Squirrels . . .

We are in a neighborhood of oak trees.  For the most part they are Post Oaks, followed by some Live Oaks, the Barkleys and finally Shumar Oaks.  The are a few scattered Burr Oaks.  This means a healthy population of squirrels.  Alas but one type of squirrels is around, Fox Squirrels,

A Fox squirrel has a tan belly and is probably the most common squirrel in the US today.  There are many other varieties but it seems to be the hardiest one and thus gradually taken over the entire region.  The primary food of squirrels is acorns but they can be picky about it.

My little squirrel, Skinny Tail, lives across the street and visits the Shumars in my front yard daily.  The Shumar makes an acorn about the size of the end of your thumb.  The Post Oak makes a small acorn about the size of the end of your pinky finger and thus is not so desirable as the Shumar acorn.  The Shumars are red oaks, that is the internal wood has a red hue to it.  And they grow a bit faster than most oak trees.  They get to be moderate in size and ours are about a foot in diameter now.  Skinny Tail has staked out our Shumars as his.

The Live Oaks are evergreen and retain their leaves all year pushing them of in the spring for new leaves to grow.  They are by far the longest lived oak trees and I know of one in Pointe Coupee, the Stoniker Oak, that is said to have been growing when LaSalle came down the Mississippi in 1700.  The have modest acorns and are generally elongated compare to the other acorns.  I am not sure of the squirrel desirability of that acorn.

The Barkley is more localized native oak and tends to not be very big.  They grow about as fast as the Shumar but never reach the same span, height, or girth of a Shumar.  Their unique characteristic is they retain their leaves after they die until next spring when they push them off.  So from a raking point of view they are more desirable for upkeep but always tend to grow at some grotesque angle, neve see to grow straight up and vertical.  I have not seen a Barkley acorn but they are fairly common in the neighborhood, we have one volunteer in the side yard.  The trunk is about five inches and the height is probably about 35 feet or so.

The Burr Oak is the granddaddy of acorn makers.  My neighbor has one he planted and the acorn is astounding in size.  The acorn is as big as a baby's fist balled up.  The squirrels have a hard time with them but because they are so big are the most desirable of acorns to them  Curtiss, my neighbor, says he watched a squirrel tugging one acorn across his yard.  It too the squirrel about 20 minutes to get it across the yard.

Skinny Tail has a girl friend, she comes over to feast too.  But he is very protective of his tree.   I have seen him take acorns across the street and bury them in my neighbor Enright's yard.  He also taunts the Enright's three dogs.  He drives them crazy.

Skinny Tail lives in the Doren's yard which is behind Enright's yard.  So the squirrel knows his territory well.

Skinny Tail will go up a limb to the bitter end and pluck off an acorn.  There are probably several hundred acorns left on the tree, more of them up high.  The lower limbs are bigger and so he attacked those first and now he must go after the others up in the crown of the tree.  That is a bit more risky.  He is slow to do that and scours the grown for any acorns that have fallen.  So how he misses a great deal of them as we have tiny oak trees coming up all over the place.

So we shall be entertained by Skinny Tail antics until the Gold Finches return.  That will be early spring.  I do not know if squirrels cache any acorns but they must as they are around us all the time.  Of course they raid the bird feeders for peanuts, and rival the Blue Jays for this morsels.  And they will eat any and all seeds, so the bird seed is sort of a desert for them.

Ironically, no squirrels have built nests in our yard.  They are in the Doren's or in the Walker's yard which is next to us.  But they are always in our yard eating.  The Doren's shoot an air rifle at them but we only fire off a cap pistol to scare the crows and the squirrels off.

Life in the Oaks goes on all year long.  Deer feed on the leaves on the lower branches, the squirrels on the acorns and of course, the Finches off the thistle seed feeders.  We have also seen the deer eat the acorns too.

Inauguration Approaches . . .

The United States of America Presidential inauguration is approaching.  A change in power, in roles and in attitude of the nation is approaching.  Many will argue it is not but in truth it is so.  We see changes already in how the new President approaches the economy.  Indeed the stock market has racked 1.4 trillion dollar run up and he is yet to be in power.

Trade is showing signs of change already, companies are indeed retaining jobs in the US.  And if he can successfully reduce the income tax on the corporations countless millions, even billions, of dollars will return to the US economy.  And a change in the tax process itself may cause a boom.

Certainly changing and getting rid of the onerous Affordable Care Act will make great changes.   The Supreme Court ruled it a tax, so let us change the tax.  There are countless small taxes embedded in the legislation and that will release more money into the economy.  The present President lied again and again is supporting the Affordable Care Act (ACA or Obamacare).  Demagogues like Senator Bernie Sanders are saying we are condemning people to death.  Well the same people lived pretty good before Obamacare and will do so after it.  We went through Prohibition and now we are suffering through Obamacare.  It too will go away, something better will appear in its place.

Did it have some good rules, yes, of course it did.  But it had a host of ill-advised actions hoping the young and healthy would pay for the sick and indigent.  It is not working and it is sinking into bankruptcy as I write.  It can not carry the load and the radial idea that the healthy would pay for the poor just did not work.  Many are electing to pay the fine and do without coverage as they do not need it.  It stagnated the economy, and in eight years it failed to really recover.  Unemployment was redefined to hide the awful truth, with countless millions of people out of work.

What Obamacare did not do was break down the barrier of across state line health insurance coverage.  That led to higher and higher premiums with less and less coverage.

As the former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, said, "The trouble with liberals (and liberalism) is that when they run out of other peoples money to pay for it, then it collapses on itself."  That is paraphrase of what she said but it is true.  One can not tax his or her way out of the situation.  The people paying will revolt and that is what has apparently happened with the Democratic Party.  As the bun said in Central Station years ago, "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch."  Huey Long used to say, "A chicken in every pot."  The Democratic Party was unable to continue the liberal bent and will be forced to change, move toward the center instead of to the left.

As we near the end of the Obama Era, the Democratic supporters are increasingly becoming distraught.  Calling for riots, calling for changing Electoral College votes, protesting at Golden Globes and other venues is rude and inappropriate.  It is short sighted.

The American people rejected the Democratic candidate state by state.  Yes, some of the more populous states did support her but she did not get enough electoral votes to win.  Congress has validated the election.  She was a horrible candidate, rigging the Democratic Nomination, lying again and again, doing illogical actions such as a private server allowing herself to be hacked by all kinds of foreign Delete repeated word.  Selling favoritism to line her pockets was criminal.  The American populous did not buy her rhetoric, she lost the race and is still trying to skate on the real issues.

Obama at times realizes he is done yet at others does not.  I would not be surprised to see him drag his feet in leaving the physical White House.  He is done, finished and over with.  Hillary Clinton is also done and finished with.  They will continue to carry on but would be digging an ever deeper hole.  At the moment they have done severe damage to the Democratic Party and it will be a while before it recovers.  Indeed the present leadership has not changed course yet either.