I GIVE UP

This heart shit is getting old. I've just about come to the point of saying to hell with the frigging doctors and just let what happens happen I'm tired of all of it.
 I go to the hospital thinking I'm gonna get another stint and all will be well again, HELL NO I don't get another stint, my system is different than most peoples, my body has to do weird shit to get everybody excited but me. I'm laying on the operating table with my heart Doc showing me my artery's and where the last 2 stints were put in last year and how nice they were doing,he says to me ,"see how nice the blood is flowing through here" and I say why yes that sure is nice. He then points out this other artery and tells me this is the one I told you was 40% clogged but as you can see its flowing real good through that blockage and I say why yes it is, so he says while I'm in here I'm going to run a wire up into that artery and see what the blood pressure is on each side of that blockage and we will know for sure that is not your problem He says he needs to put my heart under some stress and I my feel a little discomfort. We get started and sombitch my chest is burning like hell and I'm curling into a fetal position and can't breath for crap, I'm having a damn heart attack and the doc says to his sidekick did you see that all excited and then looks at me and wants to know if I'm OK which I tell him hell no I'm not OK I'm having a damn heart attack, they give me some nitro and put me under some more stress and bam I'm having another heart attack and the doc is all excited asking his side kick if he saw that again and gives me some more nitro. The last place you would think your doctor would be like a kid in a candy store is when he is all up in your heart, he says to me look at this all excited, they recorded all of this so I get to see a replay of what got him and his side kick all excited, he says look at this artery below that 40% blocked one and I study it and it looks like a nice healthy artery just pumping away and then all of sudden it just looks like its empty for a few seconds and then fills up and is pumping again. He says that I'm having a spasm that shuts the artery down for a few seconds and then opens back up causing a heart attack. I'm thinking now if this ain't the shits, I just developed this problem here on the table because I damn sure wasn't having that kind of chest pains when I complained about not being able to breath the past few months but he says that just might be the problem and I say I wasn't having heart attacks when I came in and he says it was the stress he put my heart under that gave me the heart attacks now I'm thinking this guy is full of shit and he goes ahead telling me we can control the spasms with pills, more damn pills to take. They get out of my heart and are cleaning up when his side kick tells me that he had only seen in books and on video what my heart was doing on that table. I ask how long has he been doing this heart stuff and he tells me thirty years.Thirty friggin years and this is the first time he has ever seen this happen in real time that's just great they ought to pay me.
 I get my pills the next day and the wife starts reading all the side effects of this drug off to me, headaches,dizziness, your man parts will fall off and start growing out your forehead and a ton more side affects if you know what I mean. Then she starts reading what will happen if I quit taking them ,I tell her I ain't taking it that I would rather die. Later that day she convinces me to take it. Holy crap right off the bat I get a headache and then the next morning I wake up like I have the flu, all my joints and muscles hurt and I still have a head ache and can't breath very good. I sleep most all day not knowing if I have the flu or if its those damn pills so I take another that night and wake up the next day feeling like hell and sleeping most of the day in my chair with the TV on thinking I'm sick I take another that night and tossed and turned all night with my muscles aching the next morning still with the headache and muscles hurting like heck I'm starting to think its those damn pills knocking me on my butt instead of being sick so I tell the wife last night I ain't taking no more of those damn pills that they are killing me and that if I'm gonna die by not taking them at least I'll feel good when I die and not be sick as hell when I do so I quit taking them last night and slept like a baby and feel a hell of a lot better. Those are some brutal pills.
The pills did nothing for my breathing which is what I went in for so I'm right back where I started.

Another Stint

I have not felt like doing much for the past couple of months and then my breathing started going away and now I can't even tie my shoes without gasping for air so I go back into the hospital tomorrow for I hope another stint so I can get back to normal. This crap is getting old this is the 3rd stint in a year. The doc is getting rich off of me an I'm getting to feel good a couple of months before he gets another 100,000 for a stint. This ain't fun and I'm getting tired of it.

 I hope when I get out of the hospital I'll feel a lot better and get back to my blog.

What a week

It's been crazy around here, about the time it couldn't get any more crazy something else happens. That headstone I made for that little couple It was for the wife's brother that had died of a overdose in which they say he was poisoned instead of a drug overdose I don't know what the hell happened to the guy but he is dead.
 I had them over to draw up how she wanted the headstone to look like and everything was spelled right so if its wrong its their fault.
 I had that happen on another headstone I did for someone, luckily I had them call and leave a message on my answering machine on how they wanted it spelled and the times on it. I blasted that damn rock and they came to pick it up and right off the bat they say I put the wrong date on it. I bring them in the house and play the message he left, after listening to the message he asks me to blast anther stone for them that he had messed up on the date. I cover my butt on the rocks, I don't like spending all day on a job for nothing.
 Back to my story,after I finished that headstone for the little couple I called and let them know that it was ready they came over and picked it up on June 24th., he was all yes sir and no sir and seemed like a real nice kid and they loved the rock. Well I get a call Thursday the 27th and am told that he was shot and killed real early Thursday morning. So I might be making another headstone. I feel sorry for that young girl to lose a brother and her husband in 8 days and the crazy thing about all this is they both died within a block of each other and on the same street. 


When I started taking pictures with digital camera's some turned out half way decent and I wanted to put them in picture frames, well the prints my printer spit out was the wrong size for the store bought frames so I get the wild hair to make me my own picture frames. These wild hairs I get they get expensive at times and this was one of those times. Luckily I had the saws for making the frames from another wild hair I got some years back so all I needed was glass and a matte cutter. I found the matte cutter on Craigslist for around $100.00 so all I needed was a glass cutter so off I go to Lowe's and buy me a hand held glass cutter I bought the higher end one they had since I had tried cutting glass before with a cheap one and it just made me cuss a lot it didn't work. Guess what the higher end one don't cut any better so I get mad I ought to know by now I shouldn't go shopping mad. I get online and search for glass cutters I see all kinds of hand held cutters and just can't get it out of my mind that big ass glass cutter they had at Lowe's, that sucker was about 6 foot wide and 4 or 5 ft tall and cut glass like butter now that is one hell of a glass cutter, guess what I have on my wall that takes up the whole damn wall, yep one of them big ass glass cutters and it works great. It came with some attachments that I can cut matte board with and plexie glass also. Its a glass cutting sumbitch.

When I went out to the ranch this last time I had met Amado Pena the artist so I figure I'll buy a couple of prints. That's all I can afford after buying that big ass glass cutter. I made me some frames for them out of old fence pickets I have them framed but have no place to put them right now.

BEN WOODS

Today is 1 year since my ole buddy Ben Woods passed away. I still have his blog "An Older Texan Remembers" on my blogs that I follow list. I go to it at times just to remember Ole Ben. I knew Ben from the 80's when I lived in Alpine Tx. we had some good times together with him and his wife Ann. It doesn't seem like its been a year since his passing, he is missed.

                                                    R.I.P. Ole Friend



 I haven't felt like writing much for about a month now I have some things going on in my life right now that I'm dealing with and and I just don't feel like writing hopefully things will start getting better in a month or so. I will probably be moving out to my place in Terlingua pretty soon and starting a new life out there. I don't have anything left here in Austin to keep me here and I'm ready to get the hell out of this hell hole.

Ballooning has been all but dead around here because of the wind so I've blasted a few stones for some people. I try to help people out that don't have a lot of money and can't afford to buy a headstone. I've been lucky so for from people giving me the stones to make the headstones out of and save some people a lot of money.  When I bought this setup headstones was the last thing I thought I'd be doing with it.This one is solid marble 3 inches thick, 3 feet long, and 2 feet tall and it weighs a ton. It took 4 of us to get it in my blast cabinet.

I took down all my hydro ponic stuff ,it is getting way to hot for the shallow water tubs I had and I'm starting to down size for the move so they had to come down. I will say one thing I did learn is once the tomato's started getting big they start using a hell of a lot of water. I was putting 6 - 8 gallons of water in that one 18 gallon tote every other day just before I took it down.

ROT RALLY

Well the ole Rot Rally is back in town this weekend so I won't say much just post some pictures.

Back Again

Made another trip out to Terlingua for a birthday party and some other things that I'll talk about in the future.
One thing I've learned about going out there is you never know who you are going to meet. I went to that birthday party and right off the bat I meet Amado Peña, if you don't know who he is you can check him out here "Amado Peña". He is one heck of an artist. Turns out he went through school with the lady who was having the birthday party and he came for her party.

Diana is one nice lady,Ive been going to her party's for a few years now and they are always great. She rents the whole dang place and has food and a live band each year for her birthday. This year it was at the Bad Rabbit cafe down at Terlingua Ranch.

I worked some more on Yucca Flats and it looks like the wild donkeys like pretty well it looks like they hung around for awhile and had a lot of fun rolling around in the dirt. Every time I think I'm done with that place I see something else that would look better if I cleared it out some more.

                         I thought that it would look better if I cleared out around this yucca.

So I ran over the brush with my 4-wheeler to knock it down and make sure there aren't any critters that might want to bite me and then I grabbed my pick and rake and went to town on that damn brush.

Now that looks better doesn't it.

                I have some more that I knocked down and will clean up on my next trip out there.

I plan on cleaning out all around that tree and have a little more shade for someone camping out there.

I need to blast a sign that will advertise my Yucca Flats Camping Area and put a couple of picnic tables out there and I should be done. Who knows I might make a dollar once a year from someone or group wanting to have their own private camp site in the middle of nowhere with mountains all around them..

I made it back.

Well the place in Terlingua was still there,my 4-wheeler  and generator started right up after setting with gas in them, that Sea Foam is some good stuff for using in gas.
 I learned how to take a picture of the moon out there. I've tried for the longest time trying to get a picture of it but they always came out washed out. That moon came up and I started taking pictures of it and they were washed out and in this old fried brain of mine a light went off and I thought if the damn picture is washed out, you need to set the camera up to take a darker image of that damn moon and I did and presto I got a good picture of the moon. I'm a slow learner on some things.

Moon Over Terlingua

I did something out in the desert I really didn't think I would ever do, I put carpet in a dang boat out there for a friend of mine. I should of had a contest to see if anyone could have guessed it. The next day he came over to my place and put gravel over my roads and dressed up all my trails for me. I thought that was a hell of a deal. I worked around an hour at his place and he spends all day at mine.

I think I might have had a Mountain Lion hanging around what I call Yucca Flats on my place. There is an area that he used to take his dumps in if you know what I mean, big piles of poop, its old poop so I guess he moved on,I hope.

                                       I weight 220 lbs and this puts me to shame.

I did do some work on Yucca Flats, I trimmed up a couple of Mesquite's and moved some brush out of the way, its ready for someone to come camping on now. I almost moved my trailer down there after getting it all cleaned up but decided it would be way to much trouble to move so I'll leave it for camping.
 

Those Javelina came out in force to the feeder. I had to go out at night to tell them to quit fighting so I could sleep, they told me to shut up and get more corn.

The sunrise and sunsets were really pretty as usual out there.

 Sun Rise

 Sun Set

Sun Set

About all I did was work out there I wanted to stop off and see John Wells of the "Field Lab" and David of "Terlingua or Bust" while I was there but never made it. There is going to be a big party out there June 1st and I'm really going to try and make it. If I do I'll make a point to see John and David then.


The wife called me one night while I was out in Terlingua and told me that the green tote of tomatoes was out of water. How could that be I added water to them just before I left. She adds 5 gallons of water to them and after I came home a couple of days later I had to add 5 more gallons of water to them and today I added 5 more gallons of water to them. That's 15 gallons of water in almost 3 weeks. I grab my scissors and start cutting limbs of those tomatoes and trim about half of the non bearing limbs off that sucker, now I'll see if that stops so much water use. It has blooms and tomatoes all over it so it won't be much longer before I start picking tomatoes. I think at last count in all three containers that are growing tomatoes we have around 40 something tomatoes already on the vines with a ton of blooms still coming on.

This is after trimming it doesn't look like I trimmed it but I did I can see into it now. You can see my lettuce in that other tote.


 This is one of my clones. I just cut the limb off the the plant and stuck it in one of my buckets with running water on it and it took off.

My 5 gallon bucket tomato is doing OK I opened it up so much showing people the root system
I broke off the main stem. It had a small sucker growing below where it broke off so I just left
it to grow and I have almost broke it off but its loaded with tomatoes so I'll leave it alone.

Won't be long now

             

   I should have some tomato's before long almost every plant has tomato's on it

 The tomato's in that green tote have gone slap ass crazy. They are huge,I trimmed them up some the other day and it looks like they have grown 6 inches. There are blooms in all that mess of limbs so they should be putting out tomato's before long.

I checked the water temp a couple of days ago and it was 78 degrees in the buckets with the hot weather coming on I need to keep checking the temp and make sure its not over 86 degrees in there or I'll start having some problems. I brought a empty 5 gallon hydroponic bucket into the house and will put a plant in it to grow through the hottest part of the summer. My wife loves me for bringing that damn bucket as she called it in the house I thought since we use the kitchen for cooking that a tomato plant would look great in there. She wouldn't have far to walk to pick fresh produce and after all who else do you know that has a tomato plant growing in their kitchen. We will be one up on the neighbors. You see I'm a country boy from Texas and she is a city girl from "cough" California. I don't let her forget where her roots are from and that we do things different down here and she ain't to old to learn the right way to do things. As she walks away I hear her saying something under her breath that sounded something like damn red neck hillbilly.

My cloning is doing pretty well, I have 2 plants in dirt now and will switch them over to hydroponics when they get a better root system on them.

I'm, trying a few different ways of cloning these things. The one above I just stuck in my hydroponic bucket with water running over it and in a week it had roots. I trimmed some more tomato plants a few days ago and just put them in a cup of water to see what they will do,I'll let you know how that works out.

I have a covered seed starter that I'm using for a cloning chamber. I have some different plant cuttings in there and hoping that they will root. One is a Limon tree and another is a Dewberry vine. We used to have Dewberry vines all over our place when I was a kid and now you can't find one growing in the wild around here anywhere. My 2nd cousin found one somewhere and gave it to me.I used to come home with my hands and my ole month purple from picking and eating those dang berry's.
The ole boy's at the hydroponic place tells me that if I have any problems cloning anything to bring them a cutting and they would try cloning it for me. These people are great, you don't find businesses like them anymore.

I'm heading out Terlingua way come Saturday so I'll have something else to talk about other than this hydroponic stuff.