A series of essays….
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LOOKING BEYOND THE FENCE TO THE GOLF COURSE ON A BEAUTIFUL AUTUMN DAY |
….as seen through my eyes!
By: Jacqueline E Hughes
“Mother Nature is capable of the most beautiful things and the most destructive forces.” —Steven Magee
Like just about everything else in life—enjoying and dealing with Mother Nature will always be a game of compromise and personal adjustments. To fully understand these necessary adjustments, one must always consider what Mother Nature has in store for you within the paradise you choose to live in. From a cozy mountain retreat to coastal living along the Eastern Seaboard to relatively flat farmland surrounded by vibrant woodland encompassing grazing cattle and sheep, Mother Nature is capable of the most beautiful arenas!
Having lived most of my life here in Michigan, I know first-hand how beautiful this world can be. From making a day trip to swim in Lake Michigan and feel the warm summer sand between my toes as I walked the beach to spending time on my grandparent’s farm and slithering between the tall cornstalks playing hide-and-seek with my cousins, the wonderful memories of the land and lakes will live with me forever.
As a young family with two daughters, we’ve enjoyed cross-country skiing together as much as building snow forts with massive snowball fights as our grand finale. Even our snow angels couldn’t protect us from these icy/cold projectiles.
Having allotted over twenty-three years of work and play in Central Florida into our lives, we have experienced the wrath of Mother Nature in the form of destructive hurricanes, muck fires (underground burning of organic material) that were started by the mighty brush fires that destroyed the land above, and massive flooding after torrential rains, accentuated by the low-lying profile of the land, washed away homes and destroyed lives.
Today, ‘Pure Michigan’ holds us in the palm of her hand, once again.
Sitting out on the back deck of our cottage home has offered us entertainment and surprises these past few years. The golfers beyond the chain link fence constantly amuse us with their antics: hand tossing a ball out of the sand trap, observing golf balls that ricochet off of mature trees and land mere yards from the golfer who originally hit it, and listening to explicit obscenities before the culprit sees us on the deck and sheepishly apologizes from a distance. The latter action hardly phased us; we play golf, too!
After living here for over six years (just below the eighth fairway) we have witnessed a first that left us in awe of the supreme power of Mother Nature. I still can’t wrap my mind around it. Just like the unstoppable raging California fires, I’m finding it difficult to grasp the sheer power and magnitude of this incident the morning afterward.
Slipping under the covers the night before, we could hear the torrential rain and witnessed the sheet lightening through the curtains that lit up the sky for long periods of time. Little did we know what the wee hours of the night had in store for us.
Making notes of the backyard landscape while taking our dog outside the morning after the frightening deluge that lasted most of the night, Dan reported changes that made me charge to the kitchen windows to see for myself. It felt like being in the middle of a Saturday morning cartoon with giant logs tumbling down a roaring river and the hero being chased by the bad guy who was stepping gingerly from one log to another.
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LEAVES AND DEBRIS WERE CARRIED ALONG WITH THE MASSIVE LOGS BELOW OUR HOUSE |
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A VIEW LOOKING UP TO THE GOLF COURSE FROM THE GULLY BELOW |
Only, this time, we were sound asleep during all of the action! This was a bit disconcerting considering our bedroom window is positioned along the side yard where all of the action took place.
We always knew that the runoff water from the golf course dumped into the gully alongside our little cottage home. But because the ground there is sandy, any water would dissipate quickly before accumulating in the gully itself, depending on the amount of water and its ferocity.
What Dan saw was powerful and totally amazing. The large, ten foot long logs that have lived just under the golf club’s chain link fence for several years — were gone. The ten logs had been saved for future fireplace usage after having a very large tree removed from our front yard a few years ago. Because of the powerful water rushing off of the golf course during the night, our mighty logs had been lifted by the high water and pushed some 100 feet down the gully and were now resting all askew and crisscrossing one another.
Incredible! We could denote a water line far up into our yard that, actually, submerged the fire pit and beyond it by, at least, five feet. By the time Dan witnessed the aftermath, the gully was drained and, for the most part, dry.
And we failed to hear anything all snuggled in our bed with visions of a bright, sunny day filling our heads…
A lesson learned here… Living along a golf course and enjoying the open views of lush, well-kept green grass that’s punctuated with many tall, healthy trees can be a deceiving sight as far as Mother Nature is concerned. She will always have the upper hand and hold the winning cards when it comes right down to it. We must go with her flow and be aware of the destructive forces she holds over us. At the same time, we can enjoy all of the beautiful sights she has to offer. Employing common sense and finding the right balance between Mother Nature’s dual personalities is a wise choice to make.
Copyright © 2024 by Jacqueline E Hughes
All rights reserved
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