I hadn't wanted to say anything for fear of jinxing myself, but the skunk invasion is over with. Talking to the park manager yesterday he was telling me that one of my neighbors a few roads over spent time last year trapping and transporting the stinky little critters to other parts of the county. We haven't had a skunk, of the four legged variety anyways, this year at all.

I was rather pleased that it is no longer necessary to be so careful when we go out at dusk. For the past three years a yard and front porch scan was very necessary before opening the door to exit the building. We would first open a window and sniff. They stink, and you can always tell they are in the hood unless you're upwind of them. If that yielded any results we would carefully scan the yard until we located the source. Then we would have to wait until it left before going outside. A careful watch of the little bugger was necessary because sometimes they hid under the front steps or under the car. It was fun to watch them play and roll around on the lawn, but ever mindful of the consequences should we forget ourselves, it used to make us leery of going outside after dark.

One rather intelligent tenant here decided to shoot one of the polecats with a bow and arrow. He hit it and injured it, and in retaliation the skunk hid under his trailer. Personally I think he deserved it. Yes it made it difficult to enjoy ourselves but they were only passing through on their way to water or a feeding area. The neighbor that was live trapping them and taking them away came to their rescue. Apparently once they spray, it takes a few days before they can spray again. That's all well and good, but how do you know if they've sprayed yet today? Do you walk up and ask? I'm not that foolish.

The neighbor trapped 20 of them last year, and took them south of the canal so they will be a long time finding their way back here, if ever. I'm glad of that, but I'm sure that next year we will have another family of migrating skunks to contend with. In some ways I miss them. They used to keep my yard free of grubs, and this year I find them crawling on my garbage cans and up the side of the storage shed we have. I have to put gloves on to open the door to get out the lawn mower, because they do get all the way up to the door handle. I suppose that's a small price to pay for the absence of stinky critters, but then again, I've squashed a grub with my bare hands while opening a door and it doesn't feel good.

This year the only excitement I'm experiencing beyond the squirrels and crows is that of watching a young woodchuck. It's been rather dry here and clover is growing abundantly. They like clover, from what I see, when I can see him, it must act like catnip does on a cat. He's a cute little thing, not very old and seems very adept at hiding himself. I've tried to get a picture of him to no avail. I can't get close enough to him, and you can't see him in the grass. He should be back at about the same time every day so I will have the fun of stalking him for the purpose of getting a picture. Well, I will when the rain stops. He's an adorable little thing and at least he's not a skunk.

While looking around for new bloggers I have discovered that many of them are really adult in nature. I felt that because there are teenagers who read my blog I would not be adding them to my list of new swimmers in the stream. I don't object to them on any level, I just feel that since this is a family friendly blog and some of them border on what others might feel is pornography I shouldn't add them to my posts. I would like your thoughts on this matter because I feel in many ways that my decision is a form of censorship. I may decide to do one post a month with a suitable warning that adult content is the topic of these blogs.

In the meantime, these are the new blogs I found while I was swimming in the stream.

Just Between You And Me

Snowy In Boston

My Life Past Present and Future

Honestly It's Me

scrawling,s of mind

 

I learned all kinds of new stuff this morning, and of course I had confirmed for me a few ideas that I had formulated. The confirmed idea? Men do not listen to women. Who knew?

I have been complaining to Hubby and Mountain Man, my tech support, that there was a problem here because I could not stay online. They both kept telling me to call the phone company because obviously it was phone company wiring. It has taken me two weeks of explaining before someone FINALLY got the point. If Verizon comes out and the problem is found to be in our wiring, they DON'T fix it and we pay a repair bill. An attempt HAS to be made to ascertain the location of the problem, and Verizon is the last resort.

It rained here Saturday night and Sunday morning. There was a breeze and during the rain and wind I had a very hard time staying on line. I kept losing my DSL for longer and longer periods of time. It went off at 11:30 yesterday and when I came home at 4pm, I had no internet connection. The connection became available around 6 and I lost it again for 15 or 20 minutes. Managed to stay online for awhile and lost it again. Finally the third time I gave it up and shut down the computer. At that point Hubby decided I was right, we needed to look in to the situation so he called Mountain Man himself.

The new line he installed when I had a designated phone line for the computer is fine. The remaining wiring for the rest of the house is bad. When he connected the new wiring into the rest of the house wiring, it made the new wiring flawed. So, he has been here all ready this morning, disconnected the house wiring, we are running off the one jack here with temporary wiring to the house phone. A list of necessities that hubby has to purchase in order to install new jacks for the house phone is in my hand and I have an uninterrupted by static DSL signal. No interruptions, no slow downs, no bump offs. Just smooth surfing. I can change a page without hanging up or freezing the screen.

Even when we had dial up, I kept saying that there was a problem with the house line. Until the new line was installed for the designated computer line I had constant bump offs which stopped when the new line was installed. I don't think the problem is entirely fixed, but once we get the inside wiring changed, then if I continue to have trouble it WILL be the phone company's problem. I may have a hard time getting them to fix their problem, but I can complain to the New York State Public Service Commission and they can force Verizon to do the right thing or refund money to me for inadequate service. That could prove to be interesting to say the least.

When Scratch first found finetune, I didn't think it had an application here for our Saturday night music sharing. You have to choose 45 songs, and I thought that was too many. Of course, some of that was maybe sour grapes because I still had dialup and that meant that I couldn't use finetune. If it wasn't sour grapes, it was old age resistance to change. Well, okay, I think I'll go with sour grapes. Anyways, I didn't see that finetune was really better than I thought.

I wanted music on my Rainbow Room blog so last Sunday I went to finetune and did my first 45 tune widget. I installed it where I wanted it and felt that was the best application for it. I go there every day to see if anyone wants to chat and I've discovered that I'm NOT hearing the same tune every time I go to the page. I love Pinball Wizard by the Who, but if I have to hear it one more time I might smash my speakers. It played every time I came to my page here after last Saturday. After 3 days of Pinball Wizard everytime I came to this blog, I had begun to turn the speakers off. On days when I forgot, I wanted to scream. There really is too much of a good thing.

If I go to songhere or projectplaylist, I have to sit through choices of music that don't play until I find one that does. When I go to finetune, I'm there just as long, but everything plays and I'm finding 45 songs not just one. So, maybe it does take a brick wall to fall on me before I get the point.

The other thing is that I can leave this widget up for 5 days, and people coming to my page, like me, are mostly going to hear different tunes each time they come. That to me is a much better idea than sitting through the same tune over and over for 5 days. So, finetune it is.

I started out with the idea of doing a 60's hits widget and before I knew it, I was out of the 60's and in to the 70's and early 80's. Definitely a kid with a new toy. Someday I actually will start out and finish what I intended to do without getting sidetracked, but not this week. This week I'm just having fun.



The Playlist


Aerosmith
Dude (Looks Like a Lady) & Walk This Way

Boston
Rock & Roll Band

Buffalo Springfield
For What It's Worth (Stop, Hey What's That Sound)

Foreigner
Feels Like the First Time... Hot Blooded...I Want to Know What Love Is

Jefferson Airplane
Somebody to Love...White Rabbit

Journey
Don't Stop Believin

Kansas
Dust In the Wind

Kiss
Detroit Rock City...Rock and Roll All Nite

Mannheim Steamroller
Classical Gas

Procol Harum
A Whiter Shade of Pale

Queen
Another One Bites the Dust...Fat Bottomed Girls... We Will Rock You

Rolling Stones
Brown Sugar...Start Me Up

Santana
Black Magic Woman, Gypsy Queen.... Evil Ways

Stevie Ray Vaughan
Couldn't Stand the Weather.... Texas Flood... The House Is Rockin'

The Animals
Don't Bring Me Down... House of the Rising Sun

The Association
Along Comes Mary... Windy

The Grass Roots
Midnight Confessions... Temptation Eyes

The Kinks
Set Me Free... Tired of Waiting for You ... You Really Got Me

The Mamas & The Papas
Creeque Alley ... I Saw Her Again

The Moody Blues
Nights In White Satin ... Tuesday Afternoon (Forever Afternoon)

The Turtles
Happy Together ... She'd Rather Be With Me

The Zombies
She's Not There ... Tell Her No

Them
Gloria

Traffic
Dear Mr. Fantasy ... Feelin' Alright?