Cherry season has arrived. I got an early start during our recent visit to California where the yummy fruit ripens earlier, and now Washington cherries are ready to peak and it’s a bumper crop this year. 78,000 tons were harvested last year and 150,000 tons are expected for 2009. 30% of it goes overseas, mostly to Asia. Growers take all necessary precautions to keep their cherries in good shape, even bringing in helicopters to blow harmful rainwater off of the fruit.

from the past: White Glove Tracking. “On May 4th, 2007, we asked internet users to help isolate Michael Jackson’s white glove in all 10,060 frames of his nationally televised landmark performance of Billy Jean. 72 hours later 125,000 gloves had been located.”

Somehow I managed to completely forget about Dutch Crunch, the bread with the crackly top that was just a part of everyday life in Northern California, but dropped out of existence in Washington. Serious Eats brought it back to my attention and now I’m remembered how I used to often order albacore tuna salad on a Dutch Crunch roll at Le Boulanger. There were inferior Dutch Crunch versions, usually at the supermarket, that had little crunch so I always took the chance of damage to the roof of my mouth and got the good stuff. Now don’t get me started about wine-walnut bread which I used to eat in vast quantities all by itself.

These tiger pup photos are very cute. The pups, born at the Safari Zoological Park in Kansas, were featured on NBC’s Today Show on September 19, 2008. Abandoned by their mom, they were brought home by zookeepers and raised with the help of a golden retriever.

“The oldest handcrafted musical instrument yet discovered” is a flute around 35,000 years old and made out of griffon vulture bone. It was found in southern Germany and 22 centimeters long with 5 holes.

Here are two local critter stories of note. In Olympia, Washington a colony of several thousand bats takes wing every night to feed on insects. All females, they’re nesting with their young underneath a pier. Volunteers have been tallying the number of bats who leave their manmade home at night. In late summer the bats will scatter to locations unknown. Over in Cheney, a little east of Spokane, four trumpeter swans hatched over Father’s Day weekend at the Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge. Their dad, a seasoned veteran of the lake, was thought to be too old to become a father as he’s estimated to be 33-46 years old. His last batch of cygnets was in 1987 and after his original mate was killed his subsequent companions did not produce. But he and his latest mate are swimming happily with their new brood.

Take a visual trip through 50 years of bizarre and kitschy children’s television from H.R. Pufnstuf to Sigmund and the Sea Monsters through to today’s bizarre Boohbah.

Last week we visited the San Francisco area and felt like tourists for the first time. I can’t recall riding a cable car during the long time I lived there, though I figure I must’ve taken a visitor or two on a ride. But with a four-year-old boy in tow, it was an imperative. We took the Powell-Mason line to the Cable Car Museum, which is the working powerhouse for the cable car system. There we saw the giant winding wheels that run the cables and lots of memorabilia and old cars. The Obama girls took a similar ride on Monday, but they traveled on brand new car No. 15, built from scratch and fresh from the paint shop. The car cost $823,000 and took 15 years to build with custom parts made from bronze, steel, and four kinds of wood.

In an impressive achievement, the staff at Woodland Park Zoo’s rose garden has gone organic. The 280 types of roses on 2.5 acres are fed compost tea and kept free of black spot and powdery mildew. The showcase garden is still flourishing and the zoo management retains its message of conservation.

In Seattle’s Ravenna neighborhood a group of Jews in their 20s and 30s are living communally in three houses. It’s modern urban kibbutzim, a movement that is keeping these adults together in a common culture before marriage and kids. Shabbat dinners and events attract plenty of guests eager to share in the unique living environment. The Ravenna Kibbutz hopes to expand into a few other houses and eventually purchase some of the current rental property.