Al Batt: Poppies reminder of World War I veterans and soldiers
The poppy queen
Annie was my hometown's poppy queen. She held sales records. After World War I, the poppy flourished in Europe. Scientists attributed the growth to the soils in France and Belgium becoming enriched with lime from the rubble left from the war.
The red poppy came to symbolize the blood shed during battle after the publication of the poem “In Flanders Fields.”
In 1920, the poppy became the official flower to memorialize the soldiers who fought and died during the war.
In 1924, the distribution of poppies became a national program of the American Legion. Members of the American Legion Auxiliary distribute poppies with a request that the person receiving the flower make a donation to support veterans and active military personnel.
Annie lurked in the post office, waiting for unsuspecting prey. I visited the post office six mornings a week.
Annie sold me a poppy day after day because I was too stupid to wear the poppy she'd sold me the day before. She didn't request a donation each time. She demanded one.
I'd protest that I'd just bought a poppy from her yesterday. Annie asked why I wasn't wearing it and then sold me another. One morning, I awoke with a goal.
I wasn't going to buy another poppy from Annie. I put five of them on my shirt and one on my necktie. I was a living poppy tree. I walked into the post office with great confidence in each stride. Annie wasn't there.
Echoes from the Loafers' Club Meeting
I'd love to buy a new car, so I'm taking vitamins each day.
What do vitamins have to do with buying a new car?
They might help me live long enough to be able to afford one.
Ask Al
"What would you say to a new resident of your neighborhood?" Hello.
"How would you describe a small town?" If it's big enough to have a 4-way stop intersection and it has two cars stopped at signs, each driver will be encouraging the other to go first.
"You are a tall guy. What have you found to be the easiest way to take off your socks?" I sneeze them off.
Nature notes
Folklore says that if you have a bird nest in your Christmas tree, your family will experience health, wealth and happiness in the coming year. Birds don't nest here at Christmas.
Use an artificial nest for your tree as the Migratory Bird Treaty Act makes it illegal to take, possess, import, export, transport, sell, purchase, barter, or offer for sale, purchase, or barter, any migratory bird, or the parts, nests, or eggs of such a bird except under the terms of a valid Federal permit.
Raccoons winter in places like tree cavities, animal burrows, abandoned buildings, chimneys and rock crevices.
They stay in their dens and sleep lightly during bad weather. When temperatures and weather improve, they're out looking for food. They eat as much as possible in the fall, in order to build an extra layer of fat.
They don’t hibernate, but hole up in dens during the nastiest winter days and are capable of sleeping for long periods of time. Raccoons are typically solitary creatures, but sometimes den in groups during cold weather.
My neighbor Crandall
"How are you doing?" I ask.
"Everything is nearly copacetic."
"What time is it?" I wonder aloud.
"Well, one wristwatch says it's 1:03 and my other watch claims it's 1:21."
"You have two watches and they don't show the same time?" I say.
"If they had the same time, I wouldn't need two of them. I thought about getting one of those fitness tracker watches, but I don't need one. I just burned 2000 calories in 20 minutes."
"How did you do that?" I ask.
"I forgot to take my brownies out of the oven."
Naturally
Three common grackles showed up at our feeders right before Christmas. Not many would accuse them of being the three wise birds. Perhaps they were traveling as a part of a wagon train and had the rotten luck of getting a bad wagonmaster.
I don't expect to see a robin in my winter yard, but I'm never surprised to see one. I spotted a northern shrike perched on the top of a small tree.
The shrike was about the size of a blue jay, but had a horizontal profile. This shrike has a black mask and is a predator songbird that will impale its prey because it doesn't have the talons to hold them.
I have seen mice impaled on barbed wire and the thorns of trees. It breeds in the taiga and at the border of taiga and tundra.
I listened to a man talk of many things. I thought he'd said something about a "corbie messenger." He had not. It was faulty listening on my part.
I'd gotten up on the wrong side of my brain that morning. He had no idea what corbie messenger meant. He's in a full boat there.
It means a messenger who doesn't arrive or return in time. It comes from the raven that Noah sent out from his ark and from the Latin corvus.
The family Corvidae includes crows, ravens, jays, and magpies. In the Bible, in the aftermath of the flood in Genesis, Noah released a raven to see if the waters had receded.
The raven never returned. Many think that was because it was a carrion eater and had found food in drowned corpses. A dove released by Noah returned with a freshly plucked olive leaf informing Noah that dry land had begun to appear.
Q&A
"Do cedar waxwings migrate?"
They are considered a short-distance migrant, but winter movements are irregular, responding largely to availability of fruits and berries. It's certainly possible to see them here in winter.
"When do red foxes breed in Minnesota?"
Red foxes mate in February and 52 days later pups are born. The pups nurse for 10 weeks and are independent at 7 months. Foxes reproduce when a year old. They often den in deep holes made by woodchuck or badger. The den is primarily a nursery as fox prefer to sleep in the open, even in winter.
"What does a sandhill crane eat?"
This omnivorous crane feeds on land and in shallow marshes. Its diet consists of seeds, grains, berries, tubers, insects and larvae, snails, reptiles, amphibians, nestling birds, and small mammals.
"Are golden eagles much bigger than bald eagles?"
They are about the same size.
"Do great horned owls build their own nests?"
They typically appropriate a nest built by hawks, crows, ravens, herons, or squirrels. I often see them using red-tailed hawk nests. They will nest in tree cavities, on snags, cliff ledges, and buildings.
"How can I tell a deer mouse from a white-footed mouse?"
It can be difficult to discern the difference between the two by appearance. The lower parts of the body and feet of both species are white, both have prominent, lightly furred ears, coarse whiskers, and bulging, black eyes.
The deer mouse differs from the white-footed mouse by its soft, luxuriant gray fur on the upper parts of the body, a uniformly colored back with a faint darker stripe in the middle, and a bicolored tail that's dark above and white below, with a tuft of white hairs at its tip, and is as long as the combined length of its head and body.
I saw mouse tracks in the snow. White-footed and deer mice often travel on top of the snow. They hop, leaving tracks that resemble those of a tiny rabbit, with the larger back feet landing in front of the smaller front feet. They frequently leave a tail mark in the snow.
Meeting adjourned
"Remember, this December, love weighs more than gold.”—Josephine Dodge Daskam Bacon. Al adds: Remember this all year.
Thanks for stopping by
"When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it." – Henry Ford
“The things we do at Christmas are touched with a certain extravagance, as beautiful, in some of its aspects, as the extravagance of nature in June.” — Robert Collyer
Do good.
© Al Batt 2019
A bald eagle doesn’t get its adult plumage until it’s around five years old.
photo by Al Batt