Smartie's Bar & Grill #72

Texas weather

 

My beer and brewing equipment is in Idaho but I’m in Sacramento for work.

 

I'm in dire straits also.

I'm on some pills. Right there, on the directions, it says these pills do damage to your liver. If you drink alcohol while taking these, you will die a horrible death.

Eight days to go.

 

Geez Louise ... I wonder how many - Likes - I'll dish out today.
Never you mind Billie.Plus mind yer manners.
What Manners ... Ma.?
The ones your Dad and I were too busy to sit you down and
explain.
You mean like me Potty Training.
Yes,Billie ... same thingy.
I Likes that Ma.I mean ... sort of.

 

Boss flys me home every other weekend but technical difficulties are putting my first trip off till the 21st.

 

Ya think that's bad, it's 6:22 am and I'm on the train to downtown. What kind of cruel fate is that?

 

At least you are able to work. Something to consider.

 

What's this "too early for whiskey" concept?

 

You don't wander around here in the dark, either, the neighbor is armed.

We don't usually get black bears here. Eagles, on the other hand.... we are about 30 miles (as the eagle flies) from a raptor center, where they've released several mated pairs of Bald Eagles. We have a pair that nest somewhere close, the neighbor believes over in his cove (same neighbor as noted above) that like to visit for breakfast in our cove, which has some shallow areas that provide a buffet. It's fantastic to watch them dive and skim, then bolt up.

 

A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do...

 

About 2 years ago i was lying half asleep when I heard something making noise a my back window. The next second I heard whatever it was make a truly prodigious leap onto my roof. I heard the boards creek as it walked across and then was gone. Since then I was quite sure it was the Mountain Lion that is supposedly in this area but on further thought a bear seems more likely.

Excuse me, I have to go put up some more lights.

 

Ugh - Reminds me of New Orleans. It's my favorite city in the country but the heat and humidity can be suffocating.

Which reminds me...



...I'd rather be on the patio at Pat O'Brien's right now...

 

Picturing you with cloudy ice cubes. Oh, the humanity.

 

OMG, how about installing a camera outside!

 

That's awesome.

The greatest wildlife success story here in Central Virginia has to be the remarkable rebound of the Bald Eagle population along the James River below Richmond. The population got virtually wiped out by the 1970s, but today the James is home to one of the largest concentrations of Bald Eagles in the continental U.S.. I have to think that the Bald Eagle we saw is a sign that the birds are migrating up the major tidal rivers and into the upper reaches of the smaller freshwater rivers that feed into them.

A similar effort to restore the elk population in Virginia has been pretty successful, too. In 2012 about 70 elk were brought into the Southwestern Virginia from Kentucky and since then the population has more than tripled:



As you can gather from the video this is a big deal for us. There haven't been elk in Virginia since the mid-19th Century and the last effort to reintroduce them in 1917 failed. It's nice to see the current program is working out.

 

Huh! I didn't know that there were ever elk in the eastern US.

 

From what I've read, elk were extinct east of the Mississippi by 1855. I don't know when Kentucky and some of the states west of us began reintroducing them but it took us 157 years and several failed efforts to pull it off. I still get a little choked up when I hear that bull bugling at the end of the video. Words can't describe how great it is to hear that sound in Virginia again.

 

Sounds like you had a lion on your roof, Aleksander.

Thankfully, that's the one animal I haven't seen or heard in our neck of the woods...

 

In Texas, we have a prob with feral pigs. Note to hunters: no license reqd, and no limit. Shoot all you want, just don't miss. Those rascals are MEAN!

 

A warning to all my Southern friends, c/o the Wall Street Journal:

Snakebites Hit Record Highs in Southern States as Suburbs Expand
Rapid urbanization and heavy rains lead to more copperhead attacks
By Valerie Bauerlein
Aug. 5, 2019 8:00 am ET

RALEIGH, N.C.—Venomous snakebites are on the rise in the Sunbelt this summer, with North Carolina, Georgia and Texas on track to set records.

In North Carolina and Georgia, venomous snakebites have been rising for the past several years and are up more than 10% from a year ago, according to the states’ poison-control centers. In Texas, there were 415 reported snakebites in May and June, 27% more than the same period five years ago.

Copperheads represent the vast majority of bites in the three states, and most are in fast-growing suburbs of cities like Raleigh, Atlanta and Dallas. Reasons for the increase include rapid urbanization, as new neighborhoods spring up in what was formerly forest or farmland, and last winter’s record-setting rainfall, which drives snake activity, poison-control workers said...

Snakebites take place nationwide, but North Carolina, Georgia, Texas and Florida represent a disproportionate 39% of the reported bites, according to a 2016 study of pediatric snakebites led by a University of Louisville epidemiologist.

Copperheads are the dominant snake in all those states except for Florida, where snakebite activity has been average so far this year, according to Florida’s Poison Control Centers. Florida’s dominant snakes include the eastern coral snake and the cottonmouth....

Copperheads also camouflage themselves easily in underbrush or leaf piles with their tan scales and brown triangular markings, he said.

A copperhead recently bit David Weitz, a Raleigh optometrist, as he transplanted rosemary from a flat to a pot at his newly built home on the outskirts of the city. Dr. Weitz, who grew up in Virginia Beach, said he knew enough about snakes to wear gloves but had taken them off to handle the small plants. He said his hand swelled to twice its size, and he was hospitalized for two days while being treated with antivenom.

When Dr. Weitz recovered, he said he snake-proofed his 2-acre yard by clearing out underbrush and removing dead logs. “When I walk around my yard, I have a stick with me,” he said. “I hit the ground with it so they scatter.”

Many people who grow up in the Southeast learn to recognize copperheads by their “Hershey Kiss” markings...

Wet winters tend to drive snake activity, according to Grant Lipman, an emergency-room doctor at Stanford University who conducted a 2018 study of 20 years of California snakebite data. He found that snakebites decreased after periods of drought and increased after periods of heavy rain.

This past winter was the wettest on record in the U.S., with 9.01 inches of precipitation, 2.22 more than the average, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

It is not completely clear why rain drives snake activity, Dr. Lipman said, but he theorizes that heavy rain causes flora and fauna to flourish, creating ready food sources for rodents who become food for snakes. Heavy rains can also drive snakes out of their habitats, according to Mr. Beane, the herpetologist.

To be sure, venomous snake bites are rare in the U.S. compared with other parts of the world. About 7,000 to 8,000 people in the U.S. are bitten each year and about five die, according to estimates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most fatalities occur when a victim has an allergic reaction or is far from medical treatment when bitten, poison-control experts said...

To avoid being bitten, Mr. Beane said to clear away piles of leaves, wear shoes while outdoors and use a flashlight when out at night. He also said to leave snakes alone, because they typically won’t bother you unless you bother them.

Mr. Beane said he encourages the skittish to see the good in North Carolina’s abundant copperheads, from their “superb color and pattern” to their role in controlling the rodent and insect population....

https://www.wsj.com/articles/snakeb...southern-states-as-suburbs-expand-11565006405

 

In case you've never seen a copperhead, I'll post a few pictures. Unfortunately, they're common where I live.

Something that wasn't mentioned in the article - a lot of snake bites occur when people mess with the snakes. This is why I won't try to kill them with a shovel or other yard tool. I give them the Remington 870 treatment from a safe distance...

 

Get a load of this mofo - he climbed up a fence:

https://a57.foxnews.com/images.foxn...ge/media-0.img.jpg/0/0/1527277120846.jpg?ve=1

 

The shape of the head, also triangular versus oval...... we get corn snakes around here too, and they are very similar. However, when I am moving at 40 MPH in the other direction, the shape of the head isn't going to matter much.

But thanks for the info anyway.

 

uhhhhhhhh…… ack!