Vacuum Cleaner Bag

Day 278: Vacuum Cleaner Bag

A vacuum cleaner bag may seem like nothing, and yet, I've been unwilling to get rid of it for decades. I can't say why. I really can't. 

Today Jane and I had the best naturalist tour I believe I've ever had, at Ding Darling Wildlife Refuge, while the resort cleaning staff were using the vacuum in our condo. Here is what I learned:

-Ounce for ounce, birds are the most fearsome predators on earth

-T Rex and velociraptors are most closely related to chickens (no wonder the kids thought the chickens were so weird)

-Captiva used to have the highest mosquito population on earth - 9 billion per square mile in 1954 - and thus was uninhabitable 

-Mangrove trees give birth to live young

-The fierce and sophisticated Kalusa tribe drove off Ponce de Leon but were then destroyed by livestock borne diseases 

-Brown pelicans are the only unendangered pelican species, the only brown pelican, and the only diving pelican. Most of them die at less than a year from mishaps like broken necks from flawed dives

-White pelicans live most of the year in Saskatchewan 

-Alligators store heat in the cartilage bumps beneath their skin, like batteries. When their bodies are below 89 degrees, they are sluggish. They only require 200 calories per day

Now we are watching Home Alone and eating fudge.