A Story - "Mousetrap" and Burning Bush and Eastern Red Cedar

Mousetrap

The November days were shrinking and growing damp. The young mouse scuttered below the low bushes and approached the older bungalow. She knew where the small spaces were where a mouse could squeeze through and get to the shelter of the garage. Her mother had shown her the way to get inside last fall.

Tonight she  wiggled her way into the garage where she could look for food. In a corner was a metal garbage can that smelled tantalizingly of sunflower seeds.  The young mouse leapt for the handles and then managed to get to the top of the can.  She chewed at the lid but her teeth weren't strong enough to get through. 

 Giving up on the seeds, she dropped to the floor and started sniffing along the base of the wall. She found a chocolate bar wrapper that still had a tiny bit of chocolate on it. She licked it bare.

Then her nose caught a whiff of peanut butter. In plain sight, was a hefty blob of it. She got a hit of dopamine and crept forward.  All her efforts so far had yielded little but here was a chunk of food ready to be gobbled up without any struggle.

But peanut butter on a trap is never free.
 

November can be a drab month so the sight of a burning bush (euonymus alatus) is cheering to see. The bushes can grow to around 6' tall and wide. The best colour is produced by a bush that is in full sun.  It is deciduous so the bush is bare during the winter and will sprout its new green leaves in the spring. During the summer, it just stays as a green shrub. It is hardy in zone 4  but can be invasive especially in the warmer zones (5 and above).

It has shiny little red fruit which are poisonous as is the rest of the plant.  However, some birds eat them.

Eastern red cedar is actually a juniper - juniper virginiana. It is a tough small tree native to North America that can grow in poor, dry soil. It can be the first tree to establish in disturbed ground.  It grows slowly and can live for a hundred years or more.  The blue seeds are not edible for people but birds and small animals  eat them.