Post #129,356
12/6/03 11:05:45 PM
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Funny story
Since I'm sitting here waiting for a DVD to finish burning ...
For several decades there was an amusement park on the shore of Lake Erie: Euclid Beach Park. Rides, a midway, live music and dancing under the pavilion on the weekends.
And rats. Eventually, lots of rats. They seemed to like all the popcorn and cotton candy people dropped. The owners tried traps and poison, but every morning they'd have to scramble to remove the carcasses before the guests started showing up. Then they got the bright idea to import a predator. A nocturnal one that would take care of the problem when no one was looking.
Did you know skunks prey on rats? Neither did I. But someone at Euclid Beach knew this back in the 50s or 60s. Worked really well, too. Until the 90s. When the park closed and they built high-rise apartments on the site. There was now a sizable population of skunks with no place to stay and no food. So they moved to the next nearest semi-wooded area.
How do I know all this? Guess where I live? Freakin' Wild Kingdom in the backyard is where I live. Skunks nesting under people's decks. Racoons fighting with cats over the trashcans. Possum the size of small dogs.
My father-in-law found a possum on his deck eating the grapes from the arbor. Beat the thing with a wiffle bat and it just looked at him for a second and kept eating. He's had skunks rip open the screen doors to come in and help themselves to the cat food.
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And on a related note ... (BTW how long does it take to burn a dvd, cripes.)
Cleveland is surrounded by what is known as the emerald necklace. A series of parks the surround and weave through the entire city. It is not uncommon to see deer in neighborhoods that you would never expect to see them.
Less common, but about every three or four years, a deer takes a wrong turn from the park onto a railroad line and ends up downtown. Last time it happened they had to shut down several square blocks to try to round it up. Rush hour was a bitch.
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Implicitly condoning stupidity since 2001.
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Post #129,367
12/7/03 1:36:12 AM
12/7/03 1:40:57 AM
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Possums
Having dispatched nearly 20 of them by hand with the Swiss army knife I'm holding in [link|http://www.aaxnet.com/images/ajg11.jpg|this photo], (generally at about 3:00am) I know a fair amount about possums.
Thinking a wiffle bat would get a possum's attention is a complete misunderstanding - Sammy Sosa's corked bat swung by go'vner Arnold wouldn't get its attention. Those things are tough. They feel like a deflated football with some jello and loose chicken bones inside. You can't get a knife through them and they're just too stupid to know they're dead - and yes, they'll just keep right on eating. They don't "play possum" either, they snarl and snap and try to get at you any way they can.
The state possum expert (It's illegal to be a possum in the State of California) describes them as "working with about 1/3 of a deck". The first time one got into my pigeon coup, I disciplined it vigerously with a 2x4, but it was back 10 minutes later. they're too stupid to retain a lesson, so all you can do is kill them.
They're plentiful though - they're just too ugly and disgusting for any self respecting predator to want to get close enough to to kill one - and who'd want to eat it?
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #129,388
12/7/03 9:02:46 AM
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OT is that a 1911 colt 45 ACP on the left side of the pic?
"We must face the fact that there is not a single country in the world that measures up to the lofty moral and social standards that are the hallmark of the U.S.A.: even Canada is delinquent and deserves a whiff of grape. There is not a single country in the world which, like the U.S., reeks of democracy and "human rights," and is free of crime and murder and hate thoughts and undemocratic deeds\ufffd. And so, since no other countries shape up to U.S. standards, \ufffd I make a Modest Proposal for the only possible consistent and coherent foreign policy: the U.S. must, very soon, Invade the Entire World!" Murray N. Rothbard
questions, help? [link|mailto:pappas@catholic.org|email pappas at catholic.org]
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Post #129,400
12/7/03 10:55:13 AM
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WIDs (Weapons of Individual Destruction) . .
. . in this picture are a Lugar (navy length barrel), a 7mm FN49 (on window sill), a 1911 Schmidt-Rubin bayonet (in hand) a 1911 Schmidt-Rubin rifle (behind me so you can't see it) a bottle of Glenfiddich, and a plate of pickled pigs feet (yum!).
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #129,403
12/7/03 11:18:50 AM
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Ihr Kueche erscheint als U-boot - even the slacker uniform
-drl
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Post #129,506
12/7/03 8:19:00 PM
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Had an 'artillery' long barrel model.
Luger ..for the fineness of craftsmanship + 'appreciation'. Never fired it, but noted how the complex mechanism might not have fared so well on Pacific Islands (say). Nor could you have cocked, reloaded the sucker with any injury to arm/wrist.
I always thought that the "point" of this WID must be about The Best; it indeed seemed that the CG blended-in perfectly, as extension of one's arm (the opposite of a .45, for one hideous counterexample). Were I into such lore, that is. ;-)
Now, whether the BID went.. where the sight suggested it might -?- no info on that.
Hey - want a Luger book? Forget title, but it's a big one I don't recall how materialized. Been there done that. Cute, for a WID, I guess. Bad WW-II vibes, for my sensitive psyche.
Ashton
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Post #129,384
12/7/03 8:50:11 AM
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Re: Funny story
I remember someone telling me about the west side rat problem.
"Beach" on Lake Erie - that's a stretch :) Somehow in the mind's eye though, I can see the green tables and ashcans, and I think I saw a fireworks display at some kind of lakefront park - could have been the one you mentioned. (I rarely made it west of Cleveland Hts.) It was really packed and a good time was had by all.
-drl
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Post #129,590
12/8/03 9:34:42 AM
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Old timey pics
[link|http://history.amusement-parks.com/eb1.htm|http://history.amuse...parks.com/eb1.htm]
Not the best beach, but looks like it was a great park.
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Implicitly condoning stupidity since 2001.
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Post #129,395
12/7/03 9:34:18 AM
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Might as well be here.
We've got the possums, skunks, raccoons, groundhogs (didn't see you mention those), and cats (boy, do we have cats) up here, under our deck at times as well. The nice thing about the cats is that they keep the rabbits away from the gardens. The bad thing about the cats is that they breed (Greg can confirm the high numbers of previously bred cats we have here - 14 now, was 24 at one point).
There's a 40 sq. mile metropark half a mile north of here. Every year they have a lottery to see who gets to blow away a bunch of deer in the park because they're completely overbred. There's a test plot in the park on the nature center grounds, surrounded by 10ft high fencing. Inside the fence there's a riot of undergrowth. Outside the fence the ground is pretty much scoured clean by the deer.
A possum got in our garage once. This one was reasonably smart for a possum: 2.5 on the "dumb as a soapdish" scale (that means, dumb as 2.5 soapdishes). I "chased" it around the garage with a pitchfork. Poking it made it stop and snarl, not speed up like any self-respecting pain-feeling animal would do. Someone pissed in the genetics vat the day those things were invented.
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #129,404
12/7/03 11:24:19 AM
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<sides are splitting>
Come ar, ye scruvy beast! I'll run ya thrugh, ye foul critter! Wench, fetch me blunderbuss! Ahrrr!
-drl
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Post #129,408
12/7/03 11:36:40 AM
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That's about the extent of it.
I don't have a gun in the house, though, and I really wasn't interested in sticking the thing hard enough to require cleaning up the garage floor afterwards.
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #129,410
12/7/03 11:48:33 AM
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There was a 'possum carcass in our backyard once.
Well, not really a carcass. Just some bones that were near the outlet of some plastic drainage hose extensions attached to our downspouts. The hose is about 6" in diameter. I puzzled for a while on why there were bones there.
Sometime in the fall, I think it was, the 'possum had apparently tried to crawl into the downspout hose, got stuck, and died. After a good rain, most of the bones were washed out, but the skull and jaw were still inside. I wondered why our dog seemed to be so interested in running out to that spot whenever she was in the backyard.... <eewwww>
Indeed, opossums are not terribly bright. I'm glad that's been the extent of my dealing with them so far.
Cheers,
Scott.
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Post #129,412
12/7/03 11:54:23 AM
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They've been doing SOMETHING right..
..for 80 million years:
[link|http://www.trussel.com/prehist/news92.htm|http://www.trussel.c...rehist/news92.htm]
-drl
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Post #129,414
12/7/03 11:59:51 AM
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Indeed. Maybe not enough predators or something...
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Post #129,415
12/7/03 12:42:40 PM
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Andrew had the right of it:
they're just too ugly and disgusting for any self respecting predator to want to get close enough to to kill one - and who'd want to eat it? Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #129,421
12/7/03 1:10:41 PM
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Re: Andrew had the right of it:
Who'd want to eat it? That there is Ozark lobster.
[link|http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Estates/3443/possum_recipes.html|http://www.geocities...ssum_recipes.html]
-drl
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