Failing Stewards

God’s handiwork at sunset at Roaring Creek Farm

August is a difficult month at Roaring Creek Farm, this year especially so.
The temperature soars into the triple digits daily. The heat saps your strength.
There is no cooling breeze, and in the stillness, the gnats swarm and buzz around your face. A drenching of insect repellant is only a momentary distraction for them.
Is it possible to be driven over the edge by armies of tiny bugs?
But there is still joy here, even in August.
The setting sun can paint the sky in glorious colors.
Last evening screech owls serenaded a waxing moon that was already high above the horizon with their strange warbling calls.
An occasional firefly flashed by in the growing darkness.
Before sunrise is the time to be up and about.
While not cool, the air is not yet stifling.
Frogs by the lake, barred owls in the woods and birds awakening to a new day provide a heavenly chorus.
During the mornings, butterflies, with the Swallowtails perhaps the most spectacular, add even more beauty to the flowers they momentarily visit before flitting to the next.
God has blessed us with great beauty. We are not being good stewards of this magnificent creation.
Not that long ago, hundreds of fireflies would delight with their now you see me, now you don’t dance that lit up August nights.
Now there are only a few.
God forgive us for what we are doing to this land.
We know better.