May 19 2012 by Darrin.

As many of you know, my dear Charlis-Dog passed away on April 25th.  I didn’t mention it previously on the blog, and want to respect him by keeping the sad details off of here.  If you want to meet him, or remember him, please feel free to visit his webpage!  Here’s the last picture I took of him.  We were hiking on Sheep Mountain, a week before he passed…

It was a tough first two weeks, but many friends said I should jump right back in and get another pup.  Everyone assured me Charlis wouldn’t mind, that he even encouraged his papa to have a new buddy.  I began to look at animal rescues around us, figuring I’m too old as a single guy to deal with a puppy!  There are so many animals that need loving homes, and I fell in love with two absolute sweethearts.

Both of these dogs have been in foster care for a year or more.  After I filled out an application at Snow Capped Shepherd Rescue in Denver last week, these dogs were matched to me, the ranch, and the off-leash lifestyle they’ll be “forced” to live here.

Here’s Elsa, a ~4 year old Malinois (Belgian Shepherd)…

Elsa was used for breeding Malinois puppies, then abandoned at a KILL SHELTER after (I think) her fourth litter.  What the hell is wrong with people?  She’s gorgeous, about 55 lbs, super laid back, and just fascinated that people love her when she’s not pregnant.  She clearly only wants one thing - affection!

 Minna was the girl the rescue folks first thought of when they read my application and saw Charlis-Dog’s website.  Minna’s a ~3 year old Aussie Shepherd/White Shepherd cross…

She was abandoned at a shelter too, and is much more skittish than Elsa.  I spent an hour on her level, giving her treats and talking to her.  By the end, I was petting her all over, and I even got a couple kisses.  I think she’s really smart, just by the way she listens so carefully, tilting her head left and right.  Her foster mom, Kelly, said she’ll test her boundaries, but WILL learn them.  She also will eat anything you touched with Cheeto”dust” on your fingers.  GOOD THING I don’t eat Cheetos! Her favorite human noise is “Thank You”, which clearly means she done something good!

Here are a couple more pix…

 The two seem to get along fine together, so I’m certainly following through with the adoptions.  The next step is on Tuesday, when they’ll come up to the ranch from Denver (250 miles one way!) to inspect and approve the house.  Then, after my 25th high school reunion in a couple weeks, I’ll go and pick up Elsa so she can move in and settle for a fortnight or two.  Minna will follow, so Elsa can keep her settled and show her the ropes!

I’m extremely excited to have two buddies around.  Of course, they’ll have full bed rights just like Charlis did, and I suspect these two gals will have me sleeping on the floor in no time.  Considering where they live now, in the middle of a metropolis, they’re gonna have a cow (literally) when they see their new forever home!  I can just picture Minna when she hears her first coyotes on a summer night.

Posted in Animals and Pets, Misc. Stuff, Local Trips | No Comments »

May 16 2012 by Darrin.

On Monday, May 14th 2012 in Casper, Wyoming, my wife became a Naturalized U.S. Citizen.  It was a long, expensive, extremely frustrating journey to this point for us both.  There’s much more to the story than I care to discuss here, so I’ll just say that I am proud of her for meeting her end of the obligations.  Here she is for the first time in the sunlight as an American…

 If anyone has the chance to witness a Naturalization Ceremony, do it!  It’s a nice slap in the face to wake us up and help us remember just how lucky we are.  Click this sentence to watch news coverage from KCWY TV-13 on the ceremony.  You’ll see a WWII veteran speaking.  What you don’t hear him say is, “…and until recently, America fought wars to win them.”  When President Obama was speaking to the Petitioners on a video monitor, this salty old vet turned his back to the screen. God bless him (and all who serve).

For as much as we hear anti-American and anti-Capitalism sentiment today on our streets, the net, and the news, there is still an abundance of folks who dream and work hard to become Americans and I am pleased to welcome them all.

And for the illegal aliens, I say “Go home and do it right!”  My ancestors did it right, so many others have, you can, it takes work, and until you do that work, you gain zero respect from me.  You are called “illegal” because you are BREAKING OUR LAWS.  I can’t just go live in Holland, Canada, Australia or even Mexico…  All countries have rules, for good reason.

In the words of Mexican President Filipe Calderon regarding illegal immigrants, “…we send back them.”

(If you care to see the program for the Ceremony, click the thumbnail below to open it.)

Posted in Misc. Stuff, Politics and Economics, Uncategorized | No Comments »

May 8 2012 by Darrin.

 For 23 years we’ve needed a better way to maintain our roads.  There are over 40 miles of them on the ranch - mostly just pick-up “two-tracks” going here and there.  Specifally, Mom’s driveway and yard at the ranch, and the road to my house, need to be in better condition;  the years haven’t been to kind to them.  The only machine to do this right is a road grader, of course, and we bought one from Georgia in March.  After a few mandatory repairs (you get what you pay for…) here’s our “new” 1992 Dresser A450E showing her articulating abilities…

 We started by tearing up the old surface, tho’ it wasn’t hard enough to need the scarifier. It’s looking pretty bad at this point…

We got it pretty close by the end of that day, and after a couple more passes the following day, she was looking pretty good!

So what else is up?  Not much of substance…  The weather here is warm - and dry!  We’re at under 1/2″ of precip for the YEAR so far, and everyone is dreading the drought we know is coming this summer.  The ranch bought a new certified (crazy-$$$) fire pump for our Unimog firetruck, so that’ll be going on before the lightning comes - we HOPE!

It’s been an especially tough time for me recently, as my dearest Charlis-Dog passed away two weeks ago tomorrow.  It got easier after the first week, for sure, but I know it’s always going to hurt.  All that’s left is a box of ashes with a collar on it, and I’m working with a rescue foundation in Denver on a new buddy (or two <grin>).  Charlis’ updated webpage is here if you want to meet him, remember him, or read what happened and why he’s no longer with us in body.

Posted in Animals and Pets, Misc. Stuff, Scenery | No Comments »

May 6 2012 by Darrin.

Here’s a photo I stumbled (literally) into shooting Sunday morning, May 6th, 2012.  This was the “SuperMoon” of 2012, when the full moon came at lunar perigee - when the moon is closest to Earth in its orbit around us.

I’d gotten up to meet a friend in Douglas for breakfast at 0700 and saw this JUST before it set.  (It had been too cloudy the night before.)  From the moment my feet hit the floor by the bed to the time the moon was gone, seven minutes elapsed!  This was the original, unedited photo…

I didn’t even have time to level the tripod!  Thank God the batteries were up in the Nikon too, eh?  The only editing done to the final photo was leveling the horizon, cropping, and and increasing the contrast so you could see the moon’s surface better.

 I even got it published with a bunch of other folks’ images at The Blaze.

Posted in Astronomy, Scenery, Weather | No Comments »

April 25 2012 by Darrin.

Here’s what the San Francisco activist “save the planet” crowd thinks of the planet…

(photo credit: Andrew Dalton/SFist, 4/23/2012)

While these people are “beautifying” their planet (some literally defecating where they eat), they’re trying to tell us that Capitalism, Conservatism, and SUVs are destroying it.

CASE IN POINT: I was watching the beginning of an episode of Frozen Planet last week.  Narrator says that the polar caps are melting.  Below his feet are meters of ice.  He says, “And this ice capping the Arctic Ocean is melting!  For the first time in recorded human history, there may be patches of open water here in this decade!”

While the Frozen Planet series does have astoundingly good photography worth seeing, the statement above shows the agenda; it is PATENTLY absurd.  I had to turn it off.  People believe this propaganda and tell us if we don’t, we’re in denial or just stupid.  So here’s my stupidity for you…

 - Earth is around 4.6B years old.  That’s 4,600,000,000 years. 

 - “Recorded Human History” on the Arctic icepack is about 200 years. You do have to go there to record it, right?  And according to wikipedia (trusted resource of “The Left”)…

One of the earliest expeditions to set out with the explicit intention of reaching the North Pole was that of British naval officer William Edward Parry, who in 1827 reached latitude 82°45′ North. 

 - 1827 was 185 years ago.

  - 185 divided by 4,600,000,000 equals…  0.00000004 and multiply by 100 to get a “percent” of 0.000004%. 

You can see from simple 3rd grade arithmetic that the comment from the narrator is completely MEANINGLESS.  Or rather, 99.999996% meaningless.

Seriously, what real scientists wanting to understand reality would base a Y-axis conclusion (or even “general consensus”) on a sample representing 0.000004% of the X-axis ????

But these “arguments” seem to work on the masses around the world.  Why?  Because most people are mathematically challenged!  How many people do you know whom you could ask, “What percent of 4.6 billion is 185?”, and get a correct answer? 

I do not believe humans have “zero” impact on our environment.  I do not believe we should waste energy, litter, and destroy with reckless abandon (like those hell-bent on furthering this idiotic agenda - see again the photo above). 

I do believe that this is 99.999996% agenda-driven propaganda, and is 99.999996% about control of “the people”.  As a fringe benefit, a select few will reap TRILLIONS in economic rewards for brokering “carbon credits” to and from the rest of us, in a market they totally created and then mandated.

I have put MY money where my mouth is, and I live in self-designed and self-built active and passive solar/wind powered home that I do NOT need to heat in the dead of Wyoming winter, nor cool in the middle of summer.  I have gorgeous views of nature, and my home is built from the rocks that were found around it.  I’ve lived for 17 years with alternative energy, and I can tell you all about it!

30 years ago, we were all shown pictures of proof of glacial action in Central Park in Manhattan.  We learned back then that those huge, deep ruts in the rocks were cut by a thick ice sheet during the most recent ice age.  In fact, New York’s parks department states that the Wisconsin Ice Sheet over New York City was 1,000 feet thick, and 5,000 feet thick over the Adirondacks.  It started its most recent retreat (from “Global Warming”) 18,000 years ago.

Yes, there is climate change.  It’s been changing since there was a climate!  I admit, we likely are contributing slightly to that change - but buying a Prius, or planting some trees or even killing off all of humanity won’t stop what’s eventually coming to Earth!  We’re in for a Red Giant sun, that will boil all water off our planet in less than a billion years.  There’s no stopping that.  It’s coming. Global Warming for sure, and there’s nothing we can do to save ourselves, short of figuring out how to eventually get off this rock.

Please, use some critical thinking skills, realize that nothing is free, and know that every choice you make has alternative cost.  One day, after melting the Earth, our sun won’t shine any longer.  For now, there IS a place the “sun don’t shine” and that’s where you can stick your propaganda!

Posted in Misc. Stuff, Politics and Economics, Astronomy, Weather | No Comments »

April 1 2012 by Darrin.

With company here, we’ve been touring around the ranch recently.  While looking around Mom’s favorite “Red Rocks” Saturday, (supposedly the site of an old Fort Fetterman hay meadow and battle), I stumbled onto this old piece of 30-30 rifle brass…

It looks to be a protected-primer pre-1920 example, tho’ there’s no telling when it was actually fired.  If only it could talk! (Many thanks to “30wcf” on the Marlin Firearms Forum for help identifying this piece.)

Also of interest, Mike found what could be a cool old scraper.  There’s recent native American stuff around here, and also prehistoric stuff…

Posted in Misc. Stuff, Local Trips, Scenery | No Comments »

March 7 2012 by Darrin.

On the way by the couch this morning to refill the coffee cup, I saw Charlis-Dog dreaming away in his spot.  How can you not love this?  (bad breath and all…)  So peaceful.  When I die, I hope things are this peaceful.  Too bad I can’t figure it out while alive!  Too much to do.

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February 29 2012 by Darrin.

I saved this forecast the other night and didn’t know what to do with it, so I’m sticking it here…

Partly cloudy in the morning, then clear with a chance of snow. High of 46F. Winds from the WSW at 20-30 mph with gusts to 55 mph. Chance of snow 20%.

Sure enough, it was clear and snowing.  Never saw ‘em predict that before, but they got it right.  The meteorologist must be from Wyoming.

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February 25 2012 by Darrin.

I stepped outside last night and was really moved by what I saw: the Moon, Venus, and Jupiter (the three brightest objects, bottom to top) all sorta lined up.  As mawkish as it may be, it’s a view like this that really makes you “feel” the orbit we’re on as we spin around the Sun together through space…

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November 2 2011 by Darrin.

 ’Tis the season!  Our first Winter Storm Warning resulted in about 6″ of snow on the level yesterday, November 1, 2011.  It’s 25º this morning - pretty mild for how it looks… 

With the woodstove stoked and the house toasty, Charlis-dog has “assumed the position” for the next five months…

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