Fixed The Rig

After dropping the Cadet (potential) at school, I dropped off the rig at the Brazen Pineapple, known colloquially as Gene's Auto Body. Then I walked home, because I didn't have a vehicle and didn't care to ask for a "loaner."

It still seems odd after growing up in England to see dirt roads within city limits but I like that, it's Centex Country, right along with the grain bins, sorry, bins not in the frame.

So are shacks, which are somehow less bucolic than the dirt roads and grain silos of this small slice of rural Texan paradise. Imagine, there you are in your shack, it's triple digits and the food stamps have just run out because you've swapped them out for meth. Not so pastoral idyll.

Still, the town's getting fixed up, with new shops on the Square and attractive older houses being renovated and sold. Who to? People from Dallas, I'd imagine, who can't afford the 500k+ price tag of living in the appalling and soul-destroying metrosprawl.

I thought all this and more as I strolled down the leafy boulevards of my quaint farming community and pondered the transnational, satanic, globalist elites that destroyed this town to make themselves even richer. Where will it end? 

Pitchforks and Nooses down the Mall? Maybe. More likely a gradual breakdown of central government which, ironically, runs out of cash.

Of course we've seen it all before. Cast your minds back to Rome which, at its peak, was a city of over a million people. Then picture that same city in the 7th century AD, perhaps viewed from the Palatine Hill and the just at that point intact palace of the Caesars. What do you see?

A sea of ruins stretching out to the horizon, broken by still-standing monumental architecture, such as the Pantheon and Coliseum. Below you lies the broken Hippodrome with its ghosts of long dead crowds. Rome at this point maybe musters 20,000 souls.

This Texan town was 20,000 strong 50 years ago, now it's 7,000 if it's lucky. 

Draw the moral as you will.

Quo Vadis,

LSP

The Best Shot You Never Took In Your Life

Someone's Truck

Running alongside the field where JB's pastured is a dirt road, some grain bins and a large cornfield. A month or so ago the corn fields were harvested and became a veritable dove magnet. There I'd be, unsaddling the horse after a ride, and there the doves would be, in swarms.

Obviously I wanted to get out the gun and have a go, but hesitated to wander off with the yobbish pump action and blast away until I had permission to hunt the land. People frown on unidentified shooters roaming about their land, understandably. So I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the fields in question belonged to a parishioner who was happy to let me shoot.

After making sure (a few days in advance) that the owners of the horselands were alright with the project, I stalked off, Mossberg in hand.

The strategy was simple. Wait for the doves to arrive in their hundreds and shoot them. To that end I walked across a pasture, ducked under a fence, crossed the road, released the safety and... a great clatter of birds erupted from a tree to my front. The avian acrobats dodged the first two shots, but the third went home and a plump, corn-fed creature fell to the ground - just as I hear a great screaming from the direction of the horses. I won't repeat the language but it was strong and directed at the shooter.

I pondered the situation, reapplied the safety, and strode off down-field, thinking with a heavy heart that my riding privileges were about to be revoked. Still the shoot was still on and I figured I might as well see if I could chase up some birds further away. No luck; they liked the area around the grain bins, which I returned to.

Again, a tremendous whirring of wings as countless birds darted out of the trees around the bins, in all directions - just feet away from me. But I wasn't going to shoot and risk the wrath of the horse guardian. Instead I shouldered the gun and watched the quarry speed away to safety; never seen so many of the creatures so close and in the air at the same time.

Frustrating and doubly so when I learned the cause of the screaming. It was all a case of mistaken identity.

It seems a neighbour was in the custom of driving down the dirt road in his pick-up and taking pot-shots at birds from the window of the truck - towards the horses. Bonnie figured that was the source of the shots. Hence the invective; turns out I could have kept shooting. As it was, the one 'bird down' made for a tasty snack.

Moral of the story?

1. Don't shoot out of the window of your truck towards the barn - it spoils it for the rest of us.

2. Tell Bonnie when you're going to shoot.

3. Fresh dove tastes great.

Simple, really.

Hope you've had a blessed Sunday.

LSP