A Yellow Tandy Tomato, The Princess Annie Of Wink Project & WeatherBug Bugging Me No More

I've had myself a Labor Day. Which has pretty much been just like any other Monday, except I got up later than usual and was in the pool well after the sun lit up the place.

We are under a Level Orange Air Pollution Watch. Again. Day after day the National Weather Service issues the Level Orange Watch, with WeatherBug going off with its annoying chirp, even though I have it set to only warn me about incoming tornadoes and nuclear bombs. I can not shut the thing up. And every day I hear the chirp and click the flashing bug, thinking maybe it is a tornado or nuclear bomb this time, but it's always the Level Orange Watch.

Okay, WeatherBug just got offed for crying wolf one time too many.

I'd not gone there in awhile, so I went hiking at the Tandy Hills Natural Area today. I saw the odd yellow tomato like thing you see in the picture. The vines were scrawny and there was only the one tomato, or whatever it is.

Speaking of the Tandy Hills. A couple days ago the Queen of Wink commented on a blogging about the ELF tower teardown. Somehow this led the Queen to make a charming comment telling us about how the Tandy Hills had inspired her daughter, Princess Annie of Wink, to buy some Wink land to restore to its natural state. Many people were touched by this story.

But then the next day, for reasons still murky, the Queen of Wink, in some sort of Royal twist, deleted her comments. This led to much confusion, with some afraid they had incurred the wrath of the Queen or had offended her delicate sensibilities somehow.

And now today we learned that the Queen of Wink has told the story of Princess Annie of Wink's land restoration project in much greater detail than we knew before. Such as how Don Young's work to preserve the Tandy Hills and my photos of the Tandy Hills and other Tandy Hills stuff has inspired the young princess to turn part of her part of Texas back to its natural state.

You can read all about Princess Annie's project on her mother, the Queen of Wink's, blog.

Cougar Caught In Seattle, Cougar Killed in Redmond

Months ago I ran into an elderly lady wearing a mumu at Village Creek Natural Historic Area who told me about her encounter with a cougar. This encounter made the local news.

It seemed plausible that a creature that preferred living in the wild might follow the banks of the Trinity River in the D/FW urban zone.

An implausible cougar story is in the Seattle news today. A 2 1/2 year old male cougar weighing 140 pounds was captured in Seattle's Discovery Park around 2:30 a.m. Sunday morning, after the cat was treed by hunting dogs.

The cougar was tranquilized, fitted with a GPS collar, which will track his whereabouts twice a day, caged, then released back into the wild at an undisclosed location.

Discovery Park is an island of green surrounded by urban development on 3 sides and the Puget Sound on the 4th side. How did this cat get to Discovery Park? How did it get across the Ballard Locks if it came from the north? How did it get across Lake Washington if it came from the east? How did it get past downtown Seattle if it came from the south? It's very perplexing.

Methinks this may be a coordinated cougar invasion of the Seattle Metropolitan area. Saturday evening there was another cougar incident. A driver ran into and killed a cougar on a Redmond road. Redmond is east of Seattle, on the east side of Lake Washington, where Microsoft is headquartered. It seems the logical source of the cougar invasion would be the Cascade mountains to the east. I wonder how many more cougars have left the mountains to move to the Big City?

Moab, Arches, Stehekin, Maui, Las Vegas, Bears & Fiery Furnace Hikes With Nephews & Slow Modems

I think I mentioned I spent a few hours in the past couple days re-doing a lot of my biggest website. I updated old stuff to make it look slightly less ancient.

But, I did not realize, til thinking about it this morning, that some of those old webpages are well over 10 years old. No wonder they looked so dated.

Another thing with the old webpages is they were made back way before anyone had heard of the concept known as broadband, back when you thought you were being superfast when you upgraded from a 14.4 BPS modem to a 28.8, and then the unthinkably fast speed of 56.6. Was it .6? I dunno. It's been a long time.

So, back then websites could take a long time to load. If you made websites you kept graphics to a minimum. If you used photos you sucked as much resolution out of them as possible, while still managing a semi decent image.

That first picture you see above is not too bad. That was a scanned image, re-scanned during the era of broadband. That is Fiery Furnace in Arches National Park. I've done that hike twice. If you are ever in the Moab zone, do not skip Arches and do not skip hiking the Fiery Furnace, even though it will cost you a few dollars and it's a group, ranger-led hike. It's fun.

The worst pictures are those I used for one of the funnest things I've ever done, that being taking the Lady of the Lake on Lake Chelan to Stehekin in North Cascades National Park. I have never seen so many bears. Not even in Yellowstone, when bears were still allowed there. I think I still have the original photos of the Stehekin trip, though that is well over a decade ago. I could find them and re-scan them. But I am drawing a blank as to where the photos are.

Actually, now that I am looking at them, the absolute worst are the pictures from Maui with my nephews, Chris and Jeremy. They now live in Phoenix. Recently my sister was thrilled to have both boys moving back home again. Temporarily. I do not have the originals of the Maui photos, so I am stuck with these badly damaged images. Damn the early days of the Internet and what it made us do.

I have the originals of photos taken in Las Vegas when my nephews, Jason and Joey, took me there soon before I moved to Texas. I re-scanned one of them recently when I wrote a blog about Death Valley. The nephews and I went out to Death Valley on a HOT August day that had the potential to break the temperature record. But it did not. We got plenty HOT though.

It seems so recent that the nephews took me to Vegas. Joey was 15 then, Jason 18. Joey is now 26, which I guess makes Jason 29, married, divorced and with the cutest kid I've ever seen, my great-nephew, Spencer Jack, who has a blog, but it is viewable by invite only, so I won't bother making a link to it. That is Joey on the right, with his big brother, standing in the Excalibur pool, with the skyline of New York New York behind him.

My Wal-Mart Supercenter Super Car Stopping Posts

A couple weeks ago I blogged about my nearest Wal-Mart Supercenter getting attacked through the entry doors by a car heading to the McDonald's inside.

The destroyed doors were replaced within hours. The inside seems to be taking awhile to fix, though the damage was slight.

Last week heavy duty car stopping posts were stuck into the cement outside all the entries to my nearby Wal-Mart Supercenter.

After seeing the car stopping posts at the site of the attack I was surprised to see the posts added to my nearest Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market.

Is Wal-Mart adding these car stopping posts to Wal-Marts all over? Or is just my neighborhood at risk for car attacks through Wal-Mart doors?

One car going through the doors incident and this sort of rapid response? Something seems ridiculous about it. Right next to my nearby Wal-Mart Supercenter is a Sam's Club. Sam's Club does not have the car stopping posts. Then again, Sam's Club does not have a McDonald's inside.

It's perplexing.

Sakuma Market Stand and Fruits & Vegetables In Texas

Every once in a while I'll see something that causes me to greatly miss the fertile Skagit Valley, that being the place I called home for a lot of years. Where I live now, in north Texas, it is not much of an agricultural zone.

When I was up in the Skagit Valley, last summer, we dropped in on a farmers market that had opened since I moved. There are a lot of farmers in the Skagit Valley. Among the biggest are the Sakuma Brothers. I had a Sakuma sister in my class in high school. She whacked me regularly with her clarinet, though these days she denies this, but, I have the scars to prove it.

The farmers market we dropped in on was the Sakuma Market Stand. How is it that the Skagit Valley, with a population just a bit over 100,000 has so many fruit and vegetable stands, while this Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, I'm living in, with a population in the 6 million zone, has so few farmers market, fruit and vegetable stands type places?

I know strawberries, tomatoes, peaches and apples can grow here. There is a U-Pick strawberry field here that I know of, on Bowen Street in Arlington. Out in east Texas they grow blueberries.

The Sakuma brothers are 1 of only 2 farmers in America to grow tea leaves. At the Sakuma Market Stand, in addition to all sorts of fruits and vegetables, you can also get fresh baked pies, Sakuma jams, shortcake, berry milkshakes, made with freshly made French Vanilla Ice Cream and all sorts of other things.

On their 100s of acres the Sakuma Brothers grow raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, boysenberries, logan berries, marionberries, apples, sweet onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet corn, green beans, cauliflower, garlic, lettuce, potatoes, broccoli, squash, pumpkins and the aforementioned tea.

Click here to visit the Sakuma Market Stand and the Skagit Valley. It might give you an idea why I get a bit homesick at times.

My First Win Ever At Anything! The Scrabble Queen Comes In 2nd!

It is official. Facebook Scrabble has declared me the WINNER! Scrabble added the exclamation point, not me. I can't tell you what it means to me to have finally triumphed over the Reigning Scrabble Queen of Washington.

My final letter was an 'I.' I used the 'I' to make 'IT' for, I think, 2 points.

Those 2 points gave me a final score of 346 to the Scrabble Queen of Washington's 307 points.

I feel with this victory my life may finally turn around and steer me away from this hell I have been living.

As an extra omen of this stunning reversal of fortune, I am currently in the lead in another Scrabble game with the Reigning Scrabble Queen of Washington.

I do not know how many times I would have to defeat the Scrabble Queen of Washington to take her crown away, making myself the Reigning Scrabble King of Washington. I suppose to take the title I'd have to move back there.

I would not mind that fate. Too much.

A Sunflower Blooms In Texas On A Sunny September Day With Tootsie Tonasket

I was aerobic exercise free for days in a row, til today. Part of the problem was weather related.

Another part was I was obsessed with changing code on pretty much every web page of my durangotexas.com domain, plus altering many of the webpages, changing them all to white, like this blog, no borders, the look of all matching my Eyes on Texas website, getting rid of a lot of color.

When I started spewing out webpages, on which to add Google ads, I made up some about Washington. I don't know what I was thinking regarding the color, I think, maybe I was going for a Washington foggy dawn. I thought it'd be more bother to fix than it was. I am happy with it now.

I went swimming this morning. The water is getting colder. Today there was a slight adjustment time getting used to the temperature that had me thinking how was it that I managed to be getting in the water all last winter?

The Tandy Hills Natural Hiking Area was all dried out from the rain of yesterday, or was it the day before? I saw a flock of sunflowers, I think that is what they are, looking sunny on this sunny day.

While I hiked I talked to Tootsie Tonasket. She is always quite funny describing the hell she is living. I tell you she should write plotlines for soap operas. Tootsie is one of my assistants when it comes to Internet related dilemmas. So, as I walked I talked Tootsie through checking on something for me on her remote computer. Tootsie, if you are reading this, it worked. Thanks.

Tootsie Tonasket is one of those insecure sorts who sort of lacks confidence. But she is quite bright and writes quite well. And she talks without ever saying 'uh' or 'um.' I do not like listening to uhers or ummers. Why is the spell check not flagging uhers or ummers? Those can not possibly be words.

I learned today that the Queen of Wink's cute little daughter, Annie, was inspired by the Tandy Hills prairie being preserved here in Fort Worth, so she took what amounts to being a small fortune in little girl dollars and spent $1,200 buying up empty lots in the Wink zone of West Texas for around $25 per lot.

At $25 per lot, I think I'm gonna move to Wink and pitch a tent. I need a new place to live. Wink seems like it'd be a nice town. I wonder if they have both a Costco and a Sam's Club?

Earth Liberation Front Takes Down Two Towers In Washington, None So Far In Texas

I've wondered a time or two what would happen up in Washington if natural gas producing shale were discovered in the Puget Sound zone. Washington does not have a lot of mining or drilling action going on, unlike Texas, where Texans are used to holes randomly getting poked in the ground.

Well, early Friday morning I think I got my answer to what would happen if Chesapeake Energy put up drilling towers and started making a lot of noise, along with environmental damage within earshot of residential neighborhoods or near parks in Washington.

For almost a decade environmental groups have been fighting a radio station's plan to build a couple new transmission towers in Snohomish, where there were already 2 controversial towers. Snohomish is a town northeast of Seattle about 25 miles. The objections to the new towers ranged from them impeding on a trumpeter swan habitat to possible human health hazards.

The existing towers had generated complaints of interference with telephones and intercoms.

Well, the existing towers are no more. Around 3:30 a.m. a 911 call came in telling the operator that someone seemed to be attacking the towers with a bulldozer. By the time police arrived the towers were on the ground. A banner bearing the initials of the ELF were found at the scene.

ELF is the Earth Liberation Front. An ELF spokesman said the towers were taken down because of health and environmental concerns, with ELF press spokesman Jason Crawford saying, "We have to weigh our priorities, and the local ecosystem in Everett, along with the local residents, do not need additional sports news radio station towers that come at the expense of reduced property values and harmful radio waves."

The ELF's Web site has pictures of the toppled towers, along with an article. I'll copy the headline and article below...

Earth Liberation Front Topples Two Radio Station Towers in Snohomish County, WA

Everett, WA: Two radio station towers were torn down early Friday by the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) in the Lord's Hills valley in Snohomish County, WA. The towers, owned by station KRKO, have been a source of controversy for years. A sign left at the scene claimed responsibility by the ELF.

"Due to the health and environmental risks associated with radio waves emitted from the towers, we applaud this act by the ELF," stated Jason Crawford, a spokesperson for the North American Earth Liberation Front Press Office. "When all legal channels of opposition have been exhausted, concerned citizens have to take action into their own hands to protect life and the planet."

For the past eight years, opponents have waged a legal battle against the towers, arguing that AM radio waves cause adverse health affects including a higher rate of cancer, harm to wildlife, and that the signals have been interfering with home phone and intercom lines.

Last year, the first four towers were erected by KRKO after numerous hearings and appeals. KRKO plans to build two more towers to boost the station's broadcasting power.

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I wonder if Texas has an ELF branch? I doubt it. I wonder what the ELF would have done about the Chesapeake Energy drilling operation on the west side of the Tandy Hills? Or what they'd do about the Carter Avenue pipeline. Or the ring of gas terror surrounding Gateway Park?

Noisy Thunderstorming & Gas Drillers In Fort Worth

As you can clearly see, last night's extremely long lightning storm totally zapped me, aging me greatly overnight.

Ever since late July, when I eye-witnessed a lightning strike starting a fire in a heavy downpour, I have grown more concerned when a big storm pops up, particularly when the lightning strikes are simultaneous with the concussive thunder boom.

Last night there were 3 directly overhead strikes. I lay in bed waiting to smell smoke or hear the fire alarm go off.

This morning I did not feel like wading through the lake that formed overnight between me and the swimming pool, so I didn't.

It was cold last night, in the low 60s, so the windows are open, with no A/C. I do not remember being able to have the windows open so much in summer before here. I read today that Global Warming has the Arctic its hottest in over 2000 years. Why are we not warmer here in HOT Texas?

With the windows open I am hearing some high pitched metallic squealing coming from the Chesapeake Energy Barnett Shale Natural Gas Drilling site across the street. I thought that type noise coming from there ended a long time ago. I will not be shocked, when I step outside today, to see that a drilling tower has popped up overnight. I hate it when that happens. There it goes again.

More storms are expected today, tonight and tomorrow. I know a pretty young lady in Haltom City who gets very worried when the weather here takes a turn for the worse. She had a rough night of monitoring possible lethal creek flooding.

Troubled Water With Green Slime & A Worried Interracial Couple At Fosdic Lake

A couple days ago I think I mentioned walking by some neon green water in the lake in Oakland Lake Park. Today the green was no longer so neon, today it just looked like run of the mill slime.

I also think I've mentioned the do not eat the fish you catch signs in this park. They seem to have been modified. Now you are advised to not eat carp you may catch. And, any other fish you may catch, you are advised to get them filleted, on ice and then on a grill quickly.

I have wondered why, of late, I've seen so many fishermen fishing in Fosdic Lake.

Fosdic Lake? I thought I was at Oakland Lake. No, I was at Oakland Lake Park. But the lake's name, apparently, is Fosdic Lake. I've noticed the sign that says Fosdic Lake before. I figured it was some sort of mistake. We are prone to those here in Texas. It's the heat. It makes our thinkers go screwy at times.

But, I think I've figured it out. Oakland Boulevard is on the west side of Oakland Lake Park. So, I think people would say, "let's go to the lake," not knowing the lake had a name. Then Fort Worth decided to turn the area around the lake into a park. Since Oakland was the main street in the area it must have been decided to name the park, Oakland Lake Park, with no one considering the considerable confusion this would cause later, when a sign was put up identifying the lake inside Oakland Lake Park as being Fosdic Lake.

The last time I was at Oakland Lake Park walking around Fosdic Lake I mentioned the lovebirds, Ramon and Gabriella. Today it was a pair of lovebirds I've mentioned before, an interracial pairing between a black bird and a while bird. Usually I see the happy couple out on Lake Fosdic. But today they were sitting under the shade of a bush. They seemed troubled. Usually the birds do not let me get too close, but today it was not me who seemed to be on their minds. Maybe they've been driven from the lake by that green slime I showed you. I know it keeps me out of Fosdic Lake.