Brittany Keech of Belding, Mich., got an unexpected bit of news with her mail on Sept. 8. "Sitting right on top of the mail," she told WXMI, was a postcard dated 100 years ago — Oct. 29, 1920. "Yeah, that's a little too slow," Keech said. The Halloween greeting from young Flossie Burgess was addressed to her cousins: "I just finished my history lesson and am going to bed pretty soon." A U.S. Postal Service spokesperson said, "In most cases ... old letters and postcards — sometimes purchased at flea markets, antique shops and even online — are re-entered into our system ... (and) as long as there is a deliverable address and postage, the card or letter gets delivered."
Too much horsing around
Cynthia Lynn Teeple, 47, of Jacksboro, Tenn., was charged with public intoxication after Campbell County Sheriff's deputies found her topless in a LaFollette backyard with two miniature horses on Aug. 30, according to authorities. WLAF reported the homeowner told deputies Teeple had been eating grass and dirt from the horse enclosure, and also chewed on one of the horses' manes. Teeple then volunteered that "the horse's hair is made of Laffy Taffy and Airhead candy," according to the arrest report, and admitted she had taken methamphetamine the day before.
The eyes have it
In Botswana, cattle are left to graze and roam during the day, but that makes them vulnerable to attacks by lions, leopards and other carnivores, so two conservation biologists from the University of New South Wales in Australia have come up with an idea to allow both cattle and cats to coexist, NPR reported. Because big cats hunt using the element of surprise, the biologists came up with a way to make the predators believe they'd been seen by their prey and then abandon the hunt. "We tested this by painting one-third of a cattle herd with artificial eye spots (on their backsides)," explained Cameron Radford, and over four years, "none of the cows that we painted with artificial eye spots were killed by ambush predators." Village chiefs and native farmers "look forward to us coming back and painting more eyes on bums," Radford said.
Pooling resources in Iowa
Conducting choir practice indoors was out of the question for Mark Potvin, instructor of music at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, given the school's COVID-19 protocols, and finding a space outside posed a challenge until, "I was driving past the city pool," Potvin told KCRG, and "noticed they were draining the pool." Officials at Decorah Park and Rec gave their blessing, and now choir members rehearse while standing in the empty pool, socially distanced and masked. Luther College has five choirs and one of the nation's largest collegiate music programs.
Least competent criminals
Three teenage girls in Clinton, Conn., have been arrested and charged with stealing a duck after photos of them surfaced on social media, according to police. WTNH reported the girls took a duck named Quackers out of a pen in mid-August at the Grove Garden Center Nursery, where it was recovering from a raccoon attack, and posted photos of themselves with Quackers at the town beach and a house party. The girls were charged with larceny and trespassing. Quackers is still missing.
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