Posts

So far this summer has been dry as a bone (“near- drought conditions,” the weather service calls it) followed by stream-filling thundery deluges (“rain, heavy at times”).

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The height of the severed plants in your garden can give a clue to the culprit. Rodents leave roughly inch-tall stumps. Cottontails between 2 and 3 inches. Mature deer between 12 and 16 inches.

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Twin fawns are frolicking in the evening. It’s so innocent seeming, it’s hard not to feel a sense of anthropomorphic dread on their behalf.

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Most of us have heard that the CO2 level in Earth’s atmosphere today is higher than it’s been in a million years, but a new study, published in Geology, concludes that there’s now more CO2 than there has been in the past 23 million years. Something to think about while we fan ourselves.

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A lot of things are described as “growing like a weed.” In our garden the weeds really take it to heart.

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Now that the wasps have filled all the ground holes in all the electrical outlets in the garage, they’ve begun using the fancy solitary bee and wasp apartment house that was made of reeds especially for them. The female lays an egg, tucks in provisions for the larva, and fills the hole with fine mud, without my noticing. I’ll try to catch her in action from now on.

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