TEXASCBX

2012-02-01T16:08:00.001-06:00

2012-01-29T08:04:00.001-06:00

2012-01-27T07:44:00.001-06:00

SLT-A77 Sony images

2012-01-15T08:50:00.000-06:00

Caracara and other things taken with Sony SLT-A77

2012-01-14T07:46:00.000-06:00

Some images from my Sony SLT-A77

2012-01-12T12:06:00.001-06:00

Some were taken with Tamron 18-250 and a few with Tamron 200-500.

Boston PD admits arrest for cell phone recording was a mistake

2012-01-11T09:32:00.000-06:00

Boston PD admits arrest for cell phone recording was a mistake

SLT-A77 and my new Tamron 200-500

2012-01-11T01:04:00.000-06:00

Just got a new Tamron 200-500 lens to go along with my A77. So far, I have not had time to use it much. It's pretty heavy since I'm so used to the 18-250 Tamron on the A77 so it's a lens for shooting things a long way off in fairly good light. I noticed it's not as sharp as I would like it to be and I nearly always shoot in aperture priority mode so it probably needs to be micro adjusted.

Happy New Year

2011-12-30T18:13:00.001-06:00

Happy New Year everyone!

2011-12-25T19:01:00.001-06:00

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T07:18:00.001-06:00

Merry Christmas to everyone!

2011-12-23T14:58:00.001-06:00

Gary Moore, hard to believe he has been gone for a while

2011-12-20T09:04:00.002-06:00

2011-12-07T16:52:00.001-06:00

2011-12-05T11:20:00.001-06:00

The real reason your Amazon package was late.

2011-12-03T08:27:00.002-06:00

Suicide Story Part two

2011-12-02T21:15:00.000-06:00

So the man had shot himself dead by placing the stock of the gun against the floor and putting the barrel against his abdomen and then pulling the trigger. The bad part of it was he had done it right before his boy had got on the school bus to go to school. I guess he wanted the kid to find him, I don't know.

The man had been a tank commander in Viet Nam and accidentally run over one of his own men, according to his wife. He had a total mental breakdown and was on disability since his nerves were completely shot. He truly was one of the most nervous persons I had ever encountered. His memory was poor and he was unable to keep a job because he was just so screwed up from that episode in VN.

After he died and had been buried, his wife came over one day and offered to give me his pickup. She said she did not want it because it reminded her of him. It was an old Chevy and was probably around a 75 model. It had spent a lot of it's life on the coast and the whole body was rusted out around the bottom so it looked awful, but still ran. I needed a vehicle, but declined. I told her I would sell it for her if she wanted and she agreed. I sold the thing for about three hundred bucks and gave her all the money. I figured she could use it.

Later I found out the reason he had killed himself was she was leaving him for a woman. I guess that was the straw that broke the camel's back. That's one sad story. I'm telling as I saw it and I can confirm she did move off to Oklahoma with this woman she had met at the nursing school she was going to in Seymour.

I'll never forget the guy laying on the floor with a big red mess where his stomach was, his eyes wide open and all the color gone from his face. Since I had climbed into the window as he was blocking the door with his body, I'll never forget that boy asking me from the other side of the door if he was OK.

SLT-A77 images

2011-12-02T16:03:00.002-06:00

Ultimate chicken killer

2011-11-30T19:23:00.002-06:00

I'm going to have to get this guy. He killed three of my fowl in the last month or so.

Suicide story

2011-11-30T15:06:00.000-06:00

Reading another blog I frequent a lot, Hobbs Holler, was some story about suicide.

Back around 1987, my wife and I still lived in the little town of Seymour Texas. I worked for the city back then as a lineman. Every morning I would get up around 6:30 AM and drink coffee and get woke up for work around 8:00 AM.

One morning around 7:30 AM I heard a thump and figured it was a car door or something. I got up to look out the front door and there was no one there. Went back to the kitchen table and about five minutes passed. I heard a knock on the front door. Got up answered the door and it was my next door neighbor's boy. He was around 10 years old I reckon and he was a shy kid. He wanted me to come see about his father. He said he had fallen down in his bedroom and his head was against the door and the kid could not open the door and was afraid he was hurt.

I rushed over to his house and sure enough, something was against that door where you could not open it. I went outside and looked in the window and I could see his dad's feet, but that's all since the bed was in the way of my view. Tried to open the window and it would not budge. I ran back to my house and got a hammer and quickly pried the old wooden window open. I then climbed in the window.

The man had shot himself in the stomach. There was a barrel of a shotgun laying beside him and the stock had broken off and was laying across the room. He had a big wet. bloody spot on his abdomen where the blast had gone. I assume he had leaned over with the shotgun against the floor and the blast had broken the gun in two.

Well the guy was dead pretty much. I pulled him away from the door and called 911 for him and then called my boss who lived on the same block and asked him to hurry over because he knew CPR. So from the time I heard the thump till the time I actually got into the room with this guy was a good ten minutes.

The ambulance arrived at the same time my boss did and they loaded him up. A cop there said the guy was gone when he pulled the trigger. The rest of the story in the next installment later.

Some new images with 1.04 firmware on the Sony A77

2011-11-30T07:29:00.002-06:00

Just some more boring farm pictures.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-25T09:28:00.001-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving and have a great holiday!.

A77 images

2011-11-21T00:03:00.002-06:00

2011-11-10T06:58:00.001-06:00

First shots

2011-10-27T09:03:00.000-05:00

Some shots with my new cam. Nothing special, just trying it out. Have to get used to the buttons since they moved them around and the cam is a little bigger and heavier.

New cam

2011-10-23T20:45:00.001-05:00

My new Sony SLT-A65 cam should be here tomorrow so I will be posting some shots here like I used to. For those that don't know, my main website is

www.razzledazzleart.com

and I posted some new images I took at the Boo Benefit recently.

So True

2011-10-12T20:49:00.001-05:00

conclusion of the coyote

2011-10-10T18:50:00.000-05:00

So I have the little round circle on the coyote's neck and know I need to shoot quickly or he will see me so I pull the trigger hard. The Savage kicks and lets out a loud blast that makes me close my eyes for a split second and I see the coyote running to the fence on the east side of the property as fast as his legs will carry him. Missed him. Dejected now, I gather my stuff and walk back to the house. Judy is standing at the back door and says "I see you missed him. I can't believe we spend all that money on a gun and you can't hit it." I hang my head low and sit down to watch the news and Judy heads off to work. About ten AM, I decide to walk out and see if there is any blood where I shot at him and after looking around for a few minutes, I find him, right where I shot him.

Apparently the other coyote was right behind him when I shot and the bullet killed the first coyote cold and he dropped dead. The coyote I saw running off was the other one. The bullet went right into his lower neck and, breaking his shoulder blades. I've read the speed of the 22-250 bullet can kill just from the hydro-shock, which will stop the heart.

Coyote part three

2011-10-07T12:55:00.000-05:00

So to continue, I had a gun I could hit a fairly small target a pretty good ways off and now I needed the coyote to come out so I could shoot him. All that practicing and shooting to get the scope sighted in must have scared them all off because I would watch everyday as the sun would set and just about the time it would get so dark, all you could see was their silhouette, they would run across the back pasture.

You really can't track a coyote with a scope when it's nearly dark so I had to get them when they were not expecting it. So for about a week, I got up before sunlight and would hide in the horse stall and watch for them to cross my pasture on their way back to their dens. Sure as the world, one morning I'm looking through the binoculars and here comes two of them along the fence. The fence is rusted quite a bit, but is mostly white and they like to run along it for some reason or I probably would never see them.

Both of them stopped and one ducked under the fence and started heading right for me. I guess he was not paying attention as I stepped out of the dark horse stall and put my rifle up on the metal fence and aimed. Now I was out in the open and the only thing I can figure is with me being behind the fence, he just did not notice me. I put the scope's round middle circle right on his neck and fired.

The conclusion of the story next time.

Coyote part two.

2011-10-06T19:49:00.000-05:00

So to continue the story of my first bitter encounters with the coyote, I'll try to keep it a little shorter. My wife and I get in the Prius and drive to the new Cabela's in Allen. It's about an hour and fifteen minutes or so up there.

My neighbor is a hunter and suggested I get a 22-250 or a 223 to reach the extreme distance to the back pasture where I see the coyotes occasionally so after doing some research, I decide I want a Savage 22-250 with the stainless barrel. I read the 22-250 is a real hot round and will ruin a barrel fairly quickly if you let it get too hot shooting. So the fluted stainless barrel is a little longer lasting.

The gun has a synthetic stock and no sights since it's intended to mount a scope and shoot at things a long way off. So I buy the biggest Nikon scope, specifically made for coyotes too. Then of course you need bullets which are around 24 bucks for 20 bullets, a sling so I can carry the heavy gun over my shoulder and a good cleaning kit.

Cabela's bore sighted the scope for me and after buying a few other odds and ends, we left for home. The next day my friend helped me sight in the scope. Getting it sighted in took nearly two boxes of shells. So I could hit a target about as big as a gallon milk jug at three hundred yards after some practice.

Coyotes are smart and are really more of a night hunter so that's where the fun began and I will relate that in part three of the story.

Coyotes

2011-09-28T17:08:00.000-05:00

I thought maybe I should write something since I've been neglecting my blog something terrible lately. I got into a conversation about coyotes and so that is the subject. Coyotes can evoke strong reactions from some people, I suppose according to what ever dealings they have had with the canine creatures.

I got along fine with them my whole life. Generally I would see one running across the road or just standing looking at me from a field and never really hated them. But some people hate them intensely and refer to them as vermin and lowest of the low.

When my wife and I bought our little ranch, I could see them running across the back pasture and sometimes they would hang around back there for a while and I would watch them. Then we bought some chickens and ducks.

When the chickens had matured, I noticed one day the big pretty rooster was gone. Then the very next day, the biggest hen, gone. That's when I figured our relationship with the coyotes would never be the same. It's a weird feeling that is hard to describe. I felt like there were monsters or some kind of vampire running around lose in my backyard, just waiting for me to turn my back so it could murder another chicken. So I determined to get a rifle and put a stop to it.

I usually don't get in any hurry to make a big decision like buying an expensive rifle and so inevitably, a few days later my wife and I came home from eating out and found the coyote inside the pipe fence of my back yard in the process of killing as many chickens as he could. Two chickens were laying dead with feathers scattered about and one duck was just dead. He had been sunning himself with his head down asleep and the coyote had just killed him while he slept I suppose.

That day Judy and I went to Cabela's and I will continue the story in the next installment.

2011-09-24T23:00:00.001-05:00

back from Key West

2011-09-19T14:13:00.000-05:00

My wife and I went to Key West for a few days last week. My daughter got married on the beach down there in Martguerita land and we drove the Prius down since it gets 48 MPG and that makes it cheaper than flying. 1500 miles though so it took two days to get there and two to get back. We went to the wedding and we went deep sea fishing too so it was a pretty nice getaway.

2011-09-07T07:43:00.001-05:00

Jonny Quest Opening Titles from Roger D. Evans on Vimeo.

nice weather

2011-09-06T18:46:00.001-05:00

Wow, some nice cool weather today. I think it's about eighty or so out there. Perfect motorcycle riding weather. Getting ready to go to my daughter's wedding. That should be fun, I hope.

2011-09-04T10:28:00.000-05:00

Wow, the weather is finally going to break and turn out cooler here. So glad to see some nice weather! I'm sure it will bring out the coyotes too so I have to be careful to watch all my chickens as they run around the place. Shotgun is by the door so I don't have to run and get it out of the gun rack.

Visitors

2011-08-28T19:09:00.002-05:00

Not a lot of people come here to read my little blog. I'm a terrible writer and when in doubt, I write about the weather. Also I don't update it daily. But on the right side is a little link that takes you to the location of visitors that come here and it's the most interesting part of blogging.

Sunday, August 28 @ 5:54 : Grand Rapids, Michigan, US
Sunday, August 28 @ 12:54 : Mountain View, California, US
Sunday, August 28 @ 6:29 : Spirano, IT
Saturday, August 27 @ 10:32 : Dallas, Texas, US
Saturday, August 27 @ 9:59 : Málaga, ES
Friday, August 26 @ 10:12 : Manila, PH
Friday, August 26 @ 1:48 : Estillac, FR
Friday, August 26 @ 12:17 : Chaam, NL
Friday, August 26 @ 6:16 : Verwoerdburg, ZA
Friday, August 26 @ 1:32 : Dallas, Texas, US

2011-08-27T22:32:00.001-05:00

Google Music

2011-08-27T21:56:00.000-05:00

I got an invite a good while ago for the streaming service from Google. You have to upload your music to their servers and then you can stream your own music to I think it is eight devices. They have got the streaming bit down as it just hardly ever has to buffer, except right at the very beginning.

So I'm pretty impressed with it. I uploaded all my music, which took a good long while and can now play it in a browser anywhere where I can get an internet connection. Way cool!

I have 50 invites too if you want one and you need a Gmail address to use it.

Summer never ends around here

2011-08-27T21:51:00.000-05:00

I was born and raised in Texas and the little town I was raised in holds the record for the hottest temp recorded in the state, I believe it to be 120F. Today here in Edgewood it got up to 105F. I've just never seen it this hot, for this long, with no break to speak of.

Too hot to do much outside, except in the early morning or after the sun goes down. It's like 92 at 11PM. Incredible. I hope this is not global warming and just a really hot, record breaking heat spell.

Dog mourns at casket of fallen Navy SEAL

2011-08-25T13:55:00.000-05:00

Dog mourns at casket of fallen Navy SEAL

Rain

2011-08-25T08:23:00.000-05:00

Finally got some rain Wednesday afternoon. I figure about a quarter of an inch fell in the hour or so it stormed outside. The wind blew and the temp dropped from around 100 to about 72 or so. Wow, I had forgotten how nice it is to watch the rain falling.

2011-08-22T06:28:00.000-05:00

Judy has been off all week and we have been busy on the farm. Have seven baby ducks just hatched and they are off to a new home today. Got the garden plowed pretty good, but it's too dry and with water restrictions in place, going to be impossible to plant anything. Last rain was in May and it was less than a tenth of an inch so my water ponds are just about dry.

Rain

2011-08-14T12:36:00.000-05:00

Judy called my Saturday morning on her way to work in Corsicana. She said it was pouring rain in Canton, which is about seven miles from here. It rained here too. But not enough to get the sidewalk wet.

heat and hawks

2011-08-12T08:24:00.000-05:00

It seems that Thursday, we caught a break from the oppressive heat. It only got up to 99 and you could see clouds north of here and distant thunder too.

As I watch outside a lot for coyotes trying to take a chicken, I see lots of other creatures. About 8:30 AM, I saw this huge bird land behind the barn. I guess he was going to ambush a chicken. Got the binoculars and sure enough, it was the biggest hawk I've ever seen. Just then another came swooping down and landed on the fence about 200 yards or so away. Grabbed my shotgun and went out in the back yard and the one on the ground took off and landed on the fence with the other and they just sat there. A blast from my shotgun made them lose interest in my chickens, at least for the time being.

heat 2.0

2011-08-08T09:57:00.000-05:00

Watching the news in the morning and they were talking about home foundations cracking from the drought and heat. The lady on the news said to look around your foundation and see if the dirt against it was separated or you could see between your foundation and the earth. Well I inspected ours and it was the way she described it so I've been watering all around ours. I guess the idea is the water swells the ground up again so it is supporting the concrete again. Not really worried about the water bill so much as a cracked foundation.

Our pasture grass is still green. I guess the fertilizer must be keeping it alive, but it's no longer the pretty deep green, but a sickly pale green so I figure it will all die soon.

Cool video watch it 1080p

2011-08-05T07:16:00.001-05:00

2011-08-02T19:00:00.000-05:00

110 today. It's just like walking in a furnace out there. We have relatively high humidity here in east Texas so it feels like around 120.

Coyotes, again

2011-07-30T18:14:00.000-05:00

Yesterday afternoon, I was standing in the back yard taking some pictures of the sun as it was going down and a huge thunderstorm was nearby so I was really paying attention to getting the composition interesting when I heard the chickens squawking and really fussing. I turned around to see a coyote in hot pursuit of a couple of chickens behind the barn about 250 feet away. Since I only had my camera and no gun I yelled Hey as loud as I could and it stopped in it's tracks and just looked at me. I ran into the house and grabbed my shotgun which was all the way in the living room on the gun rack.

Grabbed a handful of shells and ran our the back door and the coyote was standing about three hundred feet away and I let him have it three times as he ran away. I know I had to hit him, but at that range, I figure it would be an unpleasant, but hardly deadly shower of shot.

So today all of my guns are by the door with ammo ready. Went out this morning with the shotgun and shot a cardboard box at the same range just to make sure I was not shooting over his head.

Got Cindy's calf halter on

2011-07-28T19:12:00.001-05:00

My wife seems to think it would be cool to lead around a 1500 pound longhorn so a couple of months ago, Terry and his boys came over and helped me put a goat lead on Cindy. Now Cindy is about 350 going on 400 pounds now and can lead you around and hurt you real easy. After about thirty minutes, we finally go it on her and she has been dragging that cursed rope around for two months now.

So I got an official halter for a calf and cow. Now after two months, I would say she is in the 400 pound class now so rather than kill myself, I tricked her into a stall and after letting her calm down and feeding her treats for a half hour, finally go the cow halter on her. It was around ten in the morning by the time I finished and it was around 95 degrees or so and I was soaking wet from sweating and also thankful that she did not trample me or drag me around like I was in a cartoon.

Not sure what good it will do since she can still drag a normal human being around like a rag doll, but at least my wife will be happy.

2011-07-25T10:04:00.000-05:00

Got my new John Deere tractor yesterday and Judy cooked some halibut for her brother and his wife yesterday.

2011-07-22T21:19:00.000-05:00

Judy and I rode our bikes all the way to Terrel Thursday morning. We ate at IHOP and rode back home before it got unbearably hot.

Road trip

2011-07-19T08:56:00.000-05:00

Judy was off yesterday and after talking to a guy in Austin about some paperwork they just can't seem to get right, we wound up driving down there to get it straight. So it was just a long day sitting in the car since it's about 230 miles down there. The place closed at 4PM so we had to hurry since we left at 11AM. It worked out OK though.

Heat and drought, like a broken record

2011-07-17T19:32:00.000-05:00

Still sweltering here in east Texas. Temp of 102 F here today which is just incredibly hot when you factor in the humidity which is usually around 30 to 40 percent. Every day there are little showers that pop up around us, but they never come here to my little ranch. All my yard grass is dead and now some of the pasture grass is leaving us. I hope it rains soon so my two tanks don't go dry.

Tony

2011-07-17T11:45:00.000-05:00

Just heard about Tony Rainwater in the Hospital. Here is hoping he gets out soon. Heard
he was a little better on FB.

RIP Rick

2011-07-16T07:39:00.001-05:00

Rick Meaders passed away after a long battle with cancer. He was one of the nicest guys I ever met.

RIP Rick.

Spotify and Google+

2011-07-14T22:24:00.002-05:00

Got invites for Google+ and Spotify. Pretty cool apps. The Google+ is hard to understand how it all works, but Spotify is pretty simple and has 15 million songs to stream. Interested people should Google search for Spotify Amanda invites. It would seem Amanda has an inside track to Spotify which is invitation only for now, I guess to build up the hype. If you need a Google+ invite, I have some.

2011-07-13T17:33:00.001-05:00

Heat

2011-07-13T08:54:00.002-05:00

Not posting much lately. The drought and heat are very bad here in east Texas. Nothing like hitting 102 F here in this part of Texas where the humidity hovers around 40 percent. That generally equates to a feel like temp of 115 or so. Been watering my five cypress trees daily since the tanks they were planted by are getting lower and lower. The trees were planted back in April and were planted either in the water or close to the water. Now the ones that were in the water are now at least fifteen or so feet out of any moisture so they all started dying in this wilting heat.

I went to WM and got five 5 gallon buckets and punched a small hole in each one of them near the bottom. I fill them up every day and the small hole leaks out the water slowly so it can soak in better. Seems to be working as they are all looking better. When I bought them, the man told me that they needed five gallons of water a day to survive. I would never have bought them if I knew we were in for this miserable heat wave and drought.

The gentleman that leases my pasture for hay called me Monday and told me to let my cows out on it so it does not go to waste. He said there is not enough to cut and make any money. I bought eight bales of hay the other day so I have a little if all the grass dies.

Took Judy's bike to the HD dealership last week and it's still there. Needed a tuneup and service and had a pretty bad oil leak. Turns out it was some kind of breather that went south so they did not have to pull the engine so it's a little cheaper. That is some good news. Too hot to ride anyway.

RIP Thomas

2011-06-25T18:16:00.004-05:00

2011-06-20T22:47:00.001-05:00

drought, heat, and Father's day. And Daisy too.

2011-06-20T19:04:00.001-05:00

Pretty dry here in big old Edgewood Texas. All the hay that was cut in the last month, what little bit there was, was sold before it was even cut. Most of my grass is dying and the man that leases my pasture sprayed for weeds and grasshoppers last week. He said he thinks it's going to rain. One tank is nearly dry and the other bigger one is the lowest I've ever seen it. Have to go out every day and water the five cypress trees I planted back in April since they are so far out of the water now, they are dying. Have to water Judy's garden every day too or everything in it would be dead from the heat. It's about 100 here today, but the last several days I've seen the temp get up to 105 and with the 45% humidity here in east Texas, it's murder out there. Even in the morning it's hot and muggy.

Took Daisy into Champion Genetics in Canton to get her bred today. She sure did not have any intention of going in my trailer. After an hour of trying, Terry finally got the cattle prod and she jumped right in. Cindy, her baby, is very unhappy about her mother being gone.

Father's Day was Monday and it is just not that important to me since my dad passed away in 2002. Still miss him and many times when I'm confronted with a problem, I think about what my father would do and that gives me the answer I need.

2011-06-19T21:40:00.001-05:00

2011-06-12T06:45:00.001-05:00

Election

2011-05-27T20:42:00.002-05:00

Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin. I hope those two looney tunes run for president since they will cancel each other out.

2011-05-20T08:33:00.001-05:00

coyote

2011-05-19T07:18:00.001-05:00

Here I am again, waiting.

2011-05-08T12:39:00.001-05:00

Happy Mothers Day.

2011-05-01T16:30:00.001-05:00

2011-05-01T08:08:00.001-05:00

2011-04-26T22:43:00.001-05:00

Wyman Meinzer's West Texas from Wyman Meinzer on Vimeo.

2011-04-26T06:48:00.001-05:00

2011-04-18T12:08:00.001-05:00

2011-04-15T08:48:00.001-05:00

2011-04-12T19:51:00.001-05:00

2011-04-12T18:34:00.001-05:00

2011-03-29T18:42:00.001-05:00

2011-03-19T11:24:00.001-05:00

Molly

2011-03-19T08:24:00.001-05:00

2011-03-15T20:36:00.001-05:00

2011-03-13T17:22:00.001-05:00

2011-02-28T17:26:00.001-06:00

2011-02-21T18:34:00.001-06:00

RIP Gary.

2011-02-12T10:18:00.001-06:00

2011-02-11T16:03:00.001-06:00

2011-02-06T12:34:00.001-06:00

COLD

2011-02-03T18:54:00.001-06:00

Very cold here. Brrrr.

The Dance

2011-01-29T12:11:00.001-06:00

2011-01-28T09:48:00.001-06:00

2011-01-27T16:14:00.001-06:00

2011-01-26T21:52:00.001-06:00

2011-01-19T17:33:00.001-06:00

2011-01-14T13:43:00.001-06:00

2011-01-14T13:39:00.001-06:00

2011-01-13T16:32:00.002-06:00

2011-01-12T12:12:00.001-06:00

2011-01-11T21:05:00.001-06:00

2011-01-10T11:52:00.001-06:00

Judy is off this week

2011-01-06T10:20:00.002-06:00

My wife is off this weeks so we are doing honey do chores!

Crested Caracara or Mexican eagle.

2011-01-01T20:35:00.000-06:00

Known as the Mexican eagle, it's really part of the falcon family. More a scavenger than killer and spends a lot of time on the ground from my observations. Never lets me get closer than three hundred feet before taking off. I would say it's bigger than a hawk, but smaller than a black vulture. Probably responsible for the loss of some of my chickens too.