The Gentle and the Small

The day after the bear showed up for 'dinner', we had more visitors, but of a much more gentle nature.
We have lots of deer who help themselves to our flowers. My roses are already eaten - in the photos below they were dining at our friends' house who live just below us.

Big brother is teaching baby what delicacies are available. Mama is just out of snapshot range.

When you look at a baby fawn.... how would you describe the Creator of such a creature?

Gentle, kind, a lover of beauty and grace and innocence?

Last Sunday we were having lunch at home after church and suddenly my husband said, "We are going to do something very different today!"

Since I know the last thing on his mind would be to stay home, I tongue in check hopefully suggested "Stay home?"

"Nope," he replied , "we are going to do something really different!"

We talked about maybe taking my parents for a ride.

That wasn't very different, but I went to the phone to call them. As I picked up the phone I noticed there was a new message. It was from our kids telling us about the Western Toad Rescue going on not far from where we live. I called my daughter, and she said they had just come back from there but she thought we would find it quite interesting.

So we went.. I thought being a crossing guard for baby toads fit "doing something really different"! Wouldn't you agree?

While I was interested in the project to save the toads, I once again learned of how detailed God is in His creation and how He astounds us by the wisdom displayed by the tiniest of His creatures.

The toads being rescued were very tiny... as you can see in the photo below in comparative size to my finger.

We arrived at the Toad Rescue section of the road that was closed to traffic. In years past the toads had to be shoveled off the road by the farmers, there were so many.

Over the years, more and more were killed crossing the road until now the numbers making their yearly trek are much diminished in number.

This year the environmentalists are trying something new. They closed to traffic the section of the road the toads use for their crossing and encouraged parents to bring their children to help the baby toads cross the road.

The baby toads' lives began in a lake quite some distance from the road. (You can just see the edge of the lake in the photo below) As soon as they are old enough to live away from the water, they all get the same idea . Something turns on a Froggy GPS in their heads and they begin to walk (not hop) away from the only home they know. Somehow they know there is a forest far away on the other side of the road in the distance.

Over the period of a week, they make their journey.

This year their safety across the road is ensured by children with buckets and plastic gloves gathering them up and taking them to the other side of the road. From there their destination is but a short distance away.

They will live and grow in the forest for two years, until they are mature Western Toads. Then they will make the journey back to the lake, lay the eggs that will hatch into the next generation and start the cycle all over again.

Is it not amazing to consider the detail that God put into the design of our earth?

People are impressed with the wisdom of the frogs to know how and when to leave a lake and travel toward the forest they have never seen but know that that is the place where they will grow to maturity !

But it is the wisdom of the Creator who designed each living creature to play out its designed cycle generation after generation with never a slip.

Pro 30:24 "There are .... things which are little on the earth, But they are exceedingly wise..."
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