Reflections on the 13th Wedding anniversary.

(I have several posts I have composed on files in MS Word, but I am going to do something I rarely do, and post something directly from my personal journal)

Thirteen years ago today, as the sun was setting somewhere behind the cloud cover of Hurricane Fran, my wife and I shared our wedding vows under a tent during an incredible downpour.
We are going to be heading out to dinner later this afternoon, but a few minutes ago I put her hammock out in the yard so she could use it to read in later this evening.
I hung it, and then I lay down in it.

My eyes wandered into the nearby treeline hovering above, where I noticed a squirrel busily building a nest. I watched it traverse back and forth with small branches, and my patience was rewarded when I saw the other half of a happy couple scampering from along the railroad track and join in the building.

We have not had too many squirrels in the last year. All I have seen of them is their rotting carcasses after the reigning head of the local arboreal food chain, the Red Tail Hawk Family, has made them a dinner entree. That's how it goes in nature, somebody always ends up as someone else's dinner. The Hawk family regularly left whatever remained after dinner on the ground behind our deck. I kept it cleaned up because I did not want our dogs snacking on it.

Anyway, I wonder about these two squirrels, building their new home in such a perilous place.
Who knows when Mr. Hawk is going to come back and reclaim his old territory? They are building their home in the next tree over and under from the old Hawk nest.

I wonder who their realtor was?

And are they newlyweds? Are they as oblivious to the challenges they will face in nature as much as my wife and I were thirteen years ago on our wedding day?
We thought we were as ready as we could be, but life still threw us a few curve balls.

We have made it this far, because we faced our challenges together. Watching those squirrels build their home, and exerting so much effort, made me smile. I am not a big fan of squirrels, but I am a big fan of effort. I hope they make it.