Home  >> Stories  >> The Tale Spinner #2012-38

---

IN THIS ISSUE

• Pat Moore forwards a story about a vicious squirrel
• The EWG publishes a list of the 100 most nutritious and cheapest foods
• From David Suzuki´s website, a declaration of interdependence
• Bruce Galway forwards advice for driving in light rain and fog
• Zvonko Springer and Pat both send thoughts on burned biscuits
• Betty Audet suggests care in what you plant
• The editor brings you up to date on the tomato-growing experiment
• Sites are suggested by Catherine Green, Catherine Nesbitt, Jean Sterling, and Kate Brookfield

Pat Moore shares this story of

THE ANGRY SQUIRREL

I never dreamed that slowly cruising on my motorcycle through a residential neighbourhood could be so incredibly dangerous! Little did I suspect.

I was on Brice Street, a very nice neighbourhood with perfect lawns and slow traffic. As I passed an oncoming car, a brown furry missile shot out from under it and tumbled to a stop immediately in front of me.

It was a squirrel, and must have been trying to run across the road when it encountered the car. I really was not going very fast, but there was no time to brake or avoid it - it was that close. I hate to run over animals, and I really hate it on a motorcycle, but a squirrel should pose no danger to me.

I barely had time to brace for the impact. Animal lovers, never fear. Squirrels, I discovered, can take care of themselves!

Inches before impact, the squirrel flipped to his feet. He was standing on his hind legs and facing my oncoming motorcycle with steadfast resolve in his beady little eyes.

His mouth opened, and at the last possible second, he screamed and leapt! I am pretty sure the scream was squirrel for, "Bonzai!" or maybe, "Die"! The leap was nothing short of spectacular.

He shot straight up, flew over my windshield, and impacted me squarely in the chest. Instantly, he set upon me. If I did not know better, I would have sworn he brought 20 of his little buddies along for the attack.

Snarling, hissing, and tearing at my clothes, he was a frenzy of activity. As I was dressed only in a light T-shirt, summer riding gloves, and jeans, this was a bit of a cause for concern. This furry little tornado was doing some damage!

Picture a large man on a huge black and chrome motorcycle, dressed in jeans, a T-shirt, and leather gloves, puttering at maybe 25 mph down a quiet residential street, and in the fight of his life with a squirrel. And losing….

I grabbed for him with my left hand. After a few misses, I finally managed to snag his tail. With all my strength, I flung the evil rodent off to the left of the bike, almost running into the right curb as I recoiled from the throw. That should have done it. The matter should have ended right there.

It really should have. The squirrel could have sailed into one of the pristinely-kept yards and gone on about his business, and I could have headed home. No one would have been the wiser. But this was no ordinary squirrel.

This was not even an ordinary angry squirrel. This was an EVIL MUTANT ATTACK SQUIRREL!

Somehow he caught my gloved finger with one of his little hands and, with the force of the throw, swung around and with a resounding thump and an amazing impact, he landed squarely on my back and resumed his rather antisocial and extremely distracting activities. He also managed to take my left glove with him! The situation was not improved. Not improved at all.

His attacks were continuing, and now I could not reach him. I was startled, to say the least. The combination of the force of the throw, only having one hand (the throttle hand) on the handlebars, and my jerking back unfortunately put a healthy twist through my right hand and into the throttle. A healthy twist on the throttle of a motorcycle can only have one result.

SPEED

This is what the motorcycle is made for, and is very, very good at it.

The engine roared and the front wheel left the pavement. The squirrel screamed in anger. The motor screamed in ecstasy. I screamed in - well - I just plain screamed.

Now picture a large man on a huge black and chrome motorcycle, dressed in jeans, a slightly squirrel-torn t-shirt, wearing only one leather glove, and roaring at maybe 50 mph and rapidly accelerating down a quiet residential street on one wheel, with a demonic squirrel of death on his back.

The man and the squirrel are both screaming bloody murder. With the sudden acceleration I was forced to put my other hand back on the handlebars and try to get control of the bike.

This was leaving the mutant squirrel to his own devices, but I really did not want to crash into somebody´s tree, house, or parked car. Also, I had not yet figured out how to release the throttle ... my brain was just simply overloaded. I did manage to mash the back brake, but it had little effect against the massive power of the engine.

About this time the squirrel decided that I was not paying sufficient attention to this very serious battle (maybe he was an evil alien attack squirrel of death), and he came around my neck and got INSIDE my full-face helmet with me.

As the faceplate closed part way, he began hissing in my face. I am quite sure my screaming changed intensity. It had little effect on the squirrel, however.

Now picture a large man on a huge black and chrome motorcycle, dressed in jeans, a very raggedly torn T-shirt, wearing only one leather glove, roaring at probably 80 mph, still on one wheel, with a large puffy squirrel´s tail sticking out of the mostly closed full-face helmet. By now the screams were probably getting a little hoarse.

Finally I got the upper hand. I managed to grab his tail again, pulled him out of my helmet, and slung him to the left as hard as I could. This time it worked - sort of.

Spectacularly sort of ... so to speak.

Picture a new scene. You are a cop. You and your partner have pulled off on a quiet residential street and parked with your windows down to do some paperwork. Suddenly a large man on a huge black and chrome motorcycle, dressed in jeans, a torn T-shirt flapping in the breeze, and wearing only one leather glove, moving at probably 80 mph on one wheel, and screaming bloody murder roars by, and with all his strength throws a live squirrel grenade directly into your police car.

I heard screams. They weren´t mine. I managed to get the big motorcycle under control and dropped the front wheel to the ground. I then used maximum braking and skidded to a stop in a cloud of tire smoke at the stop sign of a busy cross street. I would have returned to ´fess up (and to get my glove back). I really would have.

Really. Except for two things.

First, the cops did not seem interested or the slightest bit concerned about me at the moment. When I looked back, the doors on both sides of the patrol car were flung wide open. The cop from the passenger side was on his back, doing a crab walk into somebody´s front yard, quickly moving away from the car. The cop who had been in the driver´s seat was standing in the street, aiming a riot shotgun at his own police car. So, the cops were not interested in me. They often insist to "let the professionals handle it" anyway.

That was one thing. The other? Well, I could clearly see shredded and flying pieces of foam and upholstery from the back seat. But I could also swear I saw the squirrel in the back window, shaking his little fist at me. That is one dangerous squirrel. And now he has a patrol car. A somewhat shredded patrol car but it was all his.

I took a deep breath, turned on my turn-signal, made a gentle right turn off Brice Street, and sedately left the neighbourhood. I decided it was best to just buy myself a new pair of gloves. And a whole lot of Band-Aids.

You have probably noticed that the cost of food is creeping up, usually slowly but sometimes dramatically. In the US, the Environmental Working Group has researched the top 100 foods that are healthy, cheap, clean, and green:

GOOD FOOD ON A TIGHT BUDGET

With long experience in analyzing government data to provide consumers with useful and accessible information, EWG is the first to develop this comprehensive food ranking system that balances nutrition, cost and environmental health concerns. EWG researchers assessed nearly 1,200 foods, comparing national average food prices, and 19 different nutrients in order to identify the most nutritious foods that are easy on the wallet and the planet. They factored in pesticide residue rankings from EWG´s Shopper´s Guide to Pesticides in Produce, and environmental impacts in EWG´s Meat Eater´s Guide to Climate Change + Health to help consumers lower their exposures to toxic chemicals and reduce their carbon footprints.

The analysis shows that:

o Raw cabbage is a top-ranked vegetable based on nutrition and price. At less than a dime a serving, it´s cheaper than potatoes and can be served as a salad, stuffed, or used in sandwiches, stir-fries, stews and soups.

o Carrots, bananas, frozen broccoli, pears and watermelon receive high marks for nutrition and ring up at less than 30 cents a serving.

o Pears have even more fibre, potassium and folate - and fewer pesticide residues - than apples.

o Parsley packs a nutritional punch as potent as kale for a quarter of the cost.

o Roasted turkey topped the list of animal sources of protein. Hot dogs ranked dead last.

Other highlights of Good Food on a Tight Budget:

o Fresh isn´t always more expensive. And canned isn´t always cheaper. Fresh carrots are cheaper than frozen. Frozen corn can be cheaper than canned.

o Beans are cheaper and have a smaller carbon footprint than turkey.

o One serving of filling oatmeal is about half the cost of a bowl of sugared cereal.

o Brown rice costs as little as oatmeal and has twice as much fibre as white rice.

o Boil, bake, or roast three servings of potatoes for the same cost as a single serving of hash browns.

o Plain yogurt has more calcium than sour cream and costs less.

EWG´s guide underscores that home cooking is the best way to save money and enjoy good food. The best strategy, it says, is to cook and freeze large batches of healthy foods such as soup and turkey chilli. Another winning strategy: buying rice, beans, and other dry or frozen staples in bulk from warehouse stores and a growing number of local markets.

From the website of the David Suzuki Foundation comes this Declaration of Interdependence, which was written for the 1992 UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro:

THIS WE KNOW

We are the earth, through the plants and animals that nourish us.

We are the rains and the oceans that flow through our veins.

We are the breath of the forests of the land, and the plants of the sea.

We are human animals, related to all other life as descendants of the firstborn cell.

We share with these kin a common history, written in our genes.

We share a common present, filled with uncertainty.

And we share a common future, as yet untold.

We humans are but one of thirty million species weaving the thin layer of life enveloping the world. The stability of communities of living things depends upon this diversity.

Linked in that web, we are interconnected - using, cleansing, sharing and replenishing the fundamental elements of life.

Our home, planet Earth, is finite; all life shares its resources and the energy from the sun, and therefore has limits to growth.

For the first time, we have touched those limits.

When we compromise the air, the water, the soil, and the variety of life, we steal from the endless future to serve the fleeting present.

ED. NOTE: For the full text of the declaration, go to http://www.davidsuzuki.org/about/declaration/

Bruce Galway forwards this advice for driving in rain, and it has been confirmed by Snopes:

DRIVING IN LIGHT RAIN AND FOG

Wearing polarized sunglasses when driving in the rain during the day will help a driver see better. Polarized sunglasses work to block horizontal components of scattered or reflected light, which means they help counteract the scattering of light that atmospheric effects like fog or rain have on daylight.

Notice, however, that this ability is limited to polarized sunglasses. Non-polarized lenses won´t do anything other than make the field of vision darker, which means wearing them while driving in the rain would increase the hazard, not reduce it.

One caveat though: Wearing polarized lenses while driving may make LCD dashboard displays quite a bit harder to read.

In a nutshell:

• Wear polarized sunglasses when driving in rain during the day. First and foremost, forget about driving in an absolute downpour - instead, get off the road and wait out the storm. However, during light to moderate rainfalls, polarized sunglasses will help the driver see more clearly.

• Lenses must be polarized. Non-polarized sunglasses will not improve clarity of vision in the rain. Indeed, they will make matters worse.

• Wear polarized sunglasses when driving in fog during the day. Get off the road and stay off the road when fog is heavy, but in light to moderate fogs and mists, polarized sunglasses will assist drivers in the same fashion that they do in light to moderate rains.

• Don´t wear sunglasses while driving at night. Although polarized sunglasses will help improve clarity of vision during the day in rain or fog, at night they will serve to reduce contrast and thus make a mess of the driver´s depth perception. This practice is foolhardy and dangerous.

Zvonko Springer and Pat both sent me this one:

PASS THE BISCUITS

When I was a kid, my mom liked to make breakfast food for dinner every now and then. I remember one night in particular when she had made breakfast after a long, hard day at work. On that evening so long ago, my mom placed a plate of eggs, sausage, and extremely burned biscuits in front of my dad. I remember waiting to see if anyone noticed! Yet all my dad did was reach for his biscuit, smile at my mom, and ask me how my day was at school.

I don´t remember what I told him that night, but I do remember hearing my mom apologize to my dad for burning the biscuits. And I´ll never forget what he said: "Honey, I love burned biscuits."

Later that night, I went to kiss Daddy good night and I asked him if he really liked his biscuits burned. He wrapped me in his arms and said, "Your momma put in a long hard day at work today and she´s real tired. And besides ... a burnt biscuit never hurt anyone!"

You know, life is full of imperfect things ... and imperfect people. I´m not the best at hardly anything, and I forget birthdays and anniversaries just like everyone else. What I´ve learned over the years is that learning to accept each others´ faults and choosing to celebrate each others´ differences is one of the most important keys to creating a healthy, growing, and lasting relationship.

So ... please pass me a biscuit. And yes, the burned one will do just fine!

Betty Audet forwards these thoughts about

PLANTING

* If you plant honesty, you will reap trust;
* If you plant goodness, you will reap friends;
* If you plant humility, you will reap greatness;
* If you plant perseverance, you will reap contentment;
* If you plant consideration, you will reap perspective ;
* If you plant hard work, you will reap success;
* If you plant forgiveness, you will reap reconciliation.

So be careful what you plant now; it will determine what you will reap later.

FROM THE EDITOR´S DESK

Betty´s thoughts on planting remind me of my experiment in growing tomatoes indoors.

You may remember that the six plants I bought and planted in Miracle Grow soil, with extra tomato fertilizer sticks added, grew like Jack´s beanstalk, and soon reached past the top of the greenhouse. However, in spite of their rapid growth, only two of the plants produced any fruit, and the tomatoes were about the size of glassies - those glass marbles we used to play with. I ate the whole crop in one sitting as appetizers, and my friend Brigitte and I ruthlessly cut down the beanstalks - uh, tomato plants - and she took them home to her compost bin.

In the meantime, I had planted four other pots with Tiny Tim seeds, two of them at first, and then the other two some weeks later. They were sprouted in "cowpots", which are little pots made of dried cow manure which are guaranteed to rot when planted in regular pots and provide extra nutrition to the plants. They grew, but not nearly as fast as the original plants, and one day Brigitte noticed a white patch on one of the leaves - it looked suspiciously like blight! We carefully examined the other three plants, and could see tiny patches of white on them too. Disaster!

We considered the evidence: the new plants were growing in the same soil as the original plants, under the same conditions, but they had blight while the others had none. We could only conclude that somehow the cowpots were the cause of the disease.

Next I will plant some of the Tiny Tims in the same soil but without the cowpots and see how they fare. I will also plant some seeds that Brigitte will give me which are for compact plants with small tomatoes. The experiments go on!

In the meantime, perhaps to console me for the failure of my first crop, Jay used Photo Shop to create a fantasy:

RECOMMENDED WEBSITES

Catherine Green suggests this site for a video of a man who traded a beer for a dog, and got the better end of the deal:

Catherine Nesbitt sends this link to a performance of "And The Waltz Goes On", composed by Anthony Hopkins, the same man who played Hannibal Lector, the cannibalistic murderer. Besides being an excellent actor, Anthony Hopkins is also a talented composer. This wonderful performance is from the DVD: "Andre Rieu, Under the Stars, Live in Masstricht 5":

Catherine also forwards the URL for a video of a ranger freeing a moose from a chain. The man must have nerves of steel:

Jean Sterling sends this link to a time-lapse video of a year in 40 seconds, a beautiful video by Eirik Solheim:

Kate and Mike Brookfield are going on a holiday to the South Pacific, and Kate has started a new blog for the journey. She has made it public so anyone can go to the site, and if they click on the red button, bottom right, "Follow", whenever she writes a blog, they will receive a message in their inbox without having to sign up for Word Press or going to the web page:

Nirvan Mullick was just going to buy a door handle for his car when he came across an elaborate arcade, made of cardboard, that a nine-year-old boy named Caine had built in his father´s auto parts store. One thing led to another and the film he made about the kid´s magical arcade went viral.

This is the followup to the original Caine´s Arcade short film. Five months later, Caine´s Arcade had gone global, inspiring a wave of cardboard creativity, an Imagination Foundation, and a Global Cardboard Challenge:

Here´s a story about two organizations - a brewery and a hospital - that you wouldn´t ordinarily think would work together. They are surprisingly bringing down the hospital´s energy costs in a mutually beneficial way. The arrangement moves the hospital one step closer to its goal of being completely energy independent by 2014!

To check out the features of the "freedictionary", which changes daily, go to