the peace of wild things

We moved to the country for many reasons. We wanted privacy, quiet, security, room for our dogs to roam and romp..and the simple beauty of living where the world is slightly less tame, and slightly more wild.

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We've found all that and more here on Moss Hill, and although most of what happens here - at least most of what we witness - isn't particularly spectacular, and is, in fact, really quite routine, the wonder of it all never ceases to delight and amaze.

Quail scurry around  - looking rather idiotic - eating the bits thrown from the bird feeder by messier birds. Deer pass through every evening, always along the same path at the edge of the yard. Hummingbirds swoop and flitter around the feeders, fueling their mania with sugar water.

Under cover of darkness, tree frogs swim in the pool, and climb onto our outstretched hands if we're in the water with them. One of them has taken up temporary residence on the porch, singing from the rim of the fountain in the evenings, and sleeping in the now-empty pollywog pool during the day. (Did I tell you about the pollywogs?...We raised a dozen or so in a habitat I put together using an under-bed storage tote, sand, rocks, and water. They all grew up over the course of the summer, some into toads, others into tree frogs. The last one moved out yesterday.)

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Bats soar and dive at dusk and dawn...Last week I lay down in the grass at sunrise as a whole cloud of bats fluttered and plummeted to within a few feet of my face, catching their breakfast of insects rising up from the warming grass. I had to hold my hand over my mouth to keep from crying out, it was so thrilling. My equivalent of swimming with dolphins, I think.

I know these things are commonplace, but to me they'll never be ordinary. This humble world of hours is a marvelous place, and I, for one, am madly in love with it.

Property of Russ Thompson, Louisville KY
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THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS

When despair for the world grows in me, 

and I wake in the night at the least sound 

in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be - 

I go and lie down where the wood drake 

rests in his beauty on the water, 

and the great heron feeds. 

I come into the peace of wild things 

who do not tax their lives with forethought or grief. 

I come into the presence of still water. 

And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. 

For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

~ Wendell Berry

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