It was cold this past winter but as always it has past. Thankfully! Don’t misunderstand, Nature needs winter. It is a time for rest. Even sapiens need a pause. In the throws of cold winter days and nights, I marvel at the quietness of the natural world and the sheer tenacity of creatures like chickadees, deer and coyotes. Winter renews my respect for these creatures and demonstrates how out of step we are with Nature. Quite frankly, we are weaklings.

Anyway, spring renews our spirits. More sunshine. More fragrance. More color. Nature creates a magnificent banquet for our senses. Beautiful! Of course, some sapiens like to celebrate spring by going on a killing binge. The hook, bullet and trapping crowd weaves its destructive path through Nature. They and their children pose with dead creatures and declare the beauty of said creatures. This is hard to understand but fortunately the consumptive wildlife population has decreased relative to the growth in total population.

There are few experiences that match a spring walk through a forest. Breath deep the floral pleasures and hope for an animal sighting. Be patient. With the shrinking, segmented forests that are a result of massive developments like speculative warehouses, data center campuses, fracking, pipelines, highways, housing developments, etc., wildlife and their habitats are stressed. We need to be as welcoming as possible because, realistically, they have nowhere else to go. Thanks, mindless, top down economic development gurus.

I have been lucky so far. Yesterday, I spotted a pileated woodpecker nest in a town park. I also spotted a woodchuck rear the river. For weeks now I have been passing a viable eagle’s nest near a creek. The usual early spring flowers are pushing up and I’m getting my vegetable garden ready.

The small pleasures in life are what makes the struggle worth it.

Enjoy!