Any fava beans and Chianti?
-jk
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My toddler got a play set with magnets. I can just see his little brain thinking, what fresh magic is this?!?!
When they're hungry in the Spring, they'll eat anything they can grab. There are a LOT more backyard chickens these days, and this Spring the bears reduced the population. One friend had a nice, mobile chicken coop he could haul behind his large truck...one night in May a bear tore it to shreds, ate five or six chickens.https://www.muranochickenfarm.com/20...rom-bears.html
our bears in all probability have longer hibernation periods, hence wake up hungrier? We have zero food sources here when they wake up in the Spring...trash cans and chickens beware.
p.s. just saw a National Wildlife Service article on black bears in NC, it says they are not true hibernators in the state, they just nap for days or weeks at a time..
No bear poop in our driveway, just possum poop. Apparently, they eat a lot of persimmons.
Yep, our bears do not hibernate. We get to enjoy bear sightings year round. They can get a bit aggressive in the spring, though. I have been at the coast during active bear warnings.
This actually happens. Up near the Arctic Circle pretty significant sleep pattern changes have been observed in people in winter and summer light. Makes sense.
This is anecdotal but I remember a trip to Bethel Alaska one summer and the locals were out hooping at 2 AM on the court most nights…which felt like days.
This made me chuckle from the article - wish there were pictures!
"Once when the kids had a grand ole time whipping a basket full of spoiled eggs at the trees behind the driveway. That night the bear stood at the edge of the woods (taunting my dog) licking the trees for over an hour!"
Some years ago a bear ambled along Topsail Beach for quite some time before he got persuaded off the island...
I double-dipped a chip!!!!
Today I purchased a plane ticket (actually two) to Alaska. The Last Frontier will be such in a literal sense as my wife and I cross off #50 in July!
Once we've completed Project 50 by 40 (all 50 states by my 40th birthday), I think the next project is going to be 48 by 48...RVing to all of the lower 48 states by my 48th bday (we're already at 37).
Whatever happened to the Goo Goo Dolls?
I'd might drive to Alaska someday, but right now I just don't have the time. Plus the Canadian border isn't open anyway.
I'm not entirely sure I actually want to do this...I have a lot of road trip miles under my belt, but that is quite a haul, both in terms of distance and of degree of difficulty.
Hawaii may not be a realistic option, but why not add a year and try to RV to Alaska, too? Both the Alaska and Cassiar highways are great trips. Of course, it does take about a week to do the drive, and it requires quite a bit of advance planning, but you can return via the Alaska Marine Highway which is both shorter in time (since they can drive at night) and is a much different experience.
Just a thought. (Edit: But not an original thought, obviously.)
Yeah, I've done the math, and it really wouldn't be worth it until I retire. I have 5 weeks max for my summer trips, and the stress + mechanical wear & tear of making it to Alaska and back just wouldn't be worth the relatively short time we'd be able to stay there. It's 4300 miles from my house to Denali National Park, for example, and although I can crank out a 600-mile day pretty well, a week straight of those days would be extremely difficult and zero fun. If I space out the way there, then I end up with only like 10 days to spend in Alaska before I have to turn around and drive another 4300 miles. That's not really how I like to spend my summer adventures, so instead we're going to fly and spend several weeks up there.
I hate that song.
Boulevard tank 7 (Kansas City) is the apotheosis of Saisons. 8.5% alcohol and freaking tasty. If you guys run across this it is sublime. That other thread is no longer in session.
A change was needed.
The boys wore me down and I got a third guinea pig to add to the herd. Her name is Pumpkin.
Attachment 13612
Here she is with a little bit of Cookie's nose. She is even more orange than she appears in the picture.
I have never had a photo added to my profile. How does one do that? When I click on Customize, I still can't do anything.
I know I'm late to the Waterfalls discussion, but I thought I'd add this amusing (at least to me) anecdote.
My wife's brother - probably a pre-teen at the time this song came out - thought this song was about a single person. That person's name? Jason Waterfalls. Those folks really didn't want him to leave.
Dinotrux.
First time in the office in a couple weeks. I don't miss the commute.
Living in a crannog seems like it would be very buggy.
I feel extremely fortunate that the person with whom I share an office is a total nut and we laugh until we cry at least once a day. I can't imagine what I would have been stuck with if she had not applied for the job. And, yes, I thank her on a regular basis!
If not laughing and scuba, then what’s this all about?
I knew this group of girlfriends in high school who were super artsy and also super into the spice girls in a semi-serious sort of way. They’re all still friends and the pictures they post on Facebook make me smile.
Just heard Wannabe on the radio and thought of ‘em.
More culinary skills do get a bit more sophisticated than that. The issue is keeping stocked with everything I need while relying upon curbside where vegetable and fruit selection can be a bit sketchy. As case counts have dropped 50% from their recent peak here in SA, I have been going in to the grocery store a couple times a week lately.
We went to an event today for the first time in 20 months. An event. Crazy. Not a big event and lots of precautions in place and mostly outside but still…!
I see I haven't quite yet earned my stripes in this thread. I'll keep working on it. :);)
Actually getting to watch this game.
Nice little W.
Looking at it rationally Duke is about three plays from being 1-2 and is one play from being 3-0. Get one stop against Charlotte and Duke is undefeated. The defense held Northwestern to 20 points yesterday and got a lot of turnovers. Holmgren looked pretty good. The best Duke can ever hope for is to be pretty good. Get a few breaks and play hard and eek out a couple of wins every year against better teams to become Bowl eligible. This year's Duke team looks like what Bill Simmons would refer to as a good bad team. Duke isn't great this year, but might be able to beat all of the other bad teams.
Shenanigans! Shenanigans I say!
All quiet on the LTE.
“I thought we were the ‘Popular Front’”
I've started to watch Letterkenny.
In the 40s in Salt Lake City tonight. Rocking a sweater.
“You don’t need a weatherman
To know which way the wind blows”
— Bob Dylan in the first rap song ever
Had beer at Squatters last night. SLC is where my company is headquartered. Having strategy meetings to try to move the company forward. I work for a supremely laid back company, but we are in a growth phase and we need to exploit that a bit better. We are historically (hysterically?) risk averse. But MORE importantly, the beer scene here is stupendous. And the coworkers I hate aren't here, just me and the big bosses. What a great trip.
I hate your avatar, btw.
Also, to be fair, the entire, like, southern half of Utah is national park land (fully 2/3 of the state is owned by the feds in one capacity or another), so it's not as if I'm dismissing the entire state out of hand, just the parts with, y'know...people and "culture."
Southern Utah IS pretty spectacular…also where a lot of the extra special polygamy compounds are. The Wasatch and Uintas are both very pretty. Logan to Bear Lake is cool.
I feel like eating roast peppers with sour beer in SLC while listening to TLC and wearing close toed shoes is your version of heck.
Do we know Wilson and Aimo aren't the same person? I like how feisty they are.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgpVFDcNfw8
Plus a little history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talking_blues
Utah is one of the 11 states I have not yet visited.
It still amazes me there is an actual area/region where it’s prevalent but the settling in southern Utah was by design. Not much there so they’re mostly left alone. America has such diversity; it still amazes me my Amish neighbors are essentially living outside American laws in the pre-industrial age.
https://ksltv.com/437048/polygamous-...wn-struggling/
We lived there for a year for my wife’s Americorps service. We were unmarried at the time in our late 20s and we’re also very nice people —- our Mormon friends all liked us and we liked them but it was clear we didn’t quite fit the mold of what they expected. We had a couple very polite attempted conversions
I’ll be a good guest wherever I go so it didn’t bother me too much.
Moab is within easy driving distance of a whole bunch of National Parks. Arches, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, Canyons of the Ancients, Mesa Verde (those last two across the border into Colorado) - it's a virtual treasure trove of the Desert Southwest. Even Bryce is a four-hour drive. It's very much worth a trip.
I love the Appalachians.
It's more opportunity and the fact that for ~20 years, the only vacations I took involved bringing my kids to see their grandparents. I did get to cross off both Colorado and Nevada for family events but none of the family lives in those other states nor have they decided to get married there.
I mentioned things I LIKED in SLC. I did not say, in any way, that I disliked Utah.
He's a boy, I'm a girl.
I LOVE bell peppers.
I do not have Kermit shoes, though I would very much like a pair.
I will have to admit that I am not a fan of sour beer or TLC, so . . .
I think my top 5, in alphabetical order, would be:
Honorable mention to Montana and Hawaii, plus Florida south of Tampa.
- California (say what you will about the cities, especially LA, but wow...such diverse natural beauty in every direction at every turn, it seems)
- Colorado (never stops being breathtaking, and I'll never stop visiting very regularly)
- North Carolina (soft spot for family roots, our shared rooting interest, and an underrated array of natural beauty...kind of a poor man's California from mountains to shore)
- South Dakota (#1 on my "underrated" list...the Black Hills are spiritually beautiful)
- Wyoming (Yellowstone + Tetons are enough on their own to get this one on the list)
Natural beauty seems to be the primary trait in your ranking system. Although I consider it, it is not the primary trait in my personal ranking system. Cities do matter to me.
BD's top 5 favorite American cities in alphabetical order (over 600,000 population):
Boston
Chicago
New York
San Francisco
Washington DC
BD's top 5 favorite American cities in alphabetical order (200,000 - 600,000 population)
Atlanta
Durham, NC
Honolulu
Madison, WI
New Orleans
BD's top 10 favorite American cities/towns in alphabetical order (under 200,000 population)
Beaufort, SC
Burlington, VT
Crested Butte, CO
Eugene, OR
Monterey, CA
Portland, ME
Portsmouth, NH
Saratoga Springs, NY
Savannah, GA
Williamsburg, VA
BD's favorite American small towns (population under 10,000)
Kenova, WV
Nag's Head, NC
North Conway, NH
Williamstown, MA
Any coastal town in MA/NH/ME from Cape Ann all the way up to Bar Harbor
BD's top 10 favorite world cities/towns in alphabetical order
Bourton on the Water, Gloucestershire, England
Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada
Edinburgh, Scotland
Dinan, Brittany, France
London, England
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Paris, France
Reykjavik, Iceland
San Melo, Brittany, France
Salzburg, Austria
Love this list, and I like cities too. It's just that in my 50-state travels, they've only been a fraction of what I've sought out.
Off the cuff, here are my favorite cities:
U.S.
- Atlanta (duh)
- Austin, TX (maybe not in the summer, though)
- Charleston, SC (but lordy, you can have pretty much the entire rest of that state)
- Chicago
- New York
World
- Tokyo
- London
- Paris
- Singapore
Tokyo is the city of all cities, and everyone else is playing for distant second.
Favorite cities:
Boston
Seattle
DC
Miami
Ah, we love Montreal, used to go all the time, (less than a two hour drive)now it's just a bureaucratic nightmare to get there and back, haven't been since The Corvid.