A happier wildlife tale... [modified]
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You don't know what you're missing. It's the best way I've found for finding tarantulas. :laugh: Seriously, when I'd first moved to California, me and the wife spent a week cycling wineries in the Russian River valley. One afternoon we were humming down this one long descent, hauling ass, 45 mph or so. It was wooded, and difficult to see well because we were flashing from shadow to sunlight patches - dappled light coming through the trees - when something starts out from the side of the road, running in front of me. At first I thought it was a squirrel or something, but the shape and gait were wrong. We were closing fast and the wife was right on my wheel so I couldn't take any real evasive action. All I could do was hope it would stop or swerve... and it didn't. Just as it comes into sharp focus, just as it's going under my wheel, I see it clearly for the first time - this big friggin' tarantula! I start screaming and wave the wife off my wheel, slow down, bang a U and climb back up the hill... and just about yuke at the mess I'd made of it. I'd never seen a real tarantula outside of a pet store before. I reeeeeeelly don't like spiders, and this thing was straight out of a nightmare.
The Russian River Valley is good. I especially like River's End in Jenner although I haven't been there for a few years. Hard to handle 3 or 4 cases of wine on a bicycle though. :) Spiders aren't my favorites either and I thought the wolf spiders in Texas were bad.
You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists.
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... than one in particular seen here lately... subtitled: The Invasion of the Possums. First, a nearly irrelevant picture - Mitters the Cat and a Deer[^]. This was taken a few weeks ago from my living room. The connection is the reason for the deer's visit - he was looking for cat food. Next, background - we live in SE Wyoming at an elevation of about 7000 feet, in the foothills (such as they are) of the Laramie Range, between Cheyenne and Laramie. Very rural. Our neighbors across the street moved out - he was transferred (USAF) to Japan. They abandoned one of their cats. He's pretty feral (lives in their barns), but nonetheless I was trying to get to be friends before winter, when he's sure to freeze without someplace to go. So I was leaving the garage door cracked at night with a dish of food inside, and sure enough, he was coming in and getting it. I left the light off because there are a lot coyotes and larger predators roaming the area at night and I didn't want to make a target of him. So to make a long story short, we ended up with more than a cat - a female possum, complete with a pouch full of little ones. We got her out of the garage, and she moved into the wood shed. (I stopped leaving the garage open, instead leaving the cat food outside and in the daytime only. Which is where the deer found it. I can't win.) We seem to have gotten her out of there, too, but I found something pretty cool there tonight. Opossums don't hibernate. Cold winters pretty well define the northern limit of their range, and it gets pretty damned cold here, so you gotta figure it's tough on them. Well, I'd apparently driven her out of the shed, but she's still using it as her storage area for winter. I went in to clean out the mess they'd left behind and noticed the smell of fresh grass, or plants. Looked around a bit and found what must be her stash for the winter - she'd almost completely filled an empty 60 gallon (I think) plastic garbage barrel with harvested flowers and grass! Mostly black-eyed susans and some kind of wild grain. An incredible amount, all harvested in the last few weeks. Think about it. Possums are supposed to be pretty smart (IQ between that of a dog and a pig). This girl is working months in advance to prepare for winter, selecting the most nutritous stuff, and even storing it in a barrel. (
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To paraphrase something your ancestors used to say about my ancestors, the only good wild animal is a dead wild animal.
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The Russian River Valley is good. I especially like River's End in Jenner although I haven't been there for a few years. Hard to handle 3 or 4 cases of wine on a bicycle though. :) Spiders aren't my favorites either and I thought the wolf spiders in Texas were bad.
You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists.
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Why don't you crawl back under the piece of _shit you came from, you ignorant little _fuckwad?
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Actually, a gool old-fashioned wire water bottle bracket holds a standard 750 ml wine bottle like a glove. Something that's lost with the fancy schmancy new carbon fiber bottle mount systems.
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Ok, that takes care of the bottle for lunch but you did notice I was talking cases? :cool:
You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists.
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Why not? Traditional publishing: I find a big company that will buy my manuscript and pay me royalties... They do the work, they own my story, I just collect microscopic royalties. Self-publishing: I find a small company that will publish and print it for me. I pay them to set it up, I get a larger piece of the pie, and most importantly I retain ownership and control. The bolded part is the reason I went this route :)
Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in? Developer, Author (Guardians of Xen)
Because there's absolutely nothing preventing any yahoo from self publishing his burn-before-reading, rejected-with-a-form-letter*, reject from the slushpile story; the overwhelming majority of self published material is garbage with no good way to separate the bits with redeeming value. * (If your manuscript is close to publishable, or good but in a section of the market the publisher doesn't do; you'll get a personalized response.) PS a legitimate vanity press won't charge you for anything except hard copies that you buy; crooks will lard all sorts of fees onto you. http://www.anotherealm.com/prededitors/pubwarn.htm[^]
The latest nation. Procrastination.
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Because there's absolutely nothing preventing any yahoo from self publishing his burn-before-reading, rejected-with-a-form-letter*, reject from the slushpile story; the overwhelming majority of self published material is garbage with no good way to separate the bits with redeeming value. * (If your manuscript is close to publishable, or good but in a section of the market the publisher doesn't do; you'll get a personalized response.) PS a legitimate vanity press won't charge you for anything except hard copies that you buy; crooks will lard all sorts of fees onto you. http://www.anotherealm.com/prededitors/pubwarn.htm[^]
The latest nation. Procrastination.
True, for the most part... One of the reasons I picked the publisher I did was that they actually are somewhat selective as to what they will or won't publish. Not as much as a traditional, but as I said, there are other reasons for that. I'm not willing to sell the copyright to my story... I don't want some big corporation owning MY characters, so I didn't even apply to a traditional house... As for vanity presses... They may not charge you up-front, but you have to buy a large batch. I went the print-on-demand (POD) route, so my novel is up on Amazon/B&N.com/etc, but I didn't have to buy a thousand copies for myself. Didn't have to buy any, though of course I ordered a small batch to give away and sell.
Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in? Developer, Author (Guardians of Xen)
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Oh, for sure. I'm just trying to decide on the best option. I don't want to try to relocate her because it's getting too close to winter. I really don't mind if she's using the shed for storage, I just don't want her nesting there. (Their hygiene habits are pretty bad. Imagine something with the habits of a mouse, but a couple of orders of magnitude larger. X| ) There are a bunch of old rabbit burrows under and around the shed - I think she may have moved into those. It was no problem coaxing her out of the garage and the shed - they really don't want to have anything to do with people. We just went in and started banging around, and then left the door open day and night to sort of ruin her sense of security. Within a couple of days she was gone. Although not far, apparently.
Build her a possum box... hang it on the rear (outside) of your shed, or in a nearby tree... Google it and you'll find plenty of simple designs...
I don't have ADHD, I have ADOS... Attention Deficit oooh SHINY!! Booger Mobile (n) - A bright green 1964 Ford Falcon - our entry into the Camp Quality esCarpade!! Do something wonderful - make a donation to Camp Quality today!!
