a porcupine!

a few mornings ago, we woke up and saw a porcupine sleeping in a tree in the backyard. it was so neat! it was sitting on its haunches with its head in its paws, sound asleep. adorable! we sneaked up really close and got a good look at it. we couldn't get too close, it was up pretty high, probably 25 feet off the ground, but as close as we could. i didn't get a picture though, it probably would be a let down anyway... lots of branches and leaves and then a furry brown lump in the middle.

oh well what do you know! nick took a picture of the little thing climbing back up. suspiciously what i thought it would look like...



but, that's not the end! we had already seen it waddling around at dusk a few times, so we knew it was around. but then the other day, i saw some damage to our pear tree--bark nibbled away and branches down, with the ends cut at an angle. behold, the damage:


damage to the trunk


missing branches up at the top!


the branches, cut at an angle


so i naturally thought to myself, did the porcupine do this? the branches are so narrow, could they support the weight of that fat little guy? but, i checked, and professor google says it was squirrels, so that solves that.

poor pear tree! i told nina we might have to cut it down and she said, "but that will kill it! you can't!" so i guess that settles that. it's not like it's big enough to fall on something and damage us. our house will look so beautiful, framed by 2 dead trees. oh well!