Curled Leaves

Spike had his first trip to Spring Lake this morning. His normal pattern is a zig-zagging course in front of us, nose to the ground at all times. I don't think this is something we can ever expect to train out of him, although it does make it hard to walk with him at times. The weather is my least favorite...a dull drizzle, but it was a fine day at Spring Lake...coots getting a running  take-off on the surface of the water, egrets stalking amongst the reeds in the shallows and a bald eagle sighting high in a tree. it felt good to get out. 

Spring has not quite come to spring lake but I enjoyed looking for tiny signs. In the end, I liked the way these willow leaves curled as they dried.
Thanks to loisbiz for hosting the challenge this month.

I'm now contemplating Gustavo as he works patiently away at a massive and well established clump of bamboo roots. Everything above the ground burned and was starting to come back, but Dana decided that bamboo did not fit in with her native plant theme. We have all worked at getting it out with little success but Gustavo, with his amazing strength and economy of motion has just about finished the job. 

As the Covid restrictions tighten yet again, I can't help but grapple with the feeling I'm accomplishing nothing, but I'm attempting an attitude readjustment. In the year 2020 we coped with anxiety on many fronts...a dangerously crazy president surrounded by an unscrupulous and self serving group of enablers, a dangerous pandemic which has killed over 300,000 people in the United States alone with no apparent federal guidance, a growing realization of the racism endemic in this country and the ensuing Black Lives Matter demonstrations, a wildfire which burned down half our neighborhood and came within feet of burning down our house, and now in the first weeks of 2021 an attack on our capital and our Democracy instigated by the president. 

And we are the lucky ones. We have not lost our business, our income or our health because of the pandemic. Our family continues to cope despite working from home and learning from home. We couldn't march in the streets with the BLM protesters because of the lurking virus, but I resurrected  an old hobby and made a quilt for a friend's daughter. She donated money to causes we both believed in in lieu of payment. She has just commissioned another one for her other daughter. Our house didn't burn down, thanks to some incredibly brave, firefighters,  and we are a week away from swearing in a new president. It is unsettling to think that almost every state capital in the nation is boarding up its windows and calling out the National Guard.And there is an effective vaccine out there....somewhere....

Of course there are bad days. There are many days when I feel that I have accomplished nothing, but isn't merely surviving in these unprecedented times without losing our minds enough? I may just be learning to compartmentalize my life better, but there are many days when I actually feel quite content despite it all. That is an accomplishment.