Did You know - outdoor edition

[WDH]

I would leave the snake alone and eat the chickens  :D.

[WV Sawmiller]

   They just ain't no pleasin' some folks is they? :D

[WDH]

I have eaten snake in my disturbed youth.  But, rattlesnake, not python.  I much prefer the chicken.  

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you know huge clams grow in the coral in the Red Sea? They completely fill the space in the coral or more likely the coral just grows in around them. The ones I saw were over a foot wide in some cases and had bright beautiful blue lips or mantel which seems to be the proper term. They would open their shells 3-4 inches wide and the blue "skin" would completely cover the opening. There would be a hole in it maybe an inch in diameter. When disturbed the clams would close for protection and you could feel the water pressure several feet away as it was forced out of this opening sort of like a hydraulic valve.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxima_clam

[caveman]

I've never seen or eaten the giant clams, but I have dug and eaten a lot of sun ray clams and some quahogs.  We had it on the FFA officer retreat agenda earlier this week to dig clams, clean and fry them.  The bacteria count was too high in the gulf and bay to take someone else's children into the water.  The way we find the sun ray clams is to go to the bay at low tide and get in two or so feet of water and drag a knife through the sand (6" blade) and when you hit something that stops the knife, dig down beside the blade and it is usually a clam.  The bigger ones are harvested and the smaller are left to grow.

When they farm clams, they generally take them off of feed a couple of days before harvesting, resulting in cleaner clams. 

[Ianab]

They have those giant clams in Rarotonga, but they are pretty rare now as they are apparently quite tasty.  They are slow to repopulate because the small ones are usually eaten by the trigger and parrot fish in the lagoon, so probably only the ones hiding deep in a crack in the coral grow big enough to resist the fish crunching them.  

In the marine reserves (where the glass bottom / snorkel tours go) they are growing them in wire cages. Basically collect some tiny clams, stick them on a likely chunk of coral rock, and peg a cage over top. Nothing big enough to eat the baby clam can get in, but they have full water flow and food / light etc. After a few years they can remove the cage. As they have been doing this for a while they have a number of them around the buoys that the glass bottom boats moor to. The fish also know the spot, the sound of the boats, and that the guides throw a bit of food in each trip. I think they know most of the larger fish by name now.  :D

[WV Sawmiller]

Cavey,

 The clams we saw in the Red Sea did not seem to have enough meat on them to justify the effort of harvesting them. We opened a few to feed the fish and they did not not get a hearty meal. I think I got more meat out of the clams we used to dig at Parris Island USMC base and they were only 3-4 inches in diameter.

 My wife and her friends would go collect them using potato rakes at low tide. We could keep in a 5 gallon bucket of water and steam them in the shell on BBQ grill, in the oven or over a bucket of boiling water. Our Korean SIL stayed with us the last month of my tour there and she'd get up and fix herself a meal of them every day.

  I think some people added corn meal to the water holding the clams supposedly to help clean them out. I can't say if it worked or not. Maybe other can chime in to confirm or refute that rumor.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you know a common technique for catching rattlesnakes was to find their dens, run a garden hose down it then pour a little gasoline in it and blow the fumes down the hose? Some people used to squeeze the juice from an orange, pour a little gas in it and roll it down the den. The snakes come out where they were caught or killed. One of the most common dens in the south were gopher tortoise holes which the snakes often shared with the tortoise. Some expert snake hunters would run the hose down the den and listen to it like using a stethoscope and could hear the tortoise blowing or the rattles clicking to decide whether to gas the den or not. 

   Some people used CO2 instead of gasoline and hooked a hose up to the exhaust of their vehicle or a small GenSet or such and chased them out with the exhaust fumes. I well remember an old Jerry Clower tape where Jerry described running such a hose down a rathole and killing the woozy rats as they came out.

   In many cases this practice is illegal now because many snakes and gophers were gassed to death following this practice. Gopher tortoises are highly protected in Fla to the point major construction projects will be delayed during certain seasons and/or until the tortoises have been relocated.

[Texas Ranger]

In my younger days if a slab had rats under it we would block all holes except for one on each side.  Run a car exhaust hose down one hole and let it run.  We youngens would be one per side with a .22 of some nature and pop the rats as then came out.  A wild minute.

[WV Sawmiller]

TR,

   What is slap that gets rats under it?

[beenthere]

TR,

  What is slap that gets rats under it?

slab

[WV Sawmiller]

   Oh. I see said the blind man to the deaf wife on the telephone :D

[KEC]

My neighbor used to hook a hose to the exhaust pipe of a lawn mower and put the other end down holes made by meadow voles. When the voles bailed out the crows would make short work of them. I never got a chance to watch, but likely it would be better than anything on TV.

[WV Sawmiller]

  Did you know the highest storage volume with the least amount of building material is a circle (or at least that is how I remember reading it somewhere - or maybe it was in a physics or math class)? Bees seem to know this and they compromised with their hexagon shaped cells. While an individual circle would hold slightly more honey, hexagons have the advantage of adjoining, shared walls with no wasted space in between. I challenge anyone to show a storage plan that will support more liquid using less building material than a honeycomb. Add in the extra strength and support and them little bees look awful smart.

[WV Sawmiller]

USDA APHIS | USDA Begins 2022 Oral Rabies Vaccine Efforts in Eastern United States

Did you know the USDA has a program to vaccinate raccoons against rabies by air dropping rabies vaccine in bait by airplane over areas with suspected high densities of raccoons. We heard about this starting in our area soon on the radio in my truck on our way home a while ago so I checked it out.

[WV Sawmiller]

   I mentioned rabies in the last post but did you know another common disease raccoons get in our area is distemper? The symptoms are similar and if you see a raccoon walking around staggering and not scared of people in the daylight it could be either. The last time I saw one in such shape I shot it and called DNR and they said they knew we had rabies in our area so no reason to check it. They just told me to not handle it with bare hands and bury it deep enough other animals would not get to it and possibly get infected. 

[KEC]

If a rabid animal dies and cools quickly, the rabies virus can live for a while. If it freezes, the virus can live for a very long time. If a rabid animal dies and stays warm, the virus dies within 24 hours. This according to a former wildlife pathologist. When I did wildlife control, I would sometimes put a suspected rabid animal in a plastic bag and leave it in a secure place overnight and then bury it the next day. Want to ensure that a carcass decomposes fast? Dump some water over it in the hole before you cover it.

[doc henderson]

lots of lore and good rules about rabies.  there is one girl that survived rabies by being placed in an induced coma and cooled, to preserve brain function.  we do this for people after a code (heart stops) and let them recover some.  Not all animals get sick even if they carry rabies and the extension agent or your vet will know which animals are endemic in you area.  racoons and bats are common carriers.  It is also thought that possums cannot get rabies due to the lower body temp, but in theory all mammals can.  there can be a long delay in symptoms after exposure like months later you could get sick.  if you have racoons in your yard you may be tempted to let you dog out to chase them off.  If you have only one and it acts sick, spare your dog, and shoot the animal.  If a doc gets sick, they can be quarantined and watched.  If they are stray the head will be removed and sent to a vet lab.  K-State here.  Kind of like the old Witch trials where if the woman survived drowning, they were known to be a which, if they drown oops.  Remember Ol Yeller, and the song about Ol Shep.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Yeller

I was reminded of this song at a recent Vince Gill concert.  do not watch this if you are a sentimental old fart, like most of us are.

Johnny Cash - Old Shep - YouTube

[Walnut Beast]

currently vaccinated dog, cat, or ferret is unlikely to become infected with rabies. When an exposure has occurred, the likelihood of rabies infection varies with the nature and extent of that exposure. Under most circumstances, two categories of exposure — bite and nonbite — should be considered.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you know that rabies treatments are normally intra muscular now instead of the 21-23 shots to the stomach that used to be given? When my son was in his teens he caught a skunk and brought it home and messed around and it bit him on the tip of the finger then escaped. Because it got away when we called the local hospital to see what to do they said bring our son in the next day for shots. They were not worried about time sensitivity too much. They gave him a shot in the finger and right arm. A week later he came back and got a shot in the left arm. A week later he came back and got a shot in the R hip. A week later he came back and got his final shot in the L hip. After insurance our cost was $800.

  A year later he came home from fishing with three babies coons he had caught in the road on the way home. When he got in the house they escaped. I grabbed one, he grabbed one and his buddy grabbed one. All three were squalling at the top of their lungs and hiding their eyes with their front paws. (A coon seem to think if he can't see you then you can't see him.) Our German exchange student had run to her room and locked the door. Our daughter and my wife were standing on the couch. My wife yelled at our son "Sean, you're gonna mess around and we are all going to get rabies." His instant and imprudent reply was "Not me, I've had my shots."

  We gave two of the coons to friends and he got a permit from DNR and Chester went everywhere with him including the run of the house he rented at college. My daughter had a friend in the Vet school at WVU and they neutered and gave him the coon his shots. He The coon had a lot of personality and liked to play chase and such but would always bite if he had food. They used to toss him the coon a small crappie when fishing and he'd run under the bow and eat and snarl. He'd fish in the minnow bucket to steal minnows. He'd use a litter box but never learned to cover his waste.

[caveman]

My daughter had a friend in the Vet school at WVU and they neutered and gave him his shots.

If your daughter does that to her friends, I'd be reluctant to hang out with her, no matter how nice she is or who her Daddy is.

[Magicman]

Luke said that he was never going to WV !! 

[WV Sawmiller]

   Boy are you guys a hoot. :D You should go ahead and start yourselves a new religion. I can only imagine the things you can do if you take parts of the Bible out of context like you do my stuff. ;) ;D

[WDH]

Poor guy.  He probably never saw it coming. 

[beenthere]

Now we know.. could add this to the indoor edition too. Am sure others want to know.
Especially Tom...

Wonder where they shot him?