Last Tuesday night, as I gathered the garbage from the upstairs rooms to put into the cans for collection, the girls followed me, watching my work. Abigail and Michaela were surprised when I took the trash from the can on Ted’s side of the bed and exclaimed:
“You share the garbage?!”
Yes, we share the garbage. Isn’t that what love and marriage mean?!
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This (Wednesday) morning the girls and I shared the beach with a blue heron. We had turned around the corner on the trail and saw the bird wading in the water at low tide, the smooth shape and elongated neck making easy identification. I reached for my camera – and discovered the battery was low, enough for one quick picture without zoom.
On the beach, we used a net and scope borrowed from the library to capture and view tiny sea creatures. In our sample of water we found a small animal, easily visible to the eye, at least half a centimeter in length, almost transparent, shaped like a shrimp, with big black eyes and arms that swam. We watched it for a while and then gently put it back into the sea, with only our minds to remember it.
Back at home for lunch, as we sat down to eat, I saw first the female pheasant and then the male marching past our window on our lawn. He was majestic in color, bright red, green, with white ring neck, and closer than I had seen him…but as I reached for my camera, I remembered that I didn’t have any battery.
Ah well, all of life was not meant to be stored and kept as digital documents…
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I wish I could encode an olfactory experience to go along with this post.
And I wish I could give away bouquets through this blog.
But reality says I don’t have the technology or the flowers for such a fantasy.
Oh well.
For the moment this photo and imagination will have to suffice.
I just wanted to say Thank You to everyone here.
Enjoy this second day of June!
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Scoble today described the social gesture of the link and quoted Dave Sifry saying that getting a link is like receiving a gift. I like giving gifts. Maybe that’s another angle on why I like blogging…
Thinking about social gestures and what gifts do I want to give today…
updated to add Rod K.’s
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This year we’ve been blessed with a bumper crop of tent caterpillars. The girls like to think of them as pets, although, ever since Abigail had the false chicken pox scare with a rash, we haven’t let her be as friendly with them. Elisabeth can’t say many words, but she will point and stare at one in adoration, the way a teenage girl might gaze at a movie idol on screen. I, however, am not fond or a fan of these pests.
We can’t leave the house without seeing a caterpillar. The other day, on the way outside, I saw one with white dots on its head and body. Despite our record years of tent caterpillars, I had yet to see one that had been parasitized by a wasp. This is a good thing – if you are a human, that is.
As gardener Ann Lovejoy described:
Before spraying with Bt, examine the caterpillars for signs of parasitic wasps. Typically, the tiny wasps lay a single egg on each caterpillar’s head, though an egg may appear anywhere on the body. The white eggs are about the size of a pinhead. Dotty caterpillars are already doomed.
I was excited but Ted said he had already seen many of these this year. Wonder how I missed them. I’m glad to know that a natural predator is beginning to keep the caterpillars under control. Perhaps, as I’ve heard, this will be our last intense year losing foliage to these furry creatures with jaws. I won’t miss them when they are gone.
Now the more I look, the more doomed caterpillars I see. In a sense it is strange to look at these creatures and to know their destiny. To think that anyone can see how they will die. Their destruction is imminent and obvious to all.
Imagine if humans could know their own fate. Or look at someone else and know how she will die. Then again, some humans have their own obvious parasites that destroy them.
Or for another perspective…if only I could look at the evil and destruction in life – the way I look at these parasitized caterpillars in my garden – and know with confidence that they will come to an end soon.
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