Making Room

Making Room

I live about 60 seconds by car from main street in our suburban town of 17,000, about 15 minutes from Providence and 30 minutes from Newport. We live on six acres which include a two-acre pond which is fed by a small river and exits over a waterfall to transit ponds and bays and eventually find the Atlantic, and which my wife absolutely forbids me to call a “lake.”

Two days ago, Buddy Beagle found a foot-long snake which apparently lives in the backyard just outside the kitchen door. Today, I came upon our neighbor who shares our common driveway gate, who found herself stymied because a large snapping turtle was parked in the middle of the access. Three of us maneuvered it out of the way by inverting a garbage can over it, while Koufax and Buddy (who had opened the truck window yet again) barked at it ferociously.

Once we negotiated that obstacle I was looking for the heron on the pond when the eagle flapped by twenty yards in front of the windshield. Wild Kingdom has nothing on us.

I live in delight and amazement at the varied animals that have “moved back in.” We have deer that come over the bridge and eat some of my wife’s plants, and wild turkeys that are very nonchalant since they are excellent flyers. Then there are the foxes, river otters, egrets, and so on.

I’m gladly making room for these animals because they enrich our lives. And they teach me how diverse organisms can adapt and thrive. They remind me that I should be doing the same—facing life with the intent of not merely surviving, but adjusting to the volatility and uncertainties of life by seeking to control my own fate.

It’s a good life when you can learn just from walking out your door. Of course, I’m increasingly careful about what I might step on.

© Alan Weiss 2010. All rights reserved.