In Utah, on March 9th. With Meade.
Use the comments for late-night and overnight discussion of whatever you can get going.
२७ मार्च, २०१७
Red rock landscape.
In Utah, on March 9th. With Meade.
Use the comments for late-night and overnight discussion of whatever you can get going.
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२८ टिप्पण्या:
Hated the thought of Trump during the primaries.
Hated the thought of a President Hillary far more.
Hated the thought if religious liberty being removed for all real intents and purposes from American life by a Clinton packed Supreme Court. Also, second Amendment personal.rights removed by same Court. Both disasters in less than three years of a Hillary term.
Thankful, thankful, thankful for a President Trump.today.
Scott Adams is on the nose.
Meade....I'm sure I saw your ball bounce the other way!!
@madAsHell, Shhh. Be vewy vewy quiet, I'm hunting wabbits
So - did you run into any rattlesnakes or tarantulas or scorpions out there?
That's the one thing that gives me pause about retiring to the Southwest. I think I could deal with the summertime heat better than I deal with Wisconsin blizzards, but their creepy-crawlies give me the jitters. My aunt lived in Tuscon and she was bit by a rattlesnake in her backyard. I get sort of nauseous when I see a grass snake in the park - and they're harmless!
Fear the Horned Frogs.
"Fear the Horned Frogs."
Ah, but I've been to France 3 times and I think I dealt with them pretty well:)
As for French frogs, you have still never dealt with the Horned ones from Ft Worth.
Back when TCU played in the Mountain West Conference (because Texas feared letting them into the Big Twelve), they had to beat Utah and BYU every year to get a chance to beat Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl.
When I discovered southern Utah driving across this great country I had an epiphany. It was, "Oh, this is the unique terrain I would see from 30,000 feet flying to the west coast."
"Tuscon and she was bit by a rattlesnake in her backyard. "
My wife loves a geography channel and last night they had an episode on a guy who was bitten by a rattlesnake in the arm.
What they didn't mention is that almost everyone who gets a rattlesnake bite in the arms is drunk.
They usually get bitten trying to pick up the snake.
Scorpions kind of freak me out, Especially if they hide in your shoes.
Congressman from Madison on Tucker Carlson tonight. He claims he has read the intel on how Russia influenced our election. Says it should be declassified. No word on how Russia won Wisconsin for Trump.
Where in Utah was that taken? It looks like somewhere close to Kanab, but it could be several places.
So - did you run into any rattlesnakes or tarantulas or scorpions out there?
I've lived in Arizona for more than 20 years. I don't recall ever seeing a rattlesnake or a tarantula. I was stung by a scorpion, once. It's not that bad, but worse than a bee sting. In contrast, I grew up in Napa, California. I regularly saw rattlesnakes and black widow spiders. Of course, as a young boy I probably spent a lot more time looking for snakes and spiders than I do now.
I'm NOT saying nature is friendly here. Almost all the native plants have thorns. I am saying that the natural flora and fauna is not a reason to avoid Arizona.
I don't like spiders and snakes
And that ain't what it takes..
Over the many years wintering in AZ I have seen a two tarantulas and a few rattlesnakes. The snakes were on the golf course. One of my golf foursome killed one and I asked her what club she used. She said a seven iron. Good utility club. ;-)
We did have lots of black widows around the outside of our former park model but we could only see them at night. They hide during the day. Most homeowners have their property heavily sprayed annually to kill insects. Good news for dog owners: No fleas!
I have always loved it here. The desert [not all of AZ is desert, of course] has a spectacular beauty all its own but it's not for everyone.
to kill insects
and arachnids.
We are having the floors replace in the house. It is a mess but last week, the workman who was stripping up old tile in the kitchen pulled the stove out and found a whole nest of black widows in the electrical outlet for the stove (220V).
The night before, I was asleep and heard a scream. It was my wife at 2 AM with a spider she described as the size of her hand on the kitchen floor. She was sure it was a black widow but it was in no shape to tell, by the time I saw it. Maybe she was right.
Anyway, the house will be sprayed once the tile is laid.
Black widows are not large, of course. If it was the size of her hand it must have been a tarantula. While I find them fascinating creatures, I would never sleep if I thought there even MIGHT be one lurking in my house.
I almost forgot: When I was doing home health nursing in AZ, I found a coiled rattler under a patient's bathroom sink! We called snake control [there is such a thing here].
True story:
Some years ago, I was working on an involved software project, and we had to fly out to HQ in California to demo it to management. The home staff gave us a conference room to set up in, and we got our equipment unpacked but when we started firing up the different computers, they would not talk to each other. We determined it was not our equipment, but the ethernet ports we were directed to use didn't seem to be connected to anything, not to the other side of the room, not to the Internet.
We finally (we tech guys hate to admit we can't fix something ourselves..) called the corporate sysadmin, who was on call from home. He logged in remotely to all the switches and routers and verified that everything looked OK. That's nice, we said, but our packets are going nowhere. So he grumbled a bit but finally came in (he was a good guy, but who wants to come in if you hadn't planned on it?).
He went to the hall electrical closet and plugged his test equipment into the switch there, and everything was fine. Then he plugged into the ethernet ports in the conference room wall we were supposed to use -- no dice.
Finally, after several fruitless attempts to trace the problem, he got out the suction cup tile puller, and started pulling up tiles on the raised conference room floor.
Finally, he pulled up one about halfway across the room and said (approximately); Holy Moly, look at this!
We looked and saw, literally, a rats nest. Apparently every time there was a meeting in the room, when it was over the rats would come out and take all the sugar packets from the coffee service, drag them under the floor and chow down. They weren't particular, and gladly chowed down on the Cat-5 cables while they were at it. I don't know when I've seen anything quite as surprising (clean, well maintained, hi-tech building) or disgusting..
They had to call facilities guys in hazmat suits to vaccum out and then scrub the underfloor, at which point the sysadmin was able to pull new Cat-5, and our demo went as well as it was going to go.
As Chuck Berry said, "It goes to show you never can tell.."
"So - did you run into any rattlesnakes or tarantulas or scorpions out there?"
When I lived on a canyon in San Diego years ago, I often found baby rattlesnakes in my pool skimmer (yes, baby ones are very poisonous), once got stung by a scorpion I stepped on getting out of the jacuzzi at night, and had a resident tarantula living in a planter in the backyard for a couple of years (they eat nasty pests like scorpions and aren't really aggressive or very poisonous.) So, you don't have to go the the desert to find those types of critters, they're mostly everywhere in the Southwest. BTW, if you want to keep black widows out of your yard, a half dozen or so alligator lizards will do the trick, so make sure you don't run those off.
Stayed in a place in the Australian bush for a week last fall. Huntsman spiders as big as your splayed open hand.
ndspinelli said...
When I discovered southern Utah driving across this great country I had an epiphany. It was, "Oh, this is the unique terrain I would see from 30,000 feet flying to the west coast."
The whole state is beautiful. Drive from Boulder Junction to St George. Most amazing landscpe I have ever seen. The down side? Sometimes difficult to find coffee or beer.
"So - did you run into any rattlesnakes or tarantulas or scorpions out there?"
The only animal* we saw in Utah was a rabbit. We were walking in Arches National Park and this couple with a camera on a tripod were fixated on something and we stopped to talk. The excitedly informed us that they'd spotted a rabbit, and if we were quiet — as I put it later vewy, vewy quiet — we might get a glimpse of it poking its nose out from behind some shrubbery. I said "I have rabbits in my backyard," and they lectured me about the specialness of spotting wildlife out here in the desert. They were still back there crouched, fascinated, and delighted, when — about 20 paces down the path, Meade pointed to a big old rabbit in full view.
_______________
* Other than a lot of mule deer in Zion and one mule deer in Bryce.
"Where in Utah was that taken? It looks like somewhere close to Kanab, but it could be several places."
Capitol Reef National Park. We were driving through and stopped at one of those scenic view turnoffs.
"Most homeowners have their property heavily sprayed annually to kill insects."
That's argument #1 for not moving there. I don't want to live in a sprayed-up house. I've never once used insect spray inside the house here, and it's been 30 years. We do have bees in the yard.
When I had my new house sprayed for termites [which are rampant here] I asked the guy if it also killed tarantulas because I didn't want to kill beneficial and interesting creatures. Unfortunately, he said 'it kills everything'. :-( It's an unhappy trade-off.
Rusty, My first experience was merely driving on I-70. Since then, I have driven many back roads and have made the drive between St. George and Boulder. One of the best. And you are correct, getting an adult beverage can be a challenge. I love to walk through college campuses. My walk through the BYU campus in Provo was interesting. It was like walking through a 1950's campus. Then, a few years later, I went to a BYU v UW football game in Madison. The BYU fans had shocked looks on their faces seeing the depravity. They wanted to cover their children's eyes. Last year I spent a day walking around Park City as they set up for the Sundance Film Festival. No problem w/ adult beverages in that venue.
"Most homeowners have their property heavily sprayed annually to kill insects."
That's argument #1 for not moving there. I don't want to live in a sprayed-up house. ...
I don't know that spraying for insects is any more common in the southwest than it is elsewhere. I'm pretty sure many in Wisconsin hire an exterminator to spray their homes. The only thing I'm sure we do less of here is shovel snow. What we do more of is use sunscreen.
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