BigDog Speaks

Having a garden is a great thing. All the work to put one in is great exercise. All the thinking and pondering about what to plant keeps your brain active. Realizing you have more seeds than you have space can cause high blood pressure.

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The Red Baron of world war one was a national hero to Germany and a nemesis to everyone else. All the fly boys wanted a crack at him and every last one of them hoped to shoot him down. His day finally came and he was shot down. One bullet entered his right side and traversed an upward angle to exit on the left and lodge in his jacket. The bullet was a .303. After much hoopla, the kill shot was credited to one of the fly boys and neatly filed away as fact, and history.

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Sounds pretty bizarre right? Enjoy life, even if it kills you. A very strange statement, I will admit. I also maintain it is 100% true. This whole process of living ultimately kills us. It is a fact of life You live, then you die. If you place the whole deal on display and look at it closely, a lot of mistakes will be found in HOW we live. Taken at its core, the absolute root cause, life, causes death. Disease, accident, wrong place wrong time, war or for the fortunate, old age. Any way you slice it, the process of living causes death. Death is the culmination, the final curtain of our lives. You can't get around it, the inevitable will ultimately happen.

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Just about the time I THINK things should cool off (I am always several months on the wrong side), I get bit by the yard bug. You know the bug I mean, the one that prompts you to work in the yard and get things looking better, or perhaps the one that says it is time for a garden. It doesn't matter, it is always the same durn bug and it bites me at least once per year. This year it jumped on me even early for ME! I just had to put in a raised bed, actually two, two cinder blocks high and as wide and long as the space would permit.

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Fay drowned most of the state of Florida doing a mini-bypass around Hillsborough County. We got a little rain, a little wind, everybody else got a LOT of rain. As far as storms go, this county has fared pretty well compared to the others. Being inland in the county helps a lot too. Usually everybody else gets hit pretty hard and we seem to scrape by with relatively little damage.

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In pursuit of health and knowledge we subject ourselves to being stabbed with needles, scanned with rays, arms squeezed, and trying not to miss the cup with a too small sample. All for the sake of our health. It makes perfect sense and is indeed a necessity since we aren't able to do remote viewing from a medical point of view as yet. The need to drag a half dozen or so of our closest friends with us to this procedure still escapes me. Yes, there IS a waiting room. No, it is not called a gossip room, party room, old fogie room, or anything else.

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Florida is hunkered down for Fay. Why? The news is making it sound awful and reality is 60 mph winds and rain. Ok, we have had wind and rain before. Could it have been worse? Absolutely. Can it get worse? Yes, but not that likely. Storms tend to lose ground when they hit ground. This one didn't have all that much to begin with so when it begins to lose steam, it should dwindle down pretty fast.

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The scientific community is always either searching for proof that God exists or searching for proof that he does not. Finding Noah's ark would go a long way in proving the Bible as a historical document, thereby proving God. Many people are involved in the effort and they do all they can to prove one way or another that there is a God.

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I spent my morning with my son. He was having a minor procedure, 15 minutes for the procedure, and hour before for prep and an hour after for recovery. Just to be nice, I'll round it up to 3 hours total. The bill works out to 1,833.00 per hour. OK, there are expenses involved and overhead but, THAT much?

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It is surprising to me how many younger folks think they are entitled to a living without ever doing a thing for it. The work ethic of my parents passed to me and I did my utmost to pass it on to my kids. I am painfully aware that this is the exception rather than the rule. Clerks in the store get annoyed when you ask them for help or directions, they are just there for looks, not work. Cashiers give you dirty looks when you intrude on the conversation they are having with another cashier simply because you wish to check out. We have screwed the pooch on this one and ALL of us will be paying for it.

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It's easy to allow ourselves to get wrapped up in all the 'what if' and 'if only' sides of life and totally forget the little things. I had occasion to walk in the flower bed in the front of my house. The objective was simple, remove the old dryer vent and replace it with the new one. Unless you are fanatical about cleaning out your vents and lines, they will clog with fluff and represent a real fire hazard. No, I'm not fanatical, I had to move the dryer for a replacement water heater and decided the old dryer vent was looking ragged. I digress, I willy-nilly walked over to the old dryer vent and after a tug or two realized I would need some tools. I spun on my heel and took a large, off balance step in my pitiful attempt to avoid trampling the flowers. You know that sinking feeling when you put your foot down and feel that familiar sharp pain that signifies you have stepped on something you didn't want to? Yup, I had that.

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"This is the second notice that the factory warranty on your vehicle..." Give it a rest. I'd like to lay hands on the guy behind this junk and it certainly wouldn't be for healing purposes! My telephone number is unlisted. I pay extra to avoid these calls. According to others I've talked to, the unlisted number cuts the amount of calls considerably but, I am of the mind that just one is too many! I'm not one of the folks with a phone glued to the side of my head wherever I go, I use the phone when I need to. When my phone rings, it is supposed to be family, friends, a doctor's office, or something else of equal importance. It is NOT supposed to be an automated idiot trying to sell me anything or even a LIVE idiot, trying to sell me something.

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I don't like wasp. I think it has something to do with the fact that they have a foul disposition and can sting multiple times. Regardless of the reason, every so often I have to patrol and eliminate them from around my house. A particularly fine example of wasp nest was hanging on a leaf of our Bird of Paradise, literally dripping with wasps. I prefer the stealthy, long distance approach, I shoot foam for 10 or 12 feet, far enough to keep me removed from the action.

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If you have junk like I have junk, getting organized and cleaned up is a serious test of fortitude. How I managed to acquire so much junk into such a small space is beyond me. I have been chipping away for the last three weeks trying to make order out of my messes. I am nearly there.

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I've been a woodworker for a long time. I have built all kinds of things over the years. Being sometimes frugal, I have also unbuilt some of these things to reuse the wood for something else. When I built whatever it happened to be, I built it to last my lifetime and perhaps more. I NEVER built it to be disassembled in a few years or even many years. I built to last.

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