62 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 7-25-18”

  2. Good morning, Chas and other early birds. Good evening, Jo.

    I hope the No-seeum population is leaving Donna alone. I seem to have a little itchy spot on my hand this a.m. which made me think of that.

    We will soon head out on the morning commute. We can get all the election news on the way in. We no longer read books in the car since it has gotten to where two sets of eyes on the Atlanta road loonies works best. Our car has a lot of road noise on the expressway so Audiobooks have not worked for us for that reason.

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  3. Morning Chas and Janice. I have such sweet memories of meeting you both. It is a pleasure to greet you. Time for some sleep here. Open House went well. I only had to make one presentation as the only one to come for the second one was the vice principal and his son. He knows what I am teaching, so no worries.

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  6. This is slightly ribald, but I laughed out loud.

    An editor friend posted these lines from a novel she’s working on.

    Her: “Undress me with your words.”

    Him: “There’s a spider in your bra.”

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  9. DJ, years ago I learned the trick to scratching those insane itches that you shouldn’t scratch but can’t not scratch. Don’t scratch the bite. But rub immediately adjacent to it, and if you simply must scratch, do it lightly–but around the area, and not on it. For me at least it seems to relieve the need to scratch for a while, but without hurting the bite. It also seems to take less rubbing or scratching to make it feel better, so you get relief without the vicious cycle of making it worse.

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  11. The photo above is a great blue heron and turtle from the rear of that pond I just discovered perhaps 1/3 of a mile from my house. It’s far enough back to be “iffy” even with the zoom lens and the lighting wasn’t right, but I thought it pretty amazing to have this so close to my house. I was standing on sidewalk on my own street (well, technically not my own street, but we live on a parallel road just off this street).

    Someday when I get up early enough it is just getting light, I will go back down there with my camera and hopefully get some really nice shots. But for now, just knowing we have a pond with great blue herons, green herons, and wood ducks ten minutes from the condo is enough to make me smile. My husband and I keep speaking of how wonderful our location is, of the new neighborhood features we keep discovering, and this one is way up on the list for me–a natural but partly hidden pond on the way to a walking trail. A really lovely gift from God.

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  12. We had several Northern Bobwhites suddenly appear in our yard last fall. We did not think they would last through the winter. We now have, at least, one mother with eight little ones. We were wondering what the new bird call was that we were hearing, when I caught the mom making it. She seems to stand a bit away from the little ones and make this call once in awhile. When afraid, they all seem to stand completely still until they sense the danger is past. They have been fun to watch, but I don’t appreciate their messes when they are on our sidewalk.

    I know my friend down the road and Cheryl would get much better photos than I have gotten. 🙂

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  13. One mistake to that–it seems it is the male making that call and standing watch. I think the young birds may be from different mothers, because they seem to vary in size.

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  15. Morning! Having lunch with friend who was getting divorce and is now not. Have not been updated since the calling off of the divorce so it will be interesting, maybe.
    You know how we love living in this Colorado forest and seeing the various creations roaming around here. The most delightful sight we see at this time of year is the Mourning dove teaching her babes how to fly and gather their own food. Such a sight we saw just outside of our bedroom windows yesterday morning. She was so gentle with her babe and there was such a reliance from the baby upon her mama…it just made us smile 😊

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  17. Praying for a good result and/or easy, non-invasive treatment if needed, chas. I guess I missed breakfast this morning?

    I’m living in the land of giant red welts on both legs and hands this week. Cheryl, yeah, I’ve tried doing that (rubbing area ‘around’ the bite) but it seems to only re-awaken all those nerve endings and I end up going crazy anyway. I did pick up some Benadryl gel last night on the recommendation of the nurse practitioner and that’s good to use as it stings when it goes on. I still have the RX lotion my doctor prescribed for my first round of these bites a month ago and when I showed that to the nurse practitioner she said it was really good stuff and would hold down the inflammation so I definitely need to keep using that.

    But these bites swell up to red welts that are several inches in diameter — my entire left knee is covered by the one now.

    I may work from home as I have to do a story on a recuperating sea lion at the mammal care center nearby. He was found by a longshoreman wandering a street in the industrial port area and taken in on Monday, so I still need to talk to the vet and schedule a photo (we have video taken by the longshoreman to use).

    Then again, it’s hot this week and an air-conditioned office will sound nice in another couple hours.

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  18. Chas, pretty sure there were results. May not be anything of concern but there were results. Or somebody has quite the snow job going on and is taking money they did not earn.

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  19. I heard the sound. There was lots of squishing in addition to the thumping.
    In any case, no one is cutting on me.
    Mary says there is non-invasive treatment.

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  21. DJ, last night you said you had read that black dots in a bite mean “the email sand flea/fly had buried her babies under your skin”. I’m curious to know what an email sand flea/fly is.

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  22. Years ago someone told me that ammonia is good for itchy bites. Later I found an ammonia-based product called AfterBite that comes in a stick form with an applicator, kind of like a stain stick. It usually gives me pretty quick relief, and you can apply it as often as you like. Some little bugger got me in the leg last night and I’ve been putting AfterBite on any time it starts bothering me.

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  24. Sand flies who email are very high tech.

    I’ll check out the stick, that does sound handy. And yes, no-see-um’s are tiny and sometimes transparent, you don’t see them, but they have teeth and venom and their bites pack a wallop. They like beaches and generally coastal areas.

    “While horse flies are large, noseeums (sandfleas) and some Old-World sandflies are tiny midges. Sandfly bites may leave large, red itchy bumps that may turn into a rash. These bumps are frequently several times more itchy than mosquito bites, and tend to last longer as well.

    “In the various sorts of sandfly only the female is responsible for biting and sucking the blood of mammals, reptiles and birds; the protein in the blood is necessary for the production of eggs, making the sandfly an anautogenous reproducer. … “

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  26. Kevin, probably a female.

    Technically you can see no-see-ums. But they are really tiny. And their bite is hardly disabling, because they are so tiny. But molecule for molecule, it’s intense, and you’re glad the thing isn’t five inches long, because a comparable bite would be disabling.

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  27. http://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm

    _____________________

    Tabatha Yang and her six-month-old son, Karoo, were sitting on their lawn last Sunday at their West Davis home, when she saw red. Literally.

    One minute they were enjoying the springlike weather, and the next minute his head was covered with bright red dots. Looking closer, she spotted a tiny insect in his eye, which she quickly removed.

    Then her legs began to welt and itch.

    They had just encountered no-see-ums, tiny Valley Black Gnats that feed on blood.

    “The adults are emerging in large numbers now and need blood so residents need to beware of grassy areas that cover alkaline clay soils,” said Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and professor entomology at UC Davis. “These insects are ferocious biters. Even though they don’t spread any diseases, they are sufficiently annoying to keep people indoors in some areas of California.” …

    The no-see-ums (Leptoconops torrens) belong to the family Ceratopogonidae and are about 1/16-inch long. They are so tiny they could pass through window screens, but they don’t, Kimsey said. However, they can and do slip beneath loose clothing, unnoticed, to get a blood meal. …

    The females inject saliva into the skin, which pools the blood just beneath the surface, resulting in a small red dot that becomes excruciatingly itchy. A single bite can welt into a one-or two-inch diameter spot, which lasts about two weeks.

    Kimsey cautions people not to scratch the welts (guilty), as scratching makes the itchy bites last twice as long and can lead to infected sores.

    (and this article ended with this discouraging note): “Repellents,” she added, “aren’t effective against these flies.”
    __________________________

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  30. We lost power over the weekend, late Sunday afternoon I think, or maybe Saturday. Thankfully they got it back up within the hour.

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  31. We just received word from Nunavut that there is a placement available! It just happens to be in the community I was most interested in going to. When I say we, there is another student, with whom I have worked on projects over these last two years, who is also going to the same place.

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  32. Exciting, Roscuro! Enjoy.

    When you people lose power, is it because of over load, from too many air conditioners or whatever, or something else?

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  39. Roscuro, wonderful! (Not the bears, the placement.) Made me smile!

    DJ, I guess I got “lucky” with the no-see-ums. I’d get one or two bites and stay out. If I got three or four, I’d go in. I don’t remember whether I ever used aloe vera on them (my standard insect-bite treatment), but I definitely didn’t do so every time, and I never had any reaction. Just the initial annoyance.

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  40. Oh, that is right. That is another problem I had with DJ’s story last night. or the night before. The Christians seemed to think their neighbors were just the folk next door.

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  44. Mumsee – I just finished reading the article, and was distressed by this quote from one of the ladies, which you were referring to:

    Love thy neighbor, she said, meant “love thy American neighbor.”

    Welcome the stranger, she said, meant the “legal immigrant stranger.”

    “The Bible says, ‘If you do this to the least of these, you do it to me,’ ” Sheila said, quoting Jesus. “But the least of these are Americans, not the ones crossing the border.”

    It sure sounds as if the reporter chose the most ignorant-sounding quotes to put into the article.

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  46. And then there was the lady who said that slavery wasn’t that bad, because “They got housing. They got fed. They got medical care.”

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  47. kizzie (4:43), yes, ouch

    The assessment on Get Religion — a site where Christian journalists look at stories that are written and evaluate how well (or, more often, how inadequately) religion angles are covered — made the point that too many journalists equate politics with religion and in this story that came through. Although perhaps the subjects being written about also were too politically influenced to the point where their faith took a back seat to political views.

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  49. Donna, the old time, never fail cure for insect bites was a chaw of tobacco placed over the bite. Not sure where to find Redman….or someone to chew I t for you.

    Chas, if that was a carotid ultrasound, the squishy noises were good news.

    My fun for the morning,aside from the normal stuff, was going through son’s shirt drawer. He had received quite q few hand me downs this summer, and daddy let’s him pull anything out of the bag he wants, and start wearing it. The drawer now closes, and I hope not to see his belly in public again.

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  50. Seriously about the email sand flea/fly, what in the world kind of spell-checker turned whatever you typed into “email”? Or did you really type that?

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  51. Roscuro, I’ve sort of been following but catch me up. Is the Nunavut placement an internship, or more long-term? How long do you expect to be among polar bears?

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  53. A warden I know spent some time in the north for a school class. They slept in tents inside an electrified tall fence. Using the outhouse was an adventure as they had to carry the toilet seat out of the enclosure with them (polar bears eat toilet seats apparently) and tell the guy with the rifle so he could accompany them out to the outhouse.

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  54. RK. I don’t know anything about the results.
    I have another appointment in a couple of weeks.
    But I’m not worried.
    I just want to stay healthy as long as I have Elvera.
    After that, it doesn’t matter.

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  55. DJ – Yeah, I read the Get Religion article, too. In fact, I was gonna only read that and skip the WP article, thinking it would fill in enough of what it was about. But then the GR piece said that I should read the WP article so that the GR piece would make sense. So I went back and read the WP article. 🙂

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  62. Today is Thursday.
    Aj sleeps in on Thursday.
    I have been to Baffin Island. We stopped there occasionally, not often, on our way from Westover AFB (In Mass.) to Thule,Greenland. Thule was a secret at the time. But you can’t keep something like that secret. Everyone knew about “Blue Jay”, which is it’s classified name.
    But I couldn’t discuss it.

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