The Exact Speed of Life

"Love you brother; but A.I. has flagged me as a Conservationist and now I'm worried that my contacts will be investigated. You may want to unfriend me."

This is an actual text that I sent out; and it occurred to me while sending it, that I am a Baby Boomer;  and those of us who are Boomers have actually survived in a world where social media, indeed the entire world wide web, did not exist.  

Faster than one fifteen cent stamp and a white envelope stuffed, licked and dropped into the corner mailbox, I received his response, "No, I'm willing to be labeled as a Conservationist if that's what it takes to be your friend." 

"Nobody seems to take the time to capture the beauty of dormancy" a stranger commented online. And I thought it to be a completely relatable comment had it been made in the Wildflowers of Vermont online group. Instead, the comment was made in response to a current events news article; and with her comment a curiosity beckoned. 

Where and how do we store the important stuff? 

I don't know about my readers; but I have thousands of pictures on my phone, hundreds dropped into a birthday gift bag in a closet, 17 photo albums, a sideboard's drawers filled and even more in frames on our walls and on C.Ds and S.Ds. I have duplicates of those very same photos on social media sites and pictures that serendipitously appear in my kitchen on an electronic frame.

I took this picture on January 10th of black walnuts in a yard on Pond road. A classic isn't it? A beautifully captured moment when autumn nuts are just waiting there to be collected and stored by squirrels for survival during the long fruitless months of dormancy.  

Hold on, I'm almost certain that I have one of acorns too!

Ahh here it is! Remarkable isn't it? Taken in October, 2024 at Lillis Pasture. I'm so glad that I didn't delete it! 

 

A little known fact, "gray squirrels engage in deceptive caching...they do this to fool other squirrels who might be watching" Any nut that isn't sniffed out and consumed by those bird feeder pirates, has a very real chance of becoming a nut bearing tree. Do you suppose all of those things I misplaced and never found over the years are now...never mind. 

I'm particularly fond of this latest Jan. 18th  photograph I collected. It was taken on the edge of a farm field and right were the woods start on Governor Hunt road. Tucked in under the snow and last summer's leaves, the fern waits out the winter.

 

I think that winter is a good time to see that life doesn't happen at the speed of the internet. The internet  as it turns out, is actually is following life. Slower than real life, it is a trial of collected information, admired, shared and stored. 

 It has taken over 60 years to collect and oddly store my photographs. Wayne inherited someone else's nail, screw, bolt collection when we moved to Vernon and added theirs to his own. Trust me when I say that as the years have passed, he has not hesitated in adding more. The interesting thing is that when asked, he more than likely will be able to tell you for which project the fastener was acquired. Even more impressive, when challenged with a to do list, Wayne retrieves those old fasteners to uses them on his new project. Collecting, possessing and utilizing tangible storage is an incredible skill us Boomers have.

Nature, when given the chance does the same. Below the frozen cover of its collections is maybe less accurately described as dormancy. Maybe it's just life traveling at the speed of life. 

Roots still intertwine and anchor the forest to the floor,

Water creates ice and fish swim beneath it at Lily pond,

The buttonbush swamp already has its leaf buds and its sap is there too.

Seeds are planted with everything they need to be.

And on each day the Earth spins from one day to the next if only we allow it to

at the exact speed of life. ~ Norma Manning