In a rare felony trial for abuse, Steven Schatz, 38, is accused of hitting and sodomizing his ex-girlfriend's male cat Clyde.  The poor cat had to be euthanized after the abuse.

His ex-girlfriend and her daughter both testified for the prosecution.  Here's to hoping the perv gets the book thrown at him.

Peter Daniel Young was arrested after seven years on the run.  Young was indicted in 1998 for releasing minks from mink farms in several states.  He is believed to be affiliated with the Animal Liberation Front.

On paper, releasing the minks probably looks like a great idea if you are against commercial use of their fur. 

Farm minks do not know how to hunt for food or water or even defend themselves.   After release, most would probably died of starvation, thirst, accident or predation.  In releasing them, Young made absolutely sure that many of those minks would die a pretty hard death.

The few that survive will then invade an ecosystem that is not capable of carrying that kind of predation load on small rodents (this is assuming the minks don't just turn into garbage diggers out of desperation).  Hawks, owls, coyotes,  bobcats, and other predators will lose prey, and due to that loss may not be able to reproduce.  Some may starve.  Farmers (not just the mink farmers) will lose geese, ducks, chickens, peahens, guineas, and other small livestock animals to the minks.  Other families will probably lose small housecats and minature dogs.  It would be a real disaster for everyone around the release site.

I have never understood why people do such stupid things.  Protesting the mink ranchers is one thing, but to release domesticated animals into the wild is a cruel and ignorant thing to do. 

Ron didn't work on the reefing points yesterday, but he did get on the boat and put in some clam cleats.  He is sort of hard to make out in this picture, but he is up there installing the cleats.

Ron on the Luger Southwind

If this boat was a power boat, it would be easy to find inexpensive used parts for it in Texas.  Since it is a sailboat, it was much harder to find, but we did finally come across a boat salvage yard outside of Austin that had a sailboat they were parting out.  He was able to get several cleats and two pulleys for $15.00.

A Lake Jackson soldier, Army Specialist Robert Tipp Jr. was killed in an ATV accident Saturday, just three days after he got home from Iraq.

Please keep his family in your prayers and thoughts.

Since it is Ron's days off, he wants help with the sailboat today, but I don't know if I can deal with it. He has to measure his reefing points for his reefing kit that he got from Sailrite. 

The work itself doesn't bother me.  I don't mind helping him.  But dang do I hate getting on that boat when it is on its trailer.  I didn't even like getting on Dad's boats when they were on their trailers.  But this one is much worse than Dad's boats--because it is a sailboat, it is way up in the air (even though this has a swing keel, it still has to have clearance).

He put the "lugs" on it yesterday, whatever that means.  I just shake my head like I know what in heck he is talking about--which I don't.  Give me a nice big cruiser any day of the week, or even a houseboat.  Just as long as it has a really big engine on the back, plenty of livebait and fishing rigs, and I'm happy.

UPDATE: It is too windy to work on the sail today.