Archive for the ‘Life’ Category
Okay, so…
Nature is beautiful, just the way it is. It seeds itself, grows, recycles itself and moves around. It carves mountains, hosts and feeds the beings that live in and on the earth, and rarely makes judgements. Without us, things are pretty much perfect. Humans, are the only species that destroy the places they live.
Here’s the thing…you all know Lucy, right? Three and a half foot tall, Australopithicus Lucy, 3.2 million years old. Ardi, another female, was 4.4 million years old. But, for the moment, I’m telling you about Lucy.
Lucy was found in Ethiopia in 1974. They only have 40% of her bones. She was about 60 pound, ate leaves, grass, maybe nuts and seeds. That Lucy. The one we all know and love. She couldn’t speak, just made chimp sounds, the ability to speak hadn’t evolved at that point.
Ardi weighted in at 110 pounds, slept in nests in trees, walked with palms on the ground. Palms, not knuckles. Not chimp and not human, but something…else. No one knows what that “something else,” is.
Both lived in trees and on the ground.
There is some debate, but one theory states that Lucy died from falling out of a tree.
It’s nasty that they call these beings “specimens.” But that’s what humans do. They take the life/being from things and turn them into labels and numbers. THINGS to be studied coldly, without real understanding, just facts. But I digress.
Where was I? Oh, right. Our beginnings were mostly Chimpish in origin, so our smugness is unwarranted, if you ask me.
Ardi, who was 1.2 million years older than Lucy, weighed almost twice as much and the males were 50% bigger than the females. Lucy’s males were the same size she was. Ardi had flat feet, so wouldn’t have been able to run for a long period of time, or even walk very far.
They also found a three year old female, which has nothing to do with anything, I’m just letting you know.
The point is (finally), that until we arrived on the scene, everyone lived in balance with their environment. That’s really important. EVERYONE LIVED IN HARMONY WITH THE EARTH. What choice did they have?
I’m not saying that if Lucy, or even Ardie, knew how to make cement, they wouldn’t have designed a PARKING LOT, or started covering the living earth with concrete, but it seems unlikely. The more evolved these something in-betweener’s became, the more they began showing traits that they passed along to US. Those who could make more advanced sounds, killed those who couldn’t do more than grunt and do their chimp impersonation. Being able to speak gave the speaking group dominance. They took the women and killed the men. Nothing has changed. Not that I can see.
Okay, our tree houses are build better and have electricity, but we still like sleeping in the trees. We walk upright, since we have longer legs than they did, but people have back problems. We evolved sharper teeth to tear flesh, rather than continue eating leaves, we grew taller, and well, you know what we look like.
Once we started killing, we never stopped. Once we started destroying things, we never stopped. There was so much killing that at one point, our ancient ancestors almost became extinct. There were like 30 of them on the entire planet. Talk about a rebound.
We wouldn’t be here if not for the end of the dinosaurs. At least we didn’t kill them ourselves. Well that and the change in the oxygen levels. Everything was bigger then. a LOT BIGGER.
You would think that thirty non chimp, non humans on an entire planet, might work together or, at the very least, leave each other alone, but NO. They killed each other. Right out of the ooze…death crawled onto shore and turned into us.
It would make a good sci-fi movie it it wasn’t so pathetic. I mean these beings didn’t have fire, speech, or the wheel, but they knew how to kill each other. And everything we have learned SINCE THEN, has only taught us how to KILL more efficiently, and in greater numbers. It’s just who we are. No getting around it. No excuses, not pretending we’re something we’re not. We are just killers. Oh, and we build things and take vacations and sing and things like that on the side. But mainly, we kill things.
Just stuff I was thinking about today.
Photo: Casey Horner
Unsplash
Another one of the pink mini’s…and an explanation…
Sorry, if I’m all over the place, but having the garden redone, from SCRATCH, is not only time consuming but…I don’t know, distracting. It’s huge, by the way. The guy doing all the work is a friend of my son-in-laws and he’s such a hard worker. He can only work when he can work, because he has a job, so I get him 4 hours a day, for two or three days a week…depending. It’s such labor intensive work. He’s been attacked by bees, that were living underground, ants, Dog weed, he’s on medication for that, and he’s had to deal with poison Ivy and Oak.
He never stops smiling, even after I had him lay out the whole path with HEAVY flagstone, and then changed my mind and had him take it all away. Still smiling. My daughter said his whole family is like that (they all went to school together), happy and easy going. He has cleared the whole area, this is the area inside my fence. He still has the front and back yard to do, but I don’t see how he can do it all this year. He planted the things I bought and it’s looking good. I know how I want the path, now. And grass seed is going down next week.
Emily is wondering what’s going on. She sits on a piece of flagstone and looks at the dirt. All her hunting, and hiding, spots are gone.
Oh, and I have a least a million pounds of big rocks to move around as well. I don’t know how he does it, but he just smiles, tells me not to worry about it and then does what I ask. How lucky am I?
Also, my bronchitis has made its annual return. I’ve been on a couple of antibiotics for two weeks, and have a week to go. Sometimes I feel as if I’m dragging my self around. My voice is almost gone, which probably makes a lot of people happy, but I think I’ve turned the corner. I have been getting up at 5:30 and going to bed at midnight and working a lot, so zzzzz.
Anyway, if I show up at odd times, it because that’s when I have time to post.
I think I made a couple of mistakes in planting, by the way. I put things too close together because I don’t like empty space and my guy said, “Not to worry, when they get too big, I’ll split them and move them around. He’s the greatest thing since…French bread.
My cousin is coming over tomorrow. She’s the garden expert in the family. Saying that, when there are like a handful of people in our family, might not sound like much but she does carrots, eggplant and that kind of stuff, as well as flowers. She’ll probably shake her head and tell me everything I did wrong. Good thing I never listen to anyone. Sigh. She names every flower and shrub and I just nod, when we’re at the Botanic Garden. I don’t care, but she loves all that stuff.
I know absolutely NOTHING at all about plants. I did find out that pretty much every plant, with the exception of one or two, are TOXIC to cats. But then I realized that all the plants that have BEEN IN MY GARDEN, were toxic.
Seriously, it’s overwhelming. I do not like yard work, even a little. I love gardens, as long as I don’t have to do anything. So, he’s going to mow the lawn and take care of the flowers and shrubs from now on. I can’t tell you how happy that makes me. I never liked gardening. I do like like to plant things in pots, just not things in the ground. I never know what I’m doing, and don’t care to learn. My house is full of plants and that’s enough for me. Besides, after getting poison ivy, that cured me forever. As I said, I have no idea which plants are friendly and which are not. Although the weeds and I kind of became friends after awhile. I think we had a lot in common. I’m a fan of wild flowers and wild things, unless they try to eat my house. Been there…done that.
So, if my posts are spotty now and then, that’s why. Thank you for understanding.
Wagons…poem
I think wagons
are unappreciated
they are good for so many things
they can carry
flowers
puppies
toys
kids
anything really
wagons are cool
and they make life
easier
and a lot more
fun
Good advice from a cat…
Elizabeth Manning Mason
never went anywhere
without her umbrella
somehow
it always rained
when she was around
one day
her cat told her
that it only rained
because she opened her umbrella
and no one should open
her umbrella
until the rain started to fall
Elizabeth Manning Mason
thought that made sense
so closed her umbrella
and put it into the closet
by the backdoor
once she did that
the sun came out
and her life improved
considerably
her cat smiled and said
never invite rain into your life
by expecting it
to show up
ask the sun over for tea
instead
Photo: Pixabay
Living…
every living thing
lives in the moment
it’s only humans
who don’t know that
they’re too busy
living in the past
and the future
to realize
the only moment
they have
is
NOW
Picture: Pixabay
Ferris Wheel…a kind of poem
life’s a lot like a
Ferris Wheel
sometimes
you’re stuck on the top
sometimes
on the bottom
sometimes
you spin too fast
sometimes
too slow
sometimes
it’s exciting
sometimes
you throw up
you just never know
what you’re going to get
once you strap yourself in
Photo: Bian Breeden
Unsplash
Written
on September 7, 2021