Welcome to Hedge Row Country
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Eisenhower assaulted Normandy with the most awesome military force ever assembled, but no one was certain the invasion would succeed. Weather could easily have wrecked the plan, but it did not. The inability to get many of the glider and paratrooper forces to their intended destinations followed by their inability coordinate into effective fighting units in the darkness could have wrecked the plan, but instead their own chaos caused so much confusion among the Germans that they did not know how to capitalize on the chaos. The Germans could have wrecked the plan by bringing their Panzers up immediately, but they did not. The miscalculations at Omaha that cost so many lives could have wrecked the plan by exposing a weak flank that those at Utah might not have been able to hold, but it did not. Montgomery’s left bogging down could have wrecked the plan, but the Germans did not amass enough force soon enough to exploit the situation. So: inspite of all the SNAFUs, the Allies, the greatest single amphibious invasion force in human history established a successful foothold and primed to begin to grind down their enemy with overwhelming ground and air force, plus staggering logistical advantage.
But then things ground to a halt in hedge row country in the American sector.
The invasion planners forgot that the hedge rows in Normandy, where the American army was to advance and then make a great wheeling flanking maneuver were ancient and dense and grew upon 6-12 feet high berms of ancient, Osage Orange roots densely entangled in packed soil.
The invasion planners had anticipated that Jerry would put his machine guns nests in the hedge rows and be virtually impossible to destroy without tanks leading the charge. The invasion planners supplied way more tanks than would be needed, because invasion planners tried leaving nothing to chance that did not have to be left to chance.
But when the Sherman Tanks went confidently to attack the machine gun nests in the hedge rows, they had to crawl up the berms, expose their unarmored undersides of the tanks, and at that moment German machine gunners would pick up their anti-tank weapons and fire into the exposed underside of the Shermans and the Shermans, prone to catching fire anyway, would burst into flames and explode.
Suddenly, the most awesomely large and successful amphibious invasion force in human history was stopped by biological fences grown for centuries to keep cattle in.
It was a humbling moment for the great military minds that had planned and commanded the allies.
They were helpless.
Bulldozers could partially solve the problem by bulldozing through the hedge rows, but the bulldozers were not there at that moment. And the longer the Americans stayed bogged down in hedge row country, the more time the Germans had to reposition for a counter attack that might crush the Allied right flank, which would in turn leave Montgomery’s slowly moving left caught hopelessly in a pincer. Thus did the greatest amphibious invasion in history suddenly hang precariously in a balance of unforeseen consequences of invasion.
What happened next is among the most famous stories of World War II and so I shall recount it only briefly. With the greatest strategic and tactical minds in the Western Alliances stumped, and able to think of nothing else but waiting for bulldozers to be shipped over and moved into position, an American enlisted man, a farm boy the story goes, said that he thought that if they just went back to the beach and got some of the steel girder obstacles the Germans had set up in the surf to tear the bottoms out of landing crafts, that he reckoned he could weld them on to the front of Sherman tanks and those tanks could then drive into the hedge rows with these long prongs of jagged steel in front of the tank piercing and plowing through the hedge row rather than rolling up and over it.
Mercifully for the history of freedom, there were no naysayers, or at least none with the authority to say no, standing around at that moment saying that it was a cock eyed idea that probably would not work. No one said, “wait, let’s build a model of this on my lap top first with my CAD CAM software to see if it will work.” No one said, “you know, all strategies have counter strategies and so we have to stop here and evaluate the possible unintended outcomes and consequences.” Instead, the idea was tried as soon as elbows and assholes could get trucks moving to the beach and back to scrounge up steel and an arc welder. And the farm boy went to work without blue prints it is said and welded a gerry-rigged looking gob of jagged steel on the front of a Sherman and lo and behold the thing worked like a charm. And in minutes the expected life span of a German machine gunner in hedge row country shortened to less time than it took to drive a Sherman across a small field and blast him to the nether regions.
All of the above comes to my mind when I think about this KU team and its current predicament. It began the season with just about the greatest assemblage of young talent in the history of KU basketball talent. The team invaded D1 and despite many and ongoing SNAFUs in execution and performance this KU team succeeded in establishing an ideal beach head from which to pursue KU’s tenth straight conference title with the intention of using that title to gain a Number 1 seed, which itself could be used to flank much of the competition in March Madness and so make a run at that basketball equivalent of the Axis Powers–Syracuse and its Field Marshall James von Boeheim aka The Zone Fox.
And here the greatest Kansas University expeditionary force in the history of the Self Supreme Allied Commander Era sits bogged down in the Big 12 basketball equivalent of hedge row country with two of its Shermans–Embiid and Black–out, or nearly out, with blown tracks, and everyone including Self, and me for awhile, were sitting there saying, well, we just have to sit here in hedge row country and wait for someone to bring in some bulldozers to clear us a path, when…
THERE AREN’T ANY GODDAMNED BULLDOZERS COMING IN TILL NEXT YEAR’S RECRUITING CLASS!
It looks to me like its time for a farm boy to get this team of Self’s up off its butt and going through Big 12 opponents again like crap through a goose.
Well, General Self, I got me a pair of Big Smiths and ah done kept a lot of Fergusons and Gleaners goin’ at harvest time with bailing wire and plug tobacco.
First thing you do, sir, is you gerry rig your starting five, no matter who you pick to replace Embiid, into a 2-2-1 zone press and you play that sucker evergoddamntime down the floor and fall back into your favorite m2m, just like John R. Wooden, the Indiana Rubber Man did once upon a time.
Next, you continue to play your hi-lo offense with a four man rotation of Black, Ellis for starters and Lucas and Justin for back ups.
And you stand pat with your perimeter rotation, only go long and stay long at the 2 with Selden and Greene alternating about 20 minutes a piece.
And you keep startin’ Tharpe and then bringing’ Mason, until he makes his first mistake and then bring Frankamp, until he makes his first mistake and then bring Tharpe until his first mistake and so on until none of them three is makin’ no more mistakes.
And now here this: that Wiggins kid–ever danged time KU gets down by so much as one stinkin’ point, clear out the side for Wiggins and let him go one on one for the money.
Whenever KU is ahead, run the usual stuff.
But whenever KU is behind, just keep clearin’ out and givin’ the ball to Andrew.
its about damned time we put ourselves on that Canadian’s back and saw what he could do in the carryin’ department.
And don’t be afraid of Justin Wesley. He has been waitin’ for such a time for his whole life. He will not let you down now. Improbable players must be asked to do improbably great things sooner or later in a championship season.
And I meant championship season.
We ain’t sitting in these here hedge rows waiting for to get our clocks cleaned in round one.
We are here to grab the enemy by the nose and kick him in the ass.
We are join’ to Berlin and there ain’t no goddamned hedge rows that are gonna stand our way.
Unnnerstand?
Rock Chalk!
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Yee ha! I would add traylor in there, and try to push the ball up the floor and use wiggins that way too!
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@Crimsonorblue22 Yes, fer gosh sakes, yes, how did ah fergit the Jam Tray!!!
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@jaybate 1.0 you are scaring me! Sounds like our neighbors to the east!!!
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@jaybate 1.0 So are you sayin’ that Wiggins is the equivalent of the M1 Garand “the greatest battle implement ever devised” according to “old blood and guts?” (beer)
BTW, loved the history lesson as only jb can relate.
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@jaybate 1.0 Nice! I love WWII history, that was a cool lil lesson there. I also like how you equated that particular situation to what KU is facing right now. You forgot one thing though. Traylor. He had to sit one game for being a stupid college boy but if there is anyone on this team that I would trust to fight through the hedge row, its him. PS. Oh, my bad, didn’t read the remarks below.
But still, there could be a link here. Tractor Traylor?
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@jaybate I love it when you go all military on us! But I’m worried this may be more Vietnamlike with no clear cut defined strategery. Self’s dogmatic approach to minutes baffles me. And I’m glass half full like 99% of the time but last nites loss really annoyed me. We HAVE to play better defense!!! We just needed one or two stops and we win that game. Selden and Naa have to play better at both ends. And I know I’m a broken record about CF but I think he should start and play 30 minutes per game. He can’t play any worse defense than Naa and I think he runs the break much better and the offense as well. He just looks like he has bounce to him…and his ball handling looks good enough to start at the 1. Interior defense was ATROCIOUS, also. I’ve been in denial about Beed’s knee but now Self even admits he’s not healthy. Sit him for a minimum of two games and get him back to 90% at least. He’s a shell of his former self and 10% of his ceiling which is probably 5-7 years away anyway. For the record, I LOVE THIS TEAM!!! And I know we can win the big 12 and national title if we play anywhere near our potential. We might win the title clicking on 6 out of 8 cylinders…and if we ever hit on all 8 then we could win national title w largest margin of victory ever! But it’s getting late and we need to start valuing every possession of every game like it was our last. We need to play SELF DEFENSE and hold everyone under 40% from here on out!!! We need to run our stuff and TAKE CARE OF BUSINESS!!! Can’t wait for Saturday! TCU may feel like dropping basketball after this beat down. RCJHGKU!!!
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Agree with VailHawk: ABSOLUTEY AWFUL defense yesterday, which will undo us LONG before we get to Elite8 or Final4. (If it isnt improved in a hurry…). Agree also on Frankamp: kid has shown some sharp defensive instincts & a knack for steals. KSU beat us with countless layups, and us allowing W-I-L-L S-P-R-A-D-L-I-N-G to beat us with 3of5 3shooting, nifty assists, and even a penetration for a layup (gasp!). In every other KU-KSU game, our defense has made Spradling look like a C-grade imitation of BStar, but this time we make him look like a champ. (NOTE: I only use Spradling here as a poignant example of what is wrong with our defense. Staten of WVU was limited by A-rated defender Wiggins on him, but god help us if Tharpe was assigned to guard somebody like that!)
“Floodgate Tharpe”. (sad to say, but it exists due to no defensive instincts, coupled with slow feet).
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@ralster I was kind of flustered with the Spradling thing myself. I mean, he looks like his role in any sphere of athletics should be handing out water or towels. But, to his credit, he went out and played his short, white, red-headed hiney off - unlike most of our team on that particular evening.
Another thing that got to me was the crowd. I know they haven’t had that many people in there since the last time KU was there, but they were as hyped up as if they were at the 1993 National Livestock Judging Championship. I haven’t been to a home game for a while, but please tell me that our crowd doesn’t chant " F - - - K-State ", or whomever the opponent is that night. Seriously?
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As an adopted Kansan (36 years and counting…), I was very proud at that the game between the top two State schools, the 4 Kansans, Ellis, Frankamp for KU and Spradling and Williams for KSU, had good games.
KU like KSU has other Kansan players (Manning, Self) but they do not play much. The only Kansans that played substantial minutes at KU recently (say 10 years) are Reed, Hawkins, Morningstar and Simien; Releford attended Bishop Miege HS in Kansas but he was from Kansas City, Mo, so he kind of counts. Which other players am I missing?
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@nuleafjhawk I’m in the nose bleed section, but I’ve never heard that, and hope to never hear it! We keep it loud, but for the most part, classy!
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@jaybate 1.0
Loved the read! One of my uncles landed on Normandy and lived to tell about it.
And connecting the invasion strategy to B12 strategy was totally marv!
I’ve had a concept for quite some time that I thought would bring us a new weapon in March… It starts with AW3 and ends in victory!
He has the size and muscle to help toughen this team.
He came into this season hungry… working out all summer, building his spherical bod.
Rename him… “The Beast!”
No more minutes for him right now. He is under wraps.
Lock him up in the dungeon and feed him live chickens.
He will be the leader of a new team.
A team that has been practicing in secret.
A team that is built by putting in extra time… at night… when the nation is sleeping.
They ARE the resistance!
These soldiers are coming at basketball from a completely different perspective.
Their only concept on fouls is that they have only 5 to give to their country… to their team.
These guys dare opponents to drop the ball on the ground… see what happens then…
Squad structure:
Frank Mason ( “Frank the Tank” )
AW3 ( “The Beast” )
Wayne Selden ( “The Torpedo” )
Jamari Traylor ( “Bam-Bam” )
Tarik Black ( “Black Death” )
These guys bring a new definition to “hard foul.”
Their goal isn’t to hurt anyone… their goal is to punish everyone… and after just a taste of punishment our opposition goes into survival mode… psychological warfare at it’s best.
Stories begin to circulate. Torturous tales. Mystery carpets the earth like nerve gas.
The basketball court becomes a WWI battle theater; trench warfare. The willingness to sacrifice it all for just a few inches of turf gain. What used to be considered a basketball screen is now a flanking maneuver.
Our squad shows up with entire padding (armament)… knees… elbows… forearms… safety glasses… all in black, with a symbol “Hawk and Bones.”
The entire basketball world is caught off guard.
Jay Bilas (and a slue of Duke attorneys) attempts to sue Jayhawk basketball for their aggressive behavior. “Hawk and Bones” attorneys laugh it right out of court!
Dickie Vitalis goes into shock and has nothing to say about it. He lives in fear!
Bobby Knight applauds General Self for a job well done.
Marcus Smart becomes so excited he decides to not turn pro after this year and transfers to Kansas… and swears never never never to flop again!
The days of namby pamby are behind us!
Welcome in… “The Hawk and Bones!”
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@drgnslayr great post!
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@drgnslayr : what else can I say?
DEFINITIVE PHOF!
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We need a Rupert. Who or what was a Rupert? The Nazi intelligencia decided the most likely landing spot for the invasion was at the narrowest part of the English Channel. Makes sense right? The Allies assembled a fake army on the shores of England, a mass of people as large as the real invasion force. The Germans could see them over there and were convinced it was coming.
Rupert was a fake soldier parachute. The night of the 5th/morning of the 6th of June the British flew over the French coast near Callais and dropped 100’s of Ruperts. They were equipped with machine gun recorded noise. The Ruperts successfully distracted the Germans away from Normandy making that Hellish landing a little less Hellish. 6 incredibly brave soldiers leapt with the Ruperts to try to continue the charade with recorded noises etc. 4 never made it back home, their fates not even known to this day.
So who is our Rupert? It’s kind of hard to have a decoy with only 5 men on the court, but it’s got to be one of these guys we’ve been pining for all year. White, Frankamp, Green (maybe his cover is blown after the other day), somebody has got to be able to command the attention of the defenses from our bench from the circle. Otherwise the hedges become less penetrable and we’ll be left to wonder what could have been with our team.
Great post by the way JB, enjoyed reading it.
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@nuleafjhawk When they did chant that (more than once) I was amazed that ESPN did nothing and allowed it to be aired. I asked myself “Is that what I think they are saying?” Way to keep it classy KSU.
Last night during the UT v OSU game, UT fans began chanting “Where is Marcus” with a little over 3 mins. left in the game. Believe it or not, it would not have mattered if he had played last night - OSU would still have lost.
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@drgnslayr I wrote my post before reading yours. He’s our Rupert, exactly what I was talking about! Great minds…
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Great copy men, this is why mainstream just doesn’t cut it.
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BTW: for all you meat smokers out there… hedge apple is excellent smoking wood! I have a few acres of rural property and I collect dead wood every year and burn the big stuff for heat (very hot burning wood), and I save the small stuff for smoking. It is free, it is plentiful, and it doesn’t overpower the smoke taste on your end product.
Right now, I’m planning a big shindig during the B12 Conference Tourney and plan to smoke an entire purple kitty for all the Jayhawks in attendance to feast on!
I’ll post my recipe right before the game.
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RE: Hedge apple wood.
Great news learning it is good smoking wood. I spent a lot of years in childhood clearing pastures overrun with the thorny stuff and we never thought to smoke with it and so sick homo sapiens on it as an economic predator. Mostly all we did was curse at it for being so hard to kill. I still remember springs after spring chain sawing, drilling the stumps, and painting the stump with poison. And by summer the stuff was so robust about a third of them would be sprouting up again!
Here follows my mind dump on hedge apple wood, as supplemented with wiki stuff.
“Maclura pomifera, commonly called Osage orange, hedge apple,[3] horse apple, monkey ball,[4] bois d’arc, bodark, or bodock[5] is a small deciduous tree or large shrub, typically growing to 8–15 metres (26–49 ft) tall. It is dioecious, with male and female flowers on different plants. The fruit from a multiple fruit family, is roughly spherical, but bumpy, and 7.6–15.2 centimetres (3–6 in) in diameter. It is filled with a sticky white latex. In fall, its color turns a bright yellow-green. It is not closely related to the orange: Maclura belongs to the mulberry family, Moraceae, while oranges belong to the family Rutaceae.[6][7]”–wiki page
It grew native in the Red River Drainage basin in Texas and a bit of Oklahoma. Osage and Commanche tribes made bows and clubs out of the wood. It is still prized for bows by some today. The tribes of the old times prized wood. They would travel hundreds of miles with the buffalo herds to get to where the Osage Orange grew wild and then cut and make bows and clubs of it.
Early explorers identified it and brought samples back to the east coast. Though some early attempts at spreading it out of its natural habitat range failed, other attempts succeeded and it quickly spread and was prized for its rapid growth rate, and robustness in most climates.
American colonists, descended from continental Europeans (recall the French hedgerows of Normandy) used to planting and growing other species of trees close together in long rows as fencing for livestock, and for use of annual trimmings for heating fuel, recognized the potential use of the hedge tree quickly. That it had thorns added to its appeal for keeping livestock in and thieve’s out. The green hedge apples produced prolifically by the trees were also fed to live stock and could in a pinch be eaten by humans with careful preparation to rid the apples of their otherwise horrid taste.
The hedge row fences worked great for small farmers. If they were regularly pruned, their trunks and bush grew dense rapidly and created a largely impenetrable barrier. And to reiterate the trimmings were collected for renewable fuel source. Hedge row fences when properly cared for were supposedly kept only a little above head height to make trimming easy. This also reduced the prolific production of hedge apples.
But hedge row fences were a lot of work and when barb wire and prefab fence posts and reliable sources of petroleum based and electric heating became affordable, farmers quickly abandoned the time consuming tending of the hedge row fences. The hedge row fences quickly grew to their natural heights of 25-50 feet and took on the appearance that most have today. And they were tremendously difficult to kill. Saw them off at the ground level and they grow back to head height bushes in a few years. Bulldoze them and burn them and even then many trees come back from small remaining roots.
What makes the above problematic is that untended hedgerow fences produce massive quantities of hedge apples and cattle and birds and squirrels eat the hedge apples and then spread the seeds around the pasture. Within 5-10 years a beautiful pasture of blue stem, or buffalo grass, or planted feskew (?) will be covered with head high bushes and in time the spread of the hedge is so complete that the pasture grass can become largely choked off under a kind of hedge grove.
After falling into wild untended rows for several decades, hedge apple trees aka Osage Orange got a second wind during the great depression, when the Roosevelt Administration’s farm assistance programs assisted farmers in planting the hedge rows out on the prairies and wheat farms of the great plains as wind breaks during the Dust Bowl Era. Once the Great Depression and Dust Bowl Era passed these hedge rows the began to spread the hedge apple tree in to ever more regions of the USA as the livestock, rodents, and birds ate the apples, and pooped them all over pastures everywhere.
So: here is the deal, slayr. My father, up in heaven, who fought a 30 year battle with wild hedge he grew to hate, is sitting up clapping and cheering at the news that hedge makes good smoking wood. And he is hoping for absolute certain that you can make hedge smoked meat and barbecue such a popular food item, that the relentless harvest of hedge turns it once and for all into an endangered species.
Rock Chalk!
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@jaybate 1.0- I still like to use hedge in my insert during extremely cold weather & even small amounts sometimes to add heat to a fire in a smoker. It tends to produce a heavy smoke flavor similar to mesquite, which is up to one’s particular palate preferences. Depends on if it’s poultry or pork. For beef flavor I like to use Walnut, Apple, Pecan or Cherry. When needing heat for slow, indirect smoke type cooking even using too much Kingsford can also produce the heavier smoke flavor also. I prefer to use Oak & Hickory to reduce that. Also, no matter what type of wood used for cooking, I always remove the bark if possible to reduce environmental agents that have a tendency to create more bitterness to the smoke. Of all the wood I’ve ever used, I like hickory for smoke/heat & Walnut for flavor. Nothing in the world I’ve ever encountered can wear a chain dull as quickly as hedge, with the possible exception being a flippin railroad tie. If you can negotiate the thorns when logging, Black Locust is very close to the BTU output of Hedge per cord. Also, Mulberry is very close as well without the spitting & popping of hedge. About the best firewood you can get is Ash. Very efficient for heat BTU’s & almost a complete burn with virtually no ashes afterward. Here in the metro it can sell for up to $275 per cord. By contrast, Oak or Hedge will avg about $160. And BTW, this is absolutely one of the best reads I’ve found in some while. How good, let’s just say if I had 3 thumbs, they’d all be up. You, @drgnslayr, & @wissoxfan83 are all PHOF on this bad boy!
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I like to use hedge smoke on my wild critter meats.
I like a blend of pecan and apple for my “pharmaceutical meat.” Joking… my standard off-the-shelf beef, etc.
Glad to pass the info on to you, @jaybate ! Hope your father is giving it a try right now in the big blue sky!
BTW: hedge apples are good natural repellent for ground critters (like mice). Every fall I throw many hedge apples in my cabin crawl space and they do a good job of reducing mice from seeking to share winter shelter with me.
Another trick is to pee around your building… especially if you eat meat. Also, pee on the trees you want beaver to mark off the list, or you may be in for a surprise in the spring! The higher you pee on surfaces, the better.
Evidently, all wild critters understand territorial markings. High off the ground urine markings indicate a large animal, and the protein from meat is in it, too, so they realize you may want to eat them.
I’ve never lost a tree to beaver or any critter even when my neighbor’s trees were chewed. Several critters go after tree bark… and once the bark is gone you can say bye-bye to your old friend! And you might slow them down with wire mesh around the base… but as my neighbor’s learned… that only slows them down!
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@drgnslayr-Another rather undesirable quality of Hedge is that termites love it. And for whatever reasons, you’re absolutely correct about urine & mice. If you douse their entries to a crawl space, under steps or driveways, or around garage doors, it really does work. Can’t say the aroma does much for the ambiance of an entry, but if you’ve a gal with the anxiety level of mine vs rodents, it’s less invasive & more effective than the shotgun. Plant a few boxwoods & blame it on them. In the country it’s also easy to keep the “slop jar” or bucket close at hand. Gee, somehow it seems we’ve steered just a tad off subject. LOL
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@globaljaybird
Termites like hedge apples? …or the wood? I never leave any wood near my buildings. Wood piles make great homes for just about everything. I had a problem with cottonmouths a few years back so I cleaned up several areas where they would hide and nest. Never leave tall grass near water… never! They can be really aggressive!
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@globaljaybird
“Somehow it seems we’ve steered just a tad off subject. LOL”
Not really… I was just getting to my idea of having our post guys urinate on the goal post to mark territory! I don’t know if we’ll ever battle mice in the post, but we certainly seem to have a rat problem now and then!
That’s what we did a few years ago, and look… NO MORE ANTLERS!
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@drgnslayr-Far as I know just the wood. Could probably google it for the wiki info. They stay out of daylight except when hatching. That is the only time you’ll ever see anything but their damage.
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@globaljaybird
I’m in the woods and never had a termite problem. Most of the wood around me is hedge. I’m thinking termites probably seek out softer woods. They really take on a project if they go after hedge!
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@drgnslayr-I don’t think termites deviate much from whatever they have naturally available, but earth moving or excavations, blasting, road work, etc., may give way to spreading from a colony. Also, if you can contact the roots directly, copper sulfate crystals will kill any tree known to man. Is great for septic laterals if you’ve a distribution box to get it in the laterals. Dumping it in the tank, toilet or sinks is largely innefective to kill roots. Also it only kills what it contacts directly with very little if any residual.
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@globaljaybird I feel so left out! Jk! I’m learning lots.
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@globaljaybird
Good points!
I’m on a lake and just a few feet above the water line. I know termites need water, but maybe that’s too much water! It’s also clay soil. Harder than concrete when it freezes!
Termites are also a food source for several critters…
I’ve had more of an issue with ants nesting in my oaks. Also… a problem with scale. If anyone has good, natural ways to win these battles, please post them!
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@drgnslayr-I buy a product from Gardens Alive.com called Pyola. Is .0125 % permethrin (chrysanthemum) & 99 % canola oil for fruit tree scale & garden use. Will not use anything at all most years except natural plant deterrents. Last year never sprayed corn, beans or tomatoes even once & had good yields. Also good pears & apples, but cherries & plums all froze with a late snow. I don’t sell anything at all, as that needs to be virtually blemish free, but canola oil will actually kill any insect by suffocation. Only problem is you have to have direct contact on the insect itself, so you have to drench your plants. But on the flipside, unlike Volck or dormant oils, you can use it any time of year successfully. If I have some insect/crop damage I just live with it-is better than killing people or livestock/animals with pesticides. My biggest problem is newborn whitetail fawns emerging just as the first planting of sweetcorn ripens about mid July. They’re not afraid to come right out in the daylight & enjoy your efforts. I will not shoot them & I rarely hunt anymore except for varmints-coyotes, invasive pests (squirrels- rats with bushy tails), snapping turtles which can take a dogs’ leg off, or critters that may invade the house like coons or woodpeckers. If they’re movin’ in my place, I don’t give a hoot if they’re endangered or not. JMO. When younger I’ve eaten coon. Is good if prepared right in a pressure cooker but kinda greasy if I recall. I think GardensAlive is owned by Gurneys Nursery & Seed Co Greenburg, IN. My cuz is a 4th gen arborist with over 600 acres of pecan trees & some hickory. He’s even grafted them together to create a “hickan nut”. Some years he gets 10-12 thousand lbs of cleaned meats from his grove & some years nothing. God just doesn’t always let you have a good harvest. You have to have a damn good day job to be a small scale farmer of any kind, & even small farming costs tens of thousands in investments, equipment, etc. He has a 48" sawmill & occasionally sells some pecan lumber to some rural schools for shop classes. Still many years you get nothing but blisters & a broken back, and the ability to enjoy a lifestyle that, IMO is worth a fortune.
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@drgnslayr http://www.hutchnews.com/opinion/columnists/article_024e0e6e-ba97-5ee3-a707-a5466790a824.html?mode=jqm
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@globaljaybird There is no doubt about it. Today, you guys have made my mind up - this is the best website in the history of the universe!
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@nuleafjhawk -Thank you for the complimets-but I’ve no idea why. Makes no diff tho, thanks.
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@globaljaybird I really enjoy all the gardening and nature tips. (seriously) I’m glad we have a site where we can feel free to discuss other things than just X’s and O’s. It’s just more - diverse, fun and interesting!
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@nuleafjhawk-100 % agreed, it’s nice to have decent conversations with mature & more experienced people. There’s something new to learn every day in life & when you no longer wish to learn, you just as well cash in your chips. Plus some of these guys & gals are pretty damn funny at times, along with some extremely clever & subtle wit, & some very professional quality writings.
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@nuleafjhawk. Your 1993 Livestock Judging Championship comment cracked me up!
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This is the best thread on the best website in the history of the interweb!!!
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Wow! Thanks to everyone for helping me out!
Sorry this went off basketball…
I also grow a gigantic all-organic garden in town in my back yard. I condition the ground with my own compost… coffee grinds… etc. I always use some coffee grinds because earthworms seem to love it. They probably get a buzz on them and just dig, dig, dig! The ultimate fertilizer comes from their castings.
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@drgnslayr-Dairy manure is really well balanced & mild, slow to burn fertilizer, but chicken doo is great for tomatoes. Also one of the best things for a garden, believe it or not, is plain black & white, shredded newspaper without color dyes that tend to be non-biodegradable. Newsprint has about 90% trace elements of the tree still intact. Also a great cover crop with extremely high nitrogen is clover, which attracts bees & unfortunately deer & rabbits-I guess they were here first so they have seniority. I always plant tons of garlic cloves every where possible and like to cook with it fresh, but I always hit it with the tillers & allow it to spread freely to discourage critters, especially around the blackberries. Just buy really cheap bulbs (which are alive but dormant) at the market & plant the cloves roots down & it takes virtually no maintenance. Other natural furry pest deterrents would be Jonquils, Daffodil, Surprise lilies, Iris, & chives. These are all perennials & many naturalize profusely. Even deer hate Daffodils. Also at least 8 mo of the year I’ll have onions or hot peppers in the ground if I can. Can be a challenge in harsh Kansas weather, but most years that works also.
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@globaljaybird Don’t forget lead poisoning for varmit control.
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@drgnslayr Hmmmm - We don’t have to worry about it today,but maybe we should have a separate category for things like this after games like Texas and K-State…
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This is so funny. Checked into the site and recent posts and saw this one was still at the top so had to see what had been added. From D-Day to garlic in the garden. Well listen, anybody know anything about old JD tractors. lol jk
globaljaybird…interesting note on garlic. Last spring I got the garden all cleaned up (nothing big since just me and wife), planted and wasn’t long before I had nice 4" plants of beans, carrots, brocolli, and others. Went out one morning and there was nothing but deer prints. I mean it was all gone. After battling infestations of stink bugs destroying tomatoes and other pests the past couple of years I called it quits. I think I may go ahead and stuff some garlic in the ground now and then try a fall garden or wait til next spring. (beer)
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@brooksmd -One last thing about Hedge & deer. The edge of a hedge row or heavy plum thicket leading up perpendicular to a road is a very natural place for deer to emerge from & cross front of you, especially during the rut. Also if you google deer repellant some people swear by Irish Spring soap-go figure. I used citronella torches, a motion flood & a boom box last summer & still have about a dozen bags of sweet corn in the freezer. My closest neighbor is a quarter mile so no one complained but the wife. Drive careful…I’ll be quiet now. LOL
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@globaljaybird Well unfortunately down here in Louisiana we don’t have much in the way of hedgerows. In fact, my 2.5 acres is in what used to be a huge tung farm. However those trees were all cleared out years ago leaving pines and water oaks. Thanks to Katrina I lost all but 1 of my oaks and a half dozen pines. All very mature trees. Luckily none on the house.
I have a friend who uses an electrified fence which didn’t really stop the deer until he started coating the insulators with peanut butter. I had considered a motion flood with a barking dog but I was just so po’d at the time. So I may go ahead and start with the garlic and pickup the rest of the stuff and go with a fall garden.
BTW, haven’t read anything since your post about you and Woodrow enjoying the game the other night. How’s he doing?
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@brooksmd-Thanks for asking. He’s holding up pretty well. Has lymphoma in his esophagus about the Adams apple. Is difficult for him to swallow anything but soft foods & is drinking quarts of water daily, antibiotics, prednisone & has dropped a few lbs. But his spirits are still great & we’re plugging away a day at a time. The Dr had to give him a heavy tranquilizer to do the barium swallow x-ray, & he didn’t recover from that at all for about 36 hrs. Must have been the edge of hell for him-sure was for us. He wouldn’t drink, eat, pee, nothing until I forced him to drink from a medicine syringe after about 20 hours. I got 2 bath room cups of water down him about 4 in the morning-was afraid his kidneys would shut down. Sometimes older dogs don’t pull out of sedation & I was just sick that he was fading away. He would clench his teeth to prevent me from putting food in his mouth & would only stand if I would lift him to his feet. Poor guy finally came around when Mom asked him if he’d like to take a truck ride about 8 o’clock the 2nd night. Stood up, shook off the fur, walked to the door & off we went. She & I had not eaten at all that day, just stayed with him constantly, so we hit a drive thru for a burger & fries & that was like magic to him. He then started begging & carefully eating small pieces of food & finally turned the corner for another day. Doc says he may have only weeks, we just don’t know. But as long as he can still have a decent quality of life, we’ll do everything to give him what he’s given us. He’s about 10.5 yrs old now & that’s way up there for a boxer. Many of his siblings have already been gone for several years. A nice middle aged girl who works at my Vet’s office bought one of Woody’s brothers from us & he’s been gone for two years now. His Mother had 10 pups in her first & only litter then lived 11 good years. I don’t look forward to coming home to an empty house but someday that will happen. Am just so thankful it’s not today brooks, you know just what I mean. Tomorrow is promised to none of us, all we have is now. Again, it’s very kind of you to ask.
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Global, Nice to hear the drive through trick and subsequent turnaround. Something I’ll remember.
My old mutt “wonderdog” was pushing 15 and winding down a few years back. After losing 4 dogs in my youth including one hit by a car in front of my eyes (my poor mother made the mistake of no leash that day) I made a counter move and got a second dog to help the transition. I had the kids pick her out and name her.
When the mutt’s time was up our pup sure was a blessing to make up the void. Turns out, she is the best dog I’ve ever had.
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I can’t believe the response on the subject of green!
Maybe we should have an ongoing thread that is for everything outside of basketball.
I definitely appreciate all the great advice in here… looking forward to spring so I can try out some of these great ideas!
