Alabama is not number 1 in the football polls……Alabama got beat by Auburn….Ohio State is number 1….players beat other players over the head with helmets….betting is allowed on college sports…Stephen F. Austin beat Duke in basketball….Eli is not QB of the NY Giants …..Peyton is getting more TV time than when he played….New Mexico Lobos are looking for a football coach…..whoa, wait, what?….New Mexico is looking for a football coach? Now, who would want to take on that job? The football coach gets about as much respect as Trump, well, maybe a little more but not much…. Recruiting good players is very difficult, the fan base is lousy….last weekend it was reported 2000 or so turned out for the game. (well, the stadium only holds 40,000 about, so it was hard to tell. lol) Rocky Long was smart…He left while he was ahead and made some comments about the fans, but I’m not going into that…..I’m popping off a little bit, I know and I should not. It is really a shame that we have such a nice university, many, many, students getting high quality educations,  but we cannot get  good football players. I think, and I mean, really think that if we can have a few winning seasons, “THEY WILL COME’. If not, maybe we should drop down to the next level for football. What we need here is fans with a Chicago Cubs mentality. Once a Cubs fan, you are a fan for life, or so it seems to me….Not so here and the newspaper is afraid to tell it like it is because those same few fans buy the papers or pay for advertising…..I’m 84 and stopped going because of my age, parking and crowds….2000 folks, well, I could park just about anywhere, huh? Can’t use that excuse, but it wasn’t because of the football coach, he was a pretty good one…never should have left the triple option….God Bless you Coach Davies….Good luck on finding a good coach, good players and some good fans…..GO LOBOS

Published in hesterbooks.com, May 8, 2012:

The Western River Cooter is one of the least known turtles in North America. It lives in the Pecos River drainage system in southeastern New Mexico and portions of West Texas. It’s upper shell is olive to brown with whorls , circles and long furrows of yellowish or light Add Media brown on each of the plates. The head, neck, legs and tail are greenish with yellow lines and scrawls. Broad yellow blotch behind each eye. It can reach up to 16 inches in size. It is listed as threatened with the primary threats being recreationists and anglers who use them for target practice. Also they are used as bait for other species. The habitat for the Western River Cooter is streams with deep pools, clear water and rocky or sandy bottoms. It feeds on plants and aquatic insects. The Western River Cooter lays between 7 and 19 eggs in sandy soil that hatch out in August and September. Under favorable conditions the Western River Cooter can live up to 40 years.

New Mexico Wildlife,  winter 2018, Tale of the Cooter by Virginia “Ginny’ Seamster, Ph.D

She reported that based on data from the past two years, this turtle is relatively abundant at two survey areas. There are many hatchlings, which is potentially good news in terms of the sustainability of the population on the Black River. …..She reports that multiple years of data is needed to determine real success in the real growth of the species.

Exciting news from the 2018 survey performed by Dr. Ivana Mali and students from Eastern New Mexico University, funded by Share With Wildlife program, determined that not only was the Western River Cooters doing well, but that the cooters had been sighted as far north as Chaves County north of Brantley Dam on the Pecos River  and had confirmed the sighting.

The Western Cooter is currently undergoing review by the U. S. Fish and Wildlife to determine whether it should be listed as threatened or endangered at the federal level reports Ginny Seamster.

Share With Wildlife is a New Mexico Dept. of Game and Fish program initiated in 1981 that depends on donations from the public. It’s mission is to help those species that do not receive funding from any other source. To learn more, visit: www.wildlife.state.nm.us/conservation/share-with-wildlife/

Visit New Mexico….

It has already snowed in Northern New Mexico’s higher elevations and tonight the weatherman states that this weekend snow could come on down to us folks in the 5000 foot rangeland of the state….That’s pretty early for this old soul. I like it warm. It was freezing here this morning. If I heard the weatherman correctly this was a record for an early freeze, but I was doing other things and just caught the tail end of the report so be careful in telling folks, “Pete Hester says”……But back to the snow, that’s keep me in where its warm. We have milk, eggs, bacon and bread and a pantry full of veggies, meat in the freezer, so as long as it is not to deep or long lasting I’ll be ok snuggled inside my place. I hope…..

Our balloon festival kicked off last weekend and of course it is time to stay pretty close to home. It will last all week. I’m glad that so many folks come to visit during this period, however, after having company and taking them to see all the balloons several years, I now try to stay home. I mean it’s fun being down there, you enjoy being close to the balloons being filled up with air, mingling with all he people, sampling all the food and taking hundreds of pictures and watching as the referees keep the take offs orderly, while all the time trying to keep from stumbling, falling and bumping into folks while looking up and walking. And it all works. They refs do a good job and if you are a first time visitor I almost guarantee that you will enjoy it and probably will not stumble and fall….And you will probably enjoy it the second time….And you are excited for your third time visitors…..but after that you wish them well, tell them you will try and serve lunch at a certain time and visit the stores away from the balloon fiesta field to gathering food stuff for you visitors meal….But that may be just me. There probably are those people who go year after year and enjoy every minute of it. I’m happy for them….One note…this year, even with over five hundred balloons flying daily, only one or two has flown over our house this year…See my earlier posting on the birds not coming around any more…..Maybe it’s the wind currents….Reckon?

No small birds are coming to my bird bath or feeders anymore….No sparrows, no jays, no house wrens, no robins….matter of fact, you remember me talking about the bird that kept calling “c’mere” last year…..He’s not calling for me anymore. No songbirds…even my hummers have left but it was about time for them to leave I guess. My old hawk still comes by ever so often for his bath and a few doves come by but other than that, none, nil, zilch….where could they have gone? I hope they will return by next spring anyway.   I miss them.

UFO’s are in the news more and more every day. Even sightings reported this month. And I still have not seen one, but that does not mean they are not there. I believe, however, that the United States of America knows a lot more than the general public is being told. I don’t believe that all these sighting were made by drunks, lairs and crazy people. Swamp gas, reflections, military operations, etc., is kind of getting old as to what is really happening. Our universe is big, huge, and we are probably not the only intelligent life in the universe. And some of them may look a little weird, especially if they were not made in our God’s image. I mean, of course, if they do exist. Something is surely happening and it is very hard for me to believe that no one, no one knows anything. I really believe that there is a level of government that is hidden from congress and the executive branch of government, with funds being fed to them via unknown sources. One source said that 40 billion in funds fed to the military is missing. I sure don’t know, but………The military and defense contractors and an arm of the CIA probably can tell us much more than congress ever could. They never will, but I believe they could. One thing is sure…..THEY AIN’T DUMB.  And folks are seeing something….. One day soon the boys in the congress and the President are going to get tired of the swamp gas, reflections, blah, blah, blah. They will have to make a solid statement. Especially if we get a crashed unit that the government can’t get to in time to cover it up….

Law enforcement means that the agency so named has a responsibility to enforce laws. That is what they do and most of them perform their tasks very well. What strikes me as “funny” is that people come down on “law enforcement” officials when they are performing their duties. One of the jobs assigned to ICE is to round up illegals in our country….Boy, do some of the citizens get upset when those particular agents do their job. The headlines from several states cry about them rounding up illegals and deporting them. If these people disagree with the law, change the law. Don’t spend your time crying about these “law enforcement” people doing their job…..THAT’S WHAT THEY DO…..

I read in the newspaper today where the United States uses 9.7 tons of paper daily to print paper money….Wow, did you see that? It was in the comic strips so do you reckon it’s correct. If so, consider this…..it takes 454 paper bills to make a pound of paper money, according to Google, so if it’s one dollar bills or twenty’s or hundred’s, it takes 454 of them to make a pound. Nine point seven tons converts to 19,400 pounds of paper. If they are printing all one’s on Monday, 8,807,600 dollars  hit the streets of America. If it’s twenties on Tuesday,  176,152,000 dollars hits the street….If it’s hundreds on Wednesday, ah gee, well, that must be about 880,760,000. Anyway, it’s a dad gum bunch of money. If we could figure out a way to stop the paper going into the governments printing presses we could fix the budget, well maybe…but consider this: give each American their own printing press and if they need some money, print it up…that would save a whole lot of salaries paid to government workers and then also we could pay whatever taxes the government wanted us to pay by printing up two, three thousand dollars…no sweat….Oh, wait.. we better not do that since the feds can and citizens can’t and it would be better if the government did not do that either….I mean,  pretty soon we gonna run out of trees.

Picking the winning football team each week is what Football Picks is all about and to pick the winners most times I would have to pick the teams playing my teams.  I don’t like to do that so I will just tell you who I pull for most every week…..University of New Mexico every week….New Mexico State U every week except when they play UNM.   Arizona every week except when the play one of the New Mexico Teams.  Same comment for Texas Tech and  Wisconsin. Now I root for Alabama every week and I have forever, however, this year they play New Mexico State….I do know Bama will win….You know Bama will win….All that said I’m still going to be pulling for NMSU to make a good showing and keep trying until the fat lady sings. Talking about a bull headed team, NMSU starts at Washington State, then they play Alabama, then a little later in the season they play Ole Miss. Hard to have a winning season when you line up those teams….My Lobos go up to Notre Dame for their second game and New Mexico State for the third game…Their schedule is a little more team friendly (I hope) than the Aggies. Anyway, its time for FOOTBALL….I’m ready. Been a long dry spell. ESPN showing the top twenty five  2018 games over again in the off season helped a lot

President Trump keeps coming up with things to get the liberals going…Yeah, I know…That does not take much. It’s kind of like wherever President Trump opens his mouth the left start hollowing before the words reach a microphone. It’s funny in a way but yet it is sadder in a much worse way. If they would just listen to him and not judge so quickly, things would work out to the satisfaction of all parties. But that ain’t gonna happen anytime soon. Buying Greenland sounds like a pretty good idea to me, but that got a lot of folks going. Left leaning Jews got a little upset with him….some other things getting folks fired up, China trade war, expansion of migrant family detention, arms sale to Taiwan…you know, just whatever he comes up with.  All of those things are good for us. The thing the left is missing out on is trying to negotiate with Trump to get things closer to the way they want them…… Well,  I don’t think that’s gonna happen either.  And so it goes.