Talking to the Animals

Lately, I have been talking to the animals. They haven’t been talking back, but I’ve been talking to them.

You take my old friends the moles/voles. These old antagonists have specialized in making life miserable for me for several years. At first, I declared war on them and spent untold amounts of money trying to get them out of my yard. In spite of this, I was none the better but grew steadily worse. I even went to the Mississippi State website to consult with the experts. Although the state puts a lot of money into supporting these guys at State for the purpose of helping people like me, the best they could do was advise me to relax and learn to live with these little critters. They even suggested, rather lamely, that the moles/voles could benefit my yard by aerating it.

So, this year I have tried to peacefully co-exist with the moles/voles. But it’s not easy. We have a big lot with a spacious fenced back yard. They would be welcome to work in the back yard behind the fence, but they refuse to do so. They are exhibitionists. They like to work out front, next to the road. And not just anywhere out front. They get on the corner where they can be seen from three different directions.

The other day when the molehills seemed to be mountains, I tried reasoning with them. I said, “Have you considered the yard of my neighbor, Bob Taylor? Bob Taylor has a yard, but he does not seem to suffer like other men. You never bother him. Why not? You could go over there, dig your little tunnels, throw up mountains of dirt, and Bob Taylor would never notice. He hasn’t been in his yard in two months. And don’t worry about his cats. They spend all of their time in my yard, and you know that they never bother you over here.” So far, the only response of the moles/voles is to throw up bigger molehills.

And then there are the brown thrashers. I carefully put pine straw around the base of all my shrubs. That’s when I learned why they call the birds brown “thrashers.” They thrash. They love to get in the middle of the straw and sweep it aside with their beaks in search of food. I don’t know why they think they will find any. They just looked under it yesterday. They take the straw that I have carefully arranged and thrash it onto the grass in total disarray. I put it back with a pitchfork, and they thrash it again the next day. We have almost worn out that straw moving it back and forth.

I suppose life always has its challenges and irritants. Reinhold Niebuhr was one of the world’s great scholars and ethicists. Interestingly, he is best known for a little prayer that he prayed. It is called the “Serenity Prayer.” He prayed: “God, grant me the serenity/ To accept the things I cannot change;/ Courage to change the things I can;/ And wisdom to know the difference.”

It’s a good prayer. I’ve been praying it a good bit in the yard this year. Maybe I ought to pray it in all the areas of my life.