So if you didn't do anything airgun related what did you do today?

[Blowpipe Sam]

No boats for me today.

It was a rough day in the box.  The weather was gorgeous and we had two weddings in the park today.  Lots of wedding guests and lots of people out enjoying the cool weather.  I made over $1200 at the gate.  But it was non-stop all day and I never got a break.

[Madd Hatter]

I "accidentally" ran over my last phone about five years ago. I ain't missed it yet.

I defrauded the man out of a days pay.  Just like back in my Hollywood days I got up early and ate a handful of drugs.  I'm a Coke addict so I filled up my Buc-ees mug with 32 ounces of the sweet black death.  Wired on high fructose corn syrup, caffeine, and Meloxicam is about as messed up as I get these days.  Man I miss the old days.  I was a walking pharmacopeia back then. 

I delegated failure, took credit for something I didn't do, avoided authority, responsibility, and all forms of manual labor.  I stalled, loafed, hid, malingered, wasted time, and goofed off.

Just another "work" day for us bureaucratic types.

And now it's all caught up with ya! 😂🤣😂

[Sqrl Klr]

No boats for me today.

It was a rough day in the box.  The weather was gorgeous and we had two weddings in the park today.  Lots of wedding guests and lots of people out enjoying the cool weather.  I made over $1200 at the gate.  But it was non-stop all day and I never got a break.

How you made that kind of $ in one day being a park ranger? 

[brewbear]

Drove wife to the airport (5 am), got stuck in traffic on the way back ( 2 hours or so), put new windshield wipers on my car, made an omelet for breakfast. Made a peach cobbler that I shared with my MIL, checked GTA...

[Blowpipe Sam]

No boats for me today.

It was a rough day in the box.  The weather was gorgeous and we had two weddings in the park today.  Lots of wedding guests and lots of people out enjoying the cool weather.  I made over $1200 at the gate.  But it was non-stop all day and I never got a break.

How you made that kind of $ in one day being a park ranger? 

Graft mostly but chicanery, corruption and outright extortion also work.  I'm a "public servant" remember?

Much slower today!  I was stuck in the box again.  We had VIP's in the park so I had to wear the full monkey suit, tie, and the Elmer Fudd hat.  I have the most fruit salad so they like to trot me out when the Governor's lady comes for a boat ride.  Fortunately I didn't have to drive that boat. 

[airgunaut]

Walked an old fence line, checked post locations for alignment (lots of fallen trees, uprooted old wood posts, and other damage), and marked where to install new metal posts that will maintain the old alignment without getting wired in.

Then repeated the above to check my work and called the contractor who will dig the holes and install about 45 posts. I will lug each post to its specific location before he starts.

After that, I washed the truck. Tomorrow I detail it and wax it. I changed the oil a few days ago.

I’m tired just thinking about what remains to be done.

There is much to do to prepare for winter.

[Rabbit\Squirrel Killer]

  Sunday School and Church today, now that it's over I need to pack for our annual trip to Sequoia National Park / Hume Lake Camp, Monday through Wednesday.   

 The house/pet sitter is spending the night tonight, we leave early AM 


 

[Back_Roads]

  Sunday was a bit drizzly to start hay rides, I gave 3 of the 4 rides the first was 6 service dogs and their trainers, my rules were no jumping off the wagon to chase the squirrels. That ride went off without a hitch
 Next was random people, the deer were on the ready and were spotted by the riders
The last ride was the stragglers that found their way out of the corn maze just in time to catch the last hayride befree we shut them down as the rains became miserable.
 I was able to make it home for the last 10 minutes of the Packer game

[Sqrl Klr]

No boats for me today.

It was a rough day in the box.  The weather was gorgeous and we had two weddings in the park today.  Lots of wedding guests and lots of people out enjoying the cool weather.  I made over $1200 at the gate.  But it was non-stop all day and I never got a break.

How you made that kind of $ in one day being a park ranger? 

Graft mostly but chicanery, corruption and outright extortion also work.  I'm a "public servant" remember?

Much slower today!  I was stuck in the box again.  We had VIP's in the park so I had to wear the full monkey suit, tie, and the Elmer Fudd hat.  I have the most fruit salad so they like to trot me out when the Governor's lady comes for a boat ride.  Fortunately I didn't have to drive that boat. 

I made over $3k in one day awhile back but in my defense it was selling something legal. hehe

[Blowpipe Sam]

Boats all day.  The water is black with tannin from all the hurricane run off and for some reason the swamp taters manatee were out "en abundance"  I drove the Government buzzard hostel Great Blue Heron.  She's got prop guards on the electric motors and no prop guard on the gasoline outboard.  The shafts are out of alignment so she wanders like a drunk pig upstream or down.  Kinda like pushing an overloaded shopping cart on an icy sidewalk.  Gotta box easy around the manatee so I ran on the electrics a lot.  I did six tours today because we are short boat captains.  Physically worn slapout from wrestling an over loaded, underpowered scow up and down the crik all day.  Beaucoup wildlife! Cocodrillo, le tricolor heron et le heron azure!

The first of the autumn birds are starting to arrive, the day was beautiful, and the manatee are coming back into the river for the winter.  It still beats working for a living.

[Madd Hatter]

Looks like we're going to be below freezing Fri night. Suppose to rain most of the day. About 30 miles east they're going to get snow. First of the season.

[airgunaut]

I finished everything on the truck except treating vinyl and plastic interior parts with 303, which I can do in the next few days.

Found a lizard scuttling around in the garage, so I put down a sticky trap. These little brown lizards run fast, and I didn’t want to smash it in the garage and leave a mess.

Then there was still the yellowjacket problem to fix. Two days ago, what looked like a really big YJ flew in the front door when I went in the room adjacent to the garage. Turned out to be at least THREE YJs, probably all loaded onto the next-year queen. They mate high in the air while flying.

The last two nights I noticed that one of them mostly hung around the central clerestory window (very high up, in the loft). The other two seemed to always be together, at weird angles, near the next clerestory window. Last night one of them didn’t move unless the other one dragged it around. It looked like one was EATING the other, but I wasn’t sure.

Today it still looked like one was always attached to or eating the other. Well, I had seen enough already and do not want even one YJ indoors. The trouble was how to kill them without harming myself via spraying Raid indoors. I know from experience that I could reach even that high point by spraying a well-aimed shot. I also know that breathing it brings on bad respiratory symptoms for ME.

Solution: I carried a long window washing pole while climbing the ladder to the loft. I had taped to one end several paper towels in a thick layer, sort of an inverted cone. I sprayed Raid on the top “funnel” of the cone and onto another paper towel that I rolled tightly and put in the funnel. Took careful aim before pressing the Raided paper on the YJ cannibal scene, or whatever it was.

The cannibal fell to the loft floor, as usually happens with Raid. There, I pressed it again. With a vinyl glove, I wadded up the body and toxic paper. There was only one body I could see, but somehow there were extra legs broken off on the floor, which I also cleaned up. I guess the cannibal had already eaten the other parts of its victim?

Bonus happened after what I thought was a failed attempt to poison the lone other YJ using a similar technique, though I couldn’t press because it was sitting on a window screen. The effect of just bringing the Raided cone near it made it fly off somewhere I didn’t see…until a few minutes later when it flew near my head and dropped onto a cushion, apparently incapacitated just from the brief Raid exposure. Revolted, I flung the cushion so that the YJ landed on the loft floor, still alive but obviously dying. I grabbed a handheld vacuum cleaner I keep there, thus neatly containing the nasty insect.

The vacuum cleaner is cooling its heels outdoors now, hopefully with enough dust in it to asphyxiate the YJ. I’ll empty it tomorrow.

Three or four more above-freezing nights, and then winter’s hammer comes down for the first blow. May it kill many, many YJs!

[avator]

The circle of rocks around the old south side firepit are still there and it has become a dump site for small branches, leaves and scraps of wood. I decided to light it up this morning. It went up like a match stick with all the dry leaves and whatnot. I stayed near it to make sure no embers got away.
Boss was funny because she circled it waiting for the lizards to crawl out so she could pounce on them.
I also called and placed the order to have our 100 gallon propane tank filled. The truck will be here today or tomorrow. It was down to around 35%.

[bReTt]

The circle of rocks around the old south side firepit are still there and it has become a dump site for small branches, leaves and scraps of wood. I decided to light it up this morning. It went up like a match stick with all the dry leaves and whatnot. I stayed near it to make sure no embers got away.
Boss was funny because she circled it waiting for the lizards to crawl out so she could pounce on them.
I also called and placed the order to have our 100 gallon propane tank filled. The truck will be here today or tomorrow. It was down to around 35%.

What are you using the propane for?

[avator]

The circle of rocks around the old south side firepit are still there and it has become a dump site for small branches, leaves and scraps of wood. I decided to light it up this morning. It went up like a match stick with all the dry leaves and whatnot. I stayed near it to make sure no embers got away.
Boss was funny because she circled it waiting for the lizards to crawl out so she could pounce on them.
I also called and placed the order to have our 100 gallon propane tank filled. The truck will be here today or tomorrow. It was down to around 35%.

What are you using the propane for?

We heat the house with it when needed.

[avator]

The circle of rocks around the old south side firepit are still there and it has become a dump site for small branches, leaves and scraps of wood. I decided to light it up this morning. It went up like a match stick with all the dry leaves and whatnot. I stayed near it to make sure no embers got away.
Boss was funny because she circled it waiting for the lizards to crawl out so she could pounce on them.
I also called and placed the order to have our 100 gallon propane tank filled. The truck will be here today or tomorrow. It was down to around 35%.

What are you using the propane for?

We heat the house with it when needed. And before we upgraded the kitchen with a 220v flat surface range, they also cooked with it.

[Sqrl Klr]

Sam you ever have one of those swamp taters give you tickle kisses? Some place in FL lets people swim with em it just escapes me at the moment.

Pat I got a yellow jacket today with brake cleaner since it wouldn't leave me alone. I smeared him into nothing afterward. Good riddance.

Bill you have any grate to toss over the wood? Is what I do and it catches most embers. A old chain link fence gate works surprisingly well for that too I found out.

[airgunaut]

I never heard them called swamp taters, but four of us paddled near them in 2003. I think it was in the Crystal River.

Most were shy, and we knew to not pursue encounters, so we were pleasantly surprised when a young one by himself approached us and swam amoung our kayaks. He actually swam under my kayak and put his flippers up around it as if hugging it. Which elicited some snickers in our group about what he was trying to do. He (or she!) didn’t do what they—and probably some of you—were thinking.

I do have a film scan of this photo, but it’s not on my iPad or in iCloud.

——————-

To my dismay, another YJ appeared indoors today. It seemed fixated on the spot where I had killed Le Cannibal. I wasted no time killing it with my newfound funnel of death. Good riddance, indeed!

[bReTt]

The circle of rocks around the old south side firepit are still there and it has become a dump site for small branches, leaves and scraps of wood. I decided to light it up this morning. It went up like a match stick with all the dry leaves and whatnot. I stayed near it to make sure no embers got away.
Boss was funny because she circled it waiting for the lizards to crawl out so she could pounce on them.
I also called and placed the order to have our 100 gallon propane tank filled. The truck will be here today or tomorrow. It was down to around 35%.

What are you using the propane for?

We heat the house with it when needed. And before we upgraded the kitchen with a 220v flat surface range, they also cooked with it.

Ah, ok.  I thought about a propane cook top for in the house.  I kinda wonder how long a fill would last just using the cook top.  That’s why I was asking.   

[bReTt]

I did shoot this evening but today we went to the water.  It was calm out and a comfortable temperature.  The rain held off until this evening when I was setting up to shoot.