I've just discovered I have a gooseberry bush in my garden - it's not exactly in rude health, having spent at least 3, and more likely 6 years inside a holly. I expect to see it decimated now it can see the light of day...
Slugs have not been a problem for me so far. Even the hostas are normally unaffected.
It is sad to note that the attitude is fairly common. "I don't like that insect/rodent/animal/whatever, so instead of leaving it be, I'll kill it."
I am also saddened when people invite mice and rats into their dwellings with "littering" lifestyles and then inflict suffering and death on the poor creatures when they take up the invitation.
No, that would mean that I'd have to re-read your posts and I can't be bothered. But I don't say things lightly, there will have been evidence for my words.
No, I like men and have quite a few in my life. Mankind, however, is a different matter and in that case Man embraces Woman. I'm certainly not a feminist and I have no political agenda about men.
No-one mentioned red carpets but you did give the impression that you would prefer to be rid of your "unwanted pests". A pest, by definition, is unwanted and something which is a pest is often prone to be exterminated.
There are even local authority departments which exist for this purpose ...
Mary
In message , Mary Fisher writes
Sorry, I can't agree with you there.
One tried to sting me last year. I was sitting down quietly and if it hadn't been for my uncharacteristicly fast reaction, I would have received quite a nasty sting on my shoulder. As it was, I brushed it away just as it started to sting me
(I put the word in quotes because I just knew you'd challenge my use of it! :-)
I meant that it (and several others) tended to fly around slowly[1] - indeed they almost fell rather than flew out of the attic, and wander around slowly on the floor or windowsill or other surfaces. (I daresay the wasps were doing this entirely purposefully and I'm simply anthropomorphically projecting soporificity onto them :-)
[1] compared to the speed of British Standard (or even the new European standard :-) wasps....
I generally agree with you. When the kids have tried to swat wasps I've suggested that if they leave them alone the wasps are likely to leave them alone (and vice versa :-).
Isn't that tending to inverted specieism (sp?) (or misanthropy)? Humans are part of nature too, and our behaviour is as explicible as that of other animals if you delve deep enough into people's motivations and mental and physiological processes. In other words there are always reasons, though whether these are 'good' depends on your point of view and values. There's a school of though that we all act out of good intentions however perversely these manifest themselves in actions. (I don't suppose this view is particularly novel given the age of the adage about the pavement of the road to hell.)
I wonder if you've read "The Continuum Concept"? Small children playing freely but safely around sharp tools and weapons and dangerous wildlife, the overprotected child drowning in the swimming pool at the first unguarded opportunity? (It doesn't sound as if you need to read it actually, but maybe it'll be a help to other parents as I think it was to me.)
It's not the journeys that are particulaly dangerous about roads!
They don't sleep.
Sorry for hitting send too quickly ...
The word 'good' has several shades of meaning.
A school of thought is just that - A school of thought. There are others.
I've never even heard of it. When I had children (five in seven years) I was too busy to read child rearing handbooks - and of course in my arrogance I don't suppose I'd have thought I needed them. Why should an author know more about how to bring up my children than I did?
Our children did fall and hurt themselves in other ways but not fatally. They learned by advice and experience what to avoid. One was bitten by a dog which had just whelped, the daughter had no idea of the defensive nature of an animal in that condition but she did after it had been explained that it wasn't a 'naughty' dog. I don't remember any of them ever being stung.
Two damaged themselves very foolishly and one seriously when they were in the early teens, by fire. It was their own fault and they felt very guilty about it, now they are both ambassadors for fire prevention and avoiding such accidents. They couldn't have learned that from any book.
If you don't use the roads to make journeys you don't get involved in accidents.
Mary
In message , Mary Fisher writes
Quite right, If you don't confront the unknown, you don't know how to handle it when it imposes itself upon you (did I say that ?)
All journeys require a road of some sort. No road, no journey, no journey no progress
Well, there's no-one else hereabouts ...
Mary
That's why I've never made much progress in life.
Poor deprived old dear!
Mary
In message , Mary Fisher writes
A Stanna lift would at least help you upstairs and allow you to view new horizons
Yes, mush easier to deal with, just put in a teaspoon of cymag and a dribble of water. You can even use petrol which will gas them too, but it's not as good.
J.B.
Speaking of wasps, look what I found in my shed:
(About 120K each)
Luckily for me, the wasp was also there chewing and spitting out my shed into the interesting shape, so I bashed it with my lump hammer, and it's back end fell off (the wasp, not the lump hammer).
Nipped that one in the bud - could have walked in there and been chased out by a cloud of the buggers!
Bob
I appreciate that, and that mine is a sort of religious (or non-religious) position. Personally I prefer it to the go[o]d versus [d]evil view, but then as an atheist I would, wouldn't I? :-)
These new-fangled hautomobiles haven't reached your part of t'sticks yet, then? ;-)
Round here they seem to take particular delight in swatting any kids who stray into the road whether making journeys or not. Put a bit of damper on their play (when I were a lad ... play in streets ... safe as houses ... etc etc).
Those spoilsports in pinstripes and bowler hats tried to put a damper on this sport by restricting the speed charabancs are supposed to be allowed to travel so that swatting the sprogs doesn't always kill them outright, but a lot of them are getting round this by fitting metal bars to the front of their wagons at optimum kid-swatting height. Apparently it usually does the trick.
Yes, but a lump hammer to kill a wasp even though this was a queen, & a bit bigger than "normal". How do you crack your nuts, with a steam-hammer??
Nice substantial looking shed BTW - is it made partly from recycled pallets?
J.B.
seven cells when they're found like that. And was it really brown?
Good pictures.
Mary
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