Post a photo, any photo

jswordy said:

Wifie ... got bit by chiggers real bad a couple times (you Yankees look 'em up), so this will keep her out of the trees. .

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trombiculidae

(For us Yankees)

jswordy said:

and she got bit by chiggers real bad a couple times (you Yankees look 'em up),

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Got covered in them once. That was more than enough.

bkisel said:

This mornings "puppy hike" took Sadie and I to the Lambs Creek "Bike & Hike" trail. The South entrance to the trail is just a few short blocks from downtown Mansfield, PA....
.

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Perhaps......

Nevermind, nice picture

bkisel said:

Jim, how high off the ground is the rigging?

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8 feet high. Post is a 10-foot section of 1-1/2" conduit driven in 2 feet with a post driver. V1 stood up to 40 mph gusts in Irma, no problem.

So far, it has not been bothered by coons. Now being pestered to create more of these to replace the worthless flimsy store-bought posts we have, which they easily climb and bend so the feeders fall off.

I have materials to make one more, then I will graduate to figuring out how to solidly mount the tops of the flimsy feeders we have to the conduit after the conduit is driven into the ground. Currrently, I'm thinking a hole or two in the conduit with a nut welded to it, and a large thumbscrew or two, will work.

This spot used to be graced by a huge maple, and we used the rope and pulley system to raise the feeders into it. I unknowingly rented a Ditch Witch that was contaminated with verticillium wilt and that killed the tree and also made that spot no good for any more maples or other susceptible species.

We tried maple replacements; they die after a year. Learned the hard way, wash your rental diggers before you use them. I still miss that tree, a decade later. It did keep us warm a winter, though.

Boatboy24 said:

Got covered in them once. That was more than enough.

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Yeah, she reacts badly to them. A couple bites and her whole body turns into a rash and she has to go get steroid shots and pills. It is real problem, since a farm and chiggers just got together. She wasn't always like this. Things change as we age. I have tried pesticides, and they do work. For awhile. Can't spray the whole area every month.

Walkway to my dock. That was a nice tree I had to go around. I guess I will cut it down now. We worked hard getting around it. My neighbor saw a baby alligator in his front yard yesterday. The daddy is probably drinking the last of a great merlot I have.

The water was up to my front porch yesterday.

olusteebus said:

Walkway to my dock. That was a nice tree I had to go around. I guess I will cut it down now. We worked hard getting around it. My neighbor saw a baby alligator in his front yard yesterday. The daddy is probably drinking the last of a great merlot I have.

The water was up to my front porch yesterday.

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Where is the "unlike" button? Sorry for your troubles, 'bus.

olusteebus said:

Walkway to my dock. That was a nice tree I had to go around. I guess I will cut it down now. We worked hard getting around it. My neighbor saw a baby alligator in his front yard yesterday. The daddy is probably drinking the last of a great merlot I have.

The water was up to my front porch yesterday.

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I had a big pine do that many years ago. Turned it into a standing totem pole with a chain saw. Don't cut the stump down, turn it into a memory.

I used to be a board member of the Westport Astronomical Society. Since moving about 45 minutes away, now I'm just a regular member.

Anyhow, we had a 12.5" reflector telescope up on the dome. On Saturday, we installed a 16" Meade Schmidt Cassegrain telescope. Here is the picture of the newly installed behemoth telescope. The funny thing is, this is NOT our biggest telescope. Our biggest one is a humongous 25" Obession dobsonian telescope.

I'm not in this image as I had left just before they took it. This is most, but not all the guys who pitched in to make this telescope possible. (The scope itself was donated to the club)




This is the 25" Obsession telescope. Yep, it requires a latter to use it. Don't mind Bob, he is the Observatory Director and Vice President.

After Saturday's "puppy" hike Sadie and I drove around a bit and wound up at the Hammond Lakes
overlook...
.

olusteebus said:

Walkway to my dock. That was a nice tree I had to go around. I guess I will cut it down now. We worked hard getting around it. My neighbor saw a baby alligator in his front yard yesterday. The daddy is probably drinking the last of a great merlot I have.

The water was up to my front porch yesterday.

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Trying to look on the bright side: at least it didn't come down on your dock.

Boatboy24 said:

Trying to look on the bright side: at least it didn't come down on your dock.

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Ummm, "yet."

Be careful out there!

sour_grapes said:

Ummm, "yet."

Be careful out there!

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Yeah, I wasn't going there. Hopefully, the fallen section can be safely removed with no further damage.

dcbrown73 said:

I used to be a board member of the Westport Astronomical Society. Since moving about 45 minutes away, now I'm just a regular member.

Anyhow, we had a 12.5" reflector telescope up on the dome. On Saturday, we installed a 16" Meade Schmidt Cassegrain telescope. Here is the picture of the newly installed behemoth telescope. The funny thing is, this is NOT our biggest telescope. Our biggest one is a humongous 25" Obession dobsonian telescope.

I'm not in this image as I had left just before they took it. This is most, but not all the guys who pitched in to make this telescope possible. (The scope itself was donated to the club)

This is the 25" Obsession telescope. Yep, it requires a latter to use it. Don't mind Bob, he is the Observatory Director and Vice President.

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How thick is that concrete pad for the Obsession?

Virginia Dare wine barrels

I just got back from a week long trip in Sonoma. One of the wineries we went to was Virginia Dare (which is owned by Coppola). This was part of their barrel room, which had a total of 6,000 wine barrels!

skyfire322 said:

I just got back from a week long trip in Sonoma. One of the wineries we went to was Virginia Dare (which is owned by Coppola). This was part of their barrel room, which had a total of 6,000 wine barrels!

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Glad I don't have to top up all of those!

skyfire322 said:

I just got back from a week long trip in Sonoma. One of the wineries we went to was Virginia Dare (which is owned by Coppola). This was part of their barrel room, which had a total of 6,000 wine barrels!

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I can just image what kind of investment ....

I composted a few poinsettia plants into the compost pile like I always do. This year was the first year I ever got a volunteer poinsettia. The leaves are not solid red like the leaves are on the poinsettias that well all know. The red leaves are bracts not flowers. The flowers are those tiny greenish balls on the top of the plant. I took this pic with my droid phone a couple of weeks ago. This is in the sweet potato bed along with a lot of weeds.

olusteebus said:

How thick is that concrete pad for the Obsession?

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Not exactly sure, but I would guess somewhere between 8" to 12" pour. The scope is heavy, but not that heavy. A couple of a hundred pounds maybe. The main weight is the thick 25" wide mirror at the base.

You have these wooden handle bars that connect to the base of the scope that allow you to move it around like a wheelbarrow. Actually, the wheels are connected to them. You can see them in the picture, but the wood sticks out to the other side of the scope. (hidden behind the black cloth covering the mirror / aperture.)

Reason I asked, I know someone with his own observatory and he placed the scope on a very thick pad.

I bet that organization provides for some great learning experiences.