Gifts

An old friend reminded me that I promised to post at least one article per month…so much for New Year’s resolutions. Let’s try it again.

Some things have been happening to me lately that I have come to think of as gifts.
Coming home from running an errand on Saturday morning, thinking that I really should start to clean up the front flower bed, the leaves rustle beside the stairs leading to the front door. I look down thinking that I might get a glimpse of a chipmunk. Not so. What I see is a tiny painted turtle as big as the tip of my thumb. The bottom part of his shell was deep gold with a red diamond right in the center. The top of its grey-green shell has small red dots in along the edge. Perfect. Tiny flippers. What a miracle. I kept it in a plastic dish long enough to share it with Mike and then released it by the lake.

For much of the early spring we chased a pair of Canada Geese off our driveway. I like watching them on the water, but don’t care much for what they leave on the pavement. Anyway, the two dogs think of goose feces as some sort of special hors d’ouvres. Yuck. I was happy, though, to see six adult geese near our dock with escorting nine downy goslings.

This winter Jackie saw a fox trotting across our frozen lake. I had a short sighting myself at dusk—a vision with pointed black ears and four black feet. Just a glimpse.

So many birds! The morning overflows with song. I can tell the cardinals from the robins. Mike does even better. The blue heron has a harsh call, they hate being disturbed, but it is always a joy to watch them take to the air.

Even cherry tree on the court, old and full of cherries, a limb gives way and we spend a gentle evening picking…not even having to reach very far. Bright scarlet. We quickly filled up a half a large bucket. With three of us it only took about forty minutes to pit and bag four quarts. In the freezer now, perhaps a pie soon. That’s a gift.

These are all gifts. Gifts of the place we live. Sights that requiring us to slow down and observe in order to appreciate. Yep, gifts.