It’s the middle of October, when the days grow shorter and the trees are painted in the colors of fall. In previous years, we’ve written about Game Cameras, Chronic Wasting, Professional Licensure, Mushrooms, Harvestmen and more.
Game Camera Fails
At 6 am, Mike was out collecting firewood from the stack to start the days fire. Kiki, the older, chubby white Pomeranian was out with him. Kiki positioned herself off the back steps and started trying to raise the dead with her bark. With enough firewood in hand, Mike called Kiki to the house. Remarkably,…
Chronic Wasting Disease
As the start of the hunting season for deer and elk approaches (general, not archery), Chronic Wasting Disease becomes increasingly relevant again. Chronic Wasting Disease is a prion disease, fatal, with no known treatments. While there are no known transmissions to humans, the CDC recommends having elk, deer or moose tested if there’s known to…
I need a license for what?
One of the worst shocks of growing up was how much paperwork adulthood requires. Recently, I’ve been learning about licenses. Not fishing licenses, or hunting licenses, which I did know about, but professional and occupational licenses. Some professions are obvious. It’s clear that a doctor, an MD, will need a license to practice medicine. Clear,…
Harvestmen, or Daddy-Long-Legs
Earlier this week, I met a Harvestman while making supper. It had stowed away on some kale from the garden, and was still walking about on it… even after a week or so in the refrigerator. Harvestmen have a rather well-known urban legend. Perhaps you’ve heard people say that “they’re the most venomous spiders in…
Be Nice to the Candidates
I can claim that I am an elected school trustee. So can the school board members in Fortine and Eureka. Yet I (and probably most of them) was elected by acclamation. There may be a more politically correct way to describe it – but the reality is that I was elected without anyone voting for…
Thoughts on Mandatory Retirement Age
I recall a time when mandatory retirement age became illegal. The age discrimination law passed in 1967 – the year I graduated high school. It didn’t personally affect me – I was 17. Still, I can think of a few reasons we might want to revisit the idea. The Dakota – the Sioux – as…
A Billion to Increase Tree Equity
I notice that a small part of the huge “Infrastructure” bill is a billion dollars to plant trees to increase “tree equity.” I probably need a professional forester to explain the significance of “tree equity” to me – but looking at my small piece of the west, “tree equity” seems somewhere between impractical and impossible. …
BLS and My Neighbor’s Laws
Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan told of overhearing his housekeeper on the phone, “Sure, he’s a doctor, but not the kind that does a body any good.” There are more doctors that can do “a body any good” than Ph.D. sociologists like Moynihan. There is a practicing physician (whether DO or MD) for somewhere on the…
Mushrooms abound!
It’s been a good couple weeks for mushrooms here – puffballs, many ready to be made into mushroom steaks, some already releasing spores, seeding future years’ mushrooms. And shaggy manes, good for eating fresh, or letting sit and turn into “mushroom ink”. The first time this happened to some shaggy manes we’d collected, I was…
Bear Attack Statistics
Flathead Bear Aware posted “In fact, more people are killed by black bears.” The statement brings the opportunity for statistics – and there are a couple of sources easily available for checking the statement. From a statistical perspective, fatalities are a more solid measure than attacks. Five years ago, I listened to a man telling…
I Think I Got the Bedbug Letter
I first heard of the bedbug letter about 50 years ago – from Bob Brown, when we were undergrads at MSU. In Bob’s story, the protagonist was P.J. Hill of the Great Northern . . . the Hill that Hill county is named after. The Hill who was known as the “Empire Builder.” Since the…
The Misery Index
Almost a half-century ago, an economist named Arthur Okun developed the Misery Index. It’s a simple calculation – just add the unemployment rate to the inflation rate, and you have the Misery Index. He also came up with Okun’s law – which is online, but I think it would be better termed Okun’s estimate. At…
Trego's Mountain Ear 
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