Category: Nature

My thoughts on nature and how we interact with it.

It’s Almost May!

May is sort of a mystery month. We can hardly believe how green the grass is. It wasn’t this green last year, was it? And now those dead looking trees actually have tiny leaves and some have blossoms! The lilacs are blooming too. Where did those lovely blooms come from? The bush looked dead yesterday! Azaleas and rhododendrons will soon take center stage too.

May really should be the first month of the year because everything seems brand new in May. I don’t know why but I feel more lonely in May than in other months. Maybe it’s because my birthday is in May and I look back on 80+ years of memories. It isn’t because my husbands died in May. One died in November and the other in June. Maybe it isn’t loneliness at all but there a sudden sense of emptiness. The only cure is to get very busy with something and in May there is much to do. The lawn needs continual mowing and the annuals need planting. The house inside needs some going over too. It’s beginning to look a little shabby.

I’ve noticed that my cat, Guiness (He was a rescue cat and someone had named him years before) seems lonely too. All winter he thought he was a bear and he hibernated warm and snug in his special place. However, now he seems to need me. he wants to be close, on my lap or on the back of my recliner when I am busy with something.

That cat is remarkable. I bought a collar for him but he didn’t like it. It was put on him to stay unless I took it off. But Gueness got it off! Once he used a spoon he found that had fallen to the floor as his tool. In the morning I found the collar wrapped up in the spoon on the floor. I couldn’t figure it out, but he used a pencil the same way another time! I wish I could see him do it but he takes off his collar late at night.

I heard about another cat who had five kittens. Whenever that mother went hunting, she’s bring five dead mice into the house and lay them beside each of her five children. Isn’t that amazing?

I guess I’m getting ahead of myself, but it’s almost May. Get out and enjoy the  month won’t you? Let’s enjoy because it’s soon May and everything is new again. We need to rejoice and thank God for this wonderful month.

A Weekend To Remember.

It started off on Friday when my best friend, Shih Tzu dog Sonny, went under the knife! The Vet took five of his teeth out. He had constant ear infections and couldn’t eat dry food so I had it done. He is sore, but not complaining much. He is 10 years old so he is not a young dog. I’ll admit I was worried about the anesthesia because I had another dog who didn’t awaken again during a spading operation. Isn’t it funny how a dog can become almost like a human to a dog-lover?

Then on Sunday afternoon my son, Ron, Took me and Sonny on a road trip up the Washington side of the gorge. Oh, was that beautiful! The greenery of the fir trees and the early gold of the meadows almost took my breath away. Then add the blue of the skies and the river and you have it all. I can’t forget the mountains, they were above me sometimes and below me other times depending on whether we were driving up or down. They were gorgeous in their green and brown dresses any way I looked at them.

My son said he was going to take me to the prettiest picnic table he had ever seen. I had seen many picnic tables and couldn’t see what would be so pretty about this one. But it was! It perched high on a rocky cliff with a mountain wall just across the river. The Columbia River was quiet today, I didn’t see the usual white caps and it looked small below me. Beacon Rock stood majestically just beside me where I could see where people could climb it. I had climbed it years before but as I looked at it yesterday I couldn’t believe I had ever done that! After we visited that picnic table, we started off for home.

It was a wonderful day, a blue sky and sunny day. I had seen the gorge many times before but I had never seen it like yesterday. Ron had hiked that area many times and knew just where to take me. He told me what everything looked like in Spring or Winter and about the wild life that is abundant in the Springtime. He gave me a gift I will always remember. How great is God who created all this! And how great a gift it was to be able to see this grandeur.