Here it is already. April. The showers and all. Spring is springing all about us. April Fools. Well, I thought I’d start the month with some interesting facts.
They say that March comes in like a lamb, out like a lion. Or is it the other way around? In like a lion, out like a lamb.
But what animal is April? Well. I say it is an elephant. Because of the “April Showers” thing mostly. Even though Spring is here, we have a lot of gray rainy days in April. And April sort of moves around like an elephant. It is heavy-footed with rain. Sometimes it even shakes the ground when it walks through. Gray. Plodding.
I like April, though. For one, it is my birth month. And the warmer air feels nice for a change. So yeah. Good old elephant April.
Did you know that elephants can smell water? It is true. Their sense of smell is one of the strongest of any land animal. They can detect water sources and even distant rainstorms, like crazy. Their sense of smell goes WAY beyond human ability.
Their trunk is essentially a super-powered nose. It is basically an extension of the upper lip and nose. It is not a separate limb. But I should tell you this. An elephant’s trunk has around 40,000 muscles.
If that sounds like a lot, it is. By comparison, the entire human body has about 600 muscles. The trunk of an elephant can lift tree trunks and pick up a single grain of rice.
Anyway, back to sniffing. Inside it are millions of scent receptors, which are far more than humans or even those incredible sniffing dogs.
Elephants inhale scents by curling or lifting the trunk. Then they “pull” in the air around them, and lots of information along with it.
And April is good for them as mascots because elephants love rain. They will play, roll, trumpet, and flap their ears during rainfall. They love mud. You can almost see it bringing them joy. But they also use it like sunscreen for protection of their skin.
As a sidebar. When I was a kid, I used to love the song called “Baby Elephant Walk”, composed by Henry Mancini. We had an album with it on. I used to play that one song over and over.
https://youtu.be/EbI2nl3Duf8?si=Xf3KQuIsRPoYy_3k
I’m listening to it right now, and it is making me smile.
So there it is.
April is the Elephant. Bring it on.
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“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”
— Lao Tzu
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“An elephant does not forget—and that is its strength.”
— African proverb
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“Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
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“Even the slowest walk, if steady, will reach its destination.”
— Charles Darwin
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