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Git your snow bibs out of storage...

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FN FAL

Freight Dawgs Rule
Joined
Dec 17, 2003
Posts
8,573
:eek: I was flying over the northwoods today and when I woke up from my nap to see if I had blundered my way into Canada, I saw a several trees down in the woods that looked like they were already a pretty good shade of orange.
 
mullet said:
I forgot, wx don't have a thing to do with flying. Neither do long winters...espicially since heating requires fuel oil and cold wx causes cars to get less gas milage. I'll get 550 to 575 out of a tank of gas with highway driving in the warmer months. In the winter, I'll be lucky to hit 500. Peak oil, shmeak oil, right?

I would also guess that a long winter will mean additional days of flight delays and cancellations, slippery runway conditions, additional deice days and slower airport operations in general, requiring more taxi fuel and the rare instance of exceeding holding times.

Since I fly a plane that is re-known for its excellent ability to grow ice, maybe I'm just a little bit more sensitive to the signs of winter approaching...you guys important enough to be flying jets are probably immune to winter flying operations.

Here's another clue to an odd ending of summer...

Copperheads Gather Early in Ark. This Year

By ANNIE BERGMAN
Associated Press Writer

LITTLE ROCK (AP) -- It happens every year: large numbers of copperheads gather and move in unison to dens for hibernation. But it happens in October, not July or August. Now the common event has become an uncommon and inexplicable one.

"I know for a fact that all these snakes didn't just wake up one day and do this," said Chuck Miller, whose Marion County yard has been overrun with the pitvipers. "Something's making them do it. They know something we don't know. There's got to be something more to this."

Nearly 100 of the snakes are using a cedar tree as a sort of meeting place, and neither Miller, an outdoorsman and former snake owner, nor scientists who have traveled to the rural north central Arkansas site to study the phenomenon, know why.

Stanley Trauth, a zoology professor at Arkansas State University, said the snakes normally gather to move to hibernation sites in the fall. Trauth has traveled to Miller's property to conduct research on the snakes' behavior.

"With this hot weather we didn't anticipate such a grand movement of so many snakes. In the fall they aggregate in fairly large numbers, so it's quite an unusual event," Trauth said in a telephone interview Monday.

Miller agrees. "If it were October, no one would know about it. It wouldn't be that strange," he said.

When the snakes first started showing up three weeks ago, Miller said he was a little concerned that no one would believe how many were visiting the cedar tree, so he began collecting the reptiles. He saw 20 the first night, he said.

One of his friends contacted Trauth and the research began.

Trauth and one of his graduate students traveled to Miller's property and embedded a radio transmitter in one of the snakes for tracking purposes. Other snakes also had tags clipped to their scales.

Miller said seven of nine tagged snakes were taken a quarter-mile away from the tree and released, but have since returned to the tree and been recaptured.

Trauth said the copperheads gather at the tree to leave their scent. By rubbing the tree, other copperheads know that it is a marker on the way to a den site, he said.

But Trauth is only guessing that the snakes are preparing to move to a den for hibernation.

"All we can do is speculate as to what this is right now. This might be a precursor to an actual event. But having the numbers there that he's had, it just makes you wonder what's going on," Trauth said.

A gathering of copperheads like the one in Miller's yard has not been documented before, Trauth said. Though he can't yet explain why it's happening, he can say for sure it's not for mating or feeding.

All the snakes that have been gathering at the base of the tree are adult males. Copperheads also like to feed on cicadas, but the insects haven't appeared in the area in large numbers this year.

The best guess, Trauth said, is the snakes are moving to hibernate as usual - they're just doing it earlier than normal.

All Miller knows is, it's weird.

"It's like seeing a bigfoot or something walk across the yard; if you don't keep them, no one will believe you," he said.
 
FN FAL said:
I forgot, wx don't have a thing to do with flying. Neither do long winters...espicially since heating requires fuel oil and cold wx causes cars to get less gas milage. I'll get 550 to 575 out of a tank of gas with highway driving in the warmer months. In the winter, I'll be lucky to hit 500. Peak oil, shmeak oil, right?

I would also guess that a long winter will mean additional days of flight delays and cancellations, slippery runway conditions, additional deice days and slower airport operations in general, requiring more taxi fuel and the rare instance of exceeding holding times.

Since I fly a plane that is re-known for its excellent ability to grow ice, maybe I'm just a little bit more sensitive to the signs of winter approaching...you guys important enough to be flying jets are probably immune to winter flying operations.

Here's another clue to an odd ending of summer...

Its ok, if they are not from the midwest or north. They don't know what it means when the leaves start changing colors. Some children need their hand to be held the whole time.
Time to get the leaf blower in mx, and get some ranks before their price goes up.
 
DX Rick said:
Its ok, if they are not from the midwest or north. They don't know what it means when the leaves start changing colors. Some children need their hand to be held the whole time.
Time to get the leaf blower in mx, and get some ranks before their price goes up.
We have had some really tame winter wx up here for so long, I guess everybody expects it'll stay that way. I'm wondering if we'll have some of the blizzards we had like back in the late '70s, early '80s?

I hope it is cold...I hate rape.
 
FN FAL said:
We have had some really tame winter wx up here for so long, I guess everybody expects it'll stay that way. I'm wondering if we'll have some of the blizzards we had like back in the late '70s, early '80s?

I hope it is cold...I hate rape.
speaking of cold, I see a little nipplage on your avatar.
 
FN FAL said:
I would also guess that a long winter will mean additional days of flight delays and cancellations, slippery runway conditions, additional deice days and slower airport operations in general, requiring more taxi fuel and the rare instance of exceeding holding times.
Actually, winter will be shorter this year since congress extended daylight savings time by four weeks :D
 
jarhead said:
Actually, winter will be shorter this year since congress extended daylight savings time by four weeks :D
Hahahaha... :D
 
I know exactly what the original poster meant about the foliage. Just dont understand why people start threads on every thought or observation they have? Save it for your wife or girlfriend. I know, I know, what a d1ck I am!
PS- I saw (3) 12 Packs of Coke for $8.88 at the grocery store!
 

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