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The Ragged Victorians are a fantastic group of reenactors we encountered at the Tudor House Museum in Worcester. Interesting that there are quite young members, probably family members of the grown ups and all obviously enjoying the experience! Here the young boy is having a game with the rat catcher (the man with the empty cage!)
HBM and 22/100 in monochrome
i bought a 200 acre farmstead in southern virgina several years back.the property had been basically abandoned for 20 years and the
locals had grown very accustomed to regarding it as their own hunting
ground. we bought the property in oct/nov'ish, which is the begining
of deer hunting season in those parts (the creep of southernism
in my speech will become readily apparent, bear with). so the first
several weekends, i would take my father up there to make a clearing
to put up a storage shed and build up my smithy forge. we put up no
trespassing signs and chains across the road, but they would be torn
down and cut when we arrived. it was clear we werent going to be
entirely welcome. .
One weekend my dad stopped at a pawn shop on the drive up, saying he
wanted to look at something. 10 minutes later he came out with 2
Chinese semi-auto assault rifles and 1000 rounds of high velocity
ammo.
'Ummm....' i said, 'not a good idea'
"We have to be prepared. Things might get hairy."
"Sure, but you know how to fire one of those?"
"pretty sure"
"nice....just put em in the trunk and forget about them dad.'
so when we arrive the signs are down and the chains cut and dad is
freaking out that the locals arent showing us respect. i sigh, roll
eyes, and start a fire to make some coffee. now in virginia they use
dogs to hunt. the deer are flushed out into open fields by baying
hounds and beagles where the lazy hunters sits on his truck or ATV and
pops off shots at them. as we start drinking coffee, a pack of dogs
tears thru our campsite and we see a deer pull out of a grove about
100 feet to our left and tear across 40 feet ahead of us into a broom
straw pasture. shotguns erupted from an opposing treeline about 100
feet to our right. 8,9, maybe 10 shots fired, tangentially in front of us. dad runs back to the car, pulls an assault rifle from the
trunk, loads up a 50 round clip, and marches past me towards the
treeline of hunters.
'whoa! what the fuck do you think you are doing?!'
'im gonna teach those bastards some respect!!'
'put the gun down, dad. you arent going anywhere with that.
just settle down.'
'just relax son, i'll take care of this, i'm not afraid.'
'hahaha, im certainly not afraid of them either. but...they know we
are here. they are just trying to rattle us - and apparently it worked
on you. now look, this is the big picture here. there are probably 4
or 5 locals in that treeline, they can probably see you right now,
they have probably been hunting here since they were children, they
know this land, they know the local sheriff, they dont know you. you
go charging in there and they might even drop you and not a word would
be said about it. you were in the army like 30 years ago, you read
soldier of fortune magazine on the toilet - this doth not a commando
maketh. just settle down, gimme the rifle and go load up the
other one.'
reluctantly he gave me the gun. i took it over behind a huge 4 foot
diameter fallen oak out of the sight line of the hunters, left it
there, and returned to my coffee. ten minutes later, another deer
flushed out and another volley erupted from the treeline. dad gave me
a withering look of contempt as if he was digusted for siring such a
spineless son. i smirked back and said 'breathe....its ok. trust me.'
i went over to the oak and the rifle, put down my coffee, and squeezed
off all 50 rounds in rapid fire. CRACK CRACK CRACK... an assault rifle
is a loud impressive beast, i must admit. a minute later we heard a
jeep and an atv drive off from the treeline. i went back to the fire,
finished my coffee and asked dad to get the other rifle and go get
down by the oak.
'what?'
'trust me...serious. you have about 2 minutes.'
as he got the gun and walked over to the tree, we saw a convoy of 6
trucks and jeeps and atvs barrelling down our drive road (about a mile
long).
'dad, please just stay put behind that tree, dont let them see where
you are, unless, obviously things get 'hairy', then call the cops on
your cell and handle things. but remember even if you shoot in
self-defense, you are going to jail, and its their jail."
"what the hell? what are you going to do??'
'no big, we are going to have a little chat. no worries'
a minute later, the six vehicles pull up around in a semi circle and
like 15 hunters get out, some with their shotguns, others without, but
certainly packing a pistol or something. this huge older thick headed
lout with a stereotypical chunck of chewing 'bacca in his lip and a
grimy blaze orange padded jacket was standing in front, looked around
at our campsite and snorted with complete contempt.
'boy, who the fuck is shooting machine guns around here?!' he says
walking over at me.
i just sat there on a log drinking my coffee looking at him.
'you deef boy? we was up yonder (swear to god they use 'yonder', go
figure!) and some dumbfucker starting shooting automatic machine guns
at us. waddat you?'
i lit a cigarette and just stared at him for another 10 seconds or so.
(honestly i couldnt tell if i was in way over my head, but i
knew if we showed weakness the whole adventure of living up there
would become some fuct hatfield-mccoy OK corral deliverance hillbilly
nightmare)
'this is my land now - and that is my gun. and dont call me boy.'
'now look here, we are out here hunting and you are gonna hit somebody
shooting like that. so you need to settle down...boooooyyyy. we'been
hunting here for over 20 years and the season just started. we'll tell
y'all when you its safe for you to come back here and play or whatever
the hell you california boys do back here (the realtor must have
filled the locals in on our situation).
cigarette drag. stare.
'you got me, boy?'
'no, boyyyy. here is the deal. this is my land now - and you are
fucking trespassing. i fired those shots, not at your boys, but into
the ground, because i know there is nothing a hunter hates more than
to think there is an asshole out there in the trees with an assault
rifle. i knew it would get your attention. now i am going to live
here. i am clearing off this land to build a home and eventually build
a business. i am gonna raise a family here. i believe in good
neighbors. i am gonna be a good neighbors. but y'all have started this
out ugly by vandalizing my signs, cutting my chains, trespassing to
hunt, which can land your ass in state prison for a couple months. so
short of you making some jack ass move and trying to shoot me right
here which i can tell you would be a very bad ideat, we can sit down
and work out some sort arrangement that will make us good neighbors.
so what do you want? you want to fight or figure it out?'
(snort) 'youre fucking crazy!'
'no. just very determined to makes sure everybody walks outta here and
that this little bullshit harrasment stops today. so what do you
want?'
'check this california boy out. who does he think he is'
'look, i already called the game warden this morning before i came up
here. real nice guy (one mongoloid in the back guffawed and said 'he's
a fucker.) he was very obliging and told me all about your state
hunting laws and the serious penalties for trespassing and he even
mentioned that he might be stopping by today to say hello. and last
week i spoke with the county magistrate (DA to them), also a real nice
guy, looks like we are going to be going to the same church (i had
stopped in at the beautiful 200 year old episcopal church on a
previous trip to meet the rector and meet some of the folks - never
especially religious, but i knew enough of small towns to know that
the church is where you socialize and get your social ranking), happy
to see some new faces coming to the county. he told me all about the
history of this part of the county and this property. in fact, he said
if i had any problems to give him a call and he'd give me a hand. so
you and your boys aint got much to stand on right now. you keep up
this hunting and the game warden is gonna revoke your licenses at best
and toss you in jail at the worst, especially if your poachin' was
done in a coercive threating manner, and im sure the magistrate
wouldnt mind a bit drawing up the cases."
'ha, the sheriff is my brother in law,' the lout says.
'cool, roll the dice, see what your brother in law will do for you. or
you put your guns back in your trucks and lets work this out.'
'what'chu got in mind?'
'ok, i accept that y'all have been hunting here since sheriff shappard
died because there was no one to say no, and we all know there isnt
another plot of property with an open 100 acres of clear shooting this
far back off the road for 20 or so miles. so i dont feel right just
telling you boys that you cant hunt here anymore. so you can hunt
here.'
'well thats good, glad youre talking some sense.'
'so you can hunt here for the rest of the season...but next season you
can only hunt the front half of the property and the following year
only the front quarter of the land. you get three more years you can
hunt here, after those three years i should have a home built here and
we can discuss if any of you wants to buy permission to hunt that
front quarter. three years free is a good deal.'
'not really...'
'its better than the alternative. but here's your catch. only you and
your hunt club are allowed to hunt here. no one else. understand?'
'thats not much of a catch, why would we want to share it?'
'the catch is that you are responsible for making sure no one hunts
here, no one vandalizes my gear that i store here, no one messes with
my signs. if anybody hunts and vandalizes this property, then all bets
are off and you can go ask the hunt club down 'yonder!' if you can
hunt with them - i'm sure they wouldnt mind .
long story short, they agreed, we agreed. no more problems with
vandals and such. in fact, they actually called the sheriff on some
boys from another county who had come over during the week to hunt.
and they made sure we knew they had done so. after two years a 300
acre property a mile or so down the road was bought by a timberer and
clear cut. after the trees and shrub growth starting coming back after
a year it was perfect for deer hunting and the timberer had no
objections to the locals hunting there, so it wasnt a problem not
hunting at our place. it was never warm and fuzzy with the locals up
there, but they did respect our property. we never had anymore problems with
them.
damn, i hadnt thought about that story for years now.
Nothing tastes better than home-grown carrots : )
I can't take credit I'm afraid, these are from my mom's garden.
Alaskan Brown Bear
Icy Straight Point, Alaska 2016
I got to enjoy this young brown bear. We were on a tram tour through the forest, and he popped out on the path ahead of us. What a treat! I can only imagine how big they are when full grown!
Knowing how much I love roses, my husband replaced a number of the flowers in our garden with some roses. This is one of my favorites! Home-grown beauty! I hope you enjoy!
Spanaway, WA
091117
© Copyright 2017 MEA Images, Merle E. Arbeen, All Rights Reserved. If you would like a copy of this, please feel free to contact me through my FlickrMail, Facebook, or Yahoo email account. Thank you.
My first attempt at growing tomatoes...It's always been too shady in our garden until a year ago when we had an enormous tree removed...6 plants doing well thanks to some lovely weather (on and off!) in spring/summer....loads of fruit...just waiting for them to plump up and ripen! ... keeping my fingers crossed!
On February 7th, 2015, I posted an adult Great Blue Heron feeding a chick at Circle B Bar Reserve along Alligator Alley.
This is the same chick on the right being fed by the adult on March the 9th, 2015. It is as big as its parent now.
Will probably be leaving the nest soon. This calls for another (Smile).
Polk County, Florida.
Apologies, not uploaded anything for a few days due to illness, but kind of back with an edited image from last week.
Previous set of Pripyat here www.flickr.com/photos/timster1973/sets/72157643944616235/
Named for the nearby Pripyat River, Pripyat was founded on 4 February 1970, the ninth nuclear city in the Soviet Union, for the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. It was officially proclaimed a city in 1979, and had grown to a population of 49,360 before being evacuated a few days after the 26 April 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
Though Pripyat is located within the administrative district of Ivankiv Raion, the abandoned city now has a special status within the larger Kiev Oblast (province), being administered directly from Kiev. Pripyat is also supervised by Ukraine's Ministry of Emergencies, which manages activities for the entire Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.
Access to Pripyat, unlike cities of military importance, was not restricted before the disaster as nuclear power stations were seen by the Soviet Union as safer than other types of power plants. Nuclear power stations were presented as being an achievement of Soviet engineering, where nuclear power was harnessed for peaceful projects. The slogan "peaceful atom" (Russian: mirnyj atom) was popular during those times. The original plan had been to build the plant only 25 km (16 mi) from Kiev, but the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, among other bodies, expressed concern about it being too close to the city. As a result, the power station and Pripyat were built at their current locations, about 100 km (62 mi) from Kiev. After the disaster the city of Pripyat was evacuated in two days.
My blog:
timster1973.wordpress.com
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Heirloom tomatoes are far superior to supermarket tomatoes. Grown each year from seed originally given to Ron by his Uncle Roy back in the 1960s. We call them "Uncle Roy Tomatoes".
Being a huge fan of butterflies, both watching them and of course taking pictures of them, When i came across this little habitat that you could grow your own in i was very interested.
We ordered it and followed the instructions and what we got was a fascinating few weeks watching them grow and turn into stunning Painted Lady Butterflies! I can't recommend it enough :)