The Last Thursday Of 2011 Hiking The Wilderness Area Where I Live With Homeless People & Beef Stroganoff

Fort Worth Water Tank

Today I decided to do something radically different.

The radical difference consisted of going on a walk without going on a drive to get to a place to walk.

This turned out to be much more adventurous than I anticipated it would be.

I left my abode, headed east and then south through the Albertsons parking lot. Then walked west on Bridge Street past some fast food joints.

Crossed the street to Krogers where I got sour cream for the Beef Stroganoff I'm making for lunch.

Left Krogers, heading south, up a hill, back to Bridge Street, then headed west towards Fort Worth's East Regional Library.

My plan was to walk the trail that I've noticed, for years, that is under a power line/utility right of way that a road leads to just to the west of the big Fort Worth water tank you see in the picture.

All was going well, walking under the power lines, til I came to an area where water was leaking in amounts copious enough to make for a muddy passage.

A lot of heavy equipment work had rutted up the area under the power lines. I saw drilling equipment. I could not figure out what the nature of the heavy equipment's project was.

The trail grew continually more difficult. Soon I was going cross country. No trail. At one point I had to jump a ditch that was running water. That wrenched my shoulder, somehow. The pain was bad, but quickly abated.

Eventually I came to a spot where heavy equipment had run over the land, making a sort of a trail, which, ironically. took me back to Krogers.

In the open field due north of Krogers I saw a big pile of garbage which caused me to mutter to myself about some Texans and their garbage disposal methods.

I was in mid-mutter when a guy popped out of the garbage and headed towards me. It was a young guy, looked to be in his 20s, maybe older. The garbage was his shelter. It'd been awhile since I'd seen a homeless person. I had no idea there were homeless people living so close to the place I call home.

If I was a nicer guy than I am I'd probably bring the homeless guy some Beef Stroganoff.

It was really good.

Beef Stroganoff is my favorite thing I learned to make during my stay in Moscow.

The Last Thursday Of 2011 In Mourning Over The Unexpected Death Of Cheetah The Chimpanzee

The pool view via the bars of my patio prison cell makes the pool look good for pooling. But it is way too cool to pool on this early morning of the last Thursday of 2011.

I've been expecting a box of cookies from the kitchen of my mom and dad. I check the mail each day and find no box. I think it is about time to give up hope and realize someone purloined my cookies.

Changing the subject from missing cookies to shocking dead celebrity news.

I was surprised to learn this morning that until December 24 Cheetah the world's most famous chimpanzee was still alive. Cheetah, Tarzan and Jane's sidekick from the most popular of the Tarzan movies, filmed way back in the 1930s, died the day before Christmas from kidney failure.

Cheetah was 80 years old.

I don't know if Cheetah married and had children. That information was not included in the obituary.

Cheetah lived out his final years in and old folks home for monkeys in Palm Harbor, Florida called the Suncoast Primate Sanctuary.

Will Cheetah's be the last celebrity death of the year? Will Cheetah be included in the "In Memory" part of next year's Academy Awards? I guess time will answer these important questions.

I wish I could say I am going swimming now, but I can't.

The Afternoon View From Miss Puerto Rico's Thinking About Learning The Afghan Language Pashto & Turkey Soup

You are looking at the late Wednesday afternoon view from Miss Puerto Rico's balcony, looking north,.

I was over at Miss Puerto Rico's to deliver a pot of turkey soup and to check out what was needed to hang her new big TV.

Today I did not go on my regular daily salubrious aerobic walk in the noon time frame because of a doctor's appointment in Hurst.

Sometime around 4 I left my abode to head to Quanah Parker Park and Town Talk. As I began driving I called Miss C. McP. I've been trying to get Miss C. McP on the phone for weeks. Today I succeeded.

Miss C McP talked to me all the way to Quanah Parker Park and my hour walk in Quanah Parker Park and then on to Town Talk when I terminated the talking.

There was a surprising number of people walking in Quanah Parker Park today. Methinks the park improvements have been a good thing.

Back to Miss C. McP. She was exiled, along with her family, to Oklahoma, the same month I was exiled to Texas. In 2008, Miss C McP and family moved back to the Skagit Valley in Washington, thus ending their Oklahoma exile.

The first time I went up to visit the McP's in Ada, Oklahoma, their little girl was 12. Their oldest boy was 17 and a senior in high school. Now the little girl has graduated from the University of Washington, with some sort of Oceanography degree and is working for NOAA on a research ship in the Atlantic.

Miss McP's oldest son went to the University of Oklahoma, where he got married. Then joined the army, served 2 or 3 tours in Iraq, is now back in the states in training to be a Delta Special Forces guy, or something like that, part of which is learning the Afghan language, Pashto, which he apparently has become fluent in.

And Miss McP's oldest now has 4 kids.

All of this made me feel old. And that I have been in Texas a long time.

Up Early The Last Wednesday Of 2011 Thinking About Tolls, Trolls & Christmas Tree Capers

I stepped outside to get a look at the early morning of the last Wednesday of 2011 to feel a wind blowing air chilled to 35 degrees.

Another morning with no morning swim.

Changing the subject from not swimming to tolls.

This morning I read that in a day or two an automatic toll system is going to go into effect, charging vehicles to cross the 520 Floating Bridge from the Seattle side of Lake Washington to the Redmond side.

When that Floating Bridge first opened a toll was charged until the cost of the bridge was paid off. This did not take too long, and then it was free to cross.

The new toll being charged to cross the 520 Floating Bridge will help pay for the replacement bridge, set to open in 2014. Over $1 billion of the over $4 billion cost of the 520 Floating Bridge project is expected to be paid by the tolls.

This had me thinking. How bizarre. In the Seattle zone a toll on a Floating Bridge is going to generate more money than the entire current projected cost of the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle.

Methinks maybe some money could be raised to help pay for the TRV Boondoggle by charging a toll to cross the non-signature bridges that will span the Boondoggle's un-needed flood diversion channel.

Changing the subject again from tolls to the Christmas Tree Caper.

Someone calling him or herself Anonymous made an interesting anonymous comment about what s/he calls a "Clumsy Christmas Tree Caper"....

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Don Young Clears Up The Controversy Over His Tandy Hills Christmas Tree Cutting": 

I think most people believe that Don Young is generally a Force for Good in the Tandy Hills. Even as the author of one of the sarcastic comments about his clumsy Christmas tree caper, I don't doubt his fondness for the park. But posting that picture on the Tandy Hills Facebook page was magnificently, hyper-egotistically, dumb - and I think it provides sufficient excuse for any amount of nose-tweaking which therefore results. You can't post a picture of yourself dragging a freshly killed Christmas tree across a publicly-owned nature preserve and expect an avalanche of warm fuzzies in return. Fortunately, here on the intertubes, any deed, good or bad, seldom goes unpunished.

Wanna cull trees? Fine - do it in an official, managed, boring way, preferably without enjoying it at all. Don't gather up the kids, grab an axe and go traipsing into a public park looking to murder an evergreen for Christmas. And especially, for Santa's sake, don't post evidence. 

Methinks "Clumsy Christmas Tree Caper" has a much better ring to it than "Tandy Xmas Treegate Scandal." Adding "gate" to a scandal has been done to death.

Don Young Clears Up The Controversy Over His Tandy Hills Christmas Tree Cutting

Don Young & His Christmas Tree Cutters Dragging
A Tree Across Non-Tandy Hills Natural Area Prairie

The missing Don Young feedback regarding Christmas tree harvesting on the Tandy Hills has been found....

Don Young has left a new comment on your post "Godfather Don Young Leads Three Generations Harvesting Christmas Trees From Fort Worth's Tandy Hills Nature Preserve":

FYI--Nowhere in my FB post do I say the tree came from Tandy Hills Natural Area. In fact, it came from private property adjacent to the park. Short-lived trees like Junipers, Ash and Privet are the main plants that are taking over the grasslands. During Brush Bash we remove many of them but we never remove Oaks, Elms or other long life trees and certainly not Yucca or any other native non-woody species. The guy on FB doesn't want ANYTHING removed but experts agree that unless we remove the trash trees there will be no prairie left at Tandy Hills. 

Well.

I don't think anyone could be faulted for assuming this controversial Christmas tree was cut from the Tandy Hills Natural Area, since the news of its cutting was on the Tandy Hills Natural Area Facebook page.

Along with a pair of photos which appeared to show a Christmas tree being drug across an open prairie zone of the Tandy Hills.

Who owns this private land adjacent to the Tandy Hills Natural Area from whence this Christmas tree was allegedly cut? Was permission to cut a tree asked of the owner before the Young Gang arrived with their axes?

Next time I'm on the Tandy Hills I'll try and follow the trail of the dragged tree to see if I can document where it was killed.

Or not.

Standing Under Fosdic Lake Mistletoe Wondering About Godfather Don's Missing Feedback Regarding The Tandy Treegate Scandal

Fosdic Lake Mistletoe

I have not been feeling my usual energetic self for several days now.

I do not like not feeling like my usual energetic self.

I just got back from taking my un-energetic self to Oakland Lake Park to walk around Fosdic Lake. I thought this type activity might revive me.

It didn't.

Now that the leaves have left the trees in Oakland Lake Park it is easy to see clumps of mistletoe.

That is what you see in the picture, a closeup look at mistletoe growing on a tree that has toppled over.

Previous to finding mistletoe on the ground I stood under mistletoe growing on a tree, waiting to get kissed. After about 5 minutes with no kiss, I continued on my walk.

Previous to leaving my abode I got email from Don Young regarding what is being called, by some, the Tandy Treegate Scandal, subject line, "my feedback missing."

Body of email: "Did you get my feedback on the Christmas tree issue?"

I have not seen any incoming feedback comments regarding this issue from Godfather Don. All blog comments come to me in email form, both the spam and the real comments.

I have learned lately that comments, made via an i-Phone, I do not get. According to Elsie Hotpepper. Though, with Elsie Hotpepper, I suspect it may be user error.

The Last Tuesday Of 2011 Dawns Bright Blue In Texas

The view through my primary viewing portal on the outer world is a bit blurry this last Tuesday morning of 2011 due to a thin coat of condensation brought about by the almost freezing temperature.

A completely blue sky is all I can see above me on this 27th day of the last month of what will soon be last year.

I am in extremely dire need of some aerobic, endorphin inducing stimulation. I do not know where I am going to get this much needed stimulation.

Maybe I'll try and do some logging on the Tandy Hills today. I hear that has become a popular sport.

The Grapevine Santa Mass Murder story is in every one of the online news sources I check every morning. When that sad story first was news to me it was on FOX News online. That version had the murders occurring in Dallas. Yet one more instance of how much of the rest of the world views this metro zone as being Dallas, rather than dozens of town all conglomerated together in one big urban mess.

I wish I could say I am going swimming now. But I can't.

Walking Over The Pantego Flood Channel Thinking About The Trinity River Vision Boondoggle Replacing J.D. Granger With Jerry Jones

The City Of Pantego Flood Diversion Channel

No, that is not Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision Boondoggle's Unneeded Flood Diversion Channel you're looking at in the picture.

I believe we are years away from seeing  the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle's Unneeded Flood Diversion Channel.

I may be wrong, because I often am, but I think at least one of the non-signature bridges, that will span the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle's Unneeded Flood Diversion Channel, is currently early in its construction phase.

I don't quite understand why, if it so needed to protect Fort Worth from a killer flood, the construction of the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle is so incredibly slow.

I know how some of the locals love it when I compare something in Fort Worth to something in Seattle. But, I just need to mention that in Seattle there is an over $4 billion project underway to replace a floating bridge, among other things. This project is slated to be completed by 2014. This isn't a non-signature bridge that is being built. It will be the longest floating bridge in the world.

I suppose public works projects get done faster in a place like Washington because the funding does not rely on a local congresswoman's earmarking. Motivated to be helpful because the project gives her son a job for which he has no qualifications.

The Trinity River Vision Boondoggle should fire J.D. Granger and hire someone else with no experience. I think Jerry Jones would be an excellent replacement for J.D.

Jerry Jones got the new Dallas Cowboys stadium built in just a few years. That stadium cost quite a bit more than the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle's current projected cost of still being under a billion dollars.

Jerry Jones is really good at abusing eminent domain to take citizen's property from them. That skill could come in handy.

Changing the subject from Jerry Jones and the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle to the flood diversion channel picture at the top.

That particular flood channel runs through the City of Pantego. That particular picture was taken from a bridge across the channel in Pantego's Bicentennial Park.

Pantego's Bicentennial Park is a very well done little park. As you wander along the paved trails you pass many clever statues. I'm calling them statues, but I think there is likely a better name for the various artworks that are installed all over the park.

The Final Monday Of 2011 Dawns Blue & Bloated

As you can see via the view through the bars of my patio prison cell, the day after Christmas is starting off as a very dark blue Monday.

The last Monday in the year 2011.

In another 6 days a new year will start.

2012.

The year the world ends if you are one of those morons who attach meaning to the end of the Mayan calendar.

I ate way too much yesterday. I have decided I will no longer overeat. It is wasteful and leaves me feeling way too uncomfortable for way too many hours.

I do not know how fat people do it.

Day after day of eating way too much is what one must do, I think, to reach the size of some of the behemoths I have known personally, or see, regularly, in Wal-Mart.

It is currently 8 degrees above freezing in the outer world at my location. My swimming pool is back in usable mode. I wish I was back, myself, in swimming pool usable mode, but I seem to have developed an inhibiting dislike of getting cold.

Godfather Don Young Leads Three Generations Harvesting Christmas Trees From Fort Worth's Tandy Hills Nature Preserve

Several hours ago I got an email from an unknown, to me, emailer, asking me what I thought about the Godfather of the Tandy Hills, Don Young, cutting Christmas trees on the Tandy Hills.

Since I knew of no Christmas trees on the Tandy Hills I thought the emailer was just an anonymous trouble maker trying to make trouble.

So, you can imagine my surprise when I logged in to Facebook, to chastise Tootsie Tonasket for poking me, to see Facebook postings from the Tandy Hills Natural Area Facebook page documenting, in more than one photo, the Don Young Gang removing a Christmas tree from the Tandy Hills, with the caption under one of the photos saying, "Three generations bringing home the Christmas tree to Young home."

Apparently the Tandy Hills Christmas trees are Junipers. Not exactly a highly prized specie of tree as far as Christmas trees go.

A minor brouhaha of comments has erupted following the Facebook revelation that the Tandy Hills is now a Christmas tree hunting ground.

Most of those commenting seem to be of the opinion that Don Young & his Gang are not Christmas tree poachers, but were instead doing some timely thinning of an invasive specie that is not native to the Texas prairie.

What I am wondering is how does one determine what is, or is not, native to the Texas prairie?

I've long had my eye on yucca roots and prickly pear cactus growing on the Tandy Hills. But I've been told they are native to the Texas prairie. And thus are not to be harvested.

I also would not mind harvesting some poles from the Tandy Hills bamboo thicket. I really don't believe bamboo is native to the Texas prairie.