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Minor Strangeness (IHTM)

In my back garden is a solitary apple tree, only about 10ft tall.
As it is a single specimen it doesn't ever get heavily laden with fruit and this year has been no exception.
Only a couple of weeks ago I was outside on one of the sunnier days and was musing on eating one of the apples as there were more than a dozen ready to pick, but decided against it as I have no idea of how edible or not they actually are. For all I know they could be bitter cookers.
Anyways....wind forward to last night and I am outside for a smoke and I notice just 3 apples on the tree!?
Looking around I see one apple on the floor.
But where have my other apples gone?
My back garden has a sturdy 7 foot high fence around it and no access other than through 2 padlocked gates, and you can't see into my garden from the pavement that runs past outside. This is not the sort of area in which one would have people climbing into ones garden solely to 'go scrumping' even if anyone knew I had an apple tree.
I live alone and rarely have any visitors.
We don't have any animals that are likely to have taken a fancy to my fruit, or to have pinched my pommes.
I can only think that there must be a particularly muscly squirrel locally which has decided to grab my granny smiths?
 
catseye said:
A minor strangeness that has right royally pissed me off.

I'm very bad at remembering to pay bills on time. Direct debits are fine, they go automatically, but I've got a credit card that I don't pay by direct debit because I sometimes pay off more, sometimes just the due amount, depending on how flush I'm feeling. If I'm rich that month, I pay well over the due amount, if I'm a bit skint I just pay the minimum.

Because I'm bad at remembering to pay I have a reminder set up on my phone, to pop up on my screen on the 30th of every month (payment is due on 01 of the month). Reminder pops up - I sort the payment, all done. Today I suddenly thought 'I haven't paid the credit card bill! Went online to check, no, I hadn't paid, so I did it today, a few days late, but sobeit.

The reminder never popped up on 30 September. I checked on my phone, it's there, still showing to come up on 30th, but last month - nothing. The bastard.
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If you have an old fashioned paper calender, it might be worth writing a reminder on the 30th of every month, except February of course, you can do the whole year at the start then it's always there :)
 
Trevp666 said:
In my back garden is a solitary apple tree, only about 10ft tall.
As it is a single specimen it doesn't ever get heavily laden with fruit and this year has been no exception.
Only a couple of weeks ago I was outside on one of the sunnier days and was musing on eating one of the apples as there were more than a dozen ready to pick, but decided against it as I have no idea of how edible or not they actually are. For all I know they could be bitter cookers.
Anyways....wind forward to last night and I am outside for a smoke and I notice just 3 apples on the tree!?
Looking around I see one apple on the floor.
But where have my other apples gone?
My back garden has a sturdy 7 foot high fence around it and no access other than through 2 padlocked gates, and you can't see into my garden from the pavement that runs past outside. This is not the sort of area in which one would have people climbing into ones garden solely to 'go scrumping' even if anyone knew I had an apple tree.
I live alone and rarely have any visitors.
We don't have any animals that are likely to have taken a fancy to my fruit, or to have pinched my pommes.
I can only think that there must be a particularly muscly squirrel locally which has decided to grab my granny smiths?
Click to expand...
Could it be Mr/Mrs HanRATty?
 
Trevp666 said:
Why not the 27th? Or the 19th? What have you got against the other days of the month, mister????
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To be fair, I did say my payment was due on the first of every month...
 
To be unfair - just pay it on the first of every month
 
Floyd1 said:
Could it be Mr/Mrs HanRATty?
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Well I guess it could be.....but AFAIK, apart from being quite rural really, and all that talk about "never being more than 6 feet away from a rat" etc, I doubt it. There's no evidence of any kind of rodent having been around, and my back garden, although not particularly pleasant, is actually rather tidy, certainly not any rubbish or discarded food laying around.
We do get an occasional hedgehog that manages to get under the gate and shuffle around of an evening, but I couldn't imagine it climbing up for a Golden Delicious.
 
Trevp666 said:
Well I guess it could be.....but AFAIK, apart from being quite rural really, and all that talk about "never being more than 6 feet away from a rat" etc, I doubt it. There's no evidence of any kind of rodent having been around, and my back garden, although not particularly pleasant, is actually rather tidy, certainly not any rubbish or discarded food laying around.
We do get an occasional hedgehog that manages to get under the gate and shuffle around of an evening, but I couldn't imagine it climbing up for a Golden Delicious.
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When I lived next to the Thames in Surrey, every fruit tree would be stripped bare as soon as the fruit was ripe, by flocks of ring necked parakeets. But you would know if you had been visited by them, they are very loud.
 
Indeed. But apples though - bit heavy for a parakeet to carry off innit?
 
Trevp666 said:
In my back garden is a solitary apple tree, only about 10ft tall.
As it is a single specimen it doesn't ever get heavily laden with fruit and this year has been no exception.
Only a couple of weeks ago I was outside on one of the sunnier days and was musing on eating one of the apples as there were more than a dozen ready to pick, but decided against it as I have no idea of how edible or not they actually are. For all I know they could be bitter cookers.
Anyways....wind forward to last night and I am outside for a smoke and I notice just 3 apples on the tree!?
Looking around I see one apple on the floor.
But where have my other apples gone?
My back garden has a sturdy 7 foot high fence around it and no access other than through 2 padlocked gates, and you can't see into my garden from the pavement that runs past outside. This is not the sort of area in which one would have people climbing into ones garden solely to 'go scrumping' even if anyone knew I had an apple tree.
I live alone and rarely have any visitors.
We don't have any animals that are likely to have taken a fancy to my fruit, or to have pinched my pommes.
I can only think that there must be a particularly muscly squirrel locally which has decided to grab my granny smiths?
Click to expand...
Squirrels can do amazing things.
 
Ah I see - no definitely not seen any parakeets around here, ever.
There is quite a large number of them down in Borehamwood but that's a bit of a hike (17 miles?) so I don't think that a parakeet would travel that far to peck at my Pink Lady.
 
Trevp666 said:
Ah I see - no definitely not seen any parakeets around here, ever.
There is quite a large number of them down in Borehamwood but that's a bit of a hike (17 miles?) so I don't think that a parakeet would travel that far to peck at my Pink Lady.
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They'd make that effort for MY Pink Lady.
 
Trevp666 said:
Ah I see - no definitely not seen any parakeets around here, ever.
There is quite a large number of them down in Borehamwood but that's a bit of a hike (17 miles?) so I don't think that a parakeet would travel that far to peck at my Pink Lady.
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It's been very windy lately. Any chance that all the apples have fallen and rolled somewhere you can't see them? Are there a lot of bushes or undergrowth around?
 
catseye said:
Any chance that all the apples have fallen and rolled somewhere you can't see them?
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Nope. An entirely flat area preventing rollage, and the nearest bushes are quite a healthy bounce away.
And the possibility of ravenous animals decimating my crop seems to not hold water cos they left 3 on the tree.
 
Got one for you, Enola. I’m up on the dark mountain right now. It’s 10:45pm. I might have just experienced my first proper UAP.

I’m sat with Jupiter directly above me, Messier 2 under it. A dull star, maybe Inef is nearby. I see the familiar glint of an iridium sat. I wait for it to flash again in its next increment on its path. It glints but exactly in position as before. Another 8 or 9 seconds and it glints again same poz. I watch this for at least 5 minutes and it never discernibly shifts position. Glinting regularly at 8 or 9 secs.

this light is way way up. I hear nothing. It is not a jet. It is not a helicopter. It just flashes way up there n one place for ages. Holding station.

is it possible for satellites to move that slow? I haven’t seen one do it before. You know how often I’ve been out here. I know my sky lights. This was weird.
 
Sorry for the delay in answering ... I've only now stumbled across your query ...

(1) It's not an Iridium flare. A classic Iridium flare was a feature of the 1st-gen Iridium satellites, and the flare period was measured in minutes rather than seconds. In any case, AFAIK all 1st-gen Iridium satellites were retired / replaced a few years ago.

(2) Any shiny object in earth orbit can create a flare effect. This includes random space debris. A flaring period measured in seconds is strongly indicative of a tumbling object. A constant relative position would be consistent with a de-orbiting satellite or any ol' piece of space debris that's slowed to the point it's poised to re-enter the atmosphere.

My first guess is that it's space debris slowed into the homeward bound phase of its flight.

If the flashes' brightness begins to radically increase, deploy your bumbershoot or take shelter ... :evillaugh:
 
S
EnolaGaia said:
Sorry for the delay in answering ... I've only now stumbled across your query ...

(1) It's not an Iridium flare. A classic Iridium flare was a feature of the 1st-gen Iridium satellites, and the flare period was measured in minutes rather than seconds. In any case, AFAIK all 1st-gen Iridium satellites were retired / replaced a few years ago.

(2) Any shiny object in earth orbit can create a flare effect. This includes random space debris. A flaring period measured in seconds is strongly indicative of a tumbling object. A constant relative position would be consistent with a de-orbiting satellite or any ol' piece of space debris that's slowed to the point it's poised to re-enter the atmosphere.

My first guess is that it's space debris slowed into the homeward bound phase of its flight.

If the flashes' brightness begins to radically increase, deploy your bumbershoot or take shelter ... :evillaugh:
Click to expand...
So you mean something's falling on him.
 
escargot said:
When we kept dogs their bowls'd be occupied overnight by gigantic slugs.
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Sounds like a great premise for a horror movie—The Night of the Giant Slugs!.
images.jpg
"Honey, what happened to the dogs? They were right here and then ~ arrggh!"

(image stolen from https://blog.raymears.com/2013/01/29/taking-time-to-look-closer/ )
 
I was sitting in my chair in the living room this evening typing something when I heard a loud sigh. I looked in the direction of the sound and saw the shape of a man looking in and standing inside my porch. We keep the front door unlocked because she's an Amazon junkie so that's how he got in but we always keep the interior front door locked so I wasn't worried.

He tried the door handle a little bit but he was basically hovering so my first thought was that he was a drunk. Obviously I didn't open the door.

"Hello? .. why are you standing in my porch mate?"

*mumbling something"

"You don't live here .. I don't want you standing in my porch please. You should go home."

*more mumbling* then .. "Have you got a radio?"

"No. I haven't got I radio .. go home!" (I have got a radio) ..

.. he went "humpff?" in a quizzical way then plodded off.

He wasn't aggressive, just lost .. we've got a few mental health private homes around here so I called the cops, told them he might need some help getting home and that he was probably also drunk (and he might be on pregs, steroids, citalopram, all sorts really so understanding is the key. The police did a drive by, he was standing outside houses down our street after and looking at them but he didn't rob anything from our porch.

Goodnight Mr confused X
 
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Swifty said:
I was sitting in my chair in the living room this evening typing something when I heard a loud sigh. I looked in the direction of the sound and saw the shape of a man looking in and standing inside my porch. We keep the front door unlocked because she's an Amazon junkie so that's how he got in but we always keep the interior front door locked so I wasn't worried.

He tried the door handle a little bit but he was basically hovering so my first thought was that he was a drunk. Obviously I didn't open the door.

"Hello? .. why are you standing in my porch mate?"

*mumbling something"

"You don't live here .. I don't want you standing in my porch please. You should go home."

*more mumbling* then .. "Have you got a radio?"

"No. I haven't got I radio .. go home!" (I have got a radio) ..

.. he went "humpff?" in a quizzical way then plodded off.

He wasn't aggressive, just lost .. we've got a few mental health private homes around here so I called the cops, told them he might need some help getting home and that he was probably also drunk (and he might be on pregs, steroids, citalopram, all sorts really so understanding is the key. The police did a drive by, he was standing outside houses down our street after and looking at them but he didn't rob anything from our porch.

Goodnight Mr confused X
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Rebuffed, and still disorientated by his passage through the dimensional warp, DB Cooper shuffled back up the street to rejoin Amelia Earhart in her search for Shergar.

maximus otter
 
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