The Sky is Falling

High: 68° F
Low: 45° F
Conditions: Blustery winds

No doubt, you have heard the tragic story of one Chicken Little, a Gallus domesticus plagued by gravitaphobia. One day, poor Chicken Little was walking in the woods when she heard a sound described by several eyewitness accounts as “KERPLUNK.” This herald was then followed by an unprovoked assault by a most pernicious seed on her person (or chicken?). Understandably terrified, Chicken Little raced off to report this atrocity to the King, whose jurisprudence apparently included not only silviculture morphology, but atmospheric dynamics as well.

In a confused series of events the likes of which historians are still debating, Chicken Little was waylaid on her journey to the crown: she paused to alert other birds to the woodland crisis created by gravitational pull, was nearly consumed by a red fox for her efforts, and eventually concluded that a perambulation should always be accompanied by an umbrella or other protective shield. Logical? Perhaps not. Narratively sound? Doubtful. Relevant? Highly.

But why, the intrepid reader of blogs might reasonably ask, are you evoking this cherished fable now?

Simple.

Meet Chicken Ari. Or Puppy Little. Either moniker will do, I think. What’s most salient about this association is this:

That’s right. Acorns. Lying, seemingly innocently, on terra firma. But as all poultry knows (and caninaturalists have quickly learned), acorns don’t grow on the ground. Oh, no. Their preferred habitat, of course, is high up in the canopy, where they remain sutured to stately oaks by way of an ingenious (not to mention fetching) bonnet called the cupule. That's true most of the time, anyway.

When the season is ripe and the winds quite blustery, these enterprising seeds and seed pouches launch themselves, missile like, from the heavens and then plummet towards the earth. As they do, they accelerate at a rate of g = 9.81 m/s2 . Physics is a mean taskmaster. It ensures, of course, that when said seeds thump an unsuspected canine on the noggin (Or the back. Or the shoulder. Or even just land in the general vicinity of said canine), they pack what scientists sometimes call a wallop. And a big one at that. Heretofore mentioned impact, in turn, often results in an acute case of gravitaphobia worthy of any children’s story.

Gravitaphobia is no slouch of a condition. Its symptoms include general wariness of the natural world. In extreme conditions, it can cause a stubborn refusal to take walks on shaded thoroughfares. If the sufferer of this condition happens to live in the woods of Maine, complications can ensue. Like refusing to walk. Anywhere. That side-effect, in turn, presents something of a quandry for a harried human who needs her dog to WALK before she goes to WORK so that another condition, often referred to in the medical world as carpetpuddleosis, doesn't become an epidemic.

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As for canine naturalism, let's just say it's hard to investigate much of anything from one's front porch. Persuading a dog currently suffering from paranoid delusions of collapsing horizons can be an immensely frustrating exercise in the purest form of futility. Don’t even get me started about the sudden appearance of umbrellas throughout our house.