I don’t know what’s happening around your house but here at the Institute the weather is changing. The other day I went out to make the rounds of the compound and chase the flickers off the side of the our main building and was suddenly struck with the fact that it smelled different. Not different like a teenagers room but different like you could almost smell the, and I’m going to have to speak very frankly here using language that may leave some of the more delicate among you lying on the floor gasping for air, “SNOW” in the air. I’m only going to use the ‘S’ word once here for fear of putting it in the minds of the weather gods and speeding up the process even more.

We’re not done with Summer yet. It’s only the end of August. Yeah I know all about the season’s change and it’s getting near Labor day and all that crap. I don’t care. It was cold the other morning and it seemed like it could do the white wet deed on us any time it felt like it. That’s not fair. I want to know why we pay all this money for taxes to send those phony-baloney congress people to Washington if they can’t do a simple thing like give us enough summer. They can change time whenever they feel like it, taking an hour here, giving it back there, why can’t they extend summer, like another month. I mean, I’d vote for a guy like that, even if he was a crooked, lying, womanizer from Arkansas, with a mean wife.

The Sandhill crane above feels the same way. Just the other day he was stuffing his gizzard with corn from  the farmer’s field and now the water is getting cold, the days are shorter and he has to make a thousand mile flight somewhere just to stay warm. He is plenty cheesed off about it I can tell you. Normally he would laze around in the pond for a couple extra hours in the morning, just kicking back, taking life easy, hanging with his friends, letting the warm water flow all around his three toes, now everybody is up at the crack of dawn running around in the water, waiting for the sun to come up so they can get flying and warm up.

That red spot on his head we’ve discovered, is actually a solar collector and by the crane pointing it into the sun it warms the blood flowing through it and sends it down to his feet and the rest of his body so he can stand in that frigid water. In the late fall and winter there’s less sun so less warmth, so his blood gets cold , his wife gets irritable, and the next thing you know he and Margaret are flying off to the sunny shores of South America or wherever, where they don’t have Fall or the ‘S’ word. This exclusive bit of knowledge is the result of one of our many grants going right for once. This one was titled “Why are some tall birds red on the head? Is this Nature’s way of singling them out or simply a fashion statement?” That one was worth 2.9 mil in grant money. See why we do this? This is encouraging to us here at The Institute and we intend to file many more.

But there’s a lesson here people, and I think it is ‘get on your elected representative’s butt’ and let him know we’re mad as hell and aren’t going to take it anymore. Since term limits don’t scare them anymore use words like impeachment, or no more donations, that’ll get their attention. Otherwise we all better start learning Spanish if we don’t want to stay here freezing our keesters off. Know what I mean?

P.S. I don’t want a bunch of letters from you eleven people that like winter and snow and cold. I don’t care if you like to ski, or tramp around in the snow with stuff freezing  on the end of your nose. I don’t care if it’s pretty or you like to catch dull-normal fish through a hole in the ice. I don’t care if you like to lick snow off the sides of trees. This is an aberration and you should seek medical help as soon as you can, or at least move to Northern Wisconsin where this is considered normal activity. But don’t waste our time by trying to sell us on the merits of the wonders of winter. The rest of us are trying to book flights out of here.