Take Time to Spread Your Wings!
The 2009 Slip and Fall Practice Supplement is finished and ready for shipment. Inspections in Sacramento, Denver, Tucson, Reno, San Diego and Los Angeles are finished. Reports, declarations and motions are up to date. The calendar is clear for a couple of weeks and I am outta here! The Sierras are calling. Kay and I, Cody and Sweet Annie are off to the mountains.
We were in the Eastern Sierra for the Memorial Day weekend. While yard work and rose care took some of our time, we were able to go up to the high mountain lakes a couple of times. Now comes the tale: ???? ?????
We headed west up Highway 168 to check the conditions in South Lake and Lake Sabrina. Bishop Creek was cascading down the canyons fed by the spring runoff from the snow melt. The falls from the North Lake outlet was spectacular, but South Lake was only about 30% full. It was about noon time when we entered the parking lot to Lake Sabrina. The lake was about 70% full; the level is reported to be rising about one foot each day. Since we were about 18 miles west of Bishop, high in the mountains, we wondered where we could find lunch or at least something to snack on besides the engergy bars in my backpack.
There is a small bait and tackle shop at the lake that we always had ignored before, but this time the lure of snack food drew us in. To our surprise and delight there was a great small restaurant inside with a terrific view of the lake and snow covered mountains. A deck with tables ran along the lake side of the building.
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From the deck, the lake and mountains were neatly framed by a lone tree on the end of a small peninsula; I grabbed by camera and stepped out on the deck to compose the shot. As I moved towards a small stairway, one of the guests warned me to watch my step; at the base of the stairs was a large moth just out of its chrysalis. The newly morphed moth is shown above.
I thought the difference between the moth’s drab color and the wood deck would make an interesting shot. After burning off a few frames, lunch beckoned. About half-way through my sandwich, one of the guests came in, all excited, and wanted me to come out and see what happened to the moth. In order to dry its wings, the moth spread them out. The result is shown below.
The difference of a hour permitted this ceanothus silk moth to go from drab to beautiful. I am often a victim of my own mismanagement of time. We hurry along trying to perform tasks and duties that demand our time and attention often unaware of the magic and beauty of nature. We need to take the time to spread our wings; we may not make the transition from drab to beautiful, but we can see and appreciate the bounty and beauty that God has placed before us.
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