Day/Night Owls Chit Chat

[Texan]

Another animal story. My wife has a couple of chihuahua mix dogs that roam the yard all day. The Sun had just gone down and the dogs went nuts while we were getting ready for dinner. We ran outside with the flashlights to see our little dogs trying to get at a stray cat that was perched on top of our 4 foot chain link fence. The cat was hissing and swatting at our dogs as they jumped at it. It was just funny to watch.

I've been hearing a cat yowling outside my bedroom window every night. I now know what that cat looks like. I think it lives in my yard every night and eats dog food and dreams of eating my chickens. I don't mind it. I think it will help keep field rats away from the house and the snakes.

[Texan]

I wish I'd had the dash cam hooked up today. I drove 350 miles in an ice storm. There were cars flipped over and crashed beside the highway. One car spun out in front of me. I just barely dodged him. Good times. I'm in Lubbock TX for the night.

[Black Orchid]

Somehow I just never imagined Texas to have ice storms.

[The Reboot]

Me neither. Do they happen often, Tex, or is this a rare occurrence?

[Texan]

Me neither. Do they happen often, Tex, or is this a rare occurrence?

Our temperature rarely gets too far below freezing. Temperatures usually fluctuate above and below freezing. That gives us freezing rain or melting snow that ends up being ice for a couple of days. Texans don't know how to drive in Winter weather because we only get it about 2-3 times/year and ice is far worse than snow for driving.



The Texas panhandle is at a higher altitude and they get sudden Winter storms coming down from the Northwest via Colorado. There are a lot of wind farms there also.

[Texan]

The trees are beautiful, if you aren't parked under them.






I broke my arm in this storm in 1978. I lived at the top of a hill that was covered with ice. All of the neighborhood kids took advantage of the situation by sliding down the hill on anything we could find. Someone found a sheet of plywood. Several of us were on the plywood and then we were dogpiled by several other kids. As the plywood went down the hill spinning, I happened to be in front when we hit a parked Plymouth Roadrunner. With several kids on top of me, I couldn't move and my wrist was broken by all of their weight as I hit the tire of the car. It was still worth it. Good times.

I'm amazed I didn't break more than my arm as a kid. We used to build tree houses out in the woods, made rope swings over the local creeks, rode skateboards, jumped trash cans with our bicycles, played tackle football in the mud with no pads, etc.....

[brian ross]

Perth is similar. It rains occasionally and no one in Perth knows how to drive in wet conditions because they are so used to it being dry most of the time. Cars end up rear-ending each other all the time.

Gum trees lose their limbs quite often in drier conditions. It is there way of saving the trunk. Which is why you should never park under a gum tree. I was once hanging my washing out on the washing line and I turned to go into the house when a tree on the next door's property, just over the fence decided to shed a limb. It smashed their carport and raised a huge cloud of dust. It was just over the fence from where I was standing. It gave me a bit of a scare, I must say.

[Texan]

We had a tree in front of our house split right down the middle of the trunk from the weight of the ice on the branches in 1980. It sounded like lightning striking as the tree split.

[BigP]

We had a tree in front of our house split right down the middle of the trunk from the weight of the ice on the branches in 1980. It sounded like lightning striking as the tree split.

Probably had a split in it that got water in it which froze and expanded then all that snow finished it off,

[BigP]

The trees are beautiful, if you aren't parked under them.






I broke my arm in this storm in 1978. I lived at the top of a hill that was covered with ice. All of the neighborhood kids took advantage of the situation by sliding down the hill on anything we could find. Someone found a sheet of plywood. Several of us were on the plywood and then we were dogpiled by several other kids. As the plywood went down the hill spinning, I happened to be in front when we hit a parked Plymouth Roadrunner. With several kids on top of me, I couldn't move and my wrist was broken by all of their weight as I hit the tire of the car. It was still worth it. Good times.

I'm amazed I didn't break more than my arm as a kid. We used to build tree houses out in the woods, made rope swings over the local creeks, rode skateboards, jumped trash cans with our bicycles, played tackle football in the mud with no pads, etc.....

It just doesn't get that cold in Auckland, a day time low of 41 Fahrenheit would be a cold day , we tend to get a lot of rain, where I live we have a clay sub soil which is hellish during the late winter,