Off-Topic / Dumping Thread

[+OLD CS1]

I cannot tell a lie... I might have been willing to commit a crime or two in my youth for such a collection.

 

 

[GDMike]

RIP John Madden. I've watched 30 years of awesome football but John made it better. I haven't watched in 2 years now...

He loved those 6 legged Turkey's

 

Edited December 29, 2021 by GDMike

[+OLD CS1]

The squirrels and I have a tenuous relationship.  I put out some food once in a while, a mix of feed corn and song bird mix.  The bird feeder is filled with safflower seed which the squirrels find too bitter to eat.  Most of them, anyway, as I have one which has developed a taste for both the safflower and the hot pepper coated mix in the back yard.

 

They have become rather smart, too.  If there is not enough of the squirrel feed out for them, especially when the friggen doves (or pigeons, as I call them,) mob the yard, a couple of them will come to the window and maybe give it a shake.  They are not afraid of me while I am in the house but, as they should, they scurry to the trees when I come out.

 

But if I ignore them too long, they hit up the bird feeder.  Finding nothing in it they like, they gnaw away at the plastic. So much so that the feeder would just drain all its seed out onto the ground.  So I finally brought it in and went at it with some Bondic, UV-curing resin in-a-pen, and a UV LED mini-flashlight.  Similar principle to a resin printer using UV light or laser.  Of course, the resin has aged a bit and comes out yellow now, but it still works and holds very well.

 

Both sides were done by (mostly steady) hand.  The left side was done layer-by-layer, while the right side was dammed with cello tape.

 

 

 

 

[Tursi]

12 hours ago, OLD CS1 said:

I cannot tell a lie... I might have been willing to commit a crime or two in my youth for such a collection.

 

 

Pretty awesome, though I only ever saw one of those machines in real life before. Kind of amazing so many were made, and how good some of them really looked. (And how cheap some of them looked too, but who's counting? )

 

[+OLD CS1]

Keeping up with my squirrel neighbors. Last night I heard something hit the roof over the living room, then a sound like it rolled. I figured it must have been a large branch what feel from one of the trees so I went out to look. I heard scratching and thumping from the downspout near my front window, which I recognized as being one of the neighbors -- confirmed by seeing part of its tail -- and also recognized as being way too late and way too dark for them to be out. I thought maybe its nest branch is what fell so I started looking around on the roof and in the tree with my flashlight.

 

It was about that time the squirrel came sprinting out from the downspout, up another tree in the front yard, and I heard it make a couple of barks, but not lengthy and not really loudly like usual, and pretty much at that same moment I saw it: the biggest friggen owl I have ever seen in my life. The damned thing could have taken a small child away, and it was sitting up about 25 feet from the ground, looking around then down at me. Apparently its hunt was unsuccessful, and best I can figure is that big bastard landed in the tree and the squirrel abandoned ship onto the roof.

 

Before I could get a good shot (photo) of it, it lit off to another tree across the street where I could not get light on it.

[atrax27407]

Even a Great Horned Owl has to eat. I frequently see Red Tail Hawks fly off with Squirrels in their talons. 

[GDMike]

Just now, atrax27407 said:

Even a Great Horned Owl has to eat. I frequently see Red Tail Hawks fly off with Squirrels in their talons. 

I see that all the time in my backyard.. just keep those squirrels outta my house ceiling and roof.

[GDMike]

We also have an old eagle that can be seen once in awhile around the peach farm down the street, but only the one. But I bet those owls can mess you up.

Edited December 31, 2021 by GDMike

[jrhodes]

I'd take my chances with a owl attack over a raccoon attack any day.

Edited December 31, 2021 by jrhodes

[+OLD CS1]

32 minutes ago, atrax27407 said:

Even a Great Horned Owl has to eat.

Not that night! heheheh

33 minutes ago, atrax27407 said:

I frequently see Red Tail Hawks fly off with Squirrels in their talons.

We have a lot of those around here.  My front yard is pretty well protected against the airborne predators, though the sky around it opens more and more as neighbors have trees removed.  The backyard not so much as there is a clear path for swooping down, grabbing, and making away.

35 minutes ago, GDMike said:

just keep those squirrels outta my house ceiling and roof.

Other than chewing through a run of Christmas lights the past few years, the squirrels around here are well-behaved. They may try to get in through vents, but there is no sign of them gnawing their way in. The worst they do to the house is the gnawing at the flashing on the vent pipes. One thing they do enjoy is eating the vegetation that is growing on the roof. The roof is way past replacement age and it harbors some kind of moss-looking growths. I see the squirrels up there picking it in the morning. Thinking of flying predators, they are pretty well exposed to the sky up there.

[GDMike]

15 minutes ago, OLD CS1 said:

Not that night! heheheh

We have a lot of those around here.  My front yard is pretty well protected against the airborne predators, though the sky around it opens more and more as neighbors have trees removed.  The backyard not so much as there is a clear path for swooping down, grabbing, and making away.

Other than chewing through a run of Christmas lights the past few years, the squirrels around here are well-behaved. They may try to get in through vents, but there is no sign of them gnawing their way in. The worst they do to the house is the gnawing at the flashing on the vent pipes. One thing they do enjoy is eating the vegetation that is growing on the roof. The roof is way past replacement age and it harbors some kind of moss-looking growths. I see the squirrels up there picking it in the morning. Thinking of flying predators, they are pretty well exposed to the sky up there.

Right!! As my deck fell apart last winter and in the process of removing it I got access to 4 sub floor access areas that had poorly closed openings. Opportunity to really do a great job on screening those in and leaving one closed up but accessible in case someone needs to get in there.  But I've not heard anything around or under my floors or ceiling ever since I did that.

Still waiting on money to rebuild the deck.  always something.

[Ed in SoDak]

A few years back we woke one night to a ruckus and a thud outside. Following day there was a decapitated turkey on the ground in front of the garage and feathers scattered about. Figured the perp had to have been an owl.

[atrax27407]

We have several pairs of Great Horned Owls (judging from the calls). They are immense birds 5+' wingspan and talons that will cut to the bone. In addition, they are completely fearless and will take on anything regardless of size.

 

Both Owls and Red Tailed Hawks will decapitate and de-limb prey items too big for them to carry off intact. They then come back for the leftovers. We have had at least one breeding pair of Hawks around for the past 40 years.

 

My wife even put up a feeding station for them (inadvertently) when she put up a bird feeder. The Hawks quickly discovered that it was an almost endless buffet of smaller birds and staked it out daily.

[+OLD CS1]

1 hour ago, Ed in SoDak said:

A few years back we woke one night to a ruckus and a thud outside. Following day there was a decapitated turkey on the ground in front of the garage and feathers scattered about. Figured the perp had to have been an owl.

 

[GDMike]

Anything that turns it's head like the exorcist can't be nice.

[+OLD CS1]

1 minute ago, atrax27407 said:

My wife even put up a feeding station for them (inadvertently) when she put up a bird feeder. The Hawks quickly discovered that it was an almost endless buffet of smaller birds and staked it out daily.

 

[atrax27407]

The annual invasion of Groundhogs is another matter entirely. I have disposed of 20+ of them in the past two years.

 

[GDMike]

Over at my mother's house...

 

TEXARKANA -- At least four locations in town reported a free-fall of fish either during or in the aftermath of two storms that blew through here Wednesday afternoon.

Among the places that pelted by fish were Discount Wheel & Tire and Tiger Stadium, both on Summerhill Road on the Texas side of town.

Arkansas-side resident Melissa Curry was the first to call the Gazette to report the strange occurrence. She and her husband were leaving their home Wednesday afternoon when they discovered as many as two dozen small fish scattered around the back yard and side yard of their Victorian home.

"There were every bit of 20 fish out here," Curry said. "We were flabbergasted. "

Tim Brigham, manager of Discount Wheel and Tire at 3223 Summerhill Road, said he saw some fish falling during a thunderstorm that popped up Wednesday afternoon.

"It was hailing and looked like there was about to be a tornado," he said. "And there were fish falling."

Brigham estimated there were between 25 and 30 fish and some were several inches long. There were at least as many on a lot to the north of his property.

"My grandpa had told me about stuff like this happening sometimes," he said. "A storm will go over a creek or river and pick up fish."

[+OLD CS1]

4 hours ago, OLD CS1 said:

 

 

Anybody else notice that her necklace is a 45-to-33 record adapter?

[GDMike]

What kinda of evil trickery is this..

 

[adamchevy]

Owls are impressive Predators.

[+mizapf]

Sometimes I feel like mocking songbirds in the way, "you know you are far descendants of the dinosaurs, yes?" OK, in this case with the owl, you may somewhat imagine there is still some connection indeed ...

[Ed in SoDak]

Observing our herd of turkeys, it's easy to make the bird-dino connection. How they move and interact can not be much different than how the dinosaurs behaved. Of course, since we are both self-employed fossil preparators we see plenty of evidence in the fossil record. And we might be a wee bit prejudiced to imagine every living thing as a distant relative of ancient critters big and small.

 

The "facts of life" probably have changed very little; eat or be eaten, court a mate, breed and raise young, live as long as possible, evolve into something better suited to the moving goalpost of environmental change.

[+TheBF]

Edit: Replaced the picture

[jrhodes]

3 hours ago, TheBF said:

This is all i see in that post: