We have wild cherry trees growing right next to our cottage at the lake. Just as one grew big enough to produce some nice blossoms and a few actual wild cherries (which the birds love) something heinous blithely stripped the bark off the bottom of the trunk, effectively killing the whole tree.However, due to some law along the lines of blah blah nature "abhorring a vacuum" (which I totally relate to, for I too hate to vacuum) the tree bounced back to life when an offshoot of the original tree grew to an impressive and robust 30 feet high.
Then last weekend, my daughter looked up from her book and said, "what is THAT?"
Can you see him? It's a resident porcupine, called a porc-épic in French. Pronounced pork-ay-PICK, this "epic pig" munched through my cherry tree like a Florida senior cruising a salad bar at a quarter to five.At least I have this to look at. (The Epic Pig is slowly improving our view of the lake.)
(psst, autumn really is on its way... the leaves...they is turning colour)
8 comments:
Oh, my goodness! I hope Buddy knows to stay away from porcupines.
He didn't with skunks, so I doubt he will with porcupines. We make LOTS of noise when he goes out at night.
Thinking about dealing with the fallout of an encounter w/ a porcupine almost makes me appreciate our resident squirrels and the occasional opossum we get in our back yard. (It's going to be a tough winter for the squirrels. The drought down here has not only reduced the number of acorns on our trees, but the acorns we have this year are miniature versions.
I used to trap porcupines for the Army. We used leg traps. We had to kill them because they would actually eat our buildings on the shooting ranges which were remote and not used in the winter. They are terrible, terrible critters to have close into to houses.
We had a dog that would tangle with porcupines repeatedly. I never understood why he did not learn from his painful experiences.
So! Are the squirrels looking any better yet? ;)
I'll take a porcupine over a squirrel any day. I hates squirrels. Gray squirrels, that is. Don't mind the reds and the flying ones.
I didn't realise they were so destructive - our echhidnas are nothing like that!!
oh wow. imagine having him fall on you. mutual OUCHY! LOL
I have a blog challenge on the go. I Hope you'll join in. I'm really looking forward to seeing some photos. :-D
http://crows-feet.blogspot.com/2011/10/show-me-your-shops.html
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