Washingtonians

[cheryl98117]

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Or a coon skin slipper!

 

[Chickielady]

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That would be something, huh?
An old chicken farmer woman in rubber boots & a coonskin cap ?

Naw, inspectors coming, contractor's here, can't go skinning a coon at the moment...

 

[Chickielady]

Holy Moley........
DH just came in & said inspector will be here in a few minutes............

and then the 'ment truck is due here at 10 A.M. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I thought we were pouring this week end!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I better get the cash organized...I thought I had til next week to pay up.
Probably be a few days of setting & then forms off, then backfill & re inspection, then the invoice comes.............

And the sky is BLACK & it is raining cows & hogs here!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Stumpfarmer]

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I very occassionally find a cougar print in the dust of my driveway. We're in a no-shoot zone with plenty of deer cover and numerous wildlife corridors down to the Nisqually Delta, into the Army training areas, and up into Vail Tree Farm, the National Forests, and Mount Rainier National Park. Cougars are not dumb, they learn quickly that humans get crazy and shoot if they see a big cat, and luckily the ones around here don't have the culture or gene for manhunting that the Vancouver Island/Gulf Island/Lower BC population is famous for.

 

[Stumpfarmer]

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There's apparently not a breeding racoon on my place this year: I can tell, because there hasn't been any road-kill on the road yet. The big old hollow pine tree the local female was nesting in got whacked in a NE blow. A lot of my trees are strong on the SW but fall when the gale blows out of the NE. I'm not looking forward to (allthough I am anticipating and planning against!) apple season- among other things I need some strong young'un to take down the part of the Grimes Golden tree that overhangs the Wyandotte coop, although that will have a welded-wire top by the end of the summer.

I let a friend of mine park her brother's wrecked camper-van at my place for way too long- especially since it was right under the big old Bartlett pear tree. A boar raccoon took up residence, killed cats, and I think was pushing coyote drugs from the kind of visitors he had: talk about an attractive nuisance! Luckily the van was hauled away in the daytime, and a junkyard on the other end of town got a bonus delinquent wildlife species.

 

[cheryl98117]

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I very occassionally find a cougar print in the dust of my driveway. We're in a no-shoot zone with plenty of deer cover and numerous wildlife corridors down to the Nisqually Delta, into the Army training areas, and up into Vail Tree Farm, the National Forests, and Mount Rainier National Park. Cougars are not dumb, they learn quickly that humans get crazy and shoot if they see a big cat, and luckily the ones around here don't have the culture or gene for manhunting that the Vancouver Island/Gulf Island/Lower BC population is famous for.

When I was a teen, living on Bainbridge Island. About 4 times a year I would walk out of my house and come within 10 feet of the big Tom Cougar. People freaked out when they realized that there was a very LARGE cat on the island. At the time it was still legal to hunt with dogs on the island IF you had a permit. Well a group of people got said permit and killed the cat. I was not happy about the outcome, as this animal never did anyone any harm, never took pets or livestock, there is PLENTY of dear on Bainbridge Island, they are a nuicence. "sp?"

After that one insident, I refuse to report any sightings of our Cougar. There have been no problems in the 5 years that I have lived here. For the most part, it tends to stay away from people, and you only ever hear or catch a glimpse of it. Very smart cats.

 

[hallerlake]

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It depepends on the materials used. We have had ours for 9 years and it looks the same as the day it was put on. I'm not sure what brand we have, but it is a triclad with all 3 metals being silver-toned. I love it - guaranteed to last 75 years and ZERO maintenance! I was told it may oxidize a bit, but I have seen no sign of that at all. Another neighbor also had a silver metal roof on, but his was clad over copper (I assume it must have been a lot more costly than ours with that metal!) The silver coating on his started to wear off about 3 years ago, and now it is full of long splotches of various color - bright copper where the copper was recently exposed, dark brown where the copper has started to oxidize, hints of green patina and strips of silver. I think it looks kind of cool, but he hates it and is very upset about it. Our roof was rated for 75 mph winds, but we get higher than that here at times, one area of our house acts as a wind-tunnel during storms and a section of roof peeled off while the house was underconstruction. We had the entire edge screwed down, and it is now rated somewhere in the 100's for wind. We are exposed on a ridge overlooking the Middlefork Valley, and we have big overhangs where the roof is exposed from the underside, so it can really get a lot of wind on it. The roof is very noisy in high winds and hail, but I love it. In real strong storms, I sometimes have to go to the basement and sleep as it can get too noisy.

 

[Stumpfarmer]

Comment from elsewhere, from an old friend in Norwich in the UK: "art that makes breakfast parts. awesome."

 

[Stumpfarmer]

Quote:
I very occassionally find a cougar print in the dust of my driveway. We're in a no-shoot zone with plenty of deer cover and numerous wildlife corridors down to the Nisqually Delta, into the Army training areas, and up into Vail Tree Farm, the National Forests, and Mount Rainier National Park. Cougars are not dumb, they learn quickly that humans get crazy and shoot if they see a big cat, and luckily the ones around here don't have the culture or gene for manhunting that the Vancouver Island/Gulf Island/Lower BC population is famous for.

When I was a teen, living on Bainbridge Island. About 4 times a year I would walk out of my house and come within 10 feet of the big Tom Cougar. People freaked out when they realized that there was a very LARGE cat on the island. At the time it was still legal to hunt with dogs on the island IF you had a permit. Well a group of people got said permit and killed the cat. I was not happy about the outcome, as this animal never did anyone any harm, never took pets or livestock, there is PLENTY of dear on Bainbridge Island, they are a nuicence. "sp?"

After that one insident, I refuse to report any sightings of our Cougar. There have been no problems in the 5 years that I have lived here. For the most part, it tends to stay away from people, and you only ever hear or catch a glimpse of it. Very smart cats.

I doubt is most people even know we're in a cougar's home range- I only ever see tracks, it doesn't even mark anywhere. Ditto for the resident bear, who leaves scat during berry season and otherwise stays on the down-low. The coyotes, on the other hand, are fearless; I suspect the one who took my cousin's chickens is the last survivor of a den of pups from the summer of 2002 who were born in the stormwater acre at the NW corner of Marvin and Pacific and were supplemented with dog food and milk by some (deleted phrases describing the intelligence and common sense of some of my neighbors) from the subdivision, at the same time that the community mail boxes were covered with lost cat and lost small dog and missing rabbit notices. She's HUGE and glossy and this is the first year since she was a yearling that she doesn't have pups. And the racoons are terrible; they've figured out how to open the dumpsters at the apartments and when my son was living here and coming home from his job at the Muktiplex he'd routinely see them in a swarm the night before the garbage trucks were due.

There was a bear killed here- or rather down in Evergreen Estates- about four years ago; it was displaced from a piece of open land over by the-store-that-should-not-be-named and apparently hied down Marvin until it found cover, unfortunately right next to an elementary school. Note to bears: avoid the smell of old lunchbox and crayolas, it will lead to nothing good, ever.

 

[cheryl98117]

Quote:
When I was a teen, living on Bainbridge Island. About 4 times a year I would walk out of my house and come within 10 feet of the big Tom Cougar. People freaked out when they realized that there was a very LARGE cat on the island. At the time it was still legal to hunt with dogs on the island IF you had a permit. Well a group of people got said permit and killed the cat. I was not happy about the outcome, as this animal never did anyone any harm, never took pets or livestock, there is PLENTY of dear on Bainbridge Island, they are a nuicence. "sp?"

After that one insident, I refuse to report any sightings of our Cougar. There have been no problems in the 5 years that I have lived here. For the most part, it tends to stay away from people, and you only ever hear or catch a glimpse of it. Very smart cats.

I doubt is most people even know we're in a cougar's home range- I only ever see tracks, it doesn't even mark anywhere. Ditto for the resident bear, who leaves scat during berry season and otherwise stays on the down-low. The coyotes, on the other hand, are fearless; I suspect the one who took my cousin's chickens is the last survivor of a den of pups from the summer of 2002 who were born in the stormwater acre at the NW corner of Marvin and Pacific and were supplemented with dog food and milk by some (deleted phrases describing the intelligence and common sense of some of my neighbors) from the subdivision, at the same time that the community mail boxes were covered with lost cat and lost small dog and missing rabbit notices. She's HUGE and glossy and this is the first year since she was a yearling that she doesn't have pups. And the racoons are terrible; they've figured out how to open the dumpsters at the apartments and when my son was living here and coming home from his job at the Muktiplex he'd routinely see them in a swarm the night before the garbage trucks were due.

There was a bear killed here- or rather down in Evergreen Estates- about four years ago; it was displaced from a piece of open land over by the-store-that-should-not-be-named and apparently hied down Marvin until it found cover, unfortunately right next to an elementary school. Note to bears: avoid the smell of old lunchbox and crayolas, it will lead to nothing good, ever.

Coyotes are a huge problem here as well. We have a very large pack that runs my area. It doesnt help that there are ferral dogs that run and breed with them. Ive counted 23 different coyotes/coydogs in my and my mothers pastures at one time. You can here them coming a mile away! One night DH and I were camping out in the pasture, the pack ran through, and a tussle started right outside our tent. They actually RAN into our tent. My poor old Dusty dog wouldn't even breath, let alone move from the spot she was laying in.

Coons arent so bad around here, they quikly become roadkill around here. Last year we had a family of 6 coons that lived in the bushes on my property. Not anymore! I wiped out ALL the black berries and shrubs that they were nesting/hiding in!

That and my dogs do a pretty darned good job of keeping them away. havnt lost any birds this year to coons. "knock on wood." Then again, I only have 4 chickens out of 32 that are free ranging... And thats only because I can not for the life of me coax them into the coop, or catch them iether for that matter. Stupid old hens, and one flighty Black Ameraucana...