This thread is totally random

A lightning bolt just hit about 25 meters from my house. I’ve never been so close; the very loud bang was instantaneous.
I really, really, REALLY hate any event where the flash to bang time is so short that it can't be sensed.
 
I've too often gotten caught in a storm walking my dogs. One time, a bolt of lightning struck a tree that was maybe 50 yards away but the scariest thing was when it happened, my vision went completely white (it was night) and it was among the loudest things I've ever heard.

We ran under an awning of a house and sat there for 30 minutes. Amusingly, my first thought wasn't about my own safety but how big of a dick I felt like for possibly injuring my dogs.
 
We were in our TV room with my eldest son and wife with the Carolina game on in the background.

My wife was like “That’s what I get for watching a football game.”

Wait til I tell her I have tix for the Duke game.
 
A lightning bolt just hit about 25 meters from my house. I’ve never been so close; the very loud bang was instantaneous.
That is scary. My grandma's house was struck by lightning when I was a kid and caused a small fire in a closet.

My family had a camper growing up and we would go to Kerr Lake a lot in the summer. The worst storm I ever experienced in my life happened when we were there once. Lightning struck a tree right beside the camper.
 
So, the wife and I went to a fall/art festival yesterday.

I was looking at some nice birdhouses. Found one that I was considering buying. The guy running the stand walks up to help me. I look at his hat and just said nice birdhouse but I'm not going to get anything today. Fucking trump hat.

Do business owners not think about turning away customers?

There's a few businesses near me that have absolutely obnoxious trump signs. There's one that has to be 50 ft wide. I so want to burn it.
 
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My daughter visiting NYC AT AGE 9: Walking through Times Square and we spy this hat vendor’s display. La Niña ponders it for a minute then turns to me and says, “The cloth ones are cool but the Tin Man one is the best.”
 
IMG_4671.jpeg

My daughter visiting NYC AT AGE 9: Walking through Times Square and we spy this hat vendor’s display. La Niña ponders it for a minute then turns to me and says, “The cloth ones are cool but the Tin Man one is the best.”

This reminds me, once my daughter, she was probably 5 or 6, and I were driving on a really bumpy road then we turned onto a recently paved road. She said this road is so much smoother. I said it's new pavement. She said, oh all roads should be new pavement.
 
So, the wife and I went to a fall/art festival yesterday.

I was looking at some nice birdhouses. Found one that I was considering buying. The guy running the stand walks up to help me. I look at his hat and just said nice birdhouse but I'm not going to get anything today. Fucking trump hat.

Do business owners not think about turning away customers?

There's a few businesses near me that have absolutely obnoxious trump signs. There's one that has to be 50 ft wide. I so want to burn it.
The owner of our local Chick-fil-A lives in our neighborhood and planted a Trump sign in his front yard the other day. My family won't be giving him any more business.
 
Anybody want to buy a used mattress?
Ever stay in a hotel or motel, an Air BnB?
You’ve slept on a used mattress.
Now you can enjoy that same feeling in your own home!
Please DM me for all your mattress purchases.
All proceeds to go to help by beer and cigarettes for my younguns.
One of the weirdest things that happened when my wife and I sold 90% of our possessions to move west, was when someone asked to buy our 10 year old mattress. We sold them with full disclosure. Had never considered someone might actually pay for a used mattress.
 
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I'm trying to turn an area if partly wooded new cleared ground that's about 100 by 200 feet into a bird and butterfly garden. It was cleared about three years ago and left to get overgrown. Most of it was wisteria, wild grape, Japanese stiltgrass, briars and dog fennel. I've been clearing it mostly by hand so I can save what native pollinators I can. I 've actually had a little success. I still have a long fight with the invasives and it might actually be spring before I have much new growing.

Have any of you ever taken something like this on. I don't mean the brute force and massive ignorance way I'm doing but just tackled new ground and tried to get it under control? Anybody know much about native pollinators? I'll take any suggestions I can get.
finesse,

You may have this book already:
  • Growing and Propagating Wild Flowers, Harry Phillips. University of North Carolina Press. Harry was the long-time director of the Charlotte Botanical Garden. Before that he was the curator of native plants at the North Carolina Botanical Garden. He retired into a house on Morrow Mill Road near the Saxapahaw Bethlehem Road and a few years ago into a place in Saxapahaw.
  • The North Carolina Botanical Garden is an excellent source. I go to it to get planting ideas. They also sell native plants from March through November.
 
I'll investigate those.

The interesting thing is that the more I clear, the more volunteers I'm getting. A lot are not identifiable yet but I know I have native honeysuckle, partridge berry which is actively spreading in the shady areas, woodland goldenrod, a black willow, a couple of persimmon trees, pokeweed, a large number of native grass clusters, muscadine grapes, some of which I'll get rid of and some I'll trellis. Probably do that with the honeysuckle and Virginia creeper. I have a couple of clusters of large unknowns that are about to flower. I also have about 500 ferns of assorted types within 200 feet of my backdoor and if we bet, I'm taking the over. I also have a lot of deer tongue ,which is considered an ornamental grass. I don't find it currently all that but it seems to be good ground cover. I also was wandering around in the woods today and found a dogwood sapling and a slender bunch clover that I think I can transplant and a late blooming thoroughwort that I think I can get seeds from.

By the time I finish clearing I might not need to plant anything much. I do at least know that the soil conditions are right for them. I'm almost afraid to get knowledge too involved in this the way things have worked out so far.

I just pulled out about a two foot swath of crab and stilt grass across the front of the clearing. Going to be interesting to see how it fills in. Might plant a rosemary bush smack in the middle.
 
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“Oklahoma” is the third-best musical of all time and the third-worst state in the Union. Balance.
 
I'll investigate those.

The interesting thing is that the more I clear, the more volunteers I'm getting. A lot are not identifiable yet but I know I have native honeysuckle, partridge berry which is actively spreading in the shady areas, woodland goldenrod, a black willow, a couple of persimmon trees, pokeweed, a large number of native grass clusters, muscadine grapes, some of which I'll get rid of and some I'll trellis. Probably do that with the honeysuckle and Virginia creeper. I have a couple of clusters of large unknowns that are about to flower. I also have about 500 ferns of assorted types within 200 feet of my backdoor and if we bet, I'm taking the over. I also have a lot of deer tongue ,which is considered an ornamental grass. I don't find it currently all that but it seems to be good ground cover. I also was wandering around in the woods today and found a dogwood sapling and a slender bunch clover that I think I can transplant and a late blooming thoroughwort that I think I can get seeds from.

By the time I finish clearing I might not need to plant anything much. I do at least know that the soil conditions are right for them. I'm almost afaid to get knowledge too involved in this the way things have worked out so far.

I just pulled out about a two foot swath of crab and stilt grass across the front of the clearing. Going to be interesting to see how it fills in. Might plant a rosemary bush smack in the middle.
I have a rosemary bush. I'm surprised how big it is. It smells wonderful.

If you're in NC, you can drive over to my parents and dig up plants and no one will notice, she has so many. We bring home plants every time we go up.
 
The owner of our local Chick-fil-A lives in our neighborhood and planted a Trump sign in his front yard the other day. My family won't be giving him any more business.
A local glass company has two trump signs in front of their building. I’ve done business with them in the past. To quote the Raven, “Never more.”
 
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