SCORPION!

“All Scorpions are venomous. Only about 25-30 of them have a type of venom that is potent enough to make someone very ill or to kill them.”[*] I’m glad I searched that. If I hadn’t I might have thought all 90 of the species could kill me; that “only” means my chances of dying-by-bite are down to roughly one in

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Studly

My neighbor recently introduced pitch black “Studly” – formally known by an ear tag as 98 – to his modest family of cows. He arrived with subdued fanfare: if a dozen regaled trumpeters were normally lined up to salute a lad of his breeding, in this case – due to budgetary restraints – he’d get one. Like the equivalent of a teenager, his mind

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A Look East

I remember as a young child seeing on television this smiling, benevolent-looking man covered in flowing orange cloth. He was a visitor from a place far away; he was the Dalai Lama from Tibet. [Of all the countless images and thoughts that pass through a mind in a lifetime, why do a few stay stuck, and others simply whiz by

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Ern, where are you?

What a beautiful day it was yesterday: clear blue, sunny sky, with a hint of coolness from a north breeze. We need days like this to dry out the slog from the last few weeks of record-breaking rain. It is also a primo day to work on the motorcycle. Sitting outside on my stool with wrenches at the ready I

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