Echoes from the Loafers’ Club Meeting:

“It took me two hours to gather one egg in the henhouse.”

“Why so long?”

“The hen fruit kept moving. It was suffering from restless egg syndrome.”

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: When you put things back where they belong, you can never find them.

The news from Hartland

Local man, age 86, finishes marathon. He began the marathon when he was 55.

Fifty Shades of Gary treated at emergency room after he turned down the thermostat in front of his wife.

The Taxidermy Cafe promises to stuff its customers.

The “check your will” light came on

The check engine light came on in the car. It does so frequently. When it happens, I take it into the shop and they perform some sort of magic and the light goes off. I considered putting duct tape over the light, but have resisted doing that so far. Each time it comes on I have an interrobang about it. An interrobang, a punctuation mark that combines a question mark and an exclamation point, is used at the end of a simultaneous question and exclamation.

The car has been a loyal and faithful servant, unlike some of my past vehicles, such as the rattletrap that I knew was out of oil when it stopped leaking oil.

The check engine light reminded me that my wife and I should update our wills. We need to make sure that our debt goes to the right place when we’re no longer around to shepherd it.

When we arrived at the attorney’s office and we’d covered the prerequisite small talk, the lawyer said, “Now, which one of you wants to go first?”

My neighbor

The east-west roads are the worst winter roads. Those who live on north-south roads might not agree. They are wrong.

She lives on an east-west road. This winter has been the longest she could remember. She hunkered down and amused herself by scraping the window on her microwave and by watching her cat chase mice. It’s an event in the cat Olympics. Unfortunately, her feline is of the catch-and-release set. My neighbor doesn’t spend much time outdoors. She isn’t a smoker. She participates in some outdoor activities. Particularly the one in which she needs to climb over snowbanks in order to cross the street. She has turned up the thermostat in the hopes it would make spring feel welcome. Her brother and his family decided to take an extended vacation in Arizona. She stayed home. Her brother’s family returned home and paid her a visit. One of them gave her a cold brought back from Arizona. With both family and winter, it helps to have a forgiving spirit.

Cafe chronicles

It was a great conversation at the We’re Still Here Cafe. Everyone had his or her own topic.

A woman, mother of many children, told everyone who she thought should know that she’d spent about half her life in labor. She runs a cat rescue. She is so dedicated to helping cats, that when she dies, she wants to be cremated and her remains put into the cat litter.

Customer comments

Sheryl Young of Sandusky, Ohio wrote, “I am sure you have experienced snow atop your car thawing and refreezeing until it is rock hard, then when you suddenly slow to stop or turn, it breaks loose and comes crashing down across your windshield scaring the whatever out of you. I call that an autolanche.”

Did you know?

According to a study from “Apartment Guide,” an entry-level one-bedroom apartment in Williston, N.D. has, on average, the highest rent in the nation. A 700 square-foot, one bedroom apartment in Williston costs an average of $2,394 a month. Dickinson ranks fourth at an average of $1,733 a month. Boston is sixth, New York is seventh, Los Angeles is eighth, and Chicago didn’t crack the top 10.

Nature notes

Wayne and Shirley Gunderson of Albert Lea asked where great horned owls nest and how many young they have. The great horned owl uses a variety of nest sites, including trees, cliffs, buildings, and occasionally the ground. It doesn’t make its own nest, typically taking over nests in trees made by other species such as hawk, crow, heron, or squirrel. It will nest in tree hollows or broken snags. It typically lays one to four eggs.