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DarthQuell

DarthQuell
DarthQuell said:
To give y'all an idea, as the name suggests we have bayous all over the city. The problem is that Houston tends to get flooded during hurricane and tropical storms (which are every year). However, instead of leaving the bayous with dirt, they try to "fix it" by replacing the dirt with concrete; everytime they do this, flooding is worse next storm. Dirt is a natural blockade, so it'd help slow the water down, but the concrete just allows water to speed through...
I'm fortunate that we live higher and can't get flooded, and most of my friends haven't gotten flooded either, but if they keep doing this...
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This further worsens the situation because vipers and gators occasionally are found near, or even inside, people's homes. And we do have some venomous snakes in the area
 

Villanelle

Villanelle
DarthQuell said:
To give y'all an idea, as the name suggests we have bayous all over the city. The problem is that Houston tends to get flooded during hurricane and tropical storms (which are every year). However, instead of leaving the bayous with dirt, they try to "fix it" by replacing the dirt with concrete; everytime they do this, flooding is worse next storm. Dirt is a natural blockade, so it'd help slow the water down, but the concrete just allows water to speed through...
I'm fortunate that we live higher and can't get flooded, and most of my friends haven't gotten flooded either, but if they keep doing this...
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You need the Dutch to come over and do their magic with dams and sluices. The British tried here for 400 years before they came and showed us what was what 😅
 

DarthQuell

DarthQuell
Villanelle said:
You need the Dutch to come over and do their magic with dams and sluices. The British tried here for 400 years before they came and showed us what was what 😅
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I wish. I mean, back in 2017, we had Hurricane Harvey. People were still recovering in 2020 from that hurricane; since them, many houses have been raised, especially those by the water
 

Villanelle

Villanelle
DarthQuell said:
I wish. I mean, back in 2017, we had Hurricane Harvey. People were still recovering in 2020 from that hurricane; since them, many houses have been raised, especially those by the water
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Yeah :( those are devastating. I remember Katrina and the lack of govt intervention / support for all the people who lost so much. Awful. I don't know how we'd cope in the UK with something like a hurricane...it seems like the trains and cities stop functioning the minute there is the slightest bit of weather.
 

Marvinb

Marvinb
Villanelle said:
Yeah :( those are devastating. I remember Katrina and the lack of govt intervention / support for all the people who lost so much. Awful. I don't know how we'd cope in the UK with something like a hurricane...it seems like the trains and cities stop functioning the minute there is the slightest bit of weather.
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Yeah same here. I remember when i had to take the bus and train to get to university in the neighbouring citiy, when it snowed overnight in winter my usual 45min way suddenly grew to multiple hours sometimes
 

DarthQuell

DarthQuell
Villanelle said:
Yeah :( those are devastating. I remember Katrina and the lack of govt intervention / support for all the people who lost so much. Awful. I don't know how we'd cope in the UK with something like a hurricane...it seems like the trains and cities stop functioning the minute there is the slightest bit of weather.
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Marvinb said:
Yeah same here. I remember when i had to take the bus and train to get to university in the neighbouring citiy, when it snowed overnight in winter my usual 45min way suddenly grew to multiple hours sometimes
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I'm glad y'all don't deal with them. Hurricanes are horrible. I don't remember Katrina (I was only 4), but I do remember Hurricane Ike (2008) and of course Harvey. Hurricanes are just pure wind with some rain, of that makes sense; tropical storms are more rain, hurricanes more wind. But they never end well, there's always debris and destruction all over the place, people lose everything, it's just really sad. From 2017-2020, there were huge piles of trash in front of so many houses; I mean, it was so much trash y'all could probably build several small houses with them.
I had the privilege to help with recovery efforts; I was part of the wrecking crew, cutting/demolishing/ripping old, wet sheetrock (because the water was hazardous). It was just sad seeing so many family homes... Empty, torn down...

But, this is sad, and it was the past. Hopefully the city learned since then
 

Marvinb

Marvinb
DarthQuell said:
I'm glad y'all don't deal with them. Hurricanes are horrible. I don't remember Katrina (I was only 4), but I do remember Hurricane Ike (2008) and of course Harvey. Hurricanes are just pure wind with some rain, of that makes sense; tropical storms are more rain, hurricanes more wind. But they never end well, there's always debris and destruction all over the place, people lose everything, it's just really sad. From 2017-2020, there were huge piles of trash in front of so many houses; I mean, it was so much trash y'all could probably build several small houses with them.
I had the privilege to help with recovery efforts; I was part of the wrecking crew, cutting/demolishing/ripping old, wet sheetrock (because the water was hazardous). It was just sad seeing so many family homes... Empty, torn down...

But, this is sad, and it was the past. Hopefully the city learned since then
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Yeah i cant imagine, that sound really horrible
 

Orkan

Orkan
Guys, I found the frog! Actually, he is the same one I found last fall in the Wildlife Encounters thread! He was on the same little spot! I tried to get a picture but he was wedged way into the pool cleaner handle so it wouldn’t focus, but oh well
 

Orkan

Orkan
Also, I have confirmed he is in fact a male. The males have black to dark gray throats and the females have lighter gray ones. This guy has a dark gray throat, and is probably looking for a mate, since April and May are their mating months.
 

Villanelle

Villanelle
I'm making a sandcastle 😁 with three habitats for my desert babies - fennec fox, sandcat and meerkat

Sry for phone pics, screenshots too much hassle right this sec
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Colehunter35

Colehunter35
Hi guys!! I am finally starting to get some spring weather where I live, went to the pond and found some shorebirds and killdeer. I saw a red fox yesterday and found a brittle prickly pear cactus which is absolutely insane cuz like cactuses in wisconsin?? also today is my birthday!
 

FlameWizard492

FlameWizard492
Villanelle said:
Ages ago we were talking about our local areas - well I thought I'd share the most unusual oddity about my local area and it is animal-themed.

First a bit of history. So you know how in Game of Thrones every place has its sigil? Well I live in Ely (pron: eeel-y), full name the Isle of Eels, and in GoT terms we are the eel people. We freaking love eels here, so much that we build statues of them:
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As I've mentioned before it is a marsh, all underwater until the Dutch figured out how to drain it, except for this little place up on a hill where a medieval Queen built a cathedral, now famous and known locally as "The Ship". That hill became the Isle of Eels and, right up until the early 1900s, you could pay your taxes here in eels.

Every spring we have an Eel Festival, where we parade a huge crafted eel from the cathedral down to the river, and have lots of eel themed fun.
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Yeah its nuts. I just love how weird it all is. Here are some pics from my weekend:

Learning about our local river fishies, including some live eels of course:
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Sadly they were out of jellied eels, my friend was so disappointed:
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This artist paints eels and someone has made a children's story about them (I'm jealous they cut me to the chase, but maybe I'll do my own one anyway) :
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An olde style eel basket

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Rollin w my homies, husbo on the left there. It is a damn pretty marshy backwater town.

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We had a eely good time (sorry, sorry...)
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I WANNA COME NEXT YEAR!!!!!!!! When is it!? I wanna build big ol’ eel puppets and have people carry them around in the parade!
 

FlameWizard492

FlameWizard492
DarthQuell said:
Whatchu talking about? That's the best mascot! I mean, Houston doesn't even have a single mascot:
For the Houston Rockets, it's Clutch the Bear
For University of H, it's a cougar, buy instead of using a new name, they always go with Shasta (I think we're at Shasta VI)..

Don't even get me started on Houston Texans. Or the Houston Dynamo...
So unoriginal, honestly
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Every town should have a mascot, kinda like the Yuru-chara in Japan (look it up) but more adapted to the culture and/or location. My hometown kinda has one. We’ve got a population of about 5,000, so our small town pride is pretty strong. Our high school football team, along with teams for other sports, are called “The Miners.” I don’t know if it’s because phosphate mining is big in our county. Anyway, because its such a small town, there's Miners insignia everywhere.
 
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