Mulberry Leaf Squirrel

One of the squirrels has a filling lunch of mulberry leaves. She was stuffing them in her mouth and chewing as fast as possible so I imagine they tasted very good.

She went poking around and looking for the bright green youngest leaves and even small twigs after eating her fill of dark green mature leaves.

“Don’t I have any privacy?Do you have to photograph everything I do?” Darling, you live in my yard, that’s the cost of rent, a very small cost to you.”

Usually it’s the big groundhog that lives in the neighbor’s yard who comes over and eats leaves in that section of the tree. They can’t climb, but this tree just laid down during an ice storm years ago and it leans at a nice, comfortable angle. I call it a “recumbent mulberry” and Mimi and other cats walked up and down the trunk.

Mulberry trees feed every living thing; I think I read that in one of Barbara Kingsolver’s novels because I associate it with her, but I didn’t get a chance to find it among her novels I’ve read. But I do remember noticing that everything from bees and butterflies to groundhogs—in certain circumstances they can climb—and raccoons visited the mulberry trees in my back yard, not to mention all the birds who eat the berries and nest there. Several years ago I found a caterpillar and a coccoon that turned out to be a caterpillar for a mulberry silkworm or silkworm moth in the grass in my yard and in a windowbox with impatiens. I have collected the berries for years and crushed them for juice, made jelly and vinegar and even some wine that was marginally drinkable. Mulberries really do feed many things.

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