I have received some comments on homes in New Mexico having rocks in their yards and the question asked as to why…. Not every home has rocks, but we all have one problem…water shortage…Did you know that much of the water flowing through New Mexico in the Rio Grande River and the Pecos River belong to Texas… We can keep our share only…And once they sued us, big time, for not releasing a sufficient amount of water, water they believed we owed them…And I guess we did as the Supreme Court (or some higher power than the States of New Mexico and Texas) agreed that we must repay the water to them…That was really tough in some of the dry years and our reservoirs were really low. Also, the water table has been losing water for some time now. We have Texas paid for the old water and the last two years we have had good snow run off and that has helped…We are told to cut back on watering our yards to conserve water and a lot of us have rocks in our yards instead of grass. I have rocks front and on the sides and partial rocks in the back. I have a small area in the back, roughly 100′ long and approximately 25′ wide, but it is a z shape….That is my grass and I enjoy it….Water is very precious here and we all recognize that fact..There are a few that require a water patrol who issue warning and fines for abusing water usage…So we try to conserve water anyway we can…Albuquerque gets about 10 inches of rain fall per year..We get a snow or two per year in the valley…the mountains gets enough rain and snow to support beautiful pine and fur trees… and aspen up above 8000 feet…The peak of the Sandia Mountains is 10,683 feet..they get lots of rain up there…The Rio Grande River is at 4900 feet elevation and my house on the west side is  5653 feet, but we don’t get much rain at the lower levels..Thats probably more than you wanted to know about “rocks in New Mexico yards”, but thats why we have them….

Well, Bill is at it again, traveling all over, Cuba this time, but not representing the good old U S of A. No sir, he is over there representing New Mexico Agricultural products; green Chilies, peanuts, pecans and some other stuff. We have lots of beef too, Governor, and dairy products….Have you thought about pushing tumbleweeds, Sir? You know they are plentiful and they burn with a tremendous BTU…We could roll and package them as fire logs, etc…Does it get cold in Cuba?…Anyway, keep up the good work Bill and are you going to bring back a few cigars???…You might let us know where we can pick one of them up…

Well, I have stayed away from this subject for several reasons….One, it is so touchy  with most people, as we all have strong feeling about this…I want everyone to have healthcare, I really do, but I don”t want to pay for everybody’s….Do you? We cannot afford to have our government pay for all to have healthcare either…Is there something half way that we can afford? I don’t know of anything….Forcing all the employers to provide healthcare is also scary as this could force the smaller companies out of business and we don’t want that either…There just “ain’t no easy button” to handle this…I always thought it was going along pretty good before…Reckon what happened?….You might send me your ideas as I certainly don’t have any good answers, or better yet, send them to Mr. Obama… he could really use them, right?…..

I am one of those guys who try to avoid confrontations. My Mom and Dad fought like cats and dogs during my early childhood, scaring me to death…And it usually was over my Dad’s drinking and maybe some other stuff…But I could never go to a town hall meeting and shout at people or have people shout at me…I cannot handle that sort of thing…If I differ from you I’ll let you know, and I will not back down,  but rather than shout, I’ll walk away…Is that good..no, I don’t think so, but how do people handle shouting at each other in town hall meetings? Do they become enemies or what? Some of the health-care meetings seem to have been knock down, drag out, screaming matches and who cares for that? I have not read anything that has upset me so much that I need to scream at someone or have I missed something? Well, let me know what I missed, just don’t shout at me, ok?…….

In my book Cousins, I spoke of 1st and 2nd cousins, cousins once removed and twice removed and stated in the book that I was not sure how to figure it all. These are cousins and I think 3rd cousins….But if any of you know for sure you can enlighten me…How about it my cousins, can you tell me? Anyway, this may be the side we get our good looks from….It was so good to see all of you…

Dang…..I wrote some powerful words the other night….you will just have to trust me on that because I did not….SAVE….when I finished….Can you believe that?…Let me rephrase that….I cannot believe that….Well, powerful words might be a little much, but goll-lee, I hated to lose them….you know, they are pretty hard to come by since this was a darn good gun battle, with bullets flying all over, cowboys getting shot, etc, now I have to fight that battle all over again..Its plum scary being this close to all the fighting and blood shed….Oh, well, somebody’s got to do it…..I hope I SAVE this batch of words ’cause I have been lucky so far…If I keep on screwing up they may start shooting at me..reckon?..

I have followed football every year and I try to keep up with all the teams. Of course, you have your Alabama, Michigan, USC, Oklahoma, LSU and many, many others….all the top teams I know about, some lesser one I followed, Rice, Buffalo, Ball State, Louisiana Tech, etc, but all of a sudden, from nowhere comes some teams that just pops on the scene and schedules the top teams in the nation….How do they do that?… I’m talking about two specifically, Fla. International and Fla. Atlantic…look at this, Fla. Int plays Alabama, Rutgers, Toledo, Troy, Florida…to name a few and Fla Atlantic plays Nebraska, S. Carolina, Wyoming, UAB and Troy to name a few…Who are these guys and how do they schedule the big boys right out of the chute…..Maybe they have been around for a long time and we just don’t hear about them out here…I did hear about them back last year, but that is still very fast for this schedule…please tell me about them if you know…Pete

These lovely people are spouses of the cousins, except one, my sister-in-law is the one peeking over a shoulder third from left. Two or three of the spouses did not attend, including mine. It was certainly nice seeing them all. They are a pretty good good looking bunch, huh?

My favorite day of the week, for years, has been Friday. Today, I woke up thinking that it was Friday and the happiness that the thought that this day used to provoke was missing. It’s just another day. That’s terrible….just terrible….I’m going to talk to the boss about giving me Saturday and Sunday off so I can get back to enjoying Friday….But, I don’t know…she may want to talk pay cut…..I’ll think on it some more……Retirement kind’a screws up things….

You know, I was telling one of my Alabama cousins about the catch and release program in New Mexico, you know where you use barb-less hooks and turn the fish loose after you have caught it. He says, “Why would you do that? Catching fish to eat is what it’s all about, right,” he says to me. You know, having Alabama roots myself, I kind’a agree that if I’m lucky enough to catch one I want to eat it also. I was reading in the Albuquerque Journal that Penny Frick of Albuquerque caught a 20 inch, 1 1/2 pounds, on the Rio Chama and released it. Well, it also said  at Stone Lake a fellow, from San Antonio, TX,  landed a 22 inch Rainbow that weighted 5 1/2 pounds…..Did not say a word about that boy releasing his catch….I reckon he also has some Alabama in his background somewhere, huh?,,,,,