Too Bad...

  The fight to survive is an ongoing struggle.  The critters of the Bayou fight on a daily basis to protect themselves and their young, find food and find shelter.  Their will to live is amazing.  It carries them through without fail.  In all my years, I have yet to find one wild critter to just give up and waste away.  It is not in their nature.  Humans are the only ones who bemoan the state of their life.  People whine far too much to suit me.  It seems to be the popular thing to blame everyone for any misfortune instead working to better the situation.  Critters do not have this option.  No one is going to listen anyway and if a critter sits there long enough, it will become lunch for a larger critter.  That is the way of life.   

  Not only is this struggle in the critter world, it is also in the plant world.  Inclement weather, poor soil and that good old thing called "progress" takes its toll on plants.  No one thinks much about it, however.  For some strange reason, I do.  I take notice of the successes and failures of both the flora and fauna around here.  I figure that someday it just may come in handy.  

  This afternoon, I headed out to the back of the house to grab satsuma off of the tree.  I love these things as a snack and having them just a few steps away from the house is rather handy.  This year, I fully did not expect to have any fruit, whatsoever.  The few days of winter weather that plummeted the temperatures to the low teens wreaked havoc on the citrus trees.  The trees immediately went into self preservation mode.  Every leaf dropped and branches died back almost to the trunk.  The trees went dormant which made me think we had lost the whole bunch.  Son kept telling me to have patience and not cut the trees.  I did.  He was right.  This spring, a few leaves budded out but the trees bloomed prolifically.  To my surprise, those blooms set fruit on the satsuma trees!  

  That will to live and that struggle to survive was evident here.  The normally almost seed free satsumas are loaded with seeds this year.  The trees are trying to reproduce so that life would continue.  While the citrus trees look ridiculous with so few leaves and so many satsumas, they are beautiful to me!  Under our constant care, almost the entire grove of trees are at least surviving.  It appears that we only lost one tree completely.  The others are struggling but living.  And to think...through it all, I never heard one whine about how bad life is.  Too bad people cannot take notice and emulate nature.  The world would be a far better place.  I am sure glad I live down in the Bayou so I do not have to deal with it.