They’re cool insects, but I’ve never trusted them. Somewhere behind those beady eyes, they’re speculating on whether you could be dinner, too.
And, indeed, praying you will be.
Right? Fucking amazing.
FUCK FUCK FUCKITY FUCK FUCK!
As promised, the new computer arrived today. I switched all the cables from the old one to the new one, and powered it up. After going through the whole set-up process (no, I don’t want Microsoft to know any of my business, no I don’t want to use Cortana, etc etc etc) I used Edge to download Firefox. (And when I did a search for Firefox, Edge actually tried to convince me not to use it!) Installed Firefox and followed the instructions I had previously copied out on how to replace the initial profile with the one from the old computer. And as I had feared, it didn’t work. Then I tried to copy my bookmarks, which I had also copied out. Nope, the new Firefox can’t read the file. So I manually entered Gmail, logged into it, and tried to bookmark it. FIREFOX WON’T LET ME BOOKMARK IT! In fact, it won’t let me bookmark anything. I spend several hours doing everything that Firefox help suggested to fix it, and I might as well have been pissing into the wind.
I also tried restoring from the backup I had made yesterday. It supposedly worked, except I don’t seem to have any of my old programs.
I installed Thunderbird, and when I tried to log onto my AT&T email account it won’t accept my password. I have this vague recollection that at some time in the past I had set up an encrypted password for my email, but of course I have no idea what it is. I’m in no mood to deal with AT&T customer disservice, so that can wait. I had saved a copy of my Thunderbird profile (which should have included my old emails) but my new Thunderbird program won’t recognize it.
I finally decided to run restore and start over. Tomorrow.
Man, you guys are pretty heartless. No thought for my mental trauma seeing that, no thought for the poor hummer who was happily feeding one minute and then whammo! dead the next.
And how about that poor Praying Mantis who had the meal of a lifetime and then the clumsy primates came close and stomped around while making mouth noises so the poor thing dropped its prize? Geeze louise.
I knew that folks who posted here were all twisted like that, the folks over in the “I saw in nature…” thread would be too sad to see that pic. No worries about posting it here, you sickos!!!
For the record, the mantis was holding an Anna’s hummer which usually weigh in at .14 to .16 of an ounce and it held it long enough for me to shout and point out the kitchen window, Hubs to look and both of us go out the door while fumbling for our phones. It’s very possible that the mantis only dropped the body then because we startled it.
Pretty fucking amazing IMO!!!
Hey neighbor’s friend sorry not sorry I went all Karen on you and your unleashed dog. Ya see I have a right to walk about my property unmolested by your German Shepard jumping circling tagging and sniffing me while you yell ineffectual commands then resort to zapping his electric collar making it yelp in pain.
Get a fucking leash shithead and keep your fucking hound on it when in my neighborhood, I swear you’re a lame brained fucking idiot standing like a lump of stone with that fucking zapper thinking it’s going to socialize your fucking ill behaved idiot dog. I will amp it up you ain’t seen nothing yet. GTFO!
Oh, I actually thought about your mental trauma. I know how I’d feel if harm came to one of my local birds during their visit to the Hedonia Bird Amusement Park.
The bird amusement park was my summer boredom project. It started out slow, with a birdbath. Soon birds were lining up on our fence to use it. So we added a bird feeder. Then some tall poles, because some birds like the high perch. Then a table featuring an interesting assortment of shiny objects intermingled with nuts and dried fruit and bird treats. We mostly did this for our viewing pleasure, but we also noticed that the birds mercilessly harass any field mice that stray onto the lawn. So we like to keep them around.
It’s been fun to watch, but I’d feel like crap if one of the birds I lured into the yard came to harm.
Thank you, it really was pretty upsetting because I blamed myself for luring the poor lil bird to my porch. If I’d seen it out in nature, I would have felt bad for the bird, but not guilty.
Oddly enough, I don’t feel badly about the small hawk who visits our yard every morning looking for breakfast.
I hadn’t thought about a table with shiny things. I get visited by a raven fairly regularly, I’ll bet he would like to play with little bits and bobs. Thanks for the idea!
I have also learned that if I spray the humming bird feeder with olive oil, mantis’s don’t like to walk on them, but it won’t hurt them or the hummers.
So what would happen to a bird that gets oil on its feathers? I would say that could be quite harmful.
@JaneDoe42, I used to work in a business park area many years ago and during my lunch breaks I liked to go for long walks while listening to a radio (I had headphones on so I wasn’t bothering other people). We had a nice walking path that went around the entire park and went past a pond, it was pretty nice. especially in the warmer months.
One time there was a bunch of crows (a “murder”) harassing a baby bunny. This thing was pretty small; I could probably fit it in both of my hands. I stopped my walk to try to shoo them away, and tried to get the bunny to run into the nearby woods (it was sheltering under a car which didn’t offer any real protection). But the crows wouldn’t stay away and the bunny wouldn’t go into the woods, nor could I grab it, so after a good 10-15 minutes I had to give up. Nature was going to do what it was going to do regardless of what I tried.
I felt extremely guilty about that for a long time and it still makes me a bit sad. So I get where you’re coming from. Obviously you did nothing wrong and it was just nature being nature; predators go after prey, it’s the way of the world and happens all the time everywhere. But you are human and its in your nature to protect those that are vulnerable and feel guilty when you fail to do that. It’s understandable to feel bad but just know that you didn’t do anything wrong. You didn’t intend to harm a hummingbird and you are trying to help them by giving them a convenient place to eat from, so you are a good person.
I’m not clear how a bird would get the oil on their feathers. They don’t rub against the feeder, they fly straight to it and stick their beaks in the feeder holes and then fly away again. There isn’t anywhere for them to perch and groom, not to mention that its a very light spray, not a thick layer.
I’ll do more research on this, but the bird rescue guy I called is the one who suggested using olive oil. I tend to trust the opinions of people who work with the critters on a daily basis, they often know things.
If you come across something, please let me know.
@Broomstick I know you are pretty good with birds, do you have an opinion as to the wisdom of spraying hummingbird feeders with olive oil to deter bees and praying mantis’?
@Atamasama Thank you for sharing that. I’d have felt badly about not saving the bunny too. I know that I can’t save the world, but somehow still feel I should be able to stop bad things from happening just by strength of will. Yeah, I know it doesn’t work that way, but it should!
I know you don’t mean harm but there is a good chance it could be ingested or a brush against the feeder could transfer to feathers. Who has the hummer avatar here? Haven’t seen them in a while.
Colibri, one of the mods. He is a professional hummingbird expert.
ETA: According to his profile today is his birthday! He hasn’t posted since September 8 though.
This source says don’t use oils on feeders. https://journeynorth.org/tm/humm/bees_at_feeder.html
Yes the very one, it’s been a minute! Respectfully paging @Colibri re:hummingbird feeder best practices if you please?
I’m not an expert on hummers - you might want to PM @Colibri who really does know stuff about them.
I think if you were careful to only spray where the hummers couldn’t get oil on them or their beaks it might be alright, but I’m not sure ingesting the oil would be healthy for them. They’re a weird mix of tough and extremely delicate.
As for bees - they’re attracted to nectar/sugar water. There’s nothing to stop that that wouldn’t also hurt the hummers. Bees and hummers eat the same thing.
Thank you for your reply. I usually keep the bees in check by keeping a shallow bird bath on the other side of the yard. Its only this time of a year when I have an issue with them.
I have pm’d Colibri as well as leaving a message for a call back from the local wildlife sanctuary. The guy I asked before does town bird rescue, so might not know as much about hummers as he does about pigeons.
Fuck the spam caller who just spoofed the telephone number of a local hospital to get me to answer their bullshit “warranty center” scam call! 
The warranty shit is bad enough by itself, but giving the momentary scare that a loved one has ended up in the emergency room is pure fucking evil!
These fuckers don’t give a flying fuck that they’re essentially moving headlong towards making the telephone fucking useless. Already I don’t answer calls from unknown numbers, and now I’m going to be wary of even identified calls if they’re not from someone in my contact list. I wonder how many legitimate calls have been ignored and people inconvenienced (or worse!) because these fuckers have conditioned us to presume any call not from a frequent contact is spam!
I’ve gotten spam calls from “ITS STATE OF NO” (presumably truncate of North Carolina) and “PSYCHIATRIC SER” which of course I answered.
Very true. There are valid reasons that I may not recognize a number from a call I really should answer, or even that a number from a valid source shows up as either “blocked” or “unknown” – a prime example being some calls made from a hospital room due to the way the hospital switchboard works!! These fuckers make receiving such calls pretty much impossible, unless I want to be constantly reminded in an Indian accent that I need “duck cleaning”.
More rants: I barely had time to enjoy my successful repair of the tailpiece part of my kitchen sink drain, and now I hear a dripping sound in the downstairs toilet. “It’s always something. If it’s not one thing, it’s another” – Roseanne Roseannadanna, SNL philosopher. This is a new house, dammit, but I guess the word “new” only applies for so long, and eventually it becomes just a regular house with things breaking down. This is a non-urgent problem as it’s just the fill valve dripping into the tank and wasting water, but it looks like I’ll probably have to replace the entire fill and float assembly because that’s just how they’re made these days.
New to you, or new enough to still be under the builder’s warranty?