Fall planting season

Stranded's Tree Farm

We've transplanted some of our hard maple starts this past weekend. These came from our two maples at the homestead that were planted through a cooperative agreement with our electric company about 15 years ago. From a humble 8 feet, they're now +/-30 ft and very nicely shaped. (The homestead trees, not the transplants.)

I planted them as taught by my dad: fill the hole with water and let it soak away, then plant the tree and strip all but a few leaves off. I surrounded the trees with a cage in an attempt to keep deer out. We'll see how well my efforts play out down the road.

I also planted a couple of hackberry volunteers that came from my neighbor's tree. Not a favorite for homeowners, but my dad made a few pieces from it's lumber and they turned out well. In the spring, I pulled one out of the ground and planted it and it's doing well in it's new environment, so a couple more should do okay.

I've got several more transplants that I could take down, but I don't have the area cleared off and ready.

Running out of steam...

ATF agent threatens to sic a private investigator on Grassley

To dig up some dirt apparently.

For all of my disagreements with the Senator, I would never think he had any dirt on him. (Harkin, on the other hand...) I believe Senator Grassley to be an honorable man despite his occupation as a US Senator.

Gun dealer Andre Howard recorded conversations with ATF agent Hope McAllister and they reveal the extend the ATF agent would go if she had the means to do so.

EXCERPT 3

Agent: That's kind of what my suggestion but nobody thought that was funny like if I were a P.I. I'd put him on Grassley, I'm sure there's a lot would go away. Actually my one suggestion was just tell him in a registered Republican. I'm sure if he knew that everything would be fine, they didn't like that either.

Grassley may have some skeletons in the closet like this photo:


But I highly doubt he has anything that would rival the Clintons or any of the Kennedys. I don't they fully know many of the members of the Senate, although they pegged Leahy pretty well.

They have a good understanding of the situation in the Senate. Since the Republicans are in the minority, Grassley is powerless to do any real investigations. He can't call for hearings and is limited on any subpena power.

Simon Conway of WHO radio interviewed Senator Grassley last week on this very subject. (Start at 9:09) I apologize but the embed doesn't want to work for me.

It would seem that Chuck isn't going to let "Fast and Furious"\"Gunwalker" go away.

ATF is in the gun smuggling business??

And here I thought they were supposed to be preventing crime or something like that. Mike Vanderboegh reports:

Official ATF documents and sources in both Arizona and Washington D.C. confirm that in at least two instances in 2010, agents of the United States government purchased Kalashnikov-pattern semi-automatic pistols directly from licensed federal firearms dealers with taxpayer money and delivered those weapons directly into the hands of cartel smugglers.

I guess I was wrong.

So there is evidence that those in our government facilitated the smuggling of guns into a criminal gang and now what are they going to do about it?

My guess is continue to circle the wagons.

Van Buren County Tea Party

I've been catching up on emails instead of working today and read one from Randy from Southeast Iowa. He's involved in county and local politics and I found several interviews of the local school board candidates that was posted on his blog, Van Buren County Tea Party.

From his email

We have started a local Tea Party group with the intent of taking on our local governments and their foolish use of our money.

Here's a shout of encouragement, Randy and I apologize for not getting to this sooner.

*Of note: My brother taught elementary school at Douds in the early 80's.

Sunday (not so) funnies, 9/25/11

The original from Getty Images:

(Click for source)

From Pajama Media:

Unless this is some kind of hoax of unparalleled proportions, the gaffe-tastic photo of Obama idiotically waving his hand in a group shot of world leaders, blocking the face of one of them (Tsakhia Elbegdorj, the president of Mongolia, as far as I can tell), really is an authentic photo, and is worthy of Internet infamy.

Another bloke has the idea of issuing an apology on Obama's behalf (since the administration has not issued one as yet).

Sorry, I won't go that far...

From this lack of respect for a foreign leader and his earlier bowing to monarchs who behead their own citizens for converting from Islam, I wonder where his instructors are regarding foreign policy.

CR man defends his home

A Cedar Rapids man defends himself and his family when an armed intruder attempts to break into his home. Shots were exchanged and no one was hurt.

Gunshots Exchanged During Cedar Rapids Break-in Attempt

I must be using the wrong bait

Law enforcement officials got more than they expected when they asked a fisherman who found a gun to turn it in.

Sunday (not so) funnies, 9/18/11

And one for Borepatch:

Camp Stranded Discoveries

On each work time to Camp Stranded, we make the time to cut brush, weeds or general cleanup. This is outside of my goals for what we want to accomplish there, although part of my overall plan. Because of the lack of a good brush mower (still in the works) we've had to rely on good old fashioned sweat, blood and toil. (After cutting a knuckle, the bleeding looked like I lost a finger last weekend.)

Using a corn knife I starting cutting back the mulberry trees, horse weeds and ragweed from around a 5 foot pine and discovered a few foot tall maples. A little later and after plenty of hacking, I found another foot tall pine and a couple of 3 foot walnut trees. Another pine was found hiding close to a 6 foot tall maple and after clearing several hundred square feet of weeds and tall grass, we had a nice collection of 10 pines, ranging from about a foot to about 6 feet tall. None of these I expected to have.

Sure, it's not like winning the lottery as it maybe is closer to finding change in the couch cushions, but this is a positive for the place. I thought we only had one pine and each discovery motivated me to keep hacking away to find another one. I'm not 100% sure of the species but they ain't ditch cedars.*

If I had pulled a brush mower over this spot, as I intended to do, I would have mowed them over and lost them and I would have tangled up the wire cages in the blades. In order to preserve some of these smaller trees, I'm going to have to swing a sickle. The wire cages will be used for the next plantings of sugar maples that I started from seed.

I won't mind the work if we find hidden treasures like these.

* I call them ditch cedars because these little cedar trees are growing throughout rural southeast Iowa's ditches. I've got quite a few growing among my other trees and I'd like to keep them for songbird habitat, although snakes are known to climb up to get at the nests. My brother encouraged me to get rid of them, but I'm not in a hurry.

Simple gestures mean the most...

After another day among several of banging my head in frustration, imagine coming home to a thank you card from Sam's Mom, Bea. She had been recuperating after major surgery and the Stranded household sent their get well wishes and sent a set of DVDs after Sam mentioned her preference for old westerns.

It brightened up my week to receive a note of appreciation and I wanted to publicly acknowledge her kindness back to me.

And yes, my wife picked out the card because I'm not good at those sort of things and she does enjoy Guideposts.

It warms my curmudgeon heart.

Thank you and we're still pulling for your speedy recovery.