Issue 130 - Tidbits of Sheridan and Johnson Counties

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June 27 - July 3, 2016

Issue 130

Kysar Publishing

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Laugh a bit with

your Hometown Lumber yard Since 1928 Sheridan

Q: What gets bigger the more you take away?

A: A hole!

TIDBITS® PLANTS SEEDS

by Janet Spencer Charles Darwin once scraped about seven ounces (200 g) of mud off the feet of several dozen water birds, then placed the mud in a terrarium and tended it carefully. Some 537 plants grew from the mud, proving how effective birds are at transferring seeds. Come along with Tidbits as we plant some seeds!

BIG vs LITTLE • The tallest known tree is a redwood in California that stands 379 feet (115 m) which is 62 feet (19 m) taller than the Statue of Liberty. A man standing next to this redwood is proportionately equal to an ant standing next to a fishing pole 13 feet (4 m) long. Redwood needles and cones are less than an inch long (2.5 cm), and the seeds are so small it takes 6,000 seeds to weigh one ounce (28 g).

• To equal an ounce in weight, it takes about 50 lima bean seeds; 3,000 radish seeds; 10,000 onion seeds; 25,000 lettuce seeds; 75,000 celery seeds; 140,000 poppy seeds; 300,000 petunia seeds; 400,000 tobacco seeds; and 1,000,000 begonia seeds. Orchids have the smallest seeds.

It takes more than 35 million seeds to weigh 1 ounce. On the other hand, a giant palm tree that grows on only two islands off Madagascar yields double coconuts called “coco de mer” meaning “sea coconut” that weigh 45 to 60 lbs. (20 - 27 kg). They are the largest seeds in the world.

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(Continued on Next Page)

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Page 2

Tidbits® of Sheridan and Johnson Counties Tidbits Presents the

HEALTH PAGE

THE LONG & SHORT OF IT • According to the Gardeners’ Chronicle of Nov. 11, 1843, twelve wheat seeds from a vase in an Egyptian tomb sealed for 3,000 years sprouted and lived. The longest officially documented longevity of a seed was that of three lotus seeds found in an ancient canoe buried 18 feet deep (5.5 m) in a peat bog near Tokyo in 1951. Radiocarbon dating revealed the seeds to be 2,000 years old. Two of the three seeds sprouted four days after being planted.

• Cottonwood seeds, floating about on tiny tufts of cotton, remain alive for only a few days. They will germinate almost instantly upon landing on moist soil.

CLOSE CALL • On the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, dodo birds lived under the calvaria tree. The tree’s seeds were unable to sprout until they had been ground down by the dodo’s digestive tract. The dodo had no natural enemies and therefore had developed no defenses. When men came accompanied by rats, dogs, and guns, the dodo died out in short order, and it looked like the calvaria tree was soon to follow. At one point there were only 13 of the trees left in the world, some of them more than 300 years old. Then a researcher fed the seeds to turkeys, whose gizzards did the job that the dodo used to do. The calvaria tree was saved from the dodo’s fate.

SUNFLOWER STATISTICS • Percent of a sunflower seed that is composed of oil: up to 50% • Number of bushels of seeds from an average acre of sunflowers: 50 • Number of gallons of sunflower oil from each bushel of seeds: 1 gal.

• Number of different species of sunflower: 110 • Rank of sunflower oil in the list of the longest burning vegetable oils: 1 SEED HUSKING • To shell sunflower seeds, the seeds are dropped into a strong airstream which propels the seed towards a hard metal plate. The seeds whack the plate with such force and speed that they crack open. The empty husk is light and it is blown to the side. The husked kernels drop into a bin below, where they are collected for packaging.

SEEDS OF INSPIRATION • George de Mestral and his dog went hunting in Switzerland one day in 1948. He became frustrated by the cockleburs that stuck to his clothing and his dog. At home, he looked at them under his microscope. They were covered with little hooks, which stuck to the loops of thread in his clothing like a thousand grasping hands. He wondered if he couldn’t imitate nature to develop a fastener that would work that well. It took him eight years of research to develop his own system of cocklebur fabric, which he named Velcro from the French word “velour” meaning “velvet” and “crochet” meaning “hook.” Ten years later, textile looms were turning out 60 million yards of Velcro every year.

• Each cocklebur contains two seeds. One is programmed to germinate the next spring, and the other is programmed to germinate the second spring. This doubles the chances of encountering good growing conditions.

MUSIC APPRECIATION • In 1960, botanist George Smith planted two sets of corn and soybean seeds in flats in his greenhouses.

Both sets were treated identically, with the exception that one set “listened” to George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” 24 hours a day. The Gershwin plants sprouted earlier and were healthier than those kept in total silence. The next year, Smith continually broadcast music to a small plot of corn. The plot yielded 137 bushels an acre, versus 117 for an identical plot kept in silence.

SECURING A SUPPLY • A Frenchman was a talented gardener and fancied exotic Oriental anemones. His gardens drew a lot of attention, but he steadfastly refused to share seeds, bulbs, or cuttings from his plants. One day a government official who stopped in for a chat “accidentally” dropped his coat into a bed of anemones that had gone to seed. His servant, who had been carefully instructed, rushed to pick up the coat and carry it home to brush it off. The number of seeds recovered from the coat was enough not only to supply the wily official, but also to spread among his friends. Soon anemones were growing all over Europe.

• Mexico had a valuable strain of cotton that yielded high quality seeds, but it was against Mexican law to export any seeds. In 1809, Walter Burling was on a public mission to Mexico and asked the Viceroy for some of their valuable seeds. The Viceroy refused to give him the seeds. Instead, he invited Burling to take home as many Mexican dolls as he wished. The dolls were stuffed with cotton seeds.

A STRANGE BOUQUET • A German botanist was exploring Mexico, looking for new specimens. When he found a beautiful purple flower, he gathered a sack full of the seed heads. Suddenly he was seized by bandits who thought his sack must be full of gold. When they opened it and found only a bunch of dead flowers, the robbers were convinced the botanist was an idiot, wandering through the desert carrying only dead flowers. Because it was considered bad luck to murder the feeble-minded, the bandits let the man go. The flowers he was collecting were taken back to Europe where they were examined and propagated by another botanist named Dr. Johann Gottfried Zinn. Dr. Zinn named them after himself: zinnias.

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Price: $10,400 Call: 307-752-1030 307-672-7526 Mid 70’s Kawasaki Motorcycle Parts. 4 Various Size Bikes New in Packages.

(307) 429-1037 1999 Winnebago Motorhome 37’ Loaded. Good Condition.

26k Miles. $30,000 (307) 751-4203 2006 Dodge 2500 Quad Cab 5.9 Diesel. Long box, sprayon bed liner, B&W goose neck hitch, Super Spring rear suspension, tow package, new front brakes, new ball joints, matching topper, K&N air filter, solid front end. $26,500 Denny (307) 751-9428 2001 Dodge 4x4 Cummings $12,000 5.9L 24 Valve 147k miles 3 0 7 - 7 5 1 - 1 9 7 3

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Intel t-3 system computer. 4 gb ram. 500gb HD DVD drive with 20” flat screen. ASUS monitor. With a canon copy/ fax mx320. Cartridges.

Also computer desk. For $200.00. 307-752-3134.

Drum Set - Low Tom, High Tom, Floor Tom, Base Drum and Snare, Hihat, 1 Crash Symbol, 1 Ride Symbol. $400 obo call 240-4499 1/2 Grassfed Beef for Sale: $1419.30 includes everything on 342 carcass weight (processing, deliver to Sheridan, Miles City, or points between).

All natural, slow grown on pasture, grassfed and finished. Quarters, Eighths, Sixteenths, and individual cuts also available. LOHOF Grass-Finished BEEF.com. 406-784-2549. lohofmeats@gmail.com WE HAVE HAY! 2015 crop 1st cutting, small sq bales of Alfalfa/Timothy mix with a little Brome grass for added fiber.

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Home or pet care, transportation, house projects, FOR SALE grocery shopping and more For Sale: Mobile Home Lot - call Errands & Extras 307, 630 Mobile Dr. in Ranches- LLC--your Personal Aster, WY Call (307) 655-2310 sistant Service 752-1623.

Home For Sale - Call Rose Hendrickson with KW Three Peaks Realty (307) 751-4878 $184,900 4 Bedrooms 1 1/2 Bathoom New Furnace and Central Air, New Fridge, Stove, Washer and Dryer - upgrades throughout! Living room has hardwood floors, ceramic tile in the kitchen and bathrooms and new carpet in the bedrooms.

Upstairs bedrooms have walk-in closets and built in storage. Fenced in back yard and in a quiet neighborhood close to school and parks. Newly poured front entry steps and pad with beautiful stamped concrete.

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House painting, cleaning, general labor - Lots of Experience - References Available Call Steve 683-7814

PLACE YOUR CLASSIFIED AD FOR FREE! EMAIL YOUR INFO TO BKYSAR@SJTIDBITS.COM OR CALL 751-1392

Of Sheridan & Johnson Counties

Published weekly by Kysar Publishing.

Call (307) 655-5095 bkysar@sjtidbits.com

KP

Tidbits® of Sheridan and Johnson Counties

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Featuring Local Celebrities, Inspirational Stories, and Local Businesses

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Page 5

PET OF THE WEEK! Celine is our cat of the week at Second Chance Sheridan Cat Rescue! Celine is a 1 year old, domestic short hair Siamese mix that loves to cuddle and play! For more information about Celine or any other adoptable cat, please call 307-461-9555 or visit http://sheridancatrescue.org.

PAW’S CORNER

By Sam Mazzotta Should Cats Chew on Bones?

--DEAR PAW’S CORNER: My orange-and-white cat, “Gerald,” loves to gnaw on chicken bones. If I don’t watch him, he’ll jump on the counter and grab a bone from a discard plate or even strip bones off of a baked chicken, leaving the meat! Is he a reincarnated dog? -- Blake in Miami

COTTON • Cotton seeds are attached to cotton fibers which catch the wind and float away, carrying the seed to new areas. The seeds are very firmly attached to the fibers, and the fibers are very strong. In fact, cotton fibers are stronger than steel wire of the same thickness, making cotton perfect for clothing, especially since the fiber increases in strength when it is wet. Furthermore, the fibers twist as they dry. A single inch-long cotton fiber may have 300 turns in it, making it very durable.

• It is very difficult and time-consuming to separate the seeds from the fibers. When picking the seeds out by hand, it took one person two years to turn out a bale of cotton. For every 100 pounds (45 kg) of fiber, there were 180 pounds (87 kg) of seeds, and each cotton boll had 20 to 50 seeds.

• Eli Whitney heard some of his friends complaining about the problems of separating cotton fibers from the seeds. Since Eli was an educated man, they asked him if he could find a solution.

• Within a few days, he built a prototype cotton gin (short for engine) and demonstrated it for a few people. In the gin, a toothed cylinder rakes the cotton against a grate, pulling the fiber through a set of bars, and leaving the seeds behind. In its first trial, Eli turned out a full day’s worth of work in a single hour. His small hand-cranked model cleaned cotton as fast as 50 people working by hand.

• Word got around fast. Based on this single demonstration, farmers all over the American South began planting enormous amounts of cotton plants.

Previously cotton had been so labor-intensive that it wasn’t profitable. Eli began the process of patenting his invention, but before the patent could be completed and a factory set up to turn out cotton gins, all of the newly planted cotton was ready to be harvested. Farmers built their own cotton gins without worrying about patents. (continued on last page).

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DEAR BLAKE: It’s certainly not unheard of: Cats may be domesticated, but they’re still predators, and gnawing on bones is a way of getting to some of the tastiest parts of a fresh kill, such as the marrow, as well as a lot of nutrients not concentrated in the meat.

However, gnawing on cooked bones is a danger because the bones could splinter. And the fact that he’s grabbing them unsupervised means he could nab smaller bones that really are problematic. So first, cover up unattended food securely.

Next, double-check about the bone-gnawing with Gerald’s vet, who will likely have some recommendations. Review Gerald’s diet: Is he getting enough nutrients in his dry or wet cat food?

If you want to keep giving him bones, raw bones are safer; however, that potentially introduces dangerous bacteria like salmonella. Try lightly steaming a few drumsticks, so they’re just cooked, then cool them completely. If he only wants the bones, debone large-boned cuts like the thigh or drumstick, “shock” the bones in boiling water for about 30 seconds and then cool completely. Make up a few, and keep them in the refrigerator. Give Gerald one a day.

Be sure to monitor his health, behavior and bowel movements closely to make sure he isn’t ingesting splinters or experiencing any adverse effects from these bony treats.

Send your tips, questions or comments to ask@pawscorner.com. (c) 2016 King Features Synd., Inc.

Amazing Animals MICE • The word “mouse” comes from the Sanskrit word for thief.

• Mice are thought to be the most common mammal in the U.S. • A mouse will not eat cheese if other food is available. Mice have been known to eat glue, leather, plastic, paste, soap, bugs, leaves, roots, stems, and seeds— but they just don’t go for cheese.

• House mice will usually spend their entire lives within 200 feet (60 m) of their nest.

• Like their cousin the beaver, the teeth of a mouse never stop growing.

• Unlike the bat, which gives birth to only one offspring a year, a female mouse can have a litter every month. Four to seven youngsters are born after a gestation period of only 18 to 21 days. An infant mouse’s eyes open at age 10 days; it leaves the nest at age three weeks; and has its first litter two weeks later.

• Most wild mice live only two or three years, but captive mice can live up to six years.

• Mice living in cold environments such as meat lockers are able to adjust to temperatures around 15 F (-9 C) and have litters larger than house mice living at normal temperatures. They grow to be a larger size, too.

• The tail of a mouse is about as long as its body.

• Mice communicate with each other using ultrasonic sounds that humans cannot hear.

• Mice do not hibernate but they do become less active when weather is severe.

• The ova [eggs] of a blue whale are the same size as the ova of a mouse.

• Mouse sex lasts 5 seconds. A female mouse can get pregnant again within 48 hours of giving birth.

• A group of mice is called a “mischief.”

BAD LUCK • The San Onofre nuclear power plant in California was shut down due to mysterious electrical shortcircuits. Several roasted mice were eventually found near the bad wires.

FIRST MOUSE • During the Carter administration, a mouse got into the White House and died behind the walls. Carter called the General Services Administration, but they claimed the problem was a matter for the Department of the Interior. The Department of the Interior claimed it was the General Services’ dilemma. Carter called men from both agencies, had them take a whiff of the dead mouse, and told them to stop the excuses and get the darn thing out. They did.

DR. JEKYL AND MR. MOUSE • A male mouse in the presence of a baby mouse will either care for it lovingly or kill it. Recently scientists unlocked the secret to this behavior: It depends on how long it’s been since he’s had sex.

• After having sex, the male mouse will kill any infant he comes across until three weeks have passed.

Significantly, that is the gestation period for a mouse. About the time his own offspring are due to be born, a transformation takes place and a male mouse becomes a model dad.

• Biologists believe this behavior increases the representation of his own genes in future generations. Evolution has given him an internal clock which is triggered by sex. This ensures that he won’t kill his own offspring.

Scientists found that by altering the length of the day, they could rush or delay this Jekyland-Hyde transformation, yet it always occurred after the same number of light and dark cycles. At this point, mice are the only species of animal known to have this type of internal clock.

Page 6

Tidbits® of Sheridan and Johnson Counties

QUALITY • SERVICE • SELECTION

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Page 7

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COTTON (cont’d) • Although Eli Whitney eventually received some grants from cotton-producing states, most of it went for legal fees and Eli was left penniless. He never earned much money from his invention which revolutionized the economy of the South.

• Two years before the invention of the gin, cotton production amounted to 6,000 bales a year. By 1860, it had soared to 4.5 million bales, making the U.S. the biggest producer.

• The invention of the cotton gin had an unforeseen impact on the South: the demand for slaves to tend the burgeoning cotton crop suddenly skyrocketed.

• Eli Whitney went on to revolutionize American factories by inventing such concepts as mass production and interchangeable parts, particularly in the manufacture of rifles.

• Today the U.S. produces about 20% of the world’s cotton, grown primarily in 17 southern states. Texas is the top producer.

• Cotton is the most abundantly produced natural fiber in the world. Over 82 million tons of textile fibers were consumed in 2013, of which cotton accounted for 30%, chemical fibers accounted for 68.6%, and all other natural fibers made up less than 2%.

• Although some cotton species are actually a perennial tree, it is traditionally grown as an annual crop to increase yield.

• The word cotton comes from the Arabic word “qutn” which means “fancy.”

• A single bale of cotton weighs about 500 lbs. (227 kg) and can produce 1,200 pair of men’s underpants, or 765 shirts, or 22,000 hankies, or 215 pairs of jeans, or 680,000 cotton balls.

• Paper money is 75% cotton. A baseball contains 150 yards (137 m) of cotton inside it.

• Cotton can absorb 27 times its own weight in water, making it excellent for towels, but not very good for survival clothing.

barbarian lawncare MOWING - WEEDWACKING - RAKING Ethan Kysar

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Mike’s Electric, Inc. 43 East 5th St. Sheridan, WY 82801 Phone: 307-674-7373 Email: nathan@mikeselectricinc.com

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