May you enjoy your ground-hog in what-ever way you find most delicious.
Tuesday, February 2, 2021
House Resolution 127 would outlaw 12 and 20 gauge shotgun shells
"SEC. 3. Prohibition on possession of certain ammunition.
(a) In general.—Section 922 of title 18, United States Code, as amended by section 2 of this Act, is amended by adding at the end the following:
(dd) (1) It shall be unlawful for any person to possess ammunition that is 0.50 caliber or greater."
While we usually don't talk about the caliber of shotguns, the barrel (and ammo) of a 12 gauge tyipcally runs around 0.73 caliber and a 20 gauge runs about 0.62 caliber.
The penalty for driving around with a shotgun shell rattling around in the cab of your pickup?
“(11) (A) Whoever knowingly violates section 922(dd)(1) shall be fined not less than $50,000 and not more than $100,000, imprisoned not less than 10 years and not more than 20 years, or both." Emphasis on the word "shall" is mine.
Proving that you did "not know" you were in possession will be on you.
Fine Art Tuesday
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| Garden in Grez |
I am drawn to the craftsmanship of the gardener portrayed in this painting.
Certain plants love heat. Vining plants like cucumbers and melons and tomatoes. Pears, peaches and even figs.
If you look carefully, you can see clips embedded in the mortar immediately beneath the eave and wires strung along the wall to support the vines.
The gardener also makes extensive use of stakes to lift plants into the sun and hold fruit off the ground.
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| On the Plain |
Notable for the charming girl and the details of the fence. It is worth noting that the fence was made from poles too small to mill for lumber and barely large enough to be worth cutting for firewood. In other words, it is the highest value use for that kind of wood.
No, it could not physically contain a cow or a horse or a pig. But it is easy to rebuild and the animal gets the idea after it is whipped for breaking down the fence.
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Vinterafton wide Rosiagstull |
It is ironic that this image displays the kind of graininess one would get from taking a digital image in low light.
The houses are nestled in a slight valley to get them out of the wind.
Based on the light distribution on the tall brick building, the artist appears to be facing north and the time-day-might be early afternoon.
State-of-the-art Swedish central heating involved running the woodstove on the bottom floor and running the bare stack through an opening in the floors straight up. The openings typically had grating around them to keep toddlers from falling through. There were also large openings near the walls. Warm air rose up, parallel with the stack and then downward along the walls as it cooled. That is, convection. This system worked best with relatively tall, narrow houses.
The trees in the left foreground might be fruiting trees after pruning based on their twisted form (fruit bearing and parenthood will do that to you). They appear quite lanky and open suggesting they were pruned. They are south of the taller trees near the center of the frame so they would get maximum sunlight during the growing season. In Sweden, it is almost certain they were apple trees.
There is a hint of bushes (currents, perhaps) along the left side of the court.
The tall trees have an elm-like form and are very close together. Their purpose eludes me unless they are intended to slow down the wind when it comes from the southwest. There are shorter trees north of the tallest trees. They are stouter than the fruit trees in the foreground.
I am sure I am missing things like cold frames for starting plants. Can M. R. Tumnus or Coyote Ken chime in.
Hat tip to Lucas Machias for calling this artist to my attention.
Remnant: Pizza crusts
Jarrell dropped off Merle and his bike at O-dark-thirty.
Danno wasn’t feeling well so Jarrell made his way downtown alone. As Danno predicted, Jarrell found the mayor in front of City Hall. Mayor Wagner was getting an earful from a woman.
Catching Jarrell out of the corner of his eye, the Mayor signaled with his finger to wait until the woman was finished chewing on him.
Jarrell tried not to listen but it was impossible to miss the woman’s complaint. The only coffee that was available was instant coffee.
Mayor Wagner politely pointed out that the bus ran to Lansing every day and she could look for her preferences there or if she didn’t want to ride the bus she could drink tea or water or instant coffee, whichever she preferred.
The Mayor looked over at Jarrell as the woman stomped away, clearly dissatisfied with the resolution she got from the mayor.
“Jarrell Williams. I heard you were back in town” the mayor exclaimed.
“I am surprised you remember my name?” Jarrell said.
“I go to the high school graduation and have yearbooks going back twenty years. You young bucks keep me hopping. I need to do something to keep track of you” the Mayor said.
“What is on your mind?” Wagner asked.
“I am looking for work” Jarrell admitted.
Peering at Williams carefully, Wagner asked “Do you live inside city limits?”
“No. Is that going to be a problem?” Jarrell asked.
“Not for me. It might be for you” Mayor Wagner said. “I take care of city residents first. I take care of folks who live near Eaton Rapids with what is left over.”
“So, exactly where do you live?” Mayor Wagner asked.
“Out on Mills Highway, out past the cemetery” Jarrell said. Actually, it was farther out than that but if living closer scored more points….
The Mayor nodded.
“Here is the deal. I need people to haul food. You can pick up some deliveries after the in-town folks meet their quotas.” Mayor Wagner said.
“I have four places baking bread, the submarine place, the two pizza places and the grocery store. I can use a few more delivery people at Elsie’s Pizza. Tell them I sent you” the Mayor said and then the Mayor turned to the next supplicant.
Jarrell trudged the half mile south to Elsie’s Pizza and checked in with the middle-aged woman with the clip-board.
Town’s people kept trickling in as quickly as the food was produced. The people placed it into sleds and dragged it east. The two inches of fresh snow made for easy pulling.
By the time a half-hour had passed, Jarrell could see he was in for a long, cold wait. Everybody distributing food in Eaton Rapids seemed to have their role in the process timed to the minute.
Noticing that the middle-aged woman had brains enough to stand on the leeward side of the building, Jarrell decided to join her. Clearly, she ran this part of the universe and it was in his best interest to be on her best side...if she had one.
It turned out Leslie was a cheerful sort. Cold weather agreed with her and she was tickled to have somebody to chat with.
“Yup, all we are delivering are pizza crusts. Folks are glad to get them too.” Leslie informed Jarrell.
“Are you sure I will get work today?” Jarrell asked. Things weren’t looking too promising.
“Well, considering the fact that I had to deliver a half-dozen routes nearly every evening, I would guess it is a pretty safe bet that I will have something for you” Leslie said.
Then, remembering something, she dug out a hand-held radio and buzzed somebody. “Hey, Jarrell showed up. Thanks for remembering. ‘Preciate it.”
“That was the Mayor” Leslie told him. “We all have the same problem. He has does ‘clean-up’ for the folks who don’t show up for their shift at the submarine sandwich shop. He could have hung on to you but he sent you my way.”
“Saying ‘Thanks’ is the spoon-full-of-sugar that makes this job do-able” Leslie said.
Leslie’s kids were older than he was but he sort of remembered them from high school.
He was stunned to learn how old she was. She was significantly older than Krystal but Leslie still had flawless, cherub-like skin...right down to the rosy cheeks.
“Clean living and working steady will do that for you, kid” Leslie teased him.
“Why pizza crusts?” Jarrell asked.
“Bread is the staff of life. The grocery store makes the dough for all four bakeries but they cannot keep up with baking the bread. The ovens in the pizza joints are set-up to make pizzas. The sandwich place makes buns” Leslie said.
“Bread is bread, no matter what the shape” she concluded.
Jarrell spent eight hours next to Leslie, stomping his feet to stay warm, fidgeting.
Compared to being a project manager at a Fortune 500 company, everything seemed to move in slow-motion.
Finally, the stream of people to deliver food to residents petered out.
Jarrell took three deliveries and Leslie took three.
It was six in the evening before he got on his bike. He had enough pizza crusts strapped down on his bike rack to feed the family for a couple of days but he would be back tomorrow.
He didn’t intend to deliver pizza crusts for-the-duration.
Monday, February 1, 2021
The Shrewd King, second book of the Seven Cows series is out
If you read the book and enjoy it, a review will be much appreciated.
If you read the book and hate it, please use it to start a fire or use the pages to line the bottom of the bird cage and DON'T write a review.
Thank-you in advance.
Remnant: Mayor Wagner
The mayor’s position in most small-towns is primarily ceremonial. The heavy lifting of administration falls on a professional manager. The town manager keeps the town compliant with state and federal mandates, interfaces with labor and keeps the books. The mayor bangs a gavel and is the “face” of the town.
That was not how Mayor Ray Wagner ran Eaton Rapids.
Broadly speaking, most people in and near Eaton Rapids shared one of two very different opinions about Mayor Ray Wagner.
The vast majority thought of him as tireless in his efforts to keep Eaton Rapids a pleasant, safe and economical community to live in. He seemed to be everywhere. He seemed to see everything and was notorious for living his motto of “A stitch in time saves nine”.
Everybody had seem Ray striding along and suddenly skidding to a halt, whipping out his cell-phone and calling somebody to address some issue he, and only he had seen.
It might be a faded stop sign or a leaking water-service pipe or poison ivy growing on a city playground. Ray punched speed dial and the issue would be handled before close-of-business the next day.
Ray even called private citizens when he saw something they needed to address. Nearly everybody took it in good humor. Ray’s heart was in the right place and the sign/leak/poison ivy was real and needed to be addressed.
Since this was the majority opinion, it was a good bet that Wagner would be mayor for as long as he wanted to keep running for office. If pressed, most of the towns people would have described him as a Jack Russel Terrier: Fearless, going everywhere, checking everything out.
Jarrell did not share the prevailing opinion.
Jarrell first met Mayor Wagner when he was eleven year old and peering over the top of the privacy fence that surrounded Tessa SanFillipo’s swimming pool.
Tessa was in eighth grade and was “developed”. It was also rumored that she sunbathed au naturel, a rumor she did nothing to dispel.
Jarrell was standing atop a spool that had been left by the closest utility pole when he felt the firm, business-like tap on his right shoulder. Turning around, he saw the mayor.
Blushing furiously, Jarrell was struck dumb.
It didn’t matter.
“I am not going to ask what you were doing. It is pretty clear and I am not going to put you into a position where you might be tempted to lie” Mayor Wagner said.
“I walk by here pretty frequently” he continued. “It is my expectation that I will never catch you looking over a privacy fence anywhere in my town again.”
Jarrell nodded and dashed off, humiliated. It might have been worth it if he had managed to catch a glimpse of Tessa, but all he saw was her fat calico cat.
Mayor Wagner shook his head. He rolled the empty spool back to the utility pole and parked it so it was plainly in sight from the alley-way that ran behind the SanFillipo house.
It had started last summer. Neighbors up and down Elizabeth and Jackson Streets were complaining about furniture being stolen off their front porches. It did not take Sherlock Holmes to figure out where it was going.
Mrs Wagner provided the other half of the puzzle. The girls (mostly in their fifties and sixties) where Mrs Wagner had her hair “done” kept track of the young girls who might get into trouble. Tessa was high on that list. Even the silver-haired brain-trust was in awe of Tessa's spectacular development. They chalked it up to genetics and Tessa's consumption of ice cream and other dairy products.
The mayor put two-and-two together and got four. He had the one of the city workers drop off a spool that was sturdy and of the correct height. It certainly wouldn’t do to have the local Romeos break his neck falling off Mrs McCartney's rotten wicker furniture.
Every time the mayor passed Elizabeth street he looked down it to to see if the spool was still parked next to the utility pole. If it wasn’t, then he made a detour and as often as not, he had the opportunity to tap on some young man’s shoulder...although in one case it wasn’t a young man and in another it was a fully grown adult.
In the case of the adult, the mayor called to police and the issue was addressed.
*
So, when Jarrell’s buddy Danno suggested that Jarrell get a hold of the mayor so he wouldn’t have to commute to Lansing, Jarrell wanted nothing to do with the idea.
Jarrell was picking up Merle, his Blue-heeler and he stayed to chat a few minutes with Danno.
Danno could see Jarrell was stressed and asked why.
“You know how in school there would be a new kid and you could tell how there was going to be a fight?” Jarrell answered.
“Yeah” Danno replied.
“That is how it is in Lansing. I will be doing something and look up. The chatter stops. Everybody is looking the other way.” Jarrell said.
“Maybe you are imagining it?” Danno said.
“No. The most natural thing in the world is to look at somebody when they look up or look your way. I get that not everybody will do that. But NOBODY is looking at me.” Jarrell said.
That is when Danno suggested he stop commuting to Lansing. “Look, you are wasting almost two hours a day commuting. You aren’t getting enough work and you hate it when you get it. Now you tell me it isn’t safe.”
“It is time to shit or get off the pot.”
Jarrell was not looking forward to renewing his acquaintance with Mayor Wagner.
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