Tag: life

Shovel

January 13, 2025

We are now well into recovery from the snowstorm that dumped 9 inches (23 cm) of snow on our town before the weekend.  That gave me a day to recoup as I had no intention of getting out in the snow.  I did take time Saturday afternoon to shovel the portion of the patio that was being trampled by the kids at play and myself as I stocked the feeders.  It was in the 30’sF (0’sC) during the day and I knew if I did not remove the snow, it would become a sheet of ice.  That would make it harder to remove and slicker as I walked (it did not seem to bother the kids either way).  I always had a snow shovel when I lived in Kansas and used it several times over the winter.  The shovel was something I did not bring when we moved to Arkansas.  While it usually snows once over the winter, it is rarely deep enough to worry about shoveling.  Since we got deep snow, that meant I got to dig out using a square 8-inch (20cm) shovel rather than the 18-inch (46 cm) snow shovel I am used to.  If you do the math, you know it took twice as long to shovel my patio than if I had the proper equipment.        

When I looked online, I found whether to shovel the snow or not is one of the biggest questions for homeowners.  Questions arise about who is responsible, how much you should shovel, and what to do with the snow you shovel.  This was a moot point as I began to shovel my patio.  The city could care less if I shoveled my back yard or not, but the front yard is a different situation.  The news stations all suggested you move your vehicles off the street to allow access for the street crews.  They also suggested if you did not move them you may end up buried in the drift the plows create as they scoop the snow onto the easement.  I knew I had responsibility for my sidewalk when we lived in Kansas, but we do not have a sidewalk in our cul-de-sac, so I was free from any responsibility there.  Like my patio, I knew clearing my drive was more for my personal convenience than for others.  What I found online is that the rules and regulations on whether you shovel snow vary from state to state, and some cities, towns, and homeowners’ associations (HOA) have their own rules about how to shovel snow.  Like most US states in the south, Arkansas currently has no laws on snow removal.

Knowing it was not my responsibility to shovel snow did not help with maneuvering my driveway and front walk.  We had several packages delivered after the snow let up and the mail and delivery people had forced their way through the snow.  On Sunday I took on the larger task and prepared to shovel the front of our house.  The winds had died down and the temperatures were now comfortably in the high 30’sF (0’sC) so it was ideal weather to shovel.  I took my little flat shovel and scooped the snow into my yard on both sides of the sidewalk and driveway.  I was glad I decided to shovel when I did because the snow was sitting on an inch (2.5 cm) of slush.  The temperatures were predicted to again drop into the low 20’sF (-0’sC) and the slush was going to freeze.  This would be compounded by the footsteps that compact the snow and aid in the freezing.  When I woke up this morning the snow was completely gone and the cement dry.  I am glad I decided to shovel.

Thoughts: As I continued to shovel my driveway, I noticed I was the only one on my cul-de-sac who was doing so.  The snow was only on their drives and streets, and once you got out of our subdivision the roads were clear.  I was not required to shovel, but I felt better knowing I was protecting myself and any delivery people that might venture onto our property.  Every time I shovel snow (Kansas or Arkansas) the same thing happens.  As my neighbor struggled to get out of the cul-de-sac, he stopped and jokingly asked if I would shovel his drive next.  I declined.  While major climate events can be devastating, they seem to bring people together.  Surviving a climate event gives humans a sense of camaraderie that may not have been there previously.  It would be better to connect prior to an event rather than because of one.  Act for all.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

Cute

December 26, 2024

It is the end of the year and that means the internet is barraging us with stories of “The Best” and “The Worst” of everything from sports (Pommel Horse Guy) to music (Gabriela Ortiz, “Kauyumari”) to food (Sour Patch Oreos) . . . (ad nauseum). One story that caught my attention was about the animals that filled 2024 with sadness, intrigue, and delight. Sadness came with the tragic end of Flaco, the escaped Eurasian eagle owl who appeared to die in a building collision in February. Our intriguing was piqued by the Governor boasting of killing her misbehaving dog and a presidential nominee who deposited a dead bear cub in Central Park and cut the head off a dead whale found of the beach. The delight was the previously mentioned slippery potato named after a pork meatball (Moo Deng) who rocked the internet and drove cosmetic influencers for several months. Then there was Terrance the octopus who had been identified as male until “he” laid 50 fertilized eggs. The online audience watched the heroic efforts to keep the fragile hatchlings alive, even as there is only about 1% chance of survival for the hatchling to grow to .4 inches (10 mm) in the wild. It seemed what held media interest best was stories of cute baby animals learning to survive in the world.

When I looked online, I found there are two ways (of course) to answer why we find baby animals so cute. The proximate answer requires you to single out the features of animals that make them cute versus ugly, and often merge them into a general explanation. Why are baby ducks cute and baby parrots ugly? A proximate answer might involve fur, size of the head or the eyes, length of the limbs, all of which help us define cute. The ultimate answer is perhaps an evolutionary one. Is there an evolutionary reason why we find some features attractive and others repugnant? Answering these sorts of questions is the foundation of evolutionary psychology, and while the answers may be elusive (or even beyond our grasp), we still like to think about them. The reasons we find animals cute or ugly come from criteria that have evolved to help us evaluate members of our own species. Baby animals are cute because natural selection has given babies of some species traits that remind us of a human infant.

Some of these ideas could be tested to determine whether there is a commonality between features we see as ugly or cute in animals and compare them with similar features in humans. Regardless, it is important to remember things are not innately ugly or cute. Features humans find ugly may be exactly what attracts the female to the male of another species. As Darwin recognized, our tastes may be no less evolved than our brains or our bodies. For humans, there is no reason for why the signs of age make someone innately less attractive than the freshness of youth. It may be that our standards of beauty have evolved to reflect candidates for mates and older people are seen as less attractive because they are near or past the age of reproduction. This is a preference that could have been instilled in our ancestors by natural selection. Still, beauty in nature is not innate but evolved and our biology co-evolves with our tastes. Only in animal breeding is this reversed, where human desires allow us to sculpt the features and appearance regardless of the environment.

THOUGHTS: There are some babies (animals and humans) that are so ugly that they are cute. In Planet of the Apes, astronaut George Taylor is preparing to leave and thanks the chimpanzees who help him escape. He overcomes his repulsion and turns to Doctor Zira (female) saying, “Doctor, I’d like to kiss you goodbye.” Zira responds, “All right, but you’re so damned ugly.” Humans need to look beyond the traits that make one superficially cute and find the inner beauty that is only revealed when we get to know each other. Act for all. Change is coming and it starts with you.