Coffee and Cholesterol?

I still have fun with Science X Newsletter. Of course there are a lot of articles way over my head, starting with anything mentioning quarks or going into way technical jargon without explanations of what they're talking about. Obviously those aren't meant for me. And many are the kind that confirm what a few seconds thought will confirm as obvious, while even others beg the question, "Yeah, OK, but have you even considered ________ ?" What's almost a painful waste of time and energy is reading that melting glaciers, with the resulting rivers being responsible for some large area's prime source of water, will be endangering their water supply after they are gone. It's almost too obvious to bother studying. OK, maybe if they're looking for numbers to plug in, but the bare facts, DUH!!! A is what produces B, almost everything uses B, A goes away, there's no B left. HELLO !!!

Or there was one on bees, showing that bringing in domestic populations result in declining wild bee populations in an area. Here's where the "have you considered____?" comes in. If there are domestic bees, that means agriculture of some kind. That usually means, these days, chemicals are likely being used as the easy way to get rid of weeds or pests (meaning insects), and those are likely to be harmful to bees. We're already looking at colony collapse in domestic bees. What are the odds the small changes in domestic populations who survived the chemicals in the last 20 years or so have mutated from inadvertent  selective breeding, and their offspring are a bit better at dealing with the poisons we spread while wild bees, not so much? Is anybody looking at that as their next  question to ask?

There are always some new things to learn. For example, an ice sheet split off from Antarctica, described as the size of Chicago, and we can suddenly see the previously inaccessible sea floor and its denizens. There are some interesting new-to-us critters down there!

Of course there are other discoveries that in my opinion are badly over-hyped, like a far away galaxy that is judged to have been like ours but did this scary other thing instead. OK, so what are we talking, 8 billion years ago? One? Pardon my Alfred E. Newman, but at that time scale, "What, me worry"?  Somebody just had to put "Frightening" in the study title. Must have needed more attention, eh? Grants hard to get these days?

While those above are not likely to affect me, there was one I did take note of. As a senior citizen, I try to keep abreast of practices for my own good health. I count carbs, for example, and try not to keep eating too late in the day when a swig of water might achieve the same results of satisfying me. I take recommended pills, and a few extra on my own that I believe help me, like some B vitamins and a little extra C. I try to avoid too much sun on my skin, though I suspect that ship sailed decades ago. Oops. It fully accounts for that one speedy cataract which blinded one eye. (The replacement lens is perfect.) I'm slowly losing weight, and while I'll never be slim, there's 70 pounds I'm not toting around any more. Apparently I've traded those in for lumps and wrinkles. (Sighhhhh) Some would call that "interesting". I have other words for it.

Now I never would have thought of coffee as having any connection to cholesterol. Would you? Unless  you add fatty things to it to make it taste better or perhaps less acid in the stomach, it's pretty hard to believe. There were reassuring studies a while back showing that 2 or 3 cups in the morning are good for our cardiac health. Cool! I'll still keep it to one cup though. But what the heck were they talking about with cholesterol?

No it's not actually in the coffee, but there are some chemicals in coffee that get your body to produce more of the worst kinds of it, the diterpenes cafestol and kahweol. (Just rolls off the tongue, right?) That doesn't quite jibe with the heart health info, though, so I read on. They were studying different methods of producing the drink itself. It turns out that coffeemakers which have paper filters are pretty good at - ahem - filtering out the chemicals that produce cholesterol, Other kinds of filters, or none at all, don't do that. Only the paper ones. There is some kind of affinity there.

Now since I drink instant coffee, I decided to take those chemical names and google whether they are in instant, and should I be concerned? It turns out most processes for making instant coffee use paper filters. So I mostly shouldn't worry. Of course, I have no way of knowing whether the stuff I buy uses that process or some other. So I'm getting a supply of paper filters in the larder. I'll be working on a way to make sure my instant brew goes through a paper filter to clear out whatever of those chemicals might still be in it before I drink it. I figure mix powder and hot water first, then pour it through a paper filter lined mug, pull out the filter and toss it. 

I'll have paper towels or a dish rag handy of course. If you don't anticipate drips and spills during that process, you just haven't met me! 

And then of course, there'll be the cocoa to deal with... afterwards. No way I'm filtering that out! I don't care how many studies might find something less than ideal in cocoa! It's already sugarless, and I have powdered milk to add. No point in getting totally fanatical about it, now is there?

Careful What You Wish For

 Of course, wishing for something isn't going to bring it to you, make it real. Sometimes it's just an enjoyable fantasy, like an exotic vacation getaway or winning a large lottery jackpot, where reality would bring complications into your life. Other times it's something more grounded in reality, something small, practical, something where it coming true isn't likely to turn into a disaster, like having a nice bit of weather for an outdoor party, or a timely phone chat with a friend when your schedules mesh.

One seldom has to really be careful about their wishes because wishes have no real power. Even so, sometimes those wishes happen to come true, but in the most unfortunate ways, because of course they do. Life is just like that. Murphy's Law, and all that.

Now you know I just happen to have a story about a wish coming true.

Let's go back just a few years, when covid vaccinations were finally available, and we seniors were #2 in line to get them. Of course we did, and loved being able to travel again. We headed north a couple weeks earlier than normal, before the summer travel rush was on, and had some great experiences in national parks before arriving at our usual summer destination. We got to see family and friends again, though still keeping social distancing most of the time. Before heading south again for one fast long-haul trip, we had one last outdoor bonfire party.

Arriving home, I was exhausted unloading the car. Shortly afterwards, I had a fever and felt sick for the first time in years. I had covid! After warning everybody I knew I'd had close contact with, I took my positive test to the ER and got Paxlovid to help fight it. In a couple weeks I felt normal again, though still waiting on a negative test, and feeling cooped up that extra week, now that brain fog was clearing. 

Fast forward another couple years and I caught covid a second time, despite masking, distancing, and keeping up vaccinations as often as offered. I didn't actually feel sick this time like the first, but repeated the ER visit and asked for Paxlovid again. This time it wasn't covered, and I declined paying the price of over a grand for it. I seemed to be having a milder case anyway.

But there was one thing. I shortly realized I had lost both my sense of taste and smell.  Well over a year later I started tasting things again. But they were different. Certain things were blocked, like whatever it is in fresh tomatoes that makes me hate them. I actually loved to gobble up tomatoes! I still do, in fact. As time passed, more flavors came back... mostly.

But the nose stubbornly refused to come back. Aside from pregnancy, when everything edible smelled like rotted garbage in a puddle of chemicals, I had what I referred to as my mother's nose, the most sensitive one in the family, something I totally enjoyed. I would smell something burning before the smoke detectors went off, for example. I could tell what in the refrigerator was spoiled, smell flowers and freshly mown grass, lake algae in a most pleasant way when others around me were repelled. 

Now two things above all I missed. There is a wild white or yellow spiked flower called sweet clover, and every year in late summer when they bloomed it was the same instant revelation that this was the thing I had been missing all year since last summer, and had even forgotten existed until I suddenly smelled it again. The other thing I haven't smelled for years due to our snowbird travels, but I call it the smell of fall, where plants have begun to fill the  air with tannins after a frost, as they prepare for winter. It had been a notice to me of every fall bringing the best things in childhood, returning to school, birthdays, leaves changing colors and playing in piles of them, Halloween on the horizon, south-migrating flocks of birds overhead, and the end of mosquitoes for months, the very best part!

After the second bout of covid, I had none of that any more. I also couldn't tell you if foods had spoiled or were still safe to eat, whether something was burning in the oven, or even if it wasn't and wonderful aromas filled the house - for other people. I couldn't tell whether I stunk, or clothes needed washing without obvious dirt on them, or whether anybody had farted quietly. (Loud farts I heard, but still couldn't smell.) There was a noxious leak on the floor behind the toilet in the bathroom I don't use that a guest had to point out to us. It had to get fixed twice because I assumed the plumber did the complete job the first time.

In my many reading wanderings, I started finding stories from people with long covid. At first it was a battle with their doctors to get their condition recognized, and named. Early on, those sickest had the easiest fight with acknowledgment. Later less severe things got mentioned, including some people who'd lost smell and taste, though it didn't seem to stir the medical community to name it as long covid, or to research it, much less find solutions. After all, we could still move around fairly normally, go to work, interact with others. We just weren't enjoying some of the basic small pleasures in life, boo hoo hoo ... yawn. There are really sick folks out there (so get over yourselves!) seemed to be the attitudes, and I do understand them, after how burned out so many medical professionals were. It simply wasn't helpful for us.

Last summer things started to change. The newest shots came out, different ones that were supposed to be able to adapt to the mutations that were coming at us more frequently. Steve and I got ours right at summers end, to best protect us from being indoors with others who might be incubating who knows what next. Now I almost never feel a sore arm from any shots, and I didn't this time either. They say the worse your arm feels, the better your immune system is working. They were saying it a lot back then, so I was asking myself whether I'd know if it was working, or I just had a lousy immune system. But within a couple weeks I started tasting my food! I concluded this different shot somehow found some reservoir of the virus in my taste buds and nailed the little pests. So.... why not my nose?

Around then hints were coming out that losing taste and smell were being considered a kind of long covid. Well, that's helpful, I guess. Much more recently I was reading a study that stopped "maybe-ing" the idea, and just declared it flat out. I officially had long covid. At last, a name!

OK, and so....? 

It went on to talk about some kind of surgery to deal with the lack of smell. Hmmm, something to think about. How much do I want smell back? But I also put that diagnosis in my personal health record, with clarification of which symptom(s).  A few days later a similar study claimed those particular symptoms tended to go away after around 2 years. OK, so scratch surgery then, or at least wait a bit more to see what happens. But why the delay with the nose?

I'm looking forward to summer, watching my flowers come up with all their blooms. I have no idea if the ones that bloomed here on bushes last summer have any fragrance. I'm also looking forward to cut grass smell, now that we're back living with an actual lawn instead of a rock bed, and not having to depend on Steve's nose to clear out the fridge since his never was that sensitive the way mine was. I found myself wishing my nose would come back into use soon if that two-year thing was true.

Then I walked into one particular room in the house and without thinking, out popped "Boy it stinks in here!" Then it hit me what just happened. Sure there was some cleaning up to do, but it felt like a celebration! The nose was coming back, "blessing" me with the most obnoxious stench in the house, because that's the way some wishes get granted, the ugliest, nastiest way possible. 

So far it's still the strong things, but that's how taste came back too: not dependably, not fully even now, but no longer absent. I know what burned on the stove a couple days back. I now know how awful the large waste basket under the kitchen sink stinks after food scraps collect because it holds over a full week's worth, and the bags have to be purchased for that, unlike the small wastebaskets which hold smaller free bags from shopping and get emptied every few days. I can smell fresh baked pizza, and my sap sago grated cheese. I know the eggs are good and the week-long opened package of brats is too. Someday I might smell coffee again, but I've been drinking it for years now without needing to enjoy it, and plan to continue. Laundry will get done more often too along with other household chores.

It's not just sanitation issues or food spoilage issues that will be improved. There is one major health issue  for me as well. I should soon be able to smell cigarette smoke. I need to avoid it, because after more than 40 years of second hand smoke, it affects my cardiac rhythms. I'm looking forward to being able, again, to be three feet outside somebody's front door and tell if they smoke in the house. I can chose not to go in.

After this morning I can finally tell you that the antiperspirant I chose arbitrarily over a year ago is actually quite pleasant smelling. Lucky me! 

Luckier you! I'll be sure to use it every day again.

When The Claim Of Fraud Is The Fraud

I'd gotten the warning just a couple days ago. Apparently there's an increase in fraudsters spending our money out there. But even worse, there's an increase in people pretending to be your financial system's safeguards - under whatever terms they use to fool you - claiming you've had possible fraudulent activity on your account and you need to verify if expenditures on your account are real or not.

Of course, in the process of finding out, you'd have to give them your pertinent data like account numbers, birth date, maybe social security number, even sometimes passwords. No problem, lots of people think, because they're the real good guys, right? 

Steve just got one of those calls. Supposedly there were two charges on his account that didn't seem to be his. Could he verify? Luckily, I'd remembered the warning, and stopped him. In turn, he called the REAL people connected with his financial institution, talked to them, and found out the bogus charges did in fact exist, and took care of them. 

Safely!

They even had an idea of what online activity may have precipitated the fraud. He'd tried to buy something that was a REALLY good deal, found his card was mysteriously "rejected", but now the information was in somebody else's hands. They've been stopped on their end. We're going in person to get him a new card in a few minutes so it won't happen again.

When I read the warning, it was in the context of mistrust of the unvetted DOGE youngsters who'd helped themselves to access of all our Social Security information. It coincides with an uptick in fraudulent charges in our financial systems. (We do have those mostly direct deposited, after all.) So far the two have not been connected, but it was time to send out warnings. Steve's financial institution believes they've got the culprits for this time. But who else might they have shared it with? Thus, new card, new number, ASAP.

What it boils down to, should you get a "possible fraud alert" of any kind, hang up. Then call the number on your card or in your phone directory that you know is genuine, and go from there.

"TOO MUCH WRONG TOO LITTLE CARDBOARD"

That was, we both agreed, the very best of the many protest signs we passed.

It was Sunday afternoon, we were on our way to the grocery store, and protesters were spread out thickly all along the  sidewalks on the Hwy 8 bridge over the river connecting Minnesota and Wisconsin. They couldn’t have had a nicer day for it. The sun was out, there was little wind, and nearly all the more than 7 inches snow from a few days before had melted in the high 50s temperature.

I hadn’t heard about the protest, but somebody had spread the word to well over 100 people, not bad turnout for the two small towns, one on each side of the river. As we crossed the bridge, slowly enough to read a majority of the signs, I honked my support repeatedly. The first honks seemed to surprise them, but as we passed more and more, still honking, smiling, and waving, our appreciation of them was well received.

Messages were eclectic. There were calls to impeach Musk, reminders that this was OUR LAND, support for our veterans who were losing their jobs, support for Ukraine, and so many more I hadn’t time to read safely while driving. Whatever they said, we were for. All were home made, a very few on poles but the rest held in both hands. They were held high, low, shaking or still. Demonstrators were in small groups or rows of singles. Anybody wishing to cross on the bridge had room to do so, as all were polite. When room ran out along the bridge, groups stretched out into the two small towns.

When Steve and I returned from the store, the group was just giving signs of breaking up. I honked for them while heading back into Minnesota as well, and was again well received. Steve tried to get some photos as we passed but looking at his phone later, nothing had turned out. We’re going to have to get him some practice with that. I would have liked video even more.

I hope they  do it again, and spread the word better. I’ll ask around of the obvious groups to see what I can find out so I can join next time. There’s still lots of cardboard in the house from last year’s move, and paint from various projects. I could share with whoever thought there wasn’t enough, though we still think that was the best sign over all. It was also the biggest. If I can find out who she was, I’ll have to ask if she minds if I “’steal” the theme.

 

 

So, Bitcoin?

Trump is buying into Bitcoin for the country (aka himself ) And will be convincing you that's how you can make a fortune.  From the man who bankrupted three casinos, sells out the country to Putin and Musk, you believe getting involved with bitcoin is going to make you a fortune?

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha hah !!!!!!!!!!!

Snowblind

We got hit with the big storm of the season. Or at least we hope it's the big one. It's Minnesota after all, and I have vivid memories from back in the early 80s  of white-out freeway conditions on April 15th. I know the day because I'd brought my taxes to work in hopes of low business from the snow giving me time to work on them during the day as they were due to hit the post office before midnight. As it turned out, white-out conditions in morning rush hour freeway traffic resulted in a huge pileup with me sitting nose deep in a huge drift in the center median for a couple hours. My car missed all the others in the pileup, just got stuck in the middle. I had plenty of time to finish taxes! After a couple hours some helpful folks who were getting other cars unstuck finally made it to my car and realized a certain maiden in distress could use a good assist back upon the pavement.

The nearest measurement for snowfall yesterday was west, about 5 miles away, indicating a total of 7.3 inches. Wet, sticky, heavy snow. The further east, the more the system dumped, so we may have gotten just a bit more. It blew hard as it landed, socking in both our storm doors. I wasn't about to push them harder than I had to in order to decide more pushing would only result in broken glass. No need to test it barring an emergency. Did I mention it was heavy and wet? It actually still is, 24 hours later. Just not barring the front door.

I called my youngest son, asking if he'd stop after work and dig part of us out. We're expecting nice thawing temperatures next week for several days, so the rest of it should go away by itself, but I figured having a door we could open, cleared steps and sidewalk, and the half of the parking pad where the car sat would be just fine. Even so he got paid extra for the job. He also was smart enough to make sure, after getting into his own driveway first, that he shoveled enough before heading our way that he could reliably get back in his own again after he finished ours.

I asked him to check the garbage can thoroughly plowed in alongside the street. We had heard plows go up and down several times, but I'd gotten up early that morning and never heard the garbage truck. I wasn't able to get out of the house all day and only had glimpses up and down the street to reinforce my conclusion that none of the cans had been emptied. But I wasn't sure I trusted my judgment. He peeked in and informed me I was correct, it was still full of the garbage I'd set out before the snow, or even the rain preceding it had arrived. 

All the cans on the street were plowed in, but just after 5 AM this morning, a full day late, all were emptied. The arms extending from the truck to dump them never put them back in the precise spot they were picked up from, so many of them were tipped somewhat from being set on less than flat piles of the snow that had surrounded them. Ours wasn't in a bad position, and by the time things warmed up around noon and I finally emerged, it was not a chore to bring it half way over shoveled pavement toward where the management requires it be stored so everybody can pretend such things are not a necessary part of life here. Out of sight, and apparently that means it doesn't stink either.  The second half was forcing the can inches at a time across and over deep wet snow that was starting to compact enough to be impossible but not yet melting out of the way. The route was next to the stairs and porch so all the snow removed from those was added to its route. I think those last 15 feet took ten minutes, some of which  involved lifting, some of which was kicking it into a different angle than it wanted to go in. My arms ached by the time I finished that last short stint. I hadn't asked my son to shovel it because all was grass underneath, and he already had enough the night before to do.

What was odd  when I finally went back in the house was the snow blindness. I had been outside for a while with everything covered in fresh snow, sun shining on it and bouncing back from every angle of every snowflake, white magnified by white boosted by sunlight. Once inside, there was still light pouring in the multitude of windows, but many of those had blinds partly angled for privacy, and just a couple opened enough for a view of the weather while we enjoyed our morning. It wasn't dark by any means. What it all was now was red. The snow outside was even pink seen from the house after coming in, even with full sunshine on it. It took quite a while for true colors to emerge again, white to become white, grey to be grey, and the darkest bits of the interior to go from red to black to their usual colors.

I got called to my job a bit later in the afternoon, and entering that house I was again snow blind, but there it meant everything was simply very dark. Only the usual reds in that house were red, though they were still black first. I had to haul a couple things out to the car in the afternoon and each time returning to that house normal snow blindness returned briefly. By the time I was in for the day at home, sun still shining on still fresh snow, I hardly noticed anything but how wet my shoes were as I kicked them off to put on the rubber mat.

Don't ask me how tired I was by then.

Signs Of Sprung

Nope, not a typo. No misspelling. I would ordinarily welcome this changing season as spring, but.....  Lots of "buts".

I could write tomes on the current political crap in this country, huge numbers of hard working government employees kicked out their doors,  services to be cut back or mangled by inadequate staffing or institutional memory, loss of our country's respect in the world (well earned), etc. Let's just call the federal government "sprung" and move on, eh?

The weather has been pretty OK for the season, though they've changed our local forecast for tonight from 1 - 2 inches of snow to 8 - 10 tonight, and who knows how much more tomorrow? I had debated setting the garbage bin out curbside tonight knowing a plow would make a bank around it, but went ahead while the forrcast was still topped off at 2 inches. It needs dumping, and I wanted to be back inside for the day before the rain leading the incoming system got serious.

For all not familiar with ice fishing, just be aware that all the ice houses are off the local lakes now, with no tales of  sinking into the lakes anywhere locally. One car down in the metro area made the news repeatedly when it went through the ice early in the season, and finally got pulled out just days ago before too many fines could be leveled. Ice houses left too long would get fines too, but cars get extra ones for the many chemicals added to whatever lake they sink into: gas, oil, brake fluid, radiator fluid, washer fluid... and that's just the body of the car. Who knows what was inside? (At least it didn't include humans.)

Aside from the large piles from plows, the snow left a week ago.  Puddles sunk into thawed-enough ground a couple days ago, bunnies decorated the brown grass with black pebbles as they searched for early season edibles while waiting for anything green to pop. Squirrels run through treetops like children through new playgrounds.  A pair of deer strolled between homes across the street this morning. 

All sounds right on schedule, right? 

I pulled down the two suet feeders this weekend , threw the suet in the garbage, and sterilized the wire racks. I've never thought to do that last part before. But this isn't a normal year. Normal has been sprung, like the formerly perfect winding coil on a fine old watch.

It's the birds.

 Now I know you'll by now have heard about the bird flu in chickens... and turkeys, and ducks, and cows, and mice, and cats, and.....  

Let's take cats. A good friend has 4, kept inside at all times. The family has believed they are fully protected against the disease that is highly fatal in domestic cats. One way to transfer it is through the feces of sick animals. So if you happen to walk through rodent or bird droppings,  you can possibly track it in. Mice clean up grains left by chickens and the feed of other flu victims, and have lots of ways you've never thought of to enter your house. The virus is also now thought to be windborne. So we had a  long chat about protecting their beloved pets. Chats always work, right?

I tried.

Crows, vultures, lots of furry animals  are cleaners out in the environment. We often know them better as carrion eaters. Virus in, virus out, doing whatever damage it will on its way depending on how the animal fends it off. We know cows are otherwise unaffected but spread it in their raw milk. Many other critters just aren't studied for it yet.

The thing that most says spring to me are the annual northward migrations. For about 2 weeks now the trumpeter swans have been heading through, though more are sticking around here for the summer each year. So big, so white against all the vegetation, so graceful, and honking like a kid's toy trumpet. This year they even arrived ahead of Canada geese, usually the first arrivals. But the first geese were honking out on the local lake two mornings ago. It's still fully iced over, and the geese have gone on. What has arrived north so far looks fat and healthy.

Hard on all their "heels" (or wings) are reports of large numbers of migrating birds' flu deaths coming in from areas they have flown though. Heading up the Atlantic coast, dead gulls scattered all over. Sandhill cranes dead in clumps here of 30, there 40, somewhere else estimated around 100. The sandhills which arrive in eastern MN and western WI come from southeastern wintering grounds, unlike the western ones which famously come up to stop over on the Platte River in Nebraska in huge numbers after wintering in places like Arizona. I'm not following that area. Different sandhills.

We don't normally see the cranes here until the first days of April. I won't know how the ones specific to this area have fared for a while yet. But as soon as I learned the news on the ones heading our general direction, that's when I went out to take down the feeders. No sense in courting a conglomeration of birds, even the songbirds. Nor squirrels, much as I cussed them out when they were digging out my new bulbs last fall. If they can get it, being rodents, they can spread it.

I'm heartbroken for all the cranes in advance of knowing how their numbers will be affected this year. But rather than looking forward to this coming season, for me it's been sprung, in the worst way.