Texas Fall/Winter thread!

[Bob77064]

Alvord Schools are again closed today. I have my last chemo treatment this morning, so we are taking my grandson with us. He and his grandma will go shopping at Sam's Club while I take my "drip buffet."

Do I dare bring up the "C-word"? I did all my Christmas shopping online yesterday except for one gift card I am picking up today. It's impossible to get folks to tell me what they need/want, so I just give them Amazon cards and let them shop for themselves. I'm not lazy, but I absolutely hate buying something that somebody doesn't need. Everyone is happy with the Amazon cards and I am too.:thumbsup: At least this year, my wife and I both gave each other hints, so that is gonna work good.

Blueriver, I suspect somebody in Muenster is gonna be might busy for awhile with your hogs. This is sure a great time to do that. If they run out of cooler space, they can just hang them outside or open the door.

Jim, the schools here close for 3 - 5 days if there is any ice on the backroads. Not like when I was a kid and had to walk to school in the snow up hill both ways.

 

[pacerron]

I don't remember what was in the "mash" that we mixed with milk and/or water for slop. But then corn was a popular feed, and in my own case, I bought "day old" bread from the local bakery. I'm not sure right now, but I think I paid 3 cents a loaf or package, but maybe it was 4 cents. I bought 100 loaves at a time. It was the stuff they'd picked up from the grocery stores; didn't have thrift shops back then. And since it was the same price for a loaf of bread, a cake, a package of donuts, or a pie, the hogs didn't get everything I bought.:laughing:

But there was never any antibiotics or any other drugs or vaccinations.

I was thinking more of the table scraps, spoiled potatoes, and anything else they might be fed.. swil.
I don't think Texas even allows stuff that has been cooked/boiled/steamed anymore?

 

[bindian]

Brandi, in the late 40s my Dad worked for Auto Electric, a chain of auto parts stores. When my first hog and I took 2 blue ribbons and the showmanship ribbon, the owner of Auto Electric was going to be out of town so he told his bookkeeper (didn't have accountants in those days:laughing to go to the auction and buy my hog. The bookkeeper (who was also a close friend of Dad's) asked how high he could bid. The boss said, "I don't care if you have to go to 50 cents a pound." Of course in those days 50 cents a pound for a live animal was ridiculous. So the bookkeeper did bid up to 50 cents, but the owner of the local Ford dealership, Sam P. Hale, bid 51 cents and bought the hog. Dad's boss later asked the bookkeeper what he had to pay for that hog, and when he found out he hadn't bought it because the bid went over 50 cents, he wasn't mad, but said, "I meant for you to buy it for whatever you had to pay. I just said 50 cents because I didn't expect it to go that high." But anyway, I got $153 for that hog and turned around and bought a good registered brood sow for $50 and went into the hog raising business.

My youngest brother raised rabbits when he was in the FFA in high school, but I never raised any myself until the Fall of 1995, when I bought a buck and 3 does (New Zealand Whites). And it wasn't long until I had 15 cages and raised over 300 of them.:laughing: I had grown up eating wild cottontails, swamp rabbits, and jack rabbits, but hadn't eaten any rabbit for many years until then. But I sure ate a bunch of those I raised. I don't understand why every grocery store in the country doesn't have them among the meats they sell.

Bird,
Showmanship with a hog is a feat. Congratulations.

I never ate a jack rabbit. We would just shoot them and give them to the dogs or hang them on a fence post.

I also showed rabbits and wethers at the Houston Livestock show. I placed a few first and second places in rabbits. But I liked showing wethers there better, as we got out a whole week of school. I never placed with wethers at Houston, but really learned a lot. Like how to get 15 Ag students into the Astrodome for the rodeo on only 3 tickets. Or you could get in free after the concert (in the middle of the rodeo back then) to see the bull riding.

Best deal I learned was when a rodeo was sold out, you could always go to the Livestock show office and get tickets that exhibitors "sold" back. I took my daughter to see Tanya Tucker at a sold out show in the Dome. She got to shake Tanya's hand. After that she wanted to barrel race!
hugs, Brandi

 

[Bird]

I was thinking more of the table scraps, spoiled potatoes, and anything else they might be fed.. swil.
I don't think Texas even allows stuff that has been cooked/boiled/steamed anymore?

Yes, of course we fed the hogs stuff like the table scraps, too; at least the ones that the dogs, cats, and chickens didn't get.:laughing: And while we didn't do it ourselves, I can remember when some restaurants scraped the scraps off plates into barrels that were picked up by hog farmers to feed their hogs. And it's been so long ago, that I can't say for sure, but I think there was some kind of law made that required such scraps to be cooked again to some particular temperature to kill any germs before it could be fed to hogs and that was when the hog farmers quit using scraps from restaurants.

 

[bindian]

Pilots in Crash Were Confused About Control Systems, Experts Say

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/12/us/asiana-airlines-crash-san-francisco-airport.html?_r=0

I didn't know Airbus autothrottles did not move the throttle "handles". Just another reason to fly Boeing and stay off of Airbuses.
hugs, Brandi

 

[Bird]

Brandi, that first hog I showed was raised as a pet and I could ride him around the fair grounds. So I had an edge for the showmanship ribbon because he would go, or stop and stand, when and where I wanted him to. The only problem was walking away from him that last night with tears in my eyes after the auction.

I've never had any experience at all with sheep. Besides hogs, I did show a few White Leghorn chickens.

I guess a lot of people who ate cottontail rabbits wouldn't eat jack rabbits, but we ate every one of them we could find. Young ones were tender and very good fried, but older ones would be too tough (like an older chicken), so they went into the pressure cooker, were boned, and the meat used for just about anything you'd use chicken for; chopped up and cooked with dumplings, homemade stew or soup, or ground up for sandwiches (just like chicken salad), etc.

 

[NativeSon]

I raised Hampshire and Suffolk wethers and rabbit fryers for FFA projects. One Hamp took second place and sold for $625 at the FFA buyer's auction.i

Never ate one of my lambs, but my kids remember when I still raised rabbits and butchered them myself! I love fried rabbit better than chicken. I think I just might start raising them again. My mouth is watering already.
hugs, Brandi

Brandi-Yes you're right rabbit is delicious it tastes like chicken.....but Better! I had a restaurant that served wild game. We would do a mixed grill plate with 3 different game(ie. venison, wild boar, rabbit). My FIL who was raised in the mountains of Northern Italy and grew up hunting, came to the restaurant one time when we had rabbit on the mixed grill and all he wanted was the rabbit......so we cooked it for him and he cleaned the plate. It is a shame that the grocery stores don't sell it.

Charlie

 

[farmgirl19]

Last year, I bought rabbit at a grocery store, to feed to the dogs! I think it was Brookshire's, but it has been a year ago now. They were skinned, and otherwise whole, and in the freezer section, closest to the fresh meat counter. You might try asking the butcher in your grocery if they have it, or can get it.

My front lawn is on the south side of the house, and is free and clear of ice. My back lawn is on the north side, as is the driveway, and both are STILL covered with ice. I am hoping to open the gate today, and allow the horses to leave the pens and go out to pasture. However, as of last night, the bottom of that gate was still buried in 4 inches of ice, and not budging. Maybe later today?

 

[Bird]

Only one time have I seen rabbit in a grocery store and that was 40 years ago in Des Plaines, IL. I was surprised to see a box labeled as one whole rabbit, cut up, and weighed 3 lbs. As many rabbits as we have in this country, I was also surprised to see "Imported from . . ." (it may have been Italy, but I'm not sure now). Anyway, I bought it, my wife fried it, I took one bite, and threw it all in the garbage. It tasted as if it had spoiled on the boat; looked OK, but tasted terrible.

I later remembered for sure where that imported rabbit came from and it was imported from Poland.

My front lawn is on the south side of the house, and is free and clear of ice. My back lawn is on the north side, as is the driveway, and both are STILL covered with ice.

My house faces east, but I have a similar situation. South side of the lawn thawed, north side still deep in ice. At least the driveways have thawed.

 

[bindian]

Only one time have I seen rabbit in a grocery store and that was 40 years ago in Des Plaines, IL. I was surprised to see a box labeled as one whole rabbit, cut up, and weighed 3 lbs. As many rabbits as we have in this country, I was also surprised to see "Imported from . . ." (it may have been Italy, but I'm not sure now). Anyway, I bought it, my wife fried it, I took one bite, and threw it all in the garbage. It tasted as if it had spoiled on the boat; looked OK, but tasted terrible.



My house faces east, but I have a similar situation. South side of the lawn thawed, north side still deep in ice. At least the driveways have thawed.

We would freeze ours in a bag of water.
hugs, Brandi

 

[pacerron]

Over the busy years we seem to have gone through a lot of strings of mini lights for our Christmas trees. I'm not the decorator so didn't pay much attention.
I did tell my wife to save the bulbs since some have to still be good even though they keep changing the design of the
removable bulb bases.:thumbdown:

This year, after accumulating a heaping butter bowl full over the years, my wife says: "If your not going to do something with those bulbs I'm throwing them out." Then she says: " We need to get a couple new strings as two of the ones we have are driving me nuts."
When she starts talking about throwing things out, my hearing improves and I pay attention, since I wonder if I'm next.
So I spent about 30 minutes making a "Rube Goldberg" tester and touching the bare wire ends to the prongs on the plug.
Surprisingly, to her, there were only 10 bad bulbs in the entire mess.
So I think we have a lifetime supply of bulbs and don't need to buy any new strings.
Wonder if that qualifies me to get a new implement for the tractor? She said: " not only no, but xxxx no"

 

[Western]

FG19 Gets some big points!!

On the news (wish I had a link for ya) But their is a growing mountain of evidence of pilots now days over relying on instrumentation. They where talking with an "expert, that said many newer pilots did not properly know how to fly by manual control???!!!!

They said they are going to force airlines to train more to the tune of over 260 million dollars cost to the airline industry.

The "for instance they gave" was the crash in San Fransisco, said the young pilot could have made the landing, if he had only engaged more throttle manually. Apparently he had also accidentally turned off the computer control and the LA alarm sounded 15 sec's before impact.

Just as FG was saying back a few months ago:thumbsup:

 

[jinman]

So I spent about 30 minutes making a "Rube Goldberg" tester and touching the bare wire ends to the prongs on the plug.
Surprisingly, to her, there were only 10 bad bulbs in the entire mess.
So I think we have a lifetime supply of bulbs and don't need to buy any new strings.
Wonder if that qualifies me to get a new implement for the tractor? She said: " not only no, but xxxx no"

Ron, I wait until the end of the season and then buy the lights when they go on sale for 50% to 75% off. That makes them so cheap that it's hardly worth testing.

Charlie: When I was in the US Navy, we got lots of rabbit in the chow hall when we were near Australia. They cooked it up fried and it was delicious. The bones are much smaller than chicken, but the flesh is tender and tasty when battered and fried. I loved it.

 

[farmgirl19]

Sad thing is, the airlines can't teach this. It needs to be basic training, and learning to listen and feel and FLY your aircraft. No amount of remedial work will teach the basics. They need to go back and get in a small taildragger!!!! Good luck finding flight instructors that can fly a taildragger, much less give lessons in one! It will only get worse from here. Many of the flight instructors don't know the basics that were once taught, so they can't teach them. We used to teach spins and had to pull out with accuracy on heading. They did away with that, 20+ years ago. I hear now they do not even teach stalls and recovery. THAT will get even more people hurt/killed!

And to compound the SFO crash issue, many cultures do not question authority. There was supposedly an "instructor pilot" on that flight. Any of the pilots could have added power, or initiated a "go around". Since the "instructor pilot" did not, the others were not going to question him, so basically allowed the aircraft to crash.

Anyone else hearing rumblings if another ice storm coming right after Christmas? What I am hearing is it will make this last one look mild. I sure hope those folks are wrong. I am so TIRED of winter! I want to get back to gardening and brush hogging, and rain dancing, (au natural, of course!).

 

[jinman]

The "for instance they gave" was the crash in San Fransisco, said the young pilot could have made the landing, if he had only engaged more throttle manually. Apparently he had also accidentally turned off the computer control and the LA alarm sounded 15 sec's before impact.

Just as FG was saying back a few months ago:thumbsup:

Dennis, situational awareness and crew management/flightdeck management training is severely lacking in many airlines, especially the ones who contract training rather than do the training themselves. Those airlines always look for the highest return on their investment and take a minimum approach to training. It's no secret that making a profit in the industry requires penny pinching on every level. Often the budget that gets slashed first is training. Add to that also that there is extreme pressure in many foreign countries to be successful. It can be a huge embarrassment and shame to anyone who cannot successfully obtain a type rating or upgrade. Failure can mean a loss of employment and essentially be a social outcast; at least among their peers. It is almost legendary that any foreign student going through training will say they understand you when they may have no clue what you are talking about. Put one of them in a class full of people who do understand and are high achievers and it will surely result in them struggling to pass an oral exam and certainly also not be able to do the flight training in the prescribed time. Nobody who knows their stuff wants to do the sim training with an incompetent person in the right seat. Pairing them with anyone but a flight instructor is almost impossible. Even then, they either blow their training or they have to have many additional simulator hours added to their training.

In the private/corporate jet sector, we've seen people sent from foreign countries (largely mid-east) who have only 200 hours total flight time and have never flown anything but a twin engine prop plane with no pressurization. These people have no concept of turbine engines, pressurization and environmental systems, hydraulics, pneumatics, etc.. Your sales people often have a big contract with some organization and the owner's son is the one with the 200 hours. To refuse to attempt training that person would mean the loss of the entire contract. You are not only insulting the son, but the whole family. What do you do?

With automation at the level it is, even experienced pilots forget the first rule: Fly the airplane. One button on the yoke will disconnect the autopilot so that the pilot is in control. With proper flightdeck management and crew coordination, one person is always flying the plane. The other person is doing the grunt work of finding checklists, radio comm, monitoring instruments, and even lowering the gear at the proper time. In the case of the San Francisco pilots, it's amazing that neither pilot suggested an increase in throttle until a go-around was called. I'm not even sure they increased the throttle for that. The aircraft came in too low and was doomed. It's an unforgivable mistake unless both pilots were physically incapacitated. Any loss of life is horrible, but losing only three people is a miracle.

As the world economy expands, we have to work to end that feeling of shame that goes along with failing at flight training. I have no idea how to do that, but it leads to unqualified people at the controls of aircraft flying over our heads in the US. We also have to teach our own pilots at every level in the USA that flying an airplane is not a video game. Sometimes you have to set automation aside and fly that darn airplane. If you can't do that, you have no business in the cockpit.

 

[bindian]

Sad thing is, the airlines can't teach this. It needs to be basic training, and learning to listen and feel and FLY your aircraft. No amount of remedial work will teach the basics. They need to go back and get in a small taildragger!!!! Good luck finding flight instructors that can fly a taildragger, much less give lessons in one! It will only get worse from here. Many of the flight instructors don't know the basics that were once taught, so they can't teach them. We used to teach spins and had to pull out with accuracy on heading. They did away with that, 20+ years ago. I hear now they do not even teach stalls and recovery. THAT will get even more people hurt/killed!

And to compound the SFO crash issue, many cultures do not question authority. There was supposedly an "instructor pilot" on that flight. Any of the pilots could have added power, or initiated a "go around". Since the "instructor pilot" did not, the others were not going to question him, so basically allowed the aircraft to crash.

Anyone else hearing rumblings if another ice storm coming right after Christmas? What I am hearing is it will make this last one look mild. I sure hope those folks are wrong. I am so TIRED of winter! I want to get back to gardening and brush hogging, and rain dancing, (au natural, of course!).

Send all Y'alls winter down here. We will embrace it with open arms.
hugs, Brandi

 

[two_bit_score]

Sad thing is, the airlines can't teach this. It needs to be basic training, and learning to listen and feel and FLY your aircraft. No amount of remedial work will teach the basics. They need to go back and get in a small taildragger!!!! Good luck finding flight instructors that can fly a taildragger, much less give lessons in one! It will only get worse from here. Many of the flight instructors don't know the basics that were once taught, so they can't teach them. We used to teach spins and had to pull out with accuracy on heading. They did away with that, 20+ years ago. I hear now they do not even teach stalls and recovery. THAT will get even more people hurt/killed!

And to compound the SFO crash issue, many cultures do not question authority. There was supposedly an "instructor pilot" on that flight. Any of the pilots could have added power, or initiated a "go around". Since the "instructor pilot" did not, the others were not going to question him, so basically allowed the aircraft to crash.

Anyone else hearing rumblings if another ice storm coming right after Christmas? What I am hearing is it will make this last one look mild. I sure hope those folks are wrong. I am so TIRED of winter! I want to get back to gardening and brush hogging, and rain dancing, (au natural, of course!).

I think you are right. I see similar situations in companies and organizations all around. The experienced staff retires or gets run off and the newbies just don't know the basics because top management was trying to save money. It's hurting us all. Worst thing is we don't know how badly yet.

.

 

[farmgirl19]

Send all Y'alls winter down here. We will embrace it with open arms.
hugs, Brandi

I wish that I could! ALL of the winter weather and cold would be diverted, if I had my way! :cold:

 

[pacerron]

Sulley, the captain that landed in the Hudson River a few years ago, was interviewed the other night on TV.

He said, with all the training the pilots get in how to manually flying the plane, but growing up in a computer controlled automated world, they just do not have the personal confidence to believe they can do it better than the automated systems.

 

[bindian]

Over the busy years we seem to have gone through a lot of strings of mini lights for our Christmas trees. I'm not the decorator so didn't pay much attention.
I did tell my wife to save the bulbs since some have to still be good even though they keep changing the design of the
removable bulb bases.:thumbdown:

This year, after accumulating a heaping butter bowl full over the years, my wife says: "If your not going to do something with those bulbs I'm throwing them out." Then she says: " We need to get a couple new strings as two of the ones we have are driving me nuts."
When she starts talking about throwing things out, my hearing improves and I pay attention, since I wonder if I'm next.
So I spent about 30 minutes making a "Rube Goldberg" tester and touching the bare wire ends to the prongs on the plug.
Surprisingly, to her, there were only 10 bad bulbs in the entire mess.
So I think we have a lifetime supply of bulbs and don't need to buy any new strings.
Wonder if that qualifies me to get a new implement for the tractor? She said: " not only no, but xxxx no"

Ron,
I guess that is awesome if you are stuck in a snow storm, but I use this......... Home Depot - Light Tester customer reviews - product reviews - read top consumer ratings

Especially to zap the shunts to get the line working with a burnt out bulb and it does remove the frustration.
hugs, Brandi