Camping On The Tandy Hills With Giant Mushrooms

Looking West at Downtown Fort Worth

I was back on the Tandy Hills today for the first time in about 2 weeks. I can not remember when I had myself a finer time doing hill hiking than I did today.

The temperature was nearing 60. The only outer wear needed was cargo shorts and a t-shirt.

It is a clear, blue sky Friday, as you can see in the picture, looking west, towards the stunning skyline of beautiful downtown Fort Worth, with the phalanx of Fort Worth skyscrapers barely peaking up above a Tandy Hill.

Why do I have such a liking for run-on sentences? Writing them is like careening out of control in a car with broken brakes. Not that I have ever had that happen.

Soon after I took the picture of the stunning skyline I looked down the ridge you see in the foreground. I saw something large and out of place. As I got closer I saw more odd things. It crossed my mind that I may have stumbled upon the mysterious VW Bus of Witchey Tree Fame.

When I was about 30 feet away it became clear I was looking at a homeless person's campsite. There were clothes hanging from branches. Stuff stored in plastic bags, also hanging from branches. Piles of camping material, like blankets and a tarp, on the ground, along with an assortment of other stuff.

Gang of Four Hiking

As I stood there looking at this campsite I reached to get my camera. At that point I heard a noise, the type leaf rustling noise armadillos make. I saw a large object move behind a tree. I was spooked by the large object behind the tree, who I also think was spooked. I quickly walked away.

A very short time later I was back on the View Street Trail, heading south, when I heard voices, then saw the group of 4 guys you see in the picture.

They were coming from the direction of the campsite, but I don't think these were the campers. I think it was just a coincidence they showed up at that point in time.

Eight Mushrooms Sprouting in the Distance

Continuing on, about 15 minutes later I looked up to see what looked like 8 very big mushrooms, un-naturally sprouting out of the ground of the Tandy Hills Natural Area.

We've had some precipitation precipitating of late. Were the damp conditions of the sort that caused giant mushrooms to sprout, I walked and wondered?

As I got closer to the 8 giant mushrooms it became clear this was not natural vegetation sprouting on the Tandy Hills.

These were manmade mushrooms.

Eight sturdy benches anchored to steel posts stuck very solidly into the ground.

Is this the amphitheater where outdoor concerts are rumored to take place this summer?

Eight Rectangular Mushroom Benches

Is there any relationship between the 8 benches and the bamboo teepee a short distance to the north?

There seems to be a lot of construction going on on the Tandy Hills Natural Area.

Recently directional signposts have been installed, after which I have not gotten lost a single time.

And now the construction of 8 benches.

What's next?

In my own selfish interest, I would not mind seeing mushroom benches installed at various locations throughout the Natural Area. It'd be a good thing to be able to sit down for a spell to enjoy the scenery in a non-vertical position. I sat on one of the mushroom benches today for at least 5 minutes. It was very pleasant.

Discovering The Hidden Grotto Of Village Creek With An Armadillo

Walking today with the Indian Ghosts who haunt the Village Creek Natural Historical Area I saw a trail I'd not noticed before, likely noticeable, now, because of the diminished amount of view blocking foliage.

The trail led to the view you see in the picture, a heretofore hidden Grotto on Village Creek.

The water in Village Creek was looking so clear today I would have felt a swim were possible, if it were a hot summer day, and there were no turtles or other reptiles of the snake sort who like to play in Village Creek.

The only critter I recollect seeing today was the same armadillo I first saw a week ago. I am fairly certain this is the same armadillo due to it being in the same location and exhibiting an odd behavior I'd not seen in other armadillos. That being this guy does not cut and run when he detects a human.

Instead, this guy does a couple hops and then freezes, like a possum playing possum, and then resumes his foraging, stopping to repeat, when once again the presence of a dangerous human is detected.

Am I Going To The 2013 Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo Starting January 18 til February 9?

The 2013 Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo starts up tomorrow, Friday, January 18, closing Saturday, February 9.

The last time I went to the Fort Worth Stock Show was back in, I think 2003.

I have watched the Fort Worth Stock Show Parade 2 or 3 times. The Fort Worth Stock Show Parade is one of the best parades I've ever seen.

The trouble with the Fort Worth Stock Show Parade is the time of year the parading takes place.

Winter.

A couple years ago the parade had to be cancelled due to cold, icy conditions. Was that the same year as the Super Bowl snow woes? I don't remember.

On Saturday, parade day, the temperature is currently scheduled to reach a high of 62, starting off with a low of 38. 62 would be a very good parade viewing temperature.

I have only attended the Fort Worth Stock Show Rodeo one time, that being soon after my arrival in Texas, late in the last century. I was still in the midst of suffering extreme culture shock.  I did not care for the rodeo. It takes place in a very antique building built a really long time ago.

I am thinking I'd like to go to the Stock Show this year. Every year I tell myself I'm going to go watch the parade again. And then don't.

To make transiting to the Stock Show and the Stock Show Parade easier, the Fort Worth bus system, known as The T, is providing bus service from two locations,  Ridgmar Mall and Billy Bob's, for only $1, from 10am til 10pm, on Saturdays and Sundays during the Stock Show's run.

I do not know if the $1 is a roundtrip ticket. Or one-way.

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?

A Walk With The Gateway Park Trees Before Picking Strawberries

Trees seemed to be the theme of my walk on a few miles of the Gateway Park paved trails today.

I like this time of year in Texas, foliage wise.

Most of the leaves on most of the trees are long gone, making for a completely different look from the jungle that will begin to re-sprout in a couple months.

Today's walk was immensely more pleasant than yesterday's chilly, breezy walk with the Fosdick Lake ducks.

I was slightly, ever so slightly, surprised when I came to Gateway Park's #2 Boardwalk today.

Surprised because the "Closed To Public" sign was nowhere to be seen. And the yellow crime scene tape was gone.

Have the boardwalks been fixed was my first thought. Then, upon seeing that the Boardwalk had not been fixed, my second thought was a mischievous park vandal had been at work.

Mother Nature has also been doing some mischievous vandalizing since my last walkabout in Gateway Park.

As you can see a tree has either grown into a vertical trail blocking position, or Mother Nature blew the tree down to be a trail block.

Whatever it was that put this tree into this trail blocking position, it took a very strenuous effort to circumvent the trail blockage.

When I finished with my walkabout I headed to the Beach Street Walmart. When I drove by the Beach Street Town Talk I saw that strawberries were the featured product of the day.

So, I stopped at Town Talk and got me some strawberries. People were scooping up the strawberries. Many people had multiple flats in the carts. A flat of strawberries was only costing $6. I had no idea what I would do with that many strawberries, so I only got 2 boxes.

That is still a lot of strawberries.

That likely will not taste very good and will likely cause me to lament missing the tasty, sweet Skagit Valley strawberries of my long ago youth.

Making It Safely Across The Icy Fosdick Falls Bridge With Skunk Ducks

This morning's Winter Weather Advisory advised that one should use caution when crossing bridges and over passes due to icy conditions rendering driving dicey in North Texas, til the air is re-heated to above freezing.

With that warning in mind, today I very carefully made my way across the partially snow covered bridge over Fosdick Falls that leads to Fosdick Dam in Oakland Lake Park.

You can see, via the footprints in the snow, that mine were not the only feet to brace the freezing air for some aerobic stimulation and the resulting endorphins.

I ran into Miss Puerto Rico this morning. Miss Puerto Rico does not do well with snow and ice. When she first moved from her home island to the American mainland, Miss Puerto Rico went to college in Indiana.

Winter in Indiana was the first time Miss Puerto experienced a northern winter. Miss Puerto Rico moved to Texas, long ago, thinking that it does not get cold in the South.

When I moved to Texas I harbored the same delusion. To find myself in a minor state of shock, by my second week in Texas, when I experienced my first Ice Storm.

Changing the subject from the frigid Miss Puerto back to Fosdick Lake.

Fosdick Lake Skunk Ducks

Those are not penguins you see in the picture, those are a pair of what looked like Skunk Ducks, floating with the biggest duck flotilla I've ever seen in Fosdick Lake.

Most of the duck flotilla was on the west side of the lake, where they'd congregated to get bread.

I stopped to talk to the nice lady feeding the ducks. She was checking in every day on one of the ducks, due to the bird having a bad leg injury. The lady called the injured duck an Oriental Duck.

I have no idea if there is such a thing as an Oriental Duck. It's the duck that I've taken a picture of before, that I called a Lulubird Duck, because it looked like some sort of ugly mix between a duck and a turkey.

I always tell myself I must remember to bring duck food to Fosdick Lake, and then I always forget.

UPDATE: Noted local Ornithologist, Miss GG, has informed me that the pair of Skunk Ducks, in the above picture, are actually known as Bufflehead Ducks.

Another North Texas Winter Weather Advisory With Slick Roads & Snow On The Ground

My Snowy Tuesday Morning View

When I opened my blinds this morning, a short time before the arrival of the sun, I was not expecting to see what looked like snow laying around in the outer world at my location.

I knew something called sleet was in the forecast for this morning. I might have thought this white stuff was sleet, except for the fact I saw what appeared to be snowflakes falling.

Currently the outer world at my location is chilled to 4 degrees below freezing.

Apparently driving is very hazardous this morning.

Yesterday afternoon I was talking to the Tacoma Belle when my phone made its incoming call noise. It was my mom, so I switched from the Tacoma Belle to my mom.

Among many bits of info, my mom told me that the Phoenix zone has been having record breaking cold, as in well below freezing.

My mom is worried they will lose their orange and grapefruit trees. And their Bougainvillea.

The Phoenix zone is so well landscaped, unlike my current location, with a lot of the color coming from the Bougainvillea, it'd be a real bad thing to have all that plant life killed by a deep freeze.

I don't know if I am going to be able to leave my abode today via motorized vehicular transport.

Let's see what this WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY is advising....

...WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY NOW IN EFFECT UNTIL NOON CST TODAY...

* TIMING...AREAS OF SNOW AND SLEET OVER GREENVILLE...PARIS AND SULPHUR SPRINGS WILL CONTINUE TO MOVE NORTHEAST WHILE DIMINISHING IN INTENSITY THROUGH 9 AM. MEANWHILE LIGHT DRIZZLE HAS DEVELOPED OVER MUCH OF THE REMAINDER OF THE ADVISORY AREA AND THIS IS EXPECTED TO CONTINUE THROUGH 11 AM OR NOON CST. WITH TEMPERATURES REMAINING BELOW FREEZING FOR THESE AREAS...FREEZING DRIZZLE IS LIKELY.

* MAIN IMPACT...WHILE MOST ACCUMULATING SNOW AND SLEET HAS COME TO AN END OVER THE ADVISORY AREA...IT HAS LEFT ELEVATED BRIDGES AND OVERPASSES SLICK AND IMPASSABLE IN SOME LOCATIONS. FREEZING DRIZZLE IS EXPECTED TO REDEVELOP OVER THE ENTIRE ADVISORY AREA FOR THE REMAINDER OF THE MORNING HOURS. LIGHT FREEZING DRIZZLE WILL ONLY EXACERBATE ICY ROAD CONDITIONS ON BRIDGES AND OVERPASSES...MAKING TRAVEL ON THESE SURFACES EXTREMELY HAZARDOUS.

* AMOUNTS...SNOW AND SLEET ACCUMULATIONS OF ONE QUARTER TO ONE INCH HAVE ALREADY BEEN REPORTED ACROSS THE ENTIRE ADVISORY AREA. LIGHT FREEZING DRIZZLE IS EXPECTED TO CAUSE AN ADDITIONAL LIGHT COATING OF ICE ON ELEVATED ROADWAYS...INCLUDING BRIDGES AND OVERPASSES.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

A WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY MEANS THAT PERIODS OF WINTER PRECIPITATION MAY CAUSE TRAVEL DIFFICULTIES. BE PREPARED FOR SLIPPERY ROADS AND PLAN ON SOME TRAVEL DELAYS.

Prosecuting George W. Bush For Murder With Glimpses Into A Time Of Can't

It took me awhile to make my way through it, but I finally finished Vincent Bugliosi's THE PROSECUTION OF GEORGE W. BUSH FOR MURDER.

I believe this to be the most unsettling, troubling, eye-opening, disturbing, upsetting book I have ever read.

Methinks every American who is able to read should read this book.

Bugliosi divides THE PROSECUTION OF GEORGE W. BUSH FOR MURDER into 3 parts.

Part I has Chapter 1: Opening Up One's Eyes and Chapter 2: Why George Bush Went to War.

Part II has Chapter 3: Prologue to the Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder and Chapter 4: The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder.

Part III has Chapter 5: Bush "Couldn't Possibly" Have Been Any Worse in Handling the War on Terrorism and Chapter 6: America, Up or Down?

Chapters 1 through 5 were troubling enough and then Chapter 6 added to the troubling, being all about the decline of America.

Speaking of the decline of America, on the very day I read the final chapter in Bugliosi's book, about America being up or down, Miss GG's favorite travel partner wrote a blogging on his Glimpses blog titled Into a Time of Can't that is sort of another version of what Vincent Bugliosi is saying in the Chapter 6: America, Up or Down? section of his book.

I guess this is one of those examples of great minds thinking alike.

Taking A Walk Around My Prairie Free Neighborhood Whilst Lamenting The Loss Of The Super Bowl Buffet

With the temperature barely above freezing, with a wind chill factor having the barely above freezing really feeling way below freezing, I bailed on my plan to drive to the Village Creek Natural Historical Area to ride my bike and instead decided to take a walk around my neighborhood.

My neighborhood is a bit hilly, the same hills that make the Tandy Hills hilly. Only my neighborhood hills have had the prairie removed from them and a lot of pavement added to the former prairie, which facilitates easy walking.

About a month ago I was sad to notice that the restaurant closest to my abode had closed.

The Super Bowl Buffet.

Chinese Asian All You Can Eat is how the sign on the side of the former restaurant describes the cuisine.

For years I was a buffet aficionado. While I was a buffet aficionado the Super Bowl Buffet was my favorite Chinese food buffet I'd ever been to. That covers a lot of Chinese food buffets.

I would guess I buffeted at the Super Bowl Buffet several dozen times before I found that I no longer enjoyed over eating.

A couple days ago I noticed boards were being installed over the Super Bowl Buffet's windows, making it look even more forlorn.

When I first moved to my current location the Super Bowl Buffet was a Black Eyed Pea restaurant. I only ate there once. Had the turkey dinner. It was good, but I never went back. I don't remember how long it was after the Black Eyed Pea closed that the building re-opened as a Chinese buffet. The original name was not Super Bowl Buffet. I don't remember the original name. Maybe it was something like Asian Super Buffet.

Anyway, I'm feeling a bit of a loss at the closing of the Super Bowl Buffet. I hope me not being a regular customer anymore was not too much of a contributor to the restaurant's close.

Prairie To The People At Prairie Fest 2013

I like the poster for this year's Prairie Fest. I also like the "Prairie to the People" slogan. I found the below blurb on Facebook a few minutes ago...

It's now official. Prairie Fest is alive and well and is coming April 27 to your local prairie: Tandy Hills Natural Area. Music; Wildflower Hikes; Food & more. One day only. Don't miss it!

Last year's Prairie Fest came in 3 parts. I only made it to Part 1.

Time flies by so fast. It was way back at the 2011 Prairie Fest that I had myself a fine time in a booth with Elsie Hotpepper and Granny Grassroots. And others.