When my siblings and I were growing up, sometimes at the dinner table one or more of us would complain about someone or something we didn’t like. We might shake our ruffled feathers and squawk about a slight or greater disturbance in our field.  Our parents were often amused by our expressions and antics, and after the ruffling settled into the silence our parents created, another message appeared. One of my father’s constantly relevant statements was “we have a lot to be grateful for.”  We all agreed. Nothing like a reminder of gratitude to make ruffling recede.

“Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them. Now we face the question whether a still higher ‘standard of living’ is worth its cost in things natural, wild, and free. For us of the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television, and the chance to find a pasque-flower is a right as inalienable as free speech.”   Aldo Leopold, 1948

We are grateful to be here.