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 THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE Number 870, May 1, 2016 May Day! May Day!
One Week in Greater Appalachia: The Perils of Using one Monster to Destroy Another
Attribute to L. Neil Smith's The Libertarian Enterprise It began last Sunday when it went from a frosty morning to a pleasant summer eve. Hard to think it would get so nice after scraping my car when I took a spin to gas up and deliver meds and breakfast from Mickey Dee's. The chill even lingered while visiting Bruce on the way back. By late afternoon it probably hit 80 at least. Spent the afternoon working around the ponds after weighing the CBTs and the two adult Euro Ponds. All are gaining weight. After weeding the path between the double pen and Rosyside Pool I put the half grown CBT trio out and it looks like they can stay out a few days until it gets chilly again. They seem to be really enjoying the the warmth and fresh air. Comparing the tails of "Little Yin" with Yang and the little yang there is almost no doubt who the male and females are. Now if I dont have anymore mishaps and get luck on the the younger set plus a few more and I might have a really great breeding colony someday. My other projects were cutting down the boards that I use to prop the lids open so the end that rests on the ground goes inside the pen. That way I won't accidentally trip over and knock it down while walking around the outside. Also visited the older spring that services the trailer. That was the original one for the house before the parcel it was on got sold off by the previous owners. We had an easement to continue using it for the house and later the trailer. It quit giving water when I tried using it to water gardens several years ago. But now the line is apparently leaking water. Gushing during times of high flow in the ditch between the path to my gate and the retention pond. And during dry weather like now there is not even a trickle to be had in the brook on the opposite side of the ponds where I capture water for the ponds. Most likely it is going to the other place. Took a walk up to the vault which is a lot like the one for our current spring but smaller. Was going to plug the line but my plug is too small. Fortunately the pipe has an elbow that can be turned up above water level to hopefully stop the flow. I would know soon in a day or so. Hoping it will stop running in the new place and flow will resume where it belongs and I can catch it and top off my main pond and then the retention pond. I need water so I can fill the tubs too! Monday the end of a four day weekend was the day of my expedition to Brown Farm Equipment down toward Fayette City in hope of getting that Behlen Country 70 gal stock tank that I've been trying to find a local source. But got skunked again. All they carry are the Rubbermaids like I already have. Oh well, it was a nice ride through the countryside listening to Quinn and then Rose Thennent's show that is now on the same AM station. And I got wind that Michael Savage is now on there too—in the evening. But will the reception still be decent enough to comprehend? Or drowned out like Jerry Doyle? Will have to see. Savage was always a comfort to listen too because he tells it like it is. We don't have enough of that anymore. The Tea Party made a bad pick again. It looks like Cruz might be forming an alliance with the RINO from Ohio from what I heard on Rose Unplugged. So much for the remote hope for a champion of Liberty. I think we're screwed because it's probably going to be 2012 all over again. The day before; Bruce brought up what Rush said about the conservatives have pretty much lost the culture war in this country. I was reflecting on that on the drive back this morning as I was hearing that the Hildabeast is going to be speaking at the community college where I took some courses a few years back. Wondered if there might be Bernie Sanders people there heckling her? That would have been fun to watch. As for the culture war—if they have won—then all that is left is the long march for us. Stopped to do some shopping for Uncle Budd killing two birds with one stone. There is the other store—Fisher & Thompson in Somerset County that was going to be my first choice but decided I'd try calling them first. The time running up there—which is not far from the Back of Beyond where I went for the pump in one of my earlier Norseman's travels—would be better spent tying up loose ends on this final of 4 days off. And that proved to be the wiser decision. That place didn't have it on hand but carry other sizes of that brand and can order the one I want. The guy I talked to says he things these are better than Rubbermaid when it comes to holding up to freezing weather. He is ordering me two and should be here in a couple weeks. In time for vacation week when I can work on the first project: reconfiguring the double decker pen. The second tank will probably be for the Euro Ponds. It will give them a slightly bigger pool than a Rubbermaid 50 and will let me get a quick one up and running in case the female is getting gravid. Thought of putting her in the old spotted turtle pen as a stopgap since it is already to go as far as nesting provisions are concerned. And there was more good news. The effort to divert the spring flow back to its natural course worked. When I came up to the pond site- the retention pond was much fuller and there was finger sized stream of water coming out of the one inch pipe that runs a buried course thru the compound. I uncoupled the pipe where it comes above ground outside the fence by the double pen and slid the upper portion into a run of corrugated tubing layed to the falls from the Rosyside Pool to the inlet. Now I should have my pond refilled by the following morning. Thought about transferring the water from the retention pond but figured it better to save that for filling the three tubs at that site. It was good to solve the mystery of the disappearing spring flow—in part. Looks very much like the line to the trailer sprang a leak or better yet two peices came uncoupled. If the latter is the case I can dig it up and just push an elbow in and install a shutoff valve above ground and have an easy to control water source for topping ponds and watering plants without having to let it run away when not in use. That was also the day for the filling of the tubs—the trio of 300 gallon Rubbermaids that sat empty over winter. Had to also do a little filling and grading to shift two of them downhill to make them even with the newer one I put in last year. Then reinstalled the drain plugs and commenced refilling them which was now possible with the retention pond full to the max. Still it took a little longer than anticipated. Plus Bruce showed up to do the cellar sink which involved a trip to the hardware store. We got that done and the tubs were still filling. Tuesday The day the Advanced Auction of Stolen Goods came to Pennsylvania. Again. The primaries which I don't take part in because I'm still registered as a Libertarian since changing my affiliation from Democrat circa 2000 because by then I had long given up on the hope of another Thomas Jefferson—let alone a JFK ever coming along to straiten out what became the party of the Plebeian Tyrants in my lifetime or what is left of the Republic. From time to time I've thought about changing- affiliation—like in 2008 so I could vote for Obama before he opened his mouth about necessarily skyrocketing electricity rates and hanging out with the Marxist professors. I loathed the Hildabeast that much. Then again in 2012 before Herman Cain imploded I thought about changing to Republican. To hell with that kind of foolishness. In the long run I've concluded it better to just stay as I am where I am; as a Libertarian. Even if I'm not actively supporting the LP—I still believe in its principles even if the leadership does not. If only they could be something more like the Tea Party movement which at least is standing their ground where Donald Trump is concerned. They see him for what he is. But now that Two-Face Ted is also letting them own it becomes a really sad situation for the Nation. Wednesday. Another day off. Finally a great day at the pond in the way of getting things going after a slow start on spring cleaning and springtime in general. Started the day off mowing grass. Then tackled several back burner issues. First was getting the pond topped off by transferring more water from the retention pond. That was a continuation of the process that began on Monday—last of my 4 day mini vacation when I started pumping water in after filling up the trio of 300 Rubbermaids at that site. Left it run most of the day to get the level up to the max while working on other things. Potted up loose milfoil trimmings for the tubs and transfered the pots of big leaf sagittaria back to the middle tub. And planted the remainder of the spring plant orders which arrived last week beginning with the Lilium davidii from Plant Delights. It went by the sunken barrel that will eventually become the biofilter for the two nested pens for the Japanese Pond Turtle flock. Out came several lilies that were supposed to be davidii but turned out to be something else. Those were put in the purple planter that a clump of creeping phlox came in and will be given to a friend. The L. davidii is the finer leaved one in the black square pot. Someone messed up on the other one! Got the 5 Voodoo lily bulbs that I had last year back into the ground and planted the potted Konjac Voodoo lily that came about a month ago just in the nick of time as they were starting to wake up. The first group went near the spot they were last year—shifted a few feet forward to be out of the way of the Empress Wu Hosta that will in a few years time have a spread of about 6 or 7 feet! The new species of Voodoo which also gets quite massive went into the bed above the Chinese Box Turtle pen. I'm putting in more big plants to fill in the central areas of the beds which will also take up space in out of the way spots so I won't have to weed them. That day was also the debut of the first Ladyslipper of the season- the MPK hybrid that is a complex cross of an Asian and two North American species. I got it because it is a nice shade of pink like the native pink species that is extremely fussy and hard to grow. The crowning achievement of the day was of course getting the Hellenic European Pond Turtles outside. The plan is to build them a Cadillac 6 x 8 pen but the female is noticeably heavier so I decided to go with using the old spotted turtle enclosure for now as a temporary fix just in case she's gravid. That happened late in the day. But I got some nice pics including a poise of the male in a naturalistic setting by the edge of the pond. Managed to get a few other things done including an improvement on the CBT pen. Added some wooden blocs to the inside of the lids so they wont slip when propped open. Then planted a few more things including the Formosan Lily before running out of daylight. Not bad though I wish I could have done more—like shifted some of the pond plants that wintered in the greenhouse outside since the pond is now warm enough to wade in comfort. That would probably happen on Friday when I had another day off.
That went well too. Spent much of that day cleaning out one of my smaller satellite pools, weeding and cutting grass and other things. Almost totally forgot about the ongoing 2016 Erection—though politics did intrude into my thoughts a little. It was later that evening when I was grocery shopping again that the most profound epiphany came to me concerning the issue of voting for the lesser of two evils. It's sort of like using one monster to destroy another. Voting for Donald Trump is a lot like the tactic employed near the end of Jurassic World where the leading lady opens up the T Rex pen in order to pit it's occupant against the genetically engineered super dinosaur—Indominous Rex. [Indominous Rex Video]
Trumpasaurus vs Hillaritus Rex. The former can certainly supply the extra teeth needed to defeat the other but like its counterpart in the movie it is also dangerous and might turn on us. Still would be fun to watch from a safe distance. And it would be nice if they—and the two mainstream parties in general could just destroy each other without too much collateral damage to the Nation. Not sure if we could ever be that lucky. But one can always dream.
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