A Happy and Thankful Thanksgiving this year from La Casa de la Última Frontera . The course correction that our Nation took this November makes this the best in the last few years.
Today the menu is turkey, ham, cornbread dressing (if it were in the bird it would be stuffing), mashed taters, sweet tater casserole, green bean casserole (amped up), brown gravy and rolls. This will be washed down with both sweet ice tea, plain ice tea and a wonderful Tuscan red wine. Later pumpkin pie with hand whipped cream to cap it all off. And maybe a nice brandy or burbon to settle the stomach.
Give thanks today to our Almighty Creator for the blessings in your life. Give thanks to Him for the people around you. Remember our military, first responders and medical personnel who are working today.
Well here it is the 248th annual celebration of the United States of America’s Independence day that occurs each 4th of July. It might have been the 2nd of July when the first motion by the Continental Congress passed to end our colonial status and establish the Thirteen Colonies as a new Nation. However, the Continental Congress decided that a declaration of that independence was needed. Fortunately, Thomas Jefferson already had such a document in work. After sprucing it up a bit, two days later on the 4th of July, Year of Our Lord 1776, the Declaration of Independence was ratified and received its first signatures. The most prominent of those was John Hancock, President of the Continental Congress.
We of the 21st Century should remember this day what those men did that day placing their very lives on the line for this new nation and the concepts contained in the declaration. The very ideas embodied in the Declaration of Independence are being threatened in our country by tyrannical Leftist who control the Democrat(ic) Party. It is also threatened by external organizations such as the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the United Nations (U.N.), and by foreign nations such as the Peoples Republic of China, Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba. They all hate Freedom and Individual Liberty.
Enjoy and celebrate the day.
Here is the transcription of the Declaration of Independence from the United States National Archieves:
In Congress, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
Sunset from Polly’s Peak, Bandera County, Texas, USA
After a wonderful hamburger dinner with our daughter, son-in-law and two grandsons we were on the way home. We had some nice South Central Texas afternoon thundershowers; their remnants left this beautiful sunset. This was taken with my cell phone from the southwest end of our street. A good thing to see at the close of Memorial Day. My thanks and prayers go up to those who died that gave me the freedoms to make it possible for me to see such a sight, record it and share it.
Today, May 29th, 2023 is Memorial Day. Remember all of those who gave the “ultimate” sacrifice to preserve Freedom. It is unfortunate this year that the sacrifice they made is being erased by power hungry psychopaths and sociopaths who want to take away the God given Freedoms we have enjoyed.
Pray for those that made that sacrifice. It is my belief that God is outside of time as we experience it and any prayer said now, He will apply it to when they died.
Memorial Day was first celebrated as Decoration Day beginning in the 1860s immediately after the American Civil War. The graves of those who died in that horrendous conflict were “decorated” with flowers or other decorations. The very first such action is attributed to freed slaves in Charleston, South Carolina. They exhumed the bodies of 257 Union Soldiers from a mass grave at the Confederate Prisoner of War Camp at Washington Race Course, gave the remains proper burials on May 1st, 1865 and decorated the graves with flowers. The holiday became more formal on May 5th, 1868 when General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic (an organization of Civil War veterans), made a proclamation to celebrate Decoration Day on May 3oth of each year. The transition from Decoration Day to Memorial Day began in 1882. It was not until 1967 that it officially became Memorial Day by the passing of a Federal law. The celebration moved to the last Monday in May upon the passing of the Uniform Monday Holiday Act in June 1968.
Some more images for you to give thought to on Memorial Day:
Casualties being transported on a C-130.
Not all heroes are human.
And sometimes that loyal companion that is left behind morns the loss.
The funeral of Navy SEAL Jon Tumilson
This song is from the 2000s, written by Dustin Evans during the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, it is still applicable and dedicated to those on active duty who are watching over us.
Please on Memorial Day take time to remember and pray for those military people who died in the line of duty whether it was in a conflict or training, for their sacrifice was just as great in either situation.
Back again to posting. I started to create a post back on the 29th of April but was overcome by preparations for a short vacation we were going on. So I decided to post on that excursion and the current happenings. I guess I am paranoid and don’t drop vacation plans here on the Internet before the fact.
Mrs. BillB and I needed a little time away from the home station and all the goings-on here like laundry, house cleaning, yard work, etc. etc.. We decided a little beach time on North Padre Island in Corpus Christi would be in order. This was a couple of months ago that we made that decision but booking a place to stay had to be done that early. We wanted to miss Spring Break for certain, and we scheduled for the 1st through the 4th of May. We stayed in some condos that we had stayed in before that were about 1/4 mile from the Whitecap Beach. Now we are back.
It was an enjoyable time. I got to fish. Mrs BillB got herself some time on the beach. And we got to eat some good food. We found a neat restaurant just a mile or so from where we stayed the previous time we were there. It is named “The Angry Marlin” with accompanying decor such as full size marlin sculptures and a sailfish sculpture that looks a taxidermy mount. On the second day, ae had lunch there noshing on their mahi-mahi fish tacos.
Mahi-mahi fish tacos at The Angry Marlin in North Padre Island.
Those were huge. I had my two and had to finish 1/2 of one of Mrs. BillB’s tacos. They are a little exotic with dried banana breading and chipotli aoli.
And beach time was great with seeing the shore birds and enjoying the sunshine. There were numerous “squadrons” of brown pelicans flying up and down the beach with an occasional loner diving into the water a 100 yards off shore to catch something. I have seen 10, 20 or more pelicans in this “in-trail” formation at other times.
A squadron of Pelicans.
And then there were the Laughing Gulls. There call is really that close to some human laughs.
Laughing Gulls
And I got to surf fish! Five years ago, I went surf fishing at Sea Isle Beach on Galveston Island and the only thing I caught was an infection in my big toe. This time was more productive but all I caught was some Hardhead Catfish. And the last slimy little booger finned me as I released it. They have a toxin in their mucus coating that probably won’t kill you but it hurts and makes it swell up. My best catch was two at once.
My double catch of Hardhead Catfish.
After we got back it was catch-up time at The Last Frontier.: laundry, house cleaning, lawn mowing, cleaning up in the shop and the ham shack. The night I got home, after we picked up the doggies at the kennel where they vacationed, I ran off to the Hill Country Amateur Radio Club May meeting. I am secretary for the club and needed to get into that mode. But the best thing was all of the rain that came. As of 16 May we had around 4″ of rain in the last 10 days. I hope that moves us out of the Exceptional Drought condition we have been in for months now. The Last Frontier is located about where that little dot the arrow is pointing at is.
The Resurrection is the basis of the Christian belief. As Saint Paul the Apostle says in his first letter to the Corinthians that has been preserved (1 Corinthians 15:12-22):
“12 But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15 More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.
20 But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. 22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.”
May you have a good day celebrating it with family and friends.
I caught this picture of Mercury and Venus in the deep twilight on my cell phone on March 4th, 2023. The picture was taken from the top of the hill that is at the southwest end of our street. I had to maneuver around a little to get the power lines out of the picture.
In these times of turmoil, it was a wonderful, calming view. This was my first solo outing after getting out of an 11-day hospital stay a couple of weeks before. It was great being alive and seeing this.
This being the 1st of January, I guess we must be suffering from global warming here in South Central Texas as today’s high was about 84° F. Tomorrow will bring winter back with a nice chilly start to the day predicted to be 28° F. Our weather (emphasis on weather and not climate) around here is that way; just before a powerful cold front it will get warmer than seasonal.
I decided not to say “Happy New Year” as it is a very undecided year to look forward to. I have taken a long hiatus from blogging for the very reasons I have trepidation about the upcoming year. Everything I wanted to post was just a rant about the mess that the whole World is in. But, I do have some hope. It seems the Left is beginning to collapse on itself. I do wonder if this mess is something being handed to the world by God. He has often let humanity stumble into a deep mess to wake people up. There seem to be more and more people on the left side of Moderate that are getting fed up with the extremism of the Far Left. I read a posting by a so-called Progressive of color, THE ELECT, that I was directed to from an article this morning on Ace of Spades HQ. The link was from a link called New Pulbications. (Hey, the Internet is working as it was intended, a link from here to there then on to there!)
May God bless you in this new year! I am going to try to get back to a more regular posting schedule and hopefully see some traffic from friends, acquaintances and new friends.
This was the view on Monday February 15th at about 9:30 AM from near the front of our property by my mother-in-laws house. The antenna you see is on top of Polly’s Peak near Bandera, Texas. The tower and the guy wires were coated in ice. The top of the tower is about 2300′ MSL (above Mean Sea Level). How pretty but also how bad. We were without electricity and without water because we are on a well with an electric pump. I am just getting my blog back up this Thursday evening because the cold caused something in the power supply for the computer I host this on to not start up. I have finally rejoined the Blog-O-Sphere after 4 days down.
Saturday night snowfall
This was the view the about 12 hours earlier on the night of St. Valentine’s Day from our front porch. As forecast (hey the got it right for once), the snow started about 09:00 PM. It had already been a cold and icy day from low temperatures and freezing mist so I knew the snow would stick.
I had awakened a couple of times through the night because I was worried about the power but it was still on. When I woke up and noticed the power off it was about 06:00 AM. Because of where we live here in the Texas Hill Country the cell service is poor so I went to the south facing windows in our breakfast room to call Bandera Electric Co-op (BEC) to report the outage. It must have been wide spread as I had to try a number of times on hold for about 10 minutes a time to eventually get bumped off. My wife was finally able to get to the automated message as her phone number is associated with our account. Initial bad news was that electricity would not be on till about 12:00 PM.
While I was waiting on the second try to get BEC, I had the most interesting experience. Traveling across the near dawn sky from northwest to southeast was a stream of lights. Based on other things I have seen in the past and some photos, this traveling string of lights must have been the February 4th launch of SpaceX Starlink satellites. Mrs. BillB can confirm this is real and not a figment of my imagination as she saw it too.
The front yard from about where the previous night’s photo was taken.
Snow on the table on our back deck.
The two pictures above are what we saw shortly after sunrise on the 15th. There was about 5 inches of snow based on what was on the table top. Our almost two year old Catahoula mix dog was let out on the the back porch which exit to the deck above and started barking at the snow as she had never before seen such a sight. She has in the following days developed a liking of snow while she chases the tree-rats (squirrels) from our back yard.
Amazingly the power came on for about 15 minutes shortly after 09:00 AM. But then dropped off. My wife called and we found out that now power would not be restored until 05:30 PM. I was out checking on my mother-in-law (MiL) who lives about 100 yards from us when I took the picture at the top of this post.
Finally I got our new 8 Kilowatt generator hooked up and powering part of our electrics so that we could use our well and have heat from our propane backup/2nd stage heat portion of our heat pump. But we still didn’t have water in most of our house. I first assumed that our well house froze up because the electricity was out but found out that my MiL had water. The builders here in South Central Texas run the PEX piping for water supply through the attic; and even though it is close to the ceiling, the pipes had frozen. We did have a couple of our reverse osmosis system taps available but the rest were all frozen. Yep, no toilets would flush more than once. From my understanding PEX is very resilient when frozen and does not tend to break/split.
The MiL did come down and spend Monday night with us. We were able to cook a little dinner as we have a propane cooktop and had a warm evening. Power was back about 05:00 PM and I disconnected the generator. However there were the rolling outages/blackouts dictated by Energy Reliability Counsel of Texas (ERCOT). Power would be on about an hour and off about 30 minutes. But when power was on the heat ran and we were able to stay warm.
On Tuesday the rolling blackouts continued until right around Noon. The power came back on continuous for us about that time but there seems to be the rolling blackouts elsewhere. I suspect this is because the County ambulance service is in the same district we are in. By nightfall we got back most of the water in our house. The last few things defrosted on Wednesday when temperatures went above 400 F. The freezing pipes are a design issues and I am going to contact the builder as our house is only about 2 1/2 years old.
The politics going on about the issues caused by this rare deep freeze in Texas and other places are at the least aggravating me. The Leftist yahoos in Washington D.C. are blaming it on Texas not having enough “green”, “renewable” energy sources since we didn’t vote for them and to be truthful don believe in a lot of their rubish. The massive wind turbine farms in Texas were at a near standstill in this mess because of the cold. The solar farms were at low or no output due to cloud cover and snow covering them. And neither have reserve storage capability, i.e. battery storage. And the jerks in Washington D.C. with their EPA did not allow during the Obama mis-administration and will not allow with the current illegitimate administration clean coal and natural gas back-up capacity to be added. And the Greenies who seem to drive the Democrat Party are so against any form of Nuclear Energy that those sources will never be available. Nuclear Fusion should be in the forefront of the clean energy drive; if it can be brought to practicality, it will solve the imagined CO2 issue with very little radioactive waste and no chance of a nuclear explosion or melt down . The one thing I am glad of is that the Texas power grid is generally independent from the rest of the Nation and we don’t have to generate power for states like California and New York with their overall poor power management.
Enough for now. I did make some progress on my satellite antenna situation which I will post later.
UPDATE: SN9 did launch today. It made it all the way to the landing flip where one engine did not ignite properly. The rocket over rotated as it appears that the single engine could not correct the rotation. It crashed almost on its side. When SpaceX or someone puts up video of the flight I will add it to this post.
I have a couple of live stream websites up on my computer and am watching for the launch. It seems that SpaceX has overcome the hurdles that the FAA put in front of them. It is a beautiful day in the farthest of South Texas and great for a test flight. I am hoping that it all goes well and they stick the landing today. SpaceX will live stream the launch once again and it will probably be the best view in the “house”.
Here is a screen capture from LabPadre. SN9 is on the right with its fins extended. Go to LabPadre’s YouTube channel and select the Nerdle Cam to watch the preliminaries.
