March 2008

Letters of Gratitude

Submitted by Rainie on

Sometimes it is easy to overlook the central point of children’s words and behavior. Many years ago, I accepted an invitation to speak to a classroom of first graders at the local elementary school. The day I arrived there was a rainstorm. Rain lashed the windows in invisible sheets. Try as I might I could not hold the children’s attention. Even their teacher could not contain them. They gathered round the two panels of glass enthralled by the sight. Every attempt on my part to engage them in a lesson plan, was in vain. Finally their teacher and I realized that in their lifetime they had never witnessed rain. This was the first storm after a seven-year drought. What appeared at first to be disregard, was in fact a deep and reverent gratitude...

Nesting

Submitted by Rainie on

I first became intrigued by the composition of bird nests when observing a male and female Hutton’s Vireo, through my dining room window, flitting under the eaves, from the roof of my house to an oak, with pink fluff secured in their beaks. At the time I was eight months pregnant and folding baby clothes....

Burn Pile

Submitted by Rainie on

Through three seasons of tending the garden, an assortment of pruned branches, slash, leaves and debris had accumulated at the periphery, near the oak forest that marks our property line. By name it was called the “burn pile” and having grown to unusually large proportions it sat waiting for winter rains and it’s destiny. The day came after a week of storms, when my husband set the pile ablaze.

Together we watched its size slowly diminish, I raking embers and he watering the edge of its trail. Flames spit and sputtered until the pile became smaller and the area opened, revealing naturalized seedlings nearby. In our excitement we crouched to examine the new discoveries: manroot, Dutchman’s pipe, and Keckiella cordifolia....