Tag Archives: nature

Does Anyone Need a Cocaine Hippo?

The horseshoe theory of politics states that the political spectrum is shaped like a horseshoe instead of a straight line running in opposite directions.  Far-right and far-left political ideologies begin to converge, and people in those two groups start to become more aligned instead of alienated.  I think the horseshoe theory applies to blogging too.  I decided to stop writing about bees and the natural world this winter since everything is dormant.  For fun I am writing on all sorts of wackadoodle topics for my Left Field collection.  Pablo Escobar’s Cocaine Hippos are so far into Left Field that they have come right back around and fit in with my usual blogging about the natural world.  Put on your safari hats, and let’s talk about cocaine hippos!

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Learning to Embrace Weeds

When I was a young child, my family took a road trip to Illinois to see my aunt and uncle, who have a large scale soybean and corn farm.  Forty years later, there are two things I remember vividly from the trip.  The first is how flat Illinois is.  Kentucky is full of hills, and you can never see very far off into the horizon.  In Illinois, we could sit on the porch and see the rain coming 10 or 15 minutes before it actually arrived.  The second thing I remember is being in my uncle’s soybean field when he pointed out a weed.  The weed was an oat plant.  I knew he must be mistaken because oats aren’t weeds.  I loved oatmeal for breakfast, and my grandmother made awesome oatmeal raisin cookies.  (Shout out to my Mimi.  God rest her soul.)  How could oats be considered weeds?  My uncle went on to explain the definition of a weed.  A weed is any plant that grows in a place you don’t want it to grow.

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