@Scarred4Lyfe
Great Blue Heron fishing out at East Fork Lake north of town (Olney) Missed strike Richland County Illinois
@Scarred4Lyfe
@Scarred4Lyfe in May 2021
@Scarred4Lyfe
@Scarred4Lyfe
Red-Eared Sliders basking on a log in the sun East Fork Lake Olney Richland County Illinois
@Scarred4Lyfe
A great afternoon for me. This little blue fellow migrates through the area I live in every year in spring, but during the past eight years, this has been only the third time I have seen one of them. Indigo Bunting Olney Richland County Illinois USA May 2nd, 2021 #Photography
@Scarred4Lyfe
Wet Zombie Rat Also known as an opossum, this ugly thing showed up after my morning raccoon visit was over. My older cat, Scar, does NOT like these whatsoever and will go charging at them if he is outside when one of them appears. #Photography
@Scarred4Lyfe
I was waiting to see if they would accept the change. I actually moved the litter-box into a completely different room, then picked each of them up and carried them there and showed them where it was. "He remodeled the bathroom" said Scar. #CatS
@Scarred4Lyfe
Well, it's that time of year again for where I am. Spring has been sprung for a good few weeks and the seasonal bug-rush has commenceth. Every time I have turned around this morning I've been having one of these bumbling around bouncing off of everything. This one is on my glucose test kit right now, can't decide what to do with it. #Photography
@Scarred4Lyfe
I think Scar may have snorted just a little bit too much catnip #Cat
@Scarred4Lyfe
I miss the simpler days of life...do you remember when appliances only came in four colors? You had your Basic White, your Avocado Green, your Harvest Gold, and your Coppertone Brown. That was IT. If you wanted anything else it was time to go and buy some paint. (I still use a Coppertone Brown oven)
@Scarred4Lyfe
Scar watches the Eastern approach to the house waiting for the sun to arrive. He and I are both due for an adventure over the next week as my 84 year old Dad comes to stay for 7 nights. He'll be arriving later this afternoon.
@Scarred4Lyfe
There went $50 I didn't know I needed to spend until the yard trailer I pull behind the riding mower shouted at me this morning. I knew the tires were about half-flat but hadn't aired them up and finally decided I would. And after my first look I decided there was NO WAY I was going to try to inflate those things, they'd blow up as soon as I did. So at $25 each (complete with tire/rim) I just put two on the trailer...and now I need to go out in the yard and put in some work…
@Scarred4Lyfe
Great start to the day, wake up at 4 AM (which is extremely late for me) and found my Dad unresponsive on the bathroom floor. After spending 5-10 minutes trying to get a response I called an ambulance and he is now in the hospital. I spent 4 hours there with him and then my baby sister came to relieve me because she knows that not only do I intensely dislike hospitals I am also extremely anti-social and don't deal with people very good in the best of circumstances. So now…
@Scarred4Lyfe
TODAY'S NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY IS PROUDLY BROUGHT TO YOU BY TICKS. More specifically by a Lone Star tick I found embedded in my left shoulder this morning. And it was showing absolutely NO interest in leaving. I thought at first I had a new mole on me...but the color was a bit too dark...so I took a fingernail and scratched at it and it didn't come off. But it just didn't look right. So I kept working at it and after about a minute it finally came off, but I still couldn't tell…
@Scarred4Lyfe
The past 60 hours have been the proverbial living hell and it doesn't look as though things will change for the foreseeable future. None of us are ever REALLY ready for some things that happen...we may have a foreboding, and some would claim clairvoyance, but none of us REALLY know what will happen next, so how can we prepare? My Dad is still hospitalized, still incoherent, they still do not know what happened or what they'll do, other than he'll have to go to a nursing home…
@Scarred4Lyfe
A story told in photos... "Hey! What the **** are you doing on my suet block?! I SAID GTF OUT OF HERE! AND DON'T COME BACK!" Red-bellied woodpecker doesn't like starlings any more than I do. #Photography
@Scarred4Lyfe
"Live your life as LOUD as possible so when you are gone those that knew you best hear the silence scream your name." - Michael Joseph Ratcliffe I've never been quiet. I've always made sure my voice could be heard, that it was not drowned amidst the noise of others. But it seems I am losing my words. What used to pour forth freely I now find myself damming up inside. The emotions are still there - finding the way to best express them is what has changed. Often I may write…
@Scarred4Lyfe
Baby squirrels are such cute things. I have a pair of Eastern Gray Squirrels that are around 3 months old that have begun feeding out front. Emoci (my female black & white cat) keeps tormenting them by pouncing *at* them...she's not trying to catch them, she just likes scaring the crap out of them. #Photograghy
@Scarred4Lyfe
Not the full brood but 6 out of 7 of us siblings. One brother (Jeff) couldn't make it because he was going to see his granddaughter for the first time today about 100 miles away. First time Julie has been in town since 2011 Left side of table: Top - Sherri/Middle - Me/Bottom - Steve Right side of table: Top - Shirley/Middle - Julie/Bottom - Terri
@Scarred4Lyfe
First off, no, I did not take these photos. Yes, I did come up with the captions. Someone I know was on their way to work this morning and saw this a few miles north of where they live. Now, donkeys running loose is not something you see every day around these parts...in fact, in over 61 years' worth of days I have not seen a single solitary one of them. So I am a bit jealous that my friend (who is 20 years younger than me) can now say she did and I didn't. :-P But I guess…
@Scarred4Lyfe
How do you know when your cat is fully-charged? The indicator lights turn green. Emoci this morning caught where she knows she should not be...of course when she realized she was busted she came out from under the truck and back into the yard. #Photography
@Scarred4Lyfe
Music is extremely subjective to the personality. What some would call music, others might call noise. And to them it IS noise...and to the others it is music. It is all a matter of perception. But all GOOD music calls to an emotion in us. Love/fear/anger/hate/wonder...longing...something is triggered in us emotionally that attaches us to that music. And it is a glorious feeling... (photo is Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers'album 'Damn The Torpedoes' playing in my room)
@Scarred4Lyfe
Male Rose-Breasted Grosbeak Spring Migration May 08 2019 Olney IL USA I get these for about a three-week period every spring as they make the migration flight north. Oddly enough, I have never seen one migrating south in the fall.
@Scarred4Lyfe
Hackers...what is this shit with hackers? I got the time-honored "Your PayPal account has been accessed by unauthorized users" phone spam yesterday. Of course, the phone number displayed was a LOCAL exchange...PayPal being based in California is NOT going to have an Olney Illinois phone number...but we'll let that part slide for a minute. Secondly, any contact from PayPal will ALWAYS address you by your legal registered name...they will NOT ask you to give them your name.…
@Scarred4Lyfe
Well that was a bit odd...I got a free 2 cent tip back from giving a heart to someone. Hadn't heard anything about it so I was definitely not expecting this to pop up under my notifications.
@Scarred4Lyfe
Thought I'd share a photo I just took of one of my neighborhood albinos. Olney Illinois USA is one of few towns with a large population of albino grey squirrels, I have two that come to feed pretty much daily.
@Scarred4Lyfe
Early mornings feeders out at the Squirrel Tree. I see these guys daily so I often forget how special it is to live in a town with over 100 albino squirrels. (Olney Illinois USA). These are actually Eastern Grey squirrels with a recessive albino gene.
@Scarred4Lyfe
This is almost a month old now (April 27 2021) but this is one of the iris that grow along the side of my house. I guess I need to dig up and replant them because 3 of the plants haven't produced flowers for a few years now.
@Scarred4Lyfe
Leo Getz held an intruder in my home while I stabbed him because when I tried calling the police the only people answering 911 were telemarketers. And the intruder (who I did not know) was the SECOND person I stabbed last night, the other being the ex-husband of one of my exes. And I don't know where Leo came from but there he was... It was a rough night's sleep to say the least...
@Scarred4Lyfe
I still don't know about this 'channels' deal. I mean cool, neat idea, but I am not gonna post in a channel and have to wait hours for the post to be approved...Homie don't play that game, never have, ain't gonna start. I mean the post won't even show on my own profile until after it has been approved...fine if I only have to wait 15-30 minutes, but not this hours and hours junk. BUT that's just me and I'm a jerk so don't worry 'bout my opinion.
@Scarred4Lyfe
Talking with a friend the other day about Stevie Wonder and realized that out of over 1700 vinyl albums I did not have a single thing by him. So I started digging through Discogs.com (my favorite site for collecting albums) and after discarding all the 'Greatest Hits/Best Of' collections (because they had the 'radio friendly' versions of the songs instead of the full-length cuts) I finally found this German import from 1982 that has pretty much all my favorite cuts from him…
@Scarred4Lyfe
Exciting for me...had a 'new' peony bush show up this year, or more correctly I should say bloom for the first time. I thought I had a couple of 'stray' peony plants but as they never bloomed previously I decided they were not. I was wrong...occasionally I am glad to be wrong.
@Scarred4Lyfe
Do you prefer a bait station to get rid of mice or do you prefer a more natural way? My brother works for a pest-control company (Orkin) and was getting ready to re-bait this station this morning and opened it to this. I told him just close it and leave it, much better than using poison.
@Scarred4Lyfe
Morning Coughee Moment May 26, 2021 And here I go again trying to understand humans when I know good and well that humans cannot be understood. Ergo, a 50 mph punch from a peacock mantis shrimp is ALWAYS going to be faster that a .22 caliber bullet that leaves the muzzle between 800-1200 mph depending on the grain load. But I guess the shrimp must operate under different physics than the rest of the Universe because three times this person insisted they were right. I…
@Scarred4Lyfe
These damned spammers on the phone - "May I speak to Mr Teddy please?" Um...NO. First of all, there is no 'Mr Teddy' here and there never has been. This is Mr Ratcliffe's house. My Dad. Ted Ratcliffe. If you do not know him he is 'Mr Ratcliffe' to you, not 'Mr Teddy', and if you DO know him, then you know he HATES being called Teddy. So asking for 'Mr Teddy' identifies you as a spammer. And even though you try to insist you are not a spammer, you are calling from a spoofed…
@Scarred4Lyfe
No, this is not a fantastic shot. But I fought for the better part of an hour to get this, and in the end had to lift it from a video I shot. I knew I had a den on that end of the yard...it's been there 8 years at least (how long I've lived back here in the old family house). And a couple of times a year I'll see a 'hog out in the side yard and maybe get lucky and get a sneak shot of it. But I got yelled at the other day, which had never happened before. (you can read about…
@Scarred4Lyfe
Morning Coughee Moment May 28, 2021 Here we go with another day full of caffeine and joyous wonder. Well, caffeine anyway...I'll have to wonder about the joy for a few until I get woke up properly. Slept in until 5 AM this morning which is extremely late for me and Scar was starting to get a bit upset that I was ignoring his pleas to go out on YardGuard™ duty. A steady heavy rain kind of curtailed his and Emoci's outdoor adventures about 3 yesterday afternoon and usually…
@Scarred4Lyfe
Great. Even after a post is approved in a channel, it doesn't show in the main subscription (people) list. It only shows if someone checks my profile or if someone is subscribed to the channel. Which actually gives very little incentive to bother with posting in a channel unless you have a lot of channel subscribers which you most likely won't get unless your channel is popular which won't happen without posting content that basically no one will see.…
@Scarred4Lyfe
It's been over a year now since my state (USA/Illinois) decided to legalize marijuana for recreational usage. I've been smoking it for almost 50 years and had been arrested for it and even sentenced to prison over it...and it is a danged plant. But as of January 1, 2020 I am now able to go buy it legally and sit on my front porch (if I so choose ) and smoke to my heart's content without having to be concerned I might get arrested for it. Guess I get the last laugh at all the…
@Scarred4Lyfe
Today saw the beginning of the hundreds of day lily blooms I get each year. It is such a shame the blooms only last one day...but that is why they are called daylilies.
@Scarred4Lyfe
So I was somewhere over yonder (which is actually where I was when I was given a nudge to come over here and look around) and today someone posted there that they had not received any tips here (for the 2nd or 3rd time) and I decided to take another look at their posts here. Nothing here I thought was worth tipping (written in English) and I have no clue how to read Hindi or whatever so I can't tip any of those. But I checked their replies as well and saw one made in a post…
@Scarred4Lyfe
*****WARNING - RANT AHEAD***** It is a royal pain-in-the-ass to be a vinyl record aficionado (for those that are not familiar with the word, that is a snooty way of saying I am a bit knowledgeable and enthusiastic about them. I just wanted to use at least one 50-cent word today). I've been a music lover and record collector all my long life. So when I hear about this resale shop in town having records, I went there fully intending to buy something. NOPE. I had 8 of them I…
@Scarred4Lyfe
2:21 A.M. is what time my tomcat Scar started poking my face and plaintively meowing that I had slept long enough and it was time to wake up, get out of bed, clip his lead on and open the portal to the outer Universe, and of course I complied with his wishes. Sometimes living in a town that makes it illegal to let a cat run 'at large' is a royal pain.
@Scarred4Lyfe
Got to meet my nephew Emmett for the first time yesterday at a Memorial Day cookout my youngest brother Steve and his wife Danielle had. Emmett is not quite one year old, his birthday is next month.
@Scarred4Lyfe
I've noticed that many members are crying over the hearts sometimes having no value. I've also noticed 99% of them won't give tips out of their own wallets. Reminds me of people that expect to get something for nothing. Not a judgement, just an observation.
@Scarred4Lyfe
Just marked as 'Spam' and 'ignored' over 50 different accounts made by the same person. Pretty easy to spot, simply type YUP in the search box and you'll see it. One sentence facts with YUP at the very end of them. Looks like most of the subscribers were only themselves. I've seen too many sites ruined or sunk due to spammers...my #2 most-hated individuals, right behind plagiarists...
@Scarred4Lyfe
Who is watching who here? Is Emoci out squirrel-watching, or is one of the neighborhood squirrels out cat-watching? Either way, they are both quite interested in whatever it is the other is doing... #Photography
@Scarred4Lyfe
My heart just keeps on breaking... Went with my baby sister to go visit my Dad at the nursing home he is in today. Hadn't seen him for almost 2½ weeks since he got transferred from the hospital here to a nursing home 21 miles/34 km away from where I live. He is in better shape than I last saw him, but he is living inside a universe created in his mind...while physically active, he is interacting with things in his imagination. I was there for a bit over an hour, and he…