To the zoo

Last week was strange. I was childless once again. Jacob got to take a vacation week from daycare and visit Grandma Debbie and company. My mom and dad came early last week, spent a few days, then packed up the kid and headed south. When I got home Tuesday night, it was awful quiet at home. And very lonely.

But Nate and I got used to it fast. I woke up a few times the first night, but by the third, I was sleeping the best for more than a year. We also said we would go out with some friends once for a night out, but that never materialized. Each night, we’d get home and be too tired to go out.

Meanwhile, Jacob was enjoying his aunts, uncles and various other relatives. When he visited my grandpa in assisted living, he about got attacked by all the ladies coming to see the cute little boy. At one point, one lady decided she wanted to pick Jacob up from Grandpa’s lap. But he wasn’t ready to let go yet, so Jacob became the object of a short tug-o-war before one of my parents intervened. Although he’s a little wary of strangers, he warms up to them pretty fast. The trick is to let him meet the new person before they just grab hold of him. He’s quite a ham, but doesn’t like strange people passing him around.

On Friday night, Nate and I headed down to my parents for the weekend. The trip had a three-fold purpose. First, we took four round bales of bedding for my parents. In exchange, we brought back four of my heifers to add to my and Nate’s herd. Oh yeah, and we had to pick up Jacob, too.

While planning for the trip, Nate told me this time he wanted to “do something,” not just visit with my family all weekend.
After trying to think of something, I stumbled upon the answer while trying to solve the problem of no flamingo picture for the upcoming Rural Living section: the zoo. Madison has a wonderful, free zoo: Henry Vilas Park and Zoo not too far from downtown. It was predicted to be a nice day, so on Saturday we packed up Jacob and a few of my siblings and headed for the zoo.

Even though I didn’t get a flamingo picture (they aren’t out yet), it was a fun trip. They’ve added a lot of stuff since I was there last in third grade. There is one design flaw at this zoo. Most of the railings are just the height of Jacob when he’s in his stroller. He wasn’t alone; the zoo was crowded with kids trying to peek over the railing from their stroller.

Even with an excellent view of the rails, he seemed fascinated with the animals, especially the polar bears and primates. I decided we needed a family picture with the polar bears in the background to record the first family trip to the zoo. Unfortunately, Jacob didn’t really want to cooperate. He couldn’t take his eyes off the bears behind him. After a few minutes of trying to get his attention, I gave up and told my sister just to take the picture. So now, we have a nice picture of me, Nate, a polar bear and the back of Jacob’s head.

Spring, spring, spring

Spring is the only season in Wisconsin that doesn’t come long before the calendar says it does. By the time June 21 rolls around, the kids are out on summer break and we’ve already broken out the shorts and swim suits. By the fall equinox comes, we’ve already had frost and the corn harvest is in full swing. And I don’t have to tell you how many inches of snow have fallen before the winter solstice is upon us.

But spring is a little more elusive. We may get hints of it here and there, but winter seems to keep fighting back long into April and even May sometimes. My grandparents celebrate their wedding anniversary the end of April. Each year when there is snow on the ground then, my grandmother takes a picture. I guess she’s got quite a stack as they’re celebrating their 50th anniversary soon.

It’s a toss up between spring and fall what my favorite season is. It varies year to year because some years we have a bad spring and nice fall, and other years it switches. Some years, we have both bad or both beautiful. I’m not sure how this one’s shaping up yet. I’m looking forward to the forecast of warmth and rain later this week. That combination should really perk up all the dead grass and barren trees.

One thing I really don’t like about the season is the mud. I need to do some shoe shopping soon, but I’ve decided to wait until “mud season” is on its way out, maybe closer to May or June. As a farmer, Nate also gets quite cranky at the sloppy fields, driveways and cattle pens this time of year. As all the frozen pens are thawing and need to be cleaned, the fields and roads to get to them are softening up. One of the guys at the farm usually buries the tractor at least once each spring trying to slop through the soggy field.

Melting ice already proved near deadly for one ignorant young heifer last weekend. After getting moved to the big pasture, she decided to go exploring and took a stroll across a once frozen pond. The little cow dropped through the thin ice and could have easily died of hypothermia. Luckily, a neighbor passing by saw her and stopped to tell Nate and his dad. They dragged her out and got her back to the barn. With the help of a couple heavy-duty heaters, they got her thawed out. She didn’t get up until the next day, but it looks like she’s on her way to recovery.

Besides rescuing stupid heifers, Nate and his dad entertain themselves this time of year by tapping a few maple trees. Last year, I was fascinated with the process, having never seen it done before. Although I missed the actual tapping, I helped check the pails and take sap to the evaporator. This year I also missed the tapping since I was at work. Since I’ve already seen the rest of it, I probably won’t go out collecting sap either. Who wants to go out traipsing through the mud anyway?

It's a two for one

This week...

Welcome to another edition of useless facts. At least I think this is another edition. I’m sure I wrote a column about useless information sometime ago, but if not, I meant to. Let’s get started. Statistics fascinate me, especially strange ones. Who studies this stuff anyway?

--One out of 350,000 Americans get electrocuted in their life. Do electric fences count? Or is this list knocked on your backside zapped? If they do, I’m sure every farm kid has done it and that number should be higher.
--27 percent of female lottery winners hid their winning ticket in their bras. Who found this out? Did they have a guy positioned by the gas station checkout watching to see where women put their tickets? If that’s the case, I have a few guy friends who would like to apply for that job.
--Three percent of pet owners give Valentine's gifts to their pets on Valentine's Day. I’ve never given a pet a Valentine’s Day present. Christmas, yes, but just to see if they could get it open.
--31 percent of employees skip lunch entirely. Guilty, but not very often. Breakfast is usually my skipped meal of choice. Sometimes, I don’t get lunch until late though, and skip supper. I’m sure I make up for it by grazing throughout the day.
--45 percent of Americans don't know that the sun is a star. Another reason for sufficiently funding education.
--53 percent of women in America would dump their boyfriend if they did not get them anything for Valentine's Day. You hear that guys? Remember that for next year.
--66 percent of wedding cards are hand delivered by people. I almost always drop mine in the box/bird cage/wooden church at the wedding. And I usually sign the card in the parking lot before I come in. Nothing like the last minute.
--75 percent of all raisins eaten by people in the United States are eaten at breakfast. They’re good in cookies too.
--85 percent of weddings are held in a synagogue or church. I’m one of the rare 15 percent, I guess.
--96 percent of candles that are purchased are by women. Going along with that, 96 percent of candles seen in a guy’s place are bought by his girlfriend, wife or mother.
--Americans on average use about 580 pounds of paper per year per person. We go through a lot more that that in this office. Hence the many recycling bins throughout the building.
--It requires 63 feet of wire to make a Slinky toy. And one bad trip down the stairs and you’ve got yourself 63 feet of knotted wire ball.
--A tree in a metropolitan area will survive for approximately eight years. So much for urban green space. No wonder it costs so much more to live in a city. They replace the trees constantly.

And last week...

The question was posed on a radio station, “What's your luckiest moment?” I had to think about that a while. Had I called in, I don’t think I would have had a good answer. In general, I’m not a very lucky person. I don’t win raffle prizes, even the ones when they say the odds are really good. You could throw 100 names in a pail and draw out 99; mine would be the last one in there.

Nate and I bought two of those calendar raffle tickets this year. He’s not real lucky either, so our investment has netted us nothing thus far. I went to a casino once in college. It was girls’ night, so the rule was whoever won the most (or lost the least) had to buy pie at Perkin’s on the way home. Needless to say, I didn’t have to buy the treat. I stuck $10 in a machine, lost it right away and quit. People have told me I need to play the tables. In a just-for-fun game of Texas Hold’em a while back, I did win all of Nate’s and Ryan’s chips. That made me feel pretty good, especially with the Vegas trip coming up this summer.

However, if I put money on it, I have a feeling it would a different result. Remember those magnets you played with in elementary science classes? It’s sort of like that. Money and I must have the same charge because the harder I try to get it, the further I tend to push it away. Some people don’t have any luck and are indifferent to that cosmic power. Most of the time that’s true for me, but lately, it seems the bad has ruled my world.

Here’s an example of my luck in the past week:
On Thursday, the vet discovered my favorite old show cow, Willie, was full of tumors. Normally, for a special cow we bury them on the farm. But because the ground was frozen, she went to the hamburger plant instead. On Friday, a semi threw a stone in my windshield. By evening there was a crack starting to grow in the corner. “That’s what insurance is for,” Nate said. This will be my second windshield replacement in less than two years. I guess I’m getting my money’s worth.

On Sunday I had to miss most of my favorite TV show. The following morning I woke up to a thunderstorm. Like most people, I thought Monday’s blizzard was another bad luck storm. I slid all the way down from Medford only to try and creep back home in the afternoon. For those with indifferent luck, they had to slow down and drive carefully, but made it home OK. I made it home, but got stuck in a drift in the driveway 10 feet from the safety of the garage. With a screaming baby in the backseat.

My luck may be starting to change slightly though. I have a birthday coming up and office tradition dictates the honoree brings a treat. Luckily, the day for me to bring my treat happens to fall on an office potluck day. That means I’ll only have to bring one treat for the hungry vultures. It may not be much, but it’s something.