Chuck Lura

What is the most abundant mammal in North America? I saw that question used in trivia recently. The answer was deer mouse. I am not so sure about that, in part because deer mouse is used to refer to a genus of mice as well one of the species of the genus. Either way, deer mice are certainly one of the contenders.

I recently heard a sermon in which the preacher reflected on his observing a pileated woodpecker and the beauty of the natural world. For him, it was a spiritual experience. It led me to muse about the importance of experiencing nature in our spirituality and overall wellbeing.

If you were to ask most older adults what was the most common butterfly when they were kids they would, almost to the person, say monarchs. But those days are gone. You may have missed it, but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing federal protection for the monarch.

Are you wishing the days were longer? If so, your wish will be answered. For people that live in the northern hemisphere, the shortest day of the year — the winter solstice — falls on Saturday, December 21, this year. The days will then begin to lengthen until the summer solstice in June.

There are not very many plant families that have milky sap. Milkweeds certainly come to mind, as well as some members of the aster family such as the dandelion and western salsify. The spurge family also produces milky sap and includes a few species native to North Dakota and some other noteworthy species.

Have you been seeing more deer and road kills as you travel about over the last month or so? Most people probably attribute the visibility and accidents to the rut or deer’s breeding season. But there are several other factors that are also involved with the increase in deer visibility and accidents this time of year.

The Geminids Meteor Shower is coming up soon, as is the Ursids Meteor Shower. Although we are coming up on a full moon on December 15, which will interfere with visibility of some of the weaker meteors, these meteor showers are still worth checking out.

“Gobble, Gobble!” Thanksgiving is coming up next Thursday. The turkey, of course, will be center stage as Americans dive into this annual gustatory feast.

I was perusing through Theodore Roosevelt’s book “Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail” (1888) recently, and ran across his description of burning coal veins. He wrote that the burning coal veins were one of the more interesting features of the badlands.

CBS Sunday Morning aired a story a couple weeks ago on people searching out larch trees in the western mountains during the fall to observe their golden colored needles. Although there are no larch native to North Dakota, an introduced species is grown as an ornamental in the state.