Quest for Acorns

I was hiking around the woods on Sunday, on a quest for tasty acorns.

Our archery season is here. It's the time of year when as hunters, we get to play a role in the management of the deer herd, reducing the numbers to what the habitat can sustain.

I pretty much live in the woods with lots of public land around me and a much more flexible schedule than I had a couple of years ago. Having that time allows me to hunt the fun way, taking lots and lots of walks, scouting and figuring out how to take a deer in its natural setting, getting close and shooting them with my longbow. I'm not suggesting that everyone should hunt like I do. In fact if you're a busy person and don't have much time to hunt or scout or practice shooting, you probably should stick to hunting with a gun or a crossbow, at least if you're hoping to put any meat in the freezer. For me, hunting and being outdoors is what I love doing and instead of watching football and other sports, I use my spare time to shoot my longbow and to traipse around the woods. Not everyone enjoys this as much as I do but I count it as a blessing!

A big part of being successful is finding the deer's food source. So that's what I was doing. And now let me get back to the story. 

A little thing that always amazes me when looking for acorns, is that sometimes I will find acorns that the deer have been feeding on. There will be the caps from the acorns that the deer ate and some deer turds, but in the midst of it all will be acorns that aren't touched. When I crack them open they are either rotten or wormy. Somehow the deer know that they aren't good. I'm guessing that they can smell them. Whatever it is, I still think it's amazing!

   Many of you know that Jenelle and I help out with the junior youth in our church. Last week Brian Friend was our guest speaker. He shared some truths from Scripture with the kids. He also brought some snakes and talked about them, how they are wonderfully made, and shared some interesting facts about them. Sure, not everyone likes snakes, but what he told us and showed us was amazing, to put it mildly.

There are egg eating snakes that don't have any teeth and can swallow eggs whole. They can't digest egg shells and so they spit out the shells. It can't eat eggs that have chicks in them either because it is designed to live off of only egg yolks and can't digest other things. It is designed in such a way that it can detect whether an egg is fertile or not before swallowing it. After swallowing it, it has special bones in its stomach that carefully crack the egg and then move the egg shell back up the throat when it spits it out as opposed to digesting the whole egg. (my sisters are probably shuttering right now if they are reading this) Rat snakes and other snakes will eat any egg they can find, but they digest the whole thing, shells and all.

Brian also talked about other wonders of creation, like monarch butterflies and their life cycle. Most of us are familiar with the monarch butterfly beginning as an egg, and then a caterpillar, then it morphs into a chrysalis and then into an adult butterfly. But what you might not know is that this cycle happens three times through the summer. And then the fourth generation flies to Mexico for the winter and then it flies back up here in the spring. This generation lives for seven to nine months compared to the three generations before and after, that only live for one month. 

I was impressed with Brian's knowledge of snakes and butterflies! It truly is some really neat stuff. 

I'm even more impressed by the message that we can see in nature. Even though there is no voice, even though there are no written words, their message has gone out to the whole world, to the ends of the earth, and to those that look around, they will know that there is a God.

Fall is my favorite time of year! If it's not yours, I hope that you at least take some time to take in the beauty. Not only is there a God, but he made beauty for you too, because he loves you!