Several Months Catchup

This is supposed to be a blog that gets something at least every two weeks if not twice a week. However if you are a follower and read my musings you know I have not been too faithful to my original thoughts. It is almost the New Year, Christmas is past and I do not know where the time has gone.

The last time I wrote we were in Colorado and trying to get our motorhome fixed. We left there and traveled south through New Mexico. We watched and chased the train in Durango and visited Mesa verde a while. We made a stop for a few days at Calrlsbad Caverns and did some touring. We delayed there for longer than we intended because there were storms passing right across our route and we could not figure any real urgent reason to hurry. From there we took several days to cross Texas and get to Mission.

It did not seem that there was any time to catch up on the things which I had put aside to do later. We went out to dinner or lunch with friends a couple times. I think that we only played cards once in three months. It did not take long to get back to helping people with their computer problem. It really funny at times. There may be a person that chases after me with their golf cart or catch me in the hall or come to the door. Many times I do not know their names. Usually I recognize their face and some times I know their first name, but frequently I do not know their last name. The fact is that it is not necessary to know both of their names to help them or enjoy their company while dancing or leading a computer session. I feel ashamed at times that I do not know them but I have never been good with names. There is another problem with the women. They wear their name tags in the middle of their chests. It is a bit awkward to look at their chest and appear to be reading their names.

Last year the activity director came to me and asked if I would take the pictures of the new people that came into the park. I figured it was something that I could do and contribute to the quality of the life here at Bentsen Grove. People like to go to the picture board and see who live where and what they look like. Also there is a case to display pictures of activities that go on in the park. There is always something going on, a Halloween party, a cantata, a craft show, an art show, a dog show, Christmas dinner. I don't try to put up pictures of every thing but whenever something special happens. It is not hard to forget how many pictures I put up.

I get other requests too. A couple here had their 60th wedding anniversary and I was asked to come take pictures of them before they went out to dinner. A neighbor needed a CD with some music that he only had on cassette, could I do that? Of course. There are some other people that want to get music off cassettes before they go bad. They will be back after the New Year. One of the line dance instructors asked me to go buy a boom box for her. Then one of the computers in the activity office developed the Blue Screen of Death frequently. Could I go buy a computer for them. Installation was a trick. During the short time between crashes I was able to get their files backed up to a thumb drive. 157 files that were less than one gig. The problem was they were in Microsoft Works. That is an old file type. Open Office would not open them and it is supposed to open any Microsoft file. Also the current Microsoft programs would not open them either. Finally one of the residents that was helping here found a copy of a older version of Microsoft that would open the files. It took a while but we got something the office could use. Then the problem was the printer. It was so old that there was no software available on the Internet. A slightly newer printer was found and installed so they are back in business.

I was also asked to find out information about flat screen monitors. I think people trust me more than they perhaps should. I just do the best I can and that is likely more than they can do. I have even had a neighbor that asked me to advise her as to what she should get in a laptop computer. She even asked me to have it delivered to my address because she was not going to be gone. I wasn't home when it came but my neighbor took delivery and delivered it to the lady that bought it. Then that evening I helped her set it up.

There is a newspaper that is published here in the park every two weeks during the regular season. Carl the editor has lung cancer and is not expected to live much longer. He was the leader of the “Kitchen Band” for years. He has gotten another person to replace him in that duty. Bonnie asked me if I would take the position. I considered it for several days and went over to talk to his wife. I only said that Bonnie had asked me, she instantly handed me a CD with the information needed to publish the Mirror.
So I guess that was when I accepted the job. Thus far I don't have much to put in the paper, but before the year ends I hope to have enough articles to put into the paper. (A day later I have enough articles to start more pages. Oh have I got things to learn.)

While Carl was working on the last issue of the Mirror the mother board of his computer failed. I was asked to help if I could. I called a friend to forewarn him that I would be asking for his help. As it turned out Corrine found a tower that he could use but the information that was needed on the hard drive of the failed computer. Corrine, John and I got the hard drive out of the tower. I put it into a hard drive backup unit I had. It worked well on John's computer so it should work on another computer. Wrong! It would not bring up the files. I brought the backup home, opened the files, converted it and saved it to a thumb drive. The files still would not open with the computer. Then Carl's wife said she had a laptop and the files worked just fine. Thus Carl was able to put out his last issue of the Mirror.

Tomorrow is New Years Eve and we are planning to go a long way away from home to ring in the New Year. From our door to our destination is about thirty foot. That is far enough to go for us. For most years in Wheatridge we just went next door to bring in the New Year with good friends. It is a tradition that seems good to me.

I have written of a time when I was quite young. When I wrote this I tried to remember the actual facts. When I read it now just how accurate those young eyes were. A few years ago I visited the barn and it was actually a rather small barn.

LOADING HAY
a mans job

I could not have been over ten years old, quite likely less, when I did the first real job of a man that really helped with the job of putting up hay. Cecil Dunn, our neighbor to the east and south, was putting up baled hay in his big barn. The barn had been set up to store loose hay with the aid of horsepower. The barn was a typical Dutch gable roof with an extended overhang of probably five-foot on the north side of the barn. This overhanging roof extension was over a door that would swing open downwards, revealing an opening of about six-foot square, plus an angled area that went up to the peak of the roof. There must have been a rope and pulley at the peak of the roof to raise and lower the door, but I don’t remember for sure. At the top of the opening and across the inside top of the barn from the tip of the overhang to the farthest back wall, ran a trolley track. Attached to the track was a grappling hook that could be released and drop down to the ground or wagon load of hay on a rope. There were two steel bars or hooks or forks that would reach into the hay so that a large load could be lifted into the barn.

The rope that was attached to the hooks ran to the back of the barn along the trolley track and over a wooden pulley fixed to the track very close to the back wall. The rope went down to the floor of the barn, around another wooden pulley fastened about 6 or 8 inches from the floor. Then it went across the floor of the barn and through another set of doors at ground level to the outside. When the rope was outside the barn it had to go under a wagon load of hay that would be positioned under the overhanging roof section. Originally the rope would be attached to a single horse or perhaps a team of horses, but in this case to the draw bar of Cecil’s ford tractor

Since there were no horses available, I had the privilege of driving a Ford tractor to provide the horse power. Dads John Deere tractor would not work for this job very well. Dad’s John Deere tractor had a front end that was designed to work well in fields that were planted in rows. The front end had two small tires right in the middle. The full front end was not over 18 inches wide. Cecil Dunn had a Ford tractor with front end more like that of an automobile in that the tires were spaced as wide as the rear wheels. This difference in front end configuration made the Ford the right tractor to do the job that the John Deere just was not suited to do.

That day four people were working to store the hay which was in bales instead of loose in the barn. Dad was working on the wagon to stack the bales for as was needed to lift with the hoist, and I am sure that he was also outside so that he could keep an eye on me, to be sure that things were done properly and to aid if needed. Cecil Dunn and Harry Schaefer were inside the barn doing the final storage of the bales once they were inside. And the fourth was me driving the tractor and pulling the return rope. Actually it could be said that Cecil’s wife, Jo Beth, was an important part of the crew because she made sure that we were well fed and had plenty of water.

To start the operation of loading the hay Dad would place two bales flat on the wagon with a third bale centered on top of those. He would pick up the hooks and place them on top the third bale, then shove the two forks or prongs on each side into the lower bales. He would signal me to start driving away from the wagon pulling the rope that was running all the way through the barn. When the slack came out of the rope it would start to lift the three bales up toward the overhanging trolley track. The hooks with the bales would hit the trolley, and somehow there was a catch that would release the wheels and the whole assembly would start rolling into the barn along the trolley track. I remember being warned that if I caused the hooks to hit the trolley too fast and too hard that it might tear the mechanism apart and even cause people working below to be injured by falling bales. To be sure the throttle on the tractor was not set much higher than an idle, at least until I learned to control the speed without danger.

As the trolley rolled into the barn it carried the bales to the location they were being stored. When it reached the desired location someone inside the barn would holler and Dad would pull a trip rope, the weight of the bales would cause the prongs would pull out of the bales and they would fall to the floor of the barn. When a haymow was empty the first bales might fall as much as 20 foot. There was a danger that the bales might break apart if they fell too far and fell on a hard surface. So first a platform of the first bales was built inside the barn to cushion the falling bales and to lessen the height that the bales fell. Later on it was not necessary to build the platform of bales because the effective floor was high enough to prevent bale breakage. Once the bales had fallen to the floor the two men, Cecil and Harry would drag them to the storage location and stack them.

When Dad heard the yell from inside he would pull the trip rope, and if necessary signal me. I would stop the tractor, shift into reverse, and back up close to the hay wagon. It was this backing up that required the wide spaced front wheels on a tractor. The one inch rope would trail from the drawbar on the back of the tractor, between the rear wheels under the motor and out through the front wheels. With a tricycle front end like the John Deere was equipped with the front wheels would have simply driven on top the rope and broke it or at least damaged it. I suppose that a team of horses would have been driven in a circle back to the starting point.

When I had backed the tractor close to the wagon, I put it into neutral, jumped off and grabbed the trip rope. I would pull the hooks along the trolley to the end of the track outside the barn. Dad would be stacking another set of three bales to be picked up by the hooks. If he was ready I would pull the trolley against the end of the track, that would release the hooks to descend down and start the whole operation again.

As I remember, each wagon load of hay was between 100 and 120 bales. We would have at least two loads of hay at each session, so the hooks were lowered and lifted between 70 and 80 times. I don’t remember how tired I got, but I am sure that it was quite a job for a small lad. Somehow I do remember that it was a job that I was proud to do. I am sure that I must have received praise for a job well done, although no words come to mind that might have been said. The fact is that just having the privilege of driving the Ford tractor was enough to make me happy to do the work.

There were several things about the Ford Tractor that I liked. The first thing about it was the fenders; it had some. The John Deere had them available as an option of some sort but Dad did not have any. Over the years I have only seen a couple John Deere tractors with finders, at least not on the older tractors. On the Ford a person could sit on the fenders instead of standing on the frame. Another thing was the drawbar. On the Ford it was three foot long with a hole every three inches or so, and it could be lowered or raised hydraulically. There were a few times that I remember the tongue weight of a piece of equipment being heavy enough that we had to get a jack to raise it high enough to put on the drawbar. I think that on the Ford there was equipment that utilized that hydraulic feature to adjust the height of the towed implements.

Three weeks of Triplicates

This has been a weird three weeks. It has been a time period that I feel like I have had to do everything in triplicate. It will take a bit to explain but here goes.

I wanted to get some new tires for the Jeep and the company that I wanted to use is in Texas and Colorado, and of course they say all across the USA. However they are not in Kansas. So I had to wait to get to Colorado for tires. That was another five weeks of driving on tires that I wanted to replace before they got dangerous. Fortunately I had enough tread that I think I was still safe. I got to Denver and shortly had new tires. I felt better. At least till a couple days later when I discovered that they had replaced my nice chrome valve stem caps with some cruddy plastic ones. When I was back in the area I asked about them and was told that when they put the new seals one the pressure sensors they replace the metal caps with plastic ones because the mag chloride that is used on the streets in the winter causes a galling that requires the valve stem to be cut off if the tire needs air. With pressure sensors at around $125.00 each nobody wants to lose a valve stem. But they did have some plastic valve caps that look chrome so I was happy again. I went to another place and had the oil in the Jeep changed. Okay it took two places to get that triplicate, but just keep reading.

We grabbed a quick breakfast in a fast food place and as we are leaving the parking lot the engine on the Jeep died. It took about four times normal cranking to start. The check engine light is displayed. We had errands that had to be run so we kept driving and hoping there was nothing that would stall us permanent. For about four day nothing happened except the check light stayed on. When I could I took it into the dealership. They are in the middle of a major remodeling program and one of the contractors had cut the telephone/computer lines. No computers meant that they could not even diagnose the problem. The days where a mechanic can look and listen to your car and figure out what is wrong is long gone. There are several computers on every car and truck. I was told that as soon as the phones were working the computers would be back up. Wrong! The next morning I called and the phones were working so I took the Jeep in. The modem had been short circuited and burned out and the techs were out getting a replacement. Maybe the computers would be working soon? After a half hour or so somebody brought in a laptop that had an air card and they could do some diagnosis. Three faults were reported, two which had reset themselves, and the third which did not indicate where the problem was with their limited computer capability. They reset the third fault (there is a triplicate) and got rid of the check light. We drove up into the mountains forty or fifty miles to over 12,000 foot with no problem. Two days later I am turning a corner at a major intersection and the engine died and would not restart. Erma got into the drivers seat and I went to the back to try to push it out of traffic. Almost before I had pushed a foot there were two young men and a young woman that came to help me push. That is another triplicate. Right around the corner they left and I was able to get the Jeep into a parking lot. I got into the drivers seat and it started instantly. We headed abut ten miles to the Jeep dealership without incident. With the full compliment of computers they found two sensors that were not playing nice with each other and one of them was indicating that it was getting hot. Getting hot indicates to me that it was about to fail totally. The mechanic did not say that but I would bet. I wonder why there were not three sensors that needed to be replaced. Oh my, do you suppose there is a sneak in there somewhere just waiting to fail later.

While in Topeka we developed a leak around the windshield and the drivers side window of the motor home which we decided to wait and have fixed in Denver where we had bought the motor home. We took it in to have that fixed along with a few other things like changing the oil in the generator, etc. Of course they fixed it the first trip in, right? Wrong! I am sure that they fixed part of it but the first time it rained the window leaked. Wait out the weekend and call to make an appointment again. They were quick to get us in and worked on it again. By that time I had a couple other things I wanted looked at also. I had tools to work on things before I retired but now I cannot justify carrying them along and besides some of this stuff is too high or too heavy for me to want to work with. This was the day we got breakfast and the Jeep died the first time too. We had to go the south side of Denver and got started back to the north side a lot later than we had expected to pick up the motor home before the shop closed. We were in rush hour traffic on an Interstate and believe it or not we made it to the repair shop with five minutes to spare. The leaks were sealed and fixed at last. That is until we had a very slow short rain. We had a tiny stream of water coming in. A normal rain would have had a big stream coming in. You should have heard the disgust in the voice of the service manager when I called him the next morning. He said bring it in at your convenience. About forty five minutes later we were packed up again and headed back to the shop. Just as an added bonus this was the morning that the Jeep stalled at the corner. I really hope that the leak is fixed because I do not want to take it in again and have the Jeep have another problem. The two must be connected some how. A side note here. We just had a very short shower and there is not water yet. The shower was short and perhaps not an indicator of future performance. Sounds like an advertisement for a stock.

My eyeglasses are a Silhouette brand and very few place have parts for them and I also do not trust just anyplace to adjust them. I have had a temple cushion piece missing for a couple years and the glasses have been crooked for about that long. While in Denver I wanted to get both those problems fixed. The store where I bought them has several locations in Denver. I went to one and they put on a temple piece and straightened them for me. Beautiful job, really. They could not match the color of the original temple pieces, but okay, I have a black one and a gray one. On the about twenty mile drive home the frames reverted back nearly the same crooked position they had been before. Not quite but close. On the day we went to the south side of Denver with the check light on and the motor home in the shop I was going to be close to another of the store locations. This time the straightening for a week so I think it will stay correct. However the end of the other temple piece, the black one, disappeared and left something that was scratching my temple. We were close to a third location so I went there and they had a gray temple piece and fixed the glasses. So this is three different problems with the glassed and three different store location. A double triplicate.

Right after I got the tires and the oil change on the Jeep the refrigerator in the motor home quit working. We called a service tech and he was going to come out. Before he got to our motor home we started smelling ammonia. My thought was that the cooling coils has sprung a leak. I called the tech and told him about the smell and he said, “It is your cooling unit.” He ordered one out of Texas. I bet we came within fifty miles of it as we came north. It took three days to get it shipped here. We gave all the food in the fridge to our neighbors. The service fellow took about three hours to put the new cooling unit in. So we had a triplicate in shipping days and one in hours of installation. A third triplicate can be made from the fact that it cost us three times as much to fix this small (large for a motor home) refrigerator as it would have cost for three fairly large house style refrigerators. The fridges that use heat to produce cold as a lot more expensive than the ones that use a compressor.

We have had a fellow do some special work for Erma on a little thing for her and we have gone back three times to get that done. We were there today and I decided that I wanted a similar bit of work done for me so there will be three trips for me to see him before it is done. A pair of triple trips to see him to get the work done. If we had had our acts together and our decisions done we could have done all this in two trips flat. Oh well I guess that someone need to buy gas to support the oil companies.

Every time we have come to Denver we have done some work with a fellow that is way south. So that day that the motor home was in the shop, the Jeep died, my second eyeglass repair we went to see him.
It was great the he was near the eyeglass place. But as luck would have it we needed to go back the next day and we will have to got back a third time. Another triplicate.

Is this enough triplicates? How about one more just for good measure. I went out the Colorado School of Mines geological museum to see the new building where the minerals are displayed. The curator is a friend on mine that I worked with at Newmont when I was there. It is a tremendous facility and far better that any mineral museum I have seen except the Smithsonian Institute. That is likely the best in the world. When I got out there I pulled the keys out of the ignition and picked up my camera bag. When I did that I thought, “I have a telephoto lens on the camera and I will want a wide angle so I should change it before I go in.” After I took pictures inside and left to head home I reached into my pocket for my keys and did not have them in either pocket. I looked in the Jeep and there they were laying by the gear shift. If I had put the keys back in the ignition the Jeep would not have locked, but I laid them down because I could not hold them and change the lens. I went back in and borrowed a cell phone from my friend and tried this bit having Erma send a signal from her fob by phone to unlock a car. It does not work even if you try three (or more) times. I had forgotten to take my phone of course so any call I made had to be done on other phones and Erma could not call me. Amazingly she got quick help from her sister to come to my rescue. I just knew that her sister would be out on their farm way up north of Denver and not be in reach for hours. In about an hour Erma was there with her keys, my phone and the rescue squad. There were three people in the car with her that came to rescue me from my predicament. I guess that is enough triplicates for any writing.

We have extended our stay here two weeks longer than we had intended. I just hope that the extended stay does not become a triplicate. Before I got this posted we decide to stay here for one more day so there is a triplicate of extended stays. Sure am glad that I am retired.

There are many places to visit in this great country of ours. Here is another one that should be seen.

No. 2 – Garden Of Eden



One hundred and thirteen tons or 2,273 bags of cement plus many tons of limestone gravel may not be a sight that the average person would think would be worth seeing unless it has been shaped by Samuel Perry Dinsmoor. Dinsmoor was a Civil War Veteran who had a career as a farmer and teacher. When he retired in 1905 at age sixty four he started sculpting and expressing his ideas about religion and his political views as a Populist. Dinsmoor had a bent towards doing the eccentric thing before it was popular. He had married his first wife on horseback decades before. He built his own house out of limestone that was sculpted to look like logs, along with a lot of his furniture. In 1907 he opened the lower floor and his gardens to be viewed by visitors. Then he started adding various sculptures around his house. One of the early sets of sculptures that he created was to tell the story of the creation of Adam and Eve and their subsequent banishment from the Garden of Eden. Another of his sculptures shows how Cain killed Abel. Some of his sculptures are seemingly just for fun, but may well have a deeper political meaning. One of those shows a soldier who is aiming his gun at an Indian that is ready to shoot an arrow at a fox that is chasing a cat that is pursuing a bird that is stalking a worm that is eating a leaf. At eighty one his first wife died. The county forced him to bury her at a local cemetery. He exhumed her body at night, brought her home and buried her in several tons of concrete, where she remains today. Following her death he married their 20 year old housekeeper and had two more children. He continued building his sculptures of concrete until his death at 89.

Till Later This Is Uncle Duck

113 Degrees

Often when I go through an area I try to imagine how it would have been a hundred and fifty or even five hundred years ago. I know that I fail miserably to comprehend what it would have been like. But never the less I try to send my mind back. We are traveling between Topeka and Denver right now and will take a week to make the trip. Many times we have done the trip in twelve hours or less. When I look out across the rolling hills where there is little evidence of man's plow I wonder just how close the view is to that which would have been seen by an Indian on the hunt for a meal. I do know that he saw a lot of beauty because that is what I see even if it might be different. There was one point that I saw a herd of black cattle on the hillside. I knew that they were cattle but in my mind I conjured up buffalo and I could imagine some of the excitement that a hunter might have felt. I actually saw buffalo on a hillside when we were in Minnesota and know my own true emotion and it was a thrill.


Thirteen Foot Fish-Within-A-Fish At The Sternberg Museum In Hays Kansas

We spent several days in Russell and did some touring around the area. We went to the Sternberg Museum in Hays one day. We have talked about stopping there for a good many years and visiting it. But until now there always seemed to be some reason to pass it by. But finally getting to stop was well worth the wait. In addition to the many dinosaurs they have a famous “Fish-Within-A-Fish” fossil. The predator fish is named Xiphactunus and is just over 13 foot long. The fish it swallowed whole was a Gillicus arcuatus, which was about 6 foot long. If any of you remember the scientific names of the fish you do a lot better than I can do. One of the other displays there was a temporary one of the “Super Croc” which was up to forty foot in length and weighed up to 10 tons. Inside the museum it looked huge but when I think it could be as long as my motorhome it is really brought into perspective. One thing was for sure, it was a lot cooler inside the museum than it was outside. While we were driving away from the museum and on the main street of Hays near the college the thermometer on my Jeep registered either 112 or 113 degrees. About thirty miles away in Russell where we were parked it was only 103. Not much difference at those numbers. Simply hot outside.

I have wanted to go the the Stone Post and Barbed Wire Museum in LaCrosse ever since I first saw it perhaps twenty years ago. At that time it was only open on the weekends and was in a small frame house. Today it is in a native stone house built by homesteader Dan Haley. In a lot of respects I am glad I waited so many years to go visit. I started reading about the actual work done to make the stone posts maybe ten years ago. In spite of the fact that I have seen the equipment used by some quarry men it is still amazing that it is modified wood working braces and bits. Local blacksmiths made the tools that were used. The laborers claimed that they developed calluses on their chests because of the downward pressure on the tools that they exerted. Wedges were placed in the series of holes and driven in to split the rock apart. When the limestone was first quarried it was relatively soft but then hardened when it was exposed to the air and dried. The quarry men charged a quarter per post in the beginning and the more profitable farmers could afford to buy stone post later the price worked its way up to a dollar and more. Before the stone post industry faded away there was around 40,000 miles of fences installed. The spacing between the post was perhaps 20 to 30 foot, so you can figure the number that were produced.

In the middle of Kansas there is a lot to see if the time and effort is taken seek it out. In addition to all the cowboy, farm, and oil field history there is also the geographical center on the 48 states, Pyramid Rocks, Rock City, Garden Of Eden, the only Giant Van Gogh painting in the USA. And the list goes on, so when somebody tells there is nothing to see in Kansas don't believe a word of it. It is just that it is not along the Interstate. Lucas is the home of the “World's Largest Collection of the World's Smallest Versions of the World's Largest Things,” and it is a traveling museum I have a reason to go back there.

As I promised I would add some of the writings that I have done in the past so this is some more Memories of a Kansas Farm Boy.

PICKING CORN
learning to work

As a child that was raised on the farm I did the things that are normal for a farm kid. There were the usual farm chores to take care of the animals, and the usual field work, and work that we exchanged with the neighbors. There were many accomplishments and many struggles, along with the privilege of a classroom in nature that is unparalleled anywhere.

One year, about 1946 or 1947, Dad had a field of corn south of the house on the east side of the lane. Shortly before the end of the year he was trying to harvest the corn before it was lost to heavy snows and weather. He did not yet have his first John Deere tractor, so he was using a team of mules to pull the corn wagon. Any work that was done had to done by horsepower (mule power) or by hand. The team was trained to move forward by command and to stop and stand upon voice command. Apparently they also knew to follow the rows of corn and not start off across the field, unless something spooked them. To be sure, these were mules that were used in working the fields, from plowing, disking, planting, cultivating, and finally harvesting. I am sure that they had many years of training.

The weather was cold, the sky was overcast, and probably threatening to deliver snow. I am sure that Dad and Mom were anxious to get the corn from the field and into the corn crib. Laura and I made several trips back and forth from the house to the work area. I likely followed her to the field the first few times. Lauralea must have been old enough to be in school, but it seems she was with me, so perhaps it was a Saturday or even a school break. I remember putting on Dads old work coat, or perhaps even a couple coats just to be warm and several pair of gloves with holes in them, so that the good parts of one pair of gloves covered the holes in the other pairs. The layering of clothes was not to have layers but more so that no part was uncovered. The chances are that I also wore one of his old hats. I thought that it was fun to put on Dad’s clothes.

With warm clothes on, I headed out to see Mom and Dad. It was easy to tell where they were picking by the sound of the corn hitting the backboard, or as it was called sometimes, “the bang board”. Imagine an ear of corn hitting a wooden board fastened to a wagon, it goes “bang”, and then falls into the wagon. I approached from the side of the mules. When I was a few rows away I startled the closest mule. When he started jumping, that startled the other mule. Dad had quite a time preventing a runaway team. I was instructed to approach the mules from the front where they could see me, and not from the side where the blinders prevented their vision of me. As long as they knew that a person was around there was little danger of them becoming scared. That was the last time I didn’t follow proper procedure when approaching the mules. Even at a young age I could see the danger of a runaway team.

When corn was picked, it was often removed from the husk. The husk was left on the stalk and just the ear was thrown into the wagon. I have heard that years before that corn was picked husk and all, placed in a large pile and shucked later. There were even times that many families would get together for a shucking bee. At times there was a tradition of putting a red ear of corn in the pile of yellow corn. The young men sought this red ear so that they could get a kiss from some girl. Exactly what the rules were I don’t know. This was not the way it was done on the Peace farm. There was a device worn on the right hand, left if you were left-handed, called a shucking hook. It was a flat piece of leather that the index finger slipped through with a leather strap that buckled around the wrist. In the middle of the palm was a metal hook that was used to aid in removing the shuck from the ear. With one hand on the stem of the ear, the hand with the hook pealed back the shuck and twisted the ear of corn free. Then of course the ear without any shuck attached was thrown against the bang board and then fell into the wagon. This process was repeated for every ear of corn in every field. It was a great deal of labor that was eventually replaced by the corn picker. The only corn picker Dad ever owned just separated the corn from the shuck, but many corn pickers also removed the kernels of corn from the cob.

It was an incident in the process of corn picking by hand that caused the vivid memory of the scaring of the mules. Like a normal kid I liked to be in the middle of the activity. Where was the greatest activity around a picking operation? Right in the middle of the wagon where the corn was being thrown. I could see Mom and Dad picking the corn. I could see the mules. The wagon was high enough that I could see any cars that drove along the highway at the edge of the property. Also I could remove any stray bits of husk that happed to get missed. If I wanted to, I could help by picking a few ears of corn myself. My guess that Dad and Mom spent more time helping me put on the shucking hook than I saved by picking corn. At least that was true for many years. I never picked enough corn to ever be good at it but I did pick out a lot of turn rows and areas that were too wet to drive the tractor in later years.

I was in the wagon doing what ever it was that I did in the wagon. Perhaps I was marveling at the length of the ears of corn that year. To be sure they were longer than normal. To me they seemed to be several feet long, but they were actually only about a foot to fourteen inches long I suppose. I don’t think I caused any problems if I stood in a place in the wagon and did not move around a lot. The folks could throw the corn to wherever I was not in the wagon. Usually I stood wherever the pile was the highest, the best vantage point. I had been down in the wagon, pulling shucks or maybe just sitting, and I stood up against the bang board, just as Dad threw the largest ear of corn from the entire corn crop that year. That huge ear of corn hit me across the forehead, halfway between the eyes and the hairline, exactly in the middle of its length. I think that Dad was probably moving to get to me before the ear ever hit me. I am sure that he was sure that he would have a screaming crying kid on his hands the second I had enough breath to make the sounds. I am also sure that the mules would not have taken kindly to a sudden outburst of crying. But for whatever the reason, that ear of corn broke in half. One part banged against the bang board to my left and the other part crashed against the bang board to my right. Dad sometimes called me knot head. I guess that sometimes it pays to be a hardheaded kid. I was not hurt enough to consider crying. And probably the attention I got was also enough to make it worthwhile not to even admit that the blow hurt at all. The two ends were found and we put the ear back together. It was truly a long ear and a big round cob.

About the only other thing I can remember about the mules is seeing them for the last time. In about 1947 Dad bought a 1942 John Deere “B” tractor, it was built the same year I was born. When the tractor came to the farm the mules were sold. Louis Foltz had a trucking company that operated out of Princeton, Kansas, about three miles from the farm. So anything that was sent to market was shipped with the Foltz Truck Lines. The mules had been loaded and the truck was moved out to the head of the lane and was parked under the big elm shade tree. I climbed up the side of the truck and looked at the mules for the last time. I had no way of knowing that I was looking at the end of an era. I would never harness a team of draft animals, perhaps in my entire life. If I ever do it will need to be after the start of 1998. (Now 2008) I would never again drive a team of mules from the work area to the barn to have the harness removed and to be fed. Actually I don’t think I had up to that time. Dad would release the mules from the field equipment, and I was allowed to flip the reins so that they knew to head to the barn. They knew what they were to do. They did not need a kid to guide them anywhere. But I thought that they could not get to the barn without my help. All I really did was follow along. I don’t remember doing even that much more than a couple of times. I could not know it at the time but that was a time that someone should have taken pictures. It is possible that I have helped Harry Schaefer put a harness on his mules, but I have a feeling that I did not do much more than pull the mules tail from beneath the strap that went around the rear. I did help him hook up the team to a wagon a few times, but even that was something that was rare. There was simply no need of me doing anything like that.

I can remember that years later the old harness was still hanging in the barn and I tried to visualize how it would fit the mules. Because the harness had not been touched in years it was dust covered and the spiders had built many webs on, in, and over it, that in itself contributed to a look or mystery. There were a few tools and supplies around that Dad had used to repair the harness. There again there was never any reason to use them and I was never trained to do any work with the leather.

There was a tool that Dad used behind the mules that had always fascinated me. It was called a slip. Basically it was a large shovel that was pulled by a single mule or horse to dig and move earth. In modern times it has been replaced by the Caterpillar or similar machines with a blade and/or bucket on the front. An operator would tie the reins of a single horse together and loop them around his neck so that they were always handy. I think that most of the commands were done verbally. By lifting the handles just right the slip could be filled with dirt or gravel and then pulled elsewhere. Then the handles could be lifted again and the slip dumped. There was some way that the slip could be flipped upside down to the normal orientation and the open end of the slip was pointed back. In that position it was fun to ride along behind the mules or later the tractor. Because the slip was pointed back when it was not being used to move dirt, if I fell out I was simply dumped on the ground and there was very little chance of me getting hurt. Perhaps a bump but at that age I got two or three bumps every day.


A SLIP IN CIMMERON, NEW MEXICO

This picture of a slip was taken in Cimmeron, New Mexico while we on a little vacation down there in 2001. It was at a small museum that was closed when we were there. It is very similar to the one that Dad had with the exception of the handles of his were wood.

Railroads and Major Highways

I came to the conclusion some years ago that nearly all RV campgrounds are near major roads and there will be a railroad somewhere close by. The road may be a major county road and the railroad may not be used much but it will be there. I know that there are exceptions to the rule but by and large it seems to be that way. This campground we are in is only a hundred yards from Interstate 70. It is screened by trees so there is very little traffic sound that penetrates to here. But I had not seen or heard anything that would indicate the presence of a railroad. Several nights ago I was laying awake just thinking when I heard the whistle of train somewhere in the distance. It made me feel good that everything was the way it should be. Being content I drifted off to sleep. A few hours later I was again awake and I heard the whistle again and I know that a smile crossed my face. A couple days later we were traveling along I-70 and I saw that there were quite a few railroad tracks that parallel the highway for a distance. So once again the trend continues.

With going to my high school reunion, visiting with my siblings, spending some time visiting relatives and seeing the grandchildren of friends and family I have have several comments that seem to be running along the same vein. In different way the same questions have been asked, “How did I get to be so old?” or “Where have all the years gone?” I suppose that every person at various times of their lives wonder, “What happened?” John Lennon wrote a song which said, “Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans.” I would like to modify that to “Life is what happens while you are making plans about what to do with your life.” I think that every person has aspirations of doing more than they end up doing in life. Most youths go into the world thinking that they can be the catalyst that will improve the world and it is not until they reach an older age that they find out the world does not want to be changed. Some time in there it is desirable for them to come to the realization that they can be valuable just improving a small portion of their own lives and the few people they come into contact with. I hope that I have been a good influence for some people along the way. I can name many that have been a good influence upon me.

While we were still in Texas we bought some solar powered lights. We bought several types and sizes. I have been thinking that it would be nice to have some setting by our motorhome when we stopped. But how do you stick them into concrete, or blacktop or gravel in some of the campfrounds. The solution seems to be to invert a red clay flower pot and stick the shaft through the hole in the bottom, which is now the top. I have done that with one light and it seems to be a very good holder. It should work on any surface. We also have a color changing solar flower that we place by the windshield during the day and then take into our bedroom as a nightlight when we go to bed. We don't need the light but it is pleasant to wake up and see it in the corner of the room,

By the time anyone reads this we should have left our camp in Topeka and be heading west along I-70 headed towards Denver. There have been many times that we have traveled that distance in 12 hours, but this time we figure it should be about 7 days.

I have said that I would add to this some of the places that I have traveled to and think that they would be desirable for anyone to visit. So here is the first one. Eventually there will be 1001 sites, most have not been even selected let along having been written about. If these ever become a book they will need to be put into a better logical order that that in which they were written.

No. 1 – Chalk Cliffs or Monument Rocks



In Gove County, south of Oakley, Kansas and north of Scott City, Kansas is the very first National Natural Landmark in Kansas. It was designated a landmark in 1968. Multiple names are used for this area, Chalk Pyramids, Kansas Pyramids, and Monument Rocks, which is its official name, are ones that have been used to describe this area sometimes referred to as the Badlands of Kansas. Eighty seven million years ago, during the Cretaceous period this area was an ocean which extended from the present day Gulf of Mexico north through Canada. This ocean was filled with calcium shelled microscopic animals, giant oysters, sharks, fish and reptiles. As the larger animals died and settled to the bottom they were covered with a thick limey ooze of dying microscopic shelled creatures from above which settled down like snow. With the passage of time additional layers of sediment created thick beds of material that eventually became chalk, which is a soft limestone. The geological formation, the Niobrara Chalk, is named after bluffs on the Missouri River near the mouth of the Niobrara River in northeast Nebraska. The Smokey Hill River, which has little water now, once had enough flow to carve the chalk deposit into spires and cliffs that are up to seventy feet tall. As the years passed windows and doors were formed. There have been thousands of excellent fossils of sharks, shark’s teeth, fish, and reptiles found in the Niobrara Chalk formation. Monument Rocks was a spiritual location for the Native Americans. It was a landmark for the Butterfield Overland Stage. Ft. Monument was established nearby to protect the Butterfield Trail.

Till later this is Uncle Duck

What A Difference

There is a song that says, “What a difference a day makes, twenty-four little hours.” I rather feel that way this evening. Yesterday at noon we were still in Mission at the Bentsen Grove Resort and tonight we are in Rockport, Texas which is just about two hundred miles north along the bay. In Mission we have been listening to the dove coo all night long. We could not be awake any time during without hearing the birds. We were rather glad that they were not loud but instead they made a gentle sound. I was always led to believe that most kinds of birds went to sleep at night and did not make noise unless they were disturbed in some way. I had to start questioning that when we were in Key West, Florida. In Key West there are a lot of chicken that run free. For the most part they act like the chickens that were on the farm while I was growing up. When it started to get dark the chickens would head to roost up high somewhere and they would not make any noise until it started to get light in the morning. And then the roosters would announce to the world that the sun was about to rise and therefore everything should do the same. However the Key West roosters did not have a schedule like the country roosters. If we got up for any reason and listened we could hear crowing somewhere. There was something rather neat about hearing the roosters and the doves. But here in Rockport the middle of the night is totally silent. Once in a while there is the sound of traffic on the highway but not all that often. A day and two hundred miles makes a big difference.

A lot of times people ask me “Where is home?” I usually answer something like “Wherever I turn off the engine is home because I live in a motor home full time.” While that is very true there is a bit more to it I fact. I have become familiar with several places and they have the home feeling about them. Of course Bentsen Grove Resort and the Mission/McAllen area feels like home. But coming into Rockport here I feel like I am getting home. We have been here many times and very much enjoy driving along the bay shore. So I suppose that it is a place that I could call home. There are a coupld other places that give me the same feeling. Rochester, New York is another one. Oddly enough Wheatridge, Colorado where I spent forty some years almost feels foreign, and Princeton, Kansas has an odd feel to it. I suppose that because my folks are no longer in Princeton it just does not feel right even though I spent all my youth there. So, “Where is home?” I will just have to stick with “Wherever I turn off the ignition.” The interior of my Vectra does not change much but the outside view may be anything.

Before we left Bentsen Grove we were raising a caterpillar that would become a butterfly. When it first came into our possession it was only about an eighth of an inch long and hard to see. It was on some leaves of a blue passion flower. I really did not think that the leaves would stay green long enough for it to reach maturity, but I was wrong. We watched it grow and eat leaves and it did not eat as much as I expected. After about two weeks the plant food was getting old and a bit wilted. The caterpillar seemed to get restless, it was crawling around more than it ever had before. I did not know if it was about to starve or about to change into a chrysalis. We went down to the butterfly park that is near where we live and was able to get a sprig of the plant the it needed to eat. I am not sure that it ever ate any thing but it did use the new sprig as a place to convert to a chrysalis. As we watched it for the next two weeks I became convinced that it had died, It seemed to me that the chrysalis was getting dried and shriveling more ever day. I was so surprised to come back to the camper one day and hear Erma say, “We have a butterfly!” It was a beautiful orange Gulf Frittilary. We let it strengthen its wings for a while and then took it down to the Butterfly Park and let it go. When we opened the butterfly castle it was gone in heartbeat. A short bit later we think we saw it flitting around the flowers there. We thought that it was appropriate that since its last food came from there it should start its butterfly life there.


GULF FRITTILARY BUTTERFLY

It is hard to believe that back about 13 years ago I started writing some of the memories of my life up until about 1960. I picked that year because it was the year that I graduated from high school and left the farm to live elsewhere. For a while I wrote almost every day during my lunch period. I started at that time because it was really the first time that I had an available computer that was good to use. I shared some the writings with a few friends and they told me I should publish them. Publishing may not be what I do with them but I have been thinking about sharing some of them in Uncle Ducks Tracks. I would appreciate comments being added to the blog if you have thoughts. Those will be under "A Kansas Farm Boy”. Also I have been writing about places that I have visited and recommend that other people see them. I have said that I was writing a book. A book does not have to be published to still be a book. I have considered putting that in this blog also. If I alternate the two every other posting there would be an item from “A Thousand And One Things To See In The Forty-Eight Contiguous States.” Again I would appreciate any comments.

GETTING STARTED from "A Kansas Farm Boy"
in the beginning

I came into the world in the usual way. I was the offspring of a Mother, Crystal Katherine and a Father, Lloyd Oral; most people called him Mike, many did not know that was not his given name. I had been in contact with my Mother for about nine months before I was introduced to my Father and siblings. I was actually the fourth child of my parents, but only the third living child. I had a brother, Arlen Dale, that was 11 years older, and a sister, Laura Lea, which was older by four years. There was another brother that did not make it past the first four months after conception. According to my birth certificate my first introduction to the world was at 8:30 PM on March 16, 1942. I was born near Sterling Nebraska in a three-room house on the farm where my Father worked. I do have a picture of the house I was born in. Some years before I took the photograph it had been moved to a new location. The picture was taken between 1958 and 1960 while on a trip to see my Aunt Ruby, Uncle Jim and other relatives in Nebraska. The house had been moved to a farm owned by the Wills, and only about a half-mile from Ruby and Jim’s farm, which was also where Mom was born and raised.


THE HOUSE WHERE I WAS BORN

To say that I was an unwanted child would be an incorrect statement. To say that I was an unwanted pregnancy would be absolutely correct. Two children were enough for Mom and Dad. My folks had some very good friends by the name of Clark and Erma Draper that lived in Olatha, Kansas. Erma told Mom that, “If you don't want this child, I’ll take it. By the time I arrived there was no way that anyone else could have me. It seems that nine months of carrying a child has a way of changing a woman’s mind, at least the mind of a woman with quality. I know of another Erma that felt similar to the way my Mother felt. She too had different feelings when our child was born. It would have taken great physical force to separate Mother and child. After nearly thirty years the same feelings hold true.

Apparently I was not too anxious to enter the new world. Both my parents have told me that the doctor had virtually given up on being able to save my life and was concentrating on saving my Mother. But as you can surmise he was able to save us both. I am really glad of that. There is a condition called yellow jaundice that I had, my Dad has described me as yellow as a banana. I guess that sometimes there were complications to the mental capacity of children with yellow jaundice. I guess I was one of the lucky ones, or perhaps there is something wrong with me. Perhaps I would have been a genius if I hadn’t had that condition. (There needs to be a little humor in here once in a while!)

Naturally I don’t remember anything about life for several years, but I have been told that when I was one I moved to the farm in Princeton, Kansas. The stories about how my parents bought the farm are somewhat vague. Somehow my Grand Father Simon Ural Peace was instrumental in the purchase. I have the feeling that he may have been renting the place and was ready to leave for retirement due to a stroke, and the farm was for sale, so the folks bought it. Actually I believe that he was against my parents purchasing the farm. If memory serves me correctly they paid $50.00 an acre, or $4000.00 for the entire farm. That doesn’t sound like a lot of money but it was a substantial amount back in 1943. When I bought my first house Mom asked me if I made a payment once or twice a year. They made a payment twice a year of a few hundred dollars.


Of the first several years I do not have many memories and that is normal I understand. So about all I can say is that I think I had the normal upbringing of a common Kansas kid

Till later this is Uncle Duck

A Live CD

I have had several people tell me that they keep looking at my blog sites and they do not find anything new. I have to apologize for being so casual in the upkeep of the blogs. My only excuse or reason is that I simply do not have the time available to do like I should. Part of that is due to the fact that my wife is spending a lot more time on the web. To combat that in part I have been trying to repair my old Kaypro laptop computer . The bottom line to that is that it would not be prudent to put much money into the repair. I would like to repair the computer so that I would have the experience and learning opportunity that doing it would give me. Alas I am afraid that any repairs would be pouring good money down a hole with an old computer at the bottom of it. A friend of mine whose knowledge is a lot greater than mine suspects that the motherboard may be starting to fail. Since the main hard drive seems to have failed the alternative is to run off a “Live CD” with Linux on it. Linux seems to be a good alternative to Windows. It is promoted as a better operating system by many people and I like it so far. The CD that I am using has Linux “Mint” on it.

Using Linux will help me have computer time while my wife is on the Internet so that I can get caught up on my writing. I have something that might help you, my reader/followers, to know when I add something to the blog. I want you know that I found this in the October 2009 issue of Smart Computing. I have not tried it myself, but I will, so I cannot tell you for sure how well it works. Sign up for a free account on Follow That Page. This will alert you to any changes that are done to a Web site by sending you an e-mail. Since the word blog is short for “Web Log” the blogs that I write are in actuality a “mini” web site. Follow that page will check up to 100 pages (blogs or whatever) per day. Personally I will never have more than a hundred things I follow, more likely less that a dozen actually. To sign up for this free service go to this website. www.followthatpage.com

I took a break just now and told a friend about this site, he went there and told me that there is a great tutorial with it that is very good. He put some of the pages he follows in it and will let me know how he likes it.

The park here is really getting to be devoid of people. Yesterday my wife said something to the effect of “There is a car!” Now it is rather bad when seeing a car is unusual. We see quite a few golf carts going by but not very many cars. In addition to that I know of several people that are still going to leave within the next two weeks. This is like two different places, one in winter and one in summer. I was invited to join the daily bored meeting by a fellow who will be here another month. He says it is spelled “bored” because if I get bored I should go.

I have done a little work with a program called “Crossloop”. It is a program that will couple two computers together across the Internet. If a person is having trouble with their computer and I can help but I am in Texas and they are in Illinois what do we do. I can talk on the phone, or send e-mails even with a short video and that might work. But as you know that is often difficult to do. With Crossloop loaded on each computer I can see their screen, control their cursor and its actions while the person elsewhere can see what I am doing on their screen. www.crossloop.com It may prove to be a very valuable tool. I have only used it once but already I like it.

I have been impressed with the beauty of Monarch Butterflies ever since the first time I remember seeing one. Last year I saw a picture of Monarch caterpillar and I was impressed by its colors. Now this month I have seen several of the chrysalis of the Monarch butterfly and was amazed at the gold colored spots on it. I have also seen the eggs and the tiny little caterpillars. When they are first hatched they are no more than a speck. I hope to get some more pictures of the Monarch yet this month.


CATERPILLAR STAGE OF A MONARCH BUTTERFLY

When I came down last fall a friend asked if he could use my computer to harvest his crops in “Farmville”. It was unfortunate that I watched him play the game which is found on Facebook. I kept thinking about it and finally a few weeks ago I looked at it. Now I can spend hours on the computer playing a game. The novelty will wear down some but right at the moment I spend a lot of computer time doing that. My wife also has a farm and a cafe and I think she also started another game that our daughter says is more fun than Farmville. It is amazing what can grab a persons attention. There is a lady here in the park that belongs to a group that says, “Friends don't let friends get addicted to Farmville.” Maybe I am not addicted yet. There was a time that I spent a lot of time with the game of Myst and also Age Of Empires. Both those were fun games, but at least they were on CDs.

I have something like sixty gigabytes of video that I have taken that is residing on the hard drive of my computer that I need to get edited and put on to DVDs. It is no wonder that my hard drive is getting full. I figure that just editing the videos will reduce it to 10 gigs. The videos are mostly of the line dance class and I am going to make a second instructional DVD.

Till later this is Uncle Duck

Bawk, Bawk

There is a place in McAllen, Texas called Quinta Mazatlan. In Spanish it means "country estate". It is part of the World Birding Center. There are always a lot of birds there to see. Since it is spring there is more activity than a lot of the rest of the year. When spring is in the air even the birds start thinking about romance. The Plain Chachalacas were making so much noise that it almost hurt our ears. The Black Bellied Whistling ducks were checking out the nesting cavities and doing a bit of romancing. It was rather strange to see a duck climbing the side of a tree and poking their heads into cavities. In addition to those there were many other small birds around the center. This is the first time that I have seen the green parakeets doing any nest cavity searches.


BLACK BELLIED WHISTLING DUCKS LOOKING FOR A NEST


THIS ONE HAS GOOD POSSIBILITIES


GREEN PARAKEETS CHECKING OUT A NEST CAVITY

We joke here in Bentsen Grove RV Resort that all a person has to do is step outside and holler, "Anyone want to go eat?", and there will be six people that will call back, "Where you going and how soon. To me that is absolutely great. Carry that idea just a little bit farther and tell people that you have a desire to do something fun and a dozen people will volunteer to help you make it better and more fun. People will go out of their way to make it a success. I can only say that those same people make this a wonderful park and every one of them are valuable to me. The following video is one of those things that people are willing to do. As you can guess it took a lot longer to get together than it took to shoot the video.


BAWK, BAWK

Sometimes in life the very smallest thing becomes a very long lasting fun thing. The Cadbury Easter Egg was introduced in the United States in 1971. One early commercial featured a bunny that was interviewing to advertise the egg. Another commercial featured a little boy that was dressed in a chicken costume. At the end of the commercial he flapped his arms and went "BAWK, BAWK". For whatever reason we nearly fell off the chairs laughing at the boy. That commercial has stuck with us all year long and especially around Easter for nearly forty years. To the best of my recollection every Easter since that time we have celebrated Easter with a gift of some sort with a reference to "BAWK, BAWK" for our daughter. I think this is the same little boy in the video that starred in the original commercial. As you see when you view he has aged to perfection and has retained every bit of his talent.

Till later this is Uncle Duck

Is Spring Here Yet?

It is hard to believe that it has been over a month since I have written anything for this. (I also cannot believe that I have not been able to publish this video for a week!) Yes I have been more busy than usual but I hardly thinks that is an excuse for me to not write some of the activities that have been going on around here and in my life. It amazes me that so many people are leaving for the cold north. I have heard of all kinds of reasons, grandchildren, taxes, births (more grandchildren), graduations, wanting to visit other places (that I understand), injuries or illness of family, and numerous others. Whatever the reason, no matter how valid the reason, I am glad that I do not have to leave soon.

I have to admit that the season is starting to wind down. This shows in a couple obvious ways here in the area of Bentsen Grove. First and most obvious is the fact that MANY places are vacant not only in this park but also in the camps that are close to here. I have not seen a lot of parks that are distant from here but I am sure that every park is starting to have vacant space across the whole Rio Grande Valley. The other sign that the season end is not too far away is the fact that every performance group is having a show here in the park. We have had shows by the cloggers, Little Theater, Kitchen Band, Men of Accord, the Spring Cantata, the American/Canadian softball game was played, the line dancers will soon have their show. Sure it took a while for these groups to get their "acts" together and then they have to have the show before the participants leave. Another sign is that many of the citrus trees are becoming bare, at least as high as a man on a short ladder can reach, and the trees are turning white with blossoms. With the end of one season another season is about to begin and things will simply change slightly and the activities will become different.

I don't think that I have written anything here about food or at least it has not been anything to speak of. It would not be any stretch of the imagination to believe that being only three miles from the Mexico border would ensure a great many GOOD Mexican restaurants. When I was in Canada I was not surprised that it was hard to find a Mexican restaurant let alone one that was good. But this close to the border there should be many very good restaurants. I have not found that to be the case here in the Mission area. There are a lot of Mexican restaurants around here and maybe some of them are good. I just wish that I could find one. One of the things that most of them have is good refritos. But that is not enough to call it a good place. Nearly all of them have serve meat that is so tough that it needs to be pulverized once more before serving. Many times the food is not hot. A dish that is supposed to have melted cheese and has shredded cheese that is not even warm is not appetizing. It also seems that most place have salsa that is more water than anything else. Dipping a chip into watery salsa is not easy at any rate. I don't think it should be that the best chips for dipping should be found in places like Applebees or Chili's. I have several place to try yet but I don't have a lot of hope. I may have to go back to Denver and go to one of several good places there. I know of a good Mexican restaurant in Brownsville but that is too far to drive for a quick meal.

A few days ago I went with some friends to one of the nearby nature preserves. There were quite a few ducks, egrets and anhingas there. The highlight of the visit was seeing and being able to video a vermilion flycatcher. One one hand I was very happy with the quality that my video camera was able to take and on the other hand I was disappointed with the poor quality that my digital camera was able to get. The flycatcher was a long way away and my digital camera was being hand held, so there really was nothing that I could have done different. Well maybe a bigger lens and a second tripod. The vermilion flycatcher is a very beautiful bird and I was lucky to be able to film it.



I have never considered myself a good photographer. I feel that a lot of times good equipment and taking a lot of pictures allows me to jump the gap to a point that my pictures look good. I have taken pictures of the park residents here to put up on the park picture board this year. So far I have taken 134 pictures with two people in most of the pictures. Because the pictures I have taken have been seen by many people I have been asked to photograph or even video some of the productions that have been put on here. I was just recently asked to take an official photo of the King and Queen of the park. I never know when I will be asked to photograph somebody. I was recently asked to photograph the kids of one of the workers. Just have to set a time.

Till later this is Uncle Duck

A Fun Night

It seems like the life I expected when retirement time came along is just a pipe dream. I am not saying in any way that what I am doing is not what I want to do. It is just that it is not what I imagined it would be. When I lived in Wheat Ridge, Colorado I considered building on an addition to our house. I envisioned a solar room that would face the morning sun. In certain respects it would have been an easy addition to do, but likely more difficult than it was in my mind. I would not try to list the number of quick and easy jobs that I started that ended up being slow and hard before they were done. At any rate I thought of myself getting up in the morning, fixing breakfast, and sitting in the solar room drinking coffee and watching the birds and squirrels in our yard while I read the newspaper or a book. All that still sounds good except for the coffee drinking. It sounds odd to say but in 1996 I quit drinking coffee, mostly by a fluke of circumstance. Somehow sitting and drink a glass of water does not seem to have the same pleasure impact of coffee or perhaps cocoa in the winter.

A lot of other things changed too. One of the biggest changes in direction was deciding that after forty years of thinking of traveling in a motorhome and seeing the country it should be a reality. So we sold the house and any dropped any possibility of building a solar room and went on the road. For several years we did whatever our whim directed us to do. There was a few thing that we did because it was one of the "right" things to do. We have seen some people that are no longer alive and are really glad we added them to our agenda. I think that our summers are going to continue that way, but it feels like our winters are changing.

When we first came to Bentsen Grove Resort we spent a lot of time attending the activities that were going on and we did not have any duties or anywhere we felt we had to be at any particular time. That started to change when I said I could burn a single custom CD of music for the instructor of the line dancing class. That led to more custom CDs for him and also for other people. Then that led to making many copies of that CD for the dancers in the class. The whole idea was to have all the songs that they dance to on one CD, but every time there are a few new songs to dance to there needs to be a new CD produced. Last year I decided that it would be a really good thing if someone was to make an instructional DVD so that the dancers could have something to watch and practice with when they were away from that "classroom" and at home. I cannot volunteer anyone else to do that no matter how good the idea might be. So the idea rattled around in my mind till I bought a camcorder last summer. I have taken many hours of video of the instruction and the class dancing. I was very naive in my estimation of the time it would require to produce a simple DVD. With no instruction from anyone that had done it I have struggled and stumbled to finally create a DVD. I am not about to say it is good, but I am willing to say it is better than nothing. Now I have a lot more respect for the editors of film that I did before. I do not think it would be wrong to say that for every minute of video that I used I discarded an hour of video, maybe more. In the process I have learned a tremendous amount about what works and what is best ignored. This is just dance class.

In the Computer Club I have been teaching (leading, directing, being mouthy in) the second, so called advanced session of the weekly meeting. I have very much decided that all it takes to become known as computer savvy is to know just one thing more than somebody else. To get that way it only takes a willingness to experiment with the different programs on a computer and not be afraid to try doing something you have not done before and learn from the mistakes made. I have told people that I am willing to help them with their computers and am willing to help them figure out what they need to know. This has led to a lot of evenings that went till 9:00 (sometimes later) of helping with a computer. That led to my suggesting that we set aside an hour, three times a week, to have a personal help workshop. That has been a lot more valuable than I would have guessed. It has also been a lot more time consuming than I hoped. Basically a lot of computer help needs take more than an hour to satisfy. Some problems can be fixed in just a couple minutes of time. I did not have to make more that the suggestion to have several people want to help. It has been good for the people that showed up to ask a question.

Recently when a front was pushed further south than normally happens a lot of the vegetation got frost damaged. A lot of plants that I have never seen without leaves have lost all their leaves. I have been spoiled in the years past here by no frost or freezing temperatures. The citrus trees do not seem to have been damaged very much. There is still so much fruit that is available that it is hard to believe. I get an offer of fruit nearly every day.

The show season is in full swing here at Bentsen Grove. There seems to be at least three professional shows a week, for which tickets have to be purchased. Then there are shows that are put on by the park residents strictly for the park residents. While the talent may be lacking in some cases it is so much fun to see people we know on stage. The most recent show was a "Fun Night With The Stars". The residents dressed up like singers and lip synced with some song of the star. Some were good enough that it was hard to tell they were not doing the actual singing. The hall was full of people that were having a good time.


THREE FRIENDS LIP SYNCING AS THE SOGGY BOTTOM BOYS

No to be right honest I never heard of the Soggy Bottom Boys either, but I have heard of the Foggy Mountain Boys. The song they sang was from "Oh Brother, Wherefore Art Thou." So maybe the singers in the movie went by that name.

Both Erma and I have been messing around with colds or something similar. I am not sure if whatever it is that I have is contagious or not. But I have been limiting my public activities to a minimal amount. It has caused some increased duties for others but I would guess that they would rather do more and have me keep the germs at home. At least I hope they think that, I would if the tables were changed.

Till later this is Uncle Duck

A BUSY Typical Day

I am very well aware that the weather here in tip of Texas is a lot warmer than it is most places in the USA. It has only gotten down to about 31 degrees for a few hours last night and maybe 32 the night before. Tonight will be somewhat higher and the temperature into the 60's tomorrow. That is a lot better than anywhere else I have heard about. Still when I retired I made a vow to go further south whenever it got too cold to wear sandals. AND IT IS TOO COLD TO WEAR SANDALS NOW! But where would I go, I am only about three miles from the Mexico border and I do not have a passport. I guess that I will just have to tough it out. In one of the blogs I follow, a daily photo blog, there was a picture of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada where the wind chill factor was down to -54 degrees. With that in consideration I guess that long pants and a flannel shirt for a couple days is not hard to take after all.

Every day here in Bentsen Grove is busy. I often think I would just enjoy a while at home to work on some project of my own without feeling obligated to help someone else or feel that I should be going to some activity in which I want to participate. Everything I do is something that I have volunteered to do for several different reasons, all of which I enjoy doing. So this comment is simply a statement and not a complaint by any means. At the end of the winter season these activities will go away and I will have plenty of time to pursue my own personal activities. I say all of this so that I can write about yesterday. It was similar to most days, but a bit fuller than usual.

I was up and ready for line dancing class from 9:00 to 12:00. There is a class four days a week, some mornings, some afternoon. While I have not been dancing all the dances because my knee has been acting up again, I have been trying to video the dances and eventually create a dance instructional video. So the whole time was busy with one thing or the other. Next was a period of time devoted to a computer workshop period. There are many people here in the park that need help with the use of computers whose needs are being addressed inadequately (at least in my opinion). So this last week I decided that to salve my conscience I had to do something. That something was to offer a workshop, with other volunteers, for individual assistance to people. Lacking a real plan, I simply said that I would be in a room every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday between 12:00 and 1:00. So I had to be ready for the workshop as soon as I was done with dancing. In actuality I was ready about 11:30. That was good because people showed up early, as they should. Other helpers showed up a few minutes early, which is even better. There is no way that I could do it by myself. Even after only three workshops that is evident. It was supposed to last until 1:00. That is written with a #2 pencil on paper and we have a big eraser. So it really lasted till 2:00. We did provide a lot of help for several people. The time would have been alright except for the fact that my quilling class started at 1:00 and I don't want to miss that. I walked home quickly and dropped off my computer, my cameras and my tripod, grabbed my box of quilling supplies and got to class over an hour late. That was still okay because I could stay and work by myself for as long as I wanted after the theoretical class ended. By 5:00 I was getting hungry, it was a long time since breakfast so I quit and went home to a meal that was nearly ready.

The instructor of the quilling class had asked me how he could get a better copy of a picture of a Monarch butterfly that he needed and was there a way to make it a different size. I told him that I would try to scan it with the computer and make something that was good. After eating I worked a while on the picture, which was B&W and came up three different sizes on a single sheet of paper so that his quillers would have a choice of sizes. Plus I went to the WWW and got a couple color pictures of Monarch butterflies so they could have a better idea of the colors for quilling. I took the pictures to his home and he wanted my opinion on some quilling that he is doing. I feel a bit odd about that because I have only been doing quilling for a few months during the last year. It may be that because I do not feel the need for strict patterns that he believes I can "think outside the box." That is a compliment to me I believe. Then on the way home I was walking along the street past a unit here in the park. I heard someone pounding on the window and looked towards it and I see an arm waving me to come over to the house. It was a request to go get Erma and come back and play a game called Pegs and Jokers with the people that lived there. We have been wanting to do just that for a couple months, but have never gotten it done. We accepted and we had a very enjoyable social evening until nearly 10:00.

This was a nearly typical day for me. Any part is not unusual at all. What is unusual is to do it all in a single day. I want to be somewhere in the South to be away from the cold weather. So we have a limited area in which to winter, the southern parts of Florida, California, Arizona, or Texas. It is because of the activities here and days like Friday that make it worth while to be here in Mission Texas.

I have mentioned my taking quilling in this and a time or two before. Quilling or paper filigree is the art of rolling thin strips of paper into different shapes and using the shapes to form designs. Quilling has been around since the Renaissance age. I started doing it in December of 2008. I quit working on it during the summer but got back into it when I returned to Bentsen Grove this season. Mostly I have been working on creating special Christmas Tree ornaments. I take a simple Christmas ball and decorate it by gluing on shaped pieces of paper. I do not have a pattern and simply place the paper where I think it looks good. I have given several as gifts, but I forgot to take pictures of them. These three are not quite complete but at least I have pictures of them. These will be complete before long and I can give them as gifts to someone also.


CHRISTMAS ORNAMENTS DECORATED WITH A QUILLING TECHNIQUE

It will not be to long before it is time to go to bed so maybe I should close this out. If you are in a place that is too cold you should think about coming down here in the Valley where a LOW temperature is freezing or just close to it.

Till later this is Uncle Duck