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State of Michigan in USA. On the map the state looks like a 'hand' or mitten. Happy people (except for the dictatorship of the current governor and leftists who stole the election), thousands of lakes, plenty of God loving people. Hope all is well with you and yours . . . Ray. . .

I am English by birth and now reside in West Sussex. My distant forefathers fled west to escape persecution for daring to be Jews and originally settled in Scotland (even adopting a Scottish surname) but then later left for London (surname change again) when life became tight yet again. I was picked upon during my early school years (filthy stinking Yid) so was sent to a boarding school where I was taught the necessary life skills to survive. I left that school never to look back and I've survived intact to recently pass my 79th birthday. I am married to a Swede and together we have raised four daughters. Where you originate from and indeed where you live now matters not compared to who your are inside and how you live your live in G-d's light.

I live in the USA, way down in South Florida- lizards & iguana everywhere... Where its less populated we've plenty of snakes- many of which are not indegenous but have made their home here & its over run Of course the gator is a favorite and our State mascot is Mickey Mouse! Yes, north Florida is the home of DisneyWorld! I live on the Intracoastal waterway- dolphins and manatee, 2 all time favorites. The beaches are beautiful, crystal clear ocean but careful, its a popular lunch spot for sharks Ive lived here in South Florida 4 decades, a transplant from NYC- where I was raised, grew up & got my education- theres nothing like the theatre, arts & culture in NYC or the crime and crowdedness so it was hard to resist the balmy tropics & layed back lifestyle of the South Born in Alaska, Elmendorf Air Force Base, dont remember it & never been but my parents said it was absolutely breath taking- land of the Midnight Sun

Nopal cactus, also called prickly pear in Texas, is also eaten various ways, Nopalitos common. Livestock love it when thorns burned off. Not uncommon on grocery shelves here.

I live in Lebanon, New Hampshire, just a little south of the White Mountains. I use to spend a lot of time climbing the cliffs in the Whites until last year when my health restricted me from being so adventurous. The first picture is looking down the talus field from the beginning of the climb. The second picture is of a party next to us, on the other side of the gully. The third is a picture of Cannon Mountain Cliff. We climbed the left edge of the dark gully. Surely not the hardest or longest route, but a lot of fun where we could easily rest and enjoy His creation! Here is one of me posing half way up the climb. The Appalachian Trail runs a couple of miles from where I live and heads up through the White Mountains into Maine. The trail is rugged, but the overlooks and scenery is beautiful

We live in what is called northern British Columbia, but it's closer to geographically the centre of the province by latitude. It's just that there is virtually no one north of us until Whitehorse, Yukon.

I was born and lived until 19 in southern Georgia, south east US, so I can similarly relate to Jayne in Louisiana, that area has lots of snakes, many of them poisonous,plenty of mosquitos and other stinging insects. High humidity.....and people still live there. Now I live in Lancaster County PA.Rolling green hills, lots of farms. Also plenty of woodland,rivers and streams.Weather here tends to be less hot than out west although we do get a few weeks there in July and Aug where it gets hot. Not in any hurry to go back down to the deep south.🙂

The fruit is sweet but a bit tart. Hard to explain the taste. The prickly pear pads dont have much taste I thought. The same way green bell peppers dont have much taste cooked in foods. But perhaps it was cooked poorly.

I been everywhere man... born a wandering Gentile.

So many times I thought about moving as these super hurricaines get worse & worse and you are right- dangerous places in America( as of late more than ever before)and yes " mad Americans" with bats in the belfry!! The Californians consider earthquakes" no big deal",Floridians" Eh, I'll baton down the hatches"- Oklahoma" get in the bunker when tornados come".... Every State has its natural perils , floods, mudslides, blizzards, heatwaves, lightening storms, fires.... We must be crazy but where does one go? Oh I know, under Gods Wings!!!!! Praise the Lord!

I'm from Texas but very poorly suited to all the heat and sunlight. I burn so easily and got a mild case of heat stroke as a kid. Really hoping to go further north eventually.

Oh yes Ive eaten that too but only when others cooked it.

(Our children were also born there, Selah) Body of Christ, Corpus Christi. The Sparkling city by the Sea. My wife and I eloped and were married there in 71. Stayed at the Sun N Surf on Ocean drive, the honeymoon suite at $25 bucks a day with private pier. The owner, an elderly lady took our wedding pictures for us. Our kids were born there and they were really upset when we moved inland to the land I inherited. We literally spent most family time combing the beach and fishing up and down Padre Island, finding the coolest stuff washing up on the beaches from all over the world. We go back often every year, or Rock port down the road, with our large family now. Driving back there for a holiday, getting close and smiling when smelling the sea salt breeze, stinking shrimp and seaweed, and say ah, we're back home.

When I worked in an Indian health hospital I saw many cases of bubonic plague. I was also near ground zero of hantavirus when it was first identified in the us.

Hiya …. I was born in Corpus Christi, Texas. I loved the bay and the beaches and the sun and the seagulls. Ah, but I left Corpus when I was 24 years old and met a southern boy from Louisiana in a radiologic technology seminar in Houston. That’s all she wrote, folks. And here I am still, enjoying the forever southern hospitality, magnolia trees and sweet tea. selah …

You're right about 🌵 flowers, @MonicaWife. The blooms are beautiful! Even those nasty cholla trees sport delicate, colorful flowers. Cacti retain a great deal of water and this probably explains why they aren't big on flavor. But they're very juicy. Cacti are very tough and thrive even in drought. A gift from the Lord in the hard places. There's more life in the desert than folks who have never spent time there suspect.

For my Norske friend on here .... this is the Sonoran Desert, which is where Phoenix is. https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/public_lands/deserts/sonoran_desert/index.html

When I lived in Phoenix, elevation roughly 1000 feet, it rained less than there than it does in the mountains here 2 hours away. We have seen bobcats, javelina, deer, coyotes and many smaller critters around our house. We heard a wolf one night too. That sound grabs your attention. A coyote or dog has never sounded like that.

Desert areas will surprise you. I've referred to the high desert which is a desert climate at high altitude. I lived in the Manzano Mountains at 7,000 ft. (2.1 km) above sea level and this was in the high desert zone. A defining characteristic of the high desert is the composition of the soil, not necessarily average temperatures, and also the frequency/amount of precipitation. The frequency of precipitation is much lower, but this doesn't mean that it never snows nor rains in the high desert. One winter, we were hit with a blizzard that dumped over three feet (1 meter) of snow overnight. I would say the average snowfall during winter isn't very much at all, and even that meter of snow disappeared within a week or so. That's because of solar radiation (sunlight) warming the landscape. The land itself was too warm for snow to remain on the ground. It melts quickly! Bear, cougar, mountain lions, bobcats, and the very (very!) rare black panther live above the 7,000 ft. threshold in the forest zone. During that blizzard, bears were driven to lower altitudes in search of food; folks at lower altitudes spot wandering bears during adverse weather events like that one. There you are, driving along Highway 337... la-de-da, what a beautiful day!... when you spot a huge shaggy beast crossing the road up ahead. Oy, it's a bear! I told the story of how that blizzard drove bears down the slopes that winter. One of my dogs persuaded a wandering bear to keep off of our land. He was our hero dog. The wet bulb temperature can be 7 degrees F, but you'll watch snow melting like crazy all over the place. That's because the landscape is too warm to tolerate snow for long. Strange but true!

He also made other things like poisonous snakes that he said would be crushed under heels ( shudder ) ...as a child every time it snowed I ended up in hospital ..hence the evil bit

Anyone who wants to move to Norway has to eat Lutefisk once per day for 90 days, and like it.

We only have one type of "poisonous" snake 🐍 in Norway, and I doubt it is able to kill anyone, and it is seldom seen. I remember that when I was a child, we were picking wild berries together with our grandma, and suddenly one of those snakes (hoggorm) appeared, but grandma took a large stone and threw it on the snake, and it disappeared. She was a tiny little woman, but yet brave. 😊

swansea uni just a few miles along the coast the city about 7 miles from my home about 20mins from my homeused to walk here frommy home as a child this is where I often walk the dogs but only inautumn and winter as it is closed to dog during the summer city centre what is left of our castle (in themiddleof town )

for all you mad americans with your oh so dangerous places to live I live in Gods own country WALES no man eating plants only one type of snake and they are notoften seenapart fromcertainwilder places near the coast where some lunatics set aload free from a uni a few years ago miles and miles of coast with beautiful beaches,coast/country/town all within a few miles of each other and of course last lives here and enoob doesnt

My father is from central Florida. He told me a story about the little gator he kept in the bathtub until his grandmother caught wind of it. Out it went. He told me that story after my mother caught wind of the king snake I brought in my bedroom. Out it went. "It might seem like a good idea at the time, son. Turns out it isn't a good idea after all. Cheer up!"

Goats eat anything! I had a Billy that was trying out a tin can!

MonicaWife, LSU stands for Louisiana State University. Their mascot is the tiger. Although I'm not into sports, LSU football is a serious thing for some folks around here.

The Manzano Mountains, New Mexico. Bear, cougar, bobcat, elk, mule deer, black panthers, coyotes, hawks, and rattlesnakes apently. It's a strange place, mostly high desert with forest at higher elevations.

I love driving the back roads in search for moose, deer and bear. Some of the bike trails bring you to areas loaded with wildlife. What is best is there are no piousness snakes, except for a stray rattler every couple of years found mostly in southern New Hampshire.

I know she's been here a while and often does complain about the same thing but I'm still willing to believe the best about our sister in Christ and that she's trying to the best of her ability. As someone who's been abused by and very much under the thumb of my family in the past I know it can be hard to escape. I tried for years and still failed, and that was without being burdened by children. God delivered me in His time. That's all there was to it. To people who haven't been thoroughly trapped by adversarial relatives, severe anxiety issues, and so on it can seem mind boggling that a person can stay in an undesirable situation for so long, but it does happen. As for the original post... God knows your situation and the people you live with. Just pray, redouble your efforts to get out, and keep in mind that our God is well aware that there are things outside our control. He's protecting us even when we don't know it.

We lived in Saudi Arabia for several years when I was a child. The local goat herders would literally take their goats to the dump and let them forage for food. Pretty cost-effective! 😂

If you simply use Scripture ... Jude 1:9 Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee. Revelation 12:7 And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, Daniel 10:13 But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days: but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia.

That is so true! 😊 I'm sorry to hear about your persecution. 😔 May the Lord's peace and grace be with you and your family!

Colossians 3:3 (NASB20) For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To write of the truth that is put forth in the above scripture, oh, to have the pen of an angel…. For all good things are hidden in this verse, strength, comfort, hope, establishing, fearlessness, any and all good things are spoken of and put forth in the above truth…. For to enter into one’s death in Christ is entering into one’s new life in Christ, where the scripture that’s says; ‘I can do all things through Christ that strengthens me’ is experienced, known and lived out… All these good things are become real by experience in life, the old things have indeed been done away with and all things have indeed become new….. The heart that would embrace the above truth will in very short order learn that walking by faith is indeed walking after the Spirit…. For when experiencing being set free from oneself, the joy and heart felt rejoicing before God is so deep that one’s heart would gladly die the death to be freed from oneself the more… For being dead in Christ is the ultimate freedom, being hid with Christ in God is the ultimate hope, the ultimate of all good things… For the hearts faith that would venture to grab onto this truth is a heart that will taste of their salvation to a degree that before could only be dreamed of before the embracing…. For this truth laid hold of does bring, will always bring Christ into the life, for the just shall live by faith in the above truth….. The heart that would, is a heart that will taste….. In the Beloved, Not me

I am always deeply moved by Bette Midler's song The Rose. That ends with the lines.. When the night has been too lonely And the road has been too long And you think that love is only For the lucky and the strong Just remember in the winter Far beneath the bitter snow Lies the seed that with the sun's love In the spring becomes the rose

Thank you for stating this. I feel people who havent been in your shoes just dont get it. Im not willingly staying here. Im looking and applying daily. I am trying.

Reminds me of Colorado! I loved living in Colorado Springs in the 70's.

New Hampshire has some truly beautiful places. Most of my mother's side of the family moved there after my grandfather passed away. That's where we would go in between duty stations when I was growing up. Fitzwilliam and Troy, mostly. I lived in NH for a while as well.

I agree, it could be said about every generation up to now, but I see it more now than I have since I can remember.

Sounds tasty. I have harvested and eaten prickly pear fruit saguaro fruit and mesquite bean pods (as flour).

I watched a gaggle of goats demolish a cholla tree like the one in that photo you shared. 🤣 I just stood there looking at them in shock. Those horned varmints are immune! Didn't feel a thing. One of them had a pod stuck on their ear. I heard how goats can and will eat everything, but that was something else.

That's why God gave us men the woman, who are tougher and not intimidated by a little ole thorn.... I personally will not have any plant around my home that has a thorn. Period........Years back in the seventies I was stuck in the forehead with a 2" thorn from a century plant on our first older home we bought that I was remodeling. It broke off and had to used pliers to remove. Don't know why here in Texas so many restaurants have ornamental century plants just waiting to zap a customer with a serious thorn unawares. A simple "Keep of the Grass' sign would work fine. Cholla bud harvest.. The Cholla Bud is considered a delicacy in Texas. Yes Monica, we also have some strange taste buds here in the states. I wonder where they find recipes for thorn plants??

I was only skewered once. Once was enough. Ooooooooooo, it smarts! Here's what freaked me out, sister: Goats eat cholla, barbs and all.

Its beautiful, and wild. Wide open spaces. Dramatic thunderstorms. Gorgeous spring flowers. Folks from around the world come here to see the spring blooms.

We have cholla too. My husband is a cholla magnet. Tweezers are an essential tool in our car.

I lived through 123 degrees and in an act of defiance, I opted to take a short walk (very short) one time when it was 120.

Lol! Why do folks think I started a topic in the Humor forum about my tastes in food? Take gefilte fish, for instance. Love it! I had sashimi for the first time as little kid in Okinawa, and I've been "hooked" on fish ever since. Escargot? Yummy. Gimme some with melted butter. I draw the line where balut and century eggs are concerned. If Marathoner won't eat it, that says something, boy howdy!

There's different kinds of cholla. The one I'm thinking about is known as tree cholla, which grows all over the geographical region called the Estancia Valley. That runs from the Manzano mountains in the center of New Mexico all the way east to Texas. They also grow in the Manzanos. There's a peak in the Manzanos where you can look east all the way to Texas. There's another peak facing west where you can look down on the Isleta Pueblo and the city of Albuquerque. Very breathtaking view. I've watched thunderstorms from hundreds of miles away up there.

Indeed there is road up there called sky line drive quite beautiful. The mountain gets its the name from the blue haze that surrounds the mountains. Nor sure why it does that I'll have to look it up but probably some way it reflects the blue sky on to the mountains

USA Louisiana - home of the fire ants, mosquitos, alligators, loggerhead snapping turtle - he will take your arm OFF, 99% humidity, crawfish boils, beignets, gumbo, pralines, shrimp etouffee, Cajuns, Creoles, and LSU tigers.