Mincey’s Musings
Year Two, Week Fifteen

When I got to work this morning after the Easter weekend holiday, I was clearing my email when I came across this interesting subject line: Do you have all your eggs in one basket? It is a question perhaps best not contemplated first thing on Monday morning of a work week.

The year was 1981. My nephew, Chris Bouldry, had been attending Bible College in Springfield, Missouri. He came home for the Christmas holidays and decided not to return to school. That left one problem. He needed to retrieve his possessions from his room there. The second problem was how to make the trip. He didn't have a car or any money.

Since I’m in the woods a lot it’s reasonable to assume that I would have more ticks get on board and use me as a meal. But for the first time that I can remember I pulled ticks off every month of the year, including the winter months when they are normally dormant. That’s not right people! All of them have been the smaller deer tick, which are harder to see and feel crawling around. Now that your family is outside more with the warmer weather, best start body checking yourself and the kids. Since it’s good to know your enemy, here is a rundown on the tick lifestyle.

My son’s Eagle Project, back when he was in Boy Scouts, was planning and overseeing the construction of bat houses and distributing them on a state tree farm located next to the Hiwassee River in Polk County. At first, he was reluctant. Who, after all, wanted to do anything for bats? They were scary, ugly, carried rabies, get in your hair, and they lived in caves and old houses spreading guano.

You’ve been told since the first time you heard the term “computer” that they are all about bits and bytes, right? Computer geeks (like me) are sometimes referred to as “bit twiddlers”. I even wrote a novel called The Bit Dance that has a bunch of ones and zeros on the cover. Computers are all about binary choices, right?

The Olive Garden is our favorite restaurant. A few years ago we celebrated my eighty-ninth and half birthday in July. (When you approach ninety, every day is a luxury.) We had an Alfredo dish. My daughter Anne had chicken and I had shrimp. We decided we could make a recipe at home that tasted just as good.

With five members present, Chairman Coppock called the school board meeting to order on Thursday, April 10. After approving agenda, the Board recognized Dr. Jason Bailey, Union County Mayor, who invited the Board and all present to the next Progress Planning meeting on ...

Union County High School senior Dalton Truan signed to wrestle with University of the Cumberlands Patriots April 10.

“Dalton is the hardest working guy, day in, day out,” said UCHS head wrestling coach James Ramirez.

March is Extension Month in Tennessee. Established in 2015 by a proclamation from the Tennessee General Assembly, Extension Month celebrates the educational outreach, service, and economic impact achieved by Extension across the state. Over these past three years since Extension Month began, county offices across the state have used the month as a way to showcase their programs and attract new clientele. Union County Extension took March as an opportunity to celebrate successes, tell stories, and show new and current audiences the value that Extension brings to their lives and communities.

Patients can assess their own back pain using an app on their phone or tablet as effectively as current paper methods, a new study has shown. The study demonstrates that digital versions of established measurements for assessing back pain are just as reliable and responsive, opening the possibility for their use by patients for routine measurements and clinical trials.

The researchers see this study as a necessary first step in the greater use of digital media in clinical settings, in light of recent calls for greater use of such technology by healthcare providers.