Just As Important As A Woodpecker

  For all I know, others may not stop in their tracks to inspect the little things on a hiking trail or in the garden.  Maybe it is just me.  Maybe I find too many things interesting.  Maybe I have found enough peace in my life that other folks' drama is not to my liking.  Whatever the case, I have such a natural curiosity about the happenings around me that most things require noticing.  Just today while in the garden, a small feather suddenly drifted down from the treetops.  That feather demanded a good ten minutes of my time for no other reason than to admire its beauty.  The feather was recognized as being from one of the red-belly woodpeckers that frequent the area.  A pair nested in the nearby dead pine but the nest was raided by a rat snake before the little ones fledged.  Now, they are eyeing the black gum tree in hopes that their next brood will survive.  As I flipped the feather between my fingers, I thought of the terror that the parent birds must have felt knowing that there was not much they could do to fend off the four foot long snake.  But life goes on and they are, once again, pondering having a family.  My thoughts then drifted to how much I appreciate the woodpeckers that inhabit the woods and yard.  They have done their part in ridding the area of many insects especially those that bore into the trees.  Ahh, yes.  I put the feather back in place and continued with the clearing of the garden.

  There is a lot of time to think while pulling out old tomato plants and it occurred to me that folks just do not get outside enough.  Perhaps if they did, the world would be a lot nicer.  While out in nature pondering all of the beauty it has to offer, it is hard to condemn others and hard to think you are all important.  In nature, you are no more important than the woodpecker who lost the aforementioned feather. In nature, your opinions are just that...opinions and no one gives a flip about them.  (In reality, that is the way it is anywhere.  No one really changes because you think your opinion should rule.  Nope...doesn't happen.)  Critters don't have opinions and surely don't expect others to bow down to them.  They just accept what life gives them, don't pretend to be better than anyone else and sure don't get miffed about any of it.  That is the way it is here on the Bayou.  That is the way it should be everywhere.  Folks, to put it nicely, get up off your...umm...sofa and go outside.  Observe what is around you.  Examine things.  Ponder things.  And, for goodness sakes, stop thinking the world revolves around you and you alone.  Mother Nature could teach you a thing or two.  It would do you the world of good.