Did You know - outdoor edition

[WV Sawmiller]

    Did you know Guinea pigs did not come from Guinea and they are not pigs? They are a south American rodent that was originally domesticated for food and eventually they have been bred into the present day animal primarily raised for pets.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you know that an oyster is made up of about 40% gonad? (I think I heard when I was in school it was 80% - suffice it to say its a lot.) I think this is where the term Rocky Mountain Oysters came from or at least a contributing factor.

[Don P]

The cavies will have to speak up for themselves  .

[Texas Ranger]

so much for oysters.

[Magicman]

I did not know any of this so Google provided some interesting reading.  I do not eat oysters but still interesting.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you know snakes coil for several reasons - some of these are fact and some are speculation? You can try to figure which is which.

    A snake can strike further and faster from a coiled position.

    A snake coils to protect its vulnerable tail area. (Did you ever watch an experienced dog, fox, coyote, mongoose, etc. catch a snake? They dance around in front of it tempting it to strike and when it does and is out of position the predator strikes,) If you watch the snake hunters in the everglades or old Crocodile Hunter shows they almost always move around till they can get the snake by the tail then they can control and catch it by the head later.

     A coiled snake presents a smaller footprint and can hide in ambush better.

     A coiled snake retains any body heat better.

     For climbing snakes, a coiled position spreads out the body across limbs and such for a more stable position.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you know Black Widow spiders actually rarely eat their mates? They will eat other spiders that get caught in their webs and in some species the newly hatched spiders may eat their unhatched siblings. The common black widow most of us know is about 1/2" long with the stereotypical red hourglass marking on her abdomen. The male is about half the size of the female and lighter in color. I can't say that I have ever recognized a male black widow. 

   The bite is poisonous and you should seek medical attention if bitten. They hang out around woodpiles and old wooden structures so most of us need to remember to be careful and wear gloves. 

    Most bites in the old days came from people using old outhouses and such. I cannot imagine a much more embarrassing reason than having to go to Crystal, my lady doctor, and tell her I was bit by a black widow spider on my mountain oysters.

[doc henderson]

guys were tougher in the old days, and would have never sought help for a little poisonous spider bite!         

[doc henderson]

mostly we see folks worried about brown recluse bites.  nothing to do unless you feel sick (rare) or the skin is necrosing or infected.  half the folks show up with some other insect bite, or 5 minutes after seeing one in the house (that they think might have been one).

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you know they have spotted a rare leopard in Turkey that had not been seen in 45 years and had been though to be extinct? I had never even thought about leopards living in Turkey. I m always glad to hear about a discovery like this where an "extinct" species suddenly reappears.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/article271692037.html

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you know that snakes come out in the winter? While they are not very active since they are cold blooded they are still awake and will come out to sun themselves on warmer sunny days. They tend to crawl under things or go into holes in the ground where the temperature does not fluctuate as much but you need to be careful moving old logs and board piles and such. I read where a dog in Charlotte NC was bitten last week apparently by a copperhead. 

   I remember hunting wood ducks one day in N Fla and we had a real cold spell come through. It was 20* with ice along the edge of the pond formed by a beaver dam when a large cottonmouth suddenly came swimming by. He ended up with a load of #4 shot in his head. I suspect something had disturbed him but I have no idea what it could have been.

[billporterfield]

Did you know? Woodchucks are one of few true hibernator. In northern Great Lakes region, its from October to April. The body temperature will go as low as 35 degrees. During the sleep heart will beat 4 to 10 per minute. The breathing rate a little  as one breath every 6 minutes. How much does a woodchuck chuck, very little at this time

[Don P]

And now I can't remember if it is them, do they wake in Feb, go courting and then wander back for a nap?

[WV Sawmiller]

Don,

  We will see next week.


Did you know woodchucks (Marmots) are common in Mongolia? We did a tour over there at the end of my work assignment in the Gobi Desert in 2006 and found they were quite common in the hills and grasslands of central and northern Mongolia. Eastern Indian tribes used Woodchuck hides for drum heads as they are very tough skins.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you know that the type of gator hunting you see on Swamp People was late in coming into practice before gator hunting in Fla was outlawed? My grandfather was a professional gator hunter and he said just before he had to quit people were starting to hang lines out over the water with beef "lights" and such to catch them.

I don't know whether Grandpa Green loved gator hunting that much or whether us grandkids just loved to here him tell about it and conned him into telling about it more than his other adventures. He was a plume hunter for a while and did not know they had passed a law against it till he sent his bundle to his 3rd buyer. The first 2 sent them back immediately with no comment. The third buyer said it was now a federal offense to possess them and not to send him any more, He said he wished either of the first two had told him and saved him the postage.

Grandma was bedridden so we'd all gather in their big joint bedroom where she could listen too. Grandpa had string pull light fixtures with cords stretched to the bedposts so he could pull them from anywhere without having to get up from the bed. He sit up against the headboard with several pillows to prop him up and we'd gather at the foot of the bed or on the floor to listen to his tales.

He said when he hunted gators mostly he'd "Set them up". I asked him what that meant and he said he'd find a gator hole (Den) in a sinkhole or stream somewhere and try to find the direction of the entrance and get on the back side of it and "Set" there till he came up and then he'd shoot him. He evidently had a long pole with a hook on it he'd use to retrieve the dead gator. He told us a gator could stay under water an hour or more without breathing and if they knew he was there the gator would often come up behind a stick or such and just stick his nose out of the water and take a quick snort of air then he was good for another hour or two of bottom time. Grandpa said if he could just shoot the nose it would injure and agitate and cause the gator to use up his air quicker and he'd come back up quicker.

He speculated that a gator could not count past 2. He said he'd be hunting and some other hunter would walk up and see him and apologize for messing up his hunting and walk away and it would be a long wait for the gator to come up. He said if 2 or more people came up on him, as soon as they left the gator would pop up and he'd shoot it. (I don't know why he never got 2 hunting buddies to come with him then let them walk away if that was true - but he did believe it whether it was right or not.)

Grandpa said he'd found a gator den in a sinkhole one time and was poking around in it with his pole trying to find the direction it went and he said a big old bull gator busted out of there and grabbed 5-6 ft long piece of driftwood in his jaws and turned and tried to take it back in his den but it was too long and he could not get it with it crossways to the entrance like it was so Grandpa jumped on top of him and shot him.

As I remember only the belly hides were sold although he said something about the "buttons" from the back were sometime sold. One lady buyer would dock him $1 for a cut in the hide on  every gator he sold. She paid top dollar so he still bring them to her. Finally one day he explained to her that hole was the gator's anus and it was going to be on every gator. She dropped her buying price by a dollar but no longer penalized her buyers for a cut hide.



Grandpa finally had to quit his by then illegal gator hunting and several other activities when he joined the Fla Fish and Game Department and became one of their early Game Wardens. In the picture above he was probably about 60 years old in his uniform (Looks like an Army Uniform and this was not long after WWII and Korea so it may have been they had them in excess) and his department jeep. He said they gave him the Jeep and told him to use it like his own and he did till they made him quit plowing his garden with it. He explained to the department if it was his jeep he'd be out there plowing with it but they told him it was inappropriate use of State property and he had to quit.

I saw some old Randolph Scott movies recently and Grandpa always seemed to have the same craggy face Randolph did.

I have mentioned but Grandpa hated the Seminole Indians because they raped and scalped his grandmother during the second Seminole Indian wars while his grandfather was away fighting the Seminoles. My Aunt did some research and said Great-Great Grandma was a Seminole herself. We think her name was Moon and her father was Osceola.

Grandpa caught a man firehunting out of season and confiscated a deer he had killed and gave it to the local school. They had deer stew for lunch the next day and the man's son told several classmates "We would not be having this deer stew if it weren't for my dad." Dad's older brother, Uncle Junior replied "You might be having deer stew but we would not be having it if not for my dad".

Grandpa Green was the patriarch of the family and we all lowed to spend time with him.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you know that some birds can live to be over 100 years old? Act now - buy an obnoxious parrot or macaw, train it to talk using embarrassing phrases and will it to your grandkids and get even with them for not coming to visit.

   When she was a kid my wife's local vet, who was obviously an Auburn grad, had a pet parrot and a bunch of his derelict buddies there in N. Alabama (I think one ran a sawmill near Huntsville) taught the bird to yell "Roll Tide". Fortunately the vet had a sense of humor and did not remove the birds vocal cords.

   In some quick research I discovered birds do not age like people and many other animals do and it is very hard for scientists to tell the actual age of a bird once it reaches full maturity.

https://abcbirds.org/blog21/bird-longevity/#:~:text=Whether%20you%20want%20to%20ace,years%2C%20depending%20on%20the%20species.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you know birds preen to clean, straighten and protect their feathers? They spend much of their day preening. Most birds have a type of oil secreting gland at the base of the feathers and a few others have a number of down producing feathers that serves the same purpose. The birds evenly spread the oil or dust on their feathers to help make them waterproof and reduce wind resistance. During this process they also remove parasites and broken feather and other debris. Each feather gets individually preened cleaning and fluffing and arranging it.

[KEC]

Ducks have an oil gland by their butt; when you see one rubbing its' bill there and then on their feathers they are transferring oil to the feathers so that water beads up and runs off. I think that birds that get into petroleum that rehabilitators wash with soapy water have to be held captive until they can replenish their feather oil. If released just after being washed they can get waterlogged and or succumb to hyperthermia.  Some birds will hold an ant in their bill and run it through their feathers. Ants produce formic acid and this may be a way to make life hard on parasites. I once watched a Great Crested Flycatcher laying on its' back on a hot sunny day with its' wings open. I suspect that it had something to do with parasites. 

[WV Sawmiller]

    I don't know about flycatchers but Anhingas and Cormorants will often be seen on low limbs over and around the water with their wings spread as you describe. They are nearly always drying their feathers after a dip/fishing trip in the water. I never saw a bird doing that laying on his back though.

[WV Sawmiller]

  Since we drifted off into threshing material on a sister thread I am reminded of seeing old leftover millet stalks and such used for roofing materials on huts in remote African villages. Did you know how a round African mud (Sometimes stone or cow manure but usually clay) hut/home were built?

The builder basically starts with a stake in the middle of the new hut. He then takes a piece of rope the desired radius (half the diameter) and with one end connected to the stake he scribes a circle with the other end like using an old style compass like we used as kids in school. Instead of a rope a small diameter stick could have been used.

Once the outer floor is marked a foundation is built using stones or mud bricks/blocks. In some cases short poles will be inserted in the foundation for extra support. These are not very tall as I do not remember the walls of a mud hut ever being over about 5' tall. These poles, IIRC, will be completely covered in mud, clay, cow manure, etc. during the building process.

The walls are built on the foundation leaving spaces for doors and windows. Casings of local materials (Wood, raffia palm fronds, bamboo, etc.) are made to support the sides and a lintel of sorts is places across the top. In dry, rocky areas flat stones are collected and stacked. These may be the finished walls or covered with other building materials. If covered the stones are often just used for fill to reduce the amount of other material used. If stones are not readily available small brush may be woven in the wall to help hold the wet clay and manure or such used. As I remember the walls were typically 6"-8" thick.

Long, straight, small diameter poles are connected at the center like on an American Indian TeePee with the other end resting on the wall. In many cases these are Raffia Palm frond stems or Indian Bamboo if available. Often these "Rafters" extend past the wall 2'-3'. Thick vines or ropes of thin limber twisted brush or grass are placed and tied to the rafters in concentric circles around the roof. These are placed in parallel rings about 18"-20" apart. The actual roofing varies but is whatever is readily available. Millet stalks, local grass (similar to our broom sedge), or palm fronds are place and tied into place starting at the bottom and overlapping like our shingles to shed the rain. These materials last from a few (2-3) to several (5-8 years) before they have to be replaced. Where possible now many tribesmen cover the roof with corrugated roofing materials. The natural materials are cooler.

   At the very peak where the straw and such meet it is tied together like a bundle of oats or such and an inverted clay pot is often place over the knot to keep rain from falling into the hut. In several cases I saw old metal chamber pots used for this purpose.

BTW - did you know one reason the African's like round huts is they believe evil spirits are little men who hide in the corners and work their evil magic. The tribesmen also sleep on raised beds so the little demons cannot jump up and reach them while sleeping.