critters

[idrivejunk]

Heres a hunka hunka excessive mud to wallow in. Blaster removed around a half inch of fill before pic.

[58 Yeoman]

It would be cool if they aren't extinct.

[kb426]

In 2019, Kansas had 10,000 deer-vehicle accidents. That number is I believe to be a common average. A few years before that, the Highway patrol had around 900 of those incidents. Deer are not our friends. In my part of the world, they feed in the fields and are well fed. That might be the reason for their size as compared to what Matt saw.

[58 Yeoman]

Before I retired, and still had my Goldwing, I was riding to work in the morning, on a country highway with woods and fields on both sides.  There was a car ahead of me, and a deer came running across the highway from the left and smacked right into the drivers door, knocking off the outside mirror.  The car kept going, and the deer was lying on the road.  I stopped, as did another cycle, and we thought the deer was dead.  The car turned around, and before it got back to us, the deer got up and took off in the same direction it was running when it hit the car. The car driver picked up his mirror and we all left.

Another time along the same road, I was driving my old Dodge minivan to work, and a deer came on the road again from the left and ran along side my van.  I started to slow down when the deer got ahead of me and ran in front of me. Broke the grill and headlight surround, costing about a hundred bucks used. The deer didn't make it.

[idrivejunk]

Uh oh... (hangs head)

I've hit a life snag. Another road closure. My career efforts are defeated and I see no way to continue. Only options I am left with is to abandon automotive work, or... well there just aren't other choices. My mind and body are too badly damaged from the decision to accept my job and now infrastructure has snuffed my potential entirely. Evil has come upon me once again and it has the upper hand. I fear for my freedom and my life.

I will do my best to not write.

[58 Yeoman]

Matt, go ahead and write, get it off your chest. 

I was interested in cars since I was a kid building model cars, then working on cars.  After the Army, I went to an auto tech school to learn more. After graduation, I worked for just a few years before going to a factory to work there for 40 years. Working on cars daily just wasn't for me, I like it better as a hobby.  Not saying factory work is for you, but there might be something else out there that would be better.

[idrivejunk]

Trouble is I already achieved my goals and reached the top. Then one day that was simply taken away. My current issue is with location. Logistics. In recent years I have not recovered much mentally but in recent months I had made leaps and bounds of progress but alas, only while the route that sidesteps the old commute route stays open. Been working around one closing and another got added leaving no alternative. To a route I have been hit seven times on. Now I must engage in combat to turn left at one spot.

They can't keep making things more dangerous. They can't just keep giving me entry level physically intense crap at work. Enough humiliation, battering, and hindrance. They are turning me into one of them and it is frightening. I am always able to reel myself in... so far. I'm on shaky ground. The roadblock may be temporary, it is not listed in road projects but it takes ne out of the calm and tosses me into the fray. Me, my car, my mind... none are up to whats expected of me.

Here is a critter spotted next to foot while sanding overhead where somebody did crappy blasting. About an hour ago. Quarter is for scale.

[58 Yeoman]

Looks like a wolf spider, harmless.   But...I still don't like spiders.

[idrivejunk]

You'll be glad to know I coaxed it out of the area with a blow gun semi gently. Once it hunkered down on the asphalt it had incredible grip. Now it has an adventure to tell about a sandstorm. Don't know where it went but it came from indoors.

Tongue is dragging the ground but the bronco is at epoxy stage, loosely. Just sweeping will eat the rest of the day. I am worn out. If I can clear the traffic bottleneck gauntlet again I can retry that night's sleep. Its just gonna be day by day survival. Maybe a rabbit's foot is what I need.

[idrivejunk]

Glory be. Road block cleared out thank goodness. The RR was replacing a stick of rail and a dozen medium sized trees had to go so the equipment could get to it. So this two week stretch of little rest and over maximum car punishment draws to a close. On craft fair weekend here. Got me some 455 seat time in first thing after getting home from work today. Pretty trees and a little fine weather is left.

I need to plaster outstanding combat service medals all over my GTP, that is one tough critter. Way tougher than me.

Today's critter encounter was of course a lifted and murdered out Ram sedan wanting to trade paint. Zooming in hot to overfill my rearview and plotting for miles how they would coal roll me when it went to four lane. With a rightly timed slight poke of the right foot I foiled the sootmonger. Boy did that set him off. No less than four blinding clouds of filth were deliberately belched at me to put me in my little car place at double the speed limit. The prissy dirtbag passed everyone in sight leaving them all gagging and wheezing to assert his small penis supremacy and I lifted to turn off after pacing him up to 100mph in a 45.

He had both tow mirrors fully extended with no load which is a signal to others that he is looking for a man on man sexual encounter. No kidding, cops confirm it. Most Ram endowed alpha males driving around like that probably don't know it but I heard it from a felon.

Where can I get a Rams are gay bumper sticker? I don't want them anywhere near my rear.

Not all Ram owners get the Beligerence Immunity card. Maybe its just the ones with a microscope and tweezers handy in their restroom.

[58 Yeoman]

Dammit, Matt, I guess I learned something new today about 'rollin coal."  We've got them here, also.

My town is on the river, and the river bridge to get to the other side has been closed down since April for much needed repairs and painting.  It's supposed to open early November.  It now takes 25 minutes to get to the small town on the other side, where it usually takes 5.  If we go north, the next bridge is about 10 miles.  If we go south, it's about 26 miles.  We're all hoping the bridge opens on time.

Speaking of real critters, my wife came to the shop this afternoon (it's on our property) to show me a picture she took with her phone just across the backyard fence, of a deer lying in the weeds. She was in our backyard when she saw the deer across the way, and the doe dropped to the ground and stayed there.  A few other does ran past that one, then a buck, but that one stayed there. We've had as many as 10 deer walking around the woods on three sides of us.

Oh, and I found the dead critter in the attached garage that was stinking it to high heaven. Apparently, our car chased a chipmunk into the garage, and it got under a small kitchen cabinet that we have out there.  We've been looking for that smell for a few days.  It had leaked some fluids onto the floor, but it wasn't stiff. Can't figure that one out.

That wasn't as bad as the dead rabbit I found a year or so ago between the wall and a metal cabinet. The rabbit had been chased (I guess) into the garage and it went between the cabinet and the wall, and couldn't back out.  It was full of maggots. And stink.  I leave the doors closed more now.

[enjenjo]

My south property line is on the corner of a section and there is a tree line on both sides of the road. So it is a crossing point for the deer in this area as well as foxes, coyote and other wildlife.

I've had a couple of Raccoons die in the barn over the years, it's vey hard to keep them out.

[idrivejunk]

We did an el Camino once that had half a mouse skeleton hanging out a floor hole.

Nothing quite like rotting corpse funk. I enjoy y'all's critter comments, they help balance out my rantings.

One I have never encountered is the feral hogs that, in Texas and other places, are such nuisance as to be legally shot on sight and left where they fall.

IF they fall. I was at an impromptu pig roast once and a snubnose .38 to the head was used to dispatch the object of our hunger. To our amazement that just made it harder to handle but it couldn't see where to run minus half a head. We were like um where do we shoot it now?

It finally fell but before the shot it actually got away and swam across a cove in the lake. It may not have known it could swim until then and that fact amazed us. I reckon it was fairly bouyant by nature but how many pigs ever even get to try swimming?

[58 Yeoman]

Frank, I trap the raccoons here, then dispatch them to their heaven. I didn't like to do it, but this area was over run with them a couple years ago. A farmer neighbor up the road had killed over 80 of them in his feedlot.  I haven't had any for a few weeks, which is a good thing. We also have the assortment of animals traipsing around our place, the latest which a groundhog.  He doesn't bother us, so we let him be.  We used to have a fox or two that would leave a little pile of crap on the driveway to let me know he had passed through.  Haven't seen any in a while though.

Matt, there was just a story this week where people in a boat two miles off the coast of one of the Hawaiian islands found a small pig swimming in the ocean.  They rescued it, said it looked like it was pleading for help.  I also didn't know that pigs could swim.  I have also shot raccoons in the head with my 22 rifle, and they sit there and look at me. A friend that hunts them said to shoot them farther behind their head to try to hit their heart.  Seems to work.

[enjenjo]

I trap both raccoons and groundhogs, but it's hard to keep up with them. You catch one, and two move in. My place backs up on about a hundred acres of woods so there is always plenty to replace them. I use a Conibear #8 trap which usually kills them. I've live trapped a few raccoons and shot them, and I have shot a bunch of groundhogs. I usually throw the carcasses' on the brush pile, and they disappear overnight, Coyotes you know.