A Creepy Start to My Day

Early yesterday morning (4:30 am early) as I sat on my sofa drinking my first cup of coffee, I was assaulted.

Okay, maybe “assaulted” is too strong a word.

Sitting there, and feeling something ultra-feathery on my forearm, I lightly scratched at it.  When I glanced down at my arm, I saw a wood tick. 

I immediately dispatched the tick.

Ticks are not insects.  As you might suspect, they are arachnids.  But (this is hard to fathom) they are creepier than spiders because they are miniature vampires.  And, unlike most biting pests, they don’t ambush and then escape in a hurry.  Instead, ticks burrow in and make a comfy nest for themselves in your skin—all the time sucking your blood (and maybe sharing Lyme disease or Rocky Mountain spotted fever with you). 

The fact I found a tick on me so early in the morning while sitting on my sofa is especially weird.  Where did it come from?  Ticks neither fly nor jump.  They rely on something called “questing” to acquire a host.

Questing involves either hanging out on grass or brush and latching onto a critter wiping past or they might drop from a high perch as a critter passes underneath.

I have always claimed to be a “tick magnet.”  If ticks are about, they will somehow find me first.

—Mitchell Hegman

Personal Traits

• My croquette game is outstanding.
• Had I been Patrick Henry, the quote would be: “Give me lemons or give me death!”
• I am the inspiration for the phrase “operator error.”
• Ripe mangos make me happy.
• I silently think the same things president Biden says aloud about Vladimir Putin.
• I mispronounced the word “rotisserie” until in my late thirties.
• I am sometimes willing to do something wrong just to be done with it.

—Mitchell Hegman

Two Horses Eating Dirt

I drove by two brown horses in a small, fenced-in section of bare ground.  The horses appeared to be eating dirt.   Whatever grass and plants that once grew on the ground inside the pen vanished under-hoof long ago.

I don’t know much about horses.  I know which end you feed, and that’s about it.

But something about horses eating dirt doesn’t seem right.

—Mitchell Hegman

A Bird and the Busch

Throughout the year, I make a habit of walking down to the lake every couple of days.  I like to check out the condition of the lake—whether the lake is open or covered with ice.   While the ice is now gone from Lake Helena and along the Causeway, I still have ice on my section of the lake.

The other day, while checking the ice around one of my docks, I found a set of large bird prints alongside a discarded Busch Beer can.

I don’t want to make any rush judgments here…but I have been having a lot of problems with misbehaving birds of late.

Drinking Birds?

—Mitchell Hegman

Tidbits

The fourth most googled question every month is: “How to tie a tie?”

The largest padlock in the world weighs 916 pounds.

If your car could drive straight up into Earth’s atmosphere, it would take just one hour to get to outer space driving at 60 mph.

The heart of a blue whale can weigh 1,300 pounds.

In 1916, four years before the Nineteenth Amendment guaranteed the right of women to vote, Montana elected Jeannette Rankin as the first woman to the United States Congress.

The brand name Spam stands for 'spiced ham' and was a name suggested in a competition launched by the Geo. A. Hormel Company in 1937, to find a name for their new product.

Japan has one vending machine for every 40 people.

Lemons float, but limes sink.

—Mitchell Hegman

Sources: Google, bestlifeonline.com, rd.com, etc.

To the Bat House, Mitch!

Bats are not birds.  They are mammals.  They are, furthermore, the only mammal capable of true flight.

I will admit, bats range a little on the creepy side, but the fact they are the only flying mammal leads me to give them special consideration.

Several years ago, I was given a wooden bat house as a gift.  I fastened the bat house to the gable on the east side of my home.

Prior to providing a house for the bats, I regularly found bats clinging to the stucco on the exterior of my house on warm summer nights.  The bats quickly took to using the bat house and were happy as clams (which is a weird simile for this blog).

Yesterday, I arrived home following a rock-hunting excursion and found a northern flicker woodpecker hammering a hole in the bat house.  After shooing the bird, I gathered my tools, a scrap of leftover metal from my sunroom, and I fashioned a quick repair.

Last year, a magpie murdered the female bluebird nesting in the bluebird house in my front yard.  Now this!

Birds are mean.

Save the mammals!

And what, exactly, makes clams happy?

Bat House Damage

My Repair

—Mitchell Hegman

War and Church

A war is no good if you conduct it without the approval of your church.  As it happens, Vladimir Putin can count the Russian Orthodox Church on his side.

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill has been dispensing firm messages of support for the invasion of Ukraine.

“If we see Ukraine as a threat, we have the right to use force to ensure the threat is eradicated,” Patriarch Kirill recently preached to his church’s 90 million faithful followers. “We have entered into a conflict which has not only physical but also metaphysical significance. We are talking about human salvation, something much more important than politics.”

There is speculation that Patriarch Kirill opposed the invasion, but Putin has the same special relationship with the Church Patriarch he has with others in the Russian spotlight.

The special relationship works like this; if you publicly contradict Putin, you experience a mysterious and untimely death.

—Mitchell Hegman

Sources: thedailybeast.com, cruxnow.com