A Walk Around Fosdick Lake With A White Swan Being Kite Bombed With Turtles

The Fosdick Lone White Swan is still taking up residence at Fosdick Lake in Oakland Lake Park.

Today the Lone White Swan's entourage was only two ducks.

I think the Lone White Swan may be being always in the same shady location because he/she has learned that park visitors bring him/her goodies.

Like today I tossed some Swan food at the Lone White Swan in the form of whole wheat bread.

While the Lone White Swan was holding food court, nearby a she of the human type was being a kite launcher for her boyfriend.

You can see the Lone White Swan to the left of the trunk of the tree. The birds seemed not to mind the kite that was being launched and crashing, over and over again, in their neighborhood.

The kite was in the shape of a bomber aircraft. The kite would successfully launch and then do a dive bomb. To me it looked like the boyfriend was purposefully dive bombing the girlfriend. The longest the plane kite stayed aloft was about 30 seconds.

Today the Fosdick turtles were congregated on their main log. This log has done some floating to new locations on the lake due to strong winds of late. Somehow the Fosdick turtles seem to always find where their log has moved to.

This morning my computer based weather  monitoring device had the air quality being sufficiently bad that it was suggested sensitive sorts not expose themselves to it. That warning has since gone away. However, the air is noticeably smoggy, unlike the ultra clear sky I saw on Sunday from the top of Mount Tandy.

The bad air has not had any noticeable effect on my ultra sensitive breathing.

I Want Some Chesapeake Energy Mailbox Money & Fracking Air Quality Testing Done To The Air That I Breathe

This morning I read a disturbing bit of info in Fort Worth Weekly's Static titled Migraines and Mailbox Money.

A Fort Worth mom, Mandy Mobley, was in real good shape, slender and healthy. And then she started not to feel so good.

Headaches, dizzy spells, fatigued.

Visits to doctors provided no answers.

Then, Mandy Mobeley attended a North Texas Communities Alliance meeting where a video was shown showing the chemical stew spewing from a Chesapeake Energy Barnett Shale gas fracking operation.

Just like me, Mandy Mobley has a Chesapeake Energy gas fracking operation nearby.

Unlike me, Mandy Mobley leased her mineral rights to Chesapeake Energy, for which she gets paltry royalty checks.

I have been having some of Mandy Mobley's symptoms for months now. In September and October I thought the woes were allergies. I had not been an allergy prone person prior to this.

Then in early December came down with what seemed like a cold, which I later decided might have been the flu. Coughing, restricted breathing, feeling queasy.

Now I realize my bout of misery which began in early December began soon after Chesapeake Energy amped up their fracking operation in my neighborhood, with fumes of some sort clearly spewing forth, visible to the naked eye, at times.

Below is my local purveyor of fracking fumes. You can't see the fumes in the photo. When you can see the fumes they are fuming from a couple vents on top of the red boxcar like device.

The first time I ever experienced bad air pollution, and smog, was as a kid, the first time my mom and dad took us to Disneyland. The air of Southern California was so incredibly bad back then. The worst of it was when we went to Universal Studios. At that location the air was so bad it made my eyes sting and leak. It was so bad I can remember it like it was yesterday, even though this was decades ago.

The past month, or so, whatever it is my eyes are being burned by, the sensation is very similar, though much less severe, than what I experienced long ago in Southern California.

I wish Texas had not seceded, again, from the Union, and that that powerful United States agency known as the Environmental Protection Agency, still operated here. Maybe Texas should start up its own version of the EPA.

It could be called the Texas Environmental Protection Agency.

TEPA.

Does that not have a nice ring to it?

Going Swimming Again With A Knife In My Back Without The Missing Queen Of Wink

Up early looking through the bars of my patio prison cell on the 8th morning of June at a swimming pool which is again back usable.

I am hoping that swimming this morning helps alleviate the knife in my back pain that continues to ache me.

I had some relief yesterday from the knife in my back after getting some endorphin treatment on the Tandy Hills. But, as the endorphins wore off, the knife in my back returned.

Something that has not returned is the Queen of Wink. I mentioned yesterday that she'd disappeared from Facebook. I called the Queen of Wink around noon. Left a message. No call back. The Queen of Wink is/was quite a Facebook devotee. For her Facebook account to suddenly disappear does not seem right.

The Queen of Wink had become involved with a guy who calls himself Bogart. Bogart does not look like Humphrey Bogart. Unless Humphrey were playing a role that called for him to look like a Hell's Angel. Bogart's Facebook page still exists. But, virtually everything has been removed from it. Adding to the mystery.

Switching subjects.

The smoke from the Arizona wildfires has not reached my location. But it is very smoggy here. I think it stings my eyes and makes me sneeze.

I remember the one and only time I experienced smog so bad it burned my eyes was years ago in Los Angeles. The air in Los Angeles has greatly improved from the way it was a couple decades ago.

A couple decades ago you could not see the mountains to the east when you were in Los Angeles. I did not even realize Los Angeles had a visible mountain range to the east til I was in LA during a low smog winter during a Christmas visit to Disneyland.

I am fairly certain if the smog that currently coats the Dallas/Fort Worth area, lifted, that a mountain range would not be revealed.

It is time to go swimming now.

The Smoggy Sunday Skyline Of Beautiful Downtown Fort Worth From The Top Of Mount Tandy

The plan, when I left my abode at noon, was to go to Oakland Lake Park to walk around Fosdic Lake and feed the ducks.

I figured the Tandy Hills had not dried out from our most recent deluge.

As I drove towards Fosdic Lake and the stunning skyline of beautiful downtown Fort Worth came into view, I was surprised by how smoggy the view was.

I'd been oblivious to the state of today's Fort Worth air, til I saw the FW skyline through a thick haze and then looked in the other directions, where I could see into the horizon, and saw a thick foggy smog had descended over the D/FW Metroplex.

I decided I wanted to take a picture of the Fort Worth skyline. That required going to the top of Mount Tandy. I figured I'd take my picture and try to hike, but if it was muddy, I'd go back the short distance to Fosdic Lake.

Well, the Tandy Trails turned out to be dry. So I got in some good, salubrious, aerobicizing hiking.

Due to the humidity and the temperature nearing the 90 zone, by the time I was done I was a totally wet mess. Wettest mess I ever recollect getting whilst hiking on the Tandy Hills.

I am ready for this ultra-humidity to go away.

Although, the ultra-humid wet wool blanket type air does make getting in the pool very refreshing.

What Is Causing The Smog Over Saginaw?

About an hour ago I heard from Elsie Hotpepper, asking me if I knew what the "cloud of crap" was in the air when she looked east from her location towards Saginaw. Elsie Hotpepper is always very poetic with her verbiage.

The Saginaw Elsie refers to is not the Saginaw in Michigan, it is a Texas Saginaw, one of Fort Worth's suburbs.

Elsie is currently about 8 miles north of me. When Elsie asked about the Saginaw Smog I went to see if I could see it.

I could. In all directions but one the air looks relatively clean. But, looking northwest, from my location, towards Saginaw, there is a thick pink haze hovering on the ground.

I don't believe we are dry enough for wildfires right now.

An hour after Elsie Hotpepper first directed me to look at the sky, it appears to have gotten smoggier. And appears to be heading this way and spreading.

Slap TCEQ AT June 24 DFW Smog Meeting

On Thursday, June 24 the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is holding its first meeting in four years about Dallas/Fort Worth Smog.

The meeting is to take place from 7 to 9 pm in the City of Arlington City Council Chambers at 101 West Abram Street in Arlington.

This is a Public Meeting.

So. What is this meeting about?

Well. Last summer D/FW violated the federal smog standard, despite a Texas plan to not let that happen.

This failure gave this region of Texas the dirtiest air in the state.

Now, Texas has to come up with a second plan. At the June 24 meeting TCEQ, supposedly, will seek opinions from citizens as to what anti-pollution measures need to be implemented.

Now, I'm thinking in a fair, sane, sensible, responsible world giving TCEQ your ideas might be a good idea. But, this is TCEQ we are talking about. Widely believed to be corrupted by too much industry influence tainting the agency's actions.

I guess it is good to be optimistic and hope for the best. So, the North Central Texas Clean Air Task Foce, in cooperation with Downwinders at Risk, Environmental Defense Fund, North Central Texas Communities Alliance, Public Citizen, Sierra Club and Texas Oil and Gas Accountability Project urge you to act on June 24.

And show up in Arlington to give TCEQ a piece of your mind and the bitch slapping the agency and its lackeys so richly deserve.

New Proof That Natural Gas Is Not Clean

The above video shows what looks like billowing smoke and fire coming from a natural gas well in the Barnett Shale. What you are actually seeing is plumes of invisible hydrocarbon emission through the filter of a high-tech video camera, making the invisible visible.

Seeing this video makes it easier to understand how it is that these operations belch around 200 tons of smog into the North Texas air every day. This is the dirty stuff that Al Armendariz, a Southern Methodist University chemical engineer, first brought to public attention, initially to scorn, from some, eventually validated as accurate by part of the state government of Texas.

The video was brought to you by TXsharon and FWCanDo! for BS Guinea Pig Productions.

Please visit their websites and The Daily Kos for more information.