Watered all the potatoes and onions.

Watered the peas, potatoes, and onions.

Lose Weight? - Don't Chew
Sometimes profound thoughts strike you in the strangest locations.  While "finishing up" in the bathroom today, I noticed whole corn kernels in the toilet bowl just before I flushed.  I suddenly realized that my body derived zero nutritional value from that un-chewed corn - my body consequently also got zero calories from them as well.  Hmmm.  I think it might be possible for people to lose weight by reducing the amount they chew up food.  Think about it - if you eat the same as you do now - but only chew enough to get it down to your stomach, it will be more difficult for your body to fully digest the bigger chunks.  The less efficiency in breaking down and digesting the food you swallow means fewer calories are extracted before whatever is left over heads to the toilet bowl.  Fewer calories means weight loss.   I think I'll call this the "Whole Kernel Corn Diet" and suggest that people wanting to lose weight keep a can of whole kernel corn on top of their refrigerator as a reminder of the principle.

Fossils - Adaptation
I enjoy knocking around the countryside near Smyrna, Tennessee.  In many of the road cuts you can find outcrops of fossil bearing rocks.  It's interesting to think the organisms making up the fossils lived some 250 million years ago - and almost all are extinct now.  I think the fossils can help US think about the the mark WE are leaving behind.  These simple forms of life make our life today possible.  They processed carbon dioxide from our atmosphere and their bodies formed the limestone and marble we use.  Will future generations look back on what we have done with appreciation?

Each of these fossil forms of life became extinct because they could not adapt with changing conditions.  Will we suffer the same fate?  Or will we have the vision to see the changes ahead and have the flexibility to make the necessary adjustments to survive . . . and even excel?  It's up to each of us.  We need to start today.

Fossils - Atmosphere Builders
I think there's an additional point to be made when considering fossil life - that being the profound impact these ancient forms of life had on their atmosphere.  The shelly critters were important in extracting carbon dioxide from seawater and chemically binding CO2 in the calcium carbonate of their shells.  The ancient plants also extracted carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and returned the oxygen we breathe today.  The fact that life as we know it is able to exist is due to these chemical changes millions of years ago.  Initially, I felt appreciative that this ancient life make life today possible.  The more I thought about it, these chemical changes were not done for our benefit - the organisms were not trying to do some good deed millions of years after their death.  They were just doing their own life thing and ridding themselves of wastes.   Isn't that just what we are doing today?  Maybe millions of years from now, other life forms will be greatly appreciative of the wastes we are creating today.  I think I suddenly feel a little better about global pollution.

Chihuahua (Chiwawa) Dance
You know when somebody eats some food that is WAY more spicy hot than they are expecting?   Their eyes water, their noses run, they gasp for air and freak out - running around the room, waving their arms, and pleading for their favorite deity to douse the flames from their mouth and throat.  I call these frantic flamed out antics "Doing the Chihuahua dance."
PS:  For some reason, I like to spell Chihuahua as "Chiwawa" - it makes me chuckle every time (THERE, it happened again!)

We only got 1.25" of rain the entire month of May!  This is not good at all!