The Old Folks Home

Sour, I know a couple who have been married 50 years and by all accounts, it's a very good marriage. Maybe you know them SOUR
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Intimately.
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To be fair, it jumped out quite easily when scrolling the image on a smartphone.

One more has rejoined the laying flock. Got a nice pale green egg this morning. And Emma's egg color has developed nicely too, it's becoming a bit browner, not as close to the Alho eggs anymore as it first was. Here's Töyhtis on the left, and Emma on the right. Virpi and Viiru in the middle.

Also, our weekly average size is now 42 grams.
 
My avatar is standing right in front of the Jacumba Hot springs Interesting place lots of history back in the 30s. But Its a hot-water mineral spring spa and swimming pool with a hotel built around it.... NO CHLORINE.... Smells of Sulpher occasionally.... in front by the highway is the Bar on one side and a restaurant on the other. The whole town consists of about 200 homes a grocery/liquor store. A post office a library and a fire station..... Oh and an antique train station. When the highway was the only road it was a boom town...

Jacumba Hot Springs Spa It used to be more rustic.... less clean. More..... desert worn. The people who own the Clothing optional resort called De Anza Resort, bought it and cleaned up the place....
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De Anza Resort

deb
Nice looking place. I've never been there. I love hot springs spas. Or more accurately, I like hot springs, not so much the spa thing.
There's some nice ones in Hot Springs, AR.
One of my favorite places is Granite Hot Spring at the head of a box canyon outside of Jackson Hole, WY. There's really nothing there but a small cabin for the park service caretaker, an empty log building for clothes changes and a stone wall to hold the water back. It's 2 springs, a hot one and a cold one and together they make a toasty warm pool. The only way there in winter is by snow mobile, dogsled or cross country ski. http://www.jacksonholenet.com/nature/granite_hot_springs.php
Steamboat Springs, CO has a lot of hot springs, some are spa like some are just natural pools. One notorious one is clothing optional at night. http://simplysteamboat.com/blog/so-where-are-the-best-hot-springs-in-steamboat-co/
Pagosa Springs, CO is awesome but I liked it better when it was just a hot spring flowing into the San Juan river. http://www.pagosahotsprings.com/pools/pools.htm
Tabacon at Arenal, CR is my favorite.
http://www.tabacon.com/
There are at least 10 more around the base of the active Arenal volcano.
http://www.arenal.net/tour/arenal-hot-springs/

To be fair, it jumped out quite easily when scrolling the image on a smartphone.

One more has rejoined the laying flock. Got a nice pale green egg this morning. And Emma's egg color has developed nicely too, it's becoming a bit browner, not as close to the Alho eggs anymore as it first was. Here's Töyhtis on the left, and Emma on the right. Virpi and Viiru in the middle.
Also, our weekly average size is now 42 grams.

Pretty eggs, are the birds bantams?

It took me about 15 seconds to find the 8 but it is a little after 5 AM.

I caught a juvenile Great Plains Rat Snake crawling down the cellar steps heading for my basement yesterday. It was perhaps a foot long. I caught it and released it under one of the chicken coops. It probably won't be big enough to eat mice before it hibernates but hopefully it's size means that mom, dad and siblings are around too. I see a lot of black and garter snakes but this was only the second rat snake.





Dinner was tamale pie and homemade heirloom tomato soup. There's about 8 varieties of tomatoes in it.
Tamale pie is ground beef, onion, chilies, tomatoes, corn, olives, and cheese, with a cornmeal and cheese crust. A little salsa and choice of Wicked Cactus or Scorned Woman hot sauce.






More protests and arrests. Yesterday, St. Louis city hall was occupied by protesters demanding immediate changes including body cameras. Several arrests there. Last night large protests inside and outside the Edward Jones dome at the Monday Night Football game. Overnight protesters were seeking social justice at 3 Wal-Mart stores in Ferguson, Maplewood and Bridgeton. They're 24 hour stores but they were closed overnight. Arrests at all 3.

Another city hall was occupied yesterday in Pine Lawn at the city council meeting. This one was to demand the mayor step down. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper calls Pine Lawn the "poster child of dysfunction". The mayor was a no show at his own city council meeting when he heard the media and angry residents were waiting for him. He's also under federal indictment on charges of "interference of commerce by extortion". He's been getting cash payments from a local towing company in exchange for ordering the Pine Lawn police to use that towing company. FBI agents arrested the mayor at his house last month. The mayor doesn't live in Pine Lawn though he claims to live in the city house there where he grew up but there are bars on all the doors and windows and the picture window is bricked over. It's a violation of state law for the mayor to not live in the city they govern.
That's another thing that has been irritating city residents for years. One third live below the poverty line, half are on food stamps and yet the Pine Lawn police rank 4th in the state of Missouri for most tickets per square mile. The mayor said his family didn't feel safe living in Pine Lawn so they bought a nice 3 bed, 3 1/2 bath home about 12 miles away with a swimming pool and a 1000 sq. ft. multi tiered deck and patio that's larger than the whole Pine Lawn property. Paid for, in part, by the towing bribes from the aforementioned tickets. 2/3 of the city's general revenue comes from traffic tickets even though a MO state law says ticket revenue can't exceed 30%. Last year Pine Lawn issued 7 summonses for traffic violations and other infractions for every city resident.
There have long been complaints about unfair housing code and police practices there. My father once owned a rental property there. It was the most strict housing code enforcement he or I had ever experienced, and the place is a virtual slum.
The FBI went to city hall to arrest the mayor but when he didn't show up to work by the afternoon, they went to his Pine Lawn home. When they realized it was vacant they found him at his nice home and executed the arrest.
Pine Lawn’s census estimate is 3,261.
The current mayor won a third term in 2013 with 70 percent of votes in an election of only 614 votes. That election is now under investigation by the state.
In 2012 the city council enacted an ordinance making mayor a full time job raising the salary from $8,400 a year to $60,000 and unlimited use of a Dodge Charger with free gasoline. This is a city that is a 15 minute walk from end to end.
The previous mayor, said he thinks Pine Lawn should stop trying to be a city and that the mayor shouldn't be ordering police to write tickets to finance his lifestyle.
In a news interview he said, “St. Louis County needs to take back all these little cities, they just can’t govern themselves.”
One of the critics of Pine Lawn government, said the Pine Lawn police, sometimes at the mayors behest, have arrested him several times on charges of disorderly conduct, obstruction of justice, trespassing, resisting arrest and traffic charges. At least twice, Walls said, he was arrested for videotaping city workers and police officers in public.

I'm sure it happens in all parts of the country but there's a long area history of towing company/local city official scams and fraud. 4 years ago the company that towed cars for the city of St. Louis was caught in a tax evasion scheme that rocked the City police department causing the chief of police to resign.
http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/da...x_evasion_involving_police_towing_scandal.php
In a related case, a former St. Louis detective became manager of the same towing company and was indicted for devising a scheme to defraud vehicle owners.
http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/dailyrft/2009/06/mokwa_escapes_indictment_as_fo.php
Crappy cars were towed to the city lot, nice cars were towed to the S&H lot and while impounded, many police officers and the chief's daughter drove those cars. She also got sweet deals on cars that had been impounded for 30 days if the owner couldn't pay the high storage fees thereby forfeiting their car.
http://lee.net/awards/2009/news/stlouis/nomination.pdf
The tow yard became a free car rental for officers.
http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/24/2476.asp
Now the state taxpayers are on the hook for the fallout.
http://www.unitedformissouri.org/statewide/state-taxpayers-hook-st-louis
http://towingutopia.blogspot.com/2008/07/st-louis-post-dispatch-rips-lid-off.html

Another reason for the smoldering unrest in Ferguson. $321 in fines and fees plus 3 arrest warrants per household in one year.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/...-more-arrest-warrants-than-people-in-Ferguson
 
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