“Argue for your limitations and, sure enough, they’re yours.”
~Richard Bach, Illusions
The punchline is, “I call him Tiny because he’s my newt (minute)!” but he’s not really my newt.
The late Dr. Allen Foley, Professor Emeritus of History at Dartmouth College, related a story in his book, “What the Old-Timer Said”, about a local boy who came across a boy from the city who was tormenting a toad.
“Put that toad down,” he said.
“Why should I?” asked the city boy. “He’s my toad, ain’t he?”
“No, he ain’t,” replied the local lad. “This is Vermont. He is his own toad.”
Safe travels, Tiny.
(We’ve paid tribute to the Celebrated Professor Foley before, back in 2014, in a post about Vermont Town Meeting Day (see Hibernation Ends and How Did You Know My Name Was Mac?) . This year’s meeting is still more than a month away but already some people have taken to running serpentine routes from from the Post Office, ducking for cover behind parked cars or trees on the green when necessary.)
Two eggs hatched in 2014. Both chicks survived, thrived and fledged, taking off in October for a few years at sea. The Vermont Center for Ecostudies has learned that loons return to places very close to where they were raised, even after all that time and having only seen home from the air once, as they were flying away.