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My daughter and I visited the Minnesota Zoo in the Twin Cities for our last day of vacation together. While there we saw:

Tigers...
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And mountain lions...
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and grizzlies...
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And even a few Democrats!😉
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All jokes aside, it's a great Zoo, and I highly recommend it...
 

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Spikedriver said:
Lol yes it is, at the moment. She can't leave her natural hair color alone. It might be fire engine red next week, or bright blue. I just roll with it. I've told her I'm not thrilled with it, but her hair color isn't a hill that I want to die on...
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Kids, harmless fun on her part! ♥️
 
Spikedriver said:
Lol yes it is, at the moment. She can't leave her natural hair color alone. It might be fire engine red next week, or bright blue. I just roll with it. I've told her I'm not thrilled with it, but her hair color isn't a hill that I want to die on...
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You're a great dad.
 
Fire to the northwest of us picked up. It's over 5000 acres burned now and we are on a level 1 evacuation notice. I'm hoping the winds shift direction to the north instead of continuing south.
We moved a lot of stuff into our storage containers and the new root cellar. RV is ready to hook up and go. Hubs is out clearing fire line right now.
Car is packed up, everything is ready to go. Going to be completely devastating if this place burns.
We are fortunate that we are off grid, lots of others without power. We won't be without power until the place burns. Our plan is to head to our friends house tonight in town if we have to evacuate.
 
DrJenner said:
Fire to the northwest of us picked up. It's over 5000 acres burned now and we are on a level 1 evacuation notice. I'm hoping the winds shift direction to the north instead of continuing south.
We moved a lot of stuff into our storage containers and the new root cellar. RV is ready to hook up and go. Hubs is out clearing fire line right now.
Car is packed up, everything is ready to go. Going to be completely devastating if this place burns.
Click to expand...
Said it in the weather thread, PLEASE KEEP US POSTED!! Praying for you!!
 
Pearl said:
I love zoos (of course), I've heard the Minnesota Zoo is great, never been! St. Louis zoo is awesome!
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It's not a huge zoo with lots and lots of animals on display like the San Diego zoo or the Henry Doorly zoo in Omaha. But the quality of the displays is fantastic! They've gone to great lengths to provide a more natural, realistic habitat than most zoos seem to, with really large spaces for each species. I was really impressed...
 
Pearl said:
Said it in the weather thread, PLEASE KEEP US POSTED!! Praying for you!!
Click to expand...
Will do thank you
highly recommend the Watch Duty app which provides information on local wildfire and will send you alerts if there is one near you. It will give you updates as to evacuation status as well.
 
Pearl said:
I love zoos (of course), I've heard the Minnesota Zoo is great, never been! St. Louis zoo is awesome!
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Oh, and I can't get the videos to load, but there is an exhibit where you can actually pet these 4 foot long leopard sharks as they swim by you in a shallow pool. That was one of the coolest things I've ever seen. There are also dolphins playing with basketballs, a herd of bison, and both sea otters and river otters, plus a beaver pond with a glass wall so you can see them under water. Like I said, I was really impressed.
 
DrJenner said:
Will do thank you
highly recommend the Watch Duty app which provides information on local wildfire and will send you alerts if there is one near you. It will give you updates as to evacuation status as well.
Click to expand...
We have a high fire threat right now. No way out of our dead end road if it happens. I SO feel for you!! Praying for the fires to miss you!! Wish they could miss everyone!! Will be checking for your updates! I can only pray and worry from a distance!! ♥️♥️♥️
 
Morning all, Especially @Pearl 'cause I know you're UP! :p

Today being Saturday I am planning to do a little laundry, work on my newest battery backup systems, one for my down stairs freezers and an up-grade of the one for the oxygen concentrator. I plan to pre-assemble them on the floor and test function (I am using my solar array inverter to operate inverter/chargers connected to separate battery banks), because I am in uncharted territory here I want to test everything as I go. Then around 9AM I am going to meet a buddy at the hunting area and go for walks in areas new to me, looking for greener pastures :archery: :cool:. Need to be back home by 2PM, I want to grill some chicken and the wife had me thaw a pork-butt that she wants to make pulled pork from. Before the day ends I need to mow the lawn :barf:, I do that last thing because I have to shower right afterwards or I look like I have been rolling in poison ivy...
 
Thankfully overnight the winds shifted to the west. The fire is now burning to the west of town but we made The NY Times.
We are off the evac notice but if the wind shifts to the east again we are in trouble.
Getting more stuff into the containers today that we weren’t able to last night and will lay more fire trail.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/18/us/washington-wildfire-four-lakes.html
 
DrJenner said:
Fire to the northwest of us picked up. It's over 5000 acres burned now and we are on a level 1 evacuation notice. I'm hoping the winds shift direction to the north instead of continuing south.
We moved a lot of stuff into our storage containers and the new root cellar. RV is ready to hook up and go. Hubs is out clearing fire line right now.
Car is packed up, everything is ready to go. Going to be completely devastating if this place burns.
We are fortunate that we are off grid, lots of others without power. We won't be without power until the place burns. Our plan is to head to our friends house tonight in town if we have to evacuate.
Click to expand...
Fire is our biggest concern here. Two years ago a fire started about 40 miles south of us and burned to within a half mile of our place. We had a great view of the fire coming over the ridge at night with the trees exploding. The next day I opened the gates to let the cattle out and we evacuated.
We let the forest service set up on top of one of our hills to direct the aircraft operations. Also gave them permission to dip water out of our pond.
A year before that another fire started and burned over 200,000 acres. It completely burned one of our properties. Every last tree, twig and blade of grass burned. Nothing survived.
Good luck to you guys.
 

I finally got this video to load. Petting a shark is something I never thought would happen.

Now I'm feeling a little sad. My daughter starts her senior year of high school next week. I am feeling old, summer is over, and fall will be here in a month. Winter will soon follow.

Enjoy life while you can. The days pass too quickly. Someday I'll be grateful for these memories, and I can only hope my daughter will too...
 
Last night I finished pressure canning 22 pints of cream style corn. I picked it, cut both ends off and bagged in freezer several weeks ago. Thawed, blanched, cut off cob and boiled. It worked beautifully. Daughter may come to pressure can today. Her husband told her about lockdown protocols to roll out mid September. Anyone else hear this?
 
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txcatlady said:
Last night I finished canning 22 pints of cream style corn. I picked it, cut both ends off and bagged in freezer. It worked beautifully. Daughter may come to pressure can today. Her husband told her about lockdown protocols to roll out mid September. Anyone else hear this?
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Yep, rumors are flying, be prepared!!
 
I took my walk in the woods (~2 1/2 miles), saw lots of promising sign and am excited for the new season.

I took my vitals when I got home from my walk, My Blood Pressure was 104/68! (my "normal" was ~140/80) and my sugar was 104! So far this change in eating habits as resulted in a 14 pound weigh loss and 4" lost in my waist line...

The wife is very unhappy, it seems like everyone is doing something outside and she feels trapped! She does not have anyone else to take it out on so I'm it, the fact that I went for a walk without permission and that it made me feel better didn't help.
 
I gripe at my husband to come outside on his mobility scooter when he gets too crabby with me. I have outside work to do...I keep my cell phone in my apron pocket if he needs something. I know the feeling about being the one the anger flies at. Sorry, Urban. I just ignore it, blow it off. The alternative would be to not do what you want/need to do.
Little granddaughter and I got outside before the bad heat. Neighbor boy Levi came by, too....got the big chicken coop cleaned out, new straw put in. Clean out the milkhouse indoor run that the junior turkeys were in. Then finished animal and garden chores. Came in around an hour ago, and that's as much heat as I'll stand for the day. Kimmy is doing windows and a bathroom and I think is about done. Thinking about going and filling a cart at Aldi in awhile.
 
I had a couple of huge trees next to my work shop that were dying and leaning over the building. We dug around them with the backhoe and drug them over. The first tree ended up being a bee tree and we got stung all over. The next one we drug down had a yellow jacket nest and we got stung all over again. In the morning when it’s cool we will bust open the bee tree and see what it has for honey and get stung some more.🤣🤣🤣



 
@hashbrown be careful with that. We disturbed a nest at work a couple weeks ago and one of my coworkers got nailed over 30 times, mostly on his back and belly. He tried to keep working but went down about a half hour later and was taken to the hospital. Turns out he wasn't allergic, there was just so much venom that it made him sick...
 
Spikedriver said:
@hashbrown be careful with that. We disturbed a nest at work a couple weeks ago and one of my coworkers got nailed over 30 times, mostly on his back and belly. He tried to keep working but went down about a half hour later and was taken to the hospital. Turns out he wasn't allergic, there was just so much venom that it made him sick...
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I kept bees for 20 years and have the appropriate gear and tools for the job. I’m sure I will get stung but won’t be too bad I hope anyway
 
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