Life finds a way.

[Chardok]

Neat commentary on life....


Last year, there were many ducks in the pond behind our work. Complete with ducklings. Cute little buggers, those. Mostly Mallards with a few of those brown ones. Anyway, people would feed them, they would come up onto the deck to rest in the shade from the heat. We liked them, they were kind of our mascots. Then, one day last year, a Gator came. Ate or ran off ALL of the ducks. Since then, there have been just the occaisional duck or two, maybe a stork of some kind. never for more than a day.

Finally the alligator left for more fruitful hunting grounds, as there was nothing left to eat! That was several months ago.

Last week, I noticed a solitary blue heron in the pond out back. Heading out to smoke each day, I took note of the fact that the heron wouldn't leave. Just cruised around the pond, head held high, as if, by it's pure snoobery it would keep other birds away. Today I went outside and saw the heron, skittering around the pond as usual (I was actually quite enjoying watching it these past few days doing it's thing. sometimes it would spread it's wings and flappy flappy a bit to dry out I suppose, it never would fly, just dive into the water reappearing a few minutes later, after the odd fish, I suppose.)

Only today something was different. There was a small duck in the water with the heron! This seemed odd to me beause every time I've seen a heron, they will chase off any ducks, and the ducks give them a wide berth, but this small duck was swimming right alongside it like they were buddies! (How Odd! Thought I.) so I walked closer to the shore of the pond to get a closer look at the two new friends.

The larger heron immediate turned it's attention towards me, She seemed to almost be eyeing me suspiciously. (fuck you, thought I.) then I saw the duck DIVE UNDER THE WATER! never have I seen a duck do that! (At least not for more than a second or two, to cool off) when the duck popped up, I noticed it had a long, slender neck and a sharp Beak. It wasn't a duck at all! It was a baby heron! (NEAT! thought I.)apparently the solitary heron has sought refuge from the overcrowded ponds in our business park (there are no less than 5) and nested in our little nook. After all this time of being a barren, lifeless retention pond thingy, life was renewed (Not counting algae and minnows and turtles...I happen to like birds) It was like watching Discovery in real life.

I just thought this small thing was kind of a nice commentary on how despite long odds, Life does always seem to find a way.

Food for thought.

[Darth Wong]

Not to be a downer, but while life always finds a way, death always catches up.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Coming to grips with our own mortality is bad enough, but the planet's ecosystem has gone through some bad shit over the past, ooh, few hundred million years. Even if we had a super nuclear holocaust on the planet, the organisms living beneath the waves would be happy as clams.

Until they die, damn Death.