After I was done….

So I lend my Kubota tractor and loader and bush-hog to a friend about 20 miles away from my house last week, so he can do a bit of land clearing at his new digs and general yard cleanup for a week or so.

He’s done, his yard looks Fabulous!  and I’ll need the thing this week, so I get my yard work and general home improvement tasks done about 4…looking at the weather, I can make it to his house and load up the tractor onto the trailer and just beat the rain home with enough time to unload, if I don’t dawdle.

Over to his house I go. We load up the tractor and just as I am leaving, the rain starts.

No big deal, it’s coming in from the west, and I am going east.

 Half a mile from his house, I am out of the rain.

Cool.

So about halfway home, I see smoke coming from the right side of the trailer….looks like a wheel.

I figure that it is a brake dragging (with the torque of the diesel engine, it is hard to notice until you see smoke). I pull into a (very handy) Home Depot parking lot and get out to look. Things are warm, but not hot,  no smell of smoke, so I back up a few feet and then pull forward. Nope, doesn’t appear to be any brake dragging, and I can’t see any smoke…..I pull out onto the State Highway and start for home.

4 miles later, I see smoke again. as I am pulling over to a turn lane so I can see what is going on, I hear the muffled Bang! and feel the familiar wobble and shake as the tire begins its final death dance against the fender.

I limp the truck/trailer at an idle for a mile to a nearby truckstop and pull in so I am out of traffic and on reasonably level ground to change the tire.

As I get out, the rain begins. At first a tiny drizzle, but as I get the jack out and the 4 way wrench and all the other accoutrements of tire changing it begins to build.

So I crack the lugnuts and jack up the trailer with the tractor on (Hydraulics are a WONDERFUL thing) and pull the blown tire…which is totally shredded.

Dismount the spare and put it onto the hub.

Some dude (“Cletus” kinda looking guy) wanders over and says:

“Flat?”

“Yep” I reply, (not wanting trouble by asking “WTF does it look like? You think I’d be jacking this pig up in the rain if I didn’t have to? “) as I snug up the lugs.

“Lucky you had a spare”. (Luck? Not a bit. I planned for the eventuality that I might blow a tire)
Cletus isn’t getting too close and isn’t saying anything, but seems fascinated by my actions, as if he had never seen anyone change a tire, so I continue my task.

As I jack the trailer down and tighten the lug nuts, the rain, of course, fades to nearly nothing. As I put things away, the show over, “Cletus” wanders off. And the rain ends.

I get home (no issues) just in time to unload the tractor from the trailer in the rain….and it ended just as I was parking the truck after unhooking the trailer.

At least it was fairly warm.  Coulda been 34 instead of 60.

So….. with all the BS going on at the BLM and the Bundys…

I guess now that all the solar Reid controversy and the Turtle Sanctuary or conservatory or whatever and the euthanization of thousands of “endangered” turtles…

This whole thing really wasn’t about saving turtles, was it? It wasn’t about conservation and it wasn’t about “endangered” turtles that aren’t and it wasn’t about anything but using the Federal Government to squeeze the little guy.

Except in this case the little guy had fangs…and lots of friends.

For moles?

Little bastards are destroying the little grass that I have left.

Advice? Special loads for your favorite caliber? Barrel lengths and/or scope combinations?

And no, filling the tunnels with flammable gasses isn’t the optimal solution. Don’t ask me how I know.

After I deal with the damned moles, then I’m gonna start on the Chipmunks.

Not to beat this Bundy/BLM thing to death, but I have questions:

Are the BLM “Police” really law enforcement officers?

How do they have the right to close public roads (and “Public” lands) to keep people away from an area?

While the above was happening where were the true law enforcement officers: Sheriff and Nevada Highway Patrol? One would have thought that they might have been interested in such happenings in their state/county, and possibly the citizens therein. Were I a citizen of that state (and especially Clark County, I’d be asking….

Enquiring minds want to know…

ETA: News reports all say that the “Tea Party and Militia” protesters were “Heavily armed with rifles”. Strangely, I have yet to see even one photo or video clip showing even ONE rifle. Not one.
Is this just spin? Fears that the Feds had that some of the protesters might have had the ability to project force if they were fired upon? Or were there really rifles in the crowd?

 Controlling the signal:

So it seems to work like this:

something happens, and the people get interested…

People get interested enough to put things on the internet.

Enough people read it and then make posts,show video on YouTube,Vimeo and so on…Facebook entries,etc.

Then people begin to show up in support of the action,

Video is taken (More YouTube), and then more people show up.

Eventually, a reporter (notice I didn’t say “Journalist”) takes notice and broadcasts it on local media

If this happens often enough, National media takes notice, All those people make good press.

And shortly thereafter, once the light is shown on an overreaching government, the situation is resolved.

People won this for the nation today. Support of the Bundy’s got enough media attention that the BLM had to either back down or have their actions placed under close scrutiny.

It may not be over, but Saturday, April 12th was a victory, a great one.

The difference between this situation and Waco and Ruby Ridge was that people were informed early and in detail thanks to the internet, and some folks reacted early enough to get there before the situation could be contained and the story controlled by the feds.

Thus endeth the lesson today.

BLM backs off due to “safety concerns”.

Whose safety? Theirs? Of the public? Or the contractors? 

Looks like the attention they garnered got the public too riled for them to continue their game.

I am proud of my fellow citizens today.

ETA: “ Based on information about conditions on the ground, and in consultation with law enforcement, we have made a decision to conclude the cattle gather because of our serious concern about the safety of employees and members of the public.“

I am sure that the BLM management was worried about the safety of the public. Certainly.

There are those who believe that the BLM backed off because of the fact that Harry Reid’s involvement came to light. Could be true. The rumors were there, but I could find no proof, despite looking.

(ETA) Other say it is about water.…controlled by H.Reid.

I dunno. 

Or so she said, one week ago.

Know how to tell if an Obama administration Director is lying?

Yeah, you know the rest.

The power of the repeated lies is amazing….

It was interesting, last night, to hear the views of some of my fellow gun club members the other day regarding Cliven Bundy and his struggle against the BLM.

They, sadly, had only the information that the media had doled out, and some of them believed that he was the entire problem, and that the BLM was innocent.

Now I really doubt that either side is innocent in this struggle. Bundy hasn’t played this as well as he could have, and AFAIK, doesn’t have the money he owes Clark County/BLM in an account somewhere waiting to be paid when this is all over…Nor is the BLM innocent in this struggle either.

Having said that, again, it was interesting to see that the opinions of my fellow club members had been….guided by the media.

Now these folks are not necessarily anti government, but neither are they great supporters of said government either. They, like most of us, feel that the Federal and State government should be the servant, not the master. But given the information they had gotten from the media, they had sided with the Feds.

I pointed out that they only had part of the story, and should know better than to believe the meme provided by the media. 

Once they had more information, provided by myself and others, they, like me, weren’t ready to place blame on either side.

These men should know better, and DO know better, They have seen how anti gun lies memes are presented by the government using the press…. but the stories presented by the media work even against people like these.

Seems that the BLM has some real pull with the rest of the Fed world..

Or thre is more to this than we realize.

Now the FAA has closed the low level airspace .

And for some reason, the cell towers seem to be having issues….

One might think that the Feds/BLM have something to hide….

So HERE is a slightly different viewpoint on the whole Bundy Ranch kerfluffle.

Can’t verify, but it does hang together as a story….Better than the BLM’s does, anyway