Hey @mark ! How did you guys survive the storms?
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wtg
@wtg
Posts
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New excitement in the neighborhood, July 3rd edition -
Vermont town bans influencersAs hordes of photographers began descending on a small, rural community to capture its vibrant autumnal colours, local residents have been fighting back – and winning.
To enter the town of Pomfret, located in the US state of Vermont, is to be instantly struck by its bucolic beauty. From the north, Howe Hill Road winds downhill in a series of gentle curves, each sweep revealing verdant farm fields dotted with sheep, or swaths of forest in which the red and orange autumn leaves cling to boughs. At one home, a tree heavy with apples bends over a meticulously maintained stone wall, its slate top filled with decaying fruit.
But come early autumn, more than half of the cars driving through this 900-person town will sport out-of-state license plates, coming to abrupt stops on a road with a 45-mile-per-hour speed limit, blocking one of two lanes. The reason? To take a picture of a farm's silo against a backdrop of autumn leaves.
With a mere handful of businesses – a general mercantile store, an art centre with a gallery and a theatre and a few pick-your-own apple or pumpkin farms – Pomfret is generally a quiet, unassuming place. But in autumn as "leaf-peepers" from around the world descend on the region's rolling hills and fetching small towns to witness its kaleidoscopic foliage, that all changes.
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What does he have to give them in return?Trump Wants a New Air Force One in His Presidential Library. It’s Not a Done Deal.
He would like the $400 million luxury 747 to eventually be the centerpiece of his Miami presidential library but his plans face obstacles -
The CoupSeems like the post is for members only. But I would agree with the paragraph or two that I could read...in retrospect maybe it would have been better for him to get re-elected in 2020. He wouldn't have had four extra years to plan this out, and the next four after that to execute the plan.
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Faunascrolling--what's visiting where you are?Squirrels. They ate all of my raspberries. Now they're checking out the tomatoes.
They left behind a half-eaten tomato and this chewed-off cluster of green tomatoes:
So when I saw my first Little Sicily tomato just barely starting to ripen, I knew i had to pick it or the next day I'd be seeing a beautiful tomato with a chomp taken out of it. Little Sicily are a Campari-sized tomato, just perfect for a snack or a sandwich. They ripen beautifully on the counter. It's just heading for the orange stage on its way to red:
In a few days I can have a BLT!
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Neil the sealLike plenty of local boys before him, Neil has come home to the stretch of Australian coast where he was born. Unlike most of them, he trails fame, fans and property damage in his wake. He is also a 2,200-pound elephant seal.
In June, the bellowing and blubbery 5-year-old mammal hauled himself onto land for his twice-yearly tour of beachside towns in southern Tasmania state after months of feeding at sea. That’s posing problems now that he weighs as much as a small car and has a social media following more than double Tasmania’s human population.
His rampage through local infrastructure has claimed bent traffic bollards, a sign warning the public about seals and a fence that did not survive Neil’s attempt to vault it. The rest of the time he lies placidly any place he likes, which is sometimes the middle of the road, bringing towns he visits to a standstill.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/animal-news/neil-elephant-seal-australian-fans-tasmania-rcna352850
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Word association thread -
Word association thread -
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Laughter is the best medicine -
Word association thread -
Word association thread -
Forty-five years agoI don't think they were calling it a cancer. They were just noting that a certain very rare cancer - I think it was Kaposi sarcoma - was suddenly popping up much more frequently.
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Word association thread -
New excitement in the neighborhood, July 3rd editionPower came back on a little while ago. Glad it did; more storms coming tonight and I wouldn't have left the generator running in the rain. Packed it all up and put it away. Hopefully this round of storms either misses us or doesn't cause another power outage!
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New excitement in the neighborhood, July 3rd editionWe had a wicked storm blow through here midday. Rained like crazy and we had gale force winds. Took out some really large limbs from two different trees less than a block from me. Both fell across the street, blocking access. Plus another one on an adjoining street. I'm guessing there were straight line winds that came through that particular area.
My neighbor lost a big limb from her tree but thankfully it didn't hit her house or the neighbor's.
None of these trees took down any power lines, but something somewhere did. Our power is still out. The status from ComEd is "assessing problem", which means they aren't really working to fix our stuff right now. With the winds that came through I'm guessing there are a lot of outages in our neck of the woods and it may be a while. I decided to haul out the generator and hook it up.
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Word association thread -
Corvid-human connectionsAre Crows Really Our Friends?
An investigation into the state of corvid–human relations.
https://www.audubon.org/magazine/are-crows-really-our-friends
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RICE may be on its way outTreating sprains and strains.
A few years back, spectators at an intramural indoor soccer game at the University of California at Davis might have seen Keith Baar, a professor of physiology and membrane biology at the university, practicing state-of-the-art soft-tissue injury care.
Having turned his ankle moments before, he was plopped down on the sidelines, his injured leg extended, gently tracing the alphabet in midair with his foot.
He repeated that routine multiple times at home that evening and the following day.
Two days after the injury, he was running again. “It’s the fastest I’ve ever recovered” from an ankle sprain, he said.
For decades, at-home treatments for common, non-traumatic sports or similar injuries, such as sprains, strains, tendinopathies and slight tissue tears, centered on a protocol known by the acronym RICE, which stands for Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation. Many people supplement that regimen with ibuprofen, such as Advil, or similar anti-inflammatory painkillers. (See a doctor if you have any concerns about a possible fracture, bleeding or other serious conditions.)
But there’s growing evidence from Baar’s lab and others’ that the full RICE approach may, in fact, impede recovery, not speed it.
Instead, newer research about the microscopic environment inside sore, injured joints and tissues suggests moving and exercising in the right ways is key to recovery. Some of the researchers have even coined a new acronym for how best to treat these injuries. It’s all about, they say, PEACE and LOVE.
