Welcome to this issue of Stumped by Nature, where we notice nature lurking just beyond our screens, curate a list of outside-y events in Austin, and build community with other folks in the thick of the startup ecosystem.
In this week’s issue:
🐿️ Squirrels
🌤️ Upcoming outdoors events
🥬 Local Farmers Markets
Let’s dig in!
-Nicole
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PROGRAMMING NOTE
I’ve just learned that I have the power to insert polls into this newsletter. The former teacher in me is overjoyed. I promise to wield this power as humanely as possible.
But I have to ask:
How Outside-y Are You?
Directly related: if you’re looking for moderately outside-y people (or to become moderately outside-y), there’s a community of your Austin peers tackling the 1000 Hours Outside challenge this year. Come join us!
NATURE SPOTLIGHT
They’re small.
They’re ubiquitous.
They’ve altered ecosystems through forgetting.
Today we’re taking a closer look at squirrels.
And they’re taking a closer look at us.
Really, these buddies are the backdrop to our daily lives. How often do you see a squirrel?
Ground squirrels and flying squirrels will remain a mystery for today, because we’re focusing on the facets and features of tree squirrels.
Navel-Gazing
To distinguish between the two primary tree squirrel types in Central Texas, look at their bellies.
Eastern Gray- pale belly
Eastern Fox—cinnamon-orange bellies
Okay, cool. Moving on.
My, What Big Teeth You Have
This week I learned that, like all rodents (!), squirrels’ front teeth are ever-growing. They’re orange, iron-reinforced, self-sharpening, and squirrels must grind them down constantly so the teeth don’t grow INTO THEIR BRAINS.
Did I mention the teeth are orange? And these teeth, a crucial piece of their survival, are a threat to their own brains?
Their teeth can grow up to half an inch a month.
This feels like the “Would you like to have life-changing amount of money if it means a snail will follow you forever and if it touches you, you die” scenario.
But it’s teeth.
Photo: ©Puttinan Inchan/Shutterstock.com
Acorns, Anarchy, and Unpaid Labor
Squirrels are herbivores, consuming nuts, fruit, seeds, and bark. Their relationship with acorns is where things get unconventional.
Squirrels practice scatter-hoarding: they bury food across dozens of small caches in the fall, can smell those acorns through up to a foot of snow, and dig decoy holes to throw off potential thieves.
They also forget where a meaningful portion of their food is buried, which turns out to be excellent for forests. This amnesiac planting means squirrels spread trees more than humans ever could. They put in the work, forget the outcome, and everyone else reaps the rewards.
Other than forestry, squirrels’ primary value proposition is as a menu item for predators like hawks, owls, coyotes, foxes, raccoons, and domestic cats. Squirrels are smack dab in the middle of the food web.
The Abundance Trap
When squirrels take a break from acorns, they’re pillaging suburban bird feeders.
From a squirrel’s perspective, this is an efficiency breakthrough: high-calorie food, no digging, minimal planning.
📸 my dad
From a predator perspective, this is a ripe opportunity for a red-shouldered hawk to horrify, say, someone watching a squirrel chow on the neighbor’s feeder. What a food chain.
From a business perspective, this is a ripe opportunity for an arsenal of squirrel-resistant consumer goods.
Before wading into consumerism, the most reliable tactic to save your seed from squirrels is applying squirrel physics via the 5-7-9 rule:
5 feet off the ground
7 feet from launch points
9 feet below overhanging branches
But if you need to escalate, you can absolutely toss money at the problem:
weight-sensitive cage systems let small birds perch, but close feeding port windows when something larger visits
baffles to block climbing, with the note that I’ve watched squirrels use my baffle as a structural support at their personal buffet
Alternatively, you can embrace diplomacy: install a tiny squirrel picnic table, offer corn, and accept that suburban ecosystems are negotiated.
Clearly need to work on my 5-7-9
Squirrels in a nutshell
We’ve arrived at a little info deluge:
the word squirrel derives from the Greek word skiouros, meaning shadow-tailed
tree squirrels are solitary, territorial creatures (see: their barking/hissing/scampering), but will huddle into temporary scurries during cold snaps
mature oaks, hickory, maple, and pecans are trees of choice
their extreme climbing skills are a combo of their sharp claws and balancing tail
when a squirrel sploots, it’s to cool down by pressing its belly against cool pavement or grass to dissipate heat
Squirrels regularly travel in a 2-mile radius
If the season isn’t working for them, they’ll have mass migration events (This is unlike birds migration with a seasonal back and forth. Squirrels don’t look back.)
Squirrels sleep in hollow trees if available, but otherwise build dreys using twigs and leaves, like a large birds’ nest
Females prepare dreys in trees
To spot a drey: look up into a barren tree canopy, confirm what you’re seeing is not green mistletoe + it’s too big to be a bird’s nest. Pretty high chance it’s a drey.
Diurnal, which means day-dwellers
Two primary mating seasons—one now, a second in late spring
You’ll know it’s mating season when there’s a frantic tree-scramble with several males chasing one female, males buzzing in response to females in heat, and a general Dionysian spirit
Gestation is 40-45 days, and females raise the kits alone
Squirrel lifespans are 5-10 years in the wild, with captivity as long as 20 years. So doing some back of the napkin math, a squirrel in captivity can grow 10 feet worth of orange teeth over the course of a lifetime.
Humans + Squirrels + Attics
A drey is the default, but squirrels love attics because they’re a great combo of safety, warmth, nesting materials, and things to gnaw down the perpetual tooth growth, like the wires and wood that make your dwelling habitable. Given the opportunity, squirrels will eat through your joists, soffits, and siding, poop in hard to access areas, and die/decay for your aromatic experience.
Squirrels in Literature
A thoroughly incomplete list:
Squirrels are interwoven through a storyline in The Bee Sting: A Novel, by Paul Murray, which was my favorite read of 2023. Great for readers who are ready to explore “all the sadness” the author could pour into the voices of four family members enduring the 2008 financial crisis afloat their variety of generational and interpersonal traumas. It’s crushing and funny. There’s also hobby tunneling. It’s just perfect.
“Gray Squirrel, Gray Squirrel,” swish your bushy tail, is the banger from your childhood. The song’s rough origin point in the 1850s, but it can live rent free in your mind this very day.
Pre-parenting tip: if you’re considering becoming a parent, maybe watch this YouTube video so you can make an informed decision about what you’re committing to
Linguistic note: the difference between grey and gray is British English vs. American English, but they’ve interwoven to the point that both are technically correct. For regional specificity, Americans can opt for the A-version of gray. Like USA. USA. USA.
Photo from December Close the Loop!
EVENT ALERT
Close the Loop is the Admin Night I’m hosting monthly. It’s a calendar block + ambient peer pressure of excellent folks to knock out the lingering To Do list that’s weighing on your bandwidth.
Our agenda:
6:00-6:15 Hellos
6:15-7:45 Task-tackling / suffering together
7:45-8:00 Celebrate loops closed, declare victories, indulge in the lightness of minor accomplishments
Our next one is on the books for January 20. You can register here.
UPCOMING EVENTS
🗓️ January 9 The Art House Open House—another chance to check out this ages 1-6 utopia
🗓️ January 9 Winter Stargazing in Cedar Park
🗓️ January 10 How to Prep Trees for Winter by Austin Public Library
🗓️ January 10 Nature Painting with a Ranger at McKinney Falls. Target audience: kids.
🗓️ January 10 Plein-Air Painting class series. Target audience: adults with some drawing and painting experience, with studying natural light outdoors as a class feature
🗓️ January 10 Family Birding at the Wildflower Center
🗓️ January 10 Meet Me at the Mile Marker Every mile of the Butler Hike-and-Bike Trail around Lady Bird Lake brings a new delight. One stop involves a baby goat petting zoo for future poison ivy-eradicators. Another lets you plant a plant along the trail.
🗓️ January 10 Birding and Nature Hike
🗓️ January 11 Guided Hike and Peacock Craft
🗓️ January 11 Family Day: Art Grows Here at UMLAUF Sculpture Garden
🗓️ January 16 Art in the Park- Water Color Techniques- Start your weekend early at Inks Lake
🗓️ January 20: Close the Loop: I’m hosting this! It’s an admin night. Come to socialize AND knock out the To Do list
🗓️ Through February 1: Fortlandia
LOCAL FARMERS’ MARKETS
👩🌾 Arboretum Food & Artisan Market Saturdays 11am-3pm
👩🌾 Barton Creek Farmers Market Saturdays 9am-1pm
👩🌾 Lakeline Farmers Market Saturdays 9am-1pm
👩🌾 SFC Farmers’ Market Downtown Saturdays 9am-1pm
👩🌾 SFC Farmers’ Market Sunset Valley Saturdays 9am-1pm
👩🌾 Texas Farmers’ Market at Bell Saturdays 9am-1pm
👩🌾 Texas Farmers’ Market at Mueller Sundays 10am-2pm
CRITTER CORNER
Can you imagine the sheer delight my friend had when his new video bird feeder captured this?
I’m 100% on standby to shriek at photos like this with you. Send ‘em my way.
Affiliate link to a similar video bird feeder here.
HOMEWORK
Do a squirrel tally. Take one day when you’re near windows or will be outside.
Make a mental note of every squirrel you see.
Roadkill counts if you’re morbid.
I’ll add a poll in next week’s newsletter for your answer, but I will accept early submissions to my inbox. Are squirrels ubiquitous? Are we going to be startled by the vast quantity we co-exist with without noticing?
That’s all for this week!
In the meantime, I hope the things you’ve forgotten provide a rich landscape for the days ahead.
-Nicole
OPTIONAL SIDE QUESTS
🪵 What’s this like for you? Email with your perspective.
🪵 Who should I collaborate with? Email with your recs!
🪵 Do you need to commission a writer? I’m happy to discuss projects that might make me cry in public/funnel my experiential/existential dread into essays like this one.
🪵 Is this newsletter not your vibe? Forward it to your enemies to make them suffer too.
💰It’s safe to assume there are affiliate links, and I’ll monetarily benefit from any purchases you make. Hooray, capitalism! So far, this newsletter has generated $3.46 of cold hard cash. 💸