Since I was gone.

I know it's been some time since I last posted anything, but as we all know sometimes life just gets too damn busy. So here is a quick little update of things that have been going on.

Things on the management ground have gone fairly smooth, we did a controlled burn in mid-August on some of the fields that we sprayed in July to kill out the fescue. The burn went fairly well until the midday winds started to pick up, and for a short moment thought it might burn my truck! I was a little nervous, but I've been scared before. I was more nervous about the fire getting into the timber. It was already in the low 90's ambient and it felt about 1500 degrees standing between the timber and the field trying to keep it contained. At the end of the day the cool river water never felt so good. The fields have since been planted and it will be interesting to see how things come up this fall. The fields that we planted in the spring look awesome. I don't think I have ever been so excited to see these fields, that had been fallow for years, become little wildlife Mecca's. I still can't stop myself from standing in the edge of the fields in the morning with a cup of coffee and just enjoying the fruits of our labor as it all comes together.

On a side note I am starting to get more than a little anxious about the loggers getting into the areas that they were in this spring and getting the roads, log decks, and ephemeral pools squared away. I understand that it's been a wet year, but things have been dry enough as of late to get in and get some work done. I am at about three weeks from blowing a gasket if this shit doesn't get done before the leaves start to fall. Also their are still stands to check, logging roads to seed and approximately five more fall food plots to plant,...as well as firewood to put up.

Switching gears now. In early August I competed in my very first ballroom dance competition at the Embassy Suites hotel up by the airport. Wow! Talk about being out of my element. Four days without a ball cap, toothpick, or hot beer," that's rolled around in the back of the pickup for at least two weeks, " no country music, cigars, or sports radio, I mean what the hell was I thinking. Am I trying to kill myself or what?!

With all do respect I must say that I had a great time at the event. I had the opportunity to meet some very nice people from all around the country. I really figured that being around so many pretty people, that they would all be kind of snobbish. They were not at all. In fact just the opposite. Cool!

So my dance instructor when this event is first brought to my attention asks me if I am interested in competing. My first thought is, is he freaking crazy! Has he not been watching me. Is he trying to kill his business or what. In the end I decide to just do it....just like the Nike commercial. I am not new to competition, I have competed in all kinds of sport, from football to tennis, team roping to chess, power volleyball to debate, golf to archery. This was probably the most nerve racking. The largest event I had competed in had a little over 2000 entries. This one had 7000. WTF. did I just sign up for? To make a long story short I was entered into eleven heats in my division, doing seven different dances " I still can't believe that my instructor entered me that many times." I placed in six out of the eleven events. Wahoo!

I am still doing volunteer work for the Missouri Dept. of Conservation, and am having fun being around like minded people who have a common bond in the sharing and educating of those in and around the community about the natural treasures that we take for granted in this day and age. I helped with the Missouri Blue bird convention this last weekend, and I am scheduled to help with the prairies awareness event this weekend in south Kansas City. The end of the month has me heading to the state capitol for the MDC. state wide volunteers get together. Also I will be doing my first controlled burn workshop next week so that I may be qualified to help with controlled burns on MDC areas. After the experience from my own personal controlled burn, it sounds like a sound investment.

I am still wanting to get to Steelville to rope some steers before the first frost. I still miss the smell of the roping arena, the sound of the gates and the sound of the hoofs thundering down the arena in a race against time. The smell of horse and cow, and sawdust and hay,... man what a day!

Their is still many more things that have been going on that I haven't mentioned but maybe this hits the high points. On a side note I would like to extend best wishes to, gia at best, which represents half of my IT. support, lol!... for their new found career opportunity. Break a leg!!

I do, sort of.

A good friend of mine and I was talking about relationships and such as we so often do. Mostly because it is a interesting subject. One that brings out emotion, dreams, fears, fantasy, and last but not least.......reality! I must confess that I have not been in a lot of relationships over the years, but I have been in some very long and protracted relationships. I only mention this as a quantifier for my limited opinion in regards to prenuptial agreements. I know that the mere mention of this will strike an immediate reaction with most of you, one way or another given your own experiences. I also must say that my own inclination is that I feel that I am a hopeless romantic myself. The problem being is that I am a realist as well. Their in lies the dilemma.

This may seem cold but I tend to view marriage more as a business partnership than a religious proclamation. I think the ceremonies are nice, and well.... warm and fuzzy but in reality it is a legally binding contract that states that when you partner up, you are agreeing to take on all of the other parties baggage and cover for it as well. Think of it as glorified cosigning for someone for life.

My thought is that we buy insurance for everything else in life that has a much higher degree of not happening, and we fail to insure ourselves against a legal partnership that has over a 50% degree of probability of not seeing the ten year mark. Why? I believe that for a lot of people it is a lot like talking about our mortality. We are pretty sure that it could happen, we just don't want to bring up the subject because it makes us uncomfortable. Uncomfortable is getting in a relationship of any sort using emotion as the primary driver. It doesn't matter whether its a car, a cell phone, or contract at Golds Gym. It drives me crazy to here someone say that you shouldn't talk about prenupts because you are focusing on the negative and you must not really be " in love " if you even bring up the subject. I say Bullshit!! I say if you really care about someone that these topics need to be addressed, as painful as it may be, its even more painful to have to live with the coulda, shoulda, wouldas, because of emotion. This is not why we go to school to learn things, just to get out in the world and let fantasy, religious mysticism's and emotion run our lives.

To set the record clear I am all for marriage if it makes sense and is well thought out, but not for indiscriminate coupling just to keep people with ideological fantasy's to keep from having to think outside the box.

Scared to grow, or Scared too grow.

Scared to grow, or scared too grow, seem to have two different meanings. It can mean that we are scared to grow, or that to grow we must be scared into growing .

What an interesting concept. Not that it is new by any stretch of the imagination. I am just fascinated by the semantics of the whole phrase. One keeps us held back and the other pushes us forward. Fear being the common denominator. A real dichotomy if you will. Growth forward or backwards is still growth I guess. But is backwards growth still growth? Can positive growth still be obtained while receding?..... Direction may not be as important as the outcome, and the knowledge gained. I sure hope!

Row,Row, Row, your boat....

I know this is a sensitive subject for some of us, but the subject still remains. Should we bail out, (literally) people who choose to live in flood plains? I can see saving the farmers who work the bottom grounds of these watersheds, because that is where the best soil is located. In fact it is because of these floods that makes this ground so fertile.

To knowingly build homes and entire community's in such a precarious place when you have no vested interest in this ground borders on absurdity. It seems even more absurd to bail these people out. Living on higher ground dates back thousands of years. This is just common sense...which hasn't been real common for a while now. I realize that we cannot avoid all of natures wrath....and that is how it should be, but to be so cavalier about our supposed dominance over the forces of nature just grates on me sometimes. Oh well, I guess I'll feed the birds, and they can feed the fishes. G-day!

Buck up Buttercup!

It seems that their is two types of scared. One for your physical life, and the other for your emotional life. I am really starting to think that the emotional scared is by far the worst. I have been involved with the physical fear for my life a couple times in my existence, and as scary as that is, their seems to always be a way out of the circumstance... usually by being physical. On the other hand emotional scared is the scariest because your mind knows all of your weaknesses, fears and insecurities. Throw in ones own ego and you have the makings of a real train wreck.
Metaphorically speaking that is.

So the question is how do you toughen your mind without going ga ga? Surely one doesn't purposely create situations that would cause such turmoil....that would seem counter intuitive, almost self destructive. But just like a boxer who has to toughen their knuckles by repeated strikes, their is no easy way to practice what we all must do multiple times in this life. That is to summons the courage to face the unknown,... knowing that to do so is the only way to gain the realization that our fears are what really keep us from being all that we can be.

Free wheeling

Wow! Just about the time you think things will settle down in ones life more stuff comes up. I suppose thats alright, it just never seems like the timing is right. Maybe the timing is perfect for our maximum growth, but that doesn't make it any easier. Ok... I'am using this as a prelude to excuse myself from not writing lately. If its any consolation I have a ton of topics that I would like to talk about but, don't seem to have the time to sit down and put my thoughts together in a complete sentence. So these are some of the topics that have landed on my radar screen as of late that I would love to talk about but just have not had the time.

Grape Nut flakes. Whats up with that....no grapes and no nuts! Although most of the people that I have encountered lately remind me of cereal. I mean what ain't fruits and nuts, is flakes.

Weddings vs. Funerals. Weddings are probably more fun except that funerals get over in about an hour, and weddings can take roughly ten minutes shy of eternity. Especially during football season. I also believe that it is cheaper to put someone in the ground than it is to get married. Your life is not the same after either occasion in any event, but at least we don't have to go through our own funeral multiple times.

If you can't hula hoop without assistance, should you really let your dance instructor talk you into entering a dance competition? I'll have that answer for you sometime in August!

Why are we the only industrialized country that doesn't have universal health care?





If corn oil comes from corn and coal oil comes from coal....where does baby oil come from? Not real sure that I want to know, but it has crossed my mind.





If the stuff that happens to you when you are in your forties happened to you when you were in your twenties...would you really want to live to thirty?





If I go on a date with a blind person do I still have to dress up?





I know I know already. This is some silly assed stuff but you have to admit, a mind given half a chance to free wheel, when left alone can come up with some pretty unorthodox thoughts. On some level letting our minds go of all the programing that we have endured... even for a few minutes can be quite cathartic.

We the people.....

Their have been several articles lately in the local print media concerning the human population in the world and eventual demise of our planet and the people on it. It seems as though that their are numerous factors in regard to this trend. Not the least of which in my opinion has been due to our own intelligence. Yeah it seems weird that we as the smart ones on this planet ( or so we think ) are our own worst enemy. We have created problems today with our intelligence... that we cannot fix with the same intelligence.... that created the problem in the first place! In a nutshell I would like to interject a few of my own random thoughts about this subject, not in any particular order, just some knee jerk things that come to mind. Because this is to vast of subject to try and pick apart on this site and I don't want to spend the rest of my life trying to analyse the nuances of demographic populations and the control their of. I think you all would agree.

First and foremost is the advent of agriculture. When you can grow more food you can support more humans. When you have more humans you need more food. Which takes more ground to grow more food to support even more humans. Pretty simple. Ask the native Americans why we put them on reservations...so we could control more ground and grow more stuff, their by reducing the competition. So that we could control our own food source....to support more humans.

Trying to westernize indigenous culture's that are living in perfect harmony with the land that is native to them. I am thinking of Africa in this instance and how we have transformed them from a primarily nomadic culture that traversed the plains. Following the rains and the game animals, to a bunch of people crammed into a couple square miles trying to live the western dream, because we have convinced them that that you are not very developed as a people if you cannot live in a pseudo urbanized setting depleting the immediate surroundings resources. Their by product of which results in depleted food sources, disease, famine, crime, and a host of other problems to great to try and cover.

Medicine and technology. This seems straight forward that their is a lot of us alive today, that wouldn't have survived a hundred years earlier. What with C-sections, drugs, x-rays, etc... me included. But given the chance to play God we by most accounts try to save every living thing that we can. I am just not sure if that was the way it was really intended. In the real world their are checks and balances that keep populations in check. Once that system has been compromised it creates a false sense of reality that we come to believe is real. Which is not real at all. It is an artificially propted up population that over time is destined to fail...because it runs counter to the reality of the natural world.