Comments on: Thanks A Lot

By: Bryan

Bryan — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 01:11:53 +0000

Some, like that poodle, are just insane.

We had German Shepherds when I was growing up, and they were the most even tempered of dogs, unless you were a sheep or cow that they felt needed herding. It’s a lot of work to make them “police dogs” and you have to start young.

By: Kryten42

Kryten42 — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 00:41:38 +0000

LOL Poodles are underrated! My mother had 2 during my early years. One was a toy and the other a medium poodle. The little toy poodle could be vicious if she didn’t like you! 😉

We had a Fuji apple tree (2 actually). When the apples fell, he’d leap to grab them as they fell and eat them. Weird. (Not always, just when he felt like it). LOL He tried it with a lemon from the lemon tree once… LOL He wasn’t impressed at all! 😀

We are currently looking after a big 11YO blue healer/border collie cross. She’s pretty docile! I like her… 🙂 Our Jack Russell isn’t too impressed about it… even though they were raised together when she was a pup! Even animals can get insanely jealous. *sigh*

By: Bryan

Bryan — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 20:13:28 +0000

Probably only crispy apples that produced a lot of juice – not much different than a heart. 😉

A neighbor had the wimpiest Doberman ever born, but he scared the hell out of people. They didn’t know that at the end of the mad dash towards you was a sloppy licking. Kinja got his feels hurt when people ran away. He wouldn’t leave the yard and was totally subservient to my Mother’s poodle.

That poodle OTOH was definite trouble. He owned his area and anything that entered it was in for a fight. He became 30 pounds of teeth, and that was bad news as he could only reach from the belt buckle on down. He was the only dog that ever bit me and I was petting him at the time. Like a lot of pedigreed miniature poodles, he had major personality problems – he earned his status as a real SOB.

By: Kryten42

Kryten42 — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 06:15:25 +0000

Dogs are very good for self protection. 🙂 I lived in a high-crime rate area for a few years, and we were burgled. The Police recommended a place that bred & trained guard dogs and sometimes had some pups that they couldn’t use for some reason. We picked up a Rhodesian ridgback/Labrador cross. Was a big pup and became a BIG dog! The ridgebacks have a locking jaw, like blue healers. Once they grab an arm or leg, they don’t let go until the item comes off or you take their head apart. 🙂 And they have huge feet! They were bred to hunt lions in packs and on a hot day, they dig out the ground and lay in the cool shaded hollow. Was a bugger for digging up our back yard in summer! LOL

Once we were walking, and a guy came running out of a house and there were people yelling inside, the dog took off after the guy (pulled the leash with choker right out of my hand, and I was pretty strong then), the guy climbed up on the roof of a car, and the dog just about shredded the bodywork and managed to get a piece of the guy before the Police turned up. 🙂

Actually, I think LadyMin met him a couple times when she visited. 🙂

He settled down and was pretty friendly, unless you tried to come over the back fence at night (as happened), then you lost a foot at least. 🙂 He was damned fast for a big dog. 🙂 He had an amazing talent for spotting people who were alcoholics or just drunk! He really didn’t like them at all! He liked eating apples though. LOL

By: Bryan

Bryan — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 04:59:08 +0000

You should have sold it to him.

My current favorite is a three led light powered by a lithium ion cell used with some Black & Decker cordless tools. It works well and the head pivots 90° to work like the old military and Boy Scout L-shaped flash lights.

The headlamp is OK, but it will give you a headache after a while, and the big lantern eats batteries at a prodigious rate, four D cells at a time.

Dogs are very useful defensively – people may not see anything smaller that a 12 gauge, but they notice a large dog.

By: hipparchia

hipparchia — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 04:43:31 +0000

i used to carry a flashlight a lot like that walking the dog at night in my old neighborhood. almost the size of a baseball bat, and lit up half the city if i turned it on. it probably would’ve stopped bullets in a driveby shooting.

one thing i learned about having a large black dog with big white teeth — you don’t need weaponry. we interrupted two burglaries and a possible mugging in our first year there, with everyone trying their damnedest to get away from the dog [who was equally afraid of them, though they never figured it out].

after that, i just carried a tiny pocket flashlight and some plastic baggies for picking up after the dog. i did have one of the local druggies ask me once if i’d could sell him some of whatever it was i had the baggie i was carrying one day. i forget what my reply was, but i managed to resist the temptation to cash in on a bag of dog poop.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 03:08:25 +0000

What, I’m not allowed typos? 😉

The only flashlight that uses a krypton bulb uses 6 D cells and is a relic from my days in law enforcement – lots of light and a good defensive weapon.

I know what you mean about the weather. This will be the first year anyone can remember where we didn’t have a single day at or above 100° and the rain pattern has shifted.

You are heading into summer down there, with no rain to speak off during the winter and spring. Not good at all. Our large grain crops got flooded, so it is going to be high prices for flour.

Moi, you live in Pennsylvania, you are supposed to have cold weather. This is Florida. I know what you mean, though, because they have already had winter coming up a month early in upstate New York.

People keep missing the point about this being climate change, not simply warming. Some areas, like the poles are getting warmer, but others will get colder.

By: Moi

Moi — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 01:26:10 +0000

It has been freezing cold here for two weeks. We were not ready, I still have stuff growing in the garden, the storm windows are off being painted, and my house is colder than youknowwhat.

Hub put clear plastic over our plants and all we can do is just hope they make it another week….until I get my other refrigerator working, lol….

By: Kryten42

Kryten42 — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 23:11:22 +0000

Errrm… you mean ‘krypton’ Bryan, not ‘kryten’? 😉 LOL But thanks for thinking of me in this context. Ahem. 😉 LOL

Glad you saved your herbs and lettuce LadyMin! 😀

And yep! The World weather is seriously crazy. We just had the driest September ever recorded. less than 2mm rain! Usually a wet month for us. The farmers had to destroy entire crops. 🙁 Not good.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 16:25:17 +0000

I have Coleman lanterns [if I go to the shed to find them, something I do in the daylight], regular, kryton, xenon, and led flashlights using alkaline, nicad, nimh, or lithium ion batteries that are carried in your hand or strapped to your head, but none of them is worth jack when you are moving backwards stretching a 16X24 foot tarp over a framework that covers the pond, nor when you are dragging huge pots containing jade plants or begonias into storage sheds. In daylight you can use your peripheral vision and glances over your shoulder or through your legs, but a flashlight doesn’t provide that kind of visual field. Been there, done that, and you end up wet and cold with minnows, snails, and water plants in your shoes.

This morning a check revealed it didn’t go lower than 38°, so nothing should have been hurt. I’ve had a work light in a reflector on a concrete pad to warm it for the feral cats for several days, but I would appreciate a little more time for freeze warnings.

I would have been really ticked if we had a freeze and Chicago didn’t.