The Picture: CHEESE.

These guys look familiar??





SAY CHEESE!! I love this photo, it captures these curious, playful creatures--perfectly. (Read about Meerkats!!)
















^ that up there is the reality of Timon from Disney's "The Lion King" famed...weirdo-pair of best friends...Timon and Pumba!! :)






Cats are another furry animal that take AWESOME pictures! They do the most random, genius things!!

<<---Like this fella here...he knows how to be cool!! (get it?? cool...HA!)







<<---This also makes me happy. For more reasons than one. Either way, the message is perfect.

The "Ground Hog" woodchucker: Marmot

It's currently 6:30am (no joke!) as I write this, so I'm not sure why my brain isn't dead and my body limp, but I'm relatively awake! It was a night full of long talks, remembering, smiling, and bonding. I crave these nights...so while my mind is still alive, I decided I would do a little more remembering through animals.

I hiked California Yosemite National Park's "Half Dome" about a week and a half ago and it was AMAZING!! For someone who never went to the gym, I think I did pretty well for a round trip of 11 hours and 9 minutes. The top of the dome is AMAZING (I suppose I will be using this word a lot in this one). It's height and stature is awesome and its views are breathtaking while still completely scaring me to my core.

Nature never ceases to put me in my rightful place and reminds me that although I concurred the mountain, I only did it because the mountain allowed me to. It was entirely because of the AMAZING guidance I received and the fact that nature chose to grace me with its grandeur, so thank you. For everything.

Anyway...back to the animal part. At the top of the dome I saw a "marmot" and honestly I didn't even know what it was! It's the look of a beaver meets giant-fatty-mutant-squirrel. And actually GROUND HOG day was named after a marmot!
They're a type of rodent that's closely related to both ground squirrels and prairie dogs and found mostly in the Northern Hemisphere. If you've ever heard "how much could a woodchuck chuck wood if a wood chuck could chuck wood" (phew, that was a mouthful!)---they're talking about a marmot!!
There are actually about 14 different species of marmots, and none of them really "chuck" wood, but it helps with rhymes. The one in Canada is endangered with fewer than 100 left, while some places in the alps hunt them for food and sport. They hibernate in the winter but wake up once a week or so then go back to its deep sleep. (weird!) They can be social and solitary...depending on where you look. And while they're on the prey list for many carnivores, marmots are generally vegetarian.

This is the one I saw @ Half Dome!! very cute and chubby and "friendly."



Although they're chubby and cute, and I saw people feeding it cranberries, it's important to remember that feeding wildlife only diminishes their chances of surviving and fending for themselves in the wild, so don't do it!

The Oil: taints your seafood buffet

I'm not sure if everyone knows this, but for the most part, I get my information about the world via my awesome Yahoo front page. No...they didn't give me money--I wish! But I'm sort of a cluttered (but organized!) person that enjoys having many things around me. I like that Yahoo front page gives me a little bit of everything including politics, cute animal videos, celeb gossip, sex blogs...and updated on what matters.

Like this darn BP oil spill...just when you think you've heard enough and that we've all escaped the dirty waters unscathed (save for those who actually live in it)...now there's news that the sneaky oil drops might've already climbed up the food chain!

In this article on one of my ridiculously long and informative list of yahoo front-scroll-bar-stories...the blue crab has apparently been hit by the BP crisis---in a big way! If you count reproductive viability a "big" way---which I do.

The wild blue crab's larvae (or "eggs" which hold teeny-tiny crabs) are found tainted with a familiar orange oily hue on the exterior. Scientists are concerned because if these droplets get inside the larvae, it could affect the health of the new babies and the reductive viability of the future generation...thus impacting the whole species in a BIG way in the years to come.

Only a handful of these 3 million or so eggs actually grow to adulthood as it is...and now their chances are lowering again.

And let's not forget about all the other creatures that depend on the blue crab for food! HOPE YOU HATE SEAFOOD.

Although crab extinction is sort of a stretch as of now, the though is still scary, and it SHOULD BE scary. It may be hard to fathom how a tiny blue crab affects OUR health, but they do and they will. So reserve your oil...ride a bike, walk the dog, play some soccer...and pray for the crabbies.