oddly enough

oddly enough

Local asparagus absent from festival of asparagus

EMPIRE, Mich.

The missing ingredient at last weekend’s Empire Asparagus Festival was asparagus.

The long, cold winter and cool spring have delayed this year’s crop in Michigan’s northern Lower Peninsula, leaving festival organizers scrambling for a replacement source.

The Traverse City Record-Eagle said the festival’s usual supplier is Harry Norconk but that Norconk Farm doesn’t have an asparagus crop yet.

Norconk said sufficient asparagus wouldn’t be available. He said he’s sold as much as 500 pounds of asparagus at earlier festivals.

This year, restaurant owners sourced asparagus supplies from southern Michigan to meet the demand.

Event organizer Paul Skinner of the Empire Chamber of Commerce said the festival would highlight other locally grown foods to fill the gap.

Testing inconclusive, suspected bobcat returned

STAFFORD, N.J.

Rocky’s mother was 98 percent bobcat.

But because a DNA test couldn’t determine the 38-pound feline’s father’s lineage, a judge ruled Friday that the runaway cat be returned to a New Jersey woman.

Municipal Court Judge Damian Murray ruled that Ginny Fine can regain custody of Rocky after a mitochondrial DNA test found that the cat’s mother was 98 percent bobcat, but couldn’t determine its father’s lineage, the Asbury Park Press reported .

Mitochondrial DNA is inherited solely from the mother.

“The bottom line is, Rocky goes home,” Judge Murray said.

Fine, who has maintained that Rocky is a hybrid bobcat and Maine coon, said she was shocked by the ruling.

“I don’t even know what to say. I was not expecting that,” she said outside of court.

She would have needed a special permit from the state Department of Environmental Protection to get Rocky back if it was determined to be a purebred bobcat. The permit is issued only for zoos, animal exhibitors, for scientific purposes or for agencies that own animals for advertising or acting, according to the DEP.

Fine pleaded guilty to letting the animal get loose and was fined $1,000 after Rocky ran away from her home for a second time in March.

The cat was missing for 12 days, leading police to hunt through the woods. It was lured back April 7 and has been at the Popcorn Park Zoo in Lacey since then.

Judge Murray ordered that the cat be kept in an enclosure that will be inspected periodically by the state.

Associated Press