Lunch Time Walk

During my hour lunch time, I've been walking. Sometimes I walk in the woods. Since it is Fall, the scenery can be breath-taking. The leaf-peeping season is past, but the scenery can still be beautiful.

The picture on the lower right is a beaver hut. Seeing a beaver in this area is not unusual because I'm walking around Beaver Pond.

Another inhabitant of the marshes is the bird in the top picture. I know you can't make it out. That's the point. God has given her the camouflage. Maybe if you really look close in the middle of the picture--slightly above the center, you'll see a type of heron, called a bittern. She has a long neck and long legs. I like to see the bitterns take off. Their legs swing as they hang down, in take off.

The entire walk reminded me of Mary Oliver's book, Why I Wake Early. This is a book showing God in everything. Here's a sample:

Look and See

This morning, at waterside, a sparrow flew
to a water rock and landed, by error, on the back
of an eider duck; lightly it fluttered off, amused.
The duck, too, was not provoked, but you might say, was
laughing.

This afternoon a gull sailing over
our house was casually scratching
its stomach of white feathers with one
pink foot as it flew.

Oh Lord, how shining and festive is your gift to us, if we only look, and see.

I too, feel like I'm looking at God's gift when I look at the mosaic wetland of ponds, marshes, fens, bogs, and wetlands. They are surrounded by woods of red maple, yellow birch, shrubs, alders, and who knows what other variety of herbaceous species. I feel ever so grateful to be alive to see this "festive gift."