Thankful at Puddock Hill

A Thanksgiving reminder to myself.

I am thankful for you, dear reader, especially if you are a backyard steward.

I am thankful for the red foxes that gambol through Puddock Hill, keeping rodent populations in check. The non-native red fox has supplanted native silver fox in our region, but it fills an important ecological niche.

I am thankful for the possums, only seen at night, who forage for insects in the woods.

I am thankful for the soaring hawks, and I regret having accidentally startled one this summer, causing it to drop the snake it planned to eat for lunch.

I am thankful for the vultures who consume the dead things, thus helping maintain the nutrient cycle on land.

I am thankful for the songbirds that alight on the trees and hop through the shrubs in search of shelter and berries.

I am thankful for the insect-eating frogs who serenade me on warm summer nights.

I am thankful for the toads—after whom Puddock Hill is named—and the serpents and the cottontails, all of which have a role to play in nature’s symphony, though some are silent.

I am thankful for the field mice who eat the fallen seeds.

I am thankful for the fish who swim in the big pond, secondary consumers in the aquatic food web.

I am thankful for the herons, who keep the fish population in balance.

I am thankful for the turtles, who sun themselves on the pond shore.

I am thankful for the ducks, who share their beauty when they pay us a visit.

I am thankful for the algae that feed them.

I am thankful for the phytoplankton that forms the basis of the food web.

I am thankful for the flitting dragonflies, clean water indicators.

I am thankful for the tall trees that cast shade and host so many animals.

I am thankful for the pioneer species helping me reforest.

I am thankful for the shrubs that feed birds and bees.

I am thankful for the ferns that cling to the forest floor.

I am thankful to the moss that forms a carpet under my feet.

I am thankful for the arthropods that pollinate flowering things, thus bringing fruit and reproduction, and that sacrifice themselves to sustain the birds and reptiles and amphibians and fish and one another.

I am thankful for the spiders whose webs glisten in morning dew.

I am thankful for the worms that turn the soil.

I am thankful for the fungi that help plants take up nutrients.

I am thankful for all microscopic life living below ground that builds the foundation for life above.

I am thankful for the ancient forests that formed the loam.

I am thankful for the geomorphic forces that shaped the vistas I see around me.

I am thankful for the water cycle that quenches the thirst of all living things.

I am thankful for the sun and the clouds.

I am thankful for the plankton that produce oxygen.

I am thankful for the food I eat, all of which derives from the earth.

I am thankful for those who work to support the ecology that makes all life possible.

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I am thankful for these fall vistas: