Time for a Sunday squirrel story. A day in the life of a grey squirrel in Vermont.
A squirrel's day starts early. You have to make the most of the short Vermont summers to pack on the pounds and hide away as many nuts and you can find.
These tall trees towering over my garden are white pine. White pine can grow to 100 or even 150 feet tall. They live up to 200 years and some even make it to 400 or 450 years old. There is a large white pine right outside my garden that is probably approaching 100 feet tall.
White pine are prolific producers of pine cones. This tree has a convienent perch about 20 feet up overlooking my garden. This fat squirrel sits on the perch most days eating pine cones like corn on the cob 馃槅
First he will go way up to the top of the tree where the pine cones are and chew them off dropping them to the ground. Then he goes down, grabs a good looking one and starts chewing.
Then when all the seeds have been chewed off its back to the forest floor to find another one he threw down earlier. Look at the huge waste pile (maybe mulch pile) at the bottom tree below his perch where he disassembles pine cones all day.
The perch has other visitors but only when the squirrel isn't around to noisily run them off.
Bonus picture! a perfect spider web in my swamp this morning 馃檪