Thoughts from the Middle of Nowhere

Talk about give a person the willies, I am sure glad we don't have to deal with killer bees around here. The little girl had them in her nose, her tongue, and in her eyelids (shiver).

I could not bear the bees should come, Emily Dickinson

I saw this headline in the paper and I was a little confused.

Cause of crash still undermined

Undermined? I had to look it up.

1 : to excavate the earth beneath : form a mine under
2 : to wash away supporting material from under
3 : to subvert or weaken insidiously or secretly
4 : to weaken or ruin by degrees

It is actually a word but I am sure they meant to put in undetermined in the headline of the story but just goofed. It might be fixed by now so I will have no supporting documentation. Oh well, just struck me funny this morning.

The old saying of Buffon’s that style is the man himself is as near the truth as we can get—but then most men mistake grammar for style, as they mistake correct spelling for words or schooling for education. Samuel Butler

In a week school will start for the kids around here and this story reminds me of one of the real important things that you don't seem to have any control over, the bus driver. My Darling wife home schools the youngest two, who start today, but the oldest gets to ride the bus every day and luckily she will have a good driver again this year.

The article talks about the bus drivers learning kids secrets and I wouldn't be suprised if my daughters driver knows some since she always sits and visits with him. She tells me that he is the only intelligent person on the bus to talk to which is fine I don't care, but I wonder what secrets she lets out? Ah, but since I have nothing to hide, there can't be any secrets can there.

The one thing I will never understand about the bus on my route is why it is the oldest one around. I have inquired and never been able to get an answer on why the bus with the longest, most desolate route, is always the oldest most decrepit bus in the district. Only once has it actually broke down, but I don't know how many times my daughter comes home and tells me something is broke on the bus. Real minor things like the brakes, transmission, alternator, in the dead of winter, the heat. But a good bus driver can overcome these obstacles which ours does. Thank the Lord for good bus drivers.

Secrets die when kept or revealed. They live by being faintly and uncertainly repeated. Mason Cooley

Drinking and driving with a twist. Good thing the horse isn't injured.

If you want to quit drinking, just look at a drunkard when you're sober. Chinese proverb

I talked about this story earlier since it sounded very humorous to me. As usal people are complaining about the army doing these procedures. They say the milatary should spend money on "bullets, not boobs." If you are only talking about war I might agree but if you want to talk about beauty, bullets vs. boobs, no way.

It is impossible to suffer without making someone pay for it; every complaint already contains revenge. Friedrich Nietzsche

Brian Schweitzer: "I have more than I need and less than I want,"
Bob Brown: he has exactly 16 guns - two of them antiques.


Sounds like two children, one saying they have more and better of something than the other one has. All that is really important is if they support the second admendment to the Constitution and don't make any state laws that try to circumvent it. I could care less who has the biggest one (gun).

We must get the American public to look past the glitter, beyond the showmanship, to the reality, the hard substance of things. And we’ll do it … not so much with speeches that will bring people to their feet as with speeches that bring people to their senses. Mario Cuomo

The forgotten half. This is so true it isn't even funny. I don't know how many times when I was in the Navy I told people I was from Montana and got the "how mountainous and beautiful the state is." I would agree and then say I was from eastern Montana and get the "oh, that's the flat part." I finally quit arguing with people over this misconception by telling them that while I agree the western part is nice, in my opinion the eastern part with the combinations of mountains and badlands, prarie and water, sun filled skies and low land forests was just as much, if not more beautiful and diverse than the western part, but if they wanted to contiue to belive thier misconceptions they were more than welcome to visit the western part of the state and leave the good half for those of us smart enough to properly enjoy what truly is God's Country.

This would always take them back a little but whether I changed any ones mind I don't know nor do I care. Anyone who wants to truly experience Montana will discover its all beautiful, east and west, in its own way, just as God intended. If they are so blind as to not explore the beauty of the whole state it is thier loss and there is nothing I can do about it.

Beautiful or not, it is my native land; kin or not, he is a fellow countryman. Chinese proverb

I completely agree and understand this.

Man gets 10 years for downloading child pornography

What really confusaes me is that this man gets 10 years for downloading child pornography while this women only gets 2 1/2 years for killing a child and this women only gets 5 years for killing a child. Now I mentioned the second one and my feelings on it here and nobody commented on my conclusion that 5 years for killing a child is wrong.

So can somebody explain to me why it costs a person, in jail time, less to kill a child than to download child pornography? Seems like our values aren't all that properly in line here, but I'm just a stupid cowboy who doesn't understand all these modern complicated things. They just confuse me. A long rope and a tree would fix these things right up.

The confusion is not my invention. We cannot listen to a conversation for five minutes without being aware of the confusion. It is all around us and our only chance now is to let it in. The only chance of renovation is to open our eyes and see the mess. It is not a mess you can make sense of. Samuel Beckett

Just an update. The anti-inflammatory prescription the doctor has me to reduce some of the swelling has reduced the pain enough I can actually sit and look at the computer without being in extreme pain. Hopefully the shot today will finish getting rid of the numbness and the rest of the pain. It worked well for me 10 years ago when this same thing happened to me so I am keeping my fingers crossed since if it don't I am looking at surgery. Not an option I want top persue.

Lukily I haven't been real busy around here at the moment and the hired man has been able to handle what needed to be done. Thank the lord for a good hired man, haven't had one of them in a while. I thank everybody for thier concern, as the doctor told me, "Hurting you back like this is just an occupational hazard for a rancher."

Pain is real when you get other people to believe in it. If no one believes in it but you, your pain is madness or hysteria. Naomi Wolf

I have been battling my back for a little while now and this weekend I really injured it bad. Pinched nerves, ruptured disk. It is really weird, my leg is so numb that it is like walking on a wooden stump but at the same time get tremendous shooting pains down my leg that double me over in pain. Am getting a steriod injection in my back on Friday for the problem. It worked the last time this happened hopefully will work this time. Just wanted to explain why blogging has been light. Not thinking real straight some times because of pain. Talk more later.

All I can think about is how much Big Red would eat and how much manure there would be to cart away. You could say this sounds like bullshit but since he is a steer that would be inappropriate.

My dad talks about when he took over the ranch from his grandpa how there where some big steers running around it. His grandpa would run steers until they were 3-4 years old before he sold them. When dad took over he said there were about 20 head that grandpa could not catch and were still on the loose. They were all better than 5 years old and it took a few years to capture the wild critters. He describes the last one he managed to get in about like Big Red. 6 Ft. tall and just huge. He said one of the problems was it was so big the horses were scared of it. Finally got it in and took it to town and sold it. He said it didn't bring much money because it was too big for a normal butcher facility. I can belive it.

A thing may be incredible and still be true; sometimes it is incredible because it is true. Herman Melville

Now this kind of Bible study would be very interesting to attend. To bad we don't have one of these around here to start a bible study class.

Humor is the only test of gravity, and gravity of humor; for a subject which will not bear raillery is suspicious, and a jest which will not bear serious examination is false wit. Aristotle

I found out a couple of things today and I am putting them here to remind myself in the future of these little hints.

1. When you get a vehicle that is "new to you" make sure you can get the jack out of its stowage position with out an hours worth of interior disassembly and a very large wrench applied to a "thumb screw" that is supposed to operated by two fingers.

2. Study all documentation available on how to unstow the spare tire from the underbody of the vehicle before attempting this procedure. After reading the information supplied with the jack and tools and not being able to get it work after a half hour look in owners manual. After following completely different set of directions in owners manual and still beating your head against the vehicle, have Darling Wife look over documentation. After darling wife finds an illustration with a completeley different way of unstowing the tire, swear out a death curse on the people who designed the stupid thing but finally manage to get the tire down.

Two hours to change a tire is a little excessive but I swear the vehicle had a curse on it and didn't want the tire changed but Darling Wife and I won.

Perhaps catastrophe is the natural human environment, and even though we spend a good deal of energy trying to get away from it, we are programmed for survival amid catastrophe. Germaine Greer

A smart decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is making me wonder if somebody over there has recently rented a brain. It wasn't exactly rocket science to see the black-tailed prairie dog was not an endangered species. Anybody who has had any experience with them knows that if not checked they breed themselves out of house and home so they were nowhere near the "brink of extinction." I don't have any of these varmits on my place and I don't plan on having any in the future. Shoot, shovel, and shut-up.

The whole enterprise of this nation, which is not an upward, but a westward one, toward Oregon, California, Japan, etc., is totally devoid of interest to me, ...What end do they propose to themselves beyond Japan? What aims more lofty have they than the prairie dogs? Henry David Thoreau

I had read this story in the local paper but for the life of me couldn't figure out how citizens of a foreign country could sue the US government. I found this article that explains a little about how they are trying to do it.

Chapter 11 allows individuals to claim damages when another NAFTA government takes actions that give an unfair advantage to its own investors in the North American Free Trade area.

Even lawyers in their own country don't think it is going to work though.

However, Barry Appleton, managing partner of Appleton & Associates International Lawyers in Toronto, said the claims will likely be unsuccessful on the point of jurisdiction as Chapter 11 challenges require Canadian investors to have an investment in the U.S., which is not the case here.

I sympathize with the Canadian cattle producers here. They are really hurting because of the border being closed. By the same token it is one of the many reasons that I am selling cattle at record high prices so I am not particularly complaining. Eventually the border will be reopened and I will see cattle prices fall some so all I can do is enjoy while the high prices are here and prepare myself for when the prices fall.

People with the same sickness sympathize with one another. Chinese proverb