In the garden, and RAIN!!!!
POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Thursday, December 25, 2025 04:27
VIEWED: 1005090
PAGE 325 of 1154
Nothing to do with anything, but I've never seen a swarm of termites until today. It was in the parking lot of the restaurant where I go for coffee, near where they took down all the dead and partially lead liquidambar trees a few months back (along with the stump grinding that seemed to remove all traces, except for ...). There was one fairly hefty branch - maybe 5" at the widest - that fell on the other side of the fence - technically on the railroad right-of-way - that wasn't removed. Perhaps that was the source.
That double-winged fluttering they have looks pretty unique. Within a roughly 15' globe, there were maybe 6+ at any time. It was very visible as a swarm.
And, is it termite swarming season - again? still? now?
OK - here's an answer: https://www.orkin.com/locations/california-ca/termites
"Generally, termites swarm on a warm day after a rainfall." That would be now. It's the first day it hasn't been really cold here since it rained. "The western subterranean termite swarms during the day in the local rainy season in autumn, winter or early spring.
The arid-land subterranean termite typically swarms in the daylight in spring and fall.
...
In southern California, the western drywood termite swarms during the day any time between September and November. It may swarm earlier in northern parts of the state." Well, it looks like it could be any 1 of the 3.
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
You sure they were termites and not carpenter ants?
Pretty hard to tell just by looking at them unless you're really up close. I had figured out they were ants in my porch because of the holes they made and the fact that there was shavings around them and not "mud", which is really their crap and spit.
Bad news either way, but termites are worse because they'll eat any wood and the carpenter ants only burrow into compromised wood.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Pretty sure. Carpenter ants have 2 wings on each side, but that tail-ward small extra wing eventually beats with the main wing.
Termites have 2 rather large wings on each side that always stay separated, it gives them an extra 'fluttery' appearance.
They were moving between sun and shade, so I had a good chance to look at them in the sun. And they were big, so their appearance was easy to see.
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by 1KIKI:
Hey Brenda
I don't know about now, but years back the only drivers who were more aggressive than the ones in Los Angeles were the ones in Ontario!
As polite as they are, the driving was like .... insane. I still see in my minds eye a highway with every lane chock-a-block full of cars going 75mph bumper to bumper. It was THE worst driving experience of my life! All these years later I still get the heebie-jeebies thinking about driving there!
I don't Kiki. I've never been driven around in Ontario. I do that people on the Lower Mainland of BC don't know how to drive in the snow. But since we haven't gotten any yet. So far, so good.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
I remember you don't like snow, Brenda. But I don't remember, or I never knew, if you always get at least some snow accumulation every year, or if it takes an exceptionally bad year for that.
Anyway - I hope the snow holds off for a long time after that dusting! And no accumulation! 
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Hehe...
Yeah. Can't say I get a magnifying glass view and 3,000 frames per second when I'm looking at a swarm of them in real life.
I saw a few of them around my house this year. No swarms or anything. Just a stray large ant-looking thing with wings or two. The only way I was able to verify they were ants was by catching them and getting an up close look.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
I "think" I've figured out most of the ins and outs of that project I had on the PC. I'm doing some deep diving into it that I never would have attempted to do before it was backed up for fear that I'd jack up something and possibly ruin hundreds of hours of work.
I can't complain too much about the program that I'm using since the guy who developed it did all the work for free, but the way it handles where files and configurations are all over the map. Probably made worse because it was originally created back in the Windows XP days and though it has been updated and still works in 10, it still behaves as if it were a relic from the past.
I've really got to plan out how to properly re-install everything when I get a new OS on there. I'm going to make extremely detailed instructions for it, and assuming they work and I don't have to revert back to an old build, I'll make sure I've got that backed up in a few places as well.
Damn it's cold. Probably won't see another warm day around here till the end of April.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Man.... You really don't realize how many files get saved all over your hard drive until you're preparing for a wipe. Especially when you have multiple profiles on a PC. Now I remember why I had so many... The original profile I was doing the work on became highly unstable, but I was able to manage to make a new one that fixed the problem, then I went ahead and made a few more in case... that I never used. Boy, that first one likes to flake out. Fortunately I can get to everything I need on it from a more stable profile.
I'm going to go ahead and do the full CHKDSK treatment and really make sure this drive is ready before I go through with it. No sense doing all of this work and installing it on a drive I didn't correctly repair just to have problems out of the gates just for the sake of saving 12 hours. I've just got to manage to get everything else I need done and then let that work overnight.
Oh... cool. They have a program called Driver Backup that will let you back them all up and choose to only use the ones you need when it re-installs. I don't have the original disk to this computer and although I downloaded all the drivers they're exe files that might only work in Vista like the BIOS one did. Nice to know I won't have to worry about that now.
EDIT: Damn. That thing is cool. Took all 120+ drivers I had on my system and put them into individual folders with the exact same names that they had on display in Device Management.
Window 10 is phenominal when it comes to basic drivers for most things, but usually there's a snag or two and it comes with some important mobo stuff. I always prefer to have legit NVIDIA graphics drivers over the generic Windows ones, and it's nice to know I have the current USB2.0 drivers backed up now in case I have problems finding them online and the official EXE variety I downloaded wouldn't load in 10.
Oh... and I did manage to find a final BIOS update that was about a year later than the one I had before. I'm going to give that a try and give that SSD one last shot before I reinstall everything on the laptop HDD.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
CHKDSK - all the way to win95 ??
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Oh btw SIX I talked to hubby. His problem was a little different- he was trying to install linux AND Windows OSs on different partitions on an all-in-one originally loaded with Windows, so you could have a multi-OS bootup. Long story short Windows would not allow a multi OS bootup, so he had to clobber Windows and load linux with a bootable CD drive and create the system that way.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
I'd nuke a BILLION PEOPLE if it would save the other 7 billion from living under Putin. Hell, I might go all the way to the last 100 people on Earth to keep this planet from being under fascist rule.- WISHIMAY
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME