I awoke this morning a bit before 5am. The windows are open, not only because the giant white puppies - Great Pyrenees and cattle dog mix - chewed the ignition wire on the air conditioner and we can't turn it on, but because there is nothing like the sounds of the country in the morning.
A light coating of raindrops drip through the trees and cascade to the mat of dead leaves below making snapping sounds as though nature giving itself a round of applause for its effort. What can only be described as a cacophony of bird calls bounce off the canyon walls, amplifying their conversations to Heaven. Frequently, the haunting trill of a lone whippoorwill rises to distinction above the din.
I was an atheist while pursuing my degrees in Biology.
Because I was studying field Biology and not applied Biology, I had lots and lots of courses with 'field' components - meaning a part of the course included trips into nature to study. I remember one trip west of Altus to study Hispid cotton rats (you know them as 'pack' rats). We literally camped in a cow pasture with cows milling around just outside the perimeter in which we had set up our tents.
