Echoes from the Loafers’ Club Meeting

I’ve never made a dime raising cattle.

Then why do you do it?

I don’t know how to do anything else.

Driving by the Bruces

I have two wonderful neighbors–both named Bruce–who live across the road from each other. Whenever I pass their driveways, thoughts occur to me, such as: According to CandyStore.com, the most popular (based on sales) Halloween candy in Iowa is candy corn followed by M&M’s and Reese’s Cups. Tootsie Pops leads the way in Minnesota, then Skittles and candy corn. 

Volkswagen will stop producing the Beetle next year. No more “Slug bug!” There will be a dramatic decrease in shoulder injuries.

Roadwork is plentiful this year. That means orange traffic barrels bloom in abundance. Many barrels are hit by automobiles. I figure most of the collisions are caused by inattentive or impaired drivers and hit in the dark of night or during inclement weather. I drove an interstate that had been reduced from two lanes to one due to road construction. It was 2:30 on a sunny afternoon. The weather was nearly perfect. The speed limit was 60 mph. There was a white Lincoln behind me driven by a young woman with a child in the car. How did I know? Because she was tailgating me. I drove 60 as she tried to park in my tailpipe. Her license plate wasn’t visible in my rearview mirror. She appeared preoccupied. I’d have pulled over to let her pass, but there was no place allowing that. She hit one of those orange barrels on her left. She pulled over for a few seconds, but it wasn’t long before she was failing to maintain a safe distance behind me once again. Lesson discarded.

What will winter bring us?

Protagoras said, “Man is the measure of all things.” It’s usually interpreted to mean that the individual is the ultimate source determining value. This certainly applies to weather.

“The Old Farmer’s Almanac” foretells a winter of above-normal temperatures. Northern Alaska will see the greatest change, with an average temperature of 8 degrees above normal. The Upper Midwest is predicted to see a 4 to 6 degree increase. Only the Desert Southwest, Pacific Southwest, southern Alaska and eastern parts of Hawaii are predicted to see lower-than-average temperatures, by a range of 1 to 2 degrees. The Old Farmer’s Almanac uses a unique, ancient formula that’s claimed to be 80 percent accurate. Its weather forecast methodology stems from a secret formula devised by its founder, Robert B. Thomas, in 1792. Thomas thought sunspots, those magnetic storms on the surface of the sun, influenced weather and he developed a formula for weather prediction that is locked in a black box in the Almanac’s offices in Dublin, New Hampshire.

Why can’t cold and flu have separate seasons?

Why is it “a cold,” but “the flu”? Because “the cold” and “a flu” sounds wrong. How do I tackle a common cold? I’ve never tried tackling one. I’ve tried almost everything else. None of them worked, so I reckon I’ll keep doing what I’ve been doing to fight colds. “What’s that?” you might ask. Nothing. Well, nothing other than complaining.

I hear people say, “I can’t complain.” That is incorrect. They could complain, but they choose not to.

I got a flu shot. I hope that will grant me immunity.

Nature notes

Historically, the common loon bred throughout Minnesota, as far south as into Iowa, although they were likely uncommon in the prairies. Today, breeding loons range across the northern two-thirds of the Gopher State. Five loon chicks were moved to Fish Lake, in Le Sueur County, by Maine researchers in 2014. Nine young loons were transplanted from northern Minnesota lakes to Fish Lake in 2015. Loons require clear water, which make it easy to see prey, with abundant populations of small fish.

Chickadees, nuthatches and blue jays cache food. They hide food around their territory in a behavior known as scatter-hoarding. This aids survival when food sources become scarce. Neurobiologists found that the part of a bird brain that processes spatial information changes in the fall to help them recall hidden food and reverts to its prior condition in the spring. Birds remember the location of hidden goodies for a month or longer. A single blue jay can cache as many as 5,000 acorns by burying them in the ground up to 2.5 miles from the source. A married jay might hide even more.

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Meeting adjourned

A smile is magic anyone can do. Be kind.