Catching Up With Depeche Mode

In Loving Memory of my son, KP who passed away in the early morning hours on July 4,1998 at 27 years of age. 

I listen to Depeche Mode in your honor, KP. I miss you so very much.

Dallas Has A Problem For Sure

This car is correctly going to right direction, including making the required right turn at the stop sign. However, a black SUV came down the road today going the other direction and nearly hit me head on. The very point that TxDOT could learn from  about why vehicles are going the wrong way all over the Metroplex and lives are being lost.

The park is posted with signs that read:" You must Obey Warning Signs. It is a state law."

One thing that I have noticed about Dallas is the number of people who go the wrong way on the Toll Roads, expressways, and streets. One thing about going to the lake on a daily basis is that over a period of time, it begins to point itself out to you that people don't read signs---especially road signs and/or traffic signs. The Texas Department of Transportation could do a study in a high use area where this very topic could be studied in concentration. After all, it is state law to obey warning signs!

In talking to various departments and people from inside city hall on down, it came to light that one of the reasons why there are so many violations at White Rock Lake is because the park and recreation division are short on parking spaces in out-of-ratio comparison to the number of people using the park in comparison to the numbers just a few short years ago---like 5 years. Also, White Rock is a big Public Relations Platform for the city and its parks. Having passed that information on after being told to me, it's also the age old story that the genie isn't going back into the bottle once it's been let out. So, I ask one of the police officers that at the time, was new to the park beat from the old guard that has gone on to better jobs, retired and left the force or otherwise moved either up the ladder or up the food chain. The question was since you know about the parking situation being on the the reasons some of the signs had come down  why aren't the city codes enforced? His answer to me was," Thank God--next question!"

Loss Prevention finally got a good number for me to call about the signs which have caused more confusion being down than up. Since the storm hit the park, now is not the time or the place to bring up that question at the moment. However, since then, I have counted 6 armadillos, a red should hawk, a pelican and several pigeons that have been hit by cars or bikes. Surprisingly, the number is growing by bike hits on the wildlife and migrating birds. Cars, being what they are, have nearly hit kids on bikes, older adults and a few hikers. With the number of cars going the wrong way on one way patterns while others, not knowing the basics of transportation flow when "signs are not present" (i.e., when approaching a "Y" where so sign is present at where to enter,  always go to the right as if you were entering a traffic circle). State law requires that bikes observe stop signs the same as cars. That just does not happen at White Rock Lake.Images of cars going the wrong way on marked "do not enter" or 'begin one way" are into the hundreds while bikes running stop signs as if the "Tour De France" trophy was on a finish line somewhere at the lake is only going to get some one killed before that trophy is ever awarded in Dallas.

Need To Find Out If Count Was Aerial Survey

Never Had Bad Vibes at the Lake---Until Today

With high heat indexes, yesterday's lunch on the shore of the lake was delightful. So, it seemed to me that doing a repeat today would be a wise move. After the pre-noon news cast, I packed the cooler much the same as yesterday but added a couple of items that I had forget to put in yesterday. Having said that, I made my way to the lake, going straight to the area where I had eaten lunch yesterday.
While sitting at the table looking out over the lake, I spotted my little friend, the red squirrel. He hangs out on top of a cluster of trash bins that are like a pre-sort of recycled items.

As I unpacked my lunch, the squirrel picked up on the smells coming from the picnic tote and positioned himself right at the end of the table where I was sitting  and did all sorts of things to get my attention. He would raise up on his haunches, then stand up on his hind legs more or less begging for a hand out.One of the items that I brought with me today was a round white corn chip. So, I held one up and ask him if he would like to have one? (I love talking to animals. They understand more than we give them credit) Tossing the chip to him, he grabbed it and ran up the side of the tree on the back side where I could not see where he went. Then, when I had my lunch laid out on the table where I could manage it and the wind and not have things blown away, I looked up at the tree. There sat the squirrel on a tree limb knot at about 10 feet up. It was a perfect perch for him to sit on and he was eating the chip like we humans eat corn on the cob. When he finished, he came back down from the tree and went to the end of the table. The little rascal was telling me that he wanted more. He took the second chip and returned back to his perch where he began to do his return carriage routine as he ate this second chip.

When the chips were gone and the tomato, cheese and pickle mix was also gone, I went to my sandwich. I noticed he was watching me and I told him that I didn't have any more. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him scamper off toward the lake's  edge.

As I worked on my sandwich and drink, I got this eerie feeling. It came out of no where but it sent a chill running up my shoulders and neck.  I turned around to look toward my car and at that very moment, I looked down and there were five squirrels across the ground at the back of the table. They had that ''look'' like you see in the movies of animals getting even.

Now, I'm begging to the squirrels---I'll bring more tomorrow!!  I finished my sandwich and took the picnic bag to the car. In my tote with my camera bag, I always carry about 10 saltine crackers in a little container and three sandwich duplex cookies for my afternoon snack. I took the container and went back to the table. While the squirrels were still hanging out, I took out a cracker and broke it into four piece and tossed them to the squirrels that were stretched out on the ground--a belly flop on the cool ground would be more accurate. They all ran to grab a piece of the handout. Three took off running with their little hand out and I didn't see them again, but the original little buddy and one of his friends hung around and wanted more. My friend wanted a whole cracker. The little devil held out until I gave him one, then he returned up the tree to his little balcony and worked on that cracker.

All-in-all, the band that came from no where and just gave me dirty looks until I noticed them had vanished with their hand out did give me those bad vibes, never thinking that they would come from a pack of squirrels. It was almost like a story board.
So--for the rest of the summer---if I pack more lunches--- which I will---I'll make sure that I have white oval corn chips and saltine crackers to give to the pack.

There's that Look.He was in stalk mode

This one, too, was in stalk mode.

This is my buddy that always greets me looking for a hand out but also is a dumpster diver with great skills.

My Trips To The Lake Daily Have Been Validated

Yep! Spending two to three hours a day out in nature has now been validated as a healty exercise that reduces blood pressure, keeps aging in a slower pace and prevents some of the common pains   altogether that comes with age progression.

Yesterday, with the heat indexes at 108 and the air temp at 95 with humidity and dew points through the roof, I packed the cooler with lunch and a snack and headed toward the lake. I have found a perfect picnic table that reminds me why I have always liked lake houses and beach houses. While eating my lunch, there was a cool breeze blowing across the area coming in off the lake. It was delightful and I ate my lunch in a comfortable ambient temperature. Summer doesn't start until today but the last weeks of June always rings the door bell of summer early here in Texas. 

By 1:30 I had pointed the car toward home and spent the rest of the day (the most unbearable part) in the cool of air conditioning. Australians survive the heat by closing up the house during the day and opening it wide in the evening. Now that a sample of what summer feels like again, I go out early and come in early. Come on September!!

The developing storms in the afternoon developed as advertised. They went north of us and south of us. The city of Greenville, north east of the metroplex got hit hard with wind damage and heavy rain leaning toward 4-inches as the storms trained over the same area for hours. Then, during the evening around sunset, a few developing storms grazed the Metroplex in the sector where I live. However, there was not as much lightening, nor strong winds and the rain was gentle and still wet. My trees are growing at an alarming rate where I am going to have to give them away to someone who needs a tree are cut the back to where they become a bush rather than a tree. I don't want to do that to my trees.They have reduced that direct sun heating of brick that sends the thermometer to the 120 mark. That is the main reason why I have trees in pots on the porch. Now, my neighbor has the same.

My view during lunch

Piles of wood chips from all the damage to such majestic trees

Pile after pile of these wood chips look like ant hills

Piles of Wood Chips Are Like Ant Hills

After some headway to remove all the down branches and massive hundred-year old oaks and cottonwoods that were felled by the storm on June 9th, the landscape is now more open and forever changed. What is the noticeable difference at first is the mounds of wood chips left from branches and limbs and broken branches that were left handing from some of the trees up top. That twisting where trunks were splintered and broken off completely started at about 30 feet. Never-the-less, the parks and recreation crew have done an amazing job with clean up and the park is beginning to return to normal less about 60 big majestic trees that are still around in sawdust and wood chips. Life goes on!

The National Weather Service did investigate a possible fourth location to determine if there was only straight line winds or a tornado that caused damage. And---the results were determined that indeed, a fourth tornado had touched down. Of course the difference between a funnel cloud and a tornado is  the point at which that funnel cloud in the air does, in fact, touch ground, thus making it a tornado and no longer just a funnel cloud.

And---as I still say from compass headings of tree stumps ranging from 060 to 330 degrees at the park, that a EF0 tornado could have caused some of the damage in the Old Lake Highlands, Casa Linda and Lakewood areas. I am not a weatherman, nor do I hold out to be one, but I have been raised to watch, observe and learn what weather can teach you. I would hate to tell you how many times growing up when I was pulled out of bed during the night and loaded into the car as we raced five miles to my grandfathers farm where he had a massive storm cellar. Mom was afraid of storms having lived through a couple of tornadoes herself.

I was away at college the last time she narrowly missed a Palm Sunday tornado when we lived in the  Great Lakes area. That tornado missed our house by a margin of two city blocks. Later, the duplex I lived out of school had been on that same path of the storm, I could still find shards of glass and tile stuck in some of the rafters of that house's attic 5 years later. That duplex was only a mile from mom and dad's house that was missed in that Palm Sunday tornado.  By-the-way, that same storm did hit the house of our local CBS-TV weatherman who lived on the street two blocks from mom and dad's.

The point is---you learn about weather. It can save your life. You never take weather for granted.

Swallowtail Butterfly on Dill

Beauty on the wing

Great White Egret Fishing in a Reed Bed

This Sunday Was Repeat Of Last Sunday

Right down to another crane incident to wind damage and three tornadoes confirmed in the Metroplex, Oncor was back in the "restoring power to 30,000 customers business". One thing that I have noticed this year is that weather seems to be in a cycle of short waves right down to the day each week. There was also flooding and some of that flooding blocked removal of the down trees from last week. The good side of this if there can be a good side, is that the flooding wasn't as bad as last week and the damage was not good, but it was not as concentrated as last weeks, either.

The down is from the storm last Sunday. The water is from the storms of this Sunday.

The new Ranger Baseball Stadium, the one with the open/close roof, is in place as far as the main steel work structure for that movable roof. Two miles to the right of this image there was a tornado that hit Arlington yesterday, Sunday. 

 

This wild turkey, who seemed pretty domesticated for a wild turkey,  came out of a wooded area along a roadway. As I passed I could not believe what I was seeing so I turned around and came back. He was even more close to the roadway now than when I first had seen him. I love to find these off-the-wall things like this. I see a lot of stuff like this.