Frost Art

Day 65: "Wintry mix, patchy fog, snow." That's what my forecast looks like for the next week, with the possibility of rain mixed with snow for solstice. In any event, Jack Frost has been busy lately, with some areas of the yard not thawing at any point in the day. I bring the hummingbird feeders in at night, and even before first light, the Anna's have emerged from torpor and have begun looking for breakfast. Again and again, I am astounded by those tiny creatures' capacity to withstand temperatures which would throw a human into hypothermia in very short order. When stood up against a hummingbird or mosses and ferns, the human animal seems so very fragile and vulnerable, and certainly not the superior beings we imagine ourselves to be, or at least not in a biological sense. Our perspective is skewed by our ability to use tools, and yet if we look at the situation objectively, it is tool use which is bringing us to the brink of extinction. Perhaps the hummingbirds and ferns will survive us.