Curmudgeon

I have top worked - replaced the apple variety on branches with cleft grafts - susceptible trees with resistant varieties. I don't like pesticides. You can completely replace the branches on a medium sized tree over 3 years. It takes a couple more to get back to full production.

The old man and friends went ice fishing on a shallow area of Goodyear Lake with PDFs and rope yesterday. They survived. I guess at their age it would be good to die doing something you love.

Charismatic minifauna.

Mike - Of course this is more complicated. Of course there are ranchers doing the right thing. It is like hunters. Some are very good at pursuing their goals while completely ignorant what is going on around them. Others model themselves after Aldo L. Some are slobs. The far-right narrative here on this issue has been "Why Are Leftists So Gung-Ho About Shooting Americans For Disobeying Government?" and "federal overreach". The complexity of federal land use - whether we are talking minerals/fossil fuels extraction, logging, grazing, off-road vehicles, etc. - and the impacts of those activities on wildlife, vegetation and hydrology are important to hunters and others who care about wildlife and habitat. You will not find these concerns addressed by the far-right, at least not here in the political forum. While I may enjoy poking the wingnuts, it is necessary to point out - for this issue and others - concerns and motivations that other readers here may be unaware of. I see this as no different than the coyote discussions. The black/white dialog obscures the reality. The discussions here tend to be emotional reactions not intelligent conversations. I learned long ago, if an issue is leaning hard one way, the best way to bring it to the middle is not to position yourself in the middle of the road. I rarely - almost never - advocate a rigid position here. My hope is to raise questions. This angers a couple of the regulars but it provides an opportunity for those seeing a constant stream of cut and paste propaganda to question, and hopefully research and learn. On the first confrontation - over Cliven Bundy's unpaid grazing fees - I do believe that the feds backing down has emboldened these people. Talk about slippery slopes. Will this be the new normal: every angry white guy with a gun who objects to federal land policy will call out the so-called "militias"? This certainly does not help facilitate an intelligent discussion. You are entirely too reasonable. To paraphrase Mrs. C. "Mike Rossi, STOP MAKING SENSE!"

I was wondering when someone would get to this. Thanks Redneck. It seems on this site, the court is VJP and Papist.

I always speculated on why so many animals end up dead in the road. I'm convinced some of them were depressed.

Me too.

I leased my sugar bush to a guy some years ago. He was having trouble with squirrels chewing lines. He put D-Con all over without consulting me. My wife discovered it on a dog walk. Actually, the dog discovered it. It was really good Mrs. C was paying close attention. We don't think the dog ate any. Anyway, he was fine. Also, the next door neighbor had a rat problem - and a yard full of feral cats she fed. She put rat poison where the cats couldn't get it. Unfortunately, the dying rats came right out in the open for the cats to eat. The positive thing was fewer feral cats. There may have been a lot of dead foxes and hawks we never found.

Any possibility a neighbor put out rat poison?

Since the backstory claims to be "soup to nuts", why did they gloss over the native American issue? http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jan/06/oregon-militia-malheur-wildlife-refuge-paiute-indian-tribe-sacred-land http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2016/01/03/bundy-militia-musters-again-over-paiute-land-162939

Anyone who has paid attention to land politics in the west knows that what is charged for grazing rights is in effect welfare for ranchers. Consider, cattle grazing is often destructive of wildlife habitat, the current occupation of a wildlife refuge that is essential habitat for migratory waterfowl. The conflict in Nevada with Cliven Bundy was in part due to attempts to protect the desert tortoise. The Armed Oregon Ranchers Who Want Free Land Are Already Getting A 93 Percent DiscountBy Leah Libresco The takeover of a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon appears to be more than just a protest of the impending imprisonment of two ranchers who set fires that spread into public lands. The armed demonstrators are led by Ammon Bundy, whose father, Cliven, has refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of the federal Bureau of Land Management to own some public lands or to regulate their use for grazing. But the government is giving the Bundy family a pretty good deal on the grazing rights it refuses to pay for. In 1993, the bureau declined to renew Cliven Bundy’s grazing permits in parts of Nevada that were reserved for a threatened desert tortoise. But Bundy continued grazing his cattle there anyway and refused to pay any fines or fees. He claimed that the land really belonged to him, so why should he have to pay over $1 million in fines? Now his son has furthered the fight by seizing the Oregon refuge. In a news conference Sunday, Ammon Bundy explained that he was there in protest of the “unconstitutional transactions of land rights and water rights.” Those transactions, though, can be a pretty good deal, regardless of their constitutionality. According to a 2015 report by the Center for Biological Diversity, the Bureau of Land Management’s fees for grazing cattle on public land are much lower than the fees charged by private landowners, and they’ve only become cheaper in recent years. In 2012, the bureau’s fees for grazing were 93 percent cheaper than the average market rate in 16 Western states ($1.35 versus $20.10 per AUM, which is a fancy acronym for the amount of land needed to support a cow and her calf for a month1). The bureau’s fees are so much lower than the market price in part because its fees are set at a flat, national rate and can’t be adjusted to match demand in local markets. Plus, the bureau sets that national grazing price using a formula, rather than any kind of bidding system or market appraisals, as some other federal agencies with higher prices2 do. As a result, in 2014, grazing fees covered only 15 percent of the bureau’s costs to maintain grazing lands. The rest of the cost is made up in federal appropriations and covered by taxpayers. So getting to buy grazing rights from the Bureau of Land Management is a steal, unless, like the Bundys, you think the government is trying to charge you for what’s rightfully yours. Or, at the very least, not rightfully theirs. The Bundys claim the land because their ancestors worked on it before the bureau even existed. The federal government owns over 80 percent of all land in the Bundys’ home state of Nevada and over half of all the land in Oregon. If that land were privately owned, the market price for grazing rights might be lower than it is today, as more private land owners competed with each other. But, for now, the government is using its clout to lower costs for ranchers, if they’re willing to accept the aid.

So, what is the news here? I read the posted article and learned nothing new. Coyotes kill some fawns, maybe quite few in areas with a lot of deer. It is just a propaganda piece. It is just the flip side of HSUS propaganda. No better. No worse. If all you care about is more deer, you are missing an awful lot of what is going on out there. No one here has called these animals docile. No one has denied they can be a very rare danger to people. The anti-coyote crowd does seems to have a serious problem with risk assessment. Some things to consider: How does the risk of coyote attack compare to other risks - lightning, dog bite, bee sting, terrorism, plane crash, self inflicted gun shot wound, falling out of tree stand, being murdered by a family member, eating bacon? What percentage of a coyote's diet is deer? At what time of year? How does this vary in the different ecozones of NYS? What mesopredators are kept in check by coyotes? How does this affect small game populations - esp grouse and turkeys? How many of you know enough about the flora where you hunt to determine if deer are 1 - impacting forest regeneration, 2 - encouraging invasive species, 3 - negatively impacting other wildlife habitat? I suspect not many. As other threads have established, deer numbers vary widely across the state. Coyotes must be the reason where numbers are low. The areas with high deer numbers must not have any of these "dogs from hell".

I suspect your trees are hawthorn though the term thorn apple can apply to other trees. There are hundreds of types of hawthorn. Those here do not have compound thorns. There is a possibility they are a crab apple with thorns. However, the bark doesn't look like a crab. Either way, the fruit has high value for wildlife, esp. birds, including grouse and turkeys. Hawthorns make dense thickets which provide shelter for nesting birds of many types. In a former life, hawthorns were a favorite place for me to hunt woodcock and grouse. From Wikipedia: "Hawthorns provide food and shelter for many species of birds and mammals, and the flowers are important for many nectar-feeding insects. Hawthorns are also used as food plants by the larvae of a large number of Lepidoptera species; see List of Lepidoptera that feed on hawthorns. Haws are important for wildlife in winter, particularly thrushes and waxwings; these birds eat the haws and disperse the seeds in their droppings." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crataegus I would not remove any hawthorn unnecessarily.

I have heard they do but several times coyotes have backed off when bobcats are on the bait. We had a fisher drive off a coyote once. We also had a possum on the bait that a bobcat would not approach.

The Appalachian Eagle Project in NYS started camera trapping as part of our Golden Eagle/Scavenger research the day after muzzleloader season ended - 12/23. Things were slow then suddenly one site in Delaware County had a burst of activity. These photos are mostly from Delaware. Some may be from Otsego. The bear could be a big problem as deer carcasses are scarce. Bear removing one of the two carcasses it took. Bear resting after clearing out our bait. Bald Eagle Bald and Golden Eagles together Bobcat-coyote standoff (note -the cats usually win, which is weird). Coyote

I managed to negotiate a ROW with a neighbor before proceeding with a purchase.

I'm registered. We'll see if it is worth my time.

Lots of tracks here, and a fresh rub.

I am missing the point. I grew up with a lot of cops who carried when off duty. They left the guns in the car during family gatherings.

When I need to carry to a family gathering, I need to find a new family.

The coreloks tend to disintegrate. And, more so at higher velocities. So maybe the exit hole is smaller at close range because much of the metal is in the meat. Another good reason to use copper bullets.

"Question Authority, especially your own." I can't remember who said that but I like it.

Anything rifled will behave better in brush than a smooth bore shotgun. Spinning projectiles are a gyroscope. Stick with the .270. Once during shotgun years, I shot at a nice buck no more than 40 yards out. There was a pencil thick twig in front of the barrel that I could not see because it was below the sights. After the slug sheared the branch, I saw it hit the ground just short of the buck's front foot. I took the branch home as a trophy.

I watched a good movie the other night - The Drop. The female lead is the same actress from the Dragon Tattoo movies. She is very different in this. I think you all would like it. It's a small scale crime drama with a twist. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1600196/?ref_=nv_sr_1

Maybe he was sitting at home all alone with nothing but the internet for company.