ve! 
Loveubecause … a True Tale of Survival
Guess I am fondly thinking about the summer ahead - thought I would share this with you …
Loveubecause … a True Tale of Survival
Survival – it is not always reserved for the biggest, the strongest, the boldest or most testosterone engorged. Just ask a dinosaur – oops, I almost forgot they disappeared from the earth a few million years back. The dragonfly, celebrated in native Indian and Japanese mythology, looked down upon and unjustifiably feared in some others, well that’s another matter!
No over abundance of testosterone here - I am secure in my manliness, so at the risk of the Arnold Schwarzenegger’s of the world dubbing me a “girlie man”, I shall admit I shed a tear or two the day we packed up and migrated from a bedroom community just north of the big smoke of Hog Town to the ethereal wilds of the countryside, north east of Peterborough.
Though filled with anticipation of new experiences and a more sedate lifestyle, leaving behind fifteen years of memories, the family home of once, newly minted children, many solid, long developed friendships and a wonderfully inclusive sense of community wasn’t emotionally easy.
Happily, any doubts were soon put to rest by the sheer beauty of our new found environment – a midnight blue sky, free from light pollution, bejeweled with a milky way of stars twinkling like diamonds was enough to leave me awestruck with wonder. We were greeted with crisp, fresh winter mornings. Evergreen trees, bedecked and weighted in newly fallen snow were transformed into a forest of mystic, bearded wizards with pointed hats, clad in virginal, sparkling white. Spring came and with it species of miniature, “dandilionesque”, yellow forest flowers I had never encountered before. Thousands of trilliums blanketing the forest floor with a multitude of subtle hues, ranging from startling, bright white to a dark, purpley crimson, were nothing short of stunning. A haphazard garden of early summer, wild, field daisies, all turning their bright yellow centered faces towards my back windows, apparently in expectation of some kind of performance, took my breath away.
Though I anticipated hordes of black flies and mosquitoes to dampen my enthusiasm in summer, few arrived, or made their miserable presence known. Instead, dense swarms of dragonflies and damselflies filled the air, gobbling up a multitude of unwanted pests. With the talent to hover like a Harrier jet, fly backwards and forwards, these keen-eyed insects have a voracious appetite and often each eat upwards of 600 mosquitoes a day. Dating back over 300 million years, 100 million before the dinosaurs, these marvels of nature are the first documented flying insects found in fossil form. Some giant species once had wingspans of 70 cm!
Named for their strong jaws and “teeth” (no, they don’t sting) used to gobble up their prey, dragonflies and their cousins, the damselfly, belong to the order of insects called “Odonata – a word from the Greek, “odon“ meaning tooth. And so it was that our small 17 acres of wooded, natural wonder was christened Odonata Woods, by my wife, “A”.
Yearly harbingers of lazy, warm summer days, these insects, barely modified since ancient times, could probably teach mankind a thing or two about longevity, survival and nature based technology. They are unavoidable reminders of nature’s genius, with immature nymphs possessing gill-like organs that allow them to live for months and sometimes years under water. Thousands of mature adults darken the sky during the mating season, often emerging in coordinated waves on the same day. They aggressively compete for mates, dive bombing through the air like Spitfires re-enacting the Battle of Britain.
Whether we are waiting for our winter tree wizards to conjure up spring, trilliums to celebrate its coming, or pungent, earthy smelling, dried, fall leaves to herald their passing, our multi-coloured, red, blue, green, black and orange Odonata friends are never far from our minds.
But getting back to survival - remember the big “blackout” a few years back? When power went out on the Eastern Seaboard and just about the entire north eastern half of North America a few summers back, we were quickly reminded how fragile we are. With no electricity, the ability to travel, communicate, pump fresh water and preserve food all quickly eroded. I thought about the elderly, cooped up in apartments in the city, baking like gingerbread men in the heat. I quickly made a calculation of how long the supplies we had on hand might last and where I might get more when they ran out. I am sure the “lawn obsessed” in the suburbs were fixated on the potential of their lush, green, vegetative carpets wilting to more summer appropriate, dormant, natural, brown mats. I was more concerned for my horses and my farm neighbour’s animals and related businesses. The potential for riots, looting and other disturbance in the big cities was a definite concern and no remote possibility. Our dragonflies? It was one time I knew we didn’t have to give them a second thought! A true tale of survivors indeed!
“A” the “O” in L
VE!
Share the LVE! Post or e-mail this page!
Tags: blog, country, dragonflies, dragonfly, dreams, family, hopes, insects, life, living, love, odonata, story, survival, survivors, wishes
Leave a Reply