Stijn!!

[GH85Carrera]

So you don't miss the airplane ride to the land of crazy traffic?

[Porsche-poor]

oh heck no!!!!!!

[flipper35]

Boy was it cold and windy Saturday morning. 30* and 50mph gusts.

We have rules about shooting a live animal. If it is a pest or a danger it is OK to shoot. Otherwise if you shoot it you eat it.

I needed to make an amendment Sunday morning. The boy walked with me to our spot and we stumbled on a racoon. It was awake and just stared at us. I tried to get it to move but it would stand and then stumble. I immediately thought it was rabid but went through my mental checklist and determined it was. It had the symptoms that I have a * next to.

*Unexplained aggression or lethargy;
*Raccoon looks slow, disoriented or confused;
*The animal seems to be unaware of noises that would normally send it scurrying to another location;
*Loss of raccoon’s leg function due to paralysis;
Throat muscle constriction that causes drooling, choking and frothing of the mouth.


I decided at that point that it was both a danger to us and would be dead soon anyway and it would die horrible from rabies so I shot it. The boy and I discussed it for the next several minutes so he understood the reasoning and we talked about the effects of rabies on mammals. Later in the day he saw a large grey squirrel about 25 yards away. He said he would eat at least 1 leg if he shot it. Thank goodness he missed. I don't like squirrel.

He did get to see a woodpecker going about its business in a tree we were next to. Heard some wild dogs, a goose and a turkey gobbling away and a large bees nest. Later he got to see a turkey that was about eight feet from him and just strutting around and another took flight just past the close one. The kids then found a large skeleton and were examining the teeth. We ate well all weekend. The boy got to shoot more than any of us though, no big deer to shoot. Will try again this weekend. Both kids had a good time just being in the woods. I walked about 8000 steps Sunday morning and the 7 year old walked all of those with me, plus all his walking up and down the creek exploring. He slept well last night.

Glad to see those of you down under enjoying your free time.

We were keeping up with OK for a while with the good weather. Now you all suck!

[GH85Carrera]

It is beautiful weather here today. Typical windy 20 MPH but mid 60s.

Back in the days before digital we had a full B&W photo-lab here. It is still there, it is just a storage room now. The processors put out a lot of heat so the owner added a second AC unit to cool just the photo-lab. Within a few weeks of the installation some low life thief stole the compressor. The owner had the unit replaced but used his typical overkill solution. He had a 10 foot tall fence with barbed wire on the top put in to surround the compressor. It had a lock and a system cover that made it a real challenge to cut the lock off. It was never stolen again.

Now 30 years later the darkroom is a store room. The refrigerant all leaked out of the compressor long ago. It has the schrader valves and was easy to see if there was any pressure. So now we will just cut the lines and put that old compressor on the front lawn along with the old fence.

I brought my saws all and we cut off the posts and the fencing. Several trees have grown up inside that area since we could not mow there. Those trees were big enough to rub on the building. Just Mulberry trees so junk trees. Those are cut up and going away as well.

[Porsche-poor]

Lumber jack time!

[flipper35]

Do you have a pet ox?

[GH85Carrera]

Yea, the mulberry tree is just oozing sticky yellow-white sap. Hopefully next year we can just mow that area. I am going to bring my sledge hammer tomorrow and hopefully pound the stumps of the fence poles down below ground level.

Our pilot is having fun with my saws-all. It just eats through those posts. He changed the blade to a wood blade and cut up some of the smaller branches and baby trees. Would a small baby tree be a tree puppy?

[Porsche-poor]

tree killers!!!!!!

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by Porsche-poor

tree killers!!!!!!

Just real tall weeds. Not something wonderful like your blueberry bushes. Or was it blackberries? It was one of those!

[Porsche-poor]

black and they have to go!!!!!

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by Porsche-poor

black and they have to go!!!!!

You bush-whacker! Think of all the starving critters wanting those berries to grow!

Won't you think of the children!

[RKDinOKC]

Sounds like you guys really don't like some berries.
Is it okay to mix the kinds of berries in like a fruit cocktail?
Maybe you should start a secret organization?
You could get together and remove berry bushes at night.
And wear disguises so nobody knows who you really are.
You could put burning bushes in the yard of people that have the wrong berries.

[GH85Carrera]

The Mulberry tree was 30 or 35 foot tall. It is a real trash tree, especially within a foot of the building. It was rubbing the building on windy days which are not rare around here.

[Porsche-poor]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

You bush-whacker! Think of all the starving critters wanting those berries to grow!

Won't you think of the children!

The little buggers can move into the neighbors house.

[RKDinOKC]

Black berry patches are full of chiggers.

[Porsche-poor]

not here they are just really tuff to get rid of.

[RKDinOKC]

When we had a garden we had about 8 blackberry plants all trellised up. Made it easy to pick and they didn't try to spread. They were well trained, lol.

The strawberry patch didn't do too well. It only made a few strawberries then died out.

We also had gooseberries, my Dad liked gooseberry pie. Me, not so much.

[Porsche-poor]

mine are wild and not house broken yet.

[RKDinOKC]

My Dad was some kind of 4H gardening award winner when he was a kid. It showed.
Our garden was huge and divided into seven row, sections.
We rotated the crops thru the sections each year, including one that wasn't planted.
The section that wasn't planted we tilled in mulch and compost and the dead vines from the garden plants as they cycled out throughout the year. Dad said it had to rest. We even let one of each type of plant go to seed and collected and kept the seed in the freezer to use the next spring. We grew everything from seed including tomatos and peppers. Every once in a while he would try out a new variety and either put it in rotation or let it die off.

We only did watermelon one year and Dad decided it just took up too much room and watering for what we got out of it. We even visited a guy that was commercially growing watermelon in the OKC area to get the skinny on growing them before he said not any more.

We did grow Zucchini several varieties of Squash including spaghetti squash.
Let see, we had a LOT of stuff.

Radishes, carrots, leaf lettuce, head lettuce, cabbage, onions green yellow and white, green peas, green beans, yellow wax beans, big beef tomatos, yellow low acid tomatos, burpless cucumbers, zucchini squash, yellow squash, spaghetti squash, acorn squash, corn, okra, two kinds of potatos, bell peppers, Jerusalem articoke, asparagus, Brussel sprouts, cantaloupe, honeydew melon, beets, black berries, blue berries, goose berries.

The fruit trees were, cherry, apricot, plum, apricotplum hybrid, peaches, apple green and red delicious, bartlett pears. Had at least 2 of each so they could cross pollinate.

Only trees that didn't make fruit every year were the apricot. They were the wrong climate zone or something, the flowers or fruit froze all but 2 years despite everything we tried.

Hope I don't come up with parkinsons from all the harsh chemicals I sprayed powdered the garden and trees and put on the trunks to stop the bore worms. The bores took out a big ash tree we had shading the patio. After that we had to go to war with the bore worm chemicals (nasty stuff, had to wear a tyvek suit, gloves, and respirator). I still have almost a full gallon of farmer's strength Roundup from when it first came out. Only use 1/4 tsp in a gallon sprayer or the next time it rains it will kill a foot radius down to bare dirt around where you sprayed it.

I ended up doing almost all the work. Yet today, I can barely keep a house plant alive.

[Porsche-poor]

my garden is the store.