November rain

Friday...

Sunday morning...

I came down with a head and chest cold on Monday and it's made me fairly miserable. Fever and chills, headache, sneezing and coughing. The combination is bad enough during the day but worse at night. It's just hard to sleep with a stuffed up head and lungs needing to expel the mucoid detritus of immune response.

I gave up at 3 a.m. and climbed out of bed. I'd much rather be sleeping but that's just off the table, so it's up and at 'em.

As I rolled out of bed I could have sworn that I was hearing the muted drumbeat of light rain in the roof. Hmmm. The weather guessers had predicted a 50 percent chance of overnight snow. A quick glance at the thermometer told me that the instrument believed the air temperature to be 35 degrees. I quickly did the math and concluded that it could in fact be raining. A glance outside seemed to support the notion.



Rain on November 29! Why, that must be very unusual! I wonder how unusual?

Fortunately for my curious mind, I've got interweb access to the local weather database, and the information there hasn't yet been altered by NASA and NOAA. What has the November weather been like over the last 125 years?

Since 1893 the average daily high temperature for November 29 is 45.6 degrees, and the average low temp 18.6. The warmest November 29 was 70 degrees in 1932, and the coldest was -5 degrees in 2001. According to those numbers it's been, on average, warm enough for rain and cold enough for snow.

But November is also a rather dry month around here. On average we see 0.55 inches of liquid equivalent precipitation for the month, and 5.3 inches of snow. For record keeping purposes, snowfall is recorded as inches of depth but is also always melted to measure liquid water content. This way we're not mixing our apples and oranges, as it were. According to the record, we've had November 29 precipitation in 19 of the last 125 years, averaging 0.02 inches of liquid equivalent and 0.2 inches of snow. Getting back to the question then, has that liquid measure all come from snow? Is rain on November 29 an extraordinary event?

A rough approximation of the liquid content of snow in these parts is 1:10; that is, an inch of snow yields roughly a tenth of an inch of liquid water. So 0.2 inches of snow would likely yield 0.02 inches of liquid, therefore it's fair to assume that most of the average liquid measure has come from snow. Perhaps even all of it. Using the same approximation, the 125-year November average of 5.3 inches of snow should yield 0.53 inches of liquid, yet the liquid average for November is 0.55 inches. Does that extra two-hundredths represent rain, or just slightly wetter snow?

If you've stuck with me so far, you've probably figured out the answer. Of course there's been rain on November 29 over the last 125 years. It doesn't happen all that often, but it does happen. According to the record, on six occasions since 1893 we've had rain but no snow on November 29. That's six out of 19 precipitation events, so roughly one-third of the time when we see moisture on this day it comes as rain and not as snow. Also, it's rather likely that at least some quantity of liquid rain fell during the remaining 13 precipitation events. 

As it turns out, rain on November 29 isn't an OMG happening. Kinda cool, eh?

The world is an interesting place, located as it is an a universe where we can only dimly perceive reality. For some reason -- and as far as I can tell no one knows why -- we have emotions. One of those emotions is wonder, and as we experience nature's reality it's not uncommon to find ourselves awash in a sea of wonder. Rain falling on November 29 gives me a strong sense of wonder, as does my discovery that it's a less uncommon thing than I first assumed.

Sooo, what's the point?

Hell, I don't know. What I do know is that despite being sick and miserable I'm also filled with a sense of delightful wonder at what the universe is throwing out there. Reality is a tonic for me, a touchstone that helps me keep my experience and existence in perspective.

I'm very, very thankful for such a gift.

Sweet Little Lies

WARNING: THIS MESSAGE WAS COMPOSED AND PUBLISHED BY A NONALLOWED ENTITY AND THEREFORE CONSTITUTES A HATE CRIME. ALL SUBJECTS OF THE GOVERNMENT ARE REQUIRED TO REPORT HATE CRIMES TO THE FBI HERE.

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Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies, tell me lies



As usual I started this post quite some time ago but I've been having trouble getting back to it. I guess I am pretty busy, although it doesn't seem so as the days go by. Just a constant stream of stuff to be doing and somehow my intention to blog seldom appears up at the top of the priority list. I don't look at the interwebs a lot anymore, so I'm not sure whether blogging is still a thing. Some of my friends and family tell me I need to get back on the koobecaf and do the twitter, and that I should sign up for the pinwhine and instavictim. Since I "should" do so -- according to the expert and superior intellects of professional government parasites, I won't. Bet no one saw that coming!

Dad's hanging in there. The September 30 fall he had should have finished him in short order, but he's been slowly but surely recovering from that. His liver is still screwed, but he retains enough liver function to survive and have a better-than-could-be quality of life. He relies on diuretics to keep the portal hypertension down and still gets fluid drained and albumin infused every week. He's weak and shaky but holding his own. It's not a great existence for him but not nearly as bad as it could be.

As for me, I've got cattle and land to tend, newspaper words to write, and a more physically smart lifestyle to manage. Seems to be just about the right quantity of stuff.

Back in May this working out thing sucked. I suspected that if I persevered I'd have some nice results. Loose a little weight, gain a little strength and endurance, feel a little better.

But I didn't know for sure. It was possible that I'd just blow my Achilles up again and be out of business. It was also possible that at my creaky, post-middle age place in life, that I just couldn't do it. That the tank was empty, that I'd put all that fitness stuff permanently behind me and had only recliner and decliner ahead.

I was actually more worried about the Achilles. I was reasonably sure that barring injury I could get back into some semblance of shape. I was pretty sure I still had enough juice left.

But I didn't know.

May sucked. It hurt quite a bit, which was to be expected. Doing hands-on stuff outside isn't the same as working out. Nothing wrong with outdoor physical labor. It's good for you on many levels. But it's not the same thing as building strength and endurance. That repetitive exercise thing stresses heart and body systematically and repeatedly, and that causes a lot of aches and pains. Routine physical labor doesn't do that, which is proof that working out is a different thing.

The days became weeks, then months. At first it was a slog and a lot of it I didn't much like. Pushing through the hard bits isn't a lot of fun. It feels good at the end of the workout and gives a solid sense of accomplishment, but that doesn't make the hard bit fun or enjoyable while it's happening.

Sooo... I found that lying to myself could be quite helpful.

"Man, that feels good!"

"Screw this, I'm gonna take it easy today and just do (fill in the blank)." Then along the way I find myself saying, "Just one more."

And so on. Sorry about the sideways video.



I no longer set out to do crush days. The thought is too scary and I'm too prone to giving up. If I quit before reaching a goal then I feel bad about my effort. If I set the bar low and then "overperform," however, I feel much more better about what I've done.



I have to be careful about the lying to myself though, because I can fall for bad bullshit as easily as I can fall for good bullshit. One of the sneaky things my mind does is take a concept like "rest and regenerate" or "listen to your body" and run with it -- all the way to the recliner!



I'm 60 years old, a doddering post middle-age senior citizen. Stuff hurts. Stuff doesn't work like it did four decades ago. Stuff is harder to do than it usetawas.



The bad bullshit fairy tells me that it's all behind me now and it's time to give up and give in. The good bullshit fairy says "just one more."

So far, so good.



I remember when walking up smokebong hill was a great accomplishment, and when doing so five times during a five mile walk was like an Olympic-level competition. This morning I RAN to smokebong hill, then RAN up the hill 10 times (walking down, of course, then RAN (except for a couple of video segments) home. Six point five miles in 45 minutes. Completely stupid! How can I be able to do that?



It's important for me to remember that I owe a great debt to the surgeon and team who finally unfiretrucked my achilles, and to the superb physicians and nurses at our local horsepistol who quite possibly saved my foot, leg, and even life with daily antibiotic infusions. This fitness thing has been a team effort.

It's still cool to realize that I've been able to go from shit to fit, and at an advanced age no less! Like that Yoda dude said, do or do not. 

There'll come a time when I can't do this anymore, but that time is not here yet. So for now I'll just keep plugging away. I feel better, I can do more regular work in addition to the physical stuff, and there are a lot of hot young 40-50 year old chicks hitting on me.

There are worse places to be.

Every cloud

I spent an hour before sunrise this morning writing a post. I intended to tangentially mention our local Farmers' Day celebration which occurred on the day after my last post. I started to 'splain the history of the event and to touch on some of the differences between the 1922 (first) edition and the 2018 version.

Before I knew it, and without half trying, I spewed forth a dozen fat paragraphs dripping with sarcasm and negativity. Where the heck did that come from? My basic theme appears to have been that the olden days were golden days and these modern times are worthless and completely filled with suckage. Again, where did that come from? Sheesh!

The experience left me feeling all mean and grumpy, despite the fact that it was a beautiful morning -- warm and sunny and calm -- following hard on the heels of our first winter storm and cold snap which was chilly (8 degrees) and snowy and blustery. This morning was the kind of morning you want to cherish, but I'd twisted myself into a seething mess.

Fortunately, there's an app for that. I went out and exercised, and though it was a struggle at first, the beauty of the day and the efforts of my not-yet-dead body eventually worked their magic. I did five miles -- including running (for certain values of running) 100 flights of underpass/viaduct stairs, in just under an hour.



The combination blew most of the yuck out of my system and reminded me just how fortunate and blessed I am.

Why does this strike my funny bone?

As I was running steps I got a text from my Dad, saying that as long as I was wasting time exercising I might as well pick up a Kimball newspaper for him.

As you may recall, Dad is battling liver disease and doesn't exactly have a happy prognosis or an easy path forward. But he can still crack a good joke and take the piss out of young whipersnappers and their silly exercise rituals. That's a very good thing indeed.

The day after Farmers' Day, things weren't looking so good for him. On Sunday morning, September 30, he took a tumble down the basement stairs. How he survived that fall has us all scratching our heads. It was a severe shock to his disease-weakened body. Lots of scrapes and bruising, though thankfully no broken bones. Nevertheless it put him in a hospital bed overnight and recovering from that fall has been a trial and a challenge. But he's doing it. Seem's he's tougher and stronger than any of us -- including the doctors -- believed. He's still very sick, but his future may not be quite as dark as predicted or feared.

In the ER

Skin tears

Hospital coffee

From the top

To the bottom

It's been a very busy time since September 30, a very hard time, but also a very good time.

The Maltese Phantom

On September 5 Unknown left a comment on my May 1, 2017 post regarding Royal Navy Phantoms and the delightful game of zapping. The comment adds a few drops of scintillating color to an otherwise drab and workaday canvas.

Regarding the image of a Marine F-4B sporting a vertical stab and rudder painted in 892 Squadron colours.

Unknown commented thusly:

Actually this aircraft went u/s aboard HMS Ark Royal and could not be repaired before the Ark visited Malta. As the Maltese were not on good terms with the US at the time and US Phantoms did not fold enough to fit on the Ark's deck lift, to be hidden below deck, it had it's tail painted to be less conspicuous on the deck amoungst the RN aircraft. The only RN carrier capable of operating Phantoms was Ark Royal, although some initial trails were done from HMS Eagle, it did not have the required cooling of its deck and blast deflector to cope with the heat of the Spey engines in full afterburner for launch. The higher nose attitude of RN Phantoms caused significant heating of the deck, requiring additional water cooling. Prior to Ark being ready to operate RN Phantoms several operated from USS Saratoga and actually damaged the deck area around the catapult.

I find this tidbit quite interesting. I had no idea that the U.S. (and U.S. Navy)  were in bad odour with the Maltese at the time. Why was this so?

Turns out it was Cold War politics. Malta gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1964. According to whackopaedia, "The British Parliament passed the Malta Independence Act in 1964, giving Malta independence from the United Kingdom as the State of Malta, with Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state and queen."

In 1971 the Maltese elected a Labour government and began to distance itself from the U.K./U.S. Cold War political line. Indeed, the tiny country took the path many small nations were taking at the time, attempting to chart a course of neutrality and aligning militarily neither with NATO and the West nor with the Soviets and Warsaw Pact. They requested that NATO subheadquartes on their island be closed, and it was. Predictably, the U.S. Sixth Fleet discontinued port visits to Malta. This bit of give-and-take is most likely the cause for repainting the tail of that Phantom, which I suspect provided enough of a fig leaf that Ark Royal could enter Grand Harbour and the Malta Dockyard without causing overly twisted panties.

Until I looked for an explanation I had exactly zero knowledge of U.S.-Maltese relations and almost zero knowledge of Malta itself. Something cool happened there during The War. Submarines, bombing raids, holding out, etc. It was a place where "we" won against the Nazis, at the usual frightful cost.

Had the younger, naval me known of this back in my serving days, I'd have likely said, "Fine then, you're either with us or against us." Which would have been stupid and shortsighted. But if you look up "stupid and shortsighted" in the dictionary, you'll find a picture of me.

The world isn't as simple as that, and although our governments were cross with each other, the Maltese were far, far, far from against us. They were exercising their independence and pursuing Life, Liberty and Happiness by embracing business and capitalism in the way that seemed most appropriate to the Maltese people, who had -- as a Republic --freely elected their government. You simply can't be much more "against" communism and the Soviets than that! I can't fault them for not wanting to be vassals of the U.S. They'd have been nothing more than an island Belgium in that case, and the world has a surfeit of Belgiums. (Stupid and shortsighted?)

So I've managed to learn something new and interesting, and I've been able to do some fun pondering while examining the solidity (or lack thereof) of my foundational principles.

Thanks Unknown!

Here are a few pics from the USS Forrestal 72-73 cruisebook.

USMC tails...

Operation Crossdeck...

Long time

Well, now. It's been a long time since June 7, hasn't it?

In some ways it's been a very tough summer. My Dad has been very ill and it's been surprisingly hard to deal with on a number of levels.

He's has managed to develop non-alcoholic steatohepatosis and cirrhosis of the liver. The prognosis is grim; it's going to be ultimately fatal but not before some time passes and a lot of suffering is endured. How much time? There's no way to know, really. How much suffering? Again, there's no way to know for sure, but a lot.

One effect of the disease is that the liver weeps ascites fluid into the abdomen, and that fluid has to be removed weekly in a process called paracentesis. Basically, you jam a big catheter into the abdomen and suck out the fluid. The weekly quantity ranges from 5-10 liters, or about 1 to 2.5 gallons. Not a lot of fun, but it's perhaps the easiest part of the treatment regimen.

The bad part, the suffering part, is that the liver is damaged beyond the body's ability to repair it. This causes all manner of unpleasant symptoms. Nausea and vomiting, itching, feeling terrible all the time, weakness, confusion, difficulty breathing, etc. The process is also causing a slow but steady and irreversible wasting away of muscle tissue. The once strong fellow is now navigating slowly with a walker, and while he can still get out and about in a very limited fashion, he's getting weaker all the time.

So watching the progression of this disease has been quite difficult. I'm in the position of being the only person in the family with a medical background, so in addition to managing much of the day-to-day care I'm also the chief explainer for everyone else. "This is why that, and that is why this, and here's the plan, etc."

So there's that.

The day-to-day ranch management continues also, of course, but it's really not all that taxing. Between good rain and good cattle and getting a lot of fiddly bits sorted over the last several years and enough experience to be efficient we've been able to get by in remarkably good shape.

And speaking of good shape...

I'm more physically fit now than I've been in years. I've been alternating roadwork and weight room since April and I'm just astonished at how good I feel and how much I'm able to do. Some time ago -- more than a decade ago -- when I had my first Achilles surgery, I resigned myself to never being able to run again. But something funny happened following the last surgery. Between a really good repair and a smart/patient approach to improving my fitness, I accidentally found out that I can run again.

The running is a work in progress. Running on flat ground still causes a lot of soreness and stiffness in the ankle, but surprisingly, it's actually getting better over time. As long as I don't go wild and overdo it, I think I'll eventually be able to clock multiple miles.

The trick, which I stumbled on accidentally, was running steps. We have a railroad viaduct in town which is equipped with several flights of stairs, and for some reason I decided to see if I could run those to build up endurance and improve cardio. (Looking back I just realized that I wrote about the steps in May.) It was a bit of a struggle at first, but I found that running uphill is a lot easier on the ankle than running on flat ground. I think it's down to joint geometry and lever physics. Rather than bashing straight down on the heel on flat ground, running uphill seems to spread the impact over the whole foot and leg -- and probably just as importantly -- over a longer interval.

Anyway, the viaduct steps are 21-step flights, each with an 8-inch rise, for a total of 14 feet (if my math is right). When I started I was doing 15 flights, now I do 60 flights, and I do them a lot faster. It's an excellent workout.





Several months back I think I wrote about hiking and how super-duper I was because I could hike up smoke bong hill a half-dozen times. On Sunday I ran up smoke bong a dozen times, and ran up eight other hills along the course of my eight mile hike. From "never again" to "shit, I can do this" in less than half a year. Puts a big grin on my face.







Be interesting to see if anyone still stops by this ghost town. I may be able to start posting on a more regular basis but only time will tell.

Wildflowers, birds, crush day

This is the second and last weekend of Nebraska Wildflower Week. The annual celebration takes place during the first week of June and is bookended by weekends, running from The Friday closest to June 1 (which sometimes falls in May) through the next Sunday. This year it runs June 1-10.

A gumbo evening primrose (Oenothera caespitosa)

I’d encourage everyone to get out and look at some wildflowers this weekend. You don’t have to travel far; in fact you can find a wide variety of wildflowers blooming on waste ground right in your own town. If you can find some native prairie to visit, so much the better, but as I said it’s not completely necessary.

Yellow evening primrose (Calylophus serrulatus)

If you do go out, take along a field guide to prairie plants if you have one. Grassland Plants of South Dakota and the Northern Great Plains, by Johnson and Larson, is a good one (for this region of course). It includes nice color pictures of blooming wildflowers and offers a wealth of information on most of the prairie grasses, forbs (wildflowers), and shrubs you will find.

Close up of gumbo evening primrose (Oenothera caespitosa)

Lacking a field guide, use your phone or a pocket digital camera to take pictures. Later on you can download and search the internet to discover the names of the treasures you’ve found. There are also wildflower apps available for your phone. I’ve had little luck with these myself, but your luck might be better than mine.

Yellow evening primrose (Calylophus serrulatus) and downy paintbrush (Castilleja sessiliflora)

If you happen to be in the Kimball area today (Friday), tomorrow, or Sunday and would like to take a native prairie wildflower tour on the EJE Ranch, call or text me at 308-241-0878 or shoot me an email at shonny61@gmail.com

Mourning dove with yet-to-be-identified wildflowers

On Tuesday I hiked out on a parcel we call the South Googie, which is a thousand acres of prairie just south of Kimball. I-80 runs right through the middle of it. The landscape is broken by a couple of major north-south running canyons, and I started my hike in the easternmost one. As I passed a fence line I was greeted by a house finch.

House finch (Haemorhous mexicanus)

It was quite warm, being one of the (if not the) first 90-plus degree day of the year. The canyon is choked with hardy native forbs, most of which are in bloom just now. There are also abundant shrubs such as current, chokecherry, and sumac. Those are mostly done blooming for the year but are setting lots of fruit.

Chokecherry (Prunus virginiana) setting fruit

Along the way I stopped to check on a Say’s Phoebe (Sayornis saya) nest I discovered a couple of weeks ago. When I last checked a few days ago the clutch of eggs was just hatching. Today there were several chicks in the nest along with a lone unhatched egg. The  male and female phoebes who are raising the brood kept a close watch on me as I scrambled up to their nest located in an overhang on the canyon wall.

Chicks and a single egg fill the nest of a Say’s phoebe (Sayornis saya)

Say’s phoebe (Sayornis saya) watching closely

Continuing my hike, I crossed under the interstate and made my way west. The prairie was alive with the color of wildflowers. Hiking up and down the many slopes along my path was a good workout, and the day’s late-spring heat was eased by a light westerly breeze. There was no shortage of mosquitoes, but a liberal application of insect repellent kept them nicely at bay.

Yucca (Yucca glauca) flowering

After a mile or so I came to a second interstate underpass and crossed back to the south side of I-80. This underpass -- a 7x4 foot concrete tunnel, really -- was home to a large population of nesting barn or cliff swallows. The floor of the underpass was littered with discarded egg shells and the mud-construction nests were filled with peeping baby swallows.

I made my way back to my pickup and notched up another nice, vigorous 4-mile hike. All in all it was a brilliant way to spend a couple of hours on a hot, early June day. Give me a shout if you’d like to share the experience.

Today (Thursday) was crush day. I did an hour of hard stuff in the weight room, followed by two hours of hard roadwork -- including 10 summits of Smoke Bong Hill. Smoke Bong is right at 5 stories tall, if you use the 14-foot story measure, so that's a 50-story climb. Lovely, lovely, lovely.

In the weight room I did 300 situps, 60 pushups, 60 pullups, 150 20 lb. overheads, 150 60 lb. leg lifts, 150 100 lb. bench presses, 150 60 lb. curls, and (just outside the weight room) 30 400 lb. tire flips.

Needless to say, I couldn't have done this six weeks ago. So I'm making nice progress.

What's that? Crush day? Oh, yeah. It's just a once-a-week extra hard push. The idea is to try to achieve physical exhaustion. So far I haven't. What I'm finding is that I'm gaining strength and endurance at a pretty rapid clip. I'm not in my teens or twenties anymore, and I'm still fat as hell, but as I suspected there's a lot more in the tank than I've been able to use. That's a good thing.

Speaking of being olden, the experiment with fitness comes with a lot more aches and pains than in my youth. That's fine; pain is weakness leaving the body.

I will say, however, that I've come to love the fizzy wonder of alka-seltzer. It's just bubbly aspirin, but aspirin is a wonderful pain and anti-inflammatory medicine. People have been using it for at least 6,500 years. That's even before the gurglenet!

Ambulate ad vive

So lots of things have kept me far from the blog for a number of days. Sometimes it seems I'm living crisis-to-crisis, but it's not that bad. Just life stuff.

Me about to get out of bed this morning:

"Firetruck this, I ain't training today. My neck hurts, my back hurts, my hip hurts, my legs hurt. I'm sore and stiff. I've done enough this week. I can take a day off."

Me after I got moving a bit:

"Well, I'll do my weight room stuff. Then we'll see."

As you may recall, I have a certain fascination with and appreciation -- perhaps even love -- for jumping spiders. I watched this one stalk and catch a housefly in my garage yesterday.

"Get yer own, Bub!"

Which has little if anything to do with Ambulate ad vive, or Walk to Live. I got the idea for the title of this post from the old foot soldier's axiom; "take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you."

The reason I was thinking about feet -- my feet in particular -- and about taking care of feet, is because it's time for new shoes. Unless I get hit by a bus I'll have logged well over 200 miles for the month of May, and my shoes are wearing out.

I've been wearing sneakers when walking in and around town, and those are kinda-sorta okay, but I really need serious hiking shoes if I'm going to be able to keep piling up the miles. Sneakers don't have the kind of support I need, and old fat guys need well designed shoes to keep the foots fit as well as the leg joints and spine.

When hiking the prairie I've been wearing Danner hiking boots and shoes. Danner makes great boots, even if they're chinesium in the present century. But they are heavy (3.5 and 2.7 lbs./pair, respectively), and they are old school when it comes to design, so I figured there was likely something better out there.

And oh boy is there! Just get on your computer or phone and gargle up "lightweight all terrain hiking shoes" and try to figure out which ones to buy!

Fortunately, I got a 30-percent-off e-coupon in the email and out of the blue from Arc'teryx the other day. Reviews and description had put several of their shoes on my rather long short list, so I decided to jump on a pair. The ones I settled on were the Norvan VT shoes. They arrived today.

These shoes weigh only 1.6 lbs. for the pair, which is great. They also fit well, have excellent orthotic support, and have an advanced all terrain sole which is good on the asphalt or gravel as well as the shortgrass prairie. So far today I've done 8.25 miles (that's 13.277 kilometers outside the U.S.) in them and it's almost like having new feet. We'll have to see how they hold up, but so far they seem to be a winner. A steal at only $170!

The shoes did well and felt good on the road as well as on the prairie. And you never know what you'll find when clambering around in prairie canyons, especially when you're wearing great shoes.

Bideo, too...





Buenos adidas!