Finches . . .

The other day I thought I saw a couple of little Finches in the oak tree out front.  It was crappy weather, raining at the time.  They seemed to be hunting for food.

So I went and bought a couple of the Finch feeder bags at Walmart.  Hung them up on the  Oak tree branches and watched.  Sure enough, a couple days later we had a pair of Finches feeding on the Niger seed filled bags.

Now in the midst of snow storm, as I look out I can count five of the them feeding away. The grab on to the bags, mesh bags, and pull the seed out of the mesh to eat.  They come and go.  Our neighbor has five or six feeders so I am guessing they go over there and feed for a while.  They seem to come and go at will.

The snow shower does not seem to bother them very much.  And it has been constant snow for the last 45 minutes or so.  The weather man said the snow was dry, not moist snow.  So the snow flakes are small and dusty in nature.  But it has been coming down constantly with no let up.  We are predicted to get up to three inches of snow.

That means the little birds like the Finches will rely on our feeders.  They eat other seeds but with snow that is sort of out the question at the moment.  So I am sure they will be back for more food.

They are not gold in color yet.  They will molt in a couple of months.  That is the mating season, late spring.  So they molt from a sort of dingy brown and grey bird to beautiful golden bird.  But until mating season they will congregate in flocks and feed on the Niger seed.  When the start to molt they start to compete for the females and the flocks break up.  For about month they continue to feed but then gradually break off.

They are off forming their families.  Some migrate north, others stay in the neighborhood.  But they become rare to see.  There is more food for them as spring develops and they are off gathering food and just stop feeding on the Niger seed.  It is an annual cycle.

Finches are signals of coming spring.  But alas for the next week or so, we will have more snow and rain and cool to cold temperatures.  It is reading 25 degrees right now and will drop some more as the day goes on. 

Soon the roads will be very slick with the snow.  Texans will go crazy and  car crashes will be come common.  We hunker down and rarely go out.

All Quiet on the Western Front . . .

Well not the Western front but in West Feleciana Parish and the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale.  Things have just gone quiet.  No action.  Nada.

With the price of oil down around $50 a barrel it ain't worth drilling.  The wells in Mississippi and northern edge of the Louisiana "toe" cost to much to drill at that price.  Those already drilled are certainly producing oil and gas but not returning sufficient income to justify any new wells.

So we wait.  And it is all quiet on the TMS at the moment.  The last well I saw in activity on was a deep gas well near Zachary in East Baton Rouge Parish.  It was a deliberate drill to the deep depths of the Tuscaloosa Trend for gas not oil.  While gas is bouncing along the bottom so to speak in price it is not really understood why that well was drilled.  That it is a success speaks for itself.

It can only mean that in the future when the price goes up there will be new Tuscaloosa Trend activity in that region.

There used to be one rig floating around in Pointe Coupee Parish.  It would drill a well in Judge Digby Field and move off and do one some where else in the Parish.  Then it would migrate back to the Judge Digby region and drill another well.  I think that well has packed up and moved out, no drilling in Pointe Coupee.

So we wait.  Angeles Plantation has been leased many times but no wells.  So I expect when the price of oil goes back up we may see some activity. But until then, not much is going on.

So it is all quiet on the petroleum front.

In the Grip of . . .

We are in the midst of the grip of a winter storm, and it is bitter cold for us.  The temperature has not been above freezing all day hovering around 28 degrees.  We had winter mix precipitation this AM, snow mixed with sleet.

The bright sun caused that stuff to freeze into sheets of ice.  In places it melted but that will stop as night falls and the temperature plunges down into the teens and the solar effects decline for the day.  And there is a bit of wind out of the north, very penetrating and cold.  The chill factor is down into the teens, not pleasant at all.

The City of Weatherford shut down, no garbage or recycle pick up.  And Monday is our day for that.  Some of our inept neighbors will leave their garbage out for the critters to maraud and tear the city provided garbage bags.  That will be a cold mess and of course, the city will not police it up.

So we are hunkered down inside the house.  Utilities are cranking along just fine.  Nice and warm inside and it looks bad outside.  I venture out to check the mail and it looks like our wimpy Post Office will not live up to its creed and we will not get any mail delivery.

Those folks that are out are moving slowly with care.  Many folks skipped work.  And the news is full of crashes along the freeways especially where there are overpasses that freeze up real fast.  And the not so smart Texans try to drive at their normal break neck pace and end up in the ditch or worse.  The body shops are ecstatic with the work.

Stay warm!

Rank Stupidity . . .

This inane political correctness crops up all over the place.  We will not profile our enemies (the Israelis do it with great success) and resort to stupid actions.  We have to as a nation, as a people, stop this kind of liberal think behavior.   Behavior like no spanking of children, geez give me a break.  We are raising a whole crop of children that quickly learn how to  manage their parents.

Here is an example of rank stupidity.  I went to the Post Office to mail an express envelop.  I really just needed the space larger than a #10 envelop and had to resort to USPS Priority Envelop.  Yes, the envelop certainly could accommodate the papers I needed to send to Jacob and Anne for their children's funds.  Basically it was 1099 for each child.  I am the custodian for the funds but not their parents.  So they need the documents.  The grandkids are getting close to requiring the paying of income taxes.

Any Illegal contraband, the postal clerk said I had to answer the question of whether the envelop contained dangerous chemicals, liquids, etc..  It was as if I was getting on an airplane (and that is still another matter of stupid political correctness we, the people, have to deal with).  I said. "Are you kidding me?"

The answer was an emphatic no, you could go no further without checking a "no" block on an electronic window.  The machine had that programmed in and thus to go further getting postage, I had to answer the  question.  Obviously, there was no bulge or balky filling in the envelop.  The envelop was clearly visible to both me and the clerk.  Seems the machine is a better judge than the clerk doing his or her job

Herein lies the stupidity.  Were I a bad guy, I would just lie.  How would the clerk know the difference?  At least at an airport the TSA clerks (badged but still just clerks, no side arms and no arrest authority) have X ray machines to check for illegal hardware or contraband materials.  The post office clerk as a scale.  Well, doh!

We are rank with such baloney now days.  We have to use anti tamper caps on our medicine even though do not have children.  Well at least they have backed off a little on that.  But when our prescriptions are about to run out they send us a message that say one of your prescriptions is about to expire  For some reason they can say which one of the prescriptions is about to expire, that is a violation of privacy rules.  If  you do not pay them right on the spot, they will  quickly say you have not paid for XXXXXXXXX prescription.  Why is that not a violation of the same rules?    That is different because there is money involved - really.

How much time and money is being wasted by this nonsense?  No one seems to measure that factor in our lives.  Could possibly we could knock off 10% of the cost of doing business by getting back to common sense?

It is like passwords on Government web pages.  They force you to change it every 90days and specify how long (number of characters, the need to have at least one character, a letter, be capitalized and the use of some sort of symbol).  Last time I checked I have three type written pages of passwords.  There is no way I can remember them all.  I suggested to my Congresswoman a while back that the government have one universal password (for Veterans Administration, Military, Social Security, IRS, yada yada yada).  No way, each entity has to have its own password.  More waste.

I guess I am just getting to old . . .

Kumquats . . .

I have an affinity for Kumquats.  The small citrus fruit that one eats whole spitting out the seeds, if any.  They are sort of tort in flavor.  You can find them around San Bernardino/Redlands area Navel Orange orchids in southeren California.  They along with other citrus are found in the orchids to provide cross pollination for the Navel Oranges.  So virtually every orchid has one or more Kumquat trees.  They also have other variety of Orange trees, Satsumas and or tangerines, Madelaines, etc. for the same pollination reasons..

My love for Kumquats started as youth in New Roads, LA.  There was an old house, Mrs Hughes house, on Main Street not far from my house.  It was set back some distance from the street being a very old house, ante bellum in history.  It was up high on brick pillars (for the floods of the past).  It had veranda that stretched almost all the way across the front of the house, but not quite as there was an indentation on both ends of the veranda.  Tho house faced south toward False River.

In that indention on the west end of the porch was the Kumquat tree.  Out  front on the lawn there was at one time Camphor trees, an avenue of them from the street back to the house.  The house was set back a good hundred yards from the street. Camphor trees have excellent if not the greatest climbing limbs.  Big limbs that stretched down to almost the ground and then went up again.  It was favorite spot of kids all over the neighborhood.  It had great climbing trees, the house was well set back and I believe Mrs. Hughes enjoy all the kids play in her front yard.  We never heard a complaint from her.

Camphor trees are not very tolerant to cold weather.  And along about the time I entered high school,  1954 or so, a great cold period enveloped us.  It kill most of the Camphor trees but not the Kumquat tree.  So the Camphor trees were gone and no so many kids if any played in the front yard anymore.

In the late fall I would sneak up the Kumquat tree and feed to my hearts delight.  I do not think anyone cared about the tree any more or took care of it.  Mrs Hughes was quite elderly by then and it was not something she would do.  So for a number of years the Kumquats fed me to no end.  And that is why I still like them.

Mrs. Hughes died and her lot and house were demolished and the Kumquat tree was uprooted and discarded.  Today that plot of land is the First Baptist Church property and church is more or less about where her house was.  The good Baptists were not interested in keeping the Kumquat tree.

Today, I can occasionally get Kumquats in Fort Worth at the H.E.B. Central Market.  We I see them I am a sucker for purchasing them and chowing down.  I have a few on the kitchen counter now.  No one else in my family can stand them so I never have to worry about them gobbling up my Kumquats.

Maybe I can convince my cousin Walter to plant one out on the plantation.  It is said the Kumquats are the most cold tolerating of all the citrus trees.  That should be a good reason to plant it.  He has some other orange trees and has some on and off success.  If he planted a Kumquat tree he would successful every year.  Mrs. Hughes was always successful and she did little or nothing to take care of the tree.

A Good Day . . .

Yesterday was a great Radio Control flying day.  The winds were mild, out of the West to Southwest.  Not the best direction but since the winds were moderate, it made little difference to us experienced flyers.

And the airplane cooperated, not a first, the trim was way off.  But now it is trimmed up correctly and fling great.  It is still squirrely on take off and I have concluded it is something not just right with the rudder servo.  In this plane the rudder servo also drives the tail wheel.  I am close to getting it right now and will look at it in detail later today.  If necessary, I will swap out the servo.

You never can tell, the first thing I found on the tail wheel was the mounting assembly was loose.  I was able to tighten that up and things moderated quite a bit.  But I noted the servo just did not seem to be perfect.  I checked in flight, two mistakes high, and it was doing just fine as rudder control.  I had gone to a dual rod push pull set up because the control rods were very limber.  So instead on one rod doubled up with another soldered to it, I went with the push pull dual rod set up.  Maybe there is not enough slop in the set up, that is it is to tight.  The other control rods to the elevator and both aileron servos have doubled solder rods to eliminate the excessive bending.

Today looks good for flying too but I shall pass.  Three days in a row in January is PDG.  We had to shed our sweaters, hoodies, etc., it got so warm.  And we stayed longer too.  Thanks to MLK, the working stiffs could stay with us retired (or as we say retarded) flyers.

Yes, it was great day.  Thank you Martin.

Texas Drivers Licence . . .

I received a letter from Texas Department of Transportation saying it was time to renew my drivers license and a lot of other stuff about proving citizenship, identification, what documents are needed and DD-214 if you want veteran acknowledgement on the card.  So I set off to the TEX DoT office with a DD-214, the letter and my usual documentation (license, voter registration and Military ID card) to get a renewed license.  Usually one can renew by mail but it said not this time, I had go down to the office.

I popped into the door only to greet a line with perhaps 20 some odd people, teenagers getting their first license, new folks to Texas and so on.  Fortunately, the office does not issue license plates or it would have been literally over run with people.

In my movement forward I spied a form that they apparently wanted to be filled out.  It was "request of new/renewal/ID card".  It had a series of questions about health, where you live, your current license number, etc.  One question was, "Are you a disabled veteran over 60%, if so the license was free."  So I dutifully checked that block.

When I got up to the first person behind the counter, she looked at my current license and then the form.  She said where is your VA letter.  I said, "No one said I had to have a VA letter."

She said, "Go home and get the letter, it is worth $25 to you." 

Well home is 15 miles away so I offered to pay and get it over with.   She said no, go get the letter.

So I left and went and got the letter.  I made a copy of it on my printer and returned to the office.  They sent me well ahead of the line, I had to wait about 10 minutes or so and was called up.

Then they ran in a trainee to do my job with an experienced woman standing over her shoulder.  That took a little bit longer but both the letter and the DD-214 came into play.  They actually scanned my application, the DD-214 and the VA letter into my record.  Next came the picture and then a signature block and finally, new to me, finger prints via a slick optical device.  That was new to me.  My license was a little different in that (a) I was a veteran and (b) was a disabled veteran.

I had to do the traditional eye test.  I did that without glasses for the first time in my life.  I passed the test and now no longer have to be concerned about wearing glasses while driving.

Then a received a print out document with my picture on it to verify the address and dates.  I did so and they returned the DD-214 and the VA letter to me and said,"You will receive a new license in 8 to 10 days, keep this print out as your interim license."

And there were no fees.  I like that.  Nice people there.