I love the outdoors. When the weather starts to warm up in the spring I come out of hibernation along with all the other critters. I often find myself sitting outside in the evenings on the porch swing or around the firebowl on the back porch, just enjoying the warmth of the sun on my skin, or feeling the cool night breezes on my neck. I sit and read, or watch squirrels and chipmunks in the back yard, or just listen to the birds in the trees. I daydream about things I want to do with my back yard - all of the gardens I want to create, the tree swing we hope to string from a tall branch later this summer, getting a new hammock between the two trees in the middle of the yard.
I even sit outside on rainy evenings, but then I stick to the swing on the covered side porch. The other night it was raining and as I sat on the swing reading my book a movement caught my attention out of the corner of my eye. I stared hard at the dark, wet ground for a full minute before I saw it again. It was a small toad hopping across my little rock garden! At that moment I realized I had not seen any toads in the yard for a very long time. When we first moved into this home about five years ago there were tons of them, and you could watch them jumping around the front yard when it rained. They would hop all over the wet street, and even when it was not raining you could run water into a couple of holes in the front yard and they would come hopping out. In the past two to three years, I don't think I've seen any until this little guy crossed my path the other night. Maybe they just got tired of the kids chasing them out of their hidey holes with the water hose and moved to a more peaceful yard?
And just now my neighbor's daughter brought over a bottle full of maybe a hundred teeny tiny baby frogs that she had collected from the field where her older sister plays soccer. We just released them into the yard, so hopefully they'll thrive and I'll be able to enjoy even more of our amphibious friends!
Another thing I miss is lightning bugs. In previous years, the lightning bugs were so thick in the evenings that it looked angels had dumped glitter into our neighborhood. If we were returning from late errands the effect was truly magical as we rounded the curve onto our part of the street. We would show the kids how to catch them in their hands and peer in to watch them glow, and then let them go again. This year I have been looking every night, straining to see even one in our wooded back yard, but have been disappointed to find none. I hope that they will just be a little later than usual in coming this year.
Noticing the absence of these creatures only makes me more committed to doing what I can for the environment. I have been striving to live a little greener over the past couple of years, and I know my little bit helps but I wish I could do more. I wish every one were more conscious of how their actions affect our world. When God gave man dominion over the creatures of the world, I don't think he meant for man to dominate and do whatever we wanted. I think God intends for us to care for the rest of His creation - to understand it, to treasure it, and to respect it. I don't want my future grandchildren to grow up in a world without frogs and lightning bugs, never even knowing what they look like!
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