On becoming "one" with nature.

I was late for work (again) the other day.

Almost 15 minutes late.

And only 5 of it was my fault.

The other 10 minutes was due to turkeys. An entire family. Mom, dad....& at least 13 little baby whatever they are called. (Chicks sounds wrong.) They were attempting to cross the road, after apparently trying, without success, to answer the classic question. Rounding the corner from my subdivision, there was a car pulled over, & an arm frantically waving me to stop. It seems they had been trying for some time & this woman was bound & determined to let them get across. So we sat in our cars, & chatted through our open windows as they darted, & paused, & gobbled, & paused, one after the other, until they had all safely maneuvered from one side to the other.

And I began to see a developing pattern in my life. As wildlife made me pause & look at things a bit differently.

It really started with the ghosts in the attic. Mice, actually. But it sounds more dramatic this way. Their random skittering wakes me in the middle of the night, when everything else is quiet. I'm getting rather sleep deprived, but it is affording me a quiet stillness as I lay there in the dark. Time to think of everything I shelve during the day. Time for reflection.

Then the woodchuck (affectionately dubbed "Norris") who pressed his little nose up against the patio doors, peering into our lives. Wondering what we do in here that is so intriguing. And, quite fortunately, the live trap that was to transport Norris to another abode still sits on our front porch, or the skunk that has taken to wandering through our clover might have found himself inside. Timing is everything. And some things are best put off.

Add to this the coyote, standing not 20 feet from the road, in a field that I forget to look at most days as I zip past on my errands. He cocked his head as if to ask what the rush was. (Or maybe because he knows I am harboring a mouse buffet.)

And the deer, who find it great fun to test my reflexes by bounding in front of my car. Or just regally, in their best "Great Prince of the Forest" impression, stand at the side of the road & let ME pass. Or, finding the same clover the skunk does, graze in the back yard, letting me know who actually has the right to live here.

Or the Great Horned Owl that found it necessary to swoop just in front of me while he delivered some all important message. That is, when he is not perched on the roof who WHO who who who-ing. (Again, word of the buffet must be out!)

And the cardinal, who peeks in my front window.

Or the hummingbird that I have forgotten to feed, but comes back anyway in hopes I will get my priorities straightened out.

This wildlife, this nature, all around me. If I just take a moment to notice.

What else do I miss in a day?