Nature's Place

Isn’t it amazing this technology that allows us to communicate across great distance in the blink of an eye. Haven’t we come a long way from when only the very privileged could disseminate their words, and then with great difficulty. When it took Caesar three days to tell his general in Gaul anything, or get word! If, in fact, word got through!

What times we live in when so many can do so easily what once was available to so few. There is progress there, but to what end? Nothing lasts in this existence, so how is it going to be when all we have become accustomed to no longer is?

That’s the rub, you can’t hold on to what passes without the pain of separation. There hasn’t been much progress in the way of self discipline. That seems too difficult for the modern mind.

Or do you think things won’t change?

It was fine for a while on the open trail today but when I got into the densely wooded bush where it is mostly shaded the mozzies were out in numbers. They don’t appear much where the sun shines. Something to do with their little body’s drying out in the heat.

I haven’t been using insect repellent since I was ill from it a while back so I have to be careful. The local mozzies carry all sorts of diseases it would be better not to get.

I went down the trail quite a bit before the mozzies attacked. Yes, they attack. And as soon as they started showing up that was it, I had to get out. Turning away from walking in the bush is, to me, like leaving an old friend. But it has to be done.

It’s really a swamp now so I wasn’t expecting anything else, just thought I’d check. On the way back, still in the shaded wood, a butterfly crossed my path and settled on a bush a few metres away. Its colours were striking and I didn’t want to leave without a picture of it.

I kept moving while I got the camera ready, it’s harder for the mozzie to settle on me if I am moving, then turned back to as close as I thought I could get without disturbing the butterfly. Then I had to stand still to check settings and focus and shoot.

In that time I was probably bitten four or five times, but not badly. It was worth it, don’t you think? What a beauty! The red and yellow flashes on black. And the proud stance. A prince of his kind.

Tonight I had a visitor. I heard a small croaking out the back of the house I hadn’t heard before here so I went to have a look. Luckily this fellow wasn’t in the greenery or I would never have spotted him.

I found him sitting on a stool by the old wooden table. There are toads about that would eat him if they see him so I picked him up and put him where I put all his mates, on the stag fern.

None of the six or so frogs I have put on the fern in the last couple of months sit there for long. They all jump for the cover of the passion vine on the trellis a foot or so away. Attracted by the comforting embrace of green nature.

Now that the vine has grown it provides great cover and is probably a good hunting ground for the little frogs. I have seen many kinds of insect on the vine and the area around is deliberately unkempt to encourage the little forms of life.

The vine has grown a lot since I put some manure down and we’ve had all the rain. It’s a real beauty itself, producing some magnificent flowers.

Such beauty has to have intelligence and love behind its design. How could it be otherwise? You would have to be blind or fixed in rationality, thinking, not to see it.

To suggest a flower, any flower – or other life form for that matter, appears in existence without some causal intelligence behind its design is utterly absurd to me.

The bees and other insects have been visiting the flowers so there may be some fruit this season. It’s this plant’s first year so I am told not to expect anything. But there have been a few flowers, so you never know.

All copyright reserved / Mark Berkery