Aug 12, 2010

Gettin’ kind’a warmish around these parts. But at least we have a hot wind blowing! 😉

Went up to Faith yesterday evening to watch the Matched Bronc riding. Excellent! Couple of neighbors and their sons rode along and we met up with more friends and were surrounded by a sea of people we know. This is saddle bronc country. We don’t need an anounncer to tell us to holler and cheer or when to do it and there were some boo’s from the crowd at a couple scores. Glad I didn’t have to judge it!

Tickled me that they introduced 3 world champions bronc riders who were there for the match, but the loudest cheering and report from the crowd came for Chancey Miller, a local young man who is only about 5 foot high and must have velcro or glue in the seat of his britches. When his first bronc came out of the chute, he stumbled and fell and wallered around on his side. Chancey just stayed cool and rode him back up and then rode the hell out of him. Of course the judges offered him a reride which he took and then rode the hide off him. In the final round he didn’t miss winning by much and then only because he didn’t get a horse who bucked as good as some others. Luck of the draw they call it.

Chancey Miller. Remember that name, I bet you will see him at the National Finals one day soon.

I wonder if some will ever get it?

Editor’s Note: Below are selected excerpts from Brigitte Gabriel’s speech delivered at the Intelligence Summit in Washington DC

We gather here today to share information and knowledge. Intelligence is not merely cold hard data about numerical strength or armament or disposition of military forces. The most important element of intelligence has to be understanding the mindset and intention of the enemy. The West has been wallowing in a state of ignorance and denial for thirty years as Muslim extremist perpetrated evil against innocent victims in the name of Allah.

I was ten years old when my home exploded around me, burying me under the rubble and leaving me to drink my blood to survive, as the perpetrators shouted, ‘Allah Akbar!’ My only crime was that I was a Christian living in a Christian town. At 10 years old, I learned the meaning of the word ‘infidel.’
I had a crash course in survival. Not in the Girl Scouts, but in a bomb shelter where I lived for seven years in pitch darkness, freezing cold, drinking stale water and eating grass to live. At the age of 13, dressed in my burial clothes going to bed at night, waiting to be slaughtered. By the age of 20, I had buried most of my friends–killed by Muslims. We were not Americans living in New York , or Britons in London . We were Arab Christians living in Lebanon .
As a victim of Islamic terror, I was amazed when I saw Americans waking up on September 12, 2001, and asking themselves ‘Why do they hate us?’ The psychoanalyst experts were coming up with all sort of excuses as to what did we do to offend the Muslim World. But if America and the West were paying attention to the Middle East they would not have had to ask the question. Simply put, they hate us because we are defined in their eyes by one simple word: ‘infidels.’
Under the banner of Islam ‘la, ilaha illa Allah, muhammad
rasoulu Allah,’ (None is god except Allah; Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah) they murdered Jewish children in Israel, massacred Christians in Lebanon, killed Copts in Egypt, Assyrians in Syria, Hindus in India, and expelled almost 900,000 Jews from Muslim lands. We Middle Eastern infidels paid the price then. Now infidels worldwide are paying the price for indifference and shortsightedness.
Tolerating evil is a crime. Appeasing murderers doesn’t buy protection. It earns one disrespect and loathing in the enemy’s eyes. Yet apathy is the weapon by which the West is committing suicide. Political correctness forms the shackles around our ankles, by which Islamist’s are leading us to our demise.
America and the West are doomed to failure in this war unless they stand up and identify the real enemy: Islam. You hear about Cahaba and Salafi Islam as the only extreme form of Islam. All the other Muslims, supposedly, are wonderful moderates. Closer to the truth are the pictures of the irrational eruption of violence in reaction to the cartoons of Mohammed printed by a Danish newspaper. From burning embassies, to calls to butcher those who mock Islam, to warnings that the West be prepared for another holocaust, those pictures have given us a glimpse into the real face of the enemy. News pictures and video of these events represent a canvas of hate decorated by different nationalities who share one common ideology of hate, bigotry and intolerance derived from one source: authentic Islam. An Islam that is awakening from centuries of slumber to re-ignite its wrath against the infidel and dominate the world. An Islam which has declared ‘Intifada’ on the West.
America and the West can no longer afford to lay in their lazy state of overweight ignorance. The consequences of this mental disease are starting to attack the body, and if they don’t take the necessary steps now to control it, death will be knocking soon. If you want to understand the nature of the enemy we face, visualize a tapestry of snakes. They slither and they hiss, and they would eat each other alive, but they will unite in a hideous mass to achieve their common goal of imposing Islam on the world.
This is the ugly face of the enemy we are fighting. We are fighting a powerful ideology that is capable of altering basic human instincts. An ideology that can turn a mother into a launching pad of death. A perfect example is a recently elected Hamas official in the Palestinian Territories who raves in heavenly joy about sending her three sons to death and offering the ones who are still alive for the cause. It is an ideology that is capable of offering highly educated individuals such as doctors and lawyers far more joy in attaining death than any respect and stature life in society is ever capable of giving them.
The United States has been a prime target for radical Islamic hatred and terror. Every Friday, mosques in the Middle East ring with shrill prayers and monotonous chants calling death, destruction and damnation down on America and its people. The radical Islamist deeds have been as vile as their words. Since the Iran hostage crisis, more than three thousand Americans have died in a terror campaign almost unprecedented in its calculated cruelty along with thousands of other citizens worldwide. Even the Nazis did not turn their own children into human bombs, and then rejoice at their deaths as well the deaths of their victims. This intentional, indiscriminate and wholesale murder of innocent American citizens is justified and glorified in the name of Islam.
America cannot effectively defend itself in this war unless and until the American people understand the nature of the enemy that we face. Even after 9/11 there are those who say that we must engage our terrorist enemies, that we must address their grievances. Their grievance is our freedom of religion. Their grievance is our freedom of speech. Their grievance is our democratic process where the rule of law comes from the voices of many not that of just one prophet. It is the respect we instill in our children towards all religions. It is the equality we grant each other as human beings sharing a planet and striving to make the world a better place for all humanity. Their grievance is the kindness and respect a man shows a woman, the justice we practice as equals under the law, and the mercy we grant our enemy. Their grievance cannot be answered by an apology for who or what we are.
Our mediocre attitude of not confronting Islamic forces of bigotry and hatred wherever they raised their ugly head in the last 30 years, has empowered and strengthened our enemy to launch a full scale attack on the very freedoms we cherish in their effort to impose their values and way of life on our civilization.
If we don’t wake up and challenge our Muslim community to take action against the terrorists within it, if we don’t believe in ourselves as Americans and in the standards we should hold every patriotic American to, we are going to pay a price for our delusion. For the sake of our children and our country, we must wake up and take action. In the face of a torrent of hateful invective and terrorist murder, America ‘s learning curve since the Iran hostage crisis is so shallow that it is almost flat. The longer we lay supine, the more difficult it will be to stand erect.
This is all coming true. A non-patriot is President of this great country. He has openly admitted his Muslim roots and his sympathy for all Muslims. How can this happen?? APATHY, that’s how!!! Send this around.
Brigitte Gabriel is an expert on the Middle East conflict and lectures nationally and internationally on the subject. She’s the former news anchor of World News for Middle East television and the founder of AmericanCongressforTruth.com

Here and there

Had to be up by Belle Fourche for a Cowboy Chuckwagon Breakfast and church service yesterday. Jim Thompson did the reading and preachin’ and I sang a song and did a couple poems. Not too many but saw a guy I grew up around and his wife. We had made contact recently thru’ the internet so it was good to set face to face and chew the fat. Then I went carp bow fishing again in the afternoon. I got some this time. Helps when you don’t lose your arrow in the water and mud! Walked a long ways. Got separated from the group and ended up fishing along which was fine, but then Rick spent quite awhile driving and looking for me. Oh well, I knew how to get back to his house and I was pretty sure he did also! 🙂

Faith Stockshow and rodeo going on this week. Also the official start of the Sturgis Bike Rally. Man the Hills are overgrown with bikers and have been for a week! This is the 70th anniversary and they are expecting over 800,000 people to show up over this week.In a town that normally is about 8,000.

I will spend my extra time going to Faith. Bronc riding on Wednesday evening. Supposed to pull a buggy in the parade on Saturday. Got a couple friends who are doing poetry and music on Thursday evening so I might have to run up and visit with them a bit.

Odds and ends

Finally got  all the bales hauled and into the shed. Put the mower on and cut down some weeds. Electric company came and cut some branches that were close to the line coming in to the house and trimmed up a tree that was going to make a mess when it went down as part of it is dead. Rode down south and shut some gates last night as I had let the heifers in to a fresh pasture. Not too much to write about. Faith Stock Show is coming up. Rally is supposed to start Monday, but Cindy said it’s already pretty hectic in thee. I agreed to go up and do some poetry up between St Onge and Belle on Sunday. What was I thnking?

Check this out!


By Dewie Whetsell, Alaskan Fisherman.

As posted in comments on Greta’s article referencing the MOVEON ad about Sarah Palin.

The last 45 of my 66 years I’ve spent in a commercial fishing town in Alaska. I understand Alaska politics but never understood national politics well until this last year. Here’s the breaking point: Neither side of the Palin controversy gets it. It’s not about persona, style, rhetoric, it’s about doing things. Even Palin supporters never mention the things that I’m about to mention here.

1. Democrats forget when Palin was the Darling of the Democrats, because as soon as Palin took the Governor’s office away from a fellow Republican and tough SOB, Frank Murkowski, she tore into the Republican’s “Corrupt Bastards Club” (CBC) and sent them packing. Many of them are now residing in State housing and wearing orange jump suits The Democrats reacted by skipping around the yard, throwing confetti and singing, “la la la la” (well, you know how they are). Name another governor in this country that has ever done anything similar.

2. Now with the CBC gone, there were fewer Alaskan politicians to protect the huge, giant oil companies here. So she constructed and enacted a new system of splitting the oil profits called “ACES.” Exxon (the biggest corporation in the world) protested and Sarah told them, “don’t let the door hit you in the stern on your way out.” They stayed, and Alaska residents went from being merely wealthy to being filthy rich. Of course, the other huge international oil companies meekly fell in line. Again, give me the name of any other governor in the country that has done anything similar.

3. The other thing she did when she walked into the governor’s office is she got the list of State requests for federal funding for projects, known as “pork.” She went through the list, took 85% of the m and placed them in the “when-hell-freezes-over” stack. She let locals know that if we need something built, we’ll pay for it ourselves. Maybe she figured she could use the money she got from selling the previous governor’s jet because it was extravagant. Maybe she could use the money she saved by dismissing the governor’s cook (remarking that she could cook for her own family), giving back the State vehicle issued to her, maintaining that she already had a car, and dismissing her State provided security force (never mentioning – I imagine – that she’s packing heat herself). I’m still waiting to hear the names of those other governors.

4. Now, even with her much-ridiculed “gosh and golly” mannerism, she also managed to put together a totally new approach to getting a natural gas pipeline built which will be the biggest private construction project in the history of North America. No one else could do it although they tried. If that doesn’t impress you, then you’re trying too hard to be unimpressed while watching her do things like this while baking up a batch of brownies with her other hand.

5. For 30 years, Exxon held a lease to do exploratory drilling at a place called Point Thompson. They made excuses the entire time why they couldn’t start drilling. In truth they were holding it like an investment. No governor for 30 years could make them get started. Then, she told them she was revoking their lease and kicking them out. They protested and threatened court action. She shrugged and reminded them that she knew the way to the court house. Alaska won again.

6. President Obama wants the nation to be on 25% renewable resources for electricity by 2025. Sarah went to the legislature and submitted her plan for Alaska to be at 50% renewable by 2025. We are already at 25%. I can give you more specifics about things done, as opposed to style and persona. Everybody wants to be cool, sound cool, look cool. But that’s just a cover-up. I’m still waiting to hear from liberals the names of other governors who can match what mine has done in two and a half years. I won’t be holding my breath.

By the way, she was content to return to AK after the national election and go to work, but the haters wouldn’t let her. Now these adolescent screechers are obviously not scuba divers. And no one ever told them what happens when you continually jab and pester a barracuda. Without warning, it will spin around and tear your face off. Should’a known better.

You have just read the truth about Sarah Palin that sends the media, along with the democrat party, into a wild uncontrolled frenzy to discredit her. I guess they are only interested in skirt chasers, dishonesty, immoral people, liars, womanizers, murderers, and bitter ex-presidents’ wives.

Limerick

The only one I ever wrote and I wrote it in a year like this, about this time. Don’t think I’ve ever posted it here before, but if I did, it’s time to do so again.

An invasion of bikers all dressed in black

or of grasshoppers on the attack

I much prefer the hoppers

over all of the choppers

‘cuz next year the hoppers just might not come back!

Hoppers and bikers

Ahh, August. Heat and motorcycles and grasshoppers.
I do not enjoy any of them, except in small amounts.
Every year for 70 years now, motorcyclists have congregated in and around Sturgis, SD for the Motorcycle rally. And I imagine most are good folks. But they come from different areas and they have different idea’s about most things. which is fine, in and of it’s self. But when you get 300,000 to 600,000 people congesting an area that normally only has from 10,00 to 60,000 people, that is a lot of extra guests!
Think about it; What if 500,00 cowboys, or ranchers showed up in your back yard and stayed to party for two weeks, every year, how would you like it or handle it? We who live here just try to suffer thru’ it.
Kind of like the grasshopper invasions we get every so often. This year is the big one. For grasshoppers anyway. They are every where. And they are eating and spitting and breeding. Kind of like the bikers!
And hoppers eat and eat and eat! It’s amazing the harm they can do in a short time. Lucky for us they peaked in a wet year. As it is, many are talking of getting 30% less of a hay crop so you can figure we are getting 30% loss in our grazing this year also. Grazing is what we make a living off from,. No grass, no cows, no paycheck.
Imagine if you took a 30% loss in your income? Go ahead, and figure it, I’ll wait. …………..Yeah, that is quite a bite, isn’t it?
A neighbor got stuck out in his summer pasture and after climbing a hill to get cell service, called his son to come pull him  out, but he and his wife had to set and wait for about 2 hours for said son to arrive and he;lp them out. The neighbor got to looking and soon noticed that every single blade or stem of grass had a hopper on it. Every one! So he started catching hoppers and looking under their wings to see if they had a mite under it, which is one of natures ways of eliminating or at least thinning the grasshopper herd. Any he found with a mite, he threw back onto the ground to pass this sickness on to his fellow grasshoppers. Any with out a mite? As he said it, “I killed every one of them sonsabitches!”
Oh well, this too shall pass. We will keep a stiff upper lip, do what we can to put up with them and help the natural flow to get rid of them. The hoppers too!

Rain

I live in a high desert. Last time I looked, we got 15 inches of moisture a year. And usually some of that is made up of snow in the winter that swirls, drifts and blows around until it is deposited into downwind areas and creeks and draws. Which is good, as that is where we get our water to fill our dams and water holes and lakes. Water is a precious thing around here and farther west. People have fought and died in the past for it.
So when we get rain I always thank the Lord. Without it we could not survive and live the lives we do or run the livestock we do. But there seem to always be those who whine and complain when we get showers or a real good rain because it causes them an inconvenience. That just makes me angry.
Who are they to second guess the Good Lord?
Sure, they might get some rain on their hay and make it too wet to bale or make it of less value, or maybe they can’t combine their wheat quite as quick as they would like, but overall, I think the Lord has a better idea of what we need.
I mowed and baled my road ditch for hay. Small square bales so I can stack them inside a shed to keep them from getting wet or snowed under. This winter it will be well worth the sweat and work involved to have them there. In a blizzard I will have hay I can put out in the corrals to the livestock. Or if I just need to feed a small amount to a horse or two or some calves that are being weaned, they can be real handy. But it rained on the hay, a little. No problem, I just let it dry out and then raked it again and baled it. Now it has rained on them twice, just a little, after the hay was baled. That will make them slightly less valuable for feed as it will drop the protein or maybe make some mold. But I will still take the rain when it comes. And I will not grumble, complain or cuss the inconvenience of a rain, no matter what. In my 52 years of living here, I have seen more dusty days than muddy and mud dries up shortly. Dust stays along time and causes way more problems. After all, who am I, a tiny little speck of a man to curse a blessing the Good Lord has sent me!

I am not talking about floods or devastating storms that cause people to lose crops they can’t afford to lose, tho’ there is a sorry insurance plan for that. And I am not talking about other parts of the world where they get lots of rain and it makes it very hard to get their crops in or out. I am just talking this small chunk of high plains desert where I live. And I don’t suppose any one cares too much what I think. And I guess that’s alright. As long as God knows how I think, I guess that is all that really matters. 🙂

Idiot cubes and gravel

Got the road all mowed and raked and baled. Had a shower come thru” when I first started baling so I had to re rake the next day and finish up. About a 100 I suppose or a few more.

My neighbor with a truck and loader came this morning and hauled me some gravel into my main corral that was getting a big hole in it from cutting a little too deep when cleaning over the past few years. So it’s all good and then I got the rake unhooked and the front axle off it put onto my low slung goose-neck bale wagon. It’s pretty east to just throw on about 20 bales and then pull into a barn or shed and unload them, pulled by the team or you can put a short tongue in and use a tractor I suppose. One year we hooked it up behind the little red Suzuki  and used that, as I didn’t have a team to use then. Now for the real sweaty part! Tho’ it is hot and muggy enough I have been sweating getting things unhooked and hooked back up.

A neighbor I hadn’t seen in a spell stopped in this morning and we sure had a good visit. He lives alongside a pretty fair creek that usually runs water most the year. We made plans to go up and shot carp with our bows and fishing arrows. I can hardly wait!

Cindy went with Hope and the boys to Cheyenne and Pine Bluffs to visit Chance and the Cheyenne Frontier Days. Sounds like they are seeing all the sights.

Tuesday July 27

Rode down and roped and doctored a bad eye heifer this morning. Made something work I have tried before but never got to work to good. After I got her roped and laid down I got the rope between her hind legs and around one and back up in a figure eight around her neck and then did that a couple more times. It pulls the hind leg up towards her neck like a scotch hobble on a horse, but doesn’t choke them. You do this several times so that when you tighten it up she is pretty much immobilized. Then I stepped off and tied her hind legs together, slipped the piggin’ string off and the rope from around her neck and let her go. Slick!

Then I mowed the road ditches and got the rake ready. I will probably rake it tomorrow and get a baler and bale the hay. Then I will have to get the team and haul and stack bales! Oh boy! Sweat, it’s a good thing, right? 🙂

Went to Punkin Center and got some twine and some salt and mineral and scattered the salt out to the cows. Got a haircut also. Gramma baby set the grandsons for Hope. They have plans to go to Cheyenne to Frontier days this weekend. I will stay here and tend the home fires and let Gramma have the trip down with Hope. She can baby set while Hope and Chance have a night out.

I rode Peaches up west this afternoon and put some pairs back that got out thru’ a down gate.

Found out Bob can get out of a tiny gap in the horse trailer. I put the dogs in the horse trailer seeing as Bob tore a hole in the dog house and they can get out of it now. Another job on the to do list.