c/Superbowl
For all your owl related needs!
They are pockets, unfortunately. I actually just skimmed a reddit thread and someone mentioned a tonsil stone vacuum! I checked Amazon, and they seem to have a plethora of specialized tools. The battery-operated vacuum mentioned, what is essentially a straw on a bulb syringe for a manual vacuum, and specialized tonsil stone picks. Just search up tonsil stone remover and you may find something that looks tolerable.
If it's a persistent problem or something painful, it may be worth it to see an ENT to see if you should have your tonsils removed or if they can offer a solution that works. Things like mouth breathing, post nasal drip, and not staying hydrated can worsen accumulation of stones, so treating any of those conditions could also alleviate some of it.
It's really satisfying to both learn about our local wildlife, and also to see so many caring people all in one place while it feels like the world is going to hell. It has really made me appreciate my community and local environment.
The owls are beautiful and amazing, but they are also kinda the biggest a-hole cats you've ever met. The hawks and corvids are more "fun" since they are often curious and a bit more interactive with me in positive ways. We also have a wild bald eagle right now in addition to our ambassador bald eagle, and they are just undeniably impressive creatures to see up close. I'm also constantly surprised to see animals come in that I didn't even know lived in this part of the country. We had a Brown Thrasher, which is apparently called the Eastern Roadrunner because it runs around a lot on the ground. We also sometimes get minks and beavers from the very southern part of our county. With us being mainly suburban, I don't think of these guys still being so close to us. And there's tons of more somewhat ordinary animals like kinds of frogs and turtles I've never previously learned about.
This is a Diamondback Terrapin that prefers our one sink to the turtle tanks, so they called her Sadie Sink. The photo doesn't do her justice! The patterns on her skin and shell are so amazing!
Gargling can help prevent them or flush really tiny ones, but I have trouble gargling without choking and swallowing...double yuck.
You can use a syringe/water flosser set veeeery low to flush the tonsil pockets, or you can poke them out with a cotton swab or other soft poking device that you are unlikely to swallow if you gag yourself.
I don't find any of the methods really fun, but the few times I've done it, I thankfully have found very little in there, so I don't do it often.
You can get good pictures/videos easily on how to do it, but I don't even like looking at them, too big a tryptophobia and slimy germiness combo for me. It's pretty simple and quick though once you find a way that you can tolerate. The manual syringe or one of those bulbs for flushing your ears is what's I'd recommend for the best balance of control and effectiveness with least discomfort.
Can't say as it hasn't happened once or twice. 😅 I felt I had better control over it than the brush still.
Templates to make my wood cutouts and to give the painter references.
Finished cutouts
Plushies next to their respective cutouts. The small Screech is larger, so she will be weighted as a female, and the Great Horned is a little small, so he'll be weighted to be a male.
First 4 painted by our artist. Exceeded my expectations!
Yes, I have really failed on staying anonymous. I've doxxed myself so much on here the only things I haven't really given you at some point is a face reveal and my real name. I chose the name as just a simple throwaway since I was planning to just be a lurker, but the community soon started dying and I didn't want to see that. I may have gone a bit overboard. 😅 You guys all seem to really love it though. I get so many DMs from people that really love what I share.
I never used to really think about them. I thought they were neat, but they never really took up much thought. My wife was the one that was a bigger fan, so one day I took her to a raptor rescue, and really getting to spend a bit of time around them apparently formed a connection. I would say I was still pretty normal about it until I started posting here. Then, after doing it every day, I really started to get an idea of how amazing these birds actually are. I've been doing this daily now for 3 years, and I still am learning new things about them on a regular basis. And starting last year, just reading and visiting wasn't enough, so I volunteered at my local rescue. We don't get too many owls since we're a bit more suburban, but I've gotten to handle a few, feed them, and I even got to release a rehabbed owl at our house on my wife's birthday! Our open house is the end of May, and I was supposed to get to hold one of our educational owls for 2 whole days and how it to people and teach them about it, but they sadly both passed of old age over the winter! 😢 I've gotten 2 life sized plushes that are fairly anatomically accurate I will be weighting to bring them up to realistic weight for our state's 2 most common owls, so people will be able to hold a realistic facsimile since people aren't allowed to touch our animals, and I also made 8 life sized cutouts that one of our artists is painting for me so people can see all the owls of our state together in one place. I'll add pics in a moment of what I have so far.
I do not believe I am on the spectrum, I think I just love learning, but as it's a spectrum, who the heck knows. I'm at an age before diagnosing these things was a regular thing if it wasn't severe. My lifelong best friend is totally what was formally known as Aspergers, I think it's just properly called Autism Spectrum Disorder nowadays, and after learning about it, I feel it benefit him to not be labeled something like that back in the 80s when we were kids and it still seemed heavily stigmatized, because now he's a college science professor, head of the science dept, and is debating becoming dean of the school. I don't think that would have happened if he got shuffled off to special classes back in our day. I've just always been bookish, fairly introverted, and had a lifelong love of learning. I don't feel anything inherent about me has ever given me issue to the point I'd be diagnosed with something, but autism doesn't seem to be looked at the way it was decades ago. I love hearing people talk about their passions, so it doesn't matter to me if someone is on the spectrum or not.
This reply looks long so I'm going to shut up now and find you some of my project pictures.
I'm here to get attention for the owls, not myself, or I would have picked a better name. 😄
I just want to teach people how great they are so you all want to donate to and volunteer at your local animal rescues.
I use an electric toothbrush and the high speed oscillation is too much to do my tongue without being too tickly. The scraper is just a steady slow motion that was much easier to cope with for me. Just try a rounded spoon to see if you tolerate it. That's how it was suggested to me, and I just kept on using the spoon because I already had it.
I'm actually a bit surprised by the responses here. I know a lot of the names mentioned here, but there are more I don't recognize than I had expected. Sometimes it does feel a little small of a group here, but seeing both the number of names I do recall aaaand all the ones I don't both help me feel this place is about 50% bigger than I had felt.
It seems there are more of you I've yet to get to know. 😄
What I'm really curious of is how many people's block lists I'm on. I'm pretty rarely controversial, but I'm sure I've had to have annoyed someone by now or bored someone to tears with endless owl superbness.
I've used an old rounded soup spoon before. Did it for a few months, but fell out of the habit. It did seemingly remove a whole bunch of ick when I did it.
Also, don't forget to flush tonsil stones! Those things are nasty.
Sxan talks to me all the time and has always been great. I barely register the thorns now.
I'm a bit surprised how popular this was! I guess this was a question a bunch of people had but didn't want to ask.
I try to keep in mind the names of those that I regularly interact with, and even try to pay attention to who my regular lurkers are. While I mainly just interact with people replying to my posts, I lurk a ton myself, but there I think I'm more familiar with the names of the people I am not the biggest fan of, since I don't usually block anyone.
So far in this thread, I feel familiar with:
ada, JetpackJackson, nemo, SnotFlickerman, and I've seen a number of things from my bearboiblake recently
I went on whatever that Fediverse stat tool page is today and was able to predict most of my top ten people I comment with.
I enjoy the relatively small size of the Fediverse, and I like that I get to become familiar with so many of you.
Due to my chronic meme illiteracy, I had to have knowyourmeme explain this one to me. We all need a little explaining now and then. 😇
Both could be correct, especially since many folks' diets are much different today than they were that long ago.
I'm far from a nutritionist, and I don't think I could really explain the GI Index well enough to give the real how and why of eating a ton of simple carbs actually makes you still feel hungry despite eating enough to feed an army.
With the high salt content, people can feel a craving, that is actually for water, but can be misinterpreted as hunger. We know our body needs something, but we don't always understand what that something is.
My home ramen is too basic, and doesn't do much to fill me up, but the ramen place in town I find very filling, as the broth has some fat content, there's meat and egg for protein, and there's things like mushrooms, bamboo shoots, and other veg to provide that fiber which either takes a long time to digest or is just plain indigestible so it really sticks with you, literally. I can't be bothered to prep all that at home. 😁
I try to keep things simple, but I also always want to give the most complete answer I can, so I end up being pretty long winded. If someone takes the time to ask a question, I assume they do want the full answer though. I always worry I'm beating things into the ground, but I really want people to know as much as they can. People are always free to tell me to shut my trap. 😄
The thought is the simple carbs from rice, noodles, and high sugar sauces in a lot of takeout-style Chinese food gets digested quickly, so while one can eat that until they feel stuffed, the body will quickly break it down, and with the volume of fiber and protein in the meal being relatively low to the volume of starches and sugars, your stomach will soon be wanting more due to the low satiety provided. One could eat a smaller amount of, say, steak and broccoli, and remain fuller for much longer, due to the better nutritional balance and higher protein and fiber content which takes the body much longer to digest than starches and sugars.
It is played as a joke since a large number of people experience this overeating, yet soon hungry again situation, and attribute it to the food, although probably not in a way of understanding they're eating a different kind of junk food than what they're used to. My understanding is all this stuff is westernized and not really reflective of what Chinese food actually is.
This is also why people talk about Asians getting a "secret menu" at Asian restaurants. It's not as though Westerners are forbidden to order real Asian dishes, they're just a completely different taste profile than what a lot of Westerners are accustomed to, whether dishes be too spicy, too salty, or not sweet/saucy/cheesey/etc enough. One time I went fishing in the ocean and got way too many fish. I offered them to the guys in the Chinese takeout place attached to where I was working. They offered me some of what they made for themselves with it but gave me a heads up that I may not exactly enjoy it. I took a bite and it tasted sooooo salty, and I got surprised it still had the soft fish bones in it, and it wasn't bad but was not what my palette was ready for at the time and I could not finish it, meanwhile they were all grateful and fully enjoying it.
I appreciate you guys so much! I never expected to keep your attention for so long. 😁
I've gotten to learn so much and do some pretty amazing things thanks to you all coming to hang and talk about these superb birds every day.
Oh that is cool! It makes stars and trippy fan blade patterns. It's neat you can share the link like that to share the patterns too.
It's like a kaleidoscope that also works for the ears. 😁
Good, I'm glad it is nothing serious. The bad pics I have seen look greatly unpleasant!
I am not the best at drinking the amount I'm supposed to either. It sounds like so much. I am guessing the hydration both keeps the pockets supple, so things fall out on their own, and the act of drinking is a natural flushing of them.
This isn't the topic I thought I'd be exploring today, but it has reminded me to check my tongue and tonsils, and I just like learning about stuff in general, so it's all good fun for me.