Abundance

In the last two days we have picked up more than 80 gallons of rotten, stinky, mushy walnuts from our backyard. This is the one month of the year that I begin to despise that tree and its abundance. Its abundance of walnuts attracts an abundance of squirrels who fall victim to an abundance of violence - Oliver has gotten three in the last two weeks. It's getting tiresome. Where I used to panic at the thought of picking up the lifeless squirrel body and Ali used to cry and feel sad, we now matter-of-factly look to see if he's eaten the head, shovel the headless body into a bag and put it in a dumpster somewhere.

The tree's saving grace is that, for the last two weeks, there were so many walnuts in the backyard that the dogs looked like they were attempting to run on a green field full of ball bearings. Kind of comical in it's own way. . .but apparently it didn't slow Oliver down quite enough.

He just learned to adapt. And, apparently the squirrels didn't.

As my dad always said when my sister and I cried watching Wild Kingdom as the lion ate the gazelle, "Girls, you will just have to learn that nature isn't always cute and cuddly."

Can I get an amen on that one?