I've always had a tender heart toward critters. I cried when cats caught birds, conscientiously avoided touching butterfly wings, and spent hours petting and talking to our various pets. I conducted funerals for dead mice, and snuggled with a beloved cat to which I was violently allergic. I was so angry about my cousins throwing a stray dog off the dock into the lake (not realizing that the dog probably thought it was great fun) that I caught him at the shore, wrapped him in my coat, and marched the entire length of the campground in high dudgeon so I could warm him up inside. I fantasized at length about freeing the neighbor man's prized hunting dog, Chrissie, who was so valuable she had to be kept in a chain-link dog run. She was well fed, but she was not loved, and I spent a great deal of my time sitting on the concrete edge of the dog run with one arm through the gap in the fencing, petting her and making sure somebody was glad to see her every day. I even went through a brief phase of walking carefully along outdoor paths for fear of stepping on ants.
This will hopefully give some background to why I spent half an hour outside today in pursuit of Item #63 (spend at least 15 minutes outside daily for 100 consecutive days), walking up and down the street with my children, looking for worms.
I had taken pity on my daughter and picked her up from school instead of making her walk four blocks in the rain carrying a backpack and a cello, and on the way home we stopped at the mailbox. Since our home is on a hill, the street has a very slight arch so that the rain runs down the sides. During a good downpour, these temporary streams are 2-3 inches deep and over a foot wide, and even on a merely wet day like today, there is more than enough water to drown a critter who thinks grasshoppers are tall.
I stepped over the rivulet to get to the mailbox, and noticed a fat, pink, wriggling worm caught on a leaf and buffeted by the current. Naturally I plucked it out of the water and tossed it into the more hospitable dirt - it would have been horrible to leave it there. As I walked back to the car, I saw another worm, and of course it had to be rescued as well. And another ... I gave him a new home, climbed back into the warm car, and informed the kids: "Let's park the car and rescue worms!"
I am not sure whether it speaks more to my children's good natures, or to my penchant for occasional nuttiness, but they cheerfully agreed. (Buddy opted to use gardening gloves, since he didn't want to actually TOUCH the icky worms.) We left the car at the house, pulled up our hoods to keep out the light drizzle, and set out on our mission of mercy. We quickly learned to identify which tiny flood victims were beyond our aid, and Buddy helped by announcing, "THIS ONE'S DEAD" every ten feet or so. Even with the many, many worms which had fallen victim to rain, cars, and booted feet, we still saved at least 30 from the watery depths and found them new homes in the dirt.
It's silly, and perhaps more than a little weird. But I can't help but feel like I did something good today.
Once a man was walking along a beach. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day. Off in the distance he could see a person going back and forth between the surf's edge and and the beach. Back and forth this person went. As the man approached he could see that there were hundreds of starfish stranded on the sand as the result of the natural action of the tide.
ReplyDeleteThe man was stuck by the the apparent futility of the task. There were far too many starfish. Many of them were sure to perish. As he approached the person continued the task of picking up starfish one by one and throwing them into the surf.
As he came up to the person he said, "You must be crazy. There are thousands of miles of beach covered with starfish. You can't possibly make a difference." The person looked at the man. He then stooped down and pick up one more starfish and threw it back into the ocean. He turned back to the man and said, "It sure made a difference to that one!"
I think there are hungry birds walking around wondering, where are all the water-logged worms?
ReplyDeleteSorry to say that the worms left the safety of the dirt because thier home (the dirt) was saturated. They won't go back into the earth, and they'll drown anyway (mostly). But I've done the same thing several times in my life, which means you're certainly not the only crazy worm rescuer on the planet. :-)
ReplyDeleteOh, I know ... growing up in the Pacific Northwest, I know the worms aren't out and about just because they want a breath of fresh air. :( But this way they have at least a TINY chance to live happy little worm lives instead of drowning in the gutter, I guess. Sigh.
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