Hi neighbors. If you can stop leaping about for a second, we can have some coffee and figure out how we earn an extra day every four years.

We've heard it all our lives. The dudes who came up with our calendar had to do some juggling to get the hours to work out right. To keep a 24 hour day and seven day week, they had to nip and tuck and few minutes here and there.

Every four years things get a bit off kilter and they have to collect all those loose minutes and throw them into one day.

And we call it Leap Year. Maybe we should call it Gulp Year, since that's the year we swallow up all those awkward minutes and hours. Maybe Leap refers to a hurdle we have to pass every four years.

Whatever the reason, it just sounds corny to me. Of course February having an extra day every four years is unusual and against the common flow of things. That's probably why some person decided it would be a good time to do things not done any of the three "normal" years. Like girls asking guys out. Oh please! How long will this be considered an odd event?

There's a lot we don't know about seasons and days and shifting calendars. I learned a long time ago that when you want to know something, go to the source. Let's see if Clovis can explain leap year shall we?

For new readers, or those who like myself forget things they've read almost as quickly as their eyes move to the next paragraph, Clovis is my fictional cave man. Through the innocent eyes of Clovis, and his often cynical wife, we see the modern world in a clearer form. Maybe we will gain some insights on leap year.

"Clovis! the neighbors are complaining that the front of the cave valley is looking like a bunch of Neanderthals live here." The diminutive female used a bare foot to delicately shove the massive man's latest invention, the "hang-like-a-monkey-bed" bed, hard enough to shake Clovis out of it.

"If you spent more time hunting and fishing and less time tying this stupid net thing together to hang between two trees to sleep on, I'd be happier and better fed." She glowered at him while he stood and pulled the finely tied netting from the tree branches.

"You know, this might catch some fish if I threw it into the water," Clovis pondered the net. He shrugged and handed the net to his wife. "I'm tired of fish anyway. I have to go find more rocks for my moving-moon-put-a-rock invention." "That's what I'm talking about," his wife said, throwing down the net and following him toward the valley floor. "The tribe is tired of your inventions. You have put rocks all over the valley floor in big circles and people are tired of stumping their toes on them."

Clovis sighed and stopped on a ridge. He waved his hand to indicate the valley floor where he had made several circles with stones. "See, from here you can tell what I am doing," he said proudly.

His wife dutifully looked at the circles of small stones. "Why are you doing this Clovis? Do you enjoy embarrassing the entire tribe? What possible reason could there be for putting rocks everywhere?"

Clovis sighed. "Each night I put a rock down in a circle. When the moon looks the same as it did when I placed the first rock, I start a new circle."

His wife waited for more explanation and when none was forthcoming she snorted. "Hello!" she tapped his temple. "Is there intelligent life in there? What possible use could that be? What have you learned? This is even worse than the sun marks on the cave wall to mark hours." She sighed. "When will you learn Clovis. We haven't even invented the spring yet to make clocks, why do we need calendars?"

Clovis' shoulders sagged and he said, "you know, I've done this for 47 circles now ... I know something important is going to happen soon."

"Yeah, right, like someone is going to start growing crops or something," his wife laughed. "I don't think so ..."

She added "you know, you might have something with this circle business though. If you stuck a stick in the middle of a circle, you could call it a wheel."

Clovis laughed then. "What on earth would people want with something like that?"

Until the next time friends remember; time, and the odd accumulations of it, is relative and strictly on a need to know basis.