A University of Delaware ecologist speaks.

Anyone who reads this blog knows UD‘s gardens, front, sides, and back, are massively mammalian. Man, I found a MINK in my garden once.

Sometimes I try listing everything that’s out there, but I’m sure I’m forgetting stuff.

rats

mice

voles

rabbits

raccoons

opossums

fox

deer

coyote

squirrel

bat

shrew

moles

chipmunk

ground hog

Plus reptiles, insects, and avians! Never a dull moment.

Sing it.

O Bezumbia! the gem of the river,
The yacht of the richest in the world, 
Your size makes the whole planet quiver,
Before you our bridges all unfurl.

 Yes before you our bridges disassemble.
Five hundred million spent on only you!
Thy selfishness makes decent people tremble,
Three cheers for the red, white, and blue.

Your yacht wing'd its wide ostentation,
And threaten'd our bridges to deform,
An icon of super-greed's creation,
Bezumbia sails its vileness thro' the storm.

Almost there.

… I found in front of the fireplace this morning, overturned and waving its legs about in an effort to right itself. Mr UD took it outside. I think it might have slid down the chimney, since I always forget to close the flue. The whole episode was shamelessly lifted from Metamorphosis.

There’s no free lunge.

************************

(This is Uncle Miltie.)

And that’s what freedom looks like in Kentucky, baby!

We’re seeing a young red fox almost every morning, around 8 AM, in and around our pollinator garden. Looks like this (photo, Colleen Bruso):

It walks calmly through the bee balm, unaware of us, doing a last-minute rabbit check before returning for the day to its den. It is a beautiful, elegant animal.

The fantastic evening firefly show, followed by the morning fox, makes these summer days and nights mesmerizing and surreal.

Not that many. But the Clarence Clearance initiative is moving at an insane pace. We’re already on our way to 650,000, and new people are signing the petition every second.

Huh yeah but every one of them applied for a job at Mar A Lago last month and I turned all the losers down…

… on UD’s deck has put out tons of buds, which, dedicated readers recall, soon unfold into massive red blooms. (Images are from last summer.) UD tried getting a picture of the pale green crab spider on one of its leaves, but as she approached, it jumped away. Praying mantises, you may also recall, loved last year’s hibiscus, and I found a baby mantis on this one the other day, but there aren’t any on it at the moment. (There are probably ten on it, but, you know, camouflage…)

As UD took pictures of her hibiscus, two chipmunks on the grass near her did that frantic little dance where they take turns hopping into the air and then race off.

Yesterday, early evening, Les UDs were startled by a large dark snake on the garden pavers. I’m thinking water snake. (We live near Rock Creek.)

Donald Trump is not a rational player. I mean, he just isn’t. You can’t have a conversation with him in the same way that you can have a conversation with most other people. He is somebody that lives in a different reality. He had started the lie about the election back in 2016. What I saw after the first interview with him in the White House was that he now became someone who believed in his own lie, and that is a person who is delusional. That is a person who is incredibly dangerous, because you can’t debate with that person.

There is no way that anybody can persuade Donald Trump that he’s wrong. And this is something that’s characteristic of him all the way through his life, and the series goes into this in the sense that he will never accept that he had done anything wrong. He will always double back. He’s always right, and it’s always somebody else’s fault. I mean, he lives in cloud cuckoo land.

He’s sitting in an interview in Mar-a-Lago saying that in front of a portrait, an actual oil painting of himself painted 25 to 30 years ago in a golf outfit. I mean, I actually asked about that at the end of the interview. I was like, “You’ve got to tell me about this painting.” I mean, this is a guy who literally has paintings of himself in his house. I mean, he’s just not a normal guy. I mean, you know?

Nice writing from Dorothy Byrne on Maxwell’s long sentence.

And that’s the right.