Our first northern cardinal of the year

 

 

In our back yard.  Well, above and behind our back yard, on the wire.

 

Singing!

 

My new laptop arrived

 

 

My first thought.

 

I was hoping it would be a little smaller.

 

 

My thought

 

 

We’ve been watching the U.S. House of Representatives try to pick a speaker.  It has been three days.  There are holdouts, and no one candidate can get to the majority required.  The television coverage has provided much handwringing about how bad these 20 congresspeople (elect) holdouts are.  Because of them, this process can’t go forward.  The holdouts won’t say what they want.  They don’t have a consolidated list of demands.  They aren’t making counterproposals for a real compromise solution.  They just don’t want what’s offered.

 

My thought goes one step farther.  These 20 difficult congresspeople (elect) were all elected by the populations of their districts.  There are voters behind them.  They probably didn’t trick their voters into voting for them.  The voters knew what to expect from them.  The voters had choices, and these are the people they chose.  We’re not getting what these congresspeople (elect) want, we’re getting what the voters in these districts want.  These elected officials are probably not getting booed back home.  They are likely getting cheered.

 

Much is made about some of our elected officials not being good leaders; not leading their constituents to where they should aspire to go.  That concern might be misplaced.  This could be more about the elected officials going where the people that elected them want them to go, otherwise they wouldn’t have been elected in the first place.  Is the analysis blaming the messengers without considering who sent the message?

 

Damar Hamlin

 

 

We were watching the football game Monday night when Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field.  We saw the outpouring of love and support that followed.  We all want him to get better.  What doesn’t seem appropriate though, are the immediate talking head opinions about how what happened on the field then is an indictment of how violent the sport of football is.  Tragic as that scene was, I don’t see it as a football injury.  He seems to have suffered cardiac arrest as a result of a collision.  Football is a violent sport, but that collision, by football standards, was not particularly violent.  It was a tackle.

 

Apparently, that blow to the chest happened at precisely the moment that could interrupt the electrical flow of the heart and stop it.  But a collision of that magnitude could have happened under so many other circumstances.  It could have been the impact from colliding with the catcher while sliding in at home plate. A person could ski into a tree or fall off their bike.  The twin brother of Judy’s grandfather got punched in the chest when he was a teenager messing around.  His heart stopped and he dropped dead on the spot.

 

There are plenty of injuries to demonstrate the violence of football.  This does not appear to be one of them.  It looked like a life-threatening random event that happened during a football game.

 

The missing ingredient

 

 

 

What else can I add to compost to make it even better?  Something to spice it up?

 

I know!  Ungulate poop!

 

What is herbivore poop anyway, but compost with a head start?  It’s already been digested!  And, lucky me, I happened to have a poop bag already in my pocket.

 

I think this is Nilgai scat.  That’s a large Indian continent antelope that has established a self-sustaining wild breeding population here in South Texas.

 

(Not my photo)

 

A fresh batch of compost underway.

 

Add a little scat.

 

Close it.  Give it a couple turns.  And all mixed in!

 

It’s running hot already.

 

And still

 

 

Yearning to be free!

 

Choose your time

 

 

Pick your spot.

 

Grab a blanket (or towel).

 

And have that nap!