A PRETTY HABITAT FOR A LITTLE SPIDERMonday, 7:00 AM. 58 degrees, wind N, calm. The sky is overcast and it is raining lightly. The barometer predicts the same. Two deer crossed the road on 11th and Wilson this morning, and a bear left a large calling card on the road in front of the house.
The bouquet in the French flower container is made up of sweet Cicely (white), milfoil (yellow) and Anthony Waterer Spirea (pink). It is colorful and fragrant. There is a bulbous, long-legged little spider in there somewhere. I saw him and he saw me and scampered down out of sight. He (or she) is either a chameleon or genetically and specifically adapted to the sweet Cicely, as he is almost undetectable amongst it. That’s a pretty narrow habitat. What if we were adapted only to a corn field, or a wheat field? We would have to be very careful what happened to our habitat. However, we have evolved to be generalists and very adaptable to many habitats, some good and some not so good. As my mother used to say, “You can get used to hanging, if you hang long enough.” Or, as the blind poet Milton had the Devil say in Paradise Lost, “The mind is its own place, and can make a heaven out of hell, or a hell out of heaven.” Our supreme adaptability has allowed us to destroy our habitats over and over again, while creating and adapting to new ones. Is this a blessing, or a fatal curse? I’ll let you ponder and decide.
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