Tag Archives: Texas

Pig hunts

ABC News seems to have discovered the Brush Country’s feral hogs, declaring them rampant in Texas.

"A million dangerous pigs are roaming Texas soil, challenging farmers and devouring their crops."

The million in the lede becomes millions in the sub head. Now that’s excitement, if innumerant.

Well, they’re pretty much confined to the South Texas brush, where hunting services like Brush Country Bowhunting charge no kill fees on hogs, or, for that matter deer, javelinas (a smaller feral hog cousin) "& other varmints." As in Missouri, where hogs also abound, hunting them requires no permit in Texas.

But the real problem, which is pretty much statewide, is white-tail deer, which not only eat crops, but wander suburban lawns eating ornamental plants. Hey, ABC, do an expose on the deer problem, which not only plagues Texas but even New Jersey, way up there in your own backyard.

No? Ugly hogs are expendable, but Bambi is too sweet? That’s why we have a deer problem.

Texas vs Texas Tech

This should be a fast, high-scoring game out there in Lubbock on the South Plains. Rather like basketball except with longer passes. There is some thought (Austin sportswriter Kirk Bohls) that the Longhorns will focus on the ground game to control the clock, but when Tech gets the ball, the best they’ve got is an aerial circus, so the passing will predominate. The bookies line is Texas by 11, but I hope it’s more than that. TBS, 6 p.m. CDT

UPDATE  Yipes, Tech 31, Texas 21 at the half and Tech has almost 400 yards passing. Upset? Maybe.

AGAIN  OK, Texas 35, Tech 31. Saltshaker a blogger at statesman.com summed this up real well before the game:

"What does (Tech coach Mike) Leach do to get these less than recruits to make these kinds of plays and run non stop? 

"Try double conditioning, and making the receivers only catch 60mph tennis balls, fired out of a ball gun. You think I’m kidding? I’m not.  He believes the boys must be in better shape and be able to catch screaming tennis balls.  That’s why he produces such an array of good receivers so quickly. 

"I’m imagining Jean Claude Van Damme style training montages with Sensei Leach making the young QB wear a blind fold and ‘feel’ the open receiver. 

"He doesn’t run a training camp…..it’s a football monastery. 

"Colt, your mission this week……just get us the hell out of there with a win."

FINAL  He did. Texas wins, 35-31. Whew! 

Hopalong Cassidy

Mr. Boy watches Power Rangers and various super heroes, mostly on Blockbuster DVDs. I’m sorry he’s missing Hopalong and his horse Topper, which I watched in shadowy black and white on "Footlight Theater" in the mid-1950s. But he might find Hoppy shallow, as I occasionally did.

Hoppy was a Californian but his Bar 20 ranch was "in Northwestern Texas," according to the official fan site by the owners of his copyright. "The town in the [original] novel is called Buckskin. Population of one hundred inhabitants, located in the valley of the Rio Pecos fifty miles south of the Texas-New Mexico line."

Even better known than Hopalong was the actor who played his sidekick, Windy, Gabby Hayes, who went on to play second banana to Roy Rogers, the King of the Cowboys.

Think I’ll give it a try, anyhow, with this $7 DVD of five Hoppy westerns from the 1940s. Afterall, I introduced Mr. B. to the inane Power Rangers. Maybe I can work the trick a second time, and he’ll foresake the PR’s Kung Fu moves, in favor of Hoppy’s historically-accurate high-crowned cowboy hat, a cap pistol and even some silver spurs for his sneakers.

Hitting the Bend

For something new in tourism, visit the desert.

"Big Bend has been blessed with abundant rain since the beginning of August. This year, we are enjoying the Chihuahuan Desert’s version of a monsoon. It is not an annual event. If it were, it wouldn’t be a desert.  Daily temperatures have been  very pleasant, much cooler than average. Bring a sweater." 

Rain breeder

Hurricane Paul, off the west coast of Mexico, is expected to be no more than a tropical depression by the time it clears the Mexican mountains on Thursday morning. Meanwhile, it is sending an express train of moisture into Texas, increasing our chances for light to heavy rain tomorrow through Wednesday. As usual, we can use it, being a bit ahead of normal in the city but well behind at the airport.

UPDATE  From National Weather Service in New Braunfels: YEARLY RAINFALL FOR 2006 WAS AS FOLLOWS…SAN ANTONIO 17.38 INCHES…9.9 INCHES BELOW NORMAL…AUSTIN BERGSTROM 20.99 INCHES…7.03 INCHES BELOW NORMAL…AUSTIN MABRY 28.15 INCHES…0.73 INCHES ABOVE NORMAL…AND DEL RIO 9.15 INCHES…7.44 INCHES BELOW NORMAL.

Then Paul weakened to a tropical storm before going ashore but, drawing on Gulf moisture, the rain forcast is still on through Wednesday night.  

 

New link

We’re moving on up to the big time, as the old TV line had it, or at least becoming available to the readers of a funny blog called "The Passing Parade–Cheap Shots of a Drive By Mind" in New York, as we previously did to those of SimplyJews, another satiric blog in Israel. Most of the links in my blog roll are just ones I like, not folks who actually link here. But Akaky Bashmachkin, of The Passing Parade (the first half of whose title reminds me of a Reader Rabbit computer game Mr. Boy used to play) said in his post New Blog: "If you are interested in what goes on down there deep in the heart of Texas, then I suggest you go over to Dick Stanley’s fine TexasScribbler blog and take a look at what he has to say about life, politics, and other important things down Texas way and throughout this our Great Republic." Thanks Akaky, we’ll try to live up to that. Akaky’s nom de plume is taken from Russian writer Gogol’s short story "The Overcoat."

“Who stole my Snickers?”

That’s the Tuscola Kid’s first-huddle ice-breaker, according to the Austin American-Statesman’s Suzanne Halliburton. She uses it to illustrate how he’s become the Longhorns’ team leader despite being a redshirt freshman. He’ll need it to beat the Nebraska Bugeaters today. (Bugeaters was the Cornhuskers first team name, back in the 1800s.) Could be a close game, with the bookies spotting Texas just five points and at least one Austin pundit describing how they might become a two-loss team today. But they won’t. Hook Em!

UPDATE  Awfully tight game. Just 22 to 20. But we’ll take it. On to a more beatable Texas Tech.