Nature

[Thumper]

I saw a Barred Owl nest video recently. The male brought back mice, snakes, and a craw dad.
They can have all the mice and moles they want. And if they want to gang up and take out a raccoon or two, I won't complain.

[Swift]

I went to a very depressing (but well done) talk last night about Beech Leaf Disease. This is a newly recognized disease that is slowly and steadily decimating beech tree populations in Northeast Ohio and has now spread into Pennsylvania and even Canada. And they don't have any idea what is causing it.

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2017/12/beech_leaf_disease_discovered.html

http://forestry.ohiodnr.gov/portals/forestry/pdfs/BLDAlert.pdf

Beech trees are one of the foundation trees in this area, where the mature forests are the so-called "Beech-Maple Forests". If we lose all the beeches I don't want to even think about what our forests will look like; it will make the Emerald Ash Borer look like a mild inconvenience.

The talk was given by a PhD plant scientist from Cleveland Metroparks. Among the depressing things is that for two years in a row they have applied for US Forest Service grants to study this and they have been turned down both times.

[Thumper]

Wow, that is sad. I'll check out your links when I get a chance. I wonder why they can't get a grant. Maybe they need Pumpkinpi to write their application. We have Beech here but doesn't sound quite as prevalent. Our mature forest's are more Oak-Maple, with alot of Sycamore as well. But if you go into the parks where the forests have been better preserved, you do see some monster Beech trees.

Seems most of the downed trees I've been cleaning up are Ash. I've got two big dead ones in the back. They're not hurting anything now and no danger of falling on a structure. They shed some limbs which is only a minor inconvenience as long as you're not under them at the time. I just hate getting rid of them because they are habitat for so many. But I guess the sooner I get them down and cleaned up, maybe the sooner I can put a small maple or oak in, and see a decent sized tree before I die.

Our sycamores often get a leaf fungus but even if it goes untreated they usually recover.

[Swift]

I wonder why they can't get a grant. Maybe they need Pumpkinpi to write their application.

I got the feeling from the speaker that part of it is that it is currently seen as a local problem, not a national problem. And that's even given the fact that the "American" beech covers essentially all of the Eastern US, and this disease can affect other (non-native) beeches.

Part of it is also still a very recent development, as such things go, having only first been discovered in 2012, and only seen to be spreading in the last 2 or 3 years. So very little attention yet.

And of course the current budget cutting in Washington is only making it worse.

[Thumper]

It's too bad that forward thinking isn't more prevalent. In today's environment where observations can be verified quickly and documented and shared so rapidly, potential problems can be identified in nascent stages and addressed before they become more serious, or sadly, hopeless. It just makes sense.

[pumpkinpi]

I wonder why they can't get a grant. Maybe they need Pumpkinpi to write their application.

Thank goodness we have expanded our staffing so that I no longer have to lead grant writing. Someone else is responsible for raising money for me!

In another word, no.

[Thumper]

I wonder why they can't get a grant. Maybe they need Pumpkinpi to write their application.

Thank goodness we have expanded our staffing so that I no longer have to lead grant writing. Someone else is responsible for raising money for me!

In another word, no.

Compliment = Fail?

[SciFiFisher]

I wonder why they can't get a grant. Maybe they need Pumpkinpi to write their application.

Thank goodness we have expanded our staffing so that I no longer have to lead grant writing. Someone else is responsible for raising money for me!

In another word, no.

Compliment = Fail?

Apparently begging for money in writing is not her favorite thing.

[Thumper]

And yet she did it and apparently did it pretty well because it needed to be done. That was my point.

[Thumper]

Apparently one of the benefits of having your leg lock up and you have to stop running and have to limp home is that you have more time to notice nature. Saw a bright beautiful bluebird front lit in the trees right in front of me. It didn't matter that it was no where near my property, new bluebird feeder, or all the meal worms I got for them. He was still beautiful.

[SciFiFisher]

Nature's way of saying slow down and enjoy the view.

[Thumper]

Or, "You're on the decline, get used to it. Hey look at this birdy."
Told my buddy about my symptoms. He says he has it too. They call it a "Calf Heart Attack."

[SciFiFisher]

Or, "You're on the decline, get used to it. Hey look at this birdy."
Told my buddy about my symptoms. He says he has it too. They call it a "Calf Heart Attack."

You might consider adding some minerals and electrolytes to your diet. A fair amount of the time if your muscles are locking up while exercising it's because they are dehydrated and/or low on things like magnesium, potassium, and calcium. Gatorade is only partly the answer as they mostly just have potassium, sodium, and sugar.

[Thumper]

I drink a $hit ton of water a day, eat a decent diet, and take a multi plus extra B's and C's. What would you suggest adding diet wise?

[SciFiFisher]

I drink a $hit ton of water a day, eat a decent diet, and take a multi plus extra B's and C's. What would you suggest adding diet wise?

Without running a full blood panel and hair analysis on you it's mostly (educated) guesswork.

However, most multi vitamin formulas fall short on the essential minerals and electrolytes. Mind you. They have some. And some is way better than none. For example, my multi-vitamin has 25% of the daily recommended amount for magnesium. That's a good start. My diet is probably not quite as good as yours. But, if you are eating a lot of green leafy vegetables, an ounce or two of almonds every day, and good lean proteins such as salmon, chicken, and lean beef you are probably getting about 50% of the daily recommended amount from your diet. That still leaves approximately 10-30% of your daily intake of magnesium you are not getting by eating right and taking a multi-vitamin with a decent amount of magnesium in it.

Repeat the above paragraph for potassium, zinc, manganese, calcium, and etc. The numbers will vary slightly but it's mostly close to the same. The average multi-vitamin/multi-mineral formula has about 10-25% of the RDI for most minerals and electrolytes. A good diet will add about 25-50% per day. A great diet will cover 75% or more of the RDI. I haven't meant anyone who has a great diet except maybe an Olympic athlete or a professional athlete. And even they take supplements.

Frankly, I don't get too wrapped up in trying to supplement every single trace mineral. I focus on the primary ones such as calcium, magnesium, potassium, and in a minor way sodium chloride.

My solution for me was to take a good multi-vitamin/multi-mineral formula and then take an additional supplement for calcium, magnesium, and potassium. Sodium chloride usually takes care of itself unless you are doing something that excretes a shit ton of it like hard physical labor, running a lot, environmental stressors such as being out in 100 plus degree weather for hours at a time, or taking a diuretic.

I also take extra B and C vitamins. It's a shit ton of vitamins but I compensate for a crappy diet.

Here are a couple of links so you can get an idea of why I say even a good diet might not be enough.

https://ods.od.nih.gov/Health_Informati ... takes.aspx
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK5 ... objectonly
https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Magne ... fessional/

[SciFiFisher]

And to actually post on topic. I live in Sacramento which is a fairly large city. We boast about 500,000 people give or take. But, I am about 30-50 miles in any direction from the foothills of a mountain range and some fairly significant stands of forests and etc. One of my duties for work involves driving a lot to the rural areas. Yesterday, while driving back from one of my visits around noon I saw a beautiful white tail doe bounding across a meadow. It was very rainy and misty. If you were dropped into the middle of this scene you would never know that 30 miles away was a major city with traffic jams from heck. I say from heck because I reserve the "from hell" designation for Los Angeles.

I joked with my colleague that as long as we didn't hear banjo music playing in the background we would be fine.

[geonuc]

We have a lot of deer my neighborhood here in Bend, a town of ~100,000. Big ones. I'm three blocks from the river, at the base of a butte. While the residences are closed-packed like you would find in any city (not so much at the top of the butte where the rich folks live), there are a ton of parks and green spaces for the deer to roam. Haven't seen any other critters yet, but they're out there. Probably a fair number of coyotes.

[Thumper]

Thanks for the info Fisher. There is no way I qualify as a great diet, certainly not consistently. When we first went vegetarian, we paid alot of attention to making sure we were getting adequate quantities of vitamins and minerals. Not so much now. I'd just assumed I was doing okay. Might be time for another look especially since this appears to be a repeat problem. My metabolism has also appeared to have changed dramatically in the last few years (as in almost stopped). Good times.

Ohio is lousy with white tail deer (I shouldn't say that, I love them.) Although you could classify the area where I live as rural, I live 10 minutes from a Wallmart strip mall and freeway interchange and 25 minutes from downtown. Population of the city is close to a million, metro area close to 2. Sometimes the deer don't bother running into the pines when I come down the drive, they just kind of look at me as I drive by. We've got about 8 this year that have been hanging together throughout the winter. Haven't seen as many bucks this year. Sometimes they kind of herd up after rut and we'll see 3-4 together sometime around February. Probably all the antlers have dropped by now.

Skunks and raccoons are out, haven't seen many ground hogs yet. Something is certainly cleaning out the meal worm feeder though I haven't seen any bluebirds recently. There was a nuthatch climbing all over it yesterday. Oh, and I saw a Kestrel Saturday. I love Kestrels.

[SciFiFisher]

Interestingly enough we do get some wild life here. We live in a fairly significant suburb of Sacramento. We are right on the edge, so to speak, of a significant area that is still fairly undeveloped with a very small creek that is probably less than a mile from our house. It used to be serious farm land but is slowly being consumed by housing developments. The city of Sacramento does seem to do a decent job of insisting on parks and leaving other natural features mostly intact in and among the housing developments. For example, it is not unusual to see a small creek designated as protected salmon or other fish habitat in town.

We have a decent population of squirrels living in our neighborhood. Brite tells me she heard an owl the other night. We also get a number of hummingbirds in and around the yard. We don't see them here, but some areas in the city have flocks of wild turkeys that hang out in the pockets of protected land and parks that Sacramento has set aside. It's rather odd to see wild turkeys in the middle of a city. But, since hunting is not allowed in the parks and protected areas they only have to worry about an occasional homeless person sneaking up on them.

I see the occasional neighbor posting/complaining on Next Door about coyotes eating Fluffy the cat or Brutus the toy poodle in areas not too far from where we live. Having grown up in a semi rural area I was already well aware of the hazards of leaving small critters out where the coyotes can get them.

For wildlife much more than that I usually have to drive a few miles out of town.

[Thumper]

Having grown up in a semi rural area I was already well aware of the hazards of leaving small critters out where the coyotes can get them.

Yep.
And turkeys are pretty smart. My favorite memory was about 2 dozen of them congregating in a big hay field next to 2 large home made signs that said "No Hunting." The rest of the 50 acre field was completely empty.

[Thumper]

Got visited by an owl Saturday. I was out in the yard in the never ending pick up sticks mode, hauling and burning downed wood. He swooped in through the deciduous woods and landed on the top of a dead pine. He stayed there long enough for me to snap a blurry pic with my flip phone. When I tried to get a better view he headed off between the pines. He was huge and my picture may have shown some "ears." So we're going with a Great Horned Owl. It was a very enjoyable moment.

[Swift]

Got visited by an owl Saturday. I was out in the yard in the never ending pick up sticks mode, hauling and burning downed wood. He swooped in through the deciduous woods and landed on the top of a dead pine. He stayed there long enough for me to snap a blurry pic with my flip phone. When I tried to get a better view he headed off between the pines. He was huge and my picture may have shown some "ears." So we're going with a Great Horned Owl. It was a very enjoyable moment.

Nice!

[Thumper]

I saw my owl! It was just before dusk last night. We were home and had just finished dinner with the in laws. I noticed something out the front window and saw a large bird land about 12 feet up in a tree close to the house. I thought it was a red tail or cooper's hawk at first. But then could tell it was an owl. Spied it with the binocs and it was our Barred Owl. He was beautiful. He stayed around just long enough so that all 4 of us got to see him and I even got a couple of decent pictures.
It was awesome.

[Thumper]

And the deer now follow me around like kids chasing the ice cream man. It's cute, but sometimes I want to get things done in the yard. And I don't want them to become dependent on me or too comfortable around humans.

[geonuc]

I saw my owl! It was just before dusk last night. We were home and had just finished dinner with the in laws. I noticed something out the front window and saw a large bird land about 12 feet up in a tree close to the house. I thought it was a red tail or cooper's hawk at first. But then could tell it was an owl. Spied it with the binocs and it was our Barred Owl. He was beautiful. He stayed around just long enough so that all 4 of us got to see him and I even got a couple of decent pictures.
It was awesome.

Pics or it didn't happen.