ForbesOnTech

When Your Best Made Plans Go Horribly Wrong--Miss Butterfly Meets Mr. Horned Toad

Sometimes your best intentions can have very bad repercussions.

Case in point: My love of wild things.

When I moved to my little mountain here in Escondido, one of the first things I noticed was a large population of Monarch butterflies flitting about my yard and hanging around a patch of milk weed at the base of my hedge in the front yard.

Seeing the Monarchs triggered two memories: First, Escondido was right in the path of the Monarch’s migration from Mexico to Monterey, CA; Second, I vaguely remembered learning that Monarchs were attracted to milkweed.

In the fullness of time, I started cultivating small clumps of milkweed, carefully transplanting them into one-gallon pots set along the walkway to my front yard as they matured And, it worked.

For the last several years, the milkweed has regularly hosted several colonies of Monarchs. This year has been the best so far. I’ve watched about 30 Monarchs make the transition from caterpillars to adult butterflies. Watching this process is  one of my ties to the natural world. And, I really enjoy having my coffee while I watch butterflies.

But this year I realized I had done something wrong. Very wrong! This morning I checked the milkweed pot by my patio and saw about five just-hatched butterflies drying their wings. So, I go in to the house and grab my coffee. But, when I come back, there is only one insect and there’s none flying around in the rose garden.

I glanced over at the base of the planter and saw a big fat horned toad with Monarch wings hanging out of his reptilian mouth. Swear to God, I think I saw him burp butterfly dust. The glutton!

Honest to God, I thought cultivating a plant that attracted Monarch butterflies would be a good thing. I didn’t know that I was setting up a cafeteria line for the local reptiles. There was something horribly wrong in my equation, but it’s just dark enough to make me chuckle.—Jim Forbes 07.01/2008.

Putting Distant Remembered Things to Good Use-- Welding using What's On Hand.

Sometimes necessity brings back useful memories or lessons from long ago.

            Like yesterday when I discovered my favorite patio chair was broken. I thought I might be able to repair it with some sort of epoxy.. buty nooooooooooo! The epoxy joint lasted less than 5 minutes after curing for 24 hours. In case you don’t know this: Epoxy’s strength is to withstand tortional, not lateral forces.

            But as I cursed and stared at my broken chair, I was struggling to remember some quasi-important factoid that seemed to have been lost in my stroke, several years ago.

            Then walking around to my boat port to the unused flower pot where I store tie-downs, the fog lifted and I suddenly remembered being taught an emergency welding technique in high school and actually using it on a drive down Baja California, once.

{Author’s note, there was a time, several decades ago in Pre Prop 13 California, when high schools had classes in industrial arts. In addition to learning how to make roach clips, some students learned basic car repair, wood and metal working.}

            What keyed my memory was seeing one of the two humongous 12-volt batteries in my boat as I stuffed an unused tie down strap in the old planter. Simultaneously, I remembered I had some thin welding stock in my garage.

Off to the garage I went, pulling on my old leather lovess and searching for some welding rod sock I knew was somewhere on my bench top. I pulled my damaged chair over behind my boat and then hooked my jumper cables to the freshest battery in the boat. I then took my cordless Dremel, grinding a shiny spot in the metal of the chair about one foot away from the area I wanted to join (which I had previously sanded as well).

            I attached the clamp from the negative terminal of my battery to the cleaned contact point near the area I planned to join and then clamped the rod stock (which I had first ground a point on using my Dremel tool) and gingerly began sparking. Wearing my mirrored sunglasses I focused on starting an arc while maintaining the circuit.

            I knew that the battery lacked enough current to allow me to get enough heat to make a flowing joint so I just tacked both sides of the broken piece in place.

            In about five minutes I had repaired my chair, using something I think I learned in high school and have used only once before, when I had to repair my 68 VW bug 200 miles south of San Felipe, Baja, California at about 4 AM.

            I have no idea whatsoever what other memories I’ve lost track of because of that damn stroke. I do know that I’m often at a loss when I’m in former work setting and someone comes up to me and says, “Hi, Jim how are you?”

            I just stand there grinding mental gears thinking ‘I suppose I remember this person but who are they really?”

            Thank God for names on badges, sometimes it’s enough for me to make a connection, sometimes it’s not.”

            Regardless, I at least can smile, reply  “I’m doing great!” and sincerely mean it when I ask what they’ve “been up to recently?”

            Another day, another reason to smile and maybe even the inspiration I need to do some retail therapy at Harbor Freight, which has small welding set on sale this week. Oh boy, joining metal to metal with electric fire. Be still, my pounding heart.—Jim Forbes 06/16/2008

(Mandatory disclosure: the management of ForbesonTech does not recommend or endorse the use of unauthorized and potentially dangerous emergency welding techniques. Never ever arc weld without eye protection and leather gloves. The data in this post is provided for informational purposes only. Void where prohibited by law—jmf)

Scientists Discover Evidence of Bison-Sized Gopher-like Creature-- not in my Garden, Please God!

Clearing about 12 square feet down in my pioneer garden today I saw a quick gray brown shape dashin towards a patch of ground I planted last week with Yukon gold spuds. As I threw my trowell at the fleeeing vole I was instantly reminded of my never ending fear that somewhere on my place where I can’t get to it and eradicate the bastard, is a female with the size temperament and reproductive capabilities of the creature in the movie “Alien.”

Crawling across my freshly cultivated earth ,I remembered something I read last year.. It was an article in some natural science publication I read. I’m sorry to say that I didn’t save the article. It was just too frightening to think about.

The story was about two paleozooligists exploring in the Patagonia region of Argentina who had discovered part of the fossilized remains of a large burrowing rodent. The two scientists report made me cringe. The burrowing rodent-- believed to be extinct now-- weighed several hundred kilograms, and was the size of a small bison.

If I were out gardening and a gopher-like creature the size of a buffalo popped out of the ground anywhere near me, I ‘d just freak.

Can’t you see me stuttering “Ta ta tatonka” as I run up the hill to get my antique single shot .45/70 Government rifle? (rifles in this particular caliber were called “buffalo guns” two centuries ago.)

Good Lord, burrowing rodents the size of bison? It’s enough too make me up gardening and just surrender. Well, almost enough--Jim Forbes 03/02/2008/

Python Eats Family Pet-- Captured, Let Rest to Digest Meal, Then Released

And I thought the coyotes that regularly patrol the edge of my backyard quietly calling “Here doggie, we just want to play” was bad. Herewith, from Australia is a story from CNN about a 110-pound python eating the family pet

yum yums here

-- a Chihuahua terrier hybrid-- in front of the little doggie’s young owners.

The first clue that the python was stalking the little dog was when the pooch’s human pals found the giant snake curled up in the dog’s bed. The second and final clue might have been when they saw the dog’s tail and rear legs sticking out of the python’s stretched mouth.

Being animal lovers,, the people called a local snake zoo who came out and captured the snake, doggy tail and legs still protruding. Did the snake handler kill the python? Nooo…. He merely took it to his zoo to let it “digest the dog” before he releasing it back into the wild.

Do you still have questions about why Chihuahuas shiver?--Jim Forbes