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Unpleasant critters who leave unpleasant calling cards on your arms and ankles, and I’d never encountered them (to my memory) before moving here. Steve had to explain to me what they are. Guess I’m going to have to stop letting the beagle wander off into the bushes behind the house.

I thought the lavender wildflowers that have popped up in almost every unoccpied spot of grass in Frisinger Park were a nice addition of color (they’re deceptively gorgeous) until I read a little column in the Ann Arbor News yesterday that fingered them as spotted knapweed (Centaurea maculosa), a pernicious invasive weed. Originally a native…

There don’t seem to be very many pigeons in Ann Arbor (or what pigeons there are have been cruelly maimed in glue traps, as a story in today’s Ann Arbor News reports; why didn’t the pig who dreamed up the glue traps just get out his rifle and shoot the things instead of torturing them?).…