Calvin and Hobbes fans are exuberant. Calvin’s brilliant creator, Bill Watterson, has come out of retirement to draw three strips for the cartoon, Pearls before Swine. His new art will be sold as a benefit for charity.

The emergence of Mr. Watterson has ignited a spate of Calvin postings on the internet. Unfortunately, some of the quotes displayed are knock offs in the style of Calvin and Hobbes. I can imagine the expression on Calvin’s face at this outrage.

Fans of the original comic need not worry; the Calvin and Hobbes archive is immense and glorious. Bill Watterson penned his boy and tiger for 3,160 strips from 1985 to 1995.

Born in Washington, D.C., Bill Watterson moved to Chagrin Falls, Ohio, when he was six and still lives in the area. His love of cartooning came early and was inspired by Charles Schultz (Peanuts) and Walt Kelly (Pogo).

Upon graduating from college, Mr. Watterson was hired as the editorial cartoonist for the Cincinnati Post. Fired after less than a year, he returned to his first love, the comic strip. Five years of rejection followed, but Calvin and Hobbes was finally bought and syndicated. Calvin is the imaginative, hyperactive six year old while Hobbes, his toy tiger, is wry and philosophical.

Because of the immense popularity of the strip, Universal Press Syndicate wanted to churn out lucrative Calvin and Hobbes Merchandise. Watterson refused saying, “My strip is about private realities, the magic of imagination and the specialness of certain friendships. Who would believe in the innocence of a little kid and his tiger if they cashed in on their popularity to sell overpriced knickknacks that nobody needs?”

Today, fourteen years after that last memorable toboggan slide was published, Calvin and Hobbes remains fresh and relevant…..”like Shakespeare” my husband says.

To wit:

Calvin: “Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists somewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.”

Calvin: “In my opinion, we don’t devote nearly enough scientific research to finding a cure for jerks.”

We went to the farm store the other day to buy a can of spray paint and came home with a magnolia tree. We are not given to impulsive purchases. I think it was the fault of the dinosaurs.

I’ve been doing dinosaur research lately for a children’s program. The kids will be drawing dinosaurs in their habitats, and I needed to know more about the plants that flourished during the Mesozoic era. I’m already familiar with some of the plants. Our yard and beach have thousands of horsetails, and we have a patch of ferns that are as high as my waist.

The Gymnosperms, the first plants to have seeds, dominated much of the era. They are often called naked seeds as they develop on the surface of the reproductive structure, a pine cone or short stalks. So if you have a conifer or a gingko tree in your back yard, you may fantasize that dinosaurs would feel right at home. Unless you live in the tropics, you won’t have another Gymnosperm in your yard, a cycad. They look like enormous pineapples with a bunch of ferns stuck on the top.

Toward the end of the Mesozoic, the Angiosperms appeared. These are flowering plants with their seeds enclosed in a fruit. They proceeded to take over the world.

My surprise came when I discovered that magnolias were among the earliest flowering plants. I have always thought of them as the plant equivalent of delicate southern bells. But no, botanically they are real survivors and coexisted with the dinos.

Magnolias are one of the oldest plants in existence, but they were named in the 18th century. In 1793, botanist Charles Plumier wrote about a flowering tree on the island of Martinique. He named it after Pierre Magnol, a 17th century French botanist.

Since our new magnolia has such impressive family longevity, I hope it will survive. If not, we have a one year guarantee.

“Anything I need to know?” I asked my husband as he finished the newspaper. I knew I wasn’t going to get to it, and he is a good editor.

“Oh, yes,” he said, “there’s a wonderful piece of news.”

My mind raced to people getting along somewhere in the world or President Obama getting a break from the racists that besiege him.

“The International Space Station is getting a new astronaut in January, a woman from Italy.”

Now my brain immediately thought of Sophia Loren. My husband has a thing for that gorgeous woman. But since she is older than me and not a pilot or scientist, I couldn’t imagine she was the reason for his excitement about the news item.

“Guess what the astronaut is bringing with her?” he asked. I couldn’t think of any obvious thing.

“A cat?” I tried.

“No,” he said.

I tried again. “All of Sophia Loren’s movies?”

“No, the astronaut is Italian, so, of course, she is bringing an espresso machine.”

I should have been able to figure that out. My husband is also my very own personal barista and I’m the recipient of great coffee drinks every day. When things would get difficult with his computer programming job, he would come home and say that perhaps he wanted to be an espresso machine repairman. Good coffee looms large in his life.

Apparently the disgusting instant coffee on the space station has been loathed by astronauts of all nationalities, especially the Italians. So the venerable Italian coffee company, Lavazza, teamed up with an engineering firm to create a designed-for-space espresso machine. Their creation is called ISSpresso, ISS standing for International Space Station.

I must agree with my guy that this is an upbeat news item. Good coffee, good friends and other simple pleasures are always good news whether you’re at the space station or on terra firma.

After eighteen years, The Tooley Cafe has been remodeled. The revamp was not done for aesthetic reasons. It was done for squirrel reasons.

The Cafe has always been and will remain an equal opportunity feeding establishment. As long as the visitors don’t have shoes or shirts, they are welcome.

However, a few weeks ago we noted a problem. “I haven’t seen Downy for a while,” I said to my husband. Downy woodpeckers have been faithful visitors to our suet cakes for years. “The goldfinches aren’t around much either,” my husband replied.

We increased our surveillance of the Cafe and quickly discovered that the suet and all the feeders had multiple squirrels hanging off them from dawn until dusk.

We should have gotten a clue when we spotted two handsome, baby black squirrels a few weeks ago. For years, we had only one rare black squirrel who made infrequent appearances. Now, we have a family.

We have unwittingly created squirrel heaven. Ample food, a grove of pine trees and no hunters adds up to a healthy squirrel population. Our reds, grays and blacks are thriving.

Since the most incredibly overpopulated species on earth is humans, my husband and I have no desire to persecute another overpopulated species.

After brainstorming, we decided to try a “separate but equal” policy in the Cafe. Bear in mind that we are and always will be
liberals, but we do think “separate but equal” is fair when DIFFERENT SPECIES are involved.

We cleared an area in the Cafe, cut nearby branches and bought two new feeding stations with squirrel baffles. Then we moved the older feeders farther back in the woods, in other words, we created a separate squirrel dining room.

Within an hour, goldfinches and house finches found their new feeders. So far, no squirrels have usurped them.

Southerners have raised porch sitting to an art form. A muggy summer day, a veranda with a breeze, a mint julep…..what could be better?

While we Northerners do not have as long a porch season, we also enjoy viewing the world from a fine porch. Wine or beer are substituted for the juleps.

When we designed our house, we wrapped porches around three sides. Nevertheless, we do not have enough “porch”. We did not realize that a 10 degree temperature difference would exist between the lake side and the road side of our home. We made the lake side porch a generous size and the opposite front deck only eight boards wide. Breakfast on the east facing lake side is gloriously warm. Dinner is always on the road side which provides the afternoon heat and a ringside view of the sunset.

So be forewarned, if you come for dinner at our house on a summer evening, we line up the chairs in a row like those on the front porch of a retirement home in St. Petersburg, Florida.

During dinner and until the sun sets, we note the action and growth in our front yard. The purple martins are scooping up the last bugs of the day and seem oblivious to us as we sit quietly. Numerous other birds swoop past us on their way to our feeders. Spiders are everywhere, gearing up for a night of web spinning and feasting. Moths begin fluttering around the porch light and sticking themselves to the front screen. The chipmunk who has put his hole in the middle of our gravel driveway is racing back and forth from his hole to the Tooley Cafe. Is he filling his underground home with bedtime snacks?

The plants bear watching as well. Starting with the flowering Cleveland pear trees, our front meadow is a succession of blooms which flourish amidst the clumps of little blue stem grass. When days are warm and rain abundant, the plants seem to grow by inches. The flowers are like a calendar marking summer’s progression.

We also pay close attention to Farmer Dennis’ well tended fields across the road. This year the crops are winter wheat and corn. We can report that the corn will not be knee high by the Fourth of July.

We know that our American culture is centered around consuming more and succeeding more. We, however, will be amply satisfied with our porch, our acre and the time to enjoy them.