Yesterday we enjoyed a family walk. We went down my favorite way on the tracks. It was balmy for October; not too bright and not too breezy. Just right. It was interesting to see what Dave and the boys noticed. Donovan and Dave had the camera this time. Donovan has an interesting eye. This is his picture of the tracks. Weston was a good sport, although one off trail adventure was through a patch of burrs and I spent 20 minutes plucking them off his blue fleece late last night. I was tempted to throw them out, but I couldn't. Even though I only paid 84 cents for them from the bargain bin last spring, I knew they could get more use if I could just focus in and pluck them one by one. It seemed a waste of time, a waste of energy on a full night, but if I just stuck to it and went as fast as I could, I could see progress. I must have pulled off 600 tiny bristles.
At one point the boys took off running to something piled up under the auger at the grain elevator: a heap of grain. Dave noticed some had spilled on the tracks and ground into flour under the passing wheels, but the rest -- oh, a heap of cold slippery smooth nubins. You couldn't help but dive your hands in and feel it fall through your fingers. The boys liked it for a bed. There must have been four or five bushels. Someone had worked hard to plant, grow, water, cultivate, harvest and separate this grain, and here it lay on dirty tracks. Again it seemed like such a waste.
Finally we persuaded the boys to follow us further down the line. I pulled some prairie grasses and shaped them into a bit of a wreath. I got a few slivers, but it was nice to work with my hands as we walked. The boys got tired of balancing on the rail after a while and started clinking the rail with old spikes. "Ting, ting, a-ting-a-ting!" Morse code down the line to some other little boy in another small town with his ear to the rail.
Down by the pond Donovan found some furry caterpillars and we giggled as one kept inching up his arm toward his ear. Poor things. They won't last a week in this weather, but nobody told THEM it's supposed to snow soon. Why are they still here?
God, is this Your waste? Does your extravagant story include the glory of a life short lived? Why not? If you can pay one man a dollar for a day's work, and pay another a dollar for one hour -- who got shorted? You care for the lily and the sparrow, and who am I to say if they mind whether they live one day or a thousand in your creation. Are they now in Your courts? Maybe they are content.
In the bigger picture it probably provides some wonderful purpose: flour on the rails to inspire me to invest in a mill of my own; seeds for the rodents to pass the winter in their cozy underground homes; tickle-y worms that may not metamorphosize, but inspire a young seven year old artist to write a book; and little burrs that hitch a ride to my kitchen to make me wonder anew at all the marvel in little things.
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