Today's due diligence

George Shirley wrote: ...

eventually. Momma Nature isn't going to stop cooking up storms. building and rebuilding lowland structures is rather stupid, but people are ... as long as they want to keep paying the insurance and costs.

do you have cold hands? mebbe it ran away? :)

what interested me the most with this one was how the forecast first started with the storm being further west, then it shifted quite a bit east and then back to the west.

i just read an article about the forecast models being worse than before. as usual complaints of lack of funding. and not that i'm agreeing entirely, but basic science should always be well funded (and usually isn't).

songbird

There were plenty of people outside the US tracking it. EU models had apparently appeared best. The climate change people make predictions 10 years out but weathermen are often wrong 2 days out.

I like the water but don't want to live where a 10 ft tide surge could flood me. Even inland is at risk. Lower DE is coastal plane. I've seen storm surge cross the road from the Atlantic ocean to the Rehoboth bay. Lot of people live there and will eventually suffer. I like where I live at about 300 ft above sea level in upper DE. A couple of years ago, if hurricane Sandy had made the left turn a half hour sooner, DE would have suffered the damage seen in NJ and NY.

Nope, my Dad trained me properly, cold hands on a cow's bag could get you kicked, at the least. Warmed them with hot water in the winter, just used bare hands in the summer. Dad grew up on a four generation farm and knew a bit about cows.

My wife's family, mostly men, worked for the gubmint for at least forty years for the two that worked for the gubmit. Her Dad and second brother, all the rest of the family had real jobs and had to work. My FIL told me flat out when I asked for his eldest daughter, and all the rest of her too, that don't work for the feds. Took him at his word, even though I had a fairly good offer from DC as I was getting out of the Navy. I never missed not going to work for the feds, but managed to work 47 years at what I wanted to do. Now I just lay around watching TV, fetching groceries when needed and loving the other three generations of our family, all the ones from us. Two kids and families, five grands and three of their families, and the great grands are best of all, hug them,and tell their folks it's time to take them home.

George

That's the beauty of hurricane's, lots of movement and makes people look for the correct time and way before it eats their houses.

My family had beach houses on the Bolivar Peninsula on the Texas coast for fifty years or more. Eventually even the land they were on disappeared too, no more beach houses since. Used to be fun taking the kids down to the beach, do some swimming, some beach combing (odd stuff washes ashore in Texas), and a lot of fishing and walking the beach in the evening. It's been so long since we lost the last "camp" that I can't even remember it. One aunt actually lived on the beach after her husband retired and then they had to run and moved back to town.

A large part of my life I was a responder to many problems: storms, fires, plants blowing up, injuries, and a few deaths. So goes the way of an active safety professional. Three states, two foreign countries, and lots of flight time. Now I'm retired but not bored, at least as long as we have a library nearby. Old friends all say, "Aren't you bored?" Not as long as I have a book nearby and my loved ones too. I don't have bad dreams, have no regrets about a busy lifetime. Nowadays I can always borrow a great grandkid and try to teach them something or, best of all, just someone to hug regularly.

I will be 78 on 09/23/17 and am glad I'm still around to help the younger crew.

George

no problem with me since nothing in there is what i would consider private to me.

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that is all i actually have been following up until i noticed the change from one direction back to the other. it was "interesting"... i don't watch tv or the news that much at all.

as i've watched the local radar for many years now i can say that it has helped a few times when storms looked to be heading this way, but as you know we have a lot of things that break up when they get near so ... it is only for warning purposes. i surely do watch the horizon here when the weather seems potentially going to mess me up or my plans for the day. now, what is funny is that even with such things available it didn't do any good the day when the small tornade came within a few hundred yards of us. i happened to be busy and didn't notice until afterwards that the neighbor's garage was missing...

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my eyes! my eyes! :)

you know, i figured that container could be a pretty safe space, but i would not want to get "stuck" in there if some debris got wedged against the door... if we don't hear from you in a week or two i'll send someone to knock. you should have enough food and water for that timeframe, but air? got holes/winders?

songbird

no problem with me since nothing in there is what i would consider private to me.

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that is all i actually have been following up until i noticed the change from one direction back to the other. it was "interesting"... i don't watch tv or the news that much at all.

as i've watched the local radar for many years now i can say that it has helped a few times when storms looked to be heading this way, but as you know we have a lot of things that break up when they get near so ... it is only for warning purposes. i surely do watch the horizon here when the weather seems potentially going to mess me up or my plans for the day. now, what is funny is that even with such things available it didn't do any good the day when the small tornade came within a few hundred yards of us. i happened to be busy and didn't notice until afterwards that the neighbor's garage was missing...

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my eyes! my eyes! :)

you know, i figured that container could be a pretty safe space, but i would not want to get "stuck" in there if some debris got wedged against the door... if we don't hear from you in a week or two i'll send someone to knock. you should have enough food and water for that timeframe, but air? got holes/winders?

songbird

Yes it's ventilated but only enough to equalize pressure so that doors may be opened. Have a rig for holding door closed from inside. The danger is that some casual do-gooder could dog the door from the outside but it'd have to be one dedicated world-changer to be out and about in Irma. No, the pond is for last resort short term desperation. Can use electric lighting but no flames so no lanterns or cooking. I kind of think we'd be gone from here.

AH! I can finally post again. (holds breath)

We are still battling the fleas, but it's not too bad, now. The dog is still scratching from her skin healing up, so she has to wear the cone of shame until her skin stops driving her bonkers. I have been giving her benedryl tablets, like her vet recommended, and it seems to help some.

Many moons ago we had a dog who got loaded with fleas when a cur came up the driveway (1/2 mile) and wanted to stay. Had to deflea both dogs and then take them both to the vet. Both dogs turned out to be good dogs, the new one even brought the cow up each morning to be milked. Figured from that that some local farmer didn't want to mess with De-fleaing the dog. The dog lasted a bit longer than the cow. As long as Miss Tilly gets her flea and tick pill we haven't had a problem, once a month and she's fine, even thinks her pill is a treat.

George

Derald wrote: ...

he's written and said they are ok, but no power yet.

songbird

A real prepper would have had his wife pedalling on a bike to generate enough power for the wifi?

Good to know he is safe. BUT I would like to see the house on the "prairie"

Mike

Nah, doing so nowadays (assuming that I won the fight) would require prepayment of funeral services, just in case.... Oh, those days are gone, although I still have most of the works for a person-powered work station. Tips: Cement-filled rear tire is not adequate flywheel, two derailers are needed. Not really a preppers, just two old fogies trying to avoid the townies. The preppers live behind us, on the west side. I find the sound of their automatic gunfire comforting but they mostly are townies pretending, although, I don't think any of them drive Hummers, Americas premier poseur's vehicle?looks tough but is plastic. Really, actual plastic as in Barbie Doll.

The little house on the prairie remains low and dry. Very little rainfall here, considering: Marginally less than 5 inches on the day. After all of the hyperbole and hysteria, the hurricane itself was anticlimactic. I don't believe we got hurricane force winds but the last one blew the weather station away and who gives a rip?can't do anything about it, anyway. No damage aside from a few downed tree limbs here. Trees around the area uprooted or broken but I've seen only one structure that was affected. While attempting to effect repairs and prevent damage, the local electricity provider broke one of the cables coming from the pole at the road. We were without electricity for 11 days while most of the surrounding area had service restored by day 3. The utility has a system of prioritizing restoration that only a bureaucrat could love and, since the outage inconvenienced only two households, we were moved to a dry teat. No, the fact that _they_ did it made no difference. Don't let anybody bullshit you, mate, that's the _real_ "American Way". What I will do before the next hurricane is improve my battery charging system and provide means to capture more rainwater for utility use than I presently do: A few 60-gallon rain barrels don't get it.

'bird, I'm probably finally going to dig that damned hole instead of using an above ground pool but _shall_ have a mosquito hatchery in full production RSN..

For reasons even more wildly off-topic, this storm has deepened my resolve to avoid union-made products or services _and_ Walmart (a gigantic predacious retailer) stores at (almost) any cost and has convinced me that the "Walmart Shopper" is a distinct subspecies of human being.

Derald wrote: ...

if you are only using the water for gardens and flushing the emergency toilet you could put a screen over it to keep the raccoonians out of there and have a few black mollies, guppies or other surface feeders to keep the skeeters down. or an even finer mesh to keep them from getting in and laying eggs. though to me the joy of keeping a pond would be to be able to have a froggy or toad spot. i miss the good old days when we had ponds to swim in out back.

ok, well, i guess i'm that, but not often if it were my own device/gumption and not Mom's i'm not sure how much i would shop there as it is far enough away.

songbird

I seldom buy anything from Walmart, it seems that most of their items are from some country I never heard of and the items have a less than 30 day lifetime. My wife buys cloth for sewing up stuff for the grands and great grands so she stays happy with cheap stuff they have and the kids don't keep the stuff long anyway. Heck, I have shirts and slacks that are over 20 years old that still fit and aren't worn out as my daily clothing is a pair of cheap shorts and a tee shirt that is about worn out but feels good. I have good shoes that are older than some of my grandchildren and no one knows the difference.

George, up early giving the dawg her meds, everyone in this household has a bottle of something the doctors said was good for us. Tomorrow I will be 78 years old and I don't expect any presents either. I'm aiming, eventually for 100 or more, yeah, that works, sure!

I'd introduce "mosquito fish" (as have done with another small manmade "pond"), available free from a number of sources here in FL. Of course, some shade would be necessary, most likely to be floating aquatic "pad lilys" as is frequently done to shelter so-caled "goldfish" carp. The rain barrels are screened and, in addition, we control mosquitoes with Bt "dunks" and a little goes a long long way so that'll continue. I have toads in the garden and frogs in another small pond. The cats drink from it and the raccoons do visit it but do no harm. They are not hostile, just mildly destructive nuisances. Anyone who can tolerate a

And coons are right tasty if you get all of the glands out of the critter before cooking and eating. I don't know what a coon pelt sells for today but, at around 12, I made a good bit of money selling the pelts of the ones we ate and kept out of the chicken yard by shooting them. I've seen a raccoon kill a dozen chickens just for the hell of it and only eat the heads. I never had a raccoon mess up my garden, they went for the chickens, pigeons, and even the caged rabbits. They may be cute little bandits but they will scratch, bite, whatever they can do to you. Be careful of them or maybe you have peaceful raccoons, ours fought all the time.

The raccoons here eat baby squirrels in their nests. I sometimes find a headless squirrel and had thought it to be left by one of the cats who, I know for certain, eats heads first. Perhaps some of those carcasses were left by raccoons. They occasionally dig in a garden bed. They dig most often in newly tilled beds or those with small plants. Most recent casualties are onions (a couple of years past) and mustard seedlings that emerged a few days before Irma came through. The 'coons got to them before she did but left enough that when I thin,the seedlings may be transplanted elsewhere in the same bed. Don't let the Disney cartoon face fool you. Raccoons can turn fiercely aggressive with little to no apparent provocation. At certain times of day, in the garden, I keep a sledge hammer handle within reach. It doesn't pay to kill them. They just increase production when threatened or their numbers reduced.

George Shirley wrote: ...

they have a Made in USA push (sorta) going on as we are finding more items made here.

yes, the shorts i have on now are hand-me-downs from someone else and i've got AC/holes through the pockets and they are about see through from being worn so much. i don't wear them outside often as i prefer to keep the direct sun off my skin most of the time. just a few minutes here or there for Vit D and that's it. t-shirt is a few years old but a work shirt so it has a life span of another five to ten years. my shoes, i just added a good layer of rubber to the gardening crocs so they should last another 10-15 years. i don't spend money on clothes that often. the used goods stores are places i will go first. i do need a replacement pair of jeans for my old ones which have lasted about 10yrs. i only wear them when we go out and about. my work pants for the gardens are hand-me-downs that were going to get thrown away (i could have had another 15 pair but compromised at five pair). i suspect they will last me the rest of my lifetime, very sturdy work pants from a friend who's company was bought out by another so they changed the uniform. unfortunately the shirts were not to my suiting.

:) congrats and all that on the BD and being around and still kicking. :)

songbird

I'm also very pleased by outliving most of my high school males in my class. Several died in Vietnam and other fights, some just fell over dead one day, and a few were deliberately killed by someone who didn't like them. I liked most of my class mates but a few I cheered when I read their names in the paper. Every small high school seems to have a cluster of a-holes, mostly the jocks. Seems most of the women in that small class are still alive, I don't go to reunion's very often so don't see to many from 1957. Wife is on a tear again so I'm laying low, she gets frantic about her garden and yard and then goes wild. Tried to get her to let me hire someone for that stuff but she insists on doing it herself, even with grands and greatgrands two blocks away. Some of her ancestors were Germans and you know how hard headed they are.

George