Is it some sort of custom to honk at starlings? You know, those black pest birds that line telephone wires and hang out in fields eating crops? About a quarter a mile down the road from our house, maybe less actually, there's a big field where a TON of starlings like to flock. There's hundreds, no thousands of them! They line the telephone wires and perform group flight maneuvers and sound like Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. They're kinda creepy. I need to go take pictures of the birds sometime so I won't have to steal pictures off the Internet if I want to write about them. ANYway, a few weeks ago while my boys and I were taking a walk, a car drove through where those birds are with its horn blaring. There was nothing in the road except for us, way, way ahead of the car with PLENTY of time to get out of the way, so I thought the driver was either psycho or some goofy teenagers. When the car passed us, not honking anymore, it was a middle aged dude, not teenagers, so I decided he was a psycho horn honker and didn't think anything more about it.
UNTIL, today when Colter and I were again on a walk, a different car went through the same bird infested area honking its horn like crazy. We were walking down a side street, so I didn't get a good look at the driver, but I could tell that it was someone by themselves. I know that sometimes groups of people being silly might randomly try to play "Row Row Row Your Boat" on their car horn, but do people usually do that when they are by themselves? Not unless they're psycho horn honkers. While this crazy car honked on by us, Colter and I noticed all the birds started flying away. Then, a few minutes later ANOTHER vehicle drove through Bird Land honking their horn! AGAIN, it was a middle aged man by himself. WHAT is going on? Has the world been invaded by psycho horn honking middle aged dudes? Is honking your horn at starlings a normal thing? Is it considered a public service to try to scare them away even though they come right back after the honking stops? Maybe this is a tradition I know nothing about. Maybe it's merely coincidence. Maybe there are lots of psychos in my neighborhood. Besides myself of course.
UNTIL, today when Colter and I were again on a walk, a different car went through the same bird infested area honking its horn like crazy. We were walking down a side street, so I didn't get a good look at the driver, but I could tell that it was someone by themselves. I know that sometimes groups of people being silly might randomly try to play "Row Row Row Your Boat" on their car horn, but do people usually do that when they are by themselves? Not unless they're psycho horn honkers. While this crazy car honked on by us, Colter and I noticed all the birds started flying away. Then, a few minutes later ANOTHER vehicle drove through Bird Land honking their horn! AGAIN, it was a middle aged man by himself. WHAT is going on? Has the world been invaded by psycho horn honking middle aged dudes? Is honking your horn at starlings a normal thing? Is it considered a public service to try to scare them away even though they come right back after the honking stops? Maybe this is a tradition I know nothing about. Maybe it's merely coincidence. Maybe there are lots of psychos in my neighborhood. Besides myself of course.
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Here's my little known fact which may not be a little known fact, but I didn't know this fact so I'm gonna call it little known. Catch all that? Did you know that if you return food items that have absultely nothing wrong with them to Wal Mart, that the Wal Mart people throw the food away? Perfectly good food! I returned some applesauce yesterday that I didn't want. I had picked up the wrong package--I wanted the no sugar added kind and this was the sugar loaded kind, and since I had something else to return anyway, I decided to exchange it for what I actually wanted. The lady asked me if anything was wrong with the applesauce because they would have to throw it out. It didn't register for a few minutes that they had to throw it out no matter what. I thought she meant just if something was wrong with it. Well, she put the whole $1.67 back on my credit card and then put a note on the applesauce that said "left store," and that's when it hit me that they were going to throw the applesauce away! There was absulutely nothing wrong with it, it just had sugar! I asked if I could take it to donate it or something and she said only if you buy it back, which I TOTALLY should have, but didn't because I am a wasteful loser who was completely confused and taken aback by the fact that they were going to throw the applesauce away. There were people behind me in line and the lady was grumpy, and I was really confused, but now I feel so bad that I walked away for a $1.67. I should have bought it back.
I realized that food could be contaminiated by crazy people that want to poison innocent people, but how often does that really happen? And isn't that what safty seals are for? Couldn't they tell if I had poisoned the applesauce? Also, if Wal Mart is going to throw it away, why do they accept returns on food items that aren't damaged? Wouldn't it have been better to make me keep the applesauce and either eat it anyway or give it away then to toss it? There are people out there who don't have anything to eat, and I just threw away six packs of mixed berry applesauce. With sugar. I'm ashamed.
Can you guess my theme yet?
This car lives in the woods on my family's farm. Doesn't it look sad? I don't know if it's sad because someone wrecked it and left it all alone, because my brother and his friends shot out a few windows with BB guns, or because mice ate it's upholstery. Maybe it's all of the above.
Colter really like the fish...
and the elephants!
When we got hot, we played in the misters. 
Colter really liked the bears, too.
My favorite was the penguins. Partly because we got to go 
When we saw an ostrich with the giraffes, it hissed at us. Colter hissed back! 
Zebras used to be Colter's favorite animal, but he didn't seem too interested in live ones. 
To see more dancin' go to 
