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  1. #1
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    From the "You Can't Make This Shit Up" Files

    Decided today was a good day to mow the lawn - finally attack a hard to mow/reach section I'd been avoiding.

    Went to the garage and got the old gas push mower that I use on this particular section of lawn due to its size/location and pushed it to the upper terrace and proceed to mow a small section. After a couple passes I notice it feels heavy and kick the grass bag to see how full it is and yeah, probably should be dumped but that's funny because I hadn't mowed much. Oh well the grass is long.

    Unhook bag and see the tail of a snake - a very pale snake which is odd. Fork, I didn't see one when I was mowing. Guess I ran over him. He's still wiggling a bit, maybe he's okay as I have it set on the highest setting so I give his tail a tug to pull him out of the clippings but he doesn't budge and he's got some heft to him, again, odd so I decide to tilt the bag down and what pops out but an adult opossum! WTF?

    Guess he/she crawled in the bag for a nap early this morning when the garage was open. LOL!!! He/she had grass clippings stuck all over him/her - a right mess and looking a little confused but seemed no worse for the wear. Waddled off across the lawn and disappeared into the shrubbery and I went back to mowing.

    Bizarre.

  2. #2
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    That is bizarre. I've never seen a snake waddle.

    edit: oh it was an opoosum waddling. That I've seen. My bad.
    Last edited by iceman; 05-08-2017 at 03:09 PM.

  3. #3
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    “I have a responsibility to not be intimidated and bullied by low life losers who abuse what little power is granted to them as ski patrollers.”

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by KQ View Post
    shrubbery
    I still call it The Jake.

  5. #5
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    did you make that shit up?

    Very lucky opossum
    Own your fail. ~Jer~

  6. #6
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    aren't possums a little mean after being smothered in grass & then yanked out of bed?

  7. #7
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    possums are evil when cornered and scared they don't always play dead
    glad you are ok KQ
    Quote Originally Posted by blurred
    skiing is hiking all day so that you can ski on shitty gear for 5 minutes.

  8. #8
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    Are you sure no one is looking for it?

    I still call it The Jake.

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by MTT View Post
    did you make that shit up?

    Very lucky opossum
    LOL! No & indeed! Still shaking my head about it.

    Quote Originally Posted by acinpdx View Post
    aren't possums a little mean after being smothered in grass & then yanked out of bed?
    It seemed confused, along the lines of getting too drunk and waking up on someone else's couch (whose couch? whose house? how did I get here and where are my shoes??)

    Quote Originally Posted by Summit View Post
    possums are evil when cornered and scared they don't always play dead
    glad you are ok KQ
    It didn't hiss or act aggressive which I've seen before. Maybe it's ears were ringing from the mower engine or plugged with clippings. LOL!

    EDIT: Don't forget I kicked the bag too which was probably a blow to the head given the tail was at the open end when I pulled the bag off the mower.



    Quote Originally Posted by BmillsSkier View Post
    Are you sure no one is looking for it?

    That is hysterical! Like that eye glasses ad where the woman calls her cat and a raccoon runs in her house.



    Ugh... almost did that myself one night but it was a skunk! Opened the front door to call the cat and heard a lapping sound. Outside the front door I have big pots with drip pans that are sometimes full of water which the cats drink from. When I heard the sound I naturally thought it was the cat so I stepped out to pick him up and saw it wasn't my cat but a very large skunk! Yikes!
    Last edited by KQ; 05-08-2017 at 03:43 PM.

  10. #10
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    One of our cats (long haired gray tabby) is named possum because it was dropped off at our vet by someone who mistook it for an opposum in their back yard. Needless to say, it has a rather unusual personality.

  11. #11
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    Years ago, when we had a wood shingle roof, squirrels ate a hole in it and set up housekeeping in the attic. One day we hear this meowing--after searching and searching we opened the attic access door in my son's closet and there was a cat that had followed a squirrel in through the hole in the roof and couldn't get out. Seemed well fed.

    About 3 weeks ago I was walking my dogs and a woman asked me if I had seen her cat--missing for 2 weeks. No, sorry. About a week later my wife goes in the house--which had been empty all this time--and hears a cat. It's in my son's old bedroom with the door closed. It had got into the house through the dog door, probably got upstairs and hid under the bed and then got shut in when I closed the door and left the house. No damage but it took a lot of washing to get the urine out of the bed clothes. And it was the missing cat in question. Shoulda made the owner clean up the mess.

  12. #12
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    From the "You Can't Make This Shit Up" Files

    Quote Originally Posted by KQ View Post
    (whose couch? whose house? how did I get here and where are my shoes??)
    Whose wine!? What wine!? Where the hell did I dine!?
    Remind me. We'll send him a red cap and a Speedo.

  13. #13
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    KQ--don't your horses eat grass? If not, just get some goats and stop mowing the lawn.

    Your story reminds me--years ago we spent a month climbing in the Winds. We came out and were having dinner in Dubois, asked if there was anyplace we could pitch a tent for the night, start hitching home in the morning. They said sure, that field over there, but let us cut the grass first to kill the snakes. Snakes being the ones with rattles on the end. They did and we had a lovely sleep. Hitching home turned out to be a problem--Cheyenne during Frontier Days not the best place for a couple of long hairs armed with ice axes. Finally got a ride to the edge of town with a very large, very gay cowboy who promised to come back that night and check on us if we were still waiting for a ride. I went back to town and caught the Greyhound.

  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by bagtagley View Post
    Whose wine!? What wine!? Where the hell did I dine!?
    "Cheryl and I thought the stroganoff was marvelous."

    "Sir, we didn't have dinner together last night"

    "Huh? Then where the hell was I? And who's this Cheryl? Bah! Doesn't matter."
    "...no hobby should either seek or need rational justification. To find reasons why it is useful or beneficial converts it at once from an avocation into an industry, lowers it at once to the ignominious category of an exercise undertaken for health, power or profit."
    -Aldo Leopold

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by bagtagley View Post
    Whose wine!? What wine!? Where the hell did I dine!?

    Well, woke up this morning with a wine glass in my hand.................

    Quote Originally Posted by old goat View Post
    KQ--don't your horses eat grass? If not, just get some goats and stop mowing the lawn.

    Your story reminds me--years ago we spent a month climbing in the Winds. We came out and were having dinner in Dubois, asked if there was anyplace we could pitch a tent for the night, start hitching home in the morning. They said sure, that field over there, but let us cut the grass first to kill the snakes. Snakes being the ones with rattles on the end. They did and we had a lovely sleep. Hitching home turned out to be a problem--Cheyenne during Frontier Days not the best place for a couple of long hairs armed with ice axes. Finally got a ride to the edge of town with a very large, very gay cowboy who promised to come back that night and check on us if we were still waiting for a ride. I went back to town and caught the Greyhound.
    Goats <shudder> fun to watch but extremely hard to fence. Wouldn't mind some sheep. Been looking at some Kahtadin for the very purpose of keeping the grass down between the perimeter fence and the horse pasture fence.

    Can't believe you went ahead and camped there. I don't have rattle snakes at my place, just gopher.

  16. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by BmillsSkier View Post
    That's what I got out of that story too. Great minds.
    They think I do not know a buttload of crap about the Gospel, but I do.

  17. #17
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    You're a brave woman to reach in and try to pull whatever it was out. I'd be inclined to walk away and hope whatever it was got out on it's own by the time I returned.

  18. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by KQ View Post
    Well, woke up this morning with a wine glass in my hand.................



    Goats <shudder> fun to watch but extremely hard to fence. Wouldn't mind some sheep. Been looking at some Kahtadin for the very purpose of keeping the grass down between the perimeter fence and the horse pasture fence.

    Can't believe you went ahead and camped there. I don't have rattle snakes at my place, just gopher.
    Friend of mine had a couple of pygmy goats--nannies-- to keep the grass down on a very steep slope. We were changing in the locker room and he was bruised from his waist to the back of his knees. You don't want to turn your back on goats, even pygmy goats, even nannies.

  19. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by The AD View Post
    You're a brave woman to reach in and try to pull whatever it was out. I'd be inclined to walk away and hope whatever it was got out on it's own by the time I returned.
    LOL! Yeah I suppose. Snakes, at least the ones I have around here don't bother me. I welcome them for all the good they do. Opossum and skunk are fab too for all the insects and rodents they eat. Only bad thing about Opossum is the bacteria in their feces. I can kill a horse (causes a severe neurological disorder).

    What scares me around here are cougar, badger and porcupine. It was obvious it wasn't any of those so I reached in to pull it out. I did have heavy leather gloves on.

    Quote Originally Posted by flowing alpy View Post
    Atta girl, that's some Ellie Mae Clampett right there, KQ!

  20. #20
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    The "real" Ellie Mae (Florence Thompson age 32) courtesy of Dorothea Lange
    Click image for larger version. 

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  21. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by KQ View Post

    That is hysterical! Like that eye glasses ad where the woman calls her cat and a raccoon runs in her house.



    Ugh... almost did that myself one night but it was a skunk! Opened the front door to call the cat and heard a lapping sound. Outside the front door I have big pots with drip pans that are sometimes full of water which the cats drink from. When I heard the sound I naturally thought it was the cat so I stepped out to pick him up and saw it wasn't my cat but a very large skunk! Yikes!
    Always loved that commercial. But yeah, fuck that picking up a skunk! Maybe the lady in the commercial can recommend some eyeglasses that could be of help?

    Quote Originally Posted by old goat View Post
    Finally got a ride to the edge of town with a very large, very gay cowboy who promised to come back that night and check on us if we were still waiting for a ride. I went back to town and caught the Greyhound.
    Whatever you say man. NTTAWWT.




    Quote Originally Posted by KQ View Post
    Well, woke up this morning with a wine glass in my hand.................
    Quote Originally Posted by bagtagley View Post
    Whose wine!? What wine!? Where the hell did I dine!?
    Peter Frampton married a Cincinnati girl and lived there for the better part of 20 years. To this day, despite being years removed from OH, every time I hear this opening I have to lean over and say to the wife, "Cincinnati's own... Peter Frampton!"

    She'd be less tired of it if I had some of my college buddies around to say it to instead.

    Quote Originally Posted by old goat View Post
    Friend of mine had a couple of pygmy goats--nannies-- to keep the grass down on a very steep slope. We were changing in the locker room and he was bruised from his waist to the back of his knees. You don't want to turn your back on goats, even pygmy goats, even nannies.
    And they can see into your soul.

    So there's that too.
    I still call it The Jake.

  22. #22
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    Jun 2006
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    Fuck opossum, don't like 'em on the account of they are ugly, stupid and dirty little rodents. Not sure why they are not extinct yet. Had a weird encounter with on in Isla Vista one day. Coming home from beach, high as a kite, mother opossum with a bunch of her abomination little pink ones clinging to her hair trying to get over a fence while a stray cat licked it's lips and just waited
    Sure enough when the little ones just fell off and the cat crept up on it. I couldn't watch but I couldn't turn away so I chase the cat off of it. Possum mom comes down and picks up her little. Try to climb over the fence and another one Falls. Horrible scene never forgave opossums after that Ugg
    Education must be the answer, we've tried ignorance and it doesn't work!

  23. #23
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    Goats as well. Anyone that has ever been in the enchantments
    Education must be the answer, we've tried ignorance and it doesn't work!

  24. #24
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    Enchantment Lakes knows what I speak of. Nothing like getting out of your tent and watching 10 big mountain goats wait for you to pee
    Education must be the answer, we've tried ignorance and it doesn't work!

  25. #25
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    Weird w-shaped eyes looking at you
    Education must be the answer, we've tried ignorance and it doesn't work!

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