tjm

Mountain lion and spiders don't even make the list.

how many of those cali victims were in a tree stand? How many were even aware of the lion in advance? The Kalama incident is typical of cougar. Unseen until attack is complete. I probably should have said that a seen cat doesn't seem too dangerous to my mind, the unseen cats are of course something to fear. They can gut a horse or elk with one slash of the kind foot.

Saw several lions back in the '60s in Id., when horse backing BLM and Forest lands, a couple fairly closeup. Some Dad's friends hunted them with hounds, and I don't think they ever pose much of a threat to humans. If one was threatening a human, it would be in an ambush situation and the cat would be on the human before it was seen. They can and do kill livestock, but it would be rare for that to happen where the owner would witness it. I have seen a few lions in Mo. and have heard believable stories of others. My grandfathers generation called them "panthers".

Wednesdays are fishing days.

I they let us fish week days, I'd use the parks a lot more. The system is set up for only people that have weekends off.

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.