Judy sent me this article from The Guardian about chefs who are making various dishes out of squirrel, specifically Grey Squirrel. There’s a lot of Grey Squirrel meat to be had in the UK because of an organized attempt to cull Europe’s invasive Grey Squirrel population, who are driving the native Red Squirrels to extinction. The Grey Squirrels migrated from North America to Europe, where they made themselves a little too comfortable.
So did you see the article in National Geographic about how plants can “hear” the buzzing of bees? A researcher at Tel Aviv University named Lilach Hadani found that Evening Primrose (Oenothera biennis) measurably responds to that buzzing sound in two ways.
So the good news is that there are a lot more Monarch butterflies roosting in Mexico this winter than there were a year ago. Monarch populations are measured by the size of overwintering colonies in the mountain forests of Michoacan. This year, they are covering a little over 6 hectares (or about 15 acres), a 144% increase from the 2016-17 winter, when just 2.48 hectares were occupied.
Thanks to everyone who expressed concern for our well-being during Chicago’s recent spell of severe weather. We are fine. In fact, Judy had to spend this past week in Los Angeles for her job. She’ll be getting home late tonight.
This past weekend I ended up staying in Springfield on my own, so on Sunday I visited the Old State Capitol. It was the seat of Illinois state government from 1840 to 1876. The building was reconstructed in the 1960s, but still has the original stone exterior.
Just recently I read an informative post entitled “3 Problematic Plants in Native Plant Gardens and 3 Native Alternatives”. The post was on the Facebook page of Indigenous Landscapes, a native plant landscaping company based in Cincinnati. While the arguments made in the post were reasonable, I had a somewhat different take on the plants in question.
Prairie Moon Nursery, based in southeast Minnesota, is one of my 2 favorite online sources for native plants, the other being Prairie Nursery in central Wisconsin. Prairie Moon gives us all natives and nothing but natives. Straight species only – cultivars need not apply!
Now is the time of year for mooning over garden catalogs, dreaming of glorious blooms as the garden lies in frozen slumber. Fortunately, there are lots of catalogs to moon over. I have a stack by my side of the bed about 18 inches high, when they’re not scattered all over the floor. I should really keep them in some kind of file folder.
A growing body of research supports the idea that plants provide a helping hand (so to speak) to other plants. The research is summarized in an article in the January online issue of Science magazine.
Was it really barely a week ago that I wrote a post entitled “Let Winter Be Winter”? Yes, it was – only a few days ago I was complaining about our eerily mild temperatures. And the weather gods could not resist the opportunity to make me the straight man in a little joke. The weather gods are evil.
gardeninacity 