Every time I stuck a shovel in the ground at our house in Massachusetts, I was amazed at the determination of early New England settlers.
All those picturesque stone walls that literally sprang from the earth are evidence of what they had to overcome before their homestead ever saw a plow.And it boggles the mind how Brigham Young ever dragged all those wagons over the Utah Rocky Mountains, up one side down another, before finding his promised land.
My Guy and I stood looking over our complex’s lagoon the other night. I peered down into the tall grasses that grow next to the bridge, looking of for signs of moorhen nests.* As I leaned over the edge, I narrowly missed jabbing myself with the lethal tip of just one spear. How Ponce de León ever managed to get more than 3 feet into the deadly plant, bug, and ‘gater infested depths of Florida, I’ll never know.
water, which could make them easy targets. However, they play with the survival odds by sometimes putting their eggs in the nest of others. Since it’s hard to tell one egg from another, the recipient just shrugs her shoulders and raises the stowaway with her own.
I hadn't realised that moorhens adopt the cuckoo technique. Thanks for this. More things to ponder.
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree that the homesteaders were a hardy lot. I didn't know that about moorhens, so thanks for the continuing education you provide me. :-)
ReplyDeleteHow did the Mormons make it over the Utah Rockies? Some didn't make it.
ReplyDeleteGood point!
DeleteI tried to find Massachusetts in my big old atlas, it's so tiny I found it eventually with a magnifying glass! That's a long trip between there and Florida twice a year.
ReplyDeleteTwo twelve hour days or three of eight in the car, depending on your level of endurance and the strength of your marriage.
DeleteThey don’t put all of their eggs on one plant.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if moorhens do that because they're stupid. Maybe they're genuinely not sure whose nest they're on!
ReplyDeleteThe Spanish may have explored Florida but they never did much with it. The bugs and swamps won, at least temporarily! (Until the invention of air conditioning.)