The Miracles of Nature

When was the last time you had a magical experience that left you nearly speechless, and the only thing you could say was, "Wow!"? The past two days were filled with magical events, and I'd love to share them with you. These simple words cannot begin to express the deep humility and gratitude I feel, for being a molecule of the grandeur and beauty that makes our world special in the universe.

Every day is filled with appreciation and joy, because we are fortunate to live so close to nature, surrounded by life's miracles. Nothing compares to looking out the window and experiencing life in its simplicity and complexity, to feel the connectedness to everything, to be reminded that we are a small part of everything, and everything is a large part of us.

While we were building "Evergreen," Jay and I discovered that there are several "families" of redtail hawks that make their nests in local trees. We love watching them flying to catch the thermals that allow them to float effortlessly overhead. It's wonderful when the sunlight catches their feathers and we can briefly see the fire- engine red that distinguishes them from other raptors. Juvenile redtails are mostly brown, and they screech a lot. Is it hunger? ("Mommy, come back and feed me!") Or is it something else they're saying? ("This is MY territory!") Why is it so hard for humans to just appreciate natural sounds, without assigning human thoughts to them? Recently, we've been watching the development of one of the juveniles as it practices all of the airborn maneuvers that will ultimately sustain it. On Tuesday morning, while we were having breakfast, the juvenile caught a field mouse in our meadow and flew by majestically, unaware that we were cheering and applauding. When experiences like this happen, you never forget them.

Every morning for over two weeks, I've been waking up around 3:00 a.m. It's like someone has been tapping me gently on the shoulder and whispering in my ear, "Look towards Mt. Hood." Of course, Mt. Hood isn't visible at 3:00 in the morning, but the stars and planets are very bright -- especially the Venus, which shines like an LED spotlight in the sky. Some nights, I've gone back to sleep, but many nights, I lie there, mesmerized by the starry sky until the sunrise. The sunrise has been breathtakingly beautiful the past two mornings, maybe associated with the heat and particulate matter accumulating in the atmosphere. The first light, low in the eastern sky, is an orange-red band which then evolves into a bright day-glow pink fading to different shades of purple and blue, then becoming yellow and orange as the sun rises above the top of the Cascades.

Late Tuesday afternoon, when Jay was watering, he found a tiny, bright-green tree frog. With a proud look on his face, similar to a child who discovers something for the first time, he tapped on the kitchen window to get my attention and show me the frog, smaller than Jay's thumb. It was definitely cute. Jay released it in the bushes, close to where he found it.

Yesterday provided one of the most special string of experiences that we've had since we moved to Oregon City, filled with wonder and excitement. The heat has caused us to move our offices to the main floor. I've been working at the kitchen table, and Jay moved all of his computer apparatus to the living room. If we were upstairs, we might have missed the memorable events. It started when a coyote trotted by the north windows early in the morning. Mid-morning, I looked up from the monitor to see three redtails circling about 50 feet above the north side of our property. We've seen as many as eight at one time. We've also seen eagles and herons, and more typical birds like scrub jays, doves, robins, hummingbirds, and nasty crows (which chase the redtails unmercifully). For the past two years, we've heard (not seen) birds that sing beautiful antiphonal songs, and have named them "pretty-pretty" birds.

Later in the afternoon, a doe and her young fawn grazed their way across the north side of the house, about ten feet away from our windows. A little while later, when Jay returned from fixing our broken sprinkler system, he said that one of the resident squirrels was so busy harvesting hazelnuts, it wasn't bothered by Jay's close proximity. We've watched squirrels collecting seed pods from the cedar tree on the north, then skittering back to their home on the south side, cheeks stretched like overstuffed sausages. I have a mental picture of the squirrels blowing the seeds out of their mouths like a rapid-fire machine gun -- maybe I’m remembering an episode of Disney's "Chip and Dale" from my childhood.

Early yesterday evening, two young bucks with velvet antlers lounged on the east bank for a long time before strolling by the north window towards the meadow to graze. The sunset seemed to last for more than an hour, painting the sky with every pastel color imaginable that was impossible to ignore. The light disappeared totally around 8:15. Jay and I were chatting and watching "America's Got Talent" when we saw a horned owl fly from nowhere and land in the top of the cedar tree. It was too dark to see more than its profile, even with our binoculars, but when the owl turned, we could clearly see its mouth open, panting like a dog. It stayed in the treetop for about 20 minutes, then spread its wings and glided silently over the patio towards the south, flying only two or three feet away from the living room windows.

Right now, there is a gentle, cool breeze moving the branches and leaves, and the tall grasses. White cumulus clouds are moving in from the west, forcing the sun to play hide-and-seek. The worst of this heat spell is over. I'm thankful it was hot, because we were motivated to be where we got to experience more of Nature's wonders in 36 hours than we've ever experienced before. Maybe there's a message in this for us: to be grateful for everything, and take time to see things from a different perspective. Another message: Protect Nature, so future generations can experience the same blessings.