I don’t believe in god, but I believe in grace. A warm sun that will shine hot. The furious ecstasy of tiny pale green spiders rushing away as I pull weeds. I have broken their houses and I’m sorry. I wish they could carry their homes on their backs like snails, but I know they will rebuild what I broke knowing it will be broken again. Spiders are pragmatic.
The sting of nettles pierces a leather glove. Nettles regret nothing. It’s my own fault I wasn’t more cautious in the face of their ferocity. I have gotten what I deserve.
Glory be to god for dappled things. An Andalusian mare stands in the sun. The grass in the pasture is good enough today. The shade beneath this tree, from leaves not as pale a green as the tiny patient spiders at the roots, but green enough and already burdened with crimson. Today carries fall in its palm. An end. A long sleep.
I don’t believe in god but I wish I did. I would like to say thank you. I am having miracles for breakfast.
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Thankfulness needs no audience, needs no god
Don't hesitate to feel grateful, Ohio. The joy of feeling connected to the world is indeed worthy of thankfulness. So many people, so many living things, helped bring you to this point, you could spend a lifetime thanking them all.
I keep a nature and garden journal where I celebrate the kind of things you describe. It's amazing how much writing reminds one to take pleasure in small things and to be thankful. Your doing this publicly is a reminder to us all.
IMHO, belief in God demeans the world
Isn't it more glorious to savor life for what it is than to ruin its flavor by slathering on the cheap mayonnaise that is religious dogma?
This afternoon
I drive down the hill to meet UPS and FedEx. This morning the UPS driver called and said if he didn't call before, to meet him at 1:30PM.
While sitting at the bottom of the hill waiting, a mother quail and her brood of 14 chicks wandered out of the low grass and brush. The rooster was back a little farther and very plump and healthy. However he hopped oddly towards the road. When he got closer, it was apparent he was holding one leg up - probably injured - and hopping on one leg alone. Didn't seem to bother him much.
I didn't see the bald eagles circling down there today, but for the quail that's probably good.
I watched the quail for a while and UPS didn't show up, so I drove back home. UPS had called a few minutes after I left and said "2:30". So I waited around the house for 20 minutes and then drove back down.
On the way down, I saw what appeared to be a dog sticking out its snout on the right hand side of the dirt road. As I got closer and it ran across the road into the brush on the other side, it turned out to be a very young, very black bear. I slowed down and looked back and he had gone up a slight hill along a well worn path next to a slash pile and was looking back over his shoulder at me. I stopped, we stared at each other, he moved on and so did I.
He was heading in the general direction of my house, but I didn't see him when I got home. He probably went up the canyon that's over the hill behind us, which has more water this time of year.
Around here there's more sprituality in shipping a package with UPS than any Sunday morning I spent cooped up inside a church.
And you can answer that age-old question
about what bears do in the woods.
I am familiar with the answer. Or at least, a boot I used to have is.
Black bears are funny creatures. They look almost comical, especially when they're eating. But get between a mama and her baby and you will learn the opposite of comedy isn't tragedy, it's "Does my insurance cover re-attachment?"
Black bears love wild blueberries
I grew up spending summers in the Adirondacks. First thing to learn was that bears had the right of way when it came to blueberry bushes.
Actually
the bears here seem to use the roads more for that sort of thing and leave the woods to the deer. You can always tell when the blackberries are ripe.
I think it's their nearsightedness and the way they sit somewhat infant-like that makes them most comical. However when they walk across the hill behind our house, they are inexorable and almost regal in their disdain for barking dogs and gawking humans. The might deign to glance your way, but they never break their slow, even stride.
Do you have those Himalayan invader blackberries?
The kind with the 3' thorns and big berries? Or do you have a native species?
The Himalayans are monsters. We have them in the back and when I go back there, I'm pretty sure they are muttering "redrum redrum" as I walk by. Seriously, the canes are almost as big around as my wrist. The little native berry canes are modest, with blue-green cane and smaller berries. They also have more thorns, but they're not fill of malice like the Himalayans.
We're on the dry side of the Cascades
so blackberries aren't real dense or vicious. On our property we have more serviceberry and sour cherry than anything else berry-wise, and snowbrush (ceanothus) where the brush gets really dense. Our section of creek dries up around the 4th of July, so there are more blackberries above and below us along the creek, where the water runs all year.
I had a few acres of woods in N WI years ago where the blackberries were thick and the thorns would rip your jeans and your flesh if you weren't careful - not quite 3 inches though. That sounds pretty nasty - maybe even carnivorous.
I was exaggerating the length of the thorns
But not by much. I should post a picture. They grow so thick and fast, they can take down a tree. If they moved a little faster, they could probably take down a bear. A local vet once told us that older dogs and people, if they get caught in 'em will just stand there until they can't stand anymore. You can't see where you're going and it hurts to move.
East side of the Cascades. You doing any wind power over there at all?
Bears and God
http://www.wikiality.com/Bears
"Bears are soulless, godless, rampaging killing machines. They are Satan's minions and the TRUE symbol of evil."
Wind power
Our wind is either just about dead calm or else gale force - that latter is rare. We get a cool down valley breeze in the evenings, but very light. We're on the west side of a basin (east facing aspect - sort of). A friend of ours on the other side of the basin has a wind generator and sells electricity back to the county. Lately we get a lot of our firewood via wind (blow downs), but that's as close to wind power as we get.
We're all hydro and even after a rate hike still less than 3 cents per kWh, and our public utility district is part of a wind power consortium (Tri-Cities or Walla Walla area, I believe). Our school district got the first hybrid school bus in the country - plugin hybrid so they can use that cheap hydro.
It's beautiful now to come down towards the Columbia Gorge past Goldendale on US97 heading towards OR. There are wind generators spread out all along the OR side, and a couple of times we've seen flatbeds carrying blades (huge) on the WA side. That's a little over 200 miles south of us.