Discuss Any Subject Here

[Betty LaRue]

I just bought a lilac bush. Now to plant it. I love the smell of lilacs and lavender.

[Cecile Marion]

Except for in photos or on television, I’ve never seen a groundhog. We don’t have them in Florida. However, as I was sitting on a train in Baltimore, Maryland, what I think was one waddled out of the bushes on the other side of the tracks. I can’t imagine what else it would have been. Strange looking creature.

[Ed Rooney]

They are cutie-pies, Cecile. 

[Michael Ventura]

45 minutes ago, Cecile Marion said:

Except for in photos or on television, I’ve never seen a groundhog. We don’t have them in Florida. However, as I was sitting on a train in Baltimore, Maryland, what I think was one waddled out of the bushes on the other side of the tracks. I can’t imagine what else it would have been. Strange looking creature.

 

I see them often up here in the Maryland area.  They are cute, as Ed says.  They seem to love to make their homes along roadways but I can't say I have ever seen a dead one that has been hit by a car.  I bet the animal you saw along the tracks in Baltimore was one.

[Cecile Marion]

Interesting. You just never know where you might spot wildlife! We were actually stopped in the Baltimore station at the time. 

[Bill Kuta]

I've seen plenty of roadkill groundhogs over the years out here in what used to be the exurbs. More often deer, though, it seems.

 

Which I'll free-associate into another story involving roadkill. We were lunching riverside in Everglades City, Florida in 2015 (food photo on Alamy to prove it 😋), and struck up a conversation with a man who turned out to be one of the park rangers. We talked a lot about the Burmese Python problem in the Everglades. He said that one thing the Park Service has done for years is conduct a periodic roadkill survey, as a rough population gauge for small mammals etc.  He said that now (six years ago!) the roadkill survey yields hardly anything, because the pythons have eaten up most of the critters.

[Cecile Marion]

It seems the pythons and iguanas are taking over south Florida. At least we don’t have them here in my part of the state (yet), though we do need to keep a good watch for alligators and venomous snakes much of the time. 

 

[meanderingemu]

6 hours ago, Cecile Marion said:

Except for in photos or on television, I’ve never seen a groundhog. We don’t have them in Florida. However, as I was sitting on a train in Baltimore, Maryland, what I think was one waddled out of the bushes on the other side of the tracks. I can’t imagine what else it would have been. Strange looking creature.

 

which is funny as I currently see them almost daily on my morning walk.  but i guess you see creatures in Florida that i don't see on a regular basis.  

Edited May 30, 2021 by meanderingemu

[Steve Tucker]

 

I suppose this is the norm now on social media  and they couldn't even be bothered to remove the watermark.

 

[Betty LaRue]

It’s raining, and we’re expecting a lot more. I can inspect my back fence later to see where it’s safe to plant my new lilac bush. Lilacs don’t like standing water, they need well-drained soil. Perfect weather to determine a good area.

The people who owned this house before allowed a weed tree to grow in the middle of a snowball bush. I paid to have a high school kid cut it out, and then I applied a stump killer. It didn’t work. So I hired my yard man to dig up the whole thing Friday. 
Bye-bye, snowball bush.

I went to the nursery to buy another snowball, but was enticed by the lilacs instead. I won’t plant it where the snowball was, just in case all the tree roots weren’t dug out.

[sb photos]

Yesterdays trip to Weymouth and Portland, a 330 mile round trip, went well. Heavy traffic and delays on the A31 where it joined the M27, and around Ringwood. Although visitors were being advised to stay away due to overcrowding, it didn't seem that bad. If covidiots were stupid enough a few more would have made images with more impact. Never had enough time to shoot everything I wanted.

[formerly snappyoncalifornia]

On 30/05/2021 at 08:09, Ed Rooney said:

They are cutie-pies, Cecile. 

We have them on our property and they are not welcome. They dig like crazy and will destroy garden beds. Their extensive tunneling can undermine a house's foundation. Cute only goes so far. 

Edited June 3, 2021 by formerly snappyoncalifornia

[Bryan]

Driving moan.

 

Last Friday we headed over to Manchester and had to use the dreaded M62. The traffic was horrendous, all three lanes full and moving at a snails pace at times. Not great, but I can live with this.

 

However there appears to be an increasing tendency for some drivers to overtake on the inside, including using the hard shoulder to progress a few cars along. They then weave through the lanes, without signalling of course. It's a bit like wacky races, but very dangerous.  I doubt if these idiots make any substantial progress, none of the lanes were moving at anything like normal speed.  We did see the aftermath of one accident with four damaged vehicles at the roadside. 

 

I'd like to see a much more obvious police presence on the motorways.

 

 

[Russell Watkins]

57 minutes ago, Bryan said:

Driving moan.

 

Last Friday we headed over to Manchester and had to use the dreaded M62. The traffic was horrendous, all three lanes full and moving at a snails pace at times. Not great, but I can live with this.

 

However there appears to be an increasing tendency for some drivers to overtake on the inside, including using the hard shoulder to progress a few cars along. They then weave through the lanes, without signalling of course. It's a bit like wacky races, but very dangerous.  I doubt if these idiots make any substantial progress, none of the lanes were moving at anything like normal speed.  We did see the aftermath of one accident with four damaged vehicles at the roadside. 

 

I'd like to see a much more obvious police presence on the motorways.

 

 

 

In the UK, overtaking on the inside in slow moving traffic is OK according to the Highway Code. Using the hard shoulder is a different matter.

 

Actually, passing cars on the inside on a motorway is also OK as long as you don't manoeuvre (i.e. change lanes) to do so. The obvious example here is passing the middle lane hogger.

 

*grabs popcorn*

[Betty LaRue]

I have an ant problem. My parrot, Echo, throws some of her vegetables out of the cage to the floor in her room.  The ants love what’s left of the corn after she mashes out the tender center. Cleaning often doesn’t change the ant population. I have been spraying with vinegar water solution which breaks up the trail they leave and decreased the population, but didn’t work completely.

Yesterday afternoon I prepared a solution of 3 teaspoons of sugar to one teaspoon of borax powder, then wet it to the consistency of cooking oil with hot water, then stirred it to dissolve it.

 I poured it into a flat plastic lid with short sides like from a coffee can or a sour cream container, and put it beside Echo’s cage. Within an hour, I had ants along the edge like hogs to a trough. Already by this morning there are only one or two ants I can see.

Ants love this, and will fill up then carry the solution back to their nest and eventually kill the queen.

Used to when we lived near a field, a cockroach or two would get in the house. I used the borax/sugar dry in lids scooted under the washer, or under the kitchen sink behind the cabinet door. Dog/cat safe. The roaches eat it, it dehydrates them to the point of death.

You can drill 3-4 holes in the sides of a small plastic container a half to an inch or so above the bottom. Just big enough for the ants to crawl in. Put the Borax/sugar/water solution in the bottom below the holes. Have the lid on, facing up. (Protects birds and other animals) Put it outside in your lawn where you see ant activity. Once the ants find it, the nest might be killed in four or five days.

 

Edited June 2, 2021 by Betty LaRue

[Bill Kuta]

Yeah, I used to try putting stuff along ant routes (like diatomaceous earth, which dehydrates them), but it doesn't take their collective intelligence long to re-route the trail. Best to feed them something that they'll kill themselves with.

[Betty LaRue]

8 minutes ago, Bill Kuta said:

Yeah, I used to try putting stuff along ant routes (like diatomaceous earth, which dehydrates them), but it doesn't take their collective intelligence long to re-route the trail. Best to feed them something that they'll kill themselves with.

Ain’t an ant alive that can resist sugar!😄

[Bryan]

4 hours ago, Russell Watkins said:

 

In the UK, overtaking on the inside in slow moving traffic is OK according to the Highway Code. Using the hard shoulder is a different matter.

 

Actually, passing cars on the inside on a motorway is also OK as long as you don't manoeuvre (i.e. change lanes) to do so. The obvious example here is passing the middle lane hogger.

 

*grabs popcorn*

To be clear

 

Rule 268
Do not overtake on the left or move to a lane on your left to overtake. In congested conditions, where adjacent lanes of traffic are moving at similar speeds, traffic in left-hand lanes may sometimes be moving faster than traffic to the right. In these conditions you may keep up with the traffic in your lane even if this means passing traffic in the lane to your right. Do not weave in and out of lanes to overtake.

[Russell Watkins]

2 hours ago, Bryan said:

To be clear

 

Rule 268
Do not overtake on the left or move to a lane on your left to overtake. In congested conditions, where adjacent lanes of traffic are moving at similar speeds, traffic in left-hand lanes may sometimes be moving faster than traffic to the right. In these conditions you may keep up with the traffic in your lane even if this means passing traffic in the lane to your right. Do not weave in and out of lanes to overtake.

 

The RAC's view: "The Highway Code advises drivers not to undertake – although it is not a punishable offence in itself."

 

[Mr Standfast]

Chuck mentioned the story of the blind men inspeccting an elephant on another thread....

 

This is the best ending I ever heard for that metaphor.

 

One of the blindmen has a moment of clarity. He realises that the strange object is actually an elephant!

 

In a whisper he says, "Chaps, its a bloody elephant! Very carefully let go and back away, expecialy you Mr " I Think  It's a Coconut Tree??""

 

G'night.

[spacecadet]

11 hours ago, Mr Standfast said:

Chuck mentioned the story of the blind men inspeccting an elephant on another thread....

 

This is the best ending I ever heard for that metaphor.

 

One of the blindmen has a moment of clarity. He realises that the strange object is actually an elephant!

 

In a whisper he says, "Chaps, its a bloody elephant! Very carefully let go and back away, expecialy you Mr " I Think  It's a Coconut Tree??""

 

G'night.

Actual LOL.

[Robert M Estall]

back to groundhogs for a moment; I grew up in a cooperative outside Kingston Ontario. It had been a 50 acre mixed farm and we sure had groundhogs. As kids, we were quite wary of them as they have big slightly yellow teeth which look menacing. They do dig lots of holes though I don't ever recall any tunnelling under homes. I guess an adult groundhog might weigh 10 lbs? In the UK out here in Suffolk we have Badgers. They are almost as adored as hedgehogs but are BIG and they can really dig. Overnight, they can dig out several wheelbarrow loads. We've only had the one juvenile in our back yard but the Dalmatian frightened it half to death. Wisely, did not actually engage.

[Jill Morgan]

2 hours ago, Robert M Estall said:

back to groundhogs for a moment; I grew up in a cooperative outside Kingston Ontario. It had been a 50 acre mixed farm and we sure had groundhogs. As kids, we were quite wary of them as they have big slightly yellow teeth which look menacing. They do dig lots of holes though I don't ever recall any tunnelling under homes. I guess an adult groundhog might weigh 10 lbs? In the UK out here in Suffolk we have Badgers. They are almost as adored as hedgehogs but are BIG and they can really dig. Overnight, they can dig out several wheelbarrow loads. We've only had the one juvenile in our back yard but the Dalmatian frightened it half to death. Wisely, did not actually engage.

 

When I had a horse farm in Orangeville Ontario, the groundhogs were a menace.  If farmers saw one on the road they would go out of their way to hit it.  Would dig holes in pastures with livestock and you would always worry about animals breaking their legs in the holes.  In the hay fields you would constantly be breaking shear pins on your equipment as the tractor or baler would thump in a ground hog hole.  We would buy something called a "ground hog bomb" that you would throw down the hole and then watch for where they came out. Every ground hog hole had two entrances.  Then you would fill them in as best you could.  Don't see very many here in Lindsay though.  Not sure why.

 

Jill

[meanderingemu]

3 minutes ago, Jill Morgan said:

Don't see very many here in Lindsay though.  Not sure why.

 

Jill

they all moved to Ottawa....  

 

 

funny coming from Toronto which was raccoon territory, never saw them there- but here they seem to thrive in parks...

[Ed Rooney]

 

In German, dachshund means 'badger dog.' They were breed to go down a hole after a badger. If you seen badgers, you know that would be an insane thing to do. So dachshunds are insane. Or they were. The present generation seems calmer and more of a pet. 

 

This is Len and Jen. They would only go down a hole to give me a kiss. I used to sit for them.