It's drizzly and cool in northern Utah this morning, but that didn't deter me from taking a walk around the neighborhood.
In fact, the rain inspired me to do it. Or maybe it's the spring. Not sure. For some reason, as I sat there with my second cup of coffee this morning, I got antsy to get out and see what was happening before heading off to work.
All the tulips are up, standing like colorful little soldiers along front walks and porches. I noted that this year, we have colors I never even knew we planted. Gotta love those bees. As I walked through the streets of our modest neighborhood, I noticed that more than half a dozen houses are now up for sale, and renovation work on some that I have been watching the past year seems to have slowed or stopped. The wickedness of our failing economy seeps in everywhere.
I nodded to a jogger and watched as a mother dropped off her son at the elementary school. School didn't start for at least another half hour -- the guard was just setting up his crosswalk cones as I strolled by -- but this little boy was carrying a trumpet case with his backpack. Maybe he was arriving early in order to practice, like I did when I young.
Everywhere people were waking, leaving for work or school and going about their daily business. It reminded me of the collection of tiny organisms my students net from the ponds as we study pond ecology at the nature center. We discuss what makes a pond ecosystem and try to find as many of the organisms in that list that we can.
Urban ecosystems are no different than the ones in ponds or fields or forests. A healthy ecosystem recycles its waste, provides enough shelter and clean food and water for its dwellers, relies on symbiotic or cooperative relationships among those dwellers and needs everyone to do their jobs to make sure those systems stay intact and healthy.
I am going to try to do my ecosystem job better today. What about you?
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