God help America

[Bruce Tuncks]

How harmless are huntsmen really? My father reckoned they were and I remember him playing with one.  But once I had one bite on a bit of straw and I saw venom on its fangs.  Are there two species of big beige spiders?

[facthunter]

Don't know but there are definitely many versions of Huntsmen (size and colour) depending on where they live. Nev

[onetrack]

The experts say a Huntsman will bite, and they do possess some venom, but it's not regarded as a toxic or dangerous bite. I don't know of anyone who was bitten by a Huntsman - they prefer to run , and they run very fast, so I think that scares a lot of people. They will not necessarily run away, they will run to a spot they choose as being useful to hide in - and that can be some part of your clothing.

 

https://australian.museum/learn/animals/spiders/spider-facts/#:~:text=Despite their often large and,away rather than be aggressive.

[old man emu]

I got nipped by a Huntsman that I hadn't quite covered with my handkerchief while trying to give it the Bum's Rush at the behest of the missus. I think the nip was its warning shot - enough to make me loosen my hold. Nett result was two startled hunters.

[octave]

We lived on a large bush block for 21 years.  The bush came up pretty close to the house so we were treated to many "visitors".   We were not particularly fearful of critters although the first time we encountered a scorpion (small) walking  across the lounge floor was a little concerning.   We had 2 close encounters with huntsmen spiders. One encounter occurred at the dinning table. a huntsman on the underside of the table dropped into my wifes lap. Being summer and living in the middle of nowhere, clothes were somewhat optional.     The other notable occasion was when I was getting dressed to go out. I put my sock on and felt something in the toe of my sock.  I assumed that it was a ball of lint. I initially wasn't going to investigate but decided it might annoy me during the day, I took off the sock and plunged my hand into it and grasped the "object". On pulling it out, I opened my hand to reveal a somewhat worse for wear huntsman. I stared at this creature in my hand for a short time (seemed like a long time) before throwing the creature in the air and backing off. My wife says I emitted a girlish shriek, but I deny it.  The amazing thing was that it did not bite me.

 

Living in the bush we used to get what we initially thought were rats in our house.  These were actually Antechinus, an Australian native animal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antechinus  These animals are I think protected.  On a summers night we would watch them through our lounge window. Moths would be attracted to the light and every so often one of these creatures would appear and leap into the air and catch a moth.   On many occasions they would get into the house, which was annoying however it was the price we paid for living in a bush environment.   On one occasion we had heard  munching noises for several nights in a row. I got up and cornered one of these critters on the kitchen bench.  This Antechinus had backed itself into a corner and when I turned the light on it made eye contact with me.  They don't have beady rat eyes but large eyes. I was armed with something to beat it to death with. It was in the corner uncontrollably shaking with fear. I put down the weapon and due to the fact that it was paralyzed with fear, I was able to scoop it into a Tupperware container, I drove it a few kms away and released it. 

 

Fun fact the male Antechinus literally f**ks itself to death during the mating season. 

 

 

[facthunter]

That's devotion to duty or giving your "ALL"..  Nev

[willedoo]

3 hours ago, octave said:

Living in the bush we used to get what we initially thought were rats in our house.  These were actually Antechinus, an Australian native animal.

I get a lot of them around my place. The female's pouch runs vertical rather than horizontal like a kangaroo. They are harmless little critters and are much bolder than a rat which tends to sneak around. The little marsupials tend to scamper, and will often stop and look at you before scampering off. Their poo is a lot more organic looking than that of a rat; a healthier diet no doubt. I've found that they only seem to chew on food scraps and don't destroy other stuff like rats. I've never experienced them chewing insulation or electrical cables like a rat.They are a problem when they decide to live in a house as they make noise scampering about during the night and can cause loss of sleep.

[willedoo]

3 hours ago, octave said:

We lived on a large bush block for 21 years.  The bush came up pretty close to the house so we were treated to many "visitors". 

octave, that reminds me of my place. I've been on a 21 acre block since 1988, and even though I have neighbours on 12 adjoining blocks, I can't see any of their houses as I'm up high above them all. Not bushfire smart, but I have bush coming almost right up to the house. The back of the block is a subtropical jungle with a creek and waterfalls, while the northern half is drier open forest with ironbark, sheoaks, bloodwood, grey gum, wattles and brush box. Combined with the rainforest, it produces a big variety of birdlife.

 

Other permanent residents are brush tailed wallabies, goannas and frilly lizards with occasional kangaroos passing through. As humans, we've gradually removed ourselves from the natural world, so it's nice to live in the bush and re-connect with all the birds and animals as nature meant it to be. I've gradually realised over the years that it's not just me and them; I'm part of their environment and life as much as they are part of mine. I've thought a lot about how generations of animals have bred and lived here. The frilly lizards are a good example; there's almost always one or two sunning themselves on the driveway and they have no desire to move and live anywhere else.

 

Another lot are the geckos. I see them as house mates rather than house guests. I built the house in 1996 and they moved straight in with me. The ones here now are probably the children or grandchildren of the originals. The older I get, the more I realise that what I call my place is actually our place; it's the home of all the critters that share it and I'm just another critter in the scheme of things. A bit of bush is a good leveller and good for the soul in my opinion. Watching the lifecycles of all the animals come and go is very humbling.

[willedoo]

4 hours ago, octave said:

Fun fact the male Antechinus literally f**ks itself to death during the mating season. 

With that long row of back teeth, they often look like they are grinning; now I know why.

[Old Koreelah]

Going back to spiders for a mo; even if they’re not venomous, big critters like huntsmen can still kill you. Like when you pull down you sunvisor while driving and a huge spider falls on your lap.

[willedoo]

16 minutes ago, Old Koreelah said:

Going back to spiders for a mo; even if they’re not venomous, big critters like huntsmen can still kill you. Like when you pull down you sunvisor while driving and a huge spider falls on your lap.

Very true. Many years ago, I was driving down the highway and one crawled up the leg of the shorts I was wearing. I almost ran off the road.

[Old Koreelah]

The best arguement against conspiracy theories is to.look at the track record of governments, most of which couldn’t organise the proverbial, let alone keep anything secret!

 

[Bruce Tuncks]

I liked your comment old K, but it is easy to think of examples where we have been kept in the dark... Hess and Assange are good examles.

I grew up in the 1950's thinking Darwin had only been bombed once and I didn't hear about the Coniston massacre till I was over 60.

[Bruce Tuncks]

I forgot to mention Sir William Slim! That pedophile is still protected by a wall of secrecy. As if orphans had the wherewithall to gather hard evidence against the governor general ... 

[nomadpete]

12 hours ago, willedoo said:

octave, that reminds me of my place. I've been on a 21 acre block since 1988, and even though I have neighbours on 12 adjoining blocks, I can't see any of their houses as I'm up high above them all. Not bushfire smart, but I have bush coming almost right up to the house. The back of the block is a subtropical jungle with a creek and waterfalls, while the northern half is drier open forest with ironbark, sheoaks, bloodwood, grey gum, wattles and brush box. Combined with the rainforest, it produces a big variety of birdlife.

 

Other permanent residents are brush tailed wallabies, goannas and frilly lizards with occasional kangaroos passing through. As humans, we've gradually removed ourselves from the natural world, so it's nice to live in the bush and re-connect with all the birds and animals as nature meant it to be. I've gradually realised over the years that it's not just me and them; I'm part of their environment and life as much as they are part of mine. I've thought a lot about how generations of animals have bred and lived here. The frilly lizards are a good example; there's almost always one or two sunning themselves on the driveway and they have no desire to move and live anywhere else.

 

Another lot are the geckos. I see them as house mates rather than house guests. I built the house in 1996 and they moved straight in with me. The ones here now are probably the children or grandchildren of the originals. The older I get, the more I realise that what I call my place is actually our place; it's the home of all the critters that share it and I'm just another critter in the scheme of things. A bit of bush is a good leveller and good for the soul in my opinion. Watching the lifecycles of all the animals come and go is very humbling.

Me too.

And in my opinion, all those multitudes of humans that live in concrete feedlot cities, live an empoverished life no matter what their payscale is.

[willedoo]

I guess life and where you live is what you make of it. I'm assuming that it would be easier to like living in a city if you grew up there. Possibly a lot of city people wouldn't like living in the country. Having grown up in the country on farms, urban environments give me claustrophobia; ok to visit or shop there but I couldn't live there easily. If I could see another house 300 metres away, that would be too close for me. The time is soon approaching when I will have to bite the bullet and move to a place that is more older person friendly. Where I am is good if you are fit and younger, but as age increases it will become a constant difficulty. It will take a lot to get used to having closer neighbours after decades of privacy, but hopefully they will be good and not the neighbours from hell.

 

Most likely everything will work out ok. Neighbours can be handy. A mate of mine with Parkinson's lived in town and had a fall at night in the kitchen, and couldn't get up. In the morning, his next door neighbours noticed all the lights still on, went to check, and called an ambulance.

[nomadpete]

I am confronted by a similar dilemma. Hopefully I can delay the move for a while yet. In my case I grew up in Sydney but developed a growing dislike for cities as my birthday collection grew. I just returned from a visit to Brisbane and I am still recovering from genuine claustrophobia.

 

What happened next for your mate with Parkinsons?

[willedoo]

28 minutes ago, nomadpete said:

What happened next for your mate with Parkinsons?

That event finally swayed him into going into a nursing home. He'd had friends trying to talk him into it for a couple of years and he'd resisted, but spending a night on the tiles impressed upon him how vulnerable he is with his condition. He was probably only about 73 at the time and only 78 now. He was always an adventurous, athletic outdoors type with an early career in the RAF, followed by working for many years as a merchant seaman, then oil exploration all over the world. He used to go on all those adventure hikes like the mountain trails in NZ. He once rode a pushbike from Land's End right to the top of the UK.

 

After a life like that, the nursing home is a death by a thousand cuts. He describes it as grinding monotony. It's a bugger of a disease. His mind is as sharp as ever, but he has restricted mobility. The thing that annoys him the most is his faltering speech making communication difficult.

[willedoo]

The other issue with nursing homes is the isolation. A lot of visitors might come once a month, which seems like a fair bit in their busy lives, but for the nursing home resident, that month represents a lot of isolation and boredom. It's like Groundhog Day in there.

[Old Koreelah]

It’s cruel to watch, but our time is also coming. I now avoid visiting old mates in our local nursing home. No workshop, no dog, no garden, no life. 

 

My wife just walked down our creaky wooden stairs, reminding me that visitors often asked about them: “what will you do when you get older”.

 

My standard response has been that while we have stairs to climb, we won’t get older.

It’s motivation to make the best of our good health while we can.

[facthunter]

 Stairs to climb are stairs you can fall down. Preventing falls is better than repairing the damage.  Nev

[old man emu]

1 hour ago, willedoo said:

spending a night on the tiles impressed upon him how vulnerable he is with his condition.

Fifty years ago he and you would have laughed at his spending "a night on the tiles", with him claiming to have had a really great night, and asking you what did he do.

[Bruce Tuncks]

Think about getting a live-in servant guys. It's much cheaper for the govt to help people stay at home. I agree with what has been said about country life and I want to stay here as long as possible.

Just think about it.....  if you can offer board and food then surely there should not be too much to pay in wages, especially if those wages are subsidised.

 

[Bruce Tuncks]

I think you will find it like child-care....  the official stuff is completely unaffordable, but if you look around when the time comes, there will be school-leavers and others who will be keen for the job. You would have to ask around and also maybe advertise a bit.

[nomadpete]

About the "night on the tiles".......

 

My parents spent about 30 years in their modest retirement treechange home, before moving closer to town. Some years prior to admitting they couldn't really cope, I found out that one winter, Dad had a fall, out among the orange trees. Mum told me about it much later. "It wasn't serious, I took him a pillow and a blanket. He felt a lot better the next morning when I took him a cup of tea. Then he was able to get up and come inside".

I was somewhat surprised to hear this and asked "Why didn't you call triple 0?".

 

"We didn't want to trouble anybody."

 

To this day I wonder which is the better option. To extend one's life by moving into mind numbing 'safer' advanced care, or take the risk of a likely unpleasant end such as taking a serious fall and lying helpless in one's familiar home until death comes.

 

Much later, when my father was in advanced care, he was confused, lonely, bored, physically handicapped, wore an incontinence pad, and his quality of life was so poor.

He was never one to complain. But one day,
he looked pleadingly into my eyes and his words still haunt me "This is not a good life".