Taking the Long View

Four, or maybe it was five years ago, I headed out to walk around the bog and as I got closer,I heard the loudest crashing sounds and I couldn’t imagine what they were. When I crested the tracks I saw, to my horror, that the woods to the east of the bog were being systematically eradicated. I was so shocked, so sad to see that all these trees that had been in a small valley that a stream cut through, were just about gone. It turned out that the grower was making a new containment pond out of the stream and all vegetation had to go. I know it is his land, but at the time I was crushed.

Now, this morning, some five, or maybe four (time has a way of being elusive doesn’t it?) years later, I walk around the containment bog and is this a ruined habitat? No, it is a completely changed, but still,a life-filled habitat. This morning, which happened to be an exceptionally good morning, there were two young looking, Green Herons perched, pretty obviously, in the branches of the dead tree that stands in the middle of the pond. A few other dead limbs are around it, favorite-watching spots for Phoebe and her gang, and the Kingbirds when they are in the mood to share. Today, it seemed to be Phoebe’s turn. Accompanied by her charges, flitting out on their own for bugs now.


A Solitary Sandpiper has been here for the last week, and today, I see three. As Solitary Sandpipers are usually just that, solitary, I have to happily assume that these may be her summer brood, just learning the ropes of plunging that bill in after, who knows what, worms and hidden yummy things under the mud. A Bullfrog chug-a-rumed from the banks, Swallows swooped in after the bugs, missing a few as I was getting pretty chewed up by mosquitoes as I watched, and well, not today, but other days, I have seen the poked up nose of a turtle. Dragonflies clatter by, slender threads of Damselflies alight on the veg at the edge and none of them would be here if the woods hadn’t become water. So, I am simply being reminded that,at times, I need to take the long view.


What are we at,Day 104, as they like to tell us, of the Gulf Coast disaster? Sometimes I think, what if someone had been keeping count after the K-T asteroid struck? The one that formed the 100-mile-wide Chicxulub crater beneath the sea near the Yucatan which pretty effectively removed dinosaurs from the hit parade. How many 1,000’s of days would that have gone on, and yet, here we are, the new Big kids on the block and probably somewhat thankful that T-Rex isn’t living up the street. The long view. What we see now, isn’t what will always be, and sometimes the change works out for someone’s good. Perhaps an altogether different someone, but life has a way of going on doesn’t it?

For today, I am going to try to go with the flow. Life changes, kids grow and become adults, woods can change to water and in both cases, life is a flourishing thing. Remind me that I said this, when you hear me wishing aloud for a magic wand that could make everything revert to a former time. After all, if that were the case, T-Rex could come knocking at my door!