Scam IRS Calls

I got a spammy looking phone call from "Washington DC." The number was 202-741-4061 and so I let it go to voice mail. It was a horrible, automated recording; you know the kind, with the computerized woman voice. And the message was about "IRS criminal activity."

I called back, thinking it was a wrong number. When I reached a person, "Christina," with a thick accent, I realized it was a call center in India. I could hear the background noise of other callers. The woman threatened that if I didn't get a criminal lawyer to represent me, I was going to jail. Then she said, "So you can get a criminal lawyer or I will have the police on your doorstep in half an hour."  REALLY?!  Does this work?!  I didn't get a dollar amount they were looking for because I said, "Go ahead. Call the police." And hung up. It pisses me off that there are people out there who get these calls and are intimidated and bullied to hand over bank account or credit card numbers.

So this is my little rant. And if you get these kind of calls, you can report them: https://www.ftc.gov/ which is what I just did. I don't know how much good it does, but having ranted there and on Twitter and my blog, I feel better. :-)

The Lake!

OMG!!!  Last Sunday I was driving over to Atlasta's, and as I drove by the lake . . . the lake was gone. GONE! So I snapped some pix with my phone:

Let's take a walk down to the lake, shall we?

'member when I used to walk Bingo down to the lake every day? Those were the days!

I went down with Rowan and we had to barracade the dogs in the house, weasel out the front door, climb over the front gate because I couldn't get it unlatched from the outside, and then go thru the back gate down to the lake. Phew!

Can you see the lack of water, yet?

Here's a better view:

I think the lake has two sources of water feeding it; one is from my end with a little swampy creek.

Those big trees lying on the bottom are where the turtles would all sun themselves.

Rowan said, "But Haha, what about all the animals that live in the lake?"

Ro jumped down off the pier to explore. 

XM Radio Guy says, "Remember when you were a kid, how you were so scared of quicksand? And then as an adult you never think about it." 

Yeah. As an adult, the fear is taxes. Ha!

Rowan was able to stand on this stuff, but when I jumped down, I started to sink! Quicksand fears quickly resurfaced!

 We decided to climb back up.

Lookit!  Animal prints:

Raccoon? Beaver?

 Ro finds mushrooms growing on the fallen oak:

This is the fallen oak before:

Then we decided to go around to the other side, on the road.

I didn't get a close up of it, but to the right of Ro's elbow, is a BOWLING BALL!

 I think this is the other source of water, a spring, maybe? Unless it just didn't fully drain.

Turtle tracks?

Ro finds a bottle:

This is the overflow pipe:

See the blue heron in the water?

Here's what it looked like before:

Beginning of Spring.

Summer time:

Autumn:

"What's that, Haha?" No clue. Something mechanical.

You can see to the right where trees were cut down to make the lake:

I don't know how old this little lake is, or what its history is. 

Ro said this looked like a submarine thingie:

It's actually a dry hydrant (really dry, now!) for fire trucks to connect to and draw water out of the lake.

I asked Mail Carrier Tessa to ask around this week. She said that no one knows what caused this and that the EPA & the DOT have both been out to look at it. 

UPDATE: 

Monday, October 26th  I spoke with the fire chief, who said the overflow pipe broke. He said the lake was constructed in the 1950's with the subdivision. Part of the problem in making repairs is that it is not clear who actually owns the lake. Us homeowners? We'll see how this plays out. 

I spoke with Tessa this morning, and she said one of the neighbors saw two "kids" (male) walk down to the lake on Saturday night and come running back about 45 minutes later. Sunday morning, we woke up to a drained lake. So there's some speculation that the overflow pipe was vandalized. This is why we can't have nice things!

In the meantime, a few pix with water in the lake . . . 

From my property:

Winter time:

By the fallen oak:

Down at the pier:

From the road side of the lake:

Spring time.

Summer:

Overflow with spider webs in the morning mist.

This is the only part of the lake that still has some water.

Autumn:

I do hope we get our water back!