Category: Iowa

Hammerhead Worm Invasion!

The other day Sena and I were talking with a landscaping consultant about a job we’d like done on our backyard patio. He uncovered a worm in the dirt, and it seemed to wriggle energetically. Jumping worms had been in the news a lot last month. The consultant picked it up and the worm seemed to jump out of his hand.

Sena exclaimed, “It’s a jumping worm; kill it!” The consultant picked it up again and, much to our surprise, simply crushed it in his hand. However, he doubted that it was a jumping worm and hinted that much of the news lately about jumping worms (an invasive species from Asia) was overdone.

I don’t know how he got rid of the crushed worm in his fist.

But I suspect he wouldn’t crush a hammerhead worm in his hand (although I wouldn’t bet on it).

They are also being reported in the news recently, although they’ve been in the country for decades and probably longer. They’ve possibly been sighted in Iowa. The hammerhead worm is another invasive species from Southeast Asia. If you cut them up, the pieces will grow into new worms.

They also carry a toxin on their bodies. It won’t kill you or even harm you that much if you get it on your hands, but you should wash up thoroughly if you nonchalantly crush them in your fist.

The hammerhead worms eat earthworms, which could make things even harder for them because jumping worms displace common earthworms by outcompeting them for territory.

Right now, the best way to rid your garden of hammerhead worms is to kill them by sprinkling salt or spraying vinegar on them.

I can’t help wondering if there might be a way to teach hammerhead worms to eat jumping worms.

But then, how would you get rid of the hammerhead worms? They don’t have any natural predators. There are a number of ways humans can control the population in their immediate vicinity.

Just don’t crush them in your fist.

The Kids to Decide on the Next Hawkeye Wave Song!

The new Hawkeye Wave song will be decided by the kids, and it won’t be just a single song. According to a story in Iowa Now:

For every home game the Iowa football team plays inside Kinnick Stadium, the UI Department of Athletics, in coordination with the UI Stead Family Children’s Hospital Kid Captain program, will ask that week’s Kid Captain to help select a new song to accompany the Hawkeye Wave.

It’s a great idea! Back in April, fans were asked to nominate a song to be played between the first and second quarters of the Iowa Hawkeye football games while the team members and fans wave to the kids watching from UI Stead Family Children’s Hospital.

It’s up to the Kid Captains!

Learning About Monkeypox

The University of Iowa podcast Rounding@Iowa, hosted by Dr. Gerard Clancy, MD talked with Infectious Diseases specialist Dr. Jeffery Meier, MD about the essential facts about Monkeypox for health care professionals, recorded on June 2, 2022.

This podcast would also be interesting to anyone interested in learning more about Monkeypox.

Scott Boulevard Trek

We took a walk on Scott Boulevard on a gorgeous day. We said hello to the Sitting Man. And we found a new sculpture of a praying dog just inside the entrance to Harvest Preserve. It looks like a very pious Bassett Hound. We don’t know the significance of the piece. I did a quick google search and couldn’t find anything comparable although there were hits on praying dog sculptures.

The Sitting Man reminded me of a quote I thought was by Winston Churchill and it turns out it’s by Franklin Delano Roosevelt: “Be sincere; be brief; be seated.” Sena did a pretty good job of calling a Mourning Dove. However, we never got a reply.

Also, inside Harvest Preserve yet visible from Scott Boulevard, is a sculpture of a boy climbing out on a tree limb to catch a cat. I wondered whether there was ever a quote about going out on a limb. It turns out there is: “Don’t be afraid to go out on a limb, that’s where all the fruit is.” There are variations of it and it’s often attributed to either Will Rogers or Mark Twain. Quote Investigator says it’s from a journalist named Frank Scully, who coined it in 1950.

I don’t know if we’ll ever find out what that praying Bassett Hound is all about.

No Swimming at Terry Trueblood Recreation Area

There is no swimming at the Terry Trueblood Recreation Area because E. coli has been detected in Sand Lake. Check Iowa City parks web site for updates.

No swimming: E. coli bacteria detected in Sand Lake at Terry Trueblood Rec Area; can lead to gastrointestinal illness

Be Kind

We went for a walk on the Terry Trueblood Trail yesterday. It was a nice break from reading the news.

Sena wore her shirt which has printed on it, “be kind, be nice, be love.” She got a compliment about it.

We saw a lot of birds, including Tree Swallow nestlings in the nest boxes along the trail.

There were three in one of the boxes. They seemed to be doing well. I thought we saw a Gray Catbird, although it was singing a complex song at the top of its lungs—from a treetop. I guess I’m not sure what it was because Catbirds are usually secretive and makes sounds like a house cat’s mewing.

I guess all I know is that the bird looked gray.

Anyway, friendly people were out and we said hello to each other. Kindness was in the air.

How Hot?

It’s 97 degrees and with the heat index it feels like 103 this afternoon. There is an Excessive Heat Warning today. I was going to replace the sun room door jambs weather stripping today—but decided against it. I’d have to turn off the air conditioning and leave the door open. I did that yesterday when replacing weather stripping elsewhere in the house.

It takes a while to cool back down.

I’m reminded of working as a survey crew assistant way back when, working on new asphalt airport runway construction sites. That gets pretty hot.

On a 90-degree day, the asphalt temperature can get up to 110 degrees. Now imagine you have to work next to the asphalt paving machine. The asphalt mix usually arrives at the job site at a temperature of 275 to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.

I don’t recall ever seeing anyone pass out from the heat on those job sites. But it was awfully hard to drag yourself up and down the runway.

Temperatures today are nowhere near what it is on an asphalt paving job—but if you don’t have to work out there, it’s a lot safer to stay indoors with the air conditioning on than to venture out for very long in 100-degree temperatures.

You can risk heat exhaustion or heat stroke on days like this. Read about the different kinds of heat stress at the University of Iowa web site.

And from the time I started writing this post to the time I stopped, the temperature got up to 105 degrees with the heat index.

Stay cool.

So Much Depends Upon the Serial Number

You’ll probably think I’m nuts and you’d be right, but a problem with ordering a replacement part for something from Pella Windows and Doors Company made me think of William Carlos Williams’ poem “The Red Wheelbarrow.” The poem is in the public domain because it was published before 1927, so I guess that means I can include it in this post:

The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends

upon

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain

water

beside the white

chickens

–William Carlos Williams

I’m not a poetry scholar and I have no idea what this poem written by a doctor means. One writer says that it’s probably impossible to get its meaning because it’s part of a much longer book-length work, “Spring and All” and the poem was split out of its context.

My connecting it to the Pella company has nothing to do with “Spring and All” or chickens or red wheelbarrows. It has to do with trying to order a replacement weather stripping part for a Pella door depending on having the right serial number.

It’s a bottom of door seal, made by Pella specifically for a specific Pella door on a house we moved into a couple of years ago and which was built over a decade ago. We have the size and type of the door, and the size and other important dimensions of the weather seal, which required us to take the door off the hinges in order to remove the old one and install the new one—if we can get one.

It’s a special type of bottom of door seal, which you can’t just run over to Lowes or Menards to pick up. In fact, they’ll tell you that you have to buy it direct from the Pella company.

It’s a peculiar looking seal. It fits into kerfs on the bottom of the door. I didn’t even know what a kerf was until we had to get a replacement bottom of the door weather seal. It’s just a slot into which some other piece fits into. There are two raised barbs or blades which fit into slots along the bottom of the door. The blades have to be exactly 5/8 inch apart and they run the length of the seal.

It’s called either a kerf seal or a drive-on door bottom seal, I guess because you drive it into the slots. The old one was stapled at both ends of the door bottom. It was 32 inches long. It was 1 and ¾ inches wide. The blades were in the kerfs doing what blades do in kerfs, which is securing the seal to the door bottom. I pulled the old one off and would need to drive the new one on.

That is, if we can acquire a new one. It turns out the right replacement can’t be found just by knowing the exact dimensions. You have to know the serial number of the door or the serial number of the seal.

The seal is in shreds. If it ever was marked with a serial number, it was destroyed long ago.

The door, which a Pella representative will patiently tell you, should have a serial number on a label fixed to the top hinge on the door. It’s not on the middle or the lower hinge—it’s on the top hinge, which would be fine if it were but it’s not.

How long can you expect a paper label to last on a door hinge that is more than a decade old?

It doesn’t matter if the hinges are all stamped permanently with the word “Pella.” If you don’t have the serial number, you don’t have anything.

All we want to know is whether we can purchase a replacement seal. Well:

The Damned Serial Number

so much depends

upon

a multi-character

serial number

missing in

action

nowhere to be found upon the

item