Project: The Sea Nymph Carrier

 It is finally feeling like fall is in the air. So, time for some more projects.

Well the trusty 1969 carrier (boat trailer) is in need of some repairs, as we have been fishing through-out Nebraska and Colorado this summer and is missing some parts.

The rough Colorado roads, and back woods places we go have taken a toll on the old gal.

It is time to do some upgrades and replacement of items to get ready for the fall season of fishing and hunting.

So, here are some of the before images from about 4 days ago.

 This image  shows the Sea Nymph setting on the ground (grounded) behind its trusty wheeled carrier.
The trailer part of the image shows the existing front wheel that uses a  pin on the front of the tongue. The pin will bend in rough terrain making it pretty flimsy , next to it is a new jack that is going to be fitted, the wheel will be welded to it, making it possible to retract when in motion, also making it possible to raise and lower with the jack. (my back is getting a little weaker :)
To make that possible the spare tire needs to be relocated towards the rear.

The right side fender is missing, we left from a day fishing in Sterling, got back to base and it was missing ?? .. have no idea where it fell off.
 Best I can assume is, I was almost t-boned at a traffic light, I swerved and he missed, I think the boat tilted enough to catch the fender on the tire and rip it off, ( you can see a mark on the upper right of the tire)
Also, one of the poles that help guide the boat onto the trailer on windy days fell off on the way back from  the mountains somewhere.  Go figure the pipe had a 1/4 in thick wall.

Stay tuned ...  more to come ...

Fishing in Longmont ....

Rusty getting the boat ready for a little fishing

This is the second time we have fished Union Reservoir both times we caught 8 walleyes


A few sunset pictures

Being in the great outdoor tends to clear the mind from the mind control "they" seem to have on us.

This week I will have a series I will call "Why not Question Everything"
Have we forgotten the desire to learn like when we were small kids ?

This is a re-post of an article from the Wake-up World blog 

Question Everything!

14th June 2013

By Jan Fox

Guest Writer for Wake Up World

There can be many reasons why you don’t question everything. 

1)  Because you have always taken for granted all that is around you is true.

2)  Because it is the ‘norm’.

3)  Because everyone else does it, or believes it to be true.

4)  Because that’s the way it’s always been.

5)  Because some “authority” person, be it your parents, a teacher or professor, a doctor or a  lawyer, a political figure, a minister, or the television news tells you it’s so.

Did you ever stop to think that maybe, just maybe, ‘they’ were wrong?

The majority of people used to believe the world was flat and only a few believed it to be round, and the minority who thought the world was round were laughed at.

Or that the Earth was the center of the Universe – Galileo taught the Sun was the center of the [known] Universe. Following mounting controversy he was tried in 1633, and found “gravely suspect of heresy,” and was sentenced to indefinite imprisonment. This was subsequently commuted to house arrest, under which he remained for the rest of his life – for stating a truth. But we now know what he proposed was absolutely true.

Let’s start with some simple questions

Have you ever asked why the directions on certain shampoo bottles instructs you to shampoo, rinse and shampoo and rinse again? Could it be because you are using twice as much shampoo so you have to buy it twice as often and double the profits of the corporation that is selling the shampoo? Or is it because the shampoo is inadequate, not strong enough to clean your hair the first time?

Why does your tube of toothpaste state you must call Poison Control Center if you swallow more than a toothbrush full of toothpaste? Because it’s poison, that’s why! It has sodium fluoride in it, and that is the poison.

This leads to the next question. Why do the water treatment plants add sodium fluoride to your drinking water if it’s a poison? You were told it would help reduce tooth decay but there are no studies proving that the fluoridation of drinking water prevents tooth decay. None, zilch, nana.

In 1986, the World Health Organization (WHO) published a report in which concern was expressed about the incidence of dental problems caused by there being too much fluoride in public drinking water supplies.

To all this we must add the fact that since drinking water supplies already contain a number of chemicals such as nitrates which accumulate because of the use of fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, chlorine and aluminum sulphate which are added deliberately, and lead or copper from the pipes which are used to supply the water to our homes – adding fluoride to the mixture increase the risk of a dangerous interaction between the various chemicals in the water.

Dr. Dean Burk, PhD, with 34 years at the National Cancer Institute said:

“In point of fact, fluoride causes more human cancer than any other chemical.”

Follow that question with this one. Why, and who recommended we drink eight, 8-ounces of water daily? The most commonly cited source for the 8×8 myth is the U.S. government-sponsored Food and Nutrition Board from 1945. And what year did they start putting fluoride in the water? 1945. Coincidence? And is it a coincidence that in 1942-45, the Nazis put fluoride in the drinking water of those in the concentration camps to keeps the prisoners docile?

If a toothbrush full of toothpaste is swallowed and you are warned to contact Poison Control, why are they recommending eight 8-ounce glasses of water daily – that is full of fluoride? Why no warning to call Poison Control when drinking fluoridated water? You’re getting more fluoride in 64 ounces of fluoridated water than you are in a toothbrush full of toothpaste.

It stands to reason that if sodium fluoride is a poison, along with all the other chemicals, the more water you drink, the more poison (fluoride) you bring into your system. Why would a 5’2″ female weighing 107 pounds need the same amount of water as a 6’3″ male weighing 220 pounds? The report doesn’t specify size and weight, just that we should all drink eight x 8-ounces of water per day. Could it be because ‘they’ want you to drink more water so you will get more sodium fluoride (poison) in your system? It has even been recommended that tranquillizers be added to drinking water supplies to calm people down… although I doubt that will ever happen.

Try questioning where the water goes when you take a shower or a bath. The fluoridated water that doesn’t go down the drain is absorbed into your body. Some of you may be thinking, “No, it doesn’t”. But think about it; why would nicotine patches be sold to help you stop smoking or why would the medical profession give you a patch that releases pain medication if it isn’t absorbed into the body through the skin?

Now you are asking yourself:

Now why would ‘they’ want to poison us? Why would ‘they’ do that? And who are “they” anyway.

The ‘why’ is for money, greed, and power. “They” are the huge corporations that are running the world. Let’s talk about Monsanto for example, which is a gigantic corporation. They spent 40 million dollars in preventing the labeling of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). You should question why Bill Gates (the Microsoft Gates) purchased 500,000 shares of Monsanto stock.

Now why would a huge corporation spend that amount preventing citizens of the United States and many other countries from knowing what they are eating? Why hide it unless it is something Monsanto doesn’t want you to know.

Did you know that those who produce organic foods MUST purchase an expensive organic certification? Certification is handled by state, non-profit and private agencies that have been approved by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Ask yourself why an organic farmer has to pay big bucks for a certification to let people know they are getting organic foods and Monsanto doesn’t even have to label their artificial food?

What’s wrong with this picture? And by the way, “organic” and “natural” labels are not the same. In the U.S., this “natural” label means “minimally processed”.

The Future of Hunting & Fishing News / Not about Guns

If this continues we may see dust bowl days again. 

During last years hunting trips it was very noticeable the areas that no longer support wildlife.

People that live in densely populated areas (cities) many never leave their bubble, have no idea what is happening, between the over use of the lands,  the drought bad things will happen just like in the past.

 

Is No One Paying Attention? 

We’ve Lost 9.7 Million Acres of CRP Land in Five Years. 

 

The amount of land enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), at 27.1 million acres, is down by 26 percent, or 9.7 million acres in the past five years, to a 25 year low.

 During this same time period, corn acreage has increased by 13 million acres.
 Farmers are once again planting crops on marginal lands “fencerow to fencerow” to cash in on today’s high commodity prices. CRP payments haven’t risen to compete with crop returns, and the program itself is being whittled away by Congress.

The Conservation Reserve Program exists to provide land owners with some financial incentive to idle their land, which in turn benefits the environment while providing commodity price support by reducing surplus production. But now, ethanol policy makes that curb of surplus production unnecessary.

The original CRP legislation, the Food Security Act of 1985, set a goal of enrolling over 40 million acres into the program by 1990 but that has never been reached and is now falling sharply.

The laws regulating the program have been tweaked many times since begun in 1985, being tugged and pulled by various special interests. Prior to the CRP, we had “set aside acres” in the 1970′s and “soil bank” acres in the 1960′s.
If you visit one of the USDA’s websites promoting the benefits of the Conservation Reserve Program, you will see a long list including the following:

• Reduces soil erosion by an estimated 450 million tons per year, compared with pre-CRP erosion rates.
• Protects surface waters from sediment and nutrient enrichment with enrollment of 1.8 million acres of streamside grass and forested buffers.
• In prime pheasant habitat, a 4 percent increase in CRP grassland acres was associated with a 22 percent increase in pheasant counts.
• Sequesters 50 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually in soils and vegetation on enrolled lands.
• Includes 8.3 million acres enrolled in the Prairie Pothole region providing habitat important for migratory waterfowl, grassland birds, and dependent species.

There’s nothing not to like in that list. CRP policy is an environmentally friendly one which helps protect this nation’s privately owned natural resources of soil and water. It adds to biodiversity and wildlife habitat.

 Older farmers are more likely to participate in this program.

On the down side, nearly half of CRP funds go to the top ten percent of recipients, according to the Environmental Working Group. And, some politicians argue that we shouldn’t pay farmers not to farm where they shouldn’t be farming in the first place.

Today, the economic incentive to grow corn, even on marginal lands, far exceeds the average amount of $57 paid per acre by the CRP program. Keep in mind that most of the acres enrolled in CRP have always been the marginal lands, those which are less productive, and are more vulnerable to erosion. In addition, budgetary pressures in writing a new farm bill make this program an easy target. At this year’s current enrollment the CRP costs the taxpayer around $1.6 billion, down from 2 billion a few years ago.


The map below shows us that 2.5 Million Acres of Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) land was lost in just one year in the contracts held in 2011 versus 2012. Much of the area exiting the program this past year was in the Plains states to grow more corn on marginal land. The two states converting the most CRP land to crops this year are North Dakota and Montana, in part due to inroads of corn and soybean acres into this traditionally wheat growing region. After these two states, Minnesota, Missouri, and Kansas top the list of recent CRP lands lost for crop conversion.
Agribusinesses are reaping fat financial rewards from the price incentive to plant a record 97 million acres in corn, including on what was formerly CRP land. Further land use changes are also resulting from the ripple effect that high corn prices have on all of the commodities, not only in the U.S. but around the globe. High prices are appreciated by producers, but current Ag policy of intensive, industrial, all out agricultural production isn’t free and it isn’t sustainable.

 Unfortunately, environmental interests can’t compete politically with policies that promote the increased use of fertilizers, pesticides, seeds, commodity exchange, and equipment sales.
This next graph shows us the loss of CRP land since 2007 in the top four corn producing states.

Farmers, who are always at the mercy of policy which determines their economic survival, are being told today that they are being patriotic and helping with national security and energy independence by growing corn for ethanol. A truly patriotic policy would instead be the preservation of our nation’s soil and water for future generations.

This story wouldn’t be complete without pointing out the sharp contrast in priorities of land conservation between the top agricultural leaders of the E.U. and the U.S.


The European Union’s agricultural commissioner, Dacian Cioloş, saw the destruction that all out production did to the soils in his home country of Romania under the former communist regime, so he wants to see 7 percent of E.U. farmland turned into environmental priority areas which are off-limits to the use of chemicals and high-tech farming methods. He also knows that 90 percent of Europeans want to see policies which promote the public good in return for their taxpayer money spent on agriculture. He was trained as a horticultural engineer and spent thirteen months over a number of years doing organic farm internships in Brittany France. He was selected to lead the E.U. in agriculture because of his horiticultural experience and education, and for his “modern vision” for agriculture. He wants an E.U. agricultural policy that discourages monocultures, encourages rotational farming methods, and decreases fertilizer use.

In contrast, our U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, is a lawyer and a politician, a former governor of Iowa.

If allowed a say on the issue, American’s, too, might strongly support CRP initiatives over today’s other farm programs which are far more expensive: direct payments, tax payer subsidized crop insurance, and biofuels incentives.

But, CRP support in Congress is fading. In the 2008 farm bill, it took a hit of 7 million fewer acres, and in the 2012 farm bill the plan is to cut another 7 million acres and to cap the program at a total of 25 million acres by 2017. That’s a far cry from the original 40 million acres planned in the 1985 legislation. A total of $6 billion in conservation cuts is expected in the next farm bill.

 In the congressional fiasco that occurred at 2012′s year-end, the old farm bill was extended through September 2013, when a new bill covering the next five years should have been passed and would now be in place.

The story and statistics that I’ve presented above aren’t widely-known. American’s need to contact their policy-makers to let them know what is important to them.

 The Conservation Reserve Program and agricultural conservation support is in trouble and needs our help.