The First Saturday Of May Thinking About A Murdered White Buffalo Baby

I am looking out my primary viewing portal on the outer world on May Day 5 at a blue sky with nary a cloud to see.

My temperature monitoring device is telling me it is currently 70 degrees, with the temperature predictors predicting the high today will again be in the 90s.

At some point in time after the sun ceased providing its daily illumination service I saw some bright light flashes and heard some loud thunder booms.

Clouds are required for thunder and lightning to happen.

Usually, when thunder is clapping it is accompanied by rain, usually in downpour mode. But, last night, no rain hit the ground at my location.

This morning I was appalled to read in each of the various news sources I look at each morning that someone in Texas murdered a young rare non-albino white buffalo and his mother.

Only 1 in 10 million buffalo babies are white.

Many Native Americans make a big deal about white buffalo, believing them to be something sacred.

The murdered buffalo was named Lightning Medicine Cloud by his Native American worshipers. Lightning Medicine Cloud was less than a year old when he was murdered.

Lightning Medicine Cloud lived at the Lakota Buffalo Ranch near Greenville, Texas. Greenville is the county seat of Hunt County out in the Piney Woods Region of East Texas.

Lakato Buffalo Ranch owner, Arby Little Soldier, and his wife, had been out of town, shocked to return home to discover Lightning Medicine Cloud killed and skinned.

I do not know if murdering a white buffalo is a death penalty crime in Texas. If it is not, I think it should be.

I think I'll go swimming now and try not to think about murdered buffaloes.

Catching A Possible Flag Thief Today On The Tandy Hills

Young Lady With Tandy Hills Flag Obsession

The temperature had not yet hit 90 when I did my hill hiking today. But it was HOT. With little wind.

I had some major pore leakage going on which provided some cooling, but my hiking shorts grew quite heavy as they sponged up the pore leakage.

HOT hiking is sort of addictive. It feels good, like how you feel after a sauna or steambath, or both.

I have been back in air-conditioned semi-comfort for a couple hours. It is now 90 in the outer world at my location.

Hiking the Tandy Hills today I was startled by a young lady talking loudly to herself. I think I startled her when suddenly there was a wet guy with few clothes on looking at her. I said to the young lady, "You're talking to yourself." She gave me a polite courtesy laugh.

This woman seemed to be way over dressed to be out doing HOT hill hiking. She was picking up all the orange flags I mentioned yesterday, flags that served as route markers for hiking Fort Worth Independent School District students.

I don't know if this woman was stealing the valuable flags. Or if she'd been tasked with removing them by the FWISD. Or if she was removing them because she thought they were litter.

There are other flags stuck in the Tandy Hills that mark areas where prairie experimenters are experimenting.  She'd better not have removed those experimental flags or she'll be hearing from the Don of the Tandy Hills.

That's why I took as good a picture of the Flag Lady as I could manage, so the flag thief could possibly be identified, should the need arise.

Taken By Anonymous To A Hometown By Handlebar

This morning I got an interesting blog comment from someone named Anonymous. This interesting blog comment led me to a very good blog called Hometown  by Handlebar.

The hometown is Fort Worth and the handlebars are those that you find on a bike...

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Making A Prairie Note Of Tandy Hills Prickly Pear Cactus": 

Excellent Fort Worth history website: http://hometownbyhandlebar.com/ Good photography too.

Since this blog is about Fort Worth, and a bike is involved, I can see where someone might suspect that it is my blog. Well, you would be wrong in your suspicion. If you visit Hometown by Handlebar you will quickly see that it is not my blog. This blogger writes way better than I do. And takes way better photographs.

A couple blurbs from Hometown by Handlebar....

Where? (The City)
Fort Worth was established at the confluence of the upper two of four branches of the Trinity River. That confluence—that blending of elements—has served as a metaphor for the city ever since. Fort Worth is a blending of heifers and Heifetz, of pickups and pearls. It is rodeo and Radio Shack, low-riders and high-rollers, sweet tea and tequila, and a museum district where the paintings of Remington and Degas and Picasso stand shoulder to bare breast to unidentifiable body part.

Why? (The Reason)
In the beginning the answer to “Why?” was “exercise.” I began cycling for exercise during the twenty-five years or so I lived in the country, away from my hometown. When I moved back to Fort Worth, I continued to cycle for exercise. And I found that while I had been away, Fort Worth had become more bikable. On the Trinity Trails I can ride from Benbrook Lake in the southwest to Quanah Parker Park on the east or up to Camp Carter and Buck Sansom Park in the north—and with few encounters with vehicular traffic. Several major streets now have bike lanes. City buses have bike racks on front. I can take my bike with me on the Trinity Railway Express.

I think I'll add this blog to my blog list.

May Day 4 Is Going To Be HOT In Texas

Looking skyward through the bars of my patio prison cell, on the morning of May Day 4, the sky appears to be blue and cloud-free, for the most part.

Currently, at my location, the outer world is being heated to 40 degrees above freezing. Heading to a predicted high of 93 today.

I think if we get heated to 93 today this will be the hottest day of the year, so far.

I remember way back in early May of 1998, being in Fort Worth to see if it was plausible to move here. On day 3 we drove out to Weatherford.  where I saw a temperature sign on a bank informing me it was 92 degrees.

Every time we'd stop somewhere and exit the vehicle I'd over heat.

I soon was saying there was no way I could move here, that it was like being in Eastern Washington in August.

Too HOT.

Somehow, I over came my HEAT aversion and made the move. And somehow I then acclimated to being outdoors when the temperature goes into HOT mode.

And like it.

I must go swimming now before it gets any hotter.

Making A Prairie Note Of Tandy Hills Prickly Pear Cactus

The Prickly Pear Cactus patch, on Lost Sunglasses Ridge, on the Tandy Hills, that I've been keeping an eye on due to the many blooms and their future harvest potential when the blooms turn into pears, was looking particularly fruitful today.

All of the Tandy Hills was looking particularly fruitful today. I've never seen the prairie vegetation as it is being this particular spring.

Apparently a group of Fort Worth school children have been hiking the trails of the Tandy Hills. I came to this conclusion today when I came upon dozen of orange flags stuck in the ground, most of which simply said "FWISD" on them.

Some of the orange flags had messages on them, like, "Help the Others", or "View St. This Direction".

The May Prairie Notes arrived this morning. In his Prairie Notes Don Young waxes quite poetically about the current state of the Tandy Hills....

The Tandy Hills are so lush and beautifully painted with wildflowers right now that, to walk upon them feels like an unspeakable act of cruelty. Standing on the trail, I watch the western sunlight cut through the living, breathing canvas rooted in ancient limestone and nurtured by micro-organisms, earthworms, lizards and crawling insects revealing a tangle of Sensitive-Briar covered in pink puff-balls and colored currents of standing wildflowers in colorwheel-shades of yellow, white, purple, red and blue supported by delicate green stems and what seems to be billions and billions of butterflies, moths, dragonflies and bees zooming, spiraling and humming in mad harmony above the swaying wildflowers as pairs of Rabbits and Roadrunners scatter scurry and birds of all colors and sizes float and feed like Martha Graham dancers in the clear blue sky above the mysterious, rare, sweet-scented prairie in this most natural of worlds.

It's an Ode to Joy, it's a Hallelujah, it's a Starry Night, it's La Dolce Vita, it's Lomas de Flores, it's Le Prairie #5. It's got everything on it. Come on in and get re-connected with YOUR natural world.

Methinks the numbers are increasing of people taking the suggestion that they re-connect with the natural world. I see more people than I've ever seen in the various parks I visit.

May Day 3 Dawns Pondering Why Federal Grant Money So Easily Flows To Fort Worth

May Day 3 has dawned with just one tiny wisp of a cloud visible from my secondary viewing portal on the outer world.

Currently, at my location, the aforementioned outer world is heated to 68 degrees, headed to a predicted high today of 82.

Changing the subject from my current location to my old home zone of the Skagit Valley of Washington.

This morning I read an article in the Skagit Valley Herald that once again had me wondering why things are so different between my old location and my current one.

Construction began yesterday on a new road that will make it easier to get from Interstate 5 to where I used to live in East Mount Vernon.

Quoting from the article...

Of the $13 million cost, $3.5 million was allocated by local leaders through the Skagit Council of Governments, who borrowed ahead on future revenues to pay for this road upgrade.

Unlike an article in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about something like the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle or Fort Worth's soon to open $3 million pedestrian bridge across the Trinity River, there is no mention of federal grant money. Or earmarks.

Maybe my old home zone didn't get the memo that you can beg the rest of the country for money to pay for public works projects.

Another difference is this new road in the Skagit Valley is a much needed improvement that will greatly help traffic flow, unlike an un-needed flood diversion channel added to an un-needed public works project so that getting federal money would be more easily facilitated.

It is time to go swimming now before it gets any hotter.

No Aches & Pains While Hiking The Tandy Hills With Gar The Texan Needing A Walker

Tandy Hills Hikers

Today I parked on top of Mount Tandy 10 minutes before noon, to have myself some fun, without sun, getting some endorphin inducing aerobic stimulation.

When I did my hill hiking it was a few degrees above 70, temperature-wise. Even now, a couple hours later, the temperature is still a relatively chilly 79.

The cloud cover has the air being very humid. At least I'm assuming the cloud cover is the cause for the humidity.

Today my route over the hills took me down the north slope off Mount Tandy, then crossing the Tandy Escarpment above the now dry, Tandy Falls, then through the jungle of the Tandy Rain Forest, eventually emerging on the trail that leads to the hills from the park on View Street, to see the group of hill hikers you see in the picture.

I do not know why the woman who was bringing up the rear brought up her rear when I went to snap a picture.

During the past year I may have whined about having aches and pains. As in aching joints, knees and feet. For well over a month all that has abated. I have no idea why. A long while back I thought it was the bike riding that caused my aches. But then my bike was stolen and the aches did not go away. Then I thought it might be the excessive swimming. So, I knocked off the swimming during the cold months. With the aches and pains getting no better.

And now, for over a month I have really amped up the exercise and I have no aches and pains, thus negating excessive exercise as the cause of my aches and pains.

My pain free state came to mind yesterday when I read Gar the Texan's sad Feeling His Age tale about all his aches and pains. He returned from his latest bi-monthly senior cruise to find his aging aching hips may require surgery. And a walking cane or walker. And then he found out that due to gum disease his teeth may start falling out. Then he was advised to stop coloring his hair and just let it turn naturally gray.

I'm not sure how old Gar the Texan is. I suspect, due to all the aging symptoms and all those senior cruises he goes on, he is likely 65 or older. If you just look at his face you'd never guess he was that old. But the failing body parts tell another age story.

Maybe Gar the Texan should try excessive exercising and see if that helps all that ails him. Minimally it should help with the age-related weight gain.

Day 2 Of May Thinking About Firing Chesapeake Energy's Aubrey McClendon

Looking through the bars of my patio prison cell on this morning of May Day 2, I see a swimming pool looking like it needs to be swam in. I also see it is yet one more breezy morning in Texas.

A breezy morning already heated to 70 degrees. Heading to a high 12 degrees hotter, if the temperature predictors are correct in their prediction.

I must have missed the news about Aubrey McClendon in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

The Star-Telegram has reason to spew news about McClendon due to what Chesapeake Energy has done to Fort Worth and its surrounding area.

While the Seattle P-I has reason to spew news about McClendon due to the shady way he moved the Seattle Supersonics to Oklahoma City.

Apparently the Chesapeake Energy shareholders have been complaining about McClendon's shady dealing in doing things like borrowing more than $1 billion to buy stakes in Chesapeake's wells.

So, on Tuesday McClendon was removed as chairman of Chesapeake Energy due to complaints that his personal business interests conflict with those of Chesapeake Energy. McClendon continues as Chesapeake's CEO. For now.

Enough about Chesapeake Energy and its corrupt CEO. It's time to go swimming now before it gets any hotter.

Mechanical Bike Dysfunction & A Walk Around The Green Slime Of Fosdic Lake

The Growing Green Slime On Fosdic Lake

I am not a mechanically inclined individual. This fact was freshly made clear to me this morning when I tasked myself with replacing an inner tube in a bike's rear tire.

The wheel came easily off the bike. The flat inner tube came easily off out of the tire.

And then the fun started.

I had trouble getting the new inner tube around the rim. Eventually I managed that. And then I started having trouble getting the tire to seat around the rim.

Eventually I overheated and hauled the vexing tire to an indoor location with air-conditioning. At that location I also had Internet access, so I Googled "mountain bike tube installation" and got myself some directions. From that point on it was only a half hour or so til I had the wheel back on the bike.

One thing I learned during this morning's ordeal was that working on a tire is aerobic exercise when one is an inept bike mechanic.

By the noon time I needed some peaceful walking time, so I went to Oakland Lake Park to walk around Fosdic Lake.

The green algae Fosdic Lake covering has grown larger since my last visit. And the duck population has decreased to just a few ducks from the 10 or 11 ducks I saw on my last visit. And I saw no turtles in Fosdic Lake today.

The Fish Consumption Advisory signs around Fosdic Lake currently seem a bit unnecessary. Would anyone eat a fish caught in this currently ever greener lake?

Celebrating International Workers May Day With A Flat Tire

Looking out my primary viewing portal on the outer world on the morning of May Day, that being the first Day of May, or what my fellow traveling communists celebrate as International Workers' Day, I see a sky with clouds blocking the sun and a breeze blowing the trees.

What I can not see, but can feel, is the temperature. It is currently 70 degrees, heading to a high of 81, if the temperature predictors are correct in their prediction.

Changing the subject from my favorite one to something else.

Apparently I'd not called my mom and dad since my mom called to tell me my little sister had a medical woe. So, my mom called last night to ask why I've not gotten gas lately. The Phoenix zone is being a bit hotter than my location. Arizona has had several temperature record days in the 100s.

Last night I discovered the rear tire on my new bike has gone flat. I've only pedaled on paved trails, so this flat vexes me very much.

This morning is the regularly scheduled day off, so no pool for this fool this morning. I think I'll get myself some aerobic stimulation by replacing an inner tube.