The Texas Well Owner Network will present free water well screenings in January for Aransas, Calhoun, Jackson, Matagorda, Refugio, San Patricio and Victoria counties to give residents the opportunity to have their well water tested for contamination. “Private water wells should be tested annually, and it’s particularly important to have water wells in this area tested since they may have been impacted by floodwaters from Hurricane Harvey,” said Dr. Diane Boellstorff, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service water resource specialist, College Station. Boellstorff said those wanting their well water tested should use kits containing sampling bags and bottles provided by their local Extension office and closely follow instructions for proper sampling to ensure accurate results. Dates, times and locations for the screenings and follow-up dates for explaining results will be: Jan. 29 from 8:30–10 a.m. at the AgriLife Extension office for Calhoun County, 186 Henry Barber Way, Suite 1, Port Lavaca. A follow-up meeting will be held at the same location Jan. 30 at 6 p.m. Samples will be screened for common contaminants, including E. coli bacteria, nitrates and salinity.

For more information and to call to see if we have the kits please call 361-552-9747.

“The Way I See It” is an attempt by the columnist to enlighten readers on a subject as he views it, and does not necessarily reflect the views of this publication.

Happy New Year!

The “War on Christmas” seems to be over, and Christmas won! In a poll, 65% of Americans chose “Merry Christmas” to only 28% for “Happy Holidays”. Pro-Trumpers voted 86% to 11% for Christmas, and even the Anti-Trumpers voted 52% to 40% for Merry Christmas”!

The “Trump Dossier” was a hoax, ordered and paid for by Hillary’s Campaign and the DNC. If it was used to secure the FISA Warrant to wire-tap the Trump Headquarters and to create the Mueller Investigation, all info gathered, if any, is “fruit of a poisoned tree”. Mueller’s “Special Prosecutor Investigation”, costing about $1.2 million/month, has been described as “irredeemably compromised” by the bias in the FBI and DoJ. It has been revealed to be more a huge cover-up of criminal acts by Hillary Clinton, her campaign, and many senior people in the Obama administration, than any “investigation”.

Even Donna Brazile, long time Democrat activist, explained in her book HACK, how after the 2012 election, Obama left the DNC with $24 million in debt, and Hillary traded her help in raising money for complete control of the DNC. She used it to suit herself, and her boundless ambition, with no regard for the law. The DNC is now in shambles, no security, IT scandals, debt, $84 Million ‘stolen’ from 32 State Democrat Parties, and surrounded by the threat of FEC & criminal investigations. The real ‘Election Stealing’ was first Hillary & Friends in the DNC stealing the Primary from the Bernie Babies, and then the Lefty Lib Media trying to give the General Election to Hillary and the Democrats, by pushing the phony dossier, but it didn’t work. And the real “Russia Collusion” was Hillary selling Uranium One to the Russians. We need a honest investigation, clean out the crooks and dead wood, stop the bickering and try to get over all the divisiveness. We need an American Democrat Party, not this phony Democrat Socialist Party, run by, and for self-appointed Elitists.

Trump was far from the “Ideal Candidate” for many Conservative Christian Conservatives of the Republican Party, but common sense, pragmatism, and telling the truth about Washington politics won in a majority of states. President Trump’s first year improvement in our Economy has been impressive. Especially considering the total Resistance of the Democrats, RINOs, and other assorted Anti-Trumpers. The GDP was projected to be “impossible” to get above 1.5%, but Trump has created such confidence that it has grown to some 3.5-4%. The stock-market rocketed to “First Presidential Year” gains unequaled. New Private Sector jobs are up, unemployment is down (even for Minority Youth), and more Americans are working than ever before. Food Stamp use has declined. Illegal Immigration declined drastically (for a while), and deportation of illegals has increased in spite of “Liberals” and their “activist Judges” fighting Trump’s policies at every point. IRS collections increased because more Americans were working and paying taxes. After the Tax Cuts, many workers received bonuses, and companies announced expansion plans. This increased economic activity was based on the expectations of tax cuts, reduced Govt interference, and consumer confidence in Trump. Now that Trump has repealed many of Obama’s Executive Orders and signed the Tax Cuts Bill, there will be a greater increase in economic activity and GDP growth. People will start noticing, even Democrats. The ‘Obama Economy’ was a failure. And a nasty little fact that never got mentioned is if the GDP growth does not exceed inflation, the economy is SHRINKING for the folks that don’t have a Govt Job. The outlook now is very good, housing prices are rising and new building permits are being issued. But we need to drastically limit immigration, and stop illegals until Americans are fully employed. Because it is estimated that 4 million American kids will be turning 18 every year and will need jobs.

All this in the face of the Deep State Resistance determined to destroy him. Compare their tactics. Soon after Obama was elected, the Fed dropped their interest rates to ZERO% to allow member banks to borrow and lend at very low rates, and left it there for 8 years. Soon after Trump was elected, they raised it to 1%. This created a $200 Billion extra expense to the Federal budget, for interest on the $20 Trillion Federal Debt left by Obama. In Obama’s first year he increased the Federal Debt by $1,684 Billion (from $10.627 Trillion to $12,311 Trillion), or 15.9%. And that was with 0% interest paid by the Fed. Trump reduced govt spending so that even with the new $200 Billion interest expense, his deficit was $546 billion or a 2.7% increase. Less than projected even before the Fed rate hike.

Now it is up to the County and State Democrat Parties to take their Party back from the International Socialists & Elitists, or form a new one. The Obama “Change” to massive uncontrolled immigration to ensure his socialist takeover has failed. Hopefully then we can return to some Pro-American and Pro-Economic Progress instead of Socialist-Progressive hysteria. First we must control our borders, then start re-building our infrastructure, our military, and an “America First” attitude in dealing with foreign competitors and potential enemies.

Over the past weekend I read a book called “Lost Words” by Jackie Morris and Robert MacFarlane. It took me less than an hour because it’s a big, illustrated book filled with poems in huge font meant to be read aloud to kids. The subject of these poems: ferns and kingfishers, ivy and heather, herons and owls. And more so than the poems (which were quite fun) and the illustrations (which were very beautiful), I found myself interested in the why of the book and what it all means.

Morris first got the idea for the book when she was asked to sign a petition to return words that had been culled from the Oxford University Press Junior Dictionary. These words included bluebell, acorn, heron, and the one that she said cut the most: kingfisher. It wasn’t the dictionary’s fault that the words were cut, “but the culture in which we live,” Morris writes, “seems to give more importance to the urban than the wild.” She wondered how could these words be removed? “How can we teach children that bluebells are important, that acorns have value, if the words are not important enough to be in the dictionary found in most schools?”

Indeed, there’s been a lot of debate about whether the kids of today are more removed from nature than their predecessors and a lot of the research suggests that yes, yes they are. They spend less time outside, participate in fewer hiking and camping excursions, and don’t have the same exposure to the great outdoors. One study demonstrated that they can name cartoon characters more easily than they can name the plants, birds, and bugs in their backyard; they can tell you that the bright yellow rodent with the red cheeks and pointed ears is Pikachu, but struggle to call to mind the word “weasel.” Or “milkweed” or “egret.”

Morris would argue that those are some more lost words.

This past weekend I was in the Walmart parking lot and one of the grackles there was making a racket. They can be super noisy birds and this one was whistling and squawking away under a car so loudly that I had to take a peek to make sure it wasn’t hurt. Besides me there was one other person drawn to the bird – a five or six year old boy who was so curious he went down to his hands and knees so he could get a look at the feathery loudspeaker underneath the vehicle. “Mom!” he said, “Look at this bird? What’s it doing?”

“Being loud,” his mother said. (Accurate.)

“What kind of bird is it?” the kid wanted to know.

“Just one of the black birds that hang around here,” she replied.

The lost word here, of course, was “grackle.”

But why does it matter, knowing exactly what it is? Mom was technically correct, wasn’t she? They are black birds and they do hang around in urban places like parking lots and parks and beaches. Why can’t we call them “just a black bird” and move on?

Because then all birds become “just a bird,” and all trees become “just a tree.”

Things start falling into the broadest categories possible and what’s the point of stopping to look at that perching hawk when a hawk is just another bird? What’s the incentive to know your garden plants when all flowers are just flowers? Interchangeable, unremarkable, “just” another bit of nature that crosses your path here and there.

There’s a kind of magic in a name. Morris knew this and when it came time to find an author to pair with her illustrations, she contacted Robert MacFarlane. MacFarlane immediately pitched a children’s book filled with poems that he doesn’t refer to as poems but as “spells of language.” It’s hard to read the poems and not think of the animal or plant they are describing – a swift, fast-flowing poem for the kingfisher, a rolling, softer touch for the heather, as they work to summon these words back into our everyday language.

I’m nowhere near as talented as MacFarlane but here’s my own little homage to that noisy grackle of this past weekend – one of Lake Jackson’s very own lost words.

Grackle, grackle, dart and cackle,
With a whistle and a squeal!
You’re a city bird, an asphalt bird,
A bird of concrete sky.
A black bird, some say a haughty bird,
A bold swagger that flies.

Emma Shelly is the Education and Outreach Manager of the Gulf Coast Bird Observatory. The GCBO is a non-profit organization dedicated to saving the birds and their habitats along the entire Gulf Coast, and beyond into their Central and South America wintering grounds.

The Intercoastal 4-H Club had their annual monthly meeting on January 8th, 2018. We had Eric Taylor come to show us photography judging. We all had a fun time with it! We will hold our next 4-H meeting on February 5th, 2018 @ 6:30 p.m. at the Port O´Connor Elementary Library.