Red Oaks: On Fire
Red oak. Really lives up to its name in fall. Late in the season, the red oaks are on fire. The oaks are important trees for wildlife, of course. Everyone knows squirrels eat acorns, but acorns are high-protein food for an astonishing number of animal species: blue jays, wild turkeys, black bears, wood ducks, opossums, woodpeckers, red and gray foxes, rabbits, white-tailed deer, and many more. But a close look at oak leaves shows their other, more subtle, contribution–to the insects. All those thousands and thousands–millions!–of little bumps, nibbles, gnawings, holes....
Read MoreRed Oak: You Can Go Home Again
This is…home. Top floor apartment, left-hand side. If you suddenly came up behind me and shouted “Where do you live?!”–I swear the first image that would pop into my head would be this one. 6A Old Hickory Drive, Albany, New York. We moved in here when I was in grade school and moved out when I went off to college. The other day I went back there to take a nostalgic look around. And amazingly, it was exactly as I had remembered it–except, of course, that everything had magically shrunk in size. But the houses were the same (my door used to be painted green,...
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