Traces of snow remained on the path in the park that parallels the creek, the very creek home to a magisterial beaver lodge that keep growing larger by the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was 6:30 in the morning and Elmer the husky and I were taking our customary walk to begin the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My mind was still sifting through a story I’d read the night before that reported DOGE had cut the funding to a half-century old federal program that funds medical care for the Vietnamese people who suffered birth defects from the US military’s spraying of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That news really got to me. How much lower can this nation sink? A lot, I think. Maybe there is no bottom anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We passed a homeless man wearing a backpack. We said nothing to each other. I have often thought the bottom of contemporary American social and political and spiritual life is our nationwide and worsening crisis of homelessness. It’s all around us, staring us in the collective face and there is no end in sight in my lifetime. Yes, I still think that is our bottom but we seem to be digging deeper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Elmer stopped to sniff. I heard a strange whittling\/crunching sound coming from the creek, a sound I had never heard before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I moved closer to the fence that protects the riparian area and saw a large blob of brown on the bank. What?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I bent down to inspect and stared straight into the face of a bucktoothed beaver who was snoozing away. Incredible!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then I heard the strange sound again coming from a few yards upstream. I walked that way with Elmer and looked down to the water and beheld a beaver nibbling on a tiny stick of willow and producing that strange sound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Double beavers!<\/p>\n\n\n\n I started singing the moment’s praises to Elmer. I looked around to see if there was anyone else around. No.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I watched the nibbling beaver for a few more seconds and then Elmer led the way home. For the moment, I was uplifted and not thinking about my nation’s bottom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Traces of snow remained on the path in the park that parallels the creek, the very creek home to a magisterial beaver lodge that keep growing larger by the day. It was 6:30 in the morning and Elmer the husky and I were taking our customary walk to begin the day. My mind was still […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9355,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9354"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9354\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9357,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9354\/revisions\/9357"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}