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Greetings and Welcome to The 405 Coffee Break with O.K. Solberg
New episodes tend to air over the local KMMR radio station @ 5 minutes past 4PM each M-F. And have been doing so, nearly every week since Sept 2018.
I'm D.J. Rasmussen, O.K.s friend since junior high, possibly your neighbor & this websites maintainer, whom strives to get each episode's show notes written, the transcript proofed and the audio posted to the internet within a few hours of that days KMMR air time. NOTE: recently been publishing most new releases by 4:30PM.
Thanks for visiting and I hope you enjoy the time we can spend together.
Want to again welcome you to The 405 Coffee Break. Boy, it's still chilly out there, isn't it? I'm looking forward to spring. Get you a cup of coffee, glass iced tea, bottle of water, whatever it is you'd like, and let's see what's happening.
OK Solberg:Spring wheat $5.35 a bushel. 550lb steer calf $4.87 on up depending on the condition. A butcher hog in Iowa 59ยข a pound, and a 100lb lamb that's fat in Billings will fetch $2.74 a pound. But guys, there's more, much more.
OK Solberg:Bible passage right up front. Gary caught me. I missed one on Monday. Sorry about that. Try not to do it again. But here's one right up front. But ask the beasts and they will teach you, the birds of the heavens and they will tell you, or the bushes of the earth and they will teach you and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every living thing. Job 12:7-10
OK Solberg:Oh, yeah, guys. When we look at nature, how the bee needs the flower and the flower needs the bee, we know there is a creator. It is, of course, foolish to say there isn't for his handiwork could not have happened by accident, and it's all around us.
OK Solberg:Today, the monarch butterfly. Did you realize the monarch butterfly is one of the most amazing insect scientists have ever studied? Even though it weighs less than a paper clip, it can fly up to 3,000 miles each year. Monarchs from the Eastern United States and Canada travel all the way to mountain forests in Central Mexico for the winter.
OK Solberg:Scientists have discovered that they use the sun as a compass and have a kind of internal clock in their antenna to help them stay on course. What makes us even more incredible is that no single butterfly makes the full round trip. It takes several generations to travel north in the spring, but one special super generation born at the end of the summer flies all the way south and can live up to eight months, much longer than the others.
OK Solberg:When they're caterpillars, they eat milkweed plants and store the plants toxins in their bodies which makes predators less likely to eat them. Their complete transformation from caterpillar to butterfly where their bodies completely reorganized is another reason the monarch is considered one of nature's greatest wonders.
OK Solberg:And I have in my hand at the time of this writing a National Geographic dated August 1976. I went on eBay, purchased it because I wanted one in my hand. This was the first article published after they found finally found where the butterflies wintered. Listen, as I quote. I gazed in amazement at the sight.
OK Solberg:Butterflies millions upon millions of monarch butterflies. They clung in tightly packed masses to every branch and trunk of the tall gray green trees. They swirled through the air like autumn leaves and carpeted the ground in their flaming beauty on this Mexican mountainside. Breathless from the altitude, my legs trembling from the climb, I muttered aloud, unbelievable. What a glorious, incredible sight.
OK Solberg:The article continues as you might well suspect, but I don't have time to read it all aloud to you. Wish I could. But I will share that a Canadian zoologist and his wife had been studying the monarch for over three decades and finally found where they wintered. For decades they were studying and they knew they had to mark them to be able to track them. They tried many different methods of affixing a tag to the butterfly, but they were so delicate, so fragile, and the process failed time after time after time till finally a friend suggested trying the type of pressure adhesive label used for price tags on glass merchandise.
OK Solberg:This worked beautifully and then people would write letters back from where they had found the butterflies. Years still passed, but little by little they gathered information. Then on the evening of 01/09/1975 when Orvin Solberg is still in Malta High School, a telephone call came in. We have located the colony, he said, unable to control the excitement in his voice. We have found them, millions of monarchs in evergreens beside a mountain clearing.
OK Solberg:Ah, yes. The monarch butterfly, a thing of beauty and a marvel of creation. They know where they're going and they never been there before. So you might ask, do we have monarch butterflies in North Central Montana? And the answer is yes.
OK Solberg:Monarch butterflies do inhabit Northern Montana as part of their northern breeding grounds with reported sightings throughout the region including Phillips County, Montana. According to Montana field guide, monarchs have been reported in at least 37 counties in Montana with records specifically indicating their presence in Phillips County. They rely on native milkweed which serves as a host plant for their larvae. Well, what about that then?
OK Solberg:So until next time, as you go out there, remember now, don't be bitter.