Ants    

            After spending almost a full month in a hospital staring up at ceiling tiles, being home and able to sit out on my deck again is a real joy.  First thing that I noticed was the sky in a sharp clear blue with a few splotches of clouds, like shards of cotton, scudding along the horizon, pushed by a soft warm Indian summer breeze.  Then I noticed again the quiet whisper of leaves fluttering along the tops of the trees in our yard. 

            Then looking down in sheer amazement I watched a single ant drag a long thin blade of grass up onto the deck.  The ant straddled the grass blade while grasping it in its jaws.  At once several others appeared each straddled the blade and grasping it in their jaws. I counted ten ants, each with four legs making the thin blade appear to be a caterpillar with forty legs zipping along the floor.  It moved in a perfect circle until about a dozen more ants appeared and climbed up on the backs of the ants carrying the blade of grass.

            Thus in a matter of seconds the thin blade of grass was converted into a kind of miniature troop carrier and once all of the other ants were aboard this strange vehicle took off scurrying over to the far side of the deck.  It stopped there while the dozen or so riders quickly scampered down and ran off the edge of the deck. Once they all were off, the weird looking rig turned and returned to the edge of the deck by me. In a few minutes another dozen or so ants appeared and climbed aboard.  Then this homemade troop carrier took off again back to the far edge of the deck.  I sat stunned and observed this process a few more times before it was time to go inside for lunch.

             I know that ants do remarkable things at times but I could hardly believe what I had just seen.  If someone were to tell me this I would not believe it.

            At any rate it was far more exiting than counting those ceiling tiles and reminded me again that there are so many wondrous things happening right in our own front yards if we would only take the time to look around.

            I am deeply grateful for the many marvelous things that happen every moment within our mountain shadows.

             In the final scheme of things we are so fortunate for so many reasons.

            The interesting thing is that it truly is a beautiful world and regardless of what we do today to ruin it, tomorrow the sun will come up again and we will have yet another magnificent day to enjoy.