Helping a Friend in Need

  Some folks find it exceedingly strange that I care so much about the critters here on the Bayou.  I find it exceedingly strange that they do not care about critters.  The critters (regardless of species) are my friends.  I have often made the claim that I have more critter friends than people friends.  I prefer it that way.  There is no reason to be otherwise.

  Just recently, the tropical storm brought drama to the Bayou.  Not in the ordinary sense of damaging winds but rather to my critter friends.  A mama skink had laid her clutch of eggs under a board that was a bit too close to the marsh edge.  I fretted more over her wellbeing than my own. She was a stoic and stayed with her eggs until she could no longer.  When flood waters filled her nest and killed many of her already hatched little ones, she abandoned the nest.  Seeing the submerged eggs brought out the mother instinct in me and I scooped up the remaining eggs to move to the greenhouse.  Two little ones hatched during the transport but the eggs sat dormant and cold for days.  I had made up my mind to bury the eggs and move on with other things.  This morning with that intention, I went to the greenhouse.  I lifted the moss covering the eggs only to find that all but two had hatched!  The remaining two were also in the process!  I was elated!  My little family of lizards had survived against all odds!

  Yes, I do realize that the baby lizards will never understand the circumstances that surrounded their coming into this world and I do realize that they will never recognize me as the person who helped them out of their hard time but, still, I love each tiny one.  I did not do it for any other reason than I cared.  This, my friends, is what a bond is all about.  Regardless of the fact that the skinks will never understand nor appreciate what I did, I would do it all again.  My friends were in need....I was there.  Lending a helping hand is never a bad thing and if folks cannot understand that, it is their loss.