Having trouble with the circle flies?

ECHOES FROM THE LOAFERS’ CLUB MEETING

  Do you exercise?

  I go to the gym almost every day.

  Really?

  Yes, I almost went to the gym today.

 

DRIVING BY BRUCE’S DRIVE

  I have a wonderful neighbor named Bruce. Whenever I pass his drive, thoughts occur to me. A disheveled man shuffled by—a poor old sod with lots of creaky parts. I thought he was one scruffy dude until I realized I was looking at a hospital mirror. Inside every hospitalized person is a healthy person wondering what happened. I felt slow afoot, but grateful that medical research had been funded. Before my surgery, the anesthesiologist asked if I'd like to be knocked out with gas or hit over the head with a boat paddle. It was an ether/oar situation. Later, I learned that whether they ripped the adhesive bandages off quickly or slowly depended on my insurance. If Wile E. Coyote made it through his troubles, why couldn’t I make it through mine?

 

  I made a corncob pipe with the aid of a buddy. It was a dandy, the best I’d ever owned, but I was only 12. For my youthful adventure, I crafted the homemade pipe from a corncob, hardened by drying, for a bowl, and a hollow piece of elderberry cane as a pipe stem. We didn’t have any tobacco and had considered swiping a cigarette from his father’s pack, but we worried he had counted them. Curly dock stands 3 feet tall in the ditches, and its rust-brown seed stalks look like tobacco. Behind the barn, we fired up the pipe filled with curly dock seeds by use of a Zippo lighter borrowed from my friend’s father. It lit the first time every time. Unfortunately. We each took an unhealthy puff. No fields in the township had ever been as green as we turned. There was a reason Prince Albert didn’t take curly dock seeds into the can with him.

 

I’VE LEARNED

  A John Deere X9-1100 combine could harvest 7,000 bushels of corn per hour.

 

  No matter what the problem was, my father thought a potato could make it better. It was good for what ailed you. He was a you tuber before there was YouTube.

 

  Yellow jackets, no-see-ums and multicolored Asian lady beetles make eating outside no picnic.

 

BAD JOKES DEPARTMENT

  A Texas sheriff pulled a cowboy over for speeding. The sheriff gave a long lecture about slowing down and swatted at the flies buzzing around his head as he tried to write the ticket. The cowboy said, “Having trouble with those circle flies, huh?”

 

  The sheriff frowned and said, “Circle flies? Never heard of them.”

 

  The cowboy grinned. “They’re as common as dirt on the ranches around here. They’re called circle flies because they’re found circling a horse’s rear end.”

 

  The sheriff paused and asked, “Wait a minute, are you calling me a horse’s rear end?”

 

  The cowboy said, “Oh no, sir! I’d never disrespect a sheriff that way.”

 

  The sheriff nodded and said, “Glad to hear it,” as he went back to completing the citation.

 

  The cowboy added, “I’d never call you that, but it’s impossible to fool them circle flies.”

 

  I am the genie of the lamp and I’ll grant you three wishes.

 

  I want a world without lawyers.

 

  Granted. You’re done.

 

  Wait a minute. I still have two more wishes.

 

  So sue me.

 

NATURE NOTES

  The silver maple is a fast-growing tree. The upper surface of its leaf is bright green, and the lower surface is silvery white. The pale underside gives the tree a "silvery" appearance in a breeze.

 

  An adult male ruby-throated hummingbird has a metallic ruby-red throat (gorget) and a forked tail with feathers pointed and all dark (no white tips). An adult female has a white throat with an occasional faint tan streaking and a fan-shaped tail with rounded feathers and white tips on the outer three feathers on each side. An immature male looks identical to an adult female, including the white tips to a fan-shaped tail, except he has a noticeably streaked throat. A juvenile female looks similar to an adult female.

 

  Wireworms are the larvae of several species of click beetles. Click beetles flip into the air with an audible click to right themselves when overturned. Wireworm larvae feed on beans, beets, cabbage, carrots, corn, grasses, lettuce, onion, ornamentals, peas, potatoes and radishes. Wireworms are thin, shiny, jointed, yellow to reddish-brown, 1/4 to 1 1/2 inch long, worm-like larvae resembling mealworms. Adult click beetles don’t cause plant damage.

 

MEETING ADJOURNED

  “Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?’”―Martin Luther King Jr. Be kind.