Texas Sky

It is hard to compete with Montana's big skies, but the skies in Texas the last couple of days have been spectacular.

These are teaser clouds to make us think that maybe, just maybe a little rain might be on its way.



The one thing about puttering around in your garden as the heat of the day wanes, you notice the sunsets. This was last night's.

Until next time, God bless.

Straight Out of the Camera Sunday

How do you like the telephoto lens framing which highlights the green zebra tomatoes? I've never tasted one but understand the zebras are exceptional. If I had not just purchased two pounds of fresh tomatoes, these would have made it into my shopping bag. This vendor will be at our next farmer's market day, two weeks hence, and I will to go to his booth first.

Check out the other straight out of the camera shots at Murrieta 365. The two requirements to participate in SOOC Sunday are 1) no tweaking is done, and 2) you took the photo. :D

Until next time, God bless.

Happy July 4, 2009

Photos taken this day at The Triangle in Dripping Springs, Texas, and in honor of all those that served in the armed forces defending the country which rose up after this Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.








God Bless America.

And until next time, God bless you.

July 4th Plans

What's happening in your part of the country on this day? Care to share your weekend plans?

Until next time, God bless.

Garden Update. . . Sort of

It is almost peach time on the little ranch in Central Texas. Other varieties have ripen, but ours are a late-June to the middle-of-July kind.

Our thin, limestone soil produces the most tasty peach you have ever put in your mouth. The peaches may be small but are packed with a dynamite taste.

The birds love to snack. Although the peaches are not quite ripe, soon, soon, we will be having peaches on cereal, on ice cream, in peach cobbler, a peach slush, some peach jam, maybe peach tea.

This is suppose to be a bird deterrent. The birds are really, really frighten; we need one of those owls with the bobbing head but haven't found one. When inspecting the peaches this morning, I saw this out of the corner of my eye on the ground. For a split second it gave me a start and then realized what it was - the plastic snake, not a real one!


There must be a secret to raising tomatoes, and I don't know it. We have three bushes which are suppose to produce at least medium-sized tomatoes and two bushes that produce cherry tomatoes. At the moment, there are all of three tiny tomatoes on two of the medium-sized bushes, but one cherry tomato bush looks promising. The flowers either drop off or dry up.

At the moment, I seem to be best at growing gourds. The gourds were kind of a fun thing to plant for bird houses after the gourds are dried. This plant is every where with gourds of all sizes hiding behind the leaves!

I refuse to be discouraged. There is this spot off the Backyard Botanical Garden. We had about an half-inch rain Monday which soften the ground enough to dig in preparation for a fall garden. Hubby informed me to plant more tomatoes! Forget the fall garden, get him some tomatoes. Fresh corn is his favorite, but fresh tomatoes run a very close second.

To give myself encouragement, I added veggie picture tubes to visualize success. I do not have a reputation of being one of those people that can stick a leaf in soil only to have it become a tree within a few months. In fact, I don't keep house plants because they all die. However, I just know it is going to change! Wait until you see the all the lush tomatoes on the new plants and then the fall garden. You will be amazed. lol

Until next time, God bless.

Did Betsy Ross Make the First Stars and Stripes?

So did Betsy Ross really make the America's first official flag? There was no question of who made the first flag when I was in school many, many, many moons ago. If there was a question then it was left out of my history books. If you are interested in the controversy, check out Flagstuff.com for the details. If you want a replica of the Betsy Ross flag, go here: Valley Forge Heritage Cotton.

The 13 stripes on the flag represent the 13 colonies and the 13 stars also represent the 13 colonies. Stars on early flags had 6 points, some even had 7 and 8 point stars. Congress never specified the number of points of the stars. It was not until 1912 that Congress decided that the red stripes should outnumber the white ones. Red stands for hardiness and valor; white stands for purity and innocence; and the blue stands for vigilance, perseverance, and justice.

God bless America.

Until next time, God bless you.

July 4, 1776

In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776,

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united STATES of AMERICA,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

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. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable,than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained, and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies, without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject

us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops amoung us:
For protecting them by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian

Savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms. Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare. That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

The 56 signers are:

Each one of these signers placed their lives on the line and brought incredible hardship on their families. If do not know what happened to these men after placing their signature on this document, do an Internet search to learn their story.

There abounds throughout our land a Spirit of Contempt and Disdain for who we are as a nation. I rebuke that Spirit and am proud of our heritage and proud to be an American. Have we as nation done things that were not right? Yes, we have but we have done more as a nation that is good than what is wrong.

God bless America.

And, until next time, God bless you.