The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.
Greetings to every one in Western Illinois.
I'm a hope'n all benefited from the nice spring showers we had over the weekend. Yes, it was technically "spring showers," for the first day of summer is not until this Wednesday, June 20.
Down around our part of Hancock and Henderson Counties we received around 1 1/2 inches of welcome, wonderful, and timely rain. Even earth worms came up for a quick drink.
Heard tell of spots up north where the weather was a little nasty. It seems the clouds dumped their load on Southeast Iowa before come'n to the state line. They swooped down onto the Mississippi River and scooped up a new load of moisture. The storm built up a new head of steam with lightning tell'n of its increased power. With determination it headed east with renewed vengeance.
By the time it came to the eastern Henderson County line, it was ready to show its strength by dump'n 3'' to 4'' of rain and unleash'n wind to flatten corn. Not a pretty sight for those folk up there in the eastern edge of the county.
A stretch of strong wind flattened corn down here near Bowen and waded up a new grain bin. A machine shed was damaged and moved out in the corn field.
Me and thee neighborhood boys was a jaw'n again over the weekend. It be'n fathers day last Sunday we decided to test our manly intelligence.
Did ya know that "Stewardesses" is the longest word typed with only the left hand and "lollipop" is the longest word typed with your right hand? (Bet ya tried this out mentally, didn't ya?)
Did ya know no word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple?
"Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "MT". (Are you doubting this?)
Our eyes are always the same size from birth but our nose and ears never stop grow'n.
The sentence: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter of the alphabet. (Now, ya knows you-ns are a gonna try this out for accuracy, right?)
The words "racecar", "kayak", and "level" are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left (palindromes). (Yep, I knew ya were go'n to "do" this one as well!)
There are four words in the English language which end in "dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous. (You're not doubt'n this, are you?)
There are two words in the English language that have all five vowels in order: "abstemious" and "facetious". (Now admit it, ya were a gonna say, aelou)
Typewriter is the longest word that can be made use'n the letters only on one row of the keyboard. ( I'm sure all of you typists are a gonna test this one out).
A cat has 32 muscles in each ear. A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds. (some days that's about what my memory span is.)
A "jiffy" is an actual unit of time of 1/100th of a second. A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes. A snail can sleep for three years.
Almonds are a member of the peach family. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain. Human babies are born without kneecaps. They don't appear until the child reaches 2 to 6 years of age.
February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon. (if'n tree huggers were around then, mankind would get the blame)
In the last 4,000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
If'n the population of China walked past ya, 8 abreast, the line would never end because of their rate of reproduction. Ya could march one member of their military into the sea to drown every second and their numbers would continue to grow.
Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors.
Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite(and homeland security doesn't know this or they would ban them from airline flights).
Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated. The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing. The cruise liner, Queen Elizabeth II moves only six inches fer each gallon of diesel it burns ( some says my pickup seems as efficient).
The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze completely solid, ( those were the days tree huggers fretted over "Global Cooling".)
There are more chickens than people in the world. Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance.
Women blink nearly twice as much as men and all the ants in Africa weigh more than all the elephants.
All of this important information should stimulate the conversation at your next family reunion or neighborhood gathering.
The boys informed me the Secret Service issued new rules of conduct for agents Friday.
They can no longer get drunk, procure hookers, or go to strip bars. The new rules state that from now on, if'n a agent feels compelled to engage in such behavior, they can run for public office like everyone else!
And finally we learned about those low-life cheatin' Republicans.
It appeared the Presidential Election of 2012 was get'n too close to call. Neither Mitt Romney nor Obama felt they had enough votes to win. There was much talk about ballot recounting, court challenges, etc, but a week-long ice fishing competition seemed the sportsmanlike way to settle things.
The candidate that caught the most fish at the end of the week would win the election.
After much back and forth discussion, it was decided that the contest would take place on a remote frozen lake in northern Wisconsin.
There were to be no observers present, and both men were to be sent out separately on this isolated lake and return at 5 p.m. with their catch for counting and verification by a team of neutral parties.
At the end of the first day, Mitt Romney returned to the starting line and he had 10 fish.
Soon, Obama returned and had no fish. Well, everyone assumed he was just having a bad day or something and he would catch up the next day.
At the end of the 2nd day Mitt came in with 20 fish and Obama came in again with none.
That evening, the Democrats got together secretly and said, " I think that Mitt Romney is a low life, cheatin' son-of-a-gun. Tomorrow don't bother fishing. Just spy on him and see just how he is cheating."
The next night (after Mitt returns with 50 fish), the Democrats got together for the reports on how the Republicans were cheating.
Obama said, " You are not going to believe this, he's cutting holes in the ice!"
Hope'n you'll make'n plans to help Stronghurst in celebrate'n their 125th the end of this month. Sounds like it'll be a lot of old fashion fun and memories.
Have a good day and help cheer someone else up a bit. Hope to see ya in church come next Sunday.
Keep on Smile'n
Catch ya Later
Barnyard Bruke