Bobcat Fever

Normally, Bobcat Fever might be associated with something pertaining to Southwest Texas State University....alma mater of LBJ and George Strait, and El Gringo Viejo and his son and daughter and son-in-law.   But this is a real live bobcat story.

     During the early morning hours down at our little mud hut, El Gringo Viejo went out to finish the breakfast ceremony for the dogs.   First they receive their allotment of dog gruel, something like Gravy Train, and then about an hour later, they will receive doggy candy in the form of fairly nice, house brand doggy chew bones.   The procedure begins around 04:30 and ends around 06:15.     So, four or five days ago now as I went out to finish the ritual, it was noticed that we a visitor.
     The visitor was a large male bobcat, walking fairly nonchalantly from our land "down under" adjacent to the Rio Corona.   He was walking just off of our "long, west-facing corridor", and keeping a wary, defensive eye on the dogs and the Gringo Viejo.  Bibi, the labrador growled very slightly.   He is used to dealing with regular cats and has been very deferential to our three "house cats".
      But he knew that this was not a regular house cat.  The bobcat also did not want to become too involved with a dog bigger than him, but neither did he want to gallop off into the diminishing darkness like a coward.   The bobcat veered in his path and strode to the outside grill, jumped the stacked-rock fence, and went somewhat briskly back down to the Rio Corona.   Bibi went the long way out...(he really probably could not jump the stacked-stone wall) through the front gate, and followed the cat from a distance of about 50 feet.
     It was the first bobcat we have had up on the "high part" of the property in several years.  On one occasion, I almost lost a finger to one quick whack by a  bobcat's left hook.  He was confronting a large male domestic cat we had taken in....and that cat had never heard about the "....better part of valour".   All of that drama took place five years ago or so on that same long, west-facing corridor, right at the front door.   In any regard this was a interesting little episode under the watchful eye of the slopes of the Sierra Madre Oriental.

     These kitties pictured at this linkage are very similar in size and colour to our early morning visitor last week.    http://dfwurbanwildlife.com/2013/02/19/mammals/news-bobcats-roam-carrollton-neighborhood/   .

News that can be used, or thrown away....

     We have just returned, yesterday, from our little fraidy-hole in the outback.   We were out for almost a month, and all-in-all, things went well and progress was made.  The negative?  There were troubling incidents, including a grenade having been thrown at the main entrance of the Governor's Palace in Cd. Victoria.   There were casualties, one dead and four wounded...all staff people of the Governor's Office who were standing around outside waiting for assignments.   Most were drivers of vehicles assigned to various dependencies of the State government.

     While the downtick of the overall cartel violence has been remarkable as opposed to two and three years ago, there are still strides to be taken and offensives to be maintained.   There is some irony in the fact that, with so much degradation and cannibalism having been visited upon the cartel activity the fragmented elements, without leadership, essentially become more cannibalistic and more violent.   Still, almost all of the violence, which is substantially less, is conducted within the groups themselves, or at rival groups.

     The "pandillas" (gangs) are erratic, changing loyalties frequently and also behaving in self-defeating ways that leave the observer scratching his head.   Their activities along the border and hereabouts...(Yes, Virginia, there is and has been substantial "spill-over" violence here for decades)....would bring to mind something that would have to be named "Keystone Kartels".

 

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     More to the other points, we had a fairly brief failure in the water delivery system in our little community.   Two days went by without any word from the Water Committee, so it came to El Gringo Viejo to be the one to go and find out the nature of the problem.   It turned out that young glue-sniffers had essentially vandalised a directional valve leading from the large water tower that is about two hundred yards from our little home.    They were attempting to steal it for scrap, ostensibly for obtaining money to buy glue and/or paint.   The valve had some damage, but another one was found that was serviceable, and a dumboe was contacted to install it.

     The installation worked for a couple of days...but after suffering through three days of no delivery....two days after the repair...as Ronald Reagan said..."There they go again".    Alvaro came to tell me that the Committee had found that the valve in question needed a threaded sleeve which the plumber had not used.   The Committee did not have any money, but they had found the sleeve and the plumber we normally used had agreed to put it in.   But, they wanted to know if they could have El Gringo Viejo buy the brass sleeve at the main local hardware and construction supply outlet at the Estacion Santa Engracia.

     The OROGs are aware that this is a fairly normal process.   The Committee goes then to the State Water operation, which heavily subsidises these local water  operations, which are actually medium to large locally administered endeavours, and they are re-imbursed.   We have backed them up this way perhaps four or five times, and they have always returned the money....either very or relatively quickly.   It is a holdover from the time of noblesse oblige, and they lump me in with about three other "patrons" who form up the "local nobility".

     As we left yesterday morning, for instance, Alvaro informed me that the Water Master had told him that they were going on Monday to pick up their re-reimbursement.  It might be pointed out that the monthly charge for daily delivery of three to five hours of potable water at medium high pressure is about 3.20 USD,   We have a large cistern and our own internal pumping system for the house, and we use the remainder of the deliveries to water our growies and lawns once the cistern is refilled.   The cistern by itself can supply the Quinta for about a week of disciplined use.

      The vandals were already under judicial process, as juveniles.   Now however, it seems that they are adults and so they will be picked up some night in a gutter in Cd. Victoria and be put into that wondrous process of the Mexican judicial system.  For these and several other minor but significant offences they will probably get to hang around in real live prison for about three years.

 

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     We are also putting in a small, but quite nice, "cochera" (Koh-CHAIR-ah), which in our case is an open-air carport.    It too will be a bit rustic, rhyming into the style of the home and the out-of-date, minimalist, head-in-the-sand nature of the local nobleman.  Alvaro is the overseer of the operation and it had come time to go and buy the heavy (and rustic) full-cut two-by-four members that will be used to be tied into by our metal roofing.    This meant a 400 yard walk over to a humble home where a man known as "The Bear" forms wood into various lengths, widths, and thicknesses.    That was 320 pesos (about 25 USD), and Alvaro and I carried the long, and very heavy six members back to the Quinta.

     What struck me as I went was the somewhat humbling realisation that there had been various new houses and other structures built of which El Gringo Viejo had been unaware.  The main characteristic of 90% of the new structures is that they all showed obvious signs of having been variations or near duplications of the Quinta Tesoro de la Sierra Madre.  It is not our normality to walk around much in the Ejido, and we live on the edge of it.   There is nothing really to avoid in the Ejido Francisco I. Madero, it is just that for one or two people the day at the Quinta is almost always full of projects, and necessities are usually bought at a couple of little stores that are 3 miles distance or more, while Alvaro will go and buy Coca Colas, milk, and necessities of urgency at any of about a million different little outlets quite nearby.

      So, this passing by of twenty or so structures, glowing bright white, looking very "retro-progressive", using colonial touches and a bit of organisation of the vegetation was almost disorienting.   However, and with all American judgementalism in place, these places are better than the near-hovels they replaced.   Other near-hovels are being improved even as we write.  But it was strange that the phenomena had been right in front of me, and I had not seen it over the past two years or so.

 

There will be more venom and rancid liver bile poured forth in the coming days.  We have an observation or two about the president's on-going .....dare I say....crusade to destroy and humiliate the United States of America.   We have more about Mexico in general.   We urge the attention of the OROG to the last three posts in the Anglican Curmudgeon's blog, and of course there will be guests' submissions as they arrive.    We appreciate your interest, time, and attention.

El Gringo Viejo

Notice from El Zorro to his posse

A notice from El Zorro about the reality of buying medical devices under the conditions of the affordable care disaster.

 

Anyone still believe Obama didn't raise taxes on the middle class?

A little inconvenient truth sprouting up through the cracks of the socialist sidewalks.   Free medical really is not free, Virginia.  When the government increases its involvment in the affairs of the citizens, costs go up and quality goes down....the socialist promise that the property of the State is everyones property, sooner usually than later, becomes an awareness that the property of the State is no ones property.   In God We Trust becomes "take what we give you and pay the price we're telling you to pay.  And do it now!"

      El Gringo Viejo has returned and will be railing forth again, to-morrow.

Hello from the Sierra Madre

We are in the little community of Estacion de Santa Engracia, briefly.   We needed to buy the cover for our new ´´´cochera´´ and thereby finish the project.   To-day we had another pass by a bobcat, who eyed Bibi the Labrador as he passed by the dog on his way through the property.   They came to an uneasy peace, and Bibi followed the large male back towards the Rio Corona, but at a distance.   The Bobcat´s weight we would estimate at about 36 pounds.

 

     We continue to be depressed, amazed, and disgruntled about the  performance of the president of the United States and of the public.....the body politic.   The fact is that it is increasingly evident that Texas must re-establish itself as an independent governing Republic or Constitutional Monarchy or whatever....to avoid the control of people so specious and evil as Janet Napolitano, Eric Holder, and Barak Obama, etc.  The complicity of the Obsolete Press in covering and performing apoligetics for these horrid marxists is tantamount to a reasonable charge of treason.

 

      We need to prosecute our affairs here, and will be back in touch in a couple of days or so.   

News from the Sierra Madre Oriental

Crisp mornings....upper thirties to the mid forties...and afternoons that run up to the low eighties.   Things are a bit dry and there is a ragged appearance all about due to the uneven spring greening and blossoming.   We had a three day service interruption in our water delivery and this causes more than a little consternation.  We really cannot water....or really bathe....or whatever because there is no really good way to determine when the service is restored.   Rumours and gossip abound, and there is nothing to be gained by driving over to the watermaster´s home every three hours....to ask the same question...and receive the same deflective, non-informational answer from a family member.

      Water was restored...there had been an attempted theft of a old diversion valve...made of all brass...and this had left the part of the line that served us and about 20 other households  un-fed.    But now all is bliss, because the service is restored, and we are being rewarded with periods of 6 hours of delivery.

 

      We had a very slow period of it concerning the birds until  yesterday....Wednesday.   Then the tree lit up with the usual show of colours and squawking.   A little rain would help.   The Quinta has served well in that during the very brisk nighttime hours and early morning, the temperature has remained at or above 72 degrees.   During a very high wind episode three days ago, we once again did not lose power or even the signal from SKY TELEVISION.

 

     El Gringo Viejo has little to say about the president's address.   It brought to mind a very poor form of those advertisements that deal with Red Chinese junk that always include the admonitions,"....but wait. there's more!"   It was a very un-clever, predictable sermon to the low-information crowd....and a perfect service of government largess designed to enslave the proles.     The pre-school bilge was very interesting due to the fact that it has been demonstrated time after the time that the  Head Start program has serve no academic or assimilation purpose of any merit.  It does provide make-work jobs for lots of people who are willing to do as little as possible so as to have a make-work job handed down by some Democrat ward-boss.

      This incessant bilge about green energy is so pitifully transparent, Spain's much vaunted infrastural renaissance based upon green energy (what is green energy?)  produced a present unemployment rate there in the neighbourhood of 24%.   In the USA it is simply a method of using "free money" to be channeled to papier mache' companies whose executives then dump large sums into various Democrat and leftist coffers.

 

     We have a new deployment of heavy infantry here.   So, apparently the new President of Mexico is keeping his word about the deployment patterns.   This is a group of  about three companies...perhaps 550 or so men and officers....and they are saying that they might be here for some time.   Asides from the incident with the attempted theft of the old brass valve, there is nothing to report concerning the social situation.

 

More later.

El Gringo Viejo

El Zorro sends a message worth the reading....THE NARCISSISM IS DEAFENING

The narcissism is deafening.

It is "all Obama all the time." For four full years there has not been a day remembered that this egotistical mental midget has not appeared on any (and perhaps all) news media. Even if we liked the guy we could not stand the constant hounding. By "we" we mean the average to above average intelligent people in this hemisphere, the left one. He shouts ultimatums from his pulpit "Do it now!", "Get it done!", "If the Congress won't act, I will", "Get it to my desk!", "Pass this bill", and on and on and on. He has no ideas but a single ideology, that being bring everyone down to his ideological level.

It is this writer's opinion that the ideology of Barack Hussein Obama is just that simple. He has a severe inferiority complex that stems from his lack of parental stability. He has more than one mother, figuratively, and just one real father he can only dream about. The pseudo father figures in his life were radicals, philanderers, drunks, and losers. From his own book we know he admired the worst of mankind and deplored the successful virtuous of them. His education consisted of personal experience that could only fill him with anger. His associations, few as they were, in his formative years were spoiled college kids with whom he could not compete and lower class "friends" who shared socialist ideas, not to mention marijuana and cocaine.

Evidence of his inferiority complex is his selection of political appointments. Since the beginning of his administration we have seen him lean on strong personalities for his ideas. One example is Rahm Emanuel, who was the strong arm or enforcer/bully whom he used to pick on other cabinet members and congressmen to get his way, especially in the case of the Affordable Health Care Act. Now Emanuel is suspiciously gone, probably because he was too powerful for Obama to contain. Then there is Hillary Clinton who is to Obama a threatening figure he was compelled to keep close rather than risk the wrath of Bill Clinton. His other appointments consist of "yes" people he can hold in front of him as targets. Notable ones are Janet Napolitano, Kathleen Sebelius, Ray LaHood, Ken Vilsak, Hilda Solis, and Ken Salazar. What have these cabinet members done on their own? What ideas have they brought to the table? What are they known to be exceptional for? They are simply Obama's human shields spouting the Obama propaganda. Then, last but not least are "Tiny Tim" Geithner, Eric Holder, and Leon Paneta. These are his selections for important cabinet posts and none of them have credentials that would be considered exceptional (except for tax cheat, Fast and Furious, and premature withdrawal and announcement of withdrawal from Afganistan respectively). There are others that do not come immediately to mind. Now we will see other suck ups in the persons of Chuck Hagel, John Brennan, and John Kerry.

Chuck Hagel is anti-Israel by his own comments in 2007 "...Jewish lobby intimidated lawmakers." As a Senator he opposed the surge in Iraq which was hugely successful. He refuses to label Iran as a terrorist state. His posture in this position is a mirror of Obama's. He is touted as a war hero. That is a credential which is considered as untouchable; however, he was an enlisted soldier which does not in any manner qualify him to be the head guy in Defense. The enlisted forces are very important to the nation's defense but they, as individuals, do not have the big picture and are not necessarily privy to the total military strategy of the United States. He was drafted into the Army which does not detract from his service but he reports that he enlisted. It is not certain exactly how his enlistment occurred but it is sure that he was drafted if before he enlisted.

John Brennan is being nominated for the position of Director of the CIA. He has been a favorite of Obama's since he took office. Brennan is considered the architect of the drone program, that being the war strategy that Obama singularly takes credit for. Brennan supported torture; however, in his nomination hearings he denied his support of water boarding which he formerly supported. He has trouble answering yes or no questions. He will be a terrific addition to Obama's collection of Czars.

John Kerry is the President's selection for Secretary of State. This is a man who was "...against it, er uh no, for it, no, against it before he was against it before he was for against it." Seriously, John Kerry was a non-war hero who is given hero status by the adoring media. He saw no significant combat relative to soldiers who endured ground combat for at least a full tour in Vietnam. Kerry was "in country" for three months on a river boat. His actual duty and service there is questionable by his counterparts in the Navy at the time. He bordered on treasonous speech after his service when he denounced the Vietnam War. This guy takes credit for being a hero on one hand and denounces his actions on the other. He is perfect selection for Obama.

These last three appointees fill out the presidents foreign policy shields. They have and will support him (take bullets for him, figuratively) on all matters of war and relations with the rest of the world.

In short, Obama is an average IQ coward who surrounds himself with average IQ shields. He will take credit for what works, and avert and assign blame when policies do not work.

On the domestic side, he thinks we have to "pay" for tax cuts. That makes no sense at all. The money not taxed belongs to the people, not the government. He points out that we are in deep trouble financially. He says we need additional taxes to pay off the debt but will not consider any cuts in his ridiculous health care plan. His bailouts of the housing and other industries are unaffordable and not even necessary. If an individual or a business does not manage well enough to survive, it is time for them to figure it out themselves. The government under the Constitution has no duty or responsibility to do these things. This president is out of control on all levels and should be investigated by the Congress for impeachment for violations of the Constitution. Unfortunately he has the power to intimidate, the Congress, the Courts, and most of all, the media. Examples of issues for impeachment or at least violation of the Constitution are clear, one being the non-recess appointments of NLRB members. Also, by executive order, he ordered that federal officials not deport or prosecute illegal immigrants. Then it is questionable that any or all of his twenty-three executive orders regarding gun control are constitutional. There are other examples to numerous to count. If there were a serious effort to impeach him, the ammo is available.

We have four full years to suffer this dictator like, self-assigned monarch of the United States. Obama is everywhere on the Internet, TV, radio, and news media. It is incumbent on us not to tune out but to listen, no matter how distasteful, to hear and read between the lines what he is saying. If there is an opportunity to end his presidency by impeachment we all have to participate. We would recommend a contribution to the Landmark Legal Foundation. They are actively pursuing legal action against the unconstitutional acts of this president as we speak. They have cases on several different issues not the least is the repeal of Obama care. Please consider at least giving the web site a look. It costs nothing and contributions are IRS deductable as they are a 501(c) tax-exempt organization.

Keep the faith, protect the Constitution, and God bless us all.