Three-year-old troublemaker

Echoes from the Loafers’ Club Meeting

  I told my sister that she had drawn her eyebrows too high.

 

  How did she take that?

 

  She looked surprised.

 

Driving by Bruce’s drive

  I have a wonderful neighbor named Bruce. Whenever I pass his drive, thoughts occur to me. The rain sounded cold. That’s because it was cold. For many years of my walking on this good Earth, such things signaled it was time to get the house ready for cold weather by putting up the storm windows and stacking firewood. I’d scurry up a sturdy (our least wobbly) ladder while carrying a putty knife to pry out any stubborn screens before replacing them with the storm windows. Then we installed tar paper first, followed by straw (or hay) bales around the base of the house to insulate the uninsulated stone foundation. This was meant to block freezing drafts and lower the amount of wood and fuel oil needed for heating. Stacking the bales tightly against the home’s base stopped the frigid winter wind from rushing into crawl spaces or uninsulated floor cavities. Without such precautions, the wind gained speed as it whipped through the house. Standard bales provided an R-value that I am guessing was even higher than their X-value or Z-value, but I’m no expert. We did all this without consulting a single woolly bear caterpillar (woolly worm) or for that matter, a single woolly mammoth. Woolly bear caterpillars cannot predict the weather, but I examine them each year. I like simple answers, of which there are few, perhaps none. Folklore says long black bands mean a harsh, cold and snowy winter. A wide, rusty brown middle band predicts a mild winter. If the dark head is the longest, it means a severe early winter, while if the dark tail is longer, it foretells a cold late winter. The reality is that the bands show the caterpillar's age and how much it has eaten, not future weather. But keep looking—we get plenty of reality elsewhere.

 

Read any good 

T-shirts lately?

 

   I see a lot of T-shirts worth reading: here are three of them.

 

  “Family troublemaker” being worn by a 3-year-old boy but would have been just as proper on a grandfather.

 

  Stupid should hurt.

 

  I’d agree with you but then we’d both be wrong.

 

I’ve learned

  The hardest thing to say is “I'm sorry,” but “Worcestershire” has to be a close second.

 

  I’m the world’s greatest advocate of hyperbole.

 

  Mumbling is the glue that holds a marriage together.

 

Bad jokes department

  What happens when you call the tinnitus hotline? It just keeps ringing.

 

  If you drive a Subaru in reverse, what are you? U r a bus.

 

  I asked the librarian if there were any books on the Titanic. She said, “Probably, but they would be soaking wet by now.”

 

  I saw a man pushing a wheelbarrow filled with horseshoes, four-leaf clovers and rabbit's feet. He was pushing his luck.

 

Nature notes

  Not all gulls are eating pilfered pizza or fallen french fries in a parking lot. A Bomgaars store had a large flock of ring-billed gulls on its roof. The Latin word “arena” means sand, and the stage where gladiators and exotic animals engaged in mortal combat was covered in a thin layer of sand. The store’s roof might have been a gull arena. There are at least 28 gull species in North America, and not one of them is officially called a seagull. They are named Bonaparte’s gull, herring gull, ring-billed gull, Franklin’s gull, etc.

 

  My neighbor Crandall enjoys watching true crime documentaries. That’s what he says he is doing when the squirrels swipe the seed from one of his bird feeders.

 

  A flock of starlings filled a tree. They were noisy, definitely not the silent majority. They are complex learners and were likely sharing the news of the day, the locations of predators, food sources, prime roosting sites, their hopes and dreams, and their frustrations with dunderheaded humans.

 

  The number of pheasants counted in Minnesota DNR’s August roadside survey jumped nearly 20% from last year. This year’s pheasant index was 90 birds per 100 miles of roads driven, compared to 75 birds in 2025. There were 93 broods per 100 hens, an increase from 82 broods per 100 hens in 2025, with an average of four chicks per brood. Weather and habitat are the main influences on Minnesota’s pheasant population. There was a net loss of about 22,500 acres of protected wildlife habitat compared to 2025. The cottontail rabbit index (14 rabbits per 100 miles) was similar to 2025 (14.5 rabbits per 100 miles).

 

Meeting adjourned

  Mark Twain wrote, “I could live two months on a good compliment.” Please become an expert at forgiveness, be happy about the good fortune of others, and offer kind words.