March of the Canada geese? Saw a gaggle of geese crossing an ice-covered pond last Friday afternoon. Didn’t see any penguins...Fox on the run... Saw this critter scampering through a field along Kaolin Road near Anna last Friday evening. The fox ran to a nearby tree line and then headed across the road.Happy Lunar New Year... Captured this image of the full moon rising over a nearby ridge line while on a walkabout one evening last week. By the way... Lunar New Year begins February 1... Just in case you want to make plans...

Saving up $35,000...one penny at a time...

Please read this...

Hope springs eternal...

We’ll get back to that in a few paragraphs...in the meantime, read on...

Hope you’ve finished your shopping for all of those Groundhog Day gifts... The big day is February 2.

Did you happen to watch those NFL playoff games on television last weekend. Pretty... good... stuff... Gotta feel bad for Buffalo...

Moving right along...

I heard something on the radio last Saturday morning about a way to keep your favorite furry friend around...perhaps forever...

(By the way...does anybody else out there actually listen to the radio anymore?)

I don’t remember all of the details, but apparently there’s somebody who will clone your dog, or your cat...for a fee... Of course, you knew there would be a fee.

The cost to clone a dog: a mere $50,000. You can have your favorite feline around forever for much cheaper...just $35,000. 

Thirty Five Thousand Dollars...

I’m guessing that felines everywhere are probably highly offended that a dog would cost more to clone than a cat. 

I haven’t talked to him about such a thing yet, so I don’t know if Bob our cat would think that he’s worth a $35,000 copy. Bob has been kind of an costly cat, but not that expensive.

Just for the sake of considering the possibility, I got to thinking about cloning Bob...

Fairly often, while I’m on a walkabout, I’ll come across a penny, or maybe even a nickle or a dime, which somehow has ended up dropped on the street or sidewalk. Usually, the treasure I find is a copper-colored bit coin with an image of Mr. Lincoln on it.

So...let’s say I find a penny a week. Based on my calculations (and remember, my math skills are shaky at best), over the course of a full year, I would accumulate approximately $3.65. 

Given that number, I figured out that it would only take me approximately 9,589 years, four months and one day to find and save up enough pennies to pay $35,000 to have Bob cloned...

Of course, by then, Bob will have used up all of his nine lives, and then some, and I’m pretty sure that my fate wouldn’t be much different.

So, I guess for now, we’ll put any plans to clone Bob on hold... But, if I happen to stumble across $35,000...

Speaking of growing things...

“The tomato seeds germinated,” The Other Half declared last Saturday morning. Hope does, indeed, spring eternal. Tomato plants are starting to grow...pretty soon, the warm breezes of spring will be blowing...and then, the heat and humidity of summer will be here...

The Other Half has already started her 2022 garden. We have greens growing under light upstairs...and a few lettuce plants out in the greenhouse in the backyard which are struggling to hold on in the dark and cold of winter. And, as noted, some tomato seeds germinated over the weekend. I guess “we” would not be right word. “She” has greens and lettuce and tomatoes growing. 

She’s trying to convince me that this might be a good year for yours truly to start sharpening his gardening skills, which are pretty much nonexistent. (I do like to eat what comes out of the garden. After her announcement about tomato seeds, the Other Half, however, did dash my hopes when she suggested that there might not be any garden-fresh tomatoes in a few weeks.)

Her nudge about gardening received a little bit of unanticipated support when yours truly actually received his very own 2022 garden seed catalog. I’m not quite sure how that happened.

The folks who sent me the catalog even tried to entice me with “FREE TRIAL SEEDS!” Complete with an exclamation mark. Simply by placing my order for $20 or more (excluding taxes and shipping charges) by March 15, I will receive one packet each of Crayon Colors Mix Radish and Rainbow Fiesta Okra. 

Hmmmm... Twenty bucks. That’s a whole lot cheaper than cloning Bob. Let’s see...at a penny a week...how long will it take me to come up with twenty bucks?

 

The Gazette-Democrat

112 Lafayette St.
Anna, Illinois 62906
Office Number: (618) 833-2158
Email: news@annanews.com

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