That picture looks more like the fluff from cottonwood seeds, or something similar. It does not look at all like mold on lettuce does, or any other fungi/disease/pathogen

 "the fact rumours like that exist here is a good indication that Gollum might have been here".

Yes, exactly. Gollum was a cannibal. He killed and ate anything and anyone he felt he safely could. And preferred to prey on the young when possible. That fact was established at his first appearance in The Hobbit.

The reason rumors of a "blood drinking ghost" killing and eating young animals, and young children stealthily was a good indication Gollum was there, is because Gollum was known to stealthily kill and eat animals and people and preferred young victims. Unless you are claiming that something else, unrelated to Gollum, was killing and eating babies. And despite not being Gollum, it was somehow still a good indication of his presence?

Sorry, it was the elves of Mirkwood who investigated, Aragorn caught up with Gollum later. I got mixed up as to who was tracking Gollum at which point. However, my point stands. Do you honestly think Gandalf would repeat those rumors at that time if he was not pretty confidant they were true? And do you think the elves of Mirkwood would have been unable to tell if it was Gollum they were following, or creatures from their own forest?

Overcome it? No, of course not. But remember. Smeagol, on seeing the ring was willing to murder his closest friend in cold blood. Bilbo while wearing the ring showed mercy to someone who was trying to kill and eat him. The ring absolutely can influence people, and gain more and more influence over time. Especially if they often wear it. But, we see in the books it CAN NOT instantly make people act in a way totally alien to their nature.

So, even before coming in contact with the ring, Smeagol was a terrible, selfish, greedy, and vicious person. needing only the smallest push to become a cold-blooded murderer. And where Bilbo, after returning home mostly used the ring to avoid some irritating relatives, Smeagol used to to sneak around and spy on other people and cause trouble, until he was driven out of town.

A rumor investigated by Aragorn. And a rumor repeated by Gandalf. Do you think either of them would repeat a rumor without being pretty damn confidant it was at least mostly true?

Sympathy, perhaps. Pity, certainly. He had a truly miserable life no matter how you look at it. But remember, he got the ring by murdering his closest friend in cold blood. Before he had even touched the ring, he was a terrible person who was willing to kill for trivial reasons. And no matter how terrible his life was, that doesn't change the fact that he was willing to murder his friend so causally. And some people may argue the ring made him do it. But remember, Bilbo, while wearing the ring, chose to show mercy to someone who had planned to kill and eat him. Smeagol, while only looking at the ring, was willing to kill his closest friend.

(Also, most of the terrible things that happened to Gollum were in some way a result of his own actions and choices. I'm not saying he deserved everything that happened to him. But he was in no way an innocent victim, or hapless pawn, of the ring.)

I think you are over thinking this. I've never been unable to tell my own cats apart, even when some were the same size, build, and coat color. That just meant I had to actually look and couldn't tell from a quick glance. And I've never had cats with identical personalities.

Different collars helps a lot with kittens, they change so much as they grow it's not always easy to keep similar colored, sized, and aged kittens straight. But by the time they are adults, if you pay attention you probably won't have an issue. My family has three cats right now, and two are similar sized tabbies with the exact same color and tabby pattern, the third's a torti. I can tell which cat jumps on the bed at night without opening my eyes, because all three walk differently. They also all have different fur textures, even though all three are short haired.

Sorry for the accidental double post

My daughter goes to school with a kid named Kylo

It being specifically the age of 33, is a cultural thing, but not being fully adult until around 30 or so definitely is a lifespan/rate of aging thing once you look at the ages of hobbits in the books.

There are no large glaciers in the Rockies today, and the first major glaciation event in the Rockies was less than 2 million years ago. There is no part of those mountains that has been "ice-capped" remotely near 65 million years.

Much of the uplift that brought the Andes to their current height happened in the last 30 million years. Long after the K/T extinction 65 million years ago. They would not have been "ice-capped" until millions of years after the K/T extinction.

https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/the-andes-mountainous-paradox-so-tall-so-young/

https://www.nature.com/news/2007/070312/full/news070312-4.html

In the book it says that hobbits "come of age" at 33. As in that's when they are considered an adult. And that Bilbo was 50 when he set out with Gandalf and the Dwarves, And clearly he was not an old man of a hobbit at the start of the adventure. And Bilbo mentions an ancestor of his reaching the age of 130 (without the assistance of any ring) and in the appendix you can find hobbit family trees that show they often lived into their 90's or around 100.

If you compare them to real world humans living in a preindustrial time, in a fairly productive farming community similar to the Shire, Hobbits would have aged slightly faster than half the speed of real world humans, and lived almost twice as long. As in the kind of real world situations that are as close to the Shire as you are likely to find. People were often considered adults somewhere in their late teens, and elderly in their 60's as compared to the hobbit's age of 33 for adulthood, and nearing 100 for elderly.

Edited to add, I think Sam was in his late 30's or so at the start of the quest. And was considered to be a young adult by other hobbits. He was still living at home with his parents at the time. And Rosie Cotton, who became his wife, was fairly close in age to him.

Dwarves have beards, have features that to humans look rough and older, have stocky and muscular bodies, and are usually armored and heavily armed. Hobbits are even shorter than humans, have round faces, soft features, and plump bodies. They have no facial hair, and dress in clothes that are not at all suited for fighting, and look comfortable and soft. And, while Frodo was a mature adult by hobbit standards, he looked much younger than his actual age even to hobbit eyes. Sam was a few years younger than Frodo, Merry and Pippin, younger still. In fact by hobbit standards, I think Pippin wasn't actually an adult. More equivalent to late teens. (He was about 20 years younger than Frodo)

So, for quite a few reasons, the hobbits would have looked almost like children at first glance. And maybe a second and third glance as well for some of them.

There is nowhere on the planet they would have stayed frozen all that time. Here is a map of what the continents looked like at the time of the K/T extinction. At that time, Antarctica had a cool and wet climate, NOT freezing though it did have snow in the winter, and large parts of it were covered in thick forests. It would have been a little like the climate of modern England. Antarctica didn't start to get permanent ice caps until over twenty million years after the K/T extinction, and even then it was not entierly iced over for millions more years. And remains of plants found show that parts of it at least have thawed several times since then. The current highest mountains on earth, were seafloor at that time. The North Pole was, and still is, ocean, not land. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/31/Arctic_circle.svg/1200px-Arctic_circle.svg.png  It would have been open ocean, not an icecap at the time

I have sunflowers in my yard, and they always get some small bugs on them, aphids, leafhoppers, and the like. (I don't spray them with anything) Not enough to slow down the sunflowers any. But hummingbirds swarm them, picking off little bugs all day, with quick trips to some nearby flowers for a sip of nectar. The bugs on the sunflowers attract more hummingbirds than the hummingbird feeder does.

Edited to add, apparently nesting hummingbirds especially need a good proportion of bugs in their diet, both for them and to feed their nestlings.

What kind of birds does your pet store call budgies? Because Harry looks like a regular (if smart and chatty) parakeet/budgie to me.

A lot of animals can do far more than most people realize. It just takes a halfway bright example of their species, and a human who spends a LOT of time interacting with them.

There's a few species in the area, and any frog or toad will probably happily eat the roaches. Spadefoot toads are (as far as I know) the ones that like to hang out on my porch in the summer after rains, and eat bugs attracted by the light

I'm not an expert, but spadefoot toads have a vertical eye pupil, and a hard, wedge-shaped, often dark colored, area on their hind feet they use to dig. Areas of town with more sources of moisture than my neiborhood, I've seen a lot of Woodhouse toads. They are chubby, very warty little guys, with horizontal pupils, and a light stripe down their spine. They also seem to eat a ton of roaches

It does, but I like the texture better when the onions aren't heated during the pickling. Personal preferance.

That would be the best possible outcome, but I still think the best likely outcome is stinky, rotting, garbage.

A wider variety of native insects, including ones that compete with the roaches for food outside, and ones that eat roaches, seems to really reduce the roach population. More lizards and spadefoot toads helps too I think.

Normal for the sun to be more active right now, but the solar maximum isn't always this active.

Yes, sewing, beadwork, knitting, embroidery, anything like that is very meditative for me and helps a lot with anxiety.

I remember that one, my mom liked to watch it. Didn't the Mountie have a deaf wolf/dog that was possibly smarter than either of the human main characters?

The most traditional kinds of pickles use salt and water, and let lacto bacteria ferment and create the acid. Using vinegar is kind of a shortcut in pickling. (A delicious one!) Fermented pickles are also a probiotic food, like yogurt, and eating them could have some health benefits because of that. Though they are also high in salt, which some people need to limit for health reasons.