PK spring flowers #1 -- Lavender!

We spent the weekend out camping at Possum Kingdom Lake with the cub scouts.  It was a lot of fun, and is a gorgeous location.  The first night was a bit loud, as you have 40-some screaming young boys running around, doing what boys do... and adding to it were the few folks who arrived around 11pm to set up camp.  But things seemed to settle down after the last car drove off to park.

When we camped at PKL last year on Mother's Day weekend (YAY! seriously, I loved it), there were a lot of Texas ditchweeds in full flower.  Since this trip was a couple weeks earlier I was hoping to see some different flowers this time.  Nature did not disappoint either.

 A wild Verbena (Glandularia canadensis)

There was a hike Saturday, where my 2nd surgery knee let me know it is not fond of uneven ground to walk on, so I took it slow (read Tail-end Charlie), and paused for pictures every time I saw an interesting flower or two.  I think I will invest in a pair of trekking poles for stability.

I've selected a couple pics to share, and a color theme for Tuesday.  Lavender!  I wish I was better at plant ID, but I haven't a clue what these flowers are.  If anyone knows for sure, please feel free to chime in.

I am pretty sure now this is Blue Curl (Phacelia congesta).


PKL is truly photogenic, especially in spring.  Come high summer the view is likely to be obscured by smoke, as the scars from the fires of a year or two ago attest.

 




























  This little ditchweed was so pretty and delicate.
It's Silver Leaf Nightshade (Solanum elaeagnifolium).



















This flower I did not see very often.  It was so slender, that it was difficult to get into focus.
I believe it is a Slender Verbena/Texas Vervain (Verbena halei). 

The view from camp out across the lake was lovely.  You got a good view of the surrounding cliffs, through which the Brazos River runs.  Sadly this was the only decent picture I got of the view, as the camera on my phone did not want to focus to infinity I guess.  So it is a little blurry.

I think I will do another post next week on the PKL flora. I have a couple more categories I can do of types, and color groups.  At the very least, it should be visually interesting, even if my prose leaves something to be desired.  So everyone, I hope you have a good week, and stay safe out there!

Charlie: A Life Well-lived.

Charlie.  Beloved.

He was probably born in November, 1999, somewhere in North Texas.  A little Rhodesian Ridgeback/Chow mix.  He was the only pup in his litter in the shelter, that following January, who had enough energy to get up, and go bark at the man who came to rescue him.  He was rescued by TIRR in January 2000, as a terribly sick little furball, full of worms, and covered in sores from ringworm.  He promptly got even sicker, contracting Parvo, and surviving both the illness and the cure.  For back then, Tamiflu for dogs was unheard of...and the treatment for Parvo was supportive care.

These were the photos we first saw of Charlie.  He was irresistible though we were told that he would not be healthy enough to adopt until he was 5-6mo old.  The Parvo treatment left him with a leg infected and damaged from a blown vein, and the subdermal saline one vet injected was the wrong salinity, and it ate a hole in his side.  Both injuries healed with time (and the hated Bonnet!), and the only real visible sign was scarring and a bald spot on his leg.

Charlie was an interesting mix of two breeds.  Flying Nun ears, a red double coat, but the most gorgeous of ridges you could imagine, stocky of build and the gait of a Chow, but all the drive of a Ridgeback.  He was never aloof, nor was he particularly quiet (I think the ACK lied when they said Chows were quiet!)--a favorite activity was to chase the airplanes out of our yard in full voice!  He loved people, but please God, don't ring my doorbell!  He used to launch himself in a doggy holy war against the front door.  It wasn't until he got too deaf to hear the bell, and his hips too painful to charge the door, that he gave it up.  My front door still bears the scars of 80# of Ridgeback and claws...

He could be a goofball.

 Sitting Frog-dog style...later in his prime.

He was easy to train, being supremely food-driven.  He was a master thief of food held about nose-height in a child's hand. He was gentle too, as evidenced by his delicate cleansing of a peanut-butter covered child. (Aren't big sisters silly?  Peanut butter isn't paint!  Note the guilty sibling in the background!)

He loved visiting the kennel where we adopted him.  We have always boarded him there since we moved to Texas.  He loved to rat the fences, barking with the other rescue dogs, or just sack out in the warm Texas sunshine.  He always smelled of sunshine when he would lay out and bask.

He used to do tricks, for treats.  He knew about half a dozen, and would run through them all at once, sometimes, just to make sure he got a treat!  Sit, paw, other paw, down, and roll over!

He was a comfortable dog--his fur was soft, and fluffy from that undercoat, and being a stockier dog, he wasn't bony or lumpy like our other old dog.  You could lay down on him, curl up beside him on a cold winter morning on the couch he wasn't supposed to get on but sometimes did, and snooze away with a self-heating couch warmer of your very own!  The kids, when they were little considered Charlie their own personal Bark-O-Lounger, and he loved it.

He was a talkative dog, especially in the kitchen, his favorite place.  He would talk--not bark, but sort of a yowly, chuffing, talking sound.  He'd tell you if he was out of water, or if the morning/evening feeding time had been too slow in coming.  He was all about being fed on time!  If Charlie wasn't sick, he always ate all his food--all of it, always!  After all, you never know if some other dog might want to muscle in on a good thing.

This was one of his favorite locations...

 Under the kitchen table, especially on Saturdays, when our friend comes over to dine with us.  Charlie always knew who was the best source of doggy treats!

Charlie was the second dog I'd ever had.  My first dog, a dachshund, died when I was a young teenager.  Charlie was a velcro-dog.  He loved his people.  He was always around me, as if attached by an invisible umbilical.  If I left the room, he'd follow.  He always slept in our room, on my side of the room.  When younger, he slept within arms reach, ready for ear-scritches, and later as he got old, he moved to the area by the bathroom door, so he could watch the hallway, and generally try to trip Dave if he got up in the middle of the night!  But Charlie was always here, sometimes underfoot in the kitchen perhaps in hopes of tripping me and causing food to fall... but my house seems empty and quiet now, even though it is neither empty nor quiet.  The children and the other dogs see to that.

Eventually, his ashes will be ready to pick up, as will his peri-mortem paw print I had requested.  Silly me, I couldn't bear the thought of them doing it after he was dead...but it just didn't seem right.  Charlie was a dog who shouldn't have survived his puppy days, shouldn't have been a good dog (if you listen to the mixed breed haters) and shouldn't have lived to 13.  But he was always one to defy the odds, defy human expectations.  I am so glad to have shared 13 years of my life with him.

Charlie was a Good Dog!

Random 5 FACT Friday 04/26/13

1.  Possum Kingdom Lake in Texas is a beautiful location.  This time last year, we camped there at Constantine, and saw a ton of beautiful wildflowers (aka ditchweeds).

2.  We ran a hotline (electric) fence around the perimeter of the area in back, where we are trying to get grass to grow.  So far, it seems fairly successful in keeping the dogs out of the dirt.

3.  I haven't been riding the 'bent as much as I should.  I'm not sure why exactly--partly the weather hasn't been as nice as I would like.  Partly I have been busy, and doing some other things.  I hope to get back at it in May.

4.  Patience favors the prepared.  It means we can afford to wait until orders placed in January finally shipped in late April.

5.  One of these days we will have to set the GAP Challenger antenna back up.  Last year a guy line failed, and we dismounted the antenna lest it break in the typical Texas winds.  Last time that happened it was an expensive repair.  Now that we have the guy line, we will need to reset the antenna on its base.  Who knows, maybe we will hear YOU being radio-active sometime down the log...  73's!

S. 792 The Senate is at it again.

Yes, our Dearly Electeds are at it again, with Sen. Reid introducing irrelevant legislation on behalf of Sen. Lautenberg (out sick) in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing. 

S.792 would require a background check any time an individual wished to purchase reloading powder.  A background check?  Are you kidding me?  The bombs in Boston did not even USE reloading powder according to this article!  They bought large scale fireworks back in February and were scavenging powder from those, not using smokeless powder.

This is just more idiocy from the LibProgs, like that in Kali, where they are attempting to ban lead in bullets and tax ammunition.  They claim the lead will leach into the ground and poison the water...well, my question to them is this:  Where do they think the lead came from in the first place?!  The ground!  Idiots...

So be sure to call your Dearly Electeds in the Sellout I mean Senate, and tell them to oppose S.792.  Be sure to also hammer the Usual Suspects.  You can find a fairly comprehensive list of them here.

How I spent my weekend...

How did you spend last weekend?  I spent mine in class.  Not your typical school though, but rather a Basic Pistol Class.  Yes....I spent all weekend with other like minded folks on a range with shooty-things!

A little background first--DH grew up shooting in the wilds of the Midwest, and spent 4yrs with the University of Science, Music and Culture where they spent a lot of time beating certain concepts into his head.  Myself, on the other hand did not grow up shooting though I really wanted to.  It just wasn't in the family dynamic.  That didn't change really, until college.  So all my knowledge, such as it is or isn't, is self taught.  No formal instruction.  So I do have certain bad habits, ones I planted, nurtured, and perfected all on my own--often without a "reason" behind them.

With the current craziness going on concerning firearms and ammo, we decided to create some liquidity with the specific condition of it being dedicated to attending a couple training classes (1 each--good training is not cheap).  We talked about the type of training we wanted or felt we needed.  Though I was wanting a carbine class, I have to agree with DH that it was not a wise choice.  Reason?  I don't carry a carbine daily.  I do a pistol.  A pistol is the most likely shooty-thing I will have available to me at the moment I most need one.  It is also probably the hardest platform to learn well.  Pistol shooting is full of minutia to learn and manage--all of it important or critical to performing well, especially under stress.

We chose to use a local company, Hardwired Tactical Shooting, for their well regarded Basic Pistol class.  Instructors Darryl and Wayne are superbly professional--whether teaching high speed low drag folks (real operators, not keyboard commandos), or a handful of housewives.  Their biggest focus is shooter safety.  They don't give a 30-second safety brief.  I think our initial brief was over an hour on day one.  They saw all our faults and made sure we knew what they were, and what to do to correct them.  Sometimes they would ask you "why" you did something the way you did--both to make you think about it, and to learn if there was a legitimate reason for your actions (perhaps a physical disability?).  They encourage questions from their students.

The class stressed fundamentals--proper grip and trigger press being the most vital to getting accurate hits on your target.  At one point, Wayne even did a demo for us where he was shooting the X-ring from about 5yds, with his eyes closed, to demonstrate how effective proper grip and trigger control can be.  It proved to us that sights are helpful, but not nearly as essential as most folk think.  The drills were built around a strong foundation, and a new action or item was added in each iteration, building on that base.

There was not a lot of jargon in class either.  SEE was simple effective acronym used, one I personally prefer to OODA Loop.  I can never remember what OODA stands for, but SEE made sense to me.  See it, Evaluate it, Eliminate it.  See it, is simply being aware of your surroundings and who is in it.  Evaluate it, means to decide if it represents a threat to you or not.  Eliminate it does NOT mean you have to shoot something--it only means you need to make the problem go away.  If that means you can turn around and walk away, then you eliminated it.  And no lawyers were involved!  YAY!  But situational awareness is key.  You have to give yourself every advantage to spot trouble before it spots you.

I was pleased with how I performed in class.  I shot pretty well. 

But more importantly, I learned a LOT, especially about the areas I need the most work on.  (No bowling, keep the workspace up, don't catch the unfired cartridge when you clear the pistol, watch your weak hand when racking the slide...)  I learned some good drills and dry practice I can use at the range or at home safely.  I learned it IS easier to learn, and learn well from professional instructors.  I worked on fundamentals, and when budget permits, will take their next level class, 1st Responder Pistol. 

I highly encourage all of you who are interested, or who carry a pistol, to seek out high quality training in your area.  It will open your eyes, and can make you a better, safer, more effective shooter.  And that, like rain, is a good thing!