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Draconigena

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Member For 4 Years
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Up here, the two snakes to worry about with regard to chickens are rattlers and bull snakes. The bull snakes are too big to get through 1" chicken wire (they eat the eggs but not the chickens). The rattle snakes can get through that, but my coop sits a foot off the ground and I made a ramp for the chickens and a step for me. The rattlers got into the run, but never into the coop. The chickens instinctively knew to stay away from the snake until I killed it, then they beat the crap out of the remains and ate most of the pieces.
 

inspects

Squonkamaniac
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Up here, the two snakes to worry about with regard to chickens are rattlers and bull snakes. The bull snakes are too big to get through 1" chicken wire (they eat the eggs but not the chickens). The rattle snakes can get through that, but my coop sits a foot off the ground and I made a ramp for the chickens and a step for me. The rattlers got into the run, but never into the coop. The chickens instinctively knew to stay away from the snake until I killed it, then they beat the crap out of the remains and ate most of the pieces.
hahahha....when there's a will, there's a way.
 

Draconigena

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Member For 4 Years
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Well, here we are again...

I logged off here about midnight last night and did my final walk-around (standard security check before bed) and noted that it was raining lightly. Then DISH crackled and went to that screen that says it has lost the signal (this only happens when a very thick cloud is between my antenna and the satellite). I checked the Doppler and we were surrounded by massive thunderstorms (which I don't think were supposed to be here). I closed all the windows and doors. Couldn't get the cats to come in. Lightning flashed, then flashed again from another direction, then all hell broke loose. I crawled in bed just in time for the electricity to go out -- only for a couple seconds, but obviously some power pole somewhere up-line got hit. Roll over and try to sleep.

Huge puddles of water when I got up this morning. 100% RH, but the storm did manage to break the temperature down to 60. But it has been very humid all day, and along with soggy wet grass, not too much got done outside today. Sigh...
 

Lady Sarah

Platinum Contributor
Member For 5 Years
Resumed bathroom remodelling today. Cedar planks on the ceiling will go along with yellow pine for the walls after I stain the pine.
Still trying to convince Phillip to use ceramic tiles we already have for the floor instead of buying more wood to do the floor with. The tiles would match the shower beautifully.
 

inspects

Squonkamaniac
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Huge puddles of water when I got up this morning. 100% RH, but the storm did manage to break the temperature down to 60. But it has been very humid all day, and along with soggy wet grass, not too much got done outside today. Sigh...

Damn, you lucked out for a change.....:giggle:

Was a miserably hot humid day here...furthest I made it was to the bank and back, which is 3 minutes from my office, driving the speed limit. I usually walk, not today...didn't feel like walking anywhere soaked with sweat...:xD:
 

inspects

Squonkamaniac
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Resumed bathroom remodelling today. Cedar planks on the ceiling will go along with yellow pine for the walls after I stain the pine.
Still trying to convince Phillip to use ceramic tiles we already have for the floor instead of buying more wood to do the floor with. The tiles would match the shower beautifully.
Wood flooring is not a good idea for a bathroom floor - just my professional experience, everyone has their own ideas tho....:)
 

Draconigena

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Member For 4 Years
ECF Refugee
And even with tiles, make sure there is plenty of goo sticking them down so water doesn't go between and rot the plywood flooring below them. But I'm sure you already know that. Just try to talk Phil out of the exposed wood flooring. It'll only be pretty until the bathroom moisture changes the color in spots then starts raising the grain.
 

Lady Sarah

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Member For 5 Years
He can get the backer board, mortar and grout for it. We already have sealant. I used a different sealant for the cedar, which I am going to put on the pine after staining. We also have those rubber things to go at the base of the walls.
I'm also going to have to do a little rewiring in there.
 

Draconigena

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Member For 4 Years
ECF Refugee
Just went out to check the sky. Weather guessers said it would be clear all night. There are no stars out there, so they blew that one. All the cats said they wanted to come in already. Guess they are afraid of a repeat of last night when they all got so soaked they looked like they just came out of the bathtub. Sigh...
 

inspects

Squonkamaniac
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Just went out to check the sky. Weather guessers said it would be clear all night. There are no stars out there, so they blew that one. All the cats said they wanted to come in already. Guess they are afraid of a repeat of last night when they all got so soaked they looked like they just came out of the bathtub. Sigh...
Hard to believe it's that difficult to predict the weather there.
 

Lady Sarah

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Member For 5 Years
Just went out to check the sky. Weather guessers said it would be clear all night. There are no stars out there, so they blew that one. All the cats said they wanted to come in already. Guess they are afraid of a repeat of last night when they all got so soaked they looked like they just came out of the bathtub. Sigh...
Sounds like around here. Too far away from the city, so all they do is toss a guess out there. I prefer to check my weather apps, much more accurate than the city folk. And the Doppler radar don't lie.
 

Draconigena

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It shouldn't be hard at all. I wish I had access to all their equipment and I'd never miss a forecast. The problem is that they leave it 100% up to their stupid ass computer models because the real live people (assuming there are any left at NWS) just plain don't give a shit about a few hundred people and their silly ass cows.
 

inspects

Squonkamaniac
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It shouldn't be hard at all. I wish I had access to all their equipment and I'd never miss a forecast. The problem is that they leave it 100% up to their stupid ass computer models because the real live people (assuming there are any left at NWS) just plain don't give a shit about a few hundred people and their silly ass cows.
If a few hundred people were maimed or killed by a tornado, someone would be pickin a new tune.
 

Draconigena

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Member For 4 Years
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Doppler radar don't lie.
That assumes you are close enough to it to get an accurate echo. RADAR is line-of-sight, so when you figure in the curvature of the earth, the farther from the source beam, the higher in altitude the return signal. A few miles away, it reads the base of the clouds, but 100 miles away, it is reading at 5,000 feet higher and might miss most of the moisture in the clouds. You could have a severe thunderstorm bearing down on you and if you rely only on RADAR from a station a hundred miles from you, it might look as if you will be getting only minor showers. But the clouds outside my house right at the moment are altocumulus (8,000 feet to 15-18,000 feet) and the RADAR won't read them at all. Still, if a live person would pay attention, at least they should be able to forecast them.
 

Draconigena

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Member For 4 Years
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You know them city folk wouldn't care about a few country bumpkins, since it don't effect them any. They'd hafta overexagerate the numbers like they did in Puerto Rico to get anyone to pay attention.
Six years ago, we had a blizzard really early in the fall. It was not forecast, yet it killed 100,000 cows and a couple people in this state. It made absolutely no fucking difference to the weather assholes.
 

inspects

Squonkamaniac
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That assumes you are close enough to it to get an accurate echo. RADAR is line-of-sight, so when you figure in the curvature of the earth, the farther from the source beam, the higher in altitude the return signal. A few miles away, it reads the base of the clouds, but 100 miles away, it is reading at 5,000 feet higher and might miss most of the moisture in the clouds. You could have a severe thunderstorm bearing down on you and if you rely only on RADAR from a station a hundred miles from you, it might look as if you will be getting only minor showers. But the clouds outside my house right at the moment are altocumulus (8,000 feet to 15-18,000 feet) and the RADAR won't read them at all. Still, if a live person would pay attention, at least they should be able to forecast them.
Not many people really care about anything, if it doesn't directly affect them.
 

Lady Sarah

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Member For 5 Years
That assumes you are close enough to it to get an accurate echo. RADAR is line-of-sight, so when you figure in the curvature of the earth, the farther from the source beam, the higher in altitude the return signal. A few miles away, it reads the base of the clouds, but 100 miles away, it is reading at 5,000 feet higher and might miss most of the moisture in the clouds. You could have a severe thunderstorm bearing down on you and if you rely only on RADAR from a station a hundred miles from you, it might look as if you will be getting only minor showers. But the clouds outside my house right at the moment are altocumulus (8,000 feet to 15-18,000 feet) and the RADAR won't read them at all. Still, if a live person would pay attention, at least they should be able to forecast them.
We have a radar station 45 miles to the north, and about the same distance to the South. The only time the weather apps don't work is when the tower I get my internet signal from gets struck by lightning, as happened last month.
 

Draconigena

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Rich....Has the forecasting always been this way, or just in the recent past?
Sounds really screwed up, either way.
It has been bad as long as I have lived here, but it seems to be getting worse.
We have a radar station 45 miles to the north, and about the same distance to the South. The only time the weather apps don't work is when the tower I get my internet signal from gets struck by lightning, as happened last month.
Sounds like you are close enough to both stations to get accurate readings. The nearest RADAR to my place is Rapid City -- regular RADAR at the airport and doppler at the air force base. NWS taps both of those into their computers, but they are about 70-75 miles away (as the bird flies - 105 by road) with lots of little buttes between us (breaks up the beams for low-level returns). They have a program that guesstimates what it was near them and projects what it might be like out here, but that is seldom accurate.
 

Lady Sarah

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Member For 5 Years
I think it's news reporting in general that is screwed up. News headlines on the local stations are often misspelled, so they obviously don't even care about spelling. One headline I thought was funny was about a winter storm that cancelled thousands of flights, and they left out the l. "Thousands of fights cancelled due to winter storm". Now, that's some interesting news!
Too often, they have to apologise for poor reporting, and then tell what really happened, like they didn't care enough to get the story straight the first time around. Why would weather reporters be any different?
 

inspects

Squonkamaniac
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I think it's news reporting in general that is screwed up. News headlines on the local stations are often misspelled, so they obviously don't even care about spelling. One headline I thought was funny was about a winter storm that cancelled thousands of flights, and they left out the l. "Thousands of fights cancelled due to winter storm". Now, that's some interesting news!
Too often, they have to apologise for poor reporting, and then tell what really happened, like they didn't care enough to get the story straight the first time around. Why would weather reporters be any different?
Gotta admit, sure beats the hell out of living in Chicago or similar shithole......:teehee:
 

Draconigena

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Member For 4 Years
ECF Refugee
One headline I thought was funny was about a winter storm that cancelled thousands of flights, and they left out the l. "Thousands of fights cancelled due to winter storm".
I see that every day and it doesn't matter which news I am looking at. Yesterday, they were talking about some people getting stuck out in the dessert. i wondered if they had fun eating it until they got rescued. I suspect things like that happen because college students are no longer required to know how to spell and no one seems to even care anymore.

How many years have you lived on the homestead?
14 years 3 months. Longest I have ever in my life occupied only one address.
 

inspects

Squonkamaniac
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I see that every day and it doesn't matter which news I am looking at. Yesterday, they were talking about some people getting stuck out in the dessert. i wondered if they had fun eating it until they got rescued. I suspect things like that happen because college students are no longer required to know how to spell and no one seems to even care anymore.


14 years 3 months.
Damn, you have it down to the month too....not sure if that's too long, or you just love it.....:giggle:
 

Draconigena

Platinum Contributor
Member For 4 Years
ECF Refugee
Damn, you have it down to the month too....not sure if that's too long, or you just love it.....:giggle:
April 15, 2004. Hard date to forget. :) Not that I love it or anything (I really miss the mountains), but I have this place paid off and no one is dumb enough to buy it without me losing my ass, so I doubt we'll be leaving unless I win the lottery. And, sumbits if they don't keep telling me I can't win unless I buy a ticket...
 

Draconigena

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Member For 4 Years
ECF Refugee
Having anything "paid off" is a really good thing.
Yeah, and my truck is now paid off too, so the two largest payments in my budget can now be directed toward paying down everything else. Still seems like every time I get one step ahead, something else comes up to rob me (like a new riding mower). But I keep Scrooging every penny and one day I plan to be totally debt free. By then, it will probably be time to buy myself a casket. :crazy:

Well, the witching hour has arrived again, so I guess I'm gonna hit the sack. Catch ya tomorrow.
 

inspects

Squonkamaniac
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Yeah, and my truck is now paid off too, so the two largest payments in my budget can now be directed toward paying down everything else. Still seems like every time I get one step ahead, something else comes up to rob me (like a new riding mower). But I keep Scrooging every penny and one day I plan to be totally debt free. By then, it will probably be time to buy myself a casket. :crazy:

Well, the witching hour has arrived again, so I guess I'm gonna hit the sack. Catch ya tomorrow.
I hear that about debt, also familiar with caskets....G'Night...heading there too
 

Draconigena

Platinum Contributor
Member For 4 Years
ECF Refugee
OK, so it's Friday and not one old phart has posted on here yet. Where are ya all hiding?

You know all that BS about weather we talked about last night? And I said it was cloudy just before bedtime even though the forecast was for clear? Well, I checked the doppler before logging off and it showed not one cloud in the entire state. Well, OK, doppler does not show clouds; it shows the moisture content (rain or potential rain) within any clouds that might be there. Therefore, according to that moving map, there was not a raindrop anywhere in my state or eastern Wyoming, eastern Montana, etc. But when we got up this morning, everything was wet. Yes, it rained quite a bit from that "clear sky" and "zero precipitation echoes." I'm guessing they had a computer glitch but just didn't care (Hey, who cares if your silly cows get wet?).

Sigh. :crazy:
 

Lady Sarah

Platinum Contributor
Member For 5 Years
I got one wall of the bathroom completely redone. Next, I'll be redoing some wiring and putting up the next wall. It may be a while before I can do the third wall. I bought all of that kind of lumber they had at Lowe's, 18 boards. Good news is the yellow pine matches the cedar after being stained and sealed.
 

The Cromwell

I am a BOT
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OK, so it's Friday and not one old phart has posted on here yet. Where are ya all hiding?

You know all that BS about weather we talked about last night? And I said it was cloudy just before bedtime even though the forecast was for clear? Well, I checked the doppler before logging off and it showed not one cloud in the entire state. Well, OK, doppler does not show clouds; it shows the moisture content (rain or potential rain) within any clouds that might be there. Therefore, according to that moving map, there was not a raindrop anywhere in my state or eastern Wyoming, eastern Montana, etc. But when we got up this morning, everything was wet. Yes, it rained quite a bit from that "clear sky" and "zero precipitation echoes." I'm guessing they had a computer glitch but just didn't care (Hey, who cares if your silly cows get wet?).

Sigh. :crazy:
Supposed to have guys showing up at 7 in the morning to take down the massive long needle pine that the fire killed.
They are going to climb and take down in sections. Better them than me. A good $250 spent in my opinion and ins should reimburse me.
 

Lady Sarah

Platinum Contributor
Member For 5 Years
Phillip and I plan to celebrate our anniversary tomorrow, since I do laundry on Sunday, and he has to work on Monday (our anniversary). He is supposed to be off at noon tomorrow after working 6 hours (overtime). So, I start working on the bathroom again on Monday.
 

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