"California Girl" needs help answering her flower question

Dear Dr. Jim

I have this pretty flower growing 'wild' beside my driveway.  I looked it up in my plant book and found it to be a 'Lupine'. 

My friend from Texas told me that this was all wrong, that is a Texas Bluebonnet. 

Dr. Jim, since you are from Texas I thought I would let you decide for us what my flower really is.

Thank you for helping,
California Girl

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Dear California Girl

It's soooo pretty, C Girl.  For sure it is a keeper.  I would have called it one of OUR Texas Bluebonnets also.

But it can't be because you live in California So I asked "Yahoo answers" if there was a difference (link). They satisfied me with this answer:
"Best Answer: The Texas Bluebonnet is Lupinus texensis, so it is a type of Lupine. The species is native to Texas. (There are actually several species of bluebonnet, but L. texensis is generally "the" Texas Bluebonnet). "

Which means yours probably is NOT a Texas Bluebonnet but rather it is another species of Lupines.

Hope this helps, Dr. Jim

Oh yes, I am not 'from' Texas, I am 'from' Nebraska.  But I got here, to Texas, as fast as I could.  And now I have lived here for years and years, more years probably than you have lived. 

And BTW, collect some seeds from it as you will need to reseed this plant every year. ~~ Thanks as always for asking, Dr. Jim

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How to make rooster stop crowing in the middle of the night, Mr. Seed needs to know

Dear Dr. Jim

Our neighbors are complaining about our roosters. It seems they don't like the crowing these pets are doing. At least they don't like them to crow in the middle of the night.

Mrs. Seed and I can just sleep right through it and never hear them until they do their 6:30 crows. That is our waking up time. These birds are within a couple of minutes of 6:30 every morning so that is good for us.

The problem here is that we can't teach these birds when to crow and when not to. Roosters are wild in nature and they will crow when they like to crow. I told the neighbor that but he just got more angry.

Please help us with a solution Dr. Jim, you are my last straw.

Hay Seed in Arkansas

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Dear Mr. Seed

I do have some news for you. Good news. Those chickens can be taught.

It would be best for you if you did that because the neighbors told me when I contacted them that they are just about to call the city zoning commission about these problems your roosters are causing.

I have done some research on the matter, it seems that lowering the roof of their cages so they can not hold their heads up high is the best. You will have to buy an alarm clock as the roof will not get any taller at 6:30 than it was at 5:30.

I also found out that roosters crow at lights, the sun in the morning, other lights at night. Before you lower the ceiling try completely darkening their cage at nighttime.

Other suggestions on how to stop them from crowing ranged from using shotguns to eating them.

My idea is like that of training dogs and cats. You should buy a cot and sleep in the chicken pen. Whenever a rooster begins to crow in the middle of the night, tell it to be quiet. You could even throw a shoe. Then leave at 6:30. If the rooster crows when you are gone, then you are on to something. Gradually the roosters will learn not to crow at the times you have stopped them.

This should have helped, I surely hope so. It could be some of the readers can help you some as well. Best wishes on the roosters.

Dr. Jim


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Wants to train dog her dog not to howl -- dog disrupts family sleeping habits

Dear Dr. Jim

My question:
So, how did you get to be 106 years old, so soon?

But really:
I have a rescue Siberian husky/German shepherd/wolf-in-the-woodpile mix. He ululates every morning about 5:23am to go for an iditerod.

I've had the dog about 9 months, and have grown very attached to him, but this behavior gets me up every morning. It's interfering with my already pathetic love life.

Whatever should I do about it (the dog howling, not my love life)? Please don't say get rid of the dog or my male companion. I'm fond of them both, pretty much equally.

Tired in Oregon

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Dear Tired

Oh dear! Houston, we have a problem. No not with my age. For that take my age, multiply it times 70, add 25, divide by 33 and subtract 12. Then divide by 2.5 and multiply by two and subtract 20. That will be approximately 106.

Now with the sleeping problem. Go to bed earlier, the doggie will howl earlier, let him outside for a bit (put your robe on if it is cold weather), then you all go back to bed and sleep until your regular time.

Dogs can be trained not to howl. Our dog, Adi, only howls on demand or if she is ready for ice cream and beddy-bye late at night.

This is what DogTrainingClassroom.com has to say about breaking the Siberian Husky of howling:

"Your dog may make noise as its way of communication to you when he is lonely or bored. Your dog may howl to seek attention from you. However excessive howling can irritate therefore, training your dog not to howl or make noise is of utmost importance. There are a few simple solutions to solve this problem:

• For the first few days, try to ignore your dog when he/she goes into a howling fit for no apparent reason as any attention will reinforce the behavior. Praise your dog when he becomes quiet.
• Do use a squirt gun to spray water on your dog if excessive howling persists. This is to disrupt its behavior and your dog will associate howling as an unpleasant experience.
• Do praise and reward your dog immediately after it stops making noises and not ten minutes after. Your dog will not understand the reason for the discipline.
• Do use an anti bark collar for further training whenever you are not around and your dog is not fully train yet so as to be thoughtful to thy neighbors."
  http://www.dogtrainingclassroom.com/siberian-husky-training.html at the bottom.
  

I hope this helps. Above all, do not get rid of the mate or the dog!

But hurry and stop the dog from ululating or the mate might get rid of you both. Or get you both trained to get up with him every morning. You could read the newspaper, ours has come by then.

You might even train him to bring you the paper for you.

Thank you for your confidence, Dr. Jim

[We do have a new (to us) toy poodle who will take a running socks from my shoes if I leave them laying on the floor. It looks like she'll be training me to put them away in the dirty clothes basket.]

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Eating ice cream gives her headaches -- my explanation and remedy?

Dear Dr. Jim

I have a question that isn't too terribly important. But it did seem you needed someone to write in with one. Besides I get a lot of humiliation from my husband about this item.

It seems that I get headaches easily whenever I eat ice cream.

My husband is no help at all, he usually says, "Dummy, don't take such big bites."

Like I use the big spoon or something. Humph!

Susan Aspirin Eater Not By Choice in Hoeboeken

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Well, Susan (oh you Dummy, you ),

Thank you for your write-in generosity. You have given me a Lulu.

First, ice cream is much colder than ice. Our bodies were made to handle ice nicely as many times the Indians and other savages had to drink out of frozen streams in the winter. Also eating snow is a part of our natural constitutionality.

So, eating that cold ice cream is not of the norm as ice cream is not found in nature. Therefore it overwhelms our natural ability to cope with temperatures ingested; it is out of range, low.

FYI, nominal ice cream temperature is 23°F. That temperature rapidly shrinks the sinuses of most humans so much that it is painful.

Another side effect of eating ice cream is sinus infections. Not because the ice cream is cold, but because of all the ingredients of commercially made ice cream.
........Typical bad ingredients found in ice cream:
"In the following paragraph we present you a list of the most damaging ice-cream ingredients: amyl acetate, amyl butyrate, amyl valerate, benzyl isobutyrate, butyric acid, benzyl acetate, anysil formate, cinnamyl isobutyrate, cinnamyl valerate, diacetyl, dipropil ketone, ethyl acetate, ethyl amyl ketone, cognac essential oil, ethyl heptanoate, ethyl butyrate, ethyl nitrate, ethyl cinnamate, ethyl propionate, ethyl valerate, heliotropin, a-ionone, isobutyl anthranilate, isobutyl butyrate, lemon methyl heptine carbonate, methyl salicylate, mint essential oil, neryl isobutyrate, orris butter, rose, run ether, vanillin and solvents." (source, Enzine@Articles)

That ought to scare hubby off ice cream, you don't eat it because it's too cold, he doesn't eat it now because of all the harmful additives.

Homemade ice cream is good for you, it contains only what you put into it. I WOULD NOT PUT RAW EGGS IN HOMEMADE ICE CREAM. Raw eggs are a cause of some terrible sicknesses.

Hope this helped,

Dr. Jim

If you make some homemade, can I lick the dasher?



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Curious wants to know, why do squirrels have bushy tails

Dear Dr. Jim

Just a curiosity question for you, why do squirrels have bushy tails?

I hope you can help me.

Curious Georgette in Georgia

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Dear Curious George

I don't know but what this is a trick question. At any rate the answer is fairly easy.

For this, I refer to Webster:
Squirrel: "any of various small or medium-sized rodents (family Sciuridae, the squirrel family) ... as any of numerous New or Old World arboreal forms having a long bushy tail and strong hind legs"

Then, by definition, the varmint would not be a squirrel without its bushy tail (and strong hind legs).

And if you were serious,
I hope this helps,
Dr. Jim




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Do earlobes grow with aging? Still young reader is getting worried

Dear Dr. Jim

Last night on TV I watched "Two and a Half Men" and the protagonist of the episode, Charlie Harper (played by Charlie Sheen) kept insisting that the older a woman gets the longer her ear lobes get. And, of course, that's why he doesn't want to date older women (He's around 40 and dates women in their 20s and 30s).

What I NEED to know is "Is it true?" Do women's ear lobes get longer as they age? This is a very important question to me. I don't want long, skinny, floppy ear lobes as I sail into my mature years or, rather, my maturer years. So far my ear lobes are firmish but I'm really scared. And if it's true that ear lobes sag, what does one do about it?

Is there a cream, or something to apply? Are there collagen injections for lobes? Is there some sort of surgery to tighten them? Please answer ASAP. I feel them stretching out as we speak!

Ms. Poet in Downstate

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Dear Ms. Poet

I am so glad you asked this question. Aging as it pertains to beauty may be the number one worry in the United States at the moment, just ahead of s*x, money, health, and politics.

A healthy outlook on aging will allow some worries about how we look in our older years, but an awfully lot of people get carried away. Fear of aging and its results often rises to the state of an unjustified phobia, called gerascophobia. Gerascophobic persons are prone to depression further compounding their situation.

All that is to let you know where I am coming from when I suggest you seek medical help. You must do this swiftly, procrastinating will see you soon shunning treatment that is needed.

I agree with you in that the earlobes do grow at older ages. I would suggest there are both medical and surgical treatments. You might read some of these references on-line (link). Especially appealing to me was an article on cosmetic surgery of "older patients who have a face-lift may choose to have their earlobes reduced at the same time because earlobes grow and stretch with aging, and may look out of proportion after a face-lift." (CNN.com 2002 cyber-article)

Some of these articles tell how the earlobes actually do grow in aging. When I read these, though, I felt you were not yet at this crucial age. And I did not find any plausible sounding crème to stop this growth.

By seeking professional help, even though there is no earlobe problem at your age, you will have a benchmark on the size of them while they still retain their normal beautiful length. Then by making periodic visits to your physician you can get accurate lobe growth rates and severity correlation when any growth does occur.

There is a bright side here. Have you noticed that older men tend to have very large noses and ears and other features from top to bottom, from their large balding head to their shoe sole like earlobes? Those men would trade for just having long earlobes and a little excess facial hair any day.

Problems of this sort often remind me of the old story of the fellow who lost twelve ugly pounds. How did he do it? He had his head cut off.

I hope I have helped a little in your situation. Aren't you glad you watched that TV program! Except for the hoped for growth preventative crèmes, you were on top of the problem here. Now you stay on top and go see your doctor very soon.


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Her cat pees on the furniture -- reader is "annoyed"

Dear Dr. Jim

I'm having a problem with my Elmer, my cat. He is peeing on the furniture and all over the place, just hauls off and goes where he wants.

Last night was the last straw. I came home from the mall and guess what? He had peed on my jacket, my new and exotic Clara S. Zebra Jacket.

Now it smells to high Heaven. The cleaners say they can take out the stain but not the smell.

Annoyed by Elmer, Elma in Princeton

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Dear Annoyed

I can't stress to much here, the cat must stop it or go. He is creating a terribly unsanitary condition. You didn't say if you have kids but if you do they should be evacuated immediately! Cat pee in furniture is hazardous to health.

If he is going in just certain spots, you can try a good cat repellent. Most pet stores carry that. You have to spray every day in the places they go.

You might be interested in that I had a cat get into my pickup truck one night. That cat must have been drinking gallons. My leather jacket could not be redeemed, all her pee had saturated the lining. Your cleaner is right.

Another suggestion we used with a cat that kept climbing the draperies. That cat became an OUTSIDE CAT real fast!

"'Inappropriate elimination' is the No. 1 cat behavior problem. Betsy Lipscomb, founder of Cats International, a volunteer organization that provides free telephone counseling for desperate cat owners, told me that of the almost 5,000 calls she gets a year, nearly 90 percent are related to out-of-the-box soiling. It is the most common reason cats are turned in to shelters, where the likelihood is minuscule that a Persian cat who pees on the Persian carpet will find a new home." Me Against the Cat Pee By Emily Yoffe, Slate.

According to Ms. Lipscomb, having a clean and desirable litter box will solve 80% of the problems. Check it out to see if you are filling Elmer's bill here.

Incidentally, the Slate article is a rather old, but humorous, story about a cat who had Elmer's problems. I doubt if the article will help you much but a laugh always does some good some way.

I hope this has helped a little, why don't you try Google for more solutions.

I don't mean to scold, but had your jacket been hanging in the closet it would be fine today.








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Cat Pee Pee Cat Advice Cat Advice

Boy Friend has problem with Girl Friend -- Chick's Ears, Elf's Ears, or Flat Ears? Help is needed!

Antarctica Wave stuff is toward the bottom here.


Dear Dr. Jim

My friend, let us call her Girl Friend, is loosing sleep. She says she is getting what she calls a "chick's ear." I have two problems with this.

First, she doesn't know how these words can be used and I certainly can't tell her how derogatory these words are towards her self image. These things are not spoken of around here. I think her friends are laughing at her behind her back.

The second is that her ears are very pretty, but she doesn't see them that way. She thinks they are too close to her head, like elf ears.

It may be her pillow is too hard, do you think that may be part of her problem?

At any rate please help me in know what to say to her about this and how perhaps I can help her.

Frustrated Boy Friend in Camden

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Dear Boy Friend

Wow! You guys both have quite a problem here! Have you ruled out that she may have a warped sense of body adoration? Please be honest with yourself and assess how you stand here. Then get to the root of any real problem as I relate a couple of possibilities below.

First let us address your first question about Chick's Ears. There are many definitions of this term. I relied on Google to help us all here (link to search chick's ear and elf's ear). I wouldn't use either one, Chick's Ear had many uses and doesn't explain much at all.

Elf's Ears on the other hand are flat, yes, but more on they seem to be romantic in nature. If I were to write a romance novel at this time, I certainly would have one of my main characters have these Elf's Ears. They are almost instant love, or love at first sight! I think Girl Friend would not like to be put in this spotlight either.

So, let's just say they are a little too flat. Now to look at the cause. First order could be hereditary, what do her parents and grandparents look like around the ears? In my unprofessional opinion, surgery only will correct this problem. Best to see her medical doctor.

The second leading cause is the improper use of the pillow. Approximately eighty-five percent of Americans use their pillow incorrectly. The ear should not lay ON THE PILLOW. Either sleep on the back or the stomach, doing this does much to help retain the structural integrity of the ear.

If Girl Friend insists on sleeping her side you might convince her to SLEEP DOWN ON THE PILLOW so her ear is off the pillow. I sleep this way myself.

If she can't seem to sleep this way, or moves up in her sleep, modification of the pillow is recommended. Cut an oval hole in the middle of the pillow, about five by three inches high and wide. She should lay her ear in the middle of this hole. A pillow case will keep others from noticing her strange looking pillow.

The principle of the hole in the pillow is that no head weight will be placed on the ear, allowing it to retain its natural shape.

Additionally she should no long be awakened by a sore ear, sore from being held down. People with tail bone surgery and other medical problems have been using a similar cushion (hole in the middle) for ages. The same principle applies to the flat or sore ear, whichever.

I hope this helps you. Do not hesitate to see Girl Friend's medical doctor either.

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To the readers:
1. My ears had the opposite problem, they stuck out too far when I was born. For several years my mother taped my ears down. I now have normal ears. They may even be 'handsome.'
2. I have been researching some questions concerning instant freezing in the Artic. An e-mail has been circulating with 'photos.' The pictures appear to be hoaxes to me but none of the hoax sites even mention them.

Perhaps I am ahead of my time, soon enough people might ask at these hoax finder sites.

In the meantime I am inviting reader input. Do so in privacy here.

Here is what I got:

"Subject: Fw: SURFS UP... Antarctica Wave"

"Make sure you see all the pictures. They are really incredible."

"This water froze the instant the wave broke through the ice. That's what it is like in Antarctica. Water freezes the instant it comes in contact with the air. The temperature of the water is already some degrees below freezing. Just look at how the wave froze in midair!"

Pictures (click on picture to enlarge):













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Why do Tigers eat and kill? Why do rabbits run? Kate wants a tiger and a rabbit for pets -- they won't cooperate, she knows!

Dear Dr. Jim

I've been confused. For a long time I have wanted a Tiger for a pet. And a little cotton-tail rabbit. But the rabbits all run from me and I've heard lately of deaths from ferocious tigers.

Why aren't these animals nice, playful, and docile like my cats?

Oh yes, to help you, they were all couped up with Noah on that ark and he didn't have any problems with the wild animals.

Animal Lover Kate in Pretoria, Indiana

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Dear Kate

I would suggest you not have either of those animals, nor any other wild animal as pets.

Yes, they were with Noah. They were friends of his, they all coexisted very nicely. That was back then.

Modern wild animals, ever since they departed the ark, have an inherent fear of people. Let's look at that for a moment.

Did Noah eat them for food while on the ark? No. Noah and his family were vegetarians.

Then, it all hit the fan! God said: "Noah, you can eat these animals. They will be ok for food!" He further went on and said to the animals, "I want you to fear all people from now on, because they will kill you and eat you." (see note below)

From that day on it changed. The larger animals tried to retaliate, they would kill man if they could to protect themselves from being eaten. Those who couldn't harm man became afraid of him and would run.

So now you know why tigers kill and rabbits run when you get too close.

I hope this helped.



Notes: Genesis 9:2-3 (Bible):
2 The fear and dread of you will fall upon all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon every creature that moves along the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hands.
3 Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.
[The entire account of Noah and the ark, the animals, and the flood can be found in Genesis, Chapters 7, 8, and 9 (link)]


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Noah and the ark Animals Flood Noah's ark Tigers Vegetarian Ark Noah

Dig to China? -- Reader would like to take a shortcut to China

Thank you for coming.
This blog has been reposted,
click here for update.

[Just scroll UP if there is a blog up there]

All Rivers Run South

Dear Dr. Jim

This may be too hard for you, but I can't figure out why water runs towards the equator from both the north and the south.

When I look at the globe it looks like it all should run to the south, clear on to the South Pole.

Please help me so I can get some decent sleep again.

Loosing Sleep in Kansas

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Who told you that it runs north from the South Pole? That is completely wrong, and your figuring from looking at your globe is totally correct.

You can Google that, in fact there is a song about this little understood fact.

Dr. Jim


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