Let's visit.....

[rickers]

Originally Posted by Reziac

The kit foxes I've seen here are more grey, but there are probably other varieties. Main thing is they're really small and timid. Coyotes eat 'em just like they do cats. The oil companies leave old pipes laying out in the desert to create boltholes for 'em (they can get into the pipes but coyotes can't).

When I lived on Nelson Road near the East Gallatin, there was a BIG red fox in the area (probably about 30 pounds), and it would show up in the middle of the night and sit in my yard going WOO-WOO to make the dogs crazy. If I came out and yelled at it, it would just stand there grinning, yarp some more, then saunter away in its own good time. One night I went WOO-WOO back at it... It shut up, stared at me like I'd lost my mind, then trotted off looking like "Geez, this place is losing it", and I never saw it again.

I finally got my mitts on a couple of pictures of Kit Foxes that weren't copyrighted ! On the Flathead Reservation foxes are a bit of a problem for the folks who run the irrigation district as they burrow in the berms that contain the water in the ditches.
By the way It's been a month since any alcohol has crossed my lips and I don't even think about it, no cravings no jonesing whatsoever ! Between both my wife and I, (because we bought expensive beer and expensive tequila) we are saving over $7000.00 per year and I feel great.

[Reziac]

Originally Posted by rickers

I finally got my mitts on a couple of pictures of Kit Foxes that weren't copyrighted ! On the Flathead Reservation foxes are a bit of a problem for the folks who run the irrigation district as they burrow in the berms that contain the water in the ditches.

Cute little buggers... and man, they sure can RUN!

I've seen muskrats make a bank downright porous too. I suppose any burrowing critter could wreak havoc like that. Foxes sure do dig... my dad used to pot 'em at a friend's ranch outside of Mandan, ND. Run enough water down the holes and up they'd come.

Originally Posted by rickers

By the way It's been a month since any alcohol has crossed my lips and I don't even think about it, no cravings no jonesing whatsoever ! Between both my wife and I, (because we bought expensive beer and expensive tequila) we are saving over $7000.00 per year and I feel great.

Congrats -- that's great! And that's a lot of loot for incentive, too

[rickers]

I don't trust tap water very much and now I'm spending a lot of $ on Ginger Ale (no caffeine) and bottled water. I guess it's time to get a good water purifier, the tap water in our town tastes and smells like swimming pool water.

[Reziac]

Originally Posted by rickers

I don't trust tap water very much and now I'm spending a lot of $ on Ginger Ale (no caffeine) and bottled water. I guess it's time to get a good water purifier, the tap water in our town tastes and smells like swimming pool water.

Pretty much true of most places that get it from a river -- takes a lot of treatment to get rid of all the crap the wildlife left upstream It's usually perfectly safe, but try convincing your nose of that!

However, per every test I've seen results from -- bottled water has a much higher bacteria/pathogen and particulate count than just about ANY tap water, and almost NO bottled water would pass basic municipal standards of purity! So from a safety standpoint -- filtering the ugly but safe tap water is probably best. (And a lot cheaper than bottled water, which often costs more than gasoline!)

I've noticed one brand of bottle water puts something in it to dry out your mouth -- magnesium sulphate (Epsom Salts) -- presumably so you'll feel thirsty again soon and will buy more water!

After the high-water season, Great Falls' water was often brown and full of floating stuff (fragments of tree bark and the like). It was safe enough, and it tasted okay, but it looked like diluted sewage.

My well sometimes puts out bright orange water, if the deep clay layer has been disturbed (surge in the ground water or suchlike). Could use it for halloween gags. Probably good for ya -- high in iron.

[rickers]

I'm not sure where my town gets it's water from but it's not the bacteria I worry about, Conrad puts so much chlorine in it I doubt if any bugs could live in it. It's chemical pollution I'm concerned about. Acid rain and rain bearing mercury (from burning coal) has rendered a lot of fish toxic to the point that one should strictly limit fish consumption and pesticides somehow get into water supplies in agricultural regions.
What brand of water puts the Epsom salts in it ? I'd like to stay away from that one.

[seven of nine]

Rickers I am standing and applauding! Both you and the wife!!!

Rez as always you are a fountain of info! I have so much calcium/phosphorus/and assorted other minerals here my bones are going to be solid before long.

[Reziac]

Originally Posted by seven of nine

Rez as always you are a fountain of info! I have so much calcium/phosphorus/and assorted other minerals here my bones are going to be solid before long.

I'm so full of useless information, some of it is bound to leak out

We have such hard water here... well, remember the biblical story about having to make bricks without straw? Pikers... WE can make bricks without MUD!

Seriously -- there's hardly any osteoporosis in this valley's old folks, because there's so much calcium in the ground water. (Lots of iron too.) I shovel several pounds of calcium salts out of my swamp cooler every spring. -- It's actually good for you to drink ordinary tap water with its usual load of dissolved minerals, since you absorb a lot of your necessary micro-minerals from water.

There was a study a few years ago about how increasing use of PVC pipes was leading to more people with iron and copper deficiencies, since iron and copper absorbed into water from aging pipes is one of the prime sources for both nutrients -- and naturally, PVC pipes contain neither. (You need both for the gut to absorb either one efficiently.)

[Reziac]

Originally Posted by rickers

I'm not sure where my town gets it's water from but it's not the bacteria I worry about, Conrad puts so much chlorine in it I doubt if any bugs could live in it. It's chemical pollution I'm concerned about. Acid rain and rain bearing mercury (from burning coal) has rendered a lot of fish toxic to the point that one should strictly limit fish consumption and pesticides somehow get into water supplies in agricultural regions.
What brand of water puts the Epsom salts in it ? I'd like to stay away from that one.

Dysani, or however it's spelled (I'd have to root a bottle up from the truck.... the water is nasty but I like their bottles since they're very tough and will withstand a great deal of re-use).

Drinking bottled water won't save you from whatever is in tap water -- most bottled water is just filtered tap water anyway!! Sparkletts comes straight from Los Angeles city taps.

Rain is by definition distilled (evaporated) water, therefore free of minerals. That's one reason it tastes flat. (If it kept the minerals, it would be salty, since most rain starts off as evaporation from the oceans.) If rain happens to fall through a smoke layer, it can pick up crap, but that's not typical.

Turns out most "acid rain" isn't actually the rain, but the effect of ground water (especially increased rainy-season seep from lakes) hitting sulphur deposits in the ground, and there's more sulphur in coal-bearing areas. Water plus sulphur == sulphuric acid!

There've been some deep ocean studies that indicate the mercury has been there all along (after all it IS fairly common in the earth's crust); we just didn't notice it until the anti-pollution movement kicked off testing of everything in sight, about the same time the "healthy eating" craze got people on a fish kick. If you do the math, turns out burning all the coal in the world wouldn't be enough to impact the huge volume of water that is the world's oceans. Might create local contaminant issues, yeah, but not for the mass of ocean water -- the dilution factor is just too great, to the point that you couldn't even measure it.

[rickers]

I saw it rain MUD once ! Maybe my cousins were hang gliding in a rainstorm !
I hope nobody here thinks the picture of the inbreds are really related to me ! I just picked that photo off a website about inbreeding. There was another picture of a female private part that I can't post here for obvious reasons, (I'm trying to behave if I can, it's not easy for a joker like me), but lets just say it was a common result of inbreeding that caused some parts to be very very long ! Sometimes I run into things on the web that just shouldn't be looked at for too long.

[seven of nine]

Well at least this habit will not inflame your foot Rickers!

Rez somewhere I actually have read that info about the pipes. And yes the oldsters here seem to be strong in the bone, and heal quickly.