Spiderwebs On My Face: Another Midwest Musing

 

Almost every day, sometimes twice a day, Nancy and I climb into our utility cart and go for a ride on the trails around and through our woods and prairie. We used to go for walks, but since Nancy's stroke last March that's just not possible anymore. Yet, she enjoys and wants to experience the trees, the tall grasses, the wildflowers, the glimpses of wild turkeys, deer, coyotes, beaver, groundhogs, coyotes, and more. 

So I help her up into the cart and off we go at a pace similar to that we used to walk. Up and down paths wide and narrow, bumpy and smooth. Always watching for a new seasonal wildflower, a hawk, a scurrying skunk.

One thing we always forget to watch for -- and indeed is hard to watch for -- are spiderwebs.

I hate spiders. Have since I was little kid. It's must be a genetic hate -- Grandma Bill hated them, too. With a passionate hate. One time she called my grandad to come get rid of one in their bedroom. He'd been at the kitchen table cleaning his pump action 12 gauge shotgun and arrived in their room carrying it. "Lew, get rid of that spider!" grandma demanded. "How?" "You have a gun," she shouted. "Use it if you must." And then stormed out the room. 

Of course, he didn't. Use the gun that is. But it's always made a good family story.

But back to spiderwebs and utility cart rides. 

At least once on every ride, we run, usually face first (our cart is pretty simple -- no windshield) into a spider web. Nancy is generally pretty calm and just wipes it away. I am frantic, certain that the spider, probably a black widow or brown recluse, has scampered off the web and is at that very moment working its way down the collar of my shirt and under my t-shirt looking for a place to bite me. Probably my fat belly.

After the brushing and me smacking areas on my shirt where I think the poisonous pest might have taken up residence, I step on the accelerator and we inch off down the trail. And run into another web.

Sigh.

These head on collisions with spiderwebs have left me pondering though the persistence of these creatures. I can imagine, sort of, making a web that is goes across a six foot wide windy path in the woods, but bridging one that is twelve to fifteen feet wide? How do they do that? 

Now I don't really care what the answer is -- learning how they do that is not that important to me. What is important is that they do it at all and the work that goes into it. And the ancillary fact that the same place I drive through today and run into a spiderweb may find another there tomorrow. Ambitious little arachnids -- God's creations doing what they were created to do. In the face of politics, division, war, pandemic. Oh wait, could that stuff only matter to us people who seem too often to do that which is other than what we were created to do.

In the midst of my musings, I picked up a book of Jane Tyson Clement's poems. And, in the mysterious ways the Divine teaches me, came across her poem "The Spider"

I watch the spider fling

its most improbable thread ―
from aspen limb to birch
and back again.

 

So do we fling our faith

from star to star
and under God’s eternal, watching care
the perfect orb
will come.

Now I'm still no big fan of spiders. But I'm happy for the lesson they are teaching me -- to be true to my nature as one of God's beloved creatures. 

To do the work I'm called to do. 

To trust in the Lord. 

To know it will be enough. 

30 Days of Touch -- Woods and Mushrooms = Rest

Today has been a writing day. Deadlines have a wonderful way of focusing my attention. But unlike some writers I cannot write all day, hour after hour, without breaks of sorts. This morning I took a long one -- a walk in the woods.

It is a gloomy day, but I donned my boots, Carhart jacket, John Deere cap, grabbed my camera and went to see what the weather had wrought over the past few weeks while I've been mostly indoors. I tried to talk the dog into going with me, but Princess is even older than I am (at least in dog years) and figured there were no coyotes the direction I was heading, so declined. Ebony, the last surviving kitteh went with me part way, but then spotted a blue bird on a low branch -- and the stalking was on.

I walked on alone, feel the moist ground give beneath my old boots. I checked where there were newly fallen tree limbs that would need clearing come a drier day. I saw how much more bush honeysuckle needed pulling out, sawing down, or --*gasp* -- poisoned. That stuff is nasty. Much that I had cut last spring and fall, had come back. In force!

I also saw happily that in spite of some heavy rain, the creek bank had not eroded much. And I uncovered some of the tree saplings that had been engulfed in weeds and grass over the summer.

And, though the light was not great, I got some decent shots. Fallen logs covered with moss. Winter mushrooms. And then I heard shots. Close. To close. Very rapid. Large caliber. Large enough to put a fair sized hole in a guy my size, whose dressed in blue jeans and brown jacket and might be mistaken by some doofus as a deer or other critter worth shooting at -- legally or illegally, trespassing or not.

One would think that having 50 acres of land around you would guarantee a far amount of privacy and safety, but it is amazing how small an acre is when someone is firing a lot of ammunition very quickly and you can't tell what direction they are from you or what direction they are aiming.

So I decided to hotfoot it back up to the house. Indignantly, I returned -- my walk cut short.

Still, the walk and time away from words helped settle my mind and soul and get me ready to come back to words. Which I did with a renewed vigor -- and hopefully some decent writing.

I thought about that break as I thought about worship tomorrow. I thought about skipping it since I am in this writing mode. I have to go to Sunday school -- I'm teaching!! But, worship... hmmm, maybe I'll pass. After the walk, I thought, "No." I need to go. It will be the break I need to refresh and replenish my soul. If I am a writing a book that has a lot of God-talk in it, how in Heaven's name could I even consider not going and meeting with the One whom I'm writing about?

I'm slow sometimes. But eventually, God willing, I catch on. So tomorrow morning, I will arise and go to Jesus/ He will embrace me in his arms/ In the arms of my dear Savior/ O there are ten thousand charms.

And rest. Refreshment. Rejuvenation. And so much more.

-- Brent

Down on the Farm -- A Bit about our Place

I handed Nancy the Sunday paper this morning and she opened it to the "Homes" section as she always does -- and there we were. Ploughshares was this week's featured home. We had been interviewed (and photographed) a while back for a feature in our county magazine and the article made it's way to the "big city" paper as this Sunday's feature as part of their eco/Earth Day emphasis. I thought I'd link to it because folks often ask about our place (after reading about it my books or on my blog) and John Hughey (the reporter) did a nice job presenting it. And the pictures are great. I told Nancy, when I saw it, that the place looked so good I thought I'd like to move there. ;-)

At any rate, if you're interested in eco-friendly homes, wildlife restoration, and such, you might find this article to your liking.

And here's just a bit more information about our efforts. We started erecting the home on April 1, 2004. We planted the first part of the prairie (9 acres) in spring 2006, along with 4 acres of trees (all native Indiana hardwoods, nut trees, and fruit trees). We'll plant another 17 acres of prairie and native Indiana hardwoods next spring. We have all sorts of wildlife now -- rabbits, deer, raccoons (who sit on the back deck and eat our cats' food --becoming the masked bandits they look like), coyotes, wood ducks, heron, and nesting bald eagles.

Who'd a thunk a city boy like me would have ever ended up here? Or that praire grass and trees and tractors and chain saws would be such a part of my life. I guess the only one is God -- who works in mysterious ways indeed!

Sunday blessings!

-- Brent