Long ago, I fell in love with nature. From the time I was born, I was embraced by the Blue Ridge Mountains, running barefoot, climbing trees, and growing up feeling free.
What shouldn’t you love about it? Besides bee stings, scrub typhus, sunburn and poison oak? Love is rarely flawless.
I almost never run barefoot. But I still like to see the mountains in nature, hear the waves crashing against the beach, and eat hot dogs at the stadium in Little League games.
My husband feels the same. That’s one of the reasons I got married to him. This is also why we moved to this valley.
My house is small. In particular, one of us owns enough instruments to start his orchestra. But for me, these mountains are heavens on earth.
Most nights we sit outside and watch the sun set and the moon rise. I think I can finish the day with gratitude.
I think I was born to love nature. I think you were the same. But I’m not always sure how nature feels about me.
Last week I went home a month later and helped my son, his wife and a two-year-old daughter welcome a beautiful baby girl.
My husband picked me up at the station, dragged my bag inside the house and told me to follow him outside.
He said when we started down the stairs to the patio.
Suddenly he shouted in my head the words that always sounded the air raid siren. “Snake!”
I went home like a pole vaulter.
“It’s just a garter snake!” He bravely said, “It’s not poison!”
In my book, snakes are snakes. If it can scare me and let me die, whether toxic or not, I’m dead as well.
The snake disappeared under the stairs. We probably scared it to death. It may have been there without knowing it. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.
Jump over the stairs and ask, “What did you want to show?”
He pointed to the Earth, which was plunged like a paper target, in a shooting range with a hole the size of a softball.
“Gopher,” he said sadly. “One day I saw them dragging the whole flower down to the ground. I felt like Elmer Fudd.”
He pointed to the place where the trap was set and was ready and waiting.
“Great” I said. “We need about 3000 more traps.”
A day later, on my way to town, I turned on the car fan for cooling and heard a bad noise.
“Oh no,” I said, “No more!”
When I got home and talked to my husband, he went to check under the hood of the car.
Then he came back with a stern look and said, “You were right. You’re a mouse!”
We park our car in the carport. This was the second time a mouse had sneaked into the engine of my car and got caught up in a fan. You will think they will learn.
“Do you want to see it?” He said.
“number!”
In a day or so, I’ll take my car again to a mechanic who makes a living by cleaning mice from the engine. I just hope he can’t find the wire he bites.
But today, we are happy to hold a barbecue for families living nearby, including four of our nine grandchildren and their parents.
I made potato salad and overcooked the cake. My husband will bake a hamburger. We eat on the patio because we don’t have space for everyone to eat inside.
I thought it was a nice day, but there was a thick fog like cotton from the coast. I told everyone to bundle it up. We make it work. We are always so.
Snakes, mice, gophers and fog are trivial problems for nature and there is no such thing as a wildfire that we faced and could face again last summer. Nature is beautiful, but it can turn into ugly ones.
Life is a lot like nature. One day it is heaven on earth. There are days when it becomes a living hell.
I believe they are gifts no matter what they bring and try to accept both when they come.
It’s not always easy. But every day I find myself in love with them again.
Sharon Randall is the author of “The World and Then Some”.PO Box 922, Carmel Valley, CA 93924, or www.sharonrandall.com..
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June 07, 2021 at 04:17PM
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