March in Florida is when live oaks, who have shed their leaves all winter, produce catkins. These slim, cylindrical flower clusters begin their annual flowering, letting loose pounds of yellow pollen that fall from the trees as new leaves push them out. The sound it makes as it falls is like rain. Stand on my front porch by the second or third week of March, and you will think the skies have opened up.
Pollen coats everything nearby--cars, fences, driveways, windows--leaving behind yellow-green streaks. Clean it, and as quickly as you've finished, it's time to do it all over again. It's maddening, and by the end of April, we're over pollen.
Spring also brings out the leafrollers, little green harmless worms, who get displaced from their oak homes by the wind and are left dangling, hanging on for dear life clinging to a silk line. They are pretty translucent, and often we walk through them without knowing we've dislodged them until we spot them in our hair or on our clothes.
After a week of 80-degree February temperatures (which is why our oak thinks spring has sprung), we got a respite with lows in the upper 50s. This coolness sends my dog outside to lounge on the front porch, and this morning I joined him.
As we exited the door, a leafroller dangled directly in front of the entrance to my front porch, and had I not seen him, he would've ended up on me and probably would've been transported into the house. But, Elliot chose not to exit the porch, thus saving the silkworm--and me.
So, just in case Elliot did go into the yard, I sat in my porch chair and kept an eye on the little fellow as he swayed in the gentle breeze. He held on as the wind carried him to the right and back again, and then he began his climb up the silk thread. He'd work for several seconds, stop and hold on as the breeze carried him to the left, and when it died, he'd begin climbing again. He'd get several inches up in the air and then suddenly drop as if he'd lost his footing. I'd cringe, thinking of all the energy he'd expelled. Now he had to start all over again.
And he did--crawl, crawl, sway, sway, crawl, crawl.
It reminded me of the song High Hopes that Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams would sing on
Just what makes that little old ant
Think he'll move that rubber tree plant
Anyone knows an ant, can't
Move a rubber tree plant
But he's got high hopes
He's got high hopes
He's got high apple pie
In the sky hopes.
I had to give it to the little fellow. He was determined. After about ten minutes, he was probably six feet off the ground, and then BAM, down he went, hovering a mere inch from the ground. My heart hurt for the little fellow, and if I could've helped him, I would have.
Instead, I thought I should be taking this as a metaphor for my own life.
Get off my ass and get moving!
About the time this flitted through my brain, he'd struggled up, up, up to my eye level. He took a breather as the breeze did its thing, and then, just as he resumed his climb, a bird flew out of nowhere and gobbled him down.
Mid-flight.
It startled the hell out of me--a bird flying so near. So, I was a little slow on the uptake.
When I realized my little silkworm was no longer anywhere to be found, I was horrified, then annoyed, and then I SnapChatted a video of the entire story, and I couldn't stop laughing.
So any time your feelin’ low stead of lettin’ go
Just remember that ant
Oops, there goes another rubber tree plant
Oops, there goes another rubber tree plant.
But keep one eye on the lookout for predators
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