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Jasmine wrote:
I’m 35 and can honestly say that I have never been camping. Ever. I’m such a urbanite. 😆 If I can’t have a hot shower in the morning, I ain’t going. That’s what I tell my bf. 😉
I used to go camping every weekend when I was younger. I’d go for week long canoe trips, backpacking; anything to get out of the city area I lived/worked in. When I met my husband, he’d never really gone camping, and thought it would be a cool thing to do.
So I figured, what the heck; and introduced him to my favorite camground. We get the camp all set up; tents up, sleeping bags laid out–everything’s fine. Cooked a couple of steaks, sat around with our guitars, burned the trash, and got ready to turn in. Cooler was trussed up tight and hung from a large tree branch out of reach of anything that couldn’t undo the rope. So….the hubby gets up to “answer the phone”…nature call… 😉 Comes back over by me and says, I smell a skunk. I sniff, don’t smell anything, said so, and he says, no, come over here. So I go over there, sniff, and yup. I smell it too. I shone the flashlight around the edge of the campsite, and there’s Pepe–standing right next to the door of the tent, waving and asking what else is on the menu? Yippee…..The hubby, who is the Ultimate City Slicker, ducks down, grabs a ROCK, COCKS HIS ARM TO THROW, and I grabbed him and yelled NO!
Pepe wanders over by the fire, sniffs around, and waddles off into the tall grass. So what does the hubby do? He tosses the freakin’ rock at the skunk, hoping to “scare him off”. Trouble was, he overshot the skunk, who immediately came back into the campsite. We slept in the car that night. I made the hubby sleep on the driver’s side of an 1984 Chevy Camaro…..I was SOOOOOOOO pissed. 😈 We haven’t gone camping ever since.
Flash forward about 10 years….we were up in the same general area as the Skunk Episode. It was late Nov., we took a short hike at Sunrise Mt. to see what was left of the fall foliage. As we were getting back in the truck, I jokingly said to the hubby, keep your eyes peeled: this is prime bear territory, and they’re stocking up for the winter. You never know, we might see a bear. This was back in the early 90’s prior to the bear population explosion here. So he kind of scoffed, thinking I was truly shining him on. So we get in the truck, head down the mountain, and through Stokes State Forest. Came down a hill, and back up the other side, and something caught my eye off to the right side of the road, so I stopped the truck. This HUGE 450 lb black bear waddled out into the middle of the road, about 15 feet in front of the truck, stopped and stared back at us. I go Oh, COOL! The hubby, however was not similarly impressed, and all I heard him say was Holy $**T!!! That’s a freakin’ BEAR! DRIVE!! DRIVE!! BEAR! BEAR!!! I looked at him, and he was so totally freaked out. Have I mentioned he’s a city person? LMAO! The bear ambled off on his merry way, and once he was gone, I put the truck in gear and drove on. I wish I’d had my camera with me that day. I don’t know which would’ve been the better photo; the bear or my hubby’s expression. 😈😆 😆 @ the “Fat dude in fur trousers” image.
I was a biology major in college, focused on Wildlife Management, and have a pretty good background knee deep in critters….
Okay, believe it or else, 😉 but there are bears in NJ. I have seen at least 2 or 3 in different parts of the state, including where I live, which backs onto a 12,600 acre wildlife management area, Collier’s Mills. One of my dearest friends was a zookeeper at Silver Spring in FL, and her area of expertise is bears.
Here’s some info, NOT to freak you out more, but so you can correct things hopefully before you have a regular visitor. 😛 So here’s the scoop:Bears are omnivores; they eat EVERYTHING. Emphasis on EVERYTHING. Including dog chow, cat chow, (and the dogs and cats that eat the chow! 😯 )bird seed, trash, the barbecue grill, and anything they can get to in one’s home. They have incredible memories that are only exceeded by their appetites. If a bear finds food somewhere, that bear will return on a regular basis for roughly the next 5 YEARS in the hopes that he will again find food there.
There are very few things that are *truly* “bear proof”, including locking food items in one’s vehicles. Yellowstone Nat’l Park has an untold number of reports of bears breaking into vehicles to get to coolers inside. We have had reports verified here in NJ of bears going through screen doors to get to food that people were cooking, WHILE they were cooking it! 😯 So locking stuff in the car isn’t a good idea.
As long as it is not a sow with cubs, yelling and banging stuff, waving one’s arms to make yourself bigger looking and turning on lights, BIG barking dogs, (not little ones–they are on the menu) should have an effect; however if it’s a sow w/ cubs, advancing and/or threatening is probably NOT a good idea. 😉 If faced with a bear DO NOT RUN but back away slowly while yelling things like Hey BEAR! Go AWAY, BEAR! And no, I’m not joking. Running will trigger the bear’s prey drive and cause it to chase you, and trust me on this, you can’t outrun a bear. Any food of any kind, incuding garbage should NOT be stored outside. If you are going to feed the birds, keep your seed inside a closed container in the garage behind a closed door, and clean up anything that spills. Hang your feeder from a very high branch, and suspended far enough down on a rope that it can’t be gotten to from either the branch or the ground. Put your trash out on the very morning the collector’s come, preferrably AS they’re coming down the road.
If I can think of any other bear tips, I’ll post, but that’s it for now. Hope it helps!mmloda wrote:tasgrs wrote:HAPPY DANCE, HAPPY DANCE!!!!!!!!
The Peacock OW and Fledgie from tatt2d just arrived! Whoo Hoooo!
And of course, the hubby (who is on vacation this week) was standing right there when the mail man dropped them off. Damn……don’t that just figure? 😆 😆 Had the mail man been literally 3 minutes later, the hubby would’ve already left to run to the store…..
Now I need to figure out what I’ll do when the 2 em peas get here. They’re due like today or tomorrow. 😯 …*going off to plot*
😀 I’m right behind you…PLOTTING…Casue when both of my Emperors get here my hubby is gonna go nutz.. 😕
hehehe…I got off easy on this one because the hubby is waiting on a couple of coins to be delivered, so he couldn’t say *too* much. Plus I can actually prove that these 2 pieces have been “on back order” so to speak while Tatt2d hunted for a box big enough to send them in. I believe there’s a reason for everything. 😆 😉 I will show him the pm’s that went between us if I have to prove a point before I erase them.
Now, the 2 em pea pieces that are due, and the peacock riser, and the em pea and peacock young……………hopefully they’ll arrive far enough down the road and when he’s not here! 😆 I believe a few of them may go live on the sunporch for a little while; he doesn’t go out there much. HAPPY DANCE, HAPPY DANCE!!!!!!!!
The Peacock OW and Fledgie from tatt2d just arrived! Whoo Hoooo!
And of course, the hubby (who is on vacation this week) was standing right there when the mail man dropped them off. Damn……don’t that just figure? 😆 😆 Had the mail man been literally 3 minutes later, the hubby would’ve already left to run to the store…..
Now I need to figure out what I’ll do when the 2 em peas get here. They’re due like today or tomorrow. 😯 …*going off to plot* Oh, does it *ever* pull us more into the addiction! Until I came here, I hadn’t heard about the SK’s OR the OW’s. Or the hatching Royals. When I got here, I had 4 pieces: The Peacock Male, young, lap and scratcher. Since I joined up, I’ve added the Peacock mother, hatching, sitting spectral, emperor, an Em Pea hatching and fledgie, and a special painted Red Fire OW…..
And am currently waiting on a Peacock OW and fledge (due in any day now) a Peacock Riser, and an Em Pea male and mother. (also due in any day) 😯 🙄 Oh yeah…..there’s no cure. As long as there are special paint jobs and pieces you don’t have, the bank account is in serious danger. Resistance is futile….muwahahahahahahahaha……And just an update; the OW and fledge *just* arrived……
tatt2dcowgrl wrote:tasgrs wrote:2Huberts wrote:Phoenix wrote:OMG! I won the coiled mother… Mike is not going to be happy. But that’s OK. As long as I’m happy. Right> 😯
ok, you tell us in one thread “old enough to know better” then you tell us you won the coiled mother with a zoomer55 ebay Id. where’d that Id come from? 😛 😆 😉 😆
Muahahahahaha……It’s an eBay “alter ego”. 😆 I have one of those, too. I had the eBay account long before I wandered in here. 😉
Your id tasgrs is zoomer? Did you do a pyo griffin a long time ago? I think I own one of yours..?
LOL! No, my eBay alter ego is RBFarm11. Phoenix was using the zoomer55. I’ve not done any PYO’s yet.
Snapdragon wrote:Put a redheaded wig on the Craigslist seller and we’ll see if he squeals.
Do I hear a banjo playing here? LMAO!!
Good thing I’m “working” from home today….I nearly sprayed soda pop all over things with this thread. 😆
Greater Basilisk wrote:Haha! Good job, Necron. 😆 😆
We don’t have a lot of that over here. Once in a blue moon a Jehovah’s Witness will stop by, but it’s been years since we had a solicitor of anything come by.
Years ago, when I was still working nights, I had a couple of Jehovah’s people show up on my doorstep. The barking dog woke me up, which was their first mistake,. (Answering the door was mine, but hey…)They asked me what I thought Jesus would be doing if he were alive and here right now, and my immediate answer was Probably drinking heavily.(Shocked faces at that one. 😆 ) I then told them that I was a witch, and if they didn’t try to convert me, I wouldn’t turn their kids into toads, and shut the door. 😈
It says that coiled mother has straw colored eyes; they don’t look straw colored to me. Is it my monitor or are they pinkish colored?
I’m not planning on *keeping* the newcomers on the sunporch; just keeping them there until they are….acclimated, shall we say. 😉 😉 I don’t think that will be long enough to fade. I figure I can add a piece every couple of days or so to the collection in the living room.
I just cleared a few things away, and rearranged them again. I like the idea of putting a couple in different places, and I think since I spend alot of time on our sunporch this time of year, I might put a few out there where I can explain them away…if I have to. 😉 I was really hoping to spread out their arrival better, but the Fates laugh once again. 🙂
lamortefille wrote:tasgrs wrote:lamortefille wrote:Well, that didn’t take long, Griffinlover! 😆
Once you reach a certain number, it’s easier to sneak them in, purpleturtle. 8)
Any idea of what that number might be? Because I have a couple coming that have been on order for a while so to speak, and they will likely arrive later this week. I’m hoping that I can get to the boxes before my husband does. It’s gonna be tough since he’s on vacation this week. Hopefully he’ll either be fishing or out doing yard work. 🙂
I’ve been rearranging the existing dragons hoping to confound the eye as much as possible. 😆I think anything over 10 confounds the male eye. 😉 Good idea rearranging them, though…that helps. Anywhere you can stash the boxes until he goes out? 😆
I have 11 at the moment. 9 of them are Peacock, 2 are Em Pea and one Special Red Fire OW. He sits in the middle of my dining room table alone, but the rest of them are on top of the entertainment unit. 8 of the Peacocks are on one side, and 1 Peacock and the 2 Em Peas are on the other side. I’ve got a Peacock OW, Fledgie, and Riser, and Em Pea Male and Mother coming. These guys have been kinda/sorta on order for the last few weeks, and they are on their way here, with a target arrival date of Friday. I’ve been moving things around for the last week or so, hoping it’ll make things less obvious, but I have a feeling that with these being bigger pieces I might be kinda out of luck. Unless I can resist the urge to put them all up upon arrival (HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!…….**wiping eyes** yeah right! 😆 ) There would’ve been 2 Peacock Hatching Royalty, too if I hadn’t had to have my windshield replaced on my car. 😕
I can stash the boxes in different places for a bit, but I know the call in my mind to get them up so I can drool over them is gonna be hard to resist. The hubby may be a lot of things, but he sure ain’t blind. 😉 And that much color is gonna be hard to miss, I think.lamortefille wrote:Well, that didn’t take long, Griffinlover! 😆
Once you reach a certain number, it’s easier to sneak them in, purpleturtle. 8)
Any idea of what that number might be? Because I have a couple coming that have been on order for a while so to speak, and they will likely arrive later this week. I’m hoping that I can get to the boxes before my husband does. It’s gonna be tough since he’s on vacation this week. Hopefully he’ll either be fishing or out doing yard work. 🙂
I’ve been rearranging the existing dragons hoping to confound the eye as much as possible. 😆It’s funny because as a kid we all looked down our noses at the folks that used the mounting block. Now we come to find out that it’s better for the horses if we do. Less strain on the back muscles, and on the dorsal processes of the withers.
Not to mention that there are days where mounting from the ground w/o the block just ain’t happenin’…. 😛I played Diablo II for a couple of years, going through all the different characters, and then about 3 years ago I picked up The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Been playing that one for a while now. I was playing pretty steadily mostly over the winter, but it’s backed off now. (Plus I’m spending a lot of time haunting the forum here……. 😀 )
Haven’t played anything online, though. I’m afraid it’ll be really obvious that I’m like, totally green and clueless. 😆
