Bulldog puppys at our neighbors, the Anderson's... new born.. fat and sassy!!

Glenn Beck; the letter...

GLENN:
I got a letter from a woman in Arizona. She writes an open letter to our nation's leadership:

the letter:
I'm a home grown American citizen, 53, registered Democrat all my life. Before the last presidential election I registered as a Republican because I no longer felt the Democratic Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. Now I no longer feel the Republican Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. The fact is I no longer feel any political party or representative in Washington represents my views or works to pursue the issues important to me. There must be someone. Please tell me who you are. Please stand up and tell me that you are there and that you're willing to fight for our Constitution as it was written. Please stand up now. You might ask yourself what my views and issues are that I would horribly feel so disenfranchised by both major political parties. What kind of nut job am I? Will you please tell me?

Well, these are briefly my views and issues for which I seek representation:

One, illegal immigration. I want you to stop coddling illegal immigrants and secure our borders. Close the underground tunnels. Stop the violence and the trafficking in drugs and people. No amnesty, not again. Been there, done that, no resolution. P.S., I'm not a racist. This isn't to be confused with legal immigration.

Two, the TARP bill, I want it repealed and I want no further funding supplied to it. We told you no, but you did it anyway. I want the remaining unfunded 95% repealed. Freeze, repeal.

Three: Czars, I want the circumvention of our checks and balances stopped immediately. Fire the czars. No more czars. Government officials answer to the process, not to the president. Stop trampling on our Constitution and honor it.

Four, cap and trade. The debate on global warming is not over. There is more to say.

Five, universal healthcare. I will not be rushed into another expensive decision. Don't you dare try to pass this in the middle of the night and then go on break. Slow down!

Six, growing government control. I want states rights and sovereignty fully restored. I want less government in my life, not more. Shrink it down. Mind your own business. You have enough to take care of with your real obligations. Why don't you start there.

Seven, ACORN. I do not want ACORN and its affiliates in charge of our 2010 census. I want them investigated. I also do not want mandatory escrow fees contributed to them every time on every real estate deal that closes. Stop the funding to ACORN and its affiliates pending impartial audits and investigations. I do not trust them with taking the census over with our taxpayer money. I don't trust them with our taxpayer money. Face up to the allegations against them and get it resolved before taxpayers get any more involved with them. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, hello. Stop protecting your political buddies. You work for us, the people. Investigate.

Eight, redistribution of wealth. No, no, no. I work for my money. It is mine. I have always worked for people with more money than I have because they gave me jobs. That is the only redistribution of wealth that I will support. I never got a job from a poor person. Why do you want me to hate my employers? Why ‑‑ what do you have against shareholders making a profit?

Nine, charitable contributions. Although I never got a job from a poor person, I have helped many in need. Charity belongs in our local communities, where we know our needs best and can use our local talent and our local resources. Butt out, please. We want to do it ourselves.

Ten, corporate bailouts. Knock it off. Sink or swim like the rest of us. If there are hard times ahead, we'll be better off just getting into it and letting the strong survive. Quick and painful. Have you ever ripped off a Band‑Aid? We will pull together. Great things happen in America under great hardship. Give us the chance to innovate. We cannot disappoint you more than you have disappointed us.

Eleven, transparency and accountability. How about it? No, really, how about it? Let's have it. Let's say we give the buzzwords a rest and have some straight honest talk. Please try ‑‑ please stop manipulating and trying to appease me with clever wording. I am not the idiot you obviously take me for. Stop sneaking around and meeting in back rooms making deals with your friends. It will only be a prelude to your criminal investigation. Stop hiding things from me.

Twelve, unprecedented quick spending. Stop it now.

Take a breath. Listen to the people. Let's just slow down and get some input from some nonpoliticians on the subject. Stop making everything an emergency. Stop speed reading our bills into law. I am not an activist. I am not a community organizer. Nor am I a terrorist, a militant or a violent person. I am a parent and a grandparent. I work. I'm busy. I'm busy. I am busy, and I am tired. I thought we elected competent people to take care of the business of government so that we could work, raise our families, pay our bills, have a little recreation, complain about taxes, endure our hardships, pursue our personal goals, cut our lawn, wash our cars on the weekends and be responsible contributing members of society and teach our children to be the same all while living in the home of the free and land of the brave.

I entrusted you with upholding the Constitution. I believed in the checks and balances to keep from getting far off course. What happened? You are very far off course. Do you really think I find humor in the hiring of a speed reader to unintelligently ramble all through a bill that you signed into law without knowing what it contained? I do not. It is a mockery of the responsibility I have entrusted to you. It is a slap in the face. I am not laughing at your arrogance. Why is it that I feel as if you would not trust me to make a single decision about my own life and how I would live it but you should expect that I should trust you with the debt that you have laid on all of us and our children. We did not want the TARP bill. We said no. We would repeal it if we could. I am sure that we still cannot. There is such urgency and recklessness in all of the recent spending.

From my perspective, it seems that all of you have gone insane. I also know that I am far from alone in these feelings. Do you honestly feel that your current pursuits have merit to patriotic Americans? We want it to stop. We want to put the brakes on everything that is being rushed by us and forced upon us. We want our voice back. You have forced us to put our lives on hold to straighten out the mess that you are making. We will have to give up our vacations, our time spent with our children, any relaxation time we may have had and money we cannot afford to spend on you to bring our concerns to Washington. Our president often knows all the right buzzword is unsustainable. Well, no kidding. How many tens of thousands of dollars did the focus group cost to come up with that word? We don't want your overpriced words. Stop treating us like we're morons.

We want all of you to stop focusing on your reelection and do the job we want done, not the job you want done or the job your party wants done. You work for us and at this rate I guarantee you not for long because we are coming. We will be heard and we will be represented. You think we're so busy with our lives that we will never come for you? We are the formerly silent majority, all of us who quietly work , pay taxes, obey the law, vote, save money, keep our noses to the grindstone and we are now looking up at you. You have awakened us, the patriotic spirit so strong and so powerful that it had been sleeping too long. You have pushed us too far. Our numbers are great. They may surprise you. For every one of us who will be there, there will be hundreds more that could not come. Unlike you, we have their trust. We will represent them honestly, rest assured. They will be at the polls on voting day to usher you out of office. We have cancelled vacations. We will use our last few dollars saved. We will find the representation among us and a grassroots campaign will flourish. We didn't ask for this fight. But the gloves are coming off. We do not come in violence, but we are angry. You will represent us or you will be replaced with someone who will. There are candidates among us when hewill rise like a Phoenix from the ashes that you have made of our constitution.

Democrat, Republican, independent, libertarian. Understand this. We don't care. Political parties are meaningless to us. Patriotic Americans are willing to do right by us and our Constitution and that is all that matters to us now. We are going to fire all of you who abuse power and seek more. It is not your power. It is ours and we want it back. We entrusted you with it and you abused it. You are dishonorable. You are dishonest. As Americans we are ashamed of you. You have brought shame to us. If you are not representing the wants and needs of your constituency loudly and consistently, in spite of the objections of your party, you will be fired. Did you hear? We no longer care about your political parties. You need to be loyal to us, not to them. Because we will get you fired and they will not save you. If you do or can represent me, my issues, my views, please stand up. Make your identity known. You need to make some noise about it. Speak up. I need to know who you are. If you do not speak up, you will be herded out with the rest of the sheep and we will replace the whole damn congress if need be one by one. We are coming. Are we coming for you? Who do you represent? What do you represent? Listen. Because we are coming. We the people are coming.

Mrs. Moffat's baby boy turns 27 today.... Happy Birthday Jake... and many many happy ones to follow, too

happy birthday to you
happy birthday to you
happy birthday dear jake....
Happy birthday to you...

and many more...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JACOB DANIEL MOFFAT

Kaitlyn at her Bible School program this

evening, taken by Jonathan

finishing up under the lights... the blur is Madison Ann...

Austyn's last game of the season.. he is on first.. they loaded the bases.. and lost the game by one run... wow... but they played their hearts out

Opposing pitcher had his "catfish" stance down to a t.... one could tell he was well groomed in intimation ... haha...

Madison Ann being, well, Madison.... haha...

A Man playing short stop

A-man throwing to Third...

Austyn caught a pop up fly... nailed it big time and a very quick throw back to home...

Cars, cars and more cars at the ball park last night...

Austyn on his way to Third

the ladies watching Austyn's last ballgame of the spring season 2009

Mike Anderson's new puppys.. think they are for sale too....

I am trying to upload videos of the new puppies on youtube without much success, maybe by the end of the day... sigh...

thinking of my own Mom who turns 90 on June 23rd....

Living legacy
Man's father fought in Civil War

Charles Cox, 93, of Pawnee poses with a photo of his parents and a picture of himself in the Army in 1942. Cox is one of the the nation's few remaining sons of a Union Civil War Veteran. RHETT MORGAN / Tulsa World

By RHETT MORGAN World Staff Writer
Published: 6/17/2009 2:18 AM
Last Modified: 6/17/2009 3:16 AM

PAWNEE — Charles Cox traveled in a covered wagon, courted in a Model T and served on four continents in the Army.

His history also contains this jaw-dropping nugget: Cox's father fought in the Civil War.

Cox is the son of Joseph H. Cox, a Illinois infantryman for the Union Army from 1862-65. Charles was born when his father, who married three times, was 73.

"I think I was an unexpected child," said Cox, 93, of Pawnee.

Today, he's a link to Lincoln.

Only 52 children of Union Civil War Veterans are still living, according to the Pennsylvania-based Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War. The Sons of Confederate Veterans has located more than 100 sons and the United Daughters of the Confederacy has located more than 150 daughters.

Charles Cox wasn't on the list, which chronicles only one Civil War child from Oklahoma, a daughter.

"... Unless the order learns of family members of a veteran due to a news item or the survivors make themselves known to our order, it is not possible to know of them," David Demmy Sr., executive director of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, wrote in an e-mail. "I am not aware of any other organization that may attempt to contact and tabulate these folks ... ."

Cox shrugs off his unusual status, mainly because of the arithmetic of it all. Cox was 13 when his father died in 1928.

"My older brother had more to do with my childhood than anybody else," Cox said recently from an easy chair in his home.

"He really was the one who saw to it that I was taken care of. I've never forgotten how he was so involved in my life."

Documented life in letters

Joseph H. Cox was a corporal of Company F, 127th Illinois Infantry. Enlisting in August 1862, he served in the 15th Corps under Gen. William Sherman before being wounded and taken to the notorious Andersonville Prison in Georgia, the first of several POW camps in which he was held. He escaped in December 1864 while being moved to Jacksonville prison and reached the Union lines the following February.

J.H. Cox wrote down his remembrances of the war on stationery dated July 10, 1875. His family still has the original copies and other documents detailing his colorful life.

J.H. fathered 12 children from his three marriages, including eight from his last wife, Emma Thurston, whom he wed in 1889. When he made the first of two land runs into Indian Territory in '89, he wrote to his wife in a letter dated April 19, remarking on the difficulty of crossing the Salt Fork River.

"Now came the critical part of our journey," J.H. wrote. "Two men and one team had already drowned, and the ferry men were all drunk but I decided to risk it. I put harness and everything in the buggy, laid my overcoat off, and got Henry Gazway to go with me and lead the gray mare. I took poor Rompy who could barely breathe with distemper."

He continued: "The men behind whipped their horses in, and we hung to their halters. They had to swim almost from the bank. The gray mare swam like a duck but Rompy struggled for about 5 rods (came near pulling me in) and turned over on his side and gave up. Men from the shore yelled, 'Let him go, he will drown.' Those on the boat said, "Give him some more rope or he will drown.'"

In an April 22, 1889, letter to Emma, J.H. complained about food. "I don't think I shall stay as long as I intended, as I have had a falling out at my boarding house with the cook," he wrote. "The pancakes don't come up to standard. I went to turn one and it fell 4 1/4 sections adjoining. Please tell me what to do. My stove is a daisy, but I am sadly in need of a cook."

Traveling the world

Charles Cox was the last child born to J.H. and Emma, who was 30 years her husband's junior. When J.H. purchased property in Arkansas, he rode a train there while sending his wife, teenage son and Charles in a covered wagon, said Gail Gazin, the younger of Charles' two daughters.

It was in Arkansas, near a place called West Fork, that Cox was treated for diphtheria at about age 4. He recalls the physician saying, "I don't know whether he will make it through the night."

"I proved that they were wrong. I'm still here," Cox said.

The family eventually settled back in Pawnee. Cox married Elna Griesel, a switchboard operator whom he first met in a Pawnee telephone office.

"Dad went in there to call a girlfriend and saw mother," Gazin said. "He thought she was a pretty good lookin' woman, and he might just have to get to know her."

Cox did medic-related duties while in World War II, working in such places as Capetown, South Africa; Brazil; Canada; India; and France.

"I got to be a world traveler," he said. "Wherever they had a problem, they sent me."

When the war ended, Cox made a career of education, first teaching at a one-room schoolhouse before spending roughly 30 years in the Pawnee school system. His wife of nearly 67 years died last May.

"It's a life that I don't really have to apologize for because the things I have done have been beneficial to a lot of people," said Cox, a company commander for the Oklahoma National Guard from 1954-60. "My life has been respectable. I have no reason for regretting. I've managed to survive all this time and I'm crowding 100."

This young man bought feed from us for his show pigs over the years and grew up about 2 miles from us.. now look...

A unique dairy in Payne County

Ashley Stockamp
Stillwater NewsPress

A Payne County farm is complete with pasture, barns and even a milking parlor, but there are no cows.

Chester and Dora Busch operate Feather Creek Farm, located between Stillwater and Glencoe. The farm is a full production goat dairy with about 100 milking goats, 48 of which are being milked at this time.

Dora Busch said they started in the dairy goat industry about seven years ago when their oldest son wanted to show dairy goats. After he graduated and moved away from the farm, the Busches decided to transform into a grade A goat dairy.

Feather Creek Farm became grade A in 2007 and they began selling their milk at Pure Prairie Creamery, LLC, a cheese factory in Ada. The cheese is sold in local groceries throughout Oklahoma including Consumers IGA and Companies Comin II in Stillwater.

“We sell it locally, we are legal to sell 100 gallons of raw goats milk, which is unpasturized,” Dora Busch said. “The only thing that has been done to the milk is that it has been filtered for cleanness. We can sell that from the farm every month.”

Pure Prairie Creamery, LLC Partner Bill Clark said the creamery produces a market for Oklahoma goat dairy producers. He said the Busches are one of his best producers.

“It’s been excellent,” Clark said. “They have the highest quality of milk of any producer we buy from. Their quality has been superb.”

Clark said he can’t talk enough about the quality of their milk and attributes their success to careful genetic selection. He said milk usually gives an average 9 percent yield on cheese, but Feather Creek Farm’s milk yields 10 to 11 percent.

The Busches hope to add a cheese factory to their dairy and sell direct to consumers, but Dora Busch said the Stillwater market is a tough market.

Chester Busch said he has wanted to milk for a long time, and took losing his job as an opportunity to farm full-time. He said now was a good time to get into the dairy goat industry because people are becoming more health conscious.

“It’s something I always liked doing,” he said. “It’s a specialty item, a novelty item. More people are getting more health conscious so goats milk is on the rise.”

Dora Bush said milking goats is the same process as milking cows, but is actually a little easier.

“The only difference is you’ve got two teats instead of four,” Dora Busch said. “My husband’s favorite saying is ‘If god had intended us to milk cows he would have given us four hands.’ ”

She said the size makes them easier to handle and the milk is a little easier to digest. She said the goats are good to work with and develop better personalities than dairy cattle.

“They’re very personable,” Dora Busch said. “Every single one of these goats has its own personality. They’re just lovable.”

Goats are considered browsers; they will pick through weeds and leaves instead of eating grasses. Dora Busch said the dairy goats are kept on an alfalfa and sweet feed diet to help with production.

“If all we did was let them browse, they would milk but it wouldn’t be what it is now,” she said. “It’s the same as with a cow dairy, the more production you can get out of one animal, the better off you are.”

Chester Busch lost his job in April and along with running the farm, distributes cheese for Pure Prairie Creamery. Dora Busch said this was a “mixed blessing” because he can now make more money on the farm.

“You don’t have to go out to an eight to five job,” Chester Busch said. “Farming’s really 24/7, but it’s something I enjoy doing.”

The Busches said they would like to expand their operation to around 150 milking goats. They also want to raise awareness for the industry and let people know the opportunity is out there.

For more information about becoming involved in the Dairy Goat call 405-334-1318.

American Chopper show builds CNG cycle for OKC energy company

By Associated Press
Published: 6/16/2009 10:49 AM
Last Modified: 6/16/2009 11:20 AM

OKLAHOMA CITY — The stars of a cable television reality show have built what is being touted as the world's first compressed natural gas-powered custom chopper for a local energy company.

"American Chopper" stars Paul Teutul Sr. and his sons, Paul Jr. and Mikey, run a family business in Newburgh, N.Y., known as Orange County Choppers.

They built the CNG-powered chopper for Chesapeake Energy Corp., the top independent producer of natural gas in the U.S.

The Oklahoma unveiling for the CNG chopper will be Wednesday morning at Chesapeake's northwest Oklahoma City headquarters. The "American Chopper" segment featuring the CNG chopper will air on cable network TLC on June 25.

Other Lives: Daytrotter Session

Other Lives recorded a session with Daytrotter.com awhile back. They become the fifth Oklahoma artist to be featured on Daytrotter - Evangelicals and Aqueduct both sessioned there in 2007, as did The Uglysuit in 2008 and Samantha Crain earlier this year.

Below are mp3s from the session, including details on each song by the band.

DOWNLOAD: Other Lives - “Precious Air”

This song was written in 2007. We recorded “Precious Air” for our album and we didn’t quite capture it in the studio. We had an earlier demo that we recorded on our own in Oklahoma and we ended up releasing that version of the song on our 5-song EP that we released last year.

DOWNLOAD: Other Lives - “It Was The Night”

This song was written for a dear friend that I lost.

DOWNLOAD: Other Lives - “AM Theme”

We wrote this song about a documentary called “The Bridge.” “The Bridge” is a 2006 documentary film by Eric Steel that tells the stories of a handful of individuals who committed suicide by jumping off of the Golden Gate Bridge in 2004.

DOWNLOAD: Other Lives - “Paper Cities”

This song started out as a piano riff that I had for a long time. Musically, this song kind of came together in parts. The lyrics on the other hand were sort of a theme we all had on our minds. This song is about the helplessness and feeling of disconnection we have had during the war. We all know family and friends overseas and it hit close to home.

From Daytrotter:

The Other Lives are cardiovascular. The Stillwater, Oklahomans are as good as a 10-mile run is for the old ticker. They’re as good as any other reasonable method of strengthening that pump that takes up a good amount of space on the south side of the ribcage. It enlarges the resilient, damned thing so much so that the trustworthy organ starts to pulse against those thin bones and you can feel it everywhere else in your body – exactly what they’ve done in terms of growth, for you as well as the many others that they’ve put themselves in contact with. Jesse Tabish doesn’t seem to have any trouble in getting compelled to delve into a story or a situation that involves painful remembrance or dramatic consequences, coating the swirling thoughts in the kind of open plain country-folk ringing and rustling that makes any man, woman or child feel what it might mean to be lonesome and forgotten. And that may not be the intention. Likely, these are songs that are meant to buoy a soul and that’s there, but Tabish and the young group do a job on making the actual story and the various points of interest feel as if they’re so personal that we shouldn’t take our eyes or ears off of them for we’re their protectors and are responsible for any of their aches and tears. It alone is enough to make a person come into closer contact with the weight of the sadness that he writes into his lyrics, which tend to veer through very personal episodes as well as mingling them with other stimulations brought in through other means less closely held. Without trying to make a person feel isolated with their own rambling troubles and their own significant glooms and terrors – those meaningful matters of restless nights – Other Lives has the ability to blow the top of your head out, allowing all of these somber spirits crawl on in and get their vagrancy on, bringing their neediness and their misfortunes straight to your temples. In letting these various sorts in, the capacity for pulling from these stories the great depths of intimacy and the great darkness of impact increases and suddenly we’re all there with the one Tabish is singing about – from the late friend in “It Was The Night” (singing, “You were so gone when we found you/It was the hour you had come back/You were so gone/And all of the reasons we’re not meant to know/Let the wind sweep over you/And hear the sound that’s calling you to come..back.”) to the other odd folks who just happen to make an impression on the writer, preying on his affinity for devastatingly harsh light and uncomfortable, but gorgeous heaviness. Other Lives fill their songs with some shimmering abandonment, the issues of lives changing and lives getting cold and barren before someone’s very eyes. Without needing to hightail it for the hills, drifting out into the middle of nowhere, we’re left hijacked and completely immobile in our cranium, thinking about those outside and around us as flittering fascinations – those who could love us, hurt us, miss us, ignore us, stun us, worry us or embrace us. It’s just always confusing where they’ll take us – to which destination – and this is a place that’s most unbearably absolute for Tabish and Other Lives.

another look at Friday's Storm

Not sure who took these awesome photos, this arrived in an email from Marilyn, please enjoy. Another look at Friday's storm.

Nasty little squall blew through this morning at about 9 o’clock.

The leading edge wasn’t as pretty as I had hoped it would be, but it wasn’t too bad. The first thing I noticed was that the sky behind the leading edge was a nice green color. If you recall from a previous email back in February, green skies typically indicate the presence of hail. Windy little sucker, too. The clouds just above the stadium lights here had to be pushing to the south at or over 100 mph. I’m glad those weren’t reaching ground level because I would have been blown to somewhere in North Texas.

“Greenage”.

After a nice downpour and gust front, the hail started to fall. It started as some nickels and dimes, but quickly grew to quarters and then golfballs.

A collection of golfballs and maybe a little larger.

Now up to the proverbial “hen-egg” sized hail. Maybe racquetballs.

Still about the same size, but I thought the banded core was pretty cool.

I thought this one was pretty cool looking. It was flat on the top and bottom, but had this ruffled look in the middle. Sort of looked like the cap of a mushroom. Really bizare, but that’s why I like the weather. It’s pretty random.

According to my computer, there were some radar detected areas of 3.5 inch hail. That’s getting into the big stuff now. Sort of between baseballs and softballs. Usually the radar program over-sizes the hail, meaning what actually hits the ground isn’t as big as the radar program says it is. This time it was.

This can ruin your day in a hurry.

Bigger than a quarter.

After 10 minutes of palming this thing, it has shrunk considerably. Even though some time had passed, it still measured in at 3 inches