Leah brought a piece of firewood in from the front porch, opened the wood stove that sits in the corner of our family room, and dropped the wood onto the red-hot fire.
“Oh,” I heard her say quietly, with a note of tenderness, maybe even sadness, in her voice.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“There was a spider on the wood. I didn’t see it until it was too late.”
We are like that, Leah and I, when it comes to creatures...all creatures, great and small. Our property is a kind of nature preserve, a wildlife sanctuary even.
***
Mother Nature is busy with midwifery in our neck of the woods these days. Spring peepers, tiny baby frogs, are singing their fool, green heads off in our pond at night. Neighbors and friends are calling too, inviting us over to see the baby critters that are being born in nearby pastures and barns.
There is lush, spring grass where the neighbors’ newborns can play, and here at our place, the old mama goat, Pumpkin, is up to her eyeballs in tasty, orchard grass hay.
I walk around with a camera and shoot diary pictures of all this. The moments aren’t monumental, but, nevertheless, I can’t help but feel that there is so much to see.
