Running Bear's June 2024 Coffee Shop

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Tonights count of Larceny has some New Orleans flair

the Vieux Carré

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Good morning, Everybody!

Last week I left one of the doors open to my back porch. When we returned home from work there was a bird on my back porch. Despite both doors being open all the way he/she could not find the way back out. After flying back and forth many times the poor bird was too exhausted to continue and finally let me pick him/her up and carry him/her outside.

The next day we were returning from the grocery store. I opened a door to bring in the groceries and the bird returned! Once again, back, and forth until it was exhausted, and I was able to carry it outside.

My wife suggested they may have tried building a nest on the porch. I thought "that would be stupid", but sure enough they had! I found the beginnings of a nest in the top box of my roller tool chest. Thank God there were no baby birds or eggs, I evicted the nest.

Later my wife finds a fledgling Robin caught in my baseball net. My boys and I used to hit balls off the tee into the net, but it hasn't been used in a few years. After several cuts of the net and several minutes I managed to untangle the little bird. It was snared tightly and crying as I tried to free it from the net. The parents were squawking loudly at me from the overhead power line. Along with a pair of cardinals who were also concerned about the little bird.

After freeing the bird, I took down the net.

The next day I'm working on my back porch, and I see the little bird staring at me through one of the windows of the porch. As if to say something to me. We stared at each other for a moment or two. Then the little bird showed his/her flying skills and flew off gracefully. I was happy to see the little bird made a full recovery.

If this trend keeps up (I hope not!) you can call me the bird man.
 
Good morning, Everybody!

Last week I left one of the doors open to my back porch. When we returned home from work there was a bird on my back porch. Despite both doors being open all the way he/she could not find the way back out. After flying back and forth many times the poor bird was too exhausted to continue and finally let me pick him/her up and carry him/her outside.
Yesterday I spent most of the afternoon and evening changing the oil in our two cars. What should have been a 2- 21/2 hour job for me (who only does it once a year per car if I'm on time) turned out to be a much longer ordeal. But that's not the point.

I had left the garage door open. Above our garage we have added some storage since the garage is about 7-8 feet high above the top of the garage door. It has assorted and sundry junk on it. I was going to go close the garage door after parking a car in it and I noticed this bird flying around in the garage. It was trying to get out but because the garage lights were on, it was dark out, and the ceiling is so high compared to the door, it couldn't find the door. I tried to shoo it several times but it would just fly around and then land to rest. Finally I turned the lights off in the garage and I think it was able to orient itself and fly out.

Last summer when we were in the building stage where things weren't fully closed up on our house project we had several different sorts of birds build nests in the framing of the interior. One that was on top of a wall underneath the bonus space above subfloor had eggs laid, hatched, and raised to the point where they could fly away. The wife and I were there when the babies took the first tentative flight out. They disappeared that day and never came back. We also found some dead baby birds and some nests were moved by workers that needed access to where they were.

After the windows were put in, the house was not completely sealed off (there was one window that was the wrong size so that window frame was empty and doors were also not in yet so birds would get in and not be able to get out. They'd try and fly through the glass windows. Over and over. I'f open some windows and try and shoo them out. All the ones I saw eventually made their way out but we did find a dead bid that seems to have gotten stuck inside and not made it out.

Here is one that we found dead and another that was trying to get out (abd eventually did)

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good morning all
coffe to go pls!

- vacation day 1
- 10am (CEST)
- rain all day
- around 20 celcius

today i have a appointment for a fresh haircut, thats about it. as long as its raining iam down in my basement by the railroad and building some stuff. trackbed laiing on my n scale layout or connecting the electric stuff and try out to run something on my H0 layout, hmmm..

wish you all a good day!
 
Another cool day here in the northeast. It hasn't warmed up yet. No global warming here. James lives up near Saratoga even cooler there. The big yard sale at Stormville Airport is next Saturday. Starting to load up my truck now. I have lots of good stuff to sell as cut-rate prices, There'll be 500 vendors there. With all the household stuff everything on my upper deck will also be for sale. Anyone with a HO railroad will be happy I showed up. Headed to the foot doctor this morning. When I was renovating the kitchen, I dropped a 2X4 on my toe. It hasn't healed up yet. I don't know about toe injures. I hope he can do something to relieve the pain.
Swal
 


Well, howdy there internet peeps and the Birdman of Baltimore,

It's Troy again...

Speaking of birds, my buddy Rupert, from the TV show where they strand people on a tropical island then they vote each other off each week, well, he's an Indiana native, and runs a mentoring jobs program for young men (mostly) with a felony or two here in Indiana.

His mentoring program was gifted an old, early 1900s downtown 2 story brick building in the small town of Shelbyville, about 40 miles outside of Indianapolis.

The building is the type with really tall ceilings, brick walls. Rupert moved his charity out to the small town, where the mayor, the county sheriff and town police chief were willing to give Rupert's program a chance to have an impact on their social issues.

Well, the building was in about as good shape as Rupert's campaign for Indiana governor in 2012 (when Mike Pence won). Since Rupert ran as a 3rd party candidate (he got 3.4% of the vote), the building and the campaign were in a very sorry state.

Bringing in his mentees from downtown Indianapolis as a work crew, and slowly adding former incarcerated parolees from Shelbyville, Rupert got the building turned around in about 2 years.

His biggest problem early on was evicting the hawks who had found entry points into the attic area above the second floor. And the skeletons of the pigeons they'd feasted on. A sh*t-ton of pigeon bones....

Seems the pigeons would find a way into the attic, then the hawks would hop on over and hit the buffet for some breasts and wings.

That was a two month ordeal finding and sealing up all of the entry points. The second floor had a pile of pigeon poo, discarded nesting material, and dirt, about a foot think piled under the hole in the ceiling where the roof had leaked.

I visited about three months into the renovations. There were about five hawks sitting on buildings around Rupert's new offices, staring at us whenever we went in or out. They seemed kind of grumpy. When Rupert put up the plastic bird spikes on the brick ledges and windowsills, the hawks promptly tore them out. They wanted their pigeon buffet back. :eek:

gotta go start laundry and make a grocery run. Be back later.
 
Good Morning All. Thunderstorm and 71°. There is no rain on the radar for hundreds of miles except this small t-storm right here!:mad:
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Only supposed to reach 82° today after 4 days of 95°+. Sucks that it's raining.
Thankfully I finished mowing what I could yesterday. Hopefully it quits sooner than later because a FEMA inspector is due out here to take a look around at 2:00 this afternoon.

I spent most of yesterday catching up on household chores and continuing the debris collection around the yard. A lot of what I am finding is not my stuff, but I doubt that the neighbors want it back.

I did not make it into the train shed yesterday, second day in a row; but with the rain this morning, I won't be able to do much outside and I will be out there today.

Tom O - Your observation regarding the ore ship on Lake Superior makes a lot more sense that "hitting something" does. Unless there's a submarine out there somewhere!
Mike - I had bought a second set of silos for my Walther's grain elevator, but ultimately decided to use them elsewhere since I got the desired effect with just the original kit. My rough calculations at the time were that if the elevator was full, it was still too much grain for my 16 car unit grain hopper trains; which is the maximum length (with two engines and a caboose) that my passing sidings can hold. I since used the extra set at the Ethanol refinery.
Joe -
Federal government it completely unconcerned, more concerned with overseas.
That is an understatement.
Hughie - I have no experience with Mudd Creek Models, but many look interesting. I have looked at them before, but almost all of them do not fit within my scheme or era.
Louis - I've been asking about Karl for a couple of months. No one seems to know. I was hoping that you might know since he had done some business with you before.
Swal - Are you sure that selling all of that stuff won't have an effect on the Medicaid process for your wife???

Everyone have a great day. At least it stopped raining here, but it is too late, everything is wet and there are puddles since the ground was already saturated.
 
Good morning to all including the bird men of the model train world. No bird stories from me, yet. Still young at 71 so I have a few years left to have a story develop.

Boy yesterday was strange. I was all over my train room. Some weathering, posting on FB, working on my paper mill and then taking my grain terminal off the layout for cleaning. Later I determined I should finish painting it. Something for this morning to do! Could not keep my interest on anything though for a decent period of time.

Headed off as the guest grill chef at the daughter’s dinner last night at 6. My assigned helpers were great. Twin sisters who graduated high school 2 years ago and the 1st of 3 sets of twins in their family. Previous kid sitters of the grandkids and hired out life guards for our swim party and dinners. Both went to a culinary school and I basically became their helper. They want to open their own restaurant in the Madison area. Foolish me mentioned financing will be tough. To get out of it I said when you have a business plan we will look it over. I asked my SIL if that was a setup and his comment was “ask ur daughter”.

Today, I meet with the surveyor at 1. We need to go over the disposition of the property we are developing into a housing subdivision before I ask to go before the Town Board. I wanted 60 plots of 5 acres but with the horse trails, the County mandated park, a Town mandated separate dog park and the walking trails are taking up too much of the allotted acreage. I’d like to remove the horse trails but horses are a big deal around here so they have to stay. I was hoping to get before the board in August but now it’s more likely September or October.

While there is no real need for a grocery run today 3 of the grocery stores are having soda and meat sales today. 6 packs of 16.9 oz bottle 4 for $10.00 is a sale for me to get to. The meat I am set for but will check out the prices.

Enjoy the day
 
How long is school in session over there?

My daughter has been out for 3 weeks, but she will also start back middle of August.
Not too sure how the school holidays work. The children have just gone back a week ago after a week's holiday. Next holiday will be late July for six weeks. Then a week away from school in mid-October. Then comes Christmas for two weeks.
 
Morning folks

54F, cloudy, with a forecast high of 74. A beautiful morning even if it was socked in and raining. That looks to be ending with blue sky making an appearance off to the west. Not a lot of rain (0.31") but it all helps.

I put the dirt bucket on the Toolcat yesterday and moved a few yards of dirt to taper back the slope above the driveway near the apron in front of the garage. That was really steep and in the winter, it ended up an 8' wall of snow. The snowblower would still send it but obviously it was a problem with the snow blade. I got it leveled and reseeded just in time for the evening rain. I'm not sure how the rest of today is going to fall out but hopefully without my wife falling down.
 


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