Texas is Very Awesome

How can Texas be awesome when the very air itself threatens to ignite, like an air bomb? Surely this sounds more like the anteroom of Hell than anywhere good. 

Not so fast, team. Yes, it may be hot but there are benefits, such as frontier style bluffs and Patriot Barges. No one's defunding the police here because they're not stupid.

And fish. Lots of fish, even in the heat of a late August afternoon. I know this because, after visiting with the flock, I headed over to the marina for some action, and got it. 

A lot of perch, mostly small but pretty much every cast a fish, always good, and few large, ferocious, piranha style keepers, which I didn't keep. Again, wasn't in the mood to clean, beer batter and fry 'em up. Foolish, I know, tomorrow being Friday, but whatever. Next time.

Then, at the very end, something ferocious took the line. Tug! Hookset! drag out, well at least for a bit, and up came a random predator bass. Great result. Bass on, what a lot of fun. And while some say fishing's a kind of therapy for trauma, conscious or otherwise, it's also good in itself. Fast, sometimes furious aquatic action. I find this exciting, like hunting but on the water.

Mission accomplished, I headed back to the safety of the Compound and it began to rain. Yes, rain. Beautiful, and yet another reason to thank God for his glory and Texas for awesomeness.

Your Friend,

LSP

Last Rites

Sometimes clergy are asked to administer the sacrament of extreme unction, of anointing the sick when they're close to death. It's a powerful and, for me, emotional rite. Consider this prayer:

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, let there be extinguished in you all power of the devil by the imposition of our hands, and by the invocation of the glorious and holy Mother of God, the Virgin Mary, and of her illustrious Spouse, St. Joseph, and of all the holy Angels, Archangels, Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors, Virgins, and of all the saints together. Amen.

I tell you, these prayers have great efficacy. Or, to quote a Baptist friend of mine, "You sure prayed the Devil out of her!" The woman in question made a full recovery, leaving the doctors relieved if bewildered. 

I'd gone to the hospital straight from a ride, all Wranglers, boots and hat. I don't know if there's a corollary between that and the miracle.

God bless,

LSP

Yorkshire Pudding

You know what they say, idle handle hands make the Devil's work.With that in mind, I put 4 eggs into a bowl along with a cup of flour and 1 1/4 cups of whole milk. Whisk those ingredients together, don't be shy, then put the mix in the fridge for at least 1/2 an hour.

A Typical Street in South Dallas

While you're at it, play the Loser by the Grateful Dead and remind yourself of Jeb!'s pathetic campaign. Sorry, GOP establishment, epic fail.

Yorkshire Pudding

Thirty minutes or so later, put a teaspoon of oil in the bottom of each hole of a muffin tin and put that tin in a preheated oven, at 425*. Give it a good 5 minutes, till it's beginning to smoke, and take the tin out of the oven. 

Quickly pour your mix into the holes of the tin, it should sizzle. I use a 1/4 cup measure. Job done, put it back in the oven for 25 minutes, until the batter has risen and begun to crisp on the outside. This last bit's important because if the pudding mixture doesn't get crispy it won't have the strength to hold itself up, and the puddings will collapse. There's a technical name for this, aseity, synderesis, or something.

Put it on The Plate

Avoid that catastrophe by leaving the tin in the oven long enough, but not so long as to bern the wretched mix and ruin everything.

Baking done, remove the tin from the oven and admire the result, you've done well. Now eat those Yorkshire Puddings.

Like a Champion,

LSP

A New Year, A New Gun

One of the ways I like to ring in the New Year is by getting a new gun, so I went to Gebo's and bought a wood stocked Ruger American, chambered for . 22LR. Why?

Why, LSP?

Because I wanted a bolt action, wood and steel replacement for my ancient JC Higgins .22, and Ruger's offering seemed right. Excellent fit and finish for the money and, if it's anything like my Ruger American .17 HMR, far more accurate than I am.

Nice Bit of Tang, Note The Buck

The rifle features a tang safety, a flush 10 round rotary magazine, compatible with the ubiquitous 10/22, and iron sights. The folding-leaf rear sight is the same as the 10/22, but the front sight's an improvement, a green Williams fiber optic.

Go Green

The stock's checkered and shaped per its synthetic twin, and you either like it or you don't. I think it looks sharp, and the rifle certainly feels right in the shoulder.

Check

At $359, I don't think you can get a better new, off-the-shelf deal, and you can see its specs here. But how does it shoot? I'll find out tomorrow.

Gun rights,

LSP

Boot and Spur

When we walked into the Pitt Stop yesterday to get hamburgers, one of the riders was wearing spurs. An old timer looked up from his booth and said, "Spurs?" and my friend said, "Well you can't be a cowboy without spurs, can you now."

The old timer thought for a bit and kind of beamed back, "I haven't worn a pair of those in years!"

I hardly ever ride with them and maybe that's a mistake, but here's some basic spur wisdom from HorseChannel.com:

Spurs are no substitute for good riding skills. By no means will they help make you a better rider.

“You have to know how to ride a horse correctly before you put spurs on,” says Sherryl Crawford of Lipan, Texas, who grew up running cans, trains her own barrel horses and also team ropes. “If you don’t really know what you are doing as far as riding or training a horse, and you’re also spurring him, you’re just going to end up with a big problem that you can’t fix.”

“Spurs are a good tool if you use them correctly; they’re not for looks, and they’re not to be used as a weapon,” says Earnest Wilson of Tolar, Texas, who is a well-respected Paint Horse trainer with 46 years in the business...

Spurs should be applied with steady pressure—pressing the spur into the horse’s side, not poking him. You can increase the pressure as necessary, but if you poke or jab the horse he’s going to lurch or jump. Then you risk grabbing with your legs to hang on, and grabbing his mouth, too. That will simply scare your horse. 

Ride on,

LSP 

Taking Care of Business

I had to go to Dallas to take care of business, which meant visiting the County Clerk. I'd forgotten what Government was like, and I won't comment.

I also wanted to see if the Levees were holding. They seemed to be, though that might change if it rains much more, and such is the War on Weather. Who knows, maybe we'll put a couple of warships on the Trinity river as an extra tier of protection against our new national threat.

In case you're wondering, it's trying to rain, here in the country. We obviously haven't been taxed enough.

Cheers,

LSP

Country Life in Texas

Country life in Texas is alright. Sometimes it means doing a little bit of porch 'smithing to fix a recalcitrant trigger on a Marlin 981T. Fortunately the job was simple; tighten the screw, LSP.

Add caption

At other times it's all about cleaning some rimfires after Evening Prayer. I use a bore snake, or "pull-through," as we used to call them in what was once Great Britain. 

Ruger American

Don't get me wrong, I love England, even if it is a pathetic comsymp nanny state run by a crew of corrupt and sinister Old Etonians. Good luck with that.

Justsin

Speaking of England, a recent survey (via Breitbart) reveals that 2% of CofE clergy don't believe in God and another 9% think that it's impossible to know what God's like.

White Chicken

How many of those are bishops?

Big white roosters have setup in my yard. Make of that what you will and God bless Texas.

Shoot straight,

LSP