[Colin_Partridge]

Garon, you are right if she see's this post you are dead meat. I am rolling on the floor and I cant see for the tears coming from my eyes. Cant help it you painted a perfect picture. I just cant get the picture out of my mind I could imagine if it happened to my wife just the look on her face. How in god did you ever stop laughing or did you do what I would have done, dissapeared to the workshop. Thanks for the story made my day.
Colin

[Irish]

Oh Jeez! It's bad when you are reading the forum, laughing so hard you need to R-U-N! to the john! Great story! We have what are locally called "Spring Peepers", are they the same thing as little green tree frogs? I've never seen one as they come out in very early spring just to make a whole bunch of nightly noise. They literally sing in the springtime for us.

Colin! Proud to know you! Tadpole lovers unite!

Susan

[Paul_Guraedy]

Susan, I was aware of the tone of your writing and just could not resist the opportunity to return to my roots, even if I was "preaching to the choir" and making a point on the needs of wild critters. I guess I feel guilty every now and then for living back here at the "end of the world" and being relatively immune to what is happening throughout the world. We live at the end of a hollow with our nearest neighbor a quarter of a mile away and the road (using the term rather loosely) ending in our front yard. Anyone showing up here is either looking for us or lost. Unless traveling in our 5th wheel, we still shop only monthly (necessary in our park service days) and often do not leave the ranch for weeks at a time.

Anyway, a couple of items on this thread. Planting trees in a monoculture is a common practice these days and does little for biodiversity (whether the trees are "soft" or "hard" wood types). One precaution to those who may have cattle around, the leaves of wild cherry are poisonous to cattle when green. Don't know about other livestock. But, it sure is a beautiful wood to carve, even if a little on the hard side.

[Irish]

Preach on Good and Honored Reverend for even the most devoted of the choir occassionally needs some re-enforcement when it comes to long term dealings with Evil Developers and the Weekend Worshipers of the Green Desert.

Susan

[Callynne]

What a great topic this is, frogs, turtles, creatures great and small are my favorites!! We live down in a little valley on five acres, but the valley is surrounded by farm land so we see lots of critters all the time, even bear! Which by the way, thanks for the tips, we have some trouble with them now and then. A couple years ago, in the fall right before archery season, hubby had his full body deer target set up out back. We had just settled down for the night, windows open when I heard a noise like a large twigs breaking, sounded too loud for deer walking in the woods but after listening hard we didn't hear it again.

We settled back down when I again heard a noise, sort of a squeaky, crunching sound (hubby is hard of hearing so he didn't believe I had heard anything!). I looked out back, didn't see anything, got back in to bed when a loud crunchy noise alerted even the hubby. We looked out again, the moon was full and....you guessed it...a huge black bear was tearing that deer all apart!! We couldn't believe it, evidently, in the moon light, the bear thought it was a real deer for a second, attacked it, found out it wasn't and really got mad. The next morning we found pieces of that deer spread across thirty feet of the backyard....everything except it's one ear and a piece out of it's neck...bet that bear had a belly ache!!

It still comes back though, last fall I was getting ready for bed, again heard a 'crunchy' noise, looked out back and he was laying under the apple tree right outside our bedroom window, eating apples...much tastier I'm sure than a foam rubber deer!! Hmmmm, maybe he's become a vegetarian! Callynne

[Callynne]

I just started laughing, remembering about the tree frogs and your wife's 'adventure' Garon and realized I forgot to say thanks for sharing it (at peril to your life, I'm sure. It's a great story, made more so since I'm a 'visual' person also and 'see' stories! Thanks for a great one! Callynne