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Tiburcio Vasquez, Lover-Bandit.Here is an interesting story I read today about Tiburcio Vasquez. A bandit from California's 1870's. The man was hanged in 1875 for being complicit in murder. But he hand many friends and lovers who helped him evade capture for quite a spell. I know for fact that he was in Lake Elizabeth(several miles away) on at least a couple of occasions, but I suspect that he passed through this canyon that I am in now on a trail not 50 yards away from where I sit. http://www.scvhistory.com/scvhistory/vasquez-cox.htm if you've read through that and are intrigued, there is more! http://www.scvhistory.com/scvhistory/vasquez-thrall.htm
Merry Christmas 2012.The anguish I have for the loss of those kids from Newtown is still on my mind and it makes it probably the saddest Christmas I can ever remember. I lament that this is just a taste of the future. This is December 2012. It is a anniversary of sorts for me. I haven't watched a television broadcast in five years. I moved into this place that doesn't have cable or broadcast reception. You must get satellite to have TV and I just never had it hooked up. In the five years, I can only remember three instances that I happened upon a live TV broadcast. The first time, about four years ago, was at this little 19th hole style bar/cafe on this small local golf course. The boss wanted to take us out to lunch at the happy completion of a four inch water line we had placed along with several 1 1/2" fire valves. There were several plumbers, the back hoe operator, me and my boss. Anyway, there was a TV on and mounted in the upper corner. I glanced over a couple of times to watch live coverage of a high speed chase going on some where in the LA area. The second time, I was in this local pizza place. Just for a moment waiting to pick up an order, I glanced over and it was a local news channels weather forecast. A female wearing a pant-suit was giving the five day forecast. That was about a year and a half, two years ago. The third time was over at a friends house relatively recently, maybe three or four months ago. Oh longer actually because it was the Olympics. She was watching the Olympics and I caught a view of some of the coverage but it was only briefly. Thats it. That's all the live TV I've watched in five years.
Good Morning...Here comes the sun.
Thinking about tomorrow...Got some pasta on the stove and I begun thinking about how best to attack the day tomorrow. Then I thought hey, maybe you should write some of this down. Who knows, maybe somebody might catch interest. So the plumbers weren't able to get that pipe through under the road today. The water jet and the drill bit failed because they are hitting a big rock or possibly even a piece of concrete just about eighteen inches in. They have about twelve feet to go total so, they didn't make it. It was worth a try but now I must cut the road so I can dig it by hand. I can be set up with the concrete/asphalt saw and water hose by 7:20 and ready to go. But then It occurred to me that the guy is living in the house right there. Only one house in this particular area but where I need to cut, the closet end of that trench to the house is only twenty-twenty five feet. The concrete saw is quite noisy. So I was thinking about other things that I could do while I try and delay the saw cutting. I might as well get that air-compressor over there. It is not certain that I will need it but it is possible, it'll definitely make thing easier by having it there, so I'll just go ahead and do it. But the ideal place to put it has a portion of trench that I need to fill in first. Ordinarily I would just get the loader and just make a couple of back-dragging motions with the front bucket and fill it in, but the loader is noisy too. Not as bad as the concrete saw but still. I might as well put off taking the loader over there as long as possible too. I'll just fill it in by hand. Take longer. But it's alright, it's quieter and I have got plenty of energy first thing in the morning. This morning when I was cutting into the corrugated pipe that surrounds an underground valve, I created some dust that snowed down and coated the bottom of the hole it was in. The hole is only about one foot by two foot. Anyway, when the floor was coated with a fine la
FridayI saw a Rattlesnake today. It was crossing a rural road when I approached driving a pick-up truck. It was in the shade of an oak tree and I didn't see it until I was upon it. I ran right over it but fortunately I straddled it on the way over and didn't contact it with either of the wheels. I came to a stop, turned around, and drove up to it so that I could closely observe it. It was about 30 inches long with 8-10 rattles. I was relieved that I luckily missed it, and now I wanted to move it off the road. I was concerned about another vehicle coming. I said "Hey! Go! Go on!" No response. So I drove forward a few feet and back a few times. This was just making it nervous and it began to coil up. I didn't want that, so I drove back about ten feet, still providing a barrier for any potential traffic and I watched as it soon got the idea to move off the road and began moving toward the oak tree that was giving the shade. When it had made it off the road I slowly moved forward again until I could see it closely as it winded through the oak leaves. When I was satisfied I turned around and drove home. That was the end of a friday workday for me. Time for the weekend!
It has been a great day.Spent some time with friends this evening and watched the sun go down while sitting under all the oak trees. There was a brush fire earlier today in my neck of the woods which brought the excitement of Fire trucks and helicopters and even a pass by two super-scoopers. There were even dozers brought in but they weren't even offloaded because the air-power and line crews got a handle on this very quickly. Helped a friend move a Refrigerator and Washer and Dryer Today. Helped to install some windows and got all the caulking and trim put on the inside. Saw a striped racer in my yard today, maybe the last one of the season. It has been a good day. My mood: extremely groovy
TodayI saw my first snake of the year. It was a California Striped Racer. Beautiful. Got a good look from about eight feet away because it stopped to look at me to see what I was gonna do. I just froze and looked on. Then it sleeked away into some brush. Yesterday I found a Tarantula. First one that I have seen up close in many years. This one had very light hair. Kind of blondish. I love how tuned in I have become to the seasons around here. I know that soon I will be seeing a few of kinds of birds that come around this time of year to nest and raise their young. Along with the birds that stay here year round.
My GardenIIThe garden is doing well but I just had a depressing set back today. I just noticed that my first ripe tomato has been partially eaten. I decided to let the tomatoes ripen on the vine. Last night or today, it finally completely ripened and just a moment ago I looked and about 4/10's of it have been eaten away. I suspect a squirrel. I've read that they will do that and some people are of the opinion that it is to quench thirst, i.e., the water. This tomato is very large, I'd say a little bigger than a baseball but not as big as a softball. The next one about to ripen is on another plant and i guess i will pick it a little early and let it ripen indoors.  The corn plants are in various stages of development from 4 inches tall to over two feet tall, even though I planted these all at the same time. Some never sprouted at all. there are about 40 of them.  At least I have the topsy turvy's. They are planters that grow a tomato plant from the bottom and I have two of them. I won't have to worry about small mammals getting to those and they have many young tomatoes going. I also have a planter for peppers(red chili, cayenne and tobasco) and they are doing great.   I tried one of my radishes and didn't like it. It was to strong, not mild. I think I let it grow to long(not picked soon enough). A couple weeks ago, I had a mystery for quite a few days. In the same area where the tomato was eaten today, I have seven tomato plants. Whole branches began to disappear and I didn't have a clue to who was the culprit. Branches were cut at anywhere from a 1/4 inch to 3/8" and even 1/2" in one case. I spent a weekend watching fairly closely during the day and didn't see anything. Then looked one morning and noticed another one gone over night. So I knew it was nocturnal now. I was guessing a raccoon or a fox because that is what I see around here from time to time. Then one morning I noticed a small footprint. Too big for a mouse, but just right for a squirrel or a rat. But I've never seen a rat around here and squirrels only come out during the day. I went online to research pests and read that indeed squirrels and rats will eat ripe tomatoes. But nothing about the branches. I decided it might be a rat so i went to home depot and bought a couple traps. I set the traps at about sundown. About two hours later, I decided to go check the traps before I went to bed and I had indeed trapped(killed) a big rat. It only took two hours, maybe less. I reset the trap and went to bed. Next morning, the trap was set off again and a dead mouse was next to it. But the mouse wasn't in the trap. I can only imagine the mechanism whacked him an threw him out of the pinch point in a flash, or the mouse set off the trap, but was inside the spring-arm contact point and he died of fright or shock or a heart attack. Anyway, the branches stopped disappearing and nothing set the trap off again. I pulled the traps out of there after a couple of days so they wouldn't get wet when i water. Another rat could have eaten that tomato last night. I don't no because I didn't look at it this morning. It was fine yesterday though, just not quite ripe yet. But it appears so today. enclosed will be some pictures. Anyway, it is kind of a disappointment but it is fun. The weeds in the corn patch are the worst. Relentless crab grass among other things. When there is enough shade, I go out to weed and the insects are murder. They are little tiny biting black flies. Some people call then elbow flies. They seem to tend to go after elbows and it humors me when I see new people to this area scratching their elbows, because they haven't yet learned to wear long sleeves as I have. These tiny things still disturb me though because they get in your face and ears. They are attracted to the carbon dioxide in our exhale. Bug spray doesn't affect them. It really is so annoying that it is not fun. I am considering buying a fine-mesh face net just so i can go outside and weed in peace. It might have been today but now I expect to be eating my first tomato by the end of this week. That's all for now. ~ Jason Garden ProgressI just came in from watering the garden. I just noticed yesterday that I have a baby green tomato on one of the tomato plants and today I noticed that I have tomatoes on two more of the plants. Some of the chili pepper plants have buds that i think may be starting to elongate into future peppers. The radishes are slowly growing but not doing as well as I had thought they would. I think maybe they are not getting enough sun. I started clearing a plot of back yard for forty corn plants that I plan to grow but it has turned out to be a harder project than I imagined. The ground is very hard with alot of rocks and crabgrass. And I dug up an old chunk of concrete that used to hold a fence post. Also I found an old bottle. A tiny bottle but it had markings an I got on line and did some research and found that it was made in 1935 in West Virginia. Pretty cool! I don't know what it was used for, possibly a pill bottle. There is a species of bird that I haven't seen before and it is nesting in the pine tree outside of my front door about 10-12 feet of the ground. A motorcycle went down today on the canyon road that I live on, I took some pics and did a twitter post about it. I put in for a vacation day for tomorrow so that I will have a four day weekend. I need to go grocery shopping tomorrow and then try to finish the ground clearing that I am doing for the corn. Pasta is on the boil, I am going to add a can of chili to it and call it dinner, g'night.
My Activity SummaryYour latest story is "My Two Pennies...". It has been viewed 32 times so far.
You've shared 200 experiences & written 30 stories about them. 1437 people have read your stories, and they've left 30 comments so far. See more statistics You have earned a total of 2140 points and spent 100.
HummingbirdI was just out watering my tomatoe plants a moment ago. A hummingbird appeared and lighted on a branch not eight feet away. It was intent on the stream of water from the hose. It occured to me that it may like a shower as I have seen them play in the sprinklers before. I gently eased the stream of water over it's way and the hummingbird began to ruffle it's feathers and shake. Then, it turned around and let the water shower its back. This went on for about two or three minutes. I enjoy the end of the day when I go out and water the plants. It seems there is always something interesting to see. Yesterday, I noticed where a lizard had dug a small dugout in the garden and was occupying it. I went and got my camera and took a few pictures. I put the camera on macro and took a real close up shot but this scared it out of the hole and it ran off. This morning as I was leaving for work, I noticed that it was back in the hole but when I got back from work, the hole was filled in and the lizard was no where in sight.
It is a Beautiful Day...So naturally the motorcyclists have to come out and efff it up! It is not right that I should have to wear ear plugs in my own house in an attempt to escape their blatantly ear-splitting, blaringly offensive noise machines.
Karma Integrity Smiles Success Experience Simplicity (KISSES)
Karma
Happiness Advice Helping Attitude(HAHA)
Happiness ---------------------------HA-----HA-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Remember when you ran away and I got on my knees and begged you not to
Women Experience Insects Risk Dancing(WEIRD)
Women
Q & AYou know... It is one thing to get a bunch of best answer awards for 'what is your favorite color' or 'what are you going to do today'. But I just got a best answer from a teacher who asked how to handle a mistake in front of the class and... That makes me proud. Edit: One other thing I would like to say about Q & A here at EP is that the 'Grannies' really crack me up sometimes along with some of the other peeps, it is really quite entertaining. In other news.. I went shopping today at the grocery store and it cost $404.32 for one cart full of groceries. That is a new record for me. The old record was at around $340.
Whoa.I spent some time reading some of the confessions and I gotta tell you it is hard to read that stuff if you have any bit of compassion at all. I just want to do something, say something, but I don't know what. Most of these seem to be young women in their late teens and early twenties. Unwed mothers, rapes, beatings, confusion, it is terrible and I wish I could say something to help. Even when I try to think of something, I remember that, to them, I am just this 40 something stranger and that is probably the last thing they want to hear any words or opinions from. I hope and wish that more young people that have there lives together that would be an angel and give a word of support to these troubled souls.
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On this day, the 13th of februaryThomas Malthus was born in 1766,
he was a British scholar who wrote 'An Essay on the Principle of Population.' and is known as the father of population studies.
Chuck Yeager was born in 1923,
he was the first man to break the sound barrier on October 14, 1947, flying the experimental Bell X-1.
Peter Tork was born in 1942,
he is an American musician and actor and he was one of the Monkees.
Stockard Channing was born in 1944,
she is an actress and she played Rizzo in the movie 'Grease'.
Jerry Springer was also born in 1944,
he was the host of the tabloid talk show 'The Jerry Springer Show'. Peter Gabriel was born in 1950,
he is a musician and songwriter who was in the rock group Genesis and later had a sucessful solo career, 'Big Time'.
Other than birthdays this day is known for some other historic events: In 1633, Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei
showed up in Rome for a trial before the Inquisition for professing belief that the Earth revolves around the Sun.
In 1861, Abraham Lincoln
was declared President of the United States of America.
In 1895, a French patent was issued for the Cinématographe,
a combined motion-picture camera and projector
In 1946, ENIAC,
(the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator) the world's first electronic digital computer, was first demonstrated.
In 1976, Dorothy Hamill
wins Olympics figure-skating gold, Innsbruck, Austria
In 1982, 'Dark Side of the Moon'
by Pink Floyd spent its 402nd week on the charts
First game here..
I played my first game here. It was 'Deal or No Deal'. I took the bankers offer of 185,000. I had chosen case number 8 and it turned out that it had $5.00 in it so, good deal.
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Previous Posts  Tiburcio Vasquez, Lover-Bandit., posted January 5th, 2013 Merry Christmas 2012., posted December 25th, 2012 Good Morning..., posted November 6th, 2012 Thinking about tomorrow..., posted October 22nd, 2012, 2 comments Friday, posted October 19th, 2012 It has been a great day., posted October 17th, 2012 Today, posted April 17th, 2012 My GardenII, posted July 12th, 2010, 1 comment Garden Progress, posted May 31st, 2010 My Activity Summary, posted May 28th, 2010 Hummingbird, posted May 26th, 2010 It is a Beautiful Day..., posted February 28th, 2010 Karma Integrity Smiles Success Experience Simplicity (KISSES), posted February 27th, 2010 Happiness Advice Helping Attitude(HAHA), posted February 27th, 2010 Women Experience Insects Risk Dancing(WEIRD), posted February 27th, 2010 Q & A, posted February 26th, 2010 Whoa., posted February 24th, 2010 Ouch !!, posted February 24th, 2010 On this day, the 13th of february, posted February 13th, 2010 First game here.., posted February 12th, 2010 I had this thought..., posted February 12th, 2010 Four Day Weekend, posted February 11th, 2010 High Scores, posted February 7th, 2010, 1 comment 2nd Day, posted February 5th, 2010, 1 comment Famous Last Words (spoken before their execution), posted February 5th, 2010 My first accomplished goal, posted February 5th, 2010 1st day status, posted February 5th, 2010 Television, posted February 4th, 2010Blogroll Here are some friends' blogs...
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