True Patriots know that today is the 249th anniversary of the most important day in American history and observe it with due reverence. On April 19th, 1775, at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, brave colonists refused to be disarmed, stood their ground, and fought back against tyranny.
Without Lexington Green and the Old North Bridge, there wouldn’t have been a Declaration of Independence. Those “embattled farmers” were willing to die for Liberty rather than live as slaves to the Crown.
They chose Revolution, and we’ve dishonored their legacy. We’re squeamish about doing what it takes to remain free.
That must change.
Deb pulled over to the curb and parked her Wrangler down the street from the bank this morning, awaiting the go-ahead to continue on up and clock in. After a few minutes, she and I ended our regular call.
She called me right back. “My Jeep won’t start!”
She said that it had no power — no dash lights, no dome light, nothin’. A co-worker swung by and picked her up.
My mission was clear. I grabbed our jump-start pack and a handful of tools and headed toward town.
I paused briefly for a line crew pulling cable across the subdivision road. I was expecting backed-up traffic when I got close to US Route 62, having heard reports of a fuel tanker that flipped near Flippin, but that had been cleared. It was easy spotting an orange Jeep on Yellville’s Old Main Street, and I pulled into an open parking space.
Before diving into fixing what might be broken, I wanted to confirm what Deb saw, so I got in and switched on the ignition — I had dash lights. I turned the key. The engine started.
Well, shit.
After repeating the sequence twice more, I dropped the transmission into first gear and drove the Jeep up to the bank. Deb was working the drive-up and we had a short conversation, with lots of head-scratching and a few shrugs.
I walked back to my truck and drove Home.
We’re making big progress on one item on our spring-and-summer to-do list, but it’s probably not what you’re thinking. It isn’t complicated, it won’t cost us a red cent, and we don’t have to do a lick of work.
We’re letting everything grow — trees, ground cover, vines, tangle, clutter, everything. After two growing seasons of felling and digging and scraping the homestead space, plus a winter of clearing around the fringes, we’ve hit the pause button.
Now it’s Nature’s turn. We’re stepping aside to see what kind of wild vegetation volunteers to return. Whatever establishes itself will get to stay, perhaps with management and pruning in the fall.
Yes, we’ll sow grass seed on the leach field, but otherwise it’ll be up to the volunteers.
What we’ve seen already this spring has surprised us. The flat area below The Amphitheater is coming back nicely with grass and creeping perennials like rose vervain. Removing piled-up brush and debris from a few spots along the road, including the utility right-of-way, has allowed them to begin filling in.
The lower level, even before we plant grass, is greening in places. That extends up onto the rocky bank created by deposited spoils, with remarkable diversity. From almost nothing last summer, now we have Chinese bushclover, American pokeweed, ivy-leaved morning glory, wild potato vine, American trumpet vine, Virginia creeper, nettle, greenbrier, grapevine, sumac and more I haven’t yet cataloged.
It’s only the third week of April, and already we have a couple of pokeweed plants almost five feet tall, a two-foot nettle and two very healthy sumac seedlings. Sure, they’re “weeds,” but they’ll all cover and help hold the soil.
By next spring we’ll know what we have and where we may need to give Nature a little help. For now, though, we’ll stand back and watch the show.
It’s been almost a month since we noticed (heard) a small prop plane passing back and forth over The Mountain. At first we chalked it up to sightseeing or flight instruction, but it lingered in the area a long time. Mild curiosity turned to genuine interest.
We launched our Flightradar24 app and saw that the aircraft, a twin-engine Cessna 404 Titan (the actual aircraft pictured above) flying out of Little Rock, was executing a very precise north-south pattern (pictured below). It wasn’t a grid, per se, but clearly it was being flown to cover a specific area.
Looking back at previous flights, this same plane had flown similar patterns here for four days, adjacent and overlapping.
If I had an incurable black-helicopter mentality, I immediately would’ve concluded that it was government surveillance of private citizens on private property. But I don’t and I didn’t, so I dug deeper.
This Cessna appears to be operated by an outfit (behind shells and trusts) that does aerial mapping under contract. It’s likely equipped with multibeam LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) and digital-imaging gear. After performing surveys here in Marion County, it moved on to Iowa, then Colorado.
Currently it’s flying out of Bakersfield, California. Its most recent mapping flight was between Death Valley and the Sequoias (pictured below).
I don’t know what its business is there, nor do I know what it was doing over Ozarkansas. I don’t think it was USGS. I do have a theory, however, and it’s not an appealing prospect.
Wind farms.
That, in fact, may be quite a plausible explanation. LiDAR mapping is a regular part of initial site selection for a wind project. Turbines are being installed right now in Carroll County, west of Harrison, and enviro-Nazis would like nothing more than to spoil more of the Arkansas landscape with these abominable machines.
Even if I’m right, there’s truly nothing I can do with the information. I’m sure I’d be unable to stop a wind farm from coming to Marion County.
I suppose it’s still possible that The Permanent State was mapping areas of The Natural State known to be home to outposts of true Americans. And honestly, I’d rather that be the case.
See, that I can deal with.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable
#LetsGoBrandon #FJB