Happy Birthday, Peter!

In honor of my father's birthday, I am writing a blog post about everything my dad likes.

#1. Mom is great! She's super good at sewing and cooking and editing and being a mom.

#1.5 Us kids! I think we're pretty great, too. That's me, in the front there, then Evan, then Gary.

#2. Bees! Bees are insects that fly around and make honey and sting people. Specifically, my dad likes honey bees (not wasps or hornets or anything), so here are some interesting facts about honey bees you probably didn't know.

• After mating with the queen bee, the male bees, or drones, die.
• Skunks eat bees, and bears are just as likely to eat the larvae as the honey.
• Buy honey locally! Here's why.
• To learn more about bees, you can check out my brother's website!

#3. Lumber! My dad sells lumber. I promise: the last thing you want to do on a Saturday afternoon is stack a thousand board feet, but that doesn't stop him. In fact, not only can he tell you what type of wood he's holding in his hands by looking at it, he can tell you by smelling the board, and is correct at least 20% of the time! If you're looking for North American hardwoods, check out Garreson Lumber.

#4. Literature! Dad is pretty smart and he'll read anything from bad novels by me to Ana Karenina to Tarzan of the Apes to the diaries of William Ryder, itinerant Methodist preacher. He's read a bunch of my college required reading, just because I thought it was interesting (and handed him a copy). :)

#5. Science-y stuff! Dad and I like to discuss aliens (see guest blog by dad about aliens here) and evolution and insects and the expanding universe and all sorts of things. He and I went to a honey bee convention (see point #2) together, too, and learned all about different types of bees.

#6. Animals! Over my life we've had four dogs, three kids, a bajillion cats, turtles, peacocks, snakes, rabbits, pigeons, pheasants, a goose, and who knows what all else. In fact, once, Turtline, a turtle we found wandering down the road, disappeared somewhere in the house. She reappeared a few months later, having hibernated in the back of one of our closets. Now they're down to a few peacocks, three cats, and a dog.

Anyway, Dad, I think you're pretty great, and I hope you get your birthday card today because I put a lot of effort into getting it mailed on time. Either way, I have a special message for you--it came from an alien.

"Hey Peter, it's your birthday! I'm in charge of the stars and I'm here to say, hey Peter! You're the big star! Today! My name is Zoom and I live on the moon! And I came down to Earth just to sing you this tune! Hey, Peter, it's your birthday, today! A present for you I wanted to find, an outer space creature, a one of a kind! A wild whop or a kucklechoo, an appledrop or a buzzardstew! Or maybe a three eyed tickleshay for your birthday. ...but those aren't special. So how about a song just from me? And so tonight, while you're in bed, I'll be singing to you as I ZOOM overhead, hey Peter, happy birthday, to you!"

Happy Birthday, Dad!