The Smartest Guy in the Room.

  Brillianter is knocking them out of the park.  If you think about self defense, he will scratch your itch.

Texans waking up to the mess they have made.

  The legislature including the governor gives lip service in opposition to the growing power and reach of Washington.  I don't particularly trust or depend on it, but it's worth noting.  Montana and other states have done the same thing.

  Leo Berman is the Texas State Representative from my district to Austin.  He's always good on gun rights, though hardheaded about enhancing penalties, empowering police, filling prisons, et, et.  In the coffeeshop he is widely derided by the democrat plaintiff lawyers as a dunce, simpleton and fool, and his election by the district as proof of the dunceness, simpleness and foolishness of the citizenry here.

  Hard to argue.  99% of everything is stupid, these days.

Update:  Wish I could find that old poster on the internet.  A local camera store, Christian's, had it in the back room.  It was a grinning chimpanzee in overalls with a mug of beer in each hand and foot with the caption: "99% of everything is Stupid."

Panola County Gun Club NRA Regional Championship

  First, Alan came up with 1K cases, then he cleaned them, then I lubed, sized and deprimed them...now back to Alan for swaging the primer hole and trimming them.

 This weekend.  At the Panola County Gun Club the best NRA Regional Match around kicks off Friday with 4-man team matches.  I've got a good team of myself, Jeff Lin, Alan Wilson and Katye Foster.  We hope to be competitive.  Saturday is the NRA Regional 80 shot match.  Sunday is a 50-shot EIC/CMP match followed by a 30 shot PISTOL EIC/CMP match.  The EIC matches are for Distinguished Rifle and Pistol points.

  The Panola club sells out the NRA regional every year and has folks on standby.  There is probably a little room left in the EIC rifle match and plenty of room in the Pistol match.  Both of the EIC matches will be among the biggest outside the National Matches at Camp Perry.

  I'm loaded and practiced up.  In the middle of this a good friend of mine and I are working on 1000+ rounds of Infantry Trophy ammo for the National Matches.  

  Big shooting weekend.  Nice to get a rifle and just shoot and forget all this other stuff.  Going to shoot an AR Service Rifle in the rifle matches and a Les Baer .45acp Service Pistol in the Pistol LEG match.

Throw the bums out.

  If they don't have the sense enough not to do this.....then what ELSE don't they know?  As Michelle notes: Nice wrap-up for the first 100 days.

  The Congress and President are destroying the country and as many of us feared, they don't have the sense God gave a chicken.

  Throw 'em out.  All of them.

Update:  It cost 328,000.00?  Plus, the trailing jet was never in a good photograph taking position....didn't look like the camera plane to me.  Who was on board?  Contributors?

  Lotta questions with answers that can only get stupider.

Rock Stacking.

  Maine Coast near Surry at Morgan's bay.

 I always thought it was the lack of native rock in Smith County, Texas that drove this urge, but maybe it's universal.

  I don't expect they made it through the winter, but would be interesting to know how long they lasted.

  Several good links on the SwissMiss comments.  Via Breda.  Thanx!

"Uncouth scoundrels, rude and overbearing.."

  That was General Cos description of the Texians who threw him out of San Antonio in the beginning of the Texas Revolution.  I'd say he was spot on.

  Speaking of which, I am adding the rude and overbearing, albeit incisive, swashbuckling and rakish  Texas Gun Geek to my bloglist.  Read him at your peril!

Michael Yon goes to Tracking School

  A footprint of a Southern Snapper.  Fresh.  I watched him make it.  Turtle tracks.  Yeah you only get them here!

  Skid marks where a Southern Snapping turtle pulled himself over a sandbar.

  I love this kind of thing.  I would be fascinated to go.  I'm always looking at sign in the forest and really...everywhere.  

  You would be surprised at the level of consciousness it takes to shoot a deer and specifically note where it was when the shot broke as well as exactly where it was the last time you saw it.  You can talk about it, but nearly everyone blows it when it actually happens.  I think part of the problem is you don't get enough repetition, since most folks shoot one deer a year.

  Last year both deer were down in place, but I specifically knew the spot they were standing in when the second stage of the trigger broke.  The year before I tracked several of my deer and the good Doctors deer for 60-100 yards in heavy cover.  It's a learned skill.  Would like to learn more.  Hess and I tracked a deer about 1K a few years ago.  It laid down and bled three different times.  Got down to a drop of blood or a mark every 50 feet.  Finally disappeared.  I still can't believe we didn't find it.  

 If I have help tracking I get on the trail and put someone to the right and to the left to watch ahead.  Usually an animal doesn't turn much.

  In "Lone Survivor", US Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell talks about being tracked by the Taliban.  He said they deployed with one tracker working without weapon or burden and other folks flanking and following.  Sounds very effective.

  Update:  Mom trackers.  A friend of mine busted her teenage son who had hosted a huge party at the house based on one little plastic drink-top remnant left next to the suspiciously empty trash barrel.  He broke down completely and confessed to having 100 people in the house two nights before on a weekend when she was out of town.  I did the same thing to my teenage daughter based on a couple of cigarette butts tossed in the creek outside my front door.  Difference was: my daughters guests stole a shotgun, a shorty AR and a Glock 19.

  Moral:  Teenage tracks lead to trouble more often than the Taliban.

Life in the Neighborhood: Naked Gun II!

  Home security device, one each.  95.00.

 The woman LEO who lives across the street surprised a guy who was looking in cars with a flashlight this morning at 4:30.  Her inside-sleeping dogs alerted her.  She lost her bike last week.  The neighbors on the other side lost their bikes out of the garage last fall.  Plenty of motion lights around but more coming.  Motion lights and dogs seem to be a good answer.  

  I walked over and introduced myself to the new folks who are remodeling on the other next door site.  Gave them a heads-up.  

  I can't believe the (youngish) woman didn't catch this guy.  She and her boyfriend (also LEO) are very aggressive and love the chase.  Next time maybe.

  One burglar can make everyone miserable.  Two active burglars bump a city's crime stats through the roof.  We need a bike with a GPS locator inside.  Seems like that kind of off-the-shelf-stuff would get done these days.

  Just for the record, my loaded anti-burglar gun is a ruined sporter of a T44 Jap 6.5 carbine.  95 bucks.  I wouldn't be out a bit handing it over to the police for six months after I shot a burglar in the butt from the window over the drive.  Not that I would ever point a firearm at any living human being without reasonable, legal, and logical cause.  I'm not a hater about this kind of stuff.

  Just saying.  If forced to shoot someone, it's not going to be with a collectable firearm.

Update: So the guy, Mr. Neighbor LEO was in his yard a minute ago when the redhead and I were leaving to eat at Taco Wacco...and I asked him: What gives?  How do two young, fit, marginally armed and commissioned types NOT catch a burglar when he is within spitting range?  Answer: they were DRESSING.  Since they sleep alfresco he thought it best to get dressed first.

  People, people, PEOPLE!  What makes a better story: Catching a burglar or catching a burglar buck naked?  You HAVE to have thought your plan through.  It's all nothing but training.  He and I discussed further and I told him I fully expected to see them out and about at 4:00am tomorrow practicing apprehensions and takedowns in their birthday suits.

Caleb and Breda ask for input on the Gun nuts show

  Help pick the topic.  

  They are doing a great job so just BE THERE, no matter what.

  I find the link always a little balky after I get to the site.  I can get the chat but not the sound, or the sound but not the chat.  Just keep refreshing or re-clicking the site and everything will finally sync up.  You don't want to miss it.

For couples with happy households:

  And the rest of you can giggle along as well, you just won't grok it quite as deeply.

Range people.

 At a late afternoon range session cars and trucks were backed up inside the locked gate when I arrived.  Probably action shooters trapped inside after the matches ended.  I unlocked the gate but held them up long enough to shoo a green strip of a garter snake out of the drive.  First one this year.

  Three folks were shooting under the covered firing line.  A chain smoking man with a 10/22 and a mis-mounted (too high) scope beside two rough looking twenty year olds with various gun disasters.  They had a Springfield mag hammered into a Ruger 9mm, a shorty AR with a loose barrel and an AK pistol along with a spotting scope that looked like it came out of a box of Cracker Jax.  

  I set up my bulleye box and drove the mag loose with a wood rod I use on squibs while the roughest kid held the gun against a firing table.    I say they looked rough- it mostly was face piercings and bad haircuts along with some dumb tattoos.  The younger one was blown up about 70 pounds over his reasonable weight by high fructose corn syrups and junk foods but mostly they both had that uncared-for look.  We settled down shoot and got to talking.  When a target break came I pulled out my suppressed 10/22 and some ammo so they could see it and shoot a little.  The kid let me shoot his Springfield, turned out he had a carry permit so they couldn't have too bad a past and I let him shoot my Les Baer service pistol.  His Springfield broke at about 14 pounds so I warned him to be ready for the 4 1/2 pound two-stage on the Baer.  They both were amazed at the quiet and accurate 10/22 and shot up a box of Wolf Match Target.  Worth it.  Turns out the younger ones dad reloaded so he was shooting cast bullets and collecting all the brass he could scruff up.  I kept a loaded pistol at hand and never turned my back but they actually had perfect range ettiquite.  The older guy smoked through his Winstons and left.  I shot some 100 yard pistol at a silhouette someone had left up and made some nice bullseye groups at 25  and 50.

  When I left I propped the gate open for them.

The Country is in the Very Best of Hands!

  Instapundit is always referencing this.  I hadn't seen it since last century.

  Makes sense.  Every country is.

Update:  If you don't have good government, you live like an animal!

Gun Nuts Radio and how to make the fastest hour on the internet...BETTER!

  Ok then.

  We got the internet radio show at no cost.  Check.

  We got the young and dynamic hosts, one of each sex:  Check.

  We got callers-in of reasonable intelligence:  Check.

  We got a cool chat room where folks mix and yack along and the hosts take cues:  Check.

  We got the interesting and the informative guests:  Check.

  So, what's missing?  Besides giving the show the time to build audience and reputation as it undoubtedly will.

  We got WEBCAM issues.  Not webcam fail, but a situation we need to get up to speed.

  So lets look:  We got the Breda.  We got the Caleb.  Young, hip, smart, cute, hair.  Perfect folks for this application.  But the background?  What do we have?  Zilch.  Nix.  Nada.  Caleb sits in front of a closet.  Breda sits in front of a fireplace.  Santa doesn't show and Barney Frank won't come out.  People, people, PEOPLE.  We need a little set work.  Can we talk?

  1.  Both hosts looking UP at the webcams.  No good.  Psychologically VERY weak.  Boost those chairs a bit or boost the computer and do the show standing.  Turn the cam so we can see a framed scene with you in it.  Point it somewhere else that is good, better, interesting, then place yourself in THAT set.

  2.  Lighting.  The webcams are lit by the computer screen.  Add a little side lighting and DROP the background lighting until it's more dramatic.  We don't want it black, because we want to SEE things in the background.  

 3.  Yeah.  This is the problem.  The background.  Anyone got a Gadsten Flag?  A Minuteman Statue?  A stack of gun books or a movie poster from the Wild Bunch?  Can you give us something here?   Moosehead?  Reloading bench?  Suit of armor?  Shot up target?

  4.  Action.  We gotta have action.  What's the name of this show again?  Gun.....Nuts?  Anyone seen a gun?  Anyone seen a nut?  Our hosts drink, and Caleb switched hats a few times but we need some rifles stacked in the background.  GUNS! dang it!  Lean a Garand where we can see it.  Stand an AR on it's nose.   And wave a pistol now and then to make a point.  Dry fire.  Rack some slides.  Wear a shoulder holster.  Get a little nerf or airsoft action going on those cats!  BE the nut.  WITH the gun.

  5.  The Nuts.  Mike is going to have to assist in the background cat dancing at Breda's, and Breda is going to have to GET DOWN a little more, even if we have to send her the Napolean Dynamite dance tape.  Maybe its the chair.  Get rid of it when the music kicks in.  Caleb is going to have to break out some martial arts moves and call his girlfriend to stand in the background and pass beers or just rub his neck.  We need some domestic support here.  About six times per show EACH you need to have someone on the screen with you.

  Speaking of support....has anyone heard one gunshot on the show?  No.  What's up with that, you callers?  Let's bust a few caps on the air!

  Caleb.  Drop the drinking and smoke a pipe.

  Breda:  Three words:  Mike.  Cat.  Juggling.

  I'm sure there are more and better ideas.  You guys are good enough to be on TV....if we realize how important the webcam visuals are.

  Gun Nuts Radio on Blogtalk, Tuesday nights at 8:00 Central.  Check Breda or Caleb for a link and be there or be a four-sided equilateral.

Update:  Only flaw in this list of ideas is the primary one...all of them involve OTHER people taking action, not me.  Dangerous to be full of good ideas that OTHER people ought to do.

  I blame George Bush.

  

Sidewalk glacier crevasse.

  Fun to watch the progression.  This stuff isn't hard once you have the space and the plan.  I'd have added a mammoth frozen in the wall and a climbers rope sagging across for people to pose on, but that's just me.

Daily Deercam

  Time to shoot some coons.

  Raccoons moving through space and time.

  Ghost coons?  Angel coons?  Lost, wandering coon spirits?

  Transporting?  If Raccoons can do this, what about Bigfoot?

  
  The double cam check today.  Snake was missing from his root ball on the TMA creek, but left a beautiful complete skin.  Which I promptly teased loose and stole.  Minnows and crawfish in the trap.  Beavers.....gone.  The dam is sitting unrepaired and the creek flowing much as it did before they showed up.  No Lake Robert.

  300 photos on the cam, all coons and squirrels.  Spotted one small Southern Snapper in the side-creek.  It's the fourth distinct turtle of that species in this little stretch of creek.

  I miss the beavers.  They had an admirable work ethic.

  At the lake cams, no deer on either, just crows and coons.  Poison Ivy getting deep.  I don't like it.  Deertracks several places especially one that had slid in the mud crossing the big creek, but nothing on cam.  Recorned everywhere.

  Great Blue Heron rookery is clacking and clicking away.  Always an uproar.  The chicks make a sound like frogs, but up in the treetops.  You can smell it from 300 yards out.

  All the Moultrie cams spotting and shooting well.

New Blogerificity!

 Just added injennifershead to the blog list.  She's thanking Big Brother for watching out for her at a Tea Party.  Her blog head has her shooting an AR shorty at one of those evil blue man targets.   What could I do?

  She's in Oklahoma, along with the eagles and eaglette at Sutton Center.  Sounds like our kind of gal.

Earth Day celebrates: Snake Hunters!

  On Earth day I'd like to present a video showing snake hunters using organic, sustainable, low-impact, carbon-neutral techniques.

  Quelle Beautifique!  Manly men!  Serpent snatching the low-tech HARD way!

Update:  The Good Doctor Sneed points out that this method plays to the constrictor's weakness....he can't wrap up our intrepid snake hunter and crush him until he asphyxiates...not small point.  These guys just are low-tech...they are SMART low tech.

Big Brother watches the Eagle chick.

  If you aren't watching the Sutton Center Eagle cam, well....you just don't like ugly chicks.

San Jacinto Day

  I don't have any kind of an image to celebrate this day so it's a good excuse to run this snapshot of the Texas State Rifle Association National Match Team at Camp Perry.  Sportsmen and ordinary citizens.  Like golfers.  These guys are patient, kind, long-suffering, generous, warm-hearted and good natured.

  It was over and Santa Anna was chasing the remnants out of the territory or, failing that, trying to pin them so he could kill the last Texas Army in the field.  He'd destroyed the Alamo garrison, executed the best Texan force at Goliad and put the anglo settlers to panic and chaos.  He'd sent the girl he married in San Antonio packing to Mexico and picked up a slave famous for her beauty and personality, (The Yellow Rose of Texas), and was whiling away the afternoon in his tent when the crude and uncouth barbarians swarmed over the bulwark of packs and baggage.  The Texicans had gone berserk and slaughtered anyone they could get their hands on with knives and clubs.  In 18 minutes it was over and the tide of history had turned on a muddy little piece of ground near Buffalo Bayou.  The criminals and rebels dismembered the establishment and became the victors of a new day.

  To celebrate, I'm going to go shoot a little .45 bullseye practice.  It's like golf, but with a pistol.  I pray that war and rebellion never comes to my native land, but if it ever did, right or wrong, I'd be on the side of family and Texas.

  God bless those rude and uncouth barbarians as they sleep in the soil of their beloved land.  Remember the Alamo.  Remember Goliad.

  Power to the People.

Black Folks.

  Fledgling American Crow from The Blackfork Bestiary.

  Blackfork Creek at FM 746.

Blackfork is the name of the creek where I live and have lived, in some location, for my whole life.  It merges with the Neches River, forms Lake Palestine, then flows on to the Gulf of Mexico.

  Tyler is always listed as being a location of the intersection of several Amerind trails used as a trade area and terminus.  Early Americans (indians) lived along the various water systems, so that one watershed would be full of a single clan/tribe/family.  The villages moved short distances every few years because of the reduction of firewood in their immediate area.  Their main industry was farming so they needed a place close to water, above the flood level with access to flat farmland along a creek bottom.  On a USGS map you can spot village sites at almost any elevation at an intersection of creeks with a flat bottom.  They especially prefered sandy soil.  Everyone lived on the same creek- the next system over was a different population so that walking upstream or downstream found your family, walking across country to the next watershed found strangers.  If you walked upstream far enough you walked out of your watershed and into the watershed of a quite different population who probably had something to trade, news, different set of young people to marry into, ect.  Downtown Tyler is the head of the watersheds of the Angelina, Sabine and Neches rivers.  Anyone who wanted to see, communicate or trade with strangers came through the courthouse area.  When European settlers arrived the trails, lines of communication and good farm sites had been set for generations.  As the indians left, died out or were absorbed the newcomers took over their lands.

  Caddo indians living up and down Blackfork in every good farming spot were closely related to each other and more distantly kin to other folks down the Neches all the way to the Gulf.  Their distant cousins and tribesmen lived on the other creeks flowing into the Neches, such as the Saline, Butler and Indian Creeks.  They weren't related at all to the folks living on the Sabine watershed and the folks living on the Sulphur, Trinity, Red or Brazos drainages were considered foreign and exotic.

  As a point of record I live in a house in Tyler at the sixth fork of Blackfork Creek above it's terminus with the Neches River.  Hence my aol email: Blackfork6.  "Six" is also the military radio call sign of the commander of any operation, (example, Annie 1, Annie 2, Annie 3,  Baker 1, Baker 2, Baker 3 would be radio call signs of platoons 1, 2, and 3 in companies A and B.  Baker 6 and Annie 6 would be the company commanders.  The battalion commander over both would be Snake 6 or Fox 6 or whatever he chose.  When he called "Snake 6 to Baker 6, over" they would know who was calling and who he wanted to speak to.)

  Yes, I realize that I don't have any battalions.

  Nobody notices but I do most of my photo artwork in Blackfork Creek.  Like the first inhabitants I consider everyone in my watershed kinfolks and all the landscape my home territory.  

  For the longest time, a friend of mine thought the name of my blog was "Black Folks".  I was always inviting him to go read the posts and look at the photos on "Black Folks".  Just google it up.  He couldn't figure for the life of him why I had named my blog "black folks".  Nor could he find it on google.  I just needed to speak clearly to solve his puzzle.  He was very relieved when we finally straightened it out.

  "Black Folks", by the way, would be a most excellent name for a blog.

Decent Folks.

  Doctor and patients: The Rippys.

  Hugging your health care provider.

  

 Patients by the armful.

  The basic Patient/Doctor relationship.

  Crowd-pleaser.

  Your basic kid.

  Your other basic kid.

  Dr. Starling.

  First I was jam-packed among them at the gunshow, then Sunday I photographed the retirement of Dr. Starling, a long-time pediatrician who offices on my block.  Editing the photos reinforces the feeling I had while photographing the 300 or so folks who came by to show what they thought about their children's doctor.  

  In some cases, he had three generations of kids in one family.

  Really decent human beings.  

  Congrats and thanks to Dr. Starling and his family and staff for his generations of service to Tyler and much happiness during his retirement.

  It's a great privilege to live among such good and decent people.

Patriots Day

  A possum, living wild and free in the TMA woods.  No taxes, free speech, no regulations, freedom of religion, home schooling.

  Of course he IS a possum.

  Today is the traditional date of the celebration of local hooligans refusing to disperse and instead shooting up the civil authorities at Lexington and Concord when they tried to seize the local armories and create a New England gun-free environment.  It's also the date that duly appointed and commissioned civil authorities fired several hundred cannisters of CS gas into a building as they wrecked the structure with tanks.   It filled with poison gases and burned.  The  civil authorities assured everyone that the deaths of 80 or so people inside was not their fault and a Federal court and investigation fully agreed.  

  It's also the date of a madman destroying a public building and killing many innocent people in Oklahoma.

  April 21st is the date that rebellious hooligans attacked civil authorities who were trying to re-establish order near Buffalo Bayou in Houston.

  Just to be safe, we should outlaw April or cut the length to 15 days, just enough time to do our patriotic duty, don't you think?

I got one word: Gunshow.

  I need pistol powder without the bogus hazmat fee, Bill wants some 9mm, I'm out of  .22 subsonic and need a replacement for the bent decapping shaft on my .45 sizer.

  Plus I need the FIX.  I need to celebrate diversity.  Right now.

  Guns, guns, guns, guns, guns.

  Taking a kid, of course.  He may not see this when he is grown.

Update:  Never seen a crowd packed in like this.  I parked where no man had ever parked before....out beyond the lines where the asphalt stretches to the horizon and men park without design or honor.

  Nothing like being in a crowd of heavily armed Texans.  Best people in the world.

   I stood in a line of 20 or more to get 9mm reloads, (2oo for 60.00)  No primers.  Got the powder and found 20 Garand enbloc clips for a friend for a buck apiece.  Guns of all kinds.  Rock River lowers, built out with stocks, 395.00.  ARs for 1000.  Crazy prices.

  The organizers are making a mint.  Obama is their best salesman ever.  Going back tomorrow to add some cheap reload slugs for practice with my Les Baer .45.  They had some Ranier 200 grain flatnose for 16.00 per 100.  That's what the LOADED ammo used to go for, but that's where we are today.

  These people better be shooting...and voting.  Or they won't be shooting.

Green onions and gamecams.

  Same doe and her two buck fawns.  They are going to grow their first little horns this year.  It will be fun to watch.

  Dumber than dogs.  When the rut starts and she cuts them loose they are going to be wandering all over the place wondering what's going on.  That's when many of them get killed.  They ought to have great genetics and grow into monster bucks if they make it a few years.

  Rain moving in.  I corned up the lake gamecams and pulled the cards.  Bottom full of newly leafed poison ivy and hungry mosquitos.  Close cam had nothing but coons though the Cardinals showed up and started cussing me for not pouring corn and getting lost.  They like that corn.

  The neighbor had new green onions.  Just finished dressing them down in the kitchen sink.The house smells like fresh onions!  Benefit of lake membership.  Need to hit the TMA cams unless the bottom falls out, which from the sounds of distant thunder, may be happening.

Cheney, Republicans and Fox News pull strings!

  I didn't get my check from the evil racist right wing yet.  Must be in the mail, or maybe they will make a direct deposit for going to the Tyler Tea Party and posting a video.  Gotta be big bucks.  I'm thinking I will buy a new pickup, new jeans, new gun and a big dog.

  Further proof of this evil cabal was the excellent sound system at the rally, which no one could hear, forcing us to IMAGINE what the message might be.  Last night the organizer, David Hill, had his internet radio show cancel before it started when a cow sat on the transmitter or something.  This was the first show, one day after the rally....kind of important.  We got nothing.

  Powerful forces behind the scenes are manipulating us!

  Wait until frustrated homeschoolers take over this movement.

  Going to try these masters of media's OTHER show tonight at 9:00.

  Here's another show I listen to on Tuesday nights. Gun Nuts Radio. They have their webcam up, chatroom open and hosts wired on.  I tried the rifleman- a mouthpiece for the Appleseed Rifleman movement, but they talk like a car salesman.  Could just be me, of course, you might like it.

  Amazing what folks are doing on the web.  When homeschooling women take over, it's going to really ROLL!  They'll sell 100K worth of T-shirts the first rally and launch a revolution.

  Power to the people, ya'll.

Update:  Tea Party video is clearing 400 views in just this couple of days.

Update II: Several of my students reminded me of my frequent advice:  Anything worth doing is worth doing BADLY, at least at first.  They're right.

  I'm proud of David Hill, MAS and the Tea Party folks for standing up!

Nordinger

  I read Jay every time I see him.  He's a thoughful and calm guy with many interests and a love of language.  This is one of his typical pieces.  If you don't hit National Review now and then you are missing a treat.

  Would love to read what he thinks about the Tea Party protests.

John Lott won't shut up.

  Making sense about being armed on campus, the high seas, well....anywhere.  The only place it doesn't help is on 20/20.

  It's a human right.  Just don't tell the press.

San Jacinto Surrender site found.

  You gotta love archeology.  They found the site of an organized surrender at San Jacinto.

  This is quite possibly the surrender site of Col Juan Almonte, a skilled and experienced Mexican General who had been with Santa Anna at the Alamo and throughout the Texas Campaign.  While Santa Ana fled in the uniform of a private, Almonte saved himself and hundreds of his men when he organized them and surrendered in the chaos of San Jacinto.   He seems to have given realistic council to both sides after the battle and conducted himself with honor and bravery.

  The Colonel is certainly an admirable figure in Texas and Mexican history.  

Revolution of the Pitiful.

  I think a lot of people are waking up this morning after yesterday's protest and thinking: "It's not just me."

  I've been a hardhead about government intrusion, waste and idiocy for a while now and yesterday I saw several thousand of my fellow Tylerites who were willing to come together for a few minutes to say the same thing.  This morning I got up and fired up my pitiful free blog and looked at the hit counter on the pitiful free video I put up and thought to myself, " I'm right about this.  The only threat to my personal freedom isn't seagoing Somalis or some AK waving lunatic mussleman, it's this idiotic bovine by-product of a bureacracy, JUST LIKE I THOUGHT."

  And of course, it ain't just the Fed's.  Like my Senator Eltife says, its the Appraisal district, the courts, the county, the city, the state, all of it.  Six pieces of paper to ride down the highway?  One out of ten Texans has an outstanding arrest warrant?  More people in jail than any time in history?  40% of my paycheck?

  So except for Governor Perry yesterday, WHERE WERE THEY?  The elected folks?  The folks who say they wanted office to make things better?  And the public employees who work for on the public payroll?  And the folks who say they protect and serve?  We didn't see a ONE.

  The press?  They better get their act together.  

  And where is the President who said he was going to bring hope and change?

  This isn't over.  And the hardheads are RIGHT.

Update:  Next stop, Independence Day, July 4.  Until then put your sign in your yard.

Update II:  MSNBC helpfully explains: "You're all idiots, plus, listen to all our really witty  sexual innuendos!"

Update III: Ok then: You're white power racists!  And stupid.  And not very many of you.  Plus more sex jokes!

Update IV:  I think everyone who was there will be proud to have stood up first as this movement finds it's voice and message.  I am.

Texas Hold "em with Rick Perry.

  I'll see you a 10th Amendment and raise you a secession.

  I'll have what he's drinking, plus a round for the house.

Udate:  Keith Oblermann helpfully explains:  You're an idiot!  Plus more "teabagging" jokes!

Update II:  Rasmussen poll says we love the Feds with all our hearts.  So there.

Tyler Tea Party! (and Newspaper Fail)

  Speaking truth to power.

Protest Babe.

 Ha!

  Amen.

Power to the People!

  3000 folks?  Just guessing based on my own count and asking several others.  This is about 1/5th of the crowd.  I'm going to count the heads and try and get a closer estimate.

  Very friendly crowd.  Very polite and considerate of each other.  More women than men.  Lots of kids.  All ages of people.

  Tea Party video up later tonight.  I was shocked at how many people were there...and the signs.  Wait until you see the signs in the vid.  Funniest one was: Don't Worry America!  Barney Frank is behind you!  Of course, I'm a sucker for a funny line.

  Brother, are printed signs cranked out by professional protesters going to look LAME from here on out.  Marks-a-lot that truth to power, baby!

  I don't think anyone had ever been to, (or organized) a protest before.  New folks.  Grass roots.  That's a very important fact.

  Folks standing on picnic tables, fountains, climbing trees.  I think we even trampled a little city shrubbery.

  Somebody said they saw one policeman.  That was one more than they needed, this is the law and order crowd.  Folks all seemed as surprised as I was about the fact that they weren't the only one there.

  Lousy audio system.  I bet it will be better next time.

  And newspapers? 

  The Texas Legislature passes a RESOLUTION telling the Feds to get back behind their constitutional limits.  The Governor, Rick Perry, standing in the rotunda of the capitol on the Texas Star gives a speech saying the Feds have grown too big, gotten too intrusive and need to get out of Texas affairs and business.

  Drudge headlines it.  Rush talks about it.  Glenn Beck talks about it.  

  On the front page of the Dallas Morning News this morning:  nothing.  Tyler Paper: nothing.

  This isn't news?  

  What a useless waste of natural resources the newspapers have become.  

  In the future, when I try and describe what a ridiculous thing newspapers were, I guess I'll mostly say they were good for crossword puzzles and for puppies to pee on while you were housebreaking them.

Update:  Try this.  PJTV.  If you aren't reading Instapundit, you aren't keeping up.

Update:  Tea Party Video UP!

UpdateII: Now Gov. Perry says we could secede if we wanted to.  Let's see if THIS get's coverage.  Holy Independent Republic.

  

  

Beaver Blues

  Dead Native Engineer.  

  At the Museum site the snake is consistant.  Always on his root ball.  I'm not for a second thinking that there is one snake per 500 yards of creekbottom...I'm missing snakes like mad.  That makes me a little nervous.  Perfect habitat for snakeanity.  Ought to be some monsters rolled up in the sun somewhere close.

  Too close.

  Nothing in the minnow trap except a dead minnow and a hunk of rotten venison.  I guess this minnow didn't stay in school.

  Nothing on the game cam except me and two other squirrels.  I baited it with corn.  Coon riot night tonight!

  Nice rain a few nights ago and the sandbars all boogied around.  My TJC plastic yardstick washed downstream but I retrieved it.  The beaver dam looked un-serviced and the traps are gone.  I was betting the trapper killed a couple of native engineers when I walked up on the body of one concealed under some leaves in the woods.  This is going to be stanky for a month.  Not good.  When I'm out here pursuing my artistic vision I don't want to be gassed by 50 lbs of decomposing aquatic mammal.  Maybe I ought to use him as a turtle lure instead of the trap and venison.  That would be the zen approach.  He's already past the organ harvest stage.

  If this is the CHIEF engineer, Lake Robert is history.

  I hope he had a Christian burial, though this looks more like a murder disposal.

  If I can chance upon a dead beaver, why aren't I seeing the snakes?

Eagle up.

  If you are missing the Sutton Lake eaglecam, you are missing a treat.  The chick is getting big.  They are homeschooling.  Working folks.  Traditional nuclear family.  They even eat free range, organic, fresh fish six times a day.  They are pro-life, having not given up on an egg that didn't hatch.  All the conservative values.  When this chick is old enough they are going to counsel it about sex, drugs, gangs, guns.  It doesn't get much better than this.

  Linked on the sidebar and here.

Tyler Tea Party.

  Downtown on the square at 12:00 noon.  I'm going but wondering what the police response is going to be.  Somewhere tomorrow the police are going to be gassing and beating protesters. 

   Obama trying to make conservatives the target of Homeland Security efforts and label them as terrorists.  That opens the gate for the police.

  Evidently this is going to include the State of Texas, specifically the legislature and governor.  Good for them, but I have an additional clue:  It ain't just the feds, you radical patriots.

  Hard for the police to resist breaking out all that gear and running an op I would think, but I don't care to be looked at through crosshairs.

  I hope it goes massively well tomorrow as citizens petition their government for redress of grievances.  

  Update:  Whoa, daddy!  Rush is talking about it.  Beck is talking about it.  Homeland Security want to put us in those camps!

  UpdateII: The TSRA lobbyist thought this was a useless gesture.  Fireworks are pretty but then, what do you really have?  Well, for one thing, we have the Governor of a big state saying publicly what libertarians have been yelling for years.  I think that's a good thing.

National Match Registration is open.

  Yeah, Baby!

  A nice & cute CMP Standard Products M1 currently on loan to a lethal librarian we all know.

 
  The Civilian Marksmanship Program website has online registration up and running.  Click on the National Match Information and keep clicking.  I'm shooting Garand, Springfield and Vintage rifle matches after we finish with the Texas team stuff, along with the National EIC match, the Presidents 100 and the Hearst Doubles.  We will be shooting every day for a week.

  Garand, M1 Carbine, Springfield and Vintage matches are serious matches but full of folks who are there for the fun and experience.  You could probably show up cold, register, draw ammunition and count on someone loaning you a rifle on the line.  It's that laid back.  Probably 1000 folks will shoot each match.  Heck the G, V, S matches are all at 200 yards and they pull the target and mark it to show where you hit, plus the M1 Carbine is shot at 100.  What could be better than that?  Eagles?  Yep, they got your eagles flying around.

  While you are on the CMP site be sure and drop by the auction site and bid on an M1 Carbine.  Fun to see what they go for these days.  

  Better do it now.  Powerful career politicains want all of this to be illegal as soon as they can manage it.  They would ban it all and end the 100+year tradition of the National matches today if they could.

Update:  The auction isn't the normal rifle sales.  Those are here.

Update II: One of my biggest regrets in life is not going to the National Matches starting in about 1966.  Dad would have loved this.  I'm getting to deerhunt big deer behind his lakehouse and go shoot at Camp Perry, both things he would relished.

Ann Gets it.

  I don't know what's up with the black cocktail dress though it isn't the worst look she could wear.  Perhaps she ought to talk to Michelle O's makeup and wardrobe people, but Ann sure has a firm grasp of the basics.

  ABC, 60 minutes, other idiots abound.  I guess they say " thank God my security detail has a gun."

Hot loads.

  Cranking up the old ammo factory for some practice .45acp loads.....after the first 12, just enough to work out the cobwebs, I noticed that the cobwebs were getting 9.5 grains of Titegroup under a 230 FMJ instead of 4.5 grains.  

  We're talking sonic 230s here.  HOT loads.  I moved the scale balance weight over a click to the right notch.  Can't unbuild these.  Crimped.  Sure is pretty ammo.  I go through 12 rounds in just a couple of strings shooting bullseye, but one of these suckers might be a gun-buster.

  Maybe I could mail these to Somalia, care of "Pirate Abdul Mustapha."  He probably packs a Sig 220 or knows someone who does.

  Back to the drawing board.  And into the deep trash, or somewhere good, with these.

Update:  Inertia bullet puller.  Sheesh.  Took some beating and whacking but I got them apart.  The slugs are marked up but not so marked up they can't be reloaded.  Powder back in the trickler.  Probably could use the primed cases.

Update II: Rebuilt.  Everything case gauged, so....a-shooting we will go.

Update III: Picked up my brass plus a case from a Jap 7.7.  Who was shooting that monster?  Put the case in with 10 rounds of 7.7 I have.  Who knows?

Update IV: Showed the case to Gentry, WWII Pacific vet.  He used to swim in and mark beaches for invasions.  Asked him when the last time someone shot one of those at him.  1945, he thinks.

It's the Pirate life for me!

  Anyone notice that shipping in international waters off Somalia is another one of those safe GUN-FREE zones?  So why isn't it safe?  And what could possibly be the answer to piracy?  

  I know!  Let's Ban Guns!  

  Idiots!  That's the progressive/liberal thought that got us here.  Multi-million dollar high-tech ships full of multi-million dollar cargoes cruising defenselessly through waters teeming with armed amatures who have the WILL to take them.  But let's don't put any GUNS on board!  That would be.....uncivilized!  Expecting a crew to defend a ship?  How un-modern!

  Oh yeah, water cannons, sound cannons, heat cannons.  Anything but a simple locker with six Garands in it.

  I'd match even the most modernized bunch of union (that ain't in my contract!) crewman against Somali pirates in little boats 300 miles out to sea.  Shoot the first up the ladder in the face and see who else is game if you even got to that point.  

  Disgusting to watch civilization prostrate itself before criminals.  We taught them that we wouldn't "resist" and they certainly learned.

  Only modern civilized people are stupid enough to go about on the High Seas unarmed.  No wonder pirates are playing Who Wants to be a Millionaire!

Update:  Wonder when the order "break open the arms locker and prepare to repel boarders" was last given?

Update II:  Great.  Several warships and highly trained US Navy Seals manage to kill three pirates and spring the hostage capitan.  Good, but did we have to get to that point?  How much did we spend per dead pirate?  And is the situation solved?  Nope, millions and nope.

Update III:  You can't make this stuff up.  Here's an article that actually refers to Somalia's "gun-plagued shores."  It's not the piracy, it ain't the criminal mindset, it's not even poverty...it's the GUNZ!!!!!  If Somalia didn't have those dang "gun-plagued shores", supertankers could burble by the beach in unicorn and rainbow paint jobs with the crews blowing bubbles and flying kites off the decks.  I bet there are even Somali GUNSHOWS on those dang "gun-plagued shores" where people buy assault weapons without going through a background check!!!

  The pirates are vowing revenge.  Want those Garands or not?

Update IV:  Seals sniped them at 25-30 yards from the fantail of the destroyer that was towing them.  Yeeouch.  I bet that left a mess.

Update V:  What exactly do you do with dead pirates?  Leave them in the boat and cut it loose?  Burial at sea?  Hang them in a cage at the harbor entrance?  I don't think anyone has yet claimed the bodies of the 9/11 terrorists.

Update VI: Well, they didn't have to suffer through the hellhole of Guantanamo, did they?  It's worse, I hear, since Obama took over.

Happy Easter

  Happy Easter Sunday to all believers on the web.

Amon Carter Museum

  This isn't it.  This is another tree.  There is no charge.

  I sing, I dance, I cook.  I stink, therefore I am.  You think I  just wander around in the creek bottom pestering God's gentle creatures while toting vintage firearms?  No.   I'm also a man of refined and educated tastes and sensibilities.  Prove it?  Heck yeah!

  Amon Carter just wrote me a personal letter informing the same of the exhibition of one of my prints they happen to hold in their permanent collection.  Take THAT, you common vulgarians!  I'm packed in there right with (Big) Al Stieglitz and the others. ( Georgia Okeefe's hubby)  Heavily armed AND an artist!  Ha!

  For a few months my "Moon leaving a tree" will be exhibited for the just and the unjust to view and be enlightened by, but don't be grabbing at the hem of my garment.  It wasn't just any tree and it wasn't just any moon but instead a fusion of vision, discernment, imagination   and....and........and.....

  I can't talk about it.

  Crack open another merlot, bubba, and lets toast un vie artiste!

  After exhibition, it goes back in the vault for at least four years, so look quick.

  Update:  Can you imagine how satisfying it must be to be shot by me?  The deer are going: Hey, not only is it a legacy firearm...he's an ARTIST!"

Oklahoma Eagle Cam

  I'm pushover for sites showing the sublime beauty and power of nature.  Like this.  For active predators, they sure do spend a lot of time just standing around.  Go fish!  KILL something, dang it!

  Update:  We are digging the Eaglecam.  They just fed the chick and are settling in for Friday night.  Got to see both parents at once.

Deer tracks, Turtle lures and Beaver traps

  Yesterday at the site I reset the motion cam over some fresh deer tracks.  Third time for tracks at this location.  I'm going to bait it with a little corn and get coons, mostly, but eventually a deer.  Also sunk a minnow trap, (4.99) with a pound of ground venison (29.00), into a pond to try and localize the big snappers.  Had to place the trap in shallow water so I wouldn't drown a snake.  They go in after the minnows and little fish and can't get out.

  The stream has a constant flow.  I'm sure the scent trail is all the way down into the big lake below the property by now.  Be interesting to see if they make their way up to check out the source.  My bet is: yes.

  The snake was in his regular location this morning.  He might be shedding.

  Downstream neighborhood subdivision has a beaver trapper working.  It's lethal, so pobably the end of some or most of the beavers.  Mixed emotions.  No Lake Robert it looks like.  He's going to phone my cell when he gets a hit on the traps.

Update:  No turtles.  Snake in usual place.  15 photos on the deercam of nothing.  Beaver traps still sitting.  Dam holding.  

Update II:  Day two.  Snake in place: check.  Trap still baited: check.  Not even a dang minnow stirring.

Daily Deercam

  This is in the dark, but not so dark that they can't keep some track of each other.

  The back left corner shows a little interaction, plus the animal on the right is stamping a front hoof....never a good sign.

  Across the creek.

Daily Deercam

  Rhynard chances by.

  Buck with shed antlers.

  Bobcat butt.

  Singing canid in the mid-morning.

  Hawk and crow.  Go figure.

  The usual suspects.  Also had a dog taking a dump on cam.  Charming.  Coons by the caseload.  Squirrels.  The coyote, fox and bobcat probably all have litters to feed.

  Single mosquito came and sang in my ear.  10 trillion in waiting.

BWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

  Get thee back, oh cursed Obamacles!  Back into The Darkness, gun controllers!  I.  Yes, I.  I, have sent firesticks across the fruited plain by common carrier to spread knowlege and power among the faithful!  No only so but I have used the vector of the US Postal Sevice and its grey and blue clad henchmen to deliver accessories, enbloc clips, instructions and even the sacred fire of the Garand to a postal address!  Verily the heavily armed faithful shall assemble on the banks of the Great Lake and light up the eight, nine, ten and even the X ring!

  BWWWWWaaahahahahahahahah!

  Translation:  I sent Mike and the deadly librarian antique rifles to entice them to shoot at Camp Perry with me this year.  Very satisfying prospect!

Ten-Thing Sunday

  We ate, read the paper, shopped.  I retrieved a couple of items from Mary Burton's estate.  The bigger deal was firing up the mower and having at the side yard.  The first cut of the year here.  April.  End of the wildflowers and local Azalea trails.  An event like the Vernal Snakequinox or the swallows coming back to Capistrano.  Tough to understand why we waste the valuable precious natural resources in the pursuit of something that will have to be done again in a couple of weeks.   I'm talking about my time, energy and attention, not the mower gas.

  Grass growing reminds you of the relentless dam-building of the beavers.  You just can't talk them out of it.

  Makes the robins happy.  They are hunting bugs before I complete the first couple of quick swaths.

  I'd rather be reloading or sneaking up on a snake or a southern.

Update:  Mowing, pay bills, tighten gas system on Garand, computer work for jobs....well, SEEMED like ten things.  Also reloaded a little, washed clothes and dishes and read a book.  So there.

New York Shooting, Mexico....the answer is the same.

  Another mass murderer trapping helpless unarmed victims.  And helpless unarmed Mexicans terrorized and murdered by Drug Cartels.  Good golly, WHAT could the answer be? 

  I know!  We need a ban on ammunition that isn't GREEN!

  Maybe the BATFU will help!  Ok, the LYING BATFU.

  Hillary speaking truth to power!  Ok, speaking LIES to power.

  At least we know one thing:  It's all about the power.

Update:  Galling to see this ignorant man bowing to those criminals.

Update II: One of the comments is dense enough to store nuclear waste in.  Olympic grade.  If you read it, let me know and I will forward the guy's Russian novel to you.   

Update III:  This comment is 31 feet long as I scroll it down the computer.  I'll put this comment up against anyone.

Doesn't LOOK like much...

  But that shadow along the edge of the pool is a submerged Southern Snapping Turtle.

  That matte grey snake is a Water Moccasin that needs to shed.

  This fresh new leafing plant is Poison Ivy.

  And this writhing Raccoon has distemper.

  I spotted the turtle while looking for turtles.  The snake was in his same spot.  (Three times now.)  He left and was back in place after animal control came and went with the coon.  Poison Ivy is leafing out all over.

  It's hard out there.  It is also about ten minutes until the mosquitos start hatching and drive everyone nuts in that particular tangle.

  Animal Control sent the same folks who grabbed the previous coon.  They said he died that night of distemper.

  I cut the dam again.  The beavers are running out of dredge material  It has to come from the bottom of the lagoon and upstream.  Sooner or later I've got to let it go and become Lake Robert but lots of fun to pull the plug. 

  Going to add a minnow trap and catch some little fish to photograph.  Might throw in a frozen chunk of ground venison and see if I get a pool-full of Southern Snappers.  Just might.

Dam-busting Snake-a-thon!

  I bust the dam.  Note the water level.

  It keeps draining and the engineers show up to take a look.

  They start to work.

  Using native organc materials.

  Meanwhile, the other gentle woodland creatures sleep it off.

  To windy to do much outside.  Sunny too.  Non-photographic weather.  Went out to check the beaves and walked down to take a look at the moccasin tangle.  He was in it.  I'm assuming this is his home spot.  I approached him very quietly and used an indirect line.  He finally spooked.  I don't think he smelled me with his tongue but could have.  He certainly saw me.

  Wonder how big a range a snake like this has?  Gotta move around some to hunt.