I just love this time of year. I really wish everyone could experience one spring in Bethany. It’s so nice. The flowers are starting to come up, the birds are everywhere and sometimes almost deafening (although this is partially of my own doing as my place is like a hangout now because of all the feeders and bird baths), it is the perfect temperature and no humidity- you get a little bit of a sweat while working and then there is a nice cool breeze. And the smell- it is so fragrant because literally everything is blooming. And the grass is so soft it just feels so good between your toes.
At any rate, the house is starting to come together, but still a ton to do and have not even powerwashed or painted the porch yet:
For those of you who are curious, that smudge across the top is one of my fat fucking fingers partially obscuring the picture. Still a bunch to do in the back yard, too:
Also, this birb was at the feeder earlier, and I am pretty sure it is a red-bellied woodpecker which is amusing because it has a red head and a white belly:
Tomorrow Gerald and I are driving around the hills and hollers to find path stones from rock slides.
Also, this was a fun thread:
If each Democratic candidate was a type of cheese, what would they be?
Joe Biden would be individually wrapped American.
Elizabeth Warren would be sharp cheddar.
Bernie would be something like blue cheese because it is super divisive but the people who like it fucking love it
— Cake or Death (@Johngcole) May 8, 2019
TenguPhule
Obligatory warning that the willow is too close to the porch.
Jon
Kamala Harris would be manchego. Little salty at first, but then damn that’s good.
Roger Moore
I said on Twitter that Bernie would be Limburger: it stinks to high heaven, but some people love it anyway.
Capri
That bird looks like a Flicker. Same family as the woodpecker.
Soprano2
The bird looks like the red bellied woodpecker to me, too. We have them here in Missouri.
TenguPhule
@Roger Moore: Isn’t there the Greek maggot cheese?
Barbara
I love blue cheese. The second picture has the feeling of a spring afternoon so perfect it makes me wish time could stand still.
Steve in the ATL
@Roger Moore: indeed!
IIRC, back when the Yanks were cleaning up France again after their neighbors got a little too far west, our boys found a cave with such a wretched stench they were convinced that Jerry had been stashing decaying corpses in there. After we solved the problem with a flamethrower, angry Frenchman demanded to know why we destroyed their stock of nicely aging Limburger cheese.
Quel fromage!
frosty
Looks great! One spring day yesterday then gray skies again here in South PA. The buds are out and it’s not freezing though. I’ll take it.
CindyH
@Roger Moore: I like your take since I love blue cheese but not a fan of limberger
Steve in the ATL
@frosty:
Aw yeah light it up bro!
Another Scott
@Capri: It looks like flickers have a black bib.
We have red bellied woodpeckers and downey woodpeckers around here, and I think JC’s is a RBW, too.
Pretty birds.
Cheers,
Scott.
MazeDancer
Was lovely in Upstate NY, too, today. No humidity is wonderful.
Sure, it was searing dry all those excellent years I lived in Santa Fe. But never gave a thought to humidity or mosquitos. Makes one understand why people pay zillions to live in Montecito where it is always lovely, with no humidity, despite the fire/mudslide problem.
For much of the US, Spring is a sweet, benign Season.
Kristine
Red-bellied woodpeckers’ bellies aren’t that red, at least around here. A faint patch of blush coloring, that’s it.
House looks great, John.
SiubhanDuinne
I have always loved strong, stinky cheese.
.
.
I am not really sure what that says about me.
schrodingers_cat
Kamala Harris : Yogurt cheese, her people love to put yogurt on everything. Also versatile, can be used to make desserts as well as savory dishes.
Pete B: Goat cheese, bland with a funky after taste
BS: Limburger
Warren: I’ll go with sharp cheddar
Steve in the ATL
@SiubhanDuinne: yes you are.
@MazeDancer: In Atlanta, a city I visit occasionally, we celebrate spring by painting the city yellow, with pollen, and mainlining Benadryl and Sudafed.
Bobby Thomson
Don’t bring blue cheese into this. Wilmer is more like head cheese.
Bobby Thomson
That’s interesting. Apparently that phrase puts a comment into moderation, even though its parts don’t.
Keith P.
@TenguPhule: Sicilian
Is that Gabbard?
NotMax
Dolt 45 and his entire badministration would be casu marzu. Which has gone ‘off.’
Ancient joke:
Q: What’s the first thing aliens from the Cheese Galaxy do upon visiting Earth?
A: March up to the nearest person and demand, “Take us to your Liederkranz!”
mrmoshpotato
Wait. Since when is blue cheese a pouty asshole mathematical loser?
Major Major Major Major
My preferred candidate is soy cheese, and ALL THE REST OF YOUR CANDIDATES ARE PART OF AN EVIL NEOLIBERAL ESTABLISHMENT CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE LACTOSE INTOLERANT
Barbara
Apparently Meghan McCain’s husband lost his cool on twitter over Seth Meyer’s interview of his wife. Reading the tweets makes me understand why he thought plagiarism was a good idea. His insults are not what you would call witty or original.
Barbara
Pretty sure Sanders has to claim the extra sharp white cheddar slot, being from Vermont and all.
RAVEN
We made a day trip to Apalachicola and the hurricane damage is incredible. There are “help us Trump”, “find Tyndall Now Trump” and MAGA shirt and hat joints dotting the road. One of the hat/shirt/flag places had a confederate flag with an AR-15 and a gay pride flag! Florida
schrodingers_cat
@Bobby Thomson: He is more like anthrax to the tire rims currently in the WH.
Major Major Major Major
@Steve in the ATL: if you insist
Tim Townsend
That’s definitely a Red-Bellied Wood Pecker, the tell is the black/white stripe pattern on the wings. A Red-Headed Wood Pecker has black/white wings. I also get an occasional visit from either a Downy or Hairy Wood Pecker. (Hard to tell as it’s quite skittish.)
My RBWP likes to “announce” himself by landing on my roof and giving the gutter a long shot with that beak. Kinda GTFO my way you other birds!.
Shana
Posted this below but repeating since the thread seems to have died: Dana Milbank has had his White House press credentials cancelled. As have a lot of other WH press corps. Are we in full-on fascism yet? How about now?
mrmoshpotato
@Barbara:
Awwww….. He can go sit by Wilmer and pout.
Leto
@frosty: This will be the twelfth weekend with rain. While I’m enjoying the slightly cooler weather before the onslaught of heat/humidity, I’d like one nice spring weekend.
Gvg
In North Florida spring pollen season was a while ago. I consider this the start of summer. Spring term ended last week. Summer term starts Monday. It’s actually been a long mild spring with only a few days in the 80’s. Azaleas and dogwoods were 2 months ago. I am glad you are enjoying spring. Sometimes it’s really weird to listen to other climate zone people.
Swimming season has begun. Tuesday I took a day off to drive my mom to a U pick blueberry place. She got several pounds of blueberries and plans to freeze some but has already started baking with them.
I have planted thornless blackberries which I prefer in taste.
Next door reports orange squirrels in the neighborhood so I want to see them as opposed to common grey.
J R in WV
Here on the farm, with 200 acres all told, we’re just trying to obliterate the autumn olive bush from the driveway. It’s an invasive brought into this country by strip mines, who plant it to “reclaim” the destroyed mountains. It’s really hardy and will grow anywhere.
Last summer I sprayed herbicide on most all of it along the drive, it looked very dead, but this spring much of the standing dead wood put out green shoots!!!!
So this time we’re using a stronger mix of herbicide AND I’m cutting it off at the ground with a chainsaw and spraying the staubs with the vegetative poisons. It’s pretty slow going, and we won’t get as much killed off as I did last summer.
But last summer I didn’t kill it, I just set it back a little bit. We went to friends last weekend and they had a feeder right outside the place we were sitting and drinking and chatting. We had a woodpecker like that, a number of confusing warblers, and a rare bird the name of which I forget. I’ll try to look it up and add it…. A Rose-Breasted Grosbeak, that was it wife tells me… really pretty birds. Some said it was just passing through…
The birds are pretty kool this time of year!
Barbara
@RAVEN: I have only been half following what is going on with disaster relief in the Senate, but apparently it is more important for Puerto Rico not to get money than for others to get relief. I think that mostly affects the Midwest flooding relief but it wouldn’t surprise me if it affected Florida as well.
chris
Slow but steady… Dana Milbank’s WH press pass has been revoked. Along with most other journalists. Progress!
NotMax
@Gvg
Wearing tiny MAGA hats?
;)
raven
@Gvg: These mid-60’s mornings are sweet and the beach is just right. I fish from 7 or so until noon, chill until 4:30 when they take up the rental chairs and the families leave. There were hardly any people down there for sunset. Another bonus seems to be that code enforcement quit hassling people about dogs for now.
Ohio Mom
@Roger Moore: Yes, Limburger. It stinks and it is not at all versatile. I mean, what can you do with it besides put it between two slices of pumpernickel? It’s one-note just like Bernie.
Shana
@chris: Not my favorite oped guy but restricting the press is not a good move.
chris
Your house looks great, Cole. Took me a moment because I had to look at it on my phone after BJ stopped showing me pictures on the desktop.
Nudge, nudge.
jl
Thanks for cute Cole home and garden pix. And Cole reports happy contentment, standing in the yard enjoying the joy of grass noodling up through his toes? Huh. I’ll try to wrap my head around that notion. Wonders never cease.
Shana
@raven: At Rehoboth Beach, DE where we vacation more than any other place, they restrict dogs only during what they consider “The Season” which starts at Memorial Day I think.
mrmoshpotato
@J R in WV:
But how will it stand up to a flamethrower?
chris
@Shana: Nor mine but his piece says it’s all six Wapo reporters and a bunch more.
raven
@Barbara: It looks pretty grim to me. We went through St Andrews and downtown Panama City on our way east and came back thought some of the wrecked shit on 98. It’s ugly and it’s been, what, 7 months?
Raven
Oh shit, he’s here tonight, that’s why all the signs and t-shirt stuff. Duh.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@raven: You got (g) mail.
NotMax
@Ohio Mom
Wouldn’t turn up my nose at this hearty beauty of a sammich.
Limburger is a melty-firendly cheese, so also as a robust accent to add some oomph to certain cheesy sauces.
Raven
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho: I’m way behind!
Steve in the ATL
@raven: I was in that area back in December or January. Was visiting a client in Panama City but had to stay in Destin because of the lack of operating hotels in PC.
Drove over to PC and around Mexico Beach. Every roof either had a blue tarp on it or was just gone. Piles of cut up trees on every corner. And the stories we heard from the guys at the mill were awful.
mad citizen
Last week the weather guy said the last fully dry weekend we’ve had (central Indiana) was Feb 2-3, so I’m with you. Last weekend there was Saturday rain and it looks like this weekend is too cold, and probably some rain.
Another Scott
@Shana: I’m surprised it has taken them this long. Remember what they tried to do in January 2017? FTFNYT:
They’ve wanted to kick out the press from the beginning.
Cheers,
Scott.
J R in WV
@Shana:
This is actually a good thing — those reporters no longer need to attempt to stay friends with Possum Queen or anyone else in the White House. They can forget about access reporting and will have to get out there and dig for things to report.
Raven
@Steve in the ATL: It’s not a great deal better now. We’re in Seagrove and the folks we rent from could have rented their house but decided against it. The understand people who rented to contractors had quite a few problems.
jeffreyw
@Another Scott:
Yeah, it’s a red bellied.
Major Major Major Major
@J R in WV: I get the sentiment, but let’s not lose our capacity for outrage here. This is the sort of thing that would have been appalling two years ago.
Keith P.
@NotMax: I’vee always wanted to make a cheesecake out of Limburger like that one Al Bundy sought out on Married With Children.
The one time I ate Limburger on crackers I liked it a lot
Jay
@J R in WV:
Cut it off at just above ground level, auger 1/2” holes in the stump, as many as you can, as close to the bark as you can, fill the holes with rock salt and protect from rain with black plastic.
NotMax
@Major Major Major Major
Seem to remember a similar case in which 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue backed down.
Ah yes, it was CNN and Jim Acosta.
NotMax
@Keith P.
So melty I suspect a regular cheesecake would collapse into goo. Might possibly be able to do individual little cheesecakes with a limburger center, sort of along the lines of a chocolate lave cake?
Jay
“‘We’ve dug ourselves a really deep hole’ – David Neiwert on the rise of the far right
Neiwert has reported on the US far right for decades and watched as the conservative movement has steadily adopted its outlook and ideas”
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/27/american-exceptionalism-has-to-die-david-neiwert-on-the-rise-of-the-far-right
wasabi gasp
Bernie is swiss cheese. All his policies are full of holes! Ha!
Slow-ass bunch of Bernie hater dum-dums.
NotMax
@NotMax
lava, not lave
NotMax
@J R in WV
One time eradicated a large, pesky invasion of poison ivy by generously dousing it with a mix of very, very hot water with lye mixed in. One application got rid of it for good.
Protection for any exposed skin, of eyes and careful avoidance of fumes a must.
frosty
@Leto: Baltimore had a record 71” last year. Annual average is 39. I think we’re in for it again.
Another Scott
@NotMax: Poison ivy is nasty around here, because it hides among the English ivy, and because the birds like the berries and spread the seeds. So, it comes back.
:-(
Cheers,
Scott.
rikyrah
The backyard looks beautiful ?
debbie
Screw cheese. That is one awesome azalea.
Keith P.
@NotMax: I’m waiting for Cracked.com to attempt it. Their TV dish attempts are usually pretty interesting. Iirc Skittlebrau is delicious. Space-age Moon Waffle will ruin your iron
trollhattan
@J R in WV:
Sounds almost as evil as…a willow!
Stump-grinding sounds in order if you can acquire a rental. No mercy.
I’m allergic to olive trees and they are frequently used as easy landscape trees here but enterprising folks are making olive oil and lemme just say, fresh-pressed olive oil is like no olive oil I’ve ever had. “And such variety!” [Estelle Costanza voice]
Dan B
@Jay: Good sober piece by a local guy, just in a very different, very white, neighborhood of Seattle. Where we live it’s 10% white.
BTW thanks for the links to the Caroline Orr articles. I’ve read her before but it was good to read longer articles. Disturbing but better to know and be able to respond than to be shocked and sent into panic.
sukabi
@Barbara: yeah, poor Ben hasn’t gotten any smarter. His big achievement will be marrying into money. Meghan’s privilege and poor character aren’t going to do either of them any good in the long run.
Jay
@Dan B:
Welcome.
I’ve got a regular weekly reading list of people who track and expose the Nazi’s, Incels, MRA’s and of course, the transphobic “feminists”.
Sandia Blanca
“I really wish everyone could experience one spring in Bethany.”
Ahem. When is the Bethany meet-up, John?
rikyrah
A picture of the guns taken from a White Supremacist in California????
https://twitter.com/howroute/status/1126270870610173953
whatzername
@J R in WV:
There might be a herd of goats for hire, somewhere near you. I’ve heard they will annihilate persistent invasives; eat ‘em up completely – wild olive, even kudzu.
Duane
@Jay: That could be a lot of work for some. Treat the stumps with Tordon and be done.
Jay
@rikyrah:
Nazi, there’s no reason to parse all the different kinds of Nazi’s into their assorted flavours of nuts, just lump them all together.
Barbara
@rikyrah: “It’s like a gun themed Hoarder episode.” And really, that is what it looks like.
sukabi
@rikyrah: here’s another one..
https://twitter.com/KTLA/status/1126252524879482880?s=20
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/05/atf-discovers-massive-stockpile-of-firearms-in-bel-air-near-the-playboy-mansion-report/
Jay
@Duane:
We have Russian Olive here. When the saplings get their first flowers, ( about 1” in diameter), I cut them down, drill the hole, fill with rock salt, cover with black plastic.
The birds bring the seeds up from the City.
I took out about 50 full grown trees when we first bought the section.
I saved some of the wood to make ornamental oyster veneers, which is the only use the wood has.
We don’t use persistent chemicals here.
Amir Khalid
@J R in WV:
Alas, access reporters have little in the way of other reportorial skills; a White House reporter who has spent decades relying on access to White House staff for stories will not have kept up to speed on those other skills, and will have to learn general reporting all over again.
Duane
@Jay: They’re really bad where you’re at. Don’t have them here. Hey, if rock salt works good deal.
Major Major Major Major
@Amir Khalid:
This is a good premise for a TV show.
Searcher
@TenguPhule: In general I oppose planting trees or allowing them to grow in such a way as they will one day fall on a house or powerline.
In New England, soil tends to be shallow as hell and trees fall over for just no reason. To add to that, we don’t get Midwestern twisters, we get little microtornados which are just strong enough to push a tree over (but not, like, throw it).
So having a big tree next to your house is just saying “I plan to have this tree fall on my house one day.”
rikyrah
?????
Cake or Death (@Johngcole) Tweeted:
none of you have answered my question which is why are men wearing makeup now? I mean whatever blows your trumpet you can stick roses up your ass for all I care but how did this come about? https://twitter.com/Johngcole/status/1126306032492453888?s=17
Dan B
@Jay: I don’t need to read about transphobic feminists. Had enough “fun” with lesbian hating feminists back in the 70’s. Loved W.I.T.C.H. but they started from a sense of humor and an understanding that feminists could fall into the stereotype. Also they made themselves immune to CoIntelPro, a skill we need to relearn.
Jay
@Duane:
Rock salt does a great job, and doesn’t have “unintended consequences” that can last for decades.
It would be nice if the City and District would mandate taking out the Russian Olives, but they won’t. Too many people have a sentimental attachment to them.
mrmoshpotato
@rikyrah: HOLY! FUCK! Makes the Nazi trash Coast Guardman look quaint.
Major Major Major Major
Harbison
Warren – Cabot Clothbound Cheddar – strong, distinctive, immediately identifiable.
Boot-edge-edge – a 76 degree Camembert de Normandie – it looks to melty and appetizing so you start salivating but then remember that guy from summer camp and look how that fiasco basically ruined the ENTIRE SUMMER.
Biden – I don’t know, some kind of cheese that comes in a big blog that is made in a batch of 100 tons so its everywhere and, yeah, it fits the definition of cheese, but c’mon, this is what we’re getting?
Harris – collard greens paneer. Combining two great traditions in one awesome candidate. I mean what’s supposed to be the part that makes the other part bearable? Because they’re just so awesome. Scientist mother and academic father. So, clearly, she know what song runs through the hearts of America’s black folks. Nutritious and delicious.
Gillibrand – awww, wants so bad to be the Cabot Clothbound, but, nope, just some basic cheddar here.
Sanders – tastes like … Victory
Castro/That Governor Guy/the Starbuck guy/the woman who is really mean to her staff – now you know why those little Babybel “cheeses” are wrapped in wax and sold in sacks.
Dan B
@Jay: Are you in the Okanagan? My partner’s ex is from Quincy, WA on the Columbia. It has lots of Russian Olive. Nasty.
Jay
@Searcher:
Always had trees, but in the yard, trees need to be managed.
Some can be pruned and shaped, some, ( conifers and cedars) you plant a replacement next to it about a decade before it needs to come down.
At the Elgin Street house, the backyard ran upslope, the lawn formed a bowl, and the mix of fruit trees, flowering trees and conifers up against the fences, gave the illusion that you were in a clearing in the forest.
Harbison
@Major Major Major Major:
A Judd Hirsch vehicle if ever I saw one.
(Is he still alive?)
Jay
@Dan B:
37 km south west of Kamloops. Not the Okanagan, north west, but similar terrain and ecology. The forest comes further downslope than in the Okanagan.
mrmoshpotato
Sanders – tastes like Soviet cheese made from 40 years of trash
Harbison
@Jay:
The month I spent fishing in BC and Alberta 20 years ago absolutely ruined me for fishing in the states.
Jay
@mrmoshpotato:
It’s actually Putin cheese,
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2016/07/22/warning-this-is-not-cheese-in-russia-watch-what-you-eat-a54689
In the Soviet Era, it was imaginary real cheese, a sign on an empty shelf.
Jay
@Harbison:
It’s even better now in BC, if you are fishing for trout.
Salmon and Steelhead, not so much.
Just down the road is “my secret lake”, where 3 years ago I landed a 7 1/2 lb Brookie on a 4 weight, fishing from shore.
dww44
@Tim Townsend: They are indeed quite aggressive birds and push out the absolutely beautiful red headed woodpeckers in my part of the world. I gotta believe the latter are somewhat endangered here.
mrmoshpotato
@Jay: But he didn’t start having an affinity for the Russkis in ’99.
Mo MacArbie
Why did you have to bring cheese into it? Now I’m nostalgic for Kerry. As many candidates as we have, I don’t see any provolone
Jay
@mrmoshpotato:
Yeah, but in the Soviet Era, it was a cheese sign on an empty shelf,
A good wilmer metaphore,
In the Putin Era it’s a mix of talc, industrial grade coconut oil, samonella and milk solids sold as Premium Cheddar, and overpriced even if it were a real Premium Cheddar. Slug eggs sold as caviar.
Jay
@Mo MacArbie:
Soft provalone, on
Fresh Krim tomatoe slices,
Salt,
Black pepper,
Balsamic vinigar drizzel,
Fresh chopped basil,
Served at room temp.
Mai naem mobile
Sanders would be feta cheese because it’s crumbly,white and made from sheeple milk.
Re: Dana Miblank – wonder what Fox Nooz would do if the Obama folks had pulled the credentials of the Fox WH reporter.
Also too I saw some blurb about how Barr got a standing ovation from the other cabinet members during the cabinet meeting today. Fuck these pigs. None of them should deign to show their face in public after they leave Trumpov and none of them should be able to find a job either.
Sab
Old fashioned idea. I had been carefully painting the stumps of trees and vines with Round-up. That stuff scares the shit out of me. And the plants always came back.
Last year my spouse tried the extremely old fashioned idea of painting the stumps black. So far has worked like a charm. Nothing that he painted has sprouted as much as a tiny leaf.
Suzanne
@Mo MacArbie:
Baud! = provolone
Ramalama
@Harbison: But isn’t Cabot cheese from Vermont? I import the 2lb bricks into Canada even though the soft cheeses here in québécistan are deelish…because there’s no comparable cheddar in the province. And Cabot rules.
Jay
@Sab:
The black paint “solarizes”, ( cooks) the stump.
Drilling holes in, salting and covering with black plastic, dries the stump out, prevents the cabnium from moving moisture/sap up to allow sprouting, and solarizes as well.
Best part is once the stump is dead, it rots away in months, once the plastic is pulled.
Jay
@Ramalama:
Try Balderson’s from Ontario.
Jay
@Mai naem mobile:
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/amp.axios.com/white-house-aides-staffers-new-job-not-hiring-3d462642-9592-4799-af4b-aae37ff57570.html
Sab
@Jay: Thanks. I had not understood how either method worked.
eemom
@Mai naem mobile:
Please take that back before I call down the wrath of every god on Mount Olympus.
Sab
I got in a fight with a with a wild rose bush today and had a tachycardia event. I won, the rose didn’t. Dug it up root and stem.
But then I had to go inside and recuperate because my pulse was well over 300 for at least half an hour. Basically from weeding. Scared my husband a lot. He’s three years older than me and was expecting to die first and leave me a widow. Looks like that’s not God’s game plan.
I am not enjoying the aging proces at all.
Jay
@Sab:
A standard “deweeding” technique is to weed eat an area down hard, then cover with black plastic.
If you run drip lines under the plastic, cut through the plastic and plant seedlings, you can plant immediately.
If it’s tomatos you want to grow, red plastic ripens fruit about a month earlier than normal.
Jay
@Sab:
None of us are,
Glad you are okay,
Sometimes “weeds*” are best just accomodated.
*( plants growing in a place we don’t want them).
Sab
@Jay: I have tried accomodating wild roses. They eat everything. The goats eat them, but I am not having goats in that part of my yard this year because I want everything else to survive.
My husband believes in weeds. I mostly call them perennials.
NotMax
@Sab
Very few, if any, do.
My standard response when asked by the not yet old is to describe it as a carnival of revelations.
Among fellow seniors, it’s “None of this was mentioned in the prospectus.”
Jay
@Sab:
Here, wild roses are a blessing, not a curse.
You can get a brush bar attachment for a weed eater. As it shatters brush rather than cuts, most “shrubbery” doesn’t survive a pass.
Jay
@NotMax:
Yup.
Putting your back out putting on socks was not mentioned in the brochure.
Sab
@NotMax: Frankly, I would very very much prefer to die of a cardiac event, if the alternative is advanced alzheimers.My dad has that.
Amir Khalid
@Harbison:
The Google says he is.
Sab
@Jay: We have poison ivy. Grind that stuff up and it lives in your soil for many years. Neighbor did that to me. Three years later I am still scratching madly every time I go onto that side of the yard.
joel hanes
Though the world end,
we must tend our gardens
joel hanes
@dww44:
push out
Two suet feeders.
Jay
@Sab:
Wearing basically a full on NBC suit, you “grind it up”, rake it up and black bag it, then cover the area with black plastic for a year, to cook the roots out.
Just “muching” it doesn’t work.
Here, we get Himillayan Blackberries and purple loostrife, I put up an electric fence, let the pigs in. They eat everything. Rototill down a foot.
Just have to rake the poop and pee over, because they only do it in one corner. They even eat burning parsley.
Sab
@Jay: We now have purple loosestrife, thanks to the garden stores. My sister visits from New England and froths at the mouth when she sees it.
Jay
@Sab:
Yup, it’s now illegal to sell here. One thing the Districts and Cities have managed to do is prevent the sale of invasive species.
On the other hand, Round Up Ready canola is clogging flood ditches on the Plains and bacteria are busy transferring the genes to weed species.
Sab
@Sab: I am not just scratching madly from poison ivy. I have weeping itchy sores that last about three weeks.
Sab
@Jay: Round up frightens me.
Ruckus
@NotMax:
My copy of the prospectus did have it all. It was in the section called family history and power of attorney/end of life care. Cancer, Alzheimers, debilitating diseases, just getting fucking old, it was all in there. There was also a chapter called, “It Ain’t for Sissies.”
Jay
@Sab:
I’ve been “chemical free” my whole life. My Mom was organic before it was “hippie”,
It took 9 years to get the ranch/farm certified because of the “persistence” of chemical pesticides and herbicides past owners had used.
The lesson’s I learned dated back to the 30’s. Drought and other changes here, created a grasshopper swarm, ate everything. So, they shoveled out grasshopper bait , ( cornmeal lased with DDT).
Killed more grasshopper predators than grasshoppers.
5 years ago, we had the same conditions. The swarms flew like smoke in the sky. You could watch them come up the valley.
When they got close to my section, every bird started to go nuts, and when they crossed the fence line, it was like watching the Battle of Britain.
I had no grasshopper damage, just snakes, frogs, salamanders, birds, mice, coyotes, least weasels, squirrels, stuffed full to the brim with grasshoppers.
Doug R
@Jay: That sounds like Merritt or Ashcroft. After 20 years in Richmond we moved to Kelowna a couple years ago.
Sab
@Ruckus: My mom had a chapter called hereditary spinocerebellar ataxia. Not fun.
Jay
@Sab:
There’s a product called Painters Hands. It’s basically a laytex/eggwash coating that’s “breathable”.
Keeps the nasty stuff out.
I use it as a base layer for dealing with two part polurethanes, as an addition to the full suit, helmet and air supply.
Jay
@Doug R:
We are north of Merrit, north east of Ashcroft, a couple km north east of Lac Le Jeune, but miles east of the Lac Le Jeune Road and the Coquihalla.
That big lump of nothing between the 5A and the Coq. Roughly the middle.
Kamloops is closest, just because of road layout.
Ruckus
@Sab:
I should find out in the next couple of months if mine has a chapter on Parkinson’s.
Fun times.
Jay
@Ruckus:
Crap
Jay
@Doug R:
How do you like it?
Monte Lake’s a great swimming hole, but the drivers on that road,……
Ruckus
@Sab:
I have some of the symptoms of a couple of variations but of course there are several neurological diseases which can have similar symptoms.
Ruckus
@Jay:
It is what it is.
There are no guarantees in life. Well that’s not true. There is one. A cousin only made 6 months. His mom made 42 yrs. Her sister made 94 and survived breast cancer for 45. Her daughter made 66 and died of breast cancer. I knew a man who lived to 104. Someone once said it’s not the end of the journey that matters it’s the journey itself.
Ruckus
It’s a work night so ta ta all.
Jay
@Ruckus:
That and big Reds if you put the time in.
Mart
@Harbison: We drove past a Babybel cheese factory twice in Leitchfield, KY (going somewhere and back), and it made my wife very happy. She loves their stuff for some reason.
Also too, I think Cole’s phat thumb is too close to the tree.
Ramalama
@Jay: Balderson’s ain’t bad. But it’s not seriously sharp.r
Bobby Thomson
@chris: I hate having to defend the Dick Whisperer, but times being what they are . . . .
Bobby Thomson
@Jay: Multiflora rose is a non-native highly invasive species introduced with the best of intentions during the New Deal. It crowds out native habitat and is the bane of my existence.
Ramalama
@Jay: Have you got ice cream recommendations? Even if Ontario-only. I go every once in a while to Toronto to see the in laws … And none of them seem to be fiends for ice cream like I am. Stupid Boston ruined me with all of these handmade ice cream shops of the mid 1980s through jplicks having a good run with multiple locations.
Another Scott
Nobody is Wensleydale? I am disappoint.
Cheers,
Scott.
sherparick1
@Capri: Nope, that is the strangely named red bellied woodpecker (we have 2 to 3 mating pairs that come regularly to our feeders). https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Red-bellied_Woodpecker/id# This site also gives you a picture of the Northern Flicker so you can see the difference. I missed “Big Day” this year due helping my wife’s recovery from an operation. We also have a pair of red pileated woodpeckers that we may catch sight of once a week.
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Pileated_Woodpecker/id
opiejeanne
Governor Inslee is Beecher’s Flagship.
J R in WV
@trollhattan:
@Jay:
@trollhattan:
These are bushes, not trees, and not related to the medditeranian olive fruiting tree. They spread rapidly, and the biggest one I’ve cut was under 2 inches. Roundup won’t touch it, they don’t react at all.
I got something called Crossbow, which lists autumn olive as a difficult brushy thing it worked for, and last spring sprayed several dozen clumps up to 12 feet tall, and they all died off – apparently. I left the dead (haha) stuff standing. This spring many of the “dead” sticks put out new leaves, a lot of them.
So this time I hacked down the bushes (which have thorns, did I mention the thorns?) at the ground, and sprayed the stumps with the Crossbow, mixed a little stronger than I used last year. Only time will tell. I need a calm day with no rain in the forecast.
It also came up in a tiny roadside pond with a wide variety of tadpoles and iris and a local plant I currently forget the name of. So I can’t use the poison there, I’m just going to cut then out with loppers continuously forever.
We bundle up with long sleeves and pants and such and try to keep the stuff off bare skin, so far so good. And we’re using it a handful of times a year, very carefully, not inundated in it for weeks, so I don’t feel suicidal spraying it. But with my age and infirmities we can’t go at it for 8 hours. A couple of hours is all I can manage. Wish me luck.
Dave Latchaw
I had to de-lurk to say that Cole is wrong again. It shouldn’t be “This Fucking Old House.” It should be “This Old Fucking House.” Sorry if this is too divisive.
J R in WV
@Bobby Thomson:
My grand-dad planted a hedge of multiflora rose around his 2-acre place, and it eventually became a huge wall of thorns 15 feet high. It was recommended by the Ag department for living fence hedges, haha.
After he died and we sold his place, the new owner had bulldozers tear out the roses, mulched with heavy black plastic and put in rhododendrons. But they still had to keep cutting back the roses for years.
Our farm was covered up with the roses for years, but lately some virus transmitted by aphids has been holding them back quite a bit. So now we have Russian Olive, which also has thorns. It seems quite resistant to chemical herbicides, so I’m trying a combination of chain saw and herbicide on the stumps. Some people make jam from the berries…. yetch. Like making a sandwich spread from slugs.
ETA specify rose damage from the virus…
Steeplejack
@Dave Latchaw:
Sort of agree, but I have to ration the number of pedantic hills I’m willing to die on. But you can take lead on this!