Month: February 2024

It was an absolutely gorgeous Sunday and we couldn’t resist taking a trip to one of the trails at Circle B. I had delayed the day watching Wolves playing their game, so unfortunately it was around noon when we went there.

That translated into a million other trail-goers there already and there wasn’t a parking spot to be had in the main areas. People were parked on grass and by the side of the road and it was chaotic even looking for a space.

When we finally did park in an auxiliary lot and took the trail that brought us down by the lake, there were crowds everywhere and I really questioned the sanity of going there at such a time.

Not just was it a perfect day, but it was a Sunday, and all the snowbirds are still in town so it was the perfect storm in terms of crowd abundance. Part of me wanted to just leave but the other part of me decided to try to shut them out and just take in what I could.

As we walked the trail it became obvious that the creatures that live there had largely moved deeper into the land and water away from the trail itself. Clearly the number of people was overwhelming for them too.

It wasn’t just the number of people but the incessant talking and occasional screaming child that seemed to have an adverse effect on the normal tranquility of the place.

I found myself getting more and more hostile towards these Sunday-trippers and their blatant disconnect from the natural world they were trampling over.

I finally lost it when I came across this big guy who had a drone and was flying it near the trees. I screamed at him in front of everyone and told him that he was not allowed to use a drone here. I raged about the stress it was causing the animals and though nobody supported my assertions, he took it down and apologized.

I was galled at his lack of consideration of the creatures that would be affected by what he was doing and that he hadn’t thought of that at all became the subject for today’s blog.

By the way, I have put a number of images from the trail at the end of the blog and I hope you enjoy.

Anyway, I said that “he hadn’t thought of” and that was giving him the benefit of the doubt. But I no longer am giving him that benefit. I think he knew full-well. He just didn’t care. What he wanted superseded the stress on the creatures around him.

As extreme an example as this was, it reminded me of the incident a few months back where people were throwing sticks at a mommy alligator in order to get her to move away from her babies. So, extreme apathy does exist among these people.

But not only the extreme, the general noisiness and presence of large numbers of people in their home must have been upsetting to the animals. The fact that there was a noticeable distance taken by many of them from the trail is a clear indication that this was so.

Humans may not be the only selfish creatures on the planet but because of our numbers and our dominance, our selfishness has a dramatic effect on the world that the rest of the animal kingdom live in. We devastate their natural environment with little thought and only when they become extinct do we even think about it.

And even then our concern is minimal and even a source of amusement. For example look at the Dodo bird which went extinct back in the late 17th century, we comfortably transitioned it into a cause for comedy and degradation of the species. “Dumb as a Dodo” became a catch phrase and we characterized the species as a “dumb bird” because (wait for it) they were too comfortable around humans to survive. So we hunted them into extinction.

Aren’t we so fucking smart?

Most of us that are critical of humanity look on it as a scourge on the planet and though I have repeatedly hoped that one day our apparent intelligence would help us navigate a turn around to where we save the planet, I see no hope that we will do so.

Our own selfishness supersedes all.

That is the unfortunate reality and once we become extinct and the planet recovers, somewhere in the future someone will look at our fossilized remains and talk about how dumb we were.

… just a thought.

Our favorite trails screamed out at us the other day. It was just a perfect afternoon and we both needed to escape the madness of what we were stuck in.

Technically speaking we should both have been taking care of business but sometimes you have to take care of your state of mind too. And we chose the latter.

We spotted an armadillo when we were just entering the reserve and it was so strange to find him out rummaging at that time of the day. We spotted the usual feathered characters along with a few baby gators hiding in the grass, trying to be invisible to those larger than they.

It was a lovely walk and once again, difficult to imagine a better day. As we finished, we even spotted an almost full moon hanging in the sky as a plane flew overhead.

I’ve put some images at the end of the blog and hopefully you get a chance to check them out.

It was the moon shot after we came away from the reserve that formed the thought for this blog. I reflected on why I am always drawn to the moon and even though I don’t howl at it, in my mind I have done so on a few desperate occasions.

The whole concept of lunacy obviously stems from a belief that the full moon caused certain strange behaviors in us humans and I can go along with that. The fact that I was born on a full moon is likely a root cause of my being so unhinged at times.

But it is really a behavior rather than a word that makes me think we are all lunatic to a certain degree. Each of us have had moments where logic has left the building and we have behaved in a way that would make us later question our sanity.

In the old days, they often used the word lunatic to describe what “they” considered aberrant behavior and sometimes took drastic steps (such as lobotomy) to “normalize” a person. Man’s cruelty knows no bounds and while we might shudder now at the thought of ever doing such a thing to anyone, we still use other mechanisms to deal with people that we consider abnormal.

We may socially isolate them, or judge them, deny them work, rights, or pleasure, all because they don’t behave in the way we consider normal. And yet, the definition of normal itself varies over time, over geography, and societal drift.

Being gay is not normal in many parts of the world. Or promiscuous, or a nudist, or a drifter, a non-conformist, a vegetarian, a non-believer.

In fact, those that judge and isolate tend to do it to anyone that doesn’t fit their version of cookie-cutter lifestyle.

These people tend to be quite vocal and when we allow these people to be entitled to run with their definitions of normal, laws get made, doors get closed, rights get stripped away.

One day we politely smile when some idiot is pro-life (but only for babies and not gun-shot victims) and then one day we wake up and some of those morons have passed a law that says a woman has no right to choose what happens to her body and an embryo is a child.

When we allow these imbeciles to redefine normal to the point where it is only their views that count, then those of us that believe in something different become abnormal and unacceptable.

That in itself is the real definition of lunacy.

… just a thought.

I typed the whole fucking blog, it wouldn’t save and when I tried to select copy on the text, I mistakenly hit paste. Then undo failed .. .so I lost everything.

It’s funny really, the whole blog I wrote was about how pathetically flawed I am and then I proceed to fuck this one up too.

Enjoy the pictures … I am outta here.

It was a last minutes decision. The day was perfect weather with mostly blue skies and a temperature that couldn’t have been dialed-up any better.

Circle B on our doorstep is a temptation at the best of times, so given the weather outside, it was a no brainer.

We took the trail down Marsh Rabbit Run and got to see all the usual suspects in all different sizes. Herons, Anhingas, Osprey and Hawks, were in abundance, as well as a number of really large Alligators and one or two babies.

I caught the sun disappearing behind a small cloud at one point and was thrilled to be able to stare up at it without fear of going blind.

True to form, it proved a bad day to be a fish, once again. Felt really sorry for the poor catfish that delivered some technically great shots, right in his final moments. Poor little guy.

Anyway, they are at the end of this blog. Hope you enjoy.

The variety of wildlife at places like Circle B played into my thoughts this morning as I sat down to think of the blog.

Everyone there has their place in the order of things. And nobody seems too bothered at how bad life is or how many wishes they have for a better one. They just breathe in their moment for as long as it lasts, knowing that they don’t have too much say in when that moment might end.

They do their best with what they have. Bring in new life when they can and give up theirs when they have to. They care, feel, probably even love, and they build their lives to be what they are, with the skills and characteristics that allow them to do so.

They aspire only to fill their potential and not to be what they aren’t.

It is highly unlikely that they spend a lot of time thinking about their next life or even their next day, for that matter.

I doubt that they take for granted that there will even be a next day.

They live in their moment.

We can learn an awful lot from animals, you know.

… just a thought.