Brushes with Nature

Being a geocacher I have found myself interacting with a variety of God’s creatures throughout my adventures. Some are majestic experiences that are memorable because of their grandeur while many more are just absurd or scary.

One such funny experience occurred recently. While looking for a cache I leaned over to look at the backside of a guardrail and apparently disturbed an eclipse of moths. In the blink of an eye I found myself overwhelmed with their beating wings enveloping my face. Instinctively I closed my mouth and eyes then began swatting the air in front of me.

Unfortunately, there was no stopping one from flying directly into my ear canal. I backed away from the scene hoping to reduce my exposure and fought the urge to stick my finger in my ear to dig him out as that would likely just cause damage and make it harder to remove him. I started to rock my head from side to side hoping to encourage his departure all the while feeling the wings fluttering in a deafening scraping sound along the ear canal.

So there I stood in a parking lot rocking my head violently back and forth with my eyes and moth clamped shut and my hands clenched onto my head unsure what else to do. Had anyone wondered by they would have been forgiven for believing I was either epileptic or schizophrenic. After what felt like an eternity the insect found his way out but the violated feeling would linger for me.

I reluctantly and cautiously went back and found my prize, hastily adding my name and retuning it then made a beeline to the nearby grocery store where I purchased a travel size pack of Q-tips and burned through them till I was satisfied I’d removed any debris. I am not generally afraid of insects but the handful of times they have decided to fly into my mouth, nose and now ear still haunt me when I think back. Luckily those aren’t common and my exposure is usually from afar.

Warning some of the photos towards the bottom are of animal carcasses. It just goes to show the variety of scenarios wandering in the wild can yield. A few of these are of animals seen in nature exhibits but I included them because it was geocaching that took me to that location.

3/4/2021