Posted on 03/07/2025 8:49:52 PM PST by fireman15
Hantavirus is a rare but highly fatal virus, federal health officials say.
Authorities said Friday that actor Gene Hackman died of Alzheimer’s and heart failure a week after his wife died of hantavirus, a rare viral infection.
Authorities initially ruled out foul play after the bodies were discovered Feb. 26 in the couple’s Santa Fe home, while a bottle of pills was discovered next to the body of his wife, Betsy Arakawa. Immediate tests for carbon monoxide poisoning also tested negative.
Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza and other officials announced the development in a news conference in New Mexico, where the couple lived and were found dead last month.
(Excerpt) Read more at theepochtimes.com ...
I have a family member that has an electronic doggy door. They wear a collar with a unique ID TX and when they get in range (1 foot) then it automatically opens to let them out. The doggy door is in a corner of the house away from everything so if they are walking around the house it won’t open.
We have two funerals to go to this coming week. Both were women, one was 59 the other was 68. Both seemed to be in good health the last time that we saw them. This is not to mention a bunch of other not quite senior citizen friends that we have lost to various causes of death in the last few years.
I was shocked when we went to my wife's 50th reunion last summer and nearly 100 of her classmates had already died. The school she went to was not that big at that time... there were less than 600 students in the class. Most of the deaths were in just the last few years. It feels like a dramatic increase that you normally wouldn't see for at least another ten years.
There should have been a backup plan, even just a grounds or housekeeper checking to make sure Hackman hadn’t fallen (which perhaps he did).
Bats in in the home are fun/challenge as well..
We live in the middle of a bunch of fast-growing tall fir trees that were planted by Weyerhaeuser many decades ago for harvest. The problem is that after they reach maturity their root system is not substantial enough to keep them from blowing over in windstorms. After one of our trees fell on a neighbor's house... I had to cut down about 20 of them that had gotten over 100 feet. (Don't worry we still have plenty more that are not threatening to structures.).) Tree services around here want around $6000 a piece to take down trees that are near structures.
I could not afford that, so I purchased climbing gear instead. I found myself 80 feet in a tall fir and I put my hand on something that looked like a piece of fungus growing out of the bark. But it was soft and fuzzy and when I removed my hand it fell to the ground. I was not sure what it was, so I went back down and found that it was a little bat. It looked like it was dead, but I could see that it was still breathing. So, I lined a shoe box with tissue paper put the bat in it and set the box in the sun on our deck without the top.
After I finished topping the tree... I went back and checked on the bat. It opened its eyes while I was looking it over. It suddenly got back on its feet and then flew away. We enjoy watching them eat insects after the sun has gone down in the summer, but this was the first time outside of the bat house at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle that I had seen one up close with nothing between us.
When I was I teenager or young adult coming back from college during the summer months, I would basically prep and paint the house. My dad helped me move the ladders around on early weekdays mornings. Every once in a while we would find a bat clinging to a shutter, but hornet nests were the more likely surprise. We always carried hornet spray, but early in the morning the hornets weren’t really active when we removed the shutters and moved the ladders..
Yes, we have had a lot of issues with yellow jacket wasps over the years. They especially like to dig nests under our decks. When doing yard work, often you don't notice them until they are already swarming and acting aggressively. One wasp can bite and sting someone multiple times. I used to refer to them as Africanized killer bees because of their bad behavior.
I used spray on them numerous times... but the last time I used some white powder, it doesn't kill them immediately. But within a few days they are gone. It lasts for much longer.
A bunch of years ago I was mowing my parent’s hillside. I ran over a ground bee hive and got attacked. Fortunately for me I wasn’t allergic to bee stings, but had to remove my pants when it happened. Crazy stuff...
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