I still have My AT&T flip phone. I'm not going to change.

I've seen this in my area and other places. You really don't notice it that much until your eyes are opened up a bit , like watching this video.
Went into a Shell station years ago and grabbed a small snack package of these little bite sized white sugar donuts , like a pack of six. Gotten them before for about $1.25 at the time. They guy told me they cost $3.30. I questioned him on it and he lied about the price going up. I left them on the counter.
Went into another gas station another time and grabbed an Arizona ice tea. The one they sell for .99 cents. Put it on the counter expecting to pay $1.05 (.99+.06 state tax ) The guy wanted $1.10 - .99 ice tea , .06 tax , .05 can deposit. We have no deposit on ice tea , juices , or milk. Deposit only on soda , beer and water bottles. But not on ice tea. Tried explaining that to the guy and he refused. I pointed out that beverages have the deposit clearly have been embossed on top of the can or clearly marked on the label. The ice tea can had no such markings , he still refused. I left that can sitting right there. I've been in gas stations where they will cover the .99 price tag on an Arizona ice tea with a sticker that says $1.19. Arizona ice tea doesn't like people raising their price because one of the cores of their success is being known for .99 ice tea everywhere.

I was down in Kissimmee years ago driving down 192 which is loaded to the gills with places for tourists to spend money including endless souvenir shops. I pulled into one that had a ' American owned ' sign. Found a cheap t shirt there and some other stuff. Went to pay for it and told the lady there that I picked her shop out of many because of the American owned sign.
She immediately got cranked up. Starts telling me how a bunch of the other shops in the area were foreign owned. The foreigners would get tax abatements lasting 5-6 years without paying taxes. Then would transfer ownership to another family member for 5-6 years , again and again , never paying taxes. Plus get all kinds of grants and business loans that where not available to Americans.

You only see these things when your eyes are opened a little bit.

I'd be cleaning up my place so they'd stay with the chicken farmers. If there was nothing there for them they wouldn't keep coming. But that's just me if you wanna live with them, so be it. Oh, and I'd have buckets of poison out too, year around. [/quote]

I've had a lot of poison out and it gets taken away but I rarely see any dead or sick rats. Not sure how effective it is. They may have resistance to it?

For me a standard dirt hole is just a stake punch hole wallowed out about 1" round. My trap placement is 8" from center of hole to center of trap pan. That's what works best for me, and I have caught every type of predator with that.

And beer. And Vodka. And Tequila. I have very specific tastes.

My outdoor unit is marketed as a coal burner. I went to the mine and bought 3.6 ton on my trailer. It burned hot but I could never get it to burn by its self all night always had to mix it in with wood. Maybe it was just junk high sulfer coal in our area that was the problem. It did have what think seemed like an awful lot of clankers but I honestly dont know if it was a lot or normal. I have no other base line to compare it to.

I have thought about buying the better western coal to try it out but have not yet. One think about coal seems like you should be able to stock pile it and it stay good for ever.

What cartridge ? nice job

A special visitor at this set.

I was listening to a recent trapping radio podcast about mink. They were talking about how mink have low bellies and tend to hop up on high points rather than over them, so you should make your trap pan the surface they hop onto, rather than thinking about it like guide sticks for canines.

This got me thinking, how might beaver and otter react differently to dive sticks in different situations? Do otter sometimes climb up and over dive sticks or hug the bottom like a beaver?

I’ve caught a decent amount of otter under diver sticks, but I know I have missed some.

Maybe we should be thinking about dive sticks for otter as more like fencing on fisher pole sets where you use small branches to funnel them in?

^^^This^^^
Don't know where you're at in S.E. Nebraska, but............
Radio club in Grand Island, Lincoln, Hastings, Omaha. In Mo, St. Joe, Kansas City, .....................

Here's another link for Neb. radio clubs.
https://www.qsl.net/evarc/

The trap doesnt actually sit on dirt the bed can be quite deep to take on any freeze -thaw water the two divets that are made at about 1 1/4 in below top of ground allows the trap to rest on the levers
the trap is made snug by tapping completly around the trap until rock solid this is one reason the mb650 is designed with wire for levers as apposed to punched steel levers to allow them to bust thru the frozen ground more easily
im not sure if straw would be my first choice for a covering the bigger pieces might want to jam-up a whole lot easier then grass if you decide to go that route you might want to consider hay for a cover
its a bit smaller then straw i have gone to field edges and pulled out what i need to cover a set and have used a sharp pair of scissors to make smaller pieces and collected it all in my sifter to bring back to the set area
i try to keep in mind to blend in as apposed to creating a big bulls eye area i like to have a no mess area instead of a big mess area although both would work