Sheilajeanne

Ferg, how do you do the blocking? What do you use?

There's a rest stop on the Interstate, not far from the Rainbow bridge. I've stopped there numerous times to use the facilities, grab a bite to eat and let the dogs have a walk. When i was walking the dogs one day, I noticed the English sparrows in the parking lot had an interesting feeding method. The had learned that the grills and bumpers of cars that have travelled long distances have a gourmet feast of dead bugs on them! It was really interesting to watch them picking the carcasses off the cars. They would wait until the passengers exited the cars before doing this , then fly away as soon as they came back. I've had these sparrows nesting around several of the houses I've lived in over the years, and this is NOT normal behaviour for the ones living in suburban backyards! They prefer eating from my bird feeder, though they certainly won't turn up their noses at a passing insect!

LOL, tsunkasapa! That's a really cool tool, Fred! I can see it would work both as a head knife and an awl.

After 13 years, I have FINALLY bought a new computer. My old HP still works okay, but it's very slow to get running in the morning, and occasionally freezes up on me. So, having been thoughtfully provided with some spare cash from the government because I finally got my tax returns caught up, I decided it was time. Anyway, as I transfer stuff from the new to the old, I came across this from an old e-mail and with Christmas fast approaching decided to share! To Whom it May Concern: Mrs. Claus and I regret to inform you that effective immediately, I will no longer be able to service the Southern United States on Christmas Eve. Due to overwhelming current population of the earth, my contract was renegotiated by North American Fairies and Elves Local 209. I now serve only certain areas of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan. As part of the new and better contract I also get longer breaks for milk and cookies so keep that in mind. However, I'm certain that your children will be in good hands with your local replacement who happens to be my third cousin, Bubba Claus. His side of the family is from the South pole. He shares my goal of delivering toys to all the good boys and girls. However, there are a few differences between us, including: 1. There is no danger of a Grinch stealing your presents from Bubba Claus. He has a gun rack on his sleigh and a bumper sticker that reads: "These toys insured by Smith & Wesson." 2. Instead of milk and cookies, Bubba Claus prefers that children leave a RC Cola and peanut patty (or a Moon Pie) on the fireplace. And Bubba doesn't smoke a pipe. He dips a little snuff though, so please have an empty spit can handy. 3. Bubba Claus' sleigh is pulled by floppy-eared, flyin' coon dogs instead of reindeer. I made the mistake of loaning him a couple of my reindeer one time, and Blitzen's head now overlooks Bubba's fireplace. 4. You won't hear "On Comet, on Cupid, on Donner and Blitzen..." when Bubba Claus arrives. Instead you'll hear, "On Earnhardt, on Wallace, on Martin and LaBonte. On Rudd, on Jarrett, on Elliot and Petty." 5. "Ho, ho, ho!" has been replaced by "Yee Haw!" And you also are likely to hear Bubba's elves reply, "I her'd dat!" 6. As required by Southern highway laws, Bubba Claus' sleigh does have a Yosemite Sam safety triangle on the back with the words, "Back Off!" 7. Bubba Claus doesn't wear a belt. If I were you, I'd make sure you, the wife, and the kids turn the other way when he bends over to put presents under the tree. 8. Bubba Claus refuses to wear the standard issue Santa cap because he says it makes him look like a girly-boy. He has been granted permission to wear a white Stetson with a red band instead, as well as black cowboy boots. Sincerely Yours, Santa Claus (Member, North American Fairies and Elves Local 209)

Awesome photos, Chuck. You're blessed to live where there is such natural beauty. Handstitched, my mom had a flowering almond bush in her backyard for many years. AFAIK, it is JUST an ornamental shrub/tree and is not meant to produce almonds. A quick Google search confirms that: https://www.bhg.com/gardening/plant-dictionary/shrub/flowering-almond/ Sorry! You're barking up the wrong tree if you expect to get nuts! I looked up the actual almond tree, and they are much bigger and have simple flowers with only 5 petals, not fancy pink ones.

Yeah, big difference between boot leather that covers the whole foot and a strap that just goes over the toes. Don't want it to stretch too much.

deboardp, I've heard that's how they used to have recruits break in their new boots in the army: stand in a stream for 10 minutes or so,. then march until the boots were dry! Yep, an old method, but I'm sure it will work.

Chuck, 97% of scientists say that our world is warming up due to increased CO2 emissions. So, you believe they're all wrong? CO2 level have fluctuated over thousands of years, and the temperature has gone up and down accordingly, but never like this: If it were not for CO2 in our atmosphere, the sun's radiation would just go back out into space, and we'd have a cold, barren planet. CO2 absorbs the radiation reflected off the earth's surface, and turns it into a form of heat that can warm the atmosphere and ground. Unfortunately, this means, the higher the CO2 levels, the more heat is absorbed, and the hotter the planet is going to get.

Yes, just like what is sold as Chinese food in most of North America is not at all what the Chinese actually eat! They eat much more vegetables and less meat. Some of the vegetables are things North Americans wouldn't touch, like lotus roots. SUP, yes, that sounds really crazy! Chuck, yes, as one species dies off, others take over. Nature abhors a vacuum. The changes in vegetation and animal life is how biologists know the climate is warming up. I've seen this during my own lifetime - we never used to have opossums in Ontario, as it was too cold for them. Their ears, tails and feet freeze in really cold weather. Now, in the last 30 years or so, they have established breeding populations here. Other species that have moved in within my lifetime are mourning doves and turkey vultures, though they are mostly migratory. But the same thing goes for them - mourning doves' feet freeze easily in sub-zero weather, and the vulture's naked legs and head make them vulnerable to freezing too. I've frequently seen mourning doves with only one foot as a result of having lost one to freezing. Guess they didn't head south early enough!

Sup, would be interested to know what your diet was like. Where did you grow up? The Mediterranean diet has been found to be very healthy, based on natural foods like olives, grapes, and of course, pasta and wine, but it's not really vegan. This tract of forest I mentioned is a park, and is protected from being cut by the government. Environmental groups are fighting hard to maintain the remaining patches of old growth forests, especially the ones on the west coast of Canada, as well as the few remaining native tall and short grass prairies.

Those idiot PETA members want to totally eliminate ALL domestic animals. I really scratch my head when I try to understand just what they think the world will look like if we do this. Wild cows, sheep, goats and pigs just wandering around, munching on the vegan's precious crops? LOL. I think that would make a lot of vegans change their minds about killing animals! Obviously, if people stopped eating meat, no one in their right mind is going to continue to feed their farm animals until they just die of old age. What would be the point? You're spending money on animal feed, and getting absolutely no return for it. Not feeding them would mean letting them starve once they'd chewed their pasture down to the grassroots. Sooo...the obvious solution would be to open the gates and let them go. Or shoot them. But, of course, a vegan isn't going to do that. As for going back to the 'good old days' I'm totally for living off the land, growing and harvesting your own food. But I also appreciate popping into the local grocery store to buy a chicken that I don't have to kill, pluck and eviscerate all on my own! My grandmother did exactly that, so I appreciate the hard work that goes into it, and am glad to have a machine do it for me. My late husband had friends who lived on a tract of land near Toronto which had never been clear cut. They had trilliums popping up in their lawn, like weeds! They gave me permission to go into the wooded section of their property and dig up a couple to take home. Cutting into that virgin soil was like cutting into living tissue. The web of roots was so strong, I needed a very sharp spade to cut around the flower and uproot it. The roots stayed intact, in a square, just as I'd cut them. It really was amazing to see! I've also seen pictures of the soil structure of grassland prairie that's never been plowed. The grass roots go down more than 3 feet into the earth. It makes me wish I could have seen this country before the Europeans arrived. The untouched prairie and forest would have been so much more efficient at preventing erosion and catching and filtering rainwater into the ground. Rivers were deeper and had larger, healthier populations of fish and other creatures because of this. We can't bring back what once was. But I'm all for preserving small sections of the forest, prairie and mountains in their natural state, so people can see and understand what a healthy, untouched ecosystem really looks like. An interesting note: in grassland prairies that have been preserved in their natural state, they stay healthier and the native species thrive better when the land is grazed by cattle. Of course, the original grazers would have been bison and antelopes.

Mulesaw, yep, even with breast cancer there are a number of different types. Most are hormone sensitive - some to estrogen, some to progesterone, so post-treatment, you have to take drugs that suppress those hormones. Mine was not hormone sensitive - it was Her-2 positive, for a protein that encourages rapid replication of the cancer cells. Until recently, this was a very dangerous type of cancer. Then, researchers came up with a drug (a monoclonal antibody) that blocks the Her-2 antigen. It's called Herceptin, and I got infusions of that every 3 weeks for a whole year. There were no noticeable side effects, but it can damage the heart and cause congestive heart failure, so I had an echo-cardiogram every 3 months to check on my heart. The last one was 2 weeks ago - they continue checking up on you even after the treatment is over. I have an appointment with the cardiologist this week, and hopefully he'll tell me everything is fine, and I won't need to see him again. The usual chemo drug of choice is Taxol. I was to have 12 treatments, but after 5 treatments, they finally listened to me when I said I was having trouble breathing. They found my lungs looked almost like a COVID patient's (white patches) and I had an infection in my chemo port! I had to go on oxygen, and was hospitalized while they treated all this. The COVID lockdown happened just after I was discharged, and my oncologist said she'd understand if I didn't want to continue treatment, due to the risk of catching COVID if I had to leave home. I actually did have one more treatment, but the shortness of breath was so scary, I quit after that. Since my cancer was early stage with no spread to the lymph nodes, she said quitting only slightly increased my risk of it coming back. (Fingers crossed!) I'll breathe easier when I've gone 5 years with clean mammograms! One more year to go after this!

Thank you, Ferg! I currently have 2 female friends who have gone through cancer THREE times! Fortunately, each time it was caught early enough that it could be cured. The one friend had breast cancer, kidney cancer and bowel cancer. The other had thyroid cancer, then many years later, following a lumpectomy for breast cancer, the cancer popped up in the other breast, but was a different kind of cancer! She had a double mastectomy, followed by a hysterectomy, as she tested positive for the gene that causes female cancers. Both are doing well. And may research continue to find more and better ways of making cancer survivable.

Like I said, I really think the whole thing was a setup just for the sake of the photo. However, if it WAS real, it would have been illegal to have the man tied to the roof, and also illegal for the driver wearing the moose head to be driving with obstructed vision. Oh, and yeah, I'm sure they would have tested them with the breathalyzer, which may have resulted in an impaired driving charge!

OH, that's great you can have Christmas together! I was only about 45 minutes from the hospital, so was okay with commuting, and due to COVID, they condensed my chemo into only 7 sessions. A friend's mother was living in North Bay, so she stayed in a residence next to the hospital that was built by the Rotary Club. It was really lovely accommodations. There was a fully equipped kitchen, lots of lounging space with a nice view, and a large south facing balcony!

Gezzer, I had a male GSD that liked to play with rocks. He'd spent most of the first 3 years of his life chained to his kennel, and sadly, rocks were his only toys The problem was, rocks had been used to edge the flowerbeds in the house I was living in after acquiring him. And he kept moving them around, then I'd sometimes find them with the lawnmower... His bottom teeth got pretty worn down by the time he passed away! It's mainly the choking thing that worries me with the tennis balls. If it ever happens to your dog, here's one way of dealing with it: If you don't know how to remove the ball, your dog will be dead long before you reach the vet. https://veterinarypartner.vin.com/default.aspx?pid=19239&id=8871225#:~:text=Make an open diamond shape,lip%2Fcheek to protect fingers.&text=Push with a J-stroke,it ejects from the mouth.

Using tennis balls as fetch toys for dogs is not a good idea. The fuzz holds dirt and grit and over time damages the dog's teeth. Also, with larger breeds like retrievers, German shepherds etc. the ball is just the right size for them to choke on. It's rare, but I know someone who lost his dog that way. The best balls for fetch are the Chuck It balls that have a hole through them. You can put a rope through the hole to give you more oomph when throwing, and the rope could also save your dog's life by giving you something to remove the ball if the dog does choke. Also, the hole will allow air to still get into the dog's lungs. You can buy these balls separate from the throw stick: https://www.walmart.ca/en/ip/chuckit-medium-2-pack-fetch-ball-dog-toy-blue/10233042?from=/search

{{{HUGS}}} Prayers for you both! Yep, it's certainly no walk in the park! The followup study certainly sounds like a good idea. When I met with my oncologist due to the recent problems I was having with the scar tissue, she recommended I get an IV infusion of a drug that is supposed to both strengthen the bones and help prevent the cancer from coming back. I hadn't been able to take this previously, as I was thinking of getting a dental implant, and the drug has been known to cause issues with this sort of thing. I wasn't feeling great after the infusion. 12 hours later, at 1 in the morning, I had a severe chill followed by a high fever. I took some Tylenol and eventually the symptoms subsided enough that I was able to get some sleep. The chills and fever came back the next morning, and when I looked at the side effects of the drug on the paper they'd given me, they said yes, it was a fairly common side effect, and I should seek medical attention if this happened. I was able to get a friend to drive me to the E.R. Six hours and numerous tests later, the doctor concluded: You were right - this is a side effect of the drug. Go home, take Tylenol, and if it gets worse, come back and see us. Geez - What a waste of my day! And I will NOT be taking a second dose of that drug! Those side effects were ten times worse than the ones I had from the chemo! I've rarely felt so sick in my life! I did feel better after a couple of days, but by the middle of the week, I woke up with such severe joint pain I could barely walk. I had to ask my tenant to take my laundry out of the dryer, as it was too painful to go down the stairs. More Tylenol, and the pain was gone within a couple of days. Nope, nope nope. Not doing this again!

billybop, big fan of Lehrer, but that's the first time I've heard that song! Thanks so much for sharing! Chuck, would be very hard to spot a cow...er... deer in a landscape like that! Oh, and here's my favourite hunting meme. Yes, alcohol was involved. But I'm doubtful that they actually tried driving the truck while wearing moose heads. Can't see that working if they actually wanted to survive! Still it's damn funny...

So, uh, whose cows did you shoot??

Can't...stop...laughing!! (Yes, I'm a John Denver fan...)

Totally agree, Bert! And Fred, the shiny stuff is, unfortunately, the OUTSIDE of the belt, not the liner! Here's how patent leather is made. And it mentions that it's nearly impossible to repair:

So, the belt was lined with PLASTIC?? Some sort of fake leather? Or is that shiny stuff the exterior of the belt, and not the lining? What is Bally brand? Is it a well known brand? A good leather belt is lined with LEATHER, and that ain't leather. That makes me wonder if this belt is really worth saving. What did it cost you? No one who works with leather is going to want to try to fix that. The only permanent fix I can think of would be to strip that shiny stuff off the entire belt and replace it with leather. And that is not going to be worth what it will cost. Matching that shiny non- leather stuff to fix the spot where it's broken down is, in my opinion, not going to be possible. Edit: I just googled the brand. The sell for $350 (U.S.) and up! Still, I don't really see how that's going to be repairable. The lining is obviously NOT leather, and is not stitched on. Even if someone could find a matching material, gluing a patch in place is not going to be very secure, and it certainly won't look nice, if that's the exterior of the belt we're looking at.

Ain't that the truth!! I hadn't paid taxes for a couple of years, as I hate the complicated paperwork involved, and I figured with my income being so small now I'm retired, no one was going to care. I was finally persuaded by my cousin, who does this for a living, to file. I had NO IDEA how many benefits I'd been missing out on! What a windfall! So, it's been a real pleasure to loosen the purse strings a little. Went into the drugstore the other night, intending to buy some multivitamins for me and a birthday card for my brother. $125 later... I saw Patrick Stewart's autobiography on sale for 25% off and grabbed it. It was the hardcover edition, so still pretty pricey, even with the discount. I also bought a pretty calendar as a birthday gift for my bro. Then, was able to find my most favourite perfume soap - Yardley's Lavender, which can be difficult to find, as Yardley's is an old-fashioned brand. As I walked up to the checkout, I spotted some After Eight mints, a rare treat that can be hard to find, even around Christmas time. I grabbed 2 boxes, one for me, and one for a hostess gift for my sister-in-law, when I go to my bro's BD celebration later today! YIKES!! Doesn't take much to add up to a whomping big bill! I just found something really nice about my purchase. Shopper's Drug Mart takes part in the PC Optimum points card (President's Choice, which covers a number of grocery stores in Canada.) I'd been trying for months to get my points up to the $40 mark. Welp, they had a special offer this week where if you spent $90 or more at either SDM or one of the PC grocery scores, you'd get 20x the points. I now have $70 to spend on my PC card!! Will have to buy myself something special!

Leather dye definitely has things in it (pigments, alcohol, etc.) that is NOT safe to put under your skin!