i woke up to a startling discovery this morning.
i had slept in. i needed it. when i did get up, there on the floor at the foot of the bed
is a snake. it was a small garter snake about eight inches long. i had to look twice in case
i might have been dreaming or hallucinating, and no, i stay away from those drugs.
yep, its a snake. i slowwwwwly put on some pants. i didn't want to chase it under the bed.
it stayed where it was. i quickly grabbed it, and carried it downstairs. my wife and son were
already up. look what i found, i said. my wifes jaw dropped open. WHAT???? she said. then, we can never
tell the relatives. they will never stay here again.
i took the snake outside, and released it. i like snakes, just not inside my house. any number of ways it could have
got in. what i am puzzled about is how it managed to get upstairs when it wasn't much bigger than the height of the steps.
what if it has brothers and sisters still in the house????
stay tuned


keith

Snakes in general are good climbers. Can certainly climb anything in the way of masonry, brick, stone, roughened wood, trees. Snake that small can work through the tiniest of spaces.

https://petkeen.com/garter-snake-size-w ... wth-chart/

https://www.reconnectwithnature.org/new ... ve-things/

That’s essentially newborn size, 8”. Garter snakes have live births, ovoviviparous , so a momma snake might have gotten into the house somehow and then given birth.

They are nothing to fear.

My folks had a cabin at 8,500 asl in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado which, climatically was likely similar if not colder than Lake Superior area of the UP. The San Juans are crawling with garter snakes in the summer.

The whole house is probably infested with them.

worth1 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 13, 2023 2:23 pm The whole house is probably infested with them.

Could be up to 80 little snakes born from one momma garter snake. This is the time of year they are born.

well alright then,

free bug control.


keith

RE: The seeds that squirt outta yer BLTs onto the plate; anyone who claims they don't ponder saving them...welp...those people will lie to you's about other things as well...

The Gotch

Our state government has yet came up with another so called knee jerk law to stop street racing and take overs.
They'll basically take your car away.. sounds great but the police get to decide when and where.
Not good.
Some police officers even said so.
Spin your tires Exhibition of acceleration.
I've known guys getting tickets for just a little squeak.

I also heard that they'll make it a crime to take videos of these street takeovers and post them on social media.
Seriously what kind of crap is that?
I know what they're thinking but it doesn't hold water with our rights as citizens of this country.
This is the kind of thinking that the Nazis or the communist party stood on.

An example.
Let's say you're stuck in traffic due to this and you take a video of it and post it.
You're not part of the event but stuck there.
Let's say you're looking out your apartment or whatever with nothing to do with the event.
Get the point.
Now you're guilty of a crime.

One job had a new foreman on it and the only guy on the job.
First day.
He came from Idaho.
Low and behold someone came buy and stole a 30 something dollar screwdriver out of his tool pouch.
He was flabbergasted.
I told him to get used to it.
You can't turn your back for a minute as someone will steal something.
There is zero respect for others on these jobs.
I don't carry a tool pouch because of it.

Last weekend the kids in the neighborhood decided to declare war on my trash can with rocks.
My driveway and my neighbors driveway was covered in rocks of all sizes.
I was sitting with my neighbor while it was going on.
My neighbor said something needs to be done.
I said let them go at it awhile I'll take care of it.
It went on and he said it's getting ridiculous look at all the rocks.
I still didn't do anything.
Finally the rocks started getting to the size of a bowling ball.
And getting closer to my work truck.
I got up and started walking to them.
They all ran off.
One lived in the house across the street the other two lived down the street.
The one that lived across the street wouldn't come out.
The other two had to come out.
Where's the other one I asked.
He's in the house.
A coward for a friend I told them.
These rocks need to be picked up.
We can go get his father.
No just get the rocks picked up.
They agreed and picked up all the rocks.
Good kids..the other one is a 9 year old dirtbag that'll let his friends take the fall.
He will never change and I bet his father is the same way.
I bet that whole family was looking out the window at those two kids picking up rocks.
They were good respectful little kids with good parents.
You can tell a lot about parents by the actions of their kids.

Was rowing the lovely and long suffering Mrs. Gotch around pristine, spring fed Weber Lake (https://apps.dnr.wi.gov/lakes/lakepages ... 0&page=map) when a Common Loon/Ember Goose took an interest and began following us just a few yards away, and playing...diving and popping back up over and over.

A rare treat as these remarkable creatures are visually spectacular when close up.

The Gotch

Ran across someone that works for Otis elevators yesterday.
I mentioned my nephew worked on elevators.
Where at?
Corpus Christi.
What's his name.
I told him.
I know that guy used to go shooting with him all the time great guy.
I haven't heard from him in years lost his phone number.
I've got it.
I gave Tommy a text and he answered right back.
Tommy is a year older than me because my oldest brother was 19 years older than me.
Tommy and I grew up with each other but lost contact.

things like that happen here a lot.

an older couple came to our church for awhile. in conversation with my wife and me, it came up that he had been a trucker.
my wife said that her uncle eddie h. had been a truck driver too. EDDIE!!! i used to drive with him the guy said. what a great guy
he was. he then told us a story about them. they were both driving trucks in montreal canada. they weren't sure exactly where
they were supposed to go. it was winter time. they ended up on a road that maybe trucks were not supposed to be on. they get
pulled over by a local officer. the officer gets out, and starts talking to eddie in french. eddie said i don't speak french. the officer
keeps talking in french. eddie says i don't understand what you are saying. the officer gets a little more animated.
ever find yourself in the situation where you are trying to communicate with someone who doesn't speak your language. you think
if you speak louder, that will help the person to understand? that never really works out.
eddie didn't speak french, but he did speak finnish, so for some reason, he decided to speak finnish to the officer.
the officer is yammering away in french. eddie is replying in finnish. at some point the officer decided it was an impossible situation.
he pointed in a direction, and waved the truckers off, and told them to get the heck out of there.
eddie was my wifes favorite uncle. he was always smiling or had a twinkle in his eye. he died of a heart attack in his early fifties. his
wife auntie donna will be celebrating her 92nd birthday in less than a week.


keith

I ran across an off duty police officer working part time security in Georgetown Texas that knew my old friend and police chief from West Texas.
He said Bill gave him the option of DUI or join the police department when he was a young guy.
The guy joined the police department.
That's exactly the way Bill was fair and honest.
My experience meeting him was crazy.
We were both breaking the law more or less and called it even.
It happened in my front yard as he came walking through and introduced himself.
He was drinking a beer in public with his daily walk and I had a joint on the inside fender of my 72 Dodge Challenger 340 4 Barrel that would run about 160 miles an hour.
Years later he did a big favor for me in Central Texas over a car title I needed.
He also knew my wife very well but not because she broke the law or anything.

The before mentioned cop told me he passed away.
That was well over 20 years ago.

How did an old Cab-over truck conversion end up with me telling the story of my pet bull?
Stay tuned the pathway is not only exciting but educational to boot.

We were talking about traffic and trucks.
My work mate saw a truck but didn't know what it was called.
By description it was an old cap over.
Then I was telling him about all the trucks they used to make and many just the chassis and had several type engines like a Cummins or something.
He had no idea.
I won't go into the several makers but the list is long.

I brought up the Diamond Reo trucks he had never heard of them.
I mentioned my dad owned a Reo Speed Wagon.
Never heard of it.
Yes you have and I showed him a picture of the front of the old REO Speed Wagon.
Oh that's the rock band..
Yep. Then I asked him if he had ever heard of RSO records.
Nope
Yes you have it was the label that Eric Clapton recorded under.
I showed him the emblem.
RSO that showed a cow but the RSO doesn't stand for red short horn it stands for the initials of the originator of the label.
Have you heard of the Santa Gertrudis cattle.
No.
Have you heard of the King ranch?
Yes.
They developed the breed and part of the mix in the breed is the short horn cattle like in the picture.

That ended up telling him about my pet bulls I had growing up.
George and Henry.
George was a Brahman and Henry was a Santa Gertrudis.

we have been visiting my wifes aunt every sunday for awhile. auntie donna is in assisted care. she will be 92 on monday.
one evening after visiting, we were in the hallway leading to the entrance of the facility, and i hear my wife say, "is that a rooster?"
i said WHAT? i look up the hall, and i see a cat. the facility has a couple house cats. i said very slowly, thats a cat.
my wife starts laughing. how could you possibly mistake a cat for a rooster i asked?
my wife loses it. she is bent over laughing uncontrollably. she squeaks out, for some reason, the first thing that she thought of was a rooster.
the cat, was crouched watching us with what i would call a look of concern. as soon as we started walking toward it, it shot down the hall
toward the front of the building in the direction we were going. as we got closer to the cat, it then shot down another hall way.
several weeks have gone by. we saw that same cat again today when we came to visit. it took one look at us and bolted down the hall.
the cat still doesn't want anything to do with us.

cocka doodle doo!


keith

The News people can't seem to judge hight.
They had a person climb to the top of a crane today and I guess threaten to jump.
It was said to be about 400 feet tall.
The radio guys this morning said 100 feet comparing how tall they said the buildings were around Austin.
A ten story building will be more than 100 feet on the average.
The person was brought down safely.

i got this text on my phone this morning. its a new phone, still learning how to it.
hey melody,
ryan from mercy here. someone said you might have some body bags you're not using.

this was before i had any morning coffee.

i actually know both of these people. they are paramedics. melody is also a nurse.
i hope ryan didn't need a lot of bags.


keith

rxkeith wrote: ↑Fri Sep 22, 2023 9:35 pm i got this text on my phone this morning. its a new phone, still learning how to it.
hey melody,
ryan from mercy here. someone said you might have some body bags you're not using.

this was before i had any morning coffee.

i actually know both of these people. they are paramedics. melody is also a nurse.
i hope ryan didn't need a lot of bags.


keith

Lucky it was you who received this message. Somebody else might have called the police. LOL