tunafish

I don't see a single CoCoRAHS station with over 1" MTD in all of NH and ME. Impressive.

According to CoCoRAHS, there's only a handful of stations in NE that have > 1" this month - they're all either north/west of PF or isolated stations in RI. Nada elsewhere. Lines up with these maps, too. brutal.

Oh yes. We always bake them before feeding them back.

That all makes a lot of sense. Same with humans, right? Pack shit with corn. My hens would rather eat from the yard than from the feeder. Only really do consistently when the grounds covered. We don't do oyster shells, probably should, but do give them crushed (cooked) eggshell.

We're making a French drain near the coop, it's possible she's scraping her comb accidentally on the rocks and now scabbing? There's been a neighborhood cat checking her out lately, too. Maybe some added stress. We have 3 other hens (born this spring) joining her in 2 weeks, from family in your neck of the woods, actually. I don't recall the breed. She was never the top hen, generally keeps to herself, so hoping they adjust nicely.

Shes 3 and has always kinda been a loner. She laid almost daily from Feb-Jul, then probably every 3-4 days since. Other one had a lump, swelling, and didn't lay eggs. Lost about a third of her body weight in a month. No post-mortem to confirm. Gotta check the feed, buy it's good quality I believe. I'll up the mealworm intake (shell be stoked). Always thought it was a treat, like scratch, not to overdo.

@dendrite Lost 2 hens this summer (1 tumor, 1 internal issue unknown), got 1 left. Noticed some black spots on her comb today, and some discoloration of her beak. Also laid a shell-less egg. Otherwise behaving normal. What's your best guess - stress from being solo for a month or avian flu are my goalposts. No idea.

Do it @CoastalWx

Thanks. Might have been localized. This was (in Newport, VT) closer to St. Johnsbury than the other sites you mentioned. The ground was too waterlogged to support cars and foot traffic, especially on the order of 10's of thousands. Ha. We hit traffic at 4PM and didn't move until 7AM. Was an all night party, at least for us. We ended up parking in Barton, hitchhiked with a local down some logging roads until those were blocked, walked the remaining 5 miles in. No, this was from Phish's "last" concert in 2004. Which, even for someone who attended, is just as much (if not more) LMFAO-worthy.

In 2004 I spent 15 hours in traffic on I-91 just south of Barton, VT. Didn't move an inch. If anyone can point me to BTV data Aug 1- Aug 14 2004, I'd love to see how much rain they got leading up to this madness.

Now is the time to burn a sick day and hit the beach while they at school.

Ha, I didn't say the alternative was to sit around and do nothing. Nor did I say I don't mow the lawn.

Could we get a "100"? Please and thanks.

I never said you couldn't. What does working on the lawn entail? Mowing it and pounding it with chemicals 3x a year? You can have pride in your landscape, including lawn, without having an entire (or even partial) yard full of monochrome grass. That's how we operate. We bought the house in 2017, just under 1/2 acre, entirely lawn - 0 landscaping. The mission for us was to turn as much of that lawn into plant-able space as possible. The lawn offers nothing tangible in return; plant-able space does. Over the last 7 years we've reduced the lawn from roughly 14,000 square feet down to >3k. The rest is a massive garden (really a food forest at this point) and landscaped with shrubs/trees/flowers. The UMaine cooperative extension has us as a tour stop for their master gardener program each year. Plenty of pride here. What's left of the lawn is a mixture of grass and weeds. The only interventions have been (1) nematodes 2x because the beetles were getting to the plants (2) overseed and aerate last fall to loosen some of the soil compaction so there's more diversity (3)corn gluten this year, which was intended for the rest of the space for soil health. We had leftover so to the lawn it went.

Right? Imagine sinking hundreds of hours of work, thought, and dollars into something that's basic function is the same regardless of its look and makeup? And, in aggregate, has a definitively negative impact on the environment/climate? Whackos indeed.

My philosophy is the less I need to mow the better. Less time, less harmful, and more diversity in mt landscape. --- Re: crabgrass - I put down corn gluten in the spring as a pre-emergent and to build better organic matter in the soil. That and with an aerated and overseer last fall my lawn is the best it's ever been. Still plenty of clover and dandelion but very little crabgrass, which is ideal (for me...and earth).

No kidding. I never heard that about skunks. I don't have any skunks (unfortunately?). Not sure what else would so that and not eat it. Coyote, Fisher, Snakes would all eat it.

I've been using the standard mouse trap, sans bait, and just putting them in the obvious "game" trails I can find. It's working well enough, although the pace has slowed some in the last week, but I am not taking that as a sign of their population dwindling, rather my luck is running out and I need to start baiting to attract them. Thanks, I'll go rat trap/PB tonight.

We did that this year for the space adjacent to the gardens. We've cut our lawn space on 0.4 acres down by 2/3 over 5 years between planting beds, wood chipped paths, and now a small meadow. Looks great, zero maintenance, BUT, it's welcomed a brown rat population that I'm now fighting hard before Fall. I don't need them in my coop or worse, house.

Yes, Norwegian Gem on Thursday night. There was a Royal Caribbean in town yesterday that looked considerably larger.

Past 10-12 days have been perfect up here in PWM. Only precip has been at night. Been in/on the water each day, either lake or ocean. Only used 2 PTO days, too, one each of the past 2 Fridays. All that is to say: GWLH. 8/21 - 77/53 - T 8/22 - 73/49 - T 8/23 - 77/49 8/24 - 79/57 8/25 - 81/55 - 0.01" 8/26 - 79/57 - 0.09" 8/27 - 79/58 - T 8/28 - 86/60 8/29 - 71/52 8/30 - 70/49 8/31 - 75/50 - 0.04" 9/1 - 83/64

Another glorious summer day. Managed to hit 84, but a lot more wind today. You can tell the change in airmass by the visibility of MWN (straight above the float ladder).

Exactly. The buzz is fun and all but at this point in the season the quiet is a nice relief.

Last 5 days here in PWM/ME have been arguably the best of summer. All highs between 77-81 with a touch of dews, comfortable sleeping weather in the upper 50s, full sun every day - only precip was last night with 0.09" (clouds rolling in on the 2nd pic). Best part is all the tourists are mostly gone with school starting this week (for them, not us). Noticeably less water traffic on Sebago Fri/Sat, with water temps in the upper 70s; no crowds at the water park with the kids on Sunday; and quiet beaches and relatively warm water in Scarborough the past 2 nights.

Only beaches I've experienced mosquitos is on the mid-coast of Maine. Midday, full sun, and a stiff sea breeze wasn't enough to knock them down, either. Unbearable.