Happy Earth Day
Sounds like Happy Birthday doesn’t it? We’re lucky to live in the hemisphere where spring and Earth Day coincide because we can see how Mother Nature celebrates as if it were her birthday. I’m looking at flowers blooming, all types of birds, even some Chickadees, making nests, and the arrival of assorted ducks, geese, even some stray white geese walking on the bank of the canal. It’s always a surprise what comes over the berm in the spring. I saw a row of turtles lined up on a floating tree trunk in the canal yesterday, and the Forsythia and Magnolia trees are in bloom so it’s time to uncover the rose bushes.
I don’t care DSL is not yet available to me because I live in this beautiful spot, the farthest NE corner of Monroe County Michigan. The trade offs are priceless because all I describe is what I see in my yard, most of it out of the patio windows right now as I write. One of my Blue Jays is sitting on my deck railing about 8 ft. away. He deliberately stares in and looks down repeatedly at me and the deck floor as if to say: “Where are the peanuts?” It forces me to pause here…to give him some.
The pause was actually longer than expected because I caught a glimpse of a blackbird eating something in the lawn with legs shimmering pink in the morning sun. I thought it might be a baby bird and yelled: “Hey,” which of course chased all the birds away. I was kind of afraid at what I’d find, but you know human nature will get just about anyone curious enough to go look.
It was a big fat crawdad. It reminded me of a couple of cats I had that would crawdad hunt. They’d arrive at the door with only one front leg covered with mud. I’d find empty shells around the yard. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could hunt up our own shrimp cocktail when we wanted? Ah, the bounty of Mother Earth.
That’s about all I have to say this beautiful, glorious April 22, 2008, Earth Day as the sun shines on our little area. Nothing I could say about our world and everything in it can compete with the sheer joy of experiencing the tiniest bit of it. The smallest thing like the way the morning sun hits the dew on the grass creating hundreds of little diamond sparkles on green is a joy. Heck after winter in Michigan, the warm air is a joy. The view and the weather just make me smile and look up—Thanks.
Revel in Earth this day. Notice what the environment sustains beside ourselves and consider that the health of that environment depends on us. In that sense, we are our own destiny.