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Echoes from the

Loafers’ Club Meeting

It’s a sad thing.

What’s that?

All I’ve saved for a rainy day is the umbrella I lost.

Driving by Bruce’s drive

I have a wonderful neighbor named Bruce. Whenever I pass his drive, thoughts occur to me. Vital statistics from the CDC and NCHS show the states that have the longest life expectancies are: 1. Hawaii (79.9 years), 2. Massachusetts, 3. Connecticut, 4. New Jersey and New York, 6. Minnesota (78.8 years), 7. New Hampshire and Rhode Island,  9. Vermont, 10. California, Nebraska is 13, Wisconsin 14, Iowa 16 (77.7 years), North Dakota 17 and South Dakota 24.The shortest-lived people reside in 1. Mississippi (70.9 years), 2. West Virginia (71), 3. Alabama, 4. Louisiana, 5. Kentucky, 6. Tennessee, 7. Arkansas, 8. Oklahoma, 9. New Mexico, 10. South Carolina. Many sources show the average lifespan of someone living in Canada is 3 years longer than someone living in the U.S.

1. Pick a number between 1 and 10

2. Double the number.

3. Add 8 to the result.

4. Divide the result by 2.

5. Subtract the original number.

6. Convert this into a letter of the alphabet.

A =1, B = 2, C = 3, D = 4, E = 5, F = 6, G = 7, H = 8, I = 9, J =10, K =11, L =12, M =13, N =14, O =15,

P =16, Q =17, R =18, S =19, T = 20, U = 21, V = 22, W = 23,  X = 24, Y = 25, Z = 26

7. Think of the name of a country that starts with this letter.

8. Think of an animal whose name starts with the country’s second letter.

9. Think of the color of that animal.

Are you thinking of a gray elephant in Denmark?

Bad jokes department

I watched “Duck Soup” and ‘A Night at the Opera,” starring the Marx Brothers: Chico, Harpo, Groucho, Gummo and Zeppo. I’d forgotten about their sister, who was a great Olympic runner. Her name was Onya. They honor her at the beginning of every race.

I just found out Albert Einstein was a real person. I thought he was a theoretical physicist.

I bought a horse named Mayo. Sometimes, Mayo neighs.

What do you call an ungrateful water heater? A thankless water heater.

Nature notes

The sun had just gotten up, and the turkeys were doing roadwork. They relish standing in the middle of a road and attempting to stare down cars. Large flocks of blackbirds fed in a field near the road. One black squirrel was near them. Seeing the lake, the duck said, “What a dive.” Minnesota diving ducks are the canvasback, redhead, ringneck (ringbill), scaup (bluebill), goldeneye, bufflehead and ruddy duck.

From Mary Oliver’s poem “Invitation”: “…it is a serious thing just to be alive on this fresh morning in this broken world. I beg of you, do not walk by without pausing to attend this rather ridiculous performance…” It was a cool and damp morning. The yard held many fallen sticks I gathered while listening to robin, cardinal, redwing, dove and pheasant voices. A vesper sparrow sang, “Oh-oh-my-my, its-such-a-beautiful day” from an elevated perch. My farming father loved hearing that. That sparrow sings at any time of the day but gets its name from its evening hymns (vespers), “Listen to my evening sing-ing-ing-ing.” I watched an eastern phoebe pursue flying insects I couldn’t discern. My birdfeeders are locally owned and operated. LBJs filled the space below the seed dispensaries. Little Brown Jobs, including white-throated sparrows, song sparrows and chipping sparrows. I saw kinglet, sapsucker, bluebird, yellow-rumped warbler, bumblebee, butterfly, dragonfly and meadowlark nearby. After giving a bazillion talks, I’ve learned that no one who has heard a western meadowlark song ever forgets it.

I take in the feeders at night because of the rampaging and pillaging done by raccoons. Each morning, I return those feeders to their proper places. Blue jays magically appear to grab any peanuts I put out.

I saw red admiral butterflies the first week of April. They’re named for the red-bar markings on their black upper wings. They have white in the upper corners of the forewings. The undersides of the wings, often visible when the butterfly perches, are mottled in brown, tan and black, with a pink band and white spotting on the forewing. Some red admirals migrate south in the fall, and others overwinter in the adult or pupal stage.

The caterpillar host plants are from the nettle family, including stinging nettle and wood nettle. The adults feed on sap flows, fermenting fruit and bird droppings, visiting flowers when other foods are unavailable.

Meeting adjourned

“The best portion of a good man’s life is his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.”—William Wordsworth.