Thunder is the sound made by lightning.
The sudden increase in pressure and temperature from lightning produces rapid expansion of the air surrounding and within a bolt of lightning. In turn, this expansion of air creates a sonic shock wave which produces the sound of thunder. (Wikipedia)
That's actually a pretty boring explanation.
As the ole fat boy sits in the pre-dawn darkness of his ranch office this morn and listens to the storm passing thru, those claps, cracks, and booms sound anything but boring?
A more likely explanation requires the air to conspire creation of a rumble in our heads. A sound that obscures the dark rolling clouds in order to make way for the flickers and curls of the following lightning.
It is like a hot breath, followed by sweet, hard rain which cools the heat of the bright fire in the sky.
Random thoughts from a country philosopher for what they are worth?
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Beer Butt Chicken
Good day today.
Warm sun, blue sky, no wind. Spring is awesome.
Cut some brush, stacked it on the burn pile in the back forty, admired the improvement in the "view".
Adding bodacious "beer butt" chicken slow cooked on the grill to the tune of a cold adult beverage just made it better.
Ya gotta love it!
Warm sun, blue sky, no wind. Spring is awesome.
Cut some brush, stacked it on the burn pile in the back forty, admired the improvement in the "view".
Adding bodacious "beer butt" chicken slow cooked on the grill to the tune of a cold adult beverage just made it better.
Ya gotta love it!
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Bunkhouse Weeds
Gardening requires lots of water - most of it in the form of perspiration.
(Lou Erickson)
Last weekend, the bride and the ole fat ranch hand went tooth and toenail after the forest jungle of weeds in the flower beds around the bunkhouse. (Then took two days off for the ache/pains to subside enough to contemplate the next "move"?)
This morn's dawn invoked the soothing auditory blanket of rain as it cascaded from the roof onto the ground. The heaven sent moisture peppered thru the budding tree leaves and whispered to the fallen leaves below in order to softly wick to the thirsty soil.
The cycle of nature continues thru its millennial journey of seasons. Life is renewing.
This week the ritual planting of the Tin Star vegetable garden shall occur thus signalling the onset of our annual waltz with voracious deer, invading insects, and the ever pending specter of drought.
Ya gotta reckon that a safe bet is a man should never plant a garden bigger than his wife can take care of?
(Lou Erickson)
Last weekend, the bride and the ole fat ranch hand went tooth and toenail after the forest jungle of weeds in the flower beds around the bunkhouse. (Then took two days off for the ache/pains to subside enough to contemplate the next "move"?)
This morn's dawn invoked the soothing auditory blanket of rain as it cascaded from the roof onto the ground. The heaven sent moisture peppered thru the budding tree leaves and whispered to the fallen leaves below in order to softly wick to the thirsty soil.
The cycle of nature continues thru its millennial journey of seasons. Life is renewing.
This week the ritual planting of the Tin Star vegetable garden shall occur thus signalling the onset of our annual waltz with voracious deer, invading insects, and the ever pending specter of drought.
Ya gotta reckon that a safe bet is a man should never plant a garden bigger than his wife can take care of?
Monday, March 15, 2010
Life Is Good!
Fishin' was a passion for the ole ranch hand for as far back as he can remember.
Awesome summer days spent in total bliss without care or a sense of the passage of time.
Just a young boy, some crude angling paraphernalia, and free bait worms dug from the rich soil or grasshoppers captured amid the pasture grass. Watch that cork disappear, feel the throbbing surge of the wriggling varmit on the opposite end, and life was good.
Never "owned" a fishing place. Just always dreamed of it.
Near bout four years ago the Tin Star became home. It came with a pond of sorts, but it was silted in from eons of drainage down the creek bed and overgrown with brush.
Finally scraped together enough coins to have the tank cleaned out and reshaped only to find central Texas in drought (think dusty dry pond).
Started raining a few months back and has steady rained since to the point that the pond has been flowing over the spillway for quite a spell.
Now the good part: Went to the feed store in Florence this morn and ordered 100 hybrid bluegill bream, 100 hybrid bass, and about 500 fathead minnows for delivery in about three weeks. Yeah, they will only be 3-4 inches long to start, but it will be a life long dream fulfilled.
Life is good, JRM!
Awesome summer days spent in total bliss without care or a sense of the passage of time.
Just a young boy, some crude angling paraphernalia, and free bait worms dug from the rich soil or grasshoppers captured amid the pasture grass. Watch that cork disappear, feel the throbbing surge of the wriggling varmit on the opposite end, and life was good.
Never "owned" a fishing place. Just always dreamed of it.
Near bout four years ago the Tin Star became home. It came with a pond of sorts, but it was silted in from eons of drainage down the creek bed and overgrown with brush.
Finally scraped together enough coins to have the tank cleaned out and reshaped only to find central Texas in drought (think dusty dry pond).
Started raining a few months back and has steady rained since to the point that the pond has been flowing over the spillway for quite a spell.
Now the good part: Went to the feed store in Florence this morn and ordered 100 hybrid bluegill bream, 100 hybrid bass, and about 500 fathead minnows for delivery in about three weeks. Yeah, they will only be 3-4 inches long to start, but it will be a life long dream fulfilled.
Life is good, JRM!
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Brush Dancing
Our lives are better left to chance
I could have missed the pain
But I'd of had to miss the dance (Garth Brooks)
The ole ranch hand lucked into purchase of the Tin Star mid-year 2006. At that time, the Star was a brush infested jungle of cedar, oaks, elm, and steroid induced briers.
Now comes four years later after untold hours of sweat, blood, aggravation, and the pure joy of temporarily taming the "beast".
Sweat: Try July/August on the business end of a chain saw with no breeze in sight?
Blood: The old fat boy has a "wound" down the side of his neck this morn from the brush biting back yesterday while engaged in the act of doing battle with nature (and the total "wound" count is legendary).
Aggravation: Run a good chain saw on large timber all day long and it will sing. Ease it into small brush and watch it disintegrate before your eyes. True story, brush will eat a chain saw, spit it out, and stomp on the operator?
Joy: Ain't nuthin' better than sittin' back with a cold adult beverage at the end of a hard day and experiencing the visual pleasure of measuring one's progress in concert with the land.
Yeah, it's just "dancing" since the spring rains will bring the brush back with a vengeance, but simple pleasures are the best kind when one has no intention of ever "finishing" the job (and it amply makes the pain worthwhile!).
I could have missed the pain
But I'd of had to miss the dance (Garth Brooks)
The ole ranch hand lucked into purchase of the Tin Star mid-year 2006. At that time, the Star was a brush infested jungle of cedar, oaks, elm, and steroid induced briers.
Now comes four years later after untold hours of sweat, blood, aggravation, and the pure joy of temporarily taming the "beast".
Sweat: Try July/August on the business end of a chain saw with no breeze in sight?
Blood: The old fat boy has a "wound" down the side of his neck this morn from the brush biting back yesterday while engaged in the act of doing battle with nature (and the total "wound" count is legendary).
Aggravation: Run a good chain saw on large timber all day long and it will sing. Ease it into small brush and watch it disintegrate before your eyes. True story, brush will eat a chain saw, spit it out, and stomp on the operator?
Joy: Ain't nuthin' better than sittin' back with a cold adult beverage at the end of a hard day and experiencing the visual pleasure of measuring one's progress in concert with the land.
Yeah, it's just "dancing" since the spring rains will bring the brush back with a vengeance, but simple pleasures are the best kind when one has no intention of ever "finishing" the job (and it amply makes the pain worthwhile!).
Monday, March 1, 2010
CHICK FLICKS
The ranch hand's bride absolutely LOVES going to the moving picture shows. The ranch hand mostly don't because:
1. The beautiful child bride chooses "chick flicks" almost exclusively.
2. The ranch hand's bladder will no longer endure an entire feature film without relief.
3. The price of the theater groceries would make my Wright City dad swaller his chaw.
4. The "dark" in there makes negotiating the stairs a "trip" (remember the bladder?).
5. The best part is when it is over.
Of course they is advantages:
1. I gets to sit by the most beautiful woman in the world and hold her hand.
2. The bladder thing gives me the excuse to walk around in the lobby a couple times per show.
3. I can eat two gallons of butter soaked pop corn and nobody seems to care.
4. It is so dark nobody can see the ole fat boy "fidgeting".
5. The best part is when it is over.
The bottom line: Going to movies with the wife is a romantic dating ritual that I hope never ends!
1. The beautiful child bride chooses "chick flicks" almost exclusively.
2. The ranch hand's bladder will no longer endure an entire feature film without relief.
3. The price of the theater groceries would make my Wright City dad swaller his chaw.
4. The "dark" in there makes negotiating the stairs a "trip" (remember the bladder?).
5. The best part is when it is over.
Of course they is advantages:
1. I gets to sit by the most beautiful woman in the world and hold her hand.
2. The bladder thing gives me the excuse to walk around in the lobby a couple times per show.
3. I can eat two gallons of butter soaked pop corn and nobody seems to care.
4. It is so dark nobody can see the ole fat boy "fidgeting".
5. The best part is when it is over.
The bottom line: Going to movies with the wife is a romantic dating ritual that I hope never ends!
Soulful Pleasures
Ranch weekends are almost indescribable in their purity of form and substance.
Of course, "weekends" are only a focus because the ole fat boy is still toiling in the salt mine of an employer Monday thru Friday?
This past Saturday morn dawned with a brilliant sun, azure blue sky, and just the slightest wisp of occasional cloud to season the day.
A labor of love is one that satisfies the soul, provides tactile and visual evidence of its existence, and leaves the world a slightly better place for its doing. The ranch hand indulged his soulful pleasures on the recent sixth week day by stacking previously harvested brush on the back forty burn pile. A task simple in its execution, mindless in the transition from its slain earthbound position to atop the "burn" heap, yet soul satisfying to the miscreant performing the actual labor. Dad used to say when approaching a cemetery he maintained, "Ya'll got to excuse me cause it is time I cleaned yall up". This would be "rancher" intuitively understands that call to nature for forgiveness of the human alteration of the landscape of the land.
Yesterday began with a trek to the front gate to retrieve the Sunday newspaper and the unexpected morning trumpet of the resident turkeys calling after their night's slumber in the Gabriel river bottom. Happy to greet another day, the grasshopper wranglers were joyously gobbling their love of life.
Such are the Lord's reminders of all that the humble ranch hand is blessed with on his small patch of earth bound heaven in Gabriel Mills, Texas.
Of course, "weekends" are only a focus because the ole fat boy is still toiling in the salt mine of an employer Monday thru Friday?
This past Saturday morn dawned with a brilliant sun, azure blue sky, and just the slightest wisp of occasional cloud to season the day.
A labor of love is one that satisfies the soul, provides tactile and visual evidence of its existence, and leaves the world a slightly better place for its doing. The ranch hand indulged his soulful pleasures on the recent sixth week day by stacking previously harvested brush on the back forty burn pile. A task simple in its execution, mindless in the transition from its slain earthbound position to atop the "burn" heap, yet soul satisfying to the miscreant performing the actual labor. Dad used to say when approaching a cemetery he maintained, "Ya'll got to excuse me cause it is time I cleaned yall up". This would be "rancher" intuitively understands that call to nature for forgiveness of the human alteration of the landscape of the land.
Yesterday began with a trek to the front gate to retrieve the Sunday newspaper and the unexpected morning trumpet of the resident turkeys calling after their night's slumber in the Gabriel river bottom. Happy to greet another day, the grasshopper wranglers were joyously gobbling their love of life.
Such are the Lord's reminders of all that the humble ranch hand is blessed with on his small patch of earth bound heaven in Gabriel Mills, Texas.
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