tjm

Pretty well naturalized by now, I picked night crawlers by the hundreds in south Idaho as kid and by the thousand years later in southern new England and have found them in the woods in the Ozarks. The internet says those "red wigglers" are "manure worms" so I guess they must be continent wide as well. All things are becoming Globalized. No longer talk of "invasive" now they are just "new to the region".

All invasives are imports, otherwise they would be natives. I read once several years ago that all earth worms in the USA are invasives, but I'm not sure that it's true.

You would think any big hospital would have a surgeon capable of hand repair, but when I put my fingers through a table saw years ago, there were no hand surgeons in all of NWA nor two hospitals in Joplin nor in Springfield, the folks at St. Johns (I guess that's Mercy now) finely located one in Tulsa, after many calls. I'd say you were danged lucky that surgeon wasn't on vacation. Strange to think such a wound gives no pain, but my cut was the same, I guess the brain shuts off the pain receptors at some level.

housing for employees that must by company policy live locally?

That copy reads almost like a bot wrote it. Yes a minimum number of posts prior to using the "Buy Sell Trade" would mean that only participating forum members post there. On other forums that privilege usually requires 25 or 50 real posts on the topic forums prior to classified ads access.

Kieth had previously built a similar trout hatchery at the spring in Cave Springs, IIRC. But in the '50s & '60s almost every spring in the region had a trout rearing setup of some sort at least once. I've thought back to how many there were of those in SWM &NWA and wondered if the governments had run some subsidy programs for them. But there were also many small creeks that got trout stockings for a while, so it may have just been a sort of fad, public fascination with the RBT that eventually wore off. I don't think that was 71 highway back then either, in Mo it was Mo.88. The US highway went west from Bentonville through Gravette and north through Noel scenic routes were the rule then. Truckers shortcutted through Bella Vista on the state roads.

@bfishn my young son enjoyed catching what I guess were a couple of your fish near White Bluff back then, late '80s? He still mentions it occasionally. Did all that gravel in the pipes come from the spring?

I meant that still had running water or that showed any signs of maintenance after installation. Of course it was an ill advised undertaking and a waste of money and effort. But Boswell's speculation was taken as fact by almost everyone that read it. And no one seemed to believe his rejection of that theory a year or so later when he actually did the science. I've always thought the key factor was taking the phosphorus out of laundry detergents, after decades of adapting to high phosphorus conditions the native algae really responded to the new low phosphorus conditions.

I don't think I ever saw one of those that worked.

Seems strange that USGS isn't funded, but when they dropped the rain gauge reporting on a nearby stream a couple years ago, I contacted someone there and he gave me the option of funding it myself or finding someone to fund it. I don't recall the $$ but I was surprised that it cost that much for maintenance on a fully automatic instrument that is already in place.

Mom used to can deer meat in a water bath and it kept for months, teaspoon of salt in a quart, just in the top after the meat was all packed in. She also made a mincemeat recipe that she canned that way. My aunt used to pressure can hundreds of trout in Idaho and that came mind is why I asked if you knew how Mo. counted possession limits on canning. Of course REA was still a work in progress back then and with no electricity frozen wasn't a consideration for them. It was salt, cold smoke or can. To me cut up wrapped and frozen is processed.

In past years I have measured 2" in my yard and a neighbor 1/2 mile away with only a hill separating us got 1/2" and another time he got ~2 1/2" and I got zero. I've watched it pour on one side of a paved road and not a drop on the other side at least a dozen times. Rain happens where it happens. But again they show me at 2.55" and my measure is only about 1.7", so ... I'm at about 6.8 since Wednesday, I think. and still no runoff here, although there is some some where in NWA because L.Sugar is mildly flooded at 820 CFS after peaking at 1090 CFS about 4AM. Elk R still on the rise at only ~465 CFS.

Even fried potatoes got a shot of water and a lid. Frying in lard was for the browned flavor, and to have a base for gravy, the steam made it edible without grinding. When fork tender the lid comes off and any remaining steam/water dissipates quickly, most of the crisp comes back, but none of the tough. And my folks never used but about half a cup of water in the first go. How you can ever get chicken tender without a lid baffles me, unless it's a store bought baby bird.

Home rendered lard of course.

Probably any meat Mama "fried" was actually braised, perhaps 'steam-fried' or 'pressure-fried'; as heavy and tight fitting as that cast lid was. Do those canned meats count as part of the "possession limit"? I've been told that frozen game counts, but never was sure.

I'm at about 5.5" since Wednesday and no runoff, although the semi-permanent spring near the house has started to trickle again. Dry since June for the first time in decades. At this point another 2" would cause some flooding.

Enjoy.

When I was in high school, I killed a lot of squirrels and Mama got most of them tender in a cast skillet with a lid. But, she made them feed more people by cooking with dumplings on the days when I didn't get a limit. I don't recall her ever not getting the meat tender enough to eat, even roosters. I probably should have paid more attention to process. That said, I wouldn't compare squirrel to rabbit either. Each is unique in flavor and texture, just as pig is different than calf.

It did about 2" over night, I think. You can check https://www.raindrop.farm/rainfall-totals/zipcode (although as I mentioned they aren't always accurate) USGS Elk R. gage shows a total rainfall since Wednesday of ~3.6", they discontinued the rain gage on L.Sugar.

A rainfall app that estimates accumulated rainfall from multiple data sources says Bella Vista got 0.5"-0.6" over the last 24 hours, but I'm just ~5 miles north of BV and they show me having 0.76" and my measurements are only about half that, although it has rained a bit more since I looked. The grass has turned green again from the Wednesday night/Thursday morning rain, I looked out the window and it took a moment or three for me to figure out what was different about the yard. I suspect more rain west of I49 and less east of I49.

0.3" over 3 days hasn't caused any run off/flooding here at the farm, and it looks like the next 3 days has about 50-60% chance of getting another 1/2", Elk went over 100CFS this morning (~200CFS normal) and L.Sugar is up to ~45CFS from ~30, when normal is ~65CFS. I don't think the county burn ban is has been rescinded yet either.

So far, that forecast has been a bust; we got one lightning flash and three claps of thunder, even though the radar showed it raining hard here, it totals about .3 over the last 3 days.

yes!!! Actually, we got a welcome rain Wednesday night, ~2" and that was the first measurable rain here in about three (or four?) months. Somehow the past showers have forked around our place. Our last good rain may have been the spring floods. Elk R. is at ~93CFS now after a spell of ~65 or so. Biologist said it's been too low all summer to run a shocking inventory on. So, yeah another shower will be nice.

I always knew that gray fox could climb trees, but had ever realized how well until a number of years ago; on a trapping forum one of the members had been photographing bald eagles and in editing a photo of an eagle perched in a large tree discovered that just a few feet below the eagle was a gray fox asleep on a large limb. It must have been 30'-40' off the ground and looked comfortable there. My guess is that ability to climb is why they do better with coyotes than red fox do. Aided in climbing by their claws that are curved and I have read semi-retractable. I've also read that they can rotate their forearms to aid in climbing limbless tree trunks up to 50'.

Neither of those are mandated by the government. The whole world could operate very well on Zulu Time. Actually they did that in about half or two thirds of businesses when I was kid. But the Congressmen wanted to play golf after work and found it two much trouble to change session times when hired people could just reset the clocks. I recall though that one town near the Or/Id border had four times in use during the summer; MST, MDT, PST & PDT because the time zone line bisected the town. In construction we always started at 0630 or 0700 and season didn't matter that much as we were often using lights at both ends of the day. So if the DST has an advantage as you think, why not retain it year 'round? It would be impossible to calculate, but given several time pieces per person and dozens to hundreds in businesses and schools, I'd not be surprised if each seasonal change cost a $billion or three. Throw in the missed appointments by the million people that missed the bulletin and you have another few $billion.