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Anne has a weakness when it comes to wildlife in stress. And it is not just for cute furry creatures. Like Loren Eisly’s story, “The Starfish”, where a young girl saves one starfish at a time, Anne saves one earth worm at a time during our morning walks after a night rain. She stops at each worm, picks it up and tosses it on the grass. Even when we swim in the community pool, she will scoop out any drowning insect and carry it to the edge of the pool tossing it onto dry concrete.

One late afternoon, Anne is rescues a small drenched beetle “swimming” in the pool. She scoops with her hand and tosses it out. The beetle uprights itself and flies right back into the water. Anne tells me, “The stupid thing flew right back into the pool.” She scoops it again, walks over the edge of the pool and tosses it onto dry concrete. Yet again the beetle turns over, flies and lands in the pool. Anne asks it, “What do you have a death wish?” For the third time she tosses it out to safety. With that a green anole lizard jumps off a nearby rock, runs over grabs the beetle, chomps on it and swallows it. I tell Anne, “I guess it was that beetle’s time.”

Anne continues to fish drowning insects out of the pool, but now she stands guard to keep the lizards from eating the bugs. But I think the lizards think of Anne as the lunch lady. lol