Echoes from the Loafers’ Club Meeting

My wife and I are having an argument. I’m the one that should be mad. She used my toothbrush on the dog’s teeth.

I’ve never won a single argument with my bride.

I’m winless against mine, too. She can remember things that haven’t happened yet.

Driving by Bruce’s drive

I have a wonderful neighbor, named Bruce. Whenever I pass his drive, thoughts occur to me, such as: I drove down the road playing the name-that-animal-carcass game. I’d stepped in worse. I was raised sustainably and cage-free on a farm where everyone stepped in animal exhaust. My life was full of localized adventures and I found vanilla ice cream with crackers exciting. A man at a library told me, “You have to eat a peck of dirt before you die.” A peck is about 8 quarts. Peter Pan advised, “Just think of happy things, and your heart will fly on wings.”

The calendar told me that school would be firing up once again. And so it begins, an epic migration of yellow buses from summer haunts to institutes of learning.

My parents taught me to wave at the neighbors, but it was a school bus that taught me to wave bye-bye.

From Socrates

to a miller in the ear

Socrates apparently said that an unexamined life is not worth living. After spending too much time in a hospital and being thoroughly examined, I certainly find life worth living.

I still spend a lot of time trying to get out of my own way. I worked at the Steele County Free Fair. I put new monarch butterflies into children’s hands for release. The smiles on the faces of the kids and their families brought me great happiness. That Fair saw an increase in attendance in 2018 to an estimated 313,046 fairgoers. I talked to a lot of good people who brought pleasant memories with them. I had a nice visit with a fairgoer about a TV show I did for years. She told me that her friend had named her puppy after me. I imagined the dog had been a chronic drooler. A friend claims he puts my column on the bottom of a birdcage so his parakeet with the lingering constipation problem would have both an incentive and a target. A former waitress reminded me that I’d had a plate named after me at a cafe. No, it wasn’t full of baloney. A man said he knew the lady from St. Paul who had entered a scarecrow in the State Fair. It was labeled, “Al Batt.” It looked like me and we shared a personality. The scarecrow won first prize in the doofus category.

Back at home, I sat on the deck, returning phone calls and watching moths move about. I remember playing on the softball field bordering a wetland in Geneva. The moths were so numerous some nights that they dimmed the diamond’s lights. Many players and fans referred to them as millers. A miller is a small moth having powdery scales on its wings and is attracted to light. I heard somebody say he had a miller fly up his nose. I had one fly into my ear and its fluttering nearly drove me crazy. The fluttering stopped in a day or so. The moth had died. I wonder what Socrates would have said about an unexamined ear?

Nature notes

“Is it OK to put walnut leaves into a compost pile?” Maybe not. Pliny the Elder, a Roman naturalist, first cited allelopathy in about 77 A.D. He noted the toxic effects of black walnut on neighboring plants in a landscape. Allelopathy involves a plant’s secretion of biochemicals that inhibit germination or growth of surrounding vegetation. Allelopathy enhances tree survival and reproduction. Walnuts are masters at defending their turf, thanks to a chemical called juglone found in all parts of the tree – including the nuts, bark and leaves. Some claim the heat from composting breaks down the juglone. I error on the side of caution and don’t count on that. Juglone is particularly effective in stunting nightshade plants such as tomatoes, peppers and eggplants.

“What are predators of monarch butterfly caterpillars and eggs?” Spiders and ants prey upon the eggs. Ants, spiders and wasps attack monarch larvae on milkweed plants. Parasitoids, specialized insects such as small flies and wasps, lay eggs on or inside caterpillars. Parasitoid larvae eat their prey from the inside out, emerging from the prey carcass as a pupa or adult. Parasites are smaller organisms that live and multiply inside the caterpillars, taking nutrients and resources.

Meeting adjourned

Allow others to be kind to you.