It can be a perverse pleasure to own a pretty thing, especially if that thing is highly coveted by others. But this story may be the ultimate.
Today’s guest blog is by Sherrilee.

Even I, who love winter more than anyone I know, can get a little tired of the season by February. The slippery streets, the slush in the shoes, the high mountains of snow at each side of the driveway that make pulling out onto my street a life-threatening event every day. I often feel like I might be the writer of the Diary of a Snow Shoveler, which has been around forever:

So I read with interest about a woman in Spain, Angeles Duran, who had registered herself as owner of the Sun. Apparently she did her homework, discovered that there is an international agreement that no country may claim ownership of a star or a planet, but that there is no stipulation that an individual cannot make such a claim.

The part of Spain that Angeles hails from is Galicia, which is thought of as the rainy region of the country, although this is certainly relative, since Galicia is in the south of Spain so probably doesn’t have anything close to a Minnesota winter. But apparently the weather is quite volatile there, so you can go many days without seeing the sun. I suppose that claiming the sun as your own might make the gray days a little easier to take. Kind of like taking a vacation to Florida in January or February makes the shoveling a little easier to take.

Of course, it didn’t take Angeles long to try to make some money off her new claim. She wants to make sun-usership a fee-based activity, with the proceeds going the Spanish government, the nation’s pension fund, research, world hunger and 10% left over for herself. Generous woman.

What planetary object would you like to claim?

Guest Blog by Sherrilee

Most of my growing up years were spent in a big city in the Midwest, where the wildlife consisted mostly of squirrels and sparrows. So it was a big deal when we vacationed every summer in the northern part of Wisconsin at the family homestead. We saw deer from the car windows and even the occasional black bear at the town dump. When I was seven, an animal park opened up in St. Croix Falls, which was along the route my family always drove to get to Wisconsin.

Fawn Doe Rosa was (and still is) a place where you can feed and pet a variety of animals, from deer to ponies to geese and ducks. Always looking for a way to break up the long drive to and from up north, I’m sure my parents were delighted to find anything to get us girls out of the car and out of their hair for awhile.

That first year, when I was seven, my sister and I wandered all over the park. Except for dogs and cats, I had never had any interaction with an animal before and was a little leery of the deer, some of whom were bigger than I was. So I opted for the smaller and safer geese and ducks that abounded at the park. At one point, as I was feeding some geese along the little pond, a young elk spotted me.

Clearly understanding that I was the repository of food, he headed right for me, although I didn’t notice him, so intent was I on my task. My father, who was capturing our day with the camera, snapped a shot as the elk approached me, but didn’t feel the need to warn me. Of course, even though the elk was quite small (as elk go), he did scare me out of my wits and I stepped into the pond and got my feet wet.

It took my mother several minutes to get me to approach the poor elk, who was probably as scared by my antics as I was by his, but was willing to forgive me for my outburst, since I still had food. Within a little bit, I was petting him and feeding him, like he was no more different than the family dog.

I think about this day often, as the teenager and I still visit Fawn Doe Rosa at least once a summer. What would have been a scarring experience that scared me off animals for a lifetime, turned out to be the beginning of a lifelong love of creatures great and small. We trek out to our two zoos here several times a year, love the Wolf Center in Ely, visit any animal park we find along the way and I believe my love of animals may have rubbed off; the teenager has expressed an interest for a career with animals, although it’s still a little too early to tell.

Has being afraid of anything ever led to something good for you?