My Florida Destiny

[davidhelmly]

Great footage BB!!

 

[Telemark]

Holy smokes! I've never seen anything like that. I'd print out stills and hang them on those 5 freezers to get me motivated to make room in there for another guest.

 

[Bill]

couple good ones for next year in there.

 

[bigbendmarine]

Run of really tough luck the past year and a half has made my shares minimal. Three hurricane hits (Idalia, Debby, and Helene), a fairly strong tornado as Florida, goes, loss of Mother-In-Law to dementia and cancer, then just 7 days later Sister-In-Law to cancer as well... then tons of cutting and burning from 100+ downed trees.

But early surprise on the 2025 bingo card I didn't foresee at the start of the year has me posting tonight -- not that it compares in any way to most of y'all northern fellas, but just got the biggest snow we've had in Florida in my 23+ years living here. Only got up to 36 today so much of it is sticking around until at least tomorrow (dustings we've had in past tend to last just minutes to few hours before melting).

Actually started snowing as I was watching a regrouped bachelor group cross our backyard late yesterday afternoon.

Had steady sleet and snow mix from 5pm until 3am and am guessing we'd have had 7" or more inches of accumulation if had been just a degree or two colder -- only started sticking around 1am.

With morning light I saw we did manage to get an inch or two of ice/snow mix to stick to the ground.





Thanks to the icy nature of what stuck, was able to give the wife and daughter a pretty fun "sleigh ride" around our place!

Hoping to make some more shares soon.

 

[tooln]

Run of really tough luck the past year and a half has made my shares minimal. Three hurricane hits (Idalia, Debby, and Helene), a fairly strong tornado as Florida, goes, loss of Mother-In-Law to dementia and cancer, then just 7 days later Sister-In-Law to cancer as well... then tons of cutting and burning from 100+ downed trees.

But early surprise on the 2025 bingo card I didn't foresee at the start of the year has me posting tonight -- not that it compares in any way to most of y'all northern fellas, but just got the biggest snow we've had in Florida in my 23+ years living here. Only got up to 36 today so much of it is sticking around until at least tomorrow (dustings we've had in past tend to last just minutes to few hours before melting).

Actually started snowing as I was watching a regrouped bachelor group cross our backyard late yesterday afternoon.

View attachment 73379

View attachment 73380

Had steady sleet and snow mix from 5pm until 3am and am guessing we'd have had 7" or more inches of accumulation if had been just a degree or two colder -- only started sticking around 1am.

With morning light I saw we did manage to get an inch or two of ice/snow mix to stick to the ground.

View attachment 73381

View attachment 73382

Thanks to the icy nature of what stuck, was able to give the wife and daughter a pretty fun "sleigh ride" around our place!

Hoping to make some more shares soon.

You've got more snow on the ground than me in central Wisconsin. But it's hard to get snow in sub zero weather. Looking forward to our vacation in Florida.

 

[Bill]

Yep, More snow down south than up north. kinda crazy.

 

[omicron1792]

Run of really tough luck the past year and a half has made my shares minimal. Three hurricane hits (Idalia, Debby, and Helene), a fairly strong tornado as Florida, goes, loss of Mother-In-Law to dementia and cancer, then just 7 days later Sister-In-Law to cancer as well... then tons of cutting and burning from 100+ downed trees.

But early surprise on the 2025 bingo card I didn't foresee at the start of the year has me posting tonight -- not that it compares in any way to most of y'all northern fellas, but just got the biggest snow we've had in Florida in my 23+ years living here. Only got up to 36 today so much of it is sticking around until at least tomorrow (dustings we've had in past tend to last just minutes to few hours before melting).

Actually started snowing as I was watching a regrouped bachelor group cross our backyard late yesterday afternoon.

View attachment 73379

View attachment 73380

Had steady sleet and snow mix from 5pm until 3am and am guessing we'd have had 7" or more inches of accumulation if had been just a degree or two colder -- only started sticking around 1am.

With morning light I saw we did manage to get an inch or two of ice/snow mix to stick to the ground.

View attachment 73381

View attachment 73382

Thanks to the icy nature of what stuck, was able to give the wife and daughter a pretty fun "sleigh ride" around our place!

Hoping to make some more shares soon.

Sorry about your rough year my man. I’ll pray for your family now.

 

[bigbendmarine]

Well... getting confirmation on something I already knew... bears REALLY LIKE TEARING UP!!!

Have a sow with two young cubs bringing them to pear trees only 100 yards or so behind my house. I can shake several hundred pears to the ground and she's still determined to tear as many limbs off the trees as possible while the ground surrounding her is littered with pears... and with NONE on the trees really yet ripe.

Having the bears so tempted and close has allowed me to capture video of them I normally wouldn't be able to capture.

Already knocked all the fruit off of the 4 smallest trees I have in order to stop the sow bear from climbing them... likely do the same this week with the 4 larger pear trees still holding fruit in the hopes that all survive until next year and buy me some time to come up with a plan to better protect them.

One nice thing about the excess of pears on the ground is seeing bucks in velvet visit. Got a few showing promise if they can just avoid roads in the months ahead.

 

[Telemark]

Well... getting confirmation on something I already knew... bears REALLY LIKE TEARING UP!!!

Have a sow with two young cubs bringing them to pear trees only 100 yards or so behind my house. I can shake several hundred pears to the ground and she's still determined to tear as many limbs off the trees as possible while the ground surrounding her is littered with pears... and with NONE on the trees really yet ripe.

Having the bears so tempted and close has allowed me to capture video of them I normally wouldn't be able to capture.

Already knocked all the fruit off of the 4 smallest trees I have to stop the bear from climbing them... likely do the same this week with the 4 larger pear trees still holding fruit in the hopes that all survive until next year and buy me some time to come up with a plan to better protect them.

We have destructive bears. When my fruit trees start producing, I'm going to ring them with concertina wire.

 

[bigbendmarine]

Few additional captures of the sow bear and cubs, these captured at our pond dock and showing the mama bear dishing out some corporal punishment! Guessing she was trying to keep the larger cub from getting too rough with the runt... but not 100% sure.

First video is in full speed...

Now for few clips in slow motion and zoomed in that better show some of the action... first shows cub actually hitching a ride on one of the sow's back legs

And here's the bulk of the punishment / corrective action...

 

[crappieman2380]

That's some fantastic footage! Thanks for sharing!

 

[Double Creek]

Thanks for sharing. You have a wildlife paradise!

 

[Bill]

I’d be pestering the heck out that thing in hopes it might wander off. Cool video though.

 

[bigbendmarine]

I’d be pestering the heck out that thing in hopes it might wander off. Cool video though.

Oh, I have been! Only effect it seems to have had, though, is actually making it more emboldened as time has gone by. First time or two I yelled at it the bear ran off quickly. Next time, it ran off after a bit of delay, and the other day I mowed not far from it without it running away for 5 minutes.
Funny thing on yelling at it the first time, used my loudest/deepest/most aggressive voice and my SIL said, "Oh.... so I get to hear your Dad voice?!"

Know some folks have spoken to e-fences and boards with nails around tree to prevent climbing, but been too busy entertaining company and cutting rainy season grass to take preventative measures for this season.

Already knocked down around 3/4 of this year's pear production... again, thinking I'll just go ahead and knock down rest in hopes of giving trees best chance of making it to next year when hopefully can rig something up to slow bears down (appreciating many folks on forum have shared that bears and orchards make for giant PITA). Craziest thing to me is just how much they seem to want to climb/destroy when ground is littered with countless pears. Understand climbing if ground has no pears / trees are full... but don't understand when vice versa.

 

[Telemark]

Can you get rubber bullets for your shotgun?

When they want to scare off a black bear up here they shoot it with sting balls and send dogs after it.