Earning respect, trust and support
OPINION: A big ‘shout-out’ from me to Wairarapa sheep farmer Hamish De Lautour for his excellent article Just answer the damn question! published in the last edition of Rural News.
All the trees coming back to life and of course the brightly coloured blossoms make a colourful spectacle, in sharp contrast to the often-drab days of winter.
There is just something about this new life flowing that always gets my attention.
We have some "wild" daffodils that were planted around an old cottage here decades ago. They are usually first out of the blocks for us when it comes to seeing spring arrive.
For those of us in the rural sector, it's lambing and calving time - a busy season for us all, to be sure. I have just managed to nurse a couple of twin lambs, that got here a little prematurely, to some stable and improving health. It took me a couple of days to get them out of intensive care, so yes, I am rather pleased.
And we in the rural sector surely do appreciate the grass growth that comes with this change of season. Now, what can easily get missed with spring is the arrival of all the migratory birds back to our shores. Unless of course you are actually living in an area where they arrive, these birds just land unannounced, right on time, like they always do.
Take the godwits for example: they land here after a non-stop flight of a mere 11 - 12,000km. Yep, it's non-stop all the way from Alaska. The trip takes them approximately eight days and they clock an average speed of 60km/h - all done with no smoko! Very impressive stuff indeed.
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I have read that the hummingbird also migrates, up in the Americas. I believe the hummingbird holds the title of the world's smallest bird, so it must be a tough little guy to make those long trips through all kinds of weather.
Thinking about this, I realised afresh that all these birds do all this stuff without any assistance or expertise from us clever humans. As smart as we think we are, we couldn't make that same trip without stopping for some serious rest, and several high energy feeds.
They employ no dieticians and have no science developed diets. They have no highly paid fitness trainers, no mental skills coaches and no high performance gurus to get them in shape for come what may! And they don't have politicians trying to convince them, 'hey, we are your source of truth, we know what's best for you'. That surely must be a major plus!
Satellites, GPS and other complex navigational aids and support are all put in place by intelligent people to keep us on course in our travels. Yep, people design and engineer this stuff, which I truly do appreciate, especially when I'm on a long-haul flight up into the Northern Hemisphere.
Well, these birds are also testimony to very complex and intelligent design. They don't need any of the stuff we depend on, simply because they have something better built into every single one of them.
Just as every painting has a painter and every photo has a photographer, so every design has a designer.
Today I remind you that for us humans, in living our lives, we cannot keep breaking the candle in half and burning it at all four ends. For us and our design, we need time out; times for rest and refreshing.
It's always wiser to make the needed changes yourself tha to have those resulting changes forced on you! God bless.
If you want to contact Colin Miller email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
