Little known animal facts

Horses: Scared by wild turkeys. *AND* Lizards go "BANG".

I know these things to be true because I have heard and seen them...on my property...within the last month. In fact, I just heard a 5-lined lizard with an electric-blue colored tail come in to visit for a while. I know this b/c I went & investigated after hearing him coming in. Dunno how long he plans to stay, or if the regular brown lizard that came in last week has left yet or not. I always figure if they can find their way in under the door, then they can find their way back out again. Of course, if it's a black king snake that I find in here, I'll be *helping* it back out.

The banging lizard story really isn't a big story.... I was sitting on the couch last week when I saw a brown lizard hanging out between me & my most favorite a/c vent. (Most favored a/c vent status changes depending on what room I'm in.) Anyway, I was just going to get closer to him so I could see him better, but apparently I looked hungry.... for he turned tail & dashed for the door through whence he had entered my living room. Unfortunately for him, the flashing on the underside of the door was hanging a tad lower than he remembered. I heard a definite *BANG* as he shot out under the door. I opened the door & looked for a stunned lizard but didn't see anything. I guess he shook it off & kept going........

The horses vs. the turkey...now that was a sight to behold. If only I had a video camera..... I was driving out about 3 weeks ago & saw the horses hanging out grazing by the edge of the driveway. This is nothing new. Some days they stand in the driveway just for the heck of blocking traffic, but this particular day they were acting strange. Their heads would go down like they were looking at something on ground level, then they'd rear up & shy away a few steps like something was after them. I figured there was a snake out there with them, but no.... when I got far enough 'round the bend in the drive to see, 'twas a wild turkey chasing after them. She'd run at them with her neck all stretched out--looking for all the world like she wanted to take a chunk out of 'em. I thought "she's nuts... the driveway runs along the edge of the woods, she could just run in the trees, the horses aren't much for the woods, they won't follow her"... but she stayed at it, chasing the horses further & further up into the pasture. Once the horses were a 'safe' distance away, she got her 3 little babies, barely as tall as the grass they were (had been) hiding in, to follow her down out of the pasture & back to the safety of the woods...away from the curious snuffling of the horses. Then her actions seemed a lot more sane. :-D

True stories. The truth is stranger than fiction some days... and much more entertaining to experience than to read......

Updates

So far as we know the dog lives on. Hubby's abrasions are healing up nicely, but he's still limping a little by the end of the day. Guy didn't have enough meat on the front of his shins to cushion the blow so he got a mighty bruise. No sign of infection though, so we're happy.

Little guy is sleeping peacefully. Nothing like a sleeping baby to make you smile.

Got company coming Friday night. Out-of-towners from the Northern lands. Guess I should feed 'em more than the "Southern classic" of Dr Pepper & Moon pies...can ANYONE out there explain that to me?? What's the attraction of Dr Pepper & Moon pies???? What?? What is it?? I just DON'T get it!!

We've got the dog on death watch....

That's what Hubby was told today, after being bitten (2x) by one of his offender's dogs yesterday. Actually the situation is not as serious as it could have been. The dog HAS had all of it's shots, so the "house quarentine/death watch" is just a precaution. They (DHEC) on behalf of animal control "watch" the dog for 10 days to make sure it doesn't have rabies. Apparently, if the dog had rabies, it would drop dead within the aforementioned 10 days & they'd know to start hubby on a rabies vaccine. For now he's just on antibiotics.

And, yes, they did get the guy they were there to arrest. ;-)

Golf

Now, I will admit to watching the occasional round of golf on TV, particularly on Sunday afternoons (nothing else on but racing. Sorry-saw enough of that while growing up). Anyway... I got the following from hubby's dad today.......

Ever wonder why golf is growing in popularity and why people who don't even play, go to tournaments or watch it on TV? The following truisms may shed some light:

1. Golf is an honorable game, with the overwhelming majority of players being honorable people who don't need referees.
2. Golfers don't have some of their players in jail every week.
3. Golfers don't kick dirt on, spit on, or throw bottles at, other people.
4. Professional golfers are paid in direct proportion to how well they play.
5. Golfers don't get per diem and two seats on a charter flight when they travel between tournaments.
6. Golfers don't hold out for more money, or demand new contracts, because of another player's deal.
7. Professional golfers don't demand that the taxpayers pay for the courses on which they play.
8. When golfers make a mistake, nobody is there to cover for them or back them.
9. The PGA raises more money for charity in 1 year than the NFL does in 2.
10. You can watch the best golfers in the world up close, at any tournament, including the majors, all day every day for $25 or $30. The cost for even a nosebleed seat at the SuperBowl costs around $300 or more, unless you buy it from scalpers, in which case it's $1,000+.
11. You can bring a picnic lunch to the tournament golf course, watch the best in the world, and not spend a small fortune on food and drink. Try that at one of the taxpayer funded baseball or football stadiums. If you bring a soft drink into a ballpark, they'll give you two options -- get rid of it or leave.
12. In golf, you cannot fail 70% of the time and make $9 million a season, like the best baseball hitters (300 batting average) do.
13. Golf doesn't change its rules to attract fans.
14. Golfers have to adapt to an entirely new playing area each week.
15. Golf doesn't have free agency.
16. In their prime, Palmer, Norman, and other stars, would shake your hand and say they were happy to meet you. In his prime, Jose Canseco wore T-shirts that read "Leave Me Alone."
17. You can hear birds chirping on the golf course during a tournament.
18. At a golf tournament, (unlike at taxpayer-funded sports stadiums and arenas) you won't hear a steady stream of four letter words and nasty name-calling while you're hoping that no one spills beer on you.
19. Tiger hits a golf ball over twice as far as Barry Bonds hits a baseball.
20. Golf courses don't ruin the neighborhood.

21. And Finally: Here's a little slice of golf history that you might enjoy. Why do golf courses have 18 holes -- not 20, or 10, or an even dozen? During a discussion among the club's membership board at St. Andrews in 1858, a senior member pointed out that it takes exactly 18 shots to polish off a fifth of Scotch. By limiting himself to only one shot of Scotch per hole, the Scot figured a round of golf was finished when the Scotch ran out.

See... this last factiod would be funnier if you knew my father-in-law. He once told us (Hubby & I, out to dinner with C&L up in Maine) that Scotch is "an acquired taste; in fact, it tastes like iodine." Therefore it makes sense that even a golf-playing Scot would want to drink it only one shot at a time.

Sex Offenders...

...what to do with them.

Ran across this suggestion on a message board this evening. I think the suggestion has some merit, although it's not exactly a "christian" response....

I do not believe that they can be rehabilitated nor do I believe the registry works. A friend once said that they should be smeared with the scent of a female gorilla and locked a cage with a ready, willing, and able male gorilla and let them learn how it feels.

Hmmm...

A "cool-down" song

What I would have given to have been a fly on that wall... My girlfriend Nancy teaches English at a public school in southern Jersey. Each year several of her students are involved in the AFJROTC (Air Force Junior/Juvenile? ROTC). The kids who are officers in the program are responsible for picking the songs for the Jr/Sr prom. This year their advisor declared they needed to pick out a "cool-down" song... one that would make the hormone-happy teens step back & say "Whaaaa???" thus giving them a chance to 'cool down,' or at least give them a momentary reprieve from all the PDA. So... guess what the enterprising guys of the JROTC picked for their first-ever "cool-down" song? One of the "Silly Songs with Larry" of Veggie Tales fame!!!

Sorry, that just cracked me up. The mental image of all these kids at the prom... getting all hot & heavy with their dates... and then their next dance being to a tune from Veggie Tales?? Tooooo funny.

Oh, and BTW, Nancy said it worked...........

Time is flying by...

Dude, it's JULY already!?!?! Where is the time going?? The kid is over 3 months old, just this week my best friend from high school days came for a visit & has gone again, I've had dinner with 18 people all at once, C&L have already been gone for a week, and I've crashed at their place for an afternoon...just for the couches. What a week!!

Were supposed to have a family w/ 5 kids over for a cook-out tonight (Friday), but we got preempted by a family with 6 kids. (I've only got one kid, how can I compete?) There wound up being 6 adults and 12 kids over at our friend's place (the ones w/ 6 kids)....let's just say that supper was a happy, noisy affair--what do you expect with 18 people eating all at once? My dinner invitation may have been preempted, but they still wanted our company, and the food that I'd already made. Fortunately I had decided to fix the food *before* I cleaned the house, so even though we wound up having to travel for (& with) our supper, at least I hadn't "wasted" time cleaning the house in vain..... of course I suppose there's the down side of having to clean the house later today... but I plan to sleep a bit before then.

Gave blood yesterday. Got my "2 Gallon" pin. Uber-cool. Takes 16 units to get there. Didn't realize I'd been donating long enough to have given that much, although I probably gave more than that while growing up... forever skinning knees, shins, elbows, hands. Never lived up to my middle name (Grace). Ha!!

The kid's 'Fairy god-mother' (my best friend from high school, Nancy) was down this week. Bless her heart, she rented a hotel room so I didn't have to clean the house for her either. She arrived Monday with the requisite arm-load of new clothes & toys for the kid. Coolest is a set of alphabet "Peek-a-blocks" (A-airplane, T-train, etc., and all with at least one moving part inside). Poor kid never got to touch even one of them... but they've all been played with, so guess who did the playing??

We did all kinds of cool things while she was here (besides playing with the 3 month olds toys). Most notable was a side trip to Anderson on Tuesday so we could snap a pic of her standing in front of the T.L.Hanna sign. She shows Radio to her high school English classes every semester (they love it), but they never believe that she knows where Anderson, SC is--much less anyone who lives there. Of course we had to stop by C&L's while we were in town....

.....We took 81 back to Greenville, stopping by Dairy Queen for ice cream along the way. You can't really imagine how much these two Yankee girls like ice cream unless you know that the NE (NorthEast/New England) consumes more ice cream per capita than any other area of the country. Yum! [That tidbit was free!]

Now if you want an interesting perspective on education & educational philosophies (public, Christian, homeschool), you should have been a fly on my wall on Wednesday. See, BD1's FGM teaches high school English classes in a public school in New Jersey... I used to work with achievement tests for homeschoolers... we are both graduates of a Christian school in Jersey... and we were discussing "values education" in the public schools as it correlates to the false Aslan in C. S. Lewis' The Final Battle. I don't know that I made my point well, but we had an interesting discussion anyway!!

Anyway.... it's already past 5am. Little guy will be up around 7:15am, jabbering to himself in 3-month-speak and wanting breakfast shortly thereafter, so I suppose I'd better go get a bit of shut-eye before then. Hurray for weekends!!!