freedom or what???

Today is

July 4^th

Independence Day

America’s birthday

an excuse to get together with family and friends to fellowship and have fun.

So how did I start my day? I freed a worm—a 4-inch tube-shaped segmented animal that lives in soil—except he was on my patio. Here’s how the story goes.

I had just mixed my morning drink—a Zija meal replacement shake—and opened my blinds to see this fella about 3 feet from the edge of my screen porch and about 12 feet from the door of the same. Now he was about 5 feet from me and since I am a little older in years, I don’t see as clearly as I like to think that I do. My next acts require careful analysis AND possibly a decision so I watch his behavior as he creeps from one stone to the next very slowly. I was intrigued because I could see that it was something living and moving, but was not sure what he was exactly. After a few moments—and his arrival to a lighter colored stone—I realize that it’s an earthworm and unfortunately for him, he’s a long way from his living environment—soil.

Now we all know what happens in the heat of the day to stranded earthworms who get flooded out of their homes during a sudden downpour, and it’s been raining a lot lately. So I had a moment of compassion and decided that I would move that little fella to the outside so he could flourish in the soil and get nutrients from dead, decaying matter as he eats on decomposed organic material—or something like that. Now I had to determine the implement that I would use in accomplishing my decision to set him free.

In my hand was my now empty Tervis tumbler and a straw—that was a great tool, and as I reached for the patio door handle, I remembered yesterday! Yesterday I was faced with another decision of “freedom or what???” (**side story), so with that remembrance, I decided that another device was warranted.

**side story
On Wednesday, July 3—my birthday, I returned home from picking up Kaitlyn so she could spend the afternoon with me, I saw that the garbage had been picked up, and since I live in a neighborhood with strict ordinances about leaving the can at curbside, I determined that it was best to move the can inside the garage. Upon approaching the can, a little lizard jumped into the shrubbery—a very common Florida occurrence, so no big deal. As I moved the can, something made me stop and turn around and there HE was. A small—about 10-inches long—snake had found a degree of safety underneath my garbage can, but today he chose the wrong owner to seek asylum.
I warned Kaitlyn, because I knew she might freak out a little, as I walked to my garage and chose my hoe! I hurried back and conducted a short examination—“Why did you stop here? What is your affiliation with others like you? Do you have relatives in the vicinity?” Then I used my garden implement as a weapon and intentionally and solidly divided him into three distinct parts—one for past, present, and future occasions that his kind had scared or will attempt to scare me!

So after that brief flashback this morning, I decided that I should choose my gadget carefully in case my scenario should play out differently than I had anticipated. If the fella was indeed an earthworm he would be given liberty outside my patio, if of another species he would be given death inside my patio. I also thought that I remembered from Coach Bradley’s Biology class that if a worm is cut in half it can live and grow another segment, so no harm in whacking him a little if I’m in doubt.

I walked to my kitchen, and I chose a plastic knife as my freedom utensil. I opened my patio door and knelt down beside the little fella. Indeed he was an earthworm and had become tired and weary in crawling across the stones, so I gently lifted him with the edge of the blade and carried him just outside my steps and released him to have a better chance of living in the dirt beneath the mulch.

All this I did…on purpose!