mixing the two together. In that process I stepped outdoors to feed the cats and it was cold (20 degrees) but not as windy as it has been. Punky (or Stinky (prone to fart a lot in his youth )) and George were out there this morning. I think we may have had a large predator out there because the cats out there were hiding and our indoor cats when they went out were extremely cautious and one cat was extremely afraid to be out there. I got the feeling that our outdoor cats feel comfortable now.

It is quiet and peaceful here in our home and now I see a very pink and blue sky out there. Mom is off today and sleeping in. She just walked in and wants to go get some groceries and move her van to the street, she senses snow this afternoon.
In the winter I always carry gloves and a coat that covers my head and a cell phone for those awfully treacherous walks for help. In northern climates I would stay put and now in this elderly stage I should stay put. We do not have a winter brokedown nest in our van. I know we should but we do not. We survived the ice a few years back as did the whole of Western Kentucky. It was three days before word got out that Western Kentucky was isolated. We could not talk out, fly out, drive out or walk out of the ice storm of 2009 Jan.- Feb.
During the ice  I wrote by hand and I did not post the days on this computer; they are on a tablet. I wrote a little every day.

It is cloudy and 72 degrees this morning in Western Kentucky. Mom is off today and sleeping in. It is peaceful here in this corner of the planet. Did you here the news today? There is always some human being or child that just does not understand or the environment is just bad where they live and have no hope or the propaganda or video game mushes their brain.

I moved to where it is quiet outside and the folks are peaceful. They hunt and kill and obey the law and kill for food and they raise gardens in their yards.
The deer used to lay in the shady spot under the Elephant Ears shown at left.
The Ice Storm killed that Hackberry Tree in the upper photo. In that photo to the left is my old garden spot; deer never went in it (to close to the house). Our pool and deck are there now.

Vulcan Mineral's Reed Quarry in Livingston County, Kentucky

Good morning. It is quiet here at home. Mom is asleep and off work. I turned on music this morning (background instrumentals). As if I need the sounds in this quiet place on the planet. Kentucky is ideal but it's reputation sits out front with grandma with a corncob smoking pipe in a rocker and grandpa in his worn overalls and long Kentucky rifle. There meant to keep you away and they do.

Our schools are excellent and they do not cheat on their tests or shuffle papers around to please the government folks that pass out grants. Kentucky is green with rolling hills and well protected.

We took a cat to the vet because she had bad bladder infection. She may have passed a stone on her way home from the vet. We took her back and had an ex ray and she is free of any stones.

It is still dark out but some folks are out and on their way to the rock quarries and mines and factories still open. The bankers and clerks will not leave home until 8 am.

Rolling Hills-Laurel Rose took the photo.

Rolling Hills-Our old garden spot. The ice storm destroyed that tree you see.

The Rock Quarry mentioned was a mile or two as the bird flies from the Smithland Locks and Dam. The quarry on the map is light gray and is on the Cumberland River. SmithLand in on the Ohio River.

I walked across that dam every day for ten years come ice, snow or 105 degrees (coming and a going). Plus I climbed 118 steps to the top of the dam those ten years. My leg hurts.

Some folks do not think much of a hard hat but this hat is something special. See the the red round sticker at left (you may have to click on the photo to get a better view); it says Ice and Snow 1977.
I got the sticker and $87.00 dollars while in the hospital after a hernia operation. The sticker and money was the governments appreciation for working 12 hours a day 7 days a week for two months in the 1977 -1978 winter storm. Click on the hat to see some of the photos of those days.
Anyway one day at Smithland (sometime in the 1980's I decided to bring my hat to the lock to display and use the hat. After the first day on display I noticed that someone was trying to take the sticker off the hat. I promptly brought the hat back home where it hangs in our laundry room. That sticker means a lot of very cold hard frost bitten work plus the hernia and I was not going to let someone get the sticker for a trophy.

It is raining this morning and the temperature outside is in the 40's. The big winter storm is to our west and I m not sure whether it will hit us. Well I know we will get the storm but I am not sure as to what we get? Snow, Ice or Rain.
I am washing clothes and cleaning a bird feeder as I type.
I took a cut in pay on my pension as Blue Cross and Blue Shield raised their rates and the government held its ground.
I was a retirement dinner last October with about 50 retired federal employees in attendance. In the room we paid as a group 1/2 a million dollars in premiums to just Blue Cross and Blue Shield.

Remarkable Human Being

Television is like a huge cartoon network. It is where your senses are bombarded with color and sound.
I remember back in 1950 at night on a TV set there would be test pattern usually in the shape of a full screen logo. It was used by TV repairmen to adjust horizontal settings, vertical settings, contrast, brightness and color on the tube.
What do these people want to tell you and where are they leading you.
I remember during the ice storm that there was no electricity and any thought from this brain would have to be penciled into a notebook.
It is early Sunday morning and my life has been very physical until these last few years. I remember moving rock as in a chain gang. The work makes my muscles sore.
Hard work drives out the time to ponder and to muse.
I learned that work is part of life and part of the ability to survive. Being paid to work is a bonus. Work has nothing to do with society; it is strictly a personal thing.
I grew up thinking that a human being had to work a nine to five job and that if you did not work for society you were a slacker. That thought is pushed into the minds of human beings in our society and creates a false sense of moral values of doers and slackers.
The world has learned to abuse the ability of work by creating slaves to do their work; causing me to think that work is part of the evil when in realty it is the man that controls the slave that is evil; not the work.
Where ever you find a group of men working as slaves you always see a few men that are content with their lives and you wonder why. I know why now.
Yes we must free man from slavery; not free man from work; pounding rock is not evil.
We should also free man from the propaganda implanted in the brain about work.

Today I am reminded of the complex beings that we are. We use our bodies to handle intense physical manipulations.
Our bodies handle dexterity with grace. The younger and stronger child with will and determination can climb a sheer wall.

In my life I have had a yearning to work very well and it showed.
I was not into vanity or dressing to fit in.
I was into work, what the body does to fulfill human desire, to achieve the light in the blue sky.
At that time I had no clue of any talents in my possession, other than a good work habit.
How could I know how to climb a creative ladder?
I thought what I created was meager, as I do now.
The difference is that I want the world to know that I exist.
The ego has stepped to the forefront.
The dazzling red cape is teasing the bull.
I am getting older and I want all the world to see the day.

What happens when you suppress the ability to work or you by physical inability stop working?
That energy has to go somewhere.
Now that I am old I do not have the physical ability to work. I cannot just watch TV or those patterns of color, my body has to move that energy from the body to the world with out abusing tired and old muscle. I can stretch and twist but at my age (worn out body) I either have to die or do something.

Meeting All the Nice People

Have you met all the nice people? I meet really nice people everyday. It never dawned on me that some people are nice or should I say I shouldn't judge people and assume they are nice.
We take life for granted, the water will run from the tap and there is an ocean west of here. We have a friend that moved to town from the country. They were getting close to 70 or maybe a little over 70. Too much wood fell from the trees during the ice storm and they were still clearing the woods. Most farmers around here cannot coon or squirrel hunt because there is too much falling timber still falling in the woods. Someone told me that an old deer trail had moved because of the ice storm.
Our woods are very dangerous because a mild wind will move precarious branches and make life very unpredictable. There is plenty of firewood but it will be a chore because of the unsure footing and falling timber.

In Marion Kentucky

The city of Marion and the county officials speak to the public over the airwaves occasionally. If they want a message sent out they inform the local radio station and the station broadcasts the message to the public in the area.
We had an ice storm last February that cut the power to the radio station. It was very difficult to communicate to the community. Local city and county services had their private signals sent to our local authorities and city services. The public was left out in the cold. There was no way that our radio station send out a signal without a heavy duty generator.
I informed our local officials of the need last year and to this day they have not provided a heavy duty generator capable do a job at the radio station.