Where Did They Go?

 I guess you all know that the Boggy Thicket is in a heavily wooded area at the Northeast tip of Harris County.  

That is changing - over the last year or so, literally hundreds of acres of wooded habitat within a mile or two of our home have been bulldozed to make room for a tollway and a half-dozen new subdivisions.

You would think that would cause an increase in the wildlife in our area, but as near as I can tell, it has not.  We still see deer, raccoons, possums and skunks, but they are no more common than they have been for the last forty years.

All that wildlife had to go somewhere.  I wonder where it went.

Slippers

 

Mike Lindell, the My Pillow guy, has started selling house shoes. He calls them My Slippers and I bought a pair like the one above a few months ago.

I know I have friends who hate Lindell and his politics so much that they wouldn't buy a pair if they

• were the last shoes on earth
• made your feet smell like lilacs
• cost less than $10
• cured cancer
• came with a lifetime free replacement guarantee.

Well, it's their loss.  

I wear mine most waking hours of every day and can testify that they are the best house shoes I've ever owned.

Prints

 

Honey's Concealed Carry License is about to expire, and when we sent in the renewal, she was asked to take another try at getting her fingerprints.  When she first got her license, it took two trips to the IdentoGO fingerprinting office and a letter from them to the DPS stating that she did not have readable prints for her to get approved.

Now, they are asking her to try again.  Saturday's trip netted readable prints on only two of ten fingers.  Hopefully that and another note will be enough.

According to Scientific American, something like 1 to 2% of the population have no readable prints.  It is common with people who handle rough surfaces all day like bricklayers, and to a lesser extent secretaries who deal with paper all day.  Other causes include chemotherapy and aging.  

In Honey's case, years of working in medical labs, washing hands dozens of times a day is most likely the cause.

Seagull Paradise

 

Seagulls love landfills.

What's not to love? 

They get a constant smorgasbord of stuff to eat, renewed and refreshed with each arriving garbage truck.  The most work they do all day is fly fifteen feet or so to avoid a bulldozer.  

They normally have no natural enemies at the dump, although some places like Orange County California have spent millions to hire falconers to control their population. I'm not sure why - maybe because there are some people who can't stand to see anything having life that easy.

Shades

 

I’ve never read 50 Shades of Gray

But listing them made E L James rich they say

So, here’s my list of shades of green

There’s Corydon, emerald, aventurine

Viridescent, malachite and glaucous jade

Aquamarine and a touch of verdigris

are bound to help my wealth increase

Chartreuse and olive and lime

It’s only a matter of time

just watch all the green come flowing my way

Imaginary Squirrel

 

I was sure I had posted about this last winter, but a search of my blog tells me I didn't.  

I seem to remember writing about our Gray Squirrels having white ears, and even talking about the solid black, Gray Squirrels we used to see at a campground near Romayor, Texas.  The blog post should be there, but it isn't.

Anyway, our squirrels don't have white ears anymore.  Our squirrels did have white ears last winter, but they don't now. I suppose that is their version of a winter coat.

DIDN'T

 

If you're like me (and everybody else I know) you probably pronounce the word didn't like did-unt.  There's even a YouTube video 

that shows you how to pronounce it that way.

When I was in high school, I dated a bright and attractive young lady who didn't say did-unt.  She pronounced it more like did-nit, which I suppose is more phonetically correct, but set her apart from all the rest of the English-speaking world.

I spent days trying to say did-nit, but I never could get it right.  

I wonder if she still says it that way.

Once in a while

 For those who have followed my blog over the years, you know that it has disintegrated lately.  It has gone from daily posts to occasional posts, sometimes only a couple in a month.

Recently, I promised to do better, but I've changed my mind.  From now on, what you see (and when you see it) will be what you get.