In the deep, dark woods of Rainbow Creek, there is Life and Death that occurs without witness.
Come on in to our Nature Class and welcome to those just joining us. I am writing a Nature book here on this Google site for my Granddaughter Kate. We are Discovering other living things sharing the planet with us. I have opened up the bird sanctuary as the observation lab here on Rainbow Creek, deep in the heart of Texas.
Here is Sissy as the official greeter for our Class. We are starting on the roof top deck today. We are waiting for Kay Lonnie to give her signal for the class to begin.
Here is Kay Lonnie now, and the little King. (They made up from the other day when the Little King started the class without Kay Lonnie.) Kay we are ready for you to give the signal.
Let the Class Begin. Sissy! You gave the signal???? Kay Lonnie is going to be mad.
Oh well, the class is open now! Thank you, Sissy, now you better run!
Our Photostudy today will be on this Alien.
We know that a few weeks ago he was an alien looking caterpillar. Now, as if by magic, he has changed into a Moth and has wings! I believe he is in the family sphingidae, but have not made a positive identification yet. I just searched 'moth identity' in Google and a big list of North American Moths came up. I have not found this ones picture yet. (There will be pictures now when I send in mine! I contribute to sites as most identity pictures are of dead things.) I like to show the live behavior.
The other thing we know about this Moth is that it has arrived in a container carried by someone asking if I could save it. He sure is pretty, and big. Let's have a look.
I gently poured him out on the deck bench. We can see he is walking around.
His striped body is much fatter than that of a butterfly. It looks like fur covering.
I see there is damage to his wings.
I think he must be from the University of Texas with that burnt orange color!
He looks as though he is going to fly.
He did fly! Over to this white chair.
We can now see the damage in his wings and that because of the damage, he can not fly correctly.
He is too cute with the little red feet.
He is looking at me and seems to be saying: "Brendasue, this is my last day on earth and I want to spend it in your garden. I want you to photograph me so I will be remembered." I can do that for you, little buddy. We will have a good last day.
We see the damage to the wing. If he can not fly, he most likely will not live. If he can not get food or water, he will die. If he slows down, something will eat him. He will die today.
For right now, he is hanging on! If he knows he is going to die today, it doesn't appear to hurt him. In Nature and human life, we live until we die. That is how it is for every living thing-they live until they die.
Oh Look! He has climbed up to the back of the chair as if he is going to fly!
Oh my, you can see the blue sky through his wing, not good. He sure is trying to survive. That is one of the bonds we share with all living things is that everything tries to survive as long as it can.
He is a beautiful Moth. Now there are some people out there that think they are better than this moth or at least more powerful. Here is one thing every Human needs to remember: You have no special powers, in fact Humans just like this moth, are powerless. As long as you cannot predict death coming or stop it when it gets here, you have no power and are no better than any other living thing. I could not stop death when it came to my Mom & Dad. I could not bring them back to life no matter how much I wanted to. And today, I cannot stop this moth from going either. When my last day comes, I cannot stop that either.
Look his little feet are lifting off. He is attempting flight.
We have liftoff! Go, buddy, go!
He did not make it very far. He is trying to crawl up again.
He is almost to the top of the board. We all hope he will make it.
He has 2 feeet on top.
He is doing a big pull up here. We can see how badly damaged this wing is. He will not fly anymore.
Incredible that he is still trying to go forward. Humans are like that also. If we fall down, we try to get back up ever since we were babies. And we never know when change is coming.
Everything can be going along just fine and one day out of the blue, something happens that changes your whole life, forever.
He's on top of the board.
He flew to the lattice board.
Oh no, another crash. I wonder if he knows at this point that he is looking at his own death within hours.
Still crawling. Still trying.
I put him in the garden to finish his day in peace. I never saw him again. Part of me likes to believe that he got well and flew off. In reality, probably my cardinal ate him.
I wish I could have saved him. I wish I could have saved Mom & Dad.
What separates Humans from every other form of life is the way we grieve for and honor our dead. What bonds us as people is that we understand each others grief, joy and love-all human emotions.
We have learned today a hard lesson in Nature: Humans have no control over natural events.
And we have no power over death except one: We can make the decision as a human family to stop the murder of our own people and all living things. That is our only choice over death is to stop killing. Natural death we can do nothing about.
For everyone out there today that thought this moth was beautiful, there are far more that would see him as ugly or scarey and kill him with bug poison. Some of you would stomp him into the ground.
The more we can learn about life that is not human, will only help us learn more about life that is human. I hope you will see in your own reflections that life is the only thing of value we have. If it comes to no life left on earth, there will be no value system.
Still Alive from Rainbow Creek.................it's brendasue signing off.
Goodnite King and Goodnite Kate; Goodnight Everyone, Everywhere!
Together we can make a difference on this Planet!
katescabin@gmail.com or Brendasue Watson of Kates Cabin, P O Box 743, Hempstead, Texas 77445
P.S. Thank you to whoever it was that sent the anonymous dog cookie in the mail for Kay Lonnie! She loved it and her fan mail. Keep those cards and letters coming, I love them and if you can send any donations for birdseed, I sure could use some help right now. Thanks, brendasue
