Mother Nature and Foggy Mornings

  Walking around on a foggy morning lets one think about many things.  Pondering seems to be one of those things that I do best.  I ponder...I may not know the answers to what I am pondering...but I ponder.  The absence of a "view" around me keeps the mind thinking instead of just peering at things.  One of the things I reflected on during my most recent foggy hike was water.  Water...that wonderful, life-giving substance that is all important.  Since our bodies are made up of about 60% water, it stands to reason that without it, life would cease.  Water is in practically everything around us.  Without it, Earth would be a barren wasteland. Then again, since water is never really "used up", we are sitting pretty good...quantity wise but maybe not quality wise.  Think about it.  Water is basically always recycled even if we don't really do our job of conserving it.  The stuff is in a constant flow between the rivers, oceans, humans, animals, plants...it never stops.  Dump water on the ground and it soaks into the soil, is taken up by plants or filters through and makes its way to underground "rivers" (hopefully as pure water again) only to be pumped back up to be used again.  Leave it sit in an open container and it evaporates into the air where it accumulates only to be rained back down upon us.  It passes through us, it passes through plants, it passes through animals to be filtered by the soil and sand, purified and reused.

  While thinking this, I came across one of the peach trees that had droplets of water dangling beneath each limb.  The moisture from the heavy fog had accumulated to form droplets on any surface available.  What is not absorbed by the tree will soon become a large enough droplet that it will fall to the ground.  The cycle would start all over again.  The water may change a bit in its journey but it is always there.  

  Don't get me wrong.  This does not mean that we should be careless and overuse or abuse our water.  While the water, itself, will still be around, being clean, usable water is a different thing.  That is where the problem arises.  Too many folks have no qualms about dumping toxins into our rivers and oceans.  They do not think of the runoff from their pristine lawns, busy factories and even kitchen sinks.  What we dump into the water takes time to remove.  Mother Nature can only do so much and to hurry her is ridiculous!  Filtering water through sand can take years upon years.  Pollute the water we have at our disposal and trouble begins.  Duh!  It makes more sense just to take precautions before doing something stupid.  Don't ire Mother Nature with your lackadaisical attitude toward keeping our water clean!!  Use a bit of commonsense! Mother Nature will appreciate it...and so will every living thing on Earth!

  Yeah, I ponder a lot of things while out hiking on foggy, foggy mornings.  Some good...some bad...but I ponder just the same.  Most of the time, however, my thoughts mean diddlysquat to anyone else but I just thought I would throw this one out there for anyone interested.