Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree, Brenda Lee

Tuesday Torque, 1925 Model T At Work, and 1924 Model T Engine Pulls A Buzz Saw

Hard Candy Christmas, Dolly Parton

Christmas In Prison, John Prine

Hunting Thrills

 Dusty Wood has been hunting on our land for several years.  He knows the habitat and he gets acquainted with the deer every fall. This year he brought his daughter Kelby with him during the first firearm season. They saw a Nine and a Ten the first day that both would have been good to take, but she didn't have a shot presented. They came again on Sunday, setting up in a different spot because of a wind shift. Just before sunset the Nine showed up. Dusty sent me picture of the heart, and she put her bullet right through the center. Congratulations, Kelby! That is a fine buck and a great shot!

Theresa R. "Terri" Morrison

 Blog friends have seen Merle mentioned frequently on these pages.  Merle has been part of the True Blue Sam blog for many years, as a supporter of the e-Postal matches and screener of engine videos. Merle recently lost his daughter Terri, and any kind thoughts and prayers you can send his way will be a comfort to our good friend.  Click to read Terri's obiturary  and please keep Merle and his sons in your prayers.

(Facebook does not allow links to True Blue Sam, so we are posting this on our alternate blog.)

Is It Summer, Fall, Or Winter?

 It seems we are having a taste of each every week, but that cold weather is coming and will settle in for a while. Listen to these. They are as good as you will hear, period instruments, playing the music as it was written.

Weekend Steam II: British Steam BR Standard Class 9F

 We are gaining education from the videos you find Merle. Thank You!

Scrape Early, Scrape Often!

Boy Oh Boy do we have deer activity this fall. All the paths we walk have active scrapes, and saplings are being  rubbed to death. Yesterday the bucks started making daylight appearances, so they are getting stupid just as the weather is turning perfect for hunting. 

 

Even a neophyte hunter can find the scrapes all over our woods.

Another,

And another!

 The buck making this line of scrapes is pulling out all the stops and he left a big old calling card on this one. Whatever works, I guess!

The Key To Birthday Bliss...

 ...comes from a Forestry Suppliers catalog?

Dropping Dead Ones, One, Two, Three!

 Susan and I planted this spot in 1976, and it does feel a bit funny seeing trees you planted that are now sawlogs. These died last year, and we already have wood from the first drop in the stove. It is burning great.

Plinky

 The August 2008 ‘American Rifleman’ has a brief article about Plinky Topperwein under the heading of ‘100 Years Ago.’ The feat written up in the article is Mrs. Adolph Topperwein (Plinky) breaking 961 out of 1000 clay pigeons in 4 hours and 35 minutes on July 18, 1908. Consider the numbers: she broke 96 out of the first 100 in 20 minutes, and 98 out of her last 100 in 16 minutes. She missed only 15 out of the first 500, and the sun was in her eyes! She and her husband were both incredibly good shots, and while reading this article, I remembered that Ernie Pyle once visited the Topperweins and preserved the precious meeting in writing for us. Here it is from 'Home Country'. “They called him Ad, which was short for Adolph. They called her Plinky, because when she was learning to shoot she’d keep saying, “Throw up another one and I’ll plink it.” Ad and Plinky Topperwein of San Antonio were one of the greatest shooting teams in the world. A gun-toter in the old Southwest wouldn’t have stood a show if he’d had to draw against Ad Topperwein. Yet Topperwein had never been called upon to defend his life with a gun. The nearest approach was many years ago when an escaped lunatic tried to get in the house. And on him Ad used a club! Ad, the son of a gunsmith of German descent, was born a few miles north of San Antonio. He started shooting when he was six. He would be seventy on his next birthday, and apparently he was shooting as well as ever. He and Plinky had a farm outside of town where they went to shoot whenever they could. Their son Lawrence was telling me about his father’s pulling off a series of difficult shots out there. And about Plinky’s saying, “Isn’t he wonderful? I don’t see how the old fool does it.” Which I suspect was slightly rhetorical because, if there was anything Plinky Topperwein loved more than shooting, it was her husband. She almost got tears in her eyes when she talked about him. They’d been married nearly forty years and earning their living together all that time by fancy shooting, and she still adored him. Topperwein was also an artist. His first paying job was as a chalk etcher on one of the San Antonio newspapers. Even now drawing was his hobby and an outlet for some of his nervous energy. He always carried crayons in the breast pocket of his coat, and he sketched on trains and in restaurants whenever he felt like it. His drawings could be found on windows, walls, doors, and mirrors all over the Southwest; the owners were proud of them. His favorite subjects were Indian and cowboy heads and comic-strip characters. Lawrence was even better at it than his father. He too had worked for years as a newspaper artist. But now he was reporter, and he loved the newspaper business. Incidentally, he couldn’t hit the Municipal Auditorium at twenty paces. When he was young, Ad Topperwein traveled with a circus doing trick shooting. The Winchester Arms Company heard of his prowess and hired him to go about the country giving sharp-shooting exhibitions. That had been thirty-nine years ago and he was still at it, for the same company. On one of his early visits to the Winchester plant in New Haven, Connecticut, he met a girl and married her. Things were pretty tough for her at first. She either had to stay home or else go on those exhibition trips and just twiddle her thumbs. She didn’t like it. So she made Ad teach her so shoot. It wasn’t long before she was as good a shot as her husband. And then Winchester hired her too. For twenty-nine years the world’s greatest shooting couple traveled the North American continent together. But always, the home they came back to betweentimes was San Antonio. Six years ago the Winchester people, probably for economy, had dropped Mrs. Topperwein. It almost broke her heart. Left at home, Plinky turned to other things for recreation, for she was a large woman with tremendous energy. She started bowling, and joined four bowling clubs. She was so interested that for a year she hardly shot at all. Then one day her husband, somewhat critically, said he felt she’d been bowling too much and had forgotten how to shoot. You have to know how intense was their pride in shooting to realize what sting that remark carried for Plinky. To them, their guns were human, and their marksmanship was an emotional thing. To neglect it was like neglecting your family. So they drove out to the farm. Plinky was not only hurt but scared stiff too. Maybe I have forgotten how to shoot, she thought. Maybe I have been bowling too much. If Ad was right, she was as disgraced in his eyes, and in her own too, as if she had struck their child. They got out there, and Ad started tossing targets into the air. One by one, Plinky picked them off. Her old confidence came back, and she called for more and more difficult shots. Before they were through, she had gone through their entire old routine without missing a shot. There was never a happier woman. Friends told me you could start an argument anywhere in San Antonio by saying that Ad was a better shot than Plinky, or vice versa. But the Topperweins said there wasn’t any argument; Plinky was better at some kinds of shooting, Ad was better at others. I spent a fascinating evening with the Topperweins. It was just luck that I caught Ad at home, for he was on the road most of the time. If he liked you, he’d talk guns all night. And Plinky was emotional—loved everything almost to heartbreak. We sat for hours in their den, which was a remarkable, helter-skelter, gun-infested room. There were guns everywhere—in cabinets, hung on the walls, standing in corners. And from under the couch Ad would pull suitcase after suitcase, each one full of six-shooters; there must have been scores of them. He took special ones out and fondled them, always looking to see if they were loaded. He said he had found cartridges many times in guns that he absolutely knew were not loaded. And that brings up what was, to me, the most amazing thing about this couple’s long career as professional crack shots. In forty years of almost daily shooting, they had never had any kind of accident. Never a split barrel, never a stray shot hitting anybody, never any kind of accident at all. I asked about the wild west custom of “fanning” a gun, and Ad showed me how fast he could do it. Fanning means knocking the hammer back with the back of your hand, instead of pulling the trigger. He admitted you could fire faster that way, but he said there wasn’t any advantage in it; when you hit the hammer it threw the gun out of line. “You might fire three times while the other fellow was firing once,” he said, “But your shots would be wild, and the other fellow would kill you with one good shot.” One day Plinky started out the front door, and there was a rattler coiled on the porch with its head up. It may have escaped from the reptile museum a block away. Anyway, its head went off with one blast from her six-gun. Next day she heard her neighbor screaming. She grabbed a rifle and ran over. The rattler’s mate also went to heaven via the Plinky route. Ad and Plinky held some remarkable records. In 1907 Ad shot steadily eight hours a day, for ten days in a row. He was firing a .22 rifle at 2 ½ - inch wooden blocks tossed into the air. He shot at 72,500 blocks, and missed only nine. Out of the first 50,000 he missed four. He had a number of runs of more than 10,000 without a miss, and one run of 14,540. But the strain of it, day after day, almost drove him insane. His muscles and nerves were in painful knots. At night he had horrible dreams: the blocks would be a mile away; the bullets wouldn’t come out of the end of the gun. As for Plinky, her trapshooting record of 1,952 hits out of 2,000 targets was a world’s record for anyone, man or woman. She shot for five hours straight, using a pump gun. It raised such a blister that a few days later the skin came off the whole palm of her hand. Neither of the Topperweins drank, but Ad smoked cigars and Plinky smoked cigarettes. She wondered why some of the cigarette companies didn’t ask her for a testimonial, since smoking hadn’t hurt her nerves. “Now, you don’t want any stuff like that,” Ad said. When I started to go, they refused to let me call a taxi, and drove me downtown. They said the next time we were in San Antonio we had to come out for dinner or get shot. All right, I’d come. But not because I was scared. I figured they’ve never shot at anything as thin as I am, standing edgewise.” From: Chapter XXV. Texas; Home Country by Ernie Pyle, William Sloane Associates, Inc. Publishers, New York, 1947

Brittle Tree Demonstrates The Importance Of Your Hard Hat!

 This shingle oak is dry and brittle! Watch the spears fall out of the top when this baby goes over. We will be making wood tomorrow and stacking this one at the house. I watched the seconds tick by, and from the time I turned to escape until the first spear dropped in was four seconds. A small limb dropped in at six and a half seconds, and a really hot spear comes in at seven seconds. Don't stand around watching the tree fall, because part it may be falling on you!

Fall Garden Bounty

Susan's garden is winding down, but fresh vegetables are still coming out every day. The Lazy Housewife beans were disappointing until recently when they have been producing. The Rattlesnake beans were great producers and we will definitely plant those again. We kept the deer out of the garden OK, but the rabbits were a daily feature. They worked hard on the sweet potatoes. We didn't have sweet corn, so raccoons were no problem. Susan sowed beets after the potatoes were dug, but a heavy rain wiped them out. The okra is just about done, but Susan has a bunch of that cut, dipped in cornmeal, and in the freezer.

350 HP Fairbanks Startup

 There's some good narrative in this video. Usually at shows you see them start up and run engines with no explanation, so this is a good one to watch and listen. Thanks for the pick, Merle!

Habanero Hot Zone!

 We have dried down the habaneros and are turning them into dust for seasoning in the kitchen and at the table. This stuff is definitely great for your circulation! Keep yourself upwind while processing habaneros!

Back To The Old Grind!

Were The Tacos Delivered?

 The news hacks tend to ignore or totally miss important details. I kept seeing stryofoam takeout food containers in photos and videos from Del Rio, so I went looking on Google Earth. There is a taco shop just a block from the river, and I have a pretty good hunch that the "immigrants" were making regular trips back and forth. Is it not a problem when illegal aliens can hop back and forth across the border for takeout tacos?

Dead Hickory, One For The Wood Pile

 

Here's another dead hickory for the wood pile. Look your dead ones over carefully and make sure you have enough solid wood to make a successful drop. Also look overhead for branches that may break or dislodge and mitigate accordingly. 

Okra Strong!

 The garden is coming to an end soon, but the okra is not ready to quit. The bit of rain we had the other day has turned it on again!

The Psalmist Predicts A Bummer Decade:

 Make it to 70 and the next ten years will suck. Then you die. Not gonna highlight that one!

Psalm 90:10

New King James Version

10 The days of our lives are seventy years;
And if by reason of strength they are eighty years,
Yet their boast is only labor and sorrow;
For it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

An Easy One For Friends

 A long-time friend asked us to look at a dead blue spruce. They were thinking about using a ladder and a battery powered chainsaw, and you know how we feel about mixing ladders and chainsaws. It was easy. It leaned a bit toward the house, but not enough to be a hazard. A front opening, a bore cut to make the hinge 3/4" thick, and out the back, then an easy push over. We also cut some big dead branches off their old trees and pruned up a Bradford pear that had interfering branches. We chunked it all up and they picked up the pieces. Saw is the Husky 550 XP.  The weather is cooling down and we will be lighting the upstairs stove in a month, so I see more wood cutting in the future. Back To The Old Grind!

Tuesday Torque: Baby Cat

 I have a thing for homemade buggies for getting around engine shows. This little Cat is a winner!

Union Pacific Big Boy Schedule, Saturday, August 28, SW Illinois

 Saturday is the day if you live in eastern Missouri or Southern Illinois to see the Big Boy steaming up the river to St. Louis. Here's the schedule and the link (Click The Schedule.) to the UP site. Note that times are Central Time. No mention of Standard or Daylight Saving. Assume you should be there early if you go, so you don't miss it.

I studied Google Earth and I think I have spotted a good vantage point for photos and video out in the country, and maybe away from crowds. Here are screen shots to help you find it, not far northwest of Praire DuRocher. Just northwest of the town turn off of Bluff Road onto Goose Lake Road and go until you are on the other side of the tracks. You will have the sun slightly at your back and the river bluffs for a backdrop. Good Luck and be sure to share your videos!

Pickled Okra, An Easy Food Preservation Project!

Susan's Homemade Vanilla Extract! An Easy, Fun Project!

Kevin McCarthy Holds Press Briefing On Afghanistan Withdrawal

Ted Lewis, June 6, 1890 - August 25, 1971

Fifty years ago a musical legend passed away. We have several of Ted Lewis's recordings in our collection, and we always are thrilled by his music from the 1920's. Ted was born in Circleville, Ohio and is buried there. The Ted Lewis Museum is an attraction in Circleville (South of Columbus) that is open from 10A to 4P on Saturdays. Click Here to visit the museum website and learn more about Ted Lewis.

Tomato Powder From The Garden

 Tomato powder is another product that you can get from your garden. Susan saved the skins when she was dicing tomatoes last week, dried them, and today she chopped them into powder. It's an easy process.

American Thresherman Show In Pinckneyville! BE THERE!

 The show winds up today, and it's a good one!

Free Upgrades For The Taliban

Weekend Steam: Case 110 Times Two!

 We missed having the American Thresherman show last year. I drove in this morning, and before I got out of the car I could smell coal smoke. Mighty Nice! I made a quick tour today so I could get back to the house. Susan is working hard on the tomato crop, and we might shoot another canning video tomorrow.

Arlo Guthrie: Patriot's Dream

 Arlo published Patriot's Dream in 1976. This recording was made with the University of Kentucky Symphony Orchestra in 2007. It's well worth listening and studying.

Words and music by Arlo Guthrie

Living now here but for fortune
Placed by fate's mysterious schemes
Who'd believe that we're the ones asked
To try to rekindle the patriot's dreams

Arise sweet destiny, time runs short
All of your patience has heard their retort
Hear us now for alone we can't seem
To try to rekindle the patriot's dreams

Can you hear the words being whispered
All along the American stream
Tyrants freed the just are imprisoned
Try to rekindle the patriot's dreams

Ah but perhaps too much is being asked of too few
You and your children with nothing to do
Hear us now for alone we can't seem
To try to rekindle the patriot's dreams

Walking With Tristan: The Most Beautiful Place In Nevada?

 You should watch this from a stable, very safe chair!

Weekend Steam: Jim van der Kolk's Extinct Locomotive Collection

 Grab a cup of coffee, sit back and enjoy. Or shed a tear.  Thanks, Merle, for doing these picks!