Sightings are getting scarcer and scarcer. Did see a cute squirrel, belly up in the middle of the road, pretty orange belly and legs sticking straight up. Another one that zigged when he should’ve zagged. I know from our squirrel reporting a couple years ago that a lot of you think they’re just cute rats, but at least they haven’t gotten into everything at my place like the racoons. I used to think raccoons were cute, too.
When I was a kid we lived in the middle of some woods and would climb trees chasing squirrels. You had to get them in an isolated tree because they could jump from one to another. We’d chase then out to the end of a branch and then shake it until they fell. Somebody would be on the ground waiting to catch them in a gunnysack. We’d put them in a hamster cage and keep them for pets. But the next morning they’d always be gone. Mom!!! She never said anything, but I don’t think she liked wild animals as pets. The fun was more in the chase anyway.
Did see the Goose family again, swimming in the Gorst log pond. Mom, Dad and three or four little ones. The kids are growing up fast.
I’ve never eaten goose, but know some people do, like on holidays. Do they eat Canada geese? Can you hunt them? It wouldn’t be much sport. You could go down to the railroad tracks and plunk a bunch of them in no time. Somebody told me they taste like mud.
Speaking of tasting like mud, my grandma and grandpa had a place in Purdy on the creek. He was a a mad scientist kind of guy. Built a 10-foot wooden waterwheel for electricity along the creek. I don’t know if it ever worked, but it was pretty cool. He also dug a big pond and put a post in the middle of it. From the post ran a cable or rope to a row boat. Somehow it was powered, maybe from the waterwheel, and you could get in the boat and go around in circles.
He’d haul salmon out of the creek and put them in the pond. They’d get huge. We’d throw our leftover pancakes to them and it’d be like sharks on blood, thrashing about. But they were gross to eat. Tasted like mud.
“Built a 10-foot wooden waterwheel for electricity along the creek. I don’t know if it ever worked, but it was pretty cool. He also dug a big pond and put a post in the middle of it. From the post ran a cable or rope to a row boat.”
Now you’ve hit the memory bank again. My g.grandfather built a waterwheel on the ‘homeplace’ in Norway – and still working when I saw it some 100 + years after it was built.
He also devised a way to get coal tar…kinda funny how people can figure out how to do stuff when its not handed to them…
Ed…If you have photos of that boat and/or the windmill (waterwheel) …will you post it/them?
Would be neat to see it…
Thanks. Does kid have a real name?
Sharon O’Hara