I’ve discovered that things-big things-fall out of trees all the time. I’m not talking about leaves, acorns, and the occasional squirrel. I’m talking about tree limbs big enough to injure you. It has happened several times in the three weeks that I have been living here. A couple of times it has happened with no warning on a calm day with barely a breeze in the air.
I could not find any statistics on the number of injuries caused by falling tree limbs, but a Google search revealed scores of reports of people being injured when a branch fell on them. I’m surprised I haven’t seen an ad from Morgan and Morgan about this: “Injured by a falling branch? Call Morgan and Morgan.”
I think the public should be warned about this little known and under appreciated threat to our health and safety. I’ve seen public service announcements about the danger of lightning, but I’ve never seen anything about that danger of being conked on the head by a falling branch while in the woods. Instead of Smokey the Bear, we could have Gravity the Squirrel warning us that only you can prevent traumatic brain injuries from falling tree limbs. I envision posters with the slogan, “Look up and look out.”
My major concern about shining a light on this issue is that the government will get involved. The next thing you know, the EPA will generate reams of regulations requiring us to wear hard hats when we go in the woods and to place warning labels on trees: “Caution: Hiking and Camping Can Be Hazardous to Your Health.” On second thought, forget I even brought the subject up.
Squirrels. There is something strange about the squirrels here. They don’t act like Florida squirrels. When you drive up on a Florida squirrel in the middle of the road, it acts like it’s overdosed on amphetamines; it has a nervous breakdown and can’t make decision on which way to flee. The squirrels here act like they’re stoned. They just sit there and look at you and then casually meander to the side to let you pass.
One explanation is that country squirrels are unfamiliar with automobiles and haven’t learned that cars can make squirrel toothpaste out of them. But that doesn’t make sense. It seems to me that the first reaction of any wild animal, especially small ones, would be to flee a large unfamiliar object bearing down on them. Maybe the squirrels here are stoned and have an acorn buzz (“Try this, dude. This is some powerful nut”). But there are acorns in Florida, and the squirrels there do not act like Cheech and Chong.
No, there has to be another explanation. My theory is that they are zombie squirrels in the classic Haitian voodoo meaning of the word. You laugh, but people laughed at Arthur Holmes when he first proposed the theory of plate tectonics. Because I have only seen this unusual squirrel behavior during the day (Do you think I’m going out at night if I suspect there are zombie squirrels?) and couldn’t remember whether zombies or vampires or both only come out at night, I did some research. According to the Federal Vampire and Zombie Agency:
Since zombies can go out in the daylight, their choice of hideouts is somewhat more varied than that of a vampire. A zombie can simply rest against a tree in the woods, while a vampire must find a cave or construct a crude hovel before the sun rises. Because they lack the vampire's supreme adaptability, zombies rarely proliferate in urban areas. Zombies do much better in the country, where they can disappear into the landscape.
I think this supports my zombie squirrel theory. If I ever see a sleeping squirrel leaning against a tree, I will have the proof I need.
Spiders. I am not afraid of spiders. In fact, I pay so little attention to them that Meredith is worried that I will get bitten by a black widow or a brown recluse, both of which are supposed to be common here. But I have noticed that this place not only has a lot of daddy long legs, but they are the biggest ones I’ve ever seen. Their legs are incredibly long. They look like those machines in War of the Worlds. I’m waiting for one to shoot a miniature death ray at an ant.
I’ve also noticed that quite a few daddy long legs have less than eight legs. I saw one yesterday that had three legs; it was just limping along like everything was normal. This got me wondering whether it is unusual for daddy long legs to have less than the standard allotment of legs. What happened to the missing legs? Do they just fall off? Do daddy long legs lose them in fights or forget to attach them in the morning? Are daddy long legs with less than eight legs ostracized by ones with the right number of legs? Does a seven legged daddy long legs outrank a five legged one? Does the spider world have a Spiders with Disabilities Act?
There were a lot of daddy long legs on the workshop walls when I spray painted it this spring. They are now permanently frozen in position. The entire back wall of the workshop is a three dimensional tableau of daddy long legs action figures. They’re like those little plastic army men, only they’re spiders. It’s actually a little horrifying, like a Matthew Brady photograph of dead soldiers on a Civil War battlefield. I hope the daddy long legs nation is not seeking retribution. They may be small, but there are millions of them.
Wooly Caterpillars. If you’ve never seen a Wooly Caterpillar, they look like Groucho Marx’s eyebrows crawling across the ground. I’ve seen several of them recently. At least I think they were wooly caterpillars; they were fuzzy, and they were caterpillars. I’m told that not all fuzzy caterpillars are Wooly Caterpillars. At any rate, the locals tell me that Wooly Caterpillars are abundant this year and that this is a sign it will be a cold winter. I don’t know if I’m buying that. I think the Wooly Caterpillars are moving out because the neighborhood is being taken over by defective daddy long legs and zombie squirrels.
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