Tag Archives: Nature

Happy Arbor Day!

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Today is Arbor Day, which is actually a pretty old holiday dating from 1872, back in the bad old days before any kind of environmental awareness or good environmental stewardship existed, at least, not as we know them.

I’m not sure if people thought of natural resources as being finite or possible to damage at that time, although the Industrial Revolution was already in full swing.

On the very first Arbor Day, people planted a million trees.

I like trees, but I don’t have a yard and can’t really fit one in my living room, so I will not be joining the Arbor Day festivities to plant a tree today.

Visit the Arbor Day Foundation for more information on the holiday and trees in general.

Will you plant a tree today?

 

 

Update: Do Foxes Climb Trees?

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Photo by: Markus KrötzschDo foxes climb trees?

Because if foxes don’t climb trees, I have a squirrel the size of a collie living in my back yard.

Update: The fantabulous commenter honeybee suggests that my squirrelfox is in fact a fox squirrel. Upon looking at the picture (at left, from the Wikipedia entry), I think she’s correct.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a squirrel that big in my whole life before, so I just assumed (from across the yard, through the snow and behind a tree) it was a fox. Probably desperate for food, given it was wandering around in the daylight.

Then it started climbing a tree and skritching its nose like a squirrel, and I thought "… wait, what?"

The thing is the size of a young German shepherd and could probably eat a chihuahua.