More Wildlife

We have had a couple of very young raccoons hanging around the last couple of weeks, maybe 3 or 4 months old. We see the youngsters frequently but never any grown raccoons, so wonder if something happened to the mama. We noticed they were eating lots of the sunflower seeds we put out for the birds but figured they needed more in their diet so added in all the veggie and fruit trimmings we had along with a cup of cat food every day. Then last week they didn't come any more. I hope they found another place to call home. I didn't know if it was good to feed them or not as I know they can be very destructive. But couldn't resist if they were orphans. No, they were not gentle and I didn't want to be. I let the dog bark at them and it was great if they ran from us and went up the oak tree in the front yard. 

We always have opossums around. I really do not care for them. I don't like their looks and they do carry some unusual illness'. But I do know they are a native animal that has been here a very long time.
 

Summer Wildlife

     We have had quite a few different kinds of wildlife around our house this summer. 

   We feed the birds which brings in the chipmunks and squirrels. We have had possums come in some and have to remember to bring in the seeds that we put in pans for the birds that either can't or don't like to eat out of the hanging feeders. We found a way to hang the long feeders from the eves of our front porch so that squirrels and raccoons couldn't get to them. We had tried hanging them in the trees but the squirrels and raccoons quickly learned how to take them down and destroy them getting the seeds out. 

     Since we like the little critters we found that putting a shallow pan on the ground allowed the birds like bluejays, doves, towhees, cardinals, and some others to eat from them. Many birds prefer to eat off of the ground but will eat out of a shallow pan no more than three inches deep. I get some black plastic ones from one of the dollar stores that were meant to be used as drain pans for changing the oil on a car. They work well for water for the birds, and as drip pans under my larger pot plants, also

    The squirrels are fun to watch. We usually only see one or two at a time. But this year first we had three that I think were a mama and her two large babies. Then we had another two which made five. Then one day I started out the door and there were at least seven making a dash to get off the porch and out of the bushes around the porch and up the big oak tree that sits in the middle of the front yard. 

    You will notice the first photo is of a rabbit. We have rabbits in the yard but usually they stay in the back yard, don't ask me why, I don't have an answer except I think the mamas raise their babies under the shed back there. I saw this one had hopped up into a container we were raising turnips in. He or she seemed to like the turnip greens but thankfully didn't bother the roots that we like to eat. 

This squirrel was a bit different. It's tail was brown in color instead of the normal grey like their body color. 

Ramdom Thought For Today

       I have not been posting anything for some time. I had to get a new computer and have had trouble learning how to use it. My random thought for today is WHY do all the computer companies make the computer so they die after a few years - so that I have to buy a new one - that is more complicated to use. And all it does is make me mad. Looks like it would be to the benifict of computer companies to make computers as simple as possible instead of make their customer upset with all the new fangled stuff each computer seems to have to have even when we don't want. 

    As the old saying goes ---- If it ain't broke - Don't fix it.

This applies to Google and their blogger posts, too. I have more and more problems using this site. Don't fix it. Leave it as if so I know what I am doing. 

THE DEER HUNT

  I'm not sure what you would call the following little bit of information on deer hunting. Not a poem. Almost more of a story. My dad got it from another hunter a long, long time ago. He always had a copy to give to someone that wanted it. I am posting it here and hope it makes everyone have as good a laugh as my dad and I always had about it. He never had this happen to him but he did have some strange happening on some of his deer hunts. 

THE DEER HUNT

2:30 am Alarm Clock Rings.

3:00 am Hunting pardner arrives, drags you out of bed.

3:15 am Throw everything except the kitchen sink in the truck.

3:30 am Leave for deer woods.

3:45 am Drive back home and pick up the gun.

4:00 am Drive like hell to get to the woods before daylight.

5:15 am Set up camp. Forgot the damn tent.

5:45 am Head into woods.

6:05 am See 8 deer.

6:06 am Take aim and squeeze trigger.

6:07 am “Click”

6:08 am Load gun while watching deer run over the hill.

8:00 am Head back to camp.

9:00 am Still looking for camp.

10:00 am Realize you don’t know where camp is.

Noon Fire gun for help ------- eat wild berries.

12:15 pm Ran out of bullets ----- 8 deer go by.

12:20 pm Strange feeling in stomach.

12:30 pm Realize ate poison berries.

12:45 pm Rescued!!!

12:55 pm Rushed to hospital to have stomach pumped.

3:00 pm Arrive back at camp.

3:30 pm Leave camp to kill deer.

4:00 pm Return to camp for bullets.

4:01 pm Load gun. Leave camp again.

5:00 pm Empty gun at squirrel that is bugging you. Squirrel runs away.

6:00 pm Arrive back at camp. See deer grazing in camp.

6:01 pm Load gun.

6:02 pm Fire gun.

6:03 pm One dead pickup truck.

6:05 pm Hunting partner arrives back at camp dragging deer.

6:06 pm Repress the strong desire to shoot partner.

6:07 pm Fall into fire.

6:10 pm Change clothes – throw burned ones in fire.

6:15 pm Take pickup --- leave partner and his deer in woods.

6:25 pm Pickup boils over ---hole shot in block.

6:26 pm Start walking.

6:30 pm Stumble and fall --- drop gun in mud.

6:35 pm Meet bear.

6:36 pm Take aim.

6:37 pm Fire gun ----blow up barrel --- plugged with mud.

6:38 pm Shit pants!

6:39 pm Climb tree.

9:00 pm Bear departs. Wrap #*%& gun around tree.

Midnight Home at last!!!

Sunday ---- Watch football game on TV, slowly tearing up licence into little pieces, place in envelop and mail to Game Warden with very clear instructions on where to place it!!!

In Reply

 

In Reply

In reply to your request to send a check, or Credit Card number,

I wish to inform you that the present condition of my bank account

makes it almost impossible. My shattered financial condition is due to federal laws, estate laws, county laws, city laws, corporation laws, mother-in-laws, brother-in-laws, sister-in-laws and outlaws.

Through these laws, I am compelled to pay a business tax, amusement tax, head tax, school tax and excise tax. I am required to get a business license, car license, operators license, truck license, not to mention a marrage and dog license.

I am required to contribute to every society and organization which the genius of man is capable of bringing to life; to woman’s relief, unemployed relief, and gold diggers relief. Also to every hospital and charitable institution in the city, including the Salvation Army, Community Chest, Red Cross, Purple Cross, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Heart Fund, Polio Fund, YMCA and the YWCA.

My business is so governed that it is no easy matter to find out who owns it. I am inspected, expected, suspected, dis-respected, rejected, dejected, examined, informed, required, summoned, fined, commanded and compelled, until I provide an inexhaustible supply of money for every known need, desire or hope of the human race.

Simply because I refuse to donate to something or other, I am boycotted, talked about, lied about, help up, held down, and robbed until I am almost ruined.

But I thank you for your consideration.

Author Unknown

The Land Out West

                   

                        The Land Out West

 There’s a land out west that’s hot and dry.

I come from this land and that’s where I’ll die.

The land is full of cactus and thorns,

It used to have cattle with long, long horns.

The saguaro stood twenty feet tall.

So come to this land, come to stay.

Come and see the close of day.

See the saguaro standing high.

See the sun in the blue, blue sky.

See the roadrunner in the desert sand,

Come, I say, Come to this land.

Sarah Barnett

This poem was written by my sister a long time ago. But it is still true today. Oh, how I miss the deserts and mountains of the southwestern states, especially my home state of New Mexico. That said - the saguaro she wrote about like the ones in the photo below do not grow anywhere but in southern Arizona. This was a photo I took a couple of years ago when she and I made a short road trip to where the saguaro grow. 

Corn Harvesting

 The corn that has been growing in the fields around us was harvested the other day. I was so glad. I had thought it might be nice to have corn growing instead of the normal soy beans we had been used. But the corn got taller that we had figured and made a live fence around us. Then it dryed out and seemed to be what was causing a bad case of alergies for me and hubby, and Ziva dog. and our cats. I have never seen cats with algeries as bad as what ours had. I think the dry corn with lots of road dust from the vehicles going by and some mold in the stalks because we had so much rain was causing an alergy problem we had never had before. 

   But now the corn is down, or at least the fields near us are. There are still some fields on our road that need to be cut yet. We still have algeries but I am hoping that they will settle down with some time and maybe some rain on the fields. 

  Here are photos of the corn being harvested. I have total respect for all farmers and ranchers and anyone that is a grower and gatherer of food. 

this is the machine cutting down the corn and inside it seperates the corn from the stalk and cuts it off the cob

The chopped up stalk and cob are pushed out the back of the harvester

The corn is sent from the harvester into a special trailer pulled by a tractor. When the trailer is full the tractor pulls it down the road where a big truck and big trailer wait. The corn is shifted to the large trailer and goes to a nearby grain silo where the corn is stored until it is sold for what ever kind of usage. Corn an go for so many uses. Cornmeal, corn starch, animal food, cereal, certain types of fuel and many more uses. 

The flag was in our yard and I thought it made a good photo. Many thanks to the two men running the harvester and the tractor.