It is 2:22 a.m. Ernie starts barking. Not just one or two obligatory warnings, but a dedicated alarum. I flick on the outback lights. The beams highlight a solitary killdeer, a bird common to Texas and North America. What is the grounded aviator doing out there in the cold and fog at this early hour of a winter morning? Startled
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Ed Note: A gentleman reader submitted an article for inclusion in desktodirt in response to “Let them eat cake.” It is published below. Should other reader’s want to submit Op Ed pieces please forward them for consideration, subject to edit. Think of that to include what used to be called maintaining family values. Thanks. When asking, “what’s gone wrong in
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Who would ever want to secede from the great Empire State of New York? This is the first in an anytime series of brief, thought provoking articles, video clips or other material scrupulously sourced from the www. The reason for presenting each one will be the sentiment expressed in the image above: thank your lucky stars you are in Texas.
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The image shown above is nothing more than a LED flashlight held vertically at night. Ernie and I got the inspiration to illuminate during our evening jaunt. What you can’t see is the stream of particles flying through the beam. It recalls excited ping pong balls in the Lotto cage. But in this case they are too small to number
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Ernie has been uncomfortable meeting four legged creatures many times his size. And when you spend your pooch adolescence pretty much citified and indoors, becoming a member of a farm animal social network doesn’t happen overnight. [There is a website for transitioning, isn’t there?] But now, Ernie is a Texas country guy so he is adjusting. He just needed a
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Beautiful spring-like weather has finally arrived in Fayetteville! Three days of sun and temperatures in the seventies have banished my cold weather procrastination and replaced it with sowing vegetable seeds. Looking at the tray in the image above isn’t very inspiring, I agree. But that is one of the great things about agriculture: a quiet sense of accomplishment. For example,
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I wrote the article below in 2006 just weeks after Pluto became a non-planet and after NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft was launched to study planet Pluto. After nine years of flight the spacecraft is again in the news closing in on this July’s fly-by. It remains a real story of intrigue and mysterious dealings, who demoted it and why. Also
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[I wrote this article based on a visit to The Eagle’s Nest in 2000. It subsequently appeared in an e-zine I had with my daughter. Of all the places I have been in the world this one still leaves a major impression. I can only explain that by saying read the article and you will understand why.] It is an
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Ernie the intrepid and I went out for the nightly walk. Bog-like conditions from leftover rain don’t faze him; visibility near zero, no problem. And throw in the scent of a rabbit, swoosh………. his twenty pounds stretch the leash as taut as a mooring line in a hurricane. If they put a rabbit in front of a railcar I think
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The Mother goat and kid are always very close together. Feeling a little like paparazzi note in every picture the mother and new-born are staring at the camera. That is probably a good idea. Being ever vigilant – including with the aid of the two rams – is good life insurance. There is strong evidence of a coyote that roams at night.
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