6:29pm.
In any case, Mr. Big Food asked a few minutes ago if we wanted to go outside and listen to some music. I said no. We really did not. I then reported these statistics to him and he responded that he would be watching a Reds baseball game on the TV set.
See the smoker smoking here. Mr. Big Food smoked it for about 4 1/2 hours. Then brought it in to cool. Then I sliced it as thin as I could get it with the electric slicer.
Mr. Big Food just hollered at me from the kitchen, “Hey, Marica! Look out the window!”
“Is it picture worthy?”
“Oh, yeah!”
I just looked again and trust me– this was just getting started.
The sirloin tip that will smoke over apple wood for four hours is destined to become Zesty Smoke Beef Roast.
Heat index (HI) @10:23am is 94°. Mr. Big Food suggested that we call it a day outside. I feel like a wimp, but agreed.
Turns out, some years back I spent three or four days thinking about the heat index and how it’s calculated. Here’s a tidbit. The HI was not even a thing until the late ’70s.
If you, too, have retreated inside and would like to read about HI, here you go!
I posted the following on October 2, 2013. Reposting it in its entirety (though reformatted) for the Memorial Day weekend, 2019.
Ernie Pyle was an American journalist and war correspondent. A quick perusal of Brave Men confirms that he wrote from the perspective of the common soldier.
A few snippets from Chapter 35, “A Last Word”:
This final chapter is being written in the latter part of August, 1944; it is being written under an apple tree in a lovely green orchard in the interior of France. It could well be that the European war will be over and done with by the time you read this book. Or it might not be. But the end is inevitable.
It will seem odd when, at some given hour, the shooting stops and everything suddenly changes again. … odd not to listen with animal-like alertness for the meaning of every distant sound; odd to have your spirit released from the perpetual weight that is compounded of fear and death and dirt and noise and anguish.
The end of war will be a gigantic relief, but it cannot be a matter of hilarity for most of us. Somehow it would seem sacrilegious to sing and dance when the great day comes– there are so many who can never sign and dance again.
[snip]
Thousands of our men will be returning to you after Europe. They have been gone a long time and they have seen and done and felt things you cannot know. They will have to be changed. They will have to learn how to adjust themselves to peace. Last night we had a violent electrical storm around our countryside. The storm was half over before we realized the the flashes and the crashings around us were not artillery but plain old-fashioned thunder and lightening. It will be odd to hear only thunder again. You must remember that such little things as that are in our souls, and it will take time.
[my emphasis]
Pyle himself was among the brave men who died during WWII. He was shot by a Japanese snipper and died instantly. He was one of few civilians to be awarded the Purple Heart.
405,400 American men died during WWII. Let that sink in.
Many more brave men, of course returned home after Europe, the Pacific, Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq and Afghanistan.
To be sure, you’ve now read or heard about the manner in which a bunch of infirm old men were treated when they attempted to visit a war memorial yesterday. And of course you’re seeing the same old blame game play out this morning.
To be candid, Mr. Big Food and I had fun watching this story unfold. Seriously? But the more I thought about it, the less inclined I was to laugh. We are supposed to be the land of the free and home of the brave. Where was just one brave soul willing to announce that he or she was not going to be putting a road block up at a war memorial?
So you know who I’m blaming for this shameful treatment of brave men?
I’m blaming the cowardly men and women of the National Parks Service. Those men and women– in uniform no less!– who drove the trucks with the barricades stacked in the bed, who unfolded them and set them up.
I’m blaming those cowardly men and women who just followed along, whose conscience didn’t compel them to say, “This is stupid. This is wrong. I will not participate.”
I am blaming those cowardly men and women who are not worthy of the sacrifices brave men make.
It is 9:20am central time. It is 85°F. The heat index is 92°.
Just letting you know.
Wishing you all the best from Mississippi,
Marica
via Powerline’s The Week in Pictures
“Teen wounded in ordeal is back home.”
It was an “ambush and hours-long standoff with a heavily armed man.”
Some dumbass, no doubt aided along by alkeehol &/or drugs was beating on a woman late at night and she called 911. She apparently asked to meet with a deputy at the sheriff’s office. The information she gave him was sufficient for a warrant. Two deputies went to serve it. The newspaper story includes a lot of information about the trucks the two were driving and how since one was a personal vehicle, did not have bullet-proof stuff.
When the deputies got to the house, dumbass opened fire on them! Outgunned, and with one of the trucks destroyed, they retreated. Dumbass gets in his truck and drives to his woman’s relatives– shooting along the way. More 911 calls. Now it’s after 2am.
Everybody and his brother arrives on the scene. Sheriff estimates at least 25-30 people. The problem, of course, is that they are being shot at but cannot return fire because there are people in the house.
Dumbass apparently shoots the house up, too. Wounded teen. And he is seriously armed. About 5am he leaves the house and drives down the road. But because everybody and his brother is on the scene and in the vicinity, some set up a roadblock. There was a brief gun fight and he was apprehended.
They had an EMT vehicle just off site, the teen was taken to the hospital, and then to Jackson.
Two sheriff’s dep’t vehicles were permanently disabled, and two are out of commission. Neighboring law enforcement have provided loaners. By my count nine different agencies were involved.
The Board of Supervisors has officially commended the first two officers, and they got certificates of heroism from the sheriff’s office. Some other dude was thanked because he came in on his day off and worked without pay while the others were off investigating.
Also in this week’s little paper, nine pages of yearbook photos, student names, parent names, activities/honors, and future plans for all graduating seniors form our county’s two high schools.
There was a shootout!! I’ve got to get out into the garden before it gets too hot, so stay tuned.
Who loves a garden
Finds within his soul
Life's whole;
He hears the anthem of the soil
While ingrates toil;
And sees beyond his little sphere
The waving fronds of heaven, clear.
-- Louise Seymour Jones
from The Best Loved Poems of the American People. Hazel Felleman, ed. Garden City Books, Garden City, New York. 1936.
Volunteers!
https://www.wtva.com/content/news/Driver-not-injured-after-Tupelo-traffic-accident–510217001.html
Sorry. Can’t get it to embed but it’s worth 1:13.
I understand that most of y’all don’t live in The South, and may not fully appreciate why– when the lights go out on a perfectly clear day such as this– I speculate that Bubba musta run up a pole.
Ta. Da.
Amanda reports that both drivers involved are okay (Bubba got cut off by another guy), and that there is “no threat to power at this moment” (8:57am). This time, maybe. But you just wait, Bubba’ll do it again, I promise.
Wonder how the driver got out and shut the door? I’ll puzzle over this all day.
Took the dogs to the Hidden Pasture today. Passed by Bonnie & Clyde’s on the way down.
They’d come out for their morning stroll by the time we returned.
8:49. 79°. Going to be a hot one today.
Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do,
I’m half crazy all for the love of you.
It won’t be a stylish marriage,
I can’t afford a carriage,
But you’d look sweet upon the seat
Of a bicycle made for two.
Read more: Henry Dacre – Daisy, Daisy [bicycle Built For Two] Lyrics | MetroLyrics
SueK sends along a link to several videos of Sheep Dog Trials.
Sheep dog trials are contests between man/dog teams required to move a small group of sheep (usually 5 I think) around and through a specified course. The course usually consists of gates and barriers, and are set so that they aren’t straight, but the sheep have to be moved around them as well as through them. The handler directs the dog through whistle signals, and the dog moves the sheep around the course and back into the pen they start from. And they’re timed. They win by having the best time with no dings for mistakes.
SueK
Quite something. Many of the dogs’ behaviors remind me of our old pal, Bebe!
it did not rain yesterday afternoon.
Carry on.
I don’t think it’s going to rain here. The pressure is 1012hPa and rising. (48 hour low (1009) was yesterday at about 6pm.) We got 0.17″ rain over night. The wind speeds now are averaging 7mph with gusts up to 14. I’m not seeing how it gets here.
I can promise you that if we were going to have 1.22″ of rain dropped on us in an hour or so (NAM model), things would look a lot different than they do out there right now.
Note that the three other models are predicting about 1/4″ but different start times.
KNQA in Memphis is in ‘clear air mode’ so that’s gotta mean something, right?
Stick around. We’ll see what happens.
Wouldn’t mind 1/4″ of rain!
Forecasts @ Windy.com. Check it out over on the side bar. It’s interactive!
via AoSHQ Sunday Morning Book Thread; Check out the photo of the mirrored library, as well.
There’s a 12 volume collection of books for children with My Book House as part of the title:
They are beautiful books.
Images from Archive.org where you can borrow the books for 14 days.
This is interesting– and disconcerting. Usually books of this age are fully searchable and one can click through every page. (Screen shots are how I get a lot of the images I post when I talk about a crappy old book.) But all of My Book House volumes have “Limited Book Preview.” One cannot get beyond the table on contents in any of them. I have no idea why.
“Different times,” said Mr. Big Food when I read that to him.
Preserving Western Culture– all of it— one crappy old book at a time.
Workshop Garden
24 peppers
18 tomatoes
7 eggplants
(Not to mention the 12 sweet potatoes I planted the other day.)
I hear Mr. Cotton Farmer down there with his tractor. Perfect timing!
Didn’t hear anyone shooting today. Guess we were all too busy planting.