Hi Michael,
I’m glad to see you around here in BLF!
From Rural Lindale. Weapon of choice is a sharp machete on the front porch, to keep the copperheads at bay (1st confirmed kill 1-1/2 weeks ago, slithering bastards). Flashlights are a survival tool here.
You just right down the road from me Etex. Big city of Lovelady here.
That was total sarcasm for those who don’t know the town…Population of about 600 here……lol
Hey Etex ! I only ask because East Texas is known to have huge cut ant populations… Any problems with cut ants in your area? They are killin us down south.
There was an ant bait available some years back that REALLY WORKED! (Volcano) but then all of a sudden the company could not get EPA approval. Sounds about right with anything to do with government right?…LOL
Just thought you East Texans might have come up with an alternative for these bastards cut ants that mow your shrubbery over night. Take Care fellow Texan…… :+1:
ETA: have only seen couple copperheads down here in my life time. And one coral snake when i was a kid in my own front yard of carpet grass.
I don’t know because I’ve never tried, but will a snake fluoresce under UV light the same way a scorpion will?
Cut Ants: I think those depend on the soil. For a couple of years, we lived on the other side of Henderson, where the dirt was extremely dry/fine/sandy. In addition to the hundreds of scorpions we had there(Hunting Scorpions with a UV light!), we did have a large nest of the ants on the edge of our property. They didn’t actually cause any issues and kept their activity to the adjacent woods. I’ve been told (don’t know if it’s true) that they will keep the fire ant population down; the fire ants are a MUCH bigger nuisance in this area.
Copperheads under UV: Nope. In fact, practically invisible.
Copperheads are all over in this area, but I see very few of them. Unless they are causing issues, or where they can hurt us or our pets, I’m happy to let them live to keep the vermin population down. Last week, with the first of the warm weather, I came home to find our cat playing with this little guy:
Not sure where he had found and killed the baby copperhead, but we didn’t find any others around the area.
I wasn’t familiar with cut ants, till mentioned here, but haven’t seen much of that damage. Definitely got fire ants, though. Soil is a red sandy type.
We have 10+ acres with 7 acres wooded. Lots of leaves for the copperheads to blend in with. Their nocturnal, see them mostly after sunset til midnight. All our dogs have been bitten, one big dog multiple times, but he is a vicious snake killing machine, grabs em and shakes them to pieces.
Recent light purchases have helped me spot ’em easier.
Pendleton is closest for me (if in fact it can still be called a town, Troy otherwise), and yes, fire ants are a major issue here as well. More likely to see a rattlesnake than a copperhead, plenty of rat snakes as well. Skunks are the big night time issue where a flashlight can keep you from wandering too close. These guys are aggressive! They’ll chase you down to spray you! I like enough throw to see em well in advance, enough flood to catch movement in the peripheral area as well. Spotted 3 in one night walking the trash down. Busy little critturs! The foxes stay back, but don’t necessarily run away. The coyotes are gone in a flash once they figure out it’s a human wielding the sun…
We used to have a lot of scorpions and horny toads, the fire ant population has pretty much wiped those out, along with the quail.
I do miss the quail. Even here in East Texas, I remember hearing the “Bob-White” all the time as a child. I haven’t heard any quail here in probably 25-30 years. Last year, we went on a classic car tour to Abilene and visited Fort Chadbourne: Fort Chadbourne - Wikipedia
It turned out to be a fascinating place to visit, and I highly recommend you stop if you are ever in the area.
While walking the fort grounds, I heard the first quail ever since my childhood and it was an awesome memory…
My childhood roughly coincided with the arrival of fire ants in the NE Texas area. I learned don’t jump in leaf piles, watch were you stand, etc. at an early age… 
Wow. I didn’t know the fire ants would run off the quail. For 20+ years, we have fed the birds and bunnies twice daily at our place. We have two covies of quail, 1 of about 20 Blues and the other about 16 Bob White. Until 4 years ago, up here on top of the caprock, we never had Bob White. I guess the drought drove them up here. At about 6 PM every day…rain, sleet, snow, sunshine, they appear like magic waiting for their evening treat. If I am busy and my shop door is open… the Blues will gather at the threshold looking inside. I’ll try to get a picture of that. We get the neighbor down the road to feed them when we are gone. Wouldn’t want that big Blue that is half the size of a full grown chicken to miss a meal!!! 
TL
Just wondering, y’all eat Frito Pie? Seems hereabouts it’s a base but not widely known in some other parts of the world. Man that was staple food during football games and basketball tournaments when I was a kid! Just had some Wolf Chili on hot dogs with Frito Pie on the side for lunch. Mmmmmmmm! 
Gotta mow, it’s 88º and Spring is springing up all over the place!
Who doesn’t eat Frito pie? It’s probably extremely NOT Texan of me but I don’t really care for chili. Unless it’s over a bowl of Fritos, with some shredded cheese over the top…
Having a chili cookoff? “I’ll bring the Fritos!” 
So when I had my first real exposure to non-Texan cultures, I learned that a lot (a majority, in my annecdotal experience) of people - non-Texan people - think that the “signature” food of Texas is chili!
Shock and horror!
Every Texan knows the answer is brisket. Yeah, chili cookoffs are fun and good chili is good (went to Chilifest annually while I was at TAMU), but brisket is life.
But yes, frito pie is good, we had it for dinner last week.
Brisket all the way, but I don’t stop there… :smiling_imp:
I’ve got a “small” propane smoker I use frequently. It would hold about three briskets, but the most I’ve ever cooked at once is two.
I always watch the sales at the Grocery store and get what I can find on sale.
Pork Roast, Ribs, Chicken Thighs, Turkey, etc… All in the smoker! It doesn’t matter what it is: Some Lawry’s on it, and in it goes:
Always goes over very well, whatever occasion I’m cooking for.
On the subject:
Another thing we have here in Texas is HEB grocery stores:
It is a Texas-based chain. They are much more popular further South and West, but I live close enough to Carthage, which has the most North-Eastern HEB I’m aware of. It’s a very small old-fashioned grocery store, but they have excellent products and selection, all while staying very competitively priced. I know it’s just a grocery store, but I get excited talking about it… We plan our weekly shopping trip around the weekly HEB sale flyer. Love their meats, steaks, pre-packaged fajita meat, store-brand sodas, produce, just about everything about the place. :heart_eyes:
Brisket Tacos anyone?
Chopped or shredded smoked brisket in a flour tortilla with lettuce, tomato, and crumbly Mexican-style cheese:
How about my invention; Brisket Fried Rice?
Chopped brisket with sausage, bacon, and fresh red/green bell peppers diced in, with a bit of smoked black pepper:
Incoming Rant:
I am the dissenting opinion on HEB, and only because of the unique situation of HEB in this city. When I lived in Houston and then College Station, I loved HEB like everyone else. But the situation here in San Antonio is different. San Antonio is HEB’s headquarters, and they have completely monopolized the grocery store business - and monopolies are no good for anyone that is not the owner of the monopoly. Their only remaining competition is WalMart grocery, which I actually prefer in many ways. shudder
You describe them as competitively priced and good variety - not here. 90% of their shelf stock is now store brands, and the price is only 2% less than the national brand. I’m exagerating a little, but my point is valid - usually the national brands pay grocery stores in a battle for shelf space, and to compete a store brand has to compete on price. When HEB is the only game in town, they just say “no thanks” and put their store brands everywhere, for the same price as the national brands - ’cause where are you going to go if you want something else? There’s no Kroger, no Albertson’s, no other options if you want different brands or better prices - the only other option is that other HEB, or that other HEB over there…
Example: The HEB brand Mac-n-Cheese is like $2.28, and the Kraft Mac-n-Cheese that I grew up with, love, and want to feed to my kids (because familiarity, and sentimental, and it just tastes better) is $2.48, and you have to crawl on your knees to find it at the back of the bottom shelf. That’s how the whole store is - with no other options for the consumer, they can push the HEB brands hard and high priced.
Like I said, it was different and I liked HEB a lot for the first 13 years of my grocery-shopping life. But 7 years in SAT, it has been a different HEB here in SAT than what I experienced elsewhere. The HEB people here are great, and I do see HEB plastered everywhere sponsoring everything, so they are involved in the community, etc. But I just don’t like a monopoly and the price/choice negatives that it means for the consumer.
/rant
keltex, switch from those pre-made taste-like-paper Mission tortillas to these made-with-love-and-lard tortillas:
SOOOO much better.
Odd about the HEB, but I get your point about the monopoly… Here, we have Wal Mart, Brookshires, (or Brookshire Bros., depending on which town you are in), Kroger, and a few Albertson stores. All of the dedicated grocery chains tend to be incredibly overpriced.
In Carthage, we have the Brookshire Brothers (way overpriced) a very small Wal-Mart, and the small HEB. Wal-Mart typically kills other grocery chain prices, but the selection at this particular store is horrible (“We’re Wal-Mart; we stock whatever we feel like because we know you don’t have a choice but to buy it”). I was surprised to find that our HEB has prices competitive with the Wal Mart. When that small Wal-Mart opened, local people were concerned that they would end up shutting the HEB down. Instead, HEB continues to thrive simply because the Wal-Mart is so awful.
True Story here:
When we first moved into the area, we would shop at the Wal-Mart. I had expected the HEB to be like most other small/local grocery stores (overpriced/run-down) but that turned out to not be the case. We were shopping and needed lettuce. The Wal Mart store was OUT. My wife and I were looking at the produce and disappointed that we might have to go to HEB to find some. Someone standing behind us stopped us and introduced himself as the HEB manager. He assured us, his store DID have lettuce. He had stopped by the Wal-Mart to observe, simply because he had heard HIS customers talking about how bad Wal-Mart was. We started shopping at the HEB then and have never regretted it.
Hmmm…. (intrigue…)
I will say: I never cared for corn tortillas, until I ate true Mexican-style tacos at my brother’s house. (His wife is a full-blood Mexican.)
We bought a stack of the fresh-made corn tortillas from the Mercado in Longview for the event and they were absolutely delicious. I could not stop eating those. My intestines hated me the next day though… :zipper_mouth_face:
Every couple of months I’ll try a new variety of corn tortilla that someone SWEARS will be the one to change my mind - nope.
Last month it was the fresh-baked half/half corn/flour torillas at the HEB bakery - nope.
The conclusion that I’m starting to formulate after having tried corn tortillas for years and years, and dozens and dozens of varieties - I might not like corn tortillas.