Not even a MILF or a scissors-wielding Mitt tops the snap on this lid.

Just sticking my head through the blogversational door for a few brief comments before heading back down to the salt mines. I'm surely not alone in seeing loads of stories worth earnestly discussing. Even with the current distracting titillation offered by stories on prep school bullying and being way too attached to certain parents. Amidst all that you've probably missed that the U.S. Postal Service threw a bone to rural America by deciding to keep a ton of small offices open a few hours a day for at least a few years. The deal likely will come to stink. But at least huge swaths of America can still make the trip into town to pick up and/or mail their manifestos. In even easier to miss news, the Labor Department has backed away from the overstated tempest in a teapot some feared might prevent farm families from hiring their own bairns. Or is it utes? Depends on the holler from which you hail, I reckon. As of now, this just means lots less job searching for farm kids throughout small town America. I can feel the collective disappointment for a subset of America's youth who lament never getting their shot at bagging your groceries. Takes one to know one, if you catch my drift. Finally, a totally missed case with an engrossing narrative effectively came to an end in Iowa yesterday when a last jailed defendant was paroled from prison. To mark that fact, not a single news story was filed, even though the parolee made the front page of the "Washington Post" two months ago. I'd link you somewhere worth going, but this case turned into Gertrude Stein's Oakland, if you know what I mean. Rest assured, I won't keep you hanging forever on that note.

In non-newsy news for a totally different reason (since I've not yet mentioned it), I'm about waist-deep into planning my next roadtrip. And it's a humdinger. This time I'm looking at two weeks and change spent traveling through densely-populated - and way in the middle of nothing - parts of Canada and the northeastern urban corridor of these United States. Mix in a little rural New York State and you've got me on the road from just after Memorial Day through mid-June. By then I plan to have some new tools up and running for everyone to keep tabs on the work in progress. Maybe more definite show to go with the rarely clear tell. However it's construed, check back. Please. And, thank y'all for doing so.

The biology of stink

Since returning to Seattle, I've been thinking about what makes animals smell anything but sweet. Some recent vet science and associated folksy conversations got that thought bubbling. What really made me take notice was the paired timing of a NYTimes "Science" section piece earlier this week on that particular trait. Given that it's also Groundhog Day, I'm today pondering what makes certain animals so darn, well, funky. I'm sure Punxsatawny Phil has a wholly unnatural grooming regimen given how pristine and camera ready he always appears when hauled from the ceremonial stump in Pennsylvania (in case you missed it, America - 2012 will feature an extra six weeks of this weird year's version of winter). But run across a groundhog in the wild and it would surely give off a bit more than a cutesy pose. I think anyone who's ever crossed or even just considered in passing the skunk has the anecdotal equipment to know how certain animals can really musk it up. I grew up surrounded by - or obliviously steeped in - one such brand of powerful stench. And as any farm kid will tell you, the stink signature of certain animals can be dissected and discerned from a mile away. Much more so if you happen to be driving anywhere through farm country in the middle of summer. It's the chemistry of those individual stink signatures that I'm currently sniffing around. That's what passes for fun 'round these parts.

Laboring to keep kids off the farm?

"I grew up working on a farm." I'd love to see current Census stats that could somehow ballpark the number of people who can say that. These days, I'm sure we're talking a miniscule amount of people who can join me in making that claim. For me and my whole extended family from Wisconsin, this is a badge of honor. A serious percentage of the decent stories I carry with me from those formative years come from that farm life. That's why I'm perplexed by the effort by the Labor Department to limit agribusiness hiring of young people. There's a long list of issues raised. Including the fact that serious accidents do indeed happen on the farm (or on those businesses closely associated with agriculture). But do we really want to keep young people from having those jobs and from gaining those experiences? I'm certainly not embracing the recent classist scoldings coming from Newt Gingrich and Donald Trump - a nation that sends its poor to work as apprentice janitors is a nation on the decline in more ways than the obvious. I'm talking about something entirely different. After all, the roots of this nation are solidly agrarian, even if those roots have grown weak and far fewer in number. I see something utterly valuable in having kids - yes, kids - out there working on farms. Within certain limits, of course. Granted, I grew up on a farm that was unconventional. To say the very least. Yet I remember punching the time clock on that farm as far back as the summer before I started Sixth Grade. I think my first hourly wage was $1.50. Adjust that for inflation, up the ante, and give kids a safe shot at life on the farm. Of all the things to regulate, kids working on the farm doesn't belong near the current top of that list.

I'd love to hear from anyone else with similar experience, no matter what view they take. Especially if they disagree. It's far from idyllic out there. It's real. And necessary.