Stone Soup by Jan Eliot for June 14, 2014

Didn’t detect the sisterly sarcasm there, did you, kid?

Ostriches have very large, sharp beaks and they tend to be a trifle short-tempered. The babies may look cute but in reality I don’t think they make good pets. I’m not sure that anybody has tried to tame an ostrich. They have very strong legs and very strong claws, quite a formidable bird, in fact.

In 9th grade I undertook a science project of sketching and writing about animals in our zoo from A-Z. My sketch book to this day has a large oval mark (well indented) where the ostrich tried to take it from my hands. His (or her) criticism of my artwork, perhaps?

“Alix’s facial expression in panel three is wrong.”You may be right, but I’ll bet that Alix does recognize the sarcasm (she’s old enough, and experienced enough with Holly as a sister), but has decided to take the idea anyway and run with it.

She won’t like that idea.

I once had to explain “ostrich” to a class of ELL kindergartners. They thought I was joking.

I understand that gardeners line up to buy critter poop from visiting circuses; it makes good fertilizer. Or maybe Lion poop smell keeps the smaller cats from digging in the flower beds? :-)

Gag? On a geeky note, in flight, the egg will go from a fairly dense air pressure to about 35,000 feet. It might explode in transit, messy…

The egg innards have been removed. It’s just the shell.

I once saw on television a report about an animal training college that had an ostrich ride as a junior-year requirement. A total of three students held the ostrich, keeping a bag over its head, two keeping the bird in check until the third mounted it. That ostrich was kicking something fierce while it was being walked to the starting point!

No, you don’t even want to take care of Bisuit. NO