Friday, November 4, 2022

A Wicked Kind of Beauty

The cashier at lunch asked if we wanted to eat outside.
Inside!  Please!  We live here.  It's cccccold out there.  
She nodded in agreement : I need my winter coat.

But the cooler temperatures (low 60's with clouds and drizzle) perk up the greenery and release all kinds of enticing odors.  I'd been inside all morning; I took a stroll around my driveway when we got home.  

The concept of the nurse tree is nicely illustrated here.
Shielding the saguaro's new growth, it allows for lots and lots of new arms.  The arrows just point out one side of the connection.  New things pop up in the most unexpected places, too.  I went to get a closer look at something and almost stepped
 on these guys.
Someone pooped out something that found a happy space and is propagating like the begats.  I usually attribute these to birds, but I may have to rethink that.  My walk included this remarkable series of small, symmetrical tunnel entrances
and one really big hole nearby.
There's a footprint to the left (see the toes?) but the tailings from the digging go off to the right.

The clouds were getting darker and I was getting colder and I didn't stick around to see if anything was going in or out.  
I'm not sure I want to know what's condominium-izing the ground beneath our front yard.

 

8 comments:

  1. We used to see those in our yard from time to time, never did find out what they were......

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    1. Ground squirrels. Bunnies. Lizards. Snakes. Some dig their own and some move into a fixer-upper. That's as much info as I've gathered over 16 years :-)
      a/b

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  2. Ah, the wildlife...we got up this morning to find that the kittens had killed a mouse overnight and one had the head and another the body! I'm happy they are keeping the rodent population down, but I don't want them eating those critters. Who knows where they've been!

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    1. I find dead bodies in the pool, and dead birds (they slam into the windows thinking the sky goes through the living room) on the patio, but never a beheaded one.
      a/b

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  3. Holes like that would kind of creep me out. You have creepy things there. Our holes are usually moles, not so creepy.

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    1. Very creepy. Very very creepy. Nothing soft about living in the desert!
      We had giant moles on Long Island; G'ma and I once came up to a giant one crossing the road late at night and we took our feet off the car's floorboards and squealed. I'm not that crazy about them, either.
      a/b

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  4. well, stick a finger into those hole and see if something latches on!

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    Replies
    1. NO!!! The Centers for Poison Control stats are that almost all snake bites are caused by drunken young men sticking something into a hole to see what was in there. And it could be a tarantula.....
      a/b

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