Nipping Puppy Biting in the Bud. Dog Training. Pets In Cold. Pig Abuse. Reasons Not To Eat Pork. Southern U.S. Border. Ferdinand And Imelda Marcos.

 

For "Mammal Monday":

Nipping Puppy Biting in the Bud

"It is often a challenge to convince a new enthusiastic puppy not to bite the hand that feeds him, pets him, and plays with him. Nipping and mouthing is a very common and very normal puppy behavior.

When puppies play with each other, they use their mouths, so they tend to do the same thing when they interact with people. This is rarely an aggressive behavior intended to harm you, but it can be a difficult habit to break without some good, practical tools in your “puppy training tool bag.”

The worst thing you can do is physically punish your pup for this natural behavior, although many people incorrectly do so.

Most normal puppy mouthiness just goes away on its own, regardless of how much or how little puppy parents do to stop it, once puppies acquire their adult teeth

Instead of punishment, the use of positive distraction and the encouragement of acceptable behavior are far better approaches, yielding much better results. This article is intended to help you manage puppy nipping effectively, while at the same time helping you build a good relationship with your puppy, based on trust rather than fear."    More at: http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2009/08/13/nipping-puppy-biting-in-the-bud.aspx

and more at: http://raisinghealthydogs.com/how-to-nip-puppy-nipping-in-the-bud

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Don’t Make This Tragic Mistake When Your Dog Misbehaves

"This is a sickening, heart-wrenching story I’d rather not repeat, but there’s an important message in it, so I hope you’ll bear with me.

A one year-old dog was injured so severely by misuse of a choke collar that he had to be euthanized. The owner suspended the dog a few feet off the ground with a choke collar for a full minute as a disciplinary tactic. When the dog was lowered to the ground, he was panicked and ultimately lost consciousness.

An exam at the veterinary clinic where the dog was taken showed brain injury and severe brain swelling. The ultimate diagnosis was strangulation and the dog’s injuries were so severe he had to be euthanized.

Positive Reinforcement Dog Training in 5 Simple Steps

The goal is to use very small-sized treats (pea sized is good, and you can even use frozen peas if your dog seems to like them) and verbal praise and affection to encourage desired behaviors in your dog.

1. Come up with short, preferably one-word commands for the behaviors you want to teach your pet. Examples are Come, Sit, Stay, Down, Heel, Off, etc. Make sure all members of your family consistently use exactly the same command for each behavior.
2. As soon as your dog performs the desired behavior, reward him immediately with a treat and verbal praise. Do this every time he responds appropriately to a command. You want him to connect the behavior he performed with the treat. This of course means you’ll need to have treats on you whenever you give your dog commands in the beginning.
3. Keep training sessions short and fun. You want your dog to associate good things with obeying your commands. You also want to use training time as an opportunity to deepen your bond with your pet.
4. Gradually back off the treats and use them only intermittently once your dog has learned a new behavior. Eventually they’ll no longer be necessary, but you should always reward your dog with verbal praise whenever he obeys a command.
5. Continue to use positive reinforcement to maintain the behaviors you desire. Reward-based training helps create a range of desirable behaviors in your pet, which builds mutual feelings of trust and confidence."

More at: http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2013/12/27/dog-behavior-training.aspx

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Back to Basics: 10 Great Dog Training Tips

"Everyone realizes there’s a big difference between a well-mannered canine citizen and an unpredictable, out-of-control dog. But often dog owners develop bad training habits without realizing it, and are left feeling confused and concerned about their dog’s uncooperative behavior."  Article at: http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2013/11/29/10-dog-training-tips.aspx

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10 Tips to Keep Your Pet Safe in Cold Weather

"Depending on where you live, you’re bracing for another winter of ice, snow and frigid temperatures. But before we all find our own ways to weather the chill for the next few months, it’s a good time to remember the importance of keeping furry family members as safe, warm and comfortable as we are.

Cold weather can be just as hard on pets as it is on humans – especially for dogs and cats left outdoors for extended periods of time (which I never recommend). Pets left outdoors in cold weather can acquire a wide variety of injuries and illness, not the least of which are hypothermia and frostbite.

Here are some things you can do to keep the four-legged members of your family warm and safe:"  More at: http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2013/12/20/cold-weather-pet-safety-tips.aspx

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Animal Abuse At Former Walmart Pork Supplier Caught On Camera at Tyson (GRAPHIC VIDEO)

"Walmart's meat suppliers have been under intense scrutiny for their treatment of animals, and this is the fourth undercover investigation regarding the chain's pork suppliers by the group. First very upsetting video, Hidden-camera footage from another farm  that supplies pork to the retailer was released last month that allegedly showed pigs confined to gestation crates and workers throwing piglets on their heads. 

Second video, very cruel and graphic. Be considerate and think twice before sharing." http://youtu.be/SArGyNusR_Y

More at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/21/animal-abuse-walmart-pork-supplier_n_4312183.html

Please sign petition at: https://www.change.org/petitions/tell-tyson-to-stop-torturing-pigs

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From me:  I sometimes wonder if The Lord told us not to eat pork in Leviticus 11, because he knew how much the pigs would have to suffer to be in our food chain.  Apart from that:

"Every animal has its purpose. Scavengers, such as pigs, are designed to clean—not to be eaten by humans, only by other carnivorous animals.

A pig’s digestive system—unlike a cow’s—is not designed to filter toxins from its system. These toxins work their way through the pig and are deposited in the animal’s flesh—especially in its fat. The pig itself is actually able to sustain very high levels of toxins. As such, it can eat just about anything. In an effort to keep feed costs down, pig farmers will purchase garbage, such as rotting meat and vegetables, to feed them—and the pigs can be sustained with it. There is nothing in the pig’s digestive system, or the processing of the meat, that removes these toxins.

Some of the “cleaning” features of the pig are remarkable. One is located under its hooves. Often referred to as poison ducts or running sores, these “sores” act as a conduit for poisons to ooze from the pig’s body. This is one reason pigs can eat poisonous snakes that would kill other creatures and not be affected themselves. These ducts, however, will often become “plugged” from the amount of toxins pigs must excrete from their bodies. If this is the case, a farmer must quickly slaughter the pig and send it to market before it dies. Accordingly, the meat from such an animal is riddled with parasites and toxins.

The toxicity of the pig is not just limited to its meat and organs. Even its saliva can be horribly infectious. In fact, one disease, called “mad itch,” will cause a cow to rub all the skin from its mouth—to the point of killing itself. All that is required for cows to contract this disease is to come in contact with the residue of a pig’s saliva on shared food supplies!"  More at: http://realtruth.org/articles/263-apt.html

Even Joel Osteen has switched to turkey bacon:

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"A pig is a real garbage gut. It will eat anything including urine, excrement, dirt, decaying animal flesh, maggots, or decaying vegetables. They will even eat the cancerous growths off other pigs or animals.  The meat and fat of a pig absorbs toxins like a sponge. Their meat can be 30 times more toxic than beef or venison.

The pig is so poisonous and filthy, that nature had to prepare him a sewer line or canal running down each leg with an outlet in the bottom of the foot. Out of this hole oozes pus and filth his body cannot pass into its system fast enough. Some of this pus gets into the meat of the pig."  From: http://www.9jabook.com/forum/topics/15-things-you-should-know-about-pigs-their-meat

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On This Day:

Southern U.S. border established, Dec 30, 1853:

Territorial expansion of the United States, the Gadsden Purchase shown in red-orange.

The border between Mexico and the United States spans six Mexican states and four U.S. states, and has over twenty commercial railroad crossings.

"James Gadsden, the U.S. minister to Mexico, and General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, the president of Mexico, sign the Gadsden Purchase in Mexico City. The treaty settled the dispute over the location of the Mexican border west of El Paso, Texas, and established the final boundaries of the southern United States. For the price of $15 million, later reduced to $10 million, the United States acquired approximately 30,000 square miles of land in what is now southern New Mexico and Arizona.

Jefferson Davis, the U.S. secretary of war under President Franklin Pierce, had sent Gadsden to negotiate with Santa Anna for the land, which was deemed by a group of political and industrial leaders to be a highly strategic location for the construction of the southern transcontinental railroad.

It was James Gadsden who was influential in the convention’s recommending a southern route for the proposed railroad, beginning in Texas and ending in San Diego or Mazatlán. Southerners hoped that such a route would ensure southern prosperity while opening the “West to southern influence and settlement.”"

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Marcos inaugurated,  Dec 30, 1965:

"Former Philippines Senate president Ferdinand Marcos is inaugurated president of the Southeast Asian archipelago nation. Marcos' regime would span 20 years and become increasingly authoritarian and corrupt.

After substantial evidence of Marcos' corruption emerged, including the looting of billions of dollars from the Philippine economy, Marcos and his wife were indicted by the U.S. government on embezzlement charges. After Ferdinand Marcos' death in 1989, Imelda was cleared of the charges, and she was allowed to return to the Philippines in 1991, where she unsuccessfully ran for the presidency the following year.

In 1993, Imelda Marcos was convicted of corruption by a Philippine court, but she avoided serving her 12-year prison sentence. In 1995, she was elected to the House of Representatives. In 1998, she unsuccessfully ran for president again and subsequently retired from political life."

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Imelda Marcos loses her collection of 2,700 pairs of shoes:

   http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2207353/Imelda-Marcos-legendary-3-000-plus-shoe-collection-destroyed-termites-floods-neglect.html

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Yesterday:

Jay came here and wanted to work on something, he was getting bored staying at home.

He won't wear his sling even though he is supposed to have a broken right arm, so he was able to cut some lattice with my lightweight circular saw, and we completed two sections of one of the cross fences yesterday.

King Ranch, TX. Where the Santa Gertrudis Roam. First Parachutist. Cuban Missile Crisis.

 

For "Travel Tuesday", Let's visit the King Ranch in The Texas Gulf Coast Region:

"Home to some of the best beaches in America, the Texas Gulf Coast region draws millions of visitors to this Texas playground. Stretching some 350 miles from South Padre Island & the Rio Grande Valley, all the way to Beaumont & the Louisiana border, this region is renowned for its wildlife & natural beauty, as well as the home of America's space program. Discover the Beaches of the Texas Gulf Coast Region."

King Ranch, located in South Texas between Corpus Christi and Brownsville, is one of the largest ranches in the world.

The King Ranch comprises 825,000 acres (3,340 km²; 1,289 sq mi) and was founded in 1853 by Captain Richard King and Gideon K. Lewis, includes portions of six Texas counties, including most of Kleberg County and much of Kenedy County, with portions extending into Brooks, Jim Wells,Nueces, and Willacy Counties. The ranch does not consist of one single contiguous plot of land, but rather four large sections called divisions. The divisions are the Santa Gertrudis, the Laureles, the Encino and the Norias. Only two of the four divisions border each other, and that border is relatively short. The ranch was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961.

As the home of 60,000 cattle and 300 Quarter Horses, King Ranch is one of the largest ranches in the world today. In addition to the properties in South Texas, King Ranch also maintains farming land in Florida.

In addition to cattle, King Ranch raises quarter horses, cutting horses and thoroughbreds, and produced the 1946 US Triple Crown winner Assault and 1950 Kentucky Derby winner Middleground. They also owned a share of La Troienne, the greatest broodmare of the 20th century. The King Ranch had the honor of raising the first quarter horse registered with the American Quarter Horse Association. The stallion's name was Wimpy P-1 and he was given registration number one. In addition, the King Ranch company operates a local museum, maintains other property concerns and works with Texas A&M University to perform agricultural research and development.

Logo on Ford F150

In 2001, Ford Motor Company added a King Ranch edition to their F-150 truck line, complete with the King Ranch cattle brand in the logo. In 2003, Ford added King Ranch packages to its Super Duty lineup, as well as the Expedition SUV.

Nilgai

An unusual animal seen in the King Ranch is the nilgai, largest Asian antelope, which were imported from India. As they usually are born in twins, eventually the nilgai started competing with the ranch's cows, and the ranch allowed hunters to come in and hunt the animals. They would gather several (somewhere around 30) each night. This no longer occurs, but the rapidity of this process caused the Texas nilgai to become extremely wary of humans, and they bolt at the sight of vehicles, running nearly as fast as horses."  More at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Ranch

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Where the Santa Gertrudis Roam

(Photo by Will van Overbeek)

"How does one convey the breadth of King Ranch in the annals of Texas history?

The enormity of the land, its outsized characters and veneer of impenetrability, the iconic Running W brand—taken as a whole it can be a tad overwhelming. Perhaps it’s best to let the experience wash over you in a warm embrace.

At least that’s what I told my daughters, ages three and six, who made no attempt to mask their indifference as we prepared to embark on a tour of the legendary South Texas ranch.

The night before, our guide had advised wearing long pants and closed-toe shoes, preferably boots. It was rattlesnake season and the staff had recently caught an especially large rattler, which, she joked, had tasted like chicken.

My eldest daughter, Ana Josefa, overheard her mother and me debating comfortable clothes versus the likelihood of crossing paths with a venomous snake.

“There’ll be snakes?” Ana Josefa interjected.

I offered a bit of sage advice my father had once given me. “Yes, there will be snakes, but remember, you don’t have to be faster than the snake, only faster than the slowest person in the group,” I assured her.

And so, as the four of us piled into the car for the 110-mile trip north from our home in McAllen, I hoped I hadn’t pushed the girls too far.

King Ranch is divided into four divisions: Santa Gertrudis, Laureles, Norias, and Encino. Toni Mason, our guide, was waiting for us at the visitor center on Santa Gertrudis, wearing boots with her jeans tucked inside. King Ranch offers one-and-a-half-hour guided bus tours on a daily basis, but we had signed up for one of the ranch’s “special interest tours,” which last from four to eight hours and are catered to the visitor’s interests, from cattle-ranching to bird-watching.

Our tour began with a 20-minute film in the visitor center that covered the evolution of the ranch, from a single Spanish land grant to an expansive multi-generational empire, and finally, a modern corporate enterprise.

The story begins in 1853, when Richard King, a steamboat captain on the Rio Grande, purchased the 15,500-acre Rincon de Santa Gertrudis land grant. He acquired other tracts over the years and recruited cowboys from Mexico, who came to be known as Kineños, or King’s men, to work his burgeoning empire.

In 1885, dying of cancer, King urged his family to never sell a foot of the land. At its zenith, the ranch comprised 1.25 million acres, but it would not last. Partition of the estate among heirs, and the emergence of the city of Kingsville, trimmed the ranch to an area comparable to Rhode Island. And though its 825,000 acres still make King Ranch one of the largest in the country, those classic, craggy-faced-Marlboro-esque cowboys riding aside a wave of Santa Gertrudis cattle represent only part of the operation.

Today the ranch generates earnings from a variety of sources, including the cattle business, hunting, minerals, turfgrass, farming, farm equipment, King Ranch Saddle Shop, Kingsville Publishing Company, and ecotourism. In 1961, the ranch expanded beyond Texas with the acquisition of farming land in Florida, and nowadays the company is one of the largest citrus growers in the Sunshine State. The next time you drink Tropicana orange juice, think King Ranch.

At the conclusion of the video, we browsed the gift shop for souvenirs, settling for a pair of translucent candies, each with an entombed scorpion, and a box of cow-shaped chocolate cookies. In the parking lot, beyond a group of winter Texans aboard a bus tour, Toni was waiting to begin our private tour in a Chevy Suburban.

We had just departed the visitor center and rounded the first bend when the girls burst with excitement at the sight of a pair of Longhorns in the shade of a mesquite tree. A small Longhorn herd will always have a home on King Ranch out of admiration for the iconic breed, but it is the famed Santa Gertrudis—a cross between Shorthorns and Brahmas—for which the ranch is best known.

King Ranch developed the Santa Gertrudis breed for hot and humid climates. (Photo by Will van Overbeek)

We then traversed the old Corpus Christi-to-Matamoros road that cuts across the ranch. During the Civil War, King used the road to clandestinely transport cotton to the Rio Grande and onto ships in the Gulf of Mexico bound for markets in Europe, avoiding the Union blockade. I tried to imagine what it would have been like to travel through this expansive, semi-arid patchwork of dense mesquite brush and pasture atop sandy loam. Though the region is still in the midst of a drought, we were fortunate to witness the parched landscape transformed from dun-colored to a lush green after a spot of rain.

Throughout the tour, the girls kept watch for wildlife listed on checklists that Toni had given them at the visitor center. It would take a week to check every animal off the list, but we made a respectable dent that day. With Toni’s help, Ana Josefa spotted a red-eared slider turtle (sitting calmly in the middle of the road), a northern cardinal, a pair of wild turkeys, and a scissor-tailed flycatcher. My wife pointed out dozens of pipevine swallowtail butterflies and a snowy egret. Even our youngest daughter, Matilda, added to the growing collection, extending her chubby finger in the direction of a crested caracara.

As we weaved our way through the pastureland and brush, the girls’ eyes peeled for snakes, I was hoping for bigger game—alligators. Just then we saw three sets of eyes break the surface of Borregos Lake, which had been replenished the week before by the rain. Toni informed us that these were the progeny of specimens gifted to the ranch years ago—and the reason that swimming is no longer a favorite pastime.

As our guide scanned her GPS for directions—it is a very big ranch, after all—Ana Josefa commented that the ground appeared to be moving beneath us. Fat red ants crawled over the caliche road. “They’re a favorite of the horned toad,” Toni explained.

At our next stop, we stepped out of the Suburban to visit the old horse track, lined by salt cedars, and pay our respects at the grave of the thoroughbred Assault, the only Texas horse to win the vaunted Triple Crown of horse-racing.

We sidled up to a beautiful Quarter Horse nearby, its sorrel coat shimmering in the sunlight. Ana Josefa grabbed a fistful of hay and fearlessly allowed the horse to lip it out of her hand. She wondered aloud if these were the same horses we had seen in the film several hours earlier. I was impressed—she had actually paid attention. Matilda, on the other hand, had no use for the animal towering over her.

I managed to pull our budding horse whisperer away from the corral and continue our tour past the ranch-style homes where some descendants of the Kineños still live. On certain days, visitors can listen to retired cowboy Lolo Trevino tell about the generations-old tradition of weaving saddle blankets, but alas, our group had no such luck. Next we slowly approached the sprawling 17-bedroom Mediterranean-style main house, completed in 1915, where Henrietta King—Richard’s widow—once lived. Peacocks still roam beneath the property’s shady live oaks.

After nearly four hours, our tour of the ranch had ended. We said goodbye to Toni and headed into Kingsville to visit the King Ranch Saddle Shop at the corner of 6th Street and Kleberg Avenue, Kingsville’s historic main drag. Inside the shop, the intoxicating tang of new leather hung in the air, daring us to resist rows of beaded leather belts and intricately engraved leather boots.

In the corner of the shop, amid piles of raw leather and saddles, Robert Salas dunked his hand in a tin of water stained brown, dampened a small piece of leather, and with a 10-pound mallet, stamped the Running W brand into its side. Since the early 1970s, Salas has been shaping leather, working his way up from chaps and belts to accessories, and finally, saddles, a job he inherited from his father-in-law.

Orders pour in for Salas’ custom saddles, which cost up to $6,500 with all the trimmings. He’s had requests from Japan to Brazil, rodeo pros and football stars. Once, President George W. Bush requested saddlebags as a gift for a foreign dignitary. The 62-year-old Salas has taken on apprentices over the years, including his three sons, but all subsequently moved on “to greener pastures.”

Across the store, Ana Josefa and Matilda were riding stick horses, their hair flowing beneath oversized cowboy hats. I bid Salas farewell and spurred the family on to the King Ranch Museum, a short walk from the saddle shop.

The museum is housed in an old ice and electric plant, and it makes for a terrific refuge from the blistering South Texas heat. A captivating black-and-white photo essay of life on the ranch in the early 1940s decorates the walls, mainly featuring images of rough-and-tumble Kineños with names like Herculano, Onesimo, and Pepino.

Also on display, a Cuban bronc saddle and a ladies’ side saddle, a “golden age” Kentucky rifle, a late-19th-Century Remington-Hepburn rifle, and several antique carriages and vintage cars, such as “El Kineño,” a customized canary yellow Buick Eight hunting car that General Motors built in 1949. The vehicle is equipped with a winch and cable rated for a six-ton pull, a radiotelephone, a wrangler seat near the passenger side headlight, and a refreshment bar complete with tumblers. However, Matilda’s attention could not be diverted from the full-body mount of an 11-foot, 455-pound alligator, pulled a few years back from the Santa Gertrudis division.

Kingsville had more to offer—including the 1904 Train Depot Museum, and Texas A&M University-Kingsville’s John E. Conner Museum and Tio and Janell Kleberg Wildlife Research Park—but it had been a long day, and hunger pangs sapped at the girls’ youthful exuberance.

We stopped for mesquite-grilled fajitas at Big House BBQ Steaks & Grill, a country-themed local haunt on East King Avenue with corrugated metal walls and outside benches cut from the back end of old pickup trucks. The girls have a tendency to reject anything new, but they didn’t resist the smoke-imbued fajita strips and pork-flavored charro beans.

As we prepared to leave Kingsville behind, I buckled Ana Josefa into her car seat, her hunger now satiated and her thoughts drifting toward soothing visions of a sorrel Quarter Horse eating from the palm of her hand.

“Daddy,” she said. “I had a great time.”

And within a matter of minutes, my little Kineñas had fallen asleep."  By Aaron Nelsen. From:  http://www.texashighways.com/component/content/article?id=6842:where-the-santa-gertrudis-roam

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On This Day:

The first parachutist, Oct 22, 1797:

"The first parachute jump of note is made by André-Jacques Garnerin from a hydrogen balloon 3,200 feet above Paris.

Leonardo da Vinci conceived the idea of the parachute in his writings, and the Frenchman Louis-Sebastien Lenormand fashioned a kind of parachute out of two umbrellas and jumped from a tree in 1783, but André-Jacques Garnerin was the first to design and test parachutes capable of slowing a man's fall from a high altitude.

Garnerin first conceived of the possibility of using air resistance to slow an individual's fall from a high altitude while a prisoner during the French Revolution. Although he never employed a parachute to escape from the high ramparts of the Hungarian prison where he spent three years, Garnerin never lost interest in the concept of the parachute. In 1797, he completed his first parachute, a canopy 23 feet in diameter and attached to a basket with suspension lines.

On October 22, 1797, Garnerin attached the parachute to a hydrogen balloon and ascended to an altitude of 3,200 feet. He then clambered into the basket and severed the parachute from the balloon. As he failed to include an air vent at the top of the prototype, Garnerin oscillated wildly in his descent, but he landed shaken but unhurt half a mile from the balloon's takeoff site. In 1799, Garnerin's wife, Jeanne-Genevieve, became the first female parachutist. In 1802, Garnerin made a spectacular jump from 8,000 feet during an exhibition in England. He died in a balloon accident in 1823 while preparing to test a new parachute."

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Cuban Missile Crisis, Oct 22, 1962:

"On this day in 1962, President John F. Kenned announces to the American people that he has ordered a blockade of Cuba in response to the discovery that Soviet missiles were being installed on the island. In his televised speech, he condemned Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev for the "clandestine, reckless and provocative threat to world peace" and warned that the United States was fully prepared to retaliate should the missiles be launched.

The blockade began October 21 and, the next day, Kennedy delivered a public address alerting Americans to the situation. In his speech, he warned a frightened American public that the missiles on Cuba were capable of hitting Washington, D.C. or anywhere in the southeastern portion of the country, the Panama Canal, Mexico City or "as far north as Hudson Bay, Canada, and as far south as Lima, Peru." A military confrontation appeared imminent when Kennedy told his audience that he ordered the evacuation of the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and put military units on standby. Boldly, he stated, "one path we shall never choose is the path of surrender or submission."

Khrushchev responded by sending additional ships—possibly carrying military cargo—toward Cuba and by allowing construction at the missile sites to continue. Over the following six days, the Cuban Missile Crisis, as it is now known, brought the world to the brink of global nuclear war while the two leaders engaged in tense negotiations via telegram and letter.

Fortunately by October 28, Kennedy and Khrushchev had reached a settlement and people on both sides of the conflict breathed a collective but wary sigh of relief. The Cuban missile sites were dismantled and, in return, Kennedy agreed to close U.S. missile sites in Turkey."

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Yesterday:

Misty and I went to get Jay, and had our walk down there.

Ray was busy clearing those lots for someone. Shay was still feeling very bad, so her sister took her to the hospital, and said that they would probably keep her overnight.

When we got back here, Jay got out the extension ladder, got up on the roof and blew the pine needles off my house and the guest house roofs.  There were so many that we laid out a big tarp to catch them and drag them to the burn pile.  We dragged three tarp-fulls.  I was busy raking and piling them up, and we still have more to do today.

Memorial Day Infographic. Thanks. Wordless Mammal Monday. St. Petersburg. Golden Gate Bridge.

 

For “Mammal Monday”:  Well, Almost Wordless!!

First, a sobering infographic about Memorial Day:

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Did You Lose a Cat?

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On This Day:

St. Petersburg founded by Peter the Great, May 27, 1703:

“After winning access to the Baltic Sea through his victories in the Great Northern War, Czar Peter I founds the city of St. Petersburg as the new Russian capital.

The reign of Peter, who became sole czar in 1696, was characterized by a series of sweeping military, political, economic, and cultural reforms based on Western European models. Peter the Great, as he became known, led his country into major conflicts with Persia, the Ottoman Empire, and Sweden. Russian victories in these wars greatly expanded Peter's empire, and the defeat of Sweden won Russia direct access to the Baltic Sea, a lifelong obsession of the Russian leader. With the founding of St. Petersburg, Russia was now a major European power--politically, culturally, and geographically. In 1721, Peter abandoned the traditional Russian title of czar in favor of the European-influenced title of emperor. Four years later, he died and was succeeded by his wife, Catherine.”

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Golden Gate Bridge opens, May 27, 1937:

“On this day in 1937, the Golden Gate Bridge, connecting San Francisco with Marin County, California, officially opens amid citywide celebration.

Named for the narrow strait that marks the entrance to the San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean, the Golden Gate Bridge was constructed from January 1933 to May 1937. At the time, it was the longest suspension bridge in the world, at 4,200 feet. From the beginning, the bridge's location posed challenges for its construction, not least because of its proximity to the mighty San Andreas Fault, which passes from north to south through the San Francisco Bay area. In addition, the tumultuous waters of the strait posed grave dangers for the underwater construction work necessary to build the bridge.  Still, the engineer Joseph Strauss waged a tireless 16-year campaign to convince skeptical city officials and other opponents of the controversial project.

On the bridge's opening day, he triumphantly exclaimed: "The bridge which could not and should not be built, which the War Department would not permit, which the rocky foundation of the pier base would not support, which would have no traffic to justify it, which would ruin the beauty of the Golden Gate, which could not be completed within my costs estimate of $27,165,000, stands before you in all its majestic splendor, in complete refutation of every attack made upon it."

By 6 a.m. on May 27, 18,000 people were lined up on both the San Francisco and Marin sides; in all, some 200,000 showed up that day. At the appointed hour, a foghorn blew and the toll gates opened, releasing the earliest arrivals, who rushed to be the first to cross. Many schools, offices and stores were closed, and the day was designated "Pedestrian Day." The next day, the bridge opened to vehicular traffic. Across the country in the White House, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt proclaimed the bridge open to the world, and by the end of the day, more than 32,000 vehicles had paid tolls and crossed. According to the official Web site of the Golden Gate Bridge, nearly 2 billion vehicles have crossed the bridge (in both north- and southbound directions) in the 70-plus years of its operation.”

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Yesterday:

Misty and I took our walk down at Jay’s when we went to pick him up.  He is still high, but high on life and the several days of his sobriety.  He says he feels so much better, and the Lord took away the shakes when he prayed for it.   That’s great.

We loaded up the van with a cordless circular saw, big trash can, trash bags, rake, dustpan, tape measure, cold drinks, and drove to the church.

The Men’s Clean-Up team was already there, some were pressure washing the building.  Some were weed-whacking and blowing the parking lot.  Some kids were washing down the new steps and pathway from the church down to the big fenced basketball-volleyball-hopscotch-tennis court, with a water hose.  This congregation does a lot of activities together.

Jay and I just quietly started what we went to do.  Off in one corner by a pine tree, there had been a lot of trash and form lumber left by the contractors who built the new steps.  I picked up all the trash, cans, bottles and plastic, while Jay loaded some of the lumber into the van.  There were a lot of little pieces of wood that they had used to stake the boards, and I piled them into the trash can.  We knew we had to make a second trip to clean it all up.  We came back here and put a lot of it on my burn pile.  Some of the lumber can still be used, so we saved that. 

On the second trip to the church, I raked a lot of the pine needles up into the trash bags held open by the trash can.  And the dustpan?  That’s for holding the pine needles against the rake, to pick them up.  There might be snakey-poos or fire ants, and gloves won’t help then. Even tiny, baby snakes can be poisonous.

Jay loaded the rest of the lumber, and even some big globs of dried cement that had been left there.  One lump was so big that the pastor had to help Jay pick it up.  We put it in the van, as Jay has a use for it.  We left the area nice and clean so a mower won’t get damaged when they cut the grass there now.

Usually, Jay wanted to avoid the afternoon service at Willis Church, as it interfered with his beer time, so that is why he always wanted to go to the Conroe service in the mornings.  But he said that the Willis Church feels like his ‘home church’, now!

We really have to vacuum out the van today!

Shuttle. Snakes. Super Bowl Snacks.

Endeavour Launch Rescheduled.

Countdown clock here: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/launch/index.html
“Managers officially have scheduled space shuttle Endeavour's next launch attempt for Monday, Feb. 8 at 4:14 a.m. EST.
The Mission Management Team will meet at 6:15 p.m. Sunday to give the "go" to fill Endeavour's external fuel tank with propellants. Tank loading would begin at 6:45 p.m.”
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 Torturing Snakes for Fun and Profit

This is downright cruel, I don’t care if they are “just” snakes, which I don’t like any more than you do:

“Welcome to a rattlesnake roundup, where you can get up close and personal with hundreds of rattlesnakes that have been gassed out of their burrows.
What happens there can be sickening. The snakes' rattles are ripped off while the snake is still alive and passed out to kids as souvenirs. Other snakes are decapitated in front of the crowd. Some have liquor poured down their throats, or are burned with cigarettes. They're kicked and stomped. Pregnant females are especially popular.

By the time the audience gets settled down and the barrels are rolled out, most of the snakes couldn't attack if they wanted to. They're starved and weakened, dehydrated, half-suffocated. Sometimes, they're completely suffocated, because there isn't a lot of air when you're at the bottom of the tank, locked in and trapped under the bodies of dozens like you. “

At least the State of Georgia is doing something about it.      More:

http://animals.change.org/blog/view/torturing_snakes_for_fun_and_profit

Criticism  as per:   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rattlesnake_Round-Up

"These events have been criticized widely, primarily due to animal cruelty and ecological impact. Though these events sometimes claim to generate valuable data, no scientific articles have been published from them.

Rattlesnakes are relatively slow to mature, have only modest litters, and are already adversely affected by habitat destruction and persecution. These events remove thousands of animals, including large numbers of reproductively mature animals. Since rattlesnakes are an apex predator, a sudden decline in their population could have ecological consequences, particularly for the rodents on which they typically feed."

If you see how much money these roundups generate, you would think that they would want to protect the snakes somewhat, not be cruel to them.  No, I don't want one!!
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Sustainable Snacking, Super Bowl Style

Sweet Potato Chips, an alternative.
“More likely than not, you'll find yourself attending or hosting a Super Bowl party this Sunday. And regardless of whether you know a down from an end zone, you'll almost certainly be surrounded by food.
Super Bowl Sunday represents the essence of unhealthy overconsumption — second only to Thanksgiving.
The National Chicken Council estimates that more than a billion wings, or 90 million pounds, are consumed over the weekend! Add to that 15 million tons of potato chips and we're talking some serious eating during the big game.”  From:
http://food.change.org/blog/view/sustainable_snacking_super_bowl_style

The Super Bowl of bad eating

“Super Bowl has turned into a day-long event, people tend to eat non-stop for hours.
"People get so involved in the game, there’s a lot of mindless eating that goes on," says David Grotto, a Chicago-area nutrition expert and spokesperson for American Dietetic Association.
It's not just the chicken wings; it's the chicken wings with pizza, chili, guacamole and all the other loaded-with-fat foods people nosh at parties, in bars and at restaurants. “  From: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11145762/

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As my cold is still lingering, and it was still quite chilly this morning,  Ray and I decided to forego the fence re-building, and tackle an indoor job.  Cleaning my patio door blinds. 

We laid out a painting cloth in the middle of the living room floor.  Unhooked the blind’s ‘fins’, several at a time, sprayed Super Clean on them, wiped it off with a damp rag,  turned them over, did the other side, dried them, re-hung them.  Then started on the next batch. It is a lot easier than trying to clean them while they are still hanging.
We also cleaned some of my swan collection and fish collection, whales, dolphins, marlin.

It was still too chilly to have the windows open today.