sacrifices

I was wondering today about taking time to acknowledge what is given to us is a lost art. It can be as simple as spending a moment thanking whatever gave your to dinner — some god, the plant or animal, the spirits, or simply acknowledging that something was sacrificed to feed you. Even walking out to the tree that shades your evenings in the summer and thanking it once in a while — have we lost that sense?

I went to pick up a package that was delivered this late morning. I didn’t ask that it be delivered separate from the other items that made up my minimum order, but it was delivered all by itself. Heinz Malt Vinegar, mostly because that doesn’t appear to show up in grocery stores and I’ve been craving fish and chips with Heinz Malt Vinegar, in case you were wondering, which I suspect you were not.

There have already been two other deliveries this morning from the big “A”, one completely unrelated to this order and all picked up by the kids.

No one noticed, but there was a dead bird at the bottom of the stairs.

That’s not all that unusual in of itself. Occasionally, the sunlight hits our windows just right and it mirrors the yard and makes it look like part of the yard. Bird fly into them thinking it is clear flying. Most times, the birds shake it off and fly away. Occasionally, there is cleanup duty involved.

I usually take the time to verbally apologize to the bird when that happens. Even when they get up, I tell them I am sorry about their close encounter with one of my windows.

But this was not one of those cases. I don’t think so anyway. It was away from the window and, for all practical purposes looks like a duck sitting at the bottom of my stoop. Do ducks have black heads? Maybe it was the light. Too small to be a loon or a goose. It had a brown underside, so it wasn’t a crow or starling (too big for a starling anyway). I’ll admit that I wasn’t up to looking any closer.

The thing that made it more different is that this time the neck was obviously broken. The body is twisted around and, though it appears to been roosting on my sidewalk, that angle is decidedly unhealthy looking and not very lively.

I thought about our resident foxes and the feral cats that roam the neighborhood. I suspect it was one or the other. Possibly leaving me a present. Or a warning? I haven’t seen feral or escaped dogs, but I suppose that is a possibility as well.

Regardless, cleanup duty will beckon once I’ve gotten around to finishing a few things for work. And it seems important to take this time to consider the possibility that something out there is gifting me with this dead bird and, as much as it makes me go all yuck, I should probably take time to appreciate the dead bird and whatever brought it to my doorstep, be it an animal or the vagaries of homesteading.

Why? Not because it was a a “gift”, an “accident”, a misplaced meal, or whatever. No.

The only reason is that because taking the time to acknowledge these sacrifices is important and I fear we have lost that sense.

Which says to me that we should do it more often, so we recognize that which happens and allows us to carry on the way that we do.