“Volker Kraft’s apple sapling sported just 18 eggs when he first decorated it for Easter in 1965. Decades later, the sturdy tree is festooned with 9,800 eggs, artfully decorated with everything from sequins to sea shells. Decking trees with hollowed-out, painted eggs for Easter is popular in Germany, but the 75-year-old retiree’s annual creation has become something special. Last year, it drew more than 13,000 visitors. Kraft needs two weeks and countless trips up and down his ladder to hang the eggs and the task has become a little heavier each year since he began the decorations in 1965. “I wanted to decorate a tree with Easter eggs for my children,” Kraft said. Kraft started with plastic eggs. Each year, the project grew; he switched to real eggs and enlisted his three children’s help in blowing out and painting them.” w/ photos

“Two bottles of bubbly, preserved for nearly 200 years in a Baltic Sea shipwreck, are heading for the auction block. The government of the Aland Islands — an autonomous region of Finland situated between Sweden and Finland — said Wednesday it will auction off one bottle each of the oldest preserved examples of Veuve Clicquot and Juglar in the islands’ main city of Mariehamn on June 3. A total of 145 bottles of champagne were found 164 feet deep south of the islands in July 2010, including 95 from the now-defunct Champagne house Juglar, 46 from Veuve Clicquot and four from Heidsieck. Experts have previously said the bottles, dating from the early 19th century, could fetch more than $70,000 each at auction.” w/ photo

“An Oklahoma woman says she’s amazed by the generosity of an anonymous donor who bought a $50,000 insurance policy to help her keep her kangaroo as a therapy pet. The Broken Arrow city council is deciding whether to grant Christie Carr an exemption and allow her to keep the partially paralyzed kangaroo named Irwin. Having the insurance policy for any injuries inflicted by Irwin would be among the requirements. Carr said Friday that she couldn’t have afforded such a policy and had considered moving until State Farm contacted her earlier this week to say the policy had been bought for her.” w/ photo

“Buttons the four-year-old goose leads her pal around everywhere either by hanging onto him with her neck, or by honking to tell him which way to go. Owner Renata Kursa, 47, of Lublin, Poland, was heartbroken when Bak was left blind after an accident last year. ‘But gradually Buttons got him up on his feet and starting walking him around. They’re inseparable now – they even chase the postman together,’ she said.” w/ photo

“The Forestry Commission has issued a caution not to touch the caterpillars of the oak processionary moth. Their hairs contain a toxin that can cause itchy skin rashes as well as eye and throat irritations. The Forestry Commission’s Stewart Snape said residents can report sightings but that the caterpillars should only be removed by pest control operators. Officials are now dealing with outbreaks of the moth in Pangbourne in West Berkshire and the London boroughs of Ealing, Brent, Hounslow, Richmond upon Thames and Hammersmith & Fulham. Health Protection Agency director Dr Brian McCloskey said: “We strongly advise people not to touch or approach the caterpillars or their nests because of the health risks caused by the toxin-containing hairs. “Pets can also be affected and should be kept away as well”. He added that anyone who experiences an itchy skin rash or other allergic symptoms after being near oak trees in these areas should consult their GP. As a caterpillar, each oak processionary moth has around 62,000 hairs, which they can eject. Hairs that fall to the ground can be active for up to five years.” w/ photo

“It was an all you can eat buffet at the bank. An army of termites munched through 10 million rupees ($222,000) in currency notes stored in a steel chest at a bank, police in northern India said. The bank manager discovered the damage when he opened the reinforced room in an old bank building, police officer Navneet Rana told The Associated Press. “It’s a matter of investigation how termites attacked bundles of currency notes stacked in a steel chest,” he said. The money was put in the chest in January. The termites had damaged bank furniture and documents in the past.” w/ photo

“Cow-a-bunga! A black Angus cow in Montana is the proud mother of triplet calves. The Bozeman Daily Chronicle reports Cow No. 403 at Lance and Erika Chaney’s ranch near Manhattan gave birth Monday to three, 40-pound calves. The two females and male are all healthy. Washington State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine says the odds of a beef cow having triplets are one in 105,000 births, with longer odds that all three survive. And Lance Chaney says the cow is nursing all of them, which is rare.” w/ photos

“Jackie Gill stood confidently at the front of the classroom, her PowerPoint presentation cued and ready to go with slides of hormones, sperm and fallopian tubes. “Boys and girls, are you excited that I’m here today?” she asked the giggling seventh-graders at Westview Hills Middle School in Willowbrook. They answered loudly and in unison: “No!“  Confronting nervous students is nothing new for Gill, of the Robert Crown Center for Health Education. The nonprofit organization has offered its “Life Begins” and similar presentations to more than 5 million suburban and Chicago children since it began specializing in puberty and sex education in 1958. Many remember the field trip as a rite of passage.” w/ photo

“Real Madrid waited 18 years to win back the Copa del Rey trophy — only to drop the cup and watch it get crushed under the wheels of a bus. Only hours after beating archrival Barcelona in the domestic cup final in Valencia, Madrid defender Sergio Ramos let the 33-pound cup fall from the top of the team bus during celebrations early Thursday morning in the capital. The front right wheel of the bus rolled over the trophy before the driver stopped. Emergency services gathered up the broken pieces and returned them to the bus but the trophy did not reappear at the club’s traditional celebration spot of the Plaza de Cibeles in central Madrid. “The cup fell, it fell,” Ramos said according to Europa Press agency. “But the cup is OK.” Later, the Spain defender made light of the incident on Twitter. “The whole thing about the cup was a misunderstanding, it didn’t fall … it jumped off when it reached Cibeles (the fountain in Madrid where the team celebrates its titles) and saw so many Madrid fans,” Ramos tweeted. “Hahahaha… but don’t worry… have a good day.” The club said Thursday that the trophy will be repaired, and that a replica has been placed in the club museum in the meantime.” w/ photo + video

“Eleven puzzle buffs took more than 400 hours to create the artist’s famed Sistine Chapel in their record-breaking feat. The team had to adjust every single Rubik’s Cube by hand in order to get the exact colours in the masterpiece, reports The Daily Telegraph. Half of the time was spent making blueprints of the chapel’s ceiling, where the work is painted, by Cube Works Studio, the group behind the record-breaking attempt. The rest of the time was spent by the team twisting the cubes into place. Josh Chalom, the creative director of the studio, said it was just the first part of a project to mimic the entire Sistine Chapel ceiling. Once completed, it will be hung from a roof, weighing around 50 tonnes and using a hefty 250,000 Rubik’s Cubes. He explained the team had to pixelate the image using a computer first, which proved problematic because it was hard to determine the exact shading, tones and depth. Mr Chalom said: ‘We restored the piece so Adam didn’t look like he just came out of a tanning salon and God didn’t look so red that he resembled his arch-rival,’ reports the news provider.” w/ photo