14 January 2007

A walk in the woods

We live very close to the "bush" - land which is either State owned or just undeveloped. Towards the end of a busy day I am prone to announce "We're going for a walk. Let's go."
Rose varies on her ability (or willingness) to walk all the way and we have many variants of walking trails. Some have more slopes, some are longer or shorter, others are more village or more bush tracks. Plenty of variety depending on the mood.
Lana and a nearby homeschooling Mum go for more of village walk with few "uphills" as well as picking up the mail from the General Store.
Ariel goes for a walk with a couple of the homeschooled girls on a bush walk.
Sometimes they don't concentrate and discover new tracks and trails. With no little ones their options are broader. One day they weren't concentrating and ended at a dead end with only bike tracks leading off in different directions. So off they went down one this day and another next day. They next tried a dried up creek bed. They pushed their way up to the top of a hill and as it had rained the previous day, Ariel's socks which had started white ended up not white at all.
On the walk on which I captured these photos we discovered a very large ant hill. As you can see it is taller than Peter. The close up shot shows the ants and one of their holes near the top of the ant-hill. To provide some context, the ants are only 2-3 mm long! (1/10th Inch)
As always this allowed me to use the ants as an example. The ants build up on previous works much like successful families and countries do. It is compounding in action.
Much of current civilisation is built upon the shoulders of those who came before. It may appear as though we are alone and it is only ourselves that have done such great things, but like the top photo of Rose, we are not alone. Just ahead of Rose were the rest of the family and I was following behind.
What will your legacy be for the future? Money isn't the most important legacy. It should be something which is longer lasting. Sometimes the legacy is something you will not even know until we learn so many things after death. That comment or chance meeting you don't even remember may have repercussions that affect many future generations.
Now isn't that food for thought from a walk in the woods?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Wow, what an incredible ant hill!!!

Thanks for the picture.