Welcome to the crazy house

[Jogeephus]

I learned something new today that I'd like to share with you. Many of you have suspected it while some have denied it and found reason in it. Nevertheless, this is funny but at the same time when you stop and think about it - its sad.

But first I have a few conditions which I hope you will comply with for no other reason than to keep your computer running properly and for your health.

If you have high blood pressure, read no further.



Are you sitting down? If not. Please do.








Are you eating? Please finish chewing and do not take another bite till you have read this post.





Are you drinking? If so, please swallow and do not take another sip till you have read this post then wait ten minutes before taking another bite or swallow as you may rethink this situation and you will spew.






OK. Have we got full compliance?




No cheating 3-Way! PUT YOUR WHISKEY GLASS DOWN IT WILL MESS UP YOUR SCREEN!!







Hook. Same with you. Put the beer down. It can wait.






OK. Early this morning I got a phone call from a logger who was having to leave the woods on the Osceola National Forest because the government told them they had to leave. WHY?


Were they stealing wood?


No


Were they doing a bad job?



No.


Were the roads too wet and they were rutting?




No




Did they discover some indian artifact?



Yes. They found an arrowhead and the government archeologist made them haul in 20 loads of dirt which then had to be graded so as not to disturb the site. But this had already been taken care of so this was a mute point.



So you wonder why they had to leave?



They didn't find a flatwoods salamander did they?






No. The site had already been inspected and cleared for logging by the USFWS who spent months investigating the site and cleared it for logging.






Oh, what about the darter minnow. Did they find that?




No, like I said, the USFWS had already cleared the site.






Did they find a Indigo snake?





No. It was cleared as I said.








Well if it were a rattlesnake sitting at the end of your nose you would have already been bitten. I'm amazed that you haven't already figured out the obvious. Geesh, you are a special kind of stupid cause everyone knows that ......










YOU CANNOT DISTURB THE RED COCKADED WOODPECKER BEFORE 9:30 a.m OR after 4:30 pm OR THE BIRD WILL GET PNEUMONIA AND DIE!!!!!

I could elaborate but I will leave it at that.

 

[Dave]

I don't like being disturbed before 9:30 AM either. So what is your point?

 

[denvermartinfarms]

Crazy, yes, but this is exactly the kind of things to expect when you are working for or with the forest service, we do road maintenace, clean ponds, brushog, and build roads for the usfs, and they are not as bad to work for as you would think, but this is not that hard for me to belive.

 

[Anonymous]

Now, birds are very susceptible to shock and death. I have a feeling though it has more to do with the prescribed burn up there that got out of control. Yep, lets burn some undergrowth when it's so dry that a gopher turtle stirs up a dust cloud when it farts. But it sounds so much better when you blame it on a pecker wood.

 

[Jogeephus]

I am thinking the dairies need to adopt this practice as I'm confident not disturbing the cows before 9:30 would elimnate any pneumonia problems. Probably mastitis too. Could probably pull the vocal cords out of all the roosters and songbirds in the area that insist on making a ruckus before 9:30.

 

[Dave]

We always refer to them as the US Forest Circus.

 

[dun]

Any time you get involved with the ESA you're pretty much screwed and they don;t even blow in your ear let alone kiss you

 

[Red Bull Breeder]

Well i knew it wasn't the Ozark Big Eared Bat!!

 

[Dave]

Back in the spring of 1990 I was falling a patch of timber on land belonging to a large timber company. They shut us down because some biologist heard spotted owl hoots at night. This was on top of a ridge where you could see for ever and this was the last patch of time left standing. So long about September they told us to come back and finish cutting it. About the second or third day the guy (we will call him Fred for this discussion) who was working next to me came over and said you got to see this. We went over to his strip and on a snag there sat two spotted owls. Well there probably wasn't 10 acres left standing so we finished cutting.

Fast forward about a year. One nice summer afternoon two USF&W agents show up at my door. Questions after questions about those owls and who I told. Owls? I see wildlife all the time. I don't recall telling anyone. They left after an hour or two. I got right on the phone and called Fred who had been working by me. I want to warn him who was coming. Well there were two agents already there and had been for over an hour. I hung up the phone and it rang right away. Another timber faller calling to warn me. Worked out that there were 14 agents at 7 faller's houses at the same time. Only the two of us had seen anything and of course we were unsure of what we saw and had not told anyone from the company.

Fast forward another year or two. And Fred and I are working together on another job. This is a different boss and on a different timber company's ground. There is 10 fallers on this job. So one morning as we are lacing up our caulks, two spotted owls fly by. The boss says what should we do? Fred and I both tell him to call the timber company. Because you sure don't want to be the last one to know. Seriously pass the buck. So the timber company shuts us down. Four days later a USF&W biologist shows up to meet us. Gets out of her truck and takes 30 seconds to look around. Then she declares that this is not spotted owl habitat and tells us to go back to work.

How they found out about those first owls I don't know. Why they didn't care about the second set I have no clue. But then I don't think they have a clue either.

 

[Jogeephus]

Dave, did they show your their pistols? Did me once and I still kept my mouth shut cause I figured or thought I was still in america.

On some more gov't ground they baited the sale with a piece of junk timberland that needed a dozer rather than a saw but you had to cut the junk to get the gravy. Of course all the usual regulations were in place and one day one of the guys took a handful of flint chips he had in his truck and tossed them in the woods on top of the duff in the junk tract. Later he asked the gov't rep to take a look at something in the junk tract and the rep saw flint laying on top of the duff and immediately radioed the gov't archeologist who sped to the site like it we had found godzilla or something. Once she got there she saw the flint shards, 3000 year old shards mind you, laying on top of the freshly fallen straw and would not allow cutting of the junk tract. I can only imagine the money, time and effort she spent studying this site.

 

[Nesikep]

Now, birds are very susceptible to shock and death. I have a feeling though it has more to do with the prescribed burn up there that got out of control. Yep, lets burn some undergrowth when it's so dry that a gopher turtle stirs up a dust cloud when it farts. But it sounds so much better when you blame it on a pecker wood.

I was wondering what it takes to determine if it's a Red Cocked woodpecker

 

[greybeard]

Jogeephus,
I've been in the crazy house for some time, and am well acquainted with the restrictions placed on people by such entities as the Texas Parks and Wildlife--Texas Forest Service, and US National Forest Service since I live within the confines of a US National Forest. Certain times of the year, I am supposed to be quiet as a mouse, the county is not to mow the roadway right-of-ways, I ain't supposed to run any noisy equipment, the county is not to run road graders, and I cannot burn any brush. I posted the following on another forum a few years ago.

04-16-2010 09:03 AM

Got a notice to refrain from any more brushpile burning until July 1. Texas Parks and Wildlife--US Fish and Wildlife informed me, that due to my close proximity to US National Forest, the smoke could interfere with mating activities of the red cockaded woodpecker--an endangered species.

I will comply, but in July, the forest and my property will most likely be dry as a bone and susceptible to any spark or ember setting off a wildfire that would do way more habitat damage than anything smoke might do now. Everything is green and wet right now.

I did follow Texas Forest Service recommendations when I had the property logged--I left a wide buffer of forest untouched at the river for wildlife habitat, and have informed both TFS and USNFS every time I was about to burn, so it's not like I haven't tried to get along with my only neighbors.

Lord help me if someone were to discover a single Houston Toad anywhere on my property--I'd probably have to move..

 

[Caustic Burno]

GB if a Ivory Billed woodpecker set up house here I would put a load of # 6's on him and stuff him in a diller hole.

 

[highgrit]

Sounds like the same old stuff, just a different place. I have to have a dip net big enough for a full grown sea turtle on board my vessel, and a tire to lay the turtle on, and a de-hooking device for getting a hook out of a turtles mouth. Who is going to lift the turtle in the boat, if I happen to ever catch one that's alive. And we pay these idiots good money to police us.

 

[greybeard]

GB if a Ivory Billed woodpecker set up house here I would put a load of # 6's on him and stuff him in a diller hole.

I haven't seen an armadillo in a while now, and very few rabbits, but this place crawls with owls and hawks. Every night, the owls line up in the trees at the edge of the nat'l forest and watch and hunt the open pasture, and some nights I can hear the wittle bunny wabbits squawl when they catch one. They could get fat on squirrells if they'd stay around till right after daylight. I watched a crow hassel one all the way back to it's nest one sunny morning last week month
I know you've heard all the different noises owls make CB, but I like the almost growlin noise they make right before the "hoots". Dunno how to describe it in text tho.

 

[Jogeephus]

Where do these cretins get their ideas? And if marijuana is illegal, how the heck are these idiots getting so off their skulls by thinking this stuff is worth prioritising?

 

[greybeard]

I can't answer that without getting this thread locked Jo.

 

[Dave]

Dave, did they show your their pistols? Did me once and I still kept my mouth shut cause I figured or thought I was still in america.

On some more gov't ground they baited the sale with a piece of junk timberland that needed a dozer rather than a saw but you had to cut the junk to get the gravy. Of course all the usual regulations were in place and one day one of the guys took a handful of flint chips he had in his truck and tossed them in the woods on top of the duff in the junk tract. Later he asked the gov't rep to take a look at something in the junk tract and the rep saw flint laying on top of the duff and immediately radioed the gov't archeologist who sped to the site like it we had found godzilla or something. Once she got there she saw the flint shards, 3000 year old shards mind you, laying on top of the freshly fallen straw and would not allow cutting of the junk tract. I can only imagine the money, time and effort she spent studying this site.

Yes Jo, they were wearing jackets but they made it a point to pull the jacket back showing their guns. It was difficult not to laugh at them. What are they going to do shoot me down in my front yard for not giving them the answers they wanted. What they really wanted was for me to point a figure at the timber company. Big international company, I believe the company name starts with a W. They weren't interested in a couple timber fallers, they wanted the big fish.

Back in the fall of '80 I was working SE of Mt St Helen. This was after it had blown its top. The Forest Circus had a red zone and a blue zone. The red zone was closed to everyone. The blue zone was restricted access. Well we were in the blue zone but literally 40 miles or so away from the mountain. The forest circus realized that we didn't have a radio in the pickup. They weren't going to let us go in to work. We told them we would follow a log truck in. That was OK. We weren't monitoring the radio while we were working, but the yarder that was near by would blow the whistle long and hard if we needed to get out. That was OK. But their issue was we didn't have a radio to get a warning while we were on our way out. We said we would already be on our way out. We are leaving, headed home by the fastest most direct route. They say but you would leave faster if you got a warning. We said you couldn't drive any faster than we already do. If you don't believe us just follow us and try to keep up. This went on for 30 minutes. Finally one big tough faller tells this forest circus college kid, "you know what your problem is? You are educated beyond your ability to think." That sort of sums it up for most federal employees I have been around.

 

[ALACOWMAN]

this country is run by cockheaded peckerwoods

 

[Jogeephus]

You are educated beyond your ability to think

I like that

Several years ago we were on some more gov't land cutting a marked thinning that the gov't sold lump sum. We went through all the drug tests, background checks and all that sort of stuff and after padding our bid for all the BS we ended up buying the timber at a song. While thinning it the gov't rep came out and said we were doing a terrific job and wondered if we could thin some more of the land so he wouldn't have to do his job and mark it himself. We reminded him it was a lump sum sale but this didn't bother him in the least and said that the timber needed thinning and he had meant to mark it but had been on vacation and hadn't. He asked if we could go ahead and thin it the same way. Um ...... OK ...... but did get him to put it down on paper what he wanted us to do so we'd be sure we didn't have any misunderstanding later.