Distribution

My brother explained to me a long time ago how he was slowly bringing a neighbor’s farm to his own farm.  It took a while but he ultimately made me see how when he bought hay from a neighbor and fed it to his own cattle he became the beneficiary of the nutrients from the neighbor’s farm as the manure was spread on my brother’s farm as fertilizer.  Ever so slowly those nutrients were being transferred from the neighbor’s farm to his own.

I know of a man in Colorado that raises hay for a living and trucks the product to New Mexico.  He is doing the same thing my brother explained to me, but a longer distance is involved.  Colorado nutrients are being hauled ever so slowly to New Mexico.

Out of nowhere tonight it dawned on me that some migratory birds support this same nutrient distribution system.  Ducks and Geese are prime examples of this phenomenon.  They live in the more northern areas all summer where they raise young.  The entire family of waterfowl live and eat where they nest in summer.  When it comes time to migrate the flying creatures remove some of the nutrients they have been eating to places in between their summer homes and their winter abode.  Here and there they defecate leaving some deposits of northern nutrients.  Once they have reached their destination a portion of them are slain and devoured by residents of the southern states.  In this case the waterfowl itself becomes the nutrients transported to a new place.

As I mused on this it struck me that an even larger transportation of nutrient moving is taking place on a continuous basis.  Oranges go from Florida to Maine.  Potatoes travel from Maine to California and strawberries are returned from there to New York.  There is really no end to this distribution as bananas move from South America to the United States and Spanish olives also travel in the same manner.

When one really thinks about it, humans are like a vast ant colony in the way they ever so slowly move things around on this planet.

Raccoon

A couple of coons have decided they like our bird feeder contents, and have been raiding them on a regularly nightly basis.  Our neighbor takes offense at the little thieving rascals not only eating the feed, but often wrecking the feeders in the process.  He set this live trap and captured this one.  It will be taken to an area away from people where it won't be so apt to get into trouble, and turned loose again.  For those not so fortunate to live in the country, this is what one looks like up close and sleepy.

Roaming

As my friendly farmer neighbor has corn planted in the field I use to access the beaver pond I have not been able to go back there for about two months now.  Lacking the ability to go there, I set out today to see what else I could see.  First I spotted these mushrooms.  I have no idea what kind they are, but I thought they had interesting patterns on their surfaces.  There were about twenty of them there, but I won't bore you to death with photos of all of them, but thought you might enjoy just one.

Next I drove under an apple tree that has grown wild on my property.  Aren't those beautiful juicy looking specimens high in the tree.  I need to take a ladder back there and pick at least one to determine what it tastes like.

When I returned to my home I continued across the road to my nephew's place and snapped a shot of their storage building they are in the process of building.  Each day they work a little more on it, and it is beginning to look like a real building now.

I continued on past the storage shed and took a tour of part of my nephew Bernard's property.  Over on the back corner of it his nephew Brian has planted some soy beans and turnips in small plots.  I've never asked the question, but I wonder if it has something to do with that deer hunting shack in the foreground?  All in all it was a nice half hour spent on the ATV.

One Of A Kind

Stephen Grover Cleveland was born March 18, 1837, thus was  a 47-year-old bachelor when he entered the White House as the American President in 1885.  The following June 2 he married the 21-year-old Frances Folsom in the Blue Room of the White House, the only President ever to have wed there.

Grover Cleveland was the only President ever to have two non-consecutive terms in office.  His first was from 1885 – 1889, while the second was from 1893 – 1897.

The Cleveland’s first daughter, Ruth was born in 1891 in between Grover’s two terms.  One hundred eighteen years ago today, August 30, 1893 their second daughter, Esther, was born as the first and only Presidential child to ever be born in the White House.

The President’s daughter in 1918 married Captain William Sidney Bence Bosanquet of the British Cold Stream Gaurds.  Her husband died in 1966, while the beautiful daughter of a President, born in the White House, lived on until she died in New Hamshire June 25, 1980.

Wow

I was 6 or 7 years old, and my sister Mary was maybe 13 or 14 at the time.  We were sitting side by side at our parents kitchen table doing school homework.  Suddenly Mary said, "I can bring a dead fly back to life."  Living on a dairy farm during the 1950s I had seem about a zillion dead flies in my short lifetime, but I never saw any of them return to life so I laughed at that idea.
Mary picked up a drinking glass about half full of water that had a drowned fly in it.  She asked me, "Is that fly dead?"
It certainly looked like it to me so I agreed it sure seemed dead.  Mary poured a little salt on the table from the shaker sitting there.  She placed the 'dead' fly in the salt and began to gently stir it around with a toothpick.  After a minute or so the fly flew away.  I was astounded.  I don't know now what the trick was, but I suspect she had seen the fly enter the glass and knew it was not dead, but merely in a state of distress.  Maybe she did know how to return a dead fly to life again.

Intrigue

As people who dabble in genealogy oft do I was wandering through the Flackville Cemetery yesterday.  What should I spot, but the following stone.  It appears to be fairly recently installed, with flowers freshly planted, and cared for.  However it did not appear to be a particularly recent burial.  It is possible there is no one even there at this time.
Obviously what drew my attention was the inscription.  Why would a tombstone say what this one does?  It has a solar powered light in front.  The flags may denote that the person buried, or who will be buried, there is, or was, military.  The light to the right with the anchors, may denote a Navy career.  The flag at the left rear denotes a member of the International Order of the Odd Fellows, whatever it is that they do.

The second photo shows that the stone is apparently a part of the Griffith family, in some manner.  Benjamin Griffith was a local farmer that I was acquainted with in my younger days.  I don't know what the relationship may have been.
It just seemed odd to me, to have it on a tombstone, "If I'm Not Here I'm In Africa."

Stupid

I wrote this as a short short story while in a creative writing class in college a dozen years or so ago.

Stupid

Leo Lawton

            We was brung up on a farm.  Before we was very old we knew all about life, how it came to be, and how short it could become.  Our farm was a dairy and we knew all about calves being borned, and how before they was a day or two old they went off to the veal market.  Short and sweet, life was quick.

            What difference did it make?  Animals was dumb anyway.  There wasn’t any of ‘em had a lick of sense.  When we was filling the silo with corn, and all the juice was squashing out, our chickens would happen along and gulp it.  Now if you think animals ain’t dumb, then you just ain’t never seen a drunk chicken.

            I was ten when we got Stupid.  No, we didn’t get stupid.  He was a puppy that showed up and adopted us.  He was just one of them strays of life that happen, I think.  Stupid would chase his tail ‘til he’d get dizzy and fall down.  Then he’d chase my rabbit, ‘til Bugs would get sick of it and stop.  Stupid didn’t know what to do about that.

            One day Stupid got too close, latched onto poor Bugs, and broke his neck.  Stupid just sat there with his head cocked sorta cornerways and stared.  His friend wouldn’t run any more.  As I watched a tear coursed down my cheek.  From the wind, I think.  Animals is all dumb anyway.