I have my plan. I have my philosophy. And that steers this ship we're on. But life guides, too. Take Friday, for example. I wrote this on Saturday (the old fashioned way, with pencil and paper), but have only gotten around to document it today. {and only around to posting it TODAY, over 1 year late!!}
A few years ago~~oh wait, make that about 5 years ago, he's NINE now! When did that happen?? Oh yeah, just a few weeks ago. OK, over half his life ago, my sweet boy (don't tell him I said that, either....he's getting big) shook at the thought of seeing a cute little bunny felled at the hands of a hawk. One morning in spring (still 5 years ago), he had looked out his bedroom window down at the patio, called me and trembled as he said, "Mama, is that a hawk feather?". He was really saying, "Mama, is that a dead bunny a few feet above that hawk feather?". I responded, "Oh, yes, now let's go play before breakfast". Well, daddy was around that day and, though unwilling to arise to remove the little bunny, allowed me to divert Austin's attention to him while I donned some vinyl gloves, grabbed a plastic bag and removed the little critter before my little critter could sneak back to the window in a mixture of dread and curiosity. Knowing my son well, I knew that scene would play out in his mind over and over again. We talked a bit about it later and I shared the feather with him, but he did not want to talk very much about it. And I did not want it to play out in his head over and over, so I took his cue and left the issue alone.
Fast forward back to yesterday....he spotted a hawk on our neighbor's deck patiently waiting for his lunch to emerge from the underneath the deck where the rabbits live and come out to either eat my garden or torment my dogs. We had seen the hawk a few minutes earlier sail past the upstairs bedroom window, swooping slowly between our houses, majestically slow and searching. If only the screen wasn't there, we could have touched it. Seeing it on the neighbor's deck, Austin went out and very stealthily stalked the creature to capture a better look at it, inadvertently frightening it to the top of the neighbor's house, far enough for it to get away from the curious boy, but close enough to continue to spy it's prey.
A short time later, Tom (dog #1) had alerted Austin to the fact that something was tormenting him in the back yard. Austin called me over and lo and behold! The hawk was eating his lunch a few feet off our neighbor's deck. My boy grabbed his binoculars (thanks for the birthday gift Auntie Cindy!) and headed out the front to again stealthily sneak up on the hawk for a better look. I followed with the camera (and to monitor this situation) and watched as he crawled up on his belly, Steve Irwin style, to spy a closer look. He was checking it out with the binoculars. This is the last picture I got and my battery died. Ugh! I never did get the picture of Austin up close. See the look on the hawk's face? He's looking right at Austin. And he got a mere few feet away from the raptor and his lunchtime snack. The hawk tried to fly away with his tasty morsel and dropped it a few feet away. A while later, I was at the kitchen sink and saw a HUGE black raptor sitting on the fence checking out the snack that was left there. I called Austin, who was thrilled at the wild kingdom playing out in the back yard. As I frantically attempted to start charging the crazy camera batter (why I hadn't done it right when I came in is a mystery) in hopes that a few minutes of charge would let me snap some pictures. Austin retrieved his bird book, the Sibley Bird Guide, and began looking at the raptors to ID this creature. In the meantime, something may have frightened the creature and he abandoned his bunny watch and could be seen circling high up in the sky. So the bunny remains stayed there until it was removed from the premises by the humans.So the hawk story ended. We have had a bit of fun watching these beautiful birds and really enjoy seeing SOAR Illinois and their birds. I have a picture trapped on my broken external hard drive of Austin at 3 years old looking face to face at Deshka, the bald eagle with SOAR at the Green Earth Institute Festival they hold every year in the spring. I hope I can recover it someday. I no longer see SOAR at the Green Earth festival, but we still see them at the PowWow at Naper Settlement every year. And Deshka is still around.
Austin was later distracted by our 5 year old neighbor, whom he feels very protective of, and I let him play a while before lunch ~ backyard fun and shooting hoops. After lunch, we went over our new daily chalkboard poem, which we just started doing since we recently made our own chalkboards. After this, we had a 13 year homeschool friend come over to spend some quality time with Austin while I got a few things done. This was a new occurrence for us. So Austin got some quality "big brother" time in.
When that was over and we reviewed our goals, ran to the store for last minute ingredients for our Friday lenten meal, finished dinner, and Austin heard our neighbor's 14 year old dog yelping in the cold rain. I left a message there, finished the load of laundry and then headed over there with Austin who wanted find out what was wrong. The sweet golden retriever had had a stroke prior to this and was not as nimble as she used to be. She was cold and wet. No one was home. Austin comforted her and wanted to stay with her until someone got home. He's got a big heart. Those are the lessons that are priceless. He got some towels and was drying her off as the mistress of the house returned. She said that her older son must have forgotten to let her in before he left. We were relieved that nothing bad had happened to anyone and that was why she was still outside ~ mere forgetfulness, not the forgetfulness that comes with emergencies. They are such a caring family, they would never purposely leave their animal outside.
So all in all, what looked like an unaccomplished day to some, was a highly successful day here.
A day filled with nature......and a nature detective.....
A day of "big brotherly" compassion to a younger boy......
A day of being a "little brother" and bonding with a fine young man.....
A day of follow-up and researching.....
A day of compassion and wonder for all of God's creatures.....
A day of caring for a sick animal......
A day that started with reverence and respect.....and a day that ended with reverence and respect.
What an educational day!
We lived. We loved. We laughed. We cared. We made a difference. We learned.
Life was our teacher.
Love was the lesson.
No comments:
Post a Comment