Sunday, August 29, 2010


Usually by now the elderberries would be picked clean. I wonder what the birds know that we don't know.
The bush hangs burdensome looking waiting for robins and cedar waxwings. I found a dead cedar waxwing this morning by the window,how sad. But nothing will... could be sadder than what I found in my garden today.
A severely wounded Canada goose,whose wing had all but been severed. Early this morning he was on our deck..wing hanging and bleeding. We tried to go after him,but he hobbled quickly away before we could get him. All I could do was call animal control to report what we had witnessed. I have thought and searched for him all day. He is doomed if they don't get him and take him to an animal rehab place.
Oh dear, the bad side of gardens..the terrible fate that befalls some animals that come to your refuge..your open bar of joy.....not too joyful today I confess. And like a poem I once wrote about grief..how when we grieve we visit every grief we ever had. This made me think of a possum that also found its way to our deck one summer. It was badly wounded by some attack and it was panting. I tried to get someone out to help this poor creature. But no one returned my calls....no one cared. I put out a box and some water. He crawled inside for awhile...then disappeared. I don't know what ever happened to him.
Or the one time a Cuckoo roosted in our pine tree...we were thrilled that he let us watch him. But he never left..he just dropped down to the next branch..until he dropped to the ground dead.
I hate this part of my garden...all the sadness for me.. watching helpless.
After this horrifying morning I was on a mission to find some joy. It took a while, but patience was rewarded. I was sitting in the garden just watching and listening and there at my feet jumped a toad... ugly beautiful little thing. Then some goldfinches flew into the tree with their merry tweeting...and then a hummingbird and a downy woodpecker.....and a huge dragonfly.
thank you Lord for sending me some joy
and please help your injured goose
Posted by Picasa

6 comments:

  1. Oh Sue - you know I'm crying with you. Life is so sad sometimes. We know that's the circle of life, but always so sad with some animals because they do nothing to hurt anything.

    ReplyDelete
  2. And those elderberries! I wonder why???

    ReplyDelete
  3. When you say we grieve starting with one It is so true that you grieve about all the losses, in life. I hope they found the goose and either put it out of its misery if it was beyond helping or can fix it up. Your vines for the elderberries look very weighted down.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The elderberry are loaded, and I wonder too, why they have not been consumed for they surly are ripe and ready for the birds to devour them. Maybe this is the year to make elderberry jam or wine? Hope the goose survives. So sad.
    BlessYourHeartandWeek

    ReplyDelete
  5. Suz I think I was looking so hard to find the post, I just went right over it. I'm sorry you weren't able to help. It is that way sometimes. You did remind me that one time, in my other life, a wood duck came to make a nest in the tree just outside my kitchen window, I could go upstairs and look right into the nest, at the colorful bird. Nature is such a blessing.

    And I see you also have dragonfly blessing. Go to the book Animal Speak by Ted Andrews and you will find the meaning of this blessing, and the Canada Goose, the possum, and the toad. The spiritual & magical powers of creatures great & small. Suz I think you are magically blessed. Thanks for your comment about the hurt hawk.

    And your garden is very beautiful!

    ReplyDelete
  6. There is a part of me that is magical..or at least I seem to attract magical things..or maybe I just believe
    My Artist Way friends have that book
    I shall really look at it this time
    'cause I believe in signs and totems
    A snake changed my life once...forever
    oh...and a Great Horned Owl
    I should write about it...maybe
    thanks for stirring it all up...I love animals
    with all my heart...to me animals and trees are God in disguise...waiting watching seeing and sometimes crying I think

    ReplyDelete

leave me a line of joy