Dennis1209

I planted a huge garden this year so I can can a bunch of stuff. I believe I have 36 tomato plants out so far. Between the deer, rabbits and bugs I normally lose about 30% of my garden. The bugs really like my peaches and green beans and root worms like my tomatoes and zucchini. Use a hand sprayer for your tomatoes with bug killer and just spray around the base of the tomato plants into the soil if you suspect root bugs and /or spray the soil around the base of the plant and the plant itself. Also, you can not over lime a garden unless you get really carried away. Lime your garden generously and throw a bunch of 15-15-15 fertilizer in the soil also. As said above, about every week water the tomatoes with Miracle Grow and keep weeded. When your tomato plants start to bloom, make an application or two of "Epsom" salt to the soil surrounding your plants. Mix 1 teaspoon of Epsom salt per gallon of water and spray in the soil at the base of the plant. Continue spraying miracle grow on your plants once or twice a week and keep weeded. I forgot to mention, tomato's like hot weather and cool roots. Use newspaper, straw or mulish liberally at the base of each plant to keep the roots cool and moisture in the soil. It also helps control weeds. The preceding works for me, hope it helps you too. Good luck!

To each his own. But for me, just like in Army basic training, I didn't want to draw special attention to myself, I wanted to blend in, get the job done and go about my merry way. I'm all for open carry, the more the merrier. It draws that much more attention away from me and in theory I'm less likely to be a victim. We all know everyone likes surprises... Surprise, BANG, BANG, BANG. Who said, "what you don't know can't hurt you"? To me it's just simple common sense. You don't go to Walmart or where ever wearing your Rolex, $3,000.00 gold neck chain and diamond ring and flash a wad of cash around unless you're asking for attention. If you open carry, you're making a statement, hey look at me, I'm packing, here it is right here, LOOKY! It's a good thing very few if anyone open carries around here because, my wife would get exasperated at me talking to them about guns, ammo, etc. and not get the shopping finished. Just my opinions guys.

I don't know which is worse? This afternoon I was walking down my gravel driveway to check the mail, about two hundred yards. The driveway goes right next to my pond. Beautiful mostly sunny day today and it was about 62 degrees and I was sort of day dreaming walking down the drive. I wish someone videoed it, as this old man did the fastest Tennessee two step a dozen times, bad knees and all... Right on the gravel driveway, one more step away from me was a two foot Cotton Mouth sunning itself. It did not move, was not about to move and was NOT coiled up. That is until I located a long stick and tried picking it up. It was not aggressive and slithered its way back into the water. Then I noticed all the rest of the snakes sunning themselves on the banks. As long as the venomous snakes remain non aggressive, I don't have a bone to pick with them. Got the mail, went back in the house and sprayed the hole bottle of "shout" on my drawers and laundered

So... What can Brown do for you?

Had you held your tongue and something happened? Hind sight is 20/20 but not in this case fortunately. You acted responsively, he should be proud of you. Water and oil, liquior and driving and children & loaded weapons, some things just don't mix.

Welcome! I moved from a high crime area in Illinois myself and couldn't be happier here in TN.

Wow! I always had a crush on her also, along with Barbara Eden. Watched them both!

Our prisons are filled with mental defectives like no other time in history. According to MSNBC, 35% of the American prison population has some form of mental illness. But first, let me ask you this. There are many, many mass murderers and serial killers not diagnosed with mental illness. Is it just evil or an undiagnosed form of mental illness? My point of view is, our prisons are crammed packed with vicious evil people. What constitutes mental illness from plain evil? To the point: Our government does not produce anything, period! To generate income, the government must tax it, borrow it, or print it. Either way, you the tax payer are going to pay for it one way or another, and that's a fact. So, the question is; How do you feel about providing life long expensive medical / prescription drug care to tens of thousands of so called, "mental defectives", in an effort to rehabilitate them, of their child molestations, rapes, murders, home invasions, drug addictions, etc. etc.? Why do we as a society diminish our ability to provide for our law abiding and moral families, to waste our personal income trying to rehabilitate scum bags? Enough is enough!

Watching TV, reading the newspaper and observing everyday life, I have come to the conclusion people are not as moral as they were back in my day. This old fart thinks morality, as a civilization, is a thing of the past. I believe morality is the single most important thing that separates us from the apes and animals, save our own souls. So.... What is morality? Who defines it? Where did it come from? Why can't governments legislate morality? Who's to say what's moral and what is not? When do moral values change, and who says so and why? No one can disagree moral values change every year based on Supreme Court rulings, TV programing, video games, etc. etc. With vicious crimes exponentially increasing and our American civilization in decay, would we as a nation, have lost our moral compass? Where does it end, if there is an end? Sodom & Gomorrah? Just some of my life long observations and food for thought.. What do you think?

Seems every four years I'm faced with, "The lesser of Two Weevils"! Can't tell one from another without a score card?

I was watching a syndicated rerun of "The Three Stooges" still laughing my rear end off after all these years and remembered meeting and having dinner with Larry Fine in 1968. I was dating the daughter of a guy named Sam Muchnick and she wanted me to take her to the Chase Park Plaza Hotel in St. Louis, MO. to watch that fake wrestling crap. She and I were both 16 at the time and believe it or not, she swore that it was not fake and believed it? I guess her father never sat her down and told her the facts of life, I was hoping anyway Anyway, I was to young to drink any beer there so I managed to suffer through it. After the bouts I was introduced to the likes of Johnny Valentine, Dick the Bruiser, Cowboy Bob Ellis and a few others. The best I can say is, them were some strong dudes. After that Sam invited us to a late night supper in the dining room, on him! Well, who am I to turn down an expensive dinner so I said, "sure". To make a long story short, we were escorted to a fine table and upon sitting down, this well dressed guy with the sides of his hair all slicked down comes over and shakes Mr. Muchnicks hand and is asked if he would like to join us? Larry Fine says sure, and he was introduced to my date and I and shook our hands. Of course I immediately recognized who it was because I've always been a Three Stooges fan. Had a fine meal (everyone was in fine dress but me, always been a jeans guy) and conversation. I didn't want to make a fool out of myself in front of my date so I didn't ask any questions I was dying to. The conversations were generally about sports, horses in particular, events with a little business. I was really surprised how different he was compared to his slapstick character. Intelligent, articulate, well dressed and years later learned he was an accomplished violinist. I wish now I had asked him some questions about the Stooges I had at the time and wish I had a picture taken of him and I. A few days later I got to meet Sam Muchnick's next door neighbor, Jim Hart of the St. Louis Cardinal Football team. Wish it had been Stan Musial or Ken Boyer, or Bill White or Bob Gibson or Ray Sedicky or Julian Javier or Curt Flood... Not a football fan.

Great review, thanks! Been considering taking "Fighting Pistol" since I live so close but, $450.00 is a lot of ammo!

Wow! Most of those listed give the "Saturday Night Special" a whole new meaning. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday... Didn't see many Kimbers, Colts, Wilson's or even throw away Glocks listed? I'll bet there will be some good deals.

Here it is only the beginning of April and I have already seen more snakes than all of last year on my property. Just this morning at the edge of my pond throwing out some catfish food, a monster five foot long water snake slithered 12" from my foot into the water. It's going to be a very bad year for ticks too.

Reading a thread on this forum today brought back a not so fond memory at the time and got me all nostalgic. I was accused of being a criminal and in jeopardy of being suspended from high school. If you read this, keep in mind the things kids are taking to school today; baggy pants, spray paint, drugs and guns. Not me, as I'll explain. My sophomore year of high school (1968) I had varsity baseball practice after school. I had forgot to grab my baseball uniform my mother washed and bagged that morning. At fifteen years old I did not drive and lived one mile from the high school, so I had to walk there and back uphill, both ways! I was running late and the one thing you did not do was show up late to baseball practice. I won't mention my baseball coach's name but, he was once an outfielder for the S.F. Giants and had a sadistic attitude toward my "hot dog" attitude. Anyway, to shave off some time there was a large wood lot I could cross to save time. As I was post haste along the path in the woods I seen something slithering about 10 yards in front of me. What ever it was went into a pile of decaying wood / weeds. Being curious I started removing the debris and lo and behold, four Gardener snakes about 18" in length each. Immediately I knew what I wanted to do with them. Out of the brown paper bag comes my baseball uniform and in goes the four non venomous snakes with hell to pay. You see, my girl friend (Norma) had just broken up with me and started to see our catcher, second string at that. Any who, so happened I knew Norma's North Hall locker combination It so happened to be her birthday that week. So, using one of her pens in her locker I wrote only "Happy Birthday Norma" on the outside of the brown paper bag and placed it on the bottom of her locker, closed the locker door and arrived at baseball practice ten minutes late. We won't discuss how many 1/4 mile laps my sadistic coach made me run after practice. Fast forward to late morning the next day... Each classroom had a PA system and it comes alive with the secretary asking my math teacher to please send Dennis to Assistant Principle Kirby's office immediately. With heart pumping, sweating hands and a sense of doom, I'll bet I know what this is about. This asst. Principal isn't one to mess around with, period. The conversation goes something like this: It has come to my attention that you know one Norma so and so, is that true. Yes sir! She states that she recently had broken up with you, is that true? Yes sir! She claims you know the combination to her locker, is that true? Well, being one that doesn't want to lie under this investigation, I tell him the truth, "no sir, I can barely remember my own combo Then the asst. Principal goes into a rant about how the evidence points to me, blah, blah, blah. Then gets into the meat of the subject. At 8:00 A.M. that morning, Norma opens her locker and immediately notices the "Happy Birthday Bag" and opens it. Screams in terror and drops the bag releasing the four slithering creatures to roam where they will. I was threatened with a seven day suspension but if I admitted it, he would propose a three day suspension. Being the high schools only (1.0 GPA, D) honor roll student, I had to come clean with him and my conscience. Principal Kirby, it wasn't me, I don't know who would do such a horrible thing. So Mr. Kirby, if you're reading this, I'll take my three days now. Anyone have anything they want to get off their chests, now that I'll sleep better at night? BTW. That made the school newspaper (my :15 minutes of fame) and they had reported snake sightings in North Hall for months. I was a BAD, BAD boy

Funny to run across this post at this particular time. Yesterday I was down in the basement changing out the water heater elements when all of a sudden I hear the wife screaming and yelling, "Dennis, Dennis, get out hear". It sounded like an emergency so I was out there in a split second. The wife is standing in the back yard close to the cloths line with a laundry basket in hand all nervous pointing and saying, "snake, snake"! I looked and determined almost immediately it was not one of the four venomous Tennessee snakes. Although you have to get really close to see the eyes. Picked it up with a stick and relocated it to the field. The little critter flattened it's neck just like a cobra would which surprised me. Went inside and got my wild life book and looked it up, it was a juvenile Rat Snake. So far this year excluding Cotton Mouths and Copperheads, I've seen a Ring neck snake, Brown snake, water snake and Rough Scale Green snake. My wife is not a snake fan! With the amount of field mice around here these snakes are doing me a free service. The only time I've ever killed a snake was in 1969, a Cotton Mouth that unprovoked attacked me, dispatched with the only thing I had in hand, a Zebco 202. My fishing day was over! The only thing I can figure was I must have been close to its nest? I seen it coming at me from 25 yards away and hissing at me?

Very strange indeed! Based on your description, I surmise the window was pushed or imploded very hard. I don't know where in TN. you're located but, do you have any black bears around? A pressure / temperature change will also cause a damaged / defective glass to explode for no apparent reason. Had that happen to a chipped windshield a number of years ago.

I wonder who invented all these division identifiers? Another identifier that gets my goat is nationality identifiers, i.e., Africian-American, Asian-American, Mex-American, etc. etc. Unless you have dual citizenship why does that have any meaning at all? If it's that critical to annotate you're not fully American, migrate back to your pre-hyphenation and stand for something. JMHO

Come November you're still going to have to choose "between the lesser of two weevils".

Man, you had my heart pumping and in anticipation on when I could get one! BAD, BAD, BAD SonnyCrockett

Probably just a state of mind. Personally, I'm more accurate with most revolvers in single action when target shooting. But that doesn't deter me from carrying my 1911"s

Glad you didn't get hurt. I've wondered myself how the situation would be handled if I had an auto accident and was rendered unconscious and awakened in the E.R. with one of those drapes on that doesn't even cover your butt. I suppose worrying where your gun is would be the least of your present concerns?

I have six Production Reds. They're a cross between Rhodie Island Reds and another breed. For the last year I've got 4-6 eggs daily. My coop is not insulated. If the temperature will reach twenty degrees or lower I'll turn on my "RED" 200 watt heat lamp and heated waterer. I don't let my baukers free range because of all the hawks and other chicken predators. If you build a chicken run, make sure you bury a 12 inch wide chicken wire at the base of your run to prevent predators from digging underneath the inclosement. You might also want to name your fowl so they know their place in life. Mine are, from left to right, Peckeretta, Pillow, Dumpling, Fried, Coyote Bait and Baked.

Let the wait begin! There's 60 seconds to the minute, sixty minutes to the hour, twenty-four hours to the day and seven days to a week. Man, you have a long, long, long time to stand at your mail box in extreme anticipation of the arrival of your Tennessee HCP. Let's share some popcorn while we wait on eternity.

You did fine Ricks. Dogs get unintentionally loose from their owners all the time, fortunately, most are friendly toward humans. I've been confronted by aggressive mean dogs many times in my delivery driver life but, never had my child with me. With just a split second notice, I don't think anyone can say exactly what they would do because the environment, place and situation could be different. The one common denominator that we all share is the protection of our family. Your instincts will dictate your response. Arm chairing this, I think I probably would have either blocked the dogs path or grabbed my son, placed him on the hood of the nearest vehicle, then dealt with the animal if it was vicious. The one thing I would never do is use my handgun for self defense in the situation you described, for obvious reasons (family, customers, public area, etc. near by). So don't worry over it. In my little section of Tennessee, we have a saying, "you did real gooder"!