It Was a Full of Fun Tuesday

The girls posing on the outside stairwell of the library. Zach didn't join them as he was too busy looking through his book about the Civil War that he'd just checked out with his new library card.

The photo below is of the Phillips County Regional Library. They're going to move it into another building later but I'm sure going to miss this old place. It was built in 1891 and has all atmosphere, the smells, cubbyholes, and dark corners that I remember from libraries that I've been in here, in the U.S. and in England. Another building was built and attached to this one (not seen in this photo) around 1920 to house the Phillips County Museum. I suppose they will remain in the building.



I'm going to have to sit these children down and have a little discussion about using their imaginations to entertain themselves a little this summer, cause trying to think of ways in which I can keep them entertained, is exhausting!

Zach and MeriKate nitpicked and argued with each other through the chores I had to do for the improvement district and through the other stops when we finally drove into town. I stopped the truck, at least twice, with threats to put them out and make them stand on the side of the road until a new Nanaw took pity on them and stopped to pick them up. At one point I also threatened to tie their feet behind their head. I even used one of my old threats of "beating them naked and hiding their clothes"! They've wised up about the threats and none of them stopped the bickering and arguing for more than a second or two. It was a relief when I could finally allow them to escape the confines of the truck.

But that didn't last all day.

Mr. John Darnell, a local Civil War expert, presented the children's program about the Battle of Helena at the Phillips County Regional Library in Helena. The little children's reading room was almost full with children sitting on the floor, and Grandma's, great-Grandma's, Momma's, and other visitors, sitting on the child-sized wooden chairs around them.

Zach and the adults really enjoyed all the information that Mr. Darnell was so knowledgeable of, the younger kids mostly enjoyed being about to touch and try on so many of the Civil War items he was showing them. Every hat was tried on (except for this one child who's Momma insisted, in a loud voice, that he not put another person's hat on his head.) and every item was touched and smelled by the kiddies. You could tell that Mr. Darnell really knew his stuff by allowing the kids to do this, because little children will forever remember touching and trying on that Confederate, or Union soldier's hat, but they won't remember, for very long, all the details about the discussion surrounding it.

Next week we'll be going back to the library to see a Magic show.


MeriKate and Jilly Beans decided they'd come spend the night with us, so after Zach's Tae Kwon Do class, we stopped by the grocery store and arrived home a little after 7. The kids took sandwiches and had a picnic on the swing outside while Nanaw ate a sandwich with the pouting PopPop who, I reckon, was upset because I wasn't at home all afternoon cooking him a 3 course meal. (that's ok, I'll feed him up tonight with a load of spicy food that'll give him gas for days and that'll shut him up, or at least give me a little revenge for him daring to say anything).

After we get a few chores done this morning, I'm going to put out the drawing paper, crayons, and colored pencils and instruct the kiddies to draw Nanaw something bright and colorful. That should keep them busy for an hour or two.

Now, I'm off to mop the kitchen floor. I hope everyone had a great day yesterday and has a super-duper Wednesday!

Kiddy Fishing Rodeo

The Beans with her prize catch. She was mighty upset when Jerry put the stringer in the water so the fish wouldn't die, she wanted to "pway wif him"!

Alexis with her first catch. I think she caught 3 or 4 little fish and ended up winning a bike in her age group for the most caught.

Zach and Abby got nibbles, but no cigar. They all looked as cute as little bugs.

Nanaw has been up since 5:30. Nanaw is HOT. Nanaw's hair looks like she stuck her finger in an electrical socket. So she's going to go take a load off.

After The Storm

This is the cotton picker that was pushed into the building by the apparent tornado. (click to enlarge photos) It was sitting over there beside the other one. A lot of the shop yard looks as though it's been swept clean, I guess the wind did that, but when the debris met the buildings, or trees, or a house, it just wrapped around it. There was pieces of the shop roof wrapped in the tops of trees (the ones left standing) and in the tops of power poles.
This is what's left of a storage shed in the shop yard. The employee who lives in a house next to this shed parked his truck there in case there was hail in the storm. I reckon hail damage would have been better than this.
This is what's left of the new ag plane hanger. There was an airplane tied down in there and the storm broke the tethers, gently? pushed it OUT of the hanger, and then proceeded to twist steel and metal hanger to look like this. The pilot went this afternoon, pulled the tin and other debris away from the path he'd need to take, then he taxied the plane out to the runway, and took off in it.
About 2 miles of power poles down. There were also trees down in the highway in several places but they took their pickups and pulled them out of the way.

Severe storms and those blasted tornadoes have seemed to taken a liking to Arkansas this Spring season. We dodged the bullet again last night but they didn't fare as well 10 miles south of us. Zach and I climbed under the dining room table when we saw our county was under a tornado warning until 9:15 pm last evening but all we had was a little wind, and a little hail, and rain, nothing nearly as bad as others we've had this Spring.

This morning our neighbor, who is also a farm manager for the same corporation my husband works for, came by to tell us that his farm headquarters took a hit. There are at least 2 miles (maybe more) of power lines and poles down, the new ag plane hanger they just built beside the farm shop is just a big pile of twisted metal and aluminum. The storm pushed a 6-r0w cotton picker about 25 feet into an old gin they used for storage, it broke the window out of a tractor, warped and tore the siding on the shop, uprooted trees, destroyed other storage sheds and buildings, tore part of the roof off, some of the siding, and some of the windows out of an employee house which sat next to the farm shop. Eleven irrigation pivots were toppled and twisted also.

James took Zach and I down to see the damage this afternoon.

At the farm my husband works at, down the road a few miles, there were 2 irrigation pivots damaged but so far that's the only damage they've found there.

Friday Slots and Saturday Fishing

Last night's dinner was wonderful. I had lots of shrimp, salad, and some mussels. I finished up with a few bites of a dark chocolate dessert with a strong cup of coffee.

We played a little before dinner and I managed to win $90 with my $5. After dinner I put in another $15 and didn't hit for anything. I suppose it was a good thing I didn't win a jackpot because I nearly spilled my drink when I won the little bit that I did, a bigger win would have probably killed me.




We went fishing on Old Town Lake this morning and didn't get nary a nibble. I took my camera along so I didn't get the least bit bored.

Another "Stuff" Post

When you see these guys flittering around, you know for sure that summer is upon ya. While taking some shots of this wingy dude, memories of chasing, and sometimes catching, dragonflies on my grandma's clothes line came to mind. I don't remember ever being entertained as a kid but I sure did think of some entertaining stuff myself. It could be that it didn't take much to entertain me? I think kids today would think we were boring.

The house fly population hasn't suffered a decrease in population down here in my south. MeriKate left the back door open last evening and I've been swattin ever since!

The first of the sunflowers have started blooming. I bought Zach a variety of seeds this year and this is one of the dwarf variety which is an early bloomer I reckon.

I'm keeping an eagle eye on this little vine and it's little buddies. This is going to grow and develop into some fine tastin' cucumbers some time soon.

The Man's garden is growing tall and strong and we've been picking summer squash for a little over a week now. Being a southern gal and all, I know most of 99 ways to cook up this summer bounty. (I may be exaggerating the number here)

We've already had them sliced thin, rolled in cornmeal, and deep fried in canola oil. After cooking I lay them on paper towels so they'll still have a slightly crispy texture (sometimes). This is some FINE eatin'!

I've sliced them lengthwise, seasoned them with whatever my hand landed on from the spice cupboard, and put them on the grill until tender. Healthy but still fine!

I've sliced them up with an onion, added them to a hot skillet with a couple tablespoons of olive oil, seasoned with ground pepper and salt, then turn the heat down low and let them sautee for a bit. After turning them over, I sprinkled cheese on top, and put the lid back on until the cheese melted. DELICIOUS!

Tonight I'm going to stuff em! I cut them in half (lengthwise), scoop out the insides and chop that up with some ground round, onion, egg, and bell pepper. Then I stuff the squash boats with that and throw it into the oven until the stuffing is done. Tonight I'll only sprinkle cheese on top since I forgot to buy tomato sauce at the grocery.

That's all the stuff I can think of for now.

State Seizes City Payroll Records

You may be wondering why I feel such deep concern over the goins on over in the nearby city of Helena-West Helena, beings that I live out in the country and all, but the fact of the matter is, it's the closest place to do much of our shopping.
I have made the decision to drive the same mileage north to another small town, in another county, to buy groceries once this EXTRA sales tax goes into effect but it'll mean driving an extra 14 miles or so, to yet another small town, to be able to shop for clothes and that sort of stuff.

Gas being what it is makes the longer drive a more difficult one, but I reckon I'll be doing it. It's the principle of the thing, you know? You can't help folks who are helping themselves to funds that don't belong to them!

Hear that All Ye in government in the City of Helena-West Helena?

This little article from The Daily World only reinforces my decisions.

Arkansas State Police served a search warrant on the city of Helena-West Helena Thursday and seized a hard drive from one of the city's computers.

Mayor James Valley stated that state trooper Dell Arnold aided state legislative auditors as they secured the electronic media dealing with payroll records for 2006 and 2007.

Valley said that Phillips County Judge Harvey Yates signed the warrant and state auditors left a receipt with the city's offices detailing what hardware was confiscated.

Valley said the auditors made a copy of the hard drive, took the device and installed a new one with the information copied on the disk so the city could continue to function.

Valley reported that the auditors wanted to restore some information that had been lost as the result of a recent computer crash.

"They want to see if they can restore the records that were lost through the recent hard drive crash," said Valley in a telephone interview.

The state will try torecover the data by utilizing a forensic data recovery program.

Valley said the state served the warrant and collected the hard drive in an attempt to gain a better log of records.

"They want to get a full and complete accounting of the records. They do this to protect the state audit and city and to clear the city of any wrongdoing. This does not implicate anyone," said Valley.

The legislative auditors have reported that they have been in city offices numerous times, trying to audit the city records only to be turned away because of record keeping issues, such as the crash of various computers.

"Typically, when a server crashes the information is gone," said Valley.

He reported that the city had entered data that at a later date could not be retrieved. He also reported that some employee's salary totals were incorrect in the system. He said one employee total showed the individual earning more than $40,000 over a six-month period.

No backups and a state seizure and it does not implicate anyone? I reckon Mayor Valley will be quite surprised to discover that there are ways to salvage the information from a crashed hard drive. I wonder how he'll explain away all that? If the folks responsible for keeping the financial records don't have enough damned sense to do a simple back up of important information, seems to me they need to be doing some firing around that place and hire some people who are actually capable of doing the job right. Don't ya think?

Helena-West Helena, Arkansas

Well, they finally did it. The citizens of the newly combined towns of Helena-West Helena, Arkansas have put themselves at the at the top of the heap in one area. They now have the highest sales tax in the state and probably one of the highest in the whole danged U.S. of A. Shoppers around here will soon be shelling out a full 10% for their purchases.

It doesn't help much that our state sales tax on groceries is supposed to be lowered from the current 6% down to 3% some time in July when the greedy city government over there is going to tack on their 2% to add 2/3rds of it right back. Did I fail to mention the 2% sales tax the county already collects which was supposedly a temporary thing back when it was desperately needed (so they said).

I might also mention that the increase in sales tax won't affect nearly half as many of the citizens as it might in other places since I suspect at least that many are purchasing their groceries tax free already. This would be due to the fact that food stamp purchases aren't taxable at all. The percentage around here (and there) who actually pay the majority of the taxes can't keep taking on the whole load and that percentage grows smaller every day when folks finally get enough of the thieving politicians around these parts and head for a better place to hang their hats.

There hasn't been a reliable audit of the finances of the combined cities in a great while due to the fact that the books are in such terrible shape that the auditors can't make sense of it all. They have the highest water bills and the poorest quality of water in the delta. Businesses have been closing their doors right and left for many years now and the likelihood of new ones coming to the area are slim and none since a great many of the available work force won't work cause it'll mess up their government checks.

In the '60s, Helena was a bustling town, and West Helena was growing by leaps and bounds. But industries gradually pulled out, and when Wal-Mart came to West Helena, it sealed the fate of the local stores, none of which were willing to change their business practices to compete with Wal-Mart. Many blame the casinos but the town was already dead before the casino went up across the river.

A stroll around the, now combined incorporated, city of Helena-West Helena, doesn't offer the sights and sounds that it once did because there aren't as many sights and sounds to be had. Walk down Cherry Street and the first thing you'd notice is all the empty and abandoned old buildings. If it weren't for the country court house being there, I reckon they could close all the doors.

Of course there are rumors and plans bouncing around to make the area as profitable as Beale Street is, in Memphis. Sure the Blues Fest held every October brings the tourist in by the droves for 3 or 4 days. And the Wild Hog Fest in April increases the population by a few thousand for a few days. I reckon this increase in sales taxes will be the final straw. I see more FOR SALE signs going up every time to go to town.

A Most Excellent Day!

The kids did a little fishing, did a little playing, and did a whole lot of swimming. The adults kept an eagle eye out and sat around enjoying the lovely day. ( Nanaw looks and feels a tad like a crispy critter right now). We had an easy lunch of sandwiches, cookies, and cantalope, and some cool drinks. It was a wonderful day!