Daily Dose of Sultnpapper 04/16/18> One last thing before we move o...

alt Last week I started in on the subject of weather modification and solar radiation management(SRM) and in Thursday’s daily dose I told you that I would get back on it with today’s, but that isn’t going to happen though, not today anyway.

I had my plate pretty full for Friday, Saturday & Sunday’s daily dose columns. In case you missed them I did Friday on the Mercadome Market for the #marketfridays thing that Hive account@dswigle does weekly. Saturday was devoted to taking care of selecting and paying the winners in my sign photo contest that I conducted. There were a lot of really cool signs that were submitted and deciding the winners wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. In the end though I think everyone who entered would have to admit it was probably the easiest contest they ever entered on here, and everyone got a least a couple nickels of steem. The 15th is always the “Will Eat BBQ 4 U” segment, and it was again this month, in Padre Island, Texas.

The reason we are delaying getting back onto the weather stuff is because of something I ran across last week down in south Texas. I usually make three trips a year down to the Rio Grande Valley area of Texas and on this trip I found something I had never seen before.

There are two main roads that run north and south out of the RGV for the east and central sections of the valley. US Hwy 77 runs north from Brownsville and US Hwy 281 runs north from the McAllen area. Seeing that these two roads are basically it for north / south travel there are US Federal Border Patrol Check Stations on these roads about 75 miles north of the border of Mexico and the USA.

To get to the valley from the Houston area I travel south on US HWY 59 to HWY 77 and at Riviera, TX I head west on HWY 285. From Riviera to Falfurious, TX on HWY 285 is right at 40 miles or so which is where I pick up HWY 281 and continue south. Monday afternoon as I was travelling across Hwy 285 I had gone about 5 miles when I noticed a blue 55 gallon drum on the south side of the road and it had a piece of pipe attached to it and a white flag at the top of the pipe.

There has been a lot of construction on HWY 285 in the last couple of years adding passing lanes; it is a two lane highway for the most part, so I thought it might have been something to do with the construction. Travelling along at 70 MPH doesn’t leave much time for looking at things.

About another 5 miles or so there was another similar barrel and flag setup, this time a slowed down enough to read “AGUA” on the barrel, which is Spanish for water. At that point I was pretty sure what I was looking at, but I didn’t stop to take a look until I came upon another similar set up about another 5 or 6 miles down the road.

The next one I was ready for, I pretty much had figured out the spacing by now, so I slowed down to 40 MPH since there wasn’t a car in sight in my mirrors and about another half a mile there was another barrel & flag. I pulled off on the shoulder, put my emergency flasher on and shut off the truck, I also locked it as a precaution. With my phone in hand I crossed the road and walked over to the blue 55 gallon drum. The lid was attached but not covering the top of the drum so I looked down into it.

These drums have been placed along the roads so that the illegal travelers from the southern border can catch a drink of water as the make their way through the rough terrain of south Texas. In the bottom of the barrel were several bottles of water in different sizes from 20 ounce bottles to full gallon jugs, there were even a couple bottles of Mexican Coca Cola. I can tell you that Mexican Coca Cola is “the real thing” , Coke used to use that as their slogan back years ago when they used pure cane sugar here in the US, when they switch to corn syrup fructose as the sweetener that slogan was canned. The Mexican Cokes really do taste better than the ones we bottle here in the states.

I don’t know what group or groups of people are responsible for placing these barrels along the roadside in this act of compassion. I also found myself contemplating this situation my entire trip while I was in the valley.

I believe there is a right way and a wrong way to go about things, but right or wrong in who’s eyes is the question? Twenty years ago I would have answered that question by saying the government’s eyes. A lot can happen in twenty years and it sure has, I have come to the realization that what we have for a government is nothing more than a bunch of over bearing power hungry folks who are in it for themselves and not necessarily for the people they represent, this pretty much goes for all levels of government including the local levels.

It is less than 10 years since I have started on my transformation from a sheeple to one of “we the people” who are for a government that is by and for the people. When I look at those blue barrels I see desperation, just how bad is it where these people are coming from that they would leave their home land and trek thousands of miles with only the clothes on their backs and maybe a small satchel of food and water at the most?

For the most part of my adult life I have been against illegal immigration because I only looked at it from a governmental side of view. When I worked on ranches and in contracting I worked with a lot of people who were here illegally, and for the most part they were good folks. Sure there are some bad apples making their way across the border, and the drug cartels are using these folks as drug mules in some cases, but that just speaks to the desperation of these people even more.

The vast area between Hwy 77 and Hwy 281 is all ranch land, some of it is improved pasture land but the majority is scrub brush, mesquite trees and cactus plants. Finding your way through this terrain is not easy and when you throw in all the snakes and wild animals it can’t be an easy trip at all, plus you have to play hide and seek with the border patrol agents so that means having to do a lot of travel in the pitch dark or by the moon light. The summer heat can surely put these people at risk of dehydration and death so I commend the people who are placing the barrels and keeping them stocked with water. Twenty years ago I might have said those people should be arrested, for helping a criminal as in “aiding and abetting “ but I am a changed person now.

There is a higher power that we ultimately have to answer too, or at least I believe there is, and it is not the government.

If I lived in the area down there I might just be helping place the barrels, but I don’t. The next trip down that way I do make I will have some extra cases of water in the back of my truck and I will stock some of the barrels now that I know where they are.

I even saw some on the roadside of Hwy 77 as I was traveling north out of the valley, there is a main power line that sits back off the road a few hundred feet and that power line easement is mowed and cleared so it makes the travel a little easier I’m sure for the illegal folks, but I’m sure that they are easier to spot too when they use it.

All told there were about twenty barrels that I came across on this trip, so ten cases of water will be my goal to take with me, and throw a dozen bottles in each barrel I come across. That will be my plan, I never thought I would have changed as much as I have but I guess we really do get older and wiser as time goes on.

What do you think about the situation with illegal immigration?
Until next time,
Hive account@sultnpapper