The Backyard Science group regularly features the Daily Bucket. Wondering how to cook unripened tomatoes? The backyard getting a little boggy? Are you grateful that a valiant flower is unveiling its last blossom of the year for you?
Please add your own observations in a comment. Insects, weather, meteorites, climate, birds, and more are all worthy additions to the Bucket. Include, as close as is comfortable, your location. Your impressions will provide additional viewpoints of the life around us.
I sat down in the back yard for a talk with my Douglas Squirrel. Amazingly, all my grapes were still there. Doug Squirrel claimed he'd protected them from the grey squirrels while I'd been away. Its true that Douglas Squirrels prefer conifer cones to nuts and berries, but I was skeptical.
Doubling down on my skepticism, Doug then bragged,"Hey, we did just fine for 44 million years before you a-------s showed up."
My first thought was that once again, I'd misjudged how powerful 100 micrograms can be. But if you follow this squirrelly bucket below the orange rodent footprint, you may learn that there's some true to Doug's assertions.
These pictures are from New York City's Natural History Museum, representing the emergence of mammal life (Plesiadapiformes) 50 million years ago. That's roughly 15 million years after a meteor is supposed to have wiped out the dinosaurs.
The earliest (disputed) version of humans (Ardipithecus kadabba) didn't emerge in Africa until over five million years ago. That means this early version of squirrels (and saber-tooth deer, 30-foot-tall camels, tiny horses, etc) held dominion for almost 45 million years, over our lovely earth until we two-legged critters showed up.
I don't know how squirrels got by, without our fruit and vegetable gardens to nibble on, our bird feeders to raid, and our electrical power lines to gnaw on, but they did, for ten times longer then we've managed to grasp the mortal coil.
I have to admire their evolutionary efficiency, even as I channel dark thoughts towards that grey squirrel poaching on a $3 block of suet in the bird feeder. Kick his ass, Douglas, I'm thinking, and Douglas does actually chase the grey squirrel down the fence line.
To show there's no hard feelings, here's a nice squirrel painting, by John Spencer.
And that's a bucketful of squirrels. Now please let us know, what's happening in your portion of the earth?
"Green Diary Rescue" is Back!
After a hiatus of over 1 1/2 years, Meteor Blades has revived his excellent series. As MB explained, this weekly diary is a "round-up with excerpts and links... of the hard work so many Kossacks put into bringing matters of environmental concern to the community... I'll be starting out with some commentary of my own on an issue related to the environment, a word I take in its broadest meaning."
"Green Diary Rescue" will be posted every Saturday at 1:00 pm Pacific Time on the Daily Kos front page. Be sure to recommend and comment in the diary.