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Everywhere I go I find a pal

Everywhere I go  I find a pal Everywhere I go  I find a pal

Peter Weinschenk, Editor, The Record-Review

A recent science story in The New York Times reports that sauropods, huge dinosaurs that weighed over 40 tons, stomped incredible distances across the Great Plains during the Jurassic Age.

We know this, the story explains, because fist-sized rocks specific to southern Wisconsin turned up at a fossil dig in Wyoming.

The rocks, scientists speculate, were likely ingested by the 100-feet long sauropods to aid digestion, just as modern day pheasants, turkeys and other birds pick at roadside gravel. The dinosaurs, so goes the theory, carried the stones in their belly during a long migration to what now calls itself the Cowboy State.

These swallowed stones, known as gastroliths, are smooth and rounded.

Maybe the University of Wisconsin could pick up on this. The UW scientists could toss together a few stem cells and create a modern-day sauropod.

Come planting season, it might be handy for farmers to have a pet dinosaur gulp up stones on cropland rather than to have human farm families continue to pick them up by hand and cart them to the nearest rock pile.

Better living through science!

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Is winter over?

It’s pretty tough to tell. I returned my collection of snow shovels to my barn on a warm, sunny day in March, but, in no time, I had to grab one of the shovels to clear off an early spring snow off my back steps. I put that one shovel away, but, after another small blizzard, I had to fetch it again.

The daffodils are in full bloom, but, over the last couple of days, brief, five-minute snow storms whiten their fragile blossoms.

The robins have probably been snowed on a dozen times or more.

They are likely as confused as I am whether spring has really sprung.

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I collected a bulging sack of roadside ditch garbage on Monday near the Village of Edgar.

This might look like me doing a good deed, but, actually, it was me collecting evidence in a sociological experiment.

I learned through gathering items of material civilization that people in the area seem to prefer Busch Light beer, Marlboro cigarettes and Sundrop soda. Somebody likes eating crepes.

I don’t know if my random collection of discarded items can put together a complete picture of how local people really live, but you do pick up a lot of pieces to that puzzle. Banana peels. COVID-19 masks. Rubber bands. Styrofoam containers. Odd pieces of plastic. Packets of pancake syrup.

Does this mean that people here during the COVID-19 pandemic like ordering takeout banana pancakes?

That would be an unscientific conclusion, certainly, but the shards of material culture (now part of the Ringle landfill) do spark some thinking about just how people here actually live.

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