Re animals:
Try living in an unincorporated area. You fence cows in and horses out. You'd find someone's horse or the town donkey staring in your kitchen window at dawn. Drive over a cattle guard and you are at the mercy of the cows. I had to wait for a bull to finish wallowing in the road before I could drive on. Animal was bigger than my Spitfire. The fire department or rescue team would get calls to get the donkey out of the main road.
People moved to these areas and promptly got dogs and let said dogs run. Sometimes dogs would pack and attack kids at bus stop. There were leash laws, but no enforcement, unless dog bit. I did my fair share of complaining about the dogs. I had cats, and my cats were leash trained! They didn't go out.
Here we have poop laws, and those don't get enforced. Some people let their leashed dogs go right on your lawn or in your driveway. Entitled people - entitled dogs.
The Vulcan and I were volunteer fire, so we had a radio. This was a usual call:
Lady very scared of snakes, and every snake in the gully decided to sun themselves on her patio. She called sheriff, sheriff said call animal control, animal control said call rescue and fire department. The postmaster was also on the fire board and he had a radio. He finally locked up the post office, walked over to the lady's house with a shovel , and shovelled all the snakes off the patio. None of the snakes were venomous.
People moved to these areas and promptly got dogs and let said dogs run. Sometimes dogs would pack and attack kids at bus stop. There were leash laws, but no enforcement, unless dog bit. I did my fair share of complaining about the dogs. I had cats, and my cats were leash trained! They didn't go out.
Here we have poop laws, and those don't get enforced. Some people let their leashed dogs go right on your lawn or in your driveway. Entitled people - entitled dogs.
I used to be Volunteer Fire, too, zuben. On a barrier island off of the coast from South Carolina. I had a walkie-talkie, and a cellphone in case there was a call. Most fires were created by our good friend, 'Arson'; when the property was on the beach, and, the owner decided they wanted out... there we were, doing the 'soak and surround' thing, to prevent neighboring homes from igniting. Our neighbors, the Police department, would occasionally get calls about raccoons in the trash, but, we had a resident animal guy who had a 'serpentarium' - literally, an indoor snakepit - he even had alligators that were disabled on display, and, whenever an island visitor would call, screaming "Eeeek! There's a snake right near my car! Help!", or, "OMG - there's a raccoon in our trash, and when I took my trash out, it hissed at me!" - they would contact the 'serpentarium' guy, as he was also employed by the Wildlife Division (part of DNR), so - he'd capture the animals, and relocate them to their natural habitat.
My family and I had a house near there, with dogs, barn cats that we fed and cared for, and horses. We had a low-impedance electric fence, with solar-power cells to back up the AC power, as well as a battery to back things up when it was dark, and the AC power was off due to a storm, etc., to keep the horses in. We had problems with some deer hunters, but, since we owned the right-of-way to the road that we lived on, we made our desires very clear - no running dogs on our property - so, after we got the Department of Natural Resources involved, they stopped.
They got permission to hunt deer on property owned by a nearby paper company. It wasn't far from our property, and you'd still hear distant 30.06 rifles - but, problem solved.
Where I live now, the area is in a different county than the actual 'town' is; and, it's annexed to the nearest city; also, it's considered to be part of another township, due to the United States Postal Service. Since I researched the area where I live, at least I know that I don't live in 'Nowhereland'. The county laws apply here, as well as the nearby township's - discharging a firearm within 200 yards of a dwelling, whether you're on your property or not, is illegal. Our neighbor apologized to us for discharging his, and we never had to get law enforcement involved - so, everyone is getting along nicely (so far). Actually, he'll let us know when he needs to 'sight-in' a weapon, during the day, which is fine - but, the nighttime shooting had to stop. We also have a handgun for protection. Still, we have other neighbors nearby that like to go 'bang-bang' at night...
The main reason we don't like all of the noise is that our Irish Setter mix, Java, cannot tolerate it. She literally jumps out of her skin; then, drools. Our Border Collie cannot stand thunder. It makes him so scared, that he'll try to burrow under the couch - anyway he can; or, crawl under the end table, and go behind the couch, pulling out all of the outlets out, making lamps fall, and charging smartphones hit the floor.
I suppose the dogs we have reflect their owners, huh? Here I am, suffering from bipolar-depression, PTSD and chronic pain, while my wife-to-be suffers from depression, anxiety, PTSD, and she's a recovering alcoholic, who will be 12 years sober January 11. I'm so proud of her. Me, I've been drug-free (my drug of choice was Mary Jane) for almost seven years. I just take what the doctor prescribes, for my problems (insulin, clonazepam, and the occasional oxycodone for pain - which I hate taking, as it affects my digestive tract in a bad way, so, the bottle stays nearly full - well-past the refill date).
zuben, I must say that admire the way you deal with things. I need to adapt to your way of finding apps that won't tie you to a EULA that blows your privacy out of the water. You're cool with me, as I can understand about cows and donkeys - hell, one of our horses walked right up the brick and concrete steps to our front door. That was hilarious. I took a picture. Unfortunately, my ex-wife has it - as I'd share it with you. AppBrain seems to have a lot of those types of apps (or, they used to, back in the days of Gingerbread... my phone is unrooted now, due to a locked bootloader, and ext2 read-only memory... I'm stuck in read-only JellyBean).
My rant for the day: I'm definitely against people who walk up to your lawn with their dog, and let the aforesaid animal relieve themselves, say "Good dog!" - then, leave. I think that people with poop-scoopers and poop-bags are cool. I lived in the city as a youngster (a ten minute drive from Boston, MA); then, when we moved to the South Shore/Cape Cod area, it was nearly rural, but we weren't far from civilization.
I'm not far from the State capital where I live now, so, I'm able to get a cultural injection - whenever I need to get away from tobacco country. Still, there's that annoying stripe of people that think it's still 1954. Hopefully, with further education and future generations, we'll all be able to get along. As it should be. No politics or current affairs today, Unforgiven. It's overcast, and mild - but, rain's on the way. My spine is already feeling it. This is LW - signing off.
- LW
:rofl:
