In the lake in Miami we used to have a giant snail that laid eggs in giant pink slimy strings. icky messes of pink strings hung from our sea walls. Then along came the Limpkins. It’s funny how the birds "know" where the snails are and come and eat. Soon the pink slimy eggs dried up and no more appeared. Limpkins solved our slimy problem by eating the big snails who laid the eggs. Right now, here in Lake Placid, on our canal, there are 2 limpkins hunting in the yard across the canal from us. One is a regular. He "fishes" during sunrise and sunset hours. He walks along the seawall and then jumps in! he disappears for a moment and comes up with a snail in his mouth. Then, he jumps up on shore, wrangles the snail out of its shell, eats it, drops the shell on the neighbor’s lawn, and dives back in! We too have a pile of empty shells on our dock where he "fishes." He’s always been solitary, but this morning another limpkin came running toward him in another yard, but skidded to a stop up against the neighbor’s fence. Is it a mate? a friend? We don’t know. The two of them are studiously ignoring each other right now. I left Chuck watching them so I could watch daily Mass.
I also had to remove the bird feeder yesterday as a heavy rain got the bottom layer of seed all wet. It’s dry now, and birds are posted at judicious limits from each other on the fence, waiting for me to bring the feeder back out. While we sat watching the canal at sunset two nights ago, a beautiful shiny black bird with shiny blue highlights let us know the feeder was empty by serenading us with a raucous calling as he waited on the fence! Good grief! As I hang the full feeder, I tell those big birds, let the little guys get in here too!!!!
So I am concerned about the little guys! My sister said she is concerned about my anguish; my angst …. I turn on the news to see how "people… my people" are doing. I’m a people too so I want to know what improvements have been made in medicine to conquer the virus. The other day I was quickly overwhelmed by destructive, even pernicious, what I consider mean-spirited talk… I chewed off a thumb nail as I listened to accusing, arguing, name calling talk about political figures by a political figure… I had to turn the TV off without finding any constructive solutions. People are sickening and dying. I’ve shared stories and prayed for people in ICUs on respirators. We hear about families losing loved ones and now children are affected by a virus we all should be arm in arm fighting. Instead, we are slinging threats and vicious rhetoric. Yesterday I said I pray we come out of this isolation time a different people, concerned about the poor and concerned about life. "End abortion. End hate," I wrote. This isn’t political. This is life. Everyone, every human being is in this. Our world is a little like those two limpkins facing each other from different sides of the fence. They are of the same species, I looked them up and discovered "It is the only extant species in the genus Aramus and the family Aramidae. " Now I’m not sure what that means exactly, but I think it means they are the only ones like themselves. So, like us, they need to jump up on that fence and fight this thing together. Or …. one of them jump over that fence and make friends with the other one. There aren’t any others. Time to get outside and exercise. At a socially acceptable distance! God bless us. Angels with us.