The Wonderful World of Nature

Nature is wonderful.  It is so big and varied, no one can experience it in its entirety in a lifetime.  Nature's bounty includes plant life, animal life, aquamarine life and, let's not forget earth's atmosphere, which is in itself another whole entity.  We refer to nature as Mother Nature.  Mother Nature is blamed for everything from a devastating hurricane to a woman's phases in life (which is not a bad comparison).

A feral cat nursing her babies.

The amount of animals on our fair planet is countless.  All we know about is what has been discovered.  Of course we have the common animals everyone knows about.  The animals we eat, the animals we keep in zoos, those we keep as pets and all the others.  The other animals are those in nature, the feral (wild) ones that we prefer to see at a distance and those creepy crawly ones that most of us prefer to completely avoid.

I met one of those creepy crawly ones yesterday morning while I was weeding the vegetable garden.  I met it, I did not see it.  My contact with it came in the form of a bite that felt like a needle stick.  Try as I might I could not get a visual on the sneaky little thing.  All I know is I was left with a slightly swollen hand that is just now going down.  When I am gardening I come up close and personal with a lot of Mother Nature's little blessings.  I've met squash bugs, all kinds of spiders, little black bugs, little red bugs, grasshoppers of all sizes, worms, caterpillars, bumblebees, butterflies, centipedes and wasps. 

I am OK with meeting these precious little gems until they want to meet me.  Like yesterday, I was just minding my garden and my business until that stealth critter made a rash judgement on me and attacked me.  Not nice.  I've had wasps come down on my neck and sting me, I've met little bees on my toes, a scorpion on my back and a jellyfish on my legs (in the ocean of course!).  I even met a stinging nettle on my backside while taking care of some, um, personal business in Mother Nature's out house once.  If it stings, I've found it. 

Then there are reptiles.  I like snakes.  Yes I do.  My husband does not like snakes which is why I am the one who goes into the storage shed in our backyeard when we need something out of it.  I know there are dangerous snakes out there, but they don't sneak up on you like the black ops insect that attacked me yesterday.  Snakes are afraid of us.  They don't want a big tall giant around them.  Think about it, they are down on the ground.  They have to look way up high to see us.  That is like when we are at the bottom of a tall building looking up.   Snakes much rather run away from you than attack you.

Buffalo in the Tall Grass Prairie Reserve

I like to see animals in the wild.  When my husband and I are camping or hiking we get to see a lot of wonderful creatures.  We've seen deer, racoons, squirrels, road runners, rabbits, turkeys, turtles, buffalo, and all kinds of birds. 




Yes, Mother Nature has given us a big wide world full of things to be discovered.  Whether you like the desert, mountains, forests or the oceans, it's out there for you to experience and enjoy.  Try to experience it in every season.  Nature is constantly changing and it's beauty is never ending.

Just remember to watch where you walk and where you stick your hands!


SCL
 

"Let the rivers clap their hands;

let the hills be joyful together before the Lord."

Psalm 98:8