Tony's Catch All Journal

I have to hold my ears when Jake shot that deer that critically injured itself jumping over our fence. I was raised mostly in the country till I was 13, then we lost the place.
But I was raised by a city slicker who would shoot anyone who shot deer on her property, She really had a good aim, shot the head off a few rattlers, loved to practice shooting.

 

Yes Ma'am! I learned early how to forage in the woods for berries and mushrooms. I had to help muck out stalls, load a hay wagon out in the field, feed the chickens and gather eggs. I hated gathering eggs. Those chickens pecked hard on a little girls hand....lol. I helped with the gardening, cooking, and canning, and so much more.

When I was much older and was out and about in the world, my co-workers or newly founded friends couldn't believe that I was raised in the country or did a lot of those things. Especially when I said we ate wild game and we butchered our own food and so forth. They gasped and said I didn't look, talk, or act like the type of person that did those things. I didn't know there was a "type"

 

My thoughts were it was used to blow air between the skin and the meat to loosen it.

 

We talked a lot about it came up with all kinds of theories but never knew what really happened. We laughed at how fast we stumbled over each other going down the stairs.

 

A few things are coming to mind based on other post here.
My family never owned a real gun, however on a vacation upstate my uncle bought a bb gun. I used it a lot for the 2 week while we were on vacation. If I say so my self I became an excellent shooter. I hit a wire that ran between poles on the street. Tin cans were an easy target from 100ft.
Latter when we got home, we went on an outing to Funland in Rockaway. They had a shooting gallery booth using a bb gun. My father said try hitting these. Beside the moving targets, they had a bullseye with a small dot in the center which I hit it was a switch connected to a camera that your picture if you hit it. I kept that picture on my dresser until we moved.
I raised rabbits in Brooklyn in the backyard after my grandmother passed.

 

So you got the practice in either way. I never was allowed to touch Mamas gun which was always beside on the car seat. I saw her threaten a man with it once who was sneaking into our property to fish I guess, His car slid into the red mud dirt on the road to the lake, and she pulled up behind him a shot up in the air and we saw that man actually pick up the rear of the car and slide it back on the road, he was a large black man but cars back then were heavy metal and very large. She would also holler in the woods at escaped prisoners to "get the hell off her property". We lived several miles from a prison farm. Sometimes if they escaped, they would camp out in our woods.
Mama was known by the neighbors as the postal packing blonde from Redan Road.

 

I was thinking that @John Brunner but I have never seen it done.

 

It was a Friday night, and word had gotten around about our "club." We were now at 7 members. We were sitting on the floor of a windowless rear room of a boarded up house. Whoever held the flashlight that lit the room couldn't leave it like a lamp but was continually moving it and blinding us. It was really annoying, so I said, "Why don't we meet here tomorrow during daylight, and I will put the electricity on so we can use the ceiling fixture. we have to be extremely quiet. "
The next day, we were off from school it was a Saturday, and we met as planned. Some of the lighting fixtures in the house had bulbs already, but I brought one just in case. I placed kids around the house to let me know if the lights went on. My friend Phil came with me outside, where there were Bilco type doors that led to the cellar, I was sure the power box was there. As I switched on the power for different circuits, I could hear faintly, "I got lights." Phil had gone up to check, next thing I knew some of my friends were in the yard cheering, thinking they were funny they closed the cellar doors and stood on it locking me in the cellar. I had to bull the door open with my back. All seven of us were in the yard now. We went through the back door to head to the front staircase to go up to our "club room." The front door was right at the start of the staircase. We could see through the glass of the door Mrs Frick, talking to a man and pointing to the house, we all had the same thought that must be the owner, "let's get out of here."
We ran to the backyard, looking for an escape. There was a vacant building right against the rear wall of a factory whose entrance was on the next street over. My friends, who are a lot more agile than I was, went up to the second floor of the vacant building out a window, walking around a ledge to the roof of the factory. Blackie stayed behind to help me. He guided me to the factory roof. Now I had to find a way down from the roof of the factory. Again Blackie stayed to help me. The rest of the gang climbed down a vertical wall with the help of a drain pipe and were on the next street over, I couldn't do that.
There were a number of attached factory roofs that were parallel to the street I lived on. We ran along the roofs Blackie on one side me on the other looking for a way down. I found a similar situation that got us up on the factory roof it was further down our block. There was a rear building with a ledge except this time the building was being lived in, but the ledge looked close enough to a clothes line pole that we could climb down. Blackie went first I followed his foot steps on the ledge, he jumped to the pole then coaxed me to do the same. He watched from a lower vantage point as I jumped, all the time encouraging me. I was on the pole Blackie was already in the yard. The only problem was when I landed on the pole, my left foot landed on a giant clothes line hook, which caught my sneaker. I was hooked to the pole like a fish on a hook. There was a front house whose entrance was on the street that I lived. The plan was to go through the hall to get out if I could ever get off the hook. I tried very hard to remove my sneaker from the hook. It didn't take long for people to start looking out the windows and yelling. Well, I removed my foot from the sneaker, climbed down the pole me and Blackie made our way through the hallway onto the street. Blackie walked me down the street to my house, we laughed most of the way. My laughing stopped when my mom saw I only had one sneaker. I don't recall what excuse I gave her for losing a sneaker, but the very next day, we went to Sid's to get a new pair.

 

I guess I'm kind of a bird watcher. The only difference is that I won't travel purposely to see nesting or migrating birds. I only observe birds that come to my feeders. Over the years, I kept running lists of the different types I've seen. The list has been lost since the fire, their probably were close to 20 different types of birds on it.
I've had my share of birds as pets, Canary, Finches, Mule (cross between a Canary and a European Goldfinch), European Goldfinch, Keets, Ducks, Quail for 1 day, and Chickens for eggs.
I miss hearing the song of the Mockingbird. People have complained about their singing because it starts 2:00 to 3:00 in the morning and goes to sun up. I enjoyed listening. Since we removed a few trees, especially the 30 ft Holly in the front bed, I no longer see or hear them.
A few days ago, I put together a new bird feeder that my daughter gave me for Christmas. Besides the normal seed that it holds, it has a place the spike fruit, it has a hummingbird feeder, the only thing it doesn't hold are the suet cakes, it's like an all-in-one feeder. That's not all it has a special feature, a camera built in, to photograph Birds as they come to the feeder. The photos can be captured on a SD card that I installed, or through the WiFi to your Phone, or computer. It's all ready to go outside, except it's not one you can hang from a shepherd's hook. It has a bracket to be mounted on a wooden post or to the side house. I intend to put a post in the ground as soon as it warms up a little bit. Another cool feature is that it comes with a solar panel, so you never have to charge the batteries manually.
I can't wait to photograph some of my Feathered Friends.

 

I wish I had Raccoons, Foxes and Groundhogs. I would love to observe them also.
I do have some birds that do not eat on the feeder, like Blue Jay's. They will sit on the fence and watch the other birds eat though.
I do have squirrels.
They will try to steal some seed. This new feeder is suppose to be squirrel proof.

 

I have all of those critters and more that I can send your way, Tony, lol. I also have deer, skunks, Opossums, and some other critters of the night that I can't think of right now. I have some good pictures of all of them on my home security cameras.

 

Be careful what you wish for. Foxes can be fun as long as you don't have chickens. Raccoons are fun to watch on neighbors property, but no fun to watch raising hell on yours. Groundhogs are great for sighting in your .22. Groundhogs around here have bad fleas that can be passed to dogs and humans, so they are shot or trapped.