A Word about Tree Pigs

(Photograph by Rae Clinkenbeard)

Last week, I joked at the end of my post for you to look forward to more "tails" of nature. Well, today we're talking about the long-tailed species known colloquially as "tree pigs," so now you can all enjoy (or at least tolerate) my pun that's been a week in the making. As for the "tree pigs," either you know exactly what animal I'm talking about the moment I say that term, or you're incredibly confused. Given that "tree pigs" is a species name which I've only ever heard my immediate family use, you more than likely fall into the latter category. Well, before the suspense gets too lethal, I'll go ahead and just tell you: "Tree pigs" are squirrels (aka family Sciuridae, according to Google).

That moniker might not make any sense at first, but I can assure you that it is entirely logical. If you've ever tried to set up a bird feeder, you probably know all about these long-tailed, fuzzy-faced little critters' voracious appetites. Squirrels will, to a great extent, eat pretty much anything and everything. They're quite cute, yes, but they're also quite the little army of gluttons. And they live in trees. Hence, "tree pigs." Fortunately, their obsession with all things edible makes for some pretty funny stories.

I am personally acquainted with two of these little armies of gluttons. One is the family of squirrels that lives in my family's backyard, and the other is the band of fearless rodents that calls the Morningside College campus home. Both groups have their own unique quirks and a few interesting anecdotes, so I'll share a couple of my favorites with you today.

The squirrels at Morningside are the most unafraid little creatures you will ever meet--as long as you don't get too close to them, that is. You can easily get within a foot of them sometimes (intentionally or not) before they finally scare and flee (and when they flee, it seems more like they teleport to the nearest tree than anything else). And these furry little thieves will eat pretty much anything they can get their hands on. In my time here, I've seen a squirrel with a pizza crust in its mouth, and another carrying around half a hamburger in its mouth, stolen from the outside dining area. Sometimes when it's warm out, I like to eat my lunch outside at one of the campus' picnic tables--but if one of your chips chances to blow off the table, congrats, you're never getting that back (not that you'd want it back, anyway).

But my favorite part about the squirrels here is how they stalk the English classrooms (which are on the third floor of one of the more historical buildings on campus). One of the English professors enjoys feeding the squirrels out of his office window (an experience in which I'd love to participate sometime), but the problem with this is that the squirrels now think that all of the third floor windows are magical portals to friendly giants with food. The funniest thing is when you glance up at a window in literature or writing class to unexpectedly make eye contact with a squirrel who's staring intently right at you, or when you're trying to concentrate and you suddenly hear through the window AC unit behind you the urgent chucking of a hungry rodent. The not-so-funny thing is that apparently the squirrels have, on more than one occasion, tried to chew through the window screens.

If an army of zombie squirrels ever gnaws their way through the windows and attacks the English department, at least we'll know which member of the faculty is to blame. (We all love him anyway.)

When it comes to the squirrels back home, they actually started out as enemies of my mother. No matter which branch of the huge backyard maple tree she hung her bird feeder from, they'd find a way to get to it, dump it out onto the ground, and eat all the birdseed. No problem, she thought, and purchased an iron pole from which to hang her feeder. The squirrels promptly began climbing it (usually intentionally waiting until my mother was present to watch them through our kitchen's sliding glass door) and getting to the food that way. My mother responded by coating the pole in Vaseline. This works as long as the Vaseline doesn't freeze (which does happen on occasion). The squirrels still tried to climb the pole, though, even if it was now without success.

My mother finally "struck a bargain" with the tree pigs by putting out a couple of squirrel feeders which we restock with dried cobs of corn every few days. (And anytime they run out of food, they make sure to let us know by coming and glaring at us through the above-mentioned glass back door.) Nowadays, the squirrels basically amount to what my mom calls "wild pets" (just like "her" birds at the feeder), though she still often watches them out the window and accuses them of being "coercive little monsters."

Which, I mean, she isn't wrong.

We've taken to naming the squirrels. It started with Nuttekin J. Squirrel (Nutty for short) and his lady love Squirrelefina. They lived in our backyard tree for a couple of years, until they both fell victim to that arch-nemesis of nature known as small-town traffic. Squirrelefina left behind a nest of three babies when she died, who were just old enough to be able to climb around and find food for themselves.

Well, most of them could climb. The runt, Baby, fell out of the nest (but thankfully survived) and was unable to climb back into the tree. We all sadly began to count her as lost, but... Well, as far as I know, she's still alive today (and did eventually learn how to climb the tree). For months, her two bigger siblings would get food from the squirrel feeders and other locations around the neighborhood and toss it down to her where she hung out around the tree roots, and I once saw one of them come down and "cuss out" (as my family refers to angry squirrel shouting) a curious cat that was getting a little too close to Baby. My mother and I didn't realize how empathetic and caring these fluffy, coercive little monsters could be, but Baby's bigger siblings clearly cared about her and her well-being. More than once, as it began to get dark outside, you could see the bigger squirrels looking down from their branches one last time to check on their baby sister down below before settling down for the night.

So, while squirrels are coercive, monstrous little tree pigs, I'm still rather fond of them all the same.

The challenge for the week is to spot at least five squirrels (and it can be the same squirrel five times, as long as it's on five separate occasions). Stay warm, fellow observers, and I'll see you next Friday.

Natural Encounters of Lagomorphic Proportions

There's one more thing about me that I should probably tell you right away: I. Adore. Bunnies. I collect bunny plushes. I most often purchase Blue Bunny ice cream (though my close proximity to their world headquarters just might also encourage that a wee bit). For years, I've dreamed of eventually having a pet bunny. Whenever I'm sad, my friends usually react by bombarding me with pictures and gifs of bunnies.

I just really, really love bunnies.

Cottontail rabbits, as the species of rabbit seen in the picture above is slightly-more-technically called (Sylvilagus, according to Google, if you prefer the scientific name), are fairly common in the Midwestern United States. Over the years, I've lived in Missouri, Illinois, and Iowa, and each of those different places has certainly had their fair share of the twitchy-nosed, fluffy-tailed garden thieves. It's a safe bet that pretty much any walk through the neighborhood in any not-yet-totally-urbanized area around here (suburbs, small towns, farmland, you name it) will result in a rabbit sighting, as long as the weather is decent. Even when it's bitterly cold out (as it was here in Sioux City when I took the picture), there's still always a chance that you'll see a member of the neighborhood's longer-eared contingent out looking through the snow for food. And oftentimes, the morning after a nighttime snow, you just might see their snowshoe tracks gently imprinted upon the top of the newly-fallen, icy fluff.

While I am absolutely enamored with bunnies, my mother feels quite differently about them, and to be fair, she has good reason. As I mentioned above, cottontails tend to be notorious garden thieves. No matter what you try to do to protect your garden, they will get in and they will eat your produce. It's a mission that they pursue with Liam-Neeson-in-Taken levels of determination. You can try planting a marigold fence around your garden--supposedly they hate the smell, but in my mother's experience, they just ended up eating the marigolds too. You can try building a chicken wire fence, but they'll just dig under it. At least once, we've had a rabbit actually dig her burrow in the middle of the garden so that she had easy food access right there at her front door.

As cliched and unbelievable as this probably seems, we pretty much had to give up on our carrot crop that year (not to mention the green beans).

As much as my mom claims that she can't stand the bunnies whenever she sees them out in her garden, given that she's never tried any truly drastic measures to get rid of them, I think she must have a bit of a soft spot for them somewhere. (Hopefully she doesn't read this and take it as a sign that she needs to be even more adamant in her anti-rabbit warfare.) Even if she doesn't share my love for the furry creatures, at least she can admit (sometimes) that they really are adorable. 

And honestly, that's good enough for me and my bunny-adoring heart.

The challenge for this week should be super easy--just get outside and spot a rabbit. Seeing one from inside doesn't count, unless you take the time to hurry outside before it runs away so that you can honestly say you saw it while outside. Feel free to let me know how achieving the challenge goes for you, or any funny bunny stories of your own (I'm always on the lookout for cute pet bun stories too). Good luck, fellow observers, and I'll see you again with more "tails" of nature next Friday.

The Journey Begins

Hey there, and welcome to Naturally Observant.

I'm Elizabeth Roop, and I'm a sophomore English and History student whose lifelong dream is to be a writer. Feel free to call me Eliz, Liz, etc.; I'm really not picky about nicknames as long as they're nice. I hope you enjoy reading my posts.

Speaking of posts, by one way or another, you seem to have stumbled across my first attempt at a blog. Blogging is something I've wanted to get into for several years now, but have never quite been able to persuade myself to actually jump in and get started. This blog exists because now I have to write a blog as part of a college class. No better reason to finally do something than that you have to do it to pass a class, am I right?

You might have noticed that my blog has an... "interesting," shall we say, title. I'll tell you now that it's a pun, though you might have already guessed that. I'm big on puns. Puns are great; the best possible way to be equally parts humorous and obnoxious, in my opinion. To get to the point, my blog's title does indeed have a double meaning. You see, in our day and age, we as people (at least in America; it might be different elsewhere, and I certainly don't claim global omniscience) tend to spend more of our time looking at screens than at the sky. The weather is more a source of annoyance than of wonder. When drops of water come, quite literally, falling out of the sky, the biggest reaction any of us offer is a sigh of irritation that we might get wet during our morning commute. Snow is even worse; it piles up everywhere and makes driving (not to mention even walking) dangerous, so who cares about how pretty it makes everything look or how incredible it is to watch it dancing, twirling, swirling gracefully down out of the sky? We tend to be more concerned about whatever new stunt our politicians are pulling than the first flowers of spring blooming or the first trees' leaves budding right outside our windows and windshields. To be fair, all of these reactions are logical: the real world problems housed in our devices are more pressing than the views presented by the sky, getting wet is irritating, driving in snow is stressful, and every new political stunt is rightfully concerning. But when the "real world" (that is, the world of life, relationships, work, politics, finances, really everything outside of nature) is all that we focus on, we lose something, something vital. Humans are natural creatures created to live in a natural world. When we ignore the natural world, we harm our physical and mental health. (Don't believe me? That's fine; take it from the experts. There is bountiful research out there: this article from cultureiQ and this article from the BBC both describe several relevant studies in laymen's terms and link to said studies if you want the scientific details.)

Beyond that, I would argue that when we lose touch with nature, we also lose touch with something visceral and emotionally essential. One need only look to Henry Thoreau, Vincent Van Gogh, Matsuo Bashou, or countless other writers and artists throughout human history and between various cultures to see how nature has always inspired art and emotional reactions in human beings.

It is incredibly difficult to create essays, art, or poems based off of nature when little-to-no contact with nature is occurring among vast parts of our population.

In this day and age, it might be more important than ever to be naturally observant. Yes, we have to spend every moment being aware of our surroundings in the "real world;" that is an important part of leading a healthy and successful life. But just as importantly, we must take the time to observe whatever natural wonders are going on around us, from the beauty of a flower bush, the scent of falling leaves, the sound of rain on the ground, or the feel of snowflakes on our faces. It only takes a moment, and it is extremely beneficial for us, physically, mentally, and emotionally.

This semester, I'll be doing my best to be naturally observant. I challenge you to do the same.