A Change of Perception

I have been really down lately. Physical pain and other health issues have me drowning in self pity.
Nothing has seemed good nothing has seemed right......The different things I have had to put up with ...and fight for....my daughters health problems, work pressures, aging parents that I adore and the death of my cats. Fighting dogs and one messy husband .LOL....

Tonight I stepped outside to check on Charlotte....there she was greeting me with a meow right on the doorstep ....I found her brush tucked away in her house and proceeded to brush her. ... She squirmed under the bristles of the brush delighting on the caress of each stroke across her winter coat....I started to sing....Dream a little Dream of Me ... Mama Cass....I belted it out you know " sing like no one is listening."....well that was me ..and Charlotte responded with purrs and rolls on the platform I was grooming her on....It hit me here is this little animal ....one of God's creatures and she is just pleased to be fed and sheltered .She has survived thunderstorms in a magpie nest at only days old. Survived torn sutures after being spayed (she escaped a room in the old house we kept them in by clawing her way through a screen jumping 30 feet to the ground ) her intestines were literally seconds away from falling out through her  skin when I discovered the problem and rushed her to the vet...She has had and lost all 4 kittens and regardless of what anyone tells me I know she misses them. She has no doubt escaped coyotes and many other dangers as a farm cat ...yet here she purrs as I sing....
Then to make things a little more clearer to me out of the hedge rows walks a big buck. The biggest oldest buck on Crocus Creek. Yep it is Spikey...Here I am singing loudly (it would scare most humans away) and in walks Spikey. He watches me comb Charlotte and I think back to when he was just a small buck. He was a spike buck the first winter we lived here ...hence Spikey....he was small at year and a half but he was mighty!!! That winter we had Big Bucky , Rudolph(he had a red sore on his nose) Mikey and many other bucks ...and many more have followed but none have survived for the length of time we have been here except Spikey.....Hmm I though Charlotte and Spikey have both been here atleast 5 1/2 years.   then I stopped and realized what Spikey had endured as a wild mule deer.  The speeding cars that had no doubt had near misses with hitting him in the summer as he crossed the usually quiet highways....In the winter there is no traffic but in the summer lake traffic increases vehicle numbers 100 fold. The hungry coyotes that hunger for his flesh on the cold winter days ...and ohhh those cold winter days....that first winter we lived here when at 50 below with the wind chill the young deer cried outside my bedroom window and brought tears to my eyes...the harsh winds the agricultural chemical sprays and that rough spell he had in 2010. We though he would die. By the end of January 2011 he lost his antlers before the rest of the bucks and literaly was chased away from the food by the bucks with their antlers ....they poked and prodded him almost relentlesly cause they knew they could... He was skinny and weary...so different from the young Spikey that would chase and torment all the other deer away from the food in his early years..Karma maybe....I felt obliged and made great effort to get food to him . I would gain his trust and scare the other bucks away. He realized if I stood by the food I placed on the ground for him the other deer would run away and he could get his fill. It worked and well he survived the harshest winter since we moved out here. It was the trust I gained that time that likely made it easy for him to come in to my singing tonight..I gave him some deer candy as a gift...he slowly walked in and ate some... then walked away

It was at that moment I  realized I think too much ...and too negatively.....I wondered what kind of animal population we would have if they walked around in self pity mode all the time...They breathe and live survival....they trust ...trust in something greater than them  Instinctively...

and they enjoy their simple pleasures that nature provides....and endure the hardships..

So my miserable life.....is in my control...and it starts with my thinking and the ability to trust .....tonight I had a change of Perception..thanks Spikey...thanks Charlotte...and thanks Amber....that is another story.....
Take Time and Take Good Care!!