Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Tuesday afternoon weather report


Rain stopped, crickets chirp

That's my version of Haiku

Late this afternoon, around 7pm the sun came out! Harvey is moving on but still causing havoc.

Monday, August 28, 2017

Harvey

The lightening flashed
And rain poured down
The wind was blowing
When hurricane
 Harvey came to town
As Harvey churned
The Gulf coast waters
Creeks and bayous started to rise
As rain kept coming
Rivers reached new highs
Reservoirs and bayous overflowed
Creating new rivers
Where there were roads
Rains kept coming
And the waters rose

When will it end? No one knows

Fine Time Art 27 by Marion 2017

Fine Time Art 27 by Marion 2017
Fine Time Art 27 by Marion 2017

Sunday, August 27, 2017

Rain, Rain and more Rain

I have a river flowing by my front door. There has been rain from the outer bands of Harvey, a cat 4 hurricane, before it even reached land. I watched the TV reports of the damage and flooding as the hurricane progressed, but my area was relatively free from the heavy wind and rain for a day or so.

Family and friends telephoned frequently to check on the weather where I live and to make certain I was not in danger. I responded to one and all that I had enough food and water to outlast any hurricane and I assured family members that all was fine. We discussed the predictions of flooded streets, but never having been discombobulated during past storms, I felt that in a few days Harvey would be history.

Weather reports warned of serious flooding and tornadoes, but it wasn't' until late Saturday evening that my area began having tornado warnings every 5 to 10 minutes, and that Houston would be hard hit around 9:00 pm. At 9:30pm, the street in front of my apartment building had become a fast flowing river. It was running so fast I could hardly believe my eyes. I had once seen water like that outside Tucson Arizona when I witnessed the Pantana running in a flash flood.

I'm writing this at noon Sunday and the river is still running. It has reached the top step of the landing to the entrance of an apartment foyer, but since the water hasn't gotten higher, I'll keep my fingers crossed. The sky is so dark with blinding rain I have to have lights on to walk around the rooms. The river is not running so fast now that is has become more of a lake. I think It's time for some COMFORT FOOD..


Monday, August 21, 2017

Thursday, August 17, 2017

Equality

This nation is the only one in history founded on the moral principle that all men are created equal. Our founding fathers proclaimed to the world with the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal with rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness..

A great civil war was fought and won, reaffirming the moral principle of this nation. The rights of men to life and liberty was won on the field of battle and these rights are ensured by our Constitution.

Monday, August 14, 2017

Words to live by

Gettysburg Address
   --------Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought upon this  continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Declaration of Independence
  ---------We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created  equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.                                                                                           

Fine Time Art 25 by Marion 2017

Fine Time Art 25 by Marion 2017
Fine Time Art 25 by Marion 2017

Monday, August 07, 2017

Eagle Huntress

I recently watched a spellbinding documentary filmed in2016 called Eagle Huntress. Its the true story of Aisholpan, the thirteen year old daughter of a Kazakh nomadic Mongolian family. Her family spend summers , living in a yurt in the Altai mountains, and spending winters living in a house in town. Her father is an eagle hunter and this 13 year old wanted to become an eagle hunter too. Its traditionally a male event, but with her father' help she learns to train Golden Eagles.

Her father also helps her capture her own Golden Eagle to train. Her father also supports her when she wants to enter and participate in the annual Golden Eagle festival where men show off their eagles in the many ways they have been trained to provide both food and furs.

Facing both disbelief and strong opposition from the men, she competes and ends up winning the competition. Her eagle even breaks a speed record in one of the events. After the festival, she must complete another stage in the bird's training in order to be known as an eagle hunter. She travels with her father during the winter into the mountains to hunt for foxes. After several misses, her eagle successfully kills its first fox.

This 13 year old girl becomes the first female eagle hunter in 12 generations of her Kazakh family.


Tuesday, August 01, 2017

Electrical outage

We had a power outage last night. It was different from precious outages. Not all the outlets in the apt went out at the same time. Around 8:45pm everything went pitch black and silent. The TV, the oscillating fans and the AC all stopped working. I managed to feel my way to the bedside table where I keep an emergency light.. It had been 95 degrees that day so I had to fish around for my tiny handheld fan.

I discovered that the oven light and the microwave were still working as was the outdoor light on a neighbor's garage. The shops on the other side of the street from my apartment complex had lights, but otherwise the whole neighborhood was dark. The garage light was quite a distance away, but the light shone thru my bedroom window. It was very dim but enough to let me see the objects in the room. I rolled up the venetian blind to let the light shine in while I sat in the dark room and contemplated the situation. What to do Percy? What to do?

I had watched a movie on TV the day before about a legendary escape of Marines during the Korean War. A group of Marines were completely surrounded by Chinese soldiers near the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea. A Marine officer decided to lead his men, single file over the mountains, in the dead of night where they couldn't even see their hands, during a blinding snow storm with temperature far below freezing. The details of that struggle are mind boggling, and as I sat in the dark, I thought of those men tying to make their way to freedom.

The day had been 95 degrees and I was unsure how long the battery in my tiny fan would last, so I waited as long as I could before turning it on.. When I thought of turning it on, I'd count to a hundred 2 or 3 times, then use the fan for a couple of seconds. As I counted my blessing and thought about the Marines as distraction, then counting thru the hundreds before using the fan, I managed to spend most of the evening sitting in a chair. When my watch said 10 o'clock, I went to bed. I knew the electrical workers were busy trying to rectify the situation, but having lived thru Ike, the hurricane when we were without power for 8 days, I didn't know what to expect. Happily the power came on while I was sleeping.