A picture is worth a thousand words

Bill Roggio on the Fourth Rail has the AAR from the recent battle at Tal-Afar where a mixed US-Iraqi Division size offensive took down the largest terrorist encampment since Falljujah. Wretchard at the Belmont Club carries a similar AAR from Colonel Brown in Mosul. Both stories tell of an enemy increasingly relying on lower quality, younger recruits with little experience who are no more than cannon fodder.

Wretchard follows up with a post that leads to a discussion of US Casualties.

A picture is worth a thousand words. So I used data from the Strategy Page on US Casualties and produced this graph. I chose a polynomial 4th order trend line.

It would be nice to have data on civillian casualties, car bombs, insurgents captured, killed, etc as well to put on this graph. And I sure Centcom has all kinds of graphics that would put this to shame.

But I think it speaks for itself. Either resources are being held in abeyance for a big surge during the election, or the terrorists in Iraq have shot their wad.

Possible Biblical Floods for North Texas?

Rita-Blogging going on.

But what caught my eye was the Forth Worth National Weather Service discussion.

We are talking 20 inches plus!

"EXTENDED MODELS NOW IN FRIGHTENINGLY GOOD AGREEMENT WITH CUTTINGOFF LOW ALONG WEST COAST. THIS WOULD CONFINE WESTERLIES TONORTHERN STATES...EFFECTIVELY CUTTING OFF RITA ESCAPE ROUTE TO THENORTHEAST. IF THIS SCENARIO PLAYS OUT...REMNANTS OF RITA MAYLINGER IN NORTH TEXAS THROUGH TUESDAY. PWATS WOULD REMAINEXTRAORDINARY...AND TREMENDOUS STORM TOTALS COULD RESULT. TPCFORECAST HOWEVER FAVORS EJECTING RITA NORTH QUICKLY. TOO MUCHUNCERTAINTY NOW...BUT WILL KEEP POPS IN THROUGH TUESDAY NIGHT."

Ready or Not

Here comes Rita.

We are 14 inches behind in rainfall for the year. The ranch's rain log shows us very dry beginning in February and rainfall running 30 to 40% of normal since then.

A 75 year old rancher next to me told me, "I cannot remember it being this dry. I have ponds that are empty that have never been empty."

A biologist who I see at the local Gas Station told me that he has never seen such drought conditions in his plant studies. And he has been in the North Texas area for over 30 years.

Everyone has been on hay this summer. Cows all around me are thin, some with ribs showing, when they should be getting fat.

Hay harvests are running at 40% of normal. A bottom across from me gave 90 bales total this summer when it usually gives 300.

Here at the Ponderosa we have spent more money than usual on our winter pastures. We have carefully disced our fields, put out a mixture of ryegrass, rye, wheat and turnips along with a lot of 17-17-17-4 fertilizer - and this was after feeding hay for 45 days on these fields - the equivalent of 1 ton of manure per acre was applied.

Now we need rain.

And we just may get it.

The only problem is that we plan to work 300 mommas and their babies this weekend.

So what to do? Postpone it? Or go for it?

One the plus side is we get it done. A good worming translates into extra gain.

But the negatives are not getting it done before the storm hits. Then having some cows bunched in metal pens while there is lightening around. Not good.

So looks like we will postpone and just enjoy the rain this weekend. If we get a few inches, we should have knee high grass by Thanksgiving.