How about that, I finally came up with something...

According the the title of this blog, I was going to eventually come up with something. And I think I finally did... it's just not here. In an effort to simplify my life where I can, and consolidate some things, I have decided to put this blog in sleep mode. I post so infrequently on this one anyway, it just makes sense to put it on the shelf for a while, I think. I'm not going to kill it like I did with my last one (Lunchtime With Thud Munson) because there are things on this blog that I would like to keep; but as far as posting anything, after today I will be moving all of my blog activity (such as it is) to my pottery site, HERE
Thank you for following my blog, and I hope you will continue to look in on me from time to time.

Oh sure, it looks pretty...

We got our first real taste of winter weather overnight... a heavy dusting of snow, over a glaze of ice; and the temperature this morning is in the mid 20s. Lovely... I guess now is as good a time as any to state, without reservation, I HATE WINTER. Ok... got that out of the way. For the most part, the drivers on my way to work this morning were being appropriately cautious, but there were a few spin-outs and fender-benders along 65; nothing that looked too serious, thankfully. It's supposed to clear off this afternoon.
photo by Sue White

A West Plains icon...

Our band played in Mountain Grove last night, and so Pam & I went down early and spent a good part of the day in our home town of West Plains. We put flowers on the family graves... my mother and father, and Papaw and Mamaw Thompson, and Pam's mother & father and Aunt Bertha. Then we took a drive through good ol' WP and ended up at one of our favorite fast food joints in town, Taco Hut! It was Sancho time! That place has been a part of our lives since high school. And that has been a looooong time (ha). It has been in the same location for at least 38 years. Taco Hut was one of the early fast food places to open up in the Parkway Shopping Center, along with Pizza Hut, when WalMart came to town back in the early 70s.
Even though it had been several years since we had been in there, nothing much had changed. And that made me smile just a little bit. We walked up to the counter and ordered two Sanchos each, knowing that it would likely be a while before we got our fix again. While we were waiting for our order, the cashier casually mentioned how busy it had been lately, because of the news. News?... what news? Well... "next Saturday will be our last day". What?! Yup. They are closing the West Plains Taco Hut. Dang. Now, some would probably say that it was long overdue, but in its defense, that place has a certain "well-worn" charm about it. And pretty tasty food. And clearly there are still people out there (like me) who appreaciate that.
As far as I know, the Taco Hut in West Plains, Missouri is the last one on planet earth. There were several scattered around the mid-west back in the day; Springfield had at least two. The last hold-outs were located in WP and Joplin, and sadly, the one in Joplin was destroyed in the horrible tornado that swept through their town this past Spring. So our last Sanchos were good. Before we left we ordered a couple more to go, and as we were leaving I had Pam take my picture out front, for posterity (ha). Hmmmm all that fuss over an old fast food place. Well... yes.

Happy Birthday Mom...

Today is my mother's birthday. She would have been 84. Happy birthday mom. We miss you.

Amen

“This country does in fact have a serious deficit problem. But the reality is that the deficit was caused by two wars – unpaid for. It was caused by huge tax breaks for the wealthiest people in this country. It was caused by a recession as a result of the greed, recklessness and illegal behavior on Wall Street. And if those are the causes of the deficit, I will be damned if we’re going to balance the budget on the backs of the elderly, the sick, the children, and the poor. That’s wrong.”

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) Senate Budget Committee, 11-18-2011

What ever you do...

What ever you do... don't tell Gabriel to get off of the recliner. I'm thinking that if I get on his bad side, he's liable to turn me into a pile of ashes (ha). Hmmm. Yikes.

I was thumbing through some pictures I had loaded onto our computer earlier this year, and came across this shot of Gabriel. Whoa...

I haven't done a thing to it. This is the way it came out of the camera. Kinda funny... kinda creepy ;) Well, in his defense, he is one of the sweetest devil dogs you'll ever find.

bunnies

Bunnies. The red Halloween critter was lurking close by, and I figured I could shoo it off with some pictures of soft, fluffy rabbits (ha). I think it worked.
This evening the critter will probably scuttle off to the swamp from which it came. More than likely it will crawl out of the slime next Halloween and come for a visit, but until then... bunnies. They have nothing to do with the holidays coming up, but I thought it would be a nice transition. I don't know... it's Wednesday. That seems to be a good enough reason for me. Peace be with you.

I found it in the swamp...

I found it out in the swamp, mommy... it followed me home. Can we keep it?!

Gee, I don't know Billy... it's awfully big. What would we feed it? The poor thing looks hungryaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhaaaaaaaa OH MY Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!

Missouri Department of Conservation Special Alert

Informative and educational site from the Missouri Department of Conservation. http://mdc.mo.gov/zombies

Halloween draws near....

Funny.....

Hey buddy... can you spare a jalapeno?

With the forecast of upper 20s coming this week, I figured it was time to bring in what was left of our garden, so after work this afternoon, I got to it. We already picked about half this many jalapenos a couple of weeks ago, and about the same amount of banana peppers. But this last load from today was a bumper crop. I think this is the most jalapenos we've ever had at one time. And they are HOT. Very tasty and hot. There's about 4 inches of peppers in that bucket I'm holding. Pam just looked at it and shook her head. Hmmmmmm... what to do. Freeze 'em. Which seems funny, considering that's why we decided to pick them all... freezing temps. I also picked quite a few green tomatoes, which will be placed in a paper bag and allowed to ripen. We've done this before, and have enjoyed tomatoes from our garden well into November. It's not quite the same, but they are still pretty good. This was a bad year for tomatoes, though. Our plants grew like crazy, but didn't produce much of anything worth talking about. I'll be clearing out the garden here in the next day or so... doing some major composting and closing it down for the year. I guess our long, wonderful summer is behind us. (sigh....)

It's that time of year....

It's already October 5th and I am just now getting serious about what I want to do for Halloween! For me, that is very unusual. Normally I start planning my Halloween projects by mid-summer, but this has been a very cluttered and busy summer and fall. And it doesn't look like things will settle down anytime soon. C'est la vie. We all seem to have that never ending to-do list. At any rate, my plans for Halloween involve spiders. Big ones... little ones... and their hapless victims. I don't think the bug spray we've been using around the house is going to work this time. Yikes!

LOST

While cruising around on Facebook this evening I came across a "fan page" for the TV show LOST. I was looking at the pictures and thought to myself... dang, I really miss this show. I borrowed a few pictures from the fan page. Even though it was time for it to end, it still ended too soon. "We have to go back, Kate... we have to go back!" ;) Well, OK. Maybe not.

150th anniversary of the battle at Wilson's Creek

I had a very interesting and enjoyable afternoon at the Wilson's Creek battle re-enactment.

That can't be right....

I do believe that our long stretch of hot days has finally been broken. According to the National Weather Service site, it's 68 degrees out there... at noon! I may need to dig out my coat soon! It hasn't been that cool in the middle of the day in close to three months. And certainly in the past few weeks it has more likely been closer to the mid and upper 90s. This is a nice break from the heat; and the rain we've been getting these last few days has really helped. It's humid, but that's OK. I even went for a walk down by the Finley during my lunch hour. I haven't been able to do that for most of June and all of July... unless I wanted to come back to the office soaked. Very nice. As much as I love summer, I think everyone was ready for a break. Hopefully Texas and Oklahoma & Kansas will get some cooling their way soon, also. Even with all of the 100 degree days we've seen lately, compared to them... we've had it kinda easy.

I just checked the weather for Dallas, and it's 99 right now, with highs at or above 100 degrees forecast for the rest of the week. Dang.

Now that's a moth!

I was out in the garage yesterday and found this large, attractive moth resting on the window blinds. According to my handy NWF Field Guide to Insect and Spiders of North America, this is a male Polyphemus Moth. It must be a young one, because it says they can have a wingspan up to 6". After I took these pictures, I let it go and it wasted no time getting as far away from me as possible, high in a nearby tree. In its little moth brain, I'm pretty sure it thought I was going to eat it at any moment. And I almost did. It looked delicious! Yum.

I caught a Imperial Moth several years ago that was about this same size, and it was a brute! It was all I could do to hold on to it... a very powerful critter.

I hope he likes Classic Rock

Our dog Gabriel doesn't like certain noises. Thunder, trains in the distance, fireworks, etc. And I'm sure it doesn't help that he recently lost his life-long buddy, Zeke. The world he has known for the last 10 years has changed forever. And though his doggie life seems to have settled down into a routine once again, things just aren't quite the same anymore... for all of us.
Thunderstorms came rolling into southwest Missouri last night as we were getting ready for bed. All of them were far from Springfield at the time, and we could barely hear the thunder from them. But Gabriel certainly could. And he didn't like it. The barking started, and I scolded him from the top of the stairs and told him to go to bed. It seemed to work... for a while.

approximately 11:10pm
Bark bark bark bark bark bark bark barkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbark....
I get out of bed, go downstairs, open the door and say in a stern voice "Gabriel, NO! Go to bed" So he slinks into his doghouse in the garage and I'm thinking
Hmmmmm... seems to have worked. He stopped. Wonderful. Now maybe I can get back to sleep.

11:35pm
barkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbark... Oh good grief!...
Get out of bed, go downstairs, open the door and say "Gabriel, NO! Go to bed" then I shoo him into the garage and shut the door after saying good night (and please be quiet!) That should do the trick.

11:48pm
barkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbark....
Get out of bed, go downstairs, go out to the garage and scold Gabriel briskly "that's enough! Go to bed. He slinks back into the doghouse and I grumble as I slam the garage door.

12:05am
bark... bark... bark... bark... barkbarkbarkbarkbark
In a huff I gingerly storm down the stairs in the dark again, and swing open the garage door and let the dog know, in no uncertain terms that he is going to "SHUT UP! and go to bed!" Nope, not gonna happen. OK, now what? As I'm looking at him with bewildered wonder, it became apparent that the poor guy was just beside himself. Regardless of anything I might feel about the situation. We needed a new plan. This was not working. Short of just letting him in the house, only to have him want to go outside 20 minutes later, I started to ponder the situation. Then it dawned on me. He needs something to distract him... something to break up the rumbling outside that has him so worked up. So I plugged in the radio and turned it on low. I gave him a pat on the head and said good night and closed the garage door. As I climbed into bed at around 12:15 I said to Pam... "I hope he likes classic rock". Not another bark came from that boy the rest of the night, and we finally fell off to sleep as a gentle rain set in.

Duke

From beginning to end, this is about as close as you can get to Genesis perfection. What a great album.

Happy Father's Day dad

Patricia with her grandpa Thompson... my dad, Harold Leonard. He's been gone more than 20 years.

Zeke... goodbye baby.

"Not the least hard thing to bear when they go from us, these quiet friends, is that they carry away with them so many years of our lives. Yet, if they find warmth therein, who would begrudge them those years that they have so guarded? And whatever they take, be sure they have deserved." John Galsworthy

"Remember dad... he lived the doggie dream." Patricia Thompson Winters

"I do wish I could have hugged that big ol' neck one more time, though. Sweet boy." Patricia Thompson Winters

Gabriel and Zeke out in the back yard, enjoying the nice weather. Spring 2011

Zeke, in the fall of 2010. It appears that he was reflecting on a life well lived. But more than likely, he was probably thinking "I'm hungry. You know... if they really loved me, they would bring my supper to me out here, so I wouldn't have to get up and go all the way to the garage".

Zeke... Spring 1998. As Patricia used to say, what a handsome boy you are!

March, 1999. Playing in the early Spring snow out in the front yard.

Gabriel, Zeke and Pam. March 22, 2008. Zeke had had some minor surgery just a couple of days before... that's why he was wearing the t-shirt. He liked it.

Summer, 2000

we will miss you always.

Join In For Joplin

This evening, our band Sock Monkey will take part in a benefit event sponsored by Bass ProShops and KY3, to raise funds for the recovery effort in Joplin. On Sunday, May 22nd a EF5 tornado ripped through that city, killing over 130 people and destroying or damaging some 8000 homes and other structures.

This event is located at the Bass ProShops complex in Springfield, and is shaping up to be spectacular! Several local bands (including Sock Monkey!) will be performing throughout the day. They have managed to get a number of well-known Nascar drivers to stop by and help out, as well. As the evening settles in, several big name country performers, including Jo Dee Messina, John Anderson and Tracy Lawrence are set to hit the stage, starting at 7:00!

We will be playing for about an hour and a half, starting at 5:00pm. We are excited and honored to be a part of this important benefit.