Hi Sue

'here' is about 45 minutes southeast of my abode. I've played a lot of golf down in that area and didn't even know the place existed. Goes to show how much I pay attention, especially when golf is on my mind.

Thank you for the link. It looks like a nice place to visit. I'll definitely have to check it out on my next excursion to that area.

I was born in Dover, NJ but grew up in Florida. Still have relatives in the Wharton area.

Take care,

Jeff

May as well stop and play at Buck Hills or Delaware Water Gap CC on the way down. There are some insane fine folks attempting to play playing there.

some insane fine folks attempting to play playing there.

I think I've met up with a few of them...lol

Never played Buck Hills but have played Riverview, Tamiment, Pocono Manor, Shawnee, Mt Airy and Pocono Farms (as member guest). The goal was to never play the same course twice in a season so played a lot of different courses in PA and upstate NY.

Happy celebration of Summer!!

Jeff

May be why I never took to golf after returning to the States.

The front 9 at Subic Bay was immaculate, (white fence privet hedge spotless) - the back 9 was the Indiana Jones version of your favorite mini-golf.

9 holes of straight up (rope holds!), straight down, 3rd green (tee was on top of the cliff) in the middle of a moat full of alligators, huge snakes everywhere, cannot play the back 9 without a caddy (half-nekkid native guide with a giant knife), lose a ball in the jungle and NO ONE wants to go after it.

After the first round new players would sit at the 19th hole shell-shocked Never had trouble getting tee time tho

Now THATS golf!

Sounds like a 'fun' course. Always up for a challenge .

Took a few friends from here down to FLA a few years ago for a week of golf. They couldn't get over the gator and moccasin infested ponds on the courses we played.

I warned them not to go into the dense brush to look for a stray ball because that's where the rattlesnakes play golf and how they get their own supply of golf balls and clubs..... from the dead golfers who are never seen or heard from again..

From the link ; "a park rooted in Celtic spirituality and inspired by the Isle of Iona off the coast of Scotland"

It's a nice looking place, but I'm not too sure about the description. As far as I know, Iona doesn't have anything like the megalithic stuff shown, and the history is all related to St Columba and the early Christian Church. It's not even forested. Great place to visit though. There are plenty of standing stones/burial chambers in the region of Argyll (Kilmartin has some good stuff), though the most famous place up North to visit for neolithic structure is Skara Brae. Haven't been there yet ().

That looks familiar.

Phacops rana. Just an excuse to go slamming rocks with a hammer.

Wot, no Father's Day shindig being engineered for you (had to get engineering in here somehow)?

Might get a phonecall, but I'm currently 3000 miles from nearest kid or any other fambly for that matter

"Wot, no Father's Day shindig ..."

Sadly, no, but I did get a great big hug & a sloppy kiss & a big bar of fruit'n'nut chocolate from Small .

That will do!

Mine are past the sloppy kiss stage, but phone calls from all!

No.....

UT stands for Universal Time

which just happens to perfectly coincide with

GMT Greenwich Mean Time

So GMT became Universal because Greenwich was too small to contain it

thank yew for the clarification.

Happy to be here for ya

Oughta hear my explanation of inertial navigation

Yea you right, friends and fambly down there have been complaining of the heat since April. Making 'em lazy, too, still waiting for the muffeletta and catfish poboy (dress it myself) I wanted for my birthday. Geaux Saints!

And lovely Bob!

So true.

Great tale!

Thanks

Beautiful!

I saw the same beastie here last night. How'd you get it to sit and smile?

waddayamean how'd I get it to sit?.....the damn thing has me trained....ie...if I don't feed it it'll steal something (like my hat, camera, binocs etc).

The reason it's smiling is because it stole my steak (likes 'em medium rare).

I sympathize. This thief stole my suet feeder just yesterday. Snuck up on me, he did.

I also live in 'the sticks' and have many of those characters about. Over the years we've managed to maintain a comfort zone (with some rare exceptions). Otherwise it's a zoo.

Careful, they're faster than a horse 'round here (Catskills).

For a good movie on a quaint seasonal celtic festival, see 'The Wicker Man'.

The place in New Mexico I never get to see is over-run with bunnies.

So frequently we'd find bunny bodies. We figured hawks and coyotes.

Game warden tells us they are cougar leavings

No wonder the ponies were nervous.

no cougars here ...

with a green peppercorn sauce, very nice.....

Bunny fever out where I live - dogs almost lived on antibiotics

Sounds hare-y. Not familiar--what form of ailment is it (yes, I did try to Google)? Maybe we can delve into the veritable cornucopia of regional vectors and our favorite vermin---Lyme disease, West Nile virus, Hanta virus, plague, leprosy (Carrville, LA!), monkey pox.....

Sorry, the New Mexico list includes (but not limited to as off the top):

tularemia - "rabbit fever" - carried in beaver, muskrat, rabbit, primary vectors deer flies and ticks

Lyme - bacterial badness - primary vector ticks

Rabies - all mammals

Bubonic plague (thank you San Francisco) - primary vector rodentia

Hantaviruses ( hemorrhagic fever) - aerosolized rodent feces

I sometimes see one of those in my front yard when I step outside to get the paper, or to get into the car to go somewhere. Once, I saw two at the same time, trying to make a third.

You should have taken the photograph of the event (of trying to make third)

How many is that now?

Some still haven't died

Well, counting the live and dead'uns, this one makes 39,435 (and this is the 311,877th comment ).

and somehow I get the feeling you are about to launch into a long summer day Bath Breaking exercise...............?

But on matters of seasons, Auckland harbour had a visit of a small pod of Orca whales this morning

Is that someone hovering just above and to the left of the furthermost whale?

Seems some Kingfisher is hovering catch the fish.

(I didn't say the Whale! )

Sorry for the lousy pic. That's one of the whales in the foreground, a small runabout in the middle and a channel marker up the back.

These might be better;

The Orcas were chasing stingrays

Good shots! Looks like the stingrays were getting a bit upset .

I'll have to fish around, I posted a picture of Elmer the snake that lived under the hay in the barn. A wonder Elmer could fit under the pallets with all the meeces he had to eat.

New Mexico and Arizona we were neck deep in rodentia - I actually bought a king snake pair to release in Arizona.

New Mexico came with enough Prairie Rattlers I didn't need to.

The neighbors kept chickens loose for the scorpions.

We liked having animals work for us, watching your step was a small price.

That's most commendable of you regarding the King snake. In eastern Ontario we have the Milk Snake which unfortunately suffers from locally ingrained superstitions. I consider it to be a welcome resident by keeping my maple sugar shack free of mice (they're also unusually trusting and curious). Though we have no rats here I unsuccessfully petitioned to get a pair of Black Rat snakes re-introduced on my property.

Duck,

I guess in Canada they think like they do down here. the Milk snake sucks milk from the cow?

There is also a really good rural legend that says a Whip Snake bites its tail and rolls through the grass like a hoop.

Every black colored snake down here in Louisiana is thought to be a Moccasin and somebody kills it. A water Moccasin floats completely on the water, others just protrude part of their body. But every body sees a black snake and its a Moccasin .

Hog nose gets killed a lot because they vaguely resemble copperheads.

Spotted Kings always get killed because of their size and people get upset when I tell them that THESE snakes eat the poisonous snakes! Dummy!

There is no better rodent control then a snake. they track the rodents down in their holes, your attic, your shop or outside in the yard....so much easier than a trap or poison bait.

I do a lot of work with enviromentalists and each day i hear more and more discussion of how uneducated people destroy habitat and animals through ignorance and rumor. ...Now some just pollute the poop out of the environment because they know they can get away with it.... that will never be stopped because its cheaper to pay the fine than to pay for the proper disposal.

That gigantic dead zone south of us in the Gulf of Mexico is always blamed on Mid West aggricultural run off but I am wondering just how much industrial waste is mixed in there too?

One day this planet will "bite back" and when it does......watch out human race!

Smitty

lot of work with enviromentalists and each day

One of my favorite tests for "environmentalists" ('cause I ain't in that granola eatin' tree hugging way) is whether they fear snakes. Whether they are comfortable in the outdoors.

Or are they just another city-dwelling sentimentalist.

"...city-dwelling sentimentalist."

That's too good. I may have to steal borrow that one.

I've also encountered rampant fear of snakes by others. These same cowering hordes also fear spiders, which perform similar exterminating services. Guess it's just fear of the unknown. Or viewing too many stupid movies and treating them as documentaries.

This entire thread seems to be composed of off-topic posts. Is this a new record?

Not hardly - Kris is responsible for that abortion disaster catastrophy ramble currently at 2783 posts and counting

See Bath Breaking

I had started to follow that one not long ago....but then as volcanoes started to erupt and dinosaurs evolved and time passed, alas, I had to stop. Too funny.

I personally had to go earn a living around #1000, got some spare time and found it still alive (It's alive!) around #2300 - now I can't leave it

Kris has put so much effort into nurturing it, and now they compete for round numbers of posts

ROFL

'Bath' is like some kind of weird plant, sprouting in all directions. Possibly the nearest thing to perpetual motion that CR4 will ever see - it's way beyond my control. There is a fair amount of bath-related stuff in it, but it's a bit hard to find (!) amidst all the jokes and anecdotes.

Yeah, you and Del are going to have some answering to do when the servers collapse under the weight of that thing

And do we know any welders? Advice needed at the front door.

"Tig" - you're it !

Del says I can't say OOOOhfh anymore

Del says I can't say OOOOhfh anymore

He might be saying it for your own good......depends on how you say it

Well now where will we be if we suddenly change track and start doing what is good for us?

Ha ! When somebody says "this will be good for you", you just know it's going to be unpleasant. 'don't' or 'you mustn't' have got to be the most compelling green light around. My favourites are stickers saying "warranty void if seal broken", and plastic casings that aren't designed to be opened.

Don't, you mustn't and Don't you Dare! have to be my personal faves!

Always a good sign of something NEEDS doing!

To quote Kris in 'bathtub'

"It would be neat if CR4 had a dribble forum "

and then I think that thread became the dream.....

I really should explain these things...._{OK, you understood the meaning correct !}

...for a better word, I build gear that is used to sample endangered species of marine life ( and inland fish) in some of the nastiest environs immaginable.

In their defense, these folks work under conditions where some commercial fisherman I know would stay tied to the dock.

I call them environmentalists in the true sense. They collect real data and make real assestments. There are not many that are in the office more than one or two days a month during the ice free months . Those working below the Mason Dixon often go out year 'round.

The gang that works for Fisheries and Oceans and the USGS and NOAA on the Lakes , HAVE to quit around November.......who is going to be sampling fish on those frozen ice packs or storm tossed waters in the winter?? Ehhh?

The Ocean going bunch travel on pretty big rigs but a 40' wave coming at you at 2:00AM is still going to shake your fillings and look like a 4 story brick building of green-blue water in those forward search lights!

Last year they brought up some really interesting specimens from 3500 Meters on the slope of "the Trench" out of Guam.

Now, do the people that make the environmental laws and such actually listen to these folks? I do not know. But these crews deliver the real deal and I can say that because I spent time with some of them .

No, my bunch are not office pansies or tree huggers by a long shot......... I've been with them when the fire alarm went off ,when the radar showed water spouts and when the chief engineer hollered ,"everybody find a bucket and follow me below"!

......they're seasoned like Louisiana crawfish on a Saturday night!

And no issues with that flavor - hats off to 'em!

As post 57 says, in this thread there are more OTs than original subject.

Shall we start separate thread and spare this thread for original subject of Longest day?

Yep.........the local information bureau here (a compendium of old wives tales and a high degree of ignorance/imbecility) has the milk snake milking cows. It's the reason the Ministry didn't allow the re-introduction of the Rat Snake (the last of which was killed a few years back and, courtesy of some imbecile reporter, commended in a newspaper article). Thankfully, the wolf population is protected though I've heard that trapping them still continues.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nScxF8vGw0 the "vicious" Hog Nose snake (my wife feeds the one living under her petunia pot)

I an particularly fond of King snakes, especially in rattler territory. I have caught them in the wild, and with a little petting, they will hang out with you for a while if you're just sitting around. Is that Black Rat snake the same as the Black Racer? They will scare the bejeezus outta you by chasing you at speed! Hog snakes are good ratters too but don't like us as much as King snakes do. Lots of smaller beautifully colored snakes here in the Catskills of NY, along with an occasional Timber Rattler high up on the ledges.

I really don't know if they're the same species. I've never seen either courtesy of the fact that the Rat snake became extinct in this neck of the woods.

A snake I often run into while camping is the Fox Snake (endangered)...........very curious and will also hang around the campsite poking their head into every bag and containor lying about.