No sunspots; the mule died

This is getting boring. According to Spaceweather.com, this is the 45th day without spots on the sun, one of the longest quiet spells of the current solar minimum. We are in the deepest solar minimum in a century. So what does this mean to me? Well, it reminds me of a story:

There was a farmer who had a mule he used in the summertime, but it just stood around and had to be fed during the winter. He thought he’d try saving money by adding a little sawdust to the mule’s feed. Day by day he’d add a little more sawdust.
“So, how’d it work out?” asked his neighbor.
“Well, it went pretty good,” the farmer said. “I got up to about ninety percent sawdust, then…”
“Then what?”
“Then that ol’ mule up and died!”

A good thing, too. The farmer could have run out of sawdust! So what’s this all got to do with sunspots? Nothing, it just reminded me of the story.