…It’s hardly let up raining. We went through a dry spell in August and September, and got some rain in October, but right now we are busily filling those lakes and rivers that provide cheap electricity and we are piling up snow on the mountains that will go on adding to the rivers once spring melt arrives. We’re getting one snow out of this at last report, on Thanksgiving, and then back to rain for the foreseeable future. Animals are pairing up, my friends. 😉
It’ll do this in the northwest. If this were snow, yet, we’d be neck deep, but this is going nicely toward the river, and we’re good. One poor Seattle neighborhood, on the flat, has water up to their car headlights: hope all of you are high and dry. And yes, this is the sort of thing where you see salmon swimming across the roadway…if they were running right now. I’ve seen video of motorists getting out to assist a fat salmon that’s having a little trouble with not quite enough water. 😉
Jane’s still keeping her insane work schedule, but we’re gaining on it. We’re going to try a download site that doesn’t have as many glitches. Same thing as far as what you’ll see, but the machinery should, we hope, have fewer problems referring back to us to fix. And of course—it’s not straightforward, and the system has its own learning curve.
What’d they call it where you’re from? A “toad-strangler”? Some ijot tried to take his 18-wheeler across the Astoria bridge at the mouth of the “mighty Columbia” with predictable results. I just saw a shadow! 🙂
“Animals are pairing up, my friends. ;)” Especially in Washington? 😉
I think so!
I laughed this morning because the local news told people to watch for deer on the road when driving home on Thanksgiving evening. It’s that time of year. I’ve never heard them announce that before! Be safe people! If you live in an area with any thought of flooding, including sewer backup, consider keeping stuff in heavy duty plastic totes. At least the bottom layers.
I can just hear certain individuals creating jokes as why the salmon crossed the road. I’ve seen flooding, I’ve just never spotted fish, because the Ohio tends to be muddy. The concept of helping a fish cross a road is unimaginable. That’s one of the things I love about this group.
I wonder if deer need designated drivers after Thanksgiving dinners? Perhaps if you pick them up before dinner and take them with you, they’ll be more likely to stay off the roads……(that statement has to rank right up there with “When more people are out of work, unemployment rises.”)
So what you’re saying is, Rudolph and company are out early and staying out late?
That could explain things better than the one-night-a-year air courier thing, too.
So if I see a deer out on the road with his hoof out, looking for a ride, I should consider he needs a boost, huh? Hmm, well, I always thought Rudolph was kind of a rebel. But a nice guy.
Note: Highly unlikely to see a deer on the road where I am. Not as unlikely where I grew up. (In fact, we once had a deer come to the back gate. Beautiful critter.)
But around trail riding time, not unusual to see trail riders mosey into town on horse back, makin gtheir way to the park before the rodeo. Yes, motorists have to watch then for cowboys and cowgirls, horses and wagons, and give them room. Very strange sight in a big city, even when you’re used to it.
So, cheers to Rudolph and company. Hah, my cabbie and my former regular cabbie would crack up about picking up a deer for a fare. I’ll have to sneak that one by ’em.
Commuters stopping to assist salmon in crossing the road. Now *that* is really something. Just think, millions of years from now, some salmon-oid might have a human to thank for his bazillion-great grandpa or grandma swimming upstream. Good Earth stewardship.
Hey BCS, I’ll ship you some deer. They’ve had a VERY good dose of stupid pills lately, let me tell you. There is evidence in my driveway that one of them attacked the brush chipper, pushing it around about 3 feet. Of course, it COULD have been two of them pushing each other around and the chipper was just incidental, but with the storm(s?) that we’ve been dealing with and the hormonal stupidness, the deer have been hanging out anyplace that’s not flooded. Like the driveway. And the road. At least they haven’t found the door into the garage again… they did last year. Rather startling to walk into the garage and realize you’ve got a deer cornered and you’re standing in the ONLY way out… At least the second time I was entering the garage from the house and the deer had a way out.
A couple years ago there was a doe in the backyard with a buck on her tail. I walked out to drive them away, and I suppose it was fortunate for me that the doe couldn’t stand the stress of both of us out there, before he saw me as an intruder. He wasn’t leaving her for anything! So anyway, she went over the fence and he went right after her.
That *would* be awkward. The doe was looking for a good garage sale?
Come to think of it, if the nearby church is doing a live nativity this year…. :bwahaha: Oh, wouldn’t they flip if someone brought a deer and put it in a corral? Heheheh….
Probably couldn’t actually do it. Permits, and there’s a major highway nearby, it’d probably spook any animals too much. Fun idea, though.
The Skokomish River on the Olympic Penninsula floods at the drop of a raindrop(?) The Seattle stations feel that it’s obligatory to run a clip of a salmon crossing the highway every time it does. I’m not sure whether they keep shooting from the same location or if they’re cheating with stock footage.
On a personal note, I made a great discovery recently. I’ve suffered from bursitis in my hips that causes moderate to severe pain and cramping after walking 100 yards or so. I bought a pair of trekking poles and I’ve been able to walk a mile or so each way to the stadium from the light rail station; and Friday I was able to walk the perimeter of a hay meadow without any real discomfort. If any of you have hip pain that occurs with free walking that is less of a problem when pushing a shopping cart, it may be simply due to the stress on the hips from maintaining one’s balance. It has nothing to do with support and everything to do with balancing the constantly shifting sideways torque caused by the bipedal gait.
In Ohio I suppose it would be Asian Carp, but they’d be jumping across the road? 🙂
So far, we’ve been fortunate in that there are no reports of Asian Carp in Ohio. I do know they’re in the Mississippi River and are reported trying to get into the Chicago River, which would put them into the Great Lakes.
If they’re trying to get up the Ohio River, perhaps the taste of the water, along with all of the other effluents in the Ohio, are keeping them away. I haven’t figured out why the fish and game people haven’t discovered the best bait for these fish (one that won’t attract other fish as readily), and then have the traps set up to electrocute the carp. You see clips where the wildlife people are boating down the river as Asian Carp are jumping all over the place, including into the boats. They just toss them back…..why? Why not kill them, toss them back in, and let the scavengers in the water clean up the bodies? “Asian Carp sleeps with the fishes.”
I know Asian Carp are scavengers, but if we eat tilapia and catfish, I’m surprised no one has figured out a way to market Asian Carp. Do they taste so thoroughly nasty that no amount of milk-soaking, breading, marinating, etc. will make them edible? Let’s make them a resource, not a pest!
Hey, I heard a recipe for carp a while back. The cook assured me its the best way to prepare carp. Clean and fillet the carp, lay it on a nice alder board, grill it like you would salmon, then when it comes time to serve, scrape the carp off and throw it out, and serve the board.
Not sure I’m really hungry enough to try it though!
Lol—they’re a common dish in oriental cuisine. I’ve actually eaten one—or, well, part of one—at a traditional Chinese dinner of a zillion courses, in which you learned to use ivory chopsticks (slick and round) or go hungry. It was baked, with spices, head and all, and the flavor actually wasn’t too far from Long John Silvers…
ISTR they’re too boney, and don’t particularly taste that wonderful. ‘Bout all you can do is grind ’em up. Surimi, anyone? 😉
Carpe piscem? Habeas carpus?
No, I still don’t speak Latin, but it was just too good to pass up.
Carp Diem!
Some years ago, during a particularly wet winter in Southern California, some catfish got washed out of a lake and ended up in flooded intersections. One of the officers managing traffic handcuffed one of the fish to a wheel on his vehicle – something like a forty-pound fish. (It was donated to a food bank.)
“Handcuffed a fish.” Now there’s one you don’t see every day!
Nice donation too.
At least the rain has been stopping for a bit off and on.
I think one of the neighborhood kitties that I feed has probably been abandoned because he seems to be sleeping under our porch now since he manages to show up for food almost completely dry. With the rain as it was yesterday, he had to be close!
He’s a good looking brown and black tabby, long and lanky, almost a spangle but not quite enough breakage in the stripes. He’s taken a bit to warm up to me. I did some EFT rounds to ease his shyness, and he started allowing me to pet him. Of course, once I started offering him salmon kitty treats, he became my best friend! *lol*
And that was very nice of those folks to help a big juicy, er, I mean plump, salmon across the road… Lucky for it, those folks weren’t into eating salmon. Or maybe it’s just that the fisherfolk would’t consider that fair play, just walking over and picking it up?
If you get overwhelmed, once again feel free to send any spare rain out here. Despite our reputation for being among the wettest spots on earth, between El Nino, La Nina and global warming, our regular allotment of precipitation seems to have gotten misdirected. Many areas have been in slight to severe drought conditions for several years now.
Ah yes, feline cupboard love. Smartypants has gotten to the point where he demands food alongside Zorro in the mornings, but still backs away from the Fingertip of Friendship.
Down here on the southern Oregon Coast we have gravel the size of golf-balls scattered across the highway in spots this morning, and every bit of bark in Fred Meyers landscaping is either in the street or piled up against the front door (the low spot in the lot.) The road crews are all out re-evaluating the ditches, a few of which have been nicely filled by the hillside, and the street sweeper is probably putting in overtime.
BUT… (knock on wood) the rain seems to have let up for a minute or three.
Re salmon assistance, a 2 foot fat salmon is hard to conceal, and tv cameras were there. It’s illegal to poach salmon.
Like most southerners who’ve seen a lot of schoolyears films on salmon, I got the impression the salmon run was one coherent (or maybe coho?) event, but no, each species has its own schedule, so there’s a decent chance of finding a salmon in certain Washington streams for more than 2-3 days a year. 😉
:: Is trying to parse, “illegal to poach salmon” in a way that doesn’t have himself snicker over the double entendre. Tries not to ask what’s the dill with that. ::
I thought it was one massive mélée, the salmon run. Learn something new around here every day.
Oh, but poached salmon is Sooooo “delish”!
It’s really not so bad north of the University District (Seattle) but I don’t have to venture into the floodplains. I bought my newest house 5 years ago on a high spot after having a garage that flooded every winter. Learned my lesson. And, after having to deal with wetland issues at my old place and the impact on remodeling options, I avoided any property close to wetlands. Today is much drier so I’m hoping my poultry pasture isn’t so squishy when I do chores!
The sarasa goldfish stock tank is overflowing into my daphnia live food culture tank so greenwater feeding is happening without human intervention. That’s a good thing!
Salmon streams: Even if the adults are spawned out/dead, the fry inhabit freshwater for varying periods of time depending on species. I used to help one of my room-mates in college electroshock various northern California streams to count and ID fry and it was surprising how many fry could be in there! Electroshocking doesn’t kill the fish….they bounce right back. It’s just faster/easier than netting. So, in many steams/rivers there are salmon present all year. Just different life stages. AND the same species may have different ‘runs’ in the same river system. Complicated….and I didn’t study salmon except in a superficial sense when getting my fishery degree. I didn’t go to one of the ‘salmon U’s’.
The good thing about rainy weekends is that I get way more reading done! I need to start again with volume 1 of the Foreigner series….but the book pile is daunting.
“Jacks” will stay in the freshwater streams long enough that although not large and morphed like the ocean-run males, they’ll try to sneak in on the breeding.
Interesting about the salmon. I’ve yet to see a live one swimming except over at the display fish ladders. I wanted to go to a place where I’d see them jumping up falls…
Then I thought about the bears…
Meanwhile, over here in Spokane for about an hour we’ve had brilliant china blue skies with cream-colored Maxfield Parrish clouds. They’re starting to get more frequent, how-some-ever. It’s going to start taining again.
They fly at Pike’s Place!
Well, CJ, if you want to see salmon actually out being and doing, hay-straw on over to Idaho and I can show you salmon redds, the actual nests, complete mit das salmonids in situ (howzat for butchering two–or three–languages at once?). You’d figure that a town called Salmon would have some in the area (though Stanley is a better place to see ’em).
And a Happy Turkey Day to you and Jane!
Mmm, Stanley, eh?
Undoubtedly there are spawning sites in the Clearwater system (i.e. east of Lewiston), which is far closer to you than Stanley, after all. Stanley’s advantage is that you can stand on the river bank, in town (thereby reducing sharply the bear quotient), and see the fish. Though they don’t leap in that part of the river–not too much spawning in rapids or waterfalls. The forestry service, or maybe it’s the Fish and Game guys, puts up signs warning that the redds are active (to warn away rafters), so they are usually fairly easy to find.
Just did the copy-edit review for Protector: the process has gotten into the production stream. From here on it’s all pretty tightly scheduled.
Hot dog on the copy edits and galley edits. Congratulations! You can relax more on Thanksgiving.
THose 40 pounders will eat young ducks and they really put a burden on a small lake. I’ve seen a few, and they’re impressive.
Any o’ your folks go in for “Okie noodling”?
Noooooooooooooo, not even when I was young and would try most anything. The water looks like pottery slip, liquid terracotta, you can’t see anything below the surface, the old lunkers hide in stable spots where the current isn’t as much issue, and your choices are: 1) a 40 lb catfish that, this last season, has gotten fat eating baby ducks, turtles, other fish, etc—he’s the prize. 2) a water moccasin, one of the poisonous dirty dozen of America 3) a 40 lb snapping turtle, that can take fingers off 4) an alligator gar, or his cousins, a freshwater toothed fish that has been accused of taking people. 5) a crawdad with pincers that will convince you you’ve been nabbed by one of the above.
I’d almost rather dive for gators.