Baregrass.Com

I have to say May turned out to be a wonderful month. It started hot but then turned cool, some days only in the high 50’s, and finally at the end of the month we got some very nice rain. Things are greening up and looking nice. What will June bring? I guess we will see.

June is typically a hot and dry month here on the Southern High Plains. The farmers are out of luck this year so far because there is no irrigation water because of the general drought.  I decided against all logic to plant a garden this year and had to haul water from town to get it going. My well water is so alkaline it will kill anything that I put too much water on. If it weren’t for a reverse osmosis unit we couldn’t even drink it.

We had a great Bluegrass festival here last weekend! Wonderful bands too. The Alan Munde Gazette, The Batten Family and Bluegrass Odyssey performed. They were all great sounding groups. I would recommend them to any and all. A group of us local club members did a 45 minute opening act and then some of the members of the Amarillo Bluegrass Club did another 45 minutes. Then it was on to the bands. Of course there was a lot of jamming going on and some of the jammers didn’t finish up until 2AM both nights, but that’s one of the real reasons to go to a Bluegrass Festival. Lots of fun for all.

More on Bluegrass music later but for now dear hearts, thaaaat’s all.

The three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia held an hour long hearing today in the appeal of trial judge Robinson’s ruling in the case of the over 100 year’s of mismanagement of the Indian Trust Fund. Even after Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar’s statements that he would try to settle the litigation, the government argued today that the Native Americans who have had their trust money mismanaged are owed nothing.

So much for the Obama administration providing “hope and change” in Federal-Native American relations. It’s the “same old, same old” all over again. The government could settle this in a heartbeat by offering a fair settlement to the plaintiffs but, and this is the third administration that has been dealing with this, the only attitude is to stonewall and offer nothing. Let’s hope the Court of Appeals does the right thing.

In an ominous note regarding the case, one of the plaintiff’s attorneys, Mark Levy, committed suicide by gunshot just a few days ago. I hope there will be an investigation of this.

Here isthe Indian Trust website: http://www.indiantrust.com/

Here are some events that might be of interest to the public in eastern New Mexico happening in May and early June 2009.

Tucumcari May 5
Cinco de Mayo Celebration at Mesalands Community College

Roswell  May 9
35th Annual Vintage Valley Antique Car Show at the Roswell Convention and Civic Center

Roswell May 16
Chaves County Sheriff’s Posse PlayDay Roping
10am/Speed Events 12 Noon

Tucumcari June 19 – 20
Mother Road Motor Cycle Rally Festival

Tucumcari May 21 – 24
1st Annual Bluegrass Festival at the Quay County Fair Barn. Performing bands will be the Alan Munde Gazette, The Batten family and Bluegrass Odyssey. Go to nmbluegrass.org for more information.

Santa Rosa May 23rd, 24th and 25th
Santa Rosa Days – Annual Santa Rosa Days Celebration and Memorial Day Softball Tournament hosts over 60 Teams at the new Santa Rosa Complex. Food and Concession Booths, Contests for Kids, Pony Rides, Kids Jumps, Rock Climbing, Live Entertainment, Arts and Crafts. Sign up for Softball Tournament and Beach Volleyball Tournament. For further information contact the Santa Rosa Visitors Information Center at (575) 472 3763

Ruidoso May – 23rd & 24th
Ruidoso Valley Noon Lions Gun & Collectible Show at the Convention Center.
Doors open at 9 a.m. each day, admission is $4 for adults & kids get in free when accompanied by an adult. Hours: Sat 9-6, Sun 9-3.

Ruidoso June 6th
Annual Mountain of Blues Festival at the Event Plaza 501 Wingfield S. of Midtown.
Great food, fun & the best live blues around! Advance tickets at the The Quarters Bar & Grill. For more information: www.ruidoso.net/bluesfestival

Tucumcari June 13 & 14
Tucumcari Kiwanis Club High Plains Junior Rodeo Association rodeo at the Quay County Fairgrounds. Events begin at 10 AM on Saturday and 9 AM on Sunday.

Tucumcari June 19 – 20
Mother Road Motor Cycle Rally Festival. For more information: www.motherroadrally.com/

What is CSS you say?? Cascading Style Sheets. CSS is “is a style sheet language used to describe the presentation (that is, the look and formatting) of a document written in a markup language. Its most common application is to style web pages written in HTML and XHTML, but the language can be applied to any kind of XML document, including SVG and XUL.” Quote from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascading_Style_Sheets

CSS is great to provide a lot of flexibility to web design and redesign over many pages. The great goal of web design has been to arrive at the exact type of precise placement on the page and spacial and artistic qualities that the print medium has enjoyed for years. It has gotten very close and I think gone beyond print in that while print is a static medium, the current state of web design is fluid and dynamic. A great deal of that capability is due to the use of CSS in designing web sites and/or pages. This blog, for example, is powered by Word Press and most of the styling and layout that Word Press uses is controlled by Cascading Style Sheets.

Now, why did I go into all that stuff? Because I have just finished a web course on CSS and have learned how to do things with CSS that I hadn’t realized before.

Ok, that’s that for now. I need to come up with some neat things to do in New Mexico pretty soon as summer is icumin in. Can you say Middle English?

It’s obvious that the recession is affecting nearly all regions of the country but I don’t know how much affect it is having on the small communities in eastern New Mexico. Seems like for most of us it is life as usual. I think most small communities on the plains live in a continual recession anyway. It’s almost like one person from a mountain community in Colorado said about the Depression; he said that if it weren’t for the newspapers telling them about the Depression they wouldn’t have known about it. It was life as normal for them!

There is one thing I need to update. In a previous post I had lambasted the Obama administration about their plan to make soldiers rely on their own insurance if they were wounded or disabled. The administration has decided to not do that  thank God.

However, the next biggie from the administration is the report now out from Homeland Security bacically saying that anyone who opposes abortion and gun control is a target and a rightwing fanatical terrorist. This is so bad even the ACLU is questioning it.

Yes it did rain! We got a half inch Saturday evening and it came slow and soaked in. Just what the doctor ordered. For those of you who don’t live in an arid climate, those of us who do thank God for every precious drop of moisture. Also, for those of you who think New Mexico is a desert you are wrong. Only a portion of the southern part of the state is classified as true desert. Most of the state is classified as “arid”. That means we don’t get a lot of moisture but we get enough to sustain an active plant life.

OK, go out and have fun today.

It has been trying to rain all day but who knows how much, if any we will get. We need a bunch! maybe tomorrow we will get a good rain.

Something that will not come out until it is a done deal is the manipulation of the upcoming census. I bet our congressional reps, both in the senate and the house are not concerned one bit that the census will be manipulated in favor of the left.
I don’t know what to do about it, and I have not read any other opinions on what to do about it. It looks like the Republican Party is still dead in the water and will be for a long time to come.

“Honor the Trust Responsibility: Barack Obama recognizes that honoring the government-to-government relationship requires fulfillment of the United States’ trust responsibility to tribes and individual Indians. More specifically, Obama is committed to meaningful reform of the broken system that manages and administers the trust lands and other trust assets belonging to tribes and individual Indians. Further, he is committed to resolving equitably with both tribes and individual Indians litigation resulting from the past failures in the administration and accounting of their trust assets.”

The above quote is from my.barackobama.com/page/content/firstamissues#sovereignty

If the president is really serious about keeping that promise he could very well start by settling the Cobell vs. Salazar case that is still in its agonizing 13 year journey through the federal court system. Despite statements that he wanted to settle the case President Obama’s new secretary of the interior, Ken Salazar, is now backtracking and saying that he has to wait for the outcome of the court of appeals hearing scheduled in May. What a bunch of baloney! If the administration wanted to settle it could do so tomorrow by contacting the plaintiff and arriving at an agreement. A radical change for the better in how the government deals with Native Americans would be a good thing and a good way to start would be for the administration to do the right thing in this case. I don’t think it will happen though but there is still hope.

Two more last comments. This administration and previous administrations have absolutely no problem with giving away billions to other countries, much of which goes into the hands of corrupt and greedy officials with no sense of social conscience for their own people. Billions more have been funneled to foreign banks by means of the recent bailouts. Is it so hard to do the right thing by the remnants of the First Nations of this country?? And, considering the treatment given to the Arapahos and the Cheyennes by the State of Colorado, it would be nice if Secretary Salazar, who is a former Senator from Colorado, could make a step towards wiping that blot out by sitting down and coming to an equitable agreement with the plaintiff.

march snow

It’s 3:42 AM and the March snow storm is here and it is really coming down! It’s not true blizzard conditions yet because I can see my neighbor’s outdoor lights and they live a quarter mile from me. It’s cold too. 27 degrees. 12 hours ago it was 70 degrees, the humidity was way down there, the wind was blowing at 50 miles an hour and we had just finished fighting a range fire.  That’s life on the southern high plains. Back to bed!

Continuing coverage…

8:30 AM and we have near white out conditions. I am going to get some pictures. We have huge drifts in the yard and it is really coming down. Good snow!

Continuing coverage………..

7:32 PM and the snow is tapering off. It has been snowing for around 23 hours now and the temperature is 21 degrees. Lots of good moisture which we need badly. It appears we have received about 8 – 10 inches but it is very hard to tell because of the drifting. We have 3 – 31/2 foot drifts all around the house.  Further up north and east in Dalhart, Texas they are reporting drifts up to the tops of houses!  Interstate 40 has been closed between Albuquerque and Sayer, Oklahoma pretty much all day and the last time I looked US 54 was closed as well. I-25 was closed for a while between Albuquerque and Santa Fe but is now back open. The wind, at least here, has died down and has shifted and is starting to come out of the northwest so I think the weather system has pretty well tracked off into Texas and Oklahoma. They are still predicting up to 24 inches of snow from the northeast Texas Panhandle over to Woodward, Oklahoma.

March snow storm

Picture taken around 9AM on 3/27/09